ML20215F234

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Transcript of 850821 Investigative Interview of Lf Fikar in Arlington,Tx.Pp 1-37
ML20215F234
Person / Time
Site: Comanche Peak  Luminant icon.png
Issue date: 08/21/1985
From:
NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI)
To:
Shared Package
ML20214X072 List:
References
NUDOCS 8610160129
Download: ML20215F234 (38)
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{{#Wiki_filter:, . :.... a n:.. :. =. , 2i.: *:::.. c.:~: M. M 1 .';.1 4-85-008 I BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION 4 .i

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m. A 7 ...s } g INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW I OF 1 10 L. F. FIEAR 11 12 13 e? .m e

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t. .y' y 14 16 INVESTIGATOR: Brooks Griffin-o 611 Ryan Plaza Drive Suite 1000 Arlington, Texas 18 .g }'1 19 ~

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?* i L t, 21 's ! 8610160129 860922 s 22 PDR ADOCK 05000445 A PDR 23 I 24 REPORTER: Cynthia Clay 3 Date: August 21, 1985 i i i EZHIBIT 24 ?I w

.~ _?.. :?.... :.:.. .... _ _. 2. &... :. ::. .... = - _.,, g Ghg 2 N-1 4 _P.R _O _C _E _E.D.I.N _G.S 2 MR. GRIFFIN; For the record, this is an l'

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3 interview of Iouis Fikar, F-i-ks-r, who is a retired 4 Executive Vice-President for TUGCO. j 5 .y The location of this interview is Fort Worth,

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e Texas. The date is August 21, 1985, at 10:12 a.m. 7 Present at this interview are Iouis Fikar s. and.his personal representative, Mr. William David, of 9 Cantey, Banger, Gooch, Munn & Collins. 10 Also on behalf of the NRC, myself, H. Brooks i 11 Griffin. t This interview is being transcribed by a 12 'j 13 court reporter. 4 - - 14. Mr. Fiker, I need you to rise, raise your 15 right hand. I want to swear you to the' contents of your is testimony. t 17 Whereupon, {.g LOUIS F. FIKAR, 1s t..: j is having first been duly sworn to tell.the truth, the whole j'i ao truth and nothing but the truth, testified on his oath as 21 follows: . J 22 EXAMINATION 23 BY MR. GRIFFIN: i - t 24 4 Before I actually start the interview, I want to ask you a few questions about your personal represent. 25 tive. J i i t

......:a.L a.,:ru a L s :. d w w m. !. ..... L.........., ~ ; _ '..7.^.: ^ T ~. O 73 1 s. 3' . d. ~ t 1 You h4ye retained Mr. David for the purposes 2 of this interview; is that correct? 3 A. That's correct. 4 g Okay. t 9 i i., 5 MR,. GRIFFIN: Mr. David, do you represent M d e

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any of.the Utilities personnel, or any parties related to 7 the Utility other than Mr. Fikar? 8 Or does your law firm-3 s1 9 MR., DAVID: Our law firm represents Texas 10 Electric Service Company. 11 MR. GRIFFIN: Are you personally involved in l 12 any of the duties related to that? -i .4 13 MR. DAVID: On occasion. 2 '2 \\ 'i

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.? N'han we're called on, that's what we...,. 14 15 MR. GRIFFIN: All right. 16 MR. DAVID: We've been representing them .] 17 for 50 years--however long they've been in existence. ) 1s MR. GRIFFIN: All right. y. .' 'j 19 Mr. Fikar, when you are interviewed by the q 20 NRC, you do have the right to a personal representative. It 'Q %AD 21 ..) can be, you know, a friend or relative, or an attorney. In-ir 22 this case, is Mr. David'your personal representative? 23 THE WITNESS: I presume that's correct. .t 24 MR. GRIFFIN: Okay. He's your choice, in 3 25 other words. t .i e l r. (.-

... _.. _. ~ e. .-~=-~a-~"~~~~"..."...". * ~ ". ". " ' ' ' .... _ ~ * .vti .: 3.. 4 1 THE WITNESS: Yes, he's my choice. 2 T MR. GRIEF 1N: I just wanted to make sure it ) 3 9 was your idea, your choice. 4 ~ l THE WITNESS: Yes. He's also my friend, ) 8 by the way. 'I. s MR. GRIFFIN: Okay. Good. 7 BY MR. GRIFFIN: i ' ^ 8 3' O Mr. Fikar, were you interviewed as--

Well, 8

first of all, let me,get your.... When did you f rst join I 10 TUGCO or Texas Utilities? 11 A In 1952. l-te. 12 0. In what capacity? ~

i 13 A

Student engineer. 'I-14 ,4 .When did you assume the posit 5on of executive 15 vice-president? O 15 A I became executive vice-president, I think, hi 17 in 1978, and at that time it was TUSI. ...i'l 18 G TUSI, okal pS . I 18 Was that when you assumed the duties of-- 4 .i 20 in Licensing? j. 21 A No, I had had those prior to that. 22 g When did those-23 A That started in the fall of '76. l-24 G All right. 25 Could you briefly describe your duties as ii 5 t 3 t d

.m a.uawam-d , y_ ..............r...... ...........v.x:...... ....:..... y....:. > ..I, ~ t. 5 e g S .s?. I the head--I believe you were the. head of Licensing,.were 2 you not? 3 A Among other things, yes. 4 0 okay. s. d 5 Licensing was'in my area of responsibility. A .odi . s. g What were your duties related to licensing? - 7 A-Well, everything in regard to licensing, .5 .7) 8- _ response to.the hearings, providing information, resp 5nding e to interrogatories or whatever; the whole licensing effort. to I didn't have'it completely. Part of tat 11 related to operations. I didn't personally hire the Law i e ?- 12 firms and stuff like that, t9. 13 0 okay. v w:1 u

