ML20202D169
| ML20202D169 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 03/14/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199L462 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-97-325 NUDOCS 9712040162 | |
| Download: ML20202D169 (67) | |
Text
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+- 1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA !
O I 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 +++++
t
(
4- OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS l 5 INTERVIEW !
6 '
7 ------------------------------x '
8 IN THE MATER OF: : i 4
9 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
10 FRANK THOMSON :(not assigned) 11 : -
12
x .
13 Tuesday, March 14, 19945 14 i
i 15 Administration Building 16 2nd Floor Conference Room 17 Public Service Electric & Gas Co.
18 Nuclear Business Unit 19 Hancocks Bridge, N.J.
20 t, 21 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 22 9:40 a.m.
gR 23 BEFORE:
$<k ww 24 KEITH LOGAN, Investigator S,, . 25 BRIAN McDERMOTT,. Investigator NEAL R. GROSS EXHIBIT - -
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1--05-013 coum anomas ANomscamas pAgg / opfd1PAGE(0) 1323 aHODC %AND AVEN Q7p Cd D ((e 2/ *[j'" fd2P? """"" * * '"UL N W.- -----
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. 2 1 APPEARANCESi 2 On behalf of Frank Thomsont 3 MARK J. WETTER:WDI, ESQ.
4 MARCIA GELMAN, ESO.
5 Winston and Strawn 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
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24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRAN$CAiBER$
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3 Whereupon 4 FRANC S THOMSON Y 5 having been first duly sworn, was called as a witness :
6 herein, and testified as follows: '
7 MR.LOGNN: Thank you Mr. Thompson. Would you E 8 please state your full name for the record spelling your last name.
9 10 THE WITNESS: Francis X. Thomson Jr., T-h-o-m-11 s-o-n.
12 MR. LOGAN: Thank you., My name is Keith 13 Logan. I am an investigator with the U.S. Nuclear 14 Regulatory Commission King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. With 15 me today'is Mr. McDermott. Would you identify yourself 16 for the record please.
17 MR. McDERMOTT: Brian J. McDermott M-c D-e-r-18 m-o-t-t, 19 MR. LOGAN: Thank you and Mr. Thomson _you are '
+
20 appearing today with couasel; is that correct?
21 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
22 MR. LOGAN: Mr. Wetterhahn, would.you identify !
23 yourself for the-record'please.
24 MR. WETTERHAHN: Good morning. My name is 25 Mark J. Wetterhahn. I am with the firm of Winsten and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
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7 V -* 4 1 Strawn,lhoLStreetNorthwest, Washington, D.C. _
20005. !
2 With me is Marcia Gelman also of the same firm. We are l 3 here representing Mr. Thomson.
4 MR. LOGAN: And Mr. Wetterhahn, do you also 5 represent other individuals in this case?
6 MR. WETTERHANN: Yes. Wa also represent other 1 individuals and Public Service Electric and Gas Company.
- 8 MR. LOGAN: Mr. Thomson, bearing the fact that
. w ,# L Wv- t-0-M 9 Mr. Thxg;ca represents other individuals as well as 10 PSE&G, is it still your desire here today as counsel?
11 - THE WITNESS: Yes, it is.
12 MR. LOGAN: Thank you.
13 EXAMINATION 14 BY MR LOGAN:
l 15 O Mr. Thomson, if we could start a little bit by {
16- explaining what-your position is currently at Salem and ,
17 what positions you have held and tell us a little bit 18 about your background.
19 A okay. My current position is the manager of 20 licensing and regulation which we are responsible for 21 interfacing with the N.R.C. for both Salem and Hope Creek.
22 We are responsible for managing the interface with the 23 N.R.C. technically with programmatic type itemr,-and i 24 assisting the station in solving N.R.C. issues. I have I 25 been in thip job since June of '91. Do you want to go NEAL R. GROSS COURT MPoRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W. '
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.1 back before that?. -
2 O Yes. What positions have you held and during l 3 what period of time? ,
4 A I took this job from June of '91. '
Prior to 5 '91 for just under a two-year period I was assistant to f
6 the plant manager in Salem. I went there in *89 until I '
7 got this job where 1 assisted him in a lot of his day to 8 day tasks. Prior to that from I believe it was '87 to '89 i 9 I was the supervisor in the Nuclear Liceneing which is a 10 group that is under me now. ,
11 Prior to that I was assigned to the PM project the i 12 maintenance project. I was at that project for about a 13 year and prior to that I was in reliability and assessment 14 for a couple of years and I started here in 1984. '
15 0 Okay. And your background in terms of 26 education and-training?
17 A I have a Bachelor's Degree from the U.S.
18 Merchant Marine Academy at King W 1ltt/W oint in Mechanical i
19 Engineering. I have a Master's Degree from Penn State I 20 University in Mechanical Engineering. I have an MBA from 21 Rutgers.
22 Q Have you received any training while with 23 PSE&G?
24 A Yes.
25 0 What' areas?
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4 6 1 A A number of different technical areas, 9
2 Various training courses in inter-personal skills that 1 3 sort of thing.
4 0 Supervisory management training also?
5 A I have had some very limited training. Right 6 now I going through a very in-depth training in business 7 and leadership development. As far as supervisor 8 management skills there has been a courses I have attended 9 on coaching counseling, positiva discipline and some of 10 those types of things. I have had a few of those. Not a 11 structured course as management skills but a number of 12 other courses that help.
13 0, I would like to talk to you about Mr. Lashkari 14 and allegations that he has raised with the N.R.C. In 15 particular he has indicated to us that he was terminated 16 or dismissed from employment at Salem because of his 17 raising safety concerns. Do you know who Mr. Chandra 18 Charles Lashkari is?
19 A Yes, I do.
20 0 And when was the first time that you met Mr.
21 Lashkari?
22 A I can't recall exactly, but I remember back I 23 think it was the '85 or '86 time frame. He was an 24 engineer in this building before he was a system engineer 25 and I was in the engineering and reliability and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBER$
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. , 1 1 etsoccm:nt group. I recall interface with him a couple of 2 times. I can't remember -- I do remember discussing some ;
~4 things with him. Certainly we sat on the same floor !
4 downstairs. I saw him. I don't know him well but I do 5 remember discussing some issues with him which I can't t 6 recall what they are.
. i 7 Q Do you -- did you ever supervise Mr. Lashkari? l 8 A No, I did not, f
9 Q Not in terms of any line authority or any 10 projects that you may have worked on together?
11 A No.
12 O I would like to_also ask you are you aware of 13 why Mr. Lashkati was released from employment here?
14 A No, I don't know the detai)9. i 15 Q Did you ever discuss any concerns with Mr.
16 Lashkari that he had raised and by concerns I am talking ,
17 about problems that he raised, incident reports he may 18 have filed or anything of that nature?
l 19 A No, I personally didn't discuss any of those 20 with him. ' '/'
21 Q Did you work on any projects or any incident 22 ' reports that Mr. Lashkari worked on to your knowledge?
23 A Not to the best of my knowledge. '
24 Q Did you work on an incident or did you have 25 any contact with what has been called'n POPS issue?
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1 A Yes. That is one issua that I have been 2 involved in that I understand now that he was also 3 involved in.
4 0 Tell me how you became involved in that and 5 when.
, A The -- do you want" me to ---
7 Q S'eart from the beginning.
8 MR. WETTERHAHN Just de.scrioe it.
9 THE WITNESS: Basically the POPS irsue started 10 out as I understand it sometime in '93 mid '93 with a 11 letter from Westinghouse which was an industry advisory 12 letter sent to all utilities.
I 13 BY MR. LOGAN:
14 0 Did you see that letter?
15 A I didn't see it when it came in no.
16 O Did you ever see it?
17 A I have seen it since then yes.
18 Q When did you see it?
19 A I saw it in and I can't swear the date 20 probably '94 sometime.
21 0 How was it that you came to see that letter?
l 22 A We discussed -- we had a meeting. As this 23 issue evolved.L gcm -
f 7{l1lt!'
ae there was a concern of whether or 1
24 not that we were outside of our design basis and we ended 1
25 up I was asked to get involved by my people as well as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPOATER$ AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234-4433 W ASHINGTON. O C, 20005 (202) 234-6433
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1 4cnginOoring to talk o%d cnd see whether or not we were t 2 or were not inside of our design basis for our license 3 requirements. We had a meeting in my office. It was like s 4 the third week in April. It was in April I remember that. ,
5 It was towards the end of April. 1 What year?
6 :
Q 7 A '94. T)$is was after they had dispositioned 8 this letter. I found out in April and I didn't know before 9 then that they had dispositioned this letter basically <-
10 saying that the concern of the Westinghouse letter was 11 that if you had -- there was a pressure difference between 12 the reactor vessel and the place where the pressure was 13 measured for protection at low pressure. The increase in 14 pressure was not accounted for in the measuremenc and the 15 concern was if you had that are you still within the low 16 pressure protection limits required in the tech specs. As 17 in I was told ing93April that(M)it was [f'i dispositioned
$tW initially & '
18 M the end of thefyear taking g for an ASME code case wtth-19 N.R.C. approval. ff'.?lfr 20 Then what happened was as I understand now and I 21 didn't know it then but as I understand it now towards the 22 end of January Mr. Lashkari --- ,
23 Q What year?
24 A '94. As I understand it now at the end of '93 25 that advisory letter was acted on to close ic-.. ~ ;yrte-NEAL R. GROSS # b mv.1 a-... .~o , ~ co. . /4
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i caying thore wasn't a problem with our limits because of !
