ML20135E127
| ML20135E127 | |
| Person / Time | |
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| Issue date: | 02/05/1997 |
| From: | NRC |
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| NUDOCS 9703060279 | |
| Download: ML20135E127 (150) | |
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) VERBATIM PROCEEDINGS / l UNITED STATES NUCLEAR
- REGULATORY COMMISSION
- FEBRUARY 5, 1997 IN RE: PUBLIC FORUM
- 7:00 P.M.
BEFORE: WAYNE LANNING, CHAIRMAN JACQUE DURR JOSE G. IBARRA GENE IMBRO PHIL MCKEE DR. HAROLD L. ORNSTEIN DR. BILL TRAVERS ha ,
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() U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l
1 . . . Verbatim Proceedings of the United ;
2 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Forum, held 3 at the Waterford Town Hall Auditorium, 15 Rope Ferry 4 Road, Waterford, Connecticut on February 5, 1997 at 5 7:00 p.m. . .
6 7
8 9 CHAIRMAN WAYNE LANNING: All right.
10 Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Wayne 11 Lanning. I'm Deputy Director for Inspections in the 12 Office of Special Projects. We have a very simple 13 agenda tonight. This is, of course, the meeting 14 between the NRC and the public.
15 We essentially have three topics that l 16 we'd like to talk to tonight. The first one is bach in 17 February I had committed to bringing to you the results l
! 18 of a independent generic study of the likelihood and
- 19 consequences of an extended loss of spent fuel pool i
e 20 cooling study that was being done by an independent arm o
= 21 of the NRC and I have more to say about that in the i
j 22 introduction. That'll be the first topic. In response b 23 to some of your suggestions, we will then take 24 questions concerning that topic after the formal O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 j
3-U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( )i FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 presentations. I'll ask you to cooperate with us and 2 limit your questions to just that topic.
3 Then we'll then have a brief summary by 4 Gene Imbro of today's meeting with Northeast Utilities l 5 concerning the selection of the contractors for both 6 the independent corrective action verification process 7 and the employees concern oversight contractor. So 8 we'll first receive public comments concerning the 9 independent corrective action verification contractor 10 and then we'll focus on the contractor for the employee
')
I4 11 concerns.
l
/"T 12 So with that, let me just introduce or (J
13 let the staff introduce themselves. Okay. I'll do it !
14 then. To my left here is Jose Ibarra. Jose is a j 15 Senior Engineer with the Office of Analysis and l
16 Evaluation of Operational Data. Next to him is Dr. Hal ;
- i j 17 Ornstein. He is also a Senior Engineer in the Office 5 18 of Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data.
I l : 19 To my immediate right is Dr. Bill
!r 20 He Travers. is the Director of the Special Projects
.O
!* 21 Office. Next to him is Gene Imbro. Gene is the Deputy
!l 22 Director for the Independent Corrective Action 23 Verification Program and then next to him is Bill 24 McKee. Bill is the Deputy Director for Licensing.
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4 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 .
! 'l We also have other NRC staff in the 1
2 audience and we also Diane Scarnci here for -- from our 3 Public Affairs. She's raising her hand back there in 4 the back. If there's information that you need, I'd j 5 ask that you give that request to Diane and she'11 get i
- 6 that to you.
7 So with that, let me just move right 8 into the first presentation or the only presentation.
9 First I'd like in the way of introduction talk about 10 the Office for Analysis and Evaluation of Operational 11 Data. This office was created shortly after the 12 accident at Three Mile Island. Its primary purpose is 13 really to perform an assessment and evaluation of 14 operating experience of nuclear power reactors and that l l
15 evaluation and its analysis results in lessons learned 16 or recommendations for improvements and this office 17 does this independently of the rest of NRC, I 18 particularly the licensing part of NRC, and .so they make recommendations to 1
19 the licensing organization for '
20 improvements or changes to requirements and many of l O
< 21 those recommendations and changes are effected through I
g 22 information notices, generic letters and bulletins and h 23 other ways of (indiscernible) requirements.
24 Now in February of '96 the Executive O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
5 l U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1
1 1 Director for Operations requested AEOD to perform this 2 generic independent assessment of the loss of spent 3 fuel pool cooling and its consequences. A senior team 4 of level -- a senior level -- a team of senior level I
5 engineers was formed to perform this study and Dr.
6 Ornstein is one of those members and Jose Ibarra is 7 another member and also the team leader and Jose will 8 provide the presentation starting now.
9 Just one administrative note. When we 10 get to the question session, only one microphone can be l 1
11 on at one time. So you've got to remember to turn off
/ 12 the mike when you're finished asking your question.
13 MR. JOSE G. IBARRA: Good evening. My i 14 name is Jose .barra and I am from the Office for 15 Analysis and Evaluation of Operational Data. We call 16 that office AEOD and, like Wayne said, Hal Ornstein is 17 here also from that office.
! 18 Last year about this time, in February, 19 the Executive Director for Operations for the NRC 20 requested that AEOD do an assessment of spent fuel pool o
a 21 cooling, basically loss of cooling. We did this b
g 22 assessment generically looking at the industry as a b 23 whole. So our first major task was to go ahead and 24 model a pressurized water reactor and a boiling water C>
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 reactor. We assessed 12 years of operational 2 experience, in fact, over 12 years of operational 3 experience dealing with what kind of things were we 4 seeing in the spent fuel pool. We also got to visit 5 six sites and out of those'six sites what we wanted to 6 understand is the physical deterioration of the pool 7 but we also wanted to understand the practices and 8 procedures that the utilities were using in carrying 9 out the spent fuel pool activities.
10 We ourselves performed assessments on g 11 the electrical system because we wanted understand what
{} 12 kind of power was being supplied to the spent fuel 13 pools. We wanted to understand the pal.ameters, the 14 instrumentation that was being used and where that -- 1 l
15 where those parameters were being monitored. Very 16 important to us was the heat loss, you know, what were 17 we seeing, what was worse case type situations? And I 18 also the radiation levels. What kind of radiation
- 19 levels were we going to see of spent fuel pool i h
r 20 especially if the water decreases? And a very l 0 '
= 21 important task was also to evaluate the risk of losing b
22 spent fuel pool coolant.
l b 23 Now, like I said, the first important 24 task was to understand what a spent fuel pool looks
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7 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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1 like- and the configuration, identifying the major 2 ' components that makes up the spent fuel pool. What we 3 have here is a pressurized water react.or and important 4 points here to point out is that the reactor vessel and 5 the spent fuel pool happen to be in different 6 buildings. The fuel itself would be in the racks and 7 you have over 20 feet of water above that fuel.
8 Typical parameters that are being monitored at the 9 spent fuel pool are the temperature, the levels, 10 radiation levels. Also, this pool. is being cooled
! 2 11 through this system basically made out of pumps and 12 heat exchangers. So this is the model for the i 13 pressured water reactor.
14 Now we also, of course, there is a 15 boiling water reactor model also and you basically have 16 the same components but there's one major difference 17 and it is a major difference because now the reactor i I 18 vessel and spent fuel pool are in the same building.
I 19
- Now we looked at over 12 years of 20 operational data and that involved looking at 700 i O
- 21 pieces of documentation to describe operational events.
l 22 Our assessment of loss of cooling the way we broke it l
l l- 23 up is into different categories: loss of inventory and i
24 loss of cooling. Now what do we mean by loss of
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8 ,
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION j FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 inventory? Well, any way that you can lose water in 2 that pool and you can lose that water through connected l 3 systems, gates and seals, structure and liner and, of l
4 course, there's a lot more detail to some of these but )
5 these are the major portions. ;
6 Now cooling, how can you lose cooling?
7 You can lose cooling if you lose that flow through that '
8 spent fuel pool or if you lose the ability to remove i
9 that heat.
10 Now the 12 years, of course, we screened 11 some of those events out and this is the categories 12 they fall in. We actually had 38 cases with lost 13 inventory and 56 cases where we lost cooling.
14 We were able to plot a lot of 15 information out. Here what you basically are seeing, 16 the number of events on the top of the bar and what 17 they resulted in the losses of water as far as inches l I 18 are concerned and we do have here like ten situations I
- 19 where we lost over a foot of water and in two cases you !
20 lost over sixty inches, over five feet. !
O l
< 21 Now for loss of cooling, once again, I
22 loss of cooling is if you lose the flow or if you lose l
h 23 the ability to remove the heat. Once again, you have 24 the number of events and in this case we're plotting O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 how much did the temperature increase due to this loss 2 of cooling and you do have four events here that did 3 lose .over or resulted in an increase of 20 degrees 4 ' fahrenheit. One, in particular, lost -- you had an 5 increase of 50 degrees.
6 Now a few years ago a refuel and outage 7 was a 90 day duration. Nowadays that's becoming a lot 8 shorter and, in fact, right now there are cases where 9 they're 20 days plus. This is a big concern for us 10 because now you're putting a lot more heat into the l l'
g 11 spent fuel pool and but we were able to get information 12 from Nine Mile Unit II to be able to see typically what 13 is resulted in the industry now of shorter outages, 14 refueling outages, and for Nine Mile Point we look at 15 the first refueling. It took, these were calculations 16 that they made, 51 hours5.902778e-4 days <br />0.0142 hours <br />8.43254e-5 weeks <br />1.94055e-5 months <br /> to initiate boiling if they 17 were to lose a cooling, first outage. That now has 5 18 come down to 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> in their last refueling. ,
- 19 So there is a tremendous decrease here.
l r 20 Gives you less time to react and correct problems. In v
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= 21 this case, this is a boiling water reactor and you do 1
l l 22 have configurations where the gates are also closed 23 and, of course, there you have less volume of water but 24 you can also see that it went from 17.6 hours6.944444e-5 days <br />0.00167 hours <br />9.920635e-6 weeks <br />2.283e-6 months <br /> to about O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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l 1 8.4. So we see decreasing times to correct problems.
2 For our findings and conclusions, after 3 looking at 12 years of operational experience, the l 1
4 likelihood and consequences of actual events have not j 5 been severe and the primary cause we found to be human I l
6 error. Also very important point, we calculated that 7 the relative risk of fuel damage is low compared to 8 other reactor events. 1
)
9 Now the likelihood and consequences are 10 highly dependent on the human, the human performance i
11 and also the plant design. We have about 109 plants
, 12 and all of them as we get to the details differ. It
(')N 13 has a big bearing on the likelihood and consequences.
14 We calculated that the frequency of coolant loss, and 15 this is greater than 1 foot, is about 1 incident every 16 100 reactor years. The frequency of losing coolant 17 that result in increase above 20 degrees fahrenheit is I 18 about a 2 to 3 occurrences per 1,000 reactor years.
I have
- 19 So basically we situations the i
r 20 likelihood is rather --
it is small, a small O
= 21 likelihood. However, there are a lot of improvements l
22 that can be made. Those improvements are in the areas l
b 23 of configuration control, we feel that you can improve 24 that and by improving that you can prevent or mitigate O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
11 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 spent fuel pool events. Now what do we mean by 2 configuration control, and that is how tightly you 3 control your spent, fuel pool activities.
4 We also feel evaluations may be needed 5 at some multiunit sites for potential boiling effects 6 on the safe shutdown -- safe shutdown. What we have 7 here is situation where there are plants that have two 8 units with spent fuel pool in common. In situations 9 like that if one plant is refueling and if boiling 1
10 occurs, it could impact the other unit. Very important i
)a 11 factor,
{) 12 13 The response, like I mentioned, the outages are getting a lot shorter and the utilities are 14 going to have to start paying attention to this because l
15 they have less time to react now if a problem occurs.
16 We believe that procedures and training can be 17 improved. I think the better the operators and the I 18 people know their jobs the better off they're going to 19 be here. And we also believe that there can be 20 improvements t r.- instrumentation and power supplies.
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- 21 What we found out is that about 80 percent of the power l O
j 22 supplies are safety related. That means the other 20 b 23 would not be. Our main concern is how are they going 24 to provide power if they were to lose it, irrespective O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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' () U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 t i
1 of what kind of power supply they have here. We need l l 2 to look at alternate means. 1 3 Also for instrumentation, the more l 4 information the operator has the better off you're 5 going to be. The more time they're going to have to 6 correct problems and to react to problems before they 1
7 become more serious. Okay. So this is our assessment, {
8 AEOD target.
9 MR. GARY VERDONE: Just one quick 10 technical point. In the table where you have those 11 numbers, they don't add up to the numbers on the 12 graphs, they're different, could you explain that?
}
13 MR. IBARRA: Yes. What happened is that 14 of the 700 pieces of documents that we were able to l
15 look at not all of them have enough information for us j 16 to be able to plot this but these would be the most 17 serious ones. We also were able to plot, let's see --
5 18 yes. So that applies to both, you know, if you add I
- 19 them up , they're not going to add up to the others h
t 20 because we weren't able to get enough information.
O 21 MR. VERDONE: Could you put the slide up 1
22 that has the 100 reactor years on it, the 1,000 reactor l
ib 23 operating unit? All right. I just wanted to point out 24 one thing. There's 104 or 109 reactors operating right POST REPORTING SERVICE l EAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
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l 13 l fs U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
(_) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l
now. divide those numbers by 109, 1 So if you you come 2 up with a frequency per year of a probable loss cf 3 coolant or, well, for each of them it reduces those 4 numbers by a factor of a hundred. So to lose a foot of' ,
I 5 coolant you're going to have that happen once a year in l l \
j 6 this country. Is that true? '
i j 7 DR. HAROLD L. ORNSTEIN: Your )
8 observation is correct, however, may I make you 9 understand a couple of things? First of all, we've 10 looked at data that has been accrued over a period of 2 11 12 years, okay? So basically what we may be seeing is 1$
l (~T 12 a situation where at this point we believe there is
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13 great improvement that has taken place. We expect that 14 in the future there will be a decrease as the plants ,
15 learn more about the importance of this and some of the l 16 features that we've pointed out. The fact remains if l
l 17 you just take the statistics as they are, yes, once per l
- ! 18 year you can expect to see an event where there will be ;
i : 19 a loss of one foot of water.
. 20 Now Mr. Ibarra has mentioned the fact
!O
- 21 that the pools have on the order of 20, 23 feet of lk g 22 water above the top of the active fuel or top of the il 23 fuel. So basically the fact that you'll lose a foot of 24 water does not become a very significant event. It is O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 ;
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14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 a event that is like a wake-up call and many plaats
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2 that have had events occur have taken very significant 3 steps to improve the situation to prevent reoccurrence. !
l 4 MR. VERDONE: Just one comment to that. (
5 Right now we have a lot of plants on the watch list in 6 this country. I think six were added within the last 7 week for the watch list. What we're seeing in this 8 country is a degradation of our nuclear plants.
9 They're becoming worse, not better, with time and we 10 have three of the worst nuclear power plants in the 11 nation in this town. I think that when you present 12 this data, you should really present it in the light of
{'
13 what the frequency of the accidents are per year, not 14 per 100 reactor years based on the number of plants.
15 It's a little misleading and, if anything, I would have I 16 to disagree with you as far as what the future has in 17 store for us here with the way these plants all over I 18 the nation are degrading. l l 19 DR. ORNSTEIN: I'm not here to, you 20 know, address the issue of watch lists but I must O
21 acknowledge the fact that the NRC in recent times has l 22 become a more stringent regulator in the past. So I 23 don't think you have a situation where things are 1
24 really going downhill as drastically as you might be O POST REFORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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15 g U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION g FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 alluding to, but I think that the regulators are 2 becoming more cognizant of many issues and they're 3 dealing a much heavier blow on the utilities to make 4 sure that these problems that have been found are 5 corrected.
6 MR. VERDONE: A lot of people would 7 disagree with you on that issue.
8 MR. PAUL BLANCHE: Thank you. I'm Paul 9 Blanche from West Hartford, Connecticut and today I'm a 10 private citizen concerned about nuclear safety. I'd 11 like to congratulate you on your report. I have 12 reviewed it in the past and I think you did an 13 excellent job on this report.
14 A VOICE: Thank you.
15 MR. BLANCHE: I think it reflects the 16 true experiences of many of the power plants. The 17 problem is it's a good report but it doesn't respond to l 18 our concern and our concern here as has been expressed I; 19 many times is a loss of inventory, not just one foot of 20 inventory but the probability and the consequences of a O {
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21 loss of inventory.
l 22 You've stated here that in this report l y b 23 that the probability of a loss of inventory of greater )
24 than one foot has a probability of one percent per O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 !
16 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 reactor per year or to put this in as Mr. Verdone said, 2 it happens once a year in the United States, about 3 that. Now that is clearly a loss of inventory of 4 greater than one foot and none of these have been 5 catastrophic, obviously. The closest we had was one at 6 Connecticut Yankee in August of '84.
7 Now if we say that the probability of 8 that event is once a year here in the United States of 9 an insignificant loss, then chore is a probability of a 10 more significant lass. Now chat probability is l g 11 obviously much less than once per year. It miglit be 12 two orders of magnitude. It might be a probability of 13 once in ten years, once in a hundred years that 14 inventory is going to be lost. Now the inventory can 15 be lost due to many reasons, whether it be a seismic 16 event, a seal. There are other potential ways of j i
17 losing inventory. l
! 18 What it works out is that you have a 1 19 loss of inventory that is 'less probability of a total 20 than or, I'm sorry, a probability that is much higher O
21 than the probability of a loss of coolant accident but I
22 yet you analyze and totally analyze a loss of coolant l
b 23 accident for its radiological consequences.
24 Here you have a undefined accident with POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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l' 17 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( )) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l 1 a relatively high probability and yet the NRC refuses i
2 to tell us what the consequence is and all we get is 3 outside design basis and we don't accept that as l 4 members of the public. Again, we continue to request a 5 realistic assessment of the risk, which includes the l
6 probability and the consequences of a loss of l l
7 inventory. If someone tells me it's 1 chance in 20 j l
8 million years, I'll probably accept that although I i 9 don't believe that is the case. I think it's much 10 higher than that.
)e 11 And just the other question, you put up i
12 one slide related to Nine Mile and how the time of
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13 boiling is decreasing as the years go on and I have, I 14 guess, more of less of a generic question. When the 15 time of boiling decreases from 51 hours5.902778e-4 days <br />0.0142 hours <br />8.43254e-5 weeks <br />1.94055e-5 months <br /> to 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> and 16 in some cases from 17 hours1.967593e-4 days <br />0.00472 hours <br />2.810847e-5 weeks <br />6.4685e-6 months <br /> to 8.4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> as shown by 17 your graph, this is obviously reducing the margin of
! 18 safety. How can they go ahead and do this, and I'm 19 sure what they're doing they're shortening the time, 20 shortening the time to, well, the entire refueling and o
- 21 their off load, from the time they shut down to off G 22 load that's what's increasing or decreasing the time to s
ib 23 boiling, just a question, how can you reduce the safety 24 margin without having an unreviewed safety question as l POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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() U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I FEBRUARY 5, 1997 j t
1 required by 10 CFR 159? I mean, it's obvious you're 2 reducing the safety margin here and I've never heard of 3 this come up as a unreviewed safety question and the i 4 same thing is occurring here at Millstone because time 1 5 of boiling has decreased with going from one-third to ;
6 full core off-load and the time that they've moved or l
7 conducted the full core off-load.
8 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, you have several l 9 questions and I would like to address them as I recall 10 they came through. The first question or first subject g 11 was that of the frequency. The data that exists on y rN 12 loss of inventory events in the United States basically- )
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L 13 is what we've shown you. There is that . frequency and i l
14 that's on the order of one foot or more. Now the 15 maximum loss of water was on the order of five feet, 16 ten feet. You don't have anything higher than that.
17 To get the points which you're alluding to of a loss of l
I 18 inventory down to the point where it goes below the
'l '
19 level of a fuel is a totally different number where we 20 do not have any data that can be extrapolated using any
'O 21 mathematics that are available today that will give you l
22 any meaningful number that you can go ahead and build l
I 23 upon. So from that standpoint you're comparing apples a
t 24 and oranges. This is the beginning of the problem.
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19 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O 888au^av s. 1997 l l
1 The second problem, as you said, the NRC 2 has not done any calculation on the consequences of the 3 total loss of fluid inventory. That is incorrect.
4 There was an analysis done many years ago by Brookhaven
'5 National Lab. I think it was called NUREG-1353. That 6 particular analysis addressed that particular problem.
7 It came up with some answers. Basically the conclusion 8 from the study was the likelihood of it happening are 9 extremely small. The consequences are extremely large.
10 However, you can't multiply infinity times one over 11 infinity and get a meaningful number. As we envision, 12 we can go so far with that analysis, which is the 13 analysis that you say you want to have done but it has 1
14 been done. We can't get anywhere with it.
15 What we're doing here is we're looking 16 at the actual operating experience. We are reporting i 17 to the NRC and the world what has happened. We have l
! 18 gone ahead and looked at the root causes of the events.
