ML20235W290
| ML20235W290 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 07/30/1984 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20235W266 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-88-229, REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8903100580 | |
| Download: ML20235W290 (91) | |
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.,me,/r & t ' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 STATUS ON PENDING INVESTIGATIONS 4 ON DIABLO CANYON 1 6 l 6 CLOSED MEETING - EXEMPTIONS 5& 7 Room 1130 1717 H Street, N.W. g Washington, D.C. 10 Monday, July 30, 1984 11 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: 13 NUNZIO PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission I4 JAMES ASSELSTINE, Commissioner FREDERICK BERNTHAL, Commissioner 15 LANDO ZECH, Commissioner v 16 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISS* ION TABLE: 17 S. CHILK H. DENTON 18 B. HAYES W. DIRCKS 19 S. TRUBATCH H. PLAINE 20 G. MESSENGER R. SMITH 21 REGION V VIA TELEPHONE CONFERENCE CALL: 22 J. MARTIN 23 R. MEEKS O. SHACKLETON 24 T. BISHOP B. FAULKENBERRY k. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. 8903100500 890301 Court Reporting e Depositions PDR FOIA D.C. Aroe 161-1901 e Bsit. & Annep.-269-6136 ,I SCHMIEGB8-229 PDR J
1-A l 4 l 1 AUDIENCE SPEAKER: l 2 R. VOLLMER l q 3 i 4-5 j 8 7 8 i 9 10 i 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 -J
2 P_ g Q Q E'E Q I,Q E E 1 ) CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Good morning, ladies and 2 gentlemen. 3 The purpose of'this morning's meeting is to 4 5. receive a briefing from the Office of Investigation on the 6 We will then excuse OI and the staf f, and hear from the 7 Office of Inspect of Inspection regarding allegations 8 pending before it that perain to Diablo Canyon. j g Are there any other opening remarks other 0 Commissioners have at this time? 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Then, let me turn the meeting over to Ben Hayes, Director of OI. MR. HAYES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 15 I think the best way to approach the matters that 16 the Office of Investigation are looking at presently is to work from the product that I sent to the Commission g approximately a week ago, listing all of the open investigation ns in Region V. Most of the investigations -- 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Excuse me a minute. I should 21 indicate that Jack Martin is on the phone from Region V, and 22 I gather we can have a two-way conversation; is that correct? 23 MR. CHILK: That is correct. 24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Jack, are you there? 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions a D.C. Area 261-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136 _____________________________J
3 1 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): This is Owen Shackleton. ] Mr. Martin is not in the office yet. Presently, it'is just 2 Shackleton and Meeks from OI that are present. 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right, thank you. Will you 4 let us know when Jack Martin gets there? 5 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): Yes, sir. 6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Go ahead, Ben. 7 MR. HAYES: We currently have open three inquiries g concerning the Diablo Canyon project. If you will notice, g my document to you indicated two pending inquiries and, on 10 1 7-26-84, we opened up another inquiry because of an allegation concerning intimidation and harassment. 12 We have also open twelve investigations. OI is 13 attempting to address 121 allegations within the twelve 34 investigations and three inquiries. 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Are you covering all 121 and 16 those three and twelve? 97 MR. HAYES: Yes, we are. 18 t On the first page of the document that I sent to 99 the Commission, Investigation 82004, allegations of possible attempted sabotage, ie are currently writing a report and 21 I that allegations was not substantiated. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is that the first one on this page l? g MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. What I would propose is to l 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Arom 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269 6136
4 1 go through these investigations and, if the Commission wishes 2 to raise questions, I would like to surface them at that 3 particular point, either technical or matters of wrong-doing, 4 so that hopefully we can close out these cases as we go. 5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Can we get any staff comments 6 such as, they agree, disagree, or there is some technical 7 problem so that we don't have to come back through the whole 8 list? 9 MR. HAYES: I know of no technical concerns that 10 would be associated with the first matter, that is 0582004. 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, has the staff seen 12 that report, Ben? 13 MR. HAYESS: No, sir, they have not yet. 14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So, it's hard for the staff to comment on it. 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, you say closed report. 16 37 Did you say that it was not substantiated? 18 MR. HAYES: That's correct, the allegation was not s ubs tantiated. We are in the process now of writing the ig rep rt and sending it through our review chain. But it has 20 not been presented to the staff. 21 MR. DENTON: Maybe we should stop a moment and 22 talk about the schedule. Our practice has been, especially 23 in the TMI case, to get all the reports and review them, and 24 be able to give the Commission :ny recommendations we have had 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 169-6236 .J
5 f 1 I understand some of these reports may not be 3 l 2 availabe, Ben, by the time of the Thursday Commission meeting. 3 MR. HAYES: Some of these reports will not be 4 available for another three to four months. I am talking 5 about the on-going investigative matters. We are not to the 6 point where we can even give you the bottom line on some of 7 these allegations. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Which clearly raises the 8 g question of, what is the basis for going forward until those 10 allegations -- the investigations are completed. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, I don't see how we can go forward with at least some comment from the staff as to 12 whether or not they believe it has a technical implication; 13 where they agree it has not been substantiated, or if they 34 g t some new information. 15 MR. DENTON: But under our existing practice, we 16 were kept informed of the status by Ben. But until the g investigation is complete and published by OI, that's the 18 input which the staff would start with to provide any advice. 19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I gather the degree of 20 difficulty with each of these is going to vary from case to case. So, maybe we'll have to see where we have our most severe problems. It sounds, for example, like the first one, maybe, is not such a severe problem but I'm not sure that is the case on every one. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 _I
6 L l, 1 MR. DIRCKS: I think the difficulty may be more 2 in those cases where Ben says the allegations are sab-l 3 stantiated and you want a technical evaluation of how much 4 effect-that wrong-doing might have had on the safety of the 5 plant. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Or where he says that 6 7 he has not been able to do the investigation necessary to 8 determine whether the allegation is or is.not substantiated. 9 MR. DIRCKS: Yes, that's the second one. In this 10 case it looks as if Ben is saying he has concluded the allegation is not substantiated. As you indicated this one, 11 where there is no basis for the allegation, probably there is 12 no need on this one for a staff review. 13 i But when you get to the open-ended items,.that's l 34 where you face the problem of how much farther do you go ahead 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, can we go to the next 16 one? i 37 MR. HAYES: The next investigation is noted as 18 583002 that involves falsification of background investigation s 19 y e n guar s. 20 That allegation was basically substantiated, that 21 there were some errors on background investigations.
- Again, g
we indicate the report will be concluded this month. 23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Both of those show this month. g HA es, sh. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161 1901 e Rott. (a Annop. 169-6136 .1
l 7 l 1 ' CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The first and second. i j 2 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: When is our meeting on Diablo? 4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Thursday. 5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Which is the second? 6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The second. 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do you expect they will be done this month? l 8 9 MR. HAYES: Well, I expect that they are probably 10 on their way to headquarters for review. But, as we go through this, there are certainly other allegations that are 11 12 more significant than these two that we have just covered. 13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Do you think we will get that second one, though, by Thursday, Ben? i 14 MR. HAYES: Owen, can we have 583002 by Thursday 15 o the Commission? 16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Wednesday night? 37 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): Ben -- the girl is just 18 proofreading it. It is well in excess of a hundred pages. jg We an have it back, probably, by Thursday. But it will be 20 a first cut. g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, could it be by Wednesday vening? A hundred pages are hard to read prior to the 2nd, 23 or even to glance at. g REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): Yes, sir, you can have 25 I FREE STATE REPORTING INC. I Court Reporting e Depositions 1 D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136 _f
.1 it by Wednesday evening. 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Well, I guess we 3 don' t have any comments of what the significance of this is 4 with regard to Diablo Canyon. 5 MR. HAYES: Well, one thing which might help the 6 Commission focus on the significance of the allegations is 7 that earlier this month, we presented to Region V staff a 8 litany of cases that we had open and the allegations, and it 9 was their technical view that none of the matters currently to being investigated by OI at that particular point raised ti any heretofore unknown technical concerns. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, we have a letter from 13 Kirsch dated July 5 that says, " Division of Reactor Safety 14 and Projects have reviewed the list of allegations in your 15 referenced letter." This is from Kirsch to Shackleton. Yes. 16 It says, "The staff considered that none of these allegations 17 referenced in your memorandum need to be fully resolved 18 prior to issuance of a full power license for Diablo Canyon " ig MR. HAYES: We realized the Commission was going to address this issue. So, we took it upon ourselves to 20 brief the Region V staff and furnish them a briefing on 21 everything we were doing so that they could help us focus on 22 l 23 any investigation that may preclude, at least in their view, the Commission addressing the full power vote. 24 And their answer to us was that OI was not 25 l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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l 9 1 investigating any n atter that' would preclude. the vote coming 2 before the Commissl an. At least, that's'my interpretation of 3 the memorandum. 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Does that reporesent the 5 staff position? It is signed by Kirsch, but it nominally came from Bishop. 6 7 MR. DIRCKS: I had a talk with Jack Martin a couple a of weeks ago and unless there is something new on the list 9 which I am not aware of, I think it was his view that -- from 10 a technical standpoint -- that things being investigated did i not have an impact on the safety of the facility. 33 But I'm not -- I'm vague on the day I talked to 12 him, and it must have been a couple weeks ago. 13 MR. DENTON: There was, I think, a staff position 34 at that time. There has been new information developed 15 since then, some of which you will hear about today. But it 16 is hard for the staff to say that completely until you really 37 know all the facts, a 18 I i I think these were seen as isolated examples that 19 didn' t af fect -- they may have been true but whatever actions l 20 had transpired, taken place, didn't affect a decision point. 21 But it's hard to write that done until you've got the report 22 in hand and be sure you understand all the facts. 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: May I interrupt here? I am 24 at a disadvantage. I have never seen the document we a:o 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. t f court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. k Annop. 169-6136 ( L__ ________ _____ )
10 I speakinc,<from here, nor has my office been able to find that 2 we have aver received it. I would like to have a copy of it, 3 if I may. 4 MR. TRUBATCH: May I second that? The General 5 Counsel -- it is very difficult for us to prepare orders to i 6 implement Commission decisions if we don't have the underlying 7 materials that address those orders. 8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think the Office of General 9 Counsel has a valid point. I don't even see them listed here 10 as a recipient. But I do see -- 33 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:. Well, it's possible it got 12 dropped between the cracks, through the cracks, in our office. 13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Does anyone have a copy? 14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But so far, no one has any recollection of receiving it, and I certainly haven't seen it. 15 16 In any case, the practical point is, I would like 17 a copy for the meeting. 18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Sam, do you want to go make 39 copies? COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Oops, they have found it, 20 Fred. 21 (Laughter) 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, good. 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, now we have 24 embarrassed our office. Thank you. 25 1 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions f D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt & Annop. 169-6136 i- )
ll { 1' CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It starts af ter about three 4 or four pages. 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right, let's proceed. 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Maybe the best thing to do is to plow through the list of items and then, at the 6 7 end, we can think about where we stand in terms of Thursday. 8 MR. DENTON: The Region might want to comment, Mr. g Chairman, since they were briefed by Mr. Hayes in detail. 10 Maybe you would like to give them a chance before you move on to offer any comments. j, MR. HAYES: I don't think Martin is in yet. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What was your comment, Harold? 13 MR. DENTON: Since the Region was briefed a few 34 weeks ago on the status of these, perhaps they would have 33 some comment to make on your question that you asked. 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, what I was going to 17 suggest, we pick up on what Jim Asselstine has said. Why 33 don' t we go through each one of them? If the Region people 19 have a comment on any one of them, I think it would be helpful 20 f r them to make it at the time. And then, we can come back 21 to the general statement if that's still pertinent. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Are there regional l 23 people on the line -- g HA A es. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
l 12 i I i COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: -- apart from the OI I people? 2 l CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is Jack Martin in? l 3 U REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): No, sir, no one is herei 4 5 yet fro:h the Region other than OI. l ay ey n o em. 6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That would make it a 7 little tough for the Region to comment. g COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Have they seen the report? g MR. DIRCKS: Owen, has anyone contacted Jack? I 10 know he lives right in the area there, on this meeting? g MR. SHACKLETON: I was under the assumption that he and Tom were going to be here. I don't know what the 33 delay is. g MR. HAYES: Well, should I continue, Mr. Chairman, nd go through the list? 6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right, why don't you nue? 18 MR. DIRCKS: Owen, why don't you have someone g go out and ring Jack up, and see if he is on his w.,1y in 20 1 1 because he lives quite nearby. REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): All right. l 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right, why don't we proceed? MR. HAYES: The next investigation, 0583019. The 1 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 2611902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 __.]
