ML20072J028
| ML20072J028 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 06/30/1982 |
| From: | Herbein J GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORP. |
| To: | |
| References | |
| TASK-*, TASK-01, TASK-02, TASK-03, TASK-04, TASK-06, TASK-07, TASK-1, TASK-2, TASK-3, TASK-4, TASK-6, TASK-7, TASK-GB NUDOCS 8306290881 | |
| Download: ML20072J028 (187) | |
Text
{{#Wiki_filter:- - - I BK UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT - J SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
- --------------- --- x GENERAL PUBLIC UTILITIES CORPORATION, JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT COMPANY, METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY and :
PENNSYLVANIA ELECTRIC COMPANY, Plaintiffs, j : I -against- 80 Civ. 1683 l : (R.O.} THE BABCOCK & WILCOX COMPANY and J. RAY McDERMOTT & CO., INC., : Defendants. : I I ___________________x Deposition of General Public Utilities Corporation by JOHN G. HERBEIN, taken by
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Plaintiff, pursuant to notice at the offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell, Esqs., One Chase . Manhattan Plaza, New York, New York, on Wednesday, June 30, 1982 at 10:00 a.m., before Nancy A. Rudolph, a Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public within and for the State of New York. I h DOYLE REPORTING. INC.
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CERTIFIED STENOTYPE REPORTERS Ys 369 LExtNGTON AVENLE l WALTER SH APlRO, C.S.R. NEW Yonx. N.Y. 10017 CH ARLES SH APIRO, C.S.R. TELEPHONE 212 - 867 8220 8306290881 820630 PDR ADOCK 05000289 T PDR
wr -_ 1 2 l 2 A'p p e a r ance s fN, . t
,~ V 3 KAYE, SCHOLER, FIERMAN, HAYS & HANDLER, ESQS.
Attorneys for Plaintiffs [, 4 425 Park Avenue i New York, New York t 5
; BY: RICHARD C. SELTZER, ESQ.,
! 6 l -and-7
. AARON STIEFEL, ESQ.,
8 of Counsel , 9
,_ 10 i DAVIS POLK & WARDWELL, ESQS.
11 Attorneys for Defendants One Chase Manhattan Plaza 12 New York, New York 13 BY: ROBERT B. FISKE, ESQ. 14 ,
-and-15 KAREN WAGNER, ESQ.,
16 of Counsel 17 1 18 ISHAM, LINCOLN & BEALE, ESQS. , 19 Attorneys for John G. Herbein Three First National Plaza 20 Chicago, Illinois 60602 21 BY: JAMES B. BURNS, ESQ=, i 22 of Counsel i 23 ALSO PRESENT: . 24 Eric Abrahamson a 95
?
l 1 3 s
}
I 2 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by [% I
, (s / 3 and among the attorneys for the respective I
4 parties hereto that the sealing, filing and
- i
!i 5 certification of the transcript of the within 4 6 deposition be, and the same hereby are waived; i
7 that said transcript may be signed before any 8 Notary Public with tl.e sa ae force and effect 9 as if signed before the Court; and that all
. 10 objections except as to the form of the question,
?
~
'll are reserved to the time of trial of this action.
12 13 () 14 -ooo 15 16 17 JOHN G. HERBE I N, having 18 been first duly sworn by a Notary Public, 19 testified as follows: t
; 20 EXAMINATION BY MR. FISKE:
21 Q Would you give us your name and present 22 address. , l t I 23 A My name is John ,Giles.Herbein. I live 24 at 463 Plaza Drive, Palmyra, Pennsylvania. 25 Q What is your present employment? [\s)t l L -
1 Harboin 4 i 2 -A I am a vice president of station operations , {N
'- for Pennsylvania Electric Comp .ty, headquartered in '
, 3 i, 4 Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
5 Q That's part of the GPU system? [ , l 6 A That's correct. 7 Q How long have you held that position? 8 A Since April 1, 1982, 9 Q And what position did you hold before that? 10 A I was vice president of Nuclear Assurance 1 11 for the GPU Nuclear Corporation. 12 Q Nuclear what? 13 A Assurance Corporation. 14 Q Nuclear Assurance Corporation? 15 MR. SELTZER: Why don't you read back his 16 last answer. 17 (Answer read.1 18 Q When did you first assume that position? 19 A I assumed the position of Vice President, 20 Nuclear Assurance for the GPU Nuclear Corporation in a 21 September of 1980. 22 Q When was GPU Nuclear Corporation formed? , Z3 A The corporatior..was officially formed in 24 January 1982. However, the p.ecursor. group known'as () 25 the GPU Nuclear Group was in essence the same as the I J
1 Horboin 5
's -
2 Nuclear Corporation. f
~
3 Q And when was the precursor group formed? 4 A Following the accident at Three Mile Island 5 Unit 2 l 6 Q What position did you hold before i 7 Septembdr 19807 l I A I was vice president in charge of TMI 1. 8 9 Q And how long had you held that position? 10 A Since approxinately September of 1979. I 11 Q And you were vice president of GPU, is 12 that right? !
, 13 MR.. SELTZER: When?
O
\ss 14 Q In September '79 to '80 15 A No, I was vice president for Metropolitan 16 Edison Electric Company, one of the member companies 17 of GPU, 18 Q Who had held the position of v. ice 19 president in charge of TMI 1 before you assumed it 20 in September of '797 21 A We didn't have a position of vice 22 president in charge of TMI Unit 1 prior to September i
23 of '79. . 24 Q Whak position did you hold before h) x 25 SepteLber 19797
e-- _n_ . - ~--- 1 Harboin 6 n f
T A Prior to September '79 I was vice 4
[d 2 president of Generation for' Metropolitan Edison t 3 1: 4 Company headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania. li And how long had you held that position? j , 5 Q , i 6 A I was vice president of Generation for 7 Metropolitan Edison Company from the 1st of June 1977 8 up through September 1979.
's Q And for what period of that, what part of 10 that period were you in Reading?
11 .A My base of operations from 1/ June /77 up 12 until March 28, 1979 was located in Reading, Pennsylvania. After March 28, 1979 I shifted my base p 13
\~/
, 14 to Three Mile Island.
15 Q Just a matter of geography: How far is 16 Reading, Pennsylvania from the site? f 17 A Approximately 50 miles. ! 18 Q Going back to cae position that you 19 mentioned earlier, the position of vice president of 20 Nuclear Assurance, vice president for Nuclear Assurance 21 for GPU which, I believe, you said you held for about I !' 22 a year from September '79 to September 1980, what ! l 1 23 did that job involve? 24 MR SELTZER: I think you have got the J 25 dates confused. September '79 through n w - - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ - _ - - _ _ - _ _
1 Harboin 7 2 3ePtember 580 he was vice president in charge O-U 3 of TMI Unit 1.
- q. 4 MR. FISKE: I'm sorry. Beginning 5 September '80 up unt3. April '82, correct?
if G THE WITNESS: That's correct. ,f 7- Q What were your responsibilities in that 8 position? l 9 A I was responsible for the training programs, I { 10 the emergency preparedness program, the quality I 11 assurance program and the nuclear safety assessment 12 program for GPU Nuclear Corporation and the three 13 reactor sites under the purview of the GPU Nuclear 4 s s_ 14 Corporation. 15 MR. FISKE: I will show you a document 16 which we will mark as B & W 875. 17 (Copy of John G. Herbein's resume 18 was marked,B & W Exhibit 875 for 19 identification.) 20 Q Do you have that document in front of you, , 21 Mr. Herbein? I. 22 A Yes, I ! 23 Q Do you recognize'this as a copy of a l 24 resume that you submitted to.one of the investigating (~))
'q , 25 bodies after the Three Mile Island accident?
l t h
i Herbein 8 t 2_ A I don't specifically recognize it as 3 such but I. believe it would have been a resume that i; 4 would have been submitted for me. [. I 5 g would you like to take a minute to look 6 at that and tell us whether or not that's accurate? i' > 7 A I would make a correction on page 2. 8 , Q What is that? 9 A The last statement in parentheses "(One l 10 year at KAPL)," I would change that to read "One year I i - 11 at . Navy Nuclear Power School." 12 Q Going back to the first page , Mr. Herbein, 13 e under " Educational Background," the fourth item says,
\
14 "U'.tS. Navy Nuclear Power School, KAPL - 1965." 15 Do you see that? 16 A _Yes, I see that, sir. 17 Q Does that refer to the same item that the 18 parenthestia does on page 27-19 A The clarification is that I went to the 20 United States Navy Nuclear Power School. I did not 21 work for KAPL; i.e., Knowles Atomic Power Laboratory. I 22 Q Was the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School 1
-M your first exposure to nuclear power? l
.24 MR. SELTZER: By " exposure," what do you i
k 25 mean, Mr. Fiske?
>s r
____._._m..._____ _ _ _ _ . _ . . _
7- _ ,__
; Herbein 9
.i
2 MR. FISKE: First educational exposure j 3 to nuclear power. ] 4 Q Was that the first education that you .t '
5 received on nuclear power? I
! 6 A I had minimal education in certain aspects i .
7 of nuclear power in the United States Naval Academy, 8 but I would say the first formal training in nuclear 9 power propulsion took place in the '64-65 time frame. 10 Q How long did you attend that school? l 11 A As I have indicated previously, my Navy 12 Nuclear Power School training lasted one year. 13 Q And where was that school located? 14 A The first six months of the school was 9 15 located in Bainbridge, Maryland; the second six months 16 of the school was located at tha West Milton site it 1 17 New York. l l 18 Q And did you get some sort of a degree when
. 19 you finished- that? +
20 A' I did not receive a degree. I was qualified 21 as engineering officer of the watch on the nuclear 22 powered ship. i t 23 Q Did the U.S. Navy Nuclear Power School i 24 confer degrees on anybody? I
\ 25 A Not to the best of my knowledge.
i.
C ___ .. n
. x_
-M -' ~
10 1 Herbein gs 2 Q Did being qualified as engineer officer of
' \'-) 3 the watch qualify you to run a nuclear reactor, a 4 Navy nuclear reactor?
I
! 5 A It qualified me to stand engineering }
'! 6 officer of the watch on the D.TG prototype. 7 Q What is the D1G prototype? 8 A That's the Bainbridge surface ship reactor 1 9 prototype located at West Milton, New York. l l
, 10 Q What kind of a ship is that?
i 11 A In 1964-65 the Bainbridge was.a destroyer. 12 Today, I believe, the Bainbridge is classified as a 13 light cruiser. 14 Q Where is. West Milton, New York? 15 A Near Saratoga Springs. 16 Q Did you ever go to sea on the Bainbridge? 17 A No. i 18 Q Did-you ever operate any nuclear reactor 19 on any Naval vessel at sea? 20 A No. 21 Q What kind of a nuclear reactor did the 22 Bainbridge have? 23 A would you please' repeat the question? 24 (Question read. ) i (A)
~
s- 25 MR. SELTOER: ilhat type of c1assification l
\
_1 Horboin 11 n , i 2 ara you looking for, power level?
.O ! 3 Q Was it a pressurized water reactor?
f 4 A
, That's correct, sir, it was a 'i il,o 5 pressurized water reactor.
) 6 j Q Did the training that you received in the { [ 7 nuclear power school involve training on reactors 1 0 other than the type of reactor that the Bainbridge 9 had? 10 A Not generally. It was principally b 11 focused on pressurized water reactors.
- 12 Q Pressurized water reactors of the type 13 that the Bainbridge had?
(/ 14 MR. SELTZER: What is the type that you 15 are referring to? Previously you said the type was IO PWR's and he said yes it was principally focused 17 on PWR's. 18 Q Are there various different types of PWR's? 19 A I would say it was a pressurized water 20 reactor used to propel. ship craft as opposed to a 21 pressurized water reactor used to propel a turbine 22 generator and generate electricity. I 23 I might add that'those pressurized 24 water reactors are very similar; i.e., the ones that to 25 propelled the steam turbine on a ship were very w- . . .
1 Horboin 12 t. 1-2 similar to those that propelled a generator that 5 g O 13 Provides electricity in a commercial nuclear power 1 4 installation,
- j. 5 Q Did you personally feel qualified after
-{ i 6 you had been qualified as engineer officer.of the
)
7 watch for the Bainbridge to operate a commercial { l 8 nuclear reactor? 9 MR. SELTZER: " Operate" in what sense, 10 stand at'the control panel and pull the switches? 11 MR. FISKE: Do what a control room 12 operator does. 13 A I don't know that I.really thought about 14 that. 15 Q Did the pressurized water reactor that 16 you were trained on in the Navy have a pressurizer? 17 A Yes. 18 Q Did-the pressurizer have relief valves? 19 A Yes, but I would a: plify that by saying 20- that some people refer to relief valves as code - 21 safety valves and I would say that pressurizers on l l 22 Navy plants have code safety valves. I'would also ! 23 like to clarify that discussing general pressurized i 24 water reactor pbinciples insofar as Navy propulsion i() 25 plants are concerned does not give me any problems, t
1 l l 1 Harboin 13
]
l 2 there are certain aspects about the Naval reactors
Program that because of government confidentiality 3
4 requirements should not be discussed.
.)
- ) 5 MR, SELTZER: I think that's a fair comment i
i G because some of the B&W witnesses have refused i 7 to testify.when I asked them questions about 8 their Naval reactor training saying that the 9 information is classified. -
, 10 MR. FISKE: Well, obviously I, don't think l ,j 11 either Mr. Seltzer or I are interested in i t i
l 12 having someone violate any Federal statute by 13 disclosing classified information so I will
/~N j ks s 14 just leave it to you, Mr. Herbein, to tell us l
5 15 when you think a question calls for classified ? 16 information, 4 17 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir. l~ 18 Q I take it there is nothing classified 19 about the nature of the relief valves on the , 20- pressurizer? r. 21 MR. SELTZER: Why do you take that? i .h [l 22 A I am not sure about that. l 23 MR. SELTZER: Do you know that it is not, i 24 is that why you said that? O l (_) 25 MR. FISKE: Well, I am just assuming l-
c- - ~- _ - - _. - V 1 ' Horboin 14 L ff 2 that it isn't. It wouldn' t appear to me that t_8 V 3 that would be a major international secret. 4 MR. SELTZER: You are making that as a
}
l ; 5 statement. You know that as a fact? l 6 , MR. FISKE: Am I representing that? 7 MR. SELTZER: Yes. 8 MR. FISKE: No, I am just expressing my own 9 opinion. But if Mr. Herbein thinks it is, he
. 10 can say so.
11 Q Was there a relief valve on the top of the l 12 pressurizer in the Bainbridge comparable to the pilot 13 operated relief valve i n U n '. t 2? 1 O\
\~/# 14 MR. SELTZER: When you say " comparable" t
15 you mean performing a function of relieving i 16 pressure when pressure reached a particular level? 17 MR. FISKE: I think Mr. Herbein 18 understands what I am asking him. 4 19 MR. SELTZER: I am asking you in what 20 sense are you using the word " comparable"? I ! 21 Q Mr. Herbein has previously said that there l ! }
. l i
l 22 were relief valves on the Navy reactor which he j
- 1 23 referred to as code safety valves; is that right, 24 Mr. Herbein?
%/ 25 A I said that.
l
-,- .,. e .
- e. _3 __
-.--r .-
l 1 Herbein 15 4 2 Q And were those valves comparable to the 3 code safety valves on the Unit 27 ij. 4 A I would say that they were. The code
- I
'i 5 safety valves on the Navy propulsion pressurizer
,1
'! 6 were comparable to the code safety valves on TMI 7 Unit 2 with one clarification, and that is that they 8 were sized differently because of the need to relieve 9 a different volume and they had a different design 1
10 requirement, obviously, because of the difference in
, 11 size between the two plants.
12 Q But is it correc,t that their fu'nction was
-s g 13 to relieve pressure if pressure got to a certain point?
i' b 14 A That's correct. i l 15 Q And they would do that by opening, right? 4 . l 16 A That's correct.
. 17 Q And were they supposed to close again 18 when pressure came back down below a certain point?
i 19 A That's true, they were supposed to close.
~
i 20 Q Now,you were familiar, I take it, i ( 21 Mr. Herbein, with the diffurenca in function and I ' 22 operation between the code safety valves.at Unit 2 t l 23 and the pilot operated relief valve? 24 MR. SELTZER: Familiar at what point in IC t 25 time, when he was in the Navy? You are
e _ _ _ 4- ___ 7 _------ = ------ i-1 Herbein 16 4 l 2 switching time periods,now. I just want you to
! 3 be clear and Mr. Herbein to be clear what time 4 period you are talking about.
; 5 Q During the period of time that you held
'l 6 any of the positions that you told us about earlier 7 this morning, Mr. Herbein.
8 A I was aware th c thi code safety valves 9 on the TMI Unit 2 pressurizer were required to be
;- 10 operable per the technical specifications in Unit 2.
i, 11 The pilot operated relief valve was not required as a 12 safety related item by the technical specifications; in 13 other words,.the tech specs on TMI Unit 2 did not O 14 ascribe the same operability requirements to the 15 PORV that we do to the code safety valves. 16 Q It was not a safety item, right? 17 A Would you please read back my response? 18 Q Well, just to save time, I will withdraw 19 the question. I think that's been covered before. 20 You understood, didn't you, that the i I 21 pilot operated relief valve had a lower setpoint I 22 than the code safeties at Unit 2 for opening? t 23 A Yes, I understood that. 24 Q Now, was there on the Navy reactor, was 25 there a valve comparable to the pilot-operated i
1 Horbain 17
,es 2 relief valve that was set to open at a lower setpoint
( )
%s 3 than the code safeties that you referred to earlier?
j 4 A I honestly don't remember. 5 , Q The pilot-operated relief valve at Unit 2 t 6 had what is known as a runback feature, did it not?
+
7 A You will have to explan what you mean by f 8 " runback feature," sir. 'I don't understand that 9 term.
; 10 Q Well, did you understand that one
! i 11 purpose of the pilot-operated relief valve was to l
{ 12 allow the plant to survive certain turbine trips
?
13 without a reactor trip? 14 A Yes, I understood that that was one of 15 its functions. 16 Q Was there a valve a: the top of the 17 pressurizer on the Navy reactor that performed that 18 function? 19 A .I really don't remember. 20 Q Did you have any training in the Navy, 21 Mr. Herbein, on a possible transient involving code ; I I l 22 safeties that opsned and for whatever reason failed 23 to close when they were supp'osed to? !
~
- l 24 MR. SELTZER: When you say "would he," do
(~~s '
\ /' 25 you mean "did he"?
I
I 1 Horboin 18
, 2 MR. FISKE: Did he.
.! 3 A I am not sure about that specifically, but 4
- 4 I can state that the Navy program emphasized we l
i '! 5 should never take the pressurizer level to an 6 indicated solid condition because of the , danger of 1
'7 opening'the code safety valves and the potential 8 for one of those ccde safeties,once open , to not 9 reseat and in turn lead to a loss-of-coolant
. 10 accident.
l I 11 Q Why did you understand in the Navy that l 12 it would be bad if the code safety failed to reseat
)
l 13 and there was a loss-of-coolant accident? 14 A Loss-of-coolant accidents are undesirable. 15 Loss-of-coolant accidents could lead to loss of 16 pressurizer level, core uncovery, and ultimately 17 damage. 18 . Q Did you receive any training in the Navy 19 on how to diagnose whether you had an open code 20 safety that had failed to reseat? 21 MR. SELTZER: Didn't you ask him that 22 already? I thought that was asked and answered. 23 He said he didn't recall any training on a 24 stuck open code safety v=1ve. (_j 25 MR. FISKE: I don't remember asking him I
~ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _ _
L _ _ ._ _ I l-t.
, 1- Herbein 19 2 that question.
j 3 MR. SELTZER: That was just before he j 4 said he did recall the training on not going 5 solid. i 6 MR. FISKE: I don't think I asked him 7 whether he had any training on whether to 8 diagnose-whether it was opening. If I did I 9 will ask him again just to save time. 10 A I am not sure the specific diagnosis 11 that we may have been trained 'n, but we were trained 12 in loss-of-coolant accidents and were trained to 13 recognize them by a lo s s -o f -pr e s s uriz e r level. 14 Q Did you have a high pressure injection 15 system in the Navy reactor? 16 A I would say we had the equivalent of that, 17 yes, sir. 18 Q Anywhere in your Navy training, did you 19 over learn that a drop in pressure was a symptom 20 of a los s -of -coolant accident? 21 A We weren't trained '. hat a drop in pressure
; 22 by itself was indicative of a los s -o f -coolant accident, ,
i I 23 but we were trained that pre'ssurizer level and _ 24 reactor coolant system pressure dropping together 25 were an indication of a los s -o f -coolant accident, 1
) ,
a . . _.__ _- -~ 1 Herbein 20 2 and that the two always went together and dropped 3 in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident. 4 Q Did you have any training in the Navy on
, 5 what would happen to pressu-izer level in the event
, 6 that a code safety-stayed open and there was a LOCA 7 through the codes?
8 A As I indicated previously, we were trained 9 that loss-of-coolant accidents were symptomized by
', 10 drop in pressurizer, level and system pressure 1
11 together, and with that drop in pressurizer level 12 and system pressure one recognized a loss-of-coolant 13 accident. O' 14 Q Did you ever receive any specific training 15 on what would happen to pressurizer level in the 16 event that a code safety failed to open and you had 17 a LOCA through the code? 18 A As I indicated previously, LOCA's,were 19 identified by loss of pressure _ level, loss of system 20 pressure, g 21 Q And that was a generalized instruction I i 22 that you received applicable to all LOCA's? i ! l I 23 A That was the los's-of-coolant training i 24 that we received. ~ (N _ .
%- 25 Q Did you have training in the Navy on l l
- __ y_ ,
E . 1 Harboin 21 r. 2 overcooling transients? L-Os A I don't remember specifically, but it 3 j 4 would seem to me that yes, we did, 5 Q And did you understand ,that an overcooling I 6 transient would also produce a drop in pressure and f 7 Pressurizer level? 8 A I probably understood that. 9 Q Now, did you receive training in the I i 10 Navy, Mr. Herbein, on why it was important to
! 11 maintain pressure in the reactor coolant system?
12 A Well, it was important to maintain pressure 13 as a means to -- O 14 MR. SELTZER: He just asked did you 15 receive training on its 16 MR. FISKE: I think that's what he was 17 about to answer. 18 THE WITNESS: Would you please repeat 19 the question? 20 MR. SELTZER: Why don't you read it back. 21 Q During the course of your Navy training, 22 Mr. Herbein, did you reach any understanding as to 23 why it was important to main'tain pressure in a 24 reactor coolant system? x2 25 A We probably did. 1
_ - - - , _ ____-- u- --~ 1 Hortoin 22 1 2 Q And what was that understanding? 4 O 3 A Maintaining pressure in a pressurized 4 water reactor enabled the generation of high
! 5 temperatures that provided heat transfers from the i
6 reactor coolant into the. steam generator and in 7 ' turn all' owed us to form high energy saturated steam l 8 with which' to propel the ship.
9 Q And you understood, didn't you, that if
. 10 at those high temperatures pressure dropped below
\
11 a certain point you would reach saturated conditions? 12 A I was probably aware of that, but that's 13 not something that we routinely focused.on. 14 Q When did you leave the Navy, Mr. Herhein? 15 A April 1967. 16 Q Maybe I missed it, but I don't see 17 anything on your resume that covers the period of 18 time between 1967 and 1969 19 A From April 1967 until Soptember '67, I 20 was employed by Yankee Atomic Electric Company in 21 New England and I worked at 'the Yankee Rowe reactor 22 as assistant to reactor operations supervisor from 23 September 1967 until September 1970. I 24 I was employed by the Saxton Nuclear i(")/ Experimental Corporation as a staff engineer, as i 25
-. --- . . , , ,, e- - , , -
I: 1 Horboin 23
'h 2 reactor operations supervisor and as reactor plant i 3 services department head.
1 4 Q I notice that your resume says on page 1 5 right after the Navy Nuclear Power School, "NUS Coro i 6 Physics - 1969." I 7 can you tell us what that refers to? 8 A That refers to ?. two-week school that I 9 . attended at NUS. It primarily had to do with 10 computer calculations that we used in generating 11 fuel depletion, calculations and uniform flux 12 distributions across the core: 13 Q Who were you employed by when you went 14 there? l 15 A I was employed by the Metropolitan 16 Edison Electric Company. However, I was assigned to 17 the Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corporation which was - a 18 GPU subsidiary that operated the Saxton Nuclear 19 Reactor in Saxton, Pennsylvania. 20 Q' Whose idea was it for you to go to this 21 NUS. school? 22 A I am not sure I remember. It was j i 23 probably Clay Montgomery, th,e manager of_SNEC at the 24 time. () 25 Q Were there other people from the GPU l 1 1
n 1 Herbein 24 l t . K 2 organization that attended that with you at the same !O 4 3 time? 4 A I don't believe there were. 4 5 Q Let me show you a document, Mr. Herbein. [ 6 It's been previously marked and shown to a number of I i 7 prior wi'tnesses. It's B sW 558, captioned " Nuclear 8 Power Preparatory Training, Core Performance 4, a 9 Course for Metropolitan Edison' Company Via Videocape
, 10 by NUS Corporation, Rockville, Maryland." ,
I 11 Do you have that before you? 12 A Yes, I do. 13 Q Have you ever seen that booklet before 14 today? , 15 A I am not sure that I have, and let me 16 clarify that: This particu..ar set of notes labeled, 17 " Core Performance 4," I believe is one volume of 18 a' set that accompanied a number of videotapes that 19 were provided by the NUS Corporation for our training i 20 program at Three Mile Island. 21 I would further clarify that this set of 22 notes is not the same and does not refer to the i I 23 NUS Core Phyaics course in 1969 as shown on my resume. 24 Q Well, that was one of the things that I P) x_ 25 was going to ask you about. I am not quite sure I L E- . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _
1 Harboin 25 2- understand all of your answer. Let's just start with (-~ l; V II. 3- the last part. j- 4 Did you receive this booklet or pamphlet 5 'or whatever you want to call it back in 1969 when s 6 you were attending the NUS course in Core Physics? 7 MR. SELTZER: He just answered it in his 8 last answer and said they didn't use it. 9 Q Your answer is no?
