ML20169A663
| ML20169A663 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Browns Ferry, Watts Bar, Sequoyah  |
| Issue date: | 06/12/2020 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Hon A | |
| References | |
| 2.206 | |
| Download: ML20169A663 (111) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Category 1 Public Hearing Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Friday, June 12, 2020 Work Order No.:
NRC-0925 Pages 1-110 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
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2 CATEGORY 1 PUBLIC MEETING 3
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4 FRIDAY 5
JUNE 12, 2020 6
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7 8
9 The Public Meeting met via 10 Teleconference, at 1:00 p.m. EDT, Robert Gladney and 11 Carla Roque-Cruz, Facilitators, presiding.
12 NRC STAFF PRESENT 13 ROBERT GLADNEY, Facilitator 14 CARLA ROQUE-CRUZ, Facilitator 15 STEVEN ARNDT 16 PERRY BUCKBERG 17 ROB CARPENTER 18 CRAIG ERLANGER 19 JONATHAN EVANS 20 KIMBERLY GREEN 21 ANDREW HON 22 LISA JARRIEL 23 NATREON JORDAN 24 MOLLY KEEFE-FORSYTH 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 ANDREA RUSSELL 1
TOM STEPHENS 4
8 PETITIONERS PRESENT 9
BILLIE GARDE, Clifford & Garde 10 MELODY BABB 11 FRANK BAUSMER 12 DEANNA FULTS 13 DAVID LOCHBAUM 14 MARK RICHERSON 15 16 LICENSEE PRESENT 17 TONY WILLIAMS 18 19 ALSO PRESENT 20 GEOFF COOK 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
1:00 p.m.
2 MR. GLADNEY: Good morning, everyone.
3 It is now 1:00 p.m. I'd like to thank everyone for 4
attending this meeting.
5 I, Robert Gladney, and Ms. Carla Roque-6 Cruz, will be facilitating today's meeting. We are 7
both certified meeting facilitators and work with 8
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
9 Neither of us have been directly 10 involved in the processing of this petition.
11 The purpose of today's meeting is to 12 provide the petitioner, Ms. Billie Garde, an 13 opportunity to address the Petitioner Review Board, 14 or PRB, regarding the petition to take enforcement 15 action against the Tennessee Valley Authority, or 16 TVA, for its approach in the restructuring of its 17 employee concerns program.
18 This is a Category 1 meeting. The 19 public is invited to observe this meeting and will 20 have an opportunity to communicate with the NRC 21 after the business portion, but before the meeting 22 is adjourned.
23 As part of the Petitioner Review Board, 24 or PRB's review of this petition, Ms. Garde has 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 requested this opportunity to address the PRB.
1 Andy Hon is the Petition Manager for 2
this petition and Craig Erlanger is the PRB Chairman 3
for this petition.
4 This meeting has been scheduled to begin 5
at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time. And after introductory 6
remarks, Ms. Garde will address the Board.
7 After the Petitioner's presentation, we 8
will enter a brief question and answer phase where 9
the Licensee may ask the PRB questions related to 10 the issues raised in the petition, and the 11 Petitioner and the Licensee may ask the PRB 12 questions related to the 2.206 petition process.
13 The meeting is being recorded by the NRC 14 Operation Center and will be transcribed by a court 15 reporter. The transcript will become a supplement 16 to the petition. The transcript will also be made 17 publicly available.
18 I'd like to open this meeting with 19 introductions. To facilitate a smoother 20 introduction over the phone, I have a list of people 21 registered for today's meeting.
22 I will read each person's name on the 23 list. When you hear your name, please acknowledge 24 that you are on the phone and clearly state your 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 position and the organization you work for, so we 1
have the information for the record.
2 Again, my name is Robert Gladney and I 3
am a Facilitator for today's meeting. I am a 4
project manager in the Division of Decommissioning 5
Uranium Recovery and Waste Program in the Office of 6
Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. I have not 7
been involved with the processing of this petition.
8 Next, our co-Facilitator, Carla Roque-9 Cruz, will introduce herself.
10 MS. ROQUE-CRUZ: Good afternoon. My 11 name is Carla Roque-Cruz and I am also a Facilitator 12 for today's meeting.
13 I am an executive technical assistant in 14 the Office of Executive Director for Operations.
15 And I also have not been involved with the 16 processing of this petition.
17 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you, Carla. Next 18 let us introduce the PRB members on the list. Andy 19 Hon?
20 MR. HON: Hello, this is Andy Hon. I'm 21 the Petition Manager. I work with the Office of 22 Nuclear Reactor Regulations, Division of Operator 23 Licensing.
24 MR. GLADNEY: Craig Erlanger?
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6 MR. ERLANGER: Good afternoon, everyone, 1
this is Craig Erlanger. I'm the Director of the 2
Division of Operating Reactor Licensing in NRR and I 3
am the PRB Chair.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Perry Buckberg?
5 MR. BUCKBERG: Good afternoon, 6
everybody. My name is Perry Buckberg. I'm a Senior 7
Project Manager in the Office of Nuclear Reactor 8
Regulations.
9 I'm also the NRC's Agency 2.206 petition 10 coordinator. Thank you.
11 MR. GLADNEY: Nate Jordan? Okay. Molly 12 Keefe-Forsyth?
13 MS. KEEFE-FORSYTH: Good afternoon, 14 everyone, this is Molly Keefe-Forsyth. I am a human 15 factors and safety culture specialist in the Office 16 of Nuclear Reactor Regulations on rotation to the 17 Office of Enforcement.
18 MR. GLADNEY: Lisa Jarriel?
19 MS. JARRIEL: Good afternoon, this is 20 Lisa Jarriel. I am in the Office of Enforcement.
21 MR. GLADNEY: Rob Carpenter?
22 MR. CARPENTER: Hi, Rob Carpenter here, 23 NRC, Office of General Counsel.
24 MR. GLADNEY: Tom Stephens?
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7 MR. STEPHENS: Tom Stephens, I'm a 1
Branch Chief in NRC Region II with direct oversight 2
of resident inspector activities at the three TVA 3
Sites.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Undine Shoop?
5 MS. SHOOP: Good afternoon, this Undine 6
Shoop, I'm the Branch Chief for Licensing that has 7
the TVA plans in it. And I work in the Office of 8
Nuclear Reactor Regulations.
9 MR. GLADNEY: Dori Willis?
10 MS. WILLIS: Good afternoon, this is 11 Dori Willis, I'm in the Office of Enforcement.
12 MR. GLADNEY: Okay. Next, the other NRC 13 Participants on the list. Wesley Deschaine? Okay, 14 Karen Bursa?
15 MS. BURSA: Hi, this is Karen Bursa, the 16 Deputy Director of the Division of Reactor projects 17 in Region II.
18 MR. GLADNEY: Andrea Russell?
19 MS. RUSSELL: Hi, this is Andrea Russell 20 in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations.
21 MR. GLADNEY: Mohamed Shams?
22 MR. SHAMS: Hi, this is Mohamed Shams, 23 I'm the Deputy Director for the Division of 24 Operating Reactor Licensing in NRR.
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8 MR. GLADNEY: Gregory Suber?
1 MR. SUBER: Yes, this is Gregory Suber.
2 I'm also a Deputy Director in the Division of 3
Operating Reactor Licensing in NRR.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Steve Arndt?
5 MR. ARNDT: This is Stephen Arndt. I'm 6
a Senior Advisor in NRR.
7 MR. GLADNEY: Kimberly Green?
8 MS. GREEN: Yes, this is Kimberly Green.
9 I'm the NRC Project Manager for the Watts Bar 10 Nuclear Plant.
11 MR. GLADNEY: Mike Wentzel?
12 MR. WENTZEL: This is Mike Wentzel. I'm 13 the Project Manager for the Browns Ferry and 14 Sequoyah Nuclear Plants.
15 MR. GLADNEY: Sandra Jimenez?
16 MS. JIMENEZ: Hi, this is Sandra 17 Jimenez, I'm in Region II.
18 MR. GLADNEY: Edwin Lea? Jonathan 19 Evans?
20 MR. EVANS: Hello, I'm Jonathan Evans, 21 Reliability and Risk Analyst in the Office of 22 Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
23 MR. GLADNEY: Now, next our Petitioner.
24 Ms. Billie Garde?
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9 MS. GARDE: This is Billie Garde, I'm 1
with the Office of Clifford & Garde. I represent 2
the three former TVA employees, but I petition as a 3
concerned citizen with expertise in safety culture 4
and concerns about the TVA reactors.
5 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Also my 6
understanding is David Lochbaum is also --
7 MR. LOCHBAUM: Yes. Good afternoon, 8
this is David Lochbaum, I'm serving as an advisor to 9
the Petitioners.
10 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Frank Bausmer?
11 MR. BAUSMER: Good afternoon, this is 12 Frank Bausmer. I am retired TVA Senior QC 13 Inspector. I was assigned to Sequoyah Nuclear.
14 MR. GLADNEY: Melody Babb?
15 MS. BABB: Hi, this is Melody Babb, I'm 16 a Senior Program Manager in Quality Assurance at 17 Sequoyah. I was a former Employee Concerns Program 18 Manager at Sequoyah.
19 MR. GLADNEY: Deanna Fults?
20 MS. FULTS: Yes, this is Deanna Fults.
21 I am currently a Senior Consultant in the Generation 22 Construction and Facility Services Group at the 23 Tennessee Valley Authority. And I was previously 24 the ECP Senior Program Manager for Corporate.
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10 MR. GLADNEY: Mark Richerson?
1 MR. RICHERSON: Good afternoon, this is 2
Mark Richerson. I'm currently a Program Manager in 3
the Engineering Department at Browns Ferry.
4 Previously for approximately nine to ten years I was 5
the ECP Program Manager, Senior Program Manager, at 6
Browns Ferry. Thank you.
7 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Is there 8
anyone else for the Petitioner?
9 PARTICIPANT: I'm, I'm Day Hidson 10 (phonetic) I'm with the, I work at TVA in work 11 management, but I am, I'm with the Engineering 12 Association, which is the union that represents 13 juniors and scientists and technicians at TVA.
14 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. I have a 15 number of licensees registered. I will now read 16 that list. Tim Rausch?
17 MR. RAUSCH: Hi, this is Tim Rausch.
18 MR. GLADNEY: Oh sorry, thank you. Tim 19 Rausch. Okay, thank you.
20 MR. RAUSCH: Yes, I'm present. Thank 21 you.
22 MR. GLADNEY: Okay, thank you. Tony 23 Williams?
24 MR. WILLIAMS: Good afternoon, my name 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 is Tony Williams. I am the Site Vice President of 1
Watts Bar.
2 MR. GLADNEY: Gina Hall?
3 MS. HALL: Hi, this is Gina Hall with 4
TVA Watts Bar. I'm the Advisor to Tony Williams.
5 MR. GLADNEY: Tom Marshall? Beth 6
Jenkins? Larry James?
7 MR. JAMES: Larry James, Senior Manager, 8
Employee Concerns.
9 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Shane Kirk?
10 MR. KIRK: I'm Shane Kirk, I'm the 11 Employee Concerns Program Manager at Watts Bar.
12 MR. GLADNEY: William Crunk?
13 MR. CRUNK: I'm William Crunk. I'm the 14 Browns Ferry Employee Concern Representative.
15 MR. GLADNEY: Ashley Johnson?
16 MR. JOHNSON. Ashley Johnson, Sequoyah 17 Employee Concerns Representative.
18 MR. GLADNEY: Chris Chandler?
19 MR. CHANDLER: This is Christopher 20 Chandler, I'm in the TVA's Office of the General 21 Counsel.
22 MR. GLADNEY: Michael Bernier?
23 MR. BERNIER: This is Michael Bernier, 24 I'm with the TVA Office of General Counsel.
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12 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Tim Walsh?
1 MR. WALSH: Yes, Tim Walsh. I'm with 2
the Law Firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and 3
I am outside counsel for TVA.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Kim, Kimberly Hulvey?
5 MS. HULVEY: Hi, this is Kim Hulvey, TVA 6
Regulatory Affairs.
7 MR. GLADNEY: Jim Barstow?
8 MR. BARSTOW: Good afternoon, Jim 9
Barstow, I'm the Vice President of Nuclear 10 Regulatory Affairs and Support Service.
11 MR. GLADNEY: Jon Johnson? Jamie Paul?
12 Bill Sitton?
13 MR. SITTON: This is Bill Sitton, I work 14 in TVA Corporate Communications and Nuclear 15 Communications.
16 MR. GLADNEY: Malinda Hunter?
17 MS. HUNTER: Malinda Hunter, TVA Public 18 Relations.
19 MR. GLADNEY: David Fountain? Okay, did 20 I miss anyone from TVA?
21 MR. MEYERHALL: Justin Meyerhall for TVA 22 External Relations.
23 MR. GLADNEY: We have one other person 24 who registered --
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13 PARTICIPANT: This is --
1 MR. GLADNEY: Oh, go ahead.
2 PARTICIPANT: This is Day Hidson. I may 3
have weighed in at the wrong time a minute ago. I'm 4
here to observe. I weighed in, I think, when you 5
were talking about the petitioner.
6 MR. GLADNEY: Okay, thank you. Yes, 7
we'll have you --
8 PARTICIPANT: Thank you.
9 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. I appreciate 10 that. Thank you for the clarity as well. Anyone 11 else for TVA?
12 MS. MACKENZIE: I'm not with TVA but I'm 13 with the Engineering Association. This is Renee 14 MacKenzie, Labor Relations for the Engineering 15 Association.
