ML20137T169
| ML20137T169 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak  |
| Issue date: | 11/20/1985 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML19312A763 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8512060401 | |
| Download: ML20137T169 (209) | |
Text
. . .
~
~
. ORIG NAL UNutu STATES C NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
IN THE MATTER OF. DOCKET NO: .
4' MEETING OF THE NRC STAFF ' '
WITH CASE LOCATION: BETHESDA, MARYLAND FAGES: 224 - 427
~
DATE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1985 l.' .
- .) . .
,o ,
, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
s
\
. opadw i 444 horth CameiStreet
, D.C. 20001 j
W'N .
I NATIONWEE COVBAGI b W ~
. e CR24942.0 ESW/sjg '
224 I
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 MEETING OF NRC STAFF WITE CASE 4
4 .
- . Bethesda Holiday Inn --- ~
) 3 8120 Wisconsin Avenue Bethesda, Maryland 20814 4 . +
6 Wednesday, November 20, 1985 1
7 The meeting reconvened at 9:00 a.m., Vincent S.
, Noonan presiding.
ATTENDEES:
9 f
CHARLES M. TRAMMELL, NRC 4
10 JOSE A. CALVO, NRC l I]
J. F. SCINTO, NRC - ELD GEARY S. MIZUNO, NRC - ELD ll j
i ' E. S. PHILLIPS, NRC - Region IV 12 C. J. HALE, NRC - Reginn IV !
E. E. LIVERMORE, NRC - Region II SRI Vogtle 13 T. A. IPP0f.ITO, NRC - AEOD ,
1 ANNETTE VIETTI-COOE, NRC/NRR/DL/CPP VINCENT 5. NOONAN, NRC !
14 R. REIMIG, NRC l LAWRENCE J. CHANDLER, NRC/CELD 15 BILLIE GARDE, CASE / Trial Lawyers for Public Justice !'
t ANTECNY ROISMAN, CASE / Trial Lawyers for Public Justice j, PAUL KESEISHIAN, NRC/TRT Staff ,
DONALD LANDERS, Teledyne Engineering Services 17 TONY BUIL, SRT/CPRT/IT Corporation 4
' ROGER ROEREACEER, NRC/IE IAN BARNES, NRC/RIV l la SPOTTSWOOD B. BURWELL, NRC/RRR/DL'/CPP i DAVID C. GARLINGTON, Southern Engineering ,
39 JACE REDDING, TUGC0 ;
i R. A. WOCLDRIDGE, NFS&W/TUGCO
, g a
- 20 J. W. RECE, TUGC0 '
J. L. FRENCE, MAC/CPRT - SRT W. NYER, CFRT - SRT 21 J. GUIBERT, TERA /CPRT - SRT i ,
22 R. E. GAD, III, Ropes & Gray ROY P. LESSY, JR., Morgan, Lewis & Bockius 1
SIVA KUMAR, Gibbs & E111 23 CEET POSLUSNY, NRC/NRR/CPP BEN PINDELSTEIN, Spiegel & McDiarmid (Brazos G&T) t 24 T. E. CURRY, TRT -
i R.~ W. BONNENBERG, TRT l 23 M. W. ELI, TRT V. W. WATSON, TRT .
. continued -- '
6 -
S
, , . . , . _ _ .,-r, r- * * '
- f
P
, 224.1 1
ATTENDEES (Continued):
2 ,
V. L. WENCZEL, TRT 3
J. E. MALONSON, TRT R. E. WESSMAN, NRC/NRR/DL 4 WILLIAM C. WELLS, TRT e
R. W. BUBBAUSS, TRT '
3 VICTOR FERRARINI, TRT R. MASTERSON, TRT 4
C. D*. RICHARDS, TRT ,
W. P. CEEN, TRT , .
BOB PHILLEO, TRT 7 CHARLES HOFMAYER, TRT DAVID C. JENG, TRT
- I .
l 8
9 I
i 10 e
11 b
. 12 I 13 i
e 14
f
(
15 l .
i 14 i
17 I
. 14 19 21
- 24 assonne. i.e.
23
. . . . l
,_ .-r _..__~ '__- 5. U ,. _ , . . . _ _ _ . _ . . _ _ . . , _ . , _ . . _ . . . _ . _ -,.m.._ - . _ ,_ . . ,
1 .
av I
24942.0
'KSW 225 l 1
- PkOCEEDINGS 2 MR. NOONANr I guess we would like to go back
, 3 on the record. We're starting the second day of our
- 4 meeting with C'itizens Association for Sound Energy, the v 5 representatives, Mr. Roisman and Ms. Garde. We are 6
continuing with Mr. McCracken from the coatings area. I
. 7 would make one request. If people fe 1 the need for a 8 smoke, please do it outside, if you don't mind. With that,'-
9 go ahead.
10 MR. ROISMAN: Mr. McCracken, we were on page M-4 11 l when we stopped last eveni.:g. I would like to move over to 12 M-5, and the paragraph " communications with TUEC." Can you ,
13 describe what was the purpose of the communications that you had set up with TUEC7 14 You indicated, for instance, in 15 ! the first paragraph at the bottom of M-5, there were 16 frequent staff level contacts between technical review team 17 members and TUEC personnel during on-site -- what was the
, 18 purpose of the meetings?
19
, , MR. MC CRACKENs The meetings occurring at that 20 specific time were to evaluate the specific allegations and *
- > 21 the global review that the coating people were in the 22 process of doing. We were reviewing specific documentation 23 and individuals in various positions on-site with knowledge 24 about the documentation, NCRs, IR, and so on.
25 -
MR. ROISMAN: hhen you can into a problem, was m
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2ss 3c.nce Namesetascoveruse s m 33 H aes
-- - _ - _ _ - - - .- --.~__-. .-
, j
. t 942.0 . 1 W 226 l
\
1 it 1 the practice to go back to someone from TUEC to see if 2
they could explain either why it was not a problem or 3 explain their position on it? Was that one of the purposes .
4 of the m'eetings with the TUEC people? '
5 5 MR. MC CRACKEN: No, I don't think we were **
6 trying to get answers from TUEC at that point. We were 7
trying to conduct an investigation. If we found a .
8 paperwork trail which did not go where we thought it should 9
go or there seemed to be something missing, we would go to 10 them to see'if we had somehow misunderstood the system or 11
, if there was another means of obtaining what we were after.
12 MR. ROISMAN: There may have been instances 13 where our team would find what appeared to be a problem, 14 they would go to TUEC and they would give what your people 15 felt to be an adequate opplanation and that would never .
16 appear in this SSER as a deficient condition if they 17 accepted that explanation from the TUEC people.
18 MR. MC CRACKENs No, I didn't say that. We
- - 19 would talk to the people, try to complete our paperwork -
20 trail.
If it was something we were investigating like an 21
- allegation, the results of all our investigations were '
22 fully included in here.
If somebody explained something, .
23
~
it said' in.here: that 's what wt 'did.
24 .MR. ROISMAN: So every item you looked at that 25 caused you to believe there might be a deficiency, even if ACE' FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. *
. . an.w.nco Nanse** Causse 800 N e84 w . .e,- . =museo N 'F
- mW 24942.0 '
KSW .227 1
in a conversation'with TUEC you became persuaded there was 2 not, they are all documented in here. There are none 3
dropped off because an explanation was given that may have 4 satisfied your people during the investigation.
, 5
, , MR. MC CRACKEN: I can't say categorically none 6
occurred that way, but of the 62 allegations, they were 7 followed all the way through.
8 MR. ROISMAN: On page M-6, you discuss a series .
9 of the meetings with TUEC representatives to discuss --
10 this is sort of like in the middle of that paragraph -- to 11 discuss this proposed program plan on October 19 and the 12 23rd; then I talk about a partially revised program plan on 13 November 21, then a letter from the NRCr and finally in 14 ) January '85, an NRC letter issued informing them of 15 technical review team's preliminary findings. What was the 16 program plan they were working on and how does that fit, if 17 it does, into what we now know as the CPRT7 18 MR. MC CRACKEN That is a general statement 19 which was included in the SSER as part of what management
~
20 was doing at that time. '
s , , 21 ,MR. ROISMAN: Management meaning Nuclear 22 Regulatory Commission management?
23 MR .W1 CRACKEN: Vince Noonan. Therefore any 24 questions in that specific area should go to Vince.
25 MR. ROISMANs Could you sort of put that into an Acz FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- m.w m s *c so.m
==e e pe em,,a. eme*= e - 3, ww.
. - - . - - - - + - - - , - - - ~ - . - , - _ _ _ - - - . - - - - , - _ _ , , - _ _ - _ _ , 4 , - , . - , - - - - -,,.yr.-.,,- - - , ,
~
~
1942.0 .
IW 228 I
the context of the CPRT and what is that and how does it 2 fit into it?
3 MRT-NOONAN: Let me read the paragraph here. . I 4 Okay, reask the question.
5 MR. ROISMAN: Beginning about the middle of the -
6 paragraph on page M-6, there's a discussion of the NRC i
7 meeting or the TRT meeting with TUEC representatives to s
8 discuss something described as the proposed program plan, 9
and then in ene next sentence, a partially revised program 10 j plant then the reference is made to a November 29 letter 11 and finally to the January 8, '85 letter. What is this .
12 revised and proposed program plan and how does iti fit into 13 j what we now know as the CPRT7 14 MR. NOONAN: We have in front of us, I guess the 15 program plan that we now have on the docket is the revised 16 program plan for the CPRT. That is the only program plans 17 I'm aware of enat are called revised program. That's the 18 CPRT activities. It has the work done by DRC, the. Tera 19 20 wor'ki ISEP , the self-initiated programs, and that is also .' '
the same program plan the Staff has now sent out questions
{ 21 .
on which we call the prograsmaatic question,11 programmatic 22 questions and all the other questions we had on individual 23 ISEPs. Did that answer your question?
24- MR. ROISMAN: Well, you are answering but I 25 don't know whether I'm understanding.
ACE. FEDERAL. RZPORTERS, INC.
- 30s.347 3700 Nasse=de Comess an3364ees
, . . _ .~. .- - --
...; = -- . _ .. _. :- -.
24942.0 "
KSW 229 1
(Discuasion off the record.)
2 MR. NOONAN: My staff member reminded me.
n ..
3 Initially the applicant submitted a program plan in 4 response to the letters.
The electrical letters to the QA
, 5 letters.
6 MR. ROISMAN: These are the CPRT letters?
. 7 MS. VIETTI-COOK It just was the first --
i 8
because we -- I don't think we issued the QA letter. It 9 was just they might have been the first, like SSER, the 10 electrical, mechanical, just the first couple SSERs and it 11 addressed the specific technical review team issue.
12 MR. NOONAN:
- That was the first that came out.
13 when we had sent the QA letter out, it had not included it.
~
14 We said this is not really what we're looking for. What we i
15 need is a program plan to respond to the global problem.
16 That w'as really what I call the global problem, all' the 17 safety things on the screen, and we asked for the so-called 18 revised program plan, it was the first plan where they put 19 it all together ,in one document to address all the SSERs 20 and how the CPRT is going to respond. '
21 MR. ROISMAN There's a reference to a revised 22 program plan on November 21 of '84 being submitted by TUEC.
23 Did you understand at that time that that was the CPRT or --
24 MR. NOONAN: No. That .was not the C.PRT at that 25 point in time.
j
- ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
i i an.w.nas me u.co sm.n+we
~
~
^'
942.0 '
W 230 1
MR. ROISMAN: 'There was a different approach 2 that the applicant was originally going to take which is 3 not the approach which is now represented by the CPRT is 4 that correct?
5 MS. VIETTI-Cock: It was more specific. . -
6 MR. NOONAN: It was the revised plan was more 7 specific than the original one.
- Go ahead.
- 8 MR. SHAO: At that time, after we did the review, 9
we wrote a letter to the utility and we ex;*7. sed a concern, 10 an applicant submitted a program plan to 04 .ess these 11 letters and these are the program plans. I.ats w .en the 12 CPRT did come over, a lot of the program plans had to be 13 put into the CPRT overall plan.
14 MR. ROISMAN: Is.it your understanding, 15 Mr. Noonan, that at this point in time, any of the concerns
)
16 that were ide'ntified in the original technical review team 17 letters are being addressed or have already been addressed 18 by some program plan or revised program plan that is not -
19 the CPRT7
22 as used in that program? , $
23 MR. ROISMAN: Right. These refer to program o 24' plans as responding to something.
25 MR. NOONAN Wait a minute. I want to be sure ACE. FEDERAL, REPORTERS, INC.
zu.M7. nob NemoseWe Coverage 105 D H 6ed
-::--:=.._..._.._.~r._.._=.m--~m:-.___--..>,..-_
s u
24942.0 KSW 231 1 I'm talking aboug the right document.
2 (Discussion off the record.)
3 MR. NOONAN: The best way I can describe it is 4
one of a development process, where the first thing that 5 came in was basically responses to the individual SSERs.
6 Then we asked if that wasn't sufficient and we then brought
, 7 it back -- I shouldn ci say "we" -- the applicant came back 8
into what he called the revised program plan that gave ,
9 birth really to the CPRT. And even today, there are still 10 some things, answers to our programmatic questions.
All 11 the other questions we have out there, we're waiting for 12 that response at this point in time. So it is developing 13 from the standpoint where the contract CPRT was brought in 14 from the original group of people, and added.
Things h' ave, 15 been added. There's additional people been brought in,
.w-16 ~different set-up the way things are done now. '
17 MR. ROISMAN: Let me explain what it is I'm 18 trying to make sure that I'm not missing anything on. If 19 everything that has been responsive to the various concerns 20 expressed by the technical review team, starting with .
21 letters and then with conversations and then eventually
. 22 with the SSER, is now all encompassed within the CPRT, then 23 I know if I ask the Staff later a question and use the CPRT
. 24 as the tag, that'Im going to get everything that you have I
25 done with respect to that' problem. And I'm just trying to ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
me.w.rme Messeouscomess an.n646es
. ~ . . . .
.%, e . ++w.- e ve s'O
942.0 W 232 1
make sure that there are not some subset of technical 2
review team issues that either got addressed and dealt with 3
4 or are being addressed and dealt with now outside the scope of the technical review team and that's what I want to make 5 clear.
As I understand your answer, it is no, everything * '
6 is being dealt with under'the CPRT umbrella even though 7
some of it started off in a program plan that was not what-8 we call the CPRT. .
9 MR. NOONAN: That's correct.
10 , MR. CHANDLER:
i I'm not sure that was wholly 11 accurate. At the risk of coaching, let me speak with him.
12 (Discussion off the record.)
13 MR. NCONAN: What Mr. Chandler reminded me is 14 ' that the CPRT is basically set up as a third- party group
~
15 of people looking at the work being done on the site. ,
i' 16 There is work being done by Stone & Webster on piping, pide 17 I support, done on what we call the project. In my mind is everything will come to me, though, under what we call the 19 20 CPRT program plan.
that one funnel.
All that work eventually comes into . .' ' ,;
I think the answer is -- I know the 21 answer is still yes to the question. We will address .
22 everything.
23 MR. ROISMAN: The clarification you're making is
~
24
. that merely some of the work, instead of being done by the 25
" independent" people, may be done by other people, 4
Acs FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
, . , . . 2as.3st.mo Nesse=de covernme me1364see
-~~
.. - . . ~ .
~~-- ;_ _ _ ~ _ _ _ _ TJ :T . - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -
l l
24942.0 '
KSW 233 1 MR. NOCNAN: Yes. CPRT.
2 MS. VIETTI-COOK: The applicant referring to 3
CPRT includes third-party review, work being.done by the _
4 project, et cetera, so that's all CPRT. The third-party 5 end project work is my understanding.
6 MR. ROISMAN: I'm trying.to make sure we have a 7 terminology we could use as shorthand at future times .
8 When I want to say to you, has this been resolved to your -
9 satisfaction by the -- and then I could insert "CPRT" and 10 we'll know that we're talking about all the different ways 11 in which the input comes in.
12 nack to you, Mr. McCracken. In the development 13 of the proposed TUEC responses to the concerns raLsed in 14 i this SSER, it. appears that there is no determination that 15 the TUEC should come back and answer to your satisfaction 16 the question: Why did this happen? Why did these problems 17 crop up in your system? Am I correct that in this SSER, 18 you are not asking them to answer that question in their 19' response to you?
20 MR. MC CRACKEN: That's correct.
. 21
. MR. ROISMAN: And similarly, you are not asking 22 them to answer the question: What are the generic
! 23 implications of what problems we have found? ,
Is that 24 correct?
25 MR. MC CRACKEN The generic implications in the i .
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
2st.M7.Mes Nameownde Coverses 800.U64644
_ , , , , _ _ . _ - -- - ~ - ' " " -
942.0 '
W 234 l area of coatings we handle by the way we conducted our 2 review and examination using a global approach. An effect 3
on the overall QA/QC program is being considered by the ",
4 fact that we have referenced the findings we had to the 5
QA/QC group to use in tholi evaluation of the overall plan, .-
6 QA/QC program.
7 MR. ROISMAN: When you developed that approach, '
8 was it your understanding that the QA/QC group would either 9
determine root causes and generic implications or impose 10 upon the applicant the responsibility to determine root
. 11 causes and gen'eric implications?
1'2 MR. MC CRACKEN: I did not have any notion, i
13 i preconceived notion of exactly what the QA/QC group would 14 l do other than they would take the results of our findings.
15 They would not go back and reinvestigate what we had 16 investigated, They would look in the specific areas where 17 we had found deficiencies. If they found no additional lE deficiencies, they would probably conclude that this was 19 _ confined to coatings only. If they found additional '
deficiencies, they would use the deficiencies identified in 20 21 coatings as additional information to evaluate the overall 22 program. What the picture of that evaluation would look 23 like, I didn't get involved in.
24' MR. ROISMAN: When did you become aware that the 25 coatings would be removed from o classification? When did ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
M347 3M Naomwide Coverage 300 33H6d6
. , . . - , . - - Tz - .. - ---..=c----- = ~ ;- - - - ' ^
= _
24942.0
- KSW 235 1 'you feel that that was going to be the ret.:31t of that 2 review?
3 MR. MC CRACKEN:
. Sometime in February of 1985..
~
4 MR. ROISMAN: And tMe letter, the technical 5
review team letter related to the paint coatings had 6 preceded that -- correct? -- at the time that the letter --
.7 , MR. MC CRACKEN: There was not a coatings TRi' 8 I letter to the applicant.
9 MR. ROISMAN: You had just the Brookhaven letter 10 chat raised the concerns; is that right?
11 MR. MC CRACKEN: The April of '84 Brookhaven 12 letter'had gone out prior to formation of the TRT.
13 MR. WESSMAN:
- c. Mr. Roisman, the November 29, 1984 ,
14 letter that dealt primarily.with mechanical letters had a 15 one-paragraph comment concerigi.ng our status of the coatings 16 review. I think that's the culy time in our letters to the 17 appl:. cant that we actually addressed the coatings issue.
18 MR. ROISMAN: Did you from the outset of this 19 investigation into the paint coatings matter decide that 20 you would not either look for root causes'or that you would -
, , , 21 not direct that somebody else look for root causes? Was 22 that a decision that.had been made from the outset of the 23 review?
24 MR. ROISMAN: I think it is necessary to define 25 what you mean by " root cause."
ACE.FEDE2AI. REPORTERS, INC.
ma.wF.3700 Nanonwide Cowage ICD 1 WIN 6 .
, - - -~
1942.0 '
iW 236 4
1 MR. ROISMAN:
- What I mean is to find out the 2
answer to the question, why were procedures not followed or 3
why was an NCR not done or why was paint that was not ~
4 properly applied not previously detected and why was the 5 paint not properly applied to begin with. The answer to -
6 the why question is what I mean by " root causes."
7 MR. MC CRACKEN: '
The specific. instructions to 8
the coatings TRT group was that they were to review the
- 9 allegations they had, to expand that review sufficiently 10 such~that if additional allegations were to come in in any 11 ,
of the seven categories that were defined that they could 12 be able to address those additional allegations by having 11 brought enough global review in to draw an overall 14 conclusion as to the technical acceptability of the 15 coatings at Comanche Peak. , There was not, any intent to go 16 beyond thst and fix blame to any specific individuals if 17 something was or was not correct.
18 MR. ROI5 MAN: I'm not thinking so much of the 19 question of blame to people as I am interested in the '
20 extent to which you were trying to find out why something 21 happened in order either to determine whether you should ~
22 look at other places, because that particular why would 23 lead you to think that another part of paint coatings might 24 fail as well. You are telling me that that was not in your 25 plan?
. Acs-FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
212 347 3700- Nanoawafe Cowage 800 33H&6
_% W "
..,me
_~
24942.0 '
KSW 237 l MR. MC' CRACKEN: No, as I said yesterday, as an 2 example I used in the procedures area, when we found that 3
something was incorrect as a consequence of procedures, if 4
you go back to the procedures category in the SSER, you'll
= 5 see we addressed all the procedures involved in coating.
6 So we did not stop at the one procedure where we found something wrong.
7 Because of our global review we would 8 review all the procedures to determine if in fact there was -
9 a problem in all the areas or one or two areas, so we did
,, 10 try to see why something was wrong in the implementation 11 that was going on at Comanche Peak.
12 MR. ROISMAN: All right, how did I ask my 13 question before that made you say no and now you say, yes, 14 we did look at why somethi.ng was wrong? *Was there
,g, ,
15 something about that earlier question, was there some 16 element in there'that made you say no? This isn't a trick
, 17 question. I'm trying to find out why we are not l
18 understanding each other about this.
19
. MR. MC CRACKEN: I think because in some cases,
. 20 it sounds as though you're asking technical question. If
. . . 21 you are, the answer is we look into the why., If you ask me l
22 beyond the fact that it was either training or procedures i
. 23 or qualification of individuals, then I didn't go to find 24 out beyond that why that deficiency existed. ~
25 MR. ROISMAN: So there was in your mind a line ACE FEDERA1. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.nm s ec am.-
942.0 '
W 238 l
drawn, and one side of the line you have characterized as 2
technical considerations, which include procedures and the 3
process and all of those things but does not include what -
4 we'll call management attitude, and as long as you were on 5
the technical side of the line, you were looking for the .
~
6 why, but if you got.to a point where you didn't know, why ,
7 didn't this procedure get written properly, you stopped. '
8 You said, no, that's not my responsibility. I'm not going 9 to answer that question. Is that a correct line?
10 MR. MC CRACKEN:
i Once I had made the technical 11 determination that something was either correct or 12 incorrect and the tech'nical reason for it being correct or 13 incorrect, I did not then go further back to find out why 14 j that was incorrect.. Yor instance, if a procedure wasn't i
15 ' properly written, I did not go back to find out if the 16 procedure was improperly written because of which 17 I I individual in the chain of command.
18 MR. ROISMAN:
i And I know we talked yesterday 19 about procedures, and you indicated that it is a sort of -
20 small batch of procedures --
~
21 MR. MC CRACKEN: Relatively small. -
22 MR. ROISMAN: Relatively small. But let's talk 23 about training, for instance. If you were trying to find-24' out why a particular problem existed and you discovered 25 that the inspector who was doing the inspection was not
. ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
m.m.mm - ce== maa*
, . e == m..
l l
l 1
i 24942.0 - ~
KSW 239 I
properly trained,. as I understand it, you would not then go 2 back to find out, well, why wasn't he properly trained.
3 You would now know why it was that this particular piece of
- 4 painting had not been properly inspected and could stop s 5 there. What About the implication of learning why 6 inspector A was not properly trained?
. 7 KR. MC CRACKEN: No, I think you're still in a 8 technical area. If we looked and found that a given .
9 inspector was improperly trained, we would review his 10 training records and others' training records to find out 11 if there was an indication that we had more problems in
, 12 inspector training.
13 MR. ROISMAN:
So you used an assumption that,
, 14 without trying to validate that assumpti'on, that if one
,, 15 person was improperly trained, others might have been, 16 rather than looking for the cause of that person's failure 17 to be trained and being able to then isolate it and say, 18 the reason this guy wasn't properly trained is that every I
19 morning when they were doing the . training sessions he was
, 20 sleeping. That would be one way to stop 'and r.ot have to
- l 21 look at the rest of the inspectors.
~
22 MR. MC CRACKENs That I think would be looking 23 at the program with blinders on, and .we tried not to do j 24 that. We tried to look at each of the allegations.that we 25 had and go a global review. If we found no substance to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo ===
- c an.-
942.0
- W 240
, 1 anygivenalledation, that did not alter the fact that we 2
continued to review beyond that in each of the seven areas 3 to see if we ourselves found something additional. .
4 MR. ROISMAN: What portion -- strike that.
5 What part of the applicant's paint coatings ,'.
6 program did you find did not have deficiencies in them? t 7 MR. MC CRACKEN: To the best of my recollection, '
I 8
I don't think there were any areas that we didn't identify '
I 9 some deficiencies. In some cases they might have been 10 relatively small, but I think in each of the seven 11 categories we identified that we identifi de some 12 deficiencies.
13 j MR. ROISMAN: Were there any areas where you 14 ; identified more deficiencies than what you would expect to s
15 i find in any large construction project?
16 -
MR. MC CRACKEN: I don't recall at this time. I 17 would have to go back and reread the section of the SSER to 18 - comment on that.
19 MR. ROISMAN: Would the SSER disclos~e that to ' . ,
20 anyone reading it or would you still have to take'a look at
- 21 i it and answer mf question based upon refreshing your memory? -
22 MR, MC CRACKEN: No, I think we attempted to 23 write the SSER in the various , categories sufficiently well 24' that someboty reading it could draw that conclusion and l
25 their own if they chose to do so. It may not say so in i
, 1 ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
mm.w.mo r====* cem. me ns eses
- - - , , - - - ,s_ , , _ ,y_._,, , _ , e,,, , , - .y ,,,p,
_.y , - _ - _ , , , , , _ , , _ - , , - _ , , , _ , , -
,=,7.es.
- 24942.0 '
KSW 241 1
those specific words, but we always try to put in the 2
number of examples we used when we took a so-called legal 3 example.
4 MR. ROISMAN: Mayoe at the break, if you 5
. . wouldn't mind glancing over it and seo, because your 6
, assessment and being able to say in looking at it, that was -
7 more or not more than I would have expected to find in a 8
large project is a lot mese valuable assessment than mine 9 in reading ever the same thing. So if you could, I would 10 appreciate having that.
11 MR. MC CRACKEN: I would be glad to do that.
12 MR. ROISMAN: Do you remember yest'rday o this 13 document, the technical review team guidance, June 1984, 14 i document that was talked about and pr'oduced?
15 MR. MC CRACKEN:
L*-, I read that roughly in that 16 time frame, and.I have not looked at it since.
~
17 MR. ROISMAN:
, Was this the guidance that you 18 used for purposes of the paint coatings review? Did you l
19 follow this guidance? ,
20 MR. MC CRACKEN: That guidance'was read by the .
21 person who preceded me as the coatings TRT inspector, Phil ,
22
.s Matthews. I believe that we followed those guidelines. '
23 MR. ROISMAN:
i In this document there's .a
. 24 paragraph B, which I guess is part of the attachment to the 25 whole document that relates 'to - this appears to be ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- an.w.s= m c== ann ***
- - . . - ~ - - --
i 942.0 *
, H 242 1
attachment 3, instructions to technical review team, and 2
paragraph B is discussing prepare work packages and related 3
information, a work package cover sheet is shown in annex 1. *
' 9 4
" Group leaders should review allegation file to identify 5
essential allegations; the numbers of essentially identical .-
6 allegations should be recorded in the work. package and 7
documented in the allegation tracking system." And enen
- 8 there's a series, and I'll show this to you, a series cf 9 '
things you are supposed to do. Number 7 is " consider 10 generic / management implications." I want to know what you
- 11 understor.,d that was asking you to do and how you did that
., 12 in the context of the paint coatings review.
13 ,
MR. MC CRACKEN: I'll take a minute to read the 14 l whole paragraph. In that particular area, the instructions 15 { to the best of my recollection were that if you saw some-16
~ specific evidence of a difficulty with the management 11 ; approach, that you would go ahead and identify it.
18 MR. ROISMAN: But not that you should go out of 19 your way to look for ici
- 20 MR. IPPOLITO: Excuse me. Let me help you out
. 21 there. .
When we wrote those instructions - and I refer you '
22 back to the diagram of the TRT where you see a dotted line 23 going from every' team leader, dotted line over to QA/QC.
24' That thing is a reminder to all the group leaders that if 25
! they find something in their review of the technical issues ACE.FEDEw. REPORTERS, INC.
ms.sc.noo Neuse=uescaerass an3mems
...es.+=me=- * * " * ' * ** ~ ~
24942.0 '
KSW 243 l that have to be referred to "QA/QC management," they 2
should be aware of that and make sure it gets to the right 3 source.
4 MR. ROISMAN: You're telling me that the phrase 5 " consider generic / management implications" means refer 6 generic / management implications to QA7
. 7 MR. IPPOLITO: That's' correct.
8
, MR. ROISMAN: It did not mean that the people 9 who were doing the technical work in the specific technical
. 10 areas should attempt to find the management implications 11 but only that if they stumbled on them they should make 12 sure that QA was aware of it.
13 MR. IPPOLITO: I don't like the word " stumbled,"
14 but I get what you mean, yes. If you recall, you got the 15 same answer when you asked the same type of question from 16 Jose yesterday. That is --
17 MR. ROISMAN: Can you understand why I'm asking 18 it of each individual TRT leader? ,
19 MR. IPPOLITO: I've answered, he's answered and
- I 20 he's answered. They are all following the same procedure. *
, 21 MR. ROISMAN: Everybody else is going to answer 22 it so I know they were all following it. Unless you want
. . 23 to testify.for them. You may have that opportunity some 24 day.
25 Looking now at page M-10, just before the l
i ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zuwa7-m m co = ass manuses m
- %p.,-
w...meme. - .
. . . . ==
942.0 .
.W 244 1
paragraph that megins 3.4, says, "The allegation that some 2
instructor functions were performed by inadequately 3 qualified personnel was substantiated. The extent to which .
4 these deficiencies effected the quality of the coating work 5 is undstormined." Is it indeterminate because it was
- 6 indeterminable or because the nature of your investigation 7 did not include answering that question? .
8 .
MR. MC CRACKEN: The particular paragraph you're 9
looking at, which comes under section 3.3, findings for 10 protective coatings issues, is simply an excerpt that comes 11 ,
out of the individual categories where it is discussed in 12 more detail. I believe in this particular case that it is 13 indeterminate because it was technically indeterminate not 14 because we did not investigate it. I don't believe there's 15 ' any case where we conclude that something is indeterminate 16 and we'have not investigated it. It is indeterminate 17 because we could not determine it one way or the other.
18 MR. ROISMAN Just so I understand this .
19 distinction between the ultimate why and what I will call .
20 the intermediate why question, look at the last line of the 21 .
paragraph at the top of the page on M-10 that says "These ~
22 procedural deficiencies indicate inadequate performance by -
23' those respo'nsible for tho' rev'iew and approval of the 24 coating procedures.*
. Now, you are. talking about inadequate-25 performance in an objective senser that is, as I understand ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
. 2 5 347 3700 Nenomwidecoverses s&336 dde6 e -,
-- g - -- e-w m - -
I 24942.0
- KSW 245 I
the statement, you are saying it is almost a tautology. It 2 didn't work. It must have been inadequate performance. Is 3 that correct?
4 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes. *
, 5 ,MR. ROISMAN:
Not trying to find out whether it 6
was an inadequate performance by some deliberate effort to 7
get around some procedural requirement or negligence or 8 fear or anything else like that?
9 MR. MC CRACKEN That's correct.
10 MR. ROISMAN: All right. Now on page M-ll, in 11 the very concluding paragraph, you indicate that "The 12 deficiencies which were found, although now determined not 13 to be of safety significance, will be considered in 14 s.
evaluating the effectiveness of TUEC's overall program."
15 Do I understand that you were making a 16 determination, based, I assume, on part L, that there is no 17 safety significance, not only the design basis accident 18 safety significance but no safety significance to the 19
, . . . status of the paint coatings at Comanche Peak at this point?
's 20 Is that what you are intending to say there? Is that ,
s
,, , 21 correct?
22 .MR. MC CRACKEN: What I am saying there is based
/ 23 on the findings in appendix A, the- coatings no longer have 24 to be qualified, that these deficiencies are not safety 25 significant in the coatings area.
p ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. 303 34.JMs Nanonwide Cewage 800 336ee6
,-m-+ im*
- 942.0
- W 246 l
MR. ROISMAN: 'Is the phrase "in the coatings 2
area" intended to mean that they might be safety 3
significant in some other area or could the statement *
- 4 equally be made: "They are' not safety significant period"?
5 MR. MC CRACKEN: What I am saying is because of .
6 the determination that coatings no longer have to be 7 qualified, that even though we found deficiencies within ,
- 8 the seven categories that,we looked at in coatings, that 9 they have no safety significance. However, the fact that 10 when they were applied they should have been applied to all 11 of these standards and we found deficiencies in that should 12 not be' ignored in the overall QA/QC review of the plant.
13 i MR. ROISMAN: In doing your evaluation of the
\
14 paint coatings program, what, if any, consideration did you 15 give to the applicant's paint coatings history? That is, ,
16 in 1981, as you know, there was a determinationLas a result 17 of an inspection by region 4 that there were problems in 18 the paint coatings and the backfit program evolved out of 19 that, and in your findings you discovered that the backfit '
20 program itself had significant problems.
21 Did you attempt to put into perspective at all -
22 what, if any, implications there were as a result of that 23 sort of two unsuccessful bites of the apple ,by the 24' applicants to deal with paint coatings on site? Was that 25 part of what you looked at?
Acs. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
mm mo m camm um .
24942.0
- KSW 247 l
MR. MC.CRACKEN: You made a very long statement, 2 and that I think asked a question. I'll try to answer what 3 I think your question was.
4 MR. CHANDLER: If you don't understand the 5
question, Mr. Roisman can break it into pieces for you or 6 whateve r.
7 MR. MC CRACKEN: I think I can probably do it 8' sufficiently.
9 MR. ROISMAN: All right.
, 10 MR. MC CRACKEN: The coatings TRT was instructed 11 to review the coatings program at Comanche Peak. 'That 12 included looking at the allegations and broadening that 13 scope such'that they could see a global look at what the '
14 coatings in containment wers like. Part of that included 15 reading prior documentation, prior inspection reports and 16 things that had gone on.- But we did not assume that' '
~
17 anything done before was necessarily correct. We went and 18 did our own work.
19 MR. ROISMAN:
. - . Were you in any way attempting to 20 determine what, if any, significance you 'should attach to *
. . 21 the fact that the applicant's paint coatings program was 22 already in a repair mode as a result of an earlier' failure 23 of the program to properly apply paint coatings?
