ML20138M778
| ML20138M778 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Millstone  |
| Issue date: | 07/17/1996 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20138M747 | List: |
| References | |
| CON-NRC-780 NUDOCS 9702260199 | |
| Download: ML20138M778 (52) | |
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I
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Title:
Interview of Paul Swetland I
i j Docket Number: (not assigned) i Location: Waterford, Connecticut
! Date: Wednesday, July 17,1996 4
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Work Order No.: NRC-780 Pages 1-47 s
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4 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA i l
2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
! l 3 +++++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW l
6 ------------------------------X 7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
9 PAUL SWETLAND : (not assigned) ,
r 10 :
11 ------------------------------X 12 Wednesday, July 17, 1996 13 14 Room 4, Simulator Building 15 Millstone Nuclear Power Plant 16 Rope Ferry Road 17 Waterford, Connecticut 18 19 The above-entitled interview was conducted at l 20 4:40 p.m.
21 BEFORE:
22 JOHN HANNON Team Leader 23 CARL MOHRWINKEL Investigator 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (4 :40 p.m.)
3 THE REPORTER: Would you raise your right hand 4 for me?
5 Do you swear or affirm under the penalties of 6 perjury that the testimony you're about to give will be 7 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
8 MR. SWETLAND: I do.
9 THE REPORTER: Thank you.
10 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Good afternoon. today is 11 July 17th. It's approximately 4:45 p.m., 1996.
12 My name is John Hannon. I'm here at the 13 Simulator Building at Millstone Station as the leader of a i
14 NRC review team looking into the handling of employee 15 concerns and allegations at Millstone during the last ten I 16 years.
I 17 With me is Carl Mohrwinkel, who's assisting in 18 the interviews this week.
19 We are on a fact-finding mission. Normally 20 I'm a Project Director in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 21 Regulation. I've been appointed to this task.
22 The reason we asked to interview you is to 23 obtain a more contemporaneous view of the way allegations 24 and employee concerns are now being processed by the NRC 25 and also get your views on problems at Northeast Utilities NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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a l' co e more contemporensous visw.
, 2 I mentioned we were on a fact-finding mission.
3 We're trying to discover what has gone wrong with the 4 process, if anything; try to identify through our factual 5 record what we can recommend for root causes and 6 corrective actions, both for'the NRC as well as Northeast !
7 Utilities, to improve the process for future employee !
8 concerns and allegations, i
9 We are transcribing the interview for two l i
10 reasons: one, so that we can focus on what you're saying 11 and not have to be diverted by taking notes, and second is 12 we want to have.a factual record of your comments that we 13 can use in our deliberations as we try to come up with 14 root causes and corrective actions.
15 We want to maintain the accuracy of your-16 transcript as best we can. So we're going to afford an 17 opportunity for you to come back at a later time and 18 review it for accuracy, make any changes and 19 clarifications that you need to on errata sheets that 20 would be provided for that purposes, and I will have a 21 handout at the end of the interview I'll share with you as l 22 to how that process works. ;
i 23 Do you have any questions before we begin? l I
24 MR. SWETLAND: No.
25 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. As I said, we NEAL R. GROSS CoVM REPoMERS AND TRANSCNSERS isas RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 review 2d calactsd Millstona discrimin tion casca, hcd a 2 number of intelviews of NU officials, employees, and other 3 individuals who have left the company, and several 4 questions have been raised about how the NRC processes 5 these allegations and employee concerns.
6 So we want to try to understand from you what 7 the current NRC practice is for handling its employee S concerns and allegations as it's being implemented in 0 9 Region I.
10 Some of the questions you may hear us ask l 11 you've already had asked before in other public forums.
12 If that's the case, you can simply refer us to where that
, 13 information exists if it is available in the public 14 domain, but really if you have -- subsequent to having had
, 15 those questions asked to you about additional thoughts 16 now, we'd be appreciative if you could share them with us.
- 17 So with that sort of an opening, let me ask 18 Carl to start with the question.
19 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Yeah. Paul, just as 20 a way of introduction, if you could state for the record
, 21 what your educational and professional background is, i
i 22 MR. SWETLAND: Sure. I'm a graduate of the i
23 United States, Naval Academy, 1971. I spent nine years in i
24 the nuclear Navy; left there; worked for three months with 25 a shipyard in Bath, Maine; and then joined the Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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- .. - .. . -- ~ . . . -
6 1 Rsgulatory Commiccion ac a rooidsnt in2psctor at Mnins {
r 1
! ,. 2 Yankee; subsequently a senior resident at Maine Yankee and 4
r 3 Connecticut Yankee; and then I was a section chief in t 4 Region I in the Division of Reactor. Projects for four !
i 5 years and another year and a half as a materials section !
t j . l 6 chief. Then I came to Millstone as a senior resident in j 7 1992. '
1 ,
I i 8 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Do you hold any j l
9 professional licenses or other -- l t
10 MR. SWETLAND: No, just certification as a NRC i k
11 inspector, as an operator license examiner and Navy ,
12 nuclear qualification. ;
I 13 Okay.
INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: In terms of 14 the allegation program as it exists here at Millstone, as l t
15 you know and as John covered in his opening remarks, we're i
i 16 doing an in depth analysis of how the process works, and 17 we're primarily talking to folks like yourself in the 18 inspection program to find out how the program works in 1
19 your view and any ideas, thoughts, corrections you may 20 have in your mind that you'd like to put on the record and 21 share with us. ]
l 22 I would just ask you as a starting point: how l
23 do you handle an allegation that might come to.you on the 24 shop floor directly from an NU employee? Somebody comes j i
25 to you directly with a concern and allegation. How do you l NEAL R. GROSS I CoVM REPORTERS MD TRANSCRSERS !
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6 I hnndle it? Wh:t do you do with it?
2 Just walk us through that.
3 MR. SWETLAND: Basically, depending on the 4 individual's level of comfort, you would take -- take the 5 information. It's important to get as much knowledge of 1
6 exactly what the technical allegation is, in addition to l l
7 information about him so that we can get back to him. l 8 You need to advise him of his -- of what our l
9 program is and what he's protected against and what he
. l 10 isn't. There are very specific checklists that we use to i 11 make sure that he understands that, to go over anonymity i
12 versus confidentiality and how that work. l 13 And at the end of your discussion with him, 14 assuming that he's comfortable just standing there 15 discussing it with you, you summarize what he's told you l 16 to make sure that he understands what you have understood l
17 about what he has said, and hopefully there's an agreement 18 there, j 19 That becomes the summary of the allegation 20 that you provide to the region, along with addendum that 21 provides more detai.1., if necessary, and you pass that on 22 to the region, and after that the region has a process to 23 panel that, to make management decision, to confirm, 24 number one, it is an allegation. Is it referable to the 25 licensee? And if not, are we -- you know, when are we NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 going to ccoign cnd who cra w2 going to cocign to look 2 into that?
r 3 And the allegation coordinator has a list of 4 administrative things that he has to do also I'm not fully 5 familiar with. 1 6 TEAM LEADER HANNON: What -- in your early 7 discussion with the individual, assuming it's comeone new l l
8 that you've not engaged in this kind of dialogue before, !
l 9 exactly how do you explain what they're protected against 10 and what the limits of their protection is? What --
could 11 you give us more detail on that?
