ML20199C889
| ML20199C889 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 11/28/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199C716 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-97-313 2-94-036, 2-94-36, NUDOCS 9711200185 | |
| Download: ML20199C889 (98) | |
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'@fflolol Transselpt of Prcoocdings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
In the matter of Interview of Percy M. Beard, Jr.
Docket Number: 2-94-036 Location: Crystal River, Florida Date: November 28,1995 l
Work Order No.: NRC-429 Pages 1-96 b
l T3 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers EXHIBIT 9 2'94-036 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
PAGE I _OF 96 PAGE(S)
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234 4433 Y 97y12 g 5 971117 LIAW97-313 PDR
I 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGkJLATORY COMMISSION.
3 + ++++ ,
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ----------------------------------x 7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
G INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
9 PERCY M. BEARD, JR. : 2-94-036 10 :
11 ----------------------------------x .
12 Tuesday, November 28, 1995 13 14 Crystal River Plant 15 Administration Building 16 15760 W. Power Line Street 17 Crystal River, Florida 18 19 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 20 11:05 a.m.
21 BEFORE:
22 JAMES D. DOCKERY Senior Investigator 23 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator 24 CURT RAPP Reactor Engineer f4 4 & F W QA &/W~
2 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 JAMES DOCKERY, Senior Investigator 4 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 5 401 Marietta Street 6 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator 8 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 9 401 Marietta Street 10 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 11 CURT RAPP, Reactor Engineer 12 Region II NRC 13 401 Marietta Street 14 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 15 16 On Behalf of the Interviewee, Percy M. Beard, Jr.
17 MORRIS " SANDY" WEINBERG, JR., ESQUIRE 18 Corporate Counsel - Florida Power Corporation 19 101 East Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 3140 20 Tampa, Florida 33602 21 DANIEL F, STENGER, ESQUIRE 22 Corporate Counsel - Florida Power Corporation 23 1400 L Street, N.W.
24 Washington, D.C. 20005-3502 25
5 l
t l 3-Il P-R-0-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 MR. DOCKERY: Let's go on the record,_please.
- 13 =For the' record,- today's dateHis Novenber the 1
4- 28th, 1995. The time is approximately 11:05 a.m.
5 I am Senior Investigator James D. Dockery of the B
6 NRC Office of Investigates.
7 During this proceeding which is being recorded- ,
-8 for transcription the NRC Office of Investigations will 9 conduct an interview of Mr. Pat Beard. This interview 10 -pertains to OI' Investigation Number 2-94-036. The 11- location of-the interview is_the Administrative Building 12 at the Crystal River Nuclear Plant.
4 13 There are others in attendance at this interview 14 and I'm going to ask them to identify themselves right t
15 now.
16 Mr. Rapp?
17 MR. RAPP: My name is Curt Rapp,'R-A-P-P. And 4
18 I'm a reactor inspector with Region II, NRC.
l 19- MR. VORSE: My name is Jim Vorse. I'm a Senior 20 Investigator with_the NRC's Office of Investigations, 21 Region II.
Dan _ Stenger, attorney with Winston 22 MR, STENGER:
23 & Strawn from Washington, D.C.
24 MR.-WEINBERG: And I'm Sandy Weinberg with Zuckerman, Spaeder from Tampa. And as we-said in the last
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1 interview, both Mr. Stenger and I represent Florida Power 2 and we've been asked to be present here by Mr. Beard.
3 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you.
4 Mr. Beard, would you raise your right hand, 5 please.
6 THE WITNESS: (Complies.)
7 Whereupon, 8 PERCY MORRIS BEARD, JR.,
9 having first been duly sworn by the investigator, was 10 examined and testified as follows:
11 DIRECT EXAMINATICIT 12 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you. For purposes of 13 identification would you state your full name, please.
14 THE WITNESS: My full name is Percy Morris 15 Beard, Jr.
16 MR. DOCKERY: And your date of birth and Social 17 Security number? ,
' /
18 THE WITNESS:
19 MP. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, prior to going on the 20 record here today Mr. Vorse and I identified ourselves as 21 investigators with the NRC Office of investigation. And I 22 provided you with a copy of Section 1001 of Title 18 of 23 the United States Code.
24 Do you understand the applicability of that 25 section of the Code? And please respond verbally so we J.-
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2 - THE WITNESS:- -Yes, I:do.
3 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Would you please state your_'
4 , position and responsibilities with Florida Power Company.
5 THE WITNESS: My position is Senior:Vice 6- President, Nuclear Operations. And in that capacity I'm 7 responsible for all. aspects of the operation'of our 8- nuclear plant and its supporting _ groups.
9 MR. DOCKERY:. Was that the position that you 10 held during 1994?
11- THE WITNESS: Yes.
12 MR. DOCKERY: And it's my understanding that ycu
'13 are not generally on site here at Crystal River. -
14 THE WITNESS: .That's correct. I have an office >
15 in St. Petersburg. And I try to spend two days a week at 16 Crystal River. I have a secondary office here.
17 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, what we're here to 18 discuss today is certain events of 1994 pertaining to 19 makeup. tank evolutions, specifically Operating Procedure 20 103B and Curve 8 to that operating' procedure, and some 21 rather well-known subsequent events.
22 You're familiar with all this, correct?
23 THE J WI rNESS : Yes.
!24 MR. DOCKERY: .Specifically, I'd like co address
, 25 the. events of September the 5th, 1994. And could you l
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1 , describe your understanding of what occurredton that date- -]
2- during the-midnight shift?'
t 3- -THE WITNESS: Yes. . In an overall summary,:we 4 had'a shift crew of operators and they had, amongst 5 themselves,-decided to conduct an' evolution wherebyJthey 6-Ewould increase pressure in-_the_ makeup _ tank, raise;the 7 = level, and then let the level go down, and as it went down l
- 8. they would plot hydrogen overpressure versus tank level .
9 laid their purpose was to get points as they did 10 that to see if they agreed with their current operating 11 curve for tank level versus pressure, which they felt
- 12- could be in error.
13 =Unfortunately, they did that without proper ;
14' authorization. And in our view, therefore, it was
.15 unauthorized.
16 Also, as they -- this level came down they 17 received an alarm of hydrogen pressure being too high for 18 that particular level. The alarm stayed in for some 19 number-of minutes. I think it was 30 minutes or so. And 20 they.did not_ respond to the alarm as they should have;- you 21- know, plot -- doing what they're doing in decreased 22 Lpressure. That's'a summary, 23- MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, were you awareHof-any 24' concerns by operators at this. plant regarding Curve 8-ors 25 the -- well, regarding Curve 8' prior to September of 1994?
~
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7 l' THE WITNESS: I was in a-broad-sense. I think
-2 more specifically I was aware that_the operators--- some 3 of the operators were-concerned with having some l 4 difficulty - ;or at least it required them to take more 5 frequent manual operation'to keep the hydrogen )
6 overpressure above the-recommended EPRI limit of 25.cc's 7 per kg.
.-:t 8 I also remember that during a previous outage 9 during a surveillance procedure where -- which required 10 the makeup tank _to be drawn _down,_that the -- in fact, it 11 was the shift of operators -- or at least one of them, as 12 I remember, had experienced some possible loss of suction 13 in the makeup pump, was-concerned about that. And that 4
14 was the basis for his and several members of that shift's ;
15 concern, you know, was the operating curve correct.
16 So that's a long answer. And I guess the answer 17 is, yes, as I put it in context.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Well, to paraphrase, sir, then, 19 generally you were aware there was some concern over an 20 issue.
21 THE WITNESS: I was concerned that there was 22 concern about -- It was--- It posed an operator burden on 23 'the operators to maintain-hydrogen pressure where we 24 wanted it more than that there was a big concern with 25 Curve 8.
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8 1 It was more in the broader context of this waL 2 creating difficulty and we were,_ you know, seeking ways to
- 3. alleviate that concern, including, you know, putting in a 4 hydrogen -- raising the pressure in the automatic 5 regulator, and some things like that.
6 Not so much that they were really concerned with 7 Curve 8, but that was -- yeah, that was part of it.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Why was the hydrogen pressure 9 level, and specifically the figure 25 cc's per kilogram, 10 so significant?
11 THE WITNESS: Well, that -- As I think you 12 understand, the Electric Power P.esearch Institute, or EPRI 13 as-I call it, is the industry's -- well, the investor 14 owned utility sort of research arm. And they have a 15 nuclear group involved in other things, chemistry for 16 nuclear power plants.
17 And their view, stated view in their guidelines 18 for primary chemistry is that you ought to maintain a 19- minimum hydrogen overpressure of 25 cc's per kg on your 20 primary system makeup tank which then puts hydrogen in the 21 water, because the hydrogen is needed to scavenge oxygen 22 that may be in the primary coolant. And therefore -- And 23 oxygen,1of course, can lead to corrosion.
24 So it w..s then -- therefore, the industry 25 guideline, minimum guideline to help minimize corrosion in
-9 1~ the primary system.
2- MR. DOCKERY: Is there a safety issue involved 3 there?
4 THE WITNESS: With the hydrogen overpressure?
5 MR. DOCKERY: Yes, sir.
6' THE WITNESS: Well, the hydrogen overpressure, 7- there was -- Well, there was a safety issue in the sense 8 that if you didn't maintain sufficient-hydrogen pressure, 9 you had accelerated corrosion in your primary system that 10 -- you know, including corrosion products which could then 11 play down on the fuel, that that could -- that's a nuclear 12 safety issue in a sense.
13 There are other issues involved, though.
14 There's hydrogen, of course, is a combustible in .h=
15 right, you know, concentrations. And therefore, Appendix 16 R, which is the fire protection requirements of the code, 17 come into play. So there's a balance there.
12 MR. DOCKERY: When did the figure 25 cc's per 19 kilogram become the operational target, for lack of a 20 better term?
21 THE WITNESS: Well, I think it had been an 22- operational target -- Well, I don't remember the exact 23- year. It was maybe '93. I'm not sure. But I had 24 questioned, you know, why that we were continuing -- Oh, 25 well, I_think what first brought it to my attention, we
10 1 - had an INPO evaluation, gosh,_ it may have been '92. I 2 really don't remember. But say somewhere in '92.
3 And as I recall, they -- we had a finding in 4 chemistry that, among other things, noted that our 5 hydrogen concentration often was below that recommended 6 limit. So that got me interested in it.
7 And somewhere after that, I don't know if it was 8 '93, let's just assume it was, ycu know, asked questions 9 about, you know, what was the problem, could we maintain 10 it. The answer was, yeah, we could. And I said, well, Ell let's try to do that.
1
.2 MR. DOCKERY: What had the -- For comparison's 13 sake, what cc per kilogram figure had been in effect prior 14 to that?
15 THE WITNESS: I think we had been using -- and 16 again, this is just to my recollection -- 20 as a lower 17 limit. But as I recall, sometimes it had gotten down to 18 15, as noted by-the INPO team.
-19 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, I forgot to mention 20 this earlier in this interview, but if you'd like to refer 21 to any documentation or any notes, anything you wish to 22 refer to --
23 THE WITNESS: -Okay.
24 MR DOCKERY: -- pleese feel free to do so.
25 THE WITNESS: Okay. I don't have any notes on
1 l
h 11 1 .those dates right -- that I can refer to. >
2 MR. DOCKERY: I understand that.
i 3 THE WITNCSS: Yes. Yeah, 4 MR. DOCKERY: It's difficult to go back that :
5 far. And we're certainly not -- This is not a test, j 6 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Getting back to your 7 earlier question, though, about safety concerns, the other 8 thing that comes into play with this hydrogen 1 9 overpressure, of course, which I think gets to the issue ,
10 here that was in the operator's mind, is that if you have 11 too much hydrogen overpressure and you have a loss of 12 coolant accident and, you know, things -- the level starts 13 draining down in the makeup tank, that you could get gas j 4
14 bindin[] of the makeup pumps. And therefore, that, you 15 know, you would lose that function of high pressure 16 injection.
17 So there's sort of a triad of chemistry. You 18 nave to worry about too much hydrogen. You don't want too 19 less. And then above -- On top of that you have to meet <
20 Appendix R requirements. So --
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. I must confess to you to 22 being very non-technical in this area. Did the 23 implementation of the 25 cc figure create a need for a new 24 curve to be calculated? And I'm referr'.ng to Curve 8, ,
25 obviously.
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1 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Curve 8. I don't remember i
2 if that in itself required a new makeup -- a new curve to i
3 be generated or not. I don't remember.
4 MR. DOCKERY: And I understand that some of '
5 these specifics were quite a bit below your direct 6 pu rview. And I understand that. I'm just trying to 7 establish what specifics you did know.
8 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Did you at some point become aware 10 that there was a problem with Curve 87 A problem --
11 MR. WEINBERG: You're talkirg about prior to 12 September 5th?
13 MR. DOCKERY: No. Just what occurred around 14 that time period.
15 MR. WEINBERG: Okay. .
16 THE WITNESS: Well, not more than what I've 17 already, you know, told you, that the operators had the 18 concern of what happened during the -- when we ran that 19 surveillance procedure during the outage, and that they 20 had-some general concerns about, you know, maintaining 21 hydrogen. It was additional operator burden. It was 22 difficult to -- you know, to keep things on the curve that 23 they had.
24 But prior to September the 5th I don't recall, 25 you know, a lot of detail about the operators in general
13 1 being very concerned about Curve 8. I mean, that sort of 2 came out when the problem report was written, you know, 3 right after the September the 5th evolution.
4 MR. DOCKERY: How did you convey your 5 expectation regarding the hydrogen level issue to 6 operations, to the plant in general?
7 THE WITNESS: As I recall, I had discussions 8 with the plant manager at the time.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Would you identify him, please.
