ML20126K932
| ML20126K932 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/20/1990 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20126K503 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-91-533, FOIA-92-A-1 NUDOCS 9301070301 | |
| Download: ML20126K932 (74) | |
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, i a OFFICIALTRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
,1, 4
Huclear Regulatory Commission Agerig Investigative Interview of
Title:
aettrey c. nardro (ctosto)
Docket No.
LOCAT10ft Cincinnati, Ohio ,
February 20, 1990 PAGES. 1 72 DAM ANN RIUiY & ASSOCIATES, DD.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/ 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 0FFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X 6 In the Matter oft :
7 INVESTIGATIVE INTERi M4 ,
8 JETFREY C. BARBRO t 9 (CLOSED) t 10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X 11 12 offices of BECKMAN, WEIL,
[ 13 SHEPARDSON AND FALLER
(
14- Suite 1714 15 105 East Fourth Street 16 Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 17 February 20th, 1990 18 19 The above-entitled matter commenced at 1:45 20 o' clock p.m., when were present:
21 22 on behalf _ of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
23-
/' 24 RICHARD C. PAUL, Investigator
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25 MARY KAY FAHEY, Investigator
"" Fv *O
' 2
- 1 on behalf of the witness:
2 3 BECKHAN, WEIL, SHEPARDSON AND TALLER 4 BY: -Margaret A. Fiorino, Esq.
5 Peter L. Cassady, Esq.
6 Suite 1714 7 105 East Tourth Street -
8 Cincinnati, Ohio _45202 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 s
ca .
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, 3
- 1 ,
PR0CEEDIHGS (1845 p.m.)
2 3 HR. PAUL: for the record, this is an interview of 4 Jeffrey Barbro, B-A-R-D-R-0, who's currently esployed by the 5 University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio. The location of 6 this interview is Cincinnati, Ohio. Present at this 7 interview in addition to Mr. Barbro are Peter Cassady, Peg a Florino with the law firm of -- which law firm?
9 HS. FIORINO: Beckman, Well, Shepardson and 10 Taller.
And Mary Y,ay Tahey and Richard C. paul 11 HR. PAUL:
12 with the Office of Investigations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As agreed, this interview is being tapo
( 13 recorded by court reporter Ronald LeGrand. Subject matter 14 15 of this interview concerns the University of Cincinnati 16 Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
17 Whereupon, J EFTREY BARBRO, 18 19 a witness, was called for examination, and, having been 20 first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. CASSADY: Mr. Paul, at the outset, I'd like to 21 22 confirm with you at this time that you have told.me over the 23 telephone that Mr. Barbro is not currently a target c'
" investigation.
24
'~ That's right.
25 MR. PAUL a.----,--_x__------,---,--.--_---s__------.-,,---,,------------._.----,--_.u.-._,------_- - _ _ . - - - - - - . - _ .
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) 4 1 HR. CASSADYt By your office.
2 HR. PAUL Right. We're interviewing him as a 3 witness.
4 HR. CASSADY Thank you very much.
5 EXAMINATION 6 BY MR. PAULt 7 Q Hr. Darbro, I'd like to ask you if the two 8 attorneys here, Mr. Cassady and Ms. Piorino, are your 9 personal counsel?
10 A Yes, they are.
11 o Are they provided to you by your employer?
12 MR. CASSADY Objection. Don't answer that question.
( 13 MR. PAULt There's no objections.
14 15 MR. CASSADY: I'm telling him not to answer the 16 question.
17 MR. PAUht Why not?
18 MR. CASSADYt We've been through this before and I 19 thought we had reached an understanding. I guess-we-hadn't.
He has counsel and how he has counsel is a matter between
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20 21 himself and me. I don't think it pertains to you, 22 MR. PAULt Do you represent other parties in this 23 matter?
r 24 MR. CASSADYt We represent other individuals.
-25 MR. PAULt Who are-they?
_ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ ._. . . _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ . - . ._..m . _ _ . . .m__. . _ . . .
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'. 5
,. 1 HR. CASSADY: We've told you that already.
I
\t?' 2 MR. PAUL: I want to put it on the record.
3 HR. CASSADY: We represent Pat Harris, Jeff 4 Barbro, Melvin Boyd. We also represent Ray Estes and just 5 recently we've started to represent Prince Jason. That's i
6 all we represent.
7 MR. PAUL: Do you represent George Alexander?
8 MR. CASSADY: No, I don't.
9 MR. PAUL: Do you represent the University of 10 Cincinnati Hospital?
11 MR. CASSADY: No.
12 MR. PAUL Or the University of Cin-innati or-the z
13 State of Ohio?
14 MR. CASSADY No.
15 KR. PAUL: Do you believe there will be a conflict 16 between Mr. Barbro's interests and any of the interests of 17 the other parties?
18 MR. CASSADY: We don't believe there will be.
19 [ Pause.)
20 Any other parties that y' ,.'ve mentioned?
21 MR. PAUL Pardon?
22 MR. CASSADY: Any of the other parties that we 23 represent?
24 MR. PAUL: Right. ,
' 25
~~
MR. CASSADY: Well, obviously not or we wouldn't
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6 be representing them. I mean if there is a conflict, then 1
2 we'll have to deal with that as it comes but at this point 3 in time, we don't see a conflict.
4 DY MR. PAULt 5 Q Mr. Barbro, do you believe there's a conflict 6 between tr. Cassady's representation and the University of 7 Cincinnati llospital as your employer?
8 A Could you restate that?
9 MR. CASSADY: I didn't understand that question 10 either.
11 BY KR. PAULt 12 o Do you believe that your interests will conflict with the interests of the University of Cincinnati Hospital
( 13 14 in this matter?
15 A My personal interests?
16 Q Right.
17 A Hard to say for sure. I imagine it's a 18 possibility.
19 Q Do you realize that Mr. Cassady represents other 20 parties in this matter?
21 A Well, yes.
22 MS. FAHEY: Is that your request that they be 23 present here today at this interview?
24 THE WITNESS: Yes.
25 MS. FAHEY: Would you be willing to conduct the
7
- 1 interview without them being present?
5"' 2 THE WITNESS: Personally, no.
3 MR. PAULt CGn we go off the record?
4 MR. CASSADY: Sure.
5 (Discussion off the record.)
6 BY MR. PAULt 7 Q Mr. Barbro, you have no objection to Mr. Cassady B or Hs. Fiorino sitting in?
9 A I don't have any objection whatsoever.
10 Q In the situation with who's providing your 11 representation is clear to you and you understand?
12 A Yes, I do.
0 What's your current position with the University?
( 13 14 A I'm a senior health physics technician.
15 0 How long have you been in that position?
16 A I'm going to give you an approximate figure. It's 17 almost a year -- a little less than a year.
18 0 How long have you been at the University of 19 Cincinnati?
4 20 A It was four years, December, which was last 21 December.
22 Q 19867 23 A December of.1985.
24 Q What did you initially start? What position were 25r you in when you first went to work there?:
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.- 1 A I believe the term used then was rad health 2 technician -- radiological health technician.
3 0 What was your background as far as health physics 4 up to that point in time?
5 A Previous to that I was a senior health physics 6 technician working in nuclear power.
7 Q Where was that?
8 A Previous to that, I worked for a company called 9 Rad Services, Incorporated. They supplied technical support 10 to utilities during maintenance and refueling outages.
11 0 Do you have any educational background in health 12 physics?
Directly in health physics, no, other than
( 13 A 14 training I received in the industry and some associated 15 education that could be applied to the field, but directly 16 germano to health physics, no.
17 Q When you initially went to work at the University 18 of Cincinnati in the radiation safety department, who was 19 the RSO which is the acronym for radiation safety officer?
20 A That was Mr. Kenneth Fritz.
21 Q During your entire employment, was Mr. Fritz the 22 RSO?
23 A Up to -- yeah, up to a certain time, yes.
24 Q What time -- when did he Icave?
25 A Well, see that's hard to say exact 1". He was -- I
9
- 1 believe the term is, put on administrative leave. It would
2 be according to whenever the HRC approved the replacement of 3 him with Dr. Howard Elson on the Nuclear Regulatory 4 Commission broad license and other associated licenses at 5 the University of cincinnati.
6 Q Is roughly August?
7 A August or early September, that general time 8 frame. You'll have to forgive me for not knowing exactly 9 but there was a lot of things going on at that time.
10 0 Going to the time frame of the summer of 1988, 11 what was your position at that point in time?
12 A At that time, I believe I was a health physics technician, what they call staff technician.
( 13 14 Q Who was your immediate supervisor in that 15 position?
16 A Well, at that time -- I'm trying to remember 17 whether or not they had created an official titic for the 18 Deputy Radiation Safety Officer. Mr. Jason handed tasks 19 down. You know, he was sort of coordinating tasks and you 20 know, I took direction from him but also I received direct 21 from Mr. Fritz.
22 Q So Mr. Jason was an intermediary. Was that a 23 formal position or was it just a situation that occurred?
/ ~' 24 A My understanding is that until -- that it wasn't C 25 always a formal position. It was just sort of like an
- . . . . . . . - - - . . - _ _ _ _ = - . .- . . - - - . . . . - - .
10 1 internal appointment and that up to a certain time in our 2 license, okay, as far as license goes,-up to a certain 3 point, there was no declared deputy radiation safety officer 4 listed on the license until some of our most recent 5 amendments. So -- and also, it's my understanding although 6 I'm not positive of this, that there was no official title 7 within the University system for deputy radiation safety ,
8 of ficer and that Mr. Jason's official classification up to a 9 point -- up to a date which I don't know was senior 10 technician, 11 Q What I'm looking for, who directed your day to day 12 activities back in that time?
13 A I would have to honestly say that both Ken Fritz 14 and Mr. Jason.
15 Q I believe in August, 1988, there was an NRC 16 inspection by a Mr. Gibbonst do you recall that?
17 A Yes, I recall that.
18 Q At that particular point in time, was there a 19 system for maintaining an inventory of the scaled sources 20 .that the University had in thr l.r position or controlled 21 under the license?
22 A Yes, there was.
23 Q could you explain to us what the procedure was
/ 24 back then?