24 MR. MC CRACKEN No, we didn't attempt to draw 25 on that . We considered the backfit test program as one ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nco Nanoewide Coveage 80s.11646d6
~ '
.r, _ _ _ . . _ - - --
942.0 ~
I
.W 248 i 1
category in our overall evaluation, and reevaluated the 2 backfit test program.
3 MR. ROISMAN: Do you believe, did you believe '-
4 that if there were any conclusions to be drawn from the 5
fact that even the repair program had not been carried out .'.
6 properly, and that that might have an implication for 7
management's attitude or competence, did you believe that
- 8 that should be reviewed in the context of the QA/QC '
9 evaluation?
10 MR. MC CRACKEN: .I believe that the global 11 review that we conducted of coatings accomplished the 12 objective of seeing"what the status of the coatings were 13 , throughout the plant.
- 14 MR. ROISMAN:
~
But what about getting at the 15 underlying why did the applicant even in its second attempt 16 to apply coatings not apply them properly?
17 MR. MC CRACKEN: We reviewed the procedures, the 18 training and so on associated with it. We drew specific 19 conclusions as to whether they were or were not adequate. .
20 I think as we went back in the last sentence at the top of '
11 M-10 which you read earlier, where we said "These '
22 procedural deficiencies indicate inadequate performance by 23 those responsible for the review and approval of the 2(
coatings procedures ," you get the same response I gave you 25 at that time.
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2023c.r!OO Nanoewds Cowage 300 3*E646
24942.0 ~
249
- KSW l MR.'ROISMAN: Well, I guess maybe I'm making an 2 assumption that you are not agreeing with. Do you agree
, 3 that when a utilic'y is into the repair mcoe with res pect to 4 a program like paint coatings *, and doesn't carry out the
, , 5 repair mode properly, that there is more significance to 6 that failure than if it was their first program which 7 failed and they then put in an adequate repair program?
8' MR. MC CRACKEN: The backfit program is not a 9 repair program. It was a program that was intended to
. 10 evaluate the status of the coatings that had already been 11 applied. So it was a new program different from what they 12 had done in the past.
13 MR. ROISMAN: To make up for the failure to be
. . . 14 able to previously properly document the status of paint g..- 15 coatings already applied?
16 MR. MC CRACKEN: The intent of that was that the 17 prior coatings that had been applied did not have adequate 18 traceability, and therefore, to demonstrate that in fact 19 the coatings had been applied were sufficiently adherent, 20 the backfit test program was an engineering statistical '
. 21 attempt to do so.
t 22 MR. ROISMAN: But your conclusion was the 23 backfit program also did not accomplish that purpose? Is 24 that correct?
25 MR. MC CRACKEN: We found deficiencies in the
! i i
l l
ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
- lot.w.nco Nenoemdecownse son.u w 6ed
< 942.0 '
.W; 250 l 1 !
backfit test program that,are identified in enat specific 2 category.
3 MR. ROISMAN: Did you expect that the QA/M -
4 review that was being done in Mr. Livermore's group would 5
consider the implications of the fact that applicant at its ,
6 second attempt was still not able to determine adequately 7
whether paint coatings that had been applied had been
- 8 applied properly and couldn't determine the status of those 9 paint coatings?
10 MR. MC CRACKEN: I provided the results, our 11 , findings and conclusions to.Herbie Livermore. If he 12 considers it to be more significant that there were 13 4
deficiencies in the backfit test program than there were in 14 i
the original paint program, that's something he will have 15 ' to address.
4 16
- MR. ROISMAN: On page M-43, paragraph nu'aber 2, 17 you are discussing those allegations, and in that la discussion, you say, about the middle of the paragraph, 19 that you did fina "two instances of technically :
20 inconsistent inspection documents which may involv'e only a '
21 small area of liner coating. The TRT does not consider .
22 allegations AQO 54 and 55 to have any significant effect 5
23 since the TRT believes that the area which was not reworked 24' due to coating thickness out of tolerance is small." Tne 25 use of the word "may" in the first sentence and " believes" '
- ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mo N w.c == mm.n w a
. [~
.___c_ _ ~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . _ _ - , . _ - _ . _ . . _ . , . , _ .,_ _ . _ _ . _ ,
l l
1
. mm 24942.0 "
KSW '
1 in the second, is.that intendell to indicate that these are 2
not based upon what they know out based upon some 3 assumptions that were made?
4 MR. MC CRACKEN: I would have to go back into 5
the text that supported that particular conclusion 6 statement to give you a full response to it.
7 MR. ROISMAN:
Why don't we go back and take a 8 look at that then? That's paragraph 8 on page M-40. It 9
covers A 54 -- AQO 54 and 55, and then page M-37, paragraph
.,. 10 5-C, and the tiscussion of that appears on M-38 under the 11 title "backfit test program documentation was forged or 12 falsified."
13
. MR. MC CRACKEN: That's several paragraphs to 14 : read, so it will probably take about five minutes.
15 MR. ROISMAN: Why don't you make a note and when 16 we take a break, read that and take a look at the other 17 question I asked you and we won't have to. slow it up here.
18 Can you just explain so that I will understand 19 it, how the coatings exempt log is supposed to work in a --
20 or how it was supposed to work at Comanch'e Peak as you ~
,. . 21 understand it?
22
. MR. MC CRACKEN: Coatings exempt log is 23 maintain,ed so that at the completion of construction, the
- 24 applicant has a reasonable estimate of the total amount of 25 coatings within the containment that are nonqualified. The i
1
. . ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mo - ce== mm n+ mas
. s-
- . . . --- -*^ - * * * * ' ~
_ ----_-~- _ _ _
4942.0 '
3W 252 1
intent of that is to sh w that it is a sufficiently small 2
amount that you would not have to be concerned about the 3
effect if all of it failed on ECCS systems. .
4 MR. ROISMAN: Is there a criteria that 5 determines what is a sufficiently small amount? Is there a .-
6 numerical guide of any kindi 7 MR. MC CRACKENs No, there isn't. That's 8 evaluated on each specific plant.
9 MR. ROISMAN: I1 there any criteria for deciding, 10 other than just the applicant deciding to do it, what you 11 put into the coatings exempt log to begin with?.
12 MR. MC CRACKEN: The material that goes into the 4
13 coatings exe: apt log would typically be that, which you did 14 not apply according to the Q standards. For instance, you
- . 15 would get seine small components from the manufac,turer that 16 you couldn't assure exactly how it was coated but you 17 didn't want to go through and strip it and recoat it. That 18 you put in the coatings exempt leg.
19 "MR . ROISMAN: Would it also be perfectly '
20 permissible for you at the end of a day of paint coating, l
21 the supervisor realizes that the wrong mix was used, no one .
22 picked it up and they don't want to have to paint it again.
23 Is that all right. to put that in the exempt log?
~
1 .
24 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes, as long as you at the end 25 modified the total you put in and can demonstrate that if ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
. . mw.voo mcamaan mm
_ - . _ _ .__._.g _ . . . _ _ - _ _ _ . . _ - . . . - - _ . _ _ _ . , . _ , . _ _ _ , . _ . . - . _ - . . _ _ . _ . . . . - . , _ _ _ . , _ _ - _ . , .______.y
24942.0 .
l KSW 253 i l
1 that fails it doeisn't cause a problem.
2 MR. ROISMAN: So there's sort of an undefined 3
. reserve that the applicant is authorized to use subject to 4
the possibility that at the end of the whole' plant, the NRC
. 5 might say, you've exceeded the reserve amount, you have to 6
go back and qualify 10,000 square feet that you thought you 7 could exempt? ,
t 8 MR. MC CRACKEN: Something like that, yes.
9 MR. ,ROISMAN: On page M-104, under the
, 10 discussion of unacceptable seal coat, AQO 25, there's an 11 allegation that certain stains on the liner were in the 12 opinion of the paint' coatings inspector, unacceptable 13 procedure.
Indicates here that the TRT interviewed the QC i
, 14 superviisor involved who ind.icated the stains were ~
15 acceptable.
He stated that the liner was wiped with I6 solvent and water, that the QC inspector involved appeared 17 to be satisfied with the work and that no pressure was 18 placed on the QC inspector for him to accept the work as
, , , 19 done. .- -
20 Then the IR was reviewed and it was dartermined 21 that the QC inspector had in fact signed it, and finally, 22 the TRT could not verify that the QC inspector was coerced.
23 At that point, did a referral of the matter to OI get made 24 by the people doing the paint coatings review?
25 MR. MC CRACKENs This particular one, as I '
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
am.w.noo n =* cm= me.n+me
..-y- _- . . - - - - _ - - - - , . . ._ -
l
. l 942.0 - '
W 254 l
1 recall, was one that came from an OI report, but I don't 2
have that series of records available.
3 MS. VIETTI-COOK-:--I-can-tell you in a minute. .
4 It came from an OI report.
5 MR. ROISMAN: Why would you do any review then . -
6 of the, if you will, the argument side of it, the inspector 7
saying that he signed off on it, but because he was coerced, '
8 and the iupervisor saying, he wasn't coerced and it was 9 okay?
Why would you look at that at all inasmuch as OI had 10 already looked at it except to review the tachnical merits
-11 of whether or not that particular liner plate did or didn't 12 have proper stain on it?
~
_ 13 MR. MC CRACKEN: That simply came about because 14 ! we interviewed the people we could who were involved and
- 15 checked the signatures on the sign-of f, and in talking to 16 the people, these were things that they stated, so we 17 included it for completeness.
18 MR. ROISMAN: Ycur understanding of your 19 ~
responsibility would have been that if OI had completed an -
20 .
investigation and had said in their investigation, we can
- 21 .
not determine whether the QC inspector was coerced, he said '
22 he was and the supervisor said he wasn't a.nd we found his 23 signature on the OI card, that you would not have gone 24' independently to determine whether OI had made the right 25 conclusions about that or draw your own evaluation from it l
ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
an.3c.37eo Neden.edsco m use s00 3364644 '
at :. _;r /.4 _ _ " a.. - ;5 1* -- - - - -
- -' ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
. . . _ . . . _ . . ~ . . . . . . _ . . . . . . . . __ _.
24942.0 .
KSW 2S5 1 is that correct?
2 MR. MC CRACKEN That's correct.
. 3 MR. ROISMAN:
, So this was just an accident?
4 MR. MC CRACKEN: These were simply things that
. . 5 we learned during that particular investigation. So in the 6
interests of completeness, we included what we had learned.
7 We did not try to conclude whether in fact he had been 8
coerced or not because OI had done that.
9 MR. ROISMAN: Well, the statement is that the 10 TRT could not verify that the QC inspector was coerced.
.:, 11 That sounds like you attempted to determine whether he was.
12 I would have expected,.if it is what you are saying, that 13 the TRT did not verify or did not attempt to verify.
-;. 14 MR. MC CRACKEN -
I think both statements would
.w. 15 be correct. We could not, based on what we found, and we 16 also did not make an atitempt to do so.
17 MR. ROISMAN: I rsalize this is hypothetical, 18 but I want to understand how you were working. I.et's say 19 that the person working on the TRT on this had gone to see 20 ..
the supervisor. And after. meeting with the supervisor, the l
l * * -
21 person on the TRT came away with a very distinct impression 22 that the supervisor was lying. That was his instinct. He 22 listened to the way he talked', the way he looked; he felt 24 like the guy was lying, and he talked to the alleger and he 25 thought the alleger was telling the truth and there were 10 -
l l
. i I
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS INC. .
2 5 3 c.J700 MCm u m 6es
~
't 8942.0 "
3W 256 l
other things that the alleger told him that were borne out, 2
and the supervisor was the same one that said the training 3
was good when it wasn't and the procedure was adequate when ~
4 it wasn't so his judgment was, I don't think the supervisor 5 was telling the truth. Would that have appeared in here if .-
6 he had felt that?
7 MR. MC CRACKEN: ~
No, and no place in here will 8
you see us drawing an opinion as to whether one person is 9
telling the truth or another person is telling the truth.
10 We were evaluating facts.
11 MR. ROISMAN: The thing that troub'es me is the 12 phrase "the TRT could not verify that the QC inspector was 13 coerced" has an ambiguity that makes it sgund like you 14 ! tried to verify it but couldn't, and you seem to be telling l
15 me that that'.s not what's meant to be conveyed by the , ,
16 sentence. -
17 MR. MC CRACKEN: That's correct. Based on the 18 facts that we looked at, the facts would not give us that 19 ar.d we did not then go through and try to determine by any '
20 further investigation whether that was in fact .
the case.
21 MR. ROISMAN: But I posit the hypothetical whose -
22 facts would allow you to reach that conclusion, the person 23 observing the two people who were talking about this 24 incident believed that the supervisor was lying and that 25 the QC inspector was telling the truth, or, if you want, t
l l 'Acs. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
. ses. w . m o Nanse. ins coverses a n.33 H ees
\
. _ _ . . . ...--------- = --- -
L 24942.0
- KSW 257 1 that the opposite was true: the inspector was lying and 2 the supervisor was telling the truth.
3 Now you have the data.
Someone on the TRT could 4 communicate it. Are you saying if that were the case they 5 would not have communicated it even if they believed it?
6 MR. MC CRACKEN:
t We did not try as part of the 7
TRT to make a determination as to whether an individual was 8 or was not lying or had or had not been coerced. -
9 MR. IPPOLITO: Let me interject here. I think 10 the time that it was not, the team leader at site, so I 11 think if you look at the instructions I gave my team 12 leaders on site was that if they, using your hypothetical 13 example, if they suspected wrongdoing, they would make that
.s:
14 apparent to me with the information, and I would then 4.
15 transmit that potential wrongdoing to OI for their 16 investigation.
It is not that they would drop it if they
~
17 suspected somebody did something wrong in the process of i
18 pursuing their technical evaluation. That's- -
the --way it
<3-,
19 would haver been performed.
! .. .~ -
20 MR. ROISMAN: )
So to the extent that there are -
,, , 21 statements in this SSER that deal with such q2estions as 22 whether an inspector claimed to have been coerced, whether
. . 23 he was not, all of those statements should be interpreted 1
24 to communicate nothing more than that you were not trying 25 to find out whether they were coerced or not, and anything l .
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m w.mo wc =m==
.m[ l' ? f .,N nm.m.+- .
.942.0
- iW 258 i
i that you say about whether they were coerced or not should 2 ,
always be read to mean we were not trying to find out.
3 MR. MC CRACKEN: Should be read to mean that 4
these are some of the facts that we turned up in our i .
5 investigation, and therefore, in the interests of a 6
complete record of what we did, we included it.
7 MR. ROISMAN: But you wouldn't reach conclusions "
8 l
from those facts in this report about whether one person 9 was or was not coerced by another?
10 MR. MC CRACKEN: That's correct.
11 MR. ROISMAN:
On page M-106, under paragraph 5, ,
12 conclusions and Staff positions, at the end of the first 13 paragraph, reference is inade to allegations AQO 50, 52, 53
,- 14 and 57, which you say were, substantiated but the proper c 15 documeritation and appropriate corrective actions were taken.
16
- The TRT concludear that these allegations have neitther 17 safety significance nor generic implications."
18 My question to you really is this: Did you 19 i
treat differently deficiencies that you found that the ~ '.
20 . .
applicant corrected, either before you finished the report 21 .
but af ter you had found the deficiency, or even before you -
i 22 found the deficiency but after the time that they should 23
, have corrected the deficiency on their own, then you 24' i treated those deficiencies which remained live from the 25 very beginning all the way through the completion of your i
Acs. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2 53ar.31oo Neusmade cowass u n usdeas
24942.0 '
KSW 259 1 report?
, the deficiencies remained live until we had left the site 4
and wrote the report.' There was no predetermination that 5 any coatings area was not safety significant. Therefore, 6 the investigation, the conclusions and Staff position were 7 written aftgr the total report of investigation was written 8 on each of the individual allegations. -
9 MR. ROISMAN: What I'm trying to find out -- '
10 let's take a look on the same page, a little higher up is 11 the discussion of AQO 57, which is one of the allegations 12 referred to in the conclusion paragraph. This dealt with
, 13 ; the existence of filth, weld, splatter, tobacco juice and
. _ . 14 other unsuitable materials being on the wall before it was
,,,, 15 painted. What your people found was that, yes, that was 16 true, that it had been painted over with a lot of filth -
~
17 there. And when you went up you found that the applicant 18 was in the process of repainting it so it was being 19 repaired. And I assume 'that when it says here "The 20 allegations were substantiated; however, proper
,. 21 documentation exists," that it meant that the deficient 22 condition was properly documented on the NCR and tnat 23 , repair work was being'done?
24 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes. , .
25 MR. ROISMAN: All right, was it your -- first of SI Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m m.mo ma eceme um e em . . 4w w
, . - . - - . . . - ~. .,
%942.0 3W 260 1
all, did you look to see if the NCR was written at the time, 2
that it should have been written, at the time that if a QC 3 inspector saw the problem, he should have issued an NCR7
- 4 Was any attempt -- let's deal with that first -- to 5 determine if the NCR was timely written? ..
6 MR. MC CRACKEN: In the review we conducted, the 7
NCRs, we made an attempt to determine when they were ,
8 written and when corrective actions were taken on them.
9 MR. ROISMAN: And is it possible to tell from 10 looking at what we have here whether this NCR was written 11 at the right time?
12 MR. MC CRACKEN: From looking at this, I can't 13 tell that. I would assume in the background documentation 14 that may be evident.
15 MR. ROISMAN: If it were not written at the 16 right time, would the phrase "however, proper documentation -
17 exists," have been made?
18 MR. MC CRACKEN No.
There are instances in 19 here where we have pointed out that the documentation '
20 didn't match. .
21 MR. ROISMAN:
You mean it came too late? - '
22 MR. MC CRACKENs There are cases we indicated
. 23 where in coatings traceability that paint.was mixed after ;
I 24 l it was indicated it was being applied, which was impossible, 25 or paint was mixed a week before it was applied, which
=
ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
m w.mo mceme, an. man
4 .
24942.0 .
, KSW 261 1
would not also be possible because it would set before it 2 was applie'd.
. When there were instances we found like that, 3
l ,
we indicated where it occurred.
4 MR. ROISMAN: Both of those instances might be" 5
instances of some kind of document tampering. This could 6 be'a perfectly innocent situation in that 'on the first 7
review, for whatever reason, the deficiency was not 8 detected. Subsequently, someone detects the deficiency.
- 9 Maybe a little paint starts to peel and they can see the
-; 10 reason it is peeling is that the wall is in bad shape, and 11 at that subsequent time the NCR was written up.
12 l
You would want it written up as soon as someone c 13 ' noticed a deficient condition, so in that instance the NCR 14 would be proper, but you would also have wanted the 1 15 ! deficient condition to be noted before the paint was ever 16 put on, and therefore someone should have written an NCR at 17 the outset when they started the painting or 'should have 16 stopped them and said, don't paint it until you clean it.
19
, , , Would you call it proper documentation in this 20 case if an NCR was written when they first found 'the ~
. - . 21 deficiency even though they should have found the 22 deficiency a year earlier and didn't?
23 MR. MC CRACKEN: As long as the documentation 24 exists which states the condition it was in and the NCR 25 exists which stated it in fact was applied over filth and i
p i
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. ~
2 3 347 3700 MeneseWeCoverugs -
alo 3364M6
-_-r , _ _ _ _ _ . _ . _ _ - _.,y. , . , _ _ _ , . . _ , . _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ , _ _ _ _
_ ~ . . _ . , -,,___.-..,_my.
942.0 ~
.W 262 l
so on, then that gave the correct paper trail to be able to 2 come back and determine that this specific area had a 3 problem.
4 MR. ROISMAN: But would you have found the a .
) 5 deficiency that the NCR didn't get written until after -- -
-6 would you have found it a deficiency because the wall got 7 painted with filth on it in the first place? Would that be .
8 something you would report in the SSER as a deficiency?
9 MR. MC CRACKEN: This particular one I did not 10 review myself. If you would like me to see if I cac get a 11 more thorough review of this particular one or a more 12 thorough explanation, I would be glad to.
13 MR. ROISMAN: I'm trying to find out what you 14 understood the operating criteria worn that the inspectors 15 follo~e4 w I assume based on what you told me that the -
16 information is in documents that have been produced under 17 the FOIA request. We can look and see what actually I 18 happened, whether the NCR was or was not long after the 19 event had transpired. -
20 I'm trying to understand what criteria were used .
by the paint coatings group. If the following conditions 21 ~
22 were the case: The wall gets painted with the filth on it 23' and two years later, the NCR gets written that says that 24 wall should be repainted because.there was filth underneath 25 the paint, would that get reported as a deficient condition E
Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
' ' an.w.mo me *ce w-
,,_,,,,-,,__,,.,,,,.--n. , _ . - , . . . . ~ , , - - - .- y- - - - - , _-.g.m . g --
24942.0 "
KSW- 263 1
that ds, the applicant was wrong for having painted the 2
wall in the first place, and wrong for not,having had a QC
, 3 inspector detect the condition of the wall and write proper 4 documentation? Or would it be reported, everything is okay,
,. 5 the documentation is proper?
6 MR. MC CRACKEN:
I think neither. What we say 7
in here is the allegation is substantiated, and that it is 8 acceptable because it has been reworked. We didn't try to 9
determine when it should have been reworked. Our 10 determination was, are the coatings applied now acceptable 11 or not? >
12 MR. NOONAN: Off the record.
13 (Discussion off the record.)
14 MR. ROISMAN:
So really, in addition to the ,
, 15 other things you have told me about, about the scope of 16 your responsibility on the SSER, if a problem that had 17 existed in the past was, by the time you got to the plant 18 properly repaired; that is, the physical paint was now in 19 its proper condition, you did not go back to find out 20 whethen it had been found deficient at the wrong time, '
. . 21 whether there had been an attempt to cover up the fact that 22 it was deficient by improper paper or anything like that, 23 you just. looked at the paint on the wall, today, and said, 24 that wall is fine, and we're not going to bother about how 25 it got to be fine. Is that correct?
l Acs. FEDERAL REPORnRS, INC.
anz.347.mo Nanos=we couras aio.3364s44
i 942.0 '
.w 264 i l
1 MR. MC CRACKEN: No, it is not correct. We did 2
a global review in the area of paints and coatings. We did 3
that over seven categories that we determined represented
- 4 what it takes to apply coatings in a power plant. In that 5
review of the seven categories, we went well beyond any of . -
6 the individual allegations we had to make an overall 7 determination. If we had an allegation that something was '
8 wrong, we did not walk down to'the area where it was, 9
examine the coatings and see if today it was okay and 10 simp 1'y write it off saying the allegation had no merit.
11 j We reviewed the allegation, as we did in this 12 specific case,.where we concluded that in fact the 13 allegation was substantiated. However, they had now 14 reworked the c'oating and therefore that area was n'ow 15 acceptable, and proper documentation existed to show that ' '
16 the area was currently acceptable.
~
t 17- MR. ROISMAN: But the alleger apparently only
.- 18 says to you, they painted over a filthy area. You start -
19 with the allegation that there's a place where paint has !
~
20 been put over filth and that's not a proper way to paint, 21 but inherent in that is some other things that the alleger -
22 doesn't say in their allegation. One is that, the obvious 23 one, they painted over something they shouldn't have 24 painted over, but ther,e's also the inherent allegation that 25 some QC inspector who was supposed to be there when paint l
l ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
2n.3c.7mo Nenos=We Cowses son 3364ses
t 24942.0 KSW " 265 <
I was applied either was not there, was there and didn't know 2 that it appeared that he painted over the filth, or was 3
there and knew that it appeared and for some reason didn't write it up in-the inspection report right then.
4 All those
. . 5 are apparent with the alleger's allegation, but apparently 6
not articulated by them. Did you make an attempt.to find 7
. out which one of those or other conditions actually existed?
8 MR. MC CRACKEN: We did not make an attempt to '
9 find out which of those would have been the cause of that 10 specific instance. Because we conducted a global review
, 11 which went well beyond the individual allegations, we 12 considered that type'of thing in the type of review we did.
,e 13 MR. ROISMAN: But in terms of providing, if you
- - 14 will, data points for someone who is going to look at the
,=> 15 generic QA/.QC implications, the paint coatings, this might
- 16 have,been a data point that would be illustrative of one of 17 those three or some other technical reason for the 18 existence of paint over an area that should not have been 19
- painted, and your group would not have Deen able to provide ,
20 -- your group did not provide that data poiner is that .*
21 correct?
22 MR. MC CRACKEN Our group provided an overall l
23 assessment of the coatings' quality to the QA/QC group.
24 The specific examples that we had in each of the seven 25 categories were available for them to use in their overall ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2n.3ar.mo .M C- # N 4688
~
,,m, , . . . , , . _ , _ _ . , _ _ ,_ ,. ,., _. , , . _ _ , . _ , ,
s
.942.0 '
266 iW 1 evaluation of QA/QC.
- 2 MR. ROISMAN: But to the extent in AQO 57 that 3 you did not, if you did not, find out whether the reason l t -
4 that this paint was lef t - was' put on this wall in the
- 5 first place was a poorly trained inspector, a nonexistent . .
6 inspector or an inspector who for some reason saw and 7 didn't write up the condition, the failure to do that -- am '
8' I correct? -- means that for the QA/QC people, they don't know which, if any, of those categories it might have l
9 '
10 fallen into in order to' determine how many instances l 11 existed of inspectors seeing problems and not writing them 12 up. Is that correct?
- l 13 ; , MR. MC CRACKEN: No, I don't think so.
14 l ,
MR. ROISMAN: Why not?
1 15 MR. MC CRACKEN:
I think because of the fact 16 'that we conducted a global review and that we drew the 17 overall QA/QC conclusions in coatings by ourselves, that 18 the overall results that we provided to QA/QC gave them 19 sufficient indication that they could make a determination ' '
20 as to whether it was an isolated problem within coatings, 21 which as a consequence of appendix L would have no safety !
22 significance, or if this simply added additional 23 )
informat. ion to their overall review in all the other areas - '
24 they looked at of QA/QC. I don't think a specific number
-25 of one or two instances plus or minus would have had any A
i ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mm NadoewWe Cmwaar MMMM
- : :- - m:L m ' z:" :::: __: L ::-- - - _ - _ _ - _ - - - .
l l
24942.0 "
KSW 267
~
l significant impact on what was going on in QA/QC.
2 MR. ROISMAN: Well, I assume that the number one 3
, or two, you are probably right about. But we can only talk 4
about them one at a time and none of us want to stay for 5
the rest of the ' day and go through all of the allegations 6
in the paint coatings area to see how many others by using 7
the global review you stopped your investigation and did 8
not answer the question, why did this dirty wall get -
9 painted in the first place, and that would be foolish.
10 My point is to make sure I understand that it is 11 '
your judgment that you had enough data points to reach your 12 global conclusions and to say that these -- to the extent 13 that you made those conclusions, these were plant-wide 14 '
failures in the paint coatings area, not isolated areas
,, 15
, . that didn't add up to enough to make me be able to say they 16 are plant wide. '
17 MR. MC CRACKEN.:
I believe that's what I said 18 yesterday. I.et's take about a 10-minute break, please.
19 (Recess.)
20 MR. NOONAN: I,et's go back on' the record. '
, . . 21 MR. CHANDI,ER:
Before we resume Mr. Roisaan's 22 questioning, I have a cone'ern. I think we're here at about ;
23 halfway through the morning on the second day. Staff is 24 somewhat concerned in light of the agreement that we 25 provided to make available for your questioning, the ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. -
zu.wr.nco NadouwideCovenes 80 M 36 4646
,,,,m,,,. .%
e-ew--=- ~
24942.0 '
KSW 268 I
appropriate individuals over a two-day period, how we stand 2 as far as ccapletion within that time frame. .
3 MR. ROISMAN: Well, I have -- the only questions
- 4 I have left for Mr. McCracken are the two he was going to 5 look at during the break. Then Ms. Garde is going to deal' -
6 with the SSERs 8 and 10, and then I will deal with SSER 11, 7
and then we'll come back to Mr. Noonan. My best guess is 8
that we will not finish all of that by 5:00 today. But as 9
I indicated to you yesterday, some of the questions that we 10 want to ask we can't ask anyway.
11
, For instance, we can't ask any of these people 12 to compare the drafts of their SSERs with the finals 13 because we don't have the drafts yet; and some of the --
14 until.we see the documents that are being produced under 15 FOIA we can't tell what" additional questions they might 16 require. The answers that we have gotten so far would
~
17 suggest that they should be self-contained. They won't 18 themselves generate questions other than the kinds of 19 questions you would ask in the hearing itself, but until we -
20 have a chance to look through the documents I cant tell '
21 that. So almost certainly we will want a second .'-
22 opportunity to go through with people what they had 'said in i
23 their drafts and what they said in the final if we find 24 differences. -
25 I remember yesterday Mr. Calvo indicated in his
, 1 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mo m.ide ce=se so n+**
$!.Y._
~.~ _ . ; --- :~. .
~-~~_._
I 24942.0 .
KSW 269 1
area we won't find that difference at all on that one 2 section of the conclusions. I don't know how true that
. 3 will be for the others until we see the draf ts.
4 MR. CEANDLER: I expect you and I will discuss
.. 5 then any further arrangements.'
6 MR. ROISMAN:
' Absolutely. At 5:00 today we will 7 stop.
Mr. Livermore indicated that he and other people had 8
travel plans that were contingent on that, and we do also,
- 9 so we will be done at 5:00.
10 MR. NCONAN: Let's go ahead and proceed then
. 11 with the questions.
12 MR. MC CRACKEN: Before we proceed, I.was
{ g. 13 approached during the break by Herb Livermora and he
,-a 14 thought I might have given a misimpression. The only thing se 15 I gave to Herb Livermore to look at was my SSER 9. As long 16 as you understood thatt he thought. I might have given the 17 impression that I gave him other things in addition to this.
18 MR. ROISMAN: ,In other words, you did not give
,, , 19 him the underlying documents besides the SSER7
. ~
20 MR. MC CRACKEN: Right.
They ware available if
~'
( . 21 he chose to use them, but I didn't give them to him.
22 MR. ROISMAN: I hope if he wanted them he got 23 l
- them from the FOIA office faster than we have. -
24 MR. CHANDLER: Touche.
25, MR. ROISMAN: Mr. McCracken, we had two l
l m.m.mo s c .e an. men
- Z7 _
..__.7'~~~ I i~i__ _i _ 1. .___ ._ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ . - _ . _ . . _ . . _ _
942.0 W 270
~
l questions left.
One was the extent to which after you 2
looked over this you felt that there were areas of paine 3 .
coating deficiencies that you found that were no more 4
severe than what you would have expected in any nuclear .
5
. plant and wnether there were such and which ones they were. '
6- MR. MC CRACKEN: I think I should make it clear 7
that the depth of the investigation we conducted at 8
Comanche Peak is more extensive than we have done at any 9 other plant.
l Therefore, it would not be, I don't think,.
10 j reasonable to make a comparison as to what this is versus 11 another plant.
12 l In looking back through each of the categories, 13 ! as I said, I don't think I found any areas where there were 14 ; not some' deficiencies. The only area that seemed that it 15 might not be too ba'd was the area under 5-A, which was 16 inspection reports in the post-1981 era. Once ,the initial.
17 concern with coatings had been identified, when we went to 18 the inspection reports we found they did pretty much show a 19 pretty good paper trail of what was done and why it was .
20 done.
21 MR. ROISMAN:
After 19817
~
22 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes.
23 MR.'ROISMAN: Other than that there were no 24 areas that you found that were really, in your judgment, 25 adequate or appropriate in the paint coatings area?
. ' ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- 233s73700 Nadoewideceares m3446e6 y -- - . - - - --
~
24942.0 KSW 271 1 MR. MC'CRACKEN: We found deficiencies in all 2 the areas.
, 3 MR. ROISMAN: My second question related to a 4 statement that appeared on page M-43, and then there was
. 5 some other paragraphs that you were going to take a look at 6 in order to answer those questions. In particular, what I 7 was interested in was the use of the words "may" -- the 8 first question was the "may" -- and " believes," those two 9
words that appeared in that paragraph number 2 on page M-43,
,10 was that an indication that it was not based upon specific 11 facts that were known, but rather on assumptions that were 12 made? I.et's just start with that.
13 MR. MC CRACKEN: It was based on, if you go back
- 14 and read the entire item starting on page M-40, which is 15 number 8, it goes through a rather lengthy explanation ,
16 covering through page M-41 of what actually le,d to that 17 conclusion. The reason it said "may" is .we list near 18 the very bottom of M-42, the second paragraph, "Because of 19 the three mitigating factors," and three mitigating factors 20 discussed above is 1, 2 and 3, which basically say that '
21 some of the specification readings were too low, which 22 .doesn't give a great deal of concern because that is not 2.7 going to affect adherence; that a lot of it had been
~ .
24 reworked and examined through the backfit test program and 25 some of the areas that were identified - in fact, most!
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. 2nz w.7no Nedeemde cmarass soo m ses
..__ , , . ~ ,----,--,w -n, - - - - - - ~ ' ' ' ^ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ '
942.0 '
.W . 272 1
that we could determine *ere included in a coatings exempt 2 log, which was the proper thing to dos and also that the 3
alleger stated that he thought these were only small areas. "
~
4 We said "may" because he in fact said this and we, again, 5 were relying on his mdmory. -
6 MR. ROISMAN: Then in the next sentence you say 7 " '
"Since the TRT believes believes that the area which was 8 not reworked due to coating thickness out of tolerance.is 9
small," that's the same -- the " belief" and the "may" come 10 from that same source then?
4 11 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes.
12 MR. ROISMAN: Did you make any attempt in this 13 instance to determine whether in fact the practice was 1
14 l broader than the scope of the areas in which the alleger 15 was identifying?
16 MR. MC CRACKEN: Yes, I think that's clear, 17 because if you look at item 2 on page M-41, we 're 18 discussing in there specifically the coatings and exempt 19 log, what was done there, the amount of steel that was 20 reworked. All of the investigation we did into the .
21 coatings exempt log was an investigation that we conducted
- 22 independently of allegations. There were no allegations in 23 that area; l . .
j 24 MR. ROISMAN: Here again, as I understand it --
25 correct me if I'm wrong -- because the backfitting program I
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
zu.3c.37ao Neusewideceerner 800 336 6684 I
. ' l._'L , .._ _ . . - - . _ ..
24942.0 "
-KSW 273 1
appeared to be dealing with the issue to some extent -- you 2
were not attempting to go back before the backfitting 3
program to locate the technical reasons that there had to
, 4 be a backfit program at al'1; is that correct?
5 MR. MC CRACKEN: We had read the reports that 6
led up to the initiation of the backfit test program so we
, 7 were aware of why it was initiated.