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14 A, Generally the responsibility was to see a 15 that the licensing process went through efficiently. Is g All right. ,3 ii 17 Appro:icimately how many utility employees t 4' is g were in the licensing section in, say, '787 Just an '5 is approximate number. .i j 20 A The licensing. group in '78, I would say there i '.] j 21 were six or eight. .! 1 22 O Do you remember the names of them? 23 A I can name some of them. 24 Okay. W 25 A ja Homer Schmidt, John Marshall, Richard Werner; l$ a

4 ..... ~.. -..... M - > - - ~. Q '.p! 6 1 several others. I just can't thlink-2 O Okay, I can recover- % ose. g .) 3 You said you, besides licensing, you also 7; 4 had other duties. Were you manager over other d3. visions ~,4 5 .j of the Utility? }

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A Yes. e.. 9 What were those divisions? 7 8 i q A .I was responsible for design and construction 9 of.all the power plants in the system, lignite plants and 4 10 the nuclear plant, combined. _ j. 11 g All right-J,q: I 12 A I also had the responsibility for system 4[, 13 planning. I had responsibility for leasing of lignite is; resources, land management, purchasing. At one point I 14' ~ -2 1 ~ 15 had research and development. A lot of other duties p 16 besides the Comanche Peak. i.1 . ',{ 17 0 Sounds like it. With all those duties, how sf j.'y 18 much' actual attention were you able to pay to licensing as p..

'd 18 it related to individual requests for information, like

] 1 the one we're going to discuss today, the Intervenor's 5 20 ,,J ((.y 21 request? .e 9 22 A Licens,ing itself, probably not very much, i9 With all the duties I had, as I recall, I maybe (back in 23 24 that time frame) spent 20 to 30 percent of my time on 25 Comanche Peak all together. Most of that was related to ~" i n

c ' ^^ ^- 'M d.' 7 1 eng.ineering, design, construction,iin the field.' Licensing i itself was maybe a third or less of..that. effort. 2 3 G All right. 4 Did you rely pretty heavily, then, on the 4 5 <j individuals that you named that were subordinate to you

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in the Iicensing group? R 7 L very definitely. .8 -O Lou, in 1978, Perry Britton entered intio a ..:..) 2 contract, I believe, with the Management Analysis Company 10 ofI.hJolla, California, to perform a review of implemer,tation 11 of the QA program at Comanche Peak. Is that your under-4 12 standing? I .n ,i c;. 13 L That's right. ,:4 - (h s g e..l ! i i W 14 0 Did you have occasion to meet with the MAC 15 representatives? t

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Oh, yes. ((: 17 g would you recognize them if you saw them-- f g 18 L Oh, yes. j 19 0 -like Jackson and Mr. Norris? ~

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John Jackson, and I knew Ron Stinson, the na' u '. l l} President, very well, even in prior times. 21 3e 22 4 Then there was a fellow named Jack Norris. \\ ?; 23 Right. [? 24 A And there may have been others, but those .i 25 are the only ones I can recall. I think John Jackson I s ^ l '. t g ) 1 I __ -, = - -

>v ... q .: s --. - - @3 12 if. headed up their QA function. i 3. 2 4 When the Utility retained NAC's services j in '78 for the purposes of QA review, were you interviewed 3

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as part of the-- 5 L Yes. A 3, s- .S. Do you recall what areas of information they-- Ni '5g,. 7 you were able to provide them? i.4:. e i .A I have a. general recollection of being interviewed, but I don't know the specifics, 3 e h; 10 B Okay. ,,) it What was your understanding, or what is your J 12 understanding todayd I'm trying to job yo'ur memory back 13, to;78. , hat was your understanding of the purg se of that. k: W 14 review in '787 gs 15 L We wanted to have an outside look at what we ,1 is were doing. We thought we were doing a good job, you know. We wanted to have another outsider come look at us and 17 J. make sure that our +hinking.is correct, have another look .3 is c p is at us from another point of view, see if we were living up 6l t, 20 to our commitments. .4 g 21 l., - That's essentially it. e [- 22 S commitments; can you expand on that? What

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~ l-23 commitments? 24 A commitments to Appendix B, among other things. l 25 4 okay. Y N.3 i I

7 m - w .ea.- s a. ca.v..m. -. A f.. .1 9 9. 1 I 1 Prior tb the f!AC review, do you know if' 3 ~ ', 2 the Utility, or to your knowledge, if the Utility had any \\ 3 third-party. reviews of the implementation to the-QA program? '3 4 A Not that I recall.

d I wasn't in at the very

,3 5 beginning of the Comanche Peak Project so there may have 9 ,1j been some, butonot to my knowledge. s -Y 7 ..4 How about subsequent to this MAC review? s Were there any others that you recall? .t I 9 A Yeah. I. remember-- Yes, there were,e lot 10 of things and I think generally the same kind of thi l ng. 11 And we also had Sargent and Lundy; we asked i 12 them to come in here a few years ago to look at all aspects i 13 (T.\\ of Crunanche Peak and they looked at the QA side. ~ ~ 1 v. .e 14 j, I don't recall any others. 15 0 Okay. '16 As part of your duties over Licensing, did g 17 you have oversight of third-party reviews of the implementa- . y is . tion of QA for, say, like Brown & Root or any of the sub- .s 19 contractors? ~ ~j '20 A. I had no responsibility for QA at all, at all. z:- -,1 <l We had it bifurcated where QA responsibility went up thiough 21 <a .j Gary to Perry Britton and i had construction design. 22 ~ 23 G So if you had a request for QA information, did you formalize that by just sending it to the QA Depart-24 25 ment and den they responded to you, or to your Licensing 9 i e --,,-_e