12 MR. SWETLAND: Sure. Basically they have to 13 understand that the NRC makes every effort not to divulge 14 their identity. It's a confidential process as far as we 15 can, and that's why on the turbine deck it's a little bit 16 of an uncomfortable situation, particularly if the l 17 individuals is -- appears uncomfortable, and you would 18 offer him, "Do you really want to do that here out in --
19 out in the open?"
20 If he has no objection to that, then you would
- 21 indicate to him that our policy is that we don't divulge 22 them, and there are certain circumstances that you've have l 2
23 to enumerate to him when we would divulge them if we have 4
24 to go to court. There are other circumstances that --
25 where his identity could be inadvertently divulged or at NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 J least accumsd.
4 2 If he's already brought this concern to his 3 management and then we start looking into it, they may 4 guess that he's the one that brought it to our attention.
l 5 Our policy, you know, is that we will either acknowledge !
6 or deny what the source of our information is, but that 7 the licensee may guess. !
I j 8 And to the extent that he goes public with his l
concern, if he talks to a reporter about that same
" i 9
10 concern, it's then hard for us to maintain that anonymity. l 11 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. Do you go into any 12 discussion at this point with the individual about his DOL !
1 1 13 rights? 1 i
14 MR. SWETLAND: Basically I indicate to him 4
15 only that there are whistle blower protection requirements 16 and that if he has concerns about whistle blower 17 protection or H&I, harassment and intimidation, or 7
18 discrimination as a result of talking to him, that he has 19 those, and that -- principally that he has to make a claim 1
- 20 to someone -- to the Department of Labor within 180 days.
21 TEAM LEADER HANNON: But you tell him at this 22 point?
23 MR. SWETLAND: Only -- only if he is -- he is 24 concerned about that.
) 25 TEAM LEADER HANNON: So if he doesn't express
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9 1 any concarn cbout H&ID, you don't raise his DOL righto at 2 this point?
J
! 3 MR. SWETLAND: No. )
l 4 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Do you have any 5 screening process or is there a threshold in your mind or j within your group of residents here for a concern being 6
7 brought to you that ycu would choose not to forward to the 8 region for any particular reason?
9 MR. SWETLAND: At Millstone we wouldn't choose 10 not to forward a concern. Now, when you say " forward a 1
11 concern," whether we specifically submit it as an 12 allegation, there may be some issues that come up where l
13 you discuss with your branch chief whether it is or is not i 14 an allegation. Generally those are documented after that l 4
15 conversation. If we're not going to submit it as an I 16 allegation, there's a memo to file that says we had this i
17 discussion and we decided not to go forward with it.
18 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: But you're not doing
]
19 that unilaterally. You're checking with someone in 20 management?
21 MR. SWETLAND: Right. The criteria is -- is i
22 written on the front of the allegation sheet. You have to J
23 answer no, I think, to all three questions, and it 24 basically has to do is there something wrong, you know.
25 Is it, you know, a problem that's within our jurisdiction?
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i .a
. 1 And thor 3'O cnothar qu3ation I --
. 2 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Okay. Do you ever 3 discuss allegations or possible allegations with anybody 4 at NU before the allegations is entered into the NRC 5 allegation system or Region I?
l 6 MR. SWETLAND: I don't discuss it with them as 7 an allegation, but if there's -- it's my responsibility to 8 ascertain the significance, the potential for immediate 9 referral to the licensee if there might be a safety 10 problem. So I may, in fact, go and do some inspection 11 work on that issue if it appears that there's a safety 12 concern that needs to be done.
13 So I don't refer it to the licensee or 14 whatever, but if somebody says that there's -- you know, 15 the chemistry, you know, in a safety injection tank is 16 low, I may, in f:act, go to the control room. For that 17 condition I would go to the control room and verify what 18 the current chemistry in the safety injection tank is.
19 That's a part of our normal inspection activities, and I 20 wouldn't perceive that as divulging or whatever.
21 So we would do that, and we would provide the 22 results of that inspection in the -- in the documentation 23 of the allegation to the panel.
24 TEAM LEADER HANNON: You may have already said 25 this, but when the issue is first brought to your i
l l
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~
11 I attention, do you attsmpt to find out if tha individuni 2 has already raised it with his line management?
- 3 MR. SWETLAND
- Yes. That's one of the 4 standard questions that you ask them.
5 TEAM LEADER HANNON: And what if you find out j
' l 6 that, yes, it's been -- there's a significant track record )
2 7 associated with it and there's a lot of emotional baggage 8 associated with it because of the past dialogue that has l 9 been developed between the individual and his management 10 chain? Do you handle it any different under those 4
11 circumstances?
12 MR. SWETLAND: I don't handle it any 13 different, but again, the emphasis that I place to him in 14 asking -- I've already briefed him under what conditions J
, 15 the licensee might guess what the source of this thing 16 was, and so forth, and I would make sure that I emphasized 4
l 17 it to him when he says that he's already raised it and 18 there's this background. You know, I would -- I would ;
19 advise him that, you know, when we start to look in this, 20 there is the opportunity for the licensee to guess where 21 this is coming from.
22 I would document that history to the extent 23 that he shares it with me in the passing on because it has 24 a lot to do with the region's decision as to whether to I
25 refer the matter and where we should go with it.
t
, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okcy. Whtn wa talksd to 2 Bill Raymond earlier today, he indicated that during his 3 tenure here there was a considerable effort on the part of 4 the resident inspector staff to try and' resolve the issues l
5 that were brought up locally, so to speak. What is your ;
6 current situation there? Do you all get involved with 7 investigating and closing out the issues, or is that l
8 referred to the region, or how does that work?
i 9 MR. SWETLAND: Generally speaking, up until 10 probably late '93 or early '94, we did that. We were 11 responsible in large part for closing out the allegations 12 that came in. We had a change in the regional management 13 about that time. The new section chief and branch chief 14 had a different policy, and we became basically the 15 reporters and the immediate significance reviewers or 16 inspectors, but once we -- once we documented it and sent 17 it to the region, basically the project engineers, the 18 regional specialists closed most of the allegations.
