ML20132B228
| ML20132B228 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem  |
| Issue date: | 08/02/1994 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20132B034 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-96-351 NUDOCS 9612170106 | |
| Download: ML20132B228 (104) | |
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't, ENCLOSUP.E 11 '
Attached is a copy of the transcript of the Enforcement l Conference held on 8/2/94 with the Salem Senior Nuclear '
Shift Supervisor involved in the 4/7/94 event.
cc w/ Transcript:
KSmith GMeyer
- JWhite BLetts i l
i JLieberman DJH - 8/10/94 1 1
3 ,
1 l
1 l
4 i
/
9612170106 961212 PDR FOIA O'NEILL96-351 PDR
1 BEFORE THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION RE: MICHAEL D. GWIRTZ-ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE '
The above referenced matter was held in the offices of the SALEM NUCLEAR TRAINING CENTER, 244 J
CHESTNUT STREET, ROOM 42C, SALEM, NEW JERSEY, on i
August 2, 1994, commencing at or about 1:15 P.M.
before Carol L. Skipper, Court Reporter and Notary Public for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
BEFORE:
GLENN MEYER, CHIEF-PWR/BWR SYSTEM, NRC, CHAIRMAN DAN HOLODY, ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, NRC, REGION I JOSEPH J. HAGAN VP NUCLEAR OPERATIONS /GM SALEM OPERATIONS PHILIP PJ. O'DONNELL, SALEM OPERATIONS ENGINEER MICHAEL D. GWIRTZ SENIOR NUCLEAR SHIFT SUPERVISOR NRC-SALEM OPERATIONS APPEARANCES:
WINSTON & STRAWN BY: MARK J. WETTERHAHN, ESQUIRE I 1400 L STREET, N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3502 FOR MR. GWIRTZ ALL POINTS REPORTING 723 ERLEN ROAD NORRISTOWN, PA 19401 O R G \'A _
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5300 ,
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l t
2 l
1 MR. MEYER: Good afternoon, I am Glenn l 2 Meyer, I am the Chief of PWR/BWR Systems in Region I 1
l 1 l l 3 1, and I direct the actions regarding the '
4 licensing of operators and senior operators. j 5 Today we are here as part of an Enforcement 6 Conference associated with the event that occurred 7 at Salem Unit One on April 7. I had contacted you 8 Mike, on Friday, the 29th with the interest to 9 have the Enforcement Conference, and you had l 10 expressed the interest in having it fairly soon, 11 so we have been able to make the arrangements to i
12 have it today, August 2nd.
13 As part of the arrangement I did ask j 14 whether you would want to get copies of some of l I
15 the NRC documents that relate to the event, l 16 specifically the AIT report and also the letter )
! 17 that was sent to the public service regarding the !
18 potential violations, and you said that you had 19 copies and didn't need them.
l
! 20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, that is correct.
21 MR. MEYER: At this point I would like 22 to introduce the people that are here. As I said, I
h 23 I'm Glenn Meyer, and I'm from Region 1.
24 MR. HOLODY: I'm Dan Holody, I'm an 4
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
l0Y
i 3 e 1 Enforcement Officer of Region 1, and I'm
-2 responsible for coordination of any enforcement 3 actions in the Region.
4 MR. GWIRTZ: My name is Michae'l Gwirtz, 5 I'm the Senior Reactor Operator, Sen.ior Nuclear 6' Shift Supervisor at Salem Generating System.
7 MR. WETTERHAHN: For the record my name 8 is Mark Wetterhahn from the firm of Winston and 9 Strawn, and I'm representing Mr. Gwirtz today.
10 Also with us is Mr. Phil O'Donnell.
11 MR. O'DONNELL: Phil O'Donnell, I'm the 12 Salem Operations Engineer and Mike reports to me.
13 MR. HAGAN: And my name is Joe Hagan, 14 I'm the Vice-President of Operations and General 15 Manager of Salem Operations.
I 16 MR. WETTERHAHN: I would note for the !
17 record these two individuals are appearing at Mr.
18 Gwirtz' request here today. I just want to note 19 for the record that we're in the Training Facility 20 of Public Service Electric and Gas in Salem, New 21 Jersey, and it is approximately 1:15 in the 22 afternoon.
23 MR. MEYER: All right, thank you. I 24 would like to clarify, Mike, that Mark has also ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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l 4
1 represented Public Service on a number of 2 occasions. Are you aware of that?
3 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I am.
l 4 MR. MEYER: So you are agreeable to 5- his representing you in this instance?
6 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, that is. correct.
7 MR. MEYER: I would like to 8 re-emphasize the point Mark made, and that is this 9 is an Enforcement Conference between the NRC and 10 you Mike, and it is at your option that legal 11 representation and corporate representation are 12 here to support you.
l l 13 Okay, that being said, Dan will you l
14 describe the enforcement and Enforcement 1
15 Conference process. ]
16 MR. HOLODY: Sure. We have enforcement 17 conferences with licensees, facility licensees 18 like PSE &G and periodically with individuals H 19 like yourself, a licensed operator. The purpose 20 of an Enforcement Conference are to discuss 21 apparent violations. In this particular case our >
22 focus is on the issue of the defeating of the
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.23 vacuum permissive when you had left the control f
- 24 room so that the circ water pump I believe was 12 ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 I
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5 1
J 1 8 could be started. That is why we're having this
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4 i r 2 conference today. We would like to hear your !
3 focus on that particular violation, the apparent
- 4. violation, what caused it, the significance of it
) 5~ from your perspective, any actions that were taken 6 or planned yourself in conjunction with the 7 company to preclude a' recurrence of that type of 8 violation.
i 9 As you know, or I am sure you are aware 4 10 we had a conference on the 28th with PSE & G to 11 discuss a number of apparent violations that were 12 presented to them in the letter dated July 6. It 13 was basically our review of the AIT report and the l.
14 apparent violations we had identified as a result 15 of that review. We went through the same type of 16 format with them to discuss the violations, 17 causes, significance, corrective action, et 18 cetera.
19 What we do is we'll take into 20 consideration what we hear from you today as well
! 21 as what we heard from PSE & G on the 28th, July 22 28th, as well as what was in the AIT report, and 23 we'll utilize that information to determine what, 24 if any, enforcement action should be taken with -
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 r
6 1 respect to your license.
2 Any mitigating factors that you feel i
3 should be presented during this meeting in terms 4 of what transpired back on April'7th we would like 5 to hear that from you today also.
6 At.the end of this. conference I'll go 7 over some of the options that are available to the 8 Commission if the commission decided that they 9 were to take any action with respect to your 10 license. With that, I'll turn it back to Mr.
l 11 Meyer.
l 12 MR. WETTERHAHN: One point, Mr. Gwirtz 13 was not.in attendance at the Enforcement 14 Conference, and while people have probably 15 informed him of what occurred I think you should 16 take that into consideration in your questioning 4
17 and also in your consideration-of these events 18 rather than take into consideration what happened 19 there but it is not brought to his attention here 1 20 it would be difficult to rely on that as far as 21 any action against Mr. Gwirtz.
22 MR. MEYER: I agree. I would also like i
j 23 to note I was not there.
i 24 MR. GWIRTZ: I was not there.
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
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7 1 MR. MEYER: So Joe, Mark and Dan were 4
2 there. Anything that may have come out at that 3 meeting we would need to specifically repeat 4 because a number of us were not there. It is not 5 our intent that this be an extension of that 6 Enforcement Conference.
7 MR. HOLODY: Yes, that needs to be 8 clear. This is not a conference with the PSE & G.
9 The representatives of PSE& G management are not 10 here at our request. This is a conference between 11 the NRC and you. We are hear from you regarding 12 these issues, and as Mr. Meyer said earlier 13 they're here at your request as we understand.
14 MR. MEYER: I would like to repeat the i
15 mention that Dan made, that our primary focus is 1
16 on areas where we think you may have violated I 17 regulations, specifically procedures that were not I 18 followed and not in accordance with our 19 regulations. This is the interlock that was, you ;
1 20 know, defeated. Being in charge during the event l 21 obviously you were involved in a number of things 22 that occurred, but, although we may cover them 23 that is not the primary interest that we have 24 today.
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8 1 One last thing before I turn it over to
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2 you, and that is we do expect to discuss what 3 your, what the management's expectations were for 4 you regarding the different circumstances that you 5 faced, and you're perfectly free to speak of them 6 in front of the management or you can choose to 7 ask.them to leave, it is at your option. At the 8 end'of the meeting I would expect to specifically 9 at my request ask that they leave and see if'there 1
10 is anything that you would want to discuss. 1 11 So, now, I'll turn it over to you. If 12 you want to describe what happened that day and 13 the circumstances associated with it.
14 MR. GWIRTZ: I'm going to start out
! 15 with background information. I already introduced I
16 myself, Mike Gwirtz, Senior Reactor Operator, also 17 a Senior Shift Supervisor for that shift at Salem j 18 Generating Station. Some of my background is I l
l 19 graduated high school in 1972, I went directly 20 into the Navy into the Nuclear Power Program. I 21 was a mechanical operator, an ELT. I was in the ,
l 22 Navy for nine years, came out an E-7, came 1
l 23 directly to PSE & G in 1981 as a reactor operator, j~' 24 obtained my reactor operators license in 1982 1
l l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
4 . -
9 1
\ after going through a training course through PSE
^
2 & G, I was an operator in the control room from 3
198@ to 1986, and in 1986 I was promoted to Shift 4
Supervisor and went through an SRO course through 5 PSE & G, obtained my SRO license, and from '86 to 6
'89 I was a Shift Supervisor on a _ shift with 7 various shifts at Salem Generating Station, and in l 8
1989 I was promoted to Senior Shift Supervisor and 9
since that time I have been in the capacity of a 10 Senior Shift Supervisor on shift. I had a brief 11 period of time last year, towards the end of last 12 year, as an Acting Operating Engineer during a 13 Unit 1 outage. At the completion of that outage I 14 went back on shift as a Senior Shift Supervisor.
15 My performance throughout my career I 16 would just like to state that it has always been 17 at the top of all of my peers. I have always been 18 at the top of all classes, SRO classes, requal 19 exams, NRC exams, several letters of commendation, 20 merit levels, and our annual appraisals have 21 always been at the very top. The last few years 22 as a Senior Shift Supervisor have been Merit Level 23 One, which is the very top classification as far 24 as performance, and that is just a brief summary ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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10 i 1 of some of my background.
2 I'm going to very basically talk about t
3 the April 7th event in brief, leading up to the 4 time that I assumed the duties as Emergency 5 Coordinator. As you probably know we've had a 6 history of grass problems' prior to this event. We 7 had several transients on both units that I was 8 involved with. We had a rather severe transient 9 on April 4th on Unit Two. The grass hits so to 10 speak, the circ water, were becoming very l
11 predictable. They were occurring every hour to 12 hour and a half after every tide change. We 13 became very aware of when to expect it. It was (
14 also unit specific. On an incoming tide it would 15 be to Unit Two, and on an outgoing tide it would l 16 hit Unit One, based on the way the cire water i
17 structure is arranged water, so basically we know 18 not only when it would happen but what unit it was 19 going to hapoen to.
20 Due to the problems that we had at circ 21 water there were several efforts that were put l
22 into place to help us further better our
. 23 performance with the cire water transients, and as l.
24 a shift we were self critiquing all of our i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
11 1 problems that we had at cire water. Afterwards we 2 would, the supervisors we would get together and 3 talk about the communications, any problems 4 anybody saw, anything they felt we could do better 5 to better enhance our performance, so we had been 6 doing this for about a week and also that week the 7 department or the organization put a supplemental 8 crew out at circ water. This was actually the 9 first day we had an extra senior reactor operator 10 on overtime at the circ water structure with a 11 crew of maintenance people, extra operations 12 people to help get through the circ water 13 transients.
14 That day we came on shift at 7 o' clock 15 in the morning, rel'ieved the midnight shift, I had 16 a brief meeting with both of the units shift 17 supervisors. I'm in charge of both units, so I'm 18 Shift Supervisor on each unit, so I had a 19 discussion with each one of them, and I did 20 discuss on Unit One with the Unit One Shift 21 Supervisor that we expected something to happen.
22 The magnitude was always different. We didn't 23 know if it would be good, bad, or whatever, but we 24 expected something to happen at cire water, ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
12 1 probably about 9 o' clock or 9:30-10 o' clock time 7
i 2 frame.
