ML20202J040
| ML20202J040 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/15/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20202H986 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-97-325 NUDOCS 9712110027 | |
| Download: ML20202J040 (63) | |
Text
. . ~ .- . - .. . . . . . . _ - . - - .. - -- .. . . . .. . . -. .
. .1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
-2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
3 ~+ +-+ +-+ f 4i OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERV7EW 6 =
, a.
7 IN THE MATTER OF: ll
-8 INTERVIEW OF ll Docket No.
9 JOHN K.-WIEDEMANN ll (not assigned)'
10 -
'l 11 :
12 Wednesday, February 15, 1995
, 13 t 14 Security Center Conference Room 15 Salem Generating. Station 16 Salem, NJ 17 18 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 19? 3:23 p.m.
F 20- BEFORF: KEITH LOGAN, Investigator g
j a. 22
$ an . 23 ,
N N
$k _24-
']E _
g 25 .
h.Qg . f
'(: y j .'
o a.E' r
2 6..
pag' f ,~.f. p .
,"~m NEAL R. GROSS --- "
-tus a 1 - 9 a, - 0 1 3 . cou,1,,,0,1,3,mo ro,,sco,,,,3 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W 4 4
[ [Ok (202) 2344433 4 , d WASHINGTON.' C.C 20005 (202) 2344433
2 1 APPEARANCES 2 On Behalf of the USNRC:
3 KEITH LOGAN, Investigator 4 475 Allendale Road G
5 King of Prussia, PA 19406 6 (610)'337-5345 7 On Behalf of the Interviewee:
8 MARK J. WETTERHAHN, Esq.
t 9 Winston & Strawn 10 1400 L Street, N.W.
11 Washington, DC 2005-3502 12 (202) 371-5703
_cw , .-
13 KATHRYN M. KALOWSKY 14 Winston & Strawn 15 1400 L Street, N.W.
16 . Ma s hir.gton , DC 20005-3502 17 (202) 371-5738 18 The Interviewee: .T 19 JOHN K. WIEDEMANN -.~
20
r 21 '
t%.
NEAL R. GROSS /
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS $vy 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20COS (202) 2344433
3 1 P-R-0-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 3:23 p.m.
3 Whereupon, 4 JOHN KEITH WIEDEMANN 5 a witness of lawful age, having been first duly sworn, was 6 examined and testified as follows:
7 BY MR. LOGAN:
8 Q Mr. Wiedemann, would you please state your full 9 name for the record, spelling your last name?
10 A John Keith Wiedemann. That's 11 W-I-E-D-E-M-A-N-N. -
12 O Okay. My name is Keith Logan. I'm an 13- investigator with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 14 King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
15 Mr. Wiedemann, you're appearing today with 16 counsel; is that correct?
17 A Yes.
18 MR. LOGAN: Okay, if counsel would put his name 19 on the record, please?
20 MR. WETTERHAHN: Yes, my name is Mark J.
21 Wetterhahn with the law firm of Winston and Strawn, 1400 L 22 Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20005. With me is 23 Kathryn Kalowsky, also from our firm, and we are 24 representing Mr. Wiedemann at this interview.
25 BY MR. LOGAN:
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCHIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISW40 AVENUE, N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 2344433
l
.o b
i
$, 4 4
1 Q
\$ & hi Mr. Wiedemann, you're aware that Mr. Wiedemann 2 does represent other individuals in this investigation, as 3 well as PSE&G; is that correct?
~
4 A That's correct.
5 0 And you're aware that there may be a conflict 6 of interest with regard to multiple representation; is that 7 correct?
8 A That's correct.
9 Q And in spite of that, you do desire to have Mr.
10 Wetterhahn here today as your counsel?
11 A That's correct.
12 Q Thank you.
13 Mr. Wiedemann, what is your current position 14 with PSE&G?
15 A I'm a technical engineer in charge of the NSSS 16 group.
17 O The "NSSS" group? Was is that?
18 , A The Nuclear Steam Supply Systems.
19 Q And that makes you a first-line supervisor?
20 A I have direc' reports to me, yes.
21 Q Okay. And to whom do you report?
22 A To the Technical Department Manager.
23 Q And who is that?
24 A John Morrison.
25 Q When were you hired by PSE&G?
NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 W ASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433
l l
l 5
1 A I was hired in October of 1983.
2 O And since your hiring at PSE&G, what positions 3 have you held and when?
4 A I was initially hired as an engineer in the 5 stress analysis group. After a period of approx ~:mately 6 three years, I was accepted into the System Engineering 7 Program. I completed my system engineering training '86-8 '87 time frame and became a system engineer, and my system 9 engineer assignments at that time were essentially balance 10 of plant equipment associated with the main turbine and 11 turbine support.
12 At the end of '88, roughly, we split the Salem 13 Technical Department into a primary and a balance-of-plant 14 side, and I was assigned to the primary side. My 15 responsibilities were the emergency core cooling systems, A6K-FEBD 9244d 16 component cooling, off-rpced water -- primary side plant 17 components. I was the system engineer in that capacity 18 until I became the Acting NSSS group head approximately in 19 '91, early '92 time frame.
20 0 The same position that you hold today?
21 A That's correct. I accepted the permanent 22 position in '93, I believe, and I've been acti,ng as the 23 NSSS group head since.
24 I had or.e brief period where I established 25 another group in July of '94, from July until December of 1
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 7 9 -4433
6 1 '94, where I instituted a support organization that would 2 handle emergent work for the system engineers. And that 3 group has now been turned over to another group head and 4 I've returned to the NSSS group.
5 0 okay. When was the first time that you either 6 met or heard of Mr. Charles, Chandra Lashkari?
7 A I would have to say that that was shortly after 8 joining the Salem System Engineering Program.
9 0 In?
10 A '86 time frame.
11 O What was your relationship at that time with 12 Mr. Lashkari?
13 A I really didn't work with Charlie until I 14 joined the primary side of the house as the emergency core 15 cooling system engineer, and at that point Charlie was a 16 coworker. He was also a member of the group.
17 . O Did you work on joint projects with him?
18 A Occasionally, our systems overlapped. RHR 19 system interface with the reactor cooling system was one 20 area where we may have collaborated on projects, but for 21 the most part I did not have direct assignment with 22 Charlie.
23 Q Until what time?
24 A When I became the acting group head, then 25 Charlie was a direct report to me.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE LSLAND AVENUE. N W (202)2344433 WASHfNGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 7
1 Q You're talking the '91 '92 time frame?
2 A That's correct.
3 Q And you supervised for *.pproximately what, 4 three or four years 5 A Correct.
6 O Did there come a time in your working with Mr.
7 Lashkari that he raised safety concerns to you?
8 A Charlie would raise design basis concerns, and 9 using my words carefully, what I would interpret as a 10 safety concern is one that has immediate impact on the 11 plant. A design basis concern is where we have a question 12 as far as the system design, what its requirements are, how 13 they're satisfied.
14 0 okay, and did he raise safety concerns to you?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And what were those safety concerns?
17 A Charlie had a safety concern with containment 18 average air temperatures, and what that's a safety concern 19 is because the tech spec has us take average air 20 temperatures. Charlie had a concern that the average air 21 temperatures were not taken in a nonconservative 22 direction -- or, sorry, were taken in a nonconservative 23 direction. So that would have an impact on the plant, and 24 that's why I would consider-that a safety concern.
25 0 Explain the problem or explain the concern.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 W ASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 2344413
8 1 A The technical specifications has 10 locations 2 identified in which to take an arithmetic average of five 3 points, and that arithmetic average has to be below a 4 maximum allowable temperature.
5 Q Arithmetic average what?
6 A The -- of five temperatures out a possible 7 selection of ten points.
8 If the arithmetic average was selected from the 9 five maximum temperatures, you could come up with an GbutDW?dd $0 QW/ff 10 average that e vervauh=d upon the maximum allowable tech 11 spec number. If you took a representative sample of the 12 various elevations in containment, you would get a 13 different number that wouldn't be as close or above the 14 tech spec allowable.
15 That particular issue we discussed. I asked 16 Charlie to take a look at what were the processes that 17 other utilities used, what did Westinghouse recommend, did 18 we have any components that were at risk, and the answer 19 was we didn't have any components at risk. Therefore, it 20 was given a low priority, and it was something that I asked 21 Charlie to work with the Licensing Department and come up 22 with an amendment to the tech spec. Ir that amendment, the 23 anticipation is that we will select the primary points and 24 then have the backup points. Out of the uen locations, 25 we'll select five that is an even representation of the i NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (22 234433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4 33
. .- - .- . - - . - . _ - . . - . _ ~ . . . - _
.- - .- . . - _ , - ,. - =..
9 1- -cont'ainment temperatures. Should one of those five points-2: fail-, the: thermal. couple fails, then-the backup point;would 3 .- be= selected. That is still work in progress. I hope to-4 have that resolved here in95; 5 Q You say.it's a-. safety concern. Why-is that?
6 A. Well, thetsafety concern at the time was that
~7 you.would exceed a maximum allowable temperature for a >
8 particular component'and that that component could then 9 fail. So what we had to look at where the areas that we 10 had the high temperatures, did we have components in that 11 location that were susceptible to fa*ilure. And to the bcst
, 12 of-my knowledge, we did not come up with any.
13' Q Is that the nonconservatism and pop set point 14 issue that he was talking about?
15 A- No, that is a -- that.is a separate issue that 16 was raised by Westinghouse-for plants to take a look at.
l- 17 The question there was under --
18 MR. WETTERHAHN: Okay, are we finished with 19 this---- sorry -- other one or --
2 0.- MR. LOGAN: That's okay.