19 There are some that we get assigned and we go i 20 do the inspections and close, but --
21 TEAM LEADER HANNON: How do you think the 22 alleger community, if you will, will view the current 23 situation with regard to NRC responsiveness to their l 24 concerns?
25 MR. SWETLAND: I think -- I think it depends NEAL R. GROSS !
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13 4 .
- 1 on how wall wa impicmant it. Wa heva o probism with
{. 2 missed expectations. The whistle blower community, r. hose 3 people that are more chronic allegers and who have in tuany 4 cases an ax to grind, as you said, there's a history I
5 behind their concerns. They have an expectation of NRC action, particularly promptness, that is not lived up to, 6
4 7 and we don't do a good job of -- although we indicate to a
8 them that this is probably not going to receive immediate l attention, that doesn't seem to allay their concerns.
9 10 We have -- we judge the safety significance.
11 That's primarily done by the panel, but we have input to 12 that, and we -- we just simply have more to do in terms of I
, 13 operational safety verification for three units, and with 1
j 14 the downsizing in the region, there isn't the frequency of 1 l 15 attendance of specialists and so forth, and so most what 16 we would term minor violations in our new enforcement 17 policy, meaning they have low safety consequences; they 18 are not likely to be -- to escalate if they were to f 19 reoccur; there's other criteria, but the bottom line is we I 20 don't place a high priority on them because there is --
s
- 21 you know, there are bigger fish to fry, and so some of 22 those are going to sit there.
23 I mean, typically I don't think it's unusual 24 to have an allegation of a minor nature sitting there for ,
4
, 25 six to eight months before it gets closed out. That --
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 i I thnt cimply 10 not m2ating tha expsetction of our 2 allegers, and it sets up a problem.
l 3 when the residents were the primary people !
4 involved in following up on this, at least there was a 5 de.ily or a weekly person that they could contact. It may 6 have been aggravating them to some extent to have the 7 residents there because they'd call us on the phone, you 8 know. "What are you doing about that?"
9 "We still have it on our list. We haven't 10 established the priority to follow up on that this week,"
,i i 11 and so forth.
12 Then they'd write or then they'd start calling j
13 our management, and they'd get the same kind of view. It 14 was -- I don't know how to cut through it, but the bottom i
- 15 line is other than somehow either changing the alleger's 16 expectation of what we will do or reacting outside the ,
- 17 safety significance, in other words, elevating this i 18 because it is an allegation to an action level that's not 19 commensurate with the other things that we're doing, those 1
20 are the only two things that I think are going to satisfy 21 the whistle blower type alleger, and the down side to that i 22 is obviously if we elevate the priority, then they're 23 going to use us as an agenda to move licensee activities, 24 which are also directed by safety significance.
1 25 So we could cause the licensee's resources to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRAPSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE N.W.
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' 8 lo l 1 b2 focussd on iccuss th t arcn't of imm2dicts omfoty .
)
I
. 2 significance.
3 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. Could you speak a )
l 4 little about the current techniques that are being used 5 for the inepection activities and how those techniques are 6 applied to the closeout and corrective action verification i 7 of the legitimate allegations --
l 8 MR. SWETLAND: Okay. !
i 9 TEAM LEADER HANNON: -- that are being 10 investigated?
11 MR. SWETLAND: If the panel has accepted and 12 it's signed an action for an allegation, the person who's 13 assigned the allegation gathers the file. Sometimes 14 they'll call and request us to gather certain reference 15 information on it. This is assuming that we haven't 16 decided to refer this to the licensee. l
)
17 Then that inspector would schedule an u
18 inspection, come up and review that item as a matter of l 19 normal NRC inspection without labeling it as an allegation 20 or whatever. The inspector would show up usually with a 21 number that he's been assigned to fill out like a week's 22 worth of inspection, and he would look into that area and 23 focus on that, on answering whatever that technical 24 concern is.
25 If tcey said that procedure is inadequate, he NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE N.W.
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--. --- I 16
- I
. I would ravisw thSt orce, focus on that procsduro, datcrmino '
., 2 whether the procedure is/ indeed, inadequate, and then 3 assess what the regulatory action should be in response to I
4 that and recommend that to his management, and we would 5 disposition the inspection findings.
l 6 Suppose that it is a procedure that is l
! 7 required by the tech. specs. to be adequate. Then we 8 would determine that that was a violation. We'd 9 administer our enforcement policy to that. If it was 10 cited, the licensee would have 30 days to respond, and 11 then when that response came in, more than not the 12 residents might get the task to review the implementation 13 of their corrective actions.
14 That would then go into another inspection 15 report to close out the violation, and at that point the ,
i 16 alleger would be issued a closecut letter by the region.
17 TEAM LEADER HANNON: How about the ones that 18 get referred to the licensee?
i 19 MR. SWETLAND: If it's -- if it's referred to 20 the licensee, the licensee gets a letter. It says, "We 21 received a concern per the attachment." The licensee 1 22 assigns somebody to look into this. They're usually given l 23 60 days to respond. They send in a letter that says, !
24 "This is what we do." :
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17 I enginner from tha ragion hec coma up during enn of hio 2 trips and reviewed the implementation and verified that I 3 the licensee said they did -- that the licensee did what 4 they said they were going to do, and in addition, during 5 the proce'ss either before or during his inspection, he 6 evaluates whether he believes the licensee's assessment is 7 adequate from our standpoint. 1 8 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Let me just follow 9 up on that because that's one of the complaints we 10 received from some of the allegers: that the NRC when 11 they properly refer an allegation to the licensee for 12 resolution, they just accept the licensee's input at face 13 value. I think the words they used were " trust but don't 14 verify."
15 And so the complaint is we just take it at 16 face value and close the file. Now, you're saying ,
i 17 something very different and very positive. Is what you 18 just said pretty much universal? Do we always follow up 19 on those or --
l 20 MR. SWETLAND: Well --
21 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: -- are there some 22 that fall through the cracks?
23 MR. SWETLAND: For instance, if our referral -
24 - we've had some referrals that have issued multiple 25 allegations or we may have an allegation that has 31 parts NEAL R. GROSS 1
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18 1 to it, cnd out of that wa dscida 16 of th2m ora going to 2 be referred to the licensee. So the response that we get 3 back may have a number of different things, and the 4 inspector may, in fact, decide to sample that response.
5 In other words, we'll read the entire 6 response. He'll make an assessment that the licensee's 7 response adequately addresses what the alleger -- what the 8 allegation was, and then he'll -- he may come up and 9 verify selected items, but in no case do I know of that we i
10 didn't do any review, any on-site review.
i 11 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. In that sense, I 12 there's also been some concerns raised that we have been 13 in the past insensitive to the needs of these people that 14 are bringing these issues to our attention, to what 15 extent can you describe the training that is currently 16 being afforded to you? Is there any effort being made by 17 the Agency to enhance our ability to deal with the 18 allegers effectively?
