ML20203N188
| ML20203N188 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 09/19/1986 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#386-860 LRP, NUDOCS 8609230191 | |
| Download: ML20203N188 (132) | |
Text
1 ORIGINAL UNITED STATES O
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION.
l l
l IN THE MATTER OF:
DOCKET NO: LRP INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 - LEAK RATE DATA FALSIFICATION
~
l Q
LOCATION:
BETHESDA, MARYLAND PAGES: 1906 - 2035 DATE:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1986 ff0t l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
OfficialReporters 444 North CapitolStreet Washington, D.C. 20001 (202 W M 860923o191 860919 PDR ADOCK 05000320 PDR NATIONWIDE COVERAGE
e CR28125.0 1906 BRT/sjg
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _x 4
In the Matter of:
5 Docket No. LRP INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND 6
UNIT 2 - LEAK RATE DATA FALSIFICATION 7
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _x 8
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fifth Floor Hearing Room East West Towers 10 4350 East-West Highway Bethesda, Maryland 12 Friday, September 19, 1986
_)
13 The hearing in the above-entitled matter convened at 14 8:30 a.m.
15 BEFORE:
16 JUDGE JAMES L.
KELLEY, Chairman 17 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 Washington, D.
C.
19 JUDGE JAMES H.
CARPENTER, Member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 20 U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.
C.
JUDGE GLENN O.
BRIGHT, Member 22 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission l
W shington, D.
C.
23 24
(~J 25 l
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1907 APPEARANCES:
2 On behalf of GPU Nuclear Corporation:
3 ERNEST L.
- BLAKE, JR.,
ESQ.
JOHN NASSIKAS, ESQ.
Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge 4
1800 M Street, N.W.
W shington, D.
C.
20036 5
On behalf of the Employees:
HARRY H. VOIGT, ESQ.
7 MICHAEL McBRIDE, ESQ.
LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae 8
1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.
Suite 1100 9
Washington, D.
C.
20036 on behalf of Jack Herbein:
10 JAMES B.
BURNS, ESQ.
11 Isham, Lincoln & Beale Three First National Plaza 12 Chicago, Illinois 60602 ix_
13 CHRISTOPHER W.
FLYNN, ESQ.
Isham, Lincoln & Beale 14 1150 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.
C.
20036 15 On behalf of Gary P. Miller:
16 MICHAEL W.
MAUPIN, ESQ.
M.
CHRISTINA HENSLEY, ESQ.
77 Hunton & Williams 707 East Main Street 18 Richmond, Virginia 23221 19 on behalf of Former Metropolitan l
l Edison Employees:
20 SMTIH B.
GEPHART, ESQ.
21 Killian & Gephart 217-218 Pine Street Box 886 22 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17108 l
On behalf of the NRC Staff:
24 JACK R.
GOLDBERG, FSQ.
e~-
)
MARY E.
WAGNER, ESQ.
25 U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.
C.
20555 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1908
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2 RECESS:
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NOON - 2010 i
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NUMBER IDENTIFIED RECIEVED-8 Exhibit 15-A and 15-B 2008 1
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22 23 24 O
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'1909 b-Jcefederal 1 PROCEEDINGS 2-
- JUDGE KELLEY:
Good morning.
We have a pending 3
follow-up question to.Mr.-Stier and the Board has a few 7
4 comments'before we get to that.
I believe the question was
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5_
read. yesterday.
The Staff sought.to object to_the-question 6'
on the ground that it was outside the scope of the
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7 proceeding.
The Board adheres to its determination yesterday l
8 and earlier that the Staff may not object to questions posed-9' to witnesses other than Staff' witnesses.
We recognized i.
10
' yesterday the Staff's right to suggest t'o'us follow-up i
f 11 questions and we think that that is adequate, along with 12.
- possibly'other approaches, to assure development of.the L
C:)
13 record.
l
- 14 It does seem to us, as it has seemed earlier, for 15 the Staff to object to questions to other witnesses would pdt i
16 out of_ balance the balance we are attempting to strike in the i
17 Staff's role in this case, between a helper to the Board and j
[
18' developer of the record as opposed to a little more active 19 adversarial party.
20 I might just note that an objection, by-its very l
l 21 nature, is not something that is going to develop the l'
22 record.
It will subtract from it, so we adhere to our ruling l
?
23 in that regard.
24 Let me reread the pending question.
Then we are O
l 25 going to have a couple of comments about that.
The question ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'-dcofederal 1 read as follows:
To Mr. Stier, do you believe Mr. Havercamp 2
or the NRC generally or both bear some responsibility for 3
problems with leak rate test performance and procedural 4
compliance at TMI-27 5
We think the question, insofar as it seeks 6
information about Mr. Havercamp, is proper.
Mr. Havercamp i
7 will be here later.
He can speak for himself.
His 8
involvement with the LER of October '78 is a fairly central 9
issue on the inquiry about which we have heard testimony, so, 10 as to Mr. Havercamp as the question is phrased, we read that 11 more broadly to mean the NRC's role in relation to that 12 particular LER.
We think it is an appropriate question.
I
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13 understand Mr. Stier has looked at it and we would like to 14 have his view.
4 15 Beyond that, if there is some other incident that 16 you actually focused on that involved particular NRC people 17 on which you have a view which bears directly on the issues 18 and is reflected in your report, we would like to hear those 19 things, too, if there are any such.
20 What we are not interested in -- I suppose we all, 21 over time, develop philosophical views about regulation and 22 the Staff and so on, things we really can't inquire into in 23 this case anyway, and which we think would be beyond the 24 scope.
So, we are going to strike out the part of the 25 question that says, "or the NRC generally" for lack of ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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But we are phrasing it to you as a Havercamp 2
LER question or other specifics you may have looked at.
With 3
that understanding --
4 MR. STIER:
Can I ask for one clarification, 5
Judge?
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
Yes.
7 MR. STIER:
There is a comment that I made in my 8
report in volume I on page 40, having to do with the change 9
in the leakage detection mechanisms that were suggested by 10 Reg Guide 1.45 and those that were created by the standard 11 technical specifications that were adopted at TMI-2.
And I 12 commented that that change created certain problems at TMI-2, s
13 in leak rate testing.
One of the questions later on that I 14 haven't gotten to yet asks me what I meant by that language.
15 And I intended, very briefly, to cover that in answer to this 16 question this morning.
It does not have to do with the 17 conduct of specitic individuals.
It does have to do with the 18 technical specifications at TMI-2 and some ccnfusion that I 19 think they may have created.
20 JUDGE KELLEY:
We did have testimony earlier, did 21 we not, about differences between 1.45 and the tech specs, 22 in, I think, some detail.
23 MR. STIER:
Yes.
24 JUDGE KELLEY:
You say this is a question that O
25 comes later; it's a question that is put to you in another 1
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2 MR. STIER:
Yes, it is.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
94 --
4 MR. STIER:
Yes.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, we put 94 to you, in any 6
case.
Judge Bright reminds me -- doesn't remind me, tells me 0
7
-- I think with that understanding you could include Lhose 8
comments in this response.
Why don't you go ahead.
9 MR. STIER:
Okay.
10 MR. GOLDBERG:
Judge Kelley, an earlier ruling of 11 the Board with respect to the panel of experts that we had, 12 was that the Staff was not allowed to ask follow-up questions O
v 13 to witnesses other than the Staff witnesses.
I don't know 14 whether that rule applies when Mr. Stier is on the stand 15 alone now, but I would ask that, with respect to this issue, 16 because it deals with an NRC individual and his practices, 17 that we certainly be allowed to propose follow-up questions 18 to Mr. Stier, depending upon the answer that he gives.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
We don't really have a panel any 20 more in the usual sense.
True enough we have three 21 witnesses, but they are together, so to speak.
22 My reaction, without discussing it with the Board, 23 is that we reached this yesterday and said you could suggest 4
24 follow-ups.
O 25 Is there any comment from anyone else on that?
I ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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\\-ccefederal 1 think we crossed this bridge.
The answer is "yes" over the 2
employees'. objection, as we know.
3 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, if you will recall, I 4
believe the way this has progressed is as follows:
That the 5
Staff was entitled to ask follow-up questions of its own 6
technical witnesses but not the other technical witnesses.
7 And then the Board ruled yesterday over our objection that-8 the Staff could ask follow-up questions of the employees when i
9 they testified, the other parties, I assume.
But I don't.
10 believe that either ruling would encompass follow-up 11 questions'for Mr. Stier.
12 If, however, the Board does so intend its rulings
.i 13 to include follow-up questions to Mr. Stier, then it may well 14 be that we will feel the necessity to ask follow-up questions 15 on the follow-up questions.
16 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, we are doing that anyway, i
17 aren't we, as a practical matter?
18 MR. MC BRIDE:
As a practical matter we are, but I 19 think that's the second question.
The question is whether 20 follow-up questions to Mr. Stier are within the ambit of your
.21 ruling.
22 JUDGE KELLEY:
It seems to me the logic of our 23 ruling yesterday is quite clear.
Let me see if my brethren 24 agree.
O 25 They agree.
As to follow-ups on follow-ups, true ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'enough we don't want to hair-split here too much.
We go 2
through a series of questions and say:
Okay, who has got 3
follow-ups?
People up here have follow-ups and most of the 4
time that's up.
I think there's been times that people say, 5
I have another follow-up.
Is that a follow-up on a 6
follow-up?
I think it is.
We haven't ruled that out.
If it 7
gets out of hand we'll have to look at it but it certainly 8
hasn't so far.
I would think we'd allow it.
9 Okay.
Mr. Stier?
10 MR. STIER:
First I would like to preface my 11 answer by saying I was not retained by GPU Nuclear to 12 investigate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or any of its O
13 employees and I did not conduct such an investigation.
In 14 the course of investigating the conduct of leak rate testing-15 as performed by GPUN personnel, it became important for me to 16 understand something about the technical specifications and 17 reg guides, and it also became relevant to look into the 18 conduct, certain aspects of the conduct of Mr. Havercamp.
19 I have not formed any final judgments about his 20 conduct or the impact of regulatory decisions made by the NRC 21 on the conduct of TMI-2 employees, but I do have some 22 evidence that we put together and I think it may be relevant 23 if this Board is going to consider the individual 24 responsibility of TMI-2 personnel, within the context of the O
25 regulatory environment in which they operated and within the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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k-scefederal 1 environment in which there was a certain amount of 2
interaction with Mr. Havercamp.
3 I also want to tell you.that I do not hold myself
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4 out to be an expert on NRC regulation, nor do I know i
5 conditions that prevailed generally throughout the nuclear 6
industry.
And anything I say that sounds like I think I'm an 7.
expert, please disregard.
8 I found that the technical specifications-that.
9 covered leak rate testing at TMI-2 were anomalous.
I do not 10 explain them.
I couldn't rationalize them'.
And, frankly, I 11 don't believe that they could have been intended to read the 12 way they do by whoever wrote them.
N) 13 As I said before,.they were derived from standard 14 technical specifications.
Presumably they apply to other 15 facilities.
But in looking at TMI-2 and trying to make sense 16 out of those technical specifications, I had great 17 difficulty.
And my difficulty stems from the fact that there l
18 are limiting conditions for operation that are defined in the j
19 technical specifications and then there are several 20 surveillances that are required in order to assure that you 21 are in compliance, that you conform to those limiting 22 conditions for operation.
And when you try to match up the 23 surveillances with the limiting conditions for operation, you 24 can't do it except for the leak rate test.
That is, if you
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i 25 calculate the gallons per minute of leakage into the sump a
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'-Jcefederal 1 that may be coming from the reactor coolant system and try to 2
match that surveillance result up with a limiting condition 3
for operation, you can't do it.
It is not unidentified 4
leakage because unidentified leakage includes intersystem 5
leakage, as we have discussed previously.
6 When you try to match up the results of airborne 7
particulate monitoring with a limiting condition for 8
operation, you can't do it because that just measures 9
radiation within containment and, obviously, doesn't cover 10 the full scope of the leaxage, unidentified leakage, as it is 11 defined in those technical specifications.
4 12 I can't imagine that if anybody hadn't spotted 13 that deficiency, it wouldn't have been corrected.
- However, 14 that was the law that applied to the performance of leak rate 15 testing at TMI-2.
And whether operators understood that 16 deficiency, whether anybody went through the process of 17 reading the technical specifications and trying to make sense 18 out of them, I don't know.
We do know that at some point l
19 early in the operation of TMI-2, the calculation of leakage 20 identified by monitoring the sump was dropped off and they 21 did monitor the sump but never converted it into gallons per 22 minute.
Whether anybody did that because it didn't give you 23 a number that was useful in terms of limiting for operation i
24 or not, I don't know.
I couldn't explain it.
25 The fact remains that very clearly, from the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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dcefederal 1 outset-of TMI-2 operation, the leak rate test, this 2
calculation, was the primary if not the sole means of 3
measuring unidentified leakage.
In fact,-it was the only 4
means that could give you the number as it was required by 5
technical specifications..
6 That's different, conceptually, from what was j
7 recommended in Reg Guide 1.45, which defines unidentified 8
leakage as leakage into containment which could. be f aeasured
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9-by -- and in fact it is recommended'that it is measured in 10 the sump.
The sump at TMI-2 was-designed to do that.
It was 11 a system that the operators were used to watching and 12 understanding; conceptually it's easy to understand:
If you 13 have water pumped out of a hole it must have come from
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14 someplace and theoretically it'could come from the pressure 4
15 boundary.
Conceptually there's nothing abstract about it.
16 The same thing with monitoring of particulate.
If you have 17 an alarm that goes off, presumably that means there's 18 activity in the containment which means you have leakage from
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19 the reactor coolant system.
20 1.45, Reg Guide 1.45 sets up a systen~where a 21 number of monitoring systems are in place all measuring the 22 same thing and the results can be compared easily with one 23 another so you can check the results that you are getting i
24 from one system to the other.
O 25 Looking at the conditions that prevailed at TMI-2, t
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\\-scefederal 1 as I understood them from our investigation, the operators 2
separated in their minds what they were learning from leak 3
rate tests.
That was a number that was abstract, that was 4
coming out of the computer, that, in their minds, had no 5
connection with-the reality of what was going on in the 6
plant, or very little connection with it.
As I have 7
testified, it would give them a sense of gross changes in 8
leakage.
They would look for leakage if they consistently 9
couldn't get a leak rate under 1 gpm, but in terms of the 10 day-to-day performance of leak rate testing and the number 11 that they were getting by performing that test, it had no 12 real connection with what was going on in the plant.
O 13 In order for them to understand what was happening 14 by way of increases in leakage, they would look at 15 instrumentation that they were used to looking at on a
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16 day-to-day basis.
And if that instrumentation had been used 17 as the basis for calculating leakage to determine whether or 18 not they were in compliance with limiting conditions for 19 operation, perhaps -- and I made no finding on this -- but 20 perhaps they would have been somewhat more responsive.
21 To what extent this inexplicable condition 22 existed, that is this reliance on leak rate test as opposed 23 to the redundant and complementary leakage detection systems 24 suggested by Reg Guide 1.45, how that happened I really don't O
25 know.
To what extent it may explain the behavior of people ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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k-dcefederal 1 at TMI-2, I don't know either.
But I felt it was important 2
to present that to the Board.
3 Incidentally, our report contains a table that I 4
would like to refer you to -- a figure, rather, in volume 5
IV-B, figure B-1, is an attempt by MPR to trace the history 6
through Reg Guide 1.45, the standard technical 7
specifications, and various other important sources of 8
information about definition of leakage and how you go about 9
detecting reactor coolant system leakage; to trace the 10 history of it and to try to match up the standard techdical 11 specifications with other NRC definitions of leakage and 12 recommended systems for detecting leakage.
And you can see 7sU 13 by reviewing that chart and reading the section, section B in 14 volume IV-B, you can see the complexity of the problem and 15 the uncertainties that you are left with.
16 Now let me get to the second point, and that is 17 Mr. Havercamp.
In reviewing the activities of October 8th, 18 and the weeks that followed -- strike that -- October 18th, 19 and the weeks that followed that incident, a number of l
20 unanswered questions come to the surface.
l l
21 It is clear that Mr. Havercamp confronted 22 operators and some of their supervisors with the fact that 23 they had run leak rate tests, obtained indications of leakage l
24 in excess of 1 gpm, and had not followed the requirements of O
25 the technical specifications to enter the action statement.
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They hadn't responded.
In fact, the leakage exceeded 1 gpm 2
from the 16th.
On page 110 of volume I of my report I have 3
the five tests that were probably the ones reviewed by Mr.
4 Havercamp' listed.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
We talked about them, did we not?
6 12-A, B,
C, D, E, et cetera -- 13 --
i
?
MR. STIER:
I don't remember the numbers of the.
8 test but they were tests 145 through 149 in our numbering 9
system.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
Right.
11 MR. STIER:
The leakage numbers they were getting-i 12 ranged between 2.5 gpm on the 16th, and 1.29 gpm on the o
13~
18th.
14 Mr. Havercamp's response appears to have been 15 appropriate:
You should have done something about it.
16 Whether at that point Mr. Havercamp understood the full range i
17 of practices that had been going on at TMI-2 in the i
l 18 performance of leak rate tests, I don't know.
I have no
{
19 evidence that Mr. Havercamp understood that they were l
l 20 throwing away bad test results; no evidence to believe that 21 Mr. Havercamp knew that they were filing leak rate tests that i
22 hadn't been evaluated to determine whether they were l
23 legitimate.
All Mr. Havercamp knew at that point, according 24 to the evidence I have, is that they had tests that showed 25 leakage over 1 gpm, they had them for two days, and they ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1921 cefederal I hadn't done anything about it except look for leakage.
2 They hadn't shut down the plant or done the other 3
things that were necessary, that were required by. technical
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4 specifications.
His response after~having debated with them 5
whether they'could ignore test results during 72-hour 6
periods, and having won that debate,.his response was, 7
apparently:
You'd better do something about_It.
They said 8
that they would determine whether it was a reportable event.
9 Somehow, in the course of his conversations with 10 TMI-2 personnel on or about the 18th, it became clear that 11 they had a problem in running leak rate testing, that they i
12 were getting results that were over 1 gpm that they didn't
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13 believe, and that they had to do something about that.
14 Somehow it was decided to round off the results, in order to 15 give themselves that -- more latit'ude.
In fact, they rounded 16 off a test result in order to bring leakage under leakage 17 limits.
4 18 JUDGE KELLEY:
It's not clear who decided about l
19 rounding off, or is it?
20 MR. STIER:
The evidence that I had indicated that 21 it had been suggested by someone-in the management of TMI-2.
i 22 I have just seen Mr. Seelinger's prefiled testimony and there 23 is some indication that, according to Mr. Seelinger, it might i
24 have been initiated by the NRC.
That's an issue that I was 25 unable to completely resolve because Mr. Floyd wouldn't talk i
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- cefederal 1 to us, Mr. Seelinger wouldn't talk to us, and I believe that 2
they were both parties to the conversations that related to 3
rounding off.
4 But, in any event, the decision was made that they 5
were going to round off.
They indeed rounded off test 6
results on the 18th, thereby bringing leakage under 1 gpm.
7 Mr. Havercanip knew that they were going to be rounding off, 8
he knew at-least that much, and they proceeded to round off 9
tests until, I believe it was October 27th, after that.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
Just one small point.
TMI-2 11 management, you mean on-site management?
You mean people 12 like Floyd and:Seelinger?
4 qD 13
$R. STIER':
Up through Seelinger.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
You don't mean Reading, 15 Pennsylvania??
16 MR. STIER:
No, By my definitions, Seelinger was 17 the highest level of TMI-2 management.
Technically that's 18 not correct.
