ML20211G748
| ML20211G748 | |
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|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 06/12/1984 |
| From: | Parks R AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED |
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| CIV-PEN, NUDOCS 8611040136 | |
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Text
.
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. c's UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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In the matter of:
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF RICHARD D. PARKS Docket No.
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.c-ta Location: Walnut Creek, CA Pages:
1-ino Date:
Tuesday, June 12, 1984 0611040136 861029 O
PDR ADOCK 0000 T
TAYLOE ASSOCIATES coun neronm 1625 i suwi. N.W. Suiu 1004 Washington. D.C. 20006 (202) 293-M50
(
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2r NUCLEAR REGULATOR COMMISSION 3
4 Investigative Interview of:
5 RICHARD D. PARKS 6
7 8
9 1450 Maria Lane Walnut Creek, California Tuesday, June 12, 1984 12 13 The Investigative Interview of RICHARD D. PARKS I
14 commenced at 10 o' clock, a.m.,
the witness having been 15 duly sworn by Ronald A. Meeks, Investigator, U.S. Nuclear s-16 Regulatory Commission.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 REPORTED BY:
24 Clint Miller, Official Reporter 25 WM. E. HENDERSCHEID & ASSOCIATES SAM RANCSCO CERTIPitD SHORTHAND REPORTERS f
DEPOSITION NOTARIES
2
(
g EEEEEEElEEE 2
--- oOoo---
g MR. MEEKS:
For the purposes of the record, this 4
is an interview of Richard D. Parks who is employed by --
5 MR. PARKS:
Self-employee.
6 MR. MEEKS:
Concerning an allegation against 7
Bechtel. Power Corporation, is it?
g MR. PARKS:
Right.
9 MR. MEEKS:
And Bechtel Corporation in general.
10 Why don't you just briefly explain?
gg MR. PARKS:
The complaint centers around the 12 n n-honoring of the agreement that we signed on July 25, gy 1983 and discriminatory statement, continuing harassment 14 pursuant to an affair at Three-Mile Island.
15 MR. MEEKS:
After the settlement was reached?
16 MR. PARKS:
After the settlement was reached.
s.
17 MR. MEEKS:
So it's a complaint that you had made 33 to the department later?
19 MF. 1 d'ES:
Correct.
20 MP. MEEKS:
So it's a resurfacing of discriminator) 21 acts by officials of the Bechtel Corporation, more 22 Specifically the Bechtel Power Corporation?
28 MR. PARKS:
Correct.
34 MR. MEEKS:
In your employment after the settlement 25 was reached?
1
3
(
3 MR. PARKS:
Right.
3 MR. MEEKS: "Also present at this interveiew is
~
3 Donna Folger of San Luis Obispo, who is serving as'an 4
impartial witness for Mr. Parks in this interview.
5 The interview is being conducted by Investigator
~
6 Ronald A. Meeks of the NRC and is being recorded by Mr.
7 Clint Miller.
g Mr. Parks, if you will stand and raise your right hand I'll swear you in.
i 10 Whereupon, gg RICIIARD D.
- PARKS, 12 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as 13 follows:
14 MR. MEEKS:
Q.
To start off, Rich, I recall that 15 we had talked about your concerns that you were discriminatect v
16 against after the settlement had been reached on July 25, 17 1983.
gg Part of the terms of that settlement is that you were 3,
to be reassigned to a Bechtel plant in California, that's 20 in Southern California.
21 Why don't you just give the location of it?
12 A.
The Cool Water Coal Gasification Plant in Daggett, 33 California.
24 0.
And your' initial assignment was?
35 A.
A Pre-commissioning engineer.
i
4 i
y Q.
And, you started work at this plant --
2
.A.
The last part of August.
g Q.,
Of 1983?
4 A.
Right.
5 Q.
And in November, in fact on November'22, 1983 6
I met with you and Mr. Devine and you mentioned concerns 7
that you had that you felt you were being discriminated g
against, and if I recall right at that time you had mentioned the possibility that you were going to be laid 10 Off?
yg A.
Right.
12 Q.
And at that time we discussed provisions of the yy settlement agreement.
We dcn't have one here now with us, 14 but one of the provisions of the agreement that we discussed 15 stated that any personnel action concerning you would be 16 in accordance with standard Bechtel personnel policy.
6 17 A.
Right.
13 Q.
And you have since immediately before and after 39 your layoff contacted me by telephone and indicated that 20 you had been notified that you were going to be laid off 21 and subsequently were laid off, and you felt it was 22 discriminatory.
28 In fact, just a renewed discriminatory act and it wasn't 24 in accordance with sound and reasonable personnel policies 25 and for,this reason you wanted to present,this, concern for l
5 i
the genewed, discriminatory act to the NRC.
2 Now, at that time you mentioned very bziefly that you 3
didn't intend to refile with the Department.of Labor as you 4
had originally done back in March of 1983 concerning the 5
riginal discriminatory acts that subsequently led to the 6
settlement in July.
- )'
y To start off, why don't you briefly explain why you l
g didn't want to refile with Labor and then we'll get into i
exactly what the substance is here?
A.
The reason I did not want to refile a complaint 10 gg with the Department of Labor because it was too frustrating 12 of a process.
gg The whole deal with the Department of Labor has a 14 built-in appellate process that can take up to five years 15 to achieve resolution, and choosing the lesser of two evils 16 I chose to go with NRC Office of Investigations investigation i
gy because I felt that they followed the same standard format-gg and approach as the Department of Labor, they could rule gg on the facts as would the Department of Labor, and had just 20 about as much of a hammer over Bechtel as the Department of 21 Labor did, which is none.
22 So I wanted the NRC investigation going because I 28 wanted a decision as to whether it was a proper and a I
24 quicker process.
25 Q..
You understand though that NRC has,no provision
6 y
3 for personal remuneration or provisions to --
2 A.
I do understand that.
3 O.
Okay.
So you are concerned with the technical 4
aspects being made known to the Nuclear Regulatory 5
Commission, the discriminatory acts?
6 A.
I'm more concerned with the Nuclear Regulatory 7
Commission being aware that one of the major architectural' s
engineering firms predominant throughout the industry has y
serious and questionable doubts about their management 10 integrity.
31 0
Concerning that, why don't you start where you 12 think we should start?
g3 We have mentioned the agreement and the fact that you 14 went to work and you felt you were discriminated against 15 in your release from employment at the Cool Water Coal 16 Gasification plant, but you stated also there were other s.
17 discriminatory acts that were prevalent that preceded that 33 dismissal.
19 So, why don't you start where you think it's proper?
20 A.
On Jply 25th last year, 1983, Bechtel Power and 23 myself entered into an agreement to settle my Department 22 of Labor case against them.
23 As part of that settlement I was to be transferred to 34 the Cool Water Coal Gasification plant.
It was also part 25 of the agreement that I would be treated as.if nothing had
7
!(
'ever happened.
g 2
Q.
That<was one of the stated provisions?
g A.
Yes.
8
, i :.;
4 Q.
Couched in terms that it was reasonably under-5 stood, in other words, forget and forgive?
6 A.
Live and let live.
7 I was also to be maintained as a senior startup g
engineer assigned similar responsibilities to what I had.
That part of it also came along with a letter that was i
sent by Bechtel Power Corporation's attorneys as a method 10 yy of enticement to get me to sign the letter of agreement.
{
12 Q.
That letter was sent to who?
A.
Tom Devine, my attorney.
yy 14 0.
In other words, it was an accompanying letter to 15 the agreement, the proposed agreement?
1 14 A.
Yes, it was in the negotiations.
v 37 Q.
And that letter made mention of what you just 18 mentioned?
39 A.
Right, that I would be with job responsibilities 20 similar to what I was doing, et cetera, et cetera.
21 Q.
Would it be possible to get a copy of that letter?
l 12 A.
'I do not have a copy with me, but I do have copies 1
23 of all the letters and I'll be more than happy to get it 24 for you as soon as I go to San Dimas.
25
.Either that or I'll have Tom send you a copy from D.C.,
8 q
i they have copies also.
2 Anyway', to make'a long story short, after negotiating
~
3 with them and finally settling with them, I was sent to 4
the Cool Water Coal Gasification plant in Daggett, 5
California, of which Bechtel was part owner.
6 I think they invested like 30 million dollars in the 7
project.
g Upon arriving in California I was contacted by Andy Wheeler who was a chief startup engineer of the Power 10 Division that I had worked for, and he informed me that gg there was a news article that had been released in the area 12 and that it caused some problems with me coming to the plant, and that I was to meet with the senior management yy 14 fficial on site, Dave Nerell.
15 O.
He was the Bechtel' project manager on site?
14 A.
Right, he was the number one man on the plant.
17 So in the next couple of days prior to me starting gg work, I met with my future boss, Larry Wood, who was the 3,
chief precommissioning engineer for the project, and with 20 Dave Nerell.
21 I explained to them that I had signed that agreement 22 with good faith and I wanted the whole issue to be dropped, jg and just to carry on from there.
l l
24 I was also reassured that they would not participate i
25 in a setup.
9 g
Anyway, I'll let the record speak for itself on that.
Q.
When you talk about a setup, you mean they just 2
g wouldn't give lip service and then go about structuring a 4
method to discriminate against you in anyivay., shape or f rm; that's what you mean by setup?
5 A.
Correct.
6 9
Q.
And this was an oral agreement that you had with them?
8 A.
Yes.
Q.
This is Mr. Wood and Mr. Nerell?
y, A.
Right.
yy Q.
And when you brought this up to them, what was 12 their reaction to that?
g A.
Well, they both assured me that they would not g4 15 participate in setting me up to get rid of me or to discredit me because of the Three-Mile affair.
6 16 g7 Q.
What was your impression to their r'esponse, how' gg did you feel when you discussed this with them?
A.
I felt kind of uncomfortable mainly because there gg had been an article published in the local paper about me 20 l
21 coming out to the plant.
1 I was counseled that the client was uncomfortable with 22 28 me coming to the plant and I was informed shortly after I 14 started work by some friends of mine that.they had, they 25 being th,e Bechtel management and the Southern Cal Edison i
j
i 10 g
g management, had called people together and had group 2
sessions and meetings warning them about me coming and 3
counseled the workers to not talk to me about TMI or 4
anything, that typc of thing.
5 O.
Do you consider this a positive aspect of it?
~
g A.
No, I do not.
Part of the intent of the agrement 7
was carefully wording what would be released to the news 8
media.
9 Part of it was that they would not be prejudging me 10 at the next job site I went to, any of the long-term gg Bechtel lifers.-
l 12 0.-
And the way not to prejudge you would be to more gg or less enter very quietly and nobody would even know 14 anything about your background.
)
15 This conversation with Mr. Wood and Nerell, was that s.
16 precipitated by the newspaper release?
17 A.
Yes.
33 Q.
And Mr. Wheeler's phone call?
19 A.
Yes.
20 0.
That was the result of the two of them, cause and l
21 effect?
j 22 A.
Right.
So in both instances I was counseled to 28 not talk about the job site and not talk about TMI on the 24 job site.
3vt j
25 0..
So they are telling you not to talk about 4
I
11
.4
- (
g
.anything about TMI.
2 And how were you aware that personnel on site there 3
were notified not to talk to you about anything that 4
happened?
5 A.
Shortly after I started work I was informed by 6
one of the shift forem<n, one of the Southern California 7
Edison shift foremen in a joking fa'shion, so to speak.
8 We were talking about TMI, he brought the subject up, and when we went to go our own separate ways he cautioned 10 me not to say anything that he had talked to me about it, gg because they had been warned not to.
S when I pressed the issue with.him he advised me 12 g3 that people had been called together by groups, the shift 14 foremen all in one group and the operators and so on, the 15 Bechtel supervisors, that type of thing, and counseled i
gg that I was coming, what the whole deal was with TMI, not 17 to talk to me about it and that type of thing.
gg It was a taboo subject on the job site, everybody was
]
gg made aware of it.
20 Q.
Were there any others subsequent to that, do you 21 want to reveal the name of this foreman?
I Not of'this particular foreman, I won't, no.
22 A.
28 Q.
Were there other individuals that more or less 24 told the same substance?
25 A.-
Right.
It was like a common joke there in the i
]
A
12 g
office of the precommissioning engineers that there had g
2 been discussions held with them warning them about my coming, et cetera, et cetera.
g 4
Our secretary, Leneah Boian, she advised me of the a
same thing.
A couple of the craft supervisors, millwrights, 5
pipefitters, that type, had told me that they had been 6
y counseled about me coming and warned about me coming.
0 Without getting into specifics, several people 8
indicated to you this fact?
A.
Right.
10 O.
yy In your conversation with Mr. Nercll and Mr. Wood, was there any mention of the newspaper article and how it 12 originated, and what its purpose was?
y, g4 There was mention of the newspaper article.
In A.
fact, they both gave me copies of the newspaper article.
y, O.
Do you have a copy of that for us?
gg
'A.
Yes.
Sure, it was an AP news article in the San' gy gg Bernardino paper.
They both disavowed having any knowledge g,
of how it got in the paper.
20 Of course, I reassured them that it was nobody in my 21 camp that released ~it because it all would have to have 22 been cleared by me, and I know for a fact that GAP did not 28 release any news releases about our settling because I
$4 forbid them to do it.
~'
25 O..
When you say " GAP" you're talkini;^about the i
l
l l
13
]
y project?
2 A.
Right.
That was the last thing I wanted was to 3
have it made in the papers where I was going.
4 0.
Did you ask them why such an ardicle appeared?
l 5
What I'm getting at, was there any discussion on the 6
purpose of the article and if they disavowed any knowledge 7
of it, was there any other discussion?
g A.
I asked them if Bechtel had released the news article and they said they didn't know, they had nothing it was 'ust in the newspaper.
i 10 to do with it, j
y; So I don't'know who released the news article.
12 Anyway, as near as I could understand from my 33 discussion with Larry Wood there was no real plans for what i
i 14 would be done with me when I got to the job site.
l 15 However, he decided that I would establish the 16 maintenance program for the plant, so that was my immediate t-l 17 job assignment starting in September, the first part of l
13 September.
19 0.
