ML20235W307
| ML20235W307 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 04/23/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20235W266 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-88-229, REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8903100589 | |
| Download: ML20235W307 (26) | |
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2 LNUCLEAR REGULATORY. COMMISSION.
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'. DISCUSSION OF PENDING INVESTIGATIONS l r
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6 CLOSED MEETING - EXEMPTIONS S'&'7 7
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Room.1130 1717.H Street', N.W.
8 Washington, D.C.
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Tuesday, April.- 23,'1985
.10 The Commission met, pursuant'to notice','at'9:52 a.m..
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.11 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
12 NUNZIO PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission THOMAS ROBERTS, Commissioner 13 JAMES ASSELSTINE, Commissioner FREDERICK BERNTHAL, Commissioner 14 LANDO ZECH, Commissioner 1
15 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
16 J. HOYLE B. HAYES 17.
T. MARTIN H. PLAINE 18 AUDIENCE SPEAKER:
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R. MEEKS 20 21 22 q
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CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Please come to order.
'3 In preparation for our scheduled. meeting'this 4
afternoon on the'Diablo Canyon-2 low power license, we will 5
be briefed this morning on the status of pending investigations, 6
'This meeting-will consist of two parts.
7 The first part will be a presentation by Ben Hayes 8
on the status of investigations being conducted by the Office.
9 of Investigations.
10 Part two will be a presentation by Sharon Connelly II on the status of audit and investigations. relevant to this 12 case.
Attendance at the second session will be limited to 13 Commissioners, their assistants, plus representatives from 14 OGC, OPE, OIA, and SECY.
I 15 Do other Commissioners have any opening remarks at 16 this' time?
j q
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
No.
l l
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
No.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
In that case, then, 20 let me turn the meeting over to Ben Hayes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 What I would like to do this morning, gentlemen, is 23 to give you a summary of the various cases that we have open l
24 in OI, and only go into the detail of those issues if requested l
ActFedzrst Reporters, Inc, j
25 by the Commission.
l J
(_ -__ _ _ - _ _ _ - - -
3
'I W3 currently hava within OI purview approximately 180-p 2
some allegations.
We have broken those allegations down into 3
47 different iases, including inquiries and investigations.
4 I think it's important.to note that the areas that 5
we have before-us today are basically the same areas that'we 6
had before us when we licensed Unit 1 -- the false documents, 7
intimidation-harassment issues, and that sort of th'ing.
So,,
1 8
from that perspective, nothing has changed since we licensed 9
Unit 1 except that we received many more allegations.
10 During the last few months, we have prioritized the 11 cases and put our resources on the false document issues.
I 12 felt that those particular allegations might adversely impact 13 a decision and that's where we have concentrated our effort.
14 To date, we have developed no evideh'ce of any false l
15 documents, any willfulness or intents concerning those documents, k
1 l
16 We have ten cases that we are currently looking at in that i
l 17 area.
We hope to complete our investigation and provide reports 18 to the staff in the latter part of June and July time frame.
19 We have completed approximately 85 percent of our 20 field investigative effort on those false document issues.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Can I understand your statement?
22 You said that you found no false documentation, but you are 23 continuing with the investigation?
24 MR. HAYES:
To date, we developed no evidence ActFedercl Reporters, Inc.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
To date, okay.
I w_____-___-______
4.
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1 MR. HAYES:.
-- that the tan cecos that wa Gra working 2
on, no evidence of willful, intentional fabrication of false 3
documents.
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
So, ten of the 47 cases are 5
false document cases?
6 MR. HAYES:
That is correct.
7 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
8 MR. HAYES:
Those' ten cases encompass 16 allegations 9
that we are trying to address.
We also have one false 10 statement case, one case and one allegation, that>we are.
I 11 addressing also.
12 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTIN,E:
Okay.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Thank you.
14 MR. HAYES:
Again, we hope to have'to the staff 15 completed investigative reports in July of this year.
On 16 April 11 of this year, the OI staff in a meeting with the i
17 Region V staff, Mr. Martin and his immediate staff, set down 18 and reviewed all open matters that OI had before it.
I don't 19 want to take the words from Jack Martin, but my understanding 20 is he feels comfortable, from a safety standpoint, that OI does 21 not have anything on our plate that would preclude his 22 recommendation for five percent power.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Is Jack Martin here?
