ML20133B358
| ML20133B358 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 07/30/1985 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#385-147 OL, NUDOCS 8508060147 | |
| Download: ML20133B358 (284) | |
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ORIG 9AL UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: STN 50-498-OL STN 50-499-OL IIOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER COMPANY, et al.
(SOUTil TEXAS PROJECT, Units 1 and 2)
EVIDENTIARY !! EARING O .
LOCATION: HOUSTON, TEXAS PAGES: 13226 - 13409 DATE: TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1985 pel I
) ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Cficial s'hporters 444. North Capitol Street 8500060147 05073o Washington, D.C. 20001 PDR ADOCK 05000490 (202) 34~-3~00 PDR NATIONWICE COVERACE
13226
() 1 2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 5 ----------------------------------X 6 In the Matter oft : DOCKET NO.
7 HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER : STN-50-498-OL 8 COMPANY, ET AL., a STN-50-499-OL 9 (South Texas Project Units 1 & 2 :
10 ----------------------------------X 11 University of Houston 12 Teaching Unit II, #215 13 Houston, Texas 15 16 Tuesday, 30 July 1985 17 18 The hearing in the above-entitled matter was 19 convened, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:05 a.m.,
l 20 BEFORE:
21 JUDGE CHARLES BECHHOEFER, Chairman, 22 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
23 JUDGE JAMES C. LAMB, Member,
- 24 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
l 25 l
l
! TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13227
.fss
(_) 1 JUDGE FREDERICK J. SHON, Member, 2 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
3 4 APPEARANCES:
5 On behalf of the Applicants:
6 MAURICE AXELRAD, Esq.,
7 JACK R. NEWMAN, Esq.,
8 ALVIN GUTTERMAN, Esq.,
9 DONALD J. SILVERMAN, Esq.,
10 STEVEN P. FRANTZ, Esq.,
l 11 Newman & Holtzinger, i
12 Washington, D.C.
13 ,
14 On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staffs 15 EDWIN J. REIS, Esq.,
16 ORESTE RUSS PIRF0, Esq.,
l 17 office of the Executive Legal Director 18 19 On behalf of the Intervenor:
20 LANNY ALAN SINRIN, l
21 3022 Porter St. N.W., #304 22 Washington, D.C. 20008 23 Representative for Citizens Concerned About l
24 Nuclear Power.
- 25 l
l0 TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 L
13228 i P f
\ l CONTENTS 2
3 WITNESSES: DIRECT CROSS BOARD REDIRECT RECROSS 4 LOREN STANLEY -
13229 13346 13355 13358 5 13339 - - -
6 SIDNEY BERNSEN and 7 FRANK LOPES, JR. 13370 - - - -
l 8 9
10 11 12 EXHIBITS: .
FOR ID IN EVD.
13 CCANP Exhibit 104 -
13309 14 15 j 16
! 17 18 19 l 20 l
21 22 23 l
l 24 I 25 O
i TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 L
13229 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Good morning, ladies and l
3 gentlemen.
l 4 Are there any preliminary matters? We thought 5 we would wait till Mr. Stanley concludes before we talk l
6 about the Waterford case. Other than that, are there 7 any preliminary matters?
8 Mr. Sinkin, you may resume.
10 LOREN STANLEY, 11 having been previously duly sworn, testified further 12 upon his oath as follows:
l O 13 14 CROSS-EXAMINATION (Cont'd) i 15 BY MR. SINKIN:
16 Q Mr. Stanley, turning to CCANP 104, your 17 comments on the Bechtel task force report.
18 A Okay. I have it.
l 19 Q In comment 6 you contrast Bechtel's treatment 20 of line item 53 with their treatment of line item 59.
21 And in your comment you state that there seems to be a 22 contradiction between the assessment in 59 and the 23 assessment in 53. I want to be sure I understand what 24 you're calling a contradiction.
25 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13230
()
1 could get this question somehow connected to one of the 2 Quadrex findings in issue. I'm having trouble making 3 that connection myself.
4 MR. SINKIN: All right. I'll start there.
5 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Is this finding -- these 6 ' findings 53 and 57 -- oh, let's stick with 53. Is that 7 the basis in part for Quadrex generic finding 3.1(b) 8 which states at page 3-4 that Brown & Root does not 9 provide adequate guidance to vendors?
10 A Mr. Sinkin, would you possibly have any 11 reference for the last sentence in item 3 on page 3-3 12 back to the E questions? Do yo.u have any idea as --
0- 13 Q Let me -- you're directing me to page 3-3 of 14 the Quadrex report?
15 A I thought that's where you had suggested the 16 statement was made.
17 Q No, no, I said 3-4, at the top.
18 A Oh, at the top of the page?
19 Q Right. Is item 53 the type of problem you're 20 discussing?
21 A Well, in the report the direct references for 22 that are HVAC question 10 and mechanical question 46 23 were really the direct references.
!A 24 Q I understand. But yesterday you did testify 25 that you didn't necessarily list every discipline TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
-s . --
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(} 1 finding or question that supported a generic when you 2 were writing the generics.
3 A That's true. I did make that statement.
4 The report doesn't show, for example, the 5 question E-6 as a reference. However, in the Quadrex 6 assessment for question E-6, the issue is the same 7 issue, that specifications referred to prepared by Brown 8 & Root contain no requirements for barriers, but only 9 references in IEEE Standard 384 which is not adequate 10 because this provides no basis, no definition of 11 materials, hazards, et cetera.
12 Q Speak up just a little, please.
O 13 A Yes, it provides no definitions of materials, 14 hazards, et cetera.
15 Q And that's from E-6 that you're reading?
16 A That's from question E-6.
17 0 Which is referenced in item 537 18 A Item 53 in the Bechtel task force report.
19 The other reference is E-2? It does not 20 appear to me that E-2 is a good cross-reference for that 21 item. It doesn't appear that it really directly 22 addresses that point that you're raising.
23 0 Okay. Well, let me understand, Mr. Stanley.
O 24 The item referenced at page 3-4 as a generic would cover 25 the problem in E-6 because it relates to vendors and TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13232 1 what's provided to vendors, but not the problem in E-2?
2 A The Quadrex assessment in E-2 says that the 3 specifications do not provide input to other 4 disciplines.
5 Q. Okay.
~
6 A It really isn't addressing vendors.
7 Q I see. So, when you look at item 53 where it 8 talks about documentation for internal deriigners and for 9 vendors, internal designers would be E-2 and the vendors 10 would be E-6, the actual Quadrex item in item 53? By 11 internal designers, I'm assuming the phrase means other 12 disciplines.
13 A I believe that's a fair characterization, 14 yes.
15 Q Okay. Let me return to comment 6 in CCANP 16 104. In this comment you seem to be addressing the 17 vendor question.
18 A Yes.
19 Q So, that would relate to the generic problem 20 that we looked at or --
I 21 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to this line l 22' of questions. There's no connection to that this is a 23 safety matter rather than an economic matter. And we're i 24 going through these things and unless we parse them out, 7
i 25 we can go through these things forever as to whether l
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
-u .
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(} 1 they are safety or economic.
2 If the matters would be caught in.any way in 3 the normal course of business, then the NRC has no 4 concern. And there is no showing at this point that 5 these matters that are being inquired into are safety 6 rather than economic.
7 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman --
8 MR. REIS: I think we're just talking about 9 the efficiency of design.
10 MR. SINKIN: What we're talking about, Mr.
11 Chairman, finding 4.3.2.1(e) is defining for vendors the 12 separation requirements that include barriers and it is 13 a most serious
- finding -- it is one of the most serious 14 findings in the electrical discipline.
15 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I don't think 16 that the --
17 MR. SINKIN: And if -- ,
18 MR. GUTTERMAN: I'm sorry.
19 MR. SINKIN: Excuse me. If it only had 20 economic significance and not safety significance of any 21 kind, I think by definition of the categories it would 22 not have been -- no, it could have been a most ser ious.
23 I take that back. It could have been a most sericas.
O 24 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, further, when va go 25 to page 12 of the prehearing conference order of May TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
~-- ,
13234 i
('} 1 17th and we look at what is listed as the findings to be 2 inquired into, now, I agree you do talk about generic 3 findings, but 4.3.2.1(e) is not listed on page 12 as to 4 what this hearing will involve.
5 MR. SINKIN: Well, as Mr. Reis said, it does 6 list the generic findings and one of the generic 7 findings it lists is 3.1(b) and that's what I just spent 8 ten minutes tying it to.
9 MR. REIS: I haven't seen the tying and I 10 haven't seen the tying to a safety matter rather than an 11 economic and efficiency of designing a plant. And we're 12 not here involving the efficiency in designing the 0 13 plant. We're here involved in whether they will meet 14 and whether they were meeting NRC regulations, quality 15 assurance or proper construction of the plant. But we 16 weren't dealing with whether they were doing it in an 17 uneconomic or an inefficient manner.
18 MR. SINKIN: Well, maybe I can ask a 19 foundation question to satisfy Mr. Reis.
20 I hope we have satisfied the Applicants that 21 it's tied to a generic finding.
22 MR. GUTTERMAN: Well, I don't think that's the 23 issue we're arguing right now. What we're arguing is O 24 whether it's got something to do with the matter related 25 to safety.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
_ __ . ~ _ _ . - _
I l
13235 l l
i O 1 MR. SINKIN: With what Mr. Reis raised, and V i 2 let me.. respond to that. Maybe I can do that with a e 3 foundation question to Mr. Stanley.
'4, Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, if a vendor used 5 an inappropriate separation barrier requirement for a 6 . panel, could ,that have a safety significance?
7 MR. REIS: I object in that the general 8 question'has no relevancef to the issues before this 9 Board. Of course the answer to that question is yes, 10 <but it doesn't go to the -- I mean, anyone knows that.
11 Itlis not probative of the issues in this case. It 12 doesn't go to whether eventually or whether the design O* 13 process would lead in the long run to violation of NRC 14 regulations or whether the design process was in 15 violation of NRC regulations. Just because they might 16 have chosen to do it in an inefficient or uneconomic way -
17 doesn't show that there is a violation of NRC 18 regulations and that's what we're going through here.
19 We're spending a lot of time on this.
20 MR. SINKIN: I don't see anything in this 21 finding that indicates that the concern is the 22 efficiency or economy of the plant design. I think it's 23 pointing to a safety problem which Mr. Reis seems to O 24 recognize is a safety problem, the barriers and panels, 25 and it's saying no documentation exists for defining TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13236 f% 1 those separation of barrier requirements to a vendor.
U 2 MR. REIS: That isn't what the bottom of task 3 force assessment -- well, that's Bechtel's task force 4 assessment. While it may be more efficient doesn't mean 5 it doesn't comply with design criteria.
6 MR. SINKIN: Well, yes, it is the Bechtel task 7 force assessment you're reading. I'm looking at what 8 Quadrex has to say and I'm looking at comment 6 by Mr.
9 Stanley that the reasonableness is not necessarily 10 acceptable to him.
11 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, let me respond to 12 that. I don't want to get into a protracted argument
' O 13 here. But the testimony so far is that the study done 14 by Quadrex was not particularly looking at QA matters, 15 but more particularly it was to benchmark and see where 16 they were in engineering.
17 When he talks here about contradictory in the 18 context of it, I would presume in reading this that the l 19 whole thing is talking about efficiency of design and l
20 whether Brown & Root is doing their job from an economic 21 point of view rather than a safety point of view. And
- 22 it doesn't appear to me from the reading of comment 6 --
t i 23 I can't tell what it is and whether it's probative of it 24 at all.
I 25 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I would direct the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 L
13237 f"3 V.
1 Board's attention to line item 59 in Bechtel's 2 assessment there and I think it's the heart of the 3 disagreement Mr. Stanley has w'ith,them, or at least the 4 contradiction he's pointing out where he says it is the 5 responsibility in our opinion of the design engineers, s i
6 in other words, Brown & Root, to amplify and interpret 7 reference standards and NRC regulations..
8 Now, that is not -- that's a safety matter, .
9 that is not an economic matter. They're saying that 10 Brown & Root has a certain responsibility here and in 11 line item 53 they seem to say Brown & Root doesn'tshave 12 that responsibility. I think that's the contradiction b'-
13 we would have gotten to to discuss, but I don't 14 understand Mr. Reis' objection at all.
15 This is obviously relevant to a generic 16 finding. It's relevant to a safety matter. It deals 17 with whether Brown & Root was adequately performing the 18 design. And I really hate to see the purpose of this 19 study, the Quadrex study misrepresented. The purpose of 20 this study was to assess the technical adequacy or 21 inadequacy of the Brown & Root design and that's what it 22 says in the front of the study.
23 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Stanley, as the Board 24 understands this thing, there were a whole bunch of 25 items here, many of which touch on the fact that it was TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
I 13238 ac 1 apparently Brown & Root practice to tell a vendor build
}
U" 2 it to ANSI standard such and such and then drop the 3 matter, not give them any further details. You thought 4 that was a bad idea, is that right, or you thought it 5 wasn't very good practice?
I "
6 THE WITNESS: I'd like to correct the whole 7 impression. The Quadrex answer to question E-6 --
8 JUDGE SHON: Yes.
9 THE WITNESS: -- clearly states that Brown &
10 Root was applying IEEE 384 1974 and Reg Guide 1.75.
e 11 Those two documents provide the total industry guidance
.A>r 12 on . separation and are satisf actory to satisfy the NRC
) 13 regulations. So, there was never any question.of a
, 14 safety issue or a lack of addressing regulations in this
}
_ 15' whole thing.
16 From experience, people that have used those 17 standards in the industry, we have learned that these 18 are fairly difficult for a vendor to interpret and it's 19 helpful to the vendor if you give him additional
, , eg. 20 _ guidance so that he can more efficiently complete his
- :d H j f' 21 design, complete his fabrication.
re d 22 We were basically making a recommendation for 23 an improved practice that would help efficiency and cost O'.
4 24' effectiveness, never a safety implication in this one.
- 25. JUDGE SHON: Okay. I'm glad you cleared that TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
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{} 1 up. Nevertheless, you found not only here but in a 2 number of places that they were giving the vendor 3 insufficient information when they simply cited the 4 standard, is that right, or you felt that they should 5 give --
6 THE WITNESS: Based upon the industry 7 experience of our review team, yes.
8 JUDGE SHON: And as I understand the dispute 9 and the word contradictory as it occurs here, you're 10 simply saying, well, Bechtel, you yourself said that
. 11 same thing in one of your other instances; is that 12 correct?
O 13 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
14 JUDGE SHON: And that's what the contradiction 15 is, that you felt Bechtel at least in part agreed with 16 your engineering opinion?
17 THE WITNESS: Within the draft version of the 18 task force report that I was reviewing, I saw a 19 contradiction within the Bechtel material.
20 JUDGE SHON: Now, would you as an engineer 21 consider that the failure to elaborate on industrial 22 standards and NRC reg guides, this failure to elaborate i
23 is in any sense a quality assurance breakdown? l 24 THE WITNESS: No, it is not. It has no I
25 quality assurance breakdown connotations at all. )
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 1
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^
1 JUDGE BECBHOEFER: Is this true even if it 2 happened on numerous occasions?
3 THE WITNESS: That's true. It wouldn't matter
.4 how many times it happened.
5 They have completely covered the NRC l 6 regulations by specifying the one IEEE standard and the 7 one NRC regulatory guide. There is no other guidance in 8 the industry. But people have learned through 9 experience that it's more efficient, it's more effective 10 to elaborate upon when the standard says this, we want ,
1 11 it built in this manner, and then the vendor is not left 12 to figure out what's required. You're helping him. ,
) 13 So --
14 JUDGE LAMB: So, this has to do with 15 efficiency design and specification of equipment?
16 THE WITNESS: Correct.
17 JUDGE LAMB: As contrasted with the right and 18 wrong of how it should be constructed?
19 THE WITNESS: No, it wasn't a case of right or 20 wrong, it's a case of doing it to the requirements or 21 doing it even better.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: This question, we will i
, 23 sustain the objection on this one.
- 24 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, in terms of what t
25 you just said about meeting NRC requirements, let me TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
. - - _ _ _ _, - - - - - _ - _ _ _ - - _ ~_
13241 1 reference you to page 3-6 of the Quadrex report, the
. s['_-}
2 last paragraph, the underlined sentence.
3 A Right.
4 Q Is that not one of the central concerns of the 5 Quadrex study, that it was frequently stated during the 6 design review that only NRC requirements must be met, 7 whether or not those requirements are accurate, 8 reasonable or even meet the intent of the regulation?
9 MR. GUTTERMAN: The question was was that one 10 of the central concerns of the Quadrex report?
11 MR. SINKIN: Well, it's one of,the few that's
,q 12 underlin.ed.
b 13 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Does that have any 14 significance that it's underlined as opposed to all the 15 ones that aren't?
16 A This particular sentence doesn't have any 17 direct bearing with regard to E-6 or the previous 18 subject. The reason that that sentence was put in the 19 report and was underlined was that many members of the 20 Brown & Root engineering staff made this comment to us, 21 that all we have to do is meet minimum NRC 22 requirements. We thought that was such a pervasive 23 attitude that we needed to point that out to HL&P that O
24 that may not be in their long-term best interest. It 25 would be a licensable plant. It would meet all the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
-.p 13242
{}
1 safety requirements, but it may not be an optimum 2 design.
3 0 Well, that sounds very much like E-6.
4 A No, E-6 is a different matter. If you look at 5 IEEE 384, it specifies within panels six-inch distances 6 between redundant cables, one-inch distances between 7 redundant cables and any metal to the outside wall. So, 8 the numeric values are in the IEEE standard.
9 What we were suggesting is that Brown & Root 10 should, in an engineering sense, go beyond those numbers 11 so that the vendor doesn't have to ask himself certain 12 questions and then answer them himself.
O- 13 This comment on the bottom of page 3-6 was 14 really addressing a different issue and that was we were 15 getting a consistent statement that only NRC 16 requirements had to be met. I don't believe that HL&P's 17 operating plant needs would be satisfied by that, even 18 though that would meet all the regulations, would meet 19 all the safety requirements.
20 Q Okay. Thank you.
21 By the way, just to clarify something you 22 said, too. You said there was a -- the contradiction 23 that was discussed in terms of this item was in the O 24 draft? l l
25 A Apparently. Prom the text of the words that ;
l 4
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13243 1 _are in my comment 6 --
'( } -
2 Q Right.
3 A -- this seems to be contradictory with the 4 opinion stated in line item 59. I gather from that 5 context that there must have been a contradiction.
~
6 Q Okay.
7 JUDGE LAMB: Mr. Stanley, are you saying in 8 effect then that by following this attitude on page 3 --
9 as stated on page 3-6, that they could wind up with --
10 if they followed that approach, they might wind up with 11 designs that were uneconomic, deficient?
12 THE WITNESS: That's certainly a possibility.
) 13 I think we can state that they would end up with designs 14 that were licensable and that there really was no safety 15 significance of any issue left. But they may not meet 16 HL&P's operating, maintenance, test requirements.
17 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) But in looking at your 18 description of those NRC requirements, Mr. Stanley, you 19 say whether or not those requirements are accurate, 20 reasonable or even meet the intent of the regulations.
21 That suggests you could do only what the NRC requirement 22 says and not meet the intent of the regulation.
23 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I think we're going O
- ~/ 24 beyond the regulation in that question and so I object 25 to it, beyond NRC's requirement.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13244 1 If there is a question that a regulation is
(~}
~
2 improper, there's a petition for rule making and that's 3 the way that' that is corrected. But at the time the 4 plant is being designed and built, I don't care how 5 unreasonable the standard may be, the standard is the 6 standard and that's the context we're working in. There 7 are ways to correct that. But that doesn't mean that 8 the utility has any freedom until he gets the standard 9 changed to do something different because he thinks it's 10 different.
11 It could be that they have to petition for 12 rule making, they have to do other things to get things C) '
13 changed and we encourage them to and it should be done.
14 But they have to follow it at that time. And to ask the 15 question that way and to say what it is is saying please 16 violate the NRC regulations.
17 MR. SINKIN: No, Mr. Chairman --
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let me ask Mr. Stanley a 19 question.
20 By using the word requirements, did you 21 necessarily mean regulations or were you including 22 matters such as reg guides and various standards which 23 an Applicant can elect to come up with an alternative 0 24 for? When you used requirements, is that broader than 25 regulation?
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
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[")J
'8 1 THE WITNESS: I think it's fairly clear that l
2 we were including in the term requirements regulatory 3 guides, industry codes and standards. And I recognize 4 that that term is not the correct term to use with 5 regard to regulatory guides which are guidance type 6 documents, but that was what we meant. Industry 7 standards, regulatory guides and regulations.
8 JUDGE SHON: Sure. In fact, you've even said 9 whether or not those requirements even meet the intent 10 of the regulation, so you clearly meant to distinguish 11 them from regulations. It seems you did, at any rate.
12 THE WITNESS: I.think we in the industry have 13 not been consistent, and I am part of this, in 14 identifying that regulatory guides are guidance, not 15 necessarily requirements. We fail to make that 16 distinction clearly all the time.
17 JUDGE LAMB: Are you saying in effect then, 18 Mr. Stanley, that regulatory requirements should not 19 necessarily be considered as the best basis for design?
20 THE WITNESS: At times I believe that's 21 perhaps true, that there are optional alternative ways 22 of achieving the same safety objective and that the 23 utility Applicant should have the opportunity to present O'e 24 better alternatives.
25 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, in comment 8 in TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13246 f*)
V 1 your response to the Bechtel task force report you state 2 that the FSAR is not a design document. I'd like to 3 show you the prefiled testimony of Mr. Taylor of the 4 NRC. Or if the Applicants could provide you with the 5 prefiled testimony of Mr. Taylor?
6 No? Okay.
7 I'd ask you to read questions 62 and 63 8 beginning on page 22, questions and answers.
9 A Okay.
10 0 Was it your position at the time you made 11 these comments on the Bechtel task force report that the 12 FSAR could not be used as a design document in early O- 13 1981 because it was too early in the project at STNP?
14 A No, that's not the correct. interpretation. We 15 made the statement that the FSAR should not, not that it 16 could not, but rather should not be the design input 17 document for environmental and plant operating 18 conditions.
19 0 And why was it your position that the FSAR 20 should not?
21 A Primarily for the reasons that Mr. Taylor has 22 presented in his response to question 63. The submittal 23 of the SAR of ten preceeds the issuance of the operating 1
0 4 24 license. To keep it up to date would require perhaps 25 thousands of amendments to the SAR. The licensing will TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
.- n 13247
(} 1 accumulate changes for a period from three to four 2 months. For those factors and similar type factors, we 3 felt that it was too slow a moving document to serve as 4 a design input.
5 Q Okay. So, the only real difference you would 6 have with Mr. Taylor is when he says I have found that 7 Quadrex has stated a number of times through these 8 generic findings that the FSAR cannot be used as a 9 design document, you didn't mean to say cannot, you 10 meant to say should not?
11 A Should not. -
12 Q From your comments in comment number 8, you O
13 seem to relate line item 58 to line item 187 and line 14 item 242. Is it correct that you find those linked to 15 each other?
16 A Mr. Sinkin, you're going to have to help me.
17 I don't see any reference to those other line numbers on 18 comment 8. Comment 8 refers only to line item 58. And 19 it talks about line item 81.
20 Q Just one second, Mr. Stanley, I'll try and 21 clarify this.
22 Well, let me move on, Mr. Stanley. I must 23 have written this in error.
O 24 Let's move to comment 10, Mr. Stanley. In 25 line item 187, which is the first reference, Quadrex TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13248 1 refers to numerous errors found in Brown & Root i}
2 calculations. My question is whether these errors form 3 part of the basis for Quadrex generic finding 3.1(b) at 4 page 3-3?
5 A Yes, N-1, nuclear analysis number 1 and 6 nuclear analysis number 17 which are referenced in item 7 2 on page 3-3 are part of the basis for that statement.
8 (No hiatus.)
