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1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
REGION II
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ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE 6
Re: Georgia Power 7
Company Plant Vogtle i
8-9 December 16, 1991 10 11 1:30 p.m.
12 13 14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission 15 Region II 16 101 Marietta Street, N.W.
17 29th Floor i
i 18 Atlanta, Georgia 19 l
20 Linda E.
Wood, CCR-A-752 21 22 23 i
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BROWN REPORTING, INC.
g 24 1100 SPRING STREET, SUITE 750 o
ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30309
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25 (404) 876-8979
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9611040133 960827 PDR FOIA KOHN95-211 PDR
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2 1
Persons Present:
2 For GEORGIA POWER COMPANY:
3 Jim Bailey Pat Mcdonald 4
Paul Rushton Ken McCoy 5
Bill Shipman Art Domby 6
David Repka Jim Swartzwelder 7
George Hairston Jimmy Cash 8
Gus Williams Steve White 9
Steve Waldrup Barnie Beasley 10 11 For NCR:
12 George Jenkins Larry Garner 13 Morris Branch J.D.
Wilcox 14 Chris Vandenburgh Jim Partlow 15 Stewart Ebneter Ellis Merschoff 16 Jim Milhoan Jeff Lieberman 17 Gus Lainas Bruno Uryc 18 Steve Vias Brian Bonser 19 Perry Skinner Alan Herdt 20 Darl Hood Scott Sparks 21 Dick Hoefling Carolyn Evans 22 Doug Starkey Jake Wechselberger 23 Larry Robinson 24 25
. e 3
1 MR. EBNETER:
We are all ready to go.
2 Let-me get started.
By way of introduction this is 3
an enforcement conference between the Nuclear 4'
Regulatory Commission and Georgia Power Company in 5
relation to the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant.
6 The conference is being documented by a
'7 court reporter.
We will give you a transcript; is 8
that right, Jim Lieberman, at some point in the 9
process?
10 MR. LIEBERMAN:
When we make a decision 11 to take enforcement action it will be available if 12 you desire it at that time.
13 MR. EBNETER:
Before we.get started let's 14 introduce everyone by name and title so this young 15 lady can identify who you are.
And throughout the 16 conference in the event of counsel in the rear and 17 anyone else who wants to speak, you should identify 18-yourself and speak loudly so she can hear you.
19 Right?
20 THE REPORTER:
Yes, sir.
21 MR. EBNETER:-
So let's go around and 22 incroduce everyone, t
23
. JIM BAILEY:
Jim Bailey, Manager L
24-iLicensing, Southern Nuclear Operating Company.
25-PAUL RUSHTON:
Paul Rushton, I'm a
-my,
-i
4 l
I manager-in-training with Georgia Power Company.
2 Formerly I was a manager of engineering and 3
licensing in the department's corporate offices in 4
Birmingham.
a 5
BILL SHIPMAN:
I'm Bill Shipman.
I'm the 6
General Plant Manager for Plant Vogtle.
7 DAVID REPKA:
David Repka of Winston &
'8 Strawn for Georgia Power Company.
9 GEORGE HAIRSTON:
George Hairston, Senior i
10 Vice-president, Georgia Power Company.
11 PAT MCDONALD:
Pat Mcdonald, Executive 12 Vice-president, Georgia Power.
13 KEN MCCOY:
Ken McCoy, Vice-president, 14 Georgia Power Company.
15 ART DOMBY:
Art Domby, Troutman Sanders 16 representing Georgia Power Company.
17 JIM SWARTZWELDER:
Jim Swartzwelder, 18 Manager Outage and Planning.
19 JIMMY CASH 4 Jimmy Cash, Strategic 20 Analyst, Southern Nuclear.
21 GUS WILLIAMS:
_Gus Williams, Supervisor 22 Work Planning and Controls.
23 GEORGE JENKINS:
George Jenkins, Director 24 of Enforcement for Region II.
25 LARRY GARNER:
Larry Garner, Senior
~...... -. -.
s
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5 1
i i
1 Resident Inspector, Robinson.
2 MORRIS BRANCH:
I'm Morris Branch, Senior
[
3 Resident Inspector at Surry.
4 J.D.
WILCOX:
I'm J.D.
Wilcox with NNRC, 5
Senior Operations Engineer.
6 CHRIS VANDENBURGH:
Chris Vandenburgh, 7
Section Chief, NNRC.
'8 MR. EBNETER:
I'm Stu Ebneter, Regional 9
Administrator, NNRC.
i 10 ELLIS MERSCHOFF:
Ellis Merschoff, Acting 2
11 Director for Division of Reactor Projects.
l 12 JIM MILHOAN:
Jim Milhoan, Deputy 13 Regional Administrator, Region II.
14 JIM PARTLOW:
Jim Partlow, NRR, Associate 1
15 Director.
16 JEFF LIEBERMAN:
Jeff Lieberman, Director 17 NRC, Office of Enforcement.
18 GUS LAINAS:
Gus Lainas, Associate l
19 Director for Region II Reactors, NRR.
20 STEVE WHITE:
Steve White, Shift 21 Supervisor, Plant Vogtle.
22 STEVE WALDRUP:
Steve Waldrup, Work 23 Planning Scheduling Supervisor, Plant Vogtle.
24 BARNIE BEASLEY:
Barnie Beasley, 4
25.
' Assistant General Manager, Plant Vogtle.
1
?
e 6
1 BRUNO URYC:
Bruno Uryc, Senior 2
Enforcement Specialist in Region II.
3 STEVE VIAS:
Steve Vias, Project 4
Engineer, Region II.
5 BRIAN BONSER:
I'm Brian Bonser, Senior 6
Resident Inspector at Plant Vogtle.
7 PERRY SKINNER:
I'm Perry Skinner, 8
Section Chief for Georgia Power, Company Plant 9
Vogtle.
10 ALAN HERDT:
Alan Herdt, Branch Chief 11 here in Region II from Division of Reactor 12 Projects.
j 13 DARL HOOD:
Darl Hood, NRC Project 14 Manager for Plant Vogtle.
15 SCOTT SPARKS:
Scott Sparks, Project 16 Engineer, Region II.
17 DICK HOEFLING:
Dick Hoefling, Office of
+
18 General Counsel, NRC.
19 CAROLYN EVANS:
Carolyn Evans, Regional i
20 Counsel.
I 21 JAKE WECHSELBERGER:
Jake Wechselberger, 22 Office of EDO.
23 DOUG STARKEY:
Doug Starkey, Resident l
24 Inspector Vogtle.
25 LARRY ROBINSON:
Larry Robinson, Office
i 7
1 of Investigations, NRC.
2 MR. EBNETER:
Before we get to the j
3 details George Jenkins will just briefly discuss 4
George.
5 MR. JENKINS:
As you know, when we have 6
' inspection findings that rise to severity of level 1
7 three or the potential for severity level three or l
8 more significant findings, we consider that 9
potential escalated enforcement and we typically 10 hold an enforcement conference.
11 That's what brings us to the table l
12 today.
The purposes of the conference are 13 multifold, but certainly we want to discuss the 14 apparent violations and their significant causes and 15 we want to hear about corrective actions.
16 We want to know if there are any 17 aggravating or mitigating circumstances that we 18 should consider in arriving at the appropriate 19 enforcement action.
And any other information that 20 you believe that we should take into consideration, 21 obviously we would like to hear it.
22 As you are aware, after this enforcement 23' conference we will meet internally, representatives
. 24
'of the various NRC offices, and we will formulate 25 what we believe is the appropriate action.
A
i-4 8
i 4
1 After that's been reviewed by NRC 2
headquarters then you will hear from the Regional 3
Administrator.
4 Should there be a civil penalty involved, 5
it's our common practice to issue a press release
}
6 which is typically done the day after following the 1
l 7
time that you are notified.
]
8 The question of the transcript of this 9
meeting availability has already been covered.
If 10 there are any other questions on the policy or i
11 procedural matters either now or as we go through l
12 the meeting, we'll be happy to entertain them.
13 MR. EBNETER:
The subject of this 14 enforcement conference is Inspection Report No.
15 50-424, 50-245/90-19.
This was an inspection that 16 was conducted at the Georgia Power Company Vogtle 17 Plant from August 6th chrough August 17th, 1990.
18 The inspection had two basic components, i
19 an operations followup inspection and an allegations 20 followup inspection. :
21 The report of operations followup 22 findings were transmitted to you as inspection
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23 report 90-19 on January 11, 1991,,to which you have 24 responded.
J 25 I believe_most all the issues in there i
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a 9
I with the exception of those that reference the 2
supplement report have been addressed.
3 The findings of the allegations followup 4
inspection was transmitted to you on November 1,
5 1991 as Inspection Report 90-19 Supplement 1.
6 This report contained one NOV with two 7
examples and also several other findings related to 8
inaccurate information.
The findings related to 9
inaccurate information is the subject of the 10 enforcement conference.
11 The NRC relies on licensees to provide 12 accurate and complete information during our 13 activities so that the conclusions we reach are 14 valid.
15 The applicable regulation is 10 CFR 16 50.59.
In this inspection four instances were 17 identified in which the initial information supplied 18
.was clearly inaccurate or inadequately researched.
19 The inspection team concluded that in 20 each of these examples licensee officials provided 21 inaccurate unsworn oral statements on inspection i
l 22 topics clearly within their areas of 4
23 responsibilities.
24 The four examples are containment 12 5 isolation valves I'm not going to read each one
10
.1 of these in detail, they are in the inspection 2
reports activities with regard to reducing the 3
number of snubbers in the plant.
4 Third item is personnel accountability 5
and this was talking about responsibility for i
6 performance appraisals and incentives.
And the last j
7.
item was Tech Spec 3.0.3 actions.
l 8
We will give you the opportunity to cover
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1 9
each one and to respond to them.
And George can
'l j
10 give you some guidance on it, but you should 11 basically provide any factual information related to 12 each situation and set of circumstances surrounding 13 each one that would clarify it and aid the NRC in 14 reaching a decision in this matter.
l 15 We'll address each of the four examples l
16 individually and sequentially.
And when we get 17 through the four examples then we will caucus and i
18 break and give you an opportunity to talk amongst 19 yourselves, for the NRC staff to talk and then we i'
20 will reconvene the enforcement conference at some 21 time period 15, 20 minutes after that.
22 That's all I have to open it.
Jim 23-Partlow or Jim Lieberman, anyone of the NRC staff 24 want to make a comment?
i 25 MR. PARTLON:
I have nothing-further, l
1 2
a
11 1
no.
2 MR. EBNETER:
Okay, George.
3 MR. JENKINS:
You inadvertently when 4
. talking about the requirements said 50.59.
It's 5
50.9 for the record.
6 MR. EBNETER:
Thanks, sir.
50.9.
Mr.
.7 Mcdonald, we'll let you do.it.
I'd like to handle 8-each one, unless you have some objection to that 9
procedure.
10 MR. MCCOY:
What we would prefer to do is 11 handle each item, present all the information we 12 know about it and then open that up for discussion 13 and questions so that we get all the facts out 14 before we start 15 MR. EBNETER:
Then we'll move on to the 16 next one.
17 MR. MCCOY:
To the second one, right.
18 MR. EBNETER:
So let's do it that way and 19 I'll turn it over to you, i
l I
20 MR. MCDONALD:
Mr. McCoy will make the I
21 opening presentation..
22-MR. MCCOY:
The Vogtle generating plant 23 has had a long standing policy of open and frank f
24 communication with the NRC representatives.
We i
25-intend to give you our frank observations on the i
1 l
4
-.w-
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I-l 12 i
l 1
alleged violations Section 50.9 set out in 2'
Supplement 1 to Inspection Report 90-19.
'3 You will notice that each of the f
4 individuals who is identified'in the inspection 1
l 5
report as' supplying alleged inaccurate information 6
is here today.
That is so that we can fully address 7
and resolve the NRC's misperceptions.
l
'8 A long time has passed since the team 9
exited.
I realize that extraneous matters may have 10 delayed the issuance of a supplemental report.
If 11-
.the delay in pursuing these concerns however, arises 12 from the 1990 allegations not from the 1990 13 allegations but from the operations inspection 14 portion of the team's visit, then there is a real 15 concern about the timeliness of this conference.
16 Our view is the matter should have and 17 could have been addressed long ago in sufficient 1
18 time for both the NRC and the licensee to accurately 19 capture all the relevant facts.
20 Based on oQr inquiries into these
.21 matters, we believe this conference is unnecessary 22 and at a minimum premature.
We previously have not 23 been given-an opportunity to address these 24 allegations 'in a forum that would have resolved this 25:
matter in a nonadversarial manner.
o 13 1
The special assessment team did make l
2 comments to upper management during the site
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3 inspection and at the sxit concerning, and I quote, 4
conflicting statements, but the comments were vague i
5 and general.
1 6
More importantly, we never had the 4
7 impression from the team's comments that the 8
statements would be the focus of enforcement.
We 9
viewed the matter as miscommunications and j
10 misunderstandings.
1 11 And we specifically asked the team and 12-understood that the team had obtained accurate and 13 complete information during the inspection.
14 The inspectors fundamentally failed to 15 provide sufficient information to us to respond t.
i 16 during their inspection effort to their specific 17 concerns regarding accuracy of the information.
2 18 Sixteen months after the exit we finally 19 have the meeting today, which should have been held 4
20 before the team exited the site.
21 The inspectors really did not conduct a 22 detailed review of the statements alleged to have 23 been made.
To us the supplement contains
{-
24 allegations, not factual findings.
25 We acknowledge that with regard to the f
14 f
1 anubber reduction issue the team did intensively 2
review the implementation of the snubber reduction 3
program.
But to our knowledge the team did not go 4
back to the indiv.iduals involvred and attempt to 5
confirm the oral statements and their context, which 6
apparently triggered the intensive snubber review.
4 7
We are dismayed at the selective 8
presentation of facts in the inspection report and 9
its supplement.
There appears to have been 10 selective omission of facts known to the team.
11 With regard to the statements of the unit 12 shift supervisor the report omits the relevant and 13 material fact that his initial statement to the NRC 14 inspectors was revisited with them shortly 15 thereafter voluntarily at his first opportunity and 16 at his initiative.
1 17 With regard to the snubber reduction 18 statements our understanding is that the team was 19 told at the first reduction was told that at the 20 first reduction work 4-let me start that statement 21 again, please.