I 2 this code case. We know now that was an incorrect , [gh 3 assessment. We wpre licensing to the best of my knowledge ;
A 4
t was not involved in that initial evaluation. I was not 5 personally. Somewhere around the end of January of '94 6
what I understaad now that I didn't know then was Mr.
Acu EN 7/o.th'i' 7
Lashkarimadech{econtactwithsomeoneinmydepartment 8 with a concern about this code case.
9 Q Who was that in your department?
10 A Ken O'Gara it is my understanding now. When
- 11. he made that contact and again I don't know the exact date 12 but it was sometime I believe th3 end of January or the 13 beginning of February time frame of '94 he got involved 14 Q f; s/Jhr and went down to talk top ngineering and tried to E
15 . understand just what they were or weren't taking credit 16 for.
Hecommunicatedpy8itismyunderstandingnow,that ,
17 he communicated to them that you could not take credit for 18 a code case that wasn't approved by the N.R.C. with the 19 exception of certain ones that appear and are listed 20 generically in the reg guides.
21 He then went and spent a week or two weeks doing 22 some research talking to other plants trying to understand 23 what was and was not approved generically by the N.R.C.
24 and discovered I think it was probably the mid-February 25 time frame that in fact they took credit for something NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPOATERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) F344433 % A5HINGTON, D C 20005 (702) 2344433
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i 12 1 that they should not have taken credit for. He was -
2 working with them really the next couple of months to try i 3 to get a reasonable assurance that in fact we were within '
4 our design basis and there,wasn't an issue there. j 5 As I un.derstand it now, Nr 7//J glueeringha/ti d communicated 6
to him on more than one occasion that even without the !
code case there was adequate margin. YA? 7 M 1 * -*
- _
- ped ..d llY 8 e first time that I got involved was this meeting in my 9
from my people officeandwhatpromptedthatwasareq)uest
& ( 14kb4U & 7 /Jhi#
10 as well as t e Eng eering manager to get toget ;er and 3
11 really try and understand because there was still the 12 issue wasn't being resolved very fest and my people aad 13 Ken in particular was concerned that they kept hearing 14 that there was enough margin and he was concerned on i
15 whether or not we should be writing an incident report 16 that we were outside of our design basis.
17 In fact he actual;y came to the meeting with it 18 drafted. He had an incident report drafted.
19 0 Who had an incident report drafted? .
20 A Ken O'Gara, i
21 Q And came to what meeting? !
22 A This was a meeting in my office.
23 'Q What time frame was that?
24 A It was April of '94.
25_ Q So in April of '94 Ken O'Gara had an incident NEAL R. 'IROSS COURT REPOR1FRS AND TRANSCRIBERS !
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12 1 report drafted and presented it to you?
2 A He drafted one and that was the main purpose 3 or one of the purposes of the .neeting with me, the manager l
4 of Mechanical Engineering Jerry Ranalli and some Pther l w 7 l
5 engineering people to discuss where are we issue, y thellJftl A 11r1l tkr 6
are we or aren't we Mt our dePigg Do we have reasonable '
7 assurance that we are W our design M # fbasis 7 1l1l' lland should we or 8 shouldn't we make out an incident report was the 9 discussion at that meeting.
10 Q Go over who else was at that meeting.
11 A I don't know that I recall everyone. I think I 32 can recall a few. There was Jerry Ranalli, Ken O'Gara, I 13 believe Rick Villar was there.
14 Q Rick Villar?
15 A Rich Villar V-i-1-1-a-r he works for me.
'6 Q Okay.
17 A MyItationdicensf[gineerandtherewerea 18 couple k Chandra rom Engineering and I think that was 19 basically it. There may have been one or two other people 20 from Engineering but think that was it and Dave Smith 21 also.
22 Dave is my -- Ken O'Gara works for Dave Smith and Dave is
& .2s 7/tJhr 23 the supervisor. Did I mention Ken. Ken was there also.
24 MR. WETTERHAHN: Yes.
25 THE WITNESS: So basically that meeting was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TAANSCR$tR$
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1 " E[ gin 03 ring wco tolling Kon that there was reasonable 2 assurance h,.$?( 9fo!!!I' even without the code case that we had the l
3 adequata margin to meet the design basis. i 4 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
6
$ Q Excuse me. You said adequate margin to meet 6 your design basis. Was there adequate margin to ins'ure .
. I !
7 the safety of the plant or did you meet your design basisl 8 A It was my understanding that there was nev+r a l 9 question in both my people's minds or in gi eri that 10 there was a safety issue. The reason for that and I agree 11- with that. The reason for that was knowing that the i
12 N.R.C. had allowed other people to.take credit for the 13 code case which gives you 10 percent more margin under l 14 cales and knowing that we had the RH3 valve available c
15 which is an extra relief valve in the system, recognizing 16 that we had those two things available that we had not 17 credited yet in our calculations, there was a very high 18 level of confidence that there was not a real problem. It ad 3': 1IllW 19 wasmoreacomplianceproblemg.echsplecs. So I don't 20 think there was any question in my peoples minds or 21 Engineering that there was a safety issue. The question 22 in my persons mind was a compliance issue.
23 So ve had the meeting that was really my first 24 involvement in trying tt derstand the issue. After we !
25 .had the meeting and it won originally scheduled I think -
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for the of tornoon and we ended n up1not fff Jh meell ting, until arou 2 5:00 or 6:00 at night. We met
{p&itwearat least an 3 hour. It was a long time. We tried to understand all of 4 the issues and the bottom line from the meeting was my 5 understanding was we left that room with a consensus. In l
6 fact I believe I polled people and asked them and it was l
. 1 7 the consensus that we had a very high level of assurance a 8 reasonable assurance that we were within our design basis 9 from a compliance point of view.
10 , That was based on a couple of things. One was 11 reevanizing that EDr (3{ti igineering was going to do more cales p
12 and could take credit for the RH3 valve. At that point in 13 time we thought that was legitimate. Recognizing that 14 Engineerd'g had told -- Ken had told me because I asked 15 him point blank are there other calculations that you can 16 do to gain more margin. I was told that there was they 17 had done a very simple calculation a more detailed 18 calculations that could be done on I think it was the 19 Gothic Code. So based on the more detailed calculations 20 that could be done and taking the RH3 I was told by the 21 Engineering people and the manager that they had a very 22 high level of assurance that they would be able to show 23 that their peak pressures would be below the limits 24 required by the tech specs. g77 bMb 25 The other thing that was talked about and rcoll, it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (702) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 9 h 2344433
2; 7//4): 15 1 fue--d cut th t wastheissugif.t.htheincidentreport.
2 We left that room with the consensus and I felt very 3
comfortable that we had reasonabic assurance that we were j 4 within our design basis and there was no incident report 5 required at this point in time. I believe we all left i
6 pretty much uncontested. Another reascn we left l
7 comfortable with that or I left comfortable with that was 8 the fact that at that meeting I was told there was a DEF 9 and a DEF is another process that we follow.
10 BY MR. LOGAN:
11 Q What is that. What is a DF?
12 A DEF design =## M--
Sr '/kIlPI' 1
13 L&'s,L.(n,)fr Q What is that?
14 A What that 1e is it kicks off a process where 15 you evaluate potential design wf!.:irnri r-and throughout gdh w.
16 that process it requires you at any time you have y Z sa t s. n ls ) W 2 hen/r1/h- 7 ough N&nm f 7/tJ/ft" 17 information th;t crye y^" h >: a repert, I felt l 18 comfortable wrtti that it was in the process and it was 19 going to be managed properly and it also requires you to l
20 take a look at the timeliness of the effort based on l
t is something $ $e&mm.m_
i 21 safety significance, 0
shee 22 ./#fi.icacyitcouldbesafetML/f it were tru _you9!Ps are 7[
23 requiredtoanalyzeitinafairlyquicktimeframe. fit
, is one where you show through PRA or other avenues 4 a.- tw, 24 thht it 25 is not a safety issue di blV you are allowed to take more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N V/
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16 1 time. That 10 our proc 003. So I felt comfortable that it 2 was in the process. ,
y 3
[In f ee. ;;in ;iing we. ceiling we :nd it t"rned r"t 4 p* * ^ Aa e vn = that the: == :nagh ...igin h;n u:. got t: -
5 W
- point.} The other part of that meeting was 6 Engineering had a new concern at least it sounded like the 7 first time my people had heard it and that was an 8 assumption that they were making or M questioning that 9 had to niake of whether or not they had to assurre the 10 RCS was solid when the reactor pump started up. They said M
.;t* & M w/
- 11. they 4 had to casume that y Qey had real trouble becaus 32 they couldn't -- they felt uncomfortable making a 13 statement that we had enough margin.
14 Afteralotofdiscussionwithmypeopleandm/ M WE *1bl/W y
3 15 people ) Villar)is a licensed person so he is very famil!.ar .
16 with the plant and procedures. There was -- what we came 17 out with was wo knew that there wee administrative w Sf ftJ/1+
18 controls already in place 3that the reactor eeet pumps e &. fr 1lg/ff 19 would not be operated. Therefore they didn't have to 20 assume that. So as long asg Engineering felt comfortable u si; -63/rr .
21 as long as they didn't have to make that assumption which 22 we left that meeting agreeing that it was &a not @to flhC 23 make that ascumption that they could sit there with a high 24 level of confidence stating that we were within our design 25 basis.
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. 17 i Ws lof t tha room with a commitment from Engineering '
2 that they go back and do the more detailed cales and I 3 within I think we gave them about a month based on the A -
4 safety signific'nce and that was -- the consensus.was we 5 were within our design basis and there was no reason to '
6 file an incident report. .
~
7 BY MR. NcDERMOTT:
gg/p' '
8 0 As I understand it then involvement began l 9 in April?
