ML20199C852
| ML20199C852 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 09/19/1996 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199C716 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-97-313 2-96-033, 2-96-33, NUDOCS 9711200166 | |
| Download: ML20199C852 (15) | |
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1 UNITED 3TATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION c
3
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-4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5
INTERVIEW 6
x 7 -IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No.
9 RICHARD DAVID de MONTFORT 2-96-033 10 11
x 12 13 Wednesday, September 19, 1996 14 15 Conference Room - Second Floor 16 Crystal River Plant 17 15760 West Powerline Street 18 Crystal River, Florida 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted at
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21 10:02 a.m.
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23 BEFORE:
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24 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator
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25 EXHIBIT
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- APPEARANCES:
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.On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3
JAMES VORSE, S'enior Investigator
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Region-II NRC Office of Investigations-4-
5 401 Marietta Street 6
Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7
On Behalf of the Interviewee,-Richard de Montfort 8
ROBERT ALEXANDER GLENN, ESQUIRE 9
PAC-ASA
-10 Post Office Box 14042 11 St. Petersburg,. Florida 33733 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
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MR. VORSE:
For the record, today a date is 3
19 September 1996.
The time is 10:02 a.m.
I'm Special 4
Agent Jim Vorse with the NRC's Office of Investigations.
5 I'll-be-conducting this interview.
6 During this proceeding, which is being recorded 7
for transcription, the NRC Office-of Investigation will 8
conduct an interview of Richard David de Montfort.
This 9
interview pertains to OI investigation' number 2-96-033.
10 The location of the interview is the Administration 11 Building, Crystal River Nuclear Plant, Crystal River, 12 Florida.
13 And would you please identify yourself for the 14 record, Mr. Glenn.
15 MR. GLENN:
Alex Glenn.
Corporate Counsel, 16 Florida Power Corporation.
17 MR. VORSE:
Mr. de Montfort, would you identify IBf yourself, please.
19 MR. de MONTFORT:
Richard David de Montfort, 20 Manager of Nuclear Plant Operations, Crystal River Unit 21
- III, 22 MR. VORSE:
Okay.
Would you go-ahead and
. 23 administer the~ oath, Peggy.
24 Whereupon, 25 RICHARD DAVID de MONTFORT, 4
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t-1 being first duly sworn by the Notary public, was examined 2
and testified as follows:
3 EXAMINATION 4
MR. VORSE:
Mr. de Montfort, I need your date of 5
birth and Social Securit number.
6 THE WITNESS:
My Social 7
Security number is 8
MR. VORSE:
- Okay, d would you give me your 9
education and experience, please.
10 THE WITNESS:
My education and experience?
11 MR. VORSE:
Yes, both.
12 THE WITNESS:
I have a high school diploma, 13 general -- GED.
I have a two-year degree from Central 14 Florida Community College.
15 I've been at Florida Power for 15, coming up on 16 16 yec,J.
Currently hold an active Senior Reactor 17 Operator's license.
18 MR. VORSE:
How long have you had that senior 19 reactor operator's license?
20 THE WITNESS:
I believe 11, almost 12 years.
21 MR. VORSE:
And would you describe your duties, 22 your present duties.
23 THE WITNESS:
My current title is Manager of 24 Nuclear Plant Operations.
I directly supervise the control 25 room crews, control room supervisors and the activities
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of the nuclear power plant.
3' MR. VORSEt' How:was the incident with the R: ten-4l Versus Oscar ten, lowering of one assembly-on the other and 5
Romeo ten, how was this brought to-your attention?
6 THE WITNESS:
It was brought to my attention on 7-the 28th, the morning of the 28th, about 7:50 in the 8
morning, I believe is what I wrote in my Franklin Day 9 : Planner.
Dave Jones came into my office, which is the 10 supervisor that was involved, the refueling supervisor that 11 was invrtved.- We had an approximately two-minute
~12 -conversation.
I was-on my way to training that day.
13 He explained what happened to me, what happened 14 to the fuel assembly.
He gave me what he felt was the root 15 cause, which was the ability to misinterpret the move sheet 16 based on it'being handwritten and based on the way the 17 zeros.and the O's were made.
It seemed like a reasonable 18 root cause.
And he stated that he would be following up 19 with the reactor' engineer, Mike Culver.
20 And-that was pretty much the extent.of onc 21 conversation.
-22 MR. VORSE:
Okay.
And when did you see the 23 precureor card that was_ signed-anonymously that described
-24 theLincident?-
25
- THE WITNESS:
Right.
The first time that I have
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1 in:my Franklin Planner that I was aware of that was that 2
same day, approximately 1500.
I believe I vas in the 3
nuclear administration building,_ coming back on site from 4 - training where I was that day, and was either in 5
d!.scussions with my supervisor, Ron Davis, or headed that 6
way.