19 MR. SWETLAND: The only effort that I'm aware 20 of is the periodic training that we get and the 21 enhancements that are being made to the process. Some of j 22 the things that I've described to you are the result of l
23 recent, like within my tenure here, changes to the l 24 allegation process. Some of them came out of the --
25 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I understand --
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19 4
1 .MR. SWETLAND: -- prior tack force.
2 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I understand the. changes 3 that you're referring to are changes to management 4 directive.8.8 and so forth,.but.I'm more interested in 5 hearing what kind of actual training you've received to 6 enhance your. sensitivity and ability to' deal with these 7' people that could be significantly affected by having some 8 emotional baggage with having brought the issues to their 9 chain of command and not had them dealt with to their
- 10 satisfaction.
11 Then they come to you. They're already 12 potentially disenfranchised. Have you been trained in any 13 way to deal with those kind of people effectively?
14 MR. SWETLAND: No, I haven't received any 15 specific training, formal training on that. I have, you 16 know, received guidance from my supervision. I've 17 provided more training to my inspectors on that issue on 18- an on-the-job training kind of --
19 TEAM LEADER HANNON: On-the-job training?
20 MR. SWETLAND: -- training kind of basis. ;
I 21 That's -- that's the only -- l 22 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Could you give us a feel 23 for what kind of things you tell your --
l 24 MR. SWETLAND: Well --
25 TEAM LEADER HANNON: -- subordinates?
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.. . -. - . . . . . . . -. .- . . _ .- . .. .~ .
20 1 MR. SWETLAND: --
for instcnca, I m0y --
t 2 somebody may walk into the office and go into'one of the t
3 inspector's offices and 1 overhear conversations that I !
4- believe indicate that he's not being as sensitive to that -
5 guy's issues as I would have been, and depending on the i 6 circumstances, I may participate in the discussion by 7 just, you know, moving in and asking some questions and so i 8 forth, but in those cases that I've had a problem, I can, 9 you know, provide counseling to th'at inspector of, you 10 know, how I would expect him to have done his work in the 11 -- in the future.
12 There's been only one case that I recall where 13 one of these allegers has indicated to me his displeasure j 14 or lack of confidence in one of my people, cnd I tried to i
15 assure the alleger that, you know, I was sensitive to 16 those kinds of things, and it was an issue where he didn't 17 think that we were providing appropriate priority to the 18 issues, and I tried to explain to him how our policies 19 worked, again, and so forth and provided that feedback to-20 that inspector.
21 We get more comments from our chronic allegers 22 about they don't believe that the process and the people 23 that they deal with in the region if they call down there t
24 and less about headquarters -- complaints, you know, that 25 they are not approachable, if you will, but I think that's NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE,, N.W.
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21 1 juct e loval of datochmmnt in going through tha motions 2 that you would see.
3 You know, our allegation coordinator does 4 nothing but process allegations. So he treats people in a 5 I'll say bureaucratic -- that's not -- but in a standard 6 way. You know, he's going by a checklist and whatever, 7 and I -- my inspectors will tend to have a more personable 8 approach. You know, we cover those questions and those 9 issues that are there, but we'll do it as a matter of a 10 dialogue as opposed to checklist kind of approach.
11 And I would have thought that the allegers --
12 if you would have talked to allegers that have encountered 13 us once or twice, had a concern, we -- we processed that 14 allegation and got back to that person within what that l
15 person thought was a reasonable period of time, they would 16 have a very high regard, and they would call our process i
17 successful and be happy with it. l 18 Those people that are frustrated with our 19 process will probably take that out on the people also in 20 terms of lack of sensitivity and so forth, and I don't 21 think that it's that we're not sensitive, but I think the 22 process drives the person to that conclusion because we're 23 not taking action. If we're not taking action, we 24 couldn't be sensitive.
25 If he thinks we should be issuing a civil NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPGMTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 pcncity for failure to initici a work proc 2 dura and wa 2 issue a non-cited violation for that, he's going to feel 3 that we're not sensitive to his -- to his issues.
4 TEAM LEADER HANNON: One of the things that 5 promotes the feeling of lack of sensitivity is the 6 inconsistency in our -- apparent inconsistency in our 7 follow-up feedback to the individuals.
8 What is your current understanding of the 9 policy now and how we're supposed to keep these people 1
10 apprised of the progress and the status of their concerns?
11 MR. SWETLAND: I think we're supposed to 4
12 provide them with formal feedback on a six month basis, i 1
l 13 and I think we're supposed to provide periodic verbal. )
I 14 That's done out of the region. So we don't get involved l
15 with doing those status updates.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Do you think that is 17 sufficient?
18 MR. SWETLAND: Not for the person that this is I
19 about. I mean I've had people that I believe are on your !
20 list that you've talked to that we've had daily 21 discussions, and you know, that's -- when they -- when 22 they have that need, we try and accommodate that, but 23 that's -- that's what I believe the regional procedure 24 prescribed, and you know, it's not sufficient for the 25 person who we're not meeting their expectations. They NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23
~
1 vicw that no all you'ra doing is putting m2 in a -- my I I
. 2 issues in a hole, in a hopper, and you don't care about l 3 them.
4 And it probably inspires them to go out and 5 find more, and so you end up with -- you know, they raised 6 a concern. You determined it had low safety significance.
4 7 You didn't go right out and solve the problem, and they 8 went in and brought three more. You put them in the same 9 hopper, and then accumulated them together. Sometimes we 10 open an allegation, and then we -- subsequent ones from 11 the same people we put into this same allegation number.
i 12 They haven't got a new acknowledgement letter l 13 as a result of the three more that they brought in the l
- 14 next day or three weeks later or whatever, and that tends 15 to accentuate their concern or their point that we're l 16 putting them over here, and when we get a sufficient j l
17 number, then we'll send somebody out to review those, and 18 he's already got all this baggage developed, particularly 19 if he's already done battle with his department head on 20 the same issues, and we come out and we review them and we 2- say they're, you know, of minor consequence and because 22 this employee is a licensee employee, we term that as 23 licensee identified problems and go through our 24 enforcement policy and typically come out with non-cited 25 treatment to them, if that.
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24 1 And after h0ving gona through this cnd tho 2 level of frustration, we hand the guy a letter that says, 3 "Thank you for your concern, and here's the inspection 4 report that deals with this," and I would assume that 5 they're very frustrated.