I 19 We've tried to go ahead and characterize them, come up 20 with practices and things that can be done to at a O
21 minimal from the standpoint that resources get a b
[ 22 maximum return and have a very big impact on reducing 23 the risk of the likelihood of such an event occurring.
24 There is no doubt that the consequences are very, very O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
20 gg U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( ,/. FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 bad. However, we can't work too far with that other 2 than say we understand it.
3 But, on the other hand, there's a great 4 deal that can be done to improve the reactor safety by 5 going ahead and working with the people at the plants 6 and getting them to understand what the issues are and ,
7 what easier things can be done. In particular, our 1 8 report talks about a probabalistic risk assessment that 9 was done to the Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant, which 10 is a two unit boiling water reactor at our station in 11 Pennsylvania. At that particular plant the types of
(~) 12 improvements that Mr. Ibarra mentioned have been able
. %)
13 to reduce the risk by almost a order of magnitude by 14 improvement of the procedures, improvement of the 15 source of electrical power, and improvement of training 16 the operators and also I think there was a third thing 4
17 but basically this is the type of information that is
! 18 being reported by us. Our report is going to be 1
19 distributed in many different ways. The NRC is 20 presently looking at the issue of spent fuel pools and o
21 essentially it's our belief that the types of k
22 information that we've been able to show which, and if l
23 implemented, will indeed drive down the likelihood of 24 such an event.
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i 21 I U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O raa*uiar s. 1992 i
1 Now, again, you must recognize l that in l 2 order to have a problem at a nuclear power plant you i i 3 have to go beyond just starting to boil. I'm not sure j 4 how many people recognize this but' to heat up water l 1
t j 5 from rote temperature up to boiling takes a certain 1 j 6 . amount of energy. To go ahead and eliminate the water 7 from the standpoint of boiling it takes ten . times as I
) 8 many BTUs or energy units per pound to get to that j 9 _ point. So if we're just talking about a loss of t
10 cooling-where the water is boiling off, it takes many 11 times more energy and
!} units of time to actually 12 eliminate the water. So if it takes you, say, eight l .. 13 hours to start to boil the water, it will -- you can
! 14 envision it may take you 80 hours to actually remove 15 all the water by boiling.
l l 16 However, the issue of inventory loss l
17 still remains and from our study it appears that the I 18 loss of inventory is a -- can be a large contributor.
!I
-19 In fact, the analysis that we have done showed that
! 20 there was like a 25-fold increase in the likelihood of iO 21 such a type of phenomenon -- and essentially the thrust l l
- l. 22 of our work, which has been provided to the Nuclear l l
23 Regulatory Commission in which future work or shall I l 24 say. there is a rule that's expected out shortly on
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() U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 shutdown cooling which will include spent fuel pool, 2 the conclusion that we're coming to is that the issue 3
3 of inventory loss is going to be now elevated to the 4 level of an area that will be worked on as opposed to 5 the way it has been before as being disregarded as not 6 a likely item.
7 MR. BLANCHE: Yes. I'd just briefly 8 like to respond and, again, I'm not criticizing your 9 report. I agree with the conclusions of the report and 10 I have for the many, well, for the past few years g 11 contended loss of inventory obviously does have very
{} 12 severe consequences and has an unknown, unstated i 13 probability of occurrer.ce . We know it's a finite 14 occurrence and I commend you for continuing to study 15 it. Again, you did reference NUREG-1353. It's been 16 acknowledged by the NRC staff that that is outdated and 17 severely deficient in its projection of consequences of I 18 an accident and that's also something that needs to be I
39 redone. So I urge you to continue the work and I urge 20 you to quantify or attempt to quantify or estimate the o
= 21 probability and to reduce that prooability of a loss of I
l 22 inventory however it could occur and there are many 23 different ways.
24 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, once again, the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 m
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1 important thing with risk is a multiplication
, of the-2 likelihood of an event times the consequences of an l 3 event. Now you're focusing on the consequences of the f
3- 4 event and from our standpoint that, indeed, is
] 5 important but the likelihood of the event is something 6 that we have a more meaningful handle on and we can
! 7 feel that we have more control on it. We feel that by !
s 8 going ahead and alerting the utilities to this 9 particular weakness and other weaknesses that are 10 associated with the plant that hadn't been recognized-g 11 before if the utilities work in these areas as has been 12 done in other areas that my office have revealed as
(-))
13 being potential problems that no one paid attention to 14 previously, the safety significance of the event will 15 go down because there will be a lower likelil'"ou of it 16 occurring. We've got more of a grasp on preventing the 17 accident than to go ahead and focus on the dire
! 18 consequences.
1 19 MS. SUSAN PERRY LUXTON: My name is 20 Susan Perry Luxton from Waterford, Connecticut. I'm a !
O
~ 21 lifelong resident here and I'm a member of a citizens 1
'22 group called the Citizens Regulatory Commission, and
-l b .23 your name is what?
24 DR. ORNSTEIN: Dr. Harold Ornstein.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
24 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MS. LUXTON: Hi. Hi, Dr. Ornstein.
2 Well, you know, there are some assumptions I assume 3 you're using to make these reports and that is that the 4 utility or the licensee has all the spent fuel pool 5 systems in compliance with their license and FSAR and 6 all that, right? Are we assuming that?
7 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, actually, that's 8 not a very good assumption mainly because the range --
9 our analysis was done based on operating experience and l 10 actual performance of the plant. We did not for the I g 11 plant that we looked at get into the issue as to
,a ,
12 whether or not there was full compliance with all the I 13 details of the license. Our analysis was what exists 1
^
l 14 and how the particular plant operates.
15 The thing I have to address'is the fact 16 that not each plant has the same set of licensed i i
17 conditions. There's a wide range of plants from the ;
, I 18 first ones to the most recent ones that were built.
I 19 What we find is there's a wide spectrum of equipment i'
, 20 that is there, there's a wide range of requirements and l0
< 21 the equipment that is available to the newer plants l-j 22 appears to be much better than that in the original b 23 plants.
1 24 However, many years ago there was a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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i 1 program in the early 80's to look at the oldest plants 2 and to try to see what kind of situation exists from i L
3 the standpoint of reactor safety.and how those plants l l
- 4 stack up to the newer ones that were building built and 5 .that program, called the SEP Program, looked at'the I 6 issue of the real hardware-and the real way the plants 7 were operating more so than looking at th9 specific j 8 licensing requirements. They were looking at the 9 functionality of the systems as opposed to the pedigree 10 of the systems. And, you know, it's very difficult to l
11 say, hey, this particular plant does not meet. its
{} 12 licensing condition, therefore, it's no good. It goes 13 beyond that..
14 In fact, the study that we did was a L
15 generic study. We tried to go ahead and characterize 16 all the events that occurred. We were able to look at 17 a particular plant to look at the detail that that
! 18 plant had and it was operating under. Unfortunately, 1
19 what we've done is for a particular plant, which is 20 that particular plant.
, O l'aj. 21 The next step is going to be to i
- j. '22 characterize how the other plants are and each one will
> b 23 have to be looked at in its own light and one of the l 24 things that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is doing
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1 at this point is as part of its Spent Fuel Pool Program l 2 they're -- or should I say the Shutdown Risk Program is 3 looking at eight of the plants that appear to have some !
4 signii'icant problems along the lines of what we 5 addressed in our report and those particular plants are !
l 6 going to be looked upon from the standpoint of a 7 regulatory analysis to see whether or nct the situation j 8 is such that it's so severe that certain issues must be 9 corrected in order to go ahead and give the people the :
10 level of safety that they think is appropriate.
l l
11 lg So it's an individual plant has to be 12 looked at as on its own and what we have done here is l 13 we've looked at the big picture and we've focused on a 14 particular plant. So what you've seen is just the 15 beginning of the story.
16 MS. LUXTON: How did I know you worked 17 for the NRC?
! 18 DR. ORNSTEIN: I have no idea.
1 19 MS. LUXTON: You ask a simple question 20 and you get an answer that's -- I appreciate your O
21 answer and I learned a lot from the answer but I just
[ . j" -
22 wanted a simple answer to that question.
l 23 DR. ORNSTEIN: It's not a simple 24 question, that's the problem.
s G
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i 27 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MS. LUXTON: Okay. Well, here's what 2 I'm dealing with. I'm concerned with these plants in 3 my town for right now, okay.
4 DR. ORNSTEIN: Okay. Now we're talking.
5 MS. LUXTON: Let's talk about these 6 plants, not the rest of the plants around the country.
7 DR. ORNSTEIN: Understood.
8 MS. LUXTON: So if we're assuming that l 9 with this statistics you're showing us, now you threw 10 me totally off on my question, really, after listening g 11 to you because, you see, our plants haven't been in
(-)
V 12 compliance with their license and their FSAR. Our 13 plants have people running them that don't follow l 14 procedures. Our plants have --
they are not in 15 compliance even as we speak, okay, and correct me if l l
16 I'm wrong on that. I'd like to be wrong on that but--
17 Now, I just happen to look at an 5 18 inspection report from December 3rd and look what this 1-19 says. This is under Operations, it's the Executive ir 20 Summary, and it's Inspection --
Combined Inspection o
- 21 245-9608. Okay. (Indiscernible) at Unit 1 and this is b
22 what we've been concerned with and that's why this came l
b 23 up was because of the Unit 1 spent fuel pool issue.
24 That's how our group got involved with the unloading of POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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28 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
()' FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 a full core in less time than was supposedly in their 2 license, they violated their license and that's why we 3 first asked for a loss of inventory assessment risk 4 analysis which we thought you were going to be 5 providing for us this evening but which you didn't. l 6 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Ms. Luxton?
7 MS. LUXTON: What?
8 CHAIRMAN LANNING: We would ask you to 1
9 limit your question to those studies. )
10 MS. LUXTON: Well, I am limiting my g 11 question. If he can answer like that, I can ask like 12 this, Mr. Lanning, okay? So now here's what I'm
(~} 1 13 reading. Can you hear me? I'm reading this, Dr.
14 Ornstein. "The failure to promptly address two 15 potentially safety significant issues indicates a lack 16 of a questioning attitude by the Unit 1 staff. The i
17 issues concerned a fuel bundle that was found not fully j k 18 seated in the spent fuel pool rack and the handling of I !
- _ 19 the cracked fuse -- problem. Furthermcre, the failure Ir 20 of the management review team to insure the appropriate O
l 21 sensitivity and response to these issues indicates poor ,
'b 22 management oversight of emergent issues. The delays in l j 23 processing adverse condition reports creates additional i
24 vulnerabilities that could prevent the prompt O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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1 assessment of safety significant issues. The continued 2 identification of discrepant conditions in the spent 3 fuel pool indicates the need to accelerate the 4 evaluation portion of the spent fuel pool cleanup 5 recovery plan."
6 Okay. Now my point is, I'm trying to 7 make a point here and the point is you said the NRC is R
8 being stronger on the --
and vigilant on their 9 enforcing of their regulations at the plants and so we i 10 don't expect to see this kind of an accident but I 11 think, Dr. Ornstein, you have to understand where we in r~ 12 the public are coming from. We don't see the NRC ts 13 enforcing those rules that you say they're doing. We 14 don't see that hcre. I don't see it anyway. When I 15 read reports like this, this is an NRC report, okay, on 16 Millstone I and Millstone II is just the same. It's 17 even worse on Millstone II some of the reports. So I
! 18 don't know what my question is. I guess I just wanted i: 19 to make a comment. I'm totally confused now.
Ir 20 Well, I'm sorry you're DR. ORNSTEIN:
O
= 21 confused at this point but let me try to address the b
22 nub of -- what I think is the nub of your question.
l I b 23 acknowledge the fact you're reading from an inspection 24 report that I am tangentially connected with. I've O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
30 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 read many inspection reports. I'm not intimately 2 familiar with that particular one.
3 However, if you read our report or the 4 view graphs that Mr. Ibarra put on the screen for you 5 earlier, you'll recognize the point that from the AF0D 6 study we indicate that the most important thing is 7 operator performance and procedures. That, No. 1, 1
8 procedures be in place and, 2, that the people know how l 9 to do -- how to use them, know what they are.
10 I think we're both heading in the same 11 direction. It's my contention, my feeling that this l l
12 is, indeed, what is happening. The type of thing that 13 you have read from is on the decline. I think that we 14 are going in the opposite direction. I think that the 15 thrust of our study shows the importance of going ahead 16 and having the operators know what to do and do it 17 right and I think we're all coming from the same point. 1
! 18 MS. LUXTON: We all want the same thing. !
l: 19 DR. ORNSTEIN: And, you know, basically ir 20 I cannot argue or present the case for Millstone but o
= 21 basically what I've seen in my visit to the plant and b
j 22 what I've seen in other inspection reports indicate b 23 that there are many areas in the spent fuel pool where 24 there have indeed been weaknesses, not necessarily in O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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t 31 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O 888aunar s. 1997 i
i
- 'l the person weaknesses but in the designs which are i ?
j 2 being fixed. So the thing is I think we're going in [
3 the direction. I can't--
4 MS. LUXTON: What about the person !
5 weaknesses? What about the following procedure l {
t 6 weaknesses? This is a December inspection report. !
- 7 DR. ORNSTEIN
- Okay. I can turn this to i
- 8 the inspection people in front about it but I do 9 recognize the fact that it is, indeed, an important
. 10 area and, in fact, if you're reading about it in an NRC .
9 i
-11 report and what happens as a result of that means it's '
12 going to go in a better direction, it's not going to 1 13 get worse. i 14 MR. MARK HALLOWAY: My name is Mark i
15 Halloway. I'm a member of the Nuclear NG Advisory
{
j 16 Council. I'm also a member of the CRC. I live in East 17 Niantic, Connecticut. Any cor.ments , st M ements,
! 18 observations or blasphemous rumors I might throw out 19 tonight are mine and mine only and I don't attempt to 20 represent NEAC or CRC. .j O
=
21 When you did this analysis, did you l
22 include the 15 plants in the United States l that have j b 23 been decommissioned?
24 DR. ORNSTEIN: Apparently not.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
32 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O 888au^nr s. 1997 1 MR. HALLOWAY: Are you aware that out of 2 the 15 plants in the U.S. that have been decommissioned 3 14 of them with the possible exception of Three Mile d
4 Island, which I believe is undergoing its removal of 5 its fuel rods now, contains spent fuel pools?
6 DR. ORNSTEIN: Yes.
7 MR. IBARRA: Yes.
8 MR. HALLOWAY: You are. Why weren't 9 these part of this analysis?
10 DR. ORNSTEIN: Basically the risk that ;
11 one gets from spent fuel pool decreases as the fuel has 12 been sitting after it was in the reactor. Basically 13 post irradiation, the products of decay and radio-14 nuclides and whatever is in the fuel is dropping 15 drastically or the risk from the products have 16 decreased in time and the big concern is the failure of !
17 fuel that has just been in the reactor and taken out
! 18 during the refueling process; or in the case of i - 19 Susquehanna, the fuel that's in the reactor that is 20 operating adjacent to the reactor that is undergoing )
O
= 21 the spent fuel problem. So it's the--
I g 22 MR. HALLOWAY: Let me interrupt for just b 23 a second. I believe that there's still highly 24 irradiated material in these pools and that none of POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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33 ;
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ;
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i
- 1 these plants have been decommissioned for long enough {
i 2 to make this material. harmless.
1 3 DR. ORNSTEIN: I'm not really sure that
, 4 that statement is correct.
5 MR. HALLOWAY: Are you familiar with the 6 San Onofre Plant out in California?
7 DR. ORNSTEIN: Unit 1, yes. Mr. Ibarra 8 worked there.
9 MR. HALLOWAY: Okay, and that spent fuel 10 pool currently is leaking, is that true?
E 11 MR. IBARRA: Yes.
12 DR. ORNSTEIN: That's correct. I 13 believe it's an extremely small leak, yes.
14 MR. HALLOWAY: But there's tritium 15 entering the ground water and moving on a plume towards 16 the beach which is approximately 200 feet away?
17 DR. ORNSTEIN: I'm familiar with the I 18 beach. I can't tell you about the tritium values. j
- 19 MR. HALLOWAY
- Well, what I'm getting at 20 with all this is that these plants do have material :
o )
= 21 which is dangerous to the environment, to the health of 3
,j 22 people, and that if you're going-to do an analysis of b 23 spent fuel pools, I think you should factor in the l
24 plants that have been decommissioned because they all
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4 1 have spent fuel pools which have material.
2 DR. ORNSTEIN: Excuse me. As far as 3 decommissioned reactors go, I was at the Dresden 4 Nuclear Power Plant I believe it was in January of 1 2
5 1994. I was at a different plant as part of the j 6 Augmented Inspection Team looking at a 'different f
7 problem. The Dresden Nuclear Power Plant, Dresden 1, )
8 had been decommissioned and essentially'it had been 9 almost abandoned and what happened was there was a very :
1
- a. 10 cold snap and there was a potential for freezing of a ;
2 11 pipe which could have gone ahead and created a l
{} 11 2 13 situation where you have a -- pathway which would have been very significant problem.
14 MR. HALLOWAY: It did rupture, 55,000 15 gallons--
l
- 16 DR. ORNSTEIN
- I'm not sure what the
- i. 17 numbers are but if it did rupture, it would have been a I 18 very important event of great concern. In fact, the I 19 resident inspector's office would have been very badly
' ')r 20 affected and it would have been impossible for people O
4 21 to go in and out of the nuclear power plant and the two 1.
22 operating reactors had the event occurred.
ll
[ 23 But the point that I'm driving at is j i
l 24 this, as a result of the Dresden event there was a
- POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
35 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 great deal of activity in the licensing part of NRC and 2 inspection wide and each of the decommissioned plants 3 at that time underwent a very significa set of 4 inspections and a great deal of work was done in order 5 to look at the specific problems associated with those 6 reactors and their spent fuel pools and, to my 7 recollection, there was a great deal of effort that was 8 put into it and there were a very significant number of 9 modifications that were done at those particular plants 10 in order to alleviate many of the problems that would 11 have existed had they not have paid attention to it. I 12 think that the types of things that you would be 13 interested in having done have been done as a result of l 4
14 that particular exercise. Our j ob--
15 MR. HALLOWAY: But not included in your 16 study.
17 DR. ORNSTEIN: Our job was to look at k 18 the operating reactors under the assumption that the 1 19 the decommissioned
- shutdown reactors or should I say j 20 reactors were already being focused on by other people.
O
= 21 So it's not that there's no concern but the concern has l
22 been raised previously and people have done work on it.
l b 23 Our work is for the fleet of reactors that are out 24 there in which we believe something should be looked at l O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
36 7 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 and done.
2 MR. IBARRA: Yes, when we say we didn't 3 look at that, that's -- let me clarify that. We were l 4 looking at operational data. While those reactors were 5 operating, we would have looked. If that data was 6 available and it had a leak, we would have included it.
7 MR. HALLOWAY: But this would change 8 your frequency of coolant loss projections, correct?
l 9 MR. IBARRA: No , no, no. We're looking 10 at 12 years no matter where it comes from. It just, l g 11 you know, like if an operator was shut down, you know, Q
V 12 we -- looking at that. We covered 12 years. Whatever 13 plants were operating within 12 years it's captured. l l
14 DR. ORNSTEIN: I think the correct i
15 statement is that the plants that are now 16 decommissioned have not been looked at as part of the 17 study, however, if there was an event that had occurred
! 18 at one of those plants during those periods of years
- 19 that we looked at, it would have shown up, i
e 20 MR. HALLOWAY: Just in conclusion, we O
- 21 don't really have a consequential conclusion as far as l[ 22 this. When you talk about risk being measured by b 23 probability times consequences, you discuss the risk.
24 When we ask about consequences, you really haven't --
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- U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 that question has not been answered by this study, has 2 it, of the total loss of inventory?
3 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, the consequences 4 are looked at, however, the question is where on the 5 consequence curve are you talking. That is, in the 6 particular case of the probabalistic risk assessment 7 for Susquehanna, we took a very careful look at the 8 situation. The conclusion that we came to was this, if 9 you go ahead and approach what's looked upon as the 10 frequency of near boiling, once you start to boil g 11 there's a wide multitude of things that can be done 12 before you get to the point of damaging fuel. There 13 are many mitigative techniques that can be taken. The 14 assessment by us and other people who are considered 15 experts in this area was that you have a very great 16 likelihood of being able to reverse this event to 17 prevent it from getting to the breaking of fuel so that !
I 18 it will basically wind up giving a risk which is 1 19
- significantly less than that which would occur if you 20 had a loss of cooling event or other power events.
O
= 21 But basically looking at the I
g 22 consequences of starting to boil, there's a great deal 23 of many things that can occur to mitigate it so that 24 you don't get to your final conclusion of damaged fuel O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
38 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION f,_ ) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 and the assessment is when you multiply the two 2 together, you're going to come up with something 3 significantly less than the worse combination of events 4 and reactors as their operation.
