ML20202D133
| ML20202D133 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/14/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199L462 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-97-325 NUDOCS 9712040156 | |
| Download: ML20202D133 (46) | |
Text
.
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + ++++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION 5 INTERVIEW 6
7 -----------------------------x
- t. ! IN THE MATER OF: :
9 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
30 DAVID SMITH : (not assigned) 11 :
12 ------------------------------x 13 Tuesday, March 14, 19 [ y,p 14 15 Administration Building 16 2nd Floor Conference Room 17 Public Service Electric & Gas Co.
18 Nuclear Business Unit 19 Hancocks Bridge, N.J.
20 ,
& b O' 21 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 5
P " 22 4:55 p.m.
0 N o<l gh 23 BEFORE:
t u.$
0I 24 KEITH LOGAN, Investigator NEII
"'* 25 BRIAN McDERMOTT, Investigator NEAL R. GROSS CASE NO. 1-95-0l'3 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS EXHlBIT -
-OF.T/g_ PAGE(S) nyuaank ;yn (n c 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W
-,-c- - - , ,
. I 2
1 APPEARAN G 2 On behalf of David Smith:
3 MARK J. WETTERHAHN, ESO.
4 MARC M GELMAN, ESO.
5 Winston and Strawn 4
6 1400 L Street, N.W.
7 Washington, D.C. 20005-3502
,8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 s
'5 4
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRiBCR$
1323 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W t?c2) D44433 W ASHINGTON. D C. 200W (202t 2344433
d 3
. 1 PROCEEDINGS 2
4:55 p.m .
3 MR. LOGAN: On the record.
4 Whereupon 5 DAVID SMITH 6 having been first duly sworn, was called as a witness 7 herein, and testified as follows:
8 MR. LOGAN: Mr. Smith, would you please state 9 your full name for the record spelling your last name.
10 THE WITNESS: David Alexander Smith S-m-i-t-h.
11 MR. LOGAN: My name is Keith Logan. I am an 12 investigator with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 13 King of Pn:ssia, Pennsylvania. With me today is Mr.
14 McDermott.
15 MR. McDERMOTT: Brian McDermott. I am an 16 inspector from the Division of Reactor Safeuy also from 17 King of Prussia.
18 MR. LOGAN: Thank you. You are appearing here 19 today with counsel Mr. Smith?
20 THE WITNESS: Yes sir I am.
21 MR. LOGAN: Mr. Wetterhahn.
22 MR. WETTERHAHN: For the record let me identify 23 myself. My name is Mark J. Wetterhahn from the law firm 24 of Winston and Strawn, 1400 L Street N.W., Washington, I
25 D.C. 20005. With me is Marcia Gelman, another attorney
{ NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 wA$H!NOTON D C 2000$ (202) 2344433
i 4 '
t I with the firm. We are here representing Mr. Smith and as !
4 2 you are aware we have represented a number of other.
3 individuals in this OI investigation and we also represent !
4 the parent corporation PSE&G. >
5 MR. LOGAN: Thank you Mr. Smith,. bearing in {
6 mind that Mr. Wetterhahn does represent cener individuals 7 in this case as well as the corporation, is it still your 8 desire to have him here as counsel today? f 9 THE WITNESS: Yes, it is.
i 10 MR. LOGAN: Thank ycia. t 11 EXAMINATION 12 BY MR. LOGAN: !
13 O Mr. Smith, by way of background could you please 14 tell us what your current position is with PSE&G and other 15 positions that you have held during your tenure here?
16 A My position right now is currently incip4.c (#
17 Mgineer/fdclear/Nensing. Prior to it I have been in 18 this position acting in the position since September of
. 19 '93 and was formally assigned in January of 1994. or to 7
20 thatIwasassignedasthe[ation censing [gineerHop 21 Creek Generating Station.
- 23 O And those are the only two positions that you i 23 have held?
24 A With PSE&G yes sir.
- 25 O Thank you. What is your educational background?
i l NEAL' R. GROSS COURT REPORTiRS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W l (202) 2M4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
- .- - - - - -----~~--~-- - - ~~~~'~~- ~
. 1
. 5
{
' f
, -A I have a Bachelor of Science in Marine i 2 Engineering.
3 -0 Okay. And during your tenure with PSE&G, did 4 you come to meet or know a Mr. Charles Lashkari also known l
5 as Chandra Lashkari? !
6 A I have never met him.
, 7 Q Let's go right to the issue of the POPS. Are '
8- you_ familiar with that? '
9 A Yes, I am.
10 Q Would you please tell us when you first became 11' aware of the POPS issue? 5 12 A It is hard for me to separate from what I know j 13 now versus what I knew then, but based on the records that >
14 I have looked at the first was around the end of March of 15 '1994. ;
16 Q And how was that issue brought to_your 17 attention?
18 A By a guy who works with me Ken O'Gara.
19 Q And what did Mr. O'Gara tell you at that time?
20 A
[f t'*gr5 Like a lot of other issues that he was y king O4it 2 '
od) the issue related to LTOP. I call it LTOP,/n that there 22 was a concern with the engineering group taking credit for ,
23 a code case and-had inappropriately taken credit for a 24 code case and that he_was investigating it and whether or 25 not_we should apply for that code case.
NEAL R. GROSS '
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS
.1323 MHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W -
(202) 234 4 433 WASHW4GTON. O C. 20005 '
(202) 2344433
_-;,. ,__.,..,--.m., - -
t g RY y1 4 }
1 Q And what a ce d:,d you give him when he asked ;
2 if you should apply for the code case formally? t t
3 A Well, really I wasn't heavily engaged in_it. [
4 There was like a lot of other things. It was he did ;
5 indicate that and it is hard for me to differentiate from j 6 what I know now that he needed Engineering to do some work 7 for him in that the code case that they were ta. king credit 8 for at this point that that was inappropriate for them to 9 do that and the credit that they were taking would allow
, 10 us to maintain the existing set point on the LTOP.
11 BY MR. McDERMOTT: i 12 Q Without the use of that code case, what did that 13 mean to the status of the system?
14 A Unless there were some other margins available 15 some place else that would mean that we would have to 16 report that situation because it would render the system {
17 inoperable.
18 Q And were you aware at that time of a draft 19 incident report that was written on January 31, 19947 20 A No , I wasn't. I just became aware of it in the 21 last month.
22 Q Okay. So to your rcrollection then where did 23 the issue go from there?
3 24 A He was working with Engineering with Mahesh 1 25 believe and.V.J. Chandra and I usually don't deal with !