3 After that I went to the morning plan i
4 of the day meeting, which is at 7:30 every 5 morning, normal plan of the day meeting. One of f
! 6 the biggest items that was discussed during that i l 7 morning meeting was the fact that rod control was j l l l 8 still in manual on Unit One. We were trying to j l
9 get emphasis placed on restoring that to total I l
10 automatic operation. i
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11 After the plan of the day meeting I l \
! 12 went out to the cire water structure, after making l
13 a brief tour of both of the units secondary sides.
i 14 I went out to circ water structure due to the fact 15 we had this new guy out there at cire water, 16 discussed with him what we had sean previously, 17 what we expected communication wise, the problems l 18 we had seen before, the solutions to the problems, l
! 19 and basically what he cou)d expect to see out j 20 there, and what we expected to hear from him. I 21 spent probably about an hour out there talking i
22 with him and walking through cire water and 1 23 arrived back in the control room area a little 24 after 9 o' clock, about 9:20, checked in with both l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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13 f 1 control rooms, not much going on, did a further
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2 brief with both shift supervisors, updated them on 3 what occurred at the plan of the day meeting, and 4 basically I was completing turnover paperwork and 5 what not until about 10:16 that day the first 6 circulator emergency tripped, obviously on Unit 4
7 One. I went into Unit One Control Room at that 8 point, talked with the Shift Supervisor who was in 9 the control room at that time, shortly thereafter 10 another circulator emergency tripped. That was 13 11 A circulator. Other items on the unit, as I did 4
12 mention rod control was in manual, 12 A circulator 13 was previously out of service to clean the water 14 box, and initial reactor power was approximately 15 75 percent, and we were operating at reduced load [
16 on both units due to the problems at circ water 17 just to reduce our challenge as a proactive move.
18 After the circulators, we had a couple 19 of circulators emergency trip we got people in 20 place out in the turbine building. Several things 21 have to happen out in the turbine building, 22 drawing prine, cleaning valves, we had teams out 23 doing that.
24 The decision was made, I made the order I
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14 l 1 at 10:32 to begin a unit load reduction at one 2 percent a minute. The Shift Supervisor was l 3 already proceeding in that direction. I just l 4 confirmed that direction with him, and we started i
I i 5 a load decrease, and at one point it increased to 6 the point where we were decreasing the load at 7 eight percent a minute. That was the maximum rate 8 of decrease. It wasn't very long when we made, I y 9 made the decision that we were going to remove the 10 turbine from service, that we were heading in that 11 direction. Actually it was at 10:28 when we had a 12 combination of circulators such that the procedure i 13 required the turbine to be removed from service 14 within.one hour, so that direction was given and r
15 the crew knew that we were heading towards 16 removing the turbine from service.
17 The load decrease continued until we i
18 were approximately 35 percent power was the time 19 that I started concentrating on the attempts at 20 getting 12 A circulator into service. We had two l
21 circulators in service at the time. However one l 22 of those had not cycled fully in service and was 23 not providing service to the hot wells. 12 A
! 24 circulator at the time was the only circulator l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 L _. - ._ .- _-
15
.' 1 that was ready to start.
2 We had gotten a report from the field 3 that they were priming the water box. There is a 4 water box vacuum switch that makes up at 15 5 inches. This is the switch we're talking about 6 today that makes up at 15 inches. The previous 7 report from the field was that that vacuum wasLat 8 13 inches, and they were still trying to draw 9 prime on that. Shortly after that time the Shift 10 Supervisors ordered a start on 12 A circulator.
11 They attempted to start it, and it did not start.
?
12 He had all of the permissives checked. There are 13 several permissives that go into starting the 14 circulator, valve positioning, bearing lube 15 pressures, all of those were checked, and they 16 were all found satisfactory, at that point in my 17 mind the only thing holding out the circulator was 18 the vacuum permissive, and it had been 5 minutes l 19 since we had to report that it was at 13 inches.
20 At that time in my mind I felt that prime should 21 have been greater than 15 inches. The reason for 22 that is the last outage we did install a new l 23 vacuum priming system on the water boxes that can 24 pull a prime from zero to full prime of greater i
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16 1 than 15 inches, 18 to 20 inches in less than 10 2 minutes. The system had worked extremely well l 3 since it had been installed, so I felt that at 4 that time we should have been greater than 15 l
5 inches in that water box. My thoughts were that 6 either the vacuum switch was malfunctioning or l 7 there was something causing possibly the prime not l
8 to go any higher than 13. I didn't know what it 9 was at that time.
1
- 10 The status of the unit, we were 11 continuing to decrease load, vacuum was not good.
12 However, it was not getting worse. It was not 13 approaching yet the turbine trip at that time on ,
i 14 vacuum. My intentions were to attempt to increase 15 our margin that we had to a required that we would 16 have to manually trip the turbine so we could 17 manually trip it before an automatic trip, and I 18 wanted to increase that ma.rgin because during the 19 circ water transient when we were losing vacuum 20 and losing circulators, if we were to have a 21 turbine trip greater than ten percent power, which 22 is the limit of the capacity of the atmospheric 23 dumps we would rely upon the condenser steam dumps j 24 to accept that additional heat load. Without the 1
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t i
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17 l 1 circulators and without the condenser being 2 available the condenser steam dumps would not 3 function. Therefore there is a potential to 4 challenge lifting of the steam generator safety 5 valves. Now although that is within the design of 6 the plant, and that is what the safety valves are 7 there for, and I have no doubt that they would 8 function correctly, it was a transient that if I 9 could keep it from happening it would be a better 10 situation to take the turbine off the line in a 11 controlled fashion and not challenge lifting of 12 the steam generator safeties.
13 So based on those all of those reasons 14 I decided that I was going to lift the vacuum trip 15 permissive on 12 A circulator. The option to go 16 and do it myself at that point was based on the 17 fact that the people in the field I felt were not 18 familiar enough with the circuitry, that it would 19 take me more time on the phone to explain to them 20 how to do it than it would be to just go out and 21 do it myself.
22 Lifting of this permissive, although it 23 has happened in the past, I have done it at least 24 on one other occasion, but that was several years ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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18 i
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l 1 ago, I would say '86 '87 time frame, probably
- T t.
2 '87 '88 time frame, I don't know for sure, but I i
3 had done it on one other occasion as a Supervisor, 4 as a Shift Supervisor, I didn't want any equipment 5 operator performing this function thinking that it ,
l 6 was something that is a normal evolution or a 7 normal occurrence at the station. My feelings j
8 along those lines are that I had basis for doing.
9 it, I knew the basis for that permissive being 10 there, and that basis is to mitigate pressure 11 transients on a water box for a condenser 12 circulator start.
13 I was involved with testing, we did 1
14 some testing on Unit Two back in 1987 to allow a 15 reduction in set point on this vacuum permissive.
It used to be set at 20 inches, it is now set at !
16
-l 17 15 inches. To perform that reduction we did l 18 starts on circulators from 20 inches to zero 19 inches, and those tests determined that the l
20 pressure transient at 0 inches was actually less !
21 than it was at 20 inches. The reason they went 22 only from 20 to 15 inches is to maintain the water 23 box full and pressure transient is not a concern.
, 24 So based on all of those I made the i
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19 1 decision that I was going to go and lift the 2' vacuum permissive. I informed the Shift j
1 3 Supervisor of the fact that I was going to do 4 that. The status of the plant at the time was l l
5 such that we were continuing to load decrease in a 6 fairly consistent manner. The Shift Supervisor '
i 7 still had good control of the plant in my mind and i
8 in his mind at that point. So, all of those !
9 circumstances weighed into the fact that I went 10 out of the control room to lift the switch myself.
11 I told him I was going to do it. I went out of 12- the control room area, I passed the day shift 13 Senior Shift Supervisor at the time and informed 14 him of the plant status. He headed towards the 15 control room. I told him I was going to lift the 16 permissive on 12 A. circulator and come right back 17 in. I proceeded to the turbine building, which is 18 just 100 feet or so away from the control room 19 area door, went to the permissive switch location 20 on 12 A circulator. On the way there I passed the 21 work control center, Senior Reactor Operator that 22 was out in the field assisting in drawing water 23 box primes and headed a team of people out in the 24 turbine building. I gave that team a brief update ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
20 j 1
1 of the unit status, told them I was going to lift 1
2 the permissive, proceeded and I lifted the !
3 permissive. I did not, you can't really hear the i
4 circulator start. l 5 MR. HOLODY: Who was it that you told 6 that to?
7 MR. GWIRTZ: The Work Control Center, 8 Senior Reactor Operator, who is also our SDA on 9 that day. I did not really hear the circulator 10 start, but I heard the vacuum breakers open almost 11 immediately, which is indicative of an emergency 12 trip on that circulator. I did not know why that l l
13 occurred at that time, but I immediately turned 14 and went back into the control room area. I got 15 security reports. I was out of the control room 4
16 area for one minute and 58 seconds from security a
17 door to security door. As I got back into the 18 control room I talked to the Shift Supervisor, 19 asked him if anything had changed while I was 20 gone, he said no, they had just completed swapping 21 over the auxiliary power transformer to the 22 station power transformer in preparation to remove 23 the turbine from service. The load decrease was 24 continuing at that point, and the unit was ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-538C
21 1 approximately 25 percent power when.I re-entered 2 the control room, so it had dropped 10 percent 1
3 load during the 2 minutes I was gone, which is 5 4 percent a minute, which is our designed rate of 5 power decrease.
6 I asked him what happened to 12 A 7 circulator. He said as soon as they pushed the 8 start button it tripped free and emergency 9 tripped. Later we found out that was due to the 10 fork heavy breaker not being racked in correctly,
.11 and that is the reason it had not started earlier 12 after the cleaning they had tried to start it and 13 it tripped free.
14 I continued to survey the control room 15 at that point. Usually I stand towards the back 16 of the control room, the Shift Supervisor is 17 commanding Control in the control room, directing 18- the abnormal operating procedures to the crew, is looked at the overheads, looked at the back 20 panels, stepped up into the horseshoe area. I 21 don't know how familiar you are with our control 22 room area, but I stepped into the horseshoe area.
23 It is a rather small area. That is why I don't 24 normally stand up there to look at the board a ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
22 1 little bit closer, picking out key parameters such 5 1 2 as RCS temperature, pressure, reactor power. I 3 saw at that point the AV was low, 535 degrees when l
4 I looked at it. I asked the Shift Supervisor if l l
5 he was aware of that. He said that he was, he 6 then directed the Reactor Operator to restore the 7 D AV using rod control. I made them aware of the l l
8 tech spec requirement being less than minimum ]
9 temperature for criticality, and at that point i
10 they were working on recovering temperature. I 11 continued to survey the console, and I believe l 12 that I was behind the console looking at some 13 recorders when the reactor tripped. They 14 announced that they received the reactor trip. I 15 immediately tried to determine why the reactor 16 tripped, looked at the first out, saw that it was 17 power range high flux sub point, I continued to 18 look at recorders on the console to determine why 19 that happened, saw the power increase on the power 20 range recorder, looked at rod control, and saw
- 21 quite a few steps on rods. At that point I T
22 thought it had something to do with it, but I did 23 not know that that was the only event that 24 occurred. My concerns at that p , i n t. were did we ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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23 1 have some kind of steam flow transient, an s
2 excessive steam draw, so I was checking out steam 3 dumps, steam flows, steam generator pressures, 4 those type of things as the crew was getting into 5 EOPs. The EOP's proceeded to the point that we 6 had to verify safeguard valves. We realized we 1
7 did have an immediate safety ejection. I asked 8 the Work Control Center Senior Shift Supervisor, j I
9 same guy I passed in the hallway, he was in the 10 control room. He got there about the aame time I 11 did, coming back from the trip permissive. I 12 asked him to look at the P-250 typewriter to try 13 and determine what the cause of safety ejection 14 was, and at that point we reached the spot in the 15 EOP to verify safeguard valves. I was standing on 16 the side of the console, so I went to the status 17 panel right off the valves that were not in the 18 correct position as they were positioning them and 19 they completed the EOP, came to the next step 20 after the immediate action is to request that the 21 Senior Shift Supervisor implement the emergency 22 classification guide. I acknowledged that step, 23 went into my office area, which is one door away
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24 to get out the ECG and to refer to the ECG and I
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
l 24 1 implement the emergency plan. At that point I l
2 declared the unusual event at 1100 and implemented 3 the emergency plan. -And that is about as far as--
l 4 That covers the critical areas kind of gives you 5 some kind of idea as to where we were up to that l 6 point. Just to summarize what I felt--
7 MR. WETTERHAHN: Questions? Is this a 8 good time for questions?
9 MR. MEYER: We'll want to go back and 10 discuss some of the specifics. We don't have 11 quite the background that you do, so we'll want to 12 understand the specifics. You prefer to give a 13 summary at the end?
14 MR. WETTERHAHN: Yes, sure.
15 MR. MEYER: Let's go back. Okay, you 16 know, I think that was a good summary of the 17 events. We would like to understand-- Well, 18 let's take, let's focus on your actions in the 19 field to l f. f t the permissive. And you said that 20 there is a turbine trip for load condenser vacuum?
21 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
22 MR. MEYER: What is the setting?
23 MR. GWIRTZ: It is 18 to 22 inches.
- 24 MR. MEYER
- So, it could happen as ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
25
( 1 early--
s 2 MR. GWIRTZ: It could happen as early 3 as 22 inches.