8' MR. ROISMAN: You were aware of why the report 9 said it was initiated. You relied on the report ra ther 10 than an independent evaluation of your own? That's my only 11 question.
12 MR. MC CRACKEN: Part of our review included a 13 review of documents that existed' prior to 1981. We did not 14 ignore documentation pre-1981.
' We looked at NCRs and irs
, 15 and so on back in that area. We looked at the procedures 16 from review zero to the .time we "were at the site.
- 17 MR. ROISMAN: Still back on page M-43, you 18 indicated that as to AQo-37-C - and this is another one of 19 the ones TRT could not draw a conclusion as to *orging or 20 falsification. Why don't you tell me wha't you melant by '
. 21 "could not draw a conclusion"?
22 MR. MC CRACKEN: I think if you go back to the
^
23 write-up on 37-C -
24 MR. ROISMANs, On page M-38.
- 25 MR. MC CRACKEN: -
it discusses the backfit ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo se c= sm.-
,m ,,
...m.m*=.
==y - - --, - - - - ----,w-
,we_ %
9 -- + -. _ -
'*"'**',-.*._,*.*,--.y-
-s----
942.0 M '
274 I
test program en page M-38, and under the underlined section, 2
- backfit test program documentation," we described that we 3
- in fact did look at -- down towards two-thirds through that ',
4 paragraph -- approximately 250 inspection reports that were 5 legally randomly selected. Of this sample, the TRT found .
6 two inspection reports which indicated problems with the 7
coating mix date, which were the examples I was discussing '
8 just before we took the break. Those were the only two 9
instances of deficiencies we found; and we state in there 10 tnat the TRT could draw no conclusion as to the 11 falsification of forging the records based on what we had
, 12 looked at.
13 .MR. ROISMAN:
( .
Now, I know we have been over this
~
14 i area, but I'm still having trouble understanding how you i
15 functioned. It appears in this instance' you were 16 attempting to gather data to se'e if you could determine 17 whether data had or had not been falsified. You were 18 neither relying on whatever prior work may have been done 19 by OI, if any had been done, nor were you simply referring '
it to OI and leavir.q it to OI to find out.
l 20 You.actually
! 21 were trying yourselves to get some information on thatt is -
22 that correct?
23 MR. MC CRACKEN: I think what we 4mre doing is 24' consistent with the statement that Tom Ippolito made a 25 little while ago, that during that time frame, 'if we had .
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
l mm mm wm
, . - . . . - , _ _ _ _.._.,__.m. .-_,,,.__..._--__..__.y
, , ,___,__..y,__, . _ _ _ . _ . _ . _ _ _ _ , , . , - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ . _ , _ - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _
24942.0 ~
KSW 275 1
found documenesti*on which had indicated it had been forged 2
or falsified we would then have turned it over to OI.
, 3 Because we did not do so, we could not draw that conclusion 4 and turn it over to OI in this specific instance.
5 MR. ROISMAN:
So that.when you had an allegation 6
from someone.that said the documents were being falsified 7
or someone would be pressured not to do the right 'hing, t 8 you did, in effect, act somewhat in the role of an -
9 investigator to see what evidence you could find, knowing 10 that whatever you found, you wouldn't be the one to draw 11 the conc 2usions from the evidence; is that correct?
12 MR. MC CRACKEN: We wculd examine the evidence 13 to see if there was any technical supporting documentation a
14
. that would show that something was technical.ly incorrect.
15
_. MR. ROISMAN: ' Let's take this one:
The one on 16' M-38, which is Aco-37-c. You did find in this lawyer's
- 17 random sAsple, two inspection reports for which the coating 18 mix date and the application date were inconsistent. I 19 take it one explanation of that is that someone innocently -
^
20 wrote the wrong date down, and another explanation of that 1
. . . 21 is that someone deliberately created documentation after 22 the fact or at the wrong time. How did you know which of 23 those it was?
24 MR. ROISMAN: We had reviewed, if you recall, 25 two-thirds down through the paragraph, a total of 250 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC. ~
213 347 3700 Nedeewi6eCewees M33646e6
, __, _ _ _ _ _ , , , - , . , ' * '~ ~~
i 942.0 '
W .
276 1 documents. Of those, we*only found inconsistencies in two.
- 2 That's less than a 1-percent error.
3 MR. ROISMAN:
i Out of a non-random sample? In ,
4 other words, a scientifically inappropriate sampling was .
5 taken so that that 1 percent error is a meaningless number, -
6 isn't it? Now talking as scientists, not as lawyers, 7
finding 1 percent out of a nonscientifically valid sample '
8 doesn't tell you anything about what the number of .
9 violations might be in the total population, does it?
10 MR. MC CRACKEN The sample was a sampling where 11 the individuals went in and simply took samplings in 12 various . locations.
, They did not try to do a statistical 13 analysis.
If there was a widespread difficulty, then we 14
- . certainly should have seen more than two out of 250.
15 MR. ROISMAN: If the widespread dif ficulty were 16 that_only one QC inspecto'r was falsifying, your method 17 might have missed all of them, mightn't it?
- 18 MR. MC CRACKENs l
Our method, considering that we *
- 19 .
orily found two, could easily' have found none. -
20 MR. ROISMAN: Exactly'.
I'm trying to find out 21 what it was about the approach that you took that could
- 22 give you any confidence to say that there was what you said 23 here, that there was not evidence of wrongdoing.
24 l
MR. MC CRACKEN: The approach that we took was 25 consistent with the approach that we took throughout the ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nco NedoesideCaerage 80s.D M 646
__ , _ - - - ~~'
4 l
l 24942.0 KSW 277 l I
1 entire technical review team investigation in coatings.
2 The amount of sampling we looked at in this particular case 3 was actually greater on a locally random sample than in 4 most other cases. In all the other cases or most of the
= . 5 other cases, we drew conclusions that there were 6
deficiencies based on what we found over that small legally 7 random sample. The fact that in this case we took a 8 relatively larger legally random sample and didn't find
- 9 anything indicates that it is probably a reasonable
, 10 conclusion.
., 11 MR. ROISMAN: I understand your position.
12 That's all the questions that I have for you, at 13 least until and unless I see the drafts of the SSER and
_ 14 feel like I would like to talk to you some more. Thank you
,,, 15 very much. You have been very helpful. .
16
't MR. CHANDLER: Mr. Roisman, yesterday there was 17 at least one question regarding, I believe it was SSER 18 number 7 in which the individual at that time was not
. 19 available. Mr. Keinig. Mr. Keinig is available today, and 20 before proceeding on to the next, at your choice, if you '
21 wish to pursue that -
4 22 MR. DOISMAN:
That's what I wanted to do.
23 *
( Discussion off t.he record.')
24 MR. KEIMIG: I'm Rick Keinig, chief of the 25 safeguard section in NRC region 1.
Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
.
- 3*'* . . . _
commer um
= * - - . , -.-..--r- -
g--- -9 ,~ -y.,,,*m-,..----%- --w- --, --.y. . , - .,,9--7vy--.,-*---c w,.m--- -y,-- - - - - - - ,.y.y-----m--- -- _my % - w
r 6942.0 .
nf 278 1 MR. ROISMAN: Aa you may know, you became a '
2 famous, almost mythical figure here yesterday, Mr. Calvo 3
having passed cn to you almost every difficult question .
4 that he did not want to answer. We're going to have a long 5 session here. .
6 As I understand it, Mr. Keinig, you were 7
responsible for the portion of SSER number 7 that dealt .
8 with the test program; is that correct?
9 MR. KEIMIG That's correct.
10 MR. ROISMAN: And the portion of that tha t I 11 ) particularly was interested.Jn and wanted to discuss with 12 you is the allegation number 6 dealing with management 13 attitude. Can you just describe to me the techniques that 14 you used to make your e aluation with respect to the ~
15 management attitude issue?
16 MR. KEIMIG Okay. Actually, the allegation was 17 somewhat general in that we had to determine what may have 10 caused the alleger to make that allegation.
l
' The only basis,
. 19 after going throu'gh the particuiar alleger's allegations,
- 20 was that the TURC startup group did not require craf t 21 :
personnel to be qualified to answer the ANSI 45.2.6.
i
~
_ In 22 reviewing other allegations, we determined that that was 23 not a proeien.
He then decided that what we should do i's 24 to take a look at some of the other program documentation 25 and the way the procedures were carried out to determine if J
ace.FEDERA1. REPORTERS INC.
, MISI*m MemovedeW M3M
24942.0 .
KSW 279 1
possibly there was some indication there of any other bases 2 for making that allegation.
3 So essentially wnat we did was we reviewed 'he t
~
4 final safety analysis report, chapter 14, and the reg
. 5 guides to which the applicant had committed, along with 6
their administrative procedures, and other program 7
documents, as well as the actual test procedures and test 8
results that we had looked at for other allegations, and .
9 used that as a basis for our determination or our 10 assessment.
11 ;
MR. ROISMAN: Now, you had -- as you articulate 12 the allegation on page J-12 of the report, the allegation 13
. was that "startup management had tendency to relax 14 standards whenever interpretation of commitments or NRC 15 requirements allowed instead of taking a conservative 16 approach in the interest of pu'blic health and safety."
17 What is' your view as to whether or not if that were true it 18 would be improper? .
, , 19 - - -
MR. KEIMIG:
Well, I would think that if the 20 applicant's . commitments permitted and that the NRC i .
21 regulations permitted, certain things could be less than 22 . conservatiye, and that that certainly would not be a 23 problem, provided that there were control measure's in place 24 to prevent the problems from occurring.
25 MR. ROISMAN: All right, and would it matter in l .
l ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
.. . . zu.wr.mo Nesse 6secourses sos.us ems
, gy y.p g4 .t..a* C # # J '. %h - A d * ' * * * * ' ' '
942.0 W 280 i l
1 your judgment whether the motivation for looking for the 2 least conservative acceptable interpretation of the 3
regulation or the reg guide, what have you, were-scheduling .
4 or cost pressures? Does that matter in terms of your 5
evaluation of whether this would be wrongdoing or not? Be .
6 inappropriate?
7 MR. KEIMIG: I guess I don't understand the '
8 question. .
9 MR. ROISMAN: Well, you say on page J-97, in 10 discussing this particular allegation in more detail, at 11 the end of the page, the last paragraph, first line, "The 12 TRT found, however, that some of the decisions made by 13 start up management may have appeared to be les's than 14 conservative.. Through discussions with startup managemer.t 15 personnel, the TAT perceived this to be due to the heavy 16 work load and schedule pressures inherene in a testing 17 program of such magnitude.
18
'These burdens apparently resulted in decisions 19 by startup management in the interests of expediency to '
20 delay some parts of a particular test to a later date when 21 the work load impact on schedules would be lessened," and
- 22 then you go on.
23 My question is, I can't tell from that whether 24 you feel that that was okay, and appropriate, or whether 25 you thought that that was questionable or whether you ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m e. w .37ao Nam wcamass soo.3364ses
'~
9 ~_ ";"_ C_ . . ._ _ . .l . .~ _E _ [ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
i *
. ~
24942.0 KSW 281 l thought that was hot right. That's what I'm asking you.
2 MR. KEIMIG: I understand. I believe that that 3
. . is appropriate, provided, as I said before, there are 4
control measures in place that would prevent problems from 5
occurring due to that in the future or down the road.
6 MR. ROISMAN: Control measures to prevent them 7
from doing that kind of shortcutting in the future or 8
control measures to complete the work that they didn't do
- 9 the first time?
10 MR. KEIMIG: Control measures to insure that i
r 11 they complete'the work that wasn't done the first time.
12 MR. ROISMAN:
, f.et's talk about the containment --
13 I won't get the name right if I don't read it. What was 14 your allegation category number 3?
! 15 MR. KEIMIG Containment integrated read rate 4
16 testing.
17 MR. ROISMAN:
As I understand the problem when 18 you were looking at that related back to an allegation made 19
. in,a case contention at an earlier time in this hearing
, 20 that is, when a containment integrated leak rate test was '
f,.. 21 performed it was performed with three leaks in the control 22 room in the containment building, and in order to make the 23 test work properly - the leaks were there they would -
24 eventually have to be sealed up - they isolated that area i
25 to test the rest of the building and intended to come back.
ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. -
ast.w.nco Nemme we c curuse po mdeu
l
- . . 1 942.0 ,
t
. W '
282 i
1 at a later date and just test for those three places where 2 the leaks were after they had fixed .them. Is that in 3
summary, what you were looking at? *
~ .
4 MR. KEIMIG: I guess the allegation as it
- 5 appeared in the contention was that there were -- the -
6 number of leaks in the containment during the cont'inment a 7
integrated leak rate test were of such magnitude that the 8
tests would have to be redone. That's the allegation that 9 we were looking at.
10 What we found in looking at that allegation was 11 that there were three attempts to conduct the leak rate
- 12 , testing. On the third attempt, prior to the' third attempt,
- 13 all the leaks but three were found and corrected. There 14 j
, - were three in the electrical penetrations that they didn't 15 know what the problem was, why it could not be corrected.
16 So those three penetrations were isolated. We wanted to 17 conduct a third attempe at the test.
18 MR. ROISMAN: As I understand it, they should 19 r
have advised the Nuclear Regulatory Commissio'n that that is '
20 what they were going to do and they did not. Is that 1
21 correct? .
22 MR. KEIMIG That's correct.
23 MR. ROISMAN: As I understand it, they did 24 eventually run the tests for those three penetrations and 25 the three penetrations passed the tests; is that correct?
i t
ace. FEDERAL, REPORTERS, INC. !
as 3c.FMS l
NemeuWsCausess .
WW 33 Meed . !
24942.0 .
KSW 283 1 MR. KIIMIG That is also correct.
2 MR. ROISMAN: That they did not ever run the 3
wnolo containment leak penetration test with those 4
penetratiuns filled and closed off; is that correct?
, ,- '5 MR. KEIMIG: With those three penetrations as 6
part of the integrated test, no, they did not.
7 MR. ROISMAN: And in your judgment, if they had 8
told the NRC about it, that would have been all right to do,"
9 but not necessarily what you would like to have seen, but 10 it would have met the regulatory requirements.
11 MR. KEIMIG: I am personally not an expert on 12 containment in integrated leak rate testing. I would have
' 13 had to refer that decision to the appropriate branch in !!RR.
,, 14 MR. ROISMAN: Did you do that?
- i ,
3 15 ' MR. KEIMIG Yes.
16 MR. ROISMAN:
- What did they tell you?
17 MR. KEIMIG: I believe the issue has been 18 resolved at this point this time.
19 ;
, , MR. ROISMAN: Did they tell you whether the 20 original conduct was proper or improper, putting aside for \
21 the moment the question of telling the NRC7 22 MR. KEIMIG: As I recall, it was stated that it 23 was not the most desirable way of conducting a 24 preoperational integrated leak rate test but that it was 25 acceptable on a case basis.
ACE.FEDERA1. REPORTERS, INC.
m3. w. Moo , Namemwus Cm son ne.eks
. . --~ n - ,v. , l
_ 37. _ =_______ - . _ . - . _ - . - - - - - - - -
.942.0
- iW 284 1
MR. ROISMAN: *Now, did you consider that that 2 activity, the way in which the applicant actually dealt 3 with the containment integrated leak rate test was evidence "
4 to support the allegation made in allegation number 6, in 5 the testing area?
6 MR. KEIMIG: Yes.
It was a less than totally 7 conservative way of conducting the test.
- 8 MR. ROISMAN: What effort did you make to see 9
how many other of the tests were run at the line, right at 10 the limit, in the least conservative but nonetheless 11 regulatorily acceptable way?
12 MR. KEIMIG: We looked at, I believe it was 17 13 out of 25 hot functional tests -- a hot functional test is 14 also a free operational test ~ and we found some minor 15 problems in those.' However, we did not look 16 progransnatically at the entire preoperational test program.
17 MR. ROISMAN: How did you decide which tests you 18 would look at?
19 MR. KEIMIG: That was generally pointed to by 20 the allegations.
21 MR. ROISMAN Did you make any attempt to - * *
- 22 looking again back at the allegation number 6 - to attempt, 23 using your expertise and those of other people you could 24' call on, to decide which tests, if you were being overly 25 sensitive to scheduling and costs, which tests would be ace.FEDERAI. REPORTERS. INC.
ass.3ef.mo Neese wsce m ees m e 33 H ees
. e* + se de am. g
__,,m- - --_c, .-y-_---_---e- , , - ,,p- - - , . - , - - - - - . - - . - , . - - , - , ,,,g%.,my--- ,._.,-- -. --.--
__ . . . . . . . . . . ~_. - . . . - -- - - -- -
24942.0 '
KSW 285 I most likely to be' the ones .where you would try to cut 2
corners and then check those tests? Was any attempt made 3 to do that?
4 MR. KEIMIG No, and the reason that we didn't
, , 5 was because the preoperational testing program would be I
6 reviewed by other inspectors from the NRC; 7 MR. ROISMAN: So that in a sense, whether-or not 8'
the applicant was extensively, occasionally or only once -
9 making less than conservative decisions as a result of r.,
10 scheduling or cost pressures, was a question which would be - '
11 answerable only after work was done that was not being done 12 by the TRT but would be done in the future by.other people 13 at the NRC7 i
14 MR. KEIMIGr
- c. I believe that is a fair assessment.
15 It would entail the entire preoperational test program and is any other things that the inspectors would find in 17 following up on that.
18 4 -
MR. ROISMAN: So in effect, I guess, then you 1 19 would say that as to allegation number 6 at least, it l .
- 20 remains an open item subject to subsequent looking at by '
. . . 21 NRC inspectors? .
22 MR. REIMIGt Yes. Certainly, our review --
23 although we did look at many procedures, I don't think that i 24 we could state based on that that everything was 100 i
- as percent. '
1 i-1 Acg.FananAt RaronTans, INc. .
i mw.nas nem-mece == mus.esas j
1942.0 '
iW - 286 1
MR. ROISMAN: *Now, in the conclusion section on 2
page J-98, under paragraph 5, you have the statement that 3 .
"TRT found no substantive reason to believe that TUEC 4
startup management has a tendency to liberally interprec 5
FSAR commitments and NRC regulatory guides in the area of -
6 testing." What did you mean by "no substantive reason to 7 ,
believe"? What does that intend to convey? "
i 8 MR. KEIMIG By that, we intended to convey that '
9 we found no basis for a trend in that direction from what 10 we had reviewed.
11 MR. ROISMAN: And what you had reviewed was, in 12 addition to the containment integrated leak rate test, the 13 other places where you might have found that trend would 14 hqve been in those 17 hot functional teses that you 15 t reviewed as well? ,
16 MR. KEIMIG Yes, and we also did review some 17 prerequisite tests 'during our review. ,
18 MR. ROISMAN: At the end of paragraph 5 you make 19 the statement, "The alleger was unavailable to discuss the '
20 TRT's findings and conclusions." What did ycu mean by ..
21 " unavailable"?
- 22 MR. XEIMIG: I would like to defer that question 23 to,Mr. Noonan.
24" MR. NOONAN: I'll give you the general thing.
25 Where those types of words appear in the SSER, what we did,
, ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.mo Namesew ce.wass nn.ne assa
)
__7 _ _;.__-.-_ _ __ _ _ __ __ ___ _ ___ __1
24942.0 *
-KSW -
287 I
we went back to she if we could find the alleger. If we 2
couldn't, we sent them letters, and in all cases there was 3
. return receipts; the man was not available, or he might 4 have refused us, might have said I don't want to talk to 5 you.
l 6 i
MR. ROISMAN: You could have reached him and he 7 said no or you couldn't reach him?
- 6 MR. NOONAN: Yes, but it will s. tate it in here. -
9 MR. WESSMAN: More than likely when they are a 10 confidential source, the individual did not give us his 11 name and we may have received the allegation with no name '
12 tied to it, so there was no way to contact the individual.
13 i We had several allegations of that nature.
14 MS. VIETII-COOK I have that " Feedback was 15 refused by the allegier on January 7, 1985.'
16 MR. ROISI*.AN: Okay.
17 Let's go back- to the -- at one point in the 18 conclusion section on J-98, you indicate - let's strike i
19 that. I want to ask you something else first.
20 -
As I understand it, you found two examples in "
21 your look, your non-scientifically sound but nonetheless 22 random look, at tests, where the applicants chose the less
. 23 conservative course of action. One was the containment 24
- integrated leak rate test that we talked about, and the 25 other was related to the hot functional test discussed in t
l .
Act. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.nco NedsomdeCaerage 800 D64646
1 1
. 1 4 .
-v
. l 1942.0 ' l IW '
288 '
~
I the test program category 1 and referenced in the paragraph 2 just above paragraph 5 on page J-98. Now, which was the 3
reason that you made the conclusion that no substantive "
4 reason existed to support this allegation? Was it that 5
there were only two examples out of the ones that you .
6 looked at or was it that there was something about the 7
examples that made them not illustrative of the point the
- 8 alleger was making?
9 MR. KEIMIG: I think both.
10 MR. ROISMAN: In what way did they fail to be 11 illustrative of the point that the alleger was making?
12 MR. KEIMIG In that they did not establish a 13 trend for being less conservative.
14 l MR. ROISMAN: But they were each one of them
- O 15 examples of being less conseevative. It wasn't that those 16 didn't turn out in your judgment to de examples that did 17 not substantiate the claim that they were less conservative.
18 MR. KEIMIG That's correct.
19 MR. ROISMAN: Bow many,would you have needed to '. '
20 have felt there was a trend?
21 MR..KEIMIG:
We would have had to look at who -
22 was responsible for them and the nature of the less than 23 conservatisms that we found. -
24 MR. ROISMAN: Did do you that 25 MR. REIMIG: Yes , we did .
! l Ac3.FacuAL REPORTERS. INC. -
, s w.mo s =* c on 4em
. . , j
24942.0 KSW 289 l
MR. ROISMAN: What did you find?
?
2 MR. KEIMIG: Found there was no substantive 3
reason to believe that they were being less than 4 conservative.
5 MR. ROISMAN:
~
You found they had another motive j 6 for what they did than trying to be less than conservative.
7 MR. KEIMIG
' There.may have been that appearance 8 .
of being less than conservative on the part of the alleger.
9 MR. ROISMAN: Wait. I thought you told me that 10 they were in fact less than conservative.
11 MR. KEIMIG On page J-97, in the first sentence 12 of the last paragraph on the page, "The TRT found, however, 13 , that some of the decisions made by startup management may 14 have appeared to be less than conservative." By that, we
<= 15 meant may have appeared to the alleger to have been less 16 than conservative. -
1 -
17 MR. ROISMAN: What did you understand it meant ~
, it well, let's look at J-98 a second. In the middle of the .
. . 19 page, the second paragraph, referring now to the hot ,
a 20 functional tests, you say, "These decisions were apparently
- 21 made because of schedule considerations, and while not the 22 most conservative course of action, nonetheissa were i
23 acceptable from the point of plant safet'y." Now, are you 24 meaning to convey something.different with "not the most 4
25
. conservative course of action" than you would by the phrase 1
ACE.FEDERA1. REPORTERS, INC.
. ms.w.mo .
N==== ca== mm mes e e emeo=== w*
l 942.0 ~
W 290 L "less than conservative"?
2 MR. KEIMIG Possibly that was a poor choice of 3 words. .
4 MR. ROISMAN: Which one?
~
5 MR. KEIMIG: In that sentence you just read. .
6 "Not the most conservative course of action." I personally 7 would not have done it the way it was done. .
8 MR. ROISMAN: Would not have done the tests the 9 way it was done?
10 MR. KEIMIG: That's correct.
11 MR. ROISMAN: Well, would you ever use the 12 phrase "less than conservativ' e ," if it was within the 13 ' regulatory requirement?
l 14 MR. KEIMIG: Yes.
- l 15 MR. ROISMAN: You would?
- 16 MR. KEIMIG: Yes, sir.
17 MR. ROI'iMAN: Was the way in which the 18 containment integrated leak rats test was'done or the hot l
19 functional test, were either of those the most conservative '.
- . ~
20 way in witich they could have been done? .
21 MR. KEIMIG: I guess I don't understand that
- 22 question.
23 MR. ROISMAN: Well, let's,take the leak rate 24' test. Would you agree that the most conservative thing the
'25 . applicant could have done was to wait until the electrical ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
ms.3c.mo NanomwideCowwass Ho 33646ed wmegn -sen.e w . m . . -
= = = we
- 24942.0 '
KSW - 291
'l penetration probl*em had been found and solved and then run 2
for the entire containment, a containment integrated leak
. 3 rate test that proved that the containment met the test, 4
~
that that would have been the m'ost conservative thing they
. . 5 could have done?
6 MR. KEIMIG Yes, I agree.
7 MR. ROISMAN: And that they did something less 8
than the most conservative because they didn't do that? '
9 MR. KEIMIG: That's correct.
10 MR. ROISMAN: Is there some sor: of middle 11 ground of what is still conservative, and is 'there then a 12 least conservative that is still within the scope of the 13 regulation?
Is that a proper way to rank this containment 14 int & grated leak rate test for conservativism?
15 MR. KEIMIG:
I don't know that,we're in the 16 business of ranking tests in order of conservatism. -
17 MR. ROISMAN: You understand, I didn't introduce 18 that word in here. I'm looking at the SSER.
, , 19 MR. KEIMIG:
I've already stated that that may 20 have been a poor choice. -
21 MR. ROISMAN: But you use " conservative" and Il 22
'less than conservativa" in other places, so I'm trying to 23 get an understandidg of how you mean to use the term so I 24 know what you mean by these words.
25 MR. KEIMIG:
The test met the NRC regulations ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m.w.mo N= wcm so.n+me
,-g c.+.. .e w =g-p ---*-e = ** * * * * " - " * * - * " ' '
1942.0 - ~
SW 292 1
for a containn. ant integrated leak rate test as determined 2 by the appropriate licensing branch in NRR. I did not make 3 that determination. That problem when we identified it was *
-t 4 immediately turned over to the proper branch in NRR.
5 MR. ROISMAN:
Do decide whether the leak rate ,. ,
6 test had been done properly at all?
7 MR. KEIMIG: Well, I would assume that that
- 8 would be part of it, yes.
9 MR. ROISMAN: Are you saying that it was that 10 branch that came back to you and said whether this was 11 conservative or not conservative, to do the test the way it 12 was done? Was it their evaluation and not yours on that 13 subject?
14 MR. KN'IMIG:
i They found that the way the test 15 was done met the NRC regulations for conducting that test.
16 MR. ROISMAN: Was that the end of their part of 17 the input?
18 MR. KEIMIG Yes.
19 MR. ROISMAN: Who had to decide whether that way ',
20 was conservative or not conservative, you?
21 MR. KEIMIG I made that judgment. '
22 MR. ROISMAN:
So we're back to ycu trying to 23 explain to me -- we now know what the most conservative 24 thing would have been on the leak rate test, and that 25 didn't get done. Is there anything they could have done on 1
j -- -
I ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. m.m mcmw m an
- ..-=---T.-,.-. .. ---~=: ~
_~~ ..
24942.0 ~
KSW 293 1 the leak rate test t'nat would have met the regulations and 2 been l'ess conservative than what they did do?
, 3 MR. KEIMIG As I said before, I am not a
, 4 containment integrated leak rate specialist. I can' t
. , 5 answer that question.
6 MR. ROISMAN: Well, what was your basis for 7
answering the question that it only appeared that what they 8
did was less than conservative but that in your judgment it 4
9 did not in fact turn out to be less than conservative?
.r 10 MR. KEIMIG If you 'would give me a specific
- . . 11 problem with the leak rate test, then I could answer your 12 question.
13 i MR. ROISMAN: Th's specific problem is it was 14
,a
. i never run with the entire containment at one time, properly.
. 23 15 That's the problem. The regulation in.its most.
16 conservative 'interpr~etation would require you to isolate ,
17 the entire containment, reproduce the conditions as they 18 would actually exist during plant operation and verify that
,,, l'9 the containment didn't leak. That didn't get done.
20 MR. KEIMIG: However, an accep' table alternative ~
- . 21 method was Laplemented by the applicant.
22 MR. ROISMAN: One which was less conservative 23 than the Drimary method?
24 MR. KEIMIG: That's correct.
25 MR. ROISMAN: But not so less conservative that ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m m.mo - ce=. mm 7._._ ,,, .~-
942.0 W
294 1 you would call it less than conservative?
2 MR. KEIMIG: Not so less than conservative that 3 it didn't meet the NRC regulations.
- 4
- MR. ROISMAN:
Is that the only kind of problem 5 that would have caused you to say there was substantive ~
6 reason to believe that TUEC startup management has a 7
tendency to liberally interpret in the area of testing, is
- 8i that if they actually had run the test in the way that .
9 didn't meet the requirements of the NRC7 10 MR, KEIMIG: Again, I don't understand the 11 question.
12 MR. ROISMAN: i You hase a statement that says 13 "The TRT foupd no substantive reason to believe that TUEC 14 startup management," et cetera, at the beginning of the 15 1 conclusion section. I'= saying,is the only way you would 16 have been able to say tStat you did find a substantive 17 . reason to believe, et cetera, is if you had found that they 18 had run a test and the test did not meet the requirertents 19 of the NRC7 I
20 MR. KEIMIG: FSAR and the guide are not' ~
21 regulations. If an applicant decides that he wants to do . t 22 something else, he can go to NRC with an alternate method 23 of meeting that regulatory. guide or propose to change in 24' the commitment in the FSAR. But there is nothing wrong 25 with doing that.
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
zu.w.nas Neuse ideco m ess soo 3 mms
.no.-~ ,
r.. . ~ .ss- ~
, ,qe -p - - -n m y --w - --w,-- - -- y
~
24942.0 .
KSW 295 '
1 MR. RO'ISMAN: But they dlid not do that in this -
2 case on the leak rate test; correct?
. 3 MR. KEIMIG In this particular case, it was not 4 done. -
1 MR. ROISMAN: Okay, thank you.
6 Ms. Garde has asked me to make clear that we had
'7 been unable to identify certain documents referred to in 8
the paint coatings testimony." On the digest of the 9
documents that we got from the PDR -- and as I understand, 10 maybe it is a FOIA problem, not necessarily a problem for 11 the people here, but I want to get it on the record.
12 Changed contract for Brookhaven, that is the contract that 7 13 altered their arrangement from region 4 to the TRT, the 14 Brookhaven signature packages for appendices L and M, an'd
'a l$ the drafts of appendix M. Now, it may be that they are, 16 labeled'some other way and we just don't realize it in 17 looking at the index, but on the index nothing looks 18 automatically like any of those things. And we have been 19 through the documents and didn't see them.
20 MR. CEANDLER: I will look into it and get back ~
21 to you as to how they are identified on the indices and if 22 they are identified on the indices.
23 -
KR. NOONAN:
. We will look at that but.the 24 signature packages should be part of that document, that 25 information. You might not see -- it might just look like ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. 2n.w.rmo Nedeawulecoeress son.1 % eses
~- . =
- * ~ ~ ~*
1942.0
~
iW 296 1 Staff signature packages. You might not see somoching that 2 says EGG on it.
3 MR. CHANDLER: I assume it would say Battelle - '
. 4 MR. NOONAN: It might not say "Brookhaven."
5 MS. GARDE: If you point me to them, I would ..
6 appreciate that.
7 MS. GARDE: For the record, could you please '
8 both identify yourself and the area of responsibility that 9 you had in, I believe, both SSERs?
10 -
MR. SHAO: Okay.' I'm Larry Shao. I'm the TRT 11 civil structural and mechanical piping group leader. I'm 12 responsible,for SSER number 9 in the area of civil 13 structures and SSER number 10 in the area of mechanical 14 j piping issues. .
15 MS. GARDE: I'll start with SSER number 10, 16 mechanical' piping. Mr. Shao, were you part of the original 17 TRT team that went down on July 9, 19847 18 , MR. SEAO: Yes.
19 MS. GARDE: Were the guideances that we've had 20 in the record and discussed - the technical review team 21 guideances - the document that governed your initial work? '
22 MR. SHAO: Yes.
23 MS. GARDE:. Could you please turn to page N-57 24 In the last paragraph of the page, " communications with 25 TUEC," the first sentence in that paragraph 'says "Whenever 4
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
2II.347.nos Nenes=deceernes 2 3364686 e.g. % v ee. * = .Mt==. m e> " '*
.e 24942.0 -
~
KSW 297 l
TRT reviewers encountered problems during their evaluations, 2
the TRT project director and/or his designee would resolve 3 them through discussions with TUEC management on-site."
4 Could you please describe what type of problems would have 5
been discussed during the evaluations that you were working 6 on?
7 MR. SRAO: Mainly a lot of problems had to do 8 with clar'ifying the issues. I would say it is mainly a lot 9
of problems related to clarification issues, certain a_ 10 information we cannot finds or find an issue before it
_a 11 becomes an open issue. We asked a lot of questions saying, 12 where are the documents to back up this or where is the g 13 analysis that shows these are there. This kind of problem. '
14 MS. GARDE: When you say clarify issues and then
- 15 use the term "before they became an open issue" -- so at 16 the time that y6u went dcwn there you had allegations?
17 MR. SEAO: Right.
18 MS. GARDE: But that allegation was then
., 19 transformed into an open issue?
o 20 MR. SEAO: We looked at -- actually my group is '
21 responsible for about five allegations, so we looked at --
22 we had about'17 people. We looked at different issues and
. 23 tried to find whether each allegation can be substantiated i
24 or not. If it can, we try to look at the documents. If we ~
! 25 cannot find the documents, then we go to the utility and l
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an w.mm Neumh Ceuner 800 DH64 )
- l
i942.0 -
iW 298 1 say: These documents cannot be found. Can you find them 2 for us? Or an analysis we cannot find: Can you find it 3 for us. -
4 .MS. GARDE: I'm a little unclear from your 5 .
description, and maybe the answer is both, whether you -
6 would'go to TUEC whMn you were still trying to characterize 7
the allegation or whether you would go to TUEC after you 8' characterized the allegation in pursuit of documentation.
9 MR. SHAO: In both cases.
10 MS . GARDE: Could you give me an example of when 11 you would go to TUEC to assist you in characterizing an 12 allegation?
13 MR. SEAO:
l In some cases, let's say, 14 j characterization is talking to integral people, and then 15 finding out the background. -
16 MS. GARDE: Okay, I understand that to be your 17 investigation or your inspection of that item. What I'm 18 concerned about understanding is whether.or not you have a 19 raw allegation that needs to be fleshed out in order for '
20 you to work with it. Did you turn to TUEC to help you .
~
21 flesh out those allegations?
22 MR. ERAO: No. Maybe to characterize the 23 allegation, mainly we tried to find out through the alleger 24 and documents. But say that the document may not be clear, 25 maybe the document is written by the TUEC people. We talk ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
zu.w.mo s *c sos.m.m.4 7.