13 i allegation is a potential or alleged material false statement in the response to a Notice of Violation. That 2 1 3 allegatic,n was not supported. -l CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Not substantiated, is that 4 5 what you mean? MR. HAYES: That's correct, sir. 6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. 7 MR. HAYES: On pge 2 -- 8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: You've got the same g situation as the others, the field work is all done and you to are in the process of writing your report. g MR. HAYES: That's correct. On page 2 there are eight closed investigations g or "Qs." As you can see, there is a description of the g allegation. Those matters have been closed and furnished to the staff. 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Does that mean the staff 17 has a report of these eight? 18 MR. HAYES: That's correct, they have a copy of g that closing report. 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: On each one of the eight? 21 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: What were the conclusions 23 in each of those? 24 MR. HAYES: The only one that I have noted here, 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6236
i 14 1 Commissioner, is 0584018, which is next to the bottom of i 2 the list there, the Bechtel construction superintendent 3 allegedly threatened, intimidated the allegers for using the " hotline." 4 That investigation basically was substantiated 5 and the particular construction superintendent was removed 6 from the site. 7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Does that mean all the 8 other seven were not substantiated, or do you just -- g HA on, are you dere? f 10 REGION V (MR. MEEKS) : Yes, we are here, Ben. j g MR. HAYES: Can you give us a run-down on those closed Os, except for 018, as to our findings on those ,3 matters? i REGION V (MR. MEEKS): Basically, most of them turned out to be no important issue and were closed because I there just wasn't any further work to be done. A lot of it Was Created by a misunderstanding and the usual things that we turn up in these situations. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: When you say "no important 20 issue," does that mean you didn't -- in other words, no substantiation, or that there was really no basis? l 22 l l REGION V (MR. MEEKS): No basis, that was it. 23 l l CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. 24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So, for every one of l 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 C__________________ )
15 1 'those others that is listed on page 2, your conclusion was j 2 that they were not substantiated, is that right? With the 3 exception of 8418? REGION V (MR. MEEKS): Yes, sir; that would be l 4 5 correct. 6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. 7 MR. HAYES: At the bottom of page 2, Investigation 8 583024 -- 9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Excuse me, let ne inter-l 10 rupt you one second. That means, Ben, that there are reports 11 on each one of those? l 12 MR. HAYES: That's correct. l 13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Is that correct? 14 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And the staff has them. 16 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. 17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And the staff has no comments, 18 or they have? 19 MR. HAYES: Well, Region V has those, Mr. Chairman. j 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh, they haven't gone to the 1 1 21 staff? 22 MR. HAYES: Well, that is the staff from where -- 23 I mean, when we close out a "Q" we give it to the Regional 24 Administrator, we don't send those to Bill Dircks here in 25 Bethesda. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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16 L i The last case on that page, if you remember -- i 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: If it doesn't go to the staff I here, how does the staff here get them? 3 MR. HAYES: The staff here doesn't get them unless 4 they ask for them. An inquiry is usually an allegation where 5 Y 6 and we try to resolve whether or not we are going to 7 institute a full-scale investigation. 8 If we see that the allegation is not well founded, g we document what we.did and our reasons for not instituting g a full-fledged investigation and give that to the staff as kind of a small report as opposed to a full scale. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So, you looked into these items enough to reach the conclusion that there wasn't enough there, really, to warrant opening a full-scale investigation. You basically closed them out on that basis, with the exception of 18. MR. HAYES: Yes. 18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The 18, I gather, you concluded that the allegations were substantiated but you 20 did not open a full investigation. 21 MR. HAYES: That's correct. In some instances, the 22 licensee is aware of the allegation and does their own 23 internal investigation, which might have been the case here 24 with the Bechtel construction superintendent. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reposting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901
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17 l 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: O). ay. 2 MR. HAYES: They may have taken whatever action ] 3 they took'without being directed to by Region V. I would 4 have to pull each one of these cases up to be more specific. 5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Is it fair to say the reason you didn't feel you needed.to pursue 8418 any more 6 than you did was because ghis guy was gone? 7 MR. HAYES: I would think that's correct. 8 Probably, the licensee dealt with the mastter very quickly. 9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any more questions?
- Well, 10 why don' t we go on, then to 83024?
11 MR. HAYES: Yes. That is a full investigation. g If y u remember, early on into the Diably Canyon problems, 13 a vendor by the name of Boston-Bergman produced nuclear-g grade material that was shipped to the site and we had 15 9 16 program at that vendor. j g l We instituted an investigation and at one time the l g 9 19 before they can have any confidence in the licensee. We are at the point where we basically concluded most of the field work and our bottom-line conclusion is, it's just poor management on behalf of the vendor as opposed to false, intentionally falsified records or anything of that nature. I l 24 I guess what I'm saying is, at this point it does not look as though it's a matter to be referred to the FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. is Annop. 169-6136 l i
1 18 1 Department of Justice but nere in the area of just poor 1 1 2 management on behalf of tha vendor. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How do we know'that some of the 3 4 material that was supplied by Boston-Bergman did not appear in the plant or, if it did appear in the plant, that it was 5 the correct material? 6 j MR. HAYES: Well, Region V, I am sure, could 7 address that. But I can -- 8 MR. DENTON: I would want to confirm it, Mr. g Chairman, but several weeks ago the staff felt as though 10 the applicant had established that none of the steel was g present in the plant in important-to-safety -- used in anything important to safety. 33 So, while we are awaiting the outcome of the g investigation, the utility went and looked through the plant to find where they had used this steel, and its only use had been in areas which were not important to safety. f 'Y ~~ 18 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): Mr. Chairman? 19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes. 20 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): This is Owen 21 Shackleton out at Region V. Tom Bishop and Mr. Paulkenberry 22 are now here from the Region. So, if the Commissioners 23 would like to address questions now, you have members of 24 the Region V staff present. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annsp. 169 6236 I i 1
19 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. We are on the 2 Boston-Bergman patter. I was trying to determine whether 3 any of the material that was provided by Boston-Bergman j 4 had found itself -- had founds its way into the Diablo Canyon 5 plant and if so, was it the correct material or was the 6 material recognized to be placed'in locations where it didn't 7 matter. 8 REGION V (MR. BISHOP): The answer is, yes, 9 that there has been quite a large amount of Boston-Bergman material in the plant. That material was subject 10 to the staff's review. The original Boston-Bergman allegation 3, inv lved an inspector who was credited with performing a 12 33 very large number of inspections involving something like 650 components for which he says that he falsified all or 34 part of the records associated with that. 15 We looked at those 650 pieces, 15 of which are 16 classified as safety-related material. All 15 were supplied g to Diablo Canyon Unit 2. We went out in the field and were l 18 able to locate 14 of the 15 pieces and performed an independent ,g inspection on those, and they were all found to conform with 20 l the requirements. The last item, the 15th item, involved plate 1 washers which were simply rectangular pieces of plate, about four inches square, if I recall correctly, with a hole in i 24 the center. We were unable to locate the actual precise FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l } Ceurt Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261-1902 e Bolt. & Annap. 169-6136 y
20 1 ' installation location of those plate washers, but due to l their nature, we don't think that would contribute to any f 2 3 kind of a significant problem with those. l MR. DENTON: Tom, this is Harold Denton. You i 4 5 said they were all in Unit 2. What was the status with regard to Unit 17 6 REGION V (MR. BISHOP): None of this, the 7 questionable material addressed by that inspector were g being supplied to Unit 1. 9 I l We also, however, did go into the Boston-Bergman 10 materials supplied to Unit 1 as well as the licensee who 11 i had been informed of this allegation through the news media 12 about the same time. The licensee performed a ten-percent 13 sample of all installed Boston-Bergman material and found g n signifi ant problems. 5 I We also went in and did samples of, I believe, 16 of 14 types of components installed by Boston-Bergman in l g a e ere lochng h such Mngs as weM she, 18 weld length, the shape reinforcement, material damage, g things of that nature, and we did not identify any discrepant material in that sample. Based on our reviews in the field and our reviews I 22 of what the utility did, their independent inspection, we closed this allegation out from a technical standpoint in l l our SSER 22. We, of course, will be working with the Of fice of 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l Court Reporting e Depositions l D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 2694236 i J
21 l l 1 Investigations to see.if their final effort identifies j 2 anything else/that would draw us into that area. 3 But based on our inspection to date, we do not 4 feel that there is a significant problem with.the Boston-5 Bergman material. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Did I understand you to say 6 7 that you looked at a hundred, percent of the material for 8 Unit 2, and only ten percent for Unit I? REGION V (MR. BISHOP): We looked at all the 9 in safety-related material in Unit 2 that was identified -- that was tied to this one individual who claimed he had not 33 performed all the inspections which the documents indicate he 12 perf rmed. 13 i This individual did not perform any inspections 14 n safety-related materials provided to Unit 1. We looked 15 at Unit 1 material as well as Unit 2 material. 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. Are you satisfied on g the Boston-Bergman falsification of records? 18 l REGION V (MR. BISHOP): We are satisfied that j 39 if falsification occurred, it did not have a detrimental 20 i effect on the products of the material in the plant. { I mention this very briefly, that the utility instigated their own review of this matter. They were contacted by a local television station when this individual first went public, and they conducted very extensive FRdE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting a Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Belt. & Annop. 269-6236 i
22 l 1 sampling and reinspection of product material as well as 2 the records associated with that material. Andwe,ofcourse,f l 3 monitored what the utility performed and required them to 4 s ubmit to us reports'on their progress, as well as performing i 5 our own third party, I guess you would say, sampling of the 6 hardware. 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, any other questions? 8 All right, can we go on? 9 MR. HAYES: The next investigation, 583025. The 10 alleger in this case is a Mr. Charles Stokes. 11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Which one? 12 MR. HAYES: On page 3, Mr. Chairman. 13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Page 3. Thank you. 14 MR. HAYES: If I am not mistaken, the staff is 15 addressing or has addressed the technical issues raised by Mr. Stokes, and we were looking at the allegation of 16 discrimination. 17 Mr. Stokes was laid off. As you can see here, the 18 Department of Labor has ruled in favor of Mr. Stokes and 39 t the applicant, PG&E, is appealing that, which means there 20 will be an administrative hearing, at which time we will l probably close out our case, at that particular point in 23 But Tom, hasn't Region V looked at the technical allegations raised by Mr. Stokes? 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261-1902 e Bolt. & Annep. 169-6136
1 23 1 REGION V (MR. BISHOP): I think it's probably 2 more appropriate for Harold Denton or someone on his staff l l' 3 to address that, members of the special team assigned to 4 look into small-bore design and other design issues. I 5 MR. DENTON: We have addressed those issues. We 6 put together a team under Dick Vollmer, the Director of 7 Engineering. You may recall, we added a license condition 8 to the low-power license that required a number of calculations, 9 surveys, and studies to be done by the licensee. 10 We reviewed that result. That has also been reviewed recently by the ACRS and we will be briefing you 11 12 on that. We consider those issues to be resolved from a 13 technical standpoint. 14 MR. TRUBACK: May I ask a question? CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Sure. 15 MR. TRUBACK: Who in the agency is going to look 16 at the possible ramifications of the Stokes allegations on 17 the implementation of the QA program? It is similar to the 18 Comanche Peak situation where the question is whether this 39 empluyment practice had ramifications on other people in 20 that program? 21 MR. DENTON: To the extent it involved -- well, 22 the programmatic implications were reviewed by the same 23 i' task force, and we had on that representatives from I&E who 24 1 ked at the programmatic implications. It is covered in 25 i FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261 1901 e Balt. & Annap. 169-6136
l 24 l i yorr report. -l 2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Is that also true for I 3 the ones that are coming up Pullman employees where the 4 allegations were also substantiated by Labor? 5 MR. DENTON: Dick only looked at the ones that came out of the Stokes. The Region looked at the ones that 6 came out of the Pullman. 7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
- Okay, 8
i CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do you have a question? g COMMISSIONER ZECH: It ser.ms to me in this 10 1 particular instance there are two issues involved. One is g the allegation itself which naturally has to be looked into g and I'm sure professional judgments are involved as to whether 3 the allegation is confirmed or not. g The second issue, though, is discrimination and lay-off, and could be termed harassment and so forth. It seems to me that is also very important. And when you talk about quality control and quality assurance inspectors, g 19 issue -- and I am just speaking philosophically now. But when you are asking people to inspect other people's work, you are asking them to take on a difficult task, and in my view even though their professional judgment may be questioned, there must be some form of protection, if you will, for individuals who in good faith are reporting 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261-1901 e Bolt. (a Annop. 269 6136 I
25 I what they see as problems. l \\ 2 So, I offer this as just my own personal view. I 3 'think we should be very careful in the case of quality 4 control and quality assurance inspectors to present their 5 honest views. And whether those views are accepted or not, 6 is a matter of professional judgment again. But I think 7 dismissing them or unduly harassing them is something'that 8 is not only in this industry but others, I am sure. It is 9 something that we have to be particularly sensitive of in 10 my judgment. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think there is no question j) about that, and I believe these are supposed to be protected 12 individuals. That's why they reach the level of attention 13 that they do. But, you are right. 14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The problem is that 15 at least the evidence reviewed so far by the Department of 16 Labor indicates
- f. hat they were --
g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That they were. 18 treated unfairly. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: g COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: The point is well taken, Lando. Disposing of the technical issue, as Harold tells us that staf f has essentially done is one thing. But the other issue is the question of the integrity of the company ,3 / in dealing with their quality assurance people. And, of course, that is not Harold's department, that is our FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-4136 )
26 ~1 department, I guess, along with the advice of the staff. 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I gather it's in the hands of 3 the Department of Labor now. 4 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. But even though it's 5 in the hands of the Department of Labor, I gather the 6 initial report, it says here, substantiated the claim. It 7 has been appealed. 8 And finally, the Commission has to make some 9 judgment on whether there is a pattern there. 10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And what the implications 13 of that were, was the work done by the other quality control 12 and quality assurance inspectors at the plant when they began 13 to see their colleagues being fired for turning up non-14 conformance reports. Did that have an impact on the other work that was done. 15 I think that raises the question about how 16 extensive a review we have to do on this whole seismic 17 is pipe support and pipe stress design area in order to satisfy ourselves that the rest of the work was in fact done properly. 19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How will this be pursued? 20 Separate from the hardware question, this overall question 21 f pattern and the impact on other inspectors; is that going 22 to be pursued further? 23 MR. HAYES: Well, I think at the conclusion of a 24 discussion of the investigations, 1 think you are going to 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 169-6136 j
27 1 find, Mr. Chairman,'a common thread of intimidation and' 2 harassment at that particular plant site -- 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. 4 MR. HAYES: -- by Foley Electric, Pullman, PG&E 5 and what have you. The technical impact of that, of course, 6 rests with the staff.. But we are as of last week receiving 7 new allegations concerning intimidation and harassment of 8 QC-QA personnel. 9 CHAIRMAN PALLAdino: I think we need to come back to to what we are going to do on follow-up of this situation. 11 Maybe, by continuing, we will get a better feel for the 12 pattern and the number involved. 13 MR. DENTON: The way we handle that on the small-bore 14 piping and design issues, we required to do the company to Ib do a hundred-percent recalculation and re-examination of 16 all those hangers, and we audited that. 17 So, that was the way that issue was dealt with 18 within that area Mr. Stokes had raised. 19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Now, this issue of the 20 small-bore piping and the pipe hangers, and what not, also 21 touches on the allegations -- not the allegations, the questions rais6d by Mr. Yen; does it not? 22 MR. DENTON: They are one and the same. We had l 23 l originally assigned the review of these allegations to Mr. 24 Yen. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l Court Reporting e Depositions l D.C. Area 161-1901 e Boit. & Annop. 169-6136 1 N__----_-__--__--_________________-___-_-__-_-_______-____-_--___. ____________-__-________________-______-_N
28 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Right. He also, however 2 as I recall, was raising questions in the last go-around we 3 had on this, on'large-bore piping as well. Is that a 4 separate issue, then, from the Stokes allegations itself? 5 Was that sort of a side issue that Mr. Yen himself raised or can you tell me how that fits in? 6 7 MR. DENTON: Well, let me ask Mr. Vollmer. We g did cover that, but whether you attribute it to Mr. Stokes g or Mr. Yen, I'm not sure. 10 MR. VOLLMER: The large-bore issues were expanded by Mr. Yen, essentially. The Stokes allegations dealt 33 primarily with the work done by the on-site projects 12 engineering group, 13 I might also indicate that the task group g expanded its review of the "in" issues, particularly 15 e e Con M on 7, into amas hder MenMed by Mes. 16 So, we went between the "in" issues as such that he had 37 Presented to you in March and picked up a number of issues 18 that we had identified through a number of discussions with 39 Stokes and looked at those technical issues also. 20 V COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: And what is the status, then, of the large-bore questions? MR. VOLLMER: The large-bore questions, we feel we have gone back and looked at a number of these and looked at the IDVP handling of these, and we feel that the large-FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902
- Solt. & Annop. 169-6136 a-___-_____________
29 l bore piping as well cs the small-bore piping meets our 1 2 requirements, and the plant is designed to meet its criteria. 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Okay. 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Could you interpret the 5 comments on the top of page 4, such as, " Region V last 6 January?" 7 MR. HAYES: Oh, that's from my management 8 information. That's estimated completion date.-- g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is that what it is. 10 MR. HAYES: -- while I was investigating Region V. 11 That gives me some ideas of when we hope to conclude that case. 12 And "TDY" is temporary duty personnel. Support 13 is needed, November 1984, to meet the January date. The 34 reason it's elongated becaUse we are somewhat holding up 15 pending the Appeal Board hearing at DOL. 16 The next investigation, gentlemen, is 584010, g 18 alleged intimidation of a Foley Electric QC supervisor and two QC inspectors by an assistant QC supervisor. gg i That investigation is due out, as you can see, 20 next month and we basically proved that that allegation is in fact valid. 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, what do we do about that? l Well, I guess we'll come back, that is part of the general question. l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions l D.C. Aree 161 1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 169-6136
l l 30 1 MR. HAYES:: Now, 58401 -- 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Whether there are any techni>:al 3 implications, direct technical implications, aside from the 4 overall question on that'one. 5 MR. HAYES: Owen, do you have an answer for that one? 6 7 REGION V (MR. SHACKLETON): No, Ben, I don't, 8 not until I see the report. 9 COMMISSIONER ZECH: It seems to me in these cases 10 of alleged intimidation and so forth, there are two things to look at. One is, the technical judgment, was it a g substantive charge which means, was the plant affected? In 12 ther words, is the plant still safe and will it be run 13 i with due regard for the public health and safety} in other l g words, a decision on the technical implication of the allegation. That's very important to us, I think. The second thing is the way the individual was g handled. 18 And here we have to Jock at two things, I think. One is, was there sufficient widespread allegation of { g harassment or whatever, to the extent that, you know, we I should look into it further. And two was, was the individual i properly. ....ed as -- and here again I believe it's a
- ""9****
E'U 23 24 So it seems to me we have to think about the 25 technical aspects: did it harm the plant? And two, doet FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 169 6136
31 1 the management problem -- does it indicate a mc nagement s. 2 problem? 3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The only concern I.have is that it seems to me that there's a link between. the two,. 4 5 because if you had a situation in which there were a number of quality assurance and quality control inspectors who were 6 being intimidated and harassed by their employer, either 7 by the licensee or by the licensee's principal subcontractors 8 on the job, and there was widespread knowledge of that by 9 others, then it seems to me that it is -- that calls into 10 question the adequacy of the work that was done. 33 If ther people saw their comrades being fired 12 or otherwise intimidated for identifying problems in the 33 construction of the plant, it's reasonable to assume that g that had a negative impact on the adequacy of the overall 15 Y 9 16 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I think a judgment has to g [ be made, was it a widespread type thing -- 18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes -- g COMMISSIONER ZECH: -- or was it 1".?.ividual, and can we accept that as an individual case? I would generally agree with Commissioner Asselstine's view in that 22 l regad. ) 23 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think we -- that's what j 24 I all the broader problem. 25 I FREE STATE REPORTING INC. I Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. da Annop. 169-6136 lo_--_----_______--___ 3
'32 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: leah. 2 MR. DENTON: What we 've tried to do with other 3 cases is see how many groups were -- did harassment go i 4 on; did it include not just one narrow -- 5. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yeah. 6 MR. DENTON: -- group or did it go over the 7 whole site -- 8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Sure. 9 MR. DENTON: -- and wi thin the subsections. And to I would think we may have an answer on the -- that report 11 is out. That's a report that's due to be out. 12 MR. HAYES: Yes, due out next month. 13 MR. DENTON: I don't know if the region wants 14 to comment on that or not. 15 MR. DIRCKS: Tom Bishop is there. 16 Tom, did you have a comment on that? 17 MR. BISHOP: Well, I guess the only thing I would 18 like to mention is that what we did in this -- in reference 19 to this concern back in the early part of this year, when we -- it was clear that there were some specific cases 20 here and there where people felt that they were intimidated 21 in those particular cases -- and there were roughly eight 22 of them at th at time -- were being handled by OI or through 23 the Department of Labor. We had a staff of, oh, anywhere 24 25 from 20 to 40 people at different times on site talking to FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136
33 '1 very'large numbers of worhers on the site, from craftsmen to 2 the engineers, the superv.isors, quality control, quality 3 control supervisors. We interf aced with them directly on 1 4 one-for-one interviews, interviewed about 250 individuals 5 specifically on the topic of the atmosphere that surrounds 6 the plant: pressure to cut corners, intimidation, freedom 7 to bring forth quality and safety-related concerns. 8 And based on our written sample of those 250 and 9 the other interviews that we had, which were somewhat more 10 general, we concluded that there was not a widespread intimidation at the site. 11 I think that we can't ignore the fact that we 12 have at least a number of specific cases that we know of 13 people feel that there -- they were intimidated. And each 34 f those has to be, and I guess is being by OI, investigated 15 to find out precisely what's happening. And if OI draws 16 a dif ferent conclusion than we drew f rom that -- our earlier 17 standpoint, we'll have to deal with that. jg Our assessment on the subject was provided in 19 SSER 22, also discussed in SSER 21, and I believe it was also the topic of the Commission meeting on precriticality. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Tom, was your sample 250 22 l Pe P e? 23 MR. BISHOP: That's correct. 24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And you didn't find a single 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e B olt. Et Annop.169-6136 j
p -34 I 1 one that spoke c. bout intimidation or harassment? 2 MR. D'.'S HOP : No, I wouldn't say that. We -- I f i 3 recall that one fellow said that he had heard that another l I employee had been fired for writing a nonconformance report.' 4 5 And we asked him, "Well, does that affect your work?" And he said, "No, I still feel that I can come forward with iti" 6 l 7 We ran down the particular case where he had -- 8 what he had heard about, and it was a case where an 9 employee voted a nonconformance report. He was told by 10 his supervisor that that was not the correct vehicle for addressing that type of concern, and his supervisor 33 12 instructed him to handle it in another manner which was 13 in accordance with their procedures. He refused to do, 14 and he was terminated, in part, for that. 15 I -- I don't know if that's one of your i 16 particular cases there or not, without having to go through the OI cases in detail. 17 18 'But there were other people who said, well, they 39 had read about the harassment in the newspapers and they wer aware f it from that point of view. But they had not 20 experienced it themselves. So there were -- there was 21 certainly discussion of that topic, but we did not see 22 23 where these cases other than the eight or so we knew of in that time indicated any indication of a widespread 24 25 intimidation or generic problem along that line. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
35 l 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. Thank you, Tom. 2 All right, any more? Shall we go on? 3 MR. HAYES: All right. The next is the 584011'. 4 As you can note here in the remarks column, DOL found for i 5 the alleger, and there was a subsequent hearing on the l i 6 matter. And the administrative law judge has not rendered I 7 a decision, but we had one of our staff sit in on that 8 hearing, and it's our view that the evidence presented in 9 the hearing will substantiate the fact that Pullman' Power to did in fact discriminate against this particular individual. 11 As you can see, the law judge does not-intend 12 to rule until October of '84. 13 The next case is 584012. In that particular 14 investigation, the Department of Labor did not find that 15 the alleger was in fact discriminated against. 16
- 584015, the Department of Labor found against I
17 the alleger; that is, there was not discrimination.