Gary Miller was the unit superintendent as well 19 as being station superintendent.
But by my definition of 20 TMI-2 management, that was up to the level of Seelinger.
21 When Mr. Havercamp left the Island he knew there 22 had been a problhm in not responding to leakage over 1 gpm, 23 leakage indications over 1 gpm; he knew that they had some 24 problems in getting good leak rates, in getting leak rates 25 under 1 gpm, that they were going to solve that problem by ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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71250 01 01 1923 k-dcefederal 1 rounding off the numbers, and that they had solved the 1
2 problem on that day, indeed, by rounding off a leak rate to 1 3
gpm.
4 Mr. Seelinger -- Mr. Havercamp, rather, apparently 5
talked to his superiors and, in late October, notified TMI-2 6
management -- Mr. Seelinger, probably -- that they had to 7
stop rounding off.
At that point it would seem logical that 8
one could anticipate that there would be a resumption of 9
problems in obtaining good leak rate tests, in that whatever 10 behavior had occurred before the October 18th incident, 11 before they rounded off the numbers, would resume.
12 The LER was filed, during -- it was prepared 13 during the interim, and was finally submitted on November 1st 14 to the NRC.
The LER does not describe the incident 15 accurately.
When you read that LER, it seems to me intended i
16 to convey the idea that there had been a misinterpretation of I
17 technical specifications and that there had been a leakage l-18 problem and that the leakage problem had been solved by 19 identifying leakage and subtracting it from the total 20 leakage, thereby reducing unidentified leakage, and you would I
21 not know that there was an inherent problem in the test.
You 22 would not know that the problem was solved by rounding off 23 the results.
So, therefore, you would not know that there 24 would be a recurring problem.
25 Whether Mr. Havercamp had any responsibility to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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\\.!cefederal 1" monitor any more closely than he did the behavior of TMI-2 2
personnel, I really don't know.
I don't know what his 3
procedures were.
I don't know what was required of him by
- v 4
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But I do know that in his i
5 January inspection report he indicated that that LER had been 6
selected for on-site review and that it had been reviewed and 7
that everything was all right.
In fact, everything was not 8
all right.
In fact, TMI-2 pers'onnel had resumed the pattern i
9 of behavior that had existed pEeviously and, indeed, in 10 January were performing leak' rate tests at a time when 11 leakage actually exceeded 1 gpm, using a bad makeup level a4 12 transmitter and obtaining results that were totally O
}3 meaningless.
,14 Whether Mr. Havercamp did something that he 15 shouldn't have done or whether he didn't do something he 16.
should have done, whether his behavior contributed to this t,
17 situation, I really don't know.
All I know are the facts 18' that Il've given you that indicate to'me that there was a 19 failure on the part of an inspectiod mechanism and a T
r s
20 reporting mechanism to bring to light the underlying problem
,' 21 that existed in this test and to solve that problem.
The l
l 22 problem simply continued unchanged.
i l
23 MR. GOLDBERG:
Judge Kelley?
l 24 JUDGE KELLEY:
Yes.
l r~S l
N)
May I have a few minutes?
I have a 25 MR. GOLDBERG:
i I
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\\
]
'-Jcefederal 1 number of follow-up questions but I would like to attempt to 2
eliminate some based on Mr. Stier's answer.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Just a second.
4 MR. GOLDBERG:
Unless you want to do it later.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Hold on.
We'll see where we are.
6 Mr. Cole?
7 MR. COLE:
I know Mr. Stier sort of put himself 8
down as far as his involvement in the nuclear industry.
We 9
have been involved in it for over 30 years and there's one 10 thing that I've always been taught to do when there's 11 something of a confusion:
Go out and get the regs and the 12 procedures and try to go through and understand what is 13 intended.
What I'm going to say I would like to preface by 14 saying that we found that-TMI-2 personnel relied almost 15 exclusively -- we can really find very little evidence they l
l 16 relied on anything but -- TMI-2 inventory balance tests for l
17 leak rate monitoring.
18 Secondly, I cannot find, really, where they I'
19 actually went through and looked at the various reg guides 20 and the tech specs and the standard review plans, like we I
i 21 did.
But I think some of the things that came out of our 22 review of that might be helpful because I think some of the j
23 same confusions that existed then, existed today; if somebody l
24 takes the time and tries to go back through the various l
3 I
\\)
l 25 regulations and tech specs.
l t
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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. (~j
'-ccefederal 1 When one starts off with the reg guide, 1.45, it a
2 clearly defines four -- three-forms of leakage:. Identified 3
leakage,-unidentified leakage, intersystem leakage, and 4
furthermore it tells you what kind of tests are to'be used i
5 for each one of those forms of leakage.
6 When you take the next step and go to NUREG-0103, 7
which was the standard tech spec that was used for developing 8
TMI's tech spec, you find-this anomaly, that the definitions 9
do not agree.
In fact, as Mr. Stier points out, the 10 definitions, in essence, render many of the testings that are 11 required in surveillance meaningless, because in the narrow 12 sense of those definitions, those tests cannot measure the
- O' 13 limiting conditions for operations.
I. guess we would submit 14 this is sort of a fluke that happened, and we'll submit if it 15 would have been recognized at the time it would have been 16 summarily changed, i
17 When we look also at the same time period, the 18 standard review plans, I believe they are -- I have the 19 numbers -- they are actually so listed.
I'm sorry -- oh:
i 20 75/087, which was in the 1975 time frame; and NUREG-0800 --
21 all of those were very consistent with Reg Guide 1.45.
22 So, it looked like there was parts of the NRC that
]
23 were all being very consistent with what they are saying, 24 except this one isolated area which was not in keeping with O
25 the rest of the regs.
The reason I bring this up, this ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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k dcefederal 1 schism exists today in'the standard tech specs for B&W plants 2
that are out on the street now.-
3 Further, there is another document that the NRC 4
has out on the street, NUREG-0986, which has another set of 5
definitions.
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
Let me ask whether 0986 is 7
something that was out in 1978-79.
8 MR. COLE:
No, it was not.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
I'm a little concerned about 10 wandering too far off the lot here.
I appreciate your 11 concern but I think we may be getting beyond --
12 MR. COLE:
The latter thing was clearly beyond any 13 dissent, but all the other documents'were out on the street 14 at the time of
'79.
And they do present this schism.
I 15 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Is this discussed in your 16 portion of the report?
17 MR. COLE:
Yes, it is.
18 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Can you give me a reference, 19 please?
20 MR. COLE:
It is Stier's report, IV-B, the entire 21 chapter.
And in it, as Mr. Stier referred to you, is figure 22 B-1.
I would tell you in using that figure you've got to 23 understand, when we took and tried to apply the standard --
24 apply the terms identified and unidentified leakage, we tried (O
./
25 to force the tech spec into the same mold as the reg guide.
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\\-dcefederal-1 You will see where we were not able to do that in several 2
instances.
.3 101..MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, before we break, if 4
we do, I just wanted to say -- I didn't have a chance to say
. e'had in fact 5
this as a preliminary matter this morning.
W 6
served on the-parties who were here Mr. Seelinger's-7-
-testimony, as Mr. Stier referred to it,'and'on the Board.
We 8
will serve Mrs. Aamodt by mail today with that testimony.
j i
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
Mr. Stier, I just'have 10 one question, I think, about your comments on the Havercamp 11 LER series of events.
You indicated that you thought that 12 the LER, as written up, did not fully and fairly state-the
!D 13 situation at the time.
I heard you suggesting that it may 14 have beenman attempt to paper over.the situation.to some 15' extent.
i i
16 You also indicated that you were unable to 17 interview some of the actors in that:
Floyd, Seelinger.
Is 18 the extent of'your investigation of all of that laid out in 19 full in your report?
l 20 MR. STIER:
Yes, it is, Judge.
We refer to it in 21 several places but I think the one key portion of our report 22 begins on page 137 of volume I and continues after that.
But i
23 there are several other places where we talk about the 24 incidents of October 18th.
I can cite you to those --
)
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
That's okay.
Fine.
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s-acefederal 1 If I understand where we ara procedurally, we have 2
finished the initial follow-ups on the questions that 3
preceded this and we have some additional follow-ups from the 4-Staff.
I don't know of anyone else.
5 MR. MC BRIDE:
We do as well, Judge Kelley.
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
All right.
You thought it might be 7
useful to just take a short break to sort yours out?
8 MR. GOLDBERG:
Yes.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: -Well, have.an early cup of coffee.
10 We'll take 10 minutes.
11 (Recess.)
12 JUDGE KELLEY:- Back on the record.
We have a
.O 13 series of follow-up questions, based on the last responses 14 from Mr. Stier and Mr. Cole.
15 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, excuse me, we do have 16 one here.
We had anticipated the likelihood we would have l
17 more, so we haven't forwarded it to you until you would like 18 it as well.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
We'll go ahead.
We'll put these 20 questions.
We may modify one or two as we go along.
We'll 21 note as to the extent we do that.
f 22 To Mr. Stier:
Whose responsibility is it to have 23 an effective procedure to determine whether unidentified RCS l
24 leakage is within or exceeds the limiting conditions for
(
l 25 operation in the TMI-2 tech cpecs?
What is the source of l
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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dcefederal 1 that responsibility?
2 MR. STIER:
I can't answer that based on my 3
investigation.
I didn't do a legal analysis to determine the 4
legal obligations of licensees and the relati've 5
responsibilities of the NRC and licensees.
6 I think that there have been answers to that 7
question from the NRC Staff previously in this hearing, and I 8
think that they've said -- well, I don't want to repeat what 9
they said.
I think it's in the record.
10 I did not examine that and I am not an expert on 11 the law governing the operation of nuclear generating 12 facilities.
O 13 JUDGE KELLEY:
Your answer, as I' understood it, 14 was directed toward the facts as you found them and states of 15 mind of operators and things of that sort, other than 16 technical legal analysis?
17 MR. STIER:
Yes.
When I was referring to the 18 technical specifications and the procedures, I took them as I 19 found them and I tried to understand them because, 20 presumably, the people who were running the plant tried to 21 understand them.
And I just wanted to point up some of the 22 problems that I had in understanding them.
23 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
This next question is in a 24 similar vein.
I'll read it, though:
Whose responsibility is O
V 25 it to utilize the procedures to test RCS unidentified leakage ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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specs if the limiting condition of operation is exceeded?
3 And what is the source of that authority?
4 MR. STIER:
Well, I think I can answer that 5
question.
I think it's obviously the people who are running 6
the plant who have the responsibility.
Specifically what the 7
source of it is, I think is a legal question, but I don't 8
think there's any dispute about whose responsibility it is to 9
use the procedures.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
In your opinion, does the 11 failure of Mr. Havercamp to discover and identify for a 12 licensee or licensed operators, a continuing technical 7,
~
13 specification violation over a period of time -- it reads in 14 this manner -- justify or excuse the violation when it is 15 discovered.
I think we'd modify it to ask you:
Do you think 16 these are mitigating circumstances, because it seems to us we 17 are the ones who ultimately decide who is justified and who 18 is excused based on your testimony.
But the thrust it seems 19 to me is, is it mitigating or not?
Is it exonerating, in l
20 your opinion?
21 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, before the witness 22 l answers that question I wonder if we could have an i
23 understanding that the question is in a sense a hypothetical 24 question, it depends on what Mr. Havercamp will testify about s
(
25 l whether he did or did not do what the question suggests he j
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N-dcefederal 1 did.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
It would ultimately read in~ light.
3 of the entire record. including Havercamp's testimony.
4 MR. GOLDBERG:
Yes.
I would agree with 5
Mr. McBride.
Also, the word " alleged" is missing.
It is in 6
another question,_but it should read that way.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Our understanding-is depending on 8
what develops from Mr. Havercamp's testimony it is a
'9 hypothetical in a sense, but you can' respond to it.
10 MR. STIER:
Let me answer it in two parts.
I did 11 consider Mr. Havercamp's conduct with respect to certain 12 TMI-2, or certain GPU employees -- Met Ed employees at the O
13 time.
And I can respond specifically to that.
Then I'll 14 respond in a more general way.
15 First of all, there were certain Met Ed employees, i
16 particularly I'm thinking of Mr. Herbein, who received NRC 17 inspection reports and I think had a right to rely on what 18 was said in those reports as an indication of problems that 19 were found at facilities over which he had management i
20 responsibility.
We spent some time trying to find out what 21 Mr. Herbein knew or didn't know about what was going on at 22 TMI-2.
We examined lots of documents in order to reconstruct 23 that.
l l
24 We received three inspection reports from LO l
25 Mr. Havercamp, one of which dealt specifically with this l
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k-dcefederal 1 particular LER, and indicated that whatever the problem was 2
that was reflected in the LER, which I've indicated in my.
3 judgment is inaccurate as a description of the LER -- as a 4
description of the problem, but whatever the problem was, it 5
had been resolved to Mr. Havercamp's satisfaction.
And I 6
considered that as a source of information on which someone t'
7 in a high management position had a right to rely as one 8
piece of information.
Not to the exclusion of other sources 9
of information, but as one piece of information about 10 problems that were occurring at TMI-2.
So, in that sense, 11 Mr. Havercamp's conduct, I think, his failure to clearly 12 identify the problem, bring it to the surface and see that'it O'
13 was-resolved, that failure, perhaps, mitigates Mr. Herbein's 14 failure to find and solve that problem to some extent.
I 1
15 simply pointed that out in my report.
16 Generally speaking, however, I really didn't make 17 a judgment about the extent to which Mr. Havercamp's conduct 18 mitigated the conduct of others in the organization because I J
19 felt that if any of those people had knowledge of what was 20 going on, they had a responsibility, independent of 21 Mr. Havercamp, to identify and solve that problem.
So the 22 extent that anybody was relying on Havercamp as a source of 23 information, I think it has a bearing, to the extent that 24 they had independent sources of information, indicating that O
25 there was a problem, even though Havercamp didn't point it ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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' dcefederal 1 out to them, I don't think it mitigated their 2
responsibility.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
Do you believe that any 4
individual identified in your report'as having engaged in 5
leak rate testing irregularities should be excused because of 6
the alleged failure of Mr. Havercamp to have discovered leak 7
rate testing problems sooner?
And I'll modify _again, the 8
term " excused" is sort of an ultimate conclusion of ours, but 9
the thrust is clear, I think.
Do you see it as a mitigating 10 matter?
11 MR. STIER:
Well, I think I've answered that.
I 12 think, as I say, to the extent that anybody had knowledge I U
13 think he had an independent responsibility to do something 14 about it.
15 Beyond that, on the question of whether personnel 16 at TMI-2 didn't take the problems that they were experiencing 17 seriously because they may not have believed that the NRC was 18 taking them seriously is a matter that I didn't get into and 19 I -- you know, that's the other way you can look at relating 20 Mr. Havercamp's conduct to conduct of TMI-2 personnel.
I 21 didn't feel it was appropriate for me to consider their 22 conduct in the context -- in that context, that is in the 23 context of what kind of signals they may or may not have 24 gotten from Mr. Havercamp.
O 25 JUDGE KELLEY:
The question goes on, I'll just for ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.\\~-icefederal 1 the record read it:
If so, identify each such individual and 2
state for each your full reason.
3 I think your general answer is about all that it's 4
practical for us to take.
Mr. Cole?
5 MR. COLE:
Could I give one observation in that 6
matter?
The one thing that surprised us was the overfocusing 7
on the TMI leak rate test.
I think we have been testifying 8
that it was relied on exclusively.
9 It has surprised us that, also, it appeared that 10 the' inspector fell in the same trap.
I don't know whether 11 the source of that trap was the tech specs, but clearly the 12 reg guide tries to not rely on just one thing because you can O
13 get tunnel vision on relying on just one parameter.
You are 14 supposed to look at a number of things and I see no sign that 15 the NRC inspector looked at the sump as a way of monitoring, 16 also.
So I don't know if that was a contributing factor of 17 why we didn't look at other parameters as well as the leak 18 rate test.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
Of course it was the leak rate test 20 that Havercamp came upon; is that correct?
21 MR. COLE:
Right.
22 MR. STIER:
I think I should note something for 23 the record.
I did not investigate everything Mr. Havercamp 24 did or didn't do when he was at TMI-2.
We were focusing on a O
25 very narrow area of subject matter.
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- -dcefederal'1 JUDGE KELLEY:
Right.
Fine.
2 Next question:
Do you have any reason to believe 3
that Mr. Havercamp's inspections of TMI-2 surveillance tests 4
and procedures and logs were not conducted in accordance with 5
the inspection and enforcement manual which is their 6
guideline for working in the field?
I 7
MR. MC BRIDE:
I object to that question, Judge 8
Kelley, on the ground that I believe the witness has i
9 previously indicated his unfamiliarity with the guidelines 10 and the manuals, or generally, at least, the things 11 Mr. Havercamp was or was not expected to do.
Therefore I 12 think.the witness would lack the proper basis to answer the O
13 question.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, we'd prefer to just find 15 out.
Do you have any reason to think that Havercamp deviated i
16 from his instructions in the manual?
Are you even familiar 17 with the manual?
18 MR. STIER:
No, I am not.
l 19 JUDGE KELLEY:
All right.
Number 6:
20 Notwithstanding your testimony concerning the problems you l
21 had in interpreting the THI-2 technical specifications, do l
22 you agree that Tech Spec 3.4.6.2 is clear and unambiguous, in 23 limiting unidentified leakage to 1 gpm?
I 24 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, I wonder if we can i
25 have clarification of that question because the witness has ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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\\-dcefederal 1 previously testified that the test measured something other 4
2 than that, I believe he testified.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
Sure he did.
But the question is, 4.
does the tech spec click?
Is the piece of paper clear, 1 5
gpm; is that clear?
6 MR. STIER:
If you read Tech Spec 3.4.6.2 along 7
with the definition of unidentified leakage in the tech spec, 8
it's clear.
However, if you look at it in the context of the 9
surveillance requirements, which presumably are supposed to 10 measure the same thing, I think it creates a certain degree 11 of uncertainty.
12 In other words, if the tech spec says:
You are OG 13 supposed to measure -- you are supposed to stay within 1 gpm 14 of unidentified leakage, and you go to the definition and you 15 see that unidentified leakage means pressure boundary leakage 16
-- strike that -- means reactor coolant system leakage into 17 containment plus intersystem leakage, and -- that's pretty 18 clear.
But then you look at the surveillance requirements 19 that are supposed to tell you whether you are within that 20 limiting condition for operation and you see that two of them 21 can't tell you that and only one of them can.
And I think 22 that if you read it altogether, I'm saying within the 23 framework of the technical specifications themselves, not 24 looking at Reg Guide 1.45 or the standard review plan or O
25 anything else, but just within the technical specifications ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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,a t
i A-Jcefederal 1 themselves, it does create confusion,. uncertainty.
What is 2
it that constitutes unidentified-leakage?
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
There's a follow-on portion to the 4
question, which I think fits well with what you just said:
5 Based on your investigations, did the operators understand 6
that the 1 gallon per minute -- that 1 gallon per minute was 7
the limit for unidentified leakage?
8 MR. STIER:
Yes, they did.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
The testimony over the past many 10 days seems to indicate that.
Why try to get I unless you 11 thought that was some significant number?
12 MR. STIER:
Let me expand slightly on that.
Yes.
O
~
13 It's clear that they understood that 1 gpm was the' limit for 14 unidentified leakage.
What they understood unidentified 15 leakage to be is a somewhat different question.
I think it 16 becomes less clear.
I 17 There's some evidence that at least some of them 18 understood that that unidentified leakage could be occurring 19 outside of containment.
On the 18th, I think we read a 20 notation in the, I think it was the shift turnover notes, i
21 that indicated that they suspected that leakage that they 22 were observing might be outside of containment.
