ML20138Q047
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- 1 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISslON Office of Inspector and Auditor o i.., i,.n,c,,,u.
Feb rua ry 10, 1984 Report of Interview Peter K. Van Doorn, Senior Resident Inspector (SRI), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Catawba Nuclear Station (NS), Rock Hill, South Carolina, was interviewed concerning his knowledge of NRC's handling of various allegations raised by welding inspectors employed by the Duke Power Company (DPC) at Catawba NS. During the interview Van Doorn provided the following infomation in elaboration of the testimony he provided to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel in the matter of Catawba NS:
In July 1980, as a result of information developed by George F. Maxwell, the SRI at Catawba NS at that time, that welding surveillances were not being properly documented, Van Doorn visited the Catawba site and reviewed records which documented surveillances.
Van Doorn's review of the records disclosed that during a several month period their were no records in the records vault documenting surveillances being conducted by welding inspectors.
During interviews of first line supervisors, Van Doorn learned that random welding surveillances were being conducted on a regular basis as required by the quality assurance (QA) program that DPC committed to as part of Appendi.x B, 10 CFR. However, the fact that surveillances were being conducted was supposed to be documented on DPC QA Form M-19.
The types of problems typically discovered during surveillances and documented on a Form M-19 were minor and did not appreciably affect the quality of work, and Van Doorn never got the impression that welding inspectors were not following up on significant nonconformances with proper documentation. Additionally, any significant problems not documented during surveillances would be identified later during required code inspections.
Van Doorn opined that the lack of documentation was the result of a misunderstanding on the part of the inspectors concerning when the M-19 forms were supposed to be completed.
Van Doorn concluded that the surveillances were being completed but were not I
being properly documented.
Van Doorn documented his finding as Item 3 on Inspection Report 80-15, and, consequently, a violation was issued for improper documentation of surveillances.
Because the problem was a documentation problem, the violation issued was the lowest category.
Van Doorn did not review any of the black books that the welding inspectors allegedly used to document their findings.
Inspection finding 80-15-03 was eventually closed out in Inspection Report 80-24 In February 1981, Van Doorn began his assignment as SRI at Catawba NS. When Van Doorn arrived at Catawba NS he'was not aware of any current, concerns of QC welding inspectors. Region II had corducted a special inspection at Catawba NS in November 1979. A requirement of this inspection was a minimum 8511140346 851017 PDR FDIA GILINSK85-437 PDR io,n.,,,,,, February 1, 1984 Catawba Nuclear Station
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,,,,,,,, February 10, 1984 THIS DOCUMENT IS PROPE ATV OF NRC. IF LOANED TO ANOTHER AGENCY IT AND ITS CONTENTS ARE NOT TO BE DISTR OUTSIDE THE RECEIVtNG AGENCY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE OFFICE OF INSPECTOR AND AUDITOR.
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of 30 craftsmen (including quality control inspectors and craft foremen) involved in safety related work be randomly selected and interviewed privately. They were asked whether they had any concerns'about quality of construction; were they aware construction which did not meet prescribed codes or standards; and were they aware of any problems or irregularities affecting quality that NRC should be informed of.
Twenty-eight persons were selected at random and interviewed. An additional twenty-nine persons came forward on their own to talk to the NRC inspectors.
None of the persons interviewed had any knowledge of substandard work that had not been found by quality control (QC) and corrected. The results of this inspection were documented in Inspection Report 79-21.
In January - February 1981, a trial construction team inspection was conducted at Catawba.
Durin number of DPC personnel (including QC personnel)g this inspection, a large were interviewed concerning any indications of harassment of inspectors or workers and the relationship between different work groups. As a result of this inspection, which was reported in Inspection Report 81-02, it was learned that employees were free to. express opinions and that no one believed that they might be pressured or harassed into performing or accepting low quality work. The inspection developed no indication that craftsmen and inspection personnel were not working well together. Van Doorn was aware of the findings contained in these inspection reports and there was nothing to indicate to Van Doorn that there were any widespread QC inspector problems at Catawba NS. Van Doorn could recall only two incidents in 1981 regarding inspector complaints.