- However, 18 we understand that the alleger has settled with Pullman Power I
19 recently. But I don't have the details of that settlement. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: You know, it makes us 20 21 suspicious when they settle, even though the Department 22 f Labor found against the alleger. Does that mean that 23 there were aspects of it that would have been subject to 24 further investigation, litigation, or the like? 25 MR. HAYES: Well, in this particular case, the FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136
36 i I. L 1 alleger appealed that preliminary decision, which means that it would have gone to an a' ministrative law judge. i 2 d 1 3 And the alleger'and -- 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It was a settlement on 5 appeal? 6 MR. HAYES: That is correct. I would assume it 7 has something to do with' the hazards of litigation. 8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, but we really g shouldn't concern ourselves with settlement, I think, or to lack thereof in cases like this. The real question is 11 what the circumstances were. Do we have any information 12 on that? l 13 MR. HAYES: Well, we will produce a report 14 regardless of the DOL findings either pro or con. But I 15 don' t have the details of our investigation, Commissioner. But a finding will be made by OI. 16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Settlement might be i 17 relevant to the extent that it indicated acknowledgement of 18 19 responsibility for intimidation. MR. HAYES: Possibly. 20 584022. 21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It might also mean that 22 the cost of litigation was -- 23 l CHAIRMAN ASSELSTINE: Yes. 24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Excuse me. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 l
A 1, I' j' 37 'l 1-MR. HAYES: This next investigation -- 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Which'one? 022? 3 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. At the bottom of page 7. We somewhat capsulized it as a Pullman QA breakdown-type 4 5 investigation. We have 12 allegers who are QC inspectors 6 who have made various allegations that we are attempting 7 to put under this one umbrella. And again, this investiga-I 8 tion indicates that we are continuing to get allegations ] i 9 concerning intimidation and harassment, as you can note 10 here, in July 1984, 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: You say the initial 12 field work has been completed? 13 MR. HAYES: Yes. 14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: What does that 15 information indicate to you at this point? 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Which? On 22 you say it's 17 been completed? 18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: 'The initial field work 19 has been completed. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Initial field work. 20 MR. HAYES: Yes. I don' t have a bottom line on 21 that. I 22 l Owen, have we reached some preliminary bottom 23 l line n that case? 24 MR. SHACKLETON: No. That initial field work is 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161 1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 j
38 l 1' indicative of interviewing allegers, the first step in the 2 investigation. It's not a prediction of what -- it would 3 be premature. 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: It would be what? 5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Premature. l 6 MR. SHACKLETON: Premature. 7 MR. HAYES: Premature. 8 MR. DIRCKS: Ben, is this the -- the 301 allega-9 tions of GAP, is this the GAP package or -- 10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, it looks like it. 11 MR. HAYES: I don't know. We're addressing i 12 100 and -- approximately 121 allegations within all of these 13 inquiries and investigations. I am sure that many of them 14 came to us through the Government Accountability Project. MR. DIRCKS: Well, I just knew there were 301 15 s ubmitted recently. I was wondering if this batch here i 16 is that -- was in that 301. 17 MR. HAYES: Oh, on that 301 that we got from the 18 39 Government Accountability Project, were there any matters f wrong-doing in that 30l? 20 MR. SHACKLETON: Yes, and there were duplications 21 f allegations that had been manifested prior to that 22 time. So we just folded those, whichever ones -- into 23 existing investigations that we had already had. There were 24 n new matters brought up in that 301 allegations. 25 l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt da Annop. 169-6136 E_____________. J
39 l l 1 i 1 MR. LIRCKS: Are these matters we're talking about 2 now in that package? l 3 MR. SHACKLETON: What was the question again? 4 MR. DIRCKS: That matters we're discussing this 5 morning, are they within that 301 allegations, or are these 6 ~ separate and apart from that 30l? 7 MR. HAYES: I think the answer to that, Bill, is 8 that many of these allegations were received prior to the 9 receipt of the 301. But when we got the additional 301, i 10 many of those we'd seen before and we just pulled it 11 toge ther. 12 MR. DIRCKS: So these are not in addition, they're 13 they're synonymous with the 3017 14 MR. HAYES: I would think so. j 15 MR. DIRCKS: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Ben, would you 17 characterize this as one of the most significant investi-18 gations that's still open? 19 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir, I would. Absolutely. That's why I wanted to go through the listing of cases here before 20 -- before the Commission started discussion on what next. 21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What -- could -- do you have 22 some specifics? It says -- it talked about the QA breakdown 23 by Pullman Power Products that involves discrimination 24 Practices, QA mindset, which is hard to determine -- let's 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. I Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6236
L L 40 f. L. I' see' -- false documentation, which 2 guess is not too ha):d 1 l 2 to determine. I l 3 MR. HAYES: Well, I do have before me, 4 Mr. Chairman, the most recent inquiry that we have opened i 5 up, and if I am not mistaken, it deals with Pullman Power. 6 And I believe the Public Affairs Office sent to the i 7 Commission a copy of the LA Times article that appeared 8 last week. And allegedly, two QC inspectors for the Pullman j J g Power Corporation were accosted in the employee parking lot, 10 as craft personnel allegedly -- 11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That's a new one. That's not l 12 part of this, is it? 13 MR. HAYES: Yes, but -- but I use that as an i g example of the type of allegation that one might find in i this particular investigation. 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But that doesn't -- that may i 16 37 be -- it may even be true that somebody said, "Well, the way 18 to treat these guys is with a 44." But does that prove or 19 establish some wrong-doing on the part of Pullman Company? What -- what affidavits or supporting evidence do we have 20 f r these allegations? We better understand. 21 MR. HAYES: Well, I'm sure that we probably -- g and you correct me, Owen and Ron -- what we 've probably done 23 to date, Mr. Chairman, is to document in some type of sworn g type of documentat. ion, either Q&A or an affidavit of some 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
l' 41 I type, the allegations from the 12 inspectors. And so the-2 investigation has just reached that stage whore we have the ! 3 matters of wrong-doing basically set out to be investigated. 4 So I would be hesitant to suggest that these allegations 5 are close to being true or we'll be able to substantiate 6 them or we will not, or the involvement of management at 7 Pullman Power. Those are questions I just can't answer. 8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I gather your initial 9 field work indicates you ought to go further? i 10 MR. HAYES: Oh, absolutely, yes, sir. 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Just as a side matter, 12 not necessarily directly related to this, Harold, is this i 13 the same Pullman that we've had problems with at a number of other sites? Is this company just in general a bad y actor in a number of different sites? 15 MR. DENTON: We've wondered about the same thing. 16 97 It is the same company. Whether the people are the same, 18 we haven't been able to establish yet.but -- COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But this company seems jg to have problems at a number of sites in terms of their 20 performance. g MR. DENTON: Yes, they have had. MR. DIRCKS: I think Foley does, too. l g COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That 's righ t. i MR. DIRCKS: I;think Eoley -- you see that name g FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136 N
42 l l 1 rpentioned -- j 2 MR. HAYES: 'a.'h e n e x t invo stigation, 584023'-- 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, I don't -- I guess I'm l 4 still wondering what to say. I've been able to write 5 something down on every one except I haven't been able to i 6 write something.down on 022. Does this mean that you won't 7 complete your report or you won't complete your investigation 8 until January 1985? Is that right? 9 MR. HAYES: That's what we have it scheduled with jo the resources we have, yes, sir. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And so we don't really have 11 any conclusive observation at this time. 12 MR. HAYES: No, sir. 13 The next investigation deals with another 34 termination of a Bechtel engineer. That investigation is 15 basically concluded. And we were not able to prove the 16 l alleger's allegation. I 37 MR. DIRCKS: Can I ask a question? On the Pullman 18 QA heaMown hesdgadon, de one you just tah abod, i 19 is the regional office looking into the substance of the -- of the allegations? Have you got anything to say about how l that affects the plant safety or construction? Does the utility know about it yet? 23 MR. BISHOP: Yes. This is Tom Bishop. The last 24 f ur cases we've talked about, OI talks about, number 11, 12, 25 l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 261-1901 e Bolt. 46 Annop. 269-613 6
43 l 1 15, and 22, are all frcrti sources that are being assisted by 2 GAP and have been the sabject of extensive submittals in 3 the form of 2.206 documents and the like to the Commission. 4 We have taken this large number of allegations 5 that were contained in the many documents that came in and 6 divided them according to the appropriate organizations that 7 should be addressing them. And those that involve 8 intimidation or harassment or direct wrong-doing were 9 provided to,OI to f allow up. And of course, tied very to closely in with some of those were hardware allegations 11 where tne individuals felt that particular hardware problems 12 or recordkeeping problems supported their case for 13 intimidation. And the technical staff, either Mr. Denton's 14 office or Region V office, picked up on all the technical 15 issues, and those are addressed in the large number of 16 allegations that are -- we're addressing in the SSER 21, 22, and 26. 17 3g So in each of these cases that we've talked about, 19 through numbers 11, 12, 15, and 2.2, while OI is looking at 20 the harassment and intimidation and wrong-doing aspects, 21 the technical staff is focusing in on each of the allega-ti ns from the technical significance. 22 They're a very large volume of -- we're talking 23 1 about, I believe, the individual who is the subject of a 24 discrimination in number 12, case number 12, for example, 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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44 1 provides us something on the order of 150 to 170 allegations 2 himself, reinted to technical areas, and a vast number of i 3 which we have not found any significant problems or found 4 any problems at all. 5 MR. DIRCKS: Well, but when did these incidents 6 of harassment occur which might have affected the work at 7 the plant, Tom? 8 MR. BISHOP: Concerning Pullman, we're talking 9 about the last two years. 10 MR. DIRCKS: The last two years. 11 MR. BISHOP: '82 to '83 '84. 12 Also, just to further comment on the reply to 13 the commissioner's question or the Chairman's question, the types of -- types of allegations that we're looking into 14 15 on Pullman, we're talking about in the case of one 16 allegation, cheating on a QA certification test; others, 17 We're talking about alteration of QC records, falsification 18 of QC records. Other allegations deal with the mindset to 19 change the existing QC procedures by making it more difficult 20 to report discrepancies or deficiencies; in other words, by 21 prohibiting the QC inspectorr; from writing NCRs and'just l writing it on an in-house fc.rm, from there, an in-house form 22 23 nto a memorandum type of form. Those are most of the l 24 types of allegations concerning Pullman and OI investiga-tions. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 l L_____________ .a
45 L 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You say that.the 2 allegations -- or,'rather, the alleged incidents span a 3 period from 1982 to '84. Is there any clustering, or. is it 4 pretty uniformly distributed? Can you give us any sense of 5 when most of these problems occurred? I don't know, Ben, maybe you have information 6 on that, too. 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Or when they arose. 8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: When they -- g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Were identified. 10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: No, not when they were identified. First, when they occurred. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: They haven' t proved that 13 i they occurred. As a matter of fact, he said that out of g a hundred and some, they found substantially none -- I am not sure of your Words. COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Alleged incidents. When ea ege cMents allegedly ocm? 18 MR. HAYES: It's getting a little complicated. ,g Ron, do we have any feel for -- for that? MR. MEEKS: Yes. Like I said, there's not that 21 much clustering on it. There't not too big of a time 22 period, '82 to '84. If you look at the -- and I don' t know 23 24 what you have located in the briefing book, Mr. Hayes, but 25 the sheet where it breaks down all of our investigations FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 .1
