ML20211N460
| ML20211N460 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 06/26/1986 |
| From: | Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ACRS-T-1524, NUDOCS 8607030104 | |
| Download: ML20211N460 (123) | |
Text
. ORl9j,yq $&$Qf O UN11ED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
l ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON j REGULATORY POLICIES AND PRACTICES j l
1 l
l LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D. C. PAGES: 1 - 111 DATE: THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1986 lue n o diju n a a u eIPM P!CP M PQDV l MRpt leme:veimm ACRS O= ice
$UE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
OfficialReporters 444 North CapitolStreet Washington, D.C. 20001 86070301o4 e60626 (202) 347-3700 PDR ACRS PDR T-1S24 NATIONWIDE COVERAGE t I
PUBLIC NOTICE BY THE j
O UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONERS' ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1986
~
The contents of this stenographic transcript of the proceedings of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS), as reported herein, is an uncorrected record of the discussions recorded at the meeting held on the above date.
No member of the ACRS Staff and no participant at this meeting ac,,cepts any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies of statement or data contained in this transcript.
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--. --- 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON RZACTOR SAFEGUARDS 4 SUBCOMMITTEE ON 5 REGULATORY POLICIES AND PRACTICES Nuclear Regulatory Commission Room 1146 7 1717 H Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C.
9 Thursday, June 26, 1986 10 The meeting of the subcommittee convened at 8:30 a.m.,
11 Dr. Harold W. Lewis, chairman, presiding.
12 ACRS MEMBERS PRESENT:
- 13 :
1_SJ -
14 DR. HAROLD W. LEWIS 15 DR. FORREST J. REMICK 16 DR. CHESTER P. SIESS 17 MR. CHARLES J. WYLIE 13 l MR. GLENN A. REED 19 20 21 22 23 '
24 .
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() 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 MR. LEWIS: We begin. The meeting will now come 3 to order.
4 This is a meeting of the Advisory Committee on 5 Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee on Regulatory Policies and 6 Practices.
7 I am Harold Lewis, Subcommittee Chairman.
8 The other ACRS Members in attendance are:
9 Forrest Remick, who is not here at the moment, and Chester 10 Siess. Charles Wylie will ba joining us this afternoon and i
11 Dr. Siess will be leaving us this afternoon to go to 12 another meeting. Glenn Reed has also joined us this 13 morning.
14 The purpose of this meeting is to review the -
15 regulatory process as it relates to the June 9, 1985 16 Davis-Besse event using NUREG-1201, which is the Report of 17 the Ad Hoc Group for the Davis-Besse Incident, as the basis 18 for the meeting.
19 Gary Quittschreiber is the cognizant ACRS Staff 20 Engineeer for this meeting.
21 The rules for participation in today's meeting 22 have been announced as part of the notice of this meeting 23 previously published in the Federal Register on Friday, May 24 16, 1986.
79 A tranceript of the meeting is being kept and O
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() I will be made available as stated in the Federal Register 2 Notice. It is requested that each speaker first identify 3 himself or herself and speak with sufficient clarity and
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4 volume so that he or she can be readily heard.
5 We have received no written comments from 6 members of the public. We have received no requests for 7 time to make oral statements from members of the public.
8 I really have very little to say before we get 9 cracking.
10 We had yesterday a Subcommittee meeting of a 11 different Subcommittee in which we heard a report from the 12 Rancho Seco incident investigation team, and there were 13 many questions from members of the Subcommittee addressed
- 14 to the team that we suppressed and which we said would be 15 more properly addressed this morning, because those 16 questions mostly had to do with the function and the 17 process itself rather than specifically Rancho Seco. So 18 our purpose today -- and for the record, Forrest Remick has 19 shown up, only a minute or two late -- and my feeling about 20 today's meeting is that I am somewhat less concerned about 21 the details of what is wrong with Davis-Besse and what has 22 happened there. That will be dgalt with in other " fora" 23 over a period of time, if indeed fora is the plural of 24 " forum," but today it would be very interesting to be able 25 to explore the process of incident invcatigation as the O
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() 1 Staff has laid it out because the Davis-Besse one is, in a 2 sense, the first which was really completed and produced i 3 what is in my view a reasonably good fact-finding report 4 but has also had the benefit of an ad hoc review of the 5 process as it worked in that case, and for all we know,
- 6 since this is new territory we are on,'there may be an ad j 7 hoc review of the ad hoc review, and this may be a lifetime 8 er.deavor for all of us, so I would like, if everyone is 9 agreeable, to concentrate on the process and see how it'has
- 10 been working as exemplified by this specific case.
11 I have nothing more than that to add before we 12 begin. Do any of the members of the Subcommittee have J
13 anything to add?
14 MR. REED: I think what I have to say is ra ther 15 long here at the opening, but it really deals with the '
16 process, and I'll be talking about the process if I may as j 17 it has been seen from the trenches.
l 18 As I see it from the trenches --
19 MR. LEWIS: At the moment you are wearing an 20 ACRS hat.
21 MR. REED: Okay. May I proceed?
22 I have great concern about the --
] 23 MR. LEWIS: Are you about to make a speech?
j I
24 MR. REED: Yeah.
25 MR. LEWIS: Do you think we ought Lu let our t
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(,) 1 visitors have a word before you comment on what they say?
2 MR. REED: Well, it relates to what you want to 3 investigate.
4 MR. LEWIS: Okay. Is it a long speech?
5 MR. REED: I never make a speech over 10 minutes.
6 MR. LEWIS: I'm only worried about disrupting 7 our train of thought.
8 MR. REED: Thank you very much.
9 I'm concerned about the efficiency and the 10 objectivity and the competence of investigations and the 11 analyses of those investigations that are performed.
12 I'm concerned about the fragmented nature of the 13 investigations, and the repetition of investigations, and O~/ 14 how that investigation then turns over its material, 15 findings and conclusions, which seem to be limited in their 16 scope, to other bodies for massage and to come out with, 17 supposedly, root causes. I'm concerned that IIT, as a body, 18 is involved in investigations, the region is involved in 19 investigations in the past, I&E is involved in 20 investigations, and yesterday we heard about B&W owners 21 group for all B&W reactors will be involved in 22 investigations, and I was questioning who races to the 23 frozen material first, and I didn't get any clear answers 24 because apparently there is no rigorous structure for 4
25 racing to the ccono and harassing the trench-walkets wiio O
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(_s q_) I have been laid out.
2 I'm concerned about the priority for who is 3 first investigated. Of course, we also have EOD 4 investigators and INPO, and I have heard recently that INPO 5 has decided that people in the workplace are so burdened 6 that they will back off and wait on their investigation and 7 evaluation.
8 So, what we have here is a scene now that has 9 not been -- that bodes repetition and perhaps the wearing 10 out of the workers in the workplace, and I hate to think 11 that the workers are going to get into a position where 12 every one of them will say, as they sit for interview, and 13 these are in the processes, as I heard about, the workers O 14 will sit there and say, what do you want to know? Because 15 they are not in the corporate mode. They have been asked 16 the same thing many times. They are not going to volunteer.
17 They are going to let you, or the investigators, ask the 18 questions and they will respond simply factually to that 19 issue without much volunteering.
20 I'm concerned about the lack of machinery and 21 workplace understanding of the investigators. I don't 22 think many of the investigators, be they INPO, IITs, or 23 B&W's or whoever, have really much competence and expertise 24 with respect to the genuine workplace, and if they ever 25 held ASI on, they are obcolete as hell.
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(,) 1 I'm concerned about the lack of involvement of 2 real experts in investigations. That is, that in the' work i 3 places there are dedicated ethical craftsmen and )
4 professionals who really know their job. They would never 5 be involved in a conflict of interest or distortion and 6 they are the best damned experts there are with respect to 7 telling the story of what they, to the best of their 8 ability, know about; I'm concerned that their involvement 9 is not there.
10 I'm concerned that real root causes are not 11 being ferreted out and fingered, and I see a tilt toward 12 saying the root causes are operator errors and that we 13 should flog operators more and have more procedures to r
14 burden them with without looking at design vulnerabilities.
15 I think there is a path, ever since Three Mile Island 2, of 16 not pointing the finger at design vulnerabilities and 17 rather we will just add the procedures and operator 18 flogging.
19 I saw an example of that just yesterday. In the 20 report on loss of integrated control system at Rancho Seco, 21 I noticed on a c.ertain page in there that -- page 3-10, 22 that the investigators missed the serious -- a serious 23 issue with respect to why the spray ring is located high in 24 the B&W steam generators, and what could have happened if --
l 25 with overfill nf rhnaa =Famm generators, becauce overfill 1
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(). 1 is not a good idea in the B&W system. In fact, if you get 2 the water level too high it gets to be a very bad idea 3 because you can jeopardize decay heat removal. I didn't 4 see this come out in this kind of report. This bothers me.
5 Again, I see this trend to not looking at design 6 vulnerabilities and it is easy to add the procedures and 7 flog operators.
8 Lastly, I have concern that there is little 9 genuine operator influence and voice and leadership 10 position in this industry. Now, this is very much unlike 11 the FAA and the aircraft industry where more than half the 12 people who made up the investigating team were X mechanic 13 types and pilots in the NTSB. What we have, I think in 14 this industry, are mostly designers, professionals and 15 other people from the top, and this industry has been born 16 and operated from the top. It has not had a genuine voice 17 of people who work the shifts and who come up from the 18 bottom. I think it is hurting this industry from a safety 19 point of view.
20 We all know that Orville and Wilbur Wright were 21 out in the workplace and got their knees bruised a bit and 22 came up with the aircraft industry from the bottom. But we 23 didn't get born that way. Somehow we have to infuse this l
24 industry, I think, with that kind of voice.
25 In my opinion a dcsignated representative system CE)
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() l in the investigation process -- and I see a little bit of 2 criticism in this report, 1201 -- is in order to try to get 3 that voice, because you just can't go out and siphon those 4 people off in industry, and maybe they wouldn't come anyway.
5 But what we have to do is find a structure to get the voice 6 of the operating people and the ethical professionals in 7 the workplace into the safety process.
8 Thank you.
9 MR. LEWIS: I would like to now get on with the 10 meeting. I guess my agenda doesn't show any specific order 11 of events, so if it is agreeable to everyone, I think a 12 natural order would be to hear from Vic first, and then the 13 Gleason committee, and then Admiral, and then have a round l D
d 14 table involving all of us as long as any of you can stay.
15 I think that is a reasonable order of events, unless 16 somebody disagrees with it.
17 Did you plan anything Olse, Garry?
18 MR. QUITTSCHREIBER: No.
19 MR. LEWIS: Okay, Vic.
20 MR. STELLO: Well, let's start at the beginning.
21 I think you've got to be very, very careful when you begin 22 a process to conclude that when you begin to make it 1
23 privileged, I don't know of anything that we have ever j 24 started in this agency where the beginning was perfect or 25 vary cloSe to perfect. It takes tims. You have to learn.
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() 1 Many of the points that Glenn raised are valid, and I'll 2 try to cover a couple of those.
3 MR. LEWIS: I hope you don't find yourself 4 guided by that. Each of us could make a speech like that, 5 and it would be a different speech.
6 MR. STELLO: I'm sure of that. So I'll make my 7 own.
8 MR. LEWIS: That's what you are here for.
9 MR. STELLO: I believe that it is important to 10 take the significant events, look at them in depth, and 11 learn all of the lessons that you can learn from them.
t 12 They give us a great many insights when you look broadly.
i 13 You have to understand to what extent the management of a
( 14 particular utility might in fact be a root cause, whether 15 underneath that root cause are problems of design or 16 problems of inadequate training, or whatever the reasons 17 are. It really doesn't matter if there is a management 18 problem, and I think at Davis-Besse, which was one of the 19 first ones we looked at, it was clearly management problems.
20 In the case of Rancho Seco, when you look at it, I think 21 there-are clearly management problems. You can't stop ,
22 there. There are a lot of other lessons that have to be i
23 learned beyond learning the lesson of management problems.
24 You don't only learn what there is about ;
l 25 problems in a facility only from an IIT report. We do do CZ) 1 ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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() 1 inspections; we do monitor the facility, almost on a 2 continuous basis, and have some notion of the kinds of 3 difficulties we have had over the years, and then when you 4 have an incident, you see that all of a sudden, things are 5 sharpened for you, and those have very, very valuable 6 lessons to learn.
7 I think in all of the IITs that we have done 1
8 thus far you will find that not only the information from j 9 the IIT, but the previous history, all of a sudden ties 10 together for you in away that is very, very helpful.
11 The composition to the IIT, the training of the 12 IIT, and the training -- maybe that is a bad word -- at 13 least making utilities aware of what we are trying to do 14 are immediate lessons that have been learned from the first
. 15 few. I believe a week or two weeks from now we will be
, 16 having the first real training session for members of an 17 IIT. We haven't done that before. It is obvious why not.
18 We began with Davis-Besse, almost spontaneously, and then ,
19 ve tried to develop procedures and structures. We've got a 20 long way to go. We recognize that. I think we are 21 committed to making it better. We will be having workshops 22 with the industry. I think that is very, very important 23 for the industry to truly understand what we are trying to l 24 do, so that they can get the sensitivity of their people to 25 want to cooperate fully, get their views and their O
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(') 1 understanding as part of the record as early as possible, 2 to make sure that we get that kind of understanding from 3 all of the people involved.
4 We are aware of major problems where there is an 5 extrene sensitivity developed by the utility personnel in 6 the process of an IIT. I think that is because of a lack 7 of understanding or lack of communication between us and 8 the industry at large. That is a problem that really needs I 9 to be corrected that will go, I think, a long way in 10 getting the utility to fully cooperate and all the people 11 to fully cooperate and get the facts laid out as 12 comprehensively as you can right from the beginning.
1
- 13 Of the IITs that have been done thus far, I 14 can't really find any of them that I considered to be a bad 15 job. I think they are all reasonably good reports. I 16 think they have done a fairly good job at developing the 17 info rmation . And I think, as you now look back, and Joe 18 perhaps will comment on this, as to whether we in fact did 19 capture the right issues and the right elements in the IIT 20 that needed to be looked at.
21 Now, again, I'm saying it is only one part of a 22 process. There is an awful lot that went on before and 23 after an IIT that comes to tie it together. I want to 24 emphasize IIT is not a beginning and an end to any process, 25 but just a pictura, a snapshot at one point in time. It 1
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() 1 needs to be tied together with everything else. I think 2 that is a very, very important point as to why we on the 3 staff have got to do the IITs and do them well, because it ;
4 is knowledge and understanding and it has to be put 5 together with everything else that we know to really do the 6 right job with the utility, with this industry. That 7 understanding that comes back from the people who are on 8 these IITs, we can't emphasize enough how important that 9 knowledge is, to have one of our division directors in the 10 regions who was on that IIT who saw what happened there, 11 and then be able to take those lessons and make them part 1
12 of his everyday job. A very, very important activity, 13 because he really gets an appreciation he otherwise didn't (D
ss' 14 have by looking at them.
15 I have a hard time arguing that we are 16 substantially off the mark in IIT. I think I could 17 tolerate arguments of fine-tuning, but I don't believe that 18 we are far away from what is really needed, although I will 19 agree -- and I think the recommendations that came out of 20 Judge Gleason's group pretty much were right on. There 21 were many lessons that we learned. Many of them were 22 already in place. So I think as a bottom line I'm 23 satisfied. I don't see any flaws that are fatal, and I 24 think as we move toward the next one it will be better, and 25 as the years go by I think we will achieve the goal of C
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() 1 getting them to maybe not perfection, but close enough, 2 where I think all of us will be satisfied that this job is 3 being done well.
4 MR. LEWIS: Well, I think what we should do, 5 then -- is that what you were going to say?
6 MR. STELLO: Yes.
7 MR. LEWIS: I would think the way we organize 8 ourselves is to have a first round of questioning of you, 9 but not go on all morning with it, so we give the other 10 people a chance to speak, and then let them make their 11 pitch and make a round, and then we will end up with a 12 roundtable, if that is a reasonable thing to do.
13 Why don't I exercise chairman's privilege and go 14 first? Fair enough? Then everybody gets a chance.
15 MR. REMICK: I thought the chairman went last if 16 he's a gentleman.
17 MR. LEWIS: Normally, if he's a gentleman, he 18 does go last. l 19 I do agree with Vic that by and large the IITs 20 that I have seen have done a decent job of laying out the 21 facts, and whereas I have many things in the course of the i 22 morning that I'll say that are relevant to whether it is as 23 close to the mark as you think it is, and I confess, of 24 course, to a conflict of interest here having been an STSP 25 promoter or since time began.
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() 1 Two things: One is the IITs have done a decent 2 job of laying out the facts. I have seen two defects. One 3 has -- we have absolutely put into an ACRS letter to the 4 former EDO, or actually to the chairman, expressing concern 5 about the follow-up to the IIT investigation, which as you 6 will I'm sure agree is just as important a part as the l
7 investigation itself.
1 8 The other is at the'other end of the 9 investigation, and the one that comes to my mind is Rancho 10 Seco, because I heard about it yesterday, and everything 11 seems to have begun with a failure in the power supply 12 monitor, but I found nothing in the report that didn't 13 treat that failure as an act of God. That is to say, I 14 found nothing which said when the monitor had last been 15 maintained, whether that was relevant. There was a comment 16 in a paragraph about a factory defect. But I found no 17 follow-up to find out why in fact that thing that began the 18 whole operation failed in the first place. In general, 19 electronics, if left alone, don't fail. And there was a 20 comment about contact resistance, which was surely the 21 wrong term, and a bad crimp joint, but nothing beyond that.
