ML20211K405
| ML20211K405 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 11/12/1986 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#486-1596 LRP, NUDOCS 8611170163 | |
| Download: ML20211K405 (150) | |
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> 6ZG;NKL O UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MA* ITER OF: DOCKET NO: LRp INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 - LEAK RATE DATA FALSIFICATION O >
LOCATION: BETHESDA, MARYLAND PAGES: 5231 - 5349 DATE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1986 l
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i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 4 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -x 5 In the Matter of: :
- Docket No. LRP 6 INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND :
UNIT 2 - LEAK RATE DATA :
FALSIFICATION -
7
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _x 8
9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fifth Floor Hearing Room 10 East West Towers 4350 East-West Highway 11 Bethesda, Maryland 12 Wednesday, November 12, 1986 lJ 13 The hearing in the above-entitled matter convened at 9:00 a.m.
15 16 BEFORE:
17 JUDGE JAMES L.'KELLEY, Chairman
- Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 18 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C.
JUDGE JAMES H. CARPENTER, Member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 20 l U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D. C.
JUDGE GLENN O. BRIGHT, Member 22 , Atomic Safety and Licensing Board U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 23 l Washington, D. C.
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() 25 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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3 5232 l APPEARANCES:
(~}
(_/ On behalf of GPU Nuclear Corporation:
2 ERNEST L. BLAKE, JR., ESQ.
3 JOHN N. NASSIKAS III, ESQ.
Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge 4 2300 N Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C. 20037 5
On behalf of the Employees:
6 HARRY H. VOIGT, ESQ.
MICHAEL McBRIDE, ESQ.
7 LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W.
8 Washington, D. C. 20036 MOLLY BOAST, ESQ.
9 LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae 520 Madison Avenue 10 New York, New York 10022 11 On behalf of Jack Herbein:
JAMES B. BURNS, ESQ.
12 Isham, Lincoln & Beale Three First National Plaza 13 Chicago, Illinois 60602
(- ) CHRISTOPHER W. FLYNN, ESQ.
14 RICHARD O. WOLF, ESQ.
Isham, Lincoln & Beale 15 1150 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D. C. 20036 16 On behalf of Gary P. Miller:
17 MICHAEL W. MAUPIN, ESQ.
yg M. CHRISTINA HENSLEY, ESQ.
Hunton & Williams 707 East Main Street 19 Richmond, Virginia 23221 20 On behalf of Former Metropolitan Edison Employees:
21 SMTIH B. GEPHART, ESQ.
22 Killian & Gephart 217-218 Pine Street, Box 886 23 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17108 24 On behalf of the NRC Staff:
s JACK R. GOLDBERG, ESQ.
s) MARY E. WAGNER, ESQ.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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5233 r 1 CONTENTS b] 2 WITNESS EXAMINATION 3 Donald R. Haverkamp (Resumed) by the Board 5243 4
John C. Herbein 5 by Mr. Burns 5267 by the Board 5270 LAY-IN - PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN A. BRUMER, AND PREPARED STATEMENT OF LEONARD P. GERMER, 7
Follows Page 5236.
8 LAY-IN - PREPARED DIRECT TESTIMONY OF JOHN G. HERBEIN, Follows page 5268 9
4 10 EXHI BI TS 11 NUMBER IDENTIFIED RECEIVED 12 Exhibit 26 5267 REJECTED 5267
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1 E R O C E E D I,N G S 2 JUDGE KELLEY: Good morning, this is the last 3 presently scheduled day of this proceeding except for the 4 possibility of other witnesses being decided upon. We are 5 going to hear initially, this morning, from Mr. Haverkamp, 6 who is reappearing as a witness on a narrow part of his 7 testimony, and also on the testimony of another witness, 8 followed by Mr. Herbein. i 9 Let me just mention three general matters that we 10 have in mind for after the witness testimony. There may be 11 others that will arise, but we will need to resolve whether 12 there are to be any further witnesses in this proceeding.
13 The only pending nomination is that of Mr. Lawyer and the l 14 only nominations before the house would be names growing out 15 of Mr. Herbein's testimony, as we understand it. We will 16 have a timetable for proposed findings, and I think there are 17 a couple of loose-end matters to tie up on exhibits. But I l 18 think that's pretty well in hand. That's our overview of the 19 day.
1 20 l Have I left something out, Mr. McBride?
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t L 21 l1, MR. MC BRIDE: Judge Kelley, I had a couple.of 22 preliminary matters, if I could, very quickly.
First of all, if I could make an inquiry of the 23 l i 1 24 Board whether the Board has any information as to whether
( 25 l Mrs. Aamodt is going to be present today?
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28835.0 5235 b'~TBRT 1 JUDGE KELLEY: Only her indication in talking to 2 me last week that she would like to be here today but not a 3 commitment. I don't see her here.
4 MR. MC BRIDE: Well, given that she is not here, 5 Judge Kelley, we are filing today a motion to dismiss the 6 Aamodts as parties to this proceeding. We have distributed 7 copies to counsel who will be serving Mrs. Aamodt today, and 8 I would like to give the Board copies of the motion.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: Very well. Perhaps when we have a 10 chance to look at this preliminarily, we can set some time 11 for response before we quit today.
12 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, sir. I also thought that it 13 would be appropriate to distribute this motion today because 14 it may have an impact on the Board's ruling on the schedule 15 for findings.
16 Also, I would like to raise as an additional 17 preliminary matter that at some point today I would like to 18 have bound into the transcript the prefiled testimony of l.
19 Mr. Germer and Mr. Brummer, whom the Board will recall, the l
20 Board elected not to call to the hearing to testify. But I 21 4 think it's important that their testimony be bound into the
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22 record, as was the prefiled testimony of the other parties to 23 the proceeding for the purpose of evidentiary findings and
- 24 i other matters later in the proceeding.
i 25 JUDGE KELLEY: Fine. So ordered. Those prefiled
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BRT 5236 1 pieces of testimony are fairly short, as I recall.
2 MR. MC BRIDE: They are both fairly short. I have 3 given the reporter a copy of each and I would ask at this 4 time in the transcript of the proceedings that the Board rule 5 that these statements may be bound into the record, that the 6 statements reflect what the witnesses would have sworn to had 7 they been called by the Board, and that they may be referred 8 to as would be the prefiled testimony of any of the other 9 parties, as if the party -- as if the two individuals had 10 appeared here to testify.
11 JUDGE KELLEY: Any objection to that proposal? So p 12 ordered.
V 13 (The documents follow:)
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\/ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE PRESIDING BOARD
)
In the Matter of )
)
INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND ) Docket No. LRP UNIT 2 LEAK RATE DATA )
FALSIFICATION )
)
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN A. BRUMMER My name is John Allen Brummer. I live in Reading, Pennsylvania. I am thirty-four years old and am presently employed at Metropolitan Edison Company as an engineer. I no longer hold a license to operate a nuclear plant, but I may be interested in seeking a license in the future.
Prior to my current position I was stdtt-up and test manager for Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Station. I was in that position for two years, from August 1, 1981 to August 1, 1983.
Prior to August 1981, I was at Three Mile Island as lead instrumentation engineer. I was physically at Three Mile Island, on the day shift, since approximately March 18, 1974.
My primary area of responsibility was at Unit 2. From about January 1979 through March 1979, the time of the accide.;, I worked with Ivan Porter and primarily reported to George Kunder. At the same time, I was in the license training
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( program in training for the NRC SRO license.
I completed my license examination just before the TMI-2 accident, and I I maintained my license obtained my license in July of 1979.
until I left Unit 2 for Oyster Creek.
From 1974 until I left Unit 2 in 1981, I was a Plant Operations Review Committee (PORC) member. PORC served as the review committee for technical specification procedures as well as operating procedures.
With PORC, I approved and reviewed leak rate test procedures. I no longer remember whether I performed a leak rate test; if I did, it was not on a routine basis, but rather as part of my training under the supervision of a control room For my license examination, I was required to know
() operator.
all of the procedures and the leak rate procedure was included among those. As far as I know, there are no leak rates on file in which I was involved. Accordingly, I ask the Board to include me on the list of people as to whom there is no
. evidence of leak rate test falsification.
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE PRESIDING BOARD
)
In the Matter of )
)
) Docket No. LRp INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 LEAK RATE DATA )
FALSIFICATION )
)
PREPARED STATEMENT OF LEONARD P. GERMER My name is Leonard Paul Germer. I reside in Bath, Maine. I am currently employed by Maine Yankee as an auxiliary operator.
I served in the United States Navy for a period of six years. After my service in the Navy, I was employed by a textile firm, Martin & Belvish, for five to six years. After my employment at Martin & Belvish, I was employed by Electric-Bolt for a year. I then worked at a pharmaceutical veterinary supply company for approximately a year. I began employment with Metropolitan Edison Company in 1977 as an Auxiliary Operator at Unit 2. I began training for the Control Room Operator ("CRO") position in October or November of 1978 and continued that training until the time'of the accident. I left of the employment of Metropolitan Edison Company in August 1979, and immediately began my work at Maine Yankee.
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When I started my training, I was assigned to the "E" I
(} Bernie Smith was the shift supervisor for that shift, shif't.
Ken Bryan was the shift foreman, and the other control room operators were Ray Booher and Harold Hartman.. Sometime around Ken Bryan became January 1, 1979, I switched to the "F" shift.
- my shift supervisor, Carl Guthrie was the foreman, Earl Hemmila i and Hugh McGovern were the control room operators.
As a CRO trainee, I was permitted to perform leak rate i tests and plant evolutions, but only under the supervision of a I
control room operator. I also studied the materials given to l me by the training department.
As I was taught by the Control Room Operators, the 4
technical specifications required that only one acceptable leak
() rate test be obtained every seventy-two hours. A " bad" leak rate test was one that showed unidentified leakage greater than
-one gallon. I was aware of the technical specification that required that the plant be in a steady state condition when leak rate tests were run, and which stated that water should i
not be added during a leak rate test. However, I also was aware that water additions during a test could be accounted for by entering them into the computer.
In cases in which there was a plant transient or an inadvertent water addition, I would discard the leak rate test 4
as unacceptable. I also discarded leak rate tests that were run properly, but yielded an unacceptable result. I had two basic reasons for doing so. First, it was my understanding
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' one acceptable leak rate test be obtained every seventy-two
- hours. Second, it was common knowledge among the CRO's that I was working for that it was permissible to throw away unacceptable leak rate tests. I do not recall having a problem obtaining leak rates, and I do not remember that it became harder to obtain leak rates prior to the accident.
At the NRC investigative interview on March 28, 1985, my recollection was refreshed to enable me to recall the events leading up to the filing of an LER with the NRC. With that assistance, I recalled that an NRC inspector named Don Havercamp found a leak rate test that was inconsistent with the j
j Unit 2 technical specifications, and that this discovery culminated in the filing of the LER. Otherwise, I have no independent recollection of that incident. I did not perform i
leak rate tests in a different manner in response to the filing I also do not recall any of the LER than before the LER.
training session or particular instruction that was prompted by the filing of the LER.
I do not recall too much about logging practices at Unit 2. As a trainee, I do not think I would have been very involved with logging. I do remember that the operators logged completed leak rates to keep track of the 72-hour clock. I do r
not recall anyone ever advising me to refrain from logging i
unacceptable leak rate tests. I do not recall any instances in ahich unrecorded or under-recorded water additions were made to t
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the makeup tank during a leak rate test. Further, I am not aware of any instances in which either Hal Hartman, Ray Booher, Earl Hemmila, or Hugh McGovern manipulated leak rate tests in any manner. During the NRC investigative interview on March r 28, 1985, I was informed of several leak rate tests I had been involved with that the NRC deemed to be questionable for various reasons. My testimony was then, and is now, that I have no knowledge that those tests were intentionally manipulated by anyone.
During the time I was employed by Metropolitan Edison Company, I was not aware of the phenomenon by which hydrogen added to the makeup tank could improve leak rate test results.
Shortly before the NRC investigative interview, this phenomenon was explained to me based on the technical analyses that were done and that are before the Board, although I am still not As far as I know, the reason one convinced that it exists.
i adds hydrogen to the makeup tank is to maintain the desired water chemistry in the reaction coolant system. I was not cognizant, during my employment at Unit 2, that the addition of hydrogen during a leak rate rest could be deemed a prohibited I
chemical addition pursuant to the governing rules of Unit 2.
have no personal recollection of instances in which Unit 2 operators made hydrogen additions to manipulate leak rate tests.
I have no personal knowledge of a level transmitter I
having exhibited instability during my employment at Unit 2.
never change'd level transmitters during a leak rate test for O
s
's .
(._/ the purpose of manipulating the leak rate test. Nor have I heard of any instances of in which others manipulated leak rate tests in that fashion.
I basically had faith in what the RCS computer surveillance program told me about actual plant leakage. No one ever put any pressure on me to obtain an acceptable leak rate test result.
In conclusion, if any leak rate tests that I was involved in are " questionable", they are not " questionable" because of any deliberate action by me.
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BRT 5237 1 MR. MC BRIDE: Thank you.
2 JUDGE KELLEY: We'll call Mr. Haverkamp.
3 Whereupon, 4 DONALD R. HAVERKAMP 5 resumed the stand and, having been previously duly sworn, was 6 examined and testified further as follows:
7 JUDGE KELLEY: Just a brief preliminary comment 8 and that is that Mr. Haverkamp is back with us today 9 reappearing as a witness at the suggestion of the NRC Staff 10 and I gather, Mr. Haverkamp's desire, growing out of some 11 testimony given by another witness, Mr. James Seelinger on r x, 12 the 3rd of November. The citation pages that were referred
\ t ud 13 to in connection with Mr. Haverkamp's reappearance were 14 transcript 4771 through 74; essentially testimony relates to 15 Mr. Seelinger's recollection of a meeting that he and 16 Mr. Haverkamp had and what was said by he and by Seelinger 17 and Haverkamp; and also a later reference to some telephone 18 conversations between the two. I won't characterize any 19 I further than that.
i 20 l It is my understanding, Ms. Wagner, that I
21 Mr. Haverkamp would like to comment with respect to the 22 transcript; is that correct?
23 i MS. WAGNER: That's correct. He's read the 24 transcript and he has some comments to make.
(} 25 JUDGE KELLEY: All right. Mr. McBride?
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%si 1 MR. MC BRIDE: Judge Kelley, I believe I just 2 heard you say -- if I'm wrong, I apologize, but I believe I 3 just heard you characterize this testimony of Mr. Seelinger 4 as referring to a telephone conversation?
5 MS. WAGNER: That's right. It was not.
6 JUDGE KELLEY: I didn't mean to say that. It was 7 two things: It was a meeting in a trailer, I think, followed 8 some days later by a telephone conversation. Words were 9 spoken at both times.
10 With that, I think we'll just ask Mr. Haverkamp to 11 comment on the section of the transcript as he wishes. We (N 12 may have some follow-up questions on it, d 13 Go ahead.
14 MR. MC BRIDE: Before he does, I wonder whether we 15 were going to be just focusing on that very narrow subject or 16 whether we are going to be discussing any other aspect of 17 Mr. Haverkamp's experience at any other nuclear plant today?
18 JUDGE KELLEY: Essentially the former. This is a 19 l narrow reappearance of Mr. Haverkamp on the specific subject
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20 ! to which we have referred. It is not an opportunity to 21 [ revisit all aspects of his testimony.
I 22 l The Board happens to have a couple of questions on 1
one other part of his testimony that we intend to put.
23 l 24 I Within reason we might entertain some other questions, as
(~) 25 long as the witness is back and in the interests of a full
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1 record. But we don't intend to simply reopen everything 2 about the LER and Mr. Haverkamp's inspections and all the 3 rest. Clear enough?
4 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, sir. We do have some 5 follow-ups on some matters that have occurred since he last 6 testified but we-11 take them up as they come.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: And we may or may not allow them, 8 because we did bring the witness back at the Staff's request, 9 and I think the witness' request, on this particular matter.
10 The Board has a particular matter. But it is not open season 11 on Mr. Haverkamp's prior testimony.
12 MS. WAGNER: Let me also say he has not reviewed, 13 really, any other materials other than four pages in 14 Mr. Seelinger's testimony.
t 15 As another matter I should mention that 16 Mr. Haverkamp is participating in Pennsylvania in an 17 emergency response drill and, really, has told me he really 18 ! has to be out of here by 10:30 in order to do that.
I 19 ! JUDGE KELLEY: Well, let's move on.
l 20 l Mr. Haverkamp?
k 21 THE WITNESS: As follow-up to the remarks on my 22 activities later in the day, before I answer the question and 23 i make my comments I would like to at least make an 24 administrative comment.
(} 25 a
1 Later this afternoon I will be participating in an i
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28835.0 BRT 5240 N'-]N 1 emergency exercise regarding the Hill Creek and I need to 2 return to the office at King of Prussia to do that; however, 3 I do intend to stay here as long as necessary to answer your 4 questions and this takes priority to that exercise.
5 JUDGE KELLEY: Pine.
6 THE WITNESS: I have reviewed transcript pages --
7 the first page that I have is 4770; you mentioned 4771.
8 JUDGE KELLEY: The lead-in question from Judge 9 Bright starts at the bottom of 4770; correct?
10 THE WITNESS: That's right. The specific question 11 was directed to Mr. Seelinger, which was:
s 12 " Question: Is it your testimony that Mr. Haverkamp (b
13 suggested that you adopt a roundoff policy?"
14 First I want to point out, in my review of the 15 question I don't think he actually responded to that in the 16 sense of answering it, yes, I did suggest it, or no, I didn't 17 suggest it. I want to reiterate, to restate what I think I 18 have stated before, that I did not suggest that they adopt a 19 roundoff policy. I did ask some questions about the limits 20 l of the technical specifications and in that regard I did I
21 l raise -- I did open the issue. But I never suggested that i
22 they ought to act or otherwise tell th t.a to adopt such a 23 policy.
24 Since Mr. Seelinger doesn't appear to have i
(' answered that I jus t wanted to restate my position.
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}BRT 1 JUDGE KELLEY: But you do recall that you were the 2 one, and not Seelinger, who first raised the topic?
3 THE WITNESS: Yes, I raised the question as to 4 whether or not the 1 gpm was an absolute limit or if there 5 was some additional tolerance to that.
6 JUDGE KELLEY: All right.
7 THE WITNESS: One of the specific responses that 8 Mr. Seelinger made in answer to the question was that I had 9 said, and I will quote: "' Don't tell anybody that I told you 10 this' and I would deny it if I'm asked.' These are 11 Mr. Haverkamp's words, sir." 'the end of my quote.
12 First, I was surprised when I read this. I was (G~)
13 never aware that Mr. Seelinger had a view that I had ever 14 made such a statement. Secondly, I want to emphasize that I 15 don't make s tatements to the effect that, in this case or any 16 other case, that I would have personal discussions where I 17 , tell people that I'm inspecting, even individuals that I l
18 inspect over a number of years and have a close relationship 19 l with because of those inspections -- you know, I have never t
20 l to]d those people not to tell others of my conversations with 21 i them.
22 In the specific case of Mr. Seelinger, I did not 23 l tell him not to discuss any -- anything that I told or had l discussed with him on the day when this information about the 24 f'T 25 leak rate matter first came to my knowledge.
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1 I emphatically did not ever say that I would deny 2 having told him that, if I were asked.
3 I have been trying over the years to try to 4 reconstruct the events as they occurred on the day that I 5 became aware of the leak rate being in excess of 1 gpm on 6 October 8, 1978. Correction, it was October 16th.
7 My best recollection is that when I did become 8 aware of this, there were several things on my mind. One was 9 -- and perhaps the first issue -- was, what did the plant --
10 what actions did the plant and plant management have to take 11 in regards to the high leak rate, with regard to the Icak 12 rate being more than 1 gallon a minute? How long did they 13 have to operate, whether it was four hours, six hours, how 14 long did they have before they had to shut down or else find 15 the leakage? -
16 The other question was that, in view of the fact 17 that the initial identification of this problem was the 18 licensee's identification, not my own -- in other words, it 19 wasn't something I had found, I had discovered and therefore 20 ; it was a violation that I had come upon, that I would be 21 discussing in my inspection report and I was telling the 22 l licensee that they had violated a limit -- in this case, it 23 j was a situation where the licensee staff, had identified 24 ( themselves, that they were more than 1 gallon per minute. I 1
25 believe it was the on-coming shif t on that morning that was r
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1 discussing this matter as I had previously testified.