! 10 A That's right.
11 Q Now, there came a time as I think you 12 indicate'd a minute ago when Metropolitan Edison l 13 contracted with NUS Corporation to purchase from O 14 NUS Corporation a videotape course which included 15 this particular pamphlet which is Exhibit 558. 16 MR. SELTZER: Are you asking him now to 17 say that he knows that this particular pamphlet 18 was part of a set of materials purc,hased from i 19 NUS?
, 20 MR. FISKE: I will ask him that. There 21 has been previous testimony to that effect, but.
22 I will ask-Mr. Herbein: Do you know that? I I 23 Let me just clarIify, Mr. Herbein. ! 24 Q There has been pre'tous testimony in this e
\/ 25 case that the exhibit in front of you is part of the
c------ , . _ _ - -__ _ - -- y 1 Herbein 26 2 materials which were purchased by Met Ed V f rom IIUS Corporation for use by Met Ed 3 p 4 in its training program and I would like to ask you a 5 lj couple of questions about that.
) 9 1
6 Did you have any involvement at all with 7 the purchase of materials by Met 3d from NUS 8 Corporation? , 9 A Not directly.
+ 10 Q Were you aware at any time back in the 11 early '70's that Met' Ed was neg stiating with NUS to 12 acquire such materials?
i l A I probably was aware of that. 13 C. 14 Q And was there an occasion or occasions 15 when NUS submitted certain materials to 16 Met Ed's review in order for Met Ed to l 17 determine whether they wanted to purchase those 18 materials for use in the training program? 19 A ,Since we did purchase tapes, it would 20 seem to make sense that we had some discussions with 21 NUS prior to the actual purchase of the tapes about i t 22 their-content and whether or not we wanted to buy them. ] 2:3 Q Were you aware that those discussions j I 24 were going on at the time? t i
\~/ 25 MR. SELTZER: I think he said he m - ~
c_ .
-- == - -- -
l I 1 Herbein 27 - 9.s S
-46
-c.
2 presumed they went on. j. O- And did you participate in then? i'. 3 Q 4 A No, to the best of my knowledge I did not. . T,, 5 Q Did you have at any timo right up to the (
^ .
i j i 6 time of the Three Mile Island accident ever review 7 any portion of this document which is Exhibit 5587 . i I Take a look through it. I' MR. SELTZER: 8 2 A I don't recall reviewing this exact 5 9 . s 10 volume.
?
l 11 Q Let me direct your attention, Mr. Herbein, .l; 12 to page 4-20 of this Exhibit. ,'.i 13 Do you have that in front of you? p- , O 14 A Yes, I do.
- Yo j ,_
4 15 Q Let me read one paragraph from that page 16 into the record, the paragraph after the second dot ) r.- . : 17 reads: "The reactor coolant in a PWR syst.im is . 18 kept under pressure to prevent bulk boiling in the , 19 core. In the case of an abnor al transient,where - b 20 , the pressure is lost and some steam is generated Y' 21 in the core,how will we know it? We will see a large '. g 22 increase in the pressurizer until pressure is built 23 back up above the saturation'value corresponding to [
~
24 the temperaturs in the core." . 25 Do you see that portion of that paragraph? c 3:)
. is',
;.t
. i-1
,.i l- -
w m __ , . ~ . ~, 1 . . ,' - - c - . 1 Herbein 28 6 f v., , O ' 2 A Yes, sir, I. see that, f' .l
! ,3 Q Had you read that portion of this document 'j 4 at any time before the Three; Mile Island' accident?
i
! 5 A If I did, I don!t recall it rand I would 1
I j 6 also a,dd that it appears that tais particular 7 paragraph is not in context with what generally is 8 being discussed in the paragrapha above,on page 4-20 s' or in the paragraphs below. I l
- - 10 Q When did you'first come to that
! i l' 11 conclusion, Mr. Herbein?
l
, 12 A As I 1cok at the particular statement ll i <A 13 here ar.d view it in the context that it appears to be U 14 presented on page 4-20. ,
15 Q Did you just reach that conclusion for
* / ,
the first time when I' asked you the question a minute 16 17 ago? 18 , A I have seen this particular page before. 19 I had not seen'it prior to the accicer it Three i
~~
20 Mile Island. jg
,- I 21 f .Q When is the first'timeeyou saw'this page?
. t
" l s
~
, . , 22 A. To the best,of my knowledge it was ;
s j. s
, e . .
, f
.23 , yesterday. !7 ,y ;.
+
./
- i. ,, s 'f- .a I
i 7 24 Q fio pou reached tnis;conclusionfthat you ls ,> **
' p-)-. y, gy 25 3ust testuisd to som. time:.ye ter ay2
./ L tu l
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- y. .9,e ; i. I 1
3, , .. $ ' 4* j j, ' ) ~ lOl . % .
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3 ,
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u -- e _ _ ._ _ - , i Horboin 29 () 2 A That's correct. 3 Q Had you seen a statement to the same 4 general effect in any material submitted by NUS to li / 5 Met.Ed? I 6 A ,- No, I did not. 7 Q Had you seen a statement to this effect 8 in any material in the Metropolitan Edison training 9 program? 10 A No, I don't believe I saw it in 11 Met E,d's training program, nor in the 12 B & W programs that provided,the cornerston's for our ( ) 13 program. 14 MR. SELTZER: Just so that the context is 15 clear both you and the witness were talking 16 about a period before the Three Mile Island 17 accident? 18 MR. FISKE: Yes, and I will move to 19 strike the non-responsive portion of that 20 answer, , g 21 MR. SELTZER: I think it was entirely . 22 responsive although I can see your concern. e a 23 MR. FISKE: I am only concerned about 24 getting esponsive answers to my question, but
)
25 obviously there is no effort here to prevent 4 .
-- .-, . v - . . _ _ m ,_ _ . , , . - - _ , _ . _ . - , , .
..c.-- -
1 t 1 Harboin 30 2 Mr. Herbein in an appropriate fashion to , U-s 3 Providing any information that you think should 4 he provided. That's the function of cross
- 5 examination, but why don' t we nove ahead.
i I G BY MR. FIGKE: I 7 Q' At any time before the Three Mile Island 8 accident, Mr. Herbein, did "ou become aware that 9 if saturation formed in the reactor coolant system 10 that that could have an effect on pressurizer level? 11 A Sir, we never focused on that. We never 12 recognized that one could have an indicated pressurizer 13 water level with saturation in the reactor coolant 14 system. No one ever told us that. B & W never gave 15 us that information. l l
- l 16 Q So I understand your answer, it never 17 c ame to your attention, Mr. Herbein, from any source 18 that if saturation occurred in the reactor coolant 19 system that th'at .might have an ef fect on the 20 Pressurizer level?
g 21 A As I indicated previously, we E.ever 22 focused on the fact that one could have an indicated 23 pressurizer level with saturation in the reactor 24 coolant system.
\ ("~)
k/ m 25 Q Well, I am not asking you for the moment, m ' ' ' - '
1 Horboin 31 2 Mr. lie rb ein , whether you focused on it. I am simply i 3l asking you as a result of prior transients and i i 4 Metropolitan Edison's Unit 2 as a result of incidents 5 ,that may have occurred in hot functional testing at
; 6 Unit 2 or from any other source it ever came to your i
7 attention that as a conceptual matter if saturation 8 f ormed in the reactor coolant system that that might 9 have an effect on pressurizer level? 10 MR. SELTZER: If he didn't focus on it, 11 I don't see how he could be aware of it. 12 MR. FISKE: Well, let him answer the 13 question. I think he is perfectly capable of O . 14 doing that himself, Mr. Seltzer. 15 MR. SELTZER: I think he's already answered 16 it. 17 A I was never made aware that saturation 18 was the key to a loss-of-coolant accident. 19 Q That isn' t my question, Mr. Herbein. 20 Let's make sure we are talking about the same thing. You understood that under normal
; 21 22 operations the pressurizer itself-is operated l
23 under saturated conditions, right? ! 24 A' I wAs aware that the pressurizer steam
\_- 25 bubble was at 670 degrees and that in turn provided l
I , l l
. 3 _
__-;- ,- i l l 1 Harboin 32
- l 2 a system pressure of 2,155 pounds.
3 Q And.under norm:1 op irations in the 1 4 Pressurizer there was a steam bubble on top of the I water, correct? 5 I 4
- 6 A That's correct.
1
~7 Q And under normal operations in the 8 reactor coolant system outside the pressuri=er there 9 was no steam, correct? That was full of water?
. 10 A That was full of water, that's right.
11 Q Now, all I am asking you by the question 12 I was asking you a moment ago was did it ever come to 13 your attention at any time before the accident whether 14 as a result of actual experience or as a result of a 15 conceptual theory that if steam formed in the reactor 16 coolant system itself, outside the pressurizer,that 17 that could have an impact on the level of water in 18 the pressurizer? 19 A Absciutely not. We were never told by 20 Babcock & Wilcox, the nuclear steam supplier or 21 anyone else that steam formation in the core as a g i 22 result of saturation conditions could cause an increase-e i 23 in pressurizer level with a ' decreasing system
,_s 24 pressure. No one ever tole us that.
(' 25 Q And your answer vould be the same if we l
c -- 1 Herbein 33 ("N 2 were talking about steam formation in the hot legs? 3 A You would have to rephrase the question. 4 I don't understand the question relative to steam 5 formation in the-hot legs.
\
. G Q Well, my previous question was a broad i .
! 7 one, and you answered it that in reference to steam 8 in the core, and I just wanted to make sure we are 9 talking about the same thing.
10 A You will have to restate the question, 11 sir, I don't understand it. 12 MR. FISKE: Why don't you read it back. t 13 MR. SELTZER: I thought you were phrasing . 14 a new question about steam in the hot legs. l l 15 That's the question that Mr. Herbein says he 16 doesn't understand. 17 MR. FISKE: Okay, fair enough, 10 Q Did it ever come to your attention, 19 Mr. Herbein, before the Three M: le Island a ccident either
" as a result of actual experiences at Unit 2 or as a 20 21 result of experiences elsewhere or as a result of 22 just a theoretical conceptual thought that if steam .
I 23 occurred in the hot legs tha't that could have an ! 24 effect on the level of water in the pressurizer?
25 A I personally didn't consider that and I ,
'^
s= n . - 1 Herbein 34 2 recall no instance where that was pointed out to me 3 by our nuclear steam supplier BabcocN & Wilcox. j 4 Q Or anyone at Met Ed? 5 A I don't specifically recall that. . 'r 6 Q You don't recall tP At one way or the
! 7 other as to whether anybody at Mat.Ed l 8 told you that?
Il I O A I don't believe anyone from Met Ed told
! 10 -me that.
{ 11 Q Do you remember a transient that occurred 12 Gt Unit 2 on April 23, 19787 13 A I generally remember that transient. O 14 Q And that was a transient that involved 15 some steam relief valves that failed to open? 16 A That's correct. 17 Q And that produced an overcooling transient? 18 A As I recall it was an overcooling 19 transient, sir. 20 Q And that was -- i 21 MR. SELTZER: Just for clarity in the 22 record, You have only talked previously about l 'l ' 23 steam relief valves on'the primary system and I
!l 24 think so he is not confused he ahould understand
,m.
'- - 25 the steam relief valves that you were referring i
i
- m_, . - _ _
1 Herbein 35 2 to are on the secondary system. 3 MR. FISKE: I think that is established.
. , 4 It's uncontradicted, undisputed. In fact, I l
i
! 5 think we have developed termipology in the
'l
! 6 course of these depositions that distinguishes
- I.
7 b$ tween steam relief valves which are on the 8 secondary side and code relief valves which 9 are on the primary side, 10 In ar.y event, there is no dispute about it. 11 BY MR. FISKE: 12 Q As a result of that transient Three Mile 13 Island Unit 2 was shut down for a period of time, was 14 it not? 15 A Yes, sir, it was shut down to replace 16 the Lonergan steam safety valves with Dresser s. team 17 safety valves. 18 Q And the plant was out of service for 19 several months, was it not? 20 A That's correct. 21 Q And there was an investigation conducted r 22 by Metropolitan Edison aftter that transient, was-23 there not? L 24 A Yes, that's correct. p
\ss 25 Q And was there also ac investigation-4 t
y ,- ---r m , e --7 - -- , , _ . , - - - + , , y v -n, w
1 Earb dn 36 2 conducted by GPU Service Corporation?
\ A 3
To the best of my knowledge the
. .g Met Ed,GPU Service Corporation, investigations
.i
. 5 were mbin9d to produce'a joint effort 6 and final report.
i 7 Q' Isn't it a fact, Mr. Herbein, that two i g separate reports were written on this transient, one 9 by Metropolitan Edison and another by GPU Service 10 corporation? 11 A That may have been the case, but the final 12 report was published by the service company, 13 specifically Mr. Keaten's task force of which the O
'd 14 Met Ed site personnel were team members.
15 Q And that included as an exhibit, did it 16 not, a separate report that had been written by the 17 Met Ed plant staff? . I e 18 A It may have. 19 Q Now, in that overcooling transient, there 20 was a drop in pressure, was there not? 21 A I believe there was a drop in pressure 22 accompanied with a drop in prewsurizer level. 23 Q And the drop in pressure was sufficient i 24 to automatically actuate the high-pressure injection 25 system? i a
I Herbein 37 li f-w, 2 A I am not sure about that, I believe our L /& 3 operator may have applied high-pressure injection
; 4 fairly rapidly on that transient. ! 5 Q '
Well, is it your testimony, Mr. Herbein, i
! 6 now that you don't recall one way or the other whether
} 7 there was an automatic actuation of HPI?
I 8 A I am not sure how to say whether I recall 9 one way or the other. I recall
- hat our operators
. 10 did initiate high-pressure injection fairly rapidly.
11 Q Well, the record reflects and I don't 12 think there is any dispute 'about it, that there was 13 an automatic actuation of high-pressure injection on 14 that transient. 15 MR. SELTZER: The record also indicates 16 that the operators manually initiated 17 high-pressure injection rapidly, 18 MR. FISKE: I am not going to get into a 19 long debate between turning on a makeup pump or i 20 having HRI come on automatically -- 21 THE WITNESS: I would state they are one g 22 and the same.
%) Q Isn't it a f act that the pressure dropped 24 below the point at which HPI is automatically o
k- 25 actuated? I' - -- i-
1 Herbein 38
, -s 2 A Sir, I assume that's the case if you g
i
\~ state that.
P 3
- , 1 Q So that whatever the operators did before
! 5 with !!PI pumps or makeup pumps before pressure
't 6 reached 1640 that action wasn't sufficient to keep l - pressurd continuing to drop below the actuation point? 7 8 A Is that a statement, sir? 9 Q That's a question. 10 Isn't that correct? I
,{ 11 A I think we have established that you claim 12 that high-pressure injection was automatically i 13 actuated. I stated I believed the operators fairly 14 quickly into the transient at a point probably less 15 than a minute put on high-pressure injection.
l i 16 In other words, I have stated that'high 4 17 pressurc injection was manually initiated. You 5 18 stated that it was automatically initiated. 19 MR. SELTZER: I think his question was 20 after they manually initiated do you know 1, 21 whether pressure continued to fall? 22 Q To a point where pressure went below the l l l b 23 setpoint at which HPI is automatically actuated? ! 24 A- Pressure did fall below the automatic I A I k ,) 25 initiation setpoint. Il
c - -- -._ - , r_ 1 Herbein 39 p 2 Q And as you have indicated before, there I 3 was a sharp decrease in pressurizer level, isn't that 4 correct?
- 5 MR. SELTZER: I don't think he used the 6 word " sharp." He said pressurizer level went 7 down.
I, 8 A Level and pressure fell together following 9 the 4/23 transient. 10 Q Now, did you receive copies of the i 11 reports that were written b/ th9 Met Ed plant staff 12 and by the GPUSC task force?
. 13 A I probably did and if you check, I am no O 14 doubt listed for distribution.
15 Am I listed for distribution. If I am 16 then I probably did receive a copy. 17 Q We will give you a copy of Exhibit 186. 18 MR. SELTZER: Mr. Fiske, on some of the 19 pages it gets a little difficult to read and 20 particularly on some of the charts because some 21 duplicating person has reduced this document to 22 . half its normal size. 23 At earlier depos'itions we have marked the 24 Jull size copy of the exhibit which is much
' ' more legible.
25 M ' ' -
y" - = ~_ ._;__ . n =. 1 Herbein 40 t
~'g 2 Is there some reason why we are getting
- V only a semi-legible half size version?
3 .i-
- j 4 MR. FISKE: I have the same interests you
.i
!l 5 do in reading this. I would be glad, if we have 4i ( ji G a larger version around, I would be glad to use 7 it. If you want to wait, Mr. Herbein, for a 8 larger version of this, that's fine with me. 9 If you think you could read what we have there,
', .! 10 we will go with this.
- t t
ll si 11 THE WITNESS: Dick, I would say we could
; 12 proceed and if I have trouble reading something 4
- 13 and can't be r,,e sp o n s iv e then on a specific i O 14 basis I will flag that.
? l 15 BY MR. FISKE: { 16 Q Let me just direct your attention to the 17 first page, Mr. Herbein. s
- 18 Do you see your name on the left-hand i 19 side as one of the people on th distribution list?
f l- 20 A Yes. 21 Q And this is the report of the GPUSC task ' l .I i 22 force? t ! 23 A The reason ate, sir, there were ! 24 obviously in the prepara f this kind of a report,
'- 25 various drafts; and what I, ,o t sure of is whether i
1 IIorboin 41 c 2 we have the final report that came out in the fall of d 3 '78. If you could tell me that this is the final 4 4 report than that would help me,
} 5 Q Well, that's my understanding, but in any I
! G event this is a document that you received, isn't 7 that correct?
8 A It appears to be the case. I am on 9 distribution. 10 Q And if you will look at page 2 of this I
' 11 where it refers to the attachments, do you see the 12 second number there it says: " Met-Ed Final Report
^
13 on.the. Incident."
! 14 A . Could you point- to +. hat, please?'
15 Q Yes, on the second page, where it says 16 " Table of Contents," down at the bottom there is a 17 section marked " Attachments," 18 A Okay. 19 Q Number 2 is: " Met-Ed Final Report on the 20 Incident." 21 A Okay. 22 Q Do you remember there was a question i 23 raised, Mr. Herbein, in one or more of these reports - 24 as to whether pressurizar level had gone below the 25 indicated level on the gauge?
1 Herbcin. 42 L f 2 A You have to repeat the question, sir. 1 3 don't understand it. (-
- 4 Q Do you remember that the readings for 5 pressurizer level on the gauge showed pressurizor l 6 level at zero at one point during the transient?
}
7 , A Yes, I believe I -- 8 MR. SELTZER: One second. When you say 9 "showed pressurizer leve? at zero," do you mean 10 that it was zero on the indicated scale, not 11 zero on the pressurizer physically? l 12 MR. FISKE: Well, that's what I am trying 13 to get at, and Mr. Herbein said the question 14 wasn't clear so I put it again. 15 A I believe I recall the indicated level 16 went to zero. I also believe that it was established 17 that we never completely lost all the water from the 18 pressurizer surge line so that in essence we had a 19 steam-filled pressurizer but the bubble for all 20 intents of practical purpose was still in the i 21 pressurizer. i 22 Q Is it correct, Mr. Herbein, that you i i 23 understood the d esign of the pressurizer as it 24 existed in April of 1978, that it was possible to O) (, 25 still have water in the pressurizer if the level 1-
u , - _ ;- -- ,- - - - ;;= - - -- - - - - - =7 - - -- 1 Horbein 43 1
/^ ' ,
2 indicated a zero reading?
'. 3 A Yes, I believe I recall that. The point t
q 4 being that the bottom of the level indicator was not 5 necessarily the bottom of the pressurizer. There was
! 6 still some volume remaining.
7 Q Did it come to your attention as a result 8 of reading these reports or as a result of discussions i 9 with anyone at Met Ed that either the Med Ed plant 10 staff or the GPU task force had concluded that there 11 was steam in the reactor coolant system outside the 12 pressurizer at one point during this transient? 13 A I don't recall that. 75 14 Q Let me ask you to look at the copy of 15 this document which Mr. Seltzer has in front of him l l 16 which hopefully is in a little larger print than the 17 one you and I are looking at, and I would ask you to 18 direct your attention to page 3 of the report prepared 19 by the Met Ed plant staff and that's Attachment 2 20 to this exhibit. - 21 MR. SELTZER: What's the base number in 22 the lower right-hand corner? I I think it's 0588. I 23 MR. FISKE: 24 A 'Okay. I've got' 0588 in the lower J O 3 right-hand corner. [ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
c_--__,.- ._ l Herbein 44 L t 2 Q Feel free to look at Mr. Seltzer's copy 7-I' 3 of this if you like, but I direct your attention to l
- 1 4 the next to the last paragraph on that page which i
i 5 reads: " Calculations performed immediately after I 6 the event in subsequent chemistry analyses shows that 7 the core remained covered at all times. Although the 8 bubble left the pressurizer and went into one or both 9 hot legs the hot leg with the bubble, if only one had 10 it was at least still filled with water halfway up 11 the heiqht of the leg. If both hot legs had a bubble 12 then the legs would have been tilled one-quarter of 13 the way up the legs." . O
\ss/ 14 Do you see that paragraph?
15 A I see that. l 16 Q Is it your testimony that you didn't 17 read that part of that report back in April of '787 18 A It's my testimony that I don't remember 19 that. What I do remember about this report is that 20 Bab~ock c & Wilcox in Attachment 4 o'n page 0680 told 21 us that the pressurizer steam bubble reached the J ) 22 upper section of the surge lines i.e., the , 23 pressurizer did empty bot the bubble did not reach 24 the hot leg, A (,,) 25 Q so you are telling us, Mr. Herbein, that I i
- c. . .
w-1 Horboin 45 2 today thinking back to April of 1978 you remember the
~
3 conclusion that B & W reached, but you don't recall 4 the conclusion that either Met Ed or GPUSC reached, { i 5 is that your testimony? 6 , A I can't think b.,ck to April and recall j 7 that bechuse the letter that was transmitted to us 8 by Babcock & Wilcox is dated May 5th, and I can say 9 that in the spring-summertime time frame, what I 10 recall about this incident is that we didn't really I
! 11 transfer the bubble out of the pressurizer, and 12 my recollection is based on the Babcock & Wilcox 1
13 analysis. () 14 Q Well, you just, during the period of time 15 that you have been looking at this document in the 16 last few minutes turned to the portion of it that has 17 t,he B & W report attached to it;and I believe you had 18 that in front of you when you just gave me the answer 19 you just did. 20 A Yes, that's correct. 21 Q And I am not' disputing-that indeed it is 22 a matter of record that that in fact is the conclusion 23 lreflectedinthat report. . 24 MR. SELTZER
- I think the record should
() 25 also reflect that the report by B & W on
w _~,_ _
~
J 1 Herbein 46 1 - () 2 May 5 came after the portion that you were reading from from GPU Service which is May 2nd, so B & W may
; 3 I 4 have even considered GPUSC's portion and done their
{ j j S own analysis and concluded GPUSC was wrong, j 6 Q. What I am trying to do, Mr. Herbein, is 7 not sit here and read out of a document that is is 8 front of you. I am trying to ask you what you knew 9 back at the time this transient occurred, and let's 10 just try to go back to that. f 11 I take it that this was a major event at 12 Three Mile Island, was it not? N 13 A Yes, and it war one that led us to focus 14 Primarily on the malfunctionin- secondary side steam i 15 safety valves, and that focus ultimately led to their 16 replacement, as I stated previously. And that took 17 the months of the 1978 summer. 18 Q Isn't it a fact, Mr. Herbein, that if a 19 conclusion had been reached that the bubble had 20 l'e f t the pressurizer and gone into the hot leg that g 21 that would have been something that would have 22 required a report to the NRC? 23 A I don't specifically know that. s You do remember, don't you, Mr. Herbein,
.O 24 Q 25 .that there was an extensive analysis at both Met Ed
d 1 Herbein 47 1 2 and GPU to try to determine whether or not the
/ ,
l f
\- 3 bubble had left the pressurizer in light of the fact 4 that there was a zero indication on the gauge? ] .i 5 A sir, I remember that we were concerned 'I ! 6 about the transient. I specifically asked the service 7 company'under Mr. Arnold to assist us in investigating 8 all of the parameters and implications of that 9 transient.
