ML20203B804
| ML20203B804 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 11/30/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20203B366 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-97-313 NUDOCS 9712150156 | |
| Download: ML20203B804 (36) | |
Text
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, . , Gffidat Tecn Orlpt of Pecoccdings NUCLEA.R REGULATORY COMMISSION ;
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Title:
In the matter of Inteiview of Gregory Hainon i l
i Docket Numbe r: 2-94-036 Location: Crystal River, Florida
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Date: November 30,1995 Work Order No.: NRC-429 Pages 1-34 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenne, N.W.
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4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ----------------------------------x 7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Docket No.
9 GREGORY HALNON : 2-94-036 10 :
11 ----------------------------------x 12 Thursday, November 30, 1995 13
\
14 Crfstal River Plant 15 Administration Building 16 15760 W. Power Line S'treet 17 Crystal River, Florida 18 19 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 20 8:18 a.m.
21 BEFORE:
22 JAMES D. DOCKERY Senior Investigator 23 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator 24 CURT RAPP ' Reactor Engineer
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 JAMES DOCKERY, Se.11or Investigator 4 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 5 401 Marietta Street 6- Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator 8 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 9 401 Marietta Street 10 . Atlanta, Georgia 30323 1 11 CURT RAPP, Reactor Engineer 12 Region II NRC I- 13 401 Marietts Street 14 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 15 16 On Behalf of the Interviewee, Gregory Halnon 17 MORRIS " SANDY" WEINBERG, JR., ESQUIRE 18 Corporate Counsel - Florida Power Corporation 19 101 East Kennedy Boulevard, Suite 3140 20 Tampa, Florida 33602 21 RONALD M. BRIGHT, P.E.
22 Nuclear Principal Licensing Engineer 23 15760 W. Power Line Street 24 Crystal River, Florida 34428-6708
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! 3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 MR. DOCKERY: We're on the record. Today's date 3 is November 30th, 1995. And we have today -- we're 4 creating another transcript based on the testimony of Mr.
5 Greg Halnon. The time ic approximately 8:18 a.m. and Mr.
6 Wei-5. erg has just apprised us that during the past 7 evening, afternoon and evening there has been some new 8 information come to light that Mr. Halnen and Mr. Weinberg 9 feel is significant. We will create a record of this 10 while Mr. Halnon presents that information and testimony.
11 Mr. Halnon, I'd like to state that we consider
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12 you to b'e c9ntinuing your testimony of yesterday, and it 13 will be given under oath, 14 MR. HALNON: I understand.
15 MR. DOCKERY: And the applicable laws do apply 16 as this continues to be an official proceeding.
17 MR. HALNON: I understand.
18 Whereupon, 19 GREGORY HALNON, 20 having been previously duly swort. by the Investigator, was 21 examined and testified as follows:
22 DIRECT EXAMINATION 23 MR. DOCKERY: Would you go ahead and finish your 24 statement?
25 THE WITNESS: Sure. Yesterday after we got done
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( 1 talking, Ron Bright, who is here with us, had some 2 questions and they were good questions about safety 1 3 culture and the attitudes of people, the shift supervisors 4 and what not and also some fairly detailed system 5 questions on the makeup system.
6 And the information he asked helped me connect 7 some dots that I hadn't connected earlier. And it was a 8 good -- good comment. And the comment is is that here we 9 are, the operators doing a test on a system, the makeup 10 system where they felt like it was important to stage 11 operators in the field to have pre-job briefings and take 12 continge'ncy, actions for defense and depth type of an 13 attitude towards this test for safety, yet one of the
(. 14 sir,nificant areac, if you will, of defense and depth is 15 the actual design of the makeup system, which has three 16 pumps, one additional than the required two pumps.
17 Technical specifications requires an A and a B side ES 18 pump, two trains. And we rctually have a third swing pump 19 that we can select at the other side.
20 That Ewin pump is not running normally. It is Or 21 not selected-fraught of start, but it is there. If 22 something should happen to one of the ES pumps the 23 operators do have the ability to start that pump up and 24 use it as an ES pump. And it is fully capable of a 25 hundred percent train capability.
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(, 1 The surprising thing in this test was that the 2 operators feeling that they needed to do this test, the 3 swing pump was out of service during this time frame.
4 MR. DOCKERY: For clarification purposes, Mr.
5 Halnon, when you say test, you're talking about the 6 evolution?
7 THE WITNESS: The evolution.
O MR. DOCKERY: Of which date?
9 THE WITNESS: The 4th and the 5th.
10 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
11 MR. VORSE: And, Mr. Halnon, when you talked 12 about de'fenspe p and you talked about -- you talked 13 and also mentioned I think we need to get into they
( etationed that person in the anti C gaar down in the Aux 14 15 Duilding as part of their defense and depth.
16 Tim WITNESS: That's correct. Certainly a 17 contingency action to vent the tank in the event of a LOCA Y
18 isadefettseNnddepthattitudesayingthat, hey, we know 19 that we're going to ba on the wrong side of the curve, we 20 need to enhance this by stationing somebody.
