ML20136G849
| ML20136G849 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 11/29/1984 |
| From: | Ahearne J NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | Bickwit L, Jamarl Cummings, Dircks W NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTOR & AUDITOR (OIA), NRC OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR OPERATIONS (EDO), NRC OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL (OGC) |
| References | |
| SP-S-001, SP-S-1, NUDOCS 8508200039 | |
| Download: ML20136G849 (59) | |
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/w^%k umito si TEs JCLE AR REGUL ATORY COMMISSI hht// Nv/paa # /
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g, William J. Dircks, Acting EDO [ US ^
MEMORAriDJM FOR:
James.J. Cummings, Director, DIA l#
l Leonard Bickwit,.GC ,
- 85 AUG -7 P2S6 FROM: John Ahearne Mk' -
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SU5 JECT: FURTHER liNESTIGAT10ti 0F METROPOLITAN EDISON
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The attached letter and addendum indicate that the Co.:..ission has decided to refer to 1&E the question of further enforcccent action
) agair.st Met Ed regarding inferriation transferred on the day of the TM]
a c c i d e r.t . The EDO should direct _!&E to reine its irsestication. which yas held in abevance by the Cer-mission rendir.o receiot of ine Special a r.:.a ry Grout: reports . ine Ger.eral Ccunsci sn:. sic assign or.c .. ember of l his stait to follow this review. I suggest Marian Moe. The Director of O! A snosid participate in this revic , as ir.dicated in the Cornission letter to Mr. Udall.
Attaci> ent:
As stated .
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Cve-issioner I:ennedy oseht * #*""'M Co : .issioner Hendrie Y" D e rn.f.!
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.J V 'T + 4 .l e$.v y /gY b A The Honorable Morris K. Udall ll:
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Ce=tttee on interior and Insular Affairs '
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i t- ~ The Coersisito~nTas'devided subiaidfal'itnito'th'e~quitioh sf. Met'W,i'n? r i f Ed's conduct during the THI-t accfdent one year ego.' last fall the NRC O . ~
)i assessed a civil penalty assinst Met Ed. Mcw:ver. ons area es left 4 le e open, that related to inforestion transfer;- Last fall the Cv'aission m..g -
r concluded that trea should be exastacd after.the Presidential Co:ntssfos.Tx L b
, [ end the NRC Special Inquiry troup had completed their workJ15hortly . $tii; U _
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l '.I; Special Inquiry Group to examine its records further for information W' +
r partaining believed warranted..: to your questions Finally. Dr. and pers to of conduct your staff suchfurther has provided inquiry us:..G as it, ;A.4F
)I with a review of this issue. , tKi> y u -
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The Special Inquiry Group has reported on its retxamination in- <i
, de' ail, frdinting thtt 4 firt .% dirtet tyfdence suggesting intsn ' 1 ' ,
l tional withholding of information but that it wss not apprcpriate for . -
the Special Inquiry Group to reach conclustons as to enforcement ques g '
tions. The Coenission believes the Special Inquiry Group effort answers ~
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" l 1 your questions, although the answers will have to be reviewed by NRC -
persenr.e1 with regard to enforcer.,ent matters. The Coontssion has dis- -
i cu sed several approaches to complete the review, including setting up a special task force in the Office of the General Counsel referring the entire issue to the THI-1 hesrins board, and referring the matter directly. "
to 18E. We have concluded that the appropriate action is to now direct i ist to co plate the investigetton. This will focus upon the question of
.h:*.her a further civil penalty of Met Ed is .iustified in light of the f4ets pertaining to informatjon transfer. 382 will contact pur staff O:
1 further inforr.stion they may have. . Followfog the 11 investi-th entire file would be referred to the Justice Depsrtrent for. o,. . ,
- i. .c., for possible prosecution. If such action appesrs eppropriate. .
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a cor.dacties its review 1&E will be assisted by IA to insure in.rc;rtete procedures are foI1cwad to prctect possible subsequens-i
- .: ty the Justice Departrent. In addition, the Gener:1 Counsel
. 1 r,,r.ite the pregress of the investigation and keep the Corrission it a:.t cf its status.
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Comissioners Gilinsky and Bradford emphatically'do not agree that Erpn - ~
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ryst.ified how such an assurance can be given until I&E or (as they wuld ~" ?:;gg _,
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o GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABluTY PROJECT 1555 Connecticut Awmue, N.W., Suite 202 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202)232 8550 ,
December 21, 1984 Administrative Judges Ivan W. Smith, Chairman d Sheldon J. Wolfe '
Gustave A. Linenberger, Jr.
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Dear Administrative Judges; Mr. Blake and I agreed to add to the Modified Joint Mailgram Stipulation the following document: NRC Interview of Karl Plumlee (May 30, 1979). This document is being added for Mr. Plumlee's discussion of hydrogen. To the extent that Mr. Plumlee's discussion of hydrogen is a subject of proposed findings by TMIA, TMIA will not object to Licensee referring in reply findings to item 139 of Part C of Joint Mailgram Exhibit 1.
We would jointly move that the record be reopened to permit admission of this interview insofar as the Board considers the record closed for this purpose.
This document should be considered Item 145 of the Joint Mailgram Exhibit 1(c).
Thank you for your prompt consideration of this matter.
Sincerely yours,
}/A n-,4 j j u -,_
Lynn)e Bernabei m .r.
'f Counsel for TMIA s
Seen and Agreed:
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h,Urnest L. Blake cc: service list
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1 RESNER: This is an interview of Mr. Karl E. Plumlee and Mr. Ronald L. Nimitz.
2 Mr. Pluelee is employed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region I 3 office, and he is a Radiation Specialist. Mr. Nimitz is also employed with 4 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Cosaission at the Region I office, and he is a 5 Radiation Specialist also. The present time is 11:37 a.m. EST; today's 6 date is May 30, 1979. This interview is being conducted in office 1148 at 7 631 Park Avenue, King of Prussia, which is the NRC Region I office. Indivi-8 duals conducting this interview are Mr. Thomas M. Essig. Mr. Essig is the
, Chief. Environmental and Special Projects Section, assigned to Region III g of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Cosmission; and presently speaking and g noderating this interview is Mark E. Resner, Investigator, Office of Inspec-g tor and Auditor at the Headquarters of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commis-g3 sion. Prior to taping this interview, both Mr. Plumlee and Mr. Nimit: were 14 given a tw page d cument which explained the purp se, the scope, and the g authority which the NRC has been given to conduct this investigation. In g addition, it apprised them of the fact that they are entitled to a represen-tative of their choice to be present during the interview snould they desire one and, additionally, that in no way are they compelled to talk with us should they not want to. On the second page of this document, 19 )
1 there are three questions which each individual has answered. I will state these for the record. Question 1: "Do you understand the above?" Mr.
Nimitz has checked "yes." Is that cor ect, Mr. Nimit:?
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23 NIMITZ: Yes, that's correct.
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0 1 RESMER: Question 2: "Do we have your pemission to tape the interview?" '
2 Mr. Nimitz has checked "yes." Is that correct, Mr. Nimitz?
3 4 NIMITZ: Yes, that is correct.
5 6 RESNER: Question 3: "Do you want a copy of the tape?" Mr. Nimitz has y checked "yes," indicating that he does, anet he will be provided with a copy 3 of the tape. Is that correct, Mr. Nimitz?
9 10 NIMITZ: Yes.
11 12 RESNER: Thank you. Mr. Pluulee's document: "Do you uncerstand the above?"
13 He has checked "yes." Is that correct, Mr. Plumlee?
14 PLUMLEE: Yes.
3 16 17 RESNER: Question 2: "Do we have your permission to tape this interview?"
Mr. Pluulee has checked "yes." Is that correct, Mr. Plumiee?
l 19 PLUMLEE: Yes.
t 21-RESNER: Question 3: "Do you want a copy of this ta;,e?" Mr. Plumlee has checked "yes." Is that correct, Mr. D'umlee?
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- 3 1 P,(UMLEE: Yes. '
2 3 RESNER: 0.K., thank you, we'll provide you with a copy of the tape. At 4 this point, I will ask first Mr. Pluelee, and then Mr. Nimitz, to give us a 5 brief synopsis of their educational and job experience as related to the 1 6, nuclear industry. Mr. Plumlee?
7 g PLUMLEE: I as a graduate of Southern Illinois University. I have a bachelor's 9 degree in chemistry, and I also have a master's degree in physics from the 10 University of Illinois; in addition, I as a registered Professional Engineer n in Illinois. I have worked in the nuclear field since 1948, starting in 12 Hanford Works for 2 years and roughly 6 years following that in the Savannah 3 River plant and 2 years following that for Combustion Engineering and 14 1 years at Arg nne National Lab rat ry prior t taking a job with the AEC Office of Inspection and Enforcement.
3 16 g RESMER: Thank you, Mr. Pluelee. Mr. Nimitz, if you will please give us a synopsis of your experience and education and job-related...
19 '
MIMITZ: I have a B.S. degree in nuclear mechanical engineering and graduate !
level courses in radiation shielding and neutron transport. My experience related to the nuclear industry--I spent several years at the Indian Point I Atomic Power Station as a Senior Health Physics technician and, while I
working at the Pannsylvania State University spent approximately 3 years <
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I 3 If tion with a certified Health Physicist at the facility. I've got approxi-2 mately 3\-4 years of nuclear power experience, both at fuei fabrication ;,
3' facilities. I spent time at the General Electric Nuclear Fuels Fabrication 4 facility in North Carolina, and on my summers between my courses at Penn 5 State I spent time at other facilities working as a Health Physicist.
6 7 RESNER: Thank you, Mr. Nimitz. At this time, Mr. Essig has some questions !
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g he would like to pose to you both. (
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g ESSIG: What we'd like to do in the interview this morning with both you '
g gentlemen is to reconstruct as best we can, given the fact that the event i i y of March 28 now is, has nearly been, well it's been over 2 months ago, we'd ~
g like to reconstruct as best we can from either your memory or your notes, p or a combination of the two, starting with when you gentlemen were first g informed that there had been an incident at Three Mile Island and when you were requested to report to the site. When you arrived at the site--we'd like to know of any independent measurements that you conducted enroute, il and know of any independent measurements or other* evaluatory type functions that you were involved in once you arrived at the site. We're talking only Jl now of the first 3 days following the event; this would be March 28--
Wednesday--the 29th and the 30th. So I'd like to turn the microphone over 21 22 to whichever one of you would care to start, and just like to let you sort of ramble on for a while and reconstruct the chronology of your involvement in those first 3 days. Would you care to start, Karl?