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANO TRANSCR$ERS 2 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHtNGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433 ' 1
- . _ _ . _ ,., _ ..-_ _ _ ~. _ ,_ . ,- - .,- _ ,._._ ._._ _. .~ _ - , ... _ - ... . ,. _ . - .. _ _ -
. . _ ~ . , _ ,
i 1 l 1 v.J. 2 usually deal with Howard Berrick who was his 2 -supervisor, Really my involvement was the expectation 3 that I guess I wasn't concerned that we wouldn't have the 4 margin because the indications I a was that that was the '.
5 easy thing to do was to take the c dl' f 9o%
e case but there was '
6 actually a lot of other margin that could be applied to w+
38 7 theLTOPthatwouldnothaveustogointhatdirection(e tty ke 8 0 If you malized that you could not rely on the ~
9 code case, does that -- when you realized that that was 10 being done and should not have been done, does that 11 initiate any process to determine whether that should be 1 /
12 reported? f'b '
13 A Which was exactly my concern is ere was this 14 k4 Jk in what system, Rig t now when I became aware and I don't is know if it was then that I became aware but when I did 16 become probably in April I am pretty certain it w i) 17 that it was not in the current tracking system h OEF 18 program. It wasn' insta,lled in a DEF or an active IR. I 4p%
19 was concerned th *w at la driving thin work in the system
)
20 because it we.s an important issue that needed to be 21 resolved.
22 Q Would the OEF program tnat you mentioned along 23 with the DEF and IR program, the OEF program would that 1
24 initiate operability evaluations and reportability 25 determinations?
NFAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRia.15 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W R02) 2344433 . WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433 ,
- - . - - ~ , . _ . _ _ _ _ _ . . . _ . . - . _ - _ _ . . _
. s 1 A I am not as familiar with the Public Service OEF 2 program as I am with other utilities. My expactation is i
-3 that I would but I can't answer that definitively how that '
I 4 is done at Public Service. I don't know of any IR's that l 5 have been generated directly out of OEF. I don't know of 6 any.
7 Q But the ---
8 A But I would feel as if something was of a 9 concern as a result of evaluating the OEF that an IR if it 10 was appropriate would be generated or a DEF or whatever 11 additional evaluations however that process would be. I 12 don't know-how 1.'.at is done. I am not involved directly 13 with the OEF process. I was just concerned here was a 14 situation that I later found out that the OEF was closed 15 and I needed to reopen that issue. :
16 O So when Mr. O'Gara came to you with the 17 information initially, did he indicate that the IR process 18 or the DEF process was tracking this?
19 A No, he didn't. No he didn't. In fact that was 20- one of his concerns.
21 O Okay.
22 A And I asked him to get involved with that and 23 get it installed in one of_the systems so that we could 24 evaluate it and that was the direction that he went in. i i i l- 25 0 And do you know if that was subsequently done?
i !
NEAL RiGROSS l COUAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
- j. 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
j (202)2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005. (202) 234 4433 -
9 1 A Yes, I do know that it was subsequently done. I
-2_ .. knew'that we generated a DEF in.the April time frame. ,
3 Q okay. -
4 A I believe it was April.
5 Q Did that DEF address whether or not this was 6 operable or reportable? .
7 A That is the expectation out of the DEF process.
8 The concern I believe is that it was written in the DEF 9 was that they were taking credit in a memo for the code 10 > case and it was the understanding that if that was the 11 case then we would need to report that, but based on what 12 I was getting for information was that there were other n i 13 avenues to pursue to be able to say that we did not need 14 the code case and I needed those documents on the system.
15 0 okay. So there were other avenues that may have 16 led you to believe that it may not be reportable and may l'i still be operable?
18 A That is right.
19_ Q Do you know what those other avenues were?
- 20. A Yhis is where it gets real muddy in my mind 21 because there was ra many things that were coming out.- I i
22 forget _at which point were we talking about with RH3, were 23- we talking about restricting the reactor coolant pump 24- usage. There was a number of things, but which one came 25 out at which time-I am.not sure.
NEAL R. GROSS f--
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W
- (202) 2344 4 3 - WASMtNGTON. D E 20005 (202) 2344433 2- _ ,i . . . , - ..,,-~ _-. _ , . . . . - . . - . , = . -_ ._ -
. _ _ . ~ .-~ _
i 10 :
1 O Lokay. Having been pr
.f to a couple of them
]
2 that were discussed at that point, did you have any.
3 concerns that the licensing supervisor as to whether or '
. 4 not some of these may or-may not fall within the existing 2 5 design basis of the system?
6 A No. I felt as far as being able to have the 7- ability to make the changes to our licensing documents if 8 we were able to take credit for a reactor coolant pump 9 restriction that would b~e totally appropriate if we could 10 If we could -- if we had dothatunde.rEhe50.59 process.
yht%\t%
11 to cfedit for the RH3 my understanding at the time was
' b 12 that was an FSAR change if at all,possible to take credit 13 for it. So no I felt as though all of those were very 1 14 viable solutions.
15- 0 Okay. In May -- in a May 26, 1994 memo from
! 16 'Berrick to Wiedemann the issue is closed out basically 17 based on the requirement to have a bubble in the 18 pressurizer before starting the reactor coolant pump, 19 A Right, j 20 0 Is that your recollection of how the issue was 21 dispositioned at that-time?
22 A On May 26th actually I knew that this was 23 discussed in the period of time before that. Actually I 24 didn't know it was this. late.
25 Q Would you say that that was one of the avenues NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W
. c02) FW WASHtNGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
l l 11 1 originally disc.2ssed?
l 2 MR. WETTERHAHN: Let him review the document and 3 try to answer your previous question.
4 THE WITNESS: To be honest at the time that this 5 memo came out what I was more interested in is that it was 6 resolved. This was in answer to the DEF at the time and I 7 didn't get involved with the technical aspects of how it 8 was resolved. The one concern that I did have coming out 9 of this memo was the number that was used. What I picked 10 up on right away was the fact that it was stated at 450.7
- 11. PSIG was an accept g ya.lge versus the value that they jk5 >
12 had given me of 4 PSI andIsaidjhowcantheysaythat 13 this thing is correct if in fact they are saying that the 14 thing is exceed by If1 7 podnds. That was the concern that I 15 had with the memo, but I don't know about the issues of 16 how it was resolved.
17 0 okay. As far as concerns you had after when you 18 initially got the memo.
19 A Right. That is when I got very heavily involved 20 when that happened.
21 O Okay and this memo basically considered the 22 issue closed based on the fact that it is assumed no RCP's 23 would be running, that the solid reactor coolant system --
24 -
25 A I think that was discussed earlier in probably NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
G02) 234433 WASHINGTON O C 20005 QT2) 23u433
12 1 the April time frame. .
2 Q And that wss in procedures and so forth?
3 A Right.
4 Q Okay. The fact that the tech spec bases 5 describes the design basis mass addition transient that 6 should be mitigated by a single PORV as the injection of a 7 single safety injection pump into a' cold solid reactor 8 coolant system, that is not discussed in this memorandum 9 at this point in time. Could that transient have been 10 mitigated by a single PORV?