22 So in a sense there is a defect in the beginning, which you 23 might really call the root cause, having to do with the 24 first thing that failed, why did it fail. And nothing ever 1
25 fails because of an act of God, of course. And then a (Z)
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() 1 problem at the end, which is a known problem. Those are my 2 concerns. I don't want to dwell on them, just to put them 3 on the record and let our other friends go.
4 Now, having been not a gentleman, let's proceed.
5 MR. STELLO: Was that a question?
6 MR. LEWIS: No. It was a comment.
7 MR. STELLO: You said two defects. You named 8 one. What was the second one?
9 MD. LEWIS: I named two. One at each end. That 10 is, the problem at the end of the follow-up, being focused 11 on the follow-up, and the problem at the beginning, 12 treating the beginning cause as if it were an act of God. l 13 MR. STELLO: Root cause.
O 14 MR. LEWIS: Those are two. ;
l 15 MR. STELLO: All right. I 16 MR. LEWIS: Do you want to answer that, or just l
17 go on? i l
18 MR. STELLO: I certainly could answer the two.
19 Follow-up to the investigations, you say there 20 is a shortcoming, I disagree with you emphatically.
21 Follow-up has been extensive. When you give Joe Williams a 22 chance, maybe he can tell you about a follow-up.
23 MR. LEWIS: That is my concern, it has been too 24 excessive. That is to say, it hasn't focus on the things .
l 25 that made the accident. It has been an excuse to fix '
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( ,j 1 everything in the plant.
2 MR. STELLO: Precisely.
3 MR. LEWIS: That is my concern.
4 MR. STELLO: No. We will go into that.
5 MR. LEWIS: Splendid.
6 MR. STELLO: I said, IIT is a snapshot. It is 7 one element that' tells us about everything in the utility 8 and what they have and have not done well. In the case of 9 Davis-Besse, they had significant management problems which 10 came to light, so, yes, we went way beyond IIT. Our l
11 follow-up, yes, was way beyond IIT, and it had to be, 12 because safety dictates the need to do so, and we are not )
13 going to stop. We are just fixing the IIT's issues when it I
's' 14 emphasizes to us a more serious problem. So the follow-up 15 indeed will be what it needs to be for safety.
16 So, you are right, we do go way, way beyond it 17 when the need is there, and I believe in every case the 18 need has been there. ,
1 19 Two, I don't disagree with you. Our ability to l
20 really get as much as we need to get in root causes needs 21 more work. We need more training, we need more 22 understanding. We are doing that. However, in the case of l 23 the example that you picked, it is just not a very good 24 system, and we have made that a particular focus of the 25 generic B&W review to ask that question, does that whole O
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(_h j 1 system need to be revamped? Is it good enough in the way 2 it has evolved? Now, they have done in some plants quite a 3 bit. In others, the case of Rancho Seco, it happens to be 4 one of the plants that had the least done to it. But it 5 raised the question, is ICS design something that needs to 6 be further looked at? The answer to that is yes. The root 7 cause is the integrated control system itself and its 8 design.
9 Back to the point that Glenn was raising, it is 10 a fundamental design question.
11 Those are two comments with respect to your 12 situation.
13 MR. REMICK: Could I raise a follow-up question?
14 MR. LEWIS: Sure.
15 MR. REMICK: On these follow-up issues, I read 16 there were 40 some that the EDO wrote and asked them to 17 look into.
18 Is there ever going to be anything that ties the 19 outcome of that into one document? Is there ever going to 20 be a NUREG tying that together? I'm thinking of the 21 Davis-Besse case.
22 MR. STELLO: I don't know whether we agreed that 23 we would have one document. We tracked them one by one and 24 closed them all out. Maybe that is a good idea. Let me i
25 think about that.
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() 1 MR. REMICK: I'm not suggesting that. It is 2 just a question.
3 MR. STELLO: I think the question is, when we 4 are all finished, is there a particular document that 5 closes out just the IIT issues so you can see the beginning, 6 which is the IIT, and the final one, which closes out 7 everything.
8 MR. LEWIS: I believe Dr. Paladino wrote us a 9 letter saying there would be.
10 MR. STELLO: We have each item tracked.
11 MR. LEWIS: I believe he wrote us a letter. I 12 have to check my memory. I believe he said there will be 13 one document that pulls it all together. So you have a 14 commitment there.
15 MR. MORRIS: That could be part of the SER.
16 MR. STELLO: It could be. But I think Forrest 17 was looking at whether there would be a NUREG showing these 18 issues, if that would parallel another NUREG.
19 Who is here for the Staff?
20 Are we going to publish a NUREG to close out 21 this?
22 MR. HEBDON: I'm from EOD. There is a plan to 23 include all the planned specific items in the SER, but not 24 as a NUREG for all the issues.
25 MR. LEWIS: The point is that the ACRS letter I O
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( )) l think -- and Forrest was alluding to that -- did say that 2 we were concerned, that I think there were 41 actions or 3 something like that, and that necessarily these followed 4 immediately on the IIT, and that therefore they were 5 slightly preliminary, because it takes a certain amount of 6 time to recycle the IIT report ~through the system and 7 really, you know, deal with the element of maturation and 8 aging, and we complained there was no evidence that there 9 would ever be closure in a single place, and I really 10 believe that Joe then wrote us a letter saying, don't worry, 11 we are going to do it.
12 MR. REMICK: That is my recollection.
13 MR. STELLO: Maybe we could find a way to make
'~' 14 the SER do that.
15 MR. REMICK: Are you thinking about restarting 16 the SER?
17 MR. STELLO: Yes. We could find in the SER 1
18 itself a way to get the correspondence in.
19 MR. LEWIS : I couldn't care less whether it is a 20 NUREG or some other document, but some effort in the end to 21 focus the thing. 41 is too many. That is my concern.
22 Chet.
23 MR. SIESS: At this point I have four questions.
24 I'll take them one at a time.
25 Vic, after three IITs, how well defined are the O
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() I threshold criteria for establishing an IIT? There are some 2 words in the ad hoc group that says the need for an IIT is 3 to be determined by the potential safety significance of an 4 event, its nature and complexity, and its potential generic 5 implications. That isn't very specific. I'm wondering, 6 'should we expect to see one IIT a year, or 12, or 24? Can 7 we look at IITs as a measure of the level of safety in 8 general, or will some of them be more important than others?
9 How do you decide that? How busy you are- at the time?
10 MR. STELLO: No. Whenever any incident happens, 11 no matter what it is, the question gets raised immediately, 12 first within the region, how big of a job is it to look
~
13 into it? Do they have the expertise and the resources 14 available to them to do the proper job within the region 15 itself? If the answer to that question is no, then it 16 immediately raises the next question of gathering the 17 additional resources --
18 MR. SIESS: How do you decide that you need to 19 do anything? It says here that incidents of a lesser 1
20 safety significance is to be investigated by the region.
21 MR. STELLO: I said when there is a significant 22 event that occurs.
23 MR. SIESS: What is the definition of a 24 significant event?
25 MR. STELLO: I don't know of an easy way to O
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() 1 describe it. I don't think there is much of a question-2 when something happens whether there is any real J 3 controversy of whether it is or isn't significant. If it 4 is a routine transient, a routine trip, with which we have 5 a lot of experience, we know those are tairly routine. But 6 in the case of Rancho Seco or in the case of Davis-Besse or 7 in the case of San Onofre when you had the kinds of unusual 8 things that followed the the way they did, it is clear that 9 the event itself was significant and fairly complex. It 10- was also clear that there were generic implications.
11 MR. SIESS: ' Generic to the industry or generic 12 to the utilities?
13 MR. STELLO: In some of them generic to the 14 industry; in some of them generic to the particular class 1
15 of plants. Some were unique to the B&W plants. In the 16 case of San Onofre, the check valves are unique to the 17 industry. So you know quite a bit about it, and within a
- 18 fairly short time, hours.
19 The next question now is, again, will you really 2
20 need to truly understand that? You have to somehow augment 21 the usual inspection practices, and that leads to the first 22 level of looking, which is an an ID. We just augment the 23 inspection process. Usually whenever that happens, it is 24 almost automatic that the question is raised, is this going 4
25 to be so difficult that we ought to start immediately with l l
() !
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1 it as an IIT?
2 MR. SIESS: What you are telling me is you will 3 know it when you see it.
4 MR. STELLO: To a large measure, that is correct.
5 MR. SIESS: Who is "you"?
6 MR. STELLO: "You" is the management in the NRC, 7 starting principally with the management in the region.
8 MR. SIESS: Do you convene aboard?
9 MR. STELLO: No. It starts first within the 10 region, who will immediately escalate, and the principals 11 that get involved are NRR, i.e., an ED, and a regional 12 administrator, and by names I mean Denton, Taylor, I mean 13 the regional administrator itself, and I mean Jack 14 Halderson.
15 MR. SIESS: Give me an example of a recent event 16 when you decided to start an IIT?
17 MR. STELLO: I'll give you one that was a very 18 very close call, and I think if it happened again it may 19 have gone to IIT. The.t is the Sequoyah Fuels problem. We 20 started that out and i'inished it as an IIT. There was a 21 lot of discussion, was that the right call, an IIT, and 22 should it have gone to an IIT? The complexity of it, when 23 the issues unfolded toward the end, were maybe the call 24 there was one of some question. Perhaps it should have 25 been an IIT. And that question was raised right at the I O
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() 1 beginning.
2 MR. SIESS: If your IIT is going to involve 3 quarantine of equipment, it seems to me that decision needs 4 to be raised very rapidly.
5 MR. STELLO: It should be. It needs to be.
6 Fairly rapidly typically means within the first day or so.
7 MR. SIESS: How useful has it been found to 8 quarantine equipment?
9 MR. STELLO: I don't know the answer to that. I 10 think we are doing more than we need to. And we need to 11 look at that question. I think some of the reports that I 12 have gotten back, just conversation, I might add, not 13 reports, suggestions that maybe we are being too generous 14 in interpreting how much equipment is going in. But that 15 is a call that has to be made by the IIT itself.
16 MR. SIESS: As you look back you must be able to 17 tell whether it made any difference whether equipment was 18 quarantined.
19 1 MR. STELLO: We need to go back and look, which 20 we have not done, and develop again some more general 21 guidance to help people. This is what I'm talking about is 22 evolving the process as we gain that experience. We don't i
23 have an easy answer.
24 MR. SIESS: Every IIT that has been done 25 involved shutting down the plant for, I won't say an CE)
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() 1 indefinite length of time, although it may seem like that.
2 Is that an essential feature of the IIT?
3 MR. STELLO: Most of that is a result of the 4 utility. When they start getting into it, it is the 5 ability for them to be able to do the things that they in 6 fact determine are needed as they start.to look at it I'm i 7 not aware that we in fact have held any plant up yet.
8 The first IIT the plant raised is now going back 9 into operation at San Onofre, and I don't believe we are 10 going to be finished for a week or two, and when they are 11 finished we will be fairly in step with them, doing all the j 12 work that we had to finish, and I don't see that we would 13 do what we need to do to hold them up.
14 Joe is here. He could speak to Davis-Besse.
15 But no one has called me ar.d said we were holding up their 16 plant.
17 MR. SIESS: The impression is that the plant is 18 shut down because it is unsafe to operate? Is that true, 19 or is it simply shut down in order to complete the a 20 ,
investigation?
I 21 MR. STELLO: It is shut down in order to fix 22 what needs to be fixed because of what was uncovered in the i 23 investigation, and that is where the time is: To do the I 24 things that were determined to be needed as a result of the 25 investigation. Of course, we are not going to let them O
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.x j 1 start up until those things are in fact finished. But we 2 have never been approached, never had a problem.
3 I don't perceive any problem in that context at 4 all.
5 MR. SIESS: That is not all. But I'll save the 6 others for later.
7 MR. REED: In your statement you mentioned 8 management problems, I guess two serious management l
9 problems, and and I always have a problem with who is 10 management and what level of management, and is there a 11 difference between management and workplace professionals, 12 and I guess we can concede in the TVA scene, it was the 13 board of directors. I guess that is management. I guess
> 14 we concede it probably was a management problem with 15 respect to the board of directors of TVA and their coupling 16 or uncoupling from the workplace.
1 17 Now, in the Gleason report, 1201, on page 51, it 18 mentions the fact that there ought to be participation on 19 IITs, members from INPO and EPRI, and vendors, other 20 utilities, and it doesn't use the word " management," but my 21 pitch is that the management that is nonsite-located -- and 22 when you talk of management, I say nonsite-located 23 management. I think there is a big difference between 24 site-located management, if that is what you want to call 25 it, or supervisors, and top management off-site, and I O
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() l think that there is a difference in the way they see the 2 scene. I don't like to say this, but sometimes in 3 objectivity, and in importance.
4 I think that one of the problems is that perhaps 5 they don't focus on the -- or allow again, I'll say, a 6 voice of the plant workplace personnel, and I get back to 7 -- I think even in the regulatory, I think the most wise 8 counsel in many respects can come from the senior resident 9 inspectors. After they have served a while in the 10 workplace, which they do, close to the machine, they learn 11 a lot, and their judgments become very good, and I think 12 that the people in the workplace have some very good 13 judgments, but these don't get through too well in the 14 structuring that we now have.
15 So I really think that when we think of 16 participation in the IIT by other people than NRC 17 regulatory, we should not be thinking about what I will 18 call off-site top management. I don't think that that will 19 necessarily get to root causes and real machinery issues 20 and real people issues.
21 I think the greater objectivity can come from 22 the workplace people.
23 Now, I again will say, the designated 24 representative system, probably modified for nuclear use, I 25 think is very important to the reduction of adversarial
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() I conflicts and to the bringing forth of the real issues.
- 2 Now, are you perhaps -- I want to tell a little 3 story. A very intelligent person, whom many of you know,
+
4 by the name of Jerome Lederer, who was the author of 5 several books on airline safety, and I guess he had 6 something to do with the NTSB and the FAA, a very elderly 7 gentleman. At the end of a meeting on impulse, said to me, 8 you want to know what is wrong with nuclear, and he is a 9 man of very few words, and I said, I certainly do. He said, 10 MBA. And at the time, six years ago, I didn't know what 11 MBA meant. I'm a workplace type guy. I said, Jerry, what 12 do you mean, MBA? He says, MBA degrees, probably from 13 Harvard: That these people are leading the industry more
' (O s- 14 than the workplace professionals and the pilots and so on 15 and so forth, and they have the input.
16 Back to the designated rep. I really think 17 somehow, if we are going to go on with IITs, we have to 18 think about designated reps.
19 MR. STELLO: Let me start up by respectfully 20 disagreein,g. You made me bristle when you somehow say, 21 I don't worry about top management.
22 MR. REED: I didn't say don't worry about it.
23 MR. STELLO: Let me tell you that there are some 24 plants that that is where the problem in fact begins, for 25 the reason your dear friend gave you that lecture. If you O
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() 1 don't have within the corporate structure people who really 2 understand the technology you are dealing with, you 3 invariably have problems. I don't know whether this is the 4 proper forum to try to get any more specific. I think 5 perhaps not. But we can deal with some general principles.
6 When I say " management," I mean all of the management. You 7 know as well as I do one person in the plant, a bad plant 8 manager, and he can have the best staff there is, and it 9 won't work right. If he doesn't give them that direction 10 and that leadership and move them in the direction they 11 ought to move, you are going to have a bad operating plant.
12 ,If you have a CEO who is not interested, 13 inevitably you are going to have a problem. So when,I ,say 14 " management," I mean the full spectrum of management and 15 let the chips fall wherever they are going to fall.
16 In the case of Davis-Besse, they had management 17 problems before the incident, and as I understand it, and 18 perhaps Mr. Williams can correct me, my recollection is 19 they were negotiating the agreement before the incident.
i 20 That problem had been recognized. We had 21 difficulty with it, where they needed some new management 22 there. The word management is very broad, and it needs to 23 be very broad, and when you look, you get the answer that 24 is there, whatover it is.
25 You are right. The people in the workplace are (E)
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27344.0 30 TAYLOE' 1 clearly very important. The interviews, the IITs 2 concentrate.on the people who have that firsthand 3 professional knowledge of really what went on, and that is .
4 in fact usually the operators and the technicians and the ;
5 mechanics in the plant who really understand what went on. i 6 We focus on that. .
l 7 Now, let me get to your designated 8 representative. We have one. Our residents, that is what 9 they are. They are the Government's designated 10 representative at that plant to be the eyes and ears of the 11 Federal Government. j 12 Whether we ought to do more.than that I think is 13 beyond the focus of this meeting and I would suggest if we O 14 are going to deal with that issue, we deal with it 15 separately. I don't know that that has very much to do 16 with the issue of accident-investigation.
17 MR. REED: May I follow up? You misunderstood 18 what I was trying to do with management words. I was 19 trying to separate the top management from the plant 20 management.
21 Now, you are correct, you can get a bad plant 22 superintendent who can cause the same problems. . Now, in my 23 opinion the checks and balances and the controls to this, 24 let's say, we will use Jerry Lederer's statement, an MBA, 25 with an MBA's attitude -- not all of them do, many of them O
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27344.0 31 TAYLOE 1 are fine -- but some can have the MBA, very technical 2 appreciation of technical safety and issues attitude. Let's 3 say you get that kind of person as a plant management. The 4 way that you control that, in my opinion, in our system, is, 5 hey, the resident inspector is a control. A second control 6 is to have the ethical, honorable dedicated experts in 7 various disciplines in the plant have an avenue of 8 communication voice in the system.
