ML20129G455
| ML20129G455 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 08/08/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20129G267 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-96-330 NUDOCS 9610030056 | |
| Download: ML20129G455 (35) | |
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l EXH B T 3 1 i l l
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l Informstlen in this record was deleted in accordance with the freedom el lnformationi Act, exemp]tions '76
F0lA 96- ]O ,
Case No. 2-94-036S EXHIBIT 3 l
9610030056 960910 PDR FOIA CALANDR96-330 PDR ,
SfBelal Transcript of Proceedings 4
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
Title:
Interview of Christine Smith Docket Number: 2-94-03&
Location: ~ Crystal River, Florida Date: tuesday, August 8,1995 ,
l e
l Work Order No.: NRC-298 Pages 1-33 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. EXHIBIT d -
( 33 PAGE I 0F J[PAGE(S)
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t 2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + ++++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS
! i 5 INTERVIEW i l 6 ..............................----X l 1
7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No. I 9 CHRISTINE SMITH : (2-94-036) .
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11 ----------------------------------x !
12 ,
Tuesday, August 8, 1995 l
13 -
1 14 Conference Room - Second Floor l l
15 Florida Power Corp. Admin Bldg. ;
1 16 Crystal River Plant 17 6745 N. Tallahassee Road 18 Crystal River, Florida 1
19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 21 10:25 a.m.
22 BEFORE: ,. ,
23 JAMES DOCKERY Senior Investigator 24 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator 25 CURT RAPP ,
Reactor Engineer NEAL R. GROSS l
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 JAMES DOCKERY, Senior Investigator 4 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator 5 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 6 401 Marietta Street 7 Atlanta, Georgia 30323
<8 9 CURTIS RAPP ,
1 10 Reactor Engineer - NRC, Region II l
i 11 6745 N. Tallahassee Road l 2
12 Crystal River, Florida 32629 l
~ i 13 <
14 15 On Behalf of the Interviewee l 16 BRUCE H. MORRIS, ESQUIRE 17 Finestone & Morris 18 Suite 2540 Tower Place l 19 3340 Peachtree Road, N.E.
20 Atlanta, Georgia 30326 l 21 22 .
23 24 25 ,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT plEPORTERS AND TMANScrileERS 1823 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W. .
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l 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S l
2 MR. DOCKERY: For the record, my name is :
l 3 James D. Dockery. I'm a Senior Investigator for the ;
4 Nucl' ear Regulatory Cqmmission, Office of Investigations.
5 The date is August the 8th, 1995. The time is 1
6 approximately 10:25 a.m. The location of this interview l
, i 7 is the Crystal Riv'er Nuclear Plant, Crystal River, 8 Florida. Our discussion here today involves inquiries i
9 being made in NRC Investigation Number 2-94-036 ,
10 ,Beginning with Mr. Vorse, I'd like the 11 participants here today to identify themselves for the 12 record. And I think we can dispense with the spelling of 13 names. Lead' Counsel is aware of the spellings.
14 Mr. Vorse?
15 MR. VORSE: -My name is James Vo'rse, Senior 16 Investigator with the NRC's Office of Investigation, i 17 Region II, Atlanta, Georgia.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Rapp?
19 MR. RAPP: My name is Curtis W. Rapp. I'm a 20 Reactor Inspector with Region II, NRC.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Morris?
22 MR. MORRIS: I'm Bruce H. Morr,is. I'm here 23 on behalf of Ms. Smith.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Ms. Smith, we'll identify you 25 after I administer the oath.
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1 Would you stcnd cnd raica your right hand, j l
2 plecce. )
3 MS. SMITH: (Complies.) )
i 4 WH5REUPON, 4
5 CHRISTINE SMITH, 6 being first duly sworn by the Investigator, was examined 7 and testified as follows:
8 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you. Be seated. l 9 THE WITNESS: (Complies.) ,
10 MR. DOCKERY: Ms. Smith, will you s' tate your 11 social security number and date of birth, please? I 12
~
THE WITNESS: Social security number, Y
i 13 Date of birth F 14 MR. DOCKER?: And would you state and spell 15 your entire name, please.
16 THE WITNESS: Christine Smith, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-17 N-E. Smith, S-M-I-T-H.
18 MR. DOC 7.ERY: Okay. Ms. Smith, before we 4
19 went on the record here today, Mr. Vorse and I identified 4
20 ourselves to you, via our credentials, as investigators 21 for the NRC, Office of Investigations. Is that correct?
22 THE WITNESS: That is corrpct. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: Do you have any questions about 24 who we are or why we're here today before we begin?
25 THE WITNESS: No , I do not.
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i 1 tel. DOCKERY: Okty. I clco c ked you to rced 2 a copy of Title 18 of the United States Criminal Code, I 3 Section 1001. Do you understand what that title pertains !
4 to?'
l l 5 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do.
6 MR. DOCKERY: Do you have any questions about
! 7 that?
8 THE WITNECS: No , I do not.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you. ,
10 ,
Mr. Vorse?
11 ,
DIRECT EXAMINATION 12 MR. VORSE: Ms. Smith, what type of license 13 do you have?' -
14 THE WITNESS: I have a Reactor Operator's 15 license.
16 MR. VORSE: And would you -- How long have 17 you had this reactor operator license?
18 THE WITNESS: It's approximately June of I l
19 1993.
20 MR. VORSE: Would you describe your duties in 21 relation to that license.
22 THE WITNESS: My duties arq to watch over the 23 plant, Crystal River, Unit III. Operate the plant, take !
1 24 necessary action to prevent anything unsafe from happening i 1
)
i 25 to the plant. To trip the reactor if I believe something _
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1 is un2nfo. B0rically it.
MR. VORSE: Okay. I need to know your 2
3 involvement, in a lot of detail, in the makeup tank evolution that we talked about last time, as well as we 4
5 understand now that there was another evolution similar to 6 that conducted on September 4th, 1994, the night before 7 the September 5th evolution, obviously.
8 Would you describe in detail everything that 9 you.did, what your relationship was with these evolutions.
10 , THE WITNESS: The September 4th evolution was about the same as the September 5th evolution. We had 11 pre-job briefing as to what we were going to do. We were 12 ,
13 going to put'the hydrogen pressure of the makeup tank on the curve, as directed'by Management. Then we were going 14 15 to bleed water from the tank and observe what the system 16 response was going to be.
17 My involvement on September 4th was the same 18 as cn1 the September 5th. I was observing the balance of 19 the plant while the evolution was being performed and just 20 making sure nothing else was going on with the plant.
21 Making sure nothing, you know, went wrong with the plant 22 while the evolution was being performed, so that nobod/ ,
23 was distracted by the evolution and not watching the 24 plant.
1 l
25 MR. VORSE: Would you tell me who "we" are?
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1 THE WITNESS: Our crsw; Dtvo Fields, Rob 2 Weiss --
3 MR. DOCKERY: Excuse me a'second. Let's --
t 4 If'we can, let's make sure we're discussing September the 5 4th here, just in case it's different from September the 6 5th. Okay? We'd like to make that distinction. j i
7 THE WITNESS: September 4th and Septembe't 8 Sth, both days the Control Room crew was the same. We had 9 Dave Fields, Rob Weiss, Jack Stewart, Mark Van Sicklen, 10 and myself. ,
11 ,
The biggest difference between September 4th 1
12 and September 5th was on September 4th the data that we 1 13 got, we just'had used the computer to look and see what i 14 the system response wab. We didn't do any kind of 15 plotting or anything. And the data that we got was i 16 scattered all over the place. And it wasn't 17 representative of anything. We couldn't really tell what 18 the. data was telling us.
19 The only thing different I recall is I. recall 20 on the 4th, after the evolution was performed, I remember 21 getting up and walking around and looking at the computer.
22 Rob Weiss had graphed the computer poinps and what I saw ,
23 was zig-zag lines back and forth across the curve and 24 back, that you really couldn't tell what the information 25 was telling you. ,
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1 So cinca wa didn't hava cny conclusiva 2 information from the 4th, we went ahead, and the following ,
3 day, the 5th, we decided to perform the evolution again. l 4 And'this time it was decided to sit and let the computer i
5 stabilize so that it would give us good representative G information.
7 And on the 5th, Mark Van Sicklen plotted oh j 8 the curve, he plotted both the computer points and our ,
I 9 chart readings so that we would have good accurate data to 10 present in our problem report.
l 11 MR. VORSE: You earlier said that you 12 performed certain functions that you were directed to 13 perform by Management. Who did you mean by Management?
14 THE WITNES$: Upper Management; I believe.it 15 was Pat Beard had directed us to keep the hydrogen 16 pressure for the makeup tank on the curve. They wanted to 17 maximize the cc's per kg in the reactor coolant system.
18 And, therefore, we were directed to run on the curve. ,
1 19 MR. VORSE: Curt, you may want to ask more l i
20 detail on that later on. I'm going to switch gears here a 21 little bit.
22 In either one of these evolutions on 4 and 5 23 September of 1994, did anyone say this is wrong, this is 24 not a good idea?
i 25 THE WITNESS: No.
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I 1 MR. VORSE: Did anyona on tha shift say tharo !
2 may be some procedural violations? .
i I 3 THE WITNESS: No.
l 4 MR. VORSE: Did you believe that there may be ;
i 5 some procedural violations? f 6 THE WITNESS: No, I did not. On the 4th and ]
1 7 the 5th, the procedures were pulled out, we looked at j i
8 them, and we-believed that we were working within our 9 procedures. ,
10 ,
MR. VORSE: In either evolutien conducted on li the 4th and 5th of September of '94, did anyone say we 12 need to get advice from another source, such as the shift 13 technical advisor?
14 THE WITNES'S: No.
15 MR. VORSE: Did anyone on the shift say that l l
16 Management, and that means above your shift,-needs to know l 17 about this evolution before we do it? !
I 18 THE WITNESS: No.
19 MR VORSE: Did anyone on the shift, either 20 4th or 5 September of '94 say this is a design basis 21 curve?
22 THE WITNESS: No. ,
I 23 MR. VORSE: Did you know that it was a --
24 THE WITNESS: No --
25 MR. VO,RSE: -- design basis curve?
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1 THE WITNESS: -- I did not.
2 MR. VORSE: Can'you tell me what 10 CFR 50.59 i 3 is? !
4
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THE WITNESS: (Pause.) I'm trying to l i.
5 remember which one that was. .
6 .Oh. 50.59, I believe.that is where you need s
7 to do a safety evaluation'for any evolutions that are'+
8 performed.
9 MR. VORSE: Okay. Can you tell me whr.t -- l l
10 basically what it says? Is that what you're saying it is?
THE WITNESS: That's what I believe it says.
11 ,
12 MR. VORSE: Was 10 CFR 50.59 ever discussed !
13 prior to or ciuring either one of these two evolutions of 14 September 4th or.Sth? l 15 THE WITNESS: No , it was not. We believed 16 that we.were working within our procedures. And all of 17 our procedures have already had the 50.59 review, 18 MR. VORSE: Okay. Why didn't you tell me 19 about the September 4th evolution when I talked with you 20 the last time?
21 THE WITNESS: You never had asked me about it 22 and the company att;orney had instructed, us to answer the . .
l i
23 questions, answer them truthfully, but don't volunteer l
. 24 anything. And I never even thought about it.
! 25 MR. VORSE: ,
Okay. Did you or anyone else on NEAL R. GROSS i count necomuns aNo Twecamens 13 3 nH00E SLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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1 your shift after, you know, it was diccovered that it was l 2 a design basis curve and you knew that we were coming, and I ,
j you knew *. hat we were going to be talking to you, did 3
4 anyone'say, anyone of your group, operators of the 5 midnight shift say let's not -- let's not discuss the l
6 September 4th evolution?
i j 7 THE WITNESS: No.
8 MR. VORSE: Do you recall, after you obtained 9 data which was not really in your -- my understanding is, l
10 in your view representative of what was really happening l i
11 on the 4th of September, did you all agree to press on on l'
12 the 5th of September and go deeper into the issue, as far 13 as, you know,' tracking the data? <
14 THE WITNESS: Yeah, after -- After the 4th, j
15 we weren't sure what the data was telling us. And I l 16 believe Rob Weiss and Mark Van Sicklen, and possibly. Jack, 17 sat down and talked about it. And then when we came back ;
i 18 on.the 5th we decided, well, we'll try it again and this 19 time let everything stabilize. And also plot it, you 20 know, so we could be very accurate.