11 A My understanding at that time if I remember 12 correctly was there were two different scenarios that we 13 were worried about. One where the RCP's were actmally 14 runnin a 15 had}teRCP'scouldnotrunwithoutabubbleinthe'*Q
. f t h b 16 pressurizer. So based on that assumption, my recollection 17 of it is that we could handle that trancient with the SI 18 pump injecting into the reactor coolant system.
19 If we had a water solid system, we did not have to 20 take the penalty for the reactor coolant pumps running and 21 based on that, it was that if the reactor coolant pumps 22 were not running we could handle the trancient without the 23 RCP's.
24 Q The restriction on running the RCP's was an 25 administrative control?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
) 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W v (2C2) 234 433 WASHINGTON, O C 20005 (202) 234-4433
13'
~
1 A Right.
2 Q How long had that administrative control-been in 3 place?
4 A The point where 5
IthadevolvedfromtwotDone.Mc I was involved it was probably done.to are at that point.
S 6 I don't recall. I knew it was done in the initial close .
7 out of it they took credit for two RCP's, but at some 8 point later on it was one RCP.
9 Q It was restricted further to one RCP?
10 A One RCP.
11 Q Now to run any RCP's though you needed a bubble 12 in the pressurizer.
13 A That is right.
14 0 Was that a new requirement that was imposed 15 during this POPS evalua ion?
D g. 2C f$$Y1L / C ncy7 y) 16 A Yer. it = = .
17 Q That was a new ---
18 A That was a new restriction.
- 19 0 Okay. I would like for you to take a moment and 20 look at a safety evaluation related to amendment 24 for 21 the Salem Unit One technical specifications. It was a 22 safety. evaluation that reviewed PSE&G's design of the POPS
- 23 system.
24 A Right. -
- 25 0
~
I would like to give you a moment to review NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RdODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
1202) 234 4431 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433
.,<e + ,, - ,, ,
. . . ~ - . . . . . - .-. . ~_-.- -. - . . .-. ._. . _ ..- -
14
. 1 that.
2 101. LOGAN: Off the record for a minute. i 3 -(Discussion off the record,)
4 MR. LOGAN: Back on the record.
5 BY MR. McDERMOTT: .
6 O Okay. Mr. Smith, specifically in the safety 1 evaluation that I asked you to read on page eight is-a 8 section labeled operating procedures. That section 9 discusses a number of administrative type controls that 10 were in place when the system was originally reviewed by 11 the N.R.C. Were there -- have there been any additional 12 administrative type controls put in' place aside from 13 limiting the number of RCP's running below 200 degrees L 14 fahrenheit? -
I 15 A As a result of this issue?
l 16 Q As a result of this issue. For example the i
17 requirement to have a pressurizer bubble before starting 18 or bumping a reactor coolant pump.
[ 19 A Not until later. It was the availability of the 20 PDP. To my recollection other than the number of RCP's 21 allowed to be available I don't recall of any.
22 Q So would you consider this' document part of the 23 licensing basis of that?
24 A- Oh yes I would. I want to make it clear though
{ 2S- that when-we were at this point while we were looking at NEAL R. GROSS t
- COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRt9ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W I
t202)234 M 33 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4 33
$ . . _. . .. . - - . . . - - . - ~
- i. -
a D
4\s tN
- 15 i
-1
- thig, e ware looking for things that .we could t.ake credit '
2 for and we were-looking-at the procedures and the 3 procedures happened to'have these restrictions on them and 4 they were good things to have. So based ~on that we said -
5 hey this is -- all of these-things here I don't now why 6 they.are here. This'actually this document pa ular 7 document was not lob ed at by Licensing until December of-8 1994.
9 Q Okay. So you are unaware that those 10 administrative controls were part of a defense in depth 11 that was reviewed as part of the system initially?
12 A That is right.
13 Q And that based on the fact that they limited the 14 transient or what could cause the transient, you decided 15 that that was margin in a way that you could --- '
16 A That is right.
I 17' Q Okay.
18 MR. WETTERHAHN: Let me recap.
19 BY MR. ETTERHAHN:
20 -Q As part of your review at any time before the 21 December time frame were you aware.of this_ amendment that 22 we have-just been discussing?
23 A No, I~was not.
- 24 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you.
' 25
- NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS '
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(2C2) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (20 4 2344433 J.
.m-, - - ~ . _ . . .. , . . ,-. . - . . .-. .~. ._-.--..,--.--m - - - - - . , , - . , . - -
16-1-
BY MR. McDERMOTT 2 'Q Given what you know now or having seen that, 3 would you consider that a change to the bases of that 4 document the bases of the tech spec amendment?
5 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you understand the question?
6 THE WITNESS: I think I know where he is going.
7 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you understand the question.
8 THE WITNESS: Given -- say it again.
9 MR. McDERMOTTf Certainly.
10 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
11 Q The -- at the point when the decision was made 12 to consider something other than the injection of a single 13 safety injection pump irto a cold solid reactor coolant 14 system, when the decision was made to use something other 15 than that for the design basis, was there consideration 16 that a 50.59 safety evaluation would be required?
17 A That is -- at the time you have to realize that 18 while we were coing through this, information keeps coming 19 out. We are looking at the bases of the tech specs. We 20 are looking at the procedures that are used to control the 21 plant while in the shutdown condition. We were looking at 22 the tech specs. We were looking at all of these pieces of 23 information.
24 This particular piece of paper had not surfaced.
25 Based on the fact that I felt that anything that was done NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISL.AND AVENUE, tW.
(202) 234 4 33 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005 (2C21234433
17 1- to create those procedures or tech specs had already been {
2 reviewed either through the 50.59 process or through the t 3 amendment process that actually installed it. I thought it 4 was consistent with the design basis or consistent with 5 the 50.59. So we had already done the evaluations.
6 No you re asking me a question how I know that this 7 thing xi t Should I have evaluated those things #
8 against it yes. I would look at it and say yes I should i
9 evaluate-it against this because this is part of the 10 licensing basis. I don't know if.I would have come to a 11 different conclusion without going through the process, 12 but yes it should have been evaluated.
13 Q Okay. In September of 1994 there was a problem 14- report issued. Can you tell me'a little b t?
15 A Actually I peyer saw the problem. Actually I g\st i 16 don't even thin Ihav{d e seen a whole copy of the problem o
17 report. The problem report do you have a copy of it?
18 MR. WETTERHAHN: Give me a date please.
19 MR. McDERMOTT: September 27, 1994.
- 20 MR. WETTERHAHN
- I don't think that is it. Why-21 don't you show it.
22 MS. GELMAN: I think you just passed it.
23 MR. WETTERHAHN: Did I.
1 24 MS. GELMAN: I am sorry no.
