ML20149K074
| ML20149K074 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Robinson  |
| Issue date: | 02/03/1994 |
| From: | Latimer J AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20149K047 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-96-32 NUDOCS 9602210146 | |
| Download: ML20149K074 (93) | |
Text
{{#Wiki_filter:- . . . . . - .-. .- . . .- - .-.. 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 4 5 6 -In the Matter of: : 7 Investigative Interview of: : 8 JOHN Y. LATIMER : 9' (CLOSED) : 10 _____ 11 12 Holiday Inn Airport 13 I-85 and Little Rock Road 14 Charlotte, North Carolina 15 Thursday, February 3, 1994 16 The interview commenced, pursuant to notice, at 17 5:19 p.m. 18 19 APPEARANCES: 20 FOR THE NRC: 21 James D. Dockery, Senior Investigator 22 Office of Investigations, Region II 23 101 Marietta Street, Suite 2900
'24 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 g 25 EXHIBIT __ -
9602210146 960201 PAGE 1 0F 93 PAGE(S) PDR FOIA LATIMER96-32 PDR ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. qp q , Court Reporters A i 022/O'/(/[ 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 gg Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 - eseren 9 - 9 3 - O t10 '
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' PROCEEDINGS l :3 .( 5 : 19 p . m .' )
- - MR. DOCKERY:
For the record,.the date is February 1 4: 3rd, 1994. l i It's approximately 5:20 p.m. l 5 The location of
'this interview is the Holiday Inn, the Airport,. I-85 and-. ; 6
' Little Rock Road, in Charlotte,7 North Carolina.
'7 8
7J1d Mr. Latimer would you identify yourself for i
~the record, please.
9 MR. LATIMER: My name is John Y. Latimer. 10 MR. DOCKERY: 11 please. And could you spell your last name, 12 i MR. LATIMER: L-a-t-i-m-e-r. l'3 MR. DOCKERY: .Okay.
' l-4 The interview is being conducted by Senior Investigator James D. Dockery, the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 16 Region 2, Office of Investigations,
- in Atlanta. ,
17
- Mr. Latimer' at th' i I w uld like you to
,8 raise your r:9ht hand. l j 19 (Witness sworn.)
20 EXAMINATION i 21 BY MR. DOCKERY: 4 22 Q Mr. Latimer, , 23 let's start with your educatichal background. ) 24 A All'right. From high school? 12 5 Q. College. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washingt on ,' D.C. 20006 (202) '293-3950
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3 1 1 A College. I went to Clemson University in 1965, 2 graduated in 1969, with a degree in metallurgical 3 engineering. Also went to the University of South Carolina i 4 in 1971, and I believe I graduated in 1972 with a Master's 5 in Business Administration. 6 Q What we are here to discuss today is your 7 employment by Carolina Power and Light. When did you first 8 begin your employment with that licensee? 9 A Started to work with them in 1973. 10 Q So you were basically right out of your master's 11 program. 12 A No, I got out of my master's program, excuse me, 13 1983. I'm sorry. l l 14 O Ch, '93. 15 A In 1983. , l 16 Q Had you worked in the nuclear industry prior to 17 that?
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- A : worked with Danle2 Construction Ccmpany, 19 building nuclear power plants. : was at Jenkinsville for 20 three years. That was for South Carolina Electric and Gas, j 21 was actually building it. I worked at Virginia Electric 22 Power Company, up in Surrey, Virginia, for about three-and- ,
l 23 a-half years, where we did the steam generator change-out on j I 24 both units. :'ve worked various other nuclear plants though 25 Daniels corporate office. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 1
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f i 4 ! 1 Q In 1983 you Went to' work for Carolina Power and i 2' Light?. 3 A That's correct. - 4 Q Were-you employed at the corporate offices or at 5 . one of the plants? ! 6- A I was employed at H. B.' Robinson Plant, in ! i 7l Clarksville, South Carolina. ! 8 Q What;was your position when you began work? , 9 A When I~ began work there'I was a welding engineer f L10- for the whole construction unit, who were getting ready to ! il do.the-steam generator changc vue a: Robinson plant. l 12 Q During your employment by CP&L, did you ever have ' 13 'any personnel problems, employment problems? 14 14 None whatsoever. ! 15 Q Why don't you take me from 1983, up until the time !
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i 16 period that we're basically here to discuss. ' 17 A If I can remember the dates. The dates may be a 18 little off, but . worked at the -- went to work in 1983 in l 19 the construction department. In 1984 we did the steam 20 generator change-out. Shortly'after that, which would have 21 been probably 1985, I went to work for the maintenance unit 22 of the Robinson plant,- and was welding engineer for the
- 23. -maintenance unit.
24 And'then, while I was in the maintenance unit, I 25~ also tookfback over the responsibilities of the welding 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'(202) 293-3950 i
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J 5 1 engineer in the; construction unit. So : had welding i 4 2 engineering responsibilittes for all the whole plant. Not 1 3. .just maintenance, but also construction. ' i 4 Then, later on, while I was still in the f 5 maintenance department, : also took over the ]
- 6. erosion / corrosion. When it was first starting off, I had 7 .the. erosion / corrosion program.
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-8 From that they had some reorganization changes
] 9 company-wide, and I ended'up going to the technical services 10 department, which was basically the engineering branch of 4 j .1 H.P. Robinson. And there I had the welding engineering and - t'
- 12 also the erosion / corrosion, and at that point, that's where I
! 13 I left in 1992. J 14 0 When did you first become involved in the 5 15 erosion / corrosion work? ' 16 A That would have been I think around 1977 -- no, l- 17 excuse me, _ 987, 1988. 13 0 At that time who was your supervisor? 3 "9
. A At that time the supervisor was Russell Powell.
l 20 Q As you know, I'm no technical expert, so as simply , i j - 21 as you can, what was the nature of the erosion / corrosion 1 22 program? What were you involved in doing. l I 23 A The erosion / corrosion program initially started 24 off in the. wet steam systems,..which would have been your ! 25 extraction steam, some of your low pressure, really l i I 4 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -i Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.M., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 ;
- 6 4
1 .c'ontaminated steam. It'wasn't pure steam, like your main-
.i 2 steam would be, which is a 100 percent steam; this had some >
3 actual water in it. And that's where your damage occurs, in
- 4 that portion of.your erosion / corrosion.. It actually
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5 impinges on the wall and actually takes part of the' wall
- 6- away, so you got a reduced wall.
7 Then, later on, when the Surrey incident happened, ; , t i 8 where they ended up killing, I believe, four or five people, 9 _the feed water. pipe up there ruptured. 10 Q When did that happen, Mr. Latimer, to the best
- .-- that you recall?
12 A Oh, I'd probably be way off on that. ! 4 13 Q That's all right. , 14 A Seventy-eight, seventy-nine. Oh , '88, '89. 15 Q Okay. Was the erosion / corrosion prog-am something l 4 : 16 that you had the technical and educational background to ; 17 deal with? 18 A I ve never had anything to do with 19 erosion / corrosion before I took it over. 20 0 Was it a -- was it primarily a metallurgical 21 concern? 22 A It wasn't really a netallurgical concern as I 23 guess you would define it. But it depended upon the i 24 ~ material, whether it was carbon steel, whether it was chrome ; 25 alloy, or whether it was stainless, the percentage flow, the j l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters j 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20006 l (202) 293-3950 l l
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- 1 and had also started the erosion / corrosion program. So when ;
2 I went over to maintenance, I took over his jobs. ; 3 Q Was there-any particular reason why you were : 4 selected for it as opposed to any other engineer, from any 5 discipline? '
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6 A l Well, like I said, I had no background in 7-erosion / corrosion. I had background in being a welding l 8 engineer, because that's what I'd done all my life. ' 9 O Did you mind taking over that assignment? 10 A No , not particularly. The workload at that time,
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only thing I had was the welding engineering function for I 12 the maintenance department. The maintenance department 13
.maybe does 5 percent of the welding at the plant. And so 14 the taking over the erosion / corrosion didn't -- you know, I 15 didn't have any problems with doing that, becapse I had 16 plenty of time for that.
17 So I had left the construction department, left 18 the duties of the construction department, and just went and 19 took the -- the minor duties of welding engineering in the 20 maintenance department. 21 0 So you were wearing two hats at the time, then; is 22 that right? 23 A Correct. 24 0 Did you have anybody working with you? 25 A No, not other than the people that came in there ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street,-N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 i
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I that did the UT work, and the people, you know, they take ! 2 the insulation off and clean the piping, and such things as : 3 that. 1 4 0 Would they have been more in the area of : 5 technicians? 6 A Technicians, mechanics. 7 Q And I would assume that you had responsibility to 8 oversee what they were doing? 9 A Correct. Yeah, I had to make sure that they took i 10 the insulation off in the right places, and it was cleaned, _ 1 and the UT people out there actually doing what they were , I 12 supposed to do. And they would map -- they would map the 13 elbow or T or piece of pipe, or whatever it was, and bring j 14 it back to me, and I would look at it. l 15 0 Any problems? , 16 A Yeah, lots of problems. 17 Q What kind? 18 A Fiping falling apart. Failures. Near failures. 19 What you would normally expect :n a plant that was that old, 20 which had never been checked before. l 21 Q Let me make sure I understand that. Was it a l l I 22 relatively new program? 23 A Yes, it was new. The plant had been in operation 24 since 1971, : believe. Or, '69 they went on. Between '69 25 and '71. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters ) 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006 I (202) 293-3950
l l. t 10 - 1 0 So there had been quite a bit of time for this 2 erosion and corrosion to take place. , 3 A Right. 4 0 Was it the surrey incident that you referred to , 5 .that caused people to realize the need for this program? 6 A- No. This, this program was realized before that, 7 butLit was only realized in the wet steam systems. What 8 happened'at Surrey' happened in a feed water system, and that k 9 was a 100 percent water. There was no steam whatsoever. i 10 And, industry-wide, they had never had that phenomena occur .l 11 before, you know, in a solid water system. 12 0 I guess it would be fair to say, then, that the 13 erosion / corrosion concern was a health and safety concern : 14 if, at you say, individuals were killed as a result of 15 deficiencies. , 16 A Yeah, they were, I think, four or five people i 17 killed at Surrey when'the feed water piping ruptured. 18 O Mr. ~atimer, you were ultimately let go by CP&L; 19 is that correct? 20 A That's correct. 21 Q When did that happen? . 22 A It happened in November of '92.
- 23. Q Were-you discharged, or was that a voluntary !
24' separation on your part? 25 A I was discharged. I was asked if I wanted to j i i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 . Washington, D.C. 20006 l (202) 293-3950 t
11 1 resign, but I refused to do it. 2 O' Sorry. I've got to check -- you did say 1992? 3 A- Yes, 1992.
'4 O We've got the '70s moving in here every once in -
5 - 6 A I get the '80s mixed up, too. .Watch me. 7 Q Obviously, if you were discharged for some reason, 8 a problem developed between you -- or in your employment 9 relationship with CP&L, or with your supervision or R110 management. Can you take me back.to when that -- your 11 perception of when that problem began? 12 A I guess it started probably about six months to a 13 year after I started working for my last supervisor, Warren 14 Farmer. q l 15 O Oo you recall or do you have anything that would ] 1 16 indicate when you began working for Mr. Farmer? 17 A- I could probably go back and look at, you know, I 18 the -- my evaluations, and I have to -- I have to dig j i 19 through this. 1 l 4 i j 20 MR. DOCKERY: Why don't we go off the record for a l l l 21 . minute. l
- 22. (Off the record.)
23 MR. DOCKERY: We're back on the record, and-Mr. l 24 Latimer has-had.an opportunity to review some of the 25 -documentation he' brought with him. ] i- I i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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12 1 BY MR. DOCKERY: 2 Q What I would ask you to do, Mr. Latimer, when you 3 get a chance to go through it more carefully, I'll give you 4 a call and we'll try and pinpoint when Mr. Farmer first 5 became your supervisor. 6 A I'll need to write that down. 7 Q Okay. 8 A I think I can find that, without too much trouble, 9 at home. 10 0 Okay. You stated to me while were off the record 11 that initially you and Mr. Farmer got along pretty well; is : 12 that correct? 13 A That's correct. 14 Q Do you recall -- I don't think you have it here 15 with you, but you stated there was probably a,purformance 16 appraisal before the one that I mentioned here for the 17 period of March of '91 to October of '91. Do you recall 18 what type of rating Mr. Farmer -- First of all, was Mr. 19 Farmer responsible at that time for doing your appraisals? 20 A Correct, he did the appraisals. l 21 Q And do you recall how he rated you on your first 22 appraisal? 23 A I think they had like unsatisfactory, 24 satisfactory--I'm not sure what the other one would have 25 been. It was above satis -- whatever the next rating was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
'3 1 above satisfactory. I don't remember whether it was 2 outstanding or --
3 .Q' Was there anything at all negative on that first 4 appraisal regarding your performance?- 5 A Not that I can remem -- Well, it may have been,. 6 too. 7 0 Well, I'll assume we'll find it, and we'.ll be able 8 to-tell from the actual document. 9 A When did the problems between'you and Mr. Farmer 10 begin, and what led up to them? 11 A' Well, it was right .u=. that -- that first 12' appraisal,-if I remembe r.. I started having complainants 13 about the way some'of the piping had been replaced, what I 14 thought was a total incompetence of some of the work that 15 their nuclear engineering department was doing, and which 16 resulted in what I would call premature failures in piping. 17 They didn't pay attention to some of the recommendations 18- that -- that West.nghouse made. 19 There was ene particular instance where the piping 20 . coming off -- I forgot what it was coming off, now. It was 21 a excess main steam off the MSRs, and they had a flow 22 venturi in the line. And on Westinghouse's drawings they 23 say place the flow venturi as close to the condenser as you 24 can. , l 25 Well, CP&L, in their wisdom, placed it almost i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington,.D.C. 20006 1 (202) 293-3950 ;
i i 14 1 where it came off the MSRs, and about a foot below that was i l 2 an elbow, which is the worst place you want a ventur1, to 3 begin with, is right above the change in direction. And it 4 actually ended up eating out the elbow. In fact, there was 5 about three elbews that we had leaks. This was during -- 6 during while we were running. And we, I think, had Farmer 7 come up there, and they built a box and put them around 8 there and sealed the leak, to keep on running. 9 Q Do you know who was responsible for making the 10 determination where the venturi and how this configuration __ would be done? 12 A No. I don't remember. I don't know who did that. 13 It came out of the engineering department. They're the ones i 14 that designed the pipe. And, like I say, on the 15 Westinghouse drawings there vas a note that saye place the 16 venturi as close to as possible to the condenser. 17 Q How did you voice your concerns? 18 A Probably not too tactfully. Because it was -- in 19 was a pretty hazardous condition. :f you would have been - 20 - fortunately, it was up in the air. But if you would have 21 been near to it, and if it had blown out, you would have 22 gotten killed. 23 Q Well, I realize some time has passed, but in as 24 much detail as you can recall, who did you talk to, and what 25 did you say, and how did they respond? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
15 , 1 A That I really remember. 2 0 . Was it Mr. Farmer?