5 MR. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
6 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let's get a question 7 from someone who hasn't asked a question. Bear with 8 us. We'll get back to you. This lady here.
9 MS. JEAN PEABODY: Jean Peabody. I 1
10 heard you when you said it decreases as it sits, you !
g 11 very rightly said, oh, it decreases as it sits once we 12 put the fuel to bed. What decreases and what are the
)
13 times and speeds it takes these things that are going 14 to decrease? ,
2 15 DR. ORNSTEIN: Basically there are a 16 large number of radio-nuclides that are associated with ,
l 17 the fuel. Each of them has a different half life. The l ! 18 different radio-nuclides have different effects on i
19 different parts of the body and basically the most l 20 important ingredient that we have here is that in time l
o l
= 21 the presence of these particular radio-nuclides 1 I
22 decreases and if you have a reactor that's been shut
'_l
! 23 down for five years or ten years, the amount -- first 24 of all, the amount of heat that would be generated by O POST REPORTING SERVICE
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39 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 the fuel in the reactor would be so small that you 2 would not be generating the heat to boil off the water. l 3 So you'd just have a case of inventory loss. You don't 4 have a combination of steam coming off which would 5 cause a problem for people inhabiting the area to 6 mitigate the event and essentially time is working on 7 your side as the reactor sits there for a longer period 8 of time.
9 MS. PEABODY: What are the things that 10 are not decreasing? What'd you tell me aren't i
2 11 decreasing, you know, where all this is going to stay 1
$ 1
(')
(>
12 for a thousand years, this won't dissipate even for ,
l 4
13 20,000 years, when you say it's going to go away as it 14 sits, it's going to lessen as it sits? I jotted down l l
15 the other night reading an article most of the 16 radioisotopes in high level waste has short lives but s 17 high level waste still emit hazardous amounts of beta l I 18 and gamma rays for 500 to a thousand years and their
- 19 alpha-radiation remains a potent hazard for thousands 20 of years.
4 O
= 21 DR. ORNSTEIN: What I think you have to j X
g 22 do is take a--
l 23 MS. PEABODY: Have I got it wrong?
24 VOICES: (Inaudible.)
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40 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( )) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l
1 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Wait a second.
2 MS. PEABODY: I'm underestimating it. !
3 CHAIRMAN LANNING: One at a time, one at 4 a time.
5 DR. ORNSTEIN: I think we have to look 6 at the spectrum, that is, we have a different amount of 7 each of the components and if you look at the damaged ;
i 8 fuel or the fuel in the reactor, you'll find that the i 9 quantities of the very long lived items is not as i
10 significant as the others that are detained more l l
11 rapid'.y.
/G 12 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let me try to--
k.)
13 MS. PEABODY: Well, it's too bad you 14 couldn't have explained that to us at the same time you 15 said that as it sits it decreases because it sounded 16 good to me but I know it's not true. Okay.
17 CHAIRMAN LANNING: You're talking
! 18 consequences, Hal, right, you're talking consequences 1
- 19 versus time?
I r 20 DR. ORNSTEIN: Yes.
O
- 21 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let me try to l
22 interpret in simple terms. What he caid was the l
b 23 consequences due to the stored fuel decreases with time 24 given in each particular event. There will always be O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
41 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O rzanu^av s. 1997 1 radioactive material in those fuel rods, in that pool, 2 as long as they're there. It's just that the source 3 term that's used to calculate the consequences, if you 4 'take all the inventory that's in that pool and disperse 5 it somehow, those consequences decreases versus time, 6 the energy does.
7 '
, A VOICE: Can you explain the -- in that 8 context--
9 VOICES: (Inaudible.)
10 CHAIRMAN LANNING: As time goes by the 11 amount of heat stored in the spent fuel pool decreases, p 12 it decays off with time and therefore it takes longer, O
13 for example, to boil the water in the pool because the 14 energy is reduced. Okay?
15 MS. PEABODY: Thank you.
16 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Does that help? '
17 MS. PEABODY: Not much.
k 18 MR. JACQUE DURR: Let me take a shot.
I 19 Let me take a shot at it, see if I can help a little 20 bit. Do another tranrlation for you. There's two O
- 21 components here. The problem with a nuclear power ,
j 22 plant is that when you shut it off, it doesn't shut b 23 off. Okay? It's like when you turn the knobs off on 24 your stove, the heat goes away. When you shut off a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 J
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)
42 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 nuclear power plant, it's still there and it decays 2 over time. It's a gradual thing and that's the enemy i
3 here is the heat. All nuclear power plants the big !
4 deal is keep them cool. Keep water on them to take i 5 care of that heat. So now what he's just been l 6 describing to you is loss of inventory, we don't want 7 to lose the water, that's what we're worried about, l 8 okay? )
9 Now the stuff t 1're talking about 10 is what's causing the heat and it's the radioactive 11 that's in those fuel rods decaying over time to 12 generate this heat. So the part that you're worried 13 about is if we boil away all the water on the fuel rods 14 that are in the spent fuel pool, it melts the fuel rods 15 and now this stuff can get out and it's the i 16 radioactivity that you're worried about but all he's 17 been talking about all along is taking care of the heat I 18 so that you never get to that. Does that help? Not I
19 much, I'm sorry.
20 CHAIRMAN LANNING: That's a good try.
l 0*
! 21 All right. Next question. Rosemary.
Ib ,
22 MS. ROSEMARY BASSILAKIS: Rosemary l I 23 Bassilakis. I'm with the Citizens Awareness Network.
24 I live in Haddam. I live one mile from the Haddam Neck POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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43 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Nuclear facility. You talk about boiling and the i
2 energy needed to boiling the water but how about if l 3 there's a seismic event that cracks significantly a i 4 fuel pool? You don't need boiling in that case to lose 5 inventory and, you know, like the one out in California '
6 where we now have leaking going on, the Songs facility. '
7 Should there be a seismic event, we don't know exactly l l 8 how, you know, fatigued the walls are at this point, I 9 mean, we could have a crack that opens up and you lose l
10 water, you know, at a significant rate. So I just 11 would like to -- I don't necessarily want you to l (~} 12 comment, I just want you to consider losing inventory i \~/
- 13 in a way other than boiling.
l 14 MR. IBARRA: If there's one thing that l
i 15 the pools have in their favor is that is the pools l
l 16 themselves are seismic qualified. So that aspect has i
l 17 been sort of taken care of. Now in our analysis you'll I 18 find that one of the corrections we made was seismic, i
.E l
g 19 the latest information that we had on the frequency of ,
i l l 20 earthquakes. Okay. So without a doubt, you know, in
!O
= 21 case you were in the very low probability of having an
! l 22 earthquake, you could lose inventory but that would be l
b 23 very, very small. From all the analysis, and we're 4
24 talking about the National Laboratories doing some of
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
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{
- e 1 theseLstudies. We folded that into our assessments. ;
2 MS. BASSILAKIS: They're seismically
\
3 qualified when they're built, however, you know, 30 i j 4 -years later, you know, there's degradation that goes l,
l 4
5 on. For example, a reactor vessel is built in a way l 1
i 6
- x 6 that it can handle heat-up and cool-down cycles and 7 many, many of them but over time you're going to reach 8 a point 'where if you cool it too quick and it's ;
i
- 9 embrittled, it's going to shatter like glass. So, you j 10 know,- as-built doesn't necessarily, you know, the
}
'. 5 11 qualifications of when it's built doesn't necessarily I
12 hold up 30 years later. So I do want to put that out.
(
- 13 DR. ORNSTEIN: Actually, I think you're 14 talking --
you're mixing up , you know, initiating i
i 15 events.
t' 16 MS. BASSILAKIS: I'm not mixed up at a
17 .all.
!I 18 DR. ORNSTEIN: Excuse me. What you are iI -
19 doing is you are mixing oranges and apples. The vessel !
j_
i~
h i 20 j E- embrittlement is one problem. Seismic capability is iO I e 21 another problem. I'd also like to address something l l
l g 22 where I think there may be a misrepresentation of the l b1 23 facts.
\' 24 The leakage that has taken place at the
- (:) '
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45 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O rE8aUxRY 5 1997 -
1 San Onofre Plant is extremely small. We're talking on 2 the order of gallons a day or less. We're not talking 3 about the huge break where you're going to lose 4 thousands and thousands of gallons in an hour. You 5 have to recognize that part of the problem associated 6 with spent fuel pools is the fact that you have i
7 capability to mitigate the event. If you have a one 8 gallon an hour leak, it's something where you can make S up the water and not worry about going ahead and ,
10 damaging the fuel. You have to get this all in proper 11 perspective. So from that standpoint it's important to 12 not (indiscernible) what the leaking pool is out in 13 California. ,
y 14 The other issue, there are several other 15 issues but the one that I wanted to mention is in 16 recent years work has been done in seismic analysis 17 which has indicated that some of the previous analyses
! 18 were overly conservative and basically there is a great
- 19 deal more margin and greater strength to equipment than-20 had previously been estimated from these nuclear
'O
- 21 reactors and other equipment. In tact, if you take a
.ll
-p 22 look at the results of the Colby Earthquake and the b 23 effect upon nuclear power plants, you'll find that the 24 damage was much, much less in the field of nuclear j O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
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I 46 ;
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l( ) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l 1
4 4
1 power plants than was anticipated. If we looked at all ,
2 sorts of earthquakes that have been occurring on i L 3 'various non-nuclear power plants,.we find the-same i 4 thing. The equipment is much more rugged than we had ,
5 given them credit for. jc 6 So it's not a situation where things are 7 really going to hell in a hand-basket. Actually, i 8 additional research and additional data has shown us 4 9 that things are much better than what we had 10 anticipated. So I'll leave you with that thought.
g 11 MS. BASSILAKIS: I don't know how to say !
{} 12 13 this except that usually when people make decisions in their lives they like to know both and they like to 14 know what the consequence might be of something !
15 happening as well as the frequency and I think that's a 16 very good way of looking at something and to multiply !
1 17 -things together can be very obscuring. I 1
! 18 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, I--
I-19 MS. BASSILAKIS: I don't want you to
)j lr 20 comment, seriously, I just want to put this out. And r
i 13 I
- - 21 the other thing I want to say is the fact that you b
22 -can't tell us what would happen if there was a total l '
23 loss of inventory in a fuel pool is just an example, 24 another example of how this whole nuclear industry is ;
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47 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 an experiment. And that's all.
2 DR. ORNSTEIN: Well, I won't answer your 3 questions but I would like to make a couple of points.
4 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Thank you, Rosemary.
5 Next question.
6 MR. GEORGE VACHRIS: Yes. My name is 7 George Vachris. I'm an engineer at Electric Boat.
8 I've only been out here about a year and a half in 9 Waterford but I really love the town, it's a beautiful 10 town and people out here have been very good, I've made 11 a few friends. I do have a few questions I want to r' 12 ask, maybe a few observations.
C) 13 You mentioned before, I'm very bad at 14 remembering names, but you mentioned before something I 15 about the energy required to boil water. I'd just like l
16 to throw a few figures ouc at the audience. I hope the ;
i 17 numbers don't go over their head. The specific empolpy !
18 (phonetic) of water at 100 degrees fahrenheit is 69.7 l
8
- 19 British thermal units per pound. At boiling it's 180.1 i
e 20 British thermal units per pound. So it's got to have 0
- 21 an energy increase of about three times just to get to g 22 boiling from a very, very hot pool to begin with. The
$ 23 energy at vaporization is then 970.3 British thermal 24 units per pound. So what you say about ten times b ,
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48
()
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 boiling is about correct. just I wanted to verify 1
2 that.
3 Another thing I wanted to mention is i
4 that as I understand it, the tubes for the fuel rods 5 are made of zirconium alloy, ASTMB 353 material and 6 the--
7 A VOICE: (Inaudible.)
8 MR. VACHRIS: Okay. Now isn't the 9 melting temperature of uranium dioxide 5,144 degrees?
10 A VOICE: Yes.
11 MR. VACHRIS: So it would have to get
{} 12 13 that hot to have a real melt down, right?
MR. IBARRA: Yes. i l
14 MR. VACHRIS: And this power plant is I 15 within walking distance of the beach, right, and 16 zirconium is one of the most resistant metals to 17 saltwater corrosion known? So how can you have
! 18 boiling? How can it happen? Does anyone know?
19 Let me ask you one other question, how 20 many of you who are residents of Waterford want your O
- 21 taxes to go up three or four times? You do.
H
@ 22 A VOICE: I do, yes.
a b 23 MR. VACHRIS: One. Okay. I don't. You 24 do.
(%
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49 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 A VOICE: For what reason?
2 MR. VACHRIS: Because if Millstone is 3 closed that's what'll happen to your tax break.
4 VOICES: (Inaudible.)
5 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Excuse me, wait, 6 wait, wait, wait.
7 MR. VACHRIS: I moved here, I 8 volunteered to move here.
9 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Wait a minute. Are !
10 you finished with your question? You all done?
}e 11 MR. VACHRIS: I think I'm done, yes.
i 12 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Thank you very much.
13 Next question.
14 MR. JOHN MARKOWICZ: Mr. Markowicz. I 15 think I'm on. I think the explanation that was trying 16 to -- passed out earlier regarding boiling, the point 17 that should be made is that decay heat, which is what I '8 you were addressing, causes the water to boil and I
- 19 therefore the amounts of energy just previously 20 discussed. Decay heat is decay heat, it decays, and it o
a 21 decays very rapidly in the spent fuel pool and that l
l 22 rapidness is mentioned in days and weeks, not in b 23 decades as in the decay of radioactivity, and so the 24 point that was made earlier about the highest risk O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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1 1 occurs when the fuel is being moved or has just moved i 2 into the pool until a couple weeks pass is a valid 1
! 3 point. I think my reactor theory is accurate, is that? ,
4 Well, okay. That was the point I was trying to make 5 because I think Ms. Peabody's question earlier she was 6 confused because we had radiation and we had decay heat 7 and we had to separate them and we had to present risk i
8 in terms of heat and heat loss and those issues. i 9 That's a statement. I have two questions.
10 What happens with the result of the g 11 report specifically with respect to the implementation
{} 12 13 of a plan of action Regulatory Commission to in milestones upgrade spent by the fuel pools Nuclear in 14 those three areas: procedures, training, 15 instrumentation and electricity, back-up electricity 16 because clearly you had four areas? Clearly, you l 17 identified four areas where there is a substantial
! 18 payoff in the reducing risk by making step improvements 1 19
- in those areas and it begra the question, where do we go ir 20 from here and what is the schedule for doing that?
O
= 21 That's the first question and if you'd answer that, h
22 I've got one other question, l
b 23 DR. ORNSTEIN: Basically as part of the ,
- 24 introduction Mr. Lanning mentioned AEOD, our office, is j POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
51 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1
1 not licensing, we're not inspection, we're not 2 enforcement. We're basically the operating experience 3 people. We're going ahead and we're giving a objective 4 list of observations from the operating experience. If 5 we had it our way, we would go ahead and make sure that
! 6 this was done at each of the power plants but we're not 7 in licensing and we're not the commission. So what we 8 have done is we have made a presentation to the 9 commissioners and we've explained to them what we found 1
10 and what we believed should be done. The commission 11 has taken our study under advisement. They're in the 12 process of deliberating exactly what to do.
13 In the meantime, we are doing certain 14 things to go ahead and spread the word and get the i 15 information out so that initially utilities on their 16 own vill go ahead and recognize what's happening and !
17 taxe their own efforts to fix it. Obviously, there'll I 18 be utilities who will see the light of day instantly
- 19 and work on it. There'll be utilities who won't do it 20 until someone makes them do it. This is something that 0
- 21 we can't tell. However, we've prepared a view graph g 22 indicating what the follow-up activities are in this b 23 particular area.
24 Essentially we've addressed the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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t 52 I U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (
U) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 4
1 commission. Actually, Jose gave a very eloquent speech 2 to them on November 14th, I believe. We have prepared 1
3 a notification to go to all the nuclear power plants 4 throughout the country as well as other people in the 5 nuclear community indicating what the report that we've 6 just presented says and disseminate it for all who will i
7 be affected to go ahead and take action. That i l
8 particular information notice will be referencing a '
9 thing called a NUREG Report, which is a Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission publication that has an even 11 wider spread distribution. So it will be readily g
{} 12 available to everyone.
13 The report is also being submitted 14 internationally to people in nuclear power plants all 15 over the world to review this and understand it and 16 take actions accordingly. ;
17 In addition to that, we are working I 18 directly with the licensing people towards the goal of I
- 19 getting some kind of implementation of requirements to i
e 20 do the types of things that we're talking about. The O
= 21 final say, of course, will be that by the commission.
g 22 We are working with Nuclear Regulatory -- I'm sorry, b 23 NRR, the licensing people to prepare a input to a rule 24 that addresses requirements for shut down.
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53 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 As I said earlier, in the nuclear 2 industry we've been going through a very Jong tedious 3 evolution. We've learned certain things and we react 4 to them. Some we react to faster than others. My 5 office has been responsible for at least six different 6 areas in which people did not recognize the problem 7 till we came by and talked about it and after many 8 years in some cases and short periods of time on others 9 the agency had acted to put in specific requirements to 10 address the issues that were not recognized until AEOD 11 got involved. l 1
{} 12 So we feel very strongly that there will 13 be something happening in that direction in the l 14 shutdown safety and shutdown risk which the spent fuel 15 pool is part of. The timetable, I can't tell you too 16 much other than the fact the NUREG Report will probably 17 be available within 30 to 45 days. I think the 5 18 information notice will be waiting for that NUREG I
19 Report to come out.
20 The reports on the international arena )
0
< 21 is something that will probably take place within the g 22 same period of time. I personally am making a b 23 presentation at an international conference in front of 24 the French Nuclear --
French Society for Nuclear O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
54 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Engineers, the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers 2 and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 3 Nice in May to present the same type of information 4 that you received today.
5 As far as the amount of time it will 6 take for Nuclear Regulatory -- NRR to enforce or to get 7 a particular implementation for the recommendations, 8 that's a more difficult thing to predict but we're 9 probably talking in the matter of months. Part of the 10 problem is to have a important rule of that nature to 11 become adopted it will require going out for public 12 comment on the proposed rule. The general public, the
)
13 utilities will all be able to comment on the particular 14 issues. There'll be lots of weighing of cost and 15 benefit value impact and at that point it will take 16 many months to really formulate a rule that's 17 acceptable as a consensus document amongst the I 18 regulatory people and the community. S o 19 the bottom line over there is going to be something 20 more on the tune of many months to a year or who knows O
= 21 but this is the direction we're going towards.
1 E 22 MR. MARKOWICZ: Thank you. That helps s
b 23 certainly answer the question a lot. My guess, though, 24 is that the costs for training procedures and the kind A
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55 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 of equipment we're talking about, we're talking 2 millions of dollars for a site. We're talking--
3 DR. ORNSTEIN: I'm sorry, no , actually 4 the equipment -- there are many different pedigree that 5 you can have to equipment. From what we've seen, the 6 biggest payback is going to be on training and 7 procedures which are relatively inexpensive. As far as 8 having a instrument to tell you the water level, that's 9 not all that expensive but to have it qualified and all 10 that is where you start to run up money but the thing 11 is we envision that the things that will improve the
, 12 situation are relatively inexpensive compared to 13 something like putting in an entirely new emergency 14 core cooling system which runs more than the cost of 15 the plant. This is something which is in the noise I 16 think when you start to talk about costs and benefits.
17 MR. MARKOWICZ: Thank you. The second I 18 question, real quick, there are public safety concerns 19 regarding spent fuel pools beyond the water inventory 20 situation and it is driven by the concern that the O
= 21 spent fuel pools may, in fact, become multi-year, I
g 22 measured in decades, inventory repositories for the b 23 fuel in the absence of a national site and the question 24 is from that perspective and the analysis that you've !
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56 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 :
1 -done or maybe could do could you give us a feel for !
2 what is out there that has been done to look l 3 analytically at spent fuel pools for long-term storage '
4 of fuel or what plans might be being considered to look .l l 5 at that or is it outside your sphere of influence and a ;
[. 6 DOE? !
7 DR. ORNSTEIN: Yes and no. It's outside
! 8 our sphere to a certain extent. However, there are 9 things short of a repository and short of spent fuel !
10 pool cont.inuing to be in the form that we see. There 11 ie a thing called dry storage which is done when the 12 fuel has been decaying for a very long period of time 13 and the amount of energy that is required to whatever I i
14 is circulating around the elements is low so that it l
15 can't sit in a. location where it will not require the )
16 constant flow of water to cool down. So that's one of i
17 the ways out. However, you know, this is not really I I 18 what the focus of our attention or my expertise is but I-19 that's some of the alternate solutions.
20 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Okay. Mr. Blanche.
.o
= 21 The reason I hesitated, we want to go on to the I
22 discussion of the contractors.
(}
b 23 MR. BLANCHE: This isn't a question.