9 10 11 12 0 13 -
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
~ _ _ _ . _ _ ._
13249 73
() 1 Q Does this also go to 3.1(j) at 3-117 2 Specifically, I'm sorry, it's the (i) , originally a (j).
3 The sentence about the middle of the paragraph, "In 4 addition, an abnormally high error rate was observed in 5 these calculations.
6 A Correct; yes, that's the same reference.
7 Q The comment, comment No. 10, says that the 8 nuclear analysis group did not identify high energy lines 9 in the MAV or the need for their analysis despite 10 considerable Quadrex questioning. Is that failure to 11 identify the lines or the need for their analysis what 12 Quadrex means in 3.1(d) , Page 3-6 item No.1, 13 specifically the lack of awareness phrase?
p k- 14 A Of high energy piping in the mechanical 15 auxiliary building building, yes.
16 0 And the comment seems to say in the last 17 sentence that as of March 16th, 1981, Quadrex found a 18 number of other areas where the nuclear analysis group 19 had no knowledge that they were supposed to be conducting
]
20 a particular activity.
21 A I guess I would phrase your thing differently.
1 22 0 Okay.
23 A The statement says that there were a number of 24 other areas and it gives some examples, such as door 25 positions, makeup water, MSIV lodging, and control of
()
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
l 13250
-() 1 analysis output, that there seemed to be a lack of I 2 awareness or complete awareness of.
3 Q From talking with your reviewers who prepared 4 the report, made this kind of observations, was it your 5 impression that they were dealing with young engineers 6 who had not done this before and therefore didn't know 7 they were supposed to do it. That's the situation we're 8 in?
9 MR. GUTTERMAN: I have a problem with that 10 question in that there are so many "theys" in there that 11 I don't know which groups we are talking about.
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yeah, I was with to 13 interrupt and ask first what report are you talking 14 about, is this the subsequent report or the Quadrex 15 report? Second, how many -- there aren't that many 16 reviewers in the subsequent report.
17 MR. B&R: Okay.
18 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) I'm talking about March 16, 19 1981, which it the date in the comment ten, apparently a 20 review was done in this area. And you may have 21 participated in that review, yourself.
22 A I was there.
23 Q You were there?
24 A Yes.
25 Q Then I'll ask you directly. The people you O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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() 1 were dealing with in Brown & Root, what did you elicit 2 that gave you -- let me try again. Did you gain any 3 understanding of why they were not knowledgeable in these 4 areas when you talked to them; what were the root causes, 5 how's that, of why they were not knowledgeable?
6 A There were a couple of elements that we deduced 7 from the discussions we had. My recollection is that the 8 man in charge of the nuclear analysis group had just 9 recently come to Brown & Root and was within days or 10 weeks in that assignment. So he was relatively new to 11 the project.
12 We also determined that they had not performed
, 13 the work of doing these analyses, yhere the choices of 14 open or closed door positions, the choices of the sources 15 of makeup water, where those choices had to be faced and 16 addressed.
17 So I think it was a combination of the 18 discipline leader being new to the project and the fact 19 that they hadn't done the work, so they hadn't 20 encountered the types of questions we had been posing.
21 Q It seems to me from your comment that you 22 found two things: You found an absence of awareness 23 of things that needed to be done and you found things 24 they might be aware of but hadn't done anyway. Is that 25 correct?
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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(,j) 1 A I think that's correct; that's a correct 2 characterization.
3 0 In line item 187, at page B-99, I would direct 4 yoUr attention to the first paragraph of the Quadrex 5 findings starting "the failure to perform." Are you with 6 me?
7 A I'm on page B-98 or --
8 Q -- B-99.
9 A - B-997 10 0 The top Quadrex finding, "the failure to 11 perform."
12 A Oh, "the. failure to perform." All right.
13 Okay.
k- 14 0 You state, or you stated there in the Quadrex 15 finding that "the failure to perform any valid 16 environmental analyses outside of containment is untimely 17 and could result in incorrectly designed equipment in the 18 IVC." Why would the equipment be incorrectly designed in --
19 A Brown & Root and Houston Lighting & Power had 20 already identified, before we began our review, that the 21 aux feedwater pump motor had been specified for a 22 temperature value that was below what it would eventually 23 have to operate within. And part of that we believed was 24 because the environmental analyses for line breaks, line ,.
25 cracks in the IVC had not been performed or were not i
! TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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(_5) 1 accurate.
2 0 If the environmental analysis outside of 3 containment had been performed first before the 4 installation of the equipment, you would not expect to 5 find this problem?
6 A That's a reasonable expectation.
7 0 In comment eleven, you are referring to finding 8 4. 6. 2.1. (n) .
9 A 4.6.2 -- I'm sorry, Mr. Sinkin, can you repeat 10 the number, please.
11 Q Okay. Let me just be sure of my reference.
12 It's line item 200. 4.6.2.1. (n) .
13 A On page 4-61 of the Quadrex report.
C, '
14 0 I think -- well, that's fine. You've got it 15 there. It is also in the line item, itself.
16 A Okay.
17 0 In referring to 4.6.2.1. (n) , that refers to 18 question N-17.
19 A Okay.
20 Q Now, if you will look for a moment at the 21 Bechtel task force assessment of line item 200, it states 22 that B&R told Bechtel that the calculation reviewed by 23 Quadrex included assumptions which provided maximum heat 2,4 loads to the essential cooling pond. Is it correct that 25 at the time of this study, Quadrex considered the O
l l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 l
13254
() 1 simultaneous shutdown of both units as producing the 2 maximum heat load to that pond?
3 A I don't recall the specific, as to whether that 4 was limiting or whether the LOCA plus safe shutdown of 5 the second unit, one was the limiting condition.- One of 6 those two was the limiting condition. But I don't 7 remember specifically which one.
8 Q Well, in question N-17, in the -- I guess it's 9 the second page, that includes the Quadrex assessment, up 10 in the Brown & Root response, at the end of the first 11 paragraph, it says B&R calculations show a higher heat 12 load into the ECP for normal shutdown than for a LOCA.
13 A But I can't tell if that is a,two unit normal O 14 shutdown or not, just says normal shutdown. I don't 15 know. My recollection of this particular issue is that 16 we were aware that one calculation had been performed, 17 but the indications'from Brown & Root were that the 18 second case had not be analyzed. The Bechtel task force 19 assessment would imply that both had been done, and that 20 we perhaps didn't see it.
21 Q And this is perhaps one of those instances 22 where the Bechtel task force had more information than 23 you had at the time you did your study?
24 A It's entirely possibly.
25 Q Quadrex did apparently perform the calculation D.
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! (o_) 1 in question N-17?
2 A Our reviewer made a five- or ten-minute, back-3 of-the-envelope rough calculation.
4 Q And that calculation showed that the heat load 5 that would be applied would exceed the design limits for l 6 the ECP. Is that correct?
7 A That was the statement that our reviewer put 8 into the response, Brown & Root response, to question 9 N-17. A rough hand calculation by Quadrex indicates that 10 the ECP temperature will rise above it's allowed limit 11 for normal operation if one unit is shut down while the 12 other runs normally.
13 Q And this --
('~/T 14 A That's what he did.
15 Q Okay. And this formed part of the basis for
! 16 generic finding 3.1 B, item two on page 3-3 of the 17 Quadrex report?
18 MR. GUTTERMAN: I'm sorry, when the question is 19 phrased "and this," does this refer to --
20 MR. SINKIN: This refers to the --
21 MR. GUTTERMAN: -- the calculation of one 22 shutting down and the other unit operating normally?
i 23 MR. SINKIN: It refers to the calculation by 24 the Quadrex reviewer that seemed to indicate an excessive I
25 heat load in the ECP under those conditions.
l h l (~J 8-TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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(
1 THE WITNESS: I lost the connection back to 2 Page 3-3.
3 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) Okay. Actually, before we go 4 back to 3-3 let's stick with N-17 for just a second. I 5 see in the Quadrex assessment, we have another 6 calculation, or at least an examination of the B&R 7 calculations, that says simultaneous orderly shutdown of 8 both plants would violate toch spec limits. The Quadrex 9 assessment in question M-17.
10 A Oh, yes, that statement is in the Quadrex 11 assessment.
12 0 Right. Does either that statement or the
- 13 calculational error above that we just talked about form 14 part of the basis for Quadrex's generic finding 3.1(b),
15 item two, on page 3-37 16 MR. GUTTERM*Mr I object to the question in 17 that it mischaracterizes the Quadrex finding; there's no 18 statement here about a calculational error that I can 19 see.
20 MR. SINKIN: Well, I think if a Quadrox 21 reviewer performs a calculation that demonstrates that if 22 the conditions calculated occurred, the design limits 23 would be exceeded on the ECP, then the calculations of 24 the design limits for the ECP were in error.
25 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I guess that's
13257
() 1 CCANP's view of the matter. I don't see why that is 2 useful to include in a long question that presumably is 3 going to be cited eventually as a witness agreeing with 4 that characterization.
5 MR. SINKIN: Okay, let's go backwards, Mr.
6 Stanley.
7 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Turning to Quadrex Page 3-3 8 generic finding 3.1(b), item two, one of the references 9 is to question N-17.
10 A That's correct.
11 Q Where is the calculations containing errors in 12 question N-17 that supports this generic finding?
13 A I believe that the first sentence of the
> 14 Quadrex assessment in N-17 is what you're looking for, 15 where our reviewer made a statement "there appears to be 16 either an error in the calculation of the essential 17 cooling pond initial temperature or an inconstistency 18 with heavy civil calculations." And he was unable in the 19 time alotted to determine which of those cases was the 20 real case. We treated that statement as an indicator of 21 an error of some sort, without actually determining what 22 the error was.
23 0 So then perhaps this finding, the Quadrex 24 assessment in N-17 would support either 3.1(b) two, if it 2.5 was an error, or 3-1(a) on interdisciplinary integration O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
l 13258 l
<s .
k-) 1 if it's a matter of two different disciplines having 2 conflicting values?
3 A That's entirely possible, yes.
4 Q Okay. Going back to your comments to Bechtel, 5 is comment twelve essentially the same problem as comment 6 five addressed which we have already discussed?
7 JUDGE SHON: Before we go on --
8 MR. SINKIN: I'm sorry, don't leave that.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Stanley, are the 10 calculational errors that you just described, would those 11 represent any sort of quality assurance problems or 12 deficiencies?
13 THE WITNESS: I don't know that I can O 14 completely answer your question. Certainly at the time 15 we were performing this review, we did not feel that it l l
16 was a quality assurance breakdown. They had done very l l
17 few calculations; they were very early in the game; the 18 heavy civil number was five degrees Fahrenheit off, did 19 not seem to be a large magnitude; we were dealing 20 primarily with one discipline, nuclear analysis; I -- at 21 the time I didn't characterize it as one and even today I 22 would not characterize this as a quality assurance 23 breakdown per se. Now, if it persisted, if it weren't --
24 if the calculations were not verified, corrected, so !
l 25 forth, that would be a possibility.
(
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() 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Was there adequate 2 opportunity to correct the errors?
3 THE WITNESS: I believe in the design cycle, 4 there was a great deal of time left. Seven years had 5 gone by but they hadn't done very much in the way of 6 analysis. So there was a lot of analysis yet to be 7 completed. And I feel -- I felt comfortable that a 8 qualified outfit could perform those calculations 9 correctly. Our reviewer felt the same way. And he 10 commented at one point on some very good calculations 11 that NUS had performed.
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You can continue.
13 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Now, Mr. Stanley, comment b
14 -
twel've, is that basically the same problem that you were 15 addressing in comment five?
16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Comment which now.
17 A Yes, it --
18 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) Comment twelve is the same 19 basically as comment five?
20 A It appears to be the same subject area, failure 21 mode and affects analysis, and single failure 22 considerations.
23 Q Well, in fact we have the situation of the four 24 disciplines again, that's the same four disciplines 25 situation?
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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<)
V 1 A Yes.
2 Q In comment 14, if you would review that for a 3 moment.
4 I should alert you, Mr. Stanley, that sometimes 5 the page references and your comments won't quite match 6 up because you were referencing the draft and in the 7 final, there's some slight variation.
8 A Can you help me then as to --
9 Q It is page 2-6 of the final Bechtel task force 10 report.
11 A And is it the paragraph starting 2.2.37 12 Q I think it's the paragraph right above that,
,_ 13 prior to 2.2.3.
t't ) 14 MR. REIS: Excuse me, what page did you say?
15 MR. SINKIN: 2-6, Bechtel task force.
16 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) And then you see 2.2.3, and 17 the dot paragraph right above it is the one I think your 18 comment refers to.
19 A Yeah, the statement in the task force report 20 was there was no review meeting at which the Brown & Root 21 overall design philosophy was presented to Quadrex.
22 0 Right. And I think that's what you address in 23 comment 14.
24 A Correct.
25 0 Okay. You atato in comment 14 that the overall O.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13261 (q
_/ 1 Brown & Root design philosphy became quite evident from 2 their answers to specific questions.
3 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, can I again 4 request that somehow this be connected to a finding 5 that's in issue?
6 MR. SINKIN: Well, we're now dealing with the 7 broad view of Quadrex on how Brown & Root was performing, 8 a view that was put forward by the Quadrex report as a 9 whole. I really saw this as going to the issue of 10 whether the report as a whole should have been turned 11 over to the Commission.
12 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I just can't see 13 how this particular comment has any bearing on a safety
) 14 related issue or the reportability of the document as a 15 whole.
16 MR. SINKIN: We consider the overall design 17 philosophy of Brown & Root as the fundamental observation 18 or one of the fundamental observations that underlay the 19 whole Quadrex report, and obviously, the design 20 philosophy can have a quality component to it.
21 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman --
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I wanted to find out how we 23 would tie that into any of the criteria for reporting.
! 24 MR. SINKIN: Well, sort of depends on his l
l 25 answers.
l l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-0442 i
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(' *
(_)8 1 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, discovery is long 2 over.
3 MR. GUTTERMAN: I would like to underline that, 4 Mr. Chairman. The whole tenor of the examination 5 throughout the first ten days of this hearing has been to 6 conduct cross-examination as if it was discovery, ask a 7 question and see what the answer is. There's no point to 8 any of this. A lot of times, 90 percent of the 9 examination has been making points we might have included 10 in our direct but didn't think to. He isn't helping 11 CCANP at all; it's just consuming a lot of time. There 12 ought to be some directive, some objective to 13 cross-examinationt I haven't sensed it at all/.
14 MR. SINKIN: To some extent, Mr. Chairman, I'm 15 pleased that my strategy is not obvious.
16 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairma, I'd like to l
17 comment on that because I've heard that severc.1 times and 18 it really upsets me. The implication of that is we're 19 playing a game of surprise. And I think that's totally 20 unfair, and improper. There were interrogatories 21 directed to CCANP two years ago asking them what their 22 positions were in this litigation. We never got 23 satisfactory answers to them. And now CCANP is i 24 maintaining that they have some element of surprise 25 they're going to apring on un later. I think if there's O
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13263 (m_) 1 any relevance and materiality to the questions that are ,
2 being asked, if it's not obvious to everybody, it ought 3 to be explained.
4 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman -- go ahead, Mr.
5 Reis.
6 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, let me say that in 7 preparing for this hearing and in trying to amass and 8 consider this mass of documents before us, because of the 9 failure to -- and the wishing to have surprise, it gives 10 a great handicap to the staff to be able to recollect end 11 recall each of these matters.
12 For instance, in the last matter, I was trying
_ 13 to recall, and I walked back in the the room several k- 14 times, to recall how the reporting of the HVAC factor and 15 the failure to perform calculations or consider a pipe 16 break outside of containment came together, and as I 17 remember, there was a nexus between them although I 18 couldn't remember what it was at the moment. And because 19 these things are being sprung on us, because it's playing 20 as a surprise without some great direction here, because 21 discovery wasn't conducted before, the parties are being 22 prejudiced, especially when we have a difficult technical 23 proceeding here. ,
24 I have before me a half dozen books open right i 25 now, trying to follow this. And trying to see what's O
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13264 I
f~
l C)) 1 involved. And I know the Board is having the same 2 problem. And it is very hard, and we have to separate i 3 out safety, economic, it's not at all clear, we're not 4 going -- the premise, for instance, it might be well to
, 5 say, to ask each of these comments, to start out, "Is 6 this a safety comment or an economic comment? What is 7 the safety significance of this comment? Is there any 8 safety significance. Then we can start out and see 9 whether we're spinning our wheels.
10 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, I have a 11 number of responses. I don't think I'm talking about 12 surprise. I think the issues in this hearing are quite 13 clear and in our opening statement we made quite clear .
' O 14 what we thought they were and how we intended to address 15 them. If there was a question that lacked materiality or 16 relevance, there were objections and they were sustained.
17 All the other questions have been basically material and 18 relevant. And I think the information that has come 19 forward has been good information that there's a good 20 record being developed. We'll see when the findings are 21 done whether our time has been well spent. I think it's 22 been very well spent.
23 This question about this particular Bechtel l 24 task force report, finding, CCANP did not propose to 25 introduce the Bechtel task force report into evidence; O-l l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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.n
(_) 1 and we did not write a three volume report for Quadrex, 2 so all of these documents are on our tables because 3 someone else produced them. We're we're trying to work 4 through them to tie them together and have them make some 5 sense and that is not an easy task, I agree with that.
6 But that's what we have to work with. We could 7 just put all these documents aside and say, "Mr. Stanley, 8 is there anything in Brown & Root's design engineering 9 process?"
10 He could say, "Maybe," and we will go home.
11 But that doesn't give a very good record either. I think 12 so this particular question about what was the design 13 philosophy of Brown & Root is even directly related to 14 the generic finding that there was no well thought out 15 basis for design. If.we want a more specific reference 16 for it. And what I'm trying to get at is Mr. Stanley 17' says that the overall design philosophy became quite 18 evident but doesn't say what it was.
19 I want him to tell me what was that overall 20 design philosophy that became quite evident that could be 21 quite material and' relevant to how you view the Quadrex l
22 report, how you view;the findings, how you view-the 23 entire operation of what was going on there.
24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will sustain this 25 objection. We think it's a little remote from any of the f) 4 TATE REPORTING SERVICE,- 498-8442
13266 l l 9' I
() 1 specified issues.
- 2 O (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, in comment 3 fifteen, the last sentence, you are responding to section 4 3-3 of the Bechtel task force report.
J
.s 5 A That's on page 3-2 of the Bechtel task force 6 report.
7 Q Yes, but I -- yes. And it apparently was two 8' paragraphs and is now one paragraphs that starts 9 "because." I mean, the middle of the paragraph starts 10 "because." Now, as I read what the Bechtel task force is-11 saying, they're saying that many of the questions asked 12 by Quadrex were framed around a series of previously
,, 13 identified design problems or events-that occurred 14 earlier in the project; whereas in your comment, you are 15 saying by. mutual agreement, previously identified problem 16 areas that were being formerly addressed by Brown & Root 17 were for the most part excluded from the Quadrex design 18 review effort.
19 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to this 20 question unless it's itenttified as to whether the 21 comments -- first comment fifteen is identifies problems 22 with efficiency and economics or problems with a failure 23 to meet NRC regulations or safety matters. We must 24 establish that first before this large round of 25 questioning on each comment. And if the questions were O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13267
() 1 asked directly, we would get to that and we could get 2 separate the wheat from the chaff.
3 MR. SINKIN: We can try it that way, Mr.
4 Chairman.
5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was going to ask Mr.
6 Stanley to elaborate on that very point.
7 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Let me try to put that into a 8 question for you, Mr. Stanley. Looking at your comment 9 fifteen, the previously identified STP problem areas that 10 were formerly being addressed by Brown & Root that were 11 for the most part excluded from the Quadrex design review 12 effort, were those problems referred to in that sentence
) 14 MR R IS M Chairman, I don't understand the 15 question, because if they were problems excluded from the 16 Quadrex report, what do they have anything to do with '
17 this at all?
18 JUDGE SHON: That's true.
19 MR. REIS: I don't understand the question.
20 MR. SINKIN: Well, see the question, the basic 21 question raised is that Bechtel says Quadrex framed their 22 questions around problems previously identified or events 23 that occurred earlier in the project; Mr. Standley's 24 answer says no we didn't. What I'm trying to get at is 25 what was formerly excluded that had been previously O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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(_) 1 addressed; they weren't going to look look at that would 2 indicate that Bechtel was right or wrong.
3 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, it is becoming 4 crystally clear that we are just wasting our time with 5 all this examination. I think we're getting to the point 6 where Applcants are just going to suggest there ought to 7 be some time limit on this examination of Mr. Stanley.
8 Is not productive and it's just consuming everybody's 9 time listening to things that aren't productive.
10 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, Applicants obviously 11 intend to introduce Applicants' 63 into the record. It's 12 then available for them to cite as the Bechtel task force 13 says Quadrex looked at problems that were previously O. 14 identified on the project and Brown & Root was already 15 working on them so the Quadrex report didn't identify any 16 problems. I don't think that should be allowed to stand 17 in the record in this exhibit without getting Mr.
18 Standley's view of whether that's indeed what they did or 19 not.
20 MR. GUTTERMAN: The Board suggested that there 21 ought to be an inquiry to Mr. Stanley about whether the 22 problems that the Quadrex report was talking about were 23 safety related or not. And instead the question that was 24 given to him was asking the exact opposite, asked about 25 the problems that Quadrex didn't look at. My point is 4
\
, m
-t TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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() 1 that this kind of examination is total waste of 2 everybody's time and there has to be a limit put on the 3 waste of our time.
4 MR. SINKIN: Let me try and ask a direct 5 question and see if it's objectionable.
6 JUDGE SHON: Could we start with just asking 7 Mr. Stanley whether there is anything safety related 8 covered in comment fifteen?
9 THE WITNESS: And in specifically the last 10 sentence of comment fifteen?
11 JUDGE SHON: Not necessarily. For example --
12 THE WITNESS: The whole thing then.
13 JUDGE SHON: The whole thing. As I understand O 14 the dispute as it currently stands, Bechtel said Quadrex 15 only looked at things that they knew were wrong and you 16 said, "No, we didn't. Most of the' things we looked at 17 were things we knew in our previous experience give 18 people trouble in nuclear power plants. We excluded, 19 specifically excluded, the previously examined things."
- 20 Is this not the exchange as I see it.
21 THE WITNESS: The latter characterization is 22 the correct one. On page 1-2 of the Quadrex report, we 23 specifically said Brown & Root design work in response to 24 TMI 2 issues was to be left out. We made every attempt 25 to not duplicate the effort of Brown & Root, HL&P and O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13270 I) 1 other parties, if they had already identified an issue, 2 we tried not to duplicate their efforts.
3 JUDGE SHON: Will, then let me ask you of all 4 these issues that you did look at, the ones that you drew 5 on your experience at previous plants, to generate,-were 6 they primarily safety issues?
7 THE WITNESS: The questions were primarily 8 aimed at design activities, design out puts affecting 9 safety related systems, components, structures; that was 10 the thrust of our investigation.
11 JUDGE SHON: So that the --
12 THE WITNESS: The nuclear unique, the .
13 activities and the design outputs that were unique to the O_ 14 design of a nuclear power plant.
~
15 JUDGE SHON: Then the sentence in the middle of 16 your comment referring to a significant number of Quadrex 17 prepared questions referred to a significant number of
~
18 safety questions. Is that right?
19 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
20 JUDGE SHON: Then I suppose he could ask 21 questions about that then.
22 Mr. Sinkin, it seems that there's a sentence in 23 the middle of that comment that talks about safety 24 issues. Were your questions requesting to be directed at 25 that? The first thing you did was ask about another O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13271 r,
(j 1 sentence that talks about what isn't in the Quadrex 2 report. Can you direct your questions towards safety 3 issues in the Quadrex report?
4 MR. SINKIN: Judge Shon, you asked and got 5 answers to exactly the questions I was trying to ask and 6 get answers to as to whether the Bechtel characterization 7 of the Quadrex report was accurate. That's what I was 8 trying to get at with the last sentence. And you asked 9 and got answer to those questions and those were my 10 questions.
