ML20235W317
| ML20235W317 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 07/26/1985 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20235W266 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-88-229, REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 8903100592 | |
| Download: ML20235W317 (62) | |
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2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
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4 DISCUSSION OF PENDING INVESTIGATIONS S . ,
6 CLOSED MEETING 7 (Exemptions 5 and 7) 8 Room 1130 9 .
1717 H Street, N.W.
10 Washington, D.C.
11- '
Friday, July 26, 1985 12 The Commission met, pursuant to notice, at 2:06 p.m.
13 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:
14 NUNZIO J. PALLADINO, Chairman of the Commission 15 FREDERICK M. BERNTHAL, Commissioner 16 THOMAS M. ROBERTS, Commissioner 17 JAMES K. ASSELSTINE, Commissioner 18 LANDO W. ZECH, JR., Commissioner l
19 STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE:
20 S. Chilk, Secretary
. 21 H. Plaine, General Counsel 22 B. Hayes, 01 23 S. Connelly, OIA i
24 H. Boulden, OIA 25 M. Auerbach, OIA
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2 1 0. Mulley, O!A 2
3 H. Denton 4 J. Knight 5 H. Thompson ,
6 R. Vollmer i
7 M. Malsch 8
J 9
10 11 12 * *
- 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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3 i PROCEED I NO S 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Good afternoon, ladies and 3 gentlemen. The purpose of this afternoon's meeting is for the 4 Commission to receive a briefing on pending OI and OIA 5 investigations at Diablo Canyon Unit 2. Ben Hayes will make 6 the OI presentation and Sharon Connelly will make the OIA 7 presentation. The Staff will be present for Ben Hayes' 8 presentation but will be excused when Sharon Connelly makes 9 her presentation. However, I would like the Staff to remain 10 available for possible follow-up discussion after Sharon makes l
' l 11 her presentation.
12 1 understand that the information we.will receive 13 during this briefing is sensitive; therefore, I repeat my 14 usual cautionary note about discussion of the information we 15 receive beyond the people w h.o are present for the briefing or 16 those who need to know.
17 I understand that the Regional Administrator for 18 Region V is nion i t o r i ng today's meeting on the telephone and is available to answer any questions which may arise. However, 19 20 he will be out off when we have the OIA presentation.
21 I understand Commissioner Asselstine has to leave at 22 3:15, and I also understand --
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Think we can be done by 24 then?
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I'm hoping that we can, all
4 1 aspects. I'm told Ben Hayes only has about 10 or 15 minutes, and the only reason for delay would be our questioning. So 2
3 why don't I turn the meeting over to Ben Hayes util e s s other 4 Commissioners have opening remarks.
5 MR. HAYES: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. What 6 I hope to do this afternoon, since the Commission has already 7 digested the Diablo Canyon investigative area a couple of 8 times, when we went with Unit 1, we'd just like to summarise 9 what is still before the Office of Investigations and what we 10 intend to do to resolve the matters. .
11 We had before us a few months ago 197 separate 12 allegations concerning Diablo Canyon. We sent l' 4 of those 13 allegations back to the Staff for reconsideration, and during 14 the last 60 to 90 days -- and I'm speaking to July 31st; we're 15 projecting a little bit -- we will have closed 60 of the 197 16 allegations, leaving us, by the first of next month, about 123 17 allegations yet to go.
18 Those 123 allegations encompass 31 open 19 investigative matters. Now, we closed 60 allegations negating 20 the allegations. By that I mean we did not find the 21 allegations as meritorious and we intend to close those out 22 and send them back to the Staff in the form of an inquiry.
23 I met with Tom Martin a week or so ago, and Tom is 24 aware of the areas that these allegations fall in; basically, 25 the false document, intimidation and harrassment, the firings,
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1 et cetera, the same pigeonholes that we've discussed 2 previously, and Tom as well as his staff have looked at the 3 technical aspects of it and I think feel comfortable that O!
4 has nothing that has to be resolved before they can take a 5 position on the licensing of Unit 2. At least I'm noA aware l 6 of any case that would hold them up.
7 We did receive about 10 days ago another package 8 from a Mr. Devine from GAP, consisting of four affidavits and 9 about 150 pages of material. That material has been given to 10 Region V as well as NRR. I talked to Tom Martin about that 11 this morning --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Do you mean Jack. Martin?
13 MR. HAYES: Excuse me, Jack Martin, and his staff 14 have read it. While they can't come down to a conclusive 15 statement, he indicated to me that there are very few new 16 wrinkles in the allegations that we have not already looked at 17 from the technics 1 or O!* standpoint. And he will be able to 18 further address that with the Commission next week.
19 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Ben, are these new 20 affidavits from the same people that we've heard from in the 21 past, or are they from new people?
22 MR. HAYES: No. They are from the same individuals 23 we have dealt with in the past many times. I understand this 24 material was really put together for the California PUC as 25 opposed to submission to the Commission for some type of --
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L 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So in essence, many of the l 2 items are the same items that have been before us in the past.
l 3 MR. HAYES: Many. i l
4 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: They are clearly S repetitive. ,
6 MR. HAYES: That's correct. Martin's analysis --
7 and again, it's preliminary -- he had the people that have.
8 been dealing with these people, his engineers, read the 9 affidavits and material and he indicated there are very few 10 new wrinkles, if any, in the material.