10 It seems to me reasonable that pressurizer I 11 level, presence or absence of,would be a part of 12 that investigation. I think I have been responsive to 13 your questions about what I remember about the , 14 transient and what happened to pressurizer level. 15 Q Well, is it your testimony, Mr. Herbein, 16 that you knew at the time that B & W had concluded 17 that there was no bubble in the hot leg but you didn't 18 know that GPU and Met Ed had concluded that there was 19 a bubble in the hot leg? 20 .,, MR. SELTZER: k object. You asked that 21 question twice and you got the answer twice I . 22 already. i 23 A I have indicated to you that I didn't 24 remember that Met Ed said we lost the bubble from O) (, 25 the pressurizer and that it transferred over into
1 Eorbein 48 I 2 the legs or into the reactor coolant system. I told O_ 3 you that I did remember that Babcock & Wilcox had 4 made a calculation and told us that we didn't lose
. 5 the bubble from the pressurizer.
{ 6 Q Do you remember that GPUSC independent 7 of Met Ed had concluded that there was a bubble in 8 the hot leg? - 9 A I don't remember that. 10 Q Well, let me direct your attention, I 11 Mr. Herbein, to page 25 and 26 of the first part of 12 this exhibit which is the GPUSC analysis. 13 A And what page is that again, sir? 14 Q Page 26. 15 MR. SELTZER: In the lower right? 16 MR. FISKE: Whatever these numbers are 17 at the bottom.It's 0552 18 Q Do you have page 26 in front of you? 19 A I have page 0552 in front of me. 20 Q Does it say at the top page 26? 21 A Yes. 22 Q I will read a paragraph into.the record, ; 23 it says"In summary,it is concluded that a bubble was 24 ' not drawn in the hot legs,a bubble was drawn in the A (_s) 25 reactor vessel upper head, the core remained covered
1-1 Horboin 49 2 during the transient and the pressurizer probably did O 3 no t empty . "
, 4 Do you see that pa* Agraph?
5 A Yes, s'ir. f i 6 Q Did you read that par,agraph back in April 7 of 1978i 8 A I may have read it back -- I don't 9 specifically recall that now. 10 Q Going back to the preceding page, I 11 Mr. Herbein, there is a caption that says: 12 " Pressurizer Performance." 13 Do you see that? 14 A What page is that that it says: 15 " Pressurizer Performance"? 16 Q The preceding page, page 25. 17 A Yes, I see that. 18 Q And there are three paragraphs on that 19 page? 20 A Yes, there are three paragraphs on page 25. 4 21 Q Now, did you read those paragraphs, that I l 22 part of the report back in April 19787 t i 23 A Sir, I probably did. And you said "Did I .. 24 I read it back in April"? [ /~N
%- ) 25 Q April, May, June, .aytime before the b
w . .- -
1 Harboin 50 2 Three Mile Island accident? N i 3 A I believe that I read portions of this
.: report before the Three Mile Island Unit 2 accident.
5 I do not remember specifically reading
! 6 these portions as I have told you earlier I remembered i
7 that B a W had concluded we didn' t empty the
$ pressurizer, and I believe this report that I am 9 looking at, the total report published by the Keaten 10 task force -- well, I don't see a date on it, but 1
11 it seems to me it was the fall of 1978 that this 12 report was made available. 13 Q This document that you have in front of () 14 you contains a report by GPUSC which says that'a 15 bubble was drawn in the reactor vessel upper head. 16 It contains a report by Met Ed which says there were 17 bubbles in both, one or both of the hot legs, and 18 as you have pointed out it contains a report by 19 B& W saying that B & W had reached a different 1 20 conclusion and thought that a bubble'had not occurred. 21 Is it your testimony now, Mr. Herbein,
~
just so that we understand, is that you don't f 22 'I. remember being aware even af,ter looking at these i 1 l-l 23 l 24 documents that- I have just shown you that both Met Ed l 25 and GPU had reached a different conclusion than f%.))
, ,- - + - - - , ,e m
1 Herbein 51 i. 2 B & W as to whether or not there had been a bubble i 3 outside the pressurizer? p 4 A I have stated that I don't remember this
; 5 specific conclusion in that area reached by Met Ed t
6 and GPU. 7 Q Do you remember being aware back at any 8 time before the Three Mile Island accident that Met 9 Ed or GPU had reached a different conclusion than
. 10 B & W?
I. 11 MR. SELTZER: I object. This is the
~
12 fourth or fifth time that you have asked this. 13 His last answer is that he didn't recall. 14 MR. FISKE: Okay. 15 Q Did you participate in any discussions 16 after the April 23 transient and before the Three 17 Mile Island accident as to whether or not a bubble 18 in any part of the reactor coolant system may have l 19 been in part responsible fer preventing the loss of 20 water from the pressurizer? l 21 A Sir, I don't recall those kinds of i 22 discussions. We were focusing primarily on the I 23 difficulty experienced with-the steam side safety i 24 valves. BabcoIk& Wilcox never came to us and
- 25. focused on transfer of water from the pressurizer into
1 Herbein 52 2 the loop or vice versa s That point war never made V
.i 3 clear to us. We never focused on.that. We never had 4 that kind of insight provided to us by the nuclear 5 steam supplier.
6 Q Well, I am not asking you about Babcock & 7 wilcox right now, Mr. Herbein. I am asking you about 8 a report by GPUSC which on page 25 and 26 apparently 9 focuses on the very question I just asked you; and i 10 is it your testimony that you weren't aware back at I 11 that time of any discussions at Met Ed as to whether 12 or not the formation of steam in any part of the 13 reactor coolant system had any effect on keeping water
\ 14 in the pressurizer?
15 A I just told you that our focus on that i 16 particular event had to do with steam side safeties, 17 and their performance and the accompanying cooldown 18 transient that we experienced as a result of this 19 malfunction. 20 The focus on that incident had to do with 21 cooldown transient and exceeding technical 22 specification limits on pressurizer and reactor f 23 coolant system rates,
- 24 Q Is the answer to my question'then, no?
s/ 25 A I have just told ycu what the focus was. l
c---------r=--- . _ _ 1 Horboin 53 2 Q And I didn't ask you what the focus was. 3 A I told you what I remember. I told you 4 what we were presently concerned about. It did not I 5 have to do with pressurizer water level. 'I 6 MR. FISKE: Could you read the last 't 7 question back. 8 MR. SELTZER: Could we take a break? 9 MR. FISKE: Could we just read the last
; 10 question back.
I 11 MR. SELTZER: I think you got the answer 12 to the last question. 13 MR. FISKE: I heard what you focused on, I
\- 14 and I don't think that was an answer to my l 15 question.
16 MR. SELTZER: When he says they didn't 17 focus on it, he means they didn't cover it. 18 MR. FISKE: Why don't we have the last 19 question read back and we can agree on an 20 answer and then take a break. 21 (Question read. ) 22 Q The question ir were you aware of any 23 discussions on that subject? 24-A I don't remember that I was. 7-, (_ / 25 (Recess taken.)
c_ n _ sy - - - - 1 Horbein 54 2 Q Let me show you a document, Mr. Herbein, l 3 that we will mark as Exhibit 876 which is a i 4 memorandum to EEI Nuclear Power Subcommittee from I i
; - 5 J.G. Herbein, dated September 1978.
i!
- l. 6 ,
Do you have that in front of you? 7 A Yes. 8' (Copy of memorandum to EEI Nuclear Power 9 Subcommittee from J.G. He:bein, dated I 10 September 1978, was marked B & W Exhibit 876 11 for identification.) 12 A okay. 13 Q What was the EEI Nuclear Power Subccumittee? O 14 A Edison Electric Institute. ,
\
15 Q And what was the reason why you were 16 sending them status reports on your two units at 17 Three Mile Island? l 18 A That was something that we typically did 19 for the EEI Nuclear Power Subcommittee meetings; 20 in other words, all of the utilities with nuclear 21 ' power plants would provide a previously prepared 22 report tha't.was distributed among the other member 23 represendat,tves of the Nucle'ar Power Subcommittee, - L . . 24',1 and this type ~ of report was routinely prepared for 7s U '25 me,' and I in turn took copies:of it to these meetings E
\
U -- - - - -
o Herbein 55 h 2 and it was distributed among the EEI Nuclear Power ,I 3' Subcommittee meetings' attendees.
. 4 MR. SELTZER: There are some pages at 1
I 5 the back that are not part of the sequential 6 numbering that begins the document. 7 Is that pa::t of the exhibit? 8 MR. FISKE: Well, it's been marked as
.].
.9 part of GPU 876.
) 10 MR. SELTZER: Well, take a look at 11 page 0088 and then notico that the next page 12 ' is 1169. . 13 MR. FISKE: Maybe we can clear that up. 'i 14 MR. SELTZER: I think from the numbering 15 it is apparent that these are two separate b-16 documents and that somebody just made a mistake - i 17 in attaching them together. 1 18 MR. FISKE: Well, let me get to that in-J' 19- a minute.
~
20 Q Was it your practice, Mr. Herbein, to 21 hand carry status reports like th's'to the meetings l.' ) . 22 of the EEI. Nuclear Power Subcommittee?- +
+
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23 A Yes, that was a' practice. ', ,, 24 Q And was it part of the regular routine,3 n .. . .c (f 25' at.those meetings that from ti.'e-to-time status
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/ 7 f< /Q' And in th's event that there were questions 3, , , + -
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4 e' - i .o And did y.cd ma,N.it your practice before 12 Q i\ i 13 you went to these meetings to review the status n<. ,
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14 reports';so s you would .' be in a : position to answer "fh )', , r .- / , 1,/ , IM juosticas that might' come up? y hbl "/ .7 b', 7Te c., I generally did th t.
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1 Herbein 57 i (% 2 Q Did you review this status report in 3 accordance with your regular practice before you
- j. 4 went to the EEI Nuclear Power Subcommittee at which i
l 5 phese documents were presented? .I' j 6 A I Probably did. l ' 7 Q Directing your attention to the bottom of 8 th4 page. 9 Do you see where it says under paragraph .
! 10 " (c ) Unit Performance," " April"?
I 4 11 A Yes, I do, sir. 12 Q And do you recognize the description that 13 follows there as a description,of the April 23 C:) 14 transient that we were discussing before the recess? 15 MR. SELTZER: Are you asking does he 16 today remember reading those paragraphs at or l 17 about the time that he was going to an EEI 18 meeting? 19 MR. FISKE: I think I have already asked 20 that question and he's answered it. Now I am 21 asking him is the description at the bottom of 22 the page a description of the April 23 transi'ent? , 23 MR. SELTZER: Are you asking him to look P
,.s 24 at it today and make that determination?
25 MR. FISKE: Yes, if that's helpful. F. Y" _ - _ - _ _ . _ _ _
{ 1 Herbein 58 1 1 I see no reason to disbelieve that this ([ 2 A
; 3 is the report that I carried with me, that I probably i
4 read it before I went to the meeting, that I may have I; p 5 discussed it at the meeting.
! 6 Q.,
Now, directing your attention ,to the last 7 paragraph, it says " Subsequent investigations in i 8 computer program analysis using Retran confirmed that 9 core flow below saturation temperature was maintained . t i 10 during the period there was no indicated pressurizer 11 level.- The computer analysis did indicate that some
~
12 flashing occurred in the vicinity of the upper plenum 13 just under the reactor vessel head." 14 Do you see thole tw a sentences? 15 A Yes, sir. 16 Q What part'of the reactor coolant system 17 is the " upper plenum"? i 18 . A It's the transition device located above 1' 19 the reactor fuel that guides the control rods into 20 the fuel assemblies. 21 Q And that is outside the pressurizer,-
% l 22 right? -
23 A That's correct. 24 Q Now the next' sentence says, ."The 25 flashing' and steam bubble formation just under the 1 m - -
t t
, i Kerbsin 59 ;
l () 2 head served to maintain system pressure above 3 saturation." 4 Does this refresh your recollection,
$ 5 Mr. Herbein, that prior to the Three Mile Island 6 accideng that you were aware that a conclusion had 7 been reached at Met Ed or GPU that there was flashing i
8 or steam bubble formation outside the pressurizer 9 in the course of that April 23 transient?
- l
! 10 A Not really. As I have indicated l 11 previously, this does appear to be the report that 12 I took with me. I may have even reported on this and
() 13 possibly answered questions about it, but I don't 14 really recall that I remember this specific paragraph 15 or the context in which I viewed it at the time. 16 Q Or the event to which it refers? l 17 A I think we have discussed the 4/23 event 18 and I indicated to you that that primarily in my 19 mind as I think back on it and attempt to recollect 20 my thoughts about it at the time was one principally 21 focused on failure of secondary side safety valves i 22 and the accompanying overcoolit.J events that took : i 23 place. And if you look at the first paragraph under
/) 24 " Unit Performanbe" with the month April underlined,
(._./ - 25 it states that the particular transient caused the 1
E - _ __ . _ l 1 Herbein 60 i. 2- primary system cooldown rate to exceed 100 degrees 3 per hour. l-- 4 Q I think the first paragraph speaks for i. i.
! 5 itself as does the second paragraph, but my question I
! 6 was: Does reading this document now refresh your l
7 recollection that you knew before the Three Mile 8 Island accident that GPU or Met Ed had concluded 9 that there was flashing and /or the formation of a 10 steam bubble outside the pressurizer? 11 A I don't recall that. 12 MR. SELTZER: I object. I think if you 13 are going to ask every question three and four 14 times this deposition is probably going to take 15 three and four times longer than it needs to. 16 His answers don't change with your repetitions 17 of the questions. 18 MR. FISKE: Well, sometimes I get an 19 answer by repeating the question.
'20 MR. SELTZER: I' don't think you have had 1 21 any problem in getting responsive answers to 1
)
22 every one of your questions, t 1 23 MR. FISKE: Le t ' s* g o - o n . 24 Q Mr. Herbein, let me have you look at'the i- ,
\ 25 last sentence, it says "The' flashing and steam bubble L l i
( .. ! 1
I 1 Harboin 63 i-
' - 2 formation just under the head served to maintain i 3 system pressure above saturation."
4 From your knowledge and understanding of j' 5 the reactor coolant system at Unit 2,before the Three i 6 Mile Island accident, how did you understand that 7 flashing' and steam bubble formation just under the l 8 ' head would serve to maintain system pressure? 9 MR.' SELTZER: I object. There is no 10 foundation that Mr. Herbein had an understanding 1 11 before the Three Mile Island accident that 12 flashing and steam bubble formation could , i 13 maintain pressure. s/ 14 MR. FISKE: m Well, since this is a report 15 that Mr. Herbein submitted on behalf of his 16 company to the EEI Subcommittee, I would think 17 that that's a sufficiant 'oundation to ask-the 18 question. 19 MR. SELTZER: He said iu was prepared by 20 someone else, j 21 MR. FISKE: Submitted under his name. I I 22 Q Do you want to answer the question, , 23 Mr. Herbein, if you can. - 4 24 A I can only speculate at this point what
n/
(,, 25 that might have meant. As I have indicated 1
_ m m. - -- t_ i 1 Herbein 62 2 previously, I really don't , recall focusing on this h - C 3 particular aspect of the transient or considering
)
9
; 4 that it had particular significance or major-
', 5 importance.
- i:
'I 6 Q Well, did you exclude this portion of 7 the transient from the preparation that you gave to 1
8 this status report in anticipation of possible 9 questions at the meeting? 10 MR. SELTZER: I object. You have asked i l' 11 that twice. He's answered it twice and 12 indicated that he ret.d a31 of this or he
, 13 presumes he read all of it is the best he can O 14 recall.
15 MR. FISKE: I heard his earlier answers. 16 MR. SELTZER: Fine, so why don't we move 17 on. 18 MR. F IS KE : Why don't we.have him answer 19 this question. 20 MR. SELTZER: Again? 21 A Sir, for the record, and truthfully, I I 22 honestly don't recall focusing, emphasizing, paying - l 23 particular import to the statement that's been read 24 .into the record concerning pressure maintenance 1 O (_ ,/. 25 through steam bubble formation under the head. I bah ~
m- _
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I I 1 ILorbein. 63 5 2 had no reason that I recall at the time to consider i 3 that that was of particular significance and warranted
- ! 4 additional focus.
5 Q Well, diu you understand what that 6 sentence meant when you read it? I
- I 7 MR. SELTZER: I object. There is no 8 foundation that he focused on that sentence.
9 MR. FISKE: You just said, Mr. Seltzer, i ,10 in urging me to go on that Mr. Herbein has said 11 . that he read this whole document; now I am 12 asking him if he understood what he read. 13 MR. SELTZER: Bob, he testified that he
\
x 14 presumes that he read it and that he can't 15 recall today specifically having read this. 16 MR. FISKE: Then I think I can ask him 17 whether he understood that sentence. 18 MR. SELTZER: If he didn't recall specifically 10 reading it, I don't know how you are going to 20 get to where you are going, but go ahead. 21 .A At the time I read that I probably thought , 22 that I understood it, but I believe I have a better j
, 1 23 understanding since the Three Mile Island 2 accident
, 24 on just what is possible, and I in no way had that r i(9
25 kind of an understanding at the time I read this
- - , . _ , - -- .~
r 1 Herbein 64 I 2 document and -- 3 g Well, if you didn't have that 4 understanding, did you call any author of the document i 5 and ask him to explain what he meant? I i 6 A I had no reason to do that at the time. 7 Q Did you have any reason to think that 8 somebody at the meeting you were going to wouldn't 9 ask you a question about what that means?
- 10 MR. SELTZER: Did you ever think about {
I l I
?
l 11 that before the meeting? 12 A No, I did not and I stated previously _ 13 there was clearly nothing that had occurred in my
'-' mind that would have caused the' sharp focus we now 14 15 have on issues like pressurizea level with saturation 16 in the loop even being a possibility,or pressurizer 17 level increasing with system pressure decreasing. We 18 didn't have the understanding of those kinds of 19 phenomena at the time this report was put together 20 and no one flagged those types of things to us, and 21 in particular we relied on Babcock & Wilcox to note i I 22 these events and point out the significance of them 23 to us so that we could include them in our training !
24 programs andschoolouroperators in the importance; 25 and-that never happened and I had no reason to focus g i i
y_ ~__ - . -
-.-w -_ _ -
6 1 Herbein 65 f- 2 on this particular statement. I
- k. MR. FISKE: Well, I will move to strike 3
j 4 the portion of the answer that constitutes a 5 speech about Babcock & Wilcox since we are j 6 asking you, Mr. Herbein, about a document that l 7 was prepared by somebody at Met Ed who i 8 apparently felt that this was an important I 9 enough part of this transient to include in the ~
! 10 status report that was going to the committee.
l- - 11 Q Let me ask you this question: Apart from 4 4 12 anything that you may or may not have known about a 13 what specifically occurred during the April 23 i f} 14 transient itself, did you have any understanding 15 before the Three Mile Island accident as a conceptual ! 16 matter as to whether a flashing or steam bubble l 17 formation in any part of the reactor coolant system 1 - 18 could serve to maintain system pressure at any 19 particular point? j 20 M R *. SELTZER: Let me ask for i i~ 21 clarifications Do you mean steam bubble 1 ) 22 fermation in the reactor coolant system at l i I 23 some place other than 'in the pressurizer, l 24 Mr. Fiske? 'O N._ 25 MR. FISKE: Yes -- i
, .v- - - - e
1 Herbein 66 2 MR, SELTZER: Because I think that's an
, \m/ important qualification, 3
4 MR, FISKE: And one which we have made in I; the beginning of every deposition, and maybe we I 5 i
.I j 6 didn't make it this time; but obviously that's 7 what I am talking about.
8 MR. SELTZER: I think it's better to be 9 clear because you are talking about effects on
! 10 pressurizer level here.
11 MR. FISKE: I know that completely. 12 MR. SELTZER: Why don't you restate the 13 question. , l i 14 BY MR. FISKE: 15 Q Just to save time, Mr. Herbein, so we can 1G have some ground rules when I ask you questions about i 17 the reactor coolant system, I am excluding from the j 18 definition of reactor coolant system the pressurizer, 19 okay, and if I want to include the pressurizer I will
. 20 'specifically include it in the question.
l 21 Now, I guess it would be easier if I put i
) i 22 the question again which is: Apart from anything 23 'that you may or may not have' known about specifically l 24 what may have happened at the April 23 transient, did 25 you have any understanding prior to the Three Mile
_m__ _ _ - - - . - - - is 1 Herbein 67 i 2 Island accident as a conceptual or theoretical matter s 3 as to whether or not flashing or steam bubble d j '4 formation in any part of the reactor coolant system t-I
'. 5 could have an effect in maintaining system pressure?
- i
- !I 6 A Sir, I didn't have that kind of i
7 understanding, that kind of knowledge, which we now 8 have as a result of the TMI 2 accident and specifically 9 the double bubble phenomenas i.e., bubble under the 10 reactor ve'ssel head and bubble in the pressurizer, 11 and the accompanying response that the reactor coolant I 12 system and pressuri=er level gave to the operators. I l 13 No one focused on that. At that time the only one 14 that was par,t of the industry that had that knowledge 15 , was Babcock & Wilcox. 16 Q Can you tell us who it was at Met Ed 17 that had that understanding tha*. prepared the 18 sentence that I just referred to? l 19 A No, I cannot. 20 Q You are not suggesting, are you, that 21 this status report that I have just been reading to
}
22 you was prepared by someone at Babcock & Wilcox, are !
. 4 !
23 you? 24 A I d dn't mean to make that impression. _.____._.___._____._.___.__.___m.___ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . . -
w-- : n. - __ ;-y_
-_ - _ = , _ _
- - p -
1 Herbein 68 2 Q Let me just ask you a couple of other
- O 1
3 general questions, Mr. Herbein. Your position at this 4 time was vice president, Generation? 5 A That's correct. l i- 6 Q Of Met Ed? l l 7 A' Yes. - g Q How often were these meetings of the EEI g Nuclear Power Subcommittee? 10 A I don't specifically recall, but they I~ 11 may have been on the order of every five or six months. 12 Q Did you have a trocedure that you 13 followed before going to one of those meetings, were l 14 you asked for status reports to be preapred so that 15 you would be in a position to submit them at the 16 meeting? . 17 A Yes, I believe the Three Mile Island unit 18 superintendents had reports-prepared and provided to i 19 the corporate staff in Reading who in turn produced 20 the final reports with the assistance of my secretary. 21 Q So that could you tell us just based on ,
.I i 22 the regular procedure that was-followed who would be i 23 involved-in the preparation of the status report for 24 Unit 27 25 A Well, I am not exactly positive on this 4 ', . ,
r7 -
)
i 1 Horbein 69 2 particular report, but I would assume that Jim 3 Seelinger and Gary Miller and possibly some of the i
, 4 station engineers who worked for Jim would have 5 assembled this report.
I Now, let me go to the handwritten
; 6 .Q
;{ 7 document's that are attached to this and are at the i
8 moment are a part of this exhibit. 9 MR. SELTZER: I think it's Babcock & 10 Wilcox that attached them to this exhibit. f 11 MR. FISKE: I said which are a part of the 12 exhibit is the way I rephrased it. Let me 13 just withdraw the guestion and put it again. 14 Q Let me turn now, Mr. Herbein, to the 15 handwritten pages which at the moment are part of
)
16 Exhibit 876 and Mr. Seltzer has pointed out that they 17 begin with numbers 1169 and -- well, there is a 18 handwritten page 1169, and then some partially-typed 19 partially-handwritten pages that go from 1170 tc 1173. 20 Do you see thos27 - 21 A Yes, sir.
..I 22 Q Do you recognize those? ,
t 23 A Well, they have ,my handwriting on them 24 and appear to be remarks that summarize the operating 25 ' report.
y =- ~ _ . , . I 1 Horboin 70 2 Q Operating report for what? n i '-A) 3 A For TMI Unit 1. .i 4 Q Well, looking at these documents that are f i 5 marked -- that bear pages 1169 to 1173, do they bear 6 any relationship to the status reports which we have 7 been discussing which are part 7f Exhibit 8767 8 A As I indicated, I believe them to be my 9 notes and I believe at this time that they probably 10 refer to the summary reports that we have just been l' 11 looking at. 12 MR. FISKE: I think we will leave them as 13 part of the exhibit. f^g - (,) 14 MR. SELTZER: Mr. Fiske, when you were 15 asking before questions about whether Mr. Eerbein 16 submitted this exhibit to the EEI Nuclear Power 17 Subcommittee and I believe he said yes, I am l I 18 afraid the implication is that it was submitted 19 with all of these pages at the back which have 20 the handwriting on them; and~since you are 21 leaving them as part of the same exhibit I think
}
22 it is only fair to clear this up. 23 MR. FISKE: Th a t,' s right. 24 Q Did you submit the pages that begin 1169
) 25 to 1173 to the Nuclear Power Subcommittee?
1 Horbein 71 l 1 I s 2 A I don't believe I did because I was not l 3 in the habit of submitting handwritten notes to the 1 a 4 subcommittee. ' f' 5 MR. FISKE: If it makes everybody happier, i _l 6 I will be happy to detach the pages from 1169 y 1
- 7 to 1173 and in an effort to compromise mark them .
I 8 876-A. 9 MR. SELTZER: No, my state of happiness 10 wouldn't be affected 'one iota by that move. 11 Q Who attended these meetings, Mr. Herbein, 12 at the Nuclear Power Subcommittee of EEI, generally 13 speaking? e
\_- 14 A Managers, plant superintendents, first 15 level vica presidents associate 1 with the Nuclear 16 Power Generation function within EEI member companies.
