ML20153B782
| ML20153B782 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 10/11/1985 |
| From: | James Keppler NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20151D196 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-87-583 NUDOCS 8805060078 | |
| Download: ML20153B782 (157) | |
Text
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l 2 STATE OF MIQlIGN1 3 '
It! THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR T!!E COUNTY OF MIDLA!1D
. 4
! )
-5 DOU OfEMICAL CO!!PANY, )
[ )
6 ,
Pl aintif f , )
i )
7 l -vs- )
! ) No. 83-0022325 8 E NSUMERS POUER COMPANY, )
! )
9 Def enda nt . )
)
10 r-----------------
11 The Doposition of JA!!ES G. KE PPL ER ,
taken before me, Glenn G. 11111er, CSR-2596, Registered 12 frof eccional Reporter and Notary Public within and f or the County of Wayne, (acting in Glen Ellyn), State of !!!chigan, 13 st 799 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, on Friday, petober 11, 1985.
14 l
15 NPPEARNICES :
16 KIRKL A!!D & ELLIS 200 East Randolph Drive 17 Chi ca go, Illinoic 60601 i (By William Jentes, Ecq, 18 and Carol Rico, Esq.)
19 Appearing on behalf of the Plaintif f, 20 DARRIS, SOTT, DENN & DRIKER 2100 First Federal Building 21 Detroit, Michigan 48226 (ny Eugene Driker, Ecq.)
22 Appearing on behalf of the Def endant.
23 24 i'
- DARAK87-583 PDR vu -
Lafayette Buuldine Luzod Reparting Sertice 3crxo Northurstern Huy.
Suite 1026 962 ))i6 5"i M Detroit, Whigan 48226 Farmington Ihlls, .%chigan 4801h L
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1 APPEARA!!CES CO!!TI!;UED:
2 NEIL JE!ISEN, Esq.
Of fice of General Counsel 3 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington D.C. 20555 4
Appearing on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 5
ALSO PRESEtiT: Bruce Berson, Esq.
6 tiRC Regional Counsel l
7 !
t 8
j!
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 l
24 l
1 2
l.cfayette Building Luzod Reporting Service 300m .%:hurstern nu w Suite 1026 96g,j j 7g Suite JW Detroit. Michigan 48226 Farmington Hith. Stichigan 4801h I
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1 2 WITNESS INDEX 3
s 4 Witness Examined ny Page ggggg c, YEPEER
- 5 l
6 Mr. Driker 114 7
8 t
1 9
10 11 12 13 ;
.i 14 l
15 16
. 17 ;
18 ,
i 19 .
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. 20 i-21 .
I 22 e I
t 23 l ,
l 24 !
I '
3 Lafayrue Building Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903 Northurstern Itu r.
Suite 1026 962.])7g Suite lo?
Iktmt, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington lidis, .\fichigan 48018 t---- . - - . . - . . _ , - , . -
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1 Glen Ellyn, Illinois 2 Friday, October 11, 1985 3 9:00 a.m.
4 MR. JDITES : This depovision is being taken 5 in the offices of the Region III of the tiRC in Glen Ellyn, l 6 Illinois, on the morning of October 11, 1985. I' m William 7 l R. Jentes of the firm of Kirkland (= Ellis representing Dow f
8 Chenical Company and with me is my associate Carol Rice.
9 Mr. Driker may wish to identify himself for the record, 10 MR. DR II*ER : I'm Eugene Driker, representing 11 Consumer a Power Company.
12 MR. JD1TES: There are also here two counsel 13 for the NRC and f or the record they should probably 14 identify themselves.
15 MR. JD1 Sal Neil Jensen f ra.n the Of fice of 16 General Counsel.
17 MR. BERSOM: And I'm Bruce Berson, NRC i
18 Regional counsel here in Region III, 19 MR. JDITES : Mr. Reporter, would you please 20 awear the Witnesc?
21 J A !! E S G. KEPPLER 22 was thereupon called as a witness herein and, af ter i
23 having been first duly sworn to tell the truth, the 24 whole truth and nothing but the truth, was examined 5
!s Lafayette Budding Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903 Northuestern Huy.
Suar 1026 96g, y j 76 Suite im
[kt.mt. Miehigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, .\!ichigan 48018
1 and testified as follows:
i 2 EXAMINATION 3 BY MR. JENTES :
l 4 p Would you please state your f ull name for the record?
5 hA My name in James George Keppler. I' m regional 6 administrator of NRC 's Region III Chicago of fice.
I 7 D Where do you reside?
i 8 A I recide in Glen Ellyn.
(
9 D What is your address there, please?
10 A 324 South Park Doulevard, Glen Ellyn.
k 11 0 Tou n+ntioned that '/ou work f or the NRC as Region III l
12 -
admini strat or . Un:t is the of ficial business address of l
13 j hegior I:1's i
14 h 799 Reocevel ::cao, clen Ellyn.
I 15 p Do you hold any degreec f rom colleges or universities?
l 16 A I have a Bachelor of Science degree in physics f rom 17 LeMoyne College in New York State.
I 18 D Af ter you graduated f rom LeMoyne by whom were you 19 ,
employed?
20 6 General Electric Company.
l 21 ) For approximately how long were you with GE?
22 4 I was with General Electric f or close to ten yearc, both 23 in Cincinnati, Ohio and San Jose, Cal if or ni a.
24 D When did you start with GE?
I k I $
5 Lafnette Iktdine
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Luzod Reporting Sertice 300m Northuestern Ituy Suite' 1026 962 1176 Sutte irs Detroit, Alichigan M226 Farmington !hils, 31schigan #018
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f I 1956.
2 ) While you were with GE what connection, if at all, did you 3 have with the nuclear activities of GC7 4 4 I was with the aircraf t nuclear propulsion program in 5 Cincinnati f rom 1956 to 1961 when I transf erred to the 6 General Electric's Atomic Power Equipment Department out 7 in Calif ornia.
8 b Uhat did the GE atomic electric power, or nuclear power 9 group, do?
10 i They -- the General Electric Company in California had 11 really two major f unctions: one was to design nuclear 12 power plants, commercial nuclear power plants, and that 13 wac their main heaciguarters for their commercial nuclear 14 power program, and they had a laboratory at their 15 Valecedose site in which they did testing work. )
I 16 D What general responsibilities did you have with the Atomic '
17 Power Dguircent Departnent of GE? ,
18 \ I was a reactor physicist.
19 0 Af ter you lef t GC did you join the ACC?
l 20 p Yes.
l 21 ) Wac that in 1965?
22 4 Early 1965, 23 ) When you joined the AEC what was your responsibility with 24 the Commission?
t i
G Lafayette Buniding Lutzod Reporting Sersice 30<sn krthuestern Hn.
Suite 1026 9$g, j ; 7g Suite tw Detroit, Whitan 48226 Farmington Hdh, Whigan 480]h
I 1 A I joined the Atomic Energy Commission as a reactor f
2 inspect or .
3 ) Did you eventually work up to be the chief of the Reactor i 4 Testing and operations branch?
5 A Yec. In 1967 I transf erred to Washington, our i
6 headquarters in Washington, and in 1971 I became chief of 7 the Reactor Testing and Operations branch. Then in 1973 I l
8 was transf erred out here as regional director of the 9 i Region III office.
I 10 D Up to this point in the case, Mr. Keppler, the Court has i
11 heard testimony f rom a number of present or f ormer 12 employees of the imC, or the ACC, including Mr. Gallagher, f
13 ! Mr. flood, Mr. Lov elace, Mr. Kane, Mr. Ronald Cook and will f
14 l be hearing bef ore you appear Mr. Landsman, or Dr. Landsman i
15 rather. I'm going to try not to be repetitive on matters 16 that have been covered by those witnesses and instead 17 seek, through your testimony, to obtain a more general 18 overview of the inspection and enf orcement activities of 19 f Region III as they have related to the Midland f acility of 20 Consumer s Power.
21 As we advised you and your counsel and 22 counsel for Consumers Power, not an overriding but 23 certainly a principal focus of my questioning will be as 24 ,
to what have been the perceptionc of you and your staf f ;
i I.
7 La.fayette Buddme Lu:od Reporting Sertice 30cm Methuestern llu v Suite 1026 962.))76 Suae im Detrat Michigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, Mahigan 48015
___.___________________________________.___a 1 concerning the QA perf ormance by Consumers Power as an 2 applicant or licensee, whether or not the delays that have 3 been encountered at the Midland f acility can properly be 4 blamed upon the NRC or rather upon the licensee, consumers 5 Power, and whether the NRC Staf f, or at least some of 6 i those persons, acted punitively, as one witness described l
7 i it, in connection with the enforcement and inspection 8 activities.
9 By way of background to that let me first 10 put in perspective, if I can, the activities of Region 11 III. What exactly are the inspection /enf orcement 12 activities of Region III, stated in general terms?
13 % This of fice is responsible for regulating the licenced 14 nuclear activitics in eight states in the Midwest, from 15 Ohio on the east to Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri on the 16 west. The activities cover nuclear power plants, both 17 under construction and in operation; they cover university 18 or research-type reactors; they cover f uel fabrication 19 I f acilities or f uel storage f acilities; and they cover I
20 by-product materials, licenses, in terms of medical, 21 a ca demic, industrial services.
22 ) How many nuclear plants that are actually in operation are 23 covered by Region III at thic time?
24 \ I believe the number today is around 24, 3 i
8 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Service 3wn so,thue, tern y,a Suite 1026 96g.))76 Suite lui Detroit. .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, \fschigan 4801h
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1 D And approximately how many reactors that are under 2 construction are covered by Region III's activities? I' m 3 only looking f or a rough figure.
4 4 Roughly a half a dozen. If you include the two plants at 5 i 1
Midland and include Marble Hill, two plants, you can scale 6 it up a little bit.
7 0 How big is the staff of Region III?
b 8 A The staf f is approximately 250 people. That includes i
9 ! administrative and clerical personnel.
10 Of that total staf f approximately how many might be 1
11 ! subscribed as prof essional erployeee of the Region III?
t 12 A I would say of the order of 100 13 D I placed bef ore you a 47=:c'.t that' c i:RC 245, which is an l
14 excerpt out of Title 10 e-- the r?H relating to part 50 on 15 Appendi x B, which as the tit 9 e indicated relates to 10 "quality assurance criteria f or nuclear power plants and 17 f uel reprocessing plants. " And in the introductory 18 materials that begin at the botten of the page on the i
19 '
lef t-hand column there's a description of what is required 20 of every applicant f or an operating licence, and that goes 21 over to the top of the next page. What role does Region 22 III play in seeing that the applicant does in f act meet 23 thece various criteria?
I 24 \ Region III, in the conduct of its inspection progran, j 9
Lafasette Buildtng Lu:od Reporting Sertice 30903 sorthuestern tiuy.
Suite 102b 962.I176 Suite im Detrost, \lichigan M226 Farmington Ihlh. \fichigan #016
1 conducts inspections to determine the licensee's 2 compliance with the criteria of Appendix B.
3 0 If you continue looking over in the second column in the 4 second paragraph of the introduction there's a description 5 of what is meant by quality assurance. What role does the 1
G Region III of fice and its staff play in ensuring 7 ! compliance with quality assurance?
O h They review the licensee's programs and procedures, th ey l
9 inspect the implementation of those programs and 10 procedures on a sampling basis.
11 ) Okay. And without getting into details concerning all of 12 the activities of Pegion III, how does the Region go about 13 carrying out its role at, you've described it of sampling 14 the perf ormance of the licensee or applicant in regard to 15 quality assurance? j l
16 i Well, we have a defined inspection program that consists 17 of looking at all f acets of saf ety-related work at the 18 plant. We look at the procedures and the records that l 19 relate to that work, we inspect work in progress on a 20 sampling basis and, of course, we take enforcement action i 21 where we find activities not being conducted in accordance 22 with the legal requirements. This activity in planned so 23 that when concrete work is being done we try to get people 24 out there bef ore the work is being done to look in the
, 1 I ;
10 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sereice 30am ,\orthu,rern th, y
[ Suite 102b 962, j ] 76 Suae lou l Detroit, Whigan 48226 Farmington Ihlls, Whigan 48018 l
1 ( plans and programs for that work ahead of time, and then 2 ve observe a portion of it, maybe a very small portion, 3 but we observe a portion of it.
4 Then what we try to do is generally get back 5 ,
smie time later in the program and again observe some i
6 activities. 'Itiese would be done by, say, civil engineers.
1 7 In the case of electrical work, you would have electrical 8 i engineers looking at this kind of work. So we break down i
9 into specialized disciplines and these people f ocus on the 10 l controls f or the work and the actual quality of the work 11 l itself. ,
I i
12 0 A little bit further down on that same page under i
13 Organization it's indicated that "Tr.. ai+11 cant shall be.
14 l responsible f or the establishment nc oxocution of the 15 quality assurance program. " Is the ref erence here, in the 16 case of Consumers Power, is that the company that is the 17 applica nt ?
18 A Yes, k
10 0 And then it goes on in the next sentence and speaks about i
20 the applicant being able to delegate to others, such as 21 contractor s, agents or consultants, but concludes "That 22 tho applicant" -- excuse me -- that the applicant "shall 23 retain responsibility theref ore. " Does this mean that 24 :
from your standpoint Consumers Power always remains t i 11 Lafayette Buildsng Lu:od Reporting Sertice 3risn krthurnern Huy.
Suur 1026 9gg,j j 7n Suite im I)etrat. Alichiran 48226 Farmington Hith. Whigan 48018
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1 1 i responsible for the quality assurance activities?
l 2 A The licensee, or the applicant, is the organization that 3 is looked to by the NRC f or assuring the quality of the 4 plant. While they may delegate certain responsibilities 5 to the contractors and subcontractors, th ey are 6 responsible f or seeing that those are carried out 7 effectively.
8 h As part of your duties as head of Region III, do you 9 prepare periodic reports f rom time to time on the quality 10 assurance performance of applicants such as Consumers 11 Power?
12 i We prepare inspection reports f ollowing inspections at the 13 facility that may deal with quality accurance or 14 activities even beyond quality assurance. In addition to 15 the normal inspection reports, we prepare what is called a j i
16 Systematic Assessment of Licensee Performance reports on a l 17 periodic basis, generally every 12 to 18 months, in which 18 we summarize the licensee's perf ormance over that period 19 of time that the appraisal is being conducted. nat's
, 20 generally what I ref er to as a report card f or that l
l 21 period. There may be other periodic reports that get 22 generated f or special reasonc but those are the major 23 reports that we prepare.
24 p The Court has heard testimony regarding the SALp reports, l
l.afayett- Buildung Luzod Reporting Senice 3ov>3 sorthue,1N tho Suite 1026 962 1176 Su'!! W' Detrott, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Ihlis. .\lichigan 48018
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1 i and I'm going to come back to a couple of those as I move 2 through your examination today, but I'm interested in 3 pursuing your last comment with regard to the f act that on 4 occasion you make up special reports. And in that regard 5 let me direct your attention to another document that I 6 ; put before you, which has been marked as NRC 349. It's i
7 1 entitled "NRC Staff Testimony with Respect to 8 l Implementation of Quality Assurance for soils Work and 9 remedial measures af ter December 6,1979. " Was this l
10 l testimony that you prepared f or presentation to the Atomic 11 Saf ety and Licensing Board?
l 12 h I prepared two sets of testimony and I'm not sure which l
13 one this is,
, l i
14 D Let me state that while there is no date on the document l
15 itself it has been identified f rom the other sources of 15 inf ormation that I brottght along and ref erred you to 17 bef ore we started the deposition as the testimony that you 10 actually prepared under date of July 310t, 1981.
l i
19 A Okay.
I 20 0 Excuse me, I misspoke. It's July 13, 1981. What was the 21 occasion f or you to prepare this testimony?
22 A This was in preparation for a hearing before the Atomic 23 Saf ety and Licensing Board.
24 ) And was this one of the occasions where you reported on l
I 13 Lafayette Rwidme Luzod Reporting Sertice 30003 %rthurstern flu ,
Suite 1026 96g, j j 7g Suite IWi Dettmt, Whigan M226 Farmington Ihlls, Whigan 2018
1 ! the perf ormance of the applicant, in this case Consumers 2 Power, regarding its O A perf ormance?
3 L Yes.
4 ) And was this testimony prepared and given by you as a part 5 of your duties as Region III administrator?
6 6 Yes.
l 7 p And in preparing the testimony did you draw on the 8 inspection reports and records that you ref erred to a l
9 little bit earlier and on your own observation of 10 Consumers' quality assurance perf ormance?
11 N Yes, as well as discussions with key members of my staff.
12 ) Did Consumers Power ultimately got a copy of this 13 testimony and have an opportunity to comment on and indeed 14 ,
cross-examine you with regard to the testimony?
I 15 h I believe they cross-examined me at the hearing.
l 16 D tiow as part of this particular testimony I notice that if 17 you look at Ouestion 2 you were asked *Nhat has been your 18 assessment of the licensee's overall quality assurance 19 program for Midland prior to December 6,1979?", and then 20 your answer goes on for a number of pages, but I would 21 like to direct your attention to the first paragraph in 22 your answer.
l 23 Does that particular paragraph summarize 24 what you had observed and the tinC Staf f had f ound were I
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14 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903 Northesten Ilv s i Swtr 1026 962.I176 5* I(
[ktroit. Stichigan 48226 Farmington Hnlis, Shchigan 480lb
_ _ _ ___ ____ _ _ __ _ _ _. _ _ _ ____ ____ _ ___ - _._ _ _ .___ _ _ _______ - _ _ _ m 1 some of the "significant problems resulting in regulatory l
i 2 action" in the period f rom September 1970 through 19787 3 A Yes.
l 4 D Now,. if you turn over to the bottom of Page 2 of your 5 ,
testimony you there talk about the underlying causet of 6 the OA deficiencies that had been found by the Staff and 7 ,
that you testified to and you talked about, in that 8 j te stimony , two common threads emerged. Let me speak to 9 the second one. You state "There was an insensitivity on 10 l the part of both Bechtel and CPC to recognize the 11 significance of isolated events or f ailure to adequately i
12 evaluate possible generic application of these events
! i 13 ) either of which would have led to early identification and t j 14 avoidance of the probicm."
l 15 l
. What were you ref erring to when you were 16 speaking abcut the f ailure to recognize the significance 17 of isolated events and the f ailure to adequately evaluate 18 possible generic application of these events?
19 A I think if you go back to the first paragraph in which we 20 talked about some of the maj or problems that that l
21 conclucion on our part applied to the problems with 22 omissions of reenf orcement steel on several occasions back 23 in 1976 and it referred to the problems with the Diesel 24 Generator Building, in which problems of excessive j l
i k 15 Lafayette Buddsng Lttzod ReparIing Sereice 30o03 krihuruern Ilia Sun 1026 9$g jj7g Sune im lhetroa, .\fichigan 4822b Farmington lidh, .\fichigan 4801h i ~
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1 settlement were first identified with the Administrative l l
2 Building. There may be other reasons but those two come l
3 to mind at this time. l 4 ) You mentioned particularly the DGB issue that's listed as S Item 6 in the list at the top, that appears at the top of 6 Page 2 and also you touched briefly on the Administration 1
7 Building grade beam f ailure.
f Did you become directly 8 involved in the review of the problems, QA soil 9 deficiencies, etcetera, relating to the soils aspects of 10 the Midland Plant?
11 4 I was involved in some detail, yes. I certainly was aware 12 of my staff's views at that time.
13 ) In connection with exploring a little bit more your role 14 in the soils aspect of it, let me hand you what hac been '
15 marked as NRC 279 It' c s rather lengthy document but the 16 portion that I'm going to direct you to is limited to the .
17 af fidavit which is included in there and that you 18 apparently prepared. It starte at Bates number 14190. Do 19 you have that in f ront of you?
20 N Yes.
21 D If you turn over to page 14193, which is not the best of 22 copies, but we received it to ensure that you had in f act 23 signed thic af fidavit, you'll see that you signed it as of 24 ,
April 13,1981. Do you see that?
i 4 5
16 La_faytte Busiding Lutod Reporting Service 30m Northur, tern Iln kite 1026 962 1176 hi IV Iktroit. .\fichigan 2226 Farinington listis .\fschigan 2016
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I 1 [A Yes. What was the date of the other one signed?
N l 2 d The other testimony was dated in July of 1981. This was a 3 little bit earlier. :
4 A I guess I'm wondering why they' re dif f erent dates.
i i
5 0 Maybe I can help ref resh your recollection in that regard.
6 A I remember working on then in the same time period because 7 we decided to break up the testimony bef ore the -- what is 8 j the December date, the date of the order ?
9 p December 6,1979 date that you' re talking about is the 10 ,
date of the so-called stop work order on soils remedial i
11 activities.
12 h Ue broke the testimony up into two groups but I don' t i
13 recall them being that f ar apart in dates. ,
i 14 0 To help ref resh your recollection I might ask you to --
15 well, bef ore I reach that let me ask you one other I
16 l q ue stion. I take it that you did in f act prepare and sign 17 j this affidavit that's included as part of NRC 2797 9
18 A Yes.
h 19 D And once again was this prepared by you as part of your i
20 responsibilities and duties as Region III administrator?
21 h Yes.
l 22 2 And was the af fidavit supplied to Consumers Power and did 23 they have an opportunity to respond and connent on the 24 assertions made in your af fidavit? ,
I I
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1.nfayette Raildnne f.utod Reporting Sertice 3vn3 krthe,th? Ilu ,
Sante 1026 q$g,jj7g Suar lw IWtrmt \fuchnran #226 Farmington flills, %hiran Molk
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1 A Again I believe it was done at the hearing.
1 2 0 Now, let me return to where I was about ready to go, which 3 was to Page 2 of your affidavit. There's a question, when 4 did you first learn of the apparent excessive settlement 5 of the Diesel Generator Building, and then you indicate in 6 the opening sentence that you were not certain as to the 7 actual date but then you go on to say that "I became 8 personally involved with the problem following an NRC 9 inspection on October 24, 1978, which was conducted as a 10 f ollow-up to the licensee's report of the matter. " Does 11 that help ref resh your recollection as to the period when 12 you personally got involved in the DGB aspect of the soils 13 pr oblem s?
14 h I can' t give you any dif f erent anwer than what's here. I 15 i certainly don' t have any new inf ormation that would shed 16 light on it.
I 17 ) Okay. It's indicated in the next sentence that there was 18 then an inspection conducted by Eugene J. Gallagher of my 19 staff. What was Mr. Gallagher's role on your staf f at 20 this time?
21 i He was a civil engineer, inspector.
22 ) Did you select him to make this inspection because you 23 f elt that he was qualified to review the soils aspect of 24 the DGD f ailure?
I J
l l 10 Lafayette lluddmg Luzod Reporting Sernice 309as .yortw,tm flu r.
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1 A Yes, consistent with the way we do business. When a 2 ; problem manif ests itself in a certain area we try to put 3 the inspection expertise in that area to bear on the 4 pr obl em. Por example, we wouldn' t send an electrical 5
l engineer to look at a civil engineering problem. So it's 6 ; very consistent with the way we do business.
7 b A little bit f urther then you say that af ter being brief ed 8 j on the inspection findings by Mr. Gallagher "I directed my 9 l staf f to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 10 matter to determine whether the problem had been reported i
11 i to the NRC in a timely manner, to verify the degree of i
12 conformance with commitments made by the licensee in the 13 ! Pinal Saf ety Analysis Report, and to assess the root 14 l causes of the problem. "
15 ! Based on the incpection that th e r epo r t, or i
16 l this initial inspection report that you received f rom Mr.
i 17 Gallagher, what was your conclusion ac to the significance 18 of the DGB problem and its impact or reflection of the OA 19 l perf ormance by CP?
l 20 h Py recollection is somewhat f uzzy as to the time sequence 21 that things took place but I believe it's f air to say that l
22 the Region III Staf f and the NRC Staf f as a whole f elt l
23 thic problem was quite significant right f rom the 24 ,
beginning when we learned about it because the degree of f, l
l 19 isfasette Budding Lusod Reporting Sertice 3vsn Methue, tern II,,
Suite 1026 5"' l
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settlement that had taken place was very great compared to 2 what had been predicted to take place, and I think that it 3 was quickly realized that certain commitments that were in 4 the FSAR relative to this matter were not f ulfilled. so 5
l we were concerned about the timeliness of when we learned i
6 l about the problem, we were concerned about how thin 7 problem happened and couldn' t be recognized sooner.
l t
8 p What were the commitments in the PSAR that you had l
9 ! reference to, in general terms?
10 N Well, I' d have to go back and pull that out, but there are 11 documente that have addressed this subject and my 12 recollection is there are about a half-dozen areas of the 13 PS AR that we f elt had not been met.
14 D Were those --
15 N In fact, I might even say, I'm not sure how we disposed of 16 these matters f rom an enforcement point of view, but my 17 recollection is that there were clearly in our view some 18 material f alse statements in the FSAR.