10 A My personal involvement began at that meeting. ;
11 Q okay. At that meeting you discussed the fact !
12 that you considered the plant safe because of an ASME code '
13 case that had not been approved for use at Salem but you 14 knew had been approved at other plants and also on using 15 or taking credit for relief valve RH3?
. ?[/j/t/ i 16 A That and also being told bygEngineering that 17 the cales the date for the previously closing et M .
18 Westinghous3_e were very qualitative and when they do more 19 detailed cales with I think it was the Gothic code they 20 were sure to pick up quite a bit of margin. There was the 21 code case, the RH3 and the more detailed cales. I know I 22 left with a very high level of assurance that we didn't 23 have a problem with our design basis.
24 0 When you say meeting your design basis, what i 25 are you referring to?
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I 1C 1 A- I am referring to the fact that part of 2 licensing basis says that when you are at a low 3 temperature and pressure in this case below 312 degrees !
4 you are required to provide over pressure protection with t 5
at that time w g one "I i 5. I 6 Q And could you meet that design basis by what 7 your engineers knew as of April of '947 8 A As of April of '94 yes we thought we could 9 meet that basis and in fact even today with what they knew 10 then with the assumptions it turned out to be true. When
, 11 the cales were finally done and come to completion, all of 12 the assumptions were true that we were within our design 13 basis with the assumptions that they knew about in April 14 of '94.
15 MR. LOGAN: Lcian, go ahead.
16 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
27 Q The design basis of your POPS system requires la that a single core of which there are two in the POPS 19 system a single core be capable to mitigate the pressure
- 20 transient caused by the start of the safety injection pump 21 into and its injection into a cold solid reaction cooling Y J ud@** 22 system. Are you telling me that in April what you believed q w a a - r5
/ttFcs a. 23 that single core was capable et doing then? g*, f' s g&
- w. ct f f>; "
tJn 24- A I believed in April that by taking gthe code Q'/f
.y 25 case and the RH3 which at that time we thought h:r= : 2.be f
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.x.eason RH3 was not written in the tech specsj we thought at 2 that time that it was okay to take credit to thay gec;ause 3 Westinghouse & issue has gVWW.*S Y W/N&
pproved by the N.R.C. which we ' -
4 M/' d4 implemented removing all of the =:L d 80% l d interlocks. Our 7 5 understanding at that time w s as long as you had that l 6
interlock removed which weg done and I knew that we had 7 done that, you cou'.J take credit for the RH3. So in fact 8 the answer is ycs taking credit for the RH3 and 9 = d="" =d4"" *ht (cdh M -
safety.(asbo ' Q M 10 W N' h4% Y ; the code case^ Ws If you take credit for the code case it says you are 11 safe, but from a compliance point of view we knew we 12 cou3dn't take credit for the code ce.se. So it is clear to 13 me and we made it very clear at that meeting to not take 14 credit for that code case for com liance. You could for 15 JTi~ Ilff*
safety significance. ,t 22f :y -- why I say I t-hvuuh we/tJly, -
" &f 1' 16 were within our design basis was RH3 and the additional 17 cales.
18 Q Now since RH3 was not part of the original 19 design basis, what process would you normally have to go 20 through to add something to the design basis of the system 21 that is evaluated and reviewed and approved by the N.R.C.
22 ?
23 A We would either have to go though a license 24 1 i change and put it in the tech specs or do an PseR change psWu f1M $/ fff 25 and put it in the m . In this case we would have to put NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCP:BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 .. WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 e
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1 it in tho toch cpeco o min . Undarotanding it At J.Cd ff
, 2 now the more appropriate thing would be to put in therheb 3 itself.
,[8/ l 4 0 I would agree with that.
5 A J4 4 I will tell you that that was we understood, p 6 and we did some more resecrch and changed our opinion on f/[/// ;
7 that issue a month l'ater.
8 Q okay. We will come back to that if we could.
9 When you make a change to the design basis-and as you 10 mentioned put it into the tech specs, are you fatailj ar 11 with the safety evaluation required to do that?
12 A Yes. We are required to do a safety 13 evaluation and make a submittal w. che license change 14 request to the N.R.C. and then submit our justification 15 for no significant hazards.
16 Q To make the license change, that would be 17 required to be submitted to the N.R.C.?
18 A Yes. The license change is required to be 19 submitted and approved by the N.R C.
20 But as far as changing the basis say the 4
0 21 description of the system as listed in the FSAR.
22 A Yes, p,/'/[/ff 23 0
~
10 CFR5059 requires 3 safety evaluation is done 24 for proposed changes to the plant as described.in the 25 FSAR. Was that type of evaluation done back in April of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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. 21 1 '947 2 A 7. can't answer that. I don't know. I am 3 familiar with the requirements. I don't know in April 4 whether that was done or not.
5 Q Do you agree that that type of evaluation was 6 necessary to add RH3 to the POPS system? '
7 A Yes. It was clear to me that once they 8 finished their cales they would have to do that either and 9 I believe we discussed that either put a license change in f 10 or change the FSAR. It wasn't done in April. They still 11 had to do some calculations.
12 0 And when were those calculations finally 13 formally reviewed and approved. When was that process 14 completed?
15 A The next set of calculations that were done to 16 my knowledge was the end of May. A letter was issued 17 responding to my request to do the more detailed la calculations. A letter was sent to a number of people and 19- I can't remember whether I got a direct copy or whether I 20 was made aware of the issue.
21 In fact I believe in loo)Si ng back that no I dit ot
- 22 .get a copy.
SY My supervisor 3did. hhecalculations 23 basically went back into some more detailed cales and -
24 showed the results and a table and I believe there was a
- 25 table in that cale indicated that one of the results NEAL R. GROSS COURT REFMTERS AND TRANSCRIBEMS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
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1 showed a number of 450.7 peak pressure with the transient '
2 that we are talking about when the limit is 450, 3 I was not involved personally at this time but_my I 4 supervis(o% r3was.N )He got a copyand immediately got with ;
5 bEngineering #l N3lis i p and made it clear to them that whether it ja 6 1., .5 or .7 you can't be above your limit.
7 Q And am I assuming correctly that the memo that 8 you are referring to is the May 26th letter 1994 from 9 Berrick to Wiedemann?
10 MR. WETTERHANN: Let me see that.
11 THE WITNESS: Can I see that.
12 MR. WETTERHAHN: Are yor familiar with this?
-13 THE WITNESS: Yes.
14 MR. WETTERHAHN: Can we keep this copy for
, 15 now?
16 MR. McDERMOTT: Sure you can keep it in front 17 of you.- I have got some notes in there.
18 MR. LOGAN: Can we go off the record for a 19 minute.
20 (Discussion off the record.)
21 MR. LOGAN: Back on the record please. Go 22 ahead. -
A**'" Th/j,s '
23 THE WITNESS: To answer your question Rort yes.
24 This is a letter that I was referring to. I did not see I
l 25 this at the time. I was made aware of it in the last NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W
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. 23 1 coveral months of trying to understand this issue better.
. ~
2 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
3 Q Okay. You -- earlier ycu referred to the r<- s4 4 issue -when presented f or looked at by your cupervisor. Who 5 was that?
5 A Dave Smith.
7 Q Okay. In discussing th'e 50.59 safety 8 evaluation that I was asking you about a few moments ago, 9 who typically would be responsible for doing that 10 evaluation what part of the organization?
11 A The engineering organization would be 12 responsible for doing the 50.5e, processing and that would 13 support an FSAR change for the licensing process.
14 BY MR. LOGAN:
15 0 When you say the engineering organization, who 16 in particular was in charge of that that would have been 17 responsible for that?
18 A That would have been our mechanical 19 engineering group.
20 Q And who headed up that group?
21 A Ranalli is che manager and Berrick is the 22 supervisor.
23 MR. LOGAN: Ranalli and Berrick, okay. Go 24 ahead.
25 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
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, 24 1 Q Okoy Frcnk, continuing on that May 26, 1994 l
2 memorandum I believe you referred to that earlier when you 3 me.ntioned that in your late April meeting you discussed 4 the fact that it was unclear whether or not you needed to 5 consider the reactor coolant system solid when a reactor W
6 cesel pump was started and therefore the whole concern may 7 Just go away.
8 A Engineering was concerned in the April meeting 9 and it sounded like this concern came up within a day or 10 two of this meeting kind of a late breaking concern so 11 they wanted some advice from us and our own people both 12 myself and the engineering manager and others on whether 13 or not they needed to make that assumption that the 14 reactor coolant system was solid. They concluded that 15 based on the procedures that we knew were in place prior 16 to that meeting that you don't operate with the RCP with a 17 solid condition and you are not allowed to per procedure 18 therefore that assumption was not required.
19 O So you felt that you did not have to assume 20 you started with the reactor coolant system solid?
21 A I felt that we didn't have to assume the 22 reactor coolant system was solid with the reactor coolant 23 pumps running.
24 0 okay. Where did the issue go from there?
25 A From there my supervisor kAM N g very promptly got a NEAL R. GROSS 1 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 (202) 2M
. 25 l 1 hold of Engineering and asked for a meeting. I believe it 1-was like the next day or two if my memory serves me right 2
3 he was copied on this letter and yes he was given a copy 4 of this and read it and saw the 450.7 and said that is 5 wrong. I don't care what the number is you can't be above 6 the limic which is 450.
7 L M J d' M^)
Woh(adameetingveryquicklywitinada r two of n .M JWr, 8 the receipt of thic le rb my ue isor to in effect O
9
~u.n 4 mm Nonvince him tMt we were within our design basis.
r Y& W/Wft" 10 0 This memorandum does not take credit for the 11 RH3 valve or the ASME code case to show you that you were 12 within the requirements; is that correct?