4 MR. MEYER: Now, 22 inches of mercury?
5 EMR . GWIRTZ: Yes, so the turbine had not 6 tripped?
7 MR. GWIRTZ: no.
8 MR. MEYER: But.you are saying is this 9 measured in a different place, because the I 10 circulators are caying 13 inches?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: This is water box side on 12 the circulators.
13 MR. HAGAN: It is the circulating water 14 pipes.
15 - - -
16 ( Mr. Gwirtz is drawing a diagram. )-
17 - - -
18 MR. WETTERHAHN: You cannot draw it, 19 you have to explain it on the record.
20 MR. HAGAN: It is the circulating pipe.
21 MR. MEYER: Let's have a diagram.
22 You're going to have to talk about the diagram, 23 but a diagram would be helpful.
/ 24 THE WITNESS: Steam side is in the ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
26 i
1 condenser. Our circulator pump is way--
1 4
~
2' MR. WETTERHAHN: Excuse me, slow down.
3 As you draw, explain what it is, and then we'll ,
4 make this a part of the record, okay. Mark with 5 A's or B's what you are talking about, so that 6 someone who is reading this record will be able to 7' figure out what the 5 of us or 6 of us were f i
8 talking about, okay. Thank you.
9 MR. GWIRTZ: Condensor is a fairly 10 standard shell and tube condenser, turbine is on e
11 the top, direct condensing into the condenser 12 across the tubes, so we have the steam side. And 13 talking turbine trip, and the turbine trip set l
14 point it is the vacuum inside of the condenser, i 15 steam side of the condenser. To start a 16 circulating water pump, we have vacuum prime 17 valves that come off the top of the water side of 18 the heat exchanger, circ water goes through the 19 tubes. Our circ water works on a pump and siphon 20 effect, but it not only forces flow throw the 21 condenser, but by maintaining the water box side 22 full of water by pulling this prime it creates a 23 loop seal, so as the water flows through the 24 condenser the siphoning effect of the water going ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
. _ _ . -. - . - . - .. - . - . - . . . . _ _ _ - - . ~ . - - ~ . . . . . . - . . _ --- ---.
27-a l 1 out the outlet side because there is an s
, 2 elevational. difference here aids in the. flow of 3 the condenser water box. If you were to start a 4 circulator without vacuum, the water level in this
! 5 water box.would be way down inside the piping even 6 though there is a condenser. That-was the concern 7 about starting a circulator in.this air space 8 causing some sort of water--
a 9 MR. MEYER: You have a mixture of water 10 and air?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: Of water and air, that is 12 correct. So we pulled prime on these water boxes 13 to increase this level in the water boxes, so that 14 when the circulator started we don't create that 15 water hammer effect.
! 16 MR. MEYER: Right, although there may 17 be some water all the way through the system?
1 18 MR. GWIRTZ: Exactly. There will always 19 be some air and the system normally stays in 20 service as the circulators are operating also.
21 The permissive is actually located on the outlet 22 water box but inlet and outlet vacuum .is the same i
23 by virtue of the tubes across the heat exchanger, l 24 so this is where the permissive is located,
'- ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
29 1 pressure switch for the permissive.
l ('
2 MR. MEYER: So the vacuum in the 3 circulating water system is not necessarily 4 directly related to the vacuum you're measuring 5 for the condenser?
6 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct. This is just for 7 circulator start permissive. That is all that 8 pressure switch is for.
9 MR. MEYER: Is there any reading in the 1
10 control room of the circ water vacuum?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: No, there is not. )
12 MR. MEYER: So when you said you didn't 13 know what it was, you thought it should be 15 14 inches, there was no way in the control room to i
l 15 confirm that? l l
16 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct. The only l l
17 basis I had was the report several minutes ago of '
l 18 13 inches. We had a confirmed report from an ;
1 19 operator in the field. There is also a pressure 20 gauge located out there, that it was 13 inches. l 21 MR. MEYER: The place that you went to 22 the interlock is that adjacent to the reading, the l l
l 23 pressure switch reading?
l l
/ 24 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, it is fairly close.
I ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
29
,{ 1 They're mounted on a column, and it is kind of 2 like around the corner from the column.
3 MR. MEYER: Did you confirm what the 4 reading was?
5 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I did not.
6 MR. MEYER: I would like to go through 7 your technical explanation about the safety, the 8 steam generator safeties.
9 You had indicated that the steam dumps 10 a turbine trip greater than 10 percent reactor 11 power would be beyond the capacity of the 12 atmospheric dump valve?
13 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct.
14 MR. MEYER: And there was a likelihood 15 that you would have had to, that the system would 16 have used the steam generator safety valves? :
17 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct.
18 MR. HOLODY: That is if you lost the 19 condenser?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: If we completely lost all 21 of the steam dumps on the condenser yes.
22 MR. MEYER: The steam dumps have a 23 permissive on the condenser available? i
- 24 MR. GWIRTZ: On condenser steam side i
l l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
I 30 1, vacuum of 20 inches.
4 2 MR. MEYER: You said that turbine trip 3 was 18 to 22. If it had tripped at something less 4 than 20 inches, you would have had the turbine 5 removed and you would not have been able to use 6 the steam dumps?
7 THE WITNESS: Correct. There is also 8 another permissive on steam dumps, and that is 9 that the circulator in the associated, at least l l
10 one circulator in associated water or associated I l
l 11 condenser shell has to be in service. So, there j 1
I 12 is three different condenser shells, two 13 circulators in each shell. One of those two 14 circulators in each shell will have to be in 15 service for those to operate.
16 MR. MEYER: All three water boxes? !
17 MR. GWIRTZ: All three condenser f
18 shells, 19 MR. O'DONNELL: They're individually i
20 lined up. j 21 MR. MEYER: When you talk 13 A and B, 22 that is into one shell?
23 MR. GWIRTZ: Right. l 1
24 MR. MEYER: How many -- At that point I I l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 i
31 1 how many of the shells were available?
2 MR. GWIRTZ: At that point we had only 3 two circulators running, so there were two shells 4 available. That would be the minimum at that 5 point.
6 MR. MEYER: And you would have had to 7 have had how many shells available for the steam 8 dumps to work?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: Any shells available the 10 steam dumps in that shell would be available.
11 MR. MEYER: So in effect you were 12 limited, the steam dump capacity was already 13 limited, you would not have had the three shells 14 work?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct, plus the i i
16 availability of their continued use was in serious j 17 jeopardy due to the losing of the circulators.
l 18 MR. MEYER: Right. In other words, when l
19 the steam dumps operate you would have had steam l
20 going directly into the condenser, which would I 21 tend to further reduce the vacuum?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct.
23 MR. MEYER: So, you said that this 24 condition was a possible challenge to the steam ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
-- 1 32 1 generator safeties; why would you have not wanted
{
l 2 to challenge the steam generator safeties? l l 3 MR. GWIRTZ: I had no concern to 4 challenge them. Like I said, I'm not afraid that ;
l 5 they wouldn't work or anything like that, but the l 6 concern was that the preferred method would be to 1
7 do a controlled shutdown of the turbine, which is 1
8 the direction we were going. As long as we could maintain vacuum well enough to do a controlled l 9
l 10 shutdown of the turbine, then we would not be 11 putting the plant through a more severe transient 12 than it was already going through.
13 MR. MEYER: Okay. You said that there 14 was one prior occasion you thought in '86 to '87 f 1
15 where you personally had --
16 MR. HOLODY: Before you ask that 17 question, let me just follow up on this.
18 MR. MEYER: Sure. l 19 MR. HOLODY: You may have said this 20 already, was it clear to you that you were going 21 to lose the turbine?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: It was not clear that the 23 turbine was going to trip. It was clear to me 24 that we were going to take the turbine out of i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
33
- 1 service. If vacuum continued to deteriorate or if
-s 2 we lost more circulators than we were losing at 3 the time, we were managing to get some back into 4 service, then we would have had to manually trip 5 the turbine before the automatic turbine trip 6 occurred. That was our cut-off point at that 7 time.
8 MR. HOLODY: Did you ever feel that-- Go 9 ahead.
10 MR. MEYER: You had said that the 11 turbine was -- You, at one point, at 1028, you 12 ordered the turbine taken out of service, and that 13 was per procedures?
14 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct.
15 MR. MEYER: Which procedures would they 16 have been?
17 MR. GWIRTZ: Turbine Operating Procedure 18 and Cire Water AV specifies which circulators have I
19 to be at abnormal operating procedures for circ 20 water system. They specify which circulators have 21 to be in service to support maintaining turbine 22 operation. If you do not meet that set l l
23 combination then the direction is to remove the 24 turbine from service within one hour. That was ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
i l
34
. 1- the direction we had to do.
t 2 MR. MEYER: You were less than the three 1
3 shells and that would have directed an abnormal 4 condition that you should not keep the turbine on 1 5 line, you were going chrough a controlled turbine 6 shutdown?
7 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct. The criteria is 8 not less than three shells, it is the various 9 combinations. I don't have the procedure here, I 10 could go through and explain it all.
11 MR. MEYER: No, that is not important.
i 12 MR. GWIRTZ: But there are various 13 circulator combinations that if you have two l
14 circulators out then one of the adjacent ones have l 15 to be in, and these two have to be in, and that
'16 type of set up. We did not meet that criteria, so l 17 the one hour to remove the turbine from service 18 did apply.
19 MR. HOLODY: So your motivations l 20 correct from what I have heard is simply you did 1
21 not want to challenge the safeties and that is why !
l 22 the lift was lifted?
23 MR. GWIRTZ: I did not want to put the 24 plant through a more severe transient. If we l-l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
l
. . . _ . ,_ , . - - _ _ . . _ - _r . ~ .-_, ,,.,
35 1 could do a controlled shutdown and maintain 2 circulators in service to perform a controlled 3 turbine shutdown that was the preferred transient 4 other than a turbine trip with a reactor trip and 5 a potential lifting of generator safety.
6 MR. HOLODY: At the time you n.ade that 7 decision that permissive existed for a reason?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
9 MR. HOLODY: You went through some 10 analysis in your own mind that the consequences of 11 not lifting the lead would be more significant 12 than challenging the safeties?
13 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes. Plus, you know, in my 14 mind at that point I felt that the vacuum should 15 have been greater than 15 inches or that the 16 switch could have been malfunctioning. Now I did 17 not know for a fact either one of those, but, 18 those were the options in my mind also that went 19 into that decision.
20 MR. HOLODY: But even if it were not a 21 malfunctioning switch you thought it was?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: It could have been.
23 MR. HOLODY: It could have been? .
24 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
l l
36 1 MR. HOLODY: Did you consider if it was t :
2 what would be the impact if it was not a i l
i 3 malfunctioning switch? j I
i 4 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I did, and that was l
5 when I mentioned the testing that we did and the 6 basis for the switch being installed, that I was j 7 confident that there were no effects of starting 8 the circulator with less than 15 inches of vacuum 1
9 in'the water box.
10 MR. HOLODY: And the vacuum was at 13 11 you said?
12 MR. GWIRTZ: That was the last reported 13 vacuum was 13.
14 MR. MEYER: So you knew the 15 consequences of starting a pump at less than 15 1
- 16 permissive were acceptable, that they had been l 17 demonstrated in the past, you were aware of that 18 data?
l 19 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
l l 20 MR. HOLODY: Did you feel that you were j l
21 at the time that you did that you were authorized i
22 to do that; were you precluded by procedure from h 23 doing that?
24 MR. GWIRTZ: At that time?
4 ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
37 1 MR. HOLODY: At the time that you made 2 this decision? l t
3 MR. GWIRTZ: At that time it was I felt 4 that it was fully within my authority as a Senior !
5 Shift Supervisor to perform that function or to 6 order that function performed, that I was not held 7 back by any procedure to not perform that 8 function.
9 MR. HOLODY: Since that time have you !
10 felt that you were precluded by a procedure?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: Since that time two things 12 have become aware to me, I have become aware of, 13 one, a directive was issued from Operations 14 Management that that would not be performed and it 15 is no longer acceptable to be parformed. That was 16 the expectation.
17 MR. MEYER: You are saying subsequent 18 to the event the directive was issued, so today it 19 would not be done?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct.
21 MR. HOLODY: You are familiar with this 22 procedure?
23 MR. WETTERHAHN: Let him finish 24 answering the question. He said there were two ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
_ _ _ - . . _ . .._ .._. . _ .. ~ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ - . _ _ . . _ . . _ . _ . _ _ . _ . . _ . . _ . . _ . _ _ . . . _ .
h 38
- ( 1 things.
l 2 MR. GWIRTZ: There are two things, and 3 that is the second thing. In preparation for this 4 I did a lot cf review of AP's, AD's, all of our
- 5- procedures. Yesterday I did get a chance to l 6 review the normal cire water operating procedure, 7 and there are two statements in that procedure, 8 one is a prerequisite that water box vacuum or 9 water. box prime is drawn, and the next is a step 10 in the procedure that is to insure that water box 11 vacuum is greater than 15 inches. I'm aware of 12 that as of yesterday. During that day I was not ,
l 13 aware of those steps. They were not in my mind :
14 during April 7.