22 With regard to the snubber reduction i
23 statements our understanding is that the team was 24 told that at first, the reduction work was done in 25 conjunction.with preplanned system outages, but that
4 15 1
4 1
an' exchange in approach was implemented thereafter j
2 at the work planning scheduling group level.
l 3
The team was further told by an impartial
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4 employee that this change in approach probably was 5
not widely known in other departments.
So the 6
operations manager's statement to the NRC was 7
reasonable at the time.
I 8
-Communications is a two-way affair.
Half 3
j 9
is speaking, the other half is listening.
Several i
j 10 of the alleged misstatements arose from the 11 listening half.
The listeners were unfamiliar with i
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12 the Vogtle site, unfamiliar with the speakers, j.
13 unfamiliar with our practices and procedures.
}.
14 They may have come to the site with some 15 erroneous preconceptions.
It is not surprising that 16 they would misinterpret or misunderstand some 17 factual statements made to them or the meaning and i
18 the context of those statements.
19 What is surprising is that the NRC did 4
i 20 not consider this obvious possibility prior to 21 sending out Supplement 1.
Unsworn oral statements l
22 in the preliminary fact finding of the NRC should 4
23 not be treated as formal regulatory positions of the 24-facility licensee.
Otherwise, there is a real 4
l 25
. potential for chilling of responsive open dialogue l
4 a
i
'r 16 1
'to assilst the NRC and its investigation and 2-understanding of issues at the plant.
3 In light of this real concern we are 4
dismayed by your decision to hold this enforcement
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5 conference.
Furtunately from our side we have 6
accurately captured information which will 7
demonstrate to you that any enforcement action in 8
this matter is unwarranted.
9 We have contemporaneous records.
We have 10 contemporaneous recall.
We have in most instances 11 strong and clear recollections.
12 At the exit when the issue of conflicting J
13 information was raised senior management of Georgia 14 Power specifically asked whether all the correct 15 inf o: mation had been given to the NRC as of that 16 time.
l 17 The NRC responded that correct and complete information had been provided.
Also, the 18 19 plant 7eneral manager-initiated an inquiry by the 3
20 Quality concerns coordinator to review the I
21 conflicting statements which had been identified up 22 to.that time.
23 Paul' Rushton will now present our factual 24 review of these alleged statements.
For each item 1
25-he will state our position.
(
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17
)
i 1
Let me state up front as a prelude in no 2
case was there intentional oral misstatements nor 3
was there careless disregard for the accuracy of 4
information provided to the inspection team.
5.
And of the two statements which could 6
have been characterlzed as inaccurate, the first 7
involving the hydrogen monitor isolation valves was 8
properly identified and revised during the 4
9 inspection.
10 The second involving the snubber 11 reduction program was an honestly held opinion based 4
]
12 on the knowledge and experience of the i
13 communicator.
That opinion simply was not as 14 accurate as was subsequently determined by detailed 4
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15 review by the directly involved work planning l
16 group.
3 i
17 As we discussed earlier, please let Paul 18 complete his presentation of the relevant 19 information on each issue before asking the 20 questions in the interest of getting all the facts 21 on the table.
22 Paul.
23 MR. RUSHTON:
When Supplement 1 of the 24 inspection report came out 25 MR. EBNETER:
Excuse me,-first, Paul, are 4
4
18 1
you going to give me a copy of all these slides?
2 MR. RUSHTON:
Yes, sir, at the conclusion 3
I will.
When Supplement 1 of the inspection report 4
came out Mr. McCoy asked me to conduct an 5
investigation and review of the facts available to 6
us to try and determine what exactly had happened in 7
each of these four different situations.
8 I looked for the available information.
9 There was very little in the inspection reports 10 themselves, c,u t I was only able to glean from them 11 whatever I could dissect from looking at the 12 specific wording and the information that was 13 available in the two inspection reports.
14 Most of it was in Supplement 1.
There 15 was some additional information available in the 16 original inspection report which had come out in 17 January of 1991 about 10 or 11 months ago.
18 I also conducted interviews with all of 19 the involved parties.- We had lengthy discussions 20 about their recall and in most cases, like Mr. McCoy 21 has said, their recall was fairly good.
22 Also, as Mr. McCoy has said, Mr.
J 23 Bockhold, the general manager at the time, as a 24 result of the discussion held at the exit interview i
25 had directed the Quality Concerns coordinator at the
0 19 l'
plant to conduct an investigation and determine what 2
he could find.
3 He conducted tape recorded interviews of 4
several of the involved parties on August 21st, 5
1990.
Now, as you know, the exit meeting concluded 6
on August 17th, 1990.
So this was Tuesday of the 7
following week that he conducted this interview 8
these interviews with these involved parties.
-9 And we have transcribed those interviews 10 and I will be using some of that information here i
11 today.
But there is a very limited amount of 12 information available on all these subjects.
And 13 I'm going to just present to you what I was able to 14 determine in conducting my investigation.
15 The first issue has to do with the 16 hydrogen monitor isolation valves.
Take a statement
)
I 17 out of Inspection Report 90-19 which was issued in 18 January of this year.
i 19 And the statement reads, and I quote it i
b 20 here, the unit shift supervisor indicated that these 21 valves, referring to the containment isolation 22 valves, received an automatic containment isolation 23 signal.
24 The word automatic I inserted.
Where you
+
25 see bracketed words in there they are words that I 1
.~
s 20 1
have inserted for clarity.
The operations manager
.2 confirmed this statement in a later discussion with i
j 3
the inspection team.
4 Well, the situation here was that this 5
was the first day of the inspection.
The team was i
6 taken to the control room for a tour of the control 7
room and the facility.
8' About five or six of the team members 9
showed up in the control room escorted by Jim j
10 Swartzwelder.
Steve White, who you see sitting over 1
1 11 here on the left, was the unit shift supervisor on 12 duty that day on the day shift.
And Steve was asked 13 if he would mind and if he had the time, to give 14 these inspectors a tour of the control room.
The 15 purpose of it being simply to familiarize themselves l
16 with Plant Vogtle's layout and equipment.
17 During the conduct of this tour several l
18 questions were asked of Steve about general plant i
19 conditions and about general plant equipment and 20 layout.
21 At one point an inspector interrupted 22 Steve and made the observation that the hydrogen 23 monitor containment isolation valves appeared to be i
l 24 open.
And he asked if that was a fact and Steve 25 confirmed that yes, the valves are open.
i l
4 O
21 i
1 When asked why the valves were open Steve L
2 responded that they were open to perform a l
3 surveillance procedure and he was aware of it.
4 The inspector also asked during this t
5 conversation, according to Steve's recollection, 6
whether those particular valves received a l
a 7
containment isolation actuation signal and 8
automatically closed in the event that they were 9
needed to be closed.
Steve stated at that time that 2
l 10 he believed the valves did receive an automatic 11 closure signal.
12 I would say to you that Steve's statement, j
13 is not entirely surprising in that he was just i
14 conducting a familiarization tour of the control i
15 room.
There was no particular formality to the 16 manner in which the question was asked, there was no 17 specific importance attached to the question, it was 18 just another question among several that had already 19 been asked just to familiarize them with the control 20 room.
t 21 This knowledge of whether or not these 22 particular valves do receive a containment isolation 23 signal is not required knowledge for our operators 24 at the plant.
It is not part of rote memory, it's 25 not expected that they would know all of the
22 1
isolation containment valves.
2 This is a copy of the table out of our 3
FSAR of the containment isolation valves.
A quick 4
count that I made shows approximately 165 valves, i
5 not including check valves.
6 Of those 165 I counted 109 that receive 7
some form of automatic closure signal.
It's not 8
reasonable to expect our operators to memorize that 9
list of 109 valves and we don't do it.
10 The information is readily available in 11 the control room if it's needed.
There is multiple 12 sources of that exact information.
There is a copy 13 of this available just outside the control room.
14 Steve did not feel at the time that there since there was no particular importance to 15 was 16 the question that he needed to go research the j
j 17 answer and he didn't at that time.
He continued l
18 with the tour, he did not interrupt the tour to go 19 research the answer. -
20 And like I:said, he was not aware that it 21 was anything more than just for general 22 information.
2.
23 MR.-MCCOY:
One other point in that area 2 44
'about the knowledge of the expected knowledge of 25 the shift supervisors, the valves that get automatic
23 1
signals for containment closure are clearly 2
indicated on the control panel in signal modules.
3 So that if a valve does not properly close on an j
4 automatic signal, it's very obvious which valve did 5
not close.
In fact, that's the indication that the 6
inspector saw.
7 So it is not necessary for our operators 8
to know from memory all the valves that close on an 9
automatic signal.
10 MR. RUSHTON:
Generally speaking when 11 somebody -- when I ask somebody a question and they 12 respond with an I believe or a I think or their 13 answer is otherwise qualified in some way, that 14 introduces in my mind some shadow of doubt.
15 And I would just, being a good listener, 16 try to verify or confirm the information in some 17 way.
If the person who told me this had to qualify 18 it in some way, I would seek further clarification 19 and confirmation that-the answer that was provided 20 could be ventified.
21 In this particular instance the NRC 22 inspector did not alert Steve that this question and 23 its answer was particularly important or significant 24 to him and did not request confirmation or 25 followup.
l.
l 24 l
i Had he done so, there was multiple 2
sources of the answer available to Steve in the 3
control room.
And right after the tour group left 4
the control room Steve did go verify and look up and 5
determine that the valves did not, in fact, receive 6
a containment isolation signal, l
7 I think it was generally a poor 8
questioning technique to fail to followup and 9
request verification of the accuracy of that 10 information.
11 Later that same day after Steve had gone 12 and looked up and determined Lnat the valves did not 13 receive an automatic isolation signal, the same 14 individual came back into the control room, still 15 Steve was on shift, this is still Monday, the very 16 first day of the inspection, and the individual 17 the inspector was accompanied by Mr. Vandenburgh, 18 the team leader, and Steve went over to those folks 19 and said, look, what I told you two hours ago -- and 20 I'm paraphrasing a little bit of what Steve said 21 but what I told you previously was not right.
The 22 valves do not get an automatic closure signal.
23 And he did that of his own volition, of 24 his own initiative.
As I said before, he wasn't 25 aware that there was any particular importance to
I 25 1
that.
He was just being conscientious and following 2
up and I think we ought to give him an atta boy for 3
doing so.
4 Steve, would you like to express your 5
feelings about how the tour was conducted and how it 6
went?
Welcome you to say how you feel about it.
7 MR. WHITE:
Okay.
My name is Steve 8
White.
I'm the unit shift supervisor at Plant 9
Vogtle.
There is a couple of things I'd like to 10 maybe reinforce that Paul said, was that when the 11 gentlemen were brought into the control room it was 12 specifically stated to me in front of each of them 13 that they were here to familiarize themselves with 14 our plant.
15 It was their first day on site and it was 16 just basically a familiarization tour.
And based on i
17 that I answered their questions in that context.
18 When they asked about the hydrogen l
19 monitor valves I answered that yes, I believe they 20 do get a containment isolation signal or something 21 to-that effect.
I don't recall if those were my 22 exact words, but and I explained to the best of 23 my knowledge the reason that we had those valves 24 open at this time.
Our instr > ment controls 25 department was doing surveillance test and that I
e
26 1
particular procedure instructs the operators in the 2
control room to open those valves for : hem to 3
perform their test.
4 After I completed the tor.r the gentlemen 5
left.
And I did look up from the information that 6
was readily available in the control room those 7
valves and determined that they did not in fact get 8
a CIA signal.
9' I_also spoke with one of the operations 10 other employees another employee from the 11 operations department who had previously been 12 involved with the question about having those valves i
13 open their power and he gave me the Georgia Power i
14 management position and justification for opening 15 those valves, i
16 I also when the gentlemen came back into 17 the control room later in the day related to them 18
'that I had given them some incorrect information, 1
i 19 that-the valves did not get an automatic closure 1
20 signal and I also gave them the justification for i
21 having those open.
That's all.
22 MR. RUSHTON:
Thank you, Steve.
The 23'
-statement in the inspection report also alleges that 24-the operations manager confirmed what Steve had told 4
25-them, that the valves received an automatic
r 27 1
isolation signal.
2 The operations manager says he didn't do r
3 that.
And in fact, from the transcript of the k
.4
-interview conducted on August 21st, 1990, the 5
Tuesday following the completion of the inspection, 6
the operations manager was being interviewed on this 7'
subject.
8 And he stated at that time, and I quote, 9
I also told him that they did not receive a 10 containment isolation signal and that the system was 11
' designed to withstand accident pressure end quote.
12 And Jim's recall is_similar that he told 13 them that it did not receive an automatic closure 14 signal.
He says he knew that those valves were l
15 remote manually operated valves at the time just as 16 well as he knows it now.
17 In summary what I conclude from looking l
18 at this is that we did in fact provide accurate i
19 information to the NRC, all be it initially some l
20 erroneous information:was provided, but it was l
21 promptly corrected voluntarily without request for 22 followup from the NRC inspectors by Steve White the l
23 same day.
In fact, it was only a matter of hours 24 later.
i.
25 Continuing on the subject of hydrogen i
f i
l, 28 1
monitor isolation valves the inspection report i
2 supplement which came~out in November went further 3
into detail about this alleged inaccurate 4
information, i
5 And it states that during a unit one 6
surveillance procedure the unit shift supervisor j
7 stated, and the operations manager later confirmed, 8
that the containment isolation valves for the i
9 hydrogen monitor system were allowed to be opened 10 without entering the LCO action requirements for j
11 Tech spec 3.6.3 because the valves received an i
12
-automatic isolation signal.
13 This statement says really four different 14
. things.
And those are one, that the unit shift 15 supervisor told the NRC that the valves received an 16 automatic containment isolation signal.
17 It also expands that and says the unit i
18 shift supervisor explained or discussed with the 19 inspector the fact that they get an automatic 20 closure signal is the: basis for our justification of 21 compliance with the required technical 22 specification.
23 Third thing that this says is the 24 operations manager said that the valves get an 25 automatic closure signal.
And the fourth thing that de e
29 1-it says is'that the operations manager also drew 2
this same linkage to tech spec compliance.
3 First of all, I'd just like to point out 4
that it was the unit two surveillance, not a unit 5
one surveillance as this statement indicates.
6 Surveillance was being performed on unit two.
The 7
shift supervisor was assigned to unit two that day.
8 The statement is correct in that it says 9
that the unit shift supervisor explained that the 10 valves were permitted to be open because of this 11 surveillance procedure.
j 12 There was no discussion, no detailed i-j 13 discussion with the unit shift supervisor by the i
14 inspector or the team with regards to tech specs and i'
i 15 our means of compliance.