l 46 1 chronologically and who the allegers are and what allegations 2 numbers have been assigned to those by the regions, if you l 3 go to case 22, 584022, it gives you the approximate time i 4 frame, and that's the time frame that that incident occurred j 5 on those allegations. 6 MR. HAYES: That's in the first -- l 7 MR. MEEKS: I have down here -- 8 MR. HAYES: -- first part of your briefing book, j 9 gentlemen. 10 MR. MEEKS: -- just 83, 83, 79, 840, 3, 88, 840 -- 11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh. Okay. Very good. 12 MR. MEEKS: So there is no clustering or beehives 13 of activity on-- l 14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, let me ask another 15 question then. Is there any knowledge as to how -- when 16 these various individuals stepped forward or were asked to 17 Step forward to present their particular allegation or 18 complaint? 19 MR. HAYES: Most of these, if I'm not mistaken, 20 were received in starting in approximately December of last 21 year, Commissioner, is when we actually took receipt of them. l 22 23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Did they arise out of GAP's 24 activity? 25 MR. HAYES: Many arose or came to us via GAP. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l Court Reporting e Depositions } D.C. Area 2611902
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l 47 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But we have no sense of 2 for how long these problems have been known to some party, 3 whether or not the NRC? 4 MR. HAYES: I don't know. 5 Owen, can -- do you have a feel for that as to whether or 'not at that particular plant site, even prior to I 6 i December 1983, did you have a sense that there was these 7 types of concerns at that plant? 8 MR. SHACKLETON: Well, in the case of Pullman, 9 once again, Mr. Hudson's allegations refer to incidents 10 in 19 79. The other allegers -- the earliest, I think, at 11 Pullman was in 1979 as identified -- 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, when did the issue of 13 1979 come forth? 34 MR. SHACKLETON: All of these allegations were alleged to have occurred in 1971 - '79, excuse me -- came 6 forth as of December 1983 to the present. g HA MAN A DINO: Okay. j 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Ben, are things to the g point yet -- I suspect the answer is, "No," but let me try anyway -- to the point yet where you can identify in somewhat m re detail which of this list here on -- in the first 22 section you consider to be the most significant, not to 23 say promising, in your investigation? 24 MR. HAYES: The most serious in terms of 'l 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. 3 Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136
- - = - - - I p 48 j j I ramifications for OI? Is.that it? I would think certainly 2 584011 -- the gentleman's name is Mr. Steve Lockert, and 3 he was terminated by Pullman for writing NCRs, which 'I 4 think certainly bears looking at. i 5-And also 584010, which we basically
- prove, 6
apparently,that discrimination did in fact take place.- And 7 that's Foley. 8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I was referring also -- I l l 9 mean, proceed, if you have further comments. I was 10 wondering whether under 022, for example, you're to the 33 point where you can say that some number of those are 12 Particularly significant in your view. There is a clustering there. You have about -- well, what, 10 or so of these 13 34 bunched under 022. MR. HAYES: Well, Lockert, of course, if you'll 15 notice, is really tied into another investigation that I 16 just spoke of. 37 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Right. MR. HAYES: Harold Hudson, allegation 465, is 39 also a separate independent investigation where DOL found 20 against Mr. Hudson. 21 McDermott, on the next page, is another DOL case. 22 Mr. Charles Stokes, the last gentleman there -- all 23 f these are tied into other investigations. So you would 24 have to really -- I would really have to dissect the 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
49 1 investigation, Commissioner, to really answer that. And i 1 i 2 we're just not far enough along in this particular case to 3 .give even a feel to the Commission. 4 70MMISSIONER BERNTHAL: All right. 5 MR. HAYES: As today I am giving you my staff's t 6 assessment as to what they think the bottom line is going to be, and that's subject to our managerial review, which 7 8 has not occurred yet. But knowing that <you have a decision to be made here, we're trying to give you what we have today. 9 10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But I do think we face the 11 problem we've discussed before, that a number of these are late allegations in terms of when the information might have 12 13 been known. 14 MR. HAYES: Yes, sir, that is correct. 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But I don't know what you do $g after you say that. 17 MR. HAYES: Another prominent investigation is 18 the next one on my list, 584027. This one involves the 19 applicant themselves, PG&E. We have eight allegers that we have allegations on concerning PG&E quality assurance 20 21 deficiencies. 22 And I've got a note here, OI, no position yet at 23 this time. We're basically in the same posture there as we 24 are with the previous 022 case. 25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: When you say, " Estimated FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 i
1 50 1 ' completion date January ' 85," does that mean the rep. ort, i i 1 1 2 the field work? 3 MR. HAYES: That's the report shipped to 4. headquarters office for our review. That 's when the region 5 feels as though they can complete this investigation if I am 6 able to give them' additional support, which all of my 7 regional directors want. And to be candid with this 8 Commission, I am waiting to see what the Commission does with this full-power vote before I start shifting resources 9 10 around nationwide. As of now, we have a detail to Region V 11 to assist in these cases. Two of our investigators out of 12 Region II have been out there a number of months. And I am 13 somewhat reluctant to keep them out there for an extended 34 period of time. I'm going to have to do some rotations. 15 But obviously, if the Commission needs matters resoM Wore dey want to a&ess MS issue, den I W W 16 be obliged to put resources out there from wherever I can 37 get them, to resolve them as quickly as possible. l 18 39 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But realistically, Ben, when you say, "As quickly as possible," when I hear your 20 21 description of where things stand in 022 and 027, being 22 realistic now, and even shif ting the maximum number of 23 people you can, I don't -- I can't imagine that you're going 24 to resolve all those within even a few weeks. I would assume 25 it would be many weeks. Is that wrong? FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136 J
51 1 MR. HAYES: I think that 's probanly correct, 2 Commissioner. If I could put -- I would hAve to take people! 3 off of Region I investigations, send them to Region V, 4 continue Region II's support of Region V, and I still think 5 we're talking months here. We are not talking weeks. There is just too much work to be done, and we just don't 6 have the bodies to do it. 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But even i'f you did it, 8 g would you expect this to be the end of allegations of this nature? 10 11 MR. H7.YES: I can' t answer that one. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The pattern of recent 13 history has shown that this would not be the end of the 14 allegations. As soon as it looks like the ones in hand 15 have been treated or addressed, the history shows we get a 16 new batch. 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, but that's probably 18 true, and I don't doubt that we'll see many cases where a 19 new set of allegations comes in. But to the extent that they come in in a timely fashion and to the extent that 20 Ben is able to come in, as he has today, and say, "There's 21 22 smoke somewhere in this pile of brush," it just seems to me 23 we've got a fundamental policy difficulty here. There may 24 be no easy way out, because we may just be dealing with an 25 old regime of the way things were done -- FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Ccurt Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261 1902 e Bolt. & Annap. 169-6136
51 j 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But you used the word 2 "a timely" -- '3-COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -- and I hope will not be 4 done again in this business. But we've got a policy problem, 5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But they're going to be done 6 again. You used the word " timely fashion. " I'm not sure 7 that these have been given in a timely fashion. 8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, to me, " timely 9 fashion"'means bringing such allegations in in sufficient 10 time that there is scme hope of our staff being able to 11 identify truly significant matters as opposed to insignificant matters. Clearly, if you come in the day before we're 12 13 supposed to make a decision, that's impossible, in most 14 cases, I should think. But a lot of these are -- well, let's take the two at issue here, 20 -- what is it -- 15 MR. HAYES: 22 and 27. 16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: 22 and 27. 27 -- well, 37 I grant you that's late, but I gather Ben has been able to 18 make some preliminary judgment on that one. 22 has been 39 in fr nt of us now for three months or so, two months, 20 2 1/2 months. So presumably, a preliminary judgment is g quite possible on that one. I don't know whether you can 23 speak so confidently, Ben, about 27. Maybe you'd like 24 to say something on it. 25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTlNE: Ben, when did the 1 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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52 1 allegations come in that are covered by 22 and 277 I thought 2 you said on 22 most of those came in last year, in December. 3 MR. HAYES: Well, they're from a variety of 4
- sources, and I would have to go back to the document at 5
the beginning of the report. We can -- what we've attempted 6 to do is this, gentlemen. We received just a tremendous 7 amount of allegations on that facility, as you remember, and 8 1 directed my staff to concentrate our resources on those 9 areas that I thought were the most significant -- that is, 10 falsified records at a plant site, QA/QC or whatever it 33 might be. 12 So we tried to resolve that, and also the Boston-13 Bergman investigation, if you remember, the staff said, "We 14 can't go any further until OI6 resolves that." We put basically everything we had on that, and we've got that in 15 hand. 16 37 The intimidation and harassment investigations basically took a second seat until resources were available 18 19 to start those investigations. And during that time frame we ntinued to get additional allegations, which we 20 in rPorated under a Pullman -- under a PG&E or whatever 21 it might be. 22 And my thought was that as we -- as these 23 allegations surfaced, the technical portion of the allegation 24 is split off and given to the staff for resolution because 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 2611901
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j~ S3 t i I thought, in my view, I wanted to put the Commission and 2 the staff in a position to resolving the technical things as quickly as possible and allow me to continue my 3 investigations, because I knew that I could not keep up with 4 the Commission and the staff in terms of resolving these l 5 6 matters prior to you wanting to address the full-power vote. 7 So that is the rationale I used, and that 's why I 8 find myself today as we're going to find at other plants 9 coming up, I am not going to he able to tell this Commission the final resolution on many of these allegations except 10 for the falsification material. I hope to resolve those 33 for you. 12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: It sounds like the 33 problem of OI resources coming home to roost. 34 Y U" Y 15 transmittal memo to you -- COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I saw your cover memo. g MR. HAYES: I pointed out two other cases to 8 you gentlemen, that in SONGS I, if I can't split off some ,g resources to resolve that, I'm going to be right here before you a few months down the road saying I can't tell you anything. And SONGS I, of course, is Region V. And TDI, TransAmerica de Labau, I have not put resources on that case, because there's an owners group, the staff is well involved, and I thought I could afford to back out of that. But 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 169-6136 )
54 1 eventually, we're going to have to address that QA/QC 2 breakdown there. 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: You know', Joe, we doa't need to get into this today, but it's just becoming clear 4 s that over the next 18 months, with all of these plants 6 coming through and with the system the way it was in the 7 '70s, given the resources that are in this OI effort and 8 the decisions that we're going to be faced with time and 9 again, that this system just ain't going to wash and we're 10 going to have to -- there has to be some kind of broader 11 policy decision on how we're going to handle these things. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I'm glad to hear you say 13 that because you recall there was a meeting -- and I've 14 forgotten the date -- in which my -- one of my main purposes 15 was to get attention to the question of what do we do about 16 allegations, because I think unless one has a wealth of 37 resources, that we're going to be saturated at any case ja where there's an interest in saturating our investigation 19 capability. And that's unfortunate, because I would hate 1 to see us miss very important allegations that need atten-20 l tion, because I am sure that such cases exist. That is why 21 1 l 22 I think we need some other system to evaluate them. I l 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It is not just a matter only 24 of evaluating, th ough.. The question is we're -- we've got 25 a setup here with an Office of Investigations, and you either FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l Court Reporting