15 MR. HOLODY: This procedure, I'm l
16 looking at a copy that is revision four, dated 17 April 23, 1994, which was after the event. It is 18 a procedure entitled, " Circulating Water Pump 19 Operation Procedure Number S2. 0P-SO.CW-0001(Z) Rev 20 4.
]
21 MR. WETTERHAHN: One second.
22 MR. GWIRTZ: That is a Unit Two l 23 procedure. I looked at the Unit One procedure, f 24 and I don't believe there is any difference.
1 i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
4-39
( 1 ( Perusing a document before him.)
2 MR. WETTERHAHN: Why don't you examine 3 it and make sure.
4 MR. HOLODY: My question was-- l 5 MR. WETTERHAHN: Wait one second, let 6 him examine it.
7 MR. GWIRTZ: The two steps that I 8 mentioned, the pre-req for water boxes are primed, 9 and the step that water box vacuum is greater than 10 15 inches, they're the same as the one I looked at 11 yesterday.
12 MR. HOLODY: Would those steps have 13 been the same on the Unit One procedure that 14 existed at the time of the event on April 7th?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't know for a fact 16 that they were. This rev, as you said, is dated 1
17 after the event. However, the changes made in 18 this rev did not deal with either of those steps.
i
)
19 I don't know when the previous revs went into l 20 place, so I don't know it could have. It could 3 21 have existed in that fashion April 7th.
22 MR. HOLODY: So you were unaware at the 23 time you made the decision of this particular step 24 existing and this particular procedure?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
l l .
40 l 1 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
I l 2 MR. HOLODY: Do you periodically review l 3 such procedures?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: We have reviews, we have l
5 required reviews as a licensed operator, yearly l
l 6 reviews. They include all of the abnormal 1
l 7 operating procedures and the emergency operating 8 procedures. They do not include a required review I
9 of all operating procedures. As a matter of habit 10 I tried to review procedures as things come up in 11 the plant. Being the Senior Shift Supervisor I'm 12 not directly involved with all operations, so this i 1
13 is a category three procedure, which does not have 14 to be in hand, does not have to be referred to 15 when performing the function. However, I do try 16 to periodically look through procedures and just 17 become updated with what they say. As new 18 procedure revs come out, we do receive cover 19 sheets saying okay, barically new procedure is 20 issued or a rev is out, but there is quite a few 21 of those, and I'm trying to remember each one is 22 not alwayr; possible, but I do attempt to review l
23 procedures on a regular basis.
- I would like to pursue, you 24 MR. MEYER:
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
l 41
[ 1 established that A, in terms of a design of the 2 permissive you were aware of the design, the 3 equipment permissive, but you were not aware that i 4 the procedure basically said that that should be l 5 met before you proceed, and you talked about the 6 basis and previous testing, and things like that.
7 Let's stick with your understanding at that time, l 8 where you knew of the design and not the 9 procedure. You temporarily lifted the interlock 10 so that the pump could start; is that something 11 that was permissible under the procedures if we l
12 ignore this procedure, specific circ water 13 procedure that talked about the permissive, was 14 that an acceptable thing to do?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: It was something that was 16 not delineated in any procedure, how to do this.
17 It was not in a procedure to do that, and it was 18 not in any procedure that it was forbidden to do 19 that.
20 MR. MEYER: Right, so, under what 21 process would you have been able to do a thing 22 like that of temporary lifting interlocks to start 23 the pump? What process does the station provide
. 24 to do that?
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
i 42 l
l
'~
l 1 MR. GWIRTZ: The process that I felt 2 that I had at that time was just my authority as a 3 Senior Shift Supervisor taking into account the 4 status of the plant and what needed to be done to 5 put the plant in a safe condition.
6 MR. MEYER: Okay, so is that because 7 the circulating water system is a secondary site; 8 could you do the-same thing on the reactor?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: There are specific i
10 prohibitions to bypassing any interlock on a l
l 11 safety release system. That is definite.
! l 12 MR. MEYER: So this being a not safety l
13 related system you felt you had the authority to l l
i 14 lift the interlock?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
16 MR. MEYER: Okay.
17 MR. GWIRTZ: If it was a safety related 18 system, there would be no question even if I had 19 all kinds of basis or whatever, the only way that 20 I could do that would be possibly 5054 X.
21 MR. MEYER: What about--
22 MR. HOLODY: Is there any prohibition !
I 23 on that in procedures for lifting leads on safety j l
24 related systems?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
43 1 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, there is.
4 2 MR. HOLODY: But there is no similar 3 prohibition on non safety related systems? !
4 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
i 5 MR. MEYER: The process you would use 1
1 6 on a safety related system, how would a temporary j i
7 modification apply to, let's take the safety i
8 related system; wouldn't this in effect be a i
9 temporary modification where you have modified the I 10 system on a temporary basis for a specific reason?
i 11 MR. GWIRTZ: T mod could apply in this j l
12 case. We do have procedures for T mod. We do ;
13 have procedures for T mod.
14 MR. MEYER: Does T mod apply to non l
15 safety related systems? ;
16 MR. GWIRTZ: T mods apply to all systems l 17 in certain situations.
18 MR. MEYER: Why wouldn't a T mod apply 19 to this system in this instance?
l l
20 MR. GWIRTZ: In my mind the T mod didn't l 21 apply at that instance because I was not making a 1
22 permanent type of -- It was -- The modification 23 didn't stay. I lifted the switch, and as soon as )
/ 24 I put the switch back down the system was normal.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
l l
l 44 l
1 I didn't jumper the switch or put a piece of wood I \
2 or jimmy the switch or anything like that so that 3 it was disabled for a period of time. What I did l
l 4 lead to immediate restoration of the system to a l
l 5 normal condition.
6 MR. MEYER: So the period of time that 7 the interlock was lifted was how many seconds?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Just a second. ( Gesturing 9 with his hand.) If that.-
10 MR. MEYER: So you feel that a T mod 11 would not apply because the duration was a second? l 12 MR. GWIRTZ: Not only the duration, but i
13 the circumstances at the time, the unit in that ,
i 1
14 condition there was no time. If we were sitting 15 running at 100 percent and I had a malfunctioning l l
16 switch similar to this and I knew that the switch 17 was malfunctioning and all of the other l 18 circulators were in, there is no way I would even l 19 consider lifting the switch in that situation. We 20 would have the switch fixed at that time.
21 MR. MEYER: But let's take the example 22 that you have given where you're in the April 7th 23 event, and let's say you had some way to confirm I
24 that it was a malfunctioning switch, I don't know ALL POINTS REPORTING s215) 564-5380
45 1 that there would have been, but you assumed that
{
2 that was a possibility; wouldn't the lifting of 3 the interlock be documented in some way, some l l
4 process to address that? '
5 MR. GWIRTZ: I imagine it probably 6 should have been documented, but looking back--
7 MR. MEYER: Should have but not must 8 be?
I 9 MR. GWIRTZ: Not that I can think of, l 4
l 10 no. ;
11 MR. MEYER: All right.
12 MR. HOLODY: When you indicated that 13 you informed the Shift Supervisor of your decision 14 to attempt to restart the circulator 12 A--
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
16 MR. HOLODY: --did you actually go into 17 the details?
18 MR. GWIRTZ: I told him that I was going 19 to lift the vacuum permissive on 12 A circulator.
20 MR. HOLODY: You also told the day 21 shift supervisor?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: The Remote Control Center 23 Senior Supervisor.
24 MR. HOLODY: Is that the STA?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
! l 1
46
+
4 1 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
4 2 MR. HOLODY: You told the STA when? l 3 MR. GWIRTZ: The STA was out in the
}
4 turbine building when I performed that.
4
1 2 6 decision to lift the lead?
j 7 MR. GWIRTZ: To lift the switch, yes. l l
i 8 MR. HOLODY: Would you tell anybody 4
9 else besides those three individualso I
1 10 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
I 11 MR. HOLODY: Was there any, did anybody i
12 take issue with that decision?
I.
13 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
14 MR. HOLODY: To do that?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
16 MR. HOLODY: Anybody say that sounds i
17 fine or?
4 18 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
i
! 19 MR. HOLODY: Were they mute on it?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Basically just 21 acknowledged that I was going to do that.
2 l
4 22 MR. HOLODY: No opposition? Was there 23 sny opposition to doing that?
24 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
-- ..-,z. , _ . _ ,- ., _ . . . , _ _ _ , - .
47 1
1 MR. MEYER: You had talked about the 2 design and equipment aspects and that was the T 3 mod discussion, now we'll get back to the 4 procedures. You stated that you were not aware 5 that there was a specific procedure step that said 6
that that was to be in effect before starting the 7 pump. Let's pursue the procedure aspect. Had you 8 been aware of it,-was there a process that would 9 have permitted you to, because of the conditions, 10 to take that step?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: If I was aware of that step 12 and procedure the only way that I could continue 13 and perform that function would be to change the 14 procedure via an approved on the spot change 15 process or a normal procedure change process, or 16 invoke 5054 X, those are the only options.
17 MR. MEYER: Given that this was in a 18 sense an emergency condition and you needed timely 19 action an on the spot change could that have been 20 done in that kind of time frame?
21 MR. GWIRTZ: It could have been possibly 22 done. It would have taken 15, 20 minutes. It 23 would not have functioned.
24 MR. MEYER: It would not have been ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
Ed 48 l
? 1 effective?
! A 2 MR. GWIRTZ: Would not have been 3 effective.
4 MR. HOLODY: When you did this in 1986 5 do you recall the circumstances?
6 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I don't. I just know 7 that I -- I don't know that it was in 1986. I 8 know it was when I was a shift supervisor and that 9 it happened then, and it was something that again 10 didn't routinely happen, but it was something that 11 people did.
12 MR. MEYER: To?
13 MR. GWIRTZ: Restart, restore 14 circulators. The history, as I mentioned there 15 was a new modification on the priming lines to the ,
1 16 water boxes on Unit one. The old system had float I i
valves and, you know, I don't know if you know l 17 i 18 what our river looks like, but you take a carbon 19 steel float valve and you put that kind of 20 environment inside there they get stuck, they got 21 plugged up, there were a lot of problems in our l 22 prime on water boxes. This system was changed.
l 23 It was much improved on Unit one, and this type of 24 thing became not as necessary as maybe it was in '
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
49 1 the past.
s 2 MR. MEYER: Are you aware of anybody 3 else with the current equipment that had to resort 4 to lifting the switch to get a circulator to 5 start?
6 MR. GWIRTZ: Not recently on Unit One, 7 not definitely no. l 8 MR. MEYER: Unit Two?
I 9 MR. GWIRTZ: I'm aware that other people i lo have done-it on Unit Two. I don't know how 11 recent. I couldn't say when or who, but I am i
12 aware of that. l 13 MR. HOLODY: How did you become' aware 14 of that? Did you see people do that?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: When I was a Nuclear 16 Control Operator it occurred at that time.
17 MR. MEYER: We're talking about ten
.18 years ago?
19 MR. GWIRTZ: Right, in the early '80's.
20 MR. HOLODY: Have you seen it happen 21 under your shift, anybody do that? i l
22 MR. GWIRTZ: No, nobody under me has i 23 done that.
24 MR. HOLODY: Are you aware of any other ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 t
. _ _._...._ _ _..__ __ __ _..___ _____._ _ ___._ _ _ .. .. . -m._.
' 50 i
4 l' 1 shifts that were doing it while you were a shift l
j 2 supervisor?
l i 3 MR. GWIRTZ: While I was a shift 2
i 4 supervisor probably. I don't know the times or l
s
! 5 the dates or who, but I was aware that it l
l 6 happened.
i 7 MR. HOLODY: While you were a senior?
s j 8 MR. GWIRTZ: While I was a senior.
l 9 MR. HOLODY: Senior Shift Supervisor?
l t
10 MR. GWIRTZ: Not unless it was several 11 years ago, nothing recent, nothing really recent.
12 MR. MEYER: I didn't make a note, you
! 13 said that the system was modified and the flow f
j 14 switch was removed; when did that occur?
i
! 15 MR. GWIRTZ: The last Unit One outage, l 16 it was October of '93, this past year.
! 17 MR. MEYER: Let's go back to when you i
'4 18 were aware that it was done. You did it, you were
[
aware that other people did it, what was the-- Now l I 19 20 that was a considerable amount of time in the 21 early '80's, was there any station ops management 4 22 response that said that it was okay or it was not 23 okay?
24 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't recall any response j
.i ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 4
J 2
51
( 1 either way.
A ,
2 MR. MEYER: Okay, let's pursue your l
3 decision to do it yourself. You said that you i
4 were, you didn't think that field people would be 5 familiar with the specific step, the specific 6 action, and you felt it was quicker to do it 7 yourself; is that correct?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct.
9 MR. MEYER: Were you reluctant to go to 10 the switch and do it and be out of the control 11 room for some period of time? How did you weigh 12 the process of your having to leave the control 13 room to do that?