16 In other words, the inspector who was 17 conducting this questioning did not draw the linkage 18 to tech specs for Steve.
Steve did not understand l
19 that the. question was-being asked with regards to 1
20 technical specifications and compliance.
21 Had that been known-to Steve, and I'm 22' speculating a little bit, but I suspect Steve's ears 23 would_have-parked up and he would have been at a heightened sensitivity to answering the question.
24 25 Instead of just being an informational
c 1
30 1
question he would have recognized it as having some 2
particular regulatory significance.
But that was 3
not the case.
4 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Paul, Jim Lieberman 5
here.
The slide says no detailed discussion.
I 6
take it from what you said there was no discussion?
7 MR. RUSHTON:
Well, I'll let Steve answer 8
from his recollection, if you would, please.
i 9
MR. WHITE:
Best I recall the major 10 portion of our discussion after I was asked if those i
11 valves get a containment isolation signal was based 12 on the performance of the procedure itself.
13 You know, it's possible that I may have 14 been asked if we had an LCO on those valves, which I 15 would have replied no, we do not because we did 16 not.
17 But I feel confident that had there been i
18 any kind of detailed discussion about those valves 19 being open as related-to that tech spec, I would 4
20 have recalled that.
And I recall no such 21 discussion.
22 MR. RUSHTON:
As I already said, the unit 23 shift supervisor, Steve, promptly and voluntarily 24 provided accurate information regarding automatic l
25 isolation.
l
31 l'
And as I also already have stated and 2
indicated to you, the operations manager did not 3
state that the valves received an automatic 4
isolation signal.
5 The operations manager did enter into 6
lengthy discussions with the NRC regarding 7
compliance with Tech Spec 3.6.3, but his rationale 8
for explaining our means of compliance had nothing 9
to do with the fact that these valves receive an 10 automatic isolation signal because he knew they 11 didn't.
12 He explained our rationale for compliance 13 with the tech spec with an entirely different l
14 argument.
i l
15 MR. MILHOAN:
So you are saying at no i
16 times did the operations manager ever say they received an automatic isolation signal?
17 18 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
That's correct.
4 19 MR. RUSHTON:
In summary of this entire j
20 issue I would conclude that the unit shift j
i 21 supervisor didn't discuss tech spec compliance with
)
I 22 the team.
23 And'I also conclude that the operations 24' manager didn't tell the team that the valves 25 received a containment isolation signal.
In fact of
1 l
32 1
that whole statement and let me put it back 2
up.
3 I find very little of merit in this whole 4
statement.
One unit shift supervisor told the NRC d
i 5
the valves lo not get an isolation signal.
- Second, 6
he.said nothing about tech specs and compliance.
7 Third, the operations manager told NRC 8
the valves do not get an isolation signal.
- Fourth, 9
the operations manager didn't use an auto closure 10 signal as a basis for describing our means of 11 compliance.
12 Fifth, it's the wrong unit number in the 13 paragraph.
The only thing right about that whole 14 paragraph is that we were performing a surveillance 15 procedure that day.
16 If I were to speculate a little bit, I 17 would say that in writing that last statement that 18 there was possibly a synthesis of information from 19 previous statements. -
20 And in that synthesis of what people 21 thought or remembered or l'n putting those specific
.22 words together they lost a good part of the 23 accuracy.
24 That's.all of my prepared thoughts on the 25 hydrogen monitor isolation valves if there is
i 33 i
4 I
1 discussion.
Mr. Partlow.
l l
2 MR. PARTLOW:
Yeah.
Steve White, about 3
how long would you say it was between your initial
\\
4 answer to the inspection team and your correction to 5
the team leader?
1 6
MR. WHITE:
Well i
7 MR. PARTLOW:
Was it on the same shift?
8 MR. WHITE:
Same shift, I'd say they came
-9 in sometime after lunch as best I recall and the 10 shifted ends at 6:00.
So, you know, I would 11 expect
. 12 MR. PARTLOWs You did it the same day?
13 MR. WHITE:
Same day, same shift, maybe 14 two, maybe three hours.
15 MR. EBNETER:
Paul, since you did all of 16 the work on this did you time wise 17 chronologically did you start on this last January 18 when you first received the report or did you just 19 start your analysis a-few weeks ago?
20 MR. RUSHTOR:
I started my analysis when 21 Supplement 1 came out 22 MR. EBNETER:
Supplement 1.
23 MR. RUSHTON:
last month.
24 MR. EBNETER:
And QC did not quality 25 concerns coordinator though didn't do it?
h 34 1
MR. RUSHTON:
His was contemporaneous at 2
the time.
Like I said, Stu, he did the interviews 3
on August 21st, 1990.
That was Tuesday following 4
the exit meeting and he provided a written report to
[
5 the plant general manager on Thursday, August 23rd.
6 MR. EBNETER:
And you said those were 4
7 taped.
Did you review those tapes?
8 MR. RUSHTON:
I reviewed the transcripts 9
of the tapes and I also heard some of the tapes.
10 But I thought that the transcripts would be a lot j
11 easier for me to use.
I 12 MR. EBNETER:
Sure.
13 MR. HOEFLING:
Hoefling, NRC.
Could you 14 explain again what prompted those tape recordings to 15 be made?
16 MR. RUSHTON:
There was discussion at the 17 exit meeting between the NRC and our management l
18 and maybe some of you who were at the exit would 19 care to speak to that--- but that was what initiated f
20 the review.
21 Mr. Bockhold, due to the things that were 22 discussed at the exit meeting, asked the Quality 23 Concerns coordinator to conduct an investigation.
24 MR. MCCOY:
Let me give you my 25 recollection.
35 1
MR. HOEFLING:
I'm having a little 2
trouble focusing on that.
3 MR. MCCOY:
Let me give you my 4
recollection on this.
I was involved when George l
l 5
Bockhold discussed his decision to review this with 6
me.
7 My recollection is that during the 8
inspection that the team leader discussed at some 9
point with George Bockhold that he had gotten some 10 conflicting information.
That was the way it was 11 characterized by George Bockhold to me.
12 George discussed this with me and then 13 and let me say that the day before the exit the team 14 leader briefed both myself and George Bockhold on 1L all the issues from the inspection.
This issue was
- r not briefed.
17 But the following day at the exit this 18 issue was brought up during the exit.
And both Pat 19 Mcdonald and myself responded to that, as I recall, 20 quite strongly because it was upsetting to us and we 21 wanted to make sure that the team had gotten correct 22 and complete information.
And we asked that 23 question and got an affirmative response.
24 But because this perception had occurred 25 in the team and we had been under whac I would call
e 36 1
a cloud of this kind of thing when the team arrived, 2
the plant manager wanted to independently go look 3
and be sure that there wasn't any substance to this L4 statement that was brought up.
5 And so, he discussed his decision with me 1
6 and told me he would like'to have somebody 7
independently go interview these people and find out j
8 what went on.
And so he initiated an independent
~9 review by the Quality Concerns coordinator who is an 10 independent person at the plant.
11' That's what initiated that.
12 MR. HOEFLING:
Okay.
Paul, when Steve j
13 made his correction to the team leader later in the 14 afternoon was the same inspector present who had 15 posed the question in the morning?
j 16 MR. RUSHTON:
Yes, sir, according to what i
17 Steve has told me it was the same inspector and he 18 was accompanied by the team leader, Mr. Vandenburgh, 19 at that time.
l 20 MR. HOEFLING:
And also as a result of 21-your investigation all of the facts with regard to 22-this statement occurred in'a single day 23 essentially?
24 MR.: RUSHTON:
Yes, sir, in a single
~ 25-shift..
.l :. -
.... - ~..
37 1
MR. HOEFLING:
Oh, all right.
2 MR. RUSHTON:
Day shift on the very first 1
3 day of the inspection.
This entire thing took place 4
-the very first day.
5' MR. PARTLOW:
Paul, why in your February 6-response to the January report didn't you take issue i
7 with the inspection report that said that the 8
operations manager confirmed the automatic signal?
9 MR. RUSHTON:
We simply did not.
We were 10 responding specifically to the violations and 11 weaknesses that were identified in the January 12 inspection report.
We did not think that errors 13 that we found in the inspection report were 14 necessarily considered to be of particular 15 significance to the NRC and we simply did not 16 respond to those things.
We didn't know that they i
17 were issues.
18 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
Paul, I think it's ll 19 also substantive hera-that at this time when we
]
20 received the initial inspection report I was not on 3
'21 site.
i 22-My recollection is that at that time I 4
.23 was at VC Summer on an evaluator trip for three i
24 weeks from sometime towards the end of January to 25
.the beginning of February.
m z '
38 1
MR. PARTLOW:
Okay.
2 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
So I would not have 3
been on the PRB for the review of the response or I 4
would have made it an issue.
5 MR. PARTLOW:
Okay.
6 MR. RUSHTON:
Let me say something and 7
correct the record.
I spoke that this entire thing 8
took place on the first day.
9 The entire thing involving Steve White 10 took place on the first day.
I'm not sure how many 11 days it was being discussed with the operations 12 manager, may have been for severa'l days.
13 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
The hydrogen monitor 14 issue was discussed oh, probably I'd say a week, 15 maybe longer.
16 MR. RUSHTON:
Any further discussion on 17 this issue?
The second issue has to do with snubber 18 reduction modifications.
19 Inspection-Report 90-19 alleges that the 20 operations manager stated that the majority of the 21 modifications and again, I inserted the 22 parenthetical to the snubbers for clarity --
23 performed in conjunction with preplanned system 24 outages.
25 And Supplement 1 makes the statement that A
39 1
the operations manager stated that the modifications 2
to the snubbers were done in conjunction with 3
preplanned system outages which were required for 4
other preventive or corrective maintenance or 5
testing.
6 Note that I have inserted the 7
parentheticals in here because I think that some 8
people who would read this statement would think 9
that it implies always, that the operations manager 10 stated that this is always the way it's done.
11 And the inspection report goes on to say 12 that the inspection identified that few of the 13 anubber modifications were done jointly with 14 preplanned system outages.
15 The conversation where these statements 16 were made took place, as best I could determine, on 17 Friday, the last day of the first week of the 18 inspection, August 10th.
Gus Williams and Jim 19 Swartzwelder were parties to this conversation as
)
20 well as members of th6 NRC.
21 In investigating this and reviewing the 22 available information I determined that a statement j
23 similar to A was made and that B should not imply 24 always.
25 It's very clear to me from reviewing the 7-a
a 1
40 1
available records that the operations manager and 2
the engineering supervisor who were involved in this 3
conversation, which was Gus Williams, did not tell 4
the NRC'that we always do it this way.
5 The statement that was made I think was 6
understandable.
These two individuals believed that 7
it was the practice at Vogtle to do these snubber 8
modifications in conjunction with other system I
9 outages work.
10 It was consistent with prior Plant Vogtle 11 practices, whenever we have a system outage we try 12 to get as much work done in as short amount of time 13 as we can and promptly return the system to 14 operation.
15 And during the initial planning of 16 snubber reduction work this was the plan.
The point 17 of contention I think.is over whether always was 18 implied or not implied or was in fact used.
i 19 And again,- I' d like to read f rom --
20 excuse me, to you from the transcript.of Jim i
, 21 Swartzwelder's interview which was made on August
- 22 the interview was conducted on August 21st, 1990 23-where Jim is expressing himself on this subject.
24 And-I quote, The point of contention is 25 whether or not Gus and myself told the NRC that we i
P'M er
'9M w-er u-
+e r
1
'o e
41 1
always do snubber reduction in conjunction with 2
other preventive or corrective maintenance.
The 3
point of fact in my recollection is we did not say 4
that.
J 5
"As a matter of fact, we said that we 6
felt that it was a mixed bag.
Sometimes we did the 7
modifications snubber reduction work all by itself, 8
sometimes there was maintenance involved in addition 9
to the snubber work.
10 "In addition, we couched that statement 11 with I believe it to be true.
We are not in any way 12 trying to make it a statement of fact.
j 13 "Later indications, I believe, from Steve 14 Waldrup and Steve Swanson were that the vast i
15 majority of the snubber reduction work done this 16 year was for modification only and did not contain 17 corrective or preventive maintenance.
18 "There was never an intention, nor do I 19 believe a statement, that either Gus or myself made 20 any firm statement as:to always doing it, doing the 21 ~
snubber work, reduction work in conjunction with
{
22 preventive and corrective maintenance."
23 Gus Williams, and I won't read it to you, 24 Gus Williams' statement, but Gus Williams recalled 25 at that time and his recall now is that he told the
\\
l J
.i-m
____m. _ _ _ _ _ _,
42 1
NRC inspector that we do snubber reduction work all 2
by itself maybe half the time and in conjunction 3
with system outages maybe half the time.
1 4
Clearly that does not imply always.
Gus 5
also recalls pointing out to them specifically that 6
we were doing a snubber reduction modification that 7
particular week and it was not being done in 8
conjunction with a system LCO.
9 As I was saying, the communicators 4
10 believed that was the practice.
Unbeknowst to them 11 the work scheduling department had determined that i
12 there was a better way of scheduling these snubber 13 reduction outages in that we do not have to take a 14 safety system out of service to remove snubbers.
15 You can simply enter the snubber LCO and 16 you can take the snubbers off and the system remains 17
- operable, i.e.,
it would continue to perform its 18 required safety function.
19 So, the Plant Vogtle work scheduling 20 department determined:a better way of getting this 21 done.
Now, that change in practice was unknown to 22 the operations manager and to the engineering 23 supervisor who were not responsible for the 24 activities of the work scheduling department.
25 They are not involved in scheduling this
4 43 ij I
work and it's not surprising that they were unaware i
2 of the change in approach.
3 Steve Waldrup is here with us today, he j
4 was in the work scheduling organization at the time 5
and you still are, right?
6 MR. WALDRUP:
Yes.
)
7 MR. RUSHTON:
I would just ask him to i
8 explain his recall.
Steve had several discussions 9'
witth NRC inspectors over this issue and I'll just 10 ask him to explain his recall.
11 MR. WALDRUP:
My name is Steve Waldrup.
9 12 I'm work planning scheduling supervisor.
At the 3
13 time of the initial planning for the snubber j.
14 reduction work we received input from engineering as 15 to the effect of each snubber on the systems that 16 they are in.
17 That was Gus Williams' group at the 4
18.
time.