11 JUDGE SHON: Can we go on to something else 12 then.
- 13 MR. SINKIN
- Sure, I'd be happy to.
14 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr." Chairman, as long as we're 15 going on to something else, would this be an appropriate 16 time for a break.
17 MR. SINKIN: Sure.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Fifteen minutes, I guess.
19 (No hiatus.)
20 21 22 23 24 25 i
1 1
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 1
-u -
13272
()
1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Back on the record.
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, comment 17, your 3 comment to the Bechtel task force report draft. We've 4 talked before about the design assurance group and 5 Quadrex' interactions with them and that -- well, this 6 particular passage relates to the generic finding 3.1(a')
7 about systems level integration; is that correct? The 8 comment relates to the generic finding 3.1(a)?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Okay.
11 A On page 3-2 there is a statement in the 12 Quadrex report that assigned responsibility for systems 13 engineering is only a recent development, yes.
14 Q At the end of that paragraph it states that 15 HL&P has indicated that their organization structure is 16 closely in line with that of B&R and that no systems 17 engineering function exists within the utility.
18 My question is how is the absence of such a 19 function indicated to Quadrex?
20 MR. GUTTERMAN: Objection, Mr. Chairman. I 21 don't see how a comment about HL&P's organization is at 22 issue in this proceeding at all.
23 MR. SINKIN: Well, if the lack of systems b'
7 24 integration is a quality problem and it also existed at ,
25 HL&P, that only heightens the sense that there's a TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13273 1 serious quality problem.
2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We'll sustain the 3 objection. I can't even see how it relates to 3.5, much 4 less some of the issues.
5 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Turning to comment 21, do the 6 three line items identified in comment 21 form part of 7 the basis for the Quadrex generic finding 3.1(d) at page 8 3-67 9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Pardon me. D or B? I 10 didn't hear that.
11 MR. SINKIN: D. At page 3-6.
12 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) The last paragraph.
O 13 A I've read all of the line items. Could you 14 refer me also to the --
15 Q _Page 3-6 of the Quadrex report, last 16 paragraph, second half of that paragraph.
17 A Starting with the sentence "there has been no 18 planned effort?"
19 Q Right. '
20 A The references to the question at the bottom 21 of that are civil, HVAC, piping and radiological 22 control. The civil ones match line item 6. The next 23 one, which is line item 61, appears to be electrical, 24 that's what it referenced; however, the subject is the 25 same subject.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13274
('] 1 Q And I return to your earlier testimony that 2 you didn't necessarily reference every discipline 3 finding in a generic finding when you were writing it, 4 correct?
5 MR. GUTTERMAN: Asked and answered, Mr.
6 Chairman.
7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Sinkin, was it or --
8 MR. SINKIN: That's fine.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you agree?
10 MR. SINKIN: Yes, I agree.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. Sustained in that 12 case.
13 MR. SINKIN: I consent.
14 A I thought we were complete.
15 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) I didn't know that you had 16 addressed 181.
17 A Okay. That's mechanical. It falls under the 18 same bailiwick as electrical in that it was not l 19 referenced as part of page 3-6 in the Quadrex report, l
l 20 but does address the same issue of technical licensing
- 21 requirements, i.e. bulletins, regulatory guides.
l 22 O In comment 22 --
I 23 A Okay.
O
- 24 0 -- do the two line items referenced, number 7 25 and number 112, form part of the basis for finding TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13275
] 1 3.1 (b) at page 3-3?
2 A Could you again give me the reference to the 3 Quadrex report?
4 Q 3-3 is the page, finding 3.1(b) . And I guess 5 part of my question, Mr. Stanley, in B-1, the second 6 paragraph, proper control and use of input data from 7 HL&P is also a concern, did Quadrex mean to say HL&P at 8 that point?
9 A Yes.
10 Q They did. Okay.
11 A Yes.
12 MR. GUTTERMAN: I'm lost. Is there a question O,;
- 13 pending?
14 MR. SINKIN: The question was whether line 15 item 7 and line item 112 form part of the basis for 16 3.1(b).
17 A I guess I'm unable to make the connection 18 because none of the question and answer references in 19 the Bechtel task force report seem to match any of the 20 references we have. It's talking about the same 130 l
21 kips load issue in all of these. l 22 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Would that be perhaps the i
23 last paragraph on 3-3, Brown & Root continues? Do you )
(
24 have a problem with that? )
1 25 A It's possible that there's a connection there, TATE RbPORTING (713) 498-8442
~ ._ , . - ._ _ -_ - - - __ - __. - _ _ _ _ _ _
13276 l yes.
}
2 Q Okay.
- 3 A It's not absolutely clear that it's a direct 4 link, but --
5 Q I had a question mark by this one myself. In 6 there another generic finding that captures this input 7 data from EDS, the kips load?
8 A I'd have to search through the generic 9 findings to see. Do you want me to do that? :
10 Q If you would for a moment.
11 A I don't see any indication of any obvious
- 12 link.
13 Q Okay.
14 Referring to comment 24, does this finding 15 form part of the basis for Quadrex generic finding 16 3.1 ( c) at page 3-47 17 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I'm just looking 18 at these various documents trying to put them together.
19 I'm having trouble finding any indication of a 20 safety-related problem involved in them. So, on that 21 ground, I'd object to the question.
22 MR. SINKIN: Well, there --
23 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, turning for a 24 moment to page 3-4 of the Quadrex report, generic 25 finding 3.l(c) , the second paragraph states that no '
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13277
{} 1 written design bases are provided to guide the designer 2 in what combinations of events and plant modes must be 3 considered. Consideration of degraded equipment
)
4 performance was also not evident. Are those 5 safety-related matters?
6 A In certain cases they could be safety-related 7 matters, in other cases they might not be. But in any 8 event, it does not seem to be linked at all to our 9 original contention regarding top level TRD's.
10 I'm really struggling to get the connection.
11 We identified those TRD's as safety-related 12 classification, ISI and environmental qualification.
( 13 0 Okay.
- 14 A The only one it seems to link is environmental 15 qualification. The others don't seem to link.
16 Q Let's turn to page 3-8, 3-9 of the Quadrex 17 report, 3.1 (g) generic finding. I think that more 18 closely captures what we're looking at.
19 A Yes. The paragraph on page 3-9, a number of 20 key front end criteria documents are missing, that's the 21 connection.
22 O Okay. And that paragraph that starts "a 23 number of key front end criteria" in the second sentence
() 24 states that prior to mid 1980, it does not appear that 25 B&R recognized the fact that those front end criteria TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13278
(}
1 were missing.
2 You saw evidence that up until mid 1980 Brown 3 & Root was not aware that the criteria themselves were 4 missing?
5 MR. GUTTERMAN: Objection, Mr. Chairman. The 6 conditions of the design as they were in mid 1980, a 7 year prior to the receipt of the Quadrex report, 8 couldn't possibly relate to a matter that would be 9 reportable in 1981. The whole issue in this proceeding 10 is about what was reportable when the Quadrex report was 11 received, not whether there was some problem with design
- 12 a year ear 1ier.
13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will sustain the 14 objection but on a different basis. We don't see that 15 the absence of these particular documents would have 16 been a reportable item even back when they were 17 discovered. We're not certain that if it wasn't 18 reportable back in 1980, it wouldn't have remained 19 reportable in '81 come the Quadrex report.
20 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, you testified 21 earlier that the absence of these documents could or 22 could not be a safety problem, did you not?
23 A Words to that effect, yes.
24 0 Under what circumstances would the absence of 25 these documents create a safety problem in your mind?
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
-n 13279 5 1 A If you failed to have the strong technical (d
2 leadership in each of the disciplines that could provide 3 the classifications and could address the issues of in 4 service inspection and issues of environmental 5 qualification and you produced documents that lacked 6 certain of those aspects on safety-related systems and 7 components, that could become, if left uncorrected, 8 could become a safety problem.
9 Q Are you saying that as of May 1981, Brown &
10 Root had not produced documents that lacked certain of
. 11 these aspects?
,- 12 MR. GUTTERMAN: I think that question is so 13 vague, I can't understand it.
14 MR. SINKIN: I'm using the witness' term.
15 MR. GUTTERMAN: The problem that I'm having is 16 what these documents refers to, whether it refers to 17 design outputs or whether it refers to these top level 18 documents we've been talking about.
19 Q (By Mr.-Sinkin) When you talked about 20 producing documents that lacked ISI, the other things,
, 21 what kind of documents were you referring to?
22 A I was referring to design output documents 23 such as procurement specifications, schematic diagrams, O 24 piping and instrument diagrams, things of that nature.
25 I was not referring to technical reference documents.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13280 1 And you're saying that as of May 1981, Brown &
( Q 2 Root had not produced the line drawings, the -- I lost 3 your list, but the second list of things, not technical 4 reference documents, that you made. Are you saying that 5 from that group of documents none had been produced 6 which lacked these aspects?
7 A We examined a number of design output 8 documents in the review. In terms of safety-related 9 classification, the electrical diagrams had a 10 classification system, scheme that was on the drawings.
11 I found it difficult to comprehend their system. It was 12 not an easily understood system. We did not see in all ,
13 the disciplines that they had made that safety-related 14 classification designation.
15 For example, in HVAC, they had not identified 16 all the HVAC systems that were safety-related. So, the 17 suggestion that we were trying to make, and this was --
18 suggestion was both an economic suggestion as to a 19 possibly better way to do the project and also it could 20 have safety implications if it were on safety-related 21 drawings, safety-related systems, we were trying to make 22 the observation that there should be a projectwide 23 standardized -- it would be better to have a projectwide
' 24 standardized classification system that was simpler than i
25 the one that was being used.
l TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
i 13281 i
)
1 In the case of in service inspection and )
2 environmental qualification, there was a fair amount of l
3 evidence that those subjects hadn't been addressed, the 1
4 work hadn't been done. And our suggestion in that area !
5 was to prepare those documents so that the work would be 6 done more consistently the first time around. Again, an 7 economic consideration for in service inspection.
8 In the case of environmental qualification, 9 that was economic and also could have some safety 10 implications if the equipment were not qualified for its 11 intended service. So, it's a mix. ,
12 , But we looked at design output documents to 0 13 determine how they were addressing these issues and we 14 found some areas where they were and some areas where 15 they were not.
16 Q I wanted to ask you, Mr. Stanley, in your 17 generic findings you have one that uses the word 18 reliability. It's B, 3-11.
19 A I have it.
20 Q Okay. My question is whether the term 21 reliability is being used as strictly in an economic 22 operation sense or if it has a safety component to it?
23 A My use of the term reliability on page 3-11 in 24 item H is in terms of safety.
25 Q That's safety, okay.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13282
(} 1 A I wanted the ESF sequencer to have a stated 2 acceptance criteria for how reliable it would be on 3 demand. It's a portion of the safety-related electrical 4 power system.
5 Q Regarding comment 27, is the air flow 6 direction from clean to dirty areas a safety concern, 7 whether that flow is in the right direction, is that a 8 safety concern?
9 A I'm not an expert in the HVAC discipline, but 10 I will attempt my best guess at what I think was meant.
11 Primarily it deals with exposure to personnel,
~. 12 that you want the radiation to be directed from clean to O 13 dirty areas and to concentrate and remove the potential l 14 for personnel exposure. It's a little hard to say that 15 there may be some safety implications, but it probably 16 is hard to rule out that there may not be in terms of 17 access to equipment after an accident, things of that 18 nature.
19 Q Did the finding identified in line item 89, 20 we're looking at comment 27, line item 89, did that form 21 a part of the basis for Quadrex generic finding 3.1(c) 22 on page 3-5, second paragraph?
23 A The B-3 reference is consistent. I should --
O 24 let me check H-10.
25 The connection to H-3 is fairly firm. The TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13283 I connection to B-10 is more oblique in that H-10 was
)
2 normal operating plant conditions for HVAC rather than 3 anything to do with accident.
4 .Q Okay. Okay.
5 Comment 28. If the plant was not adequately 6 designed to insure in service inspection access, could 7 that be a safety. problem?
8 A It may or it may not. My guess would be that 9 it would be unlikely. There are requirements in the NRC 10 regulations for in service inspection and I think the 11 situation would be whether the access to the welds and 12 piping to be inspected was easy or was difficult. I O 13 think that would be the more common characteristic. Not 14 that I could never get to it, but that it might be 15 difficult to get to it.
16 Q If access was actually blocked, then you would 17 definitely --
18 A Then you wouldn't be complying with the ISI 19 inspection requirements and I don't think that would be 20 tolerated.
21 Q Turning to comment 29, Mr. Stanley, if you 22 would look at line item 142, it refers -- line item 142 23 also refers to line item 128.
24 MR. REIS: Excuse me, Mr. Sinkin, did you say 25 line item 142 refers to line item 128?
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13284 r 1 THE WITNESS: In the Bechtel response.
}
2 MR. SINKIN: In the Bechtel assessment.
3 MR. REIS: In the Bechtel --
4 MR. SINKIN: Assessment.
5 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Is there a problem, Mr.
6 Stanley?
7 A Yeah, this one book here has sections that are 8 out of order.
9 0 Oh, is this the Bechtel task force report?
10 A No.
11 MR. GUTTERMAN: It's the Quadrex report.
.e 12 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) The Quadrex report?
C) 13 A Well, this particular copy.
14 Q The original I'm sure was in perfect order.
15 A I don't have the M-2 response for Brown & Root 16 yet.
17 Anyway, ask the question.
18 Q Did you need the M-2 B&R response? I have 19 that if you need to look at that?
20 A Yeah, I think that's what I need.
21 MR. GUTTERMAN: Of course, we don't know what 22 the question is yet. We've spent a lot of time reading 23 the document, but we don't have a question. l
(;) 24 MR. SINKIN: Well, I realize I haven't 1
25 actually directed him to it, but if he feels more l l
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13285 1 comfortable reviewing it before he answers any question,
}
2 I'll be happy to have him do' so.
3 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Does that document seem to be 4 complete, Mr. Stanley, or is there something missing 5 there, too?
6 A No.
7 Q That's it?
8 A There seems to be one page missing here.
9 Q From the other copy?
10 A Yes.
11 Q First of all, I want to try and get straight
- 12 what it is we're looking at here. In their assessment, 13 Bechtel records that Brown & Root stated they did enter ,
14 into a contract with Teledyne to perform pipe break 15 analysis in the IVC. Is that what Brown & Root told 16 Quadrex?
17 A Yes. Our reviewer in parenthetical things 18 said that Teledyne is performing dynamic analysis of 19 main steam and feedwater using Teledyne criteria.
20 That's in the Quadrex report under the Brown & Root 21 response.
22 Q To M-2?
23 A To M-2.
24 But Brown & Root had not contracted with Q
25 Teledyne to perform other pipe break analysis outside TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13286
(; containment other than the IVC?
1 'l 2 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, CCANP's Exhibit 3 104 says that the contract with Teledyne was only for l 4 the IVC. The Bechtel task force says the same thing. I 5 just wonder why we're spending so much time on these ,
6 kinds of questions?
7 MR. SINKIN: Well, if we're all in agreement 8 that that's exactly what it means, I can move to the 9 next question.
10 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) There were, in fact, other 11 analyses that needed to be performed other than the IVC;
.12 is that correct?.
13 A Yes, pipe break outside containment.
14 Q Right.
15 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I reiterate my 16 comment. We had lengthy testimony from Mr. Goldberg, we 17 had testimony from Dr. Sumpter about the fact that the 18 Quadrex report identified the failure to have 19 accomplished analyses of pipe breaks outside of 20 containment. These two documents confirm the same 21 statement.
22 It seems like an incredible waste of time to 23 be asking questions about that of this witness. It's O 24 not_within the scope of his testimony. There just 25 doesn't seem to be any -- we're just spinning our wheels TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13287 j7~} 1 here, v
2 MR. SINKIN: There's no question pending.
3 Perhaps the next question will clarify it.
4 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) In line item 142, Mr.
5 Stanley, the reference to the FSAR, did the FSAR as of 6 May 1981 say that all the analyses of pipe rupture had 7 been performed?
8 A I didn't personally review that, our reviewer 9 did. I don' t know the specific wording. But typically 10 FSAR statements are commitments rather than statements 11 of accomplishments. They're commitments to do the 12 analysis.
~
13 JUDGE BECHROEFER: Mr. Stan1ey, in that answer 14 you are treating the FSAR as a design document; is that 15 correct?
16 THE WITNESS: No, I wasn't suggesting that at 17 all, Mr. Chairman. I was suggesting that the FSAR 18 contains client utility commitments to the NRC as to 19 what will be done, how things will be designed. But I 20 wasn't inferring that it was a design document. It's a 21 licensing commitment document. Now, the design has to 22 fulfill the commitments, that's part of the regulatory 23 process.
24 JUDGE SHON: Am I wrong, Mr. Stanley, in 25 assuming that the nub of this whole thing is in the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13288
(}
1 Quadrex assessment of the answer by B&R to question M-2 2 in which you say -- dhat's in this third volume of the 3 Quadrex report that I have here, "No analysis has been 4 performed, thus no evidence was offered to support 5 implementation of the FSAR requirements," and then wind 6 up saying this situation is very untimely, they didn't 7 do it?
8 THE WITNESS: That's all we meant to say.
9 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) You did not consider the 10 possibility that the statement in the FSAR was a 11 material false statement?
12' A Absolutely not.
13 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to that. It 14 has no probative value in this case. We don't deal with 15 it.
16 He has just testified that they are 17 commitments for what they are going to do in the future 18 and they are not statements of what has been done in the 19 past and Mr. Sinkin knows better than that. He knows 20 what the FSAR contains and that. they are commitments and 21 not necessarily matters that were done in the past.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think Mr. Reis is correct 23 in that comment, but let me -- I'll tell you what's O 24 troubling me. I'm not sure it's in this proceeding in 25 Phase I or in another proceeding, but the Staff on TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13289 f'] 1 occasion has taken the position that the FSAR is not a v
2 commitment but that it is a document recording what 3 actually has been done and that the PSAR represents the 4 commitments, including the amendments thereto. And 5 there is some occasional confusion as to what is 6 regarded in a particular case as a commitment.
7 I'm not positive what the testimony in Phase I 8 said, but we did cover it on the record here.
9 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, perhaps Mr.
10 Reis can correct me, but if I remember the order to show 11 cause correctly, there were statements in the FSAR about 12 soil conditions that were termed material false 0 13 statements because they said something had been done 14 when, in fact, it hadn't been done.
15 It was later checked and it was determined 16 that what had been done was adequately described in the 17 FSAR. But the initial reaction of the investigator was 18 they had said something was done in the'FSAR and had 19 not, in fact, done it in the field.
20 MR. REIS: The show cause order was to check 21 out --
22 MR. GUTTERMAN: Yes.
23 MR. REIS: -- whether there was a material i
24 false statement, not that there was a material false 25 statement.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13290 1 MR. SINKIN: How could there be a material
[OT 2 false statement in something that's just a commitment?
3 MR. REIS: It depends on the time. The FSAR 4 is an evolving document. At the time of final plant 5 licensing, it should reflect what was done at the 6 plant. But at the time you apply for an OL, for an 7 operating license, it is a commitment. And we have to 8 be very careful of the time we're speaking about.
9 MR. GUTTERMAN: Perhaps I can clear this up a 10 little if --
11 MR. REIS: I see a nodding from the witness'
- 12 head. I don't know whether he's testifying,,but I*do U,
13 see a nodding there.
14 But at the time when you apply for it, it's a 15 commitment because you have to evaluate it and the plant 16 isn't -- as we all know, the construction is continuing 17 during the OL proceeding and while the Staff is 18 evaluating it and if any hearings are taking place, 19 they're taking place.
20 So, it's a commitment at that time. At the 21 time the license is issued, of course, these commitments 22 must be met, but that's at the time the license is 23 issued which may be many years later.
O 24 MR. GUTTERMAN: Maybe if I can just explain 25 what the issue was in Phase I, that will confirm what TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13291 1 Mr. Reis just said, which I agree with entirely and the (v~D 2 issue there was that the FSAR described the methods'by 3 which compacted backfill would be inspected and tested.
4 And the question was had those inspection and testing ,
5 methods that were actually being implemented in the 6 field met the commitments.
7 It was work that was already accomplished. ,
t 8 There was no way to do that work later to satisfy the 9 commitment. That was the issue. It was not a1 question 10 of some future analysis that could be done at any point 11 during the course of the design, it was a commitment on
, 12 how work was being done that had actually been 13 accomplished.
14 I think the record in Phase I showed that any 15 exceptions to meeting the commitment were of minor-16 significance and unintentional and that by and large the 17 ' construction did meet the commitments in the FSAR. But' 18 the issue had to do with how construction was being dono 19 in the placement of backfill.
20 (No hiatus.)
21 22 23 O 24 25 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 ,
13292
) 1 MR. SINKIN: To tie that to this particular 2 event we're talking about here, as I read the documents, 3 the FSAR said pipe break analysis has been performed for 4 outside containment, and that if the NRC went to find out 5 if it had been and read the FSAR, they would believe it 6 had been when in fact it had not been.
7 MR. GUTTERMAN: I think that example, Mr.
8 Chairman, is exactly what Mr. Reis was describing, that 9 when this plant gets an operating license, Applicants 10 have committed that at that point, the analysis for pipe 11 break outside containment will have been completed, and 12 the design will be in accord with the results of those fs 13 analyses.
14 MR. REIS: That's right I agree with that. ,
15 MR. SINKIN: That's a very different wording, 1
16 what I asked Mr. Stanley about, and what I thought his ,
17 answer stated was that it said it had been done as 18 opposed to "We will do it before licensing."
19 Now maybe I misunderstood what he said.
20 MR. REIS: I think we're confusing here --
21 we're going into, without.looking at an FSAR as to how 22 it's written. Yes, is written as it has been done, but 23 it's a commitment to do it at the time of licensing. And 24 yes, the written in the present tense. But it is a 25 commitment to do it at the time of licensing.
\
() l l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 l 1
k 13293 1 JUDGE BECHBOEFER: The only reason I raised the 4
2 question is I wanted to make sure of what the context of 3 Mr. Stanley's answers were. ,
4 THE WITNESS: I have been in complete agreement 5 with Mr. Reis on what an FSAR is and how it changes from 6 a commitment document to an accomplishment document. I 7 agree completely with that.
8 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, does line item 9 142 form part of the basis for Quadrex generic finding 10 3.l(f) on page 3-7?
11' A I'm sorry, I don't see a connection to that.
12 A The line item 142 is dealing with the fact;that.
. - 13 no analysis had been performed. And generic finding F.
14 starting on page 3-7 deals with FSAR commitment tracking.
15 And I'm afraid I don't see a connection.
16 0 In your comment 30, referring to line item 167, 17 I'd like you to focus on to Bechtel assessment.
18 A Okay. Why don't we try it, I've looked.at a a 19 couple of the Quadrex. I haven't reviewed them all. But 20 let's try it. -
1 21 Q In part, I'm trying to understand your 22 difference with Bechtel and it may be a semantic 23 difference to some extent, in comment 30, is this perhaps 24 an instance where Bechtel is saying the procedure was 25 adequate, which is what they say in there, "B&R review O ,
TATE REPORTING SERVICE,. 498-8442
23294 s
) 1 procedures for vendor documents appear t.o be reasonable,"
2 but what you're saying is the implementation was not 3 adequate?
4 A That-is correct. We were looking at the 5 specific vendor submittals for pumps, valves, and things 6 of this nature. We were looking at the unique review 7 comments made by the Brown & Root reviewers. And our
- 8 expert was making judgments on the technical depth, the 9 technical content, the technical quality of those 10 comments. We did not look at the procedure that was 11 established for the review of those.
12 Q And did these deficiencies, the specific 13 quality problems mentioned in comment 30, form part of 14 generic finding 3.1(b) itemthreeatpage3-3odthe 15 Quadrex report?
16 A Yes. Some of those M series, M-41, M.49, M-5, 17 M-52 are referenced in that, so yes, that is a correct 18 reference.