21 'MR..WETTERHAHN: Do you want.to get into pops.
22 MR.- LOGAN: Get-into pops-and we get into it 23 now or we can get into it later.
24- -
MR. WETTERHAHN: Are-you finished describing.
25- this:one-about the --
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
l
- l. 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
j, -
'..(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 2000$ (202) 234-4433 '
. . . --- -- - . - ~ . . . . . - - . - . . . - . - ~ .- -. - . - .
10
/1 THE WITNESS: -Yes. The containment average air i
2 temperature?.
3 MR. WETTERHAHN: Yes.
~4 THE WITNESS: I believe so.
S BY MR. LOGAN:-
6 0 Well,--tell me about the pops issue.
-7 A Okay. The pops concern is a potential scenario ,
- 8. where under spurious actuations of~the safety injection 9 system you could have a start of a safety injection pump or 10- you-could also, nonrelated to the safety injection system, 11 you could have the spurious start of an idle reactor 12 coolant pump.
13 Essentially, what the issue deals with is a 14 sudden pressure pike that could occur that would exceed the I
15 maximum allowable stress that the reactor vessel is designed to withstand. The question as to whether you're 17 approaching upon that maximum stress is a function of the 18 temperature that the reactor coolant is at. If the reactor 19 coolant is below 200 degrees, that' maximum allowable stress 20 is what we refer to as a nil ductility fracture stress,
'21 that at. temperatures less than 200 degrees, NNM nil @
- 22. ductility temperature threshold comes into consideration
-23 and you have to concern yoursalf with the fracture of the 24 vessel.
- 2 5. .The pops system pressure overprotection system i
NEAL R.- GROSS.
{ ' COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS -
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W
.(202) 234 4433 , WASHINGTON. O C, 20005 (202) 2344433
11 1 provides a pressure-relieving capacity, so that the maximum 2 pressure that would challenge the vessel doesn't occur.
3 Now should you have a pressure spike above 370 psi -- or, 4 sorry, 375 psi is the tech spec number -- the pressure 5 overprotection valves will pop open and relieve the 6 pressure.
7 Q okay ,
8 A The Westinghouse concern was that the pops 9 system, under a rpecific scenario, may not relieve that 10 pressure spike. So if you were less than 200 degrees and 11 you had this pressure spike occur, you could challenge the 12 vessel structure integrity. That was the issue that 13 Westinghouse had asked plants to take a look at. It was 14 applicable to Salem Unit 1 because the age of the Unit 1 15 reactor vessel placed it in the area of concern that 16 Westinghouse had.
17 When Charlie looked at this and brought it to 18 iny attention, we had discussed the nature of the concern 19 that Westinghouse had, and it uas recognized that. under 20 these conditions with the reactor coolant less than 200 s 21 degrees, our operating procedurrs and our tech specs would 22 require that we are on the RHR system at that point. So 23 the RHR system has pressure protection via what we term the 24 RH3 relief valve. Now the RH3 relief valve is set at 35 25 pounds as well. So u s pressure-relieving protection for NEAL R. GROSS 1
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENVE. N W (202) 234 4 13 WASHINGTON. O C. 2000$ (202) 234M33
12 1 the reactor coolant system woulo consist of the two pops 2 valves, in addition to the RH3 relief valve.
3 I discussed this with Charlie and said it looks 4 like it can't occur at Salem because we are protected by 5 not only the pops system, but also the RH3 valve and the 6 RHR system. One of the things
- hat Westinghouse did not "
7 have, I guess, in ; heir historica) records was that an 8 automatic pressure isolatio.n for what we call the RH1 and 9 RH2 valves was removed at Salem as a safety feature a 10 number of years ago. What that PH1-RH2 pressure set point 11 was that ir you had a spike in pressure, the RH1 and RH2 12 valves would close. So your RH3, which is protecting the 13 RHR system, is, in effect, taken out of the loop under the 14 original plant design. But because we had removed that 15 auto feature and our valves are always open and the 16 breakers tagged, that we always have the RH3 available.
17 -
So when Charlie and I went over this, it was la understood that that failure mechanism could not occur at 19 Salem, the failure mechanism of achieving 479 psi pressure 20 that would cause a failure of the reactor vessel. If the 21 pops were challenged, then we had an equally-sized RH3 22 valve that could also relieve. So we had at least three t 23 valves that would relieve at a lower pressure well below 24 the anticipated maximum spike. And that's how Charlie and 25 I had discussed that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPOATERS AND TRANSCFUBERS 1323 AHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W
$?02) 2344413 w ASHINGTON D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
1 l
13 1 1
1 0 Did he agree with you? ;
2 A Yes. He had also turned this issue over to the 1 3 nuclear engineering mechanical section to evaluate whether 4 the RH3 was a viable cption and would provide the 5 protection that we needed. The analysis indicated that it 6 was a viable option, and at that point it became more of a 7 question of, can you *ake credit in licensing space for the 8 RH3 to relieve the p, essure? At that point I had directed 9 Charlie that we should get the Licensing Department 10 involved and let them resolve whether you could take ciedit 11 for it or not, and we turned that over to Licensing.
12 So we had the Salem System Engineering 13 Department. We had the Nuclear Engineering Mechanical 14 Department, and we also had our Licensing Department 15 looking at this.
16 0 Was there a point at which Charlie wanted to 17 spend some time talking to Westinghouse and you told him 18 not to? .
19 A I don't believe that that was on the pops 20 issue. I had a question on Charlie's interpretation of a 21 tech spec which I think he referred to as the "to-from" 22 issue.
23 Q Okay. That's the one you sent little notes on?
24 A I sent Charlie --
25 -Q You sent Charlie lots of notes?
i NEAL R, GROSS COURT 84EPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W l (202) FJ44433 W ASHINGTON. O C 2000$ (202) 2344433 l
14 1 A -- lots of notes, lots of -- I wanted to 2 ensure that I wrote down exactly what my thoughts were and 3 i that Charlie would have a note that --
4 0 I have one on the "to-from a issue or afrom-to a 5 issue, thermal barrier secret agenda. Is that what you're 6 referring to when you say the a t.o- f rom a issue?
7 A The "to-from a issue is a concern with how you a balance the seal injection flow to the reactor coolant 9 pumps. The -- and it's been a while on this. So I want to 10 make sure I get this one right.
11 The concern that is introduced during an 12 accident is that seal injection flow is postulated to 23 increase to a higher number. I believe the number is in 14 the range of 78 gpm. That number is bounded by the 15 throttling valves to the reactor coolant pump seals in that 16 we throttle the flow to the reactor coolant pump seals to 17 ensure that, should an accident occur and a tailure of that 18 line, that the total maximum flow would not exceed 78 gpm, 19 and that keeps us within the accident analysis.
20 And what that means is that part of your flow 21 will be spilling out of the break and part of the flow will 22 be going down across the thermal barrier into the reactor 23 coolant system. And I believe Charlie's concern was when 24 you took a literal interpretation of the tech spec, that 25 there was a sentence in the tech spec that said that the NEAL R. GROSS (X)URT REPORTERS AND TRAN$CHIBERS 1323 RHODE tSLAND AVENUE. N n (202) 234 4433 w ASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433
i 15 1 seal injection flow from the seals shall be less than 40 2 gpm, shall be throttled to less than 40 gpm. And Charlie's 3 contention, I believe, was that the tech spec should have 4 read that the seal injection flow should be throttled to 40 5 gpm to the sealc, not from the seals.
6 And the question that I had discussed with 7 Charlie was that if it was to the seals, part of your seal 8 injection goes down across the thermal barrier and is 9 returned to the reactor coolant system, so that is not lost 10 inventory. That is not inventory that would spill to the il floor, one way to look at it. If the seal return flow was 12 identified as from the seal return, then that is the volume 13 that would actually spill to the floor and none would be 14 going into the reactor coolant system.
15 We had debated which was the correct one. I 16 didn't have a high priorit. to place on this particular 17 issue. All our existing procedures were in place as far as 18 how we balance the flows, and this seemed to be more of a 19 kind of an esoteric-type question than an actual safety 20 issue. The question was not so much that you were 21 challenging ECCS flow, but it was how you were interpreting 22 various methods that you could use to balance it.
23 My question to Charlie -- in looking at the 24 memos here, this is one of two. This is probably the 25 second time that I had to put it in writing to Charlie on a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
l 1323 54HODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W j
(20a 294433 W ASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234 4433
t
~
16 k
1- concern that I had as a supervisor that my perception of i 2 what Charlie's' work assignments were and what he'9 working 3 on versus what his perceptions are _ m rM I,hand W**/d I needed ,
4 Charlie to tell me'what is he working on and why is he 5 working on them. So what I wrote to Charlie here is:
6 "What are yot working on and why? Please provide an 7 accounting of your perception of your work assignments,a
- 8 And then on the second page, I said that there's secret !
- 9. agenda -- is there a secret agenda? And I listed a number ,
10 of things that were coming to my attention that I was not !
11 aware that Charlie was working ont the "to-from" issue, 12 which I thought we had resolved. Another one that we 13 haven't discussed yet was on the PORV vent area, and then 24 the third bullet that I had here was what I termed a circle 15 W, which is a Westinghouse fax. ,
16 I'll talk about the Westinghouse fax for a 17 minute, which is probably what kind of prompted this_ memo 18 to Charlie.
19 0 Do you recall about what P,ime frame those were 20 written?