2 EXAMINATION BY THE BOARD 3 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
4 Q Let me just interrupt to suggest -- maybe this is 5 necessary, but I understood your desire to come back was 6 mainly to respond to this statement of Seelinger about what 7 you said. To the extent you could reopen the morning and who 8 was there and what shift it was, then we are into the whole 9 ballgame again and I don't think it really adds anything.
10 How does this additional comment on the things you seem to be 11 getting into now really shed light on whether these words
,p 12 were said or not?
'Q 13 A I will soon get to that.
14 Q Okay. But bear that in mind, would you, because I 15 think we want to keep this pretty focused.
16 A When I first became aware of the matter of 17 leakage, I was in the control room. I wanted to discuss the 7
18 issues with Mr. Seelinger, and I went to his office which was 19 ! outside the controlled area of the plant.
h 20 l He and I, I believe, first discussed what actions f
21 i they would be taking to shut the plant down. We discussed, l
22 l you know, what alternatives -- what they would be doing, in 23 terms of looking for leakage. We discussed, I believe, I may
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24 have stated out loud that I was thinking about in terms of, A
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you know, whether this w ts a violation that I would be 1
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- 1 identifying in my inspection report with an attendant notice 2 of violation or if it was -- or my perception that it was 3 their issue, that I was allowing them to follow up to.
4 The reason I bring these matters to be'a r is that I 5 believe that wds'the first part'of our discussion and I 6 believe I had a very candid statement about the fact that I 7 considered this their issue to follow up to.
8 In thht regard, I don't believe -- I don't recall 9 the specific words I used. Even then I didn't say: Don't 10 tell anybody I told you this. It was just a candid 11 discussion, rs
> s 12 It was sometimU after this discussion that the
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13 issue came up about the rounding-off process but there was no 14 y direct tie in my recollection between the roundoff and any 15 ) statements -- in fact, I never said, dontt tell anybody I 16 told you this, but there was no direct tie about. rounding of f 17 in that discussion at all. ,
i 18 ' Q So, just tu repeat what I understand you to be 19 saying, you are suggesting that an initial discussion in the 20 ' trailer, having to do with whether you would report it or 21 [ whether they, having discovered it first, would report i.t --
t 22 which, as I understaid it is a standard I&E procedure: If a 23 , licensee discovers some problem himself and re por ts it he, in 24 ! effect, gets credit for having done so; is that right?
25 . A That is correct. In either case it's a violation.
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v BRT 1 Q I unders tand. But you are suggesting that that 2 initial discussion about that subject, you think, might have 3 been the genesis of Mr. Seelinger's later statement that we 4 now see that you disagree with?
5 A I believe I might have said something, although 6 not these words and not even that close to these words about 7 i telling him not to tell anybody that I said something. I 8 might have made some general statement that I'm not sure 9 which way to proceed on this -- at this point it's too 10 speculative to recall what specific words I used, but the 11 topic of our discussion was about, as I recall, whether I g 12 should be considering this as a violation that I would be
(\,,)
13 following up to and therefore, the reason for this was I 14 would therefore be getting more information about it to i
15 support the violation and to support the documentation of it 16 in my report; or whether it would be his, their issue to I
17 continue the process where they had already identified it.
18 I guess I'll wait for any questions you may have now.
19 l I
20 .Q On this kind of a conflict in testimony, it is 21 ,
different, at least, from a lot where you have two people 22 l- with different versions of an event, but the essential way in I
23 which it's described is just, well, I remember it 24 differently. He raised the subject first or I raised the
(} 25 8
subject first -- but along comes Seelinger and he's pretty Y
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(_)' BRT 1 specific. He doesn't say he's giving a word-for-word quote 2 but he's saying something pretty close to it, as I understand 3 it, and he is using a well-known cliche, " Don't tell anybody 4 else I told you this, but." And he remembers that's what you 5 said. I'm trying to understand why he would remember 6 anything that specific if that weren't his recollection.
7 Do you have any suggestion on that? Do you see 8; what I'm sort of struggling with?
9 It's the kind of thing on the face of it that 10 doesn't look like somebody just made up because of the 11 specificity of the words.
12 I get that same impression and I have a very high
(-}
%./
A 13 personal regard for Mr. Seelinger, professionally, regarding 14 his competence. I think he probably has a fairly good 15 h memory. But in this case I do -- I think he's wrong.
16 Q Could you tell us again -- you may have gone over 17 this before, but could you tell us, again, the extent of your 18 I, professional contacts with Seelinger, let's say at the time 19 this particular meeting took place? This is October of '78; correct? He had been the tech support director for some 20 l 21 l time, at TMI-2, if not all of this time; is that right?
22 A Through that time, yes, he had been.
23 ! Q What had been -- maybe you could summarize -- had i
24 you seen -- had you deal t with Seelinger once? Twice? Five 25 ! times? Give us sort of a feeling for that.
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{
2 during every inspection I conducted for Unit 2 for TMI-2 3 since the time frame of around January of.1978, which is when
< 4 I first took over as the lead inspector, through this period i
- 5- in October; and I had dealt with him on a number.of technical i
l 6 matters. He was my point of contact for any telephone i
! 7 conversations when problems would occur, he would call me and j 8 discuss those problems. And when I identified problems it i 9 was my practice to go to Mr. Seelinger to make him first 10 aware of any problem that I had ever come upon. So we had a 11 professional relationship.
12 We had both graduated from the Naval Academy. I 13 did not know him in the Naval Academy. I did not have any 14 personal relationship with Mr. Seelinger. It was purely a 15 business, professional relationship between the two of us.
16 Q Of the various people that you would have dealings 17 with, or in the current jargon, interface with at TMI-2, your 18 reports might list five, 10, 12 people. Was Seelinger the 19 most significant person in your job relationship? Or one of 20 the most? How did he rank?
21 A In my view he was the most significant person that 22 I dealt with for Unit 2.
23 Q Would you open and close with him?
I 24 A Yes.
(} 25 l Q If you'd show up for an inspection, would you go ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 A Yes. Particularly -- well, I would attempt to go 3 to him first in every case. If he were not present I would 4 go to whoever was representing him, but he was the person I 5 would try to first contact and he was the person whom I would 6 try to have available for the exit meetings, discussion of 7 the findings.
8 O So he would typically be involved in both the 9 beginning and the end of an inspection?
10 A Yes, and throughout. If there were any issues 11 that came up I would contact him, I would say frequently.
12 Probably -- I would doubt if more than one day would lapse 13 that I didn't talk to him during an inspection. It's 14 possible I didn't talk to him for a whole day but those cases 15 were rare.
16 Q Is it possible that you could have said the words 17 i attributed to you or words to that effect, in a jocular i
18 0 manner? ,
19 A Are you suggesting humorous or joking --
20 l Q Yes. Yes. Don't tell anybody I told you this, i
but maybe you can round it off -- with a smile. Is that 21 )
22 possible?
A No, it's not. I'm fairly -- I'm a very serious 23 f 24 l person and I don't joke on the job. I don't really joke much 25 off the job. I'm iust kind of a not joking person.
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1 Q Some people do, you know. That's why I asked. I 2 appreciate your response.
3 Some people, I suspect even some inspectors, are 4 really uncomfortable in the position so they just make a 5 string of wisecracks at a visit, but that wouldn't be you, I 6 take?
7 A I think that depends on your personality, and I 8 don't have that type of personality.
9 BY JUDGE CARPENTER:
10 Q Mr. Haverkamp, I'm not sure that the issue we are 11 talking about right now is a major element in this record.
12 But, at any rate, it is my impression that at the time you 13 had this meeting with Mr. Seelinger, in your mind the exact 14 interpretation of a numerical limit of 1 gallon a minute in a 15 technical specification wasn't clear; whether it specifically k
16 precluded operation with an unidentified leakage of 1.1, for 17 d example, or 1.2; since it didn't say 1.0, that there was a II 18 i question in your mind and it -- is that a fair impression I E
19 f have, if that was your feeling?
I i 20 l A That isn't accurate --
21 I Q That you couldn't tell Mr. Seelinger, up or down, l
22 whether 1.1 or 1.2 was a clear violation?
23 j, A I didn't know that as well as some other matters 24 l related to the limit and that was one of the reasons why I
(
I
\ 25 i was discussing with Mr. Seelinger the basis for the technical
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'w) 1 specification. We, in fact, pulled out the technical 2 specifications to review them.
3 I asked questions about that and it's clear that 4 I, in hindsight, that I opened the door or at least I raised 5 an issue that caused the roundoff practice to occur. But I 6 did not intend, by my questioning, for that to happen.
7 At the same time there were several factors I want 8 to bring forward. One is that when this first came up, the 9 leakage was something above 1 gpm, somewhere between 1 and 10 1.5; I believe it was around 1.3. I was trying to determine 11 l what actions would have to be taken and how quickly to shut p 12 the plant down or to reduce the leakage. And that was one of b 13 the reasons I had asked if, you know, as to the absolute 14 f limit of 1, versus 1.0 or 1.5.
15 Q Well, in the sense of this, nit that we are trying 16 to pick here of his impression that you said " don't quote 17 me," to paraphrase and make it much briefer, if you couldn't 18 tell him one way or the other, wouldn't that be a basis for 19 him having this feeling that you said " don't quote me"? At 20 l that time apparently there was some uncertainty in your mind i
as to whether 1.3 really was a violation?
21 22 '
l3 A He might have had that feeling. I don't know what 23 ' he felt. I was aware later in the inspection --
24 ! O Well, if I understand correctly, you had this L
pV 25 ]-
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/ BRT 5251 1 resolution of the issue. Apparently you proceeded then to 2 check with people here in Washington about this issue so 3 that, at that point in time you weren' t quotable, either up 4 or down; is that a fair statement?
5 A That is true. I had not -- I did not know what 6 the limits should be or what the intent of the limit was. I 7 -- at the same time that af ter the leakage was reduced I did 8 not feel it was imminent, or imperative that I determine 9 that, so I waited until I got back to the office and I did 10 find out and when I did so I called them back. But I simply 11 did not know. Rather than call from the facility or from the r- 12 site at that time during the inspection I chose to wait until (s 13 later in the week because I didn't think that they were going 14 to be using or applying that.
15 Q Well, if you and I were having a discussion about 16 l some subject and there are two possible resolutions of that 17 subject and you were looking to me for advice and I couldn't 18 , clearly resolve it, up or down, but could see some merit to 19 both aspects, wouldn' t you get the impression that I didn't l 20 L want you to quote me as to which one was right?
21 ! A I'm not sure if I follow that.
i 22 Q Just the fact that, apparently, when you finished-23 l this conversation with Mr. Seelinger, this issue wasn't 24 h resolved. Do I have a correct impression?
(} 25 3
, A That's true. It wasn't really resolved and it 3
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1 l 28835.0 BRT 5252 1 wasn't really resolved when the inspections was over,
, 2 Q So you weren't quotable, you hadn't made any clear 3 pronouncement up or down?
8 4
4 A Whatever the quote was, I'm not sure what -- I'm 5 not sure what we are referring to as being quotable. I just 6 want to make a point that I didn't tell him something that I 7 would say I would later deny. In this case the tie in his 8 testimony is made to the fact that, or to his statement i
l 9 that: They may not be taking full advantage of the technical 10 specification.
11 Well, those are,not my words. I did not say "you 12 may not be taking full advantage." I was asking questions, i
13 But there's an apparent connection here between this 14 statement by Mr. Seelinger that I would deny making a 15 statement and another statement which I also deny making in I
16 that context. You know, I did ask questions about the limit 17 but I didn't say they may not be taking advantage of a
~1
- 18 limit, i'
19 I'm not sure what, in any case, why I would, you I
20 ! know, deny something when in the first place I never said 21 anything I had any intention of denying or any need to deny.
i 22 Q That's what I was asking if perhaps your denial 1
} 23 wasn't really limited to the extent you couldn't tell him one 1 24 way or the other.
25 k MS. WAGNER: Judge Carpenter, I think your 4
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1 question refers to Mr. Haverkamp's denial. And I think he 2 said he didn't make a denial.
3 BY JUDGE CARPENTER:
4 Q The immediate issue you have is whether 1.3 --
5 we'll accept that as a hypothetical if nothing else; I don't 6 know that that was the exact number that you were talking to 7 him about -- but whether 1.3 was a clear violation of the 8 technical specification, if I understand correctly?
9 A I told him in my view that was a violation of the 10 technical specification and that they were going to have to 11 either reduce the leakage or shut down, and we had determined g 12 that, you know, the point at which the clock would start, so (V to speak, for the tech spec limit; that is when -- I forget 13 14 now whether it was 7:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m., but whenever it 15 was identified, whenever the licensee staff identified that 16 they were in violation, or at least questioned the fact, that
- 17) was the starting of a clock. Then they would have four or 18 six hours, whatever that time was, in order to either reduce 19 j the leakage or to shut down. But I did state very clearly 1
20 l that I felt that they had been -- that in my view at the time
?.
21 i that they were in violation and that they had been in i
l 22 !
violation since that previous Monday when the leakage was 2 23 or more gallons per minute.
i 24 { Q So you don't think there really was any 25 g equivocation on your part about that?
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1 A I think it was still undetermined at that time and 2 really never -- had to be decided in terms of I didn't have i
3 to call NRR, I didn't have to call headquarters to support my
, 4 view because the leakage was reduced. So the issue became 5 moot. The leakage situation that I was aware of on that 6 morning was resolved and therefore the question of rounding j 7 off never really was tested.
4 8 BY JUDGE BRIGHT:
I 9 Q Mr. Haverkamp, how, again -- how did this question
]
10 of rounding off come up? I mean, here we've got a situation,
) 11 as far as I can tell from the record, Unit 2 had been i
12 operating for, oh, several months. They had always regarded 13 the 1 gallon per minute as 1.00000, up until that particular j 14 day. And as nearly as I can tell from offhand remarks in the 15 record, Unit 1, which had been operating for quite a while, f
l" 16 always used 1.000000, never any question about whether 1 17 gallon per minute meant what it said, i
18 l And then you have a conference and somehow or l
19 other this came up when it, apparently, hadn't occurred to i
{ 20 anyone before that time. How could -- could you tell me how I
- 21 , the subject came up?
1 I
22 l A To my best recollection we were looking at the 23 l technical specifications, actually at the limits, and going 24 ! through a discussion of applicability, in one case, that is, I
25 when the limit applied -- any time you exceed it or is it 1 :
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1 every 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, and that is the issue that was -- contesting 2 -- the most.
3 Just looking at the limits, I saw it written as 1 4 gpm. I have asked a question, if that was an absolute 5 limit? It was a question of ignorance out of -- I guess I 6 didn't have much experience with that particular limit 7 because I had not -- I do not recall any issues really coming 8 up where it took me to it. And, though I was aware of it --
9 you know, I certainly had read it before -- but in looking at i
10 it at that time I asked a question about whether it was 1 or 11 could it be higher? Was it 1 or 1.0? And as far as I
("% 12 recall, that was the extent of my raising the issue.
(_)
13 I don't recall any specific discussions that we 14 had af ter I started -- af ter I asked that initial ques tion.
15 Q You say you don't recall any specific discussion.
I 16 Is it possible that you might have said something, not 17 necessarily exactly, but something along the same lines that 18 g has come forward in Mr. Seelinger's testimony, and you just l
don't recall it?
19l i A I'd say it is possible I said something and didn't 20 l i
21 { recall it. It's a number of years ago, but in this 22 ! particular case, regarding the roundoff, since I can't recall 23 the specific words I'm just trying to recall either the 24 context of the discussions or the tone of the discussions,
(} 25 , and my recollection is that my questions were more of a k
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1 probing nature and it wasn't a direction or giving them -- a 2 consulting nature -- I wasn't advising them to take a certain 3 action. That's my best recollection.
4 MR. MC BRIDE: Excuse me, Judge Bright, could I 5 have the first several words of that answer reread? I didn't 6 hear them.
7 (The reporter read the record as requested.)
8 MS. WAGNER: I think we may have some ambiguity 9 now in his testimony now, in his testimony, because of the 10 las t ques tion, which ref erred generally to: Could you have 11 said something along the lines Mr. Seelinger suggested and 12 not recall it; I think maybe we need some clarification as to O. 13 what specifically, in Mr. Seelinger's testimony, was being 14 referred to or was being answered by Mr. Haverkamp. Whether 1
15 l it relates to your bringing -- Mr. Haverkamp's bringing up f
16 " roundoff or whether it's Mr. Seelinger's recalling that 17 Mr. Haverkamp said, if you repeat this, I'll deny it.
10 l JUDGE BRIGHT: I'm just talking about the 19 d rounding-off process. I think -- personal feeling that this I
20 . " don't tell anybody" is somewhat inconsequential. But I am 1
21 [ interested in how did this rounding-off thing get started.
22 l And it would appear to me that it had to come from this i
23 l conversation.
i 24 I THE WITNESS: I believe that the issue of roundoff O 25 ) came from the conversation I had with Mr. Seelinger. I
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1 believe it was because I had some questions about roundoff.
2 I don't even know at this time -- and I don't believe I used 3 the term "roundoff"; I believe I used a question as to 4 whether it was 1, or 1.5, I assume a more specific-type 5 ques tion regarding the numerical limit.
6 I do not believe I used terms such as "taking 7 advantage of." Those are terms that I read in other peoples' 8 testimony, but I -- just not the language I would normally 9 take. I have no reason for them to -- I have no reason to 10 find a mechanism for the licensee to take advantage of or to 11 act beyond the limits of the technical specifications.
p 12 My intent, then, was to make an assessment as to V
13 the safety significance as well as the legal requirements 14 I regarding the shutdown or operation of the plant. I was 15 trying to jus t view -- I was trying to determine the limit 16 and just how much in violation of the limit they were and how 17 , significant that was so that I would know whether the plant i
18 l should be shutting down promptly; can they get one or two I
19 i more measurements to determine whether their leakage 20 measurement was in error; and just how much time they had to 21 I find the leakage. It was just several questions that were t
22 ' asked about the situation that they were in at the time and 23 ; had been in over the past couple of days. But I do believe I i
24 -- I believe I was the first to ask about the limit itself, I
j 25 just how -- if there was any tolerance to the limil and what t
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28835.0 5258 V(~T BRT 1 the accuracy of the limit was.
2 JUDGE BRIGHT: Thank you, sir.
3 JUDGE KELLEY: The Board has no further questions 4 on the quotation that has been the center of this 5 discussion. I indicated earlier an interest in asking 6 questions about a separate part of Mr. Haverkamp's testimony 7 and upon reconsideration I have decided not to do that.
8 Are there follow-up questions on what we've 9 covered so far this morning?
10 MR. MC BRIDE: Judge Kelley, we have no further 11 follow-ups to the subject matter of the conversation with 12 Mr. Seelinger. But what I alluded to earlier was the fact 13 ; that we received in our office late last week, an inspection 14 report from Region 1 with respect to another station but 15 bearing on some of the same types of things that have been 16 discussed in this hearing. Obviously we couldn't have f
17 brought this document forward before it firs t came into 18 l existence.
I 19 l We thought it would be helpful for the Board to l
20 l ask three brief follow-up questions of Mr. Haverkamp with 21 j respect to this particular inspection report.
22 ' JUDGE KELLEY: An inspection report relating to what facility?
23 l 24 MR. MC BRIDE: It's Rochester Gas & Electric's l
Ginna, G-i-n-n-a, facility conducted by Region 1. The letter 25 l
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1 to RG&E is signed by Mr. Robert M. Gallo, chief of the 2 projects branch II, of the division of reactor projects in 3 Region 1.
4 JUDGE KELLEY: Where does this tie in with 5 Mr. Haverkamp?
6 MR. MC BRIDE: It ties in particularly with 7 respect to the type of inspection he was doing during the 8 i week of October 16th to 20th of 1978, particularly with 9 respect to a lot of things the Board has heard were a part of
- 10 his inspection and things that they are doing in regard to 11 inspections as compared to what was done in regard to the 12 fall of '78.
O 13 E JUDGE KELLEY: Have other counsel had a chance to 14 see the report?
15 MR. BLAKE: I was handed a copy after 16 Mr. Haverkamp took the stand and wasn't offered an 17[ opportunity to review it and frankly would have liked to have i
18 h been offered that opportunity somewhat previously.
!I 19 !! MS, WAGNER: I have not seen the document. I i
l 20 l assume it's what Mr. McBride handed me in response to your 21 ! question as to whether we have seen it.
22 ' JUDGE KELLEY: Well, we are coming up on a break.
23 , Let us determine, were there any other follow-up questions?