21 MR. VORSE: When an annunciator alarm -- when 22 --How far into the evolution did the anpunciator alarm 23 come on?
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24 THE WITNESS: I don't recall exactly. I i 25 recall that the alarm came in and the alarm was due to the NEAL R. GFH3SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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i i cvolution b2ing parform:d. I meda euro thnt the rcot of 2 the crew was aware that they had caused the alarm. And {
i 3 then I continued on, monitoring the balance of the plant. l 4 MR. VORSE: And what was the reaction when j , .
5 you alerted the crew that the annunciator alarm had ;
e a
6 sounded? :
I 7 THE WITNESS: I believe Dave Fields told'us 8 to go ahead and continue on.
' 9 MR. VORSE: Did you feel that that was ,
i 10 appropriate?
l 11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I felt that was 12 appropriate because AI-500 specifies that if an alarm 13 comes in due'to an evolution being performed,.that we 14 don't need to perform the actions of the AR. So I 15 believed that that was fine and that Dave Fields was 16 authorized to allow us to continue on, and that when the 17 evolution was complete we'd go back and restore the ;
18 system.
19 MR VORSE: 'Did you consider that evolution 20 to be normal?
21 THE WITNESS: It wasn't an evolution that we 22 did every day, but.I believed that it was covered by the ,
23 procedures. And I didn't see any problem with it.
24 MR. VORSE: Have you ever stationed an 25 individual in the Aux Building to vent the tank on any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE IS(AND AVENUE, N W.
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other occcsion?
1 r
( 2 THE WITNESS: (Pause.) I'm -- I'm trying to 3 recall. (Pause.) We didn't normally have them stationed $
4 while we were adding or removing water from the tank.
5 I can't recall another time.
6 MR. VORSE: Would vou consider putting 7 someone in the Aux Building in anti-C gear to vent a $hnk 8 as a normal thing?
9 THE WITNESS: (Pause.). No, not as a normal 10 everyday occurrence.
11 MR. VORSE: Did it enter your mind that maybe i 12 this was not a routine matter if you stationed somebody 13 down in the iux Building to vent the tank?
14 THE WITNESS: (Pause.) Not really. It -- I 15 knew that the evolution that was being performed was a 16 little bit -- a little bit different than what we normally 17 do, but I believed that we had the people stationed in the 18 Aux. Building just as an added -- added measure of comfort.
19 That when we were done they'd be right there to go ahead 20 and vent the tank if it needed to be vented.
21 MR. VORSE: What --
Why would you station 22 someone down there to vent the tank? I,mean, what purpose l 23 would that person have?
24 THE WITNESS: I believe it was suspected that
! 25 when the water level in the tank was lowered that the NEAL R. GROSS count nearens ao Tamscamens l
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L 1 proccura might go into tha untecepteblo part of thet curva l 2 and that we might want to vent it when we're done. Or if j 3 for some reason we had some kind of accident with the 4 pla'nt or something, we would have somebody right there to 5 go ahead and vent it.
6 MR. VORSE: If you go into the unacceptable 7 side of the curve and the annunciator alarm comes on -
8 did you silence the alarm or did you let it continue to 9 ring?
e 10 ,
THE WITNESS: It was silenced.
1 11 ,
MR. VORSE: It was silenced. I I
12 ,
Did you feel comfortable with the annunciator 13 alarm on and'it being on the unacceptable side of the i
14 curve? Why did you not be -- why were you not concerned 15 about it being in that condition? j 16 THE WITNESS: That alarm was in a lot. Since 17 we were operating on the curve I've seen that alarm in for ]
l 18 an hour or so at a time. It -- It was pretty much a 19 normal thing. I've come in and relieved a watch with that 20 alarm in. Get the turnover that, yeah, we did that in 21 hydrogen and we're right on the curve and it'll clear in a 22 little while. It wasn't abnormal for mg to ,
see that alarm 23 in.
24 MR. VORSE: Did you feel there was no time 25 limit or you were within the time limit to have that alarm i NEAL R. GROSS
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1 b2foro you -- bafore you want back to tha curve, in 2 normal, you know, the routine curve?
3 In other words, coming down from the l
4 una'cceptable side of the curve a'nd getting back into the 5 normal region, did you feel that you were covered to allow 6 that 30 minutes or whatever that alarm was on?
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, I didn't see any prob'lem 8 with that. There's nothing in any of our procedures 9 stating a time limit to respond to an alarm.
10 MR. VORSE: Curt, do you have anything you 11 want to ask?
12 MR. RAPP: Just a second. (Pause.) Okay.
13 Let me go back, initially the September 4th 14 pre-job briefing. When was that conducted?
15 THE WITNESS: I couldn't say exactly. I know 16 it was sometime during this, the shift.
1 17 The best I can guess is it would have been 18 after our routine log readings have been taken. Probably 19 an hour or two into the shift.
20 MR. RAPP: And so after turnover, after shift 21 turnover?
22 THE WIT, NESS: It would have been after 23 turnover.
24 MR. RAPP: Was it right immediately after 25 shift turnover or was there some period of normal l ,
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1 oparstion prior to thtt pra-job briofing?
2 THE WITNESS: I -- I can't recall.
3 MR. RAPP: Can't recall. Okay.
^
4 What about on September 5th?
5 THE WITNESS: I couldn't recall exactly when 6 we had the meeting for that day either. I just --
In my 7 mind, I would thi.s it would be -- it was definitely"after 8 shift turnover and it would have been probably after all 9 our routine log readings were done. ,
10 MR. RAPP: Let me approach this a little 11 differently then.
On September 4th, are you aware of any 12 13 discussions 'that Mr. Fields had with either Mr. Van 14 Sicklen or Mr. Stewart' prior to conducting this evolution?
15 'THE WITNESS: I just -- I know that it was 16 routine for our crew before we did any kind of evolution 17 like that to get everybody up in the Control Room to get 18 together and talk about what we're going to do. I know we 19 talked about it both days.
20 I don't know of any other discussions that 21 might have gone on between Mark Van Sicklen and Dave 22 Fields. .
I know the safety concern was Mark 23 Van Sicklen's, and they pretty much were handling what 24 they were going to do.
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1 L 1 basically was watching the rest of the plcnt while ths 2 evolution was being performed. .
3 MR. RAPP: You stated earlier that you l l
4 con'sidered this was covered by the plant procedures and l
- j 5 that the 50.59 review was not required. Under what 6 conditions would a 50.59 review be required? 1 l
. I 7 THE WITNESS: I don't know exactly. I'd'have !
8 to look at 50.59.
9 I just --
I felt that Dave Fields was able to ,
10 authorize us to perform the evolution, according to our 11 AI-500 procedure. And'I didn't see any problem with what 12 we were doing.
13 MR. RAPP: Do the Crystal River procedures 14 define a test?
15 THE WITNESS: Not that I know of.
16 MR. RAPP: How would you define a test?
17 THE WITNESS: (Pause.) Oh . - I guess I would 18 define it as an experiment. I'm not --
l 19 MR. RAPP: And what does an experiment l 20 involve? ;
21 THE WITNESS: To me, a test would be 22 something not covered by procedures at qtll. , ,
If we had 23 taken the makeup tank down to 20 inches, or something that 24 was outside of procedures, I would probably consider that 25 a test.
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J 1 MR. RAPP: Going back thEn to th3 annunciEtor 2 response. Whenever you receive an expected alarm when do 3 you take' action for.it?
4 THE WITNESS: An expected alarm?
5 MR. RAPP: Yes.
l 6 THE WITNESS: It depends on what the alarm l '
l 7 is.
l 8 MR. RAPP: Do you take care of it during the 9 evolution that's being performed or do you wait until
! 10 after the evolution'is concluded or do'you leave the alarm 11 in for a period of time to see if it corrects itself?
12 ,
THE WITNESS: It depends on what's going on,
! 13 what.the evoiution is. If it's an expected alarm and we 1
14 know that after the ev61ution we're going to take care of i 15 it, that's fine.
I 16 Unexpected alarms'we take care of right away, l 17 but if it's expected, if we know what's going.on with the i 18 system and we understand why it's in, we take care of it ;
l 19 when we get a chance.
1 20 MR. RAPP: Dur -- excuse me. During the pre-21 job brief was there any discussion of expected alarms?
22 MR. RAPP: I think it was brought up that the 23 alarm would probably come in.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Now, let's clarify that if we
! )
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1 or the Sgptembcr 5th evolution?
2 THE WITNESS: I would say both days.
3 MR. RAPP: So it was not -- it would not be -
4 - it was not considered abnormal to have that alarm come 5 in whenever you were lowering makeup tank level? I l
6 THE WITNESS: If the curve had been right, 7 the alarm never should have come in. You shouldn't h' ave i
8 been able to get the alarm in by lowering makeup tank l 9 level.
1 10 I had seen the alarm come in before for people l
, 1 11 adding hydrogen, but if the curve was correct the alarm ]
never should have come in.
12 Since the curve was not 13 correct, system response took it ever to where the 14 pressure would have been a little bit high, and that's why ;
15 the alarm came in.
l 16 MR. RAPP: What's the mechanism for adding 17 hydrogen to the makeup tank?
18 THE WITNESS: There's different methods. One 19 method is a valve that we have on the control board to add 20 hydrogen. Then there's another method where if you can't 21 get enough pressure that way, you send somebody down to 1 22 bypass the regulator. And you have an , operator bypass the 23 regulator, and then you use the valve on the control 24 board.
l I 25 Those are the two normal methods.
I i
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1 MR. RAPP: After Scpt -- After the data was l
l 2 taken'on September 4th, what was the discussion about the Were you involved in that I 3 quality of the data?
- t 4 discussion?
1 I wasn't involved. I just j 5 THE WITNESS:
6 overheard that the' data wasn't any good, you know, and 7 that Rob Weiss wasn't satisfied with the data we got.' And r
i l 8 I walked around and looked, for myself, on the computer l 9 -and saw that it really was zig-zagging all over the place. ,
10 And then I went back to watching the plant. .
l 11 MR. RAPP: Did you hear any discussion about ;
.doing this evolution again on the 5th?
12 13 THE WITNESS: I can't' recall exactly when we~
14 decided to do the evol6 tion again. We may have decided on
! 15 the 4th to do it again on the 5th, or we might have just i
16 thought of it on the 5th. I don't recall.
l 17 MR. RAPP: So you weren't really directly l -
18 involved in the -- ,
! 19 THE WITNESS: No , I was not.
20 MR. RAPP: -- discussion to re-perform the l 21 evolution? )
22 THE WITNESS: I was not. ,. , l 23 MR. RAPP: That's all, Jim.
L I
24 MR. VORSE: When -- Had you ever heard of l 25 another evolution ,or set of evolutions being conducted in NEAL R. GROSS i count nemmens ANo TnaNacnesas 1323 nH00E ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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4L l 1 July of '947 2 THE WITNESS: I heard about those right 3 around early December when the operator from that crew 4 gav'e Mark van Sicklen his information about it. That was 5 when I found out about the July incident.
6 MR. VORSE: Did you ever think that when you, 7 on the September 4th or September 5th evolutions, whebthe 8 annunciator alarm was on and you were in a unacceptable 9 region of the curve as published, did you' feel t, hat that '
10 plant was i,n an unsafe condition?
11 ,
THE WITNESS: No, I don't believe the plant 12 was in an unsafe condition.
13 MR. VORSE: Why? '
14 THE WITNESS: I thought it was in the same
~
15 condition that it was when we were told to operate on the 16 curve. When we were told to operate on the curve I didn't 17 feel good about where the plant was.
18 At least when we were on the other side of the 19 curve we actually had somebody down there to vent, that if 20 something happened I felt we were better off with somebody 21 down there to vent than we were just sitting around on the ;
22 curve with nobody anywhere near the tank. ,
23 MR. VORSE: Had you ever conducted similar 24 evolutions to the September 4th and 5th evolutions --
25 THE WITNESS: No --
l NEAL R. GROSS I oDum necomEns 4=D manSeneEns 1333 nHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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1 MR. VORSE: -- at any othcr tima?
2 THE WITNESS: No, I have not.
3 MR. VORSE: Mr. Dockery?
4 MR. DOCKERY: Yes, please.
5 Ms. Smith, how long had you been with that 6 particular crew prior to September the 4th, 19947 ,
t 7 THE WITNESS: That's the crew that I've '
8 worked on ever since I started working at the nuclear 9 plant. ,
10 , MR. DOCKERY: How long would that be, 11 approx,imately?
12 ,
THE WITNESS: I'd say, probably about six 13 years, at the time. '
14 MR. DOCKERY: You mentioned that on September 15 4th you attended or took part in, if that's true, a pre-16 evolution briefing or pre-job briefing. Who led that 1
17 briefing?
18 THE WITNESS: It would have been Dave Fields.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Did anybody else take part in a 20 management position in that briefing?