21 A '93, I would say mid-93.
I 22 Q Okay.
23 A Ball park.
24 .A lot of my administrative work, IkWTE&&( a d .I 25- guess what could be interpreted-as after hours. The normal NEAL R.- GROSS - -- a
- COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS +
- 1323 RM00E ISLAND AVENUE. t. W, (202) 2M*33 - WASHINGTON. D C 20005 - (202) 2MM33
~ , _ , - . . . , , - - . . _ . , ,.u,, _. _ . , , _ _ _a - - _ . . . _ , _ , . ._u._.. - _ . , _ . ._ :
17 1 workday for the system engineers, if it's not emergent work 2 that they're supporting the station on, would end around 3 four or five o' clock. So one particular evening, I'm 4 finishing up my work and I went to go re eive a fax that 5 was coming to me, and while I was at the fax machine I saw 6 another fax that had come in from kestinghouse and it was 7 f rom Westinghouse to Charlie Lashkari on the - '; hanking 8 him or something about authorization for the study on the 9 "to-from" issue. And this all ties back to your original 10 question on whether I had prevented Charlie from talking to 11 Westinghouse.
1 The "to-from" issue fax that I had received was 13 a surprise to me that, one, Charlie was authorizing 14 Westinghouse to proceed with a study at -- 4 I think 15 there was a dollar amount assigned to chis 1 :ertain 16 period of time, and off the top of my head I think it was I
17 to the tune of like $50,000.in six weeks or something.
18 They would do a stady of this "to-from" thing, and I had no 19 idea that Charlie was doing this; that, one, he was in 20 contact with an outside consultant to perform the study and 21 start authorizing funds for work to commence. And that's 22 why I had asked Charlie, when you call Westinghouse or when 23 you call any outside vendor soliciting support or
.1 committing public service funds or authorizing research 25 projects, that he inform me about it, so that I knew what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBEAt 1M3 RWEE ISMND AWNUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHNGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433
I l
l I
18 I l
l 1 it was that was going on within the group. l 2 And this was the second memo -- and it's not a 3 formal memo. This was just a note that I had given to 4 Charlie in trying to get an explanation as to what he was 5 workines on. And I used the term " secret agenda" because 6 I --
it was secret to me. I did not know what he was 7 doing.
8 MR. WETTERHAHN: Are any of the system 9 engineers authorized to contract with outside contractors 10 ' or are you authorized?
11 THE WITNESS: I'm -- I'm authorized up to a 12 very low dollar amount. I think it's up to like $1,500.
13 Anything that requires monies above that point, we need 14 approval from the Tech Department Manager; we need to 15 ensure that it's within the budget. The NSSS has a 16 specific budget assigned for consulting services. We 17 primarily use that for like root cause analysis to help us la determine why a component may have failed, and it's a 19 balance that we do to ensure that we don't spend all the 20 money too soon at the beginning of the year and then 21 there's nothing left to cover us at the end of the year.
22 There is a finite amount of resources that we have, and it 23 can't be authorized unless it's approved the manager.
24 BY MR. LOGAN:
25 0 You say there was one other issue that was en NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
1323 AHo0E ISLAND AVENUE. N W (232) 2M4433 WASHINGTON. O C 2000$ (202) 2Md433
_ _ . , _ . _ . _ _ - _ . _ _ . . _ _ _ ~ . . . . _ _ _
-r i
i
(
19 !
i ,
I 1 that list that we hadn't talked about.
2- A- That's._-- what is identified here as the PORV, 3 power-operated relief valves, vent area. The UFSAR has a l 5
.4 description of the pressure-relieving capacity of the power 5_ operator relieve valves, and that is' a function of'the -
6 cross-sectional area that is open in the RCS. An easy way ;
i 7; to look at--that is if you-have a large hole, you can 8 relieve pressure at a very low rate or a low pressure. If-9 you have a small hole, that pressure-relieving capacity is 10 less, so that the pressure would build up more and more 11 until_it finally goes out through a smaller hole.
12 The UFSAR I believe included a number -- and I 13 think the number is 3.4 square inches is the cross- ;
14 sectional area that is provided by the PORVs. Now Charlie 15 was looking at this for -- I'm not really sure what 16 prompted him to look at the 3.4 square inches, but what he 17 happened upon was the cross-sectional area of one PORV, 18 even though it.was connected to a 3-inch line and ,
- 19. discharged to a 6-inch header, he felt that the 3-inch
=
'20 inlet.was actually smaller if you looked at the internal 21 configuration of'the valve; that the way the valve E 22 internals were configured, it had constricted the actual ,
-23 surface area, and'through contacts with the valve 24 supplier -- -
25 -Q-- -Who was that?
~~
NEAL R. GROSS ~
COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCAl8EA5 '
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. A W (202) PM4431 WASHINGTON, D C 20005 '- (202) PM-4431 -
+ - ~ ... ~.. . - . - . . , . - . . . - , . . . , , . . . . . . ~ . - , . . - . _ - , , , , , . - - - . - , . -
~ . . . - . _ _ _ . - - _ - - . _ _ m_ _ _ _ _ . . _ . _ . _ . . - . ._. _ . _ _ . _ _ _ __. .
20 1 A crosby. l I
2 Q Okay. .
J 3 A The cross-sectional' area was determined to.be, 4 I believe, 1.7 square inches. So, therefore, the FSAR i
5 description that said you have'a 3.4 square. inch surface j 6 area provided by the PORVs -- plural --
7 Q- - Right. ;
8- 'A - - meant that you needed two valves to satisfy 9 that cross-sectional surface area. Instead of reading it 10 that the PORVs, as defined by two valves -- you weren't to 11 interpret that that one valve would provide the pressure-12- relieving requirements. So you needed both of them.
13 My question to Charlie was -- I never recalled
-14 anyone bringing up a question on the cross-sectional area i 15 of the valve. It wasn't something that ops had asked us to 16 take a look at or Nuclear Engineering raised a concern or 17' that offsite safety review or we had received an industry 18 bulletin that said, hey, you ought to take a look at your
- 19 cross-sectional. area in your PORVs. It was just something t
20 that, all of a-sudden, Charlie brought to the table.
- 21 0 .Okay. <
22' 'A So he had looked at it, and we incorporated in 23 our procedures to ensure that we maintained at least 3.4-24 square inch openings when we.were relyirg upon the PORVs.
l25' If the PORVs were to be~our vent; path, you had to have two [
NEAL R. GROSS
- COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS - -
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W. - J(
002) 234M33 - WASHeNOTON; D C, 20005 - (M 2344433 -
,a .- - % -e , , -~4-m. . . . - .--r-.,-- w..,,,-.*-,1.,,,,--~.-er,-#,- ..--.m,~ 4- r-- c --- * -r
l l 21 l
i 1 of them. If you couldn't have two of them, then you were 2 to remove something else in the reactor coolant system that 3 would provide an equivalent or a larger surface area. We 4 could open another valve. We could take a manway off. We 5 could do a number of things to give us at least the 6 equivalent of 3.4 square inches.
7 Q So was he correct?
8 A Yes, he was correct. We had incorporated that 9 into the procedure, but my question was -- I wasn't aware 10 that he was even working on it.
11 0 So is that what your note was designed to 12 address?
13- A My note was vel, clear, and it appears that we 14 didn't also attach the first one, which was the same 15 question I had asked earlier. As a new group head, I'm 16 trying to get an accounting of what people are working on, 17 and I had a concern that I had no idea what charlie was 18 working on, based on the issues that he was bringing up, 19 not that I didn't approve of the issues, but the issues 20 that he was bringing up I didn't know what was driving 21 them. Was this something tha. was coming from our 22 Licensing Group, that I had no idea we had issues in these 23 areas, and these were essentially coming to me on the blind 24 side. So I had asked Charlie repeatedly, "What are you 25 working on?"
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVENUE, N W (232) 2344433 W AthlNGTON. O C. 2000$ (202) 2344433
i l
l 22 l 1 My understanding of what he was working on 2 dealt with his role as a system engineer and what our 3 responsibilities were at the station in providing support 4 to operations and Maintenance.' The design basis review and 5 challenging of the FSAR and the tech specs is something 6 that we may come across while resolving issues that are 7 brought to us, but it is not something that we normally 8 devote our time at the station in pursuing. If we're 9 addressing a deficiency report or if we're addressing an 10 industry event, then we may be researching the FSAR; we may II be researching the basis in the tech specs and things like 12 this will come up, but there's usually some driving issue 13 that is putting us in that direction.
14 Now Charlie had these issues that he was 15 bringing up on PORV surface areas, "to-from," containment 16 temperatures, and I needed to know what's driving this; 17 where -- what is Charlie's strategic vision? Where are we 18 headed and what is his plan as a reactor coolant system 19 system engineer?
20 Q And your concern was not of the substance of 21 what he was doing, but bringing to your attention what it 22 is-he was doing?
23 A Correct. I needed some accounting what 24 Charlie's time during the workday was being spent on.
25 0 How many people did you supervise in addition NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C. 2000$ (202) 2344433
23 1 to Mr. Lashkari?
2 A I had a total -- there was 16 engineers, 3 including myself, in the NSSS group. So I had 15 direct 4 reports. Now out of those direct reports, there were a few 5 resident engineers which are -- it's kind of an 6 apprenticeship program.
7 Q Okay.
8 A And then the rest were system engineers.
9 Q And were there any other issues that were 10 raised, either of a safety nature or otherwise, by Mr.
11 Lashkari to you that you can specifically recall? You've 12 spoken of severcl. Are there any other ones that stick 13 out?