6 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Do you see this as a 7 resource problem though? You've been associated with 8 Region I from your opening statement for quite a few 9 years --
10 MR. SWETLAND: Yeah.
11 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: -- in different 12 capacities. Do you think ths regional allegation 13 coordinator in Region I has enough resources and do you 14 see that as the root of this problem?
15 MR. SWETLAND: I believe the NRC's process for 16 allegations does not envision the kinds of allegation work 17 load that Millstone provides. If you're getting an 18 allegation every quarter, the system handles that very 19 well. It goes in. It gets assigned. There's very little 20 other things going on typically at your normal plant that 21 would allow or that wouldn't allow you to place a somewhat 22 abnormal priority on that issue. Because it's an 23 allegation and because it's there, you just go out and you 24 get it off the plate.
25 You just can't afford with Millstone and the i
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2s i lsval of cetivity -- you crn't efford to go do that
. 2 because that's all you do all day. So you -- you know, 3 the management position is you try and make economies of 4 scale. You try and refer those that you can. You try 5 and accumulate them together so that, you know, you can be 6 efficient in closing them, and the end result is you 7 appear to be nonresponsive to the individual raising the 8 concern.
9 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: What would you 10 estimate is your percentage of time personally and for 11 your resident staff here, the percentage of time they 12 spend following allegations?
13 MR. SWETLAND: Up until '93 '94, I would say 14 30 percent maybe, 25, 30 percent. After that, fairly low 15 because the new -- the region took over the focus on that.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: You also -- you indicated 17 a few reasons why the individuals bringing the concerns to 18 the NRC would be frustrated. Are you aware of any effort 19 that has been made by the region to encourage individuals 20 that are bringing their issues to the NRC to use the NSCP 21 program?
22 MR. SWETLAND: In almost every case, we've 23 asked the license -- the alleger whether they're --
24 whether they've raised the concern to the licensee and in 25 what form. If you --
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26 1 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I think you establichad ,
2 that earlier. What I'm asking now is have we made a 3 concerted effort to ask individuals who are giving their 4 concerns directly to the NRC, "Could you go back and use f 5 the NSCP instead of coming to us?"
4 6 MR. SWETLAND: No, we've asked them whether 7 they have.
f i 8 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay.
9 MR. SWETLAND: We haven't pressed them, and 10 the reason for that is that from -- I believe from a 11 regional policy standpoint, there's been substantial 12 concern about the licensee's process and whether or not if 13 the license -- if we force them to go there, we're going 14 to have to go do the review anyway because the individual 15 isn't going to accept the answer that the licensee gives 16 them. So we could tell them to go there. They go there, 17 get an unsatisfactory answer, and then they'd come to us, l l
18 and then we'd be answering not only, you know, the 19 original allegation but why the license's NSCP wasn't i
20 successful in doing it.
2 21 In other words, we had substantial people 22 coming to us and their original allegation is: I brought l 23 it to the NSCP, and they're not -- they're not doing me 24 any good. We just didn't have the confidence to do that.
25 Now, the opposite coin is the referral policy, NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS j 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 j 1 cnd perticulcrly whsn thsy rsorg nizsd tha NSCP, I think
,- 2 it was 19 -- late 1993, put Chatfield in place, and so
)
3 forth. There was a period of time when because they had 4 this new process and so forth we did from a referral I
5 standpoint send more to them.
6 TEAM LEADER HANNON: But, you know, you're not 7 aware of any pressure that the NRC has put on individuals 8 to try and use NSCP after it got reorganized? ,
l' 9 MR. SWETIAND: No. All we did -- I mean I 10 personally asked people, you know, "Did you go to the 11 NSCP?"
12 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I understand, but --
13 MR. SWETLAND: And, you know, if not, why not, 14 to try and understand what their perspective on the new 15 organization was, but I didn't tell them they had to.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: No, I wasn't directing it 17 to you in particular, but in general --
18 MR. SWETLAND: But I don't think my people 19 would give you any different answer.
20 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay.
21 INVESTIGATOR MOHRW}NKEL: What's your view of 22 the appropriateness of the severity levels attached, civil 23 penalties that have been issued to NU for big ticket, high 24 profile H&I cases in the last few years? Do you think 25 they're --
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\. 28 1 MR. SWETLAND: I think from O -- from a !
2 realistic standpoint they have not been effective. !
3 They're -- you can see built up that the licensee is 4 spending enormous resources in their legal staff and their 1 i
5 licensing staff and so forth to -- to dissuade us frem )
6 taking these actions, to indicate that what they're'doing 7 is their legal prerogative and so forth, and they -- I 8 don't have a figure -- but they win a substantial number 9 of those, those cases.
10 Those that they don't, they pay 100 --
I think l
17, 200,000 is the most we've given them, and my guess is they {
1 r2 view that as victory because their response to the notice 13 of violation is, "We continue to assert that these are not 1
14 violations, that we didn't do anything wrong, but you ,
1 15 know, so as not to belabor this, we're paying you the 16 money." And then they provide their standard chilling 17 effect letter, other words in there about how they have a 18 new program, and they emphasize these things.
19 And they've done things like the nuclear --
20 there was a training session that they went through, the 21 entire management staff, and I think it's had some level 22 of success, but when you evaluate the overall tone and the 23 level of cases and so forth, I just don't think we've made 24 our point, and we'll have to see how this case of the l
25 people that were laid off in January -- we'll have to see l
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29 1 how that --
you know, that's ultimately tha ultimate.
If there are allegers in that population, t
2 3 people who should have been protected and this matrix 4 decision-making process they had was formulated such that '
5 it would single those types of people out, that will be !
l 6 th'e ultimate in the legalistic approach that they've --
l t
7 they've provided to this.
8 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Do you present have i
9 performance measures in your performance elements and i l
l 10 standards that are geared to your performance in the
~
11 allegations and employee concerns area?
12 MR. SWETLAND: Yes.
13 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Are you -- is your i
14 performance evaluated in that area? ;
15 MR. SWETLAND: Yes.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Periodically? Has that 17 been the case all along or is that --
l 18 MR. SWETLAND: As far as I can remember. We l l
t 19 have standard elements and standards that as far as I know ,
20 alike to all residents and others, and it's in one -- the 21 criteria has bounced from one element to another in 22 different versions, but it's there.
I 23 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. Do you feel that
- 24 there's a sufficient level of accountability in the Agency 25 for the processing of employee concerns and allegations?
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3'o !