- k. The procedure was, there was index cards with the 25 A
. 1 11 1 essential source information. Those Vere used to record the
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2 required wipe tests for leakage of the sources and they were 3 used in that form of record.
4 Q Say that again?
5 A There's an index card with the essential data 6 identifying the sources.
7 Q Right.
8 A Okay, and then whenever the materials was leak 9 tested, okay, then that data would be entered.
10 Q Onto the card?
11 A Onto the card and it functioned in that fashion as 12 the inventory mechanism for the sources as well as leak test 1
13 record.
14 Q Did each individual source have a single inventory 15 card?
16 A I can only -- it was intended that every source 17 would have. You know, there -- it's -- I don't know whether 18 overy source had a card.
19 Q Did you ever have occasion to perform a Icak test 20 and then attempt to document it on a card and not find a 21 card there?
22 A No, because the -- only when I was able to 23 identify which ones existed were off the cards.
24 Q Was there -- were you required to sign the card 25 when you performed the wipo -- or the leak test -- or the
12 1 wipe test.
CYI' 2 A We went away f rom -- when I say -- try to think --
3 it's been a while since I've done the leak tests on those.
4 1'm trying to remember whether we initialed them or not. I 5 don't even think we initialed the cards now. That -- at 6 that time, we did not initial the cards even.
7 Q What was the procedure when you were assigned to 8 perform the leak tests. Would you be issued the- card or 9 what was the procedure?
10 A Well, they had all the cards in like a little file 11 -- card file.
12 Q Where was that located?
That was . located in the Radiation Safety office,
( 13 A 14 and --
15 Q Xen Fritz' office? .
16 A It was located in the common office. L 17 Q What's-the common office?
18 A It's the area' that would be . exclusive from Ken's 19 of fice, which had a separate door on it and .the hot labs.
20 0 Was anyone in charge of' the l cards, responsible 21 directly f or them or were they just accessible? y l
22 A They fware just maintained in the ; file and whoever :
23
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vas assigned to do the leak testing, the periodic leak 3
' 24 testing, would go to the file,. pull the cards, locate the p 25 . sources',' perform the wipe test, bring 'the wipe tes't'back to;
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I 1 the lab for analysis and then record the data on a card.
C- 2 Q Was there a written procedure for performing wipe 3 tests?
4 A hs .here was not.
5 Q How did you become familiar on how to perform 6 these?
7 A Basically, I was -- there was -- I was trained by 6 both Ken Tritz and Mr. Jason and Carla Shiffos.
9 Q Who's Carla Shiffos? ,
10 A She was a person who is in the senior position 11 prior to Mr. Jason.
12 Q Is she currently employed by the University?
( 13 A No, she is not.
14 Q Did you ever have occasion to attempt to perform 15 a leak test and be unable to find the source?
16 A Yes. ,
17 Q could you give us the details of that?
18 A Well, it was a -- some Americium, low activity 19 Americium sources that were a set of, I believe,. a small 20 sources that --
21 Q What do you mean by small?
22 A Well, I-believe -- I can't remember the exact 23 activity of them but they were probably no more than half an 24 inch across -- less than that actually. I would say about 25- a quarter inch across and they were disk shaped.
14 1 Q Were these seeds?
9' 2 A No, no. Oh, no. These were -- it was a -- one of 3 the authorized users was a researcher, was using them in 4 some sort of experiment. I don't know exactly the purpose 5 of it. It had to do with obstetrics and gynecology research 6 and -- but they were later -- they were -- the one I 7 couldn't find was later found and it was later located. I 8 did have trouble at the immediate time, you know, 9 hen I ,
9 went out to do it. They had been misplaced by the 10 authorized user.
11 Q Was it required that the authorized user possess a 12 sealed source?
13 A It's a requirement of the license, okay, that all 14 persons using radioactive material be approved by the 15 radiation safety committee. That's the-license policy.
16 Q What occurred in practice?
17 A I would say for the most part, there's probably a 18 couple of instances where there were sources like check --
19- well, see, depending on activity, too. It would depend on 20 the amount of activity. Like if someone had an exempt check 21 source.
22 Q What's an exempt check source?
23 A Well, an exempt check source would be a check 24 source that contained material that 'did not require 25 licensing per 10 CFR 30 : and those -- I don't -- I think that
15 1 there were some of those out that didn't have authorized C# 2 user. They didn't have like an approved procedure or 3 protocol for possessing them. They were just like for 4 instrument check sources.
5 MS. FIORINO: They were gamma sources.
6 THE WITNESS: No, they would have been gamma 7 sources, mostly, or a beta, gamma. A lot ' t them would have 8 been. cesium 137 which is really a beta source but it's got a 9 decay product that's a -- you know, a gamma source.
10 BY MR. PAULt 11 Q In an instance where you had trouble initially 12 finding the sources, who was that that was responsible for
( 13 those sources? i 14 A The investigator?
15 Q Right.
16 A I believe his name was Dr. Holt. ;
l 17 0 He was an authorized user on the NRC license?
18 A He had a research protocol, I believe, but I'm not 19 positive about that.
20 Q What time frame were you -- did this occur?
Geet. That's hard to pinpoint. I would say 21 A 22 between a year and a half and two years and it was found by 23 someone else who went to perform that.same task after, you
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/ 24 know, afterwards.
k 25 Q How much afterwards?
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16 1 A I'm trying to think whether it would have been C-"" 2 three months perhaps. You know, I can't be positive.
It's 3 -- because the other -- the other nources we vore able to 4
locate and we made, you know, we made a -- I believe we made 5
a note or told somebody that one of them was absent and 6 notified the investigator. Actually we notified the 7 investigator's assistant because the investigator was out of 8
that laboratory at that time and it took just a while for 9 them to physically locate it.
10 Q Were Fritz or Jason aware of the -- were Fritz or 11 Jason aware that thoce sources were missing for three 12 months?
13 A I believe so. I believe that I even mentioned to 14 either one of them and that -- because we had contacted --
15 there was an effort made to locate it within the office.
16 -0 By who?
17 A Well, I know I questioned the laboratory assistant la and when I left I said, you know, tell Dr. Holt I need to Later it turned up in that 19 know where the source is.
20 general location all the time -- but they're so small and It 21 they're being attached to different pieces of equipment.
22 had just been overlooked.
23 Q Were you aware that there were in this time frame, 24 summer of 1988, there vore other sources that the other nad 25 techs had found missing?- You were aware of those
c 17 1 circumstances?
CY 2 A Yes, I was aware that there was sources that had
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3 been attempted to have been located, that they never found.
4 And -- they just couldn't locate their sources.
5 Q Do you know any specifics of that, like dates, or 6 persons involved?
7 A As far as dates -- I really couldn't pin it down 8 as far as dates. I can give you the general specifics of 9 what I know about that though.
10 Q Okay, go ahead.
11 A I think it was Mr. Zimbrodt -- he was a technician 12 previously-with our office -- had initially discovered the
[ absence of these sources and notified the management of that 14 and they attempted -- I know for sure that there were 15 several communications with the authorized user, or the 16 person who was responsible for those sources who was using 17 them. They were gas chromatograph sources. They were foil 18 sources. Nickel 63 was the isotope and they were used in a 19 gas chromatograph and apparently they had been -- when there 20 was a moving of furniture for storage, the source had been -
21 - supposedly -- this is what we think, or this is what I 22 heard -- been in a desk.
23 They had been transported to a storage location 24 outside of the. laboratory and were stored with a bunch of 25- other furniture in an area that was later renovated. And I
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. ..> g 1 know -- I don't the specific scope of the attempt made, but 2 there was an attempt to locate them.
3 Q By who?
4 A I believe there were communications between Greg 5 Zimbrodt and the authorized user. I believe that also Mr.
6 Jason attempted to locate those and I believe that also 7 there was communication from Mr. Tritz to Dr. Tan was his 8 name. And -- but as far as all the details of the 9 correspondence, I wasn't privy to all of that. All I knew 10 was that there was talk about those being missing and not 11 being able to be located.
12 Q Do you know if they ever found the sources?
I do not think they ever found those. Not that I
( 13 A 14 know of.
15 Q That was the Nickel 63 source?
16 A I believe there were two sources. I'm not 17 absolutely positive. I believe it was two sources, Okay, 18 because I remember there were two sets of cards. Now the 19 records -- the way they kept the card records, you know, was 20 a little confusing, but I think it was two sources. Nickel 21 63 -- I forget how much of the original assayed activity it 22 was -- it was in the milicuries, but that's really---
23 because I remember the issue of the two cards, two sets-of 24 cards and so I am relatively positive it was two sources.
l 25 Q And what type are omitted? Is that a gamma?
19 1 A It's a Beta emitter.
2 Q And what's the half-life of nickel, do you know?
A oh, I'd have to look it up. It's fairly long.
3 4 BY MS. FAHEY:
5 Q What's a potential safety hazard, the strongest 6 thing in a desk drawer?
Well, this would be a subjective judgment. You 7 A 8 see, it's relatively low energy Beta. I'd have to look up -
9 - it's less than a hundred KB Beta, I believe, and the 10 sources themselves were encased in a steel holder or a metal 11 holder, I'm not sure it was steel, and they should have been 12 relatively stable, unless they are subjected to high 2
13 temperatures, and there was no evidence of leakage of those 14 particular sources on the cards prior to them missing. I 15 would say that if you're actually looking -- my subjective 16 judgment as to the health hazard would be that it would be 17 low.
10 BY MR. PAUL:
19 Q Could they be ingested?
20 A No, well, it wouldn't be -- it would not be easy 21 to do. You'd have to dismantle the holders and then you'd 22 have a metal foil that this material is plated onto, that 23 the Nickel 63 is plated onto -- and then you would have to 24 either remove, through some chemical means, the activity 25 from th'e metal foil and then adjust it in that fashion --
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20 1 Q Were both the sources that were missing on the 2 same metal rod? You indicated there were possibly two.
3 A No, they would have been -- each separate foil 4 would have been enclosed in separate containers.
5 Q But they were both related to the same machine or 6 --
7 A I'm not sure whether it was for the same gas 8 chromatograph, but they were both for gas chromatographs.
9 Yes, I'm sure that they are both gas chromatograph sources.
10 I'm not positive as to whether or not they were tha same il machine.
12 Q And the technician that was directly involved with
..N that was that Zimbrodt, correct?