14 A None that necessarily stick out, but I'm sure 15 there are more because it's not a -- these are design 16 basis-type questions that Charlie would bring up and --
17 Q Are those reasonable for him to be working on?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Okay.
20 A The question is, what's driving that particular 21 work? That's what I need to know. Is there an industry 22 event that we're investigating? Was there a concern raised 23 by Nuclear Engineering that we ought to take a look at a 24 specific component? That type of question, I was trying to 25 get an answer. Also, as far as what is the impact on the NEAL R. GROSS o3URT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W 002) 234M33 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234M33
i I
a t
24 -j i
1- plant? l 2 Q Okay. -i 3 A I guess what prompted this, I could -- I didn't t
4 really know what the next day would bring for charlie, and i
)
5 that was difficult to try and anticipate where we~.need 6 resources, what help we would need, what is_the impact on 7_. the plant?-
8 Q All right.
9 MR. LOGAN: Off the record.
10 (Off the record.) t 11 BY MR. LOCAN:
.12 O Mr. Wiedemann, did Mr. Lashkari complete and ,
13 send to-you any incident reports or draft incident reports 14- that he wanted to file?
15 A We had discussed an incident report requirement 16 for the Westinghouse pops noncon3ervative set point that I 17 had discussed earlier, where we had recognized the RH3-18 relieving capacity. I believe that.the understanding 19 was -- and, as I'said ~ earlier, we . had turned - this issue
' 20-over to our' licensing group because the estion was bl4)N N whether you could take credit en+ licensing space for the 21_
22 RH3.
- 23 ;So-it was my understanding that if an incident 24 report.was~needed,-it would be submitted by the licensing 25 group or Nuclear Engineering after they had done their
^
NEAL R. GROSS a
'f COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCR$ERS -
- 1323 MH00E ISLAND AVENUE N W.
- (202) 734 4433. ~ WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234-4433 {
25 1 research on it. So I think it may have been premature to 2 submit an incident report when we didn't have all our 3 homework done, and that's -- if that's the incident report 4 we're referring to, that's the only thing that I'm 5 aware --
6 O You have a draft one that is dated 1/31/94, 7 " Review of E&PB letter, MEC 93-917," dated December 30, 8 1993, if you'd look at that.
9 A Okay.
10 0 Is that the incident report that you're 11 referring to?
12 A Yes, this is the issue that I haci discussed 13 earlier with the pops set point, and the concern that the 14 dyr.amic head ef feet could exceed the pops set point of 375.
15 Q Was Mr. Lashkari right or wrong on that issue?
16 A When you say right or wrong, I'm --
1? O Was he correct?
18 A Was he correct on submitting the incident 19 report or correct on --
20 Q The substance of the incident report on the.
21 issue itself.
22 A The RH3 I believe was later determined to be an 23 available relieving valve for us and that we were using two 24 approaches here. The Licensing Department had recommended 25 that we apply for a code case that increased the allowable NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4 33 W ASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4 33
26 1 of the material that the vessel was constructed of and also 2 that we were taking credit for the.RH3 as another means of 3 ensuring that this would occur.
4 So I would have to say that the -- what is 5 written here, and I'll read it, "It is being assumed that 6 Salem does not use more than one RCP below 200 degrees 7 Fahrenheit. Still Unit 1 tech see heatup/cooldown per 8 limits are violated." I would say that's not correct, that 9 we didn't violate the heatup and cooldown curves. At the 10 time that this was submitted, the -- that was not known.
11 O Wait a minute. Did you say you didn't violate 12 them or you did? I mean, if you didn't violate them, 13 whether it was known or not is not the issue; right?
14 A Okay, we did not violate them.
15 0 Okay.
16 A To the best of my understanding, we did not 17 violate the heatup/cooldown curves. And, again, this would 18 be, if this pressure spike occurred, you would violated the nil ductility limits in the curve. So that the heatup and 19 20 cooldown curve limits, I wanted to clarify that. That's 21 not meaning that we had cooled the plant down too quickly 22 or that we had heated up too quickly. What this refers to 23 is the nil ductility limits.
24 0 The bottom line is Mr. Lashkari, in your 25 opinion, was not correct substantively on what he wrote on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
w ASHINO10N, D C. 20005 (202) 23m33 (20h 23m33
= _ . ._. . - .. . .
27 1 that incident report; is that correct?
2 A It is -- this was premature and we still had 3 additional evaluations that needed to be performed, and 4 those additional evaluations have indicated that the 5 relieving capacity of the RH3 valve would prevent this from 6 occurring.
7 0 So in the end, an incident report was not 8 necessary?
9 A The Licensing Department I believe took the 10 position that the RH3 valve -- let's see, how did they -- I 11 believe the RH3 valve was not specifically identified in 12 the pops section as being a valve that would provide the 13 same function as pops. I believe that that was their 14 position. Su the Licensing Department did submit an 15 incident report based on the code case that exceeded or 16 that extended the allowable was not yet approved for Salem.
17 The code case that extended the maximum 18 allowable stress in the pressure vessel material had not 19 been approved for Salem station. So I believe that is the 20 basis for -- I think ultimately an incident report was 21 written, but it's not because we had violated the heatup 22 and cooldown curves. That's how my understanding --
23 0 Okay. You discussed several iscueL that I 24 guess some were design basis concerns; others were safety 25 concerns; is that correct?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTF.R$ AND TRANSCR$EAS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHtNGTON, D C. 20006 (202) 234 4433
28 1 A correct.
2 Q Are there any other issues that Mr. Lashkari 3 raised that would fall within the safety or design basis 4 concern parameters that we haven't discussed?
A Charlie had a question on code applicability 6 during the development of what we would call a temporary 7 modification _for a device that is terned a leak repair 8 device. The specific issue dealt with a leaking flange 9 that we were going to put a leak repair clamp around the 10 flange, and I believe the flange was for the 22CV252 valve.
11 The method that we were employing to stop a 12 flange leak was to encapsulate the flange faces with a 13 clamp and then that clamp would be injected with a type of 14 sealant that would now provide the same sealing capacity as 15 the gasket. It was a standard clamp design that was used 16 in the nuclear industry. It was not a -- it was not a 17 novel approach. It was an approved technology that had 18 been used successfully in the past.
19 0 Okay.
20 A The concern I believe that Charlie had was that 21 the material that was aeing provided that the clamp was 22 fabricated from came with certification that indicated it 23 was in conformance with ASME Section 8 for pressure 24 vessels, and I believe Charlie's concern was that the 25 material should have been supplied with certification that NEAL R. aROSS COURT REPORTER, AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
(202) 234 4433 WA$HINGTON D C 20005 (202; 2344433
29 1 indicated ASME Section 3 for piping.
2 Now the difference between the two materials, 3 it wasn't that we had selected one material for Section 8, 4 say a stainless steel for Section 8 and the Section 3 would 5 be carbon steel. Both codes have the same material in it.
6 It wasn't that I had a physical property that was changed 7 from Section 8 that was allowed and maybe in Section 3 it's 8 not allowed.
9 Charlie's concern was that it was provided as a 10 pressure vessel material and not a piping material, and 11 when I asked if we could -- if you.would look at this clamp 12 that went around the outside of the flanges as a 13 cylindrical pressure vessel, but our mission as a system 14 engineer was we were deferring to the supplier of the 15 clamps tell us - we told them the design parameters and 16 they had to design a clamp to meet those parameters for a 17 nuclear application.
18 Now I offered to Charlie that perhaps their 19 interpretation of the design of the clamp, and, in 20 addition, the stress analysis that was provided that was 21 addressing hoop stress and pressure stresses internal to 22 the clamp, could be viewed as a pressure vessel. So I 23 didn't have a problem with the Section 8 classification of 24 the material.
25 Charlie was unable to provide a difference NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 2k4433 WASHINGTON. O C 2000$ (202) 234 4433
30 1 between the Section 8 or the Section 3 materials that 2 supported his position that you could not use the Section 8 3 material. So I made a supervisory decision that I would 4 eccept the clamp as designed and as built to the Section 8 5 code. I didn't have any supporting data that would 6 indicate otherwise.
7 Q Did he point out any safety differences between 8 the use of Section 3 and Section 8?
9 A No. What we did not have was any physical 10 ' characteristics or design characteristics as far as, say, 11 the thickness of the material, the annealing, the chemical 12 composition that would indicate that the Section 8 material 13 could not be used.
14 0 Did you ask him were there any differences --
15 A Yes. What is the difference that would 16 restrict us from using this material?
17 .
MR. WETTERHAHN: Wh.t did he say?
18 THE WITNESS: We were unable to come up with 19 them.
20 BY MR. LOGAN:
21 0 So what was his reluctance to use that?
22 A His interpretation that it was on piping and, 23 therefore, should be constructed in accordance with piping 24 codes and not pressure vessel codes?
25 O So did he go ahead and use it as you directed i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPOMERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RWA l**M AVENUE, N W 201 234 4433 WASH.NGTON D C 2000$ (202) 234 4433 l
31 1 him to?
2 A We used it in the application through the 3 Maintenance Department.
4 0 Was there ever an analysis done to determine 5 whether or not his concerns were vaiid after you made that 6 decision to go ahead with it?
7 A No. And, as far as I knew, there was no 8 further discussions from Charlie Lashkari, either --
9 0 Okay.
10 A -- on the Section 8 versus the Section 3.
11 0 Did he raise any other issues that you can 12 recall?