17 Q And would that include representatives of 18 other plants that had B & W reactors? 19 MR. SELTZER: Would it or did it? 20 MR. FISKE: Did it. 1 21 A I remember that the nuclear power people
)
l 22 came to the EEI Subcommittee meetings; so yes, there , 23 were some B & W nuclear steam supply system owners 24 present at the meetings. P). (, 25 Q During the period of time that you were , I. i.
u _ 1 Harboin 72 1 2 attending, did anyone attend from Toledo Edison? i 3 A I don't recall. f. .' 4 Q You mean one way or the other? I 5 A one way or the other. it-i 6 Q- Was it customary at these meetings for 7 the statss reports to be handed out and circulated ( 8 among the people attending? 9 A For Whatever it's worth we 10 characteristically took oux sta.k of 30 or 40 plant i
! 11 status reports and stacked them on a table, and 12 during the subcommittee proceedings people that were 13 interested in other plant status reports could go l 14 up and draw from the individual piles and take them 15 back with them as opposed to formally passing out a 16 copy of the status report to each member.
17 (Re cess taken L 18 Q Was it your practice, Mr. Herbein, at 19 these meetings to bring back with you the status 20 reports from the other utilities? 21 A Yes, sir. 22 Q And was there a particular file that those . I 23 wore kept in at Met Ed? , 24 A I don't really recall that. I recall that [a 25 I usually bundled them together and sent them to-the
c,
-1 Herbein 73 , es 2 Island for the management people there to use and 3 look at.
1 4 Q Who particularly at the Island did you i il 5 send them to? i 6 A I would assume Gary Miller and probably , t l 7 the supe'rintendents and members of their staff. l 8 Q For what period of time did you attend 9 these meetings of the EEI Nucelar Power Subcommittee? 10 A Well, I attended as vice president, I* 11 Generation from June of '77 through the early spring 12 of 1979 and I had attended some of the subcommittee 1 13 meetings prior to that while I was manager of b (_j/ 14 Generation operations for Metropolitan, Edison. That 15 would have been the '76, early '77 time frame. 16 Q Did anyone else from Met Ed go to these 17 meetings with you? 18 A I don't recall tha* anyone from Met Ed 19 did. I believe there were other members of GPU that 20 went to the meetings. 21 Q Who were they? i I 22 A Do you have a particular point in time? 23 Q Yes, June '77 through the date of the l
. i 24 accident.
p) ( 25 A The people who might have gone or
1 .Horbein 74 2 could have.gone -- i O 3 Q Let's put it this way: Who was included 4 in the group that attended any of those meetings I without suggesting that any of chese individuals l 5 l-t 6 attended all of them? 'I 7 A' Generally, the people that attended the
'8 meetings in the time frame were the GPU vice 9 presidents of Generation. They would have been 10 Conrad from Penn Electric, Finfrock from Jersey t
1 11 Central. On occasion -- correction, I don't recall 12 any others.other than possibly Bachofer from the 13 service company, 14 Q Were there minutes prepared at these 1 I 15 meetings? l 16 A Not that I specifically recall, I don't 17 know. 18 Q Where were they held? 19 A At various points in the United states. 20 Q How long did they customarily last? 21 A Depending h'ow long you stayed I would 22 say two, three or four days. Most probably thres ; t days. ! 23 , 24 Q Durkng this period of time which we will I
-() 25 take for the moment as June.'77 through the early
1 Horboin 75 t . 2 Spring of '79, the time of the accident, I think you
; ' ss/ 3 said you were located in Reading?
i 4 A That's correct. ii 5 Q What exactly were your responsibilities . I' , i G as vice president of Generation?. 1 7 Ai I would refer to a previous exhibit that 8 we have looked at which provides a brief summary of 9 my position. This would have been the exhibit that 10 contains my resume, and we discussed it earlier: i l' i 11 It's B & W number 875.
~
12 Q And it says that your position directs 13 the engineering operation and kaintenance of Met E 4' s () .4 nuclear and fossil fuel power plants, is that 15 accurate? 16 A Yes, sir, within the context that this 17 is prepared, I believe, that that's an accurate 18 statement. 19 Q So you had overall responsibility then 20 for engineering, operation and maintenance at both 21 Unit 1 and Unit 2 during this period of time? 22 A Well, I am not so sure the way you have ! 23 stated that that I agree wit,h the connotation. I was l 24 the vice president in the corporate office and had
) 25 station managers, and specifically a station manager
1 Horbein 76
! 2 and also a manager of Generation operations who
;)
\- 3 reported to me and fulfilled many of the station 4 engineering operation and maintenance activities on
\
. 5 the Three Mile Island Unit 1 and 2. I don't mean to
! 6 detract at all from my overall responsibilities, but 7 merely to point out that I had the people who assisted 8 me with snecific operations, maintenance and 9 ongineering functions at the plant site. -
10 Q I think we understand you didn' t do it I
' all by yourself. I would be interested in the
, 11 1
12 organizational structure during this period of time. l 13 Who was directly under you in the chain of command : ' () 14 for Unit 1 and Unit 27 15 A Prior to January of 1979 Sandy Lawyer was 16 the manager of Generation operations, and as such had 17 the nuclear plants and the fossil plant 18 superintendents reporting to him. 19 After January '79 Gary Miller, station 20 manager for TMI Units 1 and 2, reported directly to me. 21 That particular changs in reporting assignment may 22 have been a little later than January '79. I believe i 23 it was the 1st of March, '79, that Gary reported 24 directly to me. [)\ So there was not any change in Mr. Miller's 25 Q w o .. .. - .. . ..
u-- ,_ 1 Horbein 77 2 Position, it was just that he reported directly to i 3 you instead of going through Mr. Lawyer? i 4 A That's correct. 5 Q so, during this period then from June of
- l 6 '77 through the time of the accident there was a 7 Person dnder Mr. Lawyer for each of Unit 1 and Unit 8 2, correct?
9 A Gary Miller was a station manager. He had 10 a superintendent on 1 and he had a superintendent I 11 on 2 reporting to him. He in turn reported to l 12 Mr. Lawyer. 13 Q And who was the superintendent at Unit 2? 14 A As I recall the March, '79 time frame, it 15 was Joe Logan on 2 and Jim Seelinger on 1. 16 Q And for how long had Mr. Logan held that 17 Position? 18 A I can't say with certainty, but I would 19 guess between six months to a year. 20 Q And I am sure we can get all this 21 precisely from some record. I 22 A I am sure you can. 23 Q Who preceded Mr.. Logan? L 24 A I am not positive, but I believe we had-() 25 Gary wearing a double hat where he was station
1 Ecrbain 78 i
~
2 manager and also filling the position of TMI 2
't i 3 superintendent. I am not positive of that, j 4 Q But that would go back to June of '777
! 5 A I don't recall.
i
' I, G Now, there has been a lot of ref.erences Q
7 in other testimony to a couple of committees called 8 the PORC and the GORB7 ,. 9 A Yes. 10 Q During this period of June, '77 through 1 . 11 the time of the accident were you a member of either 12 of those committees? 13 MR. SELTZER: For which plant? 14 MR. FISKE: For either plant. 15 A I was a member of t'te TMI 1 and 2 GORB 16 as vice president, Generation from June '77 on 17 through March '79. 18 You were not a member of the PORC7 Q 19 A I was not. 20 Q Did you receive minutes of their . l 21 meetings? 22 A Yes, I believe I did. l M Q Could you in 25 words or les's, hopefully, 24 describe to us the difference between the function ( 25 of the GORB and the PORC?
l . ' 79 1 Ecrboin i 2 A The GORB was at oversight ' group adyisory
\~ 3 to the Metropolitan Edison company president on ] 4 matters of nuclear safety and radiation exposure 1
{. I 5 for both our employees and the general public. The I i- 6 PORC was a lower tier group responsible for making , { 7 specific recommendations on such items as plant i 8 hardware changes, new plant procedure approvals and 8 9 procedure changes to the TMI 1 or TMI 2 plant 10 superintendent as the case may be, and in l 11 clarification of that statement there was a PORC 12 ' for Unit 2 advisory to the Unit 2 superintendent 13 and one for Unit 1 advisory to the Unit 1 O superintendent. ig 14 15 Q Two PORC's and one GORB7 16 A That's right. 17 Q During this period of time while you 18 were in Reading, June '77 to March '79, did you make 19 an effort to keep actively involved in the affairs 20 of TMI 27 21 A I am not sure I understand that question, 22 sir. i 23 Q Well, let me p .t it this way: To the 24 extent that you had the responsibility for directing () 25 the engineering operation and maintenance of TMI 1
%" ~T' 1 Horboin 80 2 and TMI 2 during this period, did you ever feel that 3 you were at any disadvantage in discharging that i
4 function by reason of the fact that you were located t i 5 in Reading rather than being located on the Island? 6 A No, not really. In the '77-78 time frame l the TMI 2 unit was completing construction involved 7 8 in a startup and test phase and we relied on the 9 GPU Service Corporation for the lead in that 10 construction, startup and test process. Following 11 that the unit went commercial in December of 1978, 12 and I experienced no difficulty with the 50 mile I 13 separation between Reading and Three Mile Island 14 during any of that period. 15 Q Did you travel to the Island frequently? 16 A On occasion I went to Three Mile Island, 17 yes, sir. 18 Q Is it fair to way t aat whenever you thought 19 that it was important for the discharge of your 20 responsibilities to actually be at the Island you 21 would go there?
'I 22 A I would say that's a fair characterization, j 23 yes. I might add that I spok,e to Gary Miller r 24 frequently by telephone on'various' day-to-day issues at the Island so although I may not have traveled
) 25-I i'
I 1 Herbein 81 f- 2 to TMI on ,a particular date or at a particular 3 frequency I was in contact with the plant through
; 4 both Mr. Lawyer and Mr, Miller.
I-5 Q And did you expect to be informed'of any 6 events or occurrence at the Island that was important? 7 MR. SELTZER: I guess there are degress 8 of importance. What level are you attaching to 9 that word? 10 MR. FISKE: I will let Mr. Herbein define 11 it any way he wants. 12 A I relied on my people to keep me informed 13 about the things that they felt I should know about. 14 Q Did you expect to be informed of any 15 incident which involved a reactor trip? 16 A I would say that's -- that that's fair, 17 yes. 18 MR. FISKE: Let me mark as the next 19 exhibit, Exhibit 877, a document bearing a 20 release date of october 7, 1981, captioned 21 " Analysis of TMI-2 September 1977 Event During l I ! 22 Hot Functional Test." l 23 Do you have that- in front of you? 24 THbWITNESS: Yes, sir. 25 (copy of a document bearing a release A . . _
E \ 1 Harboin 82
, .s i 1
~
2 s date of October 7, 1981,_ captioned " Analysis j O 3 of TMI-2 September 1977 Event During Hot
, 4 Functional Test,"(Nas markcc B & W Exhibit 877 l
5 .for identificatio y) ; - l \. .N. s
,n 6 BY MR. F'IS KE : ,
\
i > , 7 Q' HaVe'you ever sedn that analysis:at any
' T 8 time before (s
today? , , s e . 9 . A I dcn.'t recal1 that I did or didn '. t'. I ' m: ' ; a
,1 .
10 don't see that I\im.11' stud 3-for distribution on this. - s 11 document. 7 } 7
.- - , i s y e ,' , 1 \
12 T~ ' Q Did it coAn5: to v_ou {atten on'.in'anh$ ' , is t g ,- . g 13 time after the Three Mil.e Island accidentsthat' '- N- c O 14 questions had been raised by'a congressional' t
\ i N1' y ,
r 15 committee and by the NRC concerning an incident which -
, e ,
w 16 occurred during hot functional testing in Septemhcr ' t g i i \ \, 17 19777 \ \ s-3 \ ;. s h '}
,s 18 A Are you speaking abou5 the September ' -
\'77i s ,
t A 19 Davis-Besse transient, or are you aphakilog% about a .
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21 Q I am speaking about the hot fugotional
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22 testing transient that's the subject of i:his' irpport . T.
\ <', s l y s 'w e , t 23 j MR. SELTEER: Read the i[t[c'1 tion again , ' *'O
-- i' . ?- : \ ,qq 3 4 24 please.I -
e ' 3' \, -J ' - \4 "I, p , ( 't . h 4 25 A My problem is I don'st seelmycN1f liyted, x s, - g v, \ 1 , n)
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- l 1 Horboin 83
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. '. )
i a r~N 2 on distribution. I have a somewhat vague recollection p-i 3 of this issue, but you need to clarify what it is you I 4 want. l L! 5 Q Did you become aware in or. about May 1981 6 that Sen. Udall, Congressman Udall, had raised 7 questions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 8 concerning the reporting by Met Ed to the NRC of an l 9 event which occurred at Unit 2 during hot functional 10 testing in September 19777 11 A I don't remember whether I did or didn't, 12 sir. There were an awful lot of requests by an awful s 13 lot of groups for an awful long period of time about
)
' 14 a variety of events at Three Mile Island, and it is 15 unfortunately lost to me. I don't remember.
16 Q Do you remember Mr.. Arnold requesting in 17 May of 1981 that an investigation be made by GPUSC 18 into the circumstances surrounding the hot functional 19 testing incident in September '777 20 A I vaguely remen'.er that and the 21 conclusions, I believe, that were reached were --
)
22 MR, SELTZER: All he asked was do you . 4 23 renamber Arnold requesting it. 24 A I believe I do.
/~')s k-- 25 Q Now, directing your attention to the i
ir- . . . . . . . . s . . ,
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/ Herbein // -/'7 84
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first page of this document th~at's mahkad Exbibit t d) r'
-7 ~
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5 N{ 877 -
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i
-I ,am just going to -
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ask yo'u . a , cot.p 3,e o f r M,, 4 , O * %l gnj4 s ab .out statomonts that occur,on tihe first 1 -. .s , , ; Page, but 11 you wantato risa'd it"first go ahead. l '. il 3 ," 5 ' , W ' r j, . iff 6 (MR . SELTZER: If he is going to ask you l[ ,. r I' + .. 7 g. qu'e s tions about the contents of the document, t (. ,/ -
- n. f .
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2 8 you~should. read it. ,' '
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r , hy r ; , yb g MR.eii? IS KE s, Read as mu'ch as you want, , a "/ j. - ;
- i. ,,. .,
j n- . .; ' 10 a - but I am only going to ask you about the first '
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, ji 11 w page. , e :
/ 12 I
THE WITNESS: All righq sir. j 2 < e f. j
- 13 Q I direct you : att e nt'io n , Mr. Herbein, '
, ./ ,
1
~ '
14 1 to the first two sentencas on page 1 which read, 4
-: q .
i 15 r "ouring the hot functional :esting of TMI-2, l l } ,I t
- l 16 i'? September 6 to September 9, 197,(,severalevents f
17 occurred which led r.o the unusual pressurizer level
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! 18 r e spo ns e.': 'This;respont.e'was interpreted at that time ps .)>
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s ' \ 19 as steam voidi]2g in the hot legs."
,I 4 +l 20 Do'you see those two son't4ncee?
l' j,. , , 21 A 1 ' s e,e' t h re m . I 22 Q At any time -- l l l l 23 MR. SELTZER: Have you read the inside? 24 THE WITNESS: He just asked me about 25 those two sentences. I read them.
. l
~ - - .. - -=
1 Horboin 85 2 MR. SELTZER: Did you read the interior O 3 of the report? 4 THE WITNESS: No, I didn't. g 5 MR. FISKE: Let me ask my question, i
!. 6 Mr. Seltzer, and then if Mr. Herbein wants to t
7 ldok at anything else he can. 8 BY MR. FISKE: 9 Q Were you aware in or about September 1977 10 of any events which occurred in the course of hot 11 functional testing? f I 12 MR. SELTZER: Before you answer that, I 13 , am going to counsel you to read the document. C) 14 MR. FISK3: Well, Mr. Seltzer, I don't 15 think he has to read the whole document to I 16 . answer whether he knew in September of 1977 1 17 about an event which occurred in the course of i - l 18 hot functional testing. 19 MR. SELTZER: You can counsel your 20 witnesses the way you want, 'I.will counsel my 21 witnesses the way I want. I think it's a !, I 22 sound practice to have the witness read the l' ' ! 23 whole document if you are going to question him i . l 24 on it. 25 I think I have also observed you giving l
1 MorboLn 86 2 your witnesses the same advice when I was 3 asking questions.
. 4 MR. FISKE: Yes, when there were going , 5 to be questions asked abcat the whole document.
t
! 6 I am asking him abouw. September of '77. This 7 iI a report which was written in 1981 which up 6 to now he said he doesn't remember seeing.
t 9 BY MR. FISKE: 10 A I don't recall whether or not I was t 11 aware of the particulars associated with this event 12 in 1977. 13 Q Specifically, Mr. Herbein, did it come to 14 your attention in September 1977 that at any time 15 during a four-day period in the course of hot i i e 16 functional testing that something unusual had been 17 observed with respect to pressuriser level? 18 A I don't remember that. I would point out 19 that this document does state and you have put it 20 in front of me, sir --
, 21 MR. SELTZER: Don' t interrupt his answer.
22 MR. FISKE: I am going to interrupt, when 23 it's clearly a gratuitous statement. 24 MR. SELTZER: Don't throw your pad down f. () 25 on the table and get upset. You are
a - 1 Horboin 87 I-2 interrupting his answer. He is entitled to 1 O 3 finish his answer. 1 MR. FISKE: I want the question read back. i i l 5 IIR . SELTZERt I want him to finish his i 6 answer. 7 MR. FISKE: Will you read the question 8 back. 9 MR. SELTZER: If we are not going to give 10 the witness the decency to finish an answer to 1 I 11 a question, and which I have always given your 12 witnesses an opportunity to do, I think we are 13 not operating on equal festing. I don't think s O 14 you care b'eing a gentleman. j 15 MR. FISKE: Obviously I am not going to i . } 16 prevent Mr. Herbein from saying what he is 17 going to say, but I am going to say before he 18 s ay s it that I believe that he has completely 19 answered my question, and that my question has l 20 got absolutely nothing to do with what I 21 Perceive to be a gratuitous comment about the
)
22 contents of a report that Mr. Herbein said he i i l L 23 doesn't remember raading until it was put in j I l . L 24 front of him a few minutes ago. l 25 Now, if he wants to get into the' contents l l 4 l
L 1 HorbOin 88 _ 2 of the report we can talk about it separately. I
'# 3 I don't think it has anything to do with my 4 question,and having said that if Mr. Herbein 5
wants to make a statement, go ahead. G THE WITNESS: I would just comment that 7 the document contains on page 44387 a general j . i j 8 comment about the events that's described and l i i l I 9 it states: "This analysis has not indicated - l 10 any changes in plant procedures or additions
! 11 to the operator training program that would have i
12 aided operator recognition of the TMI-2 l 13 4ccident." ,
,n I
.s,) 14 MR. FISKE: Okay, fine. We will come back 15 to that in just a minute, Mr. Herbein.
16 BY MR. FISKE: 17 Q But did it come to your attention in the 18 fall of 1977 that shift test engineers had concluded 19 that the pressurizer level had been increased as a 20 result of steam voiding in the reactor coolant ii 21 system?
~}
22 A I don't recall that it did and the l 23 cover page that you asked ne to read on this l t 24 particular report states that the increases in the j,m level were certainly within the bounds of credibility ;
.-,/ 25 ;
I i.
E 1 HOrboin 89 2 due to normal system makeup.
! i kJ 3 Q I am not asking, Mr. Herbein now --
4 A Sir, that's what the report says. You 5 just put it in front o f me . G Q If you would please listen to the
, 7 question; I am not ssking you what some post-accident i '
8 in the middle of the lausuit i-restigation by GPU l '
\
9 concluded might hava caused the increase in 10 pressurizer level as well as steam voiding. I am i
. 11 not asking you what alternative explanations were 12 constructed by GPU after this lawsuit was started.
13 I am asking you what you knew and what , shift test ( ) 14 engineers concluded back at the time this event v 15 occurred back in 1977. 16 And my question is did you know in the 17 fall of 1977 or anytime before the Three Mile Island 18 accident that shift test engineers had concluded that n 19 there had been an increase in pressurizer level as 20 a result of the formation of steam in the reactor (; 21 coolant system.
)
I 22 MR. SELTZER: Objection. There is no l 23 foundation that plural, shift engineers, made 1 i . j 24 that conclusion. I think there is one entry by 1 i
- l one engineer that makes that comment.
llr^) a 25 i
i 1 Horbain 90 2 MR. FISKE: Fine, you can answer the bN' question, Mr. Herbein. 6 3
. 4 A I honestly don't recall whether I did or i
! 5 didn't. I don't believe that I ascribed any i
1. l 6 significance to this event if I in fact was aware of i 7 it. 8 Q Did you understand in the fall of 1977, 9 Mr. Herbein, that pressurizer level was an accurate 10 measure of system inventory? I 11 A I believe all of us thought in the fall 12 of 1977 that pressurizer level represented true 13 measure of system fluid inventory. n _s 14 Q Would it have been of interest to you 15 then to learn that if there was saturation in the 16 reactor coolant system pressurizer level could not 17 be relied on as an accurate level of system inventory? 18 A That was never flagged to us. No one 19 aver pointed out that pressurizer level was not an 20 accurate indication of system fluid inventory. We i 21 believed that it was. All of us did. There was no I 22 reason to believe that it wasn't. l . l I 23 Q Would the fact that pressurizer level l ,I i 1 I 24 rose when saturation' occurred in the reactor coolant i D. ,- ik ,)
~
25 system be an indication that pressurizer level was i 'l. r
y - - - -- - _- 1 Horboin 91 T 2 not an accurate measure of system inventory? I\ V 3 MR. SELTZER: I object. That's a i
, .t hypothetical question. There is no foundation l 5 that that fact came to this witness' attention, i
I G and that he focused on it.
+
7 MR. FISKE: Mr. Herbein hasn't had much 8 trouble giving hypothetical enswers to questions 9 up to now. 10 MR. SELTZER: Wall, I object to your l 11 improperly putting a hypothetical question to 12 him. I think you should ask questions that Are 13 not hypothetical and you know that. 14 MR. FISKE: I am just following up on 15 his last answer. 16 A Sir, let me state that all of us believed b 17 conclusively that pressurizer level was a true l l 18 indication of system fluid inventory. None of us 19 recognized that -- by none of us I mean members of 20 G P U,, Met Ed, that pressurizer level was an inaccurate 21 measure of system volume. We believed that to be 22 the case,as I stated previously. Pressurizer level, j 23 reactor coolant system pressure track together in the 1 24 transient related to loss-of-coolant accident and we ( 25 had no indication, no reason to believe that b -' - -
3 1 Harboin 92 t g-~g 2 pressurizer level, maintenance was not the key to b keeping the core covered. We all believed that our 3 j 4 training on the simulator, our training from Babcock I I ' 5 & Wilcox, the information provided to us by the 6 nuclear steam supply sys. tem vendor had taught us that 7 pressurizer level was the true indicator of system 8 volume. No reason to believe that it wasn't. 9 Q Was it important to you, Mr. Herbein, i 10 that it be brought to your attention any information f 11 within the Met Ed organization which would indicate 12 that' pressurizer level was not an accurate measure 13 of system inventory? . 14 MR. SELTZER: Are you asking did he 15 specifically instruct people to go out and 16 look for that information and bring it to his 17 attention? 18 MR. FISKE: No, Iat not asking that. 19 MR. SELTZER: Read the question back. 20 (Question read) 21 A Yes, it was important and I have much I 22 wished that that information that was available in 23 September 1977 concerning pakticular incidents at 24 another pressurized water reactor had been brought 4 O(m / 25 to my attention. , i
.m m
v - I ( 1 Herbein 93 i b' 2 Q Do you wish that the information that the 3 shift test engineers had about the September 1977 i 4 hot functional incident had been brought to your
'}. 'I 5 attention?
l' ll 6 MR. SELTZER: This is without the plant l 7 at power and the conditions that are in no way 8 related to a plant operating with fuel at power 7 9 MR. FISKE: I-am talking about a situation 10 where saturation produces an increase in l 11 pressurizer level, yes. 12 A This information in comparison to what 13 happened at Davis-Besse in September 1977 is trivial 14 and bears no significance to the overall import of 15 that event and the fact that we were not apprised of l 16 it. 17 Q You have since learned, Mr. Herbein, 18 that pressurizer level did rise as a result of 19 saturation in the reactor coolant system in the hot 20 functional testing? 21 MR. SELTZER: You are talking about has 22 he since learned that during this September 23 1977 event at Three Mile Island Unit 2 and !