11 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So a new document but old 12 material. .
l 13 MR. HAYES: That's correct.
14 Another thing that Mr. Martin and I discussed, of 15 the remaining 123 allegations, since the signing of Bill 16 Diroks' July 5th memorandum kind of outlining what wrongdoing 17 is and requiring the completion of a form prior to referral to 18 01, sometime during the month of August he and I want to get 19 together personally and go through the remaining allegations 20 to determine whether or not they are even meritorious in terms l
21 of referral to the Office of Investigation for resolution. l 22 So that I think there is a good possibility, as 01 l l
23 has sent 14 back for reconsideration, that we may send the 24 bulk of these back to the Staff for another determination as 25 to whether or not the wrongdoing is defined to the point where
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' referral to 01 would be appropriate. So we'll be --
2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: What do you mean when you said 3 you turned 14 back to the Staff for reconsideration? f l
4 MR. HAYES: Well, what happens is in the Allegation 5 Review Board that most regions have, they have a spoofal board 6 that looks at the Diablo Canyon matters, and many of the 7 allegations, both technical and wrongdoing, flow through that 8 board and a determination is made, who is going to look at it, 9 NRR, Region V, O! or referral to OIA or what have you.
10 That's where we got the 197 allegations. But it's 11 my view that many of these allegations should not necessarily 12 end up with OI in the final analysis. There may,be technical 13 matters that should be resolved first, and inspections should 14 be done, there should be further inquiry by tho' Staff, either 15 NRR or the region, to determine whether or not there is really 16 enough meat here to warrant an OI inquiry. ,
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17 So Jack and I will be looking at these matters one 18 at a time, and if they don't rise to that level, then the 19 Staff will probably dissolve them through the technical means 20 as opposed to conducting an OI investigation.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. HAYES: Again, my office has no new allegations I
23 that have not already been -- areas of allegations that have 1 24 not already been brought before this Commission when we 25 licensed Unit 1. And that is a summary of where OI is, as
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1 opposed to going into the details of every one of these
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l 2 cases. I would prefer not doing that, unless the. )
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3 Commissioners have specific questions.
l 4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Any specific 5 questionst ,
6 COMMISSIONER ZECH: No.
7 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: No.
8 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: No.
9 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: The 31 open matters, maybe 10 you could just give a few examples of the more significant 11 ones so that you just refresh my memory on what the major I take it it's the same b a s i c,..'g r o u p that 12 items have been.
13 we've talked about in the past.
14 MR. HAYES: That's correct. We've broken down the 15 allegations basically into three areas. One, the PG&E area; 16 allegations specifically again POSE, allegations against 17 Pullman and allegations against Atkinson, and then there's 18 some miscellaneous thrown in there as well. l 19 The allegations against PG&E, at least so far, have 20 not proven to be valid allegations. W's have remaining -- and 21 this is projection on my part to August 1st -- I believe 17 22 cases out of the 31. Pullman, somewhere close to 20-some.
23 The Pullman allegations are many of the intimidation and 24 harrassment and falso document type allegations.
25 On the PG&E, it's intimidation and harrassment, many
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1 of the DOL cases fall within that purview. On the Atkinson --
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2 and we have very few of those -- we have somewhere less than 5 3 that fall into the third category and I've not broken those 1
4 five down, Commissioner. But I would presume they would be in 5 similar pockets. ,
6 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO. When you talked about PG&E you 7 said that for 17 cases you hadn't really found any validity or 8 merit to the allegations. And then you said 20 of them were 9 for Pullman. That already adds up to 36. I must be counting 10 wrong.
11 MR. HAYES: Well, we've closed them out.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I see, 17 are cl.o. sed ou.
13 MR. HAYES: We hope to close out something close to 14 20 cases prior to August 1st, many of them in the POSE area 15 and tsa DOL pigeonhole, and we have not found so far 16 meritorious allegations.
17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Out of the 31 that remain, how 18 many are PG&Et I'm just trying to keep my arithmetic right.
19 I've got Pullman, 20; Atkinson and others, 5; that's 25. It 20 sounds like there must be about 6 for PG&E.
21 MR. HAYES: I think I have --
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: The only reason for *he 23 arithmetic is to make sure nothing is falling in the crack in 24 my thinking.
25 MR. HAYEG: I don't have the exact number. I have
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10 1 the allegations listed such as Hotline, harrassment and 2 intimidation, But I could provide.that to you, Mr. Chairman.
l- 3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay.
4 MR. HAYES: By going through and adding,them up. ]
5 Because I have them listed here, but I've just not ad,ded them 6 up.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Anymore questions?
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: No , I don't think so.
9 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Anymore questions?
10- COMMISSIONER ZECH: No, .I have no questions.
11 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: o.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: No.
13 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Then why don't we i l
l 14 excuse Ben Hayes and the Staff, but I would like senior staff i 15 to be available in case we want to have some follow-up 16 discussion.
17 [The Staff members present left the room.3 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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11 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right, Sharon, would you 2 proceed, please?
3 MS, CONNELLY: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have 4 with me today to my left Harry Boulden, who is Chief of our 5 Technical Branch; and to his left, Senior Auditor Michael 6 Auerbach; and to my right, our Senior Investigator and my 7 Special Assistant, George Mulley.