}
25 THE WITNESS: This is a new system. I don't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W G02) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 0 02) 2344433
-o la
- _ -1 remember why this was written. I remember it was - ,I 2
remember the fact that there was a new issue that had 3 surfaced.
4 BY MR. WETTERHAHN:
, 5 Q Does seeing this document refresh your ,
6 recollection as to whether you had seen this previous b
?,,
.gv g
7 A I have seen this previously previous to d' .
8 Q Yes. Do you know in what time frame. Was it 9 contemporaneous with its issuance or sometime later?
10 A I knew of its existence at probably around the 11 time that it was generated, but actually seeing a copy of 12 it that didn't happen until you were here doing your 13 inspection.
14 BY MR. McDERMOTT: ,
15 Q That was in ---
16 A Late November early December. I forget what time 17 it was.
18 0 Okay. Without the problem report then generally ,
19 do you know when the reliance on having'a bubble in the 20 pressurizer was no longer consider a valid argument?
21 A I knew-that Ken had a concern because we were 22 proceeding with the request for a code case based on I 23 believe it was the May 26th letter and also in a parallel l 24 proceeding-for an amendment request to take credit for the 25 RH3 and install it into the tech specs. So we were going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE (SLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON 0 C 2000$ (202) 23444 3
19 1 down two. paths.
2 I knew that at_some point Ken -- the issue went away 3 after it was resolved in the-initial DEF. So now we are 4 back on the path of getting back what we needed.
5 Q That was resolved by the May 26, 1994 memo?
6 A Right. So when we are in the process now of 7 getting the amendment stuff ready, Ken gets a copy of tha 8 calculations to support that and it seems as though the 9 assumptions have changed based on what we had thought 10 before. That was when Ken drafted up a memo for me to-11 send to 2ngineering to clarify that because that is not 12 what our understanding of how this thing was resolved 13 before.
14 Q The memo that you're referring to, is that the 15 one dated September 28th?
16 A Yes, that's it.
17 0 In your memorandum, Page 3, Item 1 talks about a 18 calculation which supports the use of two PORV's and RH3 19 for over-pressura protection?
20 A Right.
21 .Q Assuming a single failure of a PORV or RH3 with 22 with two RCP's running?
23 A Thac was what we were trying to get. We were 24 trying to say, hey, another way to get this way, in the .
25 future, all right, when we knew that the PDP curves would NEAL R. GROSS
- COURT REPORTERS ANO TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASetlNGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433 l
20 1 . change, we wanted to get to the point where we e ld 2 withstand single failure:and take-credit'for .
3 So.that was our goal and apparently, either 4 through some misunderstanding, or something changed 5 between the time May 26th and when we actuallv started
-6 reviewing the calc eemA 4N@TlS* Shat h ' seemed to be the way 7= Rngineering was understanding the resolution of the issue 8 and that was not appropriate for us.
9 Q Okay. But at this point, this calculation was 10 only done for future use?
11 A -We wanted that done for future use.
12 Q For future use, okay. .
13 All right. At this time, up until the problem 14 report, which is really I guess written the day before, 15 their reliance on the bubble was what gave you assurance 16 that the system was operable?
17 A From May 26th until that meme was written up for 18 us, all right, and-it was surfaced that there's a 19 disconnect between'the calculations that we needed to 20 support our amendment in the code case application, and 21 reviewing how we had gotten to where we got. We were 22- under the assumption it was closed out as of May 26th.
23 0 okay, so moving forward from the September 28th
$. .24 memo, what-basis did you have for -- well, first of all, 25 was this in the problem report system? Would that be NEAL R. GROSS COVAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l
1323 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
G02) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. e'J005 (202) 2344433
21 1 roughly equivalent to an incident report?
2 A That's taking the_ place of -- kind of rolled 3 ~ them into a computer system. I'm not too familiar with 4 the problem reporting system..
5 -Q But would a problem report have the same
^
6 operability?
7 A _That's my understanding.
8 Q And reportability type --
9 A That'e my. understanding. It can evolve into any 10 one of those documents, right.
11 Q okay. So in the September time frame, your 12 problem report documents that you can't rely on the 13 bubble, where did you go from there?
14 A We had some recommendations in the memo put 15 together, specifically to take credit for the fact that SI 16 was the -- Intermediate SI was tagged. All right? That 17 we only -- that based on the tech specs, we have only 560 18 GPM flow rate coming out of the high head safety ejection 19 pump, right? There-was some other places to gain.
20 We asked -- we said, hey, Engineering, did you-21 look at this? Why don't you take a-look at this? This'is 22 probably a viable. solution also,-if you need to go the 23 path that you've gone dovn, if the assumptions have 24- changed again.
25 Q -okay. So from a licensing perspective, did you-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRAN$CRIDERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVSNUE. N W 1202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005 (202) 2344433
}- 22 1 consider that a change to the design basis of the putnp 2 system?
3 A Like I told you before, up until this point, I'd 4 been looking at procedures, I had been looking at the-tech 5 specs, I had been looking at the basis for the LTOP System 6 and it seemed consistent with all of those documents.
7 Q What seemed consistent with all of those 8 documents?
9 A Tobeabletogusethechargingpump, the high 10 head safety M' ct on Y pump as being the appropriate 11 transient to be able to withstand with the LTOP.
12 Q And you're basing that on the fact that the tech 13 spec basis does not spell out intermediate head safety 14 injection?
15 A That's right. That was an interpretation that 16 we made.
17 Q Okay. Did that interpretation involve any 18 consultation with the Engineering Department?
e 19 A Not directly by me.
20 0 Was the calculations you submitted to the --
21 A It seemed like it was a very good solution at 22 the time. I was very impressed with the work Kenny had 23 done, that he had done this research, becaus.e 1 of a yc,4.Mw 24 sudden, what we thought.was a very tightj issue, and now, 25 all of a sudden, resurfaced and Kenny was now taking NEAL R. GROSS 4 COURT RE*ORTERS AND TRANSCAIBERS 13.*3 RHODE ISt.AND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C. 2000',
(202) 234 4 33
23 1 charge of-the thing to say, hey, Engineering, I-don't 1 2 think you've done all your homework here.
- 3- Q Do you know at that point whether Mr. O'Gara had <
4 reviewed the original calculations that evaluated the peak I 5 transient PSE&G calculations, that evaluated the peak 6 transient?
7 A Which calculations is those at?
8 MR. McDERMOTT: Could we go off the record for a 9 moment?
10 (Whereupon, a discussion was held off the 11 record) 12 MR. McDERMOTT: Back on the record.