13 A No, that is t quite correct. As I 14 understand this letter of the table, it shows the numbers 15 calculated which is the 450.7 number versus a limit of 16 450. That does not take credit for the RH3 that is 17 correct.
18 However wha _t cav u n; again chio . actin 7 we left 19 this meeting with a reasonable assurance that we would 20 still be within our design basis with further cales 21 required. If you look in the body of this letter, it talks 22 about if you take credit for RH3 and also if you take '
23 credit for the Gothic Code, the actual number -- there is 24 actual numbers in there below the 450 limits a 430 25 something and I can't remember it. This I know now and I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i
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1 wno not involved in this meeting or this letter, but at 2 this meeting it was made clear by my people as I 3 understand it now that it was not acceptable taking credit 4 for RH3 because it wasn't in our tech specs.
5 However as I understand it now, if I recall 6 correctly the letter it stated that the Gothic Code if 7 that is the code the more detailed code that with that, 8 the letter itself states that recent informal cales using 9 Gothic has re-estimated the peak pressure to be 438 which 10 is well below the 450. So based on that, my people I am
]1 told now left that meeting with a level of assurance that 12 we would be within our design basis but again needed some 13 additional cales to finalize that.
14 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
15 0 You were reading this from page three at the 16 bottom of the page of that May 26th letter just to put 17 that in context?
18 A Correct.
19 BY MR. LOGAN:
20 0 While Brian is looking at his notes a minute 21 let me ask you a question. I have and I would like to 22 know when you first saw this or if you have ever seen it.
23 It is an incident report from Mr. Lashkari and it is dated 24 1/31/94. Would you take a look at that and tell me if you 25 recognize it.
NEAL R. GROSS COUR1 REPORTERS AND THANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W I (2C2) 2%4433 WASHfNGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4 33
27 1 A Tio , I navor ccw thic. I just roctntly in 2 discussions preparing for this I was told there was an 3 incident report written and I never saw it.
4 0 What is the policy with regard to the 5 preparation and numbering of incident reports and I ask 6 that question because there is not a number on this'one.
7 A The policy is described in NAP 6. I think your 8 question relates to the policy at that time?
9 O At that time. If it changed, please tell me 10 the change.
11 A" The procedure as is covered in NAP 6 policy is 12 if you have an incident that requires an incident report 13 which there is cr ;eria in NAP 6 our administrative 14 procedure anybody can cut an incident report. You take it 15 and typically what happens it is not required but 16 typically what people do is they will discuss it with 17 their supervicor and get a different perspective am I off 18 base here does this make sense. They don't necessarily 19 have to agree with them but they typically do that.
20 Anybody can h an incident report and bring it to
& fff 1//Jlff 21 the shift and then the shift accepts it. The shift is the 22 one that fills in the bottom of section two and the shift 23 makes the call of whether or not you have a operability 24 issue when ,or notff$b' h SG it is. reportable. Typically for an 25 engineering issue they will ask for engineering input NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHCDE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 (202) 234-4433
28' 1
cithor from tha parson bringing it or other engineering 2 inputs.
3 0 Who wi?1 ask?
4 A The shift will s ek i t on engineering 5 issues do we or don't we 1 .e for example meet our design fz,7/alu' 6 basis and w y tell me why.
7 Q And the policy in effect on January 31, 1994, 8 was that the same policy?
9 A Yes to the best of my knowledge.
10 0 And if you would look a: the incident report
- 11. that as it is written and please tell me your technical 12 evaluation of it.
13 MR, WETTERHAHN: Could I get a little 14 clarification on the question?
15 MR. LOGAN: Sure.
16 MR. WETTERHAHN: Are you asking him whether 17 the technical information has merit or whether it is a 9
18 valid subject for an incident report or what is the 19 question?
20 MR. LOGAN: Those are both issues that I would 21 like to have him cover.
22 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay. So we can break it 23 down into those two questions.
24 THE WITNESS: Okay. Do you want to give me the 25 lquestionsagain.
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. 29 1
( 1 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you want to try them -
2 again.
3 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
4 0 One is it a valid subject to be documented and 5 is that the appropriate method for documenting a concern 6 of this nature and secondly given what is there, was the 7 assessment correct?
8 MR. WETTERHAHN: If you can tell.
9 THE WITNESS: Well, I am going to answer this 10 question based on the knowledge in the time frame that 11 this was written. That is what I am assuming that you are ft," 1'llV 12 looking for. This ceee was written 1/31/947 13 MR. LOGAN: Right.
14 THE WITNESS: I guess 'k { t'J a legitimate issue.
15 Technically I am not the one to answer that. Engineering 16 would have to tell me that. I can't tell you whether it is 17 or not. There is not enough here. There is not enoagh 18 here to tell me whether or not it is a real issue in 19 terms of wnether or not we have an outside design basis 20 issue. Is this the proper vehicle for documenting 21 something like this it could be. It could be.
22 Another vehicls that we use is the DEF which I 23 mentioned before and DEF is typically used for engineering 24 type issues for potential discrepancies and DEF or part of 25 the DEF process is when you get to the point where you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISL AND AVENUE. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C 20005 (202) 234 4433
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4: 30 1 -hevo o real problem you write an incident report. ;
2 Similarly if you cut an incident report soma _ incident 3 reports where they may decide that they don't have enough 4 information to make a reasonable assurance they may-5 develop a DEF out of that so it goes both ways.
6 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
7 Q Was there a DEF written. We know from the 8 fact that there is no-number on that incident report that l 9 it was never taken to the control room.
10 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you know that?
11 THE WITNESS: I don't know that for a fact.
12 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
13- 0 Do you know if there was a DEF written on that 14 same issue in that time frame?
15 A I don't know.
16 BY MR. LOGAN:
17 0 Who would.be in a position to tell us whether 18- a DEF was in fact written?
19 A I would say the engineering people the 20 mechanical engineering group. I know a DEF was written in 21 April because when I asked the question, I made sure 22 before people left my office that this thing was in the 23 process. Whether there was_anything in the system before 24 that I don't know for sure. -
25 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
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1
. 31-1 0 Could you help ma out with the process. Given 2 one of your previous assignments was in reliability and 3 assessments I believe you said?
4 A Right.
5 0 That group as I understand it taken 6 information from the industry and off site operational 7 event feedback those type of things and brings it into the 8 Salem environment.
9 A That is correct.
10 0 And how does that coordinate with incident 11 reports?
12 A For the record I want to clarify that when I 13 was in that group that they did not have that function.
14 0 okay.
15 A But I can answer your question. That group is 16 responsible for being the point of contact facilitator if 17 you will for external OEF operational experience feedback f w W 7fillti l 18 and tnat is what this issue all started wm; an the 19 Westinghouse advisory letter that was issued to the f I 9f/J/!'
20 company,'fhat does not come into licensing. It comes into 21 the reliability assessment group.
22 What they do with that is they screen -- they do 23 some sort of screening and I can't tell you what their 24 criteria is whether or net it is applicable. If they 25 decide something is applicable, they have a meeting with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUC. N W (202) 2344433 WASHtNGTON. D.C. 20005 fr4 234.4433
gj 1h 32
~
1 the stations whether it is Creek or Salem weekly with 2 the statien management to disposition the item to either 3 give it to somebody for action or on the spot disposition 4 whether it is applicable or not and ask for more analysis, S engineering analysis or whatever. That is -- I believe-6 that is the way that this was' handled. It was given to 7 engineering to do their analysis whether.or not it applied 8 here.
9 MR. McDERMOTT: Thank you.
10 BY MR. LOGAN:
11 Q All right and you indicated that based on what 12 is there you said it was technically correct or it wasn't 13 technically correct?
14 A I don't know that. I can't tell you off hand 15 if that is technically correct or not.
16 O Someone raises the issue and prepares an IR an 17 incident report. Do they just carry it up to the shift 18 supervisor. Do they send it through channels through 19 their supervisor. What is the standard process?
20 A Typically what happens is they will go through 21 the supervisor and probably get some questions on some 22 validation of the information whether it is valid or not.
23 Is there enough there to say really that there is an issue 24 there but they don't have to. If someone is convinced 25 that an issue is real like in this case they can cut an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 12 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (20 0 734-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 Gtt2) 234 4433
33 l
1 incident report and take it right to the shift. It is up 2 to the shift. He has the final call on the disposition 3 relativa to operability and reportability.
4 0 Was this typical. Do people normally bypass 5 their chain, their supervisors and take things directly to 6 the shift supervisor?
7 A I would say no. It is typical that people 8 discuss it with their supervisor first to see if their 9 malysis of the situation holds up to see if they missed 10 anything. Usually typically they discuss it with some 11 peers also.
12 O If you bypass your supervisor in the 13 processing of an incident report, how is that perceived?
14 A Can you clarify the question?
15 O Sure. If I worked for you and I prepared an 16 incident report and I didn't bring it up to you and I took 17 it directly to the shift supervision, how would you take 18 that?
19 A That -- I wcald probably take it as a 20 positive. I made it clear to my people the expectations.
21 If an incident report is required, you cut the incident 22 report. I certainly want to be updated. I would typically 23 like to be aware of it but in fact there has been a case 24 where I wasn't aware of'it until afterwards and that is 25 fine. How would I react to that, my reaction would be I NEAL R. GROSS l
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, 34 1 think ws probnbly did the right thing.
2 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
3 MR. LOGAN: Back on the record.
4 BY MR. LOGAN:
5 0 Okay. We were talking about the incident
~
o reports and just for the record I showed you an incident 7 report frcmMr.Lashhcari.Hadyoueverseenthatpriorto 8 this mee.ing?