1,
[d 19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Which number was that?
20 MR. SINKIN: It's 3.1(b) item three on page a
21 3-3.
s 22 THE WITNESS: I might point out that in some 23 cases, we found some very excellent reviews, also.
'24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Stanley, just to clarify 25 comment 30 which we're still on, I guess, when you say
- O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13295 75
(_) 1 that Bechtel over lose the specific quality problems, do 2 you mean were any of the quality problems quality 3 assurance problems or were they something else?
4 THE WITNESS: No, they -- I was not using the 5 word " quality" in my comment 30 in terms of quality 6 assurance. I was really using it in terms of the 7 technical depth, the technical content, the 8 thoughtfulness that the individual engineer put into his 9 review of a vendor submitted document. That was what I 10 meant by the quality. And what we saw were some 11 documents reviewed very thoughtfully very well, and 12 others superficially.
13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Were the reviews uniformly O 14 in accordance with applicable review procedures?
15 THE WITNESS: We didn't --
16 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, I didn't 17 hear the question.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Were the reviews that are in 19 question, good, bad or indifference, performed in 20 accordance with applicable review procedures?
21 THE WITNESS: We didn't review the procedures 22 that Brown & Root had for those reviews so I have no way 23 of answering that question. What we were doing is -- was 24 judging it based upon what we believe to be typical l 1
25 industry practice at that time, our expert reviewer.
()
rs .
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13296
. ks) 1 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, comment 32, line 2 item 171, I assume this is the same upset item we 3 discussed earlier.
4 A That is correct, we discussed this yesterday.
5 Q Right. Is that line item 171 captured in any 6 generic finding that comes to your mind; we won't go 7 looking through the back, just if one comes to mind that 8 would capture that?
9 A I don't believe that it made the most serious 10 category, because action had been taken by Brown & Root 11 during the inspection.
12 O I believe you said yesterday that there could p: 13 be some findings outside of the most serious category
'# 14 that would support a generic finding. Do I remember that 15 correctly or --
16 A That's entirely possible.
17 Q Entirely possible.
18 A Yes.
19 Q But this one is not such a --
20 A No, I don't believe so.
21 Q In --
22 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Sinkin, before we leave this l
23 one, this No. 32, we'd like to ask Mr. Stanley whether in 24 his view, the fact, the fact that seems to be more or 25 less in dispute here, that is who found the error, you
(
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13297 1 say Quadrex did, Bechtel reports sort of implies that, 2 well, it was found and B&R corrected it. Would the fact 3 that Quadrex found it and B&R apparently didn't be a QA 4 breakdown of any sort, that someone from the outside had 5 to come in and find this thing, it wasn't found by the 6 people that were working on it, you see?
7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Is this like an NRC 8 inspector finding something that is wrong and issuing a 9 violation, rather than a something found through the 10 normal operation of the QA program?
11' MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I think he's used now.
12 He has two questions before him. One proposed by' Judge 13 Shon and one proposed by you. And I don't care the 14 answers to them are necessarily the same.
15 JUDGE SHON: Can'we take them in order. The 16 first one is. In your view, is the fact that this was 17 found_by an outside organization and not by Brown &
18 Root's on verification system a QA breakdown or a QA 19 deficiency?
20 THE WITNESS: I don't know the absolute answer 21 to that because I'm not a QA expert but I do know that 22 during the inspection, our team treated this as if it 23 were very important and we were prepared, we indicated to 24 HL&P, that if action were not promptly taken on
< 25 identifying the depth of this one and the resolution of O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13298
~
,c-
- ' 1 it, that we felt an obligation as Quadrex to make a 2~ 10CE R21 report on it. We treated this one quite 3 seriously. Does that answer --
4 JUDGE SHON: I think it does.
5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think it essentially 6 answered mine, too.
7 JUDGE SHON: I think it answers the Chairman's 8 question, too.
9 JUDGE LAMB: Are you saying, Mr. Stanley, that 10 B&R in its process of verification should have verified 11 and discovered this before Quadrex did?
12 THE WITNESS: Absolutely.
13 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) In comment 33, Mr. Stanley,
! 14 looking at -line item 185, and 205 --
15 A Could you'he help me on this one, on a r
16 reference?
17 Q Sure.
18 A It seems to me that this has a reference to an i
19 electrical question rather than to a nuclear analysis 20- question. Do you know the reference to the electrical 21 question?
< 22 A That 4-E document I think was an electrical 23 documents.
l
, 24 Q No, unfortunately, I don't.
I 25 A Okay. I'm going to have to find an electrical
()
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13299 1 question --
2 0 I see.
3 A -- in order to answer any question on it, 4 because the issue is there was no evidence of sufficient 5 analysis to support that system design description.
6 Q Maybe you can answer for me what kind of 7 analysis it was you were looking for that you didn't find 8 or do you need to see that question to know?
9 A I can -- I should really see it to be 10 absolutely certain.
11 A I'm sorry, I went through there and I didn't 12 see any reference.
13 0 All right.
14 A My expectation would be that it would be the 15 environmental analyses by nuclear analysis.
16 0 Okay. In the Bechtel task force assessment of 17 line item 185, Bechtel records Brown & Root as saying the 18 basis for the values was either analysis or data from
! 19 other projects. Was Quadrex given that same kind of 20 response that it was a possibility that it was data from-l 21 other projects that was being used?
l 22 A There is nothing in question N-15 that would 23 suggest that. And I attended those meetings. I do not j 24 remember any statement along those lines with regard to 25 environmental analysis.
O
\
l
( TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13300
) 1 Q Okay. If you would turn to page 3-10 of the 2 Quadrex report?
3 A 3-10?
4 0 Uh-huh.
5 A Okay.
6 Q The fourth paragraph, "in other instances." Can 7 you tell me what that referred to?
8 A Yes, the references behind the statement that 9 in other instances design details have been obtained from 10 other plants, PWR plants, and used without confirming 11 their application, there were two cases. One was the the 12 selection of locations for area radiation monitors, and 13 the second case was valve open and close stroke times; 14 those two instances are all that are behind that -
15 paragraph.
16 Q In your comment 34, are you saying that the 17 FSAR commitment was to do a crack break analysis rather 18 than a double ended break analysis?
19 A It's my understanding that the FSAR commitment 20 was for a crack break analysis, yes.
21 Q And you did not find the performance of a 22 double ended break analysis as an adequate substitute for 23 a crack break analysis?
24 MR. BUTTERMAN: Objection, Mr. Chairman, I 25 can't see how that would have any safety related t
()
l l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13301
) 1 implications.
2 MR. SINKIN: If do you thewrong kind of 3 analysis --
4 MR. REIS: He first must ascertain whether the 5 environmental degradation or the results of a double 6 ended break would be less than a crack.- It is only if 7 the results of a double ended break would give you less 8 of a -- less severe accident condition than a crack that 9 we have a situation where that could be relevant.
10 MR. SINKIN: I guess what I'm looking at is Mr.
11 Stanley's actual comment in which he says the two kinds 12 of analysis have no relationship to each other.
13 MR. REIS: I.think*we're again getting to O.- 14 questions of what may be an efficient method of design 15 and what may be an economic method of constructing the 16 plant and what.is required by the regulation, and how far 17 Brown & Root should go beyond what is required by 18 regulations and were they went beyond what was required 19 by regulation in this particular case or not.
20 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Stanley, your comment 34 21 specifically says a double ended break analysis, 22 particularly one using steam with enthalpy of 1306 BTU 23 per pound in RELAP3, in a large building has no relation 24 to results using a crack break which is the FSAR break 25 commitment. I note also that Bechtel says, "In our O
TATE REPORTING GERVICE, 498-8442
I' c 13302
.g -
(_ ' 1 experience, the postulated crack (slot) breaks should 2 also be analyzed to ensure conservative environmental 3 conditions are identified."'That suggests in both cases 4 that there might be in some way a crack break that was ,
5 worse than a double ended break as intuitively inverse as 6 that may seem. Is that correct?
7 THE WITNESS: I believe that is a correct 8 assessment of both our reviewer and the Bechtel, that 9 while it doesn't seem possible that you have not bounded 10 with a double ended break, one really should do the 11 analysis to make certain.
12 -
MR. GUTTERMAN: I will withdraw my objection.
-g 13 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) And Brown & Root had done the 1~4 double ended but had not done the crack?
15 A That is correct.
16 Q Did this finding make its way into a generic 17 finding; I couldn't quite match it up.
18 A Offhand, I don't recall. We can search if you 19 would like.
20 Q Let's just try in nuclear analysis and see if 21 it comes out there and if not we will skip it?
22 A It would be a reference to N-15.
23 I may be wrong on that. It would be a 24 reference to N 13.
25 0 13?
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13303
/3
(_) 1 A There doesn't appear to be any direct 2 connection that I see, other than the reference to the 3 aux feedwater pump motors on page 3-12. There's no 4 direct connection to the N-13. We're dealing with the 5 IVC in this particular one.
6 0 Okay. Might it fall on 3-12, twelve might it 7 fall in that number four that's sort of a catchall for --
8 I see this as a 4.6 kind of finding.
9 A I was tending to put it under item two on page 10 3-12 that dealt with aux feedwater pump motors in ivc and 11 accident environmental analysis for outside containment.
12 It covered both areas.
j_q 13 Q Regarding --
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Stanley, are you saying 15 then that in comment 34, that since the analysis didn't 16 meet the FSAR commitment, it amounts to a deficiency, 17 "it" meaning the type of analysis that was in fact done.
18 MR. GUTTERMAN: My confusion is with the word 19 " deficiency," and whether the Chairman means as the word 20 might be used in 50.55(e).
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: QA deficiency.
23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, breakdown may require 24 more than one.
25 THE WITNESS: I don't believe --
O V
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13304
) 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: At least a QA deficiency?
2 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Stanley, if I can sort of i
3 point you in the direction behalf the Board's thinking, 4 question N-13, I think, clears up a good bit of the 5 Quadrex assessment of -- question N-13 clears up a good 6* bit about what this difficulty is. It points out that 7 the code RELAP3 use properly starts with a 212 degree 8 Fahrenheit environment. And that's not what you've got 9 with 1306 BTU per pound of steam. That's highly a
10 super-heated heated steam. It then solved it for an open 11 ended pipe break but it didn't solve it for a crack.
12 And then it says that this obvious input error -
13 was not noted by either the. analyst or the calculation
- pr)
(_ 14 reviewer 15 and it concludes in saying: In summary, 16 the wrong problem was solved, the wrong methodology was 17 used and the input data was incorrect.
18 In other words, the thing was all fouled up and 19 the reviewer didn't catch it.
20 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
21 JUDGE SHON: Does that constitute a quality 22 assurance breakdown in the design stage?
23 THE WITNESS: I believe you'd have to find more 24 than this one indication. This calculation clearly 25 didn't meet the PSAR commitment. We wrote that sentence i
l l
l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13305 k) 1 because we were rather disappointed that they didn't 2 identify the right problem, didn't use the right 3 methodology and didn't use the right data, all three. So 4 we wrote that sentence specifically to highlight that.
5 JUDGE SHON: And the analysist did it wrong and 6 the reviewer didn't catch it.
7 THE WITNESS: And the verifier didn't catch it 8 either. Personally, I would like to have more than one 9 example before I said it was a quality assurance 10 breakdown in the engineering work. But certainly this 11 would be an area that one would want to look at very 12 quickly, very closely. And see if it was more than one.
2 13 JUDGE SHON: Thank you, that's all we wanted to 14 know, I think.
15 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Given that interchange, would 16 this finding be part of the support for Quadrex generic 17 finding 3.l(b) two on page 3-37 18 A Yes, it's not --
19 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman.
20 0 I understand it's not referenced. But --
21 MR. SINKIN: I'm sorry, Mr. Reis was there an 22 objection?
23 MR. REIS: Yes, the objection was that I don't 24 see the probative value in that the HVAC design basis, 25 and I believe it particularly dealt with the failure to O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13306 1 properly consider matters outside containment was 2 reported as a 50.55(e) matter. Therefore, I don't think 3 we're probative; I think we are spending alot of time on 4 a matter that was reported.
5 MR. SINKIN: Is it your position, Mr. Reis, 6 that the report on HVAC covered finding 4.6.2.1(j) ?
7 MR. REIS: I don't think it covered that 8 specifically, but I think it did cover design basis. And 9 although it referenced 4.2.1(a) , it also encompassed in 10 going to the factors used these matters as well.
11 MR. SINKIN: Mr. chairman, my only response is 12 that certainly there's been nothing represented by either 13 the Applicant, the NRC or anyone else to my knowledge 14 that this finding was ever reported to the NRC. If we're 15 now to treat it as having been reported because it's 16 related to some other finding that was reported, I think 17 we've quite broadened what was reported to the NRC 18 originally.
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Is there an objection.
20 JUDGE SHON: Where do we stand, was there a 21 question pending.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Wasn't the question answered 23 in fact?
24 MR. SINKIN: I think the question was answered.
25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's why I was trying to TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13307 1 figure out where we were.
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Regarding comment 41, Mr.
3 Stanley, is there a safety significance to Brown & Root 4 correlating the radiation zones with the shielding 5 designed for accident conditions?
6 A Again, I've got to state that I'm not an ALARA i 7 expert per se, but I don't believe that there is a safety 8 concern in this particular one. You would have the 9 exposure, radiation exposure of employees as your major 10 concern, particularly in areas where you'd need to have 11 access under accident conditions. So I view it more as 3
12 an ALARA type concern.
f ,
13 Q I assume that we only speak in terms of ALARA
~
14 in if exposure to employees is not at a disabling or ,
15 harmful level, in the sense -- what I'm 16 looking at is this: You're talking about ALARA, 17 as low as reasonably achievable, the exposure to
- . 18 employees in the plant. ,
19 A That is correct.
20 Q We would not expect it to be any higher than a 21 disabling dose at any time, am I correct? If it was a f
22 disabling dose, it certainly would not meet ALARA by 23 definition. Is that correct?
24 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I don't see any i 25 foundation for that question. There's nothing about
()
! i TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13308 1 disabling doses mentioned anyplace that I know of in the 2 Quadrex report or any of these other documents we have 3 spread out before us.
4 MR. SINKIN: I'm trying to clarify the safety 5 implications of doing ALARA well or not doing ALARA well, 6 and whether there are any and what the bounds of those 7 might be. And I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that when 8 we're talking about ALARA, we're talking about having 9 reduced the radiation exposure to employees below a 10 certain threhhold and now it's a question of whether 11 you're going to do better than that, but the threshhold 12 is set at an exposure that'will not be unduly harmful to 7- 13 them because they have to operate in that environment.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I'm not sure I understand 15 what disabling refers to.
16 MR. SINKIN: Well, okay. I will withdraw the 17 question.
18 Mr. Chairman, that concludes my cross on CCANP 19 104, which I would move into evidence at this time. I 20 don't believe it was ever accepted into evidence.
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Any objection? Mr. Reis you 22 had an earlier objection to all parts that weren't 23 subject to questioning.
24 MR. REIS: Yes, I'm trying to think. I'll 25 withdraw my objection, in that substantial parts of it O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13309 m
k-) I have been subject to cross-examination. And of course 2 the worth of the document will be determined by the Board 3 and the meaning of the document in findings.
4 MR. GUTTERMAN: I've got no objection do its 5 admission.
6 JKUDGE BECHHOEFER: CCANP 104 will be admitted.
7 (CCANP Exhibit No. 104 received 8 in evidence.)
9 MR. SINKIN: This would be a good time for 10 break for lunch, Mr. Chairman.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let's be back at 1:30.
12 (Luncheon recess taken.)
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
o -
13310
[' 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Back on the record.
U}
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, when we -- just 3 before we broke for lunch I asked you about a particular 4 generic finding at page 3-10 about Brown & Root using 5 design details from other PWR plants and you answered 6 that there were two instances of that. One was 7 selection of the locations for area radiation monitors, 8 the other was the valves -- valve opening and closing 9 stroke times.
10 Can you point me to the discipline findings 11 where those two items appear?
~
12 A Yes, I believe so.
(1) 13 Lt.t me ask you, Mr. Stanley, so I can be Q
14 helpful and maybe speed up the process, too, the area 15 radiation monitors location, is that something that you 16 would expect to find in the radiological discipline?
17 A Well, that's what I'm looking at now. I 18 thought it was going to be in the electrical, but it 19 turned out not to be there. So, it apparently must be 20 in the radiological.
21 The other one on valve stroke times will 22 probably be in the mechanical section.
23 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, this seems to be O 24 taking a while and I wonder if it's really connected to 25 a safety-related question that needs to be inquired TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13311
- N 1 into. You know, the finding that we're looking at just
[G 2 says -- or the sentence in the finding that we're 3 looking at just says that design details have been 4 obtained from other PWR's and used without confirming 5 their applicability on the STP. And it seems to me 6 that's another way of pointing out use of preliminary 7 information in the design which we've had extensive 8 testimony about already.
9 MR. SINKIN: Well, I think, Mr. Chairman, '
10 there's a very clear distinction between preliminary 11 data that's developed by Brown & Root where they have y- 12 had something to do with the assumptions and 13 calculations and everything else and data that they have 14 taken from another PWR plant and just used without doing 15 any work on it at all apparently. I think there's a 16 distinct difference.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think the answer to his 18 question will determine whether it is safety-related or 19 not.
20 MR. GUTTERMAN: Well, the question he was 21 asked was find the underlying discipline findings that 22 were mentioned.
23 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right.
24 MR. GUTTERMAN: And I don't see how that's 25 going to answer that question at all. It's going to TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13312
{} 1 take a while for Mr. Stanley to review the report to 2 find them.
3 THE WITNESS: It's been a couple years since 4 I've looked through this.
5 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Perhaps this is something 6 that we could leave to a break if you don't have any 7 other obligations. If you have other obligations at the 8 break, this would not be a priority.
9 Mr. Axelrad is shaking his head no. Maybe 10 we'd better just make a quick pass --
. 11 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I think we again have 12 a fishing expedition. This is cross-examination. If he 0 13 has a section in that thing and a question that he can 14 point to one of the letters or numeric references of the 15 questions that he can point to, it's fine. Otherwise, 16 it's conducting discovery again.
17 MR. SINKIN: No, not at all. This is --
18 MR. REIS: Let him point to where he's going.
19 MR. SINKIN: Well, I pointed by asking him 20 which discipline findings these were. I looked through 21 mechanical, I looked through the radiological, I 22 couldn't see them. It's probably my lack of expertise.
23 MR. REIS: It's discovery.
24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I'm not sure that's 25 objectionable, however. I can cite you a page which I TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
n _
13313
(}
1 have with me actually.
2 MR. SINKIN: I believe --
3 MR. REIS: It is objectionable because the 4 hearings are supposed to be conducted in an expeditious 5 manner and this does not lead to the conduct of the 6 hearing in an expeditious manner.
7 MR. SINKIN: I believe Mr. Stanley has found 8 one of them.
9 THE WITNESS: Do you want one?
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes.
11 A R-19 in the Brown & Root response. It says 12 monitor locations have been established by engineering .
13 judgment. It's a quotation that our reviewer wrote down 14 from the discussion. That's the area radiation 15 monitoring reference, R-19.
16 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Okay. Oh, okay. You're 17 looking in the questions.
18 A That's the only place I'm going to find it.
19 0 I was asking for a discipline finding that 20 would have those items in it, that's what I was asking 21 for.
22 A Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking at it that 23 way.
24 0 Okay. Well, I see on page 4-88 of the Quadrex 25 report, Volume 1, that there is a reference to question TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13314
("' 1 R-19, but that does not seem to address the locations.
(T /
2 JUDGE EECHHOEFER: It's also not a most 3 serious finding. l 4 MR. SINKIN: I understand that.
5 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Let me ask you a question, 6 Mr. Stanley, about the generic finding.
7 Did you consider that Brown & Root taking 8 design details obtained from other pressurized water 9 reactor plants and using them on the South Texas Nuclear 10 Project without confirming their applicability could 11 have safety significance? .
12 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to the 0 13 question in that it isn't specific as to time and the 14 design process when this would be done; therefore, an 15 answer would not further the record.
16 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) In May of 1981, did you 17 ' consider Brown & Root using design details from other 18 pressurized water reactors without confirming their 19 applicability to the South Texas Nuclear Project a l
20 potentially safety-related finding?
21 A At that particular point in time, I did not i
4 22 consider that it was a safety-related violation.
23 They chose area radiation monitoring
') 24 locations, for example, they indicated to us in the oral 25 discussion, based upon the locations selected at five i
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13315 ,
~3 1 other operating PWR plants and they named the plants for
[V 2 us. The man didn't document that judgment as to how he 3 chose the South Texas Project ones based upon those five 4 plants that he visited.
5 In the case of valve stroke times, they 6 selected values that Westinghouse had used for nuclear 7 steam supply valves and when they wrote procurement 8 specs for balance of plant valves, they used the same 9 open and close times. Technically it may turn out that 10 those are not bad numbers. Those may technically turn 11 out to be satisfactory numbers. We were merely pointing 12 out that they chose the values that way and that they N~
13 should examine whether they are appropriate for balance 14 of plant applications in different types of systems.
15 Now, at the time we reviewed that thing, my 16 expectation was that they probably would not turn out to 17 be wrong because the times were twelve-second, 18 sixty-second type opening and closing times, those kinds 19 of values. That's neither unreasonably fast nor 20 unreasonably slow.
21 Q But it's true, is it not, that each nuclear 22 power plant has a unique design?
23 A I think that's a --
24 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to the 25 question on unique. I don't know whether unique refers TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13316
(')
V I to PWR's, BWR's or a difference between Indian Point 2 2 and 3 or what unique refers to in that situation.
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We'll sustain that one. I 4 don't think unique is precise -- you'll have to define 5 it more if you use it.
6 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, do you have a 7 list which correlates generic findings with discipline 8 findings?
9 A A preliminary list of that correlation to 10 Volume 2 and 3 questions and answers was prepared to 11 assist Bechtel when Bechtel began their task force 12 review. I don't have a list that correlates section 3
'~) 13 generic findings to Section 4 discipline. The 14 correlation is from Section 3 generic back to the 15 individual questions and answers.
16 Q At the time you delivered Quadrex to Houston 17 Lighting & Power on May 7th, 1981, did you provide 18 Houston Lighting & Power or Brown & Root with a list 19 like that?
20 A I myself didn't even have such a list at that 21 time. This was prepared afterwards.
22 Q What I'd like to do, Mr. Stanley, is to take 23 the individual generic findings in the Quadrex report 24 and attempt to identify the discipline findings that 25 support that genoric finding.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13317
{}
1 I have done this exercise. I hope this can go 2 fairly quickly. You can simply say whether I'm right or 3 wrong on a given finding. I have attempted over the f
4 lunchtime to eliminate any that we discussed coming from 5 your comments of the Bechtel task force report.
6 If we can start with generic finding 3.1(a), j 7 if you will just have that in your mind and look at 8 4.6.2.1(d).
9 A 4.6.2.1 --
10 0 D.
11 A Baker?
- 12 Q D as in dog, 4-60. ;
13
- A Dog.
14 MR. REIS: 4-607 15 Q (By Mr. sinkin) Is 4.6.2.1(d) captured in 16 3.1(a)?
17 MR. REIS: Four what? :
18 MR. SINKIN: 6.2.1(d) as in dog.
19 MR. REIS: Okay. What page is that on? !
20 MR. SINKIN: It's 4-60. f 21 A It's marginal.
22 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Marginal? 7 l
( 23 A Marginal at best. ,
i O 24 Q Do you know if there's another generic that 25 would capture it better? !
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
l 13318 1 A I would think there's a better -- I would (x_'/') .
2 think there's a better fit.
(
3 Q Would it fit better in I on page 3-117 4 A It's referred to in Charlie on page 3-5. I'll 5 check I.
6 Q Did you say referred to in -- oh, Charlie as !
7 in C7 r
8 A Yeah, Charlie.
9 Q Okay.
10 A On page 3-5.
11 0 Thank you.