13 14 A As far as the initial discovery of them missing, 15 yes.
16 Q Did the issue continue to be brought up or did it 17 just die at that point?
18 A It wasn't a hot topic of conversation.
19 Q Do you recall that in August of 1988 there was an 20 NRC inspection conducted by Gibbons, an NRC inspector?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Do you recall that prior to that there vas a topic 23 of conversation, at least among some of the Rad techs,
24 regarding missing sources?
C 25 A Yes, well yes.
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21 1 0 Wa,s that the sources you just described to us?
2 A Yes.
3 Q And to your knowledge there was only two missing?
4 A Those were the only ones I knew of, yes -- at that 5 time, yes.
6 Q Did you have any direct knowledge of the removal 7 of the inventory cards from the file by Mr. Frits?
8 A By Mr. Fritz?
9 Q Or under his direction -- I believe Jason actually-10 was the one who removed them.
11 A Well, I was aware that the cards that we're 12 speaking of.were not available for the inspection.
( 13 Q And where were the cards?
14 A They were in a desk drawer, 15 Q In whose desk drawer?
16 A There's a technician named Melvin Boyd.
17 Q And do you know how.they:came to be in his desk-18 drawer?
19 A Yes, ILdo.
20 Q And how was that?
21 A They were given to'hlm by Mr. Jason.
Do you know what the reason was for him to -- Mr.
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22 Q 23 Jason -- did you have any discussions with Mr. Jason about 6 2'4 this?
b 25 A Not atLthat time, no.
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4L 22 g- 1 Q Did you have any discussions with'Mr. Doyd?
Q. *. 2 A Well, there's three of us sitting there when the 3 cards were handed to Mr. Boyd or Mr. Jason.
4 Q So you actually saw this happen?
5 A Yes I did.
6 Q And -- were you aware that there was an upcoming 7 HRC inspection at that point?
8 A Yes, I was.
9 Q And Mr. Jason handed Mr. Boyd the cards, is that 10 correct?
11 A Yes, he did.
12 Q And what did he tell him to do with the cards?
[ 13 A These may not be the exact words, but it's very 14 equivalent. The equivalent words were, "Here, do something 15 with these."
16 Q Was there any other discussion on the purpose of 17 why he gave him the cards?
18 A No. Not that I'm aware of, not when I was sitting 19 there, present, when that occurred, no.
20 Q Do ycu recall how many cards there were?
21 A It was -- two sets I believe, of two cards stapled 22 together on each set, and each set was for one source, so 23 there was two source -- cards for two sources.
(' 24 Q And --
k 25 A Is that confusing, or --
- + 'mW u ~ exx;vL . aw swr 23 1 O Each source had two cards because of the number of
- 2 signatures, or something like that?
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- sPC RO 3 A Decause of the number of white tests that had been 4 performed.
5 Q So then did Mr. Boyd place these in his desk?
6 A You, he did.
7 Q And how long did they stay there?
8 A I don't the exact amount of time they did stay 9 there. I don't know exactly when they were removed.
10 0 Did you talk to the liRC inspector during that 11 inspection?
12 A on a few occasions, briefly.
13 Q Did he make inquiries that you were aware of 14 regarding the inventory cards or the sources?
15 A flot as far as .I was concerned.
16 Q Do you know whether he ever reviewed those cards 17 in the course of his inspection?
18 A I assume he did. I assume he did.
19 O And -- were the cards in the desk during his 20 entire inspection -- in Mr. Boyd's desk?
21 A I believe that they were, yes.
22 0 Do you know whether Mr. Tritz had any involvement 23 in this?
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24 A I was not privy to any conversations that would 25 give me any information regarding that.
24-1 Q Did you ever subsequently talk with Prince Jason d7 2 about this event?
3 A Yes, later.
4 Q And what was discussed?
5 A This was in July, I believe of 1989 when I was 6 engaged in trying to convince the management to take a look 7 at -- you know, sort of audit the program.
8 Q Audit the radiation safety program at Uc?
9 A Yes.
10 Q And what management were you talking with?
11 A I was talking with Dr. Wyatt.
12 Q And this was July 1988 - 19897 g 13 A Yes, when I finally talked -- I think maybe it was 14 August, early August, I believe.
15 Q Of 19897 16 A Yes, I think August 2, 3 or 4th. Something along 17 those lines. I met with Dr. Wyatt.
18 Q And was this one --
19 A And also prior-to that I had talked to Dr.
20 Silverstine -- both me and Mr. Boyd had talked to Mr.
21 Silverstine.
22 Q And who is Mr. Silverstine? ;
23 A He is a nuclear medicine physician, an authorized-24 user and a member cf the radiation safety committee.
25 Q It is ay understanding that at that time Dr. Wyatt
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25
. I was the chairman of the radiation safety committee?
2 A Yes, that is correct.
3 Q And you say -- did the RSO report dir6 ) to the 4 RSC -- Radiation Safety Committee?
5 A Well, you see, that's sort of strange. This is 6 just my understanding, was that, yes, the Radiation Safety 7 officer reported to the committee'and I guass, therefore, 8 the committoc chairman.
9 -BY HS. FAHEY:
10 Q Let's get back to the question. In July of 1989 11 you had a conversation with Prince J6sen?
12 A I'm thinking it might have been early August.
( 13 Q Okay. And he discussed with you about the source 14 cards being put in the desk?
15 A Well, in actuality, I discussed with him that me 16 and Mr. Boyd and Mr. Harris had signed a statement that --
17 and turned that over to Dr. Wyatt regarding those sources 18 were unavailable for the inspector during that inspection 19 that we're talking about in 1988.
20 Q This is a memo that you prepared?
21 A Yes. In fact on your last visit you made a copy 22 of that, that memo, with our signature on it.
23 Q And --
24 A And that's when I discussed about the -- those 25 cards, and that Dr. Wyatt, I explained that Dr. Wyatt was
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26 1 aware of that, and that Dr. Wyatt desired to have accurate 2 information about that from Mr. Jason. Af ter that Mr. Jason 3 prepared a memo of his own and put it in an envelope that I 4 enclosed with some other material I turned over to Dr.
5 Wyatt, but I am not aware of the nature or wording of Mr.
6 Jason's memo to Dr. Wyatt. I don't have personal knowledge 7 of what is written in that memo.
8 Q okay, so what you're saying, and correct me if I'm 9 wrong, is that you had no direct knowledge t' rom Mr. Jason 10 about why he handed the source cards to Melvin Boyd?
11 A Well, no, he indicated to me when I was speaking, 12 when I was broaching the subject about that, that -- he 13 indicated to no at that time that he had been instructed by 14 Ken to do so.
15 Q Instructed to what?
16 A llave those cards unavailable for the inspection.
l'1 That was the gist of what he had said.
18 BY MR. PAUL:
19 Q That Jason had said?
20 A That's what Jason had said to me.
21 Q Was Wyatt aware of this incident before you told 22 him?
23 A No.
24 Q That was the first he --
25 A To the best of my knowledge, no, anyway.
l 1
W.
4_'. ,
- . L 27 1 Q At the time this occurred back it. August of '60 2 A Are you talking about the inspection?
3 Q Yes, the inspection and the cards being given to 4 Molvin, did you have any knowledge of what thn purpose --
5 why they vero doing them?
6 A Why they were given to Melvin?
7 Q tio one told me the exact motivation, no.
B BY MS. TAllEY :
9 o Did you know what sources the -- woro for?
10 A Yes, I recognized that they were the Dr. Tan 11 sourcou. I did rocognize that much, yen. .
12 DY MR. PAUL:
13 Q You were knowledgeable at that point in timo that 14 you had at least looked into the mattnr and that they woro 15 misoing.
16 A Yon, that they woro under investigat lon. You 17 know, they had tried to find'them.
10 Q Did- you have an opinion as to why they were given 19 to Melvin?
20 A An opinion, yes.
21 Q Do you want to givo it to us?
22 A Woll, I would say that my opinion would be that 23 they were -- you know, since they had not baan Inak-teated 24 for, you know, a period of time, th6y probably would have 25 rather not, you know, have the inspector one that. That's
a ,
. wa% - # a %Aga 28 9
1 an assumption though, you know.
2 BY HS. FAllCY :
3 Q Does the fact that they weren't leak testod for a 4 period of timo an NRc violation?
5 A Yes.
6 BY MR. PAUL:
7 O What was the procedure and how often did you 8 perform leak tosts?
9 A For bota, It was our common practice -- for beta 10 and gamma sources about a hundred microcuries in activity, 11 to leak test them ovwry six months.
12 O Was that proceduro followed by the University?
13 A Cenorally, yes.
14 Q Would all these tests bo documented on tho 15 inventory card?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Were you over asked to falsify an inventory card, 10 meaning to sign off a card when you had not performed a 19 test?
20 A Well, we never signed them, but do you mean, enter 21 tha date on the card?
I 22 Q Correct.
23 A No, I was never encouraged to do that.
24 O Do you know of any Instances where it took place?
25 A Not personally, no.
" ~~ "
- ^ 7;,L._ 4. .r-a, ,
29 1 Q_ Do you know;whetherT it took place orinot? ~
2- A _I really have no knowledge as to.that ever_being 3 requested.- I assume 1not.
4 BY MS..FAHEY:
5 Q. When you spoke with Dan Gibbons during.the NRC _l .
6 -inspection,-did_you, or'are you'avare of any of the:other-7 techs intting hi,m know that cards were missing out of the-8 pile of source cards?
9 A IJo , I don't believe that was brought up.
10 Q You didn't volunteer the information?
11 A No.
12 G What was the nature'of your conversations withl Mr.
13 Gibbons?
14 A Very, vary brief. We spent more time talking' 15- about the weather because most 1of his time was spent with; 16 ' Ken Fritz or other UC personnel. It was a very limited:
17 scope.
In Generally, the most contact 1I would.have-is-when- J 19 Ken would need. some ' information to give to Mr. Cibbons and _
20 he didn't know where-tollocate it; he'd askime to tryLto--
21 ~1ocate the information and-I_would go-to the files or 22 wherever the information was located and then' bring it back 23 to the office.
