ML20134H320

Transcript of 941201 Interview of RP Weiss in Crystal River, Fl.Pp 1-12

ML20134H320
Person / Time
Site:	Crystal River
Issue date:	12/01/1996
From:	NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI)
To:
Shared Package
ML20134H297	List: ML20134H294 ML20134H304 ML20134H314 ML20134H320
References
FOIA-96-408 NUDOCS 9611140055
Download: ML20134H320 (12)

Text

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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA  !

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2 ge, p[y f g NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 +++++

4 h *huk OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS r

5 INTERVIEW 6 ----------- ----------- =--

--x l 7 IN THE MATTER OF:  :

8 INTERVIEW OF  : Docket No.

9 ROBERT PARKER WEISS  : (not assigned) 10  :

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x 12 Thursday, December 1, 1994 13 i

14 Conference Room 202 15 Crystal River Plant ,

i 16 6745 N. Tallahassee Road l l

17 Crystal River, Florida 18 19 The above-entitled interview was conducted at i

20 11:07 a.m.

21 BEFORE:  !

22 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator 23 ,

William McNULTY Investigator

, 24 CURT RAPP Reactor Engineer l 25 EXHIBIT 3 CASENO. 2 - 9 4 - 0 3 6' ~-

PAGE_ l OF la PAGE(S) 9611140055 961003 P PDR FOIA CALANDR96-405 PDFs e

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2 1 APPEARANCES:

2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator 4 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 5 401 Marietta Street 6 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7 WILLIAM J. MCNULTY 8 Field Office Director 9 NRC Office of Investigations ,

10 1450 Maria Lane 11 Walnut Creek, California 94596 12 CURT RAPP 13 Reactor Engineer - NRC, Region II i 14 6745 N. Tallahassee Road -

15 Crystal River, Florida 32629 16 17 18 On Behalf of the Interviewee, Robert Parker Weiss 19 GREG HALNON I 20 Operations Manager 21 Crystal River Nuclear Plant l 22 l 23 l j

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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 MR. VORSE: This is an interview of Mr. Rob 3 Weiss, a Reactor Operator. We're at the Crystal River 4 Nuclear Plant, Administration Building, Room 202, the time 5 is 11:07 a.m., December 1, 1994. ,

6 Present are myself, Jim Vorse, Investigator, 7 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations.

8 Mr. Bill McNulty, also an Office of Investigations.

9 Investigator. Mr. Curt Rapp, who is a Reactor Engineer, 10 NRC, Region II. Mr. Greg Halnon, who is the Operations Ell Manager here at Crystal River Nuclear Plant, and he has s 12 been requested to attend this interview with Mr. Weiss at

-13 Mr. Weiss' request.

14 Mr. Weiss, would you spell your full name, 15 please, for us.

16 MR. WEISS: Just the last name?

17 MR. VORSE: First and last.

18 MR. WEISS: Okay. Robert, R-O-B-E-R-T, Parker, 19 P-A-R-K-E-R, Weiss, W-E-I-S-S.

( 20 MR. VORSE: And what -- give us what you do for 21 your job.

i 22 MR. WEISS: I'm an Assistant Nuclear Shift 23 Supervisor, Crystal River, Unit III.

24 MR. VORSE: Would you describe your duties to us 25 and tell us how long you've been doing this.

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1 MR. WEISS: Well, my duties are to supervise the 2 shift, ensure the safe operation of the plant while I'm on 3 duty.

4 I've been doing this since - gee, I'm not sure, ,

5 to be honest. It's when I got my SRO. I think it was 6 around -- .

7 MR. HALNON: The same year I got mine, 1989.

8 MR. WEISS: '09? Yeah.

9 I've worked as an operator at CR III since 1980.

I 10 MR. VORSE: By CR III you mean Crystal River 11 III?

12 MR. WEISS: That's correct.

13 MR. VORSE: Do you recall an incident on 14 September 5th, 1994, regarding the curve at the make-up

15 tank?

16 MR. WEISS: Yes.

17 MR. VORSE: Can you describe your participation 18 in this event?

19 MR. WEISS: I was the Nuclear -- or the 20 Assistant Nuclear Shift Supervisor on duty that night and 21 I was involved in the evolution that we performed. And I l

22 also collected the data and evaluated it and wrote the

, 23 problem report on it.