! d 24 MR. MC BRIDE: We had prepared follow-up i
25 i questions, depending on what Haverkamp said this morning. We ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 l have elected not to put those to Mr. Haverkamp in light of 1
2 this morning's testimony, but questions 12, 13 and 14 of our 3 prepared follow-up relate not specifically to the 4 conversation with Mr. Seelinger but rather, to the RGSE 5 inspection report that I have just referred to. I can hand 6 those to the Board. I have handed them to the parties, so 7 they can see what it is that we want to have put to 8 Mr. Haverkamp about it.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: Well, are there any follow-ups from 10 anybody else? No?
11 MR. MC BRIDE: I might observe, I wasn't trying to 12 deprive other counsel of this document but we were preparing 13 , and copying these documents and preparing these questions 14 last evening in my office. So the document is dated November 15 3, 1986. It would have been rather hard for me to have 16 provided it to counsel much before today since we only got it 17 ' in our office late last week.
18 , JUDGE KELLEY: I don't remember exactly what we 19 l said on the subject of Mr. Haverkamp's coming back, when it E
arose. Certainly I think it was our intention that he come 20 l l
21 i back for a limited purpose. I think I would say, generally, 22 jI I think the Board's attitude toward going beyond his 23 test.imony this morning getting into some report on Ginna is 24 not terribly hospitable, but we are willing to look at the O "f " """"'" """ """" "" ""'" " ""'"" " "er '"" "'""'-
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1 If we are otherwise through, let's take a coffee 2 break and then we'll hear comments on this document and then 3 we'll be getting to Mr. Herbein.
4 MS. WAGNER: Judge Kelley, could we maybe take 5 five minutes more than usual? I'm trying to reach Mr. Capra 6 on another matter to get an answer from him.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: All right.
8 (Recess.)
9 JUDGE KELLEY: We had distributed at the break, a 10 copy of an NRC inspection report dated November 3, '06 and a 11 set of follow-up questions from the employees' counsel for
/"% 12 Mr. Haverkamp with our attention directed particularly to U 13 questions 12, 13 and 14, which were designed to fit with the 14 report. I would like to hear from counsel and the Staff as 15 to any comments they have on this line of questions.
16 ! Mr. Blake?
17 j MR. BLAKE: Judge Kelley, I don't think it will i
10 l further the record of this proceeding and the directives 19 ! which have been given to the Board here to have these i
20 ! questions asked or 7 get the answers or to put this exhibit i
21 in the record. The exhibi t is, as Mr. McBride described, a recent report of the NRC Staff of an inspection conducted at 22 l 23 the Ginna plant in 1986. We are not at trial in this 24 l proceeding to compare how we have improved in training or in l
25 j procedures or in a variety of ways, computer programming or Q
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28835.0 BRT 5262 1 other things, all of which I would hope have taken p ace in 2 the industry, as well in the NRC's inspection world. And 3 that, in essence, is what this would show. I think - or it 4 could be used to show. I don't see that it furthers anything 5 and I think it's totally outside anything we expected, and 6 Mr. McBride, he hadn't even anticipated this last week when 7 we talked about Mr. Haverkamp, bringing him back for a very 8 narrow subject.
9 Frankly I think it's better for this proceeding 10 that we get on furthering the record and bring Mr. Ilerbein 11 forward and get ahead.
1 12 JUDGE KELLEY: All right.
- 13 MR. BURNS
- Your Honor, I don't have any objection 14 to the document but I guess that's based simply on the 15 question I would leave to the Board's discretion, and that is 16 l whether this particular document can, perhaps, shed some 17 light or perspective on the environment as it exists today as 18 f compared to the environment that existed in 1978-1979 time 19 j frame. So, simply from that perspective on behalf of i
20 Mr. Herbein, we don't have any objection.
21 JUDGE KELLEY: Mr. Maupin?
22 MR. MAUPIN: I just don't have any position. '
! 23 l JUDGE KELLEY: Staff, do you want to comment?
24 > MS. WAGNER: Yes. I object to the int.roducLion of 25 th18 document or questioning about this document. It bears i ;
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1 absolutely no relationship to the narrow issue on which 2 Mr. Haverkamp was called. It is a document not authored by n
3I him nor reviewed by him nor, in fact, a document seen by him 4 until the break this morning at the conclusion of his 5 questioning on the issue that he was brought back on, and the 6 questions, the proposed questions call for speculation on his 7 part. He's not even the proper witness, if they wanted to 8 pursue this line of testimony, he's not the proper witness to 9 answer the questions; and probably most importantly, 10 questions of improvements and expansion of NRC inspection 11 practices is not an issue in this proceeding and I think it 12 really shouldn't be admitted.
13 JUDGE KELLEY: Further comment, Mr. McBride?
14 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, Judge Kelley. I'm not trying 15 to expand the scope of the proceeding. The document is 16 simply used to give the Board and the Commission what I 17 l consider to be a much-needed perspective on the fact that 10 l this proceeding involves a period of time, prior to the Three h
19 N Mlle Island accident, when the inspection efforts of the f
20 i Commission were far less comprehensive than they are today 1
21 ! and this report is illustrative of the type of inspection i
22 ! that is being done today.
23 - The witness was the person who was conducting the 1
24 , inspections at Three Mile Island Unit 2 in 1978-79, as his prior testimony indicates. We could not have presented this 25 l f
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28835.0 p1 BRT 5264 1 document to the Board before because the document didn't 2 exist until last week and we didn't have it until either the 3 very end of last week or the first of this week.
4 JUDGE KELLEY: This document is typical of any 5 number of reports done in the pas t year.
6 MR. MC BRIDE: Not so far as I am aware. I think 7 that this document is much more comprehensive in its 8 description of the type of inspections that are being done 9 today that are germane to the very issues that are before 10 you; that is, the type of review of surveillances, logs, 11 shift turnovers, strip recorders, and this sort of thing that 12 was evidently not done in 1978. And that is not intended in 13 any way to be a criticism of Mr. Haverkamp or the Commission, 14 but simply that the Commission itself learned some lessons 15 from the Three Mile Island accident and one of them is that 16 far more comprehensive inspection is much more likely to 17 . catch these kinds of problems in the bud, than to have l
18 i allowed them to have continued. Had that occurred, that we
! 19 wouldn't be here today, and that's our perspective on the 20 thing and we think tha t the Board could use that perspective 21 s from the inspector at the time, comparing what is going on l
22 i today with what happened then, and the Commission will be 23 l benefited from that.
24 The Commission has to decide what to do an a 25 result of this proceeding. That very limited perspective in l
i
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i 28835.0 BRT 5265 1 the record, with just three questione, it seems to us, would 2 be useful to the Board and useful to the Commission in 3 deciding how to evaluate the conduct that did occur in 4 1978-79, and these questions are focused on what kind of 5 inspection was done then compared to today; not what is going 6 on a t Ginna, necessarily, but just a comparison of the 7 inspection efforts, then and today.
8 JUDGE KELLEY: Okay. The Board is excluding this 9 prof fered exhibit and any proposed ques tions on two grounds, 10 basically. One, it is beyond the scope. It isn't as if 11 these questions were put when Mr. Haverkamp firs t came.
12 Mr. Haverkamp came back for a narrow purpose today. It's 13 clearly outside that scope. It was and remains our intent to 14 keep Mr. Haverkamp's reappearance focused. Beyond that, we 15 don't think that a comparison of the Staff and I&E inspection 16 efforts between '78-79 and '86 are within the scope of this 17 proceeding. It is certainly not an explicit issue in the 18 Commission's order and so, even on the theory that 19 Mr. Haverkamp might have been here for all purposes, we think i
20 ; there's a scope objection to it. It is untimely in any 21 ( event. Whatever recent reports might have reflected as 22 i illustrative of recent inupections, if the thrust of this is 23 l what are you doing now you weren't doing in '79, this is a 24 topic we could have at least put forward and argued many I
25 months ago with an appropriate witness in mind. So that's i
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1 our ruling on this exhibit and those questions.
2 If you want the exhibit in question in as an offer 3 of proof I suppose we can so mark it.
4 MR. MC BRIDE: Exactly what I would ask you to do, 5 Judge Kelley, I would ask you to mark this as Board Exhibit 6 26 and make it as an offer of proof in this proceeding by the 7 numerous employees. I also think for context it might be 8 useful if, at this point in the transcript, the reporter were 9! directed to copy in the single page of our follow-up 10 questions that included the three questions pertaining to 11 this exhibit so that the Commission would have that before 12 them later.
13 , JUDGE KELLEY: The exact label might be something l
14l i more like proposed exhibit or rejected exhibit, but we can I
15 ' give it a number.
16 Any objection to that general approach from H;
17 anyone?
18 f All right. Then the exhibit itself, the report i
19 with the date of November 3, 1986, covering letter from Mr.
20 Gallo to Rochester Gas & Electric Corp., that is the 21 ! exhibit. Associated with it and as part of the exhibit would 22 be the employees' follow-up questions to Mr. Haverkamp, 23 , restricted to questions 12, 13 and 14, but we'll put in the 24 j whole set.
(} 25 l
That can be -- Exhibit 26 is the next number?
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1 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, sir.
2 JUDGE KELLEY: But it's a proposed exhibit, which 3 the Board is rejecting, as the transcript will reflect.
4 (Exhibit 26 identified.)
5 (Exhibit 26 rejected.)
6 MR. MC BRIDE: Let the record reflect that I'm 7 giving the reporter three copies of Exhibit 26 as described 8 by Judge Kelley.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: If I'm not mistaken, then, we can 10 let -- we can excuse Mr. Haverkamp; correc t? Okay.
11 Mr. Haverkamp, we appreciate your coming back this 12 morning. Thank you very much. You are excused.
13 (Witness stood down.)
14 JUDGE KELLEY: We'll go right to our next witness, 15 Mr. Herbein.
16 Whereupon, 17 j JOHN G. HERBEIN 10l was called as a witness and, having first been duly sworn, k
19 was examined and testified as follows:
l 20 j EXAMINATION i
21 ' BY MR. BURNS:
22 Q Mr. Herbein, you have before you a 14-page 23 document bearing the caption of this case and entitled 24 L " Prepared Direct Testimony of John G. Herbein," and this 3
l 25 document, in the upper right-hand corner on the first page,
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i 28835.0 BRT 5268 1 is marked "Herbein Exhibit 1.0." Also, do you have before 2 you an attachment to that 14-page document which is labeled 3 "Herbein Exhibit 1.1"?
4 A That's correct; I do.
5 Q Have you had a chance to review this document with 6 the Exhibit attachment, prior to your testimony this morning?
7 A Yes, I have.
8 Q At this time, do you wish to make any corrections 9 or additions to the document?
10 A No, I do not.
11 Q Is it your desire to adopt this document as your 12 prepared direct testimony in these proceedings?
13 A Yes.
14 MH. BURNS: Your Honor, at this time I would ask 15 the document be bound into the record.
16 JUDGE KELI.EY: So ordered.
17 (The document follows:)
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I Herbein Ex. 1.0 O
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE PRESIDING BOARD
)
In the Matter of )
)
INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND ) Docket No. LRP UNIT 2 LEAK RATE DATA )
FALSIFICATION )
)
)
)
Prepared Direct Testimony of JOHN G. HERBEIN
} My name is John G. Herbein. I am presently employed by Pennsylvania Electric Company ("Penelec") as Vice President, Station Operations. In that position, I am responsible for operation of eleven generating facilities with a total capacity of over 6500 MW. These facilities include eight coal-fired and three hydroelectric stations. The facilities are operated and maintained by more than 1200 personnel.
I. Education And Employment History I graduated from the Naval Academy with a B.S. in Naval Science and Engineering in 1960. I spent the next seven years in the Navy, where I served on four destroyers as ASW officer, weapons officer and chief engineer. While in the O
.. a l ,
j Navy, I attended the Naval Nuclear Power School, and qualified as Nuclear Engineer Officer of the Watch. My last eighteen ,
1 j months in the Navy I served as Chief Engineering Officer of the ,
i USS Moale and later the USS Gaynard. As Chief Engineering i
Officer, I was responsible for the main propulsion plant, all
- i !
j electrical and auxiliary equipment associated with the ship's main engines and propulsion system, and administration of the 100-man engineering department aboard ship.
Following my release from the Navy in May 1967, I worked at the Yankee Atomic Power Plant as an assistant to the 1 Operations Supervisor. My responsibilities were to assist the j Operations Supervisor in the supervision and administration of l the operations department.
1 j In September 1967, I joined Metropolitan Edison Com-I pany and was assigned for three years to the Saxton Nuclear Reactor in Saxton, Pennsylvania. I obtained a senior reactor l operator's license in June 1968, and from August 1968, until J
May 1970, I was assigned as the Saxton Supervisor of Opera-I tions. In that position, I was responsible for all operating functions and power generation of the 30 MWT Saxton
}
- experimental reactor, which generated approximately 3.5 MW of i
electrical power. In May 1970, I was assigned as Supervisor of r
j Reactor Plant Services at Saxton. In this capacity, I was
! responsible for the maintenance and nuclear engineering j activities required to support the operating unit. [
t
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l i-- - - - . . - - - - - _ - - . - - - _ - . - - , - - . - - - -
i In September 1970, I was transferred by Metropolitan Edison to Three Mile Island as Station Engineer for Unit 1. At TMI-1, I was responsible for all the engineering disciplines, including radiation protection, nuclear engineering and training. These disciplines supported the operations and maintenance activities associated with TMI-1. In January 1973, I became the TMI-1 Assistant Superintendent. In this capacity, I was directly responsible for the operations, maintenance,
,' engineering and administrative activities associated with TMI-1. In September 1974, I became Station Superintendent responsible for the management of TMI Units 1 and 2.
In 1975, I was promoted to Manager of Nuclear Opera-
{} tions, and was stationed in Reading, Pennsylvania. In this capacity I was the manager responsible for the operation of TMI Units 1 and 2. In the fall of 1976, I was named Manager of Generation Operations for Metropolitan Edison, and in this capacity I assumed additional responsibility for all coal-fired, hydro-power and combustion turbine power stations for Metropolitan Edison. In June of 1977, I was named Vice Presi-dent of Generation for Metropolitan Edison. I continued in that capacity until the accident at Three Mile Island, Unit 2, which occurred in March of 1979.
II. Purpose Of Testimony In this proceeding, I seek complete resolution of all
{} allegations that I was in any way involved in or aware of leak O rate testing improprieties, and I wish to remove any and all s restrictions concerning my employment in the nuclear field. '
The purpose of my testimony, therefore, is to explain that I had no involvement in, awareness of or conscious tolerance of leak rate testing improprieties. To that end, my testimony addresses my duties and responsibilities as Vice President-Generation between February 1978 and March 1979, the management structure of TMI-2, and my lack of knowledge concerning alleged-leak rate testing difficulties and improprieties at TMI-2.
III. Duties And Resconsibilities k l
Between February 1978 and March 1979, I was Vice Pres-
{} ident-Generation for Metropolitan Edison. I was responsible for the overall operation, maintenance, administration, quality assurance, and related technical engineering support activities associated with the generating stations owned and operated by Metropolitan Edison. The stations included one two-unit l
nuclear station, two multi-unit coal-fired stations, one hydro-electric station, and fourteen combustion turbines which had a total capacity of 2576 MW. In addition, Metropolitan Edison 1
was a partial owner of a coal-fired station operated by Penelec. l In carrying out my duties and responsibilities, I was involved in the following activities:
interaction with the five managers who reported to me to keep apprised of their functional activities, priority concerns and initiatives; plant inspections and visits;
/~}
annual budget preparation, tracking and performance; rate case development, including preparation and presentation of generation testimony, responses to discovery requests, and appearances before the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission; license and permit applications to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources regarding air and water emission limits for power stations; reviewing NRC inspection reports and related responses and meetings with the NRC on various issues; meetings with executives and managers of sister companies in the GPU system; meetings with representatives of various manufacturers and suppliers; personnel related issues, including recruiting efforts, interviews, promotions and reorganizations; community relations activities, including a community action committee designed to promote better communica-((~T
/ tion between Metropolitan Edison customers and Company management, public speaking engagements, and television interviews; and membership in the Edison Electric Institute Prime Movers and its Nuclear Power Subcommittee.
IV. Management Structure Of TMI-2 I generally kept abreast of activities at TMI-2 by relying on the chain of command to keep me apprised of opera-tions at TMI-2. Addi tionally, several formal review committees were established outside the direct chain of command to assure an objective, independent review of plant activities and to provide management with a broad overview and perspective of plant operation, maintenance, safety-related and technical issues. I relied on the chain of command and the cognizant
(')T n- , -- - --
formal review committees to bring issues requiring my input and decisions to my attention. When a problem requiring my input was brought to my attention, I became directly involved in the problem to the degree a satisfactory resolution required.
In addition to the above, about every 4-6 weeks, I would visit TMI Units 1 and 2. The purpose of my visits was to meet with station management on current issues of concern, such as station performance, personnel vacancies and budget develop-ment and compliance. Additionally, although I did not engage in the direct supervision of employees when I visited, I would periodically speak with them to indicate that upper management was interested in and supportive of them, and to indicate that
(~3 the corporate organization in Reading was concerned about V
activities at TMI.
A. Chain Of Command In describing the chain of command, I will generally restrict myself to describing the chain relevant to leak rate 1
testing and plant operations. The control room operators
("CROs") performed the majority of routine, day to day operat-ing tasks. Operations personnel were assigned to five operat-ing shifts, and each shift had a Shift Foreman in charge. TMI Unit 1 and Unit 2 Shift Foremen reported to the Shift Super-visors who were in charge of Shift Foremen at both units. The Shift Supervisors reported in turn to the Supervisors of Opera-tions for Units 1 and 2. The Unit 2 Supervisor of Operations,
O the Superintendent-Technical Support and the Supervisor of Maintenance reported to the Unit 2 Superintendent. The Unit 2 Superintendent reported to the TMI Station Superintendent, the highest level of management stationed on the Island itself.
The Station Superintendent reported to the Manager of Genera-tion Operations in Reading, Pennsylvania. He in turn reported to me, the Vice President-Generation, also in Reading. After March 5, 1979, the chain of command was reorganized, and the Station Superintendent became Station Manager and began reporting directly to me. In addition to the Manager of Generation Operations, the Manager of Generation Administra-tion, the Manager of Generation Engineering, the Manager of Quality Assurance and Training and the Manager of Maintenance also reported to me. An organizational chart is attached as Herbein Exhibit 1.1.
On a day-to-day basis, I received information through the managerial structure, primarily from the Managers listed above who reported to me. For example, if the reactor would trip or if there was a problem that would limit the full power level achievable by Unit 2, I would be made aware of it by the Manager of Generation Operations or the Manager of Generation Engineering.
Additionally, there was a significant amount of licensing information that we were required to transmit to the NRC. I signed the transmittal letters after ascertaining that l (:)
4 the underlying documents were accurate and complete, and had passed through the proper review channels.
I had a number of reliable, competent managers. I relied on them to manage their departments and keep me apprised of developments requiring my input and decisions.
B. Formal Review Committees There were four such groups relevant to this inquiry:
(1) the General Office Review Board (GORB), (2) the Plant Operations Review Committee (PORC), (3) the Generation Review Committee (GRC) and (4) the Quality Assurance Department (QA).
The GORB was an advisory group that reported directly to the President of Metropolitan Edison. The GORB's reports would allow the President, who was not involved in the day-to-day operational activities of the station, to look at the broad perspective of maintaining nuclear safety and appropriate radi-ation protection.
The PORC was an advisory group that reported to the Unit Superintendent. The PORC was required by the technical specifications of TMI-2 to review procedure changes and plant modifications, as well as activities directly affecting the nuclear safety of the operating unit.
The GRC was a group organized to provide an indepen-dent review and audit of activities important to nuclear safe-ty, which included procedure changes, plant modifications and violations of regulations.
)
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The QA organization audited and inspected safety related activities, including operations, maintenance, engineering and licensing, to ensure compliance with procedures developed by the functional groups.
V. Lack of Awareness Of Alleged Reactor Coolant Inventory Balance Testing Problems It is my understanding, from the voluminous record generated by the various leak rate investigations, that the bases for an allegation that I may have had some awareness of leak rate testing problems at TMI-2 are: (1) the allegation by the U.S. Attorney that I may have been involved in a conference call concerning leak rate testing problems and (2) the presence
} of my signature on a transmittal letter submitting a leak rate test-related licensee evSnt report ("LER").