- 3. A~ I'm sure.he would have been one of them, but it 4 may not'have been him.
5 0 Do you know if it would have been somebody above 6 Mr. Farmer? 7 A I don't'-- I don't remember. Just too long ago. 8 -You'know,'.there was a lot of other instances where, you l 9 know, they had problems, too. Where they -- they never i 10 learned-from their mistakes.
.1 Q Okay. I would' assume, from this appraisal that we 12 'do.have here, for the period of March through October '91, 13 that when you first voiced your concerns it probably would 14- have been either late '90 or very early '91. Does that seem 15 likely? ,
- 16 A Pretty much so. It could've been. It could've 17 been before that. I'm not a person to hold back when I --
l 18 you know, wnen.I see something wrong.
- '9 0 Were there any changes made as a result of the 20 concerns you voiced?
1 L 21 A We ended up replacing all the piping. We did it i 22 _once, to-replace the elbows, and ended up replacing the l 23 -piping. And then'they came back and redesigned the piping, 24 to put the flow elbows closer to the condenser. 25 O That would' lead me to believe that~ somebody agreed ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612'K Street, N.W., Suite.300 , , Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
16 1 with you. They fixed the pipe the way it was 2 A' Ch, yeah. 3 supposed to be. And some -- some of it, they changed the Downstream of the venturies they changed it, from 4 material. 5 carbon to stainless steel. 6 Q Did your supervisor, Mr.' Farmer, ever acknowledge 7 that you were correct? 8 A No. 9 Q What was his position? 10 A Didn't have any -- didn't have anything to say one 11 way or another. 12 O Was anybody else other than you concerned about 13 this -- my term -- inaccurate configuration? 14 A Other than shutting the plant down. If it'd cause 15 the plant to shutdown, they were concerned. ~ i 16 0 Well, somebody must have taken it to heart, if the 17 changes were made. 3ecause it nearly shut the plant down. We had 18 A I 19 other instances where they -- they put in -- put in a line ) 20 which bleed off the -- let me see, what was it? I'm trying 21 to think what system it was now. But I believe it also was 22 the -- it was a feed water pipe, which dumped a condenser. 23 They put in a new system, and there again they put , 24 some venturies, single stage venturi, which dumped into a , 25 lateral -- or it dumped into an elbow on one place and 4 i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
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i- ! 17 i 1 1 dumped into the laterals right down stream, so they had
- 2 three lines coming in. And this lasted -- the piping lasted 3 four months before it failed. I mean, replaced during and i 4 outage, and four months later we had a blowout. i 5
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I designed, basically, a patch to go up there, to i 4 6 keep us running until the next outage. And then they put a multi-stage orifice in there and also changed the piping to 1 7 . 8 stainless steel. 9 Q Was anybody but you concerned about this? .i i 11 0 A I guess it was -- there were people concerned, but 4-11 it didn't appear that anybody would take any action to -- to 12 get people to design the pipe right. { 13 Q How about any of your co-workers? Was there 14 anybody you were -- I mean, it's human nature, when you work 15 in a big plant like that, to talk to your co-workers and 16 say, gee, : don't think -- I don't think this is designed { 17 too well, what do you think about it? Or was there anybody 9 18 that you more or less confided in? I j 19 A No. Well, : mean, the people, they -- they would
- 20 ask me where not to walk in the plant. ,
21 Q That would make me believe a few other people were i 22 concerned about it. . 23 A They, they were concerned. 4 They didn't want to 24 get hurt. And that was.one of my main concerns. I wasn't ! 4 25 really concerned too much about the plant shutting down. I
.i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ;
Court Reporters
.1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 l
e a . .u, ,a .n..- a s - ,- n-a x u - . + . . , + _ . . . ..n.. .a aaa.<,a.. a -- s, a s> - -,m.a ,n, au a = - . , 4 18 4 1 had enough faith in it that this was on the secondary siding, and if we lost one of those, the plant could shut 2 3 down safely, anyhow. But I certainly didn't want to be 4 responsible for anybody getting killed. 5 Q That was my next question: How much of a threat -
! 6 one of these blowouts would represent to, let's say, a power
- 7 incident, a power surge incident, or a possibility of a 8 nuclear release of some kind?
l j 9 A There wouldn't have been any nuclear release on 10 these, because all this was on the secondary side. You 'l 11 know, The only thing, you know, you would -- you would have
- 12 killed somebody if they would have been in that particular 13 area at the time and if the pipe actually ruptured. '
l 14 Q To the extent you know, is that what happened in 15 the Surrey incident? 16 A Yeah. The Surrey incident is well-documented that 17 you had your feed water. You got a header coming in to go l 18 to your feed water pumps, and you had lines dropping down to 19 90 and-over, and it just wiped out the entire backside of 20 the elbow, the erosion did, and they had a power transit in
- 21 pipe, and it wasn't strong enough to withstand the pressure, 22 the extra pressure, and it just split -- split open, and 23 threw one piece, God only know, how far away, and just 24 filled that area with live steam. And the people in that 25 area, they couldn't see to get out because they were covered a
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 i
1 l I j 19 i 1 by steam and they were breathing in, you know, 500 degree i 2 steam. 3 Q So you voiced some concerns. Some changes were 4 made. I ' T. trying to paraphrase your testimony here. Were 5 those changes made, do you believe, as a result of you 6 pointing cut the inadequacies? 7 A Not necessarily. Because once, you know, you 8 found a leak, they knew they had a problem. You got a 9 leaking pipe and you -- I can say, well, this is why it's
-10 leaking, that we got a problem, you know, they're going to 11 change it, so it doesn't happen again.
12 But the underlying thing that they -- you know, 13 they continued to design pipe this way. Or, I don't know 14 whether :: was their lack of knowledge or -- or what, but 15 pipe was centinually designed -- a bad design.,: would call 16 it, the material configurations. And sometimes they didn't 17 know enough about the system. 18 ? At that time did you put any of your concerns in 19 writing? 20 A : don't know whet.ier I did or not. I'm sure I 21 wrote -- wrote notes back and forth, and I made comments on 22 the mods that would come out. We'd have different 23 modifications come out, and one of my jobs was to review 24 those. And one of those was to try -- with my limited 25 knowledge, is try and point out that, hey, you may have a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
i i 20 1 problem.- I can't say for sure, but you may have a problem. i 2 Looks like to me you'd have a problem. 3 Q Was Mr. Farmer responsive? ! 4 A He was kind of out of the circuit at that point, ! 5 because this was -- you know, the nuclear engineering I 6 department was sending me the mod to review, and I would ' 7 send my-comments back to them. Then.we would, you know, ] 8 e sometimes sit down in a meeting and discuss them, you know, 9 to resolve them. 4 3 10 0 Anybody take exception to your observations on the ; l - 1
- 11 situation? i I ;
12 A Some of them did, and it got a little bit heated. i l. 13 But, ! mean, not too bad, I i i 14 Q Would you characterize it as just a normal i j 15 professional disagreements? ,
- 16 A I would -- I would call it that.
, i l
- j. 17 0 Well, it doesn't sound like at that point your :
18 relationship with Mr. Farmer is too bad, or with anybody 19 else. 20 A No other than I got a feeling that some of the l
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21 nuclear engineering people started complaining to Farmer and 22 his supervisor and whatever, saying I was being a little too ! 23 critical.
- 24 Q Do you know by name who that may have been?
t 25 A No. I've got no idea. l . l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 . (202) 293-3950
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s i e 1- Q :s that Just an assumption on your part, or did ,
- 2 you hear something? !
t 4 3: A well, that's -- that's the only thing'I can draw i, i 4 4 from it. Somecody was complaining that I was being too i i t . , 5 tough on them, or whatever. , 6 Q How was that voiced to'you? How did you find out ! t 7 that ~ that 'had been brought up? , ? 8 A Well, when I get an appraisal and it basically 9 says that there are better forums for me to express my i 10 opinions. Which means, if I've got an opinion, you know, ; 4 j- 11 tell my supervisor, don't tell anyoody else. My 4 5
- 12 ' supervisor's not going to do anything, you know, that's the l 13 end of it. You know, just be a good soldier L.
- d take orders ,
i 14 and that's it. 15 And tha* wasn't what : was paid to do. What I,was paid to ; 4 l 16- do was to keep somebody from getting hurt. j t [ 17 0 Well, up till that point had you taken your l 19 concerns :: Mr. .Tarmer? i ! l 19 A Yes, : had-taken them to him. 20 0 How did he react? } , 21 A Just kind of -- just kind of dismissed it, more
; 22 than anything. l 23 Q. Was he upset that you even brought the matter up, t
- 24 or did he --
25 A1 Just kind of didn't bother him one way or another. 4. 1 i 1 J ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court. Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950-
SN 1 Q So it wasn't like he got mad at you for pointing 2 out a potential problem. 3 A No. He's pretty cool. He doesn't -- he doesn't 4 get mad. He gets back in different ways, : guess. 5 0 Would it be fair to say that you felt pretty 6 strongly about these inadequacies? 7 A Definitely. 8 O Did you attempt to go over Farmer's head? 9 A I guess somewhat. I talked to, I guess, his boss. 10 0 Do you recall who that was?
.1 A Probably Marvin -- what's his last name? Marvin 12 Page.
13 n Page? 14 A Page. 15 O Do you recall what response you got,from him? 16 A Other than, you know, :'ll look into it. i i 17 O Anything happen? ' 19 A No. He, he :ust kept going on like they were 19 going on. 20 0 : think I've already asked you this, but maybe I 21 misunderstood your answer. As a result of your raising J 22 concerns, did things change? 23 A on the particular systems that we had problems on, l 1 24 they were fixed. But as to any thought into any 'iture 1 25 designs, or like that, ! didn't see anything much -- I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
23 1 didn't see much instances of them taking into account the 2 erosion /ccrrosion. 3 But they didn't have any expertise in Raleigh on 4 erosion / corrosion. And that, to me, was one of the 5 problems, that each site had somebody in erosion / corrosion, 6 and it was somebody that was -- say, here's the program, you 7 .run'it. Had no training. At least, I never had any 8 training. I requested training, to go to the EPRI meetings, 9 but I was never approved to go. Money was a concern. So I 10 tried, as best I-could do, to learn it on my own. 11 And that's what scared me.. If I'm doina the 12 welding engineering Job and the erosion / corrosion job, I was 13 -afraid I was going to miss something. 14 0 What did you do to try and learn the 15- erosion / corrosion program on your own? , 16 A Just tried to look at all reports that came , l , 17 through. There were a lot of reports that came through. A , 18 lot Of stuff came cut of the Surrey incident. I got a big
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19 old thick pile on, you know, info. The NRC. You know, the i j 20 NRC would come out and say, well, what are yo doing about ! i l 21 this-, We had instances at, you know, at Trojan plant, where ' , 22 we got information on what happened there. - 1 l l 23 0- So basically you're talking about information i i 24 -notices or bulletins -- ' 25- A Correct, correct. I i l 8 ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006
- . (202 ) 293-3950
i i 24 + l' Q' -- from other licensees. [ 2 A Right, and also from the NRC. ; i 3 Q Did Mr. Farmer ever acknowledge that -- Well, did 1 4 he ever tell you, you were doing a good job? 5 A No. Because he didn't know what : was doing. He 6 had no idea what the erosion / corrosion program was about. 7 He had no idea what the welding engineering program was 8 about. 9 O What was his specialty, Mr. Latimer? 10 -A He spent most of his time, as far as I know, on 11 the service water system. 12 0 What's his technical specialty, metallurgy? 13 A Mechanical, I think. 14 Q Did you ever go to him and tell him what you just 15 told-me, that, you know, : don't have much experience with 16 this, I'm afraid I'll miss something? or voice your ' 17 concerns about your ability to do that job? 18 A : told nim many a times that, you know, you got me 19 overloaded, that : can't do all this, that, you know, hey - 20 - I got a letter from my ceunterpart down at another site, a 21 guy named Greg Tucker, who went to an EPRI meeting, and they. 22 came back with, hey, the NRC's going to be looking into j 23 this, and the NRC's going to want to know why you don't have 24 enough people on it, why there's no corporate involvement in
'25 it. !
1 1 I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. J Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
25 1 Q Specifically on the -- 2 A Erosion / corrosion. 3 Q You just mentioned some kind of meeting, EPRI? 4 A EPRI meeting, right. 5 0 What is that? 6 A It's Electric Power and Research Institute. All 7 the utilities get together and fund EPRI to investigate 8 these problems. 9 Q Taking care of notes. 10 A Right. And EPRI's the one that came up with the _~_ check and the E program for trying to determine if you've 12 got erosion / corrosion in your line, and they do that by a 13 lot of factors: your flow rate, your material, your moist 14 steam content, you know, various things like that. 15 Q Okay, you're wearing two hats at that time. 16 A That's correct. 17 0 What percentage of your working time was each '3 . taking up? 19 A Probably about half and half. 20 Q So 50 percent of your work time was directed to 21 erosion / corrosion? 22 A Mm-hmm. 23 Q And 50 percent to welding engineering? 24 A That's right. Now, it would vary during the year, 25 depending on, you know, what the time. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
26
~1 EVENING SESSION 2 (6:00 P.M.]
3 Q How many hours a week were you working? 4 A Roughly about forty. hours a week, except during
- 5. outages, and then I'd work, you know, sixty, or whatever 6 .they would allow me to work, 7 Q And you were-a professional salaried position?
8 A Correct. 9- Q. When did the real problems begin?
- 10 A Probably -- let's see. Probably early 1991.
11 0 Tell me in as much detail as you can what the
- 12 circumstances were.
l 13 A Well, they seemed to think that I could do .; 14 everything. You know, that he would want this done and want 15 that done. And I would try and tell him, I don't have time 16 to do it. And, to me, what he wanted, just unrealistic.
- 17 Q Now, he, for the record?