9 MR. LEWIS: Glenn, I want to use our time to 10 learn about the IIT process and how it is working.
11 MR. REED: I'm through.
12 MR. SIESS: I have a question on that.
n v
13 MR. LEWIS: Okay. Fine.
14 MR. SIESS: I would like to follow up on the 15 point that Glenn raised about the people on the IIT. The 16 ad hoc group did make the comment that suggested that 17 people outside the NRC, people from the industry, and the 18 l vendors, be involved in this. It seems to me you want 19 people on the IIT not only to find out what went wrong, but 20 to find out why it went wrong. And those are not 21 necessarily the same kinds of people.
22 How receptive are you to this recommendation 23 about other representation on the IIT7 24 MR. STELLO: Not only are we receptive, we 25 negotiated with INPO, and if one of the IITs got an INPO O
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27344.0 32 TAYLOE 1 representative or participate in a limited fashion --
2 MR. SIESS: Is that their choice or yours?
3 MR. STELLO: Their choice to begin with. They l
4 want to walk slowly before they go off to a run. They are t
5 very warm to the idea. My conversations with Sack Payton 6 left me with the impression that as we develop and work 7 into it, he is willing, with the proper caveats, depending 8 on his workloads and problems and what have you, to agree 9 to participate fully in the IIT process, and our hope is 10 that we will be able to expand beyond that.
11 So, to answer the question briefly, I agree 12 fully with the recommendation.
13 l .
MR. SIESS: Have you got any ideas as to the O 14 I I
appropriate size of an IIT, the minimum or maximum?
15 MR. STELLO: I can give you just a judgment. On
! 16 l the order of a dozen is about as much as you want to do.
17 MR. SIESS: That would be the maximum.
l l
18 j MR. STELLO: Yeah. And I would like to have the l 19 mix from outside NRC representation. We are moving in that 20 direction. There is, as you can imagine, a real reluctance 21 of the vendors to want to get involved. We will work on 22 that. With time I think maybe we could change that.
23 MR. SIESS: Why would they be reluctant if the
( 24 IIT is a fact-finding process?
25 MR. STELLO: I think that the principal reason O
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x/ 1 they express reluctance is because of the potential for 2 clearly any legal action that comes out of it, to have a
- 3 quote, " vendor representative" involved in writing 4 conclusions and what have you as to what happened and who 5 was culpable.
6 MR. SIESS: Is who is culpable a finding that 7 the IIT --
l 8 MR. STELLO: It may be a piece of equipment 9 supplied by X that in fact was flawed.
10 MR. SIESS: All right.
11 MR. STELLO: So I think that there is at least 12 some -- and I think that is not an insurmountable problem.
13 We need to work on it. We are getting some. We have 14 { gotten agreement with INPO, and that is the first step and 15 I think a very important one, and we will move from there.
16 MR. SIESS: Do you have a lawyer on the IIT?
17 MR. STELLO: No.
I 18 l MR. LEWIS: NTSB routinely has industry people 19 on it.
20 MR. STELLO: I don't think it is insurmountable.
21 We are working on it.
l 22 MR. REMICK: My question is, who forms the IIT?
23 I assume that you are personally involved now in doing that, 24 but '.onger term I'm concerned, two or three years down the 25 road, maybe we will have a half dozen, ten. Is this going n
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kJ l to be passed on to EOD, or somebody else?
2 MR. STELLO: No. I think that they are 3 important enough that the composition -- the 4 recommendations are made to me, but I want to reserve for 5 that final judgment. We anticipate that this is a need 6 that we have. We are training the people so that we can 7 get the right people, the qualified people. As we put them 8 through the training program, if they don't appear to be 9 the right kinds of choices, I'm going to hesitate to add 10 more, drop those that we need to drop, so that we have the 11 I best and most qualified team we can put together.
12 MR. REMICK: I'm glad you support the idea of 13 i having outside members on the team. You mentioned INPO. I 14 assume that is INPO employees that you are talking about, 15 or are they talking about getting utility employees doing 16 that?
17 l This is going back to something that I think 18 ! Glenn was suggesting: Is there any thought of having a 19 cadre of people that you thought about in advance that 20 would be of auitable expertise from utilities who might be 21 put on such a team?
22 MR. STELLO: From utilities?
23 MR. REMICK: Utilities in contrast to INPO. I'm 24 not saying you shouldn't have them from INPO.
25 MR. STELLO: Well, INPO draws from the utilities.
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( l MR. REMICK: When you say INPO, you are 2 including utility employees, not necessarily INPO employees.
3 MR. STELLO: Well, they could be on loan. But 4 if we can take that next step and get it squared away with 5 INPO, the one area that I would really like to look at next 6 is the vendors, because it is their machine, and they have 7 people who know it, know it very well, in terms of 8 understanding it.
9 MR. SIESS: If it is not balance of plant they 10 know it?
11 MR. STELLO: Yeah, that's what I said.
12 MR. SIESS: A lot of these are 4alance of plant.
13 MR. REMICK: But you are not averse to INPO, if O 14 they were to supply the name of Joe Blow at utility 15 so-and-so is the expert, we would recommend that you put 16 him on the team --
17 MR. STELLO: We would take on the task of 18 l coordinating, the role of getting the architects and 19 vendors, and I would be delighted.
20 MR. REMICK: I was thinking about utilities.
21 MR. STELLO: And utilities.
22 MR. LEWIS: There is a difference in concept 23 here. I think the idea of getting outsiders as exemplified 24 at NTSB focuses not so much on the institution as on the 25 individuals, so that, for example, in the case of soveral O
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27344.0 36 TAYLOE 1 of the transients we have had recently, if one really were 2 concerned about the ICS and in the B&W plants, one would 3 perhaps try to get somebody, an individual from the 4 organization that designed them as an expert to serve on 5 the IIT, and tell him in a, by God, you are wearing our hat 6 and not your company hat while you are doing that. That is 7 a slightly different concept from going to INPO and asking 8 them to send somebody, and I think this will evolve. I'm 9 not so concerned about it as some of my friends. But I do 10 think it is important to go out for the real expertise, out It i in the field.
12 MR. STELLO: That's what we clearly want, is the
,7
, 13 i real expertise.
( i 14 ! MR. LEWIS: You have said that.
l 15 i MR. REMICK: I had another question. You talked 16 about the type of things you were considering, when 17 ,
establishing IIT, and there must be some way you do whether 18 you want an independent team from the region. You 19 mentioned the team has resources and so forth. I would 20 ; assume at times you would have the question of, maybe we 21 should have somebody independent in the region. I'm not 22 trying to suggest criticism of people in the region. I'm 1
23 saying there must be times when it is good to have a more l 24 independent look than those who are day-to-day involved 25 with the process.
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(_/ 1 MR. STELLO: True. There might be a need just 2 to have someone take another look, other than the region, 3 and still not have it as an IIT. We could do that. The 4 IIT has to have just more than the need for independence, 5 because I can achieve that independence without using an 6 IIT for that purpose, and have done so in the past. We 7 have done that a number of times, where a particular 8 problem happened in the region and we have had to look at 9 headquarters or people in other regions. So we have done 10 that. So you can solve that issue without going to IIT, 11 about, if it is not only the lack of understanding and 12 competence and whatever to deal with it, it is so big, so 13 complex, and beyond the capability of the regions, that 14 clearly is raising it to where you are going to the IIT.
15 MR. REMICK: One additional question. The ad 16 hoc review group recommends that you should look at the 17 j prior regulatory relationship, I think, or basically the l
18 l recommendations.
19 Have you considered that? They were saying that 20 i was one of the criticisms -- one of the facts was that you 21 didn't look at the relationship between the regulatory 22 agency and the utility prior to the accident. I think that 23 was one of the recommendations.
24 MR. STELLO: That is a valid point.
I 25 MR. REMICK: Has there been any thought about O
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1 expanding the IITs to look at that?
2 MR. STELLO: They have one recommendation in 3 there -- I can't remember the number -- that deals 4 specifically with the need to have an OIA get involved in 5 looking at the interactions with the Staff in terms of 6 dealing with the utility. That's why I want to think a 7 little bit more about it, how to achieve it.
8 MR. REMICK: You don't necessarily disagree with 9 it, though?
10 l MR. STELLO: No. But there is another aspect of l
11 ! it that I do think relates to something that we are doing l
12 l that I do believe is very important, and that is not i
,_s 13 ~ waiting until we have incidents or whatever; when we are
('") ,
14 ! having problems with utilities, look at what it is that we 15 are doing to get that turned around, finding a vehicle for 16 making sure that we are getting the kind of corrective 17 action we need before we have any particular problems that 18 causes a real issue, and we have done that in the past.
19 The last meeting we had in the R6gions, we had 20 ; all the regional administrators on staff, we all got 21 together and we looked at what particular plants are we 22 concerned that we are not getting the kind of corrective 23 action we want, how are we going about it, how should we 24 change what we are doing? Is what the Region has been 25 doing enough? We are going to be doing that again. I p)
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() I think that that is a very, very important point of the 2 point that you raised, of looking at these regulatory 3 relationships prior to an incident, and I mean prior'to any ,
4 incident, and seeing if we can't get it addressed.
5 MR. REMICK: I'm not convinced that OIA is the 6 proper organization.
7 MR. STELLO: I say, again I'want to think a lot 8 more about that, because the issues are so complex .l 9 technically, that in order for OIA to do this you have to 10 augment them substantially with additional technical l 11 resources, which would have to come from the Staff.
e 12 MR. LEWIS: Yesterday Mr. Hebdon told us several 13 times that the IIT was under -- well, I don't know whether O 14 strength is a fair word -- but felt that it shouldn't do 15 anything involving judgment; that it was in a fact finding 16 mode. And that raised the question for a number of us --
17 and this is related to what you have just-been talking 18 about -- about where the judgments are going to be made and 19 when and in what kind of organized way.
20 Is that part of the pattern of looking at the --
21 that is, when you look at the early relationships between-p 22 the regulatory agency and the utility, that inevitably has i
23 got to involve some judgments about people's actions. Is 24 that the forum you have in mind, or will in the end the !
25 necessary judgments continue to be made the way they are l O
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6
- 1 being made now?
2 MR. STELLO: No. We will try to make them 3 different. Looking at what we are doing, and if those are 4 not right, changing them now.
5 MR. LEWIS: Okay.
6 MR. SIESS: Vic, I made a distinction earlier 7 between determining what happened and why it happened.
8 Both of these are within the cognizance of the 9 IIT, are they not?
10 j MR. STELLO: Yes. That underlying cause is one 11 I thing that we have emphasized over and over and over again, 12 I to try to do everything that we can to make sure that we I
ry 13 l get to the root cause. The facts of what happened are t ) i 14 l usually fairly easy. You know, these are the things that 15 ; sequentially happened, these are the things that failed, l
16 j that didn't work right. Why is often, as you know, much, 17 much more difficult.
t 18 MR. LEWIS: That is the problem that I have. I 19 think there really are two dichotomous concepts of the 20 function of an IIT. For example, again, freshly in my mind 21 there is the Rancho Seco one. Most of the IIT report was 22 devoted to the vulnerability of the feedwater system and 23 the instabilities in the ICS and the events that happened 24 after the power supply monitor started the event, and one 25 can certainly -- honest people can take differing views.
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'/-
1 One can say that the root cause is the fact that the system 2 was so damned unforgiving of this minor defect that 3 occurred earlier on, and say that the unforgivingness of 4 the system is a root cause.
5 On the other hand, one could say, well, the 6 power supply monitor never failed -- in fact, al] of the 7 ICS problems that I remember from the Davis-Besse plants in 8 the future -- I may be wrong -- started out with some kind 9 of failure in the power supply that feeds these systems, l
10 and if the power supply didn't fail you would never be 11 testing the instabilities or transient sensitivities of the 12 l system. So that honest people can differ on root causes,
(' 13 on what is a root cause.
Lj 14 MR. STELLO: I'm not going to debate that, for 15 l sure. But are you telling me t' hat there isn't a legitimate 16 l basis to say we need to ao back and look at the whole I
17 l desion. You failed to mention a number of other things l
18 l that are problems with ICSs, the switches in the back and 19 so forth.
20 We can do a lot better desionina control systems 21 today than we did then, and maybe we need to. But that 22 needs to be looked at. The whole question of, is the l
23 integrated control system design okay or not? That is root 24 cause.
I l 25 MR. LEWIS: I think that we can have a friendly ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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27344.0 42 TAYLOE O' I debate on this, and will over the years, perhaps. But I'm 2 not expressing myself all that well.
3 The two views of the function of an 4 investigation I really think are different, and then, of 5 course, there is a middle around and there is a lot of 6 fussiness in there; but to put it as cleanly as possible, 7 in one case one would be lookina at the event as the 8 precursor of other events of the same kind. In that case, 9 of course one wouldn't just narrowly co and fix the 10 thingamajig that broker one would be looking at the 11 circumstances that led to the vulnerability and that sort 12 of thing, but still you would be focusing on it as the 13 I precursor of other events of that' sort, and in the course 14 of looking at it -- again, to exaggerate the point -- you 15 i discovered, I don't know, that the cuard service at the i
16 front gate was imperfect, or the guard was asleep, or drunk, 17 you would say, oh, that is terrible, but that wouldn't be 18 part of what you are looking at.
19 In another view you would ue usino, to use your 20 words, Vic, using the event as simply a trigger to look at 21 the entire system and fix what there is that is wrona, and 22 then the drunkenness of the guard at the gate would be 23 still another example of sloppiness in the facility. And 24 I'm not saying you shouldn't fix a quard who is drunk in 25 one way or another, but it is a question of emphasis, of '
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(_ I whether the emphasis is learnino from the event a specific 2 thino about the plant or class of plants or whether you are 3 usina the event as a triacer to go in and fix everythina 4 you can find. Those are different in quality, even though 5 there is a lot of overlap.
6 MR. STELLO: I think you have to let the facts 7 be what they are. If the particular event was but one 8 piece of information among a large mass of other ,
9 information that says we have more fundamental issues and 10 problems that need to be resolved, you don't shy away from 11 them. If on the other hand -- and San Onofre is an example 12 where it is focused on the event itself and really did 13 thinas that needed to be done because of it. And when that O 14 is the case, then that is the case. But the facts ought to 15 determine what the action ought to be, and if there is more 16 beyond the IIT, drunken quards or whatever else there are, 17 and they all need to be taken care of, they all need to be 18 taken care of. That is a judgment we must make. We can't ,
19 shy away from it. That is our mission, and we will do that.
20 MR. SIESS: Vic, you can relate this to the l
21 extent of a fix. One fix is to redesian the plant.
22 Another fix is to redesign certain portions of the plant, 23 or simply replace certain portions. One fix miaht be to 24 change management. I think you can relate this to how far 25 you expect to ao in fixina somethina, because none of these O
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t) I thinos are simple. They are systems, and multiple systems, 2 complex systems. You could trace the fix back to let's 3 start over.
4 MR. STELLO: That's richt.
5 MR. SIESS: you can go back as far as you want 6 or as short as you want, and somebody has to make that 7 decision. Whether you make it before you set up the team 8 or after, I don't know.
9 Who makes the decision on the fixes?
10 MR. STELLO: We do, the recional administrator, 11 NRR, I&E.
12 MR. LEWIS: That is the complaint we have l
13 i registered with the one formal letter we wrote to you about
<~3
\_) !
this.
14 l 15 MR. STELLO: I understand. I'm tellina you that 16 I feel stronaly about the issue, and if you are not gettina 17 that sianal, you oucht to. We have act to respond to what 18 we see; and in the case of Davis-Besse, you can see we 19 clearly went sianificantly beyond with the IIT itself.
20 l However, you must understand that we were havina 21 considerable difficulty with that plant for many years, and 22 we were also agitating the company about getting somethina 23 done.
24 Now, they came tocether, so it clearly looks 25 like what we have done in that case is gone way beyond what G
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(/ _ 1 perhaps you could reasonably arcue the IIT showed. So be 2 it. That is what is needed. What we have to do is make 3 the iudament as to what is recuired to do our job. That is 4 what is required.
5 On the other hand, I'll cive you another example, 6 and I offer you San Onofre to show you that in fact it is a 7 judomental process. We did not co that far, because it 8 wasn't required; it wasn't needed. We focused pretty much 9 on the direct issues raised with the IIT.
10 MR. LEWIS: I'm going to be a tyrant and claim 11 that we oucht to give some of our other people a chance.
12 MR. STELLO: Can I be excused for just five 13 minutes?
t/
14 MR. LEWIS: You can be excused for five minutes, 15 as long as you promise to come back in five minutes.
16 If it's acreeable to everybody, why don't we I
17 cive Judge Gleason a chance to tell us what is wrong with i
18 l the -- I'm sorry, what is richt about the ITT process or 19 whatever.
)
1 20 MR. GLEASON: Mr. Chairman, I guess I had a l 21 little misconception about this proceeding, because really 1
22 when we were talkina about the report, the IIT was really I 23 just one aspect of the report. Your subject is regulatory l 24 process. I really almost wish we were talkina about that 25 because I think that that represents -- the overall process n
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27344.0 46 TAYLOE I'k / 1 represents in much greater measure the areatest problem 2 this agency has.
3 MR. LEWIS: Why don't you talk about whatever 4 you like, and then we will ask you questions about 5 completely different thinas.
6 MR. GLEASON: Well, let me say that first off, 7 this experience of chairina this aroup has probably been 8 one of the most, if not the most significant experience in 9 35 years of workina with the Government, simply because it 10 needed an opportunity to really review in depth, I guess, 11 the most reaulated industry we have in the United States.