- 24 This is more of a -- more or less a statement. Four 1
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! 1 and a half years ago Dave Lochbaum and Don Prevatte 2 identified the potential problems with spent fuel pool.
3 Again, that was four and a half years ago. Little has 4 been done. There's been a lot of paper generated. !
5 However, what I've heard tonight and 6 what I've heard in past NRC meetings, again, we look at 7 risk is the product somehow related to consequences of 8 probability, we already know that the consequences are 9 many times greater than what is presently published, 10 that has been acknowledge, and I think what I'm hearing 11 tonight is with respect to loss of inventory of greater (T 12 than one foot that the probability is also greater than
\_) i 13 what has previously been assumed. It's, again, one in 14 a hundred years or once a year for the hundred 15 reactors.
16 So what we have right now is a risk 17 that's many orders of magnitude higher than originally 5 18 thought and nothing's been done and I think that we 1
- 19 need to get on and do something to get that risk down.
1 t 20 DR. ORNSTEIN: I have to rebut to that O
a 21 even though you said it wasn't a question, it was a l
22 statement, but I'd like to clarify the facts in this l
b 23 case. As Mr. Ibarra mentioned, as part of our study 24 we, Jose and I, went to Kentucky and to New Jersey to POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
58 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
, FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 personally interview Messrs. Lochbaum and Prevatte. We 2 had very long dialogue and it was very worthwhile.
3 The problem is, first of all, you made a 4 statement that nothing has happened and that's far from 5 the truth. Their particular concern was the 6 Susquehanna plant. They had concern about the doses
. 7 that the people would have, they had concern about the 8 heating up of an operating reactor as a result of a 9 spent fuel pool problem. They had concern about the 10 ventilation system and the water that would be g 11 condensing in a standby gas treatment system. They 12 were concerned about water that would go and enter the 13 safety related equipment space and create a problem.
14 Essentially, they're concerned with Susquehanna.
15 Susquehanna made modifications. We have been to the 16 Susquehanna plant, we have seen it, we have se.in the 17 risk analyses that have basically shown that making the 18 improvements that Lochbaum and Prevatte had recommended 19 was instrumental in decreasing the risk at that plant 20 by at least a factor of four. So something did come of O
- 21 it.
22 I also want to mention that one of the l
b 23 things that is happening as a result of the AEOD study 24 is the NRC is, actually, the licensing people are O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
59 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
(-) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 requiring eight nuclear power plants which have dual 2 sites -- dual unit sites similar to Susquehanna to look 3 at the phenomena that Lochbaum and Prevatte had
[ 4 mentioned, to look at the report that we had and 5 there's a very strong possibility that those plants 6 even though they were not mentioned in the Lochbaum and i
7 Prevatte report will be required to make modification 8 similar to what was done in Susquehanna to reduce the 9 risk.
10 So I beg to differ with you on the fact g 11 that I think something has happened and I think very a
(~} 12 positively and I think you're characterizing what V
13 Lochbaum and Prevatte said and what has happened as a 14 result of it to be untrue. ;
l 15 Now I was very disappointed because I 16 really expected to see Dave Lochbaum here tonight 17 because he is now working for Union of Concerned 18 Scientists. He's now replaced a former colleague of
- 19 ours from NRC by the name of Bob Pollon and one of the h l r 20 problems that we envision on Lochbaum and Prevatte's j O
= 21 analysis is they assumed that you had a instant release l
g 22 of major radiation source terms which would prevent b 23 people from taking mitigative action at the plant and I
24 in response to the Lochbaum and Prevatte concern the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
60 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O 888au^*v s' 1997 -
1 licensee actually ran tests where they had people suit i
2 up in anti-contamination equipment and go through the 3 paces in the facility to show that if they had the
'4 event that was pcstulated, they could indeed 9e and ;
l 5 take mitigative action to turn on water, to shut off i
! 6 certain equipment and make sure that the accident would l 7 not get to completion and damage fuel. So there's a 8 very big difference between saying these guys did ;
9 something and nothing happened and what has really l
10 happened.
11 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Okay. One last '
12 question concerning the AEOD study. Mary, Ms. Kuhn. ;
13 MS. MARY KUHN: I hope this is -- can 14 you hear me now? I hope this is quick and won't !
l 15 require a long -- is this better? Just a quick i i :
j' 16 comment. I'm respectful of all your plans and I'm !
17 respectful of the spirit of and the plans for NU but 18 I'm still uncomfortable with the present situation and 19 the lack of positive NRC reports. I noticed when you 20 were talking about the occurrences that have taken 10
= 21 place that human error was one of the most serious I
- g. 22 considerations and yet the operators are not passing b 23 their tests at NU now just like they weren't years and l
? 24 years and years ago.
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()
,,.s FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 So I feel very, very uncomfortable about 2 this and although it involved the reactor core and not 3 the spent fuel pool, I think that the NRC and NU said 4 that the thing that saved CY recently was something 5 called luck and I don't know how long we can depend on 6 luck. But I think the thing that has troubled me most 7 tonight was not something that you gentleman said but 8 the person frem EB because I think technical arguments j 9 are one thing but the putting of dollars above safety l l
10 is exactly what got us into this mess and I live l 8 11 carefully but I would rather pay more taxes. I have j 12
} three grandchildren and a son and a daughter-in-law 13 over in Groton and safety is absolutely first. I !
14 wouldn't do that.
15 CHAIRMAN LANNING: We agree with you.
16 Safety is first. All right. Thank you, Dr. Ornstein i
17 and Mr. Ibarra. Okay. Turn it over to Gene to l I 18 summarize the meeting we had with NU this afternoon and
- 19 then we'll start taking your comments on the contractor 20 selection.
O
= 21 MR. GENE IMBRO: Just to introduce h
g 22 myself again my name is Gene Imbro. I'm the Deputy b 23 Director in charge of the ICAVP oversight.
24 The purpose of our meeting this u>
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
l
62 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 afternoon with the licensee was to get answers to some 2 questions that we had regarding their proposal as 3 essentially nominating or suggesting that Sargent .& l 4 Lundy be the contractor for Units 1 and Unit 3 to come ;
5 conduct the ICAVP and we had prepared a letter that i
6 went to NU January 13th, laid out certain issues that ,
7 we felt needed to be addressed that weren't covered i 8 completely in the proposal and so what the meeting !
i 9 accomplished this afternoon was to present us with 10 information that we need to go back and evaluate and 11 consider and I believe the licensee is going to submit f 12 something formally responding to some of the issues.
13 Just as a quick recap, most of our 14 questions today dealt with the technical and financial l l
15 independent of Sargent & Lundy which is something that 16 we're concerned with and I know that you are too. One 17 of the issues discussed, which we had questions about, I
I 18 was the previous work that Sargent & Lundy had done for i I
19 Northeast Utilities and the licensee laid out for us !
20 that over the past 10, 15 years that apparently they O
- 21 had about seven to eight hundred thousand dollars of l l I l 22 work contracted to Sargent & Lundy. There is no h 23 current Sargent & Lundy work ongoing now. So Sargent &
I 24 Lundy is not presently involved with the plant and we )
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63 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
(f FEBRUARY 5, 1997 !
1 asked also --
there were a number of different i i
2 questions. ;
i 3 But, anyway, that was the answer we 4 wanted and we have -a -- was presented to us 'this 5 afternoon a list of the work that Sargent & Lundy had i 6 done and- we had to mention to the licensee, to 7 Northeast, that certainly Sargent & Lundy would not be J 8 able to review any of the things that they had 9 previously done for Northeast Utilities both directly 10 and if they had, which was the case in several 11 instances, done programmatic things where they set up 12 programs for Northeast Utilities, that they would not
,}
[
13 be able to review any of the work done by others under 14 their programs and the licensee agreed with that and I 15 think that was the intent all along. That- was
)
16 something we needed to have clarified. l 17 We also asked about in the event that l
! 18 situation comes up where in the scope of the ICAVP some 19 of the work needs to be reviewed that was done by 20 Sargent & Lundy how this would be handled and we didn't
-o 21 really get an answer to that other than to say that b
22 that would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and so l
23 we'll look at that as in the event that becomes an 24 issue or becomes a concern. So the answer to that is O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
. () FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l I right now that it's going to be addressed on a case i
2 basis. So as the situations come up we'll -- they'll -
l
( 3 -
licensee will look at these instances and Sargent & l i
4 Lundy will look at them and we will look at them to '
l 5 decide what's the proper course of action to take but, i
6 clearly, we don't want Sargent & Lundy- to review '
7 anything that they've already --
that they've )
8 previously done. i 9 The other things we talked about were 10 verification of financial independence. The Sargent & j l
, 11 Lundy -- well, the proposal that was submitted stated
{} 12 13 the Sargent & Lundy had no financial involvement with Northeast Utilities in terms of stock ownership or l
14 other ownership interests. We asked Northeast 15 Utilities what they had done to verify that. They 16 responded that since Sargent & Lundy is a supplier to 17 the nuclear industry and has an approved QA Appendix B
! 18 Program that they felt that getting a sworn statement -
T 19 - not a sworn statement but a signed certification from 20 the corporation that they had no ownership interest was o
- 21 sufficient and we're going to be evaluating that. I Li ll 22 Also in terms of the individuals, the Ib 23 independence of the individuals, financial independence
! l
- 24 of individuals and technical independence, they also )
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65 l U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION !
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i 1 have statements from the proposed people that will do !
2 the ICAVP that they have not'and, in fact, have looked i 3 this -- NU has looked at the resumes to further verify !
4 that these individuals have not worked at NU previously !
5 and they have statements or conflict of interest signed ;
6 forms attesting to the fact that these individuals do !
7 not have any ownership interest in NU or the architect f t
8 engineer that designed the plant or the NSSS vendor I i i
9 believe. !
l 10 We asked about the question of ;
11 restrictions of with regard to future work. We noted--
12 that the other proposals that were submitted, I think l 13 there were three in the final running as to who was l 14 going to proposed for the ICAVP contractor, I believe i
15 two of the other finalists had suggested that they l i
16 would restrict further work sought at NU for a period .I I
17 of a year following cotnpletion of the ICAVP. Sargent & :
.I 18 Lundy, I'm not sure what the -- if the proposal said --
I 19 well, it said six months, I guess, and but it was 20 limited to six months but only -- but exclusive of the O
- - 21 work done under the ICAVP. So, in other words, they I
22 wouldn't be able to look at any problems that they l
23 identified during the ICAVP for a period of--
24 MS. LUXTON: For a year?
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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'O V FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. IMBRO: Six months, six months. So 2 we asked, you know, the basis, you know, what the basis 3 for that was and I think the licensee is going to go 4 back and discuss that with Sargent & Lundy. So we'll 5 be getting more information to follow, to follow on 6 that.
7 We also asked for qualifications, we 8 talked about qualifications of the review team. One j 9 thing we needed to get was a listing of the resumes 10 against the areas that they were going to work in so we 11 could better evaluate the qualifications of the (3 12 individuals, you know, vis-a-vis the jobs that are i U' '
13 intended to be in -- that they intend to perform and 14 that's going to be further developed by the licensee 15 and sent to us. So that again will go into our j 16 evaluation.
i 17 Couple of comments that we passed along l l
! 18 to Northeast was that we felt like the instrumentation l k
- 19 and control area perhaps could be flushed out a little 20 more. I think they only indicated two engineers in O
= 21 that area. In fact, if I remember right, one may not b
g 22 even be degreed. So we wanted them to look at that a b 23 little bit more and also one comment that we passed on 24 or another comment we passed on was that in looking at O
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67 f- U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
(_) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 the resumes that were submitted it appeared to us at 2 first blush that the individuals were proposed were 3 more although they had done engineering work in the 4 past were presently in management and so we questioned 5 their familiarity or, you know, with the nuts and bolts 6 engineering. When you've been out of something for 7 five or ten years and haven't really done detailed 8 design work, you know, it's not always at your 9 fingertips and that's going to be addressed as well by 10 the licensee.
11 We noted that the proposal -- the Unit 3 12 proposal came in first, was submitted first to us and
('.}
u ;
13 that contained, I don't remember, maybe 20 some, 26, 30 14 resumes. The proposal that came in for Unit 1 also 15 nominating Sargent & Lundy or proposing Sargent & Lundy 16 as the contractor only had a limited number of resumes !
l 17 and essentially referenced the proposal for Unit 3 and j 1
! 18 we asked since both Units 1 and Units 3 are essentially
- 19 going in parallel or maybe slightly staggered and not l ir 20 many additional resumes were provided did Sargent &
O
- 21 Lundy have sufficient capability to do both units, you
$ 22 know, essentially simultaneously, and the licensee a
b 23 feels like at least that Sargent & Lundy has indicated 1
24 that with the schedules presently in place that Sargent n
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1 & Lundy can support this effort but if the schedules 2 change so that they become more of an overlap, then ;
3 _that will have to be reevaluated. l 4 The other thing we talked about was a ,
i 5 process for a substitution of contractors and they're l
t
- 6 going to, in other words, may have a situation where
{
i 7 the 26 or 30 people that start the job may for some 8 other -- some reason unknown to us or anybody else or 9 even to them perhaps maybe needed to be transferred or ,
10 perhaps illness and they may need to put someone in g 11 place of that and we talked about the mechanism for a 12 substitution and that procedure is going to be
[}
13 submitted to us as a part of the audit plan is my.
14 understanding.
15 So that's kind of in a nutshell. I 16 recognize some of you from this afternoon. So some of 17 you were here but, anyway, that's in sum and substance I 18 what we discussed this afternoon. Again, we are in the I-19 process of evaluating the proposals. We haven't made a ir 20 decision yet. The purpose here now is to solicit input o
- 21 from you all as -- but basically to address whether or g 22 not or any comments for or against Sargent & Lundy.
b 23 So, please.
24 MS. LUXTON: Yes. Hi. I'm Susan Perry O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 ,
I l
l
69 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Luxton from Waterford, Connecticut'. I see no 2 independence in Sargent & Lundy in the ICAVP because if 3 a contractor was truly independent, it wouldn't be from 4 the nuclear industry. Now is it possible to have 5 someone not do this -- do this that isn't from the 6 nuclear industry that has the same engineering and
-7 mechanical expertise, electrical engineering expertise 8 and all that? Is that possible, Mr. Imbro? Because I 9 don't see them as--
10 MR ., IMBRO: I don't think you could 11 really get a credible review and I think you, I mean, 12 you're the public and we certainly want'a credible 13 review. This thing with nuclear engineering is that ,
)
14 it's specialized expertise. There's a lot of different l 15 requirements that get imposed at a nuclear plant and i 16 that people really need to understand all the plant i
17 design, how it fits together, all the different !
b 18 standards and criteria. So you can't, you know, while I
19 you couldn't really pull another mechanical engineer 20 out a different industry and have him come in and ;
o
= 21 expect to get, you know, in-depth review, you know what 1
22 I'm saying.
l b 23 MS. LUXTON: Yes. I'm sure, but sure 24 he'd have to have nuclear expertise. Okay. Question O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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.i 70 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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1 No. 1. ;
i 2 Question No. 2. In the order that you - i l
'3 -
in the letter about the ICAVP when you said work 1 4 performed by the contractor at Millstone prior to th'eir -
5 starting, was there a time date on that because I know 6 they gave us work performed as a contractor that they 7 did work on Millstone 1 in '86, they did work on i i
8 Millstone 1 in '87, they did work on Millstone units in 9 '96, $10,000, $158,000, $170,000. They did engineering 10 support in 1996. Was there a time limit, was it-- l 11 MR. IMBRO: No. f 12 MS. LUXTON: No.
( ;
13 MR. IMBRO: As far back as the plants 14 have been operating. We didn't specify.
l 15 MS. LUXTON: Okay. So they have done j 16 work then'before? !
l 17 MR. IMBRO: Oh, yes, yes. We've said '
I 18 that. About seven, eight hundred thousand dollars i
19 worth. !
'h I t 20 MS. LUXTON: I thought they weren't O.
'
- 21 supposed to do any prior work?
I.
j 22 MR. IMBRO: No , they could have done l 23 prior work. No, the stipulation was that the i
24 contractors, the individuals, couldn't have worked with
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71 I U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i FEBRUARY 5, 1997 f i
i p 1 the licensee before. !
2 MS. LUXTON: You mean the people, the 3 individuals? l 1
4 MR. IMBRO: Yes, people, yes, 5 individuals. You have to understand that the nuclear i l !
L 6 industry is very small and to restrict it to say that :
I i
7 no one that had ever worked at NU before could ever -- {
i i 8 could do the ICAVP would probably essentially eliminate !
i 9 anybody in the nuclear business. So we thought that l 10 was unnecessarily restrictive but--
l 11 MS. LUXTON: I think that's the point 12 about independence, though, I mean, that's the whole
{
13 problem. like in-breeding '
It's all in the nuclear 14 industry. Everybody can go from one plant to tho 15 other.
16 MR. IMBRO: Again, it's a small industry 17 and we're evaluating, we haven't made a final decision.
k 18 However, when you look at Sargent & Lundy and I
\-l: 19 understand that they do $200,000,000 a year business,
,I
'r 20 $700,000 worth of work over the last 20 years--
- O-i a 21 MS. LUXTON
- Is not much you're saying.
22 Okay. Let me ask you another question about Sargent &
ll b 23 Lundy. 'Are you at this point in time contracting
! 24 Sargent & Lundy for anything you do?
, )
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o -
i 72 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (qj FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
2 MS. LUXTON: Well, see, I see--
3 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
4 MS. LUXTON: --that as a conflict of 5 interest. I see that, Sargent & Lundy, as a -- if 6 they're working for you right now and they're going to 7 also work now for NU, I see that as a conflict of 8 interest because they want to get other contracts from 9 you. You don't see that as a conflict?
10 MR. IMBRO: Well--
11 MS. LUXTON: I think it's a conflict.
12 Let's go on to the next--
13 MR. IMBRO: Well, I'm not sure if it's a
,l 14 conflict, I mean, I guess you could look at it -- you l 15 could look at it both ways. I mean, the fact that we l 16 selected them as a contractor for us is some indication 17 that we think they're a credible outfit and so--
18 MS. LUXTON: I know but it all--
19 MR. IMBRO: --we expect them to do as l 20 good a job here plus, well, plus the fact is we're ;
O :
21 going to be overviewing their work.
I-ll 22 MS. LUXTON: Oh, great. That makes me 23 feel confident. Now, let's see. Now another question.
24 I was under the impression when you first told us about i O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 t
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73 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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1 this in the first meeting, Mr. Imbro, that this I
2 contractor was going to do one unit at a time and right 3 now it's going to do two, Millstone 1 and Millstone 3.
4 Now you can't tell me that is an amendment of this ICAV 5 Process, whatever it's called, Independent AV Process.
6 Why are they doing both? They should just do one unit 7 and I know, don't -- because Mr. Kenyon said they're 8 both going to work to try to get to start up at the 9 same time but, Mr. Imbro, I don't -- if they're both 10 neck and neck like he said in a horse race trying to l 5 11 get started at the same time, whichever one gets there 1
("N 12 first should get the contractor, the ICAVP, will do O
13 them. Then the second one that comes up should get 14 another ICAV contractor. It should not be the same one 15 because that is a conflict and that's what you said at !
i 16 the very beginning to us and you're changing your rules 17 and I don't like that. You can't change the rules in l 18 midstream, I mean, you can because you're the NRC but I
- 19 it isn't right and that's the way I perceive it. So h
r 20 what do you say to that?
<O
- 21 MR. IMBRO: I don't know that we had l
22 addressed the situation before. When we met with you l
b 23 before, in September I believe, it was our 24 understanding and the licensee's intent to start one POST REPORTING SERVICE
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74 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 unit, and Unit 3 we thought was going to be the lead 2 plant and so we had really focused on Unit 3. Now in -
3 December the licensee informed us that they were going 4 to run all the units in parallel and, you know, !
5 certainly that's their option. What we're trying to do 6 is get a credible review and I'm not sure, I mean, I 7 understand your point. You'think it's a--
8 MS. LUXTON: You do understand my point?
i 9 MR. IMBRO: --conflict that Sargent &
10 Lundy's doing Unit 1 and Unit 3. -
2 11 MS. LUXTON: Unit 1 and Unit 3.
(" 12 MR. IMBRO: That's fine.
V) 13 MS. LUXTON: You do Unit 1 or the first 14 one to start and then another one should come and do 15 Unit 3. You are our advocates, Mr. Imbro. ;
16 MR. IMBRO: I understand that but, you 17 know, we're certainly going to make sure that they have I 18 sufficient resources to do both units if that's what I 19
- they choose to do. I understand your point. You think 20 it's a conflict.
O a 21 MS. LUXTON: Okay. That's the point.
b
_g 22 MR. IMBRO: Let's go on to the next b 23 question.