24L I would say that 99= percent--of Mr. Gibbons' time L_ .25_ was spent wl' h management personnel.
CQ - _ # $ #I* [lk _ b.1 ( E f I '
, . .4, , . - .-. - . - - - - ~ .- --
.-,vu,- - ,aw . . - - ,- i
. - a -- wa- - . w ~ _ . . . .. .. .
t 30 1 LQ So:your presence was-not required to bo there?1 l
2 A No, no.
3 -O_ In order to annist during the inspection or.
4 anything of that nature?
5 A No, not at that particular. inspection.' I think I 6 _ spent a total of ten minutes with Mr. Cibbons - 10 7 minutes in his-presence. ~
R Q You were encouraged to be_ absent during the -1 9 inspection?
10 A. No one came out and said, you know,_we'd like to 11 be -- you.out of here, or you know,-anything like that.
12 Q But -- yoit kind of loave that hanging. . Were you li assigned certain duties that would guarantee-that you were-14 not in the offico?
15 A No, I was in the_ office most'of the time. I was 1 />
In and around tho' of flee most- of that porlod of time lduring 17 the inapection.
IB Q This was about a week long inspection?
19 A I believe it was.three or-four days._ I'm-not--sure 20 of the exact time,1 but I believe it-was three._or four days.. -
21- BY MR.-PAUL:
22 Q In June,'spocifically, there's a-memo'date-June-23 30, 1988 from Alexander and Fritz to the radiation-safety 24 techs. It's been referred to by other witnesses as a' gag 25- order.-
l
un aymann -wihn UEA ...
.l 31 1 A Oh, yes.
2 Q Do you remember that?
3 A Yes, I do.
4 Q Can you just explain what the circumstances were 5 that - where this came about; why this thing was written?
6 A Well, I believe I know Why it was written. I 7 believe the principal reason it was written was to basically 8 keep radiation safety office business internal to the 9 radiation safety office.
10 Partially, I would say, not to air our dirty 11 laundry, you know, out with the rest of the authorized 12 users, or if we had disagreements with the way things were done, to limit us from talking to the other researchers.
( 13 14 That's what I believe it was for primarily.
15 Q Was there any specific event that precipitated 16 that particular memo?
17 A I can't pinpoint a particular event, no. You 18 know, I may personally have been responsible for it in my 19 behavior because many times, you know, if I had a problem 20 with a policy, or if I thought there was going to be a 21 better way of doing something, and I would be out doing like ;
22 lab surveys, I would say, you know, this is what they want 23 you to do in the office, but here is what the better way is, 24 you know.
~'
25 You know, I imagine if that would get back to I
32 1 management, they might -- it might displease them and that might have been an motivation. I'm sure I wasn't the only 2
3 person that, you know, spoke outside of the office.
4 Q Was there a meeting over this memo?
5 A Yes, there was.
6 Q Who attended?
7 A Myself, -- I believe it was myself, Melvin Boyd, I 8 believe, -- I think he was here then -- Pat Harris, Ray 9 Estes, Carolyn Hurt and Ken Fritz and George Alexander.
10 Q Then, do you know who authored the memo? Was it 11 Alexander or Fritz?
12 A All I know is that -- well, I know for fact that 13 the memo had both person's names at the top of it.
14 Subsequent to that, I had heard Ken said that he -- that Ken 15 has said that George had authored it, you know, and that, 16 you know, he had just basically signed off on it.
17 Q Was Fritz there at the meeting?
18 A Yes.
19 Q What did they tell you about the order or.about 20 what they wanted you to do?
21 A They told us to read it and sign it and then asked ~
22 us if we understood it?
23 Q Did you understand it?
24 A Well, I understood the language of it, yes. I 25 understood what the words said, yes. As to the ultimate
, ;. 33 1 intent of it,--I'm not positive I understand their' motives- -
2 for that. I understood what the meno itself said.1 3 Q Did it, in your opinion, interfere-with your 4 ability lto discuss safety concerns with the NRC7 5 A My personal feeling was -- this is my personal 6 feeling -- was that unless I would personally exhaust every 7 possible avenue within the University -.to get' a .certain-8 problem I might have corrected, - that-it would have been, at <
9 that time,' deleterious to my continued career to-go to'the 10 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
11 Q' So it did impact the way you felt.__
12 A' Well, not that particular memo, as much as just a -
13 general -- you know, a general historical perspective ~I had.
14 -Q Historical perspective of what, the radiation 15 safety program or'the people involved?
16 A Well, no, no, previous NRC involvement that the -
University had hed over a particular_ individual' who _ was 17 18 there prior to my-ever starting there.
19 Q Is that. i-20 A Yes, that would?be 21 Q .
Ment to the NRC; is that correct? Is that-your 22 understanding of t?
23 A Well, I believ communicated with them,-yes. h 24 Q What happened t ias far as,you know?
25 ,
A Eventually, J
R . {t%
_ . _. . _ . . . _ _ _ . _ _ . - . . _. _ . . _ . _ _ . . _ . _ . . .._ _ . _ _ ~ . _ _ . . . _ . _ . _ . _ .
'l ,
' 34 1 _Q_ Was it your-feeling that because- "N 2 -of-this contacts with the NRC7-
-3 A- Well, partially. Yes, I believe that that was-4 partially -- I believe that the management viewed the L 5 had gone outside of the chain of command and tha id not 6 adequately take to management, prior to going to the NRC.
7 Q Did you connect up that incident, th situation, with this memo -at that time? -- =
8 9 A In a way, yes. In a way, yes, to a limited 10 degree, in- that when I' was hired, mention- was made- of a 11 . previous employee who- hadn't taken problems properly'.to 12 : W anagement -- when I was hired -- when I was g 13 interviewed, in fact.
14 BY MS. FAHEY:
1 15 Q Who_ mentioned it to you? '
16' A .It was George Alexander who mentioned -that at. the.
17 time of my' hiring. I had,'you know,-from beingrin the 18- business, was familiar with rumors regarding, you know,'that-- ,
- 19 ' there had been trouble at UC with an employee. That had 20 been in the papers and: whatnot.
21 -I have to admit that I said that I understood, you 22 know, . that ~~ -you' know, that you should take - problems to 23 management prior to going to the Nuclear Regulatory 24 : Commission.
25 BY MR. PAUL:
bN. - . .
,.' g1 35<
c 1: CE Was-it your opinion at that time thatitheyj-looked =
2 unfavorably about employees bring-radiation safety concerns- ,
3- to the_NRC?
4 A At the time of my-hire?
5 Q No,_ at the time of this meno.
6 A I had the feeling that they would definitely look unfavorably at a person going to the NucleariRegulatory.
7 i
8 commission with allegations or accusations, :especially:--Lin 9 their opinions, they hadn't been properly'run upf through the-10 managements structure first. So,--IJshould say, under those 11 conditions, yes.
12 BY MS. FAHEY:
At the time you had the meeting and you.all signed =
( 13 Q ~i 14 the gag orders, did _ anybody from the- staf f- bring lup;the Jfact1 15- that it's.a-violation:of--the NRC' regulations??
In fact, I.mentionedLmyselfE-- was the?only 16 A
-17 individual that said' anything,f I believe. lAfter it was 18 signed, I said,- of course, Jyou can't have thislapply- to;us .
19 communicating with the NRC;- you o know, - I ~ stated : that p1that, 20 you:know,-I-did state that thatEcouldn't apply to theLNRC.
- . -i 12 1 I did not also' state at that time'that:IfthoughtU 22 it:was wrong.in the first place, but,-you know, I did state, you know, that-it could not apply, you know, to the NRC.
, j 24 Q What-was the response?
I ~
- s. .I believe that -- I believe_it was George-- -
I I,: 25 A
' % Ax m cu m uo u.m u o nau uiw
, ?
36 1 can't remember whether it was George or Ken mentioned that -
2 - they said, well, no, we're not telling you you can't talk 3 to the NRC, you know, along those lines. So, you know, I 4 had -- you know, there was that verbal -- you know, verbally 5 they -- you know, there was from management some, you know, 6 acknowledgement, or at least voicing, you know, that as long 7 as -- you know -- my feeling of it was that they meant, you 8 know, we can't restrict you from going to the NRC, but, you 9 know, we expect you to take it through management first.
10 You know, it 1 caves gray areas, but you know, I 11 did mention that and there was a comment made by, I believe 12 it was George; I'm not positive.
13 Q What is your opinion -- if you would haNe 14 contacted the NRC about some radiation safety Joncerns after 15 signing that gag order and had not gone to management --
16 A If I had not gone to management; what would I 17 believe would happen?
18 Q Yes.
19 A Oh, I believe I would have been written up for it.
20 They would have took some disciplinary action.
21 Q Fired possibly?
22 A I guess it's a possibility. It would have been 23 hard for them to fire me on one incident, you know. I might
~
24 have been reprimanded.
25 Q That's just a hypothetical.
'37 1 A Yes,-it's hypothetical.
i
-2 Q But there was some fear in your mind after signing 3 that?-
4 A- Well, you see, I also personally believe that it's 5 the employee's right. I-mean,11t's an employee's 6 responsibility if you have a situation, to make management aware of the situation. See, if they're not aware of-the 7
8 situation, you know, then I'm not doing my duty if I don'tl 9 bring it to their attention; am I?
10 Management's best able to address problems, so I .
11 personally believe that, you know -- in fact, it says it in 12 the regulations. I believe 10 CFR I believe -- it-
/ ~
says that you're supposed to take these-concerns to your
( 13 14 management. You know, the big gray areas intth'e regulations-15 is time lags, timeframes and things -like that, you^ know.
16 BY MR. PAUL:
17 Q I mean, in talking with you and other people that 18 were involved with this memo, they called it a gag order; is <
19 that correct?
20 A Yes,'oh, yes, it's been referred to as-that.
21 Q Why did you call it.the gag order? q 22 A Well, it told us that we couldn't talk-to-anybody
- 23 about radiation-safety business outsidelof the office, and ,
/' 24 that disciplinary _cetion could be a result of such failure N~-
25 to comply _ with- that statement.