18 A Warren Farmer. Some of the stuff I thought was
- 19. totally unnecessary that he wanted. He tried to get me to l
7 20 do some stuff a different way, which I knew was wrong. i 1 21 requested help. l 22 During the last outage we had, up until that point 23 we had a contractor. a girl contractor. She was loading all 24 the' data in for-the erosion / corrosion program, to do it by
' 25: computer. .And'once she got done with that, the outage was l
JUUi RILEY_& ASSOCIATES, LTD. ! 4 Court Reporters i 1612 K Street, N.W.,. Suite 300-Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 !
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'l coming up, and I said, how about have her help me during the 2 outage? Because I had all the welding activities to do, and 3 'I had all the erosion / corrosion to do, all at one time. And 4- I was refused. They gave her another assignment. Kept her 5 there at the plant, but gave her another assignment. Gave 6 her another assignment.
7 0 Do you recall what her name was? 8 A- Becky Roberts. 9 0 Was that the only assistance you had? 10- A_ It was the only assistance I had, other than, you 11 know, to qualify welders. I had a guy that ran the test 12 shop under me. 13 Q Specifically, now, I'm thinking in terms of the 14 erosion / corrosion program. ' i 15 A That's the only help I had. And the,only thing ! 16 she did was actually load it in the computer. She had -- l 17 well, sometimes she had to go out and walk down the system ;
'. 8 - to find out where it went to, or whatever, and get all the .
19 information to icad in the computer, but that was basically ; her function. And my function was to double-check behind l 7 4 21 her and see that what she loaded in was correct. Some of it 22 was, some of it wasn't. ! l
- 23 0 Well, she must have been some help, though, if you {
i 24 requested her to stay on during the outage. 4 A Yes. I just needed another body to go'out there ! i l l
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Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 4 Washington, D.C. 20006
.(202) 293-3950
t 28 ;
..1 and;make sure they got the. insulation off,.you know, i 2 schedule to look in this valve. :
3 Q What did Mr. Farmer say about that? _ I t 4 A He just totally ignored it. Figured I could (
-5 handle it on my own. i, 6 Q1 Did he say that money was a concern? I mean, I' !
i 7 -would think he would give you some explanation, if'you're ! 8 telling the man that you're overworked. ; i 9 A No. His explanation is that I'm not working f 10_ .enough overtime now. And my viewpoint was that, you're not
.t 11 going to get me any help, I'm not going to put any free time i
12' in. ! 13 0 Now, when you say overtime, did he expect you-to i 14 work more than forty hours a week? ! f 15 A Certainly. , 16 0 Did he expect you to do that without being paid? 17 A Certainly. t 1B Q Did he ever tell you how many hours he expected ,
- 19. you to put in?
20 A No. But on one of my appraisals he says that I l 21 don't work any overtime. { 22 -0 Was there a provision, other than during outages, i . 2 3. for you to be paid for overtime? I l 24 A Certainly, if-it was approved. And I requested i 25 it. Never, never -- always refused. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 1 1
'29-
. .1 0 Did you request it through Mr. Farmer? 2 A Yes, I did. I e 3- 0 Cid he.give you a reason why it was refused? 4 A Yes. They just don't do it. Like, before the 5 outage ~-- before the outage starts there's a lot of my peak 6 time that I have to do stuff getting ready for the outage. 7 Normally, tech support, they don't approve' overtime until ) 8 the outage starts. And that's when they approved overtime. 1 i 9' When the cutage starts you could work, you-know, whatever i 10 you wanted to. .But if I've got to get ready for it, you J 1r know, get'all the welder qualificacion and everything else 12 done beforehand,.I thought I.should be able to work ' 13 -beforehand and get some of my stuff done. : '.ms allowed to
.14 work when the outage started.
15 0 How much evertime would you have needed if it had ! 16~ been approved? , 17 A To do what he wanted to do? At least forty hours , 18' .a week cvertime.
- 19. O Nhat you're saying, then, is that you would have 20 had to work eighty-hour weeks. !
21 A That's correct. And when I loaded up the site- i 22 work tracking system, that's what : had on there, is eighty 23 hours a week. .Our site-work tracking system is-a computer , 24 program that they came up with to try -- it originally was
-25 .to-keep track of'any projects you had, so they wouldn't fall 7 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. !
Court Reporters 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite 300
- Washington,.D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 l.
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30 1 through the. crack. 2 But what CP&L ended up doing was saying that if 3 you don't have project work on here, you don't have any 4 work. Even though'most of my work wouldn't have been 5 . projects, tt would have been something' totally different. 6 But I loaded everything up on the site-work tracking system. ,
.7 I put in, you know, two hours a week reviewing mods. I put 8 down two hours a week reviewing mods. You know, that much 9 time I would'put in there.
10 Q Did you have any personality conflicts with Mr. 1 Farmer other than the job? 12 A That's it. I never socialized with-him, if that's 13 what you're saying. 14 0 Were you pretty much working alone at that point? i 15 Were you in contact with any colleagues, or wera you more
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l 16 off by yourself? 17 A : was on -- on that plant site I was off by , 18 myself, because : was the only one that did tne welding 19 engineering, I was the only one that did the } 20 erosion /ccrrosion. Oh, I had colleagues at the other 21 plants, welding engineering. We're -- we went up there once { 22 a. month to have a meeting, to sit down and go over procedure 23 revisions, or whatever, for the corporate weather man.
~
24 0 How were the other plants handling the 25 .erosicn/ corrosion program?
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Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300
. Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
31 A- Each plant had a separate person doing it. Now,
) i 2 they had ccher functionc, too. ;
3 Q Did you talk to those individuals? 4 A Yes. 1 5 Q Do you remember who any of them were? j 6 A- Greg Tucker was the one at the Harris Plant, and 4 7 Libba Haroldson was the one at the Brunswick plant.
.8 0 Lib? i i 9 A Libba.
10 Q 'Libba? 11 A Right. { 12 0 : guess that would be L-i-b-b-a?
'3 A I believe so. And both of those had the same T
14 complaints that : did, that they didn't have enough time to 15 do it. . l 16 0 You just anticipated my next question, if they 17 were running into the same manpower Or hour problems, what 18 did they d. aLout :? i 19 A 3 reg tried to get some stuff done. He had some
'20 meetings with his people up there, and they were trying to 21 get.a corporate program going, where they could get some
} 22 corporate help. .And it would apply to all three plants, but
-23 it was very, very-slow in coming. And, Libba, he basically l 24 couldn't do anything.
25 Q To the extent you know,-were they encountering the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters-1612 K Street, N.W.,. Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
l w k 1 same l
;nta uns with engineering inadequacies?
2 A Maybe to some degree, but not quite as T.uch. 3 Because the Harris plant's a brand-new plant, or relatively 4 brand new. A lot bigger p. ant, lot mora systems, different 5 kind of design. The Brunswi?- plant is a totally different 6 design. It's a boiling water rafter, so it doesn't have a 7 lot of the same stuff that Robinson does. They had failures 8 up there, too. l Just like all nuclear plants have had 9 failures in erosion / corrosion. 10 0 Do you know if they ultimately got any help? 11 A l I don't know what happenea after I left. I don't l 12 know what they got. I know that l -- the only thing I know is I ( 13 i when -- I forgot what his name -- the NRC guy that came down I 14 there. Do you remember his name? 15 O On an inspection? i j 16 A . , Yeah. Did the -- i 17 0 I think I know who you're talking about, but no, I i s 18 q don't recal_ uis name. 19 A Well, when he came down there he basically asked 20 me point blank what my problems were. Somebody asks me what 21 my problems are, I'm going to tell him. Because I wasn't 22 getting anywhere through CP&L. 23 Q Why did he come to you and ask you, Mr. Latimer? 24 Just part of the routine inspection? 25 A Just part of a routine inspection. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washingtcn, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
33 1 Q You hadn't at that point voiced any concern to the 2 NRC? 3 A No. 2 4 0 Did they have an employee concerns program? , 5 A Did CP&L? 6 0 Yeah. Or at the Robinson plant. You're familiar 7 with what an employee concerns program is? 8 A Yes. 9 0 Did they have such a program in place? 10 A Yes. 11 Q Mad you taken your concern to them? 12 A Wasn't about to. 13 Q Why? 14 A Because they would've known who it was. Because 15 if I would have put a concern in there about 26 erosion / corrosion, they would have said, well, who knows 17 about erosicn/ corrosion. They would have come right to me. 18 And : alreacy 'een c to them. 19 0 On another matter? 20 A No, On about these same concerns. : went to my 21 supervisor, or whatever, and nothing was done. It's called 22 a quality check program. 23 Q Okay. That would be what I'm referring to as an 24 employee concerns program. I think every plant has a 25 different name for it, but they come down to the same thing. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. . Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
l l s 34 1 1 A Right. ; 2- Q So you had gonc directly to the quality check. ! 3 program? ( No. 4 A No, not on those concerns. ! ^ 5 Q Others? I 6 A No. 4 7 Q Basically you had just gone to Mr. Farmer then? l 8 A That's right. 9 Q But it's your belief that had you gone to the i 10' quality check program, obviously it would have been l 11 identifiable with you? , 1 12 A .Oh, yes. ! a
- 13 0 Why would that have bothered you? [
- 14 A Why would it bother me? Right now, it shouldn't ,
i 15 have. But it probably would have at that point. , I didn't j 16 figure that anything was going to come of it, so I didn't [ 4 l 17 want to waste my time going through that quality check i 18 program, 19 Now, when I left CP&L, : went through the quality , 11 4 20 check program, basically at the instance at the head of the : t : 21 quality check at the Robinson plant. You know, he came to 22 my house and gr,ve me the form and all this other stuff, and j j 23 whatever, and I filled it out. I didn't expect anything to 24 come of it. And what came of it was basically what I 25 -expected: nothing, f 2 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters t i 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l r . Washington, D.C. 20006 i (202) 293-3950
35 1 Q But you voiced some concern over the fact that if 2 it had to do with erosion / corrosion, your concern or 3 allegation, that they would immediately know it came from 4 you. 5 A That's correct.
; 6 O That would imply to me that you were afraid of 7 some type of retaliation, 8 A Some degree. Because at that point I was getting 9 bad reviews from my supervisor. And I didn't want to rock 10 the boat, not at that point. It sometimes just builds up in 11 you, and when -- when the NRC inspector came in, ! just 12 really unloaded on him.
13 0 How long did you talk to him? I 14 A Probably a couple hours. 15 0 Was he generally in agreement with what you said? 16 A Yes. 17 C Did he tell you it was pretty apparent to him that 18 there were problems with'the program? 19 A Defiz:itely And his last words to me, I'm going 20 to see if : can get you some help. Well, I didn't quite , 21 expect that kind of help. 22 MR. DOCKERY. We'll go off the record. 23 (Off the record.) 24 MR. DOCKERY: Okay, we'll go back on the record, 25 and Mr. Latimer, :'ll remind you that you remain under oath. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 :6 THE WITNESS: All'right. 2 BY MR. DOCKERY: 3 Q
- 'm interested in hearing a little more about your 4
reluctance to go through the quality check program. Were 5 you familiar with any other employees who had used that 6 method of raising concerns? 7 A Far as I know, there were no CP&L employees that 8 used the quality check program, 9 that I'm familiar with. Q Was there a reason for that? 10 A They just didn't have any faith in it. 11 O Because nothing got done? 12 A That's correct. Somebody would raise a concern, 13 but it . would be answered without really checking into the 14 problem. That I was our opinion of it anyhow. 15 O Had you discussed that with other employees? 16 A Oh, yes. -
\
17 Q ! Were you concerned about 8 retaliation for raising 1 concerns? i 19 A ! They would have known that I had raised them, ! yes. 20 0 You personally. l 21 A Me personally. l 22 O What about the other individuals you had spoken i 23 to, had they mentioned any fear of that? 24 A ) I'm sure -- No, I don't know. I can't speak for 1 25 them. i i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 Q Sut by this time, if : understand correctly, 2 you're concern was that -- or fear, if you will, was that 3 you had already tried to go through your supervisor? 4 A That's correct. 5 0 Was there any cert.ain point where your 6 relationship with Mr. Farmer changed, or any incident that 7 caused it to change? . 8 A Not appreciably, no. It just gradually got worse. 9 0 How often on average would you discuss this 10 erosion / corrosion program with Mr. Farmer? 11 A : guess the last s4x - hs or so that I was there 12 we had a weekly meeting where we went over, you know, 13 problems and concerns, and, fou know, where we are on this,
; 14 and whatever. !
15 O Was that a one-on-one meeting, or was that a group l 16 meeting? 17 A No, this was one on one. He met with everybody.
^
18 How ._n; n a chose sessions usually last? 19 A Ch, half-an-hour er so. , l 20 0 Were they regularly scheduled? 21 A As much as possible he would try to schedule them 22 once a week. Sometimes other things got in the way and he 23 had to cancel, but he was trying to, you know, have them l l 24 once a week. 25 O How many other people did he supervise? l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters ; 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006 l (202) 293-3950
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i. 36 1 'A Let's see. 'I would.say about seven people, , 1
-2 Q. .What other disc plines were they? i
- 3 A Well, what he had was what you'would call the (
i} 4 programs group. 'He had ISI, which -- and he had valve j 1 4 5 repair, or valve maintenance. He had, which went along with 4 6- that, the M.O.V.'s, and various other little programs.. None i j 7- of.them were really connected to one another. I 8 O Do you remember who he reported to? -; i 9 A He reported to Marvin Page during most of the 10 time, and then he reported to Tim cleary. Marvin left and - i went to another portion of the plant, and Tim Cleary was ; 12 promoted, and Tim was Warren's boss. 13 0 Was Tim Cleary his boss at the time you left? - l i 14 A Right. I 15- Q He had been his boss for, : don't know. a couple , 16 of months or so. , 17 O Did you have much interaction with Mr. Page? 18 A Somewhat. I had a coucle of meetinos with hin. i ] 19 where I raised concerns about what Warren -- about what I : 1
- 20 thought Warren was trying to do. And also I had one meeting 1 <
l 21 with Tim Cleary where I raised the same -- the same - 22 concerns. , ) . 23 0 The meeting with Mr. Page, do you remember what 24 you told him? ' 1 25 A I basically told him that : was doing the welding , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. > Court Reporters ' 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950-m ,-. , - . -
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39 j 1 engineering job at Robinson plant on a.part-time basis, that :; t 2 the welding engineer at Harris plant was doing it full time, ;
'3 plus he had.a full-time assistant. The' welding engineer at !