And what it identified to us was that we
{
19 could remove these snubbers and carry out the 20 snubber reduction work without taking safety systems 21.
out of service.
22 And we felt that it was much more prudent 23 to do-it this way and'not take the safety system out 24 and be able-to still accomplish the work.
And I
25 that's basically when,we changed our philosphy was 4
~
o 44 1
after the first I think it was B Train RHR outage is 2
the first one we did and we did that because we 3
didn't want to remove safety systems from service 4
when we didn't have to.
5 And I think that with the change we 6
lowered the upper level of tension on the outages 7
and I think that maybe what resulted is the lack of j
8 information being spread around.
That's basically 9
why we did it.
10 MR. RUSHTON:
Thanks, Steve.
Again, we 11 have a situation where statements were made in an 12 informal context, verbal discussion.
The statements 13
.were made with a qualifying quote I believe once 14 again, which may have or should have led the 15 questioner to think that there was some reasonable 16 doubt as to the veracity of the answer.
And the 17 statements made were not represented as absolute i
18 facts.
19 Additionally I would say the alleged 1
20 inaccurate informatios was not material.
Some 4
21 anubber LCO work was clearly acknowledged in the 22 interview and it was not the participants intention 23 to be stating a position demonstrating. compliance.
24-The matters of compliance and tech spec 25 interpretation are a matter of, record.
They were l
n
-m--
~
45 i
1 identified in the January inspection report and they 2
were responded to in our February response.
So I 3
don't want to get~into any of that.
4 I do think that it was unreasonable for 5
the NRC to rely on this single-statement alone.
The 6
communicators were clearly establishing what they 7
understood to be the case.
They did provide a 8
qualification to the statement.
They did not 9
provide a quantitative response to the statement.
10 One of them, as I said, Jim, used the 11 phrase mixed bag.
He still recalls that those were 12 the terms that he used during the inspection.
We l
13 did not say how many exactly snubber modification 14 outages had been done one way or the other, but it 15 was not a quantitative statement, it was merely a
)
16 qualitative statement based on the experience and 17 knowledge of the communicators.
18 Additionally, there is an alternate 19 obvious primary source of the information which ir l
20 simply to go to the involved department, which is 21 the work scheduling department, pull out the 22 schedules and look at-them, which is exactly what 23 finally ended up being done by a different 24 inspector.
25 The NRC was informed of the change in i
I
~
4 46 i
i practice and supplied detailed documentation prior 2
to the exit.
So, I feel thae :: did provide 3
complete accurate information prior to the exit.
4 My conclusions are a statement similar to J
5 Statement A was made and that we left the impression 6
with the inspectors that in many cases we do anubber j
7 reduction work in conjunction with system outages.-
)
8 Statement A was based on the reasonable 9
experience and knowledge of the involved parties.
10 Clearly in my mind always was.naver implied by the j
11 communicators and should not be implied in Statement 12 B.
k 13 I think Statement B may be an NRC 14 misperception based on informal oral statements, 15 unsworn oral statements during fact finding.
And R16 finally I would say that the correct information was
).
17 in fact provided to the NRC prior to the exit i
i i
18 meeting.
19 That concludes my discussion of the 20 anubber reduction modifications.
Mr. Partlow.
i 21 MR. PARTLOW:
Again, as I look at it, I j-22 understand you would have had the opportunity to 23 correct the record in your February response?
24 MR. RUSHTON:
,Yes, sir, I'd say we had
+
1 25
_that opportunity.
47 1
MR. PARTLOW:
Okay.
2 MR. RUSHTON:
We generally have not made 3
it a practice in my mind to correct NRC reports.
4 MR. EBNETER:
Since when?
5 MR. RUSHTON:
Ever that I know of.
6 MR. PARTLOW:
Even if it's a matter of i
7 facts?
8 MR. MCDONALD:
It is not a matter of 9
practice for us to pick apart matters of nonfactual 10 opinions in NRC reports unless they are contained in 11 part of the violation.
That is not we have never 12 done that as I recall.
Do you?
13 (Discussion ensued off the record.)
14 MR. MCCOY:
Jim, I don't feel like i
15 anybody felt like this was relevant information at i
16 this time in the context that this whole issue had 17 been discussed.
We just did not feel that this was 18 something to make an issue of with the NRC.
19 MR. MCDONALD:
But particularly because 20 we asked at the exit meeting do you have all the 21 correct information.
We knew they had all this j
22 correct information.
23 So the fact that there was an error in 24 the report, we see those all the time in violation 25 reports.
In inspection reports we see numerous t
l 48 1
errors and we do not feel compelled to correct 2
them.
3 MR. EBNETER:
I understand.
4 MR. HOEFLING:
Paul, I'm wondering, when 5
did the work scheduling department make the change 6
in snubber modifications?
7 MR. WALDRUP:
It was I can't say 8
exactly when, but it was during the time of the very 9
first outage was when we decided that the 10 MR. HOEFLING:
Can you put a year and 11 month on that?
12 MR. WALDRUP:
I would say it's 13 approximately within a couple of months either way 14 with May of 1990.
15 MR. HOEFLING:
May of 19907 16 MR. WALDRUP:
I think that was our first i
17 RHR B Train outage.
18 MR. MCCOY:
Let me say that we can find 19 out that exact information if that's relevant to 20 something you need to know and we'll be happy to get 21 you the exact time that that took place.
22 MR. GARNER:
Larry Garner.
There is a 23 description in the inspection reports involving a 24 July loth, lith, 12th, 13th, thereabouts, nuclear 25 service water snubber reduction.
I i
e s
49 1
Is the material in that report correct as i
2 stated in terms that that was an outage taken in 3
which you did defeat a division essentially of ESF?
'4 MR. MCDONALD:
Just a minute, I would i
)
5 like for us not to get outside the realm of these these 6
immediate alleged violations.
These all 7
involve some other areas where we could get into 8
things outside, but we would like to stick right to l
9 these, to the point.
We would be happy --
10 MR. EBNETER:
And I don't disagree with 11 you.
What are you asking?
+
12 MR. GARNER:
What I'm asking is again, I.
13 don't think they have given us the complete story 14 here involving the total change involved in their 15 philosophy.
16 The philosophy finally winds up where 17 they would even take out a division and that has not 18 been stated.
And I just want to get the record 19 straight.
20 MR. EBNETER:
Well, I don't believe it's j
21 I tend to agree with the licensee here, let's 1
22-stick to.this issue.
Do we really need to know, 23 Dick, when the change in philosophy occurred or i
24 anything?
.What's the relevance?
l 25-MR. HORFLING:
The relevance of that l
o l
50 1
would be that if this practice had been ongoing for 2
a lengthy period of time and was a practice that had 3
some visibility in the station, one would think that 4
the people who answered the question might be aware 5
of it.
4 6
That would be the one aspect of relevancy 7
to that, that information.
8 MR. GARNER:
This is where I'm coming 9
from is they took out an entire division a month 10 earlier than the inspection and perhaps the 11 operations individual can explain how he was unaware 12 that they were doing that practice.
13 Seems to me like it's relevant to 14 understand whether or not that example is valid and 15 whether or not but that's all right.
16 MR. RUSHTON:
I'll be glad to respond to 17 the questions.
18 MR. EBNETER:
Why don't you respond to 19 it, but I do agree we-need to stick with the 20 issues.
I 21 MR. RUSHTON:
And in case I misstated 22 anything for the record, it would have been --
23 MR. EBNETER:
Only respond if you are l
1
- 24 prepared.
I don't want you to get involved on 25 something you don't have the facts on.
e e
51 1
MR. MCCOY:
That's the point I would make 2
is that if this is a technical issue and not an 3
issue in this enforcement conference which has to do 4
with inaccurate information 5
MR. EBNETER:
Let me put it this way.
If 6
the staff needs that answer, the time the timing 7
of the change and so forth, you can send it to us l
8 for the record.
But I don't want you to get 9
involved here quoting dates and times and things 10 that you don't that you are not familiar with.
11 MR. RUSHTON:
Let me do just this then.
12 Mr. Garner, we responded in the February response to 13 the inspection reports and the details of the NSCW 14 outage were-explained in there, best of my 15-recollection, and if you just look that up, I think 16 it may explain our practice and our policy with 17 regard to this reduction, snubber reduction.
4 18 MR. MERSCHOFF:
Paul, what I heard from 19 your presentation correct me if I'm wrong at 20 some point you shifted to not taking systems out of 21 service and just replacing the snubbers?
l 22 MR. RUSHTON:
That's correct, when we 23 could.
24 HMR. MERSCHOFF:
And that is what's going 25 on now?_
I. share Larry's problem, I'm confused.
I 4 '
~
e l
l 52 1
thought in July you took a D-seal and pulled a lock 2
and that doesn't jive with what I just heard that 3
you weren't doing that, you were just replacing the 4
enubbers and keeping the system in servi'ce.
5-MR. RUSHTON:
In the cases that I was 6
able to research --
7 MR. MCCOY:
Wait a minute, we are 8
starting to get into the technical issues of a 9
particular event that occurred and that sort of 10 thing and that is not the issue here.
11 The issue is whether the-individuals made 12 misleading statements or inaccurate statements to 13 the NRC.
And I don't want us to you know, we 14 would be happy, if this is a separate issue, to go 15 get into that and provide you all the factual 16 details, but I don't think it's really appropriate 17 to get into those.
18 MR. EBNETER:
I think the basic issue is 19 how often is what we are talking about here and 20 whether these statements are reasonable and who 21 believed what is what we are talking about.
22 MR. MCCOY:
Well, let's ask Steve to give
'23 the perspective on how often these outages were 24 taken and how many of them were taken.
25 MR. MCDONALD:
Now, wait a minute, before
l-e
. o E
53
}
1 we get into this and start on'it you need to. talk.
)
2 about a time frame and the time frame has to be 3
rel'evant to before this period.
i 4
MR. MCCOY:
This inspection, that's 1
5 correct, so between the 6
MR. EBNETER:
Let me caution you again, 7
if you don't have this information, you should not 8
discuss it, but provide it to us later.
Because I 4
9 think you are going to get into numbers and then 10 somebody is going to say welli I don't think that's 11 the number.
12 MR. MCDONALD:
We have been very careful 13 to get all the facts on this.
And we have got it 14 all written down.
And that's why when we before 15 we came here we said look, let's not get outside the 16 area which we have prepared here because we want to 17 make sure everything is exact.
18 MR. EBNETER:
Okay.
If you feel you are i
19 prepared to answer it,. you can go ahead.
20 MR. WALDRUP:
I guess what I would like 21 to say, and I don't know, I have to, I guess, ask a 22 little clarification about what you want me to tell 23 you.
24 But what I would like to get across is 25' that the decision that we made at work planning was
0 t
54 1
based strictly on the fact that we did one outage on 2
the RHR'B Train which we took out the snubber and 3
the system, we took the snubber out approximately 24 4
hours before we took the system out of service.
5 All right.
We were in two LCOs, a 6
snubber and a system LCO and once we had the once 7
we got through the planning process and realized 8
that we did not have to take the system out of 9
service, that we could take snubbers out and not 10 inop the system, we realized that it would be more 11 prudent for us to leave those systems in service.
12 That's basically a decision that we made 13 in work planning.
That decision was made and the 14 information was not elevated to the level it was 15 when we were taking a 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> system LCO.
16 So, we did we did continue to plan the 17 outages ourselves, but we did not do any system 18 work.
And this was for the snubber reduction 19 systems which I couldn't begin to quote all the 20 systems that we worked on.
21 But I don't know if there is any further 22 information you would like for me to give.
But I 23 just want to make sure you understand that's the 24 MR. RUSHTON:
I think that there may be 25 exceptions to that, but, you know, and the point Mr.
l 4
e t
55 i
i 1
Garner is bringing up I think was the exception, so 2
we would need to verify the factual information, the 3
February response.
4 MR. EBNETER:
You satisfied with the 5
MR. GARNER:
Yeah, it says-they did it 6
outside the normal philosophy, the statement-is 7
underlined there in the response.
I'm sorry, I did 8
not know that had been submitted to us already.
9 MR. EBNETER:
All right.
Is there 10 anything else on this?
11 MR. HAIRSTON:
Just one point of 12 clarification.
Is it understood that we did it both 13 ways?
14 MR. EBNETER:
Yeah, I think that's pretty 15 clear.
16 MR. RUSHTON:
Yes, sir.
17 MR. HAIRSTON:
Have wc made that point?
18 MR. RUSHTON:
We did it both ways, we did
-19 it both ways.
We prefer doing it snubber only when 20 we could.
21 MR. HAIRSTON:
But there is no doubt on 22 the record that somewhere we have indicated we had 23
-done it both ways?
l 24 MR. RUSHTON:
We have done it both ways.
25 MR. HAIRSTON:
Ken, is that understood?
e 56 1
MR. MCCOY:
Yeah.
2 MR. MERSCHOFF:
And continue, too, is 3
that 4
MR. M C.C O Y :
We have completed the snubber 5
outage evolution of reducing snubbers in the plant, 6
so that this is something in the past.
7 MR. RUSHTON:
The next issue that I would i
8 like to discuss is third on the list.
And I'm just 4
9 doing these in the order that they appear in the 10 inspection report.
3 11 MR. EBNETER:
That's fine.
12 MR. RUSHTON:
This statement appeared in.
13 the Supplement 1 only.
I had very little 14 information to investigate in this particular matter 15 because it was not flagged previously, it was not 16 discussed in the original inspection report which 17 came out in January of 1991.
18 So, this was the first time we had ever 19 seen this particular issue was in the November 20 supplement to the inspection report.
21 But it does state that the operations 22 manager stated that shift superintendents reported 23 directly to-the operations manager.
Goes on to 24 state that the 25 MR. MCCOY:
Just a minute, Paul.
. ~ -
r-e 57 t
1 MR. EBNETER:
Okay.
2 MR. MCCOY:
You ready to go ahead?
3 MR. EBNETER:
Yes.
a 4
MR. RUSHTON:
It goes on to state that 1
j-5 the inspection revealed that the shift 6
superintendents reported to the unit 4
7 superintendent.
8 And again, I have taken this statement j
9 out of the supplemental inspection report and I have l
10 broken it into two pieces.
This is the first 11 piece.
t l
12 The operations manager's statement up i
j 13 here is accurate.
What the operations manager said, i
14 if he said that, is true, that the shift F,
i 15 superintendents did report directly to the 16 operations manager.
That is a matter of record.