9 A That was the meeting that Mark Wetterhahn had 10 mentioned to me that there was such a report written and I 11 had not kncwn about it before then.
12 0 You had known about it?
13 A Had not known about it. I did not read -- I 14 did not sit and read it. It was just in the last couple 15 .of weeks.
16 Q So all of the time that you were evaluating 17 this POPS issue you were unaware that Mr_ Lashkari had 18 written that?
19 A That is correct.
20 Q Let me show you two other memos ---
21 MR. WETTERHAHN: Let me ask this.
22 BY MR. WETTERHAHN:
23 Q Having seen that incident report, was the 24 technical information in it considered in the processing 25 of the calculations and in your tcennical review of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS {
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35 1 matter._ Ccn you tell from reading that or do you kent to
= ~
2 look at it again?
3 A Let me look at it again. Yes.as I am looking 4 at the incident report-now the issues in here in the 5 evaluation eventually occurred starting April?
6 MR. LOGAN: Yes. -
7 THE WIT ESS: Those issu'es were.
8 BY MR. LOGAN:
9 Q They were?
10 A They were.
11 Q If -- this is a hypothetical but if you had 12 been given this incident of January of '94 what would you 13 have done with it?
14 A That would be speculation.
15 Q Based on what you know now.
16 A I guess I need some clarification, e
17 Q It is plain and simple.
18 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay. Let me -- maybe this is
_19 the clarification. If you got it before it was processed, 20' is that your goestion.
21 BY MR. LOGAN:
22 Q If Mr. Lashkari came up to you and said Frank 23 I want to give you this incident report. What would you 24 have done with it?
+
25 A If he came up to me personally in my job?
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36 1 Q Right.
2 A I would ask him if he needed any support on 3 the issues and tell him to process it.
4 Q Go ahead. 7g g,-
5 A And if he wanted to talk to -ehe- supervisor. He 6 was asking me for advice and some input. He wouldn't
- 7 normally -- I am not the one who usually makes the call on 8 the incident report. They bring it to the shift. If he 9 was telling me I would assume he was coming to me for 10 advice or input on whether or not these issues are a 11 reportable situation.
12 Q Okay.
13 A Then I would have asked my people to look into 14 it and give them a recommendation.
15 Q So you wouldn't have routinely just filed it 16 with the shift supervisor?
17 A No, that would have been his responsibility.
18 Q Now, there are two memos that Mr. Lashkari has 19 authored or at least in reading them he appears to have 20 One is to John Morrison manager of ee W rbf/
authored them.
yD 21 end technical department dated April 22, 1994. Tne second 22 one is to the technical department manager dated January 23 30, 1994. I would like you to look at the two memos and 24 tell me if you recognize those. Take them one at a time.
25 A The answer to the first one and give me the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (702) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 (202) 2344433
i . 37 1 qu;3 tion.
2 O Have you ever seen it before?
3 A The answer is no. On reading the attachment -
4 -
you gave me two. One is called attachment two April 2, 5 1994.
6 Q April 22, 1994.
7 A April 22nd I am sorry. The answer is no I 8 have never seen that. Let me read the second one now.
9 The answer is no again. I have never seen it before.
10 MR. WETTERHAHN: Are there any more questions.
11 MR. LOGAN: If he hasn't seen them, he hasn't 12 seen them. I defer any other questions on the subject.
13 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay.
14 MR. LOGAN: Brian.
15 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
16 Q I want to go back for a moment to the POPS 17 design basis. Can you give me your understanding of what 18 the hardware that comprises that system was?
19 A I will give you --- I will give you my 20 understanding as I know it r.ow or as I knew it in April 21 when I was discussing this issue.
22 Q The system as described in your technical 23 specification, were you aware back in April of what that 24 said and are you aware of that today?
25 A Yes. The system is described in the tech NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
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. 38 1
cpeco cnd 10 bnsically cnd to elerify we are talking what
/ 4 M's 9?/7'th, I 2
we call our L-beps jthe low-temperature protection system. 1 tr .
3 Shat comprises ! of essentially the two PORV's power
- 4 operated relief valves on the pressurizer. The licensing ,
3 basis is that either one of those valves assuming one of-6 those isasing e eitberfff1 on//J/W e should be sufficient and have 3 g 7 sufficient relieving capacity when you are below I believe 8 it is 312 degrees to prevent over-pressurization. See 9
S Appendixjf pressure temperaturc 1n the tech specs.
W S.E ~7/hJ/Pr 3
10 I did and as I mentioned before I did in the April 11 meeting that ; h:d I and other people at that time gy 3 N5G" ?kJ/,
12 thought that it was legitimate to also credit As& based on LtcAP 13 generic approval of Westinghouse a :p. That turned out 14 later as I said to be incorrect.
15 Q I believe the W cap that you are referencing 16 provided the removal of the autoclosure interlock of the 17 RHR section valves. It was not done specifically for 18 Salem to include RH3 as part of the POPS system; is that 19 correct?
20- A That was -- we discussed that issue in that i
p 21 April meeting in my office and I want to confirm because i
22 my recollection I think when I was at the station was that 23- the:autoclosore was in fact removed. Quite honestly I 24 don't remember why it was removed, but the fact is it was 25 removed. We felt that we at that point in time thought NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
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39 1 that we could take credit for RH3 as long as the 2 autoclosure lock was removed and one I renember it being 3 removed and two I asked the people in the room to verify 4 it and they all agreed that it was removed.
5 O In your April meeting to discuss this issue, 6 did you go over the December 30, 1993 memorandum from 7 Berrick to Schnarr that initially dispositioned it?
8 A I don't recall the specific letter. I do 9 recall tulking about very briefly the issue of taking 10 credit :or the code case and I made it very c' ear 11 M (% U basically reinforced .t.o my supervisor,and Ke O'Gara told 12 the people that you absolutely can't take credit for the 13 code case. It was basically a non-issue because ygu 14 f f s/ ff 1/Ubr couldn't take credit for,the pne5 44r compliance. We did 15 discuss it and as I recall I think I actually polled the 16 people before they left my office for safety significance 17 is there anyone in this office who thinks we have a safety 18 issue and the consensus was based on the code case this
& M m p, h3lti19 wasp safety a compliance. Based on the code case, 20 credit for RH3 and the fact that this Gothic Code would 21 give us more margin there was to the best of my knowledge 22 everyone agreed that there was not a safety issue here.
23 I do remember I think we made it fairly clear that 24 from a tech spec compliance point of view you could not 25 credit the code case.
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1 .
40 1 Q By tech spec compliance do you mean design 2 basis?
3 A I mean the licensing basis the design 4
licensing basis as written in the tech specs.
5 0 The system has a design basis and that is 6 captured in your license is that correct?
7 A Richt.
8 0 So at the point you decided or you recognized 9 that they had been taking credit for the code case without 10 the prior N.R.C. approval or generic endorsement through 11 regulatory guide, did you consider that a condition 12 outside of the design basis?
13 A No because I was given reasonable assurance 14 that even without taking credit for that that they would 15 upon doing more detailed cales they would be able to show 16 we were within the design basis. What I was told was what 17 they had done to close that issue out in the initial ene o$ Ps 1ft.
18 in December 1993 time frame was very qualitative typq 19 cales. Just took credit or the code case and reculti.3 20 }lenAlcRCP'sasIunders,tandititwasfairlybrief $$ efN . OPE 7NVV equrcel'?er _ 4 21 that we were okay. It was little or no detail as far as 22 the calculation that was done the actual calculation. I 23 never saw it. My understanding was it was a very brief 24 look.
25 EY MR. LOGAN:
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE LSLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASH'NGTON. 0.C. 2m (202) 234 4433
41 1 O When you said you were given a reasonable -
l* 2 l assurance that you were within the design basis, who gave 3 you that reasonable assuran+e?
A
-f?/ 7 /$W 4 T e engineerin people in my meeting.
5 O Who was that?
6 A All of the people Ranalli was the manager, f/7 Chandra was there and he is ou P c n u tants a 8 re 1 sharp guy and Mahesh Danak and my people too. I also 9 & -
&f 7////W Rick Villar alee who I have a very high level of 10 respect for when it comes to operability.
11 Q All of those people gave you reasonable 12 assurance that you were within the design basis?
13 A Right. No one in that room as I recall had a 4
14 discomfort level thatgwere outside of our design basis. It 15 was not clear. Calculations still had to be done to 16 verify that. It was not absolute but in my opinion I 17 believe it was shared by everyone in the room that we had 18 a high enough level of assurance that when the cales were 19 done, they would in fact validate what we all thought 20 which was that we were within our design basis.
21 Q What were those cales to show?
22 A That we were below the PT limi ts in the tech 23 specs and as I recall the 450 or 475.
24 Q With what assumptions. Would that be with new 25 assumptions or with the original assumptions? '
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4- 42 1 A With the original licensing design basis >
2 assumptions and with again at that point in time we ,
3 thought that we could take credit for the RH3 as an -!
4 initial assumption. We thought that.had been approved by 5 the N.R.C., but it was a.' iso very clear when we left that 1
6 meeting and we made it verry char that you could not in 7 those calculations credt.: the code case. You had to be ;
8 able to show that without crediting the code case. I-was 9 told again by both the managar and his people that they 10 felt very comfortable that they could do that.
11 The main concern that they had was this issue that 12 we discussed before about whether you had-to assume the 13 RCP's were going to start up with the RCS solid. Once we 14 dispositioned that concern, they were very comfortable 15 with it.
16 BY MR. LOGAN:
17 0 What was the date of this meeting again?