1 MR. SWETLAND: Yes. Tha preceribed level of
, 2 performance is that you understand and implement the 1 1
3 Agency's' policy and procedures on allegations, and I think 4 that, you know, most inspectors that I've known, and i 5' managers, have earnestly tried to do that. !
j 6
I've indicated that I don't think the process l 7 does us well. I think we largely follow the process. 1 j
8 We've made -- in Region I we've tried to make economies of 9
scale because of the situation we find ourselves in in 10 certain plants, but the intent is to meet what the 11 policies are. I just think that the policies are destined 12 to be aggravating to certain individuals because we -- we 13 are unable with the safety perspective, enforcement 14 policy, and resources that we have available -- we're 15 unable to reach their -- certain people's expectations.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay, and you have told' 17 us that you have counseled some of your people relative to le cheir performance and sensitivity in handling allegations.
1 l
19- MR. SWETLAND: Yes. '
i 20 TEAM LEADER HANNON: So you're -- you are ;
21 monitoring their performance relative to their performance 22 or their performance. standards --
23 MR. SWETLAND: Yes.
24 TEAM LEADER HANNON: -- and their performance 1 25 elements.
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l
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,. 31 l I
l 1 Okay. Could you just teko o minute end
!. 2 describe what you understand the process is if an H&I case l l 3 is filed with Department of Labor and our Office. of l
4 Investigation initiates an investigation? How does that - l 5 - have you had a chance to observe that process, and can l l
6 you tell us what happens during an O&I -- an OI '
l 7 investigation?
l 8 MR. SWETLAND: I've had little direct contact i I
9 with the specifics of the OIs, but I've had peripheral 10 contact with the Office of Investigations' activities. l 11 But if the person goes directly to the I I
12 Department of Labor without coming to the NRC, then the !
l 13 regional office has a liaison and gets contacted with the ;
14 Department of Labor acknowledges the case, and what we j 15 would do at that point is hold an allegation panel and 16 describe what -- assess what we needed to do. I 17 Generally speaking, we wait for the Department 18 of Labor to reach their decision-making. We get 19 reinformed at certain levels. When an area director makes 20 a decision, they'll allow us or they'll inform us what 21 that decision is. l 22 We will reconvene a panel at each one of those 23 points because we want to assess whether or not we need to l l
24 jump in, and the Office of Investigation participates in 25 all of these allegation panels. So that's how they get NEAL R. GROSS !
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4 32 1 thair insighto into thsos things. At any point they can 2 decide --
3 TEAM LEADER HANNON: That's what I --
4 MR. SWETLAND: -- unilaterally to jump in.
5 TEAM LEADER HANNON: That's what I was trying 6 to get to though. Let's suppose that that has transpired 7
and OI has decided they need to do an investigation. Have 8 you been in a position to observe what occurs on site when 9 that investigation takes place?
10 MR. SWETLAND: I may have participated as a 11 technical person on one or two investigations, but not a 12 large -- generally they're conducted off site, and they go 13 about their business, and we' don't become involved with 14 them.
15 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. Do you have any 16 other comments'you want to share with us to help us more 17 fully understand the issues in Region I before I move la quickly to the comments you might have on the NU process?
19 MR. SWETLAND: I just feel that the process we 20 have overall is not designed for success. It simply is 21 not focused to use normal regional priorities, safety 22 significance, resource priority, and so forth, in order to 23 provide instant gratification to allegers, which is what 24 their primary interest is.
25 They've_come to you. They think there's an l
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l 33 l 1
1 issue, and you'ra bnsically scying, "Wa rogar for your
- j. - 2 issue, but we have prioritized it here," and that's j'
3 precisely what Northeast Utilities does also, and if j 4 there's been an interface with Northeast Utilities, this l 5 thing may have been going on for a year on their side.
6 Then it gets brought to yours, and if you're going to add 4
7 six to eight months to that, you're going to aggravate the j 8 situation.
l- 9 And, you know, outside of putting abnormal
- j. 10 priorities on these, which may be what the recommended 11 solution is -- that's not my perception of what Region I 12 is doing.
13 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I understand, but you've i
14 painted the picture of why you feel that the process is
! 15 designed -- not designed for success. Could you offer any i
l 16 constructive comment on how we could redesign it so that 17 it could be successful?
18 MR. SWETLAND: I think we have to have a 19 recognition point, a trigger point at which time we 20 establish a focal group whose only responsibility is to 21 handle allegations for a certain either utility or 22 licensee or, you know, whatever it is.
23 We have done that at several times, when we 24 get in extremis. We're overloaded. We're not meeting the 25 goals of getting rid of these things within 180 days and .
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'1 I
34 1 co forth.
Whsn tha barn counts cnd trcnds ctort to show
. 2 that we're not doing it, we find some people. You know, 1 l
3 we assign them to the Millstone issues. We've gotten 4 contractors up here before to follow up on things, and we
. 5 go into an overdrive mode.
6 But at the same time, because they're driven 7 by the incentive to get the things closed out, I don't S
8 think we do as good a job as we would normally in terms of 9 sensitivity, the person's issues, being personable with 10 the individual and so forth. Once you get that group in i 11 there driving, that's what we have to address.
12 I think the system would work very well and 13 does work very well for most of our licensees, and when it 14 becomes more than a collateral duty of what your normal
-15 day-to-day activities are and it starts to build up, 16 that's what causes, you know, frustration to build on both 17 sides.
18 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Do you have any other 19 questions, Carl?
20 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: No.
21 TEAM LEADER HANNON: I just want to, since 22 we're here, we'd like to take the opportunity to also get 23 any thoughts you might have on the NU process problems.
24 We have completed our deliberations on the material that 25 we had collected up until a couple of weeks ago, but we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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- , 35 1 interested if you have any insights you could chara with 2
us as to what you think the issues are and particularly l
~3 with regards to how NU is handling the employee concerns
$- 4 and allegations.
5 MR. SWETLAND: Northeast -- I think Northeast I j .6 has two primary problems that I've been trying to, you 1
, 7 know, address for all the time I've been here. The first 1
8 and the most important is they don't have an effective 9 corrective action process. They don't intend to fix
{
10 things in a quality and timely manner. They intend on j 11 evaluating problems away and to procrastinate fixing them.
i 12 That's the way their system works. It's designed very
- l. 13 clearly to evaluate, to justify, and to they call it s
i
- 14 prioritize, but prioritize means, you know, you have a 4
- 15 list of ten items today and you add five to it tomorrow, i
l, 16' and they're ones that you want to do, and so if this has a 17 low priority, it essentially will never get done.
l j 18 And all our violations go into the same a
j 19 hopper. Issues that the operators want fixed go into the l 20 same hopper. It's frustrating to the entire Northeast 21 Utilities work force, and some of them are more prone to
{ 22 frustration with that, and they'll get to some particular
- 23 point, and they've had it, and they don't think that's
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24 good enough, and they think that maybe the NRC will do 4
- 25 something about it because, in truth, our f.indings tend to i
i
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i h
~
. 36 i gat a little bit highar priority th n it normmily would i 2 have with the utility.