4 the Brunswick ~ plant was doing it full time, and he was a ; i 5 two-unit plant, and he had, I believe,-three people working [ 6 for him. And I'm just saying that I can't do both the 7 erosion / corrosion-and welding engineering and do a decent ! 8 job with the limited cmount of time I've got. : i
'9 0 What kind of response did you get from Mr. Page? j 10 A Nothing really, other than these plants are
{ different. lad, yes, they are difft. ..t, out not so much l 12 different than it would take, you know, two people at the i i 13 Harris plant and just me part time at the Robinson plant. 14 The Robinson plant's an older plant. It's got lots more . 1 i 15 modifications going on. ; 16 0 Did he tell you he'd look into it? I 17 A Yes. That was always what I heard, that he would l l 18 look into n . l l 19 O Anything at all ever come from it? l 1 20 A No. I raised concerns with him about, you know, l 21 the lack of corporate support on the erosion / corrosion 22 program. And his standard answer was, I'll look into it, 23 and they were working on it. But nothing was ever getting 24 done on it. Not until the very last did they start doing 25 something en it. ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
_~ t 40 ; 1 Q What.about Mr. Cleary? l 2 A Like:I said, ?e was only there a couple of months.- ; 3- And I basically told him the.same thing. ! 4 0 Do you remember what his-. title was? l 5 A : guess it would be tech support engineering [ t 6 manager. 7 Q And that would have been Mr. Page's title before 8 him, I assume? l l 9 A Right. r 10 Q Did you submit any of these concerns to either of ,
"1 . tN m in writing? ,
t 12 A No. I thought verbal would be good enough. l 13 0 What about when you got to the point when it 14 appeared nothing was going to happen with verbal concerns? r
'15 A : just kept raising, raising, you know, concerns .
t
'16. verbally to them, i
17 Q Mr. Farmer ever get upset that you went over his j 18 head? 19 A Not that I could tell. :n fact, the meetings : 20 went to, ! told him I was going to do it. I didn't go 21 around him. I went -- you know, told him I was going to 22 have a meeting with them. ; 23 Q So he was aware of it?
- 24 A Yes, t
25 .Q . He didn't seem upset by that? a ANN RILEY &. ASSOCIATES, LTD. , Court Reporters- , 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington,-D.C.20006 (202) 293-3950
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'l A No.
l I've got here l Q The first performance appraisal that < [ 2 is the one for the period, March of l 3 in this' package for'you, > 4
'91 through October of '91, 5 A Okay. '
4 1 Q
! would assume this is the first appraisal that 6 ,
l
- 7- you had that was negative. !
And that~ should say a i 8 A That's correct. Satisfactory 9 satisfactory minus on that overall appraisal. m nus. i 10 Well, the copy I've got doesn't have the boxes r 11 0 1 12 checked. 1 1 13 A What's the date on it? I O This is March through October of 1991. ' 14 1 - 15 A Let me look at that and see if I . 4 0 Okay. 16 A Okay, this is an interim appraisal they do every 17 i six months. The appraisal where they rate you would have ! 18 19 been six months before that. i A I see, ' i 20 which
^
O Which would have been an anniversary date, 21 f was March of -- my anniversary date, that would have been 22 i 23- March of '91. And this would have been the one after that. .
'91, 24 So he would have given me an appraisal in March of 25 which was a good appraisal.
d ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Ceportec" 1612 K Street, N .t; . . Suite 300 . Washingscn, 0.c. 20006 (2L2) 297-3952
f 42- l 1 10 .Do you have a copy of that appraisal here? l 2- A- : don't-think so. :'ll look for it. r 3 0 All right. 4 A I know I've got most of this stuff back at home. 5 'The only thing I can remember about that appraisal was that', 6 you.know, : got a good appraisal, but he put some stuff in 7- there about some welding that had been done on the service 8- water pipe- 'which had'been done several years before that, 9 which really wasn't -- should not even have come into my
-10 appraisal, because it wasn't done in that time period. And 11 he was saying the welding should have been done better. And i 12 I'll have to agree with him that the welding could have been 13 done better, but with some sacrifices, because it was in a !
14 .high radiation area. ; 15 0 :'ve just found another appraisal here, and it's 16 for the period February of '91 to March of '92, and it does 17 have a satisfactory -- it's marked satisfactory, and then ' 18 with minus typed in underneath it. 19 A Mm-hmm. 4
- 20 0 Recognize that one?
j- 21 A Yeah, mm-hmm. That's the worst appraisal I've l 22 ever gotten, with a satisfactory minus. Most of every 23 appraisal before that was commendable. I don't think I ever > 24 got any outstanding, but all of them were commendable. I'd 25 never gotten a satisfactory.before that in all the different - ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters - 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 i
- . Washington, D.C. 20006 (202)'293-3950
1 1 43 i supervisors I had worked for, and I had worked for a bunch 2 of them. 3 Q Co you think you still have copies of all those 4 appraisals, going back that far? 5 A No, I don't have copies of all of them. :'m sure 6 they're in my personnel file there at CP&L. 7 Were you surprised by this rating? I Q 9 A Definitely. 9 0 There is quite a bit written here, and, of course, 10 that's all documented, whether it's correct or accurate, or il not. Was there quite a bit of discussion between you and 12 Mr. Farmer -- 13 A Ch, yes. 14 0 -- regarding this appraisal? 15 A Quite a bit. . 16 0 What did he tell you was the problem? 17 A He said basically what's in there. You know, I 19 tried to point cut to him that that's not the case. Some of 19 it, I guess, he partially agreed with me. But when : asked 20 him if it was going to be cnanged, he said no. 21 The way CP&L does the appraisals is one thing I 22 don't agree with. They sit dcwn there and write the 23 appraisal up, go through the chain of command and get it all 24 signed, and then present it to you. They don't write your 25 appraisal and go over it with you and then they can change, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
44 1 you know, whatever stuff may be wrong, and then send it up. 2 It was sent up all before, and signed and everything like 3 that, then it's given to you. So it's already set in stone 4 by the time you get in there. 5 Q I assume you disagreed with this appraisal? 6 A Yes. 7 Q Do you think there was some hidden reason for this 8 poor appraisal that is not contained in the writing? 9 A The only hidden reason I can think of was that 10 using a system that you have to give somebody a, quote, bad 11 appraisal for a certain number cf times to get rid of them. 12 You just can't have one bad appraisal and they fire you. 13 So this was his way of, quote, documenting of my 14 inadequacies, or whatever you want to call them, so that l 1 15 down the road they can get rid of you. l 16 Look at overall. I'm rated a satisfactory minus. l l 17 I wouldn't consider that reason to terminate somebody. He l 18 could have rated me unsat:sfactory, but I don't guess he l l 19 could find enough to rate me unsatisfactory, or make up i I 20 enough. 21 Q Well, that's some_hing I've noticed in looking at 22 this. The way these appraisals are structured, it has the 23 term " principal accountability," which I would assume is tra 24 factor being rated. l 25 A Mm-hmm. l 1 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
43 1 0 Okay, the first one -- and again this is referring to the appraisal dated March 7, '992 -- the principal 2 3 accountability is to support increased plant efficiency, 4 plant operating requirements and regulatory requirements. 5 The rating, under the rating column, the rating is 6 " commend," which I assume is commendable. 7 A Commendable, yes. 8 O The next principal accountability is provide 9 technical and administrative support for plant programs, 10 contribute to cost effective plant operations. Now, that's 11 a satisfactory minus. 12 A Mm-hmm. I 13 0 The third one is to ensure that assigned functions 14 are conducted in compliance with technical specifications, 15 QA, and regulatory requirements, plant procedures, and 16 department policies. The rating there is unsatisfactory. 17 A Mm-hmm. ! 18 : The n.n. : actor is, ensure work is performed in I accordance with company safety rules. That's rated 19 20 commendable. 21 A Mm-hmm. 22 O Next one is, maintain effective communications. 23 That's rated satisfactory. 24 A That's right. 25 0 1 looked at these earlier, and if I assign, say, a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 - I 46 i
- i. .
- 1 zero to three numerical-factor to each of those, it comes 2 out on the plus side of satisfactory.
3' A well,. I don't know how they do'it. They just do i -
- 4 it.
L 5 0 You don't have any insight into -- i 6. A No. Just when he's saying, you know, it's up to J
- 7; him to how he wants to weigh any one of them.
j 8 0 Well, this.is some pretty extensive comments under 9 each of these, r i 10 A It's pretty wordy. Does'n't have really any detail ! j .1 in it, .other than what his opinions are. There's nothing i 12 specific here, to any extent. He even talks about my -- I i 13 guess my work habits. I think that's-in this one. Late i 1
- 14 arrivals. This is on unsatisfactory -- -
15 0 I see it here. 4 16 A Late arrivals, early departures. A couple with 17 extended break periods. Whatever. 18 0 How would you respond to that? i 19 A I don't mind saying that I came in late sometimes ' 20 and left early. : also put a lot of hours in during the 21 outage that ! didn't get paid for, and a lot of hours other 22 times that ! didn't get paid for. ! 4 i 23' Q Did you point that out to him? 24 A Yes. And the extended break periods? The way he i 25 came up with these hours is, when you come into the plant, l 4 ) , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters , 1612 K. Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006 ! (202) 293-3950 j
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- i i ,
47 l 1 you know, you're' logged in. You punch a card and it tells . i 2' you.when you came in. Came in at this, and then when you.go . i f 3' out, .you know, that way or this way -- if you go over to the ' 4 break. room, which is outside, it says you've went out. - i , s
- 5 But what it doesn't say is that the maintenance
] 6 shop is right next to the break room. The weld test shop, l
,7- you'also have to go outside to get to, too. And also the i j 8 fabrication shop is out there. When I went out, sometimes I '
i
- 9. went to the break room, and sometimes I took too long a l
$ 10 ' break. Sometimes I was sitting there talking to people. : 4 ) .1 Other times, : was in the maintenance shop. Other times I ,
, 12 was,in the weld test shop, or in the fab shop, tending to I 13 business. But that's not en here. There's no way of him 14 . checking that.
- 15 Q Did you point that out to him?
i 16 A Yeah. But since it's already written, he's not i 17 going to change it, and he told me that. He told me nothing , n 19 would be c..angeo. And that's when I requested that the next i l ' l 19 time he does an appraisal, is to write it up and come to me 1 1 20 and maybe we'll get some-of this stuff straight before it l 21 gets approved. But that wasn't done. The next time, he 22 wrote it, sent it up the chain of command, it was approved, i l 23 and-then he showed it to me. ! 24- Q When you_say sent up the chain of command and i 25 approved, the only places on here I see for signatures L I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court . Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 ,
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45 1 appear to be for Mr. Farmer's signature, and then underneath 2 it, the employee's signtture. No. :'m sorry. There's 3 another one. There's a supervisor / manager's signature. 4 A You've got the initials. That's initialed. 5 0 What you've just pointed out to me is on the line 6 " appraisal and comments by." 7 A Mm-hmm. 8 0 Now, I assume this is Mr. Farmer's signature? 9 A Right. 10 Q And then you pointed out two sets of initials next 11 to that. 12 A I'm not sure whose that is. Marvin Page may be 13 one of them, and Ray Chambers, :'m assuming, would be the 14 other one, because he was Marvin's boss during that time 15 period. 16 0 Who would normally sign underneath where you were 17 to sign, cn the supervisor / manager's signature space? 18 A would think Warren would sign there. . refused 19 to sign it, because didn't agree with it. 20 0 So the procedure would be for Mr. Farmer to sign 21 it in two places? 22 A Right. As far as I know. 23 0 Okay. 24 A But I went over this with him, and I didn't agree 25 with much that was in it, and I refused to sign it. I i i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. j Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 ; (202) 293-3950
49 1 Q Was this the last performance appraisal that you 2 received as an employee of CP&L? 3 A This was -- what date? 4 Q The date it appears it was actually signed by Mr. 5 Farmer was February 21, 1992. 6 A No. There was -- this was the one where -- this 7 was my annual review, where it determined whether I got a 8 raise, or not. And then there was another one six months 9 from that, which was my last one, which should be in there, 10 too, I think. 11 Q Not in the package . hat : have. That's the last 12 one -- Yeah, that's the last one I have. 13 A You should have the one, 98/7/92. ! don't 14 remember whether I sent that to you or not. 15 Q No. 16 ' A Can I take a look at that? 17 Q Yeah. f 18 A It should be in there. 19 MR. 20CKERY: We'll go off the record, for a 20 minute, please. 21 (Off the record.) 22 MR. DOCKERY: We're back on the record. And I'll 23 remind you, Mr. Latimer, that you continue to be under oath. 24 BY MR. DOCKERY: 25 0 Okay, we have found a mid-year performance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ! Court Reporters , 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 l
_ .m _ . _ ._ _ . _ _ _ . _ _._ _ _ _ . . _ . . . - _ _ _ _ _ _ 1 l ~ 50 : t
- 1 appraisal-form. The appraisal date on it is 9/7 of '92.
2 And.I think you just teld me this was your final evaluation ;
' -of any kind. ;
1 j 4 A .Right. 4 i
; 5 0 And this is rated satisfactory, with a minus 6- placed above it. What do you recall about your discussions f l
.7 regarding this appraisal with Mr. Farmer? !
8 A It was about the same as the other ones that I'd , 4 9 had with him, that I didn't agree with it. I thought he 10 should have discussed all this with me'before, you know, he i 11 had it approved, and maybe we could have cleared some of a ~ 12 this stuff up. l 13 0 How did he respond? i i j 14 A Said, that's the way it is, i j' 15 O How long after this-were you discharged? , i j 16 A About two months. i 17 0 Was there any documentation between this September 18 15th mic-year appraisal and your discharge? 19 A No. Other than some meetings we had, we had once J
- 20 a week, where he would, you know, say, these are the items J
21 you should be working on, you know, feedback-type things, 22 like that, but no formal type thing. 23 Q Were thoce Teant to be in the form of some type of 24 counseling session? 25 A No, not that I saw. i f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 J~
51 1 Q Was the discussion strictly related to what jobs 2 you should be working oni 3- A Right.
~4 0 Ouring this entire. period of time was Mr. Farmer.
5 suggesting to you that you should change your way of 6 working, or change your behavior in some way? , t 7 A Oh, yes. All during this time he' wanted me to 8 change my behavior and, you know, do everything the way he 9 wanted it done. 10 0 What did he want done-that you weren't doing?' 11 A He wanted everything done yesterday. He wanted me 12 to quit complaining about being overworked, about not having 13 encugh time to do this. Quit complaining about NED, about 14 the work they were doing. . Quit complaining about what's 15 taking so long on getting a corporate program in. , i 16 0 Who were you complaining to other than him? 17 A Anybody that would listen. 18 Q- Do you remember who? Personalities? Names? 19 A Everybody that : worked with. I mean, my co-20 workers. 21 Q What was that population? 22 A This was, you know, just a group of people that 23 worked for Warren, but it was mostly just the people around 24 me, around my office. 25 Q And I think you said he had about seven people ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W.r Suite 300 : Washington, D.C. 20006 '
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.. - - . . - . -- = .- - - -- - - . - , . . - . _ - . , k i 52 i I 1 working fcr him?'