24 MS. LUXTON: All right. Next point.
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75 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997
, 1 Okay. Another thing you didn't mention today, Mr. Durr 2 very -- I thought it was very good, he said, "who's 3 going to be the QA, who's going to do the audit, who's 4 going to do quality assurance on the ICAVP team, 5 right," and NU answered and I wish they were here 6 tonight to ask them questions -- to answer these 7 questions. They said they were going to use their QA 8 team, NU's QA team. Well, that is unacceptable to me 1
9 and I'll tell you why. j 10 MR. IMBRO: Well--
E 11 MS. LUXTON: No, let me tell you why and ,
l 12 you know this, too, but I want to make sure--
13 MR. IMBRO: But I think you got the 14 facts wrong but let me try and explain that, I think.
15 The question--
16 MS. LUXTON: Did I get the facts wrong?
17 MR. IMBRO: Well, I think so.
18 MS. LUXTON: Go ahead, why?
- 19 MR. IMBRO: I think what you're alluding i
e 20 to is something that was discussed this afternoon about O
< 21 which QA program would the ICAVP contractor work under.
22 Now Sargent & Lundy is in the nuclear business and they l
b 23 have a quality assurance, an Appendix B Progran as we 24 call it.
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76
.7 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MS. LUXTON: Yes.
2 MR. IMBRO: Northeast Utilities has an 3 Appendix B Program both approved by NRC.
4 MS. LUXTON: Right.
5 MR. IMBRO: And the question is does 6 Sargent & Lundy use their procedures or do they use 7 Northeast procedures? It doesn't mean that the 8 Northeast people are going to be overviewing Sargent &
9 Lundy and if I understand the answer it was that--
10 MS. LUXTON: So it's just procedures 2 11 then.
tQ V
12 MR. IMBRO: Just procedures but that 13 Sargent & Lundy was going to operate under their own QA 14 program is my understanding. But it's just--
15 MS. LUXTON: No , he said -- you explain 16 it to me, Mr. Durr. You're the one that--
17 MR. DURR: (Inaudible.)
I 18 MS. LUXTON: Yes, please explain it to 1-19 me because I think I got it wrong then. Explain it 20 again.
O a 21 MR. DURR: Okay. The question is this b
22 is designed engineering that we're talking about. It l
b 23 comes under Appendix B of 10 CFR. It's a regulatory 24 compliance question in my mind that the utility has O
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0 77 I~ U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
%.D/ FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 their own quality assurance program under Appendix B 2 like -- and NRC's approved it and Sargent & Lundy being l 3 an architect engineer in the nuclear industry probably I 4 has a topical report, what we call a topical report for
{
5 quality assurance programs which they --
which a ;
1 6 company like Northeast Utilities can go to this company
, 7 and say, do work for me, and they'll say, yes, we'll do l
8 work for you and we'll use our own quality assurance 9 program, we won't have to use yours and that's okay.
10 As long as they got one that's approved and accredited i 11 they can do that and so the question was which one are 12 you using?
13 MS. LUXTON: Right.
14 MR. DURR: Are you using Northeast r
15 Utilities' topical report or will they work under their 16 own and the answer was, well, they have their own but 17 they'll be working under ours.
l 18 MS. LUXTON: Okay. Now--
1 19 MR. DURR: Now the point being that 20 under Appendix B it's mandated by the Nuclear 0
= 21 Regulatory Commission that they do surveillances and g 22 audits. So my question is who's going to do that under h 23 that program? l 24 MS. LUXTON: Right.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
78 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. DURR: Whether the utility is going 2 to do it or whether Sargent & Lundy is going to do it.
3 MS. LUXTON: Right.
4 MR. DURR: And that's up to the utility. :
5 MS. LUXTON: That's up to the--
6 MR. DURR: Just as long as somebody does 7 it.
8 MS. LUXTON: Oh, wait a minute.
9 MR. DURR: That's what has to happen.
10 MS. LUXTON: Okay. Good clarification.
g 11 My point is, my point is then if -- so you are going to 12 allow the utility to decide who does the audit in the 13 whatever, the QYP -- because, okay, then I'm coming out 14 on the record and saying we know from all the reports 15 we've had from the Jane Grant Report and the 200.7 16 report and the JUMA Report and the last NRC and I took l
17 it out of one -- you know what I'm going to say, the '
I 18 Fall Inspection Report here where it says from the NRC I
- 19 the license was -- oh, okay.
It 20 "The licensee was already aware of O
l*$
21 overall QA ineffectiveness. For example, the adequacy l 22 of Northeast Utilities' QA Program had recently been 23 reviewed by the Joint Utility Management Assessment l
1 24 Team. The results of this review by JUMA concluded l O POST REPORTING SERVICE I
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79 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 that Northeast Utilities' Audit, Surveillance and 2 Inspection Programs were ineffective based on the lack 3 of management support and adequate corrective action.
4 Further," and then it goes on and says, "further 5 identifies deficiencies within the QA Department."
6 So what I'm saying to you is why are we 7 allowing NU to do the audit and surveillance with their 8 department? They're notoriously inadequate and 9 ineffective. So why don't -- maybe you should have 10 Sargent & Lundy, if they're chosen, which I don't think 11 they should be because they're in the nuclear industry
~g 12 anyway, but if they were chosen, why don't they have (G
13 their QA because maybe it's more effective than NU's.
14 That's my point.
15 MR. DURR: I think it's a good point.
16 MS. LUXTON: Okay.
17 MR. DURR: And the utility probably I 18 ought to consider that.
- 19 MS. LUXTON: Good, all right. So why 20 don't you say that to them? You're supposed to be our
!O i = 21 advocate. Don't just let them say we're going to ib g 22 choose it and you sit there and don't say anything. I ll 23 don't like the way you just sit there and don't rebut 24 them.
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() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. DURR: No, no , no. I understand 2 where you're coming from but let me point out that over !
3 the. top of all of that-- f i
4 MS. LUXTON: Yes. f 5 MR. DURR: --Mr. Imbro and his group are !
i 6 going to go in and do an assessment of how good they're !
7 doing. So it's layer, I mean, it's layer on top of 8 layer. It's the checkers checking the checkers and so l 9 you have to-- t i
10 MS. LUXTON: And who's checking Mr.
)s 11 Imbro? !
{} 12 MR. DURR: Who's checking Mr. Imbro?
13 MS. LUXTON: Yes. Who is checking Mr. l 14 Imbro? That's another point that I'm getting to on my i
15 list and that is of great concern in the public, Mr.
16 Imbro,'where is the ICAVP team that's checking you guys f
17 because you're notoriously for not -- having done your I 18 job in the past ten years at this plant and this :
I !
-- 19 concerns us in the public greatly and you can't deny 20 it.
O 21 MR. IMBRO: We understand that-- !
1 l 22 MS. LUXTON: Good.
b 23 MR. IMBRO: --but currently there are no !
24 provisions for any oversight of us other than our
( '
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1 81 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 commission and, you know, Congress.
2 DR. BILL TRAVERS: And the public.
'i 3 MS. LUXTON: That's right, and the i 4 public.
1 5 DR. TRAVERS: And that's why we're here 6 tonight, in part.
7 MS. LUXTON: Right. So then why aren't 8 I on an oversight team to oversee you then? ]
9 DR. TRAVERS: You are, you're here.
10 MS. LUXTON: Okay. Wait a minute, I 1
g 11 only have a couple more now. Let's see. Now, okay.
]
12 I'm concerned about the systems that are currently in
{
13 use at Millstone 1, 2 and 3 and CY which may be 14 required by FSAR license and licensing basis to be 15 within their current license and design. Do you a
16 understand what I mean?
, 17 Can you tell me if these systems on
! 18 these three plants that you have said by your 5054 19 letter had to be in compliance between -- before seven i
r 20 days before start-up? All these systems, licensing and l 0
- 21 design, all that, that was in your 5054, you said it )
22 had to be in compliance seven days before start up.
l ,
b 23 I'm concerned that these systems be in compliance now 24 because in these shutdown modes these plants are still O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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82 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
()' FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 dangerous to us as we've seen what happened in Labor 2 Day Weekend at Connecticut Yankee Plant in Haddam.
3 They came very close to an accident. So are they in 4 compliance now, Mr. Imbro?
5 MR. IMBRO: Well, we think that the 6 systems that are required currently are in compliance, 7 you know, we have residents here that are still looking 8 at the operational safety, they're still doing 9 inspections.
10 MS. LUXTON: You think, you think? I g 11 don't want you to think.
12 MR. IMBRO: Well, we know that. No, we 13 know.
14 MS. LUXTON: Tell me for sure.
15 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let me try that.
16 MR. IMBRO: As best as anyone knows, 17 yes.
! 18 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let me try. The 19 systems probably are not in strictly compliance with ir 20 the license.
O
= 21 MS. LUXTON: Why not, Mr. Lanning?
I' j 22 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Because they are in a b 23 discovery phase of determining--
l 24 A VOICE: But we don't know I guess-- l
! POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
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83 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 CHAIRMAN LANNING: --what part of those 2 systems are out of compliance with their licensing 3 basis. That's the purpose of this 5054 F letter, the 4 demand for information letter-5 MS. LUXTON: Right.
6 CHAIRMAN LANNING: --is to require them 7 to go and find out whether or not there are 8 deficiencies in those systems and that's what they're 9 doing currently. That job is not done. It's far from 10 being done.
g 11 MS. LUXTON: But Mr. Lanning--
12 CHAIRMAN LANNING: Let me finish.
13 MS. LUXTON: Go ahead.
14 CHAIRMAN LANNING: So to answer the 15 first part of your question, there are still 16 deficiencies in tho.ce systems that may not meet their 17 licensing basis. However, we have verified that those
!I 18 systems will perform their intended safety function for l 19 the mode that they're in.
i e 20 MS. LUXTON: Aha, okay. That has been O
= 21 verified?
l l 5s 22 CHAIRMAN LANNING: That has been done.
b 23 MS. LUXTON: My question is then why are 24 we -- I still can't get through my head why we are POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l l
84 COMMISSION F BRU y ygg i
1 1 talking-about restart until we have all those systems l
2 are'in compliance. They should be in compliance now, l 3 shouldn't they,-before you start -- they give the big f
4 dog and pony show this morning, they're so happy -- I i 5 mean this afternoon about their programs. It's all 6 more programs and they're still -- you still haven't 1
7 made them be in compliance. l 8 MR. IMBRO: You're right, but we haven't i 9 been talking about restart either, I mean, the licensee 10 has a. lot of work to do between now and restart, I i g 11 mean, and, you know, we don't necessarily have to agree 12 with their schedule. I mean, they will restart when we 13 feel that they are safe to restart.
14 MS. LUXTON: Well, I want to be sure 15 that you're going to be strong on that.
16 MR. IMBRO: And before they restart all 17 the systems will be in compliance.
I 18 CHAIRMAN LANNING: We will be strong in I: 19 that but that's part of the restart process that you're
-20 a part of and we'll continue to have meetings on and O ^
- I 21 it's some time down the road. So that's a little 22 different question than talking about the contractor l
l 23 selection.
24 MS. LUXTON: Yes, I know, all right, I'm O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
85 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 sorry. All right, wait a minute. I think I had one 2 other, let me just -- okay. I think, if I'm not 3 mistaken, but nobody -- I wish somebody from NU was 4 here, I believe that NU is now -- have you heard of the 5 licensing continuation evaluation of NU to extend their ,
1 6 license? I think that Sargent & Lundy was under l
7 contract to them in 1994 and 1995 on that. Now that's ;
8 okay with you that they just had Sargent & Lundy under 9 contract this -- like a year ago or two years ago?
10 MR. IMBRO: I don't know about that g 11 particular one. I know that from what-- i a 1 r~ 12 MS. LUXTON: Well, why don't you ask?
( >T 13 MR. IMBRO: --they gave us this l 14 afternoon-- !
15 MS. LUXTON: Would you ask them?
16 MR. IMBRO: They had something, they 17 already told us they had something as recent as 1996.
l
! 18 I think it was $10,000, i
- 19 MS. LUXTON: And that's okay with you?
20 When was the cutoff date?
iO l
= 21 MR. IMBRO: There is no cutoff date. l l i
, g 22 MS. LUXTON: Okay. I guess I've said j b 23 erough but--
24 MR. IMBRO: I mean, I appreciate your O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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86 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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2 MS. LUXTON: I know. I just want you, 3 you know, be strong with them, Mr. Imbro.
4 MR. IMBRO: I think we are being strong.
5 Yes, Mark.
6 MR. HALLOWAY: I'll be brief. With 7 Sargent & Lundy being proposed for the ICVAP for Unit 1 8 as well as Unit 3, one of my concerns is that you won't 9 have adequate time to evaluate their performance as the 10 ICAVP contractor. They're getting through with one g 11 unit and they're already pre-approved for another. :
a 1 12 Don't you need sufficient time to look at them and what
)
13 kind of job that they've done before they start on I l
14 another one? You're giving them a pre-approval, right? l l
15 MR. IMBRO: No, that's a good question 16 and that's something that we need to consider, the NRC, 1
17 because we need to gather resources to be able to l
! 18 support both and we will try our best to do it but if I
- 19 it turns out that we can't do it, then the licensee i
t 20 will have to delay their program until we get a chance l0
- 21 to do what we need to do.
22 MR. HALLOWAY: So what you're telling me l
23 is that for whatever reason, if you find out that they 24 have given a disappointing performance in their O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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i i contract for one unit, that you will not hesitate'to 2 remove them as the ICAVP evt7 though you pre-approved ,
3 them for the next one?
4 MR. IMBRO: Well, I think we'd have to ,
5 think, you know, look at that when the time comes, 6 sure. If we felt that they weren't doing a good job, I ;
7 think the utility would probably want to remove them as 8 well but, I mean, it's hard to prejudge all of these 9 contingencies. I mean, yes, we would certainly look at 10 that, we would certainly be concerned about that. I g 11 can't tell you what we would do until I'm presented l 12 with the facts and we study it.
[}
13 MR. HALLOWAY: But you agree that the 14 utilities' perspective might be a little different from 15 yours as to what constitutes a good job?
16 MR. IMBRO: Possibly but, I mean, in the 17 final analysis it's what we think in terms of the I 18 performance of the ICAVP is what counts because they're
'I': 19 still under an order and your ICAVP needs to be
'h t t 20 performed to the satisfaction of NRC. So we can't --
L0
- 21 we won't release them from the order until the ICAVP is l l'
~g 22 performed in a thorough -- is as thorough a manner as b :23 we would like.
5 24 MR. HALLOWAY: And just to wrap it up,
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1
88 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O rs8au^ar s. 1997 1 you don't believe that there's a company in the United 2 States that does this type of work that has never done 3 business with NU before?
4 MR. IMBRO: I mean, I guess I don't know 5 the answer to that question. I think NU beat the 6 bushes and they had something, I believe they were 7 originally looking at 10 or 12 different companies and 8 for whatever reason either those companies didn't have, 9 I mean, to do an ICAVP takes a lot of depth of 10 engineering and significant amount of resources. You 11 know, a lot of companies can't --
don't have the
( 12 physical wherewithal to do that and so the question is 13 is Sargent & Lundy acceptable or not. I mean, that's 14 really what we're trying to discuss here. Do you have 15 any comments that would suggest that Sargent & Lundy is 16 not qualified to do this work?
17 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, my comments have to
! 18 do with the lack of independence.
19 MR. IMBRO: -Okay. All right, I 20 understand.
O
- 21 MR. HALLOWAY: I think that the I
g 22 independence is -- the definition seems to have changed 23 in midstream. When I look at your previous view 24 graphs, it said no financial involvement with NU and POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
89 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O reanu^n' s' 1997 1 now we're talking about something on the order of seven 2 hundred, eight hundred thousand dollars worth in the 3 last ten years. That might not be significant 4 financial involvement for a company the size of Sargent 5 & Lundy--
6 MR. IMBRO: No , we said no current 7 financial involvement with NU. ,
8 MR. HALLOWAY: --but it is involvement.
9 Well, they--
10 MR. IMBRO: That was what the intent 11 was, I mean, you could, I mean, I think that's what I 12 said. I understand that that wasn't on the view graph.
13 I don't think we changed our, I mean, I didn't change 14 my mind. That's what we always had in mind was no 15 current involvement. If you go back and look at the 16 transcript of the August 12th meeting when NU came down 17 to White Flint and the requirements of the ICAVP were !
! 18 laid out, that was discussed in the August 12th i: 19 transcript and we haven't really changed our mind.
I-t 20 MR. HALLOWAY: But you've said right now 0
- 21 that they do have involvement in 1996 with Sargent &
I 22 Lundy. They're currently doing work.
l h 23 MR. IMBRO: They did, yes, they did.
24 MR. HALLOWAY: So there is involvement.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE l
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( FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. IMBRO: That's right.
2 MR. HALLOWAY: Okay.
3 MR. IMBRO: Yes, I understand that.
4 Yes, we know that.
5 MR. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
6 MR. IMBRO: Okay. Yes. John Sheehan.
7 MR. BILL SHEEHAN: My name is Bill 8 Sheehan. I'm a member of the Nuclear Energy Advisory 9 Council but, like Mark Halloway, the opinions I express 10 are mine and mine alone.
11 Corrective Action Verification Program.
(3 12 I think if you remove the I you've got a good program U
13 because you're never going to satisfy anybody that 14 they're independent by the original definition that you 15 gave that was given back in August of independence 16 because probably we've determined and maybe correctly 17 that you're not going to find anybody in the nuclear I 18 industry that's independent. So I think that maybe you I
19 need to back track and say we can't find independence ir 20 but we do ha n, someone who is well qualified to o
- 21 r w vise the verification of the corre./tive action R
g 22 t': # 'a being done because independence is basically b 23 going to be an impossibility to find them somebody 24 who's completely independent.
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.() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Ms. Luxton recommends somebody outside 2 the nuclear industry and Mr. Durr talked about the 3 quality assurance program and I know the expense of 4 setting up a nuclear qualified quality assurance 5 program for somebody outside the nuclear industry would 6 make it monetarily prohibitive for them to even 7 consider trying to take care of entering into the 8 action.
9 So you're not going to find somebody 10 that's independent so why don't we just drop the g 11 ' independence and say it's the Corrective Active 12 Verification Program by somebody outside who's had
[
13 minimal involvement with the licensee and can take a 14 look, an unbiased look, although it's biased from the 15 nuclear industry point of view it may not necessarily 16 be biased one way or the other in the case of the 17 licensee, Northeast Utilities.
!- 18 MR. MARKOWICZ: John Markowicz, a 19 resident of Waterford. I'd like to make a couple
.g
- r. 20 comments and follow up to some statements I made O
a 21 earlier and the first goes to the question that was l
22 discussed with Susan regarding the QA process. I think l
b 23 one point that should not be overlooked is that if 24 there's a theory that NU QA should or could oversee the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
92 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 ICAVP QA, then you've completely destroyed a theory of 2 independence.
3 MR. IMBRO: No, but that's -- no, that's 4 not what Jack said.
5 MR. MARKOWICZ: Well, I'm giving you a 6 reason for insisting.
7 MR. IMBRO: I agree, that's fine, that's 8 not going to happen, I agree, fine.
9 MR. MARKOWICZ: The second question, the 10 cecond point I'd like to make is a question. The scope 2 11 level amount of involvement under contract to the NRC 12 by Sargent & Lundy, could that be addressed? If you 13 can't answer the question, could that information be 14 provided so we have some feel? This is the first time 15 that point was made to me and I'm just curicas as to 16 how much work is Sargent & Lundy under contract to the 17 NRC, what kind of work is it, where is it, that kind of
! 18 information?
19 MR. IMBRO: I can address part of it. I 20 don't know all the answers but Sargent & Lundy is under O
l
- 21 contract to the N'. ' to do design inspections and they b
j- 22 are going out, thuy are providing design contractors to b 23 go out with NRC team leaders to do design inspections 24 at various plants throughout the country and, I mean, O POST REPORTING SERVICE I HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
93 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O r=8xu^ v s' 1997 1 the extent, I'm not, I mean, I'm not sure. I think 2 it's a several year contract. The dollars I'm not 3 sure. ;
4 MR. MARKOWICZ: Okay. If I could have--
f 5 MR. IMBRO: But we can, you know, if you !
6 want, you know, I'd be happy to get that information to 7 you.
8 MR. MARKOWICZ: I would appreciate that. j 9 MR. IMBRO: Sure.
i 10 MR. MARKOWICZ: Have they done work in l 1
11 that. capacity for the NRC at Millstone or for Northeast j 12 Utilities?
13 MR. IMBRO: No. No they have not.
14 MR. MARKOWICZ: And that's a categorical 15 never? I'm not trying to pin you down.to anything. If 16 you don't--
17 MR. IMBRO: Not with NRC, not under the 18 current contract, I mean, from now until--
f li
. 19 MR. MARKOWICZ: I'm not asking about the i
r 20 contract. I'm saying, you know, there's a question 0
a 21 that's been raised about independence and the degree of 1
22 independence and I'm just asking if we've acquired a
-l b 23 contractor to do that kind of a search--
24 MR. IMBRO: I will verify that but it's O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
94 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 my understanding that Sargent & Lundy has never worked 2 at NU under our contract.