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
He's here, yes; the second i
l Aca4ed;rst Reporters, Inc.
25 row.
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5 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: 'Okay.
2 MR. HAYES:
One other things that might be of benefit I
l 3
to the Commission, in looking at the total universe of the 4
cases that we have and the evidence that we have accumulated,.
5 I see nothing today and we developed no information to date 6
of any potential criminal matters or anything of'that nature.
7 We have not developed evidence of culpability of a6y senior 8
management staff or anything of that nature.
9 Now, unless the Commission would like to get into j
10 the individual issues and cases, we are prepared to do so.
I 11 have the investigator, my manager from Region V.
But I was 12 at hopes that maybe this summary, which basically'capsulizes l
i 13 all 47 cases and numerous allegations, might be sufficient for i
14 your needs at five percent.
15 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
It is certainly sufficient for 16 me, Mr. Chairman.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Let me ask you one question, Ben, 18 it really relates to looking a little farther ahead.
At this I
19 time, do you have any views on the allegations that have not 20 yet been completely investigated with regard to their possible 21 impact on full power?
22 MR. HAYES:
The only thing that I can see coming down the road -- and this is where the bulk of the allegations 23 center, we have 114 allegations in the intimidation and 24
' ActFehral Reporters, Inc.
25 harassment arena.
We have 25 open cases in that category
6<
I addressing the 114' allegations.
And.this is purely' speculation j
2 on my point, gentlemen.
3 We may. eventually document some intimidation and i
4 harassment at a'given local, isolated event.
I believe'that 5
' Jack. Martin looked atthese allegations when he sat down with 6
us'a week or'so ago, and he has also conducted numerous 7
' interviews with people on site, workers at various levels.
'I 8
think Jack feels pretty confident that we do not have wide-9 spread intimidation and harassment to th,e extent that.it af fectu 10 the' safety of the plant.
11 But again, I don't want to -- Jack is here and-he 12 can address that.
But that's my understanding.
I don't'see 13 anything right today, gentlemen, that is of such monumental I
14 significance that.I would like to forewarn you or give you, 15 you:know, some warning here.
I don't have.it today.
16 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Even for full power?.
17 MR. HAYES:
No, si r.
But again, I'm not sure what 18 that criteria is.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Yes, I appreciate that.
20 MR. HAYES:
I'm just say!ng, from an evidentiary i
21 standpoint, we don't have it.
l 22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Do you have any idea whether 23 or not the necessary allegations will be investigated by the l
24 time of full power if that comes late in June or early July?
l Acs Fedtrol Reporters, Inc.
i 25 MR. HAYES:
Well, what we have tried to do is to, again, 1
L_______--______-_-_-________-
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7 I
I is to put our resources on the false matters, the documents, 2
the perjury, the lying aspect.
We thought that would have the 3
most significant impact.
I think those issues will be resolved.
4 l We will probably, as it stands today, negate those allegations.
5 With respect to intimidation, harassment -- well, let 6
me say this.
After we have addressed those issues, Jack 7
Martin, NRR, and OI intend to sit down and again re-evaluate all 8
of these allegations.
In the passing of time, some of these 9
allegations may have been mooted by technical inspections or 10 NRR revicw, or what have you, and no longer even deserve an 11 OI review or investigation.
We hope to do that sometime betweer.
12 now and the full power event.
13 So, I can only speculate that since.the 1st of 14 January, we have sent back to the staff 20-some allegations 15 and said, we don't think these are the types of things that OI 16 should be addressing since January 1st on the Diablo Canyon 17 case.
There may be others.
18 I am in hopes of resolving as many of these allegatior,s 19 as we can prior to full power, but that is strictly speculation, 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I'd like to ask the staff a 21 question, but maybe I should fir.=t see if other Commissioners 22 have questions of Ben Hayes.
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
I have just a couple for 24 Ben.
Ace-Federal Reporters, Inc.
25 Ben, you said on the falsification issues, the ten
8 L
j cacco thara, cbout 85 parctnt of the fiold work hcs bacn donn 1
2 and you are going to finish up by July.
3 How about the 25 cases of intimidation and harassment, 4
how far are you along in the field work on that?
5 I guess what I am trying to get a feel for is, have 6
you done enough work to have some idea of whether there is 7
something there or not?
8 MP. HAYES:
I would say, no, sir, we have net done 9
sufficient work to even give you a feel for that.