. 13 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
14 Q In the April time frame --
15 MR. WETTERHAHN: Excuse me, we should close that 16 issue up, shouldn't we?
17 MR. McDERMOTT: Okay, i .
18- BY MR. McDERMOTT: 4 19 0 We were. discussing a certain set of calculations 20 and whether or not you had seen them. At this point, we 21- don't have a clear identification of that calculation so 22 I'll go back and ask the-question differently.
23 A Okay.
24 Q By the April time frame, what was your 25 understandir - x the pump that was evaluated as part of 1
' NEAL R. GROSS
.i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBEAS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234442' WASHtreGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4433
24 1- the design basis of-POPS? -
2 'A And I have to say that I-am not well versed in 3 terminology for Salem Station. I am a boiling water
~4 reactor person. .So as far,as I was concerned, safety 5 injection was cafety ' injection and people talked changing. .
6 high head safety injection. It just -- it meant the same ;
7 thing to me. Intermediate head safety injection. So.I 8 really didn't know the difference between each one'of 9 those pumps at that point.
10 0 All right. Okay.
11 A I lea ned all about that since I got involved 12 with it.
13 MR. LOGAN: The hard way?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes. So I deferred all that to I
15 Ken's knowledge of PWR systems.
16 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
17 O Okay. In your September 28th memorandum, which le I believe was prepared by Mr. O'Gara, is that what his --
J#
hg(
19 A Yes, it is.
d 20 Q In Item 3 on Page 3, it's talking about the ECEii.,
21 tech specs surveillance requirement for the SI pump, 22 typical charging pump, and it talks about their total flow F
23 rates respectively.
24 A Right.
25 Q. In there, the very next sentence states that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT HEPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 HHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W GC2) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433 l
. . . _ __ _ .~ , . __ _ .._ , _ _ .
. 25 1 flow rotos are currently bounded by the worse caso LTOP 2 flow rate of-780 GPM used in these analyses?- I 3 A Right.
4 Q So by the time of this September -- your ;
5 September 28th memo, you did know which flow rate was part 6' of'the LTOP analysis?
'l A Right, iknewthedifference. '
8 0 Okay. So it was in September now that you were 1
9 recommending that Engineering evaluate whether or not the 10 high head safety injection pump, since that was the only _
11 one that could possible inject, because of the 12 administrative controls --
13 A Right.
I 14 0 -- whether or not that one wou?d be okay with 15 the POPS analysis?
. 16 A It seemed like everyching was falling into place 17 now. Boy, this makes sense now because maybe what we've 18 done is gone in a big circle here, recreating the whole 19 situation and maybe the whole thing was based on 560 and 20 what later on turned out to be to add in the.PDP, because 21 when you add the-two val ,ogether, you came 22 out_--[o G/rtM 770 y rt Thok 23 Q But the PDP issue was down --
24 A Downstream.
- 25 0 Another month'or two down the road?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(2C2) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 2000$ (202) 234 4433
.sn ,n., - - - - , , , . . n - -
26 1 .A Right.
2 Q But at this time in September, you took the tact 3_ that you were going to use a more realistic flow
'4 rate -- -
5 A one that was built into our system, right.
6 Q --
and because of administrative procedures, 7 that's the one that you felt was more realistic?
8 A .Right.
9 Q However, that was less limiting than the one 10 originally assumed in the analysis?
11 A Right. And I thought that that was totally 12 permissible under the 50.59 process, or whatever process 13 we needed to do. It was only a recommendation at this 14 point, all right, to do this, all right. What would make 15 it fall out, that remained to be seen.
16 Q Okay.
17 A I didn't have any predetermined knowledge of 18 whether or not-the results of this would be acceptable.
~19 Q Okay. So then what gave you the basis in 20 September for saying the system was operable?
21 A 'It was still in the evaluation stage and if it 22 turned out to be inoperable, we'd have to make the report 23 then. Right now all I knew was here I had a difference 24 between_what was told to me in May, what's told to me now.
25 I said, we're going back. We're back in the evaluation.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
27 1 What's right?
2 And I can do that. And if this is permissible, 3 I can make those changes to my licensing documents.
4 Q So if you were not at that point crediting this 5 revised mass edition transient, then why was it on 6 November '94 that you made a r'eport to the NRC on 50.72 7 that basically said that the PDP caused that revised 8 transient, that you said you're not taking credit for, to 9 exceed
(
10 the --
11 I A Mell, as a result of this, this came out to be 12 acceptable.
13 O Okay.
14 A On its own.
1.9 0 When was that?
16 A I'm not certain of the time. I do know that by 17 November, what happened is we had an acceptable result 18 based on this, all right, okay, I could move ahead now 19 with the code case application, all right, that was the 20 one that had always -- now it had moved ahead in the 21 analysis and was ready for submittal, so we had an 22 acceptable analysis now to support that code case 23 application and we had an acceptable analysis to maintain 24 operability, albeit it was a very tight situation.
i 25 That's why it was imperative that we get the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
l .
28 .
e i code case application out quickly, because we expected, 2- -based on capsule withdrawals or whatever could happ'en in 3 the future, we-were down by two pounds or so, on cur .
4 1 limit.
5 -So we had a good analysis.- I never saw the calc 6 here to support this analysis. '
7 Q Okay.
8 A I just -- it was resolved. I got that from my 9 engineer.
10 Q okay. When the engineer came back to you and 11 said that this is -- this will keep us within the NRC 12 curves and we're all set with that flow. rate of 560 GPM --
13 A Existing in the station. There's no impact on 14 the station more than were already given on the RCP's.
15 0 So then --
16 A It looked like & good solution.
17 0 okay, so you found out that technically the 18 solution was acceptable. How about reviewing that change 19 now? Was that change reviewed for 50.59?
1 20 A If it required a change as a result of coing a 21 disposition of a non-conformance report like a DEF or a DR 22 or any of those things that you needed to do that, one of 23 the results is to have to go back and amend the FSAR if 24 that's appropriate, to incorporate the conclusion of the 25- calculation.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 : WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 2344 433
,, , . . - - ,, ~ -- .- -. - . . . - . -
- - . - -. . .- - . . ~ . . - . . . . - -
29 1 2-will follow that, as far as if Engineering '
- 2- says that we have resolved and accepted as is on a-non-3 conformance report, all right, the onus'is on Engineering
-4 to go back and review the licensing document and create a 5 50.59, if appropriate and amend the FSAR, if that's what
-6 needs to be done.
7 So I am aware that -- now I'm aware that there-8 was not one generated.at this point, nor was -- I can 9 honestly say I didn't know one was needed at that point.
10 Q All right.
11- A So, again, I was looking for the solution. The i
12 solution was technically viable. It fit the bill. It was 13 a safety injection pump. It was all controlled by the 14 existing procedures. I felt very comfortable with it. I 15 thought this was a closed issue again, we could move ahead 16 with the code case.
17 0 okay. Who should have-identified the need to do 10 a 50.59?