'2 ) A' Right, f
3 0 Did you have supporters among that group? 4 JL Supporters of --.to me, you know, tney would --
-5 they would tell me they supported me, and agree among 6- themselves.that, you know, that things weren't being run '
i 7 right. But for them to go.out and' complain to management or ! 4 8 somebody else, no, they wouldn't do that. 9 0 'Did you socialize with any of these people away
- 10- from the plant? f 11 A No'.
{ 12 O Okay. Referring again to the mid-year performance . 1 t 13 appraisal dated September 15, '92, in the section that calls 14 for your signature, it has, handwritten in there, "see 15 response." I would assume that refers to a resp nse that
-16 you wrote?
17 A I think it refers to a response I was going to
'18 write.
19 Q That's why I asked, because I don't have anything 20 in this paperwork that I have. 21 A I don't believe . ever finished it. I put that on 22 there, and was going to do it, an then I just gave up. This 23 is not going to do any good. But I made a response to one, 24 I think, the year before that, and it didn't do any good. 25 Q Did Mr. Farmer'or anyone else at any point advise i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 !
~ Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 i
4 53 1 you that you were in a job jeopardy situation? l 1 2 A Ch, just by that letter that they sent me,.which i 3 .you should have a copy of it. There should be one in there j 4 4 signed by .ust about everybody. ' 5 0 I'll show you a copy of a J etter here, it's to I j 6 you, Mr. Latimer, from S. W. Farmer, and the' subject is 7 performance expectations.
! 8 A Right, that's it. That's the one where I would be :
2-l 9 terminated if I didn't change my ways, or I would either be i 10 demoted, transferred, or terminated. ; I 11 Q And this is signed by -- it appears to be Mr. l 12 Farmer's signature, and then below it, "our concurrences" - i l 13 - 1 l
; 14 A That would be.Marvin Page, Ray Chambers, and 15 Charlie Deets, who's head of the whole plant, and Greg
^ 16 Tucker, from personnel. i
- 17 ~ Q And written underneath, in handwriting, is, "I i
i [ 18 refuse to sign, Lecause I disagree with the allegations." 19 Is that your ariting?
- 20. A That's correct.
l 21 Q Did you write a rebuttal of any type to this? 22 A No, I did not. l a 23 Q Okay. This document, under conclusions, containo 24 the written statement: " Management will continue to assist 25 you in this effort, providing feedback on a monthly basis." l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006
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54 l 1 Did they continue to assist you, and the effort they're a 2 talking about is: ..being given the opportunity to 3 demonstrate an immediate, significant and ongoing manner, a 4 level of performance that justifies your remaining in the 5 position of senior engineer of technical support." Did you 6 receive some assistance or counseling? 7 A I don't know whether you would call it counseling. 8 It's still telling me that I'm not doing it right. I'm not 9 doing enough for them. I should quit complaining. I could 10 have probably satisfied them. i . O How? 1 12 A By giving up my self-respect. 13 0 What would you physically have had to do? What 14 would you have had to manifest, do you think, to satisfy 15 them? , 16 A We would have had to started working a lot of l 17 overtime. 18 Q Unpald? l 19 A Unpaid. : would have had to not raise any 20 concerns whatsoever. Stick my head in the sand. If 21 something was wrong out there, don't say anything, because 22 they didn't want to hear it. And that I was unwilling to 23 do. I didn't need that job that much. 24 0 You weren't that interested in continuing to be 25 employed by them? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950 . l
55 i A Not working under those conditions, no. 2 Q. assume you needed a 3cb. 3, A No, I don't:need a Job. I've got enough money to 4 retire on right now. In fact, I was planning on staying 5 retired until a~ friend of mine up here called me to come and 6 help him out. And that's what I'm doing now. And he's just 7 paying me too good of money to turn down. 8 0 I must say I envy you. 9 A Well, it's not all my doing. I inheritid some.of 10- it. Some of it was given to me.
"1 . Q Well, that's an. interesting position to be in.
12 Most of us don't have that luxury. 13 At that time did you have the financial 14 wherewitnal to just walk away from the job? 15 A Yeah, whenever I -- Well, a lot of it was tied up 16 in CP&L stock that I -- you know, in the profit sharing 17 program, or what do you -- the 401K plan? I put a lot of 18 money in that. And the stock did quite well. 19 0 Tell me about the days immediately before you were , 20 discharged. Anything stand out? l 21 A No, nothing whatsoever, j 22 O How about the day you were discharged? ! 23 A The day I was discharged I was -- I believe I was {i 24 standing outside smoking a cigarette, because they just l 25 said--stopped letting people smoke inside. And some guy . i P I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ! Court Reporters I 1612'K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006 ; (202) 293-3950 __J
I
'l l
l l 56 l 1 came runntng up over there, and said, somebody in tech 2 support's going to get fired. And everybody was wondering 3 about who it was. I walked inside to do something, and got l 4 a phone call. And it was asking me to go over there. And I l 5 said, wel'_, I guess I know who it is. l 6 0 Who called you? 7 A Secretary. 8 0 Secretary for whom? 9 A Believe it was Ray Chambers' secretary. And went 10 over there. And Warren Farmer was there, and Tim Cleary was 11 there, and the guy from personnel. I forgot what his name 12 was. 13 0 Was that the guy that you just mentioned signed 14 this? 15 A Yeah. 3 reg Newsome. Greg Newsome was there. I 16 think he said, we're here to terminate your employment, for 17 poor performance. I think that's what they told me. 18 Q Lad they give you any documentation at that time? 19 A No. Wouldn't give me any. Refused to. ! said 20 give me something that's saying, you know, why I've been 21 terminated, and he said they can't do it. They gave me the 22 standard stuff that said if you want to continue the 23 insurance and, you know, stuff like that. But they never 24 gave me anything, officially, in writing, why I was 25 terminated. They told me verbally. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
i 1 0 57
- t's been my experience, 2 perhaps not all, but many !
of these plants or licensees have a form that 3 is given to an employee when they're terminated. 4 form exist Are you aware, did such a in the CP&L system,? 5 A
- have no idea. But :
6 was given nothing relating as to why': was terminated. 7 0 Who told you you were terminated? 8 A Tim Cleary. 9 0 And you said he explained the reasons 10 . Gave you nothing in writing, but 11 he explained the reasons. What were the stated reasons? 12 A Poor performance. 13 Q 14 They back that up with any examples? A Well, they based it 15 in the past. on, you know, the appraisals 16 Q . How did you respond? 17 A is : just said that, you know, that's what you all 19 want, you know, you ao what you want, but that's not true. All of it was Just orchestrated. 20 right there. :t's like that letter 21 You would think, before somebody would sign it, any of those, Marvin Page, 22 or any of those would have come to me without 23 Warren Farmer being there, and say, well, what's the problem. 24 O That never happened? 25 A No. Never did. It takes time to get rid of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Washington, Suite 300 D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
58 1 somebody, and that's why I got three satisfactory minus 2 appraisals, and tnen the last ene was 9/7, and tnen it took 3 them two months to do the paperwork. 4 Q But even the last one was a satisfactory minus. 5 A Satisfactory minus. 6 0 What's the real reason they discharged you, Mr. 7 Latimer, as far as you're concerned? 8 A As far as I know for sure? I don't know for sure. 9 Q What do you think? 10 A Only thing I can assume is that because I got I 11 got them in trouble with the NRC. 12 O Was the NRC ever mentioned to you? 13 A Definitely not. 14 0 By any of them? 15 A Definitely not. They would have bee,n fools to do
, l 16 that.
17 O Did they ever give any indication that they knew 18 you had spoken tc the NRC? 19 A Never any indication. But it was -- I mean, they 20 knew I had. ! mean, it was in his report. If I remember 21 correctly, when they had the exit meeting, the new chair -- 22 the new president had just come in, what I heard, got all 23 over the management cf our plant about the 24 eroclon/:orrosion, and he wanted some stuff changed. 25 0 When did that happen? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 A 59 2 This was at the exit interview.
.Q 3
This is after you had been discharged? A No, huh-uh. 4 This was before. This was before. 0 5 So erosion / corrosion became a pretty significant topic? E A Yes. 7 When you're sitting at the utility and the
-8
.NRC comes in'there and says you're doing it wrong, and says
.the reason you're doing it 9 wrong is because you don't have the necessary people doing it, 10 doing it, you don't have enough people you don't have corporate support. Same thing I :
11 had been telling them all along. 12 I told them the NRC was going to come in there and do that. 13 0 You weren't at the exit meetings? 14 A No. ! don't get 15 invited to things like that i 0 . I 16 How long was it between that exit meeting and the time you were fired? ! 17 A i This was several months. They hadn't got all the
\
18 bad reviews.in yet. i i 19 0 Well, of course, at the exit meeting the report of 20 the inspection wouldn't be available. It would take quite j 21 some time for that to be made public. 1 i 22 A It came out later, 1 23 and you probably got a copy of ! that when it came out. 24 I mean, it was an exit interview and then the 3 LAP report.. 25 I believe that's what it's called. Q
! think I have that report, but it's back in the I
i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Washington, Suite 300 ! D.C. 20006 ) (202) 293-3950. '
1 office. 60
- didn't 2
think I would need to bring it. A Yeah, they were two different 3 ones that came out. The one was the exit interview, and the other was, I guess, 4 the formal report. 5 Q Now, I want to make sure I understand this. The 6 topic of the erosion / corrosion program came up during the 7 exit interview. 8 A That's correct. 9 Q How did you become aware of that? 10 A
- got a copy of the exit interview. Not through 11 my supervisor.
! got it thre"_ ttlier people.
12 O Well, when you say you got a copy of it, was it 13 notes or minutes or -- 14 A No. It was a written, written -- he came out 15 3ater as written. 16 This is -- I got one here that's dated 6/11. It's an inspection conducted April 27 to May 1st. 17 O Of? IS A 992. There's also another one, too. 19 Q ~ want 20 to try to get the timino down here. Now, there's an exit interview at which you came to know the 21 erosion / corrosion program, 22 2nd the inadequacies of that program were discussed prominently by the NRC. 23 A Correct. 24 Q Do you recall when that ! 25 taken place? exit interview would have Just roughly. l i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
61 1 A It would have been in March, : think. 2 O Of 1992. 3 A Right. This, this -- excuse me. :: would have 4 been the 1st of May 1992. Nick Economos was the inspector. 5 0 And then was Nick Economos the inspector that you 6 had the discussion with? 7 A Correct. i 8 0 The exit interview took place in May. 9 A f*m-hmm. 10 0 The report, the inspection report would have been
~. issued sometime after that.
12 A Correct. 13 O And received by the company. 14 A Mm-hmm. 15 0 You received your final negative mid-year 16 performance evaluation in September '92. 17 A That's correct. '8 _ 2 And a eat as you can recall, you were terminated 19 approximately two months after that? 20 A Right. It was November. November -- 21 Q So, beginning in May, up to the time that you were 22 discharged by CP&L, it was no secret that the 23 erosion / corrosion program was of some interest to the NRC. 24 A That's correct. 25 0 And the NRC did not take a favorable view of what ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300
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'1 was being done with that program. Is that a fair j 2 assessment? f 3 A That.certainly is. j 4 O That being the case, during that period of time, j 5 .did any of your managers, supervision, come to you and i 6 ' attempt to discuss the program and how to improve it with 7 you? l 8 A When you say came to me to ask my opinion or how ;
9 -to' improve it, no. I would say that I went to them. We,
- 10. the.three sites -- the erosion / corrosion people at three
- 1. sites were trying to come up with au vatside vendor to come 12 .in and redo the erosion / corrosion program for all three !
13 sites, or at least give them some additional help. ! 14 And we had a meeting up at the Brunswick plant, i 15 where the company gave us a demonstration on wlat they could 3 16 'do on providing. manpower, them actually doing a walk-down of 17 all your plant piping, determine where it goes, determine , 18 what size it is, going through all the old drawings, go.ng i 19 through the flow diagrams, getting your history -- chemical i 20 history, and such things as that, and then floating } i 21- everything into the EPRI program, and coming up with a good 22 program. Which I thought that was what we needed, because
]
t 23- ;the_ limited manpower that we had to do with that before just ; 24 -- and.the. problems that we ran into, I didn't think.was l 25 .enough. , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters ! 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 : Washington, D.C. 20006 i (202) 293-3950 -
63 1 So I got things set up for them to de it, and got 2 quotes in for them to do it, and gave it to them, and that's 3 the way it went. And they finally came in there, : believe, 4 in probably January or December, or early January of 1993, 5 and actually re-did the whole erosion / corrosion program. 6 Something I had been trying to get them to do. 7 0 When could your supervisor, Mr. Farmer, or anybody 8 in management have first pinpointed the fact that you had 9 spoken -- you must have spoken to the NRC about that 10 program? l' A When they first pinpointe" that 12 O Yeah. Help me out here. Give me the time frames ; 13 where the light bulb would have gone on and they would have i l 14 said, John must have talked to the NRC about this program. 15 A They day : talked to him. l l - 16 0 How would he have known that date? , i 17 A He had to overheard me. ! mean, I've got a little 18 cubicle ner2. a . .m ..ick E onomos is sitting in my cubicle. _ 19 mean, it's just like us talking here, except there's, you 20 know, six-foot-high partition there, or five-foot-high 21 partition. 22 Q So it would have been fairly apparent. 23 A Ch, yes. : mean, it wasn't like me going over to
- 24 the NRC and sitting down ano talking. ;
25 Q Who could have heard? I l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 4 (202) 293-3950
64 1 A Anybody. 2 0 Do.you know fer a fact that anybody did?- 3 A Sure. People sitting right next to me did. 4 .O Do you. recall who that was? 5 A Dick -- I can't remember his name. Dick Webber, 6 he would have been there. Stan Pruitt probably would have 7 been there. And there's a couple other people that I can't 8 recall their names there, but they would have been right 9 next to my cubicle. And then whoever was behind my cubicle, 10 and I can't remember his name either. I mean, it was 11 anybody there would have heard us talking. I mean, it 12 wasn't -- 13 Q Do you know one way or the other if Mr. Farmer 14 happened by at that point, or heard you talking? ! I 15 A I don't have any idea. i 16 0 Do you know if at that point anyone of these l 17 colleagues of yours, who were nearby, went to Mr. Farmer and i 18 said, well, Jchn's talking to the NRC inspector?