19 () Were these matters spelled out in the report that !!r.
20 Gallagher and the people working with him made? And I' m 21 talking about the formal written report that Mr. Gallagher
. 22 and his group submitted to you.
23 4 The -- I guecc I' d have to look at the reports but we sent 24 an investigator, and I believe it was Mr. Jerry Phillip j
20 f.ofasette Buddsng Lutod Reporting Sertice 30Vn .vorthue,rern Ilu s.
Suar 1026 962.!]?6 S""' K' '
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1 who went up there at one point in time, and I believe with 2 Mr. Gallagher, and I believe that report that Mr. Phillips 3 authored would have those commitments in it.
4 D To help ref resh your recollection let me hand you what has 5 been marked as NRC 68, which is a letter that you sent on 6 to Mr. Steve Howell of the NRC on March 22, 1979, 7 enclosing a --
8 1m. DRIKER I think you misspoke yourself, 9 Mr. Jentes. Mr. Howell is not with the NRC.
10 MR. JD!TES : I' m sor ry. Well, if I did, 11 I'll correct it.
12 -
MR. DRIKER: And I'm sure he'd be the first i
13 to say th a t.
l 14 BY tm. JDITES :
15 D In any event, Mr. Keppler, you sent this particular letter I
16 ! to Mr. Ilowell of Consumers Power and attached to it you'll i
17 ! see is the report that was prepared by Mr. Phillip and Mr.
18 s Gallagher and Mr. Maxwell, or at least they' re indicated 19 as being the people that signed of f on this report. Is 20 this the report that you were just ref erring to?
k 21 A Yec, yes, it is.
l 22 '
) Let me back up to your af fIdavit.
23 4 Which one now?
24 0 I' m speaki ng about the one that's the f at document that's l
r i i 1 21 lAfayerre Hwldmg 1.utod Reporting Sert ice 3Vm %rthuestern flu s
% o 1026 9sg,jj7g Swtr ifrs (ktemt, \fuhuran 48226 Farmington HJh, .\fehisan 48018
l 1 [ part of NRC 279.
]
2 h Okay.
3 ) Again a little bit f urther down on Page 2 you indicate 4 down at the bottom that the detailed investigation 5 findings is c scussed in the af fidavit of Mr. Gallagher --
1 6 I'm sorry, I misspoke. You indicate in here that the 7 ; detailed investigation findings are discussed in Mr.
8 ! Gallagher's af fidavit that's a part of this same document 9 and then you go on to say that five Region III management 10 representatives, including myself, were brief ed initially 11 by the investigation team on February 16, 1979 and that 12 "based on those detailed investigation findings, it was 13 our unanimous conclusion that the implementation of the 14 Quality Assurance /Ouality Control program for assuring the 15 proper soil foundation f or the sito was inef f ective. In 16 a ddi ti on, several of the commitments in the PSAR related 17 to this work had not been adhered to. "
18 Is that the summation of the basic 19 conclusions that you and the other regional management 20 representatives arrived at as a result of reviewing Mr.
21 Gallagher's and !!r. Phillip's report?
22 A Yes, it is.
23 ) Hopef ully you can leaf through this document and at page 24 ,
4229, about halfway through the remainder, there's an Lafantre Hustdang Lusod Reporting Sernic- Sym krthwr Ihn .
Suite 1026 9sg,jj7g Susto yo, Iktrat, Whigan M226 Farmington Ihlls, Whaean #018
1 Attachment No. S to your affidavit. It consists of a 2 letter which you sent on March 12, 1979 to Mr. Thornburg.
3 Do you have that?
4 K Yes, I do.
I 5 0 And this was in f act a letter that you sent on to Mr.
6 Thornburg under date of March 12, 19797 7
f Yes.
8 0 Once again I take it this was part of your reporting 9 l responcibilities as Region III administrator?
10 f You can answer that yes, but let me elaborate. It is my 11 i job when I believe situationc warrant further NRC 12 regulatory action to voluntary call these to the attention 13 l of the Washington Staff. I think the memo speaks f or 14 l itself in terms of the intent of it. We were concerned l
15 !
about the problems that had been identified. We felt that 16 the matter ought to be reviewed and we of fered our view on 17 the subj ect.
10 0 On the first page of the letter, or memorandum, that you 19 sent of f to Mr. Thornburg, about halfway through you talk 20 about your summary findings with regard to this matter and 21 then you list, 1, 2 and 3 Were those in fact the 22 conclusions that you recched along with your staff in 23 early March of 19797 24 3 Yes, they are, g
l !
23 1.afasette Hwiding Lusod Reporting Sertice 3tuu krthurstarr, Hu s.
Suar 1026 962.)176 S*" I%
Iktrmt, %hiron M:26 Farmington Halls. .\iAiean 3018
1 0 Now you indicate that in this particular case you, and I 2 don' t want to misinterpret what you said, but do I take it 3 that in this case you f elt that the matter was of 4 suf ficient importance that you wanted to --
5 MR. JENTES : Perhaps we should go of f the 6 j record for a minute, i
7 1 (A brief discussion was held 8 of f the record.)
9 MR. JQlTES: Let me go back on the record.
10 3Y MR. JDITES:
11 ? We had a slight interruption with some noise of f camera so 12 let me start again with my question, Mr. Keppler.
13 Do I take it f rom the testimony that you 14 gave a moment ago that in the case of the D3B settlement 15 and the findings relayed to you by Mr. Gallagher and Mr.
16 Phillipc and company that you f elt the soils OA problems 17 were of sufficient importance that you needed to move the 18 matter up to the Bethesda of fice?
19 4 Yes.
20 ) In addition to that, did you feel that the matter was of 21 suf ficient importance that you required additional 22 inf ormation f rom the applicant and in that connection did 23 you ultimately conclude that a so-called 50.54f request 24 for inf ormation would be f orwarded to Consumers Power?
i l
24 I.afayette Hustd ng Luzod ReporIing Sertice 3vru Northuestern Ils v Suite 1026 962 1176 Suar lui lktroa, .\fichigan #226 Farminston litlh, .\fahtgan #01h
l 1 1 A Af ter this?
h 2 0 7c.:. You pause f or a moment and let me help ref resh your l
3 recollection.
4 A No, I know what happened. I guess I'm trying to think how i
5 I want to say it. I think it's -- I guess -- let me say 6 it this way : When we wrote this letter it was the 7 pref erred choice of this office f or work to stop at the 8 i site and that an understanding of the magnitude of the 9 problem be determined and a solution worked out bef ore 10 continuing. The decision that evolved out of Washington l
I 11 was not to go that way but to require some additional 12 ; inf ormation through a 50.54f letter.
13 0 Let me direct your attention once again back to your 14 ! affidavit in that package that you have in f ront of you.
15 When was the 50.54f letter issued?
h I
16 0 I was about ready to hopef ully ref rech your recollection 17 on that. If you look back at page 14194, the Bates i
10 i n umbe r , it's back to the af fidavit, if you would please, 19 it's Page 4 of the af fidavit itself, you'll see there that 20 in answer to Question 6 you indicate that on March 21, f
21 1979 the NRC's of fice of Nuclear Reactor Regulation icaued 22 a 10 CPR 50. 54 r eq ue st. Does that help ref resh your l 23 recollection that that was about the sequence? I' m sot ry.
24 Did you answer? ,.
I f,
25 Lafayette Budd,ng 1.used Reporting Sertice 30mn Northweren Hu ,
Sustr 1026 9$g,jj7s Suve l'h betrat .\fahtaan 48226 Farmington Rdh, .\fahigan WHh
~ __
_ _ ~ ~ - _ - _ - - - - - _ . - - - - - - - - - . - - _ - - . _ . - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 A Yes, that is.
2 0 Further down on that page it indicates that you 3 participated in meetings at headquarters which led to the 4 issuance of the December 6,1979 order modifying 5 construction permits. " I guess let ne read one step 6
f ur ther. "I supported issuance of that order. " You l
7 ; ref erred earlier to that same document and let me hand you 8 a copy of NRC 473, which is a letter sending along the 9 order along with the order itself. Could you briefly 10 describe what your rede was in the ultimate issuance of 11 this order modifying construction permits?
12 N Well, my role was significant as were a lot of other 13 pe opl e s' . By this time, having gone through the prob 1cm 14 identif ica tion, seeking additional inf ormation t ecta the 15 licensee, and reviewing that inf ormation with key people r
16 in our headquat ters of fice, this was the course of action '
17 that was ult:..mately adopted af ter a number of meetings on l 18 the subj ect.
f 19 C Once again, the Court has already heard testimony f rom Mr.
20 Hood about the general bases f or this order but I'd like l
21 to touch generally upon then at least as you understood :
22 them. Were there three broad rationales, if you were, or 23 bases f or the issuance of the December 6,1979 order? And 24 to be more precise, at least in reviewing the order, if i
26 Lafayette Buildma Luzod Reporting Sertice 3vm krthestern na Suar 1026 962.I176 Suite lin Detroit, .tfschigan 48226 Farmmitm Hdis, .\1ichigan #1018
._. - -.-_ .- -.--:: - -. --- _ _ = _ ---.- - - .-.- _ _ - _ _
1 you look at page 944 there's a ref erence to, and I'm 1
2 l ref erring to the last paragraph on that , age, to the 3 investigation --
4 h Which document are you ref erring to?
I 5 0 I' m sorry. It's NRC 473 and the order itselt is attached 6 -
to that cover letter, and I'm ref erring to page 1944.
i 7 A Oh, okay.
I O O Down at the bott'om of the page it spells out that the 9 l investigation revealed a breakdown in quality assurance I
10 related to soil compaction activities under and around i
11 l saf ety-related structures and systems and then there are i
12 l some five f actors that are cited there. And then in the i
13 next paragraph on Page 2 it's indicated that there was l
14 also a material false statement that had been made in the l
15 l FSAR, and then lastly, on Page 3, there's a recitation of i
1G ! the sending of this 50.54 request to Consumers and the 17 concerns that the Staf f apparently felt with regard to the 18 ,
response, including the f ailure to provide adequate 19 acceptance criteria to be applied to the various remedial 20 measures taken and proposed by the licensee. Were those 21 in general the bases upon which you supported the issuance 22 of the 12/6/79 order?
23 A Yo c.
24 MR. DRIKER: Bef ore you antwer the question, t
27 Lnfayette Budding Lu?od Reporting Sertice 30m .\orthur, tern 11n.
Sune 1026 962,i176 Suar 1(a)
[ktrmt, .\fah;can 48226 Fa vington Hdis, .\fwhigan wals
l l
1 Mr. Keppler, I' d like to place an obj ection on the ; record.
- I 2
The representation which Dow's counsel made to Judge 3 DeWitt to take this deposition was that it was necessary l 4 to lay the f oundation f or the admissibility of several 5 documents and to deal with some other new matters. The 6 Judge at page 11447 of the transcript stated that "I' m 7 l going to specifically provide in the order allowing the 8 witness list to be ammended that I assume he's going to l
i S j have some matters to testify which will not be cumulative 10 and I'm going to expect that his testimony would be only 11 on matters not adequately covered by other witnesses 12 , either employed by the NRC or others. "
i i
13
- fnis document is in evidence and it has been 14 ,
testified to I think by Mr. Gallagher as well as a number I 15 ,
of other of the 11 NRC employees who have been deposed in l
16 I this matter, most of whose depositions have been read into 17 the record already, and I would urge you, Mr. Jentes, not 18 to go through this all cner again.
19 MR. JDITES: To save time, Hr. Driker, I 20 won' t try to respond in detail to your obj ection. I' m 21 trying to abide precisely by the Judge's instructions.
22 There are some necessary background pieces of inf ormation 23 as we move through tF 4 story f rom !!r. Keppler's viewpoint 24 that I think are ne eary to put into the record, or at i
28 Lafvette Buildme Lu:od Reporting Sersice 30%u .\orthurstern Hu t Suite 1026 96.2 1176 S'"' l%
Detrat, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdis. Whwan 480lb
1 least review, and I don' t intend to spend more than j ust 2 i general background questioning on those matters including 3 this December 6,1979 order.
4 BY MR. jet 1TES :
I 5 0 Uith that let me return, Mr. Keppler, to ask you if you' re 6 '
able to state that in general were the three bases that 7 I've outlined the predicates for your support of the 8
l 12/6/79 order?
9 The answer is yes, but I would say the dominant issue in 10 l terms of why the order was issued at that point in time i
11 l was the Staf f was concerned that the underlying premise 12 i f or issuance of the construction permit, namely the i
13 f oundation of saf ety-related structures and systems, was a 14 l question with the problem and that dominated the issuance 15 of the order. The other f actors were thrown in but that i
16 ; is the prominent consideration.
l 17 D Directing your attention back to page 1944 of the order, 18 which I first asked you about, that's the one that 19 l indicates that the investigation revealed a breakdown in i
20 quality assurance related to soil construction activities 21 under and around saf ety-related structures and systems, is 22 that this underlying problem that you were concerned about 23 at that tire?
24 h Ye c. ;
1 29 Lafvette Buddmg Luzod Reporting Sert see 3wn .\orthwiern Hn.
Suste 1020 g6g,j)7g Suar H"'
iktemt, %chigan 48226 Farmington HJh. Whizen 4M18
r 1 0 Earlier I showed you Mr. Gallagher's report and if you 2 turn over to the summt.ry of the f acts that Mr. Gallagher's 3 report has at page 1064, and I'm asking about NRC 68 -- 6o 4 you have that,1064? I think you' re on the right page.
5 There. Good. Under the Summary of Facts section down at 6 the bottom there's a paragraph that says inf ormation l
7 obtained during this investigation, I'll get it out, 8 I indi ca tes : and then there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and I can tell 9 you, Mr. Keppler, that while the order of the numbering is 10 a little bit different versus what the order of 12/6/79 11 said the basic content of the results of the investigation i 12 i were the same. I ask this only because was it your 13 conclusion that Mr. Callagher had been essentially correct 14 in the assessment that he had made concerning the 15 pr obl ems?
l 16 A could you rephrase that?
l 17 p All righ t. Well, during this case there's at least been 18 some suggestion by Consumers Power that fir. Gallagher may 19 not have been a s --
20 11R. DRIKER Mr. Jentes, I think we've 21 already gone through this a number of times in f ront of 22 the Judge in trying to lead a witness by your 23 editorializing about what a previous witness has said. I 24 think you ought to confine yourself to asking a question 0
Lafayette Buildmz Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903Northe,thr,,tra Suite jw Suite 1026 9gg,jj7$
Iktrost, .\fschigan 48226 Farrnation lidh. .\fschisan 4R018
_ _ _ . - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - -______._u____.__.
1 1 and not making a speech.
2 l MR. Jm1TES : I'm not trying to make a 3 speech, Mr. Driker. I'm merely trying to clarify the 4 question since Mr. Keppler indicated that he wasn' t 5 certain what I was trying to get at.
6 MR. DR IKER : Well, then ask the question.
7 Don't a make a statement, pl ea se.
8 MR. JD1TES : You ought to make your l
9 objections and not get into wasting our time with making 10 l speeches, but in any event.
11 P,Y MR. JD TES:
12 D Mr. Keppler, based on your review of the investigation and l
13 ,
report by Mr. Gallagher, did you f eel that he had done a 14 l prof essional job in connection with his assescment of the 15 ! soils problems at the Midland Plant?
16 h My view is the entire inspection team including Mr.
I 17 l Gallagher did a prof essional job.
l 18 0 Based on your observation did you have any opinion as to I'
- 19 whether or not he proved, that is the inspection team, l
l 20 l proved to be correct in their findingc concerning the 21 soils situation at Midland?
22 4 I believe that the NRC inspection and regulatory staf f 23 were in agreement on the issues identified. I certainly 24 am not aware of any disagreements that took place. That i
31 Lafayette Buddsng Luzod Reporting Service 3cno Aorthursterra lis< ,
Suite 1026 5"d' M'
\ 962.))76 Detrat, \tschigan #226 Farminston Hdin. Whigan #018
1 area you must appreciate I'm not a technical expert in and 2 Hr. Gallagher and others developed the inf ormation f rom 3 their inspection and that certainly stood up in leading to 4 the basis of issuance of an order which got considerable 5 review by other NRC personnel.
6 0 Let me hand you what has been marked as NRC 63. It's a i
7 ) stipulation that was ultimately entered into by counsel 1
8
{
f or Consumers Po.rer along with counsel for the staf f of 9 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission relating to this matter 10 of the quality ascurance deficiencies at the Midland 11 Plant. You might want to take j ust a moment to review the 12 document and maybe we can go of f the record f or a second 13 for you to do that.
14 P. I remember the document but let me just read it again.
I 15 ( A brief discussion wac held 16 of f the record.)
17 MR. JD1TES: Back on the record.
18 DY MR. JD1TES :
1 19 0 You had a chance to review NRC, now I' ve loct i t, the 20 stipulation regarding the QA deficiencies. What role, if 21 at all, did you have in the negotiation of this particular 22 stipulation?
23 A Very little because I didn' t agree with it, but that was 24 dealt with between lawyerc.
! I 32 Lafayne Building Luzod Reporting Service 30903 Northurnern no Suar 1026 962.I176 5""'I"'
[ktroa, .\fschigan M226 Farrmgton HJis, Michtsan Mole ;
I J
l 1 D Might as well explore that matter only because somebody 2 else will wonder. Why didn' t you agree with it?
l I
3 A My view was that the decision had been made to go into the 4 j quality assurance issues at the hearing and what this did i '
5 was to result in an agreement out of the hearing process 6 , that didn' t strike me as being the way to do business, but 7 I'm not a lawyer and I chose to stay out of this thing.
8 0 In any event, I take it that you did agree with the basic 9 ! proposition stated in number one of the stipulation, i
10 nanely, that there had been quality assurance i
11 l
def iciencies?
12 h It isn' t that I disagreed with the inf ormation in there, 13 it's j ust that I didn' t think -- I thought -- they had 14 ,
chose to hold this hearing, they were holding it f or 15 j presumably to air all the issues and what thic did was to 1
16 cut down on airing of the issuec.
17 p Uhen you ref er to they choosing to hold this hearing, who 18 ; were you ref erring to?
19 A The Atomic Saf ety and Licensing Board.
I 20 D Had Consumers Power initiated the process whereby the 21 hearings were to take place as you understood it?
22 4 My understanding ic that the contesting of the order by 23 Consumers Power Company led to the hearing.
24 ) Let me direct your attention back once again to NRC 349 i 33 Lafarrite Buildmg Lu:od Reporting Sertice 3own krthurstern nu r Saue 102n 9$g,j)7g Swtr 1(us Detrut, Whigan M226 Farmmaton Hills. Whigan 201h
1 i and in particular --
2 k Which one is that again?
l 3 D I' m sorry. We'll get this sy stem down. That's your staf f 4 testimony that's identified earlier as being July 13, 5 1981 6 A Okay.
7 p To save time I think the rest of the documents I will not 8 return to again. So you can put those to the side.
9 MR. DRIKER: You're on 3497 10 MR. JD1TES: I' m on 349, yes, Mr. Driker.
11 3Y MR. JENTES :
12 0 Up till this time I've been asking you a series of 13 questions about f undamentally the quality ascurance 14 deficiencies that you had reported on as having occurred 15 prior to the December 6,1979 order and that had been 16 touched on, as I directed you to earlier in the first part 17 of your answer to Question 2 in that testimony, Wer on 18 Page 3 and 4 of your testimony you answer a question as to 19 "What has been your assessment of the licensee's overall 20 quality assurance program at Midland since December 6, 21 1979?" and then at the top of Page 4 you talk about "Two 22 significant quality-related problems were identified
- j 23 since that December 6,1979 period. One of those is the t
24 "Deficient anchor bolts f or the reactor pressure vessel" l
- }
r 34 La.fayette BWidate Lutod Reporting Sert ic e 3wn .%rthu e, tern nu ,
Suar 1026 962 1ii6 Sue W Iktroit, Whigan Rf226 Farmington Hdis. Whigan 48 nib ,
l- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 and a second one involved "Procurement and installation 2 j deficiencies with the heating, ventilating and air 3
l conditioning (INAC) ducts and supports within the plant."
l 4 l What connection, if at all, did you have with the 1
5 investigation and review of these two significant 6 quality-related problems?
7 A I was aware of the problemo but I really had only a 8
l Peripheral role in them.
9 0 Were these matter s --
I 10 A I think we issued a civil penalty for one of the issuec, i
11 l Yeah. It's listed down there.
12 D Were these deficiencies that were investigated by your i
13 staff and then reported up stream to you?
l 14 h Yes.
15 p Did you have occasion to meet with the people f rom l
16 l
Consumers Power to review the situation as it bore on the i
17 INAC and the reactor vessel anchor bolt problem?
la h I know we met with the utility relative to the heating, 19 i ventilating and air conditioning problems. I guecs I l
20 i would say I'm sure we had discussions with the other issue 21 but I can' t tell you whether I was there f or the other 22 issue. I certainly would have been there, or my 23 counterpart would have been there, for the HVAC thing 24 since that did involve a civil penalty matter.
35 Latasette Buddmg Luzod Reporting S,rtice 3 tun kethurnern Hu ,
% te 1926 962.I176 Suar lui introa, \lwhigan M:26 Farmington Rdh, .\fwhigan 3018
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r 1 O Bef ore I get to the meeting that you did attend in that 2 rega r d, in your testimony you state *With respect to the 3 anchor bolt problem the quality assurence concerns had 4 their origin during the mid-1970s, similar to the soils i 5 work, and was identified as a result of a bolt f ailure 6 f ollowing installation. " Was that your conclusion and 7 opinion as of the time you issued this testimony in the 8
{ summer of 19817 9 \ That was this of fice's conclusion, yes, 10 D And then you go on to describe the HVAC situation, and I 11 won' t bother to read those materials into the record, but 12 once again did you accurately summarize your conclusions 13 with regard to the HVAC incuec as they then stood in the 14 .
summer of 1981 in this particular testimony?
15 \ Ye c.
16 D I'd like to ask you to take a look at NRC 127, which your 17 l counsel is handing across there to you. This appears to l
18 be some notes of a meeting on May 2nd,1980 between the 19 NRC, Dechtel, the Zack people and Consumers Power. The
- 20 list of attendees includes yourself. The notes are 21 indicated on the last page to have been prepared by a 22 "JLW" on itay 22nd,1980 and if you look at the list of 23 attendees the last such person listed in JL Wood f rom CPCo 24 OA. First, have you ever seen this set of notes bef ore?
\
1 36 Lafa.,ette ikidsv Luzod Reportine Sertice 30wo horthurstern Iho Swte 102n n6g jj;6 Suor 1**>
l>trat, %chigan 48:26 Farmington Hsth, Whican 48'@
l c- . - _ _ _
I h No, not to my recollection.
2 0 If you look through the notes in just broad strokes I 3 think you'll find that there are references to a 4 discussion both of the reactor vessel anchor bolt issues 5 ! and to the WAC issues. Does this help ref resh your 6 ; recollection that you did in f act meet with the Consumers 7 ,
Power people and various other people that are listed on 8 ! !!ay 2 nd,1980, to review this whole icsue or set of 9 : issues?
10 h Like I mentioned, I recall the Zack meeting, the WAC 11 meeting, but I don' t recall the other one but I certainly i
12 ; don' t suggest that I wasn' t there, f
13 D In the second paragraph on the opening page the notes
(
14
] indicate that "Mr. Keppler stated that the NRC Region III 15 considered the reactor anchor bolt f ailure to be a serious 1G technical problem and that there was concern over the 17 ! a deq ua cy of the bol tc. " Has that a statement that you l
18 j made on that ocencion, as best you can recall?
l 19 h I' m sorry but I keep coming back. I don' t recall the part 20 ! of the bolt discussion but I' m sure that's hcw we f elt. I 21 know that's the way my staf f felt. If it said I said 22 that, I'm willing to concede it probably took place. I 23 j ust don' t recall that.
24 ? I guess probably even more, well, equally important, I 37 Liszod R pcrting Service 3ta u %ethue, tern it,o Lafasette Buddene Suste 102h 96g,jj76 %ite 1m iktroa, .\lakitan 48226 Farmington lidh, .\fahw 4Rolb
1 ; take it f rom your testimony that this does in f act regard l*
2 reflect accurately what your own view and the view of the 3 Region III Staff was concerning the seriousness of this 4 particular problem?
5 Yes, and I think that was the basis for including it in 6 l our testimony.
i 7 D A littic bit f urther in the next paragraph it's indicated 8 that "With regard to Zack Company, Mr. Keppler stated that 9 Region III was concerned with the OA/0C implications. It 10 was Mr. Keppler's perception that the problem was known 11 ahead of time and that there was inef f ective dealing with 12 the probl em. "
13 li That's correct.
14 p Was that an accurate reflection of what you f elt?