8 As a result of a letter from an alleger to 9 Commissioner Zech in which allegations of breach of 10 confidentiality and a lack of feedback to allegers were made, 9
11 the Office of Inspector and Auditor initiated a review of 12 allegation management with respect to Diablo Canyon.
13 In conducting our review, we used the services of a 14 st. or quality assurance engineer and a senior constructi6n 15 engineer from IE, and a senior resident inspector from Region 16 II to provida technical assistance to our staff 17 The purpose of the technical portion of our review 18 wa to determine that the technical issues were addressed 19 responsibly and that adequate documentation was available to 20 reach this conclusion. We did not attempt to challenge 21 assumptions, calculations or other detailed work that was 22 performed.
23 We first review Region V's allegation management 24 system and found it was generally satisfactory. We then
! 25 interviewed GAP representatives and 15 allegers who had more
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than 200 complaints about the way the NRC responded to their 2 allegations. The complaints generally fell within five 3 areas: breach of confidentiality, failure to follow the DCAMP 4 procedure, failure of NRC officials to take action on 5 allegations, referral of allegations to 01, various ,
6 allegations about employee conduct, non-responsiveness to 7 allegers, a lack of contact with allegers to follow up on 8 allegations. I will highlight today the types of p oblems we 9 found in each of these areas.
10 The first area is breach of confidentiality. OIA 11 found several examples where Region V breached the 12 confidentiality of allegers. In one instance,,an alleger was 13 encouraged by a Region V employee and an OI investigator to 14 provide the name of an engineer who had directed him and other 15 employees te use unapproved material in the construction of 16 the plant.
17 After the Region V employee and OI investigator told 18 the alleger they would not tell anyone he had provided the 19 name of the engineer, the alleger then provided them with the 20 name. However, we determined that neither the Region official 21 nor the O! investigator realised that confidentiality had been 22 granted with respect to this information. Region V 23 subsequently advised the licensee in writing of the alleger's 24 concern about the engineer, including the alleger's name, 25 In another instance, an alleger's identification
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l l 1 number was published in an SSER. In a third instance, in the ;
2 instance which precipitated this review, we foun~d that Region 3 V provided documents to PG&E with names of allegers omitted I
I 4 but the Region left information in the documents that enabled 5 the allegers to be identified. ,
6 Region V docta't agree with our conslusion that the 7 information in these (0cuments could identify confidential 8 sources. And we'll continue to work that out with Region V.
9 The next item was the DCAMP procedures. GAP alleged 10 that the NRC --
11 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: What a terrible choice of an 12 acronym.
13 [ Laughter.3 14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I was thinking the same 15 thing. .
16 MS. CONNELLY: GAP alleged the NRC published one set 17 of procedures but followed another set of secret procedures 18 that was looser and provide significantly fewer projections 19 for whistleblowers. We found that Region V had developed 20 draft procedures for processing allegations. The NRC then 21 developed and issued a new set of procedures for specifically 22 processing allegations concerning Diablo Canyon.
23 We found that confusion over which procedures were 24 applicable was because the NRC published a summary of the 25 DCAMP procecures in an SSER which referred to the underlying
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L 14 1 guidance that was attached. The underiving guidance was the 2' full text of the original procedures for processing l' 3 allegations. GAP apparently thought the full text attached to l 4 the SSER constituted the DCAMP procedures.
i' 5 The next item is NRC action on allegations., We 6 received a number of complaints from allegers that the NRC 7 failed to take appropriate action in response to their l
8 allegations. Most of the allegations were not substantiated. i i
9 In our opinion, the reason we received so many of these 10 allegations was that Region V and NRR did not get back to the 11 allegers to explain the resolution of their allegations, and 12 the SSER's didn't explain the resolution in enough detail for 13 the allegers to know whether or not their allegations had been 14 fully addressed. Thus, the allegers assumed that no action 15 had been taken by the NRC.
16 We did find some instances where we believe the 17 allegers' complaints were either not addressed or not fully 18 addressed by Region V or NRR. We have provided these issues 19 to Region V and NRR for followup.
20 The first instance involves missing voided deficient i 21 condition notices. Allegers told OIA they had advised a 22 Region V inspector that Pullman Products Company destroyed 23 some original voided DCN's which were required to be retained 24 in accordance with Pullman's procedures. The 9egion V 25 inspector attwapted to review the contractor's files to I
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l 15 1 determine whether these voided DCN's had been retained. He l
2 found the files were disorganized and he believed it would 3 have been an arduous task to reconstruct them. The inspector 4 failed to dooument the problem.
5 When we brought this matter to Region V's a.t t e n t i on ,
6 the Region decided to perform a special inspection of 7 Pullman's files, and that inspection is still ongoing.
8 In the second instance, an alleger reported to an 9 NRC inspector he had difficulty located a posted Form NRC-3 l
10 which describes worker projections. He said the document he 11 finally found was posted in the contractor's OA office and was i
12 practically illegible. .
13 According to NRC regulations, the applicant is I
14 required to post Form NRC-3 in locations sufficient to permit 15 employees to see a copy on the way to or from their place of 16 work. We found no documentation that the Region followed up
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17 on this allegation. The' inspector told us he checked a few 18 places in the plant and found four posters, all of which were 19 observable but they were small and of inferior quality. He 20 said he discussed this with the construction superintendent 21 and provided him with better copies which were then posted.