~ ~^ ~
,, _.... d[ .=. :
a.
138 i 4
-I BY MS.'FAHEY:
2 Q LIsn't it true. that in the past you and others 3 brought concerns-to management about'the radiation safety 4 office and nothing was done?
5 A- That's true r -that is true.
6 BY NR. PAUL: .
7 Q Did.you sign the. order?
8 A Yes, every hourly employee in the office signed 9 that order.
.10 0 Was it a requirement- of your. employment -to sign?-
11 A It wasn't; they didn't specifically say so.
12 Q What did they say?
13 A They said, " sign it!" 'They sign this;.you 14 understand, sign it.
15 BY MS. FAHEY:
16 0 .So nobody refused.to sign;-is whatlyou're.saying?.
'17 A No.
18 BY'MR. PAUL:-
19- .Q When you signed it, did you have the: opinion that 20 if you didn't sign it, there would be some type:ofzaction" 21- taken:against you?
1 22- A Ch, yes. LI assumed that if I refused tolfollowia.
23 direct management directive, that-would at least,1at'the-
/ 24 very minimum, be taflected on my things like performance.
E\m;.
25' evaluat'lons and'like that.
ie; 9 ,-
p 4 .-r m , -- e m- - - - - - - . - - - - - -
.;- F ,j
,39 1 Q ok,ay, this memo is June 30, 1988. Now, the
- 2 incident with the inspector was early August,88. 'Did that: .
t 3 have any influence on you as far as not letting the 4 inspector know that they had attempted to hide' inventory ,
5 cards?
6 A That, along with other things. Truthfully, to a 7 certain degree, that; the fact they_had made:this statement 8 -- made us sign the statement or'that they made that af ,
9 policy, and then just_ my general feeling about the-10 management at that time and the f act that I -felt --- this is-11 an opinion -- that, you know, that they.certainly would be 12 very angry, you know, in the middle. of an inspection, I 13 said, here, look at these. :
14 It would be, you know, -- I assumeLthat'would 15 anger, you know --
16 Q They wouldn't appoint you to the radiation safety 17 committee; would they?
18 A No.
19 BY MS. FAHEY:
20 Q How many NRC inspections have you been present 21' for?
22 A Two.
~
23- _Q During the'one previous to August of '88, was
<~ 24 there one that you were present for?
r Yes, I believe it was '86.
25 A
s.: -,
40 q
1 Q Did the NRC inspector sit down with each1one of 2 the health physics techs and talk to -you abnut concerns?
3 A- No.
4 Q It was strictly a review of-records and things ofi 5 that nature?
6 A I have to say that I'm used to the nuclear power 7 industry prior to this experience here, where there seems to be a better amount of enforcement and inspection. Compared-8-
9 to a nuclear power plant, the inspections we received were, 10 in my opinion -- this is only my opinion -- were negligible 11 --- the two that I was witness to, anyway.
12 Q Now, when you aware that there was going to be an
( 13 audit and inspection in August-off'88, were the techs ,
14 anticipating that the inspector.was-going to find-out-some 15 of the serious-concerns that you all had?
16 A We looked in the Health Physics _ Society ---they.
17- have a directory. When-we heard who the inspector.---the ,
18 name of the inspector, we looked up'his credentials, and we-
-19 assumed that-they would find lots of violations.
20 In fact, you know, Mr.: Gibbons said something 21 like, well, is there anything -- talking with the -
22 technicians -- is there anything_I can address before I' 23 leave, or something along those: lines.
24 'I think I mentioned, yes,-should I get my resume l %l 25 together, because I wasn't aware, you know,-the nature of y_
%,ug um_e e muA,s.4n ,w-41 1 his report. I assumed, you know, that a qualified 2 individual spending three or four days, would have come up 3 with more than eventually came out of it.
4 (Brief recess.)
5 MR. PAUL: Back on the record.
6 BY MR. PAUL:
7 Q I guess at the time we broke, we were discussing 8
-- still in the 1988 time frame of the NRC inspection in 9 August. At that time, did you have any concerns regarding 10 the ef fectiveness of the radiation safety program at the 11 University of Cincinnati Medical Center?
12 A What time are we speaking of?
13 Q In 1988.
14 A Yes.
15 Q What were those concerns?
16 A Certain practices, recordkeeping practices, 17 certain technical aspects.
18 Q Did you feel that these concerns affected 19 radiation safety?
20 A Well, yes.
21 Q Do you have any specifics -- what specifically?
22 BY MS. FAHEY:
23 Q Maybe the way you want to address it is 24 ultimately, you and some of the other health physics 25 technicians ultimately went to the Radiation Safety
42
- 1 Committee; isn't that true?
7" 2 A Yes.
3 Q With your concerns. Maybe -- I think --
4 A Yes.
5 Q- Was that a culmination kind of, of all your 6 concerns?
7 A Not of all our concerns.
8 Q Go ahead.
9 A That did contain some of our concerns. I had 10 other more, I guess you'd call it esoteric, you know, 11 concerns regarding some things like instrument calibration, 12 the type of sources that were used for calibration, the gr 13 method of instrument calibration, certain-problems with the 14 way dosimetry was done. Let's see what the other burning 15 issues were for me -- training of radiological workers was 16 another one of my pet peeves.
17 BY MR. PAUL:
18 Q You wrote some memos on these; didn't you?
19 A Yes, I did.
20 Q Was it you_that provided me with some 21 documentation last time?
22 A No, you just got that-one. You just copied that 23 one, the one document from me. I don't know whether it was
-24 me or whether Melvin or Ray Estes or Pat Harris you might C.
25 have talked to.
~
~ . . _ . , m % , .l'. ? 9 M @ m
- 43 I Q Did you write any menos regarding your safety
('s 2 concerns that you just maintain on file that you didn't 3 submit to management ultimately?
4 A In my personal correspondence file, there were I 5 believe a few versions -- different versions of other 6 material that I eventually sent in memu form and there was, 7 you know, it's possible I had one or two that I had written 8 and hadn't put in that form or put, you know, delivered in 9 that form to management or the, you know, radiation safety 10 management. So yes, there was -- there was probably a 11 couple of items in my personal correspondence file which is 12 where I kept -- keep this material.
13 Q Regarding -- was there any more instances of 14 missing sources af ter the August, 1988 incident that you 15 were aware of?
16 A Not until much later was I aware that there was 17 other missing sources. That was a consequence of the NES 18 audit.
19 Q Maybe now we can go into that. What did you 20 become aware of as far as missing sources?
21 A I just became aware that they had not been able to 22 find the final disposition -- you know -- records of the 23 final disposition of severa) -- I don't know how many --
24 radioactive sources and that part of -- when it -- one of N, _.
25 NES' activities that were being conducted in conjunction
l 44 1 with their a,tivities c at the University were trying to find 2 correct dispositions of what happened to that material.
3 Q The missing sources -- do you know whether there 4 was a card in the file on that source?
5 A I believe that they identified -- I believe that 6 NES used some old cards that had gone out of use to identify 7 what they considered some unresolved records, yes. -
8 Q Did -- after August of 1988, did -- was there any 9 change as far as recordkeeping on the inventory cards?
10 A No.
11 Q They were maintained by Prince Jason or in his --
12 A They weren't really maintained by him in particular, no. They were there just out in the office and
( \s 13 14 we all had access. We all knew where the cards were. .
15 0 When you performed a vipe test, did you take the 16 card into the field with you?
Some people did. I didn't. Generally what I 17 A 18 would just do is I would write on a piece of paper, I'd just 19 make like a worksheet of where the material -- What room 20 they were located in, what building they were located in, 21 what the isotope was, and then I'd work from there but some 22 of the individuals did. Yeah, they would take a handful of 23 cards and they would go out and locate the sources that way.
24 Q What was George Alexander's title?
(. 25 A It was administrative director of radiation
l
' 45 4
1 safety.
2 Q Did he have any direct line authority over your.
3 department?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Who's boss? Was he Ken Fritz' supervisor?
6 A I was always told that they sort of operated on an 7 equal footing and that supposedly his realm was the ,
8 administrative realm and Ken's realm was supposed to be like-9 the technical realm.
10 Q Who did both of those individuals report to? l 11 A I believe that Ken reported-to the Committee. I'm 12 not sure if George reported directly to the Committee 13 because he also had another appointment at the University.
14 Q What was that?
15 A I believe it was administrative director of 16 nuclear medicine department. ,
17 Q So he had responsibilities in two separate 18 departments?
19 A Yes.
20 BY MS. FAHEY:
21 Q Did you consider that a conflict.of interest?
22 A I personally did.
23 BY HR. PAUL:
'~
/ 24 Q Why?
U A Nuclear Medicine Department is one of the larger 25
m g,
46
=
- 1. users of_ material. Our job is to regulate the -use of--
O 2 material and I just felt that, you know,-that radiation 3 safety. office should be totally autonomous from control by:
4 the users of material. That was just my understanding of That may be-an incorrect understanding. You 5 the concept.
6 know, that's my concept however of radiation-safety. _W e're 7 supposed to. oversee those who use, not be overseen by:those 8 who use.
9 Q Were you aware of any incidents where Alexander' 10 interceded on nuclear medicine's behalf-to. override any 11 radiation safety controls?
12 A To over -- directly override? ' No . - He made
( 13 comments and sometimes he'd make statements that I would, 14 you know, that I objected to but as far as actually using-15 his authority to that extent, as far as technical issues, 4
16 no. Now, as-far as. administrative issues, yes.
17 Q Did these administrative issues affect radiation-18 . safety at all?
19 A Yes. I would say that from my personal viewpoint, 20 that you know, his thrust wasn't the -- his understanding-of 21 radiation safety wasn't the same understanding I had and' 22 therefore~from the basis of my understanding, I would say ,
23 that yeah, 24 Q As a result of any of Alexander's directives,.did
- x. you ever violate any.of Uc's radiation safety procedures?
25
47 1 A No, not -- no. Not directly, no.
f-
\z. -
2 BY MS. FAHEY:
3 Q Were there inconsistencies between what the 4 nuclear medicine department was required to do and what 5 other departments were required to do as far as radiatic.:
6 safety?