12 And I think this complexity of the regulation, its fm 13 l interreaction, the intensive interreaction that is coina on
(_ i 14 is something that deserves a great deal more attention than 15 I it is apparently aettina. Whether it comes from the ACRS, 16 or whatever, it ought to be looked at quickly, because we 17 can talk all we want to about accidents or incidents, but 18 the -- I think one can almost predict the occurrence of 19 I these incidents of this system as we have it if it 20 continues. This is my own personal view. There are some 21 aspects of this that are included in the overload section 22 of our report. J 23 I had really thought that the Commission itself )
l 24 had decided this issue of the IIT. I know the ACRS had l 25 recommended an independent safety board. It has been l 7
t )
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(- .
\_J l looked up and down for the last couple of years. I realize 2 there are a couple of bills still in the Congress. But I 3 thoucht that sometimes issues should be decided and cet on 4 with other things, particularly, I think, if they are more 5 important thinas.
6 Anyway, we -- all of the thinos that are 7 mentioned here, or most of the things we have discussed in 8 our committee with respect to lookina at the Davis-Besse 9 IIT. We did look at the San Onofre and Rancho Seco one 10 iust for reference viewpoints. They operated differently, 11 but the plant significant event is an important question:
l 12 What people do you involve in the review process? Do you r's 13 have the resident inspector, which is a very narrow issue
! /
s-14 as far as the aroup is concerned, involved? What is the l
15 end product of it, which I know is a continuina concern of 16 the ACRS? How you have -- if you have somethina like on 17 going thinas, a $71 million program, the last time we i
18 l looked at Davis-Besse, but oncoina work that may take you a I
19 couple of years; but if you are talking about a root cause 20 involvino an accident, you could cet an end document.
21 There was some discussion among, I think, if not 22 all the chairmen of the IITs, at least two of them, that 23 perhaps it might be better if they were involved on a 24 If.ttle bit more continuina basis to make sure that their 25 recommendations were carried out or were understood. On v
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27344.0 48 TAYLOE "2 1 industry's part, we found a creat deal of concern about the 2 IIT. First of all, they are excluded from its formation in 3 its formation, gestation period. I realize it is difficult 4 to talk about such a complex industry as they, but the four 5 or five that we talked to all said the same thina. They 6 feel that here you have a system which puts the burden of 7 safety on the operators, and then all of a sudden somethina 8 happens and they are put off on one side, and then the IIT 9 takes over, but that burden of safety hasn't shifted, and 10 they think that is just not right, and I think there is a 11 case to be made for that.
12 The other cuestions that you raised at the end (q 13 ,
of this long discussion with Vic, I think which is probably
'w.) l 14 l important, and I guess is the one that cot us into l
15 l concentrating on people investigating themselves a little 16 bit more: What is the difference between, or how do you l
17 f define the difference between findina out what went wrono i
18 l and findina out why it went wrona? It seems to me you are l
in a judomental phase. I think this is one of the reasons 19 l 20 that Tony Carter recommended the involvement of the Atomic 21 Safety & Licensina Board process as a good forum to take a 22 look after the technical evaluation has been made, to --
23 because they are involved in the regulatory process.
24 We spent a creat deal of time in lookina at how 25 -- the Davis-Besse IIT team did not feel that looking at g)
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27344.0 49 l TAYLOE i kJ l the Staff's involvement was a part of their responsibility, 2 and I think that they have included in the general language 3 of the process now the ability of the IIT team to look into.
4 In fact, in Rancho Seco they looked into it, and 5 they didn't look into it very well, because they found an 6 involvement with the Staff, that actually Staff had 7 sianalled some kind of documents, some difficulty in the 8 ICSs that they didn't discover. This was brought to our 9 attention by Vic.
10 But this question of whether one can -- this goes beyond -- as I say, we did not look at this process as 11 l 12 a part of our responsibility as a arouo. But freewheelina, 13 as you have been, this is where I'm coming from.
73
\_) 14 I think the issue of havina people outside look i
15 i at what went wrono is a very -- it is much more complex and i
16 ' difficult than perhaps some people pay attention to. I 17 think even the Challenger investigation -- we did have a 18 l member from the FAA on our board and he brought us up to l
19 - date about what the Federal Aviation Agency does. It takes 20 a year for them to complete an investication. Obviously, 21 if you have some generic problems, you can't take a year to 22 do it.
23 But to my view -- and this is based on my 24 experience -- it would have been much better in the 25 Challencer incident to have the staff look at that event m-ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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"' 1 first, and then have the results reviewed by somebody else.
2 That is my personal opinion. I think they would have,come 3 up with the same thina; they would have come up with a 4 quicker decision. That is just my judgment.
5 If you have an acency that is responsible for 6 doing something, at least they ought to have the first 7 crack at findina out what went wrona. The difficulty you 8 do get into, and there is a problem, and there is no clear 9 answer to it, is how do you get nonbiased members of the 10 IIT? Even members of the Davis-Besse, even though they 11 attempted to cet -- we found some documentation that l
12 several of the members -- at least one of the members had 13 i been involved in commentina on some of the aspects of the 14 incident in the past.
15 So, it is very difficult, when pecole cet 16 involved in licensina and evaluations and everything that 17 coes on, to cet somebody that has never been involved in 18 the plant to any degree, and then the question is, do you 19 really want knowledaeable pecole? We felt that the people 20 involved were very knowledgeable. It would have been much 21 better in review if they had a lawyer there, because they 22 spent a lot of time arguing about should a lawyer have been 23 in the room, are these pecole entitled to representation?
24 Which they clearly are. But they told us at Davis-Besse, 25 well, the reason they had lawyers in was cause somebody O
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(_) I from the team had a lawyer in.
2 But I think those things are being worked out in 3 the process and proper procedures that are beina developed.
4 I auess really that ends my smorgasbord comments 5 in this area.
6 Pete, why don't you say what you have to say.
7 MR. MORRIS: I think I'll defer until later.
8 MR. LEWIS: Let's ahead with questions.
9 MR. STELLO: Are you going to let him do that?
10 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, I'm coina to let him do that.
11 I'm a nice guy.
12 MR. SIESS: Let me ask Judae Gleason about the 13 statement that is made in the report, that I'm not quite
(_s> 14 sure I understand, and I'm readina from pace 7, if that 15 helps anybody. In commenting on the IIT report it says 16 first that the report effectively described the secuence of 17 events, that is, it described what happened. It goes on to 18 j say, however, the reDort's observation is that Davis-Besse 19 had a history of, " evaluating operating experience relatina 20 to ecuipment in a superficial manner," was not supported in 21 the report, and then it says the conclusion that the 22 underlyina cause of the main and auxiliary feedwater event 23 was the licensee's lack of attention to detail, and the 24 care of plant eauipment was also not supported in the 25 report.
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('/
T 1 Now, there are two ways I can interpret this.
2 One is that the statements were not incorrect, but that 3 they were not succorted by report, and the other is that 4 the observation and conclusion was not correct.
5 MR. GLEASON: I don't think either one of those 6 is a correct interpretation. What we said is that we made 7 no comment, no value iudament on those conclusions. What 8 we said was the documentation for those conclusions was not 9 in the report, and we think it should be.
10 MR. SIESS: Well, that is one of the choices.
11 You don't know whether they are richt or not, but it is in 12 the documents.
13 In your conclusions under item 3 on 14 contributions of Toledo Edison's management programs to 15 ecuipment failures, you did mentio' that the maintenance 16 program had weaknesses and deficiencies, and that the 17 maintenance procram was not systematically developed and 18 managed.
19 You didn't say whether that was or was not a 20 contributor?
21 MR. GLEASON: That's richt, which was one of the 22 charges we had, which we could not document.
23 MR. SIESS: It wasn't a good procram, but you 24 couldn't tell whether it was de*icient. And the fact that 25 the IIT report did cite such thinos as contributors, which O
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(_/ 1 you felt was undocumented, unsupported?
2 MR. GLEASON: That's right. We asked resident 3 inspector what he thoucht the basis for that aspect of the 4 report was, and he said he didn't know.
5 MR. SIESS: I think it is important, because 6 shortly after the incident I think we were told that the 7 root cause was the maintenance procram.
8 MR. GLEASON: I think what they did was they cot 9j a lot of hearsay. They had a very short time to produce 10 this. They were the first IIT. They were talkina to the 11 resident inspector and to the section chief. I just think 12 , they picked a lot of that and made a conclusion, based on 13 it.
[_
\"'
) \
14 l MR. MORRIS: I think they believed it but thev 15 i didn't put the basis for that belief in the report.
16 MR. SIESS: Apparently Toledo Edison believes it i
17 I because they are spending an awful lot of money. They know 18 j there was a maintenance problem, they know they had an 19 li incident. It seems not unreasonable to relate them, but 20 they aren't proved.
21 MR. LEWIS: The documentation for it ought to be 22 somewhere. -
23 MR. SIESS: Even if the documentation says it is 24 our best judgment, even though it says we can't prove it.
25 MR. GLEASON: That is a iudamental matter. You
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27344.0 54 TAYLOE O 1 can handle it that way.
2 MR. REMICK: I think you are savina the IIT 3 report is much like an ACRS letter in the licensina board 4 decision.
5 MR. LEWIS: He wouldn't say that. He wouldn't 6 be that nasty.
7 MR. SIESS: Maybe Admiral will comment on that.
8 MR. REED: I always like to pick on design.
9 Operators like to pick on desian, and desianers like to 10 pick on operators. On page 22 you say both the ACRS and 11 the Staff may have contributed to an unreasonable delay in 12 resolvino the specific weakness in the Davis-Besse
() 13 auxiliary feedwater system by focusina on a ceneric l 14 solution to decay heat removal. That is a~very important 15 statement. I have the feelina you are richt, and it coes 16 deeper and loncer than that, that we have not focused on 1
17 d'ecay heat removal on the B&W system since it was created.
! 18 ' You sort of let us off the hook by the next 19 statement. by savina it is very difficult to decide what is I
20 ceneric, but I wish you hadn't let us off the hook because 21 in my coinion, there is a very basis root cause here with 22 respect to decay heat removal from this kind of reactor.
23 MR. MORRIS: We chose those words, Glenn, in 24 part, because we were a committee like yourselves, and we 25 have to seek common around. But second, I don't think we ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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-TAYLOE 1 could establish any direct causality. We did observe that
() 2 the committee was not focusina on the details of this 3 specific plant, and the fact is, if it had, perhaps that 4 would have goaded the Staff into quicker action. But we 5 don't know that.
6 MR. LEWIS: A committee is never'cood at 7 fighting fires, in dealina with specifics in a timely way.
8 Its strenoth, if any, that isn't it.
9 MR. MORRIS: What we tried to convey was the 10 thouaht that there should be a conscious decision when a 11 problem surfaces of whether it should be treated 12 cenerically or soecifically, and if treated aenerically, 13 what are the consequences for an individual plant, of 14 lettina that solution be deferred.
15 MR. STELLO: Am I allowed to speak on this?
16 MR. LEWIS: Sure.
17 MR. STELLO: I think the group could have been 18 stronaer in pointino out a problem that I do think is a 19 root problem. In fact, I have been devoting a great deal 20 of attention to makina sure we solve it, and that is 21 developing a system so we can track all of these issues and 22 make sure that those decisions are made deliberately and 23 consciously, what issues on a particular plant are generic, 24 or plant specific, is deferred and why, and we will have 25 that system operational Monday.
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27344.0 56 TAYLOE 1 But I think it could have also been much
() 2 stronger in beating on the utility. The utility has a 3 resoonsibility. If that particular piece of ecuipment was 4 needed, notwithstanding what the ACRS, Staff or anybody 5 else has done, they were free to do what was richt, and I 6 think they could have been harder on the utility, too.
7 MR. LEWIS: ACRS, you know, is not a reculatory 8 agency. It is an advisory committee, and therefore 9 decisions about whether to treat somethina as ceneric or 10 plant specific are never made. They just sort of happen.
11 MR. SIESS: There are two reasons for treatina 12 certain issues generically. One is that if you simply fix 13 it on one plant and it is a ceneric issue, you should be 1
14 looking at it generically to find out how many other plan.ts C) 15 ;
i need a fix. The other reason has to do with fairness. If I
f 16 i you make this guy do it, should the others cet away without 17 it? There is a tendency to make thincs ceneric, to keep 18 ; them uniform and fair.
19 Now, obviously there can be ceneric issues that 20 are much more important in one plant than another.
21 Prioritization very seldom coes down to the plant-specific 22 level, on a risk analysis, or cost-benefit analysis or 23 somethina.
24 There are problems in the whole approach. Look, 25 I've been through generic issues from the AP issues, which O
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27344.0 57 TAYLOE 1 ao back 15 years -- they ao back before I came on the i
r~g.
L_/
s 2 committee, up through the present status, where we combined 3 our list with your list, and we are still tryina to track 4 them, and they are a tremendous problem. There are iust 5 too many of them, and they are not too well prioritized i 6 even now, and one member of our committee is frecuently I
7 statina that desianatina somethina as a ceneric issue is a 8 way not to do anythina about it, at least on a specific 9 plant. That is not all our fault.
10 MR. REED: I would like to track on what Vic 11 said for a minute.
s 12 Desian -- I think the desian should not be laid 13 at the utility's doorstep. You said that the operator, the 14 operatina utility should have seen his desian was crossly
( 15 flawed, and I acree. If it was crossly flawed, personally 16 I wouldn't have anythina to do with a low inventory B&W 17 system that had its decay heat water feedwater system for 18 steam-driven pumps and no tie-in electric pumps. Now, that 19 I is cross desian flaw.
I ;
, 20 Now, whose fault is that? I would like to 21 really know, as we ferret and look for these people who are 22 involved. I would like to know who desianed that, the name l 23 of person who hatched that, and who does he belona to? I i
24 think that is important. Because that is not cood desian.
25 It is crossly bad.
i
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1 MR. SIESS: Are you coina to sue him or what? l
() 2 MR. REED: No, but I think in looking for root 3 causes, that is the root cause.
4 MR. SIESS: The NRC approved that design.
5 MR. REED: He laid it to the operator, the 6 utility licensee. Nobody licenses vendors in this business.
7 MR. SIESS: The utility boucht it.
8 MR. REED: So they are at fault. But who said 9 the utilities really had the competence to be better than 10 the NRC and better than the vendor in design?
11 MR. SIESS: Who said the NRC is better than 12 anybody else, either?
13 MR. STELLO: Was that directed to me?
_, 14 MR. REED: Yes. You said it was the operator's 15 fault.
16 MR. STELLO: I said the utility that operates 17 that plant has a responsibility to have decided should he 18 have cone forward with that. You know, he can really do 19 l that himself. He doesn't have to be required to do it.
I 20 And if he had people who felt as you have. expressed you 21 felt about it, then I think it was important to cet that 22 particular chance made.
23 MR. SIESS: But there is nothina to prevent a 24 utility from doing a cost-benefit analysis, either.
25 MR. STELLO: No, nothino, and if his iudament (S)
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=
l 1 was needed, and as you.said, if you were workino in that
()
(,j 2 company, and you felt as strongly, you would have been 3 knockina on some doors and savina, I want the damn thina 4 done, and I want it done now. That is my responsibility.
5 The responsibility for safety is not iust NRC. -It is the 6 utility, too. He has a responsibility.
7 MR. REED: Do you think the desianers have any 8 responsibility, the vendors?
9 MR. STELLO: I think the desianers have a 10 responsibility. I think the utility has a responsibility.
11 I think we all do.
12 MR. LEWIS: You know, I acree completely with )
13 what you iust said, Vic. In fact, the real responsibility 14 lies with the utility to cet a orocer desian, to see that O
15 the thing is made, to run it correctly, and we will hear 16 about that. But the NRC has cot to do somethina to wean 17 them, because, you know, they live in a very tichtly 18 reculated atmosphere. I don't suoport removina the 19 regulation, for God's sake, but as a gradual process, 20 makina it clear that the resoonsibility is there, and 21 weaning them to the point where even the worse actors can 22 take the responsibility. We know there are good ones and 23 bad ones. That has an element of the job of the NRC in it, 24 to provide an atmosohere in which the aood ones can prosper
)
25 and take their own responsibility.
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27344.0 60 TAYLOE 1 MR. STELLO: And to make the bad ones cood.
() 2 MR. LEWIS: That's right.
3 MR. STELLO: Maybe when we oive Mr. Williams a 4 chance here he can tell us whether we have achieved any of 5 that.
6 MR. SIESS: I believe that the system has 7 evolved in such a manner that one of the chief objectives 8 of the utility is to cet its plant licensed.
9 MR. STELLO: It is an objective, and if I ever 10 believed that the chief obiective weren't to do so safely, 11 I don't know that --
12 MR. SIESS: I think, thouch, that licensina has 13 ! become the imprimatur of safety. It has been accepted by 14 l the NRC that it is safe. Not cood, safe.
p'
15 MR. STELLO: I acree there was a bic father i
16 imace 10 or 15 years aco that said all you have to do is 17 i satisfy the NRC, and if you have done so, you are okay. I 18 think we have been for more than the.last 10 years drivina l
19 home the point, you know, you can't stop. That isn't l
20 enouch. You have the responsibility first and foremost for 1 safety; it is yours.
22 MR. SIESS: But when you ao throuch the review 23 process and you see 150 questions on there, and 150 24 questions on that, write down the detail, your attitude 25 soon becomes, I've got to satisfy the NRC, and if they ask
/~3
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27344.0 61 TAYLOE 1 me 150 questions and I can answer them, then, by colly,
( ,) 2 something must be right.