A. The U.S. Attorney's Telephone Conversation Allegation I am now familiar with the U.S. Attorney's statement relating to the sentencing proceedings in U.S. v. Metropolitan Edison Company that contains, in part, the following:
A shift supervisor would testify that as a result of the October 18, 1978 NRC inspection a conference telephone call was made from the shift supervisor's office in the Unit 2 con-trol room. Present in the shift supervisor's office and parties to the conversation were the Superintendent of Technical Support, the Supervisor of Operations, and two shift super-visors. The call was made to either TMI's Station Superintendent or Metropolitan Edison's Vice-President for Generation, or T both. The Station Superintendent and/or the
{s_/ Vice-President for Generation were briefed on
_g_
the situation at TMI Unit 2 concerning the leak rate test. During the conversation the operations personnel alerted the Station Superintendent and/or Vice-President for Generation that because of the numerous " bad" leak rate tests obtained at Unit 2, the NRC's interpretation of the leak rate technical specifications would result in repeated shut-down of the facility.
I never participated in any such conversation. If I had, I am certain that I would remember such a conversation and I would have initiated action to understand and correct the problem. Beyond what is stated above, I do not know the basis for the U.S. Attorney's statement.
I further note that the U.S. Attorney's version of the anticipated testimony of the shift supervisor was far from
{} conclusive concerning my alleged involvement in the phone call. In fact, the best argument made was that it was "either" me, "or" TMI's Station Superintendent, "or both" that were involved.
Moreover, I think it important to observe that I was not a party to the sentencing proceedings, did not participate in the plea agreement bargaining process, and had no opportun-ity to rebut the argument of the U.S. Attorney.
B. Licensee Event Report 78-62/1T I am presently aware that, in the fall of 1978, I signed the transmittal letter covering LER 78-62/1T. */ I
- / The numbering system used for LERs reflects that this LER
{~}-
ss was the sixty-second (62nd) LER in calendar year 1978.
(3 V presently have no independent recollection of the LER or the events surrounding it. Therefore, in this section I will discuss the general procedure for filing LERs, to the best of my recollection, that was in place during 1978-79.
When an incident occurred, there were fairly detailed guidelines within the TMI-2 technical specifications for the licensee to follow with regard to reporting certain information within preset time frames. Typically, when an event was out-side of a technical specification or a limiting condition of operation, station management at TMI, with assistance from the licensing group in Reading, would prepare and submit a " prompt report" within the required time frame, which was usually 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.
{
The PORC was responsible for reviewing prompt reports.
The PORC would thoroughly review an event to determine whether, in fact, it met the criteria of the technical specifications for prompt reporting. The PORC also would review the planned follow-up action to determine if it properly addressed the problem. Additionally, the PORC would monitor follow-up action to assure that the planned follow-up action was actually carried out.
Generally, at some time after the prompt report of the incident, the technical specification required a follow-up report. This report was typically handled by corporate licens-ing personnel with assistance from TMI personnel. The licens-ing personnel would then interact with various generation
O department heads in Reading and the appropriate personnel at TMI to further develop the follow-up report. After various reviews, reports were brought to me for signature. I reviewed the reports to ascertain that they were responsive to the reporting requirements and that they had the licensing group's recommendation that I should approve them. I would sign reports and return them to the licensing group, who would then make final distribution. If I had any concerns or questions 4
about a follow-up report, I would bring them to the attention of the licensing group, who would then attempt to resolve them to my satisfaction.
Although presumably the above described review
{} procedures were followed in preparing the LER, it recently was brought to my attention during an interview with Mr. Stier's staff that the final version of the LER contained some inaccurate statements which may have been misleading to me and the NRC. The inaccuracies are thoroughly examined by Mr. Stier in his report, and I will not specifically address them here.
I note, however, that the LER would not have given me any reason to believe that the problem was anything other than an isolated incident that had been corrected. The established review and follow-up procedures should have brought the true nature and extent of the problems to my attention and the attention of the NRC. Apparently, due to the inaccuracies in the LER and lack of appropriate follow-up, this never occurred.
In fact, as I am now aware, in January of 1979, the NRC
}
-- y _ _ , .- - - - . . , , . - . , - , . . , -
notified me that LER 78-62/1T had been selected for on-site follow-up, that an NRC inspector verified that the relevant reporting requirements had been met, that appropriate corrective action had been taken, that the event was reviewed by the licensee as required by the technical specifications and that continued operation of the facility was conducted in conformance with technical specification limits. (Testimony of Donald Haverkamp, Exhibit E, at 10-11)
VI. Concluding Remarks I emphatically state that I was not aware of, did not participate in, and did not consciously tolerate improprieties
{} associated with leak rate testing at TMI-2.
indicated TMI-2's failure to respond to a leak rate test Although the LER outside the acceptable limits, I was never made aware of the following ongoing problems:
- 1) that CROs were having trouble obtaining leak rate test results within acceptable limits;
- 2) that CRos were documenting leak rate test results within acceptable limits without regard to the validity of the results;
- 3) that CROs or others were discarding or failing to document unsatisfactory tests;
- 4) that CROs were manipulating test results; and
- 5) that Operations Department personnel were not i taking appropriate action after unsatisfactory test results.
I had no reason to believe that these problems were '
I occurring. Neither my Managers, the Metropolitan Edison formal
}
l l
O review committees, nor the NRC brought them to my attention.
In fact, I had every reason to believe that no such problems were being encountered. In February of 1979, I had a routine corporate management meeting with the NRC at the Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the NRC's Office of Inspection and Enforcement's inspection program and Metropolitan Edison's organization, management controls, previous enforcement actions, operational status, plant and programs. There was no indication from the NRC at that meeting that there were problems with leak rate testing at Unit 2.
These problems should have been identified to me by
(} either the managerial structure or the formal review committees. Neither structure identified these problems. I do not believe that any failure of the managerial and committee structures was due to any dereliction of duty on my part.
While in hindsight certain mechanisms or procedures might have been instituted to avoid this communication breakdown, I had no reason, at the time, to believe such measures were necessary.
However, I recognize that as the Vice President-Generation I must accept ultimate responsibility.
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9
28835.0 f') BRT 5269 V
1 JUDGE KELLEY: Mr. Verbein, I have a few prefatory 2 comments and we'll be getting into questions by the Board to 3 be followed, perhaps, by questions suggested by counsel for 4 the various parties.
5 As I'm sure you know, this Board has -- is charged 6 with the responsibility by the commission to investigate and 7 to the extent possible, fix responsibility for leak rate test 8 falsifications and other improper practices with respect to 9 leak rate tests in the 1978-79 time frame at Three Mile 10 Island Unit 2. We have been through what has now become a 11 rather lengthy proceeding. We have talked with every CRO but (S 12 one; every foreman; every shift supervisor; and five or six V
13 senior management supervisory people, most recently 14 Mr. Miller and Mr. Logan. That's our background on it.
15 We have in addition in the record these two quite 16 4 extensive studies done by the NRC Staff on the one hand and 17 by Mr. Edwin Stier on the other, at the behest of GPU 18 j Nuclear. All this material is in the record.
19 We have, with respect to yourse]f and your own 20 involvement, a few statements by other witnesses that 21 preceded you; I presume you are familiar with those, I know 22 1 your counsel is.
23 Our questions this morning will focus on your 24 prepared testimony and to some extent on what others may have i
(} 25 l 1
said about your involvement and that's the context that we i
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2 Let me say in addition that we know that you, as 3 is true of most peopic who have come before us, have been 4 interviewed not once but several times on this topic in the 5 past. We've got in Mr. Stier's report I think no fewer than 6 four interviews conducted with you, either by Stier or NRC 7 people.
8 It is not our intent here to go over all that old 9 , ground this morning. I have, for example, a few questions on J
10 this LER of October '78. I know that you have had 60 or 70 11 pages of questions and answers on the subject already. It is 12 already in the record. We don't intend to restate all of 13 that here this morning. For that reason I suspect my 14 questions may seem a little bit choppy, but what I'm doing, 15 really, trying to fix on some areas that I think were either 16 of particular concern or where there may be some gap in the 17 j questions, a gap in the record, it seems to me, or some i
18 I ques tion in my mi nd. I'm not trying to tell a story here 19 this morning. It may not hang together to a casual reader 20 ' but I think in the interests of getting to the point that's a 21 better approach.
22 I EXAMINATION BY THE BOARD i
23 [ BY JUDGE KELLEY:
) I would like to ask you a few questions about the 24 li Q
d 25 LER that I have already referred to. For the record it is
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1 LER 78-62/1T, relating to -- well, which was an outgrowth of 2 Mr. Haverkamp's visit of October '78, and which ultimately 3 you signed the transmittal letter, I think on November 1s t in 4 '78, transmitting the LER to the NRC. I assume you are very 5 familiar with tha t document, are you not?
6 A Yes, sir.
7 Q In that regard and with reference to that 8 particular LER, I note in your prepared testimony when you 9 list your responsibilities at page 5, you include the 10 reviewing NRC inspection reports and related responses as one 11 of your -- one of your duties.
~
12 Passing over, if you would look at the bottom of 13 page 7 and top of page 8, I'm looking at the sentence which 14 reads as follows: "I signed the transmittal letters after 15 ascertaining that the underlying documents were accurate and 16 complete."
17 What I want to get to is how you went about 18 determining that things were accurate and complete. I'm reading this in the further context of page 12, I think it 19 fi 20 l is, where -- yes, skipping over to 12, starting on the third 21 , line you say: "I reviewed the reports to ascertain that they 22 l were responsive to the reporting requirements and that they
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23 ; had the licensing group's recommendation that I should i
24 ! approve them."
B
(} 25
?
My first question goes to what seems to me to be
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1 an impossible, if not conflict, then contrast between the two 2 statements. On 7 and 8 you say you reviewed the reports and 3 underlying documents to make sure they were accurate and 4 complete. Then on 12 you seem to be saying that -- something 5 less than that; that they were responsive and licensing said 6 you should approve this.
7 Could you give me a better feel for what went on 8 in the case of the typical LER coming to your desk where you 9 were asked to sign the transmittal sent to the NRC? What 10 l would you do, typically, to ascertain the underlying facts?
11 A As indicated on page 12 of my testimony, I would 17 f make sure that they were responsive to the reporting 13 requirements and as I also indicale, that they had the 14 licensing group's recommendation that I should approve them.
15 As you pointed out, I further expanded just what I did with those documents on the top of page 8. I don't 16 [
17 be.l i ev e , myself, that there's a conflict in those two 18 , statements. I think I did both what is indicated on page 8 19 i and what is indicated on page 12, in that the documents were i
20 ; put in front of me, I reviewed them to see that they were 5
21 j complete and occurate to the best of my understanding and 22 ; ability at the time, based on what I had been told by my 23 ; chain of command about the incident; I made sure that the h
24 f documents had gone through the appropriate review process and O
NJ 25 i that my managers, in fact, were cognizant of and had taken a
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28835.0 BRT 5273 1 appropriate corrective action. And I made sure that the 2 document stated that.
3 Q Let me just stop you so I understand the process.
4 I guess I was assuming, perhaps incorrectly -- and I'm really 5 now trying to focus on what I might call a typical 6 procedure. The more you can remember about this particular 7 one, that's all well and good, but I'm going more for your 8 procedure in this instance.
9 I was assuming that an LER typically would end up 10 in your in box for your signature; there would be a package, 11 a transmittal letter to sign, an LER form, and then maybe q 12 some explanatory memo underneath that but that would be it.
J 13 You are indicating that you checked this, though, 14 against your information from your technical people. Had it 15 been previously discussed in the typical case what the LER 16 was about?
17 A Depending on the nature and magnitude that's a 18 possibility that I would have discussed it.
19 Q Possibly not, though?
20 A That's true; yes, sir.
21 Q If I may use an inept phrase, it was a pretty 22 marginal, minor LER; it might have been just a piece of paper 23 you had seen for the first time without prior briefing?
24 ; A Tha t's righ t, sir.
25 Q Okay. So that would vary.
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28835.0 BRT 5274 1 Now, do you recall in the case of this particular 2 LER, 78-62, whether you had any oral briefing or anything 3 other than jusL a package to sign?
4 A No, sir. I do not. And as I have stated, in many 5 other forums in many other testimonies, I really don't recall 6 this particular LER that we are talking about now.
7 Q If you can put to one side all the consequences 8 that have come in the wake of this LER, this big 9 investigation and all the rest, and look at in LER in the 10 light in which you think you might have seen it in 1978, 11 would you have regarded this LER as routine? Very 12 importart? Not very important? Can you characterize it?
13 A Well, I don't know that I'd view anything as not 14 very important but I guess I'd choose your second option 15 there, as being routine.
16 i It appears to me now, as I look at it, and in view d
17 of the Iz.nguage in the report itself, that it was a one-time 18 incident: that there were several people involved, not 19 L everyone; that appropriate counseling and corrective action d
20 l would be taken with those individuals that were involved; and think it mentions that some corrections on computer inputs 21 hI 22 will be made. In summary, looking at it in light of my 23 understanding today, as I jus t look at the document on its 24 3 face, it appears i t was a single event that we diagnosed,
(] 25 f determined the cause of, and were going to take corrective v
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1 action to follow up on it.
2 So, based on that I would have signed it and gone 3 on to other things.
4 Q So, if I understand you correctly, although Sou 5 don't have specific recollection of this particular LER. this 6 may have been an LER which you would have viewed, on its 7 face, as being fairly routine?
8 A That's correct, sir.
9 Q And that you might have signed out without any 10 further investigation, questioning, meetings on your part?
11 A Yes, sir.
12 Q Let me shift the focus a little bit to a question 13 to follow up. I'm looking at the bottom of 12. You note, 14 I'll quote you again: "Apparently due to the inaccuracies in 15 the LER and lack of appropriate follow-up, this never 16 occurred."
17 You referred, in your response a minute ago, to 18 one of the s tatements in the LER to the ef fec t -- well, let 19 me be precise, let me get the exact words. Excuse me a 3
l 20 l moment.
21 MR. BURNS: Excuse me, your Honor --
22 , JUDGE KELLEY: Do you have a copy of the LER?
i 23 i MR. BURNS: I was going to ask if we could provide 1
24 i a copy.
25 JUDGE KELLEY: Please do provide it to the P
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i 2 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
3 Q Okay. What I wanted you to look at was the last 4
4 page of the LER with the caption on top " Narrative to the l 5 LER." Are you with me?
6 A Yes, sir.
l 7 Q It has three paragraphs, the last paragraph begins 8 -- well - "The appropriate personnel will be instructed on i
9 the requirements of the applicable sections of the TS,"
I 10 meaning technical specifications, "and the requirement to i
11 immediately invoke applicable action statements when the 12 provisions of the LCO are not met."
O 13 The sentence that I have just quoted and also in t
14 the context of your statement a moment ago that you, upon 15 reading this at the time would have been reassured by a l I 16 statenent to the effect that the people were going to be 17 counseled on how to do this, right, what would you have i
18 thought should have happened, then? By way of instructional l 19 follow-up?
20 A Well, first of all, that the commitment to do that 21 be documented in the follow-up system that was maintained by f
22 the plant on-site review committee. And, then, secondarily, 23 that as a result of that action item the operations 4
24 department would instruct the appropriate personnel, as 25 indicated here, on the applicabic sections of the tech specs i
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28835.0 BRT 5277 1 and their requirements, which basically were to invoke the 2 action statements when we didn't meet the limiting conditions 3 for operations.
4 Q Okay. Then the key word here that I would like 5 you to expand on a bit is, you say the operations department 6 would instruct the people involved, and we are talking, 1 7 gather, about the CROs, the foremen and the supervisors; 8 correct? About what they were supposed to do?
9 A Yes, sir.
10 Q What would you envision more specifically would 11 happen in the way of instruction?
12 A Well, this is speculation on my part. I would
()
V 13 like to clarify that. However, the speculation is based on I
14 my experience at Three Mile Island in lesser positions as 15 indicated in my biographical outline.
16 Based on my experience there, what I would 17 envision would occur is that the specific document, possibly 18 the prompt as well as the follow-up LER, would be put in an 19 action log and routed to the appropriate shift supervisor, l
20 l operations foremen, and control room operators to review, and 21 obviously, if they had any questions then, to ask those 22 l questions to their shif t supervisor for clarification.
I At any rate, I would envision that they would 23 l i
24 j review thost documents, understand the commitment and the 25 essence, and ask any follow-up questions that they might C)
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2 In addition to that I would look to the shift 3 supervisors on a particular shift to make certain that those 4 personnel, as this commitment states, did, in fact, read the 5 documentation, understand it, ask any ques tions that they 6 might have.
7 , Q Well, how do you -- how would you, then, determine 8 that? And "that" means you fix on the shift supervisor as 9 the people who one should make sure understands this and then 10 they, in turn, I take it, would make sure that the foremen 11 and the CRos would understand it; right?
12 A That's correct.
13 Q Okay. Well, I don't want to be obscure about 14 this. The problem that I have with the implementation that 15 in fact occurred is simply this: As this record, at least, 16 so far demonstrates, and the reason I'm asking you about it 17 is it seems to me that it does -- and I'll describe that in a 18 moment and counsel can comment on my description, but I want 19 , to get a description of what happened here in the way of i
20 i follow-up and get your reaction to it because it seems to me 21 on the question, the basic question of communication, the 22 basic requirements, that that is a managerial responsibility which I would think would come up to your level.
23l t You know, the fact that a particular CRO falsified 24 l 25 l a leak rate test one morning, or didn't -- whether he did or
(')'
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('] 5279 v BRT 1 he didn't -- actually if that never got to you I wouldn't be 2 surprised. Just an event like that; that's not the way you 3 operate. On the other hand, when the CR0s and their 4 supervision, all the way up through, at least, operation, I
5 have one interpretation of a tech spec, it turns out the NRC 6 doesn't agree with it and it leads to an LER and then it 7 leads, one would think, to a change in the way business is 8 done; as a manager you would want to make sure that when that 9 kind of thing happens, people get the word, they understand 10 it; they change accordingly.
11 I can tell you in a couple of minutes what 12 happened here. That's not what happened in this case.
(
13 Nobody got the word, virtually. The CRos kept right on doing 14 what they were doing before, and that is, briefly, just 15 pushing the button and getting a test number out and if it N was over a gallon a minute, they threw it away. They did not 16 l 17 follow this instruction, virtually to a man.
18 What I focus on here is that this LER got drafted 19 and it has got this sentence I just read toward the end about 20 l " appropriate personnel will be instructed," and what i
21 l happened, then, by way of follow-up, briefly, is that this l
22 j was made a PORC action item; an individual was given i
23 j responsibility to make sure that it got put in the required i
24 f reading book, and that happened; and everybody, the CRos and 1
(} 25 ! foremen and supervisors all initialed the sign-off sheet ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 indicating they had read it. With the exception of another 2 memo I can show you in just a minute, that was about it.
3 There was some testimony about Mr. Seelinger about 4 efforts by him to expand on this new marching order, new 5 interpretation, but I think you'll find in this record, 6 virtually to a man -- and they were all men, incidentally --
7 the shift supervisors, the foremen, the CROs, all said they 8 had never heard of this thing. Even though they signed it.
9 Even though the initials are there. They said they just 10 don't even remember this and never heard of it and all they 11 can say is: Yes, those are my initials but that's it.
12 The word on this just didn't get out.
v
~}
13 My question, really -- part of my question to you 14 is, given the circumstances here, given the kind of change i
15 that was involved from what most people understood to be the 16 rule of these tech specs, don't you need something more than 17 a single sentence toward the end of the narrative in an LER, 18 , put in a three-ring notebook, by way of telling people what 19 l to do?
i 20 A It certain]y appears now, sir, with the benefit of 21 hindsight that very obviously we did. However, at the time 22 f this LER passed across my desk, in light of what I understand 23 today and I don't, as I have stated previously, remember this 24 lg specifically, that it certainly seems to me that this is a I
(} 25){ relatively routine occurrence with specific action spelled l4 i ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 I had a chain of command that I relied on. I had 3 a competent operations manager. I had a competent manager in 4 charge of the station. I had capable technical 5 superintendents available to assist the operations and 6 maintenance department heads at Unit 2. I had, at the time, 7 what I believed was a competent operations manager with very 8 capable shift supervisors, who had experience on operating 9 Unit I where we had, certainly, more than a fair degree of 10 success. And that was noted.
11 I had no way of understanding, as I view this
(~s, 12 today in the context that I now understand, that these kinds
%-)
13 of practices were going on. You know, I trusted my 14 organization and believed that they would take the 15 appropriate measure.
16 0 Trying to focus now, though, on a somewhat 17 narrower point, and maybe my question wasn't clear -- by the 18 , way, if you look -- I would just like to have the witness I
i 19 I look at the Floyd memo under tab 37.