10 THE WITNESS: That would have been Paul McKee.
11 Paul McKee. And probably in follow-up to the INPO 12 evaluation that we had, you know, asking questions. And 13 then probably a verbal directive saying, well, let's U$ C A$
14 strive to meet the effviL lim 4 t. You know, why can't we.
13 Let's find out why we can't and let's try to do that.
16 MR. DOCKERY: When did you first become aware of 17 the evolution that was conducted during the midnight shift 18 on Septenber Sch?
19 THE WITNESS: It would have been -- And this is 20 just my recollection. I generally -- Probaoly when I read 21 the problem report, which I believe the problem report was 22 written on September the 7th. And I see all problem 23 reports, and I generally see them within, you know, two or 24 three or fove days.
25 It was either that or -- that or shortly
l 14 )
1 thereafter I was informed by the plant manager and Gary I 2 Boldt on the issue of how the data was collected. I t' ink 3 I remember that more than when I read the problem report.
4 MR. WEINBERG: And in this case the plant 5 manager ira Bruce Hickle.
6 THE WITNESS: Yeah. By now the plant manager is 7 Bruce Hickle.
8 MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
9 THE WITNESS: That's correct. I think I had 10 read the problem report, and then within a few days after
, 11 that I was informed that, hey, you know, there's a problem 12 with how that data was enllected. It was -- You know, it 13 was an unauthorized evolution. i 14 So within, I'd say, a week to ten days after the 15 September 5th.
16 MR. DOCKERY: Did Mr. Hickle identify it to you 17 as a potential, for lack of a better term, irregularity, 18 the problem?
19 THE WITNESS: Yeah. As I recall, it was either 20 Bruce Hickle or Gary Boldt.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
22 THE WITNESS: Or maybe both together that, hoy, 23 we had this evolution and it was conducted improperly. It 24 was not authorized. And we need -- You know, we need to 25 deal with it.
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15 1 And my reaction, I probably overreacted at first, 2 but then I let them deal with it, which was the management 3 review panel.
4 MR. DOCKERY: So it wasn't immediately known, 5 based on the problem report, that there was any 6 irregularity. Again, my term. Is that correct?
7 THE WITNESS: Irregularity? I'm not sure what 8 you mean by irregularity.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Well, maybe you could --
10 MR WEINBERG: You mean did the problem report 11 focus on the operator conduct as oppos'ed to the Curve 8 12 issue? Is that what you're referring to there?
13 MR. DOCKERY: Thank you, Counselor. That puts 14 it much better than I did, certainly.
15 THE WITNESS: No. The problem report focused on 16 the technical, you know, part of the curve, you know, that '
17 the curve appeared to be incorrect.
18 MR. DOCKERY: But there was nothing in that 19 report that would indicate to you at that -- immediately 20 that the operators had acted improperly?
21 THE WITNESS: I don't -- I really don't recall.
22 And I'm not sure when the problem report was written.
23 MR. DOCKERY: -I believe you're right.
24 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
25 MR. DOCKERY: I believe it was the 7th.
16 1 THE WITNESS: But I really dor'L remember.
2 MR. RAPP: Let me ask this. When was it first 3 mentioned or brought up to your attention, at least, that 4 the evolution'that was conducted was potentially a test 4
5 rather than a normal evolution? ,
6 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Well, it was certainly 7 before the management review panel which took place on --
8 I believe it was September the 15th. Okay?
9 MR. WEINBERG: Uh-huh.
10 THE WITNESS: So -- And like I said, the event 11 took place on the 5th and I recall a week or ten days 12 later, you know, talking to Gary and Bruce. They informed 13 me that the operators had not followed our expectations, 14 had not gotten proper authorization to conduct what 15 evolution or test, you know, however you want to 16 characterize it.
17 And they also informed me at that time, as I 18 recall, that they were going to convene a management 19 review panel, talk to the operators, and get to the bottom 20 of it quickly.
21 So it was before the 15th and I'd say somewhere 22 between the 10th and the 14th.
23 MR4 -DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, you said that when you 24 were first apprised of the situation, that you 25 overreacted?
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1 THE WITNESS: Well, I say I overreacted in the 2 sense that all of us in the industry are very sensitive to 3 significant events in nuclear power, including Chernobyl. ,
4 And one of the -- You know, certainly one of the key 5 lessons learned from Chernobyl is that operating crew, ;
6 without getting proper advice and authorization from 7 others that should have, they elected to proceed in an 8 unauthorized manner.
9 I mean, that's something that the industry his 10 stressed in spades since Chernobyl. And, you know, my 21 immediate thought was, you know, doggone, you know, it's 12 the same -- It is the same principle. And that's 13 important.
14 MR. DOCKERY: Did you state that at the time?
15 Did you consider or state that it may be analogous to 16 Chernobyl at that time?
17 THE WITNESS: I may have. I'm not sure. I know 18 I was upset. And -- But their response was, we'd like to 19 convene a management review panel. Let's get to the 20 bottom and quickly talk to the people and deal with it.
21 And -- Which I thought it was certainly the right thing to 22 do.
23 MR. VORSE: Mr. Beard, when we talked to Mr.
24 Fields and Mr. Weiss, they indicated to us that they felt 25 very frustrated, that they had brought properly to the
18 :
1 attention of their management their concerns with Curve 8 2 and the safety significance of the way it was published at 3 the time on September 5th, and that they felt that they 4 had their backs against the wall, that they just didn't 5 have any other way -- that they wanted to get this thing 6 resolved and they just didn't feel that management was l t
7 receptive.
8 And they also indicated that there was some kind 9 of mandate from you to maintain the 25 cc's por kg 10 hydrogen level, and that this drove Engineering -- I know 11 this is a very long question and I'll --
12 THE WITNESS: That's okay. I understand the 13 gist of it.
14 MR. VORSE: Drove Engineering to --
15 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh, 16 MR. VORSE: -- make Curve 8 the way it was --
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 MR. VORSE: -- even though they may have even 19 thought it was incorrect, or whatever.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
21 ~MR. VORSE: Did anyone ever bring to your 22 attention before September 5th of 1o94, Curve 8 is a bad 23 curve, we don't agree with the 25 cc thing with this 24 curve, we've got a concern with it? Did anyone bring that 25 to your attention?
19 1 THE WITNESS: Not in those terms, no. But also 2 to respond to your first series of steps --
3 MR. VORSE: Absolutely.
4 THE WITNESS: Okay. And -- Well, I mean, I'm 5 not going to tell you how to do things. And I respect 6 that, you know, that I don't need to tell you this. You 7 can figure it out.
8 But I totally reject what Dave Fields and Rob 9 Weiss must have told you in that context. There was 10 plenty of dialogue between -- And I almost also would note 11 that none of the other shifts had this great concern. And 12 we have a lot of competent people on shift, a lot of very 13 competent shift supervisors. And I think you've talked to 14 some of those and you can talk to them again.
15 Thay didn't have this feeling that they were 16 backs on the wall, that they were -- had great safety 17 concerns.
18 Also, there was a considerable dialogue between 19 the operators in question here, Engineering, and Plant 20 Management, including Mr. Hickle and Mr. Halnon. In fact, 21 I recently read a letter from Dave Fields to the NRC on 22 this issue and I_think it clearly makes the point in his 23 own words, as I -- quote, something like, he or my nuclear 24 operator had numerous conversations with Engineering and 25 Management.
20 1 And at another point he points out that on 2 September the 2nd Engineering wrote a letter to Operations 3 Management which was shared with us and asked us if -- you 4 know, our view of that. And his next sentence was, our 5 response was conduct the evolution. .
6 That is totally irresponsible. We have many 7 avenues in our plant. There was no urgency. Anyone -- He 8 could have talked to me directly. He knows that. I often 9 walk around the plar'.. We have a very effective employee 10 concerna program. Could have talked to Gary Boldt and 11 Bruce Hickle, Greg Halnon.
12 You know, this is all after the fact. And we 13 fired them. What do you expect them to say. They're 14 trying to rationalize. And I totally reject that.
15 Mr. Fields, also in that letter that he wrote 16 you, very interesting, in the back end of that letter in 17 three paragraphs he finally said exactly what he did 18 wrong. Eo he did not exercise his responsibility as the
. 19 shift supervisor following the guidance that was clearly 20 available to him. So --
21 MR. DOCKERY: Please understand, Mr. Beard, that-22 we're not in a position where we're able to reject 23 anything.
24 THE WITNESS: I understand that, I just want to 25 make my feelings very clear. I understand that totally.
> 21 1 No. Don't misunderstand me. ;
2 MR. WEINBERG: And I think that's part of what 3 the dialogue is here, too.
4 THE WITNESS: Sure.
5 MR. WEINBERG: It gives the company or the 6 management of the compally an opportunity to try to address -
7 some of the obvious concerns that you all have.
8 THE WITN3SS: Sure. And I --
9 MR. DOCKERY: And we're going to afford him that 10 opportunity. Certair.ly.
11 THE WITNESS: Yes. I understand where you have 12 to ask these questions. Dut I also want the opportunity 13 to express my view.
14 MR. DOCKERY: To your knowledge, subsequent to 15 the events of the 5th were any other evolutions, similar 16 evolutions conducted?
17 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry. Would you repeat your 18 question. I wasn't focusing.
19 MR. DOCKERY: We've been basically discussing --
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
21 MR. DOCKERY: -- the evolution --
22 THE WITNESS: Yes.
$ 23 MR. DOCKERY: -- that was --
-24 THE WITNESS: Yes.
25 MR DOCKERY: -- the MUTS evolution --
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22 t 1 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes.
2 MR. DOCKERY: -- of September the 5th. j 3 THE WITNESS: Yes.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Did it come to light that other 5 similar evolutions had been conducted? <
6 THE WITNESS: Well, it certainly came to light 7 around the middle of July that a similar evolution had 8 been conducted on September 4th, which our internal 9 investigation team confirmed to be the truth.
10 MR. DCCKERY: Any others?
11 THE WITNESS: There were some discussions, as I 12 reco ., or some information somewhere -- and I can't 13 remember the time frame -- somewhere between, say, January 0
14 of '95 and July of some other evolutions had taken place.
15 Tnis was reported to me, I believe, by Bruce 16 Hickle or Greg Halnon. I asked them to look into that.
17 'And I think that's the so-called July things that are in 18 our internal investigation report where there had been 19 some data taken when the makeup tank was lowered.
20 The report I got was that those were conducted as 21 part of normal evolutions. Limits were not exceeded. And 22 were not viewed as a " unauthorized evolution."
'23 Also -- Excuse-me.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Was there a reason given -- Are 25 you familiar with the reason for collecting the data that
23 1 was collected in July?
2 THE WITNESS: I understand that this was 3 immediate follow-up to the problem report that was written.
4 after that outage I mentioned where we ran the 5 surveillance. We had the apparent cavitation, or they 6 thought it was, that there were some initial efforts to 7 gather data to -- ycu know, to address that problem 8 report.
9 MR. DOCKERY: And was the data collection in 10 July conducted by Mr. Fields' shift or under his i 11 supervision?
12 THE WITNESS: I don't believe so. I don't think 13 it was.
14 MR- DOCKERY:
Then is it fair to say then that 15 more than one shift, more than Mr. Fields' shift was 16 concerned about the validity of Curve 87 17 THE WITNESS: It may be fair to say that. I 18 don't -- I really don't recall which -- you know, which 19 shift collected data. But again, I think it was in the 20 framework -- It may have been the engineers directing it, 21 you know, in response to that earlier problem report.
22 MR. DOCKERY: To the extent that you know, who 23 was responsible for responding to the concerns of.
24 Operations regarding the curve?
25 THE WITNESS: The Engineering -- The System
l 24 1 Engineering Group on site at that time had the primary 2 responsibility. At that time our Design engineers were 3 located in St. Petersburg. I mean, although a number of 4 them came up here frequently.
5 But the on-site contingent were what we called l
6 our system engineers, and they had the primary 7 responsibility for addressing the issue from a technical !
8 standpoint, i
9 MR. DOCKERY: Curt, do you --
10 MR. RAPP Okay. Let me go back here just a 11 little bit. You said the 25 cc's per kg was based en an 12 EPRI recommendation.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes. Uh-huh.
14 MR. RAPP: Was that -- Was there a problem at 15 Crystal River that you're aware of that -- operating below 16 25 cc's per kg, doing the operation below that? Was there 17 a problem with plant operation?
18 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure, Curt, 1 understand.
19 MR. RAPP: Okay. Prior to this you were 20 operating --
21 THE W.'TNESS: Yes, yes. I understand, Yes.
22 MR. RAPP: -- with a lower concentration.
23 THE WITNESS: Yeah, Yeah.
24 MR. RAPP: Was there a problem operating at that 25 lower concentration?
25 1 MR. WEINBERG: You mean was it difficult or --
2 THE WITNESS: There was -- ,
3 MR. RAPP: Was there a plant problem? Was there 4 some sort of operation -- -
5 MR. WEINBERG: Like a systemic type opera-6 tional --
- 7 THE WITNESS: Well, it was certainly -- I mean, 8 it was easier for the operators to maintain tlaat hydrogen 9 level, you know, less manual evolutions and operations to 10 do that. .
11 MR. RAPP: Uh-huh.
12 THE WITNESS: I mean, it was still -- ,
13 MR. RAPP: Let me try this differently.
14 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
15 MR. RAPP: A little differently.
16 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry.
17 MR. RAPP: Was Chemistry coming back to you and ;
18 saying, this is not enough hydrogen, we need more, we have 19 too much dissolved oxygen in the system?