So, 23 obviously somebody recognized that unidentified leakage was 24 more than leakage into containment.
O 25 JUDGE KELLEY:
Ybu understand unidentified leakage ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1939 acefederal 1 as the number that comes out on the computer, that's supposed 2
to be 1 or less than; right?
3 MR. STIER:
That's right.
There's no question 4
they understood that the number that came out on that 5
printout as unidentified leakage was supposed to be within 6
the tech spec limit.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Next question.
Do you 8
believe that action b, small b -- is that right, 9
Mr. Goldberg?
10 MR. GOLDBERG:
Yes.
" Action b".
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
Do you believe that action b of 12.
Tech Spec 3.4.6.2 is unambiguous?
If not, why?
Action b is 13 what we call the action statement; is that correct?
14 MR. STIER:
Yes.
I think that's clear.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
Do you have any evidence that the 16 NRC documents you identified were known to operators and 17 actually caused confusion?
This means 1.45 and others.
18 MR. STIER:
I do not know whether any operators 19 were familiar with Reg Guide 1.45 or any of the other 20 documents such as the standard review plan.
21 MR. STIER:
The final follow-up that we havo right 22 now:
Mr. Stier:
During your investigation, did any operator 23 ever tell you that his attitude toward leak rate testing was 24 influenced in any way by apparent conflicts between Reg Guide O
25 1.45 and the TMI-2 tech specs?
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< T k-dcefederal 1 MR. STIER:
I don't believe so.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
3 Did you say you had a follow-up, Mr. McBride?
4 MR. MC BRIDE:
We now have three, your Honor.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
6 MR. MC BRIDE:
Staff has another, which I'm 7
handing to you.
Thece's is the one in white.
8 MR. STIER:
Judge, can I just add a little 4
l 9
something to the last answer?
And it is by way of, I 10 suppose, an observation about that question.
I'm not sure 11 that I would be focusing only upon the operators' confusion 12 created by technical specifications or the differences 13 between 1.45 and the technical specifications.
What I would 14 be looking at, and what we tried to find out to whatever 15 extent we could, was how'all of these practices originated.
16 Obviously these operators were carrying out 17 practices that were developed in the operations department 18 from the beginning of TMI-2 operation.
Whether somebody 19 within that operations department at a supervisory level did 20 some research and was confused by it, I really don't know.
21 JUDGE KELLEY:
It wasn't the testimony -- I think 22 earlier I asked you a question about the intended audience of 23 reg guides, or perhaps I asked the Staff witnesses, but I 24 believe the testimony was reg guides really aren't aimed at 25 operators, they aimed at people who write procedures for ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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8, k icefederal 1 particular plants, speaking very broadly.
j 2
MR. STIER:
I believe that's --
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
But your investigation, I take it,
'4 did not really attempt to follow that up, is that correct?
5 MR. STIER:
That's correct.
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
You didn't go to the operation 7
. procedure writers and ask them these questions?
8 MR. STIER:
No, we didn't.
We would have asked 9
Mr. Floyd, however, had we been able to interview him about 10 what led him to formulate policies that we believe emanated 11 from him.
12 JUDGE KELLEY:
Those might be good questions for 13 us to ask of Mr. Floyd.
14 I have another question from the Staff.
We would 15 like to include this last one, if you don't mind -- we'll get 16 into a whole segment of questions on Mr. Herbein.
This is a 17 follow-up question that has to do with Mr. Herbein.
It seems 18 appropriate but might fit better there.
If you could remind 19 us to do that.
20 MR. GOLDBERG:
Sure.
Okay.
We'll take a moment 21 to loo'k these over.
22 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, something occurs to 23 me that might be able to clarify something for you.
I 24 believe in one of our follow-up questions we referred to
(
25 individuals whose last names are Winters and DeVesa.
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-\\-Ocefederal.1 JUDGE KELLEY:
Yes.-
2 MR. MC BRIDE:
In case it is not clear to you who 3
Ethose gentlemen ~are --
4 JUDGE KELLEY:
It.is clear.
They were 5
interviewers for Stier; right?
6 MR. STIER:
Right.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
We have three follow-ups from the 8
employees.
9 To Mr. Stier:
You stated earlier that-the 10 evidence you have gathered indicates that the practice of' 1
11
" rounding off" leak rate test results originated with the TMI 12 management.
Does this conclusion take into account the C:)
13 prefiled testimony of Mr. Havercamp at page 8, in which he 14 states that, "My questioning may havo lod to.the practice of-i' 15 "round-of f of RCS unidentified leakage test results."
16 MR. STIER:
No, it did not.
My report was written 17 before I saw the prefiled testimony.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Is the above-quoted 19 statement from Mr. Havercamp consistent with the 20 representation Mr. Havercamp made to Messrs. Winter and 21 DeVesa, on March 3, 1985, that, "he was certain that it was 22 not his idea" as indicated in your report of the interview at 23 page 11?
24 MR. STIER:
Well, I interpreted Mr. Havercamp's 25 statement in his prefiled testimony as somewhat ambiguous on 1
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('-Jcefederal 1 the subject and, therefore, not necessarily in conflict with 2
what he had told us in our interview.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
It is my impression, as of right 4
now the way the record stands, we don't know where rounding 5
off came from.
We may find out later on but we don't know 6
now.
There is no solid basis for that as yet?
7 MR. MC BRIDE:
Just to assist you, I think that 8
there are three statements in addition to Mr. Stier's report 9
that the Board will want to look at:
Mr. Havercamp's, 10 Mr. Floyd's, and Mr. Seelinger's.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
Those really talked about what we 12 have talked about here.
I'm not trying to compendiously 13 incorporate everything we have talked about in the record.
14 The conversation so far has been sort of conclusive on this 15 subject.
16 MR. MC BRIDE:
That's correct.
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
18 MR. STIER:
We do address that in our report, in 19 the section that I described previously.
I think we indicate i
20 that, based on the information that we had available, the 21 limitations of which I have described, the idea emanated from 22 within the management of TMI-2, either Mr. Floyd or 23 Mr. Seelinger.
Because, as I understood Mr. Havercamp's i
24 testimony -- his statement to us -- he, in effect, said:
If O
25 you are going to do it I'm not going to tell you to stop
}
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I am not 2
authorizing it and I'm going to check with my superiors and 3
I'll let you know what they say.
That's the way I understood 4
what he said.
And so, based on that statement it was clear 5
to me what he was saying was somebody -- and he couldn't 6
identify precisely whom -- had suggested the idea.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Right.
Okay.
Would it be your 8
opinion that, if operators knew Mr. Havercamp was 9
periodically reviewing the log entries, which entries 10 reflected hydrogen additions during leak rate tests and which 11 clearly did not reflect start and stop times of 12 surveillances, that the operators might reasonably believe O
13 they were not violating procedures?
That may be asked and 14 answered, but go ahead.
15 MR. GOLDBERG:
Judge Kelley, excuse me.
Before he 16 answers it, I would like to have the same understanding with 17 respect to that question as was stated with respect to my 18 question; that is, it's a hypothetical question because I 19 don't think the record supports any inferences about the 20 extent to which Mr. Havercamp did or did not look at the 21 control room logs.
22 JUDGE KELLEY:
That seems fair.
23 MR. GEPHART:
I think just the opposite.
There's 24 testimony by Russell /Capra that as part of his duties he was O
25 required to review the log.
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\\-lcefederal 1 JUDGE KELLEY:
That may be, but Havercamp=isn't 2
here yet.
Why don't we find out what he did.
The question 3
is fair nevertheless.
It's not exactly the thrust of it to 4
find out exactly what he did.
5 MR..STIER:
Let me answer by saying I don't 6
believe so. No, I don't feel that there was any justification 7
for anybody feeling that it was okay because an NRC inspector 8
had come along and looked at logs and had reviewed other 9
materials in which they were not complying with procedures.
10 I think procedures were quite clear.
And nobody in the 11 course of our investigation suggested that there was any_
12 approval by the NRC of modifications of procedures.
I just O
13 don't see any basis for that.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
That seems to bring us 15 back to that section 94 to 104, several of which we have 16 disallowed.
We'll take just a moment.
17 Let's pick up on this set of questions, the 18 caption of which is "TMI-2 technical specifications and 19 Regulatory Guide 1.45," on page 2 of the questions to Stier.
20 I believe 94 has been covered in the opening question of the 21 day.
22 MR. STIER:
Yes.
23 JUDGE KELLEY:
We did not allow questions 95, 96 24 and 97 on the grounds of undue scope.
It essentially goes to O
25 what happens at unnumbered other reactors.
If the employees ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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consider that.
But for right now why don't we pass on to the 3
ones that we did put to Mr. Stier, starting with 98.
4 98:
Is the leak rate test required to 5
continuously monitor RCS leakage or to periodically 6
demonstrate compliance with the limiting conditions for 7
operation with respect to RCS leakage?
8 MR. STIER:
It's a periodic monitoring 9
requirement, as we have been discussing.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
We have been into it at some 11 length.
12 99:
Are the other leakage detection systems 13 required to continuously monitor RCS leakage or to 14 periodically dem instrate compliance with the limiting 15 conditions for operation with respect to RCS leakage?
16 MR. STIER:
I think there are other systems that 17 are required to be in operation and to be alarmad and to 18 continuously monitor leakage.
As we have discussed, in terms 19 of the periodic monitoring requirements and the 20 quantification of leakage by those leakage detection systems, 21 as we've discussed, they could not meet the requirements of 22 the unidentified leakage limit.
23 JUDGE KELLEY:
And we have some, if not extensive, 24 then substantial discussion of the other systems in other
,s 25 parts of the record; is that so?
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~MR. STIER. Yes.
There were quite extensive 2
discussions of those systems-and so forth.
-3 JUDGE KELLEY:
100:
Your report notes several 4
problems resulting from the two significant differences 5
between the TMI-2 technical specifications and-RegJlatory 6
Guide 1.45.
Please explain these problems.
I sense that has 7
been covered to some extent.
8 MR. STIER:
Yes.
I have-tried to cover them.
9 Again, without my trying to establish a clear 10 causal connection, because I can't, between the leakage 11 detection requirements of Tech Spec 3.4.6.2 and the conduct 12 of TMI-2 personnel, it was clear to me in the testimony that 13 we got from the operators that they relied on certain systems 14 that gave them a continuous picture of leakago within the 15 plant.
The sump, the slope on the makeup strip chart were 16 all continuous indications of leakage.
There didn't seem to 17 me to be any real connection in their minds between what they 18 were observing by looking at those systems and the results of 19 leak rate tests.
20 There was a real separation.
There was no effort 21 to compare, no effort to try to reconcile differences that 22 they were observing.
And I saw that as a serious problem.
23 Because when they got indications of high unidentified 24 leakage they simply didn't respond as required by the O
25 technical specifications.
It seemed to me that that gap i
i i
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judgments about leakage in the plant and what they were 3
required to do periodically, was part of the cause.
4 JUDGE KELLEY:
We disallowed 101 because of 5
breadth.
We go to 102:
How many other sources of 6
information about leakage were available to plant personnel 7
at TMI-2?
8 MR. STIER:
I think we touched on most of them:
9 observing the slope of the makeup, the various alarms that we 10 talked about; they had records of sump starts and they could 11 and did, at some times, monitor the sump on a continuous 12 basis in order to see what kind of leakage was coming out of 13 the reactor coolant system; there were physical inspections 14 with many records of TMI-2 personnel looking for leaks, 15 trying to identify leaks, repairing leaks; temperature, 16 humidity; there were other sumps, other collection points for 17 leakage that are available that can be checked in order to 18 separate out leakage from other systems from reactor coolant 19 system leakage.
20 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Number 103:
How serious was 21 the unavailability of guidance on reconciling differences 22 between leak rate test results and other sources of 23 information about leakage in view of the several flaws in the 24 TMI-2 leak rate test discussed in your report?
es 25 MR. STIER:
I think I have indicated I'm unsure ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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between their behavior and these deficiencies.
We know as a 3
practical matter that they did not feel compelled to quantify 4
unidentified leakage -- unidentified leakage, and to be 5
certain that it met the limiting condition for operation.
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
This question, I don't know if I'm 7
reading it in accordance with its original intent, but it 8
suggests to me, if I can rephrase it the way it strikes me or 9
what it makes me think of:
There wasn't much guidance 10 available about what was wrong with the leak rate test, as 11 least as far as the operators were concerned.
All they knew 12 was it didn't work.
They had some other sources of
-s 13 information, albeit not as precise and not directed to quite 14 the same thing.
15 As I understand it, the lack of availability of 16 guidance wasn't serious, in the sense that people in general 17
-- not people, but operators in general were really looking 18 for any.
They just regarded this as a nuisance and they 19 weren't going around looking for answers that I have been 20 able to derive from the discussion.
Was there this crying 21 desire to reconcile different results?
Or did, as my 22 impression is, at least in general, the operators just write 23 it off and decide not to worry about these differences?
24 MR. STIER:
Well, the answer, I think, falls 25 somewhere between those two characterizations.
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1250 01 01 1950 cefederal 1 MR. STIER:
fou have referred to Coleman, for 2
example, trying to find out what was wrong and not wanting to 3
sign things and that sort of thing?
4 MR. STIER:
No, that isn't what I had in mind.
5 Coleman's testimony was that early on he submitted a test 6
that -- where the result exceeded 1 gpm, and was told not to 7
bring his superiors a test like that.
That isn't what I had 8
in mind.
I think, if you look at the overall pattern of 9
behavior of operations personnel, you can see that they did 10 respond to periods of time when they couldn't get a good leak 11 rate no matter how hard they tried, except by some 12 extraordinary means, such as manipulating a test or returning 13 tests using the bad makeup level transmitter.
14 In October, in that October 18th time period, I 15 think it is a very good example of what could be learned from 16 the leak rate test results; what could have been done by way 17 of reconciling those results with other indications of 18 leakager and, to a certain extent, how they were reacting in 19 that period prior to the filing of the LER, how they were 20 reacting to leak rate test results that exceeded 1 gpm.
21 You've got to go all the way back in time to early 22 October and look at leak rate tests and look at the reports 23 that were being filed on those tests of operator-identified 24 leakage.
There was a serious effort, I believe, to identify cs 25 leakage and to subtract it from gross leakage.
Ilow seriously ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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question, but there was a certain amount of following -- an 3
effort to follow the procedures.
And, when they couldn't get 4
a good leak rate test, particularly-in that period from the 5
16th through the 18th, there was a response to their 6
inability to get a leak rate test under 1 gpm.
They would go 7
out and try to find leaks, quantify leaks and subtract that 8
leakage from leak rate test results.
9 The problem that they were having, the problem 10 that they were having was that the operator-identified 11 leakage was not temperature corrected to reactor coolant 12 system temperature.
So, every time they tried to subtract
'~
13 identified leakage they were subtracting too little and the 14 test results were coming out over 1 gpm.
15 Now, if you look at the sump during that period of 16 time, and you can see that in the exhibits that we have in 17 our report, you can see what the rate of collection in the 18 sump was.
And if you compare that rate of collection in the 19 sump with MPR's analysis of leakage as reflected in the 20 makeup strip chart, you can see quite clearly that if you had 21 tried to reconcile leak rate test results with what was in 22 the sump, it would have told you that you had leakage but 23 that it was outside of containment.
Ultimately the operators 24 seemed to come to that conclusion.
O 25 If you remember that note that we read yesterday ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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o cefederal 1 into the record, I believe it was a shift turnover note, in i
2 which they talked about their inability to identify leakage 3
and they had checked in the reactor building, they couldn't s
4 find the leakage, couldn't find any more leakage to deduct 7
5 from gross leakage and, therefore, the leakage must be 6
outside of containment.
They were right.
7
[
Had there been a mechanism for taking all of the 8
indications of leakage, had there been some kind of a system i
9 for comparing data and using instrumentation that they were 10-used to using, had it made sense to them, I think that you 11 would have had a much more rational approach to identifying
\\
12 leakage and to responding to that leakage.
And that system, O
I
,13 that idea of using different sources of information and s
\\
14 trying to reconcile them,,is tho Jery concept embodied in Reg n
15 Guide 1./5.
2 1, T 16 The absenhe of that in these technical 1
17 specifications and procedures, I think, lad to a certain 18 amount of confusion and perhaps contributed to the lack of 19' regard for leak rate test results that was generally present 20 among TMI-2 Spera'tions personnel.
>s 21 MR. STIER:
Cynicism?
22 MR. STIER:
Cynicism; that's correct.
23 JUDGE KELLdY:
Perhaps justified cynicism, but 24 cynicism, nonetheless.
- O 25 MR. STIER:
There's no question that the s
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-ucefederal 1 variability in test results clearly caused them to feel that 2
the leak rate test was highly unreliable and not related to 3
the reality of what they were seeing in the plant.
But I 4
can't say, though, that they didn't respond.
5 JUDGE'KELLEY:
That's significant.
6 I think the next one you just answered of:
How 7
would you reconcile differences between leak rate test 8
results and other sources?
You were just explaining about a 9
mechanism that they didn't have it would have been nice to 10 have; is that essentially the answer?
11 MR. STIER:
Yes.
That's correct.
12 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, since that takes us
'. O 13 to the end of a section, we have no follow-ups on that unless 14 there are from other parties, I wanted to be helpful in 15 telling you now that there are a good number of the remaining 16 questions that we would withdraw because we believe_they have 17 already been answered.
I 18 JUDGE KELLEY:
We took out, as I noted a while l
19 ago, 95, 96, 97 and 101, on the ground that they spoke to:
i 20 What's the situation at numerous other reactors in the United i.
21 States?
It seems to us that was beyond the scope and we 22 weren't going to expect witnesses to respond to the <uestion 23 as drafted.
The questions do seem to go to a point that I
~
24 believe Mr. Cole raised earlier, suggesting that the Os 25 situation at TMI, with regard to tech specs, may have been ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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<cefederal 1 anomalous, I think was his term.
These questions seem to go 2
to that.
If you want to rephrase these questions in some 3
narrower way and see what the witnesses want to say, we would 4
entertain that.
5 MR. MC BRIDE.
I appreciate that.
If I could I 6
would.like to just embroider on that situation slightly.
I 7
think the best way to leave it, since Mr. Stier indicated 8
that he was not generally familiar -- he personally was not 9
generally familiar --
I 10 JUDGE KELLEY:
I was thinking of Mr. Cole and 11 Dr. Harris.
12 MR. MC BRIDE:
We could ask Mr. Cole an0 O
13 Dr. Harris if they have anything further to add along the 14 lines of their earlier comments.
If they don't, then I would 15
.uggest that those are, to some extent, interwoven with some 16 questions we have put to Mr. Havercamp who would be familiar, 17 based on his prefiled testimony, with some of that sort of 18 thing at other plants.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
Fine.
20 MR. BLAKE:
Judge Kelley, I wonder if Mr. McBride 21 would just further clarify his request, to say in the period 22 of interest here, 1979 --
23 MR. MC BRIDE:
Oh, certainly.
Yes.
I understood 24 the Board's earlier ruling on that.
I'm not quarreling with 25 that.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1955 acefederal 1 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
2 MR. MC BRIDE:
I guess I should say the only 3
qualification on that is that I think if Dr. Cole has 4
something that is in a later report that may reflect 5
something that is historical in nature, I don't think he 6
should be precluded from describing it.
But generally 7
speaking, I agree with the qualification.
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
I guess all we need now is a 9
question.
10 I think, gentlemen -- and you can comment on this, 11 Mr. McBride -- I was just saying we have some questions here, I,
12 95, 96, 97, 101, which -- the thrust of which is:
Was TMI-2
)
13 really unique, anomalous, significantly different from other 14 similar reactors in the respects we were talking about this 15 morning when you were suggesting, I think, that the tech spec 16 for unidentified leakage at TMI-2 was, it think your term was 17 anomalous.