14 MR. GWIRTZ: I did weigh that into the 15 decision. What was happening in the control room 16 at the time, as I mentioned earlier, I felt that 17 the plant was under, doing the power decrease.
18 However, it was a controlled power decrease, that 19 the shift supervisor was fully in control of the 20 situation at the time, and that was probably the i 21 best time to go and do that. If I had waited too 22 much longer either we would be tripping the 23 turbine and I would not leave under those 24 circumstances, or we would be close to getting I
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
l 52
, 1 less than ten percent power, and then tripping the s.
2 turbine in a controlled manner, and I would not 3 want to leave during that time either, 4 MR. MEYER: Had there been some 5 auxiliary operator or-electrician familiar with 1
6 that and you knew that he was able to do that l 7 would you have directed him to do it?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: It is hard to answer that.
9 I don't know if I would have or not in that l
10 situation. It depends I guess on who the person l 11- was and how much confidence I had in that person.
l l 12 MR. MEYER: Why is the confidence in l
l 13 the person a factor? Is this a tricky thing to l 14 do?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
i 16 MR. MEYER: What would the consequences 17 of doing it wrong have been?
18 MR. GWIRTZ: Just the confidence that 19 the person knew exactly where to go and how to de 20 it. It wouldn't get into a real time consuming 21 evolution and distract from what was going on.
22 MR. MEYER: So you're saying it was the
! 23 aspect of timeliness, you needed it done sooner.
24 It was not if it was done wrong, if he held it for I
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
_.- - _ _ _ - _ _ . ~ . . _ . _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ . _ _ _ . _ . _ _ . . _
53 1 5 seconds instead of one second that that was
, 2 going to be a problem?
3 MR. GWIRTZ: No, as long as he was on 4 the right switch. That is the only switch in that-
- 5 cabinet. Wrong type of aspects are not really a 6 concern, just the timeliness.
7 MR. HOLODY: If the individual had 8 pulled, if you sent someone - else and someone had
, 9 pulled the relief and didn't reattach it, all you 10 would do is lose that' interlock? I mean the 11 circulator would still function?
12 MR. GWIRTZ: This interlock is a vacuum t
13 switch. It is mounted on a hinge. There is a j 14 bellows under the vacuum switch, and as the vacuum 15 is pulled the bellows pulls down and the button on 16 the switch pops out. The switch is mounted on a 17 hinge with an adjustment screw on the other side 18 of the hinge, so as the bellows pulls down and the 19 switch button pops out, that starts the 20 circulator, allows the circulator to start. By 21 lifting up the switch on the hinge, the button 22 comes down and allows the circulator to start, so 23 there is really no physical change in the switch.
( 24 There is no lifting of a lead. It is the same as ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
54
. 1 pushing a button, a spring return button. It is t
2 lifted and put back down, and that is it.
3 ( Gesturing. )
4 MR. HOLODY: Simply to allow the 5 circulator to start?
6 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
7 MR. HOLODY: And if it tripped and your 8 vacuum was at 14, so you're still one below and 9 you thought you were still going up, you would 10 have to go and perform the same function again? !
11 MR. GWIRTZ: If an emergency, if a 12 circulator emergency trips, the noise I referred 13 to as I was leaving I heard the vacuum breakers 14 open up. When an emergency trip occurred on a 15 circulator on the water box side there are vacuum 16 breaker valves that open up, and this water goes 17 all the way down to river level, and this whole 18 area fills with air. It breaks all of the vacuum 19 in the water box side, so basically after an 20 emergency trip you have to start over again, reset 21 the emergency trip, get the vacuum valves closed, 22 which is what you do by resetting the emergency 23 trip, and then start drawing prime on the water 24 box again.
-l 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 4
l
1 55 1 MR. MEYER: You described interacting 2 with this interlock. In effect, you did not have 3 to disconnect anything, you didn't have to use a 4 screw driver to do it; is that correct?
5 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct.
6 MR. MEYER: Had you, let's assume that 7 the switch did involve lifting a lead; would you 8 still have done it?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: Probably not.
)
10 MR. MEYER: Why?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: I believe that one of the 12 reasons that it became something that was done in 13 some instances was the ease of doing it, the fact 14 that when you lift a lead, now we're concerned 15 we're not really qualified lifting lead, relanding 16 the lead, inspecting the connection, you get into 17 lifting leads situation. There are definite 18 procedures for lifting leads to insure that they i
19 do get relanded, to insure that they get relanded l 20 correctly. Those procedures would be in effect, 21 and that is not really something that an operator ,
l 22 would be qualified to do, and I wouldn't feel it 23 would be something that we should do in any 24 situation.
l l
1 l
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
56
? 1 MR. MEYER: So you are saying had it t
2 been a lead, an electrical wire connection or 3 something that you would have had to physically disconnect would procedures have prohibited you l 4
l 5 from doing that? !
l 6 MR. GWIRTZ: In my mind, yes.
7 MR. MEYER: Despite the fact that it 8 was a non safety related system? I 9 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
10 MR. MEYER: Okay, so, you considered 11 that in this instance it was permissible for you 12 to interact with this instrument because it was 13 not lifting of a lead, placing some jumper in 14 place, anything like that, you temporarily l 15 interacted with the switch and got it, you know, 16 to work, and that that was not really covered by I
17 your procedures, it wasn't prohibited by your 18 procedures?
19 MR. GWIRTZ: I agree with the not being 20 prohibited by the procedures.
21 MR. MEYER: There was nothing in the 22 procedures that specifically allowed you to do 23 that, is that true?
' 24 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
. + . . -
. -+-.a ,-z
57 1 MR. MEYER: Can you think of any other 2 switches similar to this that you or anyone else 3 has ever interacted with?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I cannot.
5 MR. MEYER: This is to a large extent a 6 special situation?
7 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
8 MR. MEYER: So, that you can interact 9 for a second or two, take it out, off the circuit 10 so to speak, you can get it to do what it should 11 do but it doesn't involve changing the control, 12 lifting the lead, placing a jumper in any kind of 13 physical modification or action?
14 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct. I think the part 15 you mentioned about changing a control is 16 important in my mind also because if you actually 17 had to turn the set point adjustment or something 18 like that to make this happen now you risk 19 changing a set point of a component which would 20 again be something that we would not be allowed to ;
1 21 do.
I 22 MR. MEYER: And your concern would be )
23 if it was an action you took you would have to l
24 reverse it, but in this case you put your finger !
i 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
,._m _m.m___ . _ _ _ . _ . . . ~ . _ _ . _ . _ _ . - - . . _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _ . _ . . . . _ _ . . _ _ _ . _ . . . . _ _ _ . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ . _ .
L t
58 1
. 1 on the lever and it returns to its normal
(
l 2 situation, it is not something you need to verify 3 that it has been done right. It inherently once l
i i
! 4- your finger is removed returns to an acceptable 1 5 position? l i
L 6 MR. GWIRTZ: Correct. :
1 l 7 MR. MEYER: Okay.
8 MR. HOLODY: Help me here, I'm not an 9 engineer. When you push a button, it returns, l
l 10 this is done instantaneously. If you don't get l
l l 11 the start in the. control room at the same time how 12 does it-- Then the permissive is still in, is that 13 true?
l 14 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes. ;
15 MR. HOLODY: And then the pump would 16 never stop?
i i 17 MR. GWIRTZ: If the circulator -- I 1 l
j 18 don't understand your question.
I 19 MR. HOLODY: You go down and you make 20 this adjustment, not an adjustment I should say 1
21 you just push a button?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: Basically yes.
! 23 MR. HOLODY: To get rid of this
' 24 permissive?
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
59 1 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
(
2 MR. HOLODY: And that would allow the 3 pump to start?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
5 MR. HOLODY: When you go out, when you 6 went down to do this okay, as soon as you pushed 7 the button, you said that it just goes back to 8 where it was before?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: ( Nods head up and down. )
10 MR. HOLODY: The operator then after 11 you've done this tries to start the pump. Why 12 would it start since the permissive is still in, I 13 mean the interlock is still in? It has not been 14 defeated?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: It would not start in that 16 situation.
17 MR. HOLODY: So you have to hold the 18 button down while someone is trying to start the 19 pump?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes. What actually occurs I i
21 is they initiate a start signal by pushing a start 22 button. That start signal latches in. It is a 23 latching relay, so that start signal is there. As i
24 soon as all of the interlocks are made up, the !
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
. . - _ - --. .. - . _ . . . . . - . . .-. .~ . - - . - - _ - - - . ._- . . . . .
60 1 circulator is going to start.
l (
2 MR. HOLODY: So that signal is in when 3 you push the button?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: That signal is locked in, 5 yes.
6 MR. MEYER: What happens when the 7 circulator starts? Does the start signal return 8 to some neutral position?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, that is in the 10 circuitry. design.
11 MR. MEYER: So you knew that they had 12 pushed the start button and a start signal was 13 somewhere in process, and if the permissives were 14 met it would start?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct.
16 MR. HOLODY: You would surmise this is l
l 17 the permissive that was precluding it from 18 starting?
19 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
20 MR. MEYERS: All right.
21 MR. WETTERHAHN: Mike, do you need a 22 break?
23 MR. MEYER: I think a break might be a l
24 good idea, because I would like to check my notes i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 I
61
[ 1 in terms of what we intended to cover to make sure 2 that there isn't something that we have neglected, 3 so I would like to interrupt the transcription, 4 take a break, and we'll come back.
5 MR. WETTERHAHN: Off the record.
6 - - -
7 ( A brief recess was held. )
8 - - -
9 MR. MEYER: Back on the record. We're 10 back, we've reconvened the Enforcement Conference.
11 It is 2:34, and we're going to begin with some 12 further questioning of the different specifics.
13 I was wondering Mike, are you aware of 14 what the safety analysis report talks about 15 regarding the circulating water system; do you 16 ever, do you routinely consult what you called the 17 Updated Final Safety Analysis Report; do you ever?
19 MR. MEYER: Yes.
20 MR. GWIRTZ: I do not routinely refer to 21 it for dynamic decisions.
22 MR. MEYER: Certainly not for dynamic, 23 and there might be some instances where you would
/ 24 refer to it?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
. . . _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ . _ . . . _ . _ . . _ . ___. .__.____.--_____m .
l 62 1 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, that is correct.
t
{
2 MR. HOLODY: How often would you refer 3 to the UFSAR in the course of a day, a week, a l
4 month, a year?
5 MR. GWIRTZ: I would probably say I look '
6 at it more as a reference document. If I have a l
7 ' question or a concern I may look at it, and that i
8 may be a couple of times a month maybe. It is 9 used as a training document to some extent, not to 10 a great extent, but there is references made to it 11 in training, and that would be about it.
12 MR. HOLODY: Were you aware that this 13 particular system, the vacuum priming system, 14 circulating vacuum primer, is described in the 15 UFSAR?
16 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I'm not.
17 MR. MEYER: Are you aware that any 18 change to the facility as described in the UFSAR 19 requires a safety evaluation?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
21 MR. MEYER: Would you or did you 22 consider the action to lift the interlock to be a t.
23 change in the facility design?
24 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
I ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
ll 63
^
( 1 MR. MEYER: Have you read the AIT 4
2 report? In the report there are different 3 sections'that talk about actions that you were 4 involved in; have you read the report?
5 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I just read it 6 yesterday.
7 MR. MEYER: Are there any parts of the l t
8 report that deal with activities that you were 9 involved in that you feel may not be completely 10 accurate or that you would want to address? .
11 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, there were some things 12 in there that were not correct that I noted.
13 MR. MEYER: Let's start with the things 14 that we talk d about today; is there anything that 15 relates to what we have discussed today?
16 MR. WETTERHAHN: Give us a second to 17 get the document please.
5 18 MR. MEYER: I'm most interested in the 19 section of the report that is 4.0 Plant Operator j 20 Performance and Procedure Issues that begins on 21 page 21 and runs through page 25.
22 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay. ,l 1
23 MR. GWIRTZ: This has to do with the 24 entire event. At the bottom of page 24, where it 1
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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l 64 l
1 talks "A time of reactor trip the only licensed l
! \.
2 personnel in the control room were the shift )
3 supervisor and two assigned control room l
l 4 operators."
l 5 MR. MEYER: Which paragraph is that?
l
! 6 MR. GWIRTZ: Last paragraph, last l l ,
l '
- 7 sentence of the last paragraph, and continuing on l
8 to the next page. It says,"And the Senior Shift 9 Supervisor was in the turbine hall attending the l i
L 10 water box priming." That is not correct. At the {
l 11 time of the trip I was, as I stated earlier, in l 12 the control room, and in addition to that a Senior l
13 Shift Supervisor of the Work Control Center was 14 also in the control room at the time of the trip".
l 15 MR. MEYER: Frankly I'm a little 16 confused. You referred to informing two people.
17 I thought it was two people, one was the Work 18 Control SRO?
19 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, right.
20 MR. MEYER: Who is also the STA?
21 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, correct.
22 MR. MEYER: You also talked about the 23 day shift SRO, I'm sorry the day shift senior
- 24 nuclear shift supervisor, so there was another 1
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
65
( 1 shift doing things not in the control room and did 2 he report to the control room?