12 A The last paragraph of that one.
(~')
13 And, yes, I would agree that I is probably the 14 best correlation.
15 Q staying with 3.1(a) is where we'll start.
16 Finding 4.1.2.4(n).
17 A Can you give a page number? That will be i 18 easier.
19 Q I will try that.
20 A 4.2 --
21 0 4.1.2.4. i 22 MR. REIS: N7 23 MR. SINKIN: N.
O '
24 MR. REIS: As in Nancy?
25 MR. BINKIN: As in Nancy.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13319
(}
1 A That's at the bottom of page 4-8?
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Right.
3 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, I object to this in 4 that this isn't a most serious finding. It is listed 5 under potential problem findings and doesn't seem to be 6 a most serious finding as set out as a matter of inquiry 7 at page 11 of your May 17th order as to what can be 8 inquired into in relation to the discipline findings.
9 MR. SINKIN: But this is an inquiry into the 10 generic findings, Mr. Chairman.
1 11 MR. REIS: That's right.
12 MR. SINKIN: What underlies the generic
) 13 findings. "
14 MR. REIst It says the reportability of l
15 Quadrex generic findings is to be considered only
- 16 insofar as the findings reflect, quote, most serious l 17 discipline findings, and the sentence continues.
18 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman?
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Pardon? We were about to 20 sustain that objection.
21 MR. GUTTERMAN: Okay. I was going to make a j 22 different objection to the same question, so that's i 23 redundant and I'll withdraw it.
(- 24 JUDGE BECHH0EFER: Unless you want the l 25 question asked? -
l l e-TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13320 1 MR. GUTTERMAN: No.
(GN 2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Looking at generic finding 3 3.1 ( b) , Mr. Stanley, if you will just generally keep 4 that one in mind. 4.1.2.1(a) on page 4-5, would that be 5 captured by 3.1(b) (1) ?
6 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, I have an 7 objection to that question and to this entire line of 8 questioning. I don't think it's a useful exercise. The 9 Quadrex report speaks for itself. What HL&P had to 10 review on May the 7th and 8th of 1981 was the Quadrex 11 report, not some post hoc attempt to connect findings to 12 different things. They had the Quadrex report. What O- 13 they had to review was this document right here.
14 These attempts to connect findings in the 15 discipline category with a page and a quarter of 16 discussion in the generic category is not particularly 17 meaningful and doesn't shed any light on whether HL&P's l 18 process on May 7th and 8th was an appropriate proper 19 process for reviewing the reportability of the Quadrex 20 findings.
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We're going to overrule the 22 objection. The testimony thus far is that the generic l
l 23 findings were never reviewed, as such. Mr. Goldberg O
x 24 kept it in the back of his mind, but they were never 25 reviewed as such, other than to say they only comprised l
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
4 13321 1 discipline findings. And the whole contention, one of 2 the contentions is that the discipline findings are 3 broader than the underlying discipline findings.
4 So, I think we'll -- I think to find out the 5 extent to which the generic findings include most 6 serious discipline findings is relevant. So, we'll 7 overrule the objection.
8 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Stanley, this is a 9 cumbersome process and I'll try and be as helpful as I 10 can.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I might add it would be i .
12 lovely if you all could stipulate as to which most
) '
13 serious discipline findings were included in each 14 generic finding. I don't know if you can work that 15 out.
16 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, the problem has .
17 been all along that CCANP has never been willing to tell 18 us what their contentions are in this area. ~If Mr.
19 Sinkin will give us a list and tell us what he's
~
20 contending, maybe we can have a fair opportunity to 21 analyze it and take a reasonable position on it.
22 But we're playing this game of continuous 23 attempts at what's not surprise but we're not going to 24 tell you in advance and I don't know what there is to 25 stipulate on.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13322
{} 1 MR. SINKIN: Well, that's an interesting 2 suggestion. I have a list that I've created just by 3 reading the Quadrex report of what I -- and the 4 questions, the whole thing, of what I think are the 5 discipline findings that relate to the generic 6 findings. I would be happy tonight to prepare it in a 7 little more formal manner and have Mr. Stanley review it 8 and say yes or no on the given findings as to whether 9 they are part of the generic findings.
10 MR. GUTTERMAN: Mr. Chairman, you know, each 11 of these generic findings is fairly lengthy, some of 12 them run well over a page. They include a lot of hx
, 13 different statements.
[ 14 The fact that a statement in the Quadrex 15 report is related to a discipline finding doesn't tell
, 1 16 us anything. Obviously they are. That's what Mr.
17 Stanley's testimony was. Mr. Stanley's testimony also 18 is that if you review the most serious discipline 19 findings with an eye towards identifying generic 20 implications, you'll see whether there are any generic
, 21 implications that are reportable.
22 I Cap it see how drawing this connection is in 23 any way going to shed any meaningful light on anything
_ O' s 24- the Board has to decide here. The Quadrex report speaks
'25 for itself. Those findings are what they are. The a
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13323
{} 1 discipline findings are clearly stated, they' re written 2 in the report. These --
3 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman?
4 JUDGE BECBHOEFER: They don't include -- l 5 .apparently f' rom what the witness has said, they do not 6 always include the discipline findings upon which 7 they're based by reference.
8 MR. GUTTERMAN: The generic findings do not 9 include a cross-reference to the discipline findings, 10 that's true.
11 MR. REIS: It is only if Mr. Sinkin was trying 12 to prove the converse that the discipline findings do 13 not include the generic findings need we go into them.
14 Otherwise, we have the stipulation in the record that 15 the generic findings are based on discipline findings.
16 There is no particular need to go on and identify each 17 one.
18 MR. SINKIN: I don't think there's any 19 question that the generic findings are based on the 20 discipline findings, but I don't think that tells us a 21 whole lot. If you're trying to decide whether a 22 particular generic finding should have been reported to 23 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an essential part of O 24 that inquiry is the discipline findings upon which it 25 was based. If you cannot identify from the report TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13324 ,
)
i 1 itself which discipline findings comprehensively support
}
2 that generic, you have to go to the source of the 3 generic.
t 4 MR. REIS: We're discussing the generic 5 findings of themselves which will give us -- if we 6 answer the answer to the generic findings, that will 7 tell us whether anything else had to be reported.
8 MR. SINKIN: I don't believe you can answer 9 the generic findings in a total vacuum and I don't 10 believe that anybody has used that process. I mean, 11 what we're being told by Mr. Goldberg in his testimony, 12 and Mr. Stanley has repeated more or less the same
'Q 13 process, was that they put the generic findings in their 14 mind,~ then they read the discipline findings to see if 15 the discipline findings really supported the generic 16 findings and if what they found in the discipline 17 findings would have led them to report the generic 18 findings, that that's the process that went on.
19 We don't have that process documented 20 anywhere. It was not documented on May the 7th. It was
~21 not documented by Mr. Stanley when he gave.them the 22 report. This is our opportunity to document how the f 23 generic findings and the discipline findings relate to
,O 24 .each other.
25 MR. GUTTERMAN: I just don't understand what TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13325
' 1 CCANP's contention is here that we' re trying to prove
)
2 up. The fact that you're going to draw a map that says 3 this generic finding is based on this half dozen or 4 dozen or three dozen discipline findings is not going to 5 give the Board any meaningful guidance on whether that 6 meant that that generic finding was or was not 7 reportable. You still have to look at the nature of all 8 these things and form judgments on whether the threads 9 that connect them indicate some kind of a significant 10 breakdown in the QA program. And merely drawing this 11 chart of connections here isn't going to give any 12 meaningful information on that question.
13 MR. SINKIN: I guess I would view that just 14 the opposite, that the only way to have meaningful 15 information on the generics is if you know which 16 discipline findings support them and evaluate those 17 discipline findings as to whether you think they are 18 individually potentially reportable or of a serious 19 nature. Then, af ter that evaluation, you go back to the 20 generic and say, well, out of the seven discipline 21 findings that appear to be supportive of this generic, 22 we find none of them are at all important, therefore i
23 it's not reportable, or all of them are important and 24 therefore it should have been reported and that that's 25 the process that you go through.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13326 1 JUDGE SHON: Why do we have to take hearing
}
2 time for this, Mr. Sinkin? Couldn't you stipulate?
3 MR. SINKIN: It was a very creative suggestion 4 and I was for it. Others had some reservations about 1 5 it.
6 I would be willing to turn this into what I 7 think are the findings that support the generics that 8 I've identified, see if Mr. Stanley agrees and see where 9 we go from there.
10 MR. GUTTERMAN: Are we going to keep Mr.
. 11 Stanley sitting here for days while this process goes 12 on?
13 MR. SINKIN: I hope not.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, could this be handled 15 like in a half hour or --
16 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, it's not going to 17 be possible for Mr. Stanley to look over any kind of a 18 list in a half hour and determine whether or not that is 19 or is not an accurate representation of anything.
20 It seems to me really that what Mr. Sinkin has 21 described is completely different than what the Board 22 would meaningfully have in mind here. The question is 23 whether or not any portion of a generic finding is O 24 reportable. That should be able to be determined, if 25 Mr. Sinkin objects to the way it was done by the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
,c~
v 13327 f( j 1 Applicant', by looking at anything in the generic finding 2 and determining whether or not that's reportable.
3 We, in fact, have witnesses, the two Bechtel 4 witnesses, who will be testifying to having reviewed 5 each of the generic findings and will be testifying as 6 to why those generic findings are not reportable. And 7 if Mr. Sinkin will have questions of those witnesses as 8 to whether they considered discipline finding "umpty 9 ump" which he has identified which they don't mention in 10 their testimony, he can ask them those questions, if he 11 can show why those particular discipline findings in 2.y 12 some way detract from the conclusion of those witnesses .
13 that have testified.
14 But it seems to me that is the way to address 15 the question of whether the generic findings are 16 reportable, per se, is to examine what's in the generic 17 findings and whether that's reportable.
18 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I think --
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, what I foresee is the 20 Bechtel witnesses saying, well, we didn't consider that 21 that discipline finding was included. And if we don't 22 have some record that it is or isn't included, then it's 23 just --
O 24 MR. AXELRAD: It will then be up to the Board 25 to determine whether or not looking at that particular TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13328 1 finding and whatever CCANP wishes to say about that
)
2 finding in their proposed findings and conclusions, 3 whatever we can say about that finding in our proposed 4 findings and conclusions, whether or not if the Bechtel 5 witnesses, in fact, cannot answer how that particular 6 finding affects a generic finding, whether that detracts 7 from their conclusions.
8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I'm not assuming that will 9 be the case. I'm --
10 MR. AXELRAD: I understand, Mr. Chairman.
11 What I'm saying is that will go to the weight of the
.-- 12 conclusions they have reached and whether or not the
~
O 13 Board determined that their conclusion is an appropriate 14 one.
15 MR. SINKIN: Well, I don't understand, Mr.
16 Chairman, why the speculation by Bechtel as to which 17 discipline findings support a generic finding has 18 somehow more weight and value in the record than the man 19 who wrote the report and knows the truth of the matter.
20 MR. AXELRAD: I resent Mr. Sinkin's reference 21 to speculation. The Bechtel testimony will not be on 22 the basis of speculation. The Bechtel testimony goes to 23 each of the generic findings and explains why the O 24 Bechtel people, upon review of that generic finding and 25 the Quadrex report, have determined that that generic TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13329
/"T 1 finding was not reportable. And either that testimony
(_/ l 1
2 will be persuasive to the Board or will not be !
3 persuasive to the Board.
4 And Mr. Sinkin will be perfectly free to argue l 5 that that testimony did not include consideration of l 6 anything that Mr. Sinkin believes should have been 7 included in the Quadrex report and the Board will then 8' be able to reach a decision as to whether or not the 9 conclusion reached by the Bechtel witness is worthy of a 10 basis for the Board's own determinations.
11 But that's the way to address the generic w 12 findings, not to go through this list with Mr. Stanley.
O 13 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman -- I'm sorry.
14 MR. AXELRAD: Just one last thing. The 15- question is whether or not HL&P properly reported 16 findings back at the time of May 7th or May 8th, and at 17 that time the Quadrex report spoke for itself. They 18 dealt with the Quadrex report based upon what was 19 contained in it.
20 Mr. Stanley has specifically said he did not 21 give HL&P a list tying the generics to the discipline, 22 Mr. Sinkin asked that very question, and therefore that 23 was obviously not a list that was use6 at that time.
O 24 And whether or not Mr. Stanley could develop such a list 25 this minute is irrelevant to the propriety of the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13330 1
1 decisions that were made by HL&P back on May 7th and
{}_
2 8th.
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Stanley, let me ask you 4 some questions -- a question.
5 Did you on or prior to May 8, '81, discuss 6 'with either HL&P officials or B&R 6fficials the, I'll 7 say, makeup of any of the generic findings in terms of 8 their inclusiveness of discipline findings?
9 THE WITNESS: The only conversation that was 10 held on that subject was held in the May 7th 11 presentation meeting to both HL&P and Brown & Root where
- 12 Mr. Goldberg asked me the direct question were the O 13 generic findings based upon discipline findings, as I 14 recall the question. And I answered yes to that, that 15 the generic findings had no other factual basis other 16 than discipline findings.
17 Now, the makeup -- the referencing of these is 18 to the Volume 2 and 3 questions and answers and that was 19 done deliberately for two-reasons. One, so that there 20 was always a common referencing point, that the 21 discipline findings were referenced to volumes 2 and 3 22 and the generics were referenced to Volumes 2 and 3.
23 The second part of the reason was that volumes 24 2 and 3 were finished on April 27th and were available 25 for my use. Section 4 of the report was in the word l
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
t 13331
() 1 processing system and was at times largely unavailable 2 for my use while I was finishing Section 3.
3 So, from a very practical and pragmatic 4 viewpoint, I wanted to refer to everything where I could 5 get my hands on it and that's how we did it. The only 6 discussion we had was at the May 7th meeting.
7 (No hiatus.)
8 9
10 11
() 23 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
i 13332
) 1 JUDGE SHON: You did not, then, in any time, 2 identify to HL&P or Brown & Root which of the specific 3 discipline findings each generic finding was based on.
4" THE WITNESS: That is correct. And even to 5 this' day, I have never prepared such a list.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Have you done it orally?
7 THE WITNESS: I am sorry?
8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Irrespective of the list, 9 have you done it orally --
10 THE WITNESS: No.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- or in discussions?
12 THE WITNESS: No. Now my position on that is i
13 that it should be -- it should be evident and it could h 14 I'm sure with time, be demonstrated, that the process we 15 used would satisfy the statement that the generic 16 findings have no factual basis other than section four 17 discipline findings. I'm very confident that that is the 18 outcome, because everything is based upon the same i-19 material.
20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Now, at any time, say, prior 21 to -- prior to September 28, 1981, did you ever supply 22 the correlation of generic findings and questions and ,
23 answers in Volumes II and III to HL&P, anybody in HL&P?
24 THE WITNESS: Not to my knowledge. That was 25 prepared after some November, and I believe the dates D'
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13333 1 were November 5th and 6th, meetings with Bechtel in San 2 Francisco. We had a meeting with some HL&P 3 representatives, quite a large number of the the Quadrex l 4 participants in the study, and Bechtel in San Francisco j 5 on November 5th and 6th.
6 And in preparation for that meeting and as a 7 result of that meeting, I did prepare a list that 8 correlated generic findings to questions and answers, 9 handwritten, which was provided to both HL&P and to 10 Bechtel. That's all I've ever prepared.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes. Nothing along that 12 line or even oral statements prior to September 28, '81, 13 were made by you. Is that correct?
O<< 14 THE WITNESS: Only the May 7th meeting
- 15 statement, where Mr. Goldberg asked me the question. And 16 as I recall the question that he asked me was: Are the 17 generic findings based upon discipline findings.
18 And clearly in his mind, I now realize, he had 19 in mind: Are section three items solely dependent on 20 section four?
21 And I answered him yes. In my mind, I had 22 section three to questions and answers. But to me that's
., 23 not really an inconsistancy. I think it's the same 24 answer, that if you were to make that correlation, you 25 wouldn't find anything different.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13334 pr -
()- 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Now, in your May -- in the 2 May 7, not yours, but the May 7 briefing, I guess it was 3 yours, we understand that there was a lot of discussion, 4 I think, of the -- I guess it may be the first or maybe 5 the first two generic items.
6 Now, in that discussion, did you talk about any 7 specific underlying discipline findings?
8 THE WITNESS: I don't recall being asked that 9 question in that presentation by Brown & Root or HL&P.
10 That discussion centered around their disagreement with
- 11 the generic finding. And it wasn't really tied back to 12 "Did it come out of civil or did it come out of 13 electrical or" -- we didn't get into that kind of t
14 discussion; never got to that level.
15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. I think based on the 16 answers that Mr. Stanley has given, we will sustain the 17 objection to the line of questioning, on the ground that 18 HL&P's knowledge is what counts in terms of 19 reportability, or possibly Brown & Root's knowledge which l 20 might have gotten back to HL&P.
21 And Mr. Stanley says he did not discuss this l 22 with either Brown & Root or HL&P in the time frame where l 23 reportability is significant; in other words, before 24 September 28. So we will sustain on that -- on that 25 basis.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13335 1 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Stanley, I think I have just a 2 couple of final questions to clear up some points.
3 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) In generic finding 3.1 E at 4 Page 3-7.
5 A Okay.
6 Q In the second paragraph, you say, "and EVAC /IEC 7 single failure criterion failure violation has been l 8 noted." And you reference question R-6, and E-15.
i 9 A Yes.
10 Q I wanted to get the connection between those 11 two questions; R-6 is about a drawing, a common 12 instrument air line. And E-15, I really have one very -
- 13 simple question. Question E-15, if you will, the Brown &
.( 14 Root response to the question?
i 15 A The Brown & Root.
16 Q Question E-15.
- 17 A All right.
18 A Okay. Go ahead.
19 0 You see under Brown & Root response that the 20 item dated 2-24, is the drawing in R-6 the one B&R 21 selected example that's referenced in E-15?
22 A Based upon my review of the Brown & Root 23 response and our assessment to E-15, I'd have to say the 24 answer was no, that there was no example provided.
25 On 2-24, we extracted a promise that a control O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13336 C -
k_s) 1 air / instrument air and one Brown & Root selected example 2 are to be provided and discussed. And when you look at 3 the material that's after that, it's relatively evident 4 that we did not get the example.
5 The sketch of the fuel handling building, HVAC 6 exhaust system, subsystem, shown in question R-6 is one 7 that we uncovered at Quadrex found that single failure, 8 circled the drawing and included it in the report 9 ourselves.
10 0 I see. Is the problem that Quadrex was 11 pointing to with the drawing, the area that you have l 12 circled, that there are four instruments on one common
~
.g; 13 air line?
14 A No. The problem that we were identifying on 15 that sketch attached to question R-6 was a common 16 instrument air piping shown as the single line with 17 hashed marks, we were postulating that anywhere in that 18 line, that length of line, a blockage could occur that 19 would prevent the exhausting of instrument air under 20 accident conditions when needed. And therefore, those 21 instruments wouldn't respond properly.
22 The control valves would not operate properly.
23 And we were pointing out that that was a particular 24 failure that was required to be addressed by IEEE 379, 25 1972, a trial use standard on the application of single O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13337 1 failure criteria.
2 Q Let me be sure I understand. As I understood 3 the problem originally, it was that one blockage could 4 take out more than one instrument?
5 A Yes.
6 Q That is the problem?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Because the' instruments are hooked up to a 9 common line?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Okay.
12 A Now, the instrument -- I really ought to 13 correct that, if you'll permit me, if I may take my 14 glasses off to read it. It's really the valves that are
- 15 below the hash -- below the circled areas.
, 16 0 The valves below the circled area?
17 A Right, both top and bottom. Those valves would 18 not operate properly, if there was a postulated blockage 19 in that instrument line. There should have been separate i 20 lines, to each.
21 Q And this discipline finding or this question, 22 really, R-6, was part of your basis for concluding that 23 there was no documented evidence that the single failure
- 24 criteria has been satisfied because you had actually i 25 found a violation of it? I see them in the same O ,
j TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13338
(~h
\_/ 1 paragraph and I'm just trying to understand.
2 A I coupled the fact that we asked four 3 disciplines for their list of postulated single failures 4 and got no response.
5 I coupled that with the fact that in a brief 6 examination of this drawing, we were quickly able to find 7 for ourselves a violation. And I coupled those two 8 together to make that finding.
9 0 I didn't really quite understand. Did you just 10 say Quadrex found this drawing, Brown & Root didn't give 11 it to Quadrex?
12 A We got this drawing as part of that discipline, 13 the radiological control discipline ,
O-- 14 Q Okay.
15 A -- and the HVAC discipline --
16 0 Okay..
17 A -- saw the same drawing. But the question that 18 you had asked me earlier was in the electrical area.
19 Q Right, and --
20 A And the electrical didn't come forward with the 21 example. So we chose material that we got from other 22 sources.
23~ Q Instrumentation and control provided you with 24 this drawing and HVAC provided you with the same drawing?
25 A Of course, yeah.
1 CE) .
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13339
() 1 Q It's a common drawing to the two disciplines?
2 A ' Multi-discipline type drawing.
3 0 Okay.
4 MR. SINKIN: That concludes my 5 cross-examination, Mr. Chairman.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does the staff want a break 7 before it starts or would you --
8 MR. REIS: No, we can start now. I'm just going 9 to move over so we can watch the witness and he can watch 10 me. Make sure we both have our hands on the table.
11 MR. GUTTERMAN: I was just thinking we might 12 want to take a break within a half hour or so.
13 JUDGE BECHBOEFER: Oh, yeah.
14 15 CROSS EXAMINATION 16 17 By Mr. Reis:
18 Q Mr. Stanley, you previously stated that you did 19 work for the NRC as well as some of the utilities. Do 20 you have any projects going forward for the NRC at the 21 present time?
22 A Yes, I do.
23 Q What are they, very briefly?
24 A The integrated design inspection on Sharon j 25 Harris; Commanche Peak integrated IDVP, whatever that O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13340
) 1 stands for.
2 O Independent design verification program?
3 A And a program for through EG&G on electrical 4 component QA.
5 Q Mr. Stanley, are you aware of the 50.55(e) 6 reports that were made by Houston Lighting & Power as a 7 result of the Quadrex study?
8 A I was informed by telephone either May 8th or 9 May 9th, somewhere through there, as to what had been 10 reported. But the actual reports, I've never received.
11 Q So you don't know the scope of the reports?
12 A That's correct.
- 13 Q There was talk --
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Could I interrupt one 15 minute? Is your answer that you were aware of the 16 reports only for those made on May 8, and later followed 17 up, or are you including what was reported later as when 18 Bechtel came in with its task force.
19 THE WITNESS: You mean the one additional item 20 that got reported later?
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right.
22 THE WITNESS: I was made aware shortly after 23 the report was submitted of the three reportable, under l 24 50.55(E) of the three items that HL&P had reported. I 25 was unaware until we began preparing testimony that the
- ) \
1 TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13341
,c .
(_) 1 instrument line blockage had been reported and then 2 withdrawn. I didn't even know that had happened.
3 JUDGE BECHBOEFER: Okay, sorry for the 4 interruption. I just wanted to clarify that.
5 Q (By Mr. Reis) Calling your attention to CCANP 6 Exhibit 105 and the second page thereof.
7 A Second page.
8 Q Yes. There's a reference to appendix E. Do 9 you know what Appendix E is referred to there?
10 A I assume that it's 10 CFR 55 part E, or 11 whatever it's.
12 Q Excuse me?
13 A Be right with you, just a second.
(_) 14 Q Appendix E, Appendix E part 50 deals with 15 emergency planning. Is that what they were referring to 16 there?
17 A No. No, I don't believe so.
18 Q If you don't know what they were referring to, 19 you can just say so, Mr. Stanley.
20 A No, I do know what they were referring to. I'm 21 just trying to get the exact words.
22 A I assumed when I received that letter that they 23 were referring to the reporting requirements under 55.55 24 part E.