21 The surprising thing is is that if they're really 22 looking at it to enhance the safety of the system, or if h6 23 they'relookingatdefensef$ddepth,thenitwouldhave 24 made a lot more sense in & safecy world to wait and do 25 this when the pump was back in service, which was
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( 1 imminent. I mean, it was back in service hours after
. . 2 their test. I got the logs here and we'll put that on the 3 record if you like, is the logs.
4 But it wasn't very much longer after the test of 5 the 5th that the pump was back in service. These guys 6 were on midnight shift until Thursday or Friday night.
7 They had additional midnight shifts after what they were 8 doing here. There's nothing -- no reason why they had to 9 do it at this time. If they truly had an attitude of 10 safety, then this is a very obvious oversight that they 11 should not have made.
12 'MR, DOCKERY: Mr. Halnon, would that operating 13 shift have reason to know that that pump was coming back 14 into service imminently?
15 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. The shift 16 supervisor's log -- (Examining document.)
17 MR. RAPP: Okay. The first log is the shift 18 manager's log?
19 MR. WEINBERG: Yeah, shift manager's log.
20 THE WITAESS: Okay. Well, if you'll look at --
21 we're looking at what - even what Dave Fields wrote on 22 the night of September 4th, 1994, he actually logged 23 makeup pump 1B, mechanical seals been rep 10ced, clearance 24 modified fill and vent of the pump.
25 That's the first test. The very latter stages of
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( 1 _ getting the pump back into service.
2 There's no more activity on the makeup pump as 3 far as the shift supervisor's log until Monday morning, l 4 the date of the 5th, which is right after the second test, 5 where it said, the makeup pump B was being tested, that's ,
6 post maintenance testing.
7 So, it was like I said, just a few -- it was at 8 10:52 in the morning. So it was only six hours or so 9 after their second test that the B makeup pump was coming 10 back into service.
11 So, it doesn't make sense from a safety 12 standpoint that if you have an ability to wait to build .
Poe 13 enhancement safety by having that third pretAbr ;t, even
\ though it's not legally required but from a safety culture 14 15 aspect, it certainly makes a lot of sense. And any shift 16 supervisor should not have overlooked that.
17 MR. WEINBERG: But would you have expected that 18 the fact that the backup pump was out would have caused 1 19 any shift supervisor to have at a minimum sought 20 permission to do this evolution?
21 THE WITNESS: I don't know if it's so much 22 permission as it would be -- it would certainly prompt a 23 discussion outside of the control room. Often shift 24 . supervisors call me when there's -- even though they're 25 -meeting the legal requirements there's a defense End depth W
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8 1 type of question. They call me often to discuss that, 2 discuss it with the shift managers.
i 3 It certainly is a flag to say here's one more 4 thing out there that would prompt me to go discuss it with i 5 somebody else that would have knowledge, and bounce off 6 the ideas. l 7 MR. WEINBERG From the documents that you 8 produced was the backup pump out both during the time that .
9 the evolution or test was done on the 4th and the 5th by 10 Fields' crew?
11 THE WITNESS: Yes.
12 MR, WEINBERG: Can you tell from these documents 13 during what period of time the backup pump was out?
14 THE WITNESS: It looks like on September 4th on 15 that night they said they modified the clearance to permit ;
16 fill and vent. That's the latter stages of the 17 maintenance. It certainly wasn't -- it certainly was not 18 in service or available for them on the night of the 4th.
19 The fact that it was filled and vented on the 20 night of the 5th but they had not done the post-21 maintenance test tells me that it's very possible it could 22 have been available to them, but they hadn't been tested, 23 so they didn't know if the maintenance was complete or 24 not. And they didn't know if it was fixed until they 25 actually run the pump,.do the post-maintenance test you g.
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( 1 don't know if the maincenance is fixed. It has fixed the r
2 problem. ;
3 So, it's -- even though they may have assumed it 4 was available to them without having a test done on the i 5 pump itself to see if the maintenance was effective, from 6 a logic standpoint you wouldn't expect it to be there for 7 him.
8 MR. WEINBERG: On the 4th, time wise, how long 9 after -- where did the evolution come in time based on 10 when they -- when the pump went out of --
11 THE WITNESS: If you follow through on the_ log 12 entries,'it; appear that the fill and vent came after the
- 13 test.
( So, in other words, the makeup 14 MR. WEINBERG :
15 pump was absolutely out on the 4th?
16 THE WITNESS: Correct.
17 MR. WEINBERG: At the time that the test was 18 done?
19 THE WITNESS: Correct.
20 MR. WEINBERG: What are these documents here, 21 and we can just turn them over and leave them as part of 22 the record?