15 \ That in, j l
16 '
D And since you do, I take it, have some recollection of the 17 HVAC meeting do you believe that you expressed those views 18 to Consumers on that occasion?
19 h I did meet with Consumers, yes, and I j ust don' t recall 20 the time f rame that that was done.
21 0 In the f ourth paragraph on this first page it's indicated 22 "Another quality assurance problem area in that it appears 23 OA problems are always rationalized as isolated in nature.
24 This approach is of concern to Region III. " Did you f eel l
l 1 38 Lafayette Buildag i.uzod Reporting Sert ice 3wm %orthuestem Hu r Suar 1026 ngg.;j7g Suae la Detrost, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdh. Whigan 480lk
l 1 i in or about the time of this reported meeting in May of l 2 ,
1980 that another quality assurance problem area was that 3 f QA probleme were always rationalized as isolated in nature 4 by Consumers Power?
5 A That goes back to the statement that I had made on the 6 tectimony earlier.
7 D And you' re ref erring to the testimony that's part of tlRC 8 >
349?
i 9 A That's correct, on Page 2, Item 2 at the bottom of the 10 pa ge .
11 So when you exprecced that view that's on Page 2 of 11RC 12 i 349 in 1981 it had actually been a situation that you had 1
13 f elt existed prior to that time?
T 14 A These concerns that were discussed on Page 2 at the bottom 15 '
of the page of this -- of my testimony, namely that 16 Consumerc had over-relied on Bechtel and that there was an 17 insensitivity to recognize the possibility of broader l
18 problems, was a subject that was discussed on numerous 19 ; occasions with consumers Power Company and Bechtel. It 20 ! did not come up j ust in this meeting. I'm assuming this 21 , is a proper characterization of that meeting, but it came 22 up in many instances and wac a matter of cource that was 23 discussed at the hearing.
24 's Earlier in your tectimony you ref erred to the SALP procesc l
i L A 39 Lafasette Bwthng Lu:od Reporting Sertice 3 tun \orthuestern nu ,
Swte IWb 962 1176 S*l' I*
Detrmt. \fschaean 48226 Farmmeton Hdis. .\fschigan 2015
1 and in that connection let me hand you two documents that 1
2 relate to the so-called SEP 1 involving Midland, they are 3 NRC 351 and NRC 352. Turning first to NRC 351, can you 4 Adentify that as a letter that you sent along to Mr. James 5 Cook of Consumers Pcwer on December 18, 1980 along with 6 l the attachments?
7 k Yes.
8 Q And are the attachments the so-called SEP 1 report?
9 4 Ye s.
l 10 D The Court has heard testimony with regard to SEP 2 and 11 ! knows f roci that testimony that in SEP 2 there were 12 so-called Category 1 and Category 2 and Category 3 ratings 13 and the report was a little more elaborate. Why didn' t 14 this earlier report have the more elaborate format?
15 % fihen the SEP process was first initiated, like many new I
16 proj ecto it hadn' t f ully developed in terms of the 17 procedures to be used and worrying about consistency.
18 i cach region was instructed to carry out an appraisal of 19 licensee performance and there was limited guidance that 20 was given by the agency in terms of how this was carried 21 out. So the SEP 1 period was each region's attempt to 22 sum"ari::e what they felt were the significant experiences 23 and significant assessments for each licensee during that 24 period.
40 Lafayette Buddsne Luzod Reporting Sertice 304n Northe,rern H n.
Suste 1026 962 1176 S""' I%
iktroa. Whigan 48226 Farmington Hals, %chaan 480lb
1 l And what was done was to convene a 2 ,
heackguarters panel of senior people to take a look at i
3 i these assess:nents and to group the licensees into I 4 ; believe what was called average, above average and below 5 average. Thic was an assessment that was done out of our 6 headquartero staf f. It wasn't until I believe SEP 2 that 7 we went and issued defined procedures for conducting the 8 SEP that brought about some degree of unif ormity to that.
9 0 When you issued these procedures did that also incorporate 10 _
the concept of the Category 1, 2 and 3 rating?
11 A Ye s. In my recollection, I'm trying to recall whether l
12 ,
that was f or -- if I could see a SEP 2 I could tell you.
13 p Well, I can accure we'11 get to it in a moment, but the l
14 ! SALP 2 does have the Category 1, 2 and 3 ratings?
15 A That would have been what it wac.
I 16 .) In the opening sentence --
l 17 A 'Ihere was another important distinction I might make just l
10 l for the record because you've got this document, which you 19 i call 352, which was a report that was issued by 20 I headquarterc summaris:ing I believe --
l 21 D The sort of SEP results. I'm going to get to that in 22 j ust a moment. Please continue.
23 4 ' Okay. But one of the conclusions that was reached 24 following thic period was that the Commission decided that i
1 41 Lafortte Buildsne Lu:od Reporting Sertice xnt3 .\ orth u e, ten, Hu< ,
Sante 1026 962.))76 5""' IU'
[ktmst, \fichigan M 2:6 Farmington Hills, .\fichican #018
7 I they did not want to use the SALP process as a matter of i
2 comparing the perf ormance of utilities but rather they 3 wanted it to be an absolute appraisal in the sense of the 4 definitions of Categories 1, 2 and 3, which are --
5 ; Category 3 meaning there needs to be additional ef forts 6 put by both the NRC and utility and Category 1 means that 7 ! the NRC can back away f rom its ef forts. So, the i
8 l assumption that the Commission wanted to portray was that 1
9 all categories were acceptable at that time but that 10 categories that -- the distinction between the categories l
i 11 l was one in terms of where the effort should be applied or i
I 12 relaxed and not put in terms of comparing all licensees.
13 p I notice in the opening sentence of your letter to Mr.
l 14 ! Cook that you ref er to a management meeting held on i
15 Nov embe r 24, 1980 in Jackson relative to the evaluation, j j
i 16 etcetera. Did you in f act meet on November 24,1980 with 17 Consumers Power personnel to review the findings of the l
l t 18 so-called SALP 1 report?
l l 19 k Yes, I recall thic meeting.
l 20 Q You made a ref erence a moment ago to NRC 352, which I t
21 handed you. Could you identify that document as to what 22 it in?
23 4 The document is MuPeg, N-u- r- e-g , 0 83 4, a nd i t w a s a i
24 summary of the assessments made by the review group in l
ynn NorthuesieX' 4 Ho Lafayette Budding Luzod Reporting Sernice l
Suw llCb 962.))i6 Suae Itai Detemt, .\fwhigan 48226 Farmington HJls, .\tahiean 43mlb i
_ _ _ . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ . - _ _ . _ _ . _ = _ _ .
1 ,
heatuarters that evaluated all of the SALPs f rom a common 2 i basis.
I 3 D I notice that under the dating it indicates that the 4 document was published in August of 1981. From your 5 j experience with the way the N9C operateo, is that an 6 accurate indication as to when the document actually 7 issued?
8 A I'm sure if it's dated August 1981 it is, 9 0 Under the Commission statement, the box in the middle i
10 ! there, it says "The Commission er.dorses the Staf f's 11 l f actual findings in this report concerning individual i
12 , licensee operations." From your observation how did the I
13 Commiscion go about reviewing and endorsing the Staff's l
14 i f actual findings?
15 h I believe the Commicsion met with this group, but I wasn' t l
16 there f or it so I can' t comment on it, but I believe 17 , that's the ca se.
l 18 Q Earlier you talked about the rating of the various 19 utilitien vie-a-vis each other under thic approach, and if 20 you look over at page 2721 of the Dates system, it's Table 21 2, that table according to the title -- it's 2721, Mr.
22 Keppler -- it indicatec "Table 2 is ratings f or power 23 reactor f acilities under construction" and then there's a 24 long list of average f acilities and then over on the next 43 Lafarette Buddsne Lusod Reporting Sersice 30mn \orthursten, Itu w Saste 10:n 9sg,jj~s Sunte In (ktrat, Afschigan 48226 Farminston Rdh. 31schiean Win
i 1 ,
page, 2722, there's a listing of "below average l l
2 l f acilities' and Midland 1 and 2 shows up. Was Midland 1 I
i 3 and 2 gated as a "below average f acility" at this time? j 1
4 T Yes. '
5 0 And that's f or the SALP period that's indicated there of j 6 l July 1,1979 through June 30, 19801 is that correct?
l l 7 h Yes.
- 1 1
8 p And that was the so-called SALP 1 period? l 9 lh Right.
l 10 ) And then if you look over on Page 2740, it's Page B-2 and 11 b-3, do you r. ave thoe; in f ront of you? There's a little 12 ; bit. mor e del n ii on the actual evaluation of Midland 1 and 33 2. Whc Frt a : the evaluation that appears in this? And 14 I ask yi;u to incre this han&riting that appears on the l
15 decument.
16 h I' m not certain. I believe it was the task f orce but I'm 17 not certain.
18 $ Did you agree with the assessment that's reflected in flRC 19 352 concerning Midland 1 and 2 for the evaluation period 20 that's ref erred to at the bottom of page B-27 And let me 21 ask you to do this. Perhaps we can go of f the record, you 22 can review this and we might also take the occasion to 23 have a short break.
24 N Okay.
44 Lafayette Buddtng Luzod Reporting Sertice 30mu sorthwestern nu v.
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962 1!i6
[ktroa, Whigan L'l226 Farminston HJh. Whvan +'t018
1 : (A brief recess was held during 2 ; the proceedings.)
\
3 BY MR. JDITES :
i 4 D While we've been off the record, Mr. Keppler, have you had 5 a chance to review the materials I asked you about at NRC 6 3527 ,
7 h Yes.
I O O And based on that can you state whether or not you believe 9 that the evaluation that's stated in there as of the i
10 period July 1, '79 through June 30, 1980 for the Midland I 11 '
and 2 units is one that you agreed with?
i 12 A l'y recollection of this particular ascessment of Midland i
13 l wac that it was prepared by staff people in our 14 i headquarters of fice and that it wac sent out here to be 15 conmented on by the region. Were is one error at least l
16 in this that I can bring to your attention, and my 17 recollection was there were three errorc in it, and wo 18 l called those back in and apparently they -- if they were l >
19 j corrected, they weren' t totally corrected. We one error j 20 that hits me is the one on Page D-3, thesecondparagrarh,;l i
21 fourth line from the bottom, where we talk about the tinc !e 22 stop work order.
i 23 ) Yes.
I 24 N Wat wasn' t en NRC ctop work order. We urged the utility i
45 Lafasette Rusldina 1.utod Reporting Sernice 3vm \orthur tern Hu s
%:eiten 96g,jj7s Suae la (ktrat, \fahigan 48226 Farmington Ifills. .\laksaan #01E
1 to stop. It more properly was a stop work initiated by i
2 the licensee at our request, but it wasn' t a f ormal NRC 3 order that was issued, and I can' t recall whether there 4 are still other areas that I would have concern with. But 5 the general flavor of it we agreed with.
l 6 p N ow , directing your attention back again to NRC 349, which 7 is the testimony that you gave to the ASLB in July of 1981 - -
8 h Could I ask? Am I supposed to volunteer any inf ormation 9 in these proceedings or not?
10 ? I don' t know how to answer that, Mr. Keppler. I think 11 what we are all interested in is getting your most honest 12 appraisal of the situation and if you feel that you wish 13 to add something I urge you to go ahead and state it.
14 h Okay. Well, let me j ust -- I talked a little bit about 15 the initial SALP period and some of the growing pains that 16 we had putting it in to operation. One of the reasons 17 that we abandoned this average, above average and below 18 average concept was if you go back to the page that 19 summarizes the plants under construction, I' m not sure 20 where that is --
21 Rn. DRIKEn: 2721, 22 4 Yeah, Page 2721, you will notice that we only listed 23 average f acilities and below average f acilities, th ere 24 were no above average f acilities, and one of the questions h
46 Lafasette Huddme Luzod Reportine Sernice 3 tun %rthuntem Hu s.
hate 1(C6 962 1176 S""' I' '
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1 .
I believe one of the Commissioners asked was, well, if t
i 2 you've got some below average f acilities that must imply 3 there's some above average f acilities, and he wanted to l
I 4 i know the basis of how we got to the decision to have seven i
5 below average f acilities, and there wasn' t a good answer.
6 Dut if you had asked me at that time how I would have 7 rated Hidland, I would have said below average. But I 8 vant you to understand the problems we were having with 9 ,
this characterization of the SALPs.
I 10 BY MR. JEtITES :
I 11 D I was about ready to direct your attention back once again I
12 to the testimony that you gave !n July of 1981 to the i
13 l ASLB, that's 11RC 349, and in pare,icular over to Page 8 and 14 l 9, which I gather was the sort of conclusion to the l
15 te stimony. There it says *Do you believe that quality 16 assurance and quality control programs will be ef fectively 17 implemented with respect to future soils construction l
18 activitiec including remedial actions taken as a result of 19 inadequate soils placement?" And your f undamental answer l
20 j is yec. I'm want to ask you a little bit about the 21 reasons why you concluded that, particularly in light of 22 the series of pre-1979 OA problems that are listed in your 23 testimony, the reactor vessel anchor bolt and the HVAC 4
24 issues that I've touched on and that are also ref erred to i
! 47 ,
Lafayette Ldding Luzod Reportine Service 3nu krthuntern nu ,
% e 102r> gg,;;;n hte la' Iwea, \ldisan SC26 Farmington HJh. Whigan 4%)h
.. - _ ___ _ m-1 . In your testimony, and the sort of general belw average 2 SALP 1 conclusion that you've j ust ref erred to.
3 4 Basically the events that led me to conclude in a 4 f avorable direction f or Consumers Pwer Company at that 5 time were the changen that the company and that Bechtel 6 f had made to the quality assurance activities, the conduct 7 of quality assurance at the site, and a special team 8 l inspection that I assembled to give me a rather thorough l
9 assessment of hw they felt that team was working. 'Ih e 10 modifications that were made by Consumers Pwer Company 11 ;
and Bechtel were rather extensive in my view, they weren' t 12 band-aiding, and I asked one of our senior people to pick 13 a team of his chcocing to come up at the site and spend 14 the period of time to give me the view, give me their view 15 and assessment as to whether they felt that this -- that 16 !
the changes that had been made would prwide a basis for 17 concluding that we've turned the corner f or the problems, i
18 9 Let me explore that j ust a little bit more. In the answer 19 that I've directed you to you state that "The most glaring l
20 breakdown in implementation" -- and ref erring to OA 21 implementation" - "was in the soils area. In retrospect 22 that breakdown can largely be attributed to the f ailure to 23 f ully recognize the importance of the application of 24 quality assurance to soils work. "
- (
48 Lafayette Baildsng Lused Reporting Sernice 30u03 .\orthu enern it. ,
Suste lo qsg,jj,$ Suar Mr lktroa. Whigan 48:26 Farmington lidis, Whuran 4.M
1 A Where are you reading f rom? I' m sor ry.
2 0 I' m at page 8951. I'm down at the bottom in the first 3 l part of your answer. Do you have that?
i 4 A Yes.
5 h And then you conclude "The importance of quality assurance 6 to soils work and consequent remedial action at the 7 ) Midland site is now fully recognized by CPC." Based on 8 l what you've described a little earlier and the reasoning 9 , that is stated here in your prepared testimony, did you 4
10 t f eel as of July of 1981 that the importance of quality 4
11 : assurance was in f act f ully recognized by CPC?
l 12 A Yes.
I 13 D And was that based upon any statements or assurances that l
14 -
had been given to you by Consumers Power itself ?
15 h We had two problems in general. One was the soils problem
- 16 and one was the quality assurance activities for the 17 remainder of the job and when -- I made the comment in 18 l here that, or I alluded to the cocoent I think somewhere 1
i 19 l in here, that I f elt that the coils problem was a little 20 ;
bit dif f erent than the rest of the OA problems at the site l 21 in that, and I'm not trying to j ustify it, but in that I l
22 think people took soils preparation work almost for l
l 23 granted. Now I'm not going to def end that statement but l 24 1 that wa: my perception, that they took that kind of l b 1
l 49 Lafaye:te kidate 1.usod Reoortine Sera ice 3wo knhurstern Hu r Suite itch 9sg.)) 76 Suar l'* "
[ktrat, Whigan #2 6 Formutrton Hdis, khstan #918
1 activity for granted, and it did not get a lot of 2 over sigh t. My view of the problems in other areas that 3 were going on at the plant were that Consumers would pick i 4 up these problems or Bechtel would pick up these problems.
5 1 They just weren' t very ef f ective in getting them corrected i
i 6 i and the problems would recur. My feeling was once the 7 seriousness of the soils problem was in f ront of 8 everybody, the need f or application of quality assurance 9 was recognized in the remedial soils work. I don' t know I
10 whether that's answering your question directly.
11 ) Well, I wanted to be a little bit more specific and let me 12 pursue it. You indicate in the materials that I read to 13 you just a moment ago that the importance of quality 14 accurance was now fully recognized by CPC and what I wac 15 l wondering about was whether or not people f rom Consumers 16 Power had given you ascurances or made statements to you 17 that led you to believe that they recognized as of July 18 1981 that there was?
19 4 I' m sur e th ey di d.
20 h Did you have meetings with Mr. Jim Cook about that i
j 21 subj ect?
22 4 We had numerous meetings relative to the soils problem and 23 you' d have to get specific with me in terns of which ones.
24 0 Well, f ron your observation was l'4. Jim Cook the principal l .
50 l Lafortte Buddow Lusod Reporting Sernier 3wn Northursiern Itu ,
l Saar HC6 qsg.));6 Suar H*'
l [ktmi, \takwan ACs Farmvwton Hals, Mahwan 48Wb
1 spokesman for Midland with regard to the OA issues?
2 f Yes, at that time.
3 D Over at the top of Page 9 of your testimony you go on to i
4 f state 'While we consider the previous quality assurance i
5 program to be acceptable, the August 1980 reorganization 6 can be viewed as positive management commitment to f urther 7 , improve the ef fectiveness of the quality accurance 8 pr obl em. " What is the August 1980 reorganization to which
, 9 l
you refer?
10 h That was the establishment of the Midland Project Quality 11 ! Accurance Department, which basically placed Consumers i
12 !
Power Company and Bechtel into a joint arrangement f or 13 j assuring quality assurance with Consumers Power Company 14 ;
taking the lead, but Dechtel was integrated into that 15 l organization.
I 16 p You speak again in thic particular sentence to a "positive l
17 management commitr.ent to f urther imptove the of f ectiveness I
18 f of the quality assurance problem. " As of July 1981, had 19 l you received such a positive management commitment f rom 20 l the Consumerc Power people?
21 N Yes.
22 ) As a result of --
23 4 I believe, looking at that sentonce, I believe that last 24 word in that sentence should be program. ;
k i !
51 Lafortte lhilding 1.usod Reportine Sersice 3wo \crthurstem ilu s Lar HCn 96g,yj7s har lw (Wtm t, \lahvan 4R226 Farmington lidh. \taktean Wik i
1 b Instead of problem?
2 h Yes.
l 3 D As a renuit of the assurances that you've described and
- 4 the program changes that you have alluded to, what was 5 your basic conclusion regarding the f uture ability of G Consumers Power to carry out the OA responsibilities, at 7 ! least an of July 19017 8 h I f elt that they had put together a program that would get i
9 the problems behind us and f elt reasonably comfortable 10 that the project would proceed smoothly f rom that point 11 on.
12 ) And is that what's reflected in your statement about 13 giving a "reasonable acsurance that quality acsurance and .,
i 14 quality control prograns will be appropriately 15 impl ement e d", etcetera? That' c in the lact sentence, I 16 guecs, of your testimony.
l 17 N Right, that's correct.
18 i
) A little bit earlier on that same page you make the 19 statement "!!otwithstanding the above, should be recognized 20 that f urther quality assurance problems may occur. Should 21 serious quality assurance problems arise, I would not 22 hecitate to initiate appropriate regulatory action." Af ter 23 the testimony that you gave in July of 1981 did there come 24 a time when you reached a conclucion that the reasonabic i
5' Lafasette &dd<ne 1.usod Reporting Sert ice 3cnn %rthunte; Ha kre 1(C0 gsg,yy.$ Suar 1,n l>trat. .\fwkiass 4U.% Farminston HA .\tahngan 4+U8
I ; assurance that you had given to the ASLB was wrong?
2 A Ye s.
3 D And when did you come to that conclusion?
4 h I believe it was in the spring of 1982 5 0 Did you ultimately prepare some supplemental testimony to 6 , the ASLB reflecting the change of view and the reasons f or 7 that change of vievi 8 A Yes.
9 0 Directing your attention to NRC 21, which is the next 10 document in the stack that I have put bef ore you, is that 11 the prepared tectimony that you put together and bears a 12 date you'll see up in the upper right-hand corner of 13 October 29, 1982 on that subject?
14 k Ye s, t
15 D once again, was this testimony prepared by you pursuant to 16 your duties as Region III administrator to report to the 17 ; ASLB and your superiore concerning what was happening in 18 i the OA area as it applied to Hidland 1 and 2?
19 Ye s. I f elt my previous statement was not valid in terne '
20 of what was happening.
21 D And in thic particular document did you report on matters 1
22 that had been observed by you and that had been reported 23 to you by your staff ao a result of the inspection and 24 enf orcenent activities of Region III? ;
53 Lafsrette ikidtv Lused Reporting Sertser 3na \orthntern Itu .
%:e liL% 9s;, j j n Swr b *:
(Wtmt. %ktran k'C.% formuton Hills, \laess L'VlA
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m-__
I Yet.
2 D And, once again, was a copy of your testimony supplied to 3 Consumers Power and did they have an opportunity to 4 coctment on it and to crosc-examine you with regard to the 5 l tectimony ?
'S h At the hearing, yec.
7 D I'd like tc ask a little bit about the testimony that's 0 i NRC 21. In the Question No. 2 you explain the purpoce of l'
9 your testimony and in that section you review 10 f undamentally the conclusions that you've j ust described 11 f or the record a f ew momentu ago; is that correct?
12 h I' m sorry. I was reading this while you were talking.
I 13 Okay. Perhaps since you haven' t had a chance to review 14 thic testimony, and I'm going to have a couple of l
i 15 questione about i t, maybe we should go of f the record and 16 give you a chance to review thic testimony.
f 17 h okay. Let me j ust skin it. It will only take a moment.
10 ( A brief discussion was held 19 of f the record.)
20 BY ttR. JI2:TES :
n i
21 Q llave you now had a chanco to road over Nnc 21 and ref resh 22 your recollection concerning the testimony that you gave?
23 N Yes, I have.
24 ? I was asking you whether or not in your anwer to Question a
54 isfasrite[klLy l.usod Reporting Sernsee 3cn u M eth etern Hvr har 10.% 99 7,; y n S uto itsi
() erst .\fschies . AC6 Farmyton HJh. Wh4an Wik
I
'l 2, the materials that begin the middle of the first page l
2 of the document and continue over to the top of the 3 carry-over paragraph on Page 2, were you essentially ju:t l l
4 j summarizing what had previously been testified by you back 5 in July 1981 and that you testified about in response to 6 ,
some of my earlier questions?
7 h Righ t.
8 0 I noticed at the end of that carry-over paragraph at the j
9 I top of Page 2 that you say "The thrust of my testimony was l
10 l that I had confidence that the licensee's OA program both
'l 11 f or the remedial soils work and f or the remainder of 12 construction would be implemented ef f ectively. " Did you 13 in f act f eel that the testimony that you had given back in 14 July of 1981 reached not only the remedial soils OA but 15 the remainder of the construction work as well?
16 h Yes, l
17 p Itaving read over your testimony here, does it ref resh your l l
18 ! recollection a little bit more precisely as to when you
\
19 l came to the conclusion in the spring of 1982 that you had 20 been wrong in the assessment that you had given to the l
21 ASLD in the summer of 1981?
22 4 It was just prior to the SALP meeting in April.
23 ) And is that what's ref erred to in the first f ull paragraph 24 on Page 2 of your testimony here that's NRC 217
( 4 i
55 iAfayette Buildune Luzod Reporting Sertice 3%3 Aorthuestern liu s Sunte 1026 Swte 1Wi 962 1176 Detrout, Slochigan 48226 Farmington Hills, Stichiean 48018
_.m .~ _ , . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 k Right. When I was going over to Jackson for the SEP 2 meeting, I did not read the report until I was on the 3 plane going over that had been prepared by my staff.
4 Perhaps that requires a little bit of explanation. The 5 SEP appraisal is done by what we call a SEP Board in the 6 regional of fice. It is not done by me or with me 7 influencing the Board. Se appraisal is done by a Board 8 and a draf t report -- the process at that time called f or 9 what we called a preliminary repeert being sent to the 10 utility in advance of the meeting, men we would meet 11 with the utility, discuss the repor t, the utility would 12 have the opportunity to comment on that report either 13 l verbally or in writing, or both, and then I would re-issue 14 the report for the record f actoring in any inf ctmation 15 that I felt was important that I had received f rom the 16 util i ty . So the process called f or this preliminary 17 report to go out, and I had read that preliminary report 18 on the way over on the plane and I was somewhat shaken by l
l 19 that report.