24942.0 '
KSW 299 l
to theia to try to' understand the documents better. That 2 way - '
3 MS. GARDE: Could you give me an example?
. I 4 thirik tl$at might be more helpful.
5 MR. SHAO:
Okay, for instance, on control room 6
ceilings, okay, we want to find out what the damage group.
7 did. What the damage group did is they want to show how 8
the so-called degree with reg I-29, if it falls, how it 9
falls, how that affects it, so we went to TUEC to ask them 10 how do they perform a' damage study.
11 MS. GARDE: That was really ,when you say la problems -- encountered problems during your evaluations, c 13 l you're referring to during your inspection process?
- ' 14 MR. SHAO: Yes.
1 F 15
,, MS. GARDE:
Were any allegations put to re,st 16 basQ sol'ely on verbal explanations provided by TUEC?
17 MR. SHAO: T!}ey were never put to rest based 18 solely on their conversation. After they talked, what my 19 people usually do is look at similar information, look at 20 the documents to confirm what they said. .
21 MS. GARDE: Were the conversations with TUEC
,22 documented in some manner? Were there notes?
23 MR. SHAO: In some cases, yes.
In some cases, 24 maybe not that good. I don't know. Mostly we *;ried to 25 document it as much as we can.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo so *c= sm.nsee
, . , , '4. p , A' 4 fR ' FW8
- M+** + "" '
942.0 -
.w 300 1 MS. GARDE: Let me just make a note for the 2 record.
The documents - I believe most if not all of the 3
documents relating to these SSERs have been released -- -
4 MR. SHAO: Yes.
5 MS. GARDE: Or at least a great part of them, .
6 and I didn't see any of these types of documents besides 7 the ones I looked at. I'll go'back and look some more. -
8l Okay, could you --
- 9 MR. SHAO: He told me some have not been 10 ,
documented and some have been documented.
11 MS. GARDE:
, And in the course of doing your work, 12 when you found it necessary to talk to TUEC or their 13 reprocentatives, was there a particular protocol that you 14 ,followed? Did you go to one person on-site for civil 15 l structural or diii you have to co to Mr. Ippolito and he 16 would go to the site member?
17 ' MR. IPPOLITO: Let me handle that. As part of 18 our protocol for interfacing with TETRO, wtj agreed we.would 19 have art. assigned so-called technical persen in these five ' -
20 areas, that my team leaders could go directly to f.o get '
21 whatever drawings they want to be taken to exactly the -
22 right location, if they want to find a pipe support or 23 whatever have you, so that we can ~.it would be 24' logistica11y an improvement for us to get the information 25 or get.to the place we needed to get to our job and ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
mw.m m co m en mm *
-._ n . ~ ~.. ---n. -,--
.-~ p . - --~. --
- . . ~ . - - . ...
l l
24942.0 KSW 301 1
Mr. Shao, each of his structural and mechanical groups had 2
a person assigned at our back and call to provide 3
information or to provide those services, rather.
4 MS. GARDE: Is that consistent with what Mr. Ippolito has' represented?
. 5 6 MR. SHAO:
Yes.
7 MS. GARDE: *Did you have a specific individual you worked through?
8 9 MR. SHAO: Yes.
10 MS. GARDE: Who was that?
- :- 11 MR. SHAO: Claude Moehlman, M-o-e-h-1-m-a-n, and 12 Randy Heeten, H-e-e-t-e-n.
+ 13 MS. GARDE *: I have a document that might be the E 14 list that Mr. Ippolito is talking about. Let me show'it to a 15 you.
- 16 MR. CHANDLER: If you read the title of the 17- document, that way we'll know what it is.
. 18 MR. SHAO: NRC technical review team, TUGCO.
19 Yes, the civil, mechanical is there and Randy Heeten worked 20 on that. ;
21 Ms. GARDE: Nas this protocol followed in your 22 - among your team?
. ~
23
- MR. SHAD: Yes.
24 MS. GARDE:
. Was it followed pretty strictly?
25 MR. SHAO: Yes.
ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS. INC.
ivyp. tat.11rm Merenssumes (* w 4WL11dL#ddA e ww.. e sunse - __g -
- - ' = - - '
~
1942.0 .
iW 302 1 MS. GARDE: does that mean you are the person 2
that went to TUEC management with questions?
3 MR. SHAO:
When we want to see a lot of the .
4 documents we want to have a meeting or anything or audit, ,
5 we always go to him.
6 MS. GARDE: That was you that was , making the 7 contact? .
8 MR. SHAO: Also I have 17 people working for me 9
on the site, so two separate leaders, one mechanical and --
10 MS. GARDE: Who is mechanical?
11 MR. SHAO: That's Dr. Hou, and the civil was
. . 12 Mr. Jong, J-e-n-g, H-o-u. -
13 MS. GARDE: So I should be able to, as a general 14 rule, determine by reading the SSER and/or by going through 15 the documents provided that were developedg determine when 16' you talked to TUEC and about what subjects?
17 MR. SHAO: I guess so, yes.
18 (Discussion off the record.)
19 MS. GARDE: Could you please turn to page N-77 .
20 .
Now, in the first paragraph, there's a very long sentence 21 which discusses the types of concerns that the mechanical . .
22 and piping division subteam was looking att is that correct?
23 MR. SEAO: That's correct.
24 MS. GARDE: Now, the second line of that 25 paragraph said that you received, the TRT received i
ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
. m w.mo n e ce s, an.mun y y _ - . - , . _ _ - - _ _ . , . . . _ _ . , _ , - . - , . . , - . - - . , , - - , . _ _ . . _
l
..~...~ __ . . _ . - __ ___. . . . . . _ . _ _ i 24942.0 KSW 303 1 allegations that bere broad in scope. Could you please 2 define what you mean by that " broad in scope," that's a 3 termino _ logy _or_a term of art that is often used and I'm not 4
. sure whic context you are using it in this paragraph.
. . 5 MR. SHAO: The allegations are mainly 6
censtruction-related. It is-very broad in ' scope because 7
allegations are related to welding, piping, bolts, supports, 8 so I would consider it a very wide scope.
9 MS. GARDE: Let me tell you what I understand 10 you to mean and then you correct me if my understanding is
_ 11 not correct. When you use the term that it is " broad in 12 scope" and you have an allegation, for example on welding, g 13 did you then consider that this allegation went across*the
,. 14 board in welding,'like on welding techniques, or'in welding
,.g . 15 failures? Was it generic?
16 MR. SHAO: I think maybe your " broad in scope" 17 and the " broad in scope" are a little bit different here.
18 Here th9 " broad in scope" is just covering many areas, many 19 different - across many disciplines in the mechanical area 20 because in the mechanical area, you have people working on
'21 piping, you have people working on welding, you have people 22 working on bolting. Very specialized.
23 MS. GARDE: Welding goes on in all different 24 areas, all different types of structures and components?
25 MR. SHAO: When you say " broad," sometimes when ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
w.w.nm me c an.-
~ - , _ . - - - ,
942.0 '
W 304 l
you say " mechanical" you*think of piping. People are doing 2 piping. In this case it covered not only piping but the 3 bolting, the welding, it covered the supports. It is very ~
4 broad. '
5 MS. GARDE: How is that different than generic? .
6 MR. SHAO: The allegations we had are in certain 7 areas for a specific area. ~
- 8) MS. CARDE: I don't understand.
- 9 MR. SHAO:
l You said allegation is very generic.
10 I would say each allegation is~ very specific, certain area.
11 I wouldn't call it generic. I think mostly of a 12 .generic-type allegatio,n as mostly a QA/QC-related 13 allegation.
14 i MS. GARDE: I'm still a little confused and I 15 ;
want to make'sure that I understand this term because it is 16 used frequently in' this document, and when you use the term 17 " broad in scope" - you have an allegation which is broad 18 in scope - if someone tells you that welding on a 19 particular pipe was done incorrectly, there was a lot of ~
20 undercut - if you have a very specific allegation which ~
21 dealt with poor welding and it gave a specific example of a - I 22 poor welding technique, maybe even a component number, was 23 that considered an allegation that was broad in scope?
24' MR. SHOU-NIEN HOU:
Does not mean the allegation 25 itself is broad in scope. It is the overall picture of the ACE.FEDERA1. REPORTERS, INC.
ma.3er.3m Menes Wecommes son.3364m
. I 24942.0 KSW 305 l l
l I allegations. The*e r are so many allegations in this
'2 mechanical and piping area; they scatter all over various 3 areas and and relate to various stages of construction and 4
the design phases, so that's what it means, broad in scope.
5 MS. GARDE: You have maybe 40 -- you had a lot 6 'of allegations, several hundred, 60, 70 allegations in 7 welding. You would consider that that was broad in scope 8 because it covered welding from the beginning to the end of 9 construction, all different techniques and procedures.
10 MR. SHOU-NIEN HOU: We talk about big picture, 11 yes.
12 MS. GARDE: You agree with that?
13 MR. liHAO: I agree. Certain allegations are not l
- . 14 broad in scope, but this " broad in scope," I think it m 15 covers many areas but cer'tain allegations are not broad in 16 ' scope.
- 17 MS. GARDE: Yesterday with Mr. Calvo we 18 discussed two types of concerns, general concerns and 19 specific concerns. Do you remember that part of the
~
20 discussion? '
21 MR. SEAO: Yes.
22 MS. GARDE: I see in this SSER that you also "
23 pursued both general concerns and specific concerns. Can i
. 24 you make any estimate of what percentage of these were 25 specific concerns where you had detailed information on 4
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2n.3c.37co Manse =We coverses 800 33H686
- ~. . . . -
942.0 '
W , 306 l
components or specifications that made it possible for you 2 to go back to the actual process, component, time period
.3 and recreate what actually happened and how many were just -
4 general? '
5 MR. SHAO: Okay, actually, I have five SSER -- .
6 in number 10 there are about five open issues which cover 7 eight open allegations. In addition to that, we have ~
8 another 40 areas where we find some problems or the 9
procedure was not followed or something didn't go right.
10 40 incidants, and these 40 incidents were transferred to 11 1 the SSER number 11, appendix.P, 40 issues, so altogether 12 -- but that 40 also included this. Altogether I would say 13 40 issues, 40 things we found where we want the applicant 14 to address the root cause and generic implications. That's 15 in SSER number 10.
. SSER number 8 there are about 34 issues.
16 MS. GARDE: We'll come back to that. Still 17 sticking with the first paragraph on N-7, the list of 18 concerns includes such things as NCR process, traceability 19 of materials, use of unqualified welders, weld. quality, , ,
20 anchor bolt installation, disposition of NCRs and' ~
21 discrepancies and improper or questionaole documentation -
22 practices. Now to my layperson reading of that, I see a 23 lot.of QA/QC implications in those issues. Would.you agree 24 with that?
25 . MR. SHAO: I agree.
1 I
./
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m3c.sm .- c= mim
-_ ~:~2 m 2T::: LL _ . _ . '~
. ... . . . . . . . - . . . . . . - - . . ~ ~ - . - - - - -
24942.0 KSW 307 l
MS.GAhDE: To what extent did your group pursue 2
the QA/QC element of these allegations?
. 3 MR. SHAO: We look at a procedure, we look at . a 4
construction record installation and also we look at 5
counterallegations, see if anything we find is there or not 6
there, or if we find .something wrong, we just, as I say, 7 put these issues in the QA/QC category and the applicant 8 will answer the question. .
9 MS. GARDE: You just said you on]y sent over 40 10 issues.
x 11 MR. SHAO: That covered these things, yes.
,' 12 . MS. GARDE: Of these issues, how many
-: 13 allegations were covered?
~
14 MR. SHAO:
I cannot answer that q'uestion, but -
A- 15 MS. GARDE:
An issue could cover more than one 16 allegations isn't that true?
17 MR. SHAO: Usually one issue coming from one 11 allegation.. Sometimes not even allegation. Sometimes the 19
. issue can be when we look at allegation, we find something 20 wrong. That is an issue. .
~
i 21 MS. GARDE: So to what extent, we'll get into 22 this in more specific detail a little later on, but '
there 23 is a lot of QA/QC comments and conclusions in this SSER.
24 d on something being bad QA/QC practice or Evaluations ma'e 25 there was a problem with QA/QC. And in my reading, more in i
i 1
4 ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. zu.w.nu . .. ..N.
in e. cm., ano.rm
'~
- . -_ : ~ - - . - - - - _ . - -
9 942,0
- W 308 I
this SSER than in the otiter SSERs, except for number 11. I 2 want to know to what extent -- and this is in your broad 3
opinion as you look at how you did your work in writing the '
4 SSER and in doing your investigations and inspections -- to 5
what extent did you pursue the QA/QC element of an -
6 allegation?
7 MR. SHAO: .
The minute we found a problem, my 8 staff didn't pursue.
We just list the problem and Ippolito 9
had more resources than we <fo and if we run into it we 10 found --
11 , MS. GARDE:
We'll come back to that with some 12 , specific examples. Later on.in this paragraph, there's a 13 l comment that this report does not address new allegations i
14 recently received from dhe Intervenor. Are you and your I
' 15 I team still working on those new allegations?
16 MR. SHAO: Yes, we do.
17 MS. GARDE:
They will be issued in a subsequent 18 SSER7 19 MR. SEAO: Yes. '
20 .
Ms. GARDEs. That's the SSER Mr. Noonan was 21 talking about yesterday? '
i 22 MR. SEAO: We are addressing another hundred 23 allegations - - .
24 MS. GARDE: That was my ner.t question.
25 MR. SEAO:
- in both the civil, structural and 5
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. an.w.mo Nam inc= mm.m. mas
.m ._ _ __
24942.0 '
KSW 309 1 mechanical areas:
2 MS. GARDE: Could you now turn to page N-137 On
, 3 the bottom of page N-13, paragraph 3.3, section 3.3, 4 " findings for mechanical and piping issues." "The TRT 5
reviewed over 400 mechanical and p' iping issues, including 6 300 concerns raised by one alleger." Tha~t 300 is part of 7 the 400; is that correct?
8 MR. SEAO: Correct.
9 MS. GARDE: Now, right above that, approximately 10 in the middle of the page, there 's a category 49, 11 " miscellaneous concerns of alleger A-45."
12 MR. SHAO: Yes.
4 13 ! i MS. GARDE: I'm not attempting to determine any 14 identifying information on this individual, but I am
, 15 interested in knowing if the allegations that were given to 16 you by A-45 were very specific items, very specific -- were 17 these the ones you would describe as specific as opposed to 18 general allegations?
19 MR. SRAO:
They are pretty specific. Charts and 20 drawings. The reviewer wants to talk. ~
i i -
21 MR. EUBRAAD: I'm Robert Hubbard.
l I'm on the 22 technical review team. The allegations that were included 23 in category number
- 49 arose from the results of a meeting 24 with him and at the time we first met with him, he had five 25 books that he indicated had' lists of drawing numbers and i
l i
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
zu.w.nco Nees=* cewas son.ne.esee e>+ h . m,_. ,
)
l 1942.0 "
iW 310 i
1 similar items. At that time, he gave us 70 items from the 2 five books to start to investigate. At a later meeting, he 3
came back and gave us 63 items, some of which were from the ~
4 list of 70 and home were new books, which he said were the '
5 63 most important items in the books. -
6 In the review of all but - well, in our review 7
of the ones from the item' list of 63 we chose a 25 percent "
8 sample, and in that sample, we chose ones where there were 9
specific locations, concerns, and as I recall, there were 10 three or four. The balance of the items were very 11 nonspecific.
His direction to us was, here are the drawing 12 numbers. When you see a drawing number, that means 13 something is wrong with that drawing number. I can't tell 14 i you what it is.
i I don't have any suggestions on what might '
15 be wrong. And he would say, here's a traveller, something-16 '
~
wrong with it. So they were completely nonspecific, so 17 whac we had to do was go look at the drawing traveller and 18 identify associated drawings and see if we could find 19 something wrong. So they were very nonspecific in the bulk
- of the cases.
20 ~
,21 MS. GARDE: Let me make sure I understand this: -
22 The SSER reports that there was 300 alleged defective items.
23 Do. those 300 alleged defective items reflect what was 24 totally in the five books,7 Was there 300 defective items 25 in those five books? i
' ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
2mpw.mo Nedsewide Ceames MID 3364M
_ _ _ _ , _ _ . _ .-,.,-,---m---w+ - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ' ' ' ' ~ "
24942.0 '
KSW 311 l MR. HUhBARD: That was a subject of some 2 question. He indicated when he gave us the books -- we 3
finally got copies of the books - that there were some 900 4- and when we went through and sorted out and collected and 5 assembled them - let me just check that. The final count 6 , was 280 items as we went through, and there were several .
7 that were duplicates.-- or they collected.
8 MS. GARDE: You ult.imatul'y did get the books. .
9 You determined after you had the books that there was 300
,, 10 alleged defective itema?
, 11 MR. HUBBARD: 280.
12 MS. GARDE: Of those 280, you actually inspected
.1
,, 13 a 25 percent sample of the 63 items he identified as the
, 14 most important?
l 3 15 MR. HUBBARD: Right. Plus we had already 16 started working on the list of 70, so there were six 17 additional i.tems that we had previously checked. And so we 18 investigated 16 from the list of 63, which is close to 25 19 percent, and we added the six, to the total number 20 inspected was 22. '
. 21 Ms. GARDE: Based on your inspection of these 22
, 22 items, you reached -- did you reach conclusions about all 4 23 280* allegations?
' ~
24
'MR. RUBBARD: Based on the sample, yes.
25 MS. GARDE: What'were those conclusions?
I ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.nco Nedsewide coeress son.ne. eses
,942.0 '
- W 312 l
MR. HUBBARD:
- That we could find both on the 2
specific and the nonspecific, we found none of the items 3
listed had proven to be substantiated as having problems -
4 somewhere. .
5 Ms. GARDE: Now if I would have the list of .
6 those 22 items with the allegation. numbers, are they all 7 pursued in this SSER7 Are each of the 22 developed in the ~
8 SSER? '
I 9 MR. HUBBARD: That's correct. They are all 10 identified.
11 MS. GARDE:
Where would I obtain the rest of the 12 ,280 allegations, the books? They are certainly not in the 13 POR.
14 l MR. HUBBARD:
The books were in there last time 15 , I saw them.
1
.. 16 MS. GARDE: With where?
17 MR._HUBBARD: In the FOIA. There was one that 18 got lost during the way. They are just little notebooks, 19 the spiral kind, but at the time we put the irgformation in ,
20 the FOIA, one of them was missing. I don't know Mat '
21 happened to it.
- 22 (Discussion off the record.)
23 MR. EUBBARD: They are just little spiral things,.
24 barely legible.
25 MR. SHAO: By the way, there was a closing e$
ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.ms N.n w.c am mme -
-N e ***W '***'*** . #48
- _ , ,
- e p,( . 1$ -
-iy-'* * * ' - - " ' ' * " * * '
24942.0 KSW 313 l interview with that alleger in August.
2 MR. HUBBARD: You will also be able to find all 3
those documents in the other copies of the -- are you 4 listening? *
. 5 MS. GARDE: Annette is talking to me at the same 6 time. .Go ahead and finish your answer. I'm sorry.
7 MR. HUBBARD: In the back of the original SSER 8 is a list of the 63 most important items. There are other -
9 references of those documents we looked at.
10 MS. GARDE: What page is that?
11 MR. HUBBARD: N-316. On the very last page.
12 MS. GARDE: But the list of the.280 is not in 13 the public document anywhere?
14 MR. HUBBARD: Eo.
15 MS. GARDE: Thank you. That's very helpful.
16 MR. S3AO: I think maybe one question you didn't 17 ask 1s why --
18 (Discussion off the record.)
19 MR. SEAO:
,, , Why all the issues we found are okay?
20 '
Why some of the issues the alleger identified and .we looked
- 21 at are okay?
, 22 MR. RUSbARD: Are you asking me to answer it?
23 MR. SHAO: Okay. .
24 (Discussion off the record.)
25 MS. GARDE: A good qu,estion was just raised by l
l Acs-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms.M7.peo Neuse=deCeauss s a n H ead
942.0
.W 314 i 1
an unbiased man of the audience about why there wasn't any 2
findings, any substantiation of the 28, so what's the 3 answer? .
4 MR. HUBBARD: Well, as I recall, at the time we 5
were talking to the alleger, he indicated he had been 6
off-site for quite awhile and a number of the items in his 7 .
book which he carried around with him over a long period of 8
time may have been corrected and that he was not aware of '
- 9 it, so it was quite possible that. these were not true 10 allegations but instead were things that he had noted that 11 he didn't know how the final result had come about.
12 l ,
. MS. CARDE: So they would almost more .
13 i appropriately be identified as concerns,that he had or had 14 been given to him, but he didn't know what the resolution
. 15 of them was?
16 MR. HUBBARD: That's a better definition than 17 allegation because there was nothing in specific. ,
18 MR. SHAO:
- He left the site for a few years and 19 he had his original concerns which he didn't know had been .
20 worked on. .
21 Ms. GARDEs That was another thing I was going .
22 to pursue a little later on, but I think it is appropriate l 23 to pursue now.
We discussed the definition of 24 substantiation yesterday with Mr. Calvo, and I want to know 25 1
if that is the same definition for you, but let me start by l
i Acz.FEDERA1. REPORTERS, INC.
, .m. - c- en.nuam 1 l _ _ _ _- -
.....L.. .
9
. . - . . ~ .. . . . . .. . .. .-
24942.0 KSW 315 l asking: When you say a concern or allegation is 2
unsubstantiated, do you mean that at the time that you go i 3 and look at that concern or allegation, like in this 4 example a particular drawing number, that if that concern no longer exists, if at the time the NRC looks at it, it is 5
6 acceptable, then the concern is not substantiated, even 7
though at the time the concern was rai.ied, it may have been 8 substantiated if you had been there at that time; is that '
9 correct?
10
, MR. HUBBARD: Would.you repeat that, please?
11 Try, if you can.
There's a time factor involved. That's' 12 important.
, 13 MS. GARDE: Yes, there is.
- . 14 There's a term that is used frequently, that a 15 concern or allegation is either substantiated or t .
16 unsubstantiated. ~ My understanding of the definition of ,
17 " substantiated" is that at the time the NRC inspector looks 18 at that particular item or concern, that there is no a
, 19 problear that the problem, weistever it may have been, has 4
20 apparently been resolved and the component or the drawing
. 21 or the weld is, as you look at it today fine, acceptable.
{ 22 MR. BUSBARD: May I answer this?
, 23 MR. SEAO: Okay, maybe you could. I would 24 consider it as nonsubstantiated, yes. That's it. l 25 MS. GARDE: But there is - the other part of i
l; ,.-
Acz.FsommAI. REPORTERS. INC.
4 - - ,
=;***- %- -- , y ;-.,- .... - 9 9 , , _ _ _ _ . _ , _ , _ . , , , _ . . _ . _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ _ .
942.0 '
W 316 1
that question is, that when the allegation was originally
! 2 identified, it may have been correct.
3 MR. SHAO: You are right. -
4 MS. GARDE: .
But the NRC is not passing judgment 5
on whether or not at the time period that incident occurred, .
6 that an alleger believed there was scmething wrong, whether 7 or not at that time it was wrong. Do you want me to give '
8 an example? Would that be easier? Quality contral '
9 inspector is on the site, starts to write up an NCR and is 10 told not to write it. He or she sees a defective weld. He 11 or ,she then goes home, writes it in her little log book. A 12 year later, the TRT arrives, that person meets with the TRT 13 and says, tell me everything you know of that's wrong with 14 i the site. They say, on March 12, 1983, I was told not to '
15 write an NCR on this particular weld. I knew that weld was 16 bad. The TRT then goes out and looks at the weld and it ks 17 now fine. So they say that that allegation is not
- 18 substantiated. There's no determination made whether on 19 March 12 or 13, 1983, when that incident occurred, that the .
20 weld was in fact bad. It had to be ripped out, maybe even
- 21 just last week. . .
22 MR. EUBBARD: That's true.
23 MS. GARDE: Is my understanding correct?
24' MR. SHAO: Yes.
That's also the reason I as'ked 25 the question. It'doesn't mean the alleger was not ace FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
., 2n.w.mo . m o m nes an. m ees
. = .-_- . _ _ . .. ....-.. _ -.___ :--
24942.0 .
KSW 317 l knowledgeable. He was knowledgeable but the problem had 2 been fiaed. That's why right now it is not substantiated.
3 MS. GARDE: I understand.
4 MR. IPPOLITO:
Excuse me, Larry. It may not be
. 5 appropriate to the example that Ms. Garde just mentioned, 6
but when you go to repair a weld er remove a weld support '
7 or whatever have you, isn't there documentation that 8 supports that enange? '
9 MR. SHAO: Yes.
-+ 10 MR. IPPOLITO: Therefore, if you were concerned e 11 ;
about a specific weld or a specific support, you would get
% 12 the package on that support and it should tell you from day w 13 one everything thnt has happened to that support?
,u 14 MR. SHAO: Yes. -
.c 15 MR. IPPOLITO: Isk'tthattrue?
16 MR. SHAO: That 's true .-
17 MS. GARDE: To pick up on Mr. Ippolito's 18 rehabilitation -
19 MR. IPPOLITO: You pronounced it right.
I wish 20 you could spell it right. .
21 MS. GARDE: Did your team members make any 22 attempt to make a judgment on whether or not the entire 23 process - with the example that we're giving, the weld -
24 was dont correctly?
25 MR. SHAO: We usually - I don't think I can say Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
, as.347.nco Nessendeceeruse 300 3M.46d6
~
- W* *'9'- ew- pun < yy cp y , ,,,,,,,,y,, _ . , , _ _ _ ,, _ . , _ , , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . , _ , _ , . . , _ . ,
l i
942.0 W 318 I we looked at the entire Drocess all the time but we usually - -
2 my people look quite a lot in the related area to convince 3 themselves this is not a problem. -
'4 MS. GARDE:
In terms of whether or not other 5 welds in the example that we're giving would be bad?
- 6 MR. SHAO: I cannot say they look at the entire 7 process. -
8 MS. GARDE: I want to make sure I undeistand -
9 what each of the team leaders mean when they say a concern 10 is either substantiated or not substantiated.
11 MR. SHAO: Usually they look enough to convince 12 themselves that there is not a problem there.
l
, 13 MS. GARDE: But that's to determine whether or 14 not there is a wider problem or a generic problem coming .
15 j out of that allegation; is that correct?
16 MR. SHAO: Right.
17 MS. GARDE: At the end of this paragraph on page 18 'N-13, following the not substantiated, there's a 19 terminology which says, did not contain sufficient ..
20 .
information with which to either substantiate or refute the .
21 concerns. Would yo'u please explain what you mean by that - **
22 term?
23 MR. SHAO: .Okay, let me give you an example.
24' MS. GARDE: Okay, go ahead.
25 MR. SHAO: Refer to page N-69.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2n.347 3xo Nenos=decoverass son 33646e
- - - - ., - : = :. - - . . . - a =: =. -
..:......-.w--....------. -.. - - - - - . -
24942.0 KSW 319 1 MS. GARDE: N-69? '
2 MR. SHAO: Yes. AW-46.
3 MS. GARDE: Okay.
4 MR. SHAO: You read this su.nmary.
"The TRT 5
concluded that the allegation that grounding for welding 6 was accomplished by wrapping the grounding lead around the 7 pipe can be' neither substantiated nor refuted. No area 8 reviewed (inspection records, field observation and welder 9 interviews) by the TRT showed any evidence of poor 10 grounding. If the allegation were in fact true, an N-5 inspection has the capability 'of detecting the are strikes 4 -
11 l 12 and assuring that appropriate action can be taken.
+ 13 Accordingly, this allegation has no safety significance."
c' 14 So essentially, the reviewer had talked to people, loched 15 at them in fact-and has insufficient evidence to 16 substantiate the allegetion. .
17 MS. GARCE: This is an allegation that was not 18 specific?
19 MR. SHAO: Also he tried to talk to people ,
- 20 looked at documents. He couldn't find any documents since 21 this thing has happened. He talked to the people. He 22 looked at the procedure. Looked at other records. He 23 couldn't fi'nd anything about this that he would consider 24 sufficient evidence.
25 MS. GARDE: Your conclusion in this case assumes ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. +
ans. w .37ao NadoewideCaerans 800 3364 & 6 r- - - --- --m . . . .
. - - _ . _ _ . _ __ _-- _ _ _____ __._ _ _ ----_ -~ ._
e 942.0 ,
W .
320 1
that the procedures that'you reviewed, the inspection 2
records that you reviewed, all reflected the actual 3
implementation of that procedure; isn't that correct?
- 4 MR. SHAO: Right.
5 MS. GARDE:
But doesn't the allegation itself, .
6 in the body of the allegation,~ imply that implementation 7 was not followed? '
8 MR. SHAO: The allegation just says this thing 9 has happened, okay?
10 MS. GARDE: That is not according to procedure?
11 MR. SHAO: Not according to procedure. And wo 12 !
i talked to the people, we looked at a procedure, everything.
13 So far there is no evidence that shows this has happened.
14 i MS. GARDE:
i What evidence besides the procedures d 15 ;
you mentioned inspection records, those would be developed 16 according to procedures?
- 17. MR. SHAO: Right,' field observation and welder 18 intervisws.
~
19 MS. GARDE In this case, can you give me just ~
20 an estimate of how many people you talked to?
21 MR. SEAos I think '-- -
22 (Discussion off the record.)
23 -
MR. FERRARINI: I'm Victor Ferrarini with the
- 24' TRT. In this particular case, I probably talked to about i 25 15 to 20 welders on this particular issue. As I walked
{
i ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
am.w.mo s.n -* c =e. an.mau
.-goeeenis h weep += 4 g
- en . se ee--~ as e en- 8
.==m
l 2e942.0 .
~KSW 321 l
through the planc', I walked up and talk to them. That type 2
of discussion with the individual welders.
3 MS. GARDE: These welders that were at the site 4
. at the time the allegation occurred or allegedly occurred?
. . 5 MR. FERRARINI: I have no way of knowing whether 6
they were there at that particular time. 'They were welders 7 working there currently. .
8 MS. GARDE: In this particular case, did.you '
9 handle this whole allegation?
10 MR. FERRARINI: That particular one, yes.
.. 11 MS. GARDE: If it is all right with you, I'll 12 direct my questions to him.
g 13 MR. SHAO: Sure.
t, 14 MS. GARDE: Mr. Shao used t'his as an example to
.n 15 show me, where they could, an allegation that could not.be 16 substantiated or refuted.
17 MR. FERRARINI Correct. .
18 MR.,SHAO: We use this quite often. Even though
. 19 we use the sentence, the staff hAs done a lot of work.
We 20 do a lot of digging, a lot of procedures,' talk to a lot of 21 people, and even then, in most cases we can say it can be
? .
22 refuted. Suppose we're not a hundred percent surer we put 23 on this statement. .
~
~
24 MS. GARDE: Okay, I understand .that, but I want j
25 to get a better understanding of the process you went ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
2ns.w.nco Nemes.wecoveress sco.ssa.4sas
942.0 "
W 322 1 through to arrive at that conclusion. I 2 In this particular paragraph, you say "no areas 3
reviewed" and then you identify inspection records, field
- 4 observation and welder interviews. The welder interviews 5
were fairly informal,12,15 people as you were walking .
6 through the plant, so there's not going to be notes or 7 ' documentation of that? ~
8 MR. FERRARINI No documentation, that's correcc.
9 MS. GARDE: Field observation. I assume this is 10 you walking through the plant kicking the tires, so to 11 speak?
12 MR. FERRARINI:
It was actual observation of 13 types of grounding cuuently being done at the time I was
, 14 in the plant.
1 1
15 ' MS. GARDE: And inspection records.
_ Now, does 16 this category refer to historical inspection records that 17 i
would have been prepared at the time. period the allegation 18 allegedly occurred?
, 19 MR. FERRARINI: Yes.
- i .
20 MS. GARDE: Do you remember offhand what was the 21 time period that this allegation occurred? A year, a month
- 22 and year?
j 23 , MR. FERRARINI: I would have to go back and look i
l 24' at his records. I don't offhand recall.
25 MS. GARDE: Without you having done that, for s
l ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
, Ms.w.nco Namenudo cm m ue dese L _i,_i_ f _*Z~ C._,
. _ . _ _ __. JJ'~-~_ , _ _ . _TfC ' *-'Z _ _ _ ~~
I .
l 24942.0 KSW 323 1
the saxe of my next questions could you assume that the i
2 allegation came from a 1983 time period?
3 MR. FERRARINI: Okay, fins.
Yes. --
4 MS. GARDE: How did you reach the conclusion
. 5 that an allegation which comes from not following 6
procedures -- the core of the allegation is that procedures 7 were not implemented -- this wouldn't have happened if 8
procedures were being followed t isn't that correct?
9 MR. FERRARINI: If it did, it wouldn't have r 10
, happened if procedures were followed.
11 MS. GARDEi How then did you reach a conclusion 12 that in 1984, if people were following procedur'es, that it
- t. 13 had not happened in 19837 When the only historical 14 documents you looked at were iruspection reports that were e 15 filled out during that time period?
16 MR. FERRARINI Obviously, the only thing I 17 could look at at that particular time was what was being 18 done then. I would like to make one additional statement.
. . 19 When I said I wasn't sure whether the welders we're there or .
, 20 not at that time. There was at least one welder who was 21 there during that period, because .se had been there for 1
22 five years.
So I would like to correct that.
23 MS. GARDEt
'~
So you haver.'t answered the rest of 24 'my question. If the allegation - and let me state this 25 again.
If the allegation results from not following ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mn .me an.imme _
r_-- _ , . , _ _ _ n -- m - ~ - ~ ' ' - " ~ ~ ~ - - - - ~ ' ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
942.0 .
W 324 1
procedures, where procedures are not being implemented, and 2
there's some activity happening that is not covered by 3 .
procedures, how can looking at procedures now and talking .
4 to people in the present answer the question of whether or .
5 not it had ' happened in the past? * ~
6 MR. FERRARINIs Procedures I did look at covered --
7 I 1 coked at the current procedures and also procedures .
8 going back, so I did look at historical procedures.
9 MS. GARDE: The allegation is that procedures 10 were not followed.
l 11 MR.' FERRARINI: That's correct.
12 MS. GARDE: How does the paperwork review of
~ 13 what was supposed to have been done answer the question of 14 ! what was being done or what was being alleged in this 15 allegation?
16 : MR. SHAO: You looked at NCR too? There was no 17 NCR.
18 MS. GARDE:
I would assume there would riot be an 1h NCR if there-was an allegation that there was an activity ,
20 ,
going on that was not supposed to be going on, that was not ,
21 ,
being#4one according to procedures and was being done any . .