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$j 10 id I 1 ,;roup? i 7 2 A I don't recall any of those kinds of requests ) 3 but that's the way it would have been, yes. ,] okay. 4 l.), 5 I'm following your statement here that you tu a prepared, dated August 7, 1985. 6 l. 7 A Tes. ,i. s i g. According to your testimony as contained 9 in this affidavit, you attended pre-and post-audit with i f, to the MAC representatives when they conduct:ed their review. / 11 A That's correct. i _g 12 4 In the post-audit meeting, do you have a 9 q. 13 recollection of scene of the findings that MAC had as a V. ':, 14 result of the review? -? 15 _ A I have vague recollections. I remember there was something about storage of pipe, and there was to 8 j 17 something about how we were doing our radiographic business. .g 18 I was, of course, mainly interested in the engineering-(] 29 construction side of that effort, but other than tha't I-- 7[ 20 aside front reading a report, nothing-I don't remember 21 anything-- 22 g 'Okay, I'm trying to jog your memory again. 23 How would you characterize this MAC Report? Would you say it was favorable, unfavorable? 24 25 A I thought it was very favorable, you know, 1 g.. .f

c _---=v-~.. ^ ^ = ^ M"=&=" a H 11. .] they had some.Iindings, 'we accepted,some of them, acted ~ t 1 2 on them. I thought it was a good report. 3 4 Did you also reject some? 4 4 A Yes. '.i We didn't agree with everything, ,y 5 obviously. c' [M e .:t S All right. e:i .[. When I began my investigation I was provided, 7 ,'j withcopiesofaninternalresponsethat'theUtilit)made, 8 8 item by item response to the MAC findings. 10 A Yes. 11 s., 4 Were you involved in the formulation:of this 'g response? 12 i Or did you have any input into this response? .G E 13 "I.gh L I probably did. I don't know the specifics. .i D' l' I'm sure in,some of the areas, especially in the eng,ineering' ~' 15 constru'ction side, I'm sure I had to,get with Joe George or' 16 John Merritt, some of the engizieering people, or maybe some i of the licensing people to say, you know, we agree with this 17 18 .y l response. .1, el7 18 ti I was one of the signatories to that document l 20 in front of you, if I recall. ? i 4 l; 9 21 4 So you had input?

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But I didn't write the document, obviously. 23 0 Okay. 24 After MAC completed their review and after 25 the post-audit meeting at some point in time in '78, they i l 1 t-n t 'I -' gg g. g g %e. .w Ei .mm - e

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.v -w-wr -- ~ d ,e.,. .T.. 12 .also, i believe,i presented the written reporty their 1-2 written report, to some corporate managers in Dall'as. Were .) 3 you one of those managers? ~ t 4 A Yes. Gary, Britton and myself got the ^ .,;1 5 report. f4 6 g All right. ..;_7 Did the MAc representatives discuss their ifindings with you at that time also? s / t. 9 A I.believe so. I think we had a meeting and to generally talked about what was in it. 11 O During the meeting did you or Britton or s I 12 Gary respond to their findings? .. 13 A - I don't know the specifics. We discussed q s.- 14 them, but I don't - '..t 15 G Do you remember disagreeing with their b 1 L to findings or vocalizing or verbalizing your disagreement 'J 17 with any of the findings? u, 18 A I can't recall specifically. 4; l.. ..? 19 G Oksy. ..4 20 Subsequent to this report, did Texas Utilities i '.'. 21 have any other contracts for any types of review with MAc-i ".;! [- 22 over the years since then? (i~ 23 A Oh, yes. e, 24 4 In what areas? 25 A I used them about a year or. two later on an l ,. '.,~ 6 l ; 1 3

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1 r3..... organizational.atructu,re;,really,iI was looking at a construction engineering site of our fossil plants. We 2' U-3 may have used them a time or two since then. I don't ,I 4 recall. 1

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Do you have any recollection of.using them .5 3 ~i

  • 8 for anything involving Nuclear?

e; <-.n - 7 . A..- No. I'm pretty smre we never used them c .? a for anything in Nuclear. 3 4, 8 .9 .. Was there any reason for that or just worked 10 out that wayi

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11 'A It just worked out that way. I havs high 12 l .j, r,egard for the contpany. ~ [3! 13 ~ ,m 9 Okay. (C'M.yM

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N Lou, in 1980, the Intervenor, CASE, made i

15 a request through the Licensing Board for a whole variety 5. Is of info.mation from the Utility in many areas, I think Item }f 1? _10,of their specific-of their request involved QA,.and 18 )'{.! it's my understanding that the Licensing section responded ,a I)2 18 to this request by calling on the various divisions or, ... g 1

g 20 in this case, the QA group of the Utility.to do a review
j 21 of files.and everything to determine what was producible

. s,t 22 under Item 10. Do you have that same understanding? n 23 A I think so. ' Generally they broke up the-- 24 QA, you handle this; Construction, you do this one, and 25 they kind of managed, organizing the information to send back, ~j s t s s)

',,w.*'.-.>,n-. l ,* n ~ n.w, & a n.-~.s .,v w hw & w:&-mu1 -w : :n wm h g; ?d. 14 i .V-1 g Fdr'this particular response, this response \\ 2 to the Intervenor's request, who in Licensing was responsibir 7, ') 3 for assembling or identifying the documents; do you know? 4 A I would think it would be Homer Schmidt, 5 .'.".h .because it's.his area, and he'was our Licensing manager at 5 e that time. , 5 7 4 Okay. 8 At what point did you become inv'olved in 9 detsrmining what was producible under the Intervenor's l 10 request? ( 11 1 A I, generally didn't get involved in that-in l I N' 12 a general w'ay. If somebody asked me 'a question, if they-- ,f,- 13 . I'd respond to it, bat I wasnt responsible in getting 7% + y,; 14 ,. the -answers. I didn't even, Eat a copy of the request. - a: a * ' Leaving it to those folks who were more involved in Licensing l 15 L p. 4 16 to do that, relying on them.