Establish the maintenance program, startup 20 maintenance?
21 A.
Right, and to carry on over after the equipment 22 was turne.d over to plant operations to establish a good 23 working maintenance program for the whole project to cover 14 not only during the startup testing phase, but also during 25 the operational phas'e.
l
14
)
1 I worked on that up until the_ time I came to D.C. in 2
November.
November 22nd is'what you said,'right?
3 O.'
'Yes.'
4 A.
Right about that time was when I'had the 5
maintenance project taken away from me.
On'or'about that 6
time, November 22nd.
7 As I discussed with you at that meeting in D.C.,
there a
were several reasons that led me to believe that they were 9
not as honest about honoring the agreement as they should 10 have been.
yy I based a lot of that on conversations that I had with 12 either Ron Divine.who was the lead mechanical pre-33 commissioning engineer and Walt Davis, who was the lead 14 processing precommissiching engineer.
15 Q.
How do they fall into the chain of command?
16 A.
My immediate supervisor and Larry Wood was their s.
17 immediate supervisor.
13 Q.
Their irlanediate supervisor?
19 A.
Right.
20 Q.
Okay.
And Larry Wood reported to Mr. Nerell?
23 A.
Yes.
There were several comments made to me at 12 various times in the' office that if I'd ever lose the il phone number of my lawyer I'd lose my job in five minutes, 24 that type 6f thing.
25 Q..
'Co'mments by who?
~
'l l
4 i
l
15 g
)
A.
Ron Divine and Walt Davis.
2 Q.
What was the context of making -- what 3
precipitated such a comment?
- r
- 4 g
A.
Conversation.
This was right along about the 5
time where you and I were spending a lot of time on the h
P one,trying to make the negotiations.
6 7
Remember all the problems we had with getting me to 3
go to D.,C.,
Bechtel wanted me to.
9 Q.
This was an independent matter, okay.
10 So it was in that context or that framework you were 33 requested to assist NRC engineers on a technical aspect,
~
12 a non-related matter, and they were concerned with the 33 basis for it, whether it reflected back on Bechtel.
14 I remember a phone call.
I can't remember the 15 individual, but having a phone call.
16 A.
You spoke to Larry Wood that day.
When this i j-first came up, when you first contacted me and told me is ' that you would like for me to make arrangements to come out 19 there because we had the mystery man affidavit we had to 20 finalize, and you wanted me to speak with somebody at NRR.
21 I advised Larry Wood of that and I asked him how I 12 would. handle it, and he said you'd have to take vacation.
23 I said okay, fine, I put in a vacation request.
24 Very shortly thereafter our chief startup engineer out 45 of Houston came up, and I was on another unrelated matter.
e
16
- (
y I'm not sure what I came up for but I ended up speaking 2
to him for a couple of' hours.
F 3
They wanted to know why I was going back to D.C., what 4
I thought all of this stuff over, and I told him that this 5
dealt with one of four affidavits, one of four statements 6
that I had been working with you on, and that the last 7
one was not completed yet, it was an outgrowth of that.
3 And that by my letter of agreement with Bechtel I was y
allowed to participate in the ongoing investigation with go the government as to what happened at TMI.
yy He was visibly concerned about me going back, and from 12 that point on it took a lot of finagling to get me allowed I
33 to go back.
14 In fact, if it hadn't been for your interceding on my 15 behalf and speaking with Larry Wood, I'm not so sure it 16 would ever have been resolved.
They wanted'me to take 17 vacation and'I told them no, I'didn't see where I had to is use my vacation.
19 Q.
ou mentioned earlier that you had indicated 20 that you were going to take vacation.
21 A.
Right, that's after I talked with you and found 22 out it should have been considered the same as jury duty.
23 I reread my letter of agreement and talked to my 14 lawyer, and he said yes, you should not have to take 25 vacation.
.A 1
17
^
(
y Q.
S,o you requested that it be on Bechtel time?
2
.A.
yh-huh.
3 Q.
And this whole sphere of interaction on this J
4 matter, you talked to this individual from Houston, what was his name?
5 A.
I don't remember what his name was to be perfectly 6
honest.
He was the.hief startup engineer of the Houston y
Power Division.
g I don't remember his name, I only met him once.
I 9
may have it in.those notes there.
10 Q.
What Mr. Parks is referring to are my handwritten yy n tes of that November 22nd.
12 33 I was just looking through here to see, I recall something about an individual from Houston.
Just let me 14 15 look through here and see if we can -- Jim Large from 16 Houston, he was head of startup at Houston, head of Bechtel s-j7 startup?
yg A.
Right.
19 Q.
So this comment was made by Mr. Divine and who 20 elpe?
A.
Walt Davis.,
21 22 Q.
They both made separate comments?
A.
At separate times, yes.
23 24 Q.
But in the same time frame of your negotiating 25 to come,back.here, their concern was that you were coming
18
'back here to --~in'other words --
q y
2
'Well, I'm n t'sure what their concerns were, why A.
3 they were even involved because they weren't.
That was 4
an issue that was' handled by Larry Wood.
The thing 'f it is the only reason I c6uld see why o
5 6
they would have been upset about it was that they were y
both very vocal on people riding the Bechtel brand.
O.
A company man'in other words?
g A.
Right, very strong company men and I know they 9
g definitely resented anybody that put the company in a bad light and, let's face it, I put the company in a bad light.
yy 0.
When this commen't was made, was it jokingly?
12 y3 What was your impression of the gist of it -- not the gist 14 f the comment, but the atmosphere and the intent that was made at that time.
15 16 In other words, was it joking back and forth, how did 37 you receive that comment?
18 A.
I didn't receive it in a joking manner.
In fact, y9 mainly because it wasn't just an isolated case from thereon 20 ut.
21 If it had been just strictly from Walt Davis I would 22 Proba~bly have jilst passed it off as a joking comment.
23 0.
Why wa5 that?
24 A.
Walt has'a perso'nality like me, he'can be a wiseass 25 when he,wants to be.
But Ron Divine was not the type to
19
(
y
' joke, he was always deadpan serious, sweat pumps running 2
full speed allathe time.
3 He just didn't joke like that.
4 0
.Ron Divine, your supervisor on site there, which 5
is different than Mr. Tom Devine, your legal counselor?
6 A.
Right.
Ron Divine, the supervisor's name is 7
D-i-v-i-n-e, where'as the lawyer's,name is D-e-v-i-n-e.
g So anyway, I did not take it as a joking comment, especially combined with the fact that as soon as I started 10 getting pats on the back for the maintenance program that yy I established, it was taken away from me with absolutely n
counseling as to why.
12 y3 0.
Just a second, I'm. struggling with this comment 14 that was made and how you interpreted it.
y$
What was your reaction to that comment, did you reply 16 to it at all?
17 A.
Yes.
I told them my lawyer's number was 18 permanently etched on my inner eyelid so I could not lose 19 it.
20 0.
And what was their response to that response, or 21 did they just drop it?
22 A.
It was more or less dropped.
There was a schism, 23 so to speak, between the people on the job site that I had 24 daily interactions with.
25 A 1ot of other supervisors like the INC lead or the
20
(
y electrical lead,,that type, through my interactions with 2
them most of them thought what I had done was correct and 3
proper.from TMI.
4 Some of them didn't, I mean they had a real personal 5
problem with me trying to stick it to the company, so to 6
speak.
9 So it was a topic of conversation a lot.
In fact, it g
was probably the most popular topic of conversation on the 9
job site as to what would happen to me as to whether or not
~
10 Bechtel was afraid of me, and would not take any further yy action against me or going as far as taking bets as to how 12 1 ng it would take them! to get rid of me, that type of thing.
yy 14 And I tried to remain impartial and neutral on the 15 whole subject, I figured if I stirred up the pot it.would 16 give them added grounds for taking action against me.
yy O.
You said this type of comment was made on two 18 separate occasions, one by Mr. Divine and one by Mr. Walt Davis.
y, 20 Were both of them present when they made the comment?
21 A.
Were both of them.present?
Yes.
Other people 22 Present were Dick.Trifonoff and Jim Crabtree.
23 Q.
And in your opinion they overheard this 34 conversation in which that comment was made?
25 A.
Yes.
i c,,
21
)
Q.
And your reply?
.g y
A.
And my reply, right.
2 3
Q.
So Mr. Davis, Mr. Divine.,and th'ese other 4
individuals were present at both times thi's-comment was m de?
~
5 A.
Uli-huh.
6 7
Q.
One time Mr. Divine made'the comment and the other time Mr. Davis made the comment?
A.
Yes.
9 Q.
And your replycwas the same in both instances?
10 A.
The same type of reply, right.
Something to the yy effeet that I would never lose that number.
Q.
I still have a question on that.
Just for my y,
y4 information, what was the backdrop of those conversations, was it at lunch or a meeting?
15 A.
At lunch.
16 Q.
Both of these?
y7 A.
Right.
It's the only time I would ever take time yg 19 out to make phone calls, the rest of the time we were out in the field.
20 21 Q.
S do I understand that the comments could have 22 been precipitated by phone calls you were making?
A*
Y*8*
23 24 Q.
And they were aware that the phone calls were to Mr. Devine or me?
25 i
1 22 l
y A.
Right.
2 Q.
Okay..So that kind of sets the scene.
3 Now I understand a little better.
Now, you had 4
mentioned that you had been praised or received positive 5
comments about the work you were doing on the maintenance 6
program?
7 A.
Yes.
g Q.
Who were those positive comments from and was 9
there anything documented along those lines?
A.
I'll answer the second question first.
10 yy It's documented in the performance appraisal that I received shortly before I was laid off and the fact that I 12 13 was given credit for establishing a maintenance program y4 that was considered very good by the client.
15 Q.
S y u were laid off on February 3rd and there 16 was a performance evaluation completed right before that?
17 A.
I believe it was in December sometime, yes.
gg December or early January.
y9 Q.
In other words, what was the personnel policy 20 that this performance evaluation was based on?
21 A.
There wasn't one.
22 Q.
In other words, you received a performance 23 evaluation, you went to work in September, October, November?
24 A.
The Bechtel procedures as I understood them, the 25 Bechtel. policy.for a new hire, you get a performance
23 t
i
, appraisal after three months and again on your on'e-year 2
anniversary 'and every year thereafter.
3 Q.
What about somebody transferring in from another 4
site?
5 A.
If he had not had a performance appraisal within 6
I believe the last three mnths of his transfer, then he 7
would merit a new perform
,e appraisal.
3 However, I had had one immediately prior to the 9
fiasco at TMI.
10 Q.
I remember talking about that and your performance yy evaluation was around the end of the year 1982, wasn't it?
A.
No, February or March of 1983.
12 13 Q.
Okay, so assuming it were March,~ April, May, June, 14 July, August, September, do I understand right then that 15 theoretically you were being given a three-month evaluation 16 because one hadn't been done?
17 A.
I think it was three or four
- months, I believe 13 there is a policy that stipulates that if you have not had 39 a performance evaluation within so many months of you 20 being transferred, when you get to the new job site your 21 new supervisor has the authority to give you a new 12 performance evaluation.
23 O.
After three or six months or whatever the time 14 Period specifies?
A. '.
I did question the guy that was acting _as our 15
j 24 1
' personnel manager.on the job site, he was wearing two hats 4
y 2
because it was a small job site and I'm trying to remember what his name was.
3 ci.
I don't remember.
4 Q.
Anyway, he was the personnel manager-for Bechtel 5
n site there at that time?-
6 A.
Right.
7 Q.
The fall and winter of 1983?
8 A.
Right.
I questioned him as to whether or not I 9
needed a performance evaluation and he said no.
That it 10 was not necessary for me to have one.
yy Q.
Let's just stop here, let me look through my 12 notes of November 22nd and see.if there's anything on this y3 in there.
g4 I re all the Houston, some mention of an official from 15 16 Houston, from Bechtel but -- nothing about a personnel y7 manager.
yg Bechtel supervision,.and this is just kind of a non-19 related question, Bechtel supervision for that plant down 20 there in Daggett was out of Houston?
A.
Yes.
We were out of Houston temporarily assigned 21 22 to the Los Angeles office if that makes sense.
23 Q.
All right, fine.
Mr. Nerell reported, liaisoned 24 and coordinated with the Los Angeles office but was 15 responsible to Mr-Large?
t
25
_(
1 A.
No.
2 Q.
But an official in Houston?
3 A.
Right.
Large was the responsible manager for 4
the startup people only.
5 Nerell was construction so he reported to'a different 6
person.
7 Q.
Okay.
I've got notes here to have a three-month 3
evaluation on November 18th, that was postponed until return 9
I imagine that was return from Washington, Henderson 10 stated --
yy A.
John Henderson.
12 Q.
John Henderson stated that normally an employee 13 in your position, in your situation would not receive a 14 three-month evaluation?
15 A.
Right.
16 Q.
Okay.
And that's in fact what he did tell you?
e 17 A.
Yes.
13 Q.
Why did you bring it up with him,-what was the 19 reason for that?
20 A.
He was our acting personnel manager and I could 21 not understand why I would be getting a new employee 12 evaluation anyway.
l 23 Q.
Was it titled new employee evaluation?
24 A.
No, that was not the title to it, that was my 25 perception of it.
26 y
Q.
I understand what you're saying.
2 In other words, a three-month evaluation which you 3
were receiving and you didn't, in other words, you wanted 4
to know why?
5 A.
Right.
6 0.
In your mind you should be getting one say a year 7
from the last evaluation?
g A.
Right, which would have been like February or 9
March of 1984.
10 And I had several dealings with John anyway, and I gj happened to just bring it up one day when I was talking to 12 him because the reaso.. I was dealing'with him was because 13 f my employee status notice, and my DRR which is two 14 different Bechtel procedures for transferring people.
15 0.
What's that?
16 A.
I don't remember.