20 THE WITNESS: Yeah, Yeah, I don't remember. I 21 really don't remember Chemistry -- Well, I don't recall 22 there was a dissolved oxygen problem. I don't recall that-4
- 23 there was.
24 Nor do I remember -- I don't remember Chemistry 25' coming to me and saying this is a problem. I think that 1
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i a:n M 1 they had learned to liveAwhatever the plant had been doing 2 at that time. And when the INPO evaluation came in and 3 said, hey, we have a finding here, I think that's the 4 first time that I -- you know, I got concerned about it 5 and started asking questions.
6 MR. RA PP: So what would be the concern 7 generated by the INPO finding if the folks in the plant 8 didn't have a concern, the Chemistry folks didn't have a 9 concern.
10 THE WITNESS: Well, I think, as you realize, 11 INPO is sort of the industry's OA group, if I can use that 12 term in a large context. And, you know, their charge is 13 to challenge the plants to the high standards, to ask hard 14 questions.
15 They noted in their report that most -- all other 16 plants met that limit, lower limit. And although, you 17 know, we could say that, well, you know, we don't think we 18 have a problem with oxygen here, their answer would be and 19 EPRI's is, yes, but, you know, you may not think you have 20 a problem, but we really don't have enough data to know 21 that this specific level of oxygen or that level or that 22 level is okay. And our experience says you ought to 23 maintain at least this much oxygen to absolutely minimize 24 the fact that, you know, that you may be having corrosion.
25 So I think it was - You know, whether our
27 1 Chemistry people were concerned or not, I really don't 2 recall. I certainly don't recall that any of them came to 3 me with great concerns themselves. {
4 On the other hand, you know, it could be that 5 they had learned to live with how we were doing it. And l 6 -- you know, and INPO came in and raised the issue.
l 7 MR. RAPP: What's the basis for the 25 cc's per
\
8 kg? Are you aware of the basis for it?
9 THE WITNESS: The technical EPRI basis, no, not 10 really. I'm sure it's expressed in their primary system 11 guidelines. But I haven't read those recently.
12 MR. RAPP: There was some discussion, I guess, 13 back in '93 about empowerment and leadership and things of 14 this nature where you talked to all the senior manageiaent 15 department heads --
16 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
I
! 17 MR. RAPP: -- and supervisory personnel, and 18 things of this nature.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes.
20 MR. RAPP: What, basically, was the purpose of 21 that training?
22 THE' WITNESS: I think the train -- First of all,
-23 I think the training -- And I might be incorrect. I think 24 the training was in 1994, 25 But anyway, we called it leadership empowerment.
l 28 !
t 1 And it was our first attempt in.our company and certainly 2 within nuclear to add. as or try to instill a new way of 3 doing buuiness, a new culture, as we were facing a 4 competitive business environment, ab many businesses in 5 our country have done.
G It was given to all supervisors and above. It 7 was a four-day course. Myself and Gary Boldt attended 8 overy one of them. I may have missed one. And we were
'l 9 trying to stress -- And in advance of that we wrote down, 10 you know, what my expectations were going forward on how 11 we wanted.to do business in our group and in our company.
12 And the idea wac to -- Well, you know, the 13 concept was as we go forward we have to be better leaders, 14 we've got to get our people motivated, you know, to come 15 forward and do their best. I mean, all the sorts of ,
16 things that you read about today in American industry.
17 MR. RAPP: You said there were some expectations 13 that were put forward during this training.
19 THE WITNESS: Yes.
20 MR. RAPP: What were those expectations?
21 THE WITNESS: They were under five areas. They 22 were my expectations under these five areas. The five 23 areas that we stressed or five topics that we stressed 24 during the course.
25 MR. RAPP: Can you give specifics about the j
, _ _ , . _ . . . - . - - . - - - - . . . _ . _ _ _ _ . . - . . - - . - - - . - . - , - - . _ . , _ ~ . . - . - ,
29 1 expectations?
2- THE WITNESS: Well, one Of them was called 3 encourage the heart, which is, you know, you want to give 4 people encouragement, praise them for doing well, you 5 know, coach them, those kinds of things.
6- One of them was to -- I've forgotten. What did 7 we call it. Model the way, which is as leaders and 8 supervicors, you know, it's what you do, it's not what you 9 say. You know, you have to set the right example. Here's 10 the things that we expect you -- and what kind of a role 11 model we expect you to do.
12 One of them -- and I'm not going to remember all 13 of them -- had to do with basically it's okay to come 14 forward and challenge old ways of doing business. You 15 know, we want your thoughts, we want your thinking. Don't 36 accept the status quo unnecessarily, et cetera, et cetera.
17 One of them had to d0 with that you need to 18 celebrate victories as you go along. And I can't remember 19 exactly what we called that title.
20 And the fifth one I just can't remember right P
21 now.
22 MR. DOCKERY: This philosophy that you're 23 describing or program, whatever, was it -- what was the 24 genesis of it? Was it human resources?
25 THE WITNESS: Well, it was -- really came from
r l
30 1 my chief executive officer and the senior VP management i 2 team. You know, again, this was like -- The thought f i
3 started in -- I'm sure, in late '93 or so and then 4 culminated in '94 in our case of giving the program.
It was at -- Well, I mean, you've read all the i 5
6 stuff yourself. Hey, we can't in the United States, ,
7 particularly in the utility business, we have to get out ,
8 of this cost plus entitlement mentality, just do what the ,
9 boss says, it will be okay, and just, you know, don't 10 question anything, blindly obey, and the company will take 11 care of you.
12 We realized that we could not survive going 13 forward with the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which <
14 basically dictated competitive market prices at the ,
15 wholesale level, and we know that retail's coming. So 16 that was the genesis.
17 MR. VORSE: Based on the philosophy that was ,
18 imposed during this empowerment seminar, d3 you think that 19 based on that that the operators felt justified on 20 Septembet Sth in conducting that evolution to be creative and to show that they were taking -- you know, they 4
21 22 weren't just accepting things, that they were doing what 23 they thought was right?
24 THE WITNESS: I think that today they would try 25 tocrationalize and say that gave them okay to do that.
+
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31 !
1 But again, I totally reject that -- rejected that.
2 We, also, as part of our discussion of 3 empowerment we had a lot of -- during each course a lot of 4 detail in exactly what that meant, and that it --
5 particularly in nuclear power it did not mean that 6 everybody goes out and does what they want to. It means 7 that you can question things, you can bring things up, NRC 8 requiremento, wo can challenge them, but we will follow 9 them until we get them changed. And we want you to push 10 for change, but-we have to follow proper mechanisms to get 11 NRC commitments changed. We have to follow proper ways to 12 get procedures changed.
13 So -- And in fact, if you recall, reading all the 14 correspondence, back when -- you know, when the event 15 first came to light, the NRC itself in the inspection 16 report praised them for a questioning attitude.
17 We also made that peint, that that was good. I 18 mean, the fact that you thought something was wrong and 19 you brought it up and stuck with it, that is good. And we 20 said -- I think we were consistent in saying that from the 21 beginning.
22 But, you know, along with the requirement goes 23 the accountability. And let me tell you what was bad. I 24 mean, your motives may have been okay, but your process 25 was wrong. And that was the issue. And did you
32 1 understand that.
2 And that was the total issue in the beginning 3 until this second evolution came to light and the issue 4 became an entirely different one. It was trust and 5 integrity.
I 6 MR VORSE: Could you expand on that a little 7 bit?
8 THE WITNESS: The second --
9 MR. VORSE: What you mean by trust and 10 integrity.
11 MR WEINBERG: Trust and integrity.
12 THE WITNESS: Uall, you know, when this second 13 evolution came to light, or at least came to my attentior 14 and management, I mean, needless to say, we were total'.y 15 shocked.
16 Up to that point, I mean, there was just no 17 inclination that they had done this the day before. And 18 in fact, as we now know, one could argue that the day 19 before was wor.3 than September the 5th in that it was 20 less rehearsed, more of a experimental approach. And in 21 that sense it was worse.
22 And so -- And, you know, we didn't know. The NRC 23 didn't know, And you have to ask the question, well, why 24 didn' t . this come forward, particularly f rom the operators, 25 particularly from the shift supervisor and the assistant t
.-h-- w- - g -y ,--r- 9w--f-<eww.v-jg- y---- -
33 1 shift supervisor.
2 And I think as you realized in our subsequent 3 investigation, we felt that there were a myriad of 4 opportunities for this to come forward. I got reasons, 5 well, we didn't come forward because we weren't asked by OI. You know, a totally inexcusable answer. Well, the 6
7 data didn't -- really didn't help or make our case, so we 8 didn't want to talk about it.
9 And of course, as time went on, you know, it 10 wouldn't have been a big issue if on September the 20th 11 comebody said, well -- let me tell you'we all said that on 12 the 4th, you know, we should tell you that. We could have 13 dealt with it then, p, g 7 g(, f 14 But when it gets to be July the 15th gand we're 15 about to have an enforcement conference and their 16 attorneys say, hey, we better tell you something, anc then 17 from our own people, you know, we start getting, hey, did 18 you know, then that's -- that's totally irresponsible, and 19 then it's a matter of integrity.
20 I can't -- I can't have shift supervisors --
21 assistant shift supervieors that I can't totally trust. ,
22 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, were you aware that 23 various individuals invo'ved in this issue who were 24 questioned by OI were told by corporate counsel not to 25 respond to anything that wasn't asked by OI? That was the
34 1 advice of counsel? ,
2 THE WITNESS: I wasn't aware that that's the
, 3 advice of counsel.
4 MR. DOCKERY: That was the testimony that we 5 received from various witnessed, that that was -- their -
6 instruction was that to be fully responsive to any 7 questions --
8 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
9 MR. DOCKERY: -- but the way to deal with OI was 10 not to volunteer information, to respond only.
11 MR. RAPP: You said earlier that --
12 MR. WEINDERG: When you say counsel, by the way, 13 are you talking about Gerald Williams?
14 MR DOCKERY: Yes, sir.
15 MR. WEINBERG: Okay. i 16 THE WITNESS: And unfortunately, Mr. Williams 17 isn't here anymore, or you could ask him.
18 MR. RAPP: You said earlier that Mr. Fields and 19 Mr. Weiss' attorneys n, n -- or attorney made mention of 20 the September 4th event.
21 THE WITNESS: No, I believe it was -- As you 22 recall, I think you know that there was an attorney
-23 representing Mr. Weiss and Mr. Fields because they were 24 exempt. And-we had an attorney representing the 25 bargaining unit people.
, , , , . c ,- , -.. , , , , , ,,- .--
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35 1 As I recall, Gerald Williams had gotten a call 2 from the bargaining unit attorney saying, hey, you know, 3 here's something that you might want to explore.
4 MR. RAPP: Okay.
4 5 THE WITNESS: Okay.
6 MR. RAPP: You also said that you were getting 7 information from the people in the plant at the same time.
8 THE WITNESS: Well, about that name time, in 9 fact, eitber the same day or the day before, our employee 10 concerns representative, Vic Hernandez, had received an 11 anonymous correspondence saying that there had been a 12 previous evolution, 23 And I think the very next day that person who had 14 written the anonymous thing to Hernande: came forward to 15 our mair.tenance manager, who then talked with our plant 16 manager, and then it all came out. And then our plant 17 manager informed me, I informed the NRC, and then I think 18 that day or the next day our plant manager talked to Dave 19 Fields and he said, yes, you know, they had.
20 So all that happened over a couple of days.
21 MR. WEINBERG: Just all the names. The engineer 22 you're -- I mean, the person you're talking about was 23- Czufin --
24 THE WITNESS: Dave C:ufin.
25 MR. WEINBERG: -- who talked to Ron Davis, who's 3
36 I the maintenance manager --
2 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yeah.
3 MR. WEINBERG: -- who talked to Bruce Hickle --
4 THE WITNESS: Bruce Hickle.
5 MR. WEINBERG: -- who is the plant manager.
6 THE WITNESS: Right.
7 MR. WEINBERG: All right.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Thanks for clearing that up 9 because that does become a problem later on --
10 MR. WEINBERG: Okay. Right.
11 THE WITNESS: Okay.
12 MR. DOCKERY: -- in reading the transcript.
13 MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
14 THE WITNESS: Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Dave 15 Czufin, who was the -- at that time I think he was still 16 Engineering. He's now our Maintenance manager -- or 17 Mechanical Maintenance manager.
18 Dave Czufin -- And all this is in our -- You 19 know, what I'm telling you is what came out of our 20 internal investigation. I don't know if it was Dave or 21 the person that reported to Dave, an engineer, who read 22 the NRC report, inspection report that set up the first 23 enforcement conference, realized that, hey, there's l
24 nothing in-here about September the 4th.
l 25 And he, that system engineer -- and it's all in 1
l
37 1 our report -- was aware that there had been one. And he 2 came forward and told Dave, and then -- You know, so thank 3 goodness, Czufin came -- finally came forward and -- you- r 4 know, and we found out about it.
5 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, it has been asserted by 6 both Mr. Weiss and Mr. Fields that because of the 7 invalidity of Curve 8 --
8 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
9 MR. DOCKEEY: -- that the evolution they 10 conducted on both the 4th and the 5th, and because of 11 precautions that they took, the plant had probably -- was 12 probably safer on those - during those two evolutions 13 than it had been at any time previously when being 14 operated at or near Curve 8.
15 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
16 MR DOCKERY: How would you respond to that?
17 THE WITNESS: I would -- I say that's incorrect.
18 They're just -- They're trying to rationalize their 19 position. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
20 At these other times when the operators were 21 trying to maintain that high, you know, hydrogen level, 22 and at times were on the curve and may even have gone a 23 little bit over it, a curve which we subsequently on 24 December the 16th found out it was a design curve, not an 25 operator curve, but anyway on those other occasions, as I i
i
38 1 understand it, very briefly we might have been on the 2 curve or a little bit above it, not sitting there, you 3 know, for 35 minutes in alarm.