22 way.
23' MR. FERRARINI I understand your question and I 24 can't think of any good .way to fully evaluate that other 25 than by looking at what was there, looking and seeing that I
Acs.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
.. me.wr.nco Nesseouscoureus aco nwed
,g .
e
\
._.s-.-_-_- .~ -- .. -
l l
24942.0 KSW -
325 I there's other items in place to pick up this alleged 2
improper grounding, so I don't think there's any other way l ,
3 I could have pursued this.
4 MS. GARDE: Did you explore whether or not there
- . 5 was a way to determine whether there was -- let me rephrase 6 the question. This is getting too complicated.
7 Is this a procedure that you generally followed 8 with historical allegationis?
- 9 MR. FERRARINI You are asking whether it is the 10 procedure that I generally follow?
11 MS. GARDE: Or Mr. Shao, yes.
, .- 12 MR. SHAO: Yes. One thing, if your question is, 3 13 was the procedure - if something is wrong - if something 14 is wrong and'they correct it now, somethling they did wrong
.a 15 about two years ago and are not doing it, usually e.here's a
~
. 16 record of that correctiton. I don't think vie didn't find 17 that kind of corrections. If they found all kinds of 18 strikes two years ago, if they correct this, there would be 19 instruction on this. No.couldn't find any instructions and
- 20 that's an indication that they didn't try to change 21 something and the changa was not recorded.
22 Ms. GARDE: ; guess we're getting ready to break 23 for lunch. If you have the ' records on this, I have a 24 couple more questions to ask and this is a good example to 4
25 kind of flesh out some of the areas, maybe better than the !
l 1
Acg. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.ma . . . . . . Nemassedecomme s o n u ses
1942.0 -
iW 326 1 questions I had written up. Could you look at what you 2
have and I'll look at it also over lunch and we'll pursue 3 it more? .
4 MR. FERRARINI: "I don't have my backup records ,
5 with me.
It would be in the FOIA file. * -
8
~
MR. CHANDLER: fle'll get it the same time you 7 will, I guess.
~
8 (Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., '
the meeting was 9 recessed, to reconvene at 1:25 p.m., this same day.)
10 11 12 l 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 -
20 .
21 . .
22 .
23 24 25
- ' ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
, an.w.mo NanoewWe Couraan 800336 e w *
. - - . . - - - --._~~~~~-~-~~~.?-. . --
..=_.._-u==-.,. ._. . . _ - - . - - - - - _ . _ ,
~
. . . . . . ... . . . . . . - . . - . _ . . .. _ . . . . . - . . . .._. _ . _ _ =
24942.0 KSW . ~
327 l
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:25 p.m.)
2 MR. NOONAN: We'll go back on the record. We 3 have returned from lunch and are continuing with the 4 questioning of Mr. Shao.
. Ms. Garde?
5 MS . GARDE : Vic, did you have a chance to look 6 over AW-46 at all over lunch?
7 MR. SHAO: I would like to mention something.
8 .
This issue was mentioned, was transferred to QA/QC group.
9 It is on page P-13, appendix P. P-13. AW-46. The craft 10 personnel carelessness results in a ' number of arc strikes.
11 This concern was neither substantiated nor refuted. And 12 also says it is mechanical and piping; we're looking at it 13 right now.
14 MS . GARDE : So what you are saying, Larry, is 15 that the generic implications that arise from that
- 16 allegation are dealt with in the QA/QC --
17 KR. SRAO: The applicant had to address this
, 18 some more.
. 19 MR. NOONAW:
1 All the statements that have been
~
20 l
[ .
made about going to QA/QC -- you have to remember that when l 21 the SSERs 7 through 10 were written, we went through those
. 22 things. They were QA implications.
i
- What we did on SSER 11, 23 ask Berb about his work that he was supposed .to do, which i -
14 is the basis for his SSER. All the other stuff that 25 everybody is saying that's in the QA SSER means it is in l
l l .
l -
Acz.FEDERAI. REPonTuns, INC. .
4 w.w.m. w c- se.mm '
.942.0 '
iW 328 L appendix P of the safety' evaluation. It doesn't mean that 2
Herb wou'ld have taken it and would have reevaluated it or 3 done anything with it. It was really up to Herb to decide
- 4 4
how he wanted to handle that, and I don't want you to get
.5 the implication that all these people gave it to him and he 6 went out and did something unique and different with it.
7 He could tell you this but clearly my understanding is he '
8 looked at it from the standpoint, did it affect anything 9 that he did. That's really what he did. Not to go back 10 and delve into it, do some more work on the sits, any of 11 that stuff.
12 MS . GARDE : We'll pursue that --
13 MR. NOONAN: I gue'ss I had the same concern when 14 I was reading the SSERs. .Everything was referred.to QA/QC.
15 I want to assure that happened. That's why you saw 16 appendix P in there.
it is cross referenced for safety 17 evaluations, SSER 11. That's all.
18 , MS. GARDE: I just have a few more questions on 19 this. Now the characterization of the allegation AW-46 on *
- 20 page N-67 is that the' grounding for welding was 21 ~
accomplished by wrapping the grounding lead around the pipe * ~
22 and allowing the clip to rest upon the pipe and that this 23 resulted in numerous are strikes. Now, what you have 24' referred us to before, Mr. Shao, was on page N-69, which 25 was the TRT conclusion. The conclusion confuses me. After Acs. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo w ce==s. mama
.. . _ . . . - _ . . -- L . - . . -
24942.0 KSW 329 1
looking over the characterization of the allegation, 2
because it deals with one part of the allegation, but 3
doesn't seem to deal with the second part. If I understand 4
what Mr. Ferrarini did in his investigation, the results of
. . 5 the concern is that there was arc strikes. That's the 6
concern that was kind of the basis cf the allegation; is 7 that correct?
8 MR. FERRARINI That would be the -- if th'ere 9
were are strikes that were undetected that would be a s 10 concern, yes.
11 MS. GARDE: And the allegation was that the are 12 strikes resulted from-the. action that's described as the
..,,.- 13 grounding of the welding?
- m. 14 MR. FERRARINI Correct.
2 15 MS. GARDE:
Now when you went into the field, 16 and you did your field observation and welder interviews, 17 were you looking for are strikes or were you looking for 18 evidence that the grounding for the welding was
.,c 19
, accomplished by the wrapping around of the lead wire around 20 the pipe? Which were you pursuing?
21 MR. FERRARINI: Obviously I was looking for both --
22 right? Because if I found are strikes, they could be 23 coming from a number of other sources.
. That wouldn't lead 24 me -- the allegation was that this form of crounding: 1ed to 25 are strikes.
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. sas.wr.tWn NedomMe Cowress 8001m
- WN WO*.* e* '
. . - _ _ _ . - . . , . - - , . , . , - - - - - - - - - - --e-e--- ----- - * - - - - - - - - ~ - - ~ " - - - - - - ' - - - ' ' ' "
l l
942.0 '
-W 330 1 MS. GARDE: Wbw did you -- how were you .
2 attempting to detect the are strikes? Isn't it difficult 3
to detect are strikes at this stage of construction?
- 4 MR. FERRARINI Well, especially on lines that 5 are insulated, covered. I really didn't spend much time . .
6 looking for are strikes. I was looking for the ca'use. i 7 l There's a nice plan in effect at the site, that the TRT did '
8 look at, covering arc strikes. That's t'he process. I '
9 wasn't concerned so much with the are strikes, actually 10 detecting the are strikes. There was a system in place i 11 that could detect them.
12 MS. GARDE: Did you review the results of the
._ 13 i N-5 inspections to determine if there had been are strikes i
14 l in this area? -
15 MR. FERRARINI I didn't have to read the N-5 16 reports t'o find out there were,are strikes. Arc strikes i 17 are common in a power plant like this.
- 18 \
MS. GARDE: But you are reaching a conclusion on 19 whether or not are strikes resulted from a certain *
) 20 unauthorised activity; isn't that correct?
21 nm. FERRARINI: res .
- 22 Ms. GARDE: If you didn't look for the are 23 strikes to see if the results had, in fact, occurred, and i
24 if it was impossible to determine from the current 25 indi,viduals that you talked to and the field observations I i I
ACE.FansmAt. RsPORTERS, INC.
ms.w. nog NansemosCesemos E M H 6e6 i
. . . . . . . * .. ~ .
- 24942.0 331 l KSW 1 if the activity in the past had, in fact, occurred, then I 2 don't understand how you can reach the conclusion that it 3 was neither substantiated nor refuted.
4 MR. FERRARINI I didn't perceive the question
. 5 there.
6 MS. GARDO: Shorthand: I don't understand how 7 your process gets you to that conclusion. , It seems to rae a that it is aissing a number of steps to reach that '
9 conclusion.
10 ' MR. FERRARINI: The conclusion that it was 11 neither substantiated nor refuted? That was based upon i 12 what we did do.
13 MS. GARDE: All right, let me move on. I'm not ..
14 completely satisfied with that answeri but I'm a little
~*
15 frustrated that my questions - it is not your fault, but 16 let me move on to another area. Maybe I can flush out the 17 kind of answers I need in other areas.
la Mr. Shao, could you please turn back to N-137 19 I'm sorry, N-9. On the bottom of page N-9 there's a 20 category number 10, subjects damaged pipe. Do you see 21 taat?
22 MR. SEAO: Yes. ,
23 MS. GARDE: There's a characterization of the 24 concern and allegation which includes both a specific, that 25 is, unauthorized weld repair to a gouge in a pipe requested --
Acs.FaonRAt. REPonTERS, INC.
, as.w.mo - Nesseouscemens me.3364m
'..__.-- - + . - - , . . _ _ - -__ _
942.0
- C 332 1
two-inch pipe damaged by* sledgehammer and general concern 2 regarding handling of safety-related piping. Now, the 3
specific allegation is pursued -- if I'm wrong, correct me -- .
4 through AP-5, AP, and AP-8, and AP-10, which are on page 5 N-89. In the first paragraph under the assessment of .'.
6 safety significance you say that the assessment of 7
allegation AP-5 by the mechanical and piping group of the '
8 NRC TRT was limited to the adequacy of the repair of the 9 gouged pipe. Now, does that assume that there in fact was 10 a gouge in a pipe?
11 MR. SRAO: Yes, there is a gouged pipe.
12 MS. GARDE: Would you have characterized this 13 allegation as substantiated or unsubstantiated?
14 MR. SHAO: Let me read the conclusion here to 15 you --
16 MS. GARDE: On N-89. You don't need to read it 17 to me.
18 MR. SHAO: You read it?
19 , MS. GARDE . Doesn't make any reference to s 20 .
whether or not it was substantiated or unsubstantiated.
21 MR. CBEN: I'm Paul Chen. I'm a member of the * '
22 NRC TRT. The allegation as stated on the characterization 23 AP-5 on page N-89. states that the welder was called by his 24' foreman while checking the pipe and was subsequently fired.
25 That was not investigated by mechanical team. The -
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nce Nedmew s C m ens: 800 3 4 4644
24942.0
- KSW 333 1
mechanical team reached no conclusion regarding whether or 2
not the welder was fired or not.
. 3 MS . GARDE: Yes. That wasn't my question. I 4
assume that by reading through this that there wasn't any.
, 5 MR. SEAO: They have no problem with it being 6 repaired. '
7 MR. CHEN: Could you repeat the question?
8 MS.* GARDE: I want to know'whether you * '
9 considered this particular allegation as substantiated or 10 unsubstantiated.
- .. 11 MR. CHEN
- It was substantiated to the extent 12 that it was determined that there was a gouge in the pipe
. 13 and it was repaired.
14 s -
MS. GARDE: The next two pages go into a 15 description of documents that were looked at and reviewed, is I assume, in rwaching that conclusion. There is a l 17 statement in the beginning of that section" that said the 18 allegation was investigated by NRC region 4 and discussed 19 during the september '82 and March '84 licensing hearing.
20 To what. extent did you rely on the work of region 4 ce the '
21 work of ,the hearing board or what was going on in the 22 hearings to reach your conclusion?
23
,. . MR. CHEN: I used that information as input. I 24 did not rely totally on the region 4 inspection nor the 25 discussions at the hearing.
l
{ .
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. m m.mo nam
- ce== mn6***
- ">M'7~^ f's _ _ ~ m ee n -. q . , , , __ g_, _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
942.0
- W 334 1 MS. GARDE: Did you make it a point to consider 2
all of the testimony that was offered on that point?
3 MR. CHEN: _0nly the technical aspects of that 4 testimony.
5 MS. GARDE: What do you mean when you say "only .
6 the technical aspects"? .
7 MR. CHEN The identification of the gouge and '
8 the documents associated with the gouge and repair of the 9 gouge.
10 MS. GARDE: You didn't consider, for example, 11 tr.e rebuttal testimony of the applicant? Did you read,that?
12 MR. CHEN:
My recollection is that I did.
13 ,
MS. CARDE: Above and beyond the information
~
,- 14 l that was provided by region 4 and by the hearing record', .
15 what did you look at in your investigation or inspection? ,
i6 MR. CHEN:
I think I reviewed the code 17 requirements and the procedural requirements and looked at 18 the documents to make sure that everything was in
, 19 compliance with all the applicable requirements. ,
20 ME. GARDE: Did you independently go out on the 21 site, look at the pipe?
- 22 MR. CHEN ;
, The pipe was looked at by ancther 1 23 member of the ORT during a walk-down with the alleger. I 24' think there was some difficulty in locating the gouge 25 because the pipe was painted.
Acz.FEDERA1. REPORTEAS, INC.
1st.ut.nco Namen w eCe ween sco meus
=. ., ,..-- - . , . . . . . - . . .-
24942.0
~
KSW 335 1 MS. GARDE: Okay --
2 MR. CHEN: I actually went out and tried to
, 3 locate it myself but couldn't locate it.
4 MS. GARDE: So someone else on the technical
. . 5 review team actually looked at the pipie?
6 MR. CHEN:
I went out and tried to find it 7 myself also, but some other member of the TRT did see the 8 pipe. '
9 MS. GARDE: Did you personally review all of the
,. 10 documentation on the ' procedures?
s, 11 MRi CHEN Yes, I did.
12 MS. GARDE: Thank you.
- 4. 13 Mr. Shao, there's a number of references, and I
., . 14 could give you some more exa:<;rles, but there are a number we 15 i of references in this SSER to work done by region 4 in its 16 regular inspection program, inspectio'ns going back to '80, 17 '82, '78.
To what extent did you instruct your team 18 members to rely on the inspection work done by region 47 19 MR. SHAO: My instruction to them is to make an 20 independent investigation - to make an independent "
21 investigation of the issue.. Usually we go much further 22 than region 4 did.
23 MS. GARDE:
The conclusion to the gouge in the 24 pipe on N 91 is that since the gouge was repaired and
. 25 inspected satisf actorily, the allegstion was found to have Acs. FEDERAL RaronTuns, INc, an.m.mo Mem m e=== me.meu
. , ' ' , . , - .*,...,4. - 4 e
.942.0 '
C
- 336 1
no safety significance.
- Now, was this the type of !
2 allegation which you would pursue further, either by 3 referring it to QA/QC or looking further to determine *
. 4 whether this happened other than this one time?
5 MR. SHAos No, for this type of allegation we . '.
6 would not pursue any further because it was repaired 7 properly.
- 8 MS. GARDE: What about the fact -- and Mr. Chen
- 9 already said they didn't pursue the allegation -- that he 10 was told -- the welder was told to do something improperly.
11 was that referred to OI? Chen?
12 Ms. VIETTI-Cook: I have to check, but I believe 13 i it came from an oI report. OI had done their work and we
. 14 pulled the technical part of it out, but let me double 15 check. '.
16 Ms. GARDE: As a general rule, when an 17 allegation contained that type of wrongdoing instruction, is if it did r.oc come from or would you send it to oI?
19 MR. suAos We will be reviewing these documents .
20 and looking at all the wrongdoing in the investigation. "
21 MS. GARDE: It is up to of to pull out what they *
- 22 see as wrongdoing? Is that correct?
23 MR. NooNAN: Repeat the question.
- 24' N. GARDE: I asked, Mr. Shao if he was going to 25 refer, :.c this item had been referred, to OI. Annette is Aca FEDERAL RaroRTERS. INC.
ms.3er.mo m ca.oress me.3M.we
24942.0 '
KSW 337 I checking to see wnether it came from --
2 MS. VIETTI-COOK: It came from an OI report.
3 MS. GARDE: If it had not come from an OI report, 4 if this is generally an allegation that contained 5
wrongdoing, would you refer it to OI coming from the TRT or 6 is OI doing that now as --
7 MR. NOONAN:
We would transfer it to the TRT if 8 we had identified it. .
~
9 MS. GARDE: Would ycu please turn to N-147
.. 10 " Welding area findings." Now, this conclusion or these 11 findings do not contain anything about liner places or the 12 weldings on the liner plates.
, 13 MR. SHAO: Yes.
- v. 14 MS. GARDE: Was the welding on the liner plates 15 issue considered under the welding area?
16 -
MR. SNAO: Yes.
17 Ms. GARDE: Okay --
18 MR. SNAO:
The welding that I personally looked 19 at, the welding in the liner area, physically, in general
, 20 is okay although the QA/QC people looked at the '
21 ' documentation and it was very poor and -- however, there 22
. are a couple of conditions, so we referred the welding --
23 the 1iner welding iss'e, u as an open issue.
- 24 MS. GARDE: That's because you determined that 25 the, liner plate was not safety significant?
ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- an.wr.M00 NamessesCa ense see MHed
. - . w o e s ee e.e , < < ese- on *
.942.0 .
iW 338 1 MR. SNAO: Th*at's one of the reasons.
2 MS. GARDE: What were the others?
3 MR. SHAO: Physically the welding _ itself- doesn't
- 4 look bad. There are a couple of corrosion spots, but in 5 general it doesn't look too bad. As you know, the liners . .
6 are not. safety-related but they do have QA/QC problems .in 7 this area. That's why we referred it. '
8 MS. GARDE: When you first got involved with the '
9 TRT and were involved in looking at the liner plates, there 10 was no staff position on whether or not the liners were 11 going to be safety-related or not; is that correct?
12 MR. SHAos. That's not true. I knew all along 13 that'the liner place was not safety-related, even though -
14 later on, in ceder to confirin this, we asked NRR special 15 branch to write a special letter with regard to comanche 16 Peak but I wrote a memo in general saying the liner plates 17 are not safety-related.
18 MS. GARDEs I'm going to show you a document I 19 got through the PDR. Would you tell me if this is the Olin .*
20 memorandum that you are referring to?
21 MR. SEAos This is for Vince Noonan, project ' **
22 director for Comanche Peak, January 17, 1985 on staff pool 22 on spent fuel liner. .
24' MS.'VIETTI-COOKS There should be a memo that 25 refers to the fuel canal and fuel transfer to be dated Ac1[.FnounA1. RaronTEns, INC.
ms.w.rme Names =deCe=ess 8 m H 6ds**
24942.0 KSW 339 1 February 26.
2 MS . GARDE : The other document, Annette, that I 3 didn't get was the December 7, 1984 memo from Mr. Noonan, 4 apparently to'Mr. Park, that asked this evaluation, and 5
that's not identified on the PDR documents either.
4 Mr. Shao, you said you knew all along that the 7 liner plate was not safety-related. I assume when you say 8 .
"all along" you mean starting with your involvement with 9 the TRT7 10 MR. SEAO: No, before that.
Because at one time 11 I' was in charge of structure branch.
12 MS . GARDE : You looked not just at Comanche Peak?
4 13 MR. SEAO: At other projects.
- W 14 HS. GARDE: So when you came to the TRT team in 15 June, you assumed that the same decision held for Comanc'he 16 Peak?
17 MR. SEAO: I produmed so, yes .
18 MS. GARDE:
, You are aware that it was classified 19 as a Q system by the project, are you not,7 20 MR. SEAO: It was not classified as a Q system 21 but it was required to follow appendix P. The liner is 22 req' tired to meet appendix P.
23 MS. GARDE You say that it is still required to 24 meet appendix P7.
25 MR. SRAO: Yes. If you look at a Q system, the
. l l
Act.FEDERA1. RzPonTERs, INc.
Es.sef.Fme Massendece=ess as M 4see
. ___ _Z12 * ~ 'n__ ~ ~ ~_~ 1 - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
- ~ ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ' ' '~~~"~" '
1942.0 -
VJ 340 1 liner is not there. However, in the spec they say you have 2 to meet appendix P.
3 MS. GARDE: Was your evaluation done to - - - - ~
- 4 determine whether or not the work done on the liner was 5 consiste'nt with appendix B7 .
6 MR. RICRARD88 The investigation of the liners 7
considered first t'he fact that it was not listed in the
- 8 FSAR as a Q item. It did note that the appendix '
9 requirements of appendix P was imposed by the CNN 10 specifiestion, so therefore it was to be constructed to the 11 intent of the appendix P under a QA/QC program. The 12 investigations ehat we did regarding the allegations from a 13 strictly technical standpoint regarding the fabrication 14 process, the inspections of our own inspections, of the 15 ' final or physical item and to determine if they did indeed 16 work a good weld from 'a technical standpoint.
17 Ms. GARDE: In your inspection of the liner 18 plate to reach the determination on the technical adequacy 19 of the welds today or last summer, did you perform any *.
20 ultrasonic testing? '
21 MR. RICEAAD8: No. * '
22 MS. GARDS: Just visual inspections?
. 23 MR.. RICEAADS: Yes.
24 Ms. GARDE: What percentage of the welds in the liner plates did you look at?
25 i
1 Act.Fr. canal RaFonTzas, INc.
me.w.mo mcome me nses
1 24942.0 KSW 341 1
MR. RICHARDS: 20 percent were looked at closely.
2 MS. GARDE: How was that 20 percent selected?
._f_.-._ 3 MR. RICHARDS: That was just a random, but also 4
availability - it required support to be lowered into the 5
cavities and required safety support, plus the operation of 6 the crane and so forth.
7 MS. CARDE: Now you have a lot of allegations 8 under this category which starts on N-271.
9 MR. $NAO:
It is a legally random rather than 10 scientifically random.
11 MS. CARDE:
I understandt right.
12 Now, the allegations that are listed under this 13 category raise unre questions. than the one that you have 14 just answered.
That is, what did the weld look like from 15 the outside with the visual inspection, at this time. Now 16 did you determine that a visual inspection would be 17 adequate to respond to these other allegations? There was la backside welding allegations --
, *'. 19 MR. RICNARDS: This was not my,only response.
20 Only a visual 14.
' ' ection was not the only response to the 21 question.
22 MS. GARDs:
. What were the other things that you 23 did? -
24 -
MR. RICHARDS: In reviewing all of the 25 requirements and to supplement the inapections, the visual ace.FRosRAL REPORTERS. INC.
. . . . . . . ins.w.mn . . . . Massa ** c- . assis.4em
i
. * - ~ . .
1942.0 .
O 342 1
inspections, the requirements were reviewed, the procedures 2
which were to be followed were reviewed. The techniques 3 and welding processes were reviewed. Also, there were ~
4 several - there were interviews, informal discussions with 5
a variety of personnel, and tried to pursue every avenue of * '
4 each allegation to the best of my ability.
7 MS. GARDE:
Mr. Richards, you said one of the 8 things you looked at was the procedures. Did you come'to 9
independent conclusions on the adequacy of the procedures 10 that governed the welding on the liner plates?
11 MR. RICNARDS: For the most part, the procedures 12 were adequate. -
13 MS. GARDE: Did you come to any conclusion 14 regarding the use of the - I used the word " checklist,"
15 but maybe it is sign-off forms that were to be followed by 16 QC inspectors?
17 MR. RICNARD8: This was being simultaneously 18 investigated by the QA/QC group. The documentation.
19 ME. GARDE: Are you telling me you made no .
20 eeselusion on the adequacy of the inspection documents?
21 15. RICRARDS:
No.
22 MS. CARDE:
The forms. I don't mean the filled 23 out documents.
. 24 MR. RICNARD8: Not at the time of the inspection.
25 1 concerned myself more with t'inal reports, final NDre, .ot Aca.FsDanAL RaponTzas, INc.
, us.w.sms Massesedece am samenes
24942.0 '
KSW 343 1 the end process travelers.
2 MS. GARDE: 'Take me back to what you looked at l
_ _ _ _ _3 when you reviewed the procedures. I want to have an 4
understanding of what procedures you looked at and how you.
5 reached your determination about their adequacy.
4 MR. RICHARDS:
Starting on page 275, regarding 7
the review of documentation, which includes the procedures 8 and specifications. First, was the G4H specification, and '
9 then the welding processes required. Now from the 10 specification, I drew the requirements.
11 MS. GARDE:
The comment is that "A comparative 12 review of the Brown s Root's procedures to the Gibson Hill 13 specification found the requirements to be tonsistent."
14 'What Brown & Root procedures did you look at?
15 ' '
MR. RICHARDS: Okay, on page N-273, under -- at 18 the kop of the page, shows these pro'cedures. The Brown s 17 Root procedures that I reviewed and found them to be 18 consistent with the specification.
19
,, MS. GARDE: Did you look at all the revisions of 20 these procedures?
21 MR. RICHARDS: Yes.
22 MS. GAADE: So am I to understand that your 23 answer is that all revisions of all of ,these procedures
! 24 were always consistent with the Gibbs a sili specification?
25 MR. RICHARDS: .txcuse me for hesitating. I'm Acz. Fan RAL RaronT1uts, INC. -
ass. net.nes Massowede Co.oress an3364ess 4
942.0 W 344 ,
trying to recall.
1 I'm trying to recall, and it probably 2 was reviewed in the QA/QC group where a procedure -- I'm 3 not sure which one -- had dropped the 10 CFR 50, appendix 8
- 4 requirement. I'm trying to recollects but that the 5 implication remained.
That's off the top of my head, so -- - * '
6 MS. GARDE: I would like an answer to that 7
question, so if you could look at your notes or materials, 8
which I believe Mr. Noonan has, to give me an answer to .
9 that question, I would appreciate it.
10 MR. RICHARDS: Okay. However, the specific 11 requirements remain consistent.
12 MS. GARDE: What do you mean by 'the specific 13 requirements"?
14 MR. RICHARDS: The codes or the types'of NDE 15 required in inspecting it.
16 MS. GARDE: The type of NDE codes?
17 MR. RICHARDS: The NDE disciplines required.
18 , MS. GARDE: Let me make ,sure I understand what 19 you just said. Are you telling me that throughout all the
- 20 ..
revisions of the procedures, the requirement for NDE 21 emanination of certain welds always remained the same. . .
22 MR. RICHARDS: All of the requirements. that were ,
23 specified in the specification for the fabrication and 24 erection of the liners remained consistent. J 25 , MS. GARDE: What determination, if any, Act.FanaRAI. RrronTuns, INc.
. . . an.w.mo mm an.nsen
. ..: . . -r-- -
24942.0 KSW .
345 1
Mr. Richards, did you make to see if those procedures were 2 followed?
3 --MR. RICHARDS :
My inspections pertained to those 4 procedures regarding the welding, the welding 5 specifications, weld process specifications.
6 MS. CARDE: So you just looked at the 7 specifications, you didn't attempt to determine 8 implementation? .
9 MR. RICHARDS: Right.
10 MS. GARDE: So your conclusions -- are your
. 11 ( conclusions based on the suggestion that the procedures 12 were followed?
13 MR. RICHARDS: My conclusions are based on the
.r 14 assumption that the welding processes were followed.
15 -
Ms. GARDE: How did you factor into your' 16 conclusion the allegations that welding processes were not 17 followed?
18 MR. RICHARDS:
I couldn't find any evidence that
=
. 19 I could draw a conclusion that they were ,not followed.
20 MS. GARDE:
The evidence that you gathered was 21 the procedures, visual inspections of complaced welding in 22 the liner plate today and what elsq?
23 MR. RICHARDS: The review of tho technique
' 24 determining and giving consideration where and how they i 25 were constructed.
Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC. !
MMM -MW "N i
942.0 W 346 l MS. GARDE: Did you review --
2 MR. RICHARDS: And also that included drawing 3 and_ drawing details.
4 MS. GARDE: Did you review the region 4 5 inspection reports that reported allegations on poor -
6 welding techniques in 1978 and '79? I think they are 7 referred to in here. .
8 MR. RICHARDS: Yes.
9 MS. GARDE: To what extent did you go further
, 10 than those region 4 inspection reports pursued those 11 allegations?
12, MR. RICHARDS: I used those troorts for inputs,
,13 and they'did help channel some of my starting reviews, but 14 I did go farther for -- give' it more depth rather than
- 15 stopping where they did. I felt it was a more umbrella 16 investigation.
17 MS. GARDE: I don't have a copy of those 18 inspection reports here. If my recollection is wrong, 19 someone please correct me. If I recall, the inspection .
20 reports included a list of allegations dealing with poor 21 welding techniques. It is on page 0203, and SSER number 11. . -
22 Let me read this to you because it is a direct quote from 23 the inspection report. "The res'ident inspector has become 24 reasonably sure that - there were difficulties encountered by 25 the welders with water, moisture, and in some instances, l
i ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
.. .\ m.m Neaaenece,enee mmses
+ .===;==.-.==.==.=- -
24942.0 KSW
- 347 1
with concrete on 'the weld surfaces and that in some 2 instances the welds may not be completely sound internally.
3 These welds, however,-sarve no strength purpose and need 4 only be smooth and leik-free, factors established by visual
- . 5 inspection, dye penetrant and by vacuum box tests of the 6
+
joint after it is complete. Tha allegation, while probably 7 true, has no safety significance."
8 My question to you, Mr. Richards, to what extent ,
9 did you rely on the looks of the region 4 inspector as to
... 10 the technical merits that I just read to you?
11 MR. RICHARDS: I recall having read the region 4 12 report, and I, rather than to depend upon that, I was -
u 13 concerned with the allegation of, as I considered, poor -
- 34 conditions rather than techniques.
na 1,5 MS. GARDE: You mean poor conditions while the 16 welding was occurring?
17 MR. RICHARDS: Water and concrete'are conditions, 18 not techniques. I was concerned as to the sources,-where
. 19 did the water or where did the concrete come from and I 20 have a discussion in here under the review of fabrication, 21 both fabricatica cochnique --
22 MS. GAROE What page?
23 MR. RICHARDS: 274. The fabrication of these 24 structures took place outside the building structures or 25 the fabrication of the liners. And then set in place. The'
, ACE-FEIiERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.3c.M00 NamemindeCourses 800 336 d&6
, . . , , , ."****'$"7***-
,%?"** I****, 9 M" " * * * " ' "'*'"*8*' " "#
-e 1942.0 '
SW 348 l
fact that this fabricatfon was performed open to the 2 elements. From that, on page 277, I have listed two 3
possibilities of the sources for how we had that type of
, 4 contamination.
5 MS. GARDE: This is the more narrow allegation . -
6 of water from concrete running past the backing strips into 7 the weld joint are'ast right? '
8 MR. RICHARDS: Right. When they made a concrete 9
pour, once the liners were set in location and made a 10 concrete pour, apparently concrete spilled dver and ran 11 down the side of the liner plate. The groove butt weld had 12 at this time not been performed.
. 13 MS. GARDE: 'How did you determine that the 14 allegation which'I read to you on 0203 from that inspection 15 report only dealt with the water entering the leak chase 16- channels and running past the backing ' strips and not into 17 more general conditions or techniques, as you referred to 18 them, in the welding in general on the liner plate?
19 M5L. RICHARDS: Would you repeat that?
- 20 MS. GARDE:
You are narrowing my question. Your 21 answer narrows my question and cuts out a lot of the 22 concern that'I'm asking you how you dealt with. You are 23 responding to only a very narrow, smaller number of welds; 24 that is, those where the water poured from poured concrete 25 had entered leak chase channels and run past backing strip ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
2nz. w.riOO Nemonweds Cearage 800 M6
.-. m. m=www a
,a * - * =
24942.4 -
KSW 349 l into weld joint channels.
2* MR. RICHARDS: I don't see how that narrows your 3 question.
On page 178.,_in_looking-at-NCRs,-in looking at 4
NCRs where it is documented, some' of these conditions, and 5
item 2 on page 278, water - NCR is where it was noted -
6 water seeping from locations where c6ncrete had been poured 7
and contaminating components of liners being fabricated.
8 Item Number 3, water in leak chase channels interfering
- 9 with welding. Now, the TRT notes here that the source of 10 water described in item .B of AW-40 is reasonable to believe.
, - 11 MS. GARDS: What doe.s that mean, that that's 12 possible?
>- 13 MR. RICHARDS: That it is possible, and that O. 14 being open to the elements where water had seeped through 4- 15 between f.he plate and the backing strip into ,the leak chase 16 channels.
17 MS. GARDE: Number 4 says "Too many activities 18 causing interference." Di,d you assume that statement to
,, 19 only refer to contamination of welding through the methods 20 described in, numbers 2 and 37 .
21 MR. RICHARDS: No. Just as is: too many 22 activities causing interference.
23 MS. GARDE:
Did you assume that the allegation 24 that we read from the SSER number 11 to only deal with 2$ backing strip - welding contaminated through the methods ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. . . . m m.mo s-==* ce== so. -
6942.0 iW 350 1
described in number 2 and number 37 2 MR. RICHARDS: Those were the only -- in my 3
investigations and discussions, those were the only two
- 4 possibilities that you could determine from where the 5
source of contamination came from. - -
6 .MS. CARDE: So you made a judgment that the only 7 .
reasonable contamination of the welds in the liner plate 8
could have been from when the concrete was being poured -- .
9 MR. RICHARDS: Or when it rained.
10 MS. GARDE: Or when it rained.
11 What is the basis for that judgment?
12 MR. RICHARDS: The or.ly'besis is that I found no 13 other causes.
14 MS. GARDE: What did you look at to determine 15 that there were no other causes?
. 16 MR. RICHARDS: The only causes that I found in 17 looks at the NCRs gave me no reason or no reasonable 18 definition of cause of where this water or concrete came 19 from. Also, in discussions with personnel, they did say '
20 that this was a source of contamination. Rain and during 21 the pour of concrete. . r 22 MS. GARDE: So your judgment based on your 23 experience in this area is that tihat was. the only 24 reasonable source r that's the kind of contamination people 25 must have been talking about because it is the only ki nd :-
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2n.347 rtoo Nanomadecmerase soo 336ms w .w- - w -,
w- - -
24942.0 -
~
KSW 351 I that made sense to you; is that correct? ,
2 MR. RICHARDS: There was no other evidence to 3 make me think in any other way.
4 MS. GARDE: ' Did you ever have an opportunity to 5
talk to any of the allegers that raised the welding issues 6 on the liners?