Anyway, they had transferred 17 me out there on a single status and listed my duration 33 out there as one year.
So I was dealing with John on that 19 as to what I was entitled to under single status, was that 20 in fact to be one year, that type of thing.
21 or would I just be there for six months or what have 12 you.
He was our personnel manager so he was the guy I was 23 dealing with on those questions, so I brought this up during 24 that time frame.
25 In, fact, when I was informed that I would be getting
27
^
g y
.an evaluation I brought it up with.him to check about what the policy was, and that's how I found out about it.
2 3
It made it very apparent in my mind because Jim 4
Crabtree and Dick Trifonoff had both been hired by the 5
mpany, Dick was hired in July and Jim was hired officially 6
in August or September, and they had just come on the job site.
7 g
Dick Trifonoff just a couple of weeks before I got there and Jim Crabtree a couple of weeks after I got there, and they were getting their three-month evaluations about 10 the same time I was getting one.
yy 12 that's why the question arose in my mind to begin S
with, why was I in with them?
13 0.
Were new employees getting evaluations at the 14 same time?
15 A.
Anyway, I received the evaluation, it was the 16 y7 lowest evaluation I have ever had for any company.
yg Although, it was apparently in their opinion a good 19 evaluation, it went straight down the board " meets the requirements" and that's it.
20 21 I had never had such a low evaluation.
The last one 22 I had was exceptional in all areas.
Q.
But you stated that it did recognize your work 23 24 and your achievement accomplished on establishing the 25 maintenance program?
c e y
28 1
!(
1 A.
Right.
2 Q.
Comments on that?
3 A.
Well, it was in the comment section that I had 4
established a maintenance program that the client thought 5
was very good.
6 Q.
The client being?
7 A.
Southern California Edison.
)
3 Q.
Was that expounded to you at all?
9 A.
Yes.
to Q.
Or did they say, in other words, how that i
j 11 information or the client's opinion came to them?
)
12 A.
That opinion came to them when Ron Divine and I 13 were standing in the plant manager's office.
]
14 Q.
In Mr. Nerell's office?
l 15 A.
No, he was the project manager.
s..
16 Q.
The plant manager?
J 17
'A.
The plant manager was Tim somebody, I forget his 18 last name.
Tim was a Southern California Edison plant 19 manager.
He had given me a pat on the back in front of 20 Ron Divine and complimented me to Ron Divine and Larry Wood 21 a couple of times, as had a couple of other more senior 22 Southern California Edison or Texaco people, such as Ken 23 McKenzie and Bob Wade.
I 24 Bob was the responsible maintenance engineer for i
25 Southern California Edison, and Bob and I had a very good 1
29
" working relationship and he liked the experience that I g
y brobght to the maintenance program.
2 Q.
He was for --
3 A.
Southern California Edison, yes.
In fact, when 4
Bob found out that I was to be laid off he was'in a little 5
bit of a quandary and approached the Bechtel people there 6
7 on the site to keep me and assign me strictly to maintenance because he felt I was too valuable to be lost.
g Q.
Who did he tell this to?
9
^*
""Y 10 Q.
And how do you know this?
yy
.A.
Bob told me.
He also approached Jed Sayles, who 12 was the number two man under Dave Nerell for the project y3 about keeping me on in the maintenance area, that type of 14 thing.
15 Q.
And this was in --
16 A.
The January, February time frame, right.
y7 Q.
You mentioned there was a Texaco official?
yg A.
Yes, Ken McKenzie.
19 Q.
And he mentioned this to you or to somebody else?
20 A.
He had mentioned it to me also that he had put 21 up a stink about me being laid off because there was just 22 too much work left to be done for me to be laid off.
23 Q.
Did he say who he communicated this information 24 25 to or this objection to?
30
(
y A.
He communicated it to either Sayles or Nerell 2
and the plant manager, the SCE plant manager.
g O.
Okay.
You mentioned the name of Tim who was the 4
Project manager?
A.
The plant manager.
5 6
0.
Let's see if we have that in my notes.
Let me 7
look through them here because I remember something -- Tim Adams?
g 9
A.
Right.
10 0
Okay, and it's on this same subject that we were yy talking about.
12 It states here that the plant manager, Tim Adams of 13 S uthern Cal Edison, complimented Parks on maintaining 14 schedules, processing work orders and forecasting, et cetera.
15 16 And this was in conjunction with reassignment?
37 A.
The reassignment from the maintenance program 33 took place right about the same time I went back to D.C.
99 0.
And about the same time that they were talking 20 about, had mentioned evaluation?
A.
Right.
21 22 0
Which was the end of November, December 1983?
A.
Right.
It was either right before or right after 23 24 I went to D.C.,
right around Thanksgiving that Larry Wood 25 just walked up to me and told me that I no longer had
31
~
j y
anything to do with the maintenance program, that he had turned it over to somebody else, a guy by the name of Jim 2
Hendricks.
g Q.
Let's get back to the evaluation -- wait a minute, 4
nt the evaluation, the fact that you were praised for 5
6 doing your work and we got the name of the individuals, and;that fact was mentioned in your evaluation.
7 A.
ves.
9 Q.
Okay.
That the owner or whatever term they used had been satisfied with your work?
10 A.
Yes.
yy O.
And I guess words to the effect that it was g
excellent work or commendable work, or something, and you y,
can't get me a copy of your personnel evaluation?
y4 A.
Yes.
Not only that, I'll give you a sunshine 15 16 statement giving you access to my personnel file within 97 Bechtel Power Corporation, I'll sign it right now or I'll-write it before I leave.
18 0.
Fine.
I'd appreciate that.
We do have a waiver 19 20 tco that we can have you sign, a NRC waiver.
I guess one c
is just as valid as the other.
21 A.
Probably.
Anyway though, along that line the 22 23 purported reason for me being taken off of the maintenance 24 program was that they needed me to do more work on the 25 testing side of the plant, getti~ng the equipment turned
32 y
-tver, et cetera, et. cetera.
Q.
Before you get into that, was there anything th'at 2
precipitated the transfer?
3 J _ ',
A.
Not to my knowledge.
4 Q.
What I'm saying, was there a meeting where it 5
6 came down that this was going to be a shift or additional 7
responsibility in this area?
In other words, so you as well as'other personnel g
became aware?
9 A.
There was a meeting where the project decided 10 that they wanted the schedule moved up a month.
yy
~
Q.
The schedule for what?
g A.
The initial operation on the plant, the initial y3 BTU's.
g Q.
S. testing would begin?
15 A.
Testing was already going on, we were doing the 16 initial system testing already.
.y7 Q.
Were you aware of.that when you were informed yg 39 that your assignment was going to be changed?
A.
The whole job site was aware we had moved the 20 schedule ahead by a month.
21 O.
It was common knowledge?
g A.
Right, without any additional people we were to 23 accomplish this.
So that was the purported. reason that I 24 25 was removed from being responsible for the maintenance
33
-(
' programs and it was given to another person such that I 2
could perform.more systems testing.
3, However, all the work that I was subsequently given 4
was flunky work.
5 Q.
What do you mean by " flunky work," that's a very g
subjective term.
7 A.
To me flunky work is where you have various a
major systems throughout the plant and then you have minor 9
systems.
10 An example of a minor system might be a chemical 13 injection pump or skids, that type of thing.
That was the 12 type of work they gave me, taking care of minor systems 33 such as -- to give you a prime example, they made me 14 responsible for the oxygen system that had already been 15 tested.
16 They made me responsible for the chlorine injection c
17 system which had already been tested, and only minor things 13 left to be done on.it.
19 The chemical injection system which would take the 20 average nine-year old about 15 minutes to test, that type 21 of thing.
12 Q.
Okay, so in your opinion how would you couch 25 that reassignment of responsibility other than flunky?
$4 In other words, do you think there wap something 25 inherently wrong in this?
l
3'4
(
y A.
Yes, I'do.
I think that I spent a couple of 2
m nths preparing the maintenance program and exactly how 3
everything was to be:done, the scheduled preventive 4
maintenance system, I was in the processJeof ordering spare 5
parts.
6 We had a several million dollar budget for spare parts y
and only a couple of hundred thousand dollars had been 8
spent, and I was interfacing quite effectively with the plant operations staff and their maintenance engineer trying to figure out what s'are parts were necessary for p
10 yy seven years of operation in the plant, that type of thing.
And I felt that by the feedback that I received from 12 the client that the program was not only effective, but 13 y4 they were quite happy with my work, and I think that bothered Bechtel.
15 I really do.
I cannot justify in my mind a person 16 y7 with my expertise and experience being removed from a yg program such as the maintenance program and be assigned 19 projects that your typical junior, extremely junior-type 20 personnel would be doing.
21 The type of projects I ended up.with after the 22 maintenance program was just stricly flunky work.
0.
There's two points here I'd like to develop.
23 24 Y u say the fact that you had success, your personnel 25 evaluation said that you met the requirements of the job
35 g
g
'and that means you were performing at least satisfactorily, 2
at least accomplishing what was assigned to you in a 3
reasonable time frame, and that other individuals, the 4
owner had commented positively on your work..:
5 And, you said that this bothered Bechtel.
6 A.
Yes.
7 Q.
Could you expound on that a little bit more?
A.
Well, the original agreement that we signed was --
g 9
Q.
That was the second item that I wanted to explore and you put them together.
10 A.
The original agreement wo signed agreed that I yy 12 w uld be maintained into a position relatively equitable 13 with similar responsibilities to the positions that I had held at'Three-Mile Island.
14 Q.
Let's take care of the second one real quick 7 15 S, you feel those reassignments of responsibility 16 s.
g7 were not in keeping with the agreement?
gg A.
That's true.
I feel that they took me from a 19 Position where my expertise _was best utilized and put me 20 in a junior position, menial-type functions, and that was 21 reconfirmed in my mind when Bechtel released a news 22 release in the State'of Missouri saying that after I had 23 signed the agreement.with Bechtel in July of 1983, that I 24 was reassigned to the Cool Water Coal Gasification project 25 as a junior engineer.
(
1 l
36
(
i I'd'Ina happy to give you a copy of that.
2 0.
Okay.
Now, let's explore that before we get bacx 3
to this bothered Bechtel, the fact that you'were doing 4
your' job as you should?
5 A.
That's a hindsight 20-20 statement.
6 0.
It's your opinion?
7 A.
It's my opinion.
8 0.
So what bothered them, I want to know in your 9
opinion why they.would be bothered by you doing your job 10 s you should.
A.
It might make it harder for them to lay me off yy 12 and justify it to the client.
yy Bechtel had the maintenance contract for that plant.
14 0.
S 1 oking ahead in~a hypothetical sense --
A.
The client was happy and Bechtel had the 15 16 maintenance contract, and it might be harder to lay Rich 17 Parks off since he was the one taking care of the maintenance.
is 0.
Now, on this press release in Missouri, Bechtel 19 made a press release in Missouri?
20 A.
Yes.
21 0.
Was that after the July settlement agreement?
22 A.
That was two weeks ago.
23 0.
Just two weeks ago?
24 A.
Uh-huh.
25 0.
Why did they make a press release there?
37 i
g y
A.
Because I was there talking with Calloway County Plant workers.
2 3
Q.
You were talking at a Bechtel project?
4 A.
Yes.
5 Q.
What was the purpose of their release?
6 In ther words, did it have anything to do with you 7
talking to the --
A.
Yes.
g Q.
Now, in that press release they stated you were 9
assigned there as a junior engineer?
10 A.
Yes.
yy Q.
Why don't you just once again run that past me 12 why that's significant?
g A.
That's~significant to me because I was to be y4 maintained with relevant responsibilities and duties.
15 Q.
Junior engineer, is that a job classification'or 16 s.
position classification for Bechtel?
y7 A.
Yes.
y,
,Q.
In other words, they have position descriptions?
19 A.
Uh-huh, and mine was senior.
20 Q.
So Joe Smith out of. Stanford University would be 21 22 assigned as a junior engineer one year with General Electric as a startup engineer, and assigned as a junior engineer 13 an' 24 d junior would be -- are there other categories besides 25 junior engineer.?
a
38 g
y What are the other categories?
A.
If I can recall correctly, the status or the 2
3 break point in the startup organization was junior engineer, 4
engineer and senior engineer.
5
- And, 11 du' ring my employment with Bechtel I was a 6
senior engin'eer.
7 0.
okay, fine.' Your position description was that i 88"i f 1
- "9 "**f?
8 9
A.
Yes.
0.
What was your grade level as a senior engineer?
10 A.
Either 25 or 26, I don't remember which now.
yy 12 And that was before you went to work in Daggett, 0.
y, A.
Right.
14 15 O.
And you were assigned the same --
A.
Same pay grade while I was out there.
s.
16 17 0.
And it's your opinion or impression or under-ig standing that a junior engineer, you do 'not have junior 39 engineers at pay grade 25?
A.
Right.
It doesn't matter on the pay grade, what 20 21 matters to me is the work responsibility.
22 You know', the utilization of the people.
I believe 23 very strongly in hindsight that from the day I set foot 24 on that job site, or even possibly before,'there was a j
l 25 preconceived and pre-engineered vehicle for getting me so
=
39 g
y
' frustrated,I'd either quit or compromise myself to the 2
p int where they could justify firing me or, laying me off; in any fashion, to discredit me, 3
Q.
And that certainly tracks your feelings about 4
the reassignment?
5 A.
Yes, and going from the beautiful State of 6
y Pennsylvania to the heart of the Mojave Desert in the summertime.
g Q.
But you agreed to go there, and that was part of 9
the settlement agreement?
10 A.
I agreed to go to the plant, yes.
That was for yy other reasons that I won't go into.
Q.
It's not-relevant to your allegations here?
y3 A.
Right.
14 O.
Now, concerning the Missouri release which 15 indicated that you were a junior engineer, what was the I6 e
purpose of.that?
y7 A.
To discredit what I was trying to do in Missouri.
gg Q.
So you're just pointing that out; why are you 19 20 pointing that out?
A.