Do you want to expand on that without necessarily 18 discoursing on all reactors in the United States but just in 19 the time frame that we have in mind?
Anything to add?
20 MR. COLE:
I would like to just focus on TMI-2.
21 It looks to us that the TMI-2 was designed in accordance with 22 the Reg Guide 1.45 in the way leakage was monitored.
The 23 tech specs -- the FSAR, section, I believe it's 5.27, also 24 are consistent with that.
,s 25 The thing -- the incident that we were talking ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1956 cefederal 1 about this morning on October 18th, had, I think, the 2
definitions been laid out and clearer, I think the operators 3
would have at least understood what kind of leakage they were 4
measuring from what place and what was inside and what was 5
outside of containment and what really was unidentified 6
leakage.
I can't tell you that the operators really were 7
cognizant of this.
But I think on the other side, had it 8
been -- the tech spec been laid out, consistent with the reg 9
guide, I think there would not have been as much -- they 10 would have had a clearer picture of what they were after.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
12 MR. MC BRIDE:
I think that was very helpful and I rs
)
13 think that's where we were trying to go with these questions 14 and it appreciate that.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
Next order, you were suggesting 16 some withdrawals.
We'll go off the record and see where we 17 are.
18 MR. MC BRIDE:
Sure.
19 (Discussion off the record.)
20 (Recess.)
21 JUDGE KELLEY:
We'll go back on the record and 22 maybe for the sake of the record, Mr. McBride, could you just 23 recite what we are going to ask and drop for the remaining 24 questions?
)
a 25 MR. MC BRIDE:
Yes.
The easiest way to do it is ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1957 fN dcefederal1 to say we would propose the Board ask 302 through 305, and 2
311, and no other questions because we believe the remainder 3
have been answered.
4 JUDGE BRIGHT:
These questions are all in a group 5
here called " individual responsibility."
6 Question 302:
Are you aware that oftentimes the 7-operator who performed the leak rate test was not "on the 8
. panels" (that is, operating the reactor) and thus may have 9
been unaware of a water or hydrogen addition during a leak 10 rate test?
11 MR. STIER:
Yes.
12 JUDGE BRIGHT:
303:
Is it a fact that you have pU 13 concluded that the addition of water to the makeup and the 14 recording of that addition could render the test more 15 accurate?
16 MR. STIER:
Let me first direct you to the 17 sections of our report that dnals with that subject.
It is 18 in volume IV-A, pages VI.4 through VI.7.
19 MPR makes that point in that section.
Let me 20 explain what the point is, just so that we are oriented to 21 what we are talking about.
22 MPR discussed the failure to make the temperature 23 correction on the reactor coolant drain tank side of the 24 calculation and observed that the failure to make a 25 temperature correction on the makeup side of the calculation ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'-)acefederal1 had the opposite effect on the outcome.
Therefore, if you 2
matched exactly a water addition to the makeup with the 3
amount of leakage into the reactor coolant drain tank, they 4
would be offsettin'g.
And if they were equal to one another, 5
the net error in the report would be zero.
6 As the water addition, the amount of the water 7
addition approached the same level as the collection in the 8
reactor coolant drain tank, you would tend to have an error 9
more and more towards zero.
10 In a technical sense, that's correct.
So, in that 11 respect as a technical matter those offsetting errors could, 12 if they were in balance, make the result more accurate or, I O
13 should say less inaccurate.
14 JUDGE BRIGHT:
304:
Is the same conclusion true 15 of hydrogen additions as well?
i 16 MR. STIER:
As a theoretical matter that may have i
17 been true of hydrogen additions, because, of course, hydrogen 18 addition to the makeup would compensate for -- that is during l
19 the period of the loop seal, when loop seal was in'effect --
l 20 since the reduction in makeup level would be exaggerated by 21 the loop seal, an increase in hydrogen overpressure could i.
22 compensate for that because the hydrogen overpressure would 23 affect the makeup level instrumentation also.
So you could l
l 24 have the two level measurement inaccuracies theoretically
(
25 offsetting one another.
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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%-ccefederal 1 That's a more difficult thing for us to deal with 2
because we have no records indicating the starting and ending 3
. points of makeup overpressure, so we are talking in a purely 4
hypothetical realm, now.
5 JUDGE BRIGHT:
305:
Should the operatorstbe 6
faulted if they arrived at the same conclusion through 7
experience that the investigators have reached;.that is, that 8
the. leak rate test was highly inaccurate and not reliable?
9 MR. STIER:
Yes.
They should be faulted.
10 Because, as I have said several times, I don't believe that 11 adding' water to the makeup for the purpose.that we've just 12 been talking about is justified under SP 2301-3Dl, nor would 13 the addition of hydrogen be justified in order to correct an 14 instrumentation error.
The correct solution to the problem i
15 was to follow procedures and file an exception and have the 16 test fixed.
17 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Skipping to 311:
To what extent, l
18 if any, do you believe that the NRC or its Staff caused or 19 attributed to any leak rate probl' ems that may have occurred 20 at TMI-2 by their involvement in research, licensing, 21 consultation, inspection and enforcement?
Please be specific 22 as to all such instances.
23 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge --
24 JUDGE KELLEY:
I think I'd like to take a moment
- ()
25 and look at that'one before we pursue it.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1960 cefederal 1 MR. MC BRIDE:
Could I make an observation that 2
might be helpful to you, and that is that I do not intend by 3
posing that question to quarrel with the Board's earlier 4
ruling but only as a sort of catch all to find out if there 5
were other specifics that they may have had in mind.
6 MR. GOLDBERG:
Judge Kelley, I,
also, don't want 7
to quarrel with the Board's prior rulings and I would ask 8
that the Board recognize a continuing objection from the 9
Staff to questions about Staff practices.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
I guess my only hesitation is over 11 the word " objection."
I recognize that the Staff doesn't 12 believe it is correct and may later tell that to the f
)
~~'
13 Commission, whatever.
But the objection in the sense of a 14 party objection calling for a ruling, we don't recognize.
15 Mr. McBride's statement, I think, limits this to 16 other matters that you looked at directly, had knowledge 17 about, and so on.
18 MR. STIER:
I have none.
I think I've answered 19 that question fully this morning.
20 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Well, that concludes the parties 21 questions on this group.
Now we will turn to another group.
22 JUDGE KELLEY:
Off the record.
23 (Discussion off the record.)
24 JUDGE BRIGHT:
These are the proposed questions of 7_(
25 the employees for Witness Edwin H.
Stier.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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~.
x-acefederal 1 The first question:. Your August 28, 1986 report 2
reiterates your prior conclusion that there is " strong 3
circumstantial evidence" that Theodore F.
Illjes knowingly 4
added hydrogen during leak rate tests to influence the 5
results.
Part of the basis for your conclusion was that 6
Illjes was on shift during two tests performed.by John M.
F 7
Kidwell, in which you found that hydrogen was added.
8 Please explain why it is proper to use a test 9
performed by A as evidence against B.
~
10 MR. STIER:
The evidence on which I relied goes 11 beyond the test documents themselves and includes the 1
12 testimony that we obtained from their shift supervisor, Mr.
(
13 Chwastyk.
I described the circumstances surrounding those 14 tests, I believe yesterday, in my testimony.
Those are tests i
15 33 and 34, that were performed on February 19th, 1979.
16 First of all, we checked -- in order to prepare l
l 17 the tables listing each of the tests -- or each of the shifts 18 that was -- on which each of the CROs and shift foremen l
j 19 served, which is contained in our table, table 2 in volume L
i 20 III-A -- that is, we have a separate table for each CRO whom 21 we investigated and each shift foreman, whom we have 22 investigated, listing every shift that he served on and every i
indicat.ng whether, based on our 23 test he performed and 24 evaluation criteria, that test had something about it that C) 25 raised our suspicions and what the results were of our ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1962 i' ')
k-dcefederal 1 analysis of that test and all the other evidence.
2 In preparing that, we checked attendance records 3
to determine whether, in fact, an individual had been on 4
shift that day.
So, where there's an indication that 5
somebody was on shift it means that we have made that 6
determination from the records; not that it was simply his 7
crew that happened to be there that day.
8 The evidence, as I described it yesterday, 9
indicates that Mr. Chwastyk said that on a day which he 10 couldn't pinpoint, a CRO told him about the effect of 11 hydrogen that had been observed on a leak rate test; that is, 12 that it could have an effect~on the result, and that Chwastyk U-s 13
. performed an experiment and had confirmed that was the case, 14 and he believed that the individual who had given him that 15 information was Illjes.
16 We went back and checked the records, found 17 Chwastyk's notation that I read into the record yesterday 18 indicating that a certain makeup level hydrogen overpressure 19 of 5 to 6 pounds resulted in a good leak rate.
20 On that day, Illjes was operating the panel.
That 21 would be the place from which hydrogen would be added.
l 22 Therefore we inferred that Illjes had participated in the 23 addition of hydrogen to the leak rate test on that day that 24 Chwastyk had described as having been described to him, which O
25 had been influenced by the hydrogen addition.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1250 01 01 1963 cefederal 1 In addition to that we looked for some earlier 2
tests that had been performed while.Illjes was on duty and 3
found other confirmed hydrogen additions on earlier dates --
4 strike that.
5 We found an earlier hydrogen addition on the 14th, 6
when Illjes was a surveillance performer; and another on the 7
17th, when-Illjes was on the panel.
8 On the 14th, MPR determined that it had no effect, 9
although there had been a hydrogen addition, which we learned 10 from the log.
But on the 17th there was an observable effect 11 on the makeup level indicator.
12 So, looking at that evidence as a whole, and of 13 course all that evidence is described in detail in the 14 section of our report in volume II that deals with Illjes; I 15 may have left something out in my testimony here -- all of 16 that evidence was considered in reaching the conclusion that 17 there was strong circumstancial evidence that Illjes had 18 participated in manipulating tests by hydrogen additions.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
If I understand correctly, is it 20 fair to generalize that you looked at these case by case, on 21 the basis of all the available evidence including testimony, 22 and that you did not simply conclude or impute participation 23 based on the fact that some person was a shiftmate?
24 MR. STIER:
Yes.
That's absolutely true.
Even 25 where there would have to be two people involved in ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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-1250 01 1 1 1964 0
I ')
~
manipulating a test -- that is, one person onLthe' panel who
\\-acefedera1 1 2
.might have added hydrogen, as we have inferred in this case; 3
and another person who operated the computer and ran the test 4
-- we would look at the conduct of the person who ran the 5
computer separately from the person who had been on the 6
panel.
I wouldn't simply conclude that because both of them 1-7 had been involved in performing the test that both of them 8_
were equally responsible for manipulating the result.
And-9 there are some alternative hypotheses that I would want to 10 exclude.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
What about the relationship between 12 the CRO who did the test and his foreman?
Normally you take 4 O 13 it to your foreman and he signs; right?
14 MR. STIER:
Yes.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
In some cases it goes to the shift 16 supervisor?
17 MR.-STIER:
No.
Normally -- there are some 18 occasions where we see approval by a shift supervisor, but in 4
j '
19 the vast majority of cases the approval was by a shift l
20 foreman.
21 You have to understand, the shift supervisor was j
22 responsible for both TMI-1 and TMI-2, so he's back and 23 forth.
The shift foreman was on the scene generally in the 24 control room or in the plant, but certainly in that one unit 25 during the entire shift, and there was closer communication ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347 37tX)
Nationside Coverage 800 336-6646
+
1250 01 01 1965 (3
( icefederal'l~
between.the shift foremen and'the people on duty.
2 We also.were very careful infassessing the.
3 individual conduct of a shift foreman,cand did not conclude 4-that even frequent manipulated tests-were necessarily known 5
to the shift foreman.
We wanted some additional evidence-to 1
6 show that he, in fact, had knowledge or evidence from:which 1
7 we could infer circumstantially that he had that: knowledge.
l 8
In the case of Coleman, in the tests where there 1
9 wers water. additions towards the end of the test that had the 1
10 effect of taking advantage of the loop seal condition,-that
~
4 11 was a very close case.
His shift foreman, Adam Miller, i
12 reviewed and~ approved a good many of those -- strike ~that..
I O-13 believe he approved all of the tests that had been i
14 manipulated.
And in his case I did~not feel that the 15 evidence was quite strong enough to infer that he knew that i
16 they had been manipulated l tests.
5 17 I found other things about his conduct but not 18 that.
-19 JUDGE KELLEY:
Given the circumstances you 20 described where the test is viewed as perfunctory and a pain 21 in the neck, if you were a shift foreman under those
).
22 circumstances, and all you really wanted was a piece of paper 23 that said "less than 1," would any occasion arise for the CRO 24 to describe all the trouble he had gone to to produce the 1,
. O 25 in a case where there had been a manipulation?
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationside Coverage 800-336-6M6
1250 01 01 1966 9acefederal 1 MR. STIER:
Testimony indicates that they did not 2
have those kinds of communications, except in certain 3
specific instances.
Congdon and Adams, for example, was one 4
in which Congdon testified there was some communication about 5
it.
In Coleman's case he could not say the same thing about 6
Miller's knowledge, and the general pattern of conduct is as 7
you have described it.
The shift foreman was simply 8
interested in the bottom line.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
But did the shift foremen, as a 10 class -- I don't know if you can say -- but, while they 11 didn't take the test seriously and while, hypothetically in 12 some given test the shift foreman might not know and might 13 not want to know if the machine had been manipulated in some 14 fashion, do you have evidence to suggest that the shift 15 foreman, in some general way, knew that manipulations were if taking place?
17 MR. STIER:
No.
I think our conclusion was that, 18 as a class generally the evidence did not show that-they were l
i 19 aware of test manipulation.
I'd have to go back and look at 20 the specific language that we used to reach that conclusion, i
21 but I believe that that is what we concluded.
22 JUDGE KELLEY:
Of course we'll look at this case l
l 23 by case, but while you are here if you can give us an i
24 overview of things of this nature, it will be helpful.
Thank
-(~)
25 you.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coserage 800-346M6
1250 01 01 1967 (D.
\\-dcefederal 1 MR. STIER:
One of the sections of our report in 2
volume I deals with management involvement in leak rate 3
testing and that starts on page 122 of volume I.
On page 123 4
we discuss management of the operations department.
In that 5
section we deal with each separate level of management:
6 Shift foremen, shift supervisor -- the head of the operations 7
department and try to pull the evidence together on each kind 8
of knowledge that each level may have had:
knowledge that 9
tests were being discarded; knowledge that tests were being 10 filed without evaluation of their validity; and knowledge of 11 test manipulation.
12 JUDGE BRIGHT:
The second question:
Is it not 13 true that on February 19, 1979, it was not possible to add 14 hydrogen to the makeup from the control room?
Therefore, 15 assuming hydrogen was intentionally added during leak rate l
16 tests performed on that date, was the addition made by 17 someone other than the CRO on the control panel?
18 MR. STIER:
As a general matter, we were not able l
l 19 to pin down precisely when you could or couldn't add hydrogen i
j 20 from the control room.
I would have to check my report l
21 specifically on Illjes to try to see whether we were able to l
22 determine whether you could add hydrogen from the control 1
l l
23 room on February 19th.
l i
24 Generally, I did not consider that as a major l h 25 factor in determining whether or not hydrogen was added in ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-M7-3700 Nationwide Coserage 800-336-6M6
1250 101 01 1968 cefederal 1 order to manipulate a test, because whether somebody did it 2
by pushing a button or whether somebody told an AO to add 3
hydrogen down in the basement -- the latter may have been 4
slightly more inconvenient than the former, but it could have 5
been done rather easily.
And there might or might not have 6
been an entry in the Ao log of the' fact that hydrogen was 7
added.
Aos were not consistent in making a record of whether 8
they added hydrogen.
9 If you would like me to check my report, though, 10 on Illjes, to see whether we discussed that specific issue, 11 I'd certainly be willing to do it.
But I don't want to 12 answer without having checked.
(
13 JUDGE KELLEY:
If you could, maybe answer after 14 lunch.
15 MR. STIER:
Fine.
16 JUDGE BRIGHT:
The third question:
The NRC/OI 17 report includes as an exhibit a report on an interview of 18 Charles F.
Mell, who worked on the same shift as Illjes.
We 19 assume that you did not interview Mell.
Do Mell's statements 20 to OI agree with Illjes' statement of the facts concerning 21 Illjes' conduct and knowledge concerning TMI-2 leak rate 22 tests?
Did you carefully consider Mell's statements before 23 determining to adhere to your earlier conclusions about 24 Illjes?
f l
25 MR. STIER:
Yes, I think that Mell's statement is I
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
I 202-347-370)
Nationside Coverage 801336-6646
1250 01 01 1969 cefederal 1 generally consistent with Illjes'.
I examined it very 2
carefully and compared it with the evidence that I have just 3
described to you and it did not change my conclusion because 4
I think that the evidence that we used to draw the inference 5
that I have described was quite precise, fixing the date of 6
the events.
I think we had substantial circumstantial 7
evidence.
And I did not find Mell's testimony so precise as 8
to undermino the strength of that inference.
9 None of the evidence that we used to draw that 10 inference was directly addressed, to my recollection, by 11 Mell's testimony.
That is, there was a general statement, I 12 believe, that he didn't recall such an experiment, didn't
(
13 recall communications from Chwastyk.
He might have even gone 14 further and said he didn't believe that there were such 15 communications that he had been aware of.
16 Those kinds of general statements, while relevant, 17 it seemed to me, did not deal with the specific evidence that 18 we used as the basis for drawing the inference that we did.
19 And, so, I didn't feel that it overcame the strength of the 20 circumstantial evidence.
21 JUDGE BRIGHT:
The next group of questions, 22 proposed questions of Gary P.
Miller, for Edwin H.
Steers.
23 1:
Based on the results of your investigation 24 into leak rate testing at Three Mile Island, did you infer 7_
25 that Gary P.
Miller, TMI station superintendent / station ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coserage 800-3346M6
'1250 01 01 1970 7-.
tN-s'cefederal 1 manager, in 1978-79, exerted pressure upon operators to 2
obtain leak rate surveillance test results of less than 1 3
gallon per minute of unidentified leakage?
4 MR. STIER:
No.
We drew no such inference from 5
the evidence.
I did not find that the evidence indicated 6
that Miller exerted that kind of pressure on anybody in the 7
operations department.
8 JUDGE BRIGHT:
The second question:
From your 9
interviews and investigations relating to leak rate testing 10 at TMI, did you find that Gary Miller knew of, conc med or 11 directed the discarding of " unacceptable" leak rate test 5
12 results?
tb' '
13 MR. STIER:
We did not find that he knew of, 14 condoned, or directed the discarding of unacceptable leak 15 rate test results.
Miller's understanding of procedural 16 requirements for leak rate testing seemed consistent with our 17 understanding of it, based on the testimony he was giving 18 us.
And we found nothing in his behavior during the period 19 of TMI-2 operation to suggest that during that period of time 20 he behaved in a way that was inconsistent with those l
l 21 procedural requirements.
That is, he understood the 22 exception / deficiency procedure applied to leak rate testing 23 and so we did not make a finding that he condoned the 24 discarding of unacceptable results.
t l
25 JUDGE BRIGHT:
The third question:
Did your ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
(
202-347-3700 Nationwide coverage 8(n336-64
1250 01 01 1971 cefederal 1 interview of TMI personnel uncover evidence that Gary Miller 2
knew of improper leak rate test manipulations such as adding 3
hydrogen or water to the makeup for the purpose of 4
influencing leak rate test results?