20 p Let me direct your attention to the next document in your l
21 sta c};, although I'd ask you to also keep in f ront of you l 22 your testimony. The next document in NRC 13 and ask you l
23 if you can identify that as the letter that you sent to 24 Mr. Cook on July 19, 1982, along with the copy of the SEP I
5 56 f.afa_sette Buildmg Luzod Reporting Sertice 309m Northuestern Ilv.
l Sune 1026 962 1176 5"i 10Y Detroit, .\fichigan #226 Farmington Hills. .\fichigan 2018
________________________.________.______3 i
I i
1 i No. 2 report?
i 1
2 Yes.
3 D And it ref ers here to a meeting, in the opening paragraph, 4 that occurred on April 26, 1982. Was that the initial 5
f meeting with the Consumers Power people that you've j ust 6 i had reference to?
7 h Yes.
8 2 According to the cover sheet on the SALP report that 9 l begins about three pages into the document, it covered the 10 l period of July 1,1980 to June 30, 19817 11 b Right.
i 12 h That was the coverage of this particular report?
l 13 h Thrt's cor rect.
14 D h. then if you look over a couple of pages into the l
15 j report, at page 226 there's a discussion of these Category 16 1, 2 and 3 criteria?
17 h O ct- h a .
I 18 0 Are these the criteria that had been generated in the 19 evolutionary process that you have described a little bit 20 earlier in your testimony?
21 'N Ye c.
22 ) And I take it yo.2 were well-acquainted with what a 23 Category 3 or a Category 2 type rating meant in terms of 24 .
QA perf ormance?
l 1
57 La_fayene Building Lutod Reporting Sert' ice 309(n Northuestern lluy Suite 1026 95g,jj7g Suur 10 Detroa, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hills, Whigan 480lt
1 1 h certainly.
2 h Over on the next page, 227, is a summary of the results 3 and the various ratings. Earlier you testified that you 4 were, I think the words were, shaken by what you read.
5 Uculd you explain why you were shaken or what shook you?
6 k The tone of the report was quite negative and the large 7 ; number of Category 3 ratings and the -- I can' t relate of f I
8 the top of my head but it seemed the indication in the 9 report that many things weren' t setting better, but 10 perhaps even moreso was -- I was bothered by the report 11 but then when I talked to my people about it they laid on 12 me the view that there j ust isn' t improvement taking 13 pl ace . In fact, during the meeting that we had in April, i 14 and I believe it's discussed somewhere in here, Ican 15 recall -- I certainly was prepared f or a Category 3 rating i
if l in soils because that largely covered the period prior to i
17 my testimony. But I was really troubled by the f act when 18 I heard our inspectors say if we rated you today you'd 19 still be a 3. And that j ust wasn' t consistent with the 20 whole tone that I lef t the Atomic Saf ety and Licensing 21 Board with.
22 1 I want to come back to the latter point about the, if you 23 will, updating of the SALP 2 report, but so the record is 24 clear, when you talk about the rating system that struck l
58 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Service 300a3 %,thwiern nu v.
Suste 1026 962.I176 Suite iEC Detemt, Michigan 48226 Farmington Hells. Michigan 4801h
l l
1 ; you when you read SEP 2, or the overall rating, are you l l 1 2 ref erring to the summary of the results that appear on 227 l
3 that I directed you to a moment ago?
4 A Yes.
S Q Then when you' re talking about the tone of the report, are 6 : you ref erring to the textural materials that relate, for i
7 exampl e, to the soils and f oundation matters that appear 8 l on 229 and run over to 231?
9 h And other areas.
I 10 D I was going to get to, and then without again belaboring 11 it, each of the Category 3 are analyzed and it was the 12 i writeups on those materials, that is what shook you as you i
13 .
described it?
14 Il% If you could look at other SEP reports in the same 15 period, the SEP 2 s, this repor t was quite nega tive by 16 comparison and we were expecting - I certainly was not 17 expecting the report to be that negative.
18 0 Putting the SEP report aside for a moment and returning 19 to your testimony that's NRC 21 and directing your 20 attention over to the last paragraph on Page 2, there's a ,
21 ref erence there to the f act that Mr. Ronald J. Cook, the 22 senior resident inspector at Midland, stated that "As of 23 that date he woula rate Consumers Power Compay's soils 24 work Category 3, the same rating an it received f or the j k
< 1 50 f.afayette Building 1.u2od HeporIing Sertice 30w .\orthunier; Itu y.
Suute 1026 962 1176 Suite im (ksrout. Sfichigan 48226 Farmington Hith, Alichigan t80lb
1 ; SEP period. He had similar comments on other work 2 activities."
3 4 That's the comment I was ref erring to.
4 ) That's the comment you were ref erring to. And then you go 5 on to say that based on your July 1981 testimony you had 6 ! expected Consumers Power "would be rated a Category 1 or 2 7 in the soils area as well as other areas by April 1982."
l 8 That again is the point that you were making earlier?
l 9 A That was consistent with what I told the Board.
l 10 ) over at the top of Page 3 in your testimony you state that 11 'On the basis of the above I decided it was appropriate to 12 supplement my July 1981 te ct imony. " In a nutshell, what 13 was your conclusion with regard to the QA situation based l
i 14 l on what you had learned f raa the review of the SEP 2 I
15 report and the inf ormation conveyed to you by Mr. Ronald 16 i Cook?
17 h Well, it was more than just Ronald Cook, it was other 18 peopl e. Basically the conclusion was that the program 19 that had been put in place wacn' t working the way we j 20 thought it would and I really at that point in time could 1
21 not support the confident:e in the quality assurance 22 program that I had given the Board, t
23 ) Earlier I mentioned to you that I had put together a sort
! l I
f 24 of a compendium of pages f rom the testimony that you 1
l
- 60 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sernice 30903 Northuestern un l
Suae 1026 96g, j j 7g Suite lv)
Detroit, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, Michican 48018
I
- actually gave orally later in the process here, namely the 2 testimony you gave on May 2nd and 3rd,1983 All of the 3 testimony I have here in the deposition room but I've 4 handed up to you, or your counsel will, NRC 266, which 5 contains some of the pages out of that testimony. It's a i
6 little hit easier to work with and I'll ref er to those as 7 I move along here.
8 , First of f, did you, af ter you prepared the 9 ; written testimony, then have occasion to actually orally --
10 ; excuse me -- appear live, as it were, bef ore the ASLB and 11 i be subjected to questioning by various people f rom
\
12 consumers Power and the Board and interveners, etcetera?
13 h Ye c.
14 D And directing your attention at the f ull stack of big i
15 materials, are those the transcripts of the testimony that 16 you gave on that occasion in 14ay 2nd and 3rd of 19837 i
17 l That's really an unf air question. I can represent to you i
. 18 :
that this is the transcript that we've got. I guess what 19 : I should more properly ask is, do you recall that you did 20 in f act appear in early May of 1983 and --
21 7. Oh, yes, I recall it.
I 22 ) All right. Let me ask you to turn over to transcript I 1
23 guess it's 15625 where you are asked a question by l
24 Chairman neckhoffer of the Board, at the bottcc of the 3
l h !
l l 61 l Lafayette Baaldsne Luzod Reporting Service 30903 Methuestern IIn Suute 1026 96g,j;7g Suae llc Detrat, \fichigan K % Farmington Hills, Michigan #101h
1 page at lines 22 through 25, and over on the top of the 2 next page is your answer. And I'm really interested most 3 in the materialu that appear at lines 7 through 15 where 4 you say *When I stood up before you people in 1981 we had 5 put an awful lot of ef rort into evaluating the quality 6 assurance progrm; for continuing work at Midland and I 7 gave you the best judgment I could at that time with 8 respect to the confidence that NRC Region III had with 9 respect to continuing that work. The f act shows that that 10 position that I took was wrong. "
11 Does this reflect the conclusion that you 12 did in f act reach as a result of the inf ormation that you 13 found out af ter the f act?
14 h Yes.
l 15 9 When you say that the position that you had taken was 16 wrong, do you mean that the reasonable assurance that you 17 had given in July of 1981 was wrong?
10 4 It had eroded, yes.
19 q And based on what you had learned af ter that did you 20 conclude that the -- that there was not a reasonabic 21 assurance that could be given as of July of 1981?
l 22 MR. DRIKER: As of what date?
23 MR. JENTTS : As of July 1981.
24 \ Yeah, I think I' d say that.
h t J 62 La.fayette Building Luzod Reporting Service 30903 Northurnern Hvy Swte 1026 962.1176 Suute ilus Iktroit, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Hills, .\fichigan 4801h
1 BY MR. JENTES :
2 D And did that upply to both soils and non-soils?
l 3 A Yes.
l 4 D And earlier I directed you to the, if you will, 5
l assumptions on which you had predicated your testimony in 6
l July 1981, one of those being that consumers had 7 recognized the importance of QA as of July 1981 and has 8 i set up and organization to deal with it. Did you believe 9 ; based on what you had subsequently learned that that 10 l particular assumption was wrong?
)
11 3 I had and always have f elt that Consumers Power Company i
12 l recognized the importance of quality assurance but f or i
13 l whatever reasons they couldn' t carry it of f. We programs 14 l th emselves, in my judgment, were good and my staf f 15 ! believes that, but the implementation of those programs i
16 l 1ef t much to be desired. And if you would allow me, and I 17 l may be jumping ahead of where you want to go, but when we 18 reached that decision I not only felt I had an obligation 19 to go back to the Board but I had an obligation to present 20 a solution to the problem.
21 And I'm sure you' re f amiliar with the record l
22 enough, you know a lot of activity took place during the l 23 period of 1982 following that SALP report, including l
24 asking my statt to nelp me develop a position, includi ng j l , f ,
I 63 Lafayette Building Lu:od Reporting Service 3m3 sortra e, terr, n,, w ,
Sune 1026 962.])76 Suae liti :
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1 !
meetings with the utility at a top level, and really the 2 bottom line that we reached at that time was that we just 3 could not place confidence in Consumers Power l 4 Company /Dechtel to run thir project. We had to get a 5 thi rd pa r ty in, and that was the enly way we would let 6 this proj ect continue.
f 7 h I'd like to actually walk through that sequence of events t
8 ! f rom your perspective f airly briefly, but step-by-step.
9 To do so maybe I can direct you back to the testimony that 10 you gave in October that's NRC 21 because I think if you 11 look over at Page 3 you actually spell out some of that 12 cour se of eventc. Is that correct, in response to the 13 Question 3 "What actions have been taken by Region III in 14 response to the inf ormation contained in your previous 15 answ er , namely, the one that you had come to a dif f erent 16 conclusion?
17 h Yes.
18 Q I won' t go through all of these but I note that the second
, 19 of the paragraphs talks about requesting the Region III l 20 division directors most actively involved with the Midland l
21 inspection ef fort to try to identify the f undamental l
22 problems and their causes and to provide me with their 23 recommendations to resolve these problems. Was that the 24 first of the stages that you mentioned in your general 3 l
l 64 l
, Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sert + ice 30003 Northurstern Hn.
1 Suite 1026 962.))76 Suite tw Iktroit, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Hills Michigan 4801h
1 l 1 introduction to this subject j ust a moment ago?
2 A Yes.
3 D And were the people that you assigned Messrs. Norelius and 4 : Spessard that are ref erred to in the last sentence in that 5 paragr aph ?
6 h They were the division directors of reactor projects and 7 engineering. Norelius had projects and Spessard had l
8 l engineering.
9 0 Could you elaborate j ust briefly on what their respective l
10 l roles were?
l 11 f Well, I really told them to -- f rankly, I wasn' t looking i
12 i for a written response from them but I got one, but it 1
13 helpe d. Uhat I wanted them to do was to set down with 14 l their staf f s and try to come to a conclusion what it was 25 ! that bothered all of the people that had been working on 16 Midland and see if they could draw some conclusions f rom 17 l this and perhaps outline a game plan of where to go.
18 C. If your counsel can reach up there, I think the second
- 19 document in the stack there is NRC 15. Is that the 20 written report f rom Mr. Norelius and Mr. Spessard that you 21 juct alluded to?
l 22 4 Yes.
23 '
) Again, the Court has seen this document and heard i
24 p ref erence to it. I' d only ask you whether you concluded, l
- 1 1
65 La_fasette Buildsng Luzod Reporting Sereice 309m Northuesteen Itu_,.
Suite 102t> 9sg,jj7g Suito 100 Intrmt, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington tidis. .\tachtean 48018 t
1 you concurred in the findings made by Mr. Norelius and Mr.
2 Spessard as to the nature of the problem of QA at the 3 Midland Proj ect?
4 4 Now when you --
5 p Let me say this. We have a good opportunity here. We' re 1
6 { abo ut ready to run out of tape so why don' t we go of f the l
7 . record and you can have a chance maybe to ref resh your 8 l recollection.
i 9 h But could I ask a question first?
l 10 ? If I can, we' re going to run out of tape. Let's stop.
11 i All right.
12 ( A brief discussion was held 13 of f the record.)
14 pYMR. JE!!TES :
15 Mr. Kopplerr when we broke you were about ready to ask a 16 question and please go ahead.
17 k You referred to the conclusions. I' m not sure I know what 18 you' re ref erring to here because there is no section 19 ; called conclusi ons.
I 20 Q I think my question was directed to the f actual findings 21 more than any conclusions. There is a section related to 22 recommendations and I'm putting that to the side for the 23 moment. What I'm wondering in whether or not you 24 concluded, or concurred rather, with the assessment by Mr. g j
66 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sertice wx)3 krthuestern 110 Swtr 1026 962 1176 SW N)
[ktroit, Michigan 48226 Farmington HUls, %chigan 480lb
i 1
l 1 Norelius and Spessard as to the current problem, th e 2 j technical issues, the communications and the Staff 3 observations that appear in the first three and a half 4 pages of the document?
5 A My recollection, without reading the document over 6 completely, is that I really did not have any quarrel with 7 the definitions of the problems that they've made, what 8 , t. heir assessment was. I di d hav e som e -- I f el t th e 9
l recommendation section was not as well thought out as it i
10 )
1 should have been.
1 11 p Dased on your own review of the findings, if you will, by l
12 ;
Mr. Norelius and Spessard and your own assessment of the i
13 j situation, what steps did you f eel needed to be taken and i
14 ; what steps did you take?
t i
15 h Well, I f elt certainly that the NRC had to put more l \
16 attention on the Midland, number one, and try to get a 17 l better handle as to where the problem areas were and so we l
l 18 j moved to augment the inspection activities f or Midland --
\
19 0 I don' t mean to interrupt but if you were about ready to 20 l move to a dif ferent thing I notice in your testimony on 21 Page 3 you ref er to setting up a Of fice of Special Cases.
22 Was this one of the steps that you f elt needed to be taken l 23 and that you did in f act take?
24 3 Yes. I l i 67 i Lafayette Buildmg Luzod Reporting Service 30903.\orthurstern Huy.
l Suutr 1026 96g, j j 7g Suite lors Detrout, .\lichigan 48226 Farrnington Udis, .\lichigan 48018
\
1 D This ref ers to setting up that of fice in July of 1902, i
2 Was that when you initiated that of fice?
3 A Yes.
4 0 Was there more than j ust the Midland Project put within 5 the purview of the of fice of Special Cases?
6 h Zimmer as well.
7 h Prior to setting up the Of fice of Special Cases had you 8 ever had such an office bef ore in Region III?
l 9 A I had never had an of fice of Special Casec. I'm trying to 10 recall whether I had diverted people to a single project 11 bef ore, and my recollection is no.
12 f I don' t want to divert at all into the Zimmer issues, but 13 I'm just wondering why you selected Midland and the Zimmer 14 Project of Cincinnati Gas and Electric to put in this 15 particular of fice of Special Cases?
16 h The Zirmer Proj ect clearly had a lot of dif ficulty. We 17 were involved in a major number of allegations at Zimmer 18 and I f elt that there was going to require a very l
19 intensive ef fort on the part of the NRC to f ollow that l l
20 '
pr oj ect . So that's Zimmer. 'Ihe belief I had in setting l
l 21 up a similar section for Midland was that the combination l
l 22 of the over sight that was going to have to be provided 23 because the company had f ailed to impicment the quality l
24 assurance program adequately, coupled with the f act that 1 ,
i 68 Lafayette Bu ! dung Luzod Reporting Sercice 30w3 Northuestern n,n.
Suite 1026 962.I1i6 Suste Un Iktroit, Michigan 48226 Farmington Hills Michigan 48alh
1 4 the interveners had called in the Government i
2 Accountability Proj ect who I had learned f rom the Zimmer 3 proceeding were going to impact significantly on the 4 hearing program as well as likely turn up a large number 1
5 ; of allegations, I moved ahead in anticipation that an 6 , awful lot of ef fort was going to have to be put at t
7 Midland.
8 0 In addition to your own activities on the part of Region 9 i III to step up oversight, was any action taken in this 10 [ same general period of late spring of 1982 by the ASLB i
11 concerning oversight of the soils activities?
l l
12 A You' re ref erring to the Board order?
l 13 h Yes, that's what I was and, unfortunately, the way we got 14 thic arranged here it's a long reach f or me so maybe I'll 15 ask your counsel, Mr. Jensen, to hand you the order.
16 MR. DRIKER: Bef ore you do that, Mr. Jentes, 17 the witness was answering a question about ten questions 18 ,
ago where he was talking about not agreeing with the 19 re::omnendations and you interjected then to amplify an 20 ancwor about the Office of Special Cases and apologized 21 f or interrupting the anmier and I don' t know if the 22 Witness ever had an opportunity to complete the answer.
23 4 I didn' t intend to go back to that point but I could if 24 ,
you wish. j i
4 69 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sertice 304a3 Northuestern flu w Suite 102f> 96g. ] j 76 Suite di.
(kttmt, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Hills. .\fuhigan 480lb
i 1 BY MR. JENTEs l l
2 2 Well, since we' re broken into the sequence at this time j i
3 anyway, directing your attention once again back to the 4 report from Mr. Norelius and Mr. Spessard, that's NRC 15, S were there any other comments that you wish to add to your 6 carlier testimony concerning the Recommendations section?
l i
7 h I felt that with respect to the recommendations 1 and 3, I l
8 I certainly agreed with those; with respect to 9 recommendation No. 2, that the licensee cut back one of 10 the proj ects, and when I say this the Staf f had in mind at 11 the time that the combination of doing Units 1 and 2, 12 coupled with the soils program, was like undertaking three 13 separate proj ects and they felt that the work was j ust too 14 much. My view on that was that they didn' t provide a 15 , basis to make that kind of a recommendation. While I i
16 might be inclined to accept the thought intuitively, I 17 didn' t f eel it was something that I could recommend as a 18 solution to the problem by itself.
I 19 Q Apropos of your last answer, I've seen ref erences some 20 place or another where you described the soils activities 21 at Midland as comparable to building a third reactor?
22 A That's what I wac alluding to.
23 -
) Is there anything else that you wish to comment?
24 A No, I think that's -- i V 1 l
f 70 Lafayette Buddmg Luzod Reporting Service 3orm sorthuestern Huy.
Sune 1026 96g,jj76 Suite 10:
Detroit Alichigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, Michigan 4801h
L 1 D Let me then direct your attention to --
2 A I don' t want to imply I was dissatisfied with the 3 recommendations but I j ust didn' t f eel I could adopt them 4 all, and as we go through this you'll know the course of 5 '
action that I took.
6 p Let me direct your attention to 11RC 32, the memorandum and 7 order imposing certain interim conditions pending issuance 8 l of the partial initial decision of the ASLB that's dated 9
l April 30,1982 Was this the order that you alluded to a i
10 ! little bit ago in your answer?
I 11 h Yec.
12 D In general, what was your understanding as to what the i
13 i purpose of this order -- what was the purpose of this 14 l order as you understood it?
l 15 h The purpose of this order was that the Board expected tiRC 16 to oversee every new evolution in the soils work, to 17 oversee and approve.
I 18 Q If you turn over to page 21 of the order, in Paragraph 1 l
19 l of the ordering provisions it talks about the applicant or 20 the permit holder obtaining "explicit prior approval from 21 the 11RC staff (to the extent such approval has not already 22 been obtained) bef ore proceeding with the f ollowing soils 23 related activities", and then there's a list.
24 h That's consistent with the comment I made.
71 Lafasette Building Luzod Reporting Service 30mu sorthuestern Hu,y Suner 1026 962 1176 Suite lih iktrout, Alichiean 48226 Farmington Hills, 31ichiean 480lb
1 0 What part, if at all, did you have in the entry of the 2 order by the ASLn?
3 4 None.
4 ) Was the -- did the Region III Staff provide evidentiary 5 input to the ASLB in connection with the order?
6 p I don' t recall.
7 b You spoke about the stepped up oversight that you f elt was 8
l
, necessary for Hidland and the of fice of Special cases that l
9 you implemented. I'd like to ask you to take a look at 10 three documents that are in the stack there. It's NRC 4 9, 11 tiRC 50 and NRC 11 i
12 Directing your attention first to tiRC 49, is 13 this a so-called confirmatory action letter that you 14 authorized to be issued on August 12, 19827 15 4 Yes.
l 16 p And do you remember the circumstances ur. der which this i
17 confirmatory action letter was issued, and I'm not getting 18 into all the details but in general why this CAL was 19 issued?
- 20 h Only in a very general way, but what this would ref er to
, 8 l 21 is a concern that was raised by one of our inspectors over 22 the licensee's control of the remedial soils work, that l 23 there was a f ailure in the quality assurance program that 24 permitted something to happen and he f elt the work ought 1 l j l [
72 Lafayette Rustding Luzod Reporting Service 300tn sorthestern Huy.
Suste 1026 9a2 1Ii6 Suste 100 Detroit, Whigan 48226 Farmington Ihlh, Whigan 2018
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _=_ ____
l 1 to stop. And this would have been reviewed by regional i
2 management and when we reach that kind of conclusion this 3 is a common regulatory vehicle used to confirm an 4 understanding.
5 D In these particular situations where you have a 6 confirmatory action letter like this, who actually issues 7 the stop work order?
8 A The utility. If the utility -- what this really means is 9 a letter of this type is a forraalized agreement short of a
- I 10 l regulatory order to require something to be done. If we i
11 l felt that work should stop and the utility disagreed, we i
12 .
would then proceed to an order route.
13 p And in this latter instance does the utility have the i
14 I right to contest the views of the regional staf f and i
15 i challenge the matter?
l 16 h Sure.
I i
17 p Does that happen?
10 A Prom time to time we of ten have spirited discussions on 19 things.
l 20 0 Turning to NRC 50, can you identify this as another 21 ,
confirmatory action letter that you issued on September 22 24, 1982?
23 4 Ye c.
24 ) This confirmatory action letter speaks not only about (
l t i L
73 Lafvette Buildine Luzod Reporting Senice 3vm .\ orth u e,im n,, , .
Salle 102fs 962.I1i6 SUU' K
Detrmt, Whigan 48226 Farmington Uills, .\fKhlfGM 4N010
I 1 ; remedial soils activities in Paragraph 1 and certain stop 2 work in that area but talks in the next several paragraphs ;
3 about problems involving OC requalification and QC 4 retraining. What was the problem in the QC 5 requalification and the QC retraining problems that were 6 . involved in this confirmatory action letter as you recall?
l 7 h My mind's a blank on that subj ect right now. I j ust don' t 8 recall what the issue was.
9 3 Let me ask you to turn to NRC 11. This appears to be a 10 document that was issued by Mr. Warnick as director of the 11 office of special cases relating to the views of the 12 of fice concerning reinspection of hangers and supports, 13 etcetera. Did Mr. Warnick consult with you concerning the 14 actions that were being taken by the Of fice of Special 15 Cases in a matter such as this?
16 A I' m sure he did. I believe this ref ers to concerns that 17 were identified by Mr. Yin of our staf f.
18 Q This talks about, in the first paragraph, that 9fe have no 19 confidence that the remaining hangers have been installed 20 in accordance with the original drawings and 21 specifications" then goes on in third paragraph to ssy "It 22 is our position that you shall reinspect all the supports 23 and restraints installed prior to 1981 and perform sample 24 reinspection of the components installed af ter 1981." Did
! i i 74 f.afayette Budding od Reporting Senice 30m %rthuestern Ihn.