13 A Not at this time.
14 0 Did there come a time that Mr. Lashkari raised 15 an issue to you that he wanted to raise to the NRC and you 16 told him not to?
17 A I don't recall. I would say that that would be 18 uncharacteristic of me to tell him not to speak to the ,
19 residents.
20 MR. WETTERHAHN: Do you have a specific 21 instance that might refresh his recollection?
22 MR. LOGAN: I sure do.
23 THE WIINESS: Okay.
24 MR. WETTERHAHN: I didn't think you asked that 25 largely.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W g (202) f344433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20005 (202) 234 4 0 3
32 1 BY MR. LOGAN:
2 O Let's go back to the Westinghouse issue.
3 A Okay.
4 0 And you had told him that you had dealt with 5 this matter and that you were going to refer it to 6 Licensing?
7 A Licensing and Nuclear Engineering.
8 0 Not to be concerned about it?
9 A Let them do the followup. Let them do the 10 research on it.
11 0 Mr. Lashkari told me -- and I'll quote it to 12 you -- he said, "I had talked with my supervisor, showed 13 him where the problems were. Basically, he didn't want to 14 hear those. Later on his explanation was that I was wrong 15 and he's right and there is no problem. Then I said, 'Let 16 me talk to Westinghouse because Westinghouse is expert on 17 these sections of the technical specifications.'
18 Originally, these technical specifications" -- excuse 19 me -- "these technical specification sections were written 20 by Westinghouse helping out the licensee; that is, public 21 service for Salem. His attitude was don't even bother to 22 go back to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But I felt 23 my obligation because number of months, number of days the 24 problem goes unreported, that is a risk for my employer, 25 Public Service Electric and Gas."
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W-G02) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (?02) 2M4433
I 33 !
i 1 Then I asked him, I said, "Did Mr. Wiedemann 2 tell you not to go to the NRC with these concerns," "these 3 concerns" referring to Westinghouse.
4 Mr. Lashkari's answer was, "That is correct."
5 A I'm sorry, what is --
6 0 "That is correct."
7 A What is the concern that he's --
8 0 The issues that we had talked about with 9 Westinghouse. I think you mentioned it earlier. That was 10 the study that you alluded to that he wanted to spend 11 $50,000 for.
12 A On, the "to-from," the "to-from" issue?
13 0 And there were pops issue that he was working 14 about with Westinghouse also?
15 A The pops issue was, I believe --
16 Q The Westinghouse issue was --
17 A -- was the RH3 thing, and that originated with 18 Westinghouse.
19 Q With Westinghouse?
20 A That was a bulletin that they asked us to take 21 a lock at.
22 O Right. So we have two issues that relate to 23 Westinghouse, and what you've told me is that in neither 24 case did you in any way tell Mr. Lashkari that he could not 25 discuss this with NRC?
NEAL R. GROSS 03URT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (207) 234 4433 W4SHINGTON D C. 2000$ (2cM 2344433
_ -_ , . - _._ __ . _ ._ _.__ . ~ . _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . . _ . _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ . . _ _ _
l i
34 j f
1 A That is correct. !
i 2 0 okay, j
-3 A And I believe that, as he has written it there, f
4 I didn't hear Charlie say he w' anted to speak to the NRC on !
these-issues. He wanted to speak to' Westinghouse or --
~
5- !
i 6 Q But my specific question to him was, "Mr. j
- / ' Wiedemann told you not to go to the NRC with these :
8 concerns?" Mr. Lashkari's answer-is, "That is correct."
9- A' I don't recall ever telling Charlie not to go 10 to the NRC. And I don't recall, either, Charlie asking me
]
11- whether he could go to the NRC. That wouldn'.t -- wouldn't {
12 be a question that I think any of the system engineers feel j 13 that they would have to ask the supervisor. We deal' daily 14 with the NRC resident, the inspectors that are here. I l
15 think at the time this was -- I can picture him, out I !
16 can't remember his name - . Steve Pindale. He was the i
17 resident. i
-18 Q ' don't know Steve --
19 A. But, anyway, we maintained, I thought, a good 20 rapport with the resident inspectors and we try-and 21 encourage that rapport.
22- Q Okay.
23 'A So-I-don't think Charlie would have any problem t
-24: talking.with Mr. Pindale. -
25 'O The issue _of supervisory training, as a ?
NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCADERS
~
1323 MMODE l$ LAND AVENUE. N W-
+
( (202) 2344433- ' WASHWGTON O C 20005 --
-(202) 234 4433 :
35 1 supervisor, have you received any training in terms of 2 management supervision, reporting of safety concerns, 3 raising of safety concerns, and I guess in light of recent 4 dealings with the NRC, in what's called discrimination 5 retaliation for the raising of concerns?
6 A No.
7 O As of today?
8 A As of today.
9 Q Okay.
10 MR. LOGAN: Let's go off the record for a 11 minute.
12 (Off the record.)
13 BY MR. LOGAN:
14 Q Have you had any training or any meetings where 15 there's been a discussion of the elements of intimidation?
16 A Recently, we had a brief meeting with the 17 General Manager on what was termed the a chilling effect,"
18 and that was a description of the effect on employees when 19 some employees are terminated and it's perceived that their 20 termination was due to raising safety concerns. So that 21 would have this so-called chilling effect on those employees that remain on a certain rcluctance for them to 22 23 bring up safety concerns based on what happened to this 24 guy. So I am aware of that.
25 Q Was any particular incident discussed with you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1373 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W
(?OP) 2344433 WASHINGTON O C 20006 (202)2344433
36 1 or with your group with regard to that chilling effect?
2 A No.
3 Q There was not any fact pattern that was 4 discussed or incident?
S A No. This was a concept that we wanted to make 6 sure that none of the system engineers felt hampered or 7 constrained or that their employment was somehow affected a or anything along those lines.
9 Q Did you have this chilling effect diset.. ion 10
- before or after Mr. Lashkari was terminated?
11 A After.
12 Q And with regard to Mr. Lashkari's termination, 13 were you asked to identify any employees whom you 14 supervised who should be terminated or who -- I guess the 15 phrase more appropriately, and I quote - " persons who do 16 not meet performance standards and are not expected to 17 henefit from an improvement plan"?
18 A Yes, I was.
19 Q And who asked you?
20 A The Tech Department Manager had asked all the 21 group heads to evaluate their direct reports and identify 22 if there were any individuals that fit that particular 23 description. I'm not sure if it was a verbatim, but 24 that's, in essence, what we were asked to do.
25 Q And did you do so?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W
)2344433 w ASHaNGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433
37 1 A yes, I did.
2 O And what names did you provide to the Manager?
3 And the Manager in this case would have been?
4 A John Morrison.
5 Q John Morrison. Go ahead'.
6 A I gave John Morrison Charlie Lashkari's name 7 only.
8 O The first time Mr. Morrison asked you, did you 9 identify Mr. Lashkari as falling within the aegis of the 10 persons who did not meet performance standards and are not 11 expected to benefit from an improvement plan or did you 12 feel that Mr. Lashkari would benefit from an improvement 13 plan?
14 A The initial discussions I had with John were 15 that Charlie's performance I felt could improve.
16 0 Okay. Did there come a time when you changed 17 your opinion?
18 A I would say the next step in this process was ,
19 to determine whether that improved performance could be 20 sustained without unnecessary supervisor attention, and the 21 concern was the number of challenges that Salem station has 22 had indicates that we've got to improve the performance of 23 our people, and if we focus just on a few, it will be at 24 the expense of the others. And we had to ensure that, as a 25 supervisor, we were able to manage our groups effectively l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ER$
1 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202)2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4 33 l
38 1 and that part of that effective management 'ess to ensure 2 that we didn't spend an inordinate amount of time trying to 3 improve performance in one limited area. There was just 4 simply too much to do to have that luxury.
5 Q Now what was it about Mr. Lashkari's 6 performance that did not meet standards and would not be 7 expected to benefit from an improvement plan?
8 A Charlie's role as a system engineer was to 9 provide station support in an engineering capacity to 10 Maintenance and Operations. Essentially, we were a 11 support -- are a support organization and our client, 12 clients, was either Maintenance or Operations. Primarily, 13 it's Operations. If Maintenance is supporting Ops, we 14 support Maintenance.
15 Part of that emphasis on supporting operations 16 is that the system engineer takes ownership of his systems 17 and manages them so that you can anticipate problems and 18 have a plan in place and address issues before they 19 challenge the plant. A way to look at it is that we would 20 like to be proactive instead of reactive, and how we can 21 achieve a proactive management style is through long-term 22 vision on where we want to take our systems and also 23 -
through a conscientious trending of system performance and 24 tracking various parameters.
25 The system engineer has a responsibility for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR16ERS 1323 MODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20h F3e4433 WASHINGTON O C 20005 (2021 2344433
l I
39 1 ensuring that all of the nuances associated with the 2 condition on the systems are not deteriorating to the point 3 that it would challenge the operation or the impact on the 4 plant. Charlie'o role initially as a reactor coolant 5 system engineer was to look after the steam generators, the 6 reactor coolant pumps, the vessel, the piping, and 7 associated valves. And, as such, he was required to be 8 trending different parameters, indicating when adverse 9 trends were developing, having a plan in place to correct 10 it before it challenged operability, planning for what has 11 to occur during a refueling outage, ensuring that any 12 design changes that were necessary were actively followed ,
13 through upon, and that, in addition to that, emergent-type 14 work we had to respond :to.