We have, 10 I believe, six individuals -- seven to ten individuals, I 11 think would be a safe assumption, individuals per se, that 12 have alleged intimidation and harassment.
Some have gone to 13 DOL, some have not.
Some have won the first round at DOL and ja then on appeal oy PG&E withdrew their application.
It's a mixture.
But we have not zerced in on that from a resource 15 16 standpoint.
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
You are sort of waiting 17 for Labor to finish their first round?
18 19 MR. HAYES:
We did wait for Labor to finish and 20 they have concluded.
In fact, the DOL is out of the issue now 21 if my understanding is correct.
MR. MEEKS:
Yes.
22 23 MR. HAYES:
So, it's just a matter now of putting resources on it to either look at the DOL, review that, and 24 ActFed:rst Reporters, Inc.
25 maybe we can close out our issue, our case, based upon the DOL
7 r.
9 1
investigation.
We'are in hopes of doing that where we can.
2 If we can't, then we might have to expend the resources and i
3 further develop the issue.-
i i
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
Can you give me a 5
feel for how many of these seven to ten people Labor'found 6
there was unfair. action taken against them, and how many 7
Labor found that the allegations were not substantiated?
'I 8
MR. HAYES:
All right.
Mr. Charles Stokes, DOL 9
found for Mr. Stokes.
PG&E appealed, and Stoked withdrew his 10 complaint.
l 1
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
I 12 MR. HAYES:
Mr.
Steve Lockart, DOL found for Mr.
l 13 Lockart.
An administrative law judge found against him and 14 it is still open.
15 Mr. Harold Hudson, DOL found against Mr. Hudson 16 but Pulman Power hired Mr. Hudson back at, I understand, 17 PG&E's request.
18 Mr. James McDermott, DOL found against.Mr. McDermott.
19 Mr. Mike Thompson filed an application with DOL and then 20 withdrew it.
So, I presume there is no finding there.
21 Mr. Craig Maegher -- M-e-a-g-h-e-r, an application 22 was filed with DOL and apparently Mr. Maegher withdrew after 23 the application was filed.
l 24 Mr. Timothy O'Neil filed an application with DOL Aes Federal Reponers, Inc.
25 and subsequently withdrew the application.
I believe that 1
10 i
I concludos.the individunis.
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay, 25 cases of intimidation '
2 1
i
.i 3
and harassment and ten cases of falsification ~ allegations.
That 4
, leaves.twelva~1sft.
5 Could you. summarize briefly the remain'ing twelve?
~6 MR. HAYES:
Yes, sir.
We have one allegationLof a.
'7 misuse of the PG&E hotline;lquality assurance breakdown.due' e
8 to cost and scheduling pressures; one allegation concerning 9
the project' superintendent condoned the sale of drugs on
)
l 10 site.
I believe I mentioned ~~the false statement' allegation..
(
11 Is that the twelve?
l 12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Any other questions?
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
That covers the twelve?.
)
l i
14 MR. HAYES:
Yes, sir.
l 15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
16 MR. HAYES:
There are various cases within those 17 categories.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
All right.
And I take 19 it that those aren't very far along.
20 MR. HAYES:
No, sir.
21 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
When do you anticipate 22 those are going to be closed out?
At some point in the future?
~23 MR. HAYES:
Yes, sir.
I just haven't gotten that l
24 far down the road.
Acer. dust hpon.n inc.
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25 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
j l
i______._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
11 1
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, I doubt very much 2
whether we will ever be at a point here where we don't have 3
at least 25 new allegations to look at.
But what I am curious 4
about is what the -- I think you already told us this -- what 5
the dominant feature is of most of these allegations.
I 6
gather it's the intimidation and harassment element.
'7 Could you characterize just very broadly the kind' 8
of thing that was alleged to have been going on here?
What 9
are we talking about?
10 MR. HAYES:
I think I would be safer asking my 11 investigator to do that.
On those nine individuals or eight 12 individuals I alluder to, we are talking 10, 20, 30, you know, 13 50, 60 allegations.
So, let me -- Ron?
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I'm really looking just for 15 a pattern or summary -- if there is a pattern or summary.
16 MR. HAYES:
This is Ron Meeks, the investigator 17 assigned the Diablo Canyon matters.