17 The operations department's organization 18 chart as published in Procedure No. 10000-C at the 1
19 time is what I show you here.
And as you can see, 20 the shift superintendent reports to the manager of i.
21 operations.
The unit superintendents, which are t
22 this box and this box, also report to the manager of 23 operations.
24 So I would also point out to you that the 125 shift superintendents..did work very closely with the f-a e
I a
r,
__=. _
t 58 1
unit superintendents at the time of the inspection.
2 I can only conclude that there was a 3
misunderstanding or a miscommunication on the part 4
of the inspector in this regard.
Our organizational 5
chart and the functional reporting relationships are 6
not always as clear as we would like them to be to 7
outsiders.
They seem to be perfectly c3 ear to us, 8
but sometimes very difficult to explain to others.
9 And like I said, the statement is 10 correct.
I don't know how the inspector came to 11 understand that it was otherwise, but apparently he 12 did.
l 13 MR. EBNETER:
Just to keep it clear, when j
14 you stopped for me, I asked the team leader when 15 you said you had not heard of this before.
I asked 16 him if he had reported this at the exit interview 17 and he commented just as a snippet.
18 MR. VANDENBURGH:
Yeah, it was just one l
19 line.
20 MR. MCDONADD:
At the exit interview?-
21-MR. VANDENBURGH:
It was one of four 22 examples.
23 MR. RUSHTON:
The four examples that'were 24 given at the exit interview that I had that the 25 quality concerns coordinator was asked to follow up i
I 4
59 1
on did not include personnel accountability.
l 2
They did include another issue which does 3
not appear in this inspection report.
4 MR. MCCOY:
We also have minutes that we 5
.took in that meeting which I just confirm do not 6
show this as one of the examples that was brought up i
7 in the meeting.
8 MR. EBNETER:
Okay.
l 9
MR. RUSHTON:-
The second part of that 10 statement that I broke out indicates that the 11 operations manager stated that he personally 12 prepared their performance appraisals, implying the 13 shift superintendents' performance appraisals.
14 Goes on to say that the inspection 15 revealed that the unit superintendent personally 16-prepared the performance appraisals of the shift 17 superintendents.
18 The operations manager has no recall of 19 having made such a statement.
I would tell you that 20 the responsibility for writing these performance 21 appraisals was delegated by the operations manager 22 to the unit superintendent.
23 That the operations manager was 24 personally very involved in setting annual 25
. performance goals for shift superintendents, that he 1
u
,,2
__..._.au_
e f
2 60 1
was personally very involved in the development of 2
their performance reviews, had a close working i
3 relationship with the unit superintendents who 4
actually-drafted those reviews and presented.them.
i j
5-And I would say the delegation of that
-6 responsibility did not alter the reporting l
4 7
structure.
We just cannot conclude that he said j
i 8
that.
-I'd say that 9
(Discussion ensued off the record.)
j 10 MR. RUSHTON:
Clearly the operations i
11 superintendent'did not personally prepare their i
12 performance appraisals.
He was personally involved 13 in preparation of their performance appraisals, but 14 he wasn't'the one who actually put pencil to paper.
15 And I can only suspect that again, like 16 in the example I just showed you where the reporting 17 structure got screwed up, that this may have also 18 been a simple misunderstanding or miscommunication i
i 19 between the communicator and the listener.
i 20 And I would also like to point out that 21 we don't see this alleged statement as material to
=
22 any regulatory matters.
That's all on-that 23 particular issue.
That's number three.
l 24 Is there any questions?
25
~ The fourth issue is with regard to Tech d
e 61 1
Spec 3.0.3, actions and means of implementing Tech 2
Spec 3.0.3 at Plant Vogtle.
3 I took this language out of the 4
Supplement 1 to the inspection report from last 5
month's report.
It states that the unit 6
superintendent indicated that there were no 7
operations department actions which were anticipated 8
or required within the first three hours of entering 1
9 the action statement of Tech Spec 3.0.3.
10 The inspection identified that Plant li Vogtle policy and practice required preparations for 12 a power reduction including informing the load 13 dispatcher within the first hour.
14 Just to put this in context, the unit 4
15 superintendent involved is Jimmy Paul Cash who is 1
16 sitting here with us today to my right.
17 This occurred on the very first day of 18 the inspection.
Jimmy Paul had of his own volition 19 gone up to the third floor of the service building 20 to visit the resident: inspector's office and 21 introduce himself to the team, make himself 22 availaftle to the team if they needed him.
23 He went up there simply to offer his 24 support and assistance.
When he got there he was 25 immediately questioned by the inspection team
e l
62 1
regarding compliance with Tech Spec 3.0.3.
2 Am Jimmy Paul remembers the focca of the 3
discussion was on plant shutdown.
And by that I 4
mean the physical act of shutting down the plant, i
5 pushing the turbine load reduction button and the 6
focus was not on preparatory activities.
7 The conversation that took place was 8
informal, there was no need or time for research and 9
reflection nor was there any need to do so indicated 10 by the inspectors to the best of Jimmy Paul's 11 recall.
12 The unit superintendent was trying to 13 make two points that he thoughn were relevant and 14 industry issues regarding compliance with Tech Spec 15 3.0.3.
16 Onts of those was Georgia Power Company's l
17 good faith approach to initiating shutdowns in 18 accordance with Tech Spec 3.0.3.
And the other was 19 Georgia Power Company'-s practice for roporting Tech 20 Spec 3.0.3 shutdowns.:
21 The unit superintendent didn't think it 22 was necessary to discuss preparatory activities for 23 shutdown or for mentioning that the load dispatcher 24 is normally notified.
These types this type of 25 information was not germane to the points that he i
4 l
.9 63 1
was trying to make, and to the best of his recall, 2
it was not asked for by the inspectors.
3 Or if they did ask for it, he didn't 4
-understand that's.what they were asking for.
He is 5
well aware of the required preparations and 6
notifications and he was well aware of those 7
activities at that time.
It's well documented 8
information and it's well-known.
9 He would have no reason to conceal the 10 information and there would be no benefit.
- Again, 11 the allegation here is that incomplete information 12 was provided, not that inaccurate information was 13 provided.
14 So the allegation states that Jimmy Paul 15 failed to provide complete information by not 16 including in his discussion the fact that we have 17 these preparatory activities for shutdown of the 18 plant.
19 These matters were subsequently 20 addressed.
The information was provided to the 21
' inspectors by several others during the course of 22 the inspection.
And Georgia Power Company provided
}
23 a detailed discussion of our implementation of Tech 24 Spec 3.0.3 in our February 8th, 1991 response to
'25
. Inspection Report 90-19.
)
l
1 64 l
.i 1
The unit superintendent's discussion of 2
. Tech Spec 3.0.3 was really a very small part of the i
3 substantial discussions which took place during the i
4 course of the. inspection of our policies and 5
practices with regard to Tech Spec 3.0.3.
6 I determined that this allegedly 7
incomplete statement is not material and again, i
8 probably is another example of a miscommunication 9
between the communicator and the inspector 10 involved.
11 Jimmy Paul didn't recognize that that's 12 what the NRC was asking about and so he didn't 13 answer that question.
Hard to anticipate questions 14 that aren't asked.
15 Missing information, again, I don't think 16 is material to the issues being discussed.
I would 17 ask Jimmy Paul if he wanta to recant what his recall 18 of that whole thing was.
This was just one 19 conversation, as I said.
20 MR. CASH:
Let me say it's quite possible 21 that the-inspectors were asking me about other i
22 things rather.than physical manipulation of the i
23
~ plant.
'But because we were specifically talking 24 about 3.0.3 it wouldn't be apparent to me that that
}
25 was the' case.
65 1
That the things that we do when we think 2'
we may have to shut down the plant are the same i
3 whether it's because of 3.0.3 or because of a 1
4 turbine problem.
The people that you have to call 5
in general, the people that you have to call taking i
6 whatever time you have, whether it's five minutes or 7
two hours, to prepare the contral room and the 8
operating staff and the pe, n derartments for the 9
plant shutdown are thing. 'sei. you do really 10 independent of what's causing you to shutdown.
j 11 So when we were discussing 3.0.3 I was 12 really focused on the reporting requirements and 13 physical manipulation of the plant.
14 MR. MCCOY:
I might could shed some light 15 on this from my recollection.
I happened to be in 16 the plant manager's office when this was discussed 17 at one point during the inspection.
18 And the sense that I had was that this 19 was an issue of interpretation that perhaps 20 different members of the team had different 21 interpretations on.
22 There seemed to be at that time an 23 interpretation that was being presented by some 24 parts of the team that it was an opinion that you 25 should immediately start to reduce power on entry
l~..
i 66 1
into 3.0.3.
And that was my sense of the issue of i
2 what was being looked for was whether or not a 3
physical shutdown, that is driving control rods in l
4 was immediately begun.
i 5
MR. PARTLOW:
Ask a question of Mr.
6 Swartzwelder.
After the interview with Mr. Cash did 7
then our team leader come to you on this subject l
8 of 9
MR. MCCOY:
My recollection is that he 10 discussed it with the plant manager.
I happened to 4
j 11 be in the plant manager's office and overheard some 12 of the discussion about this issue and that's what I i
13 was just referring to, Jim.
I j _
14 MR. PARTLOW:
Was that the discussion i
15 with Mr. Swartzwelder?
l 36 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
I don't recall being 5
17 in on that conversation.
18 MR. MCCOY:
I don't recall that.
19 MR. PARTLOW:
But do you, Mr.
1 3
20 Swartzwalder, recall any of the team coming to you
'21 about this question?
I i
l 22 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
About 3.0.37 23 MR. PARTLOW:
Yeah.
]
24 MR. SWARTZWELDER:
I do not.
I recall we 25 were having daily meetings, kind of end of the day e
67 1
debrief meetings and I remember the issue coming up
{
2 then and I remember talking to Jimmy Paul about it, 3
but I really can't recall what I said.
4 MR. JENKINS:
Those meetings you are 5
referring to were internal, they were not with the 6
team?
j 7
MR. SWARTZWELDER:
That is correct.
i 8
MR. MILHOAN:
Jim Milhoan.
Mr. Cash, my 9
understanding is your position is you never told the 10 NRC inspectors that no ops department action was 11' anticipated or required within the first three hours 12 of entering Tech Spec 3.0.3.
13 MR. CASH:
No, sir, I did not say that.
14 MR. MILHOAN:
You did not say that?
15 MR. CASH:
We discussed when you would 16 shut down the plant and we discussed the aspects 17 that if you are in 3.0.3 for condition which can be 18 which you have a high level of confidence can be 19 resolved in a short period of time, that 20 transitioning the plant, actually starting the 21 shutdown of the plant when it is not necessary is an 22 unnecessary risk and that this was a good faith
'23 issue.
24 And that we also had to consider the 25 alternatives, what'was best for the plant.
But that
4 68 1
like I say, it's a good faith issue and it's one
'2 that we always try to do what is correct.
3 But I never said that we would never do 4
anything for three hours.
Now, I was asked what was 5
a reasonable time to shut down the plant.
I did say 6
that I would prefer to have about four hours if I 7
was on a shift.
And four and three is seven which 8
one and six is seven, but I never said that we would 9
take no actions.
10 MR. MCCOY:
I'd like to point out that 11 there appears to be a difference between the 12 original inspection report and the supplement that 13 looks like it's giving a different twist to these 14 words.
15 The original report stated discussions 16 with the unit superintendent indicated that the unit 17 shutdown actions will not be initiated until three 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />.
Okay.
Where this report stated, get to the 19 right words here, but-this one says the unit 20 superintendent indicated that there were no op 21 department actions which were anticipated.
1 22 I understand the difference in the words 23 have been changed.
The first one basically said
' 24 shutdown of the plant, this one says no actions in 25 the ops department.
69 1
MR. MILHOAN:
And I was asking Mr. Cash 2
on the.second statement in the Supplement 1 did he 3
say it or didn't he say it and he said no, he did 4
not say it.
That's my --
5 MR. CASH:
That is correct.
6 MR. MCCOY:
We can -- are are prepared to 7
go on or if you would like, we could take a short 8
break.
9 MR. MCDONALD:
What's your choice here?
10 MR. EBNETER:
Mr. Partlow, Mr. Lieberman, 11 do you want to take a break now or do you want 12 MR. LIEBERMAN:
I think that's 13 appropriate.
14-MR. MCCOY:
What we anticipate doing 15 MR. EBNETER:
These are basically the 16 facts you wanted to present?
17 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes, we would have some 18 more presentation we would like to do, but those are 19 the facts on those four examples.
20 MR.'EBNETER:
What do we think is an 21 appropriate time, Jim?
22 MR. LIEBERMAN:
20 minutes.
23 MR. EBNETER:
20 minutes?
Let's say half 24 an hour.
f 25' (Discussion ensued off the record.)
i t
70 1
(A recess was taken.)
l 2
MR. EBNETER:
Are we ready to restart?
4 3
MR. MCCOY:
Yes, we are ready to go on with our presentation if you are ready.
4 5
MR. EBNETER:
You had some closing or 6
some summaries you want to make, why don't we do l
7 that first.
i 8~
MR. MCCOY:
Okay.
The first item I'd 4
9 like to do is go back as a result of the time and f
l 10 the break there I went back and thought through some 11 of the things.
I want to be sure that several 7
12 points are clear on the record.-
4 13 At one point I mentioned that we had 14 minutes of the exit meeting.
Let me be sure that i
15 you understand what that is.
These are notes taken 16 by individuals to my knowledge.
There were no 17' official minutes that were reviewed by both j
18 parties.
19 The second -item, we had a discussion 20 earlier about correcting items in inspection 21 reports.
And I want to make it clear on the record 22 that we do feel like we have an obligation that we 23 do correct all-items in inspection reports that we 24 are aware of that are relevant to any of the issues 25-
-being discussed.
71 1
However, as you are aware, there are many 2
subjective and other types of comments that are not i
3 relative to ongoing issues or followup issues or 4
whatever that are in inspection reports and we 5
typically do not correct that type of information.
6 And in this particular case let me point 7
out that this was not relevant to any op issue or 8
anything that had been indicated that it was subject 9
to followup.
I' 10 MR. PARTLOW:
Excuse me, on that point at 11 the inspection exit 12 MR. MCCOY:
Yes.
13 MR. PARTLOW:
were not some three or 14 four areas of NRC concern about 50.9 given to you?
15 MR. MCCOY:
No.
16 MR. PARTLOW:
They were not?
17 MR. MCCOY:
I want to clarify that.