Because to me it.was confirmation in Bechtel's 21 22 eyes that they had put me into a junior position at the cool water plant.
23 Q.
To your knowledge and understanding, is it 24 25 conceivable to have a junior engineer in a pay grade 257 l
i 1
40 A.
- I really doh't know, it would be a pure wild g
y guess'.
I don't know.
2 Q.
but you ha'd also been classified as a' senior g
4 engineer in your job description before Daggett?
5 And the work activity that I performed prior to A.
6 Daggett.
3 Q.
And in the press release they referred to you as a junior engineer?
A.
Right.
9 Q.
Fine, I understand what you're saying.
yy And the work evolution they had me accomplishing A.
1 for a long time at the Daggett plant site, that would be y,
13 the type of work I would assign to a junior engineer, somebody very inexperienced.
14 Q.
Is there anything of significance to your 15 16 discriminatory allegation as it concerns your contact with Bechtel employees in' Missouri?
y7 y,
What I want to know, is it related to your discriminatory allegation?
19 A.
No.
20 Q.
S as far as you see there's no reason to explore 21 22 that aspect of it?
A.
No, I just mentioned that.
23 Q.
S y u were aware, and we're talking about time 24 25 frame of,the fall 'and winter of 1983, you were aware that
41 g
y there was going to be additional or increased work in testing because they set, what was it called?
2 A.
The schedule ahead a month.
3 Q.
And then in conjunction with this setting the 4
s hedule ahead you were advised by, who was it~now?
Mr.
5 Divine?
6 A.
Larry Wood, 7
Q.
Mr. Wood, chat you were going to be reassigned g
or assigned to testing?
A.
Right.
10
--O.
Taken out of maintenance, and what was his yy reason for that or his explanation to you?
12 A.
His explanation to that was that my assistance y3 was necessary to accomplish the schedule, do more testing, y4 but I would like to point out here that even though I was 15 handling the maintenance program, I was also assisting in 16 testing.
y7 yg Whenever anybody came up against a people crunch, I'd l
help out.
The guys would come to me and I'd give them a j,
20 hand any time they had any equipment tore down or anything like that.
21 S
.I explained,'I responded to Larry by saying look, 22 I
an handle both.
I've been handling both, I don't see 23 24 any reason to take the program away from me.
25 And he said -- well, it feel on deaf. ears., he took
42 g
y the program away from me.
0.
And do I understand right, the reason, not that 2
he had to justify it, but the reason was that you, Rich 3
4 Parks, were needed in testing and the increased work load there.
6 However, in your opinion, your assignments there were menial?
7 A.
Yes.
g Q.
And could.have been handled by --
10 uld have handled those same assignments while A.
I still doing the maintenance program.
yy O.
Was this transfer accompanied by any kind of g
documentation?
y3 14 I believe that there was a memo issued from Larry A.
W d saying that Jim Hendricks would assume the maintenance 15 aspects of the plant, which I found kind of ironic because 16 e
y7 any time anything,came through after that-that was jg mechanical maintenance Jim had me be responsible for making sure it was done.
19
- 0.. And who was his supervisor, Mr. Divine or Mr. Wood?
20 21
-No, Larry Wood was his supervisor.
He was the A'
assistant project engineer, Jim Hendricks reported to Larry 22 W
d.
23 24 He was responsible for the electrical aspects of the 25 plant during startup.
43~
g y
O.
Okay, and you're sayin'g that ne took over your
~
2 responsibilities?
3 A.
Rig'ht.
i 4
0 And in~doing thatmhe came to you 'nd asked for a
5 y ur assistance in accomplishing thos'e responsibilities 6
that you had previously held?
7 A.
Right.
8 Q.
What were some of those projects that you 9
assisted him on?
A.
Overhauling the air compressors, the air towers, 10 yy Q.
Overhauling the air towers?
A.
Performing maintenance on the site fire system, 12 that type of thing.
yy 14 Anything that carae through that was mechanical.
15 O.
Did he say he was going to you because his 16 advisors indicated -- in other words, his advisors suggested 17 that baybe you could be a resource that he could c~ount on?
gg A.
No, I think it was because there again it was 39 still menial work.
Here, go take care of this, boy.
That 20 type of thing.
21 0
Was he assigning this to you?
12 A.
Yes, he didn't come to me and ask for my help,
~
23 he said here,'go do this.
24 0
I didn't understand that.
25 A.-
He did not so' licit my help, he just issigned the d
1
44
-t a sk.
4 g
0.
You reported to him?
2 3 -
A.
No.
4
,0 But he was in a position where he had authority 5
to. request your help?
6 A.
Right.
Q.
And that position was the same one that you 7
occupied before?
.A.
Right.
Basically what it was, he had no job to do.
Under.the.present-state that we were in at that time 10 Jim Hendricks had no useful function in life as far as the yy project was concerned.
O.
What was his assignment before?
y, A.
Project engineer.
g y,
And what are some of the tasks that he performed?
Q.
16 Major electrical testing and major electrical A.
testing was complete.
y7 y,
So on the maintenance program all he had to do was the maintenance paperwork.
He farmed all the other work 19 20 ut to,other people, myself usually.
0.
But there is a memo that. states, just what does p
that memo state?
Was it indicated that he would be assuming y
responsibility for maintenance?
25 A.
Just that, that he would be assuming responsibility 24 25 for the maintenance _ program.
45
.a
(
y Q.
And did you say that there was a memo or someth.ing
, a 2'
th'at indicated, yod got your personn"el evaluat' ion, 3
performance evaluation'; was there any oth'ef memo when you 4
came aboard, adocumentthatsaidoneofhour'responsibilities 5
or your. main responsibility will be head of the maintenance
~
6 Program?
7 A.
No, not that I recall.
g Q.
But it was indicated in your performance evaluation?
9 A.-
Yes.
10 Q.
So we've got you in that position, let me just think out loud.
We've got you in that position; you are yy 12 rem ved from that position and assigned a menial task.
Mr. Hendricks comes in and takes over your tasks and yg 14 starts assigning you functions from the position that you 15
.Previously occupied?
16 A.
Right.
37 Q.
Okay, I understand.
yg A.
I'm glad you do because I didn't.
19 Q.
I understand the mechanism of it all, not the k0 reason.
I guess that's why I'm doing this investigation.
A.
Anyway, after that, after I was placed into that 21 22 situation,'I'd like to draw some examples for you as to how unfair the worx load was.
23 24 Dick Trifonoff had the entire coal yard from the coal r
25 shakers -all th'e,.way up to the slurry pumps, putting the
{
46 y
y coal slurry into the gasification towers.
2 Y u shake it out of the car and put it on the feeder 3
belt and take it through the crushers, and run it through 4
the feeding belts up to another series of crushers where 5
a sluny, and it goes up to, the s
rme n
g sification towers.
6 7
He was also fully responsible for the gas turbine, the component cooling water systems.
He had all the 9
major systems and Dick was a new employee.
The first time Dick ever really functioned as a g
startup engineer.
Lynn Birchfield (phonetic), who was one of the other.
mechanical precommissioning engineers, had the steam g
g turbine in its entirety, all of the support systems, the auxiliary, et cetera.
g, m
ra ee, an ther new employee, picked up the 16 v
balance of the rest of it, the system main feed, boiler, g
y, reserve feeds, heat recovery generator.
0 These were all first-time Bechtel employees?
19 g
Dick Trifonoff and Jim Crabtree, yes.
Lynn A.
21 Birchfield had worked for Bechtel about two years.
O.
And what's your experience as far as years in y
25 the maintenance program in startup and testing?
A.
Thirteen years.
24 25 O*..All.in the same area?
47 y
A.
Uh-huh, operations and startup and-testing and j
2 maintenance of power plants.
3 That's all I've been doing since I turned 19 years old.
4 Anyway, to give you an example of the type of systems tha't I was assigned, every system that had already 5
6 received most of its precommission testing, but was in the 7
turnover process, may have a few little problem areas left to be ironed out; installing gauges, something like that, g
9 or the smaller, more meaningless systems like a chemical in e t n system or a cooling tower.
10 yy The only thing left to do was a heat run in the summertime.
12 O.
When you first went.in you had responsibilities yy which you felt were --
14 A.
Fairly equivalent.
15 16 Q.
To what yc,u had before, but then in November you y7 were transferred to another responsibility which wasn't yg in keeping you felt with the agreement?
Right..
A.
3 19 20 Q.
W questions.
One, was there any -- what's the 21 w rd for this -- personality or performance or any other 22 action on your part that could be construed as negative?
In ther words, you feel that there's a mind-set and 23 24 that allLof the discriminatory actions that you're outlining 25 to us up,to now were just examples of that mind-set.
l
48 1
But conceivably, reasonably, is there anything that 2
Bechtel could'have construed on your part that' warranted 3
tnis action?
4 A.
No.
There was a personality conflict between 5
me an'd Ron Divine, but he was also my supervisor, so I 6
danced to the' tune that the piper played.
7 Q.
Did he ever counsel you for bad performance?
3 A.
No.
I have never been counseled for bad 9
perfor'mance in my life.
go 0.
Then let's just throw out a catch-all question.
13 Hypothetically, if in fact it were not a mind-set, what 12 reasonable -- in other words, it wasn't just for resource 13 allocation reasons, what reasonable excuse would Bechtel 14 have for assigning you to --
15 In other words, a disciplinary transfer, so to speak?
16
'A.
I don't know.
I can't answer that question.
I've 17 tried to figure it out myself.
18 In fact, you know, in talking with a couple of the 19 other engineers like Dick Trifonoff, Jim Crabtree, some 20 of the GE people that I worked with and the plant operators, 21 none of us could figure "out what was going on.
12 It was not like any of us sat in a meeting where we 33 could pinpoint that Bechtel was trying to stick it to me, 14 our opinion was what's going on here?
Why'ar'e they doing 15 thi'?'
s
49
(
y Q.
In your mind Bechtel couldn't sit down and say 2
reas'onably.in explanation to this transfer, say that Mr.
3 Parks was transferred because he was late showing up to
- 4 work all the time, or because he was a smart-aleck and he
~..
5 never received instructions from Mr. Divine in the proper-6 frame of mind?
y A.
You know me well enough to know that I come across 3
as a dumb old country boy.
9 The first couple of months I was very quiet.
10 Q.
I don't have any personal knowledge of your yy personality on the job, although you have admitted to me 12 y ur country origins.
33 But seriously 14 A.
It would be very interesting to see what their 15 official response is.
16 Q.
But in all your meditations on this, there's 17 nothing that has come up where you'd say maybe that was it?
gg A.
No.
19 0.
Maybe you took too long of a coffee break or 20 something like that?
21 A.
No.
In fact, all the guys, precommission engineers 22 had very good rapport with the client.
23 We worked with them extensively, we got along very well 24 with them.
I say the precommissioning engineers, I do not 25 include supervision in that.because they were. not very highly
50
. g y
thought of by most of the client staff.
2 Q.'
Now, once again getting back t,,o this hypothetical 3
thing.
There's nothing,that could come from the client 4
that would reflect negatively on you that you're aware of?
5 A.
No. '
6 Q.
Quite the contrary, as your statement indicates, 7
they were pleased with your work?
g A.
Right.
In fact, quite the contrary.
A couple of times we were trying to nurse the air compressors along 10 because they were in bad shape to allow us to finish doing yy precommission testing on other systems.
Q.
Whether you were told or not, could they 12 y3 reasonably construe your actions, any of your actions on 14 site as being a troublemaker?
4 15 In ther words, you have indicated in this interview 16 that Bechtel wasn't respected o:: site, did you ever feed 17 fuel to the fire in that light?
gg A.
No.
y, Q.
In other words, you might be speaking to somebody 20 who's badmouthing Bechtel to you and your concurrence in 21 that could then be taken by that same individual and given 12 back to Bechtel?
23 A.
The only thing that I ever talked to any workers 24 whether they were craft or operator, or whatever, on the 25 job site,, was when they would ask me que'stions about TMI, i
e 51 g
y
'I would answer.,
2 I don't walk around volunteering information, but when 3
you're sitting there in front of the control, panel and the 4
. operator is reading the Southern California Edison magazine 5
and it's written about Rick Parks from Three-Mile Island, 6
it's kind of hard to deny that you're Rick Parks.
7 Q.
Conceivably Bechtel officials could say that in g
violation of their instructions to you and the settlement 9
agreemegt you had conversations about TMI when you should 10 not have?
yy A.
No, I can't say that.
What I did was answer 12 questions if anybody asked rue.
33 Q.
That's engaging in a conversation.
14 A.
Well, I guess you could say in a literal 15 interpretation, yes, but most of the questions I answered 16 saying look, the investigation is still going on, when the 17 investigation is concluded we'll all know what happened, 33 and that was usually how I left it.
19 Jim Crabtree and I commuted back and forth together 20 and we talked extensively about it.
21 0
So you had a personal association?
12 A.
Nobody can tell me what I can talk about off the g3 job site.
24 Q.
We are all thankful for that.
25 A,
In fact, if you want to get down to the literal
52 s
)
y interpretation of.the rights guarantee under the.
2 Constitution, they can't restrict what I talk'about on the 3
job site.
4 The pnly thing in the ag[eement that I said that I 5
w uld ncat. speak with the ' press and' I did not.
6 Q.
However, you felt you were discriminated against, 7
in fact you felt all these were just examples of mind-sets, g
these actions starting with the newspaper release before you came on. site and your transfer?
^*
10 yy Q.
Comments by Mr. Wood and Mr. Divine?
A.
,I do feel that the whole thing was to make me as 12 13 uncomfortable as possible, as frustrated as possible.
14 But to continue on with the story --
15 O.
In.other words, you felt that your supervisors 16 and their supervisors, I'm not putting words in your mouth, e
17 but were not using basic management principles?
gg A.
Right.
19 Q.
Known management principles.or supervisor-employee 20 relationship principles, precepts in their handling of you 21 as a personnel resource?
22 A.
In my personal opinion, I have completed two 23 interaction management courses for two different companies 24 I have worked for as to how to be an effective supervisor.
