ML20134N689
| ML20134N689 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 08/31/1995 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
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| References | |
| FOIA-96-408 NUDOCS 9611270079 | |
| Download: ML20134N689 (128) | |
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A:t, extm;tis Y D!A-Nb EXHIBIT 6 Case No. 2-94-0365 f
9611270079 961119
,.CALANDR96-408 PDR
GfBelal Transcript cf Proceedings i
l NUCLEAR REGUIATORY COMMISSION
Title:
In the matter of Interview of l
David A. Fields i
i
+
i Docket Number:
(not assigned) i i
i Location:
Atlanta, Georgia j
I l
Date:
August 31,1995 a
i i
i i
j Work Order No.:
NRC-319 Pages 1-128 l
i 4
l NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers ME 4 1323 Rhodeisland Avenue, N.W.
PAGE
/
OF tvo PAGE(S)
Washington, D.C. 20005 P
2-94-036 (202) 234-4433
/
p+1 129
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BEFORE THE U.S. NUCLEAR' REGULATORY COMMISSION In the Matter of:
)
1
)
. INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF:
)
).
I DAVID'A. FIELDS
)
)
(CONFIDENTIAL)
)
i U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 3
j Connission 101 Marietta Tower
- j Suite 2900 l
Atlanta, Georgia 2
Thursday,. August 31, 1995 1
The above entitled matter convened for t
INVESTIGA"'IVE INTERVIEW pursuant to notice at 1:05-P.M.
APPEARANCES:
j On behalf of the U.S.
NRC:
JAMES D. DOCKERY, Senior Investigator JAMES Y. VORSE, Senior Investigator.
CURT RAPP, Reactor Engineer Inspector WILLIAM McNULTY, Field Office Director l~
U.C. Nuclear Regulatory Commission i
Region II 101 Marietta Tower, Suite 2900 Atlanta, Georgia f
On behalf of the Witness:
j RICHARD W. HENDRIX, Attorney i
Finch, McCranie, Brown & Thrash 225 Peachtree Street, NE 1700 South Tower Atlanta, Georgia i
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NEAL R. CNtOSS & CO., INC.
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PROCEEDINGS 2
MR..DOCKERY:
For the record, today is August.the 3
31st, 1995.
The time now is approximately 1:05 P.M.
My 4
name is James D. Dockery.
I'm a Senior Investigator with 5
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations.
6.
During this proceeding, which will be recorded for 7.
transcription, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of 8
Investigations, will be conducting an interview of Mr. David i
9 Fields.
This interview pertains to Office of 10 Investigations' -Case #2-94-036.
The location of this 11 interview is theLNRC' Regional Office, Region II,..tl ant a,
12 Georgia.
13 We have others in attendance here today, and I'm 14 going to ask them to introduce themselves for the record, 15 starting with Mr. McNulty.
16 MR. McNULTY:
My name is William McNulty, M-c-N-u-17
'l-t-y.
I'm.he Field Office Director for the Atlanta area 18 field office, the Office of Investigations.
19 MR. VORSE:
My name is James Y. Vorse.
I'm a 20 Senior Investigator with the Office of Investigations, i
21 Region II, Atlanta, Georgia.
22 MR. RAPP:
My name is Curt Rapp, R-a-p-p.
I'm a 23 Reactor Engineer Inspector for Region II, U.S. NRC, Atlanta, 24 Georgia.
25 MR. HENDRIX:
I'm Richard Hendrix, and I'm NEAI, R.13 TOSS & Co., INC.
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attorney and counsel for David Fields.
2 MR. DOCKERY:
Mr. Fields, if you'd please stand 3
and raise your right hand.
4 Whereupon, 5
DAVID A. FIELDS 6
appeared as a witness, and having been duly sworn, was 7
examined and testified as follows:
8 EXAMINATION 9
BY MR. DOCKERY:
10 Q
Would you state your full name, please, sir; date d
11 of birth; :nd Social Security number, for the recor.
12 A
'Dav,id A.
Fields, F-i-e-1-d-s; date of birth,
~~
13 Social Security number 14 Q
Mr. Fields, before we'went on the record here 15 today I provided your counsel with a copy of Section 1001 of 16 Title 18 of the United States Criminal Code, and I asked 17 that he allow you to read-that.
Did you read that section?
18 A
Yes, sir, I did.
19 Q
Do you understand it?
20 A
Yes, sir.
21 Q
And do you understand that it does apply here 22 today in this proceeding?
23 A
Yes, sir, I do.
24 MR. DOCKERY:
Mr. Vorse?
25 BY MR. VORSE:
MIIAL R. GROS 8 & CO.,
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Q Mr. Fields, last time we talked, in December I i
I 2-believe it was...
i 3
A Yes, sir.
i 4
Q
...of last year, we discussed the September 5th, 5
1994 evolution that your shift conducted.
6 A
That is correct.
7 Q
On the makeup tank.
And then we've come to later-
]
8 understand that a similar evolution was conducted on the 4th i
l
-9 of September.
Can you describe exactly how that was done?
10 A
Well, as_you said, it was a similar evolution.
We l
11
-- we reviewed our procedures, we felt comfortable that we j
12 were authorized to perform that evolution legally.
We 13 filled the makeup tank -- well, we got together the shift 14 and discussed that, why we wanted to do it.
And we filled 15 the makeup tank to 86 inches.
And as the procedure OP 402 16 required, pressurized it to the maximum allowed by Curve 8, 17 OP 103B.
And then we selected the bleed handle on the main 18 control board to the bleed position, and we bled the tank I
19 down to 55 inches as allowed by OP 402.
20 At the time we were plotting data and watching the 21 control board analog instrument plus plotting the computer 22 points as they came up.
As I recall, and in talking to the 23 board operator, as soon as we pressurized up to the level of 24 the curve, to the maximum allowed by the curve, we did get 25 the high pressure alarm.
And we did the bleed, immediately NEAL R. GROSS 6 Co., INC.
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started the bleed, bled down to 55 inches.
It was about ten 1
2 minutes, I recall.
And we immediately selected the "off" to 3
stop the bleed, and then we raised level.
And as -- in 4
later conversation with the reactor operators, they believe 5
that the alarm just cleared by adding water to the tank, 1
6 there was no requirement to bleed the pressure off of the i
7 tank in the Auxiliary Building.
8 So it took about ten minutes.
It was very similar 9
to the event performed on the 5th.
And that -- that's about 10 it.
11 Q
Can you tell me why you didn't tell us about this l
12 last time when we talked?
13 A
Well, the question wasn't asked.
And I think the 14 data from the 4th was -- that's what we saw from the data' 15 from the 4th, is when we delogged the computer it was very 16 erratic, it didn't show anything.
It was -- it jumped 17 around.
It didn't prove what we thought we would see.
We 18 thought we would see a nice, smooth curve develop that would 19 show that -- that Curve 8 was -- was not correct, and it 20 didn't show that.
21 So -- so after that test was performed the chief 22 operator pulled the engineering calculation, he got with the 23 assistant shift supervisor and they reviewed it, you know, 24 for -- for some time, and then they came up with a reason 25 why they thought that the -- the previous test had been NEAL R. GR088 & Co., INC.
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inconclusive.
j 2
Now, why we didn't bring it up was, I would have 3
to say that we were counseled before -- before we talked to 4
you by Mr. Gerald Williams, the FPC corporate counsel, to 5
answer only the questions that you asked, answer truthfully, 6
but don't volunteer -- don't volunteer any information.
He 7
was -- I had no reason to not believe what he -- what he 8
said in it.
And in my mind it was an unimportant piece of
)
9 the puzzle because it was -- it was flawed data.
The 10 important -- the important event was September 5th, where we 11 conclusively showed that Curve 8 was not accurate and a 12 valid safety poncern existed.
13 So Mr. -- I'm not going to put all the blame on 14 Mr. Williams but, you know, he just said you guys are -- you 15 guys are coming up to talk to us.
And you're noc -- like 16 you say, you're not technical type people, you're policemen.
17 You know, and he made some -- some not-so-kind comments 18 about what he thought of you, but...
19 Q
Well, I'm wanting to hear what he said.
20 A
Well, basically it was, you know, "These guys are 21 just cops, you know.
Well, they're not even cops, they're 22 just cop want-to-be's."
And, you know, he talked about your 23 career with the NRC.
And I -- I don't know what that had to 24 do with anything.
But he -- basically it was, "I don't know 25 how these guys are going to react, you know.
They're not HEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
INC.
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here to do -- they're not here to do you any favors, so just 2
answer their questions.
Don't expound on anything, you 3
know, and let it go at that."
F 4
So that -- that was I guess my reason for it.
You j
5 didn't -- I reviewed my transcript yesterday, and no, you 6
didn't ask me that question.
7 Q
That's true, we didn't ask.
8 When you did the September 4th evolution, did you j
9 station anyone down in the Aux Building to vent the hydrogen 1
10 like you did on the 5th?
11 A
I -- I can't.say for sure.
I know we had a 12 different ' operator on the 4th than we had on the 5th.
On 13 the 5th we had a lot more -- a lot better understanding of 4
14 why the curve was wrong.
We read the calculation, you know, 15 and it became obvious this is -- no wonder this darn thing i
l 16 is wrong, you know.
We could see the bad assumptions in it.
17 On the 4th we didn't really have that information; all we 18 had was we think it's wrong based upon some data we had 19 taken on performing SP 630 during.the outage.
[
20 My board operator remembers, he says, "I know I 21 called the Auxiliary Building operator and had him -- said, 22-
'We're going to be bleeding the tank.
If I call you I want l
23 you to get in there and vent the tank off.'"
So I don't 24 believe we had a guy stationed, but we did notify the man in 25 the field.
And -- and part of that is -- you just -- I just s
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don't remember because the 4th was really fairly 2
insignificant and it's been a year now.
So -- so I'm not 3
trying to dodge any issues, but to the best of my 4
recollection the man was not dressed out'like on the 5th, 5
but he was notified via the control board operator to stand 6
by and be ready to vent the tank if necessary.
7 Q
When the enunciator on the 4th and the 5th -- when 8
the enunciator alarm came on did you -- did you feel a need 1
9 to get -- to take some corrective action?
10 A
We had reviewed the enunciator response procedure l
11 and knew what response was required, and knew that basically j
12 it says to',
ypu know, vent the pressure off or J wer the 13 level, I believe is what it says.
Nothing in our -- you 14 know, if it was going to come in we knew we expected the 15 alarm and why -- and there was a valid reason why the alarm 16 came in.
So we, in our mind, decided that there was no 17 requirement to immediately clear this alarm.
Our p.ocedures 18 allow us to receive expected alarms because of manipulations 19 of the plant, and that's -- that's allowed by AI 500.
So we 20 felt procedurally very comfortable with it.
21 And I know on previous procedure, previous times 22 in the past, you know, my shift has taken the watch and the 23 darn alarm is in.
My shift was one of the shifts that 24 refused to operate the plant with that much pressure in the 25 makeup tank.
You know, that's why they came to us with, "Do NBAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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1 you want to do something?" because we had been the most 2
vocal, we were involved with SP 630.
~3 But I've come in -- I've come in to take the watch 4
and that alarm is in, and apparantly these other shifts 5
didn't -- didn't think it was that significant.
You know 6
why it's in.
You can see that you're right on the curve.
7 You've got the alarm in, so they.just wait till the next 8
shift comes in.
So we would take the watch, my board 9
operator would ask me, says, "I don't want to operate here.
10 Can I bleed -- vent the tank down?"
I 11 I say, "Yes, go ahead and vent the tank down."
12 And we w-ild yent it down.
So I didn't feel at all 13 uncomfortable, and I know other shifts didn't feel 14 uncomfortable operating in alarm.
You know, because 15 remember, it was -- it was an operating curve, it was not a 16 design basis curve, it should not have been a design basis 17 curve.
18 Q
And as we discussed before, did you know at the 3
1 19 time that it was a design basis curve?
20 A
Absolutely not.
i 21 Q
The shift technical advisor was Mr. Marshall on i
l 22 the 4th, is that -- do you remember?
23 A
I don't remember.
It -- it could have been.
They
[
24 have a little bit different schedule -- schedule than I do.
25 I know it was Larry Moffatt on the 5th.
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Q Did -- did you have a reason for not at least 2
consulting with the shift advisor, do you -- on the 4th or 3
the 5th?
4
'A I didn't feel that I had a -- a reason to because 5
it was such a simple evolution.
It was an evolution -- you 6
know, every day you bleed water from the makeup tank.
We 7
had looked at it to see that, yeah, we're covered by 8
procedure on this.
And it wasn't one of these things that 9
we saw it as a test in any way.
So we looked at it, talked 10 among ourself, and no, I did not notify Mr. Marshall.
4' 11 Q
We've discussed, you know, test before.
And I'd 12 like to on'ce again ask you how you could consider tha.
routine when you put someone down on the Aux Building to 13 14 vent the makeup tank in the event of a LOCA.
15 A
We were expecting the alarm the first night.
And j
16 we knew that that was the required procedural requirement to 17 clear the alarm.
Plus we didn't -- you know, we didn't have 18 in our minds fully how it was -- how it was going to react, i
j.
19 being right on the curve and bleeding down.
And when we 20 looked at it we said, "Well, if anything unusual comes out S
21 we'll have a guy ready to -- to bleed it down."
22 Now, the second night, after we had reviewed the 23 calculation, we were a lot more familiar with, well, why was 24 this curve designed, and we saw that, yeah, during a loss of 25 coolant accident the amount of pressure in the makeup tank NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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has some significance.
You know, it -- it said that if you 2
.were supplying two makeup pumps on one suction line that you 3
would draw that tank down and you would still have 1.7 feet-4 of -- of head in the suction of the pumps.
5 BY MR. DOCKERY:
6 Q
Let me interject something.
Mr. Fields, for the 1
7
-sake of clarity, you've -- you've used the term "we,"
the j-8 word "we."
Could'you identify who you consider "we" to be 4:
1 l
9 in this context.
i l
10 A
The shift operators involved were myself, the 11 shift suparvisor; Rob Weiss, the assistant shift supervisor; I
12 Mark Van Sick?en, chief nuclear operator; Jack Stewart, i
j 13 chief nuclear-operator; Christine Smith, reactor operator.
l 14 And on the night of the 5th I know we -- we got -- involved i
15 the other -- the other reactor operator who was actually 16 standing the Auxiliary Building watch, Jim Atkinson.
And 17 then on the night of the ith, all I know is that my chief 18 operator said he talked to the Auxiliary Building operator, j
19 who was Paul Tempesta that night.
20 Q
Thank you.
21 BY MR. VORSE:
22 Q
I forgot to ask you I'd asked you last time, but
-23 I -- I should do it this time, too-I need to know what kind l
24 of a reactor operator license you had.
25 A
I have a senior reactor operator's license.
I NBAL R. GROSS 6 Co., INC.
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I had; I don't anymore.
2 Q
And you -- you -- once again, you were the shift 3
supervisor?
4 A
That is correct.
5 Q
When you're shift supervisor and you're operating 6-on let's say midnight shift, are you basically in charge of 7
that reactor?
8 A
Decisions regarding the reactor, I am the final 9
decision.
10 Q
So the shift technical advisor really isn't a 11 player in this or -- or...?
12 A
'Durfng an accident he becomes my advisor.
13 Q
And how long have you had your -- had you your SRO 14 license?
15 A
January or February of 1983.
16 Q
You've been at Crystal River the whole time?
17 A
Yes, sir.
18 Q
When -- when management started reacting to -- in 19 an adverse way to_the September 5th evolution, was there any 20 discussion amongst the shift -- your shift not to tell 21 management about the September 4th evolution?
22 A
Not at all.
23 Q
Would you -- if they had asked you, would you have 24 told them?
25 A
Absolutely.
That's how they found out that it j
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happened.
2 Q
How did -- how did they find out it happened?
3 A
On July 19th Bruce Hickle called me down to the 4
office.
We were getting ready to come to Atlanta for the 1
5 pre-decisional enforcement conference.
And the day before I 6
was supposed to go-I was supposed to make my presentation 7
on the 21st-Bruce was going to present the operator action 8
section of the -- the company's presentation on July 25th.
9 And he just called me to his office and wanted to go over, 10 you know, "This is kind of going to be what my presentation 11 is going to look like."
And he asked me, he says, "Now, 12 I've heard grpund rumblings about some sort of data-taking i
13 or even a previous evolution on the night before."
I 14 I -- I said, "Yes, we did do that the night 15 before."
Said, "It was inconclusive," and I told him, you 16 know, the reasons we thought it was inconclusive.
And I it didn't come up 17 told him basically the reason it didn't i
18 to the Office of Investigation was that that we were 19 advised not to by Gerald Williams.
But that's -- that was 20 their concrete source of information.
I've heard that 21 there's been some sort of anonymous safety concerns given to 22 either Mr. Williams or somebody about, you know, "These 23 operators did something and they're withholding 24 information."
But the confirmation came from me and I 25 didn't hesitate.
I had no reason to lie.
J NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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MR. VORSE:
You have something?
2 BY MR. DOCKERY:
1 3
Q Mr. Fields, did -- did you ever specifically 4
discuss the evolution of September'4th with Mr. Williams?
t 5
Did he bring it up with you?
6 JL No.
You know, I think -- I think it's important 7
to bring up also that, you know, the company should have i-j 8
known about September the 4th.
You know, I fully agreed l
'9 with that.
But they -- they didn't -- we performed the 10 evolution; we presented the problem report to the company.
I we thought we were just doing something 11-And, you know, i
fairly nob'le and saying, hey, this has been a nagging issue 12 13 for a long time.
Here's some documented evidence to say j
14 that this curve is not correct.
And we issued it in the l
15 form of:a problem report.
4 16 Well, somehow it got turned around; the company 17
- decided, "Oh, my God, you've done a -- an unauthorized test.
18 You violated a design basis curve."
And we became-not part 19 of the solution-we became the problem.
Rob and I were 20 brought up before a Management Review Board, and they 21 weren't asking questions about, "What did you do?
What did 22 you see?
What were your thought processes?"
They were 23 there to fire me, they were there to fire Rob Weiss.
24 And basically all I did was sit there and say, 25 "Yes, sir.
No, sir.
I'll never do that again, sir."
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me.
The only -- the only time I talked to anybody was 2
September 15th, which is the Management Review Board, and 3
then again whenever Mr. Gerald Williams talked to me in 4
April 25th of 1995.
And his questions weren't -- and, you 5
know, by that time it had been a long time.
It was -- the 6
important event was September the 5th.
September 5th showed 7
clearly that the plant was operating outside design basis.
8 I didn't take the plant outside design basis; it was already 9
outside design basis just by operating where management 10 insisted we operate.
And nobody investigated that with the 11 operators.
12
'They would have rald.
Nobody -- you see, we had 13
-- we presented the problem report.
We wanted management to 14 review it.
We said, "Here's the data.
This is what we did; 15 this is what we think's wrong."
You know, we didn't feel 16 like the events of September 4th were -- were that 17 important, but we certainly didn't feel they were something 18 to conceal.
It was just -- it was just -- in my -- in my 19 understanding or my opinion, it was just a piece of the 20 puzzle that we kind of used to fit together and say, "Ah, 21 that's why the September 4th didn't work.
We -- we added 22 cold hydrogen, we added cold water, and we didn't let the 23 system stabilize."
And that's what we did to correct it for 24 September 5th and the system response was a much smoother 25 curve.
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1 But we had no reason to talk -- no reason to hide i
2 it.
Nobody investigated it.
The company didn't investigate 3
it.
When I talked to Gerald Williams on April 25th his 4
questions weren't technical in nature.