MR. MC BRIDE: Tab 34 or 37?
20 l 21 I JUDGE KELLEY: Tab 37 is good enough. That's a k
22 j short memo dated October 20, '78, with three numbered 23 paragraphs.
i 24 i Take a look at the second numbered paragraph.
h
(~]
%J 25 l TiiE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
i i
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2 Q Those are the two pieces of paper that I know 3 about that can be viewed as instruction to the supervisors 4 and those beneath them. That particular memo went to the 5 supervisors and foremen. But -- and I'm not talking now 6 about manipulation. I'm really talking about a basic 7 question of interpreting the tech specs. One interpretation 8 being that as long as you got one good leak rate test every 9 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, it didn't matter how many bad, that is to say, leak 10 rate tests over 1 gallon, you got in the interim as long as 11 you get the good one every 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />. That's one 12 interpretation.
13 That's an interpretation that a great many, 14 possibly most of the people who testified in this case, 15 thought was correct.
16 Along comes the NRC and says: No. No. No. If 17 you get a test in excess of 1 gallon then if you can't 18 invalidate that test on obvious grounds you are stuck wi th it 19 and you are in the action statement. You are going to be 20 l shutting down the plant.
l 21 ;
That interpretation is what is intended by those 22 two sentences you and I have been looking at. My impression 23 I is that if that interpretation had, in fact, been adopted at 24 ! TMI-2 by the operators, they would have been in the action 25 statement most of the time for the following several months.
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1 The fact is they never went into the action 2 statement. They just didn't get the word. And I don't know 3 whether the responsibility for that is at your level or not.
4 I guess I'm asking you for some help there.
5 If it's not at your level, and I see it as just a 6 basic responsibility to see to it that at least when the NRC 74 comes along and says: You are doing it wrong, do it some 8 other way. And it has fairly major implications for plant 9 operation -- that people at least understand that that is the 10 new marching order. Isn't that something that -- if it 11 doesn't rise to your level, who is supposed to make sure that
,r-) 12 that happened? Mr. Miller?
(/
13 A As I said, sir, I relied on the chain of command 14 and that's right. Mr. Lawyer, Mr. Miller, the operations 15 supervisor at TMI-2. There's no ques tion about it that that 16 is part of their responsibility and ultimately, as I have 17 indicated in my testimony at the -- on the last page, as the 18 vice president of generation, I have to accept the ultimate 19 [ responsibility for what occurred.
i 20 Q But that conclusion in your testimony -- and I 21 l understand that -- I understand that to be -- and I don't 22 mean to be flippant at all, but I understand that statement 23 l to be you are responsible in sort of the " captain of the I
24 '; ship" sense.
i
/~ 25 f A Yes, sir.
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. 1 Q You may not have known something but you are 4
j 2 responsible for everything?
3 A Yes, sir.
4 4 Q Because you are the overall managrr.
5 A Yes, sir.
4 5 6 Q Looking, though, at a different perspective, not 7 at the ship-captain perspective but the way you think a
- 8 company ought to actually be run, at what level would you i
l 9 believe the responsibility lies for seeing to it that a 10 significant generic safety question gets disseminated to the 11 people at the operating panels? Whose job is that?
12 A Well, this is an operational question. You f
- 13 characterize it as a broader safety question, and in light of
.1 14 that context, the broad kinds of things involving TMI, 15 certainly I'd go to the. station manager.
! 16 But with regard to specific kinds of operational, j
! 17 day-to-day activities, my sense there would be: That is the l 18 operations supervisor. He has got shift foremen, that's the
- 19 man in charge of each shift, and they, in turn, have an 20 l assistant foreman, a foreman that reports directly to them, t
21 and then the CRos. Those are the folks that were involved 22 with this. It is an operations activity. They are I 23 responsible with the licenses, to implement those tech spec
] 24 applications on each operating shift. So that's where it
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Q BRT 5285 1 Q So, in terms of personnel at TMI-2 at that time, I
2 you are saying that Mr. Floyd is, in your view, primarily J 3 responsible for disseminating the proper instruction on this 4 matter?
5 A That's correct.
6 Q How do you distinguish, in your mind, between 7 Mr. Floyd and Mr. Seelinger, as tech support head? He, in 8 fact, got involved in this matter.
9 A I guess just a few words about the role that I 10 believe the tech support had -- plays, or should play at an 11 operating nuclear station, and really, for that matter, in 12 other stations of power generation, capability.
13 The tech support head is there to assist the 14 operations department and the maintenance department in a 15 variety of capacities and capabilities : with procedures that 16 f are difficult; with additional technical support beyond the l
17 capability of the facility itself; somebody in corporate l 18 support working with consultants, responding to individual l
l 19 concerns that the department heads, shift supervisors, t a l 20 l operating forces and maintenance forces have on a day-to-day
. I l I 21 l basis.
l 22 !!
So certainly ti e e'c e role there for the 23 ; technical support group. But, ultimately the requirement to i
24 l" implement the technica.1 specifications on a day-to-day,
/7 25 ! hour-bv-hour basi.s, rests with the operations department.
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1 Those are the folks that are licensed by the Nuclear i 2 Regulatory Commission and, under the jurisdiction of that s
3 license, have the obligation to fulfill those requirements.
4 Q Now, in the case of -- I think I followed what you 5 have been saying here. I just want to introduce what may be 6 a complication, and we do have to ultimately judge the 7 particular facts of this case and the particular 8 responsibilities of particular people. I'm sure you will 3,
9 recall that at the time involved here, October-November 1978, I
S 10 looking at Unit 2, Mr. Seelinger, at that time, was head --
i 11 director -- is that the term -- of tech support?
f\ 12 A Yes, sir. He was the engineer -- chief engineer V in charge of technical support.
13 14 Q Right. And Mr. Floyd was head of operations.
15 A Yes, sir.
16 Q How did you view -- now, at that particular time 17 there wasn't any unit superintendent at Unit 2 as such with 4
18 that title; correct?
19 A That's correct.
I 20 i G In the absence of yet another person called unit superintendent, how did you view Mr. Seelinger, Mr. Floyd --
21 f i i
~, I who of the two was senior? Was there really a sort of de 22 { l l
facto unit superintendent, if not one with the title?
22 l 24 l A Mr. Miller was double-hatted, so to speak, in the 25 vernacular, in that he was s tation manager and also ac ting
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(}BRT 1 Unit 2 superintendent. He acted in that capacity while Joe 2 1,ogan was in training, ultimately to assume the Unit 2 3 superintendentship.
4 So, to try to respond to your question, you've got 5 Miller at the top of the organization.
6 Q Right.
7 A In a sense he reported to himself in that he also 8 was the Unit 2 acting superintendent. Then his department 9 heads were Mr. Sieglitz on maintenance, Mr. Floyd on 10 operations, and Mr. Seelinger on technical. And they were of 11 equal status, each with their individual responsibilities,
(~g 12 reporting directly to Mr. Miller.
O 13 Q Again, I don't want to fail to mention, at least, 14p we have something of a record on this question. I don't mean 15 to suggest that I personally view it as a question of 16 f overriding importance. But we've had a fair amount of debate 0
17 about whether Seelinger was, in effect, an acting 18 superintendent or a de facto superintendent of Unit 2 or 19 whether he wasn't. So I wanted to get your perspective on 20 i I that.
i 21 j .
You said, and that helps my -- helps me. I'm sure 22 l the record will be clear on this. But Miller was both 23 j station manager and acting Unit 2 superintendent?
24 A Yes, sir.
25 Q In that time frame. And you indicated in your i
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U BRT S288 1 view that-Floyd, Seelinger and the third gentleman in 2 maintenance, I think, whom we haven't spoken with, were equal 3 in rank and all reported directly to Miller?
4 A That's correct, sir. There is one point I would 5 clarify, though. That is that Mr. Seelinger, because he was 6 in the support role, had the obligation to support both the 7 maintenance activity and also the operational activity, and 8 hence had to have expertise to some degree in both those 9 other disciplines as well as being a qualified engineer. And 10 he was certainly a capable manager with a lot of personal 11 capability. I could understand that Mr. Miller would rely 3 12 k very much on his input on matters that dealt with Unit 2 in J
13 general.
14 Q The record indicates, and I'm wary of paraphrasing 15 too much, but Mr. Miller, in his testimony, indicated that he 16 had an understanding with regard to the status of Floyd and 17 Seelinger, and that he tended to look to Seelinger as the 18l' senior person there. I would be happy to stand corrected by 19 , any counsel, but that's my recollection.
1 And, in fact, in the case of this particular LER, 20 f 21 j 78-62, Seelinger appears to have played a dominant role. It 22 f was Seelinger that went and told Miller about the matter.
23 l And it's Seelinger who dealt with the NRC man, Haverkamp.
I 24 ,
Those are two respects, anyway.
s
/~3 25 A I think those activities that you just described V
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1 are completely consistent with the role of the technical 2 support superintendent in -- in an operating nuclear unit.
3 Q Getting back to what we were talking about that 4 led us into this discussion, about who there was responsible 5 for the follow-up part, for the instruction to the operating 6 people, would it still be your view that even though 7 Seelinger may have been quite active in working with the NRC 8 guy and working on the LER -- after all, See]inger was 9 chairman of PORC; correct?
10 A Yes, sir. That's true.
11 Q POHC wrote the draft?
(s) 12 A Yes, sir.
t 13 Q Inputted substantially to it. That when it came 14 to follow-up, is it still your view that that was Floyd's 15 job, essentially?
16 A Yes, sir. But, again, to try to clarify, that is 17 with the appropriate technical support if required in the 18 details of that follow-up.
19 , But the line responsibility rested with the 20 i operations department to implement the requirements of the i
l 21 technical specifications.
22 The PORC did have action lists and did, in that 23 l way, lend technical support, as I stated previously, to both 24 ! operating and maintenance forces on Un1t 2.
OV 25 k Q What I have been trying to understand on this I
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1 follow-up question -- and we do, I might add, have a specific 2 issue from the Commission to look at this particular LER and 3 what the follow-up was, whether it was adequate, so it has 4 assumed some importance on our agends of things to find out 5 about if we can. I don't share your nuclear operational 6 background and coming at it without the benefit of that, I 7 look at these couple of sentences that we have been looking 8 at already in the LER, and then paragraph 2 of Mr. Logan's --
9( strike that -- of Mr. Floyd's memo, and I find I have to 10 bring -- J'11 wait until you locate that.
11 A I just lost the LER, sir. That's all right. I ps 12 got it again.
'us' 13 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
14 , O What I'm --
15 (Discussion off the record.)
16 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
17 Q What I'm trying to get at -- and I think you can 18 I provide a healthy perspective here -- trying to find out what 19 was done here. I look at these two sentences and I don't i
20 ! know, f or sure, what they mean. They are sort of suggestive i
21 ! of something but they don't really spell out what is involved 22 l here. Possibly, to a technical person it's crystal clear but
- 23 i it is not to me. If I'm asking myself a question, well, what 24 , do I think they should have done to make sure that the CROs i
l l
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25 knew what they were supposed to do, what comes to mind to me l'
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28835.0 p- BRT 5291 1 is one of two things, maybe both. Let me just try this on 2 you and see if you think it would make any difference.
3 I guess I tried to write a little plain English 4 instructional memo, maybe 300 words on one sheet of paper, 5 which would say something to the effect that: We have been 6 interpreting these tech specs wrong. We thought if we got 7 one good test in 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> that was all we needed. We have 8 been corrected by the NRC. From now on, any time you get a 9 test that registers more than 1 gallon per minute you can't 10 thr'ow out as obviously invalid, then into the action 11 statement you go. And all hands should be aware of this.
12 Something like that; instead of this sentence
(
13 buried at the bottom of this LER. And, I guess, in addition 14 on something like this, some sort of oral instruction in a 15 meeting context, to just tell the CR0s, the foremen, what has 16 happened, what the facts were, how things are going to be 17 dif ferent and direct their attention to a 300-word piece if 18 you have wri tten that. I would think something like that 19 would do it.
20 I know in this case that thia is what was done and 21 i it didn't do it because nobody seemed to pick up on it.
t I
22 Is my leaning toward plain English instructional 23 i memos misplaced? Is that not the kind of thing one does in a 24 nuclear power plant?
25 ,
s A No, sir. I honestly think it's right on target.
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1 That was the kind of thing that I espoused and supported when j 2 I was on Unit 1. I think both activities are completely 3 appropriate and certainly within the context of the 4 definition: The " appropriate personnel will be instructed,"
5 with " instructed" in quotations.
6 I think you can do i t both ways and I think the 7 double hammer is the way to go. You write the memo and you 8 get the folks involved and then you explain what the memo 9 says and you make it very clear.
10 Q Would you agree that the two sentences we have 11 been looking at fall short of that proposed approach?
12 A No. Not really, sir. I think that the sentences 13 that we are looking at here provide the latitude to do that 14 and it --
15 Q I mean just by themselves. If that's all you did, 16 I'm asking you whether these two sentences we have been 17 looking at are less than what we just talked about? To me J
l 18 l they are. I don't know --
19 A You mean the two sentences on the Jim Floyd memo i
20 { of October 20, '78.
21 ; Q I mean one sentence in the narrative of the LER 22 ! which talks about giving appropriate instructions, and then 23 ' secondly, the second paragraph of the Floyd memo. When I say 24 i two sentences, that's what I mean.
25 A All right, sir. But just to clarify something:
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s 28835.0 BRT 5293 1 It wouldn' t seem to me tha t the LER document itself would go 2 into great detail as to exactly how we were going to follow 3 up on a particular activity such as the word " instructed."
4 In other words, the need in the LER to expand that to include 5 precisely -- I take it --
6 Q No, no. We agree on that.
7 A All right.
8 0 But when I read the LER, I thought, oh, that's 9 wonderful, they are going to provide these separate 10 instructions and they never did. And we were told by the 11 witnesses: Oh, those are the instructions. Just read the 12 LER.
L 13 And that's where I got off the boat. But. I agree 14 with you, you don't write all this -- you don't write this, 15 call it 300-word plain English instruction in the LER 16 e itself. It's a separate piece of paper.
17 A Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
18 MR. MC BRIDE: Could we just clarify that the 19 witness' last answer was that he didn't expect the 300 words 20 ! to be in the LER narrative and not that he was indicating 21 , affirmatively that no other instruction was provided?
I 22 THE WITNESS: Just to clarify, you mentioned that 23 there were two ways to implement the requirements that we 24h committed to in the LER. You mentioned a briefing of the 25 personnel involved and a 300-word instruction in plain i,
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1 English that would clarify how we were to deal with limiting 2 conditions of operation relative to leak rate.
3 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
4 THE WITNESS: I responded that I supported both of 5 those recommendations, that they were certainly an 6 appropriate implementation of this commitment contained in 7 78-62/1 T.
8 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
9 Q Good. I'll ask in this same connection, you 10 indicated your view that operationally it would have been the 11 primary responsibility of Mr. Floyd to see to it that this 12 word was disseminated. Can you give us your opinion, if you Os 13 have one, about Mr. Floyd as a manager, giver of guidance, as 14 opposed to his capabilities technically? But I'm really 15 asking you about his managerial skills doing this kind of a
16 thing.
17 I A I've known Jim Floyd for a number of years and i !
18 ! he's certainly a capable individual with a lot of technical 19 ! expertise and a lot of background at that time in the nuclear l
20 l power program for both the Navy and the civilian l t 21 ! application.
22 j I believe he was a capable -- or believed, at the 23 f time, that he was a capable leader and capable of giving the i
24 ! kind of guidance that one would hope would be forthcoming to i
l 25 his staff. I guess at the time I recognized, as did others, l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 that there were some aspects of administration and paperwork 2 where maybe he wasn't the most efficient of managers. But 3 overall, I think we all had faith in Jim Floyd, in his 4 expertise and his leadership ability.
5 Q Did you ever have, really in the same regard, in 6 regard of Mr. Floyd's managerial capabilities, did you ever 7 have any discussions with Mr. Logan on that subject that you 8 recall?
9 A Not that I recall, sir.
10 Q He testified that he thought that Mr. Floyd, while 11 a very capable technical person, very knowledgeable operator,
., 12 was in some respects deficient on the managerial supervisory
, )
13 side, paperwork side; and that, indeed, he was thinking that 14 Mr. Floyd ought to be moved out of the job of operations 15 supervisor and he indicated he had discussions with 16 Mr. Miller, and I frankly don't recall he said anything about i
17 talking to you about it.
16 MR. MC BRIDE: Excuse me, Judge Kelley, I read the 19 testimony of Mr. Logan's testimony and I don't believe he 20 0 ever said he believed Mr. Floyd ought to be moved out of that i
21 i!
job.
22 ! JUDGE KELLEY: It's a fairly serious matter for me 23 , to state if I'm wrong, so I'll just have to look at the 24 ! transcript, okay? And I'll certainly be corrected if I'm 25 l wrong.
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2 Q In any case, you don't recall discussing 3 Mr. - you already answered the question; you don't recall 4 discussing Mr. Floyd's managerial capabilities with Logan; is l l
5 that correct?
6 A That's correct, sir. I did not recall that.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: Why don't we take a 10-minute 8 break.
9 Mr. McBride, do you happen to have the transcript 10 cite for that?
11 MR. MC BRIDE: I can't give the citation if I r
t 12 don't think it is there.
13 JUDGE KELLEY: We'll be off the record now.
14 (Recess.)
15 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
16 Q Mr. Herbein, at pages 9 and 10 of your testimony i
17 ! you speak to a telephone call allegedly to have been made to 18 either you or Mr. Miller during the time of the LER we have r
been talking about. Let me just comment for the record, we 19 l 20 have pursued this point to some extent in the hearing with 21 l prior witnesses. The allegation was that the shift 22 , supervisors were there and we have had testimony from one 23 shift supervisor, Mr. Chwastyk -- do you know Mr. Joseph 24 i Chwastyk?
25 A Yes, sir.
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( DRT 5297 1 Q I'll just note for the record where that is. He 2 speaks of this matter at page 4 of his prefiled testimony, 3 actually pages 4 and 5 of his prefiled. And then in a 4 transcript we asked him a few questions about it at 5 transcript 3509 and following. Have you, by chance, looked 6 at this material, Mr. Herbein?
7 A No, sir, I haven't. You mentioned pages 4 and 5 8 of his prefiled?
9 Q And 3509 through -12, I believe it is, where he 10 talks about this. If you want to take a minute to look at 11 it, feel free.
, p 12 JUDGE KELLEY: While Mr. Herbein is looking at O 13 that paper, let me just note, just before we closed for the 14 break I was summarizing my recollection of some of 15 Mr. Logan's tes timony and I alluded to my - the fact, as I 16 recalled it, that he testified that Mr. Logan thought that 17 Mr. Floyd ought to be removed from the job and Mr. McBride 18 questioned whether it's in his testimony. He's right, there 19 wasn't any prepared testimony from Mr. Logan. He did make 20 ! statement to that effect, he used the word " transferred" 21 ! toward the conclusion of the statement he put in the record l
22 ' earlier, the interview, and I can give you the citation.
23 j MR. MC BRIDE: We found it over the break. I had 24 thought you were referring to his testimony when he appeared 25 - before the Board last Thursday, the 6th of November; and in ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 fact over the break we discerned that there was some 2 questioning on this subject at pages 127 and 128 of the the 3 Stier interview of Mr. Logan.
4 JUDGE KELLEY: Okay. And the interview was March 5 27, '85, page 127-128. Just to clarify the record. I don't 6 have anything further on it.
7 THE WITNESS: I have looked at the testimony that 8 I think you asked me to, sir.
9 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
10 Q Okay. Mr. Herbein, at this point, this has been a 11 much referred to telephone call. You offered your A 12 test.imony. I don't have any questions for you on it. I k-)
13 thought, since it had been referred to on numerous occasions 14 and since we had discovered at least one shift supervisor who 15 had some recollection about these matters, I ought to call it 16 to your attention. If you want to make any comment on what t
17 i Mr. Chwastyk had to say, feel free.
I A I guess the comment that I would make is that on 18 f 19 page 3512, line 25, when questioned about this phone call and who it was, Mr. Chwastyk says: "I meant it could have been 20 l 21 ! anybody."
i 22 ! The additional comment I would like to make is 23 that on page 10 of my prefiled testimony I state emphatically 24 h I never participated in any such conversation. If I had I'm 25 certain that I would remember such a conversation and I would ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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28835.0 BRT S299 1 have initiated action to understand and correct the problem.