21 THE WITNESS: Rob Weiss.
22 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Again.ta,lking about 23 September 4th, where were you physically located during 24 the time the evolution was underway?
25 THE WI,TNESS: I was sitting in the left-hand ;
l NEAL R. GROSS
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1 control ~ board opsrator.'s chnir, monitoring tha balance of
. 2 the plant.
4 3 MR. DOCKERY: Were you in a position on ,
4 Sep'tember 4th to know if the annunciator went out, or came l 5 on?
6 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Did it go on that date? )i 8 THE WITNESS: I believe'it did.
i 9 MR. DOCKERY: During the September ,4th 10 evolution was anybody stationed in the Aux Building in
! 11 order to vent, if that was needed?
12 THE WITNESS: I don't recall, but I don't l
. ~
l
- 13 think that we had anybody stationed that day.
l 14 MR. DOCKER : Okay. September the 5th. I !
15 believe you testified that again a briefing was held i
16 before the evolution was conducted. Who led that i l 4
17 briefing? l 18 THE WITNESS: It would have been Dave Fields.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Was the entire shift involved
) 20 in that briefing?
21 THE WITNESS: Probably not the entire shift.
22 MR. DOCKERY: Let me ask it another way if I 23 can, Ms. Smith.
24 To the best you recall, who attended that l 25 briefing? ,
2 t
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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l l
1 THE WITNESS: D%va Fields, Rob Wai2s, Jcck :
)
4 2 Stewart, Mark Van Sicklen, and myself.
l J
3 As for the building operators, I can't recall 4 if'any'of them attended or not. ,
l 5 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Now -- I'm sorry, I 1 6 should have asked this before. I>et's go back to September 7 4th, and to the best of your recollection who attended l
8 that briefing? , j l
9 THE WITNESS: Dave Fields, Rob Weiss, Jack l
10 Stewart, Mark ~ Van Sicklen, and myself.
11 MR. DOCKERY: Is it fair to say that in both l 1
12 those evolutions the people that you just named, to the l 13 best of your' knowledge, had an assigned duty to perform 14 during the evolution?
15 THE WITNESS: You could say that.
16 MR. DOCKERY: And that, again, that pertains 17 to both the September 4th and the September 5th?
18 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
I 19 MR. DOCKERY: Was there any significant 20 difference in the briefing that occurred on the 4th as 21 opposed to the 5th?
22 THE WITNESS: I can't recall any difference 23 in the briefings.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Yeah, I think you just told me, 25 Ms. Smith, that you would have been with that same crew NEAL R. GROSS muni neanas mo in=semeens 1323 nHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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l 1 during July 1994; in that corrcct?
2 THE WITNESS: That is correct. i 3 MR. DOCKERY: Do you recall an evolution I
4 during't. hat. time period, of a similar nature?
5 THE WITNESS: No, we didn't perform any 6 evolutions like that.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Do you recall the - that
8 particular curve being an issue as early as July of 1994?
l 9 Were you aware'of it? ,
10 THE WITNESS: Yes. I was aware of it 11 probably six months prior to September, so probably early l 12 1994 is when I'd heard about the concern with the crew. !
13 hR. DOCKERY: Now, I,believe you've already 14 testified to this, but'I want to make sure I'm clear. Was 15 your testimony that you only became aware of the July 1994 16 evolution sometime during September?
17 THE WITNESS: It was December.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Oh, December. I'm sorry.
19 THE WITNESS: Yeah. It was just before we 20 came to our first interview with you guys that just a few 21 days before that we had found out about the July.
22 MR. DOQKERY: How did you personally become 23 aware of the July 1994 evolution?
24 THE WITNESS: Mark Van Sicklen told me about 25 it and showed me the graph that he had.
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l 1 MR. DOCKERY: Did Mr. Vcn Sicklen tell you 2 why he felt it.necessary that you be aware of the July j l
3 evolution in December of 19949 l 4 THE WITNESS: No, he didn't tell me why he 5 told me.
6 MR. DOCKERY: That's all I have at this time.
7 MR. VORSE: Curt, you got any questions?. .
I 8 MR. RAPP: Let-me get one thing here. ]
9 You said earlier that you felt uncomfortable 10 operating'with the pressure on the curve? Is that 11 correct?
12 ,
THE WITNESS: That's correct.
13 MR. RAPP: Did you ever express that as a 14 safety concern to anyode in Management, either Operations 15 Management, Engineering Management, or to, like, Employee 16 Concerns Program?
17 THE WITNESS: Not ev -- Not to anybody in
~18 Management other than the shift supervisors. There were i 19 different times we had different supervisors other.than 20 Dave and Rob. And I expressed my concern with it, but was 21 directed to put pressure on the curve.
22 MR. RAPP: What was the concern, or your 23 concern?
24 THE WITNESS: The concern was draw the data 25 that Mark Van Sicklen had and responses to the SPs that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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- s. 1 i
1 wara dona during tha rafuni that plcnt rceponte did not 12 match the curve. And that if we were op -- when we were 3 operating on the curve, if~for some reason we had a loss 4 of coolant accident, that the system response would' cross 5 the curve and possibly get hydrogen down into the suction l 6 of the makeup pumps and burn them up. ,
i
. l 7 MR. RAPP: And then you also said.that you
]
l L were made aware of the July event a few days before that '
9 you were first interviewed. Correct? .
10 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
11 MR. RAPP: Was there any particular reason 12 that you did not bring up the July event during the 13 interviews? <
14 THE WITNES5: We brought it up to our 15 management, Greg Halnon, beforehand.
16 MR. RAPP: Before the OI interviews?
17 THE WITNESS: Before the OI interview. And.
18 got.the impression he didn't -- he didn't want to hear 19 about it. And the company lawyer had told us just to 20 answer the questions and not volunteer anything. So 21 that's what we did.
22 If we had been asked about tt, , if I had been 23 asked about it, I would have told you anything you wanted 24 to know.
25 MR. DOCKERY: Ms. Smith, were you ever NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUS. N.W.
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.o l
1 cncourzgnd by anybody in Mnnignm:nt to withhold 2 information from the NRC?
3 THE WITNESS: No. I just -- we brought it up '
4 to our' management and since nobody wanted to hear about it i
5 I didn't think it was important. 'And nobody had ever 6 really asked me about it. If I had thought it was b
7 relevant, I would have said something.
8 MR. RAPP: What gives you the impression that l
9 Management didn't'want to know about the July event?
10 ,
THE WITNESS: I just got the impression that ,
11 Management didn't want to talk to us at.all about the ;
r 12 makeup tank. Any time we'd'say anything about it, they
~
13 didn't want to talk to it. We've never really been ;
14 interviewed. Nobody fr'om Management has ever sat down and
'15 asked us'what happened that day or-anything. I 16 But there was one day that Mark Van Sicklen 17 and I talked to Greg Halnon ar.d we expressed the fact 18 that, hey, you know,.the 5th wasn't the first time it was 19 done. And they just wanted to concentrate on the 5th. So 20 I assumed that it just wasn't relevant. I never even 21 thought, you know, that not saying anything about it might 22 have been concealing it or anything. I,just 23 MR. RAPP: Was --
24 THE WITNESS: It seemed like nobody wanted to 25 hear about it. ,
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.a i I
1 MR. RAPP: Was Mr. H lnon alco cwore of the-2 4th, the event on September 4th, at this time? j l
3 THE WITNESS: I -- I don't know. I couldn't !
l 4 teil you.what he was aware of or not aware of.
l t
5 MR. RAPP: But the meeting you had with him j 6 and Mr. Van Sicklen you only discussed in July?
7 THE WITNESS: I don't think we discussed'any j 4 1 8 particular date, that I remember.
9 MR. VORSE: Can you kind of tell me how that i
10 conversation evolved? I mean, just -- can you give me as ,
- 11 much detail of that conversation with Mr. Halnon and you L2 and Van Sicklen? Can you tell me what was said, to the 13 best of your' recollection? -
14 .THE WITNESS: Mark and I were in his office 15 and I really wasn't talking much, it was mostly Mark and 16 Greg. And Mark mentioned something to the fact that, you 17 know, it's been done before, you know, that this wasn't 18 the first time,'it's been done before.
19 And Greg was like, oh, I don't really want to 20 know about that. And, you know, let's just worry about 21 going in and talking, you know. We just wanted to discuss l
22 what was coming up.with our meeting with you, you know, l 23 that we could have somebody with us, present. And things 24 like that. And to answer truthfully and --
25 But it really, it kind of got glossed over.
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1 MR. VORSE: Well, did Mr. Halnen ever egy 2 that he did not want you to discuss those matters with us 3 unless specifically asked? .
4 THE WITNESS: No, it was never put like that.
1 5 It was nobody ever said not to say anything. I just got 6 the impression he didn't want to hear about it. l 7 MR. DOCKERY: Could we go off the record, )
a 8 please.
9 (Whereupon, an off-the-record discussion was 10 had at 11:04 a.m., after which the proceedings resumed at 11 11:06 a.m. as follows:)
12 MR. DOCKERY: Ms. Smith, we're back on the 13 record now and I have to remind you that you continue to I 14 be under oath here, and if you could acknowledge that, l
15 please.
1 16 THE WITNESS: I understand. l i
17 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you.
18 You've mentioned that before you were 19 interviewed by the Office of Investigations previously you 20 received general advice from Corporate Counsel regarding 21 your testimony. Is that fair?
22 THE WITNESS: That is corrget. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: Who provided you with that 24 advice?
25 THE WITNESS: That was Gerald Williams.
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1 MR. DOCKERY: Without g tting into the Ectual 2 specifics of that conversation, can you relate to me 3 generally what your. instructions or advice from Corporate 4 Counsel, Mr. Williams, was prior to your testimony to the 5 NRC?
6 THE WITNESS: In general, he told us to ,
7 answer the questions, answer them honestly, keep our
I 8 answers short, and don't volunteer anything, just answer ;
9 what is asked. '
\
10 ,
MR. DOCKERY: Ms. Smith, were you told this 11 individually or as a group?
12 THE WITNESS: Mark Van Sicklen and I were on 13 a conference' call with Mr. Williams. i 14 MR. DOCKER'Y: Okay. So, when you say "we", I 15 you're referring to Mr. Van Sicklen and yourself, at that 16 time?
17 THE WITNESS: At that time, yes.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. If -- If you had ba2n 19 asked to discuss the events of the September 4th 20 evolution, would you have been inclined to do so?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, I would have.
22 MR. DOCKERY: And when I say asked, I'm 23 referring to asked by the NRC?
24 THE WITNESS: Yes, I would have discussed it.
25 MR. DOCKERY: That's all I have.
NEAL R. GROSS count neromas ANo TmNsemeens 1323 nHODE ISLAND AWNUE N.W.
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at 1 MR. VORSE: Curt?
2 MR. RAPP: No, I have no more questione.
3 MR. VORSE: And would you have anything that 4 you want to talk to us about as far as your feelings about 5 this whole matter or any other similar events or anything 6 that you need to -- that you need to tell us?
? THE WITNESS: No. Not at this time.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Maybe I can ask you the same 9 thing another way. Is there anything you feel that we ,
10 should have asked you here today that you feel is 11 significant that we have not touched on?
12 THE WITNESS: I think we've touched on 13 everything. ' <
14 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Morris, anything?
15 MR. MORRIS: No , thank you.
16 MR. DOCKERY: No further questions, we'll go )
17 off the record at approximately 11:08 a.m.
18 (Off the record.) l 19 MR. VORSE: Let's go back on the record.
20 In the absence of Ms. Smith, who has left, 21 we've just spent probably less than 45 seconds in 22 discussion with her counsel, Mr. Morris, and based on the 23 questions we've asked of Ms. Smith regarding her 24 discussions with Corporate. counsel with the licensee, we 25 will stipulate that Ms. Smith has not waived the privilege NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORMRS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE 18tAND AVENUE, N.W.
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h.
1 b3twacn hor cnd Corporate Counsel.
2 MR. MORRIS: Or private counsel.
3 MR. DOCKERY: Or private counsel.
4 MR. MORKIS: Thank you.
5 MR. DOCKERY: And, Mr. Morris, is there 6 anything you care to add?
7 MR. MORRIS: No. I would state that in Sur 8 short discussion it was agreed and understood that neither !
9 the questions nor the answers were intended to waive the 10 privilege. -
11 MR. DOCKERY: We agree to that.
12 And with that we'll go off the record at 13 approximately 11:10 a.m.
14 (Whereupon,' the proceedings were concluded at t 15 11:10 o' clock a.m.)
l 16 17 :
I 18 19 20 1
21 22 .
,. , l 23 24 .