7 A There were certain things they weren't required to 8 do that other individual users or groups of users were 9 required to do, yes.
10 Q The reason for that was because of George 11 Alexander's involvement with the radiation safety office?
12 A I woald -- that's a possibility. I can't deny
[ 13 that it's potential that it could be because of the 14 different nature of the type of work they perform with 15 radioactive materials in that they deal with medicine 16 directly and the other groups deal with research, primarily.
17 That may have been their justification for holding them to a 18 different torch, you might say.
19 Q okay, can you give an example of what kind of 20 things Nuclear Medicine was exempt from?
21 A Well, they didn't have -- they didn't inventory a
22 all the materials they used because a lot of them were short 23 half-life materials perhaps but they weren't required to inventory all their human use materials.
24 Now, they did C
25 submit inventories for their non-human-use materials but for 1
1 48 1 their human-use materials, they weren't required to' submit 2 an inventory of their total usages. That would be one of 3 the principal items and of course because they did so much 4 work, they were allowed -- you know, if there's more '\
5 contamination in some of their areas, you know, they would 6 be looked at differently than someone using a longer half-7 life isotope because I guess it was assumed that since the _
8 half-lives were shorter that it wasn't as big a concern if 9 they have contamination in their areas to that degree as it 10 was some of the other areas.
11 Also, there was the issue of some of the 12 bathrooms, you know, that they use in their nuclear medicine 13 area.
14 BY MR. PAUL:
15 Q The decontamination issue?
16 A Oh, no. That was-a different issue. I'm speaking 17 along the lines of some bathrooms that were used by both 18 patients and the public.
19 Q Oh, as far as -- well, it was the contamination 20 issue?
21 A It was a contamination issue, yeah. I thought you-22 said decontamination before.
23 Q I did.
24 A Okay. That's another issue that, you know, I felt 25 that it only benefitted nuclear medicine but you know, the
m 49 1 policy that the radiation safety committee adopted.
~
2 Q How many sealed sources did the University have 3 that were under your responsibility -- an estimate, if you 4 could?
5 A I'm just estimating. This is going to be a real 6 rough estimate. Individual sealed sources -- I would say a 7 couple hundred, give or take a lot. There's a -- there's a 8 -- I would say around a couple hundred.
9 Q Did every- technician perform the vipe test?
10 A Yeah, I believe erery technician in our office has 11 performed wipe tests.
12 Q So it's a continuing duty within the radiation 13 safety department?
14 A Yes.
15 BY MS. FAHEY:
16 Q How is it that you're scheduled to do certain wipe 17 tests? Is there a list of the sources and the dates they 18 need to be checked?
19 A They had general -- like they were doing -- they 20 had a few periods -- the every six month ones were due and 21 then someone would be assigned during-that month tofdo-the 22 wipe tests.
23 Q One person?
24 A one, sometimes two. I've done them both by myself s_.
25 and in conjunction with others.
30 1 Q So, it's really only two time periods during the C. 2 year in which these are done certain.
Yeah, because the alphas would coincido. We did 3 A 4 alpha -- actually the alphas were done four times a year but 5 for the beta gammas, they were done twice a year.
6 DY MR. PAUL 7 0 In December, January time frame, 1988, 1989, did 8 you go before the radiation safety committee?
9 A Yes.
10 0 Did you have radiation safety concerns that you 11 addreased with them?
12 A Yeah, we turned over a list of memos that outlined 13 questions and concerns we have.
(
14 0 Did they involve administrative procedures or were 15 they real radiation safety concerns?
16 A Some of them were administrative in naturn and 17 come of them were compliance concerns.
18 Q Did you address these concerns with Fritz prior to 19 going to the radiation safety committee?
20 A A number of them, yes, but not all of them.
21 Q Did Fritz make any attempt to resolve these 22 issues?
23 A some of them were resolved, yes.
~
24 Q What happened to the other ones?
L 25 A Well, some of them were administrative in nature l
oc2
+
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- l sf '
01 IK% 1 and at that tino, the committee chose not be adopt some of 2 our suggentions.
3 Q What did you consider the radiatfon safety issuop; 4 do you recall any specifien?
5 A Well, one of thom would have bech -- it's 6 administrative safety. Itwouldhavebeen!--wasanemo 7 involving the commercial use of a licenso. I'm trying to 8 remember all those memos. There were so many that More .
9 administrativo in nature. Let's nee. Ono' involved -- well, i
10 one involved -- thoro Was discussion in thfe committoa that 11 went along with thu -- came up -- when we talk about the i 12 commercial use of 11conne which we wanted -- the technicians h 13 wanted to dispose of all the radium 226 in the University 14 because we didn't foci that it was a good 2natorial to koop around because it's you know, it's got some instabilities.
15 I
16 Wo -- that was broached, to dispone of the radium.
17 I can't remember whether we - h think we touched 10 in the meeting on training, that it was the technicians' 19 wish that training be conducted more freqdently. I'd have 20 to -- it's been a while since -- and so much water han gone 21 under that bridge, I'd have to have those ' memos to really 22 tell you any more.
23 Q Did -- why did you go to the Codanittoo and not 24 through Frite?
(@, .
25 A Ihadbaalcallygiven--tworedsons. One was, as
.~ - _. .. - - . - ___
, OPIS '?! 14 13 703 '790 M45 0c'3 ' ' 9 wm l
d 52
[g i a renult of a grievance that I filed n;nce'rning a policy 2 that the Committen adopted to havo un doce ntaminute cartain 9
3 spills of radioactivo natorial, I filed a ' grievance that --
4 to oppose that chango in our job descriptions to have us to 5 do that and as a result of that griovanceI-- in the body of I
6 the grievanco, Iwasintornedthattheradiationpatety
, 4 7 consittco was the policy-making body for Uhe radiation 0 antatyintheUniversityandatthatpoink,youknoy,I,,.
9 figured well, you know, from now on, you Know, it we can't 10 getanythingdonewithKen,thenI'mgoindtogoto 11 committee membors.
12 Q Go you weron't satisfied with Pritz' actions on hy 13 the issues?
14 A Ho, I was not.
15 Q Was Fritz aware that you were going to go to thu 16 committee?
17 N lie was aware that Dr. Niot had galled a special le meeting where the ~~ and the technicians were to -- and the
- i 49 technic 1&nu were going to be there. lie was aware of that i
20 and wo wore told about the meeting and this was subsequent 21 tousfilingfor'entryintotheunionandlWhenthemeeting 22 wascalled,wowere--weweretoAdthathouknow,the reason they called the noeting was they wdnted to know if we 23 gg 24 had any problems that would have cauced ud to want to join
..y
- 25 the union. '
.- .. v 53 1 Prior -- when we initially heard about the C** 2 meeting, we drafted those memos. We drafted as many menos 3 regarding areas of concern as we could prior to the meeting 4 and then when the meeting occurred, we passed out copies of 5 those menos to the radiation safety committee members that 6 were present.
7 Q Was Fritz in the meeting?
8 A Ho, he was not.
9 Q Was George Alexander at the meeting?
10 A He was.
11 Q I've looked through the issues. One of the issues 12 I didn't see that was addressed there was the issue of the
(" 13 inventory cards being missing f rom the NRC inspection. Why 14 wasn't that brought up at the meeting?
15 A I believe that we didn't take any items to that 16 committee meeting that 5s 1.d have directly reflected on 17 individual acts or what we -- you know, by anybody. When wo 18 talked about use of service license, we didn't mention any 19 individuals. We were just trying to address general 20 policies and also when we went into the meeting, we weren't 21 entirely sure of the purpose of the meeting. We were-just 22 told there was going to be a meeting and that we were going 23 to be present.
~
24 We were prepared with some concerns and some
( 25 issues that we wanted to give to the committee but we didn't
. - . - - -. - _ _ - _- - .. ~ -. ... _ . - . _ .
o' ..
54 1
feel at that time -- I don't think any of us were prepared C"~ 2 to attack any individual. We were mainly trying to hit 3 general -- more general policies and approach the situation 4 in a more generic fashion.
5 BY MS. TAHEY:
6 Q can we back up for a minute here and talk about 7 the concern that you had about the commercial use of the 8 license, can you explain in a little more detail what your 9 specific concern was?
10 A Well, actually I didn't really have that, that 11 aspect of it as a concern until we had received a phone call _
12 from -- I forget his -- some gentlemen within the Nuclear
( 13 Regulatory commission -- regarding a report that we had -- I 14 believe Jason had called to inform them that one of the
- o s ,. EuA 15 whtte tests we were performing for a company called Deer 16 Iron had come apart and I guess he was returning the call on 17 that issue.
18 I can tell you he was talking to Mr. Jason and I 19 had done the initial counting and come up with the data --
20 the initial data on that wipe test. So Jason handed me the 21 phone to talk to the gentleman'from the NRC.
22 Q Excuse me. You did~the-wipe test, or you did --
23 A Ho, I did the analysis. Wipe test was performed 24 by the vendor -- I mean, by the Deer Iron people. When I 25 talked *to the NRC gentleman on the' phone,-he said, by the
1 s' of 55 l I
. I way, do y ' ' eve a provision in your license to provide this l
? service? vs I said to the gentleman, I said, well that's 3 something I really don't know and I really can't address.
4 Would you like to speak to Mr. Fritz, the Radiation Safety 5 officer? ,
6 He said, no, no, just mention it to him. Mention 7 to him that I asked about it, was all he said.
8 Q Do you remember who you spoke to at the NRC7 9 A I don't remember the gentleman's name, but it was 10 involving Deer Iron, and they're a radiography company, so I 11 don't know whether it was someone who specializes in 12 radiography work or whether it's just general inspection, or 13 what. I really don't know.
14 BY MR. PAUL:
15 Q Was it a region three guy or --
16 A Yes. Because Deer Iron is located in Dayton, I 17 believe, so it would have been a Region III gentleman. And 18 then after that, after I hung up the phone,'I went and told 19 Ken, I said, Ken, this gentleman from the NRC told ne to 20 mention to you that, you know, basically, what he said. It 21 was asking whether or not we were approved to provide that 22 service.