23 THE WITNESS: We have the shift manager's log 24- book of the weekend.
25 MR. WEINBERG: And what does that show?
r 10 1 THE WITNESS: The shif t manager log book on the 2 4th was showing the iterations in the maintenance. It r l
3 shows that the alignment was complete on the 4th. And 4 that on the 5th after 0700 the pump was started and 5 operated satisfactorily. So that was the first time that 6 it was tested would be on the morning on the 5th after 7 their second test. So until that time you don't know if 8 you have an available pump or not.
9 MR. WEINBERG: So what the shift manager log 10 book shows is the status of the pump as it went out for 11 the first time on September 2nd and then tracked it 12 through September 5th? ,
13 THE WITNESS: Right. You have to fill and vent i
14 -- they filled and vented on the 4th, you have to have it 15 filled and vented in order to do an alignment. They do 16 what they call a wet alignment. And that alignment you 17 can't run the pump without alignment because the 18 vibrations would be too high. So --
19 MR. WEINBERG: Okay. Then the next exhibit is 20 the shift supervisor log for the -- for Dave Fields on the 21 4th. And then for the next crew on the 4th. And then for 22 Dave Fields on the 5th. And for the next crew on the 5th, 23 Is that right?
24 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
25 MR. WEI?! BERG: And then what is the entry after b
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1 the log, what is this?
2 THE WITNESS: That's the nuclear operator's log i 3 book, which will show time and date, or times of the 4 actual test. And'that's really got to be, you know -- the 5 NO's log book is only going to show the time of the test.
6 It'll show when the pump was started and stopped but it ,
t 7 won't necessarily show when it's fill and vented.
8 MR. WEINBERG: And then if you look at 102, ;
9 which is the 9/5/94, Monday, which is the 5th, I guess, at 10 -- what time is that? 1 11 THE WITNESS: 1630.
- 12 MR, WEINBERG: 1630 --
13 THE WITNESS: I'm sorry, that's 1600 to 2400 -- )
f And then 1630 is the entry and '
14 MR. WEINBERG:
15 that's -- e 16 THE WITNESS: That's when B pump was declared 17 operable and selected for ES.
18 MR WEINBERG: So that's when the vent went back l
19 in service? ,
20 THE WITNESS: That's when it went back in 21 service, correct.
22 MR. WEINBERG: And is that -- that's after the-23 - test of the 5th?
24 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
25 MR WEINBERG: And what is this last thing that 6
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2 THE WITNESS: This is a nuclear operations 3 directive that, you know, I think, Ron, you put this in 4 here mainly to emphasize that we do put some additional 5 administrative guidance on our makeup pumps-that would 6 cause the shift supervisor to be a little bit more 7 sensitive about having a makeup pump out and maybe another 8 pump in the plant. We do have a directive focused pretty 9 much solely on the makeup pumps and when they're out, 10 addressing the two out of three and stuff like that.
11 MR. DOCEERY: Something I neglected to do when 12 we started.,
13 Ron, I think it would be good if you would
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14 identify yourself for the record and so we can note your is presence.
16 MR. BRIGHT: I'm Ronald M. Bright. I'm a 17 Nuclear Principal Licensing Engineer for Florida Power 18 Corporation.
19 MR. WEINBERG: You don't need the LER.
20 You have some questions?
21 MR. RAPP: Let me ask a question.
22 MR. DOCKERY: You ahead. I'll let you gu first.
23 MR. VORSE: Did you bring this to the attention 24 of Mr. Fields and Mr. Weiss during your discussions with 25 them after the event of the 5th?
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t 13 1 THE WITNESS: No, I really didn't, you know, and 2 that's what I was telling you earlier, when Ron started l 3 probing me on the system alignments and stuff. From a [
4 legal standpoint reading the log books and stuff it didn't ;
5 really key into me that, hey, this is another int,x,'3 tion ,
6 of what we're talking about. But when he was probing me 7~ 1ast night I said, yeah, you're right, it's a very clear i 8 indication that their attitude was not where, you know, we 9 felt -- at least what they're saying is that it wasn't 10 consistent. It just wasn't consistent.
11 And I didn't put the consistency -- inconsistency ,
12 together'ungil last night when Ron was talking to me.
13 MR. DOCKERY: When you say their attitude wasn't ,
14 consistent, are you ta.'. king about their claimed attitude l 15 about safety?
16 THE WITNESS: Correct. They felt like they 17 needed to put contingencies out there to enhance the 18 safety, yet even better and more clear enhancement would 19 be certainly to wait a couple of nights or at least one 20 night and do it when the pump was back. And that would 21 also afford more opportunity for people to get involved 22 with it because it would be off the holiday weekend.
23 MR. DOCKERY: Well, I have one of my typically ;
24 sophomore questions then in that regard. ,
25 It's been implied by various -- in various h
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i 14 1 testimony that we've taken that there was some advantage 2 to conducting that test, if we call it that, on the night 3 shift and perhaps on a holiday night shift.
4 This plant operates 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day. Was there 5 rame advantage if their point was to try and covertly 6 manipulate the plant into an area where it shouldn't have 7 been? Was there an advantage to doing it on the night 8 shift and/or on a holiday weekend?