24 MR. VORSE: When you collected the data, what 25 did you collect?

1 MR. WEISS: We have a system called REDAS that 2 let's us pull computer point history from the computers 3 into an XL spreadsheet and I use that to graph it.

I 4 MR. VORSE: Use that to graph what?

5 MR. WEISS: I graph pressure versus level.

6 MR. VORSE: Before you did this there was some l 7 discussion about the test. Can you recall what that  ;

8 discussion was and who was there?

9 MR. WEISS: Well, let's see. The members of my 10 crew were there. That was Dave Fields was the shift 11 supervisor, Mark Van Sicklin was the chief and he was in 12 the Control Room for this with us, Jack Stewar as on the l

l 13 board, Christine Smith on the board, and we had Jim 14 Atkinson and Stan Kaconas in the Auxiliary building. And 15 we discussed what we planned to do to put the make-up tank teglband 16 level at the high end of the normal operating vent and'put W

17 make-up tank pressure to the curve, and then bleed the 18 make-up tank down to 55, which is the lower limits of the f 19 operating curve.

!. 20 We discussed that if the pressure did go above 1

21 the curve, that we should have somebody standing by in the 22 Aux building ready to vent the make-up tank if any signs 23 ofEncreasedRCSleakageoccurred.

24 We talked a little bit about whether what we were i

25 doing, you know, what guidance that we had to do this, and

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1 we felt that an OP-402 provided that guidance to perform 2 this evolution.

t 3 MR. VORSE: Did you look at 402? Did you review 4 402?

5 MR.-WEISS: Yeah, we looked at it. We didn't ,

6 fill out a copy of it. You know, bleeding the make-up i

7 tank is a pretty routinely performed evolution.

8 MR. VORSE: Did anyone express any concern about 9 . going outside design basis?

10 MR. WEISS: No, I don't think that -- I didn't 11 realize that the curve is a design basis limit, okay. We l >

l l 12 knew it was an operating curve. We had been looking at 13 some of the bases for the curve, but it wasn't clear that

! 14 that curve represented the design basis limit on this ,

15 issue.

16 MR. VORSE: Had you known that, would you have i

17 done the test?

i 18 MR. WEISS: No, I would not have let pressure l

19 remain above the curve. You know, as soon as I violated  ;

l L t 20 it that's a reportable issue at that point.  ;

21 MR. VORSE: Did -- Did anyone -- this may be a 22 repeat of what I just said, but did anyone express ,

23 reservations about conducting this test because it was 24 outside design basis?

4 25 HR. WEISS: No.

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f 1 MR. VORSE: Who was the person that was 2 primarily vocal about conducting this test? Who really 3 got it stirred up?

4 MR. WEISS: Well, I'd say that the person who 5 had been most involved in the concerns with the make-up 6 tank pressure response to level drop was my chief at the i

7 time, Mark Van Sicklin. He had written a concern I i

j 8 following the data that was collected during SP-630, the 1

9 fact that the response trace looked like it was going to

'10 cross the curve. And that was addressed in a problem 11 report, PR -- I think it was 94149. And he came to me 12 when it looked like the issue was going to be closed out 13 and asked if we could try this, put it on the curve -at the kyk ltid f L 14 drop level and see what the response was, just'to verify  ;

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! 15 once and for all before the issue was closed for all time.

16 And I discussed it with Dave; we thought that we  ;

i 17 had adequate guidance in our normal operating procedures 1

i 18 as long as we stayed within our normal operating limits on 1 19 level to do it.

20 MR. VORSE: Curt, do you have any questions you l 21 want to ask?

22 MR. RAPP: Not at this time.

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j 23 MR..VORSE: Bill?

t i 24 MR. McNULTY: Your normal operating limits on l.

! 25 level, that would be the limits of how far you could draw i

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l 1 the water level down? Is that --

l 2 MR. WEISS: That's correct. We have a normal 3 operating band-on level in the make-up tank, it's given in l

l 4 OP-402. It's 86 inches is the high and 55 is the low.

l 5 MR. McNULTY: Fifty-five is the low.

l 6 MR. WEISS: And, in fact, the reason that we restricted ourselves to that region was that we fe.'t that  !