3 MR. MARKOWICZ: We appreciate it, thank 4 you.
5 MR. IMBRO: Sure.
6 MR. MARKOWICZ:
And the final point I'd 7 like to make and these points I made back in September, 8 Gene, when you were here and I offer them again for 9 your consideration as you go through the final stages 10 of the approval process and the contracting process, I 11 think you have to worry about termination provisions.
O 12 Termination either by the contractor, who is Northeast V
13 Utilities, or the oversight organization who has some 14 kind of legal involvement in this by the way this ICAVP 15 process is defined. Termination of either an l
16 individual for questionable unsatisfactory performance l 17 or the contractor for unsatisfactory or questionable
! 18 performance and I offer that as a contracting device 19 because at the meeting this afternoon what was 20 preferred was the standing terms and conditions of a O l
- 21 Northeast Utilities contract for a contractor, for a I b
22 consultant, and I'm not sure whether this particular l
23 arrangement particular where the ICAVP contractor, the 24 CAVP contractor working for Northeast Utilities but
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i I 1 under the direction of the federal government. There's 2 something odd in my mind legally to that arrangement.
3 So you may want to look at that as an !
.4 opener but I think there's some concern I have on how i 5 the termination and how all that works and how you can ;
6 stop things legally or how they can say they want to 7 stop things legally but you've got control somehow. ;
- r i 8 It's a chain of command issue.
9 MR. IMBRO: Well, the, you know, 10 obviously, the control we have is that, again, as I l
[ '11 mentioned before to Mr. Halloway, the ICAVP as stated 12 in the order needs to be performed to our satisfaction 13 and so if the contractor is not doing a proper job or a 14 thorough job, then I think we would call a halt to the 15 ICAVP. Then we go from there.
16 MR. MARKOWICZ: Yes, I understand that 17 but this is a little bit different from I think what
! 18 would be a standard consultant contract because the 1-individuals involved,
'19 some of them may not even work 20 for Sargent & Lundy. They may be subcontractors to O ~
l
'* 21 them for all I know. I'm just saying the steps, I'm l 1
_l: 22 just saying it's not a standard contract-- l 23 MR. IMBRO: I understand your point.
24 I'm not sure I know the answer right now.
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. MARKOWICZ: I'm just saying it's not 2 a standard contract and if we're all on record again 3 saying to please have something in your contracts--
i MR. IMBRO:
4 That's fine, okay.
5 MR. MARKOWICZ: --take a look at it from 6 the termination point of view.
7 MR. IMBRO: I've written it down.
8 MR. MARKOWICZ: I had another one but ,
9 I've forgotten so thank you very much. l 10 MR. IMBRO: Okay. Well, appreciate your 11 comments. Yes. Ms. Concannon.
i
{} 12 MS. TERRY CONCANNON: Thank you, and 13 Terry Concannon from Haddam and Co-Chair of the Nuclear 14 Energy Advisory Council. A lot of ground has been 15 covered this evening and I know there are concerns and 16 I hav concerns. I think I am concerned that Sargent &
17 Lundy will be carrying out the ICAVP in both Millstone I 18 1 and 3 at the same time and I do have a question to I
- 19 ask. Will the same personnel from the company be doing i
e 20 the ICAVP in both plants or will there be different o
- 21 personnel carrying it out in either plant or each 1
@ 22 plant?
3 b 23 MR. IMBRO: No , in my understanding 24 there'd be some overlap or sharing of people is the way t)~ POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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-s FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 I understand it now because the proposal for Unit 1, 2 like I say, only included, I'd say just a guess, 3 something like 10 or 12 resumes whereas the proposal 4 for Unit 3 included substantially more. So I think the 5 intent is, and I'm not quite a hundred percent clear on l 6 this, is that they would as unit -- as the first unit
- 7 got finished they'd roll the people over to the other 8 unit. So there's some supplemental people but I think 9 the intent is if the schedules, unit schedules permit, 10 then the people may be shared.
11 MS. CONCANNON: Is there any way of
{} 12 13 requiring or would you consider asking them to make sure that the personnel are not overlapping?
14 MR. IMBRO: Yes, we could consider it.
15 Do you have a particular concern in that matter?
16 MS. CONCANNON: Well, I'm really trying 17 to -- I would like, personally, this is speaking for I 18 myself, like to see as much as possible each plant
-I 19 retain its own identity and be separate and try to have .
!r 20 as much independence as possible when we're addressing l 0
- 21 the two plants.
22 MR. IMBRO: Okay.
l b 23 MS. CONCANNON: I think the more 24 collusion or the more overlap or duplication the less O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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1 independence. '
2 MR. IMBRO: Okay. So you'd prefer to 3 have -- I guess your comment il Sargent & Lundy should 4 have different people on each unit. !
5 MS. CONCANNON: And I suspect why you 6 haven't got enough resumes is that they were surprised 7 by the fact that Millstone 1 is catching up with 8 Millstone 3 or-- !
9 MR. IMBRO: I can't comment on that. I 10 don't really know the answer to that.
11 MS. CONCANNON: I don't know who's
(} 12 catching up with which but essentially that they did --
13 nobody expected Millstone 1 to be part of the scene in 14 the immediate future.
15 The other concern is that Sargent &
16 Lundy has stated that they will not work on Millstone 17 plant projects for only six months, a time lapse of six
! 18 months after they have completed the ICAVP. That seems 1
- 19 a very short period of time by industry standards.
Ir 20 MR. IMBRO: Well, again, you know, O
21 that's something we're evaluating, whether or not I
22 that's going to be acceptable. We haven't reached the l
53 final conclusion on that as yet.
14 MS. CONCANNON: And thirdly, I don't r
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 independence.
- 2 MR. IMBRO
- Okay. So you'd prefer to l 3 have --
I guess your comment is Sargent & Lundy should i
j 4 have different people on each unit.
l l 5 MS. CONCANNON: And I suspect why you i I
- 6 haven't got enough resumes is that they were surprised 7 by the fact that Millstone 1 is catching up with i.
8 Millstone 3 or--
9 MR. IMBRO: I can't comment on that. I i
10 don't really know the answer,to that.
t
!5 11 MS. CONCANNON: I don't- know who's i$
12 catching up with which but essentially that they did --
'{}
13 nobody expected Millstone 1 to be part of the scene in
} 14 the immediate future.
I i 15 The other concern is that Sargent &
l-l 16 Lundy has stated that they will not work on Millstone i
17 plant projects for only six months, a time lapse of six
! 18 months after they have completed the ICAVP. That seems-1l.
- 19 a very short period of time by industry standards. 1 20 MR. IMBRO
- Well, again, you know,
, o
- i
- 21 that's something we're evaluating, whether or not 3l l 22 that's going to be acceptable. We haven't reached the l
jh 23 final' conclusion on that as yet.
1 24 MS. CONCANNON: And thirdly, I don't )
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99 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 know whether you're going to say this, I wonder if you !
2 could just mention the fact that the NEAC is going to l 3 be part of the ICAVP and how the NRC has considered 4 including the council?
5 MR. IMBRO: Yes, sure, I'd be happy to 6 address that. In our commission paper that was issued 7 January 3rd, the 97003, we offered NEAC the opportunity 8 to suggest one or two systems to be included within the 9 scope of the four systems that we're going to do under 10 the Tier 1 ICAVP review and we would evaluate those '
11 systems in our selection process and we'd consider them 12 as, you know, as input and, you know, we may select 13 some of the systems that you suggest and, you know, if l 14 we don't think that they're, you know, are risk 15 significant enough or for whatever reason, you know, we 16 mr.y not but essentially we're asking you to suggest I 17 systems, one or two systems for us to consider for
! 18 inclusion within the four system scope of the Tier 1 1
- 19 Review.
!r I 20 MS. CONCANNON: I think we'll accept the O
=
21 challenge. Thank you very much.
! 4 22 MR. IMBRO: Thank you for your comments.
l b 23 REPRESENTATIVE ANDREA STILLMAN: Good I
24 evening. Thank you very much for being here today and O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l 100 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION f) a FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 giving --
but most important giving the public an l
2 opportunity to comment. My name is Andrea Stillman.
3 I'm the State Representative from the Town of Waterford ;
4 and I have just a couple of questions, possibly more 5 remarks than that.
6 I did attend this afternoon's hearing 1
7 and I am disturbed that we're going to have one firm do l 8 two plants. I think each of them should have their own l 9 verification team and maybe in that regard we can think l
10 of them as being more independent. I understand the g 11 difficulty in finding a company in an industry that is t
(~T 12 so tightly woven together and maybe that's the inherent i u-) \
13 problem but I would feel more comfortable and I think l 1
14 the public would feel more comfortable if all three 15 plants had -- each had their own verification team.
16 One other thing that I would like to ask 17 you to check on if possible, unless you have the answer
! 18 this evening, is that in the presentation about Sargent 1
19 & Lundy there was a -- it was noted that they don't l
't l 20 have any direct stock in Northeast Utilities. They did l
j
'o :
- 21 not say anything about indirect and if you could define 1 i$
g 22 for me how if there is indirect stock that they might b 23 have in Northeast Utilities, how you would define that 24 and clarify that situation.
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1 MR. IMBRO: I suppose you're meaning l
'2 ' stock that's held in street name or mutual funds or ,
3 something to that effect or that a pension plan owns? !
4 REPRESENTATIVE STILLMAN: Of Northeast f 5 Utilities stock, yes.
i 6 MR. IMBRO: Well, I mean, you know, l 7 ~ again, that is something we need to look at. NU stated 8 this afternoon that they did stockholder searches on, ,
9 you know, for the Employee Concerns Program,_that they l 10 didn't do the same for--
3 11 REPRESENTATIVE STILLMAN: Exactly.
{} 12 13 and MR. IMBRO: --yes, for Sargent & Lundy I'm -not exactly sure why but, again, they're 14 placing their reliance on, I guess, you know, the 15 honor, integrity, et cetera of Sargent & Lundy and the 16 fact that some corporate -- I think the executive or 17 the lead corporate officer has signed that they have no f 18 ownership. So I think that's something that we need to l' 19 explore further.
20 REPRESENTATIVE STILLMAN: Okay.
O_ i 21 MR. IMBRO: I'm not sure, you know, I l l l l 22 guess, you know, in all honesty.I'm not sure that, I 23 mean, people spend years doing these financial searches i
24 that if, you know, if people were really that devious !
-( ) POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN,'CT (800) 262-4102 ;
i f
i
102 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O 888au^av s. 1992 1 and wanted to hide assets, I'm not sure, you know, I 2 mean, you know, there's multiple ways to do it. I 3 think, you know, we're trying to look at least the 4 obvious things.
5 REPRESENTATIVE STILLMAN: Well, that's 6 just-it. Let's at least look at the obvious.
7 MR. IMBRO: And we will try and do that.
8 REPRESENTATIVE STILLMAN.: I think we all 9 know that there are, you know, that there are ways to 10 accomplish certain things and I won't be specific, we l 11 all have imaginations, but I truly think that that's 12 something you need to look at especially since they 13 broached the subject in terms of putting it in their 14 report and I think it's a very important aspect to find 15 out if there is truly an independent relationship.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. IMBRO: I agree and I think we will I 18 pursue that further and thank you. John, how about the l
19 fellow in back of you. He hasn't had a chance yet.
.h r 20 MS. TED FANG: Hi. My name is Ted Fang C
21 and I'm an organizer for CCAG, the Connecticut Citizen b-22 Action Group, and I was here today as well during the l
23 day on the public meeting between you and NU with the 24 selection process of the independent consulting groups.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l l
l
103 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Probably going to wind up echoing a lot 2 of the things that have already been brought up already 3 in terms of the definition of what independence is.
4 Looking at the sort of personnel structure of the 5 ICAVP, it would seem that there is no independence when 6 you consider that the senior vice president is a 7 project director of the ICAVP as well as looking at the 8 fact that consultants who have been directly involved 9 with the utility industry are a part of this, a part of 10 these consulting teams and, of course, we know that as g 11 an industry the utility industry has been criticized 12 for having sort of a revolving door that other people 13 have mentioned already. The novelty has had a negative 14 impact on an objective oversight of the utility i
15 industry. However, I do sense a good thing when there l 16 are questions being raised about Sargent & Lundy.
17 With regards to the financial
! 18 connections, my understanding is that I guess what was 1
- 19 mentioned is the stock search verified no financial lt 20 connections between the Little Harbor Consultants and O
21 its team members and NU and I think that these j 22 verifications should be made public and, you know, once 23 again, the confusion is why wasn't there real 24 verification done with Sargent & Lundy and I think that O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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1 has to be addressed, that has to be dealt with and, of !
l 2 course, with written verification made available to the 1
3 public.
4 In addition and echoing what the 5 representative talked about in terms of indirect i l 6 financial interests with getting this contract, what I 7 think is important that these consulting firms and the ;
8 individual team members with specific -- with Millstone 9 3 to see whether they have interests in the other
! l l 10 owners of this plant, which again should be made B 11 available to the public. ,
l 12 And furthermore, CCAG recommends that 1
{~-}
l 13 citizens from local watchdog groups such as the CRC be I i
14 involved in the independent consulting teams dealing 15 with the corrective action verification and that there l
16 is continuous accountability to the public of these 17 oversight teams through frequent public hearings.
I ! 18 MR. IMBRO: Yes, thanks. We did plan to I
- 19 have periodic status meetings as the ICAVP progressed
! 20 to, you know, to keep you all, the public apprised of,
!o l =
21 you know, what the status was, what was being found. I ll 22 mean, the other points you raise are pretty much, you l
b 23 know, I mean, it's similar to what we discussed before, 4
- 24 you know, so I don't really know that I need to discuss O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
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() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l 1 them again. I mean, I think, you know, we are, again, i i
2 we have not made a final decision and the purpose of l L 3 this meeting here is to solicit your input, yours and 4 everyone else's and so I think we've received some good l
5 comments tonight and I think we'll go back and consider !
6 them. !
I i
l 7 I think clearly, you know, we also are, ,
l 8 you know, concerned about as much as possible the 9 independence aspects and the ownership aspects and !
10 again, there are, you know, there are myriad ways to 3 L
ll 11 ' conceal things. I will say that we at least need to !
l* ;
{} 12 and we plan to, you know, .look at at least the, you L 13 know, direct ownership interest. I mean, indirect i i
14 ownership is quite hard to pin down without really 15 doing a lot of work and no matter what you do there's 16 always ways that if people are really devious they can ,
i !
17 probably circumvent the system. I don't really think 18 that's the case. I don't think there's anything to I- 19 gain here.
h 20 r But also let me just mention another lC l* 21 point that one of the things that we're going to do is l-22 we will ask the individual people doing the ICAVP l
23 review, t-+ ntractors, to sign statements that they 24 have no ownership interest in NU or the architect O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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^()- FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 engineer for the particular plant or the NSSS vendor 2 for the particular plant. We will also ask, we're 3 preparing a statement now that will ask the responsible 4 officer of Sargent & Lundy to sign stating to us that 5 they have no ownership interest in NU and we're also 6 going to ask, preparing something similar for NU to 7 sign to see that they have no connection with Sargent &
8 Lundy. So we're going to try and, you know, do it both 9 ways.
10 Those are some of the more obvious 11 things we're going to do but clearly we need to further 12 look at, you know, the ownership question and we'll do 13 that. I appreciate your comments. Don.
14 MR. DON DELCORE: Don .Delcore, 15 Uncasville, Connecticut. Really my questions that deal 1
16 with the ICAVP are kind of maybe back-door questions. i 1
17 I'm kind of interested in how we got here. We got here
! 18 with a 5054F letter that basically said we want to know l l: 19 if you're within your license requirements and FSAR and l r l 20 from that we're taking an independent verification, O
a 21 supposedly independent. But my concerns don't only l
22 come from the ICAVP portion of it, they come from the l
[b 23 portion that deals directly with the systems that are 24 being utilized right now.
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() U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 i 1 There are a number of systems within !
1
' i i
2 Millstone 1, 2 and 3, and Connecticut Yankee for that i 3 matter, shut down or not, defueled or not, which are a 4 part of the license requirements, a part of FSAR and l 5 certainly have some minimum requirement of operability ;
i ;
i 6 to protect the public, to protect the equipment, to 7 protect the individuals within the plant and my l
'8 question really is, well, if we haven't looked at that
! i 9 with an independent verification assessment program, j l \
l 10 how can we use it? '
i g 11 Did somebody come in and write a j 12 response to 5054F and say I swear under oath that this
({}
13 system is in accordance with the Final Safety Analysis ;
i 14 Report and that, in fact, this system is within the l
15 design basis and meets all the requirements from the 16 design control aspects and so forth, and if that hasn't 17 been done, then how can the licensee use it? And so
! 18 this is before we even get into the ICAVP aspect of it, 19 Gene, do you understand what I'm saying? In other 20 words, I'm--
O 21 MR. IMBRO: Yes, but, all right. We l-
, j' 22 wanted to limit this to the discussion of the selection 23 of the contractor but let me just answer. It's an 24 ongoing process, I mean, the licensee is doing a
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 configuration management --
have a configuration 2 management plan for all three units. Now they are 3 doing detailed reviews of the systems now as we speak 4 and so as problems are identified they'll be fixed.
5 Any problem that we know about is going to be fixed. I 6 guess what Wayne was saying is, well, there may be 7 things out there that we haven't come across or the 8 licensee hasn't come across. We can't sit here and say 9 that the entire plant is in compliance with its license 10 now, I mean, to the best of our knowledge it is, I l .
11 mean, but the process of discovery of review lg r
is 12 ongoing. So as things are discovered, you know, ;
13 they're going to get fixed and if they're -- and. if 14 they impact the operability of the system, then that l
15 means they get fixed even quicker.
t 16 MR. DELCORE: Well, but the issue is the l 17 5054F letter requires an answer within seven days of I 18 start up. We've been sitting here, you know, since l
19 January 1st on the watch list and exactly -- I don't 20 know, when did we request the 5054F letters, let's say O
- 21 for Unit 2, sometime in April or March?
lb 22 DR. TRAVERS: Don, let me interrupt. In l
b 23 deference to people who have come here for the purpose 24 of the meeting as advertised, I'd like to ask if you O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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1 have any comments on the contractor proposal that's l
2 before us and, if not, if there are others-- ;
3 MR. DELCORE: Yes.
l 4 DR. TRAVERS: --who still wish to speak.
5 MR. DELCORE: Are you limiting it to 6 ICAVP or are we talking about ECP?
7 MR. IMBRO: Both.
8 DR. TRAVERS: No, we're going to finish l 9 with ECP but the--
10 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
<R 11 DR. TRAVERS: --at the outset we r- 12 advertised we'd start with ICAVP.
b) 13 MR. DELCORE: Okay. In the letter that 14 set forth the ground rules for the ICAVP selection, and l
15 I'm sure that other people have before me but have had 16 a number of problems with the fact that there should 17 have been no involvement with the utility prior to
! 18 their use as the ICAVP corporation or company that's l 19 going to come in and do the work.
20 MR. IMBRO: We never said that. That O
21 was never a condition, I mean, because we recognized up 8
,l 22 front, you know, again, you've been in the industry, 23 too. I mean, you know, there's only so many people, so 24 many firms that are qualified to do this work. So to O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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1 say that if you've ever worked at NU before you're 2 automatically barred from doing the ICAVP would have 3 eliminated probably everyone that was qualified to do j 4 it. So, I mean, that was--
! l 5 MR. DELCORE: Well, they've had some -- l l
l 6 but they've had some recent involvement with the f l 7 company, yes? j 8 MR. IMBRO: Yes. But they have no f 9 current involvement. I mean, again, we're still i
! 10 evaluating. I don't have a final answer yet, I mean, l
g 11 we're still looking at this. We understand that they 1
12 have involvement, the licensee has told us. They've
[}
l 13 been up front and they. said, yes, they've had seven, l 14 eight hundred thousand dollars worth of work over the 15 life of the station and we know what that work is and 16 we've stipulated that Sargent & Lundy can't review 17 anything that they've previously had involvement with.
18 MR. DELCORE: So is that going to limit 19 what's going to be looked at or are you going to have ;
l 20 another independent contractor come in and look at that iO 21 portion?
(1l 22 MR. IMBRO: Yes, exactly. Yes, 23 potentially that's possible, yes. I i
24 MR. DELCORE: So is that-- i POST REPORTING SERVICE ;
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. IMBRO: If something needs to be 2 looked at, yes, then that will need to be addressed and ;
3 Sargent & Lundy can't, again, I said they can't look at 4 things that they've done or been involved with. So if 5 that needs to be --
if that area is going to be l 6 addressed under ICAVP, then we have to make provisions 7 to have someone else come in yet again, independent 8 from Sargent & Lundy--
9 MR. DELCORE: Okay. ,
10 MR. IMBRO: --and the licensee to do l
11 that other piece.