3 MR. GWIRTZ: When I talk about the work 4 control center day shift senior shift supervisor 5 we have two positions that are staff positions 6 these are both senior shift supervisors, qualified 7 senior shift supervisors who are assigned to a 8 staff day shift position. They are the operations 9 work control interface. That is their position.
10 MR. MEYER: Both of them do that?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: Both of them do that. The 12 person that I passed in the hallway was one of 13 these people. He does fill in for vacation relief 14 as a Senior Shift Supervisor. That is why I kind 15 of call him an extra Senior shift Supervisor but 16 that is a staff position.
17 MR. MEYER: So were there two people 18 that were similar? I was confused, or was it 19 really one?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: I saw the one person who is 21 the Senior Shift Supervisor on day shift, and then 22 I also saw the Work Control Center Shift 23 Supervisor who is a member of our shift.
I 24 MR. MEYER: Is he SRO licensed?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
j 66 l
l 1 i
1 MR. GWIRTZ: It was a she in this case, l
l 2 and she is SRO licensed, and she was also the STA l l
3 for that day. l i
! 4 MR. MEYER: So she's the STA and there l l 5 is also the day shift senior?
l l 6 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes. l 7 MR. MEYER: Did both of them come to )
l 8 the control room? l l
9 MR. GWIRTZ: The day shift senior 10 immediately came into the control room. The STA j 11 came into the control room just after the reactor 1
12 tripped. I 13 MR. MEYER: So the record that you are i
I 14 clarifying is that at the time of the trip you i
15 were in the control room? i
- l 16 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
I 17 MR. MEYER: In addition to the shift l 18 supervisor?
l 19 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, which that did state i 20 that, the shift supervisor. i l
I 21 MR. MEYER: And also the work control l l
22 supervisor, who is licensed?
23 MR. GWIRTZ: Work Control Senior Shift
- 24 Supervisor. The best way to word it would be an 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
67 l
1 extra Senior Shift Supervisor. l t i 2 MR. MEYER: Right, okay. All right I ,l 3 appreciate that.
4 MR. GWIRTZ: On page 24 in the second 5 paragraph second full sentence it starts, " Senior 6 Shift Supervisor left the control room during the 7 transient to override the circulator pump 8 interlock." Do you follow that one?
9 MR. MEYER: Yes. j 10 MR. GWIRTZ: "
--And restart the 12 A 11 circulator pump in an attempt to maintain 12 condenser vac and prevent turbine trip." As we
, 13 discussed today I had a lot of reasons for doing l
14 this. The main reason was not to prevent a 15 turbine trip, it was to increase our margin and 16 allow us to do a controlled turbine shutdown.
17 MR. MEYER: It was whenever the turbine 18 is tripped that you have a condenser available to l
19 handle the trip?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
21 MR. MEYER: All right.
22 MR. GWIRTZ: And in the next sentence, n
23 these are minor, but I mean if you're going to use r 24 these for judgment for my actions I would like to ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
l l 68 1
1 clarify how I feel about the statements. I 2 MR. MEYER: Okay.
3 MR. GWIRTZ: The next sentence right 4 after that says, "The Senior Shift Supervisor l
5 would normally provide direction to the Shift l
6 Supervisor on when a reactor or turbine trip 7 should be initiated." That would, normally I'm l
8 not the only one that gives that input. I don't 9 know if that statement means to say that, but it 10 is like without me there that input is not there l l t
l 11 at all. Anybody can make that input to when to 12 trip the turbine. It could be either one of the j 13 Reactor Operators or the Shift Supervisors.
I 14 MR. MEYER: All of the licensed people i
15 have the right and responsibility to trip the l
16 reactor?
17 MR. GWIRTZ: Right, so I could provide 18 that direction to shift Supervisors if necessary.
1 19 - - -
20 ( Mr. Gwirtz and Mr. Wetterhahn peruse l
! 21 several documents. )
22 - - -
23 THE WITNESS: The statement, same i
i f
24 paragraph, I guess this is a key paragraph, it ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
69 i i says, " Senior Nuclear Shift Supervisor in t
2 combination with the extensive effort undertaken 3 by station personnel to maintain turbine operation 4 both the circ water intake and turbine hull 5 reflected perceived management expectations that 6 extraordinary effort would be used to overcome 7 grass intrusions." My feelings on that statement 8 is yes, we did take efforts, and they were strong 9 efforts, they were thought out efforts to try to 10 overcome these grass intrusions, and the reason 11 for those, and it wasn't a perceived management 12 pressure to maintain the turbine on line but it 13 was to reduce the risk of placing the plant 14 through an unnecessary transient, an extreme 15 transient such as a trip, otherwise we wouldn't 16 have been operating if we thought it was going to 17 trip every time.
18 MR. MEYER: You had already directed 19 that the turbine be taken out of service?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
21 MR. MEYER: I understand. I was not at 22 the Enforcement Conference on July 28th, the 23 people that were, was it brought out that Mike was
- 24 not, contrary to the AIT, that he was in the ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
70 1 control room at the time of the trip?
2 MR. HAGAN: I don't recollect whether it i
3 was ever discussed, Glenn. I don't specifically 4 remember it being discussed one way or the other.
5 MR. MEYER: All right, I appreciate 6 that.
7 MR. GWIRTZ: The other things are back 8 after the trip, the safety injection. You just
! 9 want to keep it to the --
i 10 MR. MEYER: I would prefer, I don't 11 want to exclude anything you want to say, but I 12 don't think they apply.
l l 13 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't feel it is i
l l 14 necessary.
15 MR. MEYER: All right. We've talked l
16 about --
17 MR. WETTERHAHN: Have you now reviewed l
18 that section, satisfied that you got the major 19 items?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I think that one l
21 paragraph is the one that deals with my going out 22 into the field, and I think we clarified that.
i 23 MR. MEYER: You talked extensively about
- 24 the interlock, and that was for the 12 A ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
71 4
1 circulator; were there any other circulators for l 2 which the permissives were lifted, or I'm sorry 3 the interlocks were lifted?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
5 MR. MEYER: I would like to talk about 6 management expectations; is this a good time for 7 you?
4 8 MR. WETTTERHAHN: I have one question 9 by way of clarification. Mike, you noted that it 10 was.your practice to attempt to read as many
, 11 procedures as you could, beyond those which are I 12 required to be read; can you tell me how many
! 13 procedures there are in total regarding the 14 operation of the Salem units?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't know that I could i 16 put a number on total number of procedures, but we 17 did recently undergo a procedure upgrade project 18 and in the past several years there have been 19 thousands of procedure changes and upgraded 20 procedures in the past couple of years, and the 21 upgrade just finished, and there are several 22 procedures, all of the procedures basically have 23 been upgraded.
{
I f 24 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay, just to clarify; ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 i
72 1 do you recall reading the procedure that we
's 2 discussed earlier in the last year say?
3 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I do not, l
4 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you, that is all l l
1 5 of the questions that I had. Mr. O'Donnell is l l
6 here at the request of Mr. Gwirtz, and I would l l
l 7 like to ask him to review Mr. Gwirtz' performance, '
8 both before and after the event if he could. l l
9 Could you identify yourself and state your j 10 position and your relationship to Mr. Gwirtz, and 11 then briefly describe those issues.
12 MR. O'DONNELL: My name is Phillip 13 O'Donnell, I'm the Salem Operations Engineer. I 14 have been the Operations Engineer for the past 15 three years. Mike reports to me, as do all of the 16 other Senior Shift Supervisors. As part of that 17 process we do periodic reviews on all of the 18 Senior Shift Supervisors. Mike's performance 19 specifically has been outstanding. He has 20 significantly exceeded the expectations on a 21 regular basis. His file is full of commendations 22 as he indicated before. There are some specific 23 examples I guess I would like to bring up to you
! 24 people. Specifically as the Operations Engineer 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
i 73 1 we're required to monitor start up and plant shut
(
2 downs of a particular unit. On several occasions j 3 meeting on shift with Mike and his shift, Mike has 1 4 taken the opportunity transitioning up through 5 power the senior level control sometimes does not
> 6 control as well as we would expect. On those 7 occasions where we start seeing deviations, 8 significant deviations in the steam water level 9 control Mike has taken on himself and said I don't
- 10 feel comfortable with this, back the unit back 11 down, I want to get it fixed. On several 12 occasions he has done that, so that he is not
- 13 driven by just getting the unit on line, he wants 14 to do it safely and without incident.
15 One of the other instances Mike was the 16 test engineer for the this past December for the 17 Unit One Hot Mid Loop, we ended up with a problem 18 following the refueling outage where we had a 19 problem with one of the RCP seals. During that 20 time Mike was designated as one of the test 21 engineers. I was the test manager. In 22 preparation for that, because of the significant 23 consequences even when it was shutdown in the hot
( 24 mid loop Mike took the approach that we were going ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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74
- 1 to do it right, it doesn't matter how long it is 2 going to take, we are going to do it right and do 3 it by the numbers. On several occasions he wanted 4 to make sure all of the equipment was available.
5 He stopped the evolution at several points to make 6 sure that the instrumentation was correct, to make 7 sure that it was working as we described in the 8 procedure, took the time to change the procedure 9 if it was necessary, and then go through, and we 10 had a'very uneventful RHR mid loop operation. It 11 was done safely due to a large part with Mike's 12 assertive decision making process and his 13 adherance to the standards that we have.
14 Even after the April 7th event one 15 recent event occurred where we lost our f l
16 circulators during a lightening strike. Mike has 17 translated that safety consciousness to his shift, 18 so that as soon as they recognize they lost one of 19 the circulators they went for a manual reactor 20 trip and this happened a couple of weeks ago, they 21 went for the manual reactor trip before they got 22 the automatic, so I think that Mike reflects 23 assertive decision making and tries to instill
~( 24 that in his shift, and I think he's one of the ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
75 1 1
i 1 best Senior Shift Supervisors that we have, and he
-(-
2 adheres to the standards, and he has got the i 3 safety consciousness. .That is all I have.
l 4 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you. Do you )
l 5 want the summary first? l 1
6 MR. MEYER: No. Why don't we ask the 7 plant management to step out, and we'll have an 1
8 opportunity to talk about management expectations.
9 Joe and Phil.
1
, 10 - - -
l l
11 ( Mr. Hagan and Mr. O'Donnell have left the room.)
1 1
'12 - - -
j l
13 MR. MEYER: Let it be noted at this I l
14 point that Phil O'Donnell and Joe Hagan have left is the conference room, and we'll proceed.
16 MR. WETTERHAHN: So that the record is 17 perfectly clear, and I discussed this with Mr. !
18 Gwirtz before he agreed to have me represent him, that he knows that I represent the company and i 19 20 have represented the company, and there might be l
21 an instance where there would be shared 22 confidences. We have not seen any, at least I J
23 have not seen any conflicts between the company 24 position.and Mr. Gwirtz' position, and I assume to
- i l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
- i l
76 1 .this point you have not either?-
(
2 MR. GWIRTZ: That is correct. ;
3 MR. WETTERHAHN: I just want to place ;
4 that on the record. The second thing, while I'm-5 still talking, is a procedural request. I would i
1 6 like to make a request that Mr. Gwirtz be.given an l 7 opportunity to review the transcript after it has 8 been delivered to you at a convenient time. -There 9 have been a lot of acronyms and a lot of 10 initialisms used, and I want the record to be the 11 best that it can be, to allow you to make your
! 12 decision, so I would request that you give us the ,
l 13 opportunity to review the transcript at King of t
l 14 Prussia or any other place that is convenient.for !
l 15 you. As I mentioned off the record in OI j
l 16 Interviews they would. grant that opportunity after 17 their field investigation is complete, and again I l 18 ask for that opportunity. Thank you.
19 MR. MEYER: The review that you propose-20 will be done by Mike or you and Mike?
l l 21 MR. WETTERHAHN: The two of us would l 22 review it, and we would make our corrections right 23 on the transcript, and that is the opportunity I
l f 24 that we would ask for.
i l
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 4 l
l t _ _ . , , -
77
( 1 MR. HOLODY: You're not asking for a 2 copy of it, you're asking for an opportunity to l l
3 review it and correct it?
4 MR. WETTERHAHN: That is correct.
5 MR. HOLODY: We note that, we'll take it 6 up with our management, and we'll get back to you.
I 7 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay.
l 8 MR. MEYER: Specifically I would like 9 to speak first about management expectations 10 regarding your actions on the switch. You had .
1 l
11 indicated that there were a number of times 12 previously, well years prior, that people,
, 13 including you, had interacted with the switch; 14 what did you believe the management's expectations j 15 were regarding interacting with the circulator 3 16 permissive switch? Was this an acceptable action?
17 MR. GWIRTZ: At the time of the event in 18 my mind management's expectations were that it was 19 as I stated before, their expectations were this 20 is something that is not a normal occurrence, it 21 is not an expected occurrence, it is not something ,
l 22 that we would be expected to do in normal day to 23 day operations. However, that it was fully within f 24 my authority as a Senior Shift Supervisor to l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
78
- 1 perform that function, if I felt it was necessary !