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plVMLEE: The first inkling I had that there was an accident was at 8:00 on .
2: the morning of the 28th when I came pait the recertionist and sne was j 3 complaining that someone had been paged on the beeper and had failed to 4 call in--not me. About 15 minutes af ter 8, I was informed that there was a ,
5 briefing on the problem at Three Mile Island, and this briefing was, in 6 effect, a statement that there was a shutdcwn,... the cause of the shutoown.
7 And, in addition, the fact that highly radioactive water had been pumped 8 fr m the containment building ever into the auxiliary building, the fact 9 that the containment building had the hydrogen present in the atmosphere in 10 a significant quantity. I don't know whetner it was 2% or 3%, but it was g well above the detection limit--and, thirdly, that there had been some release of airborne activity, primarily through the auxiliary building g ventilation system. At 8:30, as I recall, a nuecer of us were told to be 14 reacy tc leave for the Three Mile Island facility and, as I reca'1, Renald (
r Nimitz was one of these sembers. Gallina and- uh. gee, the name of this i other guy has slipped me here- uh, do jou want to break the ta;e a mirute
.hile I look up the name... it was Hi'l ns i from Oneratior . a c Smitn from.. an investigator, and Neely, wru is anct.Per Radiat wa Specialist. !
18 U.K , as I recall, acout 8:45 e were actually :, tne.. 'n tM eme -]ency , i 19!
venicle ready to leave, and we arrived at the Nurth Cate at N ee Mi'e I 20 Islanc about 10 minutes after l') on tt , 28tn. W e was i de' sf ot s b 213 a half-hour at the North Gate, parti, tecause sue. cf the tea dio not 22\;
have badges that were outstanding onc calid asstgnec to t.sn, and thoj had ;
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1 1 evacuated except for essential personnel by that time. At roughly 10: 40, I 2 was--because I had an assigned badge at the North Gate- was allowed to 3 escort the remaining people who did not have badges other than visitor's 4 badges, escort required into the Unit 1. We reached Unit 1 control rocm ,
5 where they had set up an emergency control center. At that point, as I ;
6 recall it, Jim Seelinger was in charge of the emergency control center and 7 sy notes indicate that Hitz was a Unit 1 Shift Supervisor who nas actually ;
g in charge of the operation of Unit 1. Unit I was, I think, reaching hot g critical or hot standby condition. They were starting up following a g refueling outage.
1 >
y ESSIG: 0.K. , yo used the term " emergency control center," Karl, and I just want to draw a distinction if... I want to make Oure we're not confusing
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two terms. The licensee, as I uncerstand it, has two centers that are established: one is called the emergency control center, t.te other is called the emergency control station. The center, I believe, is in the 7
control room of the effected unit--that -ould be Unit 2--and I just wint to make sure... were you, in fact, talking about the emergency :ontrc' center i or t'te emergency control station?
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0 PLUMLEE: I stand corrected. The peccle in the Unit I were ' coking after j the offsite problem, ar.d that I guess is the emergency cont o. station. We were briefed by the pecple onsite at that time, and, if you .ill stay with me a moment, my notes indicateo tnat they had identified the 3 steam generator 4
leak which they thought was a tube ru;tr e; t ey .cre avint, probi ets with
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- 1. the condensate poli >hers, and they hac had a feec pump trip which I think I 2' was part of the initial reason for the shutcown They had a group of
- 3 people set up in Unit I control room with their isopleths, etc. , to try to 4 show the wind direction and try to direct an offsite team. I don't know
$ anything about their offsitu team activities at that point. They stated 6 that no exceptional releases had occurred, and that there were no high 7 radiation readings offsite. At that point, which was soretning like 10:45 l
g or 11:00 a.m. on the 28th, Unit 1 and Unit 2 auxiliary building ventilation g systems werw isolated, and they stated that they had 532 F in Unit 2 and 10' 2155 psi pressure, and they had identified 2 x 10 microcuries per milli-g litar in the airborne levels in the auxiliary building, which I think was y Unit 2--I don't show which it was. They had B steam generator isolated, y and they had a 2.8 psi positive pressure in Unit 2 containment. There was y a report that there was 3 mR/hr at roughly that time at the north parking g lot, which is right outside the, uh, what is the right word for this building, the process center. They said they had a helicopter assisting at that y
g point with their offsite monitoring, and that Gary Miller was in the Unit 2 control room at that time. They were roughly at 11:00 attempting to restart
, the auxiliary building / fuel handling building ventilation, and they had a number of high radiation monitor trips in Unit 1, which they attributed to ventilation problems drawirg the airborne activity over into Unit 1. I took some readings, which I think are the readings at 10:50 a.m. in the l Unit 1 instruments. They had a liquid monitor RNL-6 radwaste discharge 23 which was tripped and indicating 4 x 10#cpm. RMA-9, which is the reactor 24 building stack particulate, also tripped shewing 10 5cpm. RMA-6 which is 25 e
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W 1,k the auxiliary builairq particulate ventilation monitor was indicating 6
2, 10 cps, and it was really offscale. That was as far a< tre scale went. >
3 The fuel handling building ventilation monitor particulate RMA 4 was offscale 4 They stated that Gary Reed and Cary Harner had taken s we samples at 10:25 5 a.m. which indicatec 130 microcuries/ml of activity in tne primary water of j 6 Unit 2. Roughly, this is the point that, as far as you're concerned about I 7 offsite activity, etc., the point which I would have to stop and go on g another topic. During this period of time of 10: 45 to 11:00, we were 9 informed that the people in Unit 2 control room were on masks and they did 10 not have enough respirators for more than two people to go over to Unit 2.
g Don Neely and Higgins (Operations inspector) immediately went over to y Unit 2 and the remainder of us, because there were not enough respirators, g remained in the vicinity of Unit l's control room. At about 11:30, I was y requested by George Seith by telephone to make a survey around the exterior of the reactor facility, and I discussed this with Jim Seelinger. He did not want me to go out alone; he asked to have one of his people accompany me, and the individual who accompanied me was an auxiliary operator naneo Joe Manoskey. We found about 5 mR/hr along the east fence surrounding the reactor building and the auxiliary building, etc., and 20 mR/hr at the west fence. The west fence was alscst downwind; I did not intend to get into the plume--! had walked up to the area near the plume and (when I say plume l 21 !
I mean by visible steam vapor coming of f the atmospheric dumps) and we were at 10 mR/hr, which was as f ar as ! intended to go. The wird snitt put this, as far as we know, right on us. As far as appearances, it raised our radiation indication of 20 mR/hr on t~e E-120 cetecter, we were afraid we 25 l68 l U i
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- 1. were going to find ourselves royally contaminated with iodinc, and we were 2; very happy when we got away from that to find that we had no activity on 3 us. We did have the presence of mind to stop inhaling while .e were in 4 that plume. One of the things that I reported back to George Smith about 5 12 noon was that there was no indication of any activity on the ground, and
! 6 there was no indication that any of this plume activity adhered to us or to y our clothing. That was, I think, a significant difference from what I g would have anticipated beforehand. If I'd been asked what would happen if 9 you get caught in a plume reading 20 mR/hr--I would have said, "Well, you'd 10 come out of there with a Ict of activity on you." That was not the case.
g At about 12: 45 or 12:50, I spoke with Jim Seelinger and I told him of the y radiation levels that we had found in the plume outside, and the reason 33 that I was specific in going to him was that I understood that he ha told 14 pe ple there was no release to the atmosphere from the facility. Specifi-3 cally, Tom Gerusky of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Radiaticn Health was on
, the une, an o,en une, compiaining trat n, was be,ng said tnat tnere .u p no release taking place, and yet he was able to read radiation airborne in Harrisburg, which is 15 miles away, rcughly I also tolo .ieelinger inat, g as far as I could determine, the wind was variacle and tnat sconer or ate -
this atrocene activity would get inte the ventilation inta es, and N .co:c have a major problem, when that occurred, with airborne 'n the buildings.
This did occur late
- in the day. At acaut 1:00 in tre a*terroon. .
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! ESSIG. Karl, do yca recal? nat > ~~el vger's r<.a: tic .as nen yea gne l 24g a him the news that t ,ere was , in f ac , t.f a:vra:.!e le mi', d racicut- ,
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t i effluents outside the facility, and ho had. . you indica.ed P.. nad maintained
- 2 up to that point tha'. there were no offsite releases... do ycu recall what 3 his reaction was?
4
$ PLUMLEE: I didn't. . let's say, brin.; up anything contrwem i al I me ely 6 informed him that there was 20 mR/hr m.isurable it grouna lese outsid- the 7
facility, and it apreared to be due tc the plume, specif cally that the 8 wind change had dou. led the reading t' oni 10 mR/br to 20 mR/hr, so I wa.
g sure that it was an airborne problem and not a matter of radiation coming 10 ut f the building. I did not burder him with anything of tne nature, g "Well, I hear you' re telling people that it's, that nothing is coming of f."
g I told him the facts as I could see them, and he played it poner face. He g was very busy, and I assumed that he ould make good use of the information g I had given him. Roughly, at 1:00 p m. I had telephone conversations first with Tom Gerusky (I would hase preferred to talk witn Gearge Smith, who is my supervisar), but Tom Gerusky had an open line, and he was a ning for information. I informed him of tr.e same information I had given Jim Seelinger. I also told him that I ha_ not yet gotten to ry e.n supervi:or ,
19) with this information, and that I 'iad to get to him im.meciately vith this information. George Smith then, excc:a me . at rcughly ':20
. p.m., e were 21 told that the airborne activity was mening it necessary to lease the Duilding .
l l or to go on a respirator. We had nc espirators, 50 in our case--I' ve 22k 23q for20tten whether it was one or twc secole remained eenind; as I recall, Nimit2 and I were gaing to leave tne f Gil'ty. Gecqe 53 : th sceci fi.311y ,
asked me .a t*y to make some survejs si'e at this coir;
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$l 11 h 1 was assigned to me as a driver, and tt- Met Ed vehicle at some point was 2 made available l'e. not sure whether ' lef t the site with %ncsky or if 1 P1 3- left the site I thi-( with Nim'tt. I% next note that I ',a . o I think l
4 indicates that at 1230 hours0.0142 days <br />0.342 hours <br />0.00203 weeks <br />4.68015e-4 months <br />, we were 'eaving the north sate and i radiation -
5 technician was trer e surveying the venicles as tney left an tne people.