7 MR. RICHARDS: Yes.
8 MS. GARDE: And -- '
9 MR. RICHARDS: One.
10 MS. GARDE: These were not. inspectors, these 11 were welders?
12 MR. RICHARDS: The alleger?
13 MS. GARDE:
Off the record --
.. 14 MR. RICHARDS:
You asked me if I had talked to
. 15 any alleger?
16 MS. GARDE: Yes.
17 MR. RICHARDS: I talked to one.
18 MS. GARDE: Was that alleger a welder?
. . 19 __ - MR. RICHARDS:
I hesitate to say right now. I 20 think so. .
21 MS. GARDE: I'm going to go to another area.
22 MR. ROISMAN: I want to ask you one question on 23 the safety-related issue on the liner plate. As I ~
24 understand it, the reason that it is not safety-related is 25 because the principal barrier to keep the water in the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
an.m.nco Nedenwidecoeurass son.336.mes
,, , =e
. l l
1942.0 ,
iW 352 1
cavity is the concrete rather than the liner plate, so even 2 if the liner plate fails, the concrete works. Is that 3 essentially it? .
4 MR. RICHARDS: Essentially.
5 MR. ROISMAN I take it then if there were some " .
6 uncertainties or indeterminate status about the capability
,7 of the concrete, if its status were indeterminate for 8
purposes, say,- of seismic 1 qualification, then the 9
importance of the liner plate as a barrier would have to be 10 enhanced. It might become an alternate way of dealing with 11 that issue --
12 MR. RICHARDS: No, there's no' structural 13 integrity to the liner plate. .
14
, MR. ROISMAN: .4o even if it were Q'd, even if it I 15 ' were built.to Q safety requirements it wouldn't help if you 16 were trying to protect against an earthquake.
17 MR. SHAO: No, concrete.
18 MR. ROISMAN: And if it fails, that's it?
19 -
MR. SHAO: If concrete fails, that's it. ,
20 MS. GARDE Mr. Shao, material traceability s
21 allegations, were they covered in this SSER7 22 MR. SEAO: Yes. We have some material
- 23' trace' ability problems there, allegations of material 24 traceability.
~
25 .MS. GARDE: Could you point out which allegation ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
. mz.W.M00 Neusewide Coverase 300.M646d6
24942.0
- KSW 353 1 dealt with material traceability?
2 MR. SHAO:
Masterson worked on this and -- let I 3 me dig it out.
4 MR. MASTERSON: Number 33, page N-217.
- . 5 MS. GARDE:
~
Mr. Shao, if you want Mr. Masterson 6 to answer the questions, that's fine.
7 The material traceability allegations that I'm 8
familiar with I can't identify from the page numbers or 9 from what I read. The ones I know of, they may be in here, 10 but I can't tell'from your description. I notice that on 1
11 . N-223 that you require no action on the material 12 traceability issue.
,. 13 MR. MASTERSON That's correct.
14
- MS. GARDE: What is the basis for your decision
. 15 to not. require any action?
16 MR. AASTERSON: ' There was no open issue 17 discovered in this area.
18 MS. GARDE: Did that include a detailed review.
19 of all allegations that you had received up to this time to 20 determine whether or not specific allegations that you were 21 given were subatantiated or not substantiated?
22 MR. MASTERSON: No, that was based upon the 23 allegations identified in the SSER.
- 24 MS. GARDE: Are there additional allegations on 25 material traceability which are not covered in here?
ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nco Nenamde ccwass sos.nses g, mee m emam es e e-me-* * * + *
- y
1942.0
-iW 354 l
- d MR. MASTERSON: I think there are some in QA/QC, 2 yes.
3 MS. GARDE: They were referred to QA/QC? -
4 MR. MASTERSON: They were originally in QA/QC. .
5 They did not come through mechanical piping. ~ '
6 MS. GARDE:
There was no review of the technical 7 . -
significance of the material traceability allegations of ,
8 QA/QC7 ~
9 MR. SHAO: I would make one correction. On AH-3, 10 on page N-222, we have one incident there was lack of 11 traceability on one hanger. I,ack of material conteci, and 12 a violation of disposition of NCR. We picked it up and 'we 13 put it in appendix P page P-15, so that's one incident.
14 MS. GARDE:
Mr. Maste'rson, could you describe 15 your work in making the determination that the allegations 16 on material traceability were not substantiated?
17 MR. MASTERSON: Basically, I began - because I
18 most of these were not very specifics they were in general 19 allegations about traceability - I began by looking at .
20 purchasing
- records for certain time periods to see how the 21 material was brought on site. . .
I looked at procedures that 22 governed control of materials for pipe hangers. I went out 23
, into' the field and did inspections of randomly selected l 24 supports looking for heat numbers and comparing them 25, against what was in the hanger fabrication packages.
l i
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
2nz.w.mo Naneamdecmurens RB 3364W
., goe ,w meuqs e s eme>= ee. us +4 =hm--* * *e-'* * * * * - .
8D.* es49 ,-m =
1 "; , . . , - . - - -- - -- - -
l 24942.0 I KSW 355 1 MS.GAhtDE: Did you do any testing of material 2
to determine whether or not it met the requirements that 3 that particular heat number indicated it would?
4 MR. MASTERSON: No.
5 MS. GARDE: How did you coal with the 6
allegations received by the technical review team that heat 7 numbers had been changed on the site? Had been etched. into
- en 8 pipes, piping runs on the site? .
9 MR. MASTERSON: I didn't have any of that. I'm 10 not sure I understand the question.
11 MS. GARDE: Okay, there were allegations that 12 were given to the TRT, which I can't identify here, which I 13 though that you had. They do not appear here. I have not e- 14 seen them in the other SSER. I'm not sure if they are in 15 process with some of the other new allegations on material 16 traceability.
l What I want to understand is how those 17 allegations that dealt with falsification of heat numbers 3 18 on the site were dealt with.
, 19 MR. MASTERSON: The only allegation that we had 20 that would fit that description I think is AH l, 21
- (Discussion off the record.)
y .
22 MR. NOONAN: Ms. Garde, if there's an 23 a$ legation that you are missing, if you could identify to
,; 24 L'
us being more specific, I would ' check to find out where it
- 25 is at. '
,_a-l ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
25 387 3Mo NemoewideGwass M33646ed . *
- . , _ . ~ - _ , , - - -
.,.. - _ . . - . = . . . .-.
.. . - --,~~ --
- ~ _ - - _ , ,.-. - . . -
1942.0 SW -
356 1 MS. GARDE: If you didn't pursue on etching and 2
heat number traceability, it is not here and I'll have to 3 go back - ~
4 MR. MASTERSON: I think you're talking about one 5
received subsequent to this SSER and that's being worked on -
6 now.
7 MS. GARDE: Maybe I am.
We'll talk about that 8 later. .
9 (Discussion off the record.)
10 MR. MASTERSON: There was one subsequent to the 11 SSER.
12 MS. GARDE: If that's not supposed'to be in here
. 13 then I don't have any other questions on that.
14 Mr. Shao, did you attempt in doing SSER number 15 10, did.you at. tempt to review all of the CASE exhibits tha,e 16 have been submitted in the hearing that may have raised '
17 issues that fit into that category? l i
18 MR. SHAO: Yes.
~
I instructed my people to lcok 19 at everything, - all the things that related to this F 20 allegation with all the allegations we looked at. . ..
21 MS. GARDE: Is there a document which you 22 prepared or which you are familiar with which listed CASE 2
exhibits and correlated them with the SSER?
24 MR. SHAO: Citizens Association for Sound Energy 25 for example, submitted large numbers of NCRs in support of ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. .
, . s. _. 22.w.m Namme* Cowas mm
-- :r - 7.:.--.-. :: 2 - :~' ' -
--_=-__---___-__-_-,____--
24942.0 '
KSW 357 l various issues in'th'e hearing.
2 I'm pretty s.tre we can do that.
3
, MS . GARDE : Can you identify a document that c4 would do that? *
- . 5 MR. ROU: In the SSER number 10, we do not have 6
categories with Citizens Association for sound Energy, but 7
in our additional evaluation of the new allegations, the're 8
are 10 allegations related with Citizens Association for 9 Sound Energy. That is still under review and not completed.
_ 10 MS. GARDE: Are those allegations that come from 11 new information from CASE or information submitted through 12 the hearings over the years?
g- 13 MR. ROU: It is related with the hearings. I
.y 14 ,didn't hear the answer to th'at question. Would you read
.- 15 that.back?
16 (The reporter read the record as requested.) '
17 MS. GARDE: I don't have any more questions on 18 number 10. I'm not sure if our people are going to go
. . 19 right into civil / structural now or if we should take a 20 break and start QA/QC.
- 21 (Discussion off the record.)
22 MR. BOU: ,I have to make a correction of the 23 , statement.I made a while ago. I say all those 10 CASE 24 issues is related to hearings. It is not. Some were 25 related to hearingc', some were related to a new issue.
/ Aca-FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
an.wr.nm . .mcm um.nSee
,.g.e .T * - ' -' "' '
O 1942.0 e
SW 358 l MR. ROISMAN: Could you please state loc :he 2
record what your position was on the TRT and what your 3
position was with the NRC at the time that you worked for ~
4 the TRT?
5 MR. LIVERMORE: I'm Herb Livermore. I am the - '
6 ex-group leader of the now defunct QA/QC group. Prior to 7 .
coming to the TRT, I was the senior resident inspector for 8
construction at the Clinton plant, also assigned to the 9 Midland plant. When the Midland plant folded I was 10 ' assigned to help out on the TRT. I joined the TRT in 11 progress in the middle of the second session, replacing 12 Mr. Conlan as the group leader for the QA/QC group. .
. 13 ! MR. ROISMAN: When was that, the middle of the 14 l second session?
15 MR. LIVERMORE:
Sometime in.the latter part of 16 July. July 29, August 10, 1984.
17 MR. NOONAN: May I clarify the record?
18 Technical review team basically is finished. I would not 19 use the words defunct group. The TRT QA people have .
20 reported to Mr. Shao and Mr. Calvo directly on all the TRT s
21 issues that are open and still unresolved. In addition, we 22 have made Mr. Cliff Hale, who was Herb's deputy during the 23 days on t.he site, as the person now responsible fo'r all 24 QA/QC activities from this point out. Mainly because 25 Mr. Livermore has now been transferre:! to Region 2 and is Acs-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. '
a w .37eo Nanomousecearass 800 336 4646
,_ .. ,- . , . - . , * ~ ~ ~ ~ = ^ ~ ~ ~ ~
24942.0 '
KSW 359 4
I no longer available to us on a regular basis, Mr. Hale will 2 be handling all the QA/QC issues from now on.
3 MR. ROISMAN:
What was your prior experience 4
with the subject of QA/QC and with respect to training in 5 that subject area?
( MR. LIVEFJ' ORE: My training experience was with 7
the NRC in 1979 until the present time as an inspector, 8
construction inspector with Region 3 for a year as a 9 traveling inspector visiting different plants and
- 10 inspection tours.
And after that in 1980 I was assigned as
.r _ 11 construction resident, senior resident in Clinton, where I 12 served a tour of close to five years during construction of '
.13 that plant. Prior to joining the NRC -- let me stop for a 14 moment." Do you wish my experience prior to the time with
< 15 the !?RC7*
16 MR. ROISMAN:
Yes, I'm particularly interested 17 in any experience you had with regard to quality assurance,
, 18 quality control. That's my principal focus.
19 MR. LIVERMORE:
, Starting way back in 1951 I 20 joined the aircraft industry with the dissign fune tion, with 21 the manufacturing function. At that time, I became 22 associated with quality aspects of manufacturing design 23 only as a side issue. ' '
24 I then transferred to the missile industry with 25 General Dynamics on the Atlas missile. At that time, I em ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo N====* ce==ss um.nsus
?
= ~ :=~ , _ _ ~ -l::_a- =- -
~'
. c ~ - - ~ ~ ~~ ' ~ ~ ~~~ ~~
1 942.0 W 360 1 joined the quality groupI, quality assurance at that time, 2 which not c.11y was the quality group, we also did the 3 tasting. At that time, I believe in that area, that's when -
4 9850 came into being in the industry. I was associated 5 with that quality group at tnat time as a quality assurance "~
6 test engineer and a process engineer.
7 In '66 I went with General Electric in the space 8 industry and worked for the NASA quality lab out of 9 Huntsville, Alabama, doing quality assurance review in the 10 automatic testing of the Saturn second stage, North 11 I American Rockwell. After that, I transferred to Cape 12 Kennedy with the launching of Skylab. That work came to a 13 close.
- 14 I joined General Electric in the nuclear 15 industry as a reactor plant contractor, which was a quality 16 division that did all of the monitoring of nuclear plant 17 testing on cruisers.
i 18 I went ,to the Naval nuclear shipyards at Newport .
13 sews and monitored construction of the nuclear cruisers, #
1 -
20 installation of the power plants, startup testing, physics '
21 testing, power range testing. That went through 1979. I 22 think that I spent three years in the shipyard at that .
23 ,
position. 'In 1979, is when I joined the Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission, as I spoke of before. .
25 KR. ROISMAN: Thank you.
- ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
s ,- m-
l i
l 24942.0 '
KSW -
361 1 MR. LIVERAORE: Might I just go on a second. On 2
2 my introduction, I wanted to mention that Mr. Cliff Hale is
, 3 my assistant and I do have six reviewers back behind me for i
4 support who are major reviewers. I want to just mention i
5 4
that we have been away from this job, with the exception of 6
Cliff, since last June so if our. memory gets very foggy I 7 want to tell you that's the reason. We have been trying to 8
come up to speed on this, and I want to mention, too, that "
9 our conclusions on these SSERs, the SSER 11, are integrated 10 conclusions, collective ones by my staff and myself --
1-11 individual reviewer, Cliff and myself. And I might add 12 that, all the th.ese inputs and the SSER 11 itself were 13 reviewed many times, constantly, by the manager.
14 One thing I would like to add to the record, I 15 would like to read the section out of SSER 11 ort page P-1.
16 I want to read'this for the record.
17 l
' Starting with the second paragesph prefixed by a i 18 couple,of words, "We did not perform a complete 19 programmatic review of 2X QA/QC program of Comanche Peak.
20 A review of that in scope entails an assessment of all .,
l 21 QA/QC documentation such as-10 CFR 50 appendix B criteria, 22 Comanche Peak final analysis review, design specifications in the QA manual.'
23 , .
[
24 Neither the QA/QC group. nor any other TRT group 25 performed such a comprehensive programmatic QA/QC review.
s ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nco Namemmencewese u s.u H ees ed. ..n o n .s --e , -
- -_ _ - - _ - __ , , , _ ___, _ _. _.._ ,.___ ...- -r 1- - - - - - - - - - - - ' ' * ' " - ~ ~ ' - - - ~ '
l l
1942.0 IW 362 l
QA/QC group was directed to address each QA/QC allegation 2
assigned to it and to expand the scope of the assessment if 3
necessary to include management and quality implications.' '
4 Our results were based upon a biased sample .
5 initially developed from the allegations. This is noted on ~
6 page 0-5, and P-36.
Our conclusions state in many places 7
that there appear to be, in our scope of area significant -
8 i
and generic implications, an ineffective QA program. The
~
9 site QC inspection program'is less than fully effective, P-31, 10 and numerous instances of document control problems, 11 hardware problems, problems with the TRT, et cetera, t
12 challenged the adequacy of the QC inspection 134. This is 13 j written on P-35. .
14 Also SSER 9, page M-ll, also states there are
- 15 serious weaknesses in in the QA/QC program. What I want to 16 say, these conclusions, as I stated, are formulated only in 17 the scope of the TRT group's effort within the confines of 18 the boundary of the TRT effort. In other words, we took 19-tiny slices, bits and pieces that were bounded by the ,
20 allegations and put together. Our group did not assess the 21 other areas outside the scope of the TRT. That's noted on t i
22 P-1.
I think that's all I want to mention at this time. -
23 MR. ROISMAN: Let's follow up a li,ttle bit on 24 that. Do you feel that you saw enough to make your 25
, conclusions - to the extent that they refer to plant wide 4
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.noo Nedenwidecaernes sos s enes
-i? -
- w ..=e--,-.-_,,.- - - - - _ . ,,,-.%. -_.u _ , _ , . , . , _ . . , _ ,
,,..g,-, , , ,
_,,,.__,_,,,,y. . - - . , , - _ _ _ . _ _ _ , , _ _ . _ ,
24942.0 '
KSW 363 1 implications - valid?
, 2 MR. LIVERMORE: It was not within our purview to
, 3 make any conclusions for plant-wide. As I just stated, our 4 conclusions were strictly within the confines of the TRT 5 effort. That's all.
6 MR. ROISMAN:
For instance, on page P-35, you 7
indicate, after a long paragraph at the end, challenges the 8
adequacy of the CC inspection program and CPSS on a system-wid e 9 basis."
,, 10 MR. LIVERMORE: That " system-wide basis" means
- s. 11 within the confines of the TRT activity.
12 MR. ROISMAN: Do yo'u have any judgment yourself,
. 13 based upon your own experience, as to what you would expect y, 14 to find if you did the level of programmatic review that
,.. 15 you indicated at the,beginning of appendix P you didn't do?
16 If that kind of review were done?
17 MR. LIVERMORE: Anything is possible and 18 anything that's possible may have an effect, but I don't 19 have this information. I didn't do this so I can't make-20 the assumption.
21 MR. ROISMAN: You' don't have a judgment in other 22 words?
23 MR. LIVERMORE That's a different subject with 24 my background, whether I have the judgment. I did not do 25 this. It was not within our scope and it would be out of I
l I ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
3st.3st.nco Neusewideco=auss soo 336.dess
d
.942.0 W 364 l
my bounds to make enat judgment.since we only looked within 2 the TRT effort. I can't make a algebraic-type 3 extrapolation. .
4 MR. ROISMAN: On page P-29 under paragraph 4.4, .
5 you say, this is construction and testing, " following is a 6
list of these re, curring practices for which construction 7 craft personr}el was either a primary or contributing factor 8 and had a plant-wide impact." What did you mean there when 9 you used the phrase " plant-wide impact"?
10 MR. LIVERMORE: Again that "
plant-wide impact" 11- l is within the confines of the TRT effort.
12 MR. ROISMAN: You mean' that portion of the plant 13 that you looked at?
14 MR. LIVERMORE: 'That portion of the TRT offort. .
15 In other words, we did, again, a slice that was bounded by 16 the allegations. It was a biased type effort because all 17 we did were look at allegations. Therefore, within those is bounds we made conclusions like this in the area of 19 construction'and testing. .
We put our conclusions,together .
20 with the other SSER groups. These again are still within 21 the confines of the TRT effort.and that's exactly what it 22 means.
23 MR. ROISMAN: But what, in your judgment, is the
- 24 usefulness or validity of the process that you concluded.
25 Was the slice big enough to matter?
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
am.w.mo n u.c an nuses
- - ,---+c-sp- e,,.,y.---y, ---.vs-iep. - y -- - - ,m e---m
24942.0
- i KSW 365 l
MR. E.IVERMORE : The slice was big enough to 2
satisfy our marching orders that were in the detailed ~
3 guidance - technical review team guidance document June of 4 '84.
. . 5 It appears that the problem was caused, even if 6
in part, by a failure to properly implement QA or then ,
~
7 inadequate administrative management controls then
] 8 addressed this aspect. An assessment will have to be .
9 addressed. This again was a TRT administrative guidance i
i 1
10 within our TRT effort and this is exactly what I tried to
, 11 do, was follow my marching orders t' hat asked me to do this.
i 12 Did I lose track or answer your question?
i
, 13 MR. ROISMAN: I don't think you answered it 14 ' exactly. The question was: Given the scope of what the 15
, TRT was going to look at, did you look at enough of the
- 16 plant to N able to' feel that your conclusions were of any -
17 use for anything? Or did you look at something that in 18 your judgment was so narrow that except for the particular 19 thing you looked at, there is no useful implications that 20 can be drawn from it. -
21 MR. LIVERMORE:
. The answer to that is, the first 22 part of the question, yes, I feel what we did was useful in 23 that we certainly did our job as a TRT member and made 24 findings as we have here, for the effort that we looked at.
25 1 can not do any more than that.
5 ace. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. '
3347. Meg Nedsseldecosung
. MM
. , ,_. . ey-e m . nw. w , epr.e 4 par- e+ = m 76> , , , II* ** h9 *
- "_**_e**_._..'N**W88***,"m* ' *
.942.0 '
IW 366 l
1 MR. ROISMAN:
- But you were asked in that l 2 instruction and a number of places in the testimony of 3
other SSER people over the last couple days, including
- 4 Mr. Noonan and Mr. Ippolito, to looked for the generic 5
implications of the things that you were finding. Did you - -
6 feel that you had enough data to make generic impl'ication 7 conclusions? .
8 MR. LIVERMORE: Excuse me a second.
- 9 (Discussion off the record.)
10 MR. LIVERMORE: I think Mr. Hale has a very good 11 response to that if you care to hear it.
12_l MR. ROISMAN: I'm glad to hear from either of 13 you or both.
14 l '
MR. LIVERMORE: This is a collective effort.
15 We'ra just pitching in here, if that's all right.
- 16 MR. HALE: With respect to your question 17 concerning the usefulness of our evaluation, I agree with 18 Mr. Livermore it was useful and I believe perhaps the 19 purpose of it is.it did create a question for which I :
20 believe the applicant now is being asked to respor$d. "
21 MR. ROISMAN: I guess my question is, to take 22 some hypotheticals:
You could have been called in to take 23 a look at a single NCR, taken a look at it, concluded that 24' it was improperly handled, looked around and determined 25 that it was improperly handled because the person who was ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2sa. w .2700 Nenos edece,wmos m336 dm
_ - _ . _ _ . - - - - - - - _ . . . 1 -- - -.
24942.0 .
KSW '
367 1
to fill it out did not understand the procedures, gone and 2
looked at the procedures and decided that the procedures 3
. were written in such a way that it wasn't surprising that 4
he didn't understand, they weren't very clear procedures,
. . 5 and then lef t the plant. That could have been the sum 6 total of a look. Based on that look, someone could have 7
said to you, wha't's the generic implications of what you 8 just found about that NCR7 You might say, in fact, I guess
- 9 I would be surprised if you didn't say, having looked at
, 10 one NCR I don't feel comfortable saying that are any
_ 11 generic implication.
That one NCR was not done properly 12 and the procedures written for it were not proper and maybe-13 I can say it is probably the case that other people working 14 with those procedures could have run into the same kind of '
.,. 15 problem. Period.
l 16 i You look at many more data points, more NCRs, a 1
17 lot more information to look at. Did you have encugh 18 information to be able to say, when you put the cuestion to 19
. the applicant, the question does not answer my particular 20 deficiency. I found that NCR done improperly. But did you
~
~
21 have enough to say you have now a question about your whole 22 plant, generic, plant-wide and I want to know, do you think 23 you had enough t.o to able to make those kinds of 24 conclusions if you felt they were warranted? '
25 MR. RALE:
i You use the term "whole plant," and I i
l ACE. FEDERAL REPORTE.'3, INC.
ms.3c.31cs NamenwideCm m3364Ns
,.',E',,,, a 5 . * * ' ' **
_ __ . _ - . ~ . - _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ - - _ - _ _ _ _ _ ._ _
. 942.0
- W 368 l
am assuming by that you are talking about whole program.
2 No, and I don't think our SSER states that. I think it 3
does point out areas of weau.ess, areas where we perceive
- 4 that there are weaknesses or ineffectivenesses.that may be .
l . -
5 broader than what we have identified. That is the question l
i 6 that we have posed to the app.licant.
7 MR. ROISMAN: Well, was. it broad enough to call 8
i l
into question the entire QA/QC program of the plant? '
9 MR. HALE: I would not venture a guess at this 10 time. I believe that any areas that were not considered 11 would have to be justified or shown that it would not have 12 been effective by the thir.gs that we found.
13 ' MR. ROISMAN: So that if all that happened were i
14 that you write your report, you ship it off to the
, 15 i , applicants and they write back a letter to you that says, 16 no, you would have asked the question, is there any part of 4
17 the QA/QC program at this plant which you feel can be is reli.ed upon to have worked properly, and thus whose
. 1,9 construction output or the construction that there was to .
20 review could be assumed to have been done properly? Your
! 21 answer would be no, I can't conclude that. You have a 22 doubt about all of it until they answer your questions?
23 MR. BALE: I don't know if I ferrited a question 24 out of that or not.
25 MR. ROISMAN: Sometimes I give you a conclusion
- w .-
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.rm me c am.m.m.
. e e - see w --pe .e e . - - -- * -
- y. ,.% * - - - * --
24942.0 -
KSW 369 1 and says Do you agree? Let me try again. Based on the 2 information that you gathered, you put a series of
. 3 questions to the applicants.
My question to you is, absent 4
satisfactory answers to those questions, is it your opinion
. . 5 that every aspect of the QA/QC program is in question, and 6 that therefore, avery aspect of the construction at the 7 plant is in question until the answers come back from the 8 applicant and you are satisfied.
9 MR. HALE: We can only truly speak to those e- 10 areas that we identified as weaknesses. The evaluation of 11 what thati response to these will be will be considered with
~
12 respect to what we identified. That's the basis upon whi'ch tu. . 13 we evaluate that, "we" being the NRC.
- c. 14 MR. ROISMAN: How much of the CA/QC . program at 15 the plant - I'm not talking about how much of the QA/QC 16 program at the plan't have you documenced deficiencies in. i l
17 That's clear.
1 1 oc.e can read SSER 11 and that comes out 18 crystal clear. But you also had a mission to look at the
, , 19 implications of the deficiencies that you found and what 20 -I'm trying to understand'is: "
Is one of the legitimate 21 implications that you have from your look that the adequacy 22 of other areas of QA/QC that you did not look at is in 23- doubt?
24 MR. HALE: That's a part of what the committee 25 is being asked to respond to. The implications are for m
ace FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mo N *c me.nsee
942.0 W 370 l them to define. We identified those findings that are in 2 the SSER that we had with respect to that. These may have 3 further implications. I'll leave that for the applicant to .
4 address.
5 MR. LIVERMORE:
- I would like to read the SSER 11 6 here on page P-36, page P-36, first paragraph, about 7 mid-way. "2X shall evaluate the TRT QA/QC findings and 8
consider the implications of these findings on the quality 9 of construction at Comanche Peak. 2X shall then submit, a 10 program plan of schedule for completing a detailed and
, 11 thorough assessment of the QA issue presented. The 12 programmatic plans and the plans for implementation will be 13 evaluated by the NRC Staff."
14 MR. ROISMAN: The part' where there may be some
. 15 confusion in my question is . that I'm attempting to 16 distinguish between whether you believe that a particular 17 part of the QA/QC program has a deficiency. That's one l
l 18 side. The other side is, whether you believe that there is 19- doubt about the existence of deficiencies in part of the '
20 QA/QC plan, whiett doubt can only be overcome by the 21 responses that you get from the applicant. .
22 MR. LIVERMCRE: Repeat the first part of that, .
23 first.
24 MR. ROISMAN: First part is whether or not you 25 believe that there are deficiencies in portions of the ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
, as.3c.roo Nansewuse cesrass soo.3364H6
. . = _ . _ = = --
24942.0 .
KSW 371 l
QA/QC program -- and I think this is right, you do, and you 2
detail them in the SSER 11. I think this is a deficiency,
, 3 I think that's a deficiency.
4 .
MR. LIVERMORE: Yes, we pointed out many
. . 5 problems in here, inadequacy, et cetera.
6 MR. ROISMAN: Is it your judgment that the QA/QC 7
about which you are not saying anything regarding specific 8
deficiencies -- either there were not any allegations about .
9 it or whatever -- are those in your judgment in doubt 10
,e because of the deficiencies that you found in the other, a 11 doubt which you are now waiting for the applicant to
, 12 alleviate by its response?
. 13 MR. LIVERMORE: The answer to that is anything 14 is possible, but I don't have that information. All we can
,.. 15 do is present what we have, turn it over to the company.and ;
l'6 say, it is your ball, run with it and you tell us.
17 MR. ROISMAN: That sounds like -- I'm not askinq !
18 are you now convinced that other areas of the plant have 19 deficiencies. I'm asking you are you now convinced that 20 there's a doubt about the other areas of the plant which 21 wculd not have been there but for finding the deficiencies 22 that you did find.
o
- 23 MR. LIVERMORE:
I guess the answer is I thought {
24 we said it all, but from a, personal standpoint surely there 25 is doubt. Does that answer your question?
ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS INC.
...e .
an.w.mo Nesset Cm s m.H H 6e6
, +e4, e aume- , ve .e.seee e+e e =ep * >m
942.0 W 372 l MR. ROISMAN: Yes. Let's go to the section on 2 page P-36 that you just read to me a moment ago, 3 Mr. Livermore. At appears in looking at that tha t there is 4 at least two separate things that you are directed to ,
5 produce: '~
The first is an evaluation of the TRT QA/QC 6 findings and a consideration of the implication of thess 4
7 findings on the quality of construction at the plant; and 8 the second is, after that is done -- and I'm assuming the 9 "after" by "it shall then" - shall submit it to the i
10 program plan and scheduling for a detailed and thorough 11 assessment of the QA issues presented in the enclosures to 12 the supplement. Am I right that that contemplates two
. 13 separate documents?
- 14 MR. LIVERMORE: I don't think you call it two 15 separat.t. To produce anything you have to evaluate the 16 ' findings. That's what we're saying. Take this information 17 we gave you, evaluate it and come up with a plan.
4 l ,
18 MR. ROISMAN: Did you expect TUEC to provide you 19 with an evaluation? ,
20 MR. LIVERMORE: Let me throw that football over 21 to Mr. Noonan. As far as the recovery plan is concerned, 22 I'm not involved in that, and I think that's a programrnatic 23 ,
type, thing that should 'eb answered by him.
24 MR. NOONAN: Would you repeat the question?
25 MR. ROISMAN: Did you expect to receive from ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
_ wi.w.m w ,.- ann.tu.u ms
_... w_t -
-.y,-...
-___._-_~,-,~_~,.-,..,_,._,__,.
24942.0 ~
KSW 373 l
TUEC an evaluatio*n of the TRT QA/QC findings and a 2
consideration of the implications of the TRT findings on
, 3 the quality. of construction at Comanche Peak as a definable 4 work product?
. . 5 MR. NOONAN: Yes, we will expect to receive from 6 TUEC response to all of the TRT concerns raised in'the 7 SSERs. The answer is yes.
8 MR. ROISMAN: "
That's something different from a 9 program plan and schedule for completing a detailed and 10 thorough assessment of the QA issues presented in this SSER 11 11.
(.-
12 MR. NOONAN: Not different.. Part of it.
13 MR. ROISMAN:
Different in the sense that will l 14 l be answering something else. One will be evaluate, and the i
j
., 15 second is,a program plan in light of that evaluation?
16 MR. NOONAN: I don't see wh'ere you get that kind 17 of distinction. The program plan is going to address all 18 concerns by the NRC, whether a scheduler, whether they are
, ...- 19 technical or what. -
20 MR. ROISMAN:
My question is: What is
~
. 21 contemplated? And I tell you it appears on the surface 22 that it was that before you had a program plan you had to ,
23 have an evaluation. TURC shall then submit to the NRC a 24 program plan and schedule. .
25 MR. NOONAN: No, the program plan will be - the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
an.w.mo n.m u.c- me.-
-,y%v- - , - - - , . - --
- - . _ _ _ , . - ---_.___-r,_ -- -__-% ,,
942.0 '
W 374 1 evaluation will be part of the program plan. Evaluation 2 will be part of the program plan. That's what's 3 contemplated.
- 4 MR. ROISMAN: The CPRT is your understanding --
5 MR. NOONAN: Yes. The evaluation is in the CPRT. -
6 MR. ROISMAN: We got to the end, so I want to go 7 to the beginning again and I want you to describe for me .
8 how you carried out your responsibilities' under SSER 11. '
Let me explain the kinds of things I'm interested in.
9 I
10 want to know if you did independently evaluate data that ^
11 you received from the other SSER teams, how did you decide 12 which ones you would independ'ently evaluate? That would be 13 l one question. Let's start with enat.
- 14 MR. LIVERMORE: I think you got two questions.
- 15 l You wanted a mode of operation ficet of all?
16 MR. ROISMAN: I thN w= what I want.is to tell 17 you that's the area I'm talcG ag py.at. The first question 18 in the area of mode of operation is if you independently 19 evaluated any of the findings you got from the other SSER
- 20 teams, how did you decide which ones to evaluate? .
21 MR. LIVERMORE: All right, going back when we 22 were on site, mode of operation was governed by this 23 document that I mentioned before, our guidance summary.
24 There were separate groups, and nothing was clear-cut at 25 that time; and I say "nothing" because to be there - you ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2s.w.mo N e os ede c woraes son.3364ps
- = . := = := - - : : .=.. .=:.~.=-.:-- :----~ ~r --
24942.0 ~
KSW 375 1
have to realize w*e were in two trailers with a whole number 2 of people. Now, all the groups were not there working 3 exactly the same time.
The civil structural work was
. . 4 wiliding down by the time I got there. Electrical was
. . 5 almost fini.shed. I was doing no work in parallel wf.th Mr.
6 Shao. Nothing was all parallel that we could sit there and 7 collaborate daily. They had their allegations to review.
8 Our group had ours.
At that time of course we were more '
9 interested - we were interested in our allegations and we 10 had a job to do. As a result, our biggest coordination was 11
. with Larry Shao's group only because the other groups had 12 just about left by that time.
. 13 We did have not daily or whatever - we did have
.g 14 coordination of the site with these poogle. They were busy,
... 15 we were busy. When their people, t.arry's people would have 16 something they wanted to talk tu me about we would 17 certainly converse. There was no specific paper handed me 18 that said, I have a problem and I want you to address that. l 19 1 It was verbal. There were certainly some banter back and 20 forth in regards to pipe supports and steam generator .
. . - 21 supports, this type of thing.
22 Again, it was all verbal coordination. When we 23 lef't the site, we just moved on; the main coordination took 24 place with the SSERs. I.et me skip back a second. I 25 skipped one thing. During our formulation of our write-ups ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- .. .a.
anw.nm me
- c -=en mm.aus y ,,..,.,y ..
, ,e+ ~w-w ,. ~
-,.e,----- - - , - - , - . - , - , , - , , , ,---e--,-- -,-,vr,-n-.-.,-,,_w., - - - - - - - - - , - - , - . ,.g
m.~.... . . _ . . . .
-942.0 W 376 I
we were stationed at'Nicholson Lane with Larry's group and 2 the civil and mechanical. The electrical SSER was way 3 ahead of us at that time, and there was no chance to do '.