18 MR. MEEKS:
I think there are two trends here, one 19 against individuals, and most of these are QC inspectors.
20 They would raise a safety concern and felt through the paper-21 work or just through the stand of the management of the various 22 entities involved, quality assurance management didn't properly 23 pursue their concerns that they either documented or orally 24 passed on to them.
Ace-Fodoral Reporters, Inc.
25 In the course of events they felt that because they 1
-12 l
1 purousd those and.rciced those concerns, that mencgsmsnt 2
started to put the " screws to them," you know because'they 3
were, in fact some of them felt that there was a trend.
They 4
raised several' matters.
5 And as they increasingly became involved in these 6
matters and pursuing them to an end, they alleged that the-7 management increasingly interferred with their dut'ies and 8
changed their " job condition," so to speak.
That's one trend.
i 9
of individuals.
l 10 The other one is the fact that groups of individuals 11 would raise a concern about, say, in one particular instance f
12 documents, control documents.
We don't have control documents.
13 So, they grouped together and confronted management with that, i
and they felt that the reply from managementwas such that it 14 15 constituted interference or harassment, intimidation --
l 1
16 discrimination, let's say, in that management allegedly scorned 17 their requests for control documents.
1g MR. HAYES:
By my count, Commissioner Bernthal, the individuals I named off for Commissioner Asselstine account 19 20 for 72 of the 180-some allegations, and those 72 are I&H type 21, allegations.
They all worked for Pulman Power.
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So, we've got five or six l
22 l
I don't know what the number was --
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Seven.
24 Aes Feds,sl Reporters, Inc, 25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
-- seven individuals here i
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that hava allegsd such cetivitics.
2 I guess I have two questions.
Do you have any sense 1
3 at all of what the total number of such people carrying out j
4 their kind of job is on the site?
How many QC-type people are 5
there and what percentage of the total does it represent?
j 6
MR. HAYES:
I would have to -- probsbly the. staff 7
could answer it, but I would' imagine it would depe'nd upon the 8
volume-of construction activity at that particular time and j
9 what was going on at the plant site.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
But it's mostly Pulman, you 11 say.
12 MR. HAYES:
These individuals were Pulman Power l
13 employees.
i 14 MR. MEEKS:
In the main.
j 15 MR. HAYES:
In the main, yes.
16 MR. MEEKS:
At its height in '83 they were Pulman 17 and PEG &, principally Pulman, employed up to 300-plus 18 quality control inspectors.
Most of the problems, the 19 allegations, let's say, resulted from that staffing, putting i
20 that many people on in a short time period.
We are talking 21 about in less than a year they are going from, you know, 30 22 or 40 to 300.
The majority of the allegations have their 23 roots in that increase in staffing quality control inspectors 24 for Pulman and for PG&E.
Aes-Federtl Reporters, Inc, 25 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I guess the only other commenu w__----_----_----------__
j
l 14 1
I would havaEis, you obviously do these things the wcy you 2
see fit, the investigations themselves, and you are far more
.3 qualified than I.
But I would wonder whether "far morg 4
qualified than I" would determine how best to carry out the investigation.
5 But I would wonder whether we might also learn 6
something useful by interviewing some of the otherk who have 7
n t stepped forward with allegations, to find whether in their 8
! judgment this practice was pervasive, widespread; whether they 9
were aware of it; whether there is a pattern.
Maybe you do 10 that as a matter of routine.
j) i MR. HAYES:
I think that has been done.
l 12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Okay.
That's a useful 13 benchmark, I think, for the Commission to have and I would 14 urge that we try and have that benchmarking when, you know, 15 you are dealing with seven individuals who have allegations.
16 It would be helpful to me to know whether others were aware l
17 of this, whether they sensed that this was going on, or whether l
18 these are seven individuals that, for whatever reasons, are jp different from the vast majority of those 300.
20 MR. HAYES:
I think Jack Martin, if I'm not mistaken, 21 he and his staff conducted a survey and spoke to a couple of 22 hundred individuals --
23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I see.
24 At> Fed:rst Reporters, Inc.
MR. HAYES:
-- to try to get a feel for that, 25
7
'15 1
1 Commissioner.
c l
2 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I see.
All right.
3 MR. HAYES:
So, that might give a better perspective.
L 4
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Would you like to have Jack?
5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Yes.
I mean, it's not 6
even clear that that would be your specific job, but I think 7
that somebody ought to do that.