- i 19 A No.
20 0 So what you're telling me then, if I understand 1
- 21 correctly, the physical layout that day, when you spoke to l 22 Inspector Economos, was such that these other people could j 23 have overheard you. t i
- 24 lA Sure. And it wasn't but a couple days after that L 25 'they had their exit interview, and then it was discussed. !
l I l , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. > Court Reporters , t 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 ' Washington, D.C. 20006 : (202) 293-3950 l
65 1 Q 20 you know if you were mentioned by name or by
-2. ~ position?'
3 A Sy position, I'm sure. 4 0 Well, are you sure? Or is that conjecture on your 5' -part? 6 A Well, that's conjecture, because I wasn't there.
.7 Q But you_said you received some minutes or a memo 8 regarding the exit interview.
9 A -Well, I_'ve got a copy of the exit interview where
'10 it says, you know, the program is being run by one person on '11 a part-time basis. Who else could that be?
12 0 Yeah, but that's a statement of fact. 13 A That's correct. 14' O I mean, as an inspector I would know that whether 15 I had ever talked to you. Farmer.could tell me, you know, 16 we have one man assigned full time, it's John Latimer. I l
- 17. might never speak to you and I would know that.
18 A Correct. Maybe I'm missing what you're t2ying to .
'19 get at. l 20' O What I'm trying to get at is who knew what when. .
21 A Well, the whole site knew that I had talked with 22 the NRC'at the exit interview. Whoever was in the exit ; 23 interview knew I had talked with the NRC. ,
-24 O I guess I'm trying to-understand how they would be ,
25 able to pinpoint that. l
)
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. f i Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 i (202) 293-3950
1 66 i A Because he told them that he interviewed me and 2 this is what : told him. 3 0 Okay. Now, that's something different than what 4 you told me before. Do you know that to be a fact, that he 5 made the statement, I talked to John Latimer, or I talked to 6 the engineer responsible for the program? 7 A Well, I think on the exit interview there's 8 probably a list of names that he talked to. You know, they 9 normally put that on there. 10 0 That's one document I haven't seen. 11 A During the exit interview -- Like I say, I don't 12 know that they knew at exit interview. But I would think he 13 would have said that you've only got an engineer on a part-14 time basis doing this. And also in there it says that I 15 had used the EPRI program and erosion / corrosion program, and 16 the results I'm getting are totally contradictive to what 17 was actually out in the plant. The erosion / corrosion 18 program would say : 's failed an :'ve got good pipe out . 19 there, or v1.ia versa. And he was saying that I had lost all 20 confidence it. this -- or the engineer had lost all 21 confidence in this. 22 O So the bottom line, then, Mr. Latimer, is you were 23 so easily identified with that program, that when negative 24 statements were made about the program, it's your assumption 25 they had to know it came from you. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
i i i 67 1 I 1 A Right, mm-hmm. i i 2 0 Is that what ultimately got you fired? ! 3 A : can only say what : think. ! 4 O That's what I'm asking you. ] 5 A Yes. That's -- that was the straw that broke the 6 camel's back. } 7 0 Did anybody, either a co-worker, a supervisor, a f 8 manager, or even an underling, ever say to you they either - 9 knew or thought that was why you were discharged? 10 A No. I've had very little contact with anybody l 11 from the plant. ; 12 MR. DOCKERY: We'll go off the record. 13 (Off the record.) i 14 MR. COCKERY: Okay. We're back on the record. 15 And I'll remind you once again, Mr. Latimer, that you are 1G under oath. Do you acknowledge that? 17 THE WITNESS: Acknowledge that. 18 BY MR. DOCKERY: 19 Q I believe, after your termination, you either 20 contacted or were contacted by the quality check program l 21 that CP&L has in place. 22 A That's correct. 23' Q Did you make that contact or did they come to you' 24 A They came to me. A guy. named -- by the name of 25 Burlin Lowery. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202)-293-3950
68 1 Q Co you know how that's spelled, Lowery? 2' A Lowery, L-o-w-e-r-y. He's retired from CP&L right 3 now. 4 Q Okay. 5 A He is the one that wanted me to write a quality 6 check, because he was head of the quality check at that 7 Robinson plant. 8 Q How did he contact you? 9 A By phone, I believe. 10 Q At home? 11 A Yeah. And he ask if . ..;ntea to write one, and I 12 really told him I didn't think it would do any good. And 13 he, ! guess, kind of insisted -- but he kind of didn't 14 insist either. Anyway, : sat down there and I wrote it, 15 wrote it up, and he came over there and got it, and went 16 over it with me, and, you know, took it back and put it 17 through their program. 18 0 What was he icoking for? 19 A He was Just looking for any concerns that I had. 20 That was his job. Anybody that left CP&L, whether 21 contractors, CP&L person, t.lked to him. You know, he 22 wanted to know any concerns they had, and he would send them 23 to the right channels. 24 0 Were you told on the day you were terminated that 25 you had that option, or that you would be contacted? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
n ; ,. 69 1 A : don't remember. ! , .2 0 So you wrote up something. l
- 3 A That's correct.
i t j 4- 0 'll show you something that's titled the " Quality
.5 Check Program - Independent Investigation." !s that a l 6 response to the investigation, or is that what you wrote up?
4
'7 A That is a response to the investigation.
8 Q Because I don't recall seeing anything that you 9
- 9 -had written to the quality check program other than that.
2 10 A Okay, here it is. Here it is right here. That's-11 CP&L's answer to the quality check that I wrote up. 12 Q Okay, this.is the CP&L response. 13 A That's the CP&L respanse, where they wrote -- 14 where they wrote what, you know, I had written. And that's 15 something different there. What it concerns is exactly what { 16 I wrote, except for listing the people down at the bottom 17 who they talked to. 1 1 1 18 2 Youa :een saying you wrote up. Was it l 19 handwritten, or was it -- l l 20 A No, it was typed. I 1 21 O It was typed. Can you check your paperwork there 22 and see if you have a copy of that? 23 A This is it right here. 4 24 Q Let me take a look and see if I've seen it. 25- .A .How'about -- 'I have an extra copy. That was the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Recorters 4 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20006
'(202) 293-3950
__ . . _ _ _ . _ _ . . . . ~ _ _ .- ~ - - 70 4 1 quality. check I wrote up. 2 Q Mr. Latimer, I h?ve not seen this before. If you . - 3 have a copy of it, I -- 4 A Yeah, you can have that. I've got.an extra copy. 5 That's the quality check that I wrote up and gave to Burlin 6 Lowery. And CP&L just took -- just lists that again, then 7 gives their response. Also, at the bottom of that one, I . 8 hand wrote in there, you know, who they could contact. 9 0 Would that be the same names that appear on this 10 apparent letter dated November 23rd, 1992?
, ~1 A -They would have been some v. the same. I don't 12 remember they were identical. But that quality check should ,
13 be in their system somewhere, my letter with the handwritten 14 notes on the bottom. 4 15 Q You list, en the document that I'm 1ooking at, 16 eight people, and it appears that you're indicating to the ' 17 quality check program that these people should be
- 18 interviewed because they might support some et your 19 contentions?
r ' 20 A That's correct. 21 Q Mr. Latimer, when you were discharged by CP&L, you 22 -had the option to go to the Department of Labor. Were you 23 aware of that at the time? [ 24 A No, I wasn't.
- 25 0 Are you aware of it now? ,
r ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. > , Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
l l 71 1 .A Yes. I was aware of it, I guess, as of -- well, l 2 the second letter I wrota to you all, and you all called me 3' and told me that, you know, I had the right to do it, but it 4 was a six-month time limit, and that time limit was up at 5 the time. 6 Q And up until that point in time you did not know 7 you had that option? 8 A No, I didn't. ; 9 Q Did you consider any other action? Civil Action? 10 A No. By that time I was just kind of wanting to
. forget about it and put it behind me, and didn't really 12 consider anything. And then, you know, after a while you 13 come to your -- I came to realize that I wasn't treated 14 fair, Or I thought I wasn't treated fair.
15 Q This was a realization that came to you over time? 16 A Yes. 17 0 What prompted that? 18 A Just -- I guess ;ust sitting there thinking, you 19 know, why did they fire me? Was it poor performance, or was 1 20 it something I did? Do you deserve to.get fired because 21 you get a satisfactory minus rating? Do you deserve to get 22 fired because your supervisor apparently can't get along 23 .with you or doesn't think what you're doing is they way 24 you're supposed to be doing, or you're doing enough? I just 25 came to realize -- the realization that what I was doing was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
72 1 what I was supposed to do. And I could only do what : could 2 do, you know, during the time period. 3 Q There is some other documentation that I've seen 4 that indicates there was at least a possibility explored of 5 you transferring to another group, or at least to another 6 supervisor. 7 A Correct. 8 Q Fill me in on the details of that. 9 A Well, this was going back to the mod 10 implementation group, who used to be the old construction
.. group. It was the people I worked for before I went to the 12 maintenance department. I worked for them, and they wanted 13 to get me back.
14 Q Do you recall when that came up, in terms of some 15 time before you were discharged? , I 16 A Right. Several months before I was discharged I l 17 approached them about, you know, coming to work over there. 18 Q W..o did you approach? ; 1 19 A This was Jack Epperly, who was head of mod 20 implementation. 21 Q Was this just something you took on yourself, to 1 22 decide to go talk to him and see about it? 23 A Yes. 24 Q Did Mr. Farmer know, or come to know that you had I' 25 gone -- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporcers , 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 ) Washington, D.C. 20006 ; (202) 293-3950 l
73 1 A Not at that part:cular time. He came to know when 2 I put in a request for transfer. 3 Q And how was that request for transfer treated? 4 A He signed it and sent it on to, I guess, to Marvin , 5 Page, and then it went to Ray Chambers. And Ray Chambers 6 denied it, said he wasn't going to -- forgot what the 7 corrects words -- it's probably in there -- that he wasn't 8 going to transfer anybody with a poor performance. 9 Q Did he discuss that with you? 10 A No. 11 Q Did you attempt discuss it with him? 12 A Not at that point. Figured that, you know, they 13 didn't want me to go, I wouldn't go. But mod implementation 14 would have taken me. Now, there -- there wasn't a job slot l l 15 over there, but it wouldn't have been difficul,,t to transfer 16 my position out of tech support into the construction unit. 17 Q Now, which position would that have been? Would 18 that have been -- 19 A Welding engineer. 20 0 Okay. But not necessarily erosion / corrosion? 21 A No. At that point in time they had already gotten 22 a man to take over the erosion / corrosion program full time. 23 One man. 24 Q Before you were terminated? 25 A Before I was terminated he was taking it over. I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
~
74 _1 still had:some involvement in it. But he was going to take ! 2 it~all over.
, 3- .Q - Who was~that? I
- 4. A : can't recall his name.
2 4 5 Q He was.on site? 6 A .He was on site. He was a contractor, and then -- 7 he may have still been a contractor, .but he was given the 8 responsibility for the erosion / corrosion program. He was 9 going to be responsible for'getting the subcontractor in, 10 ' aligning the subcontractor's work out, and redoing the 11 erosion / corrosion program. And I was told by Tim Cleary, 12 who was the manager of tech support, that I was only going 4- 13 to be involved in welding engineering. ; l
- 14 0 Do you recall when that occurred? I
! 15' A : would say a month ~or so before I was terminated. 16 Q That's something -- I didn't know this. This is 17 all new to me. 18 A It should be in there somewhere. 19 0 Well, : guess I didn't put it together that you , 20 had overlapped. : knew that a contractor was brought in. 21 A Right. Okay. 22 Q But you had already been advised that the 23 erosion / corrosion program would be turned over to him, you 24 would be taken out of it. 25 A That's-right. I would be doing just welding ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters . 1612 K-Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950.
, ~ . _ . . _ . __ - _
1. 75
- le engineering work. That he was going to take over the whole 2 erosion / corrosion program, and I was going to be there in
$. 3 case he,- you know, he needed some help, but it was going to i l- 4 be all of his. He-was going to run the subcontractor when 5- he'came in. And I'm talking about not just one j
\
l 6 subcontractor. There had been six or seven-people coming j
'7 in. 'Because there was going to be a total walk-down of the l' 8 whole. plant, go through all the records and, you know, come
- 9 - ty) with a little bit better than what we had been able to do 3
- 10 'over the past year.
11 0 !s it accurate to say that they were going to have i . 12 one full-time contractor and a number of subcontractors '
- 13' doing what you had been doing up until that. time?
14 A That's correct. At least during the -- re-doing 15 the program, they would have one full-time CP&,L man and a 1 1' 16 lot of contractors. And then, after the contractors left, 17 they would have had one full-time CP&L person, and also the 18 corporate program to support him. 19 Q The corporate program would have been out of ( 20 Raleigh? 21 A Out of Raleigh. And they had made a little bit of : 4 22 attempt to do that. They had appointed one person to do , 23 that, and we had had one or two meetings with him, and : 24 trying to line out what he needed to do and what we needed 25- to do and how to get a corporate approach to it. I , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 i
- . (202)_293-3950. !
i 76 1 Q How many months was that going on before you were
- 2 terminated in November?
3 A This was four or five months. Shortly, shortly l,. 4 after they -- CP&L finally started getting serious about it, 5 'after the NRC had interviewed me and had said that you're l 6 'not doing such a good job on the erosion / corrosion. That's 7 when things started happening. 8 0 Then that plan to increase the efforts in the 9 erosion / corrosion control program even predated the 10 September _ negative mid-year evaluation you got. 11 A Ch, yes. Definite >; 12 0 So you were going to be out from underneath that 13 program. 14 A That's right. I was just going to be doing 15 welding work. And that was in the quality check program I , 16 think I brought that up, that I was told by Tim Cleary that 17 I would be the welding engineer full time. And then in 18 CP&L's response to the quality check program, they did not 19 say any -- did not deny that fact. 20 Q When you were having these conversations with Mr. 21 Cleary, did he seem -- was chere any animosity that he 22 displayed toward you? 23 A No. He seemed genuinely concerned.
'24 0 About the erosion / corrosion problems?