18 There was never, until we received the supplement, 19 any indication of any-50.9 issues.
20 MR. HAIRSTON:
I got a phone call the day 4
21 the supplement when he told me he was mailing it 22 to me.
23 MR. MCCOY:
I was not aware of that.
24 But, at any rate it wks clear that there was never 25 any indication to me_that this had relevance of that
_ _ - _ _ _ _ _.. _ _. _ _..- _ _. _ _~
l L..
72 1
magnitude.
What was said at the exit, and I want to i
4 j
2 correct this-information, too, was that there were
)
3 some' conflicting statements.
4 4
And I.believe the team manager brought up l
5 earlier that there were four examples given and I l.
6 went back and.got the notes.
The four examples were i
l 7
the containment integrity hydrogen monitor valve
}
8 opened, the snubber reduction LCO action statement, 9
reportability requirements and required or 10 anticipated actions with Tech Spec 3.0.3.
4 11 The issue about the operations reporting l
12 was not brought up.
The issue on reportability 13 which was brought up there was not brought up in 14 this supplement.
And I can go into the details of i
15' what the report 16 MR. PARTLON:
I'm sorry, I'm confused i
17 again now.
So at the exit meeting
[
18 MR. MCCOY:
There were four examples i
19 given.
They are not the same four that are in this 20 supplement.
k 21 MR. PARTLOW:
But three of them are?
22 MR.-MCCOY:
Three of them are, one is 4
l 23
-not, i
24 MR. PARTLOW:
So that could have given 25 you'a heads!up to carefully review the report when i
j
)
o i
i i
.. _ =
73 1-it came out.
l
]
2 MR. MCCOY:
It gave us a heads up that i
3 there was a concern at that time about our giving 1
4 conflicting information and we were very concerned
{
1 5
and as a result the plant manager initiated a review 1
j 6
by the Quality Concerns coordinator to find out how 7
that perception got originated.
4 i
8 The other thing we did was we went out cf l
9 our way to make sure if there was any conflicting 10 information, that that got cleared up during the
{
11 inspection, i
j 12-MR. MCDONALD:
We got that affirmed, l
13 reaffirmed by the inspection team leader when we 14 asked him that question do you now have all the l
15 correct information.
16 And his response was to the effect yes.
i 17 MR. HAIRSTON:
Ken, you want to reiterate j
18 that there was not an op item inspector follow item, t
i 19 a potential item of noncompliance, there was no 20 tracking, formal tracking in the written report.
N 21 MR. MCCOY:
Nothing that normally alerts j
22 us, Jim, to an issue will be followed or has any 23 relevance for the future.
24 MR. PARTLOW:
Understood.
- 25 MR. EBNETER:
Just let me clarify in the.
jo 74 1
written report there probably wasn't.
But the 2
written report made it clear that there was an 3
additional report that was forthcoming.
4 MR. MCDONALD:
But it did not 5
indicate 6
MR. MCCOY:
At the exit it was also not 7
stated in that way.
8 MR. HAIRSTON:
It was not listed as an 9
unresolved item at the inspection exit, was it?
10 MR. MCCOY:
No, at the exit it was almost 11 a passing comment oh, by the way, there were some 12 conflicting type information here, four examples 13 were given.
14 MR. MCDONALD:
In your reference to there 15 will be some other report coming, that did not give 16 any indication that these items were to be i
17 included.
The additional items that were discussed, 18 you know, of course we have heard about those.
19 So, we had -no indication whatsoever that 20 any of us recognized that these things were an issue 21 until we got that supplement.
22 MR. MILHOAN:
This is Jim Milhoan.
You 23 have made a statement, Mr. McCoy, about and I 24 just want to clarify your statement saying it was 25 made as a passing comment.
~
_. _ _ =.
p c.
o.'
i 75 i
f 1
MR. MCCOY:
Type comment, that was the i
2
'way -- it was not brought up there were 3
MR. MILHOAN:
It was clear it got your i
j, 4
attention at the exit that you were it wasn't
)
5 something you overlooked at the exit when you said i
j 6
it was a passing comment?
I l
7 MR. MCCOY:
No, I said I was very t
8 sensitive to that because of previous comments that i
9 had been made and so -- so it was not that I was 10 sensitive to it because it was made a big issue at 11 this inspectior., it was not.
But I was sensitive to 12 it from past concerns.
13 MR. MCDONALD:
This is important because 14 at that conference there was two things being 15 reported on, there were allegations and then there 16 was the operational evaluation.
17 And, of course, when you are 18 investigating allegations, when you have any tip off 19 like that at all, you-always make sure and followup 20 what's going on.
1 I
21 So, that's that helps explain part of 22 the response.
Even the inspection summary of the
'23 original reports specifically stated that the 24 results of.the allegations followup team are still o.
25' under consideration and will be documented in
'N,
0
- l 76 W
4 1
separate correspondence.
2 MR. MCCOY:
That was talking about the j
3 allegations.
4 MR. EBNETER:
And that's what the subject a
l 5
of this report is, i
6 MR. MCDONALD:
The subject of the i
7 supplement 1
l 8
MR. MCCOY:
Wait a minute, that's wrong.
i 9
This is the supplement to the operations section, i
10 not the supplement to the allegations section.
i i
11 There were two reports and this one doesn't have 12 anything to do with the allegations is my i
13 understanding of it.
j.
14 If I'm wrong, correct me but 15 MR. EBNETER:
I just want to clarify that l
16 you were on notice that there was an additional 17 report coming on allegations.
{
18 MR. MCCOY:
That's right.
19-MR. EBNETER:
Results of allegations are f
20 still under investigation and will be documented 21 MR. MCCOY:
That's correct, but this i
22 supplement is not1what that's referring to because 23 that was referring to the allegations part of the
~
24 inspection.
25 This supplement is in reference to the
l e
1 77 1
1 operations portion which we got a separate report 2
on.
3 MR. MERSCHOFF:
Now, that's the f
4 MR. EBWETER:
There is only one 5
supplement to this report.
6 MR. MERSCHOFF:
If you are waiting for 7
another supplement, it's not coming.
Supplement 1 8
deals with the allegations.
9 MR. MCDONALD:
First, let me ask a 10 question about the term allegation.
Now, we did not i
11 recognize at any time that the NRC inspection team 12 was making allegations.
13 The definition that we understood of 14 allegations were allegations that had been received 15 by NRC prior to or during the t'ime they were there 16 from an outside source.
I have never understood 17 allegations as being in that context.
18 MR. EBNETER:
And that's exactly what we 19 are talking about, these.
You are the one turning 20 these as allegations of the inspection team.
These 21 are findings of the inspection team.
You have 22 couched them in terms of allegations of the 23 inspection team.
24 MR. MCDONALD:
Now, wait a minute 25 MR. MERSCHOFF:
The cover letter of I
4 m
78 1
. Supplement 1,
third paragraph says the inspection 2
team's review of the allegations identified several 3
additional weaknesses in operational policies and 4
. practices.
These were identified in the inspection 5-summary of the enclosed inspection report.
6 MR. BBNETER:
Let me go back and tell you 7
.how I view this and if it's different, I'll put it 8
in writing to you in some correspondence.
9 Number one, we did an inspection.
Two 10 components of the inspection were an operational 11
-followup and an allegations followup.
The January 12 report documented essentially the operational 13 followup.
14 Supplement 1 documented basically the l
15 allegations followup with the exception of those 16 things that are being pursued by OI.
This is the l
17 final. report with the exception of OI's findings.
j 18 You are not getting another report on 1
19 allegations followup.- That's how this is 20 structured, operations, allegations.
Do you i
21 understand that, Mr. Domby?
22.
MR. DOMBY:
Yes, I do, Mr. Ebneter, but I 23 think the point that was attempted to be made is on 24 page two of the' summary, second paragraph, it says
'25 the operations followup team, which as we understood 1
-)
i i
79 1
it, was not the allegations team, identified several 2
occasions where responsible managers and supervisors 3
verbally supplied inaccurate information.
4 So you have a cross-pollination if you 5
will.
6 MR. EBNETER:
I agree there was some 7
interweaving to this.
8 MR. DOMBY:
Right.
9 MR. EBNETER:
I agree with that.
If it's 10 confusing and we need to clarify it, we can do that.
11 MR. MCCOY:
Perhaps the reason it was 12 confusing to me is at the exit and during the 13 inspection the team leader made it clear that he was 14 keeping the two teams separate and that their issues 15 were being looked at by the two separate teams.
16 MR. EBNETER:
That's why you have the 17 original one and the supplement.
And there is still 18 additional information that OI is looking at which 19 we cannot discuss.
20 MR. MCDONADD:
Make sure that I 21 understand this right.
Any violation that comes 22 out, like this is an alleged violation and an 23 alleged violation to me 24 MR. EBNETER:
An apparent violation.
25 MR. MCDONALD:
Or an, apparent or an
80 1
alleged, it's in terms it's an alleged violation.
2 MR. EBNETER:
Right, I understand.
3 MR. MCDONALD:
And an alleged or apparent 4
violation cited by NRC stems from what NRC says it 5
does.
This is an alleged or apparent violation, 6
these four things today.
7 An allegation in the sense of an 8
investigation in what is known as where part of 9
the the technical part is pursued by the region 10 and the willful part is pursued by OI generally.
11 Now, when we talk about these four things 12 being an allegation today, that's completely out of 13 context with what I understood.
I 14 MR. BBNETER:
And I agree with you, but I 15 think your staff is the one that made reference to 16 the allegations by the inspectors.
That's why I i
17 just want to clarify that.
These are inspection 18 findings.
19 MR. MCDONALD:
Okay.
20 MR. EBNETER:
Apparent noncompliances.
21 You can term them anything you want, alleged 22 violations, apparent violations, they are just that 23 until the final decision is made.
But we do not l
24 call these from our standpoint allegations, these
'25 are inspection findings.
4 J
s k
i I
~
81 4
1 MR. MCDONALD:
Okay.
I understand, 2
MR. MCCOY:
Let me go on to another item q
j 3
that I think needs to be corrected from our earlier
[
i 4
statement or expanded upon.
I i
5 With regard to the degree that the
+
6 snubber modifications that work planning was 7
communicating that effort to the rest of the plant,
'8 there appeared to be some question about the 9
knowledge level of the operations manager about this 10 activity.
j!
11 And I'd like to have Steve Waldrup again, l
12 who was the person who was doing this, explain one l
13 more time how those decisions were made and how they 14 were communicated to the operations people.
15 MR. WALDRUP:
This is Steve Waldrup.
The 16 first outage that we did to implement the snubber 17 reduction program was on B Train RHR.
l 18 At the time that we planned that outage 19 we carried out also corrective and preventive j
20 maintenance on the RHR pump itself.
Because we were 2 1' going into a 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> LCO and RHR we put this on what j
22 we call a_fragnet which is a schedule drawn out on a 23 single piece of paper that is signed by department 24-
. heads or their designees and also signed by the 25 plant' duty maneger for the week in which it's going i
l
82 1
to be conducted.
2 Once we changed our philosophy and 3
decided to do snubber reduction work only, we 4
changed that I guess media to be the surveillance 5
highlight schedule which also includes all the 6
surveillances that are being performed at Plant 7
Vogtle for that week on that unit.
8 And those schedules are signed by the 9
superintendent level and on a few occasions they are 10 signed by managers.
But that's the way we 4
11 downgraded the severity of those outages.
And also, 12 the intention was also downgraded for those 13 activities.
14 MR. MCCOY:
I'd like to also point out 15 something that did not come up earlier, that there 16 was a question about the adequate research on our 17 part of issues that were raised by the team or 18 questions raised by the team.
19 We took the initiative at our own 20 initiative to try and:get with the team members and 21 write down every question or issue they had and to 22 write down our response to that issue and provide 23 that to the team members for them to review during 24 the inspection to insure we had adequately 25 understood what the issue was and that they i
l l
I 83 l
1 adequately understood our response and that took a 2
lot of effort.
3 The meetings at night that you heard 4
someone refer to earlier, the meetings internal to 5
us, were the meetings where we went through each of 6
these issu.a and made sure that we had thoroughly 7
researched them and provided our position.
8 So I want to make make that clear that
)
9 from our perspective we felt that we went out of our i
10 way to go find out what the issues were, get them 11 written down, and get the responses written down.
12 And we provided that information to the NRC.
13 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Jim Lieberman here with 14 the question that we have been talking about earlier 15 today, were those the type issues that were written 16 down and given us in written papers during the time 17 of the inspection?
18 MR. MCCOY:
To my recollection this issue i
19 of conflicting statements was not because that was 4
i 20 never identified by the team as an issue.
The 21 specifica like the containment integrity for the 22 hydrogen monitor, that was a technical issue and we 23 had an issue that was written down, reviewed by the 24 team and we had our response to it.
25 Likewise, the snubber reduction LCO item.
84
-1 the reportability requirements, I believe I would 2
have to go back and check.
3 But the technical issues that were 4
brought up and the things that we understood to be 5
issues during this inspection were brought up.
6 Conflicting information was not brought up as an 7
issue.
8 MR. LIEBERMAN:
I appreciate that but, 9
the issue of whether this was a containment 10 isoloation valve or not 11 MR. MCCOY:
That was in there, yes.
12 MR. LIEBERMAN:
So there is a written 13 response accompanying --
14 MR. MCCOY:
Yes.
In fact, it's my 15 recollection that recently one of your inspectors 16 came to the site to close out the earlier inspection 17 and we provided him that record at his request, 18 again for his review to do close out.
19 I would also like to find out, we just 20 completed giving you all the factual information 21 that we know about about these four issues that you 22 have brought up, these four items of conflicting 23 information.
24 Is there any factual information related 25 to these four that we are not aware of or that we
ie 85 1
have not had an opportunity to address?
2 MR. EBNETER:
Not'to my knowledge.
3 Staff?
4 MR. MCCOY:
I would like to make sure 5-that we have the record complete.
6 MR. VANDENBURGH:
Nothing as far as I'm 7
concerned.
8 MR. EBNETER:
You don't have anything in
'9 your hip pocket?
10 MR. VANDENBURGH:
No new items.
11 MR. EBNETER:
As I told you before, my 12 view of this is this inspection, technical aspects 13 are complete with the supplement.
There are some OI
~14 aspects of it ongoing which we cannot discuss here 15 today, but to my knowledge there is nothing 16 additional other than what's on the table here 17 today.
18 Anyone have any different view of that?
^
19 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Nothing in writing that 20 I'm aware of.