23 And Ken just sort of -- I can't remember his exact 24 words, but he, I think he said, well, we'll have to-look k into that, or something along those lines, and that was the 25 J
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56 1 end of it. That, however, got me started thinking. I later 2 did some research, you know, just looking through the 3 applicable section of the code of rederal Regulations 4 regarding the fee schedules, and what not and as a result of 5 that the memo that eventually made its way to the committee.
6 That's how that eventually made its way-to the committee.
7 Prior to that, you know, being in the nuclear power 8 industry, I really have to say that licensing issues and 9 what not aren't the concern of a senior health physic 10 technician, very much. You're more concerned with the 11 standard activities and those items are handled by 12 management personnel.
13 DY HS. FAHEY:
14 Q What about the source calibration that was being
- 5 done, using your department?
16 A You mean the calibration of sources, or, source 17 calibration?
18 Q Yes, that you did sources that were calibrated for 19 other facilities, other licenses --
20 A Oh, you mean instruments.
21 Q Instruments.
22 A Well, that was an activity that we didn't really 23 particularly address that in the committee meeting because 24 ve viewed that as a -- more of a private, thing of a couple
(,
25 o,f individuals and not an activity of our office, per se.
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57 l I was mainly addressing -- in our memo, in our 1
2 discussions, we were mainly addressing the wipe testing of 3
sealed sources and what not that were routed in a regular 4
fashion into our office, and that the technicians actually, 5 you know, would routinely perform the work on, where most of 6 the instruments that were done -- ninety-nine point nine !
l 7 percent of the time or ninety-nine percent of the time those 8 instruments that were calibrated for areas outside of UC 1 9 were not done by the technical staff.
10 Q Who does that?
11 A Ken Fritz.
12 Q And did he go to all these other facilities?
A I'm not sure. I really don't know.
13 14 Q What I'm getting at here,-is-this a private 15 business that Mr. Fritz was running on the side, using the 16 NRC, or Cincinnati or --
17 A It was my understanding that that was the case.
18 o would you know whether the money came -- was 19 reimbursed to the University's Radiation Safety --
I have no specific knowledge of that. I really 20 A 21 don't.
22 Q What about when you did the wipe test for Deer 23 Iron, or whatever the name --
24 A The wipe tests for Deer Iron and the wipe test for l
\--
25 other. companies were billed, paid to the University.
l
'W 58 1 Q And you have direct knowledge of that?
2 A I've seen the bills. I've seen the data, I've 3 signed the data. I saw the invoices.
4 Q okay. But you're not aware of ever seeing the 5 instrument calibration bills, going out, or coming back in?
6 A Never. Never had any knowledge of how that was 7 paid for, if it was paid for, how it was paid for. I have 8 no knowleuge at all, no real information.
9 Q But you are aware of some isolated incidents where 10 the University employees, meaning yourself and other techs, 11 performed some of those instrument calibrations?
12 A Yes, on rare occasions --
?
13 0 Whose direction did you do that in?
q,v" 14 A Well, once I did one for Dr. Carxiccis. R, w a r 15 BY MR. PAUL 16 Q Who is he?
17 A He was a member of the Radiation Safety Committee 18 and he is, I believe the Director -- I'm not sure this is 19 his correct title, but the Director of Radiological 20 Sciences,.
21 Q Did he have commercial interests with Fritz?
22 A I don't know for sure.
23 BY MS. FAHEY:
24 Q Do you remember what f acility it was that you s
25 calibrated?
- 59 1 A I believe it was Good Sam Hospital. ,
2 Q Did you think that that was unusual for'them to be >
3 using the University's equipment to do that?
4 A I had some difficulty -- you know, I had some, 5 just basic difficulty with it, but as far as -- that wasn't .t 6 really my biggest concern. My biggest concern was that the +
7 work was done correctly.
8 BY MR. PAULt 9 Q Did you bring all these details up to the 10 Radiation Safety Committee?
11 A No.
12 Q Why not?
13- A Because it was my belief that several members, at 14 1 cast a few members on the committee, and at least one I'm 15 sure of, was engaged in those type of activities and I 16 didn't know whether it was University policy or not 17 University policy and I didn't want to really, I basically-18 didn't want to put my foot on it --1put my toot in my mouth 19 basically, by saying, oh, this is terrible,-this is terrible ,
20 and then someone could come around-and say, well perhaps 21 that this is allowed for people with the University,-
22 providing consulatory services'as part of their, you know, 23 the professors' union, or whatever.
L '
24 I had personal feelings about what was done and
.C 25 the wayfit was done, but I1had no knowledge as to whether it
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60 1 was against University policy or not and I considered more 2 issues that were more in my scope of knowledge.
3 BY MS. FAHEY:
4 Q Do you know if Mr. Fritz did this calibration of 5 instruments during his work time or if he came in after 6 hours?
7 A No, he did them during work time.
8 Q When you or any of the other techs were asked to 9 do it were you paid to do it on the side, outside?
10 A Whenever I had done them, which was very few 11 occasions, it was done just during my hourly schedule.
12 BY MR. PAUL:
( 13 Q Was it assigned for you to perform by Fritz?
14 A No, Ken would never ask me to do things like that, 15 and the only occasion that I can think of that I parformed Vv..a<ns ace 16 such an activity was when Dr. Carriools called me and asked 17 me to take care of it for him because Ken wasn't -- he 18 called and asked for Ken and Ken was out and he said 19 something equivalent to well, I need to get these done, and 20 since it's -- and my feeling was, since they need the 21 equipment to detect wherever they're being used for exposure 22 to radioactivity, that you know, I could put my personal 23 qualms about that, because it's better for them to have a ,
24 meter to detect radiation than not to have a meter to detect l
\_.
25 radiation and that if they were going to be without a meter
m .NW 61 1 for a day or two, then it was more important for them to O 2 have the meter from my standpoint.
You knew at the time .f; cerriacts W
fen ,MA ( asked you this that 3 Q 4 it was not a UC meter?
5 A I assumed it wasn't, yes. And when I picked up 6 the meter from his office, I later saw that it had Good Sam 7 Hospital marked on it.
8 BY MS. FAHEY:
9 Q Did you fill out all the paper work?
10 A I made a calibration sheet on it and I put that in 11 with the rest of the records. I believe I made a copy of 6 stat 4r r.cp 12 the calibration sheet and gave it to Dr. Carrittis.
2
( 13 Q Did you fill out a sticker on the meter itself --
14 instrument -- indicating when it was calibrated?
15 A No, I did not. I gave the -- well, I may have --
16 I'm not positive on that, to tell you the truth. It was my 17 general practice, would have been to initial it and date the 18 calibration. But I don't know if I did that on that Kla ws kA s 19 particular meter since it was for Dr. Carriceish# I'm not 20 really sure whether I did or not. I may have.
21 Q You usually put your name, though, that you were -
22 -
23 A Yes, when I calibrate instruments I would 24 generally put a sticker saying that I did it, put my 25 initiaEsonit,thedayandwhenthedate--whenitwasdue
. 62 I for calibrat,lon.
2 BY MR. PAUL 3 Q Did other techs perform the same services for 4 either Carriocis or Fritz, commercial-type activities?
5 A They may have had occasion to calibrate some 6 instruments for them. I'm not sure whether or not'it 7 definitely happened. I sssume that it might have happened 8 on one or two occasions. principally though, it seemed 9 principally that Een would do those, the calibrations.
10 Q Do you recall an incident -- I believe it's the 11 same tire frame as the -- when you went before the Radiation 12 Safety Committee -- Fritz was interested in knowing who had made some allegations to the NRC7
( 13 14 A Yes.
15 Q What do you know? Could you give us some 16 specifics?
17 A It's sort of sketchy. I'm trying to remember how 18 it was put -- we were informed that someone had made 19 allegations.
20 BY HS. FAHEY:
I 21 Q By phone?
22 A By phone, and that because of a phone log, they 23 suspected a phone that me and Mr. Boyd shared, Okay. And I
'~
24 had heard from Melvin -- someone had told him or he had
\
25 heard -- that whoever had talked to Ken from the NRC had
~- - - - - - - - - -
. - - , , , . . . ~ ]g 63 1 said that -- identified the individual as someone who h,
(**" ' 2 sounded 10kay. That's what I heard. I didn't 3 directly hear that from Ken. I heard that via Helvin and 4
also I had heard that me and Melvin initially were the ones 5 suspected of placing the call because of that phone log and 6 that -- but that we tried to explain to them that on that 7 date we had called the NRC for the Form 3 maps, the 8 postings, and that that was what that call was about.
9 BY HR. PAUL 10 Q Did he believe you?
11 A I don't know. I wrote a statement. I wrote a 12 memo. I'm trying to think if it was to Dr. Wyatt or who, 13 where I said that I didn't believe that anybody in our 14 office -- that I knew I hadn't done it, that I hadn't called 15 the NRC, and that as far as I knew, as far; as I personally 16 knew, I had no knowledge of any of the individuals in the 17 office making that call.
18 Q But it was Fritz who was the one that nade the 19 inquiry of you, whether you told the NRC?
20 A I remember him talking about it. It wasn't like 21 he grilled me. In fact, I asked him. I think I -- when I 22 had heard about it' I asked him about it. When I heard from 23 Helvin about it I think I confronted him and said well, you 24 know, it wasn't me. I didn't do this. And I said, if I was 25 -- before I do that I would have brought it to you. And ho p .y - l2( LM9
' sg .
1 said, hey, you know.
- l. ' ' Q So he --
2 3 A I told him what I would do is, I'd tell him I was 4 going to call the NRC. That's what I told him.
5 Q Was any action taken against you and Melvin over 6 the incident?
Not that I can put my finger on. Nothing, 7 A No.
8 really. The only -- and as far as anybody else on the 9 committee -- no, there was no action taken.
10 BY MS. TAHEY:
11 Q Did it cause you any concern that an anonymous 12 call to the NRC would no longer be anonymous?
13 A Yeah, well yeah --
14 0 Were you concerned that--somebody at the NRC would 15 front out the witness?
16 A Well, yeah. I know Melvin was highly upset. I 17 thought it was not right. Because if you can't -- my 18 feeling was, if you had a sensitive issue and you wanted to 19 get information from the promulgators of that policy, and 20 every time you were going to call to get information on your 21 own without going through your management and getting their 22 line on it, and the NRC was going to basically turn-you into
'23 your management, then what the heck's going on?