25 .
l NEAL R. GROSS count necomas ANDinaNscamens 1323 nHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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3V l
l 1 CERTIFICATE 2 This is to certify that the attached proceedings I 3 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in i l 4 the matter of:
5 Name of Proceeding: Interview of Christine Smith, l
6 Docket Number (s): 2-94-036 +
7 Place of Proceeding: Crystal : River Nuclear Plant 8 Crystal River, Florida- ;
9 , )
l were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 10 11 transcript thereof for the file of the United States ,
1: Nuclear' Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter 13 reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the 14 court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true ;
1 15 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
l 16 17 f
18 1 A /></ A &J 19 S. May 20 Official Reporter 1
21 Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
22 23 24 . .
25 l
l l
i l
1
'i 1
i 1
1 I
] ,
i EXHIB T'4 4
i
^
Case No. 2-94-036S EXHIBIT 4 a.'.c :!i e i:: til's n;;rd ;;cs d3'eted I.i 20C0;dai.00 t'.lh Iie freedon) of !nformation ti ns%
Act, exempM,S-d30 FO!A-
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Interview of Jack Demar Stewart Docket Number: 2-94-03F
~
Crystal River, Florida Location:
Date: Tuesday, August 8,1995 P-Work Order No.: NRC-298 Pages 1-53 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers Iyi 2-91-036 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. l _ OF 8PAGE(S)
PAGE_
Washington, D.C. 20005 _f/
Lu F
, (202) 234-4433 f41-6 f
.L 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + ++++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ----------------------------------x 7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No. l 9 JACK DEMAR STEWART : (2-94-036) '
i 10 :
l 11 ----------------------------------x , j l
12 Tuesday, August 8, 1995 )
13 <
14 Conference Room - Second Floor 15 Florida Power Corp. Admin Bldg. I i
16 Crystal River Plant 17 6745 N. Tallahassee Road 18 Crystal River, Florida 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conduct.ed at 21 12:08 p.m.
22 BEFORE: .
23 JAMES DOCKERY- Senior Investigator i
24 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator i
25 CURT RAPP ,
Reactor Engineer NEAL R. GROSS eOunt neareas AND ramseneens 1333 nHODE 18 LAND AVENUE. N.W (200 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (200 2344431
1 i
1 APPEARANCES:
1 2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission l 3 JAMES DOCKERY, Senior Investigator i 1
4 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator I
5 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 6 401 Marietta Street 1
7 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 8
9 CURTIS RAPP ,
10 React,or Engineer - NRC, Region II 11 6745 N. Tallahassee Road 12 Crystal River, Florida 32629 i 13 l
14 !
15 On Behalf of the Interviewee ,
i I
16 BRUCE H. MORRIS, ESQUIRE
'l 17 Finestone & Morris 18 Suite 2540 Tower Place 19 3340 Peachtree Road, N.E.
20 Atlanta, Georgia 30326 21 22 .
23 24 25 - . ;
! NEAL R. GROSS court REPOR11R$ AND TRANSCNSERS I
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s 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 MR. DOCKERY: For the record, my name is 3 James D. Dockery. I'm a Senior Investigator with the NRC 4 offi.ce'of Investigations. The date is August the 8th, 5 1995. The time is now approximately 12:08 p.m. The 6 location of this interview is the Crystal River Nuclear 7 Plant, Crystal River, Florida.
8 The inquiries we're making today are in 9 relation to NRC Investigation Number 2-94-036.
10 ,
Starting with Mr. Vorse, I'm going to ask the 11 participants of this interview to identify themselves at 12 this time. Mr. Vorse?
13 AR. VORSE: My name is James Y. Vorse. I'm a 14 Senior Investigator witih the NRC's Office of 15 Investigations, Region II, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
16 MR. DOCKERY: And Mr. Rapp?
17 MR. RAPP: My name is Curtis W. Rapp, I'm a 18 Reactor Inspector with Region II, NRC.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Morris?
20 MR. MORRIS: Bruce H. Morris, here on behalf 21 of Mr. Stewart.
22 i'" . DOCKERY : And, Mr. Stewart, after I 23 administer the oath, we'll identify you for the record.
24 THE WITNESS: Okay.
25 MR. DOCKERY: Stand and raise your right NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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I 1 hind, plonsa.
l 2 THE WITNESS: (Complies.) !
l 3 Whereupon, l
l l 4 - JACK DEMAR STEWART, JR.,
? \
5 being first duly sworn by the Investigator, was examined l 6 and testified as follows: ;
l 7 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you. Please be seated.
8 THE WITNESS: (Complies.)
9 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, will you,please 10 state your, full name and spell your name for the record,
,' l 11 please.
12 THE WITNESS: My name is Jack Demar Stewart, I
13 Jr. -Stewart'is spelled S-T-E-W-A,eR-T.
14 I'm a -- I.' hold a Reactor Operator's License 15 and I hold the position of Chief Operator at Florida 16 Power. !
17 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Would you please give us 18 your Social Security number and date of birth, please.
19 THE WITNESS: Date of birth wa %
20 Social Security number i 21 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, before we went on 22 the record Mr. Vorse and I identified ours, elves via our 23 credentials, official credentials as investigators of the 24 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations.
1 i 25 Is that correct? ,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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~
b /\d
_ - - - . _ - . - - _ _ _ _~ ~. _ . _ -
" l 1 THE WITNESS: Thnt is correct.
i 2 MR. DOCKERY: And you understand who we are?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Also before we went on 5 the record I asked you to read a copy of Title 18 of the j
)
6 United States Criminal Code, Section 1001, which pertains i l
7 to truthfulness and materiality of statements that may be j 8 made here today by you.
1 9 Do you. understand the significance of Title i
. 10 18, United , States Code, Section 1001, in this proceeding?
i 11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do.
12 ,
MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Mr. Vorse?
13 DIRECT EXAMINATION 14 MR. VORSE: Mr. Stewart, you said that you 15 have a reactor operator license.
16 Are you considered to be an SRO, a senior 17 reactor operator? l 18 THE WITNESS: No, sir. j i
I 19 MR. VORSE: You are --
i 20 THE WITNESS: Reactor operator license.
21 MR. VORSE: How long have you had this 22 license? -
23 THE WITNESS: I got that license in September 24 of 1986.
s 25 MR VORSE: And how long have you been
. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIGERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W. *
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O 1 .cmployed by FPC? r 2 THE WITNESS: I hired on in Florida Power in 3 June of 1983.
4 MR. VORSE: Would you describe your duties to a
5 me, please, as a reactor operator, 1 6 THE WITNESS: I'm charged with manipulating 7 the controls of the nuclear power plant within the 8 guidelines of Florida Power procedures, and to comply with 9 all of the ten CFR' codes pertinent to safe operation, safe ,
10 legal operation of a nuclear power plant.
11 .
MR. VORSE: I need a lot of detail on this 12 next one.
13 .'THE WITNESS: I'll give you what I can.
14 MR. VORSE: Okay. I'd like to know what your 15 involvement was in the makeup tank evolution that we 16 understand now occurred on September 4th and 5th, 1994.
17 THE WITNESS: That's a true statement.
18 MR. VORSE: During the midnight shift. Can 19 you describe in detail everything you did, as best.you can 20 recall, as far as reviewing procedures and manipulation of 1
21 controls?
22 I clso.need to know up frong who was on that shift, please. j 23 24 THE WITNESS: Who was on the shift was Dave !
25 Fields was the shi,ft supervisor. He was the senior NEAL R. GROSS count nemmas mo in=sensens 1823 nH00E ELAND AVENVE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D4 20006 901Q 2364433 (200 2M-4433
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l 1 m ntgsment. Rob Wsico was the ecaistant chift supervisor, 2 I was the chief operator on the control board. Mark Van )
j !
3 Sicklen was the chief operator on the clearance desk.
4 Christine Smith was the reactor operator, my Essistant on i
5 the control board. And Jim Atkinson was a licensed 6 operator who was in charge of the Auxiliary Building. And 7 he had an assistant, Stan Kaconas.
8 MR. VORSE: Are these the same people that i
9 were on the -- to your recollection, as best you recall --
10 can recall, are these the same people that were on the 11 July 4th evolution?
12 MR. MORRIS: Strike that. September. ;
13 MR. VORSE: I mean, the September 4th 14 evolution. Excuse me.
15 THE WITNESS: I can't verify, Jim, who was in 16 the Aux Building on the 4th. I don't remember. I know 17 that Jim and Stan were in the Aux Building on the 5th.
18 On the 4th all the others were present.
19 MR. VORSE: Okay. I'd like to go ba.ck to i
20 this. My understanding is that on the 2nd of September is 21 when Engineering came to you all and said, we're going to 22 closesoutthe103rBcurveissuethatpadbeenbroughtup ,
23 as --
l 24 THE WITNESS: Correct.
25 MR. VORSE: -- far as a disagreement between NEAL R. GROSS ooo.1 -. A. --
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1 Enginscring and Opsrations cbout th3 accuracy of that 2 curve.
3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
Do you recall that?
4 MR. VORSE:
5 THE WITNESS: Yes.
6 MR. VORSE: Can you describe that in detail !
7 for me?
8 THE WITNEFS: They had sent us a letter that 9 -- Well, actually, it had been sent to, I guess it was 10 Carl Bergst, rom. And he came to Dave Fields. I don't 11 rememb,er exactly when it was. It may have been Friday or 12 earlier. ,I don't remember exactly when. Our mid-shift 13 starts Friday.
14 At any rate, Carl came to Dave Fields with l 15 this letter and apparently told Dave, you kn'ow, I know 16 you're interested in this, you guys have been pursuing 17 this makeup tank issue; if you've got any additional 18 comments, information, or input to this, we need to come 19 up with something now or it's just going to be put to bed.
20 So that was when we started talking about it 21 and --
22 MR. VORSE: Who is "we", please? ,
23 THE WITNESS: The shift. I believe Mark and 24 Rob Weiss talked about it quite a bit out at the chief's 25 desk. Understand, ,the chief's desk at our plant is NEAL R. GROSS coum neromans ANo mNacamens 1323 nH00E SLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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9 1 separate from tha control room. So I don't know whnt 2 their conversation was, per se. But I know they were out j 3 there talking about the letter, makeup ta -- the whole '
4 issue.
i 5 MR. VORSE: And Carl is Bergstrom?
l
, 6 THE WITNESS: Carl Bergstrom. He was --
! 7 Well, he is, essentially, Greg Halnon's daily assistant. f 8 He runs the day-to-day routine operations of the 9 department. ,
l l 10 I don't think Carl was there, because all 11 these were -- these conversations were taking place in our 12 mid-shift on the weekend and Carl only works Mon' day 13 through Frid'ay on a routine basis.
14 MR. VORSE: Excuse me, Mr. Stewart. Would 15 you please use last names and not first names.
16 THE WITNESS: Okay.
17 MR. VORSE: Thank you.
18 THE WITNESS: Sometime over that weekend, it 19 may have been actually on the 4th, it may have been the 20 3rd, we finally talked about what can we do to back up our 21 concerns with this makeup tank issue.
22 And we.came up with the ide,a of, well, is it 23 possible for us to put the makeup tank on the curve and 24 just drop level.
25 And Dave Fields said he didn't have any NEAL R. GROSS coum nEmmas Ano TamseneEas 1323 nH00E ELAND AVENUE, N_W.
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, iv i l
l 1 probicm with it, but wh:t wara wa going to une for 1 i
2 procedural guidance. j i
3 So we started looking at procedures to see if l 4 we'had'what we thought was procedural guidance to do this.
5 And we thought we had found it.
6 And AI-500 had given Dave the authority to run 7 it. AI-500 also covered the usage of the AR's. And we l 8 found we didn't have any time frame limits for the alarm, I
9 per se, because it was a controlled evolution. .
We were I
10 expecting the alarm and that was all covered in the 11 AI-500 .
12 OP-402 covered adding hydrogen to the makeup 13 tank and it covered bleeding water out of the makeup tank.
14 We had everything we n'eeded, in our minds, to run the 15 evolution without challenging any of our procedures.
16 So from that point on we said, okay, well, we 17 can go ahead and try this.
18 on the 4th we had a quick pre-job -- well, not i 19 a quick pre-job, we h d a pre-job brief over the l 20 evolution.