21 MR. MCCOY:
At this point I'd like to i
22 call on Paul Rushton to complete his presentation 23 and we are going to talk a little bit about the 24 enforcement" considerations as we see it.
25 MR.-RUSHTON:
I went through the Federal
- s i
l 86 1
Register, 1987 version of the Federal Register which 2
initially published its rules including the preamble 3
and the basis.and the explanation for what the 4
thinking was at the time that those rules were 5
~ published and I pulled-out a few items that I 6
thought were relevant in this situation.
7 And I'd just like to review those with 8
you as best I can.
First of all, 50.9, the 9
operative word is something to the effect that 10 information provided to the commission by a licensee 11 shall be complete and accurate in all material 12 respects.
13 And I submit that in all these cases we 14 did provide accurate and complete information prior 15 to the exit meeting.
Additionally, unsworn oral 16 statements, particularly in preliminary fact finding 17 should not be reasonably relied on by inspectors 18 without due consideration to the context.
19 I think the circumstances surrounding the
.20 inspection and the opportunity for research and 21 reflection and management review that was available 22 would land itself to the idea that the information 23 should not be relied on as an absolute fact without 24.
some further verification and followup.
25-I think that's only a reasonable thing to
.3 87 t
-1 expect and we are accustomed to getting that 2
opportunity from regular inspectors that we deal 3
with every day.
4 Third, the word material appears in the 5
code 50.9.section and I think that materiality also 6
needs to be addressed.
These issues are not i
7 significant.
There is no intent to mislead or 8
misrepresent any of the facts to the NRC inspectors 9
on anybody's part.
10 Certainly even if we conjectured that 11 some of these statements were true or were made and
{
12 the NRC was misled by us in some way or fashion, 13 there would be no benefit to us.
Because like I 14 said, the issues are not material, they should not 15 have impacted anybody's decision making thinking.
16 Lastly, in the issue of completeness, the 17 preamble to the 50.9 section of the that was in 18 the Federal Register indicated that a rule of reason 19 should be applied in assessing completeness of l
20 information.
3 21-And that the way I read that rule it sort 4
l 22 of indicates that the NRC has an obligation to seek 4
23 additional information to clarify its understanding 24 when that's appropriate and that that does not in 25 itself constitute a violation.of the 50.9 l
t
=
88
.1 requirements.
2 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Could you go over that 3
last point?
What doesn't constitute a violation of 4
50.97 5
MR. RUSHTON:
Sir?
6 MR. LIEBERMAN:
In that last statement 7
that something doesn't constitute a violation.
8 MR. RUSHTON:
Right, what it says is that 9
if the NRC has to come back and seek additional 10 clarifying information to fur.ther their 11 understanding of the issue, that the fact that they 12 had to come back to us and ask for that information 13 does not constitute an incomplete submittal on our 14 part necessarily.
15 That it's a perfectly reasonable thing 16 for them to have to do for you to have to come i
17 back and ask us additional questions for further
]
18 information.
And that was very clear in that i
i
)
19 preamble to the regulations.
20 Additionally, some information regarding 21 enforcement policy was published at the same time 22-and this now exists as 10 CFR Part 2 Appendix C
' 23
'Section'VI.
I think I got the reference correct.
24 And the policy.which is published in the i
' 25 code provides that several factors should be 4
> p 89 1
considered for determining enforcement involving 2
oral statements.
And these factors are as listed
.3
.here on the slide.
j 4
One is the degree of knowledge regarding 5
matters at issue.
And I think in some cases we were 6
talking to people who were knowledgeable of the 7
situation and in some cases we were talking to 8
people who were not knowledgeable and were not 9
responsible to be knowledgeable for the particular 10 facts at hand.
So, I'd say that this is variable.
11 Opportunity and time to assure accuracy.
12 These questions were being answered on the fly, we 13 were being questioned and questioned and questioned 14 and answers were expected.
So the opportunity for 15 research and reflection was nil.
I think that's 16 MR. PARTLOW:
You find that to be unique 17.
to this particular team inspection?
18 MR. RUSHTON:
Oh, no, sir, not at all.
19 MR. MCCOY:- Jim, I think the thing that 20 is different though is that typically if there is a 21 question that is relevant, the inspector makes that 22
.known'and the people go back and get the correct j.
23 information and come back to him.
That's typically 12 4 -
the interchange.
25 The point here is that was not done in a-e
.w
+-.
,m-
l 90 1
this particular case.
2 MR. RUSHTON:
Policy also sets forth 3
another factor of degree or intent.
Degree of 4
intent or negligence, excuse me, and I think in this 5
case that there was absolutely none.
6 Formality of these questioning sessions 7
was none.
As I said a moment ago, this was all done 8
on the fly.
9 Reasonableness of NRC reliance on the 10 information.
And as I have established before, that 11 is low given the fact finding context and the nature 12 of the way these questions were being asked.
13 Importance of the information, as I have 14 said already, is not material.
So the importance of 15 the information is low to none in our opinion.
16 And the reasonableness of the 17 explanation, which is the explanation that I'm here 18 presenting you today, I think the explanation holds 19 a lot of water.
I think it's perfectly 20 understandable how these miscommunications and 21 misunderstandings took place.
22 So in summary I would say that the 23 factors involved weigh heavily towards absolutely no 24 enforcement action whatsoever.
We don't think that 25.
we are in violation of regulatory requirements.
91
}
\\
1 The policy also makes a couple of points 2
regarding what it shows here absent at least 3
careless disregard and incomplete or inaccurate oral 4
statement normally will not be subject to j
5 enforcement action unless it involves significant l
l
{
6 information provided by a licensee official.
l 7
Statements at issue not materially i
8 inaccurate or incomplete.
Most, if not all of the j.
9
.information, is not significant.
Additionally the 10 policy further emphasizes that enforcement is not 11 usually taken when correct information was i
j 12 subsequently provided.
And there is some caveats on.
13 that, but this is essentially the gist of it and I 14 believe that this should apply in~this case.
l 15 Subsequently absolutely factual 16 information was provided and it was provided l
17' promptly in most cases.
And that just reiterates 18 what I have already said.
19 That's really all I have to say on the 20 subject of these enforcement considerati0ns.
But i
21 bottom line is I just don't think these matters hold 22 enough water-to warrant. enforcement action of any 23 kind.
24 MR. MCCOY:
I'd like to just complete our 25 summary and give you an overall summary of.our a
e
4
'e e
I j
92 i
1 position.
First, we believe strongly that no j
2 enforcement action is appropriate in this case.
3 These were unsworn oral statements.
The context was 4
informal.
1 5
It was preliminary fact finding for a I
6 team.
There was no intentional misstatement nor 7
careless disregard for the accuracy or 8
completeness.
Communicators attempted to provide i
9 responsive, correct information and supplemental
{
10 information where it was provided where desired or 11 understood that it was needed during the j
12 inspection.
13 Pat, do you have anything you would like I
14
.to say?
15 MR. MCDONALD:
Yes,'I'd like to add some 16 comments as stated by Paul, put up that absent at 17 least careless disregard that incomplete or 18 inaccurate unsworn oral statements normally will not 19 be subject to enforcement action unless it involves i
20 significant information provided by a licensee 21 official, and it goes on.
22 But to talk _about that a minute, absent 23 at least careless disregard.
That. word careless 24L disregard is equated to egregious action.
25 And if you fra like me, I don't use that
{
i i
o 93 1
word egregious very much, so I looked it up.
And 2
egregious in the dictionary I used equated to 3
outrageous, outstandingly bad or blatant.
4 And I don't think that we had have 5
anything 1.5.ke that.
I don't think we have really 6
done anything.
And even by stretching one's 7
imagination I don't think it falls in that i
8 category.
9 Now, that same paragraph poca on and says 10 however, enforcement action may be raken for an 11-unintentionally incomplete or inaccurate oral 12 statement provided to NRC by a licensee official or 13 others on behalf of a licensee if this is reading 14 out of the record if a record was made of the 15 oral information and provided to the licensee i
16 thereby permitting an opportunity to correct the 17 oral information, such as if a transcript of the 18 communication or meeting summary containing the 19 error was available to the licensee.
20 Ladies and: gentlemen, we have had nothing 21 like that here.
We have cast this meeting I think j
l
-22 erroneously above the level to where enforcement is 23 appropriate.
And in doing so we have employees from e
24-the Vogtle Plant, we have a broad knowledge of this Is 25 activity by the Vogtle Plant and many other plants.
ai s
-m v
r-- - - -
v
94 j
1 And consciously or unconsciously by i
2 inappropriately applying the enforcement policy we 3
have we are at risk of incurring a chilling 4
effect between the communications of our personnel i
5 and we regret that very much.
We regret it very 4
6 much.
4 7
We have it as a matter of policy of 8
openness, sincerity and integrity.
And I'm very, l
9 very disappointed that this meeting has ever come 1
10 about.
That's all we have.
11 MR. BBNETER:
Mr. Lieberman, did you want 1
1-2 to 13 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Just say a few words.
i
~
14 You have a copy of the statement consideration for H15 the changes to 50.9 there so I won't get into a 16 dispute of some of the words and how they are 17
. modified.
f 18 But as the author of that rule and those t
19 statements of consideration I do question whether 20 egregious applies to the term careless disregard or 21 whether you use the term false misstatement for a 22 violation of 50.9.
23 But put that to one side.
We will have 24 to consider your presentations very carefully.
1 25' There is two sides to every story.
We have heard
4 95 1
your side today.
It may well be that this case is 2
an unfortunate set of miscommunications.
3 However, I want to raise two concerns.
4 First has to do with errors in inspection reports, 5
you have addressed that.
If we have err'd in 6
inspection reports, and you feel the error is 7
relevant, we would expect you to let us know, 8
whether you do that by telephone or in writing, 9
because we want to make sure that'our findings are 10 accurate.
11 The second issue which I think I want to 12 raise has to do with the inference that we had 13 earlier this afternoon about the lack of formality 14 of the questions that were raised by inspectors.
15 The inference was maybe I didn't hear 16 it properly -- but that maybe there is less of a j
17 need to be candid and complete and accurate if an 18 inspect r just asks a question.
19 Hopefully I'm wrong in my reading of what 20 I heard this afternoon.
Because I think it would be 21 intolerable to have a regime where we could only i
22 expect to have complete and accurate information if 23 we sought sworn answers or if we provided the 24 questions in writing and then you provided the 25 answers to us in writing.
I don't think that we can t
i d
96 1
operate under those types of situations.
2 What we have to expect is that when an 3
inspector in good faith asks a legitimate question, 4
we should get an answer from a responsible person in 5
the licensee's organization that is as complete and 6
-aus accurate as a person knows.
7 If it later turns out that an answer is 8
wrong, because from time to time people do make 9
mistakes in good faith, I think there is an 10 obligation, whether legal or not or just a matter of 11 good relationships, to correct that information if 12 it was wrong whether or not we ask to have the 13 information corrected because obviously we don't 14 know whether the information is wrong in the first
- 15 place.
16 Again, if I have misunderstood your 17 position, I apologize.
But I do feel that I got the
' 18 impression that because of the informality of the 19 questions it was not as important to provide 20 complete and accurate:information.
21 I wanted to make sure the record was 22 clear that that's not acceptable.
23 MR. MCDONALD:
I'd like to respond to l
24-that.
That is not what we stated at all.
We did 4
25 not state that we did not infer that, I think we 2
2 p.
o 97 4
1 just were trying to communicate just the opposite 2
from the conclusion you just reached about the 3
accuracy of statements.
4 I think we heard a case here where we 5
talked about the hishon valve open or shut, the 6
supervisor in an orientation visit stated this, he 7
was questioned about it, he was explaining the whole i
8 board.
9 Because there was a question about it he I
10 got concerned that it might not be, so he went back 11 and looked it up, got the inspector and told him 12 that.
13 Isn't that what you would expect him to 14 do?
15 MR. LIEBERMAN:
If there is 4
16 MR. MCDONALD:
I think it is.
i 17 MR. LIEBERMAN:
If it occurred that way, 18 that's just what we expect.
19 MR. MCDONALD:
But I think that and 20 this is my concern about this meeting, we all want 21 to give good communications, a free flow of 22 information.
We want to recognize a very high 23.
degree of integrity in our communications.
24 We also don't want to have to guard 25 against everything whether it happened at 3:00
98 i
4 i
1 o' clock in the morning or 3:10.
We want to say I i
i 2
believe and I want to communicate that I believe it 3
happened this morning around 2:30.
If it happened 1
4 at 3:00, we don't.want to feel that we can't tell 4
l 5
you approximately when we think it happens.
We want 4
l 6
to say I believe, we want that openness and I think s-7 that's what we have been trying to do.
t 8
We try to communicate in an open manner 9
not attesting orally that these are 100 percent 10 true.
If we tried to attest that these are 100 11 percent true, then I can't tell you it happened at i
12 about 3:00 o' clock this morning.
13 The first point you made is you used a 14 word and what your statement was, and the. record 15 will show it, about when we have a matter that's 16 contained in findings.
17 I suggest to you that the entire 18 inspection report is not all findings.
There is a 19 lot of just rather information and where I went at 20 this time and what we: inspected and who was there.
21 The findings in our language are those 22
. things of compliance or noncompliance to where it's 23 pointed out that there is a possible violation or i
.24 inspector follow item or something that's pulled out 25 of that free flowing dialogue from that inspection
i 99 j
1 report.
]
2 And you use the word findings.
Could I 3'
ask you back what findings are in your mind?
l 4
MR. LIEBERMAN:
I don't recall using the j
5 term findings.
I think what I said was if you had i
1 6
issues in the inspection report which were 1
)
7 inaccurate, was an error and you thought they were i
j 8
relevant, then you have an obligation to let us know A
l 9
so we can make sure we have accurate information 10 because we want to have accurate and complete 11 information.
i 12 I don't recall using the term finding.
J 13 MR. MCDONALD:
All right.
We want to a
l 14 have a free flow of communications.
We feel that i
15 there is there are frequent cases of let's say 16 what we consider inaccurate information, but it's 17 not inaccurate to make an issue out of if you don't 18 want us being the watch dogs of every simple thing 19 you say and we have 100 percent concurrence you i
-20 don't want that.
21 And you can probably understand why we i
22 don't pick the thing apart and try to write back to 23 you and disagree with item after item.