22 Without documentation of the inspector's activities 23 with respect to this issue, it is not clear whether the plant l
24 was in compliance with NRC regulations regarding the posting 25 of Form NRC-3. We believe the inspector should have
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l 1 dooumonted his activities with respect to the posting.
2 We are recommending in our report that in the 3 future, the inspection program include a requirement to check 4 the posting of Form NRC-3 to insure utilities are in 5 compliance with the regulations. The Director of the Division 6 of Inspection Programs concurs with this recommendation.
7 In the third instance, an alleger asserted there was 8 a cover-up of a serious breach in Pullman's quality assurance 9 program for welding pipe rupture restraints. The Region 10 concluded the alleger's assertion of a cover-up was not 11 substantiated. However, the Region did not address the 12 alleger's concern that the prescribed procedure.was not 13 followed. We believe the Region shov1d have addressed this as 14 a quality assurance issue,.since the procedure used was 15 qualified only after the Staff brought this to Pullman's ;
16 attention. The Region disagrees with our conclusion. f 17 The fourth instance involves material control 18 practices at PG&E and its contractor, Pullman, GAP and some 19 allegers claim the Region did not pursue problems in the 20 general area of material traceability and specifically, in the 21 area of the procurement of A307 bolts from Cardinal Products 22 Industry Corporation. The alleger was specifically interested 23 in how the Region disposed of the concerns about missing and 24 non-sequential heat log numbers on safety-related material. l l
25 PG&E was satisfied that Pullman's practices i 1
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17 1 regarding these concerns were t.dequate and reported their 2 conclusions to the Region. We believe the Region should have 3 independently verified that Pullman's practices were 4 acceptable for identifying pipe and plate at the warehouse and 1 5 at the job site. This would insure that P u l l m a n w a s 'i n 6 compliance with Criteria 8 of Appendix B. Criteria 8 provides 7 for the establishment of measures for the identification and 8 control of materia?s, parts and components. Instead, the !
9 Region simply accepted PG&E's explanation without verifying i
10 that these practices were proper, l l
11 Regarding the procurement of Cardinal A307 bolts, 12 PG&E was informed on June 24th, 1984 in an NRC'i'nformation 1
13 notice of deficient controls and quality assurance practicos 14 on the part of Cardinal We believe that the Region should 15 have ascertained the location of non-conforming material at 16 the plant site in accordance with IE Inspection Procedure 17 38702B. It is possible there might have been non-conforming 18 material in unknown locations in the plant. In addition, we
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19 believe the Region should have reported whether or not PG&E or 20 its contractors should have reported any material deficiencies
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il 21 as required by Part 21 of 10 CFR 50.
22 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Is there anybody here who has l
23 detailed knowledge about the A307 bolts? l 24 MR. BOULDEN: I have some acquaintance with that.
25 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: It's been five years since I
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1 was in the real world, but A307 bolt is-the very lowest 2 commercial quality of a fastener material. It's at the Lottom i 3 of the list.
4 Now, was a higher quality bolt substituted for A3079 5 MR. BOULDEN: No. The issue on A307 bolts was'that 6 Pullman out the heads off the bolts and used them for studs,.
7 welding them to the containment liner. And the issue was 8 whether they were weldable. And that was resolved.
I 9 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Was the A307 materials 10 weldable? ,
. l 11 MR. BOULDEN: Yes. Because it was not listed by the 12 ASME -- in Part 9. Because some A307 material,'I understand, 13 is weldable and some is not, and one must know the chemical l 14 composition. And it was resolved by finding that there were 1
certified material test repo,rts showing that this material had I 15 16 the appropriate carbon content for welding, j l
17 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: I'm not going to waste 18 anybody's time and I will not pursue this. A307 is A307.
19 There is no chemical variation from one lot of A307 to 20 another.
21 MR. BOULDEN: Yes, but the question is whether this 22 was classified as P-1 material by ASME, which it was not. So 23 it must be determined separately whether it's weldable.
24 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: I will pursue this on my own 25 and not waste anybody's time.
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l 19 1 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: It's all Greek to me.
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2 CLaughter.3 3 M3. CONNELLY: In the fifth instance, an alleger 4 reported to Region V that he observed a flat spot on a reactor 5 coolant pipe in Unit 2 which he understood was indicative that 6 the wall of the pipe was thin. We found that the Region i
7 addressed another problem relayed to them by the alleger 8 involving a weld on a smaller pipe adjacent to the larger pipe 9 in question, but for some reason, the Region neglected to 10 address the flat spot.
- 1 11 I will now address the allegations we received 12 involving complaints about the way NRR addressed and handled 13 the allegers' concerns.
! 14 As stated earlier, we found the problem that the 15 S S E P.' s are not, in all cases, descriptive enough to provide ,
1 16 adequate technical support for NRR's resolution of the 17 issues. In addition, we found that NRR did not maintain l i
18 individual record files for each of the allegations reviewed, 19 as required by the DOAMP procedures.
20 Because of this, we asked the NRR Staff to clarify 21 specifio issues involving the Quick Fix program, PGSE's pipe 22 support design calculations and programmatic quality assurance 23 issues. We did not recieve this information in time to 24 include it in our briefing. We have asked NRR to brief the l
25 Commission on the technical significance of these issues after 1____________. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ i
i 20 i 1 our briefing today.