8 MR. MEEKS:
Let me just add also, the'second trend 9
that I was going to briefly explain were allegations against 10 pockets of people -- excuse me, the allegation was made by 11 those main seven individuals, or ten individuals, that other 12 groups of people were discriminated against in performing their 13 duties.
14 But those individuals, those pockets of individuals, 15 in the various cases that we have on them, have not come 16 forward as far as certain.of these allegations are concerned.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, maybe Jack will have 18 more to add to that.
19 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Any more questions of Ben Hayes?
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
No.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I don't know if the staff wants 22 to come forward, but I would like to get a feeling from the 23 staff as to whether or not the findings of the OI investigations; 24 comport with going ahead with the low power license, in your Aes Fed;rtl Reporters, Inc, 25 views.
16' 1
MR. MARTIN:
I'll take a chot at thic.
2 I think what-I'd like to do is just summarize a little 3
bit.
I agree with everything Ben has said.
The situation with 4
regard to this intimidation and harassment question is almost 5
the same as it was the last time we spoke and it's all summarize d,.
6 what I said before.
7 We had an Allegation Review Board meeting involving 8
several of us from Region V, the OI representative, and our 9
legal adviser, last week to go through each and every one of 10 these open cases, and make some assessment not whether it's 11 right or not, but of what significance is it in the bigger 12 setting.
13 Just looking at the minutes of our m,eeting the 14 following emerged, it turns out that there are 13 individuals i
15 that claim in one way or another they were harassed or 16 intimidated, or in other words, unfairly dealt with.
It's 17 interesting that it's the same 13 individuals that are 18 responsible for the overwhelming number of allegations.
We've 19 got something like 1,665 total allegations now.
The vast 20 majority of them proceed from the same individuals who are 21 also claiming they were intimidated.
22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
How does that go as a function 23 of time, Jack, do these 13 individuals --
l 24 MR. MARTIN:
They are fairly productive.
They keep Ace Fed;ral Reporters, Inc.
25 cranking them out.
i l
E 17.
1.
l (Laughter)
}
(
L 2
COMMISSIONER BERNTEAL:
Well, I don't understand.
3 I'mcan, do they keep coming up with new recollections of the 4
past?
5 MR. MARTIN:
Yes.
It's been by and large, for the 6
last year and-a-half, the same people that have been putting i
7 forth, in several installments -- so, just to keep'in mind' l
8 that there are 13 individuals who are also responsible for 9
the vast number of the technical allegations involving i
10 welding, and record keeping, and that sort of thing.
11 At this meeting, we assessed that we have looked i
l 1
12 into almost all of the technical allegations now.
There is i
i 13 just a very few number that haven't been closed out.
So, we
{
i 1
14 found that in the overwhelming number of case's the technical i
15 questions these guys have raised have not been found to have 16 merit.
There have been a couple, but I think it would be fair
'17 to say that in the vast majority of the cases they have been 18 found to be neither safety questions nor management or 19 control questions.
j 20 All of the discrimination cases that we know of, that 21 were presented to Labor, they either lost or withdrew them 22 just as the last minute for some reason.
23 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
Do you have any sense of 24 why they would withdraw?
i Aes Fed:rst Reporters, Inc.
25 MR. MARTIN:
No.
I was surprised.
I don't think I
i
18 1
I wa know why, and Labor dossn't eithar.
They.just caid they 2
were just jerked out.
3 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:-.But this has to be the choice d
of the individual.
5 MR. MARTIN:
Yes.
So, Ben was right that come of 6
them won on the initial hearing, but then, you know, it is a 7
two-step thing.
A Labor guy hears it, but if it's appealed, 8
it goes to an administrative case judge.,Any any one that 9
has gone the distance, has not prevailed.
10 And lastly, you might recall that very'early on I 11 was troubled by these questions of intimidation.
So, we 12 decided to run a little survey and I -- again, it's not very 13 scientific but we had our inspectors, we have.had, oh, maybe 14 25 or 30 differert guys looking into things.
Over the years, 15 months and years now, we have had them interview a dozen or 16 so.a piece people at random on the site and just ask them, "Do 17 you feel, you know, that you are being repressed?" or, "Do you 18 feel free to raise questions?"