16 MR. GLADNEY: Okay. We have one other 17 person who also registered, and his name is Paul J.
18 Zaffuts.
19 MR. ZAFFUTS: Yes, Paul Zaffuts, I'm an 20 independent nuclear Attorney.
21 MR. GLADNEY: Okay.
22 MR. JORDAN: Also, this is Nate Jordan, 23 NRC. Good afternoon. I apologize, I actually 24 missed the initial introductions. I'm the backup 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 2.206 process coordinator for NRC. Thank you.
1 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. And as Nate 2
alluded to, we have him also listed as a PRB Member.
3 I just want to point that out as well.
4 Is there anyone else? Please note that 5
it is not required for members of the public to 6
introduce themselves for this call. However, if 7
there are any members of the public on the phone 8
that wish to do so at this time, please state your 9
name for the record.
10 MR. COOK: This is Geoff Cook, I'm 11 retired from TVA. I was previously the manager of 12 corporate licensing responsible for ECP for a four 13 period from 2012 to 2016.
14 MS. HAGINE-DYER: This is Inza Hagine-15 Dyer, currently a retiree, former Senior Manager of 16 Nuclear Employee Concern.
17 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you. Anyone else 18 that would like to introduce themselves? If not, we 19 will proceed forward.
20 I like to emphasize that we each need to 21 speak clearly and loudly to make sure that the court 22 reporter can accurately transcribe this meeting. If 23 you do have something that you would like to say, 24 please first state your name for the record.
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15 For those dialing into the meeting, 1
please remember to mute your phones to minimize any 2
back-line noise or distractions. If you do not have 3
a mute button, this can be done by pressing the keys 4
- 6. To unmute, press the *6 key again. Thank you.
5 The agenda for today's meeting, after 6
the introduction, is for the Petitioner to provide 7
new information to the PRB in an hour and 40 8
minutes.
9 This time includes question and answers 10 after the Petitioner's presentation for 11 consideration in a final acceptance review. Please 12 reserve your questions for after the Petitioner's 13 presentation has been completed.
14 At this time, I'll turn the meeting over 15 to Mr. Andy Hon, the Petitioner manager.
16 MR. HON: Thank you, Robert, for the 17 introduction. First of all, again, I want to thank 18 everyone for attending today's meeting.
19 I would like to first, to share some 20 background on our process and the ground rules that 21 we'll be following today.
22 The second 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code 23 of Federal Regulations describes the petition 24 process. It is a primary mechanism for the public 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 to request enforcement action by the NRC in a public 1
process.
2 This process permits anyone to petition 3
the NRC, to take enforcement by action related to 4
NRC licensees or licensed activities. Depending on 5
the results of this violation, NRC could modify, 6
suspend or revoke an NRC issued licensed. Or take 7
any other appropriate enforcement actions.
8 The NRC Staff guidance for this petition 9
of 2.206 petition request is contained in main 10 Directive ND8.1. Which is publicly available.
11 The purpose of today's meeting is to 12 give the Petitioner an opportunity to provide 13 relevant additional explanation in support for the 14 petition after having received the PRB's initial 15 assessment.
16 This meeting is not a hearing nor is it 17 an opportunity for the Petitioner or any other 18 members of the public to question or examine the PRB 19 on the merit or the issues presented in the petition 20 request. No decision regarding the merits of this 21 petition will be made to this meeting.
22 Following this meeting, the Petition 23 Review Board will conduct its internal deliberation.
24 The outcome of this internal meeting will be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 provided to the Petitioner in writing.
1 The PRB typically consists of a 2
chairman, usually a manager at the senior executive 3
level for the NRC. There is a petition manager and 4
a petition coordinator.
5 Other members of the Board are 6
determined by the NRR staff based on the contents of 7
the information of the petition request. The 8
members have already introduced themselves, just 9
now.
10 As described in the process, the NRC 11 Staff may ask clarification questions in order to 12 better understand the Petitioner's presentation and 13 to reach a reasoned decision on whether or not to 14 accept Petitioner's request for review under the 15 2.206 process.
16 So now I will turn it over to the 17 Chairman of the PRB, Mr. Craig Erlanger.
18 MR. ERLANGER: Good afternoon, everyone, 19 this is Craig Erlanger and welcome to this meeting 20 regarding the 2.206 petition submitted by Ms. Garde.
21 I would like to briefly summarize the 22 scope of the petition under consideration and the 23 NRC activities to date.
24 On June 4th and June 10th, 2019 you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 submitted a petition to the NRC under 10 CFR 2.206 1
regarding concerns about the employee concerns 2
program restructuring at TVA that requested the NRC, 3
one, immediately issue an announcement to all TVA 4
employees reiterating their rights and 5
responsibilities to raise any safety related 6
concerns that doing so is a legally protective 7
activity and that promptly provides the NRC 8
telephone number and email address to all employees.
9 If there is a significant safety related 10 concern or complaint of retaliation, employees must 11 know that there is a viable alternative avenue to 12 raise it instead of remaining silent.
13 Number two. Immediately require TVA to 14 stop its ECP program conversion until it can 15 demonstrate to the NRC a management of change 16 process that ensures any program change maintains 17 the necessary independence of any process to 18 honestly, without interference by TVA management, 19 report the truth of any findings.
20 Number three, demand that TVA present 21 its alleged new program to the NRC and the public 22 for review, hold the public meeting and then provide 23 feedback to TVA on whether its proposal is 24 consistent with the expectations that have been 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 established by the confirmatory orders and the ECP 1
best practices.
2 On April 9th, 2020 the Petition manager 3
contacted you to inform you of the PRBs initial 4
assessment that your petition does not meet 5
management directive 8.11, Section 3.C.1, criteria 6
for petition evaluation because the issue raised in 7
the petition have been the subject of a facility 8
specific or generic NRC Staff review.
9 At the time that the petition was 10 submitted to the NRC, the agency was also processing 11 multiple actions concerning TVA, including 12 enforcement, inspection, assessment and allegations.
13 In order to coordinate their response to 14 the 2.206 petition, with the completion of the other 15 actions, we determined that a delay of petition 16 response was warranted. The NRC Staff has, and 17 continues to evaluate, the safety conscious work 18 environment at NRC regulated facilities, including 19 TVA.
20 More specifically, since the changes to 21 TVA's ECP described in your petition, the NRC Staff 22 has completed safety conscious work environment 23 inspections at the TVA operating reactors in the 24 spring and summer of 2019.
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20 The NRC conducted inspections and 1
interviews at all three of TVA's nuclear power 2
plants and its corporate headquarters to gauge the 3
safety conscious work environment and perception 4
that TVA employees had regarding the ECP changes.
5 The interviews indicated that changes 6
TVA had made to the ECP did not have a discernible 7
impact on employee's inclination to raise nuclear 8
safety concerns or to use the ECP to raise such 9
concerns.
10 During annual PINR inspections, the NRC 11 will continue to inspect the safety conscious work 12 environment at TVA. The petition manager offered 13 you an opportunity to address the PRB, to clarify or 14 supplement your petition in response to this 15 assessment and you requested to address the PRB.
16 As a reminder for the phone 17 participants, please identify yourself if you make 18 any remarks as this will help us in the preparation 19 of the meeting transcript that will be made publicly 20 available. Thank you for your participation during 21 this meeting.
22 And I would like to now turn it over to 23 Ms. Garde and allow you the opportunity to provide 24 any new information you believe the PRB should 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 consider as part of this petition. Ms. Garde.
1 MR. GLADNEY: As a quick reminder to 2
everyone, if you're not speaking please remember to 3
mute your phones to minimize any background noise or 4
distraction. If you do not have a mute button, this 5
can be done by pressing the keys *6, and to unmute, 6
- 6 again.
7 Thank you. And Ms. Garde, please 8
proceed.
9 MS. GARDE: Thank you very much for the 10 opportunity to address the Board. And I appreciate 11 the attendance by all the people that have taken 12 time this afternoon to attend this meeting.
13 As a preliminary note, I just want to 14 tell you that my office location is across from a 15 fire department so if all a sudden there is fire 16 department noise I apologize ahead of time.
17 I have submitted a PowerPoint 18 presentation to be considered by the Board, and 19 which I assume the Board has available to it. I 20 don't intend to read from that but I would like 21 confirmation from the Panel that they have received 22 my PowerPoint presentation.
23 MR. ERLANGER: Ms. Garde, this is Craig 24 Erlanger. I will confirm that we have received the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 presentation.
1 MS. GARDE: Okay, so I appreciate that.
2 And I submit that in consideration as you consider 3
this.
4 I would like to make a couple of other 5
comments and then allow Mr. Lochbaum to present his 6
analysis.
7 As a way of introduction, although some 8
of you may know me personally, I would like to just 9
reiterate that I have been involved in the NRC 10 processes since 1983.
11 In 1983 I was a participant in the, one 12 of the original 2.206 petitions regarding the then 13 Zimmer Nuclear Power Plant under construction on the 14 basis of information which resulted in that 2.206 15 being granted, significant changes being made to 16 Zimmer, although Zimmer did not survive to 17 completion. So I am familiar with the process.
18 I would note that since that time the 19 administration of 2.206 petition has become 20 incredibly regulated. And I'm a little bit 21 concerned that the processes, instead of 22 facilitating 2.206 for full consideration by the 23 Board, has become almost bound by the regulations to 24 avoid being able to be considered fully.
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23 And I hope that in this supplementation 1
of the record that you will consider this from the 2
broader perspective of the concerns at TVA.
3 To be clear, the NRC Staffs normal and 4
escalated enforcement process has failed to ensure 5
that TVA has the requisite safety conscious work 6
environment.
7 The NRC's maze of processes has often 8
been blinded. Blinded the Staff from the obvious 9
conclusion that TVA has been unable or unwilling to 10 change its safety culture.
11 And this 2.206 petition request, which 12 has been pending for a year now, be granted to 13 provide a narrowly focused modification of the 14 license to require that TVA be mandated to have an 15 independent safety conscious work environment 16 oversight perspective to assist TVA in getting to 17 where it needs to be in the context of having a 18 safety conscious work environment.
19 The evidence that has been presented so 20 far, and that will be supplemented today, should be 21 taken under full consideration that TVA is facing a 22 significant culture problem that runs deep and long.
23 And that without the kind of independent 24 oversight, including public oversight, such as was 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 done at Millstone, I fear and believe that TVA will 1
not be able to change its culture, that it is too 2
embedded in a culture of avoidance of the disclosure 3
of truth and the type of actions that management has 4
taken over the years has contributed to an inability 5
to change this culture without public oversight and 6
accountability.
7 My initial request, for Item Number 1, 8
was because the actions taken to remove the ECP 9
department in total, was a significant event that 10 was so badly handled by TVA management that it had 11 an impact. That impact has been confirmed by the 12 Oak Ridge surveys.
13 It has been confirmed by the NRC's 14 actions, in terms of looking at allegations. But it 15 is much deeper than is reported in those reports.
16 And some of that information will be 17 shared with you today, which I do not believe was 18 considered by the Staff.
19 The Staff actions, although significant 20 in the context of escalated enforcing actions since 21 at least 2016, have not resulted in a change in the 22 culture. And that is evidence by the fact that the 23 OI investigations and enforcement actions that have 24 recently been revealed.
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25 And I do not believe were considered by 1
the PRB in its initial consideration, has 2
significant implications for the cultural defects at 3
TVA. Because no additional actions were taken that 4
modified the license, TVA continues to operate and 5
manage in a way that ensures that TVA employees and 6
contractors are not actually provided with the, an 7
alternative avenue to raise concerns that is free 8
from fear of retaliation and, almost more 9
importantly, have disregarded or now believe that no 10 action will be taken by employee concerns that are 11 raised any way.
12 The new ECP program has had one 13 effectiveness review internally. That effectiveness 14 review confirmed that the new program is still 15 woefully deficient in terms of providing the kind of 16 curiosity and independence that will allow full 17 access to ECP investigations that would allow 18 employees to raise those concerns.
19 Some of the examples you'll be given 20 today confirm that. And again, I don't want to read 21 my slides, however, the NRC's decision to take no 22 additional action last year after the ECP people 23 were removed, have in fact resulted in a long-term 24 impact.
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26 The NRC's Office of Enforcement letter 1
dated April 29th, 2020 reference a nuclear safety 2
culture assessment that was done in the Fall of 3
2019, which confirmed, at least at Browns Ferry, a 4
decline in worker perceptions of safety conscious 5
work environment compared to the results from 2018 6
when the old ECP was in place.
7 The Oak Ridge assessment did not find a 8
improving safety conscious work environment and 9
confirmed that the removal of all ECP 10 representatives had a significant effect on the 11 workforce's perception of retaliation for raising 12 concerns. The normal and escalated enforcement 13 processes has failed to change the TVA culture.
14 From 2009 and 2017 consent orders, the 15 2016 chilling effect letter has still all failed to 16 change the cultures. And because of that, this 17 petition is being, I think, modified, if you will, 18 to request that the PRB consider a modification to 19 the license that puts in place, at least on a 20 temporary basis, until certain performance 21 indicators can be matched, that the culture 22 assessment is done by an independent team of experts 23 accountable and reportable to the public in an 24 effort to really make a change in the culture.
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27 As most of you know, I was a member of 1
an independent safety culture assessment team at 2
Millstone. A plant that had similar serious deep 3
culture problems that had gone for a long time.