2 In another matter involving NRh, we found that an 3 NRR review team failed to address an issue raised by an 4 alleger that the layout drilling operations for Hilti Kwik 5 bolt holes were performed without an approved procedu,re. If 6 substantiated, we believe this would be a violation of 7 Appendix B, which requires that activities affecting quality 8 shall bw accomplished by prescribed procedures.
9 In another instance, --
10 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Excuse me. I want further I
11 information about the Hilti Kwik bolt holes and everything 12 that's contained in this paragraph, along with ,t.'he information 13 about the A307 bolts.
l 14 MS. CONNELLY: Okay.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, is this another technical 16 issue that needs to be discussed with Staff?
17 MS. CONNELLY: We did not think so. We thought the 18 only significant issues that should be discussed with the 19 Staff were the three above.
20 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: On the Hilti bolts, is the 21 concern that the procedure for drilling the holes that you put' 22 the Hilti bolts in? Is that what the concern is?
23 MR. BOULDEN: The concern was that this procedure 24 was performed by the craft without a written specification of 25 how it was to be conducted, l
L_ ____ _ _ _ . _ _
i l'
i f 21 1 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: On how to lay out a bolt 2 hole?
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: What you-do if you hit I i
l 4 rebar and how close to put the things together. 1 Yes. 1 5 MR. BOULDEN: .
I 6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I've just been to another <
7 plant that has Hilti bolt concerns where the utility told me l
8 it can be a significant concern if you don't have an adequate i I
9 procedure because you can end up damaging the integrity of the 10 wall.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, is there a technical 12 issue here? It sounds like there might be. >
13 MR. BOULDEN: I think in this case the Staff 14 resolved the issue but didn't address the quality assurance 15 aspect of not having a procedure. Consultants were employed 16 by NRR who did a study and determined that the installation 17 was safe, was adequate.
18 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: So they did review --
19 MR. BOULDEN: They did review the actual 20 installation.
21 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: But there may be some 1
22 question about the procedures that preceded the actual work. !
23 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: All right.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, that's what I wanted to 25 get: do we have a problem. But that's resolved; at least,
j 22 l 1 that's what I hear. All right. 1 2 MS. CONNELLY: In another instance GAP alleged the !
.3 Staff. expressed strong interest in interviewing 5 engineers .
4 who supposedly had knowledge about design control problems; 5 specifically, unapproved modifications of design , ;
)
6 calculations. However, the Staff failed to conduct the ]
7 interviews. We found that based on their understanding of the -!
8 problem, the NRR Staff decided not to perform the interviews. i 9 In our opinion, all individuals who reportedly have relevant I
10 information should be interviewed.
11 In the last instance concerning NRR, --
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Is there, again...any conclusion l 13 with regard to the impact on the safety of this plant?
14 MR. BOULDEN: No.
15 MS. CONNELLY: No.
16 In the last instance concerning NRR, the NRR Staff 17 refused to allow an alleger to review specific PG&E 18 calculations involving pipe supports. Tne alleger wanted to i
19 review a sample set of calculations to prove his allegations.
20 The NRR Staff told OIA it generally is not their practice to q 4
21 allow allegers to inspect utility calculations. The allegers
'l 22 must substantiate their concerns by submitting their own work 23 to NRR.
i 24 We believe allowing the alleger to review the 25 calculations might have enabled NRR to more expeditiously f
l 1
l 23 )
I 1 discover the problem that existed with small bore pipe support 2 calculations.
3 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Again, is there a concern that 4 impacts on the safety of the plant?
l S' MS. CONNELLY: No, there is not. ,
6 In conclusion, we note that both the Region and NRR i
7 maintained that the failure of the utility and its contractors 8 to comply with quality assurance requirements has not led to 9 any significant hardware problems. However', we believe 10 programmatic quality assurance breakdowns create an 11 environment where hardware problems can result. NRR and the 12 Region should ensure that quality assurance c o n.t.r o l s and l 13 practices are appropriately implemented. 1 14 The next major category involves the referral of )
15 allegations to 01 During our review of Diablo Canyon 16 allegations, we identified 88 allegations of wrongdoing that 17 had been assigned to various NRC offices for resolution, and 18 which we thought OI might have an interest in. We provided a 19 list of these allegations of wrongdoing to 01 and asked for 20 confirmation of whether the allegations had been referred to 21 O! for investigation.
22 The Director, O! advised us that all the allegations 23 had been reviewed and he was confident they had been 24 appropriately assigned to the proper NRC office for 25 resolution. Subsequently, an alleger complained to OIA that l
i
24 1 Region V did not refer to O! his allegation that a Pullman V
l' 2 QA/QC manager-deliberately falsified certification records for ]
1
)
3 NDE and welding inspectors. j 4 We found the Region reviewed the licensee's response k l
i 5 to this allegation and then closed the allega+ ion without l 6 referral to 01. This allegation was one of the 88' allegations 7 we had earlier referred to OI. j 8 We reviewed the specific allegation in question and 9 determined the issue of falsification of records was not 10 addressed by either the Region or the licensee. We believe 11 falsification of qualification records to be a significant 12 violation of regulatory requirements which shou 1[d not be 13 tolerated by the NRC.