4 So, no. I reject that. I do not believe that.
5 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. You mentioned December 16th i 6 you became aware that --
7 MR. WEINBERG: What he meant was November the 8 16th is when NRC was notified about the design issue.
9 THE WITNESS: Yeah, Yeah. Right.
10 MR. DOCKERY: It was November the 16th?
11 THE WITNESS: Yes. I'm sorry.
12 MR. WEINBERG: Yeah. He didn't mean to say --
13 THE WITNESS: What did I say?
14 MR. WEINBERG: You said December the 16th.
15 THE WITNESS: Oh, okay.
16 MR. DOCKERY: And I took it at face.
17 MR. WEINBERG: I apologize. I mean, I apologize 18 that I interrupted him. But I know it's November --
19 THE WITNESS: You're right.
20 MR. WEINBERG: It 's the middle of Noveniber, not 21 the middle of December, 22 THE WITNESS: Right.
23 MR. DOCKERY: We would have caught that eventually, I hope.
25 MR. WEINBERG: Right.
.~ . ,.- . .... .. _ - - . - - - _ , . . - . . . - . . - - - . . ... . ,
4 J-39- ,
.1 THE WITNESS:-
Yeah. .
2 MR) DOCKERY: But it would have'been e
. insignificant, 4' THE WITNESS: Yeah.
5 MR._ DOCKERY: Okay. November 16th it came to 6 light tha it was a design basis curve.
7 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
8- MR DOCKERY: Mcw did that occur, to your
. 9 -knowledge?
10 THE WITNESS: Well, after the problem report was written documenting the fact that during the evolution 11 12 that the curve did not appear to track properly, the 13 engineers -- and I think we got some design engineers 14 involved in this case, more involved in that follow-up 15 work, handled it, and going back and reviewing all the 16 calculaticns. And we had licensing more involved at this .
.17- point.
18- We came up with a scenario. And I can't remember 19 all the details, but it's documented in, I think, the 20 letter I sent Stu Ebneter. Well,_I'm-not -- It's 21 documented:somewhere. I'm sure you all have read it.
- 22. It's-in our investigation report.
23 _ There is a . scenario where in, you imow, taking a 4
24- conservative' approach, we felt that, yes, if you were on 25= that curve under that scenario, you know, that is -- you 4
4
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40 1 would -- that-would be a design limit. Okay? ,
2 We also know -- Well, let me go back a little 3 bit. I think that you also realize that we are continuing-4 to find out that for a long time a lot of our curve set 5 points and what have you at this plant did not have proper 6 instrument error drift, and all that sort of thing.
7 In ether words, we had a design basis number and a we didn't properly take into account all the inaccuracies <
9 that might apply to what the operators would read to 10 operate the plant. Okay? And we're -- We've been into 11 this issue for about a year and we're continuing.
12 But this Curve 8. which all of us thought, up 13 until we, vou know, had this session on December the 16th, 14 or whenever it was -- and I was present --
15 MR. WEINBERG: November.
1C MR. DOCKERY- November.
17 THE WITNESS: November 16th. I'm sorry. We 18 thought was an operator curve. And what that means to me, 19 and I've been an operator, is that whatever the design 20 limit is or design basis, you know, it's somewhere like 21 this, you don't give that t'e operators that operate the 22 plant. You take that,-you put in instrument error drif t, 23 and all that sort of thing. You then probably add or 24 should add another margin and give them what I call an 25 operator -- That was not an operator curve, although we 4
I
41 1 did not understand that. Okay?
2 And so on December (sic) the.16th this all came 3 to light. We realized that under that one scenario that's 4 described in our letter that it was, in fact, a design 5 basis curve. And we so reported that and wrote an LER on 6 it.
7 MR. WEINBERG: And is that what you're talking 8 about, the LER on the 19th that described the -- what you 9 all figured out on the 16th?
10 THE WITNESS: Yes. And there's also a letter 11 '?cm our Design Engineering Group or Engineering Group 12 that fully -- more fully axplained that that's in some of 13 the correspondence that we provided to you. I mean, a 14 basis for making that decisio, 15 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, is it correct or fair 16 to say that Curve 8, as it existed in September of 1994, 17 was invalid or incorrect?
18 THE WITNESS: 'c s.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Was that invalidity based on 20 incorrect assumptions or faulty calculation, to the extent 21 you know?
22 THE WITNESS: Yeah, I think it was -- I think 23 it was based on -- probably had elements of both, the fact 24 that it was a design basis curve and not -- didn't have a 25 proper, you know, conservatism for an operator.
42 1 There were some calculational problems involved 2 in it. :So I'd say,-you know, both~ofithose things came:
3 into play, as we now know. l 4- MR. DOCKERY: - Did.it ever come to' light that 5 that particular Curve 8 was intended to be valid'only 6 - through refueling-state or fueling cycle eight?
L7' ~ THE WITNESS: No . - I'm not sure.
i 8 MR. DOCKERY: Is that -- Okay. You --.
9 - THE WITNESS: No. It doesn't' ring a bell with i 10 me.
11 MR DOCKERY: Okay. The -- We are in agreement, 4 12 though, that the -- it was based on faulty calculations?
13 THE WITNESS: Well, I think it was partly that.
14 And I think it was partly some incorrect assumpt!.ons. And m
15- I think more than -- And I think in addition-to that it 16 was-the fact that, you know, we gave them a curve that was 17 intended to be the design basis, not an operating curve.
18 You know, you've got to give the operator some margin.
H 19 Okay? I mean, we now know that.
20- MR. DOCKERY: Who had the primary responsibility 21 in responding to-the concerns of the operators regarding.
- 23 that curve?
l 23 THE WITNESS: The operators work for the manager 24 of nuclear operations, who works for-the plant manager..
25 Okay?
E -
i,--
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- 43 1 The primary responsibility for -- In that sense,
- 2. the primary responsibility for meeting the concerns of the 3- operators was the Plant Manager through the Operations 4 manager.
-5 To meet that responsibility, though, there was a 6 -- certainly a large dependency on our system, our site 7 engineering organization at the time.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. If I understand you 9 correctly, then you are saying that Engineering -- Systems 10 Engineering would act in the capacity as an advisor to 11 plant management on the issue. Is that fair?
12 THE WITNESS: W0ll, it's more than advisor.
13 It's as a technical expert to plant management. I mean, 14_ we depend on Engineering for a lot of things on a very 15 strong, you know, support role, expertise support role. I 16 mean, much more stronger than advisor. I mean, just as I 17 would use that term.
18 MR. DOCKERY: Who had the responsibility to say,
'19 Curve 8 is accurate and non-conservative, or conservative?
20 THE WITNESS: Engineering.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
22 MR. WEINBERG: System or Design or both?
23 THE WITNESS: Well, the -- At that time it was 24 System Engineering on site had that responsibility, headed 25 by Mr. Jerry Campbell.
?
h i
44 j 1' MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard,,there is a' memorandum
_2 dated -- And, Sandy, youimight want'---
, 3 MR.' WEINBERG: Ingot it. ;
4 MR.,DOCKERY: -- want to show that to him.
5- MR. WEINBERG: You're talking:about the 6 September-2nd letter?
7 MR. DOCKERY: The September 2nd.
- 8. MR WEINBERGr Here you go. >
9 MR. DOCKERY:.- And I --
10 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
11 MR. DOCKERY: It would probably be a good idea 12 for you to review that, Mr. Beard. We'll go off the ;
13- record while you do so.
14 THE WITNESS: Okay.
4 15 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 12:00 16 Noon, after which the proceedings resume at 12:05 p.m. as 17 follows:
Okay.
18 MR. DOCKERY: We'll'go back on the
-19 record.
. 20 And, - Mr. Beard, I need to remind you that you 21 remain under oath here.
2 2 :- THE WITNESSt Yes.
23 MR.~DOCKERY: While we-were off the reccrd you, 241-had'an opportunity to review 1a-memorandum. And for-the 25 sake of the. record, will-you identify that memorandum, t
-,~ . ,.- .- . ,, , . , . . _ . . , _ _ _ , , . . _ , ,
i 45 1 THE WITNESS: Yes. This memorandum is dated 2 September the 2nd, 1994. It's to Bruce Hickle, who_is the 3 and was at the time the plant manager, manager-of nuclear !
4 operations. And the subject is makeup tank hydrogen 5 ove rpressure . And it is signed by Jeff -- or J.P. --
Pat 6 Hinman, J.P. Hinman, and Jerry Campbell, 7 MR; STENGER: Pat, you said manager of nuclear 8 operations. Did you mean director of --
9 THE WITNESS: Director of nuclear operations, 10 yes. Or plant manager.
11 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, directing your 12 attention to the first paragraph of that memorandum --
13 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
14 MR. DOCKERY: -- and with respect to -- in the 15 middle of the paragraph --
16 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
17 MR. DOCKERY: -- changes to OP-103B, Curve 8 --
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 MR. DOCKERY: --
" Engineering believes this 20 curve is accurate and reasonably conservative to protect 21 the high pressure injection _ pumps from hydrogen gas 22 intrusion in the worst case large break LOCA. "
23 THE WITNESS: Yes. Uh-huh.
24 MR. DOCKERY: Based on what you know today, is 25 that statement correct?
.g
b I
46 -i
-1 LIE WITNESS: No,-it's not correct today.
NR. DOCKERY: The fact that Curve Number 8, J
3 'which we've heard it referred-to as an' administrative
-4 curve-or-an operating curve -- .
5' THE' WITNESS: Yes.
6 MR.-DOCKERY: -- was not discovered to be
- 7~ design basis curve, by your testimony, did not occur until 8 somewhere on or about November the 16th.
9 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
10 MR. DOCKERY: Which would be approximately a 11- month and a half after the date of this.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes.
13 MR. DOCKERY: The -- We have testimony, and I 14 believe you've agreed with it, correct me if I'm wrong, s
15 that the calculations that that --
that were used to 16 define or generate Curve 8 were not conservative, and 17 consequently the curve was not accurate. Is that a fair
'18 statement?
19 THE WITNESS: Well, the curve certainly was --
- 20: It was not accurate. I think more than that, it was a 21 design basis-curve and not an operating curve that gave -
22 -as we now-know,- that gave'the operators some margin.
21 And I mean,.that's, I think, the thing that I
'24. find.most problem with it. -
25 MR: DOCKERY: Okay. My reading of that 4
i
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47- i
~1L ' memorandum would lead me to believe that it was-the intent-
.2 of the writer or the sect' ion 1that generated that --
3 . THE WITNESS:' Uh-huh..
'4 MR. DOCKERY: -- letter to close the matter out.
5 Is that correct?
6 IRE WITNESS: I don't know.- I mean, r: is wasf to-7 Bruce Hickle, and which -I- think makes my point. You know,-
S you asked-me earlier thae. - - who's responsible for, you 1
9 know, addressing the concerns of operators. And I said 10 it's the plant manager, 11 Well, I think this -- With certainly strong 12 technical advise and support from Engineering, I think 13 this1 bears it out. It's from -- again, from System 14 Engineering to the Plant Manager.
15 Whether this was their intent to close it out, it 16 would be if Mr. Hickle was satisfied with it. And I think 17 we-know that.he was pursuing that with the operators 18 whether or not they were satisfied with this, as we have,
- 19 I think, by Mr. Fields' own letter and testimony.
4 20 So.I would say not necessarily. It would depend 21 on when the_ plant manager was satisfied with the issue.
22 And I think - Well, another point-I think is important is that the problem report that was written back 23 24 when we-ran the surveillance procedure and, you know, had 25 noted:the problem. problem report 94 149,.was still being 1
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1 pursuedi l 2 - InLfact, you know,.had not_this event -
s
-3 evolution taken-place-and_all the subsequent, one might 4 evenLsurmise that if we had had; time and.-- to run that- ,
5 ene down to_ ground, we might have resolved it. But1that's 6 supposition.
7 MR. DOCKERY: All right. Asking you to suppose 8 something else, suppose you were Mr. Hickle --
9 THE WITNESS:- Yes.
10 MR.-DOCKERY: -- and you received this memo. -
11 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
12 MR. DOCKERY: The memo was directed to you.
13 Would you consider what's contained in this memo and the-14 conclusions to be dispositive to dispose of-the concerns 15 of the operators?-
16 THE WITNESS: Well, I can't speak for him.
17 However, had I gotten it, I would certainly -- In' fact, I 18 would ha;e done what he-had done. I would have gone to 19 the Operations folks, Greg Halnon and the particular shift, who had the major concern, and discussed it with-20 21 him.
22 And which he had -- I think Mr. Hickle, as ass in
. 23 'i'n-our-own investigation-report, said-he personally took_
12 4 this to'the= shift and talked to them about_it, and were -
25 they satisfied with it. And their answer was, as I
49 1 recall, no, we're not sure that we are. Okay. So it 2 wasn't going to be closed out. But then they ran the 3 evolution. Very poor judgment.
4 MR. DOCKERY: As a manager --
5 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh, 6 MR. DOCKERY: -- in reading this memorandum and 7 its conclusions, the contents and conclusions --
8 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
9 MR. DOCKERY: -- would it have been your 10 expectation that the section or individuals that generated 11 that memo would have gone to the calculation that Curve 12 Number 8 was based upon --
13 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
14 MR. DOCKERY: -- and reviewed that calculation?
15 THE WITNESS: Sure. I think they did.
16 MR. DOCKERY: Would it have been your 17 expectation that in analyzing the situation they might 18 have determined that Curve Number 8 was a design basis 19 curve rather than an administrative curve or operating 20 curve?