4 And I believe that without that 5
independent assessment Millstone's culture would not 6
have changed. But with the independent assessment, 7
which included public accountability, that culture 8
changed in about 18 months.
9 And I believe that unless, and until TVA 10 is required to have that type of oversight, which 11 the NRC has done before and can do again, that TVA 12 will not make the necessary safety culture changes 13 to effect real change in an order to ensure that the 14 safety conscious work environment at all the plants 15 that TVA manages, operates in a way consistent with 16 the NRC's expectations.
17 I don't think, I'm seeking in this 18 modification a narrowly focused independent 19 oversight. I don't think it's necessary to have the 20 type of, the broad Millstone approach, much more 21 narrowly focused through safety conscious work 22 environment elements and attributes and the 23 requirements necessary for managers, who think 24 things, who apparently think things are great, but 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 employees do not.
1 And so, I'm going to see in my time to 2
either answer your questions or allow you to hear 3
from Mr. Lochbaum, who has completed an analysis of 4
what the NRC PRB relied upon in denying the initial 5
2.206 petition, and some of the employees so you 6
have a different perspective than my own.
7 I think that the rest of my presentation 8
pretty much speaks for itself in the slides that I 9
presented, but I would like to answer any questions 10 that people may have either at this time or at the 11 end. So I'll stop now and, again, rely upon the 12 PowerPoint presentation that I submitted for your 13 consideration.
14 Is there any questions?
15 MR. ERLANGER: This is Craig Erlanger.
16 Members of the PRB, do you have any questions at 17 this time?
18 Ms. Garde, we are planning questions, 19 offering that to the PRB at the end, so we will 20 definitely being doing that as well. Any PRB 21 Members have any questions or statements they would 22 like to make?
23 Hearing none, Ms. Garde, I'll turn it 24 back to you for your next presentation.
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29 MS. GARDE: All right. There is one 1
other point I wanted to make with respect to the new 2
ECP program.
3 The ECP Program, at the TVA plants, has 4
often been confused with also performing and 5
providing the safety culture and safety conscious 6
work environment assessments for TVA management.
7 One of the significant problems here is 8
that the new ECP program decided that they are not 9
yet trained. The new ECP program still is confusing 10 who is identifying whether or not particular 11 departments or particular managers have problems in 12 terms of their behaviors and attitudes in terms of 13 creating a chilling effect within particular 14 departments.
15 And there are still particular 16 departments that need assessments and services that 17 ECP people cannot necessarily provide. ECP programs 18 should have investigators and accompany, 19 particularly the problems that TVA has.
20 Should have safety culture, professional 21 and experts in that area in order to ensure that the 22 management corrective actions are actually taken 23 after their prescribed with performance indicators 24 that indicate success is being made in terms of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 changing culture. That has not happened.
1 TVA continues to operate in a way that 2
is primarily to deny that issues need to be 3
resolved, and then when issues are identified for 4
resolution and added to by management toward the 5
people who raised those concerns or confirm that 6
those concerns exist, continue to be negative.
7 Until that changes, nothing at TVA is going to 8
change.
9 And I do not believe that can happen 10 unless they have trained expert independent 11 assistance in getting there.
12 I have seen cultures change with that.
13 I think TVA's culture can change with the right 14 attributes, performance indicators and plan to 15 improve. I don't see that happening, and I don't 16 see it will happen, unless the NRC takes special, 17 unique, narrowly focused enforcement action to 18 ensure that it happens.
19 So, thank you very much. And I would 20 like to now introduce David Lochbaum, who will speak 21 on behalf of having done an analysis of the work 22 that the PRB relied upon to deny the original 23 petition.
24 MR. LOCHBAUM: Good afternoon. My name 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 is David Lochbaum. I'd like to highlight some of 1
the material I provided to Andy Hon in a memo dated 2
June 3rd, 2020.
3 Figures 1 and 2 in my memo provided 4
histograms of the number of allegations and the 5
number of allegations involving discrimination 6
received by the NRC over the past 30 years for all 7
U.S. nuclear plants and from the TVA plants.
8 Over each year in the past decade plus, 9
and nearly two-thirds of this three period, three 10 decade period, the NRC received more allegations 11 involving discrimination from TVA's plants than from 12 non-TVA plants.
13 Figures 1 and 2 tell me that TVA's 14 safety culture problems are not due to a bad 15 manager, or managers. They span multiple CNO's, 16 site vice presidents, plant managers and such.
17 The figures strongly suggest that either 18 TVA does not want a proper safety culture, does not 19 know what a proper safety culture is and therefore 20 cannot provide one.
21 On Page 3 of my memo I discuss a March 22 2020 NRC report, included findings by the Office of 23 Investigations.
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32 documented in this report occurred after the March 1
2016 chilled work environment letter to Watts Bar 2
and after the July 27th, 2017 confirmatory order 3
issued to TVA for Browns Ferry, Sequoyah and Watts 4
Bar and before TVA restructured the ECPs in May of 5
2019. The NRC OI report faulted TVA corporate 6
management, not the ECPs.
7 In light of recurring safety conscious 8
work environment problems at TVA, its nuclear 9
workers need to know their freedom to raise safety 10 concerns is really and truly protected and not just 11 an empty promise.
12 Petition Request Number 1 will not, by 13 itself, convince workers of this regulatory right 14 but is a much needed step in the right direction and 15 in rebuilding trust.
16 The NRC's proposal to reject this 17 petition from April of 2020 did not cite this OI 18 report or attempt to reconcile its factual findings 19 with the notion that sufficient improvements had 20 been made in safety conscious work environments and 21 the associated employee concerns programs at TVA, so 22 as to preclude the need for Petition Request Number 23 1.
24 On Page 4 I cited a TVA submittal to the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 NRC dated October 3rd, 2019 where TVA wrote, "our 1
initial assessment is that there has been no impact 2
on this change, on the employees' willingness to 3
raise concerns or to use the employee's concerns 4
program as an alternate process to raising 5
concerns."
6 They're referring to the ECP 7
restructuring.
8 However, the NRC's inspection report 9
issued July 23rd, 2019 reported an internal survey 10 that was done at TVA that said, "31 percent of those 11 interviewees were concerned that the proposed 12 structure of the ECP would not provide independence 13 from management." That report did cite that the 14 survey showed that "most would still be willing to 15 use the ECP."
16 Many plants with safety culture 17 problems, like Davis-Besse and Millstone, et cetera, 18 have shown that that's not a relevant question.
19 Workers have to say that they'd raise safety 20 concerns.
21 But when the question is whether their 22 co-workers would be willing to raise safety concerns 23 or use the ECP, the negative response rates soar 24 dramatically.
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34 MR. GLADNEY: I'm sorry, do we have 1
audio?
2 MR. LOCHBAUM: To report safety issues.
3 So answering a question without their own 4
willingness equates to their propensity to breaking 5
the law.
6 Furthermore, the Oak Ridge Associate 7
University's report that came out in November of 8
2019 said that, "participants also indicated they 9
were more hesitant to raise concerns because of the 10 recent changes to the ECP."
11 Further down the report states, 12 "participants also felt that the changes to ECP 13 removed their avenue to report safety concerns 14 without repercussions."
15 On Page 6 of my memo I refer to the 16 annual report issued by the NRC's Office of 17 Enforcement. The allegations trends report. This 18 is for the Year 2019.
19 That report states for Watts Bar, and a 20 number of allegations received by the NRC, "the rate 21 of receipt was high in the first two quarters of the 22 year corresponding to the licensee's decision to 23 restructure its employee concerns program, ECP.
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35 in the fleet and the program manager at TVA 1
headquarters."
2 That same report talks about the 3
situation at Browns Ferry. "The rate of receipt 4
spiked in the second quarter of the year 5
corresponding to the licensee's decision to 6
restructure its ECP."
7 And yet TVA claimed, in writing to the 8
NRC, presumably under the 50.9 regulation, that 9
there was no impact from this change. Or not one 10 that they could see.
11 Page 7 of my memo, again referring to 12 the NRC allegations report for 2019, that report 13 stated "it is too early to determine whether the new 14 ECP program will benefit TVA's SCWE. Safety 15 conscious work environment."
16 And yet the PRB wishes us to believe 17 that it's all good. Where's the beef? Where is the 18 data? Where's the evidence? Where in the heck is 19 anything that would lead anybody to conclude that 20 that's anywhere close to the truth.
21 TVA also stated in their October letter 22 to the NRC that the ECP provides "an alternative 23 process for raising concerns." They also go on to 24 explain that for none -- for concerns raised to ECP 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 do not involve harassment intimidation, the ECP is 1
simply going to forward those back to line 2
management.
3 So it basically becomes, ECP becomes an 4
alternative means of silencing workers with safety 5
concerns. And the Oak Ridge report that came out in 6
November of 2019 basically confirms that sorry 7
condition.
8 Page 9 of my memo I quote from that Oak 9
Ridge associated university's report from November 10 2019. "No survey participants from any of the data 11 sources who mentions communication of these changes 12 thought it was handled appropriately."
13 In other words, 100 percent of the 14 participants cited fraud communications. A 15 shortcoming that Petition Request Number 3 would 16 remedy if only it were implemented.
17 Publicly available documents do not 18 describe the flaws or the shortcomings in the old 19 ECP, that the restructured ECP purportedly fixed.
20 That lack of transparency explains why the Oak Ridge 21 Associated university survey found skepticism at 22 best among the workforce regarding the reasons for 23 the efficacy of the ECP changes.
24 That lack of transparency also explains 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 why the NRC is unable to yet determine whether the 1
new ECP benefits the safety conscious work 2
environment.
3 Petition requests Number 3 seeks to 4
flesh out the real or perceived weaknesses in the 5
former ECP, that the revised ECP seeks to fix. But 6
not doing that leaves everybody literally in the 7
dark. Or figuratively in the dark. It's one of 8
those.
9 Page 14, I expressed -- belatedly 10 relying on subsequent NRC reviews, the NRC now 11 proposes not to accept the petition even though its 12 reviews are explicitly stated to be too early to 13 judge the effect of the restructured ECP on TVA's 14 safety conscious work environments. A key core 15 component of petition itself.
16 10 CFR 50.7 prohibits licensees from 17 discriminating or retaliating against workers who 18 raise safety concerns while engaged in protected 19 activities. TVA violates that regulation over and 20 over and over and over and over.
21 And the NRC is aiding and abetting TVA's 22 unlawful behavior by issuing mere slaps on the writs 23 at best. The NRC must stop the chronic law breaking 24 by TVA. That's all I got, thanks.
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38 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you, Mr. Lochbaum.
1 Do you want to proceed forward with the next 2
presentation, skip question and answers to the end 3
or do you want to proceed forward with another 4
presentation first? So, Ms. Garde.
5 MS. GARDE: This is Ms. Garde and I 6
would like to introduce Frank Bausmer, a recently 7
retired QC inspector to give his experience and 8
perspective as recent, over the last several years.
9 Frank, would you please provide your 10 presentation? Thank you.
11 MR. BAUSMER: Yes, I will.
12 Good afternoon, everyone. This is Frank 13 Bausmer.
14 I have a prepared statement here that 15 I'm going to read to you but I'm going to -- I'd 16 like to also add something that's not in my 17 statement but definitely needs to be considered.
18 And I appreciate the fact that Ms. Garde 19 called out contractors in her opening statement.
20 Contractors aren't really represented in issues like 21 this with TVA, but they're a large part of the 22 workforce. And especially, as I said earlier, I'm 23 part of the QC Department, and they're an especially 24 large part of our workforce.
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39 And it's pretty common knowledge amongst 1
the contractors, if you raise concerns with regards 2
to SCWE or anything like that, initiate corrective 3
action reports, enforce the corrective action 4
program as it applies to your, whatever you're doing 5
out in the field, you won't be called back to 6
participate in any other outages. That's pretty 7
common knowledge.
8 As far as changes, whenever there's a 9
change with the ECP program, it's kind of, kind of 10 like a standing joke among everybody. We'll get an 11 email and it will identify the changes that -- the 12 TVA employees will get an email, contractors won't 13 get the email. And the email that we'll get will 14 describe what the change is. And the email asks us, 15 the TVA employees, to please share the information 16 with those on site who don't have access to email.
17 And the standing joke there is, Oh, here 18 we go, you know, there's going to be a half a dozen 19 new signs printed on the walkway on the way in. And 20 that pretty much ends up being the end of it and the 21 impact that we see from any of those changes.
22 I just want to reiterate the fact that 23 with QC contractors and most other contractors that 24 I interact with, or interacted with, there's an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 unspoken understanding that if you raise issues you 1
won't be asked to come back to the TVA site again to 2
do any, any work.
3 So, that being said, I'll go ahead and 4
read my statement. And I'd be more than happy to 5
answer any questions that anybody has.
6 My name's Frank Bausmer. I'm a 7
recently-retired employee of the Tennessee Valley 8
Authority where I was a lead quality control 9
inspector at Sequoyah. I started there in 2011.
10 Before becoming a TVA employee, from 11 2005 to 2011 I did work as a contractor. And then I 12 was invited, of course, to be one of the direct TVA 13 employees.
14 I was asked to provide this information 15 to Billie Garde in support of the work that she's 16 doing to improve the safety-conscious work 17 environment at TVA, and ensure that TVA employees 18 and contractors are free to raise concerns without 19 fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my experience is -
20
- at TVA has been that retaliation for raising 21 safety concerns remains a serious problem with the 22 TVA culture.