19 A As a result of a disposition on a non-20 conformance report?
21 Q The problem report caused you to presumably-22 question the operability of the system.:
23 A- Right.
24 0- The system, as it existed, would not meet its 25 design basis at that point?
NEAL R. GROSS '
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 2344433
. . - . . - - - - . - - . . - . - - . - . . ~ . . - . - - . . . ..-
t- 30!
1 A Say that again.
4 A Based on what right now?
5 Q When you realized -- when the problem report was 6 issued, saying that the bubble --
7 A Right.
8 Q You were back to-square one?
9- A Right, back to the review stage.
10 Q okay.
11 A Is there anothr. . venue to go down, to determine 12 if the margin exists, and there was one idea here put 13 forth by the licensing engineer.
14 0 Okay, so you come up with a technica] way to
! 15 resolve this again?
16 A Right.
17 0 A new technical way to resolve it.
18 A Right.
19 0 You determined that that technical way will work
- 20 for you as far as the peak transient pressure, but as far i
21 as your making a change-to the original analysis --
22 A Which again, if you're talking about this, I was
- 23 not aware of that.
l lL l 24 MR. WETTERHAHN: When you say "this" --
25 THE WITNESS: This is th7 safety evaluation for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2W433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 m M3
.-~ _ . ... , _ - , - , . -__ - . - _ , _-
31 1- Amendment 24.
2 MR. WETTERHAHN: Dated 1980.
3 THE WITNESS: 1980, i 4 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
5 c. Not referring specifically to that safety G evaluation, for whatever reason, by the time you wrote
?- your September 28th issue, it was apparently known by 8 several people that 780 GPM was the original flow rate.
9 A Hmm-hmm.
10 Q And now you're taking credit for administrative 11 procedures --
12 A Right.
13 Q -- to reduce what that flow rate could possibly 14 be?
15 A To a realistic value, right.
16 Q Okay. So you've changed something that was the 17 basis for a tech spec --
-18 A No , it's not written into the t spec, the 780 19 GPM. What it says is simply -
cn in-- p.d-~4--
M. 7p.ok from a safety 20 injection pump. A number was not stated in the basis, as 21 we understood it.
-22 O was that number stated in the FSAR?'
23 A I can't answer you. I don't know the an'wer s to 24 that.
25 Q Let's go on the presumption that it is not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR10ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. DC 20005 (202) 234 4433
. 4 32 1 stated in the FSAR.
-2 A Okay.
3: O If it was part of the licensing basis, okay, 4 that's really summarized in the FSAR? -
5- A Right.
6 .
Q If you're causing a-change in that licensing 7 basis, which directly affects the FSAR, which directly 8 affee ' the tech spec basis, which directly affects the 9
- 4esft?
POP sQt poLnt, would you have to do a 50.59 for that?
10 A You have to evaluate the effects of what you're 11 doing against those documents. All right? I don't know 12 if you can draw a conclusion. If the number's not stated 13 and it's not readily available to say what is the value of 14 a safety injection pump into the RCS system, you make an 15 assumption of what the~value is.
10 0 All right.
17 A It seemed as though all the existing procedures 18 were open to interpretation at this point, because the 19 only pump that was available to Salem Station, to our 20 knowledge at this point, was the high head safety 21 injection pump.
22 .Q So because the 780 GPM was not explicitly stated 23 in tech spec basis --
24 A_ That's true.
25 Q -- you didn't feel that a 50.59 review was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (2C2) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. ?0005 (202) 2344433
} _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ - _ . _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .
33 1 required when you changed.that number from 780 to 5607. -
2 A- I want to make it r: lear. I don't make that determination.
3 When somebody does a calculation and we
-4 give them some way to head in the direction, that belongs 5 to Engineering. Engineering goes out and says, what is
'6 the answer, is that result consistent with the licensing 7 basis? If they need help on that, I can get 8 involved, but other than that, I'm going to defer to them.
9 They can evaluate what they're doing against the licensing 10 basis.
11 0 So is what you're telling me, when they came 12 back to you in September and said that this revised 13 transient was okay, that they should have been telling you 14 at that time that, hey, by the way, we changed the' 15 injection number, the injection flow rate?
16 A They took us up on what we had recommended.
17 Q That's my point. They took you up on what you 18 recommended.
19 A Right. But as far as evaluating whether or not 20 they had followed through on the paperwork to see that 21 that was not. reflected into the FSAR or to any other 22 appropriate document, no, I don't follow that. I just 23 asked'for the answer. The thing is operable. If there's 24 follow-up-paperwork to= conclude on that, I'll be on the 4
25 receiving end of that change notice to reflect that back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W j
M 23W33 WASHINGTON. O C 2000$ Am 2344433 j
34 4
1 in, but I'm not asking the question, did you evaluate on 2 the FSAR.-
3 Because if I had known at this point that there 4 was an impact on.the FSAR or impact on any document, I 5 would have said that here. I was not aware of that at 6 this point.
7 Q You were not aware, yet you wrote it in your 8 September 28th memo?
9 A I was not aware that there would have to be a 10 resulting change to any licensing document. I just knew 11 that we had been assuming 780 GPM.
12 Q Did you question where that 780 GPM came from?
13 A No, I didn't. I knew that that was a value 14 assigned to the intermediate head safety injection pump.
15 But that didn't seem unrealistic.
16 What I understood at that point was that a bunch 17 of 4 loop plants were put in a grouping, all right, to say 18 here's a binding analysis for Westinghouse 4 loop plants.
19 If you can tolerate a 780 GPM injection rate into your 20 plant, you're good. I didn't know if that was appropriate 21 for Salem Unit I or II or not. Seeing as I'm now hearing 22 a realistic analysis for Salem that's even much more where 23 we were, why -iot do that?
24 If I was in t'his lumping and it was overly 25 conservative, I have the ability to change that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE (SLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 w ASHtNGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
35 1 O What type of review is done to evaluate whether 2 or not you completely understand the design basis of a 3 system before you change it?
~4 MR. WETTERHAHN: Can you answer that question?
5 THE WITNESS: Only from my point of view, from a 6 licensing point of view. If I'm asked to implement a 7 change, all right, and I have been involved with some, all 8 right, look at the FSAR and look at the references that t
9 are incorporated into the FSAR to back up what the FSAR 10 says.
11- BY MR. McDERMOTT:
12 O Okay. To your knowledge, was there --
13 A The basis, that would be the same thing. If 14 there's a reference to the basis and it's not, again, you 15 know, coming from a la r plant like Hope Creek, where it 16 NN T,lth explicitly says, -NLT.0 document, whatever, you can go out.
17 and pull that General Electric document and say, here is 18 why this number is established. Here is why what your 19 basis say what they say. And that's relatively easy to 20 do.