3 MR. STELLO: That is probably a cood conclusion 4 to come to, but if the utility stops there he's made a very 5 bia mistake.
6 MR. LEWIS: I had a student come in to see me 7 before the final exam this quarter, and he said, I'm very 8 worried, I'm runnina out of time, I'm afraid I'm not coina 9 to do well; could you tell me what you are coina to be 10 coverina on the final exam, because I really don't have 11 l time to study everything. Honest.
12 MR. STELLO: Did you tell him?
13 MR. LEWIS: No. In fact, I couldn't have, 14 ! because I never make up the final exam until the nicht th 15 before the exam anyway. But I found it slightly appalling.
16 It is an example of really not carina about performance or
[
17 j learning, you know, just trying to cet a little help from 18 l the ouv. I see a lot of that these days, more than I did 19 i 20 years ago.
20 MR. STELLO: With utilities?
21 '
MR. LEWIS: No, no, no. My students who will be 22 runnina utilities. I'm tellina you where it is comina from, 23 Vic. It is not that easy to fix.
24 MR. STELLO: I have seen a sianificant chance in 25 the utility attitude now where they have in fact accepted r~x
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27344.0 62 TAYLOE 1 the proposition that they are responsible for safety.
( 2 MR. SIESS: Vic, ao back to somethino that was 3 in the ad hoc aroup report. I think I can count on the 4 fingers of one hand, maybe two, the number of utilities 5 that will consistently araue with the NRC, and I think that 6 is a measure of how much they are takina the 7 resoonsibilities as compared to simply meetina your 8 requirements or the requirements of your reviewers.
9 MR. STELLO: I think you need more than two 10 hands now. It has chanced.
11 I am takina so much tim?. I just did want to 12 make two comments. Let me finish.
13 We are fosterina in every forum we can the need 14 for the utilities -- and we iust finished a complete series O 15 of workshoos on the backfit rule by makina it clear that i
16 they have to look at these requirements, whether they are 17 just somethina that someone succests to them, whether thev 18 are coming formally; and if they don't make sense, they've 19 got to come forward and say so. And I will tell you that 20 the results of that workshop are they are completely 21 committed to wantina to have a acod professional atmosohere 22 for debating what is right and what is wrona.
23 MR. SIESS: And you are not coina to downarade 24 them on that portion of the report that says reculatory 25 resoonsibility.
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27344.0 63 TAYLOE 1 MR. STELLO: As a matter of fact. I think I'm f-)s
(_ 2 poing to try to devise a way to give them plus points when 3 they do it.
4 MR. LEWIS: I'm coina to let Forrest ask 5 Mr. Gleason some questions.
6 MR. REMICK: I have two cuestions. The first 7 one is kind of trivial. Procedurally how did your aroup 8 work with peoole? Was it an informal interview?
9 MR. GLEASON: It was an informal interview, and 10 we told everyone -- it wasn't in sworn testimony -- they 11 could take the transcript back and make any chances, 12 because that is what we wanted.
13 MR. REMICK: The other one, when you started out, 14 you made some broad statements about the reaulatory process, 15 and the most regulated industry and so forth, which I think 16 is true. But I wasn't cuite sure what you were tellina us.
17 Are you alludinQ to the comment in the report that 18 reaulation should be more performance-based, rather than '
i 19 descriptive? Is that what you were alludina to, or were 1 20 you alludina to somethina else in your openina comments 21 today?
22 MR. GLEASON: I think I was iust tellina Victor 23 the utilities still have the basic responsibility, and I 24 think the last few years illustrates the problem, and 25 another comment made earlier -- I don't mean to pick on Vic, O
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.TAYLOE 1 but, you know, he's dominated the session. He said an IIT,
(_ 2 vou know, they never shut a plant down. Well, you know, if ;
i 3 you've cot 500 different recuirements in a plant, you can, '
4 in effect, shut them down.
5 So I think, Forrest, that because of the 6 complexities that are involved in this process -- we have 7 talked to utility operators, and we have broucht in others .,
l 8 just to cet some benchmark testimony. You ought to read I
9 those transcriots, because they are very revealina. Thev i 10 are convinced, at least the testimony of these people, is 11 thev've cot a auota -- the inspectors have a cuota system.
12 It is very easy -- I think I have heard it said an l
13 insoector could ao throuch a plant, you know, and write up 14 100 violations a day if he wants to.
15 MR. SIESS: He could do that iust off of paper.
16 He could do that without coina through the plant.
17 MR. GLEASON: Now, if you've act that kind of a 18 system, where does safety lie? That is my auestion. I 19 think it is a shared resoonsibility. And we had cne ouv, 20 you know, sayina that his manaaer said, you know, if I cet 21 down there and that auv -- that insoector, or that section 22 chief calls me an SOB one more time, I'm coina to kick him 23 richt between the tail. You know, that is not a healthy 24 system.
25 You know, all I'm savina is that when we look at
()
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27344.0 65 TAYLOE 1 the overall thina -- when we looked at what everyone was
("j
(_
T 2 sayina, I came to the conclusion personally that it is a 3 situation that is out of control. I just don't think it is 4 a system that can be regulated. Sure, you cet experienced 5 people in the plant, and maybe there are not enouah of 6 those to get around, and that is changina. But I would 7 still say, even if you cet all the experienced people you 8 want, how are you going to cet them doing it day after day 9 after day if you've cot a reaulatory system that tells them, 10 in effect, hey, any time you've act a valve there that is 11 coina to be not operatina richt, that because of the 12 testina requirements, somebody could have out iust a little 13 off, and it can be shut down, you know, and then their jobs 14 are on the line, that is not a very effective system.
15 MR. MORRIS: The flavor I hope we conveyed was 16 that, A, there was a creat multiplicity of the sources of 17 recuirements, and, B, they were not always consistent.
18 , Commonwealth Edison told us they had five requests from 19 i 1
INPO a week, for example, and X from the in NRC; the 20 operator at the Davis-Besse plant supervisor told us he was 21 so busy that he iust couldn't think about the bio picture 22 at all. He was responding to safecuards requirements, 23 which out barriers between floors, between rooms, fire 24 protection system, that conflicted with this, and he was 25 suoposed to be readina the experience history of all the O
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27344.0 66 TAYLOE 1 plants in the country, not only his own. He didn't have
() 2 time to read it all, much less digest it, and in the 3 aftermath of Three Mile Island with all of the action plans, 4 iust the multitude of action, regulatory requirements, 5 arm-twistina just seemed to us to reauire a real hard look, 6 not iust once, but continuous.
7 MR. REMICK: I remember 23 years aco writina an 8 article on that same subject when I had the responsibility 9 for a small research reactor. When I ao back and reread 10 that, I realize how true it is, but yet how naive I thoucht 11 thinos were at that time, that pecole who were responsible 12 for safety had no time to think about safety. But that is 13 what you are basically sayina. We load them down with so 14 many requirements and trivia, they don't have time --
15 MR. GLEASON: They may not be trivial. You've 16 act INPO, who is doing a great iob, and they are coing to 17 be better, but it does put another level on them. One of 18 the operators pointed out, he says, you know, with what ,
19 you've act now, with INPO, he says it's just like after l
20 l Three Mile Island.
21 l
i MR. LEWIS: That is the thina I was referrina to 22 when I spoke of the drunken guard at the gate. If you 23 think of an IIT, which is really what we are here for, as 24 the triacer of an investigation of what is wrona with the 25 plant, I bet you can find any plant that hasn't had an
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1 accident yesterday and ao into it and find 80 percent of
() 2 the things that need to be fixed that you will find in one 3 that has had an accident yesterday. I'm inventina the 4 number 80 percent. But it has act to be a larae factor, 5 because certainly no operation is perfect if you turn the 6 people loose to look into it.
7 And it is this question of judoment about how to 8 follow up an IIT, or indeed, how to do regulation at all 9 while recuirina safety but not recuirina absolute fidelity 10 to everythina. That is a very deep and difficult 11 philosophical cuestion. It has to be somehow represented 12 by benevolent paternalism on the part of the regulatory 13 acency. Maybe that is sexist. Maternalism. I don't know 14 quite how to do it.
O 15 I had one experience with the FAA, in fact, more 16 than I have with NRC, and the way it is done there is sort 17 of a recoanition that some people are runnina a pretty cood 18 show, and by and large you sort of let them do it, and 19 others you sit on because they are not runnina a very cood l
20 l show.
21 I've antaconized --
~
22 MR. SIESS: Let me assume for a minute that the 23 number of reculations is not coina to decrease in the 24 immediate future. One possibility is the integrated livina 25 schedule which tends to orcanize all of these thinas in O
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27344.0 68 TAYLOE 1 some fashion.
l () _
2 MR. GLEASON: Sucoosed to be on a priority 3 fashion.
4 MR. SIESS: Some priority. The other approach 5 is the ISAP,.the intecrated safety assessment procram. The 6 livina schedule simply takes the reauirements.and. puts them 7 in order in terms of time, but ISAP looks at things from a 4 8 risk point of view, presumably the PRA, and eliminates 9 those thinos, or combines them. j 10 Now, livino schedules are beino encouraaed by I 11 the Staff. Is ISAP dead?
12 MR. STELLO: No.
4 13 MR. SIESS: If somebody had looked at that' l 1 14 start-uo pump from a risk point of view, would they really i
O 15 have locked it out of the system and pulled the fuses?
16 Would they have looked at the probability of a medial 17 energy pipe break versus the probability of losina
, 18 feedwater and the need for that pump? It was 4
19 compartmentalized, literally. They looked only at one i
20 reculation and said the fix for that is to lock it out.
21 MR. STELLO: I don't know --
22 MR. SIESS: ISAP, I think, would have let you 23 look at the risk on that.
24 MR. STELLO: I think you are richt.
]
25 MR. SIESS: Now, ISAP goes against the crain of i (:)
i l
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27344.0 69 TAYLOE 1 NRC because you are so damned departmentalized to the
() 2 system now.
3 MR. LEWIS: That aoes bevond the IIT question, 4 true though it may be.
5 MR. GLEASON: But there are ways out of the 6 situation.
7 MR. REED: I would like to go back to Judoe 8 Gleason and follow up a little bit on Forrest Remick's 9 statements. I, too, was verv interested in your statement 10 about the complexity of the regulatory structure. I wonder 11 if, in your mind, as you referred to Mr. Stello's precedina 12 , comment, if in your mind you entertain the thought that 13 vendors, desioners, should be made responsible by 14 . regulatory structure. In other words, should they be
'i l 15 licensed for the product that they deliver to the 16 unsuspecting utility?
17 MR. GLEASON: We couldn't even find who invented 18 the AFWs at Davis-Besse, which is one of the problems you 19 , have. I really don't know.
I 20 MR. REED: You don't think that we should have a 21 similar FAA structure, perhaos, to license the vendor?
22 MR. GLEASON: That is more regulation, and I 23 shudder to think of that. My concern is, I think when you 24 get plants operating, you know, successfully, they ought to 25 be taken out of the reculatory phase. They ought to be O
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27344.0 70 TAYLOE 1 given credit for it. But now, you know, once an accident (h
s 2 happens, everybody loses at all the utilities. I think 3 they would like to do this, but I don't think they have 4 found out a way to do it.
5 MR. REED: I think perhaps what we don't keep in 6 mind is that the utilities bootstrap their competence if 7 they now have it uo from zero. I was a member of the 8 Yankee team, and the way we first got any expertise was to 9 loan six pecole across the country to the National 10 Laboratories and to the submarine effort, and that was the 11 i kickoff. But what hacoens is that the utility buys a plant 12 with no people. That has happened many times over, with no i 13 pecole of any exoertise, and yet they are suddenly socked 14 into position of sole licensee.
) 15 I
How do thev aet the expertise?
j There is a time 16 for loaning people for six years to the National 17 Laboratories. So thev co out and borrow them and pirate 18 them from other utilities, and generally in the piratina 19 ! situation, thev pirate the worst in many, many cases, 20 because they are floaters and so forth.
21 So it is a very difficult scene for a utility to 22 bootstrap its expertise in the years cone by to be in the 23 role of makina all vital decisions, and I think they looked l 24 at the NRC and the vendors to be the experts and to deliver 25 them with a reasonable product.
O 1
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27344.0 71 TAYLOE 1 MR. SIESS: Then this leads to the conclusion (j) 2 that the utility buying its second, third, fourth, fifth, 3 sixth or seventh plant is goina to be in a lot better 4 position than the one buying its first, and empirically 5 that is not true.
6 MR. REED: Well, I could pick out Duke Power --
7 MR. GLEASON: Well, there is no substitute for 8 experience. I think the admiral will testify to that.
9 He's told us that, But experience is not the only answer 10 yet.
11 MR. LEWIS: There is somethina else that coes i l
12 with experience: wisdom. l l
13 ! I'm coina to exercise one of the few privileces 14 i' of a subcommittee chairman. One is to h, ave the last word
/~3
> 15 and the other is to declare a break. I'm goina to do it in 16 that order. The last order is a matter in which I have a 17 I personal stake, in which I admit, which is an error in your i
18 NUREG, and that is, in discussina the history of incident l
19 i investication procram, you becin with the Cammady I
20 l commission on page 45, and believe me, it becan before that.
I 21 i With that comment, which doesn't recuire an I
22 answer, let's give ourselves a 10-minute break, and then 23 let's hear the utility's side of this story.
24 (Recess.)
25 MR. LEWIS: Okay. We are back in order, and I p
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1 think it is time to hear from the utility. Tell us what O
() 2 you think of this whole business.
3 MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll do 4 that, and I'll stay with the -- the ITT that I saw come 5 into Davis-Besse is a little bit, in my view, different 6 animal than what I've been listening to you all talkina 7 about. I thoucht it was needed. I think that the ITTs are 8 essential for the investigation of significant events, and 9 a determination of a sianificant event, as Vic said, cets 10 to be a judgment call; but I think any of us that is 11 confronted with one can make 95 percent of them, the 12 decisions, as to whether or not it is an ITT issue very 13 rapidly; there are about 5 percent of them on the boundary 14 line and one of us micht call it one way and one another.
O 15 I think we need it for credibility. I think we 16 i need it for the protection of the utility and for the 17 protection of the recion. I like the way that one came in 18 and I liked their charter. They were very professional 19 pecole. They were technically cualified to investicate the 20 areas that were in issue. The leaal aspects of the things 21 were a little knotty, but it didn't bother us overly. We 22 iust told our people, you know, if you want counsel in 23 there, we will provide somebody; if you just want your 24 manager to sit with you, we will provide it.
25 So really it was a little issue, but it was cone O
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1 in about 12 or 14 hours1.62037e-4 days <br />0.00389 hours <br />2.314815e-5 weeks <br />5.327e-6 months <br />. It really wasn't a problem.
() 2 They came in and investicated the incident, and 3 those thinas that hacoened durina that incident, and then --
4 as a matter of fact, while it was ongoing, they quarantined 5 all of the equipment, and I think that is essential. I 6 think you need to quarantined that equipment, that suspect, 7 so that no oae can ever accuse you of havina cone in and 8 covered anything else, and if you quarantine too much to 9 becin with, it makes little difference because you are shut i 10 down anyway. It doesn't handicap you. You can always 11 brina those boundaries back in as your investiaation 12 proceeds. So I'm for the quarantine.
13 And we asked them if we could ao ahead with a 14 plan of action on each one of the areas to develop a means O 15 of aettina into root cause, which we all kn.ew ha'd to be 16 attacked. And they were very helpful in that regard. We 17 started down some paths, and they aave us some cuidance.
18 They didn't approve the plans of action. But we went ahead a
19 and proceeded with our plan of action as they were 20 proceeding with the investigation, and when they completed i
21 the investication we were well on our way to havina 22 finalized the plans of action'of attacking them, and some 23 of them at that time was out of quarantine, if it was a 24 simple area, and the plan of action was felt to be adecuat.ef i
25 and then when they act back they turned it over to the ,
1
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27344.0 74 TAYLOE 1 1 staff, and we didn't work with them any more, after we cot
() 2 those plans of actions. If they didn't approve them, thev 3 would send them back --
4 MR. REMICK: When you say they didn't aoorove.
5 They did not disprove, either. You are sayina they did not 6 have the richt to acorove them?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: But if they didn't like what was 8 their, their comments were voluminous, or more voluminous 9 than they would have been, and so we knew that when the 10 comments died off we had an approved plan. We didn't have 11 any problems with it.
12 So we set about fixina those thinas that 13 happened on June 9th.
14 But in line with the fact that really it is the Q*
\' 15 utility that is responsible for the safety, we said if in 25 ,
fact maintenance is the problem, and it acoeared to be at I
17 least, and to most everybody else out there that I had with 18 me, that maintenance certainly contributed to the problem, 19 that the systems ought to be looked at.
20 Now, if maintenance has been well done, well 21 documented, you can launch into a 34 system review as we 22 did and be throuch with it in iia time, because all your 23 maintenance work order is there, all your tests are there, 24 and you've cot all your definitive test r results, and you 25 can say there is nothing wrona with the system. If you I
CE) 1 I
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27344.0 75 TAYLOE 1 don't have all of that, it takes you a lona time to do it 1( ) 2 and you find problems with the system that require 3 short-term and lono-term fixes as we found in each case of 4 the 34 systems, and then maintenance across the board
. 5 lacked somethina somewhere, and I didn't have the 6 professionals that Glenn had up at Point Beach on my floor 7 that I could really rely on. I think that that is true 8 across the industry, to a degree. That level of proper 9 professionalism.
10 Almost all of our fixes really had to do with 11 the design and the maintenance and the repair of things, 12 and there has been to date nothina as to the emeroency 13 operator. No procedures have come out of there that is a 14 great burden to the operators. We did develop maintenance O 15 procedures because they had none at the time.