He was asking more 5
questions about, "Well, how are we going to present this to 6
the NRC?" and, "Well, why didn't you notify the shift j
7 manager," and he wanted to have that kind of an answer.
8 And, "Well, why didn't you immediately respond to the...?"
9-He -- he was looking for things like:
This is how best to 10 present the information so that the NRC would -- would look 11 more kindly on it, I think.
It was kind of second ;uessing 12 what the'NRC, wanted to see.
But he wasn't aski;.g technical 13 questions.
14 BY MR. McNULTY:
15 Q
Can I ask a question about the design basis.
Your 16 understanding of the curve, Curve 8, was that this was a 17 operating (sic) limit?
18 A
Yes, sir.
19 Q
Yet you felt that the curve was non-conservative?
20 A
That's correct.
21 Q
Did you have any understanding of what the design 22 basis should have been for that circumstance or that 23 situation?
24 A
I guess I just assumed that someplace to the left 25 of it, left of that curve-excuse me-there would be a design MEL R. MMS & M., DM.
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basis curve where there was no margin.
That on one side of 2
the curve your high pressure injection system is good; on 3
the other side it's not.
4 Q
So in preparing -- in preparing to do your 5
evolution-excuse me-you knew you were going to go outside 6
the administrative limit?
7 A
I suspected that I might.
8 Q
You suspected.
Did you make any effort to try to 9
determine where the design basis was?
10 A
No, I didn't.
You know, I'm not really -- I'm not 11 really trained in that.
You know, I'm not -- you know, we 12 had -- L2 'had, raised our concerns to engineering during the 13 outage and they didn't come back with any words about design 14 basis, you know.
It's -- that's not you know, that's an 15 engineering type function as we, as operators, operate the 16 plant to operating limits.
17 0
Well, if -- if tr.e operating limit curve, Curve 8 18 was accurate, and your actions would have taken it beyond 19 the administrative limit, weren't you afraid that there was 20 a point there that you might exceed the design basis curve 21 if it was a little further out there?
22 A
I wouldn't say that that was my thought process, 23 but I know that we watched it carefully so that it would 24 come down.
And we suspected it would follow the curve 25 fairly closely.
I think what we had the guy stationed for NEAL R. GROSS 6 CO.,
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and everyone watching the information come down is if for 2
some reason it would take a sharp turn to give us something 3
really unexpected.
So we were watching it fairly closely, 4
but I wasn't thinking, oh, there's a design basis curve over 5
here and we don't want to exceed that.
6 BY MR. DOCKERY:
7 Q
Mr. Fields, would it be fair to say that or would 8
you be in agreement with the statement that engineering 9
somehow dropped the ball with respect to that Curve 87 10 A
I fully agree with that.
11 Q
To your knowledge, did anybody in engi..eering ever 12 undergo any negative employment consequence because c_
13 errors that were made or failure to address -- adequately 14 address the issue?
15 A
Not to my knowledge.
I think engineering has --
16 has played a very important role as sort of guiding --
17 guiding the decision-making process here.
They have spent 18 all their time casting negative light on the operators:
How 19 dare these operates challenge us.
And -- and I think 20 they've done the plant a disservice by -- by their actions.
21 They have focused their attention and management's attention 22 upon me and my integrity and my reasons for doing this I 23 think so that the NRC will not look at what group of idiots 24 could not see that this curve was -- was wrong.
25 They were tasked -- we wrote the problem report NEAL R. GROSS & CO,,
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during the outage:
We think this curve is wrong.
And 2
engineering was going through the -- the cause and the 3
corrective action, and their answer came up with:
The curve 4
is accurate and reasonably conservative.
In fact, we think 5
we can increase the pressure in the tank.
Which was exactly 6
what management wanted.
Management wanted more hydrogen in 7
8 But when we pulled that calculation it was 9
absolutely obvious that the curve was calculated based on 10 wrong assumptions and different -- different emergency 11 operatin3 procedures.
Engineering could not have pulled 12 that calcu'lation to make that -- to have written that 13 letter.
It was sloppy engineering.
Before -- before they 14 came out with the September 2nd letter saying accurate and 15 reasonably conservative, my boss, Greg Halnon, asked two 16 engineers, Pat Hinman and Steve Rowe, "I want you guys to 17 independently work up a calculation to verify that -- that 18 Curve 8 is okay."
19 They came back to him, they said, "We can't do it.
20 We don't know how."
21 And then Pat Hinman wrote the letter that says, 22 "Well, it's -- it's accurate and reasonably conservative."
23 How could he say -- how could he have said that?
24 Q
Who wrote that letter?
25 A
Pat Hinman.
He's a senior -- or a discipline NRAL R. GROS $ & CO.,
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engineer for the makeup system.
1 2
Q Could you spell that for us, please.
3 A
Hinman, H-i-n-m-a-n.
4 0
.In your -- in your mind is there any single 5
individual or individuals in engineering or over engineering i
6 who are responsible for what we now know was a -- was a j
7 failing with respect to Curve 87 1
8 A
Well, I think the -- the engineers who were 9
involved, the two engineers-who were -- they were 10 responsible for the makeup system, Mr. Hinman and Phil 11 Saltsman, 1 guess I -- in my opinion are guilty of just 12 incompetence., Now, how their organization works, you know, 13 they have a -- they have a supervisor; their supervisor has 14 a manager; their manager has a director; and the director 15 reports to the senior vice president.
Well, how high do you 16 go?
I. don't know.
17 But I know that Mr. Beard, a senior vice 18 president, was very influential upon the engineers and their 19 decision making.
He was demanding 25 cc's per kg, he was 20 monitoring it daily, he had the Chemistry Department 21 monitoring it hourly.
And the only reason to monitor it 22 hourly is to find out which shifts -- which shifts operated 23 on the curve and which shifts didn't operate on the curve.
24 Pat Beard told Greg Halnon, said, "Greg," at 10:00 meeting, 25 "Greg, you go up there and get those operators straightened HEAL R. GROSS 4. CO.,
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out.'
2 Q
How do you know he said that?
3 A
Because I heard that.
I'll -- it's in my letter 4
as a "I heard that."
I cannot say -- I was not in at;the 5
meeting, but somebody who was at the meeting told me.
'6 Q-Do you identify that individual in...?
7
.A I do not identify that individual, but I have 8'
prepared a list of questions in an allegation that I have 9
attached here, requesting you guys -- you folks to ask j
10 Mr. Beard that question, "Did you tell Greg Halnon, ' Go up 11 there and get these operators straightened out'?"
J 12 0
WouAd you right now identify the individual who j
13 related that conversation to you?
14 A
I would if I could remember, and I can't remember.
15 I'm not trying to withhold any information here.
I -- it 16 was just one of those things when they said it, it stuck in 17 my mind.
And it's stuck in.ny mind ever since.
9it I know
]
i 18 Mr. Beard, because -- I mean, I know he was having an j
i 19 influence upon hydrogen concentration in the makeup tank.
20 I've submitted in previous letters to Mr. Ebneter the E-mail 21 messages from my management.
It was a hot topic of the day, 22 makeup tank hydrogen, you know, telling you how to do it and 23 telling you he wants it done.
Two separate E-mail messages.
24 We knew -- we knew that that's what management wanted.
25 Q
Okay, you stated just a few minutes ago that, if I NEAL R. (NtOSS 6 CO., INC.
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understand correctly, you or your operating people pulled 2
the calculations on which that curve was based, is that 3
correct?
4 A
That's correct, 190 -- I've got a number if you 5
think that's important.
Calculation I90-0024, Revision 5.
6 Q
When you say you pulled it, did you go somewhere 7
in document control and obtain it?
8 A
Yes, sir; that's right.
Mark Van Sicklen went 9
over to document control.
I remember that Mark went over 10 the night of the 4th to get it.
Rob Weiss says, "I don't 1
11 know if he went over the night of the 4th or the night of 12 the 5th." ' Sq one of those two nights.
13 Q
And if I understand you correctly, on its face, 14 that calculation or set of calculations appeared to you, at 15 least, and your peers in operations to be faulty or 16 incorrect?
17 A
It's obvious that it's faulty or incorrect.
18 Q
Should it have been obvious to an engineer, 19 somebody in engineering that it was faulty and/or incorrect?
20 A
It was clearly -- clearly that way.
You couldn't 21 have read it and said Curve 8 is conservative and accurate.
22 You just could not have done that.
23 Q
Did you make any attempt to go to engineering, who 24 I assume is responsible for generating that calculation, and 25 say, "We feel you should look at this"?
j NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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A We felt that engineering had made their statement 2
in the 2nd -- September 2nd letter.
3 BY MR. VORSE:
4 Q
Can you tell us what that September 2nd letter 5
said?
6 A
Well, it's the one that...
7 MR. HENDRIX:
Is it in our notebook?
8 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
9 MR. DOCKERY:
Counselor, if we may, let's -- let's 10 make reference to those again.
And...
11 MR. HENDRIX:
Okay.
12
'MR.,DOCKERY:
...I'd like to identify at this time 1
13 for the record by how they're...
14 MR. HENDRIX:
Okay, we have -- we have -- we i
i 15 discussed in Rob Weiss' testimony that we had prepared an 16 exhibit to be jointly referenced by both of my clients.
And i
17 it's -- we've entitled it, "In Re: David Fields Pre-Decision 18 Enforcement Conference," because this is what he intended to 19 produce at the pre-decision enforcement conference.
And we during one of our discussions with you gentlemen about 20 21 today, we thought it would be best to produce these 22 documents today, maybe, and we included in here 39 exhibits.
23 24 And we've already talked about #25 being slightly 25 in need of correction.
But these 39 exhibits are the heart NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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of what happened.
And in here is the September 2nd memo, I 2
believe, from engineering; is that correct, Dave?
3 THE WITNESS:
That is correct.
i 4
MR. HENDRIX:
You want to refer that?
5 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay, I -- I just want to -- we i
6 didn't really title...
7 MR. HENDRIX:
Yeah, there's two notebooks, two 8
spiral notebooks with 39 exhibits.
And again I would also 9
incorporate by reference the chronology of events memorandum 10 that I presented to Mr. Vorse on behalf of both of my j
11 clients.
I think that also is entitled, "In Re: Divid 12 Fields." 3cict we had discussed among ourselves M Fields 13 was the senior person and he wanted his names (sic) to be on 14 these documents because he feels responsible for the people 15 working underneath him.
i 16 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay, and we'll acknowledge chat 17 we're going to take receipt of those documents at tue 18 conclusion of this testimony.
19 MR. HENDRIX:
It was not included in there?
20 THE WITNESS:
No, it's in here, but I...
21 MR. HENDRIX:
Can't tell by the way it's 22 described?
You might just have to flip through.
23 (The witness reviews certain material.)
24 MR. HENDRIX:
Is that not it?
25 THE WITNESS:
Here it is.
Here it is, Exhibit 5.
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1 All right, that would be Exhibit 5.
It's a letter to Bruce i
1 2
Hickle from Pat Hinman, Nuclear Project Engineer, and co-i 3
signed by Jerry Campbell, Manager, Nuc Plant Tech Support.
4 MR. RAPP:
What's the date of that letter?
5 THE WITNESS:
That's September 2nd, 1994.
6 MR. RAPP:
Is that the letter of memorandum where 7
it had been penciled on top, "Do you have anything further 8
to provide?" or something to that effect?
9 THE WITNESS:
I can't read...
10 MR. HENDRIX:
On our copy it's not fully legible.
~
i 11 MR. RAPP:
It's not legible?
Okay.
12 SUR.,HENDRIX:
Yes.
13 BY MR. VORSE:
14 Q
But that was engineering telling you that they 15 were going to close the -- that was the letter that 16 engineering used to tell -- tell you that they were going to 17 close that issue?
18 A
That is correct.
And my management -- my 19 management brought the letter to me; Carl Bergstrom, who's 20 the support shift manager in operations.
And he says, 21
" Dave, I know your shift has been interested in this and 22 you've taken lead on this issue.
Well, engineering's going 23 to close it out.
You know, the final report's going to be 24 closed out.
We're going to have to operate at -- on the 25 curve.
Is there anything you want to do or respond to this NEAL R. Gross & M.,
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before it gets closed out?"
And I -- and I felt that that 2
was my management coming to me and requesting-that I take 4
3 action.
And I thought that the action we took was 4
conservative and expected and useful.
5 BY MR.'DOCKERY:
6 Q
Let's be very clear here.
When you say, "The 7
action we took," what are you referring to, Mr. Fields?
a 8
A The performance of the data-taking on September 9
4th and September 5th in preparation of filing Report 94-
~
10 267.
11 BY MR. VORSE:
4 4
12 Q
'Are,you saying, Mr. Fields, that you felt, Lased
{
13 on that September 2nd letter telling you they're going to 14 close out -- or they're asking you for your final input on l-15 that, did you think that that was giving you permission to i
j 16 go ahead and do your evolutions?
17 A
2es.
You know, 1 -- you know, I -- I feel'1ike i
18 explaining what the shift supervisor does out there, as long 19 as I'm operating to procedures I'm authorized to do these 20 sorts of things.
One of the plates -- you know, and it's j
21 expected of me.
That's my job.
You know, if operators have 22 concerns, a safety concern, I feel like, well, that's valid, 23 I better listen to the guy.
Well, these -- these concerns 24 had been brought up to management and they had been brought 25-up to engineering and they were blown off.
And I felt like l
I NEAL R. CROSS & Co., INC.
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1 I did my. job by listening to the guy.
2 And we said, "Well, what can we legally do to --
3 to show this, so it won't be closed out?"
We reviewed our
{
i 4
procedure OP 402, we looked at the enunciator response j
i 5
procedure, we took. precautions to -- to make sure that it 6
was a controlled evolution, and we performed it and we 7
presented the problem report.
I felt like I did everything_
[
8.
that a shift supervisor should do, that it was expected of' j
9 me.
10 Let me reference one plate in here, or I guess one 11 tab.
12
'MR.,HENDRIX:
Didn't do a good job of putting them r
13 in order, did I?
f 14 THE WITNESS:
We'll find it, Pat and Gary's 15 expectations.
16 In the fall and winter of 1993 all the supervisors 17 were -- were given empowe rment training.
And Gary Bolt and 18 Pat Beard, the senior vice -- the vice presidents of -- of i
19 nuclear operations, attended every one of these.
It was a 20 one-week course.
Under Pat and Gary's expectations in 21 writing, you know, he presents these expectations, but he --
22 he and Gary -- he and Pat presented these together.
It 23 says, " Challenge the process."
It says, "Be an innovator 24 and initiator of needed change.
Avoid getting trapped by
)
25 bureaucratic policy and the status quo.
It's okay to NBAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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i l'
question any requirement, including regulations and' company 3
2 policy that doesn't make sense.
Rigid and blind obedience j
L 1
1 3
is.not in the best interest of nuclear safety."
And I 4
believed that.
5 MR. DOCKERY:
Mr. Fields, would you identify which j
6 exhibit, within your documentation, that is.
7 THE WITNESS:
This is Exhibit 22.
8 MR. DOCKERY:
Thank you.
-9 THE WITNESS:
And I -- I felt like, well, that's 10 my job.
I'm a shift supervisor.
And -- and they -- they're 11 kind of like I'm this rogue operator, by management; but I 12 am management,at the plant.
I was before I was fired.
I --
13 I-felt, you know, that was my responsibility, my authority 14 to do what I did.
And I -- I'm very disappointed that my 15 senior management has turned their back upon me and -- and 16 somehow offered me as -- as the guilty party here, because I 17 don't feel like the guilty party.
I think some other people i
18 did a lot poorer job in their efforts than I did.
And I
)
I 19 honestly feel fairly proud of what I did.
20-You know, I think it has to be emphasized over and 21 over again it was a safety concern.
We had nothing to gain.
22 It was a safety concern, that we had brought the concern to 23 engineering; they blew us off.
We brought the concern to 24 management; they blew us off.
They were insisting operate 25 on that curve.
In fact, we're going to raise the pressure NBAL R. QROSS & Co., INC.
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in that curve.
My operators didn't feel comfortable with 2
that.
They weren't sure why, but they said, "We don't like 3
this."
4 And we looked at what we could legally do, and we 5
did it, and we presented it as a problem report, says, "This 6
is a safety concern.
This -- this affects the safety of the 7
plant."
And we were right.
And the things that have 8
happened to me, being fired over bringing up a valid safety 9
concern, this -- this just seemed like an injustice that I 10
-- I just am having a difficult time with.
11 BY MR. McNt"uTY :
12 0
' Wha,t didn't the operators like about operating on 13 the curve?
14 A
They knew that excessive pressure in the tank --
they weren't su e, but they felt like, well 15 they weren't 16
-- you know, they knew that if that tank blew down in an 17 accident situation and you cetually got hydrogen in the 18 suction of the -- of the high pressure injection pumps, the 19 pumps would fail.
We knew that because we had burned up a 20 pump once before just by inadvertently...
Not "we" as...
21 A group of operators inadvertently closed the 22 suction valve, and the pump destroyed itself in eight 23 seconds; pieces, parts every place.
We knew that was a 24 concern.
23 My operators' first concern that they brought up NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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18 months prior to that was, well, if we have all this 1
2 pressure here and we need to shut down the reactor and we l
3 want to inject -- we want to' nake sure that highly borated 1
4 water gets in, normally you.would just open.the suctions of 5
the' borated water storage tank and it would be the preferred i
6 source'to go in.
But with all the pressure in the makeup i
3 7
tank, that was still the preferred source and you wouldn't f
8 get ' the highly borated water-I'm directing this to Mr. Rapp
]
9 right now-but you wouldn't get the highly bersced water in, 10 you'd just get the RCS concentration in, and you wouldn't 11 get your -- the shutdown that you -- that you wanted.
That i
12 was the initial concern.
i 13 And then shortly thereafter there were concerns j
14 about Appendix R fire regulations, that with the regulator 15 set at such a high pressure and you had a fire and the 16 regulator failed in the open position you couldn't get to i
17 the building and it would keep on injecting hydrogen and j
18 causing you.some problems there.
And -- and it's still an i
19 issue, it's still an open issue as far as emergency i
20 boration.
We've been tasked by the NRC to write an 21 emergency boration procedure.
12 2 The Appendix R concern that we just -- that we 23 brought up 18 months ago; four months -- three months ago 24 they came out with a letter that said keep that valve --
25 keep that valve isolated; only un-isolate it when you're NRAL R. StOSS & CO.,
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going to add hydrogen because of Appendix R.
And then from 2
our problem report we showed that the excess hydrogen and l
3 the hydrogen binding ~of the pumps is correct.
So we as 4
operators were correct on all three -- all three of our t
5 concerns have proved to be correct.
And it's taken 18 6
months.
4 I
j 7
BY MR. RAPP:
8 Q
So all these other issues were being pursued by 9
your shift or by the -- by the people on your shift, the j
10 emergency boration and Appendix R?
11 A
Eighteen (18) months prior to that I didn't have 12 the same shiff members; but basically Mark Van Sicklen 13 probably on my shift took the lead.
He was the original 14 group.
^
15 Q
So he's the one that had the -- he had concerns 16 about emergency boration and Appendix R?
17 A
That is correct.
18 Q
No other operators?
19 A
The only other operator I know, that he was --
20 when the -- when the curve first came out, raised a concern, 21 was Bruce Willms, who was on another shift.
W-i-1-1-m-s.
l 22 But he -- he was not on my shift for the past year or so.
l 23 BY MR. VORSE:
l 24 Q
Are you familiar with AI 500?
i 25 A
Yes, sir.
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Q Can you tell me basically what it says?
2 A
Well, it's the administrative procedure that tells 3
-- title is, " Conduct of Operations," and it provides the 4
administration of how the -- how the Operations Department 5
works.