15 It's a full plate, and in order to minimize 16 your reactive-type work, it's kind of a function of how 17 well you've planned your systems and how well you're 18 monitoring them. I had a concern with Charlie when I 19 initially became the acting group head. By removing me 20 from my system engineering role, vn now had another spot 21 within the group; somebody else eventually would have to 22 take over my systems. I couldn't also maintain my system 23 engineering role and maintain the acting group head role.
24 So what I did was reassigned systems to the system 25 engineers and try and get an equitable distribution of the NEAL R. GROSS COOAT REPOATERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHCOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4 33 WASH:M3.'ON. O.C 20005 (202) 234 4433
l l
40
~1 workload.
2 one of the first things that I had reassigned, 3 which seemed to be a very easy fit, was take the steam 4 generators that Charlie Lashka'ri had responsibility for and 5 assign them to another system engineer who had recently 6 joined Public Service a few years ago with a Westinghouse 7 background in steam generators. He has an advanced degree 8 in metallurgy, was very f amiliar with steam generators, and 9 he seemed like a good fit there for the system enginesr to 10 have the steam generators. a As D C#W (T /2 11 There was no turnover from Charlie of this isN94 pg h &h5 12 went I'm doing with the steam generators; this is what I'm 13 trending; these results indicate we should be anticipating 14 corrective action in upcoming outages in this particular 15 area; this is the amount of sludge lancing that we 'emove 16 per steam gen rator every outage; this is my trend of the PL0$M A/8 17 Echular plug; this is my eddy current test data; the e are 18 the outstanding issnes on thermal sleeves, on feedwater 48 19 nozzles; these are concerns with manway studs -- multiple 20 issues on steam generators that apparently we had no plan 21 for.
22 When I asked the new system engineer what kind 23 of turnover did you get from Charlie, he said none.
24 Q What do you mean when you say " turnover?"
25 A Well, I'm reassigning the system. Charlie had NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS l 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 f202) 2344433
41 1 the system as a system engineer, and now he's passing on 2 that system to a new system engineer. So the turnover 3 would include this is what I'm on right now: these 4 are the issues; this is what 1 .t. k>. and trending, and 5 this is what our plans are for ,2 aa We had things onm' Papsua, :/&Wdb 6 like aber ebarrs*3 the steam gener. ; ; :tas; there was no 7 turnover on that. We had issues outat nading for steam 8 generator wet layup and dry layup programs. Charlie had 9 nothing on this.
10 These are just two examples that come to mind 11 on steam generator i caes that had been out there for a 12 long time, and I was disappointed that there was 13 no -- nothing on the books. So, essentially, the new 14 system engineer that had responsibility for the steem 15 generators was P'nd of starting from scratch.
16 One of the things that Charlie had a habit of 17 doing was just taking his files and things and just leaving 18 them on this guy's chair and then walking away. It was 19 kind of like, "Here you go. You've got it now." And that 20 did not meet the expectations, not for my group or anyone's 21 group.
22 After that, we split some of the reactor 23 coolant system components off, where what I tried to do was 24 expand Charlie's background into the HVAC side of the house 25 with an intent to try and relief some of the workload that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSOAIBEAS 1323 AHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHNGTON O C 2000$ (?o2s 2344433
__ _ _ __ ______J
1 l
42 1 we were having on HVAC systems and get Charlie to act as a 2 mentor to one of the newer guys in the group and bring him 3 up to speed with system research, the various procedurea 4 and programs that we were following, and I expected Charlie 5 to take up that load and I would have a redistribution of 6 the fellow that presently was handling both units and was 7 overworked with HVAC systems. That same HVAC system 8 engineer was also my senior engineer in the group and I 9 needed him to function more in a capacity as a senior 10 ' engineer and deal in other issues besides just focusing on 11 HVAC.' Charlie, with a number of years' experience, let's 12 put him on the HVAC systems and let's take some of the 13 reactor coolant systems and turn them over to another 14 fellow.
15 This fellow that we were turning it over to had 16 a background not only as a system engineer, but also in the 17 Resting side of the house. So he was familiar with valve 18 testing and the different issues associated with leak rates 19 and things like that, who would have a good blend picking 20 up these new systems.
21 Again, his turnover from Charlie was nil. He 22 didn't provide -- the same sort of issues that we had on 23 the steam generators: what are you trending? What is the 24 plan? Where are we headed? Reactor coolant pumps -- I was 25 surprised that we had spent so much time on this "to-f rom, "
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W Qf.2) 2344433 WAS>t:NGTON D.C 2000$ (202) 2344433
i g f4 gg'it> Rt? Sb EldO F (I 43 A
1 but what I would consider the fundamentals as far as a 2 trend of reactor coolant pump seal flow, No. 1 seal, No. 2 3 seal, No. 3 seal, for the reactor coolant pumps, four pumps 4 for each station, we had nothing. What was my oil 5 consumption on the reactor coolant pump motors? Every 6 cutage we would go in and clean up oil. Is it getting 7 worse? Is it getting better? What are my vibration trends 8 for these pumps? What are my flow trends for them?
9 Basically, parameters that I would expect a senior engineer 10 in the group with "X" number of years experience to 11 recogaize these fundamentals -- Charlie didn't have this, 12 and, again, turnover that we got from Charlie was he took 13 his files -- his file, I said, well, what's in them? Well, 14 it was a compilation of notes, historical references, maybe 15 an industry report, ATS items, what we call action tracking 16 item responses, but the essential part of our job, the 17 tracking and trending of these components that we've had 18 for years, was missing. And, again, the turnover was 19 simply a data dump which was not very helpful. The system 20 engineer that took over, he said, if an issue came up, he 21 would go and see Charlie to try to get some explanation as 22 to some of the details or the background.
23 ~. had concerns with Charlie's handling of 24 emergent work as well. One.of the areas that we would 25 spend a certain amount of our efforts on dealt with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
)
023 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W l (202) 234 4 433 w ASHINJTON. O C. 20005 (202) 234 4 433
l.
44 1 dispositioning what we call deficiency reports. A 2 deficiency report will be a brief description of an anomaly 3 out in the field. It can be initiated by just about 4 anyone. The majority of our deficiency reports, I would 5 say, are initiated by Maintenance or Operations, but they 6 can come from many organizations.
7 Charlie's deficiency reports -- and one comes 8 to mind particularly -- was a crack was identified in a 9 structural steel member in, I believe, 12 fuel handling 10 building e::haust fan. The fan 'ts safety-related, 11 seismically-qualified, and provides a key component in the 12 ventilation system to ensure that offsite dose limits are 13 maintained. Should you have any type of fu"l-handling 14 accident in the fuel handling building, that any 15 contamination would go through the proper filter channels 16 before it's exhausted to the environment.
17 Charlie had dispositioned, answered this le deficiency report without the required engineering 19 having -- being performed upfront. And what I mean by that 20 is the process works where the deficiency is identified to 21 the shift supervisor in the control room. He's made aware 22 of this particular issue on a component out in the plant, 23 and then he relies upon the system engineer to disposition 24 it and also inform the shift of any design basis concerns 25 that may be raised by this anomaly that's identified.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND A TNVE. N W (2021 234 4433 WASHtNGTON O C 20005 (202) 234 4 33
1 I
45 1 The specific issue with the fuel handling 2 building fan, exhaust fan, dealt with Charlie's disposition 3 that lacked the engineering basis for the conclusions that 4 he reached. Specifically, what we had was a concern with 5 the seismic qualification of this fan, that the design 6 basis requirements may be challenged by this crack in the 7 structural steel. It wouldn't have been that much of an 8 issue except that we were preparing to start moving fuel 9 during a refueling outage and this was a required component 10 to be operable. It was pointed out to us later by the NRC 11 resident inspector that we had an anomaly identified on 12 this fan and yet we continued to move fuel. So we went 13 back and looked at Charlie's response to this deficiency.
14 There were weaknesses in the conclusions that he had 15 reached; in specifics, the conclusion as far as seismic 16 qualification.
17 It took us a certain amount of nuclear 18 engineering support to do a detailed analysis to finally 19 conclude that the seismic qualification was not challenged 2C by this crack, but it wasn't a cavalier-type decision that 21 could be made without essentially any supporting 22 documentation behind it. This was a detailed cale that had 23 to be performed by our structural people, and it took them 24 at least a week. That indicated a -- that's just one 25 example of the deficiency report that raised a concern with I
NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20Z 2344433 w ASHINGTON O C 20005 (203 2344433
46 1 Charlie's understanding of what his role was as a system
? engineer.
3 To compound that, we wrote an incident report 4 on the fan. Part of the incid'nt e report had an assignment 5 to do a root cause evaluation as to how this occurred.
6 That root cause evaluation had a piece that the system 7 engineer had overlooked the design basis requirement for 8 the seismic qualification of the fan, failed to recognize 9 that and inform the shift of a concern until after the fuel 10 had been moved.
11 I can fully appreciate that an error can be 12 made, that the system engineer is just as human as the rest 13 of us and can make a mistake, and that was not the concern 14 here, that Charlie had made a mistake, but the concern was ;
15 that, one, it appeared to be a furdamental philosophy on 16 what our role is as a system engineer. And when we tried 17 to inform Charlie, through counseling, that his role is to 18 ensure nuclear safety by informing the Operations 19 Department of concern that are identified on a deficiency 20 report that may impact a design basis -- instead, what 21 Charlie felt was that it wasn't his responsibility, that 22 the responsibility was either with the shift supervisor, 23 because the shift has the license, so, therefore, they 24 should know the operability concerns, or it was with the 25 other system engineer who had HVAC, that she -- that he NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHOCE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W (202) 2h33 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234-4433
47 1 should have informed Charlie of this concern, or that it 2 was with myself, the supervisor, that I should have 3 informed Charlie of this issue. And it was a denial of 4 responsibility and a refusal to accept the ac. ions that he 5 had taken and that we could learn from it.