2 Q Okay. There was a question about training of 3 CROs, Mr. Herbein. In your interview with the Stier people 4 on the 8th of February, 1985, at page 32, in the middle of 5 the page -- do you have a copy of that with you?
6 A I can get it, sir.
7 Q Right.
8 MR. BURNS: Which one was that, your Honor?
9 THE WITNESS: 8 February, page 32.
10 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
11 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
12 Q I was looking at the middle of the page on page
( 13 32, line 12 to 14. I could have asked you this ques tion 14 without reference to this statement but it is what raised it 15 in my mind. Let me just quote the section I had reference 16 to. You were answering a question, and you say:
17 "I think the control room operators were 18 well-trained. They were certified. Well-trained in the 19 context that we believed they were well-trained in 1978" --
20 l and go on to say the training got better.
21 But what was your unders tanding, if you had any 22 specific understanding, about training of CRos in leak rate i
23 l procedures?
24 *! A Sir, I don't know that I can speak that narrowly 25 to the training program or the direct context of training in ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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.BRT 5300 1 leak rate procedures. Having been in the program for some 2 years at that point, the mass balance method that was 3 utilized was a fairly simple concept, used in the Navy 4 plants, used at the Yankee atomic plant that I trained at; 5 also used at the Saxton reactor and on TMI-1, 6 I believe that the training program in some 7 context addressed the leak rate procedure conceptually, at 8 least. I'm not sure whether there was detailed training in 9 the individual steps of the procedure but I would certainly 10 imagine that the concept would have been addressed.
11 Q The testimony of the CHOs on this -- and it isn't 12 every single one but we asked questions along this line of
%)
13 quite a few -- at least as to the steps in the procedure, the 14 sheer mechanics of the test, was done exclusively on an 15 on-the-job training basis.
16 l When you say that you believe that the conceptual 17 level of the test would have been given to them, whaL is your 18 basis for saying that? Do you have a specific recollection 19 in that regard?
l 20 i A No, sir. Just my own experience through the l
21 ! operation of these plant.s and the experience base tha t I 22 ! discussed, this is a fairly commonplace occurrence with I,.
23 L concepts that aren't really that difficult to grasp.
I 24 l 0 Do you know the phraue " leak before break" and how 25 that would relate to the 1 gallon per minute limit?
l l
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v BRT 1 A I'm not sure I can recall that precisely but I can 2 understand the drift of that statement.
3 JUDGE KELLEY: I'll leave it to Judge Bright.
4 BY JUDGE KELLEY:
5 Q You indicate in your prepared testimony, I 6 believe, that -- let me find the page -- yes, page 5, you 7 have a series of entries -- about describing your overall 8 responsibilities, including personnel-related issues, 9 recruiting and, in another place, annual budget preparation.
10 In other words, were you responsible for manpower 11 levels at the s tations, including TMI?
p 12 A Yes, sir.
G 13 Q More specifically, we have heard some testimony to 14 the effect tha t in the senior managerial levels at TMI, p
15 people were working extraordinarily long hours. I choose the 16 word " extraordinarily" because that's the way I would 17 characterize, for example, Mr. Gary Miller's testimony, who 18 told us that between early '78 and the accident in March '79, 19 in that 14-month time frame, approximately, he said he was 6
20 working an average of 80 hours9.259259e-4 days <br />0.0222 hours <br />1.322751e-4 weeks <br />3.044e-5 months <br /> a week. So he must have been 21 up over 90 or who knows what some of the time.
22 { I was ra ther -- I was surprised at that figure. I i
23 can understand how a person can go in a spurt, you run on 24 adrenalin for a month or two but I don't understand how I
anybody can work 80-hour weeks for over a year without being 25 l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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28835.0 BRT S302 1 adversely affected, even a robust person like Mr. Miller.
2 We talked about this a bi t. I came away with some 3 concern about their being overstretched in the upper levels.
4 lie wasn't the only one. We talked with others; Seelinger 5 talked about impact on family life of long hours and it was 6 readily admitted that the senior managers at TMI were 7 overworked. I don't think he used that word -- worked long 8 hours. I wanted to ask you, one, whether you were aware of 9 the hours these people were putting in and whether you could 10 explain why that was the case; whether you were concerned 11 about it.
p 12 Can you comment on that area, generally?
Q/
13 A Yes, sir, I think I can.
j 14 With regard to overall manning and staffing Icvels i
I 15 at Three Mile Island, my personal opinion is that they were 16 enti rely adequate. There were a number of reviews by senior I
17 ' management of our manning levels. Ques tions that they asked, 18 many times, had to do wi th the numbers not being necessarily 19 lower than they should be but perhaps higher than they should i
20 be.
21 l I think if you made a comparison between the i
22 . manning at Units 1 and 2 and other comparable facilities 23 I you'll find that we certainly were on the higher side of the 24 average.
3 25 Q In those comments, though, Mr. lierbein, I was 1
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v BRT 5303 1 really wanting to focus on senior manager people.
2 A I was coming to that.
3 Q The Millers and so on. Not the CROs, I assume you 4 had enough CR0s. But go ahead.
5 A In general, enough hands to do the work that 6 existed.
7 I would also comment that the industry is still 8 young but it was younger eight, nine, 10 years ago. At that l
9 time it was a major event when we put a plant on line or when 10 we went through a major refueling or when we went through a 11 major maintenance outage. And for folks to work long hours 12 was not uncharacteristic -- and when I say " folks," I mean 13 the upper levels as well as the bargaining unit people.
14 With regard to Mr. Miller, and working long hours, 15 Gary was an energetic, committed man, totally committed to 16 nuclear power and to his company and the way we tried to 17 operate and do things at TMI.
18 j I can't speak specifically on a time frame of 80 19 i or 70 hours8.101852e-4 days <br />0.0194 hours <br />1.157407e-4 weeks <br />2.6635e-5 months <br /> a week. I really can't go back to make a 20 ! specific judgment about that or quote specific times. But I l
21 l can say he was a committed, dedicated guy who wanted to do it 22 ; right. We all were. And we tried awfully hard.
23 ' I would also state that Mr. Miller held a senior 24 position and as such I trusted his judgment, really, in all 25 matters, particularly his own time schedule and his own l
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'u) 1 ability to function on the job.
2 Being more pointed, I would rely on Mr. Miller and 3 his managers to take a break when they needed to.
4 Q Do you recall having any discussions with 5 Mr. Miller on this question? Again, the question of senior 6 people or people to help him out, more deputies, if you 7 will? Did Mr. Miller, as you recall, come to you with a case 8 for more help in the upper levels?
9 A I don't remember if he specifically came to me. I 10 think we recognized that he needed some help and we gave him 11 an administrative assistant; that is Mr. Merrill Schaefer.
12 We recognized the double-hat situation, being manager of the 13 island and also Unit 2 superintendent, should really exist 14 only on a temporary basis. We had Mr. Logan brought in from 15 the outside, a skilled naval officer with a number of years 16 of nuclear power experience. Certainly we believed the 17 leadership and talent to support Mr. Miller.
Mr. Logan went through a one-year orientation 18 l I 19 l training program where he procured his senior reactor l
operator's license and then moved into the Unit 2 20 l 21 l superintendent's position.
22 ; .
It is my opinion that those certainly were in the s 23 ( right direction and were focused on providing the resources 24 we needed at the upper management ranks.
25 Q I asked for information. Does the industry or the i
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28835.0 f BRT 5305 1 NRC -- help me out -- have hour limitations on, let's say i
2 CROs? Are you aware of that? Can they work more than a
, 3 40-hour week, 50-hour week?
4 4 A Are you asking me that question, sir?
5 Q Yes.
6 A I can't answer that specific question yes or no.
7 But I can state that in general a utility practice that we 8 still ascribe to in the fossil side of the operation is that 9 we typically don't let people work more than a double shift.
10 So that's a 16-hour limit that we place on an individual and 11 that's really written into our union contract.
12 I would also state that we don't believe that it 13 makes sense to work seven-day weeks on a repetitive basis 14 with no time off. And my own personal sense is that, for the 15 working folks, it makes sense to have a day off at least 16 every six or seven days. To push on through for two- and 17 three-week periods, with no time off, is certainly not 18 productive, and in fact, it may be counterproductive.
19 Q Would you say, again going back to Mr. Miller's i
20 l description of his life in that period, where he was 21 averaging 80 hours9.259259e-4 days <br />0.0222 hours <br />1.322751e-4 weeks <br />3.044e-5 months <br /> a week, he tells us -- would you expect 22 that to be typical after you got tinit 2 through the shakedown 23 phase, if you will? Tha t's not a good word, perhaps. But we 24 i have heard a Jot of testimony to the fact that Ilnit 2, even i though it was commercial, was still getting the bugs ironed 25 l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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/ BRT 5306 1 out to some extent.
2 Was this going to go on forever, would you say?
3 or was this a temporary state of affairs, that he describes?
4 A My opinion, certainly temporary state of affairs.
5 I'll go on record as saying that a steady diet of 80 hours9.259259e-4 days <br />0.0222 hours <br />1.322751e-4 weeks <br />3.044e-5 months <br /> a 6 week is too much for anybody. I think my wife will agree 7 with that. She's in the room.
8 Q Experience. Okay.
9 You, at the time period we are talking about, were 10 working in direct association with Mr. Lawyer; correct?
11 A Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
12 Q We have not so far called Mr. Lawyer as a witness 13 ' in the case. I expect you know -- well, briefly, among the 14 senior people we have called Mr. Gary Miller, Mr. Seelinger, 15 Mr. Logan, Mr. Floyd and we are considering whether we ought 16 to call Mr. Lawyer.
17 Appreciating, as I think you do, the issues that 18 we are looking at here, do you think Mr. Lawyer could 19 contribute to our investigation of leak rate matters at Three i
20 l Mile Island?
21 f A Sir, I just don't know. A number of years have i
22 passed since all this transpired. Mr. Lawyer was Mr. Miller's immediate supervisor at the time of the events 23 ll 24 l that I think we are probing through your investigatory 4 !
25 process. I really can't. state with any degree of. certainty O) c h
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i either way whether or not he would be helpful:
2 BY JUDGE CARPENTER:
3 Q Mr. Herbein, over on page 13 of your prepared 4 statement you have a convenient listing of five problems 5 which you say you never were made aware of. Looking at those 6 problems, would you expect that you should have been? Did 7 they ever arise to your level in the organization?
8 A Is your question, sir, should I have been made 9 aware of these problems?
10 Q Yes. Yes. We are largely retrospective here.
11 Looking at this list, are these the kind of things that you 12 would have thought the supervisor of operations and 13 supervisor of technical support, plant superintendent, 14 station manager, should have been able to -- if they got 15 identified at that level -- they should have been able to 16 resolve them wi thout bothering you? Or not? Or would you 17 have expected, as a matter of routine that you would have 18 been informed of their existence and the strategies for doing something about it?
19 l l
20 l A I think had these problems existed, even the 21 ! slightest hint, that certainly the s tation management in the i
22 kind of forum that I would like to think we were operating 23 in, would have identified it, corrected it on the spot, and 24 taken whatever action was necessary to ensure that it didn't 25 happen again.
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28835.0 BRT 5308 1 Relative to whether or not I should have been 2 involved in that, I think on a one-time basis, probably not, t
3 second-time basis, it begins to get questionable. At some 4 point in an ongoing, repetitive scenario, then obviously I 5 should have been notified, making the assumption that 6 whatever corrective action they took was ineffective and they 7 needed some help and guidance: Then, yes, I should have been 8 notified and all the forces of expertise that I could bring 9 to bear should have been focused on the problem.
10 In summary, I'm saying a one-time thing I'd expect 11 the local management to take care of it. Second time, again, 12 probably the local folks. But if something like this 13 occurred in an ongoing repetitive basis and they have been 14 ineffective or unable to resolve it, then obviously top 15 management should get involved and should have been notified 16 so that they could bring the forces to bear to correct the 4
17 problem.
18 Q Well, the record -- both the materials that have 19 been entered in the record in terms of these reports that 20 i were developed before we started and the record that we have 21 i developed, I think, fairly show that, A, none of these I
22 ; problems were ever documented in writing by anybody. The 23 l exceptions and deficiency mechanism which to me might have 24 been helpful; administrative procedure 1010 -- to a man, they O ;
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, ERT 5309 1 say, I just didn' t consider it. So that the reasons that it 2 never got to your level, even taking your view today that i t 3 should have, are abundantly clear. It jus t didn' t start. It 4 just didn't get off the ground.
5 But coming back to the discussion you were having 6 with Judge Kelley about the verbal transmission of some sense 7 of irrita tion, some sense of frus tration about this leak rate 8 test, the record doesn't document it very w' ell, other than 9 qualitatively. Some shift supervisors talked to other shifL 10 supervisors. There was a general feeling that management 11 knew abou t the problems, management was working on the 12 problems, and someday the problems would be solved. That's 13 on the operator and shift foreman level. There wasn't 14 anything in writing but people generally were aware that 15 there was something wrong here.
i 16 Then, if you look at. that against this framework 17 of, A, that there was not a TMI-2 superintendent when the 18 unit went. commercial, other than Mr. Miller being 19 double-hatted so he had to do both jobs, both station manager 20 l and be the superintendent; Mr. Seelinger's testimony that he 21 was working such long hours that issues of family neglect 22 comehow arose -- so that given only the verbal input, these r 23 i problems never rose to the point of resolution. Do you think 24 ) it is fair to conclude that part of that was this over]oad 25 situation that these men were faced with? Once again, from a ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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(}BRT 1 re tros pec tive point of view?
2 A That's hard to say, sir. I'm not really sure why 3 these problems were never surfaced.
4 I guess, in my own frame of reference -- and I'm a 5 hard worker and put in some long hours -- have a hard time 6 accepting the fact that this kind of behavior could somehow 7 be justified because someone was tired. I could see it on, 8 maybe a single-incident basis. But on a repetitive basis, my 9 frame of reference would be that would not be appropriate 10 justification for this kind of behavior.
11 MR. MAUPIN: Excuse me, is it possible to find out 12 what he means right at this point, about "this kind of 13 behavior?" That was arguably a much broader term than the 14 question you were asking contemplated.
15 BY JUDGR CARPENTER:
16 Q Did you mean in your answer "this kind of 17 behavior" as circumscribed by the five items on page 13 of 18 your prepared statement?
19 A I mean specifically that CRos or others were 20 discarding -- or their failure to document unsatisfactory 21 ! tests. Specifically, that CRos were manipulating test 22 l results. And fina113, that operations department personnel 23 l were not taking appropriate action af ter unsatisfactory tes t 24 ! results.
25 ( Q Well, this perspective, tentative perspective, at
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1 any rate, that has developed -- Mr. Seelinger tells us that 2 as a result of the LER, the situation - I say, not 3 documented paper in any way, and it isn't clear to me that he 4 became aware of the exact practices, but at least it raised 5 quosLion in his mind, how could their be problems with Unit 2 6 with essentially the same Jeak rate surveillance procedure 7 that was being used at Unit I? And that he intended to go 8 over to Unit 1 and talk to them and therefore have a little 9 better perspective on the situation at Unit 2. And then he 10 tells us, one thing or another, he just never got around to 11 doing it.
12 That's of course covered specifically by the fact i O 13 that he changed jobs in December of '78, so he only had:the 14 month of November to do that if he were to have done 3t'. But 15 I was just trying to get this feeling. He tells us that his .
16 plate of problems was usually overfull.
17 MR. MC DRIDE: Judge Carpenter, excuse me, but i 18 Mr. Seelinger did testify that he did speak to Mr. O'Hanlon, 19 the superintendent of Unit 1, about the problem in October ._
20 l and that he took up the matter when he became the Unit 1 ]
i 21 superintendent.
22 JUDGE CARPENTER: But there's no evidence of any l i
23 l feedback to Unit 2, that I have seen in this record, i
i 24 l MR. MC HRIDE: I believe that's probably correct.
i 25 Hut I just wanted to make clear that his swotn testimony is 1 I l ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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28835.0 BRT 5312 1 that he did take it up in Unit 1.
2 BY JUDGE CARPENTER:
3 Q Whether or not he did do something in Unit 1, I 4 think the record shows that it was not effective. The 5 problems in Unit 2 didn't get resolved. And that's what I 6 was trying to raise this question for; whether these people 7 working long hours have got to decide, hour by hour, what's 8 the top of their list and it is so frustrating that it is a i
9 relatively simpic matter, which would have taken only a 10 l limited period of time to resolve but never got to be a real 11 action item, got to be the only item on somebody's plate for 12 a sufficient period of time for it to be rasolved.
i O 13 I accept your observations about the rest of the 14 industry but, still, this situation it just seems to me the 15 management was so busy that this -- problems like this just 16 couldn't get adequate attention. Do I have a misimpression?
17 A Sir, I believe you have an opinion just as I do.
i 10 ! And I, again, would like to state that my opinion is that 19 j heavy work load during a plant's start-up, during the initial phase of operation of a nuclear power plant, in no way 20 l 21 ! justifies the behavioral items that I previously pointed out. It is just not -- it's just not justifiable.
22 l-i 23 i I have been in situations the greater part of my i
24 ! life where long hours and rigid requirements were just a fact i
25 and were accepted. But that didn't in any way provide L
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I I 28835.0 BRT 5313 1 justification for violation of the requirements.
2 Q Well, 1 certainly accept and agree with your 3 view. What I was trying to see here was whether or not, for 4 lack of a station superintendent from early 1978, Mr. Miller 5 having to be double-hatted, I get the impression that they 6 were working very hard, more or less in a reactive. posture:
7 What are today's problems, what do I have to solve today?
8 Which is not necessarily surprising, in the start-up period; 9 but that this problem among the many, many, many witnesses 10 have reminded us that this wasn't the only problem at TMI-2.
l 11 We certainly accept that.
l 12 I have been trying to understand why these 13 relatively simple problems didn't get resolved? Not 14 justifying their behavior but trying to understand what the 15 root cause was of failure to resolve what to me is not a very {
16 complex or subt.le or sophisticated technical problem here.
)
17 Mr. Floyd said post-accident he sat down for some l f
18 period of time and saw immediately t}at. the procedut e had 19 serious flaws in it. I asked him how long it took him and he 20 ' said perhaps half a day. He never got half a day to cit down 1
21 and look at the problem and that's what I st!1,1 don't j 22 understand. l 23 ! A Sir, I can honestly and emphatically state that I I
24 don't really understand it either. But just to comment on i
n V
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1 and then in just a few hours understood that there were large 2 problems with it, that procedure or a procedure of a similar 3 nature was utilized on Unit I successfully, in my opinion, 4 for the period of time that Unit 1 was in service. And, 5 certainly, procedures that were similar to that were in use 6 a t other f acilities.
7 So, when Jim Floyd said that he sat down and 8 analyzed very quickly that there were big problems witn the 9 procedure I suspect there were problems elsewhere, too.
10 Q Well, I certainly agree. And the problems, if you 11 l don't have much leakage, are not -- procedure-related 12 l problems are not all that quantitatively, numerically 13 significant. But just -- what I still don't understand is 14 y why there was not someone with reasonable engineering 15 background assigned to look into the problem and come up with 16 a solution?
17 A Perhaps they weren't aware of the problem, sir.
18t Q Other than this word of mouth?
19 A I would assume that Mr. See3inger -- knowing what i
20 l I.know about Jim Seelinger, had he understood this problem, 21 l6 ,in my opinion he would have assigned engineers and they would i
22 have gone about resolving this.
23 l Q Well, Mr. Seelinger lef t and was replaced by 24 Mr. Kunder who, apparently, did assign a Mr. Morck to at I'N 25 i least part of the problem. It took a good many months, at
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1 28835.0 a BRT 5315 1 least'in the middle of March of '79, for a t=mporary change 2 order to be issued which, if anything, exacerbated the 3 problem rather than solved it. But I wanted to see whether 4 in your view of the situation, if you could understand how 5 this, really -- it's difficult -- this 6 not-dif ficult-to-resolve problem never got. resolved and it 7 led to the situation where some of the operators mistakenly 8 got into falsifying test results? That situation didn't 9 necessarily have to have gone on to that point.
10 A Yes, sir, I understand what you are saying.
11 Q Can you give me any-help or is it just as 12 mysterious to you as it is to me?
13 A I really can't give you any help, sir. And it's 14 not because I don't want to. I just don't know.
15 MR. BLAKE: Judge Carpenter, I didn't want to 16 interrupt that line of questioning but I believe you made the 17 statement that Mr. Floyd never had a half a day to spend on 18 the subject.