The -- the operations manager, Manager of Nuclear 6
Plant Operations, puts out his:
This is how we do this.
7 This is how we stand the watch.
This is the reporting 8
requirements.
You know, he implements a lot of things from 9
an administrative side.
He doesn't implement, you know:
10 This is how you operate the -- the makeup and purification 11 system.
But he implements how you use procedures, how you 12 use enunciatoy response procedures, how you use sther type 13 things.
14 Q
When -- when you went into the alarm mode during 15 these two evolutions and plotted the data, we were in the i
16 unacceptable region of the curve, is that correct?
17 A
Yes, sir.
18 Q
When you're in the unacceptable region of the 19 curve is there something that you're supposed to do to -- to 20 fix it, to correct it?
21 A
There are two -- I could find two places in AI 500 22 that related to that.
And -- which...?
23 MR HENDRIX:
It's in the notebook, I know, on the 24
-- that second notebook, AI...
25 THE WITNESS:
Okay.
I've got it, AI 500, on July NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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19th, the presentation that I was going to make to 2
Mr. Ebneter, which never happened.
Well, anyway, it was...
3 I -- I included as attachments the AI 500.
Under 4
Section 4.3.2.2, enunciator alarm response procedures of AI 5
500, " Enunciator response procedures, ARs, shall be used as 6
follows:
Enunciator response procedures shall be used to 7
diagnose alarms not expected," in parentheses, "(not 8
directly related to intentional manipulation of plant 9
controls and for any alarm that the operators are not 10 explicitly familiar with.)"
11 And I read that to be if it's an expeceed alarm, 12 you know why it's in, you're not required to take immediate 13 action.
That says nothing about the alarm comes in you've 14 got 30 minutes, you've got 20 minutes, you've got five 15 minutes to clear the alarm.
They do give us some credit for 16 understanding, well, why is that alarm in.
And we fully 17 understood why the alarm is.
We could see it on the control 18 board.
You know, it's right on the curve, it was just 19 inside the curve.
20 Q
What -- what typically would be to -- I know i
21 immediate action is -- this is, I understand, not a first-4 22 tier alarm that requires your immediate response, it's kind 23 of about third down from the -- from the top of the 24 importance list.
What's a reasonable amount of time to --
25 to get back on -- to take corrective action to get that NEAL R. GROSS 6 CO., INC.
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.1 enunciator off the line in a -- in a situation such as this?
2 A
In this situation we felt comfortable with drawing 3
the curve from 86 inches to 55 inches.
We felt that we had a.
4 just given engineering, in a problem report,94-149, it was 5
just a piece of it that didn't cross the line, and we said, 6
"It looks like it's going to cross the line."
That's what 7
we wrote the problem report on.
8 Well, engineering rejected that.
No, it's not 9
going to cross the line.
Everything's going toward zero.
j 10 It's not going to happen.
We felt compelled to say they're 11 not going to believe us if we don't provide a nime, smooth i
12 curve to show.them exactly, well, this is how the sys em 13 responds.
And I think it's important.to note we didn't...
14 You know, I read it in the newspaper at home about i
15 how I drove the plant to the unacceptable side of the curve.
16 I didn't drive the plant any way.
All I did was plot the 4
17 plant response.
OP 402, in one case, says, " Establish 18 hydrogen pressure in the makeup tank if desired.
Step 1:
19 Refer to Curve 8, OP 103B, for maximum makeup tank pressure 20
-- overpressure."
And that's -- that's what you do on the 21 curve.
You refer to the curve and you either raise level, 22 add hydrogen; but anyway, at 86 inches we did exactly that.
23 And then OP 402 doesn't refer to this curve ever 24 again.
It's not in the limits and precautions.
It just 25 tells you when you're pressurizing up to refer to it so you j
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don't go over the curve, and
,dn't b aver the curve.
2 And the reason that is-and it's a valid reason, there's 3
nothing wrong with the procedure-the reason it is, if you 4
pressurize here you should be able to lower level and come 5
down right on the curve, add water and raise level and come 6
right back on the curve.
We didn't drive the plant any way.
7 We performed OP 402 and we simply lowered level, as allowed i
8 by this procedure, and showed that the plant response wasn't 9
this curve, the plant response came inside a little bit.
10 And at 55 inches we could measure the difference.
11 And that was the most significant piece o.
12 informati5n w,c found:
At 53 inches, if you converted that 13 pressure to a height of water, it was more than the 14 calculation I90-24 accounted for.
We could see, my God, 15 you're sitting; unknowingly you're going to hydrogen-bind 16 your high pressure injection pump.
We felt that was 17 significant, and I think it was significant.
18 BY MR. RAPP:
19 Q
Would that have resulted in a loss of all high --
20 high pressure injection pumps?
21 A
No, sir.
One.
22 Q
Just one pump?
23 A
Yes, sir, your other pump is independently lined 24 up to the -- the borated water storage tank.
25 Q
So you still would have had capability for high NEAL R. GROSS & CO,,
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pressure injection?
2 A
You would have had your high -- half of your high 3
pressure injection system.
But you were sitting there 1
)
4 unknowingly -- the shift would unknowingly know that if you
)
5
.had an accident you're going to drain down and you're going 6
to blow up one of your pumps.
We, as operators, don't need i
l 7
that kind of distraction in an event.
You know, it's --
8 it's significant, you know.
A high pressure injection is a 9
significant event, by itself.
But when your equipment
)
10 starts to fail on you, you're going to react, overrasct, try I
11 to cross-tie them, you might do something stupid and destroy 12 your secon'd ppmp.
13 It was -- it was a significant safety issue, and 1
14 it hasn't been treated as a safety issue.
Mr. Beard calls 1
15 it a technical concern.
And it's not come out., you know.
16 Nobody.has emphasized that if you were on this curve you 17 were outside design bases.
Not if you were -- not if you 18 drain down and was where I was at 55 inches.
If you were on 19 the curve you were outside design bases.
And we had been 20 operating there for 18 months.
My shift operated there for 21 35 minutes one night and ten minutes the next night, and we 22 knew what we were doing.
We had people watching it closely.
23 Those other operators were sitting there for --
24 just doing what management wanted them to do.
And they were 25 set up.
Engineering set them up.
They put a design basis NEAL R. GROSS 1. CO.,
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curve that they didn't understand into our operating 2
procedures, and management, given the opportunity -- given 3
the opportunity to respond to concerns, blew us off and 4
said, "Nah, your concerns aren't valid.
You know, you're i
5 just a bunch of stupid operators.
And we're going to --
6 we're going to -- not only are we going to go with this 7
curve, we're going to raise the pressurs in it."
8 Absolutely the response from engineering and the 9
Lresponse of management was inadequate.
It was -- isn't what 10 you people in the NRC expect.
It isn't what I expect as an 11 operator, you know.
When my people come to me with a 12 concern, I' at,least owe them enough to listen to them, and I 13 did.
14 BY MR. VORSE:
15 Q
Did you -- I've just got a couple more and then i
16 I'm going to let Mr. Rapp talk to you.for a little bit.
But 17 did you log that September 4ch evolution?
18 A
No, sir, I did not.
19-Q There's nothing -- nothing -
there's no log 20-entry?
21 A
No.
22 Q
Did anybody log any entry?
23 A
I don't know if they did or not.
The board 24 operator should have logged the bleed.
By AI 500 he should 25 have said bled so many gallons, added so many gallons.
I NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.
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Page 39-1 don't know'if he did or not.
I do know on the 4th, though, 2
that.in talking to Paul Tempesta, that you had his log entry I
3 from that. night and it says, "Added hydrogen to the makeup i
4 tank."
So I know he logged that'information.
5 Q
What do you think of your ECP program, your 6
ECP.
.?
Is it termed ECP, Employee Concerns Program at --
1 3
7 at Crystal River?
Is that what the name of it is?
Or is it 8
something else?
i 9
A Yes, sir, your Employee Concerns Program.
10 Q
What do you think?
j 11 A
Not good.
12 Q
'Why,?
13 A
In -- in my written submission today what I've 14 presented here is a letter written to you, Mr. McNulty.
15 It's abouc six pages long -- well, seven pages long 16 describing everything I know about September 4th.
Attached 17 to that, I've attached three allegations.
Allegation #3 is 18 titled, " Ineffective Employee Safety Concerns Program."
19 I'll just read the first paragraph.
20 "FPC Nuclear Operations instituted a program 21 several years ago to collect and address employee concerns.
22 The program is designed to allow employees to raise a 23 concern, even a suggestion when he/she thinks it is 24 detrimental to the nuclear plant.
A dedicated 25 representative, Vic Hernandez, reports directly to Pat NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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Beard, Senior Vice President Nuclear Operations; e
2 investigates and prepares a report for each concern 4
3 presented.
I 4
"The employees should have confidence that their i
5 concerns are being raised to the highest level in the.
6 organization and are being thoroughly investigated.
Since 7
the program was instituted approximately three years ago, I
.i 8
have submitted two safety concerns.
These concerns are 9
discussed below to support my allegation.
The safety 10 concerns program is ineffective."
11 So I have -- I have two events in my last three 12 years as a nuclear shift supurvisor where I used the 13 Employee Concerns Program, and both times the response was 14 two months after I submitted it; both times the investigator 15 did not come to me and ask me, "What are you talking about 16 here?"
He just wrote his response.
And his response in 17 both cases was wrong.
Says, "I.have investigated.
You have 18 no concern."
19 And I don't -- let me -- let me just say one 20 thing.
And I can't understand.
It's Pat Beard's program.
21 My first concern was a safety concern.
I said, " Management 22 manipulated the clock on a shutdown order, shutdown tech 23 spec requirement."
And I -- I fully expected within hours 24 or if not the next day to get a phone call from Pat Beard 25 saying NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.
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"How -- what are you talking about?
You're a 2
shift supervisor and you're saying management manipulated a 3
clock?"
I didn't get a response for two months back -- two
'4 months later.
He just says,
(
5 "You have no concern."
In my -- in my two -- two 6
-- two uses of'the program, I -- I just -- I have no faith 7
in the program.
I don't think Mr. Beard is really that 8
interested.
9 BY MR. DOCKERY:
10 Q
Did either'of those two uses of the Employee 11 Concerns Program have any involvement with what we'Ie 12 addressing' here today?
13 A
Only from the standpoint that at the Management 14 Review Board, which was conducted I~believe September 15th i
15 of 1994, Paul McKee, _the Director of Quality Programs -- Vic 16 Hernandez works for him but reports direct to Pat Beard...
17 BY MR. VORSE:
18 Q
Now, Mr. Hernandez is the ECP guy, right?
He's 19 the' head of the ECP?
20 A
Yes.
He asked me why I had not used the Employee l
21 Concerns Program for resolving my shift safety concerns over 22 the makeup tank issue.
And I know why I didn't, 'cause I I
23 had seen -- I had seen two -- two employee concerns written 24 by both Mark van Sicklen and Bruce Willms talking about this t-25 emergency boration concern that they had.
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submitted them.
I didn't tell them not to submit them, but 2
I didn't really encourage them to because I don't think -- I 3
didn't really have that much faith in the program.
4 My response to Mr. Mchee, when he asked me that, 5
was I just didn't -- I didn't -- I didn't include my 6
previous involvement in the program because, you know, I was I was getting ready to get fired that day.
You know, I 7
~
8 was -- they weren't -- they weren't here to -- there to hear 9
about my criticism of their program.
10 But my -- the Employee Concerns Program doesn't l
2 11 work.
You know, these -- these two examples are my i
j 12 examples; yow know, I think somebody in the future needs to 13 make an allegation concerning the emergency feed water j
14 control system.
That Employee Concerns Program has been on 15 the street for two years and they're doing nothing about it.
16 It's all driven by, "Well, parts will be available in Refuel 1
17 10 and Refuel 11," and stuff like that.
The system is --
18 the concern program should address -- should be addressed 19 rapidly.
If it's a valid concern, it's a valid concern.
It 20 should be addressed.
And that's not what the system is 21 being used for.
4 22 BY MR. VORSE:
23 Q
So what you're saying is that you just did not 24 have confidence in the ECP?
j 25 A
I had no confidence based on previous experience.
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1 Q
And that's the reason why you didn't tell them
~
2 about your concerns about the makeup tank?
3 A
It'never -- it entered my mind to -- to - -to give 4
a employee concern, but it was -- I guess I rejected it in 5
my mind because, well, this -- this program doesn't work.
I l
6 can legally do an OP 4 402 draw-down of the makeup tank 7
and give them, you know, visual proof that the curve is
'8 inaccurate, and that's what I chose to do rather than --
5 9
than this method.
In both -- both these cases it's.a two-10 month turnaround.
11 BY MR. DOCKERY:
{
12 Q
'Mr., Fields, I want to paraphrase, if I may, what I 13 think you just said.
You felt you had a -- a legal-lack of 14 a better term-way of proceeding without going to Employee 15-Concerns, is that fair?
16 A
Yes, sir, absolutely.
17 Q
And that is the course of action you undertook on 18 September -- basically September the 5th?
19 A
Yes.
You know, it -- when you asked the question 20 about the log entry; well, much more important than the log 21 entry was the preparation of the problem report.
That was 22 the proper mechanism to identify the problem that existed.
23 And that's what we used.
You know, that that goes 24 directly to management as soon as it's submitted.
25 BY MR. RAPP:
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Q Why didn't you just write another problem report 2-when engineering said they were going to close out the first 3
one?
4 A
Well, it would just be the same problem.
I guess
]
5 I don't understand why I would do that.
You know, they've 6
already closed it out, they're not going to accept the 7
second one.
8 Q
Well, it just gives you another mechanism to keep 9
pushing the issue through -- through a...
10 A
Well, you could.
But, I mean, it would take --
11 it's a fairly quick turnaround.
They've got -- they've got 12 their reas'ons,for -- for closing out the first one; it 13 doesn't take them long to -- if someone comes up with the 14 same concern written on another piece of paper and say, 15 "We've already answered this question.
Closed out."
You
-16 know, I don't -- I guess I don't understand why_you would 17 think that would be effective.
I don't -- because I don't 18 think it would have been.
19 BY MR. DOCKERY:
20 Q
Mr. Fields, was -- are we dealing with a -- just a 21 difference of professional or technical opinions here?
22 A
As far as -- I don't understand.
23 Q
As far as operations, members of your operation 24 shifc and yourself feel very strongly about what you 25 characterize as a safety issue.
And yet, based on what I've
\\
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Page 45 1
heard here, it appears you can't -- you were unable to get 2
it adequately addressed.
3 A
That is correct.
But I thought it was -- I 4
thought we'd used the proper method, was what we did.
You 5
know, the -- the problem report, you know, they could look 6
at it and say, "Oh, yeah, this -- this curve is not 7
accurate.
This is the real curve."
You know, and I felt 8
like, well, that was -- I was responding to my operator's 9
concerns, and I said, 10 "Well, this is the way to do it.
This i.the most this is the quickest, the most legal that I knew of, and 11 12 the way -- you know, the way to present the information."
13 Q
It -- it sounds to me, though-I'm not putting 14 words -- creating testimony-but it almost sounds like a 15 last-ditch effort, after you'd tried other avenues.
16 A
Well, I felt like the -- the September 2nd letter 17 was, you know, brought to me and said, you know, "They're 18 going to close it out.
Do you have anything you want to do 19 or do you want to respond to this?"
And I felt that was my 20
-- you know, what went through my mind, my operators came to 21 me and said, j
l 22 "You know, if we used OP 402 we could really just
)
1 23 draw the system response, and we've got a procedure to do l
24 that."
And after we got the data, we -- we thought, well, j
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1-report, and,we did that.
I mean, I don't -- I don't want to 1
l 2
give the impression that, you know, we're out there i
3 screaming and nobody will listen to us.
It was'just a kind 1
,4 of a routine, yeah, we.cg> -- you know...
I.didn't feel like I
5 it was anything.out of the ordinary, i
6 Yeah, we'd had a kind of a difference of opinion 7
with engineering and we felt like they had_done kind of a
(
8 sloppy job.
But we weren't mad at them, we just said, 9
"Well, don't close it out.
It's not -- you know,.that we 10
' don't think this curve is accurate, and here we drew you the 11 real system response."
You know, it -- was it a last-ditch 12 effort?
It was -- I thought it was an effective way and the l
13 proper way to present the data.
l
~14 MR. HENDRIX:
May I ask a question.
When you 15 submitted that last problem report what is the s*andard L
16 response to that?
What -- what should be'the standard l
17 response?
l L
18 THE WITNESS:
Problem reports are submitted to the 19 shift manager.
The shift manager evaluates it, you know, l
20 initially just to say, well, what's the safety significant 21 (sic).
And then he'll -- I think every problem report is 22 evaluated at the 7:30 meeting where the plant manager and 23 all the department heads talk about it, and they assign it 24
-- well, we're going to assign this one to engineering, i
25' Engineering would get the problem report and they would need k
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to' evaluate it, do -- what's the cause here, 2
Engineering should then get involved with the 3
people who ran the evolution and say, "What'd you do?. You 4
know,-where's your data?
Let's take a look at it and see if 5'
we1see something that we. missed in this September 2nd i
i 6
letter."
There shouldn't have been any conflict here, it 7
shou 2d have just been a problem report and two' organizations 8
getting together toL-- to resolve it.
9 BY MR DOCKERY:
i' 10 Q
why, in your opinion, was there'a conflict?
11 A
Well, I -- I'm not sure why, but engineering took 12 great offe'nnq at operators challenging their data.
I guess 13 they hadtspent quite a bit of time coming up with the 14 September 2nd letter, and they had pretty much stated-I'm 15 just making this up; I mean, I'm -- I'm giving you an 16 opinion, I'm saying-that the curve.is accurate and j
i 17 reasonably conservative.
And.then a few days later it comes 1
18 up with:
No, it's not.
It's not accurate at all.
In' fact, 19 the margin that's described in the -- in the calculation is 20 not there.
And I think they took great exception to -- to 21 us presenting that information.
They felt somehow slighted 22 that we were challenging their calculations.
You know,...
23 MR. VORSE:
Go ahead.
I 24 A
...they -- you know, we were accused within days, 25 you know, of:
You violated a design basis curve.
I didn't NBAL R. GROS 8 & CO., INC.
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know it was a design basis curve.
i 2
But it took from September 5th -- or September 3
7th, when the problem report was submitted, to November 17th
[
4
'before management even called in the NRC and said, "There's 5
a one-hour reportable.
We exceeded design basis."
- Well, 6
what the heck were they doing in all that time?
If they i
7 knew it was a design basis on the day they started yelling 8
at me, they should have called the NRC within one hour of' i
9 that.
They were spending the whole -- the whole time 10 between September 7th and November 17th trying to discredit 11 the data.
12
'It wasn't -- it we.:n't us working with operations 13 and trying to find out what's going on.
They didn't come to 14 me, they didn't come to my assistant, they didn't come to 15 the four operators.
They didn't care what we had done.
It 16 was:
They'll work independently, and you guys are in 17 trouble.
And that's the way it's been since Day One.
18 Somehow, you know, it just flabbergasts me, because I've see 19 a lot of times operations issues a problem report, you work 20 together to get it solved, and that's the end of it.
And in 21 this case the operators were -- were quickly branded as --
22 as rogue operators who -- well, I guess we'd done an 23 unauthorized test the -- test, and we had violated design 24 bases, and we were totally ostracized.
25 MR. HENDRIX:
Can I ask a question.
The NEAL R. GROSS di Co., INC.
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{
l calculation that you referenced earlier that you went and 2
looked at, you say upon analysis it appears to be, from an j
1 3
engineering standpoint, totally indefensible.