6 This person's name was Harry Furst; he told me that they had had no cerita-7 minated vehicles identified at that point, but that he had found a few g individuals who were contaminated. Th-y were sent over to the Observation g Center or to the--I'm not sure whether they went to the Cbservation Center 10 or whether they went to the substation to be decontaminated--and even 11 though there had been higher levels at the north gate prior to that time, I y didn't really find any significant reading, maybe a tenth of an mR/hr or g3 so. That was about the same radiation level found over at the Coservation 14 Center. Manoskey...
15 16 ESSIG: Two questions at this point, Karl. The radiation levels that you p talked about measuring. You indicated that these were measured nith an E-g 120. Old you sake measurements in the open window mode or closea windew, ;
or both--that's the first question. Seconoly, you indicated that Harey Furst had indicated that there were people... a few people had left the.,
through tne north gate that were detectacle... personnel contamination had been noted. Did Mr. Furst indicate to you how many people there were having personal contamination, and did he go so far as to give you any
, names, or did you iroaire about that' ,
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1; PLUMLEE: First of all Harry indicated that there were no hign contaminatica 2 levels. It was more on the order of e tectable contamination but he did 3 not say how many and I don't think he had made or loggec their names. I 4 think the intent was that they would go to a decon station that was set up, 5 and whether that was observation center or not, I can't tell you at this 6 point. But he was doing a screening of vehicles and people as they left.
7 And apparently the airborne had gotten around to areas and such there was g some chancs of both vehicles and certainly personnel being contaminated. I y don't know now many there were. Now roughly two o' clock, Joe Manoskey and y I were in a Met Ed vehicle and as we left the observation center, one of g the camera crews followed us but as far as I know, they never ran that g film. They were taking pictures as we drove along down the highway.
g Shortly after 2:00 in the afternoon e found there was one-half to one mR y per hour airborne generally in downtown Middletown and somewhere around g 2:30 I was able to get on the pay phone and call this information into George Sieth but by 2:30 in the afternoon we were having trouble with phone l connections in the Middletown area. The phone system later was swamped and was very difficult to make that sort of a call and up to about five o' clock we were on the road. We drove north on reute 83 and we:;t ac*oss the river 19 and north and then back east to downtown Harrisburgh over througnout M3 back to the observation center. Thare was no activity indicated by ar. E-120, anywhere along that area from the,... let's say from the edge of Middletown until e returned back t:
- hat area.
. At sor.etning line 6:00 ,
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! the nortn gate ard I later found 70 v- per houi ins ide '*e cuter fenc.;
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1 area at that point. Now, at that point the Met Ed personnel had begun to 2 question their instruments and one of the survey teams was at hand. The 3 reason they questioned their instruments was that the airborne drifted so 4 fast that they were use to being able to say, well it's X mR per hour at 5 point A and then somebody else would cose by and say, oh no there's nothing 6 there at all. So we got together with them and I had a Digi-master, an E-7 120 and the Met Ed personnel read their own instrumentation and we cerrpared
, these instruments at a point where there was 50 to 60 mR per hour. At that
, point we compared and we found no difference between the instruments y essentially with the windows closed. They were reading very close to the g same identical no matter whose instrument I think they were using 520s. I had a Digi master, and an E-120 and with the windows closed on these they g all read the same and this at something on the order of 50 or 60 mR per hour. With the windows open you have variability and, I believe that the reascn for the variability is determined by your distance from source of radiation. I think if your in the plume that you get a factor up to three to one, window open gives you three times as high reading as when they are closed. If your far enough away that you are not getting beta in the window, it doesn't ::4ke any difference whesher the window is opened or closed. Getting back to this topic wnich you asked for and had a lot of patience on. The window open and closed readings varied. The window open 21 was different on different instrument:. It's only. . they corresponded 22 1 very well only if the window was closed. Getting back to the readings 23 which I had made about 12:30 or 12.45 onsite, I didn't see any difference l 24 '
in the readings that I took, windc. cpen er cicsed then hicri ould Nicate l
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l! that we weren't actr, ally in the plume, but we thought we were in the plume g because the steam was coming down on us. The readings in Middletcwn typically 3 are a factor of two difference whether the window is oper or closed. And 4 later that night I found an area near the airport, what is the right word, 5 the terminal, the airport terminal where it was three to one.
6, 7 ESSIG: You indicated that this comparison was made with licensee instruments.
g Was it around six o' clock? Was that correct?
9 g PLLMLEE: I think sc.
11 g ESSIG: Ok. And the licensee at that time was using an E-520 or 530 but g was it just one instrument that you compared with the license? One of his g license?
15 PLLMLEE: As I reUnil, there were three or four of the licensee's peop e present and these three instruments of theirs and they were all in excellent agreement between the licensees instruments and also between my instruments 18 i
of which I had two, a Digimaster and and E-120 and with the licensees '
instruments they all read the same window closed. At rnugnly 6:00 p.m. I continued on into the process center and we had to wear respirators to enter into the process center and at roughly 7:00 p.m. George Smith requested me to make another offsite survey and specifically he wanted me to try to define isopleth, I supposed to act ally go out, and try to give him scme l readings as to where say half mR per hour was detectable. At roughly 2100 l 25, t
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,e t 1 I was out; this was two hours later. .' wa, cut n the vicinit, of tne l.
I 2! Harrisburgh International Airpcrt te~;nal ar.c bet.een t e C asteaa P! na ,
F 3l anc the Harrisbca gr International Aircort tnera =n a pi M thet was aticut 4 200 feet wide and I could dettet racution over 2 cistar e. hich I estirr.atel ;
5 it to t,e 200 feet in width and it was 12 c4 per hour at *.ne peak on the E- l l
6 120 and the Digi master. The E-120 readirg was 1.' mR pe neur winac= cren .;
E y and seven mR per ye the Digi-master with the window closed. The windaw g opened they both agreed roughly 12 to 14 mR per hour. I made to loops in 9 the plume. It gave me a total of 4 passes through it ard on three of thet 10 it agreed identically with what I got at the peak. Before the fourth pas <.
f through it, the radiation level was significantly reduced, it was only y three mR per hour at maximum. Do you want to interupt?
13 RESNER: Mr. Essig is at a phone call at this time we will break. It is now 12:15 p.m.
16 RESNER: The time is now 12:34 p.m. Mr. Essig has new re;oined us frr, h1:
phone call and we'll resome and I be'ieve Mr. Pumlee is about to respond to a question. '
20 PLUMLEE: Continuing with the oiscussion of the measureteris in the vici,it;.
of the Harrisbourgh International Airport. I made a phone call back to the l Region I office to convey that inforn tion It too< someth ng on the orcer i
23-o of nalf an hour to complete the call and t.y tnat t'w the phc e syste was !
2G in real trouDie due to the heavy :aa. ;n t e telegnc e 5,ste- -
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- ,l 1 At roughly 11:00 p.m. or midnight I was back at the observation center and 2 Mr. Stohr had taken me off the surveys offsite with intent that Jim Kotton 3 and ion Nimitz would continue using the accel lab. I retuened to the 4 facility and took readings at Unit I and performed another survey, I believe 5 outside the Unit 1 and 2 close into the facility and at seven o' clock I got 4 over into Unit 2 and I took a set of readings of those instruments that 7 were on scale at Unit 2 and I don't know if you want to...
8
, ESSIG: You said you jumped ahead to seven o' clock? I beieve you had left y off at 11 to 12. Were you on duty all night then?
11 g PLUMLEE: Yes. Yes we were on duty until nine o' clock in the morning of the 29th. As my notes indicate and I can't be sure of exactly the time <
that we left the facility. At roughly seven o' clock in the morning I got into Unit 2 control room. I don't know if you want those readings put on tape or not. I took a set of readings as they were called in from Unit 2 to the Region at 7:30 a.m. roughly. At roughlj nine o' clock in the mornirg we lef t and got into a notel 10:00 a. .. and then we reper ed back at rouqMy .
2: 00 p.m. I thin,. you want to termir. ate the tape now. Is that rignC 20 RESNER: If we are going to get into anything at lengtn, we'd do well to 1
terminate here w.; change the sides Yes 50 ati' we cu nat. the time !
22 now is 12:37 p.m 23.'
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1 RESNER: The time is now 12: 43 p.m. and Mr. Essig has some additional '
2- questions for Mr. Pluelee.
3 4 ESSIG: Karl I'd like to get your opinion as to whether or not during your ,
l 5 observation of the licensees acitivitier during tnat first day and having -1 6 accompanied the licensee on sort of locked over their shoulder as to what 7 they were doing with respect offsite surveys as well as making some of your g own. What was your general impression of the type of survey in terms of 9 the adequacy of the survey that the licensee was making? In other words, g did he appear to be on top of the situation as far as getting instructions g from the emergency control station as to where to go and did he proceed to g go to that place or did you encounter any problems where tne person making the survey didn't agree with where he was told to go by the observation center people? Excuse me, the emergency control station.
15 PLUMLEE: I didn't encounter any specific cases .here I weald even have known whether the people were going where they were told. I would guess 18 from the problems we had with telephone comunications at ary time they had 19' to make a phone call by late in the day, it was very d!*ficult to get a f l
l call in or out and so the first point is that anything that could be harciec !
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l by radio probably went all right. Anything that could not be handled by l 21 l
radio probably didn't make contact but the general impression I got was 22 that the licensee was following a preset litt of monitoring points whicn 23 we.ere sort of routine set and I don't n.cw tether the/ generated the- at 24 this time during tne accident or wret.te- they had i presel-cted set from ,
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18 3 their plan as to wnat they would monitor. And a:, f ar as ! can dete nirm l gy the chance of a preselected monitoH ns point happening to be at the 10 cation li 3 of plume is next to zero. At the time anybody happened to De there to take {l 4j a reading, my impression is you have to track the plume, you have to get ,
5 ott on foot or in a helicopter or in a vehicle if it's possible to get to ;
6: the plume in a vehicle and work yout way with the piume. It wonders 7 around very irradically and there's no way you can even with the benefit of g a wind vane and knowing the wind direction in the plant, know where that 9 plume was going to be -- a mile or two away from the plant. Does '. hat
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10-11 ESSIG: Yes it does Carl and I just want to make sure I understano your g comment as you intended it. Is it your opinion that the licensee at iest during the first day was focusing more on making surveys at points which either had been preselected or were selected at some time during the course of the event rather than what we would call plume chasing? Did I understand it correctly in that regard?