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l'{ 17 0 When the Licensing section was trying to _a .3 1s determine what was going to be produced, at some point, LJ f.IJ 19 obviously, you,got involved as related to the MAC Report. 1: c.,1 ~ l 20 Did somebody approach you and ask you about ,i ~ that report, or did somebody come to you for an opinion, p 21 6 22 or how did that come about? 23 A My general recollection is that's what >= 24 happened. Somebody said "should we produce this document," ~ 25 but I don't even know who it was. I read now in depositions E y l h. l1 I t l t a l g. k .k

cc.. v-i%___._- ~_ __- _ _ -- - A u-' ~ 'y 15 n,i 1 that' it was apparently John Marshall. I would have thought 5 2 it was Homer or somebody. 3 S But in your own mind you don't have a clear 4 recollection of who it would have been? rt .ti 5 A Not real clear. .d a Qi e ..J - 0,_ Based on what you've told me so,far today, '1 7 ,..p. . Lo.u.., it sounds as though this was an unusual item. In '~.,,(,. 8 .other words_, they were handling all this, but as related E' 'i 8 to the,MAC Report they saw you as the decision maker, or ^ .~ the final. decision maker as to whether this particular 10 11 report was producible. Do you know why that is? 12 A 9 Iguessbecausetheythoughttheyneeded m jj 13 ~

4 sh some help; they needed to ask me "should we do this," and t.g.

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15 4 And,what was the basis for your belief that 16 this particular report was not producible? 4 17 A Well, all three, Perry Dri.tton, Gary and

h 18 myself, all considered this a private, privileged document.

g 1s , We didn't distribute it around the organisation, and it ..e 20 was just done for ourselves for a management review of .4 21 how the QA and the organisation was working. That's all it 9 22 was intended for. 23 g Well, when you--you said earlier, I believe, 24 that part of the contract, the original intent of the 25 contract, was to determine whether there was adherence to 's ,i 8 3 3 k a .--w. -m_.___--=_m w.. man % w._.

} 'y} 16 d Appendix B; is thAt correct'/ [< 2 A I said that, yes. 3 S And-- ,j 4 A Not only Appendix B. Just that we were doing .( -ig 5 with our QA program what we wanted to do..Somewhat broader - l1 $z e than just legal request.

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O All right. y.' . s I think you can see, Lou, or you're probably .J .already aware that th,e whole focus of the NRC's and the 9 to ASLB's inquiry into tt21s issue had to do with your decision; 11 it really focuses.on that. ~ So for! purposes of this interview I need to 12 ..} , is ccme.away with a very clear understanding of all the ,a i ..c.... factors that you used in unicing your decision and all the

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14 ~ i input that you had prior to making that decision. 15 16 A I understand. I 17 O Now the-you say you were also involved O ta in, to some degree or other, in the response to the MAC s ..j Ig Report in '78. $ i f 20 A Yes. 9 21 S And I have read that response and certain l 22 parts of it, looking at it through the eyes of 1985, you ~: a { know, looking over the historical perspective on some of 23 24 the areas of concern that the NRC has had. 2s one of the findings--let me read it to you. j, L. h L m____

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+- 1 A Okay. 2 G I think it's No. 2 on the response. This 3 is the internal.TUGCO response. And this is TUGCO~'.s i 4 summarization of the MAC findings. It says: 7J s c. "The current practice of after-the-fact . ~,

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design change reviews provide significant risks of error .. ) f, 7 and,is in non-contpliance with 10 CFR 50, Appendix B." Do you have any recollection of that area .p. e of-- . Io A I do have a recollection, now that you read 11 it. We didn't agree with it. 12 .S Right.- 13 The response here, it says, "We disagree on 3 v.* .i d er 14 both ' counts. 15 Was that your feeling at the ' time? I'm, 'O 18 asking you to remember back. ~ j 17 A Yes. S You thought that was--you thought that the Is [j .ie niethod being used at Comianche Peak related design change s }

20 was in compliance with Appendix B7 Iilj 21 A

Yes, and in the contpany's best int'arest also. 22 S Okay. 23 A More efficient. s 24 g Is that still your belief? ..J. 25 A Yes. ~ ' l i 1 e

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5! is t d 1 S An6ther part of their response--I think it's No. 7, and this is TUGCO's summary again, just a one-S- 2 5 3 sentence summary of the findings. It says, "We are using 4 the design change program to bypass the nonconformance tj 5 system." s ( ;i... a Do you reicall that issue as par't of their . g.y 7 report, or discussing that? l.: 8 L I don 5t-I really don.t. L,6 9 .-. The use,of design change versus NCR's type-- 10 L Except for maybe having read it, I wasn't l.' L 11 really involved in tlat. i 12 O Oh, you were not? 13 L No. g w 14 S Okay. 15 The response in this case, by the way, itas, 4 16 "This is not true. If construction identifies and corrects 1.:: t,; 17 a defect or obtains an approved engineering change prior + k.!. Is to QC inspection, no NCR is required." ~ .T'. p. 19 ? Do y'ou have an opinion on that? 20 A I would agree with that. ji 21 9 Okay. 2r, 22 Going back to what we were talking about i z 1 23 earlier about your decision on the MAC Report, whether it 24 j should be included, do you remember--although you do not 25 remember who it was, you remember somebody from the 1 '4 i I y i

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M,{ 19 1 I,icensingGroupapproachedyouaboutwhetherb.tshouldbe 2 included. Did you take any steps to request information 3 3 from anybody,,get anybody else's opinion, or to look at 9 4 any documents or review any material or anythin'g prior to .1 [J.l 5 mairing your decision that it was not producible? a ) 8 L I don't recall it-I don't recall talking 7 to anybody about it. 8 ,S,,, Was the basis of your decision the belief 8 that.this contract had been let just for a management tool 10 for you and Mr. Britton and Mr. Gary? 11 ~ A That's precisely what it was, yes. 12 O Okay. 11 A There wasn't a'nything wrong with the report.. Df 14 9 We,just thought it was our own. internal business; we [.! l' 15 didrf't distribute it. We didn't.even get it out to the 1e employees, I don't believe. j 17 9 Okay. 18 / Going to the Intervenor's request. did you .-} 18 over have occasion to read the Intervanor's request in ,f 3 J 20 1980, particularly Item 10, as it related to the request? t 21 A I have-a recollection that I did. And I [! 22 said s is not responsive to that question. A judgment 23 call. 24 g so when you made that decision you were 25 g aware of what the Intervenor requested and you were aware 8 ? s k )

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...Ai.--- - _ 'M rt ?e'y.. 20 of the history of'the MAC r,eport and the implications of 1 2 its involvement in QA- ., i 3 A .) Yes, I knew what'.the report was, an' d I said this doesn't apply. 4 s 5 9 So that's how you would characterise it, a 24 ~l] s judgment call on your part. ).- 3,, 7 A Yes; absolutely. I,; a O All right, e. .s A No big deal; just doesn't apply. 10 0 And no

t body guided this decision for you?