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55 l 1 1 do the job right or you decide that you didn't want to do it 2 that way. And if we didn't want to do it that way, then 3 Congress and we jointly should decide how we do want to do 4 it. 5 We're getting a sniff of things now, and -- and 6 I suspect that this is going to get worse rather than better 7 over the next several months. We ' re just going to -- I'm a guessing, but from what Ben seems to be saying, time after 9 time as we go through the next 18 months to two years, come 10 up against these situations where we have six months' worth ij of investigations and about two weeks' worth of people to 12 carry them out. It just isn't going to work. 13 MR. DENTON: And the technical staff's ability 34 to resolve them while they 're under investigation varies 15 tremendously on whether it's a -- 16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's right. MR. DENTON: -- specific allegation that we can 17 18 maybe deal with or whether we have to wait if it has 19 programmatic implications as to whether it's true or not. S y u know, we are doing some big efforts at Waterford, but 20 they're very labor-intensive to proceed -- 21 CHAIRMAN PALIADINO: Well, I am really pleased 22 to hear you say this, but I don't want any implication in 23 saying when I say we should evaluate it that I'am not 24 suggesting we do things right. As a matter of fact, I am 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aree 161-1901 e Bolt. da Annep. 169-6136 l
56 1 op:n to any reasonable suggestion -- and " reasonable" means l i 2 that it has a possibility of working -- to help resolve this 3 question. i l 1 4 Now, we do have a paper that we've gotten recently 5 that discusses the options and alternatives, but I think we ' re 6 oPen to any reasonable approach to resolving this problem. 7 But I think it does take recognition that they are going to a come in batches, at least based on the history, and that they 9 are going to come just about the time of any important 10 decision, because that's been the history. And I've issued 33 letters urging them to come early so that we can have a chance to deal with them. But nevertheless, I think we have 12 13 to face the facts as they are. MR. DENTON: It's not -- I realize it doesn't 14 help the existing situation, Mr. Chairman, but other countries 15 don't have the two-stage process we do of construction permit 10 and operating license, and they seem to be able to dispose 37 1 of, say, concrete work when the concrete is poured, and that jg would be the time to handle allegations about concrete, then 19 move to the next stage of construction. Our two-stage process, where it saves all the g allegations about construction during the eight-year time Period until the very end, and that's the form by which they 23 are addressed then is when there's a decision. They're not addressed as those activities are completed in actual 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. 46 Annop. 269-6136 i _______-____-__-__-__A
1 57 l 1 construction. 2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Unfortunately, that isn' t ) 3 going to help us through the current mess, and there's -- 1 1 I 4 MR. DENTON: That's right, no. l i 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -- no way to go back and 6 redo the way things have been done. And I would almost 7 wonder, Mr. Chairman -- and I am not sure whether this would 8 be a breach of protocol or separation of functions or not -- g but perhaps we just need to be candid with the Congress on 10 this issue, and it might even be appropriate to -- might and 33 might not be appropriate -- to present to them in a closed 12 meeting at least the nature of the -- of the problem here 13 and the magnitude of the problem. And either if you have 34 the resources to address things in a timely manner or we need 15 to decide how we're going to do this. 16 We've got 10 years of problems now that are 17 going to come flying at us in the next year and a half or 18 two yeara, and I just don't think it's going to work. I don't 19 see how we're going to find our way out of this. Even in this 20 case, just look at what we have in front of us right now. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, you know, it's hard 21 to convince the Congress unless the Commission is convinced, 22 and I think at the meeting before Tom Bevill I could have 23 used a great deal of support in this direction, but I didn't 24 l get it. So it makes it very difficult for me when I try to 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 i
P: 1 58 I have individual conversations with those members of Congress 2 of selling them on this point. I think it's -- that's why I 3 say I am pleased that you come to the same kind of conclusion 4 that I have been seeing for quite some time and.been quite 5 concerned about, so that maybe we have a better chance of 6 trying to cope with it. 7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I think the nature a of the problem, really, though -- I have only been here a 9 year, but the severity of the problem has only become 10 apparent, I think -- and certainly to me -- but in the last 11 six months maybe that -- maybe I am wrong and maybe there 12 are others who are more prescient than -- CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, recall when we were 13 14 ready for low-power license on Diablo Canyon, we had a flood f investigations and allegations -- excuse me -- allegations. 15 We've been trying to cope with them by a system that doesn't 16 quite work in the time frame that we need to work with. 17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But the flood of jg allegations at the last minute is one issue, and I don't 19 have -- 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, this is -- incidentally, g this is still part of that flood. g COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I know, but what I am g saying is that there is a matter of timeliness here, and if g -- if the flood comes in at the last minute, you do the best, 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aroo 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 l
59-l 1 most conscientious job you can, tryingtomaintainthenormal{ 2 threshold, I should say, for allegations, but if th ay come 3 in in a timely manner such that you can reasonably reach a 4 judgment that these are important and significant, that's 5 almost another question, and I think -- 6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, wait a minute. These 7 came in the time frame of a low-power license decision -- 8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sure, but -- g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: -- and we're just catching 10 up with it. 33 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sure. 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But what I am saying is we 13 went ahead with low power even recognizing that some of these 14 may lead to problem areas. Now we have a tougher one when we come to full power. 15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's right. That's right 16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And -- but these have come in 37 18 the time frame that was crowded and has been crowded ever 19 since we got the -- and it comes in several ways, not just 20 21 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But that in itself, as you 22 know -- and you agree, I know -- does not relieve us of our 23 responsibility. I think we can -- we can in good faith take 24 a somewhat tougher attitude when things are presented to us 25 where there is no possible -- no possibility of timely FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
60 1 response but -- 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But, see, I am troubled by -- 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: -- here we've got some 4 timely response. 5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I am troubled by this kind 6 of thing, to take some number, several hundred allegations, 7 and throw them down and then say, "Okay, fine, we'll work 8 on them.," then get another several hundred investigations 9 thrown down, and the alleger has felt no responsibility, 10 the alleging group has felt no responsibility, to see if 11 there are duplications, because one way to saturate the 12 system, one way to flood the system, is just keep filing 13 the same thing. 14 And that is bad from two standpoints. One, it 15 diverts our resources; and two, gives us a possibility of 16 missing something important. And that's really waht I think 17 concerns me more than just saying, "Well, the system is 18 saturated because we have to identify which are the same as 19 the previous ones." S I do think we need some attention on how to 20 1 handle them. And I don't have any preconceived notions. 21 As a matter of fact, if I had a good idea, I'd be pushing it 22 hard. 23 MR. DIRCKS: I think you've got to go back, to 24 w rk your way out of this case -- if I can offer a 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 + Solt. is Annop. 169-6136
61 1 suggestion -- I think you've jot to go back and say where the l 2 allegation is specific and dm.ls with a plant safety system. 3 You've got to look at that thing and make some technical 4 determinations. If that particular component or system which 5 has an allegation lodged against it, I think you've got to 6 go back and see whether that whole system has been reviewed 7 in the numerous reviews that have gone on in the past two 8 or three years at that plant. 9 The more troublesome -- 10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But I think that 's the 11 easiest part of the -- okay, go ahead. 12 MR. DIRCKS: -- part of -- the more troublesome 13 part are these -- are these nebulous allegations on the 14 attitude or harassment or management toleration. I -- if 15 you don't want this thing to go on for several years, I think 16 y u've got to say we're going to deal with the hardware issues, specific systems issues, and make judgments there, 37 jg and you've got to say for those other things you're going 19 to take them up in an enforcement context. I think in this case, people can write affidavits 20 faster than Ben can investigate them. no matter how many g resources you're going to give him. It's going to go on for 22 years. But that's -- that's only my observation on the 23 problems. g 25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I agree with that. And it FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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3 62 1 would seem to me that we could probably expect allegations 2 even af ter the plart does go to full power. 3 MR. DIRCKS: True. 4 COMMISSIONER ZECH : It seems to me that perhaps 5 we ought to look at some way of making -- sorting out the 6 allegations, and those involving safety of the plant 7 receiving some kind of a preliminary evaluation in as fast g a time as possible so that we can prioritize those that do 9 not involve plant safety. I don' t know that that would work 10 r not, but I think we need some kind of a statement from the 33 staff that indicates that in their judgment the allegations 12 do not impinge on the safety of the plant operation. And that may require follow-up investigations, but I think there 13 34 has to be some degree of confidence that the preliminary udgment will stand, and leave the administrative and 15 organhadonal and harassment and dose M of hgs as 16 a separate subject to be dealt with. But again, as we've 17 said earlier, the determination has got to be made that jg that's not widespread, and that's what we hear from Region V. 19 If it's not widespread, then it can be dealt with individually. If it is widespread, it would have an impact on perhaps other things. But those are the kind of statements I believe we need from the staff. And it seems to me that that's not an mPossible task, but perhaps it is very difficult and I 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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63 1 am inexperienced enough to -- to rely on other opinions. 2 But it srems to me that that's an effort that we might make. 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I think with that 4 question we need from the staff a determination whether or 5 not they think these allegations have involved any hardware 6 problems that need further corrective action or whether or 7 not they've taken the corrective action. And that 's I think 8 the easier piece of action that we need to take. 9 Now, the harder question is what does the to Commission want to do with regard to whether this plant 33 can start up or not. When we come to questions of harassment 12 and intimidation involving -- I see several of the 13 subcontractors as well as some involving PG&E itself. We 34 did hear from the people in Region V that from their sample they chn see this being widespread. However, from this 15 Sample, it looks like it's widerspread than -- 16 MR. DIRCKS: Well, I think the issue -- you've 37 got to take what's the result of the so-called harassment. 18 If it's harassment on QC inspectors dealing with quality of 19 small-bore piping, then you've got to go back and say, "Well, 20 have we looked at small-bore piping? Is the harassment g consequent evident in poor workmanship on small-bore g piping?" 23 Then I think you're going to go back and maybe g take a lo k at the task force report and the ACRS review of 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 i
n 64 l 1 that subject and say, "Well, from that standpoint, the I 2 workmanship essentiall y has not been affected, and let 's move 3 on with that issue." 4 We -- we -- we to some extent confronted this 5 Problem at the -- at the low-power range where we said, "Look, .6 there are 500-and-some-odd allegations pending. Jack Martin 7
- said,
'I'm going to do 200-and-some-odd of them, just to 8 sort them out to see what safety issues might be impacted.'" g He was not going to do every allegation; he was only going go to do a sample number of allegations to see how much that workmanship was affected. 33 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That's not my 12 recollection of what we were told at the time of the low-power 13 licensing. 34 MR. DIRCKS: What was your recollection? 15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: My recollection was 16 that the staf f had done an intensive effort on the first 37 gr up that had come in. They had looked at the second -- at 18 e rema N er at least in enough M an to assure h mselns 19 either that they were essentially duplicative of matters already covered in the first sample or were not of major significance. MR. DIRCKS: I think you and I are coming about it in the same way. Essentially that's what I am trying to say. There was not going to be an attempt to do all -- I've 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 1611901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 )