25 The, supervisors I worked for at the Cool Water Coal
53
.4
(
)
,Gasification plant should take those coursess.
2 Q.
Or, like'you say, you felt they were going '
3 contrary to any training they might have received and 4
common accepted standards.
5 Are there any other examples?
6 A.
Ne're getting up to it.
7 0
All right, in treating it chronologically, what 8
comes next?
9 A.
Towards the end of December the whole schedule 10 g t behind on the gas turbine that was still Dick Trifonoff'r yg responsibility.
12 Dick asked me to help him out so I told him I would.
13 I told him he would have to get it assigned to me, that'it 14 was physically impossible for him to take care of both ends 15 f the plant at the same time.
16 So I kent over and jumped in on it for a couple of
~
17 days and got the problem straightened out, and he and I 13 approached Ron Divine'about assigning the gas turbine to me 19 because Dick never had any experience with gas turbines 20 and he was overloaded.
21 Q.
And he agreed to this?
12 A.
Yes.
Dick was happier than a pig in a poke.
So 23 we spoke to Ron Divine and we spoke to the General Electric 24 startup engineer on'the project and they all agreed that 25 yes, it.would 4x3 the smart thing for me to assume the gas
54
'y
' turbine.
Well, I did, and we went on.
2 3
0 Mr. Divine concurred with that?
A.
Yes, reluctantly he concurred.
4 O.
Was there any documentation on that, paperwork 5
6 on that reassignment?
A.
You don't understand the way things work in a 7
dirt burner.
g O.
I'm just asking if there were.
I realize how.
cumbersome it would be, but I'd be interested in reviewing 10 your personnel file and any related paperwork, that's why yy I asked.
12 A.
There's very little documentation built in to a y3 dirt burner, it's all verbal.
94 O.
Is there a necessity to have that type of 15 documentation on something like that?
6-16 A.
Probably not, y7 yg O.
But I'd like to know if you were aware of any 19 paper on that.
A.
No.
In fact, the only thing you could ever 20 21 pinpoint a person's job assignment to was the weekly 22 computer printout as to who was responsible for what system, that type of thing.
23 24 0.
Was there in this sense entered in the computer that Trifonoff was being removed and you were being assigned 25
.I L
55
(
I to it?
2 A.
Yes, it came out on the weekly. schedule that the g
gas turbine was my responsibility.
4 0
That's what I meant by paper, anything that s, hows that.
5 6
A.
That would be the only thing.
7 0
How about going back to when you were moved from g
maintenance, what was the exact title again?
Head of 9
maintenance or in charge of maintenance pro]ects?
A.
The closest thing you could come to would be gg yy maintenance engineer.
0.
You were in charge of the maintenance program, 12 13 was that entered on the computer?
.(
A.
I don't remember if it was or not.
I don't think g4 15 it was carried as an independent entity.
It was a separate 16 Pay account, they separate everything so I doubt it.
17 0.
Usually those are tracked according to a lot of-yg times budgetary divisions?
gy A.
It's tracked by pay code at a Bechtel job site 20 whereas the systems and stuff like that was tracked by 21 individual systems as to how they fit into the master schedule.
22 0.
And individuals who would have responsibi~lity for 23 24 those, and naturally when you were reassigned from the 25 maintenance program, from that position, those
r.
56 responsibilities that you had at the time, there would be g
y
~
no need to make that change in the computer if you weren't 3
there in the first place, but the gas turbine was a 3
different situation?
4 A.
S after I assumed the gas turbine what actually 5
6 caused the confrontation between me and my supervisors, 7
and what I do have, we had a-real problem because we had oil leaks, bad ones, and we were trying to get them g
repaired.
Q.
What were those oil leaks on?
g A.
The gas turbine.
yy Q.
Just the lubrication system?
i g
A.
Right, and we were having a few problems with y3 fuel getting into our atomizing air section, typical type 14 of problems that you would have to debug on any unit when y,
16 y u're first starting up, plus that was the first frame y7 7-AE gas turbine ever installed in this country.
Q.
Just a change of pace here, what's the sensitivity, yg y9 naturally all of these investigations are sensitive up to a point.
In other words, are held in abeyance and not 20 21 pen to the public up to a certain point.
But, beyond that are you aware of any sensitivity on 22 the Bechtel plant, this Bechtel plant as far as --
23 A.
Proprietary information?
It's all proprietary 24 inf rmation.
The entire process if proprietary, that's why 25
57
.4
(
1
,I'm not addressing the process, we're talking about 2
generalities.
3 I did sign a statement saying tha't I would not 4
divulge anything about the way that process worked.
I forger.
5 what it was, directive 2.1 which saved my cookies from TMI.
6 That was the first thing they had me do when I walked 7
in that shop, was have he sign that directive.
8 Q.
But in looking down the road in this, if there's 9
anything that should be regarded as sensitive and you feel 10 should be coordinated with Bechtel, why don't you highlight 11 it and point it out to us?
12 A.
Sure, be glad to.
13 Q.
You mentioned this E-frame?
14 A.
That's not proprietary, that's like calling a 15 Cadillac a Cadillac.
l v
16 Q.
You have to explain that to a layman, but this 17 layman was asking if that was falling into a sensitive area.
18 A.
That's yours, that's a copy of a five-page 19 handwritten meno about an incident that occurred on the 18th 20 of January, 1984.
21 To summarize the whole thing --
22 Q.
Before you summarize it, is this your handwriting?
23 A.
Yes.
24 Q.
Is this an account of an event?
25 A..
Yes.
i
58
.4
(
t Q.
And it had to do with oil leaks in the gas 2
turbine system?
3 A.
Oil leaks in the oil transfer that I was accused 4
of sabotaging.
5 If y u would like, why don't we take a break and you 6
can read that?
7 Q.
Let me just identify this.
It's a handwritten 8
memo that Mr. Parks has identified that he wrote, and there' s 9
no title on it, but it's five pages.
10 Why don't you describe what it is?
yy A.
It's an account of a sequence of events that 12 ccurred on January 18th involving the lube oil transfer g3 into the gas turbine, and that was provided, the original 14 f that was given to Larry Wood and copies of it were given 15 to Sayles and Dave Nerell.
16 Q.
It shows copies to Mr. Nerell, Mr. Sayles and 17 Mr. McKenzie.
3g A.
Right.
19 Q.
And you say this arose out of an accusation or 20 charges that you were responsible for inefficiency?
21 A.
Ultimately there was a written letter of guilt 12 finding, or whatever you want to call it, warning, put in 23 my file over that.
24 Q.
okay.
We'll get into that after the break then.
25 We'll take a five-minute break.
59 (Off the record.)
- g y
MR. MEEKS:
Q.
Starting back here after our 2
break, this five-page memo, Mr. Parks, is not addressed to 3
4 anybody?
A.
It was hand-delivered to Larry Wood.-
5 6
Q.
And I reviewed it and it has a lot of technical 7
inf rmation in it concerning the oil, leaks of the oil system or the gas turbine.
Why don't you bring out what you think is necessary to point out, however it relates to your allegation of 10 discrimination here?
yy A.
Okay.
Basically what happened was we got into 12 a situation where we had to replenish the oil in the gas 13
- i y4 turbine because Ron Divine had purchased a shipment of oil that was reclaimed, and that's a bozo no-no to use 15 reclaimed oil in brand new gas turbines.
16 g7 Q.
Is that written down anyplace?
A.
Yeah, it's called a GE requirement.
You have gg got to use new oil.
GE people took a look at it and it was, 19 20 had a lot of garbage and stuff so they told us to take it ut.
21 22 Q.
Did you knw it was reclaimed oil when it arrived?
A.
Yes.
23 24 Q.
Did you document this?
25 A*
Yes.
So did Bob Wade.
- f
60 l(
y Q.
Whocis Bob Wade?
2 A.
He was the SCE engineer.
He had had a lot of 3
problems with-the gas turbine so it'was receiving a lot of 4
scrutiny, a lot of unnecessary eyes were out there.
5 However, Bob was also the person responsible for 6
taking oil samples and getting them analyzed and he had 7
come out, I had pulled a couple of' oil samples for him and g
sent it over, and it was confirmed that the oil did not 9
meet the specifications required by General Electric.
10 Q.
Did you know about this order of reclaimed oil yy before it was actually received on site?
A.
We didn't, I didn't know that it was reclaimed, 12 yy specified to be reclaimed oil, but I had worked around oil 34 systems for a long time and reclaimed oil has a distinctive 15 dor to it and any time I see oil coming out of a garbage 16 truck it makes me wonder.
yy That's the type of oil that was delivered in where yg they suck it out to the sumps.
19 Q.
So you had no knowledge that Divine had ordered 20 this oil as reclaimed oil other than when you first 21 physically observed it?
22 A.
Right.
23 0.
'Just one other question, when you noticed, in 34 other words, you were testing it in conjunction with Mr.
25 Wade?
61
- (
1 A.
Right.
2 0.
Because everybody was just being extra careful 3
and sensitive to the operation and functigns and testing of 4
the gas turbine?
o,
A.
It's an extremely sensitive piece of' equipment.
5 6
Anytime you add oil _to any turbine you have to make sure it's the right type of oil.
y g
Q.
This is done automatically?
9 A.
Right, and when the truck driver came rolling up 10 with the oil and we put it in the sump, I noticed visibly that yy it did not meet the specifications in my opinion.
T.3 12 I asked him for his lab certifications which most 13 reputable oil dealers will bring to you giving you the 14 certified material test reports as to what the oil is, its 15 viscosity and all that type of thing.
16 However, all he had was a shipping invoice for the oil, 17 the fact that it was reclaimed.
13 So I asked him and he said yes, it's definitely 19 reclaimed oil, reprocessed,
.so I had Bob Wade come over 20 and we pulled a couple of. samples.
21 0.
Why did you go to Bob Wade?
Did you report to 12 Bechtel?
23 A.
Yes, we did report it to Bechtel.
34 Q.
Were you the first one to notice that it was 25 reclaimed oil?
Were you responsible for receiving that
62 g
y
' shipment?
2 A.
Yes.
3 Q.
So,the person who should receive,that or sign off 4
as being received, in other words, when you were there and 5
n ticed that it was reclaimed oil in your conversation with 6
the truck driver, that's because that was,your responsibility 7
to be there?
g A.
,He couldn't put it in my turbine if I didn't let him.
9 10 Q.
Now, what would be the reasonable thing to do in yy this situation for you in this position, you noticed that 12 it was reclaimed oil, you've got the client and you've got Bechtel who you work for.
y, 14 The point I'm getting at, you indicated that you 15 contacted Wade or the client, did you also contact your 16 supervisor about this?
s.
A.
Yes.
g7 yg Q.
And who was that, was this before or after you 39 contacted Wade?
20 A.
Concurrently.
21 Q.
They were both together when you did it?
22 A.
Ron Divine was out in the gas turbine area when 23 I noticed that it was reclaimed oil and I asked him if he
{4 bought reclaimed oil, and he said yes, he. bought reclaimed-25 Oil-
.m
63
}(
1 And, I asked him if he was aware that he couldn't do 2
that or if they had to have lab analysis to verify that it 5
met the specifications, and he said he didn't specify it 4
on the purchase order.
5 0.
He didn't specify it on the purchase order for 6
the reclaimed oil?
7 A.
That's right.
s Q.
What did he say in regard to the fact that 9
reclaimed oil was a no-no?
30 A.
He didn't respond to it.
I told him I was going 33 to pull a couple of samples and give it to Bob Wade and 12 have the GE people look at it, and see if it voided the jg warranty.
T 14 Q.
Did he agree with that?
15 A.
He didn't have a choice.
16 0.
Did he indicate that this shouldn't be done, did 17 he indicat'e another course'of action for you?
13 A.
Not that I recall.
I know he was not overly 19 happy about me insisting on having it analyzed.
20 0.
It appears to'me you're going off on a route here, 21 in toher words, it's right to do it according to specs and 12 everything, but right or wrong you're turning your back --
g3 not turning your back, how could I phrase this --
34 A.
Exactly how you started to phrase it, turning my 25 back on the Bechtel brand.
i l
1 64 y
O.
In other'words, you're pointing out an error of,
(
2 a Bechtel official and it seems like that might be handled 3
first in-house.
4 I'm just thinking out loud, it couldife handled in-5 house, but you approached the client.
So what I'm trying
~
6 to get out is what was the exact conversation you had?
7 First of all, was he the first person you talked to g
with responsibility of this being reclaimed oil?
9 A.
Yes.
And the reason being is because we were 10 waiting very patiently for that oil to get there because gg as soon as the oil got there I was going to start up the il system, and get the oil system up to heat, to the 12 13 required temperature, and we were going to test fire the 14 gas turbine.
15 O.
Y u didn't know it was reclaimed oil before it 16 arrived on site, no indication that unacceptable oil was 17 being ordered?
gg A.
Right.
So when I suspected that it was bad oil, 19 like I said, I got two samples of it pulled and gave it to 20 Bob Wade.
21 Q.
Wait a minute.
Let's go back to the conversation 12 with Mr. Divine.
You indicated it was bad oil and had to 23 be tested?
24 A.
Right.
25 0..
What was his response to that?
'i
)
65
- (
g A.
Basically he wanted me to go ahead and put the 2
oil. system in operation and I did.
4 3
Q.
By testing it?
4 A.
No, with the dirty oil in the sump I started up 5
the oil system because I was directed to.
6 Q.
So you informed him that you had in the system, 7
there was oil that shouldn't be in'there and he told you go 8
ahead and do what you had to'do to get it operational, this-is still testing, right?
10
'A.
Uh-huh.
yg Q.
Get it operational as part of the test.
12 But you also indicated to him that you were going to gg run samples on it?
g4 A.
Yes.
15 O.
Did he indicate to you that that wouldn't be 16 necessary, don't do that?
17 A.
Not that I recall.