In August 1981, a DPC inspector came to Van Doorn's office and complained that nonconforming items (NCI) were not properly handled.
Van Doorn followed up this concern which eventually resulted in an NRC violation. A second incident occurred in December 1981, when Van Doorn received an anonymous note which stated he should look into an incident of harassment of a welding inspector.
Van Doorn was also infomed of this incident by DPC at the same time.
Van Doorn, as a result of his review of this concern, concluded that DPC took adequate corrective action as a result of this incident.
Van Doorn stated that other than these two incidents, there was nothing to indicate any widespread problems.
To the best of Van Doorn's knowledge, the concerns of the welding inspectors first became apparent in the Fall of 1981, when during discussions with welding inspectors over a pay adjustment, DPC learned of concerns of welding inspectors that included technical issues.
As a result, in December 1981, DPC informed NRC Region II that a DPC task force was fomed to look into these At the end of December 1981, the task force completed its report.
concerns.
In January 1982, DPC received additional technical and non-technical concerns from welding inspectors; therefore, DPC appointed a second task force to investigate the technical concerns. These welding inspectors' concerns were first detailed by DPC to Region 11 and Van Doorn during a meeting on January 29, 1982, when they were informed by DPC that a second task force was formed to review all concerns of welding inspectors at Catawba and a consultant would review the task force results.
DPC requested to be allowed to pursue their investigation on their own and that they would provide all the information to NRC for review.
Near the end of February 1982, DPC appointed a third task force to investigate the non-technical concerns expressed by the welding inspectors. Both the technical and non-technical task forces completed their investigations on March 19, 1982. The task force made many recommendations for correctise action on the part of DPC.
3 Van Doorn's involvement with the welding inspectors began on February 1,1982, when the three welding inspectors came to him and informed him of technical and non-technical concerns.
Again, on March 3,1982, another welding inspector came to Van Doorn and expressed a technical concern. All of the concerns provided Van Doorn had already been discussed with DPC.
Van Doorn believed that the welding inspectors did not think they were being supported by management in their efforts to implement the welding QA program.
The welding inspectors thought the second and third level QC supervisors leaned too much toward construction and did not want the welding inspectors to write NCIs on violations.
They also made broad allegations of possible harassment and that they were told by their supervisors to sign corrective action records they did not agree with. The welding inspectors claimed DPC would attempt to
" whitewash" the technical concerns of the welding inspectors.
In his memorandum to Alderson, Van Doorn used the word " falsify" to describe the situation where welding inspectors signed corrective actions they did not agree with. The word was used only by Van Doorn, not by the welding inspectors, and was intended only in its broadest meaning.
Van Doorn used this word to describe to Region II the concern of the welding inspectors that they were pressured to sign documents they did not agree with.
Van Doorn also noted that the term " whitewash" was used by only one welding inspector.
From his interviews with the welding inspectors, which took place over several days, Van Doorn determined that the major non-technical issue was inspectors signing for items they disagreed with and harassment.
The technical issues raised involved DPC compliance with procedures and handling of NCIs. The welding inspectors were also ~ concerned that NCIs which had been written in the past had not been properly evaluated and documented.
Van Doora determined that in regard to the technical concerns, the specific issues would have to be evaluated to determine whether significant technical discrepancies had occurred as a result of possible DPC mishandling of discrepancies identified by welding inspectors.