~
24 contrary to this report that you put in-front-((() 23 of him pressuriser 1evet rose to saturation 2 i . . . . . . . . . . .. .
y _ 1 Harboin 94 l 2 MR. FISKE: Apparently on some basis he's i O 3 characterized the hot functional testing events i I
! 4 as insignificant compared to Davis-Besse. I i
5 am a little bit curious as to what the factual i 6 basis for that comparison is. 7 A Would you like me to read you what the 8 report says here on the first page? I can gladly do 9 that. I think it is very clear that the level increase 10 on 9/8/77 corresponds to a 31 GPM insurge over the I 11 time involved which could have been caused by normal 12 system makeup. 13 Q Well, Mr. Herbein, am not interested in O' 14 debating the after event in the middle of the 15 lawsuit analysis by GPU. 16' MR. SELTZER: You know, I take issue with 17 your insinuations about "in the middle of the 18 lawsuit." You people have deposed Mr. Broughton 19 and Mr. Keaten who were approvers of this 20 report. You had fair opportunity to examine 21 them to find.out whether anything in this 22 report is colored by the Cact that it was done 23 while the lawsuit was pending; and I assume if 24 there were facts to support them, you established ( 25 them. G
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1 Horboin 95 i
,- 2 Q My questions are predicated upon what the 3 shift test engineers concluded in the fall of 1977
! 4 without contradiction that any document existing in Met I
; 5 Ed at the time as to what the reason was for the I
', 6 increase in pressurizer level; namely, that it 7 resulted from saturation in,the reactor coolant 8 systemsand I am simply asking *, au wasn't it important 9 to you to have that kind of information communicated 10 to you and others in positions of responsibility at i
11 Ile t Ed? 12 MR. SELTZER: I think you ar,e distorting 13 the record. You know from testimony that you T
\ 14 hsve already elicited from the man who was in 15 charge of this startup and test program that he 16 didn't think this entry in the shift engineers' 17 test log was accurate and indicating a 18 relationship between saturation and pressurizer 19 level.
20 Mr. Ron toole has given that sworn 21 testimony. You have also examined the operator, I i 22 or engineer who wrote that entry and you know j 4 , 23 the basis on which he wrote it, i 24 MR. FISKE: Yes, I certainly do. ("")\ (, 25 A I believe that Toole and Miller and the l t i
I Harboin 96 N,
-s 2 other folks out at the plant sito would,have told me 3 about things that were significant. , 4 Q Including,Mr. Herbein,whether or not i 5 the rise in pressurizer level was in fact attribable I 6 to an increase in saturation?
I 7 A I just told you -- 8 MR. SELTZER: I object. That calls for 9 speculation on his part. It is a hypothetical.
, 10 There is no foundation what those people knew or 11 whether he was asking them to, report that 12 specific fact to him.
13 Q Let me put it this way, Mr. Herbein. C)' 14 Was it important to you that if people I 15 within your organization were aware of the concept 16 that pressurizer level would increase in the event 17 that saturation occurred in the reactor coolant 18 system that that type of information be communicated 19 to you and others in a position of responsibility? 20 A It was important and I might add that none 21 of the people in my organization recognized the 22 significance of pressurizer level existing with , 23 saturation in the coolant system or with' pressurizer f 24 level increasi[g while system pressure decreases. I O) (_ 25 None of us recognised those kinds of things. 1 i
c . .y - k 1 'Horbcin 97 i lt [ 2 Certainly in th* context that we now
, \ /'
3 view these events they were important and had my i 4 people recognized that importance had it been 5 communicat,ed to them by Babcock & Wilcox on the events l 6 that took place in September 1977 at Davis-Besse 7 any way'at all, my people would have gotten that 8 information -- it would have been important to me 9 to have it passed along. We didn't have that 10 information. My people didn't know that and we didn't I . 11 get the word. 12 MR. SELTZER: Mr. Fiske, we have run into 13 1:00 p.m. which is half an hour later than we Ox 14 usually go for lunch. l 15 MR. FISKE: Sure. 16 (At 1:00 p.m. a luncheon recess was 17 taken.) 18 19 l 20 l l l 21 . I l l 22 .! 23 . l
^
24 i /N 25 t,j i 1
l 1 Harboin 98 2 AF T E R NOO N S E S S I O N
.I._s)
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3 2:40 p.m'. 4 EXAMINATION BY 5 MR. FISKE: LCo n tinue d ) G Q Mr. Herbein, this morning in the course , 7 of one statement that you nade you referred to a last j 8 ' paragraph on page 5 of Exhibit 877. i 9 Referring to the hot functional testing l
! 10 incident which reads: "This analysis has not indicated l ! 11 any changes in plant procedures or additions to the I
i 12 operator training program that would have aided I, l 13 opero'or recognition of the TMI-2 accident.", O km 14 Do you remember that? 15 A I remember that I pointed that out to you, 16 yes, sir, i 17 Q Is it your testimony that it would not 18 have helped the operators to diagnose the TMI 2 19 accident to know that saturation in the reactor 20 coolant system can produce an increase in pressurizer i 21 level? I
-)
22 A My testimony le exactly as the record i 23 reads: I pointed out that t,he analysis as stated in i 24 this particular report concludes that no changes l(O) 25 could have come about as a result of this particular i d . - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _
l 1 Horboin 99 i 1 2 transient and the understanding we had at the present i 3 time this was experienced that would have caused us 3
! 4 to change our plant procedures or make additions to
{ i 5 the oporator training program.
?
I j 6 Now, that statement applies specifically
.I 7 to thisireport and this report in turn is an analysis 8 of the September 1977 event. Specifically, though, 9 I would like to state that had operators been made 10 aware of the fact that pressurizer level was not a 11 true indicator of system volume,.that saturation was l 12 the key to' loss of coolant, and that the only 13 condition under which the operator should throttle 14 high-pressure injection was one where a 50 degree 15 subcooling margin existed with evidence that the 16 pressurizer was about to go solid. Those particular 17 indications were known to Babcock & Wilcox following
. i 18 the Davis-Besse event, and they were not communicated 10 to us in the context which we have been referring. 20 Q Mr. Herbein, you have a lawyer sitting 21 next to you; and his function or one of his partner's 22 function when a trial comes will be to make all the g i 23 summations and all the argum,ents and pull all the 24 testimony together; you really don' t have to do that 25 in tho' course of answering the questions in the
t_ w_ .- - - - l 1 Horbein 100 2 depositions; all you have to do is answer the question
' O 3 that you are asked which you haven't done yet, so I 4 would like to move to strike what you have just said
'. 5 and ask to have my question repeated.
i I 6 MR. SELTZER: I think what he said was l 7 v$ry responsive and I think if you hadn't been 8 so upset by hearing somebody say something about 9 B & W's role and just listened to what he was
, 10 saying more carefully you would have seen that 11 it was perfectly responsive.,
12 MR. FISKE: You' are playing your role l 13 as an advocate which fou ihould. All he has 14 to do is answer the question and I don't think 15 he's done that and I don't seed to comment 16 anymore on what you said. 17 MR. SELTZER: I think his answer was 18 responsive.If you are going to have it reread, 19 I would like to have the question read and I 20 would like to hear the answer. 21 MR. FISKE: Well, I think that by the time
.I 22 Nancy goes back and finds the question and we 23 hear the answer again,. and then have it 24 repeated we are going to waste five minutes.
) 25 I am perfectly happy to put the question I
~. - _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - _ _ _ - - _ - _ - _
p-- l' 1 Horboin 101 2 again as I recall it. I think it will save us
)
~'
l 3 some time. 4 MR. SELTZER: Would you read the last i, 5 question and answer. , I
! 6 (Record read.)
i 7 MR. FISKE: I am suggesting to you, Mr. Herbein, I 8 that the record establishes that it was 9 known to Met Ed, that a pressurizer level 10 increase could result from the presence of 11 saturation in the reactor coolant system; and 12 I am asking you specifically about that concept 13 and nothing else in this question, and I am
\w. 14 asking you is it your testimony that it would k5 not have been helpful to the operators in 16 diagnosing the accident to know that pressurizer 17 level could increase as a result of saturation 18 in the reactor coolant system?
19 A It would have been helpful to us. We 20 were not aware of it. We were not made aware of it, 21 and we should have been. I 22 Q When you said in the last answer, l 23 Mr. Herbeln, "We were not aware of it," you were
~
24 referring to yourself, were you not? t'%. f (,,) 25 A I was referring tO Metropolitan Edison 4 l.
i Horboin 102 2 Company and that includes the operations people, the p l ss 3 engineering group, all of us that were involved with 4 Three Mile Island from Met Ed's standpoint, . l 5 specifically we were not aware of saturation phenomena l G being able to exist in the reactor coolant system with
- I ^
7 an indicated pressurizer levels and I just stated that 8 had we been aware of that information,had that been i I 9 communicated to us in our training programs, had that 10 been communicated to us by the Babcock & Wilcox I
'I team most assuredly that would have been an asset. to 12 us the morning of March 28, 1979 but that was not 13, communicated to us and we were not aware of that.
D). (, 14 Q In your answer, Mr. Herbein, do you 15 purport to be of the knowledge for the shift test 16 engineer who wrote the log entz/ with respect to 17 the September 1977 transient, are'you telling us that 13 he wasn't aware of this concept? 19 A I think you have taken that particular 20 statement completely out of context, i 21 Q Do you know one way or the other,
.)
22 Mr. Herbein, whether he was aware of that c or.c ap t? 23 A I don't know wae,ther he was or he wasn't. ; 24 Q Do hou know one way or the other whether
/~N Mr. Toole was aware of that concept?
(x 25
i Horboin 103 2 A I think we have already discussed that O b 3 Mr. Toole discounted any evidence of saturation and in 4 thus discounting was obviously not aware of the i ( saturation implications to a loss of reactor coolant l 5 6 accidents. 7 Q* You are not aware that Mr. Toole has 8 testified under oath in a deposition in this case that 9 he was aware of the fact that saturation in the 10 reactor coolant system will produce an increase in i i 1 11 pressuri.zer level? l 12 MR. SELTZER: ! object. You are just 13 saying what your interpretation is of testimony. l , 14 I am not sure I agree with that. 15 Q Have you read Mr. Toole's testimony? 16 A No, I haven't read Mr. Toole's testimony, 17 but we talked about Mr. Toole's recollection this 18 morning. 19 Q Either you are not listening to the 20 question or yoo don't understand it. All I am trying 21 to develop, Mr. Herbein, which I think -- 22 MR. SELTZER: I object to that snide 23 comment. I don' t think, your attac ks on the : 24 , witness personally that way are called for. D 4 ( f 25 MR. FISKE: It's not a personal attack. I 1 g i.
4 1 Horbein 104
. MR SELTZER: I have tried very hard not to 2 say things like that to your witnesses. I have i
O 3 had some real difficulty getting responses from
, 1 your witnesses.
5 MR. FISKE: It's not a perconal attack
! 6 on the witness, that he doesn' t understand the 7 - question. I don't know why you have to escalate 8 it into a personal attack. I am pointing out to 9 Mr. Horbein that my question was whether he knew 10 that Mr. Toole was aware of the concept that j
1
' saturation in the reactor coolant system will 11 12 produce an increase in pressurizer level, 13 whether or not Mr. Toole concluded that that 14 was the particular cause for the rise in l 15 pressurizer leval that occurred during hot 16 functional testing, 17 MR. SELTZER: Is that a question or a 18 statement?
19 MR. FISKE: It's a question. 20 THE WITNESS: You are going to have to go 21 back over the question again because I don't l 22 understand what you believe Mr. Toole stated 23 on his record and what,I in turn understand J - 24 about what Mr. Toole stated on his record O 25 according to your interpretation, ( ,/ t
r 1 Herbein 105 2 BY MR. FISKE: il 3 Q Number one, to save a little times Do you ., 4 know what Mr. Toole testified to in his deposition? l\ [ 5 MR. SELTZER: I am going to object. I am II l- 6 going to say that I don't think it's the proper l'
- 7 way to conduct an examination to ask Mr. Herbein
! 8 does he know what someb'dyo else testified to in I i 9 their deposition in this case, which deposition 10 took place years after the accident and years
~
i I 11 after points that are relevant to the case. 3 12 MR. FISKE: Believe me, Mr. Seltzer, I 13
- couldn't agree more under ordinary circumstances,
} f')i
\_, 14 but when a witness gives a blanket answer saying 15 nobody at Met Ed was aware of this concept it 16 seems to me he's opened the door to some kind of 17 questioning, the extent of which he is personally 18 aware of whether anybody else in the company was 19 aware of this.
20 If Mr Herbefn will limit his tectimony 21 to his own personal knowledge, we obviously
-g s.
22 aren't going to have a problem, i !. 23 THE-WITNESS: Who else's knowledge are 24 we talking about when you ask me questions? j (O,) 25 MR. FISKE: I would hope we are only
c_ _ _
~-- -
1 Earboin 106 2 asking about yourself. 7s U 3 THE WITNESS: Well, what did I just state,
; 4 that nobody at Met Ed to the best of my } 5 knowledge had the awareness that saturated
.i i' 6 conditions in the reactor coolant system were el 7 in' fact the key to a LOCA. { 8 Q Fine, so you weren't aware before the 9 sccident of anybody at Met Ed that knew that, is that j 10 correct? I 11 MR. SELTZER: That's what he just said. l 12 Q Is that right, Mr. Herbein? 13 A That's correct. , 14 (Record read.) 15 Q Let me show you a document, Mr. Herbein -- 16 THE 'ITNESS:
. Could.I go back and 17 clarify the last exchange?
18 MR. SELTZER: Go ahead. 19 MR. FISKE: I think the record should note 20 that that request by Mr. Herbein followed a 21 statement made to hit. by 'tr. Seltzer which I ,
) 1 22 couldn't hear. Go ahead, Mr. Herbein, you can f 23 add a'nything you want. -
24 THE WITNESS: I was trying to clarify that i
g s_,/ 25 the best of my knowledge and in my opinion no i
1 Marboin .107 4 2 one at Met Ed prior to the Three Mile Island 3 Unit 2 accident in March 1979 recognized that 4 saturation in fact was the key symptom of a loss 5 of coolant accident. That particular f act was i 6 unknown to us and was not included in our 7 training programs, We didn't practice 'that on 8 the simulator and we didn t make the 9 association with that particular symptom which 10 we now know was the key to recognizing a l 11 loss-of-coolant accident. 12 BY MR, FISKE: 13 Q You say, Mr. Herbein, that you understand 14 now that the ex,istencg of saturation is the key to 1 15 recognizing a loss-of-coolant accident? 16 Is that your testimony? 17 MR. SELTZER: Read that question again, 18 please. 19 (Question read.1 20 A That's one of the principal keys and 21 that particular key came from our understanding of W 22 the TMI 2 accident and the way in which we now l
-I 23 approach a treatment of the symptoms that exist in 24 the control room following a transient and
~ .O 25- .specifically as a result of the TMI 2 accident the
\~ /
a
.-.3 -
c --
._ m ,, _ _ _- _. -- -
1 Horboin 108 i I
<w 2 entire group of electric utilities that operate 3 through nuclear power plants hc ie been made to
, 4 realizo that saturation is in fact a principal
! 5 indicator, a kay symptom of a loss-of-coolant l
6 accident. { 1 7 Q Is it your testimony, Mr. Herbein, that 8 before the Three Mile Island accident that you 9 wouldn' t have thought that the existence.of 10 saturation in the reactor coolant system was a 11 symptom of a LOCA? 12 A I would not have ascribed the significance 13 to it that we now do. Bofore the accident we focused (
\' ' 14 on large breaks and reflood of the core and 15 maintenance of pressurizer level. The entire focus 16 before the accident was on the pressurizer level 17 parameter. And if you had pressurizer level then 18 the core was covered and if the core was covered then 19 you wouldn't have fuel damage and fission product 20 rcisase.
21 Q You understood, didn't you, before the 22 accident that a drop in pressure was one of the 23 symptoms of a LOCA? - 24 A I have stated previously a drop in (~N kss 25 pressure a'nd accompanied by a drop in pressurizer J 1
-(
I Harboin 103 i 2-
~
level was, in fact, an acknowledged symptom of a j O. 3 loss-of-coolant accidents they always went together,
- ,- 4 we understood that.
i, J
.I 5 We, however, on March 28, 1979 did not
'I have the decrease in level accompanied by its twin; l 6
\
t
~
i.e., d5 crease in pressure. We, in fact, had 8 pressurizer level increasing and symptom pressure 9 decrease. No one ever told us that that particular 10 phenomena could occur and that that in itself was a 11 11 symptom representing a loss-of- coolant accident. -l I. . jl 12 Q Why don't we do this, Mr. Herbein a if i 4 13 you want to just deem that the lame part of your 14 answer is built into every answer that you give from t 1 j 15 now on, whatever the question is,we can do that. Then 16 we will have a standing motion that we can strike it s 17 all out later as unresponsive, but I think we have 18 heard that in response to questions on a wide range .a 4 19 of questions where it may or may not be responsive. 4 20 Let me just go on to press this, what I l
- 21 was trying to get at a'little further
- Before the i 5 l 22 accident you understood that saturation results from {
i l 23 a combination of pressure temperature relationships, ! i ., I 24 isn't that coreact? l A) (_, 25 A saturation..does result from a t
-m _
q t ,
, ., , , ,A ,, ,
,, I' Horbein ' t ' , 't s ?
110 I h, 2 combination of pressure temperature, , 3 Q Andyouhadawholebun[hof curves, j 4 didn't you, in your procedures which provided what-has
; ~ .s s 5 been referred to previously as , a pressure temperatire , ,. .
j s . 6 envelope which would maintain the pressure ~ tempyature *
\. . ,
i relationship at some level higher,than a' poi'nt ht'
, i' vni:h saturation would occur, isn't that correcV7 '
\ 8 \
s, o s : l l , I 9 A Pressure temperatu e relat.onship that i, 10 " t you are speaking about in my f@ inion is the pressure
,I
- j s . -
i i -
.\
11 temperature-anvelope providedsby th3 reactor
"?,,' ,
12 protection system. T* - s s , 4 g 'q ; 13 , Q yAnd ther. is a pressure tehperature , i $.( ,,
; O 14 relationship that if you stgy, (a those cgrves you w'ill v.
15 maintain the til tionshis at a level' abovi-the point , t ... 16 at which any oaturation would, occur, isn't that right? .'
\ ,
17 A Tou will'do that and it w'ill m'aintain1 the ' 18 relationship well above saturation envelope and, in4 s t> 19 fact, that is not the key consideration in thap - i i s 20 envelope. There are other considerations which havs. y 1 , I 21 to do with high pressure -- correction, variable' ,i-4 y 22 temperature relationshipss and higli tem'perature, and , l 23 the purpose of that curve was .never explicitly pointed ! 24 out or connotated to us in any way to be specifically e ( o) 25 there to maintain conditions above saturation. L -_ _ _ . . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ . _
m
-.:4 2 . _ . _ -
3___ a 2 - m ~ _ , - - 1 Ecrboin 111 - 6 2' That was the envelope provided by the i A , 3 reactor protection system that insured the safe
- l. ,
4 operation of the reactor while it was at power, and 1 j 5 in fact, provided us a guarante.e that our DNBR would l 6 always be above 1.3. 7 g And you knew that if you stayed on those , 8 curves you would be above the point at which 9 saturation would occur, did you not? 1 10 A The focus, as I stated previously, was 1 , i2 11 that by remaining in that onvelope while operating at 12 power, we would maintain a DMBR greater than 1.3.
- 13 Far below that particular a spect or parameter is the
\/ 14 concern about saturation.
15 Q So that you did know if you stayed on l i . 16 the curve you would not be saturated, correct? 17 MR. SELTZER: Are you implying that the f 18 purpose for staying on the, curve or above the i - 19 curve was to avoid saturation? 1- 20 MR. FISKE: I think that's a matter of 21 argument, Mr. Seltzer. I am just trying to get g 22 answers to the questions. I am not trying to , i
- I 23 I t try the whole case on Mr. Herbein's deposition
- i 24 even though maybe you and he want to. l l
(~% 1 km,) 25 MR. SELTZER: I think all he is trying to L l I'
. . .-- -_ _ _ . , - . . . . _ ~ __. ._
c .,. . _ . . , _ - - _ . - . __ . _ _ . . . . . . _ _ 1 Horbein 112 -
.l 2 do is be accurate and responsive to your
- ! 3 questions.
4 MR. FISKE So I have noticed. 5 Q Mr. Herbein, what I would like to find {. 6 out as a matter of fact, you did understand, didn't 7 you, during the time before the accident that if you l i 8 maintained pressure temperature relationships 9 consistent with those curves that set forth the 10 pressure temperature you would not be in saturated 11- conditions, isn't that ri'gh t? 12 A Through a series of analysic and t 13 deductions one could eventually somehow arrive at 14 that conclusion, but the fundanental thrust is that 15 the reactor protection system kept us safe from a l
- f 16 DNBR standpoint and by maintaining that pressure l 17 temperature relationship,that box,that operating 18 envelope, if you will, with the reactor protection
( i 19 system sensors and trip capability, we stayed above 20 the DFBR of 1.3. i 21 Far down the rc ad of that particular j ' 5 l .l 22 instance one does get into departure from nucleate L 23 boiling and eventually saturatio'n, but the key l' 24 thrust was not to have a reactor protection system - () 25 that protected us from bulkJ core boiling. That was
, + . , . , - . - - , , . , - - - , , - - - , , , ,
e 7 1 Horboin 113 L 1 2 not the principal thrust of that system. We were p.
' staying far above that. We were keeping our DNBR j 3 l
4 greater than 1.3. i 5 Q And you knew that if pressure dropped 6 below that curve to some point, a condition could I i 7 occur at'which boiling would start? l 8 MR. SELTZER: A re you asking him if that 9 was discussed or reviewed before the accident? 10 MR. FISKE: I am asking about a very 11 fundamental concept,whether he understands this l 12 basic concept of a pressurized water reactor. 13 That's all I am asking him. I don't know [
' whether it was necessary to discuss it or not.
14 15 I am just asking whether he understands it. 16 MR. SELTZER: You are asking him if this 17 is something he thought about before the Three 18 Mile Island accident? 19 MR. FISKE: Yes, let's put this in real 20 simple terms. - 21 Q In any time of your career from the Navy
-)
22 Nuclear School in 1965 right through to the day of 23 the accident, did the though,t ever cross your mind 24 at any time thak if the pressure in this pressurized f3 i 25 water reactor was not maintained at a certain level
%.)'
1 v ,
1 Horboin 114' ,1 2 that the water in the reactor coolent system at a t-x_/ 3 temperature of 550, 600 degrees might start to boil? 4 A Yes, and in the instance I am thinking of I
, 5 it was when a 36-inch pipe sheared and the contents i
G of the reactor coolant system flashed and it was 7 necessary to cover the core by regaining pressurizer 8 level through injection systems, but the loss of 9 pressure end the accompanying flash or evidence of 10 saturation conditions was really not significant in
! 11 light of a large break. It was a secondary or tertiary l
12 condition. I 13 Q And you understood that the, saturation () 14 point was itself a moving point dependent upon 15 pressure temperature relationships, didn't you?
~
16 A I understand tist water boils at different I 1 17 temperatures. i 18 Q When the pressures and temperatures j 19 reach that particular level or that particular point i 20 the water starts to boil no matter what the 1 21 pressurizer level is, isn't that correct?
')
l 22 A I never understood that. We always 23 focused before the Three Mile Island Unit 2 event on ; 24 pressurizer level, and if you had pressurizer level I' \ 25 you had the core covered. There was just never any l L_)
3-L ... - m._. 1 Herbein 115
-s 2 question about whether the system is boiling and
\~# whether you could have satu ati n with pressurizer 3
,, 4 level, and whether pressurizer level was a true
.i
; 5 indicator of system volume.
6 If you had pressurizer level, the core i 7 was cov e'r e d . If tha core was covered, you didn't 8 have boiling. { i ! You knew, didn't you, Mr. Her$ein, that ! 3 Q 10 the thing that created the boiling was the l 11 relationship between the pressure and the temperature. 12 not anything having to do with the pressurizer level 13 itself, isn't that correct? ("'/
\s-N 14 A Restate that question, please. l 15 MR. FISKE: Sure. Read it back.
l 16 (Question road.) i 17 A I am going to have to ask for clarification 18 on the context of that question. I have told you that 19 my understanding relative to boiling was that yes you 20 got boiling when you sheared the large pipes, 21 circulating coolant through the fuel and if there was i 22 flashing, there was saturation that really was on l i 23 those big break accidents, secondary and tertiary 24 condition. 4 O)
'( ,
25 I have stated that and I have also told
- w. . .. .. .
.w. , +
1 1 Horboin 116 i 2 you ,that our understanding through all break sizes 1'/ f) 3 and in all events was that if you had a pressurizer l i I j_ 4 level and'the fact you had an accurate representation [' 5 of reactor coolant system volume, then the nuclear i . i- 6 fuel was covered with water. l l 7 Q' Mr. Herbein, are you familiar with the 8 change that was made in the LOCA-procedure sometime i in 1978 as a result of something that was called a 9 10 small break analysis? i t 11 A Not specifical'y wi:h only that as a 12 description. Could you be a little more precise? 13 Q Sure. Le t me show you a documcst, 14 Exhibit 419. Did you ever see that before the 15 accident, this being a letter from Mr. Ward at B & W 16 to Mr. L.C. Lsnese, GPU Service Corporation forwarding U a copy of the ECCS small break analysis for 2772 MWt 18 plants? 19 A Sir, I don't really recall this document 20 or particular changes that may have been generated 21 as a result of this docuuent.
.)
22 -Q Let me show you another document which 23 has been marked as B & W Exhibit 778. This is titled 24 " Supplement 3" in the right-hand corner.
,Q ~
i-(j 25 Do you recognize this as a supplement to
;-} -
i 1 Horboin 117 2 the Met Ed FSAR? 3 A No, I really don't. Is there any evidence 3 4 that I was copied on this? 5 g I don't know whether you were or you ,i
! 6 weren't.