3 That sets them up for this problem because if 4 somebody comes to you and he has a concern, he's not 5 coming to you, you know, just to tell you and walk away.
6 He's coming to you because he wants you to fix it. All b 7 right? And there's a certain select few that won't take 8 no for an answer, and they become your chronic person, and 9 then you get personality clashes because it definitely is 10 built into the licensee's culture that this is the way it 11 is. You know, you evaluate carefully. You justify, and 12 then you prioritize, and if you have somebody saying, 13 " Wait a minute. I don't buy that program. You know, you 14 evaluate it, and I don't think you did a good enough job 1
15 because if you had evaluated it the way I did, you would l
16 have fixed it tomorrow," so that's -- that's the primary 17 instigator of the chronic alleger problems that they've i
18 had here, and we have uut done a good job in getting the 1 1
19 licensee's attention on that corrective action process.
20 We've repeatedly hounded them about having a )
21 quality concerns program, but the concerns program suffers !
22 from the same thing. You can have the best guy sitting 23 there listening to the concern, and when he goes and 24 provides that to the department head and the department ;
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i - 37 t 1 that thct'o, you know, acesptchle for right now. Wa 2 corrected the immediate problem, and we're going to
- 3 establish a program over the next 18 months to evaluate 4 and solve the bigger issue," then this concern program 5 writes that.down and they feed that back to the !
6 individual. That's the same answer he got from his 7 department head. I 8 And they keep it open for 18 months waiting 9 for something to happen. The licensee deiays that because 10 other thitys became higher priorities. Se it may be three ;
4 11 years now and, you know, the whole focus has changed and 12 they've added things to it and so forth.
13 I think they have a genuine intent that if
{
14 they ever get down to that level that they'll actually
. 15 work on it. They just never do, and that's -- you know, i
16 that's the focus.
t f 17 So the concerns program doesn't have -- the i 18 other thing they are doing, I think, a credible job 19 addressing and that's the personalities issue and so
- 20 forth, and the only thing that still lags on that is they
- 21 very quickly get into a legalistic approach. Right now 22 they've had so much trouble with the DOL cases and the f
23 settlements and whatever, whenever a department head i-24 becomes aware, you know, of an allegation that they think,
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38 d
1 go into thic circle tha w:gons kind of approsch,'end now 2 all of a sudden every time the department head has a 3 meeting with the thing, there's somebody from Human 4 Resources there, you know, and then they start talking 5 about, well, maybe you guys -- after a while they say, 6 "Well, maybe you ought to go to the employee assistance 7 program," and they look - "what? Do you want me to take 8 a psychological exam?"
9 And all these things that they do that are i 10 sometimes genuine efforts to try and cut through lack of 11- communication between the two individuals and so forth, 12 they tend to backfire, and the stories get out. Now the l
13 people expect it. So when the licensee implements that, !
{ 14 you know, they are automatically, "This is the process.
15 You know, the process is I raise a concern. You don't fix 16 it. I raise a stink. You send me to the EAP. You give 17 me several letters and whatever, and ultimately you fire 18 me."
19 That's what they believe -- the employees 1
20 believe the process is, and if they get themselves in l 21 there and they start seeing those things coming true, then 22 that's reinforcemant to them.
23 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Do you believe NSCP 24 is moving in the right direction? We understand they're 25 getting more staff and so on. You have described a very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TFWNSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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_m 39 significant end, I think, real and problem of concern to 1
2 us, but do you see it moving in the right direction or is a
- 3 the NSCP stagnating and becoming part of the problem?
l' 4 MR. SWETLAND: It can. It can be moving in 5- the right direction. All of the things that we've seen 6
before have been moving in the right direction, only with 7
a vision that's so shortsighted that it never was going to 8 be effective.
9 In other words, if you can do anything you
{
- 10 want.to the NSCP organization, if the licensee's 11 corrective action philosophy and process does not support i
12 you, you won't -- you won't get the problem solved and, 4
! 13 therefore, you won't satisfy the customer.
s 14 The latest proposed changes that they're
, 15 talking about, they're going to increase the resources.
16 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Standardization.
i 17 MR. SWETLAND: Right, and they're going to get
{
i
- q. 18 resources so that they can actually do the stuff on their 19 own to some extent, to do investigations on their own and i
i 20 so forth. That provides a potential that we haven't seen 21 delivered upon, but the point being is you wouldn't need 22 that if the line was doing their job, and therein lies --
{:
23 that's why we've made corrective actions a start-up issue H 24 for the units.
25 In our view, at least in my view, that's -- we a
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- . . _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _. , . _ . _ , , _ _ .. i
40 1 nccd to cddraoc that. You know, if wa gat tha lina 2 management focusing on issues and correcting them, the 3 NSCP -- you know, any of the prior NSCPs could have been 4 successful if they had a quality corrective action program 5 backing them up. They didn't. So they've languished.
6 They've -- the one think, I believe, that the managing for 7 nuclear safety process was the best thing that they've 8 done. That's where they gathered all the managers in.
9 They gave them definitive criteria. They put them through 10 case studies. They put them through in-the-field 11 exercises to talk about their -- you know, that are 12 videotaped to talk about their mannerisms and, you know, 13 how they're coming across body language-wise and so forth, 14 and I think those things are the types of things that will 15 help to change the culture ultimately if they're solving 16 the problems they're being asked to solve.
17 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Do you think that 18 NSCP as it exists today is getting enough management 19 support? Do you think there's a senior management 20 champion for that program or are they kind of floundering 21 around by themselves?
22 MR. SWETLAND: Prior to January of '96, I 23 would have said no.
24 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: No?
25 MR. SWETLAND: They report. The NSCP is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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I 41 !
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- 1 reporting up to end including tha chairman of the board, I
}. 2 believe. It's not working. You can -- I hope you've l
- 3 talked to Chatfield. He'll tell you it wasn't working.
! 4 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: How about since
- 5 January of '967 i
- 6 MR. SWETLAND
- But since January of '96, i
7 you've got him reporting to Miller, and it's directly l 8 Miller's responsibility. Now Miller spent the last six J
l 9 months defining his organization. I'm not ready to
! 10 declare victory that he's doing a better job. He asserts i 11 that he has ' chat as his primary objective. I
- 12 If he delivers on that, then, you know, then I i
13 think it will have been a change for the better, but I'm l
14 not --
you know, I see no evidence that I can point to l
I l
{ 15 that says they are successful now.