21 Q Is that for Salem?
22 A I don't know of anything that pointed to 23 Amendment 24 that gave us that, so....
24 ..f Q Just a note for everyone's uenefit. Amendment 25 24 is located in this technical specification on the page NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 2344433
36 1 that shows whan that page was incorporated into the -
e
.- 2 - Appendix.
3 Q. But you didn't do a design basis review '.ur this 4 issue, as you previously said, did you?
5 A No, I did not do the design basis review. I was 6 looking for resolution of the technical issues. It was a 7 good avenue.
If the results of this 560 GPM was not a 8 good result, in other words, one PORV could not maintain 9
the limits, we were going to report this and say that we 10 were--- unless there was another way to go to find margin.
11 But I think we had exhausted all of our potentials at this 12 point.
13 Q So your position is that the need, that the onus 14 for recognizing a change in the licensing basis, resides 15 with the Engineering organization and not with the 16 Licensing organization?
17 A That's right. In the typical world where 18 Engineering is reviewing for design changes, is reviewing 19 for acceptance of non-conformance, all right, they have to 20 reflect on what that means in the design basis, especially 21 on an accept-as-is disposition, to see what did we just 22 do, what were the assumptions and were they appropriate.
23 BY MR LOGAN:
24 Q Mr. Smith, let's bring your attention, if 'Je 25 can, for a minute, back to the April 20th meeting.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIEERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
. . - . . . . . , ._...m. s . . - . .. .
i u '- 37 1 A Okay. That date, by the way, doesn't-mean :
?
2 anything to me but I know the meeting you're talking ;
3 about.
4 0 okay. Well, since you know the meeting I'm I I
5 talking about, that makes it easy. Let's, if you will -- '
6 when you were told there was a meeting, who told you that !
7 you were to attend that meeting? (
8 A It's not clear to me but it was probably Ken 9 O'Gara.
10 0 Okay. And did Mr. O'Gara also at that time 11 share with you a draf t copy of an incider.t report t ty he 12 prepared? k ,
13 A I may even have been party to tel ng hi I 14 don't recall because I knew he wanted to write that.
15 We did that for a couple reasons. One was we 16 felt as though Engineering was not getting off their duff, ,
17 all right? We wanted to show that this thing is very 18 serious. We could be outside our de.rign basis. This is 19 how serious it is, i
20 We're looking at reportability with this issue.
21 You have a DEF now on your hands. We've got to drive this
- 22 to closure. So, yes, I was aware that there wat an IR I 4
- 23 drafted.
24 Q I'd like to show you three drafts of an IR on
- 25 the same basic subject,-including the cover page. If you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W, ,
(202) 2M4433 . WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 -
. (202) 23w33 en..., wm..,, -e,,, , - - -- +--..-,.-..n..m.-vow,.er ,:,,....- w w wr- m e.mm.. ,,.-----..s,yy,<,, --... s - - - - - - - -c- ,,e c --..--r . ,r -w ,r m-m e
38 I
would look at them, they're labeled April 21 -- I'm sorry, 2 labeled-April 20 meeting, April 20 draft, April 20 meeting l 3 and subsequent to April 20 meeting. 3 I
1 4 Could you take a look at these for a moment?
I 5 A Sure. i
. 1 6 MR. LOGAN: Could we go off the record.
7 (Whereupon, there was a brief pause off the i i
8 record) '
9 MR. LOGAN: Back on.
{
-10 THE WITNESS: All right, I knew --
11 MR. WETTERHANN: One second, t
12 THE WITNESS: I wanted Kenny to get this thing
-i 13 moving because I was getting uncomfortable the way '
14 Engineering was reacting to the whole situation. They 15 felt was though a DEF was close and they were done, and '
16 that was not the case. I needed this thing to come to a 17 head.
4 18 BY MR. LOGAN:
19 Q And Ken, in that case, prepared an incident i
i 20 . report draft?
21 A Yew. ,
22- -Q Was that at your direction?
23 A It may have been. I know that I was, at this 24 point, saying, shcald-we? Shouldn't we? Where are we?
25 What co:afort f actor do we have in the viability of the NEAL R. GROSS. I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 R@DE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 2344433 WASHWGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
, _ . . . _ - - . . . , . - ....___._m _ - , . , _ _ _ . . , , _ .
.. 3 39 .
l i
i solutions? You know. ~
2 Q Okay And in having looked at those three i 3 drafts, do you recall having seen any or all of those on !
)
4 any prior dates?
i
-)
5 A I've seen ts.ase recently, all right, when I j 6 was -- I know when Brian was tiere during the inspection, I i i ,
7 looked at these again to see what they were and how they, !
I 8 you know, the fact that they existed. l 9 0 But you don't recall seeing them in the April I 10 time frame? l 11 A I can't specifically say that I read the i 12 document in April. I can't say that.
, i 13 O Do you recall Ken O'Gara at least presenting you '
14 with a draft, even though you may not recognize that draft :
15 today?
16 A I was aware that it existed.
17 0 Did you remember being g.4ven a copy of that i
18 draft at the April 20 meeting? i 1
-19 .A No, I don'L recall having it in my hand or -- I !
i l'
20 knew what the area of discussion was in the April 20th --
21 it was whether or not we should move forward with the IR. i 22 As-far as him developing the IR and all of the !
i inputs to the IR, that was how he saw the issue. I mean, I t
23 24 wasn't -- I wanted to drive this thing. All right? If it
- 25 needed an IR, it needs an IR. If it needs a DEF, it needs NEAL R, GROSS COURT REiCPTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVTNUE. N W. I
- (202) t344433 , wASMeNGTON, D C. 20006 (202) 2344433
l
. 40 j l
1 o DEP. Let'o gat going with thin thing. So, no, I just l 2 wanted it to move. '
3 0 Do you recall in whose office this meeting took 4 place in?
I 5 A Frank Thompson's office.
6 Q And do you recall whether or not other 7 !.ndividuals at that meeting had a copy of a proposed IR?
f 8 A I don't know. I'm sure Kenny did, but I'm not 9 sure who else may have actually had it in their hand at 10 that time. !
r 11 O Okay, talking about this meeting, do you recall ;
12 anyone at this meeting talking about the consequence of
[
13 sending an IR forward, specifically, one, do you recall 14 anyone mentioning that if the IR went forward, that the 15 unit might have to shut down? ,
16 A Do I remember that explicit discussion?
17 Q Or something similar to that.
18 A Actually, no, I don't remember that discussion, ;
19' that-the unit would have to shut down.