21 THE WITNESS: Well, that's very difficult to 22 answer in hindsight, you know, where we stand today. And, 23 you know, if I put myself back in what everybody knew at 24 that point, and if I were him. I would say, no, I would 25 not have expected that. I would -- Because we ell t
7 _.7 r .-
l' -
s 50 -t i
1,; believed 1that it was an: operating curve'.- ,
2 I'would_have_; expected them to review,the 3 / calculations, . But ILwould not necessarily have at-this 16 : time expected them to, you know, realize that, hey,_this 5'- is a design-basis curve.-
6 -Remember, also, that at this time we werefalso-
-7 gaining-awareness that--- of-this issue of-improper set.
48 points not, you know, accounting for all those things I've 9 talked about. So all this was going on concurrent. ,
10 At this point, no, I probably wouldn't have ,
'll expected-that.
12 MR. DOCKERY: You'would_not have expected it?
13 THE WITNESS: No. I would not have expected 14 them to realize that it was design' basis. And had this 15 come up today, in view of all that we've learned with set 16 points and calculations _over the past year, you know, I'd 17 probably have a different answer, 18 But.I~have to answer in the context of where we
' 19- wera.at that point.
20' MR. WEINBERG: But he would have expected them 4
21 to review the calculations.
- 22. THE WITNESS: Sure, rartainly.
23 14R. RAPP: Let me Auk another question _ kind of 24 'along the same lines.here. You said.you were aware of the
' 25 SP-630' evolution and.--
4
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MR.' L RAPP :: - and che subsequent problem-reports. ]
3' tha't came-out of that, 4'
- Are you aware of the results of what the SP-630
?/
5 evolution indicated?
6 THE' WITNESS: Well, as I remember 1the concern 7 .was that when SP-630 was run, that one of theimakeup tanks 8 appeared to lose < suction. As I recall, that was the 9: concern. And that's -- The problem report was written, t
10= And the Engineering review of that had, you know,
.11 came up with a reason that they thought that it had lost f
12 suction. i 13- 'MR-. RAPP: Which was?
e.
14 THE WITNESS: I don't remember the technical 15 basis. But it had something to do with the way the SP was 16 run. - And I don't remember the details.
.17 But that was"their -- They felt that was the 18 reacon. And I think -- If I remember now, I might be i
19 incorrect. But I think' Problem Report 94-149, which is 20 the one in case here, also recommended that at the next 21- outage, that this -- which is the one coming up -- that we 22- -- And-we-are-going to run this SP again looking -- you 23 know,;being'ren'dy and--looking for this -- what was
! 24 . observed and, you know, is there something else at. play i
25 here that maybe we -- So we still have action to take-on t
1 L
~
I L
e .
52 1 that, you know, what was observed back the last time.
2 MR. RAPP: Accompanying that same problem report 3 was another issue that the data taken, the makeup tank 4 level pressure data taken --
5 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
6 MR. RAPP: -- during the evolution --
7 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
8 MR. RAPP: -- did not match up with the response 9 predicted or expected by Curve 8.
10 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Yes.
11 MR. RAPP: That's correct.
12 THE WITNESS: I believe that's ccrrect.
13 MR. RAPP: How could Engineering then make these 14 statements that Curve 8 is accurate and conservative in 15 September 2nd when they've got information back from March 16 that says the plant don't respond like this?
17 THE WITNESS: I think -- I think the answer to 18 that is very straightforward. And it may be incorrect.
leGuS HL 4 19 But the Curve 8 is a hypothetical beek of points assuming 20 that at this particular hydrogen overpressure and this 21 particular level in your makeup tank, if we had & LOCA, if 22 we had a LOCA and you're on the wrong side of the curve, 23 you know, you could get gas in the pumps.
24 Draining down the makeup tank during SP-630 or 25 when they ran their evolution is an entirely different
l 53 scenario than a LOCA. And you would not -- In fact, this j 1
2 is a point that I still think some people don't 3 understand. Two different scenarios. And you would not l 4 necessarily expect -- If you just sit here and drain the 5 makeup tank down, normal evolution, you wouldn't 6 necessarily expect that the so-called points that you 7 would plot to plot along this hypothetical curve for LOCA.
8 It's tvo different things. That's the --
9 MR. RAPP: Wnat makes the LOCA different?
10 THE WITNESS: The way that -- Well, the way 11 everything comes down together. In this case this was a 12 very controlled evolution, drain the makeup tank to the 13 reactor bleed tank.
J4 In a LOCA, a large break LOCA, you've got the hoVulth YL $
15 makeup tank coming down, you have the beFal watdr storage 16 tank. And that's the basis of the Engineering position, 27 which I agree with.
18 In fact, I think it's -- You know, the ironic 19 thing about all of this, if I can expand a little bit, is 20 that, you know, what the operators were concerned about --
21 I mean, I'm glad they had a concern. I mean, the positive 22 side is the plant's better off to have all of this. Okay?
23 And we've said that from the beginning.
24 The operators were -- It turned out that the 25 curve was wrong, but not for the reasons the operators
54 1 thought, because in a controlled evolution you're not IcGV$ Y'V 2 going to get the same curve as you get for a -- a bOGAs of 3 hypothetical calculations for a LOCA. It's two different 4 things.
5 MR. RAPP: Engineering represented this curve as 6 being a P1-V1 equals P2-V2 type curve.
7 THE WITNESS: For a LOCA.
8 MR. RAPP I still question what makes the LOCA 9 response different --
10 THE WITNESS: Well, okay.
11 MR. RAPP: -- than what's on a normal drain-12 down.
13 THE WITNESS: Curt, I -- you need to talk to 14 engineers because I don't -- you know, I can't explain all 15 the details, But that's the answer.
16 MR. RAPP: That's the answer Engineering gave 17 you.
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 MR. RAPP: Okay.
20 THE WITNESS: And I understand. And I agree 21 with that. And I say -- You know, the operators were 22 right for the wrong reason. I mean, that's what the 23 ironic part of this is. Okay?
24 The issue is -- Excuse me. You know, the 25 operator issue is, guys, you used -- you didn't follow our
55 1 expectations, what you did was wrong, and the way you did .
2 it by -- what you -- how you went about what you did.was 3 wrong. Had-you come to management, to the plant manager, 4 or at least the shift. manager and said, look, we would 5 like to run an evolution, we'd like to write a procedure 6 for it, here it is, we'd like it spproved by the plant 7 review committee and the plant manager, we may have said, 8 -okay, maybe.
9 But that's not how we conduct business. That was 10 the original issue. And that's all it was. Okay?
11 MR. RAPP: How strongly --
12 THE WITNESS: Sorry.
13 MR, RAPP: How strongly was this 25 kg's per cc 14 represented -- or cc's per kg? How strongly was this 15 hydrogen issue represented to the plant manager or the 16 various managers?
17 MR, WEINBERG: You mean to the supervisors?
18 MR. RAPP: Supervisors.
19 THE WITNESS: To the supervisors.
20 MR. RAPP: The department managers, or whatever.
21 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
22 MR. RAPP: How strongly was your desire --
23 THE WITNESS- Yeah.
24 MR. RAPP: -- for this represented?
25~ THE WITNESS: Well, my desire was, I think, just
56 1 like I said. It was,_let's strive to meet the EPRI limit.
2 We have in our plan of the day, and I think we did -- I 3 think we. started in '93, maybe early.'94. Certainly back 4 in the '94 time frame. Every Thursday we have a number of 5 chemistry graphs that are included in the plan of the day, 6 so to keep all of us aware of what's happening in 7 chemistry.
8 And one of those is a plot of hydrogen 9 overpressure, you know, in the makeup tank. And, you 10 know, so you can clearly see that -- where 25 is and are 11 we meeting that.
12 My expectation and guidance to the plant manager 13 and to Gary Boldt was let's strive to meet the 25 cc's per 14 kg, realizing that sometimes, you know, it's just -- we 15 weren't going to meet it due to other things that -- You 16 know, you have the makeup tank drained down normally 17 anyway. Some other things could be happening in the plant 18 and the operators really couldn't stop and go over and, 19 you know, raise pressure and raise the level.
20 And I think -- And I accepted that. I mean, you 21 could see -- And you could see on our graphs back then 22 that sometimes we fell below the 25 cc's per kg. But my 23 guidance was let's strive to meet it and let's strive to 24 come up with a-long term solution that minimizes operator 25 burden.
i 57 j 1 And in fact, this -- you know, the second part of 2 .this memo -- in fac:, most of it talks about what are the l
3 other options to -- that we could, you know, make this !
l 4 easier for the operators to maintain the hydrogen. j 5 MR. RAPP: During a senior management meeting, l 6 let us say, with department supervisors and yourself 7 present, did it ever come up that some crews were 8 reluctant or some operators had some hesitancy about 9- operatir.' at this higher limit?
10 THE WITNESS: It could have. I don't recall.
11 MR. RAPP: During a meeting bf this nature did 12 you say, find out who these people are and fire them?
13 THE WITNESS: Absolutely not. I mean, you can 14 talk to anybody about how I manage and my expectations.
15 Absolutely not. If anybody said that, they're lying.
16 MR. RAPP: When the September 4th evolution 17 started to surface -- Or, well, I shouldn't say September 18 4th.
19 When it started to surface that there may have 20 been other evolutions --
21 THE WITNESS: Yes.
22 MR. RAPP: -- did you get a phone call or did 23 you talk with Mr. Halnon at-any time about this?
24 THE WITNESS: Somewhere -- Yeah. Samewhere 25 between, I think, January and May or so of '94 I can
1 58 1 recall talking to --
2 MR. WEINBERG: May of '95 you mean. i 3 THE WITNESS: '95. I'm sorry. Yeah, I can 4 recall 1 talking to -- it was either Bruce Hickle or Greg 5 Halnon. And at that time I think that the -- Well, I'm 6 sure that OI had come down to the plant. And so certainly 7 this wholt, issue had a heightened awareness amongst all of 8 us that it was reported to me that, hey, there are some 9 discussion that some other similar evolutions had taken 10 place. And, yeah, it was either Bruce Hickle or Greg 11 Halnon.
12 And I said, well. you know, hey, look into this 13 and report back to me. I got a report back eit.her from 14 Mr. Halnon or Bruce Hickle, I don't remember which, that.
15 hey, we've looked into it, it was -- some data was taken, 16 it was a normal evolution, it was not an unauthorized l
17 evolution. Okay, fine.
18 MR. RAPP: It's been stated during the 19 intervitas that when Mr. Halnen first brought this up, 20 that your reaction was along the lives of if there have 21- been, I want to know who it is so that I can personally 22 fir:e them.
23 THE WITNESS: Absolutely not. That is That's not the way I manage. I've 24 absolutely ridiculous.
25 never managed like that. And if anybody said that,
59 1 they're lying.
2 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, I'd like to go back to 3 the September 2nd memo just for clarification.
4 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
5 MR. DOCKERY: As a manager, do you believe that 6 the findings of this memo --
7 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
8 MR. DOCKERY: -- are adequate with respect to 9 this problem? Are you satisfied with that?
10 MR. WEINBERG: You mean if it were correct? Is 11 that what you're saying? Because I mean, it's a little 12 difficult to answer the question now that he knows that 13 it's incorrect.
14 THE WITNESS: Yeah. I mean --
1" MR. DOCKERY: I think his opinion now is more 16 important than what he felt at the time.
17 MR. WEINBERG: Well --
18 MR. DOCKERY: What is your opinion now of the 19 assertions thaP. are made in this memo?
20 MR. WE.!NBERG : All right. Well, that's a 21 different question. That's the reason I was asking.
22 MR. DOCKERY: Thanks.
23 -THE WITNESS: Well, I mean, today obviously the
'24 statement is incorrect, based on what we know today. But 25 at the time that's what our Engineering people believed.
60 ,
- 1. So --
/
2 MR. DOCKERY: Believed?
3 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
4 MR. DOCKERY:- But wouldn't that belief be based 5 on calculations and -- I mean, it needs --
6 THE WITNESS: Yes. Yeah.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Would you not have expected, as a 8 manager, that there would be some empirical basis --
9 THE WITNESS: Sure.
10 MR. DOCKERY: -- for them to reach this 11 conclusion?
12 THE WITNESS: Sure. Well, empirical, not
.13 necessarily. Most of the design data in our plant are 14 based on theoretical calculations. We have -- In fact, 15 our plant and most nuclear plants, there's very little 16 empirical data for most of the design basis curve set 17 points, et cetera, et cetera, because, I mean, you'd have 18 to have a LOCA to get empirical data, and we don't want to 19 do that.
20 MR. DOCKERY: Well, something was wrong.
21 Engineering reached a wrong conclusion.
22 'THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes. Certainly they did.
23 MR. DOCKERY: And the fact that it was wrong was
- 24. subsequently, perhaps unfortunately, borne out by the-25 events of September the 5th.
1
.. g 1
61 1- THE WITNESS: I think.the' September the 5th -;
~
2 event led us to -- finally to:the right answer. Okay?
3'JAnd that's good.- -
4- But what was bad about.the September Sth event is ,
5" -that the operators conducted an unauthorized-evolution. :
6 The principle is Chernobyl. And that is wrong. And we 7 dealt with that.-
Now, the fect that the engineers made a mistake 9 is'notL acceptable either. People =make mistakes. And, you 10 know, we're dealing with that, j 11 MR. DOCKERY: Has that'been looked into? Has 12 the fact of -- The conclusions reached in-this memorandum 13 and their invalidity, has that been something that has
'14 been looked into by Florida Power, or is it not a matter 15 of great concern?