4 daily coordination with the electrical then because we were
! 5 not overlapped. They were ahead of us. ~
It was one of 6 those logistics problems. Certainly not by choice but by --
- 7 it happened that way.
8 We did do coordination with Larry's group. In l 9 the area we talked with the fellow, Chuck, that was doing 10 the fuel pool coordination there. When Larry had finished 4
11 his write-ups for his individual SSERs he asked me,to 12 review them. I did go over and comment on them. They are 13 a matter of record in the FOIA. This is the type of 14 feedback we had in there.
. 15- Again, this was not a formal-type, letter 16 writing-type. thing, it was a working-type coordination you -
17 normally get if any group of people are working together.
18 As we went on.and it suddenly became very .
2 19 apparent we were coming to the close of our effort, it"was '
20 at that time that we came up with appendix P that went 'with 21 the SSER. And the main purpose of that was to correlate, 22 coordinate and bring together all this quality assurance in 23 ,
the other group. I think it is all well defined in that
, 24 SSER.
25 Now, trying to get back to your other question i
ace-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
~~ c- = = . -
T =1 c :::: ~= :- . f . - - - . - -. - _ _ _ _ - _ . .
- - . . =. _- .
24942.0 .
, KSW 377 1
now, our main coordination for our input from the other 2 groups was their SSER.
The way we worked that, our mode of 3
. operation that we took their SSERs, split them up within 4
our group and we had a reviewer for each one. He went 5 through each one.
We took all these. items, we gathered up 6
all the tasues, put them in piles or stacks, categories, 7
and identified them to the world, so to speak, through this, ,
8 and these conclusions that we used these for -- we made '
9 conclusions on them as we were directed to - were again 10 within the confines of the TRT effort.
- ,, 11 MR. ROISMAN
What I had in mind was - let's 12 just take an example. You may remember from the discussion
~
13 earlier today with Mr. Keimig that we discussed the 14 findings with regard to allegations on the test program 15 issue. And that Mr. Keimig had reached the conclusion that 16 with respect to the test program issue,'that there was no 1 17 reason to conclude that there was an effort on the part of l 18 the company to use the least conservative or less !
_ , _ . _- 19 conservative approach in compliance with respect to 20 regulatory guides and FSAR commitments. .- .
But in the 21 document prepared by him, there were two instances which 22 '
the document acknewledged, did show some deviation from the 23 most conservative approach, and one of them eas the 24 containment integrated. leak rate test and the other had to 25 do with hot functional testing.
4 Acm FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m m.mo mm
. . . . . .8.
-. ===* ce= - . . .
_ w,_ - . , _ . , , . _ _ , . _ _ _ - - ,, _ _ _ _- , _ . _ _ , . . _ - - . . - _ _ _ _ . . . _ . . . .-_--
~
~
942.0 W 378 1
I assume that if it were true that management 2
was trying to go to the least conservative approach, 3
particularly if the justification for them doing it or the .
4 reason they did it was scheduling of costs, that that would 5
be something that was of interest to your group. My ~
6 question is pid you take conclusions such as the one 7! contained in Mr. Keimig's portion of SSER number 7, i that
- 8) .
I the TRT found no substantive reason to believe that the 9
TUEC startup management has a tendency to liberally 10 interpret FACR regulations, did you take that at face value 11 and rely on his judgment or did you in some instances see 12 '
things that made you want yourself independently to 13 ,
evaluate the underlying facts and see if you agreed about
- 14 the conclusions?
- l 15 MR. LIVERMORE:
l e
The answer to that, in gene'ral, l 16 as our people and myself went through these they were 17 instructed to look for any quality concern there.
18 Throughout these documents, to underline it, pull it out 19 and put it.in our category, pile, whatever it is. As each '
20 person read through these*, when he came upon anything that 21 was a quality concern, this is what he would do.
22 .
I don't know the answer to that specific one, 23 but if it had a quality concern that was apparent to us, we 24 would take it at face value, pull i.e out of there, bring it 25 to appendix P, review it, I would rev'iew it, Cliff would 1 .
,A O
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
sa.w.noe n wcame an.nsau
- . -..- - . -... -_.-,.._; a.--..
24942.0 .
KSW 379 I review it.
And a't that time if we felt we had to look at 2
any further or we felt at that time there was not enough 3
. information or it wasn't necessary, we didn't include it.
4 So the answer to your question, we took what was 5
in those SSERs at face value, but if we saw something out _
6 of line or felt we.had to go further, we tried to do that.
7 We are certainly not perfect, but that's what we tried to 8' do.
- 9 MR. ROISMAN: The items we were just discussing 10 in the testing appear in appendix P at P-18. And the 11 allegations are listed in AT-1 and AT-7. If you have with 12 you today the people for whom that piece of evaluation was 13 in their scope, it 'might be' helpful if one of them could
. 14 answer a couple questions about it to understand how they 15 work in specific, what findings were made in what SSER for 16 purposes of appendix P.
17 MR. LIVERMORE:
There was nothing magic about
. 18 them. We just pulled them out. We saw that type of 19 concern in there.
We then tried to bring it down into 20 short form. ..\
We may have reworded them in some cases, but '
,- 21 at least the point was if we saw a quality concern, there 22 was nothing magic about it.
23 MR. ROISMAN:
. How did you look at the question 24 of the generic implication, if any, of the two findings 25 that appear there, AT-1, AT-77 ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m m.mo -
m c== mmme
,,$ U [', [ *T._ C ~ep. e', w E ". [" < # ~
" '* * * * ' ~
1942.0 iW - 380 1 MR. HALE: Ths categories that we developed for 2 appendix P came, I guess, after we accumulated the 3 information from the other SSERs, including appendix 0 of '
4 SSER 11. Then we placed those within categories we thought 5 they best fit, and the assessment that we did of those was -
6 which ene of these categories did they most appropriately 7
fit in, and we placed it in the construction and testing 8 l category which indicates potential weaknesses in the QA/QC .
9 program.
10 i
MR. ROISMAN: Was it not relevant for the 11 i purposes of how you v'.ewed your responsibilities in SSER 11 12 if the cause of these two problems was a nanagement i
13 attitude or a training problem or an inadequately written 14 procedure, was that irrelevant to what*you'r role was in 15 SSER 117 '
16 MR. HALE: If the allegation or concern that 17' we're reviewing related to one of those issues, then we it would consider that aspect. Otherwise, we did not.
' ~
19 MR. ROISMAN: In this case, the allegation did
- 20 attempt to - the allegation said the reason these problems 21 exist is a management attitude, but it is not an a11egation '
22 that you inrestigated, it was investigated in another SSER 23 and they concluded in that other SSER that it wasn't a 24 management attitude problem.
! Now, my question is, just how L 25 did you deal with it when the other SSER had a conclusion
. . ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
_ , . _ 3eM47-3700 Nansewide Co w ner a u 336.dses
' ,. ~ '-~_ _Ti' _1_ _ . ~ .. _
_ ' R L J. _.- __ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . , , . _ _ _ . _ _ _ = _ _ . - . . . . _ . . _ _ , _ _ . - _ . . _ _ _ _ . _
-... - ... .~ ..
. ~ . . .. . . ~ . -- . . - -
24942.0 KSW ,
381 1 about that kind of a question? Did you just accept that 2 conclusion?
3 MR. HALE:
We did not deal with their 4 conclusions. We dealt with those issues which we saw as
- ~
5 within the QA or the QC program. They may not have had any-6
. relationship to the conclusion that was made within their
.7 assessment. That's their assessment, usually looking at it
- 8 from a technical issue. We reviewed those assessments for 9 indications of QA/QC problems. When we saw what appeared
- 10 to be one, then we would accumulate that for inclusion into
- v. 11 appendix P. .
12 MR. ROISMAN: I take it from what you are saying N 13 that it didn't matter why the deficiency was enere.
s Wha. t
. 14 mattered for your purposes was that it was the re , no t wha t ,
15 if you will, the root cause of it was. <
16 -
MR. BALE: That's essentially correct.
17 MR. LIVERMORE: I think I might add to that, I 18 don't want to go out.and say we didn't care why on anything.
.. . 19 I want you to understand that. ~
20 MR. ROISMAN:
~
I meant in terms of the job 21 description that you had in your responsibilitieg in the 22 SSER. .
23 MR. LIVERMORE:
We assumed that he did his job 24 correctly to the best of his ability and all we did was 25 take at face value his output.
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
w.w.vm . ... . - c -
. . a :. _ . _ ~ . - . - - .
sp.y
, _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ . ~. . . _ _ . _ . __ ___
l 942.0 382 1 MR. ItOISMAN: And the output we're talking about, 2 you took the finding output, not the conclus' ions output.
3 MR. HAI.E Well, " finding output" to me refers 4 to a specific part of the assessment, the individual 5 assessment. We looked at it for QA/QC, potential problems. '
6 We usually did not deal with the issue that one of the
, 7 other groups was assessing.
8 MR. ROISMAN: Maybe this is atypical, but what
- 9. is at least of interest about this examp1'e is that this 10 example -- and by "this example" I'm talking about the 11 testing in SSER number 7 - produced a "no action required" 12 conclusion, a conclusion essentially that the allegation 13 was not confirmed. That is, the alleger's claim that 14 management had a certain attitude is not confirmed but in
- 15 the course of their i.nvestigation, several diserepancies in 16 the applicant's implementation of FSAR commitments was
- 17 confirmed, and it appears that what you did - and I'm 18 trying to undirstand that this is something you would do --
was I sort of said, well, it doesn't really matter for
. 19
[ 20 purposes of our SSER whether that SSER thought action was "
21 required, whether that SSER thought the alleger's
- 22 allegation as stated was valid or not. What we found in 23 the SSER was a discrepancy that has an' implication for
- 24 QA/QC and we take that and put it into our SSER.
25 MR. HALE: The source of both items on page P-12 i
G t
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
1 xa w me mca me, an.n u su ,
i - --
h EE b : _ ..__ _ C .,______.[_-_._,__._ . __ '. h _..[_.I_ __I. ___ _ _. . . . _ _ _ i
4 24942.0 '
KSW 383 1
references a page in that SSER that it came from. That may 2
or may not relate to the subject you're even speaking of.
3
. . I don't know; I'm not that familiar with it, .but these are 4 items taken from that. As I and Mr. Livermore both stated
. . . 5 earlier, they may not be completely correct, but they are 6
the way we perceived them to be when compared to a 7 potential QA or QC problem.
8 MR. ROISMAN: What it appears you did here, the '
9 page I was looking at with you before was sort of the --
10 was the underlying or the overriding ' allegation of m 11 management attitude which evaluated for management attitude i
12 the two deficiencies identified in testing that had been
- c. -
13 identified in another part of that SSER. You looked at the 2- 14 one that has the finding that dealt with.the original 15 .
deficiency and not,in the management attitude implication.
16 Did you at any time loo'k at findings that were made in the i j 17 other SSERs where it was said "no problem"?
t i 18 , In other words, several pages of discussion and l i
19 it concludes, this is not a deficiency and make a judgment i g
- 20 ,
as to whether you thought in your opinion maybe it was a 21 deficiency and ought to be included in SSER 117 l 4
' s 22 MR. LIVERMORE:
1
, Would you ask that again?
23 MR. ROISMAN:
In a number of places in the SSERs 24 after investigation has concluded that there's no deviation 25 from procedures and everything was fine, did you ever after ,
(
ACE FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
as.w.mo !
" ~~~ " Nede==We cowress u n w ess l
_ - L
. . . . .. . ~ . . - . - - - - -
~
- 942.0 i
W 384 1 looking at that independently decide to reconsider and see 2
wnether you agreed that there was not a problem, or did you 3
automatically exclude from the group that you were going to .
4 put into your appendix P any case where a prior SSER had -
5 said there was no problem?
- 6 MR. LIVERMORE: To answer what you're asking, we 7
took again at face value any quality concern identified by ,
8 one of the other SSERs, but now part of our function when 9 we viewing that SSER, if we saw anything that we considered 10 a quality concern, we would underline it, pull it out, 11 whether or not the other group said it was a quality 12 concern or not. This is what we tried to do. Again, we're 13 not perfect. We may have missed something. Who knows?
14 Cliff reminded, me I think we did go there and review some 15 areas that were quality problems and pull them out and put 1'6 them in ourselves. I can't give you examples, but I know I 17 reviewed some of the areas myself and so did Cliff and so 18 did the reviewers. There was a , lot of overlap.
19 MR. SHAO: May I say something in in my area? -
}
20 when Eerb put it out, our group and his group had an 21 agreement. I don't know about other groups.
In the civil 22 structure area the QA group and our group had an agreement.
23, MR. LIVERMORE: What I think Larry is saying is 24 that we did work together in a coordination and what 25 happened, the SSER in this section, even after we pulled l
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
,,,,w.~ u- ,- mm.ua
~"*
- _ _ - . - -C '"_T.7 C. _
- 11. ,Z._'.___-,',_..._.._..-, [, . - - . - - _ _ - _ _ _ . _ _ . . - _ _ _ , _ _ -
24942.0 ~
KSW 385 1
all these out and wrote them down, it was reviewed by Larry's 2 group, Jose's group, all the other group leaders. Every 3
one of these bullets, so to speak, was reviewed by these 4
people for content, fo$m and content, and any comments they 5 wanted to talk to them about. It wasn't a case of we did 6
it by ourselves to start it off, and they certainly had an
. */ input in all of it.
8' MR. ROISMAN: As I understand it, the input was 9 they looked at what you included. It didn't as far as you 10 know include a determination as to to whether you had
, 11 improperly excluded something.
12 MR. LIVERMORE: The input was curs, and there 13 were some inputs that came from them. I guess I'm not sure z.
14 what you are saying about this excluding.
15 MR. ,ROISMAN:
Let's say that when,Mr. Shao looks 16 over* appendix P he looks for issues in his area, and it 17 doesn't appear what you are saying - Mr. Shco, did you 18 look to see if they had included all of the things you
, , 19 thought they should have included?
20 E SEAO: Yes, I did look. .
21 & ROISMAN Whether they included the right 22 things -
23 MR. SHAO: Or missed something or -
24 MR. ROISMANs Okay. .
25 Now, was any part of your responsibility under i ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
N*38 " "3" e weg w - a n+ -ge *ee== ,=e+6 am ee o e .
- - -.- --,-----------,w - - - , ,
,,.-**enea>en
, , , - , --, , - - - - - - - - - - , - - --------*-,-,-----%-- -,--v ,y-,- -- - ----- - -
1942.0 '
iW 386 1
the directione that you* operated under to identify the root 2
cause of a QA/QC related failure -- and I don't necessarily 3 mean by root cause the one absolute ali the way back to the 4 beginning of time, but did you ever have to answer the -
5 question why, why did this happen? -
G MR. LIVERMORE: Let me start at the beginning.
7 You go back to our guidance summary, the review team .
i 8 guidance. You won't' find ,the word " root cause" in there at '
9 all.
But it's inherent in this in that we were told to 10 look -- I'll read a couple of statements here: " Respond to 11 the allegation, evaluate the results, consider generic a
12 management implications."
And the last statement I read
- 13. before, we go all the way to QA program effectiveness. Now i
t 14 i when we addressed an allegation in our work, the "why,"
15 ' I'll call it, not the root cause, the why in our area, a 76 great number of cases, it was the natural result of the 17 investigation or inspectice of the allegat' ion. It is
, 18 inherent in the inspection process. You get your arms to 1
19 an allegation, you go to the extent you feel necessary to
- j 20 gather all the data points, to complete your investigation, .
21 make your observations. Now that is part of the inspection 22 process.
23 Now, we go .through our SSER. In section 0 24' you'll find a lot of cases where we did get into root cause.
25 There was nothing ever said, everybody has to go to che ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC. '
1 as.347.nco Messe=Wecearase so 336. sees -
_. , .1 .. . . . . . . . . .
l 24942.0 ~
KSW 387 1 root ..cause . If ybu go through an inspection process, the 2
root cause usually comes from appendix P, criterion 16, you
, 3 address a problem head on, get all the information about a 4
problem and then normally write a vital or an open item or 5
whatever you do, and then the normal inspection process is 6
the licensee comes back and when he comes back he has to '
7
{
address the root cause or the corrective action, and when 8 he does that then you measure him on that. -
9 If their corrective action is not correct then
. 10 you address that again. It is a follow-up thing. This
.,,, 11 dividing line, I don't think you can mix both, but let me
, 12 go back in our SSER that we did.
13 There were some examples, take the one where the 14
.g documentation problems with the occ that.was identified by l
15 everybody.
..,.. Everybody knew (t. It was a recurring thing 16 and kept being identified.
It became very obvious J:he why 17 to that was that there was a poor program for getting 18 action en a corrective action. This was identified. We 19 went further than that, went into it, and what happened, 20 when finally management knew of this beca'use they were
t
.. 21 getting the corrective action - but when they finally did .
22 take action, the problem went away. The why there was you 23 and a poor corrective action since it wasn't being 24 implemented, and secondly, management wasn't acting on it 25 so inherently we came to the why.
ACE. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
ms.w.nas Nesse.wecoveress sos.n64ses
. . . . , . _ . . . . . . ~ .
. . - . . . . . . . . . . . ~ . .
t
.942.0
,W 388 1
In section 0 we talk about 0112 and in that case 2 we mentioned the root cause. That again was following the 4
3 exception to the rule clause. I think there's a lot of .
4 details and you can read it, that type of thing. There was -
5 a problem with the valve internals during our inspection '
4 process. The why~came out of that. There was no doubt 71 about that. That was a recurring problem again that i
- 8 everybody knew about yet it kept happening so the 9 corrective action system was very ineffective. That was l'0 the why there. There are other cases where we have i
11 write-ups where we don't have the why.
12 That's part of the inspection process. We felt 13 we went far enough to identify the problem, lay it out to j 14 the company. The enample was the ,f ab shop. We never g'o into 15 backup and say what was the real ~ cause, did it go back to 16 some guy who was way back in the warehouse somewhere.. We 17 didn't feel we needed to. We identified all the problems i 18 and weaknesses, et cetera, at that point. So ag.ain it was 19 a call thing. We didn't feel it was necessary to go any 20 farther at that time.*
- 21 MR. ROISMAN: That's an excellent answer. I 22 appreciate that.
23 Did y'ou perceive that when you were asking the 24 utility to be responsive either in.a place where ycu had l 25 identified what .you thought was the why or whether you had I
i ACE.FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC. .
.. . me.w.m m coman muuss
-. :- -:: ~ . -' . ." - ._2_..
d 24942.0 "
KSW 389 1
lef t that open, that 'among the factors that they were 2
supposed to be evaluating for determining why was whether, 3
as we've indicated earlier, whether the problem lay in 4
1 . management itself, in its approach to dealing with safety
. . 5 problems, did you perceive that answering the question why 6
could go as far as to find that 'their approach was wrong?
7 MR. LIVERMORE: I guess - let me just read the 8
answer here in 0-9 where we talk about -- page 0-9. For
- 9 the record, that's the very top paragraph, second line. It 10 says, "
In addition, TUEC was requested to submit to the NRC 11 in writing a program schedule for completing a detailed and 12 thorough assessment of the QA issues presented that would
- . 13 address the root cause of each preliminary finding and its 14 generic implications in safety-related systems, programs or
, ,. 15 areas, address the. collective significa,ce of these 16 findings and propose an action plan."
17 My main thing is we do come out and say, you 18 shall address the root cau== of all these findings? Did
. .. 19 that answer your question or wasn't I detailed enough?
20 MR. 30ISMAN: .I went to know whether when you 21 put that question to the applicant do you want them to find i
22 the ultimate why? If you discover, for instance, that the --
23 let's take the example of the corrective action program ~
24 you discover that their corrective action program was not 25 being implemented. That was one why. Why didn't the Act. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. -
l an w.noe mcmanen an.nuens e , . _ _ - , , _ - . - - , - - . - - - . _ ,--c.y--_-y-,.,,.m..-__w- -.-,._,_,,,_._,_,,-____,_,,y,,-..-----,,_-.v-___,_m_.,-_._ , _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ , . - _ _ . , - - -
-. - - - - - .-- - . _ _ _ - -~ _ - .. - - -
942.0 '
W .
390 3
. 1 problems in the DCC get
- corrected? Because when they were 2
identified no one made sure the corrective action program 3 was implemented. .
4 Then you went ar.other step and you discovered 5
that management never seemed to get on top of, didn't seem '
6 to be plugged into the collective action program, 'so they 7
could use the power of upper management to say fix it and ,
8 fix it now. Would you contemplate that the applicant "
(
9 i
should also find out whether the reason that management 10 didn't get'on top of it was because management had an
! 11 attitude about corrective action that was the wrong 3 12 attitude, or will you be satisfied, consider it 13 satisfactory and stop with the knowledge it was within 14
' management, but not the knowledge as to why they did it? .
15 ' MR. IIVERMCREs I think what you're --
16 MR. NOONAN: i i What you're now getting into'is an 17' area that's the future. What we decide to accept or not 18 accept is something we have to wait until we see the 19 answers. . ~
20 MR. ROISMAN:
Surely you're not saying you wrote 21 i ,
the applicant all these SSERs and told them to respond and ~
22 had no idea in your head what kind of response would be 23 adequate.
, You don't mean t.o tell me that, do you? '
24' MR. NOONAN: No.
25 MR. ROISMAN:
, That's all I'm asking. Did you I
l Acz. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
min.mo N =* cm an+ew L_:': T ~:_ :
- ' ' ~ X 7, L - . _ _ _ _ _ - _ - .-. . .
24942.0 ,
KSW 391 1 generically throw out as the relevant response a response '
- 2 that would go all the way to Mr. Spence and say, you are 3 the source of the problem? Did you throw chaw w t and 4
leave that as something they never had to deal with?
.- 5 MR. NCONAN: At this point we have not thrown
,6 anything out nor have we made any final decisions.
7 MR. ROISMAN:
! All my question to Mr. .Livermore 8
was, do you contemplate that if necessary they should-have '
9
- to go all the way back to Mr. Spence and say, you, mister,
- 10 are the source of the problem, you have the wrong attitude?
.. 11 , MR. NCONAN: The thing you are asking is 12 basically an agency answer, not an individual answer.
- : 13 Mr. Livermore is free to give his opinion, but I tell you i +- 14 : now that it depends on what we get from the applicants on 1 -
15 .
how we respond,to that particular issus as the agency.
16 MR. ROISMAN: I a not asking you about response.
f 17
- , I'm asking you about surely you have intended that as soon j 18 as the applicant - let's take it from an earlier 19 discussion of a hypothetical. You find an instance in I
20 which a particular inspector has not carried out his 21 procedures properly and you check and you discover that he 22 was not properly trained. 'This guy did not seem to know
,t . 23 . what he was supposed to do, but 'when you go back to find 24 i
out why he didn't know what he was supposed to do, you
,; 25 found out that he always slept in the training session.
. Aca.FF.DF.RA1. REPORTERS, INC.
.: . "" " ' ~ * *
- 942.0 '
W 392 L The session was a wondert'ul session. Anybody who was awake 2 would have learned everything they needed. I assume at 3 that point you can say, we've closed off the answer to the '
4 question why. We now know the ansver. The answer is this 5 guy was a sleeper. .
6 MR. NOONAN: I'm not arguing with you. When we 7 ' get the answgr from the applicant we'll respond to it. The 8 agency, not individuals, the agency. - l 9 MR. ROISMAN: I'm aware of that. I'm trying to 10 understand whether the agency has a predisposition to say 11 that when you go as far. back as Mr. Livermore on his own 12 went in his group with regard to why did failures detected 13 i in the process in the DCC never get corrected to determine 14 , that management didn't get on top of the implementation of 15 the corrective action program, is the agency generically-16 decided and is that tailt into this question to the 17 applicant, you don't have to go any furcher? Don't find I 18 out where management didn't get on top of it? That's what
, 19 I want to know. -
20 MR. NOONAN: That's a long question, b6c you
- 21 have my position. I'm not going to argue anymore. I told '
l 22 you what my answer was. I told you what my answer was.
23 ,I'm not going to argue. .
24' MR. LIVERMORE: May I speak for one moment? The 25 normal inspection process for an NRC inspector would be to
\
- 4
\
ACE.FEDERA1. Rr. PORTERS. INC.
2nz.m.nco Nedeemseco muss son nedene
f 24942.0 .
KSW 393
$ 1 identify these items in noncompliance or whatever, then 2
forward them to the licensee and say, all right, now we
, 3 vant your corrective action.
There's one thing we don't do 4
there and one thing, I don't evet try to tell him*what to j ,. 5 do. I don't want to say you shall .*o this and this and go 6
i
- all the way up to management, and th. reason is two-fold.
7 First, it is their responsibility, and second of all, it i 8
! gives us a means to measure them when they come back on '
f ,
9 their answer and that's exactly what this is.
i We have gone
.. 10 to them and said you do it, we want your answer. Then we
.c. 11 will decide whether you went far enough or not by our 12 i review, and at the same time we'll be able to measure you,
. .:. 13 so that's what normally happens.
- d. ,14 MR. ROISMAN: And at least you don't' rule out
.T 15 the possibility that they won't have given you a
, l'8 i
satisfactory answer until they go all the way hack to why 17 didn't you pay more attention to this?
18 MR. LIVERNORE: I can't postulate but I would
! 19
> .. . say I certainly expect an acceptable answer.
20 NR. N005AN:
3
, g For the record, we 're not ruling
, . 21 out anything at this point in time.
22 MR. CEANDE.ER: Also understand when Mr. Noonan i 23 speaks of the agency,. he is project director for Comanche 4
24 Peak and can speak for the Staff.
25 MR. ROISMAN: He's not speaking for the t
I i
)
- ACE.FsDERAL REPORTERS, INC.- !
as.w.mo w.m mc= an.nsam t l
j a
I 942.0 "
W 394 !
L Connaissioners ?
- 2 MR. CHANDLER: Not yet.
3 MR. ROISMAN: This is a shock. They assured me 4 personally that he was.
5 MR. CHANDLER:
In that case, I stand corrected. - -
6 , MR. ROISMAN: Now, in your understanding of 7 these terms, the concept of a root cause, is this a .
8 different idea than the concept ~of a generic implication?
1 9 Are those two different things?
j 10 MR. LIVERMORE: Yes, I would compartmer. calf.=e or 4
11 divide them. Generic implication would be one you want to 12 look further at. Is it happening in other areas? What we 4
13 were given in here, states in our marching orders somewhere 1,4 that we are to look into the allegation and develop the
- 15 umbrella concept. .This is put forth by Mr. Ippolito where 16 you look at generic implications, which means you look ,
17 beyond the initial thing. You look in other areas.
I 18 MR. ROISMAN: .Now, was it your responsibility to
. 19 find the generic implicati'ons of all of the deficiencies -
20 that you identified?
21 MR. LIVERMORE:
The TRT guidance sumunary in 22 paragraph B-7 gave us our marching orders, says consider 23 generic / management implications.
j
~
What that means is during 24 our inspection process, that yes, we certainly keep that in 25 mind while doing our inspection process. If wu run into I
Aca FanaRAL REPORTERS INC.
{. ,
an.w.nas Nedsomescoveep sos.u w ees
- : - _ - - - . == = ~ - - - -
24942.0 l KSW 397 1
that it was their standard practice that if there was a 2
wrongdoing allegation, then they would refer the wrongdoing 3
aspect of that allegation to the OI and that they would 0
4 look at technical aspects of it. Was that also the 5 operating procedure that you used?
6 MR. LIVERMORE: The operating procedure that we 4
7 were specified to follow was any time you ca ae upon a ,
8 wrongdoing, falsification, intent to defraud, wrongdoing, 9
thar, intent is to notify. Mr. Ippolito immediately, who 10 would handle it from there, take it to OI. My instructions 11
} were to contact to him immediately, lay it on him. Pass 12 him the football, so to speak.
13 g, . MR. ROISMAN: 'Is the allegation of harassment
,. 14 intimidation or pressure on inspectqrs to keep them from 15 reporting safety problems what you would consider a 16' wrongdoing allegation? .
17 MR. LIVERMORE: The same instructions held true, is any intimidation harassment it went immediately to 19
. Mr. Ippolito. '
20 MR. ROISMAN:
SSER 11 doesn't purport to give us 21 conclusions, from your perspective, as to whether a cause 22 or the cause of any similar deficiency was the existence of 23 harassment intimidation or improper pressure.
- 24 MR. LIVERMORE: I'm not sure what all that said.
25
, We did not address harassment issues and intimidation items ,
ace.FEDERAi. REPORTERS, INC, 203 M7 MOD . . MC8"mus - . 8D M H 688
7
. --. . . _ _ . . ~ _ _ ._.. _
942.0
- W 398 1 specifically.
2 MR. NOONAN: ' Mr. . Rof.sman, just very briefly here - -
3 we're at 4:00 and we still have-not covered-the structural ,
4 items that Ms. Garde said she wanted to talk about. Just a .
5 reminder to you. ~
6 MR. ROISMAN: I can do it either way. I'm not 7 going to finish with Mr. Livermore between now and 5:00.
8 I'll do it but I'll go on and finish as much as I can.
9 MR. NOONAN: It is up to you.
10 MR. ROISMAN: Mr. Livermore, can you put the 11 role of QA/QC into a context for me as you perceive it?
12 What is it that QA/QC's function is at the plant, so that'I 13 can better understand wnat are the generic implications of 14 , some of your findings. *
- 15 MR. LIVERMORE: Let me ask you to be more 15 specific. Are you talking about the role of the TRT QA/QC 17 group?
18 , MR. ROISMAN: No, I'm talking about the ' role of 19 QA/QC in the building of a safe nuclear power plant.
I I 20 MR. LIVERMORE: The only thing I will quote was 21 10 CFR 50, appendix B, the introduction number 8 where it 22 specifies just what QA is. Says, " Quality assurance 23 . comprises all those planned and systematic actions '
24 necessary to provide adequate confid.ence that a structure, 25 system or component will perform satisfactorily in service."
. ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.tmo tsed w c o urese sousum Cr~_ **~. ~L'"~~ X ~TL -_2T _ T_ -- - -_ _ _ _ L _ _ J "_ L-
24942.0 ~
KSW 399 1 MR. ROISMAN: And is it your understanding that 2 QA/QC is the sole way to have that confidence? That's what it is there for?
3 4
MR. LIVERMORE: QA/QC, quality assurance - say
. . 5 that again, please.
6 MR. ROISMAN:
- ~
Is QA/QC the sole way to get the 7
, confidence that the plant has been built safely? .
8 MR. LIVERMORE: No, it is not. I've often said 9
you can't separate quality from the plant it has to be in.
10 Everybody is involved in qua!.ity.
- Quality assurance is the 11 responsibility of management and every group within the 12 plant. .
13 MR. ROISMAN:
But by that you mean that 14 ev.orybody, not just inspectors, ere supposed' to be 15 concerned with building a quality plant. ' '
l'6 MR. LIVERMORE: That's correct, from the top 17 down.
18 ME,.aOISMAN: In the. course of your evaluations -
19 and I realize that you indicated before that you had a 20 biased semple - you looked at allegations of wrongdoing.
- ' ~
21 Did you find any instances where the applicants had done '
22 more than was required by the regulations?
23 MR. LIVERMORE:
Excuse me while I confer.
24 (Discussion off the record.)
25 MR. LIVERMORE:
. If it is appropriate, I'll pass
. ACE.FEDERA1. REPORTERS. INC.
- a. mw noo N==
- c= me.mme n,,.-...._... _ _ __ _ _ ._- _ . _ . - . _ _ .___. - - _. _ _ _ . .
942.0 '
W 400 I this to Cliff.
2 MR. ROISMAN: You can do that any time.
3 MR. HALE:
I think of course usually as any 4
review like this, or inspection, you'r's not looking for the .
5 good things, you're looking for the things they missed on. -
6 So you don't document those things that they are doing over 7 .
and above the requirements but you look at where they are .
8 not meeting requirements.
There are some that I can think 9
of that wculd probably fall into that category, but we 10 didn't look for that. That was not what we were there for.
11 MR. ROISMAN: I,ooking on page P 27, you discuss 12 in the first paragraph, 4.1, the fact that DCAs and CMCs -
13 ,
accumulated against basic design documents with no program
. 14 requiremen't for their timely incorporation 'into the
- 15 drawings. Did you evaluate what the implications of that 16 practice wer' e for the plant's construction?
17 MR. HALE: Not as a part of our assessment.
18 MR. ROISMAN: In the next paragraph, you say 19 that there you found examples of' ineffective interaction .
20 among the engineering, construction and quality control 21 groups. Did you evaluate the implications for construction .
22 of that ineffective interaction?
23 MR. RALE:
These conclusions are just, I guess', I 24 a sununary of what the findings were in SSER 11, as well as 25 the other SSERs. We were taking it - as we discussed ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
, an.w.mo w c oeress son.ns. esse
- _ _ . :-~ ~ ~ :J.ZJ_ _ ' Z_ . ._ __ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ _ _ _ _ . _
24942.0 '
KSW - 401 1
previously, the different groupings of what we felt were
- 2 the QA/QC issues. These were'the kinds of summary 3 conclusions that we came up with. l 4 MR. ROISMAN:
My question was, given that yours 5
was the group that did see the larger picture, to what 6
extent did you attempt to assess the generic implication of 7
a conclusion that the doedmonts from which the plant was 8
being built,.to look at the one in the first paragraph, had
- 9 been burdened with what you perceived to be an excessive 10 amount of design changes and CMCs from what they should
) .,, 11 have had?
- 12 MR. HALE
. The CMCs and the DQAs, the burdening 13 of those, as I recall, were not a part of the consideration 14 2,
of the statements made in that next paragraph.
., 15 MR. ROISMAN: That's rigNt. I took you back to 16 the first paragraph and then I'll take you to the second 17' one. You got a lot - if you have a document you're
- 18 supposed to be using to build a piece of the plant with 7, 19 this document and attached to the document is 40 changes 20 .
and no one has gone back and redrawn the original plan and
- n. 21 integrated the 40 changes in, I assume that it is not 12 disputable that at least it is more difficult to construct
^
. . 23 from that than it would be had they integrated it into one.
24 MR. BALE:
There's opportunity for more problems 1
l l
25 created by that environment, yes.
1 i
i ace FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. -
-+ .- y -,,yy - y e w, -y. w-y-.---,,.n.y- -
-y-cwwn--w.-------m- -.-----__,-,-__--,cwm_.. ,------- e _-w,v-,.w ,-,mw m
.942.0 .
IW 402 l
, MR. ROISMAN:
- Did you attempt to actually assess 2
and give an opinion in this document or intend to give an 3
opinion of the implications of that for the construction of .
4 the plant? -
5 MR. ' HALE:
Are you talking about the DCAs and - -
6 the CMCs now? I did not attempt to do that.