19 JUDGE CARPENTER: As judged by the fact that he didn't.
20 l 21 MR. BLAKE: Fair enough. I understand there's 22 , questions about resources --
23 JUDGE CARPENTER: There's implications in the fact 24 that he did it sometime after the accident, indicating that 25 he hadn't done it before the accident.
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I 28835.0 BRT 5316 1 MR. B1, A K E : I agree that he testified he took the 2 half day afterwards and I understand there are questions 3 about the number of hours and all, but I do not believe that 4 we can all make the implication that he didn't have a half 5 day to spend on it because I don't believe that was ever his 6 testimony. In fact, he didn't and I can't quarrel with it; 7 but that necessarily he didn't have it, if it had been 8 brought to his attention that he wouldn't --
9 JUDGE CARPENTER: I don't even go so far as to 10 conclude it was necessarily Mr. Floyd's responsibi]ity. It 11 was, Mr. Floyd's effort was, not weeks or months, but a half 12 a day procedure, or problems that needed to be looked into.
13 That was the scope that I intended. But I didn't clearly 14 indicate that limitation, i
15 MR. RI, AKE : Very good. Thank you.
16 BY JUDGE CARPENTER:
17 Q I get the impression from your prepared s tatement 18 that you did periodically visit the plant?
19 l A Yes, sir, I did.
I 20 0 In this record there's considerable testimony 21 about a January 1979 time period. Now I want to strain your 7
22 , ability to remember, see if you can recall January of 1979, 23 { and in very broad terms there was a period from the 2nd to i
24 roughly the 15th, as I recall, where there were some valves f
p a 25 J that were leaking. Do you recall that time period a t all?
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{}BRT 1 Do you have a direct recollection?
2 A No, sir, I do not.
3 Q You don't recall visiting the plant and taking an 4 interest in those leaking valves?
5 A No, sir, I do not.
6 Q To the point of going inside the D ring?
7 A No, sir, I don't remember going into the D ring to 8 look at the leaking valves.
9 Q There's one very cryptic reference to the fact 10 that you might have done that. I just wanted to find out --
11 I think perhaps you might recall going inside the D ring to 12 look at leaking valves, if you in fact had done that?
13 A Well, I might recall that.
14 Q I think the issue was whether to Fermanite the 15 valves or not?
16 d A Just to clarify, the reason that maybe I wouldn't 17 remember that, those are decisions that were made many levels 18 below me by people who had a lot more expertise in whether we 19 should or shouldn't Fermanite, 20 occasionally I toured the facility and, on some 21 l occasions I may have gone inside the reactor building but 22 that's difficult to say, and the reason it is difficult to 23 i say is that I was at Three Mile Island from 1970 to 1976, and I
24 j then I came back again after the accident, and I was involved 25 lj To be honest with
{} in a number of reactor building entries.
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I 28835.0 BRT 5318 1 you, it's just all sort a blur between the two units and the 2 years and I -- no one particular visit to the reactor 3 building stands out in my mind, with the exception, I think, 4 in 1975 I went in with some people from the press corps.
5 That's the only one I recall.
6 Q Then I won't ask you any questions about it, about 7 that time period, if you have no direct recall.
8 A No, sir, I'm sorry, I don't.
9 JUDGE CARPENTER: Thank you very much.
10 MR. BLAKE: Judge Carpenter, I wonder with regard 11 to that, there's a possibility, even, that the confusion 12 could be between Herbein and Harbin, who was an entirely 13 different name. I can't recollect on my own any reference to 14 Mr. Herbein's visiting or going in or inside the D ring.
15 Inside the D ring is a fair venture in operating a plant.
16 h That's something that I suspect someone would recall. There 17 was a Mr. Hartman, who was also involved, quite similar 18 spelling.
19 JUDGE CARPENTER: I may have misread it and I was 20 very surprised that Mr. Herbein would have been the person.
21 That's why I asked the question because I think he might have 22 remembered it. Thank you.
23 MR. MC BRIDE: The only additional testimony that in the record before you about 24lI'mawareofthatyouhave this, other than the questioning you did of Mr. Kunder, was 25 l k
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1 that Mr. Hoyt testified that he did enter the D ring during 2 that period of time.
3 THE WITNESS: Hoyt, H-o-y-t?
4 MR. MC BRIDE: H-o-y-t.
5 JUDGE CARPENTER: I recall it, Mr. McBride. This 6 was something in addition to that. But the first issue was 7 whether or not Mr. Herbein had any recollection of this and 8 the answer is no. That's the end of that line.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: Follow-up questions? From the 10 parti es ? Staff?
11 MR. GEPHART: No.
12 MR. BURNS: No, sir.
U<w No, sir.
13 MR. BLAKE:
14 JUDGE KELLEY: Mr. Herbein, this completes our 15 process, then. The Board has no further questions. We don't 16 have questions from the other parties or Staff, so let me 17 just say that we appreciate your coming today. I can sense 18 your exasperation at how long -- not that you have shown it 19 here this morning -- but how long it has taken to get this 20 f thing wrapped up. It has been around a long time. It would 21 $ have been better if the NRC could have addressed this some i
22 years ago, I daresay, but in any event, we are doing it now 23 , and we appreciate your assistance in coming here and 24 answering questions.
25 Thank you very much. You are excused.
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I 28835.0 i BRT 5320 1 THE WITNESS: Thank you, sir.
2 JUDGE KELLEY: Off the record for a moment.
3 (Discussion off the record.)
4 (Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the hearing was 5 recessed, to be reconvened at 1:30 p.m. this same day.)
6 7
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1 AFTERNOON SESSION (1:45 p.m.)
2 JUDGE KELLEY: Let's start this on the record. We 3 may be off and on in the course of discussing different 4 points.
5 First of all, counsel for the employees indicated 6 their view tha t their motion served this morning might have 7 an impact on the findings question, and so let's just turn to 8 that as an initial matter. I realize that as far as the 9 parties here are concerned, the parties here have been 10 served. I assume the Aamodts have not received it yet.
11 MR. MC BRIDE: It will be mailed today. They have 12 not yet received it.
13 JUDGE KELLEY: It's our understanding that since 14 they have not been served and it's their interes t in the 15 case, they will have to have an opportunity to receive this 16 and be heard.
17 MR. MC BRIDE: I agree absolutely with that. I 18 don't think you can rule on this without the party being 19 affected being heard from.
20 ! JUDGE KELLEY: So can we do anything further at 21 this time?
22 i MR. MC BRIDE: I don't think so, except as it may 1
bear on a subsequent discussion.
23 f 24 JUDGE KELLEY: It will just be viewed as pending, O 25 and it may have some bearing, but we'll just have to live V 1 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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1 with that and make whatever adjustments are necessary, I 2 assume. If the motion is denied, then whatever rulings we 3 make -- well, I think it's obvious. In any case, we'll have 4 to take it into account when the ruling is made. Would this 5 be by mail today to them?
6 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, sir. Unless -- we'd certain]y 7 be willing to extend the courtesy, if the Board would so 8 desire, of trying to expedite the service. It is only going 9 to mean a few days but --
10 , JUDGE KELLEY: I don't really think under the 11 f circumstances it would matter unless you think we really 3 12 should.
%) 13 MR. MC BRIDE: I don't think you need to but --
14 JUDGE KELLEY: Go ahead, mail it. And then on the 15 assumption that the motion would be received, at least by the 16 first of next week, I suppose a week after that ought to be 17 ! sufficient. I'll call Mrs. Aamodt about this, but I think we 18 should set a date now. This is the 12th?
19 i MR. MC BRIDE: Yes. If you were thinking of the i
20 following Monday, Monday after next, it's Monday the 24th is 21 l the date. Bear in mind that's Thanksgiving week, if you go i
22 , beyond that.
l 23 j JUDGE KELLEY: I don't intend to go beyond that.
24 It seems to me this could be responded to fairly briefly.
i
(~N 25 ! Why don't we say it has to be in the Board's hands by the f
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1 25th. And I'll tell Mrs. Aamodt that on the phone.
2 Does anybody have any problem with that?
3 I'll just note one thing that I think the Board 4 ought to mention. At page 5 of your motion, Mr. McBride, you 5 say tha t the Aamodts have not, to the best of your knowledge, 6 purchased a transcript or borrowed a cop'y. I can inform you 7 that Mrs. Aamodt has borrowed some copies of transcripts from 8 me and had them copied, and I haven't kept close track. I 9 don't know whether it is a matter of eight days or 12. My 10 impression is it is certainly not most of the record, but I'm 11 not real sure.
12 I understand that she does have some of the O(~N 13 transcripts and she, of course, can speak to that to the 14 extent she wants to in her reply.
15 I was speaking of the Aamodts, I don't see any 16 , reason why -- if other parties want to reply to this motion 17 I'll be happy to hear comments from you, I guess by the same date, the 25th of November, for everybody.
18 l I
19 l Now let's turn to the question of the timetable I
20 ' for findings. We had some preliminary discussion before the t
21 ;
break. Why don't we go off the record and discuss this for a i
22 while. Then we can put on the record whatever needs to be i
23 ! there after we've had the discussion.
24ll (Discussion off the record.)
~
3 25 ! JUDGE KELLEY: The Board had been hearing comments
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{}BRT 1 from counsel for the parties off the record on the question 2 of what date should be set as deadline dates for filing of 3 proposed findings of fact, and we did hear people at some 4 length on that question informal]y. We have retired to think 5 this over and we can now announce for the record filing dates 6 that we've decided upon.
7 The filing dates are different on the one hand on 8 counsel for the numerous employees and on the other hand for 9 the other three parties, Mr. Miller, Mr. Herbein and GPUN.
10 As to the latter three, Miller, Herbein and GPUN, 11 proposed findings of fact are due on the 9th of January and 12 that means delivered into the hands of the Board, not simply 13 mailed.
14 The findings of the numerous employees are due two 15 weeks later, on the 23rd of January. This means all findings 16 with the proviso that I am about to state. All proposed 17 findings are due on that date, except that if the numerous employees wish, they may file what we will characterize as 18 f I
- 19 j individual responsibility findings on particular individuals, i
20 CRos, foremen, supervisors, two weeks later on the 9th of February.
21 f1 22 l We won't attempt to define that line precisely, 23 i but we have been holding this hearing on this basis, we 24 lg simply assume that somep] ace in the employees' findings they
(} 25 f 1
would address individual responsibility of individual people,
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(}BRT 1 and that is what we are saying, at the option of the 2 employees, may be filed two weeks later.
3 MR. MC BRIDE: I unders tand exactly what you are 4 saying and we'll do the very best we can because we are 5 anticipating findings about each of the individual 6 employees.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: Okay. That leaves the question of 8 replies, and the discussion indicated a desire, and the Board 9 would like to have an opportunity, at least, for replies 10 also.
11 Let me try on you a date for replies, and we can 12 hear some comment on that if it's not appropriate.
(-s 13 On the assumption -- well, to state it 14 differently, our ccncept would be that reply findings would 15 be due 10 days fol]owing the filing of the employees last set 16 of findings, so that if they filed everything on the 23rd of 17 January, they would be due the 2nd of February, if that isn't 18 i a holiday or weekend. If they did not file everything until 19 : the 9th of February, that would kick it over to the 19th.
20 i It's a 10-day window for everybody to file a reply or 21 response on anybody else as they see fit.
22 That we'll have some comment on. Is that reply 23 ;l window all right? Any problem with that?
MR. MC BRIDE: I can tell you, Judge Kelley, that 24 f 25 both of the dates that you suggested, both the 2nd and 19th
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2 JUDGE KELLEY: Fine. Thank you.
3 A couple of other things that bear stating here, I 4 think. As we all know, we are not operating under part 2.
5 Part 2 has a specific rule bearing on proposed findings of 6 fact, asserts provisions of some importance. But since we 7 are not under that rule, let me just state for the record 8 that, one, we are directing all parties to file findings and 9 failure to file would result in your not having anything 10 considered, as far as we are concerned. This includes the 11 intervenor party, subject on however we rule on the pending fx 12 motion regarding the Aamodts. This is not just an b 13 opportunity to file. It is a requirement to file, the Board 14 of course recognizing the parties have different interests 15 and we recognize some of the parties will be filing much 16 briefer submissions than some others.
17 The other thing I want to underline about this --
18 excuse me a moment -- does anybody have a quick citation for 19 that rule? The finding rule?
20 l MR. MC BRIDE: 2.754, we think.
L 21 ! JUDGE KELLEY: That's right. It's 2.754.
I 22 Looking at subpart C in particular. I won't read 23 it. It's kind of long. But the part that we really want to 24 underline here is that the findings shall contain exact 25 ! citations to the transcript of record and exhibits in support (V^T.
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2 We say that out of some experience. We sometimes 3 get proposed findings with no support in the record. We want 4 to make it clear we are going to insist on that in this 5 case. If we get proposed findings with no citations to the 6 record, we are going to disregard them. We are not going to 7 g chase around looking for it, we are not going to wonder about t
8 ' i t, we are just going to disregard it. That, again, applies 9 o all parties.
10 i i MR. MC BRIDE: May I ask a question about that, 11 Judge Kelley. Typically one refers to things by exhibit f- 12 number. In this particular case it might be a little more i
13 understandable for the Board, it ha. occurred to me already 14 in taking a stab at some of these, that instead of citing to 15 Board Exhibit 1-A, or 1-B, which are, say, just for example, 16 q subsequent parts of the Stier report, I had thought it might 17 he more convenient for you -- you have a list of exhibits, we 18 l might give you another lict of exhibits -- but cite to the i
t 19 g Stier report and a volume rather than call it an exhibit il 20 l number. Would that be a little easier for you to follow and i
21 ! is that the way you would prefer it?
l JUDGE KELLEY: Probably necessary. In the case of 22 f the Stier report and the voluminous exhibits, what we would 23 l t
24 ask for is not only a citation to the number of the exhibit 25 ; in terms of the rule I just read, but rather, go further and
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1 give us as specific a citation as is necessary to find it.
2 Some of these voluminous exhibits, for example, Stier 3 investiga tion volume 68, tab 18, page 3, line 8, if you want 4 to go that far.
5 MR. MC BRIDE: That's what we had in mind with 6 regard to the big exhibits. The small ones presumably we'd 7 do it the conventional way.
8 JUDGE KELLEY: Tha t's a good demarca tion. But 9 please, err on the side of specificity.
10 MR. BLAKE: The distinction was whether to use 11 Stier or exhibit number? In any event you'd have to go into
/" s 12 the specifics.
U 13 MR. MC BRIDE: I thought it might be easier to 14 refer to the Stier report --
15 JUDGE KELLEY: Rather than say to us about when 16 the pipe gets bent, see Stier exhibit. That won ' t be 17 helpful.
18 MR. MC BRIDE: And wha t I'm saying is cite it to 19 the Stier report, volume X, tab Y.
I JUDGE KELLEY: Does anything else need to be said 20 l l
21 i on the subject of proposed findings?
I 22 MR. BLAKE: I have two questions. On the 10 days 1
23 ! also, that is in the Board's hands 10 days after -- is that l
24 correct?
i l (~) 25 l JUDGE KELLEY: Yes.
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\.J BRT 5329 1 MR. BLAKE: And in the event Mrs. Aamodt survives 2 the motion to dismiss and seeks to put in findings, she would 3 be on the same schedule that Miller, Herbein and GPUN are 4 on?
5 JUDGE KELLEY: Good point.
6 (Discussion off the record.)
7 JUDGE KELLEY: The Board has focused on this 8 point. I appreciate your raising it, Mr. Blake. It seems to 9 us the Aamodts' deadline for initial filing ought to be July 10 9, along with the other parties. What we are really doing 11 here is setting a 9th deadline with the exception for the 12 many employees because of many clients. There's no f3
%)
13 justification in our mind for allowing any mo.re time for the 14 Aamodts to file.
15 MR. MAUPIN: That's the January 9th --
16 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
17 If there's nothing further on the question of 18 findings, we have the pending ques tion of Mr. Lawyer, whether 19 or not he ought to be called as a witness. Let me say an 20 , introductory comment, the Board read Mr. Lawyer's statement 21 in the Stier study last summer in connection with our 1
22 l considering whether he and others ought to be called as a 23 l witness at that time. And our conclusion at that time was 24 li that he need not be called. So now we are looking at it i
25 again in the context of what the hearing has shown, and I'll i
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3 MS. WAGNER: I, also, have reread the Lawyer 4 interview of November 10, 1983, and the Staff doesn't see any 5 specific areas covered in that interview that appear to 6 present conflicts that would justify calling in Mr. Lawyer.
7 That being said, Staff still feels there may be 8 questions that the Board might wish to pursue with Mr. Lawyer 9 that were not covered in the interview. This is something 10 that we are just presenting for the Board's consideration.
11 On the question of manpower and adequate staffing --
(~s 12 JUDGE KELLEY: Let me pause on Mr. Lawyer. Do you ig 13 have any specific questions that you think we ought to be 14 raising with Mr. Lawyer, in light of his prior interview, 15 l particularly?
l 16 MS. WAGNER: In light of his prior interview, the 17 Staff does not have any particular areas, regarding what was 18 covered in that prior interview, that we think would warrant 19 calling him back. flowever, there are a couple of areas that 20 j it is really up to the Board to decide whether they have i
21 i enough evidence to make findings on, in general, or whether 22 i they want to hear from Mr. Lawyer on.
I 23 ; One of those issues is the issue of staffing.
P 24 ~ There have been a number of questions from the Board to 25 g various individuals on the question of adequate manpower,
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1 whether they were understaffed, et cetera. Part of 2 Mr. Lawyer's responsibilities was to oversee staffing at 3 TMI-1 and TMI-2. I believe he s tated that was his I
4 responsibility on page 5 of his November 10, 1983 interview.
5 As I say, there's already some evidence in the 6 record as to people's opinion as to whether they were 7 overworked. But Mr. Lawyer was the man who was in charge of 8 that and to whom requests for additional manpower should have 9 been made if they were made to anybody, it seems to me. He 10 might also -- you may also want to probe him on the effect, 11 perceived effect of the lack of a Unit 2 superintendent, 12 whether they made any efforts to compensate for this lack.
13 Also, there's another theme that has run through 1
14 some of the Board's questions in general. You have asked a l 15 number of people for explanations as to why an issue of the l
l 16 magnitude of the continuing leak rate testing problems and 17 the lack of confidence in the leak rate test results did not 18 get up to certain management levels. You asked Mr. Herbein.
,- 19 I don't think we have an explanation by Mr. Lawyer. I think I
20 Mr. Miller was asked the same question and people below l 21 Mr. Miller. So there would be that gap in the record.
22 And finally it's a question of whether the Board is satisfied that they need to call Mr. Lawyer in personally, 23 {
24 to judge his credibility personally, rather than rely on the 25 ' interview which is in the record.
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1 In sum, if the Board doesn't want to question him 2 on the couple of issues that I have raised, or to assess his 3 credibility firsthand, we really see no need to call him.
4 JUDGE KELLEY: Let's stick with that for the 5 moment, rather than shift topics.
6 Do counsel for any of the parties want to speak?
7 I think you spoke to some extent earlier, but in light of 8 Staff's most recent comments on the need to call Mr. Lawyer, 9 or lack of need?
10 MR. MC BRIDE: I would just say that Mr. Gephart 11 was present at the interview of Mr. Lawyer, I think he can 12 probably address that. I think it's a fair summary that 13 Mr. Lawyer didn't know anything about the subject of leak 14 rate testing and I don't see the manpower issue as a 15 significant enough item to call him all the way up here.
16 MR. GEPHART: I'm probably the last living person 17 in this proceeding to talk to him, a couple of months ago.
18 My sense from talking to him was that he would not have any 19 l recall on any of these subjects. I didn't specifically i
20 question him over the telephone two months ago about 21 manpower, staffing, that type of thing. However he told me 22 l very frankly that 8-1/2 years or whatever it has been, his 23 l memory has not improved, in fact it has gotten worse. He 24 l claims he doesn't recall anything that happened back then --
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any specifics. I don't think he'd help.
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I 28835.0 5333 b'~T BRT 1 JUDGE KELLEY: Anyone else? Okay.
2 In the same vein, are there any nominees for 3 witness s tatus growing out of Mr. Herbein's testimony today?
4 MR. MC DRIDE: None from the numerous employees.
5 MS. WAGNER: None from the Staff.
6 JUDGE KELLEY: No nominee?
7 MR. MAUPIN: No.
8 JUDGE KELLEY: Let me just make a couple of 9 comments, follow-up comments on the subject that we talked 10 about a little bit a week or so ago.