21 MR. DOCKERY: How long did it last?
l l 22 THE WITNESS: I don't reme,mber. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: Approximate. I understand it's 24 been a while ago --
25 THE WITNESS: I would think it was a half NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
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12 1 hour1.157407e-5 days <br />2.777778e-4 hours <br />1.653439e-6 weeks <br />3.805e-7 months <br />, 45 minutes at least, bactues wa wa*o pulling 2 procedures. We were talking about a lot of things. We l 3 were talking about what-if's.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. j 5 THE WITNESS: And'--
6 MR. VORSE: And excuse me. Who was 7 c6rducting 8 -- Who was leading the briefing?
9 THE WITNESS: Dave Fields. And Rob Weiss was 10 highly involved in it, too, being the assistant shifter.
11 MR. VORSE: And what -- Can you recollect I 1
12 what was discussed during this briefing?
13 THE WITNESS: We were -- We had discussed the 14 basic evolution, what se were going to do, which was to 15 place the makeup tank on the enrve and then bleed it down 16 from 86 to 55 inches, and then plot what the curve did, 17 and then compare it against the OP-103B curve.
18 And on the 4th we were just going to add the i
19 hydrogen and the water required to get it up to 86 inches 20 with pressure on the curve, immediately bleed it down.
21 Once we got to 55 inches immediately bleed it back up into :
I 22 the middle of the hand. And if we had to vent pressure 23 off to get it underneath the curve, do it.
24 So that whole evolution took maybe a half hour 25 when we actually ran it.
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1 MR. VORSE: Okay.
2 THE WITNESS: And the data we got didn't make 3 any sense. We had a lot of data scatter and you really 4 couldn't tell what the nature of the curve was.
. 1 5 And Rob wasn't happy with it. He said, this 6 doesn't tell us anything. And so let's -- Why did it do 7 this.
8 And we talked about that for quite a while and i
9 finally decided that we were putting essentially 90-degree l 10 hydrogen gas into a tank running about 115 degrees.
And-11 we thought, well, maybe we need to have some stabilization 12 time and let that temperature come up to equalize pressure 13 out and it won't wobble as much. -
J 1
14 So that was what led us on to doing it again 15 on the 5th but with the added stabilization periods in 16 there. And that was the big difference between the 4th 17 and the 5th.
18 on the 4th when I had hydrogen added to the 19 makeup tank, I had to get a hold of the Aux Building 20 operator to do it because we have manual isolation valves 21 that we keep closed. And in order for me to add it, even 22 through my valve on.the control board, I had to' call the ,
23 Aux Building operator.
24 I don't remember, per se, but I believe that 25 when I told him on the 4th to line up for hydrogen, I NEAL R. GROSS Oount nesonens A,e Twecamens 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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1 caid, kcap yourself availcble because wn m:y have to vnnt 2 this off. But --
I 3 MR. DOCKERY: Excuse me, Mr. Stewart. Who 4 wad that?
5 THE WITNESS: 1[ don't remember. We could 6 look up the Aux Building logs and probably find out. But 7 I just don't remember.
8 So that was the biggest difference between the l l
9 evolutions of the 4th and the 5th. .
I 10 on the 5th we had another pre-job briefing. j 11 We'd already covered the procedures so we knew or believed 12 we knew that we were within procedural compliance of 13 everything and we can continue on, 14 But Dave Fields had decided, with the 15 difference of now having the stabilization periods tossed 16 in there, that he wanted somebody dedicated down at the 17 vent valves, because you had to dress out and get into a ;
18 contaminated area to line up the vent pressure off the 19 makeup tank. He wanted someone down there actually ready i
20 to go to do that.
21 So we had -- Well, Jim ran the show down in ;
i 22 the Aux Building, Jim Atkinson. And he,had Stan Kaconas 23 dress out. He was in the valve alley by the valves. And 1 24 Jim was standing by with the radio at the control board 25 for the waste gas panel control board for the waste gas NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSQWSERS 1Ks RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N.W. '
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14 l 1 comproccors.
2 So that was the big difference between the 4th 3 and the 5th. To us, we had procedural compliance to do l
4 everything, and when the data came out as being non-5 conclusive on the 4th, the 4th was no big deal.
6 The 5th was a big deal. We had conclusive
~
7 data that the curve that we'd been told to operate on was 8 not only wrong, but it was so wrong to the point for the 9 past 18 months the plant had been operating outside design 10 basis. And nobody seems to be picking up on that.
11 And that, to me, is a very serious concern 12 because this thing was running like that for days and 13 weeks on end'and nobody was even close to thinking about 14 the possibility of havi'ng to vent pressure off the makeup 15 tank.
16 There was nobody geared up to, at a moment's 17 notice, head in to do the valve line ups. If'something 18 had happened during that 18-month period, we would have 19 been in some serious trouble. .
20 And that was the significance of our findings 21 on the 5th. And that's what made the 5th, to us, so 22 overwhelming compared to the 4th. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: When you say, overwhelming 24 compared to the 4th, you're talking about the results of 25 the data that you received? ,
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An 1 THE WITNESS: The results of the data. You 2 know, keep in mind that we believed at that time we had 3 all the procedural guidance required. We weren't doing :
1 4 anything wrong.
5 Had we thought we were doing anything wrong, j 6 we wouldn't have done the test to begin with, period. At 7 least not without going to senior management and saying, f l
j 8 hey, look, we want to do this, but we're going to be 9 outside the bounds of procedures. We need -- We need some 10 permission. We thought we had it.
. 1 11 MR. DOCKERY: So I'm clear, was there !
{
12 somebody dressed out in anti-contamination gear both on
~
1 l
13 the 4th and 'the 5th of September?,
I 14 THE WITNESS: I don't think anybody was 15 dressed out on the 4th. But again, the difference was 16 that on the 4th it was a very quick evolution. Bleed down 17 and we immediately replaced the perimeters back to within 18 a normal band. Okay?
19 And on the 5th we knew we were going to be 20 holding out a little bit for the stabilization periods.
21 And that was when Dave Fields made the decision that 22 instead of just hav.ing someone knowing ,that we may have to ,
23 vent and keep themselves available, which was still better 24 than what had bean going on before that on a daily -- day-25 to-day basis where nobody was ever told to keep that in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE IS4AND AVENUE N W.
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.L O 1 mind, on tha 5th wa onid, ws w:nt com: body thnre.
2 So --
3 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, how long had you 4 been with that group of people as a shift as of September 5 of '94, approximately?
6 THE WITNESS: I suspect it was about three' l 7 years. I spent most of my time prior to that on Garrett !
8 Hebb's shift. ;
j 9 MR. DOCKERY: Do you do swing shift work here ,
f 10 or --
11 THE WITNESS: Oh, I rotate all around.
12 MR. DOCKERY: I mean --
13 THE WITNESS: We work days, swings, mids.
14 MR. DOCKERY: But basically a shift, in my 15 mind, being a group of people stays together.
16 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes. The whole premise i 17 being get to know each other, form a team so you 18 understand people's different reactions to different 19 situations and you can adjust and cope.
20 And it works out real well. You see the 21 results of it on the simulator.
22 MR. DOCKERY: Was anybody ,on the shift or the 23 team -- my description -- did they have any problem with 24 performing either of these two evolutions as far as safety 25 or being within procedures?
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1 THE WITNESS: We h d talked about, you know, 2 do we have procedural guidance to do this. And after 3 looking through AI-500, OP-402, and AR-403, I believe it 4 is,'we~had believed that we did have the procedural 5 guidance.
6 And you look at curve eight of OP-103B and we 7 believed that to be a -- What is the word I'm looking'for.
8 Let me rephrase that.
9 We did not know -- nobody in the department 10 knew that that curve was, in fact, a design basis curve.
i 11 We believed that to be an administrative curve, Florida 12 Power, and that Dave Fields had the ability to challenge 13 that curve if he had what he felt was strong enough 14 evidence that it wasn't' a valid curve. ,
15 So we didn't -- We believed he had that --
16 that authority. That was the authority given to him'in 17 AI-500. So the two big things that really 18 come out of this that get so fruetrating to us is, one, we 19 believed we had -- at the time we had procedural guidance 20 to do this; two, we believed we were dealing with an FPC 21 administrative curve, not a design basis curve.
22 Had anybody known that that ,was a design basis 23 curve nothing would have been run, period. We wouldn't 24 have even asked permission to do it because there's no 25 way. You can't even cover that with a 50.59, unless NEAL R. GROSS coum nEromas AND rn4Nscamens 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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Ao 1 thsra's com2 rcel wild circumstcnces that I :.m not privy 2 to. Maybe the vice-president and senior NRC officials can 3 come up with that kind of permission.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart --
5 THE WITNESS: But I don't know.
6 MR. DOCKERY: -- to the extent you know, who 7 was ultimately the deciding figure who said on both the 8 4th of September and the 5th, if they were different, 9 said, go ahead, we can run . tis?
10 THE WITNESS: Dave Fields.
11 MR. DOCKERY: In both?
12 THE WITNESS: Both. One of the things that 13 you guys may'be aware of or may not be aware of, but on 14 the back shifts at that time, I don't -- I can't remember 15 when we instituted the shift manager.
16 But up until the time that we had the shift 17 manager the shift supervisor was essentially the director 18 of nuclear plant operations on back shifts. He was Bruce 19 Hickle's representative. He had Bruce Hickle's authority 20 on the back shifts.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Hold that thought for me, if 22 you will. ,
23 Can we go off the record for a minute?
24 (Whereupon, a discussion was held off the 25 record, af ter which the following proceedings were had:)
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Am 1 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, wa're back on the 2 record now and I have to remind you that you do continue 1 3 to be under oath.
4
~
THE WITNESS: I understand.
5 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you, Jim, you have .
I 6 anything? ;
i 7 MR. VORSE: Yeah. I've got to ask these' I
8 questions while you're under oath, Mr. Stewart, just to 9 cover some bases.
10 In either of these two evolutions on the 4th 11 or 5th of September of 1994 did anyone on the shift say, 12 this is a bad idea, this is not a good idea, we better 13 stop and think about this a little bit?
14 THE WITNESS: No.
15 MR. VORSE: Did anyone on the shift say there 16 may be some procedural violations?
17 THE WITNESS: We -- That was -- We said that 18 right off the bat, but not as a procedure violation. What 19 we asked was, do we have procedural guidance to do this, 20 are we covered by procedures.
21 After looking through the procedures and 22 researching them, we had determined that we did.
23 MR. VORSE: Did anyone in either evolution 24 conducted on the 4th and 5th of September of '94, did 25 anyone say that they needed to get advice from another NEAL R. GROSS coum nEromas ANoinANacaeEns 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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\
1 courca, cuch cs the shift technien1 cdvisor?
2 THE WITNESS: Not that I recall.
3 MR. VORSE: Did anyone on your shift say, 4 someone needs to notify Management or check with l 5 Management before we perform this evolution?
6 THE WITNESS: We did notify Management. That 7 was Dave Fields and Rob Weiss.
8 MR. VORSE: Did anyone -- You've touched on 9 this before, but I'll ask it.
10 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh. (Nads affirmatively.)
11 MR. VORSE: Did anyone on the shift say, this 12 ' is a design basis curve 10387 13 THE WITNESS: -No. Nobody -- To my knowledge, 14 nobody in the department, including Greg Halnon, knew that 15 that was a design basis curve until well after the fact.
16 I believe we finally made a one-hour 17 reportable to the NRC in November, which was when 18 Engineering finally came out and said,- yes, in fact, this 19 is a design basis curve.
20 There had been rumors of it about four days or 21 so after the evolution. We started hearing rumors of it, 22 but nothing official ever came out about it until 23 November. And that was the first time that we knew that 24 this wasn't such a hot idea.
25 MR. VORSE: Can you tell me what 10 CFR 50.59 NEAL R. GROSS couar naams ANo mNac=Sans 1323 RN00E ISLAND AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20006 (302) 2344433 (202) 2344433
1 107 2 THE WITNESS: That is a -- It's a Federal 3 code that delineates getting a process.for getting 4 per'ission.to m do evolutions that are outside the bounds of 5 Florida Power procedures.
6 MR. VORSE: Was 50.59 ever discussed amongst 7 the members of the shift?
8 THE WITNESS: No. We didn't need a 50.59, in 9 our minds, because we had determined we had procedural 10 guidance and our procedures were all cleared through 11 50.59.
12 MR. VORSE: Okay. Why did you not tell the NRC's Office'of Investigations about the September 4th 13 14 evolution?-
Like I said earlier, the I 15 THE WITNESS:
.16 information we got on the 5th, to us, seemed to make the 17 4th a non-entity, if you will, number one.
18 Number two, when I was briefed by the Florida 19 Power attorney prior to talking with you gentlemen back in 20 December, he said, answer the questions and answer the 21 questions only.
22 And I never even thought about the 4th during 23 our interview back in December.
24 MR. VORSE: Was that -- Who was that .
25 attorney?
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u 1 THE WITNESS: Gercld WilliEms.