16 But materially aettino into the course of action 17 document, which stemmed from, I thought, a very well 18 conducted IIT. Should the IIT have looked at more, the 19 management of the place, or the interrelationship, our 20 relationship with Reaion 3 of the NRC and Staff? I don't 21 think so, other than to highlicht that to their home base, 22 which is really the Staff back here in Washincton, and to 23 say, you know, they can tell by lookina at the situation, 24 that you the Staff, you need to look at what your Reaion is 25 doing out there and what your project manager is or is not l
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1 doina, because it is our indication that they have known
() 2 this for some time. We have come in and focused on this 3 issue, and we don't have blinders on, we can see this, but 4 you, Mr. Stello, better cet your staff together and see 5 what the hell is coina on.
6 I think that is the way it should function. I 7 don't think you should have to burden the ITT with a 8 wide-rangina investigation of a very broad scope. I think 9 that the Reaion and NRC need to do more about investicatina 10 the manacement of utilities and the competence of people to 11 manace it. It is not a difficult thina to do.
12 You know, you go into a place and if you talk to 13 your maintenance manaaer and you find out for 15 years he i
14 j has been a B&W rep, the maximum number of people he's ever
() 15 l
- led in his life is three, and those three hacoen to be 16 l professional engineers like himself, well, you know, you i
17 can conclude pretty cuickly that the competence to lead 18 blue collar workers, if he has it, it is a God-civen cift, I 19 i because he never cot it anywhere else.
I 20 So I've cot a problem in maintenance some places 21 down the line. Why was that ouv there? That auy was there I
22 because the management didn't do their iob properly. But 23 the NRC does need to look at manacement. They need to ao 24 in and talk to people and say, are you qualified to do the 25 l job vou are doina, and if not, you know, why not. Is it n
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27344.0 77 TAYLOE 1 the utility isn't a cood recruiter, is it they are not O
(/ 2 payina enough money? There are a lot of things that go 3 into it. They need to do that.
A One of the easiest ways to (o it is to look at 5 the budaet. If you know anythina about lookina at nuclear 6 utilities, you go look at the guy's budget, you can aet a 7 good handle on how utilities are beina manaced. But that 8 is not the function of the IIT.
9 MR. REED: While you are thinkina, this IIT 10 investication predated the formation of the Babcock &
11 Wilcox cwners arouo evaluation oraanization; correct?
12 MR. WILLIAMS: Gee, I think you are richt. I 13 didn't pay attention to B&W owners aroup until I had been 14 at Davis-Besse for a while. They told me I'll --
15 MR. REED: So they have not conducted an 16 investication on Davis-Besse?
l I
17 MR. WILLIAMS: Thev, they did.
18 MR. MYERS: The TAP team was in the first week 19 I with our people.
20 MR. WILLIAMS: So, yes, they did.
21 MR. REED: Who would you have Qiven precedence l
22 to if they had both arrived at the cate at the same time?
23 MR. WILLIAMS: NRC. They are the regulatorv 24 croup that is resconsible to the United States public for 25 safety.
/"
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27344.0 78 TAYLOE 1 MR. REED: You made a point that the ITT was
() 2 helpful in lendino credibility for the protection of the 3 utility and a number of thinas. It seems to me that we 4 tend to proliferate committees and investicating teams 5 rather than consolidate and make them efficient, intearate 6 and so forth. INPO, of course, would have liked to have 7 conducted an investication, too, I assume, but they had a 8 team member who stood back.
9 Do you think the next IIT, the next sionificant 10 event that the utility would be pertinent? You apparently 11 were not burdened.
12 MR. WILLIAMS: I don't think you are burdened 13 with it. You know, B&W was so innocuous to me, Glenn, I 14 knew it was on site, but it didn't bother me. It didn't O 15 bother my people, either. They didn't come up with 16 anythina that we hadn't already addressed. I looked on 17 i that and the other people that came as a way of cetting out l
18 i information that the rest of the industry needed, and it i
19 really did not constitute a burden.
20 MR. SIESS: If the NRC had not performed an IIT, 21 what would Toledo Edison have done differently?
22 MR. WILLIAMS: I would have done exactly the 23 same thina, if I had been smarter. Maybe I would have 24 missed somethino, I don't know. But the approach would 25 have been identical.
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27344.0 79 TAYLOE 1 MR. SIESS: Includina the shutdown?
() 2 MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes. There was no way I 3 could run that plant.
4 MR. SIESS: So from that point of view, the 5 principal advantage to you of the IIT would be the 6 credibility?
7 MR. WILLIAMS: No. From a technical standpoint 8 they were very helpful because I didn't have a lot of 9 talent. One of the problems with most of the utilities is 10 you don't have it. You turn around and say, what about my 11 AE? You say, oee, if I'm in this kind of fix, what has he 12 been doing with me in the past?
13 The same thina with NSSS supoliers. So you look 14 for people across the nation who are reliable and you cet 15 them in quickly.
16 I'm imoressed with the professionalism by and 17 1arce with the people I now see in NRC. Right after Three 18 Mile Island thev. act a lot of trash in, because they were 19 ! thrown money and billets and they said, ao do what we 20 thouaht you were doina for the last 10 years. They didn't 21 have any experience, either, Glenn. That was because 22 Concress and industrv didn't want them to have experience.
23 If you did, you were liable to cet a Rickover in there, but 24 nobody wanted that. So thinas are now streamlinino. By 25 l and large the people who have not measured up are beina O
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27344.0 80 TAYLOE I weeded out.
( )) 2 Let me tell you about the reculation. The 3 reault. tion doesn't bother anybody that is doina things 4 richt. Reaulations bother companies and pecole that are 5 trying to cut corners.
6 MR. SIESS: I think the point Judae Gleason was 7 making, thouch, is that there are so many regulations, how 8 do you know whether you are doina thinas richt?
9 MR. WILLIAMS: You have to have a staff 10 competent enouch to handle those areas. If you look at the 11 fire protection in the plants throughout the nation, you 12 need some reaulation to make darn sure people have the fire I
13 protection in there that is needed. We have had conflicts 14 in reaulations over the years, but now they are converaina.
b
'~
15 But you have to have somebody on your staff that is 16 knowledaeable in that area, and that is the ouy you rely on.
17 MR. SIESS: And you have somebody who really 18 knows what the NRC requirements are for prior protection?
I 19 MR. WILLIAMS: You bet. I know where I'm l
20 deficient and how much money I have to spend to cet there.
21 MR. SIESS: I didn't think the NRC even had that.
22 MR. WILLIAMS: He doesn't belona to Toledo 4
23 Edison. It has taken me a while to cet them.
24 MR. SIESS: Have you been on board lona enouah 25 to have any idea about the effectiveness of regionalization O
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27344.0- 81 TAYLOE 1 as ocoosed to the way NRC operated before they had
() 2 recionalization?
3 MR. WILLIAMS: I wasn't knowledaeable about how 4 they operated. After I act out of the Navy, they were 5 already in the Recion. So I don't know how they operated 6 before then. But it is his job; if the Regions are findino 7 thinas wrona with those plants and they are not doina 8 things about them for whatever reason, it is his job to 9 flush them out; it is Staff's iob to flush them out; and I 10 think the direction he's coina now in cetting these regions 11 back and lookina at the review of a olant -- because you 12 can cet to a point where a recional director has a vested 13 interest in not lookina too darn bad.
14 MR. SIESS: Or vice versa.
15 MR. REED: You've said a couole of times that it 16 is NRC's iob, and they protect the utility, and very 17 professional, and it savs to me, then, the NRC, you are 18 sayina, are responsible for the final desian and outcome.
19 MR. WILLIAMS: Not at all. That's not what I'm i
20 i sayina. You know, you had no experience at it, and now we 21 are backfittina the exoerience we have into the desian.
22 But if you went out and built a plant today, I would hope 23 that the utility would have a hard core encineerina staff 24 of its own that could take an AE's desian and pass judoment 25 on it, or at least was intellicent enouch to ao cet O
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27344.0 82 TAYLOE I somebody that could helo them do that, and it is the
() 2 utility's responsibility to construct a plant that is 3 safely desianed. It is the utility's responsibility to 4 meet the fundamental safety requirements that the NRC puts 5 on a plant. It is the utility's resoonsibility to operate 6 that plant safely in line with the cuidelines that the 7 Nuclear Reoulatory Commission lavs down.
8 But the responsibility for safety fundamentallly 9 is with that utility, and if he doesn't have an enoineerina 10 force to support it, he's not coina to run it safely. If i
11 he doesn't out enouah money out there for his peoole to be 12 competitive in the marketplace he's coina to cet 13 second-raters to operate it and he's not coina to do it 14 safely. You cannot divest that utility of the
( 15 resoonsibility for safety. If you did, you would have all 16 the utilities marchina off in two different directions 17 marchina to their own drum. It is'very difficult at Three 18 Mile Island now to force them to march to a drum, because 19 some of them have cot no drumhead on the bottom of the drum, 20 no snares, whatever.
21 MR. REED: I acree with much of what you said.
22 Let me ask a question: Whose responsibility was it to 23 desian and operate the Davis-Besse unit with four steam '
l 24 pumps from a steam supply that wasn't too coad?
25 MR. WILLIAMS: You and I are the same way. I O 1 l
i A
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27344.0 83 TAYLOE 1 would have looked at that desian and said no backup
,o
( _) 2 electric pump, you must be out of your mind. You would 3 have done the same thina. I don't have to have a 4 probabilistic risk assessment to tell me that that is the 5 way to oo. I can do a desian probabilistic risk assessment, 6 and they did, that was very close to provino that the fixes 7 that they were makino were iust as cood as puttina in the 8 third electric pump.
9 That is one of the problems with probabilistic 10 , risk assessment. It doesn't have a lot of common sense in 11 it. You would have aoolied that in one way, I would have 12 applied it the same way. There are people who won't do 13 that. When you have tools in your hand that support that,
_ 14 then you get into arguments between lower levels of 15 l; staffers and all that. It never surfaces to,the bosses.
I 16 Also you have act the utility management. As long as he 17 _
can keeo an araument coina that will keep him from spendina l
18 Sll million, quess what he's goina to vote for. He's coina 19 I to vote for the araument.
l 20 l MR. REED: You and I understand the problem that 21 has existed since 1954, or 1956, the utilities were told, 22 i cet into the nuclear business. It was a richt from the 23 bottom bootstrapping issue, until maybe along the line 24 after 10 or 15 years you can hire X Navy nukes, but not too 25 many of them --
n (J
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27344.0 84 TAYLOE 1 MR. WILLIAMS: Who had cone throuch the
() 2 bootstrappino procram iust like that. We didn't have five 3 Nautiluses when we went to sea which had the same crowina 4 pains, the same thina. Wouldn't it be lovely today if 5 som-body would say, let's ao build a plant?
6 MR. REED: Yeah. I think it could be done.
7 MR. LEWIS: This is too much to be a mutual 8 backslapping session.
9 Let me iust say one word about PRAs, and that is, 10 I'm unhappy to see anti-intellectualism in any form; and if 11 some PRAs lack common sense, that is a complaint which I 12 don't understand but I certainly know some of them have l
13 been done badiv, and the solution to doina thinas badly is 14 to do them again a.nd,do them well. You don't throw away 15 the screwdriver because the carpenter doesn't know how to 16 l operate it. You throw away the carpenter. That is a l
17 l comment in defense of PRAs.
I 18 MR. WILLIAMS: You don't have to defend PRAs to 19 me. If you ao back and look at the PRAs that were done on l
20 both sides of fence on this issue, you know, if you just 21 took the results of the PRA, you could take either side.
22 Intuition tells you you better have a diverse power pump in
! 23 this business. I don't need a orobabilistic risk 24 assessment to tell me that. I have a very good PRA orocram.
25 I probably won't take Pickard, Louden and Garret's acoroach O
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27344.0 85 TAYLOE 1 to the thina, and you must admit that that is
) 2 scenario-dependent, and I'm not anti-intellectual at all.
3 I'm not very intellectual, but I'm not anti-intellectual.
4 MR. SIESS: Which of the PRAs do you think have 5 done badly? Which of the three?
6 MR. LEWIS: I think when we have a PRA 7 subcommittee meetino I would be delichted to talk to you 8 about that, but not on my time at this meetina. I was iust 9 resoondino to tihat I read as an anti-intellectual comment.
10 MR. WILLIAMS: In the report those three are 11 addressed.
12 MR. LEWIS: Yes. When a cood analysis conflicts j 13 with common sense, I'll take the cood analysis any day, 14 because common sense has led many pecole into many serious 15 ; accidents. That is a sideline.
16 l MR. WILLIAMS: What is a cood analysis?
17 MR. LEWIS: I'm trying to cet back on to the IIT 18 process.
19 Could I ask a question about maintenance. I 20 keep learnina new things about this business, and there was 1 l
21 this unsuocorted comment, at least unsucoorted in the 22 report comment about maintenance practices, and I 23 understand how we have sort of slicoed around whether that 24 really was a nasty crack or just an omission crack or what 1
25 it was. But I learned yesterday in connection with another O
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l 27344.0 86 TAYLOE 1 plant that a carticular valve had not been inspected for
() 2 the entire life of the plant, for a dozen years, and that 3 sort of surorised me because I own an airolane, and believe 4 me, there is no part of that airplane that has been 5 uninsoected since that airplane was built, in 1961.
6 Certainly no movina part, and in fact, no part.
7 The answer was that, since this particular valve 8 wasn't a safety item, there was no requirement to inspect 9 it, so it had been allowed to rust shut.
10 In your plant are there any parts that have
! 11 never been insoected since the plant was built?
f 12 MR. WILLIAMS: I can't say. When I cet through 13 with the confiauration manaaement procram that I have in 14 place, I'll be able to.tell you that. I think now that I
() 15 i i
can probably say to you, no, I don't believe that that is 16 true, that they have never been inspected, but this all 17 gets down to whether or not you know everythina there is to 18 know about the plant.
19 MR. LEWIS: We are talkina about movina parts 20 now. Confiauration manacement, and the --
21 MR. WILLIAMS: The accuracy of all those 22 documents are a question in plants throuchout the nation.
23 I couldn't care about the accuracy of drawinas. If I don't 24 know I have a valve, you are interested in the accuracy of 25 the drawina.
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27344.0 87 TAYLOE 1 MR. LEWIS: In that sense, yes.
3
( ,
) 2 MR. WILLIAMS: Now, if you had a modification to 3 a plant and you don't have confiauration procram, you may 4 very well have a valve in there that shows on nothina and 5 the people don't know it is there.
6 MR. LEWIS: I'm talking about things frozen shut 7 or broken.
8 MR. WILLIAMS: You asked me if there was 9 anythina there that had not been tested. I said I have to 10 -
know everythina that is there before I make that statement.
11 MR. LEWIS: I'm worried about valves that are in 12 ! the drawina and the relays that are in the drawinas.
13 i MR. WILLIAMS: If they are in the drawinas and I d
14 know about them, none of them have not been tested that are
(' ') !
15 j supposed to be tested.
l 16 l MR. LEWIS: I missed that.
17 MR. WILLIAMS: None of them have not been tested 18 l that are sucoosed to be tested.
19 ! MR. LEWIS: Okay. And that has been fixed.
20 l MR. WILLIAMS: I don't believe that has ever 21 been the case at Davis-Besse. I answered your question in I
22 1 the absolute, from the standpoint of confiauration 23 management. Everythina that I have there is in the test 24 procram.
25 MR. LEWIS: Everythina.
I !
i
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1 MR. WILLIAMS: Everythina that I know about?
) 2 MR. LEWIS: Whether or not it is desianated a 3 safety itch.
4 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes.
5 MR. LEWIS: I'm iust tryina to be very clear on 6 what you are answerina. That was not the case with the 7 other plant that we talked about yesterday. I want to be 8 very sure of that.
9 MR. REMICK: I have a cuestion that I think you 10 answered. It was a question I had when Vic was talkina, 11 because I got the impression -- I don't think Vic wanted to 12 leave that impression, but I act it -- he's saying the* i 13 thinas that are beina done as a result of the IIT is 14 because the NRC requires it.
O- 15 MR. WILLIAMS: I remember exactly what you said.
16 The NRC did not add to anythina that I succested that we 17 had to do, and so they didn't have to tell me. That is 18 really the point. When we came in with the course of I
19 j action we had covered -- I don't recall one area where thev 20 l said, yes, they did. I proposed 32 safetv-related systems, 21 and they succested we add two more, which we did do.
22 MR. R8 MICK: But I am correct that the large 23 amount, I think the '71 million, if I cuoted correctly -- '
l 24 MR. WILLIAMS: We are over a hundred now.
t 25 MR. REMICK: -- are thinas that you basically l
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27344.0 89 TAYLOE 1 would have done indeoendently of an IIT; is that correct?
(Oj 2 MR. WILLIAMS: Absolutely. You ao down the path,
- 3. you are checkina out your SFAS systems and all of a sudden 4 you find that you have a wire wrap problem, the wires are 5 too loose. You get to the root cause of that is because 6 some mechanic back there rammed the wire down with a tool 7 and he has cut it and he's destroyed the ario that the wire 8 had on the post, so you have to ao into a rewirina. That 9 leads you to where we are today. and it validates the look 10 at the system. I'm the one that laid out the proaram.
11 MR. GLEASON: Forrest, I'm not sure I understood i
12 l that last comment of yours.
13 571 million was directly related to the incident 14 itself. So when you say that it is coina to be done O 15 l irrespective of that, I don't think that is an accurate 16 statement.