)
'f 7 A' I don't recall this. - 8 Q Just hold that one for a moment and let me 9 show you another document which has been previously 10 marked B & W 474 which is a Three Mile Island GORB i 11 cction item. And I believe it's number 31. It's 12 dated June 15, 1 9 7 8'. 13 Do you have that in front of you? D 14' A Yes, I do. 15 Q You were a member of the GORB in June of 16 '787 17 A I was a member of the GORB in June of '78. 18 Q Those items say, "Are there changes which 19 should be made in the process for acquisition and use , 20 of information about incidents at other. nuclear plants 21 as ono way to forecast and avoid nuclear and radiation l } I 22 safety problems at TMI Units 1 and 2." l And in response it says "See attached ! 23
\ .
24 response."
) ,) 25 Did this document come to your attention,
1 Horboin 118 i 2 Mr. Hcrbein, as a member of the GORB?
. 3 A I don't remember this particular document, 4 but it certainly seems reasonable that the GORB with j 5 its oversight concern would be interested in the i ! 6 information exchanged on transients and industry I
7 experience. 8 Q Let me read to you from Exhibit 778, 1 9 which is the first one I showed you a minute ago, 10 the third paragraph up from the bottom. It says, i 11 "Other typical sources of do cumented information 12 include nuclear industry periodicals and newspapers -- l 13 A Where are you reading? () 14 Q It's the third par. graph up from the 15 bottom. 16 A Okay. 17 Q 4ANS publications Nucleonics Week, Atomic 18 , Energy Clearinghouse, other. plant licensing and operation-19 al reporting information. submitted to the NRC and 20 nuclear plant abnormal occurrence and experience 21 reports interchanged through informal agreements with .
) 22 other utilities.
l I 23 'tThese documents ,are routed to senior engine'en-24 ing personnel and engineering management personnel and are 25 informally reviewed by them for. applicability to their
1 Horboin 119 1 i 2 function or other functions within GPU. At their e
. ,-m ks _) 3 discretion portions may be routed to others for 4 information and action if judged necessary."
I Does that paragraph accurately state the t 5 l 6 procodures that were in effect at Met Ed during the , i 7 period 1977 through the day of the accident? J 8 A I believe it states some of the procedures 9 that were in effect, and I believe it states them 10 accurately. There may have been other modes of
! 11 exchange not itemized here that we depended on.
12 Q Did you personally receive any of the 13 documents referred to in that paragraph? I V) 14 . A Well, that's really hard to say if I did 15 or I didn't. Obviously as vice president of 16 Generation in charge of nuclear and fossil plant I 17 operations, I received the industry periodicals and 18 a variety of publications. 19 Q Let me make it easier for you: Were you 20 on a routing list to receive publications distributed 21 in that paragraph on a regular basis?
~
22 A I may have been on the routing list for j l ' l 23 the Atomic Energy Clearinghouse documents, and I i 24 obviously was ihvolved with licensing correspondence 25 between Metropolitan Edison and the Nuclear If) o e
~~
i-
j 1 Hcrboin 120 2 RLgulatory Commission. A k-- 3 Q Were you on the routing list for LER 's from 4 other utilities?
, 5 A I don't recall that I was.
6 Q Were you on a routing list for Nucleonics 7 Week? - g A I may have been, although I don't recall. j 8 l I would add, not characterize this as the routing list j 9 i 10 for the vice president. This is characterized as the 1 l 11 typical sources of documented information that was 1 ' 12 made available to functions within GPU., l 13 Q I am not suggesting that the paragraph () 14 that I just read by itself indicates that you were on 15 the routing list for any of these. It refers to 16 senior engineering personnt1 and engincering 17 management personnel. I am simply trying to find out 18 whether you were on any such list. 19 A I have answered the question to the best 20 of my recollection. 21 Q Who did you understand within the TMI 2 I 22 organization was reviewing this kind of publication? 23 A I believe that our organization in 24 Metropolitan Edison Company, Generation Division, (), 25 obtained its review of industry experience by the
' A-- _ _ _ __ ,
.1 Herbein 121 V
t review of the various industry experiences at both gw 2
+ nV 3 the corporate level in our liceising department and l; i ,: 4 our corporate engineering group as well as review of
- 1 it f{ 5 industry experience from various forums by the plant
!i. - t! 6- operating staffs. 4 ! '
- 7 Q who were you referring to when you 8 referred to the corporate' level"?
4 9 A. Well, the licensing department became. j 10 aware of industry experience through NRC bulletins, 11 circulars and notices. Those publications produced 4 12 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission made us aware on j 13 a fairly prompt basis of industry transient experience, t j 14 hardware experience, what have you, and we in some 15 cases were required to respond to that experience 16 by taking certain action. In other cases the f 17 information was passed on to us just as that, l
, 18 information.
4 . I
- . 19 Q Well, did you understand that people 20 within the Met Ed organization at both TMI 1 and l
I 21 TMI 2 were receiving LER's from other plants? 4 I j 22 A I don't really know that I knew that or l 23 that I focused on it. I suppbse it seems reasonable l i 24 -that people at the site woald' h ave had access to the - l l (. 25 industry experience through the informational devices i i
-- ~J
.._r.. -
, , ,rm,, ,4_m. ,, . , , - - . - , _ . _ , , . , , .%,___.. .4 - x,,- .
3 : xw . = . _ - .y - 1 Herbein 122 i 2 that are listed here in this B & W 778. j 3 Q And did you have the same understanding 4 with respect to publications such as current Events ll !! 5 Power React, ors, Nucleonics Week and the Atomic Energy ti k 6 clearinghouse? 7 A I would say I had that general 8 understanding, but I can't say that there were !
- 9 particular issues of Nucleonics Week that were set up 10 on a specific routing distribution system. I can il 11 only answer the question generally.
a{-
- 12 Q Were you satisfied during the period of 2
i ' j 13 time that you held the position that you did from 14 June '77 through March '79 that there were adequate i 15 procedures in place within THI 2 for the. review of k . ( 16 these types of publications in order to gain the f 17 benefit for TMI 2 of operating experiences at other L ! 18 plants? 1 i-2 19 A .I can't speak to p->cedures, but I can I 20 speak to the actual practice which I believe was [ I 21 totally responsive and was acceptable and as-I have ! I 22 indicated, there were not only the methods listed l r .i l 23 here, but also what I believe to be fairly good I t I 24 information exchange between ourselves and Babcock &
- i. f m s- 25 Wilcox,'ourselves and the Nuclear Regulatory r
(
., . . , ,, __..__.,.c ,, , , . , , , . , , , , . . ~,r.... . . , , , . , , . . . . - , , _ - . , . , . . , - , ._..m..... - . . . . _ , , , - .
-1 Harboin 123 f 2 Commission and others.
/' g Directing your attention to a document 3
.t . which has been marked as B & W Exhibit 161, which is
- l .
5 an issue of Current Events Power Reactors which 6 discusses the Davis-Besse trans'.ent of September, ' 7 7,.
'ii 7 I show yoa that and direct your attention to page 3 8 where it states: "The formation of steam in the
- 9. reactor coolant system caused an insurge of water 10 into the pressurizer."
11 I ask you whether before the accident l 12 you saw that document and were you aware of that 13 statement? i _sl 14 MR. SELTZER: It's under the " Valve 1 15 Malfunction" section. 16 A on page 2 it states'that the particular
- 17 incident in question was a valve malfunction at the 18 Davis-Besse nuclear power station.
19 MR. SELTZER: Now, focus on his question. 20 Q I am referring to the section that says f 21 " Primary System Depressurization." j
)
22 A Are you speaking about the fourth 1 23 paragraph down on page 37 . ; 1 f - 24 Q Yes. [ A l () 25 A I don't specifically remember seeing 4
r_ t . nerb dA 124 l I 2 this document or being made aware of its existence by O 3 either the NRC or B & W, or any of our own in-house 4 people. I 5 Q You said that you received the Atomic I
.f G Energy Clearinghouse publication. Let me show you a 7 document which has been marked as part of B & W 247,
- 8 which is the portion relating to the Davis-Besse !
D transient of September '77 and ask you whether you
! 10 received that document before the Three Mile Island i
l 11 accident? 12 A I don't know if I did or I did'not. I 13 don't recall receiving it. 14 Q And again on what appears to be page 3, 15 the fourth paragraph there is a statement that says
\
16 "The formation of steam in the reactor coolant system
]
17 created an insurge of water into the pressurizer." 18 Is it your testimony that you didn't read 19 that before the accident? 20 A That's my testimony. , 21 Q Is it also your testimony, Mr. Herbein, 22 that you didn't learn about the Davis-Besse transient 23 from the Davis-Besse LER or from the copy of the i . 24 Nuclear Power Experience? 25 A I didn't learn about it from either of I- . , . . . . _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 % I 1 Horbein 125 2 those documents. (/ (, 3 Q After the accident were you involved in i 4 any inquiry or investigation that went on within Met i
Ed to try to determino what information there was f G within the Met Ed organization about the Davis-Besse l
7 transient prior to the Three Mile Island accident? 8 A Sir, I may have been, and I am not 9 purposely being unresponsive. I was involved in a 10 number of investigations, a number of responses to a 1
! 11 number of different groups in a n' umber of forums over l
12 a fairly extended time peri 6d, and the particular 13 focus or search that you are talking about I am not () 14 specifically aware, but that's not to say that I wasn't 15 involved. I just don't remember. 16 Q Do you still have Exhibit 74 in front of 17 you? 18 A I have it now, sir. 19 Q Do you see the handwriting on page 27 20 A The second page into the document? 21 Q Yes. l ' ' I 22 A I see the handwriting. 23 Q Do you recognize it? , 24 A No, I do not, f;
\_/
25 Q Do you see where it says: " Current i I
,m - 1 Horbein 126 i Ll lt 2 Status" on the top? {'
' N. 3 A Ye8-o ; 4 Q It says, "The following are existing means l
5 of reviewing information about nuclear plant , {
.p 6 instances," and then it lists, "1. Current Events ,i 7 Power Reactors; 2. Federal Digest; 3. Clearinghouse 8 Weekly summaries of NRC docket; 4. Operating 9 experience publications by NRC."
10 And then it says, " Note: The above t 11 documents are received at the site and reviewed by 12 the superintendents or their administrative assistants. 13 These are routed to cognizant department heads and lead () 14 engineers." 15 Could you tell us who the cognizant 16 department heads and lead engineers are that are 17 referred.to in that statement? 18 A They were department heads at Three Mile 19 Island Unit 1 and Unit 2, and the organizational 20 diagrams in effect at the time detailed that they were 21 the maintenance department head, the operations c ) 22 department head, the station engineer who had the 23 lead engineers reporting to ,him in the on-site 24 engineering department. It is conceivable that the administrative (f m 25 h
1 Harboin 127 2 department head would have been includ,ed also. k 3 Q Who was the operations head at TMI 2 4 before the accident? I j 5 A Mr. Jim Floyd.
!- .6 Q Who was the sta. ion engineer?
I 7 Ai Mr. George Kunder. 8 Q It says: "The training department also f l 9 reviews these documents and formally schedules 10 dissemination and discussion of other nuclear plant i
! 11 operating experience as part of the requalification l
12 program for all operations department personnel, and 13 , all licensed personnel." 14 Do you know who in the training 15 department was responsible for reviewing the n . 1 16 documents that are listed there? i 17 A I believe I have learned since the 18 accident that that function was assigned to N.elson 19 Brown. f ! 20 Q The next item is: " Personnel with other i J 21 plants (al is through B 4.W users groups and i I ' 22 subcommittees." I 23 Do you see that? ? l 24 A Yes, I see that. 25 Q You were instrumental, were you not, in t l '
. _ -._. _,. ~ ., ..
w _
. :- .- : =;-- .-- --- w c- -- -- , = -. -
1 Harboin 128 h: 2 setting up the B & W users group? i O 3 A That's correct. I was asked by B aW to
, 4 chair that group initially.
I i l i 5 Q When was that? i i 6 A I believe I was asked to chair that group I 7 by Walt 'vannoy in the spring of 1976. S Q For how long did you remain chairman? 9 A That may have been on the order of six 10 months to a year. I i 11 Q . Did you go to any meetings of the B & W ! 12 users group after June of '777 13 A No, I don't recall that I did.
, 14 Q Item (e) under paragraph 5 says: " Direct 15 Contact." That refers, I take it to direct contact 16 between Met Ed and the other plants?
s 17 A Well, it depends, I guess, how you 18 construe that. That could be direct contact with 19 B & W, other plants, NRC. 20 Q Well, were there procedures, Mr. Herbein, 21 before the Three Mile Island accident whereby contacts
')
l 22 would be.made by Met Ed with other utilities directly?
. i 23 A I think there was a practice to meet as 24 members of the Nuclear Power Subcommittee as to 25- members of the 13 & W users group, as members of the 1 - _
1 Herb in 129 B & W utilities as far as B '& W seminars that were
.i i
O 3 held on an annual basis, so I would say that while
', 4 one may not be able to point to a specific piece of i.
{ 5 paper there were certainly accepted practices where 6 we communicated. j 7 Q' And there were procedures also, were there 8 not, Mr. Herbein, for direct contact between Met Ed 9 and other utilities apart from the type of group 10 meetings that you have just described? 11 A I told you I can't relate to any written 12 documents that describe how contacts were initiated 13 between utilities, but we did have the groups and
) 14 certainly we had phone numbers and the ability to 15 communicate.
16 Q Let me show you a document that's been 17 marked previously as Exhibit 297 and ask you whether 18 you saw that before the Three Mile Island accident? 19 It's a memorandum from Mr. Miller to 20 Mr. Floyd and Seelinger. 21 A I don't remember seeing it. I don't note 22 that I am listed on distributica. I 23 Q Paragraph 2 says, "J.L. Seelinger to 24 assign an engineer to call both Davie-Besse and Y() 25 Crystal River and obtain a current copy of their
'L 1 Harboin 130 I 2 technical specifications. Have the engineers state l i \ (_) 3 that they are calling for the Unit 2 superintendent, , I that is me, from TMI. If the response is not adequate 5 here, then I will personally call a supectntendent or 6 have J.G. Herbein call. Additionally, I feel that i 7 this should be done on a quarterly basis to keep with j i l
! l
! 8 their program and maybe we can provide them with some >
l l < i 9 system in an area to compensate for this." 10 Were you aware in or about March of 1977 11 that Mr. 21111er was making that request of 12 Mr. Seelinger. and Mr. Floyd? 13 A I don't specifically recall that I was, { .
/s
'tv) 14 but it makes sense that we would want to stay even 15 with crystal River's standard tech specs because of 16 the development of similar tech specs on Unit 2.
17 Q How about Davis-Be=se, did tha t make 18 sense, too? 3 19 MR. SELTZER: Did they have standard 20 tech specs? i 21 A I can only speak relative to Cryctal
! }
l 22 River. I don't really understand why we were into 23 ; Davis-Besse. My only recollection of this time 24 frame was that Crystal was coming along. They were
,m
.' \
25 a plant similar to ourselves, having a common
\_-
l 1 norboin a3a i
.2 architect engineer, It seems to me they were in a ,j 3 common time sequence that was analogous to ourselves 4 and wo were interested in keep.ng track of how their-j 5 tech specs were developing with the NRC, and felt l ~j 6 that that would be helpful.to our development.
I 7 g i Are you telling us now about something 0 that you recall or something that you are now saying 9 makes sense to you? . 10 A No, I am talking about something that I +l' 4 II am relating to relative to my recollections of my 12 thoughts at that time. 13 In other words, you recall thinking then Q i b
\_) I4 it would be a good idea to stay in touch with Crystal i
15 River for the reasons you just said? 16 A Yes, and it seems this is in keeping with l 17 that understanding.
- IO And did you have any understanding at
, Q i
19 that time that similar contacts-were going to be 20 made with Davis-Besse? t 21 A No, no I don't, and I am not sure why I l } 22 don't recall that. It is just in my mind I can't j l ; I i l 23 relate that Davis-Besse was,at the same evolutionary 24 point that Crystal River was. That does not certainly
/*N
, ( ,) 25 prohibit us or negate the fact that.these fellows l l
_ . _ . ~ ., i Horbein 132 a 2 were going to communicate with Davis-Besse. It's i -- 3 just that I don't recall that we.did that, i 4 Q Look at the next paragraph -- excuse me,
! ~
- 5. if you want to wait until Kr. Seltzer finishes, 6 that's okay.
'l 7
MR. SELTZER: Go right ahead. i 8 Q Mr. Herbein, looking at the next 9 paragraph which says "J.R. Floyd interface interact 10 with procedure writers, the NRC, B & W, DNBR and l l o ther utilities. l 11 l 12 "This means that I expect calls to be 1- l 13 made to Davis-Besse, Crystal River and the NRC, and , l I 1 14 once a week.to determine changes in items of interest 15 in the program," 16 Did it ever come to your attention that 17 Mr. Miller was making that request of Mr. Floyd, 18 that he contact Davis-Besse around once a week to 19 determine changes in items af interest in the 1 20 program? 21 MR. SELTZER: .The standard tech spec
)
22 program? 23 MR. FISKE: Whatever program Mr. Miller 24 was referring to. i E (,j 25 A This entire memorandum, as I understand g
l' Herbein 133 { - 2 it, having reviewod it today is entitled "STS," that -
,y 3 stands for standard technical specifics, so the 4 communications which I believe we were referring to
,I
'. 5 here are on that specific document, and the 6 developments that were takigy place on that specific 7 document'with the NRC and the other utilities that 8 were being shepherded into converting their tech 9 specs into this styled document.
10 MR. SELTZER: The question is -- k 11 Q I will put the question, Mr. Seltzer. I 12 w'ould like to know whether in that last answer you l 13 were giving us some kind of limitation limiting 14 construction of this document as you now read it, or 15 whether you were telling us about something that you l
~
16 knew was going on back in 1977-78. l 17 MR. SELTZER: The testimony by Jack 18 Herbein so far is he doesn't think he got a 19 copy of this. He is not indicated as getting 20 a copy. 21 MR. FISKE: I don't need a rehash of I 22 , the testimony, Mr. Seltzer. 23 MR. SELTZER: Mr. Fiske, you are !- (
- 24 usually, and Bob Wise, your associate, is
() 25 enormously sensitive about my intrusion on the
- ____.-.____-_________-m.__
J. 1 Herboin 134
! 2 'rocord when he is speaking. In fact, he is so . 3 sensitive about it that it embarrasses me.
l'-
,1 MR. FISKE: The First Amendment applies 'i j 5 here, Mr. S e l t ,z e r . You have free speech, go i.
6 ahead. i
' l 7 , MR. SELTZER: Gary Miller was deposed for 8 probably longer than any witness from GFU, and
[ 9 Mr. Miller gave extensive testimony on what he 10 meant by this. I think that it's a waste of i I 11 time to keep pressing Mr. Herbein for what he 12 knows about this when there has been testimony 13 by the author of the memo and by Jim Seelinger, 14 one of the recipients of it, and*for all I know s 15 Jim Floyd'as to exactly what the program was 16 intended here. I know that Seelinger and Miller 1 17 said this was limited to the STS. 18 MR. FISKE: I am sure that's very helpful, 19 Mr. Seltzer. 20 MR. SELTZER: Why don't we move on to 21 something this witness has personal knowledge I l 22 of. l 03 MR. FISKE: That's what I am trying to 24 find out. That's spec'ifically what I asked him 25 is whether it ever came to his attention that (m) w .. .. . . .
l 1 Herbein 135 2 Mr. Miller made this request to Mr. Floyd, and (O) _, 3 then I got an answer which I attempted to t i 4 clarify, and then I got a long speech from you. i
! 5 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, but you are G going to have to restate the question.
7 BY MR. EISKE: 8 Q Did it come to your attention at any time 9 before the Three Mile Island accident that Mr. Miller l 10 had asked Mr. Floyd to make calls to Davis-Besse i k 11 approximately once a week for any reason? 12 A It did not come to my attention that I 13 am aware of. l () 14 Q Did you yourself have any conversations 15 with any person ~in the employ of Davis-Besse at any 16 time between September '77 and tne day of the Three 17 Mile Island accident? 18 A I may have, but I don't remember. 19 Q Up to the time of the Three Mile Island 20 accident had you learned anything about the incident 21 at Davi -Besse in September 1977 involving an open { i ) 22 PORV7 23 A Not that I recall. 24 (Recess taken.) 25 Q Mr. Herbein, let me show you a copy of ()T
\m l 8 l
3 l 1 Horboin 136 l-2 the testimony that you gavc before the President's Ol t 3 Comdission on May 30, 1979. I direct your attention 1 to page 21 , li 5 Do you see the middle of the page where i f 6 it says: "Mr. Herbein"?
\
7 A' I see that, sir. 8 Q Let me just read that into the record -- , 9 MR. SELTZER: uefora he reads it, just l 10 read some of the before and after testimony for 11 t 11 context. 4 12 MR. FISKE: Sure, that's fine. ' 13 Q Beginning at line 13 it says: O)
\_, 14 "Mr. Herbein We were not specifically f
15 aware of the connotations associated with the
\
16 Davis-Basse accident -- that of a loss of secondary 17 cooling and subsequent expansion and release of
- 5. 18 primary coolant through the electromatic relief i l 1
19 valve. We were,to some degree, aware that there-had 20 been-an electromatic relief valve problem at 21 Davis-Besse, but I don' t believe, I'm sure we were ! l 22 not aware of the full extent of the ramifications [i I
- A t .
- 23 of the incident." ,
24 Did you make that statement to the l (O ,) 25 President's Commission on or about May 30, 19797 e -w , 4 ___a - - _ --
1 Herbein 137 i'
! 2 A- Yes, sir, I did.
~
3 Q Now, who were you referring to when you I "1 4 said: "We were to some degree aware that there had
, 5 been an electromatic relief valve problem at
- ! ^
G Davis-Besse"? 7 A' We, and by "we" I mean members of 8 Metropolitan Edison Company, had people in attendance at the B & W users group meeting which took place l 9 10 in November of 1977, and that was relatively 11 recently after the Davis-Besse September '77 event. 12 MR. SELTZER: Okay. 13 MK. FISKE: What does the "okay" mean? 1 I 14 MR. SELTZER: I think that responded to 15 your question. You-asked who the "we" was. 16 MR. FISKE: Well, I don't mean to cut 17 Mr. Herbein off. 18 MR. SELTZER: Well, I am suggesting to 19 him that if we are going to get finished this 20 week, he ought to try and answer your question, 21 .and that's all he has to say. 22 MR. FISKE: That would have been a- . f 23 laudable suggestion to.make about two hours I i 24 earlier, but let's keep going.
/~5
! ,) 25 MR. SELTZER: I think he's been very I
1 1 Herbein 138 o il 2 responsive to your questions. I i
/ BY MR. FISKE:
3 i,
< 4 Q Who were the poeplu, Mr, Herbein, that
.t. 5 had been at the users group meeting in 1977? ,
! 6 MR. SELTZER: Who would have been or who i
j 7 was? 8 Q Who were the people he was just referring 9 to in the answer he just gave? 10 A I believe that was O'Hanlon and Seelinger. 11 I am not sure if Miller attended. 12 Q And you were aware of that fact at the 13 time you testified before the Kemeny Commission? 14 A I believe I was, 15 Q And how had you learned that those 16 gentlemen learned at that meeting that there had been 17 an electromatic relief valve- problem at Davis-Besse? 18 A I don't know the answer to that question. 19 Q You mean you don't remember how you 20 found out? 21 A No. l .] , 22 Q Did you have any conversations with l 23 Mr. Miller about what he learned at that users group 24 meeting? I r0 ( ,/ - 25 A I may have and I may have seen the-
- _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ }l
1 Herboin 139 2 minutes of the users group meeting where the , 3 Davis-aesse incident was characterized as a valve 4 malfunction. i s
; 5 Q Did you see those minutes before the I
! 6 Three Mile Island accident?
7 A' I am not sure. I don't believe I did. 8 Q Didn't you receive minutes of those l l 9 nestings as a matter of regular course? 10 A I believe that I did. I am not positive. i 11 Q Did you have information about the 12 Davis-Besse transient before t'.a Three Mile Island l 13 accid,ent from any source other than the minutes of 14 the users group meeting? 15 A I don't think that I personally did, but 16 I believe that our organization may have. I think 17 the -- 18 MR. SELTZER: I think the question is 19 did you, and you answered it. 20 Q Have you answered the question? l 21 A I have answered the question. 22 MR.. FISKE:- Let me mark as the next !
~
j 23 exhibit, dated, November 20, 1978. 24 Q Thia will.be marked as Exhibit 878, and O tv ! 25 I will ask you if you recognize this as a memorandum L -- .