11 The context was whether we might want to call back fx 12 Staff witnesses or some expert witnesses in some areas if we
()
13 felt uncertain about the state of the record on certain 14 technical questions. Since that time Mr. Blake, I believe, 15 then indicated that, well, maybe the matters could help us 16 out by at least pointing us to certain parts of the record so 17 that we would be in a better position to decide whether or g
not we needed to have any further testimony; and I think I 18 l 19 l indicated one or two areas where I thought we might be a i
20 i little deficient on information. I should add that Mr. Blake 21 was talking to me last Friday, I think, mainly about i
22 ! exhibits. But in that connection he asked about what my concerns were and I think I can tell you in a few minutes 23 l 24 l what they were. I'll restate them for the record.
(")
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1 the same as when the point was first raised. When I first 2 raised this we were thinking, well, maybe we ought to bring 1
3 back Russell or something to ask him more questions at this 4 stage of the game. It doesn't seem to us, now, that that's 5 either desirable or necessary. But, not just speaking for 6 myself, the Board has talked about areas where we as a board 7 are a little uncertain about the state of the record. I 8 might just tell you now what those concerns are so that when 9 you are in the process of writing proposed findings, you 10 might bear that in mind.
11 It may be, too, that at some point, most likely 12 after we get proposed findings and we work with the record, 13 it may be that these concerns I'll mention now will all be 14 pretty well addressed. We won't need anything else. Or it 15 may be that we've simply got some gaps in the record and we 16 feel a need to reopen for some limited purpose. I think 17 that's down the line. That's not something we do 18 , immediately.
19 i With that kind of preamble, let me just mention 20 t some of the -- I'll call it general technical concerns and i
i 21 l whether they are really well covered in the record or whether 22 they are not, i
23 ! One of them is this. You will recall that the 24 time indications on the strip chart for the hours, down at
(} 25 the bottom of the sheet, were very often out of sync, out of ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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l 1 calibration with clock time.
2 It becomes important when you look at how, for i
3 example, the Staff would adjust the two -- it becomes
) 4 externally important when you have a claim, for example, that I 5 there was a water addition or a hydrogen addition just in the 6 last few minutes of the test. And that, I think, was 7 Mr. Hartman's claim, that that was one of the tricks that he 8 had learned about and, lo and behold, on the strip chart i 9 there's a bump or a rise or an offset in the strip chart
{ 10 trace indicator in the last five minutes or so of the test.
1 4 11 But you find out that the disagreement between clock time and l 12 chart time is maybe an hour and a half. Then, after we had i 13 heard the' explanation by the Staff initially of how they i
14- calibrated these times by, I gather, keying on times that 15 were known over a period of time and adjusting them 2
16 accordingly, we still have witnesses coming in saying: Well,
+
. 17 I don't know. That may or may not be right. That's-in the
. 18 last two minutes of the test, you say, but it might have been 1.
19 10 minutes later.
i 20 Or the witness may say, I was looking at my watch 21 and what makes it even more, kind of problematical in my 22 mind, is that these log times turn out to be not all that 23 precise. According to some of the testimony, at least.
24 So I guess our question is just how tight are 25 these time correlations? I'm not sure about that. I might J
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BRT 5336 1 jus t note a citation in Mr. Booher's interview, page 78, 2 lines 3 to 11. One of the Staff witnesses, I think it's 3 Russell, explains how they did these correlations. And I i 4 think earlier in the record, there may be more elaborate i
4 5 explanations than that and beyond that the MPR people did 6 something very similar if not identical, and I believe they 7 explain it, and I believe in places they even point out where
! 8 they were unsure about how good the time correlation was.
l 9 But, in any case, that's one area where we are not 10 sure we have as firm a fix as we would like to have on that I
4 11 issue. I'm not sure the record can be made any better than i 12 it is, but it bothers us and we don't know quite how to i
i 13 evaluate it in the absence of looking at all the records. So I 14 when that comes up, you might just bear in mind that we'd 15 appreciate some citations.
16 MR. BLAKE: Judge Kelley, let me give you some 17 right now. The discussion which was brought out by the 18 numerous employees' questions of the expert panel appears at 19 transcript pages 1283 through 1308. And there is a fairly 20 in-depth discussion of both the Staff and Stier and his
)
21 technical people. Basically it was they take a month-long
! 22 strip chart, they have hundreds of data points from which to j 23 make their determinations, and there's a lot of discussion in i 24 there as well as some internal references there to portions t
25 of their technical reports.
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- 1 JUDGE KELLEY
- Okay. Thank you.
-2 Another question that came up -- these are all 3~ what you might call defenses of the employees, the CRos, i
- 4 typically, where there is some evidence from the strip chart i
5 that will indicate something untoward occurred, something 6 wrong got done, and then the employee comes in with a sort of 7 a "yes but" explanation. One of them could be that the time 8 is off. Another would be -- this is one we have more trouble 9 getting a handle on, in the case of water additions during a 10 leak rate test where the claim is made, oh, I must have been i 11 doing that because the rods were going out of position and I <
i' 12 had to change the boron concentration to keep the rods where 13 they were supposed to be. And it is unclear to us how we can 1
4 14 assess that technical defense one way or the other on this
?
15 record. We don't know of any way to do that. And anything 16 in the record bearing on that would be -- any reference to I 17 that would be appreciated.
l 18 Somewhat more generally, there were other a
19 explanations given for why either water or hydrogen would be 20 added. In the case of water, to keep the makeup tank up 21 above its minimum level. We had some testimony on jus t how
- 22 ' necessary that was, or whether it was necessary. We are not i
23 clear yet how strong those justifications are.
24 In the case of hydrogen there was this directive, f
25 as we unders tand it, to keep the overpressure at a certain
(
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{}BRT 1 psi level, and the explanation might be, if there's a 2 hydrogen addition during the leak rate test, well, I was just 3 trying to keep it within the band. What do we make of that 4 from a technical standpoin't? We frankly aren't sure.
5 Those are the areas that we had in mind. I just 6 tic them off now so that you might keep them in mind and help 7 us with the record when they come up.
8 That's all I have on that. Any comments or 9 questions?
10 MR. BLAKE: What you want us to do is assist you 11 when we put in findings to the extent they exist --
12 JUDGE KELLEY: When these issues come up you might 13 just bear in mind when these issues come up we are, at least
- 14 today, uncertain about the state of the the record, and when 15 these issues come up, you can point us to it; we'd appreciate 16 p it.
17 One other thing. The only other thing, other than 18 the ruling on Mr. Lawyer, are some questions about the 19 i exhibits. Maybe we can go off the record to do that.
8
!i 20 1 Mr. Blake?
i 21 MR. MC BRIDE: There's one additional item which I think Ms. Wagner and I may have resolved. The Board may have 22 l 23 i forgotten about it, because it has been hanging for a while, i
but I think she and I have worked up agreed-upon language 24 l
{} 25 s
which would constitute an adnission agreed upon by the Staff t
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1 with respect to Dr. Chung.
2 JUDGE KELLEY: Yes. I had forgotten about that.
3 Do you have some language?
4 MS. WAGNER: Yes, I do. Mr. McBride and I have 5 agreed on language and I have circulated the language among 6 counsel here and have heard no objection.
7 iUDGE KELLEY: So this would be procedurally an 8 admission by the Staff which would come in as such?
9 MR. MC BRIDE: Yes, that this is what Dr. Chung 10 would swear to if he had been called as a witness.
11 JUDGE KELLEY: All right. Any objection to
~x 12 admitting this statement? You have all seen it, I take it?
(O I don't hear any objection to admitting this admission.
13 14 Could we see a copy?
15 MS. WAGNER: It has got a little handwriting on 16 it.
17 JUDGE KELLEY: I could read it. " Admission of 18 Staff Regarding Dr. Chung.
19 "Dr. Chung of the NRC Staff conducted an 20 f inspection of the TMI-1 reactor coolant system inventory i
21 i balance procedure ('the leak rate test') to determine if such l
22 ; tests were performed in viola tion of applicable technical 23 ; specifications and procedures during July through September, 24 1983. In the course of his review of the TMI-1 leak rate
(~T 25 test procedure, Dr. Chung became aware of the effects of V
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(}BRT 1 instrument errors and plant oscillations on the leak rate 2 measurements, and concluded that errors could be reduced by j 3 running the tests for a period of time in excess of one 4 hour. The tests had previously been run, on most occasions, 5 for only-one hour.
6 "Dr. Chung was initially under the opinion that 7 the leak rate test should be run for four hours or more.
8 However, after considering the difficulty associated with 9 . holding the plant steady for that long for one surveillance, 10 and based on the facts that Unit I was relatively stable, 11 Dr. Chung determined that a leak rate test duration of at 12 least two hours was acceptable.
i O-
- . 13 "Dr. Chung's conclusions were generally applicable 14 to such tests at other pressurized water reactor power plants
). 15 at which leak rate tests are performed, not just TMI-1, with l
16 the precise time frame being dependent on individual plant i
i 17 characteristics." End of admission.
18 The admission is in as such, no objection having 19 been raised.
20 Let us talk for a minute about Mr. Lawyer. Then i
21 we have some sort of miscellaneous questions about exhibits.
22 We'll make sure that is all cleaned up. We can do that off
- . 23 the record, so we'll go off the record for a moment and then 24 we'll come back and talk about exhibits.
(Discussion off the record.)
(} 25 l 7
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5341 1 JUDGE KELLEY: We have a ruling on whether 2 Mr. Lawyer should be called'as a witness. Our ruling is in i 3 the negative. We don't believe that calling him would be 4 warranted for several. reasons;,mainly, we have in the re$ord
[ 5 a fairly' extensive interview with Mr. Lawyer, going over many; 6 of the main points we have been talking about. It's fair to 7 say the interview doesn' t reflect any knowledge on 8 Mr. Lawyer's part of the leak rate issue. Arguably he might 9 have something to add on some of the issues that have arisen 10 since then. We could talk to him about staffing, for 11 example. But having talked to Mr. Miller and Mr. Herbein on 12 the subject, we don't think that we need to hear from V
13 Mr. Lawyer also.
1 14 Furthermore, this is really an indication to call l
15 any further witnesses that are suggested by the unfolding 16 record. There is nothing that is unfolding here that we are
- 17 aware of, that suggests calling Mr. Lawyer. So far as there 18 is a case for calling him, it could have been made last 19 spring when we were talking about proposed witnesses. His
) ,
! 20 role was as obvious then as it is now. So we are not going 21 to call Mr. Lawyer in.
f'
! 22 There being no further candidates for witness
(
l 23 status, we'll be closing the list and in a moment closing the l
l 24 record on this proceeding.
(} 25 We have just a few, I think, probably que'stions of ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. -
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.1 clarification on the s tatus of exhibits. I think we can do 2 this off the record. We may want to put something in in a
? 3 minute or two, but can we go off the record for a moment.
4 (Discussion off the record.)
5 JUDGE KELLEY: Just a word here about exhibits in 6 the case, we have been advised by Mr. Clements of docketing 7 and service that for their official needs they need one copy 8 ' af each exhibit, and we are putting together a set that would 9 provide that, in this case it's 25 exhibits, some of them 10 multiple volumes, and a 26th exhibit came in today which was 11 an offer of proof that we talked about earlier in the hearing gs 12 today. I d'n't believe the Board has anything else except to L-) Does anyone else have 13 say the record is going to be closed.
14 anything to say?
15 MR. BLAKE: I have a couple of items. One, we owe l
16 you Mr. Phillippe's schedule for Lynchburg, which was between 17 February 26 and March 9th of 1979. On that same occasion we 18 were interested -- the Board was interested in a detailed 19 f plant outage schedule and that appears in Stier at volume i
4-A. It is table 5-1, and it does, indeed, indicate that 20 l i
, 21 i between the 16th of January of '79 and the 30th of January of I
22 ' '79, the plant was below tha t -- those conditions which would
\
' Q 23 l require Jeak rate testing. That all came up in connection 24 with Phillippe and how much exposure he might actually have 25 j had to leak rate testing.
(~')
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{}BRT 1 There was, earlier, an open ruling by the Board 2 with regard to the admissibility of the U.S. Attorney's 3 statement. That goes way back, I believe, to May 10th --
4 JUDGE KELLEY: That was deferred; is that right?
5 MR. BLAKE: It was deferred in conjunction with 6 possibly Mr. Queen's appearance. The Board has since ruled 7 on Mr. Queen's appearance. His statement is in the record 8 now as tab number 1 to the Stier tabs. I would propose that 9 we just leave it there for whatever weight or worth it is 10 viewed to have in the context of the proceeding; the fact 11 that Mr. Queen has never appeared.
w 12 JUDGE KELLEY: Comment on Mr. Blake's proposal?
s_)
13 ,
MR. MC BRIDE: Well, the difficulty is, Judge 14 Kelley, it is part of the Stier report and I certainly don't 15 propose to start pulling the Stier report apart. On the 16 other hand, it is not a prior statement in the evidentiary 17 sense.
18 JUDGE KELLEY: True.
19 MR. MC BRIDE: He didn't swear to it. It was 20 j argument of counsel at a plea bargain, or a statement of h
21 ' facts presented in a plea bargain. So, with that thought in 22 , mind, if the Board's indication was that the weight it deserves is essentially nil, or nil, I have no problem.
23 l 24j However, experience suggests to me that if Mrs. Aamodt is
{} 25 i I
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1 statement of facts which has never been the subject of 2 inquiry here, other than with respect to certain things that 3 the employees specifically were able to take issue with and, 4 therefore, I'm a little bit at a loss, for record purposes, 5 as to what I'm supposed to expect is Lo be done with this 6 from the standpoint of evidence.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: Well, I understand your point.
8 Just a moment.
9 (Discussion off the record.)
10 JUDGE KELLEY: I think the Board can give you the 11 sense of our view of this document, Mr. McBride, and the
~g 12 parties, and that would be this, that it is entitled to very (G It is in, in a sense, by accident, because we 13 little weight.
14 didn't sit down and turn each page of the Stier report, and 15 we never made any deliberate decision to let it in. We have 16 just discovered at this point, or at least some of us have, 17 , that it is there.
l 18 Beyond that, as we understand it, it is not based 19 i on Mr. Queen's personal knowledge. We assume it is derived l
20 l!
as second, third, fourth -- who knows how many hand hearsay I
21 ! to be put together, and we have been hearing people directly i
22 - involved in this case. Mr. Queen was not called nor did we 23 l see any reason to call him. So we think the presence of the 24 l statement of facts in the record is not likely to be
(} 25 , prejudicial to anybody in an evidentiary sense.
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% BRT 1 MR. BLAKE: I'm told I misspoke and it was tab 2 2 of Stier.
3 Transcript corrections, Judge Kelley?
4 JUDGE KELLEY: Yes. Are you proposing a time?
5 MH. BLAKE: I propose with the initial set of 6i findings from each party that they provide their transcript 7 corrections at the same time.
8 JUDGE KELLEY: Sounds good. All agreed.
9 MS. WAGNER: And the Staff's proposed transcript 10 corrections, which I expect we will have some, will be 11 January 9th.
(m., 12 JUDGE KELLEY: Fine. Sure.
LJ 13 Just a comment that occurs to us in the context of 14 setting findings based on a record and emphasized the need 15 for record citations. Simply this: The Commission's order 16 refers to this as a " legislative" hearing wi thout, I think, 17 g ever defining that concept with any great specificity. It 18 has something to do, I think, with the ability of the Board 19 and Staff to communicate and keep us out of ex parte
- )
20 ! prohibitions. That has been moot for a long time. Ever i
21 la since this hearing started, virtually, we have had very 22 little discussion with the Staff.
But, in any case, all I want to underline is the 23 l 24 ! findings that we are going to make are going to be based on i
25 j the record and not on anything else. We are not going to be
(~}
x._- ;
h 1
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(}BRT 1 discussing these issues off the record with anybody, and we 2 will be making, for all practical purposes, an on-the-record 3 determination based on the findings we receive and the record 4 that is before us.
5 Anything else?
6 MR. BLAKE: There are two open rulings awaiting 7' Mrs. Aamodt's arrival with regard to fees.
8 Mr. Stier and Faegre & Benson. The record now 9 reflects questions put to them and their responses with 10 regard to any restrictions or limitations or constrai nts or 11 their ability to investigate these areas. It reflects as s 12 well, through their testimony and through subsequent exhibit, t
13 at least in MPR's case, the percentage of time that they have 14 spent over the years on these subjects. But the ruling about 15 her specific, at least initial request, and whether or not 16 she would press it, even in view of the information that is 17 already now available in the record, was to await her 18 k; arrival. -
i 19 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
20 MR. BLAKE: Without her arrival I would hope that 21 l that would wait no longer.
l 22 l JUDGE KELLEY: I appreciate your raising it.
I 23 l Could you state again, just exactly what questions were 24 deferred?
{} 25 i MR. BLAKE: The question which was deferred was, i
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1 in the case of Mr. Stier, specifically his contract. In the 2 case of Rockwell, specifically his contract. You may 3 remember.Mr. Rockwell's observation was he didn't think there 4 was a contract in any event, but he'd double-check if there 5 was a Board ruling that it was necessary to have that 6 document, and then there were a couple of related questions 7 because it was my sense that the contract question was really 8 a financial question. That went right to their fees.
9 JUDGE KELLEY: How much were you paid to do this 10 work?
11 MR. BLAKE: How much were you paid to do it?
w 12 In the case of Stier, the Board initially put the 13 question, not as how much were you paid to do it but 14 anticipating, I think, probably the objection, what 15 percentage of fees.
16 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
17 MR. BLAKE: That subsequently was modified and put 18 g to him and responded to, which was what percentage of time, 19 and that's what you have from all of them; how much time did 20 l you spend on this for GPU -- how much effort -- how much of L
21 an allegiance was there here between you, the individual and 22 the company. And that is what you have, plus the limi ta tions 23 ; and conditions, restraints -- how they did businese. What 24 sort of limitations were placed on them.
/")
\/
25 il What you do not have are the fee-related l
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i . 28835.0 BRT S340 i 1 ques tions .
f 2 JUDGE KELLEY: Right.
i 3 MR. MC BRIDE: And I can tell you that you'll find 4 the transcript references, I believe, to these matters at
. 4 5 1143 to.-46 in the case of Mr. Rockwell, and approximately 6 2026 to 2027 in the case of MPR.
7 JUDGE KELLEY: Thank you. I believe it was in the i
8 posture of our having an objection from Mr. Blake and our I
! 9 hearing him and then our saying that we would await 10 Mrs. Aamodt's arrival to speak. So there's a pending 11 objection to those questions?
12 MR. BLAKE: That's correct.
j 13 (Discussion off the record.)
14 JUDGE RELLEY: Still pending before us are the i 15 questions Mr. Blake was describing, essentially going to fees 16 paid to experts Stier and Rockwell. We have a pending f
i 17 objection. We have considered this further and, in the 4
18 absence of the proponent of the question, Mrs. Aamodt, we are j
19 going to sustain the objection and resolve that matter in i
20 that fashion. It seems to us that there is a good argument a
, 21 j against a question that goes directly to fees in any case, 22 and that when the proponent of the question never does come to the hearing to put forth that party's view, then certainly
{ 23 l ,
24 those circumstances -- the question ought to be rejected, and l
25 is.
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] JBRT 5349 1 Anything else?
2 Okay. Then we do, at this point, order the record 3 in this proceeding closed, subject to receipt from Mr. Blake 4 of the information related to Mr. Phillippe; subject, of 5 course, to the usual rules applicable to reopening records 6 about new information or whatever might justify such a step; 7 subject to the possibility that the Board, in deciding the 8 case, may find that it has questions that it needs to reopen 9 for. But subject to those exceptions, the record is now 10 closed.
11 Let me just add, to al] ladies and gentlemen, the 12 Board's appreciation for all of your work over many weeks.
13 It turned out to be a fairly time consuming, but I think 14 interesting proceeding, and hopefully it will shed some 15 useful light on issues before the Commission.
16 Thank you very much.
17 (Discussion off the record.)
18 JUDGE KELLEY: Our reference to further 19 information regarding Mr. Phillippe was mistaken and we 20 l already have that information.
i 21 i (Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the hearing was i
22 j concluded.)
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER O
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: INQUIRY INTO THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 - LEAK RATE DATA FALSIFICATION DOCKET NO.: LRP PLACE: BETHESDA, MARYLAND i
bm DATE: WEDNESDAY', NOVEMBER 12, 1986 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(sigt)
(TYPED i
JOEL BREITNER Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Reporter's Affiliation
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