5 MR. STIER:
No.
The evidence did not show that 6
Miller had any such knowledge.
As I indicated yesterday, it 7
was my conclusion after examining the conduct of employees, 8
the patterns of test results, that the manipulation of tests 9
was something that developed from the CRO level of the 10 operations department as a way of satisfying the demands of 11 their superiors within the operations department to get a 12 good leak rate; and that knowledge of test manipulation I
?
13 tended to remain at a fairly low level within the operations 14 department.
With some exceptions that we point out in the 15 report.
I did not see anything that would suggest that 16 knowledge of test manipulation rose above the operations 17 department to the level of someone like Gary Miller.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Could we get those steps in the 19 hierarchy clear.
You start with a CRO, go to a foreman, go 20 to a shift supervisor, then you are going to operations; you 21 are going to Mr. Floyd; is that the next step?
22 MR. STIER:
Yes, Mr. Floyd was the head of the 23 operations department.
He had an individual by the name of 24 Marshall who, I understand, is scheduled to appear here.
C
/
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
I'm not sure he is, but go ahead.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Cos erage 800-334 6646
1250 01 01 1972 acefederal 1 He is?
Okay.
2 MR. MC BRIDE:
He's a party.
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
,4 MR. STIER:
Marshall was a Staff person for Floyd, 5
and was involved in overseeing the implementation of the 6
corrective action that was provided for in the LER.
Above 7
Floyd there was a superintendent for technical support, and 8
above him was the unit superintendent.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
Right.
10 MR. STIER:
Now, in the period up tt. rough the end 11 of 1978, Gary Miller held two positions:
He was both the 12 station superintendent responsible for units 1 and 2, and the p,
(
l 13 unit superintendent of TMI-2.
14 Seelinger was his superintendent for technical 15 support.
16 Superintendent, technical support, was a Staff 17 level position, responsible to the unit superintendent, but 18 could exercise line supervisory authority that was delegated 19 to him by the unit superintendent.
20 In other words, the job specifications that we 21 have included in our report as exhibits, by the way, job 22 specifications indicate that he is primarily a Staff person 23 responsible for enforcement of technical specifications and 24 has certain safety-related functions; is the chairman of
,~
()
25 PORC, and doesn't have line management responsibility in that ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Cos erage 80tk3346646
~( 'j50 01 Ol' 1973 v
ccefederal 1 position but does exercise whatever line management authority 2
is delegated to him by the unit superintendent.
3 Then, above that level was -- I think the title 4
was manager, generation.
That's an individual by the name of 5
Lawyer who was back in Reading, and then his immediate boss 6
was Herbein, the vice president for generation.
7 That changed a little bit when Seelinger was 8
transferred to Unit 1 in November.
I think I said December, 9
yesterday, but it was sometime in November of-1978.
10 In that time period, somewhere between November 11 and January, there was a reorganization and George Kunder
()
12 became the superintendent for technical support at TMI-2; the 13 superintendent became Logan; Gary Miller then just held the 14 position of station superintendent; Lawyer's position was 15 eliminated and Miller then reported directly to Herbein.
But 16 Miller remained on the island as the station superintendent.
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
So you testified that, as far as 18 your investigation shows, Miller didn' t have knowledge of 19 manipulation.
Indeed, let me ask you this:
Did he have 20 anything whatever to do with leak rate tests during this 21 period of time as far as you know?
22 MR. STIER:
Not in the day-to-day performance of 23 leak rate tests, but there were certain documents that we
()
24 described in our report that came to Miller's attention on a 25 routine basis, such as what they called the morning report, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
2tC-347-37(D Nationside Coserage MG336-6M6
50 01.01 1974 racefederal~l whic'h attached the shift turnover notes from the 11:00 p.m.
~
2 to.the 7:00 a.'m.
shift, that-had information in it from which 3'
one could infer that there were problems with leak rate.
4 testing.
Not that anybody was manipulating tests' or throwing S
-away tests, but there were problems, t
6' There were notes saying " haven't gotten a good i
7 leak rate," "can't get a good leak' rate."
They.were required r
8 to record the unidentified leakage on that document, and in
[
9 some instances the same number was repeated for several j
10 days.
In other instances, there was nc number indica,ted.
11 Now, if you remembered the number from one day to the next or
()
12 if you were looking at that box, you might-have drawn some 13 inferences.
14 We discuss each one of those pieces of evidence in F
i j
15' our report and reached the conclusion that the evidence was I
16 not. strong enough for us to-infer that Miller had knowledge 3
)
17 of problems, of the pattern of behavior that was being I
18 followed in the operations department with respect to leak
-19 rate testing.
i--
20 There is one other piece of information that we do i
t i
21 discuss in the report that perhaps will be the subject of i
22 testimony here.
That is, in the U.S. Attorney's statement at 23 the time of the entry of the plea by Metropolitan Edison to
()
24 the criminal charges, the U.S. Attorney issued a statement.
25 Part of that statement is referred to in our report.
l, -
j ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 800-33MM6
f j50 01 01-1975 t
ccefederal 1 In that statement the U.S. Attorney said:
Shortly 2
after the October 18th incident,,there was a telephone 3
convrersation in which the -- in which several Unit 2 4
employees participated, and in which either the -- either/or, 5
he said -- the unit superintendent -- station superintendent 6
or the vice president for generation may have participated, 7
in which there was a discussion of the difficulty in 8
obtaining good leak rate test results.
9 We tried to run that conversation down, could not 10 determine precisely who participated in it.
Miller denied 11 participating in it.
Herbein -- I believe his testimony was ni,, j 12 that he could remember no such conversation.
And, in any 13 event, we concluded that the most that you could infer from 14 the conversation as described by the U.S. Attorney was that 15 there may have been some indication of dif ficulty in getting 16 good leak rates but no discussion of discarding leak rates or t
17 manipulating leak rate tests or any of the other specific 18 conduct that we found occurring at TMI-2.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, apart from whether he knew I
I 20 about these problems, does your investigation suggest to you 21 one way or the other whether he should have known about 22 them?
I'm having trouble understanding how these problems go 23 on month after month and be of the dimension described to me, I
p i
24 and the boss at Three Mile Island doesn't know what's going 25 on.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Narionwide Coverage 800-336-6646
[/')SO 01 01 1976
\\_
ccefederal 1 Is this such a low-level detail, nitpicking thing 2
that it's not the sort of thing that station managers look 3
at?
4
-MR.
STIER:
Neither Miller nor Herbein could 5
explain why they didn't know about it.
Theoretically, they 6
both said that they should have known about it; that it 7
should have been brought to their attention in the normal 8
course of events.
These kinds of problems should have come 9
up through the channels of communication.
We went over each 10 channel of communication.
11
- You've got to remember, what we are describing
()
12 here are the line-management channels of communication.
At 13 TMI-2, as at other facilities, there are other committees, 14 other oversight groups, other parts of the organization that 15 are responsible for looking at problem areas and trying to 16 identify them.
PORC, GORC, are some of the external groups 17 that are set up to provide independent oversight.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Can you identify which channel of 19 communication failed in this case?
Should the PORC committee 20 have focused on this and told Mr. Miller about it?
Just to 21 pick an example.
22 MR. STIER:
Let me address three of them.
23 Certainly the line organization failed.
There's l
t's j
(_)
24 no question that by any standard these problems should have l
l 25 been brought to management through the operations i
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Cowrage 8@336-6M6 m..
J
[d'500101
-1977 acefederal 1 department.
We found no evidence that the operations 2
department called these problems to the' attention of anybody 3
above the level of Seelinger.
4 The reason I stop at Seelinger is because of his 5
knowledge, the knowledge he gained during the October 18th 6
incident, and his awareness of the fact that they~were 7
rounding off in order to solve this problem.
8 Beyond Seelinger, we did not find evidence that 9
these problems were brought to the management of TMI-2, the 10 management of the station, or to Met Ed management above that 11 level through the normal chain of command.
()
12 PORC's involvement in leak rate testing problems 13 is centered around the review of the LER and their 14 responsibility to see that the corrective action was 15 implemented.
16 We reviewed all the PORC minutes, to see if we 17 could find any indications that these issues were discussed 18 at PORC meetings.
What we found were records that the LER l
l 19 was discussed, but that the problem generally was not 20 discussed.
21 The testimony that we obtained relating to PORC's 22 supervision over the implementation of the corrective action 23 was that what they did was to be sure that everybody in the
()
24 operations department signed the LER, indicating that he had 25 read i: and understood it.
l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 8(G336-6M6
~
( '/150 01 01 1978 ccefederal 1 That was finally closed out on March 5th.
There 2
were a number of delays in closing out this LER because 3
apparently people hadn't signed off and it was only on March 4
5th, I believe, that they finally got all the necessary 5
signatures.
That was PORC's involvement.
6 There was a quality assurance department review 7
that encompassed leak rate testing.
However, the auditor 8
from OA, who reviewed leak rate testing; did not audit the 9
performance of the test itself.
He didn't go in and look at 10 how they were running the test and look at documentation.
11 His testimony was that it was too early in the life of TMI-2 g) 12 for him, in his judgment, to do a detailed audit of the
(,
13 performance of that survsillance.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
What was his name?
15 MR. STIER:
I'll have to check in my report.
I'll 16 get that name for you.
I'll get it after the next break, for 17 you.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
All right.
Thank you.
19 NR. STIER:
Those were.cbe only parts of the 20 organization that we could find came into contact with or had 21 some direct involvement with leak rate testing, and, of r~
22 course, as I have described, ncne of those parts of the l
23 organization raised tne issue of problems with leak rate r~s
(_)
24 testing.
I can't explain why.
25 JUDG2 KELLFY:
When you look at the chain of ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-37 %
Na.ionwide Cmerar:
8(4316-f686
(v']5001.01 1979
_ccefederal 1__
command and committee responsibilities and various other 2
organizational aspects of TMI at the time, what piece of 3
paper does one look at?
4 For example, you suggest that Mr. Seelinger, as 5
head of operations, should have carried this up the line.
6 Can you point to some line of his job description?
Is there 7
some plant procedure, document that spells this out?
How is 8
he supposed to know that?
9 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, excuse me.
You 10 described Mr. Seelinger as head of operations.
He was Unit 2 11 superintendent, technical support.
<g
(_j 12 JUDGE KELLEY:
Sorry.
Okay.
13 MR. STIER:
We have --
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
If this is in your report, that's 15 fine, but it's not clear.
16 MR. STIER:
We have in our report -- and I would 17 get the citation.s -- I can get the citations to the 18 particular tabs after lunch.
We have job descriptions of 19 each one of these individuals; that is, the head of 20 operations, the unit superintendent and the superintendent 21 for technical support.
I think you'll see the -- there are 22 some differences in those job descriptions, but I think 23 you'll see each of those job descriptions do carry with them
()
24 a responsibility to see that procedures and technical l
25 specifications are properly carried out.
I think that the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202 Nationwide Coverage N336-6646 l
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _. _. _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _, _ _ ~ _ _ _ _ _
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ccefede'ral 1 supehintendent for. technical support-has'a.particularly A
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2 focu' sed responsibility for that. lThe jobtspecifications are a
' ~~
3 very clear on that.
But each of the others also has a g,
i [
4 r sponsibility for it.
+
's 3
r-5 Of course, when you get down within the operations 3
6 department, the specific procedures:
1010, and 2301-3D1-do f
j.
7 mention the*shif t superyisor's role.
n 8
I think when you get above that level if you look
.y.
9 the tho. job-dcccriptions you'll ccc thcre are 4
4 10 responsibilities to make sure that procedures and technical
.v.
11 specifications are being complied with.
And, as we indicated j
12
'here at some length, there simply was not compliance.
j s
77
-13 JUDGE KELLEY:
I don't'mean to suggest.my view, G
')
14 necessarily, that the job condition is controlling either.
I i
-15 I'm just looking around for something.
If we are going to-j~[
,g You should have done this, and 16s say.of a particular person:
3
- 17 he says, why?
Then perhaps one would just respond:
- Well,
.I 1
18 you were the boss of Unit 2 and it was a serious problem.
i 19 You should have told it to the station manager or wha'tever.
l.
g
[
20
'And that might be f air enough without something in a job
'\\
i 21 description.~ But I'm trying to pec a handle on what was s
x.
j. -
22 there.
23 MR. STIER:
I'll get those out for you.
I think D
, 'p 24 you'll find them quite explicit.
v~
25
't JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Are there any follow sps at ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
+
20 1 347-3700 Nationwide Coserage 804 33 H 646
U ISO 01'01 1981
\\7
- cce' federal 1 this point?
We have several.
Let's take 10 minutes.
2 (Recess.).
3 JUDGE KELLEY:
Let's go.back on_the. record.
4 Mr. ! Stier has a follow-up -- _ rather some supplement.
And
'5 Judge Bright has:the. follow-ups on this last set.
,p
' 6.
MR. STIER: -Before we took a break, I'had told'you
.4 7
that I.would.getisome references.in our: report to certain 4
8 material that I had mentioned'in my testimony.
I h
9 The. position' description for vice president,
-i
~10-generation; unit superintendent; unit superintendent;for
~
11.
technical support; supervisor of operations; shift
( )'
12 supervisor; shift foreman; and control room ~ operator are all' 13 containedLin tab 6 of our exhibits.
[,
14 The OA audit was performed by an individual by the 15 name of Lougman, L-o-u-g-m-a-n, and his audit report is found 16 in tab 39 of our exhibits.
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
18 MR. STIER:
Now, with respect to the question of 19 where hydrogen would have been added on February 19th, I have 20 looked through our report on Illjes and I don't find a
,I 21 reference in there to physically where hydrogen had to be 22 added to the makeup; that is, whether you could add it from 3
23 the control panel or whether you had to add it by going dowr,
()
24 to a lower level in the building and adding it directly from i,
25 a tank into the makeup.
l l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
j 202 347-37(U Nationwide G serage 800-3346M6 i
()50-0101 1982 ccefederal 1 However, in Illjes' testimony, there is a 2
reference on page 42 of his February 11, 198 5 s ta tr-men t.
3 There is a reference to the fact that, if hydrogen were 4
added, he would be the one to have added it on February 19th, 5l because he was the operator working on the panel.
We did not
)
6f explore with him whether he would have had to add it by using
)
7[
the controls on the panel or telling an auxiliary operator to I
8 add the hydrogen because we had great difficulty 9h reconstructing from plant records precisely when the controls, i
10 '
in the control room were unable to control the hydrogen 11 additions.
(
12 There is, however, a reference on February 19th 13 in the control room log'to the fact that hydrogen was added 14 on that day; not during this particular test, but on that 15 day, which might indicate that hydrogen was added from the 16 control room.
It doesn' t necessarily indicate that, but it l
17 may be some small indication of that.
And that reference is 18 found in table VII-l of volume IV-A, of our report.
l 19 I think that that covers all of the pending l
l 20 que 3tions.
-21 There is one other thing I were like to add, 22 however, in response to a question by Judge Kelley; and that l
23 is, why were these things not known to various levels of 24 management.
25 We make this observation in the report.
You have ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-37(X)
Nationuide Coverage 8@336 N46
[v'1500101 1983
~ccefederal 1 to recognize that the nature of what was being done -- that 2
is, the discarding the tests and the failure to file E&Ds --
3 subverted the paper flow.
It, in effect, concealed activity, 4
at least in, terms of there not being a record of what was 5
being done.
And I think that, you know, if you look at the 6
procedures as a kind of framework within which management 7
operated, there was a heavy reliance on the flow of paper 8
from one level of management to the next, as a means of i
9 raising issues.
10 JUDGE BRIGHT - Turning to the follow-up 11 questions:
In your investigation, did you interview any
.( )
12 auxiliary operators?
If so, did any of these operators tell 13 you that they were ever instructed to add hydrogen at 14 specific times so that they were aware or suspicious that for 15 some reason timing was important to the CRO requesting the 16 addition?
17 MR. STIER:' Well, we interviewed auxiliary 18 operators.
I don't believe that any auxiliary operators i
19 testified that their suspicions were aroused by anything that 20 they were instructed to do by way of adding hydrogen.
I 21 don't recall whether any of them testified that they 22 remembered that-they were instructed to add hydrogen at a 23 particular time.
I just don't recall that.
()
24 I can look through our report and see if I can 25 identify any such testimony, if you would like me to, but I J
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal l' just don' t have it at my fingertips at this point.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
Let's think about it later.
3-JUDGE BRIGHT:
During the period of time 4
Mr. Miller was TMI-2 superintendent / station superintendent:
5 1, was Mr. Miller licensed?
2, was he required to stand 6
periodic watches in the control room in order to maintain his 7
license?
3, is it a fact that leak rate tests were run on 8
almost all shifts?
9 MR. STIER:
I don't recall whether he was 10 licensed.
I would have to check our report.
However, we did 11 examine the evidence with respect to another individual who
()
12 was licensod but who was not assigned to particular shifts 13 who had to stand watch, and we found that there was simply 14 insufficient evidence to show that that individual was aware 15 of leak rate test practices simply because he was required to 16 stand watch periodically.
17 You've got to remember that the leak rate test was 18 not a major event in the course of running the plant.
19 Somebody would simply walk over to the computer and punch in 20 the code to start the test.
He might or might not 21 communicate to others in the control room that he was running 22 the test.
23 Someone who was standing watch because he was l
(~)
y
(_j 24 qualifying for a SRO license would not necessarily be 25 physically there on the scene, even.
He could be at ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
i 202 347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 8 @ 336-6646
of'j500101 1985 v
ccefederal 1 someplace else in the plant during that particular shift.
2 It is true that they were supposed to run a leak 3
rate test on every shift because of the practices established 4
at TMI-2.
However, the testimony is that they did not run a 5
leak rate test on every shift; particularly on the day shift 6
there might be times when activities were going on that made 7
it impossible to run a leak rate test.
That's not to say 8
they didn't run tests at times when it was impossible to do 9
so, but I think the testimony was that not every shift --
10 that a leak rate test was not performed necessarily on every 11 shift.
, ()
12 So, for those reasons I don't think it would 13 follow that simply by virtue of somebody qualifying for a SRO 14 license, he would necessarily learn about leak rate testing 15 and we found no evidence indicating that Miller was aware of 16 leak rate test practices.
17 I can check my report to find out whether, in 18 fact, he was licensed.
i 19 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Did you conclude from your 20 investigations that shift foremen, and some shift 21 supervisors, knew that the addition of hydrogen to the makeup 22 would affect the makeup level and the results of a leak rate 23 test if hydrogen were added during a test?
()
24 MR. STIER:
That varied from individual to 25 individual.
There were some shift foremen who were aware ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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/ '150 01 01 1986 V
ccefederal 1 that there could be an effect on level instrumentation.
~
2 As I recall, there was at least one shift 3
supervisor.
We certainly know that Chwastyk was aware of it, 4
because he ran the experiment.
But, as I say, knowledge 5
varied from individual to individual and we dealt with each 6
of them separately and we discuss our general findings in our 7
report.
8 I can cite you to the section.
I think I referred 9
to it previously.
That is in volume I, beginning at page 10 123, we discuss the knowledge at various levels of operations 11 department raanagement concerning leak rate test practices, (n
(,)
12 including the effect of hydrogen on makeup instrumentation.
13 JUDGE BRIGHT:
You say you have the citation 14 there?
15 MR. STIER:
Yes, volume I, beginning at page 123.
4 16 And then, of course, there are specific discussions about the 17 knowledge of the individuals who were the subjects of our 18 investigation, many of whom had been shift foremen and shift 19 supervisors at TMI-2.
20 So, for each individual there is a much more 21 detailed discussion in volume II of our report.
22 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Very well.
That concludes the 23 follow-up questions.