I heard it said that that's what was said.
~
I
, 24 C believe that's what was said, but in the same nature I can 25
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- 1
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- 2 scuttlebut and I was upset because of that-and the fact that !
i 3 I was suspected and it was like no one would directly come i up to me and say anything. I had to go to them and say, 4
- 5 " hey".
6 But I also upset that supposedly that is operating 7
in the best interests of safety would do something to make-that information flow that could be-crucial to safety.
8 9 questionable -- you know, put it all at risk, especially 10 considering the fact that everybody in the Region III that's (
^
11 been there for awhile, from my understandings of it, should 12 have known about the past history of the_ place enough-that i 13 they should know that they can't be -- I'm referring back to ,
14 the thing, that -- I mean, it justLseems like real impropriety on -- but that's just my opinion.
1 15 16 Q As a result of your meeting with the Radiation :
17- Safety Committee, was there any action taken by them or the :
la RSo-to-remedy the concerns you had? ,
19 A Well,-yes, they did finally dispose of the radium,_ - :
20- the higher activity radium sources and only kept a few as-21 counting standards.- They AjectedLa --~they did address They'didn't 2:2 some of the administrative areas of concern.
23 address some of the items like, we suggested a. lab. hazard-2( classification. system and they.didn't think that was useful.
M' 25 so they did act_on a few of the issues.
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1 Q I guess that would bring us to, in August of 2ast y 1 - v .,
2' year,1989, you brought up the issue of the inventory cards.
((%l.' .~% . .i I believe you 4'?. 3 What caused you to bring that issue up?
~
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earlier said it was to Dr." Wyatt. Is that --
' , , 4 ~
. [l/p[;*, Well, yes. You see, in August it was Dr. Wyatt..
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. .s But previously I had, we had talked to that Dr. Silverstine, 3 . he ./ . r ,
7 me and Mr. Boyd had talked to Mr. Silverstine. .
,hl%,
8 Q When was that?
9 A It was in July, in the previous month.
10 Q And ,uy did you talk to him, and what was it --
Y 11 A Well; to be truthful, okay, Hr. Estes had filed a 12 labor suit, okay, and some of the material he took to the 13 DOL, they directed him to take the -- they said, this is not 14 in our jurisdiction, 15 L3 3N @ ddig C "' < c 16 %['}gMggg ,
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21 And I wanted to try to prevail upon individuals N
22 within the committee to -- that it would be the thing to do 23 was for the University to go the Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission and say, listen, we understand we've got 25 problems, but we want to meet you half way, and we want to
. . /_
67 g i get things fixed.
2 So I contacted -- well actually, Helvin Boyd 3 phoned Dr. Silverstine and said we wanted to discuss some 4 issues with him and we later met with him on a couple of 5 occasions. Ono was just to inform him of our feeling for 6 the nature of the problem. He directed us to gather 7 material together to try to document and prove our point, 8 because he knows the way the state is, that you have to have 9 just cause for taking certain actions against individuals, 10 with the University, and also to make major changes, it 11 would take -- we would have to show them the need for those 12 changes.
13 During the first meeting we informed him of the 14 fact that those records that we discussed earlier had been 15 made -- that were unavailable _for the inspector and he 16 wanted us to document that and he also wanted us to document 17 everything else that we felt was wrong. So we -- the three 18 of us individuals signed a letter that you have a copy of.
29 BY MR. PAUL: ,
20 Q That was yourself, Melvin --
21 A And Pat Harris.
22 Q And Pat Harris.
23 A And we gave him that letter and also we gave him a 24 breakdown of us reviewing the license and the regulations b
25 where we thought we needed improvement. Then he sent that v ~ - + ,9 , w ~ -.
t 4 ,68
-r 1
back to us and said, no, he wanted a separate documented l
\ 2 file on each area. He wanted it very well documented. He 3 didn't feel we had documented adequately.
4 It was shortly after that that I really felt that 5 Dr. Silverstine didn't understand the time constraints that 6 the University was under and it was eventually decided -- i 7 Well I eventually decided, to be truthful -- to go to Dr.
8 Wyatt, the chairman of the committee and basically tell him 9 that either that certain things were going to be done or I 10 was leaving, and I went into his office with my resignation i
11 in my hand.
12 Q When was this?
13 A August 2, 3 or 4th. I met with him, I think it 14 was the second. I'm not sure though. It could have been 15 the third or the fourth. And I sat and had a lengthy 16 conversation with him, explaining my feeling for the 17 problems and he explained to me that well, they needed ,
18 something to go on, basically.
19 And I told him, I said, well, if I had a statement
- 20 from Jason about these missing records, that Ken had told 21- him to give those to us, then would that be sufficient to
~
22 start the. procedure to get the problems corrected _at the 23 University. He informed me that that would-be adequate.-
^
24 I lett his office. I went into our office. I got.
D 25 with the ..
technicians and told'them,that I. wanted them to y.- ,, -~e-wam-*m-e%-%gm y-=. --,w-gs .g.r-p e.rwqy q ggi sye4 +. w. -ymg
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06 45 42 14: 13 TOG 773 5665 004 I ,
69 1 make copies of the license and appilcable egulations
.' 2 because va might wanted to review them, bncause we wanted to 3 recol?plie this material for Dr. Wyatt to nbow him, basically 4 lay out to him the nature of -- the genera'l nature of-the 1
5 problem with the Radiation safety program.! And then I asked 6 Mr. Jason to speak with no privately back ,in 1;on's office.
i !
I 7 Fion was on vacation at that tino and I had,a discuapion with i'
0 Jason about those cards. , ,,
. .. g 9 And -- I don't know if you want he to elaborate 10 any further on that or -
11 Q Yes.
12 A Well,basicallywhattranspiredltherewas--I pl 13 told him that I assumod that r,en had told hiin to do that and 14 he said that yes, that was the caso, that Ken had instructed 15 hin to basically make those cards disappear before the 16 inspection and that -- I also told Jason thint we -- that we 17 had already told Dr. Wyatt about our part!in that and given 18 him a copy of that signed nemo and that 4 I told him that I 19 felt Dr. Wyatt was interested in the truth in that matter 20 and that it would be beat coming from him.I 21 Andthenheimmediatelyattert%atwenttothe 22 typewriter and formulated a nono to Dr. W att and he agreed 23 one hundred percent with me that, yes, that was the thing to
( gg, 24 do. And that started this whole thing rolling.
y.. , .
25 Q When you met with Wyatt, was it ;)ust yourself l
- .r .
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70 f-- 1 there and Wyatt?
t- 2 A Yes.
3 Q Did you document that meeting?
4 A Well, I referred to it and when we handed over the 5 packet of information to Dr. Wyatt the next day, where we 6 enclosed the information that Melvin had in an envelope, we 7 put in with our envelope, marked confidential on both of 8 them and took them to Dr. Wyatt's secretary because he was 9 out of the office at the time.
10 Yes, I believe on the cover letter of that that 11 explained what we were handing him, I said, per our 12 conversation type thing.
13 Q Do you still have those documents?
14 A I'll have to see if I have a copy of that.
15 Q That's one thing I don't have a copy of.
16 A I'll have to check, because, you know, once all 17 this happened, you know, and management started the process 18 to eventually audit our department, to have our department 19 audited, there was a time where they-took all records and 20 files and everything and they put them in this big -- what 21 used to be our calibration facility, and we're still trying 22 to get those records sorted out.
23 So, you know, I don't know for sure whether they 24 can find it our not, but I may be able to.
' Would you mind looking for us?
25 Q
- - - c_d
, , ma yaw w w'
' 71
- 1 A No c I will do that.
t*; - 2 Q Could I get a copy if you find them?
3 A (No response.)
4 Q Was it subsequent to that that they hired NES.
5 A Well, in my conversation with Dr. Wyatt, I 6 suggested that the thing to do would be to hire an outside 7 consultant firm to come in, a professional consultant firm to come in and audit the program, you know. That's really 6
9 all I was asking for, because I was certain that if they 10 brought in a outside consultant, you know, that they would 11 be -- they would generate a report which would raise 12 everybody's eyebrows as to the real nature of the problem.
Indeed, that happened.
( 13 14 Apparently, Dr. Wyatt contacted the president of 15 the University -- this is what I assume -- and got clearance 16 to contact the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which I 17 understand he did, and he asked for, apparently asked for 18 the name of a consultant.
19 As a result, we hopefully are on the road to-20 recovery.
21 MR. PAUL: Can we go off the record here?
22 (Discussion off the record.)
23 MR. PAUL: Mr. Barbro, have I or any other NRC 24 representative here threatened you in any manner or offered
you any rewards in return for this statement?
25
c '\ ' s, '* ;
. 72 1 Tile WITNESS: Oh, no, none at all.
2 MR. PAULt Have you given this statement freely 3 and voluntarily?
4 THE WITNESS: Yes, I have.
5 MR. PAUL Is there anything further you care to 6 add for the record?
7 THE WITNESS: Nothing I can think of right now.
8 MR. PAULt If something comes up later, you have ,
our card or you can reach us through your attorney. I would 9
10 appreciate it if you could locate those documents regarding 11 your meetings with Wyatt in August of '89.
12 THE WITNESS: Okay, I'll try to do that.
- b. 13 MR. PAULt If I could get copies, I would 14 appreciate it.
15 THE WITNESS Okay.
16 MR. PAULt The interview is concluded; thank you ,
17 for your time.
18 THE WITNESS Thank you.
19 [Whereupon, 6t 3:56 p.m., the interview was 20 concluded.)
21 22 23
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25
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REPORTER'S CERT!TICATE
(
This-is to certify that the attached proceed-ings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Investigative Interview NAME OF PROCEEDINo DOCKET NUMBER:
Cincinnati, Ohio PLACE OF PROCEEDING:
werc heid as herein appects, and that this is ;
the original transcript thereof for the file of 5 the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by se and thereafter reduced to typewriting by se or under-the direction of the court report-ing company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
g
.- lA 0 f w /W d' %m '
/' Ronald N. LeGrand .
Of ficial: Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
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.