25 Q So the words Appendix E had no meaning?
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13342 (SN
(-) 1 A I disregarded it, the word " appendix."
2 Q Okay. Fine. There's been discussion in the 3 record, Mr. Stanley, as to whether the FSAR was a design 4 document or I think you used the words licensing 5 commitment document. Can you tell the difference in how 6 you used those terms and what you mean by " design 7 document" when you say the PSAR is not a design document, 8 but a licensing commitment document?
9 A If you designate the FSAR as a design input.
10 document, then it becomes an engineering document subject 11 to all of the engineering controls, and if you use any 12 values from the FSAR in calculations or other analyses as
- r. 13 design inputs, they need to be subject to the design 14 verification aspects of Appendix B.
15 However, if you designate the FSAR as a 16 licensing commitment document and not a design input 17 document, then you don't need to perform those steps, but 18 in place you need another document within the engineering 19 system for the plant, that contains the values that would 20 be used as design inputs. I hope that explains --
21 Q In your answer, you're not implying that there 22 is no need to meet the commitments in the FSAR in design, 23 are you?
24 A No, absolutely not. You must meet the 25 commitments in design that are provided in the FSAR.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 L
13343 1 Q Mr. Stanley, tell me if I'm correct, in your 2 testimony yesterday, I believe you testified that you did 3 not think any matters but the three original matters 4 called out by HL&P as being reportable under 50.55(e) had
, 5 to be reported. Did you so testify?
6 A To the best of my recollection, that's correct.
7 0 Today, we have dealt with what is CCANP Exhibit 8 104, a letter of March 2nd, 1982, and I believe you might 9 have it in front of you, and I will ask you, you dealt 10 with comment five, seven, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen --
11' you don't recall, is what you are saying; you just raised 12 your hand.
- 11 3 A. Yeah, you are reading off a list of comments.
() 14 Q Yes.
15 A I didn't keep score.
16 0 In your testimony on those various comments?
17 A Yes.
18 0 And as a result of the examination you made in 4
19 those comments, do you now believe that any additional 20 matters should have been reported from the Quadrex report 21 under 50.55(e) besides those matters you testified to i
22 yesterday?
23 A No. There are no additional matters arising
, 24 from this letter.
25 Q Does this letter, in any way, does this letter
()
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13344
- c. -
1 indicate any breakdown in quality assurance? !
i 2 A Not in my opinion. The thrust of this letter 3 was to provide our viewpoint on the Bechtel task force, 4 responses and evaluations, trying to round out where
! 5 perhaps their understanding wasn't complete, or to show 6 where they were internally contradicting from one line 7 item to another line item, that their position wasn't l 8 necessarily established.
9 But there was nothing that came out of this 10 that would affect reportability, at that time or even l 11 today.
12 Q In preparing these comments, set out in CCANP i
i 13 Exhibit 104, did you make any attempt to divide those 0 14 comments which went to efficiency of construction or 15 economy, financial matters, from those that dealt with 16 safety, in your mind?
17 A No, I did not. I took the Bechtel task force 18 report and item by item prepared a comment in the same 19 sequence, and provided a statement of one or more 20 sentences based upon that comment alone, without regard 21 as to whether it was safety or non-safety or economic or r 22 uneconomic. I was merely trying to respond to the 23 Bechtel task force evaluation.
24 MR. REIS: Thank you. One second. That's all 25 I have. Decided to do it the short way.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13345 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Why don't we take a fifteen 2 minute break before we start ours.
3 (Recess.)
4 (No hiatus.)
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13346 f5
(-) 1 BOARD EXAMINATION 2
3 By Judge Bechhoefer:
4 0 Mr. Stanley, I guess I'm the only Board member 5 to has any questions to ask you and I don't have too 6 many. I'd like to clarify one matter that came up 7 sometime yesterday. I wasn't able to find it in the 8 transcript. In developing the report, itself, you 9 mentioned that you supplied certain areas or questions, 10 areas of questions to HL&P for their review?
11 A This was at the beginning of the project, in 12 January.
gns 13 0 Yes.
U 14 -
A We developed the set of questions in the later 15 part of January. We provided those questions to HL&P for 16 their review, comment and concurrence.
17 0 I wanted to just clear up the numbers of areas.
18 I thought you testified that you provided seven areas or 19 something of that line?
20 A In our original proposal, as I counted the 21 items yesterday, we identified seven technical areas.
22 Q Yes.
l 23 A But in the report, itself, on page 1-1, there 24 are more, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, 25 seven, eight -- nine areas.
l
(
l l TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 L
13347 1 Q Right.
2 A So two areas were added in the January -- the 3 meetings at the end of January at Quadrex.
4 0 Well, what I wanted to clear up was in staff ,
5 inspection report 8202, I think you are quoted as stating 6 that you originally supplied nine areas. And I just 7 wondered whether one or the other statement was a mistake 8 or whether there was some areas that got deleted or 9 changed.
10 A Could we look at that exhibit? It's my 11 testimony to the Region IV people.
12 Q Page 12 of the report. I don't have your 13 statement.
14 A Oh, you are referring to the Region IV.
15 Q The Region IV. I don't have your sworn 16 statements, though.
17 A I would really prefer to have that, because I 18 had not ever received this Region IV report.
19 0 I see. That's all we have received.
20 A Yeah. I gave a sworn deposition or whatever it 21 is, to two visitors. So let me search for the reference 22 on here. In reading this first paragraph, I believe that 23 there is an error in my statement to the NRC people from 24 Region IV. The sentence at the end of paragraph one 25 says, it's referring to Dr.. Sumpter, he identified nine C)
M TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13348
) 1 engineering disciplines which he wanted to review to 2 concentrate on.
3 At the time of the telephone call on January 4 4th, there were seven. And the mechanical discipline was 5 split so that there was mechanical as well as piping and 6 supports. And then the computer programs and codes were 7 pulled together, because we had questions on computer 8 codes in a number of disciplines, wo decided to pull 9 those together into a common area and define that one.
10 Other than that, there isn't any inconstistency.
11 I think at the time I made this statement to 12 the NRC inspectors, I had completely forgotten about the 13 proposal letter of seven, and had adopted the final 14 result of nine in my thinking pattern. -
15 0 Well, if we should happen to write a finding on 16 it, then we should use seven as you said yesterday.
17 A Okay.
18 Q My question area that I'd like to ask you 19 about, in the meetings that you attended on May 7, '81, 20 meeting or meetings as the case may be, did any of the 21 meetings, at any of the meetings, do you recall any 22 discussion of how, the methodology, how HL&P would report 23 Quadrex findings to NRC or alternatively would make 24 records of what portions they did not report?
2 25 A I was not a participant in any of those O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13349 l
(
I
' (-) 1 discussions. We made the presentation in the May 7th I l 2 meeting. At the meeting of that, I had the brief one or '
3 two minute discussion with Mr. Goldberg about the fact
! 4 that all of the items were correctable or doable, that 5 sort of thing. And I was essentially removed from any l 6 further process involving the evaluation of 7 reportability, other than to be available at Brown & Root 8 on the afternoon and the evening of May 7th, as a 9 resource to them if they.needed it. And I simply got no 10 instructions or heard no plans as to how they planned to i
l 11 conduct that review.
12 Q I see. Do you. recall any of these meetings on 13 where Mr. Barker migh~t have attended? Or did you even U 14 know Mr. Barker?
t 15 A Are you speaking of the. meetings?
16 Q On May 7.
17 A On May 7?
18 0 Yes.
19 A I don't recal.1 !ar certain whether he was at 20 the May 7th present F; u. r not. I simply don't remember 21 who all the attendees were. To my recollection, we 22 didn't have any conversation at all that day, he and I.
23 Q Could your counsel show you Document No. 17 of 24 the Quadrex documents that the Board was supplied?
25 We don't intend do introduce this, but we O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
6 13350
\~ - 1 would, Mr. Stanley, if you could read the last two items; 2 I just would like to know whether those notes which are 3 supposed to be Mr. Barker's notes refresh your 4 recollection at all or whether you were present, either
'ei i' 5 items nine or ten.
6 A Okay, item nine and ten is mark up a system,
- - 7 and document evaluation of each item, is that how you i
8 read it.
9 0 Yes.
10 A Must mark up a system.
~11 Q Or "make up a system," I read it, but if you 12 have no recollection of that, then it's not your notes or 13 anything like that --
0- 14 A These are not my notes.
15 0 -- and I assume you have never seen these.
16' A And item ten is, "Go through each item on an 17 informal basis, use engineering judgment then present 18 before IRC." I don't recall any discussion -- there was 19 no discussion of that nature at the May 7th presentation 20 meeting that concluded just.about noontime. I don't 4
21 recall that being discussed.
22 (No Hiatus.)
23 24
.a.
25 l'O i(
l',
. TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
e 13351 1 Q I see.
(
2 A That's my recollection.
3 0 Okay. That's all I wanted to. find out.
4 Third is just in general, did you or -- did 5 you make the Quadrex report dramatic or overly 6 dramatic --
7 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, if I may just 8 interrupt, perhaps the record could be a little 9 clearet. I think you referred to a -- did you refer to 10 Mr. Barker's notes?
11 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, I did. I mentioned 2 12 Mr. Barker's name.
O 13 MR. AXELRAD: Okay. When we provided that 14 information to the Board on April 19, we identified that 15 as item 17 as handwritten notes by Mr. Blau. Now --
' 16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Oh, I'm sorry.
17 MR. AXELRAD: I can't vouch for either name 4 18 name, but that's what we said when we provided it. I 19 wanted to make sure the Board didn't have --
- 20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER
- I might have looked at the 21 wrong note here.
22 Q (By Judge Bechhoefer) Well, does it refresh i
23 your recollection anymore if you substitute the name
() 24 Blau?
i I
25 A There's no difference in my recollection.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13352
, 1 JUDGE BECHBOEFER: I have the wrong name
}
2- written down here.
3 MR. AXELRAD: Fine. )
i 4 A In answer to your question, I think it's fair 5 ~ to say that the writing style on the Quadrex report is ;
6 not atypical for me.
7 Q (By Judge Bechhoefer) I don't know if I got 8 my whole question out.
9 A Okay. All right.
10 Q Was it either dramatic or overly dramatic in 11 order to catch the attention of management? That's, sort
- 12 of a paraphrase of ,some earlier testimony we had.
b 13 A It's not significantly different than other 14 reports that I've written in terms of style or tone, 15 choice of words. Clearly we did want to get the 16 attention of HL&P to what we felt were some management 17 weaknesses in the technical disciplines and in the 18 management of the technical disciplines. So, the 19 putting of the generic findings as the first thing that 20 one encounters was a deliberate move to try and capture 21 their attention.
22 The report was not, if you will, jazzed up 23 with any deliberate intent at all. This is quite O 24 typical of my writing style in general.
25 Q Would you now turn to CCANP Exhibit 104.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
~rr~ <
13353 A
(]) 1 I have it.
2 Q And comment 10, this is one of the few I 3 didn't have a chance to break in on. With respect to 4 that comment, do you see any QA implications at least 5 to --
6 A At the point in time that we submitted the 7 report, there was evidence that they had not done a lot 8 of analysis that had yet to be done. There was evidence 9 that some of the analyses they had done were possibly 10 incorrect or had errors in them. But we could tell at 11 that point in time that they still had a lot of work to 12 do and the biggest problem was that they had not done
() 13 the work that we had expected that they would have 14 done. So, at that point in time I didn't see a QA 15 problem, per se.
16 Now, at the time that I wrote this March 2nd 17 letter commenting on the Bechtel task force report, I i
18 had no additional input beyond that May 7th, 1981 i l
19 period. We had not received any new material from Brown l 20 & Root. We had not performed any further review of the 21 material that we had. So, there wasn't anything in the
.22 way of new information that went into the making up of 23 this comment. So, the position would have been the same
.O V 24 at the same time.
25 And today, even today we really didn't have a TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 . _ . _ . - - _ _
e . __ __
13354 1 sufficient number of cases in my mind to where we could
(}
2 say there was a QA breakdown. We saw indications of 3 problems. We thought that HL&P should pay some 4 attention to this area quickly and see what the real 5 problems were and set out on a course of action to 6 correct them, but we didn't have enough information to 7 draw a final conclusion on that.
8 0 The circumstance that some errors had been 9 made, you may not have the expertise in 50.55(e) 10 reporting to answer this, but would you think at least
-11 these items could have been considered potential?
12 A Well, not in my mind. We did keep track of O 13 the error rate during the review and the comment that we 14 saw an error rate that was higher than expected was 15 based upon an average of about four or five percent. We 16 had looked at about eighty to a hundred different 17 calculations. We found errors in four to five percent 18 of those. Some of the errors were conservative, they 19 were large errors in a safe direction. Other errors 20 were in modeling or in inputs, things of this nature.
21 What I was commenting on with that was that 22 four or five percent was above my threshold of 23 tolerance, my subjective threshold of tolerance. I had l O 24 in mind a one or two percent error rate which I would '
25 have considered to be normal or typical. And what I was l I
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
m 13355 f')
1 seeing was four and five percent, which wouldn't satisfy v
2 me were I in charge of those groups.
3 So -- now, a four or five percent error rate 4 is not a very high rate anyway and we had sampled very 5 quickly approximately eighty to a hundred calculations.
6 That simply wasn't enough in my mind to say there was a 7 QA breakdown in that area either. But it was an area 8 that should be looked at.
9 Now, as I recall, they reported the computer 10 code as a reportable deficiency. That was part of this 11 also.
x 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's all the questions we 13 have.
14 Mr. Axelrad or Mr. Gutterman?
15 16 REDIRECT EXAMINATION 17 BY MR. GUTTERMAN:
18 Q Mr. Stanley, in reviewing the transcript for 19 yesterday I saw at page 13202 a discussion in which 20 you -- well, you were asked about whether between May 21 7th of 1981 and September of 1981 you had any further 22 contacts with HL&P about the study. And your answer was 23 that you were asked to come back to Houston for a one or O
24 two-day period as you recalled it in June or July. I'm 25 paraphrasing it, it's not an exact quote. And you said TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13356 1 they wanted to determine if there was anything in the
-( }
2 Quadrex report that would have impact upon the hearings 3 that were about to begin.
4 Since yesterday have you had an opportunity to 5 check your schedule and --
6 A Yes, I have, and I would like to correct the 7 record on that point. My memory was in error 8 yesterday.
9 I contacted -- I've reviewed my schedule book 10 for 1981 and I've also called my wife and she has 11 examined expense account copies that I submitted to 12 Quadrex in that five-month period to. determine where I O 13 was and what I was doing on specific dates.
14 With those two sources of information, the 15 meetings in support of the hearings were at HL&P on 16 November 2nd and 3rd of 1981, travel day was November 1 17 to Houston. There were meetings in June, they were 18 travel day June 10 and meetings in Houston on June lith 19 and June 12th, 1981, for the purpose of briefing, as I 20 recall, John White who was at that time I believe a 21 manager of licensing or was in the licensing group at 22 HL&P, and possibly Mr. Robertson on specific items in 23 the Quadrex report. I was asked to come back about a 24 month after the report was submitted and provide 25 additional input to them directly.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e l
13357 T 1 So, I appreciate the opportunity to correct f'.J u
2 that record.
3 Q And that meeting in June had no relationship 4 to hearings?
5 A It had no relationship to hearings. It was on 6 the South Texas Quadrex report project.
7 MR. GUTTERMAN: That's all --
8 A It was not tied to the hearings.
9 MR. GUTTERMAN: That's the only questions I 10 have, Mr. Chairman.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Was it tied to 12 reportability of any item?
13 THE WITNESS: No. No, I believe it was to
- 14 have direct interaction with John White who had not been 15 involved in the entire period with this activity.
16 MR. GUTTERMAN: That's all the redirect.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I hate to possibly look 18 stupid, but who's John White?
19 MR. GUTTERMAN: He was a witness in Phase I, 20 Mr. Chairman.
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's what I thought, 22 but --
23 MR. GUTTERMAN: He testified on the question 24 of -- the one we talked about earlier this morning, 25 about the question of whether there was a material false TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
w 13358
(} 1 statement in the FSAR.
2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Okay. I just knew 3 I recognized the name and I couldn't place him.
4 Mr. Sinkin?
5 6 RECROSS EXAMINATION 7 BY MR. SINKIN:
8 Q In your visit to Houston in June, your task 9 was essentially to brief John White on what Quadrex had 10 found?
11 A That's correct.
~ 12 Q And what role do you remember that Mr.
13 Robertson played in that meeting?
14 A My recollection is that we went over to the 15 Brown & Root library for a portion of that meeting and 16 that Mr. Robertson sat in with Mr. White while we 17 discussed particular findings in the report. Other than 18 that, I don't know what his role was, what his 19 particular interest was. And, quite frankly, it's been 20 too long to remember the specifics of it.
21 Q Did Mr. White bring up specific items he 22 wanted to ask you about or had you come prepared to make 23 a presentation?
("'-) 24 A I made no presentation that day, those two 25 days.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
-tes 13359
() 1 Q So, you basically responded to questions from 2 Mr. White?
3 A That's my recollection, yes.
4 Q Were there any particular areas of concern to 5 Mr. White that you remember?
6 A The entire episode I have had trouble 7 recalling.
8 0 I think that's apparent here.
9 A That one I didn't remember very well.
10 MR. SINKIN: That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Reis?
12 MR. REIS: Nothing more.
O 13 MR. GUTTERMAN: Nothing more.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Gutterman, any 15 further --
16 MR. GUTTERMAN: Applicants have no further 17 questions.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Stanley, I guess you're 19 excused.
20 THE WITNESS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
21 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Before we move on, I'm just 22 looking for some documents, the Board thinks we should 23 discuss the Waterford decision at this time before we O
24 get on to the Bechtel panel -- I said before we move on 25 to the Bechtel panel, we ought to discuss the Waterford TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13360 1 decision. That's what I'm looking for.
(')T w
2 Okay. The Board advised the parties earlier 3 that it might want to, probably would want to discuss 4 the implications of a sentence which appears in a recent 5 Appeal Board decision. It's in the Louisiana Power &
6 Light Company Waterford decision. It's ALAB, 812, 812, 7 On page 11 of that decision, the Appeal Board, 8 in the course of evaluating a motion to reopen which was 9 based on certain alleged QA violations or charges 10 actually, charges by some individuals in particular, the 11 Appeal Board said that the intervenor's failure in that 12
,~s . case to connect a charge or a particular charge with the U 13 correct criterion, and they're referring to the 14 criterion in Appendix B, is not fatal to their case. I 15 might add there were other things that were.
16 But this statement could be read to conflict 17 with a ruling or determination which we made at the 18 sixth prehearing conference, and I refer particularly to 19 pages, transcript pages 11184 through 11192, that may be 20 alight)y more pages than I needed, where we in essence 21 said that we would evaluate the alleged QA violations of 22 the failtre to report in terms of only the criteria 23 which Mr. Sinkin had listed in a November -- either in a O 24 November 1981 letter or at one of the later prehearing 25 conferences. And I'm not sure that that ruling was TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13361 consistent with the Appeal Board's more recent
(]) 1 2 statement.
3 Whether this is a problem or not may depend on 4 the scope of the parties' testimony on those particular 5 issues.
6 It appears to at least the Board Chairman that 7 the Staff's testimony in the very least is broader than 8 the specific listed criteria in the contention. So, I 9 mean, insofar as the Staff is concerned, it is clear to 10 us that whether we -- if we should expand the 11 contentions to include any violation of any criteria, 12 the Staff would still -- the change would be moot as far 13 as the Staff's testimony is concerned.
14 It appears to me that the Applicants' 15 testimony may also be broader, but I cannot -- I have 16 not determined or gone through each item to determine 17 whether in every case the Applicants' panel, which is 18 the panel which is due to come on, has addressed any 19 alleged violation in terms of any criterion of Appendix 20 B. So, whether or not this change, if we made it, would 21 be of any substance to the Applicants, I'm not sure.
22 First, I assume Mr. Sinkin would want us to 23 follow the point of view set forth in Waterford on page '
24 11.
i 25 MR. SINKIN: Yes, Mr. Chairman, we have a '
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 l
e 13362 1 statement on that point, if you'd like that now.
(])
2 MR. AXELRAD: It might short circuit this 3 discussion if we stated our position.
4 JUDGE BECHBOEFER: If the Applicants agree, 5 you may not have to make one. You've made a statement 6 already, and I'm not going to preclude you from making 7 another one if you have to. You made one already 8 earlier at the prehearing conference within the pages I 9 cited. I would like to find out what the Applicants' 10 position is.
11 MR. AXELRAD: Fine, Mr. Chairman.
12 We have read ALAB 812, including page 11.* It 13 appears to us that the situation that the Appeal Board 14 had before it in that case was different than the 15 situation that the Licensing Board has before it in this 16 case.
17 As best we can understand the Waterford 18 circumstances, the intervenors had filed a very large 19 number of charges and they had grouped those into twelve 20 categories which I gather somehow related to some 21 Appendix B criteria. And the Appeal Board decided that 22 for purposes of ruling on the motion to reopen, it was 23 just easier for the Appeal Board not to pay any O 24 attention to the specific criterion that had been cited, 25 but just to look at the charges themselves, decide TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13363 1 whether any of the charges were safety significant, and (v')
2 thereby decide whether or not one of the criteria that 3 had to be met for reopening a proceeding had been 4 satisfied.
s 5 I do not read that decision as stating a 6 proposition of law as to whether or not it's appropriate 7 to limit a contention to a specific criteria in Appendix 8 B under appropriate circumstances.
9 It does appear to us that in this particular 10 case we have had specific statements by CCANP as to 11 which criteria they believed.to have been violated by 12, particular findings and that it would have been
,0 13 perfectly appropriate, as the Board did indicate, to 14 limit this proceeding to whether or not those findings 15 violated those particular criteria.
16 We did find, however, in drafting our 17 testimony, the testimony particularly of the Bechtel 18 panel, that it was much more rational in discussing each 19 of those particular findings to address the particular 20 criteria that CCANP had identified and then, in order to
- 21 make sure the Board understood that there was no i
22 violation of Appendix B involved, to go on and discuss 23 the criteria which might, in fact, be much more
+ 24 rationably related to the subject matter of the 25 particular finding.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e >
13364 1 So, the Board is correct.
(]) As in the case of 2 the Staff's testimony, our testimony does, in fact, go l
3 beyond the specific criteria which had been identified 4 by CCANP and therefore we would not be prejudiced if the 5 Board were to make clear that the particular findings 6 will be judged against whatever criteria of Appendix B 7 might possibly relate to those particular subject 8 matters. ,
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does the Staff have any 10 comment?
11 MR. REIS: Well, the Staff reads the case as 12 being sui generous and applying to the fact situation
- CE) -
13 for the Appeal Board at that time. We don't feel the 14 language can be broadened to all cases or that the 15 Appeal Board in any way in speaking of the particular 16 case before them was speaking as to a general rule of i'
17 law. We think the rules as to contentions and the need 18 to state things with specificity in NRC proceedings, 19 this isn't exactly a contention but it's analogous, 20 still follows.
21 However, we don't think it makes any 22 difference in this case as the Applicant does. And, 23 therefore, whether or not we follow the Appeal Board or t
O' 24 don't follow the Appeal Board, we feel the testimony 25 fully deals with Appendix B as a whole and we've TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13365
()
1 approached it that way.
2 However, I wouldn't like any precedent from 3 this Licensing Board to indicate that in the future 4 drafting of contentions or issues that one need not at 5 any time specify which criteria might be violated. I 6 just think it would'be awful for NRC proceedings in the 7 future. But I don't think it makes any difference in 8 this case. I think it's ridic -- has no meaning.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will, without 10 setting any precedent or expressing any opinion as to 11 whether the Appeal Board decision is sui generous or 12 broader, we will consider in this case whether any, 13 criteria have been violated without expressing any 14 opinion as to whether in the future contentions would 15 necessarily have to be resolved in that manner or 16 decided in that manner.