14 Additionally, because the falsification of records
)
15 is an investigative issue and net a technical one, we believe i
16 OI investigative personnel are best qualified to review this 17 allegation to determine the appropriate action to be taken.
18 In our opinion, all allegations of wrongdoing should be 1
19 referred to 01 for a decision as to whether an investigation 1
l 20 is warranted. This decision should not be left to the j 21 technical staff. With respect to the allegation in question, i l
l 22
- the OI Director agreed to re-evaluate it. ;
23 The next major category involved NRC employee 24 conduct. We received a variety of complaints from allegers 25 regarding inadequate performance by NRC officials. Many of j
1 1 I
l 25 these complaints were not substantiated. We reonived 1
de falso or misleading 2 allegations that the 3 statements to the Commission. These statements involve the 4 applicability of ANSI N 45.2.6 to Pullman quality control S inspectors, the conduct of close-out interviews of a ll e g e r s by 6 Region V, and the status of Region V's resolution of several 7 technical allegations.
8 These allegations of false or misleading statements are still under investigation 9 by the 10 and will be reported separately.
11 The next to the last category involved
- r. on- r e s p on s i v e ne s s to allegers. We've r e c e i v e d. .a number of 12 13 allegations that Region V officials were not prepared for 14 interviews, they were not interested in the issues raised by 15 allegers, that they were not willing to discuss the Staff's resolution of allegations. Our review of transcripts of 16 17 Region V interviews of allegers identified several instances 18 of hostility between thw Staff and allegers.
19 The nature of the allegations regarding the 20 responsiveness and manner in whleh Region V handled allegers 21 and their concerns indicates that relations between the 22 allegers and Region V are somewhat strained. We are 23 recommending in our report that the EDO consider creating 24 alleger liaison officer positions to serve as the point of 25 contact with allegers. Th= person who assumes this
26 1 responsibility should be 3ndependent of the technical staff, 2 be adept at public relations and be able to effectively 3 communicate with the allegers. This person's role would be to 4 receive allegations, determine that the allegations are 5 resolved and communicate the results to the allegers.,
6 The last major category involved contact with 7 allegers. Region V held a number of meetings with allegers to 8 receive their allegations. However, due to the press of work, 9 the Region made the decision to generally forego close-out ;
l 1
10 meetings to explain to the allegers how their allegations were j
. I 11 resolved.
i 12 We believe allegers should be provided an j 13 explanation of how their allegations were resolved. If an I l 14 alleger disagrees with a resolution, this should be documented l
15 along with the alleger's reasons for disagreement if 16 provided. We believe the method of close-out depends on the 17 circumstances. In some instances, a letter or telephone call 18 would be sufficient. In other cases, a meeting might be 19 warranted. In any caso, the alleger would at least know that !
20 his or her concerns have been addressed.
21 That copeludes my presentation and I'll be pleased 22 to answer any questions that you have.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Thank you, Sharon, that was a 24 good report. Let me ask you a couple of questions, at least 25 to clarify my own mind. There are three items you identified
l l
I 27 1 where, if I understand correctly, there are technical issues 2 that may have to.be -- about which we may have to ask the 1 3 Staff ;
I 4 MS. CONNELLY: That's correct, 1
ll 5 CHk!RMAN PALLADINO: Now, so far as the res,t of the !
6 issues, I know you identified a number of areas where 7 improvements are needed. Did you form any opinion as to 8 whether or not'they led to questions about the technical 9 adequacy of the plant?
10 MS. CONNELLY: No. I think we can reasonably assume 11 that those other questions don't impact on the technical 12 adequacy of the plant. .
I 13 CHA!RMAN PALLADINO: Did I understand also that in { i l
14 the case of the three issues involved -- and I guess that was i
15 on page 4 -- you say, "We have asked NRR to brief the 16- Commission on the technical significance of these issues after !
t
.17 our briefing today." Now, did you give them a copy of this 18 report, or -- ?
19 MS. CONNELLY: They have a more detailed copy. They
~ 20 have a copy of the draft report that we'll be issuing with 21 respect to these issues.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Now, is there any problem in
)
23 transmitting that to the Staff when the Staff may be under 24 question?
l 25 MS. CONNELLY: No, not at all l l
l 28 j 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I gather the reason these ,
2 questions came to OIA is because they involve NRC personnel.
3 MS. CONNELLY: That's right. But in order to ,
1 4 resolve these issues, we have to go the Staff, look at the 5 Staff's records and ask the Staff questions, so they'ye fully l
6 aware of the nature of the allegations.
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Are the. allegations related to ,
8 the NRR Staff or to the Region?
-9 MS. CONNELLY: To the NRR Staff.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: In other words, you would not 11 normally send to a person under investigation the report, so !
12 you must have made a judgment that whoever you .sent it to was i
not involved in the allegations.
13 14 MS. CONNELLY: Let me clarify that this is not 15 technically an investigation report. It's a review that was 16 conducted by a team made up of both auditors and investigators 17 and the technical people. There were some investigative kinds 18 of matters that we addressed and that might have normally been 19 addressed and reported as investigations, but due to the large 20 number of investigations and our desire to -- or, large number 21 of allegations and our desire to produce a draft report as 22 close as possible to this hearing, we decided to incorporate 23 all of those into one exercise.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me see if I can explain the 25 dilemma or the problem that is bothering me.