Is that the 4
same calculation that was used to justify the plant being l-5 operated all the time at 25 cc's per.kg, to your knowledge?
l j
G THE WITNESS:
That'was -- that was the calculation l
a 7
that'gave us the curve, Curve 8.
When they installed this J
l 8
modification, basically the modification was to give us an.
i 9
alarm -- that alarm on a sliding scale.- It was a variable 10 alarm.
When they did this modification they had the i
11 calculation.
The calculation had also been used, i believe, 12 because $*.s J90-1990-had also been used by engineering to I
I 13 to evaluate I&E Notice'8823 which was back in 1988',
14 The NRC came out and said, "Well, are you going to 15 hydrogen bind your high pressure injection pumps?"
And I 16 think I90, Rev 5 was one of the iterations that came up:
17 It's okay.
You know, you won't hydrogen bind your -- your 18 high pressure injection pumps.
So it was kind of a dual 19 calculation, you know.
It was -- it was used initially to 20 answer this I&E notice, and it was used a second time to 21 justify this curve where they started increasing the 22 pressure.
23 BY MR. VORSE:
24 Q
Do you feel that the engineering people were, even 25 though they -- do you think that they thought that that NBAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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curve might be inaccurate, but they were just following 2
orders and they -- that was why they weren't budging?
i 3
A It would'be my opinion-that they allowed Pat I
4 Beard's desire for 25 cc's per kg to kind of influence them.
5 As far as their technical competence, they couldn't -- in my 6
opinion, they couldn't have reviewed the calculation and l
7 come out with the September 2nd letter.
They just -- they 8
just didn't do it.
I don't know what they did, but they f
9 didn't review that calculation.
1 i
l 10 BY MR. DOCKERY:
)
l j
11 Q
That troubles me right there, because if it was 12 that obv'$us,,if the inadequacy of that calculation was that 13 obvious to you-not to impugn your abilities or knowledge-to l
14 you and the other operators, is it possible that engineering 15 could have ignored it?
I 16 A
Well, I think they -- I don't think they looked at I
17 it.
18 Q
If they had looked at it, in your opinion -- and 19 opinions are worth what you pay for them.
20 A
Right.
i 21 Q
In your opinion, if they had looked at it, is it 22 your belief they would have realized it was inadequate?
23 A
It's my belief that they couldn't have looked at 24 it and -- and saw that it. was accurate.
Let me just --
25 Allegation 1, which you'll get or I guess you've got now, NEAL R. Gt088 & CO., INC.
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1 basically it says, "FPC management misinformation and I
2-manipulation of facts concerning the makeup tank evolution 3
in violation of 10 CFR 50.7."
You know, I'm alleging that
)
4 my management, with a lot of help from engineering, has had 5
a campaign since Day One to focus all attention on me rather j
6 than get to the real issue of -- of management oversight of l
7 the activities at that plant.
And what I've done, you know, l
8 you can't just give you 19 different reasons for this.
What l
9 I've done is, I've prepared a list of questions to strategic 10 people within management and engineering that I'm requesting 11 you to ask.
i i
12 Q
Is it fair to say, before we go too deep irao 13 this,...
14 A
Okay.
15' Q
...since it is another allegation, is it fair to i
16 say that the questions we're asking you here are also part 4
17 and parcel of this allegation?
1 18 A
They are part and parcel.
Let me just read 19 Question 11 that I've proposed for Pat Beard.
"What has 20 been' engineering's role in the makeup tank issue in which a 21 concern was first documented in Problem Report 94-149?"
l 22 "Have you been satisfied with their efforts to close out the 23 problem report?"
"Have you ever heard of or read 24 Calculation I90-0024, Rev 5?"
"Are you aware that the i
25 calculation was only good through Refuel 8?"
"Are you aware 1
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that it assumes hydrogen acts as an ideal gas and does not 2
go into solution with the water in the makeup tank?"
3 "Were you aware that it was based upou engineering 4
procedures that direct operators to go to piggyback mode 5
based upon a reactor building level, not borated water 6
storage tank level which is currently used?"
"Do you think 7
engineering reviewed this calculation when they issued the 8
letter to Bruce Hickle, the NPO on September 2nd, 1994, and 9
proclaimed that Curve 8 was' reasonably conservative?
Would 10 you have expected them to?"
11 That's the question I'm -- I'm asking you guys --
12 I guess I'm r,eally asking ycu guys to do a lot.
You know, 13 it's -- it was this -- this investigation comes down to a 14 close, it would be fairly easy just to kind of finish this 15 up and go to the pre-decisional and -- and go on with that.
16 But now I'm asking you to say:
Wait a second.
There's a 17 lot bigger issue here thar my personal integrity.
There's a 18 lot bigger issue than my shift taking some data and 19 presenting a problem report.
20 There's an issue here of other people's integrity, 21 that they have manipulated the information, they have given i
22 you disinformation.
And that's -- that's the allegation.
I l
23 think it's a serious allegation that I'm -- I'm asking you 24 guys to say, " Wait a second.
Let's take -- let's step back 25 and take a little better look at this."
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are valid questions.
I don't think they're -- I don't think 2
they're unreasonable questions.
I just don't think they've 3
been asked yet.
And I think questions asked to these people 4
in management are important, because I think there's going 5
to be some answers in there they can't defend.
Why would 6
they have given you these answers?
7 MR. DOCKERY:
We'll go off the record, please.
8 (A discussion is held off the record.)
9 MR. DOCKERY:
We'll go back on the record.
The 10 time is approximately 2:27 P.M.,
and Mr. Fields, I remind 11 you that you continue to be under oath in this proc:eding.
12 And if youd acknowledge that verbally, please.
13 THE WITNESS:
I acknowledge that.
14 BY MR. DOCKERY:
l 15 Q
Okay, during the -- the break we went through with l
16 the witness and his counsel, and discussed how we will 17 handle the written allegation-or allegations, I should say, 18 with attachments-that we have received from the witness.
19 We received two copies of this allegation.
It's l
20 basically a cover letter addressed to Mr. McNulty dated 21 August 31st, 1995.
We have two copies of this.
One copy 22 will be maintained for the Office of Investigation's use by l
23 Mr. McNulty and those of us who are investigating the issue.
24 The other copy we intend to forward to the Region II Office 25 of the Allegation Coordinator.
And the purpose for that, as i
l NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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I explained off the record, is for them to log the 2
allegation, see that it's appropriately addressed from the 3
standpoint of technical issues.
We will handle that via 4
cover letter by the Office of Investigations.
5 MR. VORSE:
Okay, Curt, do you have any questions 6
you want to ask Mr. Fields?
7 MR. RAPP:
Yes, I've got some here I'd like to go 8
through.
I'm going to be referring back to the transcript, 9
and I understand you all don't have copies of that.
Do you 10 have your copy, Jim, of Mr. Fields' transcript?
11 MR. VORSE:
I believe I do.
12 tdR., RAPP:
That'd be easier.
That way we can...
13 Okay, great.
All right.
There's that.
14 (The witness was handed certain material.)
15 BY MR. RAPP:
16 Q
I want to go to Page 4, Line 14.
This is just 17 basically to get some additional information thae vasn't put 18
-- wasn't in the transcrapt when we first interviewed you.
19 Basically it says here, "I am responsible for safe 20 operation of the nuclear plant.
I am a senior licensed 21 operator.
I am the senior licensed person on site the back 22 shifts that supervise safe operation of the plant."
23 Is a shift manager also a licensed individual?
24 A
No, he is not.
25 Q
He's not licensed?
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1 A
He could have at a previous time had a license.
i 2
Q But it's not required for him to have a license?
i 3
A And none of them presently do have active license,
^
4 that I know of.
5 Q
Okay.
Do they manipulate controls, then, or 6
direct activities, licensed activities?
j 7
A No, they're not -- they're not allowed to do that.
8 Q
Okay.
Let's go to Page 10, Line 20, then.
"We 9
said" -- let's see here.
Yeah, "We said we think we can as j
10 a shift, talking to management, we can demonstrate the curve 11 isn't accurate."
i 12 When did that conversation take place or that --
4 13 that interaction take place?
i 14 A
Well, it initially happened on September the 4th, it 15 and then I -- I'm sure it happened again on September the 16 5th, we kind of reiterated and -- you know, in fact we had.a 17 better -- probably a better understanding on Sepcember the 18 Sth.
But on September the 4th we had basically a 19 discussion, also.
T l
20 Q
Okay.
Nobody came earlier, like the 3rd or when 21 this engineering letter came out and said...?
22 A
It didn't -- it didn't come to be.
Now, Mark Van i
23 Sicklen may have talked to Rob Weiss a couple of nights 24 before where they kind of -- they thought about it and they 25
-- well, can we do this, can we do this.
They came to me on 4
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-- on that night, September the 4th.
And, you know, it's 2
always easier to get the shift supervisor to do something if 3-you've got a proposed solution in your hand.
And they had:
4 Dave, I think we can -- I think we can get some good data 5
here, and I think we've got a procedure that allows us to do 6
it.
That was how it was presented to me.
7 Q
Let's see here.
Okay, Page 13, Line 11.
The 8
question was asked, "What covered this evolution?"
9 "It was decided OP 402 provided adequate 10 guidance," etcetera, etcetera, basically down to Line 23.
11 Okay, how was that decision reached?
What -- what was the
.12 process that said that you li d adequate guidance through OP 13 402?
14 A
Well, when -- when they suggested that we think OP 15 402, we'll -- we'll look at it, well, I asked some questions 16 about, well, all right, what does it say?
It says 17 pressurize the tank to the limit of Curve 8.
And then --
18 then they showed me the section that said, "And then you 19 bleed down for this section," where it says bleed down from 20 86 inches to 55 inches.
And we looked at the limits and 21 precautions and there was no -- nothing there that -- that 22 would prevent us from doing that evolution.
23 Q
Okay.
And who made the decision that these 24 procedures or this guidance was adequate?
25 A
I did, and that -- that's my prerogative per --
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Q Are you familiar with NOD 12?
3 A
Just vaguely.
It's one of these -- one of these i
4 NODS that's kind of come out of the wall just within the-1 l
5 last few months, and I -- I haven't read it in a long time.
6 Q
Was NOD 12 in effect when -- when this 7
evolution...?
8 A
I assume that it was.
That's -- an NOD is a 9
higher tier of documents of -- of management expectations to I:
10 the personnel.
i 11' Q
Is there any procedure, guidance out there that i
12 would have' assisted you in determining whether c not it was i
l 13 appropriate to use OP 402 or that a special test procedure l'
j 14 was required?
i f'
15 A
I -- I can't think of a document that would have i
16 provided me that guidance.
I looked at it from the i-l 17 standpoint of OP 402 includes everything that I wart to do.
i 18 And -- and OP 402, the operation of the makeup tank was not i
i 19 an infrequently performed evolution.
You know, it was i
l 20 fairly -- it was familiar to all the operators, you know.
21 They do feeds -- feeds and bleeds in the makeup tank without i
22 even referring to it, they know it that well.
23 Q
Is it a common or accepted practice, then, to take
-l s
24 sections out of procedures to accomplish a certain task or a 25 certain evolution?
I If5AL R. GROSS 6 CO.,
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A Yes, sir, it is.
2 Q
So I could take three different procedures and put i
i 3
together certain sections or steps, as.the case may be, to-
}
4 accomplish an evolution that thare's not a particular 1
5 specific procedure for?
4 6'
A Yes, you could.
But you have to rely upon the f'
7 shift's knowledge of those procedures to make sure that, you 2
8 know,...
It's difficult to write aLprocedure for every 4
9 evolution that they do, but if you have a piece of it that
- 10 works to bleed down the 55 inches, and another procedure
. 11 thac would tell you to direct the water not to a uAced tank 12 but to srSe o,ther tank, you could use those two sections 13 together, you know, as basically two -- performance of two 14 separate procedures to give you one common result.
15 Q
Are you familiar with the 50-59 process?
16 A
Yes, sir.
17 Q
Wauld that 50-59 process for those procedures 18 still be valid, then, using them in combination or -- or 19 using subsections of them?
20 A
I believe that they are.
I think that you could 21 probably -- I'm not sure what examples -- come up with an 22 example that it would be inappropriate to do that.
You 23 know, I can't -- you know, I can't see me stringing together 24 nine procedures to accomplish _something that'I want to do 25 with bits and pieces.
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basically all I did was OP 402.
2 Q
Is -- I guess then let me ask this a different 3
way.
Is the entire procedure 50-59, or is each section in j
4 the procedure reviewed under 50-59?
5 A
The -- the entire procedure is 50-59, but the 6
review -- the review process to get it to final approval, 7
you know, you have technical reviewers and you have other 8
department reviewers, you have interdepartment reviewers 9
reviewing the whole procedure to make sure that all the 10 changes are adequate.
The 50-59 is for the procr'ure as a 11 whole.
' ll right.
So in using the steps or the sections 12 Q
A 13 out of procedure, then, to accomplish a particular task 14 would not present an unreviewed safety question?
15 A
No, sir, it wouldn't.
And OP 402 was designed in 16 different sections.
It gives you a section on how to fill 17 and vent the makeup system, gives you a section on how to 18 swap makeup pumps, gives you a section on how to bleed water 19 from the makeup tank or add water to the makeup tank.
It's 20
-- that procedure is designed to be used in discreet groups 21 or discreet steps.
22 Q
Okay.
Again, referring to Page 13, Line 24, 23 through Page 14, Line 6, or Line 5, actually, excuse me.
24 Okay, it says in here that there's -- no time was this 25 evolution considered a test.
Do FPC procedures define what NEAL R. GROSS 4. CO,,
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a test is or an experiment?
l 2
A I believe AI 402B doesn't really define a test but 3
gives you a kind of a checklist if you're writing a
]
4 procedure, to kind of rule out a test.
You know, if you 5
answer one of these questions "yes," then you need to look 6
at it from the standpoint if a test procedure is required.
7 I can't think of any document that says this is defined as a 8
test that I know, other than AI 402B, I believe.
9 Q
Would this evolution be considered an infrequent 10 evolution defined by AI 400B?
11 A
No.
We perform bleeds daily.
' o it wouldn't fit in that category?
12 0
S l
l 13 A
It wouldn't -- it wouldn't fit in that category at l
14 all.
)
15 Q
You said earlier you're familiar with AI 500, 16 conduct of operations.
In there, in AI 500, it has some 17 guidance on when a pre-job briefing should be done.
18 A
Uh-huh (affirmative).
19 Q
And basically do you feel that there should have 20 been a pre-job briefing done by the shift manager prior to 21 this evolution?
i 22 A
No, sir, I didn't at the time.
And I -- I still 3
23 don't.
We considered it a routine evolution and that's kind 24 of what we went on.
We -- we gave it a pre-job briefing of, 25 well, why are we doing this; what do we need to look at; prEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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what are you going to look at; what are you going to do.
2 You know, we felt like we gave it an adequate pre-job 3
briefing, but as an -- we didn't consider it an infrequently 4
performed evolution or a test that would have required a 5
special approved procedure or shift manager involvement.
6 Q
Okay.
Is -- basically AI 500's a pretty good-size 7
procedure.
I mean, it goes on for...
8 A
Very -- very big.
9 Q
...a hundred and some pages.
Is it a useful 10 procedure?
11 A
It -- it's a fairly cumbersome procedure.
It 12 probably has,a lot of things in it that needs to be removed 13 and it needs to be streamlined.
But I've been a shift 14 supervisor -- I had been a shift supervisor for eight years.
15 You know, I pretty much knew when different sections were 16 added, why they were added.
I felt pretty comfortable with 17 the procedure.
18 Q
Does a...?
19 A
You know, we referred to it a lot.
20 Q
Excuse me.
Does AI 500 contain conflicting or 21 contradictory guidance?
22 A
I don't know.
23 Q
You can't...?
24 A
I can't think of a specific example of that.
25 Q
Would you -- it be fair to say, then, that some of NEAI,R. GROSS & CO.,
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the guidance in there is subject to interpretation?
2 A
Yeah.
l 3
Q That you could read it one way and a person could j
J 4
read it some other way?
5 A
Right.
4 4
6 Q
Come up with a different answer?
7 A
I agree with that.
8 Q
So it's not -- it's not clear in there as to what 9
the -- what the intent of a particular section is or...?
10 A
Well, I'm -- I'm not -- I guess I don't understand j
11 where you're going with this.
One of the -- one of the 12 items that' I referenced in -- in AI 500 was written 13 procedures.
This is 432.3.2.
" Written procedures are 4
i 1
14 needed for those evolutions that would affect a change in flow paths or operating parameters.
15 system flow plant 16 The boundary between an evolution and a task may not always 17 be clear, and as such it is axpected that plant operators i
18 will encounter situations where the adequacy of existing 4
19 procedures may be questioned.
In these instances shift 1
j 20 supervision will make the determination as to what procedure 21 requirements are applicable."
22 And to me, I look at that and I'm not sure -- I'm 23 not sure what an evolution is and what a task is, but it 4
24 looked like it gave me clear guidance to determine that AI i
25
-- OP 402 was adequate to perform the evolution that we were win,n. anoss 6 co., w e.
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going to do.
And it gave me -- it authorized me to make 2
that decision.
3 Q
Okay.
But " shift management" could also be 4
interpreted to mean the shift manager?
5 A
"In these instances shift supervision will make 6
the determination..."
7 Q
Oh, excuse me.
...as to what procedural requirements are 8
A 9
applicable."
I don't consider the shift manager part of 10 shift supervision.
11 Q
Okay.
Going on here, Page 14, Line 6, then.
"We 12 expected a' makeup pressure alarm to come in -- into alarm."
13 Basically the -- one thing is that's come up repeatedly, I 14 guess, is you didn't take immediate action on this 15 enunciator.
16 A
That's correct.
17 Q
And basically how long would you have had to take 18 action on this enunciator?
19 A
We were prepared to take action !.mmediately.
We 20 didn't take action because we wanted to draw the curve from 21 86 inches to 55 inches.
22 Q
So that was your sole reason for not addressing 23 the alarm, that you want to take your data?
24 A
Yes.
Yeah, we -- we didn't think a piece of 25 information was going to be adequate.
Engineering had --
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had rejected a piece of information before, and we felt like j
2 the smooth curve would be, you know, like incontrovertible.
i 3
Hey, this is what the real curve -- this is what the real 4
system response looks like.
5 O
Do tech specs define any type of time limit or 6
actions for this enunciator?
l 7
A Not that I know of.
I 8
Q So this alarm or this particular curve is not 9
covered under tech specs?
10 A
It's only covered under tech specs in that it's a 11 design. basis curve.
Being a design basis curve, it becomes 12 an NRC parameter.
13 Q
But otherwise...
14 A
And that's how it gets tied into that, you know.
15 And I can't -- I can't violate NRC parameters via the 16 administrative section of tech specs.
But you've got to i
17 remember, I -- I didn't know it was a design basis curve, 18 and I certainly didn't consider it NRC parameters.
19 Q
But what I was asking is, there's -- is there a 20 tech spec that says, " Curve 8 is this, and if you're outside 21 of it these are the action statements that you have..."
22 A
No, sir, there...
23 Q
...and these are the time limits you have for 24 those actions"?
25 A
There is no -- there is nothing with respect on NEAL R. Gross E. CO.,
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Curve 8.
2 O
Okay.
Was -- earlier you said that it was routine 3
or normal to have the makeup tank high pressure alarm or 4
enunciator in for extended periods or when you took...
5 A
I wouldn't say it was routine, I would say on 6
occasions I have come in and tak en a watch with the plant in 7
alarm.
8 Q
Do you know how long it had been in alarm before 9
you came in?