65 1 I 1 forgotten how many allegations were left at the end -- but I l 2 they were going to see how -- how -- how much duplication 3 they had and whether or not that -- it af fected certain 4 safety systems that had not already been looked at. o 5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But that's more than 6 just an audit. That is looking at all of them in enough 7 detail to satisfy yourselves chat -- 8 MR. DIRCKS: I think that was Jack's point. I mear 9 they had intensively revAewed 200-and-some-odd allegations; i 10 they had interviewed people time and time again; and they it had gone back and looked at the system. They had taken 12 people through that plant and pointed out problems to them, 13 and they -- and they then did the inspection of the system. 14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Bill, have the various 15 systems that are implied by the harassment and intimidation 16 allegations, have they been looked at to see that they are 17 adequate, that they are -- 18 MR. DENTON: Our criteria -- remember, we put in 19 I think it was SER 22 or 21 our evaluation criteria, and we do screen every allegation against those criteria, and if it 20 21 represents a -- trips *Sose criteria, we put it in as one that we're going to look at hard. And I think Bill Bishop 22 can describe where that stands. 23 24 MR. DIRCKS: I think we mentioned SSER 21, 22, and 25 26. And to the extent that 26 is up to date, I don't know FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Salt. 66 Annop.169-6136 a
66 I whether it's covered. These particular items that Ben is 2 reviewing with you now, I have not seen this list yet. 3 MR. DENTON: It probably doesn't include the ones 4 of last week, for example. 5 MR. DIRCKS: And I think that's where you've got 6 to focus your attention on, whether the allegation goes to 7 a system that's already been looked at. 8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, now, how can you tell 9 -- I guess I was going to ask this question and then I had 10 a corollary question. Would you be ready to make your 11 determination by the time -- I guess it's August 2 -- we 12 proposed as a possible vote day? And then my corollary 13 question is, well, will you even have enough information to make that determination? 14 MR. DIRCKS: I guess Tom Bishop, whether or not 15 16 you've seen the list that Ben is working off of here and how much information you would have accumulated by Thursday on 17 this issue. 18 MR. BISHOP: The answer, I think, is clearly, "Yes, 19 we have looked into -- we have made an assessment of the 20 technical significance of all the allegations that are on the 21 OI list, and indeed we've resolved something on the order of 22 500 or 580 of the related technical issues." 23 We used the criteria that we described in SSER 22 24 in focusing on which allegations we thought were most 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Arevi 161-1901 e Bolt. G Annap. 169 6136
67 j 1 important and which needed the most direct attention. And 2 those in some cases were ones that have parallel concerns 3 expressed to OI in terms of intimidation and harassment. 4 I think it's useful for all of us to realize that 5 when these people made a harassment allegation, they generally made a related hardware or a paperwork allegation 6 as evidence of what they were harassed about. And in those 7 cases, we took on the technical meaning of what that means 8 9 to the safety of the plant, to plant systems, and as -- and the management of the plant. to And as we described in the three SERs that have 11 been issued to this point, we do not feel that the plant 12 systems are in jeopardy. We do not feel that there have 33 been major failings in management other than those that 14 we're -- we had addressed particularly in the design area. 15 nk it indicates where we have looked at the technical 16 side of the alleged harassment and intimidation issue, and 37 we are comfortable with the conclusions we've reached in jg those areas. 39 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask the Commission 20 a question. With regard to Thursday's meeting, do you think it would be appropriate to have another meeting on 21spos10.on of allegations? Would that have to be closed, g r can it be open? It seems to me the staff is trying to 24 25 make some judgments based on the information it has now. I FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting
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68 i don't know how much more you'll have by -- by Thursday, but 2 I think we do need some appraisal from the staff on where 3 they stand. 4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. I think we do need ) 5 the staff's reviews of all of the technical aspects of the allegations. It strikes me that that ought to be an open 6 meeting just as it was at the time of the low-power license. 7 MR. DENTON: And that will be up through some date 8 part of the briefing, because that is what we had envisioned 9 briefing you on. g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. So we can include it as part of our 10:00 a.m. meeting? OMMISSIOER ASSELSTME:
- Yes, 13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Yes, I would think so. g That's -- that's an essential feature, I think, of this separation that it seems we're proposing that there be a separation -- and I subscribe to that idea -- between technical and management issues. g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But even on the management g issues, Bill Dircks suggests that one way of determining l 20 whether or not you had an impact on QC was to go back and l 21 see the hardware that the QC allowed to pass. 22 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. There is a link, 23 and I think you have to address it to that extent. 24 "^ ^ ^ 9 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161 1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 ]
69 l 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Harold, I take it that 2 in terms of documented reviews, staff reviews of these items, 3 it's sort of scattered around. In the small-bore piping area, 1 it would be found in the report of the special review team. 4 l 5 There's some of it in SSER 21, 22, and I guess 26 now, so 6 that you have to go to each of those individual places, is that right, to look at it? 7 MR. DENTON: That's correct. They've been dealt 8 with in different time frames, and as we've dealt with them, 9 10 we've published it rather than keeping them. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So there's not one g place -- g MR. DENTON: That's right. 3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yeah. Would it be g possible to maybe get by, say, Wednesday morning an outline ~~ 16 allegations are addressed, the technical aspects of them, g so that at least we would know, for example, small-bore g piping go to the special review team's average and in some g of these others here's where in Supplement 22 they're addressed or here's where they're addressed? 21 MR. DENTON: Yes. I think we clarified that. 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, they clarified this in two places -- MR. DIRCKS: He wants to know if they're FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 1611902 e Balt da Annop. 169-6236 J
l 70 I cross-referenced. i i 2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Taat's right. 3 .MR. DENTON: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That's right. 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, or as well, if it's 6 not asking too much more, also some quotation, if possible, 7 of what the summary conclusion was, what the conclusion was. 8 MR. DENTON: All right. That gets a bit harder. g COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: If you can't -- 10 MR. DENTON: Obviously, we think we have resolved 11 it, and we'll call to your attention the ones which are l 12 -- which are troublesome or we had the most difficulty with. 13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, let me point out now, 14 we still have OIA to report. I am not trying to' set off this 15 meeting as long as we have issues to address, but have we 16 covered these matters at luast for the moment, to the 17 satisfaction of the Commission? i 18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: It looks likeathere are l ig two more. Is that right, Ben? MR. HAYES: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: We could go through 21 1 those pretty quickly. 22 CHAIRMAN ~PALLADINO: -AllLright. 23 MR. HAYES: We're basically ready -- 24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And maybe you could give 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. 46 Annop.269-6136 \\
71 j 1 some summary comments about the significance of all of these 2 related investigations. 3 MR. HAYES: All right. On page 10, if you will, s 4 gentlemen, 584028, we have no position on that investigation 5 yet. We've just now documented the allegations to commence 6 an investigation. 7 And 584029 -- 8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: What work was covered t.- 9 by Atkinson? What did they do; do we know? 10 REGION V: Atkinson was the primary civil n contractor, they erected the containment, did most of the 12 concrete work on site and a lot of the structural steel 13 work in the early phases of the project. I 14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay. 15 MR. HAYES: All right, 029, at the bottom of 16 page 10 is another Foley discrimination type case.
- Again, 37 we are projecting a 1985 completion on that one.
18 Let me say, there is another investigation of 19 Region V that we have not been able to address that in my view is very important. That is the alleged cheating 20 at Trojan for control room manual examinations; that is on 21 page 12. That case is yet unassigned. We have had it 22 f ur r five m nths now. It bothers me. 23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, anything more? 24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I would just like l 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositlens D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 l
1 72 l 1 to make the commtnt that I think we have in this brief discussion here 02tlined -- maybe outlined some principles 2 3 that we can or intend to follow in handling this kind of 4 massive amount of investigatory work to be done and the 5 information in front of us, I think, is going to happen over 6 and over. 7 I am not sure that we have ever really tried to a set forth what the Commission's policy will be on matters of 9 management versus hardware. I grant you, you can't 10 separate them clearly. But I would think that at some point 11 maybe this will happen in due course in some of the decisions 12 that we have. 13 But at some point, the public deserves to know 14 the standard that we are going to apply to these massive 15 amounts of work that remain to be done at the last minute on 16 management issues. 17 It is pretty clear that the hardware issues are 18 something you must resolve in the interest of plant safety. 19 But management is a fuzzier area and we need to at least try and articulate for the public, I think, what kind of standard 20 we are going to apply there. 21 MR. DIRCKS: At the early stage of Diablo when we 22 dealt with that large number of allegations coming in at that 23 point, there was an attempt to develop a couple of criteria, 24 some of them we talked about. One dealt with management and 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annep. 269-6236 1
73 f 1 I thir k -- Tom, you can correct me on this point if I get 2 it wroag -- I think when we got to management you were looking 3 at management responsiveness once the problem out there 4 has been identified, did they have a system; did it work; 5 did they come to grips with the problem, did they do something l 6 about it. i I 7 I think that was one of the issues I think was 8 stressed in one of those earlier Diablo meetings; is that 9 right? 10 REGION VI (MR. MARTIN): This is Jack Martin. 1 11 MR. DIRCKS: Oh, there he is. 12 REGION V (MR. MARTIN): When we have looked at the 1,400 or so allegations that staff retained, we looked 13 14 at them from two aspects, the technical, you know, is the 15 Plant safe or not. Secondly, does the allegation and the 16 circumstances surrounding it represent some kind of a 17 management problem. So, both of those were given pretty much equal 18 19 weight and I think, you know, we will be able to talk 20 Thursday that, is it right. But I believe we feel that we have a pretty good understanding of not only the technical 21 1 22 aspects but also the management systems portions. 23 The part of it that we did not get into was the facts pro and con as to whether a certain individual got 24 25 leaned on, or intimidated, or pressured beyond what - FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269 6136
74 i would be appropriate. But the management aspects of the 2 issue, you know, did the systems work properly; did the 3 company handle themselves appropriately, those we did look 4 into. 5 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes, I have to say for myself, I'm not quite convinced that a clear distinction 6 7 between managen.e-nt issues or allegations on the one hand and hardware issues on the other makes a lot of sense. I 8 g think you are going to have to look at the significance of the individual item. I can think of some hardware concerns s in that might not bother me very much. At the same time, I 33 can think of some management concerns that would trouble me 12 greatly about approving operation of a plant. 13 So, I think you have to look at the significance of 34 the items. 15 ell, you can look at the 16 significance of harassment on OCs in terms o.f what was the 37 result of hardware. But it doesn't tell you anything about jg the organization and its attitude towards dealing honestly 39 with problems which may arise in operation. 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, can we leave this for the time being -- g COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. g HA A A A
- -- and excuse the staff and OI, 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC.