6 It would have been a very easy thing for HG me6k(A%CW M Wf 7 Charlie to recognize where we had -hadw.mr=12pcc, and it was 8 understandable that he was relatively new to the HVAC 9 systems. So if he missed this, it wouldn't have been as he 10 had missed something on a system that he had had for years.
11 However, the fundamental process that we're supposed to 12 follow in the understanding of what our roles and 13 responsibilities are Charlie missed. We tried to point 14 that out to him. He refused to accept that.
15 So it got to the point where the root cause 16 report that Charlie was writing had gone back and forth 17 between myself and Charlie to the point where I recognized 18 I was unable to reconcile the differences in our approach.
19 At that point I suggested to Charlie to simply go to the 20 Tech Department Manager with it and explain his position 21 because I was unable co reconcile what his differences 22 were. At that point, the Tech Department Manager I believe 23 was unsuccessful in getting Charlie to recognize what his 24 role and responsibility was in thic particular issue.
25 That was rather long-winded, but the point I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEFS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND 8"ENUE. N W (222) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4433
48 1 wanted to make was that Charlie at times, when we were 2 trying to help him, would refuse to recognize his 3 involvement in something that may not have turned out as he 4 had expected, and that particular case was a fuel handling 5 building exhaust fan. If we presented Charlie with 6 criticism, he had difficulty in accepting it.
7 Q Let's go back to that issue we talked about 8 most recently, the 12 fuel handling building exhaust fan.
9 That's the incident that resulted in Mr. Lashkari receiving 10 a counseling from Mike Morroni on 11/23/93; is that 11 correct?
12 A That's correct.
13 0 And let me show you the documentation of 14 counseling of Charles Lashkari on November 23, 1993. Did 15 you prepare that?
16 A No. Let me -- let me back up. Either myself 17 or Jack Curham had written this up. Jack Curham was the 18 senior engineer in the group.
19 0 You don't recall, though, having prepared it, 20 though?
21 A Correct.
22 O How many years did you supervise Mr. Lashkari?
23 A He was a direct report since 1992 until '94.
24 Q And how many evaluations did you prepare on Mr.
25 Lashkari during that period of time?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHODE ISUND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4 33 WASHrNGTON O C 2cnos e m 29 4413
l 49 1 A I prepared one and Pete Ott prepared one.
2 O On the one that you prepared, how did you rate 3 Mr. Lashkari?
4 A That was the -- he had a meets standards but s
5 needed development in a couple of areas.
6 Q Do you recall what those areas were?
7 A Not off the top of my head. I P 1.ieve there 8 was customer-client satisfaction. There were, I think, 11 9 criteria on which our employees are evaluated on in the 10 appraisal process, and I know that there were a few of them 11 that I had Charlie down as needing improvement.
12 Communication had always been a problem with Charlie.
13 Q In what respect?
14 A Written communication primarily. In an oral 15 format, he could handle himself. You understood what 16 Charlie was trying to say. In a written format, there were 17 times where the logic was there, if you understood the 18 initial issue, but if you were reading it cold, it was 19 sometimes difficult to understand what Charlie was trying 20 to write. And I had commented on this repeatedly with 21 Charlie. I would correct his writings and send it back to 22 him.
23 I also had a certain responsibility that 24 anything that left the NSSS group I wanted to have a 25 certain quality to it, and rot only did it have to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2M33 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234-4433
50 1 technically correct, but it also had to be in a presentable 2 format that we would feel comfortable giving it to other 3 departments. That means that the English had to be ,
4 correct, that the context had to be concise, and there was 5 no ambiguity in what we were trying to say.
6 To Charlie's credit, I recommended that he take 7 a technical writing course and he did. There was some 8 improvement there, but there was still room for more.
9 Charlie was a member of a number of design 10 change package development project teams where the method 11 in which we would incorporate a design change would be 12 given to a prcject manager, especially depending upon the 13 scope of the design change. Charlie would represent the 14 Salem station on that design cbrage team to ensure that the 15 programs and procedures that we follow at the station are 16 changed in accordance with the design change. The 17 technical aspects of the design change, the finances of it, 18 the budgeting, the scheduling is all part of the project 19 manager's responsibility.
20 We have a p'.ece in that to ensure that the 21 station's objectives are satisfied, as well as our programs 22 and procedures are changed accordingly. An example: a 23 preventative maintenance program, if we're changing a 24 component out, we want to ensure that the preventative 25 maintenance program is adjusted accordingly. If we have a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCH18ERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2 % 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 2000$ (202) 234 4 33
l
}
51 1 new component that changes how we operate a system, that 2 the operations procedures will be changed and issued prior '
3 to returning that system to operations. Those are examples 4 of what I mean by programs and procedures that the system 5 engineer has to ensure are addressed during a design 6 change.
7 Charlie worked on a design change package for 8 pressurizer safety valve changeout where we were 9 instituting a new style safety valve, and the project 10 manager became very frustrated with Charlie's involvement 11 because, as they tried to advance with the schedule and 12 proceed to the next milestone, Charlie would raise issues 13 that were outside of programs and procedures, but would 14 deal with technical aspects that may or may not be 15 adequately addressed in the package. There may be a 16 cheaper way to do what we were trying to accomplish or 17 maybe a vendor that can do this job for us quicker, types 18 of input that has it place and has its benefit initially in 19 the development stage, but after a course of action is 20 agreed upon and it's laid and it's planned, the mode of 21 operation now is to support that plan and get it to its 22 final accomplished state.
23 Charlie's participation on this design change 24 team was viewed as an obstacle that had to be overcome in 25 order to get to the next point. And trying to work as a NEAL R. GROSS COUAT REPOATERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234M33 WASWNGTON, D C 20005 (202) 234 4 33
i 52 1 team with Nuc ear Engineering and the station, the pport 2
OtMO %%Q one Tars m, Wof the things we can't afford is that the 3 system engineer is felt as an obstacle. And it's not 4 because of technical abilities', but it's simply a failure 5 to recognize what our roles and responsibilities are. And, 6 again, that was the common theme with Charlie, it that his 7 perception of what he should be working on, what his role 8 and responsibility was at the station, differed from what 9 his supervisor thought his role and responsibility was, 10 what the manager thought his role and responsibility was, 11 what DCP project managers thought it was, and that's why we 12 felt that, whatever type of training program we would put 13 Charlie on, whatever type of developmental skills we needed 14 '
reinforce, we couldn't overcome that sort of 15 philosophical bent where Charlie felt that this was his 16 role. And that's kind of what I tried to get across in his 17 performance appraisals.
18 0 Well, I'll take a look at those. One of the 19 things that I've heard you say is Charlie didn't 20 understand, Charlie didn't know, Charlie didn't this, but I 21 haven't heard you say at any point, "I told Charlie to do 22 this,a "I explained what his role was," "His supervisor 23 took him aside and said, ' Charlie, when we work on this 24 kind of a system, I need this, this, this, and this. .I 25 expect that you will have this prepared. I'" -- I mean, 1
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISWD AVENUE, N W (20a 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4 433
l 53 1 it's -- you've laid out what he didn't do, but I never 2 heard at what point you imparted what your expectations 3 were.
4 A Okay. My expectations were very clear to not 5 only Charlie, but the group during their evaluations and 6 also through daily contact with the system engineers. It's 7 not that --
8 Q Were these -- were these documented anywhere?
9 A Correct. At the last page of the appraisal --
10 Q That's a yearly appraisal?
11 A Correct, the annual appraisal.
12 Q And you did one?
13 A I did one; Pete did one.
14 Q And you supervised him since about 1991, 1992?
15 A '92.
16 0 Okay, you said '91-92 time frame. That's -- he 17 was dismissed in July of '94, and you did only one 18 appraisal during that period of time?
19 A Correct.
20 Q So you only told him once?
21 A In a written format; correct.
22 Q Right. Okay.
23 A Let me see if I can expand a little bit on --
24 0 Well, I can understand that he doesn't know, 25 but I guess I'm trying to understand how it was he should NEAL R. GROSS COVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR;BERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 wAswiNGTON D C 20005 (202) 234 4 33
54 1 have known.
2 MR. WETTERHAHN: Is that what you want to 3 expand on?
4 THE WITNESS: Correct. Correct.
5 BY MR. LOGAN:
6 Q Go ahead. "-
7 A Charlie was the senior staff engineer in the 8 group. The issues that I described as far as understanding 9 of responsibilities and understanding of, say, tracking and 10 trending, why we have to do it, what you should be looking 11 for, what the potential consequences are -- these are 12 things that we would explain to the resident engineers, the 13 new people to the group. Charlie had graduated from the 14 first system engineering class, I believe, in 19 -- I think 15 it was 1986, '87 time frame and had been working on his 16 particular systems ever since. Prior to coming to the 17 System Engineering Program, he was within the Nuclear 18 Engineering Department as one of the engineers assigned to 19 these systems. So Charlie had a clear understanding 20 through his training and system engineering and from 21 our -- my previous boss, and all the Tech Department 22 managers, as to what were the expectations of the system 23 engineers.
'24 Did I specifically call Charlie aside and tell 25 him that -- did I specifically call him aside other than NEAL R. GROSS !