It li was purely your decioion? 12 A Absolutely. I @, r; ., 13 S In your affidavit that I'm following here ~ ,,.i. o . w.g 'y of August.7, 1985, there's a sentence on the second page 14 a

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which says*, "It was not an audit in the usual sense of that - 15 t,.. g": word and certainly did not constitute the type of audit that r 16 would be useful in satisfying NRC requirements to audit 17 y 1s a Quality Assurance program." ); is Lou, dould you tell me in what way you V b. believe that this particular review would not fall into the 20 m L 21 category of an adequate QA review? da i /'{ 22 A I'm not all that expert in QA audits. Don't 23 misunderstand me..I looked at this as just a review of what 24 we were doing, regardless of what you call it. And it's not a mandated precise QA type audit with all the usual 25 1 l i L (

g.<,_. .:.-~_... cu . $h. 3 3 ,,y paper work and recgrds and all that. 3 tuff, I 'didn ' t see 1t' ~ 2 2 that way, and it wasn't that way, in my opinion. i It was + 3 - just a review for our J5anagement about What we were doing and ..i what suggestions they might have about what we could change 4 '.d 5 or not change. .:1 ^ i f.,. a S But,' going back to the--I'm going to be a ?;

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,:i, 7 little argumentative w,ith you for a minute. a (,4, s A Sure. 9 _,;0,, Going back to the responJa, the internal t ' 10 response,.part of the findings were fairly precise in that they said, "We do not believe you..." at least in one 11 =% V., 12 instance here and as far as design change, "You're not ,,1 l 13 ' in compliance with Appendix B." That's fairly strong. f.$ (.3 ,$,.. b :- . They made.a: strong finding there from a regulatory standpoint, 14 i1 l l 1s anyway. .e Is A Yes.

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1r And if, you know, from a management standpoint, s.. from your standpoint at that time, if somebody says that is A .j is you're not complying with Appendix B, did you d,iscount if d so their finding? 3.g ' 21 A No, no. We just didn't agree with it. t.g l 22 They're consultants, but they're human just like anybody 23 else. We said they're wrongs We're living up to Appendix B. 24 We don't agree with that opinion of theirs. They're just .n 25 people, too. J

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Okay, 2

Certainly Appendix B is generally written-- e 3 ,j And obviously, Perry Britton and Gary and A 4 I all agreed that they were wrong. 8 g Okay. So it was a concensus of opinion on 4g a uhat particularrr..

  • A.

W 7 A Absolutely. ~ .,) s S 6kay.I 8 A A conpitant, you know, is a guy away from 10 homecarryingabrieh I'm going to be one myself one case. ~ 11 day. I 12 c.,. S Right., 13 .pj Did you--when you decided not to include gg,a ! 1.'. the.MAC Report when you were asked about this by one of - 14 W is the Licensing members, did the fact that it was critical to in some areas have any bearing on your decision not to 17 include it? [3 ts A Not at all; it's a generally favorable report. 18 g Also, in your affidavit, you say that since f';, 20 '78, since you all received the MAC Report, it generally l 21 had remained confidential within the Utility. h Was it confidential in that it stayed with just you and Mr. Gary 1 P 22 23 and Mr. Britton or was it--had it been subsequently given 24 to other departments? 25 5.. t A It was confidential, I think, in that we three d ' l I n h. b a __m__.__.______...._._

~ v- -"~ f**.) - -. ~ 1,j 5. were the only ones that had a copy of the report. Other'peop]e I knew about it, n ew about the findings and made some changes. 2 ( 3 It was no big secret. .We knew..we'd made the..... We just f M didn't give the specifics of the report out. 4 .h 5 B Okay. '*1 JJ 1ll 6 A That's what I was trying to say, d 7 Okay. q. 55 8 Ever since I began my investigation I've -f At'l s talked with a lot of the people that were in the chain of ~ command below you and--or in other divisions of the Utilitiy, to and I've,gotten some pretty strong cpinions from some very ~ it N 12 '.9 responsible people that they believed in,1980 that this ,~ report was producible, people like Chapman and Tolson and, r 13 y;..@ . f.f)' 14 I think maybe, even Mr. Marshall. 15 Did. you fictor in or were you aware of any of .i these people's opinions on this subject prior to mak @ 18 .'.8 17 your decision? 4 y ta A .3 They didn't talk to me about it; absolutely not,asidetromMarshallsaying, "Is this discoverable?" pp 1e [j2 20 and I said no. That was the and of it as far as I was .3 ff 21 concerned. 4 .1 22 S After making your decision did you ever have e occasion to--or did you ever have any discussions with 23 anybody about that decision as to whether it was a valid 24 );' 25 decision? Did you all reconsider or-- ? 3 1

    • .s s

t._._.__.. --3_._- -p '. i }.5

1

.W ~ 1 A To my knowledge, after that. day, I never 2 even thought about it anymore, 3 S Nobody ever approached you and said', "I think 4 you made a wrong decision; I think if I go testify in the u ~j. 5 hearings I'm going to have to tell them about that"? ', j 'e a A Not until May of this year. 7 B Okay. 8 .c Lou, da the Licensing section wa.c formulating 8 its response to the Intervanor's request in 1980, were you f 10 consulted or do you s'ecall being consulted about any other-- It whether any other documents should be included? I 12 A .I',ve zio recollection of any. J; 13 -0 Were you involved years later when--I think 4:. y ;-. 14 it was.in '82 or somgthing like that-when the Lobbin 15 Report was produced? Were you involved in the decision to 18 make that available to the Board and the parties? 17 A No, I wasn't. 18 O Okay. ] to A Except, you know, indirectly I heard about it. 20 O You were still in supervision above the i 21 Licensing Group which would have mado that decision? 22 .A The other vice-president worried about it-- 23 the other org.hi.zation. 24 0 Oh, that's right. Mr. Clements took over 25 a short time after-- s 4 i 4 y ~, (