If it 24-doesn't appear to have any significance to us, just 25 like you~and I talking, i f it's not such a 1
t
---.-.L-----
a--
s 1
2 100 4
1 significant point, I'm not going to say ch, you are i
i 2
wrong on that, you are wrong on that, I'm going to 3
let it pass.
That promotes a free flow of i
i 4
information.
5 And as long as the points don't rise to a 6
significant level, we.are not we don't think we 7.
should'do that.
8 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Relevant, if you think 9
the inaccuracy or incompleteness is relevant 1
10 MR. MCDONALD:
That's right, we should do 11 that and we would do that.
So I think really from 12 what you say, that with those exceptions I think we j
13 would accept what you say as being a way to i
14 George, would you like to correct me on anything I i
[
15 have said in error?
l 16 MR. HAIRSTON:
No, you know, I try to j
17 read as much as I can of the inspection reports and, 18 you know, I'll read, for example, where you in the 19 summary section, will-talk about a strength.
20 Well, you know, I may not exactly feel 21 that way, but I won't call you back and say, you 22 know, I don't agree with you.
There is a tremendous 1
2 ?,,
amount of subjectivity and I mean it has to be that
.i 24 way because a lot of this stuff is not compliance i
25 based in the inspection report,s.
l l
l 101 1
I think the case here is that we had an 2
inspection report that had some snippets, as l
3 somebody used that term, and, you know, I don't 4
think we were ever alerted to the fact that that was 5
going to come out in 50.9.
6 So we never really attached any 7
significance.
I was not at the exit, but I did 8
review some of the inspection reports and I don't 4
9 think we made any -- attached any significance to l
10 these little snippets.
11 I can assure you if it had been an j
12 unresolved item or an inspector follow item, then 13 all of a sudden the flag would have gone up.
Ken?
14 So, I agree with what you are saying, Jim, but on 15 the other side of the fence you have to look as 16 we read these things there is so much different 1
17 opinion in there that's opinion that you try to look 18 for what you said is the relevant information and if I
19 you know, we just-did not pick up that i
20 inspection report as this being relevant.
21 But I don't disagree with anything you 22 said.
And I think you characterized it fairly 23 well.
And I will say this, we did not mean to imply 24 in anything we have said in here to disagree with 25 that.
2 i
j 102 l
1 I think what we have been trying to do is 2
explain how people can miscommunicate and I want my i
3 people to give 100 percent the right answer the l
4 first time, that's my standard.
i 5
The only problem is in teat inspections 1
l 6
of 10 and 12 people and thousands and thousande of f
7 questions that are being asked to hundreds of my 8
employees, you know, I think occasionally you come 9
up short of that, but this inspection, as I 10 understood it, by the time it was over at the exit 1 1-conference everybody had an understanding, at least i
12 that was checked that all the information was 13 accurate at that point in time.
So, Ken 14 MR. MCCOY:
Yeah, that's my understanding 15 of this inspection.
And going back I was very 16.
sensitive to this issue before this inspection came 17 along.
And so, when it was brought up as a side 18 comment, you know, that was it raised a 19 sensitive enough spot-with me and with the plant 20 manager that we went and looked into it, although we 21-had no_ idea that this was anything that was going to 22 be followed'up on or an enforcement item.
23-So that's just how sensitive we are to 24 providing complete and' accurate information.
- Now, 25 the one thing I would like to say here is that what
}
l
b i
i 103 b
1 really concerns me about this meeting, and Pat i
1 4
2 referred to it, but I want to be sure you understand 3
we have worked hard to get our people to take the 4
initiative to go and seek out the resident 5
inspector, to call the region any time something is 6
going on that might be of interest.
7 And we need to feel that we can call I-8 them, provide them informacion as quickly as we can l;
9 fully realizing it may not be complete and it may 10 not be accurate.
And we try and make that knownRat 11 the time to the people.
12 We say things like I believe it's this 13 way, but it*s early in the event and we'll get back 14 with you.
And the potential we have with this kind I
15 of action is to inhibit that type of communication 16 which I think is vital to the effective relationship 17 that we have.
18 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Well, I think all of us 19 are concerned about that very point and that's why 20 those words are taken:into consideration.
The 21 question is whether these were facts in this 22 particular case.
That's what we'll have to judge i
23
.when we make our decision whether we go forward with 24 it or not.
-25 MR. MCDONALD:
I would like to say one a--
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104 I
1 more thing.
Let me call your attention to the 2-inspection report items one through four.
I have f
j 3
never seen an escalated enforcement and inspection l
i 4
report from activities on an escalated enforcement i
5 that contained four significant items that had so i
1 6
little description of the so-called inspection that 1
j.
7 they came to, there is nothing there.
8 We did have information on site 9
available, as you know we had the concerns program.
10 We you know, we had tapes.
There was no l
11 inspection made to these, this is just snippets.
}
12 MR. MERSCHOFF:
That's the summary, Pat, i
13 it references the detail in both inspection reports i
14 for each one.
15 MR. BBNETER:
All right.
That's enough, 16 we heard both sides.
17 MR. GARNER:
May I ask one more 18 question?
Is that legal?
19 MR. EBNETER:-
Go ahead, one question.
)
}
'20 MR. GARNER!
This is Garner speaking.
I 21 don't want this to be admission or disadmission of l
.22.
guilt, whatever, this is not the intent of this 23 question.
24.
I want.to put this disclaimer forth.
But 25 you conducted these interviews with your employees-a
2 j
105 3
1 afterwards.
Did y'all identify any corrective l
2 actions and if you did, would you share those with 3
me however? -Employee concern, transcripts and stuff 4
is what I'm referring to.
4
]
5 MR. MCCOY:
Well, to my knowledge, we 1
6 uncovered nothing in the Quality Concerns program l
7 that indicated to us that there had been any 8
inaccurate information or incomplete information 9
intentionally provided-to the NRC.
i 10 And therefore, we took no action on that 4
l 11 review.
12 MR. SHIPMAN:
Mr. Ebneter, may I ask a 13 question, please?
14 MR. EBNETER:
I'm asking the questions.
l 15 Go ahead.
16 MR. SHIPMAN:
There is one thing here, I 17 have to take a message back to the staff.
And Mr.
18 Lieberman said something that concerns me.
And if j
19 I'm going take a message back, I want to take the 20 right message.
21 And what I heard you say was any 22 information you give an inspector needs to be 23-accurate, there can be no inaccurate information you 24-make in response to a question, that everything we 25' tell Brian or Steve or some inspector that comes to
o 106 i.
i i
the plant is information for the record.
2 Now, a lot of questions are asked and i
j 3
there were a lot of I believe answers is given.
4 There was a lot of preliminary information given to 5
inspectors.
4 6
And am I to tell my people don't talk to
?,
j 7
Brian until you have got all the facts in a box?
8 MR. LIEBERMAN:
Certainly not.
Answering i
9 questions I believe is what I understand to the 10 inspectors.
My point was later on if ten minutes i
11 later, an hour later, whenever you find out the 12 information provided was not the way you thought it 13 was, then let us know so we'll understand what the l
14 right information is.
i 15 The oral discourse requires it or expecte 16 when people deal in good faith, that mistakes are 17 going to be made from time to time.
18 MR. EBNETER:
Let me comment on that.
4 19 These inspections that we do are situational.
Some 20 of them you know have:significantly more importance 21 than others because of the circumstances surrounding 22 the inspections; is that not true?
That's true.
23 When we send a team out, follow up an i
1 24 event,_ that has a different impact than a regular f
.25 inspector coming to your site.
Certainly the i
-e
a i
107 l
1 circumstances surrounding Vogtle, at the time of
}
2 this inspection, yt '1 had just gone through a major 3
event, a lot of allegations on the record.
l 4
Certainly there should have been a very, 5
very high sensitivity to the things that were said 6
and discussed.
And I do believe that our staff has 7
some of the responsibilities that you specifically 4
8 mentioned and we will work on that.
1 l
9 But I also believe your staff has a 10 responsibility to say I don't know, you have to be l
11 able to be able to admit you don't know something i
i 12 in the control room.
We know you don't know, we 13 don't know everything.
You have to be able to say 14 that and you have to be able to come back and say J
15 this was wrong.
j 16 And you are absolutely right that would i-17 be taken into consideration.
But these things are 18 situational and I just wanted you to understand that 19 some are more important than others and it depends 20 on circumstances.
i i
21:
)
We agree with you that we do want free 22 flow of information and we agree that we think, as 1
23 Mr.-Shipman commented and George, that the situation f
- 24 has changed significantly at Vogtle.
i
'25 We think that there,is a good
108 1
communication over there now.
We think it's going i
2 pretty well.
So we don't want to dampen that, but 3
I'll stop there.
Jim, you want to say something?
4 MR. PARTLOW:
I think it is very 5
important how you go back and debrief this.
- And, 6
Steve, how you go back and debrief this to the
]
7
- people, i
8 And I just have to tell you that in this 9
particular instance this team, as the examples built 10 up, felt for some reason the body language was 11 something was there that was saying to this team 12 here is an answer, maybe this will make it go away.
4 13 Rightfully or wrongfully that's the 14 message that this team got out of these things.
So, 15 I think the thing to take back to your folks is not i
16 that they have to have a lawyer behind every 17 absolute answer that they give, but just think of 18 it, take it as a lessons learned from that kind of 19 thing that for some reason that the communications, t
20 the trust, the candid:whatever between those parties 21 wasn't working right in that particular situation.
'22 And that team had the feeling that they 23 were being put off for some reason.
24 MR. MCDONALD:
Mr. Partlow, I think what 25 you say may be true..
On the other hand, we had the.
a 109 1
feelings that we have got to get you for something.
1 2
MR. PARTLOW:
Okay.
I'll accept that, 3
I'll accept that.
That's those perceptions that we 4
want to make sure, but let's not let that become a 4
5 destructive part in our feelings.
i 6
MR. HAIRSTON:
If I can say one last j
7 thing, I want to make sure where I have got 4
8 people here.
Our standard is even if we have to 9
come back up here, we are not going to get in a mode with Brian and his inspectors of we got to go 10 of 4
11 out and triple check every answer.
12 Our standard is we are going to give you i
13 the most complete accurate information as we know it 14 at the time and if we find out subsequent to that as 15 soon as possible that it's not correct, we are going l
16 to get back to you.
That's our standard.
17 We give you bum information, we'll,try to i
i 18 correct it as soon as possible.
But I want the l
19 information flowing like it has in the last year.
I 20 think we have seen good communications, improved 21 communications and there is no way that I want to j
22-take a step back in time on our relationships.
23 So that's my standard, that's Ken's 24 standard..
Ken and I talked about that, that's Pat's 25 and that's the message that I want to go back to
v' 6
110 1
Vogtle.
2 MR. HOOD:
Let me ask a question.
Due to 3
the prior conversation I might have misunderstood.
4 I'm merely trying to understand your case.
My 5
question is during your review of the hydrogren 6
monitor valve issue, apart from Mr. White's 7
statement that the corrected information was 8
provided that same date, did you find other evidence 9
to substantiate that or was there other t
10 substantiating evidence that correct information was 11 provided that same day?
12 MR. RUSHTON:
Mr. White told me that he 13 went back to the two inspectors involved and 14 explained that he had provided incorrect information 15 initially and here was the correct information.
7 16 The inspectors he spoke to are here.
17 MR. HOOD:
Did anyone overhear the i
1 18 followup conversation?
19 MR. RUSHTON:
Steve, do you remember if 20 there was anybody else standing there?
i 21 MR. WHITE:
There were certainly other 22 people in the control room.
I couldn't say one way 23 or another who they were.
24 MR. CASH:
Sir, I was in the control room i
,25 when Steve I went back out to the control room 4
j i
111 1
that afternoon and I saw Steve talking to the 2
gentlemen about hydrogen monitor valves.
3 I do not know the extent of the 4
conversation, but I do know that he approached two 5
of the inspectors and spoke to them and it was about 6
hydrogren monitor valves, but I do not know the full 7
extent of the conversation.
8 MR. HOOD:
So you know there was a 9
subsequent conversation, but you don't know the 10 contents of the discussion?
11 MR. CASH:
Yes, sir.
12 MR. HOOD:
Was anyone else or any other 13 evidences 14 MR. EBNETER:
Were the inspecors who were 15 there here today?
{
16 MR. CASH:
I do not recall.
There were I
17 two people sitting on the platform and Steve was
[
18 coming up saying something to the effect of I need i
19 to talk to you about the hydrogen monitor valves, l
20 that's not what I was talking about at the moment.
21 MR. WHITE:
I would like to say 22
.something.
.There'is another individual that I spoke 23
'with while I was looking up the information to 24 insure that I'did in fact give them the right 25 information.
4 k
s
n i
112 1
I wanted to know our justification which 2
I mentioned earlier, I wanted to know what's our 3
policy for having these valves open at power.
4 And as,I stated before, that individual 5
told me gave me that information, told me why we 4
6 or how we justify having these valves open in 7
power.
j 8
Best of my recollection he wasn't there 9
when I went back and told them that, but he 10 certainly knows I was researching it e.nd he i
11 certainly knows why.
1 12 MR. EBNETER:-
Any other questions?
If 13 not, we appreciate your coming in.
We recognize 14 it's a difficult situation.
We would like copies of 15 your thoughts and we will take all of your 16 information into consideration and get back with 17 you.
18 I would agree that you need to continue 19 to work well with the-resident and the entire NRC 20 staff.
I 21 MR. MCDONALD:
Let us assure you that we 22 are going to be open and to the best of our ability 23 maintain.high level and good communications.
24 And when I talked about a chilling effect 25 I~wasn't talking about anything that we won't
113 I
if the word is out, we are 1
combat.
And if it's 2i going to try to overcome it.
And I certainly didn't i
3 mean that in any sense of our position, but as
)
4 something that can inevitably happen if we are not
)
5 careful.
I 6
MR. EBNETER:
So thank you.
)
7 (Proceedings concluded at 4:40 p.m.)
J l
8 j
9 10 a
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 4
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114 1
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i l
5 STATE OF_ GEORGIA:
6 COUNTY OF FULTON:
7 I hereby certify that the above and 8
foregoing proceedings were taken down, as 9
stated in the caption, and reduced to 4
10 typewriting under my direction, and that the 11 foregoing pages 1 through 113 represent a 12 true, correct, and complete transcript of said
'13 proceedings.
14 This, the 18th day of December 1991.
15 16 17-18 19 UA/IA Oc M LINDA B.
WOOD, CCR-A-152 20 My commission expires the 13th day of September, 1993.
21
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'23 24-25