2 MR. VORSE: Did you, after PER and after the 3 rumors going around about the design basis curve and also 4 before'the NRC Office of Investigations interviewed you 5 last time, did anyone in your group, your shift, discuss 6 not telling the.NRC about.the September 4th evolution?
7 THE WITNESS: No. And to.be honest with'you, 8 I don't remember -- I didn't remember the 4th until it was 9 brought up about six weeks ago talking with our attorney.
10 I just -- I just -- It just -- It was another 11 day at the power plant for me, because, like I said, we 12 had believed we had procedural guidance, so we weren't 13 ~doing anything wrong in doing the, evolution.
14 When the data came out as non-conclusive, it 15 was like, well, okay. It was the 5th that sticks in my 16 mind because of the significance of the data and the 17 implications of it.
18 MR. VORSE: Can you briefly tell me what 19 discussions you all, the shift, had after getting the data 20 from the 4th, and how you were going to make this thing 21 better on the 5th?
22 THE WITNESS: Well, Rob Weiss, basically, 23 drew the data off recall on a one-second basis on the 4th.
24 And it seemed to be drawing a line about that thick.
- l 25 MR. DOCKERY: The witness is indicating NEAL R. GFUDSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRWERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENW, N.W. I (2ce) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 2344433 ,
j
1 spproximntely --
2 THE WITNESS: About an inch. An inch or so j 3 wide line. I'm sorry. I forget the mikes can't see.
And because of the width of the line we 4
5 couldn't really tell what the slope of the line was with i
6 respect to the curve of OP-103B.
7 So we asked ourselves, what can we do to 8 change 1
9 -- to narrow down the data scatter to something useful.
10 And we decided there was two things that we could do.
11 ,
Number one was to put in the stabilization 12 time at the start of the evolution and the end of the 13 evolution to'make sure the hydrogen was stable as far as l 14 temperature and pressure relationship goes.
15 The other one was Rob decided instead of 16 drawing one-second data he was going to draw data at a 17 longer time interval. I don't remember what that interval l 18 was. It may have been one minute. It may have been two 19 minutes. I don't remember.
20 MR. VORSE: Rob?
21 THE WITNESS: Rob Weiss. So that -- Between 22 those two we got th.e curve that you guys have seen that's 23 very clear, very defined, and really showed that that 24 curve was not accurate to the plant response.
25 And that's what we believed that that curve NEAL R. GROSS count nemnuns mo ramsensens :
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t 1 wro. It was just a curva chowing tha plc.nt recponzo, that :
1 t
l 2 OP-103B curve, 1 a
3 MR. VORSE: Have you ever participated in any 4 other similar evolutions other than the September 4th and I
- \
j 5 September 5th evolutions of ' 94? You personally.
i 6 THE WITNESS: Not that I can remember.
l 7 MR. VORSE: Had you known anything about some 4
8 similar evolutions that were performed in July? l 9 THE WITNESS: At the time of the September 10 4th and 5th evolutions, no. And at the time of the NRC O 11 and I investigations in December, no.
4 12 ,
But talking to some people after that I found 13 out about the July 22nd evolution,that showed the-same 14 information.
15 MR. VORSE: Can you describe who you talked 16 to about that and what was said? l 17 THE WITNESS: Mark Van Sicklen mentioned to 18 me that he had talked to one of the other operators and i l
19 had been shown a curve.
20 MR. DOCKERY: Do you have -- No. Were you i
21 with the shift during July 1994?
22 THE WITNESS:*
Yes.
23 MR. DOCKERY: Do you --
24 THE WITNESS: I was with Dave Fields' shift 25 in July of 1994.
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da d {
! 1 MR. DOCKERY: Do you have cny indepandant l 2 recollection of taking part in any evolution similar to i
e i
3 the September 4th or 5th -- 1
{.
' 4
^
THE WITNESS: No. ]
- t 3
I 3 5 MR. DOCKERY: - . evolutions?- l 6 THE WITNESS: No. We had believed that when f '
! 7 'we did our evolution on the 4th and the 5th that we were 8 the only ones in pursuit of it.
4 9 MR. DOCKERY: Is it possible you could have
!- 10 taken part in a July 1994 evolution and did not recall it?
11 ,
THE WITNESS: No.
12 MR. MORRIS: That's a different shift, Jim.
13 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.' l'm just --
'14 THE WITNESS: The July 22nd is a different 15 shift.
16 MR. MORRIS: It's a team.
17 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you.
18 THE WITNESS: That was a different team.
I l
19 MR. DOCKERY: I understand. My error., i 20 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry.
l 21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. So you had no reason to l l
22 be aware of -- , , l 23 THE WITNESS: I had no reason to be aware of l l
24 it. And the other shift didn't talk about it either. In 1
25 fact, the guy that had the concern ended up just dropping
)
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1 ths whole thing cnd esid, I'm don 2 with it, you guya hava 2 told me to shut up and watch the board.
t 3 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, was it the same 4 concern, as far as you know?
5 THE WITNESS: I'm not -- It dealt with the 6 hydrogen overpressure. I think -- I don't -- I don't 7 really know. I can't really -- I'd be speculating to'some 8 extent if I answered that.
9 If you want me to speculate, I will. But --
10 MR. DOCKERY: That isn't necessary. Just to 11 the extent that you knew -- What I'm -- I guess what.I'm 12 trying to gather here is were there two separate shifts, 13 or teams for'our purposes, concerned with the same 14 problem?
15 THE WITNESS: Well, a few years'ago they had 16 rearranged the shifts a little bit. And at one point in l 17 time Mark Van Sicklen and Bruce Willms were on the same 18 shift together, I believe, or they got involved in some 19 evolutions on the plant that showed that the makeup tank 20 wasn't acting the way the curve said it should and they I 21 both picked up on it together.
22 And the,n Bruce, in addition .-
to that, also had 23 concerns based on the' Appendix R considerations.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Who's Bruce?
25 THE WITNESS: Bruce Willms, W-I-L-L-M-S. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSQW8ERS 1333 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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s, l
1 co there wns two concerns. And it cacmtd to ma that Mirk i
2 picked up more on the curve concerns and Bruce was kind of f' 3 more concerned about the Appendix R. But they both tied 4 int'o the same basic issue. You end up with too much ]
5 . -
pressure in the makeup tank and you challenge the makeup 4 6 pumps. One was you are operating there. And the other 7 one was an Appendix R fire fails the solenoid valve open 8 and the regulator pressure is set too high. And that's 9 still an ongoing deal with that.
10 I've got a separate allegation in with the NRC ,
~ \
11 on that now, because that's been known for a couple of 12 years and nothing has been done about it either.
13 'o S the two of them kind of tie together, but 14 yet, they're separate concerns.
15 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, you mentioned 16 specifically the date July 22nd as having been, to your j 17 knowledge, the previous evolution that was conducted.
18 We've been talking in terms of an evolution 19 that occurred in July of 1994 and I think you used,the 20 specific date July 22nd.
21 THE WITNESS: I think -- I believe that's 22 when it was conduct.ed. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: That's all I'm trying to get j 24 at, because I'm not sure that we had a specific date.
25 THE WITNESS:
I think it was done on the l NEAL R. GROSS count nEponTEns ANoinanseneEns 1323 nH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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. I I
1 22nd. And'while I don't_know for cure, I believe it 2 actually showed up in the shift supervisor's log.
3 But I don't know. That all came out since
)
4 I've been pulled off shift.
5 MR. VORSE: Are you familiar with 10 CFR 6 50.9? Not 50.59, but 50.9.
7 THE WITNESS: I'm not -- I don't have it' 8 memorized. I'm not --
1 9 MR. VORSE: You know what it essentially 10 says?
11 THE WITNESS: No. Not right off the top of 12 my head. .
13 MR. VORSE: It talks,about truthfulness and 14 completeness of information, f 15 THE WITNESS: Okay.
16 MR. DOCKERY: Specifically, completeness and 17 accuracy of information provided to the NRC.
18 THE WITNESS: I understand.
19 MR. VORSE: And you've described to me why 20 you didn't think the September 4th evolution was of enough 21 importance.
l 22 But you,were never asked about the September l
1 23 4th evolution.
24 THE WITNESS: He were never asked by anybody.
25 MR. VORSE: All right.
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1 THE WITNESS: But comathing needs to b2 2 clarified here. And that was that in the pre-decisional 3 enforcement conference that was supposed to have happened 4 on'the'21st we had -- my attorney and I had sat down and 5 talked about it and we were going to talk about the 4th -
I 6 and the 22nd to the NRC at that time. !
7 It was our chance, since we'd never gotteh 8 asked by the NRC or Florida Power about anything -- I've 9 never been questioned by anybody in Florida Power on this 10 whole evolution. Nothing. :
11 ,
And so I wanted to --
12 MR. DOCKERY: Let me interrupt you there. ,
13 When you say,' this whole evolution, what evolution are we 14 talking about?
15 THE WITNESS: The whole -- The events of the 16 makeup tank, period. I've never been talked to by Florida 17 Power, other than to say, you guys done something wrong, 18 go over here.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Again, I want to fine tune-20 that.
21 THE WITNESS: Okay.
22 MR. DOCKERY:
The events .-of the evolution?
23 THE WITNESS: Of the 4th and 5th.
24 MR. DOCKERY: That's --
f l 25 THE WITNESS: Of the 4th and 5th.
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JY 1 MR. DOCKERY: -- whnt I nted:d to know.
2 THE WITNESS: Okay. The only events that I 3 was involved with. Okay?
1 4 So I never had the opportunity to say anything I
5 to anybody. I was never asked the questions. And I was l l
6 told by the Florida Power attorney to just answer the i
7 questions truthfully, but don't volunteer any informa'tien- .
8 So I kind of feel a little frustrated. ,
9 MR. DOCKERY: Without getting into the 10 details of what you were told by the attorney you just
. l 11 mentioned, what was the name of that attorney? l 12 THE WITNESS: It was Gerald Williams. i 13 NR. DOCKERY: Okay. ,
14 MR. VORSE:' Curt, you got anythina? You been l 15 just scribbling a bunch of notes over there. I assume you 16 have some questicns. ]
17 MR. RAPP: Yeah. I've got a couple of things 18 here I wanted to pursue a little bit further.
19 You said that on September 2nd there was a
)
20 letter that came out --
j 21 THE WITNESS: Sometime around then.
22 MR. RAPP:
Around that area.
- There's this 23 letter that came out from Engineering that said, we're 24 going to close this issue out.
25 Is that specifically what the letter said, NEAL R. GROSS coum neromEns AnoinAusamEns
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I that we're going to close this issue out, or that -- did j L i
!' 2 it say that we're going to close it out by a certain date? ;
I 3 THE WITNESS: It.was going to be closed out !
4 .by that following Friday, I believe is what it said. {
It should I 5 We could get a copy of the letter.
i 6 be an official letter and be in the files at Florida !
7 Power. It shouldn't be hard to dig that up. l i
8 MR. .RAPP: Okay. So the --
9 THE WITNESS: I don't have it with me. l
- i 10 MR. RAPP: The following Friday would have f 11 been approximately what, seven more days?
l 12 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
13 MR. RAPP: Okay. Once that letter was t
14 communicated to Dave Fields, you said, about the 3rd or 15 the 4th they talked about doing this evolution.
16 Were you involved in those discussions, the 17 initial discussions?
18 THE WITNESS: The actual initial discussions, 19 I believe, took place between Rob Weiss and Mark. Van 20 Sicklen out at the chief's desk. So, no, I wasn't 21 necessarily involved in it, although I knew they were 22 ongoing. , ,
23 MR. RAPP: Okay. And then what was the 24 sequence of events after that? Did Van Sicklen and Weiss 25 come forward and talk with you about it, or --
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1 1 THE WITNESS: -Wall, whtt htpp3ntd was thtt j 2 apparently Mark and Rob were more or less brainstorming l 3 over on the chief's desk, what can we do to come up with :
4 some more data, some useful data. j 5 And one of them, I think it was Mark, but I L 6 don't know that, came up with the idea of doing the draw- i 7 down on the makeup tank. And Rob said, well, that so'unds 8 like a good idea. Let me go bounce it off of Dave.
I 9 And Mark -- Or Rob Weiss came in ar.d talked to .
10 Dave Fields and Dave Fields said, well, yeah, it sounds 11 like a, good idea. Let's see if we can get some procedural 12 guidance ,for it.
13 hnd that was when the, rest of us started :
N' 14 getting involved in'it. And then we had the formal -- )
i 15 basically a formal pre-job brief. And we were off and l 16 running.
I 17 MR. RAPP: Okay. And that -- And this 18 discussion took place on the 4th then?