He did not directly tell me gg not to take samples on it mainly-because by this time the 39 GE reps were already there and the oil was of such dubious 20 or indeterminate quality that you could see chunks of black 21 stuff that big floating in the sump, and they took one look 22 at the sump and said we can't use this oil, take it out.
IS O.
Was that in your presence and Mr. Divine's 34 presence?
25 A-Yes-1
66
.6 n
'g 3
O.
Together?
2 A-YOU-3 Q.
In other words, all those involved in the testing.
~
4 of this gas turbine were waiting, it was down and to get 5
it operational, test operational, you needed this oil?
6 A.
Right.
7 Q.
So when the, oil arrived it could be conceived as 3
general knowledge, everybody involved knew the oil arrived?
g A.
Right.
10 Q.
S that accounts for their presence there as gy well as anybody else that had any responsibility for this?
12 A.
Uh-huh.
33 Q.
We won't go into their responsibility or anything 14 like that,.but once again I'm still concerned with your 15 conversation with Mr. Divine, if there was anything that 16 could be construed as you disobeying orders or his direction?
17 A.
No.
gg O.
He was aware that you were going to run tests, g,
but so were other individuals there?
20 A.
Right.
21 0.
And. this is all within a time span of within what, 12 an hour after the oil arrived?
23 A.
Right.
In fact, we were still unloading it 24 putting it into the sump.
t.
25 0...Is that something you could visibly see?
67
^
(
j A.
Uh-huh.
2 Q.
So.you notifhed Mr. Divine of the condition of 3
the oil and he told yo6 to go ahead and do what you had to i
4 do to get it operational, and you indicated to him and 5
other officials were pr~sent, that you thought it was e
6 necessary to run tests on it?
7 A.
Uh-huh.
8 Q.
Although he had indicated to you that the specs were not specified in the purchase order?
10 A.
Right.
33 Q.
Okay.
Now,*once again why don't you tell me what 12 was his response to you when you indicated that you were g3 going to run tests on it?
14 A.
He didn't really say anything about not telling 15 me not to do the testing or anything like that, he just v
16 wanted me to get the oil system into operation.
17 Q.
Could that be construed as don't do anything gg other than just that?
19 A.
I guess from his standpoint it could be, sure.
20 0.
When you informed him that you were going to run 21 tests, visually looking at it, what was his reaction?
12 A.
I would have to say it didn't really register 23 with him, Ron was not extremely educated with the workings 24 of most mechanical equipment.
25 It.would be like me telling you I'm doing to run tests
68 g
y on it, do you have any idea how long it takes to run a 2
test on an.oilisystem?
n.
3 5
Q.
Hopefully individuals assigned to that project 4
have more4 knowledge than I do.
5 A.
Don't always bet on it.
He had no. feel for how 6
long it.would take to get the analysis done, it didn't 7
register with him.
g All he was concerned with was getting the oil system 9
going.
10 Q.
So as you conceived it, there was no reaction gg positive or negative to that?
A.
Right.
12 33 Q.
Could it be construed that that was just part 14 of the operation which he had instructed you to do?
15 A.
I think it could be construed that I was faithfully s-16 observing the requirements of my responsibility on that 17 turbine, yes, mainly because when the GE reps did not like gg the looks of the oil, they wanted it tested before they'd 19 let us roll the turbine.
20 Q.
Did they tell him in his presence?
21 A.
sThey told us that the following morning at a 22 meeting we had every morning.
23 Q.
Who were these reps that indicated to him whenever 24 that was, that day and the followup meeting the next day?
25 A*:
There was three of them.
Let me think for a
~
69
.4
}
y
, minute.
The head guy's name was Ray something or other, 2
I don't remember his last name.
c 3
It will come to me in a minute.
He was an Australian 4
gentleman.
.5 The second one was Bill --
6 Q.
Was one of them Mr.. Wade?
7 A.
No.
.. e g
Q.
He was with Southern Cal?
9 A.
The other one was the startup engineer assigned t
the gas turbine.
Her name was Donna Watson.
The three 10 of them concurred.
yy Q.
They were all from General Electric?
12 A.
Right.
g y4 Q.
Now, what was Mr. Divine's reaction either that 15 day or in that following meeting the next day concerning 16 their request to run tests on the oil?
37 A.
Nothing.
Well, Divine was upset because GE made' is us take the oil out, they wouldn't let us.use it in the 39 gas turbine,.and that was how the whole fiasco got started.
20 We took all the oil out of the steam turbine, all of 21 the oil out of the storage tanks,.and after we pumped out 22 the bad oil that was in the gas turbine they were convinced 23 we had enough oil in the steam turbine to completely 24 replenish the gas turbine.
25 I told Divine no, we needed a minimum of 450 gallons
70
'more or otherwise it wouldn't be enough to roll the gas 4
y turbine.
2 3
But they didn't 11 sten and so I worked until about 4
9:00 or 10:00 o' clock that night and our day started at 5
6:00 o' clock getting the oil out of the gas turbine.
6 Q.
The bad oil?
7 A.
The bad oil.
g Q.
How many gallons were put in?
A.
2,200 and some odd.
0.
All that had to be taken out?
10 A.
Yeah.
yy 0.
All of it got in and all of it had to be removed?
12 y3 2,550 gallons is what the guy brought and I don't A.
14 think all of that was put into the turbine, about 2,100 was 15 put in the gas turbine.
S we pumped all that out, kept the millwrights over 16 17 all night long, the people that had to clean out the sump,-
and I stayed there until at least 9:00 o' clock that night 18 19 supervising the job.
20 They were cleaning the sump, the surge chambers and 21 everything to get it spotless clean so we could put what 22 go d oil we hadiin there into the sump.
23 So at 9:00 o' clock when I got ready to leave I entered 24 into the computer on the operator's console my instructions 25 for what,was to be done in my absence as far as oil
-~
71 3
, transfers.
g 2
I also grabbed a copy of the standing night orders 3
laying.on the operator's desk and hand-wrote instructions 4
in there.
5 The shift foreman on the shift was Jerry Dixon.
6 0.
Were those instructions essentially the same in 7
both?
8 A.
Basically.
When the millwrights closed out the sump to verify the valve lineup and start transferring 10 clean oil by way of the lube oil transfer pump 3 over to the yg gas turbine gas pump to the reservoirs and the clean oil 12 tank, and that was to be done in as expeditious a manner 13 as possible.
14 0.
But you still felt with this transfer 450 gallons 15 needed to be added?
16 A.
Right.
5-17 0.
And you had communicated this to Mr. Divine and ig Mr. Wood the following day or that day?
gg A.
That day, the day that we realized we had to take 20 it out.
21 0.
You told them you were going to have to have at 22 least 450 more in there to fire it up?
23 A.
Right.
They disagreed because there was a 24 difference of opinion over how much oil was in the steam 25 turbine reservoir, but I knew how much there was in there
72
(
y because we had only purchased 3,000 gallons the first part 2
of January and we had both the steam turbine reservoir 3
open and the clean oil tank open for inspection, and Bob.
4 Wade inspected them in my presence and they were empty, 5
and the gas turbine was empty.
6 At that time we brought 3,000 gallons in and I could 7
account for every drop of oil.
I have copies of every 3
purchase order right there that brought oil from the month 9
of December to the month of January.
10 0.
But you didn't know that at that time?
yy A.
Yes, I did.
0 Why would you have access to all those at that 12 time, you had to know how much oil was in there?
13 14 A.
Yes.
15 0.
So in other words, you were responsible for the 16 gas turbine at this time?
s-17 A.
Right.
is 0.
-When was it when Mr. Trifonoff transferred it 19 over to you?
20 A.
- December, 21 0
And as part of your responsibility-you wanted to 12 know how much oil was in the system?
23 A.
The time frame was when we wer'e doing all of our 24 oil system flushes and after you do that you clean out 25 everything and go back with all brand new oil.
i j
73
(
3 So I had been involved in inspection of the clean oil 2
tank, inspection of the steam turbine and lube oil sump 3
getting them prepared so they would be ready for operation, 4
and the reason I knew how much oil had been purchased is 5
because I dug through the purchase orders to find out how 6
much oil had been purchased to see if we had enough oil, 7
and we did if we used every drop that had been brought on 3
the job site.
p But we had lost a lot of oil due to oil leaks, we had 10 lost 450 to 600 gallons or thereabouts.
11 As near as I could figure that was how much we were 12 shy to have everything topped off at operating capacity, 13 that's how I knew how much we needed.
34 Q.
So is 2,250 or whatever it is gallons, wasn't to 15 replace that 450, that was to replace that plus just fill 16 up the sump?
17 A.
Right.
13 Q.
Is that correct?
19 A.
The 2,550 gallons of bad oil that was bought was 20 to fill up the gas turbine lube oil sump and the rest was 21 to go in the clean oil storage tank.
22 0
What's the price difference between the reclaimed 23 oil and oil that met the specs?
24 A.
I have no idea.
Probably a buck a gallon.
25 0.,
That's not that much money really.
Anyway, that's 1
74
(
I neither here nor there.
2 A.
Regular oil sold at 2.70 a gallon, so how much 3
they paid for the bad oil I have no idea.
4 Whatever it was, it was a waste because they had to
)
5 take the oil back to the' Tally Brothers Refinery and there 6
was people very upset, mostly Ron Divine and Larry Wood, 7
because it delayed the project again.
3 A day slip on the gas turbine was a day slip on the y
project as a whole.
yo Q.
Before you go on concerning your counsel to them 33 that you needed 450 gallons, you mentioned earlier that 12 y u were. going to run tests on the oil and you were in g3 contact with Mr. Wade on that.
34 Did you go ahead and test the oil?
15 A.
Yes.
16 Q.
Even though it was being brought out?
s.
17 A.
Yes.
13 Q.
Why was that necessary?
19 A.
Because if it did meet the specs then we would 20 have used the oil.
They took the oil back to the refinery 21 and parked it there on the assumption that it was good, 12 and that they would bring it right back in.
23 If that was the case since the company already paid 24 for it, we'd have dumped it on the steam turbine and into 25 the clean oil storage tanks.
75
(-
3 O.
This was the general opinion of everybody there 2
that there's a good chance or a possible chance or some 3
chance that it will meet specs?
4 A.
No, that was the opinion of Ron Divine and Larry 5
Wood-6 Q.
That they wanted tests run?
7 A.
They wanted the tests run because they were 8
confident that tests would be okay, but as it turned out the test results showed the oil was unacceptable.
10 Q.
What was your interaction with Mr. Wade on-this?
yy A.
Mr. Wade was responsible for getting the oil 12 samples analyzed.
Anyway, I don't know if that answered 33 all of your questions.
34 Q.
Just one other question.
In your interaction 15 with Mr. Wade on this sample, was there anything in your v
16 interaction with him that could be construed as putting 17 Bechtel in a bad light to the client?
13 In other words, your conversation with him on the 19 fact that something unacceptable was being placed in there 20 and he could take that or anybody that would be party to 21 those conversations, and report it back to Bechtel either i
22 directly or indirectly?
i 23 A.
Not that I know of, or that I can recall.
We i
24 both shared a mutual opinion of.our opinion of Ron Divine 25 if that'-s what you mean, but it was not a verbalized opinion.
i l
\\ _ _,
76
(
y We both agreed that neither of us would every buy oil 2
without having it tested.
3 Q.
Or having specs delivered along with it, certified 4
as being tested?
5 A.
Right, we felt that was a --
6 Q.
You felt that it was a quote, unquote, dumb move?
7 A.
We thought it was a bozo no-no, you don't do g
that.
9 Q.
We don't have to define bozo no-no right now.
10 A.
Professionals are supposed to know what they're yy doing as far as the requirements, especially for two pieces 12 f gear that come to a grand total of about 30 million dollars.
13 14 You don't scrimp a dollar a gallon on oil or whatever 15 the price difference is just to save a few bucks, not if 16 you're going to wipe out a piece of equipment that would s.
17 take months to replace and be quite expensive, is 0.
Dut in your feelings in conversing with Mr. Wade 39 about this blunder, this mistake, you don't feel there 20 was anything that could have been taken in your conversations 21 with him, anybody a party to it, and report it back to 12.
Bechtel, to your supervisor or Bechtel officials, that on 23 employee is bad-mouthing Bechtel?
24 A.
The only thing that could be reported.back, Bob 25 asked me who bought the oil without specifying any of their l
77 y
, requirements it was to meet, and I told him Ron Divine did.
2 That would have been the only thing he could have 3
reported back.
4 0.
Now, you indicated that you wanted to run tests.
5 GE shortly after that indicated that GE officia'ls, one of 6
them being Donna Watson --
7 A.
I remember her name because she was my counterpart g
from GE and we spent about a month wrapped around that gas 9
turbine from top to bottom.
10 0.
You indicated that he didn't have any reaction, yy you indicated you were going to have tests and GE indicated 12 to take the oil out, it doesn't look like it's acceptable, y3 so I guess taking from your testimony here then at some time Mr. Divine was to use.those tests in hopes that it did y4 meet specs?
15 16 A.
Right.
17 0.
So the oil was taken out and held in abeyance yg until the inspections were completed, don't let me put words 19 in your mouth, it was found acceptable, so the disposition 20 of the oil isn't a factor any more in this matter?
21 A.
That's right.
I don't know what happened to the 22 oil after I left the job site.
23 Q.
So we were at the point where you had counseled 24 them as the technical arm, technical counsel on this 25 project,,that you needed at least 450 gallons of oil and q
l 1
j 78 y
they disagreed, and what did you do after that?
2 A.
We took the bad oil out of the gas turbine and 3
robbed every bit of oil on the job site that was in the 4
steam turbine sump and the clean oil reservoir, and 5
transferred it over to the gas turbine.
6 0.
And this was your decision to do that?
7 A.
No, it was their decision'to do that.
3 0
This oil was put in the sump?
9 A.
Yes, because they hypothesized that by doing it 10 it would put us at the margin.
I said no, you need 450 yy gallons more, and they chose to ignore that counsel.