18 PLUMLEE: That's true. As far as I'. aware the licensee had never thougnt 19 I in terms of following the plume and having the people on the survey teams !
20 go out and look for the plume and identify the plume and take reading as if they were chasing it or following it around.
22 23 ESSIG: Another question related to anothe- -- to a dif ferent area. v oa 24 ,
indicated that you came in plant about, oh right around midnight on er l
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late in the day on tne 2Sth and tnat ycu were ir plant fv the rem.iincer of T 2 the early morning hears. Could you cescribe for us what your duties -ere j 3' during that period o' time?
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5 PLUMLEE: Roughly at midnight things lookec fairly stable around the plant 6 and as I recall took a survey outdoors in the imediate vicinity of the '
7 buildings and we began to estaD11sh routine which included calling in g periodically to Region I the readings off the instruments in the Unit 1 g control room and I was not able to get into Unit 2 contrcl room unti! 7:00 10 a.m. on the 29th. The activities included looking at the emergency control L{
g station operation and I think I have a note that indicates that one uf the g people there had identified and estimated a source term by taking their g offs ta readings and back calculating. I assume you have these numbe-s.
14 They were called in to Region I. I have them in my notes if you want tnen.
f y We observed that their radio contacts were going all right, they had reople i
g in their staff busily calling one another and carrying out various activities y that are part of their effort of doing offsite mcnitoring and also they I t
18 e, were doing some work on the site, sucn things as going throuyn the facility l
198 for various chores that were to numerous to mention, let's put it tha' ay
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20' ESSIG: Karl one more question along this line.
- 21. Do you recall who w v en '
l 22 duty at the Emergency Cortrol Statice. f or the licensee atrm9 :ne pe- cc ;
h that you were -- the early morning scu-s that you were oms rvice; 23[ tne - 1 l activities. For example, who -as -
argr : Le ie m yot. cre. c u s ' y 24h e- t 4 e .:
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i 1 Seelinger who it was that appeared to be in charge, who -as assisting nim. .
2 Do you recall that? E, g
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I 4 PLUMLEE: Do yeu war t to stop the tape a minute so I can lock this up in my 5 notes? I've got soee names. !
6 7 RESNER: It's going to be a brief pause here. We won't stop the tape but [
g Mr. Pluelee has refer to his notes and it's going to ta6e a few minutes to l 9 find what he is locking for. !
e F
10 I g PLtMLEE: Sorry for the delay here but I have to -- ok let me. -,
E 12 E RESNER: We are ready to resume.
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PLUMLEE:
15 First of all when I came or site and on the 28th at seneth' '> on -
16 the orcer of 10;a0 a.m. that we got into the contrci coo- The peop?e I r
17, there were Jim See!inger and who was coerating and in fa:t in control of i a
tne Emergency Control Station. He :s also Unit I superintencent ana *.ne i 18i F'
shift superintencent who was under n"r was Hitz. Hitz was not particularly *
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20 concerned with control station activities. He was icoking after the eac'.r. .' I Tne individual wne were present as I recall there. I'm reasonably sure *1t l 21 : )
Beveraly Good was present and I was sur frised becav.e she 3 a Rea:!irg !
22
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employee and not a Pet Ed empicyee c','te. Lee .r'ery was prese- e. .
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recall and ne i s a 'nember of the 1. a ' . physics - w atio .rctectior .t3?' ,
24 i cnsite. I'o ncpr a find the rar - r e ert n 1. m.- -
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,1 that in my notos; I'm not sure. Ther( was initial?y an :peratcr nar.dling gll h 4i 3g the radio staticn. There the contacts witr the aecale ere controlled 0 [
4fi offsite by radio cc-tact. As tne day progrecsed Sid Por;er, wnc is the L' i
censultant, appeare : and as I recalle. Sic was on the ta'ephone severs!
5' j
6 times threating and exhorting the centractors whom tray sere tryi~.g to get 4 7-. tc bring equipment ansite, such thing, as whole bacy ot -ter, et :! !@s 0 g and other equipment. He was very busy on the phone and he had apparently g taken upon himself whether by directi .o or because it wnn't being der;e ,
gg otherwise the lineco of materials which they were needir; and one of the g very big shortages was masks. He was ousy running down respirators and I'm 4 g not sure what I should mention here but he was on the phone continua!'y g trying to round up the things that we e needed. Porter was also present g and involved witn the Emergency Contrel Station activities shortly after he arrived and I would guess somewhere cound 3:00 p.m. or 2 00 p.m but !
don't really know when he showed uo 168
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17 la ESSIG. I think wha. we will co nc. . to turn it over t: Ron 'dimit i r.d a l
have him pick up. I guess Ron we ,:a prote',j :: ck up vien yc. 3 rr' , ed o,.
j 19 - i 20 site with Karl Plum'ee and I think url indicated that he arrived or t.9 a t l
you and he and othes arrivec at tv north gate at acout C: 10 and stortl y l 21" '
22, f there af ter arrived in the Unit 1 ;c-trol room. 50 you car, pick it ce f ece-i the time you arrived in the Unit I ccetrol room.
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- As Tom indicated we arrivec 'igh !y after 10: 0e :n t:.e un.
jl 2,1 control room. Myseif anc the otner n uber s of 'ncicence resocnse te e ere
l 3a briefed by Jim Seelinger. He gave sc .' wha. of .4 Orief r.n.:: n on the i I,
4 situation and what type of air activ't:es e nal. et.. e c. l. ; this time n
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5 Don Neely, who was acting at the team teacer, dispatched x in varicus 6 areas. Mysel' and Chick Gallina were directed to set up a comand i os- in q 7 Unit 1 shift supervisor's office. Frem here we tied inte tqe regieru' g .
office to maintain a direct contact witn the Region. Oo- Nee h assig ed 9 Karl to do some of fsite survey and s&e general surveys :n tre area. At u gg that time, it was appioximately 11:30 He and Jim Higgins, operaticns type i
g from Unit 1, from Region I proceeded ts Unit 2 to assess t'.e situatio.. i g there. During the time I was on the :,ite f rom 10 a.m. cf tne 28th ts;l
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g approximately 1330 of the 29th. At this time I assisted Chick Gallira who i
g was directed to man the phones to relt.y any messages, relay any infor,ation l
to the Region. During this time from approximately 11 o' clock 11:30 a.m.
l 16 till approximately six maybe seven o' clock in the avening I acted as an 17 intermediary between Chick Gallina and the Emergency Control Station 'n tne !
Unit 1 control room. j 18 I collected sur,ey data, wind speer, wind directons, p 19' etc., etc, and passed this information onto Chick Gallina wno relaye.; it j back to the Region. At approximateij six cr seven o' clock we got directions I, 20 i to do some offsite surveys. i 21 This came over the telephone. At appro imate'y '
! i perhaps eight o' clock I left the site and went to the processing center '
l where another control center had been set up. At this I talked to Phil 23' Stohr. This was approximately eight c'cloo , nine o cloo in the ewung.
24l' At that time he irdicated that myseif md m Kctton, whm nad arrivec in 25 I
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23 I the emergency van in the mobil lab ratner, to take the lab and do some 2, offsita collecting of soil sample, water samples, and aic samp;es. This l 3 was -- he would have liked for ut to do this because the mobil lab had the 4 capabilities for AC where as we had no method of collecting air samples 5 offsite for we had no portable generator. When we attempted to take the 6 mobil lab and perfom the offsite surveys we noticed that the lab had 7 several problems with the tires, that one tire was flat and the other tire g was bald. This was approximately 9:30 p.m. on the 28th. At this time I g reported back to Phil Stohr who indicated I should perhaps get with the 10 licensee survey teams and do some offsite surveys with the licensee survey g teams. At approximately 10 o' clock I got Dave Lieroth and asked his permis-g sion to accompany some of his survey teams to do offsite surveys. I accom-g panied two survey teams from approximately 10 p.m. on the 28th till approxi-g mately one, two a.m. the morning of the 29th. My first survey team I
, accompanied we just essentially drove towards the Middletown and the High-g spire area. We stopped at the Olmstead shopping plaza which was located p between Middletown and Highspire. I attempted to collect air samples using our radeco air sampler. The licensee had the capability at least to -- hac l a AC cor.verter that when I tried to hook my apparatus up to it. It would !
19 I not work; it kept tripping the unit off. So, tnerefore, I was not ab!e to obtain any independent airborne survejs at that time. However, I was able to make dose rate measurements at the area of Olmstead sno: ping plaza. It was approximately three mR per hour. This is open windes reactor experiments digi-master readings. This was GM2 'thou* cpen readings and the reading 24 range from approximately one... teta ;ose :) apcronimateb one to tnree 2s, ;
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24 I times the gamma dose. It was at this time that I noted that the licensee 2 did have the capability to measure beta and I brought this.. upon returning '
3 to the site with that survey team terminated approximately 12 p.m. that 4 night. I brought this up with licensee representatives as to how they are 5 perfoming beta surveys offsite. They were appars it' sing the Pic-6's 6 which had the gamma capabilities but did not have beta capabilities. I y subsequently brought this up to a Mr. Tom Mullea. -
.s the Unit 1 Health g Physics Supervisor and he indicated that he had same rac owls which had the 9 capability, which would be distributed to the used for offsite surveys. I j 10 accompanied a second survey team from approximately 12 midnight til 1, 2 11 o' clock in the morning of the 29th. During this time I had called into our y command post in the Unit I control room and ask for wind speed and wind g direction so that we may procede to the plume location. It was at this g time that I ask the licensee offsite survey team to perhaps drive to this area so we may get a reading of the plume. They said that they had no --
they were not suopose to anywhere that was not a designated location. They g really did not appear to essentially go plume chasing but they had a spot set and they were to procede to the spot and make readings at these desig-nated locations. So prior to leaving I discussed this with Dave Limroth who subsequently asked his offsite survey team to essentially proceea in the'oirection of the plume and plume locations. It was at tnis time I called the Unit 1 NRC command post again and got the wind speed, anc wind direction and we essentially went ploom chasing. At that time which is approximately 1 o' clock in the morning, 12:30 in the morning we proceced
! north through Middletown past the Olm> team shopping plaza again tnrcugh
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4 H1ghspire on Route 441 north. It wac .s t t N s t i me we ccsic <c' find ir3*n.ny 2 above background. ;t was at this time I a!so not'ted that t v 'icem ee aas 3 having problems co:runicating back wit 9 the comu.ac rost 'he racios were i 4 apparently -- dic nat have the capat ties to ere not 4.oc for mere 5 than 10 miles, so I brougnt this up t; the indiv duals that ere trating tne 6 surveys and I said, "Well what are yce guy: do wnen you are Iu miler cut or 7 something like that" he said, "Well we don' t see 3r.ything .t dun' tm anj 8 pr blems." The essentially swept 1t under the rug and I bro,.< int this op to 9
licenseee representatives al s, with the problem with the rac105 I "ad 10 menti ned it to the health physics supervisors. I think the incivicua's 3 Mulleavy and also Dick Dubiel this to had problems with this. I returned g from that survey team approximately too, three, o' clock in he mornir-; and g reported my results to Phil Stohr who was heading the environnental roup for the NRC there. It was at this ti:re that I eturned back into the Unit 1 NRC command post to continue acting as a data taker or interrred:ary, etc., etc. And I subsequently debriefed with Don Neely at the time and left the site at approximately 1330 cr. the 29t*,. Tom oc y:u na,e any question for that day?
i 19 ESSIG: Let met understand Rcn you wert back tc the Unit I ccerand po>t, 20l which was in the ship supervisors office adjacent t: the Unit I control I room at somewhere around 0200 to 0300 and you remained tnere until and about 1:30 p.m. on the 29th. Is tnat correct: l I l 24t; l n >
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l 9 1 hlM:TZ: Approximately, yes .