Sune 1026 9sg,jj7g Sune 1%
Detrdt, Whigan 48226 Farmington Ihlls, Michigan 4801h
1 , you support that position taken by Mr. Warnick and his 2 i of fice ?
l 3 h When you say support it, I' m not sure I know -- I 4 certainly didn' t oppose it and he may have told me about 5 : it af terward, he may have told me about it concurrently, 6
l but it's his role when he wants something dons like this 7 to move ahead with it. And I was very close to Midland at 8 that time so I suspect we talked about it in advance, but 9 j I can' t assure you that I knew about this bef ore the i
10 ! letter went out. You might look at the concurrences on i
11 this letter and see whether --
l 12 D Unf or tuna tely, I don' t have a copy with that on it but let i
13 l me explore because I'm not just interested in this 1
14 ! particular event but the broader reinspection issues that 15 l arose a little bit later, and what I'm searching f or is, 1
16 j am I correct that ultimately Consumers proposed a program I
17 ; whereby there was a reinspection essentially on a i
18 l plant-wide ba sis?
l 19 h You' re talking about the construction completion program?
20 Q That's correct.
l 21 h Yes.
l 22 '
) And what I'm wondering about is, in general what was your 23 involvement in the series of events that led up to the '
24 conclusion that there needed to be this broad l e,
75 f.afayette Buda<ng 1.utod Reporting Sernice 3vrn 3 Northua,reen Itu ,
Suute 1026 Suute 101 962.]l76 Iktrat, %chigan #226 Farrnington HJh. %chigan 2016
1 ,
reinspe ction?
i 2 A Very heavy.
3 2 What was involved in the reinspection? When we talk about 4 reinspection, what does that mean?
5 ii Basically the concern we had was that there were enough 6 quality assurance problems identified throughout the l
7 f cource of the construction period that we f elt that there 8 needed to be a substantial relook at the actual quality of l
9 i completed work in the plant. Forget the f act that there 10 were deficiencies in the quality control / quality assurance 11 program. What we wanted to know, accepting that f act, was 1
12 was the quality of the installed hardware adequate. So, 13 there was a -- ac part of the construction completion 14 program that was ultimately developed by Consumers Power l
15 i Company with substantial input by the NRC this called f or 16 l a meaningf ul reinspection of completed work.
I <
17 Generally what that meant was we expected to '
18 j approach this reinspection program as a hundred percent I
19 i reinspection of all saf ety-related work in the plant and i
20 it was up to the utility -- we agreed that if the utility 21 could make a caco for doing less than the hundred percent 22 reinspection we would consider that point. But we 23 apprcached it that way, that they would have to go back l
24 and verify that the installed work at the plant was done i
f 76 La_fantre Rutidme Luzod Reporting Sernice 30903 Northue, tern He ,
Suare 1026 962.)176 Suite aL Detroa, khigan 2226 Farmington Hills. Whigan Molb
1 properly. Wat could either be done through a review of 2 j records, it could be done through additional inspections, 3 but it included largely both hands-on inspections, perhaps 4
l some non-destructive examination work and review of 5 existing quality records, i
6 D In NRC 11, which I use only as a specific example for 7 hangers, in the second paragraph there's a ref erence to 8 , reinspecting all the supports and restraints installed and 9 : inspected in 1980 and then perf orming sample reinspections 10 l f or hangers in 1981 and 1982. Did the reinspection 11 l program go back to things that had been put into the plant l
12 : in 1980 for example?
13 h Did the CCP program, the construction completion program?
I 14 ) Yes.
I 15 h Yes.
I 1G p !!cw f ar back in time --
\
17 h To day 1.
l 18 O So the record establishes, I believe, that construction 19 j got underway around 197 0, so they would have to go back in 20 saf ety-related areas to carry out the reinspection 21 pr oce ss, ac you' ve described it, to that time?
22 4 Ye s.
23 '
) I've shown you a couple of documents in NRC 4 9 and 50 and 24 NRC 11 of oversight activities by you and the Office of s
77 Lafasrue Baddme Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903 Aorthue, tern no w Suite 1026 9$g,jj7$ Suite hu (ktemt. .\forhiran 48226 Farmington Hdis, %hiran 2016
1 ; Special casec in the summer and early fall of 1982 Did i
2 there come a time in the f all of 1982 where there was any 3 consideration given by the Staf f of Region III to 4 recommending that the Midland Proj ect be shut down?
5 h I'm trying to think. It seems to me there was some 6 recommendations mado, and I believe that was done af ter a 7 comprehensive inspection of the Diesel Generator Building 8 that wac done I believe in October, the late f all of the 9 year.
10 D I' m going to come back to the DGD inspection in j ust a 11 moment. I'm j ust wondering whether or not you know about 12 any meeting among the Staf f in which Dr. Landsman had 13 recommended that there ought to be a shutdown of all I
14 I saf ety-related activities at the proj ect but that other 15 members of the Staf f f elt that rather than doing that 16 there should be an inspection of the DGB f acilities?
l 17 A I' m sorry. I j ust don' t recall. Let me say that there 18 was a lot of consternation over Midland. Dr. Landsman 19 certainly was one of the more negative people on my staff 20 relative to what was going on at Midland, but in general l
l 21 the of fice -- we work as a team. It is not uncommon and 22 has happened on a number of cases where we'll get together l
23 over a problem and one or more people may suggest a 24 sh ut dow n, one or more people may suggest another course of 78 Lofnette Buddsne Luzod Reporting Sertice 3ora n %rthur, tern H,9 Suite 1026 962.]176 5'"' W Detrou, Michigan 48226 Farmington Hdis. Whigan 48016
1 action and we evolve into a decision. These things aren' t 2 l black and white in terms of a road map of what you do 3 where we try to attack the problem, and by and large 4 shutdown is something that we, in the absence of immediate 5 ! health and saf ety problems, is something that we would 6 take very seriously and really conclude we've exhausted 7 other sources. So sometimes it's not uncommon that some 8 inspectors may suggest, perhaps without thinking in the 9 broad picture, a cour se of action that may be harsh, 10 l harsher. When we talk about it we generally evolve into a i
11 decision that everybody can live with.
12 h In your testimony that you gave in October of 1982, that's i
13 l NRC 21, do you have that, on the last page?
14 A Yeah, I'm sorry, I have it.
0 15 0 on the last page, about halfway down there, you talk about i
16 l the section and the ref erence is to the Midland section of 17 the Of fice of special Cases starting in inspection of the i
18 work activities which have been accomplished by Consumers 19 f Power Company in the last 12 months in the Diesel I
20 l Generator Building, the service water building --
l 21 h I' m sorry.
22 0 I' m sorry. It's easy on my page because I've highlighted.
23 It's not so easy on yours.
24 MR. DRIKER: Excuse me, Bill. What exhibit l t
l I i 79 f.nfyrtte Buniding Luzod Reporting Sernice 3wn Northuestern Hu; Suite 1026 9gg,j j 7s Suite ivi Iktroit. .\fuhigan 48226 Farmington Hath, .\1whican Molk
-_u-nn~.~___
1 are you on?
2 MR. JENTES : O kay , try again. NRC 21 It's 3 the testimcny in October of 1982.
4 MR. DRIKER: Thank you.
5 BY MR. JDITES :
6 h It's on Page 6. It's about halfway down. There's a 7 ! ref erence to, The section has also started. Got that?
I 8 A Yes.
9 9 And then it talks about conducting an inspection of the 10 work activities in the last year of the DGB and service 11 water pump structure and other saf ety-related areas. The 12 inspection was started in October 1980 and continuing as 13 of the filing of this testimony. Was this the so-called 14 Diecel Generator Building inspection that you alluded to a 4
15 little bit ago when you said you thought that there was 16 one that occurred some time in the f all?
l l
17 h Yes.
18 D Let me ask you, if your counsel would hand up to you NRC l
19 l 22 and NRC 26, I think they were the next two documents in i
20 l the stack, and because these are a little bit thick maybe 21 it would be worthwhile going of f the record f or a moment 22 to give you a chance to review them. I'm only going to i
l 23 direct my attention to the covering letters rather than l 24 the attachments, but I'd like to ask you to at least l
I I
l 80 1.afayette Hunidans Luzod Reyor ing Sereice 3orm Aorthustern flu, l
Surte 1026 ggg, j j 76 Suite in; l Farminston Ihlis, .\lahigan 4801h i [htmt, .\fichigan 48226
(
l l
1 , ref resh your recollection a little bit on these two 2 letters that you sent to Consumers in February of 1983 3 So may we go of f the record.
4 j
( A brief discussion was held 5
of f the record.)
6 DY MR. J ENTES :
7 D Directing your attention first to NRC 22, can you identify 8 that as a letter that you sent to Mr. Selby of consumers 9 : Power on February 8,1983 forwarding the special 10 ! inspection report that was conducted on the DGD and i
11 I related activities?
12 h Right.
13 D I noticed if you'll look over to the third page where the 14 report begins there's an inspection summary down there and 15 it talko about the areas inspected and it actually appears 16 to include more than j ust the Diesel Generator Building.
17 l As you understood it f rom the reports that came to you, I
18 i what was generally the compass of the inspection that vac 19 l conducted?
i 20 A What was the scope of the inspection basically?
I 21 O Ye c.
l 22 N The purpose of the inspection vac to take a saf ety-related 23 structure, system or component, and they chose the Diesel 24 Generator Building to do thic, and go into it in l
81 Lafasette Bustdsng 1.tnod Reporting Sern ice 30w krthwtren liuo.
Sustr 1026 q s g . ] ] ,~ s Swtr llo Iktrmt, \lwhigan 48226 Farmington flulls. \lahigan 4Mih
1 i considerable depth in terms of the installed equipment 2 that was in that building to try to get another handle on 3 the quality of work activities at the site. Now why there 4 may be some other things in here, I' m not sure I can tell 5 you at this time.
6 D Okay.
7 t, Unless they may be somehow connected to the Diesel 8 Generator Building in one form.
l 9 b Prom your answer that you j ust gave, do I take it that the 10 inspection was not limited in any sense to the soila 11 remedial aspects of the DGD?
12 '\ Oh, no, totally not.
13 p In the materials I directed you to in the incpection ,
14 ;
summary it talko about electrical, mechanical and civil 15 components of the DGD control concrete chipping, control 16 l
of electrical cable segregation, etcetera. Does this mean 17 that there was a look-see in-depth at all aspecto of the 18 ; construction of the Diesc1 Generator Building?
i 10 \ At many aspects, yes.
20 0 Now turning to NRC 26, can you identify that as the letter 21 that you sent to Mr. Selby also on February 6,1983, 22 enclosing the notice of violation and proposed imposition 23 of civil penalties that's attached as part of this t
l 24 exhibi t? I' m sor ry. Can you identify a document as that?
I i
82 Lafasette Hunldsn. Luzod Reporting Sertice 30cm northursierr, Itu ,
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f 1 A Oh, yes, that's the package, the enf orcement action 2 l relative to this report.
I 3 D And the letter that you sent, that's t1RC 26, was directly 1
4 relater to the results of the DGD inspection that included - -
5 A Wait j ust a second. Let me just take a minute off to read i
6 ,
this paragraph again. I'm conf used a minute.
7 b Why don' t we go of f the record and give you a moment to 8 l ref resh your recollection again.
9 ll
( A brief discussion was held 10 of f the record.)
I 11 DY !!R. JEllTES:
12 0 When we went of f the record I think I was in the middle of i
13 l the question and let me start again. Is the letter that 14 , you sent that's !!RC 26 a result of the D3D inspection i
15 report and findings that are included as part of tiRC 22?
l 16 Yes.
17 D And if you direct your Ettention to the second paragraph 18 of your covering letter in 11RC 26 you state "The results 19 } of the inspection indicate a breakdown in the i 20 impicmentation of your quality assurance program as 21 evide nced - numerous examples of noncomplianco with nine l
l 22 of the 18 dif f erent criteria as set f orth in 10 CFR 50 l
l 23 Appe ndi x D. " Was that in f act the conclusion that you l
24 yourself had reached as a result of this inspection?
i ;
i 83 Lafayette BusIding Luzod Reporting Sernice 3wn Methur,rern no Sune 1026 96g,j j 76 Suite tw Detrost, Whican 48226 Farmington Hslls, Whigan 48015 l
I h Yes.
i 2 0 And then you go on in the next sentence to spell out why 3 the breakdown was caused. Would that also reflect your 4 own views in this regard?
5 A Yes.
I 6 h Now, in the sort of, I guess, the last two sentences you 7 ; state an additional point. You state "In addition, of 8 particular concern to the NRC is the f act that quality 9 ; control, (QC) supervf , ors instructed OC inspectors to 10 suspend inspections if excessive deticiencies were f ound 13 during the perf ormance of inspections. Consequently, not 12 all observed deficiencies were reported, and complet 13 inspections were not perf ormed by all OC inspectors c 14 the reported deficiencies were corrected." Was this a 15 matter of particular concern to you?
l 16 h Yes.
I 17 h And would you elaborate on why that was?
l 18 h Well, what this boiled down to was that the Midland 19 Proj ect had a system f or documenting problesas at the plant I
20 that incorporated aultiple systems, more than one system.
l l
21 Normally when you have a -- normally what a project does l
l 22 is they document their nonconf ormance conditions in a 1
23 single system. At Midland they had a system for the nore 24 signif i ca nt, what they felt vere the more significant i
84 l Lafayette Building Lu:od Reporting Service 3m3 Northuestern un Suste 1026 96g,j j 76 Suite JW l
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1 problems and they had a different system for what they 2 l interpreted to be lessor significant problems and when l
3 they -- let me -- that was one asp 2ct.
4 And then when Dechtel inspectors were out 5 i inspecting in the plant and identified multiple G
occurrences of a type of problem they stopped logging i
7 ; them, they discontinued their inspections in that area and 8 j stopped logging them so there would be lessor numbers of 9 '
nonconf ormance reports for the agency to look at or f or 10 their own people to look at for that matter. In my view 11 l the concern wasn' t a proper representation of what was 12 { going on in the plant.
13 p In the next paragraph of NRC 26 you state "I understand 14 that, because of our findings, you have inspected other 15 areas of the plant and f ound similar deficiencies. " What 16 was the basis for that understanding; was that something 17 that you received by way of inf ormation f rom Consumers?
18 A Yes.
I 19 0 And f rom whom at Consumers did you receive this, was it a 20 particular individual or just a group of people at 21 Consumer s?
22 A When we had completed the -- when we were conducting an 23 exit interview at the cite f ollowing or during the course 24 .
of the Diesc1 Generator Building inspection, we went over i l i I )
85 Lahrette Buddmg Luzod Reporting Sernice 3ctro Aorthue, tern Itu ,
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l l
i 1 findings with consumers Power Company. I can' t tell you l i
2 who was in attendance at that time, but my gt.-sn would be 3 probably Jim Cook. We went over these findings and j 4 encouraged the utility to look into other areas of the 5 plant to see whether -- because I believe our people f elt 6 at that time that this was indicative of problems in other 7 areas and that maybe the job ought to be shut down. And 8 my understanding, my recollection, is that consumers did 9 do that, they looked into a number of other areas and 10 considered the findings f ran our Diesel Generator Building 11 inspection reasonably typical and as a result of that the 12 company then moved into the shutdown.
13 D And that goes on in the next sentence there of Paragraph 3 14 where you say "As a result of our findings, your findings 15 and your assessment of the overall project you halted 16 I certain saf ety-related work at the Midland site, reduced 17 the work f orce by approximately 1100 people, committed to 18 building clean-up and system layout, committed to 19 organized team of construction and engineering personnel 20 responsible f or the completion of one or more plant 21 systems, and committed to reinspect saf ety- related 22 sy stem s"?
l 23 4 Um- ha .
l 24 0 I' m sor ry, the answer is yes? l I
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i l
f 1 1 A Yes. !
li 2 D Now the ref erence here to the commitment to reinspect l 3 saf ety-related systems, is that to this program that you 4 described a little earlier, to reinspect all 5 saf ety-related systems back to the commen ement of 6 const r ucti on?
7 h Yes.
8 Q Then in the next paragraph on Page 2 you wrote to Mr.
9 ; Selby that to emphasize the need f or CPCo management to 10 l ensure implementation of an eff ective quality assurance i
11 ! program; etcetera, we propose to impose civil penalties, 12 ! and then in the next paragraph you state that the civil I
13 penalty proposed is 120,000 dollars. Did you make that 14 ; civil penalty propoual to Consumers Power?
i 15 h Yes.
I 16 D And what was the result, did they pay it or what happened?
17 h The utility paid the fine -- I'm trying to think whether 18 this was the right fine, but when we .nally closed the i
19 l books on it we decided to deduct a small amount of money, 20 I believe around 3,000 dollars, for en item of 21 nonesapliance that the company had paid a fine for 22 previously but that we had called to our attention an 23 error in one of the violations and that we had cited the 24 company for 3,000 thousand dollars, or whatever it was f or j l
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that item, and we deducted that I believe in the 2 settlement of thic. I could be wrong.
3 0 Fine. If you are able to state, how does the 120,000 4 dollar civil penalty compare to other civil penalties 5 impoced againct other uuilities?
6 It was a pretty big fine for a construction site at that 7 point in time. To give you a comparison, we had fined 8 Zimmer I believe 200,000 dollars, which I think was the 9 largest fine for a construction project.
10 ) Returning once again f or a moment to the reinspection 11 conce pt, I take it that the site-wide reinspection, though 12 instigated by Consumers itcelf, was a step which you 13 yourself agreed with?
14 4 I' m sor ry.
15 I' m sorry. The site-wide saf ety-related reinspection was 16 instituted by consumers Power; is that correct?
17 h Yes.
I 18 Was this a step with which you agreed?
19 Oh, cer tainly.
20 D And was the reinspection designed in your view to give 21 reasonabic assurance regarding the quality of the 22 saf ety-related construction back to the, really, beginning 23 of the construction in 19707 24 3 Yes, that was part of it. !
l 08 f.afayette Buddiac Luzod Reportine Service 30c.a3 %orthurnern Hu s Suite 102h 9s3 ;j7g Suar itse Detroit, \fschigan 48226 Farmington Hdir .\fichigan 4Mib
1 D What was the other part?
2 k Well, we also felt very strongly that we could not count 3 on Consumers Power Company or Bechtel to carry out the 4 quality assurance activities based on past demonstrated 5 perf ormance and we felt that these activities had to be 6 augmented by a third party organization to oversee the 7 activitiec, to really be an extension of the NRC on the 8 f job, and ultimately we approved Stone & Webster for that i
9 l work.
4 10 h You've again gotten j ust a little bit ahead of me, but 11 that's fine. Let me then f ollow up on that and ask you to 12 ! take a look at NRC 54, and ask you if you can identify l
13 j that as supplemental testimony which you prepared and 14 l submitted to the ASLB under date of Mar ch 25, 1983? And I
15 l maybe once again, because I'll ask you a couple questions l
16 I about this, you' d like to take a moment to re-read it and l
17 l we can go of f the record.
l 18 P. Okay.
19 ( A brief discussion was held 20 of f the recor d. )
21 1Y Mn, JENTTS :
22 0 Naving reviewed the document are you able to answer?
23 4 Yes. This is my supplemental testimony.
24 9 Once again, was this testimony prepared pursuant to your (
t 89 Lafayette Building Luzod Reporting Sersice 30xa kethestem Huy
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1 ; duties to report to the ASLB concerning the activities of 2 the applicant, Consumer s Power Company?
3 4 Yes.
- 4 ) And did you draw for this testimony on your own 5 observations and the reporte that you had received f rom 6 ; the Region III Staf f ?
7 h Yes.
l 0 Q Once again, did ~a copy of this document go to Consumers l
9 l
Power and did they have a chance to comment on it and to 10 in f act interrogate you regarding the views expressed in 11 this testimony?
12 i Yec.
13 p What was the occasion f or submitting this testimony; was I
14 this j uct an update on the developments in the quality i
15 assurance area between your last testimony that we've i
16 looked at a little bit f urther in October of 1982 and the 17 date you submitted this?
18 N Really what I felt was this testimony was needed to close 19 the loop that I had reopened when I went back bef ore the 20 Atanic Saf ety and Licensing Board in terms of how the NRC 21 felt, how the NRC Staf f felt the proj ect should continue.
22 ) I won' t ask you about the materials that appear on the 23 first several pagec since they are merely a recitation of 24 things that you have covered in your testimony here today l
1 N yu ,.
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1 ; but I'd like to direct your attention over to the last 4
2 question,11, which I take it is this closing of the loop 3 that you j ust ref erred to?
4 h Yes.
5 0 And the question was "What confidence do you now have with 6 respect to CPC's capability to satisf actorily complete the 7 Midland Plant consistent with the liRC's regulatory 8 l req ui rement s?" What was your confidence as of March of t
i 9 1983 on that cubj ect?
10 A It's what I wrote here. I mean, do you want me to 11 paraphrase it?
12 D Well, I hate to ask you to take undue time but we have had 13 some questions raised f rom a purely legal evidentiary 14 l standpoint as to the f eeling that the witr.ess really i
15 : should express now what his views are and I theref ore ask I
16 you if you could state what your views are?
17 h Okay. I think -- let me state it flat out. My view was 18 l that we had put trust in Bechtel and Consumers Power l
19 i Company initially. He had gone through a series of i
20 l problems with the implementation of quality assurance at 21 the site and accepted a fix to those problems by the 22 util ity. That didn' t vor k and I didn' t see how we could 23 stand up and state, although f urther imptavements have 24 been made, how we could place confidence in that alone and ;
I 91 Lafvette Bustdane Luzod Reportirsg Sernice 30mn Aonhue, tern Ilo Suar 1026 9ng ;j 76 Suite 1%
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1 ;
it was my view and the view of others that we needed 2 additional assurances over and above what Consumers Power 3 Company and Bechtel could supply to provide reasonable 4 assurance the job could be completed properly.
5 And the approach we took on that was to 6 accept a construction completion program and to have a 7 third party organization monitor that ef fort of the 8 construction completion program as well as ongoing work at 9 the site until Consumers Power Company demonstrated that 10 it could handle the oversight activ!H en ty itself.
11 ) All right. Directing your attention over to the last page 12 of your testimony there's a ref erence in Paragraph 1 to an 13 independent overview by a qualified outside organization.
14 This is this independent agency or independent group that 15 l you j ust alluded to; is that correct?
I 16 h Ye c.
l j 17 a And was that Stone & Webster?
18 h Yes.
l 19 0 Let me ask you to take a look at another document in the i
20 stack here that's NRC 450 This is a letter from Mr.
( 21 Richard DeYoung f rom the Of fice of Inspection and .
22 Enforcement to Mr. Selby of January 12, 1984. Mr. DeYoung 23 is shown to be f rom the imC's of fice in Washington. What 24 is the relationchip between Mr. DeYoung and yourself ?
92 f.afayette kildine Lusod Reporting Service 3can wrthurnern Itu r Suur 1020 962 1176 5"d' I"'
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l l
1 k Mr. DeYoung is presently retired, but, which I hope I'm 2 not, but Mr. DeYoung as director of the Of fice of 3 Inspection and Enforcement and myself were on a comparable l
4 i level .
5 D Attached to Mr. DeYoung's letter is a so-called ,
6 confirmatory order and the confirmatory order, at least as 7 l I read it as its bottom line, is the ordering provisions 8 l over on Page 5 and 6 in paragraph Roman numeral five 9 l states that "within 30 days of the ef fective date of this i
10 l order the licensee shall submit to the Region III 11 administrator for review and approval a plan for an 12 ; independent appraisal of site and corporate management 13 organi=ations and f unctions that would develop l
14 l recommendations where necessary for improvements in i
15 management's communications, control and oversight. " H ow 16 did this confirmatory order and what it entailed relate to 17 the recommendation or.- if you will, caveat that you had 16 ,
placed in your expression of confidence in the testimony 19 ! of March of 1983 ?
l 20 This order came af terward and was an outgrowth of an 21 investigation that was rather complex. I' m not surc 22 without a lot of, without some study, I could lay out all 23 the details, but basically the investigation lent itself 24 to a concern that work was donc at the site without NRC I
f 1
, 93 Lafayette Budding 1.uaod Repor ing Sertice 30w krihuestern Hu Suite 1026 96g,jj7s Sune W iktrat. .\lahigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, Whigan 48016
1 permission or approval, and it was a very contentious 2 issue between some of my staff and the utility over what 3 was known oc wnat wasn' t, but certainly very inef f ective 4 communications f rom our standpoint as a minimtan.
5 0 You mean ineff ective communications by Consumers to the i
6 ! Staff?
7 on the part of the utility and within its own 8 orga niz ation. So one of the thoughts, and I'm not sure I 9 can tell you who originated the thought or where --
10 whet er collectively people did, but one of the f eelings 11 was that while we' re -- we've got a fix in place f or the 12 project to continue, namely Consumers Power Company's 13 ; augmented quality assurance activities with the third 14 party overviews, that we insisted upon being there, that 15 ,
at some point in time it vac important to get Consumero i
16 j Power Company back in control of this j ob. They were 17 going to have to run the plant.