A i
1 2 for the safe uneventful operation of the unit. '
3 MR. MEYER: Is that based on your I 4 interpretation of their general guidance or had 5 they provided specific guidance regarding the 6 circulator?
7 MR. GWIRTZ: There had been no specific 8 guidance regarding this vacuum permissive switch, l 9 and to my knowledge in either positive or the 1
10 negative that basically I felt that it was known 11 that this occurred on occasion, and that by 12 absence of any further direction that it was 13 accepted.
14 MR. MEYER: Okay, had you ever l 15 specifically discussed with any managers the issue 16 of the circulator and lifting the permissive to 17 allow the start?
18 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I did not.
19 MR. MEYER: Okay, were you aware of any 20 instances where management had taken actions, 21 including disciplinary actions, following one of 22 the instances where someone had interacted with 23 the interlock?
( 24 MR. GWIRTZ: No, that has not occurred.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
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79 1 MR. HOLODY: If management were there-2 in the control room at the time of this event
! 3 would you have made the same decision?
I 4 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
5 MR. HOLODY: If an NRC inspector was 6 there inspecting at the time would you have'made 7 the same decision?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes. At that time, during 9 that day, yes.
10 MR. HOLODY: Going back in time to 11 April 77 12 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, that would not have i 13 precluded me, I would not have been afraid to'do 14 that or concerned about doing that in front of 15 anyone. I did not think I was doing something 16 wrong or against any rule, 1
17 MR. HOLODY: Are you aware of the 18 procedure that we referred to earlier, the 4
19 circulating water pump operation? I believe you 20 indicated earlier that you were not aware of that 21' step that stated that insure the following start 22 permissives are satisfied: Water box vacuum is 23 greater than or equal to 15 inches. If you were 24 aware of that procedure, would you have done that l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l
l
- - 1
80
- 1 procedure?
2 MR. GWIRTZ: No, our procedures state 3 that we have to follow the procedure as written.
4 Otherwise it must be changed. The only other 5 option is 5054 X. I would not consider this an 1
6 emergency situation where 5054 X would apply, j i
7 MR. HOLODY: What was management's !
l 1
8 response to what you did do after the event? l 9 MR. GWIRTZ: The firnt discussion I had 10 concerning this individual action was with a 1
11 one-on-one with my manager. We discussed the 12 event, I asked him --
13 MR. MEYER: Could you be specific, who 14 is your manager?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Lee Catalfomo, the 16 Operations Manager.
17 THE COURT REPORTER: Can you spell 18 that?
19 MR. GWIRTZ: Lee Catalfomo, 20 C-A-T-A-L-F-O-M-0. We had a one-on-one 21 discussion, after which I asked him what he felt 22 were my shortcomings during the event. He 23 specifically mentioned that he wished and was
- 24 concerned with my leaving the control room and ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
I 81
[ 1 manipulating the switch, and I told him I 2 understand that, I did give him the same basis, 3 the same' reasons that I have given you earlier, l
t 4 and he made it clear.that is something he did not 5 want to continue at that point.
l 6 MR. HOLODY: When was that session?
l 7 MR. GWIRTZ: It was probably within a l 8 week to two weeks after the event. That is !
l 9 probably as good as I can pin it down.
10 MR. HOLODY: Was his concern with the 1
11 fact you left the control room or with the fact 12 that you had manipulated the switch, or both?
I ,
13 MR. GWIRTZ: His concern was basically 14 both, the fact that I left the control room for 15 that reason was the concern.
16 MR. MEYER: Did you have the sense that 17 if you had looked back to a knowledgeable l , 18 auxiliary operator that knew how to do it, if you 19 had directed someone else to do it, do you think P
20 it still would have been a concern?
l 21 MR. GWIRTZ: At this point I believe it l
I 22 still would have been a concern, yes.
23 MR. HOLODY: Can you give us some
- 24 insights into what his specific concerns were with l
t ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
i 82 1 the' switch manipulation?
{4 1 l
2 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't really recall l I
3 anything specific, just the fact that it occurred, l i l 4 that I did it. He did not cite any violation of a ]
i i l 5 procedure, he did not cite anything concrete, he i
l 6 just cited i-, to my recollection, as poor l! 7 judgment.
l
! 8 MR. HOLODY: Did he refer in any detail l l
- j. 9 to what he meant by that, why it was poor 10 judgment? Not the leaving of the control room but 11 the manipulation of the switch?
12 MR. GWIRTZ: No, not that I. recall.
13 MR. HOLODY: Do you believe it was poor 14 judgment?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Looking back on it at this 16 time I do believe that it was.
17 MR. HOLODY: Because?
18 MR. GWIRTZ: I made some assumptions 19 that the control room crew was going to perform up 20 to what I expected them to perform as far as the 21 control of temperature in the reactor coil system.
22 Those were incorrect assumptions on my part and 23 possibly by my continued looking for those two 24 minutes in the control room situation I might have l
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 j i
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-e 83 1
g i been able to pick up on that earlier and-prevented j 2 that instance from occurring. I can't say it 3 definitely would have, because it was only two j 4 minutes, but there would have been more of a l
5 chance. )
l 6 MR. HOLODY: That is the leaving oflthe l 7 control room? !
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
I 9 MR. HOLODY: That is what you are l
10 referring to?
v l 11 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, j l
12 MR. HOLODY: That was poor judgment in l
13 leaving the control room? ,
1
! 14 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
15 MR. HOLODY: Do you believe it was poor 16 judgment to manipulate that' switch?
i 17 MR. GWIRTZ: Now I do believe, yes, it 18 was poor judgment. Yes, I believe that now. I 19 realize there is a procedure in place. I realize i
j 20 that there are probably several precautions and
, 21 steps in places that I may not be fully aware of, 22 and I'm going to have to really analyze anything 23 that is done not correctly, everything that is
- done not correctly in accordance with a procedure, 24 ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
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1 84
. 1 anything that is, any type of work around ,
'- l 2 bypassing I have to be more sensitive to.
3 It has to be analyzed further, and I 4 cannot accept the fact that it has been done in l 5 the past as being okay for it to be continued to 6 be done.
7 MR. HOLODY: Should you have known that
- 8 procedure?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I rhould have.
( 10 MR. HOLODY: Should you have known that' l- 11 step?
12- MR. GWIRTZ: Probably should have. I 13 can't say that I know every precaution and every
-14 step and every procedure, but as a licensed f 1
l 15 operator I feel that I should be familiar with !
16 everything. I don't think I ever can, but I 17 should try to be able to.
18 MR. HOLODY: Was management aware of i
19 any-- You indicated that you had done this once 20 before, I think you said 1986 but you were not 21 sure, it was somewhere in that time frame?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: Right.
i 23 MR. HOLODY: And that others had done l
1 24 this also? Was management aware of that to your l
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85 1- knowledge?
(
2 MR. GWIRTZ: I don't know for a fact i
- 3 .that they were, I'm assuming that they knew it _
! 4 occurred, because to me at that time it wasn't 5 anything that -, it was something that was done 6 infrequently but it was not something that was 7 being hidden or anything like that from 8 management. I thought it was common knowledge 9 through the operations department that it 10 occurred.
11 MR. HOLODY: Had you ever discussed 12 doing this type of an action, had it ever been 13 discussed with management by you or had it ever 14 been discussed with any peers-prior to that April 15 7th event?
16 MR. GWIRTZ: I know it had been j l
17 discussed with peers because that is how I learned j 18 about doing it. I've seen other people, not seen 1
)
19 other people doing it, but I'm aware of other 20 people doing it, and that is through discussion 21 with peers, other control room operators, shift 22 supervisors. That is about all I'm aware of. I i
23 MR. HOLODY: But I think you eluded I i
I I 24 earlier, this was not something that was recent?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
86 1 This goes back in time?
(
2 MR. GWIRTZ: This is back in time, l
3 nothing recent. i l
4 MR. HOLODY: After you had the session 1
5 with your management was there any disciplinary 6 action that resulted from this?
! 7 MR. GWIRTZ: There was no formal l
l l 8 disciplinary action. However, the discussions l
9 that we had, we had like I said individual 10 discussions, we had team discussions with the l
11 shift in Operation Management team and all of 12 these items were discussed, all of the 1'
13 deficiencies plus the positive things that 14 occurred were all discussed, and it was a coaching 15 counseling that occurred througacut those 16 sessions, but there was no formal discipline, no 17 written formal disciplinary process.
l 18 MR. HOLODY: Did you have any 19 discussions, formal or informal, with peers after 20 this event regarding performance? Lessons 21 learned?
22 MR. GWIRTZ: Nothing, no formal
[
23 discussions, normal shift turnover discussions.
24 Well, what happened, what do you think, that type t
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
87 f 1 of, those types of discussions. Nothing formal.
l' ,
2 Each shirt went through a scenario at the training 3 center. They simulated the event on the Salem 4 simulator, each shift came out and witnessed, they
( 5 did a walk through of the event, everything was 6 discussed, high points, low points, exactly what 7 happened. There were several shift training 8
sessions that occurred, nothing shift to shift 9 type of discussions. -
10 MR. HOLODY: You are aware that we had 11 what we call augmented inspection teams out here 12 at Salem in the past I guess two and a half years 13 since November of '91 when PSE & G.had the turbine P
14 event?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes.
t 16 MR. HOLODY: Were you on shift for any 17 of those occurrences, the turbine, when the 18 turbine was destroyed, the annunciator problem i
- 19 they had; are you familiar with what I'm referring l
20 to?
l.
21 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, I am familiar. We had 22 the turbine event, the overhead annunciator ,
i l
, 23 problem, the rod control problem, this AIT, I'm
. 1 j
24 familiar with all three. I was not present during ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
88 1 the turbine event. I relieved the watch on the l3 2 day' shift following the day it occurred, didn't 3 get to see everything, the condition of the 4 turbine first hand. As far as the overhead 5 annunciator, I was not involved with that.either, 6 however, did get briefed on exactly what happened 7 in training. The rod control event was something 8 that occurred over several shifts. There was a 9 portion of that that I was involved in. We were l
l 10 actually on watch the time that we were doing the ;
11 rod testing when we went to insert the rods in and l 12 the two rods withdrew. We were on shift during )
l 13 that portion of that.
14 MR. HOLODY: On the turbine overspeed
!- 15 event, prior to that event there was a test of the 16 overspeed control system that was done in October 17 of '91, prior to the November event. One of the 18 concerns that we had, the NRC had at that time, 19 was that particular test; were you involved at all 20 in that particular test of the overspeed?
21 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I was not, not the one .
l 22 that was done in October. However, I had been 23 involved in other overspeed tests on the turbine ,
i I 24 and, in fact, there was one-that we failed, and we i
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
89 1 stopped and wrote the work orders and made the
(
2 repair take place.
3 MR. HOLODY: But you were not involved 4 in the when there was an actual test failure, 5 there were some operators involved , and they were 6 not sufficiently inquisitive regarding that 7 failure. You referred, in fact, in this ,
8 enforcement action, we noted "There were 5 9 licensed operations staff, including two RO's, 10 shift supervisor including a senior shift 11 supervisor, a senior ops engineers, who did not 12 demonstrate a sufficiently questioning and 13 inquisitive attitude regarding the test results.
14 In addition, the Senior shift Supervisor and the 15 Senior Operating Engineer apparently did not 16 understand that an actual test failure had 17 occurred".
18 You were not one of those individuals 19 referred to?
20 MR. GWIRTZ: No, I was not.
21 MR. HOLODY: I don't have any more I 22 questions.
l 23 MR. MEYER: I would like to discuss l
I 24 management's expectations regarding grass attacks !
)
I ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
90 g 1 in general. You had described special efforts 2 that was made to put a team of people in the 3 technical structure to deal with the circulators 4 and screens and things like that. Was there any 5 effort by management to describe what was expected !
I 6 during these effects on the primer system in terms i
7 of turbine reductions, power reductions, things l l
8 like that?
9 MR. GWIRTZ: I think we had discussions 10 on what to do. It was clear to everyone that I
11 there were no management concerns or pressures 12 about not doing, about a load reduction. Nobody 13 felt any pressures not to start a load reduction.
14 As I said, we were operating at a reduced load for 15 quite sometime. There were a lot of discussions, 16 and I don't recall anything specific about so and 17 so does this, does that in a control room. Most 18 of the actions that were in place were at the cire 19 water structure, additional actions.
20 MR. MEYER: So, in terms of actions to 21 deal with this condition in the control room in 22 the turbine building there were no, there was no 23 specific guidance or procedure that was described, l
( 24 any special effort to coordinate a power 3
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 1
91
( i reduction, rapid power reduction, changes in 2 responsibility in the control room, anything of 3 that nature?
4 MR. GWIRTZ: We had procedures in place 5 at the time, the abnormal circ water operating 6 procedure which gave direction for reducing load.