17 So, with that, I guess we can go on to the 18 Bechtel panel. Unless you have anybody else --
19 MR. SINKIN: Wait, Mr. Chairman. First of 20 all, in reviewing my notes I wanted to catch up on one 21 thing. We had brought up the matter of the audit on 22 soils and my notes reflect that there was going to be a
- 23 report this morning on the status of that audit.
24 MR. AXELRAD: I'll have to defer that until 25 tomorrow morning, Mr. Chairman.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13366
/~3 1 MR. SINKIN: And also that there was going to C/
2 be a filing of a revision of the notice on violation.
3 MR. AXELRAD: That would be part of the same 4 package tomorrow morning.
5 MR. REIS: As long as we're making other 6 business before we get to the next panel, I might 7 announce that Mr. Pirfo will represent the Staff at the 8 hearing tomorrow. I have other business that takes me 9 away within the NRC.
10 MR. SINKIN: I have one other matter, Mr.
11 Chairman. You had called attention also to page 18 of
, 12 ALAB 812 as to whether it would affect us here and that (s\
13 may not be a matter -- that may just be a briefing 14 matter for later, but I want to be sure if there was 15 something that you wanted to discuss, that we did 16 respond to it.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I guess I had referred to 18 the footnote --
19 MR. SINKIN: Footnote 15.
20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- on page 18 where the 21 Appeal Board treated a certain MAC report in a certain 22 way. I don't know whether this has any bearing on 23 anything further that we have to rule on in Phase II O 24 particularly, but maybe it does. I'm not sure.
25 MR. AXELRAD: I'm sure that particular TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13367
('i 1 footnote will be referred to in somebody's proposed V
2 findings.
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes, but I don't think we 4 need to have oral argument on what it means now.
5 MR. AXELRAD: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Or oral argument now on 7 what it means.
8 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, one other item. As 9 we understood today we were going to do Mr. Stanley and 10 then do the ALAB and then we were going to quit.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We ended up a little
,f-12 earlier than we thought.
V 13 MR. SINKIN: We did end up early.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: What we thought is that we 15 would not get into any testimony as such, but at least 16 hear arguments on whether the forthcoming panel 17 testimony is admissible. You have filed a motion which 18 includes --
19 MR. SINKIN: Yes. I mean, because of the 20 arrangement I didn't even bring that material with me.
21 Although, I'm sure someone else has the motion to 22 strike. That's not all the material I didn't bring with 23 me.
O 24 (No hiatus.)
25 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
l 13368 l l
1 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I would like to 2 make a suggestion in view of what Mr. Sinkin has just 3 said.
4 What we would propose to do this afternoon is 5 simply to put the Bechtel panel on; we have a couple of 6 exhibits which we are going to put into that panel, get 7 those exhibits into the record, deal with the motion to 8 strike and presumably any voir dire and that's it.
9 We may, in fact, have some additional oral 10 direct testimony that we may ask of this panel. We 11 haven't quite decided that yet, but we can consider that 12 overnight and save some time.
13 If there is any additional direct testimony, we s
14 would do that first thing tomorrow. morning. So all that 15 would be needed to be done with this panel this afternoon 16 is the exhibits, getting their testimony, their prefiled 17 testimony into the record, doing with any motions to 18 strike and getting the exhibits into the record, and then 19 adjourn -- and voir dire and then adjourn until tomorrow.
20 MR. SINKIN: I understand the proposal. It was 21 the voir dire was going to be fairly extensive.
22 MR. AXELRAD: We've got a couple of hours to do 23 that, then.
24 MR. SINKIN: Which I was not prepared to go 25 forward with at this time, is my problem.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13369 0
x/ 1 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman -- did you finish, Mr.
2 Sinkin?
3 MR. SINKIN: Yes, I'm finished.
4 MR. REIS: I don't understand why we can't go 5 forward. We know the order of witnesses, people are 6 here, we were told what it was. The fact that we got rid 7 of Mr. Stanley early, this hearing is not running behind 8 its projected pace and we ought to move forward.
9 JUDGE SHON: If he wants a copy of its motion 10 to strike, we can --
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Off the record for a minute.
(Discussion off the record.)
12 13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, back on the record.
14 MR. FRANTZ: The Applicant will now call Dr.
15 Sidney Bernsen and Frank Lopez to the stand.
16 The witnesses have not yet been sworn in this 17 proceeding.
18 19 20 21 22 23 ,
24 25 O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE,' 498-8442
F 13370 O
V 1 Whereupon, 2
3 SIDNEY A. BERNSEN AND FRANK LOPEZ, JR.
4 were called as witnesses by the Applicants and, having 5 been first duly sworn upon their oaths, testified as 6 follows:
7 DIRECT EXAMINATION 8 By Mr. Frantz:
9 Q Dr. Bernsen and Mr. Lopez, will each of you 10 state your full name for the record.
11 A (By Mr. Lopez) My name is Frank Lopez, Jr.
12 A (By Mr. Bernsen) My name is Sidney A. Bernsen.
13 0 Have each of you read or each of are you O 14 familiar with the prefiled testimony on behalf of Houston 15 Lighting & Power, et al, of Sidney A. Bernsen and Frank 16 Lopez, Jr., consisting of 107 pages plus attached 17 resumes?
18 A (By Mr. Bernsen) Yes, I am.
19 A 'By Mr. Lopez) Yes, I am.
20 Q Do you have any corrections deletions or 21 modifications that you wish to make to your testimony.
22 A (By Mr. Lopez) Yes, we do.
23 0 Will you please state those?
24 A (By Mr. Bernsen) On page three, line 21 or two 25 and-a-half, there's a misspelling of the word TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13371 kwJ 1 " organization," transposition of the letters "i" and "t."
2 On page 17, line 11, add an "s" after 3 " description," so it should read " system design 4 descriptions."
5 Page 19, line 1, insert the word "to," after 6 the word " limited."
7 MR. REIS: How do you spell "to?"
8 MR. BERNSEN: T-o, limited to those reported to 9 the NRC.
10 A (By Mr. Bernsen) Page 35, line 22, delete the 11 word "the," second word in that line.
12 Page 36, line 6, add a comma after the word
~ 13 "procurements."
14 Page 39, line 2, in the word " certification,"
15 strike the third "i," the one after the "c".
16 Page 65, line 7, add an "s" to the word 17 "different," so that it would read "these differences."
18 Then in my resume, on page 2, the last 19 paragraph, as you might expect, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 lines 20 from the bottom of the last word, " assurance" should have 21 an "a."
22 , Frank, let me give the QA conclusions on this.
23 I'll let him correct his resume.
24 MR. LOPEZ. Okay. On my resume, under the 25 education section, for clarity, after the word O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13372 1 " University" in the second line, add a comma between the 2 word " University" and " graduate."
3 On the 6th line, there's a sentence -- phrase 4 being program and management, delete ths "and" --
5 JUDGE LAMB Where is that?
6 MR. LOPE 1: Is under the section after the 7 "MMBA." It should read " program management and financial 8 management."
9 And under the employer section, delete the 10 phrase " graduation from college," and replace it with 11 "since completion of his nuclear engineering graduate 12 studies."
13 Q (By Mr. Frantz) Does that complete your 14 modifications?
- 15 A (By Mr. Lopes) Yes, sir.
16 Q Can I bring your attention to perhaps one 17 further modification? On page 11, line 14. Does that 18 refresh your memory?
19 A (By Mr. Bernsen) Yes. In the parenthetic 20 expression "except those actual reported to the NRC,"
21 that should be limited except to "some actually 22 reported."
23 Q Thank you.
24 A (By Mr. Bernsen) Some of those.
25 JUDGE LAMB Could you give me that again.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13373
.O '
C' 1 MR. BERNSEN: "Except to some of those actually 2 reported."
l 3 Q (By Mr. Frantz) Dr. Bernsen, are the portions 4 of this testimony sponsored by you as modified true and 5 correct to the best of your knowledge, information and 6 belief?
7 A (By Mr. Bernsen) Yes, they are.
8 Q Do you, Dr. Bernsen, do you adopt those portion 9 of this testimony sponsored by you as modified as your l
l 10 testimony in this proceeding?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Mr. Lopez, are the portions of this testimony p 13 sponsored by you as modified 'true and correct to the best l
14 of your knowledge, information and belief?
15 A (By Mr. Lopez) Yes, they are.
16 Q Mr. Lopez, do you adopt this testimony as 17 modified as your testimony in this proceeding?
18 A Yes, I do.
19 MR. FRANTZ: The Applicants move that the 20 testimony on behalf of Hauston Lighting & Power Company, 21 et al, of Sidney Bernsen and Frank Lopez, Jr., as 22 modified been admitted into evidence in this proceeding. ,
l 23 MR. SINKIN: Objection, Mr. Chairman.
l 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let me ask if there's any 25 objections.
l l
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13374 iO x/ 1 MR. SINKIN: Sorry.
2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's all right. Do you 3 wish to handle the objections in terms, first, of the 4 motion to strike the portions applicable to this 5 testimony? Or do you wish to conduct voir dire first?
6 MR. SINKIN: I think what I'd like to do is, 7 Mr. Chairman, is start with a general objection to the 8 entire testimony and then we can proceed from there to 9 whether specific parts of the testimony come in or not.
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, fine.
11 MR. SINKIN: We have just been through a 12 lengthy argument about whether CCANP would be allowed to 13 ask Mr. Stanley to link specific findings to generic 14 findings. And the Applicant arguned I should not be 15 allowed to do that because HL&P's process was not related 16 to that, that what I was doing was not meaningful, would 17 shed no light on the HL&P process, was a post hoc 18 creation and therefore should be ruled out of order. And 19 their objection was sustained.
20 And I was not allowed to proceed with Mr.
21 Stanley, the author of the Quadrex report, to create some 22 picture of how the specific findings relate to the 23 generic findings.
24 Now we have testimony prepared four years after 25 the fact by people who were not on the project, who were O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
t ., 13375 p) i ,
(_ 1 not involved in the Quadrex study, who purport to give 2 the rationale on why the findings at issue in this 3 proceeding should not have to be reported to the NRC. I
.4 can't imagine that if my inquiry of Mr. Stanley could 5 shed no light on the HL&P process and was post hoc and 6 not meaningful, that something done by people having 7 absolutely no connection with the study four years later 8 is in any way meaningful or can shed any light on the 9 HL&P process.
10 The Applicant argued that the issue here was 11 how did HL&P decide what to report and what not to 12 report. It is not an issue of what someone comes along 13 later and puts in their mouth as to what they should have 14 reported or not reported. And that's essentially what we t
15 have here. And on that basis, we would object to this 16 testimony in its entirety and ask that it be stricken --
17 well, ask that it be not admitted.
/
18 '
MR. FRANTZ: Mr. Chairman, I couldn't disagree 19 with Mr. Sinkin's characterization more. What we 20 objected to previously today was an attempt to link up 21 specific discipline findings which are not at issue in 22 this proceeding with certain generic findings which are.
23 What we have from Mr. Bernsen and Mr. Lopez are testimony 24 on the exact findings in issue, and and whether those 25 findings should have been reported to the NRC.
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13376 1 That testimony is clearly relevant, clearly 2 material; has nothing at all to do with our previous 3 objection to the line of cross posed by Mr. Sinkin and we 4 don't see any basis for objecting to this testimony on 5 that ground.
6- JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does the staff have a view?
7 MR. REIS: Yes, the staff also feels the 8 situation is quite different. The testimony as we see it 9 coming in is testimony of an expert nature, telling as to 10 whether the information there was such as to indicate 11 whether it should have been reported. And we don't think 12 that was the situation. -
13 And keeping out the testimony of of Mr. Stanley O,
14 this afternoon on the basis of all the Board's rulings 15 keeping out the testimony of Mr. Stanley. Certainly it 16 is appropriate to have an expert opinion as to whether 17 the matters and the words in what was handed to HL&P, and 18 which they reviewed within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, indicated any 19 breakdown in quality assurance and that's what we have 20 here from Bechtel.
21 MR. SINKIN: If I could respond, Mr. Chairman.
22 First of all, I believe Applicants' counsel misspoke 23 himself to some extent. There's no way to know whether I 24 was attempting to link up specific discipline findings 25 not at issue in this proceeding with the generic findings TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13377 1 since I only got to two of them and intended to get to '
)
2 far more than that and many of them would have been 3 specifically at issue in this proceeding and tied to a 4 generic.
5 So I don't think that's a valid argument about 6 why I should not have been allowed to do that. More to 7 the point, the situation is simply different in my view 8 in that what I wanted to ask Mr. Stanley was far more 9 relevant than what we have here. The panel testifying, 10 the objection to my proceeding with Mr. Stanley, was that 11 what's at stake is the HL&P process.
12 This panel has no idea what information BL&P 13 had available to it because of the May 7th review, 14 because of the various briefings they had had from Mr.
15 Stanley who had that information available to him; they 16 weren't there on April 15th, they weren't there on April 17 30th, they weren't there in March for the first meetings 18 and they weren't there on May 7th and they weren't there 19 on May 8th.
20 But now they are to come forward and tell how 21 that decision making process should have been done and 22 we're to accept this as somehow representing what HL&P 23 should have done four years ago. The problem for HL&P is 24 precisely that, HL&P did not give this report to quality 25 assurance to review. If it had gone to the incident O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
a
.Fh 13378 1 review committee, quality assurance would have seen it 2 and that didn't happen.
3 Now, four years later, they want to bring 4 forward quality assurance related people to say, "Oh, if 5 the incident review committee had seen the Quadrex 6 report, they wouldn't have reported it to the NRC '
7 either." That's just not at all probative of anything 8 for them to come now and say that. And that's our basic 9 objection to this testimony.
10 MR. FRANTZ: Judge Bechhoefer, the testimony by 11 Mr. Bernsen and Mr. Lopez addresses contention 9 which 12 essentially has two parts. First of all, whether HL&P 13 should have reported more than the findings they actually <
14 did; and second of all whether any such failure reflects 15 adversely on their character or competence.
16 The witnesses here are not intending to address 17 the actual process that HL&P went through back on May 7th 18 and May 8th. They are here to address reportability and 19 whether any additional findings called out by the Board's 20 order specifically should have been reported to the Board 21 or to the -- excuse me, to the NRC staff.
22 Mr. Sinkin's attempt earlier today to get the 23 Board and the witnesses to consider findings not at issue 24 is what we objected to. I don't see any basis for 25 sustaining Mr. Sinkin's objection on the witnesses here O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
I 13379
- ~
1 today. There's just no basis for that. We obviously, as 2 Mr. Reis points out, are having expert testimony on 3 whether the findings should have been reported. That's 1
4 clearly relevant and material. Similarly the staff's 5 testimony is addressed to the same point.
6 Mr. Sinkin is in essence trying to preclude any 7 expert testimony at all on reportability; that's 8 c'ertainly not appropriate.
9 JUDGE BECSHOEFER: Mr. Frantz, we did uphold 10 the objection not on the ground that it related to -
11 findings that were not in issue; that we had previously 12 upheld an objection that. We upheld it across the Board r 13 on the ground that HL&P or Brown & Root didn't have that 14 information and at least before September 28, '81. And 15 that was the ground we upheld it on. I explained that 16 very specifically so it had nothing to do at all with 17 whether or not the particular findings were in issue.
18 We did not allow Mr. Stanley to link up generic 19 findings with any discipline findings, reportable or not.
20 So I just point out your characterization of our ruling 21 is it just not accurate.
22 MR. FRANTZ: I understand. All I was trying to 23' point out is that these witnesses are addressing the same 24 Quadrex report that was addressed by the HL&P back on May 25 8th. What counsel or representative for CCANP was trying O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13380 1 .to do was to get the witnesses to far beyond the face of 2 the report, which HL&P had to address.
3 And that's, I think, one of the key reasons why 4 it was objectionable. Our witnesses from Bechtel are 5 looking at the same Quadrex report that HL&P looked at 6 and are addressing whether or not that should have been 7 reported to the NRC. That's clearly relevant and 8 material.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Sinkin, let me ask you; 10 we allowed considerable amount of cross-examination on 11 the basis of CCANP 104.
12 MR. SINKIN: Right.
13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Now, that was a critique of 14 a report that I understand was prepared by these 15 witnesses.
16 MR. SINKIN: No, in fact, Mr. Chairman, I thint 17 Mr. Bernsen was in a managerial position during the 18 Bechtel task force report, but I'm not absolutely sure of 19 that. I don't think he was --
20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Let me ask, either or both 21 of you, have any association with the preparation of the 22 Bechtel task force report, the March '82 report, which is 23 Applicants' exhibits -- I'm not sure what number, but --
24 MR. BERNSEN: Judge Bechhoefer, I was not a 25 member of the task force, but I was in a management, O_
I TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
I 13381 k' /) 1 Bechtel management position and one of the management 2 team members that reviewed the report and interacted with 3 the task force and essentially agreed with the 4 characterization of what we considered to be acceptable 5 practice. And in the course of doing this, I reviewed 6 essentially every Quadrex finding in the task force 7 responses to it and coordinated the senior technical 8 staff overview of the Quadrex -- of the task force 9 report.
10 So in that context, I'm quiet familiar with it 11 and the sort of the people who worked on it.
12 MR. LOPEZ: Judge Bechhoefer, response to your 13 question, I had no involvement with the Bechtel task
-)
14 force report until after its issuance and its receipt by -
15 the project as a basis for the development of the EN 619 16 report.
17 MR. SINKIN: I would point out, Mr. Chairman, 18 you called attention to CCANP 104 there is a comment in 19 that from Mr. Stanley that he doesn't even bother respond 20 to go the generic findings in this Bechtel task force 21 report because all Bechtel is saying we don't do it that 22 way. There isn't a real Bechtel addressing of the 23 generic findings in that task force report.
24 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, the issue here is 25 contention nine and whether HL&P acted properly in not O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13382
- p k> 1 turning over the report. Here we're dealing with the 2 information before them on May 7th and 8th, 1981 and 3 we're dealing with what was there.
4 The questions addressed to Mr. Stanley were in 5 essence adding further knowledge which was not presented 6 at that time, and would not have been probative of the 7 issues.
8 Here the issues we're dealing with are expert 9 engineers in looking at this in a relatively short term 10 frame, what should they have said, what -- how should 11 _they have re-evaluated this report and come forward with 12 it. And here we have experts coming giving their views 13 on this. And I think it's very material and very
],j-14 relevent.
15 MR. SINKIN: If you're going to talk about 16 people tdstifying about knowledge they didn't have at the 17 time, clearly these witnesses have no knowledge of what 18 knowledge BL&P had at the time. But further more --
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Sinkin, I'm not sure you 20 may have to ask the witnesses; whether they were relying 21 on information which they believed was available in May 22 '81 or later. You may just have to ask them with respect 23 to each of the findings, you may just have to ask them 24 whether their opinion is based on what they believe was 25 available at that time. That would of course go to the TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13383 1 weight. The answers they give would then to go the 2 weight of what they're to be given to their conclusions.
3 MR. SINKIN: Our position is they simply were 4 not there, that we're creating a fictitious situation 5' that is irrelevant to what went on at HL&P. HL&P decided 6 not to review the generic findings, they decided not to 7 give the report to the IRC and that's what happened and 8 that's what the Board has to look at and decide whether 9 it was right or wrong.
10 This exercise is nothing more than an exercise, 11 in our opinion, even if it is a hundred and seven pages.
. 12 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, let me say this, you
- 13 can't know that without knowing the technical worth and 14 the technical matter in the report. Trying to make that 15 evaluation without it will lead nowhere.
16 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, if I can add one 4
17 more thing.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay.
19 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Bernsen at least participated 20 in the management review of the Bechtel task force 21 report, and served as a member of the Bechtel project I 22 management team with overview responsibility for EN 619.
p 23 He hardly comes to this task with a -- I don't want to 1 24 say a clean mind, a blank slate as it were. He has a lot 25 of information in him post Quadrex, as to Bechtel's TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13384 s
1 entire evaluation of the Quadrex report.
2 Now he's sitting down to look at the generics 3 and evaluate them. That's hardly the situation HL&P was 4 in on May 7th 1891.
5 MR. FRANTZ: I don't see the point.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, the Board has decided 7 to at least deny that motion or general objection. We 8 think the expert testimony will or can be useful. We 9 also will permit questioning as to what information they 10 believed was available at the time to HL&P, or Brown &
11 Root as the case may be, at the time of the Quadrex 12 report.
~
13 .
We certainly would allow that, that subject to 14 be examined.
But that would go to the weight of that we 15 would give to this testimony, rather than to its 16 admissibility, I think. So we will deny the general 17 objection.
18 MR. SINKIN: Are we ready to move on to the 19 CCANP motion to strike?
20 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Soon as I get it out.
21 JUDG'E BECHHOEFER: Okay. You may proceed on 22 that.
23 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, we have filed a 24 motion to strike which first addresses Page 33, line 5, 25 continuing through Page 33, line 14. The question being O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13385 1 answered begins some pages before, on page 30; and the 2 question is whether Quadrex's finding that calculations 3 containing errors were being verified as correct with a 4 higher frequency than should be encountered indicates a 5 significant breakdown in any portion of the QA program 6 for STP.
7 The portion of the answers we seek to strike 8 deals with Bechtel's evaluation of Brown & Root's work 9 long after the Quadrex report where they reach certain 10 conclusions about the adequacy of Brown & Root's actual 11 work.
12 We don't consider that that is in any way 13 relevant to a determination of whether the Quadrex 14 finding should or should not have been reported to the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, because that information 16 was not available to Houston Lighting & Power on May the 17 7th, 1981.
18 MR. FRANTZ: Mr. Chairman, it is quite frequent 19 that when experts testify, they apply data and 20 evaluations and their own judgment to underlying facts to 21 arrive at conclusions. That's what we have done here.
22 Back in 1982, I guess subsequently, Bechtel looked at the 23 underlying documents in the civil structural area, and 24 determined:that the designs were adequate.
25 They applied their own judgment and experience, O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13386 1 formed their own evaluations on the underlying data that 2 was available to HL&P on May 8. And based upon that 3 evaluation, they determined the designs in this area were 4 adequate.
5 That is clearly relevant and material as to 6 whether this particular aspect of the Quadrex report 7 should have been reported to the NRC; it indicates quite 8 clearly that there was not a matter warranting reporting.
9 I might point out that Mr. Stanley testified
-10 that the generic findings did not represent conclusions 11 regarding deficiencies, but only matters warrenting
~
12 further investigation by HL&P. This testimony by Bechtel
~
13 confirms that basic conclusion; it indicates that the.
(s'~) 14 generic finding at issue here on page 33 was not 15 identifying any conclusions regarding deficiencies in the 16 work being done by Brown & Root, but only a matter 17 warranting further investigation and upon that further 18 investigation, it was found not to be significant.
19 There certainly is no basis to strike this kind 20 of expert testimony, it occurs all the time in 21 proceedings.
22 (No hiatus.)
23 24 25 O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 i
13387
~
(]) 1 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman --
2 I'm sorry, Mr. Reis, did you have something?
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Reis?
4 MR. REIS: The only thing I was going to say, 5 the question is, and I think it's one that's 6 appropriate, please explain whether Quadrex findings of 7 the calculations containing errors were being verified 8 as correct with a higher frequency than should be 9 encountered indicates a significant breakdown.
10 And I think the very conclusions as to whether 11 there was a higher frequency is relevant to whether 12 there was a breakdown which is what this question --
13 which is the question facing the Board. Therefore, I ,
14 see no basis to strike.
' 15 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, we are seeing the 16 issues in the hearing being redefined before our eyes.
17 Now it's not whether reading the Quadrex report finding 18 that there are a higher frequency of errors in Brown &
19 Root's work than there should be, knowing what you know ;
20 on May the 7th, you report that fact to the NRC. You 21 now have the opportunity to spend two years, go back and 22 review the Brown & Root calculations that Quadrex looked 23 at 'maybe, it's not at all clear to me that that's what O-- 24 happened here, but maybe, and then reach a conclusion 25 -that the calculation rate isn't really that much higher TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 ]
13388
(} 1 and therefore you don't have to report it.