23 In fact, my TVA, my experience with TVA 24 is that the atmosphere of fear and intimidation is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 so deeply ingrained in the management behaviors and 1
style that few, if any, employees would be willing 2
to speak up about serious concerns. There's an 3
underlying management attitude of always trying to 4
push the envelope on safety issues that might impact 5
plant operations, pushing beyond conservative 6
decision-making.
7 That -- I'm going to re-read that last 8
little statement because that's very, that's very 9
important and it exists to this day.
10 There's an underlying management 11 attitude of always trying to push the envelope on 12 safety concerns that might impact plant operations, 13 pushing beyond conservative decision-making, and 14 taking risks and shortcuts to erode the margin of 15 safety.
16 This mindset pervades the site culture.
17 And anyone who tries to operate in a different 18 mindset (telephone interference) putting rigor into 19 safety expectations is beaten down by management 20 actions and attitudes that force conformance, or the 21 employee faces termination, or is removed in some 22 other way.
23 These management attitudes erode the 24 commitment to safety first and make a mockery of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 safety cultures.
1 I don't know what it will take to change 2
the culture but I got -- this hits home a little bit 3
-- I got tired of continually fighting it and 4
retired earlier this year. My statement today deals 5
with my experience and with the ECP program and why 6
I have no confidence that the new program will make 7
any difference in the culture or provide any 8
independent avenue for employees to raise safety 9
concerns.
10 After my interactions with the new 11 program I would not advise anyone to bother with it 12 as it's just a part of the same management culture 13 of covering up the bad news and blaming the 14 messenger for raising concerns.
15 As a long-term nuclear worker, I'm 16 mindful of the fact that there are redundancies in 17 our safety systems and processes, but those 18 redundancies, they have limits. I fear that as the 19 culture at TVA continues to erode personal 20 commitment to safety so much that it will erode 21 those redundancies. It only takes two mistakes to 22 breach that safety barrier. And I'm afraid that TVA 23 is primed to do just that.
24 On June 2nd, 2020, I was contacted by 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 one of the new ECP representatives about a concern I 1
had raised some time ago. The reason for the call, 2
apparently, was to advise me of the details of my 3
closed concern -- of my closed concern.
4 Unfortunately, all it did was raise even more 5
concerns that the ECP program had simply been an arm 6
of management to cover up the original concern that 7
I'd raised. And this dealt with falsification of 8
records.
9 To summarize my original concern, 10 several months before I retired I had identified a 11 clear situation of a falsified record of 12 qualifications of contract inspector for the 2015 13 outage at Sequoyah. I know it was a falsified 14 document because I was the Level 2 that performed 15 the QC inspection and signed the disqualification 16 record. That was Assessment Report SQN2015-001, 17 dated 3/13/15.
18 The contractor that I had assessed 19 failed five of the eight performance attributes for 20 a qualified inspector, including material, ID, 21 sensitivity to details, his knowledge and technique.
22 And I wrote the following assessment report.
23 I won't repeat all of those things.
24 I then filled out the logbook indicating 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 and signing that the contract inspector had failed 1
his assessment. When I reported this to my 2
supervisor I was told not to include that 3
inspector's assessment in the outage logbook and to 4
not do any more QC assessments on any other contract 5
inspectors.
6 However, I did log it in, and I did do 7
more assessments -- a few more anyway.
8 Notwithstanding my unsatisfactory assessment of the 9
inspector's capability, the inspector continued to 10 be employed throughout that outage and at the next 11 Browns Ferry outage, which was the next one in line, 12 performing safety-related well inspections.
13 In the following months I -- this 14 inspector was also ultimately fired and he's never 15 been back -- in the following months I discovered 16 that the quality control assessment report SQN2015-17 001 that I had previously put in the logbook had 18 been removed from the logbook that contained the 19 records for that outage. In fact, I discovered that 20 the entry and the report that I'd made had been 21 entirely removed, and someone else had signed my 22 name to other qualification reviews conducted at the 23 time.
24 I was flabbergasted that anybody would 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 be so careless with a document that had been 1
falsified and just leave it laying around. I 2
immediately reported this concern to my site lead.
3 Nothing happened.
4 Later, I reported this issue to the TVA 5
Office of the Inspector General, providing them with 6
all the supporting documentation. And to my 7
knowledge no follow-up investigation was conducted 8
by the OIG either.
9 Years later, April 21st, 2020, I 10 received an email and a phone message from an ECP 11 investigator asking that I contact him, which I did.
12 He told me during a recent interview -- I lost my 13 place -- with another TVA QC inspector, my name had 14 come up.
15 The investigator told me he'd like to 16 ask me some questions and that it would only take 17 about a half an hour. I accepted his request. And 18 it was during this interview that I told him about 19 the environment of harassment, intimidation, 20 retaliation, and discrimination that exists at TVA.
21 And I gave him several examples, including the 22 falsified QC welder assessment.
23 He requested that I send him -- there's 24 a cover page in that logbook and you log in the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 assessment, and that had been falsified -- he 1
requested that I send him a copy of the cover page 2
of the assessment log showing the falsification.
3 And I did provide this for him.
4 Last week I was contacted by the new ECP 5
investigator, who debriefed me on the alleged 6
investigation of my concern. But instead of 7
providing me the results of any investigation into 8
the falsification of the assessment report, and how 9
and why management engaged in the falsification of 10 the records, he tried to persuade me that the 11 inspector's work on the specific weld had been 12 verified as okay, so there really was no problem for 13 me to be concerned about.
14 When I pushed what happened to the issue 15 that I actually raised, which was falsification of 16 records, he said I was not entitled to know the 17 outcome of that investigation.
18 I further asked him, well, how would 19 anybody know enough to ask for a different 20 investigation than the one he was briefing me on?
21 And he referred obliquely to the report as ECP Case 22 File ECC02020005-1. He wouldn't tell me anything 23 about what was contained in that report.
24 He told me that the current disposition 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 of this five-year-old issue apparently was to only 1
now document the situation on the corrective action 2
report that had, at the time of my briefing, not yet 3
been screened or gone through management review.
4 That is to say, for those of you that aren't 5
familiar with it, if it's not screened or gone 6
through management review it wasn't even an official 7
report. All of that has to happen before it can be 8
submitted for resolution.
9 Of course, that is important, as an 10 unqualified inspector who was allowed to continue 11 working raises significant issues about the quality 12 of the work he inspected and reviewed.
13 Now, I'll add to that, this inspector 14 worked multiple outages for TVA doing weld 15 inspection.
16 But my real concern was the intentional 17 actions of management to falsify the documents 18 originally, and the inaction or action of my 19 management to cover up my findings and push through 20 the outage. The ECP briefing only convinced me that 21 the new ECP program was fostering exactly the type 22 of cover-up of the bad news behaviors of TVA 23 management that's at the heart of this problem.
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48 I want to discuss is, again, from an outage some 1
years ago but reflects the same management attitude 2
that permeates the TVA site. It again indicates 3
that the schedules pressure trumps conservative 4
decision-making and conformance with procedural 5
requirements.
6 This example was provided to the Oak 7
Ridge assessment team as an example of how the 8
hostility towards the truth is wielded in a way that 9
undermines employee commitment to safety and 10 supports an attitude where employees just go along 11 with management pressures to schedule, no matter 12 what.
13 In this case I was scheduled to complete 14 a cleanliness inspection of the reactor cavity 15 during an outage. The cavity inspection is a 16 critical path inspection that impacts further work 17 activity and outage completion.
18 When I arrived to do the inspection I 19 found that the contractors had bypassed the hold 20 point by applying -- there's a protective coating 21 that they apply in the reactor before they pull the 22 head, and that keeps debris and things from getting 23 in there, and they did this before I did my, my 24 inspection. I was able to do the cleanliness and I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49
-- wait a minute -- before I was able to do the 1
cleanliness inspection. The inspection was supposed 2
to take place before the coating was laid down.
3 I wrote the violation up on a service 4
request, which is a non-conformance report, in 5
accordance with the corrective action program.
6 Nonetheless, management attempted to blame me for 7
the situation by incorrectly stating in the site 8
newsletter that a QC inspector had caused a 3-hour 9
delay in the outage.
10 The actions of management towards my 11 compliance with the procedure was intimidating and 12 humiliating. Although an independent investigation 13 into the event and follow-up report proved that the 14 issue was not a 3-hour delay caused by a QC 15 inspector, the damage had already been done. Once 16 again, management's reaction to the identification 17 of safety-related findings was hostility, anger, 18 shaming and blaming the person who identified the 19 issue, and ultimately dispositioning the violation 20 as acceptable by once again falsifying --
21 (Telephone interference.)
22 MR. BAUSMER: I'm sorry, was somebody 23 else --
24 MR. GLADNEY: I'd like to ask anyone who 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 has not muted their phone and is not a speaker, 1
please mute your phone as we spoke about earlier.
2 MR. BAUSMER: All right, I'll start that 3
sentence over.
4 Once again management's reaction to the 5
identification of a safety-related finding was 6
hostility, anger, blame, shaming, and blaming the 7
person who identified the issue, and ultimately 8
dispositioning the violation as acceptable by once 9
again falsifying the inspection documentation 10 contained in the work order.
11 There is no question that the outage 12 management team absolutely approved and tolerated 13 bypassing a hold point in the outage schedule, and 14 allowed the contractors to apply the coating to the 15 cavity before it was inspected after the clean-up.
16 Bypassing a hold point would not have 17 happened without direction from the outage 18 management team. But no investigation was ever done 19 into who ordered or tolerated that action.
20 Schedule is routine at TVA. Unless 21 there are any meaningful consequences for safety 22 being the primary driver, nothing will change.
23 The new ECP team is designed to be 24 accountable to the line management, not to any 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 independent avenue which will protect actions and 1
document (telephone interference). The new ECP team 2
is designed to be accountable to the line 3
management, not to any independent avenue which will 4
protect actions and documenting employees' concerns 5
that expose the same management. Nothing is going 6
to change until this is a truly independent avenue 7
that puts safety and the truth at the highest 8
priority, not just blaming the person who identified 9
the issue.
10 I hope the NRC understands that the 11 margin of safety is being eroded by this TVA 12 management culture and takes actions to insist the 13 TVA management change its culture before it's too 14 late.
15 I'm providing this information freely 16 and without inducement to do so. Since I am now 17 retired, I do not fear intimidation by TVA. But I 18 have no doubt that its reaction to my statement will 19 be to attack the messenger. It's the only way TVA 20 responds to any concern.
21 Its second action will be to try to 22 undermine the concern and change the facts. These 23 behaviors are not consistent with a safety-conscious 24 work environment.
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52 Thank you for hearing me. I'm finished.
1 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you for your 2
presentation.
3 MR. BAUSMER: You're welcome.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Next presenter, Ms. Garde.
5 MS. GARDE: Yes. I'd like to call on 6
Melody Babb to make her presentation to the Board.
7 Thank you.
8 MS. BABB: Good afternoon. This is 9
Melody Babb. I've provided a written statement to 10 you already, so I will not read the whole thing.
11 Basically, my statement is a list of 12 examples that show that the safety culture continues 13 to be a problem at TVA sites. And these are things 14 that have either been said to me or I've 15 experienced, and they've all been within the past 16 year.
17 So, the first one is after, in ECP after 18 we received our no fault termination notices we were 19 still in our positions for a number of weeks. And 20 during that time period I had three employees come 21 to me. And they had concerns that they did not want 22 new ECP employees handling this. They didn't know 23 who those people were going to be, didn't know if 24 they could trust them.
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53 So, I asked them if they were okay with 1
me reporting those concerns to the NRC on their 2
behalf. All these people were from different 3
departments and they had different concerns. And I 4
think they were also under one allegation number, so 5
I don't have separate allegation numbers for those.
6 But I'll just go over those briefly.
7 The first one was an employee -- and I'm 8
not going to use department names just to protect 9
the individuals. So, the first one was an employee 10 that reported that other employees in their 11 department were discussing between themselves, and 12 they were trying to decide if they wanted to report 13 on the Oak Ridge surveys that they were all chilled 14 because they had experienced nepotism, favoritism, 15 and retaliation, and had witnessed these things in 16 their department and from people outside of their 17 department.
18 The second one was employees that 19 reported they would feel fearful of harassment, 20 intimidation, retaliation, and discrimination from 21 an employee who was coming to their department, and 22 that employee had a history of intimidating a couple 23 of them and other employees in different departments 24 in the past.
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54 The third one was an employee that asked 1
if his name could be removed from the ECP files 2
because he had reported things to ECP and he feared 3
retaliation from a new incoming ECP employee. And 4
he was afraid that they would gain access to his 5
files.
6 The next example was three other 7
Sequoyah employees that had contacted me. And these 8
have been more recent. They were asking what 9
alternate avenues were available to them to report 10 concerns. They said they feared retaliation if they 11 reported their concerns to the new ECP program. And 12 those were -- and these are all different 13 departments and employees, too.
14 The first one, an employee that feared 15 retaliation by management because they felt like 16 they were misusing the Fitness for Duty Program 17 against them.
18 The second one, an employee that 19 falsified a signature on a procedure revision.
20 And the third one, an employee that 21 received reports from another organization, and on 22 those reports that employee noticed that employees 23 performing the work were people that were not 24 qualified. And so, other employees were signing off 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 the reports for them so that it wouldn't be noticed 1
that the people performing the work were not 2
qualified.
3 And another example is if you look at 4
the daily CR reports, there are a lot of anonymous 5
condition reports that continue to be reported. And 6
all of these are at different sites, and they state 7
that they're general work environment concerns. Of 8
course, you know, we don't see the details of those, 9
so, but the statement that they're general work 10 environment concerns indicate that there may be some 11 safety culture issue going on.