........-. u -- =- l L- '- ~ ' ' ' ~ ^ ~ ~ ~ ' ' ~ ~ " .b s} ? h .. y 'j-A Clements never did work for me, but I had 2 another vice-president between me and Licensing at that time t 3 also, Joe Georga. M 4 l} G Okay. s .j A short time after the response to the 29 T.a s

I Intervenor's request was made, I think Mr. Clements did N

7 'y* assume managerial authority over QA; is that correct?' 3 8 L _. He did same-I don't know the time reference - 9 I know that he became head of the QA function, i 'O G Okay. At that same time.you were still over

f Licensing; is that right?

?. .f 12 A _Well, sort of. You know,.I had some people-4 '3

l t,,h 0

Between you. I understand. .] 2- . L In fact, I had a vice-president between me '5 Q and him. e 16 0 What was his name? g: '): { 'I L Joe George. I'm not sure of the time frames. 3 G Joe wasn't involved at the time that you ir 3M 19 pv made the decision about the MAC Report; he wasn't involved 20 .in this process, was he? 21 j A I remember talking to him about some of g: [1 his findings. 22 E 23 G Oh. So he was already the VP under-- ). 24 A Well, I'm not sure; it was about that same 7 25 time frame. We made Joe a vice-president of project k. e ? I j. i

  • 3,

..j! ll -4' t i management and he took-oyer all responsibility for K I 2 Comanche Peak. '3

)B p

So I'm not sure of the--it was aboilt that 3 4 same time frame. About the same time Clements took over.

l 5

I've forgotten. ~de can look that up. ..c 3 6 B That's okay. ? 7 Do you have any recollections of'whether George was involved;in any way with your decision to y withhold or to not produce the MAC Report on this occasion? s Oh, E don't think he was involved in that to A i, at all. Not in any; manner. . Lou,! n 1985, when did you first hear about 12 0 i the question of the,MAC Report issue? Do you recall? ~' 13 i s f:/ ., 14 A In May or so; Bob Wooldridge came to see me.; e ~ 15 0, That was the first time this issue reappeared? 16 A I believe that's right. ' 17 G You were--it's my understanding you :were ' i on a senior review committee as related to the prudency is m-} j is audit? o 20 A Yes, and Bob was in that, too. That's 21 what I'm.... We were, I forgot what they call it-as far 1-L,i n as prudency, yes. = r L,' 23 g And when this report was found--do you know l 24 who found it, by the way? J.T 25 A No. I know since then. I didn't know at the j 7 i I p

_. 1 -a. a -. -r. T-.? '- -- - 2^ ,;51 3;. '9 .b 1 time. .-n 2 O

Okay,

~,., t s A I knew it was somebody in Romer Schmidt's l '?j organization who was responsible for looking for documents 4 I4

al 5

for prudency. '2h) e S I understand from your affidavit you also

.4 19
D had a copy of the MAC Report?

7 ,1 s A Yes. ~ 3.y e. B At the time that the issue was raised again? - 10 A Yes. .it ii .O What did you do with your copy? ] 12 1 I gave it to Bob Wooldridge. .1.1 13 S A And you were interviewed by Wooldridge as 4 1g'c' 14 part of his internal investigation? ~~ v. 's A That's right. I m ').j 16 S Bave you read his response to the NRC and '1 .[j 17 the ASLB as to why it was not produced? s.- lh is A Yes. ?y - 13 S And in there he indicates that the decision 20 was yours and that--and he also gave your belief that it tf. was part of the--it was an internal document for the use 21 9 ,4 22 of the manag'er's-limited number of managers. (1 9 A res. 24 g Would you say that his characterization of '1 A. 25 your testimony as contained in his response to the ASLB d kn '[ t-

,,. l.. a, ^ .L ---- A - I.ge.+

t ~~n~.: =w a-w-ew ~ ww ~ mms-" %%~MD'** *.

...n, i.3, 25 1 .is accurate? 2 A. I think I agreed with it at the time, but i e' 3 I don't have the document. 4 .4 Okay, let me read part of it, then, and i.'

]

5 I want to make sure you ag.ree'with all parts. s On.the second page of his response, I'll ~~.} 7 start, "At the direction of Mr. Spence, TUGCO president,- y. h a. I interviewed a number of company employees in order to }' 9 determine why the report was not produced in 1980 in n 10 response to CASE's first discovery request. Those interviews indicated that the TUSI officer then responsible for 11 I 12 licensing, Mr. Fikar, made the decision in 1980 that the ' 5, 13 report was proprietary and sh.ould not be produced." 14 Is that your-15 A I agree with that. 9 16 0 --your characterization?

i 17 A

Yes. 3 18 O In whdt sense do you believe it's proprietary 7' 'e h 19 A I think I said I thought it was just for 'i / 20 our.own purposes; it was not in the files. It was not made \\, 21 to be a public document. It was just for our own use and .. ~

  • 22 benefit.

And that's the purpose, that's why we made it. .a. 23 0 . To go on, then, "Mr. Fikar stated that it 24 was his view that the report was prepared solely for a 7. 25 few members of company management and was confidential." j h 4 s j 6 6

...g.... ..~: u.... .;-.i.......-, .,.- ~ X --- ~ ~~ l} - Oi '..) 1 A I agree with that. ~ S And'y u treated it as confidenslal from the -{ 2 3 time that you received the written report? 4 A Yes. o 'i 5 i S Okay. '1 e "Mr. Fikar.further st'ated that he thus ?, d ? .. believed'that his decision not.to produce.the report was 3-s

  • j justifimd."