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N 3 ESSIG: Ok. Just one question on the survey that. ws, -- the second sevey 4 that you indicated -- I have iri f ront of at the f.i.', survey 109 into wh'c'1 5 the survey resvits that were radioed back to the ECS were recorded and I 6 note in here one of the problem areas that
- have been p: *v'o.: sly di se ssing 7 with the licensee was related to the 'akk of a survey ann apparently occurs 8 immediately af ter the second survey that ycu had made. ' hat is the su-vey 9 from about midnight or so until you came back in about roughly 0200. fou 10 indicated, I think, that you were surveying at - well I have some skevey g points down here and I'll just read them tc you and 'et me know If these g were about the same points that you had - were participating with the g licensee as far as making surveys. At 0100 I have less than 1 mR pe- hour g 'the Honda dealer on route 230, 0107 one mile outside of Middeltown on g Eisenhower Boulvard less than,.I mR per hour, 0115 less than .05 mA por hour and Steelton, and 0130 less than .1 mR per-hour or Fullingmill Road and Route 441. Do all those pol'nts sound Ilke tne ones that you...
18 NIMITZ: That sounds like the area 1 covered.
2^,
20 ESSIG: Ok. What I as trying to determine f$, in discus <ing with or.- ef 21 l the nuclear engineers, there seems to be a gap f rom aDou* 0130 -- a ';ac in 22 the licensee survey from about 0130 te approximately 0600 as far as the
, offsite surveys were concerned. Pey were survrys mide .c to.! is iar ;
24 during that time. l, At the predesigMite points GE sc-te I threagn * ; v. t 25 '
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,( after that survey at Fullingmill Rcae and Acute 44' at 1 i30 t ne c4 t 2; appeared to be only additional surveys. Ard one thing that the lic.nsee --
3 the nuclear engineer for the licensee was trying to recall se seem to 4 recall one of their vehicles breaking dowri in Micoletown in fact it was the h Middletown... the Hardy's and I think he said in Middletow*i and that they g had to send out their weergency vehicle to ef fect repairs en tnis other --
7 on this survey vehicle. And I as in ;he process of chec e. ira out through g the licensee's transportation people to see if there is a reasonaLle e plana-9 tion for this failure to make a survey during a several hour period. And 10 incidently during that several hour period the plume appeared to be er at g least the wind was blowing fairly steadily into the northwest to west g direction was heading from the plant in that direction. Eccause by 0600 ft g was blowing directly toward Goldsbourgh. So during that period of time it would appear to se that the licensee should have had somet:ody on the west shore from working his way down from the northwest tcward the west during that period of time. As soon as I can tell there we en't any surveys made-after 0130, are you able to - when I mentionec the .'rea4dawr- licensee's vehicle does - where you aware that that had occurred anc if se is period of time that is about 0130 or 0200 r the 29th, f s that at out tne rignt ,
19l perioc of time for that to nan oc a> e.?
20 1
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NIMIT2. I was not 3 ware cf any we'i;t'es breu,ing & wn at that time As ! l indicated I accompanfea the surv o te.e to apprp 3 v :ely to 2 ; , 2 ' .8 0 #
23' !
! Derhaps even 3.00 3,c tren I ret rie .n t'te u,; tin e ' n.ng data l i 24t '
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!. t 28 1- relaving appeared to be complete f rom the experience iso had in te ms of environmental surveys.
- 2 It appeared to me that they were getting the proper 3 data and I had been relaying this to Mr. Gallina. As far as recalling a i
4 problem with the secrgency vehicles, : was not a-are of that.
5 5
6 E.55,I.G: I think what we've done now is to take you around up through 1330 7 and on the 29th and I believe that at that time then you wert to get scme g rest did you not? And I think what we will do now is pick up with Kari
, Plumlee once again when he next came on site I believe it was on the g afternoon of the 29th.
11 g PLLMI.EE: That's correct I came on site at the Observation Center ru ;1y g rather than ensite at about 2:00 p.m. There was a significant delay in 14 9etting int the facility. As I rec 3 11 it was on the oraer of 1600 cr
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respirators at that point in the facility Everyone wor a respirater or
,7 kept a respirator with him, one or the other, for a gooc part o' thet time and then there was some difficulty in estan11shing what the airt:orne level 3 I were in the facility. The work that
- dic during tnat period incluce) 19' '
setting, or continuing, a set of surveys which we'd corm >nced vcunc the outside of the buildings and secondly, we did look at th: i n s t ru.?e n t s in both Unit I and Unit 2 and call in reedings one ay or ac.other to Re an I.
23 I'm not sure wh6t Region ! did with all this in'orm,i' ion t ot t' .st's Aat we I
were doing -- was feeding informatic in. And w. oc cro 1 the ,urvev data 2ad l and air sample cata that licensee wa". nanaging ,i e . :Sc tct aa.e anyt'iag 29g i ! :
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29 1;. of any consequence during that shift tnat I am aquaintec with in terms of 2 exposure to personnel. I don't recall whether that was the shift when they '
3 had a problem with the release from the industrial waste treat. ment plant 4 but that became an issue which we looked at either on the evening of the 5 29th or the next day. At that time that became an issue it as already 6 overflowing the facility itself and running outdoors. One of the things !
l 7 did when that issue came up was to look around a little bit at the routes g where the water drained outside the facility and I am nct sure whether it g was that night or not that I took a look at the hole in the dtke where the g water drains from the site out into the river, But this is typical of the g things that I did, was to survey around the facility and to take readings y off the instruments inside the facility and relay that information back y into Mng of Prussia. I don't know what else I can tell you. That's abcut it.
g U
ESSIG: Karl do you recall how long - you came on duty then at 1600 and g
did you go off duty then roughly at 2400 or was it....
M PLUMLEE:
- It was 1:00 19l 20 ESSIG: 0100 on 3/30 then?
21 22 PLUMLEE: That's correct.
23 24 0 i!09 25 l
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4 30 1; ESSIG: Did you then come back on duty at 1600 around 3/JO?
2
- PLLMLEE:
3 No w were called in early, I think I was called back to again at l 4 2:00 in the afternoon on the 30th and tne problem was that they had to 5 transfer water early on the morning of the 20th and this caused the release 6 of the airt>orne activity which the helicopter had identified something like y 2:30 or 3 a.m. in the morning and there was a good deal of problems there g were they held over the people from one shift and everybody was wearing g mask in the facility. And things were kind of sticky. It is hard to get y around and aska your phone calls when you are wearing your respirator. Do g you went this back?
12 g ESSIG: Ok. Why don't we run through then what your duties were if, well 14 in the area of - on either day did y u attempt to assess any actions by the f Ifcensee in tems of control of the inplant radiation exposures. Did you g oversee what was going on in that area and if so would you make any observa-p tions with regard to the - would you perceive to be the control exercised g by the Ifcensee over those esposures?
19 PLUMLEE:
The 11censee's inplant exposure control, first of all, was based on a effort to get certain jobs done which were defined by the people in the control rooms. And as ! understood their attitude, they felt that the urgency of getting to a certain piece of equipment and getting on with the job of saving the facility, if you would like that terminology, was such that on the 28th they had unlocked all the doors throughout the facility, I
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. including the occ a leading outdcors I beliew jeu could *.4<+- gottm nt-e 2! any area in eithe- Unit ' or in Unit ; eweg;t the cor:tainm(nt buildin<;;
- 1 y without a key, as the time we ar 1ve. on site cn the 25th and the fi st 1 l 4 discussion I had on the subject was 'irst with N F'ul'eav;.. as I recal'
$ and secondly with ]ick Dubiel and I inin6 the 's m i , .,th D Aial n c" 6 the morning of the 29tn, something like 6.00 or 7:00 a.m. cr in that 7l P"i0d of ti*'- #ad h' 58Y5 "WeII d *"'t are .e ,'o i g a t i nc r...r . 4 6 citation for lea,'ng the high raciation doors nic,.ed are working w thcet 9 RWPs?" And at that point I said. '.*11 : ocn kncw that it will am'unt t2 10 " ' 'i much, it locos kind of trivial, if you dr get a penalty for tha* kina 11 'I thi"9' ***P^ ** th' ***I E';DI5 '"" C ' ' t r ' t d '" I"# ' '# d ' '
the incident." And that was the las* I heard frcm him on that sut,,*;*. ne j, dia discuss the eed to get Dack tc star.:v e 'ssucce cf RWDs and ar te j 'r]
14 and locking docr<. and such. And I sugge>ted to him that h scan as po<-s'L ie
) he certainly snou.d go Dack to rq_ i tr cpe rat g N J1t.' phys;cs pr E tict. .
And it wssn't u;. to me, it wu a ceterminatico f rcm sc~e.4er e at bhe-E leve:S in NRC arr in Met Eo that u : tro wht n e m *. 2 :: - i .ituatico v f i 17{
cidn't feel that ;t was my probles t o do .in,' m)re Ed scy .e ' 1, yc . s nt - ,
you " ave these priced. e' , :,ract e . Inc 5 . . > n ' ! m, .F::" io ~ n t. ' *p
- 19- 7 f keep peccle f rce r ning overenpa v r. an: un . .t a f ra.fetion is 9 a .