9 THE WITNESS: There would be a lot of advantage 10 if they were, if you will, use the word covertly trying to 11 do that. I think the biggest advantage would be the fact 12 the day hhi(t is probably too busy to focus on plotting 13 data. There's phone calls left and right and stuff.
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14 If you walked in the control room during this 15 test, you wouldn't know what was going on. It was a very 16 routine evolution from the standpoint of flipping a switch 17 and plotting data, 35, 40 minutes worth and it's over. It 18 was not something that, you know, you had to stay on the 19 board and be at a high level of attention. All they did 20 was allow the bleed to go longer than it normally would.
21 So, it was not a manpower intensive evolution.
22 The only advantage that I can see on doing it on the night 23 shift from an operation standpoint is that the activity in 24 the plant would be less such that you could focus on it.
25 But, you know, it could be done on days. Matter
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( 1 of fact, the evolutions-that were done back on July 22nd 2 were done on day shift. ,
3 MR. WEINBERG I think what he was asking, if !
4 you didn't want somebody to find out about it would there 5 be an advantage of doing it on a holiday weekend at night?
, 6 THE WITNESS: Certainly there'd be fewer people 7 coming into the control room that could question it.
8 MR. RAPPr If you didn't want anybody to find
- 9- out about it would you write a problem report?
10 THE WITNESS: No. I mean, obviously not. If he 11 didn'bwantsomebodytofindoutaboutit, then he 12 wouldn'i - ,he wouldn't have done what they did. I mean, 13 I don't know if they were trying to hide the fact that -
(' 14 they did.
15 MR. DOCKERY: Well, he pretty successfully hid 16 the fact that they conducted an evolution on the 4th, ,
17 though.
18 THE WITNESS: I don't know if they successfully 19 hid it or if we just didn't do a better ' job of -- a good 20 enough job of looking at the NO's log book. You look at 21 the NO's log book and it's fairly evident that an 22 evolution somehow was done. There was no attengt to sway 23 the words in the NO's log book that, you know, that it 24 wasn't-done. It was pretty noch logged the same way it 25 was the 5th.
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'k 1 I think the key was is that we just -- simply we 2 were focused on the data of the 5th, we just didn't -- ;
3 well, it was just phenomenal to think that they did it the !
4 night before also.
5 MR. WRINBERG: Was it in the shift supervisor's 6 log book?
7 THE WITNSSS: Neither evolution was in the shift 8 supervisor's log book.
'9 MR. RAPP- Would it be considered routine to log 10 hydrogen adds or reactor makeup-tank feeds and-bleeds in 11 thesbittsupervisor'slogbook?
12 'TH5 WITNESS: No, it'would not be routine to do 13 that. It's normally things -- different things going on ,
14 in shift. And the shift supervisor's log book is a 15 narrative of significant activities on shift. It is, I 16 think the way the procedures read is what you should be 17 doing in there.
la And iE's up to the judgment of the shift 19 supervisor what's significant and non significant.
20 MR. WEINBERG: Would you call this significant i
l 21 activity?
22 THE WIT:iESS: Anything that is done to -- that I 23 results-in a problem report is significant. Especially if 24 it's a significant safety issue as they were try -- as l
25 they were selling to us, which it was. I mean, we all
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17
( 1 recognize that we have an issue with the makeup tank 2 curve. And if, in fact, they were trying to make a point 3 like they were making, certainly one way to do that is to 4 make -- log it in the shift supervisor's log book, which 5 is a key communication tool for the shift supervisor to 6 the rest of the world.
7 MR. RAPP: When -- Let me ask this. When was 8 the problem report actually written?
9 THE WITNESS: I believe it was the 6th, or the 10 'i t h . I --
11 MR. WEINBERG: The 7th, 12 'THE WITNESS: The 7th.
13 MR. RAPP: So it would have been a couple of
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14 days after the evolution was performed?
15 THE WITNESS: Right.
16 MR. RAPP: So.then would Dave Fields have been 17 required or expected to go back and amend the log book and 18 enter the fact that a separate problem report was written 19 due to the evolution conducted on the 5th?
20 THE WITNESS: I don't think that would have been 21 a routine thing to expect, no.
22 MR. WEINBERG: I think I was more focusing on 23 the 4th, which is not in the problem report. I mean, I 24 was more focusing on the 4th which is, of course, not in 25 the problem report.
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18 1 THE WITNESS: There is provisions that if you 2 need to put a late entry, provisions to go back and make a 3 late entry, but that's not routinely done when a problem 4 report's issued, to go back and make a late entry in the 5 log book like that.
6 MR. RAPP: Was e prcblem report written on the 7 events or the evolution performed on the 4th?
8 THE WITNESS: No, it was really written on the 9 data they obtained on the 5th.
10 MR. DOCKERY: Greg, the 5th -- the night of the 11 5th was a Sunday night, is that correct?
12 'THQ WITNESS: I believe it was.