12 Next was here in the recent outage at 13 Sequoyah. We had the COVID-19 restriction, so 14 everyone that could was trying to work offsite when 15 it was available. And in QA we were told that we 16 could observe plant employees working, and we could 17 do that remotely by use of cameras and things that 18 we could do on our computer. But we were also told 19 that we could not have access to log into those 20 cameras and do observations in the Management Outage 21 Control Center, which was the OCC.
22 And when we asked why we could not have 23 access to log into those, because we had always 24 observed the OCC during outages, we were told that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 QA or any other department observing the OCC 1
remotely could have a chilling effect on the 2
managers or employees in there.
3 So, we were told to report to the sites 4
and sit in a designated spot if we had to observe.
5 So, the problem with that was we were 6
trying to work remotely as much as we could, and it 7
was very much of a discouragement for us not to 8
observe, kind of making it hard for us to observe.
9 The next one, there is one department at 10 Sequoyah -- I won't call out which one it is just to 11 protect the employees, but we can talk offline later 12 if we need to -- and that department has been 13 stating that if anyone from outside comes in and 14 asks them questions, such as the NRC, the OIG, other 15 avenues, that management doesn't have to worry, 16 because they know the right answers to give them.
17 So, basically they're saying they're 18 talking about things between themselves, but they 19 know what to say when people come in so that 20 management doesn't discriminate against them.
21 Okay, hold on. I've got to go off.
22 (Pause.)
23 MS. BABB: Okay. I think I'm on speaker 24 now.
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57 The next one is personally since I've 1
left ECP I've received harassing comments and 2
different things myself. And it's all related to 3
the previous ECP position I was in. I reported 4
those to a senior management, a department manager, 5
the EEOC.
6 And even though those people have talked 7
to the employees that are making those comments, the 8
harassment continues.
9 And then one other example that shows 10 that management is trying to avoid the obvious signs 11 that safety culture is still a problem. Last week 12 during our Nuclear Safety Culture Monitoring Panel, 13 or our NSCMP meeting, when everyone was talking 14 about safety culture one of the managers stated that 15 even though there were currently two department 16 managers offsite working on the response to the 17 apparent violations that were issued by the NRC, 18 that that was old news. Employees have forgotten 19 about that. And that because of that we still have 20 a strength in safety culture at the site.
21 So, there's kind of the assumption that 22 those issues with safety culture go away quickly.
23 But really, at TVA people hold onto those things.
24 And that's why it's so difficult to change the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 culture in any organization.
1 And so it should be apparent to the 2
employees because the two departments have had 3
temporary managers. And one of those that's been 4
over a month. And so I had to ask myself why do 5
employees not know why they have a temporary 6
manager?
7 And it brings to mind the fact that, you 8
know, maybe management is misleading employees about 9
what the temporary assignments are.
10 And then one thing I didn't include in 11 my statement that I wanted to talk about is, you 12 know, all these things have been going on, and we've 13 talked about, like, interviews and follow-up surveys 14 and inspections, but no one from the NRC has come to 15 any of us former ECP employees and interviewed, 16 asked us about our insights or concerns with the new 17 program and the culture at TVA. So, I think that's 18 very important to note also.
19 And that's the end of my statement.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you for your 22 statement.
23 Ms. Garde, do we have a next 24 presentation?
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59 MS. GARDE: Yes. I would like to ask 1
Deanna Fults to make her statement as well. Thank 2
you very much.
3 MS. FULTS: Thank you, Ms. Garde.
4 My name is Deanna Fults. Prior to May 5
13th, 2019, I was one of the TVA Employee Concerns 6
Senior Program Managers. For almost six years I 7
worked in the Nuclear ECP Program, first at Watts 8
Bar, beginning in 2013 when I was the Unit 1 ECP 9
specialist, then later in 2015 I was transferred to 10 Sequoyah. And then, finally, in November of that 11 same year I was again moved to be the corporate 12 roving ECP program manager, working directly with 13 our senior manager of ECP, and as an additional 14 support to the three site representatives.
15 I have worked for over 15 years for the 16 Tennessee Valley Authority in various departments.
17 Because I have worked as the site rep for ECP at 18 three of the four sites with nuclear employees' 19 views, and because I am still employed by TVA in a 20 department outside of nuclear, I continue hearing 21 complaints from nuclear employees about the current 22 ECP program and lack of a safety-conscious work 23 environment.
24 I've talked to employees privately who 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 have expressed fear that they, too, will experience 1
retaliation and public ridicule like my co-workers 2
and I have endured if they report any issues, 3
nuclear safety-related or otherwise.
4 Prior to my removal from the ECP staff 5
it was my job to encourage employees who did not 6
feel comfortable raising issues to their chain of 7
command, or to me, that they could always go 8
directly to the NRC with their allegations, and 9
their issues would be handled appropriately.
10 However, my personal experience with the 11 way in which allegations have been handled by TVA 12 and the NRC since May 13th, 2019, has shaken that 13 faith I once had in the reactor oversight process.
14 When our attorney Ms. Garde filed the 2.206 petition 15 on June 4th, 2019, no one expected to wait a year 16 for our concerns to be addressed in this particular 17 process.
18 Today, June 12th, 2020, is the very 19 first time that I have been asked to speak to anyone 20 at the NRC regarding our petition.
21 Further, I do not believe that my 22 concerns have been fully addressed by any of the 23 inspection reports or allegation responses I've 24 received to date. Yet, countless inspections have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 occurred that, according to the Commission, have 1
addressed my stated concerns. I believe that this 2
hearing is long overdue according to your own 3
procedures.
4 I fully understand that increasing 5
oversight of a licensee is serious business. But I 6
also understand now from personal experience that 7
reporting a concern involving nuclear safety at TVA, 8
even when the concerns came from other individuals, 9
will be rewarded with scorn, ridicule, and at a 10 great personal cost.
11 At each turn in this process we have 12 been told that as ECP professionals we are must-13 haves but not a requirement under statute.
14 Therefore, the NRC has readily dismissed our claims 15 for relief as a department of former ECP employees 16 and stated that we must seek individual relief in 17 the allegation process, or have our allegations 18 treated generically within the inspection process 19 and, therefore, not addressed specifically.
20 It's unfathomable to me that if we in 21 ECP were the advocates for nuclear safety at each of 22 our sites, then why wouldn't NRC listen to us and 23 see this as an ongoing threat to workers and the 24 safety of the valley?
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62 It's my understanding that any person 1
can file an allegation, and also that any person can 2
file a 2.206 petition. However, not every person 3
will be treated the same. And they most certainly 4
are not given the same consideration at TVA as a 5
licensee has enjoyed over the years. Delays in 6
process do not benefit petitioners or promote the 7
public safety, they only benefit wrongdoers and 8
drive down confidence in the programs you 9
administer.
10 In our case, the NRC has overlooked acts 11 of overt deception from members of TVA nuclear 12 management, some of which I've personally brought to 13 the attention of the NRC years earlier, all while I 14 told anyone who would listen at the time that TVA 15 was going to do away with our program along with the 16 people in it.
17 I have been asked to tell you today what 18 I have observed since our filing of this petition, 19 and to provide you with any new insights without 20 disclosing personally identifiable information of 21 individuals still working in the nuclear fleet. I 22 can confirm that I have been asked by TVA nuclear 23 employees, whose concerns I have previously handled, 24 if they can trust in the ECP.
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63 My answer has not been positive.
1 I've received multiple emails and had 2
conversations with concerned individuals who stated 3
they wish they'd never reported any issues at TVA 4
because of what they knew ECP staff members might 5
say to management. Those employees will think twice 6
now about reporting a concern for fear of 7
retaliation.
8 While it may be technically true that 9
the structure of an ECP program is not a requirement 10 that the NRC would typically weigh in on, the NRC 11 still has a duty to ensure nuclear safety in each 12 plant that it regulates. The actions taken by TVA 13 to remove the ECP so publicly has been a message to 14 employees across the fleet that no one is safe to 15 voice their concerns.
16 What was once viewed as an independent 17 avenue whose effectiveness was admittedly only a 18 function of management's receptivity to our 19 feedback, is now viewed by employees as a landing 20 spot for craft supervisors who can't go back to the 21 field and whose loyalty is still tied to the 22 organization's budget from which they are paid.
23 They cannot provide the type of 24 independent oversight that TVA needs because they 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 are beholden to the site vice presidents who 1
recommended them for their jobs. Even if they want 2
to do a good job, as I believe most everyone wants 3
to do, they can't because they weren't set up to be 4
anything more than a conduit for nuclear management 5
to look good and fix issues in name only.
6 Further, the current ECP program does 7
not have a clearly-defined strategy in place that 8
employees can have confidence that it will handle 9
serious investigations, like the work environment 10 claims our ECP program once examined. Perhaps they 11 don't have a plan because TVA Nuclear's intent was 12 to shut down any investigations that they couldn't 13 control.
14 Last summer, when the new ECP program 15 was announced, their stated plan was to refer those 16 cases to the TVA Office of General Counsel. Later, 17 last fall, the program's position became one of 18 contracting outside investigators with serious 19 investigations. Their use of outside contract 20 investigators is viewed by most observant workers 21 I've talked to as a way for TVA to surreptitiously 22 remove unwanted employees.
23 It's seen that way because it is a way 24 some of the more vocal employees are terminated by 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 the company.
1 I should note that outside contract 2
investigators repeatedly interviewed us in ECP 3
before we were all let go, too.
4 I've been personally involved with other 5
outside investigations where known nuclear 6
whistleblowers were terminated at every nuclear site 7
I have worked at, all while TVA complied on its face 8
with the ERB Adverse Action process that the NRC 9
laid out for them in each successive amendment to 10 the confirmatory order.
11 The ERB process itself, even with the 12 NRC's intervention, has not presented findings of 13 TVA retaliating against terminated employees as 14 publicized multiple times since last fall. And all 15 employees know about that.
16 If ever there was a time to intercede on 17 behalf of the employees who remain in the TVA 18 nuclear fleet, the time is now. And the 2.206 19 petition process is the appropriate venue.
20 So, when employees ask me about the 21 viability of the NRC handling their concerns, I 22 tell them I don't have confidence that matters 23 affecting nuclear safety will be treated with a 24 sense of urgency or fairness. That's because of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 high number of concerns being referred back to TVA 1
for it to investigate, most recently with some of 2
our own allegations in ECP being sent back from the 3
NRC to TVA.
4 First, in June 2019, TVA was going to 5
use an attorney from OGC to investigate our 6
allegations of a chilled work environment. Then an 7
anonymous condition report, or CR, was generated 8
questioning the independence of the investigator.
9 Finally, a little over a month later, 10 TVA decided upon a team from the Oak Ridge 11 Associated University to conduct the investigation 12 of our allegation. When I questioned their 13 independence because of their existing surveying 14 contact with TVA's safety culture analysis, a survey 15 whose data was used to remove us from our holes in 16 ECP, again through a condition report, that 17 condition report was closed, no further action.
18 Giving me a definition of the term "independent" 19 pulled from TVA's own procedures.
20 It's as if TVA is the proverbial fox 21 guarding the hen's house.
22 Even more troubling, the delay we have 23 experienced has given TVA Nuclear ample time to get 24 its own house in order long enough for an inspection 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 to occur, but not long enough -- excuse me --
1 whoever is on the phone, could you put your phone on 2
mute, please.
3 MR. GLADNEY: Yes. Please, anyone who is 4
not speaking, please mute your phone. And, again, 5
if your phone does not have a mute button, please 6
press star six to mute and star six again to unmute.
7 MS. FULTS: As I was saying, it is very 8
troubling that the delays we have experienced have 9
given TVA Nuclear ample time to get its own house in 10 order long enough for an inspection to occur but not 11 long enough for lasting change to permeate the 12 organization.
13 Let's use an analogy of finding out that 14 company's coming over to your house at the last 15 minute but your house is a wreck. What do you do?
16 Stuff everything in a closet and hope they don't 17 open the door or look under your bed? That's what's 18 happened countless times at TVA. And that's 19 happened again, even after we filed our petition.
20 I can confirm that the investigation 21 into at least one of the allegations I personally 22 brought forward did not address the concerns as 23 stated. Due to the nature of the concerns, I will 24 be more than happy to discuss those issues privately 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 with the PRB should you have any questions.
1 While I now work within a different 2
business unit for TVA outside of nuclear, I live in 3
constant fear of what could happen at any of our 4
nuclear sites because our employees now have to pick 5
and choose which issues they decide to report.
6 To quote the current Sequoyah plant 7
manager after Unit 2 tripped last month, "Let's not 8
make anything worse."
9 I have reason to believe that things 10 will get worse. It's only a matter of time before 11 irreparable harm will occur.
12 Thank you for your time and 13 consideration. End of statement.
14 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you for your 15 statement.
16 Ms. Garde, do we have our next presenter 17 come?
18 MS. GARDE: I believe we have Mr.
19 Richerson. He's traveling. So maybe I'm not sure 20 if he's able to call in. If he is, I would ask that 21 Mark go over his statement.
22 MR. RICHERSON: Thank you, Billie.
23 Let me ask how many minutes do I have.
24 I know we're quitting in 25 minutes; right?
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69 MR. GLADNEY: I would like to, I would 1
like to offer that, based on the time, we will be 2
flexible with the time to the extent that we can.