10 A
No.
11 Q
Was that logged anywhere or should that nave been 12 logged?
13 A
No, do -- do not log.
14 Q
Was the makeup tank high pressure alarm a high 15 priority alarm?
16 A
It wasn't a red alarm, it's a white alarm which is 17 not -- you know, I guess that prioritizes alarms.
I guess 18 by that previous statement I was saying I wasn't the only 19 shift that ever operated with that tank in alarm.
20 Q
Was the high pressure alarm or having the makeup i
21 tank pressure above the set point or the curve, was that 22 regarded as a significant operational problem, or was that 23 just kind of a nuisance that had to be addressed when --
24 whenever time permitted?
]
25 A
I can't speak for everybody.
We never -- we i
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t j
1 didn't get the alarm because we actively stayed well below 1-i 2
the curve.
We didn't -- we didn't think it was appropriate J
l
-3 to operate with that unch pressure in the tank.
- i.
4 But other shifts did Their shift. supervision j
5 required that they operate on the curve.
How they responded j
~
4 6-to it, I'm not sure.
All I caa'say is to c I've taken the i-7 watch before with the -- with the tank in alarm.
You know, i
j 8
to clear the alarm you can either drain the level in the 9
tank or you can send somebody down to the -- LSe valve alley.
10 and~ dress'out, go inside and open the valve and vent.the 1
i; 11 pressure off.
Well, that's a -- that's kind of'a time-1'
!~
12 consumir.; evolution.
If the guy sees it's just right'at the 13 curve and he's in-alarm he may say -- tell the Aux-Building j.
a 14 operator, "When you get around to it go ahead and vent the 15 pressure off the tank."
16 Q
Are there other normal evolutions that result in 17 exceeding administrative' limits or alarm set points when
'18 you're performing them?
19 A
Yes.
20 Q
So it's not uncommon, then, that you would pick 21 up...?
22 A
No.
You go into the control room and there are 23 several enunciators lit.
You know, if you know why it's in, 24 you know, that's kind of like you know the abnormal 25 condition, you know why it's in.
Every night on the NEAL R. Sto$$ & CO., INC.
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1 midnight shift you're required to review all the lit i
- i 2
enunciators and -- and be able to explain in your mind why
[
3 you have those enunciators in.
You know, the emergency feed 4
water' tank level is in low, you know, and it's a 35 foot 1
5 tank, and if it's reading 34-9 you're in -- in alarm or l
6 whatever, you know why it's in, it's just barely in.
When 7
your Turbine Building operator goes outside for his outside-
=
i 8
reading you'll contact Unit 2, ask them to send over some 9
water, he'll manipulate the valves.
It's -- it's one of 10 those things, you'll take care of it when you get to it.
l 11 Q
Okay.
12 BY MR. DOdKERY:
l 13 Q
Mr. Fields, you say you have taken over a shift i
i 14 and an enunciator has been in.
Is that something that you i
15 log?
16 A
No, sir, we don't we don't -- do not log j
f 17 enunciator alarms.
i j
18 Q
One other question cn1 that.
When you -- when you 1
l 19 say you have taken over a shift and enunciators have been 20 actuated or in, are you referring to that particular 21-enunciator?
22 A
I -- I'm referring to that particular enunciator.
23 Every night.you come in, every shift you come in there are 24
-enunciators lit.
I mean, every -- every once in awhile 25 we'll have a black board with nothing lit.
But those days win a. m oss s co., zuc.
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i I
4 Page 68 i
j 1
are very seldom.
2 BY MR. RAPP:
3
.Q Did operations have any input or say if this high 4
makeup tank pressure was a. reasonable operating value that i
5 was reasonable for plant operations?
'6 A
Well, we -- we had the input.as far as we 1
7 initiated Problem Report 94-149 where we. questioned it.
My j
j 8
operators had raised concerns with other people in our 9
management; my boss, Greg Halnon, had asked engineers, i
10~
"Would you please validate this curve?"
4 i
l 11 Yeah, I think -- I think we had raised our l'
12 concerns to
,- to several people.
And my shift was pretty 13 much known as:
This -- this is the issue that we had.
All t
I-14
-- every shift -- there's six shifts out there.
You know, l
15-this shift'll have one issue that they're working on; this 16 shift will have an issue that they're working on.
Our issue i
17 just happened to be the -+ the Curve 8 and operating the i-18 makeup tank with that much hydrogen pressure.
19 Q
Do you have any, like, knowledge before that when i-20 this issue first came up of maintaining 25 kg's -- cc's per 21 kg, as to whether or not operations said that, " Wait a 22 minute.
This -- thi:3 high makeup tank pressure you're 23 wanting to run is --
is...?"
j 24 A
Right, we -- that came about on my shift.
That
]
25 was my shift's first involvement.
Both Mark Van Sicklen and 4
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1 Bruce Willms expressed their concerns at that time, said, 2
"We don't feel comfortable with this at all."
I 3
Q This is before it was implemented?
4-A This was after it was implemented.
l 5
Q Oh, after it was...
I'm talking about before it 6
was implemented.
1 4
7 A
I don't know what input we had on the review' 1
i 8
process.
I don't know.
9 Q
All right.
Is -- is " unacceptable time frame" 10 defined by FPC procedures?
i 11 A
I con't know.
I don't think so.
12 Q
What would be an unacceptable time frame?
i 13 A
Well, if you lose subcooling margin and you don't 1
4 14 trip your reactor coolant pumps within two minutes, that's i
\\
15 unacceptable.
1 16 Q
What about on normal administrative limits?
j 17 A
I would think it would be unacceptable if you had 18 an alarm condition in and you didn't recognize it.
You have i
2 19 a -- if you had a -- one of your control rod drives static 20-temperatures (phonetic) high, and that's a computer alarm, i
I 21 if you -- if you didn't recognize that it was a high 22 temperature condition and you didn't know how long it had l
23
_ been in, I think that would be unacceptable.
i 24 Q
So it would just depend on what's -- what's 25 happening in the plant and what evolutions are in progress 4
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and how you would...?
2 A
I think so.
I think -- I think if you -- you have
.3 an alarm condition in and you know why it's in and you know l
4 where the plant is, I don't -- I can't give you a time frame l
5 to say that it would be unacceptable to not take action.
6 And that's not specified in any procedure that I know of.
7 Q
Did engineering take operator or operations' l
L 8
concerns seriously?
I mean, not just this particular issue, 9-but I mean in general?
10 A
Well, a lot of it sort of depended on.the 11 engineer.
You know,-operations sort of had some favorite 12 engineers tha.t they felt, well, that that engineer that had 13 that system was really responsive and if you called that' guy l
14 you got a quick answer back.
I can't -- I don't want to l
15 characterize the.whole department.
I think in this instance 16 I don't think they were very responsive.
I think their --
17 the efforts that they made were very shallow and mt l
l 18 correct.
19 Q
Were there issues you had or where other people on 20 your shift had with engineering that weren't adequately 21 resolved?
22 A
I would say that the emergency feed water control 23 system is an issue that's been going on for four or five are not happy with the 24 years that operators are not j
25 response that they've gotten.
I NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.
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^
1 Q
Did engineering explain the basis or limitation of i
2 operating limits or curves they provided to operations?
3 A
Not in this case.
4 Q
In general?
1 5
A Only -- only if -- if somehow they would transmit 6
the -- the information to the Training Department.
You
}
7 know, and it's all a new system and'-- or a new component or 8
something like that, and then in the. training phase the s
9 trainers would present, well, this is -- this is the limits 10 and this i why the -- the limit is there and stuff like 11 that.
You know, in this case I don't remember any training 12 on the new curve, it was just instituted:
Here, use this 13 curve.
4 14 Q
Were you aware that during an ESF actuation that 15 makeup tank level would go below indication?
i 16 A
I knew it was a concern.
It was a concern that I 17 had personally with -- with the makeup tank issue of:
If I 18 lose level what action am I going to take?
Am I going to 19 believe my indication and immediately trip that high 20 pressure injection pump?
Or am I going to believe that 21 there is water someplace in the pipe below the indication 22 range and that that pump is safe?
And I included that in my j
23 submittal for the previously scheduled pre-decisional 24 enforcement conference, that that was my personal concern 25 with it, was losing indication in the makeup tank.
And --
i NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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and that shouldn't be the way we operate.
I 2
You know, I -- I knew what I was going to do.
I 3
had it in my mind the action I was going to take if I lost 4
level.
But I don't know if the other shift supervisors had 5
made that -- that decision on their own.
And I think a 6
decision like that needed to be firmty in place:
This is 7
what you'll do.
And as far as I know, that -- that 8
guidance, management direction has not been presented.
l 9
Q When you' talked to management about these issues, 10 the overpressure in the makeup tank, gas binding, the 11 Appendix Are, emergency boration, did they take there 12 concerns s'eri,ously or did they just take them and say, 13 "Okay, fine.
Go on back.
We understand your concerns.
Get 14 makeup tank pressure up"?
f 15 A
That was the end result.
Maybe engineering felt 16 like they did a good job with the evaluation when they said 17 accurate and reasonably conservative.
4 18 Q
I'm not necessarily taiking about engineering 19 management, I'm talking about your management, operations 20 management.
21 A
I -- I can't say that I -- I was pleased with the 22 way Greg Halnon handled it.
He didn't -- he didn't seem to 23 fight as much as I' thought he should have You know, it was 24 just like, "Here, they're going to close it out.
You want 25 to do something?"
You know, it wasn't -- he didn't take the i
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Page 73 1
ball and roll with it, he didn't go over to engineering and 2
say, "Now, why -- why did you come back and say that the --
3 the pressure is'okay here?"
He pretty much -- it was just i
4 thrown back to me.
5 And he had asked engineers to do independent 6
calculations and they didn't do them.
They said, "We can't 7
do that.
It's too hard."
I think that was their response.
8 BY MR. DOCKERY:
4 9
Q Excuse me.
Do you know that was their response?
10 Did they respond that way in your presence?
i 11 A
No.
12 O
Was,that related -- that response related...?
13 A
That was related to me, that they were requested i
t 14 to do independent calculations and they didn't do them.
j 15 0
Who related it to you?
l 16 A
I believe that came from Rob Weiss.
Once again, 17 that's in Allegation 1 in my list of questions to Greg 18 Halnon:
Did you ask these individuals to perform an 19 independent evaluation and did they do it?
i 20 BY MR. RAPP:
21 Q
Were you -- were you ever told that there was 22 going to be a special test ran during the next refueling i
23 outage to validate the either acceptability or 24 unacceptability of Curve 8?
25 A
I was told that it was planned.
Greg Halnon had i
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requested I believe Garrett Hebb to -
" Garrett, make sure 2
we re-run SP 630 during the outage."
There was no specific 3
"to validate Curve 8," but I think we would have used that.
4 After this event was over I was at a strategy meeting where 5
Pat Beard was there, and I -- I insisted that during the 6
upcoming refueling outage we re-run this -- that we re-run 7
SP 630 with the same conditions that we had on September 8
5th, and that would be Action Item 8 added to Problem Report 9
94-149, and then Item 9 would be validate the validity of 10 Curve 8 using that test data.
As far as I know, that is 11 still planned to be -- to be done.
12 Q
Is it common to run SP 630 following each 13 refueling outage?
14 A
No, it's -- I don't know what the frequency is, 15 whether it's every two years, every...
I don't -- I think 16 to be scheduled -- I think for SP 630 to be schedu.1=d for 17 this outage would be out of sequence and only scheduled for 18' that one -- for that reason.
19 Q
But it's not a refueling outage test?
20 A
It is a refueling outage test, but is it required 21 every refueling; I don't think so.
22 Q
Okay.
Where in -- where in FPC proceiiures does it 23 define or describe what constitutes an authorized evolution?
24 A
I don't know what specific document that would be.
25 An authorized or unauthorized?
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Q Authorized.
2 A
An authorized evolution?
I don't -- I can't think 3
of a document that talks about an authorized evolution.
4 Q
What in your mind are authorized evolutions?
If dt's a operating (sic) procedure which has been 5
A 6
through an approved operating procedure, that's an 7
authorized evolution.
I can perform the evolutions within 8
that procedure.
9 Q
When you went through requal you talk about 10 industry events; correct?
11 A
Yes, sir.
12 Q
'Was,there any discussion of similar type industry
)
13 events where unauthorized tests or evolutions had taken 14 place?
Was that ever discussed?
15 A
There was a requal cycle sometime in the -- in the 16 first part of -- first quarter, second quarter of 1995 that 17 they talked about -- I don't know if they were unauthorized 18 evolutions or what they were, but the makeup tank evolution 19 was brought up, and as one of the example (sic).
20 Q
Prior to this test, prior to this evolution?
21 A
I can't think of any, but I'm not saying that 22 there wasn't.
There probably were in the past.
I can't 23 think of any specific examples.
24 Q
Has FPC management ever came out and said, "You 25 know, we know in the past that yc
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supervisors had these allowances, but now here's a new box, 2
and you're supposed to stay within this new box"?
I 3
A' Yes.. You know, that -- that, I believe, is Greg 4
Halnon -- could be defined as Greg Halnon's event-free 5
operations program where he's. kind of just defined if you're 6
inside the box you're okay; if you're outside the box you're 7
not.
That came -- that came out in 1995.
There's been --
8 since this evolution there's been.a lot of stuff coming out 9
from management saying everything performed at the plant 10 will-be performed per procedure.
If the procedure doesn't 11 work, get it changed.
12 Q
What about prior to that?
~
13 A
I can't -- I guess I can just kind of recall the 14 most recent stuff.
I know -- I know, years gone by, you had 15 a lot more leeway as far as fairly simple stuff, you could 16 do that.
There are not procedures written for.every i
17 evolution at that plant.
And now the focus of the -- you 18 know, it's more the requirement now to have a procedure.for 19
.everything you do at the plant.
20 Q
Did -- did operations management or did FPC 21 management come back after the fact in certain cases and 22
- say, "No, you're not allowed to do that, that that was not 23 within your allowed authority to perform this..."?'
I'm not 24 talking specifically about this makeup tank issue, but I'm 25 saying before did they ever come back and do that to wnu. m. mou e,co., zwe.
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somebody that you're aware of?
2 A
I'm not -- I know in -- in the context of 3
installing modifications on the plant, you know, some --
4 somebody would think, well, this would be easy to do.
I'll i
5 just string some PVC pipe from here to here and I've -- I've 6
got a new drain on this system.
They go, "You can't do 7
that.
That's not wichin your authority."
8 This makeup tank evolution, I was absolutely 9
shocked that my management came down as hard on me as they 10 did with this, like, self-righteous, "How dare you do such a j
11 thing," when they knew that I was well within my authority 12 and well w'ithin what they wanted me to do, to do what I did.
13 You know, they -- they just turned their back on me.
You 14 know, I'm not sure why, but, you know, it -- it was clearly 15 in my mind something that I was authorized to do, empowered 4
16 to do, and it was the right thing to do.
I don't understand 17 why they didn't just say, "Thanks."
But that's not the way 18 it happened.
19 MR. RAPP:
That's all the questions I have.
20 BY MR. VORSE:
21 Q
I may have asked this already, but just in case I
-22 didn't I'm going to ask it again, maybe.
Did you or any 23 other member of your shift on the 4th or 5th of September of 24
'94, you know, after the evolution, discuss amongst one 25 another not to talk about the September 4th evolution?
NEA!, R. GROSS f. CO.,
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A I can't say that -- well, what I want to say is 2
that there was no conspiracy.
I think that -- I know that 3
we've had a discussion on how valid is September the 4th or 4
what -- what's the significance of September the 4th.
And 5
we said, well, it has no significance.
You know, for -- the 6
real data that we presented was September the 5th.
There's 7
no reason to talk about -- you know, there's no reason to, 8
at this late date, bring in September the 4th, you know.
I 9
know I had one discussion with Rob Weiss where -- where is j
10 it a -- you know, I'm not afraid to bring it up.
You know, 11 it was no different from September the 5th.
12
'BecAuse it -- you've got to remember, I'm the guy 13 that -- that told Bruce Hickle, "Well, Bruce, I think we 14 ought to bring it up."
He was -- he was still debating.in 15 his mind:
Do you think we ought to bring it up?
I said, 16
" Bruce, I think we ought to bring it up," you know.
17 Q
Chen was this?
18 A
This was September -- July 19th.
19 Q
This July, this -- of '95?
20 A
Right.
21 Q
Okay.
So do you -- did you think that because the 1
22 data that was plotted on the -- on the 4th of September was 23
-- would have hurt your case as far as, you know, your --
24 your presentation in the PER, you know, with engineering to 25 change the curve, the fact that you -- you got one -- one NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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data base that wasn't necessarily accurate, then you had 2
another base that you' thought was -- was accurate and told 3
you the story?
But did you think that maybe that 4th of 4
September, you know, if you told everybody about it...?'
5 Because there's a-lot of documentation, I mean, a 6-
' lot.of, you know, PERs and letters and -- and no mention of 7
the 4th of September.
And -- and I'm -- I'm just concerned 8
that, you know, well, why?
You know, why?
9 A-Well, we thought we had a good reason for why the 10 data was erratic on=the 4th.
But I -- if engineering had i
11 just evaluated the problem report, you know, if we hadn't.
12 been ostracized from the who2e discussion, if they had come 13 up and said, "Well, what did you do?_ What kind of data did 14 you take?
Let's -- let's work together to get to get the 15 right curve on the street," it would have been obvious to i
16 the -- well, here's the REDAS data, here's the REDAS data 17 from the 4th.
Now you can see that this data is really i
18 erratic.
And it would have come up.
But it was never done 19 that way.
l 20 You know, Rob and I were just interviewed in -- in l
21-the forum of a Management Review Board.
That was:
You're 22 going to lose your job today if you don't wave your head 23 "yes."
The reactor operators were never interviewed.
24 Nobody asked them anything.
i 25 MR. VORSE:
Does anybody have anything else?
j umaz, n. amoss a co., zuc.
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4 i
Page 80 1
MR. DOCKERY:
Yeah.
2 BY MR. DOCKERY:
3 Q
Mr. Fields, during the course of this 4
investigation if we became aware that a similar evolution to 5
that of September 4th or 5th occurred approximately July i
i 6
21st, 22nd, in that area, of 1994, do you have any firsthand 7
knowledge of that incident?
8 A
I have only secondhand knowledge of that incident.
9 MR. HENDRIX:
We do have the graph.
10 A
This graph is the -- the plotted data, and this 11 woulf be -- well, let's just say it's one of the -- one of 12 the enclos'ures in the book, you kr..ow.
And I dian't realize 13 it at the time, but this was -- t.his was the plotted data of 14 that evolution, and I've heard just within the past three 15 weeks that it was performed on the 21st and the 22nd.
- But, 16 you know,.this is the plot of MU14LIR1, which is the --
17 which is the control board analog instrument, and this is
)
18 the plot of the computer point.
And it was given to Carl 19 Bergstrom and he put it in his file.
20 MR. FENDRIX:
Can I ask a question on this.
If 21 someone suggests that based on review of that data, that 22 whoever did that evolution on July 22nd did not go past the 23 curve, what would be your response to that?
24 THE WITNESS:
By the plotted data of the computer 25 point they clearly went to the unacceptable side of this NBAL R. GROSS & CO.,
INC.
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curve.
I don't understand -- I know -- see, the company had 2
their internal investigation and this was brought up.
- But, 3
see, I wasn't part of the internal investigation.
All I 4
got, I got called in one day and it took Ten minutes to fire 5
me.
6 But it's my understanding that the company is 7
saying, "Well, the 21st and the 22nd of July, that -- that's 8
insignificant because they didn't cross the line."
This is D
the plotted data.