19 Over the years, we have also been able to observe 20 people in their normal job, overhear conversations in lunch 1
21 rooms here, there, and elsewhere and, I guess, we don't see 22 any case of paranoia or widespread intimidation.
23 So, the slant I had last time we talked about this, l
24 and I still maintain is, there are a dozen or so people that AttFed:rtl Reporters, Inc.
l claim they were harassed.
I really don't know whether they were 25 i
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1-19:
1 or not','comt may hava been.
b 2
.But the question in myLmind.is, what is the'
- 3 significance of it'and if you step back, it turns out the 4
. attendant techt-cal questions' they raised that they claim as -
5 a result'they were intimidated, have not withstood scrutiny L
6 for'the most part.
1 7
.Those'that have gone to Labor, which is the legal' 8
route to pursue this, have all lost or withdrawn, and we do not 9
see any general corruption of the. management or quality 10 systems we depend upon.
Therefore, in my mind, if you look'at j
11 it in that context, there may have been some of that that.
j j
12 went on, I don't know, Ben will.have to decide whether it is.
13 worth pursuing.
And if he does,.whether it happened or not.
14 But I guess when I look'at it in the bigger context, 15 I see a fairly limited significance to it,.even if it were 16 true.
So, I think that was the input I wanted to give.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, if they continue to 18
. churn out allegations, one wonders about the value that 19 attaches to -- the priority at least, that attaches to them 20 because, you know, we have a lot of very important things and, 21 I should say, a sizeable backlog in investigations.
Have you reached any conclusions or have you reflectet 22 23 on the reliability of what is going on here?
24 MR. MARTIN:
Well, I think Ben's got the right ActFedtral Reporters. Inc.
25 Priority, of course, we work closely on this.
He has looked 1
20 I
l 1
into thoac things that, if trum, could really be, you know, 2
like falsification of documents --
)
1 3
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Sure.
4 MR. MARTIN:
And I guess that is the question that 5
he touched on and at hand is just what priority do you give 6
these things, even if true, and if you can ever really know 7
the truth at this point.
8
' COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
Well, the question is, even.
9 if true, if you thought there were reasonable odds that they 10 were true, you would attach fairly high priority, I suppose.
11 But the track record doesn't look very promising.
12 MR. HAYES:
When we received many of these allegations, l 13 let's say in early '84 when Tom Devine started to initiate la 2206s and letters, and what have you, at one point we had 15 five investigators on the Diablo Canyon matter, and after 16 we licensed Unit 1 and we found nothing in that period where 17 we had a lot of investigation going on, I pulled resources off I
18 of Diablo Canyon.
That is what has delayed many of these 19 investigations.
l 20 I did that purposely, putting them on other NTOLs.
1 1
21 Now, that doesn't mean that we might not find something in 22 the future, but I just didn't think that we could afford to 23 Put 25 percent of our investigative resources on Diablo Canyon, 24 you know, from that point, from, say, summer of last year until ner.amI Repenm. ine.
25 today.
And that is why I have tried to concentrate on what I i
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21
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call cal " potential plant stoppsro," and that is the mancgarial i
2 aspects, false documents, unreliability of QA/QC type documents 1
3 that might give the staff some concern.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Jack, could you try to more 5
explicitly answer my question, and the question was, are you 6
satisfied that the findings of OI investigations are consistent 7
with going ahead with the low power license?
8 MR. MARTIN:
Yes.
It's that explicit.
l 9
(Laughter) 10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
I just wanted to make sure --
11 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
That's pretty explicit.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Any other questions?
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Just one.
Jack, one of 1
14 the cases that Ben mentioned that he hasn't really gotten to 15 yet is the case involving quality assurance breakdown due 16 to cost and scheduling pressures.
17 How do you make a judgment on something like that 18 where the investigation hasn't been done yet, that there is no 19 significance for either low power or, for that matter, full 20 power operation?
21 MR. MARTIN:
Well, there is a case where a guy says, 22 "I think things were handled wrong out there because we are --
23 a broad general statement that there is terrific pressure to 24 meet cost and schedules and that is corrupting the quality ActFederal Reporters, Inc.
25 assurance.
That's what it amounts to.
I
- ).
22 1
I gucca after having looked into --
2 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:. Well, nobody is stating for 1
3 one minute that there are no pressures.
4 MR. MARTIN:
Well, of course there is pressure to 5
get the job done.