3 So, please just proceed forward and we will amend 4
the schedule as needed.
5 MS. GARDE: Yeah, Mark, try to keep it to 6
about -- Mark, try to keep it to about 10 minutes.
7 MR. RICHERSON: Okay. I can do that.
8 Thank you.
9 I have a rather lengthy statement, so I 10 won't read the whole thing. It's my understanding 11 that it will be filed at the NRC after the meeting.
12 So I will just hit the highlights.
13 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you.
14 MR. RICHERSON: Bear with me, please.
15 I've got to get back to my statement here.
16 All right. Again, my name is Mark 17 Richerson. I was a former ECP manager at Browns 18 Ferry. I had that position for quite a significant 19 time. Previously worked in QA. Engineering, I 20 worked in engineering also.
21 After my removal from the ECP I was put 22 back in QA for a few months. Currently I'm a 23 program manager in engineering.
24 First I'll say that SCWE at TVA is not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 well, and the NRC needs to take action to enforce 1
improvements by granting the subject petition. The 2
NRC needs to do so because TVA has failed to improve 3
the broken SCWE on its own report. The simple truth 4
is that TVA management does not understand the value 5
of SCWE. If they did, it would not be reliving the 6
past today.
7 I thought about this like Bill Murray in 8
Groundhog Day, repeating the same thing year after 9
year. The only difference is Bill Murray's day gets 10 better, ours stays the same or gets worse.
11 TVA talks a good show. But the reality 12 is different. Every time TVA gets called on the 13 carpet for an event from SCWE, management begs for 14 forgiveness, makes excuses, and vows to take 15 numerous actions that result in no improvements.
16 TVA management tells the NRC and the 17 public whatever they want to hear so they stay out 18 of trouble and continue to operate their low-19 performing plants. We only have to look at the 20 recent 16 NRC apparent violations for confirmation 21 of TVA's poor behavior.
22 And this is important: if TVA (telephone 23 interference) pertinent information regarding the 24 Watts Bar chilled work environment to the NRC, how 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 can the NRC believe what they are providing now 1
accurately (telephone interference) about the ECP?
2 My statement is I don't think you can.
3 The same management proxy that has 4
resulted in some of the lowest plant rankings in 5
this country is the same management proxy that is 6
hurting the SCWE and the ECP program.
7 I've got three topics I want to discuss.
8 And I think they're new topics from what we're 9
talking about.
10 This is the first one. That there's a 11 disconnect between TVA management's public display 12 of current ECP and SCWE performance and reality.
13 As part of the Employee Concerns Program 14 changes through a national (telephone interference) 15 review, there ought to be changes. However a valid, 16 honest assessment review is not performed, instead 17 there's only a check-the-box effort. A single 18 individual, a long-time TVA contractor that was 19 involved in previous Employee Concerns Program 20 changes, it's for (telephone interference) check-21 the-box review.
22 Those surveys (telephone interference) 23 employees were completed to support the task.
24 (Telephone interference) predestined to tell 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 management what they wanted to hear.
1 And I want to be sure we understand that 2
point, that the person who did the technical review 3
was involved in the changes to the program. So, of 4
course, he came up with the answer management 5
wanted.
6 If they really wanted an honest answer 7
they would have brought somebody in that was 8
negative on the program before and see if they were 9
not so negative. There were plenty of people who 10 could do this. There was a group that did a really 11 good job in OIG a few years ago. They would have 12 been the perfect people to bring back in, not 13 somebody who was completely under management's 14 control.
15 The review failed to address key items 16 from numerous condition reports raising concerns 17 about the current ECP. There have been several 18 negative anonymous condition reports written by 19 employees during the last year. The anonymous 20 condition reports references to ECP incompetence are 21 alarming.
22 During my tenure in ECP I don't recall 23 any condition reports written disparaging the ECP 24 program. This is a new trend, and verifies a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 downturn in the faith in the Employee Concerns 1
Program by employees.
2 Nor did the review consider other 3
inputs, other key inputs, such that the number or 4
nature of the NRC allegations, or input from the NRC 5
and allegations (telephone interference). This lack 6
of inclusion points to further incompetence for TVA 7
not wanting the truth.
8 TVA leadership was so focused on 9
declaring mission accomplished they had declared 10 SCWE a strength at Browns Ferry and Sequoyah. This 11 is not a realistic conclusion. TVA has 16 NRC open 12 apparent violations related to chilled work 13 environment and SCWE. This is the worst performing 14 plant in the country and leads the industry in NRC 15 allegations.
16 It is inconceivable and insincere that 17 management can declare SCWE and ECP a strength.
18 This conclusion can only be reached by the use of 19 inefficient group thinking and self-deception.
20 Further, the Nuclear Safety Review Committee is 21 operating in an environment where people are afraid 22 to speak the truth.
23 It is time for NRC to wake people up so 24 they can see the truth. The NRC should demand a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 true independent review of SCWE and the ECP. Again, 1
this review cannot be provided by someone like OREU, 2
as previously done, because they had a conflict of 3
interest.
4 That was topic one.
5 Topic two is TVA's SCWE is inadequate 6
and getting worse. And I just have a couple 7
examples I want to cover. And these are recent 8
examples.
9 As a former senior ECP program manager 10 at Browns Ferry, employees have continued to 11 approach me in regard to how to handle and raise 12 issues or problems. Many of these employees do not 13 have faith in their management's protective action 14 programs of the revised ECP.
15 The changes in the ECP eliminated the 16 last internal route to raise issues since they all 17 treat their programs independent. Instead, the 18 management informed employees as a decision of 19 management. This defeats the entire concept of an 20 alternate process for raising concerns.
21 For example, recently a management-level 22 employee suddenly had no place to raise an issue 23 because he wanted to keep his job. He refused to go 24 the NRC because he believed the NRC would simply 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 refer the item back to TVA for investigation where 1
he would be identified and retaliated against.
2 In the past I've reported numerous 3
issues to the NRC on behalf of employees.
4 Unfortunately, these concerns raised by certain 5
employees were locked into one basket (telephone 6
interference) concern. The NRC is (telephone 7
interference) TVA plant from reviewing the data.
8 Even if accounting methods at TVA plants 9
are considered, TVA still leads in NRC allegations.
10 This reflects a poor SCWE for TVA, plus an 11 ineffective revised Employee Concerns Program.
12 Since employees do not receive any feedback from 13 concerns raised to NRC, employees have simply 14 stopped raising some issues to the NRC. This is one 15 of the worst things that could happen to TVA and the 16 NRC.
17 The following provides some examples of 18 a recent retaliation to enforce SCWE at TVA. I'm 19 leaving out significant details to protect those 20 involved. However, I can provide additional detail 21 to the NRC in a private meeting.
22 In a recent quality assurance audit 23 employees identified an issue that met the criteria 24 of a finding reportable to the NRC. All the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 employees in the audit team and other quality 1
assurance employees agreed the issue and problems 2
are serious. However, the audit team was 3
overridden.
4 The employees were concerned that the 5
issue would not be classified as a finding. Part of 6
the justification for not classifying an issue as a 7
finding was even if it was a finding, it would only 8
result in a low-level NRC non-significant violation.
9 The audit team employees do not agree 10 with this perspective but did not raise the issue 11 further out of fear of retaliation. The employees 12 do not have faith in any TVA reporting path in which 13 to raise issues. The audit team said specifically 14 they were not taking concerns to the Employee 15 Concerns Program because it was now a management 16 program and they lacked the trust of those involved.
17 Later, in a group meeting some audit 18 team members stated they believed they were being 19 subject to harassment and intimidation for trying to 20 raise the issue as a finding. Other employees 21 stated they would not raise the issue or other 22 issues further due to favoritism and a chilled work 23 environment on the part of management.
24 Employees stated that they do not --
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77 those that do what management wants get rewarded, 1
and those that do not get punished. It should be 2
noted, in January 2019 an independent reviewer 3
working for a corporate ECP identified issues of 4
favoritism on the part of quality assurance 5
management. But no action was taken to correct the 6
situation (telephone interference) favoritism.
7 There was an effort (telephone interference) change 8
the work environment.
9 Since favoritism is a form of 10 harassment, per intimidation, retaliation, 11 discrimination, the SCWE has a zero policy against 12 it. But policy --
13 MR. GLADNEY: I'm sorry. It must have 14 been a -- I'm hearing some noise on the phone.
15 Whoever, just please remember that we have a speaker 16 and so if you're not speaking, please mute your 17 phone. And if you don't have a button on your 18 phone, please use star 6. Thank you. You may 19 proceed forward.
20 MR. RICHERSON: Thank you. Members of 21 quality assurance have already discussed a chilled 22 work environment over recent years. Some quality 23 assurance employees believe the commission did this, 24 and have lost faith in all A1 tiers, including the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 NRC, that anyone will improve this keeling in the 1
organization.
2 I'm going to stop there and skip then to 3
Item 3 to save time. Basically, three is TVA 4
maintains its process for systematic harassment, 5
intimidation, retaliation in the demonstration, in 6
discrimination for its failure to follow policies to 7
eliminate her.
8 It is well-known and documented that TVA 9
has a poor record related for safety culture. This 10 is a given. There's no need to rehash some lengthy 11 history here. But it's also well-known that TVA has 12 taken inadequate action to remedy the situation.
13 This is confirmed by the recent chilled work 14 environment in operations and our appeal thus far, 15 the recent BOL retaliation timing and the recent 16 16 SKU related NRC apparent violations.
17 What's more all applied to a systematic 18 culture that TVA has not been able to or is 19 unwilling to change. This culture is a plague on 20 employees and contributes to lower plant performance 21 and danger to the health and safety of the public.
22 This is not a condition that the NRC can 23 allow to continue. TVA asked an ineffective and 24 incoming action and procedure proceed through 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 policy. TVA procedure and policy clearly states 1
that there's a zero tolerance for any type of hurt.
2 While TVA policy is tied to low level 3
employees and contractors, it should get some 4
attention or should it be applied to managers and 5
payment managers.
6 Members and managers are often kept in 7
place, passed to other lateral positions or 8
promoted (simultaneous speaking) for a confirming 9
instance.
10 This double standard is noticed by 11 employees and has created an environment that allows 12 management to engage and work with impunity while at 13 the same time preventing employees from raising 14 concerns.
15 Employees will pay the price for raising 16 unpopular issues and voicing unpopular concerns.
17 The (telephone interference) communications does not 18 exist as noticed in the previous example involving 19 QA.
20 Now nobody get off scot-free for 21 engaging in hurt. They only need to look at the 22 situation involving Watts Bar in order to confirm 23 this.
24 It may look to be a situation regarding 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 the information of annual performance reviews raise 1
this in employee performance.
2 Employees have been rated lower after 3
raising issues. Some have been rated in the lowest 4
tiers of performance with no explanation or reason 5
identified in their performance reviews.
6 This is clearly against TVA policy.
7 When brought to the manager's attention, the 8
situation is ignored. This contributes to the 9
culture of systematic hurt.
10 And note I can provide specific examples 11 of this situation and a pile of names to the NRC.
12 The intentional inadequate explanation of scaling 13 procedures and policies as well as human resource 14 and resource procedures are creating this culture of 15 systematic hurt and the NRC must take action to 16 break these obvious ingrained horrible cultures.
17 In conclusion, I would just like to 18 request the NRC enforcement action, with the 19 conditions outlined in the petition, and exemplified 20 by our statements and input.
21 I'm going to leave the rest of it out.
22 I thank you for your time and your effort. I do 23 want to make the statement that I am sending in fear 24 of hurt. I've been subject to retaliation prior to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 my removal from ECP. I've been subject to 1
retaliation after my removal from ECP. And I've 2
continued to have been subject to retaliation 3
recently. Thank you.
4 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you for your 5
statement. Ms. Garde, do we have another presenter?
6 MS. GARDE: Just a couple of points to 7
conclude our presentation. It's been made by a 8
number of the speakers, but I want to reiterate it 9
here in that I'm not sure if the PRB knows this, and 10 I'm sure that Lisa Jarriel can explain this, but 11 it's important to understand that the NRC 12 inspections relied upon did not include interviews 13 of the former ECP representatives, the people with 14 the best perspective on the issues at the site on 15 the issues at the site.
16 They were interviewed regarding their 17 specific allegations of retaliation, which is now at 18 OI, but they were not interviewed about the 19 perspectives or insights on the safety culture work 20 environment.
21 It's also important to know that the NRC 22 allegation numbers that have been discussed and 23 relied upon are somewhat deceptive because 24 allegations actually refers to persons. That is the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 number of persons who raise concerns. So a specific 1
person who raises concerns still shows up in the NRC 2
database as one number.
3 And therefore in the case of the ECP 4
representatives, when they were trying to serve as a 5
conduit for other people at the site, they still all 6
show up as one concern except in one particular case 7
where we persuaded the NRC to give these individual 8
allegations a number.
9 All the rest of the concerns reported 10 still show up as only three, one for each of the ECP 11 representatives, which is entirely deceptive in 12 terms of the number of concerns that are actually 13 being raised and have been raised through these ECP 14 representatives to the agency. And so relying on 15 those deceptive numbers in the database is really 16 inappropriate. And so it needs to be modified.
17 I really appreciate the time and 18 attention that you have given to the presenters 19 today. I realize it's taken quite a bit of the 20 time. So I'm glad Andy was able to get them an 21 additional hour.
22 That concludes our presentation. I 23 realize it doesn't leave a lot more time. But thank 24 you very much. And any of us will entertain any 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 questions that you may have.