16 MR. WEINBERG- You mean like discipline type
~
17 looked in? Is that what you're --
18 THE WITNESS: Well, of course it is. Of course,
~19 it's a matter of concern. The reasons why this curve --
- 20- this statement is incorrect was not looked The reasons why}ck'4 4 A M k Tytu
. 21- into by our investigation team, / hvf
- 2 2_- Our Engineering Management team, now headed by A w Q 23 > Paul Tfngpay. (phonetic)- who now -- he was the head of
~
24' Design Engineering at'the time located in St. Pete. He
- 25. now' owns all of Engineering. When we brought.him up here, E _ a_ _. . - _ , . _ . _ _- . _ . _ - _ - . _ _ _ _ - _ _ __ .- _ _
-- 6 2 !
L1L we put him in charge ofiall Engineering. !
2 We've-looked at_this, you know, five ways from.
1 3- Sunday.as to'why it was wrong, what was. wrong-with it. In:
4 fact,.do we know individuals who-made calculstions and, c 5-'you know, they overlooked (some things. >
6 So, yes,--we took11t-very -- of course, we're 7 taking it very seriously.
- . 8 'MR.-DOCKERY
- So is there a matter of 9 .Ancompetence-involved, in your opinion?-
10 THE WITNESS: I wouldn't say incompetence.
1 11 That'sl easy to say at this point. '
'12 MR. DOCKERY: Certainly hindsight is'20/20, C
13 :- right?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. And-I would not -- I 11 5 - would not say incompetence. I have confidence in my 16 engineering team. Did they-make mistakes? Yes. But I 17 .wouldn't-call that incompetent, no. I mean, we wish that 18 we hadn't made the mistake.-
19 But I think that,-you know, in defense.of my
-20 current engineering team,.is that.all of us who are here today. inherited some' basic _ design problems', particularly 21 22 with. regard to calculations and: set points that have been
'23 fin this plant since day one. And we're having to deal -
-24 .with them. And that's-our job.
And I don't use that as an excuse.
25' But that's l
- . , _ . .- .,__ .--. ~.. _-, . - . , . . , , _ _ . .
. .-. - . -. -. . .. . . - .. ~ . - . - - _ - . - . . .- - . .
A 63' 1- the way it is.-
2- MR.-DOCKERY:. -How significant was it that that 3 was_a-design: basis curve as opposed to an administrative 4 curve? Ultimately,-how significant-_is that?
5 THE WITNESS: Well,-I mean, one -- It's 6 significant from 'an administrative process standpoint, for 7 ' darn sure.- I mean, that's -- I mean, that's just very 8 unacceptable to me that we would have the -- When we_give 9 the. operators -- And I have been an operator. I've'come
' 10 -from that side of the house.
11 To_give them a curve and tell them to stay on or'
- 12. below it with no margin for error in the sense that they 13 went over it a little bit, they.were violating design-14 basis, that's not excusable. That's very serious.
15 Now, from a safety standpoint, if you want to go do a probabFe sin % F--
risk a$ssessment and all that, you know, ifs 16
.17 we had had a LOCA with the makeup tank and the hydrogen 18 pressure on the curve or a little bit over, would_we have 19 gasc e_jo de" vn in )
@Lgthe-pumps, I mean, you can calculate that g 20 to death.
21 Probably-not very real'istic that would have been 22 a real safety issue. But that's -- But we're not'trying 23 to use any excuse. The issue is -- the way I see it is
- 24- that you should never give the operators a design curve
_ 25 without any margin. That's unfair to them.
A 1
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o 64-1- M R .-: D O C K E R Y : How t'as it finally determined'that
-2 that.was a design: basis. curve? Who and:how was that
-3 determination made? j THE WITNESS:J That was made by our -- We put 5 together a team of our engineers, which included Syst_em 1
6- engineers, Design engineers, and some' Licensing people.
-7 - And, Sandy,_if we could find that memo, I think-
- 8. it explains-it in plenty of detail.
- 9' MR. STENGER: You mean.the letter?
10 THE WITNESS: No. -It was a memo that was the f
11 basis for - -It's -- A meeting was called and I was asked 12 to be there. -And we went through.the whole rationale.
13 And it's all that --
- 14 MR._VORSE: I've got:it out in my car.
15 THE WITNESS: I've.got a copy in my notes
(.
16 - somewhere.
17 MR. DOCKERY: I've probably seen it, but I
- 18 didn't reali=e it addressed what I'm asking.
19 THE WITNESS: Yeah. I would recognize it if I
' 20 can -- In fact, I-can go find it. But it's explained-21 pretty well in there.
22- MR. STENGER: Hinman or Saltsman prepared it, if
> 23- I recall.
24 MR.-WEINBERG: At a break I'll go and'look out
- 25 in the car.
8 y-pe+ a-uhe='T=M- 7 m---- g - i 9-- +Fy ete+- -w o a w- m = .- -A., 3- -g teet-
i 65 1 THE WITNESS: I think Brian Gutherman may have 2 signed it. We'll get that for you.
-3 MR. RA?P: While you're looking for that let me 4- ask you a question here. You said --
5 MR. WEINBERG: Well, hold on one --
6 MR. RAPP: Okay, fine.
7 MR. WEINBERG: I mean, since he was in the 8 middle of that question --
9 MR. RAPP: Oh , okay.
10 MR. WEINBERG: -- which is what did they -- how 11 did you all figure this out or wno figured it out, you 12 might ought to finish it.
13 There was a group of, you said, a team --
14 THE WITNESS: Okay. I'll tell you what. I know 15 where it is. My December 2nd letter to Mr. Ebneter. It's 16 an attachment to that letter.
17 MR. WEINDERG: Okay.
18 THE WITNESS: Okay. Do you have that letter?
19 MR. WEINBERG: That's fine. I've got the 20 letter. Let's see if I have the whole attachment here.
21 Hold on. Hold on.
22 MR. DOCKERY: We'll go off the record while 23 we're looking for the documentation.
24 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 12:30 25 p.m., after which the proceedings resume at 12:34 p.m. as
-r , - - -
66 1 follows:)
2 MR. DOCKERY: We'll go back on the record.
3 While we were off the record -- Well, first of 4 all, Mr. Beard, I remind you that you continue to be under 5 oath.
6 THE WITNESS: Yes-7 MR. DOCKERY: And while we were off the record 8 we discussed and you reviewed a memorandum or an 9 interoffice correspondence.
10 Wculd you describe that for the record, please.
11 THE WITNESS: Yes. I've reviewed a interoffice 12 correspondence from Nuclear Engineering Design to a Mr.
13 Ray Yost, who was in our licensing group, I believe at 14 that time was in licensing.
15 The subject is Crystal River Unit 3 Problem 16 Report 94-0267, makeup tank one level / hydrogen pressure.
17 Corrective action on plan item 94-0267-2, design basis 18 issue determination. And it says file SP94-077. And it's 19 signed by Brian Gutherman, Supervisor, Nuclear Engineering 20 Design, Mechanical.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Now, my question to you.
22 sir, was at some point around November the 16th it became
-23 apparent --
24 THE WITNESS: Yes.
25 MR. DOCKERY: -- that Curve Number 8 was a
t 67 1 design basis curve as opposed to an administrative or 2 operating curve.
3 How was that discovery made?
4 THE WITNESS: This discovery was made by our 4
5 engineering people in follow-up to Problem Report 94-0267, 6 which was written to document the phenomena that were 7 noted during the unauthorized evolution of September the 8 Sth.
9 As Mr. Gutherman explains here, that the curve --
- 10 or the existing curve in OP-103B was developed to provide 11 makeup tank pressure level limits which ensure high 12 pressure injection pump integrity during a-borate water 13 storage tank draw-down phase of a large break LOCA 14 accident.
15 Then he goes on to sa.y the werwc case large break 16 LOCA accident analyzed for Crystal River 3 from a core 17 cooling and containment integrity standpoint is a cold-leg 18 break. Operation in the unacceptable region of the 19 OP-103B curve at the onset of a large break LOCA would 20 result in damage to the HPI pumps due to hydrogen 21 entrainment from the makeup tank.
22 And here's a key statement. HPI is not modeled 23 as an essential system for core cooling for these large 24 break LOCA analyses, 25 So what I'm saying, for a cold-leg, this is a w v.y-- ,n - -
y , , ,, --ww
68 1 cold-leg of the reactor coolant system break. In our 2 design basis high pressure injection was not required to 3 address that -- those large break LOCA analysis.
4 How, here's where we went however. And this is 5 where we took a conservative approach. One unique LOCA, 6 not large break LOCA, but just loss of coolant accident, c) M?& ;
7 deserving of specific discussion is a postulateve br6ak in 8 a core flood line, not a cold-leg of the reactor coolant 9 system. l 10 Since lo' pressure injects to the reactor coolant 1\ vessel through the core flood lines, any cooling water i
12 from low pressure injection in the train containing the 13 break would not reach the vessel. Considering a single 14 failure of the power source to the other train, which we l 15 have to consider in the design basis, no low pressure 16 injection would be available for core cooling.
17 And then HPI then is -- I stuck that in. That's la fine. And }!PI would be used to mitigate this event in the 19 short term.
20 Also, the core flood line no::les have inserts 21 which limit the break size to .44 feet squared, considered 22 an i.itermediate break, not a large break. The flow-down 23 rate for this LOCA is rapid enough to prompt systems to 24 respond as they would in a large break LOCA, which --
25 Okay.
i 69 1 Therefore, suction head -- And in this case now 2 we're saying that we really ought to take credit for HPI, 3 whereas in the large break LOCA's we didn't. In this we 4 should.
. 1 5 Then he goes on to say, therefore -- and this is !
6 where he gets into where the -- if you consider HPI is 7 needed in this case, then it is part of the design basis.
8 And it said, the flow-down rate for this LOCA is rapid 9 enough to prompt systems to respond as they would in a -
10 large break LOCA. Therefore, suction piping head losses 11 would be comparable to thoso for a cla'ssic large break i 12 LOCA. The suction piping head losses are a critical 13 parameter in determining the initial conditions defined by 14 the curve.
15 This, in turn, makes the OP-103 curve a design 16 limit for this event, the special one I'm talking about.
17 An.. up to that point it had not been considered.
18 So I don't know if that will help you, but - -
19 MR. DOCKERY: Was there anywhere in the plant or 20 in your document system a document pertaining to Curve 21 Number 8 which identified it as a design basis curve?
i 22 T!!E WITNESS: I don't - -
I really don't know. I 23 don't think so. But I - - I really don't know.
24 MR. DOCKERY: So rather than coming across some 25 document that indicated that study by this -- the 4
Sr--e4-+e-"- :y-T- T?wMet -rr7- --
-+2w+- *--- w *+mm-
70
, i inoividual you just quoted --
2 THE WITNESS: Yes.
3 MR. DOCKERY: -- was what determined it to be a ,
4 design basis curve.
5 THE WITNESS: That's my understanding, yes.
6 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. In your mind, did that 7 change the severity of the actions by the operating crew 8 on September the 5th?
9 THE WITNESS: Well, in hindsight it did. I 10 maan, in the sense that -- But they didn't know they were ,
11 -- It did in a -- in an overall sense. With respect to 12 how we viewed the operators, no, it didn't make any 13 dif f erence because they didn' t kr.ow. So you certainly 14 can't hold that against them. And we didn't.
15 And that's never been an issue with the 16 operators. I mean, they didn't know.
17 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, was there anybody in la the corporate chain of command above you who was concerned 19 with maintaining the 25 cc per kilcgr.*m hydrogen pressure?
20 THE WITNESS: No.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Just so we understand what your 22 expectations are as a manager, after the -- Mr. Fields and 23 his crew were made aware of the September 2 memorandum 24 that we've been referring to here, what would your 25 expectation have been that they should do after receiving
71 1 this memo --
2 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
3 MR. DOCKERY+ -- in order to pursue --
4 THE WITNESS: Yes.
5 MR. DOCKERY: -- what was an ongoing --
6 THE WITNESS: Yes.
7 MR DOCKERY: -- concern?
8 THE WITNESS: What they should have done, in my 9 view, is met with Mr. Halnon and Mr. Hickle, either 10 separately or together, and expressed their further 11 concerns as to why they felt that the -- And remember why 12 they felt that the -- stated in the September 2nd letter 13 that the operating curve was conservative why they 14 disagreed with that.
15 Now, the rest of the September 2 memorandum dealt 16 with options that could be taken to alleviate the operator 17 burden. That's what I would expect them to do.
18 If they had failed to receive satisfaction with 19 that, well -- which I think very unlikely, they could have 20 called me directly. I often stop by the control room.
21 They could have talked with me, They could have used our 22 employee concerns program, es.t er anonymously or, you 23-_know, put their name on it. ;iey could have written and 24 probably -- another problem report, you know, saying what 25 they thought was the problem. Anyone can write a problem
6 72 1 report, and people are encouraged to do so. So there were 2 a number of avenues they could have taken.
3 MR. DOCKERY: Well --
4 THE WITNESS: But to go and just run an 4
5 evolution is not acceptable.
6 MR. DOCKERY: They had generated -- Or two --
7 It's my understanding two problem reports regarding this 8 issue had been generated up until that time. ,
9 THE WITNESS: Well, I --
10 MR. DOCKERY: No. I'm sorry. One. One. ,
11 THE WITNESS: I think one. I think after the --
12 MR. DOCKERY: Ha's correct.
13 THE WITNESS: -- SP-630 -- And recall that 14 actions were still in progress to complete that particular 15 problem report. So they had not been completed yet.
16 MR. DOCKERY: Witnesses that we have interviewed 17 have been pretty consistent in their statements that they 18 be).ieve that the September 2nd memo pretty much signaled 19 the end of anything that was being done about-their 30 concern. I mean, they have been consistent in stating -
21 that we thought it was over, that.there was nothing more i
23 -we could do to get this addressed.