But having looked into hundreds and hundreds 6
and hundreds of cases where people say, you know, everything 7
you can imagine that, you know, "I turned in a non-conformance -
8 report and it was rejected."
You know, we have looked into 9
hundreds of cases like that and have found almost none of them 10 to turn out to have been any impropriety or'any erong judgments 11 made by PG&E or their contractors.
12 And when you get all.the way to the bottom of it, 13 it turns out to be not a significant question.either from a 14 safety standpoint or from the way it was handled administrative Ly ;
15 I just can't buy that.
So, that's why I don't give a lot of 16 credence because we have looked into hundreds of cases and 17 have not found instances where corners were cut; where, when 1
18 faced with a choice, that people didn't pick the right choice.
19 And if they didn't originally, that they somehow found it 20 later on an6 caught it.
l 21 So, I guess we've got enough specifics now to where i
22 these kinds of general statements are really not good enough 23 any more.
24 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Okay.
And in that case, 1
Ac>Farrai neponers, ine.
25 there were not specifics.
23 1
- MR. MARTIN:
No, I don't believo so.
2 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
there are.no details --
3 MR. MARTIN:
And if.there was, we looked into it and 4
did not find it substantiated.
5
' COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
I take it you had a lot of 6
allegations that in your judgment, on following up, just plain 7
weren't true.
Is that true, or you just show that they were 8
false?
9 MR. MARTIN:
I guess.I can't -- I don't want to leave 10 the wrong impression here.
I haven't found any.t' hat I would --
11 or very many -- that I would say people just' manufactured them 12 out of thin air.
I mean, if you put yourself in the other 13 guy's shoes, you could see his point of view.
l 14 But once you get the whole story out on the table, I 15 f und dozens and dozens that just don't withstand scrutiny.
And 1
I use the one that I think is fairly typical where the man 16 17 claims that they used the ASME code for welding rather than 18 American Welding Society.
Well, that's true.
1 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS:
But the ASEM code is more jp l
l 20 stringent.
MR. MARTIN:
Well, not only that, but the documents 21 all w y u to use either.
So, it was true, and after we go 22 through all the sotting through documents and what not, it 23 turns out to be true, but it was all right.
And there are 24 Ae>Fw.rsi n.por4.n, ine.
)
25 just hundreds of cases like that.
l l
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r j
l 24 i
}
j One we just finished up last week -- I'll talk more 2
about this afternoon -- having to do with Cardinal Bolts, we 3
find allegations that the company did not do audits of heat 4
treating.
That just sounds terrible and we looked into it, and 5
we find out, well, that's true but on the other hand, Cardinal 6
didn't do any heat treating.
7 So, there are lots and lots of things like that.
And 8
I guess what I am concluding, that this dozen or so people 9
just continually come up with these things and we look into 10 them, and they fall by the wayside.
11 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL:
So, you do'not necessarily 12 write or conjecture bad faith in' a number of the allegations, 13 you just conjecture naivetee or whatever elselit might be.
14 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE:
Or not understanding what 15 the applicable requirements were.
16 MR. MARTIN:
Not having a full perspective.
Many 17 of these are like people that understand the vocabulary but 18 not the substance of what they are dealing with.
19 I tried very hard to keep in my own mind and the 20 staff's mind that theso guys are operating in good faith, that 21 once you start doubting their motives, then we can't be objectis e
22 at all.
So, I think we have kept a pretty much even keel there.
23 I can't ascribe bad faith, really.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
Okay, any other questions?
Aes-Fedirtl Reporters, Inc.
25 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
No.
25 1
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO:
All right.
Wall, then I suggest 2
we go the second part of the meeting and for this part of the 3
meeting we limit attendance'to Commissioners, their assistants, 4
representatives from OGC,. OPE, OIA, and SECY.
5 (Whereupon, at 10:30 a.m., the Commission proceeded' 6
to other business.)
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 e
19 20 21 22 23 i
24 Ace-Federtl Reporters, Inc.
l 25 1
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING:
Discussion of Pending Investigations Clos,ed Meeting - Exempt' ions 5 & 7 DOCKET NO.:
Washington,'D.C.
PLACE:
DATE:
April 23, 198S were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
M/gg2//g
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(sigt)
(TYPED)
M.
E.
Hansen official Reporter Reporter's Affiliation Ace-Federal l
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I C__________.___________.__
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