25 A The erosion / corrosion problems, and the apparent ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
77 1 number of people it took to do the welding engineering job 2 at the other two sites. i L 3 0 Cid-you get the impression, once you returned to 4 just welding engineering, that there would have been plenty 5 of work for you full time? 6 A Certainly. 7 0 Did he tell you that? 8 A No, he didn't. But if I would have gone to work 2 9 for the mod implementation group, that's what I'd been ! 10 doing. ! .- 0 In your opinion the work was there? 12 A Certainly. Like I say, if it takes two at another 13 plant and four at another plant, then certainly four and one l 1 14 at, you know, Robinson. You know, it's just like any other 15 ' jobs, there's ups and downs. I mean, during an outage !' 16 there's a lot of work, and right before the outage it's a
- 17 lot of work, but right after the outage, the' work load goes I8 down.
19 Q Were you surprised when you were discharged? 20 A Yes and no. I was surprised when -- I guess when 21 they told me, or I was called c"er there. But after I was 22 told I was, you know, fired, I wasn't surprised. 23 0 You were just -- what you're saying, you were 24 surprised at the. instant it happened, when it happened, not 25 that it was coming or that -- ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202)'293-3950'
a l l . 78 l 1 A Well, I didn't --1I didn't even really think it 2 was coming. You know, I thought that everything was pretty , 3 ' clear, that the erosion / corrosion program had been taken , i 4_ over by somebody else. : was - I could go be a welding 5 engineer full time. 6 O That's what.I find significant. I didn't realize 7 'this.before. It sounds like this whole erosion / corrosion - 8 - your involvement is about to end. 9 A Correct. And that's what that letter states, that 10 ' Jack Epperly wrote. Or, in fact, I actually wrote it for
.1 him, and he signed it. But he wantec me to put some input 12 into that letter to try and get me over there. And that's 13 what stated in there. He discussed it with Warren Farmer.
14-15 MR. DOCKERY: 30 off the record again for a 16 minute. 17 (Off the record.) 19 XR. DOCKERY: 2kay. 2nce again, Mr. Latimer, 19 we're back on the record. 20 BY MR. DOCKERY: 21 Q And what :'d like to do now is give you the 22 opportunity to bring up anything that I may not have touched 23 on that you feel is pertinent to what we've been talking 24 about. 25- A Well, that last meeting I had with Tim Cleary. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
'9 ; Okay, Tim Cleary was Warren Farmer's supervisor. And I had 2 a meeting a month, maybe two T.onths before I was terminated, 3 and talked with Tim, and basically told him ! thought Warren 4 was being unfair in expecting me to do all the work he 5 wanted to, for the simple reason that there were two welding 6 engineers at -- there were two people, one welding engineer 7 and a full-time assistant at the Harris plant. And there 8 was four people at the Brunswick plant doing the same job I s 9 was doing part-time.
10 And I also brought up the fact that the NRC had 11 come down on CP&L in the exit interv2cs, and then the 12 subsequent SLAP report, written that CP&L did not have 13 enough people on the erosion / corrosion program. And at that 14 time he said that the erosion / corrosion program was to be 15 taken over by a full-time person, and I was just going to be 16 involved as a welding engineer. You know, I was going to do 17 that full time.
'3
_ Ar.3 t his I also put into the quality check 19 program, stated that, in it, CP&L's response to that did not 20 dem that. So I can only c.ssume that they agreed with it. 21 There was a full-time man there, taking over the 22 erosion / corrosion program. His duties were to -- when the 23 subcontractors came in to re-do the erosion / corrosion 24 program, he was to take charge of that contract, actually 25 have it re-done, the way it should have been done the first ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
50 1 time, with more people, more personnel.
-2 And at that point I contacted Jack Epperly and, ~3 you now, asked if I could come to work.over there, if he 4 needed anybody over there. And he said, yes, that he would t
5 be very glad to have me over there. And I went through the ; 61 formal transfer request, and it went up through Ray .
.7 Chambers, and Ray Chambers denied it, and I believe he based ,
i 8 it on that he wasn't going to transfer anybody with poor 9 performance. 10 Also at that time there was other openings in the-11 corporate office in Raleigh, which, you know, for welding 12 engineers, that's what they -- you know, full-time welding 13 engineers, which I was very well qualified to do, and I knew 14 the -- you know, knew the guy I'd be talking -- you know, 15 working for up there, if I, you know, chose to, pursue it. 16 But after I got that from Ray Chambers I decided that it 17 wouldn't be any good to pursue a transfer to somewhere else, 18 ycu know, ; he's not going to do it. 19 Q There were other opportunities within CF&L? 20 A That's correct. 21 Q And you would have accepted those assignments if 22 they had been made available? 23 A I'm not saying I would have accepted them. I 24 certainly would have pursued them. It would depend on, you 25 know, arrangements that could have been made. You know, d ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
51 i 1 what the salary would have been. Would'I have'to pay for 2 moving, since I'm initialing the request for transfer? 3 Because CP&L's got a policy, if you initiate'for transfer, 4 you have to move yourself, other than, you know, the other 5 way around. But I certainly would have considered it. 6 0 Was money a big concern at that time? 7 A No, not for me. 8 Q Not for you. I'm not referring'to you. For CP&L 9 or to the -- was it of concern to the management at the 10 Robinson plant? 11 A I certainly thoucht'it was a concern of theirs, 12 because they would not get the corporate program going, 13 which would involve money, person, and time, whatever. They 14 wouldn't get it rolling. They wouldn't give me any 15 additional help. 16 O Did anybody ever tell you, no, John, we can't do 17- this because it costs too much? A No. They always told me t. hey were workin9 on it.
~ ~. B .
19 That we going to get there sooner or later. And I could see 20 that that sooner was going to be a lot later than I felt 21 comfortable with. '22 Q While we were off the record you also mentioned a 23 discussion you had with Mr. Cleary on another technical 24 issue. 25 A Correct. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
82 1 Q Will you describe that again for me, please. 2 A This involved :he service water placket at the i 3 intake. When the NRC came in on a normal inspection., I i 4 guess, during the 1992 spring outage, they went down to the 3 1 5 intake and found that the down ecmers, coming off the pumps, l 6 going into the big service water headers, were corroded from- l
- 7. the outside, and it was further evaluated that it needed to 8 be replaced, and they were replaced at that same outage.
9 They also looked at the header pipe and found some '10 areas that had some OD corrosion on that too. And they also il made comments of that in their exit interview and, I think, 12 their final report. 13 And when I talked to Mr. Cleary about that, I told 14 him that the person at that time that was responsible for 15 the service water pipe was Warren Farmer. And Warren Farmer 16 apparently didn t do what he should have done, because the 17 header pipe had no preventative maintenance done on it, no 18 follow-up done on it. I believe it probably got a coat of 19 paint and -- but it was never rechecked after that initial 20 time. And that being kind of protected should have made him 21 realize that the header pipe, which was exposed to the rain, 22 atmosphere, or whatever, could have been in worse condition. 23 .That was never checked. 241 Q Would that have been up to Mr. Cleary to check 25 that, or are you saying it was up to Mr. Farmer? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W.,-Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
83 1 A Well, it should have been up to Mr. . armer to 2 realize that if I've got corrosien on this one, : should 3 have corresion on the one that's in the worse condition. 4 And what : was just telling him, i it was just poor 5 judgment on his part that it w. *ecked. 6 0 How did Mr. Cleary res3, 7 A I think he was a little bit e, urpris ed , because Tim 8 had been there one time betore and had left and then had 9 come back, and he probably wasn't there at that time that 10 this had occurred. 11 Q Was he upset that you were even bringing it up? 12 A No, not really. 13 O And this took place, this conversation took place, 14 I believe you said about a month before you were discharged? 15 A :t's hard to say. A month or two months. :t may 16 have been a month. It took place at my request. I went to l i 17 see him. :t was the first meeting I had with him. He had l 18 never requested to talk to me. :n fact, nobody at CP&L's j 19 management had ever recuested to talk to me about my l l 20 apparent poor performance, of what : could do to improve it. 21 I always had to initiate a conversation with them. l 22 O Throughout all this, was anybody apparently mad at ] 23 you? 24 A Not outwardly, no. The only way I could see i 25 somebody was mad was through the appraisals I was getting. i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
i i 84 ; 1- Sut were'the face-to-face contacts that you had Q -{ 2 cordial, .br were they heated' I 1
~3 A No, they were pretty cordial. !
4 0 Got anything else you'd like to bring up? 5 A Well, I guess other than just restating that I i 6' don't believe I was fired for poor performance. -I don't 3 7 think you could say I had poor performance, not considering j 8- the workload that I had, not considering what the NRC said i 9 about the number of people that are required to do a 10 program. The number of people that other plants had as a , 11 welding engineers. The number .: aog2e they had as welding 12 engineers. 13 The quality check that : filed with CP&L, : : 14 expected a lot more to come out of it than what did. I was 15' told by, I believe, Herb Casanova, who's head of the ! t 16 corporate quality check program, that I'd probably be i 17 contacted by somebody from outside of the -- outside of 18 CP&L, because they wanted somebody independent to do the 19 investigation. l 20 0 Did that ever happen? l 21 A No, that never hcypened. I was never contacted. 22 The person -- the people that did the investigation was the I 23 legal. department. The legal department was, according to 24 Duane Walters, who was in personnel, were the people who 25 approved my termination originally. It may not have been l l i l ANN'RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters i
-1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 i Washington, D.C. 20006 (202)' 293-3950 ] i
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BE
- those same specific people, but it was the same department.
2 Q And who told you that? 3 A Cuane Walters. And that should be in that package 4 I gave you. 5 Q Was that the handwritten note on the copy of the 6 personnel policy? 7 A Right. 8 0 Okay, I have that. 9 A Right. 10 0 Did you ever talk to anybody from the CP&L legal
~~
department? 12 A No. Nobody from CP&L legal department ever 13 contacted me. made my quality check. CP&L, apparently 14 they went down there -- at least was told they went down 15 there -- did their nvestigation, which appears to me they 16 just talked to Warren Farmer and said give me an answer, and 17 he gave them an answer. And they never talked to a single is other ole. 19 Q Co ,>ou ever recall hearing the name of anybody 20 from the CP&L legal department who was involved? 21 A No, I was never told who it was. Like I say, I 22 requested them to talk to other people down there, gave them 23 specific names, wrote a letter, told them to talk with these 24 people. : thought that CP&L would, you know, contact me, 25 because Warren made some allegations in there which I never ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
36 I had a chance to respond to. 2 He said that the s.5,000-program was a total waste 3 because I didn't do anything on it until the end, and then I 4 verified all'the inputs that the subcontractor put in, the 5 Roberts girl, were all wrong, and that's totally false. She 6 would bring me the results and I would look at them, and a 7 lot of times bump them off what actually was in the plant, 8 and then I would come to her and say something's not right, 9 let's double-check this. And a lot of times she had made an 10 error. She had -- instead of putting 16 inch pipe, it may
.1 have been a 4 inch pipe, where you nau. you know, 20 times 12 the flow rate, and if'you put that in there, the computer's 13 going to show it, that, yeah, you're going to have 14 erosion / corrosion, because the flow rate's, you know, a lot 15 higher than was expected.
16 And what he said, that I never verified any of 17 them until the end, is just a total lie. 18 Q Now, the person you're referring to was the 19 contract employee, the female who was assisting you. < 20 A Right. Yeah. 21 Q Did you get along with her all right? 22 A Sure. And I raised concerns to her I said, I 23 don't think this EPRI program works. Or I don't know it 24
' works, because the information that you're putting in --
25 and, you know, I verified -- a lot of it, you know, I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
37
)
1 verified. : actually went down there and said these are the i 2 flow rates and chemistry as we know it. You know, as we can : 3 determine. You put those in there, it doesn't give us the ! i 4 same data that we're actually seeing out in the field. So I 5 know something's wrong. 6 Q Was she in agreement with you? 7 A Yes. 8 O Were you considered her supervisor? 9 A Yes. 10 0 I guess somewhat. She also worked for Warren, 11 too, but : was supposed to be her supervisor. 12 But, like I say, the inputs we were putting in 13 were not reflected out in the field, and that's when : came 14 to her. : couldn't rely on them. But what I was doing, 15 erosion /corrosicn, was a lot better than relyinc on those. 16 Because I considered everything suspect. And if I had a 17 system which changed in any way, pressure, temperature, j 1 18 flow, diame;er, pipe. cr whatever, : would do a 1 19 representative sample Of that system and see if I had l 20 erosion / corrosion. At that point : didn't need the computer 21 program to tell me that it was good or it was bad, because I 22 went out there and did it. : UT'd it. I knew whether it 23 was good or bad. l 24 I don't know. : got off the subject there. What 25 was the subject. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
58 1 Q Well, no, this is your opportunity to bring up 2 anything -- 3 A Well, like I said, I think that if they would have 4 done a good quality check investigation, we wouldn't be at 5 this point. I wouldn't be coming to you. I just tan't 6 believe I was terminated for poor performance. I mean, 7 terminate me for something else, but not that. 8 0 Is there anything else you would like to add that 9 you think would be of assistance? 10 A Other than just go over that, you know, in fine Il detail, what I've given you so far. 12 Q And that's something I want to ask you about. 13 I've got a number of documents here. There's really no 14 reason for us to go ever them on the record. But I'm going 15 to look through them. I might ask you to stick around here 16 for a little while. 17 A Okay. is 0 I T,ay cr may not have some questions. We may have 19 overed it. 20 Before we go off the record, any las thing you 21 would like to add? 22 A It's kind of like a last request before they put 23 you to death. l 24 Q No, not really. I suspect it's impossible to get 25 everything on a record such as this. You can't think of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. , Court Reporters ; 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 ) Washington, D.C. 20006 i (202) 293-3950
59 1 everything. But I want to make sure you feel you've had the 2 opportunity.
- < A : could probably tell you a lot more, but it would 4 probably :ust rehash what :'ve told you, or what's in that.
5 Like i said, you know, on my transfer over to -- my request 6 to transfer over to mod implementation, you know, they're 7 correct in saying that no position existed. But if I was a going to do welding engineer full time, like Tim Cleary told 9 me and it wasn't denied by CP&L, there was no reason that I 10 couldn't go over there, because that's where 95 to 98 il percent of the welding is done, is over tnere. 12 O And that wouldn't have involved any physical 13 transfer of your family or your household. 14 A That's correct. And that's where I worked one j 15 time before, and I did that work over there. The guy that : 16 would have gone to work for, I even worked for him before. 17 He knew what : could do. And there was no reason to deny 18 that transfer :ust c'ecause there was no position over there, 19 because it just would have been moving this position from 20 here aver to here. Wouldn't have cost CP&L anything. But, ) 21 like I said, the only reason I can think that they denied me ! 22 transfer was to -- they want me off CP&L totally. 23 asked personnel if -- you know, if I could ever 24 be rehired. And they told me no. Put on my thing.not to l 25 rehire. ; l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
90 , 1 0- Do you recall who told you that?