18 A I don't know the exact date. I think it was 19 the 19th, 20th or 21st in that aree..
20 Q Did anybody at that meeting present you with 21 an incident _repor ? gf 7/' f/fr f
22 A No, W - net presented hysically presented 23 with an incident report.
p TGT 24 Q Did scuss the preparation of an incident
, 2b report?
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43' 1 A I don't recall. To be honest with you I don't 2 ren:all. I remember discussing whether an incident report 3 wat; needed. I don't remember discussing that one had 4 already been drafted. I know now that one had been 5 drafted I think that day or the day before by my people 6 because they were still -- while they never had an issue 7 with safety, O'Gara to his credit was pursuing -- I think 8 he got my sense of the meeting was that he got to the l 9 point of frustration where he wasn't comfortable from a 10 compliance point of view that we had enough to say we were 11 within our design basis and that was one of the reasons he 12 asked and I forget who asked me but.I remember both my 13 people and engineering I remember getting calls from both 14 that we needed to get together with you and talk this out 15 from a licensing basis ~ point of view.
16 0 So O'Gara discussed with you the preparation 17 of this report at this meeting?
18 A We -- I don't know about O'Gara. We - the 19 people at this meeting did discuss whether or not an 20 incident report w.s required at this point in time.
21 O And what was the conclusion?
22 A The conclusion was that based on a reasonable 23 assurance that we were within our design basis that there 24 was no need for an incident report.
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1 rcport had been drafted by one of your people?
2 A Yec. I subsequently learned that Ken O'Gara 3 had drafted an incident report with all of the details of 4 this event on this. In fact again this is something that 5 I have learned in the last couple of months that he 6 initially drafted one prior to our meeting stating that we 7 were outside of our design basis or that )1e thought we F might be outsida of our design basis and I forget what the 9 words were somathing to that effect and then after our 10 meeting he went back and to his credit updated that 11 incident report and took those words out because he was '
12 convinced that we weren't gn ore,butthesuperv(sori W YfES/
4 believehissuperv.(sordire% de. 1h 5l
13 f eddhim 8 f 7l//ff' to keep that handy in 14 case it should get to the point where we do need an IR and 15 I think to his credit he did that. He kept it updated so 16 that if we should need an incident report we would have it 17 ready to send to the shift right away.
18 Q So at that point your understanding was that 19 future calculations that would re-evaluate the original 20 design basis transient and assumptions were going to now 21 come up with a lower peak pressure than they had before; 22 is that correct?
23 A They would come up with a peak pressure that 24 was lower than the limits in the tech specs.
25 O okay. And I would like you to take a look at NEAL R. GROSS ;
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. 45 1 thic m;morcndum that I belicva you wero sent a copy of.
2 A Oh yes r ht. This is the letter from my 3 supe Q.Y sortoelgineering.* N ff.f/ft' 4 BY MR. LOGAN:
5 Q The date on that is September 28, 1994?
6 A Correct. Give me a minute to let me read it 7 to make sure it is the same thing.
8 Q Right. It is from Lave Smith ---
9 A It is from Dave Smith to Jerry Ranalli
- 71) y Eb' 7//WV 10 mechanical engineering manager and to Bave Bailey nuclear 11 engineering sciences manager.
aA DP Dave Smith is the principle 7k3/t 12 engineer in nuclear licensing that reports to me. Give me 13 a minute I would like to read it.
14 MR. LOGAN: Sure. Let's go off the record.
15 (Discussion off the record.)
16 MR. LOGAN: Back on the record.
17 MR. WETTERL'AHN: Was there a pending question.
18 MR. McDERMOTT: No, there was not. I just 19 wanted to make sure we were at the same point of 20 understanding of what was in that memo.
21 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
22 Q Between your -- the memo indicates to me that 23 Licensing had the understanding that a single core would 24 be shown to meet the design basis, but during my o
25 inspection an issue came up that sometime between April NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHOCE ISW40 AVENUE, N W. l 1207) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
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46 1 and September PSE&G set out'to revise the design basis -
2 assumptions with the mass edition transient which causes ,
3 the pressure spike. Can you fill me in on why that was l y7 4.,, 4 done and how that fits in with the other information?
M #" 5- A Yes. Once the -- once again we had enough p f(fot 0 4
sarm6 margin. We had enough margin but we were tight so that r/ %d 7 and let me just restate so we understand it. We were in Au O
, 8 the rocess of joing throughj we were doing a few parallel h4 Ay,m- 9
[b' ?ll9 il'
- a to resolve this issue. Besides finalizing the fua11 # ,
ps)2 0,p d 10 engineering cales to .tnsure ourselves that we were within g fj'; 7/t J/h '
- 11. our design hae as the tech specs stood today without 12 taking credit for the code case in parallel we wanted with 13 engineering support, we wanted to go after two paths to 14 give us additional margin so that in the future we had an 15 additional margin if other issues should come up or 16 whatever.
17 One path wab getting N.R.C. credit for the code case 18 and make an official submittal requesting their approval 19 for the code case which would give us an additional 10 20 percent margin. The other path was since the autoclosure 21 interlock had been removed and since it was available to 22 put that into our tech specs into our licensing basis and 23 have credit for that. So those two we were going after 24 getting'an additional margin so that we weren't so close.
-25 0 Okay. It was your understanding that you did NEAL R. GFh3SS COURT REPORTERS ANJ ' .ANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOF. ISLAND AVE:4UE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20006 (202) 2 % 4433
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- 1 not-need-to rely on that-revised design basis transient in 2 order to meet that?
l 3' A' That is correct. Those submittals were not to 4' come within our design basis. They were to give us more 5 margin.
6 Q And in November PSE&G ended up making a ,
7 notification to the N.R.C. 50.72 on the POPS system being 8 outside of its design basis?
9 A That is correct.
l 10 Q Because_it could not meet the single failure 11 criteria on unit one?
12 A That is correct.
13 Q Can you tell me what design basis was assumed 14 for what the mass addition transient was assumed at that 15 time?
16 A I would like to give you a-couple of lines in 17 this letter that you showed me which was the September 18 28th letter. This was -- this was after a meeting.nuf D (fa 4.A) 9/ 9 7/t///r- )fy ft.b'W ~
- 19 pervisor,had with the engineering people chcr; in 20 preparation for what we just talked about the submittal to j
21 the N.R.C. I can't remember whether it was a code case
-22 subraittal or the RH3. One of thora submittals in 23 preparation for that they sent us:a copy of the 24_ calculations to support that-and to help us develop the
- 25. documentation justification for the N.R.C. and the reason NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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Q.2f,/!!/ 48 1
th c 3wso ocnt wno beenuse it became apparent to my people 2
that some of the assumptions they were making were 3
different than what they thought they were back in the May ,
4 time frame.
5 The difference was what we had talked about before 6 was that it looked like they were nnu arc'_mi"" an=4n that 7 the RCS was solid with the reacto Qele.1*f/
/ 5 Fi'Vdh tL'tinfactjandagain 8
I had never seen the cales / but I think that the cales 9 actually showed with that scenario at that time in '
10 A & m M W/ 9/Ulh' September of '94 that it could be micr limiti .g. So they 11 had another meeting and said why is that assumption -- why 12 are you assuming that assumption because I thought we 13 agreed that it was overly conservative. ,
14 And they were making that assumption for a different 15 reason which in fact sounded valid. The different reason 16 was not so much that the reactor coolant would initially 17 operate with the RCS solid, but when you have a bubble you 18 draw a bubble in the pressurizer when you start the unit, 19 you then start your reactor coolant pumps. What they were 20 postulating which wasn't. clear in the cale was that you Ar.L .: %
21 k could s, tart theU-tCpump M / 9/w!//nhich gives you the pressure ,
22 tresient, sweep the bubble out of the precurizer and '
23 then you would be in a situation or could be where you s,i 1/d/!r fEs-24 have the 4& pump and the reactor coolant pump running with 25 the solid pressure.
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1 ib So in feet that accumption le org ie in fact or was ftlrt 2 deemed to be aicredible assumption. So with that there 3
was a concern'and I never saw the numbers but there was a 4 concern with that assumption that again could we be 5 outside of our design basis because again with that 6
assumption it looked like some of the numbers were going 7 up or could be. I am not sure if they were final or'not.
8 They could be on the wrong side of the limits, but the 9 other thing that we observed in that calc and again is the 10 reason that I walked away from this meeting is the flows 11 theywereusingforthetepumpswe/rf rz [f, fy re several hundred GPM '
12 higher than the tech specs allowed you to operato. I 13 think it says in here that the tech specs ifmit you to l1/tL 4 '
14 It was 780 or 760.
around 562 and I forgeti.o,the 2] exact*? Ilow[//Jl) r 15 0 I believe they 780 GPM's which was the 16 flow rate used in the original safety evaluation of that 17 system.
18 A That is correct.
19 Q So at that point you changed it. What mass 20 addition rate did you assume in the calculations?
21 A Based on this letter, we asked them to go back 22 and look at since we knew from the tech specs that we 23 couldn't operate at those f pihigh mass addi}* ions %, we
$ ilk- ,--
Wiasked W/A 24 them to go back and look,more realis those that ue 25 were allowed to operate at. So again my understanding was l
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50 4
1 the only thing now is my people lef t that ineeting and this 2 was the September time frame with the understanding that 3- with all-of the assumptions that they had and assuming the
-4 flow that was the limit in the plant that they had no 5 doubt they would be within the design basis and in fact 6 the final count showed that we' were within the design 7 basis for that set of assumptions. That turned out to be 8 as I understand it a fair amount of margin.
9 Now to answer your other question this was in 10 September they redid the cales and we drafted our 11 submittal to the N.R.C.