As a result of the concerns expressed to him by the welding inspectors, Van Doorn telephoned his supervisor, Jack Bryant, Chief, Reactor Projects Section, Region II, NRC, and reported the results of the interviews of welding inspectors. Additionally, he documented the interviews on two memoranda, dated March 15, 1982, which he forwarded through Bryant to Carl E. Alderson, Director, Enforcement and Investigation Staff, Region II. Jack Bryant directed to Van Doorn to conduct preliminary reviews of the DPC task force efforts to ensure adequate records were available for a future, more detailed, review by NRC. Van Doorn explained that since the welding inspectors had 4
initially reported their concerns to DPC, DPC was given credit by HRC for first identifying and reporting the concerns.
For this reason, it was decided that DPC would be allowed to perform its own evaluation of the concerns and to implement corrective actions.
Subsequently, NRC would conduct an in-depth evaluation to determine the adequacy of DPC actions.
Additionally, in accordance with Appendix C, 10 CFR Part 2, since DPC identified the concerns to NRC then an NRC violation would only be issued if the deficiencies were determined to be at severity level I, II, or III. Van Doorn emphasized that the decision to allow DPC to conduct its'own investigation into the welding inspectors' concerns was in keeping with NRC policy.
Since DPC reported the concerns to NRC in a timely manner and formed a task force to address the issues, DPC indicated their willingness to cooperate with the NRC.
Additionally, since there was no 'uel on site, there e no imediate threat to public health and safety.
4 During February - April 1982, Van Doorn conducted a preliminary review of each of the concerns that had been provided him by the welding inspectors.
Van Doorn discussed the concerns with DPC inspectors and the progress of the task force with DPC management.
Van Doorn also reviewed DPC documentation and the original concerns provided DPC by the welding inspectors.
Van Doorn held discussions with DPC engineers, construction and QA/QC management, tech-nicians, and inspectors and he did not notice any reluctance by DPC to conduct a thorough and accurate evaluation.
During Van Doorn's preliminary review, he. determined that although he could not identify any significant hardware discrepancies, there were strong indica-tions of a communications problem within the QA Departnent.
Some QC inspectors were signing for NCIs they were not sure were acceptable. Conse-quently, the inspectors believed they were not being fully supported by their supervision regarding implementation of the QA program. Van Doorn explained that many of the NCIs written involved interpretation of procedures to ascertain whether an NCI was appropriate.
It was within the authority and responsibility of second and third level QC supervisors to make these decisions.
In the few instances where a mistake was made, it was an error in judgment and not an attempt by QC supervisors to cover-up a deficiency, for example, a decision to accept an NCI made by a QC supervisor that should have been made by a design engineer. Although some procedural deficiencies were not documented because of a faulty judgment call, Van Doorn identified no significant hardware problems that went uncorrected.
During the time that Van Doorn conducted his preliminary review of DPC task force efforts to ensure DPC conducted a thorough inquiry with complete documentation.
Van Doorn held regular telephone discussions with Bryant, Alderson, and other Region II management and investigative personnel.
Van Doorn also discussed the situation with James Y. Vorse, Chief Investigator, Region II, and during May - June 1982, sent him a memorandum with copies of concerns, some technical evaluations, and a two page DPC general task force report.
In the memorandum Van Doorn used the words falsification and harassment to emphasize issues; however, these terms were used to describe what was really disagreements between inspectors and staff.
Van Doorn stated the memorandum to Vorse was procedural in nature and meant to inform-him of the problems at Catawba.
It was not a request for assistance.
During the discussions with Region II management, it was decided that Van Doorn could adequately look into the welding inspectors' concerns by reviewing the work of the two DPC task forces; therefore, Region II decided that pending further developments there was no need for involvement by Region II investigators.
Van Doorn documented his preliminary review in Inspection Report 82-21/82-19.
In August 1982, Van Doorn began a detailed review of the findings of both the technical and non-technical task forces.
During this review, Van Doorn ensured every welding inspector concern had been addressed and appropriate corrective action had been taken by DPC.
Van Doorn verified on a sample basis that corrective actions were implemented by DPC. Van Doorn also reviewed the procedures and NCIs brought up by welding inspectors in their concerns.