18 We f elt chey really needed to assure 19 themselves that this project was completed properly and we 20 had f or the past years been unable to figure out why 21 Consumers Power Company was being inef fective in 22 implementing its quality assurance activities. So we 23 decided that an appropriate course of action would be to 24 require a management consultant to come in and to look at
! i Lafayette Buddans Luzod Reporting Service 3no urthue?ek tho Suste 102b 962.))i6 Suute 10.
[htut, Whigan 48226 Farmington Rdh, Whigan 43olk
1 I what had happened and what programs were in place to see
! i 2 l if they could help solve the situation. l 3 Q And was such a management consultant brought in?
l 4 A Yes.
4 5 D And who was that?
I 6 h Crecap, McCormick and Padgett.
7 0 Th a t ' s C-r- e- o- a- p?
8 h Yes.
9
? Directing your attention to Page 4 of a confirmatory order 10 '
that's part of NRC 450, up near the top, you have it, 11 ,
there's some materials in ref erence to that on July 20, t
12 l 1982 an NRC inspector discovered that the licensee had 1
13 excavated coil f rom below the deep O-duct bank and had l
14 initiated relocation to the firo line in 0 soils without
{
15 prior NRC authorization, and there's a little more 16 description of that and it states "In f act, excavation of 17 soil material below the deep O-duct bank was contrarv to i
18 l prior directives of the NRC Stef f which instructed the 19 licensee that such excavation was not authorized." Is 20 this the incident that you were ref erring to earlier in 21 your testinony?
22 4 Yes.
23 ) And is the NRC inspector that's ref erred to here Dr.
24 Landsman? 1 l
i 95 Lafasette Luldine Lu:od Reporting Sertice 3cun Aorthuesterr, }{,,,
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m l
1 f
1 A ye s.
2 0 One f ur ther document that I'd like to ask you to take a 3 look at in connection with the sort of progression of 4 events here, if I can find it here, is NRC 40 It should 5 be in your stack there, the last one. Although this 6 document is not signed by you I wonder if you could 7 : identify it as a letter f rom Mr. JA Hind, R- i- n- d ,
8 Chairman of the Region ITI SALP Board, to Mr. James W.
9 Cook, of July 21, 1903, sending along the so-called SALP 3 10 report covering the period July 1,1981 through March 31, 11 1903?
12 4 Yes. If I could j ust comment.
13 0 Yes.
l 14 h When I discussed the SALP 2 report that you showed me, i
15 what you had I believe was the final report that was 16 issued. You'll notice this is the one that's called i
17 Preliminary Report and is issued by the SALP Board 10 ch ai rma n. Presunobly I issued a subsequent final report 19 ,
af ter this was done, but that's the SALP report, yes.
20 Q All right. Unf or tuna tely, I don' t have available f or ne i
21 right here today the one that you must have issued, but 22 wac the SALP 3 report prepared in the name general f
23 approach that the SALP 2 report was prepared, that is, the 24 procedures and the categoriec, etcetera?
I k
96 Lafbnette kidute f.utod Reporting Sertice xmu \orikust. Hoy Suite 1026 9sg,y j 7g Swte im
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1 A There may have been a couple of minor variations but i
2 j nothing substantive.
3 D When it was finalized was this a report that you reviewed 4 l with the Consumers Power people?
I 5 h It suggests that I was going to meet with them. I have to 6 assume I did. If we had the other report I could clarify 7 that better.
8 0 I apologize I don' t have that. I' d like to ask you to i
9 look over at page --
10 I may have that upstairs if it would help.
f i
11 p I'd like to ask you to look over, if I may, to page 6173 I
12 i It's about three pages into the document. It's Enclosure i
13 1 Under the General Observations section there's, l
14 l really, in the first two paragraphs a sort of a recap of 15 many of the things that we've talked about and then in the 16 last paragraph of the general observationc it says in view 17 of the suspension of portions of saf ety-related work 18 j activities and the licensee's proposed construction i
19 ; completion program the Region III regional administrator 20 determined that the SALP 3 appraisal for Midland would 21 address only areas where work activities continued, namely 22 remedial soils, the nuclear steam supply system, the RVAC 23 and licensing activities. Was that a determination that 24 you made?
97 Lqfasette Building Lutod Reporting Sert see 3cn13 %,tsur, tern nu ,
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1 h Yes, and the basis of it was simple. The other work t
2 activities were stopped and they were stopped because they 3 didn' t meet the Category 3 level, minimum acceptable level 4 of NRC. We don' t have a rating outside those areas.
5 D In the f unctional area description, a little lower in the 6 l page, it talks about soils and f oundations and there it 7 i indicates that the "overall performance in this functional I
8 area hac continued to indicate a declining trend and 9 remains an area of concern. The decline was due to the 10 continued lack of attention to detail and the continuing 11 inability on the part of the licensee to implement 12 properly the requirements of the Midland QA program." Did i
13 that observation in this document conf orm with your own 14 views concerning tha perf ormance of Consumers Power in
, 15 this area of soils and f oundations?
16 A Yeah, I think so.
l 17 0 over on the next page under the support systems, which is 18 one of the other items that was reviewed, it indicates 19 that "Perf ormance in this f untional area has declined f rom 20 Category 1 to Category 2. The decline was due to the lach 21 of management attention to identified pr oblems and the 22 lack of timely corrective action to resolve these j 23 problems. " Again, was this an assessment of Consumers' l 24 perf ormance in the support systems area with which you l I
I i
90 l Lafasette Buildme Luzod Reporting Service 30mn %rthestern Itu.,
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I 1 agreed?
2 p I' m sure I did at the time. I can't recall for you what 3 the basis of the drop was. I'm sure it's explained in the 4 report.
5 D All right. Maybe we can go off the record f or a moment.
6 ( A lunch recess was held during 7 the proceedings.)
8 l MR. JDITES: Back on the record 9 BY MR. JD1TES i
10 D Mr. Keppler, an issue has arisen in the case with regard 11 to these variouc matters of OA confidence on the part of I
12 l the NRC, etcetera, as to whether or not the NRC would have 13 l permitted Consumers Power to begin loading f uel at the 14 Midland units bef ore the final completion of the l
15 underpinning activities and the other remedial soils 16 activities, and I'm wondering if you ever made any 17 determination one way or another with regard to that 18 I incue?
l 19 h I don't ever recall the issue coming up as a question to 20 me.
21 0 To explore that one step f urther, does this mean that to 22 your recollection Consumers never raised with you the 23 proposition that t. hey might actually load f uel bef ore the 24 completion of the remedial soils activities?
i 99 Lafasette Building Lutod Reporting Sertice 3wn %,thu esim it,, ,
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I 1 n Not that I can recall.
I i
2 D I've shown you what's been marked as MED 100, which is an 3 article that appeared in the Jackson Citizen Patriot on 4 August 22nd,1984. It ref ers to some statement by an NRC 5 spokesman identified as Russ Maribito, M- a- r- i- b- i- t- o.
6 Do you know who Mr. Russ Marabito is?
7 A Yes. He's one of my public af f airs personnel.
1 8 D Have you had a chance to read over the statements 9 attributed to Mr. Marabito that appear on Page 2 of this 10 document ?
11 4 Yec.
12 3 Are the statemento that appear there an accurate 13 reficction of the position of the Region III of fice of the 14 NRC?
15 h Again, this subject was not discussed with me, to the best 16 of my recollection, and I don' t know how the of fice would ,
17 have taken a position without my being involved in it.
10 It's a rather strong statement. I'm not saying I disagree 19 with the statement but I don' t recall addreccing the 20 cubj ect, to be honect with you.
21 I Okay. Dased on your knowledge of the OA situation at the 22 pl ant , are you able to state one way or another whether 4
23 all the remedial coils werk which was saf ety-related would 24 not -- let no rephrase that. I'm trying to restate what l
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1 Mr. Marabito stated, but based on what you knew about the 2 j QA perf ormance and the saf ety-related nature of the 3 remedial soils work and based on your understanding of the 4 i QA regulations and enf orcement policies of Region III, do l
5 I
you believe that a license to operate at low power without 6 the completion and evaluation of all of the remedial soils 7 work would be authori cd by the Region III of fice?
8 h I would have to answer that by saying that it is not 9
l conceivable to me that we would have recommended a license 10 l without the work being completed, but the agency -- just I
11 ) to complete the thought -- the agency has given f uel 12 i loading licenses and so-called low power licenses to 13 utilities in advance of one hundred percent construction 14 i completi on. That's not a unique situation, but my best 15 guess is that because of the overall significance of this 16 work, perhaps the uniqueness of this case and the f act 17 l that maj or problems had been identified throughout the 18 l construction period, it would be my guess that we would i
19 i not have done that. But again I'm giving you an l
20 !
of f-the-cuf f reaction here because I don' t think thic 21 l issue was ever brought up for any serious consideration 22 this way.
23 '
) Is it correct that -- l I
24 A Let me j ust add and say I certainly don' t recall any !
l
! l' i
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In/ net:r Ikid.np kure 1026 96g, j j n Swr !w Detrmt, \tahigan 48226 Farminton ll>lls. %.%gan Wik
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discussions I had with Mr. Maribito on this.
2 b Is it correct that the NRC chairman must write the letter 3 to Consumers saying that they have the authorization to 4 load f uel and operate at low power?
5 h The NRC chairman?
I 6 0 Ye c.
7 5 No, that's not true.
8 Q All right. Who does issue the authorization?
i 9 h The authorization would be issued by Mr. Harold Denton and 10 that would be done af ter the Atomic saf ety and Licensing 11 Doard had drawn a satiof actory conclusion that a license 12 could be granted and af ter Region III recommended issuance 13 of the licence.
14 p Does the Advisory Committee on Reactor Saf ety also have to 15 give its approval?
16 h Yes, and I'm trying to think whether that had already been 17 done, that may have already been done. I' m not positive 18 on that.
19 h I'm not clear what you mean had already been done, l
20 h They had completed their reviews I believe.
l 21 Q Do you know whether the Advisory Committee had ever 22 addressed thic icaue of loading f uel at Midland bef ore the 23 completion of the remedial soils activiticc?
24 4 I can' t answer that. I don' t know.
I I
102 Lafasette Building Lusod Reporting Sersice 3ern %rthestern !!u, Suar 10:6 q$g,j;7s Suar !w On mt, W kvan #2:b i'wnmrton Ihlis, %ckgan #olk
l-1 0 Mr. Keppler, looking back over all of the inspection and 2 enf orcement activities by Region III as they applied to 3 Midland 1 and 2, do you have an opinion as to whether 4 s those enf orcement and inspection activities were j ustified 5 to carry out the OA oversight responsibilities of the 6 region as they are delineated in the Code of Federal 7 Regulations that I showed you really almost at the 8 beginning of your depovision here today?
9 A You' re going to have to get a little more specific with 10 ! me.
11 h All right. From your observation of the inspection and 12 l
enf orcement activities that we've spoken about today and 13 that you've testified about, do you believe that those 14 !
activities were necessary and justified in order to carry 15 out the OA oversight responsibilities as spelled out in i
16 the Code of Federal Regulations?
17 h Could I rephrase the question as I understand it?
I 18 Q Cer tainly.
19 h If you' re asking me do I believe that the actionc that 20 Region III took were justified in view of what was f ound 21 at the plant either through identified problems by the 22 licensee or the NRC, the answer is yes. If you' re asking 23 se should I have done more or should I have done less, my 24 view ic that the regulatory proceso that was utilized in l
, e i
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1 the case of Midland would have brought about the intended 2 result at the end but it took f ar too long to accomplish 3 this. Perhaps maybe back in the beginning I would have 4 done well to shut the project down ten years ago because 5 ,
of pr obl eras.
6 l You have to appreciate that our activities 7 and inspection and enf orcement have evolved over a period 8 l of time. Regulation today is much stronger than it was 9 ! ten years ago and our posture, whether right or wrong, was 10 that you really didn't shut a project down unless there 11 was an imminent health and saf ety problem or unless I
12 continued construction work would result in not being able 13 to verify the adequacy of proper construction. So when we 14 shut the project down back in 1973 for cadweld work that 15 was because it was with a concrete -- con.pleted concrete 16 pouring would have covered that up and we wouldn' t have 17 been able to ascertain the adequacy of what was done, so 18 we stopped that work. But generally the agency did not 19 stop, order a halt to construction activities. Today we 20 would probably do that and have done that.
21 I guess I'm going around about way of 22 antwering your question, but I felt that if you really, 23 and ?'m sure you have, looked through the history of this 24 project and the actions the NRC took, while you may or may d
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1 ,
not agree with them you can see the pattern we tried to 2 I f oll ow.
,I 3 D And I take it f rom what you stated at the beginning of 4 your answer that you felt that the actions that you did S i take were justified by the f acts that were known to the 6 Region III Staf f ?
7 A Yes.
I 8 Q Early in the depovision I mentioned to you that there had 9 been some assertions made in the course of the proceeding 10 with regard to the possible punitive nature of the I
11 ! inspection and enf orcement activities of Region III and 12 I'd like to ask you whether or not in terms of your own 13 l activities you have an opinion as to whether your l
I 14 activities can be properly characterized as being 15 punitive?
16 MR. DRIKER Excuse me. I'm going to obj ect 17 to the question as not f airly -- you' re characterizing the 18 ascertion or summarizing the evidence. I think you've 19 [ done again that which the Judge has repeatedly said you 20 should not do. I think it's an improper predicate to a 21 question. You can go ahead and anower.
22 MR. J ENTES : I'll rephrase the question.
23 3Y Mn. JENTTS:
24 ? Looxing au f airly and objectively as you can, Mr. Keppler, ;
i t >
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1 ; at your own inspection and enf orcement activities as to 2 Midland, do you believe that your activities can f airly be 3 characterized as punitive?
4 L I don' t think so, but I'm certain to a company who has 5 experienced a rather tough regulatory action, that they 6 f may conceive of it that way. by view is that I am a tough 7 regulator. My view is that the record will support I'm a 1
0 consistent regulator, recognizing that regulation has 9 evolved, and I think I f eel very comfortable in making the 10 statement that I think I've been very consistent in my 11 treatment of licensees, but I will not tell you I'm sof t.
12 ) When you say that you believe that you are a tough 13 regulator, do you believe that tough regulation was 14 required in connection with the Midland Project?
15 N I think in retrospect tougher regulation was required 16 because it took too long to get to where we did and the 17 ! proj ect has suf f ered f rom it, but consistent with what we 18 knew at the time and the evolution of the regulatory 19 <
process at the time I thought, and do think, that we took 20 the proper courses of action.
21 D In terms of your Region III Staf f, and in particular I 22 guese the inspectors f rom the Region III Staf f, do you ,
23 think that they can f airly be characterized as punitive in 24 terms of their inspection and enf orcement activities at l
i l l
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1 Midland?
2 h I think I would describe that some of the inspectors at i
3 l Midland were certainly more hawkish, and by hawkish I mean I
4 i more aggressive toward doing something about the problems, 5 but when it came time to make the tough decisions I made 6 them and I mado them with input f rom the Staf f. Some of 7 the people would have pref erred perhaps shutdown sooner, 8 some of them would have pref erred bigger fines, and 9 ! perhaps some of them would have pref erred less.
10 j We have a variety of inspectors on the 11 Staf f, some of whom are more aggressive than others in 12 l terms of what to do about problems, but in terms of 13 identification of problems all inspectors have the 14 l reoponsibility to issue noncompliances, issue ci tations 15 when regulatory violations are found. They have no leeway 16 that way. That's their responsibility. What one does 17 with those violations gets down to what might be enlied 18 j punitive or non-punitive and when we take significant 19 actions in terms of a stop work order or in termc of fines 20 or issues of that type, these are not individual decicions ,
21 that are made but management decicions based on input f rom 22 the Staff.
23 0 Do you have any policy or practice with regard to removing l
l 24 inopectors within Region III who you regard as being
)
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l 1 ; unprof essional in connection with their activities? !
2 k I have an obligation to constantly evaluate the 3 objectivity of our inspectors and I have the obligation to 4 move inspectors if I f eel that objectivity is lost, and I S l have done that.
6 Q In connection with the Midland Project, did you ever 7 remove any of the inspectors becaune you felt that their i
S ! conduct was unprof escional ?
9 h My view in removing -- let me ancwer it this way: I felt l'
10 that Mr. Cook had lost his objectivity at Midland and I --
11 perhaps not so much f ran a standpoint of him inspection 12 findings per se but f rom an attitudinal point of view. He 13 had developed such a negative attitude toward the l
i 14 utility's ability to comply that it just became 15 unprof essional in my view, and I decided to talk to him 16 and get him to see my point of view and that to talk to 17 him about another position. And while I worked it out to 18 his saticf action I did make the decision that he should 19 come out of the proj ect. fie j ust had been under five l
20 years or longer of too tough combat.
21 h When did you make that decision?
22 4 Gee, I can' t tell you of f the top of my head but it would 23 have to be -- well, I gueen I'll have to look it up. I l
l 24 don' t know.
l l
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1 1 D All right. Prior to the action that you took when you did 2 ask Mr. Cook to move on, did you believe that he had been 3 perf orming at a prof essional f ashion?
4 h Yes.
I 5 0 And you mentioned earlier -- excuse me.
Y
, 6 A I did and I thought he was very tough on the utility but 7 at the same time I f elt -- tough in terms of commenting on 8 ; the utility's perf ormance and tough in terms of the way he 9 responded to them in meetings or in interf aces, that I 10 ,
would have pref erred it to be more prof essional in the wny i
11 l he did it, but I also f elt very strong that the utility 12 l needed a tough oversight and I was convinced in terms of l
13 public perception and in termo of NRC aggressiveness that i
14 we needed tough oversight.
15 f Did you form any opinion as to whether or not the actions 16 of Consumers itself had provoked Mr. Ron Cook in this l
17 regard?
, lo h That's hard f or me to really address. I cer tainly f el t 19 ; that f riction was building up between people and I 20 couldn' t tell which side was provoking or not. You see, I 21 got to go back to the bottom line. It wasn' t our job f or 22 uc to do the work and when inspectors find problems it 23 creates f rustrationu f or people who are trying to deal 24 wi th th em, and I can' t expect my inspector s to back of f I
i l
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1 and not find problems, that's thei r j ob, to go out there 2 and look at things, and I think because a lot of this led 3 to pressure, NRC pressure on the company, on the 4 contractors, I think hostility built up over time.
i S D I take it that --
6 h And I think some of it came out. You go to the hearings ;
7 and there were some tough statements made, but again I i
8 come back to the point that our inspectors were out there 9 l inspecting what the licensee did and they called the shots I
10 they way they saw it.
11 1 And when you say that they called the shots the way they 12 saw them, do you believe that f rom the observation 13 standpoint that what Mr. Ron Cook reported he saw was in 14 your j udgment and obj ective report on that?
15 N The noncompliances or the inspection findings that 16 inspectors made are reviewed by supervisors who are, I 17 would like to think, less involved in the day-to-day 1G battic and it is not uncommon when supervinors believe a 19 licensco's -- an inspector's finding is not valid that he 20 doesn' t support the inspectors in that. I believe that 21 most of the inspection findings were being accepted and 22 were valid. ,
23 l} Was Mr. Ron Cook the only person that fell within the 24 category of anyone that you rencned at any time or urged 110 Lafayette Budding Luzod Reporting Sersier 3na knheuern nu ,
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1 i to move on to another position?
2 A At Midland?
3 D Yes.
- 4 h Ye c. I had done so at other sites.
I 5 0 Yec. With regard to Dr. Ross Landsman in particular --
l!
6 h could I clarify comething?
7 p Yes.
8 h I don' t want to leave any thought on the record that I did 9 l not think Ron Cook did a good job. My view of Ron Cook 10 was a good inspector but I think when you have a proj ect 11 as intense as Midland was that people burn out over a 12 period of time and that's wnat I f elt happened with Ron 13 Cook. His obj ectivity had reached a point that in my view 14 that even bef ore the licensee had a chance to do something 15 he was telling you why it wasn' t going to work. And when 16 I see things like that -- I have objectivity problems the 17 other way, where people sit out there and all kinds of 18 j things happen and they sort of accept it in the process, 19 l I have to worry about objectivity two ways. But my view -
20 is Ron Cook was a very capable inspector, a very good 21 inspector. lic just needed a change of scenery.
22 ) Returning to Dr. Landsman for a moment, was there any time 23 when Consumer s Power actually asked that Mr. , or Dr.
24 Landsman be assigned f ull time to the Midland site? ;
i i a f
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1 h I believe there was.
i l 2 2 And in that case did you actually conclude t'a at he 3 shouldn' t be assigned f ull time? i 4 4 We talked about it and I'm try.ing to recall what was j 5 decided. I believe we concluded that it would be good to 6 have Dr. Landsman assigned f ull time and we talked to him 7 about it and my recollection is that there was some reason 8 why he could not move or did not want to move and we then 9 talked about, and I believe it was at this time, we talked 10 about hiring somebody f rom the Corps of Engineers to put 11 up there ao a consultant directly to the Staf f, and I'm 12 not sure why that thought dissipated, and we ultimately 13 concluded that the way we would proceed would be Ross 14 would spend a large portion of his time up at the site but 15 still work out of the regional of fice. There's a pretty 16 well-documented trail on this thing that I'm sure could be 17 surf aced somewhere.
18 9 Over the cour se --
l 19 h Th e r eq ue st -- I'm sorry I keep interrupting, but thoughts 20 come into my mind. The purpose of the request was because 21 of the nature of the Board order. It would f acilitate the 22 project and f acilitato the approval process of new work in 23 the soils area. So that was what was behind it.
24 That was the request that was made by consumers to have 1
l 112 1
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1 , him assigned f ull time?
2 A That's right, and I thought it was a good thought.
3 D Once again, asking you to look back over the inspection l
4 l and enforcement activities of Region III as they have i
S applied to Midland 1 and 2, do you believe that the Region 6 -
III activities can be blamed f or the delays at Midland?
7 A Do I believe the Region III activities can be?
h 8 Q Yes.
N 9 h I'm sure you can say yes in a certain sense, but we didn' t i
10 compact that soil up there. We took action and that 11 regulatory action did cauce delays and problems, but in my 12 ,
view it was totally justified and warranted in our i
13 l position.
14 p You ref erred to you didn' t compact the soil. Who did 15 compact the soil?
16 h Bech tol .
17 0 And --
l l
18 h And Consumers.
19 h And to carry out your thought, was your conclusion that if 20 l there's blame to be laid that it's on Consumers and 21 Bechtel, not on the imC, for the problems that were the 22 root cause of the regulatory actions on the part of Region j 23 III?
l 24 \ I don' t f eel that the regulatory actionc by Region III can .,
- l. ;
L I
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i 1 ; be viewed as a delay in that proj ect.
I 2 p That's all the question I have, Mr. Ke ppler. Thank you.
3 EXAMINATIO!!
4 SY MR. DRIKER:
5 0 fir. Keppl er, let me again assure you that contrary to the 6 ! suggestion made by Mr. Jentes there's been neither a claim 7 ,
nor evidence that Consumers Power viewed your regulation s l
8 of Midland 1 and 2 as punitive.
9 Since the shutdown of the construction of 10 the Midland plants in the summer of 1984 you've had 11 occasion, have you not, to speak to a variety of groups in 12 Michigan concerning the possible completion of those 13 plants?
14 4 Yes.
l 15 h You spoke to a special committee of the Michigan
)
I 16 Legislature, did you not? l 17 i Yes.
18 Q And was it your view when you addressed that committee i
19 that f rce a physical point ot view Midland could ba l l I 20 completed and made operational? I 21 i Yes. That remains my view today.
22 ) And did you also express the view that it should be 23 compl eted?
24 \ I expressed the view that in my view if new proj ects are l
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1 i to be looked at for the future that Midland should be i
2 completed, yes.
3 l} You mean new nuclear power plants in the United States 4 generally?
5 A Yes, right. I thought it would be more prudent to I
6 canplete the onec we have and the longer they go it's my 7 view that the more dif ficult they are to recover.
8 Q And that view was expressed to the Michigan Legislature
}
9 : within the past year, was it not?
I 10 A When you say the Michigan Legislature, I have met with the 11 Michigan Public Utility Commission staff and I have met 12 with I believe some kind of businessmen's group over in 13 : Lansing.
f 14 p Michigan Manuf acturers Association?
15 h That's cor rect.
16 p Energy Task Force?
I 17 h Yes.
I 18 O And also a special committee of the Michigan Legislature 19 j to look into the Midland plants?
l 20 That's correct, you' re right.
21 Q And each of those three conversations which have been in 22 the last year, year and a half, you voiced the same two 23 conclusions?
24 i It is ny v. v that Midland should be completed. 1, i 4 i l 115 1.afayette Building Lu:od Reporting Sereice 309cn Northuniern Ito Swre 1026 gsg,jj76 Swir W:
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1 D And can be completed?
2 A And can be completed.
3 ) And can be licensed?
4 4 And can be licensed.
5 D And a,an be made operational?
6 h And can be made operational.