2 Well, what we have is the entire 50.55(e) 3 . process at work, not the 24-hour notification process, !
4 but the 24-hour notification process plus the evaluation 5 process. And the question before this Board is not was 6 this item reportable, the question is should the NRC 7 staff have been notified within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of the item and 8 then the Applicants go forward to decide whether it's 9 reportable.
10 MR. FRANTZ: Chairman Bechhoefer, the 11 Applicants looked at the Quadrex report back on May 8th 12 and determined within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> whether anything was 13 reportable. The Bechtel testimony simply confirms the 14 judgments being reached back on May 8th. It's clearly 15 relevant and material.
16 Mr. Sinkin has tried repeatedly to draw some 17 kind of difference between reportability and what he 18 calls notifiability. That's a rather novel legal 19 argument without precedent. I think it would be more 20 appropriate for him to try to argue that point in his 21 proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law rather 22 than try to exclude testimony based upon that novel !
23 argument.
O 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will not grant 25 this particular sentence. We might add, however, that TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 l
~~en ;
I l
13389 1 (j 1 putting this in does not mean that the Board would not 2 consider some of these items to have been potentially 3 reportable on May 8th requiring further study. That's 4 one of the questions we have to decide under the 5 potential reportability standard which is essentially 6 the same thing you were re5 erring to as I guess 7 informability or whatever. So, we're not saying that 8 you can't attempt to prove that there was enough on May 9 8 to report it, notwithstanding the need for further 10 study.
11 MR. SINKIN: Okay.
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So, by our denying you, ,
13 we're not precluding you from attempting to prove that 14 or inquire into that, at least.
15 MR. SINKIN: The second item is on page 50 at 16 line 14 which is again a post-May 7th piece of 17 information. The fact that HL&P may have later 18 determined that an item reported to the NRC was not 19 reportable is not really relevant. We know they 20 reported it and that's not even at issue. The fact that 21 they reported it is counted to begin with. The fact 22 that it later turned out not to be reportable is 23 irrelevant to the question before the Board of whether O 24 they should have reported more findings than they did.
25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We think that this one TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13390 1 stays in on the same ground that the -- there was a
([']
2 comparable Goldberg one, maybe two.
3 MR. FRANTZ: Yes, I --
4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So, I don't think we have 5 to --
6 MR. SINKIN: I think it was called facts and 7 circumstances.
8 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Facts and circumstances.
9 MR. SINKIN: Maybe I'll do the facts and 10 circumstances analysis first, Mr. Chairman, before I 11 bring up any other items.
12 Mr. Chairman, the next item is on page 67,
(~)
- 13 line 7.
14 MR. FRANTZ: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. I'm not 15 sure whether Mr. Sinkin has inadvertently admitted page 16 52, line 15, or whether he's dropping that entirely.
17 MR. SINKIN: Excuse me. I did inadvertently 1 l
18 skip over it. j 19 Well, Mr. Chairman, I guess on page 52, line 20 15, we may have the first category called requiring l 21 further study. We would object to that testimony in i
22 that it's Bechtel's review of a question that 23 essentially disputes Quadrex' finding by doing more
- 24 research and finding something Quadrex apparently didn't 25 know about and saying that therefore the finding is not TATE RJLORTING (713) 498-8442
v~
13391
~
1 a notifiable finding.
({ ')
2 Certainly HL&P had no opportunity on May the 3 7th to investigate the level instrumentation and decide 4 whether it was a safety-related problem or not. And the 5 fact that it was found out later not to be 6 safety-related hardly has any weight, is irrelevant, in 7 fact, to whether you would view the Quadrex finding as 8 safety-related and notify the NRC about it.
9 MR. FRANTZ: First of all, Mr. Chairman, I 10 disagree with Mr. Sinkin's characterization. The 11 Bechtel testimony here is not disputing anything in the 12 Quadrex report. The.Quadrex report, and in particular 13 H-23 which is the question at issue here, merely 14 questioned whether or not that particular piece of 15 equipment should have been safety-related. (t was not 16 saying -- it was not making a definitive conclusion that 17 it was safety-related. Bechtel, looking at the same 18 information that was available back on May 7th and May 19 8th, concluded that it was not safety-related and should 20 not have been classified as such.
21 There is no dispute with Quadrex on this 22 point. This is clearly relevant to reportability. I 23 see no reason for us striking this passage.
O 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does the Staff have any 25 opinion on that one?
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13392-
{} 1. MR. REIS: I think it's a matter of whether 2 HL&P could have learned within the 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> as to 3 whether this was safety-related certainly is a matter 4 appropriate for cross-examination and could be gone into 5 at that time.
6 I further think that it is probative of 7 whether a matter is reported within the 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of 8 whether it ultimately turns out to be reportable.
9 Whether a matter should have been reported within the 24 10 hours as to whether it ultimately is a safety concern 11 that should have been reported. It goes to prove or
,e 12 disprove the correctness of the original determination.
13 And although it is more study than what has gone on 14 af ter that 24-hour period, it does lend some weight to 15 the validity of the study that was made within that 24 16 hours.
17 JUDGE SHON: Mr. Reis, if the reason why 18 matter was found to be unreportable is a matter not 19 known to the decision makers at the time they made their 20 decision, then how can it bear on their competence or 21 their character in any way? I mean, if they had said it 22 was not reportable and then something else was found out 23 that indeed showed it was not reportable but was unknown O 24 to them, that does not seem relevant to either their 25 character or their competence in making that decision, TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13393
(}
1 does it?
I 2 MR. FRANTZ: If I can respond briefly, Judge '
3 Shon.
4 JUDGE SEON: Yes, sure.
5 MR. FRANTZ: We had Mr. Goldberg on the stand, 6 we had Dr. Sumpter on the stand. What they knew back on 7 May 8th wasn't asked of them. Mr. Sinkin chose not to 8 do.so. He's now attempting to strike testimony in the 9 Bersen and Lopez testimony which is clearly relevant to 10 reportability and therefore does at least give some 11 weight to the decisions actually made by HL&P back on 12 May 8th.
O 13 MR. SINKIN: I think it's clear from Mr.
14 Goldberg's testimony and Dr. Sumpter's testimony that 15 they relied heavily on Brown & Root's report which is in 16 evidence. That this review -- if you read the Quad -- I 17 may not be reading the Quadrex question correctly, but 18 as I read the Quadrex question it very specifically says 19 that if the drainage system is the only means for 20 leakage detection, then it should be considered 21 safety-related. Which means that at the time Quadrex 22 looked at it, that's the only system they could see.
23 Now, if someone comes along later and sees another O 24 system, that wasn't done on May the 7th.
25 MR. REIS: I think that could be inquired TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13394 1 into. It's a perfect example of what could be inquired
(')T
\_ .
l 2 into. But I don't think that there's any indication 3 here in this testimony that it could not have been known 4 at that time in those first two days.
5 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I have one further 6 response.
7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right.
8 MR. SINKIN: I have one further response.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay.
10 MR. SINKIN: I think a remark by Applicants' 11 counsel demonstrates the pernicious nature of this 12 testimony. It now appears that it is incumbent upon me
(_1' to take the Bech'tel task force report, EN-619, the 13 14 testimony of Mr. Bersen and Mr. Lopez and go through 15 every item in those reports that's an evaluation of a 16 Quadrex finding and ask Mr. Goldberg did you know about 17 this on May the 7th. Now, we'd have been here for two 18 months while I did that and I don't think I would have 19 been allowed to do it. But they can introduce 20 information that came later and use that as a basis for 21 arguing it's not reportable.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: With this one we will grant 23 the motion to strike. We will allow the Applicants to Om 24 supplement their testimony, if they wish, on the basis 25 of what information was available back in the May '81 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13395
()
I time frame.
2 MR. FRANTZ: We're going to ask for that order 3 to be reconsidered, Judge Bechhoefer. What HL&P did 4 back on May 8th has been the subject of Mr. Goldberg's 5 testimony and Dr. Sumpter's testimony. The Bechtel 6 testimony is intended to go back and confirm those 7 results, to give added weight to the decision made by 8 the -- to the correctness of the decisions made by HL&P 9 back on May 8th.
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: This particular couple of 11 sentences, though, appear to be based entirely on 12 information not available in that early time frame.
O 13 MR. REIS: I am not at all sure, Mr. Chairman 14 Bechhoefer. If you read the response of Brown & Root to 15 question H-23, that's not at all c1 car.
16 MR. FRANTZ: In any case, it would appear to 17 me to go to the weight to be given to the testimony, not i
18 to strike the testimony. !
19 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, again, if the 20 argument is that with every item like this that there's ;
i 21 later information on it's possible that Mr. Goldberg l 22 could have known that and therefore there was no need to 23 make a notification to the NRC, then basically all of O 24 these documents coming in, the Bechtel task force 25 report, EN-619 and this testimony are all loading up the TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442 l
e 13396 1 record with post hoc information that will be used as a
.( }
2 post hoc rationalization for why Quadrex findings were 3 not notified to the NRC.
4 That's precisely why in 1981 we asked that the 5 hearing on the notification issue be held immediately 6 rather than waiting for all these reports to be written 7 because we were afraid of just this very thing, that all 8 these reports would come in saying they didn't do 9 anything wrong because X, Y, Z and a hundred other 10 ' reasons that weren't available to them. But now 11 apparently the burden was on us in every one of these 12 documents to go through every piece of new information 13 that Bechtel came up with and ask Mr. Goldberg and Dr.
14 Sumpter did you know this on May 7th,1981. And we 15 think that's an incredible burden that probably would 16 not even have transpired if we tried to do it.
17 MR. FRANTZ: This testimony by Bechtel clearly ,
I 18 demonstrates that this aspect in the Quadrex report was 19 not reportable. It seems incredible to me that the 20 Board would not hear this evidence. It clearly is
]
21 material and relevant to whether or not HL&P violated j 22 its obligation under 50.55(e).
23 If Mr. Sinkin wants to argue that it's based I
() 24 on information that may not have been available back on ;
25 May 8th, well, that's pure speculation on his part.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13397 And that goes to the weight of this
.{} 1 He's f ree to do so.
2 testimony, but not to its admissibility.
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: By the way, it says on its 4 face that it was based on Bechtel's review which was 5 after May 8th.
6 MR. FRANTZ: It was based on Bechtel's review 7 but it may have been based on a review of information 8 that was available back on May 8th.
9 MR. REIS: And I certainly can't tell in 10 reading ~the answers to B&R's response to H-23, and it 11 talks about pipe rupture, whether it is common to have 12 instrumentation on these lines daat would show it in
(~)
'~
13 another manner than in monitoring the drain. Certainly 14 we don't know at this point whether B&R's review is 15 because the lines applying cooling water to the diesel 16 generator result in shutdown of the diesel generator.
17 Well, it may be quite so that there will be another 18 alarm that will show that.
19 Pipe rupture in the ECW line supplying cooling 20 water to the AAB chiller condenser is the only accident 21 which might -- whether that could rupture is otherwise 22 monitored. In other words, I can't tell in the limited 23 amount here as to whether it is common knowledge to O'-
-24 nuclear engineers that there is another instrumentation 25 that supplies this information, and that I don't know.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
13398
{} 1 And when I read the B&R response itself, it gives me 2 pause because on the diesel matter, for instance, and I 3 can't testify, but on the diesel matter I know --
4 MR. SINKIN: I do believe --
5 MR. REIS: -- from working with other matters 6 that there are alarms that would show this sort of 7 thing. The cooling water ceases going to a diesel, that 8 certainly is an alarm. And you don't rely on the sump 9 in the floor.
10 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman --
11 MR. REIS: I don't know as to the others. I 12 can't tell.
13 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Reis 14 accurately characterized what he's doing. He's now 15 testifying about engineering matters in the Quadrex 16 report and I think that's irrelevant to what faces us 17 here.
18 The question facing us here is whether the 19 subsequent reviews done by Bechtel can be used as a 20 basis for reaching a conclusion that a finding should 21 not have been notified to the NRC within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.
22 There's nothing novel about my trying to 23 separate notify and reportable. You notify something 24
^
that's potentially reportable and then you decide if 25 it's reportable.
TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
e 13399
('} 1 We are not here to inquire whether these items 2 were reportable. That whole inquiry was ruled out by 3 the Board as something they were not going to hear. The 4 inquiry here is solely within the first 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of 5 receiving the Quadrex report, should HL&P have notified 6 the NRC of further findings than they did or turned over 7 the report to the NRC staff.
8 MR. FRANTZ: Mr. Chairman, that argument is 9 extremely unique. If you look at the regulation itself 10 on its face, there is no distinction whatsoever between 11 deficiencies which are reportable after 30 days and 12 deficiencies which are reportable within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. That
()
,m 13 distinction is a --
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Anything 15 reportable or notifiable under the regulation is within 16 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. Thirty days is for confirmation, so you 17 better not --
18 MR. FRANTZ: That's our whole point, Mr.
19 Chairman. Mr. Sinkin is trying to make a distinction 20 between what's to be notified within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> and what's 21 to be notified within 30 days and there isn't that 22 distinction in the regulation. Either a deficiency is 23 reportable or it's not. If it's not reportable, it need O' 24 not be reported within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. The Bechtel testimony 25 here clearly demonstrates that this item was not TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
r- e 13400 1 reportable.
2 (No hiatus.)
3 4
5 l
7 8
9 10 .
11 12 O
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 1
22 23 24 25 TATE REPORTING (713) 498-8442
I-13401 1 MR. REIS: Mr., Chairman, to review the 2 testimony so far, Dr. Sumpter particularly testified that 3 he went back and he talked to Brown & Root about each of 4 these matters and what was there. Now, I think these 5 people as experts could say what is in their knowledge 6 and to see whether there is any basis for this to whether 7 -this information is something that would have been 8 gathered within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, when we talk about a Bechtel 9 review --
10 MR. SINKIN: Could have.
11 MR. REIS: -- it doesn't indicate that this is 12 not something that could not have been gotten in 24 13 hours, particularly when I look at what the ECW line 0 14 rupture would cause.
15 MR. SINKIN: Why are we talking about things --
16 MR. REIS: That would cause probably other 17 alarms to shut off. We ought to keep in it to explore i 18 this issue.
l 19 MR. SINKIN: I don't understand why we're 20 talking about things that could have been available to 21 HL&P. I'm not interested in the witnesses' testimony 22 about about what could have been available to HL&P. That 23 is pure speculation. Even if it was available, it's pure 24 speculation.
25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think the Board will stick O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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(/ 1 with its decision, but we will allow you to supplement --
2 the Bechtel people can review what information that Brown 3 & Root had developed on the particular subject, the 4 Bechtel people can testify as to their view of whether 5 HL&P had an adequate reason not to notify or report it as 6 of May 7 or 8, May 8, I should say. So just these two -
7 sentences, we will grant.
8 Do you want to move to the next one?
9 MR. SINKIN: I'm not sure I understand the 10 second part of your ruling, Mr. Chairman. What is it 11 they're allowed to supplement with?
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Bechtel people could
-- 13 come back and explain that certain information was
. - 14 available to HL&P or Brown & Root back in May, and that 15 they properly or improperly as the case may be, 16 formulated a decision not to report it. The particular --
17 MR. SINKIN: Are you saying that this is 18 certain information that was available whether or not it 19 was known to Mr. Goldberg Dr. Sumpter and Mr. Robertson?
20 I don't understand the relevance of information that may 21 have been out there somewhere if-they didn't know it.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, available -- well, I 23 guess they would have had to have -- available to them.
24 Perhaps known to them, but --
25 MR. SINKIN: So we would be supplementing the O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13403 1 direct testimony of Mr. Goldberg or Dr. Sumpter for them 2 to say that they knew about this in 1981?
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, it's up to the 4 Applicants to justify the failure to report.
5 MR. SINKIN: Okay.
I 6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We're just saying that this t 7 looks like it was after the fact and would not on its 8 face constitute an adequate justification.
9 MR. SINKIN: The next item, Mr. Chairman, is on 10 page 67, line 7, and what we have here is a discussion of
,, t ,11 the-Quadrex finding and the question put to the Bechtel Y
, 12- panel is whether this finding identifies a significant 13 breakdown in any portion of the QA program. They e
14 describe the Quadrex finding,-and then say based on their 15 own evaluation of Brown & Root's design basis i' s. 16 information, there l's no need for this -- this does not
\3 17 indicate a significant breakdown in any portion of the QA 18 program for STP.
19 I think again, we have a clear example of 20 what's wrong in this kind of testimony. This is 21 Bechtel's evaluation of Brown & Root's design and
\(( '
22 engineering. This is not Quadrex evaluation. The 23 Quadrex findings says what the Quadrex finding says, if
=
24 Bechtel disagrees, fine. That's irrelevant to the t
25 decision on May 7, 1981 when they didn't have this O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13404 1 Bechtel evaluation.
2 MR. FRANTZ: Chairman Bechhoefer --
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Wait a minute. This one 4 we're going to leave in. We think someone can examine 5 the validity of the comments but the fact -- those reg 6 guides and safety analysis reports and all that were as 7 available to HL&P at the time as to Bechtel later. So 8 that on its face can stay in, subject to 9 cross-examination.
10 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's a legal conclusion, 12 essentially; it's not --
13 MR. SINKIN: It's an irrelevant conclusion.is 0p 14 my only point.
15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, it's not irrelevant.
16 It's not irrelevant, because if in fact the concern is,. -
17 not based upon a breakdown of the portion of the QA 18 program, but based on a deviation from a reg guide, for 19 instance, deviations from reg guides are permissible 20 under many circumstances. That goes to the weight 21 completely. '
22 So this one can stay in subject obviously to 23 cross examination. We think this is different. This l l
24 doesn't involve any later work by -- I mean, Bechtel may l 25 have formed its opinion later, but the opinion was there l l
I TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442 l
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13405 1 to form by HL&P and others at the time, based on 2 information they clearly had available.
3 MR. SINKIN: But how is this in any way
-4 probative that they formed the opinion at that time, the 5 fact that Bechtel did did its own review later?
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, that goes to the 7 weight. That goes to the weight. They may testify that 1
8 the reg guides were the same all along and that this --
9 anyway, we're going to leave that one in. I assume the 10 staff and Applicant don't disagree with that.
11 MR. FRANTZ: No, sir.
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We didn't listen to you, but --
13 MR. SINKIN: The next item, Mr. Chairman is
') *14 than on page 93 at line 27. Here we're dealing with a 15 finding that Bechtel notified to the NRC as opposed to 16 HL&P. And the testimony is that it was later determined 17 it was not in fact reportable and the NRC was so 18 informed. We don't consider the fact that it was 19 reportable or not reportable on a finding by Bechtel is l 20 in any way relevant to whether it should have been 21 noticed by HL&P on May the 7th 1918..
22 MR. FRANTZ: Mr. Chairman, I may note that the 23 entire paragraph deals with a later analysis by Bechtel.
24 It was not potentially reported by HL&P until that 25 Bechtel analysis was done. It seems rather anomalous to O
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.I l' me that Mr. Sinkin would move to strike the result, the 2 'very Bechtel analysis that at least in the initial 3 stages, that led to the potential reporting of this item.
4 Moreover I might note that the same observation was 5 raised with respect to Mr. Goldberg's testimony.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was about to say you 7 almost don't have to. We're going to leave this one in.
8 MR. SINKIN: The facts and circumstances on 9 .Bechtel are equally relevant?
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, this testimony does 11 not say that HL&P reported it back in May '81. And you 12 can make what you want of that. It was reported when 13 Bechtel told, that Bechtel found it and HL&P then
.O 14 reported it.
15 MR. SINKIN: I understand.
16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's clearly relevant.
17 MR. SINKIN: The next item is page 104, line 18 11. The sentence obviously refers to a later analysis of 19 the design of the MAB EVAC system which found that the 20 design did comply with the requirements of Appendix I, 21 whether or not that later analysis confirmed or did not 22 confirm is irrelevant to whether the NRC should have been 23 notified of this finding within 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.
. '24 MR. FRANTZ: Mr. Sinkin has first of all has 25 mischaracterized what is being stated here. There's no O
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
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13407 j fs/h. 1 reference her to a latter analysis. In fact the analysis l
2 had been done prior to the Quadrex review. Moreover, I 3 might note that the Board rejected the same argument with ,
4 respect to Mr. Goldberg's testimony.
5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will leave this 6 one in, I think. This is just expert testimony on a 7 particular question.
8 MR. SINKIN: The next item is page 105, line 9 10, and I will withdraw the item as it is also facts and 10 circumstances.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. The Board thinks that --
12 we've now finished the motion to strike. We think it's 13 gotten late enough so that perhaps we should not start
) 14 the voir dire today. -
15 MR. AXELRAD: We do have two exhibits, Mr.
16 Chairman, that we'd like to get into today if it was 17 amenable the Board.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay, we just thought we 19 should not divide the voir dire and since Mr. Sinkin said 20 he did not have all his material with him on that --
21 MR. FRANTZ: I assume the testimony comes in, 22 with the one passage being struck, as if read into 23 evidence?
24 MR. SINKIN: Well, there will be further 25 chalenges, but --
O TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
13408 1 JUDGE B'ECHHOEFER: Will that go to the weight i
2 or admissibility.
3 MR. SINKIN: There will be some to the 4 admissibility.
5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We'll hold off on that until l
6 tomorrow.
l 7 Do you object to them identifying exhibits?
8 MR. SINKIN: Not to them identifying them, no.
9 Admitting them is something else again.
10 MR. FRANTZ: Well, unless -- I think it would 11 be more appropriate for the Board to first rule on any 12 voir dire Mr. Sinkin might have, admit the testimony and c 13 then rule on the admissibility of the exhibits, because 14 the admissibility of the exhibits is based at least in 15 part on the testimony of these experts.
16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Is there anything else that 17 anyone wishes to take up before we adjourn?
18 MR. SINKIN: I would just like to essentially 19 make a motion, a reconsideration, that perhaps the Board 20 can think about overnight; we view this testimony by Mr.
21 Bernsen and Mr. Lopez as essentially a Trojan horse, 22 designed to bring the Bechtel task force report.and the 23 EN 619 report into evidence in this proceeding where they 24 simply don't belong, and to load up the record with 25 justifications post hoc rationalizations and any other O
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1 excuse that Bechtel could come up with for why this l l
2 report didn't need to be turned over to the NRC.
3 I think it's putting material in the record 4 that simply irrelevant, and should not be allowed; it 5 expands the record into an area where we're going to be 6 arguing over something that took place years later rather 7 than over what took place at the time the contention is 8 written.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I don't think the Board will 10- accept that. We will deny that motion on the spot. We 11 disagree, there may be some question as to the weight of 12 some or all of it, but for the reasons we expressed 13 earlier, we will deny the motion. Anything further?
14 MR. FRANTZ: No, sir.
15 JUDBE BECHHOEFER: Did Mr. Reis raise his hand?
16 MR. SINKIN: No, pointing to the parthanon on 17 the building over here thinking of the Trojan horse.
18 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I guess with that, we will 19 adjourn until the tomorrow morni'g.
20 (Recess at 5:12 p.m.)
21 22 23 24 25 O
W TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTERS 2
3 This is to certify that the attached proceedings before 4 the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR COMMISSION in the matter of:
5 6 NAME OF PROCEEDING: EVIDENTIARY HEARING HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER COMPANY, 7 ET AL (SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, UNITS 1 AND 2) 8 9 DOCKET NO.: STN 50-498-OL STN 50-499-OL
- 10 11 PLACE: HOUSTON, TX c32 DATE: Tuesday, July 30, 1985
+
)
'3 1
14 were held as herein appears, and that this is the 15 original transcript thereof for the file of the United 16 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
17 18 i -
19 ?)')
' T'Tk '- fc.^ =>
R. Patrick Tate, CSR 20 21 hw[
Susan R.
Goldstein, CSR 22 Official Reporters 23 4
25