8 A I did. I still do. 10 0 Still do? 11 A I still do. .i. 12 3 okay.

[

'l 13

  • No advice of counsel was obtained at the f

.[$. Mi' -T 14 - time regarding discoverability of the report."

s

'.h,. Is Is that correct? y . J. Is A That's correct. .{l

il 17 0

You didn't talk to any people in Nick n.- ]h 1s Reynolds' firm or anything like that? - ie x

  • h -.i q

20 .O At the time Mr. Clements assumed his responsi-21 bilities over at QA-QC, did you have any discussi.ons with. l, .2 22 j him or did he ever come and question you about your 23 decision not to include the MAC Report in the Intervenor's 24

j response?

9t t.j 25 A Never. }

(

4 I a. -?'** .2

      • M.

Sk t== ^ ~

L - - = .w - ^^ 97;. w.= 34 4 .? +* .h 1 S In Mr. Wooldridge's response to ASLB, he also arrives at a conclusilon here, says, 2 " Applicants i believe that Mr. Pikarta decision was clearly an error in 3 ..) ~ 4 judgment, and Mr. Fikar now recognizes that error." t' 5 f;. Did they have discussions with you about' p: your decision as ;part of their investigation? e [% 7 l i. L Bob came and talked to me and I agreed with ff, a him. Looking back how, I made a decision-I make lots of 3 e decisions. This one just probably wasn't the right one. to But..t wasn't that heavy, you know. si O

Okay, Well, can you tell me in your own i-i N

words why you believe now, looking back o,n it, it was'an 12 it,i 33 error? f; '1 14 A - well,.now, having consulted with lawyers and' .s, N reading the. specifics of the interrogatory, I think it 15 fl clearly should have been discovered at that time. 16 v, We just 17 made a judgment call. 4 ag is G q So you think a fine reading or a close reading 4. d. of the request would indicate that it was discoverable? Is 'il 20 A I might still have some hesitancy about that, p d. but I think it's pretty clear, looking back now, eight 21 [j years later, we should have produced the document. 22 I agree j 23 with that. I regret it hasn't been produced, you know. 24 S Okay. I understand tnat. 25 What I'm really searching for here is the 'd{ ll - i s f I w

q -......... .:.,-~.- u ap

.,,o M

er ,various points that now lead you to conclude that it is Produced--that it should haye been produced. 2 I want to know what your thinking is today as to why it should have 3 J been produced eight years ago. + 4 ! :l.} 3.1 ep A fd Contention five relates to QA and we've had 7 lots more airings and lots more going on. It's pretty < w, '..:.1, evident today from the events that have transpired, that 7, . h. = is a document that should have been produced; that's all 3 1.y'j I can say for it. "1 ,o O Because it-A It relates to the contention.

Ej 12 S

Okay. .,1 i 33, he there any other factors, other than what you've just discussed, that cause you 'o Nelieve now 34. t ,4 ($,9. 'it should have been produced? u

  • ).i A

I don't.know of any, no.'

, s 0

j!

j Since 1980 when the Intervenor's request 37
j 3,-

was received, do you have any recollection of, say, like

. g

..n. ,the 10tc, making a specific request for internal or third-party %,.,d review documents or au(tits or written reports that the s y.j Licensing division might have contracted for or have in t 21 iet.jr its possession that relate to implementation of the QA-J Progra:n at Comanche Peak? 23 24 A That's kind of a long question, but I don't 'h think I have; I don't know of any. 25 . '. ) ge h q P' 2^"- T =--

.,j 'N g W 1 . I.et me ask you a hypothetical, then. If the 2 NRC had made a specific request that said, "TUGCO, we want 3 j you to produce any third-party reviews, audits or' evidence of independent review of the implementation of the QA program , c. .g 5 at Comanche Peak,," would you have been notified of this t:( 7, request? e Ij 7 A Probably. ..f)i ' 8-g I'm hsking you another hypothetical here.

:.$i 8

t. Say six months ago,.would--if the NRC had made such a l 10 request to you, do rou believe that you'would have thought 11 M;) at that time that t21s MAC Report was producible, if they i p 12 specifically asked for third-party.... i;;h M 13 A Probably. 1.i h; 14 E' 3 why p uld ycu have changed your-- I know '} 15, i; that.we're in the hypothetical here, but I'm asking you, l '.: 16 why would you-- Cl 17 A. k Well, I think I said a while ago, there's $i 18 q, a lot more has gone on since 1980, a lot of hearings, a N lot.of iny'estigations, a lot of questions on contention 5;. 18 y 20 e we ve had a lot of lawyers,getting into all the hearings, pt Q 21 and so forth. And knowing now what I do, I know we should i l 3 22 have produced its probably six months ago probably would n 23 have been the same thing. 24 But this thing completely went out of my l i 25 mind after 1980. I'd forgotten about it, l-y l. t. I q

, 3, - _ _ _ _. _ _ _ ~. _ _ _..... m,_ g; _g %j h i1

1 S'

okay. r. 2' 2 A U gogebody had said six months ago, "What i 3 ever happened to that MAC Report," we would have,given it to

H 4

them. d j 5 S.. You wouldn't have had any-no reason to-- l;1 s If they had asked for the specific document, 4I W especially--if.they had asked for it then, I, guess we would 7

3,

[.f}A ii 8 have produced it. g .1 s. O If they had just asked you--if they had not ' g '( 10 f asked for the specific document, though, if they had asked 11 i]..i you for a--just for any third-party reviews in implementation 9 12 'd of the QA program,'would it have occurred to you to produce.

4. ;

the MAC Report? e. 13 e

p.,.c 4

14 lj. A I--that's so hypothetical, I don't know how h 15 I'd answer that. l.) s. la g Okay.- dj 17 ~ I know I'm stretching it here with these i.1 f. Is hypotheticals,'but I want to come away with a complete 6 1s understanding of-20 . : E - !. A. I understand. ?.

-}.