So I can't really remember the details.
7 MR. VORSE:
Are you comfortable with the -- that 8
the old asse: ably is okay, not damaged?
9 THE WITNESS:
Am I comfortable with the 10 integrity of the fuel assembly?
Based on my knowledge of 11 the fuel and refueling activities, which is all I can do is 12 base that on my experience and my training, and the 13 concurrence of our reactor engineers, both John Weaver at 14 the time and Mike Culver-after he was notified, I'm 15 -comfortable with the integrity of the fuel, yes.
16 MR. VORSE:
Do you know what time the precursor 17 card was given to the first person, or how that -- who 18 received it first; 19 THE WITNELS:
The way I understand it, and I can 20 say I just had, you know, discussions along the 21 investigatory path, the precursor card as I understand'was 22 mailed, which probably resulted in its. delay getting to~the 23 shift manager.
Usually our precursor cards are handed 24 directly to our first lines or handed directly to the shift 25 manager for evaluation.
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.I understand that this precursor card was mailed 2
and that' Larry Moffatt was the shift manager that actually.
3 received the precursor card, or opened the mail, should I 4
say.
-5 I also understand that once Larry read the c
6 anonymous precursor card that he at that time' began 7
informing upper management, including myself.
8 MR. VORSE:
Is there anything you'd like to 9
state for the record that you think is important that I 10 didn't ask?
11 THE WITNESS:
It's hard to understand exac --
12 you know, the reasons that the issue that we're looking at.
13 Just after the prec -- just efter 1500, as I mentioned, bi,5 M ed61%
14 when Ron D*"id, my supervisor, my assistant director and me 15 discussed the precursor card, he recognized the 16 significance of the precursor card and of the event.
17 I normally debrief with Ron at the end of each 18 day.
I'm new to this position.
I was hired January 2nd as 19 this position.
And Ron has basically been, so to speak, my 20 mentor as far as issues along these lines.
21 When Ron and myself found out about the anonymous 22 precursor card, and that I believe was Ron's first notice 23 of the event itself, he recognized the significance of the 24-event.
And we immediately went up into the control room to 25 get more details right from Dave Jones.
And that kicked
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1, off the event investigation and the HPES and along those 2
lines.
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You know, it's not an excuse that-I did not 4
follow tp on writing the precursor card or generate a.
5 problem report immediately, that I was going to training, 6-you know, that day.
7 Dave Jones is one cf my senior shift supervisors, 8
a very professional shift supervisor, a very conservative 9
shift supervisor, and I used that knowledge to feel like he,,
10 was adeg -- would adequately follow up on the issue.
And 11 he would follow up with the reactor engineer and we would 12 make sure that, you know, fuel integrity was not 13-compromised.
14 That seemed reasonable that morning to me.
When 15 I came back and discussed the incident with Ron Davis he 16 clearly sees the not only the fuel integrity issue but the 17
-- a bigger picture, which I now.ee, is in the number of 18 errors and the safeguards that we had in place, which had 19 to break down to get us to this point, which concerns me 20 actually today more of the assembly as I know it.
21 And we have a log of safeguards: the tag board, 22-the spotters, repeating of the fuel location, the move 23 sheets.. All those are in an attempt not to have an 24 incident like this, and all those had to break down at the 25 same. time.
And that really, you know, bothered us.
It
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I did not recognize that or did not get into 2
that level of detail that morning.
I failed to do that.
3 I don't know if you're interested in further 4
corrective actions and-how that, you know, played out and 5
IPAP coming in.
6.
MR. VORSE:
Maybe the reasons, staff might be 7. interested in that.
Why don't you tell me what you've done 8
to --
9 THE WITNESS:
Well, we immediately kicked off a 10 HPES and --
11 MR. VORSE:
What does that stand for?
12 THE WITNESS:
Human performance evaluation.
We 13 selected somebody within our department that had been known 14 for very good root causes, had been trained specifically in 15 doing root causes and HPES'.
Tom Metcalf.
We selected him L
16 specifically for this due to the sensitivity.
We gave him 17-the time to do that event investigation.
R18 When some of the corrective actions came out of
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19 the -- out of the investigation, or the HPES, we placed 20 some of those into our internal tracking system.
We 4
21 recognized that there was no problem report.
We did not 22 see-that as a problem.
We had the -- we felt we understood 23 the event, we felt we had corrective actions.
And that is 24 the bottom line of the corrective action program.
25 We tracked some of them internally to our i
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that was initiated a week earlier based on a fuel handling 3
event that we had.
So we added the corrective actions 4 -together, 5
Looking.back, the corrective actions probably 6
were not adequate to cover all the things thac we know 7
today around the issue.