1 20 Q Okay. If an IR was drafted and sent forward, 21 could that have resulted in the shutdown of the unit? '
22 A -Probably not,-as a result of the IR,. If the 23 unit was running at the time, and on April 20th I recall 24 Unit II was in operaticn at that time, Unit II would not '
25 have to shut down because of the IR. '
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433
41 1 Unit If would have to make provisions to desl 2 with the.inoperability of the system, when they did come 3 to the called shutdown condition. It was not a condition, 4 that there was a shutdown.
l 5 0 Do you recall anyone at that meeting mentioning j 6 that if the unit did have to shut down, it would result in 7 a . toss of revenue of a million dollars a day, but if it !
i kept on producing and if the NRC came ef ter you later, the 8
9 fine would only be a couple hundred thousand*/
10 A Absolutely not. That was not an area of i 11 - discussion.
12 O Do you recall anyone mentioning anything in 13 jest? !
14 A No, I don't. I would state that as far as work 15 -in Licensing, all right, the pain involved with a $50,000 16 fine is worth way more than a million dollars to me.
17 0 Let's call yot"t attention to two additional 18 memos. I would like you to take an opportunity to look at 19 them, and tell me if you recall having seen them, and if a 20 so, obviously when.
21 The first one that's labeled Attachment 2 is a
- 22' -letter from Mr. Lashkari to John Morrison and I think it's 23 dated April 2 Lad, 1994.
24 The second one is a memo labeled Attachment 7.
25 It is from Mr. Lashkari to a Technical Department Manager NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
L
<r= r-n . .AmNaTDN. D c - cm> run
._......~.-...~__._---.m . . _ _ . - , . _ . . _ , - . . ~ . . _-. . . _ . - - , , . , - - , , _ . . . _ . _ , - - ,
42 1 and it's dated January 30, 1994. ~
2 Again, if you'd look at these memos and tell me 3 whether or not you've seen them?
4 A I've never seen this memo dated April 22nd, 1994 5 to John Morrison, and no, I have never seen the January 6 30th, 1994 memo.
7 O Thank you. That's all the questions I have 8 right now, Mr. Smith. Is there anything that you want to 9 put on the record?
10 A Yes, I want to say that as a result of what the 11 final conclusion is, we were going out with that code case 12 application, when it came to the attention that the PDP 13 surfaced, there was no hesitation to write an IR, that I 14 had known at that point that there was no more avenues.
15 This was an intolerable situation and instructed Ken 16 O'Gara to immediately write an IR, and we did that without 17 concurrence of any person or, you know, Engineering, my 18 boss, and I told him that that needed to be developed this 19 evening -- that evening, and be brought out to the shift.
20 And that was done. It wasn't until the next morning that 21 I explained to my boss what we had done the evening 22 before.
23 And for the record, I want to say that's the way 24 we do business. I mean, I don't have to have an IR 25 approved by my boss. If I feel an IR is necessary, one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSUSBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
. _ - - = . - - . . . - -
l 43 1 will be written. l
. I 2 MR. LOGAN: Okay.
3 MR. McDERMOTT: Can I just ask you a question to I
4 clarify?
5 BY MR. McDERMOTT: l 6 A The IR that you're referring to and the 7 subsequent notification to the NRC were both based on the 8 fact that the positive displacement pump, when added to 9 your revised mass addition transient --
10 A The 560 gallons per minute.
11 0 Right. -- when it was added to that, the 12 transient resulting from that would put you over the 13 limits?
I 14 A What I did at that point, when Kenny said that 15 the PDP could be rune 9, I called up V.J. Chandra and I 16 said, what is the revalts of that number. He gave me the 17 number and I said thank you, hung up the phone and wrote 18 that into the IR. That was the end of the conversation.
19 0 I just wanted to clarify which mass addition 20 transient that the positive displacement --
21 A It was the mass addition event. The mass 22 addition event was the only event that we were concerned 23 with, i4+, md. kul 24 0 Q%"r.=c,howmuchmassive-addition?
vl:ltth OflguW 25 A There was PDP in conjunction with the high head NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 4 40DC 1SLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WA$HINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2M4433
- . . _ . . . _ _ - .~
44 1 safety injection pump.
2 0 Okay.
3 A And it was only a problem with Unit I. Unit II, 4 we felt very comfortable that we were still below the peak 5 pressure on that unit. And that's what the notification 6 was mde for. And that was reiterated in a conversation 7 on December 16th with the NRC.
U 0 Unit 7I was?
9 A Unit II was acceptable based on the fact that 10 their PDP curves were not as limiting ac Unit I's.
11 0 It was one psi less than the PT limit?
12 A Yes. And that's not / reason with the J\
13 original analysis, which was on 2 psi, delta between 14 the limit and the one that was originally accepted by the 15 NRC. Two or four. Four' psi. Sc it did not seem --
16 0 I'm sorry, which original analysis?
17 A The 446 was the original analysis that I bcr;ame 18 aware of it.
19 0 Are you speaking of the analysis that was done 20 in the safety evaluation program?
21 A After December, I became aware of that document.
22 No, it did not become -- it was not.
23 0 Okay, you're stating that the margin that was 24 described in thio was --
25 A Actually 446 was stated in some of these NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPJRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W G02) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. N005 (202) 2344433
I 45 1 previous memos as being the original analysis peak. So 2 that seemed pretty tight to 450 for Unit I anyway, at the :
\
3 time.
4 Q But when the safety evaluation was done, the 1
5 .,imit for Unit I was 4607 l
6 A No,'no. Not that I m aware. )
l 7 Q The point being that there was a 14 psi margin !
8 at the time and subsequent to the or'6ginal safety 9 evaluation, your PT curve were -- '
),
10 A I didn't know that. I didn't know that until-11 just this second. t 12 MR. LOGAN: Thank you.
13 MR. WETTERHARN: We have nothing further, 14 MR. LOGAN: We're off the record. Thank you.
15 (Whereupon, the proceedings were concluded at 16 6:00 p.m.)
17 '
18 19 20 21
'22 23 24 ~
+
25' ,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASMi*dGTON. O C. 20005 F2) 2344433 5
. , _ _ ~ . . . _ . . . _ _ _ _ , , - _ _ _ . . .__, . ._.___ _._.__ _.-_. _. _. . ,_._ ~ , _ . . - . . _ . . _ - . .,..-,,_ _ __.
l l
l
- CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regula' tory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceedings: Interview of David Smith Docket Number: Not assigned 4
Place of Proceedings: ,
Hancocks Bridge, New Jersey were held as herein appears, and that this is the original ;
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to-typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true .
and accurate record of the foregoing, proceeding.
cum.
Barbara Burke Official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
I
(
i L
NEAL R.-GROSS '
COURT REPCATERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
. (202n 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 2000$ (202)2344433
. . - , . c-,m. , . . , . _ , .- ...--e..,,.. mon,,.. .---m=- , - S -, ,- , ~ - . , - - - - , . -------m, ,_.,=,,---.-e,%.-mm.,y.-, orw,'--
- 1 f
9
- EXHIBIT 8 I l
Case No. 1 95 013 Exhibit 8 J