2C intakes, and thi's,s of'that sort. A nd tM t ' ; .. r- it
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s respect. It .e. *. 'y's re:c>r.s o. f ty oc t .- a, r v. : tec. -
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2 the, were getting er the 29th ard 29th -as very poc and is soc as tre M C l {'
- 3r Mcbil Lab was set ut the NRC motil lab nege, prev; ding tre:n accur3te ac: cunts
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4 of survey informatic1, like if they tco an air sample they cavid count the y
$1 cartridge and give them some indicatior of . hat the actis't, wa; in it.
6 But all the informat ion prior to NRC's Mob'l Lab being set up and corun; in s
7 operation was very rough, based on measuretrents made in hign bac grouncs >
g and cade with equips.cnt that wasn't ve"y ac: urate for the type of measure-9 ments they were attempting to make. A d the licensee had no way available 10 to him to make gooc determinations on the 28th and early on the 29th. ihe 11 eff rt was made on the part of the licensee to orally set up the jobs that y they were doing and that was clear from Unit I control recm on the 28th.
g It was clear in 29th in Unit 2 control room. They dian't write down the 14 f real radiation work permit but orally they did attempt to preview the job and plant it 15 ut and set the c nditi ns under which the job was going to be carried out. And typically they had a man, a health physics teen go along g on each job where there was high radiation exposure.
18 RESNER:
The time is now 1:24 p.m. anc ne will break to change the ta:.e.
20 RESNER:
This a continuation of the interview witn Mr. Karl Plumlee and Mr. Ronald Nimitz. The time now is 1:29 p.m.
23 PLUMLEE: I'm continuing with the subject of in plant Health Physics practices.
25, The main activities on tr.e 28th in tetrms of jubs tnat involved -
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l l t 13 radiation exposures were entries into a eas such as the at.si tiary building. "
2 One of the jobs that they sent people in was to cetermine rere there nas A l h y water, and how mucn water, and get some idea of the radiaticn leveis on it.
4 Later in the day, they attempted to ccver the water with p:astic in several ]
5 areas in the Unit 2 auxiliary building, and these were fairly difficult 6 jobs, and the people did these in full plastic suits and tney usec Scott j air packs for the jobs. Another job that caused a lot of exposure and also <
3, g contamination in Unit 1 area was the taxing of a Unit 2 primary sample. ,
, The sample of primary water is done in the same room as was originally set i:
10 up f r Unit 1 sampling, and the tubing that carries the water over to n Unit I was quite long and it caused a high radiation area that extended g right on through a hot machine shop in Unit 1 because the tubing ran through g there. This is one job that over a period of 3 or 4 days they finally did p alleviate it to some extent by putting shielding over the tubing and things g of that sort. But I've forgotten whether it was on the 28th that they took the sample, the first sample, but they obtained a sample and the indivicual who took the sample got something on the order of 3 rems wnole-bcdy exposure -
in getting the sample. A day or so later they decided that this was tco hot for some of their use, even though they managed to get the sample shipped out. They also wanted to dilute the sample, and tne man who did the dilution got substantial contamination; he ended up with 10 mR/hr cf measurable contamination on him, af ter he'd peeled his protective clothing and reached the nearest monitoring point, which at that time was Unit i u centrol room I hac intercepted this man before he discoted, and coirtec 24' l l uut to nim that he had a lot of contamination on his prott:tive clothirq 25! a f
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34
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19 I've forgotten the raan's name; I probably t.aulo come up .ite it, but right 2, now I can't come up with it on this s5crt rotice. The corylications they 3 got into in sampling incluced the fact that the:r ventilation was not i 4 properly balanced in the area where the sa ple sink was located, and this 5 15 an old problem tnat had come up in the inspections as far as a year and 6; a half back, and the licensee had made several ef forts to correct it and 7 had never been very successful. The last time it was braugnt up with the g licensee was on the exit from an inspection, and I believe it was Marcq 2 g that we discussed this. At that time the licensee representative had saic 10 they had difficulty in lining up the ventilation and balancing it. The n result of this was that the first sample had caused some contaminaticn ta y soread out into the Health Physics lab and the corridor cetneen tne enemist y 73 room and the Health Physics lab, and this was the item trat I believe 14 caused the initial control station move from do nstairs ta upstairs in 3 Unit 1. The result of all this was that there was contamnation on tne horizontal surfaces a couple of days liter. Ycu could smear it; encc3h of i
this stuff had come down on the horizontal surfaces that ,cu cculd smear 't and get a roughly 1000 d/m reading of' the smear. They 'ater intencM ta 19 cut off one of the, ...or maybe all of the, intake suppl, 'ans for that 20;' system, ...and the next time they tocs i 13mple they fot.rt: that, evo" I though they had cut off the supply fa"< arc this air w35 :trcu'iting ' l 21 :*,:
1 l l
22';
4 right direction, someone unkncwn appar,.ntly (at least oc .ne e'.er admitted l
23lt who it was) had seen the supply far.s a1d he .ent tac. In tre cortroi I'
- f. com and kicked trem back en, and ti ,,en'.ial:, reciate tre sa w cte-3.
2e f f
26* cr. tr.ere atte' tre. Q atte%:ec to v s tr s te :. 1ru - ~cet :e te e l
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l problem. '
1 So this is one of the areas where they did not ever fix up and
- 2. correct the problee that had been identified to them well over a year 3 previously. It had been brought up to them during an inspection in February 4 and March of this year (1979). The everall problem of realth physics 5 practices: there was a period of time when people were arriving onsite g from offsite; some of them had apparently not been there for several weeks 7 or months, and these people were permitted onsite without the usual in-
- g. doctrination and training that is required of personnel before they are
, allowed onsita. The licensee did make a reasonable effort in that the g people t$o were contract health physics technicians and also other contract g personnel who were present in Unit I during the refuelleg, during January y and February, were generally recalled. Insofar as they were brought back, g they had had the proper training for the conditions that were present g during refueling. There should have been some additional information supplied to them when they were brought onsite during this accident. I'm not aware of this additional informat'on being supplied to them in any formal way. I think they were brought onsite with the feeling that they were experienced radiation workers ar.d would somehow look after themselves to a considerable extent. I believe that's about all I have to say on this subject.
21 E55!G. Let se just coee back to one area, r.ar . You it ;1cated f rom accut the time that you first arrived onsite that the doors wt en normally require an access card or some means te. . like a key to get in, that these decrs 24 were. . you could get in without a M/; in ot9er words, eybod< cou'; ge'.
25L i l in to just about any place except the Unit 2 ccntainment l ? '
l )l5 1
mamminansumur -ammummerammansurasamamun,tymm:2Etm varm.mgJLtgegg ;
t.-
I j 36 1
3 PLUMLEE: Unit 1 and Unit 2 containmet.
2 I
l 3 ESSIG: Would you c2 ament on wnat ycu . before ', an yce that ouestion.
l 4 let ne also state what I, or restate, what I think you siio earlier that 5 the licensee had been giving.... had teen providing som<. hat of an oral 6 instruction as far as the, in lieu of a written RVP, so tr.'t there was, in y your opinion, some control or perception of what the Individual that was g going to do a specific job was to do and I gather in that oriefing that he 9 was somewhat made aware of the radiation conditions that he might encounter.
g My question is, was that in fact that case? Was the incividual reasonably y apprised of the radiation conditions that he would be encountering during g the particular job, and if you stated before, I don't recall, but, what y types of surveys, what types of health physics coversge, were made in y steport of each of the major jobs which were tackled during the first 3 days?
f M
PLURLEE: First of all, the people who were in charge attempted to have specific control over every job that was performed in the areas like tne aux 11(ary building of Unit 2. Their attempt incluced such things as the site evacuation; they did not have people onsite that they did not speci-E_
fically authorize onsite. They atteepted to know who was onsite; they did not have people onsite that they felt they could not control in some form.
Their intent was that the people such as Seelinger and Miller would know each job and direct each job and ncthing else was to be done. This cidn't follow exactly that way; there were people who were doing tnings they 0 ?l6 d
un mannsmemmuner=usumusiswaar 37 1 weren't emare of. Their intent was Lt.at r.othing would be done without a '
2 direct instruction from Seelinger in Unit 1 or his secord in command as far 3 as Unit 1 Hitz on the first day shift. I would assume the saw thing 4 occurred over in Unit 2, although I wasn't present in Unit 2 until 7, g roughly, en the 29th. But as of the 29th, that was what they were trytrig 6 to de in Unit 2, and I can't say that the formality was there; the ef fort y and the intent certainly was there, but these people did attempt to eliminate g everything except the jobs they wanted done and felt were essential to the
, operations that they were trying to carry out. The surveys were gene ally y made on the entries. There were exceptions to that, but it took 500 mR g espesure to a man to make a survey. They generally felt that in areas of g that nature they would send the guy in to do the job along with the Neolth y Ptysics technician to conduct the survey and provide his information as he g perferined the jet. ! understand that there were cases where the Health Ptysics technician didn't actually go all the way in with the man who was doing the job, but they used like a teletector where they could extend the probe and get some indication of what the man's exposure was on these jobs.
I believe that their TLDs were reasonably conservative; the dosimeters that the people were... I have one comment there, that the one I wore indicated 450 aram exposure; the Landauer film badge, that NRC provided me, which !
were essentfally right alongside it gave only about 115 or so that ! could attribute to that day and had a total of less tnan 150 for the month of March.
23 I've had some time onsite at Three Mlle and some at Indian Point on that badge. So there's a factor c' acout 3 higher exposure indicated on 24 the TLD badge that I wore at Three Mile than was indicated on the lendauer 25 0 217 l _
.. I.'.
38
'l badge that MC supplied me. The Landauer agreed with the pocket dosimeter l
l 2 self-reader dosimeter that Three Mile provided; it indicated that I had 1 3 about 115 mA exposure total of all the self-reader dosimeter information 4 that I collected there. Getting back to individuals... I understand that l 3 they had three er four people who exceeded the 3 ree quarterly Ilmit as a g consequence of the accident. Most of this was incurred the first 3 days.