/~T 12 MR. DELCORE: Is not Sargent & Lundy the V
13 contractor that I think in '94 and maybe even -- excuse 14 me, '95 and '96 handling the extension, license l
15 extension evaluations for Millstone?
16 MR. IMBRO: Yes, I don't know. Someone l 17 mentioned that before. I'm not sure about that and we 18 need to check into that.
'l l
19 MR. DELCORE: Well, I mean, that's 20 pretty recently and that's probably going to involve an O
21 awful lot of equipment and an awful lot of systems.
8 l 22 MR. IMBRO: Well, you know, again, 23 that's something we need to look at. I wasn't aware of 24 that.
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( FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. DELCORE: Okay. Well, I guess if 2 you're going to not allow me to talk about the other 3 issues around that, I don't have any other questions.
4 MR. IMBRO: Why don't I turn it over to 5 Phil McKee and talk about ECP. Do you have a last 6 comment, John?
7 MR. MARKOWICZ: It's John Markowicz 8 again. I want to make a statement and just ask for 9 someching. The statement is this is not to either 10 agree or disagree with what Representative Stillman 11 said but if you don't award the ICAVP contract for 12 Millstone 1 and 3 simultaneously to Sargent & Lundy, 13 don't you have a technical problem because if you do 14 award it for 3 and then come to 1, then they have a 15 current significant financial involvement--
16 MR. IMBRO: That's right.
17 MR. MARKOWICZ: --with Northeast? Okay.
! 18 MR. IMBRO: That's exactly right.
!: 19 MR. MARKOWICZ: The request is could we 20 have a wiring diagram and a procedure that gets from 21 the ICAVP contractor to however high up in the NRC this 22 ends up specifically so we can see who provides 23 operational direction? And I say NRC, I also mean 24 Northeast Utility because somehow they're going to get POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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.i i paid and I'm kind of curious as to who's going to [
2 provide direction, who's going to approve the direction
?
3 satisfactory and'who's going to cut the check and who's >
4 going to approve cutting the check. Whatever that l 5 means as far as it's not in the order, it's not clearly l
-6 in the proposal. The terms and conditions of the $
7 standard contract kind of don't apply without some 8 explanation I think. So at some point would it be l 1
i 9 possible to get some kind of an explanation from your 10 perspective as to how the work will be approved as g 11 satisfactory and authorized for payment and how that 12 payment procedure works?
13 MR. IMBRO: In some ways that's between 14 the NU and Sargent & Lundy but, I mean, again, clearly, 15 you know, the ICAVP needs to be done to our 16 satisfaction. Now I suppose if they do a credible job 17 and we think it's okay, then I suppose the utility-will
! 18 pay them, I mean, I don't really know other than that 19 what the--
20 MR. MARKOWICZ: Well, it's a time L0 j
= 21 (indiscernible) contract. So my guess is they're going j
=$ l 22 to bill monthly or bill quarterly or weekly or l
l 23 something-- l 24 MR. IMBRO: I have no idea. l i (:) POST REPORTING SERVICE l
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,. U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. MARKOWICZ: Well, somebody's going 2 to have to authorize payment. I would think that 3 before you authorize payment somebody, since you've got 4 oversight, somebody is going to say the work is 5 satisfactory.
6 MR. IMBRO: We don't have that type of 7 oversight, though. I mean, we have oversight, no, in 8 terms of--
9 MR. MARKOWICZ: Gene, I've lost it.
10 MR. IMBRO: We're going to oversee the g 11 technical work. We're going to do independent l 12 inspections of Sargent & Lundy. We're not going to 13 review them on a day-to-day, week-by-week basis--
14 MR. MARKOWICZ: Didn't say that.
15 MR. IMBRO: --and say, okay, and you can 16 cut them a check because they did a good job this week,
)
17 I mean, we're not going to do that. ]
! 18 MR. MARKOWICZ: Don't you understand my I
- 19 point? My point is--
ie 20 MR. IMBRO: Well, maybe I don't.
O 21 MR. MARKOWICZ: --they're supposed to be 1
22 l independent of Northeast Utilities working under the 23 direction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and paid 24 by Northeast Utilities.
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i 1 MR. IMBRO: That's right. l 2 MR. MARKOWICZ: So if somebody in the 3 Nuclear Regulatory Commission doesn't tell Northeast i 4 Utilities their work at our direction is satisfactory, 5 pay them, then they're working for Northeast Utilities 6 and this is a charade. That's what I'm trying to get 7 at. I'm trying to encourage some kind of a process 8 internally, I mean, we've tried external-- !
9 MR. IMBRO: I understand your comment.
)
10 MR. MARKOWICZ: --we've tried external :
)- 11 and I'm trying to internalize it. So I'm asking could 12 we have what you think the process will be and then 13 maybe we'll comment on it.
14 MR. IMBRO: Well, again, you know, we're 15 going to approve the end product and we're going to do 16 inspections during the time that Sargent & Lundy is l
17 going to be doing their inspections. So we'll be 5 18 overseeing them to assure that they live up to the I
19 audit plan. I suppose if we have questions as to their !
20 .erformance, we will raise them with the licensee, our
,O 21 licensee and--
- I i
,l 22 MR. MARKOWICZ: I agree with what you (
23 just said. I'm just sort of suggesting maybe it be l
24 standardized and circulated maybe that'll help some
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U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 folks--
f 2 MR. IMBRO: Okay.
L 3 MR. MARKOWICZ: --understand the process i
4 and-- !
f 5 MR. IMBRO: I understand you're not --
6 probably not satisfied. All right. Let me turn it 7 'over to Phil McKee to talk about Employee Concerns 8 Program.
9 MR. PHIL MCKEE: Good evening. I know 10 it's been a . fairly long evening. I'm surprised g 11 although I see a few people leaving now that there
{} 12 wasn't a little more attrition but I think that's a 13 test to the endurance of some of you and certainly your 14 interest in the area, you know, that's being discussed 15 and I appreciate that.
16 The purpose I'm here is similar to Gene, l 17 is to solicit comments from you, the public, on an 5 18 organization proposed by Northeast Utilities to perform 19 the oversight of the Employee Concerns Program area and 20 I'll only take a minute, let me just put this a little o
=
21 bit in perspective. I'll back up just a little bit.
1 22 The two primary requirements of our
[
y 23 order are, one, for the utility to submit a 24 comprehensive plan on dealing with employee concerns ;
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.[ v) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 and those processes. Incidentally, we have received 2 the submittal of that plan. It was issued January 31st 3 and that's in.
4 The second element of the order is for 5 the utility and it's kind of two parts. One is for 6 them to propose a third party organization to provide 7 oversight of licensee's implementation of that 8 comprehensive plan. Along with that is once that 9 organization is approved that that organization develop 10 and develop and submit for NRC approval their plan for g 11 doing that oversight activity. With that, that's the
,~ 12 extent of my background, providing background in this 13 area.
14 Just a few things. We have received and 15 I think there were some copies of some of the 16 submittals by the licensee. I think they're available 17 in the public library but they were also available at ;
! 18 the back of the room earlier this evening. I don't ;
! know we've we I
19 if they've all run out tut got -- .
1 20 received several submittals from the licensee on their O
21 proposed organization.
22 The first one was a December 23rd letter l
23 where they proposed Little Harbor Consultants as the 24 organization to perform the third party review. That POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
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FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 submittal provided the identity of the organization but 2 it also identified the proposed team members of the 3 organization and at that time it was an organization 4 team led by John Beck, who happens -- who's the team 5 leader and happens to be the President of Little Harbor 6 Consultants.
7 Also it identified on the December 23rd 8 letter the nine member team that was proposed to do the 9 oversight. I guess to just mention one is John Griffin l
! 10 was identified as the Deputy Team Leader.
'g 11 We received a supplement to the December t e 12 23rd submittal on the organization from Northeast
}
l 13 Utilities and that really provided the technical l
14 proposal of Little Harbor Consultants as far as -- and 15 provided more details a little bit on probable 16 structure and some additional background on the l 17 individual team members that were being proposed.
l! 18 Recently we received and I just became
- 19 awar.e of this and we just received it on February 4th 20 an additional supplement and that identified two o
- 21 additional members they plan that would be included as l
R 22 far as the oversight team and that was Ms. Billy Garde, ,
s ,
b 23 who's really looking in a identified as an area of the 24 Employee Concern Program area who has expertise in that I POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
119 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION dc FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 area and some background and also Mr. James Perry, who 2 has a human resources background.
3 With that background I'm going to go 4 into a little bit of some of the discussion and again, 5 as Gene mentioned, I know several of you were there at 6 the meeting this afternoon where we got more details 7 and had some questions and discourse with the licensee 8 on their employee concern, you know, on the third party ;
i 9 organization and proposal and I'm not going to go --
10 they went into quite a bit of the background.
g 11 Just to sum that up, their selection 12 process initially involved they indicated 19 firms and 13 they ended up interviewing 6 firms and from that choice 14 and going through that Little Harbor Consultants was 15 selected and I guess Little Harbor is a Subchapter S 16 Corporation nd as I mentioned earlier the President is 17 a Mr. John Beck. !
! 18 Also discussed this afternoon were the 19 qualifications and some of the experiences, the 20 experiences of team members and it was looked at from a O
- 21 couple aspects and some of the areas, there was b
22 experience in the area of employee concern program, l
23 people with some expertise in that area and also doing 24 -- and also harassment and intimidation. That was an O
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( ). FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 area where there was expertise. People that have kind ;
i 2 of the human side, the climate and environment area and l i
3 also a number of people for the technical area, the i 4 many technical disciplines that may be involved, and !
5 also people experienced in self-assessment. They also 15 identified some of the more specific technical areas !
7 such as health physics, maintenance and had' a matrix j 8 that identified where individuals that were proposed 9 members of the team had expertise in those areas. I 10 Another area similar to what Gene, and iB 11 I'll sound like a little bit like a broken record 'I
(} 12 because there are some -- a lot of -- quite a few 13 parallels between the employee concerns I mentioned, 14 that's a station-wide program versus a unit program.
15 That's one difference. But several of the aspects that 16 we're looking at in th'e organizations are similar in 17 how we're going about it.
,I 18 An area discussed was independence.
19 Looking at independence from a financial aspect as far lh
!r 20 as Little Harbor Consultants was concerned and also as
!oa 21 the individuals, and as Gene I think mentioned for the l
22 individuals that are members of the team it was l
,b 23 identified that they had done a stock search and none i
i 24 of the individuals were identified to have any
, }
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1 ownership in Northeast Utilities. Stock,- we also get 3 2 statements in one of the submittals that they provided 3 certification from the individuals to that effect.
4 As far as previous work and experience, 5 that was discussed also in the submittals in this l 6 afternoon. As far as any previous work experience with !
7 Northeast Utilities by Little Harbor Consultants, which 8 Little Harbor Consultants has not had any, by' the 9 information that we received, previous work experience 10 at Northeast Utilities and discussed individuals, some l 11 of their involvement in previous Northeast Utilities 12 activities and some individuals at:
4ey identified and 13 discussed have had some aspects of related involvement 14 at North Utilities and that was discussed in relation 15 to a couple of the individuals there and that's an area 16 that we are still looking into.
17 Similar to Sargent & Lundy, talked about I 18 restrictions of individuals in work after completion of 19 Little Harbor Consultants contract and it was 20 identified and discussed that that would be six months O
21 after the ending of that contract.
k l 22 One concern we have is a little 23 different than in the ICAVP area was the level of 24 involvement of individuals. The way it is planned, we POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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1 understood it and was described today is that the team 2 leader and the deputy team leader would essentially be 3 involved full time in this project and that the nine l l
4 team members would be involved an estimate of maybe a i 5 couple of weeks per month depending on the activities 6 and the issues that came up following it up. So it 7 would not be full-time involvement by all the team 8 members.
9 And another area that was discussed that 10 is of interest to us and we wanted clarification is any 11 changes in the members of the team or any supplements 12 that they may need to address issues where there might
{' }
13 not be particular expertise of the team that's in place 14 to address those issues and that's still something to 15 be -- to identify as how that would happen and how that 16 might be approved and reviewed by the NRC.
17 That covers in a real quick essence some
! 18 of the submittal, some of the items that we discussed 1
19 this afternoon. With that, I will open it up to you I 20 and we're interested in your comments and input. Mr.
O 21 Blanche.
i 1
22 MR. BLANCHE:
l Thank you. Again, Paul 23 Blanche. How did we get into this mess and why do we 24 have these independent oversight teams, employee O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 concerns oversight and the independent corrective 2 action and why do we -- why are they being required?
3 From my perception it's because of 4 public reaction and the fact that the public has little 4
5 confidence in Northeast Utilities and little confidence 6 in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and I think that's 7 a pretty general characterization of a lot of members 8 of the public. So the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 decided that if they could appoint "an independent 10 assessment team," whether it be ICAVP or employee "g 11 concerns, maybe that would satisfy some of the concerns 12 of the public.
(~)%
u 13 I have a problem in your definition of 14 independence. You happen to define it as one of the 15 criteria, primary criteria is financial interest. If 16 Sue Perry Luxton or Rosemary had 500 shares of NU stock 17 or 5,000, shares I would consider them more independent
! 18 than some of the people that are selected because they 19 are not tied to the nuclear industry.
20 Now I don't know any of these people, O
21 the original submittal with respect to the employee l 22 concerns in. In my mind are they independent? They're 23 no more independent if you put a group of people 24 opposed to nuclear power. These people, their entirely a
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( _j FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 livelihood is dependent on nuclear power. So in my 2 definition there is no independence because they, 3 obviously, want to see the industry survive. I just 4 don't think that if the group remained as it was 5 initially structured solely that the public would have 6 any confidence in the independence of the employee 7 concerns oversight team.
8 With the addition of Mr. Perry and 9 Billie Garde, I know Billie Garde personally. In my 10 mind she is independent and I talked to her last night 3 11 and she assures me that Mr. Perry is also independent.
5 12 Now there's two people that I consider independent on (G~;
13 that team and the best we can hope for is to have some 14 balance of the independence, some people who are 15 neutral with respect to nuclear power such as Billie 16 Garde and Mr. Perry and maybe a balance with some 17 people who are -- whose livelihood depends on the I 18 nuclear industry such as the other people.
!: 19 Seems to be unbalanced. I particularly Ir 20 don't care for the definition of independence. I'm not O
=
21 sure that the public is going to have total confidence 1
22 in the independence. You've heard a lot of questions l
b 23 tonight. Again, with the addition of Billie Carde and l
24 Mr. Perry I'm a little encouraged but I think that l
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125 I U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l (. FEBRUARY 5, 1997 i 1 there needs to be a balance there and I want to see you 2 get the public confidence and have the independence 3 there, and I've shared these thoughts with Northeast !
4 Utilities also. So they're not any secret. Thank you.
5 MR. MCKEE: I think that's mostly a 6 comment. I appreciate your comments. You might note 7 that I've heard some of the comments before and I ,
t 8 carefully avoided the word independence, although I )
9 recognize it does apply in the same category. I tried 10 to--
11
'{s MR. BLANCHE: It's his definition.
(} 12 MR. MCKEE: I tried to refer to third 13 party and we do -- in establishing a third party we do 14 try to define areas where, you know, how people will be i 15 independent. In that context certainly your comments 16 apply and will be considered. Thank you.
17 Let's see if we can get to some, well, I 18 Mark. I was going to get somebody new but it looks
.h 19 like we've got some of the same people.
i 20 MR. HALLOWAY: I've had a chance to ]
LO '
21 review the initial proposal that was issued on the 14th
.I 22 of January, 1997 and I have some questions and comments l
23 about the proposal.
24 In the experience matrix it shows that 5 l (2) l POST REPORTING SERVICE :
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126 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 out of the 11 proposed team members have experience in 2 nuclear or experience in employee concerns program.
l 3 When you look at the resumes of these five individuals, l
l 4 there's really only three of them that have any 1
5 specific connection to employee concerns programs and 6 one of these three happens to be a lawyer who's 7 represented the licensee in various actions. So I'm 8 not so sure that that necessarily means that they're 9 experienced in this particular aspect of employee 10 concerns. My point is is that that seems to be a 11 rather weak showing in the area of employee concerns l
12 and I think that this -- since this is an employee 13 concerns oversight contractor this is something that 14 should be looked at very carefully.
15 There's a statement under the group 16 leader's resume, Mr. Beck, that says his firm has 17 emphasized productivity and financial performance I 18 strategies for its client base. It sounds pretty good I 19 for the bottom line but NU's been criticized in the 20 past by the NRC for too much emphasis on cost O
= 21 containment. Do we really want an EPC oversight group 1
22 whose stated goal is in that direction? What does that l
b 23 have to do with employee concerns? What we're talking 24 here is people who go to a employee concerns department O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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)1 l l l
1 with legitimate work concerns. It has nothing to do l l i
2 with cost containment. It's a totally separate issue 1 i 3 and I don't think that -- I don't even know why this is l 4 in this person's resume.
l 5 Nine out of the eleven proposed team 6 members are former high level executives of utility 7 companies and I think this brings to light something l 8 which Mr. Blanche said. They have a vested interest in 1
9 this, have had. Often these employee concerns are 10 brought because it's a management versus labor
,g* 11 disagreement. Obviously, if the people could get these l
{} 12 things resolved with management types, they would. I 13 don't think that this is going to instill any 14 confidence in the employees to realize that this firm l
15 is dominated by utility employee executives. '
16 I think what they'd like to see -- I 17 can't speak for them. What I would like to see is an I 18 oversight contractor who had maybe some former i: 19 Department of Labor or OSHA employees, people that are Ie 20 connected with the very same problems that people bring i o
'= 21 up to the Employee Concerns Program. Maybe some shop i
22 stewards, HR , human resources staff people. That would
'l 23 be kind of a plus on this team, not a lot of utility l 24 executives.
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j 2 full commitment from team members. Are there any 3 provisions for substitution?
4 MR. MCKEE: Yes, I did mention, we asked ;
l 5 about that this afternoon and they did mention 6 provisions for substitution because it was recognized 7 given the broad area issues that might come up that may l l 8 include expertise outside of the tea:n 'and the 9 provisions were discussed. They would look at --
l 10 screen the individuals. It's still open of how those l g 11 individuals might finally be approved. That could be
(} 12 really a part of the process once they identify the --
13 once the organization is reviewed and approved, a !
i 14 submittal of the process. But that is an important 15 area of our concern to see how that may -- how that's 16 going to transpire and we are looking at that.
17 MR. HALLOWAY: The information that I I 18 was looking at was previous to the submittal I received -
I 19 today which showed the addition of a couple new members l 20 but does that lack of experience in employee concerns i
O j
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21 programs detailed in the proposal a concern to you? 640
- l-
{l 22 MR. MCKEE: I was looking at the other -
23 - there is quite a bit of experience with programs in
! 24 other utilities in the group and you mentioned and I
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l 1 don't -- I can't verify the count, you know, I'll find j 2 out-- 5
-3 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, there's a matrix i 4 located on page 4 of the proposal which shows the 5 of 5 the 11 people that have experience marked by X's there 6 and if you go to their resumes, that's further reduced.
7 Out'of 11 people I think the percentage is quite small.
(
8 MR. MCKEE: Well, you bring up a good
!. 9 point. That's something that we'll have to look at but ,
! I 10 you mentioned that for the oversight, if you look at ll 11 the order, the order focuses on more than just employee l*
12 concerns. It goes to other aspects of program areas 13 that should and have to be looked at also in reviewing l
14 the whole compass of how they deal with issues raised 15 or deal with the problems raised or concerns raised by 16 employees. So I agree with you that employee concern 17 and expertise in that area is very important but it's 5 18 all -- the other areas are also, you know, important.
1
': 19 MR .. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
20 MR. MCKEE: Mr. Delcore.
O 1 21 MR. DELCORE: Don Delcore, Uncasville. I l' '
22 One thing that bothers me extremely is the fact that l
I 23 there was a selection process used at Millstone in i
i 24 selecting a contractor to handle the ECP and from what O POST REPORTING SERVICE l
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1 I could see today, I didn't see members of the !
2 Connecticut's NAEC or maybe a former whistle blower or '
3 as Mark pointed out somebody from OSHA or somebody from 4 NLRB or something like that in the selection process 5 that Northeast used to select this Little Harbor Group 6 and, interestingly enough, for ten years by your MIRG 7 Program the NRC was very pointed in indicating that 8 Northeast Utilities and its own organization, the NRC, 9 essentially mishandled employee concerns and weren't 10 capable of discerning the roblems associated with 11 employee concerns and yet we have the higher echelon
{} 12 13 executives and people within the Northeast Utilities System who haven't been able to handle it for ten years 14 making the selection as to who one contractor is that's 15 going to handle the oversight.