7 8 to go outside the normal operating limits of the -- of the 9 level band would require a test procedure.

10 MR. McNULTY: How about are there operating 11 limits for the pressure?

12 MR. WEISS: There is an operating limit curve, 13 Curve 8, I believe it is, of OP-103B.

14 MR. McNULTY: All right. And that's the one 15 that you felt was not -- you didn't recognize that as a 16 ' design basis limit at that time, is that correct?

17 MR. WEISS: That is correct.

18 MR. McNULTY: Do you have other curves that you l l

19 operate with in your procedures?

20 MR. WEISS: Yes.

21 MR. McNULTY: Are they design basis limit curves 22 or are they --

23 MR. WEISS: I don't know of --

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24 MR. McNULTY: -- conservative admin curves?

j 25 MR. WEISS: -- any of those curves that are l

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1 design basis limits.

2 MR. McNULTY: And can you think of any curve l

3 that you've got in your procedures that is a design basis j 4 limit?

l 5 MR. WEISS: Which -- you know, let me just l

6 clarify. When you say "is a design basis limit", you're 7 not saying that it's based upon a design basis issue, but 8 that the limit is actually at the design basis; correct?

9 MR. McNULTY: That's correct. .

l l 10 MR. WEISS: I don't know of any curves like 11 that.

12 MR. McNULTY: So in your experience most of the 13 curves that are in our procedures from Florida Power are 14 conservative, they're not at the design basis limit?

15 MR. WEISS: That is correct. There's a general 16 philosophy to provide a buffer between the operating limit 17 and the design basis limit.

18 MR. McNULTY: So, in utilizing the curve in 19 procedure 402 you felt that that was the same as the other 20 ones you've worked with, that was an at a design limit?

tkt 21 MR. WEISS: I didn't recognize kk it was at the l A/

22 design basis limit; that is correct.

23 MR. McNULTY: One other question was, and

( 24 different facilities refer to different positions and

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, 25 different time names, was there a shift technical advisor l  !

10 1 on duty that night?

2 MR. WEISS: I don't recall who was functioning 3 as the shift technical advisor. The man on call -- or the ,

4 shift manager --

l 5 MR. McNULTY: Okay -- the correct way --

l 6 MR. WEISS: Please do because I don't recall, t 7 MR. HALNON: Larry Moffit was the shift manager.

l 8 We have a dual role of shift manager /STA.

9 MR. McNULTY: Okay.

10 MR. HALNON: And he was on duty that night.

l 11 MR. McNULTY: Was he involved in any of the 12 discussions as far as this evolution went?

13 MR. WEISS: Bearing in mind this happened a 14 while back, to the best of my recollection, we talked to 15 him after we had done this, but not prior to.

16 MR. McNULTY: Is he normally involved in a 17 briefing before the shift takes over?

18 MR. WEISS: Normally at the turnover meetings, 19 when our shift first comes on, yes, he would -- would 20 normally be around.

21 MR. McNULTY: And did anyone mention to him that 22 you planned to conduct this evolution with the make-up 23 tank?

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24 MR. WEISS: I don't recall.

f 25 MR. McNULTY: That's all I have.

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11 1 MR. VORSE: Would you care to add anything to 2 what you've talked about this norning?  ;

3 MR. WEISS: No, not at this time.

4 MR. VORSE: Okay. Have you been forced to 5 attend this session by anyone, have you been coerced to i

6 attend this session?

7 MR. WEISS: No, I was told that this was a l

1 8 consensual meeting, that I did have the right to decline. i 9 MR. VORSE: Okay. Well, we appreciate your l i

10 being here and we'll go ahead and conclude this interview. )

l 11 The time is 11:18 a.m., December lat.

12 (Whereupon, the proceedings were concluded at i

13 11:18 o' clock a.m.)  ;

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,- I2-CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:

Name of Proceeding: Interview of Robert Parker Weiss Docket Number (s): (not acsigned)

Place of Proceeding: Crystal River, Florida were held as herein appears, and that this.is the original j

transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter l reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.

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