They did cross the line.
10 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay, we need to, for the record, 11 make sure that we characterize exactly what this document 12 is.
13 MR. HENDRIX:
This would be -- what exhibit number 14 are we looking at?
15 MR. VORSE:
Did you -- did you talk about that in 16 your -- your allegations?
Or in your...?
17 THE WITNESS:
I talked about it from the 18 standpoint of in the first six page -- seven pages of this 19 letter about my conversations with Greg Halnon about the 20 21st and the 22nd, July 22nd.
You know, and Greg Halnon 21 told me, " Erase that date from your mind."
You know, I 22 think there was a conscious effort to exclude any other; l
23 "Let's just bane this on what happened September the 5th."
l l
24 MR. HENDRIX:
Exhibit #16 in our notebook is a 25 copy of what he's been referring to.
Exhibit #16.
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MR. DOCKERY:
Okay.
And I want to make sure I 2
understand how that was generated.
1 3
BY ;^. DOCKERY:
4 Q
Who -- who created that document?
5 JL I don't -- I don't know which shift did it.
I 6
know that OI interviewed Garrett Hebb, Ed McLeod, Bruce 7
Willms, Mark -- Mike Schirochman, and Carl Bergstrom, I 8
believe.
And I would assume that that was the shift that --
9 that did it.
And -- and it looks to me like they took the 10 plant to about 83 inches, 82 inches, or the makeup tank to 11 82 inches, and they pressurized up where the computer point 12 was just belqw the curve and they bled down to -- looKs like 13 they bled down to about 53 inches.
l 14 Q
Mr. Fields, may I look at the copy that you're --
15 you're holding there.
16 (Mr. Dockery was handed certain material.).
17 Q
Okay, this doesn't appear to be dated.
i 18 A
No, it doesn't.
19 Q
But am I correct that this -- this graph pertains 20 only to data that was collected on July -- either 21st or 21 22nd?
1 22 A
That's my understanding.
23 Q
How did you obtain this?
24 A
It was in Carl Bergstrom's file.
And Carl l
25 Bergstrom's file got given to Gerald Williams, and Gerald NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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1 Williams mailed a copy to my attorney.
It was just kind of 2
'there.
It's just kind of been there for a long time.
- And, 3
you know, I know it was given to Carl Bergstrom because you 4
can't read it, but the writing on the bottom, that's his 5
handwriting.
And I know that he had a file on the makeup 6
tank issue.
7 Q
And your interpretation of this graph is that 8
during that evolution the curve was exceeded?
9 A
Absolutely.
l l
10 BY MR. VORSE:
l 11 Q
And by that you mean that they went into the i
12 unacceptable pegion of the curve because it's over.-- it's 13 to the -- to the right?
14 A
Well, to the left.
-l 15 Q
To the left, rather.
Okay, to the left.
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
Okay.
18 A
And see, I don't have access to the company's l
l 19 internal investigation.
In fact, the company told me, when 20 they fired me, was that they weren't going to give it to 21 you.
They were going to give you the conclusions and they 22 weren't going to let you see the investigation.
23 But -- but I -- you know, it's my understanding 24 that the company is taking no action, pursuing nothing to do 25 with July 21st and 22nd because they didn't cross the curve.
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You know, looks to me like they're manipulating the 2
information to say, well, they didn't cross the curve with 3
the control board instrument.
But it's clear to me that the 4
computer point crossed the line, and we have a letter from 5
engineering that says the computer point is more accurate j
6 and they requested us to use it.
l 7
BY MR. DOCKERY:
1 8
Q And that -- that data there, the graph we've been 9
referring to tells you that the computer point did cross the 10 curve?
11 A
Yes, sir.
12 Q
'Okgy.
)
I think that's a -- you know,-that, to 13 A
And I 14 me, is a -- if that's true...
You know, I can't -- I can't 15 go out and take depositions from these people at the plant.
16 If that's true, that to me is a clear example of i
17 manipulating information.
If they're just going to say, 18 "Well, MU14LIR1 didn't cross the line; therefore there's no 19 problem," knowing that the computer point did, then I think 20 they're manipulating information.
And they've got the REDAS 21 data, I don't have access to it.
It's available to you.
22 MR. McNULTY:
We are conducting an investigation f
l 23 on the July 21st and 22nd, separate from this.
24 BY MR. DOCKERY:
25 Q
Mr. Fields, during -- leading up to the events of NEAL R. GROS 8 & CO.,
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September 4th and September 5th, did you ever consider' going
{
2 to the NRC as a viable option with respect to getting your 4
3 concern addressed?
4 A
My operator, Mark Van Sicklen, did go to the 5
resident inspector on four different occasions.
I remember 6
-- I remember the last occasion that he talked to the NRC 7
was he had -- it was before turnover.
I saw him talking to R
8 Todd Cooper.
After turnover was over he came over to me and 9
said, "The NRC's not going to help us with this.
He just 10 told me how to write an allegation."
l 11 Q
Did Mr. Van Sicklen take that action with your 12 knowledge?
Did you suggest it to him?
13 A
No, I did not.
14 Q
Did he ask you about it beforehand?
15 A
He had told me beforehand on a previous occasion 16 that he had talked to Todd, and Todd was going to look into i
)
17 it.
18 Q
Did you concur with him doing that?
19 A
Oh, he's -- he's got that right.
20 Q
Oh, absolutely.
I understand that.
But, I i
21 mean,...
22 A
I didn't -- I felt -- you know, I didn't disagree 23 with him.
Sometimes -- sometimes you have more 24 communication with the NRC resident inspector than you do j
25 with your own management.
You know, they have a lot more NEAL R. GROSS & Co.. INC.
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horsepower than -- than you, individually.
If the resident 2
inspector takes an interest in -- in something, you know, he 3
can make some things happen.
And I think that was what 4
Mark's hope was, but Todd just kind of left it, "If you want 5
to make an allegation, write an allegation," and that was a 6
lot more than Mark Van Sicklen wanted to get involved with.
7 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay, I think we're -- we appear to 8
be coming to the end of the questions.
Curt, do you have 9
anything specifically?
10 MR. RAPP:
No, I do not.
j 11 MR. DOCKERY:
Jim?
12 MR.,VORSE:
No.
13 MR. DOCKERY:
Mr. Fields, at this time, before we 14 close out the record, I'd like to give you the opportunity 15 to make any kind of statement you feel is appropriate.
16 Given that we have here in writing your documented 17 allegations...
18 THE WITNESS:
You don't want me to read this to 19 you?
20 MR. DOCKERY:
I'd really rather you didn't.
21 THE WITNESS:
All right.
22 MR. DOCKERY:
We won't prohibit you from doing 23 that, but we do again acknowledge the fact that you have 24 documented various concerns and opinions on this matter and 25 we -- we have a copy of that.
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MR. HENDRIX:
I would want to say one thing.
The 2
cover letter, itself, is not an exposition on the j
3 allegations.
The cover letter was his effort to give you 4
everything he knows about September 4th in a concise matter 5
so you have -- have it all right there in' front of you.
6 Then the allegations are sort of attached to that.
So 7
they're not really, you know, intartwined within his cover 8
letter, for whatever that's worth r.o you.
i 9
BY MR. VORSE:
10 Q
There's one other question I forgot to ask, just 11 for the record.
Besides the 4th and the 5th of September of 12 1994, were there any other cimilar evolutions conducted by 13 you or anyone on your shift that you know of?
14 A
Not that I know of.
15 Q
Thank you.
16 A
I know I didn't authorize any.
17 nR. DOCKERY:
Okay, Mr. Fields, inevitably in a 18 situation like this there are -- there are questions that 19 perhaps we don't ask, that you feel should have been asked.
20 Or there are issues that aren't raise, that we don't raise, i
21 that you feel should be raised.
Like to afford you the i
22 opportunity now to -- to address those issues, and please do i
23-so.
24 THE WITNESS:
Well, I don't really have a whole 25 lot prepared here.
I guess I'm trying to present to you NBAL R, GROSS & CO.,
INC.
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that -- that this whole issue is not about me.
You know, 2
I'm not the problem.
You know, I'm not -- I wasn't some 3
sort of rogue operator who tried to pull a fast one and do 4
something that was unauthorized or illegal on the 4th or the 5
5th.
But -- but I feel like I did my job correctly, I did 6
what was expected of me.
And for what -- whatever reason, I 7
believe that my management, my former management has used me 4
8 as the scapegoat to I guess keep the real issue of j
9 management oversight and the lack thereof, incompetent 10 engineering and the lack thereof, and -- and employee 11 concerns and how those are resolved and the lack the eof.
12
'Thgy've -- they've manipulated the infvrmation I
1 13 that has gone to the NRC.
They've used me as:
You did an
]
14 unauthorized test.
When the NRC came out with an apparent 15 violation, that, "No, you -- you violated procedures," then 16 you -- then my company says, 17 "Yes, you viol ted procedures."
You know, they're 18
-- they're spending more of their time trying to tell you --
19 or trying to react to what they think you're going looking 20 for, to keep me in focus, to keep me the bad guy, to shield 21 themselves their own liability.
And I'm hoping that the j
22 allegations that I'm presenting will give you the
?
l 23 opportunity to see that.
If the questions are asked and i
24 they ask -- answer them truthfully, I think it will become, 25 in my opinion, fairly obvious that that's what they're NBAL R. GROSS 8. CO., INC.
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attempting to do.
i i
2 You know, to me why was the pre-decisional
^
3 enforcement conference canceled?
You know, it was -- they 4
called you guys on the night of July 19th with this panicky f
5 call.
It was like, "Oh, my God, we've uncovered something."
6 Well, they didn't uncover anything.
The plant manager and I 7
had talked about it several hours before and said, 8
"Well, I guess it wasn't that significant, but I 9
think we ought to bring it up.
And I'll bring it up in my i
j 10 presentation, the company will bring it up in their l
11 presentation on the following Tuesday."
I -- I firmly 12 believe tnat,they saw me going in first and saying, "This 13 data was taken on September 4th, you know, that hasn't been 14 reported before, but -- but I did take it.
And, you know, 15 it had no significant bearing."
They felt like that -- in 16 my opinion, it was their concern then that it was going to 17 show what a crummy job they did evaluating the problem 18 report.
They didn't evaluate the problem report.
They i
19 spent all their time crucifying me, my assistant, the four 20 operators that reported to me.
j 21 It was -- it was spin control, it was manipulation 22 of how you were going to react, how they thought you were 23 going to react.
And I think that's -- I don't understand i
24 why they're doing that.
I think the utility needs to be 25 just up front
'f something's wrong, if something's not NEAL R. GItOSS 6 CO., INC.
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working you fix the problem.
You don't try to make Dave 2
Fields and his shift the bad guys, fire them, and then come 3
back to you and say, "Well, we've solved our problem."
4 Well, they hav,en't solved their problem.
5 BY MR. DOCKERY:
6 Q
Mr. Fields, do you believe something's being 7
covered up here?
8 A
Yes.
I think if -- if they tell you that they 9
didn't cross the line and this is the actual plot of the 10 data taken on July 21st or 22nd, they're lying te you.
If 11 this -- if -- I don't even know who the operator was that 12 plotted th'is.,
If he plots this as the -- as the computer J
13 point and you verify it with the REDAS data of that computer 14 point and you've got the company report in your hand that 3
15 says, " July 22nd is not significant because they didn't 16 cross the curve," to me that's -- that's evidence that 17 they're covering up something.
j 18 MR. DOCKERY:
Go on with your statement.
19 THE WITNESS:
The licensee event report, which was 20 sent on I believe 31 days after November 16th, they talk 21 about -- says, "Each time the operating point was..."
This 22 is under the "Cause" section.
"Each tima the operating j
23 point was deduced to be on or near the curve, as indicated 24 by the main control board instrument, the makeup tank may j
25 have been operating outside the design bases."
That NEAL R. GROS 8 6 Co., INC.
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statement right there is a -- it may not be_ false, but it's 2.
a manipulation.
Because'if you were on the curve you were i
1 3
outside design bases.
It's not "may have been."
4 And they used the word " main control board 5
instrument."
If you were using the main control board' 6
instrunent you would clearly -- by the computer points you'd
]
7 clearly be inside the curve and outside design bases.
But 8
_the important issue is that for 18 months we operated on the
]
9 curve.
Management insisted we operate on the curve.
We_
]
l 10 were outs 4de design bases unknowingly for that length of
]
11 time.
'l
'nd,my,hift performed a simple little evolution 12 A
13 to show that the curve -- the plant response.was not that
'14 way, and we learned that it was a design basis curve, and we
'15 learned that it was an incorrect design basis curve, and we 16
. learned that operating in that situation you unknowingly 17 could have lost half of your high pressure injection system.
18 This statement in this licensee event report is 19 not -- it's not up front, it's not...
Why didn't they just 20 come out and say, "Every time a shift operated on that curve 21 by any instrument the plant was outside design bases and 22 half the HPI system was compromised"?
And that's the 23 significance of this whole thing.
It was a simple safety 24 concern.
My guys wouldn't let it go, they felt strongly 25 about it, they brought it to me, they brought a way to l
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demonstrate it which I determined was an appropriate way, a 2
legal way.
I felt empowered by my own management to make 3
that decision, and I did it.
4 And we didn't have anything to gain under -- other 5
than operating the plant safely.
And what's happened to me 6
and what's happened to my assistant, what's happened to the 7
two chief operators, their careers were over.
Their -- they 8
might as well have gotten fired; their careers are over.
9 Over this incident is a crime.
You know, and I -- I don't 10 know.
11 I -- in one of the letters I wrote to Mr Ebneter l
12 I took res'ponsibility for some of the decisions ' made were 13 incorrect.
I should have notified the shift manager.
I 14 should have -- I'm the one -- I have an engineering degree, 15 and I said I -- I should have been the one that could have 16 looked at that calculation and said, " Boy, this looks like a 17 design basis here."
You know, I -- I might have had that 18 ability if I'd really looked at it closely.
19 And I also admitted that my chief operator had 20 concerns when he was working with engineering, he was 21 working with Greg Halnon.
I should have got more involved 22 with him and helped him out, you know, because I know how to 23 write -- write letters better than he does and I know how to 24 get a point across a little better than he does, and I 25 didn't do that.
So I -- I took responsibility for what I NEAL R. IROSS & CO.,
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did wrong.
But the company is not taking responsibility for 2
what they did wrong.
3 The company is -- has gone beyond that.
I mean, 4
what they're doing is unethical and immoral to -- to fire 5
people because they have a safety concern, to send them down 6
the road.
What )
-1 of a message is that sending to the 7
rest of the people at the plant?
People won't do anything.
8 You raise your hand and say, "I don't think that's right,"
9 they're not going to do that anymore.
10 You know, I -- I have never seen management take 11 an action like this before.
The operators at Peach Bottom 12 didn't get' fired over it, you know; the people at the 13 Limerick Plant didn't get fired over it.
It -- this is --
14 this is incredible.
I'm just I guess I'm trying to use 15 this as a forum to say, "This shouldn't be over yet."
16 MR. DOCKERY:
And I think you've said that.
17 THE WITNESS:
And I -- I just -- you know, my 18 integrity has been attacked over this, and I -- in my mind 19 and in my heart I don't think I did anything wrong.
And --
20 and -- but I can't say that of the people that -- that 21 manage me right now.
I think what they're doing is wrong 22 and they know it.
They're -- they're manipulating what they 23 think you're going to do.
They're giving you bits and 24 pieces of information.
They're focusing all their attention 25 on -- they're going to try to convince you that firing me is NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.
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-- is the solution to their problem.
Strong management 2
oversight.
Well, it's not.
3 Have I left anything out, Richard?
\\
4 MR. HENDRIX:
No.
The -- if I just...
You don't 5
have the answer to the question as to:
Did engineering --
6 were they under any pressure from Mr. Beard to sort of go 7
along with the 25 cc's per kg?
You don't know that.
But 8
they didn't do anything, I mean, to prohibit it or to review 9
it.
So we're not making allegations about things we don't
{
10 know, but there are some interesting questions here that are 11 out there, and we put those in the allegations.
' o you feel like you've covered your allegations, 4
12 D
13 just the parameters of it?
I know you don't want it 14 repeated, but there's one in there that you -- I don't think J
15 we've really discussed it, i
16 THE WITNESS:
Allegation 2, I talked about i
17 previously performed testL at the plant.
And I -- and l
18 that's why I said I was just flabbergasted that they came 19 back on me and said, "How dare you perform this -- this 3
20 unauthorized test," when they knew that they -- it was 21 fairly routine, you know.
That's how most of the procedure 22 steps were written, people do something and say, "Well, this
(
23 works.
Let's put this it a procedure," and stuff like that.
24 25 And I've seen my own boss three months, four NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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months before I did this evolution running around with a 2
relay tech, and he's got a jumper in his hand, doing stuff 3
without a test procedure.
And he's -- he's looking down at 4
me and saying, "How could you dare -- how could you possibly 5
perform an unauthorized test."
You know, so all I did was 6
list four -- four tests that I know of that were fairly 7
recent that were performed without a procedure, without a 8
50-59 evaluation.
And -- and I guess in all cases 9
management knew about them.
Management didn't do anything 10 about it; they encouraged it.
11 MR. HENDRIX:
The only other thing I think that 12 you might want to address ir, now, Mr. Saltsman's with 13 engineering.
And Mr. Saltsman, we understand, had a large 14 hand in the development of the LER.
And it's his department 15 that is responsible for approval of the curve, it's his 16 department that would be protected from that.
And 17 therefore, the LER is written in such a way to totally 18 remove the focus from his department and place it all on 19 these people who exposed engineering's problems.
Do you 20 know anything about that or...?
We've heard about the 21 racquetball game or...
22 THE WITNESS:
Well, I know that he -- I know that 23 he was part of the revi'3w process for the...
You know, that 24 LER went through six iterations, and he was in the process i
25 for all six of them.
In fact, on the sixth one he and Pat NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC, (202)234-4433
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Beard went off into an office-secondhand'information-and 2
wrote the final draft, and nobody else reviewed it, and they 3
sent'it off.
1 1
4 MR. DOCKERY:
Do you have anything else, j
.5 Counselor?
L 6
MR. HENDRIX:
That's it.
7 THE WITNESS:
I have one more thing.
8 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay.
9 THE WITNESS:
And that's just a...
As I read my 1
10 letter today, Allegation 3 has a list of attachments.
j i
11 Unfortunately it doesn't attach one of the two emp cyee
.12
. concerns that,I talk.about, that I need to mail you that 13 concern to be part of the package.
i 14' MR. VORSE:
Do it through him.
i 15 MR. HENDRIX:
Just give it to me and I'll give it i
16 to them.
17 THE WITNESS:
Ckay.
And if -- if you go to the 18 section in Pat Beard of his list of questions, okay, that i
19 would be Page 2 of Allegation 1,...
Well, that's -- that's 20 correct.
In one of the places I refer -- there's one curve, 21 OP 103A, Curve 22, that we're operating above the maximum 22 limit right now.
I presented this to Mr. Ebneter on July l
l 23 19th.
It's in his package.
24 I'm asking Mr. Beard and Mr. Hickle and Mr. Halnen i
l 25 the question in here:
Are you aware that we're operating l
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above the maximum limit of OP 103A, Curve 22, at this -- at 2
this very moment?
I think in one of the -- one of the --
j 3
one of the list of questions I list that as Curve 8 and that 4
really should be Curve 22, but...
5 MR. McNULTY:
Page 3, Line 16 you have it listed 6
as Curve 22, is that...?
7 THE WITNESS:
Right, and that's the correct one 8
because...
Well, wait a second.
All right, here's the 9
correct information.