13 MR. WEINBERG: Monday morning.
14 THE WITNESS: Monday morning, yeah --
15 MR. DOCKERY: Sunday night, Monday morning.
16 Monday being Labor Day, is that correct?
17 THE WITNESS: Right. The night of the 5th -- or 18 the morning of the 5th started'at midnight.
19 MR. DOCKERYr Right.
20 THE WITNESS: Midnight, Monday morning.
21 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
22 MR. RAPP: That's Labor Day, a holiday, 23 MR. DOCKERY: Was Dave Fields' shift scheduled l
24 to come back that evening?
, 25 THE WITNESS: The midnight shift runs from l
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19 1 1 Saturday at midnight until the following Thursday or 2 Friday morning. So --
3 .MR. DOCKERY: So they would --
4 THE WITNESS: -- they had three more days after l 5 this or so.
6 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
7 THE WITNESS: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 8 they would have been on -- and Friday, they would have 9 been on midnight shift. So they had four days.
10 MR. DOCKERY: The claim that there was some 11 urgency to attempt to deal with this problem was not 12 because they were going to be off shift for a few days.
13 THE WITNESS: That's correct, no. I mean, they .
k 14 were going to be on shift for another three or four !
15 nights. And they would have people around, I mean more ;
16 people around.
17 MR. RAPP: In the documents that you've given us 18 here, you've got a page one out of three of NOD 32 Rev 1.
19 And by Section 5 you have a highlighted bar placed beside 20 that. Or at least in my copy there is.
21 Basically this section deals with discussions of 22 inoperable equipment resulting in tech spec action 23 statements, entry in the tech spec action statements?
24 THE WITNESS: Uh-huh.
25 MR. RAPP: On the nights of the 4th and the 5th b
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i 20 1 was Crystal River in a tech spec action statement for the 2 makeup, makeup system or the high pressure injection 3 system?
4 THE WITNESS: No, it was not. In other words, 5 the B pump is not covered by tech specs, the third pump is
-6 not. It's above and beyond tech spec.
7 MR. RAPP Then the next section down here is ,
8 two or three makeup pumps inoperable, and it gives some 9 guidelines as to what's to be done if two or three makeup 10 pumps are inoperable. The makeup pumps, of course, are 11 also a high pressure injection, correct?
12 'TH5 WITNESS: Correct, yes.
13 MR. RAPP: Were two or three pumps inoperable
( 14 during that time frame?
15 TRE WITNESS: No, during that time frame the B 16 makeup pump was inoperable, the A and C pumps were the ES 17 selected inoperable pumps. What this was here for was to 18 just show you that we .1ve added emphasis to the makeup 19 rumps and that certainly having NOD out there that ,
20 specifically talks about makeup pumps. And if you have a 21 second makeup pump out we put a lot of credence in that.
22 And we have this NOD out there to heighcen the awareness 23 of it.
24 MR. RAPP: But, the point being here is that it 25 addresses too of three makeup pumps not in -- inoperable,
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21 1 not one.
2 THE WITNESS: Correct. Yeah, they did not 3 violate NOD 32.
4 MR. RAPP: Okay. .
5 THE WITNESS: This was a -- an exanple to show 6 that the station puts high emphasis on the makeup pumps. I 7 MR. RAPP: Well, I would understand why if two 8 of three are inoperable. I mean, that would be --
9 THE WITNESS: Well, that -- yeah, we would be j 10 tech spec action instead -- I 11 MR. RAPP: -- you'd be in a 303, 12 'TH5 WI1WESS: And what this is saying is that we 13 don't wait -- if we have two or three inoperable we don't i 14 wait for the end of the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, we start shutting the 15 plant down immediately.
16 MR. RAPP: Okay.
17 THE WITNESS: And, you know, again, the high 18 level of attention in the makeup pumps is also emphasized 19 by the fact that I think that~the system engineer was out 20 during that weekend, working on the makeup pump outage.
21 itR. RAPP: Which makeup pump was that? .
22 THE WITNESS: The B makeup pump outage during 23 the week --
24 MR. RAPP The B makeup pump. Okay. It's been 25 stated that they were working on the C makeup pump, and I r
22 1 was just -- that was my next question was to find out why 2 the C makeup pump was alsu out of service during that time 3 or not.
4 THE WITNESS: No, it wasn't.
.9 MR. VORSE: We touched on this before when we 6 went on the record, but I think we need to put on the 7 record what was available to Mr. Fields and company, his 8 shift, to let them know thet this nakeup pump 1B was out 9 of operation.
10 THE WITNESS: How -- You mean --
11 MR. VORSE: What infornation was available to 12 Mr. Fiel'sd to make him know that this pump was inop g4(g g pF4 13 THE WITNESS: Well, there's a litt'c tur.
( 14 red tags that are on the control board that tag the pump 15 out. There's an unusual -- I say unusual, it's non 16 routine a3ignment in the plant having the A makeup pump as 17 a normally running pump. The B makeup pump normally our 18 -- normally select and run the B makeup as our ES selected l
19 pump.