()
24 JUDGE KELLEY:
We'll move on to questions about 25 Mr. Herbein.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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( } 50 01 01 1987 ccefederal 1 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Turning to questions proposed by 2
Mr. Herbein, the first one reads:
Are you familiar with 3
plant daily status reports attached to your report on TMI-2, 4
volume V-B, at tab 10?
5 MR. STIER:
Yes.
I am familiar with those 6
reports.
7 JUDGE CARPENTER:
The second question:
Was John 8
Herbein among the individuals designated for routing on the 9
face of the plant daily status reports?
10 MR. STIER:
I don't believe that he was, although 11 I think that I should indicate that there is some question
()
12 about whether he received them.
We did look into that.
We 13 know that the report was sent to Reading and I think that the 14 conclusion that we reached was that he might have seen at 15 least some of them.
16' JUDGE CARPENTER:
Next question.
From all of your 17 interviews and investigationscrelating to leak rate testing 18 at Three Mile Island, what is your opinion regarding the 19 attitude of Mr. Herbein towards timely and proper compliance 20 with NRC regulations and technical specifications, 21 particularly relating to surveillance tests?
Please state 22 the basis for your opinion.
23 MR. STIER:
In order to answer this question I
()
24 would have to refer to our Unit 1 report.
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
In what kind of detail?
Give us an l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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50 01 1988 v
scefederal'l idea.
2-
-MR. STIER:
-It has to do with Mr. Herbein's 3
conduct at the time that -- in the early stages of. leak rate 4-testing'at TMI-1.
I'could summarize very briefly what I'm 5
referring to and add whatever additional detail you would 6
'want.-
But I think that there is some evidence from'that 7
investigation that relates to Mr. Herbei'n's attitude toward 8
compliance with surveillance procedures.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
.This is a sepErate report that's
'10 not in the record at this point, as I understand it?
1
.11
.MR. STIER:
That's correct.
4 12 JUDGE-KELLEY:
Do the parties want to comment on i
13-whether we should get into this Unit 1 report from 14 Mr. Stier?
I 15 MR. BLAKE:
I certainly see no-objection.to i
t 16' Mr. Stier's. answering this question.
I don't.see that i
17 anybody is proposing that we put the report in for this 18-purpose.
We asked Mr. Stier's opinion and he can provide 19 it.
I also doubt that Mr. Stier would distinguish Mr.
l 20 Herbein'.s views on these sorts of procedures or requirements u
l 21 as between the two units and therofore it doesn't strike me l,
22 that we are focusing on Unit 1.
That happens to be the basis l
l 23 for Mr. Stier to be able to provide an answer to Mr.
24 Herbein.
i L
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
Do other counsel wish to comment?
L ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202 347 3700 Nationwide Coverage 804336-646
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.ccefederal 1 MR. FLYNN:
I just wanted to state we are well 2
aware of the Board's attitute towards bringing in Unit 1 or 3
not bringing it into this inquiry.
It is not our intention 4
to do so.
We think Mr. Herbein's attitude towards compliance 5
is relevant to this inquiry and just to that limited extent 6
we would like Mr. Stier to comment.
7 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, I support both the 8
comments of Mr. Blake and the comments of Mr. Flynn for the 9
reason that some of our clients also have filed testimony and 10 will give the Board testimony about practices that they may 11 have learned, established, followed, what have you, in Unit 1
( );
12 that carried over to Unit 2.
13 It seems to me it is appropriate to get into that 14 type of limited inquiry without opening the floodgates in any 15 way to suggest that the Board should hear testimony about all 16 sorts of specifics about the leak rate tests at Unit 1.
If I 17 understood it correctly, I think that was the Board's 18 objective in limiting the focus of this proceeding.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
That's correct.
Mr. Blake?
20 MR. BLAKE:
I should point out, Judge Kelley, that 21 it is my belief that some of the statements which Mr. Stier 22 or his people initially took for purposes of Unit 1 23 investigation also bore on Unit 2, and are included in his
()
24 Unit 2 report which is now a part of the record.
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
The line of demarcation, I'm sure, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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4 i
$($50.0101 1990 1
lccefederal 1 is not that sharp.
The question is for a rather= limited-2 purpose and we would be talking about not'the details of I
3 exactly what happened in. Unit'l but rather, Mr. Stier's 4
' impression of Mr. Herbein's' attitudes.
So on that sort of i
i 5
limited basis -- Mr. Goldberg?
I 6~
MR. GOLDBERG:
Are you allowing Staff counsel to 7
comment on this question?
8 JUDGE KELLEY: 'Well -- go ahead.
9 MR. GOLDBERG:
Thank you.
10 th) one h'as proposed that the Stier report.on Unit 11 1 practices be a part of the record and I certainly would
()
12 have a real concern if we got to the point where it was felt 13 necessary that that report be a part of the record because 14 then there are other reports of investigations of Unit 1 15 practices that ought to be a part of the record.
16 I don't believe that there is necessarily any i
17 reason to not allow Mr. Stier to answer this question, 18 provided that it is understood -- and perhaps Mr. Stier could 19 do this in answering the question -- that while there were, I
20 perhaps, some similarities between Unit 1 practices and Unit l
21 2 practices, there are also a lot of differences.
1 22 If Mr. Stier can make clear what the basis for his i
23 answer is and when he is drawing upon information which he
( )'
24 learned in the course of his TMI-2 investigation as opposed 25 to what he learned from his TMI-l investigation, I think that ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Cmerage 8ak3)MM6
[V150 01 01 1991 ccefederal I would be important to understand the significance of his 2
answer.
\\nd, beyond that, it may be that we can.get at some 3
of that through follow-up questions, about the basis for his 4
answer.
5 MR. MC BRIDE:
Judge Kelley, I oppose that 6
modification because the Board previously admitted section 7
4.2 of NUREG-06880 sup. number 5 for the purpose of avoiding 8
the very inquiry that it now sounds like Mr.-Goldberg wants 9
Mr. Stier to get into.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
You mean a differentiation between 11 Units 1 and 27
()
12 MR. MC BRIDE:
Yes.
The Staff made certain 13 findings about what happened at Unit 1.
Those are stated in 14 section 4.0.
And we, as the Board knows, went around and 15 around on this and finally resolved to put it in the record 16 for whatever it was worth, is approximately the way the Board 17 ruled on it.
18 It is there for you to refer to, I think is the l
19 way you put it.
And beyond that we weren't going to get into i
20 a lot of testimony about similarities or differences, except, 21 as I understood it, to this limited extent about what the 22 practices may have been that carried over from one to the 23 other.
But it seems to me when we start asking Mr. Stier to l ()
24 highlight similarities and differences we are going down the l
l 25 road of specific tests.
i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
m,,,
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m ccefederal 1 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, we didn't understand 2
Mr. Goldberg to be saying quite that.
We don't hear anyone 3
saying that the question is objectionable as phrased.
Now 4
that we have looked at it a bit we are going to allow it.
Go 5
ahead.
6 MR. STIER:
Well, I am coing to try to keep my 7
testimony confined to some limited evidence because I do not 8
want to hold myself out to be a character' witness:for or 9
against Mr. Herbein.
10 The only evidence that I know of that's relevant 11 to the question is the fact that early in the operation of
( ).
12 Unit 1 there was a time when a leak rate test was not filed 13 within the required interval for leak rate testing at TMI-l 14 and a LER was issued.
Herbein became aware of that and 15 responded by creating a system that closely monitored the 16 performance of surveillance tests, in order to assure that 17 they were done in a timely way.
18 In addition to that he established the requirement 19 that, rather than the test being performed at the maximum 20 interval provided for under technical specifications, that 21 they be performed once every shif t.
And it was that practice 22 of performing a leak rate test once a shift that carried over 23 to Unit 2.
And it was the procedure for recording the
()
24 results of surveillance tests that developed into the role of 25 the GMS coordinator that we described here in earlier ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.Q ccefederal 1
. testimony; the' fellow who p'icked up the test results and 2
provided a report, a computerized report, concerning the l
3 timeliness of filing surveillance tests, including the-leak.
4 rate test.
l 5
That's.the only direct evidence I know of~that 6
relates to Mr.-Herbein's attitude towards surveillance 7
testing.
There may have been some other testimony in our 8
transcripts concerning his character.
But rather than my i
9-trying to comb through that and identify it specifically and c
10 bring it to the Board's attention or to try to summarize it, i
11 I would rather stop at this point, after having described the
(
)
12 specific evidence that I have in mind.
13 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Next question, number 4:
Are 14 you familiar with LER 78-62/1 T?
15 MR. STIER:
Yes.
16 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Would you explain what the i
17 number of 78-62 means.
18 MR. STIER:
I believe that means that's the 62nd 19 LER in 1978.
20 JUDGE CARPENTER:
The next question, number 5:
Is 21 it fair to say that when Mr. Herbein read LER78-62/1 T prior 22 to transmittal to the NRC, it would have been reasonable for 1
23 him to have concluded that the incident was an isolated
()
24 occurrence; that it had been corrected; and that appropriate 25 follow-up action was being taken?
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202 347-3700-Nationwide Coverage RXh336-(M6
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ccefederal.1 MR.-STIER:
'I believe.that is1a reasonable 2
interpretation of'what is-written.in that LER.
And, as I 3
have testified previously, I do not believe that it touches 4
on the inherentiproblems in-leak rate testing that-were being 5
experienced at TMI-2.
Nor does :it describe the solution to 6
the problem which had been the rounding off of leak rate test 7
results.
8 Of-course, by the time'the LER was finally sent to 9
the NRC -- and presumably Mr. Herbein reviewed it shortly 10
-before it was sent to the NRC -- by that time rounding off 11 had ended.
But I'certainly think it would have been i
'()
12 reasonable for anybody reading that to assume that the 13 problem had been a limited problem and that it had been i
14 corrected.
15 JUDGE CARPENTER:
Question 6:
Are you familiar 16 with the statement at page 12 of the-GPU assessment panel l
17 report that the Met Ed vice president of generation, "did not 18 know and could not reasonably be expected to have known of l
19 the improper leak rate test practices at TMI-27 Did your 20 investigation reveal or are you aware of any factual 21 information in conflict with that statement?
j.
22 MR. STIER:
I am familiar with the statement.
I 23 have read the assessment panel report.
I agree that I --
t ()
24 that the evidence does not indicate that he knew of improper 25 leak rate test practices.
I agree that the evidence does not l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal.1 show that he could reasonably have been expected to infer 2
-from what was available to him that we know of that improper 3
. practices were occurring.
4 Whether it would have been reasonable for a man in 5
his position, that is, vice president for generation, to know 6
about it, to take some affirmative action to find out what 7
was. going on, is a management decision that I didn't make.
I 8
didn't look at his position and say:
He should have known 9
because of the -- because of that position.
And if that's 10 what that statement in the assessment panel report means, I'm 11 not in a position to respond to it.
l( )
12 I hope I have made my answer cleer.
I tried to be 13 precise about it.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
When you say "what was available to 15 him," are you referring to the LER report presented for his 16 signature?
17 MR. STIER:
No.
We looked beyond the LER.
We 18 looked at other documentation that he received on a regular 19 basis.
We tried to reconstruct communications that took 20 place between plant management and Herbein.
21 JUDGE KELLEY:
You mean what actually went to him, j
22 in point of fact?
23 l
MR. STIER:
That's right.
Exactly.
i
~
(,)s 24 JUDGE KELLEY:
Didn't you indicate earlier that I
i 25 you believed he had said at some point that he should have ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal 1 known about it?
2 MR. STIER:
Yes.
I think that his testimony 3
indicates that he can't understand why he didn't know about 4
it; yes.
Not that he had the information and didn' t draw the 5
right inferences, but that it should have come to his 6
attention.
7 JUDGE CARPENTER:
That concludes that line.
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
We earlier had a follow-up from 9
Staff.
I believe it is from the Staff.
It relates to 10 Herbein.
We said to the Staff at the time we'd just save 11 that until later.
Maybe I'll just read that now.
l ()
12 i Independent of the inspection reports, was there 13 any other information that could have been made available to 4
14 Mr.-Herbein that would have shown a problem with obtaining 15 good leak rata tests?
If so, please describe such 16 in fo rmation.
I think you've answered that.
17 MR. STIER:
Yes.
I found no other specific 18 evidence that would have raised it with him.
The only l
19 exception being the U.S. Attorney's statement, which has the 20 limited value as evidence that I have described.
21 As a general matter, I did not find eeridence that 22 came to his attention that would have raised the question i
23 about the way leak rate tests were being performed at Unit 24 2.
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
That brings us to a set of l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal 1 questions for'Mr. Stier from Mrs. Aamodt.
I have the 2
questions before me.1 I don't have the transmittal.
3 As I understand it, or as I recall, Mr. Stier, we j
4 sent these questions to you.
We disallowed certain of them 5
but we sent them to you in advance, correct?
6 MR. STIER:
Yes.
That's correct.- Except I can't 7
find them.
8 Okay.
I have them.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
Question 1 -- I think in some cases 10 there may be a Board comment following the question.
But 11 I'll put the question as submitted and if we have a comment
()
12 we'll make one.
13 Question 1:
Describe all contractual arrangements 14 which you or any entity with which you have been involved has l.
15 had with GPU or any of its subsidiaries.
16 That seems a bit broad.
Do you think you can 17 answer that responsively as written, Mr. Stier?
Go ahead if i
18 you can.
19 MR. STIER:
Some of the language is a little j
20 ambiguous but I'll try my best.
21 JUDGE KELLEY:
Go ahead.
I 22 MR. STIER:
The only contractual arrangements that i
23 I have -- when I say "I,"
I'm assuming that this means me
()
24 individually or any firm that I have been associated with.
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
Fair enough.
i
+
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ccefederal 1 MR. STIER:
The only contractual arrangements that 2
I have had have been for the performance of independent 3
investigations for GPU Nuclear.
I have performed, I believe, 4
four investigations for GPU. Nuclear:
two having to do with 5
the cleanup activities at TMI-2, and two of them.having to do 6
with leak rate testing, one at Unit 1 and one at Unit 2.
7 Those are the only contracts that I have had.
8 Now, we are going to get to a question, I think 9
later on, concerning a relationship that existed between one 10 of my former partners and GPU.
If you want me to tell you 11 about that now, I'll be happy to.
()
12 JUDGE KELLEY:
Why don't we let that wait.
13 Number 2:
Describe your participation, if any, in 14 the licensing proceedings to the New Jersey Power & Light 15 nuclear facility at Oyster Creek or-in any other legal, 16 investigatory or representative activity.
Then we added the 17 words " involving Oyster Creek."
l 18 MR. STIER:
I have had no connection with Oyster 19 Creek.
20 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
In the past 10 years, what 21 percentage of your income has been derived directly or 22 indirectly from the GPU corporation (including 23 subsidiaries)?
()
24 MR. BLAKE: I have an objection to that.
The 25 nature of my objection is I don't see that it is material to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.ccefederal 1 this proceeding nor to what the Board needs to determine in-2 this proceeding.
I am not objecting, nor would I object, to 3
constraints or inquiries into any ways in which Mr. Stier 4
might have been restricted in his ability to conduct a 5
thorough investigation of the matters that he was asked to 6
look at.
But the simple inference that is drawn by whatever 7
the answer to this question is, I think is wrong and I do not 8
think it is material here.
9 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, let me just make a comment.
10 We withdrew a question the other day to Mr. Rockwell, which 11 was, what was your fee for this study.
Well, we put it on
()
12 hold.
We can argue it later.
It seems to me that question 13 is considerably more debatable than this one.
14 It would strike me that the thrust of the question 15 is to determine, by way of impeachment, the degree to which a 1
16 person is dependent on a single source of income.
17 If a person who does independent studies has 4
18 gotten some varying percentage of income over the years up 19 and down -- can' t say just how much -- that might be one 20 thing.
If a person is deriving virtually all their income 21 for many years from one source, then the notion that they are 22 an independent operator, it seems to me, is somewhat 23 undercut.
) ()
24 So, it seems to me that the question, although 25 perhaps not perfectly phrased, has a general thrust and has ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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Natioriwide coserage 84xk33We
f;50 : 01 01 2000 "acefederal 1 some relevance to-it.
2 Would you disagree?
3 MR. BLAKE:
No.
My argument was not with regard 4
to relevance but rather materiality and the potential for 5
prejudice as a result of the-answer, where it requires _you to 6
draw an inference which I think is better arrived'at by more 7
concrete questions about degree of control or restrictions or 8
constraints which, as I said, I have not objected to nor do I 9
intend to.
It's the simple inference that's drawn from' the -
10 financial and purely monetary type of question is where I 11 regard it as inappropriate.
()
12 JUDGE KELLEY:
I'm not entirely sure I understand 13 your distinction between relevance and materiality.
I tend 14 to merge the two.
15 I thought it would be relevant in assessing the 16 weight to be given an expert's study, to the extent he is an i
17 independent contractor or employee of GPUN.
To the extent
)
18 he's heavily dependent upon GPUN for income, it seems to me i
19 to have a bearing on the question.
20 Do other counsel want to make a comment on this l
21 one way or the other?
i 22 MR. MC BRIDE:
No.
23 JUDGE KELLEY:
No?
The Board ought to discuss
()
24 it.
In light of the objection, the Board will discuss it 25 further.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(v)50 01 01 2001 ccefederal 1 Let's go ahead, get through some more questions.
2 We'll come back to it rather than stop right now.
3 The next question says:
Provide a copy of the 4'
contract or contracts between GPU and you (your firm) to 5
investigate the manner'of performance of leak rate tests at 6
TMI.
This would go to fee amount, which I assume would draw 7
the same objection as we had the other day.
8 Any comment, Mr. Blake?
9 MR. BLAKE:
None beyond what I made the other day, 10 the observation I have already made.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
Right.
You had no objection.
The
()
12 Board might ask a question about restrictions, control, et 13 cetera --
14 MR. BLAKE:
Right.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
I think we'll not require an answer 16 to number 4.
17 The next question, in fact, goes in that l
18 direction:
Describe any and all constraints or limitations l
19 that GPU, its subsidiaries or agents placed on your 20 investigation of the manner of leak rate test performance at 21 TMI.
22 MR. STIER:
The scope of the investigation is 23 defined in a document which is included in our appendix as
()
24 tab 1.
It is in volume V-K.
It's a letter to me from Philip 25 R. Clark, the president of GPU Nuclear.
And it describes the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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a ccefederal 1 scope and purpose of our investigation.
That had to do with 2
the investigations of both Unit 1 and Unit 2 leak rate 3-testing.
4 I was given no time limitations.
As a matter of 5
fact, I think that Mr. Clark exercised a good deal of 6
patience because every estimate of completion date that I 7
gave him was wrong, sometimes by many, many months.
The' 8
investigation took much longer than I ever anticipated that 9
it would.
And there was never any pressure to complete the 10 investigation or to shortcut the investigation in any way.
11 In terms of resources, he told me I could have
()
12 whatever I wanted to support the investigation.
Bring in 13 attorneys, experts of various kinds, set up whatever sort of 14 clerical support staff I needed.
And, frankly, whenever I 15 asked for anything I was never turned down.
Nobody suggested 16 that I was going beyond what was appropriate for the 17 investigation.
18 I provided regular reports to Mr. Clark and to the 19 GPU Nuclear board, when I felt that I had information that 20 they should have.
That is, when I completed a phase of the 21 investigation and I felt that I knew what evidence was 22 available and could draw some preliminary inferences from it, 23 I would report to him orally on my results.
At those times
()
24 there was never a suggestion that the investigation should go 25 in one direction or another or that my conclusions should be ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(^)150 01 01 2003 ccafederal I reexamined or that anybody disagreed with me or tried to 2
shape or influence my conclusions in any way.