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75 i 1 and hear from OIA? 2 If you want, we can take a two-minute recess. 3 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.) 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I wonder if we could pick up 5 now on the OIA report allegations pending before it.' 6 MR. MESSENGER: Okay. Mr. Chairman, I have with 7 me the investigator on Diablo, Mr. Ronald Smith from my 8 office. So, if we get into where we should need further 9 details, he is available to answer your questions. 10 But I just provided for you kind of a brief 11 opening statement. 12 In our Memorandum and Order dated April 13, 1984, 13 the Commission referred a petition submitted by the 14 Government Accountability Project -- GAP -- pursuant to 15 10 CFR 2.206 to the Office of Inspector and Auditor because 16 within the petition GAP, through its counsel, Thomas Devine, 17 raised the following matters which he viewed as requiring l 18 investigation: 19 a. Whether there have been misleading or material 20 false statements by the NRC staff to the Commission during 21 the March 19, 26, or 27 briefings or in supplemental safety 22 evaluation reports SSER 21, December 83 or SSER 22, March l 23 '84, and 24 b. The causes of a QA breakdown within the NRC 25 staff responsible for Diablo Canyon. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Weporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6236 i
i 76 l j In a second petition, dated May 3, 1984 an l l 2 additional briefing date of April 13 was added to "a" above. 3 Thomas Devine was interviewed in late June and 16 4 allegations of possible wrong-doing on the part of various 5 NRC employees were identified. Field work has been completed'and a report on the 6 7 results of that effort is in preparation. 8 The bulk of the allegations were that individual 9 NRC employees on different occasions -- either by statement r mission -- falsely advised the Commissioners on various 10 issues of import to the Commissioners ' decision on low power 33 testing at Diablo Canyon. g The NRC employees and number of allegations against 13 them were as follows: 34 Harold Denton, NRR, one; U""I 16 James P. Knight, NRR, one;
- r. Mark Hadzman, NRR, one -
18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What do you mean, "NRR, one?" l g l MR. MESSENGER: Nuclear -- that 's his of fice. 20 MR. SMITH: One allegation. MR. MESSENGER: One allegation per those, and I just identified the office. John B. Martin, Region V, six; Thomas Bishop, Region V, one; FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136 1
(. 77 I 1 Dennis Kirsch, Region V,
- three, 2
and two allegations against the NRC staff for (1) i 3 an alleged false statement in NUREG-0675 -- which is SSER 22 4 and, for (2) failing to give sufficiently complete and 5 accurate notice to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Appeal 6 Board on a particular issue. 7 The results, based on the staff investigation which 8 has not come to me for formal review at the report stage yet, 9 was that none of the allegations was substantiated either to because GAP was actually in error in its allegation or 11 because the substance of the allegation was based on matters 12 taken out of centext and therefore erroneous. 13 One matter I wish to point out to the Commission, 14 on July 24, Thomas Devine orally telephoned and advised 15 Ronald Smith, the investigator, that he was formally with-16 drawing all the allegations and that he would follow up on 17 that advice in writing. l 18 He was apparently upset because of a refusal by ig Mr. Smith to allow him and/or his witnesses to review the l 20 NRC employees' responses to the allegations, so that he ) 21 and/or they would have a chance to rebut the NRC responses 22 because in his view Region V had provided Mr. Smith with false responses. 23 24 Secondly, Mr. Devine was advised that his 25 witnesses need not be interviewed if all they were going to do FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136
78 l was to confirm the substance of the allegations previous:_y t. provided by him. 2 \\ So, that's the -- 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: How w 11 this matter be 4 closed, you will write your report? 5 MR. MESSENGER: Right, what I plan to -- 6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And then, what happens? 7 MR. MESSENGER: Well,'I am going to address the 16 g allegations which we found were not substantiated. The fact 9 f the matter is, they were made on the record at one. time, 10 we did the investigation. I have not received anything g formally from Mr. Devine as of this date. g COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: We received a letter, 33 I believe. g CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What? COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The Commission received a letter. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What kind of letter? 8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: A letter from Devine, g indicating that they were withdrawing the allegations containing a number of criticisms of the OIA investigation -- the OIA investigation, that's right, conducted by Mr. Smith, 22 23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But now, this all arose out 24 of a 2.206 petition. FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 269-6136
a, 79 l 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. U 2. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Does that mean they are 3 withdrawing the 2. 206? s. 4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE : Well, that's what'they 5 say, I suppose. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we i 6 want to let it drop. 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, it somehow seems wrong 8 to have done all this work and then not have it appear in g any form. 10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No, I agree. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Maybe that's their desire. 33 12 But would youvnormally give your report? I MR. MESSENGER: Yes, I still plan to issue the 13 14 report to the Commission. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And that would expect OGC 15 then to respond to the 2. 206. This is not a staff item. Is 16 that the appropriate vehicle? 37 l COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And have the Commission I 18 I review it. 19 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And have the Commission g review it. I mean, I guess -- ^ Y 23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: -- I would really like j g to see the report. I FREE STATE REPORTING INC. l Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1902 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6236 )
80 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: See the report. 2 MR. MESSENGER: Oh, yes. 3 (Simultaneous conversation) 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I wasn't trying to preclude 5 the Commission. But normally, it's the staff that handles the 2.206. 6 7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes, that's right. 8 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: This being special, I'll expect 9 OGC to handle it with Commission input. 10 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But does the fact that 33 Devine has withdrawn the allegations -- or whatever the term 12 13 is here -- mean that the 2.206 petition is also withdrawn, or can we still respond to a petition that has been withdrawn [ g by its submitters? COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Sure. MR. TRUBATCH: It seems to me that the issues now raised by GAP are sufficiently serious to require the g Commission to -- g COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I believe we should respond. My only question is -- MR. TRUBATCH: Well, I don't think the procedural format is really very important. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. 24 MR. MESSENGER: I can provide the Commission, if FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions l D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. 4 Annop.169-6136 1u _ _ _ _ ____- ____
81 l 1 you so desire, the 16 allegations that we have formulated. 2 COMMISSIONER Af.SELSTINE: When are you scheduled 3 to have the report done? 4 MR. MESSENGER: It is being written right now. My 5 target was this Friday but I realize you ought to know at 6 the meeting at Thursday. I'll push to make that date on 7 Thursday. But I have not seen it yet and I doubt whether 8 it's fully written; it's just about there. 9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, should we on Thursday 10 have a statement by OIA? 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: At least, given the 12 sensitivity of this and the people that are involved, and 13 given what is likely to be the Commission's reliance upon 14 the judgments of those very same. individuals, I'm not real 15 comfortable about going ahead without having the OIA report, 16 having it written down and being able to see the report on what has been done, myself, quite frankly. j7 18 At a minimum, I would like to see what the 16 39 allegations are. But given the fact that we have these 20 allegations against the very people who will be providing thei c technical judgment to the Commission, and also given the 21 fa t that we now have new concerns expressed about the 22 quality of this OIA inyt.stigation itself, I really think it 23 w uld be necessary to have the report. 24 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I agree with that. 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. Et Annop. 269-6136
82 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: When will you get the report 2 to us? 3 MR. MESSENGER: I'll shoot for Thursday to have it - - 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, Thursday means 5 Wednesday evening -- at the very latest Wednesday evening. COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. 6 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: We just have the previous 8 hundred pages we ara going to read Wednesday evening. MR. SMITH: I think if we'can have h copy of ~. 9 10 the letter you speak of which will help because I wanted to address that in the report also, as I intend to address the 3, telephone call because, obviously, there are going to be 12 different perspectives on exactly what occurred during that 33 telephone call. g I have already written up a three, or four, five-15 p ge emo as to what occmed dat day. I' n Nst lay h on 16 on the table. g 18 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I'11 guess I'11 agree g to Wednesday evening.-, COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: We'll have a long night l Wednesday night. COMMI1SIONER BERNTHAL: -- since you have given us some summary of what the contents will be. But if there is l 24 any reason whatsoever to believe that this is a matter that 1 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Aroo 261-1901 e Bolt. 66 Annop.169-6136
83 l I the Commission -- that may change the Commission's course of i l 2 act*.on, we are just setting ourselves up again. I mean, we 3 need to be very sure that there is not some unforeseen 4 circumstance that comes out of this. 5 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: But again, it is following 6 the usual pattern. If you don't like the results of a 7 decision, you accuse the decision maker. Then, if you don't 8 like the results of the investigation, then you accuse the g investigation. It's the typical pattern I have seen in this 10 organization follow, and it is unfortunate. It doesn't help us in dealing with the issues. 33 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But we need -- the point is, 12 we need that report Wednesday evening. 13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. 14 MR. TRUBATCH: But this still leaves open the 15 question of GAP's letter of the 25th dealing with Mr. Smith's 16 investigation. 37 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: That's right. 18 MR. TRUBATCH: I take it from the questions about 39 the letter before, that the Commission had not seen that letter yet. So, it seems to us that there should be some opportunity for the Commission to at least discuss with Mr. Smith if there is any substance in these allegations. 73 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Well, I gather what Ron is proposing was to address those allegations as well in 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136 i
7_ _ 84 i the report so that by Wednesday evening we would have both 2 the substance of the report itself as well as.OIA's response 3 to the concerns about the quality of the investigation 4 itself. 5 MR. MESSENGER: Yes. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And then we can follow up 6 7 with the questions on Thursday, if appropriate. 8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: But it might be useful 9 to get the 16 allegations -- MR. SMITH: I can provide those right now, if y ou 10 w uld like. 11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Great, good. That way 12 at least we can start to look at those. 13 I gather that you felt that the allegations theml-14 selves were specific enough so that you could pursue them 5 16 9 A need to go back and talk to the other people involved in g order to get additional information through the investigation; ,g 9 19 MR. SMITH: Right. I have not read the letter, as I said. But I suspect he -- somewhere in there, there is a thought that he said a lot of things to me and I only put down certain ones in the " format" to catisfy our office. And in the abstract, that is a true statement. 24 Basically, when I heard everything he had to say, I l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169 6136
9 .i purposely took the approach of trying to reduce what he had 2 to say to a specific allegation and, as you will see here, i 3 worded it in such a way that if it were proved true, I suspect without very little modification, you can put "U.S. versus" 4 5 at the top and it would be an indictment -- or a count in an indictment. 6 I 7 Now, I took that approach because I felt that 8 basically from his perspective we should show the NRC g employee in the worst light. And Clen I went out and tried 10 to find evidence to support that view. u What I found in each and every case was that either he was wrong in his facts in the allegations in.the 12 i sense of misquoting or not being correct, or his allegation g became erroneous simply because his allegation was based on g usually words taken out of context and therefore, when I talked to the persen who was alleged to have said them and 16 I they were put back into proper context with, in every ] instance, documentation to support that, then the allegations g became erroneous again. g In talking to Mr. Devine on that Monday, he asked l if I was going to talk to the witnesses and I said, "Well, basically I haven't found any of your allegations to be substantiated and therefore, there is nothing to talk to them l about." That is when we got into this -- about whether his 24 i I l witnesses should have a chance to rebut evidence that I had 25 l FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 1611901 e Bolt. 66 Annep. 269-6136
86 1 gathered. 2 I Pointed out to him several times that this was 3 not a trial', it was an investigation e.d fact gathering, and unless I had some indication that the evidence I had gathered 4 5 was either erroneous, wrong, or false, that I was not going 6 to in essence bring him into the investigation. I 7 That was a decision on my part and I think it's g a correct one that they can't be a part. I did offer to him 'l 9 several times if he had any additional evidence I would be j 10 more than happy to have it. 33 Each time, he did not respond, or in the negative. The view was, I should talk to his people. 12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Could I ask a question -- 13 g just pick one instance here of why it is that you say that these various allegations were at variance with the facts. 15 Let me focus on 2 (b) here, that Jack Martin, Regional 16 Administrator, made a false or misleading statement in i 37 response to a question by Commissioner Gilinsky. jg And this involves -- just paraphrasing now -- a 19 question of simple fact, whether someone had been interviewed i 20 l for nine hours, or whether he had been interviewed only once 1 over a three-day period and had not been re-interviewed. 1 22 What was the finding there? On what basis was l this allegation determined to be false? l 24 MR. SMITH: It's not a matter of being false, it's FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting Depositions D.C. Area 161 1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
87 l I not substantiated. I think there is a difference between 2 the two. In writing up the response, I mean, in writing up 3 the allegations, of course Mr. Devine provided more informatio:1 4 than the simple statement of the allegation. 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sure. 6 MR. SMITH: And his view was that by saying that 7 Mr. Hudson was only -- was interviewed several times when in 8 fact from his view he was interviewed once over a three-day 9 period, in essence -- which is what he alleged in supporting to his allegation -- that the implication was to the Commission that Hudson was being re-interviewed when in fact 11 12 he wasn't. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What do you rnee.n, "once ver 13 34 a three-day period?" MR. SMITH: I mean in the sense that it was 15 essentially one interview that lasted for three days, as 16 37 opposed to Mr. Martin's testimony that seems to indicate several different interviews, presumably about different 18 things, with the connotation that one of them or both of 19 the other two were re-interviews on other matters. 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: -- once over three days, 21 three different times? Did they sit there for 72 hours? 22 MR. SMITH: No, sir. I understand what you are 23 asking. But again, I am somewhat limited by the information 24 that was given to me and I tried to phrase it in such a way 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 261 1901 e Bolt. Et Annop. 269-613 6
88 1 as close as I could to an allegation. 2 COMMISSIONER't BERNTHAL: So, the question of nine 3 hours was not the. question, in fact. 4 MR. SMITH: No. 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It was a question of whetheri it's one interview or several over a three-day period. 6 7 MR. SMITH: Exactly. And again, the connotation behind all of these allegations is that if proven true, the 8 idea was that in some way the Commission would have been 9 misled and therefore you would have decided differently than 10 33 you did do. If you were able to prove that, of course, then you are talking about a false statement under 18 U.S.C.
- 1001, 12 if it could have impacted on your decision in any way.
13 34 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask the Commission, at 15 the Thursday meeting, would it not be appropriate to have 16 OIA make a short presentation? l 17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. 18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And summarize what its action 19 has been and what results they have. 20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Yes. CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay. Anything more we should g discuss at this time? g Okay. Well, thank you, gentlemen. We'll stand 23 adjourned. g 25 (Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the meeting of the Commission was adjourned.) FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Bolt. & Annop. 169-6136
7; 1 NUCLEAR REGUIATORY COMMISSION p. 2 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 3 before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: 4 Status on Pending Investigations on Diablo Canyon 5 Date of Proceeding; July 30, 1984 6 Place of Proceeding: Washington, D.C. 7 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 8 transcript thereof for the file f the Commission. 9 (Reporter) M.E. Hansen 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 FREE STATE REPORTING INC. Court Reporting e Depositions D.C. Area 161-1901 e Balt. & Annop. 269-6136 L. _...... .}}