COURT REPORTERS ANO TRANSCRtBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 23 4 433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 (202) 234 4 3
55 1 the annual appraisal, where it was written down, and tell
. 2 him that he should be responsible for his systems, he v
3 should be out in the field walking things down, getting a 4 field presence, he should be communicating with Maintenance 5 and Operations, he sr tid be developing his tracking and 6 trending and trying to anticipate problems before they come 7 up? No, I did not have those explicit conversations with 8 Charlie because it was assumed that he understood, based on 9 his yrnrs of experience in the Department, what he was 10 required to do.
11 And it became clear to me that what Charlie 12 would discount as not important, even though he knew it had 13 to be done, it was an internal decision that Charlie made 14 on his own. And whether we told Charlie, "I think you 15 ought to be concerned with how much sedge we remove from 6LD046 M M 16 22 steam generator this outage, and maybe keep an eye on it 17 to see if there's an indicator there that maybe next outage 18 we've got a tube problem," or that Charlie parhaps use a ,
19 current test results from steam generator gu_bes, indicate
'20 SW PEWi% N b that we should start our shcp- cl,aulig- earlier -- these 21 types of questions and thought process is what is assumed 22 is th system engineer's daily functioning. And to feel 23 that the supervisor has to explicitly explain that to a 24 senior engineer, who has been there for a number of years, 25 I'm sorry, I just didn't feel that that was my role ' hen NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ft.AND AVENUE. N W (202) 234M33 WASHINGTON D C. 20006 (202) 23444M
l 56 1 Charlie was well aware of what everybody else around him 2 was doing.
3 Q How are you doing it?
4 A We worked very closely with either our Unit 1 5 or a Unit 2 counterpart or we had -- we situate aurselves 6 physically. We're within cubicles. And to -- I can't 7 accept that Charlie wouldn't understand what all the other 8 system e.igineers were doing, what their roles and 9 responsibilities were, when it was our daily life.
10 0 Let me ask you one more question again, now 11 that I've asked -- and you probably took about a thousand 12 words to answer it, and I think I need it a little more 13 simply, if you can.
14 A Okay.
15 Q What were those performance standards that 16 Charlie didn't meet that he would not be expected to 17 benefit from if there were an improvement plan? Will you 18 just kind of list them out f or me as b'211ets? I mean, your 19 explanation in response to that question is clearly on the 20 record. Now if you can kind of give me the executive 21 summary.
22 A Customer-client satisfaction.
23 Q Okay.
24 A An improvement plan would be doubtful in 25 Charlie's case, whether he could improve his customer-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 W ASH 3NGTON. D C 20005 (2C2) 23443
57 1 client sat.sfaction based on his history.
2 Communication skills, primarily written, and to 3 a lessor degree, innovation, adaptability, ownership --
4 0 What do you mean by " ownership?" That's -- I 5 don't believe I catch that one as easily as I did the other 6 ones.
7 A Ownership meaning that he takes .ssponsibility 8 for his systems.
9 Q Okay.
10 A The HVAC system assignments that he had, I 11 didn't think that Charlie took ownership for that system, 12 those systems.
13 Q Is that it?
14 A Those are the key ones, I think.
15 O Okay. I'd like to talk to you about valves.
16 Did /nu -- were you Mr. Lashkari's supervisor with regard 17 to the Crosby valves and the -- what's called a lap-jack on 18 thcae valves?
Po 19 A I believe those valves in question are the 4*eb 20 RVs or the safeties. I' 21 Q Is that a question?
22 A I think it':. the safeties that he's referring 23 to for the lap-and-jack method.
24 Q There was an issue which came up -- let me find 25 that point.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20h 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 2000$ (202) 2344433
l l
l l
'58 1 Do you want to take a break?
2 A Yeah.
3 0 Would you? Okay, let's go off the record for a
~
4 couple of minutes.
5 (Off the record.)
6 BY MR. LOGAN:
7 Q Okay, we stopped just as we were talking about 8 the jack-and-lap process. Are you aware of a problem with 9 Crosby valves which were being refurbished and tested at 10 Wyle Labs? They were leaking.
11 A Not -- no.
12 O No?
13 A I am aware that we send our safety valves to 14 Wyle Labs for testing during the outage.
15 Q But not refurbishing?
16 A Well, the -- I guess it depends on the test 17 results. If the valve cannot pass the test results, then 18 it's refurbished.
19 But one of the processes that they use in the 20 lab is to polish the valve seat and that's what we term the 21 " jack and lap," where you jack open the valve and you 22 polish the eurfaces that come in contact, and what that 23 does for you is ensures a nice, tight seal. So that's my 24 understanding of what the jack and lap is.
25 Q And that's an improved system?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D.C 20005 (202) 2344433
59 1 A Correct.
2 O Let me just ask it again: and you're not aware 3 of any problems about leaky valves coming back from Wyle 4 Labs becauut of the use of the jack-and-lap system?
5 A That is correct; I'm not aware of that as a 6 concern. I know we took great pains to ensure that the 7 testing method that's used by Wyle actually mimics the as-8 installed condition in the plant. So I believe Wyle builds 9 a special enclosure to ensure that the temperatures that 10 the valves are subjected to during testing is the same 11 condition that it would see in a pressurizer.
12 O Well, they do testing on valves for an awful 13 lot of nuclear plants, not just Salem.
14 A Right.
15 Q Okay.
16 MR. WETTERHAHN: But do you have specific 17 specifications for Salem? Are these in addition to the 18 usual specifications?
19 THE KITNESS: No, I think it's just the safety 20 valves we have a certain tolerance that is acceptable for 21 the lift set point and that's governed by tech specs, and 22 we have acceptance criteria for leakage that I believe they ,
23 use a mirror on the discharge side of the valve, and if the 24 mirror is fogged, then that indicates leakage.
25 MR. WETTERHAHN: Thank you.
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (2C21234M33 WASHtNGTON D C 20005 (202123M433
60 1 THE WITNESS: That's my understanding of the 2 test.
3 BY MR. LOGAN:
4 O Set point of 24-85?
5 A Correct.
6 Q Okay.
7 A That's for the safety valves, the pressurizer 8 safety valves.
9 Q Did you ever make any recommendations for 10 ' awards or high-step increases or anything with regard to 11 Mr. Lashkari?
12 A Not that I'm aware of.
13 O Okay. Have you ever reviewed Mr. Lashkari's 14 personnel file?
15 A We have a file in the Tech Department that we 16 keep the appraisals in.
17 Q For what period of time?
18 A I'm not sure. I don't know how long they're 19 kept in there. But if you would have a counseling that's 20 documented, that would go in a personnel file.
21 Q I'd like to discuss with you Mr. Lashkari's 22 evaluation. I can do that at another meeting, if we don't 23 stay too long today.
i 24 MR. WETTERHAHN: We're p.repared to stay, 25 but --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHfNGTON D C. 2000$ (20212344433 ,
l \
- -- . - . . . - - . . .. - . . - ~ ~ . . - - - - - . - . ~ . . . - - - .
_?
61 -i s
STHE WITNESS:- I can stay as;long as-it-takes. -
l 2 BY MR. LOGAN: -
13 0 Okay . - We-don't have ---can you get his 4 4 evaluations ? -- 1 l
S. A I think we can get it f r'o m H R'. -
6 Q Let's just go off the record and talk.
l ~7
-- A Okay.
8 (Off the record.)
9 BY MR. LOGAN:
10 Q Mr. Wiedemann, what we'd like to do -- and we 11 discussed this off the record -- is discuss in detail or in
-12 a little more' detail-Mr. Lashkari's performance and use any F: -13 notes you may have, as well as his-evaluations. We'll set 14 up a future date with counsel, so that it's convenient for 15 you and your work assignments and the rest of us, 16 Is there anything before we complete this 17 interview today that you'd like to put on the record or
-18 discuss with us? .
19 A One area that we haven't' discussed is boric r
-20 acid transfer pumps.
2 .Q- Okay.
- 22 A' -The system engineer:is required, as I mentioned 23' earlier,;to'do_ tracking and trending, and-Charlie had the 24 boric aciditransfer pumps prior to his reassignments in-
- 25 HVAC. : Surveillance data'is recorded-and it's trended NEAL R. GROSS - 4 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS.
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W,
- (202) 234 4433 - - WASHINGTON. O C. 20005 ' (202) 234 4433 =
.c--. - ,;,- _ 4- , . . - - - . . - , , . - - - , - - -., -,
4
.t 62 -
1- against allowable numbers. I-believe it's discharge 2 pressure of the pump. l 3 We had problems with the pump performance- .,
4 meeting the allowables in the procedure, and how Charlie 5 reconciled that was to simply rebaseline the data and start 6 over again. So we're losing that continuity. .W e're losing 7 if there is.any trend toward degradation. 3 8 And I just wanted to go on record as that is an 9 example of the thought process that gets us back to whether 10 we felt a plan could help Charlie or not. And it was a 11 fundamental issue that indicated a concern.
12 I think that's enough for one de.y.
13 0 All right. Thank you very much.
14 A You're welcome.
- 15. (Whereupon, at 5:33 p.m., Mr. Wiedemann's 16 interview was concluded, to resume at a future date.) ,
17-18 hYNhh Vh50 19 2o
\) 6/uAr 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 2000$ - (202) 2344433
. - . .. ~ . . . - -- _
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of JOHN WIEDEMANN Docket Number: (NOT ASSIGNED)
Place of Proceeding: SALEM, NEW JERSEY
, were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United S?.ates 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 ar.d accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
WN %
MIMI WEYER official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 - WAswtNGTON D C 70005 (202) 2344433