3 There was never any attempt to protect any 4
information that I was gathering by asserting the 5
attorney / client or any other kind of privilege.- At the 6
outset Mr. Clark told me that there would be no 7
attorney / client privilege in the investigation and that 8
whatever I developed by way of evidence should be retained 9
and that it would ultimately be filed with him and through 10 him with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that it would 11 become public.
(A_)
12 Finally, there came a time when I felt that I 13 needed some support from Mr. Clark to encourage the 14 cooperation of potential witnesses.
I felt that it was 15 important that the company indicate that it wanted people in 16 its organization to cooperate with us.
At that time I think 17 it would have been a very easy thing for him to say Gee, I 18 can't do that.
You are on your own.
But he didn't.
19 Whatever I asked him for, including a letter that 20 was circulated to all GPU employees, making it very clear 21 that their cooperation in our investigation was required, was 22 sent.
And so I would have to say that there were no 23 limitations or constraints other than what was outlined in I ()
24 tab 1.
And, in fact, I received all the support that I 25 requested.
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Ecefederal 1 JUDGF BRIGHT:
Mr. Stier, along the way here 2
several times you have indicated that there were people that 3
you wanted to talk to but they wouldn't talk to you.
4 MR. STIER:
Yes.
5 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Was this because they were no 6
longer employees of GPU?
7 MR. STIER:
Yos.
Well, I don't know what their 8
reasons were.
Clark's letter couldn't reach them because the 9
people who wouldn't talk to us were all no longer employed-by 10 GPU.
I do not believe that there was anybody who was 11 currently in their employ -- let me put it more
()
12 affirmatively.
There was nobody in the employ of GPU, GPU 13 company as a whole -- not just GPU Nuclear -- but all'of the 14 companies that make up the GPU system, there was nobody in 15 their employ who refused to cooperate with us.
16 JUDGE BRIGHT:
Thank you.
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
Did you request access to the TMI-2 18 operators, shift supervisors, shift foremen and plant 19 managers at any time?
I think you just answered that, at 20 least in part.
I'll read the rest of it.
If so, of whom was 21 the request made and what response did you receive?
Explain 22 why you were satisfied with the interviews conducted by other 23 investigators and how this procedure comports with standards
()
24 for criminal investigation.
I i
25 The first part of the question I think you've ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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The second part of the question, perhaps you.could 2
speak to that.
3 MR. STIER:
Well, there are really three parts.
4 The second part, as I would -- as I. understand it,.is of whom 5
.did you make the request and what was their response?
It
^
6 depended on who the individual was.
7 If it was somebody who was represented by an 8
attorney and I knew that that attorney -- I knew who the 9
attorney was, we would contact the attorney and we would make 10 a request, an oral request.
There came a time when I sent 11 attorneys a list of all of those people who were represented,
()
12 whom we hadn't spoken with, and made a formal written request 13 that we interview them.
14 If an individual was not represented by an 15 attorney that I was aware of, I would contact the individual I
l 16 directly.
And there were occasions when I asked the 17 attorneys if they would ask their clients if I could, at 4
18 least, try to talk the client into talking to us based on, f
19 you know, some face-to-face communication with the client.
i 20 So I tried a variety of means of communication.
And, in each i
21 instance where we don't have a record of a person's i
22 testimony, it's because the communication I received was they 23 didn't want to talk to me.
(f 24 Now, the third part of the question is why did I
+
25 rely on other people to conduct interviews and how does that i
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ccefederal l comport with standards oft criminal investigations?
2 Well,'the people on whom I relied to conduct the 3
interviews were Fred DeVesa and Bdo Winter.
Both Fred DeVesa 4
and Bob Winter have had lona experi'nce conducting criminal e
t q
5 investigations.
Each. worked for me when I was the director 6
of the New Jersey DiOision of' Criminal Justice, both have 7
worked for other law enforcement agencies, and they are both 8
what I would consider to be highly reliable, highly 9
experienced professional'investig6tive attorneys.
They met 10 what I view as very high standards of' competence and 11 experience in conducting interviews.
()
~
12
'. t is.quite normal in conducting complex criminal 13 investigations for prosecutors to conduct interviews 14 themselves, or conduct interviews in conjunction with 15 investigators, with detectives or agents of various kinds.
~
16 I conducted this investiga. tion, or oversaw this 17 investigation, in the same wqy I would conduct and supervise 18 a complex criminal inve3tigation using a grani jury.
I 19 considered the depositions that'we took to be in the nature 20 of grand jury testimony, even though it wasn't in a grand 21 jury and even though the witnesses had attorneys present, 22 which would not normally be the case in a grand jury.
But 23 the same kind of preparat ion.
The same kind of interview
()
24 techniques.
And the same kind of personnel conducting those 25 interviews were used.
DeVesa and Wintor, who were the people ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal I who did all of the interviews in this investigation, except 2
for, I think, one that I did, are people who had long 3
experience in doing that and doing it very professionally.
4 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Number 7:
Provide your 5
curriculum vitae.
Is that in the study?
6 MR. STIER:
Yes.
There is an exhibit -- I believe 7
it's in a footnote in volume I.
It is in the footnotes to 8
the introduction and overview section.
It is on page 29, 9
footnote 12.
It provides a general outline of my background, 10 covers all the various positions that I held over the years.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Thank you.
()
12 The next question:
Provide the curriculum vitae 13 for each of your co-investigators.
Describe the assignment 14 of each, which portion of the report was written by each.
15 Has the curriculum vitae -- do we have those for Mr. Cole and 16 Dr. Harrison?
17 MR. STIER:
I have not put them in the record but 18 I have them available and can offer them to you.
19 JUDGE KELLEY:
I think we would like to include 20 those.
These gentlemen have been testifying.
If you would 21 do that, you could do it by letter.
If there's no objection, 22 it could be deemed a supplement to the report rather than a 23 separate exhibit.
Is there any advantage or disadvantage?
/~T i
(,)
24 MR. MC BRIDE:
I just instinctively have the l
25 feeling it's a marginal advantage to denominate them as i
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It gets a little confusing.
(
1 Exhibit J{5-A and B can be the 2y
'T i JUDGE KELLEY:
,y s
t T
3 i curriculum vitae of Dr. Harrison and Mr. Cole.
If you could
,- s s
- ig 4,
just supply that by letter and your convenience.
i i
y 3
5 (Exhibit 15-A and 15-B receivod.)
i 6
JUDGE KELLEY:
You can just supply them by II 7
' letter.
Are there any other principal authors of the 8
report?
4 g
9 MR. STIER:
I will.
10 Yes, their resumes are in the report in the same t
11 place where mine is, in volume I.
O auoce xetter=
oxev-c e e = e e a ti> e r e e e e' t h e.
12 2
~13 question, who wrcite what, for $xample?
g 14 MR.' STIER:'
That's a difficult question.
Let me
+
15 tell you about the process, eh'at I go through to write the 5
16 report.
I divided it up between Winter, DeVesa and myself, 17 that is the initial. drafts.
I did the initial draft of l
18 volume I.
Each of'them did an initial draft of the l
~
~
19 individual reports.
The MPR teport, of course, was prepared
\\
20 6 by Dr. Harrison, primarify, but reviewed by his colleagues at 21 MPR, and revieted by me before it was included in the s,
-a
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3s J
s 23 After the initial drafts were written, each of us 24 edited -- that is Winte'r, DeVesa and I -- each edited the 25 work of the others.
A d we must have gone through -- I can't ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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v]50 01 01 2009 ccefederal 1 oven contemplate how many changes in order to make the report i
2 more accurate, identify the correct sources of support withini 3
the body of evidence that we had.
To say at this point.who 4
wrote which is impossible.
5 JUDGE KELLEf Thank you.
6 Will you indicate the number of hours you and eaci.
i i
7 co-investigator spent on the investigation in round numbers? !
F 8
MR. STIER:
Yes.
I had some notes on that.
1 l
9 have them in here someplace.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
I think we'd take ball park on 11 this.
(m_)
12 MR. STIER:
A lot of hours, Judge.
I want to give you the right ball park.
So, I had better check my notes.
13 i
I 14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, let me ask -- we are coming 15 up on 12:30.
There are several more questions, more like 10 16 than 30.
But a little more time will be required.
The 17 question I suppose might be do you want to press on and 18 finish up these questions before you break -- maybe we can 19 take a short lunch -- what are people's pleasure in that 20 regard?
i
)
21 MR. GEPHART:
Is this the end of it?
l 22 JUDGE KELLEY:
We are on the Aamodt questions for i
23 Mr. Stier.
Unless I miscalculate, we vould run out of work
]
r~v l
(_)
24 for the day when we finish with these questions.
l l
25 MR. MC BRIDE:
That's our understanding.
We have I
i l
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50 01 01 2010 ccefederal 1 a couple of follow-ups.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
Follow-ups we'11 talk a little bit 3
next week in timing, but 'that's basically it.
The Aamodt 4
questions will take more than five or 10 minutes, I think.
5 We can be off the record, by the way.
I'm sorry.
6 (Discussion off the record.)
7 (Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m.,
the hearing was 8
recessed, to be reconvened at 1:30 p.m. this same day.)
9 l
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2 JUDGE KELLEY:
We had a couple of pending 3
matters.
Mr. Stier indicates he has copies of the curriculum 4
vitae of the two legal investigators; is that correct?
5 MR. STIER:
No.
These are for Mr. Cole and 6
Dr. Harrison.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Ch. I'm sorry.
Fine.
Did we 8
assign previously a number for that?
9 MR. COLE:
15.
10 JUDGE KELLEYt Okay.
Fine.
We'll have to have 11 copies made, but that's fine.
Perhaps you can give it to the
' ()
12 reporter.
13 We also had a pending question.
We had an 14 objection to it.
ill just read the question:
In the past 15 10 years what percentage of your income has been derived i
16 directly or indirectly from the GPUN corporation, including 17 subsidiaries?
And we heard an objection from Mr. Blake on 18 that question and we had some discussion on it.
We continue j
19 to think the general thrust of that question is legitimate, l
20 insofar as it seems to determine the degree to which a 21 witness may be very heavily employed by one source or not, 22 which could go to ones status -- strike that -- could go to 23 one's independence, or not, or could be viewed as such.
It l ()
24 does appear on reflection there could be a way to phrase it a l
25 little differently that would achieve the same thrust and ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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professional time has been devoted to GPU as opposed to other 3
employers over the same time period.
At least it avoids the 4
direct inquiry about income which we think can include some 5
other elements.
Would you object ecually to the question as 6
rephrased?
7 MR. BLAKE:
No.
I don't have an objection to that 8
question, over the last 10 years what percentage would he 9
estimate of his time was spent on GPU matters.
10 JUDGE KELLEY:
The Board will put that question in 11 lieu of the income question, put it to Mr. Stier.
( f 12 MR. STIE Since you asked me the number of hours 13 I put in on these, maybe I could combine the answers.
4 14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Sure.
15 MR. STIER:
The last 10 years takes me back to the 16 time that I was working for government.
I was employed by 17 the state of New Jersey and was employed by the state 10 18 years ago.
I left employment, state employment in October of 19 1982 and joined a firm, Kirsten, Friedman & Cherin, located 20 in Newark.
21 After being there to six months I began my first 22 investigation for General Public Utilities.
I think it was 23 in February or March of 1983.
In fact it was March, the end (rm_)
24 of March 1983 that I began the first investigation, which was 25 concluded nine months later with the filing of a report.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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()500101 2013 ccefederal 1 During that period, those nine months, I worked virtually 2
full time on the investigation.
3 I was retained to perform the leak rate 4
investigations in, I believe it was February of 1984 and 5
worked, I would approximate, 80 percent of my time until the 6
spring of that year on those investigations.
I should say 7
early summer, when I issued the Unit I report on June 13th.
8 We were conducting the TMI-2 investigation at that 9
time but I was not working full time on it.
I would estimate 10 that I worked perhaps a third of my time from June through 11 the end of that summer, when I began putting in more time.
()
12 And from then until the report was issued on September 5th of 13 1985.
So that was approximately a year.
I put in, oh, I 14 would estimate, 80 percent of my time on those 15 investigations.
16 After this report was issued I continued to work 17 on another investigation that was begun before I completed 18 this report, having to do with the refurbishment of a polar 19 crane at TMI-2, and after I completed this report, in 20 September, I worked virtually full time, say virtually --
21 there were other matters that I handled but it was perhaps 90 22 percent of my time, until that report was issued.
I don't 23 remember the date of that.
It just escapes me.
()
24 Now, in the interim I left the firm that I had 25 been with in October of 1984 and I formed my own firm with ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 During the period of the TMI investigations --
3 now, the question called for the time I put in on the TMI 4
investigations.
I assume that means both TMI-l and 2.
Over 5
a period of approximately two years, which includes a lot of 6
the follow-up work after the reports were issued, I put in 7
roughly 2000 hours0.0231 days <br />0.556 hours <br />0.00331 weeks <br />7.61e-4 months <br />, maybe a little more than that, 2100, 2200 8
hours.
9 Did the question call for the hours that were put 10 in by the other investigators?
I'm not sure.
11 JUDGE KELLEY:
You and each of your
()
12 investigators.
I think a rough approximation will do, if you 13 can do that.
14 MR. STIER:
Winter was approximately 3100 hours0.0359 days <br />0.861 hours <br />0.00513 weeks <br />0.00118 months <br /> 15 and DeVesa was approximately -- I'm sorry, Winter was 16 approximately 3500 hours0.0405 days <br />0.972 hours <br />0.00579 weeks <br />0.00133 months <br /> and DeVesa was approximately 3400 17 hours1.967593e-4 days <br />0.00472 hours <br />2.810847e-5 weeks <br />6.4685e-6 months <br />, during that same period of time.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
I think that's 19 responsive.
20 Next question, specify the educational 21 qualifications you or any of your co-investigators possess
^
22 which qualified you or them to independently evaluate the 23 technical work of MPR on which your investigation depended.
Aij 24 MR. STIER:
I'm not sure what formal educational s_
25 background I have that qualifies me for it.
I'm not an ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
202-347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 804336(M6
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ccefederal 1 engineer, I'm not a scientist.
My education was in -- I was 2
a political science major in college and I have a law 3
degree.
4 I think, however, that the background and 5
experience that I have had professionally has put me in a 6
position _where I can evaluate the work of-MPR or other 7
specialists in various fields.
And let me explain a little-8 bit about what I mean.
9 I was a prosecutor for approximately 17 years, 10 both in the federal and state governments.
Most of the work 11 that I did involved the investigation and prosecution of
()
12 complex matters.
In the course of those investigations, I 13 had to develop the ability to understand fields that were 14 foreign to me by way of formal education or experience.
I 15 believe that if you take enough time and the people you are 16 working with are competent enough and patient enough, you can 17 learn just about anything.
18 I have worked with forensic pathologists, 19 toxicologists, chemists, experts in fingerprint analysis, 20 handwriting; questioned document analysis, statistics, 21 economics; various specialists in businesses such as 22 insurance, banking and other businesses; worked with 23 engineers in investigating activities in the utility A
(_j 24 authorities in New Jersey.
So, I -- in each of those 25 instances, I have had to learn from them what they knew and l
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2 I have taken the time to try to understand it, try to make 3
sense out of it.
If I can't make sense out of it I don't 4
rely on it.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
I think your testimony 6
in the past'two weeks illustrates that ability also.
7 MR. STIER:
Thank you.
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
Number 11:
What comparisons, if 9
any, did you make of the technical evaluations of MPR with 10
-those of, A, Dr. Chung; B,
Faegre & Benson, in undertaking 11 your investigations?
If not, explain why not.
()
12 MR. STIER:
We made a very detailed comparison of 13 our work with the information that we had from Dr. Chung and, i
14 of course, from the Faegre & Benson report.
15 In the case of Faegre & Benson, as has'already 16 been indicated, I spoke with some of the people who were 4
17 involved in preparing that report, so that I could understand 18 in more detail how they went about their analysis.
We'used 19 various of their allegations -- I call them allegations; 20 that's perhaps not the correct word -- but some of their 21 technical findings and their opinions, we used them in the 22 course of conducting interviews; even though in the final 23 analysis we may not have agreed with them, we tried to
()
24 integrate their work into our investigation as much as 25 possible.
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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( )50~0101 2017 ccefederal 1 The results of MPR's comparisons of their analysis 2
with those of Dr. Chung and Faegre & Benson can be found in i
3 our report in Appendices H and I, of volume IV-B; and in 4
section 4 and section 9 of volume IV-A of our report.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Thank you.
6 Based.on your familiarity with Dr. Chung's 7
analysis and Mr. Cole and Dr. Harrison, do you think that 8
this board would be missing something significant if we 9
failed to call Dr. Chung as a separate witness?
10 MR. STIER:
No.
I think that Dr. Chung's analysis I
11 was an early effort to try to develop evidence.
I think that
()
12 from 'nnr examination of the NRC reports and from our own 13 analysis, I think that we are well beyond the point where c
14 Dr. Chung would have information that I would find useful.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
That was the impression I got from 16 Mr. Capra, yes.
17 MR. COLE:
Yes.
18 MR. STIER:
Have you consulted with or attempted l
19 to consult with the investigators responsible for the Faegre 20
& Benson report?
If so, describe those consult..tions.
If 21 not, describe why not.
f 22 MR. STIER:
I think I mentioned we met with l
l 23 several of the individuals involved in the preparation of the
()
24 report who did the technical work.
I did not meet with Mr.
25 Rockwell because his work was based on the work of others and l
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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acefederal 1 we went to the original sources.
We did that early in our 2
investigation to help understand what they had done and why 3
they did it.
You know, we completed those consultations very 4
early in our investigation.
5 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Question 13 contains an 6
assumption that, in reading the question I'm not reflecting 7
agreement or disagreement with.
I'll just read the 8
question:
Explain why you as a personal investigator were 9
satisfied with the technical evaluations of MPR in view that 10 the expressed purpose for the development of those 11 evaluations, i.e.,
as Metropolitan Edison's defense, relative
()
12 to indictments brought by the Department of Justice?
13 MR. STIER:
I examined the question of the 14 selection of an engineering firm to provide support for me, 15 of course, very early in the investigation, and I became 16 aware that MPR had done some work for the firm, the law firm 17 that had represented Met Ed in the criminal proceeding.
And 18 that was a factor that I considered in whether or not to use 19 MPR to provide the technical support that I needed.
20 The reason that I decided to use MPR is because, 21 first of all, MPR did not provide a defense for Met Ed in its 22 criminal case.
MPR was called upon to do independent 23 engineering analysis, limited in scope, for the law firm.
I e
24 think it was primarily to try to reconstruct for Kaye 25 Scholer, which was the law firm representing Met Ed, to try ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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f ]50 01 01 2019 ss ccefederal 1 to reconstruct the actual unidentified leakage that had 2
occurred at TMI-2 during the relevant period of time.
In the 3
course of that, MPR had collected a certain amount of 4
information and had developed techniques that were capable of 5
doing that.
6 In addition, MPR was asked to review and to 7
comment on and to participate in a meeting with the U.S.
8 Attorney, on the technical analysis that had been done.by 9
Dr. Chung.
In the course of doing that, MPR had collected 10 and developed the techniques for analyzing a lot of leak rate 11 test records.
()
12 I looked at MPR's background as an engineering 13 firm and found that they were not in the business of 14 providing services to attorneys, either plaintiffs or 15 defendants in civil or criminal cases, but they were an 16 engineering firm that provided their independent engineering 17 services generally throughout the nuclear and other 18 industries; and, so, I was not concerned that I would be 19 getting somebody who was used to shaping testimony to support 20 a position one way or the other.