16 That bothers me very much, really a lot.
17 Doesn't make any sense to me. It should be a group of
! 18 independent people who are well versed, who have had
- 19 experience in the drawbacks and the problems associated i
r 20 with being a whistle blower so that they can select o
a 21 romebody who is going to do a good job and selectively l
22 identify the areas and problems or concerns and try to l
b 23 resolve them and this particular selection really 24 doesn't make any sense to me, gentlemen, not one bit.
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( FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 If you look at it, doesn't make any sense because we're 2 going to have the utility that's had all these problems 3 make the selection and then you guys are going to 4 approve it. We got all this documentation for ten 5 years that says none of that worked. Why would we want 6 you guys to do that? Doesn't make any sense. So you 7 need to really work on that. I think you really need 8 to throw that one back in NU's lap and have them work 9 something out.
l t
10 The other issue certainly was the fact g 11 that you got lawyers and you got high level utility 12 people. So what you're telling all those people at
('J')
13 Millstone is that you got the same kind of individuals 14 like Bob Bush and John Opica and Miller and all the 15 rest of the people that were there before, you got the j 16 same people back. They're from other nuclear 17 organizations. It's the same kind of people. At least ,
I 18 to them it's high level management. There's nobody
. I:
19 down at their level. There's nobody down there in the h
r 20 trenches where they're receiving the problems and O
21 receiving the pressure and receiving the retaliation t
j 22 and discrimination to really understand it and know 23 what's going on and I think there's been an awfully 24 huge mistake made there also.
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! 1 The last people I would think that you !
-1 2 would want in there are lawyers. I mean, they l 3 perpetrate everything when it comes to trying to 4 develop a prob 3em and keep it going. They're experts l 5 at doing that. So they're the last people you want on f
6 a taview board. It throws me. I just can't believe L
7 that we're even doing that. i l
8 Of course, I think I expressed my ;
9 opinion this afternoon privately to you guys, as much 10 as I can do with my voice level, but I've never met I ie
) 11 Billie Garde and it's my understanding that she's !
i
{}
12 probably more oriented to my side of the fence than, 13 let's say, your side or NU's side but, you know, my l i
14 understanding of this situation for independence was no 15 prior involvement with the company. Billie Garde had a !
16 couple of months of prior involvement with the company 17 working on, of all things, the very thing that they're I 18 going to oversee that, you know, and so you want to I . 19 talk about a conflict of interest, there's a conflict 20 of interest there. She's involved in a program that O
i 21 she's going to oversee that you've issued an order
- l. 22 saying there's no prior involvement. So ignoring ;
b 23 whether she's capable or not of doing it and whether i 24 she's on your side of the fence or my side of the fence O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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l 1 doesn't seem like that was an appropriate move.
2 DR. TRAVERS: If I can just make a 3 comment?
4 MR. HALLOWAY: Sure.
5 DR. TRAVERS: We heard for the first 6 time today of their inclusion of Billie Garde and we 7 take your point in the context of the way the order 8 reads today and we're going to consider that 9 specifically. Right now, just to make -- be even more 10 specific there's a quote in the order that talks about g 11 individuals on the team need to be limited such that
{} none has had any direct previous involvement with the 13 activities at Millstone Station that the organization 14 will be overseeing.
15 MR. HALLOWAY: And they have.
16 DR. TRAVERS: And that I think is--
17 MR. HALLOWAY: Not only Billie Garde, I 18 there's a couple of others.
I 19 DR. TRAVERS: --you heard me ask a 20 couple of questions today about that. I think we need O
21 to consider that further and we will and we appreciate l
l 22 your comments. Thanks.
23 MR. HALLOWAY: But remember, Bill, that 24 considering it and doing something about it is what
}
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() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 we're concerned with as citizens.
2 DR. TRAVERS: Yes.
3 MR HALLOWAY: In other words, you know, 4 you guys have had the tendency to sit here and take all 5 this public comment but we've really not seen a whole 6 lot of response from any of the public comment and I 7 think that needs to be said here also. Thank you.
8 MR. MCKEE: Yes, sir, here in the second 9 row there.
10 MR. VERDONE: My name is Gary Verdone i
11 and I'm a Waterford resident. I'm also an ex-employee
{} 12 13 of Northeast Utilities. One thing that really disturbs l
me a lot about this nuclear safety concerns business is 14 the fact that I just lived through an experience at i 15 Northeast Utilities where I went to Nuclear Safety 16 Concerns for help in 1995, near the end of 1995. Heard 17 the story that we're going to get protection if we l
I 18 needed protection from abusive treatment by NU l
19 management, particularly when we're involved in nuclear l llr l
20 safety concerns issues or protected activities. I I O l
= 21 believed the company when they told us that we would I b
, j 22 get protection if we went to them and what actually 23 resulted in the end was that no action was taken and, 24 in fact, a couple of months after going to them--
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
135 7s U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ly FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 DR. TRAVERS: I guess I have to 2 interrupt you. I cut Don off a moment ago with a 3 question as to whether or not he was going to comment 4 on what the topic for discussion was and I guess I have 5 to ask you the same thing.
6 MR. VERDONE: Okay. I'm getting to 7 that. Okay. And, you know, the final result was that 8 a couple of months later I was laid off even though a 9 program I was involved in identified over 2,600 10 problems at the plant.
11 What I think the whole issue is here is 12 that before you can move on with this program that
[
13 you're talking, the NRC and the company has to look 14 back at all the people that were abused by this 15 company, mistreated, harassed, intimidated and so forth 16 and correct those problems. Nobody is going to believe 17 that this company is going to sponsor a program and I 18 make it work unless you straighten out the sins and the j I
- 19 abuses of the past. Even after the Hand Report was ir 20 issued and all of these other investigations that have I O
=
21 been going on with OI and everything else concerning l
22 these whistle blower activities not one damned thing l
b 23 has happened on behalf of the people that have been 24 abused.
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l 1 So I think the first step is those 2 issues have got to be corrected before these plants are !
3 allowed to start up and the company gets some degree of f
4 confidence that the new program may work and then move i
5 on with this thing otherwise you- guys are going l
6 nowhere.
7 MR. MCKEE: Thank you. Ms. Luxton. ,
i i
8 MS. LUXTON: Susan Perry Luxton. I was l l
9 here-this afternoon for this and I think there's a flaw :
10 about this, this whole public comment to you now. NU l
11 should .be here. We should be able to ask them 12 questions. You did not allow us to ask them questions l 13 today.
14 DR. TRAVERS: I'm going to have to 15 interrupt you. We have been trying and I 11 continue 16 to try to see if anyone out there has a question about 17 the organization that's been proposed. We've sort of I 18 advertised the meeting for that purpose. We'll be glad
.: 19 to stay around afterwards and talk to you about ,
20 whatever you'd like to talk about but in deference to o
'21 people who have come here who'd like to make comment, I
-k j 22 really would like to try to get that out on the table b 23 before we get off this subject.
24 MS. LUXTON: In all due respect, Dr.
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1 Travers, I'm going to make a comment about ECP. I pay 2 your salary. You work for us. You're going to sit 3 here and you're going to listen to us until we're ,
4 finished, okay, sir, you know why, excuse me, you know !
5 why, sir?- Because this is the first time you have met f 6 with us in six weeks and I have other questions that j 7 you should listen to because you all want to be l 8 forthcoming and you want to be open to the public and I i 9 am the public.
I 10 Now this is my question -- this is my 1 11 comment on ECP to you, Mr. McKee. No. it's
{ 1, not 1
12 independent because Beck and Griffin are ex-nuclear 13 officers. It's been said before but I have a right-to 14 repeat that.
15 No. 2, I want to know from NU how many 16 years experience in employee concerns have the 17 individuals in Little Harbor Consultants. They did not 18 answer that properly today. I could not ask it of them
~
19 today because you did not allow me.
20 The next question is have Little Harbor o
21 Consultants done this kind of contract before? They l
l- 22 did not answer it so we don't know. How much research b 23 have they done -- has been done on their background in 24 this area? And have they verified all their resumes O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
138 g U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Q FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 and I mean verified their resumes, and those -- that is 2 my input on the ECP. Thank you.
3 DR. TRAVERS: Yee, and I just want to 4 make myself clear if I wasn't, we'11 be glad to stick 5 around and hear other comments as well but in deference 6 again to people who want to express comments of the 7 type that you just made, I wanted to offer them an 8 opportunity first. That's my point, and is there 9 anyone else who wants to--
10 MR. HALLOWAY: Are we get an answer to 11 her questions? I thought there was a series of l 12 questions there.
13 A VOICE: I thought so, too.
14 MR. MCKEE: Okay. The first question 15 that you raised was as far as, and I see your point and l
16 it's the same point you had in ICAVP about the 17 experience that -- any experience in the nuclear area
,! 18 and that is an observation, that's a fact, and that's l
19 the comment you have. Your observation is correct, he 20 does have background. So that's something we'll -- we O
21 have received your comment on that. There's really no 1
i l 22 response that you can -- that I can give to that 23 question.
24 The second one, experience in ECP, that O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
i 139 e3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l Q FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 question was brought up before. That's a good question 2 and that's something that we will look at and we need 3 to consider as far as the total experience from numbers 4 as well as the extent of the experience of individuals 5 and that is a valid question and it's something that we 6 plan to look at it more detail.
7 MS. LUXTON: Have they done this kind of 8 contract before?
9 MR. MCKEE: It was mentioned, yes, that 10 was the third question. The third question, there was
'{ 11 information provided today, something more details may
(} 12 have to be obtained on, that they had done Little 13 Harbor Consultants, which the President is Mr. Beck, 14 had done with different people. Some worked as far as 15 employee concern programs I think I understood it at 16 that time that it was not necessarily for in the 17 nuclear business but similar type activities. I'm not
! 18 familiar what--
1
,- 19 MS. LUXTON: Could you clarify that?
!r 20 MR. MCKEE: That's something we--
1 0 i
21 MS. LUXTON: Could you clarify that?
. I l 22 MR. MCKEE: --can check and look into.
l 23 That's a good point on their experience. Research in 24 the background of the people, that I believe was your POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
l 140 m U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l C FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l 1 fourth question. We have the resumes. We're still 3
\
2 looking at some, but that provides some backgroun.l. l 3 We've got some additional information. We plan to l 4 pursue that further to look at the experience level of 5 individuals in more detail and, you know, that's a l 6 valid point and that's what we're doing before we would l l
7 approve the organization and I couldn't keep up with j 8 you. I missed your fifth question. l l
l 9 MS. LUXTON: Verify the resumes. Verify 1 10 the resumes.
l 11 MR. MCKEE: I think that gets into l
{
12 looking into the resumes. I'm not quite sure what you 13 have in concept of verifying resumes. I'm not familiar l 14 with a verification of resume process but I think we l
l 15 need to do some confirmation that the information 16 provided is accurate to us, yes.
l 17 MS. LUXTON: Thank you.
18 MR. MCKEE: Okay. I'll get to the lady l
19 in the green next, I'm sorry, and we'll get a new voice 20 up here.
,o l 21 A VOICE: I just want to make the same I"
22 comment because I was here this afternoon, I went home 23 and I looked at the Little Harbor Consultant resume and 24 this person is the nuclear vice president. He has O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
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141 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
( FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 nothing to do with personnel, no experience in 2 personnel, only management. His whole resume is all 3 nuclear. He has nothing to do with helping employees.
4 I don't see how -- I think you should give the thumbs i
5 down to Little Harbor, in my opinion, that's my
)
6 personal opinion, thumbs down to Little Harbor i 7 Consultants. They're too tied into the industry.
8 MR. MCKEE: I hear your comment and I 9 understand your comment.
10 MS. CANDI MARION: I'm not sure I have 11 to use the microphone, can everyone hear me? I'm a 12 loud mouth. My name is Candi Marion and I only have 13 one comment to make about Billie Garde. I know Billie 1
14 Garde personally and have for a while. She is a moral, i 15 very moral person. She has lived the whistle blower 16 experience to the ultimate and she would not associate 17 herself with anyone that was not of the same moral
! 18 fiber as she. I think you would do a big disservice to 19 the employees of NU to not consider her for this 20 independent team and that's all I have to say.
O 21 MR. MCKEE: Okay, thrnk you.
1 22 A VOICE: I second that.
l 23 MR. MARKOWICZ: John Markowicz, 24 Waterford, Connecticut. A couple suggestions on things O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
142 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 l
1 to look at as you review the contract that's been I 2 recommended. As a Subchapter S corporation they should 3 have officers and directors and stockholders and if 4 you're going to pursue stock ownership issues, I 5 suggest in a small Subchapter S corporation those l 6 individuals should also be considered because they have !
7 quite a bit of leverage in a corporation like that.
8 I think that in looking at Little Harbor 9 as a contractor since it's apparently a one-person 10 operation and therefore they will hire the other team j 11 members, I assume as consultants or as independent 12 contractors then certainly some review of the contracts 13 that will be drawn up between Little Harbor Consultants 14 and those consultants as appropriate specifically to 15 make sure that the provisions of the prime contractor 16 are passed through to the subordinates and that the 17 terms and conditions that Little Harbor as a one-person I 18 operation agrees to are also agreed to by the 1
- 19 consultants.
Ie 20 I think you should also be sensitive to o
= 21 the fact that I have some personal experience having 1
l 22 seen an operation where you have a series of 23 independent contractors working for a single prime 24 contractor and there are Department of Labor issues tO v
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rsano^ar s. 1997 1 that come to bear, specific sensitivity with payment of 2 matching social security by the prime contractor which 3 creates downstream problems should this company be i i
4 selected and then end up because of the arrangements 5 not having done.
6 In other words, there are Department of !
7 Labor rules with respect ~ to what an independent I 8 contract is, how that operates, what the supervision, 9 where they work and if the federal government or the 10 Department of Labor. perceives that the independent
?> 11 contractor is really an employee by their definition, 8
12 then Little Harbor is supposed to pay matching social 13 security because the funds (indiscernible) money and so 14 it becomes a significant issue for fines and penalties.
15 I'm just suggesting that you'd at least address that so 16 *that it doesn't create some problem downstream as this 17 contract is pursued.
! 18 I've heard the discussions with Billie,
. 19 about Billie Garde. I hope she comes to work on this 20 project but-I don't think on the independent team is l l-O l
- 21 the right place. I think by the very definition. I 22 thought that the presentation this afternoon was l
23 embarrassing to the person making the presentation i i' l' 24 after the question was asked and answered, has she
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1 worked recently on the very program that this group 2 will oversee? And, in fact, the presenter in his l
3 summary remarks did not read two of the bullets that 4 were on the screen that would have rebutted that 5 statement. I was very embarrassed for that person.
6 With respect to termination, with '
i 7 respect to the six month rule, my experience in the 8 Department of Defense has been that if you come on i i
l 9 board to do the kind of work, test and evaluation, '
10 independent test and evaluation work on a specific 11 system like these folks are_ proposing, then you
{
12 historically sign a three year contract not to do work (V^T 13 on that system. I'm not suggesting that be the 14 standard here but that is the industry standard in the 15 Department of Defense contracting world.
16 And finally with due respect to Gene, I 17 log the same comments and concerns that you should 18 consider in your contracting regarding termination of I
- 19 the contractor, since you have some oversight ir 20 responsibilities, or termination of the individuals on O
21 the team, since they will now be subcontractors to a l 22 prime contractor. I would respectfully request that 23 the procedure, the wiring diagram, how they will be 24 overseen and how payment will be authorized and who O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
145 p3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
(,) FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 will do that and the process whereby that will be 2 executed.
3 And finally this is a probably a little 4 bit bigger than the previous one, all these folks that 5 are being proposed may have worked for the NRC and you 6 should check that. What have they done for you lately?
7 Have they worked on similar programs at similar sites?
8 I mean, it's the same questions that Gene has with the 9 ICAVP.
10 MR. MCKEE: Would that exclude them in g 11 your mind?
{} 12 MR. MARKOWICZ: Thank you.
13 MR. MCKEE: Those are very good 14 suggestions, particularly your first couple I think 15 were very perceptive and things that do warrant looking 16 at and we'll follow up on. So thank you.
17 MR. MARKOWICZ: We've talked to the I 18 utility about these.
I 19 MR. MCKEE: Thank you. Yes, sir.
20 MR. DAVID SOLK: David Solk from O
. 21 Stonington. I have a question that's been brought up l
g 22 before but I don't have a clear idea of your response l 23 to it. It has to do with the composition of this 24 oversight team, whether they be moral, whether they be O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
146 g- U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION (j FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 experienced, whether they be involved with NU or not 2 involved with NU, all of them represent managenen+_.
3 All of them have been chosen by management and a 4 management that somebody mentioned has been the cause 5 cf these problems that has required an oversight team.
6 My question is what importance do you 7 give to the lack, the total lack on this oversight team 8 of anybody from the whistle blowers, anybody from the 9 employees' side? Is that not of some importance? Do 10 they all have to be doctors? Do they all have to be 11 very experienced in employee and personnel things? So
~T
,r 12 my question very simply, do you give any importance at U
13 all to the lack of inclusion of anybody from the labor 14 force, from the whistle blowers?
15 MR. MCKEE: I think that's a good point.
16 I think the qualifications of Individuals that have 17 observed those programs is also, you know, a valid l 18 issue and important but I r e, .::k that that is a good I. 19 point that we'll have to look at and I think that was i
e 20 part of the decision to try to include a couple of O
. 21 additional members, in particular Ms. Billie Garde in l
= 22 the program to cover that aspect and that is an area of 5
l 23 potential concern and it is recognized, yes. I'm 24 sorry, yes, yes, sir.
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1
147 U S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 MR. JERRY REARDON: My name is Jerry 2 Reardon, Newington, Connecticut. Jerry Reardon, 3 Newington, Connecticut. I'm also an NU employee for 4 the past 25 years and for the past 15 years I've been 5 assigned to the Nuclear Safety Oversight Group. So you 6 can understand I've seen a lot of programs come, I've 7 seen a lot of programs go and it wasn't until tonight, l
8 until Mr. Halloway mentioned his view that I realized l 9 that over all these years it has always been a conflict 10 between labor and management and from my perspective it 11 seems that management never wanted to implement j 12 anything good.
13 So you can understand that I'm really 14 counting on this third party to implement what I hope 15 is a good program but I'm very disappointed to hear 16 tonight that this group of consultants under I 17 consideration is really a bunch of ex-nuclear utility l 18 officials. To me it sounds like the Little Harbor of I
. 19 ex-utility officials isn't a very safe harbor and I 20 really request that you reject them out of hand.
O
. 21 You know, from my perspective all that I
g 22 is simply needed here are just a few good people, l 23 people who have a vested interest in their own health 24 and safety. I'd like to see some residents of i O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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( U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
() FEBRUARY 5, 1997 1 Waterford be the group selected to implement this l 2 program. Thank you.
l 3 MR. MCKEE: Okay. Thank you, i
4 CHAIRMAN LANNING:
No other questions?
5 Okay. We're going to close the meeting now. We will 6 stay around, the staff will be around to answer any 7 additional questions on any variety of subjects so 8 we'll be here for you. Thank you very much for coming.
9 (Whereupon, the hearing adjourned at 10 10:19 p.m.)
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!~
INDEX OF SPEAKERS :
! t
! PAGE ,
t GARY VERDONE 12,134 !
l PAUL BLANCHE 15,56,122 ;
o
! - ,i SUSAN PERRY LUXTON 23,68,136 i
! MARK HALLOWAY 31,86,125,133 [
f l
JEAN PEABODY 38 i
ROSEMARY BASSILAKIS 42 l GEORGE VACHRIS 47 JOHN MARKOWICZ 49,91,112,141 !
MARY KUHN 60 !
l~ BILL SHEEHAN 90 ,
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TERRY CONCANNON 96 4 1
REPRESENTATIVE ANDREA STILLMAN 99 -,
-1 TED FANG 102. l DON DELCORE 106,129 L :
VOICE 138 i l- CANDI MARION 141
. DAVID SOLK 145
- JERRY REARDON '147 o.
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iO POST REPORTING SERVICE
! HAMDktt, CT (800) 262-4102 i
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CERTIFICATE O l l
I, Paul Landman, a Notary Public in and for the State of Connecticut, I and President of Post Reporting Service, Inc., do hereby certify that, to the best '
1 of my knowledge, the foregoing record is a correct and verbatim transcription i
of the audio recording made of the proceeding hereinbefore set forth.
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I further certify that neither the audio operator nor I are attorney or counsel for, nor directly related to or employed by any of the parties to the
, action and/or proceeding in which this action is taken; and further, that neither g the audio operator nor I are a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel
{ employed by the parties thereto, or financially interested in any way in the !
outcome of this action or proceeding.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and do so attest to the above, this 25thday of Feb. ,19 97 k# as _ e Paul Landman,
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,O President i
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10ST REIORTING SERVICE 1-800-262-4102