12 During that process that started like about 1:00 33 o' clock in the morning on the 18th and about 4:00 o' clock 14 the following afternoon we still had not achieved operating 15 level in the gas turbine sump, and we were down to the last 16 few inches of steam turbine reservoir.
17 In other words, we were about out of oil that we-gg could pump into the gas turbine and we still hadn.'t achieved 19 our operating mark.
20 In fact, Al -- what was his last name --
21 0.
This is completely different, how often is that 22 oil changed?
23 A.
It's only changed when it gets to its neutralization 24 number, it goes out of spec.
It can go for years.
It 25 strictly depends on how well you maintain your equipment.
79
.(
y Q.
So you're not going to make it with all the 2
available reserves-that you have?
3 A.
Right.
Anyway, one of the shift foremen and I 4
were out measuring how much oil was left in the steam 5
turbine reservoir to try to figure out how much more we 6
had left to put into the gas turbine, how close we would 7
be to the mark when I was called over the radio and Ron g
Divine was calling me.
9 They asked me to come over by the gas turbine.
So I 10 walked over there and there was Ron Divine and Larry Wood yy and Lou Buckner.
12 Q.
Who's Lou Buckner?
13 A.
He's another shift foreman for Southern California 14 Edison.
There's like six of them, but they were all working 15 day shift except one man.
16 Anyway, I asked him what they wanted and Larry Wood 17 was visibly upset, started hollering and screaming at me.
y; Q.
What did he holler and scream at you?
19 A.
He accused me of being derelict in my duty.
He 20 had found one of the drain valves open on the load coupling.
21 surge tank, a drain valve off the sump.
22 0.
Which drains oil out of the sump to where?
23 A.
To the waste oil system.
And he claimed 'that 24 the valve was open.
25
- 0..
I know I'm going to ask it later on, what's done
80
(
3 with the oil in the waste oil system?
Is this oil that's 2
neutralized?
3 A.
No.
Out in the desert it's a zero release 4
requirement so it's run through an oil separating facility, 5
the water is transferred out to evaporate and the oil is 6
reclaimed, taken out by a garbage truck.
7 Q.
That~was the purpose of t' hat drain?
3 A.
Well, when you pump down a reservoir on most 9
pieces of rotating equipment, you can't get all the oil out 10 so you have to drain part of it out.
yy Your transfer pumps won't pull it all out so you end 12 up wasting a lot of oil because there's always a quantity y3 of oil left.
14 Q.
Then it's just processed on out as reclaimed oil?
15 A.
Right.
16 Q.
Is there just one?
17 A.
There's several drains.
18 Q.
And one of them, does it have a number?
19 A.
This was ons of the load coupling depth, the 20 highest drain point on the system, meaning that if you have 21 that valve wide open you could still fill the reservoir to 12 the gas turbine.
23 Q.
There could still be oil in there?
24 A.
The design of the slope is a six degree slope per 25 foot.
81 l
i Q.
If you wanted a little bit into the waste system, 2
you'd open that one?
3 A.
That's not the point of it, the only reason is 4
to drain that surge chamber and that doesn't hold over 35 5
gallons or thereabouts.
6 0.
So the purpose of the --
7 A.
The load coupling depth surge chamber.
i g
Q.
That has a drain valve and that drain valve serves 9
the purpose to drain that surge chamber, nothing else?
10 A.
Right.
gg O.
And when you drain that surge chamber, the most 12 y u could ever drain is 35 gallons?
y3 A.
Unless you were transferring oil into the system, 14 if the system was sitting there static, you'd probably 15 drain out about 35 gallons.
16 Anyway, according to Larry Wood he had found that 17 drain valve open.
13 Q.
When was that?
19 A.
Immediately prior to calling me.
20 0.
And you say this was at 9:00 o' clock in the 2y morning?
12 A.
About 4:00 o' clock in the afternoon on the 18th 23 of J nuary.
24 0.
You finished draining it?
25 A.
No, we had worked, I had left the job about 9:00 1
82 y
,o' clock the night before, and the operators, the millwrights
(
2 were still cleaning that out.
3 The millwrights' instructions were once they finished 4
cleaning it out to button everything up and get it ready 5
f r the operators to start transferring the oil and notify 6
the shift foreman, and the shift foreman's instructions 7
were on the computer and the night' order sheet, and said g
as soon as the millwrights finish making your valve lineup 9
verify that everybody is out of the sump and start 10 transferring the oil and continue transferring on a continuot s yy basis until we get the sump full, or run out of oil.
Q.
Was this drain valve load coupling compartment 12 13 in draining out the unacceptable oil, was this one opened?
A.
Sure, y u have to.
14 15 O.
Y u open them all?
16 A.
Y u open up all the drains because you have to y7 squeegie some of the oil out of there and wipe it out with' 18 a lint-free rag.
19 Anyway, we were about between 450 and 600 gallons shy 20 of our mark for operating the gas turbine, and Larry Wood 21 claims he had found that valve open and we were dumping oil 22 into the waste drai s.
23 Q.
Is part of the process of filling up the sump 24 taking the oil reserves and putting them in there.
I lost 25 a little bit of the chronology.
83
( ~
A.
Once we started transferring oil that valve y
2 should have been shut and was shut.
3 When you're trying to put clean oil in there, you don't 4
want the valve open.
5 O.
When you left they were still draining?
6 A.
They were still cleaning, the sump had been 7
drained.
g Q.
And you left instructions of what was to come 9
next to fill it up?
10 A.
Right.
yy O.
And logically part of those instructions would 12 have been understood spoken or not?
A.
I was going to get to that point later anyway.
y3 14 Q.
Why don't you just explain the whole thing?
15 A.
I asked Lou Buckner if he was there when they 16 found the valve open and he said no.
The only two people 17 that allegedly saw that valve open was Larry. Wood and Ron yg Divine and the other shift foreman and I, Al, had been y9 already trying to figure out how much more oil we were 20 going to have to put in the gas turbine because we were 21 keeping close track.
22 So Larry Wood got very upset and hollered and screamed, 23 ranted and raved, bitched and moaned, and accused me and 24 the operators of being derelict in our duty and sabotaging 25 the project.
j
1 84 4
1 O.
He not only accused you, but the millwrights?
2 The millwrights just drained it, the operators were 3
responsible for filling it up?
4 A.
Right.
5 O.
Did the operators work for you?
6 A.
Yes, under my direction.
They worked for the 7
shift foreman, but they worked under my direction if you 8
can understand reporting requirements.
9 Anyway, Al and I went over and measured the waste oil 10 sump.
yy Q.
Al who?
12 A.
I'm trying to remember his last name, it escapes.
13 me right now.
14 Q.
The operator?
15 A.
The shift foreman.
Lou Buckner was a shift 16 foreman also.
17 0.
They were from two different shifts,-they had th'e 18 same responsibilities and they were both working there at 19 the same time because of the priority of the project?
20 A.
Right.
Al had been assigned to follow everything 21 that was going on in the gas turbine, so Al was like my 12 shadow.
23 Q.
So he worked for Southern Cal?
24 A.
Uh-huh.
So anyway we measured the waste oil sump 25 and calc,ulated the maximum capacity in there that could l
85 y
have been due to oil and water, and that figure is included g
in that little handout deal there.
2 3
We calculated about 1,100 gallons was oily waste, but it was not new oil.
If this would have been new oil, if 4
5 we had~ drained it in there, in fact, we stayed there until 6
about 9:00 o' clock that night calculating trying to figure 7
ut where if any the oil was wasted, And, in the process I talked to the shift foreman who g
9 had started the oil transfer process, and the shift foreman w
en e and I talked to the operators involved all 10 along and I was assured that that valve was closed such yy that if it was open, if they did find it open, it had been 13 bumped open by some of the workers during the day or they i
had opened it themselves, because our calculations showed y4 15 that we had not pumped hardly any oil at all, if any, out 16 to the waste oil system because the oil levels in the waste y7 oil system were -- I don't want to say unchanged from the y,
last couple of days, and we knew how much was in there.
0.
So they are accusing you of opening the valve, 19 20 the drain valve and losing oil?
21 According to them 1,400 gallons we pumped out.
A.
Q.
Your calculation is that there wasn't any oil lost 22 at all?
23 A.
It there was any oil drained out of that, it was 24 25
'a minisc.ule amount.
86 O.
Is a valve something you can bump open?
y y
A.
Sure, it was a ball valve with a four-inch handle 2
3 on it, anybody could bump it open.
So to make a long story 4
short, that's why I wrote that memo naming there Bob Wade 5
and all the people we had checked with.
6 In fact, I want you to check with them, the operators, y
the shift foreman who started the o'il transfer process was g
John Graham, and his operators were on shift with him and 9
verified the lineup.
10 The shift foreman who finished -- that's wrong, Jerry yy Dixon was the shif t foreman who started the transfer and 12 John Graham was the shift foreman who finished the transfer, 13 and the operators who were involved were Tim Fraser, Barry Meeks, and a guy by the name of Dennis, I don't remember-14 his last name.
15 16 Gil Castellanos.
Anyway, Dennis, I wish I could 17 remember his last name but I can't, said he was more than yg willing to. verify to you that that valve was never opened.
y9 He knows the valve was shut and the reason being is 20 because he personally verified the lineup.
21 If it had been open he would have shut it and the 22 valve was shut.
0.
23 When were you supposed to have opened this valve?
24 A.
Well, we would have opened it --
25 O.-
What time did you start filling?
87 l(
1 A.
1:00 o' clock in the morning.
2 Q.
And what time did they discover the valve open?
3 A.
4:00 o' clock in the afternoon.
4 Q.
So sometime between 1:00 and 4:00 it was opened?
5 A.
Right.
6 Q.
Up to the point where you would have been able to 7
allow --
8 A.
-1,400 gallons.
9 Q.
How much time would that be if that was the only 10 drain valve open, how long would it take for 1,400 gallons jy to escape?
12 A.
The maximum rate of transfer for the setup we i3 had was about five gallons a minute maximum.
14 Q.
Out of that valve or the whole system?
15 A.
That was the maximum capacity we had to put oil 16 in there.
17 Anyway, we started, the operators started the oil 13 transfer at 1:00 o' clock in the morning on the 18th of 19 January.
I was not there, I was in my bunk.
20 Q.
But this individual -- on site?
21 A.
Yes.
When you leave night-orders that's what the 22 night orders are for, marking orders from the startup 23 engineers for the operators to take care of the business 24 while you're not there.
25 You can only be there for so many hours, I had been
l 88
(
,there already 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br />.
Q.
Y u didn't sleep on site?
2 A.
No, I went back to my home in Victorville.
At 3
4:00 o' clock in the afternoon on the 18th of January when 4
5 the valve was allegedly found open.
All my efforts of which AJ, the one shift foreman who helped me extensively --
6 7
Q.
Who does he work for?
A.
Southern California Edison.
I just don't remember g
his last name.
9 10 Anyway, in checking with operators who were involved yy and the shift foremen who were involved, left me with reasonable assurance in my mind that that valve was never pened.
13 Q.
14 It seems like one of the first things you'd do 15 is go to wherever that valve drains to and see how much is in there.
16 A.
It drains into a pipe that goes into the waste 17 y,
oil sump so you couldn't do it.
Q.
You don't know how much is in the waste oil sump 19 ff * ~~
20 A.
We were sure in our minds what we had drained into 21 22 the sump, we could account for what we felt was 900 to 1,100 gall ns of oily waste.
25 Q.
S they were either 300 gallons short on their 24 25 estimate or could you account for -- was there anything in
89 g
y
,there before you started?
A.
Oily wasue?
I think I can answer your question.
y 3
In that letter I document, and here's the copies of all 4
the oil purchases for the job site from November through 5
January 1982 and '83 -- I mean 'S3 and
'84.
T.4 When we brought in new oil we put in 650 gallons into 6
7 the gas turbine and it put it about a hundred gallons above the operating mark we were shooting for, and I had 9
riginally told them that we needed 450 gallons extra, I was wrong, we needed 550 gallons extra.
So there was no way on this earth we could have yy transferred 1,400 gallons of oil to the waste oil sump.
Our calculations showed that if we had accidentally spilled oil out it was a very little bit, not very much at y4 15 all because with the oil spills that we had had, and with 16 the draindowns that we had to do on the gas turbine, we had 17 to two of them within a matter of days, we felt we could y,
adequately account for 900 to 1,100 gallons of oily waste 19 in the sump, and we did not see a major change in the oil 20 level and the oil in the sump was not new oil.
But even though I felt we had adequately explained 21 22 all this through our research that they were wrong, I still 23 ended up getting a letter of reprimand put in my file, and 24 pulled off the gas turbine, and the reason given to me for 25 being pulled off was that Bechtel was through with the gas
90
.g y
, turbine, my efforts were no longer needed, which I found ironic because the following day we had two startup 2
3 engineers assigned to the gas turbine working 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />, 4
Ron Divine and Jim Hendricks.
5 That was the only pleasing part about it was watching 6
those guys go on back shift.
I was assigned to Walt Davis's crew as a helper with 7
no responsibility.
I had a talk with Dave Nerell about all g
this and I told him that I felt I saw TMI happening all 9
ver again and I didn't like it, that I wanted a transfer, 10 g
I wanted to get out of there because it was too frustrating and I didn't want to go through the process again.
y He made mention to me about, you know, how hard it 13 i
34 would be to transfer me to any new project because the anti-15 nuke groups followed me around,. meaning GAP or that's how I took it to be meant,
~
16 g7 And, I told him that I felt that I could no longer.
~
18 trust Ron Divine or Larry Wood and that I'had a problem 19 working under that type of circumstances.
20 And I gave him my permission and requested that he 21 investigate what happened, talk to everybody about what 12 happened, because I felt I had sufficient backing from the 23 perators involved to prove that I was not at fault.
Q.
Was there a subsequent investigation of this?
24 15
^*
N**
i
91
(
1 O.
That you were aware of?
A.
Not that I was aware of.