He conducted formal interviews of 19 welding inspectors and 9. welding inspector supervisors. These interviewees included the site supervisors mentioned in the welding inspectors' concerns and other supervisors, plus all 15 inspectors who had technical concerns, the 13 inspectors who had non-technical concerns,
5 and two inspectors who had no concerns.
Additionally, during his review, Van Doorn addressed four specific concerns of Region !! that C.E. Alderson identified in a September 30, 1982, memorandum to Jack Bryant, Van Doorn's supervisor.
Concerning the non-technical concerns of qualifications of inspectors, adequacy of technical and management support, resolution of NCis, responsibilities of QC personnel, implementation of procedural requirements, falsification, and harassment, Van Doorn concluded that the basic, problem was lack of comunication, primarily within the QA Department. Reasons for management and technical decisions were not comunicated to the inspectors.
Management personnel believed that they had good reasons for the decisions they made and were not attempting to cover up safety sicnificant deficiencies; however, some of the issues were not sufficiently documented. This lack of communication caused the inspectors to doubt the ability of QA management and technical personnel to make valid decisions about the QA program.
Lack of communication was a significant problem in regard to feedback of NCI evaluations which resulted in the inspectors not understanding the reasons for many of the decisions made by their management pertaining to NCIs.
Van Doorn's review of the technical concerns of welding inspectors disclosed the DPC technical task force properly evaluated the technical concerns and made appropriate recommendations for corrective actions.
Van Doorn reviewed a sample of the corrective actions and concluded they were being properly implemented. During his review of the concerns, Van Doorn could identify no significant technical discrepancies at Catawba which had not been corrected or were being corrected at the time of his review.
Van Doorn determined that the comunications problem within the QA Department caused many of the technical concerns of welding inspectors.
Due to the lack of corrtunication, inspectors did not trust management and were not willing to accept management decisions o
as being correct. Many of the technical concerns pertained to the handling of NCIs. The DPC technical task force made appropriate recomendations to correct these problems. This problem with NCIs had already been recognized by NRC in early 1981 and Inspection Report 81-02 documented several violations of the DPC NCI program.
Van Doorn, apart from the task force, had been reviewing NCIs since 1981 and had continued his review of all NCIs for about two years.
At the date of interview, Van Doorn was reviewing NCIs on a sample basis. The fact that Van Doorn could identify no significant technical discrepancies during his review of the task force efforts, indicated to him that the DPC inspectors did not allow any pressure they felt cause them to allow signifi-cant deviations from requirements.
Interviews that Van Doorn held with inspectors indicated to Van Doorn that in spite of the pressures, the QC inspectors maintained a high degree of integrity.
Regarding the issue of harassment, Van Doorn's review of DPC documentation revealed that DPC took what Van Doorn considered to be appropriate actions.
DPC comunicated to
- craft personnel that intimidation, coercion, and kidding of QC inspectors would not be tolerated.
A QA Department Harassment Procedure was implemented which was reviewed by Van Doorn.
Van Doorn noted that the problems between inspectors and craft included situations of inspectors being sworn at; being called liars; and being threatened by having a rifle pointed at an inspector off-site, an inspector being threatened with being pushed off a scaffold, or an inspector being told he was going to get his teeth knocked out. All of the allegations involving harassment were historical, the last
6 one occurring in 1981.
Van Doorn did not investigate these incidents because of their age; however, Van Doorn inspected the hardware that may have been effected by harassment of a QC inspector and identified no hardware problems that resulted from harassment.
Regarding the issue of falsification, Van Doorn's review revealed that although inspectors had signed their approval for inspection items they disagreed with, there was no falsification.
In these cases, the supervisor believed his decisions were justified and he had the authority to make the judgment in question.
Van Doorn did not consider this method of obtaining inspection approval appropriate because it did not specifically identify the person responsible for making the decision to accept an inspection item.