7 MR. ROISMAN: .
Is that one of the things that you 8
are expecting the applicants to do when you have told them,
- 9 we want you to address our concerns?
10 i
MR. HALE: That could well be a part of their 11 assessment with respect to root cause.
12 MR. ROISMAN: Also their assessment with respect 13 to generic implication; is that right?
l 14 i , MR. RALE: Yes.
15 MR. ROISMAN .
Now, in the next paragraph, you ,
16 indicate "NCR dispositions'by engineers were sometimes poor 17 in judgment, lacking in analysis and in technical data."
18 Do you have a judgment as to how widespread that problem 19 was? ,Either as a percentage of what you looked at or as a ".
20 percentage of the plant?
21 MR. HALE: I think we feel like this occurred 22 more than once, and I do not recall how many times. Now 23- widespread it was is the kind of information that we are 24' seeking.
25 MR. ROISMAN: Back from the applicant?
Acs FEDERAL REPOR3RS, INC.
sa.m.mo Mo wcm an.nsee
~_-.--__-."~~~T-------=====~=== = = = = = - - - - - ~ ~
.:. .;: ==
.~..~~~-a.-...' ...
l 24942.0 KSW 403 !
i 1 \
MR. HALE: Yes.
2
~
MR. ROISMAN: In the next paragraph, you
, 3 indicate that'there was a failure of the design process to
, 4 require Gibbs & Hill to review designs and modification of '
5 pipe supports prior to fabrication and installation. Did 6 you attempt to determine why? ,
- i 7 MR. HALE: As I recall, with, respect to this 8
statement, the pipe support dra' wings were not Gibbs & Hill's
- 9. principal responsibility but that of the support vendors.
10 So Gibbs & Hill would not be required from a programmatic 11 standpoint to do the design verification; however, in 12 changing se.no supports, this could change to where some 13 supports could affe*ct other Gibbs & Hill drawings, and 14 seems as though t' hat was the flavor that was coming out of 15 that, that Gibbs & Hill was not as. involved in that process 16 as we felt,like they should have been.
17 MR. ROISMAN: Not involved enough to detect when 18 one of - their designs might be being .affacted by a pipe
, 19 support change? , ,
20 MR. RALE:
- We found in some cases that was true.
21 MR. ROISMAN: At the end of this overall 22 paragraph 4.1 the sentence is included that says, "A more 23 comprehensive assessment of this design process will be '
24 included in future SSER supplements dealing with the NRC's 25 findings from the independent SIGNA assessment program."
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
~~
~r-...... - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ . _
~~
942.0 '
W 404 l Do you know or -- this is probably for Mr. Noonan -- can 2 you give me any insight as to what the status of that 3
process is and is there still a planned SSER supplement 4 planned based on the SIGNA audit?
- 5 MR. NOONAN: The SXGNA work has not been '
6 completed by the Staff. I have not set a schedule *to talk 7 to them mainly because of the things going on at this point 8 in time. I do plan to address the SIGNA issues, and 9 whether or not I put out an SER in that particular time is 10 a question to be resolved. It could be something. I'm not 11 sure ycu'd call it SER. -
12 MR. ROISMAN: This statement may not be accurate 13 as far as a future SER supplement?
14 MR. N00'NANs It is possible. '
15 MR. ROISMAN: Was it your understanding, 16 Mr. Livermore or Mr. Hale, that the subsequent SIGNA 17 independent assessment program and the NRC's review of that 18 were going to be addressing these root ,cause, generic 19 implications kinds of questions which you have identified .
20 as needing to be answered in the design process area?
21 MR. BALE: No, it was not our understanding.
22 MR. IlOISMAN: You understood that those would 23 come directly from the applicant through this CPRT effort?
24 MR. NALE: My understanding of this additional 25 effort was going to be a technical assessment as well as a e
e 0
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. i
. MWN MW "N
~ ~~-'
- __.- .: L: _=: - - - ~
- - - - ' - ' - ~ ~ ' ' ~ ~ ~ ~
l
24942.0
- KSW ,
405 I
broader and moro In-depth look at the design quality 2 assurance process. That was what my impression was.
, 3 MR. NOONAN: Can I respond?
All the SIGNA 4
issues are treated as external issues in the CPRT and 5 responded in that method.
Treated as external issues.
The 6
Staff work is considered external issues for the CPRT. It 7 is things that they do not find themselves.
8 MR. ROISMAN: It is input to the CPRT.
9 MR. NOONAN:
They will address those.
10 MR. ROISMAN:
e.'
On page P-28 the statement appears, 11 "The TRT QA/QC group concludes that although many of the 12 document control inadequacies have been corrected, the 13 implications of past inadequacies on construction and
~
14
~
inspection have potential generie signific,ance which has 15 not yet been fully analyzed by TUEC." Did you attempt to l'6 do any analysis of the generic significa'nce of the past 17 inadequacies in this area?
- 18 MR. BALE: A very small amount, and were not t 19 successful in that.
20 NR. ROISMAN: So this was one of those places
. . 21 where, trying to follow the trail as Mr. Livermore 22 described, it just wasn't really possible within what the
. 23 scope of your work was?
24 MR. HALE: It did not seem to be beneficial for 25 us.to pursue it..
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
, mm.w.nco Names =
- ca uses mo 3364W
.._ , w ' .:
.-t----
1942.0 4 IW 406 1 MR. ROISMAN: Under the training and
. 2 qualifications paragraph, the very next one, there's a
?
reference to "The TRT QA/QC group found a pattern of inadequacies with the training certification and 4
5 qualification."
What do you mean by the word " pattern" in -
6 that context?
7 MR. LIVERMORE: What paragraph again?
8 MR. ROISMAN: 4.3 on page P-28, the first line. '
9 MR. LIVERMORE: I don't think there's anything 10 magic about that. We found a whole series of them, or 11 whatever other synonym you could use for that word you put 12 them all together, they are on the same subject.
13 , MR. ROISMAN: My question was intended to find 14 l ,
out whether you thought by using the term " pattern" that 15 ' they might have a common cause.
16 MR. HALE:
There.was commonality in some of the 17 items we found in the different training progeams.
18 MR. ROISMAN: You mean the same kind of 19 deficiencies? .
20 MR. BALE: Yes. .
21 MR. ROISMAN:
So what you are talking about is .
22 the pattern only to the extent that the deficiencies were 23 similar, not necessaril'y the causes might or did look '
24 similar. !
I 25 MR. HALE: We really didn't try to assess the
~
l
. I ACE. FEDERAL R.EPOltTERS INC.
,, sn.sc.mn wcomanne son -
v
w 24942.0 ~
KSW 407 1 cause. Some ssem* apparent, but those that are apparent 2 many times can be deceiving.
3 MR. ROISMAN: In that paragraph, you put into
~
4
. quotation marks this phrase, " minimal requirement training" 5
and later you discuss on page P-29 the exception to the 6
. rule, and use of other factors as a qualification method.
7 i Now, you will remember earlier today when we talked with 8
Mr. Keinig, we discussed an allegation in th.e testing area 9
that one way of framing it might have been to call it a 10 minimal requirement approach to testing; that is, that the '
11 applicants whenever thuy had the opportunity did the bare 12 minimum and didn't -- produced the least conservative
,, 13 approach to some testing program.
14
- Accepting for a moment that that-15
_ _characterizat, ion of Mr. Keinig is correct, did you in this 16 SSER, attempt to look for those kinds of possible 17 connections to see whether.there signt be a whole class of 18 deficiencies that looked like at least the first answer to
, 19 the why was an effort to use the minimal requirement?
20 MR. BALE:
y No, we didn't look for those types of '
- - 21 occurrences. , I think in the case of Mr. Keinig and in this 22 case, there was still compliance with the requirements, but 23
. in this case, and perhaps in the one Mr. Keinig was 24
, discussing, the problems that appeared to be having in .
25 those areas, these kinds of things could have contributed ace. FEDERAL. REPORTERS, INC.
- ... - -aliwf me M Co m es mp
- 9 e
.942.0 .
iW 408 I
to those problems occurr*ing. And I think that's the sort 2
of thing that this certainly is intended to present.
3 Perhaps a causative factor. .
4 'MR. ROISMAN: Again, this sort of final pulling
- 5 ,
together was still something that you are expecting the * '
6 applicants to do, subject to your review and input and .
7 response? .
8 MR. HALE: ~
If those are the actions that are 9
necessary to correct and prevent recurrence, yes.
10 MR. ROISMAN: Well, at the bottom of page P-29 11 you use the phrase "first level supervision." can you juse 12 explain the phrase a little bit? What does that phrase 13 l mean?
14 MR. HALE:
That's I think intended to mean the I
15 ' first level of supervision within an organization,
- 16 inspector -
17 MR. ROISMAN: First,up or the one at the top?
18 MR. HALE: First one from the bottom.
19 MR. ROISMAN:
I wanted to be sure I understood -
+
20 that.
21 Do you assume in this section on construction .
22 and testing section that there's a certain amount of 23 construction deficiencies that will go undetected even by a 24 properly implemented QA/QC. program? Is that an assumption 25
- the reason I ask that, why would you be concerned with ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.w.mo - c= mm. news
- ~ ~
e w
24942.0 "
KSW 409 I l
1 craft construction inadequacies if QA/QC is supposed to 2 pick up all the problems anyw.my?
3 MR. LIVERMORE: Well, you don't expect -- you do 4
.- not inspect quality into the systems after the fact.
. 5
~
Quality is expected to be built in by the crafts people. 1 6 MR. ROISMAN:
Maybe we ought to take a few 7 minutes. That's one of those phrases like " quality is job 8 one." It has a nice ring to it.
I ' don't know that I 9 understand exactly what it means.
10 I take it the reason we have a QA/QC program is 11 in order to produce two things: One, a group of people to 12 make sure.that it is'being done right; and two, a group of 13 ) people who are sort of policemen to make sure that the 14 people who are supposed to do it right know there's a
. 15 ' consequence if they don't.
16 -
MR. LIVERMORE: That's one of the many steps 17 along the way to assure a correct and quality product. You 18 I have design, you would have the correct materials, the 1 19 correct inspector.
This is another step along the way to 40 insure a quality product.
21 MR. ROISMAN: In that sense you do inspect 22
. quality into the plant in that the inspector plays a role 23 in assuring that there's quality there. Re didn't actually 24 weld, but he makes sure it is done right.
25 MR. LIVERMORE: That's correct; he does inspect
_ e
- w#
a ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
. . _ _ zu.w.mo so c am nues y~ r - , _ , .- -- _ _ - , - - - , - _
1942.0 '
iW 410 1 as a step along the way.*
2 MR. ROISMAN: Looking on page P-30 under 3 .
paragraph 4.5, subparagraph A, the first line says "The B&R 4
corrected action system was generally bypassed." What do '
5 you mean by " generally"? - -
6 MR. HALE: This is a summary of course, and 7 summarizes the findings of the QA/QC group and also the 8
other groups, and I would hope that 1 and 2 under that 9 would explain the general nature of those.
l 10 . MR. ROISMAN: Well, you must realize why these
\
11 terms, " generally " " plant wide," " system-wide" - I'm 12 trying toe get them into some ' context that means something 13 j in terms of licensing. Do you mean by " generally" of all
.: .14 the ones we look,ed at we generally found it 'was true? Do I -
- 15 ' you mean that we looked at so many that we can say that 16 generally throughout the plant 'it was true? That's what 17 I'm trying to understand when you use the term " generally."
18 MR. LIVERMORE: I'll try to answer that. I 19 don't think there's anything magic about that, what we ..
20 were trying to portray in that is that we found it was .
21 bypassed in the slice of time we looked at, on numerous 22 occasions, but we were not positive it was bypassed all the 23 time, for want of a better word.
That's what went in..
24 MR. ROISMAN: Still looking at paragraph 4.5-A 1, i
25 now looking at subparagraph 1, reference is made to the QA j
' ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS,'INC.
m.m.sm mcm so.m un n.s e -e s e. we. seeso, e sseres e we- ++N NNsw ==
-.=*-*N* * * " ' * -
-v .
24942.0 .
KSW 411 1 manager. Are you talking about the site QA manager; is 2 that who you mean to reference there?
3 MR. HALE: As I recall, that's correct. Mcwever, 4
we are talking about the Brown & Root corrective action
. , . 5 system.
I believe that that is the site QA manager we made 6 reference to.
7 MR. LIVERMORE: The Brown & Root site QA manager.
8 MR. ROISMAN: You meant to refer to Brown & Root's 9 site QA manager, not the overall manager?
,, 10 MR. EALE: Yes, the Brown & Root. This system
, 11 that is discussed there is not to be confused with the
., 12 nonconformance system. It is a corrective action system.
4 13 MR. ROISMAN:
I unde,rstand that. In paragraph 2,
.,g . 14 here again you are discussing a shortcut process -- that is
- . 15 your word -- that was used by Brown & Root since June bf 16 1983. Did you make any attempt to decermine why they were 17 using a shortcut route?
18 MR. HALE:
~
It seems to me that we did try to 13 l
. determine whether er not procedures. wore violated in using l 20 a method ocher than the CAR system to affect these . j t -
corrective actions. As I recall, we did not find any 21 l
22 procedural violations in this grea.
23 .
\
c MR. ROISMAN: Now at the end of this 4.5, you i -
' l 24 indicate your group found .B&R and TUDCO's corrective action \
i l 25 systems poorly structured, ineffective and poorly applied.
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC. j zu.w.mo N===-* c- an.- 1
-e
. \
l I
942.0
- W 412 1 l
Now, are you intending te refer there to the process of 2
dealing with NCR-identified problems not with the process 3 of the NCR itself? I'm confused with the systems. '
4 MR. EALE:
The statement seems to embrace'the ,
5 NCR system as well as the corrective action system. The ,
6 1 statement probably would more appropriately be addressed to 7 the corrective action system. ~
8 MR. ROISMAN: Now in the next paragraph -- '
9 that's 4.6 on page P-31 -- the second sentence says, "Of 10 particular concern were those items for which QC inspection 11 was indicated as being primarily responsible and having a 12 generic impact level of .4 (frequent occurrences that have 13 plant-wide impact) ." In the context of that statement, 14 l what do you mean by " plant-wide impact"?
15 MR. LIVERMORE- Would you lead me back to where 16 that came from? -
17 MR. ROISMAN: Second sentence of the first 18 paragraph under 4.6.
19 MR. LIVERMORE: Again, that's in the same '
20 context we spoke about before as within the purview of the ~
i 21 technical review team only. '
22 MR. ROISMAN: It is not intended by that 73 statement to. be any Lsplication for portions of the plant 24' that were not 'the subject of the TRT investigation?
25 MR. LiVL;RMORE: Again, that would be making a ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
e'9 mm.non n= c.-== so noma th. =
.=e=.bumqwme m -em * ' weem **
" * ~
)
24942.0 '
KSW 413 l
postulation that has not within our function, so I did not 2 make that.
3 MR. ROISMAN: Did you prepare any other 4 explanation of yode use of the ge'neric impact column
. 5 designations 1, 2, 3, 4 and indeterminate beyond what 6
appears in P 26 of SSER ll? Are there some backup .
7 documents to that?
8 MR. LIVERMORE: No.
9 MR. ROISMAN: Did you discuss the development of g- 10 this ranking system amerig yourselves?
c 11 MR. LIVERMORE: Yes, this was again, an a 12 integrated elective-type discussion within our group, and 2, 13 we had a meeting in trying to figure out how to attaoh an
- g. 14 importance of some kind.
We could have a chart with a
,u 15 whole group of numbers and everybody would say so what. We 16 tried to attach some method of importance to it.
17 To answer your question, this was all discussed 18 with our people. It was also part of the management chain
, , 19 also. Other group leaders reviewed this document; we did a .
20 have a prelusinary meeting with the group leaders, and a ~
~21 group of people discussed how we were going to address this 22 area, and so I guess I could say in answer to your question, 23 yes, it was a ecliective-type decision.
24 MR. ROISMAN: But to the best of your knowledge 25 no one made any notes or there are no memoranda of any 1
l l
1 ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS. INC.
mm.noe wc= mm.me
_--.. .__ _ _ , - . __ _ _ _ .=
B 942.0 '
- W 414 l
meeting that discusses *- I'm particularly interested in 2
' discussions about what you intended by the various category 3
numbers; that is, what you meant when you said " plant-wide."
4 MR. LIVERMORE: In answer to your question, no, e
$ there were no notes to the meeting, no memos. It was just 6 part of our. process of pecducing.
7 MR. ROISMAN: Mr. Hall, would you give me your
&I understanding of what is meant -- and let's just use it in l
9 the con: ext of the sentence in paragraph 4.6 on page P 10 of what is meant by the phrase " frequent occurrences that 11 have plant-wide impact."
12 MR. HALE: , I don't believe I'could give you any 13 i different description than what Herb has just described.
i .
. 14 l .We worked viry closely with one another on this, and we If were trying to place some kind of importance and it was 16 really very judgmental. The placoment of the impact 17 numbers as well as even the category under which the hit, 18 as we've called them, would have fallen. In some cases it j 19 was almost a tossup, whether it was a poor procedure or $
20 poor craf tsmanwork or a deficiency from an engineering
- 21 assistant, so I would like to make this sound very '
scientific, but it was just a help of sorts, so that we 22 23 might ge't some better view of the total QA/QC picture from 24 the standpoint only of what the TRT was doing, and is for L
25 our management as well as the'other team members.
\
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
zu.wr.mo -c mm maa l -- - --
)
l l
=
w
. \
)
24942.0 xSW 415 i
)
1 MR. ROISMAN: Was it - as it was with 2
Mr. Livermore, was it also your view that if you said of 3
some problem that it had a plant-wide impact, that that did
, 4 not mean that it had implications for other parts of the 5 plant that TRT had not investigated?
6 MR. HALE:
I believe that the phrase may 7 indicate frequent occurrences that appears to have 8 plant-wide impac?.. I think what is meant that it could 9 occur elsewhere. This type of item has the potential for
,.; 10 existing in other areas that we did not look at.
11 MR. ROISMAN: Mr. Livermore , is that your
.. 12 understanding? Maybe I d'idn't put the question right.
3 13 What Mr. Hall *just said, that it appears that it could have
.,;.,, 14 l impact in areas that we did not look at, is that what you '
.c 15 mean by that phrase? '
16 MR. I,IVERMORE: Excuse me a second.
17 (Discussion off the record.)
18 MR. ROISMAM: Would,you rea'd back his answer.
19 (The- reporter read the record as requested.)
20 NR. ROISMAN:
Mr. Livermore, do you agree with 21 that statement?
22 MR. LIVERMORE: To an extent I would say
, 23 anything is possible, and I believe that's what he said.
24 MR. ROISMAN:
The members of your group who are 25 here, do any of you disagree with Mr. Hale's statement that ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
ms M.nco Nadesmedscoverses ale D6 46es
i
<= !
. I
\
.942.0 iW 416 I
the reporter just read b*ack as to what you understood, not 2 what he understood, what you understood by the term 3 " plant-wide impact"? Can I assume that since I hear no one ,
~4 saying anything that you do not disagree? That would be -
5 your statement as well? okay. '
6 Now, on page P-32, really starting at page P-31 7 .
~
and continuing on, there's a discussion of your findings 8
with regard to the auditing program at the plant. I wonder 9
if you can tell me, what are the implications for the plant 10 of your conclusion -- that's really in the middle of page 11 P "that TRT determined auditor staf fing and 12 qualifications to be questionable, which rendered the audit 13 'j '* results for 1981 through 1983'potentially ineffective." If 14 the audit results for 1981 through '83 were actually 15 ineffective, what are the implications of that, as you ,
16 understand it, for the plant?
17 MR. RALE: I don't believe we attempted to draw 18 any conclusion with respect to what the implication of this
~
19 might be. .
20 .
MR. ROISMAN: Is that also true for the 21 statement on page P-33, the bottom of the first full "
22 paragraph, "TUEC represented it stated that there had been 23 no regular assessment or reviews 6f the adequacy of the 24 total QA programs by upper management as required in !
)
25 appendix B and as committed in the FSAR." You did not look !
i ACE-FEDERAL RDORTERS, INC.
- m.w.mo - c- so.-
_ _ = . ~
24942.0 '
KSW 417 1 at the implications of that for the plant? .
2 MR. HALE: It is an observation that we made and 3
I think we presented it as something that we factually 4 observed or were told and did not draw any conclusions from 5 that.
6 MR. ROISMAN:
Now on page 34 at' the very top of 7 the page in your conclusion on the audit, at one point you 8
talk, about the past system being "less than adequate," then -
9 you talk about the system in effect at the time of the 10 review was " questionable."
, Are those intended to 11 communicate two different levels of findings, "less than .
12 sdequate" being one, " questionable" being the other?
13 MR. HALE: I don't believe so.
R. I think what it 14 is saying is that we looked more at what hid occurred than -
15, what was going on at the time. If that makes very much sense.
16 17 MR. ROISMAN:
In other words, are you saying you 18 didn't look enough at the current program to say l
,19 conclusively that it was less than adequate, but you saw -
)
l 20 enough of it to think.there were questions about it?
- "{
". 21 MR. BALE: No, I think that it is more intended 22 to mean that we didn't look at it enough and perhaps some
! 23 of the other things, such as corrective action system 24 weaknesses, may cast a cloud over the current audit system.
25 MR. ROISMAN: Did you find that the problems in l l l
- d l
l ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
3ns.3ar.31co NeossadeCmunge sm.D64p6
942.0 W 418 1
the past audit reporting system, that any of them had been 2 corrected by the time you were looking at it in 19847 3 MR. HALE: One difference I do recall is the 4
staffing of the audit program or the audit group had been +
5 increased. '
6- MR. ROISMAN: What about the qualifications of 7 those people or did you look at that?
- 8 MR. HALE: If we did, I do not recall.
9 MR. ROISMAN: At the bottom of page 34, "overall 10 assessment and conclusions," you again make the statement 11 that - you, Mr. Livermore, have taken this tack several 12 times - "that the scope of the TRT review and inspection 13 was limited to the QA/QC concerns raised by the allegations."
14 But as I understand it5 when an allegation led you to the 15 normal natural course of things to,look at something that -
16 ' wasn't itself specifically alleged, you did go ahead and 17 take a look at that; is that correct?
18 MR. LIVERMOREs
~
That's correct.
- 19 MR. ROISMAN:
And it was really your judgment -
20 that made you decide when to stop and when to go on rather 21 l than some set of written criteria that you operated under; 22 is that correct? -
23 MR. LIVERMORE:
I would say that's correct.
24 MR. ROISMAN: Now, in the next sentence, you say, 25 " Appendix P focuses on problem areas that need further i
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
, W.W.vftm W etrueumend*nuuuse . 4Wbt%bdddA
~7 , _ _ _ _ _ _
- ---------=i-- - - - - -- '-
" ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I
~
24942.0 KSW 419 l identification." *What do you mean? What are you saying by 2 that phrase, "further identification"?
. 3 MR. LIVERMORE: Excuse me while I find my place 4 here.
5 MR. ROISMAN:
We're still in the overall 6
assessment and conclusions, bottom of page P-34.
7 MR. LIVERMORE: I think that what w'e had 8 intended there was that appendix P, that we've just gone -
9 through, which is a grouping of all the items from the 10 other groups, certainly focuses on problem areas here 11 identifit.t. We say they certainly do need further 12 identification in preparation of our corrective action plan, 13 et cetera. This is what I'm talking about when I refer to s
14 TUEC.
- 15 MR. ROISMAN:
. By "further identification," you 16 menn a further look to find other deficiencies or did you 17 mean to actually go and locate new problem areas?
18 MR. LIVERMORE: Wherever the normal inspection 19 process would take them, in other words, to perform a -
20 beneficial and acceptable corrective action program they ~
21 would certainly have to investigate to their fullest, root 22 causes, et cetera.
23 MR. ROISMAN: Did you expect that that look 24 would be limited to looking at the matters that were 25 brought to their attention by the TRT and the natural !
l
\
l ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. l
, mm.nm m c e = en am - )
. Mea em . - = _ ,
]
1942.0
- iW 420 I
l
,1 outgrowth of that or wer's you intending to say by that 2 something more?
3 MR. LIVERMORE: We were saying we presented them *
'4 with these things from our limited outlook, and then they 5 would certainly be required or we would expect them to . ,
6 follow. Where there's smoke, there 's fire, as we said 7 before. *
~~ ~
8 MR. ROISMAN: Mr. Hale, did you want to say -
9 so.ne thing?
10 MR. HALE: No, I would have said the same thing 11 differently, I believe. All we would expect them to do is 12 respond to those things which were found, wherever those 13 l led them. I think it is the former statement you made.
14 Just responding to the TRT findings, pretty much as we 15 stated on the last page of P, the next page, where those 16 investigations or studies took thein, we would expect them 17 to explore those. If the findings we made did not lead 18 them .here, I don't think we would expect them to look 19 there. .
20 MR. ROISMAN: So that to understand, sort of, 21 the pyramid structure that you saw,. if we start with the '~
22 base as being allegations, which represent the boundaries 23 of the TRT, from that the TRT produces the next level up i'n 24' the pyramid, which may not be a smooth line, because the I 25 allegations may, in the normal course of things, have ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
M347-3RD NemoemdeCearess M3364H6
24942.0 '
KSW- 421 1
caused you to look a little broader, but you still started 2 with those allegations. Now we get a TRT which is like NRC 3
allegations, and the applicant's look is to be from -- you 4
intended in these statements to say, you look at the TRT
, 5 and follow what that directs you to. You hre not expecting 6
, them to be looking at things you didn't talk about in the 7 TRT.
8 MR. HALE: I think all the questions, as opposed .
9 to allegations, raised by the NRC is what is being asked 10 for the applicant to respond to. This right here, celating 11 only to the QA/QC issues.
- .c. =
12 MR. ROISMAN:
I understand. In the next 13 sentence you say this identification of problem areas will 14 '
y facilitate the preparation of a corrective action plan. Is 15 that th'e CPRT7
..:;r Or is that something other than the CPRT as 16 you understand it, or maybe Mr. Noonan has to answer it.
17 ,MR. LIVERMORE: At the time of this writing I 18 don't think there was such a thing as a CPRT. We knew 19 there had to be some type of a corrective action plan, so 2 if that's what the outgrowth of that is - I think Mr. -
21 Noonan can answer taat.
22 MR. NOONAh The CPRT is where we are looking 23 for all this to come together. They will respond to all .
24 thi's.
25 MR. ROISMAN: I was trying to know - we 're Acs FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
asa.m.nco Nadesmideco m uss 5 0 334 4484 L -
l 1942.0 .
iw .
422 I
1 getting into lots of tetms of art but I understood 2 i corrective action plan as referring to the implementation 3
of physical work, and that problem identification was what '
I 4 .
CPRT did and corrective ' action plan was what would be done 5 subsequent.
~
6 MR. NOONAN: CPLT is what we call the third 7 party.
Tha actual corrective action work will be done by 8 the projects. -
9 MR. ROISMAN: No not the plan, just the work.
10 MR. NCONAN: The actual work. -
11 MR. ROISMAN: Still staying on this same 12 sentence --
r 13 MR. LIVERMORE: We said, their recovery plan, 14 whatever you want to call it. We didn't specify some other
, . 15 thing you had to know about. This was way back in the 16 beginning.
We didn't know what else to call it at that 17 time.
3t MR. ROISMAN: You were contemplating something y19 that included problem identification, root cause
- 20 determination and fix-it, all under that general rubric ~
21
- corrective action plan"? . <
22 MR. LIVERMORE: It is what we stated on 0-9 and .
23 ' P- 3 6 . Those are the things.
24' MR. ROISMAN: You then, in this last sentence in 25 the first paragraph, 4.9, conclude by saying "which should i
ACE-FEDERAI. REPORTERS, INC.
ms.3st-31co Nedemoissemeuss age.33H6e6
24942.0 ~
KSW 423 1
provide reasonable assurance that the facility has been 2 properly constructed." What did you mean by the word 3 "should"? If my question is not clear I'll go through some 4 options. Is it not clear?
~
I'm trying to understand what's v
5 meant in the last sentence of the first paragraph under 4.9 6 on page P-34. nfter saying "that a corrective action plan,"
7 it says, "which should provide reasonable assurance that 8
the facility has been properly constructed."
- What is meant 9 by the word "should"?
. And if it is helpful I'll give you 10 what I think are'some of the options.
.- 11 MR. NOONAN: I don't think I need that. Thank 12 you. Let me read the sentence, please.
J ., l'3 I think all we're saying in that particular zw 14
_ sentence, once we receivt the final version of the program 4 15 plan, which the staff will then go back and write a safety .
16 evaluation on it, the implementation of that program plan 17 should provide staff with reasonable assurance that the !
18 plant has been properly constructed. "Should.",
I -
19
_ , , , MR. ROISMAN: Are you intending by the "should"
' {
20 to indicate that we're expecting a corrective action plan 1
'l t
21 that is good enough that this is what will be able to be 22 determined from it. Rather than a prediction, you are '
l 23 making a prescription?
24 MR. NOONAN: I'm saying the implementation 25 should provide that. That should give us reasonable I
t
- Acs. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
EM*N O L .- - - -.-
1942.0 '
iW 424 1
assurance that they hsv# done their plant construction 2 properly.
3 MR. ROISMAN: Looking at page P-35 in the_next ._
~
4 to last - I'm sorry. Under part E, you make a reference s 5
to some craft personnel " appear to be insensitive to QA/QC -
6 concerns at. times, possibly because of lack of training, 7
tight schedules and excessive schedule emphasis by
- 8 construction management." What's the basis'for that
- 9 statement?
10 MR. HALE: These are distillations of the 11 bullets that we picked out of the other SSERs. I can give 12 some references back to some pages where there are kinds of 13 examples that gave birth to this statement.
1 14 ' ) MR. ROISMAN: Do the documents that we'll
'15 eventually see from the FOIA request, do they contain 16 someplace where you reference all the statements o'r all the 17 portions 'of the SSERs that would form a basis for that 18 statement?
19 _ - MR. HALE:
- No, I think out of the table that's $
4 '
20 .
provided, attached to the SSER, and perhaps in the .very 21
- brief descriptions that we have, for example, under .
22 construction testing deficiency types, you may be able to 23 find where those kinds of concerns came from. Let me give 24 you one example, whether it is good or not. On page P-9 25 and P-10. If you look at 'AH may not be a good example i
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. i an.w.mo 8===*c an.ns==
...7- -
___,___..1_r--- -_ r-- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
24942.0 "
KSW 425 1
of that one -- subervisor told a worker to use a piece of 2 scrap material for a hanger installation. It has no
. '3 traceability. The hanger was removed without QC 4 documentation and disposition. That is an item that would .
5 e have contributed to the statement we made in there.
6 And these statements that we are making in the 7 overall assessment and conclusion are the kinds of things 8
that we felt like the content of appendix P was saying.
9 AC-39 on the next page is an example of a crafts 10 personnel that. should have followed design documents and 11
, they don't make an attempt to find whether the design 12
_ document was incorrect or the craft personnel just ignored
. :s 13 it and the QC should have verified the replacement. That 14 would get a tick in two different places.
15 -
MR. ROISMAN:
.. Those examples seem to be ones ,
16 from which one might infer an insensitivity. How did you 17 go on to the "possibly" part of the sentence? What formed 18 the basis for your belief that "possibly it was lack of 19
, training, tight schedules and excessive schedule emphasis 20 by construction management"? '
11 MR. RALE:
It could be any one of those or none 22 of them.
23 MR. ROISMAN:
It could, have been a lot of things.
24 MR. EALE: That's true --
25 MR. ROISMAN: Why did you pick those three?.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
MEN N C"8' #N I
u.....--,.-.--- . - ~ . . . . . . . . . .... - . -.
~
'942.0 e
426 rW 1 MR. HALE: Because they were probables.
2 MR. ROISMAN: Probables based on what you had learned?
3 4 MR. HALE: No, what the text of these were.
- 5 MR. ROISMAN:
- If we went to the full write-up of 6 AC-39? As opposed to the short version that's here in P - .
7 MR. HALE: That's true. Herb just pointed out there could be other examples.
8 These are just two of many 9 in this appendix, but I think when crafts personnel do not 10 follow design documents, one can make several assumptions 11 from there as to why' this did not occur, and then when they 12 didn't, why QC didn't identify that when they came along 13 later, and I think that's all thIs was intended to do.
14 MR. NOONAN: We have indicated that it is 5:00.
15 At this point in time, if you have a finisher, I would like 16 to do it.
17 MR. LIVERMORE: Could I add just one thing here?
18 I want to tell you this: When we make these conclusions, 19 our statements, the basis for all these or the facts are '
20 somewhere in here. There's nothing hidden anywhere. I 21 guess that's all I'm trying to say. We made it from what's 22 in here,'which is appendix P, plus ours and there's nothing
- 23 floating around that we haven't shown you. You will have l 24 this and all our backup files in t.he FOIA and that's all l
25 that's there.
ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
- , , - r-- _ , . _ m-s- - - - - -. - w r - - - , - - - - - _ . - -
~ _ _ - . . . . . . . .. ... .- __ _
24942.0*
KSW 427 l MR. ROhSMAN: Mr. Noonan, on behalf of Citizens 2
Association for Sound Energy I want to thank you for making 3
this large assemblage of men and one lady available for the 4
I purposes of this meeting, and to say that at ~1 east from my e 5 perspective, I was very much impressed with their 6 professionalism /ER and the amount of work that went into 7
the documents as well as into the getting ready for these '
8 meetings, and we very much appreciate that and understand 9 that it was a potentially stressful experience.
10 I hope it didn't turn out to be in realtity as 11 l stressful as it appeared, but the Staff has obviously done 12 ;
a very monumental piece of work here and we appreciate not 13 only that you took tne time to talk to us about it, but 14, that you took the time to do it in the first place.
15 MR. NOONAN:
, Thank you. For the record I would 16 indicate that the applicant has stated that he doesn't wish 17 to comment at the end of this session today. With that I 18 do thank all the parties and the Staff. Thank you.
19 (whereupon, at 5:00 p.m. , the meeting was 20 concluded.) ~
- . 21 22 23 .
24 25 .
ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
mm.w.nco Nedos.we ca. ween ion.nH6es
= e it we em6 @ Sem e * *- + m M 3
CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER This is to certify that the attached proceedings before
- .the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of t
NAME OF PROCEEDING: MEETING OF THE NRC STAFF WI.TH CASE s
DOCKET NO.:
PLACE: BETHESDA, MARYLAND DATE: , , ,
WENDESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1985 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
( siirt Mn2 -
l 4 .,
. <T.,
KATHIE S. WELLER Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Reporter's Affiliation o
>a eso -
..a g