21 The background of MPR comes out of the nuclear 22 Navy, where the principals in the company had a very high 23 level of responsibility for reactor design and variety of
, ()
24 other extremely critical portions of the development of the i
25 nuclear program in the Navy.
I felt that their professional ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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acefederal 1 qualifications were beyond question.
People I talked to 2
indicated that their reputation for integrity and 3
independence was beyond question.
4 Since they had not gotten into the analysis of the 5
evidence on behalf of the defense to a point where I felt all 6
the work had been done already, but had gathered enough 7
background information and had developed some insights and 8
techniques that I felt would be useful to me, I felt that 9
they were the most appropriate experts to use.
And I think 10 that my trust and confidence in MPR has been confirmed by the 11 fact that the NRC, in conducting an independent analysis, (q
12 independent of our work, has come to virtually the same
_j 13 conclusions that they did.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
You were free at this time?
You 15 could have chosen a different firm if you wanted to; is that 16 right?
17 MR. STIER:
Oh, absolutely.
There was no pressure 18 or suggestion that I select MPR.
I was told that they had 19 done some work and that they had in their possession some 20 records.
But I selected them.
And, as a matter of fact, I 21 notified GPU Nuclear that I wanted to use MPR, and told them 22 that I, from that point on, I wanted MPR to take direction 23 from me and that they were not to deal independently with GPU
-( )
24 Nuclear on the matters that I was concerned with.
25 Now, MPR does engineeri,ng work for GPU on a ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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I')5O 01 01 2021 ccefederal 1 regular basis, but not in matters involving litigation.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
I indicated when I read the 3'
question, I had a question about its apparent premise.
The 4
question seems to me to assume that you relied on evaluations 5
already done by MPR at the earlier stage of the criminal 6
investigation.
My understanding is that the evaluations you 7
have been relying on here were all done subsequent to that?
8 MR. STIER:
Yes.
There was some preliminary work 9
such as the reconstruction of leakage at TMI-2 that had been 10 done by MPR.
They had reviewed Dr. Chung's report.
- But, 11 when we started this investigation, I sat down with MPR and t( )
12 worked out an approach to analyzing the leak rate test data 13 which was different from anything that they had done up to 14 that point.
And we developed, for example, the cover sheets 15 that you see, with all of the various tabulations of data, 16 all of that was worked out by us to support our 17 investigation.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Number 14, I think has been i
19 answered.
I'll read it:
Did you choose the technical 20 evaluation of MPR of your own volition or were you asked to 21 use them by GPU, its agents or servants?
22 MR. STIER:
We answered that.
l l
23 JUDGE KELLEY:
We did disallowed 15 and 16.
17:
()
24 In determining the culpability of supervisors and plant 1
25 managers how did you weight the evidence that following the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal 1 1978 NRC inspection which discovered the improper leak rate i
2 testing, all improper practices, discarding test results, j
3 failure to record starting time of tests, addition of 4
hydrogen, et cetera, continued and even increased in i
5 frequency?
You have also spoken to that at various points.
6 Is there anything you want to add?
7 MR. STIER:
I don't think so.
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
All right.
18:
In determining the 9
culpability of operators in the manipulation of leak rate 10 tests and reports, how did you weight the admissions of shift 11 supervisors that they directed and took part in the discard
()
12 of leak rate tests which were in excess of technical 13 specifications?
14 MR. STIER:
I think I have already addressed 15 that.
To the extent that shift supervisors were aware or
~
16 testified that they supervised and directed it, we weighted 17 very heavily -- I'm not quite sure how to answer the 18 question, but I think if you read our report on the -- our 19 general findings on management responsibility and our 20 specific findings on individuals who held the position of 21 shift supervisor, I considered it quite significant.
I did 22 not set a significantly higher standard for, or I should say 23 give significantly more weight to involvement in manipulation
()
24 than I did other practices that amounted to disregarding the 25 responsibility to measure leakage by this leak rate test.
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ccefederal 1 me that was the key issue..And manipulation of tests was a 2
significant activity but I didn't-set the -- I didn't 3
differentiate between those kinds of activities and say that 4
one was bad and the other was okay.
I felt that discarding.
5 tests and supervising and directing the discarding of tests 6
was an extremely important issue.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
The next two questions, 19 8
and 20, I'm sure you've answered in part but I'll read them.
9 19:
Did you examine or make any attempt to examine the 10 minutes of, A, the monthly meetings of shift supervisors at 11 TMI; or, B, the meetings of PORC?
If not, why not?
()
12 Explain why the minutes of meetings would or would 13 not have provided more objective evidence concerning 14 individual awareness of responsibility for improper leak rate 15 testing and reporting than the interviews of those under 16 investigation?
17 MR. STIER:
Well, we did review those minutes.
As 18 a matter of fact, we reviewed the minutes of PORC, even 19 subsequent to the accident to see if there was any discussion 20 of leak rate testing that related to activities prior to the 21 accident.
We thought that they might be a significant source 22 of evidence.
The evidence is as I described it to you; that 23 is, the references that we found in the PORC minutes related
()
24 to the LER.
We did not find references in the shift 25 supervisors' meeting minutes, that I can recall.
If we did, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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-2024 acefederal 1 any reference to that would be in the report.
2 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
20:
Did you' investigate or 3
attempt to investigate what instruction was given to 4
operators by the TMI training department relative to the I
5 performance of leak rate testing and reporting?
If not, why 6
not?
If'so, provide your information.
Did you determine 7
whether changes were made in the training subsequent to the 8
October '78 NRC inspection?
9 MR. STIER:
Well, as I have indicated earlier, we 10 did look into training.
We reviewed training materials, 11
' course outlines, we talked to members of the training
()-
12 department.
We talked to operators about training, and I 13 decided fairly early into the investigation, after I had a 14 sense of what had been going on out there, that in my 15 judgment this was not a training issue.
16 The conduct was so clearly-contrary to procedures 17 and technical specifications and anything that could have 18 been reasonably required of these people that the fact that 19 they may or may not have been adequately trained to me was 20 not the issue.
I couldn't imagine anybody being trained, 21 that training would have overcome these kinds of problems.
I 22 I could be wrong about that, obviously.
But I 23 didn't see it as a training problem.
()
24 In addition, it was very difficult for me to l
l 25 reconstruct precisely what kind of training they had.
It was ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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acefederal I clear that there was training in-the technical specification 2
requirements.
It was also clear that there was training 3
surveillance requirements.
But it was also clear that the 4
actual performance of leak rate tests, and any information l
5 about how to do it, mechanically, how you go about it, what 6
it all means and so forth, was all done by way of on-the-job 7
training.
8 I did not include a reference to that in the 9
report because in my judgment it was not an issue directly 10 involved in determining whether people had complied or hadn't 11 complied with the procedures.
().
12 JUDGE KELLEY:
We disallowed proposed Aamodt 13 questions 5 through 28, which brings us to 29:
Justify your 14 conclusion concerning an operator, Illjes, who testified in 15 another forum, GPU versus B&W, that he had knowledge 16 of/ involvement in manipulation of leak rate testing.
17 Did you consider this testimony from the other 18 forum to which reference is made?
19 MR. STIER:
I have some trouble with the premise 20 in the question.
I did not find testimony that Illjes 21 admitted involvement in or knowledge of test manipulation.
22 Quite the contrary.
His testimony very strongly denied it.
23 We rev'iewed the testimony from the B&W trial and, p) 24 if there is such testimony, I didn't see it.
s_
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
There is no citation in the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal 1 question.
Simply it states that there was such testimony.
'2 30:
Justify your conclusion concerning a former 3
shift supervisor (Mehler) who admitted long-standing 4
knowledge of manipulation of leak rate testing without 5
reference to where this admission took place, 6
MR. MC BRIDE:
May I have the question reread, 7
please?
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Justify your conclusion 9
concerning a former shift supervisor, Mehler, who admitted 10 long-standing knowledge of leak rate testing.
There's no 11 citation of where this admission may have occurred.
()
12 MR. MC BRIDE:
I object to the question as 13 contrary to the record.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Let me just ask-whether the witness 15 believes he knows what this may have reference to?
16 MR. STIER:
No.
I don't.
I don't know of any 17 such admission.
l l
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
On that basis and considering the l
l 19 objection we'll pass on.
f I
20 31:
Provide your standards for determining 21 culpability of an individual in leak rate falsification.
I'm 22 quite sure that has been answered.
23 MR. STIER:
I think so.
()
24 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
32.
It's a question similar 25 to the one we have pending on Mr. Rockwell.
I'll read the ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal.1 question for the record:
How much money did GPU, its 2
subsidiaries and agents pay to you, your firm or any other 3
person or entity in compensation for your services relative 4
to the investigation of' leak rate practices at TMI?
5 Mr. Blake, it seems to be similar to the pending question 6
with Mr. Rockwell.
Is your position similar?
7 MR. BLAKE:
Yes, sir.
8 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, in that event what we said in 9
the case of Rockwell -- we'll simply say here, we'll register 10 the objection, leave the question pending.
When Mrs. Aamodt 11 arrives and.wants to make an argument in support of it we can
()
12 listen to it.
13 MR. STIER:
Fine, your Honor.
14 JUDGE KELLEY:
Do we have follow-up questions on 15 the Aamodt questions?
16 We have three follow-up questions.
First:
17 Mr. Stier, who is the one GPU employee you interviewed 18 personally?
Is our understanding of your testimony correct 19 that you did not interview personally any other GPU
(
20 employee?
l l
21 MR. STIER:
When I say " interview" I'm talking l
l 22 about the formal on-the-record interviews.
We did preliminary interviews, of course.
I believe I sat in on 23 l
- (~\\
(_)
24 some of them.
I interviewed Herbein.
I think he was the l
25 only one that I interviewed in a formal deposition.
And the l
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ccefederal-1
.only reason I interviewed Herbein-is because it happened that 2
both Winter.and DeVesa had a conflict at the time and I 3
wanted the. interview done and,' frankly, among the interviews 4
that had to be done, I found that that was the one that I 5
could prepare for most easily,-most. expeditiously.- So that's 6
why I did that interview.
7 JUDGE KELLEY:
Okay.
Follow-ups from the Staff:
8 Since the accident at TMI-2, approximately what percentage of 9
MPR's-billable hours have been spent working on matters for 10 GPU and any of its subsidiaries?
11 MR. COLE:
I'd have to go back and get.that.
I
()
12 know how many hours -- what was involved with this.
13,
JUDGE KELLEY:
Could you supply an answer?
i 14 MR. COLE:
I can' t give you that off the top of my i
15 head.
We work for many utilities, many oil companies.
I'd i
16 just have to go back and dig that out.
(
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
Well, could you supply that answer 18 by letter?
i l
19 MR. COLE:
Yes.
20 JUDGE KELLEY:
Does that have to be an exhibit?
21 (Discussion off the record.)
L 22 JUDGE KELLEY:
Secondly, the question reads:
Are 23 you -- does "you" mean MPR?
Who is "you"?
()
24 MS. WAGNER:
It's addressed to MPR.
25 JUDGE KELLEY:
Is MPR currently doing work for GPU j
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ccefederal 1 or any subsidiary?
If so, please describe the nature and 2
scope of such work.
3 MR. COLE:
We have a master service agreement, 4
like many engineering firms do, with GPU on -- and it covers 5
such things as Oyster Creek or, for example, TMI.
The tasks 6
vary from time to time.
They call us and ask us to look at 7
something.
And they vary anywhere from looking at something 8
on unit -- how to get underneath and look at the TMI-2 bottom 9
of the TMI-2 reactor vessel to looking at the metallurgical 10 questions on -- relative to Oyster Creek.
I would just have 11 to get a list if that's important to you.
()
12 MR. GOLDBERG:~
No.
13 JUDGE KELLEY:
Does Staff feel that kind of detail 14 is warranted?
15 MS. WAGNER:
No.
That was adequate.
16 MR. GOLDBERG:
That's good enough.
17 JUDGE KELLEY:
It won' t be necessary.
If you 18 could give us the letter information we spoke of I th, ink that 19 would be sufficient.
20 Well, that concludes follow-ups.
That would 21 appear to conclude the questioning to Mr. Stier, 22 Mr. Harrison, Mr. Cole.
Am I correct?
23 MR. STIER:
There is one --
I )
24 JUDGE KELLEY:
Oh.
Mr. Stier indicated earlier 25 there were a couple of things among some of the withdrawn ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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\\m/
ccefederal.1 questions he thought it might be useful to bring to our 2
attention.
We'd be happy to hear that.
3 I might just add, Mr. Stier, sort of a wrap-up 4
follow-up question, we talked about a lot of things for a 5
. number of days.
It was the Board's feeling that the 6
questions from the employees were pretty comprehensive and we 7
used them, as everybody knows, as the basis for our own 8
questions as we went along.
But if there's in the course of 9
all of this anything that you think the Board ought to know 10 about that for one reason or another hasn' t come up, please 11 bring that to our attention, too.
()
12 MR. STIER:
Okay.
Let me first address the 13 specific point I was going to make.
Several of the questions 14 from the employees dealt with our evaluation of specific 15 tests.
That is, they asked what did you learn that you used 16 as evidence in reaching your conclusions from the tests about 17 each employee?
And the-question was asked in several 18 different ways.
l 19 (
In preparation for that I went through one of our 20 tables, table 1 in volume 3-A, and I identified each test 21 from which I believe we derived some evidence, and noted what 22 the evidence was, in very general terms, that we used in the i
l 23 report someplace.
()
24 I was also going to do that in preparing to answer 25 some other questions.
I was going to do that, employee by l
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ccefederal 1 employee.
But before I did it I spoke with Mr. McBride and 2
. asked if he thought it was really necessary in light of the 3
testimony that had taken place and he said he didn't think 4
so.
He thought all of the issues that he wanted to be raised 5
had been raised so there was no need to do that.
6 But I wanted to raise the question with you, 7
whether you think you want me to go through these tests and 8
indicate which ones we used and what purpose we used them 9
for.
Because I don't think that all.of that has been covered 10 by the testimony.
11 It turns out that I used about half of the 222 O) 12 tests for some purpose, cited it someplace in the reports as
(_
13 evidence of something.
Some more significant than others, 14 obviously.
And my analysis of our table may be slightly 15 inaccurate.
I did not go back and check every footnote in 16 the report in order to confirm that it had been used for the 17 purpose that I have indicated.
But I think it is basically 18 accurate.
19 Now, our report contains a footnote for each 20 proposition that I believe needs support, documentation.
And 21 there are a lot of footnotes in here.
22 Where we talk about tests, I have a footnote and I i
l 23
-- go to the notes, you'll find a list of each test that
()
24 falls within that category.
And I think from reading the 25 material provided in the report in volume 4, which is MPk's ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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ccefederal 1 analysis and tabulation of the tests, you'll be able to 2
figure out why I used it.
But I didn't want to not answer 3
the general questions about all of those tests that we didn't 4
cover because I thought you might be concerned about wanting 5
me to tell you, in testimony, what we learned from those 6
tests that weren't covered here in prior testimony.
7 MR. MC BRIDE:
May I make a statement, your Honor, 8
because there may be a misimpression created.
I'm sure 9
Mr. Stier didn't intend to create it.
He or one or both of 10 his colleagues approached me after the close of the record 11 yesterday, asking whether we still intended to pursue those n) 12 questions.
Our chronology here was that we posed those i
13 questions before these exchanges of reports between the 14 experts and we thought that the answers to those questions 15 might vary from the Stier report, if I can call it that.
It 16 appeared to me, by virtue of the questions that we posed 17 which were about the tests as to which they had differed, for 18 the most part, that the answers would be the same as are 19 contained in the report.
It was on that basis I felt it was 20 unnecessary to pursue the questions and I so advised Mr.
I 21 Stier after the close of the record last night.
22 So it was my understanding that I was saving him a 23 lot of work because he was simply going to be going through
()
24 his report and highlighting what is already there.
So I 25 didn't want the Board to think that I was somehow trying to l
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acefederal 1 deprive you of information.
It seemed to me it's in the 2
record.
3 MR. STIER:
I hope I didn't imply that.
4 JUDGE KELLEY:
If I can just state my 5
understanding, we talked about a good number of particular 6
tests, but it is my understanding from being reasonably 7
familiar with the reports that if we are focusing, as we must 8
do, on individuals and then we come to Joe Smith or Bill 9
Jones, we will be able to look in both the Stier report and 10 the Staff report and both reports will have something to say 11 about whether that person is, in their view, one who was
()
12 involved in manipulation.
And then, beyond that, it will 13 cite specific tests to support that view.
14 MR. STIER:
Yes.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
If it doesn't do that, we are in 16 tough shape.
But we understand that it does.
17 MR. STIER:
Yes.
18 JUDGE KELLEY:
Having heard a lot of testimony on 19 how those conclusions were reached, what the analysis was, I 20 don't think we need to talk specifically about those.
21 MR. STIER:
Okay.
I just wanted to make sure 22 about that.
23 MR. MC BRIDE:
That was also my feeling, your
()
24 Honor, which is why we didn't pursue those.
Because we felt 25 they had been answered either by virtue of the report itself ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.ccefederal 1 or bp going through these. individual testsc 2
JUDGE KELLEY:. Okay.
- 3 MR.LSTIER
That'siit.,
4 JUDGE KELLEY:
An/ thing. else?
,o 5
MR. STIER:L $ think.in the two weeks that I have 6
been-here, we have covered all of the subject matter.that I i
7 think is -- that I can offer, certainly.
8 JUDGE'KELLEY:
.Okay. -Counsel, Staff,'we.seem to 9
be at the verge of thanking and excusing these gentlemen.
Is 10 there anything else anybody needs to bring up?
11-MR. MC DRIDE:
Your Honor, I just' wanted to say in
()
'12 addition to the Staff witnesses we are going to see again 13 that these gentlemen have been very' courteous with us'and'we 14 appreciate that.
15 JUDGE KELLEY:
Fine.
Well, given the complexity f
16 of all of this we can't rule out the possib'ility we'll have 17 to call you back.
But putting that to one side, I know I can I
i 18 speak for the Board in saying that we have been most impressed with the work that you have all done on this 19 l
20 complicated subject and with your efforts to help us i
21 understand it.
I feel it's one of the best expert testimony i
22 presentations that I have ever been involved.in and we want 23 to thank you very much.
You are excused.
.()
24 MR. STIER:
I deeply appreciate it.
Thank you.
(-
25 (Witnesses excused.)
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
hC-347-3700 Nationwide 0 average 800-336-6646
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'( 350.01 01.
2035 scefederal 1 JUDGE KELLEY:
Off the record.
2 (Discussion off the record.)
3 JUDGE KELLEY:. We will be here next. Wednesday 4
morning at 8:30 for Mr. Havercamp; correct?
5 MR. MC BRIDE:
Correct.
6 JUDGE KELLEY:
We are adjourned.
7 (Whereupon, at 2:25 p.m.,
the hearing was 8
adjourned, to reconvene at 8:30 a.m., on Wednesday, September 9
24, 1986.)
10 11 h
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 i
l 19 20 21 22 i
23 24 25 l
i 1
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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[>\\
CERTlFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER t
~O
,e i
This is to. certify that the attached proceedings befo$e the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR. REGULATORY COMMISSION in the i t-matter of:
p s
'NAME OF PROCEEDING:
INQUIRY,INTO THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 - LEAK, RATE DATA FALSIFICA'(ION
'\\
. 4 T
5.
s j'5
\\
w 1
x r --6 DOCKET NO.:
LRP e
3
\\
PLACE:
BETHESDA, MARYIAND 4
- -)
\\
DATD:
\\
?
7 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1986
\\
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
5.
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(TYPED TOEL BREITNER Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Reporter's Affiliation,
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