20 They also had logged in the shift supervisor's 21 log book, t.hich he's required to review. He also logged a 22 situation with the makeup pungs, so I know he was aware of 23 it. And I don't have with me the shift turnover. I got 24 it out in the car, but I can take a look at the shift 25 turnover log sheets and stuf f. I would expect as a l
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1- routine that the shif t turnover log sheets have a notation 2 that B makeup pump was out of service and that would be in :
3 our out-of-service log. We have a equipment out-of-4 service log that we put significant pieces of equipment 5 in. That I would expect it to be there too. And I have 6 not looked at that to see if that's the case.
7 MR. WEINBERG: Why don't you look at those t 8 things, and you can bring them in.
9 THE WITNESS: I'll look at those, sure.
10 MR. DOCKERY: Maybe we can simplify it, Mr.
11 Halno . As the shift supervisor, did Mr. Fields have an 12 obligation to know that that pump was not operable?
13 THE WITNESS: Absolutely.
k 14 MR. DOCKERY: Okay.
15 MR. RAPP: Did Mr. Fields conduct walk-downs to .
16 the control board as part of the shift turnover?
17 THE WITNESS: Absolutely. His shift turnover 3*68 1B <hht sheet, pas a checklist which actually checks the ES 19 alignment of the pumps. And that in itself would require 20 a notation that the B makeup pump was out of service.
21 So it would be absolutely unimaginable that he 22 wasn't aware of that B makeup pump was out of service.
23 MR. DOCKERY: Anything else?
24 MR. RAPP I want to touch on a couple of quick '
25 points here.
(
. _ . _ - . _- - . . . . -- . - - -_- - - - _ . - . . _ =
. . a l
24
. 1 MR. WEINBERG Xeep that as part of the exhibit.
2 MR. RAPP: Yes. .He's maintaining all of the 3 exhibits.
4 MR. WEINBERG: That chart in there? ,
5 MR. RAPP: Yes.
6 MR. RAPP: The diagram you've given un hers 7 concerning the makeup pumps, the physical layout of the 8 makeup pumps --
9 THE WITNESS: Very simplified.
10 MR. RAPP: -~ simplified diagram. Is that 11 representative of the actual physical alignment of the 12 pumps du' ring routine plant operations or during operations 13 at this time frame?
( 14 THE WITNESS: This is indicative of the 15 alignment that he was dealing with during that weekend.
16 MR. RAPP: Okay. All right, I want to --
17 MR. WAINBERG: Well, he might -- but --
18 THE WITNESS: But a n'ormal alignment --
19 MR. WEINBERG: Different than normal.
20 THE WITNESS: A normal ulignment would be out of 21 the makeup tank to the B makeup pump as the ES selected 22 pump.
23 MR. RAPP Okay. But this is the alignnent they 24 had, this is the 4th and the 5th?
25 THE WITNESS: (Nods affirmatively.)
( -
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25 1 MR. RAPP: All right. Is there an isolation 2 valve on the B makeup pump between the suction header and l 3 the 5 makeup pump?
4 THE WITNESS: Between the makeup tank and the B ,
5 makeup pump?
6 MR. RAPP: Yeah -- well, that suction header as 7 you have it drawn.
8 THE WITNESS: No, the B makeup pump is always P
9 aligned to the makeup tank. If the makeup tank is aligned 10 to the header, then it has to be aligned to the B makeup 11 pump. -
12 'MR, RAPP: Okay.
13 THE WITNESS: So the valves are pretty much as
( 14 shown. I had one, you can see a faint, I put that in the 15 wrong place when I first drew it.
16 MR. RAPP: Okay. The isolation valve you have 17 here between the makeup tank and the A makeup pump, is 18 that normally closed? If the B makeup pump is in ,
19 operation is that normally closed?
20 THE WITNESS: Po, that is almost -- that's 21 always open from the standpoint that the -- you see the 22 BWST valve, that's an automatically open valve on the ES.
23 MR. RAPP: Right.
24 THE WI7 NESS: That has to get to the ES selected 25 pump. So, if the B pump is ES-selected, then that's 3;ot
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6
, 4 26 1 to be connected up automa.ically to the BWST.
2 MR. RAPP: Okay.
3 THE WITNESS: So that valve is typically open.
4 The A and B makeup pump are typically tied together on the 5 suctio4 --
6 MR. RAPP: What -- I'm sorry, let me rephrase 7 this.
8 If the B makeup pump is in service, as in normal 9 alignment, is that the ES selected pump --
10 THE WITNESS: Correct.
11 MR. RAPP: That's the ES selected pump.
12 THE WITNESS: Yes. The normal running pump is 13 the ES selected pump.
( Is the ES selected pump. Okay.
14 MR. RAPP:
15 Then this isolation valve was also open when the 16 A makeup pump was being used?
17 THE WITNESS: Because it had to take suction t
18 from the makeup tank.
l 19 MR. RAPP: Take suction from the makeup tank.