17 MR. REMICK: These are not thinas mandated by-18 the NRC, but these are things in their course of action i
19 ! l plan that they also decided were wrono and needed corrected.
I 20 MR. WILLIAMS: They probably would have been 21 mandated by NRC if I hadn't done it. We didn't fool around 22 and carry on a dialoaue back and forth about what had to be 23 done. We looked at it and said this needs to be done. We 24 told the NRC, this is what we propose to do, and they said 25 fine, and they have been extremely succortive all the way i
( l l
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27344.0 C0 TAYLOE I down the line.
2 MR. GLEASON: I think you have to be very 3 careful of what that question is and what the answer is.
4 We asked in the information, we said aive us the amount of 5 money that you are spendina in this accident, and that 6 fioure came out to be $71 million.
7 MR. REMICK: I know that Joe came on board just 8 prior to the accident.
9 MR. WILLIAMS: I came on board richt after, but 10 I was sianed on before.
11 MR. REMICK: If it hadn't been for the accident, 12 I'm not sugaestina they would have done everythina they are 13 doina now. But with the accident, my impression was, based 14 on another subcommittee meetina, that Toledo Edison had l
15 pronosed many of these thinos that are on coina and which 16 l are costino now over $100 million. They were not dictated 17 by NRC Staff.
18 MR. WILLIAMS: If you ao back in time, the PEP 19 procram, which was being developed for a couple of years 1
20 before that, had all the vestices of everythina that we are 1 21 doing in our course of action, but it was coina to be 22 stretched out over several years, and that iust compressed 23 everythina. I did some other things. I'm not so sure that 24 the 34 system review would have been done by the tvoes of 25 things we found there that had to be fixed. But the money .
}
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27344.0 91 TAYLOE 1 was planned -- the exoenditures were there over the years
~
2 for a aet well procram and we iust compressed the thina.
3 It's over 100 million now is my coint, not 71.
4 But the June 9th event escalated the expenditure 5 of the resources.
6 MR. LEWIS: Vic, do you acree with that analysis 7 of the impact of NRC?
8 MR. STELLO: I don't really think you can answer 9 the question. If the program that was proposed, as thev 10 saw what was needed, did not come forward, what would the 11 NRC have said it had to do? I don't know how you can 12 answer that cause you never ran the test. I suspect that 13 a lot of th. : hat have been described will be done, but 14 I susoect, also, that as thev had to look at the operation l ;
15 of this plant, and there are a lot of things that they are 16 doina because they need to do them to make this plant run 17 well, and we don't cet into a lot of, you've cot to do 18 I those to make them run well. That is the utility's i
19 l responsibility.
20 MR. WILLIAMS: The salary increases, in brinaina 21 enaineering in house, you would not have decreed that.
1 22 MR. STELLO: It is a iudament call. My 23 expectation is if it was strictly mandated by NRC, it would 24 have been lesser.
25 MR. LEWIS: I understand there is an interaction I
l
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27344.0 92 TAYLOE 1 there and it is also true that the impendina threat of NRC f(_s) 2 is to make people do things voluntarily.
3 MR. STELLO: But I was makina another point when 4 I started, and I said a lot of what would have happened at 5 this olant is not iust because of the accident; it is the 6 prior history of this plant; for years its performance has 7 not been well, and this orior history in combination with 8 the accident produced the impression you had, which was 9 that the follow-uo as a result of the investication went 10 too far, too sweepina, too much, and I said you are rioht,
] 11 relative to iust the IIT, but you are not richt when you 12 compare it to its previous history.
13 MR. LEWIS: I'm never wrona, but I'm sometimes
> 14 not richt.
i ( l 15 : MR. REMICK: The reason I broucht it up, Vic, I i
16 interpreted what you are sayinc, and I believe what you are 17 really savina is that the extent of what is beina done is 18 more than just the accident. I read you are savina instead 19 of what we are recuirina to be done.
~
, 1 20 l MR. STELLO: In my opinion there is no question 21 in my mind the answer is yes, it is because of the prior 22 history. In fact, I would even out more weicht on prior 23 history than the accident itself.
24 MR. WILLIAMS: That's true.
25 MR. GLEASON: There really were three thinas
($)
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27344.0 93 TAYLOE 1 coina on. Thev had the PEP procram and they were in their
() 2 final phase of the PEP procram. That is a $26,000,000 3 procram, as I recall, or S19,000,000. And then you had the 4 incident, that caused certain thinos, and then you sav 5 because of the incident. we will not only prioritize some 6 of the PEP things, but we will do a lot other things. So 7 you had all three thinas.
8 MR. REED: I can't let pass the fact that 9 certainly 'one of the thinas that you did, I believe, in 10 addition -- NRC would not have required it -- is that you 11 '
have cone into actitude testina; is that true?
12 MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes.
13 MR. REED: That cost some money.
14 MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes. I said they wouldn't 15 have made me brina enaineerino in-house, but when I elect 16 to build that kind of orcanization, and this is one of the 17 tools you use when you come in. Of course, I also tested l
18 everybody else on the site in the organization, because you 19 need a baseline on them to determine what you've act that I
20 is promotable out there in the work force that you have.
I 21 So, yes, they would not have recuired that.
22 MR. REED: Do you think they should have i
23 required such?
i 24 MR. WILLIAMS: I think that the NRC or somebody 25 could alve a lot of cuidance on what constitutes cood I
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27344.0 94 TAYLOE 1 manacement practices, and that is one of them. It is 2 enlightened manacement, I think.
3 MR. REMICK: You said NRC. Could INPO possibly 4 do that, too?
5 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, they could, and they are, I 6 think. They are movina in that direction. You know, their 7 recuirements now for our trainina and accreditation is a 8 fine thina. You see, what INPO lacks is people who have 9 ever manaaed, really, a lot of them, who has been down that 10 path before.
11 MR. REMICK: Don't they have access to people, 12 better than the NRC has access to them.
I 13 j MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, they do.
14 MR. STELLO: We've act to say NUMARC, too, ,
15 because that really is their charter.
16 MR. LEWIS: When people make their list of well 17 manaced orcanizations, I've never seen NRC at the top of 18 the list.
19 Could I ask a question here: One of the issues, 20 still tryino to keep on the IIT process, one of the issues 21 that has been raised on the IIT process is the question of 22 whether it is better to have an investication team for an 23 incident drawn from the NRC Staff or whether it should 24 report to the EDO, or report to the Commission, or be fully 25 independent, that sort of thina, and there are many O
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27344.0 95 TAYLOE 1 arauments which we will have over the decades to come on
() 2 that. But from the point of view of the utility, do you 3 have a feelina on whether you are more comfortable havina 4 had an event, or two, at your plant, having a croup come in 5 to investiaate, who reoresents the NRC Staff, althouah 6 attached from their existina iobs, a croup that micht 7 report directly to the Commission, a thorouchly indeoendent 8 aroup? Do you have any feelinas on the subject?
9 MR. WILLIAMS: I think it is the Staff's job to 10 have people available to do those times of thinas. You 11 know, you have to have the talent of those teams, and it 12 will vary from IIT to IIT, and there the NRC certainly has 13 l the latitude to ao cet that kind of a talent from industry 14 if that is what they want to do. But it ouaht to be the 15 NRC. That is their iob. They are responsible.
16 When you start strippina the Staff, and say let's 17 l brina this indeoendent body in, let's brina this 18 indeoendent body in, we don't need them. We oucht to make 19 them do their iob and do it richt. I like for it to come 20 I to headquarters, and I like for it to report to that chair 21 there, because that is the level I think it oucht to report 22 to, the Staff, chief of Staff, and I like it to come to 23 Washinaton because it cets it out of the Reaion, wherein it 24 micht be that kind of a conflict between the utility and 25 the Reaion that really doesn't contribute to makina the O
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! l' thina whole. So you cet-different views.
4
() 2 You may have had somebody in the recion who has 3 been arindina an axe exceedinalv small. So to answer your i
j 4 question, I don't think it ought to ao to industry. I j 5 don't think it ouaht to be an independent team. I don't.
. r I
6 think independent teams do that much for us, really.
i
- 7 You know the problem with an indeoendent teams i
- 8 They ain't going to be around anymore to answer for its
} 9 mistakes.
1 10 MR. LEWIS: Say that aaain.
I j 11 MR. WILLIAMS: They are not coina to be around 1 6 l 12 to be accountable for the conclusions and recommendations j 13 that they come to.
14 MR. LEWIS: I don't understand that. In the l(2)
- 15 case of the NTSB, they are around for a number of years. '
j 16 MR. WILLIAMS: A permanent orcanization, rioht. -
l 1 17 Primarily I would rather keep it on the Staff where thev i
- 18 are accountable for their action, and they are around for a
\
j 19 few years to be responsible.
- 20 MR. LEWIS
- Let me oursue the point a bit 1
21 further.
] 22 One of the arauments made for independence by l
23 everybody who has ever studied an accident has been that 24 there is at least the potential that in some accidents the
- 25 fault may lie partly with NRC itself, and that there is a 1
} ()
I 1
1' l
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27344.0 97 TAYLOE 1 real oroblem with people investicatina them. So do you
() 2 regard that as inconceivable, or do you think the people 3 could rise above it. or do you think that in special cases 4 one probably.would ao to the outside, or do you think it is 5 an irrelevancv?
6 MR. WILLIAMS: You can't deny the facts that 7 there are times when the fault that occurs in the 8 jurisdiction of an orcanization like the NRC lies -- the 9 root c. :o is back in the organization itself. But I don't 10 think that that occurs the vast maiority of the times.
11 MR. LEWIS: Not the maiority, but the question 12 is, how do we handle investications if that does occur?
13 MR. WILLIAMS: I think that that is a function 14 of the Commission lookina down their throats. I think it O
\/ 15 is a function of the utilities to raise that issue.
16 MR. LEWIS: You think the utilities should 17 simply fiaht back if it cets mistreated by the Staff.
18 MR. WILLIAMS: Sure.
19 I MR. LEWIS: What weapons do you have to fiaht i
20 back with?
21 MR. WILLIAMS: Try me out.
22 What do you do? What do you mean, what weapons 23 do you have?
24 MR. LEWIS: Thev don't license me.
25 MR. WILLIAMS: You don't have to lie down and O
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27344.0 98 TAYLOE 1 roll over in front of these pecole.
() 2 MR. LEWIS: They license you. They don't 3 license me.
4 MR. WILLIAMS: I still don't have to lie down 5 and roll over in front of me simply because they license me.
6 You don't have to. Now, you can, if you want to.
7 MR. STELLO: Would you ask Glenn Reed that 8 question?
9 MR. LEWIS: No, because he's on my subcommittee.
i 10 MR. WILLIAMS: This coes back to assumina that 11 all such oraanizations you out un are fundamentally flawed.
12 I don't believe that everybody is cood, but I don't believe ;
13 that beauracratic oraanizations are necessarily bad. I was 14 in one for 37 years and let me tell you, it had its faults,
' O 15 but it worked extremely well, too, and there are people of 16 intearity in them.
17 MR. LEWIS: If you are referrina to the 18 orcanization I think you are referring to, I out in my time 19 in that orcanization.
20 MR. WILLIAMS: Wouldn't you acree?
21 MR. LEWIS: Well, we will have that debate not 22 on Subcommittee time. I may have been in it before you 23 were in it, actually.
24 MR. SIESS: I've cot a question for Stello.
25 MR. LEWIS: Let's cet Glenn first.
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27344.0 99 TAYLOE 1 MR. REED: You stated that the NRC Staff should
() 2 have the people on it, the IIT, to do the iob and so forth.
3 What do you think about the succestion that was 4 in the 1201 record that there should be involvement of the 5 vendors -- I don't like to think about that one -- but 6 other people that are not Staff members, and what do you 7 think about the idea that perhaos your instrument control 8 -- your best man, your most ethical and dedicat'ed best man 9 selected by. or nominated by his oeers, was a desianated 10 representative, and that he would interface when a 11 sianificant incident came uo, he would interface directiv 12 with the senior resident and the ITT team, your INC best 13 man, your maintenance best man and so than, which in a way 14 would undercut your management and your interfacing? But 15 would you have reservations about that?
16 MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah. I don't want that.
17 MR. REED: You don't want that?
18 MR. WILLIAMS: No. I would say send me a 19 l talented team, and if he's act to ao outside to do that, 1
20 fine. But I don't need that kind of thina, Glenn. No.
21 MR. REED: You think that would undercut your 22 manacement control? l l
23 MR. WILLIAMS: I don't think it would contribute 1 24 anythina.
25 MR. REED: Now, you are one person.
l l
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! 1 MR. WILLIAMS: You are askina me, okay?
() 2 MR. REED: What about the industry at larae?
3 MR. WILLIAMS: I don't know about the industry 4 at large. I'll tell you the industry at large does not 5 manace nuclear utilities like I manace nuclear utilities, 6 so probably you are coina to cet a different answer than 7 the one I'll aive you.
8 MR. REED: Well, I'm concerned that there miaht 9 be management without dedication, motivation, understandina 10 and ethics.
11 ! I MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, boy, that is the truth.
l 12 l MR. REED: And that they need some checks and l
13 l balances over the attitudes that they miaht take in this 14 issue.
A kJ 15 f MR. WILLIAMS: I think you ouaht to cure that 16 another way.
17 I MR. REED: How would you cure it?
18 [ MR. WILLIAMS: I think that on every utility 19 l that has a nuclear plant, that on their outside board of i
20 directors there ought to be the requirement that at least 21 one oerson have a backaround in nuclear business; that 22 there be a Subcommittee that oversees the operations from 23 outside directors; and if they don't have the expertise 24 themselves, that they have the freedom to hire a consultant 25 or consultants to aive them indeoendent advice as to ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'TAYLOE 1 whether or not that.CEO and the officers are
() 2 smokescreenina him because they don't know what they are '
3 doina, either.
4 You know, a board made up -- an oversicht board 5 made up of company officers leaves me cold.
6 MR. REED: But you don't then think that the FAA 7 system could add to IIT investiaations?
8 MR. WILLIAMS: I don't know that much about the 9 FAA system, Glenn. l 10 MR. REED: The desianated reoresentative system.
11 MR. WILLIAMS: From what you described to me it 12 would hacoen oer our investication, as a matter of fact. I ,
13 want to -- I investiaated the Davis-Besse event, too. I -
14 had an indeoendent ouv come in to set with us. I didn't
-)
(G 15 buy the NRC's investication of that, though I thouaht I t
16 concurred with it, but I didn't buv it. I went ahead and 17 had one done myself.
18 MR. REED: But you, in a sense, availed yourself 19 I of desianated representatives, I'll call them, your best !
I 20 instrument man, or your best maintenance man and asked him 21 questions.
(
22 MR. WILLIAMS: They are workina for me in that l 23 investication. They are not workina for somebody else.
l 24 They are respondina to somebody else, but they are workina 1 25 for me and I've cot control. If I cet a desionated rep, I e 1 O
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27344.0 102 TAYLOE 1 iust don't see the value of it, Glenn.
() 2 MR. REED: How about for other companies whom 3 you have iust said miaht not have enlichtened manacement?
4 MR. WILLIAMS: I don't know.
5 MR. REED: Thank you.
6 MR. LEWIS: Chet.
7 MR. SIESS: The first charce to the ad hoc aroup 8 had to do with the pre-event interaction, and in their 9 recommendations on that they had some thinas to say about 10 the coordination between the Regions and Headquarters and 11 so forth.
12 Another thina they had to say referred to the 13 project managers. Why shouldn't the project manaaer be the i 14 person resoonsible for knowino everytina about the plant, 15 includina what the Recion thinks about it, as well as what 16 NRR thinks about its 17 I thoucht I heard somewhere that with the 18 reorganization the proiect manaaers were coina to be aiven 19 l more responsibility for the olants thev are 1
20 l project-manaaina, and I would have hoped that they would 21 also have more authority and more competence.
22 Now, where do you put the proiect managers into 23 the oicture, knowina all of the thinas that are coina into 24 the plant?
25 MR. STELLO: I exoect them to know that.
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27344.0 103 TAYLOE 1 MR. SIESS: You expect them to know what the
() 2 Region thinks about manacement and maintenance and out all 3 those thinas tocether and come to you with some 4 recommendations?
5 MR. STELLO: That is exactly what we are doina.
6 But not only the proiect manaaer; you can start with the 7 resident, up throuch that system out in the Reaion; you can 8 start with Jack, the work that he does, what he knows, the 9 conclusions he can reach about them.
10 MR. SIESS: Is the project manaaer supposed to 11 be coanizant of what AEOD is findina and savina?
12 MR. STELLO: Yes.
13 MR. SIESS: Have you done anythina to improve 14 the competence of the project manaaers? Some of the 15 proiect manaaers in my exoerience have been nothina more 16 than clorified clerks. All the correspondence went through 17 them. Thev had really no authority, and in some cases, I 18 l won't say no competence, but certainly no experience.
I 19 i MR. STELLO: I think we are payino attention to 20 elevatina the stature as well as the competency. That 21 doesn't occur overnicht. It will take time.
22 MR. SIESS: You've cot some that are old hands:
23 you've cot some that are relatively areen oeoole.
24 MR. STELLO: That is a fact. True.
25 MR. SIESS: How much authority do they have?
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27344.0 104 TAYLOE O 1 14R . STELLO: I don't know how to answer that. I 2 don't know now you can define the authority. They don't 3 have the authority to issue orders or amendments.
4 5 MR. SIESS: A reviewer within a discioline comes 6 up with an interpretation. Can they challence it or 7 question it?