7 D When you talked to the Michigan Manuf acturers Energy 8 Committee in January of 1985, did you indicate that there 9 were three major problems conf ronting the NRC across the 10 spectrum of nuclear power plant regulation, those being, 11 first, that quality assurance problems at various plants ,
12 received a high degree of publicity?
13 ,
1 I said that, yes.
I 14 b And did you also say that one of the major problems 15 confronting the NRC, again across the spectrum of plants, i
16 was that there was intense opposition f rom anti-nuclear 17 f orces which have utilized the strategy of filing hundreds 18 of last minute allegations on nearly completed projects?
l 19 N Yes.
l l
20 0 And that until very recently the NRC f elt that each 21 allegation had to be resolved bef ore licensing of the l 22 proj ect could proceed?
l .
23 4 Yes.
24 6 And that j ust nov, that is in January of 1985 when you 1 l
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1 ! made these remarks, the NRC was coming to realize that it l
2 had to adopt new criteria to sif t out meritless ;
3 contentions which simply delayed the licensing?
4 A Yes.
l 5 D Do you still believe that that's the case?
6 h Yes, and let me elaborate. That comment was made in 7 i discussing the Agency's eff orts to try to be responsive to 0 i completing the licencing process on what we called N1DL 9 I pl ant s, near term operating license plants, and i
10 !
represented some of the difficulties that were opposing 11 that obj ective.
12 S Did you also tell that group in January 1985 that the 13 ,
third of the three maj or problems conf ronting the 14 industry, the NRC across the industry was intense 15 ; congressional oversight which comes about almost solely i
I 16 f rom nuclear critics and foes?
17 h I have to be caref ul how I' d say that. I can' t tell you I
18 l exactly what I said but let me try to tell you what I 19 I intended to say. That we are -- we continue to receive 20 extensive congt essional oversight that causes us to act or 21 to respond to crittei sms that we are too pro nuclear and 22 that we are not tough enough regulators, and I said that 23 the congressional oversight committees are obviously 24 receiving prosauro f rom one side, and one of the comments >
)
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1 I that I went on to continue to make was that the industry, i
2 the nuclear industry, by being silent, has been silent and 3 has seemed to expect the NRC to carry their battle for 4 them. And when one gets pressure solely f ran one side 5 that has an influencing ef f ect. It causes us to regulate 6 more toughly, tough er .
i 7 D Did you also tell the Michigan Manuf acturers Association 8 in January of '85 that predictability of the NRC 9 regulatory proceso is non-existent?
10 % For )icensing of new plants, yes, for licensing of new 11 pr oj ect s, new applications. I believe I said that in my 12 view the Midland Plant could be licensed.
13 ? 11as it been your experience as the head of Region III for 14 more than ten years that utilities throughout the region 15 which had plants under construciton suffered f rom the 16 inability of predicting licensing changes? Perhaps 17 suf f ered has the wrong connotation. Let me change that to 18 the word burdened, that utilities were burdened with 19 having to deal with constantly changing regulations which 20 were difficult to predict or anticipate?
21 i There's no quection that the af termath of Three Mile 22 Island and the many changes that had to be made 23 contributed to a large uncertainty for utilities in terms 24 of completing the pr oj ects. I think the -- and I make i
I 118 lafayette Buildme Luzod Reporting Sernice 30903 Northuestern Hu e Suste 1026 962 1176 5"I "
1 that comment straight out, but I would say also that that l
2 impact seemed to vary f rom utility to utility.
3 D Mr. Jentes asked you a great many questions about the 4 inspection ef forts of Region III. You have stated 5 ,
publicly, have you not, Mr. Keppler, that Region III is 6 l deemed the toughest region f rom an inspection and 7 enf or cement viewpoint?
8 h I don' t believe I have stated that. I think that I'll 9 leave that f or others to make.
l 10 0 You have no view on that yourself ?
l 11 h I don' t think so. It's very hard f or me to make that 12 obse rvation. If you talk to others they may make that 13 l statement, but I can remember, for example, my former 14 counterpart in Atlanta, he used to think he was the 15 toughest regulator. I think if you compare fines, compare 16 items of noncompliance or use parameters of that type I'm 17 not sure that I could draw a lot of differences between 18 Regions I, II and III, frankly. I'n sure you have a 19 better answer to that question of what people think than I 20 do.
21 O Let me ask you a question about fines. Consumers Power 22 has not been the only utility constructing a nuclear power 23 plant in Region III that has been fined during the 24 , construction process, has it? 3 I !
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1 h That's cor rect.
I 2 D And it's not uncommon f or utilities to suf f er fines during 3 the construction process, is it?
4 4 Again, let me say that it's not uncommon, no. '!he use of 5 civil penalties during construction projects, if you go 6 back in time you probably would find that pre-1980 there i
7 probably were one or two or three in the country, there l
i 8 have certainly been more since, but the numbers of fines
- of construction plants compared to operating plants is 9
10 considerably less. And I don' t think we have utilized a 11 lot of fines in this region in plants under construction, 12 but I can tell you off the top my head that Clinton has 13 received a fine, Braidwood has received a fine, Zimmer of 14 course was fined bef ore any of them, and I' m not sure how 15 many fines Midland had, a couple anyway, and that helps. i 16 p Does the f act that a utility is fined during construction l
! 17 indicate that the plant ultimately cannot be licensed?
i 18 h No, l 19 0 Were the Clinton and Braidaood plants completed?
L l
20 $ They are not yet. They are still under construction.
I 21 O With the expectation that they will be completed?
22 4 Yes.
l l 23 '
) Am I correct that th e --
24 .\ Coul d I -- is thic convenient? l l
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1 D Sure. You call the shots.
l 2 T Break, it's 2 :30. I apologize f or this but I think people 3 problems are very important.
4 ( A brief recess was held during 5 the proceedings.)
6 pY MR. DRIKER:
7 b Mr. Keppler, returning to the reports that you made to the 8 various Michigan groups that we talked about bef ore the l
9 break a f ew minutes ago, you did tell these various groups 10 '
earlier this year that the basic design f or the Midland 11 Nuclear Plant as confirmed in the SER that was issued in 12 May 1982 did not contemplate any major design changes in i
13 l the future, did you not?
14 h That's cor rect.
15 h And is that still true?
16 h Yes.
l 17 0 You also indicated to these various groups that the l
18 l remedial soils program coupled with the CPCo management i'
19 team charge with implementing the program and the 20 continuing overview of Stone & Webster and the NRC should 21 lead to a satisf actory completion of the remedial soils 22 effort, did you not?
23 4 Yes.
24 h And you still believe that? ,
E l
1
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1 (1 Yes.
2 0 And finally you told these various groups that the 3 construction completion program should confirm the 4 adequacy of completed work and assure the orderly 5 completion of the plant, did you not?
6 A Should confirm the quality of the proj ect and what 7 corrective actions may be necessary, but it was my view
)
8 that when that program was carried out it would confirm 9 the q uality of the pr oj ect.
10 0 And at least at the time of the shutdown of the project 11 Stone & Webster had reported to you that CPCo was 12 satisf actorily implementing the CCP, isn' t *. hat so?
13 $ Yes.
I 14 9 Is it correct to state, Mr. Keppler, that the inspection 15 program run out of the region is designed to conform to 16 exception reporting, that is, it's not designed to pat the j 17 utilities on the head when they do good work but rather to 18 find problems and report them?
19 p Our reports are generally negative, yes.
I 20 D And that's true generally throughout the region?
21 \ Right.
22 1 And the NRC?
23 4 Right.
24 3 So that the f act that there were nonconf ormance reports i
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1 l
issued at Midland would by no means be unique to power 2 pl ant s, nuclear power plants under construction 3 na tionwide ?
4 4 No, that' s - cor r ect.
5 Q I'd like to show you a couple of reports prepared by your 6 l office. Let me in the first instance hand you a document 7
f that has been labeled as Plaintif f's Exhibit NRC 459, an 8 inspection report dated October 10, 1978, and call your 9 ! attention to the fact that in this report the third l
10 l paragraph on the first page indicates that "No items of I
11 l noncompliance with NRC requirements were identified during 12 the course of this inspection. " And I don:t know when the 13 ; last time was that you might have seen this, if at all.
14 l If you want to take a moment to review it, that's fine.
I 15 4 I probably never read the report.
16 0 The f act that Consumers Power Company received a report 17 f rcan the NRC in October of 1978 identifying no items of 18 noncompliance would be a positive indication f or the l
19 i utility that it was doing something right, would it not?
l t
20 f I guesa you could say that. I hadn' t thought of it that 21 way bef ore, but that's a way of saying it.
22 2 All righ t. Shortly af ter the publication of the report I 23 just showed you documents started omanating f rom the NRC 24 having to do with the excessive settlement of the Diesel k i 1 123 Lafayette Budding Lu:od Reporting Sers ice 3wsu sorthntern un Sune 1026 96g. )) 76 Suae Hg Detroa, .\fichigan 48226 Farm ngton Hdis. .\hchigan 480ll
1 j Generator Building, and in that connection I' d like to 2 show you Defendant's Exhibit D-379, a portion of which is 3 a letter f rom the NRC, that is the bottom pages, and i 4 attached to it are a couple of internal Dow documents by 5 which the NRC's report concerning the 50.55 e report were 6 transmitted within the Dow Chemical Company.
7 h I' m corry, what was --
8 D I was j ust waiting f or you to glance at it f or a moment.
9 Let me direct your attention to the memo f rom yourself to 10 Mr. Thornburg, the third docunent in line in this package, 11 dated november 1,1978, where you ref er to the 50.55 e 12 r epor t, and if you'll look on the second page of that 13 letter, it's on the reverse side, you note in Paragraph 3 14 that 'The applicable specifications, procedures and 15 drawings contained conflicting requirements, were at 16 variance with PSAR requirements and/or did not implement 17 recommendations of the AE's consultant Dames & Moore in 18 auch arcan as percent compaction requirements, lift 19 thickness, required number of passes with specified 20 equipment and type of fill material." Do you see that?
21 N Yeah. Let me just read it again.
22 2 Go shead.
23 4 I'm not sure I recall this memo. Okay.
24 ) All right. Could you turn back to the covering letter i
i l
124 lxfayette Buildmz Luzod Reporting Service 30903 Aorthurstern H,n.
Suite 1026 962 1176 Suar lw Detroit. .\fichigan 48226 Farminton Hdis. .\fuchiean 20lb
1 l f rom Mr. Olmstead to the ASLB Board members, and I direct 2 ,
your attention down to the names of persons who received 3 carbon copies of these materials, ranging f ron Frank 4 Kelley, the Michigan Attorney General, to Myron Cherry to S Mary Sinclair and so on. Was it the practice of the NRC 6 throughout the life of the Midland Project to place on its l
7 service list or mailing list the names of any person who 8 1 indicated an interest in the licensing proceedings of the 9 plant ?
10 h Yes. Largely, yeo.
l 11 0 Does the NRC in f act go out of its way to make its i
12 i business and files open to interested parties?
l -
1 13 h Yec.
14 0 would you say that this is an agency, among those in the i'
15 Uni ted Sta tes Government, that views itself as operating 16 in a fish bowl?
17 h Ye s.
I 10 0 The little notation in the lower lef t there where it says, i
19 no Dow exclamation point, relates to the covering memos 20 that are attached to this document and deal with the 21 circulation of this document within Dow. My questi on is, 22 did you ever receive any irquiry f rom the Dow Chemical 23 Company concerning any aspect of the 50.55 e report or the 24 other matters contained in this document?
I i
125 f.afayette Budding Lu:od Reporting Sernice 30903 Methwiern Hu -
Suar 1(L'6 9$3,j j 7g Sus i im Derma, sfichigan M226 Farmington Rdh, wh: an Molf
_ - m m _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ __ _ ___. ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1 k Buck in that time frame?
I 2 b Yes.
3 4 Not that I can recall.
4 ) Did you ever receive any inquiry f ra Dow at any time in 5 connection with the Midland construction?
6 h I don' t think so.
7 D Over the years did you receive communications f rom the 1
8 interveners at Midland?
9 4 Yes.
10 ) Did Mary Sinclair f rom time to time call you on the 11 tel eph one ?
12 s Yes.
13 ) Did Barbara Stamiris?
14 i Yes.
15 ) Did representives of the Michigan Public Service 16 Commission?
17 i Yes.
18 ') Did representitives of the Michigan Attorney General's i 19 office?
i l 20 A I don' t think I had any dealingo with the Michigan l 21 Attorney General's of fice that I can recall.
l 22 '
) How aboui members of the media in the Midland area?
23 4 Oh, yen.
24 9 When these people called did you attempt to be responsive I
i i
! 126 i
Lafaytte Buildsne Luzod Reporting Settice 30rxa .%,thurstern Itn Swtr 1026 96g,jj7g Suite Itu.
IMmt, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, Michigan 480th
l l
1
- to their -- j l
2 A I tried to answer their questions.
i 3 D And did you receive questions f rom the interveners, Mrs, 4 sinclair and Miss Stamiris in particular, concerning the 5 soils problems over the years?
6 A I' m sure we did. ,
7 0 Did they also, from time to time, call you about G A 8 problems other than soils?
9 h Yes.
10 0 Did they call you about their claims of deficiencies on 11 the part of Bechtel or consumers Power in a variety of 12 matters of concern to them?
i 13 Yes.
14 D Did you also receive communications f rom the Government 15 Accountability Proj ect, GAP?
16 h Yes.
I i
17 p Did they also call you about a wide variety of 18 well-publicized problems at Midland?
19 k Oh, yes.
I 20 D And did you respond to the best of your ability to their 21 inqui ries?
22 4 We attempted to address the concerns.
s 23 ) GAP is no particular f an of youro, is it, Mr. Keppler?
24 i A fan of mine? ,
127 Lafasette Buildung Luzod Reportirtg Sernice 3wn %rthueurm Itu s Suar 1026 96g,jj76 Suar lu-Iktrmt, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington flills, .\fahigan 18018
._.__m_.________ _ ___. _ _ ______ _ __ ___ _ __ _ _ _ ___. _ ___ _ _ __ _ __
1 D Yes. They are not part of your f an club, are they?
2 4 I don' t know that I'm part of theira. I have to answer 3 that thi s way : That I think GAP is -- I would say I view 4 GAP as an organization not to take lightly. They do their 5 homew or k, they -- I have dealt with them on the Zimmer 6 Project as well as Midland and other cases. While they l
7 address themselves as a public interest group, I would be 8 hard-pressed to say that they are f or the proj ect, but I 9 have viewed it as my job to look into the concerns they 10 raise, make sure that there's ao matters that may be of 11 health and saf ety importance that aren' t addressed. So, I 12 take them seriously. I may question their motives but I 13 have f ound in many cases they have been right and in many 14 cases they haven' t been right.
15 9 Does GAP have a f riendly ear in some of the congressional 16 over sight committees with whera you have to deal?
17 A Yes.
l 18 And 10 one of those committees the Udall Coramittee?
19 h Yes.
20 p And did the Udall Committee pov part!cular attention to l
21 the construction problems at Zimmer and Midland?
l l
22 4 Yes.
23 '
) And based upon your own knowledge was that attention at l
24 ,
leact in part attributable to GAF8 s ef forts?
120 j Lafasette Buddung Luzod Reporting Sertice 3vxn krthuntern un l Suar 102t> 96y, j j 7g Suite ils;
! Detroi:, Mich;gan 4R226 Farmington HJls, Michigan 48tas L
1 k I think so.
i 2 0 I' d like to show you another --
l 3
l MR. JEMTES : Excuse me.
I 4 BY MR. DRIREnt l
5 D I' ve handed you Def endant's Exhibit D-86 51, a letter f rom 6
Region III to Consumers Power Company, attention Mr.
7 , How ell, da ted Ma r ch 29, 1979, that documents a special 8 announced inspection conducted by Region III with the 9 ! corporate management of Consumers on February 7,1979.
l 10 ; First, I note that not only did some of your staf f members i
11 l attend this meeting but you personally attended. Was that 12 l unusual for you in that time f rame?
t 13 p Yeah. 'Ihe purpose of this, as I read it, was we made some 1
14 l organizational changes internally and we had a new cast of l
15 j characters who were going to be dealing with Consumers i
16 Power Company on the Midland Project and it was to 17 generally sit down and talk about how we were going to do 18 j business, t
19 Q Did you meet personally with Mr. Howell among others?
l 20 That's what it says, yes, and I recall that.
21 0 Okay. Without going through the entire document on the 22 record, you have had a f ew minutes to review it, it is 23 correct, is it not, that as of the time of this meeting 24 the excessive settlement of the diesel generator problem -
)
129 I.afaptte Hutiding Lu:od Reporting Senice 3vra Aorthurstern Hu e Sune 1026 962 11i6 S""' I*
Detroit. Slahigan 48226 Farmington Hills, SIwhiean 48vib
1 ; had been a known f act for four or five months?
2 A Yes. '
3 2 And you viewed that, I believe your testimony was earlier i 4 todaye that you viewed that f rom the outset as a 5 potentially serious problem?
6 f Yes.
I 7 D The conclusion of this letter indicates that you stated 8 "In conclusion, that the Midland units were greater than' - '
9 I assume that that should read greater than 50 percent 10 complete. It lookc like there's a word missing. Am I 11 right in that?
12 i I assume so. That's the way I would read it.
13 0 "The number of noncompliance items f ound by Imc inspectors 14 was comparable to other construction sites although 15 cignificant problems were identified years ago. With the 16 exception of the diesel building most of the problems 17 appear to be resolved. " Is that an accurate statement of 18 what you inf ormed Consumers at that meeting?
19 f Mr. Driker, I would have to question the statement and the 20 reason I say that is that that comes across to me, as I 21 read it, as a sof ter pedaling of the problems of what we 22 f elt at that time of yea.'. That doesn' t seem to bo 23 consistent with the rest of what I was preparing as 24 testimony at that time, and certainly the diesel building 130 Lapnette lluddung Luzod Reporting Sers ice 3vm sorthurstern un Suae 1026 96g j j 7g Suar 101 Detrou. Sischigan 48226 Farmington Hdis. Stichigan 48018
1 1 ; problem was there to deal with. I don' t know what is 2 i meant by the statement most of the problems appear to be 3 resolved because I think we had some significant quality l
4 assurance problems f rom the other testimony.
5 D This document was signed by four inspectors, Messrs.
6 Cook, Hansen, Vandel and Knopp, actually signed by three 7 inspectors and approved by Mr. Knopp. Am I correct in l
1 8 that?
]
9 h That's what it says, yes.
10 0 And the covering letter was f rom Mr. G. Fioreli?
h 11 h Yes, i
12 D Were they all people who were subordinate to you within 13 l Region III at the time?
14 h That's correct.
15 h would you in the normal course have reviewed this letter 16 bef ore it went out?
17 N Probably not.
I 18 D Did the people who signed of f on it f rom Mr. Pioreli on l
19 ,
down have authority to transmit these views to the i
20 j utility ?
l 21 \ Yes.
22 0 Do you recall ever advising Consumers Power Company that 23 the conclusion contained in this letter was in any way 24 ,
ina ccur ate? j 131 1.afoette Hwldme Luzod iteporting Sertice 3vn13.\orthurstern nu u Swte 1026 9 6 2 117 b Sw!! Wi
[ktrat. \tahigan 48226 Farmincton Hdis. .\fichigan 48015
______________.m___.___.________________._
i 1 h tio.
l 2 0 The concluding paragraph goes on to state that "The 3 Consumers Power Company quality assurance overview is very 4 important and Consumers Power Company has done a good job 5 of reporting the 10 Crn 50.55 e items. " Do you agree with 6 that statement?
7 h Yeah, I would have agreed with that.
8 0 Do you agree with the last sentence: "This reporting i
9 j demonstrated an openness in the program rather than 10 attempting to hide any deficient conditions that were 11 ,
found"?
12 h I wouldn' t have made that statement, but to me the 13 requirements of 10 CPR 50.55 e require you to report l 14 construction deficiencies and the utility has done that.
l 15 That may be an inf erence that one could draw. I don' t l
l 16 recall making such a statement. I expect utilities to 1
17 report in accordance with 50.55 c.
i And that's what Consumers did?
la O i
19 h And it is my view that they were doing that.
20 0 I asked you if you ever inf ormed Consumers Power Company 21 of any disagreement with any part of this letter and you 22 indicated no. Di d a nybody el se, to your knowledge, at the 23 11RC ever inf orm Consu:cer s Po,ict Company that this letter 24 ,
did not accurately reflect the vimis of the Region III? ,
i j 132 1.afayette Buildme Luzod Reporting Sertice 30w3 North estern H. .
Suar 1026 96g ))7g Sune 10 Detrou, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdis. % hitan 4Mih
7 1 k I don' t think so. I' m not aware of any.
I 2 0 would you - strike that.
l 3 A Could I elaborate a minute?
l 4 D Sure.
I 5 h You know, I look at the conclusion. I think it has been 6 l my view all along, and I said it on numerous occasions, 7 that the number of noncompliance items f ound by NRC 8 inspectors was comparable to other construction sites. I 9 '
believe that.
10 b You mean at Midland?
11 h At Midland, yeah, at Midland, is comparable to other sites i
12 and I've said that on occasions. I have f elt that the 13 : problems at Midland were more serious. When they made 14 i mistakes they made big mistakes, in my view, and if you go I
15 beek to the hearing testimony I elaborated on the various i
issues.
~
16 And I think it's f air to say that the diesel 17 problem was the only one that was a serious significant 18 l technical problem at that time in terms of resolution, but 19 4 it's more -- the tone of it strikes me I guess, and maybe 20 I'm reacting to that a little bit, the tone of it strikes 21 me as a little bit sof ter than the message we were leaving 22 with the company at that time.
l 23 Conceivably I said these things. I can' t, 24 you know, somebody is reporting what I said. I don' t have 4
t lh i 133 f.afvrtte Buulding Lu od Reporting Sertice 3avo Aorthurnern Ila ,
Suar 1026 96g, j j 76 Suar 10>
iktma. \fwhatan M226 Farmington Htlls. Mahigan #0lb
l 1 l noten of what I said, but it hits me that it's not quite i I l 2 the same message I was saying in other places. ,
i 3 ) Is that a problem that you have run across before in !
4 meetings you've attended with utilities, that different 1
5 people come away with somewhat different perceptions f rcun j 6 j a meeting?
i 7 A I think communications is of ten a major problem.
8 Q And is it also true that within your own organization some 9 of your staf f people can come away f rom a meeting with a 10 perception that's dif ferent than the perception you have?
11 \ I would acknowledge that.
12 ) You mentioned the nonconf ormance reports, th e NCR s. Is 13 that an important source of inf ormation for the NRC, that f
14 i s, if and when noncomf ormance reports are put in the 15 hands of the regional staf f, is that an importan* source 16 of inf ormation f or them?
17 h Are you talking about 50.55 e reports or nonconf ormance l
18 l reports?
1 19 p Nonconf ormance repor ts.
I 20 h Nonconf ormance reports are not required to be reported 21 directly to the NRC. They are available at the site for 22 Nnc review.
l 23 <
> If they are given to an inspector, should he look at them?
l 24 \ Our inspection program calla f or revlewing nonconf ormance i l
C 134 lxfa,ette Buildmg Luzod Reporting Sertice 30o03 krthwtern nu ,
Suite 102b 962.I176 5""' I*
Iktrat, Whigan 48226 Farmington Hdis, when tan]s t
1 reports on a sampling basis.
l 2 D So a prof essional NRC inspector, if he has access to the 3 repor ts, if they are made available to him, should look at 4 th em, should he not?
5 h I would expect him to, yes.
i 6 D And if he did not do that he would not be doing his job 7 properly, would he?
8 h Well, again, let me state in the context of it we don't do 9 l a hundred percent inspections, but he's out there to glean I
10 l the more important things that are happening at the site I
11 and I would concede with -- if he doesn't pick up certain 12 things you could say I guess that the inspection program 13 has f ailed to some degree, but recognize you' re talking l
'i 14 about one, two or three inspectors at sites that have f our 15 or five thousand workers.
16 3 I understand.
17 4 And you' re dealing in a context of an awful lot of work 18 going on for one person to be able to f ollow.
19 0 I understand. Could you pull out of the pilo that Mr.
20 Jentes showed you this morning, Mr. Gallagher's report, 21 the Phillips/Gallagher report. It's labeled NRC 68. This 22 is what it looks like. And I' d like to draw your 23 attention to the pages, internal pages 4, 5 and 6 of this 24 r epo r t, the introductory section which deals with the 135 La.fayerie Busiding Luzod Reporting Senice 3na .yorthuestern Ile Suste 1026 962 1)76 S"U' I"'
Iktrat. .\fuchigan #226 Farmington flills. .\lahwan #01h
__________________.________.______.___.______________y 1 j timetable of various events concerning the observation of i 2 excessive settlement at the Diesel Generator Building.