20 THE WITNESS: Right.
21 MR. RAPP: If, with this configuration --
22 MR. WEINBERG: The one that was in place on the 23 4th and 5th?
24 MR. RAPP: Yes, that's correct. The 25 configuration that's represented here in this diagram. If i
l
f 27 1 -- Even if the B makeup pump had been operable, given ;
2 this alignment would the A and the B pump have been able :
3 to fulfill their safety function on a large break LOCA 4 during the evolution that was performed on the 4th or the f 5 5th*/ !
6 THE WITNESS: You'ra asking me a question that 7 would get back into the actual curve dynamics and whatnot. !
8 I believe it would have, yes. The key is that the shift 9 felt a need to be down at the makeup tank to vent it to 10 help ensure that. Because if they didn't, then there's a ;
11 potenbialgasbindingsincethey'reonthewrongsideof 12 the curv'e. ,
13 MR. RAPP: Okay. So is --
i' 14 THE WITNESS: So let's just play this a little 15 further. If, in fact, it gas bound the pump that had 16 no::mcily auto started, then the pump would be wiped cut.
17 It would be -- So we still have another line -- we still 18 have the redundant system is the -- the C pump would still 19 pick up and take HPI. There's no problem. The plant's 20 designed to run on one HPI pump.
21 But the key is is that -- is that you would be-22 able to very much enhance your safety if you had this 23 other pump that, yeah, there may be some gas in it, so 24 you'd have to fill and vent it, because it's always tied 25 to the makeup tank too. And if you bumped hydrogen down
28 1 to the header and wiped out the running pump, why you 2 could have hydrogen in the non running pump too. So you 3 have to vent it.
4 But the opportunity at least is there to do that.
5 If you don't have the pump, you don't have the 6 opportunity.
7 MR. RAPP: What indication would the operators 8 in the control room have to know to vent the non running 9 pump prior to starting it?
10 THE WITNESS: They wouldn't have any indication 11 on the control board. It would be a knowledge and skill 12 thing. ,
13 MR. RAPP Is that routine that when one ES pump i
14 fails, that you go down and fill and vent the non running 15 ES pump prior to starting it?
16 THE WITNESS: Knock on wood, we've never had an 17 ES pump fail because of that, but I think that that's a 18 routine. The operators in their mind if they see 19 cavitation they think gas binding. If something was tied 20 to it that would key them into filling and venting the 21 pump.
22 MR. RAPP: When the operators see indications of 23 cavitation how long do they have to respond before the 1
24 pump is useless?
l 25 THE WITNESSr Not very long. Fifteen seconds.
(
.~
i 29 1 MR. RAPP: Okay.
2 THE WITNESS: Depending on the severity of the
.3 cavitation.
4 MR. RAPP: My paint here is is that you're 5 saying that -- your contention is that if they would have 6 waited and went and got this B pump back they would have 7 been more safe. But I don't see it because even in that 8 case you still run the potential of putting gas binding in 9 both these pumps and wiping them both out. So you're 10 still down to a single train, 12 THE WITNESS: Well, you are in one respect.
12 What we're looking at is opportunities to enhance the 13 safety. And if you take -- if you have a system with
( 14 three pumps in it and you only need two, and you have an 15 opportunity to have one in standby, one that would be 16 there if you needed it if. one broke, and it stands to 17 reason that that's a better configuration than not having 18 that one at all. Regardless of what happens to the other 19 pump.
ds W 20 And, in fact, if you didnit wipe one pump out, to 21 replace that pump -- because, you know, HPI -- you have au 22 accident and it's not over in 30 minutes, it's over in --
23 well, how long it'd take TMI to recover, you know, it's a 24 long time. And it would take four weeks to replace a L 25 pump. And we have data that shows it. It took four weeks l1 1 . .
30 i for us to replace one o*, these pumps. That's a lot 2 different than maybe two hours to ensure that you don't 3 have any gas in the pung and then fill the makeup tank L
4 back up and get into a situation where you're under a 5 controlled evolution.
6 dow, you know, we're talking in relative levels 7 of significa.ce here. And I think we've already 8 established that the whole evolution itself was not 9 majorally safety significant from the standpoint of did it 10 put the plant in ndition th;t b? going te be in 11 terrible shape.
12 I t;hink that's been pretty well established 13 though because we always would have had the C makeup pump,
(- 6 Aid 4M-wher is totally isolated f rom the whole area and would have 14 15 taken a design basis cooling not a problem.
16 Yet we're looking at where was his mind, where 17 was the attitude, what was the reasoning that they -- they 18 are contending that they went titrough a very detailed 19 thought process on how they can enhance the safety of the 20 plant by stationing operators and whatnot. Why did that 21 not include, well, let's wait one night and we'll have 22 another level of safety, we'll have another makeup pump.
23 And that's my point. I don't disagree with you I
L 24 that it's not earth shattering. It's not earth 25 shattering. But it's just another indication that maybe
.f l
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31 1 the thouga.t process was not consistent in a way to get to 2 this point. l 3 MR. RAPP: Or, maybe the thought process was !