7 The aan who accompanied me, Joe Manoskey, I think picked up 1500 arem on g the 29th, so about a third of his exposure apparently occurred while he was
, with me. They had some problems with their dosimeter information; there g was one M C employee who indicated 1100 arem and if he really remembered gg where he had been, and really had stayed with the people whom he claimed he 1 g was with, it's most unlikely that he got more than couple of a hundred g3 ares. But that's what they recorded for him. So there were some problems, 14 and I can't tell you how well the licensee could have handled them under 15 the situation where they had a lot of people coming in and their records g were still in Unit 1. They were having to issue their TL0s over in the p Observation Center and other sites; they were separated f rom their records.
j The second problem that came up. it developed that the entremity dosimeter data had not printed out for quite scme time. Two weeks later the licensee apparently wasn't aware, in talking with Mike Buring, that their dosiceter extrosity data was not printir.g out or. their sumaries. This was a prcblem 21 in the computer. They had the data, anc I don't know how that time out, l 22 but at the time ! saw him they had not succeeded in prin'. tog it out during the accident. 0. K. ?
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39 1 ESSIG: Karl, you sentioned extremity dosimeters. Were you aware of any y
dosimeters that may have been worn by individuals who were involved in the 3 initial collection of the reactor coolant samplei and subsecuent dilutions 4 that were made?
l 5
6 PLUMLEE: I believe that the people involved in the sampling did wear y extremity dosimeters; however, the data wasn't printed out, and the data 8 from this information was not readily available at the time I was out '
, the re. There is a good possibility that these people got high extremity 10 doses. Ns is some information that should be fellowed up and make sure g that it's in their records. The people who were walking around in the y auxiliary building were... after some delay provided extremity dosime'.ers, g and they put on ankla badges. The reason is that the radiation level on p the floor was higher typically than anywhere else, and there was some effort necessary by MC people to get them to routinely supply the TL0s for ankle badges. The probles was partly a matter of supply, and partly a matter of having a little difficulty getting set up and able to reso out this information. The licensee's established equipment was in an ares M l 1
whsre it wasn't particularly satisfactory to try to reac out tne TLCs. It )
was up close to the esactor buildings, it was in a trailer, and there were times when the radiation level was as high as 40-50 mR/hr out in that general direction, so that taning TLDs out there to read the TLDs mignt cause some pickup of exposure at the time you're just sitting there trying to run them through the machine. It also it esposed the person involved, 24
, and would give you a problem getting tnem back into service. icu knew, ycu 25 i
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.culd be exposing t'e badges that ycu had run thrn.qh the ca.7.w ard '
la intend to issue bach to personnel if you c"! the were th + so they had a 3l 3; pecules of aelocatirg their TLO evaluattor equipart at a the , ubterr of 4 records; it's about lika being dispossesse1 fron your io e . jeu don't (now
$ wnere your razor is and things of this sort 6
7 ESSIG: One further question, Karl, with respect to tne n-plant nealtn g physics coverage. You indicated that Seelinger and Miller attemptec 'a be 9 aware of each job that was going on in the facilities and esercised sc e g sort of control over it administratively. Would you coewent on the involve-g ment of Mr. Richard Dubiel and Mr. Thomas Mulleavy in the assessment and g control of in plant radiation exposure, if there was any? I assume there g was some that you observed.
14 PLUMLEE: First of all, I believe that the attitude on the part of Seelinger and Miller was that above all else they were there to save the facility.
They might have overridden Mulleavy and Dubtel if they had gotten in the way of anything that was judged to be highly necessary and urgent. On the other hand, Dubiel and Mulleavy were there, and I believe they were consultec.
I don't believe they would have had the leverage and the influence that you would have under normal Circumstances where a health physics signature is necessary on an RWP. ! believe, howe.er, that there was full cooperation in that, wherever Dubiel and Mulleavy could point out that the exposure due to a certain job could be minimized or where trey could point out that it 24 was t:o such, their assessment was tu on 1ito acccunt. 'r terms of 'anning 25 0 tic \
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l y roughshoc over thr:, I don't believe that actua':y ucc L~ec e
I do re'iarve I i
2* that there was a p oblem that showed an a lower level., esp c tally at the 3 foreman's level, 4*d that is that th(y weren't used to ork.nq in a jo!;
4 where there were a'l kinds of people cosirg up with infirm.ttinn inn all
, kinds of people coming up with items that they wanted p rf trico *he, l g
weren't necessarily used to cooperating in directions other than through 7 the established chain of commano. The established chai'i of comand ..isn' t !
g always evident; I'm sure that in general nothing got co te over the N est
, 2 or 3 days that was not approved by whoever was in charge in each o' the gg control rooms, but it may not have b(en evident to the foremen Jf the
}
g health physics setup that, in fact, these things were in some form approved y and in some form had the priority assigned to it to get it done. They were '
g getting words free people like $1d Porter as a very cleir enample wNm they !
g may never have seen before as a member of their chain of ccr. mand. I'm sure that Sid Porter bad the full authority to save some of these jcbs thit ne was trying to push, and he was callirg up people, you know, sendors, ce-sultants, and such and acting for the licensee. A far as ! know, ne hac l that authority, but I don't know if te had it in -ritinq or nc:
19' '
ESSIG: i One further question along t' Is same line, earl. Ae e jou we ,
g y. curing this perice of a question tha' may have been asked of any of ;e '
s people who were involved in some of ;ne mere hign i. pes,n ;ce 22,f .2. tN ,
i 23 Question asked of the Individual "o. ,'ou ish to ...unt -' f s r t a e . '; i r '
1 via* of trie fact t*at it .a:, a ve., yc: r c . , e n ' :: .;.. ;m< ~- l 24;'
- ficart radiaticn e.posare tc p . . ilt it t' 4
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1 PLUMLEE: A specific case: the taking of the primary water sampia. I nave 2 heard--I was not present--that this was voluntary. The inciiviccal said he 3 could take the sample and that he believeo he could stay within t'11s 3 em 4 quarterly limit; he didn't quite make it, but he came close.
C 6 ESSIG: I think what we'll do now is turn back to Ren Ni.titz and pick up. . .
7 I believe we lef t off with... Ron, you were back at your acte 1 at about g 1330 hours0.0154 days <br />0.369 hours <br />0.0022 weeks <br />5.06065e-4 months <br /> on the 29th, or at least yeu lef t the site at that time. Wuld 9 you pick up from there and tell us when you came back on;ite and what you g did after that point?
11 g NIMITZ: I came back onsite at 1830 nours that day, and stayed until :1:00 g Friday morning of the 30th. From approximately 1830 hours0.0212 days <br />0.508 hours <br />0.00303 weeks <br />6.96315e-4 months <br /> until 12 m onight, 14 I essentially acted as somewhat of a rover, looking at general 'in plant 15 healt physics, respirat ry pr tecti n, assessing r.e* contractor hea' .
16
- *' Y'" * * " *** "9 ** * '"' "" " " " ' Y '9 *G"
overall picture of what was happening 'n p' ant. Tne prior daf I hac ; a-primarily involved with off site activities and nac no ices .N was m .en-tially going on in plant. So for the first severat hours of ry sect 11y , i 19
! essentially just looked at areas anc turned over s::eci'ic pe;olems t.
l 20 Don Neely or to Karl Plumlee. Some at the problem, t.9at var ' tas a!reaJy 21 i
,f identified, such as individuals ma6tng entries into RhP areas, excessevely 22l
$ high radiation a eas wi tnout ChPs. 'rt access to e sentiali f a1y an::
23l ithin tne plant. ' *et of airterte s c seys, cr w t i no t .% . e n t ~i 24 l 4
, an ares, tnings of tnis nature ' ' -
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s- _ _ . _ _ _ _ . ._ . _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ .
43
- 1. entries that I was aware of... It was a plant health pnysics techiteian who 2 made an entry with an individual; these intiividuals still did not have an 3 RwP. I expressed try concern for this to the incividual, Fred Hi.we, who...
4 his response was "=e're.trying to save the plant"--essenttally, wno needs 5 an m '3 I discussed this with his supervisor, Fulleavy anc Dick Dunie;,
6 and they indicated that they were going to talk to the tec"nicians in 7 trying to get back on the RWP procecure a*id try to get the in plant r.(alth g physics squared away again. Don Neely essentially fo11caad up on this, and g he met with the appropriate people and what have you. At apprc4fmate:y 10 12 sidnight of the.. 2400 hours0.0278 days <br />0.667 hours <br />0.00397 weeks <br />9.132e-4 months <br /> I guess it is of the 29th, we got a rect.est g from Region I to do an offsite survey. Essentially, this was an isocose g profile, 360 degrees around the plant. Myself ar y 'mith, a security g investigator from Regior. I, performed this survey. This was an offs:te y survey; it was essentially 360' around the plant; it ranged from 5 m'les to g 10 miles away from the plant, and covered 360 degrets. Tne surveys comme m ed essentially 0030 hours3.472222e-4 days <br />0.00833 hours <br />4.960317e-5 weeks <br />1.1415e-5 months <br /> of the 30th, and ran until appro,imate.y 6:00 in t".e morning. We docunented our results and took bcth tcta garna readin;t arm ; '
collected soil sawles and water sam;.tes nnere I felt it was aopropriate.
All my results and readings... do ycu want to turn this o.ee?
1 20 '
RESNER: We'll take a break to chand the tape The tiac i, now .:5) p.m.
.. We'll resume when we pick up 22' 23 !
RESNER: The time now is 2:00 p.tr. vc Nimitz 1!' pick up .,'e c ne ten i 24' l I
off. ! )
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, 1 44 1 NIMITZ: As I indicated, myself anc Ray Smit'1 performed $n isocose sarvey ,
2 arcund the plant. We were directed to locate a 0.5 mR/nr line. The
- 3. highest reading we got was approximately 0.2 mR/nr open window. and this 4 was located in a little town calleo Cly, w'.ich is approximately west of the
$ Island. This survey continued until approximately 5:00 n the morning, 6 6:00 in the morning. One interesting consent: during tre survey, my:,e:f 7 and Ray Seith had stopped at a little town south of Cly and were collecting g soil and water samples when a PPL trucm stopped and wanted to know what we 9
were doing. These fellows looked like they were individuals directed by 10 the licensee to take offsite surveys. Well, they asked t,s what we're n getting, and ! Indicated, "oh, about 0.2, 0.1," and the individual was 12 saying "well, yeah, that's about what we're getting," so I nat' orally asked g them what type of instrument and what his beta readings were. He gave us y somewhat of a concerned look and didn't know what we were talking about.
g This was about 3:30 in the morning. We asked to see the individual's survey meter, and so here he pulls out a pocket dosimeter. T5ts is anat he '
was apparently doing his offsite rurveys with. But this was screwhat '
interesting. We continued the surveys until, as I indicated, about 5:00, 6:00 in the morning, at which time myself and Ray Smfth returned back to the Unit 1 NRC command post. It was at this time when I was requesteo to l 20 1 look at the affluent releases by the licensee. If I'm not mistaken, a Mr. Bill Fisher, Section Chief from Region III 1f I'm not mistaken, asked us, or at least asked me, to take a look at this. I proceeded to the waste l treatment area, and took a look at how they were logging the re' eases and 24 i
the volumes, etc., and I got twc ccnf'.icting stories as to how t~e tota: I i
0 224 e I
.s ., w 45
- 1. volume is logged that goes out of tre plant. The individual who was manning g the control point, or manning the weste treatment center, ordicated that he 3 uses the flow totalizer readings. You subtract the ficw totalizer readings 1
4 and multiply it by a magic number and you get the total flow that's going !