12 Q I am sorry. We need to go back and clarify 13 that. As of September the mass addition transient that
- 14 you were assuming to be -- the one that you had to'be held L
to by your license had you changed that?
15 16 A No. What we were changing -- what we were
, 17 requesting that engineering look at was the flow e4--
91 Yu/y l
! 18 ascumptions that we were using and there was a flow that i
19 had been used from day one of 780 which is unrealistic and L 20 inconsistent with our tech specs. You are allowed -- you L
21 can change the assumptions and in fact I don't know if p A$.Ett slals'
, 22 tnat is stated. in the 44Hk or not but if it is, you are 23 allowed to change the assumptions as long as you do a i
24- 50.59 and verify that you don't have a USQ an unresolved I
25 safety question.
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I l
1 51 1 Q So they were changing -- I believe the reasvn 2 they got the change with the mass addition rate was 3 because they were considering the high head safety 4 injection pumps as opposed to the intermediate head safety 5 injection pumps whici were used in the original analysis.
6 The intermediate head pumps had a rate of 780 GPM.
7 A Right.
S O The high heads have a lower GPM.
9 A Right that is correct and the intermediate 10 head pumps are controlled by the tech specs these MI/r 11 conditions and in fact that was overly conservative to 12 assume that.
13 0 But the design basis of the system the 14 documents that back up the technical specificatio;s the -
15 documents that support the 370 pound per square inch set 16 point of POPS the analysis and evaluation that was 17 originally reviewed and approved by the N.R.C. was based 18 on 780 GPM's of the intermediate head pumps. Now, what I 19 am understanding from you is that from September you no 20 longer could withstand the transient from that pump so
.1 based on administrative controls you reelid the analysis 22 assuming a high head safety injection pump; is that 23 correct?
24 A When yua say we no longer had, I am not sure 25 that we had the new numbers at that time. I just don't NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCf fJt R$
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- . 52 1 know, but I do know that when wa got a copy of the cale, 2 it was obvious that we were making -- between engineering 3 and us it was obvious to us based on the tech specs that 4
the assumptions were very conservative and again let meJ o 5
Ok back to the licensing basis 1s that for one f" cf PCM you 2Q 7 -
3 G can withstand the over-pressure transient and if any 7 exceeding occurs -
8 0 Given what was the transient? 7pgH ,
g a P '.
9 A The transient being as pe,rt of the safety 10 injection pump. The safety injection and/or charging.
11 Charging pumps are also safety injection pumps. So that 12 was a charging. There was nothing wrong if you have a 13 calculation that is the basis for meeting your licensing 14 basis and calculation is overly conservative, changing 15 .those assumptions as long as you go through the 16 appropriate safety evaluation process you are still within 17 ycur design basis. Again the design basis isn't the 18 assumption. The design basis is that you provide the 19 adequate pressure protection with one P" 22 Z. Tsv 7/is/y, P0 W 20 0 The safety evaluation that you are referring 21 to, was that done prior to September?
22 A I don't know if it was prior to September that 23 it was done in support of our license change submittal. It 24 was done and I never saw it but my understanding was it 25 was done in this time frame. I don't know when exactly.
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f 53 '
I Q What I would like you to take a look at is I i 2 have a copy of a 10 CFR 50.59 safety evaluation form for '
3 Salem and it has discussion of-the POPS mass addition of a 4 ECCS pump. Included in this package are safety evaluations 5 for unit one and unit two. Are these the safety -
6 evaluations that you are referring to? f 7 MR. LOGAN:- Off the record for a minute.
8 (DEReubMb4N:off the record.) ,
t 9 MR. LOGAN: Back on the record. Go ahead. >
10 THE WITNESS: The answer is no. This was done 11 in late '94 okay after some additional information came to 12 the table that in fact caused a report to state that we 13 were-outside of the design basis for unit one.
14 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
1 15 Q You are referring to the positive displacement 16 charging function?
17 A Yes right. Let me go back. At this point in 18 time in September in the September October time frame our '
19 understauding was that we met our design basis with all of 20 the right assumptions taking credit for flows of the -
21 pumps with the right combination of pumps and you can have 22 the charging pump or that intermediate charging pump 23 within certain temperature ranges or high head but the f
24 maximum flow was 560 in the design basis. Then we were -
25- --
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l 54 f 1 Q Excuse me. Before you continue, if you 2 changed the pumps that you are assuming would inject into :
i 3 the reactor cooling system to something less limiting than i l
4 what.was originally assumed and reviewed and was actually !
5 part of the safety evaluation written for the unit one -
G tech spec amendment which included the POPS system,'if you '
i 7 changed that how can you say that you met the design !
8 basis?
w n.st g /)f/Iff I 9 A Because you dit.'r change assu ions that are .
j a fCeff .h= L x '?////ff 10 overly conservative :- 5^ 03. You can change that. 'The r i
11 only design basis is again the design basis is not the 12 assumptions that went into the calculations. The 13 design / licensing basis is to provide adequate 9ver-pressure protection with one .j.,;f W / WUI!!
e&VO available.
14 15 0 And so at this point you are telling me that 16 it was a safety evaluation done for the change in the mass 17 addition assumptions? ,
18 A That is my understanding and I never saw it.
I 19 My understanding was that it came out of showing we were i
20 well below the limit.
21 MR. McDERMOTT: During my inspection I woula
, 22 like to note that when I asked about that safety ,
23 evaluation, I was told that none was done.
24 BY MR. LOGAN:
4 i
l 25 0 Are you aware of any that were done that-you ,
l 1 l
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, 55 1 could dircet us to see? !
I 2 A I couldn't tell you the number. I was told it 3 was being done. I r
4 Q And who told you that? i 5 A To be honest with you I can't remember. We ,
6 talked about this issue with a number of people. '
7 Q When were you told that?
8 A In the past couple of months the last month or 9 two trying to understand this issue.
10 0 This is considerably later though isn't it.
11 If you were told that in the past couple of months, it is 12 '95. A correct. Let me clarify what I am telling you 13 now and what I have told you is what my understanding was 14 on how this evolved and a lot of the understanding I '
15 gained in the past couple of months.
16 O I see.
17 A I was not personally closely involved in this 18 scenario in the September time frame. I am only telling 19 you what I understand from my own research in the past 20 couple of months and how it was h died. This was handled 21 prettymuchbymysupervisor,.Myunderstandingwasfhat/1lff
.% 8f 22 there was a cale in this time ~ frame that was done.
23 Q. In the September time frame?
.24- A. -Yes the September to October time frame that 25 validated that with the new flow assumptions we were below NEAL R. GROSS -
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SG 1 the limits.
2 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
3 O But the safety evaluation that said -- we 4 started this discussion talking about the safety 5 evaluation requirements by 50.59. That is the evaluation 6 that I am referring to. You sdid you were allowed to 7 change the assumptions of those calculations if you did a 8 50.59 and I asked was that 50.59 safety evaluation done.
9 A Well there may have been and it may get 10 confused. If those assumptions and let me be clear on 11 this. I don't know this to be true that those assumptions 12 and flow were in the FSAR and I don't know this for a fact 13 that they are. They may be but you are required to do a 14 50.59. If they are in the FSAR whether it was an 15 engineering evaluation as opposed to a 50.59 safety 16 evaluation which may have been the case here there is 17 nothing wrong with revising the engineering evaluation 18 with more realistic assumptions. You don't necessarily 19 require a 50.59 unless those flow assumptions are in the 20 finally safety analysis report.
21 Q Even if those flow assumptions affect the 22 system set point as described in the FSAR and the tech 23 specs?
24 A Could you restate your question.
25 Q The assumptions we are talking about here if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20h P344433 WASHINGTON D.C 20005 (202) 2344433
57 1 th2y are not -- if the flow assumption mass addition if 2 that is not explicitly stated in the FSAR, what I am 3 hearing you say is that you don't need to do the 50.59 4 evaluation. My question was does that apply -- do you 5 apply that also when the assumptior.s and these other
, 6 calculations directly affect the set point that is in your i i . .
f 7 license? '
, 8 A The expectation would be do a 50.59. What I [
4 9 was trying to relate to you is sometimes there is i 10 confusion between that and engineering calculations from a ,
11 regulatory legal point of view. If it is not in our basis 12 for our tech specs or our FSAR then you are not required 13 to do a 50.59. The expectation is that you would do a
- 14 50.59. I can't sit here and tell you what was done here 15 except my understanding was there was a calculation done.
16 _Under which process I don *t know to again validate that we 17 were within our design basis.
i 18 BY MR. LOGAN: I 19 O And if a calculation was done, who would in 20 fact have done that?
21 A Engineering mechanical engineering.
22 O And the individual in charge mechanical 23- engineering?
24 A Jerry Ranalli is the manager. Howard Berrick ,
25 is the supervisor. Again I want to restate that what I NEAL R. GROSS
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- I 58- !
i 1 telling you is my understanding now. I was not -- with the
- exception of that April meeting and some follow up with 3 people I understand there are still cales going on I was t
4 not personally involved in this issue in September.
5 Now I never answered your initial question. I never i 6 answered your initial question which was relative to the 7 November or December incident report.
8 MR. McDERMOTT: Yes.
9 THE WITNESS: The answer to that is in !
10 putting together the final cales and maybe this answers
- 11. the other question. The final cales that had the right
, 12 assumptions with the more correct assumptions to support '
13 our license change that was being -- our license change 14 was being circulated for review by management, by 4
15 engineering and management people and one of managers in 16 engineering asked a question during that review and I i 17 believe this was in the November time frame of did you 18 consider the positive displacement pump running. The 19 answer was no we did not. I believe he asked my people 20 and my people followed up because his knowledge the person 21 who was asked he was knowledgeable that in fact there is 22 nothing that limits it from running in these conditions 23 and in fact it does run in these conditions.