4 similar to what I just went through and they said, well,
-5 it doesn't make any difference. ,
4 MR. WEINBERG: Except that they never mentioned !
7 that either.
8 MR. RAPP: Maybe they weren't asked.
9 THE WITNESS: Well, but --
10 MR. WEINBERG: Well, I ments, a lot of people 11 haveksked. They've been asking for a year now. ,
12 'MR, RAPP: I can understand -~
13 THE WITNESS: That's the mentality that put us 14 rAght here, right now. So, we want to be careful with 15 that.
! 16 MR. RAPP: I understand. I understand.
17 THE WITNESS: But, you know, from a reasonable 18 standpoint, if you'ta an operator or not operator, if you 19 got an opportunity to wait 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to get another level 20 of safety, you know, I mean, we're preaching that all the 21 way to the top levels of the NRC management, the defense os W 22 pad depth and knowing your systems and knowing how they 23 react. And even though it's not PSA significant why 6
24 take yourself and put yourself in a condition that's more 25 significant if it's economically and physically and l
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i 32
~(; 1 everything, it's not an issue to wait 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. ;
2- 90t. RAPP I understand what you're saying. It 3 just makes operational sense to have three pumpt instead [
4 of two. Okay. That makes just plain ordinary operational 5 sense. l 6 The one thing you did mention though is you said ,
7 that this evclution -- correct me if this is a misquote --
8 had little safety significance or small safety
- 9 significance.
i
, 10 THE WITNESS: From a design basis standpoint.
11 MR. RAPP: From a design basis standpoint. ,
12 'Thgre's been many discussions in which the term 13 Chernobyl has been used quite freely to say that this
( 14 evolution was a Chernobyl precursor, or whatever. How 15 would that weigh in with what your statement is that this 16 had little safety significance or a amall safety 17 aignificance?
18 THE WITNESSt Well, there's many' aspects of 19 Chernobyl. If we're talking about unauthorized tests, you 20 look again at levels of significance. This test did not 21 have, in my opinion, the significance that the Chernobyl 22 test, if you will , had . . We were not dealing with reactor 23 physics, we were not dealing in unknown areas of bypassing -
24 and taking safety systems out. We were -- We just don't 25 like relying on the last line of defense as one train to
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33
( 1 provide the last line of safety of the plant.
2 _Now, in the legal and design basis world, that's 3 what-the plant's designed to do. It's not prudent. It's
~
4 not prudent at r 1 and we don't preach that, we don't 5 practice that.
6 MR. WEINBERG: I think it's a mind set more than 7 anything. 1 eean, I think what Greg was saying is that, 8 no, from a -- was the plant in imminent danger of i
9 meltdown? Absolutely not, but did *he company take the 10 poor judgment of the operators in this uituation 11 seriously? Yeah, they did. And that's why they 12 approached 4t with a management review conference and 13 things like that. It was the decision-making process.
( 14 And the reason why we brought this up to you is 15 that we think th'at it's yet another factor in a long list 16 of factors that you all can chew on in trying to make s 17 final decision as to -- as to whrst really, you know, wher:.
18 this should come out and what was the motivation here.
19 That's why we brought it up to you.
20 MR. DOCKERY: What I'm hearing here is that it 21 would be your contention that the manipulations that they 22 undertook on September 4th, September 5th -- by "they" I 23 mean Mr. Fields' shift, operating shift -- if their claim 24 was they were dcing it for some safety purpose the 25 configuration of the plant on those two nights was
(..
34 1 inconsistent with that claim of a safety -- a regard for 2 the safety culture.
3 Is that it, pretty succinctly?
4 Itx. WEINBERG: Of the seven days or five days on 5 shift thr>y picked the absolute most inopportune time to do 6 what they did if what they did had been appropriate.
7 MR. DOCKERY: And we've established that there 8 was every expectation, reasonable expectation that Mr.
9 Fields at least should have known that.
10 THE WITNESS: Absolutely.
11 MR WEINBERG: Yeah.
12 'MR 3 DOCKERY: Okay.
13 MR. WEINBERG: All right. Thanks.
( Thank 14 MR. DOCKERY: We'll go off the record.
15 you.
16 (Whereupon, the proceedings were concluded at 17 9:54 o' clock a.m.)
18 -----
19 20 -
21 22 23 24 25
(
a ..a .
1 CERTIFICATE 2 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 3 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 4 the utter of:
5 Name of Proceeding: Interview of Gregory Halnon 6 Docket Number (s): 2-94-036 7 Place of Proceeding: Crystal River, Florida 8
9 wore held as herein appears, and that this is the original 10 transcript thereof for the file of the United States 11 Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter 12 reducbdtotypewritingbymeorunderthedirectionofthe 13 court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true 14 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
15 16 ^? # - M 17 S. May 18 Official Reporter 19 Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
20 21 22 23 24 25