7 As I mentioned previously, the turbine procedure, 8 the portion for one hour to remove the turbine 9 from service integrated operating procedure for 10 directing the load decrease. There were 11 procedures in place to accomplish the load 12 decrease for circ water.
13 MR. MEYER: Does that procedure describe 14 power reductions up to eight percent per minute?
15 MR. GWIRTZ: It does not specify a rate.
16 It is not specifically a rapid load reduction 17 procedure. It was recognized that a procedure of 18 that nature could be of benefit, and since that 'i 19 we've implemented an AV load procedure. It in 20 called AV Load. It is an abnormal operating ;
21 procedure for rapid load decrease. It basically j 22 streamlines and coo dinates the load decrease.
23 MR. MEYER: But the efforts regarding 24 grass were focused on the intake structure and how i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
(.
l I
l 92
( 1 to handle it there?
2 MR. GWIRTZ: For the extra people, yes.
3 MR. MEYER: It was considered 4 additional procedures, guidance addressed what you 5 need to do with in the control room?
6' MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, and I agreed with 7 that. I felt that operations transients would be 8 one that would be able to be handled.
9 MR. WETTERHAHN: Let me follow that up.
10 You had discussed earlier the April 4th event in 11 your shift crews handling of that event; did that 12 also give you real confidence that you could 13 handle a similar event? l l
l 14 MR. GWIRTZ: I wouldn't say it gave us 15 confidence that we could handle anything, I think 16 it made us realize that these events were very 17 challenging and anything we could due to improve 18 our performance would be very beneficial. During 13 the April 4th event what we found were most of the 20 extreme challenges were out at the cire water 21 structure and at the turbine building, and that is 22 where we could gain the most benefit from 23 increasing our manpower and our focus.
l I 24 MR. MEYER: Was manpower increased in i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
93
( 1 the turbine building?
-2 MR. GWIRTZ: Not on watch people, but we
3 had extra people available. We had set places 4 where people were to go during a cire water grass 5 problem.
3 6 MR. MEYER: What type of people, 7 mechanics, electricians, operators?
8 MR. GWIRTZ: Operators.
9 MR. MEYER: So these would be licensed 10 people or operators?
11 MR. GWIRTZ: Operators.
12 MR. MEYER: That is all that I have.
13 Any other management issues that we want to 14 discuss?
15 MR. WETTERHAHN: I have a couple of 16 questions.
17 - - -
18 BY MR. WETTERHAHN:
19 Q. When Mr. Catalfomo spoke to you, counseled 20 you, do you recall that?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Had the procedure with regard to bypassing 23 interlocks been changed at that point in time?
( 24 A. There really was no specific procedure dealing ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
94 l
( 1 with the bypassing of these interlocks. What did
! 2 occur is that there was management direction that t
3 circ water interlock was not to be bypassed 4 anymore. I don't recall right now how that came 5 about. I don't think-- I kind of looked for it a l i I 6 little bit yesterday. I don't think it was an-- I 7 had an information directive which is a formal op 8 department directive. I believe it was a night i
9 order book entry, but I did not locate it, but I l
10 do know the word went out to all operations 11 department personnel that it was to no longer 12 occur.
l l 13 Q. Do you recall whether that would have been i
14 before or after Mr. Catalfomo spoke to you? l i
15 A. No, I don't recall.
1 16 Q. Did you do an assessment with your shift l 17 afterwards with regard to this event, as to their l
18 performance during this event?
I 19 A. Yes. 1 20 Q. We talked about other shift and peer 21 discussions; did you have a discussion with your l 22 crew?
23 A. Yes.
I 24 Q. And just generally tell us about that l
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95 1
-( 1 discussion.
2 A. We had individual discussions with our crew 3 and they paralleled most of the other findings 4 and, in addition to that I think the biggest one 5 that we did was a leadership seminar that we did 6 with our crew and management. Most of that was 7 done separately where we each evaluated our crew.
8 We evaluated the positives and the negatives, and 9 then management did the same thing separately. We 10 got together afterwards and compared notes, and 11 the alignment was just about 100 percent. We i
, 12 discussed individuals performances, and I felt 13 everybody on the crew realized where the 14 shortcomings were.
15 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you, I have 16 nothing further.
17 MR. MEYER: At this point I would like 18 to break and to bring the managers back in.
19 - - -
20 ( A brief recess was held at 3:15 P.M.
21 and Mr. O'Donnell and Mr. Hagan entered the 22 conference room. ) .
23 - - -
I 24 MR. MEYER: Welcome back. At this ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
96
( 1 point Mike would you provide the summary that you 2 have indicated that you have?
3 MR. GWIRTZ: I would just like to state l
4 that as we talked before, I spent my entire career 5 trying to do the right thing and what I felt was 6 the right thing to do, and what I felt was 7 expected of me by whoever my superiors were at the 8 time, and that includes the NRC, the people that 9 have issued me my license. I have always been 10 basically a top performer, and I have had a hard 11 time dealing with this incident because I don't 12 feel it is indicative of my performance or my i
13 crews performance. We've learned a lot from the 14 event, the biggest one, the biggest thing I think 15 I have learned is that the oversight, how 16 important the continued oversight is into the 17 control room operations, that just because I feel 18 that as an NCO I would have been able to do 19 something or should have been able to do something 20 or any NCO should be able to perform a certain 21 evolution I should not assume that all can do 22 that, and that is why supervision is there, to 23 maintain that oversight. As far as the lifting of l
l l I 24 the interlock, it is something that I feel at the ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
2 97
< 1 time I did for the right reason. There is a basis 2 for doing it in my mind. It wasn't just go out 3 there and do it type of thing. It was thought 4 out. However, in hindsight I feel it was not the
't 5 correct thing to do at the time, and as I.
6 indicated, anything that is done not correctly 4
7 whether just because it is not in the procedure 8 doesn't necessarily mean it is okay to do, and I 9 have to evaluate all of those types of actions. I 10 feel that the actions that we've put in place and i
11 what I have learned from the event will make me a 12 better operator, and I really don't-feel that 13 anymore action is necessary. I think I have been 14 my worst critic through this whole event as well 15 as with the rest of the crew.
16 MR. MEYER: Anything further?
17 - - -
18 ( No responses.)
19 - - -
20 MR. MEYER: Anyone else have any 21 summary or remarks?
22 - - -
23- (.No responses.)
i 24 - - -
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_. _ . . __ ._ _ _ ._- ~ _ ._ . _ _ _ . . _
98 1 MR. MEYER: I'm reluctant to ask a 6
2 specific question at this point, but the one thing 3 that came to mind, you have stated you were not 4 aware of any procedure steps that prohibited what 5 you were doing and that at the same time you were 6 aware that the 15 inch permissive was something 7 that could potentially a malfunctioning switch 8 prevent the circulator start; did the control 9 room, any of the people have the procedure out? .
I l
10 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
11 MR. MEYER: Okay. So you were aware of 12 the 15 inch interlock because of previous, just l
13 knowledge, previous experience?
l 14 MR. GWIRTZ: Yes, system design 15 training, I knew the system. I knew the functions I 16 of the system.
l MR. MEYER: All right. Thank you.
17 18 At this point Dan is going to describe 19 some of the outcomes that can happen as a result I 20 of enforcement conferences.
21 MR. HOLODY: As I alluded to in the 22 beginning, we have these enforcement conferences 23 to understand from the licensee, in this case j
24 yourself as the Senior Reactor Operator, you know, l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l .
99 1
( 1 get your side of the story, hear any mitigating )
l 2 features, understand your perspective on causes .
3 and significance of violations, et cetera. Then ,
l 4 we take into consideration what you've told us, as j l
5 well as what we found during the AIT, and also we )
1 6 have the Enforcement Conference with PSE & G. l 7 We'll make a decision on what, if any, enforcement 8 is warranted with respect to your license. The )
.)
9 options are, if there were to be any action, we l 10 could issue a letter of reprimand, we could issue l 11 a notice of violation, because you're required to 12 insure that the facility adheres to, you are 13 required to do everything under your license that 14 would insure that the facility was in compliance 15 with their license. We can issue notice of 16 violation with civil penalty. We can modify, 1 17 suspend, or revoke a license. We'll make a d
18 decision on any of those actions, if we decide l
19 action is warranted, and then we'll inform you in 20 writing, also give you a call what that action is. t 21 Normally we would like to take these actions 22 within 30 days. Actions involving individual ,
t 23 licenses generally take longer. Whatever action 24 we'do take, if we do take an action, we give you ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380
l 100 e
1 an opportunity to respond in writing, and we'll 2 address what all of your rights are within that 3 letter. If we don't take an action, you will not 4 have to respond to that. Do you have any i 5 questions?
l l 6 MR. GWIRTZ: No.
l j 7 MR. MEYER: Okay, thank you for your i
l 8 participation today, and we appreciate your i
9 efforts.
l L
l 10 MR. HOLODY: Thanks for coming in.
l l 11 MR. MEYER: The end.
12 MR. HOLODY: The conf erente is i
i 13 concluded. i l
14 ( Proceedings concluded at 3:25 P.M.)
i
! 15 l 16 17 1 l 18 19 l 20 l
j 21 22 23
. 24 l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 l l
l t
101
.' 1 i
-(
2 C-E-R-T-I-F-I-C A-T-I-O-N 3 - - -
4 5 I, Carol L. Skipper, hereby certify that 6 the testimony and proceedings in the foregoing 7 matter taken on August 2, 1994, are contained 8 fully and accurately in the stenographic notes 9 taken by me, and that the foregoing is a true 10 and correct transcript of the same.
i 11 - - -
/ . / . j bO 13 #M t 14
%Q WSKDEN' l Court Reporter and Notary Public Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 15 g ,.;,, , .
Ca% L SMn'.Mu'r PP 16 gQ $lfr[ih m w n - a.=
17 THE FOREGOING CERTIFICATION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT DOES 18 NOT APLY TO ANY REPRODUCTION OF THE SAME BY ANY MEANS 19 UNLESS UNDER THE DIRECT CONTROL AND/OR SUPERVISION OF 20 THE CERTIFYING REPORTER. j 21 22 23 l
/ 24 ALL POINTS REPORTING (215) 564-5380 :I l
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di"$ l US178INQ U.S. CASH-LINK SYSTEM DATE: 11/08/94 DISPLAY MESSAGE DETAIL TIME: 17:13:20 l MESSAGE # 1104000238 PAGE: 1 l
ALC CONF-DATE AS-OF-DATE/RSN REF-INPUT-KEY l 31000001 11/04/1994 / / 1104B1Q8703C002868 TO 021030004 TYPE 1000 SPEC MAND I FROM 021000021 REF 4308020049600000 AMOUNT $ 500,000.00 l SENDER l CHASE NYC /ORG=PUBLIC SERVICE ELEC & GAS CO RECEIVER ,
TREAS NYC /BTR/BNF=/AC-31000001 OBI =U S NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l RELATED RE PART 55 SERVICES OPERATOR EXAMS F EES FOR SALEM & HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATIONS CHASE NY REF 4308020049600000 l 0IViI Sey1a { }$ QLl-// R IMAD URC OMAD 1104 B1Q8703C 002868 11041206 FT1B G06006 1104 B1QFD01A 000164 11041206 FT1B PF2 RETURN TO SELECTION SCREEN PF3 RETURN TO MENU PF7 PgUp PF8 PgDn U002 INQUIRY COMPLETED S0 IN SESSION READY COMM OK =* l A0 DCD RAP Wg n o -s a s 5. m /l
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EA NUMBER REQUEST FORM TO: OEMAll OR FAX TO OE FROM: h, DMM k REGIONAL CONTACT [N[
DATE OF REQUEST /i// /ft/ REGION LICENSEE M L.C r^r" t$6fh
, FACILITY / LOCATION $AL6rVt UNITS I TL LICENSE / DOCKET NO(S). IO - M b fC-3lf LAST DAY OF INSPECTION , QT OF OL REFERRAL h ["l,9 )$ 3 Of R2 PORT NO. #//~36 /9 cf DATE OF 01 REPORT ,/-93-dZlA
SUMMARY
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BRIEF
SUMMARY
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! REASON FOR POTENTIAL ESCALATED ACTION f Nh1 b 4 LI rh4 CrWE! '
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t DELEGATED CASE YES # NO PHYSICIAN NUC PHARM RADIOG IRRAD f MED INST WELL LOGGERS ACADEMIC GAUGE MOISTURE DENSITY OTHER TYPE:
CITE SIMILAR CASE: EA NO.
SHOULO OE ATTEND ENF CONF L- ' Y'ES NO
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l NONDELEG ATED CASE t/ YES NO NONDELEG AOLE TYPE 01 REPORT /WILLFULL COMPLE X/ NOVEL DISCRETION COMM APPROVAL L/Ol INTE R ES T SL 1 OR 2 i OTHER REASON: l iS THERE A BASIS TO CLOSE ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE? Y/N IF YES. EXPLAIN: hd EA # ASSIGNED DATE: ES I ED l
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