1 MR. ERLANGER: Thank you, Ms. Garde.
2 This is Craig Erlanger, the PRB Chair. I would like 3
to take a moment and thank you and the other 4
presenters for your time today and for providing the 5
NRC staff with clarifying information on the 6
petition you submitted.
7 As we stated in the opening, we are 8
going to enter a question and answer phase of the 9
meeting. And at this time, I'd like to ask if any 10 of the PRB members have any questions for the 11 Petitioner?
12 MR. STEVENS: Yes. This is Tom Stevens, 13 Acting Branch Chief for the TVA sites. Ms. Garde, 14 thank you and your other presenters. That was a 15 good presentation to us. I appreciate the time that 16 you took to prepare that for us.
17 I did have one question. Can you or one 18 of your fellow presenters describe for us the 19 differences in the daily activities of an ECP 20 coordinator between the previous program and the new 21 program. Thank you.
22 MS. GARDE: I'm not sure that any of our 23 folks would be able to do that. But I'm going to 24 ask Mark to try to answer that because obviously the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 new -- we are not the new ECP people or the old ECP 1
people. But they have that perspective and I think 2
Mark, could you answer that question as best you 3
can?
4 MR. RICHERSON: Yes. I'll try my best.
5 And I'll ask Melody and Deanna to pop in if I'm off 6
track. But basically as ECPs we acted as conduits 7
for concerns from employees. Employees brought us 8
concerns, all types of concerns, from the mundane, I 9
mean, really parking lot issues about the parking 10 lot, all other safety issues or safety issues by the 11 plant.
12 As appropriate, we investigated those 13 issues and resolved those issues. We went out and 14 we sought issues. We talked to employees. We built 15 relationships. We were independent aligned 16 management. We did not report to the site VPs. The 17 new employees were at least in part respected by the 18 site VPs and approved by site management.
19 We were not. We were subject to an 20 interview process. Because we are independent, we 21 have certain backgrounds, and we knew people in the 22 plant and could get out and do the job.
23 And for all my years at ECP, we were all 24 rated as good employees. Never as poor performers.
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85 As a matter of fact when we were removed from our 1
positions on May the 13th last year, we were told 2
it's not because of our points. I hope that wasn't 3
(simultaneous speaking).
4 MS. GARDE: Deanna or Melody, do you 5
have anything to add to that?
6 MS. FULTS: (Simultaneous speaking.)
7 MS. BABB: I have something to add.
8 MS. FULTS: Oh, go ahead, Melody. I was 9
just going to point out what I do know is what I 10 have observed from the condition reports that I have 11 read based on some of the effectiveness reviews, if 12 you can call them that, that were conducted by, I 13 believe it was Tom Kozak as an outside consultant.
14 And so, you know, there are some 15 fundamental flaws with the program as it currently 16 exists that it's just not industry standard.
17 You know, there's the notion that they 18 actually may be doing a little bit less work than we 19 would have done because we surveyed employees. And, 20 you know, prior to the chilled work environment 21 recovery plan relied heavily on those things that 22 management had refused to do or not allowed ECP to 23 then fully do prior to the chilled work environment 24 letter being issued in operations.
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86 So, you know, we spent a large amount of 1
time doing that. Only in the last few months has 2
the program began to look at what those things are, 3
and they're certainly not as thorough or voluminous 4
from what we've been able to hear from employees.
5 So it's certainly not the same caliber 6
of work or the same level of intensity and focus 7
that had been applied on a daily basis to the work 8
that we were doing.
9 Melody, did you want to go ahead and add 10 something?
11 MS. BABB: No. I had something that's 12 kind of in support of what you said. When we did 13 surveys and pulsings, we did those so that employees 14 could report things anonymously.
15 From what I've been told, which, you 16 know, I don't know for sure because I'm not running 17 the program now, but the current ECP, most of the 18 pulsings are the ECP employees going around and 19 talking to people one-on-one. So they can be 20 confidential, but they're not anonymous. And so 21 that's a big difference for employees that want to 22 report things and really don't want anybody to know 23 who they are.
24 And another comment I wanted to make is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 that we were qualified to do our own interviews and 1
investigations. And I believe we had more extensive 2
training on the skills that we needed to perform 3
these and to be ECP professionals.
4 So I think that -- again, I don't know 5
exactly what kind of training has been done, but I 6
believe we were more highly qualified.
7 MR. ERLANGER: This is Craig Erlanger.
8 Thank you for your response. Do any other PRB 9
members have questions for the Petitioner? Okay.
10 Does the licensee have any questions for the NRC, 11 PRB related to the issues raised in the Petition?
12 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. Good afternoon. My 13 name is Tony Williams. And I'm the site Vice 14 President at Watts Bar. I do have a statement on 15 the ECP that may get into some of the questions that 16 were asked about the differences between the 17 previous ECP program and the current ECP program.
18 But, you know, a little bit, as you're 19 aware, you know, TVA Nuclear significantly changed 20 its model associated with the Employee Concern 21 Program.
22 This was made in order to improve and 23 strengthen our overall nuclear safety culture. I 24 just want to share with you some of my experiences 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 from somebody who has been in -- I mean, I've been 1
in the industry for 30 years. I've been at 2
different locations. I've seen ECP programs from 3
three different utilities and five different 4
stations.
5 First of all, there were some 6
statements. It wasn't really made in this format, 7
but it's been made in the past that I just want to 8
clear things up that we've heard repeatedly about 9
the ECP program and the TVA employees who were the 10 ECP representatives.
11 They were not fired or dismissed from 12 TVA as you guys know. They remain TVA employees.
13 The positions were re-scoped. They were changed to 14 a new different job description, different skill set 15 to fit in a new ECP model, different work 16 experiences, different attributes that will allow a 17 different way to interact with our site employees to 18 find those core issues at a much lower level before 19 they get to larger safety conscious work environment 20 or safety culture issues.
21 As we identified individuals who better 22 fit for these new ECP roles, the previous 23 representatives were provided equivalent or 24 sometimes even higher positions within TVA. These 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 were permanent positions. They still are employed 1
with us today.
2 To get to my experience under the old 3
TVA ECP model, the employees had to speak out to ECP 4
personnel to raise issues. They did a lot of 5
pulsings, and they were not as much in the field.
6 They did stop by in the shops. But they didn't 7
interact as much one-on-one as were mentioned.
8 This led to some of the issues being 9
higher level issues, issues that built up within the 10 employee until they felt they had no other issues 11 but then to go to ECP and then raise them up to a 12 higher level of management instead of being resolved 13 at lower levels more efficiently with the engagement 14 of the supervisors, foreman or the shop to address 15 some of their initial concerns at a much lower, 16 earlier proactive level.
17 Issues often took longer to build up to 18 the ECP awareness in the previous process. And thus 19 went through a cumbersome process to get resolved.
20 Employees often would not take issues to ECP because 21 they did not view it as an effective route to get 22 those resolved.
23 Today our ECP is different. Based upon 24 my observation by monitoring of the data, I do talk 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 to our employees all the time and the feedback that 1
I am receiving from them is feedback from outside 2
assessments, including those conducted by the NRC.
3 Our ECP representatives, they're in the 4
field. They're inside the RCA. They're proactively 5
talking to the employees. They have backgrounds 6
that are in those craft positions that they can 7
relate to the individuals, engage with them more 8
fluently.
9 And they bring up issues that are lower 10 level issues. They address them right to the 11 individuals responsible. They've been in those 12 positions in supervisory roles. They know where to 13 go to get the resolution at the right level. So the 14 resolution gets done faster.
15 We do have issues that raise up that 16 maybe don't get resolved at the first level. The 17 ECP representatives continue addressing the issues 18 and following back with the individuals to ensure 19 that they feel comfortable with the resolution of 20 the issues. If not, they continue to address and 21 work at higher and higher levels in the organization 22 to get them resolved.
23 The employees are engaged with our ECP 24 representatives in the field. As I mentioned, they 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 know what the work environment is supposed to be 1
like with the work in the field. And they do a lot 2
of their interactions in the field where they can 3
get good information at very low levels.
4 The ECP helps enhance our nuclear safety 5
culture at all levels, which I can say is stronger 6
now than it has been in the past couple years.
7 We did have external assessments that 8
have noted these same improvements. We did talk 9
about the nuclear safety culture and the employment 10 and engagement improvements. Both internal and 11 external assessments continue to be placed not only 12 on our ECP program but our work environment issues, 13 our nuclear safety culture and our safe conscious 14 work environment as well are being improved 15 positively.
16 The NRC is also monitoring TVA's nuclear 17 safety culture. In October 2019 at Watts Bar, you 18 determined that we are continuing to make progress 19 in our safety conscious work environment.
20 Your review of recent allegations at 21 that time did not identify any significant trends in 22 these allegations involving a chilling effect or a 23 discrimination concern. And we at Watts Bar have 24 improved our identification of work environment 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 changes via our safety culture monitoring tool.
1 So as we mentioned, ECP is just one of 2
the tools and processes that we did change to get 3
better results of our safety culture than what we 4
had seen in the past.
5 While the cross-cutting issue in chilled 6
work environment letters remained open at Watts Bar, 7
the NRC is using these inspections to provide input 8
into the decision-making progress of their closure.
9 The NRC continues to monitor TVA 10 activities and maintain safety conscious work 11 environments through the reactor oversight process.
12 It's been my experience in the industry, 13 my conversations with my employees and the feedback 14 that we receive from external observers, I would not 15 want the TVA ECP program to step backwards to the 16 older model.
17 It is something that I've seen utilized 18 in the industry effectively. I do believe the ECP 19 representatives that we currently have have the 20 background that I've seen effective in this new type 21 of model to get those low level issues addressed at 22 a much, much proactive level, much earlier in the 23 process and don't allow things to build up before 24 they become safety culture issues.
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93 Today we have a better and more 1
effective path that has shown positive results 2
within our ECP and our employee engagement and 3
morale, which is improving our overall nuclear 4
safety culture at Watts Bar and across TVA.
5 Thank you for your time.
6 MR. ERLANGER: Thank you for your 7
statement. This is Craig Erlanger. Does the 8
licensee have any other questions for the NRC PRB?
9 MR. COOK: Craig, can you hear me?
10 MR. ERLANGER: Yes. Can you identify 11 yourself for the record?
12 MR. COOK: This Geoff Cook in Phoenix, 13 Arizona. I'm a member of the public, and I've got 14 some comments I'd like to pass on.
15 MR. ERLANGER: Geoff, we will have a 16 portion coming up here in the next couple minutes 17 where we are going to open it up to the members of 18 the public. Would you mind waiting for that time?
19 MR. COOK: Thank you. Absolutely.
20 MR. ERLANGER: We will come back to you.
21 MR. COOK: Okay.
22 MR. ERLANGER: Okay. Thank you. Does 23 the Petitioner have any questions about the 2.206 24 process?
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94 MS. GARDE: I don't think I have any 1
more questions about the 2.206 process. I 2
understand the TVA statement was not really a 3
question. It was a statement. I'm not going to 4
rebut it. But, please, don't take my silence as 5
acceptance.
6 MR. ERLANGER: Thank you, Ms. Garde.
7 Does the licensee have any questions for the NRC PRB 8
about the 2.206 petition process?
9 MR. WILLIAMS: We do not.
10 MR. ERLANGER: Thank you. Before I 11 conclude the meeting, members of the public may 12 provide comments regarding the petition and ask 13 questions about the 2.206 petition process.
14 However, as stated in the opening, the 15 purpose of this meeting is not to provide an 16 opportunity for the Petitioner or the public to 17 question or examine the PRB regarding the merits of 18 the Petition request.
19 And with that, I believe we have a 20 question from a member of the public. Sir, the 21 floor is yours.
22 MR. COOK: Thanks, Craig. I appreciate 23 that. I can't make comment without going, like a 24 number of have, through our backgrounds because it's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 relevant to where we're at.
1 I started in the commercial nuclear 2
industry at Cooper Station back in the 80s. They 3
had their share of operational issues and challenges 4
with Region 4, and I had a lot of experience with 5
that.
6 In 1989, I went to Fort Calhoun. Fort 7
Calhoun brought me I because they were on the watch 8
list. And at that time I was manager of licensing 9
and I was also manager of the safety enhancement 10 program, the $36 million program that did, I 11 believe, 73 different items of improvement across 12 the station.
13 From that point in 1996, I went to San 14 Onofre, where I was for 14 years, another 15 interesting experience in terms of safety conscious 16 work environment improvement.
17 And you can ask them if you ever see 18 them, but now Dr. Chuck Caster would tell you that 19 we were driving him crazy because in his mind, and 20 maybe some of the folks at NRC Region 4, the 21 performance of San Onofre was such that Chuck 22 believed that we should have had the event that 23 would put San Onofre in Column 4.
24 And on several occasions he commented to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 me that we were undermining the very premise of the 1
reactor oversight program, that we should have had 2
that event that put us in Column 4, but we hadn't.
3 We did a lot of work in terms of 4
performance improvement up that station. And at one 5
point we were writing, I believe 6,000 CRs a month.
6 It was absolute lunacy. It was coming so fast at us 7
that dealing with it was -- it was just bearing down 8
on the station. And Region 4 kind of went the other 9
way and said, my gosh, how are you dealing with all 10 of this? We were identifying everything.
11 Ultimately, in terms of our performance 12 improvement plan, and this is the important piece 13 that I want to pass on. We had a series of meetings 14 in Washington and at the station to discuss our 15 performance improvement plan.