It is Curve 8, OP 103A.
This is the 10 expected value; this is the maximum value; this is the 11 plotted poirt, which is clearly above the maximum level 12 right now.'
13 MR. McNULTY:
So instead of Curve 22 it should be 14 Curve 8?
15 THE WITNESS:
It should be Curve 8.
And I don't 16
-- and, you know -- you know, they talk about where you 17 can't violate these curves and you can't do this.
- Well, 18 here they're clearly violating it.
You know, and Greg 19 Halnon -- you can see they all end at 24-72 megawatts.
The 20 plant's licensed at 25-44 since 1981.
All the curves are --
21 they haven't been revised since 1981.
You know, to me that 22 tells me a little bit about engineering and management 23 oversight, that you would operate the plant off the curve 24 for 15 years, 14 years, and in this one case you're 25 operating above the maximum limit.
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And Greg Halnon, when we -- after we did this OP 2
103 -- after we learned this curve was a design basis curve 3
they said let's look at all the other curves.
And they 4
evaluated and said, well, we're all -- they're all bad 5
because they haven't been updated.
So Greg Halnon, he just 6
dispositioned it with an E-mail message that says we 7
recognize that they're not haven't been revised since 24-8 72.
Go ahead and use them.
9 You know, and that -- that's not the way you do 10 business.
You evaluate each one individually, ymt write a 11 problem -- you write a procedure change, and you evaluate it 12 with a 50-59 process and a review process.
You know, but 13 but if I make a decision to use OP 402 to demonstrate that 1
14 Curve 8 of 103B is incorrect, I get fired.
Greg Halnon 15 writes an E-mail message and says, "This whole frmily of 16 curves is incorrect, but go ahead and use them anyway."
I I don't see the difference -- you know, what'c :he 17 18 difference there?
He's one level above me.
You know, but 19 they're not -- they're not going to -- there's no 20 consistency there, j
21 MR. DOCKERY:
Anything else?
22 THE WITNESS:
I have nothing else.
23 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay, if I may, then, I'd like to 24 try and summarize something that I believe you testified to j
i 25 here during the course of the afternoon.
But I want you to t
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1 listen very carefully and make sure that I'm getting.this e
2 correct.
l.
3' BY MR. DOCKERY:
.l j
4 Q
The night of September 5th you were the senior 5
manager, operations manager responsibility for conducting 1
6 that evolution, is that correct?
l j.
7 A
I was the-senior licensed person on the site.
My 1
j 8
responsibility as a reactor -- I -- I report to the shift i
9
' manager.
But I make all decisions concerning the operation 1
l 10 of the ra=.ctor.
i 1
j 11 Q
Was it your decision to conduct that evolution?
1
' bsolutely.
]
12 A
A
}
' 13 Q
Is it fair to say that you made the decision to l
o 14 deliberately go beyond the bounds-whatever is technically i
i 15 correct to say-of Curve 8?
l l
l 16 A
I suspected that we would go -- that the plant j'
17 response would go to the left of Curve 8.
I suspected that i
i l
18 that would happen, and as we watched the drain-down occur it 19 did draw a curve on the inside of that curve, and I allowed I
20 that to continue.
I made that decision that I was l'
21 authorized and empowered to do that, i
i j
. 22 Q
At that time what did you believe that Curve 8
)
23 constituted?
i i
24 A
Curve 8 was an operating limit on how you operated i'
l 25 the makeup tank.
On the night of September 5th I knew that i
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-- after having read the calculation, I knew that if you had 2
-a high pressure injection signal and you operated two HPI 3 -
l pumps off of a single suction and you were on that curve, 4
you would always have at least 1.7 feet of water at the 5
suction of the pump.
6 Q
Is it fair to say what you did or caused to happen 7
'was done intentionally?
8 A
Yes.
)
9 C
Did you know at the time that Curve #8 was'a 10 design basis curve?
11 A
I did not know Curve 8 was a design basis curve.
i
'12 Q
When did-you find out Curve 8 was a design basis 13 curve?
14 A
It was probably September 8th.
And nobody came up 15 and -- you know, it first came up from -- a senior licensing j
16 engineer came and kind of said, "You can't do that.
It's a 17 design basis curve."
You know, and -- and then it wasn't-18 confirmed -- well, the company didn't confirm that it-was a 19 design basis curve until November the 16th.
But at the 20 September 15th Management Review Board meeting I was being i
21 admonished for violating a design basis curve.
22 Q
If you had known on September'the 5th that that 23-was a design basis curve, would you have taken the same 24 action that you did?
25 A
Absolutely not; nor September 4th.
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Q Have you ever exceeded a design basis curve 2
intentionally?
3 A
No, absolute not.
4 0
If you had intentionally exceeded a design basis 5
curve, do you -- in your opinion, would what has happened to 6
you have been justified, as far as being terminated?
7 A
No.
8 Q
It would not have been?
9 A
Well, I mean...
10 MR. HENDRIX:
Do you understand his question?
11 THE WITNESS:
Well,...
12 MR.,DOCKERY:
I phrased it badly.
13 THE WITNESS:
...if I -- if I knew it were a 14 design basis curve I absolutely would not have done the 15 test.
If I had inadvertently violated a design basis curve, 16 I would have taken the proper action and notified the NRC 17 wi-hin one hour under 50-72.
I would never have gotten 18 myself into a situation of getting myself fired.
You know, 19 I didn't -- I don't lie, cheat, or steal when I'm in a 20 control room.
You know, I take my -- I took my 21 responsibility fairly seriously, is why I was there in my 22 authority to do what I did.
23 BY MR. DOCKERY:
l 24 Q
Mr. Fields, do you believe that you have in some 25 tay been retaliated against by your former employer?
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A Absolutely.
2 Q
Do you feel it was in response to your raising 3
health and safety concerns?
4 A
I think partially; I think the letter that I wrote 5
to Mr. Ebneter in June was probably the -- that -- that kind 6
of broke the back.
It says they're not going to take 7
anymore of this.
You know, basically the company wrote a 8
letter to Mr. Ebneter saying that we were guilty, we've 9
taken strong action against these guys, and I was told that 10 I would never be a shift supervisor again.
And I told 11 Mr. Pat Beard, I said, "I don't agree with this.
I'm going i
12 to send my own letter."
And after I sent that letter, I 13 think I became expendable.
14 MR. DOCKERY:
Are you familiar, Mr. Fields, with 15 the recourse that you have under -- going through the 16 Department of Labor in this...?
17 THE WITNESS:
I would appreciate it if you would 18 give me a quick summary.
l 19 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay.
Section 2-11 of the Energy 20 Reorganization Act prohibits a licensee from adversely l
21 affecting the employment conditions of any employee who t
22 brings forth health and safety issues regarding regulated 23 activity.
24 THE WITNESS:
I have read bits and pieces of 2-11.
25 MR. DOCKERY:
Okay.
The procedure that you have i
i h
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.1' available is to file a' complaint with'the Department of i
l 2
' Labor, Wage'and Hour Division.
Now, that complaint can be 1
-3 as simple as a -letter to the Wage and Hour Division-or it j
4 can be addressed'to the Secretary of Labor-but notifying' 5
.them.that you feel that you have a cause of action under' 6
'Section 2-11 of the' Energy Reorganization Act.
t I
e 7
'You have 180 days from the date that you.were 8
negatively impacted to file that complaint.
Now, the
(
9 Secretary of Labor _is the only form of recourse, personal 10 recourse that you have.
The NRC can't provide you -- we t
l l
11-can't restore your job directly.
Our interest in your 12 complaint is regulatory,_to vae to it that the -- the 13 licensee takes the correct action.
But I just_want,to make l
l-14
.sure you understand that you have that recourse.
15 THE-WITNESS:
And I -- and I have been working.
16 with Mr. Bruno Urich (phonetic).
And the Department of l
'17 Labor is a cig -- big-organization.
I've been bounced'from l
18 Wage and Hour to EEOC to NLRB.
And I_ finally went back to
'19 Mr. Urich and said, "I -- I don't know who to call here."
20 And he said, "I'll find you a name and a phone 21 number to call," and supposedly he's done that.
22-MR. McNULTY:
Wage and Hour.
23 MR. DOCKERY:
Wage and Hour, yeah.
And I -- the 24 thing I'm not sure of, whether it's in Tampa or Orlando, but 25 it really doesn't matter.
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MR. HENDRIX:
Well, Wage and Hour didn't know 2
anything about it.
They sent him to the EEOC.
3 MR. VORSE:
Sometimes people will attach documents 4
like you gave to -- you know, with a cover letter, just so 5
they don't have to read -- do the whole -- whole thing.
But 6
Wage and Hour is where you want to be.
7 MR. McNULTY:
When you're talking to Wage and Hour 8
you need to make sure you tell them that -- that you want --
9 if you say ERA they might get you confused and put you into 10 the EEOC.
11 THE WITNESS:
Talked to one lady in NLRB dnd she 12 said, "I'll Cile a complaint and an investigator will.get 13 with you in about two months."
So anyway, I'm working with 14 Mr. Urich to try to find the right person to actually talk ~
15 to 16 BY MR. VORSE:
17 Q
I have a very important. question for you, 18 Mr. Fields.
Do you know what our conclusion was on the 19 deliberate violation?
Do you know what the conclusion was?
20 Did you ever hear about what that was?
21 A
I read the -- yes, I read -- I read the 22 conclusion.
I -- I disagreed with it.
I was flabbergasted 23 as he wrote it.
24 Q
Did you see -- did you see our report of 25 investigation?
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1 A
No, I did not.
Only'the conclusion.
2 Q
Here's what we say:
That -- that you, Weiss, Van 3
Sicklen, and Stewart deliberately violated plant procedure 4
when they exceeded the allowable makeup tank overpressure-5 was when you were plotting the data, right?-and failed to 6
take appropriate action to reduce makeup tank overpressure.
a 7
Can you convince me that I'm wrong?
I 4-8 A
Well, the way I read the apparent violation, which 9
was.a document that said I had violated AI 500 and that I 10 violated OP 402, and I had violated AI 500 in that I had not i
11 taken prompt action to the enunciator response.
i I
5 12 Q
Tha,t's not that's not what our conclusion was.
13 Our conclusion was that you violated plant procedure when
)
4 14 you exceeded the allowable makeup tank overpressure and l
15 failed to take appropriate action.to reduce makeup tank l.
16 overpressure.
17 MR. HENDRIX:
Khat plant procedure are you 1
18' referencing?
1 19 MR. VORSE:
We're referencing AI 500, " Conduct of 20 Operation," Paragraph 4.2.1,
" Procedural compliance."
It l-1 21 states, "It's the duty of every member of the Crystal River 22 Plant work force to comply with procedures."
23 THE WITNESS:
And that's all it says.
It also 24 says that, " Written procedures are also needed for those l
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paths or operating parameters.
The top boundary between an 2
evolution and a task may not always be clear, and it is 3
expected that plant operators will encounter situations 4
4 where the adequacy of existing procedures may be questioned.
t 5
In these instances shift supervision will make the 6
determination as to what procedural requirements are 7
applicable."
8 And you're -- and we've got Curve 22 right here.
9 Every operator right now that's operating the plant is in 10 violation of this curve.
11 MR. HENDRIX:
Curve 8?
I 12 THE WITNESS:
Curve 8, OP 103A.
So does it 13 does that mean every operator should be fired?
I don't 14 understand.
You know, I'm the shift supervisor.
I wasn't I wasn't. violating a curve to be violating a carve.
I 15 16 took the plant to on the curve where ma.nagement demanded i
17 that it be, and I performed the evolution and pluc ed the 18 plant response and showed that the plant response was not 19 correct by that curve.
20 If you were on the curve you were outside design 21 bases.
For 18 months the plant had been outside design 22 bases.
I was outside for 35 minutes.
And I reported my 23 results to management.
24 MR. HENDRIX:
So if you re-read your -- the basis 25 of the procedure, he does deny that he violated plant NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.
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procedure.
The procedure -- everything he did was bounded 2
within plant procedure.
Now, if the procedure is sloppily 3
drafted or there should have been more precise procedures, 4
that's another matter.
But everything he did is bounded by 5
plant procedure.
Everything.
Hopefully we've communicated i
6 that message in the procedures.
7 MR. VORSE:
Do you agree with that?
8 MR. HENDRIX:
If not, we need to debate it 9
further, because he very strongly feels that that is the 10 case.
1 11 MR. RAPP:
Let me interject at this point.
I 12 don't disa'gre,e that what you did was bounded by OP 402.
All i
13 right?
I think that technically you were working within the 14 plant operating procedures.
The issue becomes, in AI 500 15
" Conduct of Operations," in there it says that you will 16 operate the plant within the administrative limits.
And in 17 taking the plant outside of the Curve 8 and plotting the --
18 in order to plot your data, that becomes the action that was 19 in violation of AI 500.
And therefore we could reach no --
20 no other conclusion than that it was a willful act and that 21 you continued to do it, even though you recognized you were 22 outside that administrative limit.
23 THE WITNESS:
Plant operating curves are only 24 referred to within procedures.
OP 402 refers you to 25 Curve 8.
It refers you there when you fill the tank with MWL R. RM8 & M., INC.
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1 hydrogen.
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2 MR. RAPP:
I understand.
l 3
THE WITNESS:
There is no limit and precaution at 4
the beginning of the procedure that says, "Thou shalt never 5
violate this procedure," it's only referred to by this l
6 procedure, and that's what we did.
It doesn't say that when 7
you drain down, oh,-make sure that you don't exceed curve 8.
i 8
They're only refer -- and that -- Curve 8 of OP 103A, 9
they're already above the max.
How do you handle that?
10 What -- what are you going to do?
I don't understand what I 11 did wrong.
I really don't see it.
I didn't violate l
12 anything.'
13 MR. HENDRIX:
He's getting ready to connect it up 14 for you.
Now, listen to him so you can respond.
15 MR. RAPP:
We're not -- we're not taking issue 16 with the fact that OP 402 did not reference Curve 8 in 17 precautions limitations, and it was only referenced in the 18
-- in the fill procedure, on the section where you fill with 19 hydrogen.
That was not included in the OI report.
The part 20 that we do have the problem with is in where AI 500 it says 21 that the plant shall be operated within the administrative 22 limits.
23 THE WITNESS:
Read that -- could you read that to j
24 me in AI 500.
25 MR. RAPP:
I knew you were going to ask me that.
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We didn't reference that part, did we?
We referenced 403, 2
right?
431.
3 THE WITNESS:
Now, I've read 431.
i 4
MR. RAPP:
Right.
5 THE WITNESS:
That's...
6 MR. McNULTY:
I mean, I would -- I would think 7
there's a reason why they refer to it as an operating limit.
8 I mean, the idea is that you're supposed to stay within the 9
limit, wouldn't you agree with that?
10 TFE WITNESS:
We had a concern with this curve for 11 18 months.
We voiced our concern to management, to 12 engineer'Ng,,and the response was the curve is accurate and 13 reasonably conservative.
I made the decision that I was 14 empowered to perform OP 402 to demonstrate -- I didn't drive 15 the plant to the left of the curve, I just let the plant 16 response show that it was different than Curve 8.
The 17 operating curves -- as you can see, they haven't even been 18 revised since 1981, in most cases.
It's not something that 19 we look upon as -- or management came out with, "Oh, you 20 never violate one of these curves."
Well, we're violating 21 half of them right now.
You know, we're -- we're off the 22 page.
Curve 8 of OP 103A, we're clearly above the maximum 23 level.
24 You know, I -- I don't -- I don't see your 25 argument that I wasn't authorized, empowered to do that.
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1 Gary Bolt, Pat Beard comes to me and says, " Don't live with 2
something that's wrong.
You're empowered to change it if 3
it's not in the best interest of nuclear safety."
4 My management came to me and said, " Dave, is there anything you want to do, because the issue is going to be 5
6 closed out?"
I certainly felt within my authority and my 7
responsibility to do this.
And my management cannot come up 8
with any time that they told me, "Thou shalt never violate 9
one of our operating curves."
It's just not there; the 10 expectation wasn't there.
11 But my -- their expectation with me is to make 12 good decisions on how to operate the plant.
I felt 1.dke l
13 that I made a good decision to present itaportant safety 14 information to my management.
And if they came back -- and 15 they came back and said, "All right, you did something 16 wrong.
You can't do that."
That's fine.
And that's what l
17 they did.
That's what Greg Halnon's memo said in his E-18 mail, and I concluded that several times.
It says, "The 19 controls on the evolution were excellent.
The thought j
20 process was excellent.
This was excellent."
Used the word
\\
21
" excellent" five times.
He said the place that we let l
22 ourselves down-and he said "we," management, engineering, 23 operations-is that we didn't clearly define the j
24 expectations.
4 25 That was an honest assessment of where we were.
i j
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If that was what their expectations were after I did it, 2
that's fine.
And then from that point on I would know, i
3
" Dave, you're not authorized to do that."
But to set their 4
expectations up after I did it, after I showed that the 5
plant was in a -- a situation where half of their safety 6
injection system was inoperable, and get fired over it, I 7
don't see how you make this conclusion.
8 MR. HENDRIX:
The accurate -- the characterization 4
9 of deliberate misconduct implies a knowing and willful 10 breach of a standard that is known to be a line, a 4
demarcat on line where beyond which you shall not 11 12 transgress'.
And that's not what happened here.
So to 13 characterize it as deliberate misconduct is what's so 14 damaging.
We still contend vociferously that he -- he 15 hasn't engaged in any misconduct and everything he did was 16 within bounded procedure.
17 THE WITNESS:
You know, and Greg Halnon freely 18 admitted management, operations, engineering didn't have the 19 expectation out there.
But you're not investigating any 20 managers and you're not investigating any engineers.
21 MR. McNULTY:
So we're at the point where all the 22 operating curves should have like little asterisks, then, 23 and -- that says, "Well, if you agree with this stay within 24 the boundaries.
But if you don't, you can go right ahead 25 and go outside."
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THE WITNESS:
Absolutely not.
The expectation was 2
not there; Greg Halnon said the expectation.wasn't there.
3
' Management failed; operations failed; engineering failed.
4 And he, in that memo, put out the expectation.
When they 5
give me the expectation and they reinforce it, then I 6
understand.
But up until that point I've got Gary Bolt,' Pat 7
Beard saying, " Don't live with something that's wrong, you 8
know.
You're empowered to take actions that are reasonable 9
to do this, this, and this, you know.
It's part of your 10-job."
11 I'm not -- I'm not trying to tell you tha+ I have 12 permission to make decisions on what's safe and snat's not 13 unsafe, when I can -- when I can use procedures and when I 14 cannot use procedures.
In my mind on September 4th and 15 September 5th I was absolutely within my authority and~my 16 responsibility to make that decision.
17 And -- and I want to get one more time:
I nade 18 the decision.
My assistant shift supervisor works for me, 19 my chief operators work for me; my reactor operators work
]
20 for me.
I made the decision.
If anybody goes down, I'll go 21 down, but I don't want these gmys losing their jobs over it, 22 and they have.
You know, what...
23 MR. HENDRIX:
Plus, as I cite, if you're in the i
24 position as a result of management failures...
In other 25 words, the position he was in was as a result of management NBAL R, Stoss & Co., INC, (202)234-4433
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and engineering failures.
He was there.
And under your own 2
operating rules and procedures there cannot be a finding of 3
deliberate misconduct against the individual who has tried 4
to correct it.
Which he tried and his shift tried.
That's 5
why we -- it's the " deliberate misconduct" in the context we 6
just feel is very, very unfair.
And, 'cause he -- they did 7
everything they possibly could do.
And he was put in the 8
position.