19 THE WITNESS: I don't remember when the 20 actual discussion between Rob and Mark -- Rob Weiss and l
21 Mark Van Sicklen took place. It would have been --
22 MR. RAPP: I'm referring t,o the discussion 23 between Dave Fields and --
24 THE WITNESS: The pre-job brief and all 25 happened on the 4th and then again on the 5th.
4 NEAL R. GROSS CX)URT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1333 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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ao 1 MR. RAPP: Okay. All right. When~you coms ;
2 back on shift from -- or rotate onto a different shift, 3 how far back do you review the operator's logs? ,
4 THE WITNESS: I review back to the last time- !
5 I was on shift. l 6 MR. RAPP: Okay. And so that may entail how ,
7 many days review or how many periods?
8 THE WITNESS: Well, that depends. From day 9 shift to swing shift I'm only off two days, so I go back 10 two day's worth to the last time my name appears.in the -
11 logs.
12 Swings and mids is the same. It's only 48 13 hours exactly. And then after mids, I have a week 14 of recall, and then I go back on day shift, so I'll go 15 back a week, over that period of time to my logs. ,
~
16 MR. RAPP: Okay. Going back to July -- and I ,
t 17 realize there's been a lot of time that's take --
18 transpired since then -- when you reviewed the logs in 19 July, did you notice or did anything appear to you to be 1 20 abnormal in those logs?
21 THE WITNESS: I would have to see.the logs to l 22 be able to -- .
I 23 MR. RAPP: I present you with a copy of the 24 logs. And tell us --
25 MR. DOCKERY: Just so the record is clear, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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l n 1 -wa'ro roferring to July of 1994-hara. Is that corrsct?
l 2 MR. RAPP: That's correct. Right.
l
! 3 THE WITNESS: All of July, just the 22nd? -
4 You'--
5 MR. RAPP: Specifically there on the 23rd and [
6 --
THE WITNESS: You showed me the page of the 7 22nd and the 23rd.
8 MR. RAPP: 'Specifically, I believe -- It's 9 one more page over. Yeah. Specifically this is where you 10 come back on shift. Correct?
11 THE WITNESS: Okay. Yeah, i i
12 MR. RAPP: And then you would review back how i 13 far in that,'that sequence? , ;
14 THE' WITNESS: I should have gone back to 15 Wednesday.
16 MR. RAPP: Okay. That would have been 17 Wednesday, July what?
! 18 THE WITNESS: The 20th.
1
! 19 MR. RAPP: The 20th. So in reviewing the l 20 logs, though, you would have seen the entries made by Mr.
! 21 Willms concerning the 21st and the 22nd?
22 MR. MORRIS: You're asking,him would he or 23 did he?
4 24 MR. RAPP: I'm asking would he have seen 25 those.
1
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. _ ._ . __ - _ ~_ . . - - _ _ _ . _
1 THE WITNESS: Wall, thtt's kind of a hnrd 2 question to answer because I don't recall picking up 3 anything at the time that I did. So the answer to that is 1
4 apparently not. l 5 You know --
6 MR. RAPP: So you didn't' review those dates.
i I
7 then when you went back --
8 THE WITNESS: Oh, I reviewed the dates. But 9 I may not have seen anything in here that caused me to 10 question anything.
11 ,
(Examines document.) He did a pretty good-sized bleed and feed. I 12
' l 13 NR. RAPP: Is that normal?
i 14 THE WITNESS: If he's messing with the j 15 control rod position, it could have been. And --
16 MR. RAPP: To bleed the makeup tank and then 17 refill it?
18 THE WITNESS: And feed it back, yeah, You 19 may want to do something like that. I would have --
20 Depending upon how fast he was trying to do things. I L
21 don't know -- you know, I don't remember the situation at l
22 the time. And I would have probably as,ked him some 23 questions on it. But I don't remember anything about it.
~
24 I didn't get any feeling that he was doing 25 anything at the time that was, you know, challenging any NEAL R. GFh3SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSOWBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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{
l l
Jo ,
l 1 part of the plant. f l 2 ' MR. RAPP: Okay. All right. Thank you. '
l I
3 THE WITNESS: Sure.
1
\
l 4
MR. RAPP: Did you feel that the September ,
i 5 .4th event was significant? !
6 THE WITNESS: No. '
-. j 7 MR. RAPP: There was,no significance to 'it at 8 all in the fact that this evolution was conducted, that it i 9 was similar to the 5th, and it was also getting -- the 5th j 10 was getting a lot of attention from Management and the !
11 NRC? 4 12 THE WITNESS: The 5th was getting all the 13 attention because it came out with the data that showed l
14 that the curve was wrong.
15 The 4th, there was nothing there that you 16 could draw any conclusions with. And that's why, to me, 17 the 4th was insignificant compared to the 5th. And that's I 18 why.all the emphasis has been on the 5th, to my knowledge. I 19 MR. RAPP: Let me ask you this. Were,the
{ 20 evolutions conducted on the 4th and 5th tests'or l
l 21 experiments?
22 THE WITNESS: I didn't thi,nk that they were 23 tests or experiments. I just thought we were dropping 24 down the level and seeing how it responded with the plant. !
I 25 The plant responded with respect to a curve t.
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! 1 that wrc cuppo cd to be chowing us whnt tha plcnt recponro l
l l 2 was.
3 MR. RAPP: Are there any procedures or other 4 documents that you're aware of that define what a test is?
5 THE WITNESS: I'm sure there are, but I can't 6 --I don't know them off my head.
7 To me, a test is something that's outside'the 8 bounds of your procedures,. We weren't outside the bounds 9 of our procedures at the time, we didn't believe. So it 10 wasn't a test.
11 MR. RAPP: Okay. That's all I have right 12 now, Jim. Thank you.
13 N.R. VORSE: Did you ever discuss your 14 concerns about curve 103B before the September 4th and.5th 15 evolutions with anyone from the NRC, be it resident 16 inspectors, management, or other people from other areas 17 of the NRC, NRR, whatever?
18 THE WITNESS: I never talked to anybody about 19 it. Mark was pretty much keeping the whole issue. going.
20 And I kept in touch with Mark -
21 MR. DOCKERY: Mark being?
22 THE WITNESS: Mark Van Sic,klen. Sorry. To 23 keep up to speed with what was going on. I was concerned 24 about it. And he seemed to have the lead and I -- there's 25 no sense in two of us having a lead. So I pretty much let NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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! 1 Mark go. Whmtavar h2 wnnted to do with it was fino, 2 unless it was going to be something like drop the issue or 3 he didn't think that things were going -- You know, if I 4 didn't~believe that things were going the way I thought 5 they should, then I would have rtepped in myself.
6 But Mark was doing pretty much exactly what I ,
7 would have done. And so I just let him go and just kept !
8 in touch with him to keep abreast of the situation. l 1
9 MR. VORSE: Do you know who he talked to and j 10 what was said, based on your discussions with Mr. Van 11 Sicklen?
12 THE WITNESS: I know we had a talk with Todd j Cooper and it was off the record., I know it had to do 13 I
14 with his concerns, but I don't know any more about it than 1
l 15 that. l 16 He told me that he had talked to Todd about 17 what basically should we do with our concerns. And from l 18 what I got from Mark, Todd off the record said, all I can 19 tell you is file an allegation.
l l 20 And at the time Mark was too leery of his job L
f l 21 to want to do that. He wanted to work within Florida l
[
I 22 Power as much as possible before taking that step. I 23 believe he would have taken that step -- Well, it turns out the problem report solved all of that when the curve i
24 25 came out.
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1 The bottom line of that wholo 4th end 5th -- 1 l
i 4
2 the events of the 4th and 5th was if that plant response :
i 3 even came close to what the curve was predicting it to be, 4 Mark was going to drop the whole thing, say, you guys are 5 right, I'm wrong, sorry, didn't mean to waste everybody's )
I i
6 time, we'll go on with life. So --
~
7 MR. DOCKERY: Jim, if I may.
8 MR. VORSE: Yeah.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, you were 10 previously interviewed by the NRC Office of Investigations 11 regarding the events of September 5th, correct' 12 THE WITNESS: Correct.
13 MR. DOCKERY: And we',ve established here, ~I 14 think, today, would it'be fair to say, that you were 15 aware, at the time you were previously interviewed, of a 16 similar evolution that occurred September 4th?
17 THE WITNESS: I had forgotten about the 4th.
18 Okay? And that was a big reason why I didn't bring 19 anything up then.
20 And two was the fact that the Florida Power i
! 21 attorney had told us answer the questions truthfully, but ]
22 just answer the que.stions. ,
23 MR. DOCKERY: Fine. Then I believe it's fair 24 to say then today we have discovered that, in retrospect, 25 you do have some knowledge of a September 4th evolution.
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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r sw 1 THE WITNESS: Yes. It's not as vivid as tha 2 5th because the 5th had some serious consequences. And, i 3 you know, it's like what I did on my birthday four years 4 ago, I'll be darned if I can remember other than get l 5 older, you know.
6 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. To a lesser degree --
7 And I understand your testimony.is you were not direc'tly l 8 involved.
i 1
9 But there is some degree of knowledge of a l j
10 July evolution by another shift that was intended to 11 perhaps address a similar problem or situation. Is that -
12 -
13 THE WITNESS: That is true. But the only 14 knowledge I have of that was that another shift ran the 15 evolution, came up with data, showed it to Management, 16 Management basically reacted in a negative manner, and the 17 guy got the impression of shut up and watch the board.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. You --
19 THE WITNESS: I don't know any of the details 1
l 20 involved with the 22nd. I don't know anything about that, 21 other than it happened.
22 MR. DOQKERY: I understand,what the general 23 advice of your -- of corporate legal counsel was during 24 your last OI interview.
25 So I'm very clear here today, I am NEAL R. GROSS cous REpomERs AND TRANSCRWERS l
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i i specifically c2 king you do you hnva cny knowledge of cny' l 2 other revolutions-(sic) run by your shift or, to the 3 extent you know on a hearsay basis, by any other shift to )
4 deal with this particular curve, the problems that were l
5 perceived with this particular curve?
6 THE WITNESS: I don't know of anything else 7 thEt was ever done with respect to the concerns that we 8 have with the makeup tank hydrogen pressure relationship 9 at all.
10 And if something ever comes up between now and l
11 whenever, I'll be the first one to call you guys and let 12 you know, hey, look, there's some more information that's 13 come up based on his -- ,
14 MR. DOCKERY: I think Mr. Morris would like 15 to --
16 THE WITNESS: -- you know, looking through 17 my -- 1 18 MR. DOCKERY.: -- would like to say something?
19 MR. MORRIS: Yeah. I wanted to make certain 1
20 that you understood in your last question that Mr. Stewart 21 heard about the evolution in July of 1994 only after his !
22 OI interview in December 1994. ~
1 23 MR. DOCKERY: That's fine. I understand i 24 that. I really intended my question, Mr. Morris, to be 25 all encompassing.
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l 1 MR. MORRIS: Fina.
l l 2 MR. DOCKERY: At this point, now, do you have ,
l i
'3 any knowledge of any other similar --
4 THE WITNESS: No, sir.
5 MR. DOCKERY: -- evolutions?
6 THE WITNESS: If I did, I'd be talking, let 7 me tell you. And I'd also like to at this time empha' size 8 that we had every intentions, meaning me, had every 9 intentions of talking about what I knew of the July 22nd 10 and the 4th at the pre-decisional conference up in l l
11 Atlanta. .
I 12 We wanted everything to be known that could be i
, l 13 known because, to be honest with you, we were totally and i
14 completely surprised at the allegations that O and I 15 arrived at, or the Region arrived at that was applied to 16 us, that it was willful and wanton misconduct. [
17 We had nothing but the best of intentions of a i
18 safety concern. We had -- There was no quarreling. I ;
19 know there's been a lot of rumors of that going on, that .
20 there was quarreling between Engineering and Operations.
21 I'm sure there were some words said in 22 frustration, but we,weren't out to han anybody. We 23 weren't out to violate the world just to show that we were 24 right. We were honest, bona fide cafety concerned.
i
~
25 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Stewart, when you were
' NEAL R. GROSS count necomens ANo vamsmeens 1333 nH00e ISLAND Avenue, N.W.
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1 previously intervicw d by tha NRC Offica of l
2 Investigations, it was regarding your knowledge of the l
? l 3 September 5th evolution. Is that -- That's correct? l l
4 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
L 5 MR. DOCKERY: At that time if you had been 6 asked about a September 4th evolution, were you prepared 7 to discuss it?