3 It's not necessary that you read it word-f or-word. If you 4 can j ust glance through the subject matters and then look 5 at the concluding paragraph in the middle of Page 6, I
6 pl ea se.
7 now long does a licensee have to report 8 ! something of this nature to the NRC both formally and I
9 : inf ormally ?
I 10 b My recollection is that a licensee has 30 days to report a 11 major construction deficiency with saf ety importance under 12 50.55 c.
13 D In that to formally report it or to inf ormally report it?
14 h I believe they -- once they identify it as a -- that they 15 ! have concluded it in a reportable item they have 30 days 16 in which to report it in writing.
17 h The Gallagher/Phillips report concludes with the statement l
10 on Page 6 "On the basis of the above" -- and that's the 19 ! two pages that contained the detailed introduction - "It 1 i l 20 is concluded that in this instance the licensee complied 21 with the reporting requirements of 10 CPR 50.55 e. " Was 22 that the final conclusion of Region III on this subject
! d 23 matter, that is that Consumers Power Company made a timely 24 report of the settlement of the Diesel Generator Building l !
l l
' 136 Lnfvette Buddmg Luzad Reporting Service 30v13 \orthurstern H, .
Suite llCh 962 1]?6 Suite loi
[ktrat. .\takiran 48226 Farmmtion Udl*, .\$ichiEQn &Dlh t
1 under 50.55 e?
t 2 A Yes.
3 D And -
I 4 4 4 I need to clarify that. 'Ihere is much later in time -
5 , let's see, when was this, '79 -- much later in time the 6 ,
isst:e was raised, and I'm not certain who raised the i
7 issue, of whether -- how the knowledge of the 8 j administrative building settlement, whether that changed 9 the conclusions in here and I am drawing a blank as to 1
10 when that was and what was addressed, but there is some I
11 l documentation on that subject.
I 12 D Didn' t Barbara Stamiric make an accusation in the soils i
13 ! hearings in 1902 that Consumers had knowledge of a 14 site-wide soils problem because they knew about the grade 15 beam f ailure at the Administration Building in 1977; is 16 that the subject that you' re talking about?
17 'i Well, the thing -- I think you' re right, that did come up 18 there, but the issue that I'm trying to recall, I believe 19 l somewhere that Chairman Paladino raised the question in 20 writing and sought a Staf f response to that and then asked 21 f or review by OGC I believe. Now, I can' t give you 22 anymore at the mcre.ent. I have that in the back of my mind 23 that there was a high level inquiry by Chairman Paladino 24 on the subj ect and I'm not sure what it ref ers to, but we ;
}
. i
> +
h 137 f.nforete Busidsng 1.utod Reporting Sett ice 30%U krthntern Hu s Suste 1026 962 1176 5" IV' l>errost. thchigan M226 Farmington Ihlh, .\hchiran #01F
1 had to look at it.
2 h All right. You may be ref erring to some inquiries which 3 arose af ter this Dow/ Consumer s Power Company case was e
4 filed and there was some allegations about boring logs and 5 30 inch drops and 18 inch drops. Is that what you' re 6 talking about?
7 I don' t think so. I think it goes back f urther than that.
h 8 h In any event, di'd the NRC, did the NRC ever retract the l~
9 statement on Page G, that Consumers had timely complied 10 with the 50.55 e reporting requirement?
11 i Did the NRC ever retract it?
)
12 O Yes. Whether it was this OGC letter or anything else, has 13 this conclusion over changed?
i 14 h I don' t think so. Not to my knowledge has it been 15 changed.
16 0 Okay.
I 17 \ Could I go of f the record a minute?
10 MR. JENTES : Yec.
19 (A brief discussion was held 20 of f the record.) i i
21 A okay. To continue on your J ast question, I certainly am 22 not aware of any inf ornation which ref utes that 23 conclusi on, but I am aware that there was some discussions 24 going on internally within the the Agency relative to i l
l 138 f.afbsette Buddme Luzod Reporting Sertice 30903 Northunrem Hu s.
buste 1026 q$g.jj,6 Suste hn Detimt, .\fichigan 48226 Farmington Hdis. .\fschiran 48018
l l
1 , whether or not knowledge of the Administration Building I 2 ; settling constituted advanced inf ormation for which l
\
3 l Consumers Power Company should have fcrewarned the 4 4 Commission, but I don' t know whether any e ' union was 5 ever reached relative to that matter or not and certainly i
G I haven' t seen anything that changco this statement.
7 hYOR. DRIKED:
8 Q All righ t.
9 h nat's about as complete as I can be with you.
},
10 0 That's fine. With respect to the problems that stemmed l
11 1 f rom the accelerated settlement of the Diesel Generator i
12 Building, did tne NRC have the legal authority to stop 13 i construction of all or any part of the Midland Plant in l
14 l the f ace of the DGB problem?
l 15 h I believe they did.
I 16 0 Did the N9C exercise that authority at any time, that is, l
17 l did it tell Consuiners Power Company to stop construction 18 of the Diesel Generator Building?
19 ,h No. We NRC issued that order in 1979, which was an order I
20 j modifying the license or the construction permit, which 21 the utility centested.
22 a Did the NRC have the authority under law or regulati e: to 1
order Consu.ers Powet Cempany to dismantle the uncompleted Diesel Generator Building and begin it again?
l l
4 139 y(Qvttethiwa Lu:od Reporting Sertice 30u krthe,rern Itu s Sune 102b Suar 1m 962.))i6 intrmt, Whisan IR226 Farmington Ihlis. .\lahiran 48015
- - ~ - - - _ - - . - - . - - - - - - - _ . . - - - - - . - - - - - . - . .
1 Sure.
2 p Did it ever issue such an order?
l 3 4 No.
4 ) During the late winter, early spring of 1979 there was a 5 sand surcharge placed on the Diesel Generator Building to 6 j consolidate the soil. Do you recall that?
7 h Ye s.
8 0 Did the NRC have the authority by law or regulation to 9 prevent Consumers Power Company f rom utilizing that sand 10 sur charge ?
11 4 Ye s.
12 J Did it do so?
l 13 i No.
14 p Did the NBC have the authority under law or regulation to 15 instruct Consumers Power Company not to remove the sand 16 surcharge at the end of the period, six months or so that 17 it was on?
10 h Yo s.
l 19 Q Did it do so?
l 20 h No.
21 h Let me hand you a document, Mr. Keppler, which we have 22 marked as D-86 52. Again this may be something that you 23 haven' t locked at in a day or two and you may want to take 24 a fes ninutes to glance at it. It's a speech that you 140 Lafayette Buildete Lu od Reportine Seruce loqu knhuestern un s Suite itC0 963,3 j 7g Sua ]ni >
(ktrou Whinan 4P226 Farmington ydis, whigan saals
1 made bef ore the Michigan Special Joint Committee on 2 j Nuclear Energy in October 1979. I want to ask you some i
3 questicns about it and perhaps we can go of f the record l
< 4 f or a moment so that you can look throagh it.
5 : (A brief discussion was held 6 of f the record.)
7 DY MR. DRIKER:
8 0 I take it, Mr. Ecppler, you were asked as head of Region 9 III to appear bef ore a special Michigan legislative 10 l committee to discuss the impact of Three Mile Island on 11 ! the nuclear power plants operating an( being constructed i
12 i in Miknigan?
I 13 A Yes.
l 14 0 And these were your prepared remarks?
i 15 h Right. This was a -- I was asked to come ovet along with 16 l other witnesses to participate at this, i 17 ) You wero not compelled by law to attend sessions like 10 this, were you?
i 19 h 1:o.
I 20 D Is this part of your own prar'. ice of being open and 21 speaking openly about the activities within Region III?
22 4 Yes. I tried to make -- part of my job is generally to be 23 open with the public and outside organizations and to 24 ,
represent 11RC in f ront of them. j
\ l i
141 Lafayette Iktdtne Lu:od Reporting Service 30m krthe,rern H,. s.
Suve 1026 962.!]i6 S""' l"'
lytrat, %chtean 48226 Farm:neton Hdis, %ckgan 48n16
t n 1 D And to be responsive to questions they might have?
2 k Right. It's an attempt to improve credibility of the 3 Age ncy.
4 0 I notice down in the middle of the first page there's a 5 ref orence to the Fermi 2 Plant and your remarks j ust about 6 six ' rears ago this week indicate that the Formi reactor I
7 i "Is expected to be ready for operation in 1980. " Is that 8 the Fermi Plant that Detroit Edison built in Monroe, l
9 l Michigan?
10 h Yes.
11 ) Is that the plant that was j ust given a low power license 12 within the last few months?
13 h Yes, I
14 D Dack in October of 1979 was it your opinion that the Fermi l k 15 Plant was expected be ready for operation the f ollowing 16 I year?
17 A That's cor rect.
18 Q What happened?
I
- 19 MR. JD1TES : Object to the relevance of ,
l 20 getting into this matter on the Fermi Plant. Please go l
21 ahead and ancwer.
22 3Y MR. DRII*Cr t l
23 '
) You can p ahead and answer.
24 N Oh, I don' t know the ground rules. Fermi, like many other l
i s 14' Lafayette Budding Luzod Reporting Sertice ?cnn .urthe,te; llu s l
l Suite 1026 962.I176 S""' I " '
Detmit. Michigan M226 Farmington Rdh, Mscnigan 3018
[ -_ - .
1
- reactors, did not meet their scheduled dates. If you ask 2 why, it's a combination of problems plus optimistic 3 -
schedules and because of changes required by the %ree 4 Mile Island accident.
5 p You said Permi like many other reactors. Were any 6 reactors under construction in 1979 within Region III that 7 did come in on schedule?
8 h No.
b 9 0 And hw many were thcere that were under construction at i
10 ; that timo that didn' t come in on schedule?
I 11 h Well, since the accident at Wree Mile Island we have 12 .
licensed two units at LaSalle, one unit at Byron, th e 13 l Fermi 2 unit, the Calloway unit. I believe that's it.
14 p So in six and a half years there have been five units 15 ! licensed f or operation within Region III?
16 h Yec.
17 D And during that time period how many units within Region la III have been canceled or abandoned?
19 i I don' t know that I can giv e you that number but it's --
20 certainly there's two units at Marb12 Hill, the Midland 21 units, Zfmner, Clinton Unit 2 was canceled, Callway Unit 22 2 was canceled. I believe that reflects the status of 23 things.
24 Q How nany of those units were actually under construction ,
I l
, 1 143 1.afayette Budding Luzod Reporting Sertice ynn Aonhuestern II., >
Suste 10:6 9gy,yy7g buste ]t, ikirat, Sitchigan 48:26 Farmington lidh, .Uschsgan 4801h
.______m.___._.____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _._ _ _ _ _._ _ ___ _ _ _
1 + when they were canceled?
2 4 Marble Hill, Midland, Zimmer, Clinton was never really
.1 started, just a hole in the ground, and I believe the same 4 is true of Calloway Unit 2.
5 p Uhen is the last time that Region III has received an 6 j application f or a construction permit f or a nuclear plant?
i 7 h I don' t know, but it's well bef ore 1978.
I 8 Q Do you still have the f orms?
j 9 h I think the last application we received was the one for 10 Carol County by Commoruealth Edison, and I don' t recall 11 when that was.
12 g Could you look over on Page 2 of your remarks where at the l
13 i buttom of the page you observe that the two reactorc at 14 Midland are B & H pressurized water reactors similar in f
15 design to those at TMI. Did the f act that Midland had 16 l reactors of generally the same type and manuf acture as the 17 TMI reactors create special problems f or Midland in the 18 post-TMI era?
I 19 N Yes.
I 20 Q And those would be problems that would not be of the same i
21 magnitude if it was a dif ferene NCS component by a 22 dif ferent manuf acturer?
23 4 'Ihe Babcock & Wilcox plants received special attention.
24 0 Heightened attention?
i 144 Lafasette BatHine Lu:d Reporting Sernice 3arn krthwiern Hu s.
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1 k Heightened attention.
2 p Starting on Page 3 you summarize f or your audience that 3 they'll be variouc actions that have already had an impact 4 or will im'aact on Michigan's nuclear power program, and 5 ; you go thr > ugh seven different major areas of impact.
6 .
Does this - do pages 3 through, 3' through 12 go on to 7 detail the seven major areas of impact that you f elt the 8 , Michigan program would f ace?
9 h As well ao other places in the country.
10 p All right. Michigan was not unique?
i 11 h I was speaking to peopic in Michigan and trying to make it
}i 12 more personal.
I 13 p Okay. But the whole industry was going to f ace this?
14 h Dut the industry f aced this increased ef fort.
I 15 0 And do the pages that I've outlined properly summarize 16 what your 'riews were at that time on the matters that the 17 l industry generally was going to f ace?
l 18 h I think co.
i 19 Q By the date of this speech, October 15, 1979, had the NRC 20 settled on all the post-TMI regulations, were they all in 21 place and known?
22 4 No.
23 0 3o this was a prediction by you of what the future was 24 going to hold in termo of the post-TMI era? ;
i j
3 1 <
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I h It was the impact of what we f elt at that time plus what I 2 thought might transpire.
3 D When would you place the date when the NRC finally wrote 4 the last regulation or published the last paper on the 5 post-THI regulations?
6 A I don' t recall.
7 11as it several years af ter the event?
8 I really don' t know because I wasn' t involved in the f
9 post-T!:I backfit items. They' re licensing matters.
10 i All right. Would you look -t Page 11 of this 11 spee ch, pl ea se. You observed that "Even before %ree Mile 12 Island the NRC was beginning to establish a program of 13 resident inspectors but now this program is being 14 e xpa nde d. " What was the program of resident inspectors 15 prior to TMI? And there's some history in the next 16 l pa r agr aph, if you want to ref rech your recollection.
l 17 h Well, it goes beyond that. Wat was also an evolutionary 18 program but -- I think in the third paragraph it states 19 ,
that in 1978 the NRC adopted the inspection program with 20 the intent to put an inspector at all operating plants and 21 most plants under construction. That catae out of Mr.
22 Carter's dictaten.
23 '
) You mean President Carter?
24 A President Carter. 11 hen we started the program we 146 Lafr ette Building Luzod Reportine Sersice 3 con borthwestem th. ,
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1 initially sent inspectors out to -- we had a trial program 2 at -- for reactors to inspectors and then we moved in the 3 direction of concluding that that progran was of value, it 4 ought to be used at new si tec, new operating sites and 5 ! trouble sites t rom a regulatory point of view, and while 6 we were trying to decide what that would be the President 7 decided that he wanted a resident inspector at every 8 operating station. So, we moved into that mode, i
9 '
D And was it also your intent to have a resident inspector 10 ! at most plants under conctruction?
11 h Yes.
12 O Did the NRC Region III receive requests f rom the public l
13 i generally about the implications of Three Mile Island?
l 14 A Ye c.
15 D Did it receive irquiries f rom industry for example?
.l 16 h Ye s.
l 17 ) I'm not talking j ust about utilities that were licensees, l
10 i I'm talking about perhapo industrial customers of public 19 , utilities and so on.
i
- 20 h I went out to -- I don' t know whether this answern your 21 question, but I was invitef to speak at a number of 22 meetings held b/ organizations.
23 0 Trade groups and so on?
24 3
Yes. }
4 147
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1 D Did you ever receive any inquiry f rom the Dow Chemical 2 Company about the implications of TMI on the Midland 3 Nuclear Plant?
4 4 No.
5 g How .nany times have you been in Midland over the years 1
6 l that you've been Region III administrator?
7 k As a guess, maybe 20, 30 times.
i 8 g Have you testified there in that lovely courthouse i
9 j building on various matters af f ecting Midland?
I i
10 i Yes.
11 S And have you attended various public meetings?
12 N Yes.
l 13 D Have you been . ucationed in these both at your testimony l
14 and these public meetings by the various interveners, Mrs.
15 ! Stamiris, Mrs. Sinclair?
16 p Yes.
17 h Are they pretty ef fective questioners as non-lawyers go?
l 10 p They dc reasonably well.
i I' 19 f Have you also been questioned f rom time to time by 20 attorneys for the interveners?
21 k Yes.
22 0 Has there ever been anybody f rom the Dow Chemical Company 23 in attendance at any session that you've appeared at?
24 \ I don' t know that that was ever brought to my attention. ,
l i
140 Lafavrie buildma Luzod Reporting Service 3rna krthuesterr, ll>< >
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r 1 0 By the way, looking at your resume in the document Mr.
2 l Jentes handed you, NRC 279, your resume appears at page 3 4195, it's that real f at document, 4195, in the second 4 4 paragraph when you describe the responsibilities of Region 5 ,
III you note that thic of fice "encompastes 20 nuclear 6 ; power plants now in operation, 21 plants licensed f or 7 conctruction or under licensing review,12 operating 8 i research reactors", and se on. You signed this document 9 l in April of 1981. I take it f rom what you said then and 10 what you said in response to Mr. Jentes' earlier questions i
11 about your responsibility where you said you administer 24 12 l plants in operation, means that about four plants have 13 4 been added in the last f our years, have been licensed f or i
14 operati on?
15 b I think it's five c ad we lost one, Dresden 1 I
16 p okay . And also 21 plants licensed f or construction or 17 -
under licensing review. I take it that would include the i
10 ( plants you mentioned that have actually been abandoned 19 plus considerably more plants that had some preliminary 20 licensing going on?
21 \ I think that's correct.
22 i
) Okay. So was this number accurate as of '81, that you 23 were reviewing 21 plants f or licensure?
24 \ I'm sure it was accurate. If you want a list of the 21 it ,
t 2
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I would take some time to pull it together right now but we 2 could do that.
3 D That's not necessary. Approximately how many plants are 4 under licensing review right now within the region?
5 p Clinton Unit 1, Perry units i and 2, Braichtood units 1 and 6 2, Byron Unit 2, and I guess the two Midlands and two l
7 l Marble Hills would be def erred f rcxn that. So six or ten 8 ; depending on hcw you wonted to cotat them.
9 ? All right. I' d like to move a little bit f orward in 1979, 10 Mr. Reppler, and I understand you have to leave in about 11 15 minutes and you j ust tell me when you have to leave and 12 we'll just stop. We' re not going to be able to finish 13 ,
today, unf or tuna tely. I' ve handed you a document that's l
14 l been previously marked as Plaintif f's Exhibit NRC 471, a i
15 letter to Consumers Power Company f rom Region III, dated I
16 July 9,1979, signed by Inspector Ron Cook and approved by 1
17 the Proj ect Section Chief Mr. Knopp. Once again, this 18 r e po r t, an you'll see f rom the third paragraph on the 19 first page, indicates no itemc of noncompliance with NRC 20 l requirements were identified during the course of this l
21 inspection. Is that something that a utility could take 22 comfort in, if it received such a report?
23 A Ye s.
34 0 Mr. Jentes asked you a number of questions about the SALP l [ l 150 Lafayette Bustding Luzod Reporting Sernice 3na %,tsntern liu ,
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_ _ _ _ _ .. _ _ _ _ _ __ 3 1 reports. A:e there plants in operation today in the 2 ; United States that have received a three grade on the SEP 3 report card?
1 4 h Ye s.
5 0 Are those plants operating saf ely? ,
I 6 A Ye s.
7 b You anticipated a question I was going to ask you when we 8 were looking at NRC 352, the table of licensee assessments l
9 i for the SEP 1 period, and you called attention to the i
10 j fact that there were no reactor f acilities then under l
11 l construction that were rated above average. 'Ihey' re all l
12 i rated either average or below average. Is this booklet --
l 13 l does this booklet, NRC 352, cover the entire United i
14 ! States?
I 15 i Yor, 16 ) So that the plants listed on table two, which is at Page 17 2721 and 2722, does not include j ust Re: 3on III, does it?
10 g. No.
19 Q Could you look at Page 2722 and tell me how many of the i
20 plants that are rated belar average were in Region III?
I 21 N Three.
22 0 Which were those?
23 4 Marbic 11111, Midland, Zimmer, 24 0 llow nony regions are there within the NRC?
)
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l' 1 p Five.
2 ? With respect to the first SEP report, and Mr. Jentes had 3 his exhibit number on it, I'll give you one that has ours 4 just so you don' t go fishing around f or it, this is 5 D-8653, Region III did conclude, did it not, that the i
6 I perf ormance of Consumers Power Company at Midland Units 1 7 l and 2 was adequate?
i 8 k Yes.
l 9 Q And you were personally one of the participants in making 10 that determination; is that correct?
11 A That's cor rect.
12 1 Now in arriving at that decision you were aware, were you 13 not, as shown on Page 7393, that there were what you 14 considered to be a high number of noncompliances relative 15 to the truestigation of the Zack activities?
16 A Yoc.
1 17 0 Was it your view that Consumers had undertaken a major 18 , reorganization to improve licensco controls of activities 19 ao indicated on Page 3937 l
20 A Ye c.
I 21 b This SEP 1 report was issued af ter the reactor vessel 22 anchor bolt problem was known?
23 4 Yes.
24 Q And af ter the accelerated soils settlement -- and af ter l 1
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the accelerated settlement of the Diesel Generator 2 -
Building?
3 h What year was this?
i 4 '
D The period covered is, as you'll see --
i 5 A You mean in 1980, yec.
I 6 O So the answer M my question is yes?
h 7 h Yes.
[
8 0 And indeed it was icoued af ter the December 1979 Board 9 order modifying the construction permits?
l 10 E Yes.
h 11 O And it was also issaed af ter the observance of HVAC 12 I pr oblems?
13 p Ye s.
f 14 0 Those SALP appraicals are public records, are they not, 15 i Mr. Keppler ?
16 h Yes, th ey a r e.
I I
17 h In connection with the December 1979 Doard order, which i
18 I i s, it looks like, PX NRC 63 or 83, I ca n' t tell. Let me 19 l just hand you a copy of it. I was interested in your 4
20 i statement to Mr. Jentes that the ultimate resolution of i
21 that order in the spring of 1981, that is the stipulation 22 that the Commission Staf f and Consumers entered into, was 23 something with which you did not agre '
(kerat, Whigan 48226 Fanninctx litlh, b%an M '18
.)
1 Licensing Board did reject a portion of the stipulation.
2 5Y MR. DRIKER:
3 ) Could the Licensing Board have rejected the entire concept 4 of a stipulation settling any part of the hearing and 5 rcquired a complete hearing on the entire matter?
6 h I believe they could, i
7 p You did not recommend that they do that, did you?
8 k No.
9 D I want to ask you some questions about this NRC Staff 10 motion, you should have that in f ront of you, it's NRC 11 279, the large packet of material. This contains your 12 affidavit. You recall Mr. Jentes asked you some questions 13 about it bef ore?
14 % Yec. Could I -- would this be a -- I have a f eeling we' re 15 going to get into some stuf f here. I really have to break 16 by q ua r te r of .
17 C since it's nov 21 minutes to 5:00, this is going to take 18 more than six minutes. Would you rather leave this?
19 k I would.
, 20 l MR. JENTES : May we go of f the record?
l ;
I 21 MR. DRIKER: Sure.
22 (The deposition was adjourned 23 at 4 :40 p.m.)
24 155 Lafarerte Radder.: 1.uzod Reporting Sern ice 30903 .\ orthu ram Hu s.
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1 2 BTATE OF MIC11IG All )
) SS 3 COUtiTY OF UAY!!E )
4 I, Glenn G. Miller, Notary Public l
5 Within and f or the County of Wayne, State of Michigan, do l
6 hereby certify that the witnecc whose attached deposition I
7 yas taken bef ore me in the above-entitled matter was by me 1
8 duly tuorn at the af orementioned time and placel that the 9 testimony given by said witness was stenographically 10 recorded in the presence of caid witnesc and af terwards 11 ' transcribed by computer under my perconal cupervision, 12 bnd that the said depocition is a f ull, true and correct 13 tr anscr ipt of the tectimony given by the witness.
14 , I f urther certify that I am not connected 15 h blood or marriage with any of the parties or their l
16 sttorneys, and that I am not an employee of either of them, l l 17 for financially interested in the action.
10 I!! UIT!1ESS WilEREOP, I 1. ave hereunto set f l 19 ny hand at the City of Detroit, County of Wayne, State of 20 pi chi ga n, thic 8 M day of_ O L , 1985.
21 l 22 G L Ell!! G . MILL ER, !;otary Public 23 Mayne County, Michigan l
l 24 My Commionion Expires: 4-22-87 j f
3 l
l 156 La(net:r fluild.ne Lu:od Reporting Sert <<e 3 n a % rthue,tren II: ,
l 5u ste ' O.'n ?""' I"'
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I 1 ,
2 VERIPICATION OF DEPODENT 3 I, JAMES G. KE PIL ER, do hereby 4 attest to the correctness of the transcript upon inclusion 5 of the correctione and/or changes I have listed on the l
6 attached errata cheet.
7 i Signature of Witness 8 !
l Subscribed and sworn to before cc 9 thic. day of ,
1985.
10 11 32 Notary Public, County My Commission expires: .
y I
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