23 Given that perception, what could they have done 24 at that peint?
25 Understand what they're telling us now. They
5 4
73 1 believed ---
2 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
3 MR. DOCKERY: -- there was nothing else they ,
4 could do to get the matter addressed.
5 THE WITNESS: I don't know what incident you're 6 talking about, but I think I do. And.I think they're 7 coming from hindsight and rationalization at this point.
8 I just told you all the things they could have 9 done. And so to say that this was closed out would -- The 10 plant manager came and talked to them about it and asked 11 them were they satisfied with it. And they said, no, we 12 don't think we are. Okay. And this was on September --
13 It must have been September the 3rd.
14 And then on September the 5th they feel compelled 15 to do this? Well, that's --
16 MR. WEINBERG: On the 4th?
17 THE WITNESS: Well, yeah, on the 4th. That is 18 ridiculous. They're rationalizing.
19 MR. RAPP: Let me put this to you then. The 20 same individuals said tnat when they were presented with 21 che September 2nd letter --
22 THE WITNGGS: Uh-huh.
23 MR.TRAPP: -- that they were told by the person 24 that gave them this letter that Engineering is going to 25 close this thing out unless you've got some more data to
?
t 74 i
i give them. They were specifically told that. l 3- Now play -- l
-3 -THE WITNEES: If that's true -- }
-4 MR. RAPP Playing into-that their -- the issues ,
l 5 they've already brought up many, many times over the past j 6 18 months, how would that play into their actions on i
7 . September 4th and 5th? .
8 THE WITNESS: Well, Ourt, I think that's a 9 hypothetical question. I mean, first of all, I don't know
- 10 that they said unless you give us more data. I don't know 11 if that's accurate.
12 I mean, if that's what they say. But I would -- -j 13 You know, I mean, I don't want to answer a hypothetical ,
14 question. I'm not sure that that's what was told to them,
- f
- 15. I don't believe that it was ,
16 And even if it was, the end never justifies the
. 17 means. They still should not have done that. Totally 18 unacceptable. What's the crisis? I mean, you just --
19 They're trying to rationalize now. And, Curt, I don't i 20 accept that, I'm sorry, i 21 MR. DOCKERY: Clearly we have a-difference in ,
- :22 perception.. But you have to understand, Mr. Beard, we P
23- acceptcall-testimony as factual.
24 THE WITNESS: Of course. Of course, you have .
~
25l to. I understand that. Certainly. And I'm not in any
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75 I way trying to -- You're doing your job and I understand 2 that. But I'm telling you what I feel and I believe.
3 MR. VORSE: Mr. Beard, do you know what cc per 4 kg is operating at now with the new curve?
5 THE WITNESS: Yes. It's running -- It's 6 averaging right around 25. And -- But it's dipping a ,
7 little bit below a couple of times, I saw it this past 8 Thursday.
9 But it's generally at or above 25. So the peint 10 is that even with the operator burden that -- and 11 certainly we want to alleviate that an'd we have plans to 12 do so -- In fact, one of the options discussed in that 13 September the 2nd letter, we're maintaining pretty much 14 the limit which says we can do it, even with the new curve 15 which is more restrictive in a sense, although we have 16 given them some additional margin by raising the maximum 17 pressure that they can go to. So --
18 MR. RAPP: You remarked several times that this 19 was an unauthorized evolution.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
21 MR. RAPP: What plant procedures or plant 22 documents define authorized evolution? ,
23 THE WITNESS: Well, we have to talk in the i 24 context of that time. Okay?
25 MR. RAPP: Uh-huh.
, -,,----,,,-e,,--. . , - - - , , - - , - ,
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76 ;
1 THE WITNESS: And there were several documents i 2 and -- AI-500, I think it's AI-404 and/or 402 -- And I 3 think they're pretty well laid out in our own ;
4 investigation report. Those are -- That, and the training S that they have continuously, as you know, on how we expect 6 things to be done, the lessons learned from industry 7 events, including Chernobyl, which has certainly been gone 8 over with the operators.
? So you take all of that in context and it's quite ,
10 clear to me that there was plenty of guidance there.
11 Also, I think the fact that all the other shift 12 supervisors -- and again, this is in our own report 13 would not have done that and they so stated that they 14 considered it unacceptable to get an alarm, for example, 15 and stay there for some extended period of time.
16 Today our guidance is even better.
17 MR. RAPP Let me get into that area just a 18 little bit then, too. What -- At that time, of course --
19 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
20 MR. RAPP: -- what did AI-500, conduct of H21 operations, relate to responding to alarms?
22 THE WITNESS: Curt, I'd have to read it. I 23- don't remember specifically. I'd have to go back and --
24 you know, and read -- you know, look at all that.
25 But I mean, it's in there. And I think we have l
4 77 1 versions of AI-500 that existed at that time. I think we 2 do.
3 MR. RAPP: Let me put it in a different context 4 then.
5 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
6 MR. RAPP: You said you've been anlice" cad 7 operator --
8 THE WITNESS: Yes. [th /h MM V7 9 MR. RAPP: --
et cetera. In conducting an 10 evolution and as part of that conduct of that evolution 11 you receite an alarm.
12 THE WITNESS: Yas.
13 MR. RAPP: Is it necessary for you to stop the 14 evolution and respond to the alarm and correct that or can 15 you complete the evolution or --
16 THE WITNESS: Well, not -- Yeah, It depends.
17 It's not necessary that you -- iou're required to respond 18 to it in the cense of acknowledging it. You know, and you 19 understand what that means.
20 You may not necessarily have to take action to, 21 you know, returning to a non-alann condition, depending on 22 what the evolution is or what you're doing and what the 23 procedure says.
24 But in general, you know, general guidance says 25 you get an alarm, you need to certainly acknowledge it.
i 78 1 And then depending on what it is, like if you got a 2 reactor SCRAM, you know, you would certainly do something 3 right away.
4 MR. RAPP: Kind of hard to correct.
5 THE WITNESS: Yes. And you get a lot of alarms.
6 So it depends, I think.
7 But getting back to the case in point, you know, )
8 I think this keeps -- Returning back Lv what I believe is 9 the issue, is that -- is that if they were going to do 10 this, our expectations, our guides, cur training said that !
11 -- And there was no urgency, really. I mean, they say 12 that -- In spite of what they say, there was no urgency --
13 that you need to get permission to do that.
14 They knew they were going to get the alarm. They 15 got the alarm. They stayed with it. That's not the way 16 we do business. You know, you don't -- That was somenhing 17 you just normally don't do. And you should have got 10 pe nnis sion . That was the whole issue from the beginning, 19 the principle was Chernobyl.
20 And I'm --
21 MR. RAPP:- What would have driven then -- What 22 logic process would have driven them into saying, I need 23 to get_ permission for this particular evolution and-I 24 don't need permission for this particular evolution? What 25 separates that boundary?
79 1 THE WITNESS: Well --
2 MR. RAPP: Or delineates that boundary?
3 THE WITNESS: I'll tell you. Ultimately it 4 comes down to judgment of the shif t supervisor. As you 5 and I both know, you cannot write down guidance for G everything. It's something that, I think, All operators 7 have learned. It's certainly nuclear Navy. Admiral 8- Rickover stressed that.
9 If % want trained monk.eys operating plants, ,
~10 fine. But we've got people. You can't -- You know, 11 ultimately you have to give them training and et.augh
'12 policy statement, and depend on them to make the right 13 judgment.
14 And in this case the shift supervisor, by his own 15 admission i". his letter to you -- to the NRC, did not 11 6 cxercise the right judgment, nor did nis assistant.
17 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, if you recall, when 18 were Mr. Weiss and Mr. Fields actually advised they were 19 terminated?. Approximately how long has it been in effect?
20 THE WITNESS: Yeah. I believe it was in -- It 21 was sometime in iagust. I think I'm correct.
22 MR. WEINDERGi Yeah. I think so.
23 THE WITNESS: Yes.
24 MR. DOCKERY: There is some documentation that 25 I've seen that would indicate immediately after the event
80 1 of the 4th and 5th -- well, the 5th they were told, you 4
2 know, maybe you shouldn't have done thac, guys, but we 3 applaud your indepe1dence and your thinking in wanting to 4 ferret out this problem.
5 In other words, it was fairly apparent they 6 weren't going to be fired for anything. I mean, there was 7 nothing that indicated they were.
8- THE WITNESS: Of course. Exactly.
9 MR. DOCKERY: All right. What drove -- What was 10 the event or the knowledge that made the determination t 11 that they would be terminated?
12 THE WITNESS: When we became aware -- Management 13 became aware that they had done the same evolution the o
14 night before in a much less thought-out, carefully 15 rehearsed way, and they, particularly the shift supervisor 16 and the assistant shift supervisor, who had a number of
, 17 opportunities to come forward and tell me, to tell our le attorney who talked to them at length about it I believe 19 in April, and even_though, you know -- You know, I take it ,
20 that we counseled them or Gerald Will.ams counseled them 21 not to answer questions.
22 I think in the broad context of -- And we do have 23 transcripts of one of them -- No, we don't of those two 24 fellows. Van Sicklen. I think they should have come 25 forward then.
1 81 1 Numerous discussior.3 about writing a problem 2 report. There were numerous opportunities, in my mind, ;
3 that they should have come forward. ,
4 When we had our investigation teara in place, we '
5 urged them, at least through the attorneys, to talk to us.
6 They chose not to do so.
7 And then based on what our investigation team ,
6 came up with, that was our -- that was my decision.
9 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Mr. Beard, is it f,.c to 10- say then that if the events of September 4th had never 11 occurred, if there had never been an evolution conducted 12 by those individuals --
13 THE WITNESS: Yes.
14 MR. DOCKERY: -- on that night - -
15 THE NITNESS: Yes.
16 MR. DOCKERY: -- or any time prior to that --
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 MR. DOCKERY: -- they would not have been fired 19 based --
20 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
21 ~ MR. DOCKERY: -- on what occurred on the 5th --
22 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
23 MR. DOCKERY: -- of September?
24 THE WITNESS: That's correct. I think that we 25 convened our management review panel. We took what we P
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82 1 thought was appropriate action at the time. So informed 2 the NRC in my December 2nd letter. And there was no i
I 3 reason to do more than that.
i 4 And in fact, to illustrate the point, one of the !
~
5 operators involved in the September the 5th evolution, I 6 Atkinson, I believe -- ;
7 MR. WEINBERG: Uh-huh.
8 THE WITNESS: -- we found out was not in the 9 September 4th evolution. And no further action was taken 10 against that person.
11 So, yes, the answer is no. I mean, the answer is 12 that we would not have. But after this many months, after 13 all this attention and the principle involved, it >ecomes 14 a matter of withholding. You shou?.d have come forward, 15 particularly in your position, and you did not do so. And 16 I can't accept that --
17 MR. RAPP: When the --
18 THE WITNESS: -- from a licensed operator.
19 MR. RAPP: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to 20 interrupt.
21 THE WITNESS: Excuse me. I'm sorry, too.
22 MR. RAPP: When the evolution had -- You found ,
23 out about the evolution on September lith, or thereabouts.-
24 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
25 MR. WEINBERG: The September 5th evolution.
't
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l 83 1 MR. RAPP: Yes. Right.
2 MR. WEINBERG: Right. Or whenever it was before 3 the 15th.
4 MR. RAPP: Right. That's my --
5 THE WITNESS: Yeah. Sometime in that time 6 frame. Yeah, as I recall.
7 MR. RAPP: How come the letter was not written 8 to Mr. Ebneter until December 5th or 15th, or whenever?
9 THE WITNESS: We -- Let me -- I'll tell you 10 exactly why. Basically I wish I had told Mr. Ebneter 11 sooner.
12 When I found out about it on September lith or 13 so, and then I was told about what my management team 14 intended to do, which I said, very well, proceed with 15 that, I was aware tbit we had informed -- And by the way, 16 I might note that throughout this we've kept the NRC 17 informed. As soon as we knes something, we informed the 18 NRC. You know, informed the NRC.
19 I knew that as soon as we determined that they 20 had gotten this data in an unauthorized manner, that the 21 plant manager personally informed our resident inspector, 22 and then he -- either he or Licensing informed our project 23 manager in Atlanta. And this had to be sometime before 24 September 15th. And I knew that, also.
- 25. At that time -- And again, in hindsight, I wish I
l i
84 1 had picked up the phone and called Mr. Ebneter and said, 2 let me tel). you about something done we did yesterday.
3 But I didn't. And, you know, whatever reasons, other 4 things got on my mind, I don't know.
5 During this time we were having some interactions 6 with NRC on some other issues like the set points and 7 these calculations. And we had asked for a management 8 meeting in Atlanta with Mr. Ebneter and his, you know, JJb -
9 and people of that nature, sometime in November, I believe 10 it was.
11 MR. WEINP RG: I think it was November 22nd.
12 THE WI1.4ESS: Yeah. And I had planned to attend 13 and something came up. I had to be in Washington. And 14 Gary Boldt represented me.
15 At that meeting, as at least conveyed to me by 16 Gary Boldt, Stu Ebneter, I believe, brought this thing up 17 first, very upset about it. It was like he had never 18 heard of it. I think he had used the words, the 19 principle, he says, it's like Chernobyl, or what have you.
20 It really surprised us.
21 Gary Boldt came back somewhat chastened. I 22 immediately -- So this was whatever day Gary told me when 23 he came back. I called Stu -- I called Mr. Ebneter on the 24 phone che next working day, talked about it. I clearly 25 understood where Mr. Ebneter was coming from.