Van Doorn's review disclosed that all of the specific instances cited by QC inspectors were addressed by the technical task force and no technical inadequacies having safety significance were found.
DPC implemented a clear policy which required that inspectors not sign for items they do not agree with and supervisors not require them to do so.
As a result of his review of the DPC Technical and Non-Technical Task Force results, Van Doorn detemined that DPC properly evaluated the problems and made appropriate corrective actions.
It was noted that the insper % rs went first to DPC management with their concerns and DPC reported the c..; erns to NRC. NRC Enforcement Policy states that an NRC violation will normally not be issued if the violation is Severity Level IV or V and has been identified by the licensee; therefore, Van Doorn had to ascertain if there were any violations identified at Severity Level I, II, or III.
If any Severity Level I, II, or III, violations were identified then NRC policy requires that these violations be considered for escalated enforcement even though they were identified by the licensee.
During Van Doorn's review, he did not identify any Severity Level I, II, or III violations; therefore, no notices of violation were issued.
Van Doorn believed that NRC conducted a thorough, independent, and objective review of DPC's handling of the welding inspectors concerns. Additionally, NRC will continue to monitor DPC actions to ensure their effectiveness in correcting problems identified by DPC inspectors.
The fact that no signifi-cant technical discrepancies were discovered during the inspection of welding inspectors' concerns, indicated to Van Doorn that the QA program at Catawba was working.
On December 20, 1982, Van Doorn discussed Inspection Report 50-413/82-32 and 50-414/82-30 with George W. Grier, DPC Corporate OA Manager.
This inspection report documented the results of Van Doorn's final review of DPC Task Force actions concerning welding inspectors' concerns.
As a basis for discussion, Van Doorn prepared a synopsis of interviews he conducted of welding inspectors and QC supervisors concerning their perceptions of the effectiveness of the DPC task force.
During the briefing, Van Doorn provided Grier a copy of the synopsis. Van Doorn asserted he did not violate the confidentiality of any of the individuals he interviewed because the interviews were scheduled through the first line supervisors and were overt interviews conducted on site. The DPC Task Force had interviewed these same individuals because they were the people who first reported their concerns to DPC. Additionally, confiden-tiality was not even an issue because no names were mentioned in conjunction with the comments in the synopsis.
Van Doorn only discussed with Grier what i
y was said by the interviewees.
Van Doorn stated the synopsis he prepared was a factual summary of interview results and was used only as a basis for discus-sion with Grier; the synopsis as such was not incorporated into the body of the inspection report. Van Doorn did not think he violated any NRC restric-tions pertaining to release of draft reports to licensees.
Van Doorn completed his review of DPC corrective actions regarding welding inspector concerns on January 25, 1983, and concluded that DPC took or will take appropriate actions to correct the concerns identified by the welding inspectors. This review was documented in Inspection Report 50-413/82-33 and 50-414/82-31.
In a memorandum to Carl E. Alderson, Director, Program Support Staff, Region II, NRC on February 1,1983, Van Doorn provided the results of his review to Region II.
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FEB011983
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MEMORANDUM FOR:
Carl E. Alderson, Director, Program Support Staff THRU:
g A. J. Ignatonis, Acting Chief, Reactor Projects Section 2A FROM:
P. K. Van Doorn, Senior Resident Inspector, Catawba SUBJ ECT:
ALLEGATIONS CX)NCERNING QC WELDING INSPECTION AT CATAWBA NUCLEAR STATION (Case No. 2G022)
I have completed my review of the Duke Pouer Company (DPC) task force effort addressing the subject concerns.
My investigation has included a review of each concern and resultant evaluation and recommendations.
In addition I interviewed 9 QA/QC supervisors and 19 QC welding inspectors.
These personnel included all those-QA/QC personnel who had expressed or been involved with. concerns.
A list of persons interviewed is attached as Enclosure (1).
I have reporte) this inspection effort in NRC Repo t Nos.