1 C ' c _- _. _ 1 Herbein 140 I 2 that you wrote to Mr. Arnold in or about November 20, ( I-3 1978.
! 4 (Copy of document sent to R.C. Arnold f 5 from J.G. Herb'ein, in or about November 20, 6 1978 was marked B & h Exh. bit 878 for 7 identification.1 1
8 A Yes, sir, I see the document. g 9 Q And is that a document that you prepared, 10 for Mr. Arnold? l 11 A Yes, sir, I believe I did. I 12 Q What was the reason for preparing this
s, 13 document? !
s.) A Well, as I recall it I was commenting on
\
14 15 TDR 017, dated 11/17/78, and particularly provided 16 recommendations for further action relative to an 17 11/78 trip on TMI 2. 18 Q Now, directing your attention to
- 19 paragraph 2 on this page 2, Mr. Herbein, do you see 20 where it says , " Davis-Besse Loss of Pressurizar ,
a i 21 Level"? ! I i 22 A Yes, sir. 23 Q And the first item says, "See attached ; i g- 24 Telcon - verbal communications forms"? () 25 A Yes, sir. J
t Herbein 141
', l' i
i 2 Q And then there is-a document attached to 3 this dated-November 9, 1978, captioned " Verbal I-i 4 Communications For," submitted by W.E. Potts. j 5 Do you see that?- 1 i 6 A Yes, I see that. There are two forms 7 there submitted by Potts. 8 Q And are those the verbal communication 9 forms that you were referencing on page 27 10 A They are marked as enclosure 1, I l* ! 11 believe, that's an accurate characterization. 12 Q Now, directing your attention to the 13 first one it says " Summary of Discussion. 14 "I called Fred -o ' dis cuss Davis-Besse 1 15 cooldowns." 16 Who did you understand " Fred" was? 17 A I don't know. It may have been someone 18 in the licensing organization at Davis-Besse. I am 19 not sure. 20 Q Did you know of someone named " Fred Miller" 21 at Davis-Besse? 22 A No, I did not. ! 23 Q The second sentence says, " Fred informed 24 methattheir.[irstcooldownwasinSeptember1977,
! () 25 when the EM relief valve stuck open. During-that-
c _ ~ - - . . = - - _
..:: - -_,= m -
1 Herbein 142 9 I
'{g 2 cooldown the RC pressure dropped to 900 psi very 3 rapidly, and exceeded the cooldown rate contained in
. 4 the FSAR."
6 5 Do you remember receiving that memorandum i 6 from Mr. Potts with that statement in it? 7 A No, I don't specifically remember it, but 8 obviously itts attached to a memo that I wrote; so at 9 the time I was probably aware of its contents s !
, 10 Q Now, back on page 2 of your memo to I
11 Mr. Arnold you say, "We should continue to exchange 12 information on what may or may not be similar 13 problems =" is Do you see that recommendation that you 15 made to Mr. Arnold? 16 A Yes, and I believe that the context I i 17 am referring to there again has to do with the 18 pressurizer level concern, not really saturation or 19 pressurizer. level increasing with reactor coolant 20 system pressure decreasing. , l 21 Q Did you intend when you wrote that
)
22 particular recomnandation, Mr. .i e r b e i n , to put any l 23 limitation on the type of infornation you were going I 24 to exchange with Davis-Besse?
\
25 A No, I meant to have no limitation on
t- in __ _- =---------=-:-m -,-- ~
- 1. Herbein 143 2 information axchange s
! 3 Q Now, can you tell'us what steps you took.,
1
; -. 4 .Mr. Herbein, after making that recommendation to . ! 5 follow up to see that such exchanges took place?
6 - A I don't know, The specific ~ action was 7 taken by me based on this recommendation. I-think 8 this recommendation indicates we should continue to 9 pursue the issue and exchange J aformation with
- 10 anyone that might be able to focus on the loss of I,
i 11 pressurizer level phenomena which seemed to be 12 present on the B & W plants following a reactor trip. 13 Q Well, why did you think it was a good idea 0 14 to continue to exchange information with Davis-Besse 15 on what may or may not be similar problems? 16 A Again, I can only speak into that 17 context with which I see what's presented here, and 18 that's basically a loss of pressurizer level; and I 19 believe that we were concerned about the decrease in
)
20 pressurizer level post-trip and our Three Mile Island 21 plants. That was something that.we' recognized to be 22 a phenomena with which we had to deal. We typically 23 had to put a second makeup pbmp on when the plants 24 tripped. O
\/ 25 .Q Is it your testimony that when you
k 1 Herboin 144 I 2 recommended to Mr. Arnold that you should continue s s ) -3 to exchange information with Davis-Besse on what may i 4 or may not be similar problems you intended to limTt i t i 5 that recommendation to exchanging information about i 6 a drop in pressurizer level? 7 A' I made no such attempt to limit 8 communications. All I am trying to do is explain 9 the context in which this proposed informaItion 10 exchange was to take place, was to deal with the l-
' loss-of-pressure level, and if you will look at my 11 i l
12 double bullets I talked about pressurizer level when 13 they initiated aux'iliary feed, have B & W advise us of () 14 other 177 plants with similar loss-of-pressure 15 problems. 16 The context in which the memo was written 17 had to do with a loss-of-p: assurizer level. 18 Q Isn'.t it a fact, Mr. Herbein, that when 19 you were making this recommendation to Mr. Arnold 20 you were recommending to him that you, at Met Ed, j 1 21 should continue to exchange information with I e 22 Davis-Besse on problems whether or not they dealt : 23 with pressurizer level? , 24 A When I talked about the "we," I believe I was talking ahout the cru system, ur, Arnola was ([]) 2s
1 Horbein 145 s . 2 in the support role in the service company; and to the
/~'T q (s / 3 extent that I imply "we," I don't mean just Met Ed 4 I mean GPU Service Company too.
5 Q Isn't it a fact that you were i 6 recommending to him that GPU should continue to 7 exchange information generally with Davis-Besse on 8 problems of mutual interest? 9 MR. SELTZER: I am going to object. I 10- think it's been asked and answered two or three t i
- 11 times. I think you have even gotten the i
12 , answer you wan'ted althoua1 it appears under the 13 heading " Davis-Besse Loss of Pressurizer Level," () 14 he said he didn't intend any limitation on the 15 type of information that was exchanged. I l 16 If you want him to change his answer and 17 say he intends to limit it to loss of i 18 pressurizer level why don't you ask him a 19 fourth time? 20 MR. FISKE: If you think that's 21 clarified, Mr. seltzer, I will take your j
]
22 clarification. 23 MR. SELTZER: Yo,u have got the record. 24 The record says what it says.
y- _ ___,_...._.. ., f 1 Herbein- 146 e 9 BY MR, FISKE: 3 Q Why did you think, Mr. Herbein, that it
, 1 would be useful to exchange information with I-5 Davis-Besse on problems of mutual interest?
6 MR. SELTZER: .Where does that say any$hing i 7 ab'ou t exchanging problems of mutual interest. f 8 The heading here is " Davis-Besse Loss of 9 Pressurizer Level." 1 10 MR. FISKE: Are you retracting your i 11 clarifications? 12 A It is noted that Davis-Besse -- 13 MR. SELTZER: Wait f o r him to agk a 14 question. Is there a pending question? 15 MR. FISKE: Yes, there is. 16 MR. SELTZER: I object to that question 17 because there is nothing in here about general l l 18 exchange on topics of interest. j 19 MR. FISKE: I thought we had just 20 established that. Go ahead, Mr. Herbein. I 21 think you can.5 handle it, go ahead. 22 MR. SELTZER: Let's not get cute. It's i i I j 23 4:15 p.m. . i f 24 MR. FISKE: It's not a question'of being 25 cute, it's a question of trying to move on.
c
. q 1 Herbein 147 i
/\ 2 MR, SELTZER: Do you want to-restate the i
; 3 pending question.
4 BY MR. FISKE: .f. 1 l 5 Q Didn't you have an ynderstanding, t i j 6 Mr. Herbein, that it would ,Je b9neficial to GPU to 7 exchange information with Davis-Besse and perhaps 8 even other utilities about matters of mutual interest? l 9 A I certainly can't deny that. We - i 10 participated in the users group. We were a member of { 11 EEI Nuclear Power Subcommittee. However, the cdntext 12 in which we talked about information exchange here 13 is under the headliner " Davis-Besse Loss of 14 Pressurizer Level," and it states specifically in 15 this memo: "It's noted that Davis-Besse loses 16 pressurizer level anytime they initiate auxiliary feed. i 17 Efforts should be initiated to have B & W advise us of 18 other 177 plants with similar loss of pressurizer 19 level problems." 20 That's what it says. 21 Q Did you make any-effort after you wrote L 22 this memo to find out whether or not such exchanges . 23 of information at Davis-Bess'e were going on? I don't recall that I did or did not. n v 24 25 A Q Now, going back to your earlier days,
qm _ 1 Harboin 148 2 Mr. Herbein, I think you testified that after you came O 3 out of the Navy you went to work at the Saxton 4 reactor? i 5 A I worked at the Saxton reactor after I i 6 worked for Yankee , Atomic, and I worked for Yankee 7 Atomic a'fter I got out of the Navy. i j 8 So you were at Saxton reactor from I Q 9 September '67 through about August of '70, about 10 three years? I 11 A Yes, that's true. 12 Q Where was the Saxton reactor? 13 A It was located in Saxton, Pennsylvania. (_) 14 Q And you said earlier that that was 15 operated by a subsidiary of GPU? 16 A Yes, the Saxton Nuclear Experimental 17 Corporation. 18 Q And what kind of a reactor was that? 19 A It was a pressurized water reactor. 20 Q And who built it? 21 A Westinghouse,
)
22 Q What was this reactor used for by GPU? 23 A To gain reactor operating experience for 24 the future operation of Oyster Creek and Three Mile I ()) 23 raland.
1 Herbein 149 i
, 2 Q I take it it was used to train control O
'- 3 room operators, future control room operators?
4 A That's not the case. > 5 Q It was not? 6 MR. SELTZER: He just said it was not. 7 Q' Were potential control room operators for 8 Oyster Creek or Three Mile Island sent to this Saxton 9 reactor? 1 10 A without going into a lot of detail, we i
! 11 generally train foreman and supervisor and
~
12 management people at the Saxton reactors,the control l 13 room operators were members of the bargaining unit 14 and received different training at the sites. 15 Q And who conducted the training on the 16 Saxton reactor? 17 A Members of the SNEC; i.e., Saxton Nuclear 18 Experimental Corporation staff. Training was 19 primarily self-instruction and on-the-job training 20 on shift.
- 21 Q And the SNEC staf f that was part of GPU, 22 right?
23 A Yes. ,
~
24 Q Were thers operating and emergency
) 25 procedures that were drawn up for this reactor?
W" 1 Horboin 150 i ' 2 A Yes, there were. 3 Q Drawn up by people on the SNEC staff? 4 A With strong input from the nuclear steam i
! 5 supplier.
j' 6 Q And that was Westinghouse? 7 A* Yes. 8 Q And was there training on the Saxton f
! reactor for the foreman and supervisors in the use of 9
1 10 the operating and emergency procedures? I 11 A Yes, I would say that there was. 12 Q And who put together the, content of that 13 training program? 14 A A good bit of the training program content 15 was developed by the Westinghouse Electric 16 Corporation, and I might add that a number of 17 utility management personnel went through the 18 Westinghouse training program at Saxton prior to 19 going to their own electric utility company home 20 reactor sites. 21 Q You mean Westinghouse had people from
)
22 utilities that were going to have one of their 23 reactors going to the Saxton reactor for testing? 24 A Tha 's' correct, yes. () 25 Q The oyster Creek reactor was made by GE? i .
- u. , - - _ _
_ _ _ = - - _ 1 Horboin 151 t 2 A Yes, sir. b
\ 3 Q And, of course, the Three Mile Island 4 reactors were made by B & W7 I
s 5 ;M R . SELTZER: We will stipulate to that. 6 6 Q In the course of the training program for 7 the Met'Ed people that were at the Saxton reactor, 8 were there differences pointed out between the 9 Westinghouse reactor and the B & W reactor? 10 A Not specifically that I recall, although l 1 j 11 I would imagine that most of the TMI people were 12 aware that B & W used the once through steam 13 generator and Westinghouse used the U-tube 14 recirculating steam generator.' 15 g were you yourself responsible in any way 16 for the content of the training program while you were 17 there? 18 A As supervisor of reactor operations at 19 SNEC I generally recall establishing a training 20 program that would prepara some of our CRO's for SRO 21 NRC license applications; in other words, I was I i 22 responsible for the training and preparation of some i l i 23 of our CRC;'s to take SRO NRC exams. l 24 Q At hhe Saxton reactor? _, 25 A That's right. i
C;_ _ g __ __L --- u-r---- = =-== # --' 1 Herbein 152
s_,/\ 9
~ -
Q Did you make it part of the training I l 3 program that the operators -tould be trained on the I 4
; different responses that might be expected from the
# system between a Westinghouse generator and a Babcock 6 *
& Wilcox generator?
7
, A That would have had no particular 8
applicability. We were attempting to'. get people {
, ready to take an NRC certification as an RO or a 10
! particular case at the SNEC staff trying to get people 11 with CRO licenses upgraded to SRO licenses so it 12 would make no real sense to attempt to train them on
() 14 the B & W reactor. Q Well, were you saying that the only 15 purpose of this training program was to pass some 16 exam as opposed to learning how to operate the 17 reactor? 18 A I made no such stipulation or indication, 19 absolutely not. The purpose was to familiarize 20 people through detailed operation of a pressurized g water reactor with the interworkings of a particular . 22 system. 23 Q And you knew that these people from Met O 24 Ed that were going to the FAxton training program
;}
25 were going to operate a B & W reactor rather than a e
1 Horbein 153 i". k 2 Westinghouse reactor, isn't that correct? 3 A Yes, but we relied on'-- 4 MR. SELTZER: Why don't you wait for his 1 5 next question. .- 6 Q And knowing that did you attempt to~ train t 7 those people when they were being trained on the t j 8 Westinghouse reactor on the' differences they'could 9 expect, if any, in system response by reason of the 10 fact that they would be operating a Babco'ck & Wilco: I l .
' 11 reactor rather than a Westinghouse reactor?
12 A We know no such eff3rt. 13 Q Did you have training in the Saxton
) 14 reactor on transients of different kinds?
15 A There was, as I' generally recall, some 16 effort to conduct training on transients. 17 Q Who decided what type of transients you 18 would train them on? 19 A As I recall, I couldn't name a specific 20 individual but pretty much the members of the plants 21 on operating staff and the in-house Westinghouse I 22 training department. i 23 Q Did you have a t, raining on transients 24 which actually caused fuel damage? () 25 A I don't specifically recall, but I would
1 Harboin 154 i 2 have assumed we would have covered large break LOCA's b
\_/ and an accompanying fuel damage that could be expected 3
4 from the large pipe breaks. 'l l 5 Q Did you have any training on a i
- t a loss-of-coolant accident resulting from an open valve I
i 7 at the top of the pressurizer? 8 A Not that I recall. 9 Q Did you ever suggest to anyone that was 10 involved in the selection of transients that it would
- =
1 11 he a good idea to have that kind of a transient l j 12 produced on the Saxton reactor? 13 A I don't believe that I did, and I don't () 14 recall any basis for cuch a stipulation. 15 Q Did anybody from Westinghouse make that 16 suggestion? 17 A I don't remember. 18 MR. SELTZER: You are asking him to recall , 19 these things from more than a decade ago, right? l 20 MR. FISKE: Well, wlatever the time was. 21 MR. SELTZER: It was more than a decade 22 ago. It was 1967 which 1970 by my calculation ! l 23 is 12 to 15 years ago., 24 MR. FISKE: Well, then you reached a very j () 25 logical conclusion.
- 1. Horbein 155 s
2 Q When you left in 1970, Mr. Herbein, to O I - 3 go back to Met Ed, was the Saxton reactor still
- i 4 operating?
'i~ ~5 A Yes, it was, i 6 Q Did you consider that that had been a 7 worthwhi'le training experience for the foreman and 8 shift supervisors that had had the benefit of that f 9 experience? - 10 A I believe it was a good introductory I 11 experience. 12 Q Did you consider it was a value to .them 13 to be able to experience an actual transient on an 14 actual reactor? 15 A I believe that was a benefit, particularly 16 they ran startup and shutdowns.and learned to 17 manipulate tha reactor in the subcritical mode, and 18 in the just critical mode. I believe that was 19 beneficial. 20 Q Did you believe it was beneficial for 21 them to have produced for them on the reactor various 22 types of emergency conditions? < 23 MR. SELTZER: I object until you lay a j
. l
'24 foundation that various types of emergency
() 25 conditions were produced for them on the Saxton
L. - A.;
. _- -v= ~--~~
1 Herbein 156
' /N 2 reactor.
(j MR. FISKE: I heard something about a
) 3 i 4 large break LOCA which I think might qualify.
' MR. SELTZER: I don't think I heard that 5
( 6 they created a large break LOCA on,the Saxton 7 reactor. I 8 MR. FISKE: Well, maybe Mr. Herbein can 9 straighten us out. I 10 MR. SELTZER: Why don' t you ask a question. l 11 MR. FISKE: I will stick with the question 12 I just asked. 13 MR. SELTZER: What was that again? O 14 THE WITNESS: Please restate the question. 15 (Question read. ) 16 A We did not produce various kinds of 17 emergency conditions intentionally on the Saxton 18 reactor for the purpose of training operators, so it 19 could not be deemed that it was beneficial to do so i 20 since we didn't do it. 21 Q How did you use~the Saxton reactor to
)
22 train operators on th e us e af emergency procedures? To the best of m'y knowledge, the I 23 A 1 24 operators were assigned to shifts. They got to
25 witness a trip from power if it took place while they
_ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _____.___________.-_m__.___.-_ _m.___..._______m_ _ _ . _ _ - - .
1 Herbein 157 f
-s 2 were on shift and in so witnessing it became familiar t J 3 with the use of the procedure, they walked through o 4 the use of the particular controls that were 1
L 5 associated with the emergency procedures. They i 6 reviewed the response to alarms and the action that { 7 was required and discussed these particular actions 8 with the shift crew. 9 Q Did there come .t time when the Saxton
, 10 reactor was discontinued by GPU? l p ,
11 A It was shut down. 12 Q When was that? , 13 A I believe it was 1972. 14 Q Was that done for financial reasons? 15 A As I recall,the saxton project was 16 initially licensed for three years, and the license 17 had been renewed two or three times, and it had done i 18 more than we had originally intended that it would, 19 and by joint agreement GPU and Westinghouse agreed to 20 close the facility down. , 21 Q At the time it was closed down, was
-)
22 consideration given at GPU to having a simulator at t 23 Three Mile Island or at someplace in the GPU e #'a 24 organization?
!i .
A) k,m 25 A That may have been discussed. I am not t.
- w. . .. .
r -- f 1 Horboin 158 I
,_ 2 specifically aware of that. ,
1 3 Q Well, did it ever come to your attention i
, 4 until today that consideration had been given to 5 having a simulator within the GPU organization and I
-! 6 the decision had been made not to do so for financial 7 reasons? 8 A I may have been aware of that. I don't 9 recall that now. 10 Q Did the Westinghouse reactor have a pilot I 11 operated relief valve? { - 12 MR. SELTZER: The one at Saxton? 13 . MR. FISKE: - Yes, I will start'with that. 14 A I don't remember it, but I don't think so. 15 Q During the period of time after you left 16 Saxton right up to the date of the Three Mile Island 17 accident, were you familiar with the general design 18 of the Westinghouse reactor?' 19 MR. SELTZER: When you say "the 20 Westinghouse reactor," are you representing 21 that there is only one design of Westinghouse 22 reactors around the world? 23 Q Were you aware af any Westinghouse reactor 24 prior to the Thhee Mile Island accident that did have d, ((~%,) 25 a pilot operated relief valve? u . - -
. 1 Esrboin 159 i ! 2 A Sir, I can't state that it was or wasn't. , (/~N) I just don't know. I don't believe that there was.
m, 3 I 4 Q With respect to the pilot operated ~ relief .}
-5 valve at Unit 1 and U, nit 2 on the B & W design, I
! G think you testified earlier that you understood that i
7 one function of that valve was to relieve pressure 8 under certain circumstances which would prevent a g reactor trip from occurring after there had been a 10 turbine trip, is that correct?
! 11 A I have so testified.
12 Q And the setpoint for the pilot operated 13 relief valve opening was below the setpoint for.a-() 14 reactor trip, was it not? 15 A Yes.
~
16 Q And is it correct that the theory was 17 that for certain kinds of turbine trips which created i 18 an increase in pressure by allowing the pilot operated 19 relief valve to open it would relieve pressure i 20 sufficiently so that pressure would never reach the 21 reactor trip point, isn' t that correct? 22 A That's right. ! 6 23 Q And did you unde,rstand that under those i 24 circumstances the reactor could continue to operate 1 S 25 without a scram? Nl
e-- 3 - __ . . . an - J
- 1. 'Herbein 160 l'
2 A That's true. I might add that in the
/~s I 3 practice I don't recall that that was always the case, 4 where we had a load rejection and, in fact, the i 5 PORY kept the reactor from tripping on high prea'sure, 6 I believe that sometimes occurred and sometimes it 7 didn't. -
8 Q Well, there were certain types of turbine
~
9 trips which would produce a reactor trip even though 10 the PORV opened, right? I 11 A I would say that's true. - 12 Q And there were others where the opening 13 of the PORV would prevent the reactor from tripping, O 14 isn't that correct? 15 MR. SELTZER: Are you saying that in 16 practice that did happen at Three Mile Island 17 or'that was the intended design? i 18 MR. FISKE: Both. 19 , MR . SELTZER: I object to the compound 20 question. 21 Q You understood that was the concept , i ) ! 22 behind the PORV, a concept behind the PORV, correct? 23 A That was one c o n'c ep t . The other concept .! 24 was it prevented a challenge to the code safety valves. A
- 25 . MR. FISKE: We will get to that in a o
- s. .. .
_ _ _ _ = _ _ - _ _
1 Herbein 161 2 second. 1
'l ' 3 MR. SELTZER: Maybe we will get to that
.: 4 tomorrow.
! 5 g .Isn't it a fact that prior'to the Three
! 6 Mile Island accident you had actually experienced ! 7 situatio'ns at either Unit 1 or Jnit 2 where there was i 8 a turbine trip where the PORV opened and the reactor i 9 trip setpoint was never reached? 10 A That would seem to make sense. I don't J
. 11 recall the specific time or event that that occurred.
12 Q Now, you have said also, Mr. Herbein, 13 that another purpose of the pilot operated relief 14 valve was to be an additional source of pressure f\ I , 15 relief which might prevent pressure from reaching the $ 16 setpoint at which the code safeties would open, is 17 that correct? \ 18 A That's true. ! 19 Q In other words, even after a reactor trip 20 the fact that the PORV had opened might help keep f i l 21 pressure below the point at which the code safeties l l 22 . would open?
?
23 A I would-say that's true. 24 Q Now, did.you understand before the Three () 25 Mile < Island accident that if you had wanted to do so i
. ~ . ... - . . - - - , . . , , , , _ , . , . - - - . - -- - - . - , . . - , , , - - - . - . , . ,
e. i Herbein 162 i 2 at Met Ed that you could have established the sotpoint LO
! 3 for the pilot operated relief valve opening at a point i 4 higher than the setpoint for a reactor trip and still !- 5 accomplished the second beneficial function of the
.l
- i. 6 pilot operated relief valve?
'l.
7 A' But we would have never undertaken that 8 without the guidance or direct input, recommendation 9 from the nuclear steam supplier. I guess in the 10 remote hypothetical circumstance, yes, oneJcould l' postulate the change of setpoint that you have 11 12 described, but we wouldn' t have made any such change 13 without direct input and strong recommendation from-14 ' Sabcock & Wilcox and, in fact, would not have seen 1 15 fit to suggest or request such a change without being 16 prompted by the nuclear steam supplier. 17 Q You understood before the Three Mile 18 Island accident that.there was a commercial advantage 19 to Met Ed to have the setpoint for the pilot operated 20 relief valve below that of the reactor trip? 21 MR. SELTZER: Only if it worked.
)- .
I 22 MR. FISKE: As he has' testified previously, j 23 it did. . 24 MR. SELTZER: I think he said he wasn't l
" ,\w- 25 . aware of whether.it had worked.. He ~ said it i
km -- 1 Horboin 163 I t 2 would be logical if it wr ked that way, but he
.f~)t t ! ,' ' 3 didn't have any recollection that in fact it had i
4 worked that way. 5 MR. FISKE: Well, presumably you had , i { 6 enough expectation confidence that it would
'l 7 work.
8 A I disagree with the statement that thero 9 would be some kind of commercial gain by having that l t 10 setpoint there. If the turbine generator tripped i t 11 and went off line, whether or not the reactor tripped 12 or remained just suberitical, in my way of thinking 13 wouldn' t provide substantial commercial gain. I don't 14 see that logic. 15 Q so in other words you didn't see any 16 advantage at all to Met Ed to having the setpoint for 17 the PORV below the setpoint for the reactor trip? 18 A I see that you might be able to 19 experience a trip, runback, maintenance of the 20 reactor in the just critical condition and thereby, 21 perhaps, forego some precritical checks and save some i
.I f 22 number of hours, perhaps a shift in the restart and {
23 return to power, but I would,n-c quantify that in 24 terms of a part cular commercial gain to Metropo.11 tan f (O) rs 25 Edison. 0
1 Herbein 154 i l' 2 Q How long did it take the plant to co,me
'\_) back into operation no the point where it was 3
4 generating again after a reactor trip? l 5 A It would depend on the nature of the trip. r
} 6 The investigation as to the root cause of the trip, i
and the' subsequent repair or invostigation and
~
7 8 malfunction that was required. 9 Q Isn't it correct that there was a
; 10 potential for a considerable saving of time if as a l
l 11 result of a turbine trip there was not a reactor 12 trip?
=
13 , MR. SELTZER: 7 object. The question is 14 hypothetical and he's already -- 15 MR. FISKE: No, it isn't. It's a 16 question of what he understood before the 17 accident. 18 MR. SELTZER: He's already said that once 19 there was a turbine trip there was no 20 commercial gain. 21 MR. FISKE: That's what I am trying to 22 explore,.Mr -Seltzer. -Presumably somebody had l 23 some' reason at Met Ed for doing it'the:way they
.24 were doing it.