Here's what really 2
3 bothers me about it, Ron was, even though I had provided 4
ne side of the issue and I will admit they supposedly 5
attached my version of what happened to the letter of 6
reprimand that was put in my file, whether they did or not 7
I don't know.
8 Now, if as they said I had pumped 1,400 gallons of oil to the waste oil sump at S2.75 a gallon, that works 10 ut to be about SS,000 give or take.
yy A lot less actually.
In the first part of December 1983 one of the other test engineers had started up the 12 lube oil purifier without reading the technical manual on y3 it, and when he did it he totally destroyed it.
j4 15 It was the only one we had on site and the replacement 16 Parts could cost $5,000'and it delayed the project by a 37 couple of weeks because we had to scrounge around and come 18 up with a portable.
19 0
What was this individual's name?
20 A.
Lynn Birchfield.
He received absolutely no 21 reprimand at all.
22 0.
When did this happen?
A.
The first part of December 1983.
And you can 23 24 verify that with Bob Wade or Dick Trifonoff or Lynn 25 Birchfield.
l
92 Q.
When Larry Wood yelled and screamed at you and q
y accused you, did he use the word sabotage?
2 3
A.
That we were sabotaging work efforts, delaying 4
the project.
5 O.
Meaning y u nd the operators assigned to it at that time?
6 7
A.
I will say this about that, Ken McKenzie coming 8
to my defense saying that Larry could not put the whole 9
blame over on me because the operators performed the valve 10 lineup and Larry Wood was adamant in that meeting that they had, that the blame and responsibility had to be mine yy because I was in charge.
Q.
That's normal practice, you are responsible.
13 14 In the letter of reprimand they referenced how A.
y, a man with my senior experience and expertise should know 16 better than to do things like this.
s-Q.
Like what?
37 A.
Allow a valve lineup to be wrong and transfer oil.
18 Q.
When you say valve lineup, that means just opening 19 it?
20 A.
No, you start the purifier, you start at Point A 21 22 and go to Point B, and make sure the valves are positioned rrectly.
25 Q.
And then was it the shift supervisor?
24 25 A..
The shift foreman.
l l
93 y
Q.
Al, he did the valve lineup?
A.
Al Riddle is his name, and he was the Southern y
California Edison counterpart assigned with me on the gas 3
4 turbine, because we had so many problems.
5 Tim Adams, the plant manager, wanted to be kept inf rmed n
daily basis of what progress we were making.
6 7
Jerry Dixon and John Graham were the shift foremen who 8
started and ended, Jerry Dixon and John Graham's crews started and continued the lube oil transfer process and Lou Buckner was the shift foreman on day shift while the yy lube oil transfer process was going on.
So that was the three shift foremen that were involved and, like I said, the operators who were involved from the y3 various shifts.
g yg The operators invol'ved were Tim Fraser, Barry Meeks, 16 Miguel Castellanos, and Dennis, and I don't remember his last name.
g7 18 However, they all assured me that they had performed y,
the valve lineup diligently and made sure all the drain 20 valves were shut, and that valve was not open, et cetera, et cetera.
21 22 And those guys are all still employed at the job site 23 and they're all in the phone book.
24 Miguel Castellanos lives in
, Barry Meeks lives in j, Tim Fraser lives in and 25 t
4
.4 94
(
y John Graham.
I'm not sure about Jerry Dixon, his phone number is 2
3
- I forget.
4 O.
Okay.
So you asked for a transfer and they told y u that they wouldn't consider a transfer to a nuclear 5
site because of the TMI incident?
6 7
A.
Not directly, they did not say anything about the g
TMI incident, what he said was it would have been awfully hard to transfer me to a new job because of the anti nuke 9
gg groups that followed me around the country.
gg I took it to mean GAP, the government county voting.
12 O.
Who told you this?
13 A.
Dave Nerell.
14 Q.
Had any of those' groups manifested itself there 15 at the site?
16 A.
No.
In fact, 5
I had been approached many times by various representatives of the news media to 17 talk is about what happened, especially after your report came out 19 in September of
'83 and I refused to talk to them.
20 0.
Who were some of those representatives?
21 A.
ABC Evening News, Newsweek, Time.
22 0.
Do you remember any of the specific names?
23 A.
The one guy that works for ABC Evening News was John something or other, I don't remember 24 And there was a girl who wrote the Newsweek article that appeared in 25
95 y
, October or September, I don't remember her name either.
4 2
Q.
If you could pinpoint those names or some of them 3
and furnish that to me later, I'd appreciate it.
4 A.
I usually keep cards on all of the people that I 5
talked to or who I refused to talk to.
6 Q.
So you couldn't go to a nuke site according to 7
Mr. Nerell because of this conditio'n.
What other g
possibilities were discussed, what happened next?
9 A.
I was laid off.
10 Q.
As a result of this?
A.
Well, exactly what was the motivating result I yy don't know.
If I had to pinpoint a direct cause and say 12 13 s a result of this I got laid off, I don't know because 14 they informed me like the first part of January before this 15 whole oil incident occurred that they were going to lay me ff n February 3rd.
16 17 Q.
What was the justification of that?
gg A.
Reduction in force.
19 Q.
Who notified you of that?
20 A.
Larry Wood, but it seemed very ironic because 21 the client was kicking and screaming that there was still 22 too much work to be done for me to be laid off.
23 Q.
How many were cut up in this reduction in force?
24 A.
Two of us, me and Jim Crabtree.
He was one of 25 the new -hires, he was laid off the same day I was.
I feel
96 he was hired for one reason, i
and that was to be laid off with me because Jim was more experienced othe 2
r than myself than any other guy we had in mechanical 3
group, POP group.
4 0.
What do you know about the Bechtel policy for 5
reduction in force, is it based on ranking?
6 A.
I don't know.
7 Q.
How did they select you and Jim Crabtree f g
dismissal?
or 9
A.
Because we were on the schedule to be tr ansferred and according to them there were no places for 10 gy so they laid us off.
us to go, 12 And I find that very hard to believe, especially with a man of my qualifications and background 13 and with Jim's 14 qualifications and Jim's background, because he too had been a startup and testing manager at o 15 16 Power companies.
ne of the southern 17 And he had worked, in fact he had retired from TVA as 18 an operator and a watch engineer, which is th 19 as the shift foreman.
e same thing
\\
y 20 The only reason I bring this up is he lives in 21 and they originally approached him about hiring him a month after I went public 22
, and they delayed him coming to work until ' reported to the j b 23 o
site, and hen they laid him off the same day I was l i t
24 a d off.
25 So he was put on hold for like five months before he t
1
97
(
y
.was allowed to report to the job site, and we were the only mechanical guys that were laid off.
2 3
And to my knowledge in the'startup and test grcup 4
throughout Bechtel the mechanical startup engineers are 5
the last ones to get laid off because they're always under-staffed.
6 7
Q.
Did you apply for any ope ~nings in any other Bechtel project?
Were there any openings available at that g
time?
10 Not according to what I knew.
A.
O.
I recall you mentioning that when they told you yy they were going to lay you off, did they give you a date?
g A.
Yes, they were going to lay me off on the 3rd of 13 I'
- Y' 14 However, I notified Tom Devine that they were going g
16 to lay me off and Tom got hold of their corporate lawyers y7 and they started negotiating as to whether or not they 18 w uld lay me off.
19 they started giving me one week extensions, but S
20 that was always up in the air as to when was your date.
21 But they started this process after I notified my 22 landlord that I was going to move, I was getting transferred 23 r laid off and I no longer had a house.
24 This meant I would have to move into a motel with my 25 two sons.
I had been standing around with my thumb -- I
98
, don't want to say that, cooling my thumbs for two weeks 2
with absolutely nothing to do, no responsibility, but I 3
was still working 10 hours1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br /> a day with no job responsibility, 4
which I thought was ludicrous.
5 And all the other guys were humping their butts of f 6
to try and keep from drowning, so to speak, of their work, 7
and they were working 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> around the clock on the gas 8
turbine, and there I was doing nothing.
g And I was not about to move into a motel and have all 10 the problems of getting the boys back and forth to school yy and having to put my furniture in storage, that-type of 12 thing, and going there to live one week at a time while 33 the Bechtel lawyers and my lawyer negotiated on whether 14 r not they were. going to lay me off.
15 They called me into Dave Nercll's office, and I can 16 give you the exact date on it I think -- anyway, what they 17 had to say was that they were still attempting to find a 18 place for me to be transferred to, and they had not been 19 successful.
20 Surely I was aware that my lawyers were negotiating 21 with the Bechtel lawyers, so ther Y2re going to graciously 12 extend my period there from t}e 3r.
of February until the 23 17th of February, and this was on February the 2nd that I 24 was called in there.
25 I asAed them, I said well, based on what you have told
99
~
'(
1
- me before, you're not going to send me to a nuke plant and 2
you don't have any dirt burner projects, so basically what 3
you're telling me is there's no place to go and I will 4
continue to exist in limbo around here.
5 Well, we've got things to do to keep you busy and I 6
said Walt Davis has a lot of work to do, however I'm not 7
doing a whole lot of it.
3 So if you're going to continue playing with me like 9
this, I'd just as scori you lay me off right now, I don't 10 want to go through the frustration of living in a motel 11 and that type of thing and screwing my boys over.
12 So they laid me off and I accepted.it under protest 13 and I issued a letter that day describing my modus for 14 laying me off.
15 Q.
Do you have a copy of that with you?
16 A.
Not with'me.
I gave a copy to Larry Wood and a
- 7 copy to John -- what was his name -- the personnel manager.
13 Q.
He's mentioned already in the record.
Henderson.
19 A.
Yeah, Henderson.
The only reason that I accepted 20 it was in protest because the only other choice I was 21 faced with was to quit, and if I quit I'd have been 12 stranded in the Mojave and they would not ship my 2.a furniture.
24 By letting them lay me off they had to ship all my 25 stuff and my two sons, pay for them to travel back to their t
100
-(
1 point of origin.
2 0.
You have made mention of some documents concerning 3
that oil incident, did you want me to have these documents?
4 A.
Sure.
5 0.
What are they?
Invoices?
6 A.
Yes, invoices and purchase requisitions.
I would 7-appreciate if you would Xerox them and return them to me.
3 They're all dealing with the oil, they go right along 9
with that five-page report.
10 0.
Without identifying them all, we'll just count 33 them here -- well, I can identify them~by either receipt 12 number or delivery invoice number.
33 First of all, there are 11.
I notice there are some i
34 duplications here but there are at least 11 in here I 15 notice.
16 A.
Let me see if I can separate them out for you.
17 This is basically one and the same except this is a receipt, 13 st you can have that one.
19 0
Let's just go with 11.
So I will return you 11 20 documents.
I'll make Xerox copies and I will return to you 21 at least these 11.
12 Okay, let me collect my thoughts at this point.
23 The impression I get from the way you have presented 24 this is because it was a mind-set then the actual dismissal 25 is just a consequence of the other_ discriminatory acts, so
101 y
'the dismissal in itself doesn't have any greater or lesser 2
significance than the other discriminatory acts, it's just 3
one act and the culminating act preceded by others?
4 A.
Uh-huh.
5 O.
And it is not any weightier than the others?
6 A.
That's why I didn't feel DOL could pick up from 7
and be totally cognizant of everything that has happened 8
from TMI and be as aware, you know, of some of the outgrowth 9
of the TMI related things as you would be.
10 That's why I waited very patiently for you to get to yy California because in my opinion harassment and retaliation 12 an be as mental as it can be a physical act.
0.
I understand what you mean.
We worked on 13 34 previous cases before, however there's no guarantee at this yg point in time, we just can't dictate or pinpoint who's 16 g ing to be assigned this investigation as you know.
17 But if there are any followups we will be in touch jg with you on it.
39 Is there anything else,-any questions you'd like to 20 ask?
21 A.
No.
I will supply you with more information-as 22 it becomes available to me because, as I told you previously, 23 I fully intend to get sworn statements from all the people.
24 S
either I can do it or the NRC can do it.
25 O.
Again I don't know what priority this is going
102 g
.to be assigned considering our resources and our work load.
2 A.
I understand.
3 0.
Have you given this statement freely and 4
voluntarily?
5 A.
Yes.
6 0.
Have I or anyone from NRC threatened you or 7
coerced you or offered you any promises of reward in g
exchange for this statement?
9 A.
No.
10 0.
Well, we appreciate your time and, like I said gg before, we will get back to you when we have a completed 12 copy so that you can review it for correctness and content.
y; A.
As I previously stated, I fully intend to supply 14 y u with followup information on this and I.will always 15 send it to you regardless of who's assigned to the case.
16 Q.
Well, we won't wait.
In other words, I have the 17 information I need and NRC Office of Investigations needs 33 to go ahead and investigate it, to pursue it.
19 Now, whether any other additional information that 20 you supply comes before, during or after this, we will 21 incorporate it and use it.
12 Thank you very much.
23 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded.)
24
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25
1
)
2 STATE OF CALIFORNIA
)
ss.
,~
)
3 4
5 I, the undersigned, a Notary Public of the State of 6
California, hereby certify that the foregoing transcript pages, 7
numbers
-l through and including I O E comprise a full, 8
complete and true record of the certain proceedings therein 9
indicated.
1 10 I further certify that I am not of counsel or attorney 11 for any of the parties in the foregoing proceedings or in any 12 way interested in the outcome of the cause named in said 1
13 caption.
1 14 IN WITNESS SHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and
~
(
15 affixed my seal this b
day of h ]Atp_
[Q N 16 17 18
/
19 Official Reporter 20 21
~~~ ~~
- P g
C. M. MILLER 22 NOTARY PUBUC CALIFORNIA i
CITY AND COUNTY OF g
SAN FRANCISCO
- _ ter Commiss'on Espires Sept. 20,1985 -
24 1
2) 26
~
27 4.
28 WM.
E.
HENDERSCHEIO & A S SOCI AT ES saw FnaNcroco esAntN CoWNTY CenterstD s'
- wanso agrontges e a s.? ?se asst 7a7 Os * '
- f1T a me r s