16 l 17 18 S here's a lot of questions yet l
19 unanswered about that, and I go back to people will be
) 20 satisfied even if they're not getting the proper respect l 21 in treatment. They will be satisfied if they raise a j 22 concern and it gets solved.
i 23 over a period of time, you know, that will 24 sink in. If they want to do it more efficiently, this new l 25 NSCP may be the way of it. You know, I have a lot of NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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... _. -. . -= ..
.. 42 1 recpset for Chntfield. H3'c -- h2'o a p3oplo parcon. f
' i 2 He's very sensitive, but I don't think that he had the 3 support . drive that through. I 4
I observed some of the case studies that he p 5 presented to senior managers, and some of the managers who
- 6 were_just openly -- just denied that he had a point. You 7 know,' "this is baloney." I've seen one, and he's told me j 8 about at least two others.
9 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Were these senior 10 managers or first line managers?
, 11 MR. SWETLAND: Director level --
12 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Director level?
l 13 MR. SWETLAND: -- people. I don't believe 14 he's told me about any senior --
15 TEAM LEADER HANNON: But this occurred prior 16 January of '967 17 MR. SWETLAND: This was before January of '96.
18 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Well, certainly you've 19 put your finger on two of the issues that we had 20 identified, the lack of an effective corrective action 21 program and the personality -- the management sensitivity, 4
22 employee issues, first line and above, and you've 23 indicated, I think, that you think there are maybe steps 24 that may be being taken to get after those issues.
25 But what troubles me about this entire NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 l 1 davalopm:nt io why it took co long for thtm to coma to
. 2 that recognition. I would expect some sort of an 3 oversight function, a QA function, or somebody, quality 4 organization overseeing the activities of what's going on 5 at this facility and with the NRC resident inspector staff 6 nibbling around the edges, keeping the pressure on 7 identifying the problems with the corrective action 8 program.
9 Where was the oversight function? Where was 10 the quality function? What was happening to it during 11 this time?
12 MR. SWETLAND: Been known to have been 13 ineffective. Just like everything else, quality assurance 14 was an organization designed to meet the required -- the 15 minimum standards of Appendix B, 10 CFR 50, Appendix B, 16 the quality assurance requirements.
17 It has been represented as being a paper 18 tiger. The licensee does the same things. Their 19 ineffective corrective action process is the same thing 20 for QA. Up until last year QA had never issued a stop 21 work order because management wouldn't respect them or 22 wouldn't look kindly upon that. l 23 They observe the entire fermaniting (phonetic) 24 episode in 1993, watched it, was concerned about, told j 25 their management about it. You know, management -- it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (
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_ _ . . m. . . . _ _ - . - .---- - - -. - - - - - - - -- --
- 7
- 44 i 1 didn't go to tha lina manegsmsnt. Ths-QA mancgemsnt- ,
j
[ .
. 2 didn't go to the line management and say, "We've got to-4 l
,_ 3 stop this. This is not-the right thing," because the'y i I
i 4 were pretty much satisfied that management had decided 1
j 5 that's what they wanted to do and they weren't' going to -- ~I j '6 th'ey weren't going to buck the thing. l j 7 And as I said, we focused on these things, and j 8 other than the 44 -- the fermaniting of_the valve 1 1-9 incident, they -- all the examples have been not of i 10 significant safety' consequences. So you focus on them one i 11 at a time essentially. You end up with, yeah, you've got '
12 to deal with that. Soft scores in the SAQV were Category s.
13 3 when we had SAQV because QA was ineffective and because l
14 oversight was ineffective and.because the licensee was 4
9 1 15 ineffective in correcting longstanding problems.
4 l 16 But that was okay for NU management. They i
j- 17 didn't see a need. As long as it wasn't affecting their 18 bottom line, they didn't see a need to aggressively attack 19 these things. That's why -- and it's not for lack of i
20 resources. They spent $140 million or somethin.g like that 21 on the performance enhancement program. QA was a major 22 program, and corrective action effectiveness was a major l
23 program in the performance enhancement program. They had, 24 you know, deliverables that they were supposed to do.
25 They gave tremendous bonuses to people for meeting those i
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45 1
daliverables and nsvar onca botharad to go out end sey, !
- r. 2 "Did the deliverables achieve any improvement in the 3 field?" I 4 They didn't -- they didn't care about that.
5 All they cared about was here's the process. Did we 1
6 complete the process? We had to really push them to come l 7 up with a validation and verification program. It took 8 them years to initiate it. When they did the first four 9 efforts, I think, three out of the first four came out 10 unsat., and then they just started the process again.
11 Well, let's try again. ,
12 And finally, over the period of years, the NRC 13 frustration has just welled up, but the safety 14 significance of the issues that the NRC had to deal with-15 did not raise to them. So that's what I'm saying.
16 Artificial priorities, if you will. We have to look i 17 beyond the individual safety significance. You have to 18 look at the broader issues, aggregate a number of smaller 19 issues, and take action.
l 20 Those are the things that we have started to.
21 do, and then the spent fuel pool issues hit the street. I 22 would gather that the NRC staff is taking a quite 23 different approach with the advent'of the new chairman and 24 so forth. She's got some by the book -- much more by the 25 book philosophy, and you know, we're starting to utilize i
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.46
^
1 thio,'cnd thio may be tha first of -- you know, who knows 2 what other utilities-are out there taking advantage of the 3 same perspectives?
4 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Well, I'm glad we were 5 able.to spend the time with you this evening, Paul, 6 because it helped corroborate some of the findings tihat we 7 --
t 8 INVESTIGATOR MOHRWINKEL: Very much so. Very i 9 much so.
10 TEAM LEADER HANNON: -- have come up with, and 11 we also are very interested in getting your views on the 12 NRC process issues.
13 Before we close out, do you have anything else 14 you want to share with us? i
- 15 MR. SWETLAND
- No. That's it.
16 TEAM LEADER HANNON: Okay. This is the l 17 handout I mentioned I'd give you earlier.
18 MR. SWETLAND: Okay.
19 TEAM LEADER HANNON: That just describes the i
20 process we're going to use to have your transcript i 21 1: viewed for accuracy, and our transcript custodian will l l
22 be getting in touch with you soon to have that 23 accomplished.
! 24 If there are no further questions, then we'll
- - 25 conclude the interview now.
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'l Th':nk you.
2 (Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the interview of 3 Paul Swetland was concluded.)
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5 6
7 8
9 10 l
11 1 12 .
i 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 l
20 21 !
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A e
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached Proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: INTERVIEW OF PAUL SWETIAND Docket Number: (NOT ASSIGNED)
Place of Proceeding: WATERFORD, CONNECTIUT were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
. fl.
- ,N. ,W PAUL THORN Official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
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l