413/82-21, 414/82-19, 413/82232, 414/82-30, 413/822'33, and 414/82-1.
DPC has retained detailed records of the task force investigation which will be retained by DPC and made available for any further review that we deem necessary.
My conclusion is that the DPC investigation was conglete and that resultant reconmendations and actions taken or planned appear adequate to address the concerns.
I discussed both harassment and falsification during the interview process. ' Although there appear. to have been occasional disagreements between QC and craft personnel, I conclude that harassment, is not a legitimate concern at Catawba.
I further conclude that falsification is not a concern at Catawba.
Some inspectors have signed for items which they did not agree were acceptable.
However, they did so at the direction of a supervisor who had made an honest judgement that the item was acceptable.
DPC has now implemented a policy preventing someone signing for an item which he/she does not agree is acceptable.
My reconnendation is that we consider Case No. 2G022 closed.
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P. K. Van Doorn,.
f/t J Enclosure (1) List of Persons Interviewed (Confidential) cc: J. Y. Vorse, Director, Office of Investigations 6
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" Persons interviewed Centidentizi 5""'
Suncrvisors L. R. Davison B. W. Deaton R. A. Morgan S. W.
Ledford C. R. Baldwin C. E. Ross A. E. Allum J. W. Willis R. L. Harris Inspectors T. A. Bumgardner W. H. Burr J. R. Bryant B. Cauthen H. E. Eubanks V. C. Godfrey R. W. Irby Larry S. Jackson
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R. A. Jons:
J. R. McCoy J. M. Ro ckholt Mickey Standridge L. H. Harris A. S. Cantt A. D. Gault J. E. Henson K. W. Karriker R. D. Bently N. J. Spencer Enclosure (1)-
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MEMORANDUM FOR: J. Y. Vorse, Chief Investigator THRU:
J. C. Bryant, Chief, Reactor Projects Section 2A FROM:
P. K. Van Doorn, Senior Resident Inspector, Catawba
SUBJECT:
ALLEGATIONS CONCERNING QC WELDING INSPECTION AT CATAWBA NUCLEAR STATION (Case No. 2G022)
I have performed a preliminary review of the Duke Power Company, (DPC) task force effort addressing the subject concerns.
It does appear that some degree of falsification of records has occurred.
No significant hardware discrepancies have been identified.
However, review is yet to be completed for some concerns.
DPC has recognized the falsification issue (see excerpted pages 5 and 11 of DPC task force report enclosed) and has recommended training of inspectors and supervisors.
DPC has also developed a technical recourse procedure.
Some harassment of inspectors by craft has apparently occurred, primarily verbal.
One instance which apparently happened several years ago involved a craftsman pointing a rifle at an inspector at an off-site location.
The crafts-man apparently quit before he could be fired.
Also it is claimed that inspectors were verbally. harassed by a supervisor about coming to the NRC and that some inspectors are afraid to talk to NRC.
DPC has implemented a harassment recourse
+- procedure as recommended by the task force.
Due to the sensitivity of the concerns described generally above, I feel 3
that RII:INV should review these concerns.
I have enclosed a copy of these l
concerns with this memorandum.
Copies of the technical evaluations for those
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that relate to specific hardware have also been included.
I consider that interviews will be necessary before we can close out this investigation.
Interviews are necessary concerning falsificatica and harassment as well as some of the technical concerns.
Placing persons under oath may be warranted in some instances.
I can interview inspectors regarding technical issues but it may be advantageous ta combine the interviewing process.
Please provide guidance as to whether I should conduct interviews and if it is necessary for me to have a witness during the interview process.
Interviews conducted concerning the more sensitive issues and/or those involving placing persons under oath should be under,the direction of RII:INV.
I will continue my technical evaluations of the concerns but will avoid the formal interview process until directed otherwise.
Sincerely,
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C 4A Peter K. Van Doorn ATTACHMENT 12
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