-2 A Either Greg Newsome-or Duane Walters. Probably ;
Duane Walters. 3 l 4 0 What was Duane Walters' position? 5 A- He's like assistant personnel. He worked for Greg I 6 'Newsome. But I'was told that, you know, I could never be
.7 rehired by CP&L anywhere. Not just at Raleigh plant. Any l 8 plant. Maybe that's their policy when they terminate l,
9 somebody, but that kind of stuck in my craw too. 10 0 After you were terminated, did you' attempt to gain l 11- employment at any other licensee, by any other licensee? l l 12 A I sent out some resumes, but I really didn't 13 expect much back from them. If you're asking me whether 14 CP&L contacted them and told them not to hire me, I would 15 seriously doubt that. 16 O Well, how about if they contacted CP&L? 17 A I think most -- well, I think all of them probably 19 said, you know. they :ust didn't have any openings. I9 O Dkay. 20 A And I don't think that -- if they would have 21 called CP&L, I don't know what CP&L would have said. I'd 22 like to believe would have said, you know, he's a good guy. 23 But I don't know. 24 0 You don't have any reason to believe that, for 25 lack of a better term, you were black listed? ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ) Court Reporters 1 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 ; Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
31 1 A .40 . All I know is that : can't work at CP&L 2 2 anymore, even as a meter reader. 1 3 0 Based on what they told you. ! 1 4 A Yeah. Basec on wnat ne told me was in my ) 1 5 personnel file, on my terminatien. I asked him if he could ! 6 send me a copy of that, and he said no, he couldn't, it was 7 against their policy. Same thing about, you knew, giving me l 8 a definite reason for termination was against their policy 9 to give me something in writing. 10 Q You were told that? I 11 A Yes. ; , 12 O By whom? I 13 A Duane Walters, : believe. All I wanted was 1 l 14 something to say that I was terminated for poor performance. j 15 0 And they refused to provide that. , i 1- A They refused to provide that. And also I wanted 1
- 17 something saying I was not able to be rehired by CP&L, and '
18 they refusec to give me that. I don't know why. : mean, 19 that's not a big thing, : don't think. 20 MR. DOCKERY. Okay. Are you satisfied with the 1 21 opportunity you've had here tonight to discuss your
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1 22 concerns?
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23 THE WITNESS: Yes. 24 MR. DOCKERY: I think with that we'll conclude 25 this record at approximately 8:15 p.m. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 j Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
i 92 1 ,Wherupon, at 8:15 p.m. the interview was 2 concluded., 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 , 15 i 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. Court Reporters 1612 K Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20006 (202) 293-3950
1 l 4 l j REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 4 This is to certify that the attached proceedings , before the United States Nuclear Regulatory ' ] Commission in the matter oft i l NAME OF PROCEEDING: Interview of Latimer i DCCKET NUMBER: l PLACE OF PROCEEDING: Charlotte, NC j~ were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken 4 by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by :s . ,' or under the direction of the court reporting I company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing procesdings. i 109/vvW e'slll- . ftficial Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd. i 4 i 1 I 9 e
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y e y 4 June.18, 1992. i l Docket No. 50-261 ! License No. DPR-23 Carolina Power and Light Company ATTN: Mr. R. A. Watson Senior Vice President Nuclear Generation , P. O. Box 1551.
- Raleigh, NC 27602 1
4 Gentlemen: [
SUBJECT:
NRC INSPECTION REPORT NO. 50-261/92-13 j This refers to the inspection conducted by N. Economos of this office on April 27 to May 1,1992. The inspection included a review of activities authorized for your H. B. Robinson facility. At the conclusion of the inspection, the findings wee discussed i with those members of your staff identified in the report. Areas examined uuring the inspection are identified in the report. Within these areas, the inspection consisted of selective examinations of procedures and representative records, interviews with personnel, and observation of activities in progress. I In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRC's " Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter and its enclosure will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room. I Should you have any questior.s concerning this letter, please contact us. 1 Sincerely, l l l (Original signed by C. A. Julian) I Caudie A. Julian, Chief Engineering Branch
)
D; vision of Reactor Safety (cc w/enci- See page 2)
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Carolina Power and Light Company 2 June 18, 1992
Enclosure:
NRC INspecdon Repon ~ l i cc: w/ encl: C. R. Dietz Vice President Robinson Nuclear Project G1partment H. B. Robinson Steam Elecuic Plant P. O. Box 790 Hartsville, SC 29550 R. H. Chambers Plant General Manager H. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant
O. box 790 Hartsville, SC 29550 Heyward G. Shealy, Chief Bureau of Radio %gical Health Dept. of Health and Environmental Control 2600 Bull Street Columbia, SC 29201 Dayne H. Brown, Director Division of Radiation Protection N. C. Department of Environment, -
Health & Natural Resources P. O. Box 27687 Raleigh, NC 27611-7687 McCuen Morrell, Chairman Darlington County Board of Supervisor County Courthouse C, arlington, SC 2P535 H. Ray Starling
%[gd */.;...vor - Legal Deprtment Carolina Power and Light Co.
P. O. Box 1551 Raleigh, NC 27602 (cc w/enci cont'd - See page 3)
f Carolina Power and Light Company 3 June 18, 1992 (ce w/enci cont'd) H. A. Cole Special Deputy Attorney General State of North Carolina P. O. Box 629 Raleigh, NC 27602 Robert Gruber Executive Director Public Staff - NCUC P. O. Box 29520 Raleigh, NC 27626-0520
- L , MARRESw, nt4wA
-1 O. -iuv.i.i.T.: ., Gisoetee.
Regulatory Coriipliance
- n. B. Robinson Steam Electric Plant P. O. Box 790 Hartsville, SC 29550 i
bec w/ encl: l H. Christensen, Ril l B. Mozafari, NRR Document Control Desk j NRC Resident inspector l U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Route 5, Box 413 Hartsville, SC 29550 I I Ril:DRS i Ep nomos:ser ake Y Henristensen l 07/jf /92 06//)/92 06/ft/92 l 1 I __i
. . - _ _ _ . . - . _ ~ . _ _.__m .- _ . . _ _ . . . . . . . _ . . _ - .._. _ ____ _ _ _.
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I a uco UNITED STATES [n 'e, NUCLEAR REGULATORY Commission 4 y"- g REGioNis j
- j 101 MARiETTA STREET, N.W. ;
g ATLANTA, GEORGI A 30323 gv.....f 2 Report No.: 50-261/92 3 i Licensee:' Carolina Power and Light Company i- P. O. Box 1551 - l Raleigh, NC 27602 l , Docket No.: 50-261 License No.: DPR-23 , Facility Name: H. B. Robinson Inspection C e April 27 - May 1,1992 Irssvauto . '
$ N f'- ,
2 Economos Date Signed Approved by: -- 0 /' ; ejdfne Blake, Chief Date Signed . I lWlaterials and Processes Section l Engineering Branch ! Division of Reactor Safety l i
SUMMARY
1
- Scope
)
This routine, unannounced inspection was conducted in the areas of inservice 1 4 inspection work activities, and maintenance, j 1 Results: l Significant programmatic weaknesses were identified in the areas of maintenance i and they are summarized below. Examination of S/G shell weld No. 5 (upper girth weld), confirmed the presence of recordable indications identified in previous inspections. These indications are undergoing analysis to determine possible changes from previous examinations and code acceptability. Eddy Current (EC) j s examination of S/G tubes disclosed no evidence of significant tube wall i degradation through corrosion, one tube was plugged however because an i i obstruction precluded its inspection. The erosion corrosion program is directed by l one individual who .uses engineering judgement to determine inspection schedules, I 4
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- component replacement and material selection. There was no evidence of corporate involvement in this program. The licensee indicated that plans are underway to correct this problem. Pitting corrosion has degraded the service water piping at the intake structure to the extent that it is being replaced during this outage. This condition is mostly the result of neglect i.e., there have been no maintenance inspections to monitor the OD surface condition of these pipes and.
take appropriate preventative measures as necessary. The feedwater nozzle
- reducer to pipe welds have been monitored / examined during refueling outages
! since S/G replacement in 1984. No evidence of cracking has been detected. In the areas inspected deviations or violations were not identified. i l a 4 a i e
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i J i n 1 p l 1 1
Report Details
- 1. Persons Contacted Licensee Employees '
'R. Barnett,' Manager Outages and Mod
'S. Barrett, Senior Specialist, NAD E. Black, Supervisor, NDE Services '
R. Chambers, General Plant Manager R. Cooper, Senior Engineer Technical Support
'C. Dietz, Vice President, Robinson Nuclear Power Division '
'W. Farmer, Manager, Engineering Programs C. Griffin, Materials Engineer Nuclear Engineering Department
*J. Harrison, Regulatory Compliance Manager '
J. Latimer, Welding Engineer, Technical Support : D. Meleg, Level lli Eddy Current Examiner
'C. Osman, Principal NDE Specialist Technical Services Department !
'M. Page, Manager, Technical Support D. Weber, Senior Inservice inspection Specialist Other licenses employees contacted during this inspection included engineers, technicians, and office persennel.
NRC Resident inspectors L. W. Garner, Senior Resident inspector
' Attended Exit Interview -
- 2. Inservice inspection (73753) Unit - 2 This inservice examination effort was the first such activity of the first period in the current (third) interval. The governing code for this interval is the ASME Code, Section XI 1986 Edition with no addenda. Volumetric and surface examinations scheduled for this' outage were relatively few in number and as such had been completed at the time of this inspection.
Activities in progress included confirmatory UT examinations of weld No. 5 in S/G(s) A&C, maintenance (pipe replacement) in the service water system , and erosion corrosion inspections in the Heater Drain system. These i activities were observed and will be discussed in the following paragraphs. i
. - - -. . = =- .-. -- -
- . 6 Within the areas examined violations or deviations were not identified.
- 3. Erosion / Corrosion - Induced Pipe Wall Thinning Program.
In response to Generic Letter 89-08 requiremants and the licensee's response dated July 21,1989 the inspector observed a scheduled examination on component, No.1HD24. This was a schedule 40,12x8 reducer in line number 8 HD-233 of the Heater Drain system. The observation included grid layout, instrument calibration, data acquisition using a Panametrics 26DL Plus unit and downloading. Nominal material thickness was identified a 0.406 inches, with a minimum of 0.346 inches. Following this field observation, the inspector reviewed the controlling document, identified as Maintenance Instruction (MI) No. 010-1, 4 . Erosion / Corrosion Control Program dated June 10,1987 and discussed with j the cognizant engineer, administrative controls including: use of EPRI's ] codes Chec NDE and Checmate, corporate involvement in terms of design engineering support, and program management. Following this discussion,
- the inspector ascertained that the licensee has committed at best, only a minimum amount of resources in this program. For example, there is no j objective evidence of corporate involvement in the Robinson
- Erosion / Corrosion (E/C), program in terms of an approved corporate manual to address, programmatic direction, decision making responsibilities, i
component replacement, data management etc. The program is presently i directed by one engineer, on a part time basis, who decides what ! components are inspected, when they are replaced and what types of 1 replacement materialis to be used. There are no program driven acceptance criteria based on projected wear rates or trending of systems and specific components. The engineer relies heavily on personal expenence and knowledge of system performance, as guidance to generate inspection scope (s) during outages. Some systems have been modeled after a Checmate Computer Code, but predictions made by this program have been so increditably off the mark that the engineer has lost confidence in the system. Examples presented to support this position were, (1) Component between feedwater pump A to S/G "A", Checmate predicted failure 43K hours ago but U/T thickness measurements show it to be within code allowable limits, (2) component between heater drain "B" and heater drain tank "B", Checmate predicted failure 134,015. hours ago but the component still meets code allowable limits. This poor reliability has diminished confidence in this code to the point that it is not utilized or relied .! upon as a predictive tool. The inspector ascertained that the heater drain lines have experienced the greatest amount of wear. This system contains mostly carbon steel piping
1 , l ! l 7 except for lines No. 5 and No. 6 which have been replaced with C Mo, low ! l alloy material. Smaller lines i.e. one inch or less have been replaced with ; stainless steel material. The inspector expressed his concerns over the lack ; of corporate involvement and organization in this program prior to and at the l 1 exit interview. Management concurred with the inspector's observations I and indicate that although some steps have been taken to phase in corporate l involvement into the program, additional efforts will be made to expedite this process. The inspector indicated that inspector Followup item (IFI) 92-13-01, Erosion / Corrosion Program improvement, would be identified for tracking purposes. ; 1 l
- 4. Licensee Action on Previous inspection Findings :
! (Open) IFl 261/92-09-02, Corrosion on Exterior Surfaces of Service Water l i Lines at the intake Structure : i l This item was opened to document concern over the pitting corrosion attack l l identified on the exterior surfaces of the downcomers connecting the pumps l
- to the header at the intake Service Water Structure. Since the subject l
; inspection. the licensee evaluated the extent of the damage and determined j that the components in question (downcomers), should be replaced during j , this outage. The governing code of the affected piping is the American '
l Water Works Association (AWWA). The replacement material is the same
- as that now in place, A139 Grade B, except that nominal wall thickness has ,
been increased from 0.125 inches to 0.188 inches. No decision has been ' i i reached on the external protective coating to be applied. The 31 inch header is made of the same material and has the same nominal wall i thickness as the downcomer replacement material. The inspectors . performed a visualinspection to observe and assess the heretofore described corrosive attack on the downcomers and on the 31 inch header. By this inspection, the inspector verified the concern documented in the aforementioned IFl. The inspector concentrated his efforts on an area of about 20 to 30 square inches located on the east side of the header. This area is currently being investigated by the licensee to assess the extent of the damage and to determine if the header is acceptable for continued service without repair. By observation and through discussions the inspector ascertained that the licensee has no preventive maintenance program to monitor the condition of piping exposed to the environment, as in this type application. Therefore it would appear that the lack of preventive i
, maintenance and neglect permitted the corrosive attack to go unchecked l 4 and cause the degraded condition which rendered the downcomers l unacceptable for continued service. Tns replacement activity, the evaluation j
- of the Header and implementation will be revisited on a future inspection on ,
a routine basis. This item will remain open until this review is completed. l l s
o i 8
- 5. Exit Interview The inspection scope and results were summarized on May 1,1992, with those persons indicated in paragraph 1. The inspector described the areas inspected and discussed in detail the inspection results listed below.
Proprietary information is not contained in this report. Dissenting comments were not received from the licensee.
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