8 THE WITNESS: I would have talked about 9 whatever I could have remembered at the time. Like I J
10 said, I'd forgotten an awful lot about the 4th and it was 11 just talking with the attorney and the other members, 12 bargaining unit, that were on the shift, Mark Van Sicklen, 13 Christine, specifically, that a lot more of the details of 14 the 4th have come back to my mind to be able to talk to ;
15 you gentlemen about it now.
l 16 So I may not have been able to talk in as 17 detailed then as I am now. But had someone answered (sic) 18 anything, I'd have been more than happy to talk about it.
19 You know, I want the whole thing bott.om line l
20 set out. 'I want this solved, put to bed, and go on with 21 life. I'm not here to obstruct anybody in anything.
22 MR. DOC.KERY : This question is somewhat I 23 delicate for reasons your Counsel understands. It may l
\
l 24 have something to do with privileged information. I'm 25 sure he'll stop you if he feels that it does.
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1 My question is, did you cvar receive epacific I 2 . instruction from anybody not to discuss the September 4th, 3 1994, evolution?
No.
4 THE WITNESS:
5 MR. DOCKERY: That's all I -- ,
6 THE WITNESS: To just expound on that just a 7 little bit, we have always been told by anybody that was 8 giving us any kind of counsel with respect to dealing with 9 0 and I and the NRC was answer the questions and tell the ,
10 truth.
11 ,
And that's al1 I have ever tried to do was 12 answer your questions to the best of my knowledge 13 pertaining to that question. ,
14 MR. DOCKERY: Just before you were 15 interviewed previously by Mr. Vorse was there any r 16 discussion between you and your colleagues or management i
17 regarding a September 4th evolution?
18 THE WITNESS: No. j 19 MR. DOCKERY: I don't have anything else.
20 MR. VORSE: Do you think Mr. Halnon might l l
21 have known about that September 4th evolution? !
22 THE WITNESS: There's a possibility. After -
1 23 - Sometime after the' interview with you gentlemen, and I 24 don't remember when it was, Mark and Christine had talked 25 with Greg Halnon. I wasn't privy and I wasn't there, so I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N.W.
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1 don't know cxcetly what was said.
2 But I know something was mentioned about the l 3 ~4th. And what I got out of Mark and Christine was Greg l
4 kind of indicated that he didn't want to hear about it.
5 MR. VORSE: How did he indicate that?
6 THE WITNESS: I don't know, other than I 7 believe he must have just said, you know, I don't wan0 to j 8 hear about it. I don't -- You know, I wasn't there. I 9 don't know.
10 MR. VORSE: That wasn't said to you.
]
11 THE WITNESS: It wasn't said to me. No. I 12 also understand that -- I guess Greg was teaching some i l
13 sort of an administrative course down in training in the 14 end of January, beginning of February, or something like 15 that.
16 And he brought up the makeup tank events of 17 the 4th and the 5th -- or the 5th, was all he mentioned at 18 the time. And again, Mark piped up and said, that's not 19 the only time that's occurred.
20 And Greg Halnon at thas cime apparently said, 21 I know.
22 But again, I wasn't there ei,ther. I'm going 23 strictly by what other people have told me.
24 MR. VORSE: When was this training session 25 again?
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,v 1 THE WITNESS: .Somatima the end of Janunry, ,
l 2 beginning of February. I don't -- I don't remember. You 3 could probably go down to the EOF and go through the files 4 an'd find out when Greg Halnon was *.eaching. It was -- I 5 don't remember the name of the course,-but he was teaching l I
6 a course. And Mark Van Sicklen would have been in it. '
7 MR. DOCKERY: I'm going to ask for your' 8 opinion on something. And there may -- You may have 9 direct knowledge of this. If not, I would solicit your 10 opinion.
Was there somebody that should have known that 11 ,
12 you were dealing with a design basis curve as opposed to 13 any other typ'e curve? ,
L 14 THE WITNESS: Well, apparently somebody in-15 Engineering had to have known it was a design basis curve 16 when they first generated it. But I don't know that. l l 17 It seems awful surprising to me that they can 18 come up with a curve like that and all the calculations i 19 that they had to go through that are directly affecting l
20 makeup tank suction pressure, you know, it seems to me 21 that during that process they should have known it and why 22 it -- how it ended,up over in Operations as an operating 23 curve is beyond me, because that's not Florida Power's i
24 mode of doing business. j 25 They always have the design basis. Then NEAL R. GROSS coU 1 o m . A,e inA.c. m as 1323 RHODE WLAND AVENUE, N.W.
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( 1 usually thoro's a tcch sp c limit th n. And thnn thara's i 2 an FPC administrative limit. You know, and it's all-3 designed to keep from challenging the A tech specs and B.
4 More importantly is the design basis.
5 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Rapp might be able to ask 6 this question better than I am. I think what I'm trying 7 to get at, was there somebody on the shift that you think ,
I 8 -- on your shift on, we'll say September the 5th, who 9 should have known, should have checked to see whether or 10 not you were dealing with a design basis curve?
. i 11 THE WITNESS: I don't think -- I don't i
\
12 believe so at all. It is -- It's considered an OP. We 13 believed it to be nothing more than a plant response 14 curve, not an absolute', don't ever cross this line curve.
15 It was, you know, the plant should act as 16 this.
17 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Rapp, if I'm asking that !
18 crudely or you can see a way that it could be clarified, 19 please go ahead.
20 MR. RAPP: No.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
22 THE WITNESS: I can't think of anything else.
l 23 MR. RAPP: Let me ask one quick thing here.
24 You said earlier that there was a safety 25 concern with this curve. .
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t sw 1 THE WITNESS: Yes.
2 MR. RAPP: Did you pursue that issue through
~3 either the Operations Management or Engineering Management 4 or'the~ Employee Concerns Program?
4 5 THE WITNESS: Mark had --
6 MR. RAPP: You personally.
7 THE WITNESS: Me personally, no. Because 8 Mark was running with it. And he had made the same 9 contacts that I would have made. So it didn't seem to 10 make any sense for me to.come back through and do the 11 exact same thing again.
I 12 Mark had talked to Operations Management.
13 Mark had talked to the Engineering Department. And, you l 14 know, Mark had talked to the NRC resident with kind of 15 respect to what do I do. And basically he was told, to my
- 16 knowledge, submit an allegation. And he didn't think that 17 was the way to go at the time. He was trying to get 18 Florida Power to work with the whole thing. I 19 MR. RAPP: That's all, Jim. Thank you.
20 MR. VORSE: Is there anything you need to --
21 MR. MORRIS: No.
22 MR. VORSE:
~
Well, Mr. Stewart,
- is there 23 anything else that you want to tell us that you think is 24 important that we haven't asked about that you think the 25 NRC should know about?
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1 THE WITNESS: I've told you es much as I crn i
l 2 possibly remember of the technical issues of it. I hope 3 that you gentlemen understand the frustration that I'm 4 goihg through with the whole event.
5 You know, I feel that, number one, never to be 6 talked to by Florida Power to find out what went on on the 7 evening of the 4th and the 5th, to me is almost a set'up 8 because I'm just ---I was just following Florida Power's 9 direction and what I believed to be pure 100 percent 10 honest concerning the interview back in December.
11 And everything that's blown up since then 12 leading to this investigation, had we been allowed to talk 13 at the pre-decisional enforcement, conference in Atlanta on 14 the 21st, all this stuff was going to come out, because 15 we, by this time, realized that there was a lot of stuff 16 that didn't get brought out back in December that really 17 needs to be brought out because, you know, we were_ facing 18 some very serious allegations brought on by the NRC that 19 we had done a willful and wanton misconduct.
20 And I honestly don't believe that all of the 21 facts support those findings. And so I feel very 22 frustrated that, yo,u know, I tried to be .~
as honest as I 23 can possibly be on this whole thing. I -- As much as I 24 can possibly remember I've conveyed to you.
25 And, you know, I hope this helps clear the
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i
I whole cituation up a lot batter thnn tha 1 cot intervicwn.
2 You know, if anything came up out of this that's wrongful ;
3 on my part, I'm awful sorry because all I have ever done 1
4 is try' to operate that plant with safety at the top of the :
5 line. 1 6 You know, I've talked to some Florida Power l i
7 people and one of the things that a lot of people don' t i i
8 understand is that 90 percent of the licensed operators l 9 live within a ten-mile radius of this plant.
i 10 So if we're going to knowingly do something 11 that's going to challenge the integrity of that plant, 12 you're challenging your family on top of the general 13 public. ,
14 And to someone who's got a lot of integrity, 15 that's a major consideration. And had I known any of this i
16 stuff was design basis, I wouldn't have done it. Never.
l 17 MR. VORSE: Do you feel that at any time 18 during the -- either the evolution on the 4th of September l 19 or the 5th of September of '94 that you had put the plant 20 in an unsafe condition?
l 21 THE WITNESS: No. j l
1 22 MR. VORSE: Why?
23 THE WITNESS: Because we were within the 24 bounds of our procedures.
25 MR. VORSE: Okay.
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a.
1 MR. RAPP: Let m3 cIk ona follow-up quc tion 2 then on that, Jim.
3 Does the scope of your license, your operator 4 lic~ense permit you to conduct unauthorized or unapproved 5 tests? l i
6 THE WITNESS: No, it does not. l 1
7 MR. RAPP: Okay. Thank you.
8 THE WITNESS: But this was not considered a 9 test. ,
10 MR. RAPP: By which definition?
11 THE WITNESS: By Dave Fields. Because it fit 12 within the bounds of our procedures. .
13 MR. RAPP: Did you get an annunciator alarm 14 on the September 4th evolution?
15 THE WITNESS: Yes.
16 MR. RAPP: How long did that annunciator 17 alarm last, do you remember?
18 THE WITNESS: I don't remember right off-19 hand. But I can tell you that it probably lasted less 20 than on the 5th because the evolution on the 4th took 21 place a lot quicker because we didn't have the 22 stabilization perio,d. ,
23 Something else that needs to be brought out is 24 that that alarm comes in off of a computer calculation 25 based on the computer's readout as to what the makeup tank NEAL R. GROSS count nerontras AND m=scascas 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUs, N.W.
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- L 1 leval is. ,
c 2 We' drive by the recorder, which has a separate ,
3 signal. And therefore, instrument error can show a ,
4 dif'ferent reading between the recorder and the annunciator 5 alarm.
6 So it's entirely possible, and in the past it ;
7 has been where we've had the recorder reading right oh the 8 curve, the computer reading high and the recorder being i l
9 the legal perimeter. We run by the recorder. And that j
-i 10 alarm has been in for hours over those 18 months prior to i .
11 this evolution.
12 The other thing is is that alarm, the r
3 13 annunciator alarm system at the nuclear plant is set up in Okay?
14 a hierarchy, level one, two, three, and four. (
! 15 Level one and two are red alarms. They're at the top of l .
l 16 the annunciator panels. They typically indicate a safety
( l 17 function actuating, reactor protection channels, i i I la safeguards actuation, this kind of stuff.
19 Level two is not quite as high as level one.
l 20 And level three is basically a general knowledge. And j i
21 level four doesn't even have a window. It just prints up 22 on a screen and the.re's a little beep, beep, beep comes 23 out of the back.
! 24 This makeup tank high pressure alarm is a 25 level three alarm. '
i
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os t 1 MR. DOCKERY: Both eveninga? ,
2 THE WITNESS: Both evenings.
3 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Vorse, anything else?-
4 MR. VORSE: I don't think so, Jim.
5 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Rapp?
6 MR. RAPP: No. I'm fine. Thank you.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Morris?
8 MR. MORRIS: No, sir.
9 MR. DOCKERY: 'If the witness has nothing 10 further to add -- ,
11 THE WITNESS: I don't have anything to add i
12 now. And if there's something that I can come up with )
13 later on that I feel may be of some help to o and I, I'll i
14 get a hold of my attorney and --
15 MR. DOCKERY: We appreciate that.
16 With that, we'll go off the record at 17 approximately 1:11.p.m.
18 (Whereupon, these proceedings were concluded 19 at 1:11 p.m.)
20 21 22 .
23
! 24 25 .
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57_
l 1 CERTIFICATE l 2' This is to certify that the attached proceedings i t
3 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in
. i 4 the matter of:
5 Name of Proceeding: Interview of Jack D. Stewart, 6 Docket Number (s): 2-94-036 7 Place of Proceeding: Crystal River Nuclear Plant ;
8 Crystal River, Florida 9 ,
10 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 11 transcript thereof for the file o'f the United States 12 Nuclea'r Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter I
13 reduced to t,ypewriting by me or under the direction of the 14 court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true ;
15 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
16 17 18 hsod - /M 19 gy S. M 20 Official Reporter 21 Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
22 23 24 -
l 25 l
i i
o
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