9 And again, he did not drive the plant outside.
He 10 didn't drive it, he didn't go over it, he just did what they 11 told him was accurate.
They're the ones that say it was
~
12 accuratc.
Hg just tested it.
13 MR. McNULTY:
He just -- he just forgot to bring 14 it back within the boundary when he should have by the 15 procedures.
16 THE WITNESS:
I didn't forget.
I knew to do it.
17 I had my man stationed to do it.
18 MR. McNULTY:
You just waited 32 minutes so you 19 could get your test data.
20 THE WITNESS:
I felt that a smooth curve for the 21 full length would be incontrovertible.
That would be the 22 proof that engineering needed, because they had rejected 23 bits and pieces.
I didn't knowingly violate anything.
24 There was no misconduct on my part.
If I -- if I -- I don't 25 know how to convince you that -- that I didn't do that.
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at the time I felt justified to do what I did.
After the 2
fact they said, "You can't do that."
3 MR. RAPP:
Mr. Fields,-I -- I know full good and 4
well there was no malice involved in that action; that your 5
intentions were to get this issue resolved.
But whenever 6
you put the plant in a situation in which it's going to be 7
outside of its administrative limits and you're going to 8
continue to operate in that vein, then there becomes the 9
issue of willfulness.
Am I misstating anything?
10 MR. HENDRIX:
What about Florida Power?
What 11 about Florida Power?
They've been doing that for years.
12 MR.,RAPP:
All I can say is that issue is going to 13 be addrefssed.
\\
14 MR. HENDRIX:
On many of the so-called 15 administrative limits.
On maybe the majority of them.
And 16 to take this issue, given the fact that he had tried to i
1 17 correct it on many occasions and failed, and had been told, 18 "Last time.
It's over.
Last time."
19 MR. VORSE:
See, we don't -- we don't feel it was 20 a malicious act, it was just a Catch 22.
You know, you had 21 to -- in order to plot the data you had to -- to violate the 22 procedure.
I mean, it's that simple.
I mean,...
23 THE WITNESS:
I didn't violate the expectation.
24 That was clearly presented by Greg Halnon.
Management 25 failed; engineering failed; we as operations failed.
He NEAL R. GR083 6 CO.,
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- said, "I personally failed because I didn't present the j
2 expectation that I -- that is now required by the NRC."
3 You know, if I had knowingly done it, I said, "By 4
God, I'll just do whatever I want," I'd be guilty.
But if I 1
5 thought that I was authorized to allow the system response 6
to draw the real system response to show these people that 7
the curve they presented was not correct, then I didn't 8
willfully do anything, any misconduct.
I willfully tried to 9
present a safety concern, and as a result of that found out 10 that for 18 months if you operated on the curve you were 11 outside cesign bases.
And we've got examples right here, 12 Curve 8 of OP,103A.
Everybodv's operating outside the 13 maximum.
14 MR. HENDRIX:
And we're wondering...
15 THE WITNESS:
The expectation is not there.
16 MR. McNULTY:
That doesn't affect your activity, 17 though.
18 MR. HENDRIX:
Well, we're wondering whether 19 engineering may have known that anybody operating on the 20 limit would have been in this situation, anyway, and would 21 have known that if you're on the limit you're going to 22 potentially...
23 MR. McNULTY:
That still remains for us to 24 discover.
25 MR. HENDRIX:
And if they knew that, then they put NEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
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him in this situation, because he was operating within -- on 2
the curve, as they wanted him...
They wanted him to operate 3
on the curve.
4 MR. RAPP:
One thing to keep in mind is that 5
whenever we -- and NRC is a regulation body.
We look at 6
procedures and what is approved plant documents.
We can't 7
go to the expectations that they give you at some 8
empowerment training.
9 THE WITNESS:
You can't?
10 MR. RAPP:
No, we cannot go to those expactations.
11 We can say that's a mitigating factor.
Okay?
We can say j
12 that that may,have factored into the mind set or into the --
13 the dynamics that went on here, but here's a concrete 14 document that says this is what was violated.
Okay, we 15 can't -- we can't take those expectations and say, "Well, 16 we'll just ignore this violation because these expectations 17 were out there floating around."
18 THE WITNESS:
But you've put me in a situation 19 where I've been fired, and then you've told me my rights 20 under the Department of Labor.
They're going to throw it 21 out.
Because you folks said that it was willful misconduct.
22 It wasn't willful misconduct.
I didn't violate anything 23 knowingly.
You know, I -- I presented -- they came to me 24 and said, "Do something.
If you're -- if you -- if you 25 still have a concern you got to do something because this is NBAL R. 3088 in CD.,
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going to be closed out."
My management came to me and told 2
me to do that.
I used my procedure to do that.
l 3
Did I willfully violate anything?
I did not.
And 4
if you say that I did, it's over.
The company wins.
I've 5
lost everything.
My assistant has lost everything.
My 6
chief operators have lost their careers.
7 For willful misconduct?
They didn't willfully 8
misconduct.
They -- they had a safety concern.
They didn't 9
try to hide it.
They presented it to management.
They had 10 nothing to gain by doing it.
It's...
11 MR. HENDRIX:
If he had engaged in deliberate misconduc5 he's not going to write a problem report about 12 13 it.
Because if you engage in deliberate misconduct you're I
14 not going to take credit for it and point it out as, "Look 15 what we did here."
If you know it's deliberate misconduct 16 you're not going to do that.
So clearly, I mean, the best 17 evidence we can offer to you is the fact that they prepared 18 a problem report and went in to management.
They were proud 19 of the work they had done, and thought that they were doing 20 a good job.
21 Now, on hindsight it's easy to say, "Well, you 22 know,..."
But if you get into the dynamics, again, if you I
1 23 find -- and we hope that you will find deliberate conduct 24 that may have arguably transgressed some very ambiguous, 25 poorly drafted procedures, and that were created under a NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC, (202)234-4433
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situation that he had -- and his shift had tried to correct 2
on several occasions.
So he engaged in deliberate conduct.
3 But to say deliberate misconduct is the damning --
4 that's it.
It's over forever.
His career, his reputation, 5
his integrity.
Deliberate misconduct implies willful, bad 6
intention.
And that's what we really are trying to get 7
reversed.
8 THE WITNESS:
And we've given you examples of 9
other curves that are being violated right now.
Is that 10 willful misconduct?
I mean, I'm not -- I see you chuckling 11 over there.
I don't understand.
You know, these other 12 curves are important curves that we operate to.
This curve 13 just happened to be a design basis curve.
It shouldn't have 14 been inserted into our operating procedures.
It shouldn't 15 have been there.
Engineering shouldn't have let that 16 happen.
It should have been an accurate design basis curve.
17 But that's -- that's its only special -- that's the only 18 thing special about this curve.
And if I hadn't taken my 19 action we'd be still operating outside design bases, 20 unknowingly, ready to destroy half your high pressure 21 injection system.
22 The significance of these other curves?
I don't 23 know.
But they're curves or operating limits and the 24 operators are violating them.
I think that's...
If that's 25 what I'm being charged with and that's the final conclusion, NEAL R. GROSS 8 CO., INC.
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what about these other curves, what about these other 2
operators?
I don't -- I don't see where you draw the line 3
that says deliberate misconduct here; oh, we don't care 4
about these curves over here.
j 5
MR. McNULTT:
Well, you're the first one who's i
6 told us that there are other limits that other operates at 4
l 7
Crystal are exceeding right now.
That's the first time i
8.
we've heard this in this investigation.
Maybe you could 9
have brought that up to us when we talked to you in 10
- December, 11 THE WITNESS:
I wasn't aware of Curve 8 until like 12 a week be5 ore the-pre-enforcement conference.
13 MR. McNULTY:
So how does their -
how does that 14 activity now justify what you did on September the 4th and 15 5th?
I don't understand that analogy.
I 16 THE WITNESS:
I guess I'm trying to tell you that 17 there are many -- there are many operating curves that are 18 being exceeded.
You've chosen one curve to make 19 significant; me.
20 MR. McNULTY:
Were you aware on September 4th and 21 5th that people violated operating curves all the time?
22 THE WITNESS:
I was aware that they were not very 23 well_ written; that they were very old.
I was aware that 24 they were -- they maxed out at 25-40 -- 24-72 megawatts, 25 most of them.
1 NBAL R. GROSS & Co., INC, (202)234-4433
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MR. McNULTY:
Did that mean, then, in your mind, 2
it was okay to go ahead and operate outside of one?
3 THE WITNESS:
It didn't -- it didn't -- it didn't 4
key me in to think that I was violating an NRC parameter or 5
a design bases in any way, shape, or form.
6 MR. McNULTY:
I'm trying to understand what you're 7
-- I hear your rationale.
And your rationale says that when 8
you found out later on that people operated outside the 9
curves; well, that doesn't affect your decision to operate 10 on September 4th and 5th.
That's later on.
That's an 11 excuse as opposed to reason.
I'm trying to underst ad what 12 your reaso'n was that you thought that you could operate 13 outside the curve on September 4th and 5th.
14 MR. HENDRIX:
It's not a -- I want to say I don't 15 think he's offering it as an excuse.
I think what he's 16 really trying to do is offer it as an example of following 17 his logic on it, not...
18 MR. McNULTY:
It's after the fact.
It doesn't go 19 to the logic of making the decision on the 4th and 5th, and 20 that's what we're trying to get to.
That's what we say was 21 an intentional, willful act.
22 MR. HENDRIX:
Well, we agree with that; 23 intentional, willful act.
It's the intentional, willful act 24 of misconduct, a bad act, that we disagree with.
25 MR. VORSE:
We don't -- we don't say misconduct.
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INC.
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MR. McNULTY:
We don't make that call.
That's 2
something enforcement brings to us in a package.
3 MR. HENDRIX:
Well, we -- we need you to make 4
the...
5 MR. VORSE:
We say we have a -- we have a 6
violation of procedure that is willful.
7 MR. McNULTY:
Our call is intentional and 8
deliberate call.
When you get to the enforcement panel 9
that's where the...
10 MR. RAPP:
Misconduct.
)
11 MR. McNULTY:
... deliberate misconduct issue comes i
12 in.
Not Eith us.
And again, what I'm trying to say is that 13 what -- what's happening now doesn't justify the action that i
14 you did on September 4th and 5th.
Now, if you had something 15 that occurred before that, that led you to believe that you 16 can operate outside an operating limit because of whatever, i
17 we'd certainly be interested in hearing that.
I 18 THE WITNESS:
Well, let me just go over it one 19 more time.
We raised the concern, we initiated Problem 20 Report 94-149.
It was evaluated by engineering as, "It's 21 all right.
We're going to close out the issue."
We had 22 management demanding that we operate on the curve.
They 23 were monitoring it hourly.
.It was brought to me, after the 24 September 2nd letter was written, "Do something or it's j
25 going to be closed out."
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MR. McNULTY:
Now, you would think, with 2
management monitoring this and checking it every hour, that 3
operating -- that that curve was pretty important to them.
l 4
THE WITNESS:
Only the maximum pressure was 5
important.
You know, I'm sure they would have been happy to 6
see us operate above it if we got the 25 cc's per kg.
It 7
wasn't -- they were not concerned that we wanted to operate 8
five or ten pounds below the maximum.
That was -- that.was 9
disregarded.
Our concerns were not looked at.
Our concerns R
10 were poorly evaluated and rejected, and we were -- and we 11 were right.
And the health and safety of the punlic in i
12 Crystal River,in Citrus County is better because of it.
13 MR. McNULTY:
And what if you're wrong?
What if 14 it turned out the curve was accurate?
15 THE WITNESS:
If it's what?
Turned ou...
16 MR. McNULTY:
What if you were wrong?
What if it j
17 was accurate?-
'18 MR. HENDRIX:
If it was accurate...
19 THE WITNESS:
If it was accurate I would have 20 followed the curve right down, it would have followed -- the 21 plant response would have followed the curve.
22 MR. McNULTY:
Would that have justified your 23 activity if you were wrong?
24 MR. HENDRIX:
He was following the curve.
25 THE WITNESS:
It was my procedure.
I followed my NEA1. R. 3 088 & 03..
INC.
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procedure.
If I had driven the plant somewhere...
2 MR. DOCKERYi If I may paraphrase:
If the curve 3
had been correct you could not have been wrong in what you 4
did, is that correct?
5 THE WITNESS:
That's right.
I would -- I would 6
have concluded that, well, looks like the plant response is 7
-- is with that curve.
I guess I'll have to agree that 8
engineering is correct.
9 MR. HENDRIX:
See, what he did was follow the 10 curve.
He didn't go beyond the curve, he followed the curve 11 and then plotted it to show that the curve that I'm 12 following'is not accurate.
But he followed the procedure; 13 he didn't violate the procedure.
He did not transgress the 14 administrative operating limits.
He put it on it and 15 watched it.
16 MR. McNULTY:
And started it.
And started.
But 17 when it want beyond the limics he didn't take actions to 18 bring it back.
19 MR. HENDRIX:
He's not required to under the 20 procedure.
Because when the enunciator alarm comes in and 21 you' re expecting it and you've looke:d into it, then it gives 22 him the discretion, as the senior shift supervisor.
23 MR, RAPP:
And I do not disagree.
That's why in 24 the OI report we did not reference OP 402 or the alarm 25 response; okay?
Because my -- my evaluation of that with NEAL R. GROSS 4. CO.,
INC.
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the plant procedures, the administrative procedures, those 2
were not valid issues.
3 MR. HENDRIX:
But I think that those should be 4
referenced as the basis for his acting within procedures.
5 That was the -- his basis.
In other words, he did not go 6
beyond the curve.
I think that's what -- if I understand 7
your finding, the finding is -- is that he transgressed...
8 MR. McNULTY:
No.
9 MR. RAPP:
No.
10 MR. McNULTY:
The finding is that he alle-ed the 11 plant to operate...
Why don't -- and we get pretty confused 12 here with'at,what point this happened and what p int he j
13 crossed the line.
I -- in my mind, one, you don't conduct 14 evolutions to collect data.
When you do that you're 15 conducting a test.
I 16 MR. HENDRIX:
There's no definition for a test.
17 MR. McNULTY:
I know that.
That's why it's not l
1 18 cited; okay?
But what's cited is that -- what's cited is 19 that he didn't follow the appropriate procedure as far as j
20 safe operation of the plant by allowing the plant to go j
l 21 outside an operating limit and not -- and that's the bottom 22 line.
The bottom line is that he started off, he set out 1
23 with the idea that we're going to spin this line, because 24 outside the limit we're not going to do anything till we get 25 our data.
And that to us is -- that's not acceptable.
The DfRAL R. GROSS 6 Co.,
~NC.
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Page 125 i
1 agency doesn't view that as acceptable.
i 2
THE WITNESS:
And the apparent violation, I...
3 MR. McNULTY:
Well, that's -- those are more 4
important to be addressed in an enforcement conference.
5 That's...
i 6
MR. VORSE:
That's not ours.
7 THE WITNESS:
So you don't -- you don't have 8
anything to do -- you don't do that?
1 9
MR. McNULTY:
No.
That's...
10 MR. VORSE:
That's not ours.
11 MR. McNULTY:
We -- we report what we feel is in 12 our report, which you don't get to see.
You get -- you 13 maybe get to see the synopsis.
And then they look at our 14 report, the interviews, they look at all the technical i
15 input, and the agency arrives at their enforcement package.
16 So the enforcement package is -- may be somewhat based on 17 our report.
There are times when the agency disagrees with 18 us and they'll choose to disregard our investigative report 19 and write their own.
20 THE WITNESS:
But you -- you have no problem with 21 the crew that...
22 MR. McNULTY:
Do we?
No, but we have an inspector 23 general, I guess, who on occasion may decide that what 24 happened here wasn't right.
25 THE WITNESS:
No, I mean -- I mean, about the --
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the events on-July 21st and 22nd.
2 MR. McNULTY:
We're investigating those.
In fact, 3
Mr. Dockery is the case F. gent for that investigation, so-
)
4' it'll be separate.
J 5
MR. VORSE:
We're just getting started.
6 MR. DOCKERY:
Which is a very recent j
7 investigation, that's why it's difficult to address any J
j-8 question you might have about it, and be premature, because j
9 it's under investigation.
Although we appreciate the input 10 that you have, that you've provided on it.
j 11 MR. HENDRIX:
Well, again, all we can :sk you to i;
12 do, you got to call it like you see it.
i 13 MR. McNULTY:
Well, we weren't aware of that one i
14 until...
i i
1
- 15 MR. HENDRIX:
And we'want you to do that, but I 16 don't know how else -- how nuch else explaining we can do.
1, 17 I think you know what our position is, and hopefully you
[
18 appreciate the situation he was in as a result of factors i
j.
19 over which he had no control.
It's very harsh to -- to be 20 alleged to be guilty of willful misconduct and for the I
21 company to be going, "That's right.
That's right.
Get him i
22 out of here."
23 MR. McNULTT:
Well, we're -- we've reopened this.
24 We're looking; we can change our conclusion if we feel that i
I 25 it wasn't correct the first time or additional information j
9 TEAL R. GROSS & CO.,
INC (202)234 4433 4
i a
-m
.-e.
Page 127 1
has a different...
So we have reopened the September 5th 2
incident and we're looking at the September 4th incident in 3
conjunction with that.
4-But besides that, we're conducting a separate 5
investigation on the July 21st-22nd incident.
And I -- I 6
suspect that once your allegations reach the allegation 7
floor, that we'll be opening an additional investigation.
8 MR. HENDRIX:
Of course, as to the allegations, we 9
still contend that this report, your final report on this i
10 incident, should not be issued until you have actually 11 reviewed the entire situation.
Then maybe you need to be...
12
'MR.,McNULTY:
I thlak that's probably the way 13 it'll go.
We're going to be looking at this for some time.
14 I don't think anything's going to happen for at least six
-15 months; three to six months.
16 MR. VORSE:
Does anybody have anything else?
17 MR. DOCKERY:
Just want to ask -- want to make 18 sure that we've afforded you the opportunity here today to 19
-- to address the issues you wanted to address.
We don't 20 want to cut you short here, but just want to make sure that 21 you were satisfied that you were given the opportunity 22 today.
23 THE WITNESS:
I think that I have.
If I forgot to 24 bring something up,.that's my fault.
25 MR. VORSE:
Well, if you do remember something NEAL R.
GROS $ 6 CO.,
INC.
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else, contact Mr. Hendrix here and...
1 And I -- and I -- you see, 1 -- this 2
THE WITNESS:
is the first time I've talked to anybody about the events of 3
4 the 4th, you know.
I didn't participate in the company's 5
internal investigation.
They came to their conclusions and took it to the board of directors and they fired me.
6 7
MR. McNULTY:
I'd just like to say, just like you to know that as we get into this we may need to talk to you 8
again, and we'll certainly contact Mr. Hendrix.
9 10 MR. HENDRIX:
We're happy to talk to you.
11 THE WITNESS:
See, the government pulled the plug 12 on my lawyer., Today is his last day.
I don't h re a 13 lawyer.
I don't have a job, I don't have a lawyer, I don't Be sure you get that in.
14 have -- don't have any money.
15 MR. VORSE:
Thank you.
the hearing was concluded at 3:25 16 (Whereupon, 17 P.M.)
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 man a. aoss a m., me.
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\\
(
lK9 l
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the i
U. S. Nuclear Regulatory CommieJion in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding:
Interview of David A.
Fields l
Docket Number:
Place of Proceeding:
Atlanta, GA Date:
August 31, 1995 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear j
Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewrit.Ag 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.
MELANIE L.
SCHALLOCK Official Reporter NEAL R. GROSS AND CO.,
INC.
l 1
r NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.
(202)234 4433 I
_