21 4 --what processes you used for your decision, v: '] 22 Lou, were you involved in the decision to 9 K 23 prcxiuce the Lobbin Report in '827 24 A. I really wasn't. y ? t. 25 G Just weren't involved? J d 1 i 1 k -,,,...---.,.,.,,._,--n - - - -. ~.., _ ~

s.* '.l.' h 3 1 A That wasn't-in my area. 2 g Let me ask you once again--I think we've s already covered this, but one thing that concerned me-was . ) 3 ] there are so many people below you, not directly in the 4 ',. N i 5 t m,l.i chain, or not necessarily directly in the chain, but tlwt } s had siach a different opinion on this subject that thes \\... i./d 7 were discussing-I'm telling you this, but they were r,;.

  • /

.)j s discussing it amorig themselves,, senior danagers--not as M. 9 senior as you, but. senior managers that were handling the-I 10 day-to-day decisien making for construction of the plant-- 11 A In my organization? I 12 B Well, people like Chapman 3.2d Tolson and l-% M 13 R.; stuff like that. 14 ,m. tj A-Chapman, Tolson, they didn't work for me. ~ I, 15 B I understand they're in QA-QC, but I presume n Is that in the day-to-day business in all these areas that ...I 17 you had supervision over, like design construction and .;t 18 systems planning, these people were instrumental in putting to into effect the decisions that you were making, were they r4j 20 not? a.2 t l' i 21 A Who?

t 22 0

People like Chapman and Tolson. 23 A No. 24 9 They weren't? 25 A Chapman and that whole organization was b ~ ,y U g

_.- -.-~ - 2 : ~ T .f completely separate from JBe, We didn't eyen have JOee.ings. 2 g Okay. 3.. ,J 3 A I didn't have any cross-communication,.except 4 you know, what needed to be, and usually by letter or memo ':} or something. s ... 1

y;s s'

p Whatever concerns they had were probably in 7 their own organization. ~

1. p -

!;d. .a B.. So there wasn't that much cross-polination[ m , ~.. 8 huh? .s. M L No, no. q 11 g okay.

1

.,[ g' 12 ':n Normally they kept within their own boundaries ?j 33 ~ hp 7-) Now.if.it'had been some of my, guys--that',s why I parked up h. ')1 14 when you said that. I don't believe that's so. ,j' 8 g Okay. No, I Tras speaking more of the QA 16 managers. g, e j) 17 L Yeah. And we did that cm purpose. We wanted i: $[., to keep completely separate the construction design 18 .s bp

lff, away from QA, and that's a good decision..

n.c 20 g For purposes of indepiendence?

s 21 y

A Yes, absolutely. ~ 'd And, you know, I, guess it,got so independent, 23 maybe there wasn't, good cross-communication, but that's.... 24 g Lou, in--I think it was February 1985, NRC W. 25 Region IV, the site resident inspector conducted an. 4 e WhjQf %

  • eII 4*%e 4

r M 'S

I .,( ?cm 2 1 inspection that related to the adequacy of the,QA program. 2 at Comanche Peak and subsequently made--there was a notice 3 "l of violation issued which related to a lack of. evidence, 4 if I'm characterizing it correctly, a lack of. evidence ? 5 ';,j of independent review of the QA program to determine its Gt ,6 e adherence to Appendix B. Were you familiar, or were you .a M.i 7 made aware of this notice of violation earlier this year? 8 j A I m5y-I don't recall,_ Brooks - s O okay. I ask you because it's-- 10 A Who was that made by? 5 11 S Shannon Phillips. i 12 A Ch,' yeah; that was on the operations site, J' 13 wasn't it? fe9

14-0 He's construction resident.

e.s 15 A I know Shannon, but I don't recall thdt. lN L. : to O The reason I asked you id because this is

s lI 17 getting fairly specific here in that it relates to Quality i*

] 18' Assurance; it relates to production of any audits of the i,*f ,.q 19 audit process, the QA audit process, and I just wondered if q gj 20 you were involved in that. I know it's not in your group, llf 21 but in response-- .i. i 22 A I don't recall that, no. 23 l. g All right. 24 I want to ask you kind of an all-encompassing 25 question. J i ~ ?)

~ 1 1 A All right. I i 2 g 3esides what we've talked about today arid what 's 3 contained in your affidavit, what!s. contained in Mr. Wooldrids 'e 's 4 response to the ASLB which characterizes your testimony, do 5 you know of any other information, testimony, documents, e anything that would shed any light or add any clarification 7 to.the history of the MAC Report, why it was not produced, ~ s or your decision not to produce it? 9 A I can't think of any. I think you've been 10 pretty thorough. 11 S Lou, have I threatened you in any manner, 12 offered you any rewards, in return for this statement? 13 A No, you haven't. (Cy 14 .B,. Okay, have you.given this statement freely ~ 15 and voluntarily? is A I have. 17 3 Is there anything further that you would care is to add to the record? 19 A I don't have anything. 20 MR. GRIFFIN: Okay; I appreciate your time. 21 Off the record. 22 IWhereupon, at 11:05 a.m., the interview 23 was concluded.] 24 i 25 .y t- \\ XM E^ I 'I A $ M h%Wt2cmW e A e An ..y E m _.imm

-_._.a__..- aa s m.;_ 4s. m w..wpu w l 1,.- g n c., y ~

j S

~s Y. 1 - - - - - -.I C A T.E 0$ C3RTIF 2 3 ) This is to certify that the foregoing is 4 a true and ccenplete transcript of the proceedings of an 5 ~ [ interview before the NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION of .'-j 6 Mr. L. F. Fikar, held in Fort Worth, Texas, on the 21st 9, 7.' day of August 19.85. 8 i 9 ~~ fi ) ~ is 10 ~~ ' Cy la Clay, Report 12 'I .i 13 .J 'M. v 14 I s ,t } 15 u 16 1 17 .:2 'j 18 .2 ' *j 19 h .l 20 21 h. 22 23 24 25 \\ l .J' .i i 4 .}}

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