O
\_,/ - 25 A
~
I think the answer there is that the
- _ - - - _ ___ ___--__ __ _ _- - -._ _-_ _ = - _ _ _ _ _
qw - 1 Herbein 165 i " 2 recommendations on setpoints were received from O 3 Babcock & Wilcox and we saw no reason to refute their
. 4 recommendation, and in fact adopted it into our
' l. 5 procedures and our limits and cautions and setpoints. l G Q Isn't it correct that you understood that [ 7 from a safety peint of view there was no advantage to 8 having the setpoint for the PORV below the reactor 9 trip as opposed to being above it? 10 A I am not so sure I agree with that. The 1 l 11 lower PORV setpoint would, it seems to me, reduce the 12 potential number of challenges to the code safety 13 valves so I am not so sure I agree that there were no 14 implications along the safety line, although I don't 15 know that any were positively established. 16 Q Well, when the recommendation was made 17 after the accident that the setpoints for the opening 18 of the PORV be set above the reactor trip, did-you 19 protest ~ that from a safety point of view? 20 A I don't recall we did. , 21 (Recess taken.) L
)
22 Q Your resume, Mr. Herbein, indi' cates from j 23 August '70 to December '72 that you were a station I-24 engineer at TMI? O (,,,l' 25 - A .That's' correct. 4 s L .- . . . - . > -
. . . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _1__.__ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ __
.-- = -- -.
. _4 -.
1 Rorbein. 266 i l
. s 2 Q And from January '73 to January '74, 3 assistant superintendent TMI? Were those positions f
, 4 at TMI 17
. I, Yes, they were. 5 A 6 When I was assistant superintendent I was 7 assigned to Unit 1. 8 Q And when you were station engineer TMI, 9 were you also assigned to Unit 17 10 A Yes. i 11 Q In either of those positions did you have 12 a role in the preparation n! procedures for Unit 17 13 A Yes, I did. O 14 Q And did you have su'ch a role as station 15 . engineer? 16 A Yes, I did, i 17 Q Let me show you a' document which has been 18 marked previously as B & W Exhibit 418, which is a 19 letter from B & W to Met Ed dated June 10, 1970. I 20 ask you whether at any time after you came to TMI in
, 21 August of that year.this document came to your
.)
22 attention? i 23 A I may have seen this document. I am not 24 :specifically sure whether I did or did not.
'O ..
I~ k sb 25 Q 'Did the preparationLand procedures for-L- -- - - . -
1 Horboin 167 2 TMI Unit 1 involve review of proposed procedures by i 4 3 the TMI 1 ? ORC? 4 A Yes, it did. i 5 Q Were you a member of that committee? l 6 A I was. I 7 Qi And in addition to the review by the PORC 8 were the procedures submitted to operators for their 9 review? 10 A I believe they were, but you would have
! 11 to be more specific about a particular procedure, and 12 the step in converting the procedure from the draft s s 13 ,
that B & y gave us to s- the plant specific procedure 14 that ultimately'went;in the control, room with the (:,
'T\g 4 15 valve numbers abd asso'iated c formatting that we
\
16 typically did.
,4 s W*11p at 'Threa Sile Island there was s
17 Q a t . - - 18 system by which befor* procedures became final they
,, , s 19 were - submitted ^to'operatcrs for review and comment,
- s. ,-
. , . , .s 20 isn't that correct?- -
' \
21 A! 'When you say " operators," I assume you's'. ! g , o '
.> .- - 22 _mean Macropolitan Edison Company personnel?_ j s ; ,
s 3 N 1 s,
- 23 (Q Yes. ,
[ - 24 A' Who typically would take in essence th'e $ p- ? ' ,l . technicalicontent', the ascribed sequence and wouldy, (JD'h's 25'
\
~
s. 3 . ,a, s
?
%.~.7 \'
n
*+ m ,
j[ ,. -
~ .
_A~' .g
i J r 1 Horbein 168 2 make it plant specific, that technical content 3 and ascribed sequence having been provided by Babcock 4 & Wilcox to Metropolitan Edison. The answer to your i l! 5 question is having established that previous fact i G that yes the operator did look at the procedures and I 7 did make them plant specifis. I t 8 Q In addition to making them plant specific si 9 as you just described, wasn't one purpose of 10 submitting the draft procedures to the operators to
! 11 allow the operators to look at them from the point of l
12 view of someone who was going to have to use those 13 procedures to be sure that the operators felt that () 14 they were clear and understandable and were 15 accomplishing the objective that the procedures were 16 supposed to accomplish? 17 A I am not so sure that's a fair 18 characterization of what we really did with the I 19 knowledge that we had in the 1970 time frame about 20 the B E W nuclear su'pply system. Certainly, we 21 reviewed the procedures with_an attempt to i I 22 understand and if we thought that there was something i 23 that'didn't_make.sens's technically or could be stated ; 24 in the clear faIhion why we asked _ questions about
/~'\ - 25 that and commented on it. .I am not sure we had
'd
- - = - - - _ _ _ _
r- __ _
----7 1
1 Herbein 169
~
2 strong technical input in reformatting the procedures i t O 3 that we ultimately used in the control room. The
; 1 drafts were pretty much accepted as the technically i
5 correct way to carry out the evolution. I 6 Q Well, let me show you a document that's 1 7 been mar'ked as B & W Exhibit 417 and I will ask you 8 whether you recognize that as the final 9 loss of reactor coolant / reactor coolant system 10 pressure procedure for Unit 17 11 A I note that the procedure is dated 12 10/20/73. It contains my approval signature. If you 13 represent it as the final procedure,..I have no reason 14 to doubt that it at one time represented the approved ;
)
15 procedure for loss-of-coolant c Unit 1. 16 Q You don't put your signature on this as 17 station superintendent until it's ready to become 18 the approved procedura, is that correct? 19 A That's correct.- That's why I ascribed 20 to the statement you made. 21 Q Now, looking at B & W 418 which is the
}
-22 draft, preliminary draft procedure sent by B & W-to 23 Met Ed, do you, Mr. Herbein, recall receiving any.
~
24 draft'of a: procedure from B & W for the-o
!, , 25 loss of reactor -coolant / reactor coolant ~ pressure
c_: - -
--- - ._ ,~.
1 Herbein 170 t i 2 subsequent to July 19707 O 3 A I think you just asked me that. That's i
- 4 what this draft is here, this 418 ts 5 g I am asking you do you remember receiving I
6 any draft of a LOCA procedure from B & W after this l 7 one which is marked July 2, 19707 - 8 MR. SELTZER: I object. I don't think 9 there is a foundation that Mr. Herbein was the i 10 person who was receiving these from B & W, and 11 therefore that he would know whether subsequent 12 , drafts were rec'eived. 13 Q Well, do you have any knowledge, O 14 Mr. Herbein, that there was any draft sent by B & W 15 to Met Ed after July 2, 1970? 16 A I don't know that. In just looking at. 17 418 though I see that the exchange that is taking 18 place here has to do with Joe Colitz' comments-that 19 were sent May 14, 1970.
~
20 ,Q That's right. 21 MR. SELTZER: And this one is sent:
-)
22 Attention to George-Bierman, so again I-don't 23 think that Jack Herbei'n-is in the chain of 24 communicNtion on this. N ')- 25 Q Looking at the first page of the c - - . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 Herbein 4 74 i i 2 preliminary draft procedure _which has got the 3 number 21333 at the bottom and under " Description"
, paragraph 2 " Description."
j 5 Do you see that? I 6
} A Yes, t
i 7 . Q Is it correct, Mr. Herbein, that the 8 language that is contained in that paragraph under . 9
" Description" does not appear in the procedure that was 10
; adopted by Met Ed as reflected .i.n Exhibit 4177 I 11 A If you have researched that and can state 12 that, I will accept that rather than have to make some 13
- kind of comparison now.
14 MR. SELTZER: Maybe to move-it along:- .You 15 will notice what the company got from B & W , 16 doesn't begin the procedure portion until you 17 hit item 6 on page 3, 18 ' MR. FISKE: Well, I am perfectly willing 19 to mak,e the representation that Mr. ;Earbein
'20 just suggesteds 21
.) ~ MR . SELTZER: What you t re pointing to 22 precedes'what B & W called-the procedure.
23 MR.,FISKE: That's right. Well, I don't 24 know whether that's true-or not, but I am 25 A certainly prepared _ to make the representation i ..
- . - .. .. . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - - - - _ _ - - I
. l 1 Herbein 172 i
1' 2 that Mr. Herbein just suggested.
, 3 THE WITNESS: I think if Bob told us i 4 that --
l 5 BY MR. FISKE: i 6 Q Well, did you participate, Mr. Herbein, I 'l 7 in any discussions at Met Ed concerning whether er j i l l 8 not the language that is contained under the 9 paragraph captioned " Description" in Exhibit 418 10 should be included in the Met Ed LOCA procedure? I 11 A I don't recall whether I did or didn't, 12 sir. That was a long time ago. 13 Q Did it ever come to your attention, 14' Mr. Herbein, anytime up to the Three Mile Island 15 accident that B & W had proposed the language to Met I 16 Ed for use in connection with the LOCA procedure that !, 17 s aid in substance that in the event the operator saw
/
18 symptoms which might be a symptom of a LOCA and also 19 might be symptoms of some other event that'the
~
20 operator should assume that the cause of-the symptoms 21 was a LOCA unless another cause could be immediately 22 established? 23 A I see that it says that here on page-21333
^
1 - 24 and that this 11s , the draf t procedure that : goes back I() 25 to 1970 from B & W and you hava told me that f.. l- - _ _ - _ _ _ _ - _ . _ . _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _ _ _ - . _
-- m , _ _ _ _ .
Q -- . . _ _ 1 Herbein 173 l
~~ 2 particular description here on page 21333 did not end l' 3 up in our final procedure on the 10/29/73 which I 4 signed. I might point out that we did prior to Unit 1
t 5 1 op'eration give specific emergency procedures to l 6 Babcock & Wilcox to, review for us and confirm that i 7 they were technically correct and complete in every I I l' 8 detail. And as such able to deal with the particular ; 9 events identified in the procedure title, and I 10 believe that specifically the loss of reactor l 11 coolant RCS pressure procedure was reviewed by B & W: 12 and the comments we receiveI were satisfactorally { i 13 resolved, and I don't believe those comments included w-
) 14 reinstating this somewhat generic statement that I 15 just read on page 21333; namely, operators should l
16 assume that unless another cause can be established j i 17 that you have a rupture leak. 18 Q Let me show you a document which has been ) 19 marked as GPU Exhibit 500, Mr. Herbein, and direct 20 your attention specifically to the last two pages of 21 that exhibit which is a memorandum to Mr. Phinney 22 site operations manager, TMI from Mr. Schieck i 23 program supervisor B'& W. - 1 24 A Now, I am on the second to last page of f-~g .
\ssl' 25 this one you just. handed.me, l
a o _ _ ..
1 -- % - . . 1 Herbein 174 2 Q The last two pages. The last page is ( 3 entitled " Comments on Emergency Procedure 1202-6, 'l 4 Loss of RC/RCS Pressure Three Mile Island Unit 1,"
\
, '.5 and there follows a series of comments by Mr. Albert I
6 of Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Service. '{ 7 Did you ever see those comments by 8 Mr. Alb e r t in or about February, March 1974? 9 A I don't recall that I did. 10 - Q Did anybody bring to your attention that 11 Mr. Alb art had made the comments that are reflecred 12 on that page? 13 MR. SELTZER: Are there any particular U(~N 14 ones you want to call his attention to? 15 Q Did anybody bring to your attention _back 16 in February, March 1974 that Mr. Albert had made any 17 comments on the proposed emergency procedure for ] l l L 18 loss-of-coolant accident on Unit 17 19 A I don't recall that these comments were 20 brought.to my attention. '
.ney aay'have been,-but I 21 don't recall. I do note though on page 407 that one i
I . 22 of the comments says that -- 23 MR. FISKE: I do'n't think we need another rx 24 argument, Mr. Herbein. Whatever-it is, ( U 25 - Mr. Seltzer could handle'it. r - ' 'r i - 4 _ . - - _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 Herbein 175 2 THE WITNESS: Could you handle that?
\/ 3 MR. SELTZER: I can handle that.
T 4 MR. FISKE: Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) [ 5 i
! 6- Q When it came time to do the Unit 2 7 Procedures, the Unit 2 procedures were prepared at 8 Met Ed, were they not, using the TMI 1 procedures as 9 drafts?
10 MR. S ELTZER: Are you implying that's all t 1 11 that was used or that's one of the things that
.12 were used?
13 MR. FISKE: No, as a starting point. () 14 A That's generally true, yes, sir. 15 Q Let me show you a document which we will 16- mark as the next B & W exhibiti which is 879 which is 17 a letter from Mr. Hilbish to Mr. Rogers, dated 18 February 20, 1976. 19 (Copy of letter together with attachments, 20 dated February 20, 1976,.from Mr. Hilbish to 1 21 Mr. Rogers was marked B&W-Exhibit.879 for
)
' 22 identification.)
23 Q Do_you have a copy of that in front of.
- 24. you?
O 25 A Yes, I do. ( J-
1 Herbein 176 2 Q I would like'te dirset your attention to
-s 3 Section A of the proposed procedure which is 4 captioned " Leak or Rupture Within Capability of System I
- i. 5 Operations.",
i 6 A Could you tell me what page that is on? 7 Q, Page 1. 8 A And where on page 17 , l 9 Q Right at the top. 10 A And what specifically do you want me to l 11 focus on? 12 Q I would like you to look at that and 13 compare it with Exhibit 417 which is the procedure l () 14 for Unit 1. 15 MR.' SELTZER: Hold everything. I object 16 to asking the witness to do some comparisons 17 of documents. You haven't established as a f 18 foundation that Mr. Herbein received or was 19 familiar with this particular draft from 20 Mr. Rogers to Hilbish, and I think you have 21 already established that he was not familiar I
) with the other documents.
22 23 MR. FISKE: Le*',s ssve some time. 24 Q I will a$k you, Mr. Herbein, did you_see <[\ v j 25 a copy of the draft revision that is enclosed with t U- . - _ - _ _ _ - - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - - - _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ - _
1 Harboin 177 L 2 Mr. , Rogers' letter to Mr. Hilbish? i O(,,/ 3 A I d n't recall that. 4 Q Then let me show you a copy of B & W 272 I 5 which is.the final procedure for Unit 2. I take it G you are familiar with that one? , I I am generally familiar that there was a 7 A, 8 loss of reactor coolant system pressure for Unit 2. I I r I g Q If you would look at Exhibit 417 in 10 comparison with' Exhibit 272 un' der the section that l 11 says " Leak or Rupture Within Capability of System 12 operation." 13 A 417 is our Unit 1 1973 procedure and -- () 14 - okay, I have got the June 22, 1977 Unit 2 procedure, 15 and I have got the '72 Unit 1 procedure and you want 16 me to -- l 17 Q Just a moment. We are talking about the 18 section that says "(Al Leak or kupture Within 19 Capability of System Operation." And that same 20 caption. appears in both, does it not?. 21- A That's true.
~
22 Q Then I would like to have you turn to , I i 23 the section that is described as " Follow Up Action," l 24 which is paragraph 3.0 appearing on page 2 of IY
\j 25 Exhibit 272,.and I guesa page 12 also of Exhibit 417.
1 Herbein 178 i' 2 A Could you get me on the page to the '77 i 3 document and the page on the '73 document? 4 Q Page 2 where it says, " Follow Up Action."
- 5 A Okay, 6 Q Now, under that section on page 3 of the
! 7 Unit 2 p'rocedure there is a section captioned 8 " Caution" which is paragraph 3.2.5 which says, 9 " Continued operation depends upon the capability to l 10 maintain pressurizer level and RCS pressure above the
}
1 11 1640 PSIG safety injection actuation setpoint." 12 And then paragraph 1 says, "If 13 pressurizar level can be maintained above the low e-k ,\/ 14 level alarm point and the RCS pressure above the 15 safety injection actuation point,then proceed to 16 s tep 3. 2.6." Paragraph 2 says, "If pressurizer level j 17 cannot be maintained above the low invel. alarm point 18 and the RCS pressure above the saf ety injection 19 actuation point,then the_ plant has suffered a major 20 rupture.and operation should continue according to 4 21 Part B -- Leak or rupture of significant size such 2 I that engineered safety features systems are-
- 22. ;
t i 23 automatically initiated," , ? ~ c 24 It is correct, is it not, Mr. Herbein, I O) v.
- 25 that that language does not appear in-the procedure
, -- .n - , .- - ,. , - , . . , , - - -
l 1 Horboin 179 2 for Unit 1? 7-( I MR, SELTZER: Wait a minute. Why are you 3 4 asking the vice president of Penn Electric 5 to compare two pieces of paper for you? This 6 doesn't seem like the appr.opriate thing to be j 7 doing at 5:30 p.m. j 8 MR. FISKE: It's a preliminary question to { 9 ask Mr. Herbein whether in his capacity as vice 10 president in charge of Generation
; 11 during the period of time that he held that i
12 position he was aware of the circumstances under f i i 13 which that language was auded to the LOCA I / \
\s 14 procedure.
I 'I 15 A I don't know th at just looking at this I - 16 document that I -- 17 MR, SELTZER: Don't just speculate from 18 looking at the document today. There is no 19 foundation yet what your involvement was, if 20 any, in the drafting of Unit 2 procedures, and 21 a11 he is asking is a question that would go to
}
l 22 what you knew from the time when this Unit 2
- i 23 procedure was being drafted, if you had l 24 knowledge.
r .
.) 25 g Well, you certainly were familiar, were 1
l' Herbein 180-i' _. 2 you not, Mr. Herbein, on the content of the emergency 3 Procedures of Unit 2 prior to the Three Mile-Island l, - 4 accident?
- i. 5 A I think it's been established that I,was i
,i. 6 knowledgeable in TMI Unit 1, and most specifically I, 7 that I held the senior reactor operators licensa 8 during the TMI 1 startup, but-I don't think it's been 9 established that as vice president of Generation in 10 1977 that I had detailed knowledge of the Three Mile i 11 Island Unit 2. emergency procedures, sequential steps,
]~
12 actions and so on. I don't think that's been 13 established and I don't believe that I really had such Os 14 knowledge. 15 Q. Didn't you lecture in the training program 16 on emergency procedures? 17 A I didn't lecture as vice president of 18 Generation on the training program in emergency 19 procedures. That was not my function in June of '77. 20 Q Is it your test'. mony that you were not 21 familiar with the content of-the TMI 2 emergency l
) l 22 procedures at any time before the Three Mile Island -
23 accident? . 24 MR. SELTZER: I obj ect. What do you mer.n I I() 25 by familiar with? J. - . , ,, .. . . . . , . . . ___ __________i_.____..._____.._..__ _
1 Herbein 181 It
- 2 MR. FISKE: Know what's in them.
i i 3 MR. SELTZER's To a detail so that he was II 4 familiar with each subparagraph and 3.2.5 sub l l 5 (1), that kind of detail of familiarity? I i i 6 think there are levels of familiarity. I 7 MR. FISKE: Why~doesn't Mr s Herbein tell 8 us at what level his familiarity was. 9 A I think I have already explained that 10 I was an SRO on TMI Unit 1 I was involved in the 1
! 11 review of the Unit 1 procedures.- I went through l
12 training on the simulator. I understood the 13 , Babcock & Wilcox nuclear steam supplies as applied to 14 TMI 1 in the procedures in the time frame from 1973 15 through '74-75. In 1977 I was vice president, 16 Generation, responsible for Three Mile Island's Units 17 1 and 2 and fossil plants, hydroelectric facility, 18 combustion turbines within Met Ed. 19 Certainly in the years between '74, '75 20 and my expanded responsibility in 4 977 I no longer 21 maintained detailed knowledge of emergency procedures
)
22 on Unit 1, the unit I was originally qualified on, i 4 23 let alone Unit-2. I'would say that I was generally !l 24 aware.that we h[ad emergency procedures, that they i
' /N
( ,) 25 covered specific events, that they were event. 4
- u ' -
" . . _ _ _ __ _.._________________m._
C ~ 1 Harboin J62 1
', 2 oriented, certainly that..we had a loss-of-coolant U,s procedure for Three Mile Island Unit 2, and th'at it i 3 l 4 was probably very similar to the one that we had on b '! 5 Three Mile Island Unit is ; G Q Did you participate in any way in the 7 preparation of the emergency procedures for Unit 27 8 A I can't state that I directly participated 9 in the preparation in the emergency procedures for 10 Unit 2.
i i 11 Q And was it any part of your job at that l 12 time to review those procedures and comment on them 13 before they became final? . ! (- . ( 14 A That was not my job as vice president of L 15 Generation in 1977-78, '79 to review procedures and 1
- 16 comment on them prior to their being approved by the 17 station personnel.
1 18 (Time notsd: 5:35 p m.) 10 -ooo-20 JOHN G, HERBEIN 21- subscribed and sworn to I. , 22 before me this , 23 day of , 1982. , 24 L /O i (_,/ . 25 l l I; : . . '. .. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -
.w- - - .- m
_v.. r 1 Herbein 183 1 I
- . l g~g 2
_C E _R _T _I _P _I _(__A _T _E ,j 3 STATE OF NEW YORK )
- ss.:
i 4 COUNTY OF NEW YORK )
! .f
; J 5 i
6 - NANCY A. RUDOLPH I, , a 7 Notary Public within and for the State of New York, 8 do hereby certify that the foregoing deposition 9 of JOHN G. HERBEM, Vas taken before t 10 wednesday, June 30, 1982. me on ; 11 That the'said witness was duly sworn 12 before the commencement of hs i testimony and 13 that the within transcript is a true reco'rd of said 14 testimony; i 15
- That I am not connected by blood or 16 marriage with.any of the parties herein nor 17 interested directly or indirectly in the matter in 18 controversy, nor am I in the employ of any of the 19 '
counsel. 20 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set
} a m 21 my hand this / '/ ~ day of (hd /94'd 22 g ...
2< hww 0. h w b Y+ Cm ,NCY A. RUDoLPH 25 l t t I w _ - _ _ . _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .
u._. - - - - -.- 5/30/82 184 I N D E X WITNESS: PAGE JOHN G. HERBEIN 3 9 3 % H I B I T S B & W FOR IDENTIFICATION 875 Copy of John G. Her.5ein's resume 7 876 Copy of memorandum to EEI Nuclear 54
, Power Subcommittee from J.G. Herbein dated September 1978, i 877 Copy of document bearing a release at date of October 7, 1981, captioned
() " Analysis of TMI-2 September 1977 Event During Hot Functional Test." 878 Copy of document sent to R.C. Arnold 140 from J.G. Herbein, in or about November 20, 1978. 879 Copy of letter together with 175. attachments, dated February 20, 1976 from Mr. Hilbish.to Mr. Rogers.
-oOo-i
.*s O
1
'l t, si
'ad i 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK 4
!________________________________________x fGENERALPUBLICUTILITIESCORPORATION, :
JERSEY CENTRAL POWER & LIGHT COMPANY, iMETROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY and : PENNSYLVANIA ELECTRIC COMPANY, 80 Civ. 1683 (RO) Plaintiffs, AFFIDAVIT
-against-lTHE BABCOCK & WILCOX COMPANY and J. RAY McDERMOTT & CO., INC., :
Defendants. : l________________________________________x l STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA)
; : ss.:
1 COUNTY OF CAMBRIA ) i I have read'the transcript of my deposition taken on i l June 30, July 1 and July 2, 1982 and together with the attached
! corrections,itisaccuratetothebestofmyknowledgeand N
pbelief. I QW ,
'o '
. John G. Herbein C i
;' /
9 t
': Signed and sworn to before me this 0l . 6 74 l day of September, 1982.
Il/ ) ,; l
^
.. /
, ,/. >Y- /~ . rntittmy d, Notary Public //
joH+: W. BONARRtGO. Notary Put{c/
-[
g ntestown, camp c c.,ty. Pa11,N85 G Ey wmmission Expft: M/ s
~ ..
s-
- 1 I
1 Corrections to Deposition of John G. Herbein h)
\~ September 13, 1982 Page Line Correction 22 5 " transfers" should read " transfer" 22 22-23 " operations supervisor from" should read " operations supervisor.
. From September 1967 until September 1970" 111 12 "DMBR" should read "DNBR" 114 12 " condition" should read " concern" 115 23 " accidents, secondary" should read " accidents, a secondary" 120 9 "I would add, not" should read "I would add, that I would not" 143 20 "and" ..hould' read "at" O 144 10 " place, was" should read
" place. It was" 144 13 "have" should read "has" 149 11 " train" should read " trained" 150 23 " testing?" should read " training?"
153 12 "know" should read "made" 153 21 "on" should read "own" 168 -24 "in the clear" should read "in a clearer" 187 11 "other" should read " oath" 262 9. " commentary" should read
" complementary" L285 11 "cooldown" should read " coolant" 285 21 "such as" should read "such as whether 288 20 " state that it's a simple"
- N < should read " state that it's not a simple" 1
Page Line Correction 291 11 " math" should read " path" 372 6 "we tried to" should read "we
' expected to try to" 397 10 "and" should read "when" 402 25 "was prepared that" should read "was prepared to believe that" 407 11 " fixed" should read " fission"
-34 15 " failed to open" should read
" failed open" i ..
9 2 1
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