8 MR. STELLO: Sure, and do.
9 MR. SIESS: And do.
10 MR. STELLO: The better ones, very effectively.
l 11 Newer ones, with lesser experience, are obviously much less 12 able to do that.
(}
13 ,
MR. SIESS: Would you have thoucht part of the 14 responsibility of a proiect manaaer is to look at the 15 decision to valve out that start-uo oumo in terms of 16 overall safety?
17 MR. STELLO: I think he should have, yes. He 18 i should have. If I were a project manaaer I would have.
19 MR. SIESS: You've cot a little more experience 20 than they do, maybe a little more iudgment.
21 MR. STELLO: Maybe. But I think that is the 22 kind of thina that needs to be done. I think that the 23 process that we are puttina in place -- I listened 24 carefully to Judge Gleason when he talked about the number 25 of recuirements that came out before and even after TMI, O
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27344.0 105 j TAYLOE l 1 and when we looked at that, we drew many of the same 2 conclusions he said he heard from the utilities.
3 That centleman sittina over there didn't 4 hesitate for a moment to tell me that the way we were coina 5 about imoosina the recuirements was makina in his iudament, l 6 in fact, less safe, and he was not alone in that context, 7 and we have taken that issue and taken it seriously and 8 have put tocether some chances in the regulatory process, 9 so hooefully that -- we will stoo with time.
10 MR. SIESS: What kind of communication exists or 11 relationshio exists between the proiect manaaer for that 12 plant and the resident inspector? These are two people
() 13 that concentrate on one olant.
14 MR. STELLO: A1.most daily communication.
15 MR. SIESS: Would anybody else like to comment 16 on the role of the proiect manaaer?
17 MR. WILLIAMS: I have found our oroiect manaaer
, 18 to be a very authoritative voice in this cet well proaram j
19 at Davis-Besse.
20 MR. SIESS: Who is it?
21 MR. WILLIAMS: Lindale Glazio.
22 MR. SIESS: He's been around for a while.
23 MR. WILLIAMS: Ted interacts with him a areat 24 deal. Mr. Myers is our head of licensina.
25 MR. MYERS: I think the proiect manaaer in our O
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1 role has been the focal ooint specifically at NRR, and his 2 dealinas with the Region are on a daily basis, even with I
3 the course of action, even thouah he's headina it uo.
4 Anything that has regional interface or combined assioned 5 tasks out of the directors memo, he has been the orcanizina 6 -- proiects has been the organizino aroup. You are right.
7 He is more -- probably one of the more experienced. He has 8 dealt internally with discipline orcanizations, in the 9 older oroanization. Of course, the reoraanization in the 10 proiects area now within the NRC has brought a lot more 11 i orcanizational control to the croiect oraanization.
12 MR. SIESS: He's dealina with fewer reviewers,
() 13 l and with the same reviewers over and over probably.
14 MR. MYERS: That's correct. In our case -- and 15 aaain, this is iust in our case -- it has been very 16 effective.
17 MR. WILLIAMS: I knew that he had daily dealinas 18 with the Recion in the plants. I didn't realize it was 19 almost daily contact with the site reo.
20 MR. LEWIS: All richt.
21 MR. SIESS: Is there a counterpart to the 22 project manager in the Region?
23 MR. STELLO: Yes.
24 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.
25 MR. SIESS: They have a reaional proiect manaaer, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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I somebody assioned to Davis-Besse.
2 MR. STELLO: Yes.
3 MR. SIESS: Only one plant? Does he have 4 several?
5 MR. STELLO: It varies. It deoends on, like the 6 plant, the size of the Reaion. At Browns Ferry, for 7 example, there is a sincle, as you are well aware, with 8 Deputy Richter. It depends on the issue at the plant.
9 MR. SIESS: Do you consider there a duolication?
l 10 MR. STELLO: No. It is a clear separation of 11 the insoection activities of what needs to be done throuch 12 the inspection procram for those plants, and separate from the licensina function dealina with'the issues throuah NRR.
(~; 13 V
14 ,
MR. SIESS: The NRR project manaaer is supposed 15 to know what the Reaion is doina?
16 MR. STELLO: That's richt.
17 MR. SIESS: Does the Recion oroiect manaaer have 18 l an equal knowledce of what NRR is doing?
I 19 MR. STELLO: More now than in the past, and much 20 more attention beino aiven to it so that they are aware.
21 That varies somewhat. The very cood residents have a very 22 cood trackino system and are well aware of all the issues.
23 But acain, you have that same problem. Very experienced 24 residents, yes. New ones comina on, not as much.
25 MR. SIESS: So essentially you have three people
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L-) '
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1 that really devote themselves to that plant? The NRR 2 project manaaer, the resident or residents, and a regional 3 proiect manacor?
4 MR. STELLO: Tyoically, yes.
5 MR. SIESS: And each one knows what the other 6 one knows.
7 MR. STELLO: Now you've cone too far.
8 MR. GLEASON: That was not the case at 9 Davis-Besse..
10 MR. SIESS: One of them knows what everybody 11 knows?
12 MR. STELLO: The intent is now that the proiect
() 13 l manaaer would serve that role, of coordinatina all 14 activities coina on from every place.
15 MR. MYERS: I would aaree with that. I think 16 Vic's statement is it is better now, much better now than 17 it has been in the past with the reoraanization and I
18 certainly cost --
1 19 i MR. STELLO: That was not the case at the time '
l 20 of the incident.
21 MR. REMICK: Vic, I like your answers on what 22 proiect manaaers should be doina, but my question is, do 23 the proiect manaaers know that is your expectation of them?
24 Has this been communicated to them?
25 MR. STELLO: Yes. Again, the extent to which
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(
1 they can do it, their confidence, expertise and knowledce, 2 and experience, for sure, they could know that is the role, 3 because they are not there iust to push the paper back and 4 forth.
5 MR. SIESS: Judoe Gleason made a specific 6 recommendation about the project manaaer physically 7 visitino the plant periodically, and that is quarterly, 8 communicate directly with plant manacer and utility 9 licensina officers.
10 Can you exclain a little bit why you felt the 11 physical visit to talk to people was important?
12 MR. GLEASON: What pace are you on?
(~') 13 MR. SIESS: Top of pace 5 in the summary. The xj \
14 first full caracraoh at the too of pace 5.
15 MR. GLEASON: You know, the testimony in the 16 Davis-Besse case -- first of all, we were not completely 17 i able to detect what was coina on in the facility. The 18 l proiect manaaer, he should have visited the plant, and he 19 would have liked to have visited the plant more often.
20 This would have made him more knowledaeable.
21 MR. SIESS: This visit to communicate, rather 22 than visit to look at.
23 MR. GLEASON: We meant both. I think Vic has 24 talked about -- I think the Staff has learned an awful lot.
25 He's talked about the new system. Of course, the system is O
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27344.0 110 TAYLOE 1 no better than how people use it, what it will take to 2 break down this fraomentation a little bit. I think that 3 will be a helo 4 MR. MYERS: I would like to make one more 5 comment: I think the new proiect organization also 6 sucolements itself very well. There certainly'is a lot of 7 paper in the normal course of business, and in special 8 activities and esoecially heavy time periods the newer 9 project orcanization has no qualms at all of bringina in 10 succort croiect peoole and deleaatina responsibilities in 11 there to pick up. We have been operatina with a couple, 12 not just our crime croiect manaaer, but throuch our
(} 13 ; activity more than one central project manaaer out of the 14 proiects arouo. It has been very effective.
15 MR. SIESS: You have a technical staff now to 16 deal with the discioline reviewers one on one?
17 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes. I've cot to say, in all 18 , cases thev are not direct to lead on Edison employees; but 19 I've act the talent there while we search for employees.
20 Most of cases, now, I have it myself.
21 MR. LEWIS: Do we have other questions?
22 If so, I'm coina to -- I think that the thina 23 for us to do -- a lot has passed around table back and 24 forth this mornina. My inclination is to aive us a lona 25 lunch, to mull over the wisdom we have heard, and to I O
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1 reconvene the subcommittee at 1:00, if that is acreeable, 2 and then we will have to decide where we ao from here. And 3 any of the visitors are will welcome to icin us for what 4 will in effect be a bull session. I'm sorry, a 5 deliberative consideration of what our next steos will be, 6 richt after lunch.
7 So we will adiourn until 1:00.
8 (Whereupon at 12:35 p.m., the meeting was 9 adiourned, to reconvene at 1:00 p.m.. this same 10 day in Closed Session.)
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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: ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS SUBCOMMITTEE ON REGULATORY POLICIES AND PRACTICES DOCKET NO.:
PLACE: WASHINGTON, D. C.
DATE: THURSDAY,' JUNE 26, 1987 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(sigt) M (TYPED)
FRANK TAYLOE Official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS INC.
Reporter's Affiliation, O
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4/18/86 O
NUCLEAR REGULATORY CO!C!!SSION COMMISSICN POLICY STATEMENT ON FITNESS FOR DUTY OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT PERSONNEL AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission ACTION: Final Commission Policy Statement on Fitness for Duty of Nuclear Power Plant Personnel
SUMMARY
- This Statement presents the policy of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with respect to fitness for duty and describes the activities that the NRC will use to execute 4
O its responsibilities to ensure the health and safety of the public. To provide reasonable assurance that all nuclear power plant personnel with acce.ss to vital areas at operating plants are fit for duty, licensees and applicants are developing and implementing fitness for duty programs using guidance i
in the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) EEI Guide to Effective Drug and Alcohol / Fitness for Duty Policy Development." It remains the centinuing responsibility of the NRC to independently i
evaluate applicant development and licensee implementation of fitness for duty programs to ensure that desired results are achieved. Nothing in this Policy Statement limits NRC's authority or responsibility to follow up on operational events
) or its enforcement authority when regulatory requirements -
are not met. However, while evaluating the effectiveness
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2 l
of this guidance, the NRC intends to exercise discretion
(} in enforcement matters related to fitness for duty progrcris for nuclear power plant personnel and refrain from new rulemaking in this area for a period of at least eighteen monchs from the effective date of this Policy Statement.
EFFECTIVE DATE: (Upon publication in the Federal Register)
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Loren Bush, Operating Reactor Programs Branch, Office of Inspection and Enforcement, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555, telephone (301) 492-8080. i SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
SACKGROUND The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recognizes drug and alcohol abuse problems to be a social, =edical, and safety problem affecting every segment of our society. Given the pervasiveness of the problem it must be recognized that it exists to some extent in the nuclear industry. Prudence, therefore, requires that the Commission consider additional appropriate measures to provide reasonable assurance that a person who is under the influence of alcohol or any substance l
legal or illegal which affects his ability to perform his
! (:) -
duties safely, is not allowed access to a vital area at a
> (~>)
nucicor power plent.
The nuclear power industry, with assistance from programs developed and coordinated by EEI and the Institute of Nuclear -
Power Operations (INPO), has made and is continuing to make substantial progress in this area.
A Task Force on Drug Abuse Problems, Policies, and Programs established in 1982 by EZI's Industrial Relations Division Executive Advisory Committee, published guidelines in 1983 to help the industry address the issue of how to establish ccmprehensive fitness for duty programs. They were subsequently revised in 1985 as the "III Guide to Effective Drug and Alcohol /
Fitness for Duty Policy Development" and were provided to all nuclear utilities.
A series of EEI sponsored regional conferences in the fitness for duuy area in 1982 and 1983 provided a forum for discussion of industry concerns related to development and implementation of fitness for duty programs. Topics addressed at the conferences included union participation, legal aspects, training, and i
methods for handling controlled substances. An industrywide conference sponsored by EEI in October 1985 provided the basis for additional discussions on fitness for duty based on the current EEI guidelines which had been expanded to
() include information on chemical testing. As a result of i
l 1
I l
1 increased awareness in this area, the nuclear industry has 4
() worked to fevelop and implement improved fitness for duty programs. These programs concentrate on the training of
=anagers, supervisors, and others in methods for identifying and dealing with personnel potentially unfit for duty. .
On August 5, 1982, the Commission published in the Federal Register a proposed rule on fitness for. duty (47 FR 33980).
The proposed rule would have required licensees to establish and implement written procedures for ensuring that personnel in a nuclear power plant are fit for duty. Due to the initiatives taken by the nuclear industry, the Commission has decided ,
to defer implementation of the rule subject to successful
{) implementation of fitness for duty programs by the industry as described in this Policy Statement. NRC is publishing a separate notice in the Federal Register analyting the comments on the proposed rule, and explaining its intent to reassess the possible need for rulemaking after an 18-month period, if circumstances warrant. The following statement sets forth the Commission's policy on fitness for duty and describes how it will execute its responsibilities in this area to ensure the health and safety of the public.
POLICY STATEMENT l
I The Commission recognises that the industry, through the I
() initiatives of the Nuclear Utility Management and Resources l
l i i 1
1 1
__ . . - m ., .__ . _ _ _ , _ . . . . . . . _ _ _ _ . . _ , . _ _ . , . . _ . . _ _ . . - . _ , , , . . . . _ , _ . _ , _ - . . , _ . . _ . _ , . . , . , , , , , , . . , . _ , . , _ . . . - -
g , .-
Committee (NUMARC), EEI, and INPO, has made progress in developing
() sad laplementing nuclear utility employee fitness fer duty I programs. The Co= mission stresses the importance of industry's
, initiative and wishes to encourage further such self-improvement.
Subject to the continued success of industry's programs and NRC's ability to monitor the effectiveness of those programs, the Commission will refrain from new rulemaking on fitness for duty for a minimum of 18 months from the effective date of this' Policy Statement. The Commission's decision to defer i=plementation of rulemaking in this area is in recognition s of industry efforts to date and the intent of the industry to utilize the EEI Guidelines in developing fitness for duty programs. The Commission will exercise this deference as
)
long as the industry programs produce the desired results.
However, the Commission continues to be responsible for evaluating licensees' efforts in the fitness for duty area to verify effectiveness of the industry programs. The Commission will reassess the possible need for further NRC action based on the success of those programs during the 18-month' period.
At the Commission's request, the industry agreed to undertake j a review of the program elements and acceptance criteria i
for a fitness for duty program. EEI modified and issued the revised "EEI Guide to Effective Drug and Alcohol / Fitness l for Duty Policy Development." Further, INPO enhanced its l
() perfor=ance objectives and criteria for its periodic l
- 1 i .
l l
l
=
l l
evaluations to include appropriate criteria for fitness for
) duty. Copies of the doeunents cescribing the program elements and criteria for fitness for duty programs developed by the industry are provided to NRC for review and comment. )
l 1
The NRC will evaluate the effectiveness of utility fitness i l
for duty programs by its normal review of industry activities, l 1
through reviews of INPO prog' ram status and evaluation reports, periodic NRC observation of INPO evaluations, and direct inspections conducted by the NRC's Performance Appraisal Teams, Regional Office, and Resident Inspectors. NRC will i i
, also monitor the progress of individual licensee programs.
() By way of further guidance to licensees, Commission expectations of licensee programs for fitness for duty of nuclear power plant personnel may be summarized as follows:
i o It is Commission policy that the sale, use, or i
possession of illegal drugs or alcohol within protected )
areas at nuclear plant sites is unacceptable.
l l
o It is Commission policy that persons within protected areas at nuclear power plant sites shall not be under the influence of any substance, legal or
'l illegal, which adversely affects their ability I
, to perform their duties in any way related to safety. '
l
. o An acceptable fitness for duty program should at
{} n minimum include the following essential elements:
- 1) A provision that the sale, use, or possession of illegal drugs within the protected
. area will result in immediate revocation 4
of access to vital areas and discharge from nuclear power plant activities.
The use of alcohol or abuse of legal' drugs within the protected area will result in immediate revocation of access i to vital areas and possible discharge from nuclear power plant activities.
() 2) A provision that any other sale, possession, or use of illegal. drugs will result in immediate revocation of access to vital areas, mandatory rehabilitation prior to reinstatement of access, and possible discharge from nuclear power plant activities.
- 3) Effective monitoring and testing procedures l
to provide reasonable assurance that i
, nuclear power plant personnel with access J l to vital areas are fit for duty.
) -
I I..-_.- . __
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. _a_
i The industry, by periodic briefings or other appropriate
(} methods, is expected to keep the Commission informed on program status. The NRC may also from time to time ask individual licensees to provide such information as the Commission may need to assess program adequacy. .
, ENFORCEMENT violations of any applicable reporting requirement or instances of a person being unfit for duty such that plant safety is i
potentially affected will be subject to the enforcement process.
Any NRC staff enforcement action pertaining to fitness for duty during this grace period will be undertaken only with.
Commission concurrence. .
In addition to required reports and inspections, information requests under 10 CFR 50.54(f) may be made and enforcement meetings held to ensure understanding of corrective actions.
Orders may be issued where necessary to achieve corrective i
actions on matters affecting plant safety.
In brief, the NRC's decision to use discretion in enforcement in order to recognize industry initiatives in no way changes I
the NRC's ability to issue orders, call enforcement meetings, I
or suspend licensees should a significant safety problem l be found.
<:) -
i l
___.__r.______..__ . , _ _ _ _ . , , . . _. . , , - _ _ _ _ _ _ , . . _ _ _ , , _ , , _ _ _ , , _ _ . _ _ . _ _ , , . . , . , _ - _ _ _ , _ , _ , _ _ . - _ . _ _ _ _ _ , , _ _ , _ _ , . _ _ , . _ _ . _
9-Nothing in this Policy Statement shall limit the authority of the imC to conduct inspections as deemed necessary to take appropriate enforcement action when regulatory requirements are not met.
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