85 1 And so at that point I felt it was my obligation 2 to write him a letter. Because at that point he sounded j 3 like, number one, we didn't understand the importance of 4 the issue and maybe hadn't ' he didn't know what we had 5 done. That was my. impression. Because Gary certainly was 6 not when he -- on the meeting on the 25th was not prepared 7 to discuss all of it.
8 And secondly, he expressed some concern about, 9 you know, why hadn't Engineering already solved this. So 10 I felt compelled to write the letter so he fully 11 understood what we had done, that we had recognized the 12 importance of it, the principle of it. I felt at that 13 time we had dealt with it squarely with the operators.
14 And the second part of my letter talked about 15 that the -- gave a synopsis of the Engineering issues.
16 It's not -- It wasn't -- It's just not a simple issue.
17 And I tried to give Stu some -- Mr. Ebneter some feeling 18 of the technical complexity and what we were doing about 19 it.
20 So that was the basis. And that's why the timing 21 was'when it was.
22 MR. WEINBERG: And if you all can remember, when 23 you talk to Bruce- Hickle and ask him, he will describe, I 24 believe, his conversations with the local resident and Mr.
25 Landis when it -- sometime before September 15th when he
86 ;
- 1. put them on -- when he put the NRG on notice that this had 2 taken place.
')
3 So if you can just make a note of that, he'll l l
4 tell you about what he recalls that conversation -- or l l
5 those conversations were.
6 MR. RAPP: Okay.
7 MR. DOCKERY: I take it then, Counselor, you 8 won't be attending that interview? I feel fairly 9 confident you'll remind us as to do that.
10 MR. WEINBERG: Well, no. I may -- I didn't --
)
11 Well, what i meant by that is that if there's some issue 12 there, it is -- And I don't know it you're going to ask 13 him about it or not. I jurt wanted to put it out.so that 14 you knew. And he has a pretty good -- I believe he has a 15 pretty good recollection of it and, you know, can describe 16 it to you, if you want the detail of it.
17 THE WITNESS. Yeah. By the way, I think you're 18 also aware that the resident inspector's monthly report 19 about that same time frame noted the issue. It was in 20 there as an unresolved URI. And it was noted there.
21 So I mean, I knew that the NRC knew about it.
22 And I just regret that I didn't call Mr. Ebneter 23 personally. That was a mistake on my part.
24 And I can understand that, you know, apparently 25 he had not been informed of it. And I can understand why
l l
1 l
l 87 1 he was upset. l 2~ Sosehen your regional administrator is upset, you 3 know, I react.
4 MR. VORSE: Did you feel any pressure from the 5 NRC to take action against the operrtors? l 6 THE WITNESS: No, none .iatsoever.
7 MR. RAPP: Let me gc .ek to one thing that we 8 were discussing earlier concerni.
- annunciator alarms.
9 THE WITNESS: Yeah.
10 MR. RAPP: You said that you were not familiar 11 with the exact direction in AI-500 concerning alarms.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes.
13 MR. RAPP: Okay. AI-500 does say that if an 14 alarm is due to an evolution in progress, an expected 15 alarm due to evolution in progress, you do not have to 16 respond to it.
17 Mhat is your interpretation or your understanding 18 of what that allowance means in AI-500?
19 THE W'rNESS: . If, for example -- And it was 20 intended to when we run our various surveillances, you 21 know, tests, for example, reactor protection system, to 22 run a lot of the surveillance is you have to put various -
23 channels in bypass and yo. get an alarm.
24 Well, you know, obviously you don't respond to 25 that alarm. You know why it's there. And this SP is an
88 1 approved procedure to be, you know, run. And that's the 2 -intent of that. Clearly the intent of that.
3 MR. RAPP: I have nothing further.
4 MR. DOCKERY: I don't believe I have anything 5 else.
6 Mr. Vorse, nothing?
7 MR. VORSE: No.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard --
9 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
10 MR. DOCKERY: -- obviously we'd like to give you 11 the opportunity now, if there's anything we haven't 12 broucht up or discussed that you feel needs to be 13 diset.:=d, se've been at this quite a while, but we may 14 not have touched on every issue you would like to see 15 raised, and we'd certainly like to afford you the
- 16 opportunity to do so now.
17 THE WITNESS: I don't -- I can't think of any 18 other issues.
19 MR. DOCKERY: Take a moment to --
20 MR. WEINBERG: Well, I mean, there was one --
21 Since we got a copy of what was in the public record room, 22 there was one question in it that suggested that somehow 23 something that Mr. Beard said in his letter to Mr. Ebneter -
24 was incorrect with regard to --
25 MR. VORSE: On the counseling?
89 1 MR. WEINBERG: - whether people were counseled.
2 And so, you know, if that is still an issue in 3 your mind, you know, Pat can address that, I believe.
4 MR. VORSE: Why don't we.
5 MR. DOCKERY: That would be fine. It Nasn't an 6 issue in my mind. But certainly let's get it on tne 7 table.
8 MR VORSE: All right. Fine.
9 MR. WEINBERG: Well, I mean, we were concerned 10 that somebody -- that you all might have thought that 11 there was some intention -- you know, intent to mislead or 12 something.
13 MR. VORSE: It 9ould be good to get that on the 14 record.
15 MR WEINBERG: So --
16 THE WITNESS: Well, I -- You know, the -- As 17 part of the management review panel actions there were a 18 number of things to be done, including counseling of 19 operators, both the shifter and the shift supervisor and 20 . assistant shift supervisor, which was done personally by 21 Mr, Hickle, as well as Mr. Halnon.
22 And then the other shift supervisors and the 23 other shifts. You know, what was the principle involved.
24 What was the lesson learned.
25 And also, I personally met with the shift
90 1 supervisors. They have a periodic meeting of all the 2 shift supervisors. And I believe it was on October 14th.
3 And I personally went over, you know, what the issue was, 4 what the principle was involved. i 5 And, you know, all that was done. I guess not .
6 all that was documented, but there e artainly was no reason 7 back then to, you know, figure out why you had to document 8 this. "dut I expected my management team to carry it out, 9 and to my knowledge, they did.
10 I could just -- Well, if I could one more time 11- summarize the whole thing in my mind as I see it, would 12 that be appropriate?
13 MR. DOCKERY: (Nods af firmatively. : 1 4
14 THE WITNESS: On the one hand -- And let's talk 15 about the operators, particularly the two people that we 16 terminated. That's a very difficult decision. And on a 17 personal basis, you know, I relate to that.
18 I know -- I knew those people. At one time I had 19 t rust and confidence in both of them. And, you know, it's 20 a very difficult and regrettable thing when it comes to '
21 that. I mean, we -- The plant loses expertise. Their 22 personal lives are disrupted. And so on a personal basis 23 you feel for them. Okay?
24 On the other hand, in this business, which is a 25 very tough and demanding business, as I think all of us -
P ya w--, ,ere, m--- -, , ,e - . , , - . . - - - --n.,- -,,,..,w-~c ,, ev - - - -
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i 91 i
1 _know, we have as a management team, and I particularly, !
2 have certain obligat;cns that must be met, including our ;
3 obligations to our people here at the site, to the company 4 -as a whole, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which in ;
4 5 turn relates to public health and safety. j 6 And therefore, when it comes to trust and ,
7 integrity, it cannot be -- there can be no compromise. ;
8 The initial issue with the operators was and is 9 simply that they did not get permission to do what they l 10 did, period. And we dealt with that in the management j 11 review panel, you know, in what we thought was a fair and 12 equitable way the proper amount of discipline, but don't !
13 send a chilling effect. I think there's a balance there, ;
14 The NRC wants -- is trying to achieve that.
15 They had a concern. They were pursuing it.
16 That's good. We er. 'ourage that . You don't want to turn But the ends -- At the same timewe ewcmf / 1 17 that off. jlcim;;;t is 18 a two-way street. You're still accountable for what you i 19 do. The ends don't-justify the means. And so we dealt 20 with that. And we informed NRC.
21 And we felt that we -- And that was sufficient. I 22 In fact, my letter of December the 2nd and my subsequent
. 23 letter on May the 5th to the NRC made the point that we ;
24 felt that Management had dealt with it, and the NRC, you-25 don't need to. We-don't. feel individual enforcement is l
_ - - , , - , , - . _ . , . ,,,-_,,:..._,.._a ._._..-._a_,_. . _ , . _ _ _ _ . ., ._
92 1 necessary. And that was the only issue with the 2 operators. ,
3 Were there other issues? Now, could have 4 Engineering responded better and quicker? Yes. Wish they ,
5 had. And we need to deal with that. And we have dealt l 6 with that. And trat will probably be a matter of 7 enforcement. And that's -- You know, we understand that.
8 We accept that and we've already taken our corrective 4
9 action. i 10 Now, a period of time goes by. This issue is 11 getting a lot of attention. And all of a sudden at the 12 last minute to find out that they had done this before, 13 now the issue is no longer, you know, you should have got 14 permission. The issue is, as a shift manager and an 15 assistant shift manager, and then the other reactor 16 operators, you had an obif gation to come forward and tell 17 us. You knew by this time that what you did was wrong. .
I 18 And if you still in your heart don't believe it, you knew 19 that we felt it was wrong, and you should have come 20 forward and tell us -- told us. It's trust and integrity, 21 guys.
22 And on that basis we took further action. And 23 that was the reason. You know, not because they had 24 raised safety concerns and not -- You know, that's i 25. ridiculous. It was trust and integrity.
l l.
I y
93 1 And the actions we took in August, again, was a 2 graded approach based on the position involved and their 3 responsibilities, as well as their knowledge and what they 4 told us.
5 So -- And I feel that we have properly dealt with 6 the second issue. And we'll stand on it.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Beard, very quickly re'*esh my 8 memory. What was the -- What disciplinary action was. -
9 taken and against whom based solely on the September 5 10 ever,t ?
11 THE WITNESS: The disciplinary action that was 12 taken then, and disciplinary was taken primarily against 13 the shift supervisor-and the assistant shift supervisor --
14 MR. DOCKERY: Which would be Mr. Fields and Mr.
15 Weiss?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, In the sense that certainly 17 they are in charge of the shift. They're the ones that we 18 hold accountable and responsible. They were trought 19 before the management review panel. They were verbally 20 reprimanded by Mr. Hickle. They were observed, you know, 21 in a subsequent session in the simulator in their 22 positions, and so on and so forth.
23 Now, the other operators were also talked to and 24 counseled. I mean, you can say that's discipline or not, 25 depending on how you want to use that term. Okay?
94 1 But again I think -- Well, again, a graded 2 approach was taken, based on the responsibility levels and 3 the expectations of the people involved.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Is there anything more you'd like 5 to add, sir?
6 THE WITNESS: No, sir.
7 MR. DOCKERY: Counsel?
8 MR. WEINBEr . Just the same opportunity for Mr.
9 Beard to read and sign, or whatever you do, the transcript 10 before it's finally certified to.
-11 MR. DOCKERY: No problem. And we'll accommodate 12 you on that.
13 One thing I'd like to add, Mr. Beard, quite often 14 we find we have not asked all the questions --
15 THE WITNESS: Sure.
16 MR. DOCKERY: -- that we could have --
17 THE WITNESS: Sure.
18 MR. DOCKERY: -- or we find that we were working 29 from rather imperfect knowleoge at the time we did an 20 interview.
21 TFE WITNESS: Yes.
22 MR. DOCKERY: I'd like to ask your indulgence.
23 If we need to talk to you-at a later time, we may do it L either in the form of an unrecorded interview or an 25 interrogatory. In any event, it will be through corporate
95 F
1 counsel or --
2 MR. WEINBERG: Well, maybe we could set up a 3 phone interview.
4 MR. DOCKERY: Yeah. That's --
5 MR. WEINBERG: Yod know, with a recorder. You 6 know, if you want to record it, you can record it. That's 7 fine with us.
8 MR. DOCKERY: Okay. Thank you. I don't know 9 that it will be necessary, but just in case it is.
10 THE WITNESS: Well, whatever is necessary. Do 11 you work out of Atlhnta, also?
12 MR. DOCKERY: Yes.
13 THE WITNESS: Okay. Hey, if I need to come to 14 Atlanta, you 'xnow, I'll be happy to do that.
15 MR. WEINBERG: And he comes pretty frequently.
16 THE WITNESS: Yeah. I have a -- still have a 17 room up here. So --
18 MR. DOCKERY: At this point I don't anticipate 19 that. But it does happen quite often. And I just like --
20 THE WITNESS: Sure.
21 MR. DOCKERY: -- everybody to be prepared for 22 that eventuality. I don't know that it will be necessary.
23 THE WITNESS: Sure.
24 MR. DOCKERY: If nobody has anything further --
25 "R. WEINBERG: No. Let's go off the record, if e
~ . _ _ .
96 1 we can, 2 'MR. DOCKERY: Go ahead. We'll go off the 3 record.
4 (Whereupon, the proceedings were concluded at 5 1:10 p.m.)
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'23 24 25
1.- C E R T I'F I C A T E' 2 This11s to certify that theJattached proceedings t 3.
bef' ore'the United States-Nuclear Regulatory-Commission in -
I 4 the matter of:
5 Name of-Proceeding: Interview of Percy Beard, Jr. ;
6 Docket Number (s): 2-94-036 i 7 Place of-Proceeding: Crysta. River,-Florida 8
9 were held as herein appears, and that this is'the original -
10 transcript thereof'for the file of tne United States
. 11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter 12 reduced to typewriting by me or under the-direction of the ,
13 coutt reporting company, nd'that the transcript is a true-14 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
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16 , n n 4 AL. den
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17 Peggy S. May 18 Official Reporter 19 -Neal R. Cross and Co., Inc.
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