So we had -- after IPAP brought it 8
up we have since, you know, generated another problem 9
report that deals specifically with some of the issues that 10 have come up, j
11 Precursor cards and the anonymous part of the 12 precursor card system.
When I first came into,the l
13 department the department was not using precursor cards, 14 which is just January of this year.
They were using an 15 internal tracking system that went straight to the manager 16 of nuclear plant operations for dispos!_cion.
17 He and Ron recognized that that was probably a 18 weakness within the department, that our business is the 19 plant's business just as the plant's business is our 20 business.
And we terminated that program and went to the 21 precursor card program.
22 We have had several discussions, training classes 23 c) expectations, set shift goals for writing precursor 24-cards.
We have encouraged reportability, we have not taken 25 disciplinary action on anybody that has reported an event
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1 that would have otherwise been unknown _to management.
2 That's not to say that we didn't have an event, 3
took disciplinary ection, and wrote a precursor to document 4
the event.
But if an individual came to us and said out in 5-the field I made a mistake, I corrected the mistake, you 6 -would have navet known about it but here it is, we have 7: _taken~no disciplinary action and actually we're trying to e
advertise that fact because we know how important it is to 9
know what's going on out in the field.
10 We've had several examples this year where that 11 has occurred.
We are still struggling with that.
There is 12 a lot of pressure at our power plant, both economically, 13 both resulting from the make-up tank investigations and the 14 escalated enforcements and interviews and OI investigations 15 that we've had since then.
The pressure is there, the 16 pressure is real, and the people sense it.
17 It's our job to try to alleviate those concerns 18 and keep our disciplinary policies up front and make them 19-as consistent as we can.
And we work that way.
But there
-20 is, you know, there are people out there that still feel 21 uncomfortable, bringing issues up.-
And they may feel 22 : uncomfortable bringing issues up based on getting one of 23 their fellow workers in trouble and they know that trouble, 24 you know, what that means.
Or they may not bring it-up 25 based on what they feel may do to them.
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And we work hard on that issue.
We keep our-2 disciplinary actions consistent, and we try to.
And we try 3
to continue to talk to the people and try to get through 4
th;.s low point that we're at right now that's out there.
5 MR. GLENN:
Have you seen a -- any trends in the 6
nr.mber of precursor carde ~~
7 THE WITNESS:
Absolutely.
The entire year has 8
continuously been trending upwards, not only in the number 9
but in the quality.
And what I mean by quality is it's 10 easy to write a precursor card on a different department or 11 a different issue to say they didn't do'their job.
That's 12 a good precursor card.
13 Quality, to me in my department would mean when 14 somebody can honestly admit, we made a mistake within our 15 department, so that I can take a look at the issue and kind 16 of come up with corrective actions and we can solve this 17
- problem, ga gg 18 We can do an evaluation of the 44e, did it cause 19 a problem, did it exceed any design basis limits, what 20 _ exactly was the problem.
We've done that.
We've shared it 21 with pecple when we do it.
22 But. -arly we're seeing more.
I think we're 23 breaking through.
But, you know, I guess I can honestly 24 say things -- and I'm not picking on this, but things like 25 this, and this is just an example.
The entire department l
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1 knows-that this is going on.
The entire department knows 2
the stress that this. puts people under and --
3 HR. GLENN:
By this, you mean an OI 4
investigation?
5 THE WITNESS:
Right.
IPAP investigation, OI 6
investigations.
And it puts a lot of pressure on 7
everybody, you know.
So. -
8 MR. VORSE:
Are these precursor cards tracked?
9 Are they numbered and tracked so that something doesn't 10 fall through the cracks?
11 THE WITNESS:
They are numbered, tracked, 12 responded to.
13 MR. VORSE:
Is there a file kept on each one?
14 THE WITNESS:
There's a file kept on each one, 15 yes.
16 MR. VORSE:
So it's documented with -- with 17 additional --
18 THE WITNESS:
Oh, IPAP inspections spent a 19 significant part of their time looking at our precursor 20 card systems and we had fairly good words based on our 21 precursor card system.
They found a few that the response 22 may not have been completely adequate, or reading it six 23 months later may not have told you the v5cle story of 24 everything that we did.
But generally they see the trend 25-as a positive trend and they see us using more and more e
4 O --
1 CERTIFICATE 2
This is to certify-that the attached proceedings 3
before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 4
the matter of:
5 Name of Proceedings-Interview of Richard de-Montfort 6
Docket Number (s):
2-96-033
[
7 Place of Proceeding:
Crystal River Nuclear Plant' 8
Crystal River, Florida 9
10 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original 11 transcript thereof for the file of the United States 12 Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter 13 reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the 14 court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true 15 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
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