4
)
t 29 k
1 Here are some allegations that I presume grew out of !
l 2 -- I'm sorry, here are some technical issues that ! presume 3 grew out of allegations against somebody in NRC.
MR. BOULDEN: Mr. Ch a i rtaa n , I think it was not an 4
S allegation against the person but against the process, Not i
6 individual wrongdoing, but they were concerned about whether 7 the resolution was sufficient.
COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Although ! think it was a 8
9 combination of the two, wasn't it?
10 MR. BOULDEN: No, I think in these particular three 11 cases there was no intonation that any particular individual 12 had not performed correctly. So that they couldn't tell how 13 it was performed.
14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I was a little concerned that 15 if we call the Staff back in and ask them about these 16 particular allegations that I might be breaching your i
17 independence, or we might- inadvertently Le interfering with 18 your investigation.
19 MS. CONNELLY: There is no danger of that 20 whatsoever. l 21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay.
22 MS. CONNELLY: The only significant investigative 23 matters that would be of concern are those that we have pulled 24 out, and those items, of course, involve the m . th., - 1. n.. .t .1. .. .i........
30 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I think it's important 2 for us to try to come to grips with these three items because 3 they do appear to have technical merit that ought to be 4 checked out with the Staff.
5 MS. CDNNELLY: There might be a question, too, in 6 relation to whether or not the hearing should be open or 7 elosed with respect to the Staff. I spoke to Marty Malsch 8 about that prior to this meeting.
9 I would like to say that it is our preference that 10 the meeting be closed because you are discussing these issues 11 with high level NRR people, and that's quite appropriate.
12 There is some possibility that discussing -- making this 13 information widely known at this point might jeopardize our 14 review at a later point 15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, that's what I was trying 1
16 to get at. Now when you say higher level, is that Harold 17 Dentent EDO?
18 MS. CDNNE11Y: Any of the people that the NRR has 19 chosen to bring today, and I believe Jim Knight is the one who 20 is going t o make thia- pr e s ent a t i on , we have no concern about 21 those people having information that is in this report with 22 respect to NRR.
23 MR. BOULT.2N: And the question is how the resolution 24 was derived, which we were not able to determine today.
25 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Any comm6. from General
l i
l 31 l 1 Counsel on this?
2 MR. PLAINE: I think her procedure looks all right 3 to us.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Marty, since you 5 had talked to Sharon.
6 MR. MALSCH: That's the basis for closing the 7 portion of the meeting, just that there still is a possibility 8 of prejudicing soms aspects of the ongoing investigation. As 9 long as that's a possiblity, there are grounds for closing the 10 meeting.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: So if we bring the Staff back 12 in, it can be a continuation of our present meeting on pending 13 investigations.
14 MR. MALSCH: That's right.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Are there comments by 16 Commissioners before we do that?
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I'd like to make sure we have 18 the issues from this paper that has been presented that you 19 consider open items. In other words, what are the ones that 20 will require further action on our part?
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: On our part or their part?
22 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Our part. I mean further 23 inquiry on our part and perhaps action on your part. In other 24 words, what's left over? What's the next stept 25 MS. CONNELLY: The next step after making the
32 1
determination about the technical significance of the 2 information that NRR is going to present, that is the only 3 requirement upon the Commission at this point On page 4, the second paragraph?
4 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
MS. CONNELLY: Yes. ll 5
COMMISSIONER ZECH:
The technical significance of 6
7 the issues.
MS. CONNELLY: Whether o,r not they will impact on 8
9 any decisions you might make with respect to the plant.
COMMISSIONER ZECH: So that's the only thing that 10 .
11 you r,ee as an open item.
MS. CONNELLY: That's the only thing, right.
12 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, that's the only thing 13 14 affecting perhaps i t. e startup of Diablo Canyon, but there may 15 be other things that you're.still carrying on that you want to 16 complete.
^
17 MS. CONNELLY: That's right. We still have the
($ 5/$ bX ]5 18 investigation ongoing regarding 19 and we'll send a report to you of that, and then you can act 20 as appropriate.
21 MR. BOULDEN: And we will be continuing to review 22 material from the NRR Staff that we have received too late to l
23 consider in our briefing today. So we will be continuing our 24 review of the adequacy of the audit trail and the 25 documentation that's available, which we just didn't have the
33 1 time to do.
MS, CONNELLY: we will issue a full report on all of 2
3 the items that we've discussed today and all those areas that 4 we found unsubstantiated. There will be recommendations in At this point, though --
5 there for the EDO and Region V.
That's what I was looking for.
6 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
7 You're going to give us something in addition to this 6 briefing.
MS. CONNELLY: That's right.
9 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Okay, that's fine.
10 11 The only thing I'd like to say is I guess I started 12 a good deal of this with the letter I received.. I want to thank you for your very thorough followup. I appreciate it 13 14 very much.
Now I've got to figure out -- in one of your last 15 16 recommendations you say allegers or people should'be 17 informed. I've got to figure out how to respond to the 18 alleger, too, who started this with me.
19 (Laughter.1 20 MS. CONNELLY: I think we've done that for you.