5 out over some pericd of time. So I naturally looked at this and then g talked to Bernie Smith, the Unit 1 supervisor, as to how they do it. He i 7 indicated that they do it via pump head. I worked it out and got two l g alf ferent readings, ...the readings were essentially of f by 100,000 gallons.
9 I brought this to Bernie Smith's attention, and they right away sent several g people down to look at what was going on. It turned out that apparently g the individual at the waste treatment center was logging the totalizer g readings incorrectly. This was subsequently, corrected and I brought f this to the attention of Bill Fisher, the in plant health physics leader at the time.
15 ESSIG: Let me just clarify one point here, Ron. When we're talking about ;
effluent releases, we're talking about specifically liquids and specifically would it be the industrial waste treatment system, the so-called IWT57 '
18- ;
NIMITZ: Yes. These releases I'm talking about are liquid releases and 20 they are primarily from the IWTS. This pecblem was resolved within acpro-ximately about an hour, hour and a half. At approximately 0850 hcurs or ,
0900 hours0.0104 days <br />0.25 hours <br />0.00149 weeks <br />3.4245e-4 months <br />, I was notified again by Bill Fisher that they were attempting !
23 to ship out a primary coolant sarp;e which had been craan di: ring the time !
24 was out making offsite surveys. I was directed to fol'o= un and see wnn ,
25 +
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b type of licensee controls were on this sample that was to b= shipped to the Columbia hangar of the Capital Airport, anc from there it was apparently to j go into Allegheny and be picked up by B&W or Westinghouse. When I went to -
look and follow up on this sample. It turns out they were trying to ship
- this sample that had approximately 150 mR/hr on contact and 15, 20 mR/hr ;
i through the side of the shield. Looking at the sample, they had it 19 a ;
little plastic bucket, whkn to me does not meet any type of 00T specs whatsoever. So I essentially put a stop on this sannie until they got some !
appropriate... I discussed this with 8111 Fisher firi,t and together we indicated to the licensee that they should have some type af container or i should be shipping out at least a DOT spec container. They rounded va a e
55 ga11on drum and packed it with appropriate packing and material and l
j labelling, etc., etc. I acsoepanied the sample to the airport with two licer.see representatives, and we turned this sample over to an Air Force I helicopter crew which apparently had been trained in some type of health i physics procedures; they apparently knew how to nandle the sa"'ple prcperly After dropping this sample off at the airport, I returned back to the site whien is essentially 11:00 Friday morning end lef t site that day and rema ,ed j offsite until approximately 2130 hours0.0247 days <br />0.592 hours <br />0.00352 weeks <br />8.10465e-4 months <br /> FrNay evening, at nten time : e commenced working midnight shif ts from essentially 2100 hot.rs to 09t.'O nour>
l for the next week or so. Do you have any cuestions, Tom?
l ESSIG- No, I don't believe I have any f urther questions en your a c t ' v i t e :, '
or Friday. There was one peint that I'c l'<e te just threw cut for oither ,
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one o' you to address, and it comes back to the o'f ite surve;. s tna *,
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,Q 1; 'nace during the firs t 3 days. The license + s re or15, s;eci*fcally I'm J.
2; *e' erring to the EC'. log of sur<eys t~ u .... m.e tainre, ice cate, tnat [
3 ap;'arently about 20 or so air samples ere :ollected en
- ne first day, en f.
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4 . the 28th, anc were counted with the so-cal ed it 2 (dM stancing for (
5 Stabilized Assay Meter for the recorci Tt.e licensee ha. 17dicated tn 6 interviews with vartous people that ere ir.volved in tnat day inat there 7 were a numeer of problems involved in using the SM-2 be, aese of the mi non N k,
g that was collected on the charcoal tha'. was beir.g, in fait, counted r 1 9
iocine. Apparently, on day 2 and cay 3, there ...re only t3 samples eich ,
g day that were collected and that were assayed by the SM 2, but I'm i are froe. other records, Doth from our own 'l;C laboratory log sna 'ro,- the WC laboratory log, that the*e were safro1+ - collectec ar:: anaijzec. My coe> tic, is, were either one of you gentlewe. tware of a con >ciot.s ef'ori by tne 14 licensee to discontinue the use of tN 5M-2 ori the wcot ! an,' third % of j is the bas'is that it was ineffective or discontinue it en sue other basis, just because of the menon or some othea reason, or w.:s there some otter '
reason for his appsrently discontina'n': th+ t.s e o ' t m 5A'6." -cuto .itne. ,
17 4 one of you care to speak to that? "
18
.I 19 NIMITZ. I' ve used the SM-2 for uranium 4May ar4 f ove "Jd sLP." emp F lence 20
~
l w' tn i t , and f rora .h at I gatr e red t *ie ' - wa no c c n <,(. ' o ut oer te e .e t'o :,'
21 .
, stop counting samo'es with the 'sM .' I wu awara e' the p rob l em who' +-
22 \
tney arparently were labelling sen.i 3 tiv ty on the cnat ua' as t od . r.e .
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23 '
a-d myself and u r; anc Oon Neety nii .isc ssed t us ar.d ., we . can ,'er'n 24h -
ssggesting tc the 'icensee that he V aps ase some . rt at r i t i :' t e r. N'
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where he can at least,. .not having nad ca:ibrated the 5A."-2 with a barium I
' ll a
2 , source to essential'y the iodine roar to ..t lea st maybe ratio it se tr.at 3 he can at least see a tre7d or see sor.c ty e o' tread analysis. But as far 1
4 as consciously slacking off frce the samples, I really d'dn't see ar.) L' 5 conscious effort on them. One thing one co. ment ,)ust te get cff... not !
- 6. to get off the tract, here... in terms of tne two control centers. I under-7 stand they had an emergency controi statico in Cnit I control room, bt.t at g the sar.e time they .ere maintaininig a control center at *.ne P-ocessing g Center, and there were times durinc mj collection of data during the first g day where these two control centers seemed to be in conflict as to who's g directing what and who isn't, etc.. etc. That's one point ! Just noted.
12 g ESSIG: Let me ask you one. . a specific ouestion along that line, Ron, 14 since you brought it up. When you refer to thr Prccessing Center, are you g referring to the buildings on the north end of the site, that is, the y entrance to Unit I complex, or are you referrirg to tr.e Geservation Center?
17 h!MITZ: I'm sorry. It was the Obser,ation Center They had an isoc.:se III plot and wind speed and direction, etc., etc., set up there, and there were l 1 e !
19 1 times where apparently the offsite teams d'dn't know who was directinq l 20 l
whom, whether it was the Unit 1 emergency control station or whether it wa<, ,'
21 i
the control station or control center set up at the 00 set ution Cente - '
22 l
There was a little bit of consternat wn from what ! underst3nJ cr the part of the survey team *. as to who rea t i f 'hty'ea gc
- ti rd 1e re c t ion 'com i
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ESSIG:
1.
I believe that concludes the. .all the asestion: i hac on your "
2 involvement each in both cases for the first 3 days following the event.
3 I'd like to now give each of you the opportunity if you so desire to make 4 any comments in the way of observations in terms of lessons learned, th ngs i i
5 that you.think the MRC did well, that the NRC did poorly, that the licensee g did well, that the licensee did poorly, things which eight have been better l 7 in terms of training, personnel, numbers of personnel, equipment, any g observations that you'd care to make of that nature. I'll turn the micro-g phone over to Earl if you have any. ..
10 g P,M: First of all, I doubt that any equipment that one would assemble g ensite would be of much help in an accident of this sort because tt.ere is y always the risk that if the accident had been a little worse you would have p had no use of any equipment that you had stocked onsite. I would assume i
f that in my own staple way of looking at it, that you'd better keep a reserve set of equipment, perhaps on a national basis or regional basis, that you f can move in when an accident occurs, and not bank heavily in terms of supplies and equipment that you put in the individual facilities. The f
l 19 reason for saying this is that, in this particular case, if there hac been a little worse leakage or little worse accident, the accessibility to equipment that you stash onsite in an effort t: prepare for an accident y would have been wasted; you would act have been able to get..t.o. that equipment In teres of training, the Three Mile Island facility particularly has a 24 progression of personnel dictated cf union contracts that leads to cycling I'
people in and out of the plant, ard te vaM out jets with'n the plant, arc ,
i
7 I,, .
I 50 l' 1 training is of some limited value. You would be continually training ,
2 somebody for emergency situattuns that might never occur in the vie., of the 3 management, and this person sight not be available after you've trained 4 him. He is a radiation protection technician for a while, then he moves up 5 to a better operating position, or he moves out of the piant, and things of 6 this sort. The personnel there are not permanent in the usual sense that 7 one tends to conceive of a staff of a plant. The management is semi-g personent, but the people below the management level, because of various 9 co,siderations, are not permanent personnel in the sense that you can train g them and then forget about it for a year and come back and they're all g there the next year.
12 ESSIG: I'll now turn the alcrophone over to Ron Nimitz in the event that p he has any observations he wishes to make.
15 NIMITZ: Really, the only observation that I have to make is that the incident response team could have been much better stocked in terms of instruments, in terms of making offsite surveys and iodine measuremerts and what have you. We really didn't have the necessary instruaaentation and survey meters and we were somewhat lacking in this. But, in terms of the overall reaction and what have you, I thirb -e afd as.. very well or as l best as we could. Oti *r than the fat' that we should be a little more 22 stocked in terns of instru.nentation, ! really don't have any other co m ents l 23 j outside of that.
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- 1. RESNER: This concludes the interview with Mr. Nimitz and Mr Pluntee. The ,
2 time no'. is 1:17 p.m. , excuse me, 2: 17 p. m.
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