24 When my pe son found that ou , he went to a 2, 25 supervisorg th ) Ow<
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(g/M^-^^hf N/ k Y 1 and asked or said you don't assume it. How much of a
- n g .
2 pressure increase is a worth and he knew what the .
3 number that they had calculated before was. That is why 4 there was a number that they were working with in 5 Engineering at that point. He told them what the delta was 6 andthedeltaforunitonebasicallymithanyaddition)al:s # 7 he 7 calculations put him above the limit. i 8 Without engineering concurrence or whptever he f y?f ?ftJ///*
9 directed O'Gara to write his greport and send it to the 10 shift. He did it I think it was that day that we were 11 outside the design basis.
12 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
13 0 okay. And when you say you were outside your I 14 design basis, that was outside the revised design basis?
15 A That was we could not say at that point in fW 4[g/fIfpf 4 c* L .fh 7l/J'/ r 16 time the TCP w assump ad similarly and we i n
17 talked about the flow assumption where we were really le conservative. It was the opposite that we should have
- 19 assumed and we didn't. So in fact the assumption and p+ .72r 7/tHH 20 design basis is can you meet your pressure protection 21 _ limits and in fact our judgment was from the supervisor bk '
g ,
22 was with this new assumption on the /
p p whi h was 7/'/4 /
i 23 valid and we knew that, we had no reasonable assurance 24 that we could even with additional cales. He didn't get 25 any concurrence. He just went and told this person to NEAL R. GROSS COURT RfPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
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6C L
,. 1 write an IR. I found out about it the next day and it was 2 fine. What they did was the right thing. '
3 We didn't have any discussion on whether or not to 4 cut the IR. I just told them to cut it which was the ,
5 expectation that I had. If you get to that point where 6 you are not reasonably sure you should cut the IR. So the 9
7 incident report was,, cut nd bpsical}y at that point we
%< p- m % m) % fa/re !
8 felt that h err ;.. b Ce-f6r unit one but not unit two. i W ff .ilf'I' 9 Unit two wes" higher.
10 0 once again that is outside of the revised --
11 your revised design basis?
12 A I don't agree with that part. The design 13 X
basis is and always has been 4.he. meet your over-pressure
$ f*'7flYtf .
14 protection limits with one "" cf E.
POW Pr kJ/h*
We were outside of 15 that design basis in November. Prior to when we cut that 16 incident report neither me or my people had an 17 understanding or no reasonable assurance that we could 18 meet that basis of providing the appropriate pressure 19 protection.
20 Some of the assumptions changed because we were 21 conservative, but that doesn't mean you are outside of 22 your design basis.
23 BY MR. LOGAN:
e 24 0 We talked again just a little bit about this f
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. that also the time when the N.R.C. had AIT team here?
2 A Yes.
3 Q And we have been led to believe that one of 4 the reasons that that incident report was not filed was 5 that the N.R.C. was here at that time. Did that enter
\
6 into your consiaeration as to whether or not an IR should 7 be filed?
8 A Not at all. I don't remember discussing that 9 at all. In fact I don't remember -- I don't remember if ,
10 they were on site with the AIT or not. I don't remember 11 discussing that at all. The expectation would be to 12 either cut it or not cut it. ,
13 0 Did you or anyone at that meeting discuss the ;
14 merits of filing an incident report that would possibly 15 lead to a shut down of the plant?
16 A I don't remember discussing that as you quote 17 -it. I do remember some very limited discussion when we '
18 were done that the people felt there was a level of -
19 people felt good that they were able to resolve th 20- problem and demonstrate to a high level of assurance that 21- we were within our- design basis without going having an f/ hW/r 22 incident report and cause an unnecessary shutdown.- There l 23 was a level of teeling good-that we were able to resolve r 24 the_ problem essentially.
25 Q. You were in the middle of a statement.
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1 A I don't remember discussing that. I remember -
2 - in fact I remember a feeling of satisfaction that we 3 were able to resolve the issue, but I don't remember any' 4 discussion about whether or not this would cause the plant 5 to be in a shutdown because that is inappropriate. If it 6 is an IR it is an IR.
d 7 Q I would agree that it is inappropriate but 8 inappropriate or not it would not necessarily mean that 9 you didn't discuss it. Along that same line inspite of 10 your answer let me ask you this question. Was there ever 11 any discussion as to the cause of shutting the plant down 12 versus the fine you would reccive from the N.R.C. if you 13 failed to shut the plant down?
14 A Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
15 Q Was there any discussion along those lines 16 that if we shut the plant down today it will cost us a 17 million dollars a day and if we don't and we get caught 18 the N,R.C. will fine us only a couple of hundred 19 thousand?
20 A No absolutely not. We don't operate that way.
21 Q Let me ask you just another twist on this same 22 question Mr. Thomson. Have you ever made that statement in 23 jest to anyone?
24 A Which statement?
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, 1 dollars 'a day. If we get caught because we didn't shut j 2 - down the N.R.C. will fine us a couple of hundred j 3 thousand?
J i
4 A No.
5 Q Have you ever even jokt.d abot:t that? -
6 A. Not that I can recall no. I don't think I 7- would. I take that very seriously, f 8 Q someone who used to work here told me that 9 everybody says that at one point or another Maybe not '
10 seriously but certainly they say it and you are telling me 11 not even in jest that you have ever made that statement?
i 12 A No , I don't recall making that statement even ;
13 in jest.
i 14 MR.' LOGAN: Do you have any more questions?
15 MR McDERMOTT: No.
16 BY MR. LOGAN:
17 0 Is there anything that you would like to put i 18 on the record at this point Mr. Thomson?
19 A Well ---
l 20 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you want to talk for a 21 second?
l- :
22 THE WITNESS: Yes. .
'23 MR. LOGAN: Off the record. '
24- , -(Discussion off the. record.) l 1
y; 25 .MR. LOGAN: Back on the record, Mr.
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, 1 Wetterhahn, while we were off the record you indier,ted -!
i 2 that there was an additional question that you would like l 3 to raise.
4 MR. WETTERHAHN: Yes.
5 BY MR. WETTERHAHN: f 6 C If I_ recall the record correctly you said in r
7 the September October fall time frame of 1994 you were not !
8 aware of the progress of this issue; is that correct?
9 A I was aware there were some calculations going -
10 on. I was not personally involved in the details of what 11 was going on, i 12 0 Was it unusual -- would that be unusual that A3 you were not involved?
I 14 A No, it is not unusual at all. We handle 15 hundreds of issues in licensing and usually I will get ,
16 involved if it becomes a significant problem as well as my 17 (pp 4.4 Mr ,/uh-supervisorisha)ndlingitandtheniftheyneedtogetme
. 4 18 involved that is okay.
19 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you. !
20 MR. LOGMI: Okay, I believe we have one '
21 additional question. Mr. McDermott. I 22 MR. McDERMOTT: Yes.
23 BY MR. McDERMOTT:
24 Q Regarding the September 28, 1994 memorandum 25 which we discussed a few moments ago, paragraph numbered NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE (SLAND AVENUE. N W.
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65 1 as one on page three, would you please read that. . i 2 A Okay.
3 Q Does that paragraph -- doesn't that paragraph 4 tell you that the system could not meet its design basis?
5 A No it does not absolutely not. What the '
6 paragraph tells you is that this was in support of the 7 license change the tech spec change'that I mentioned prior 8 to Brian to get us some more margin in this analysis and 9
ptfs/v we wanted to get e margin so we could take credit for the 10 RH3. That was what this calc was about. Besides these 11 cales were done for a number of reasons. ' Number one to 12 absolutely alidate for sure that we were in our design 13 e entl and also to provide some additional Rit$ o .
14 take credit for the RH3 where we were at in terms of the 15 pressure limits. So no that does not tell me that we are 16 outside of our design basis.
17 0 What specifically does it indicate to you?
18 A It indicates to me and again I am talking 19 about item one on page three september 28, 1994. It
?O indicates to me that we had in our license change 21 development 7[*
/
'u,civging)the tech spec change)er had assumed 22 that we could show that c1Lhwr we ehowcd that-the RH3 23 was good enough by itself to meet our limits.
24 MR McDERMOTT: Could I go back please.
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.. 1 copy of that document to Mr. Thomson. .
2 BY MR. McDERMOTT i
3 0 When we spoke about the April time frame you ,
4 indicated that you we.re waiting for calculations for S revised calculations that would show that the single core 6 could still meet its basis.
7 A Yes. '
8 C Is that the calculation that is discussed in j 9 item one of page three?
10 A I don't know. I don't know tihat, f
11 MR. McDERMOTT: Okay. Thank you.
12 MR. LOGAN: Mr. Thomson, I c.ppreciate you !
I 13 coming here today and taking the time to be with us.
14 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
15 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded.)
16 17 9
.-l. %
, 20
, 21 4{9 & (M/g /77r/
l, EA yS&6, i 24 ' '
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CERTIF3CATE 9
+
This is to certify that the attached i
i proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: ~
l Name of Proceeding: Interview of Frank Thomson ;
Docket Number: Not assigned .
Place of Proegeding Hancocks Bridge, New Jersey were held as herein appears, and that this is the original ;
transcript thereof for the file of the United States !
1 Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter '
reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the I
court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true f and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings, I sr.4 Barbara Burke Official Reporter i
Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc. <
4 4
r t
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- EXHIBIT 10 1
1 l
l l
l i
Case No. 1 95 013 Exhibit 10
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