16 And at one point Kristine Svinicki, then 17 on the Commission, commented and said, your plan is 18 extremely complex. But I understand that this is 19 San Onofre and this is California and what might 20 work elsewhere isn't going to work here so you've 21 got a plan tailored specifically to the environment 22 you're in.
23 And I think that's key to this 2.206 24 petition and why I want to speak about this. I left 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 San Onofre in 2010. But I spent three years -- a 1
lot of people don't know this, Southern California 2
Edison owns 15.8 percent of Palo Verde.
3 So when Palo Verde got into regulatory 4
trouble and went into Column 4, I think it was 2004-5 05, Edison tapped me on the shoulder because of my 6
licensing background and said we'd like you to go 7
over there.
8 And I wrote some white papers of what 9
their performance was and where I thought they were 10 headed. And sure enough, they went right into 11 Column 4.
12 And I spent three years at that station 13 watching their performance improvement program that 14 was being run by Maria Lacal, and she did a fabulous 15 job. And I watched the change in culture at that 16 station, knowing full well that what was done at 17 Palo Verde wouldn't have worked with San Onofre. It 18 just wouldn't have. It's such a different 19 environment.
20 So subsequently in 2010, I left San 21 Onofre, and I went to TVA. And I went in as manager 22 of licensing at Sequoyah, not knowing kind of the 23 environment I was walking into or what the issues 24 were.
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98 Now, look, I wanted to tell you that my 1
first day onsite at Sequoyah, I was called into the 2
site VP's office. At that time, someone was manager 3
of licensing at that site who later on, a number of 4
years later, went into corporate licensing and 5
subsequently was terminated and did a DOL filing.
6 And I believe they found in her favor.
7 But the shock to me was the day I showed 8
up on site, and no one knew I was coming, no one, 9
except, I believe the site VP and the plant manager.
10 And I was called into a meeting with the 11 site VP. And his comment was I want that woman out 12 of here. And I want that woman out of here now.
13 And that was the first I knew that this wasn't a 14 plant change at Sequoyah. This was a hostile 15 takeover. And I was right in the middle of it and 16 hadn't been told any of it.
17 Fine. So I soldiered on. We changed.
18 I took over as site licensing manager. The 19 following few months we ended up in an outage on 20 Unit 1, a refueling outage.
21 And we were getting to go into Mode 4 22 and there was an issue MLV valve packages. QA had 23 found 76 valve packages that weren't appropriately 24 signed off. The paperwork wasn't all in place.
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99 And my phone rang. And it was the site 1
VP who told me to get down to the OCC in not very 2
pleasant terms. And I went down and he said, as 3
site licensing manager, it's your job to make this 4
issue go away and make it go away now.
5 That's the first I had ever been told 6
that by anybody at any site I had been at. So, 7
fine. I engaged the QA manager who had that 8
concern, and I basically proffered up a deal and 9
said what if we sample 25 percent of the packages?
10 Okay, fine.
11 Well, they went and did a sampling.
12 Everything seemed okay. Eight months later I was in 13 an offsite meeting with the Safety Review Board.
14 Carl Terry was the chair at that point.
15 And Carl looked at us and said I have no idea how 16 you ever started up Unit 1 in the condition you were 17 in. For the life of me, I never would have started 18 up the unit in this condition.
19 The next thing I knew the QA manager was 20 in my face saying I will never compromise my 21 standards again. I had done my job. I had talked 22 her into something she didn't believe in, and she 23 went with the program that was unacceptable. And we 24 ended up paying the price by getting redressed in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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100 front of the Offsite Review Board.
1 I left Sequoyah, oh, I think it was 2
2014, and I went to corporate licensing. And I was 3
there for maybe two months, and we had the 95003 4
inspection coming at Browns Ferry.
5 And I was told by my licensing VP to go 6
down to Browns Ferry and do an assessment of what 7
the ECP program looked like, what safety culture 8
issues were.
9 And the following Monday I came back to 10 corporate with my VP and said I'm the new manager of 11 ECP effective now. I'm done with licensing. There 12 was enough issues to deal with in prepping for the 13 inspection that we simply couldn't afford to say, 14 okay, it's a licensing part-time duty.
15 And it had gotten that way because they 16 had had a manager of ECP that they had taken that 17 position and downgraded that position to a program 18 manager. And that individual who was in that 19 position didn't like that downgrading and basically 20 walked off and said I'm done. I'm retiring.
21 All of it, looking back now, quite 22 honestly with the improvements that San Onofre made, 23 I couldn't come close to comparing programs between 24 the two sites.
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101 We were hired over on one side and TVA 1
was kind of hired over on the other side. I just 2
didn't see it. I didn't understand. The cultures 3
were so different because San Onofre had worked so 4
hard to get where they were.
5 One other aspect to me that was shocking 6
at some level, I retired in October of 2016 and now 7
it's been maybe two years ago. There was an 8
individual who had gone in as licensing manager at 9
Sequoyah, someone I knew very well. Someone I had 10 hired at San Onofre who had worked for me for 12 11 years, someone very competent.
12 And I hadn't heard much from him in a 13 few months. And I got a call out of nowhere and he 14 said, Geoff, sorry I haven't called you. I haven't 15 been able to. And I said, what do you mean? Well, 16 I've been on suspension. What? Yes, I got 17 suspended.
18 Wait a second. Hold it. I've been 19 involved with a number of filings with the NRC, 20 challenges of 50.9 issues out of Region 4. We had 21 weathered those storms. I was floored.
22 But I came to find something out. And 23 that was that the individual was suspended with pay 24 and the intent in my mind was very clear. The 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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102 adverse action procedure that TVA has says if a 1
person is getting paid even though they have been 2
suspended, we can work around the process. We don't 3
have to do anything.
4 So that additionally became an 5
allegation filed with Region 2 and was something 6
else the NRC had to deal with.
7 My point in all of these comments is 8
this. It's what Kristine Svinicki said. Because it 9
worked elsewhere doesn't mean anything relative to 10 its ability to work at TVA because what happens at 11 Susquehanna aren't going to work at San Onofre.
12 Today it doesn't matter. They're not operating.
13 But it's not going to work at Palo Verde 14 because you have to understand the culture. You 15 have to have a real world view of it before you go 16 making changes like that. And it just seemed to me 17 that it was a snap decision.
18 And I have to say because I was the team 19 lead for ECP at Browns Ferry, yes, we did a lot of 20 dancing. We really did. We put a smiley face on 21 all of it, and we made it look good.
22 And I would sit there and tell you that 23 I looked at management and the attitudes of 24 management and how they were operating themselves 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 and told myself, hold on. This isn't a culture that 1
says bring me your problems.
2 And we saw multiple examples of that 3
after the ALTRI (phonetic) inspection left where 4
people were taking actions that weren't acceptable 5
under a safety conscious work environment.
6 So all I would tell the Board is this.
7 Whatever decision you make under 2.206, you better 8
consider the facts of what the environment is at 9
TVA, who they are. You better have a clear mental 10 picture because -- and Lisa Jarriel is going to sit 11 there and say, I know.
12 When I was at San Onofre, we had an 13 engineering vice president and a coordinator who 14 both had come from TVA that were the biggest abusers 15 of safety conscious work environment I ever saw in 16 my whole career. There were just -- and we had to 17 when we went to recovery at San Onofre, we had to 18 work around those individuals and eventually that 19 vice president got terminated because it just wasn't 20 going to work as long as he was onsite.
21 So consider what you've got in front of 22 you and understand. And I would say if we got 23 through the ALTRI (phonetic) inspection of Browns 24 Ferry in I believe 2012, '13 somewhere around there, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 how did we manage to do that?
1 Did we just straight up lie about what 2
we had? No, we did an honest program assessment, 3
looked at where we were at and said, yes, we've got 4
our challenges, but we think this is working.
5 So I'm just going to say what Kristine 6
Svinicki said. Be careful what you do and think in 7
terms of who TVA is and how they operate and tell 8
yourself that plan works for this utility because it 9
may not.
10 Thank you for giving me the time to make 11 comments.
12 MR. ERLANGER: Thank you for your 13 statement, sir. Do any other members of the public 14 have any comments they'd like to share with the PRB 15 Board?
16 MS. HAGINE-DYER: Yes. This is Inza. I 17 have a few comments, if I may. I would like to do 18 so, and I'll try to be brief. I know this is late 19 in the day.
20 Just a couple of things. I think that, 21 you know, as many of you know, I was the former 22 manager of nuclear employee concerns. And it was 23 the last of my job, a long career centered around 24 providing a voice for those who need help 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 expressing their perspectives about their job.
1 And in that job, one of the things that 2
I was strong in, I thought, was the objective, 3
looking at the facts or the truth.
4 And truthfully, the one thing that I 5
have not heard so much of -- I heard a little bit of 6
-- and it's that there were needed improvements in 7
ECP. We had been proactively seeking feedback with 8
self-assessments, participated in numerous work 9
actions.
10 And in the end, we all asked the team 11 before renewal that I recognized, and that's one of 12 the things in the end that all in all that there 13 were opportunities that we needed to take for 14 improvement.
15 So we took the initiative to draft a 16 number of initiatives and presented them to 17 management. However, you know, it became clear that 18 the decision had already been made to make the 19 changes that are on issue.
20 So I think that we could probably spend 21 all night and all day going back and forth on the 22 merits of the new model versus the old model.
23 What I would challenge all of us to 24 remember, and this is especially for the NRC, is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 that one of the most important things that we 1
learned, that I learned, is the role that perception 2
plays in the assessment of the work environment.
3 And so with any change, including the 4
changes that remain to the model, et cetera, I would 5
ask to take a look at whether or not the appropriate 6
steps were taken to ensure that perceptions were 7
managed so that employees would continue to feel 8
confident enough to raise concerns.
9 And, again, I understand that a number 10 of efforts are going forth now to take a look at 11 that. But perception is very key. And one of the 12 things that I heard early on was that we were going 13 to a new model and that the new model was not a 14 statement or condemnation of the comments of the 15 former staff.
16 Yet some employees outside of the ECP 17 questioned whether that was true because of a number 18 of factors. You know, one, if it's a new model, why 19 not give these employees the opportunity to test 20 that new model out, you know, and, of course, what I 21 had shared with one of the chairs of TVA is that we 22 were looking also with background with the site and 23 with the craft so that they could communicate along 24 those lines.
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107 And that may be well a great movement.
1 But I don't think that was communicated in the 2
beginning well enough to the employees. And so I 3
think that's where a lot of what we were dealing 4
with here -- it is coming from -- it's not -- we're 5
getting stuck in the auspices of, you know, what 6
program is better, what should not, when the overall 7
question should be how did this training come about 8
and in such a way that it has the utmost respect for 9
perceptions that employees might have?
10 And other employees that, you know, came 11 to me and said, well, we know that there are issues 12 with a number of avenues for relaying their 13 concerns. The Corrective Action Program was also 14 one that was often in need of a new opportunity for 15 improvement. Yet we don't see any personnel changes 16 in that organization. And so, you know, it's hard 17 to argue with that. But then, again, it's all about 18 the perception.
19 But the only thing that I really 20 encourage all of us to do from all sides of this is 21 to really focus on what that perception has done to 22 our work environment.
23 The thing that kept me awake day in and 24 day out in my role there and still keeps me awake 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 day in and day out is whether or not we have 1
conducted ourselves in a way so that every single 2
person feels that they can raise issues without any 3
hesitancy because it only takes one person to 4
hesitate for us to have something disastrous that 5
could impact the health and safety of the public.
6 So when I heard that there had been a 7
notice of unusual event at the TVA site, I sat up 8
half the night so worried about the safety of the 9
public and hoping that whatever that was -- I didn't 10 know the details -- that it had nothing to do with 11 someone's unwillingness to speak out for whatever 12 reason.
13 So with all of that, you know, I just 14 want to remind us that we are not, I guess, with 15 everything else going on in the world. It's a time 16 for us all to be self-introspective, for us to come 17 together and to hopefully put all of this behind us 18 so that we can begin to really focus -- continue our 19 focus on this great company, TVA which has done so 20 much for people, and to make sure that they're all, 21 you know, everybody is safe.
22 So for what it's worth, that's what I 23 have to say. And thank you for your time.
24 MR. ERLANGER: Okay. Thank you. This 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 is Craig Erlanger, the PRB chair. Do any other 1
members of the public have a question? We have time 2
for one more. Thank you.
3 Hearing none, I'm going to turn it over 4
to Mr. Robert Gladney, today's facilitator.
5 MR. GLADNEY: Thank you, Craig. I want 6
to add if you have any other questions, please send 7
them in as provided in the information by Andy Hon.
8 But for now, due to the time, we will go ahead and 9
conclude the main portion of the meeting.
10 Before we close, does the court reporter 11 need any additional information for the meeting 12 transcript?
13 COURT REPORTER: If I can have the list 14 of names that you used for roll call at the 15 beginning provided to me? It hasn't been sent to me 16 or my office yet.
17 MR. GLADNEY: Okay. Thank you. I'll 18 have between Andy and myself, he will send it to you 19 or I will send it to you. But thank you for that.
20 Also anything else? Is that all?
21 COURT REPORTER: No. That's all for 22 now.
23 MR. GLADNEY: Okay. Thank you. Okay.
24 We want to encourage the participants outside the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 NRC to provide public meeting feedback to the NRC 1
staff via the NRC public meeting website. With 2
that, this meeting is adjourned.
3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 4
went off the record at 3:29 p.m.)
5 6
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