21 COMMISSIONER 2ECH: Have you done that for met 22 MS. CONNELLY: I think we've done that for you.
COMMISSIONER ZECH: I hope you have. All right, 1 l 23 appreciate that {}[/dj I-24 25 MS. CONNELLY: Now, I would like to state tha
7 34 1 has requested to be a confidential source, so I would request 2 that that information not leave this room, please.
Yes, we should keep that. And !
3 COMMISSIONER ZECH:
But I do appreciate what you've done. But 4 respect that, too.
S I would follow up or say something, but you don't think Sit's t.[
necessary. Is that what you're telling me? You thin 6
7 knows -- gi MS. CONNELLY: I thin well aware that you have 8
9 taken complete action on this issue.
COMMISSIONER ZECH: Not just me personally, but the 10 11 NRC has acted o equest, which was obviously one that was 12 appropriate, it sounds like to me, becauce you did find a 13 number of things that were rather meaningful to look into.
14 So 1 apprect to what you've done, and you're telling l
13 me that you thin atisfied.
16 MS. CONNELLY: I'm not sure that th 'g e ever satisfied, but certainly'we addressed all o oncerns, 17 18 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: And you ieel that you've f
l 19 relayed that information to him or her.
20 MS. CONNELLY: We have not done that as of yet.
21 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Oh, then I misunderstood what l
[
22 you told Commissioner Zech earlier. I t he 'a g h t you had said l
23 that you had relayed or you had provided feedback to the 24 alleger so that he doesn't have to do it 25 MS. CONNELLY: No, we have not provided ieedback to
P' .. . . , . . . . . . . . . . -
1 !' '
l 35 {
,. 1 the alleger, but the allegers are well aware that we have conducted a very. comprehensive review, and I don't think that 2
there will be any question on the -- I'd be very surprised if 3
4 there are questions on the allegers' part as to the review Obviously, we have no objec41on to S that was conducted here.
4 your responding to,the alleger.
CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That's fine. But just like the 7
8 Chairman is saying, too, is there any need now that the alleger get a final report as to what we've done? Is that 9
l 10 appropriate?
MS. CONNELLY: I don't think thas ap;topriate.
11 12 They can request it under the Freedom of Information Act just like any other report that OIA issues. I think this is a 13 14 different situation from the safety-related inspections and investigations. We don't have the same kind of obligation to 15 16 go back to the allegers and explain our resolution that we 17 think you have in the safety area.
COMMISSIONER ZECH: Okay, well fine. I appreciate 18 19 has asked that it be kept confidentially, and the fact that]
20 I would certainly hope that we can all respect that, 21 Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
22 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Other questions or comments?
COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I had one comment, I guess, 23 24 on one of the recommendations that you've made here, Sharon, 25 and it strikes me as being a good one. I don't know vehether
l l
l 36 1 we have thought about this or maybe even have done it in one 2- or two regions, but it may well be that your comment that 3 relations are somewhat strained is the understatement of the
- 4. day. And I'm not surprised that they're a bit strained at 5 .this point, and therefrre, the recommendation that follows 1 6 think is a good one; that we consider e s t a b l i r,h i n g a person 7 with special qualifications and credentials for dealing with 8 individuals outside who bring allegations, and communicating 9 with them. I think that's something we ought to take 10 seriously.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: That would be one person per 12 region?
13 MS. CONNELLY: I think that would be adequate.
14 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: We probably have been 15 deficient for too long in too many areas in some of these 16 elementary areas of public relations.
17 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I think we should hear from the 18 EDO on this.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, I agree.
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH: But certainly, communications is 21 an important aart of our business. We should seriously 22 consider the recommendation that's been brought forth, but 1 23 think we should let the EDO respond first.
24 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, unless there are other 25 questions I was going to --
u_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - . _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
'37 1 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I have a couple questions.
1 2 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Okay, go ahead, Jim. .f I I L 3' COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: My questions really focus 4 on'the' performance of the Staff. When I read through this 5 again after having. heard it, the things that jump out,at me 6 are Staff breached the confidentiality of the . identity of 7 witnesses when it promised it would keep those confidential; 8 they didn't follow up on some things that you think they 9 should have followed up on, on the technical issues or did an 10 inadequate job on some.of them; they didn't interview people 11 that you said they should interview; they didn't allow someone 12 to look at the PG&E calculations to. point out'where the errors 13 were when you think they should have done that; they didn't 14 refer a wrongdoing issue to O! when they should have; and they 15 didn't conduct follow-up mee, tings with the allegers.
16 When I put all of that together the conotusion that 17 would lead me to is that the Staff did a poor job in handling Is that your conclusions? j 18 the allegations.
l 19 MS. CONNELLY: No, it isn't our conclusion. I think
'20 when you consider the large volume of allegations, the time 21' constraints, the difficulty with dealing with the allegers 22 they're not always available, it's very difficult to just pick 23 up the phone and call an alleger. You have to go through 24 GAP. GAP likes to be present when allegers are interviewed.
25 Putting the whole picture together,, I would not at
1 i
l 38 ,
1 all characterize their performance as poor. I think they 2 slipped up. !
3 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: These are minor 4 anomalies. By and large the Staff did a good job in handling 5 the allegations for Diablo Canyon. Is that what you',re 6 saying? Is that the way the three of you all feel --
7 MR. BOULDEN: I would say generally, except in the 8 area of close-out interviews with the alleger. I think there 9 -- I don't know what they could have done, but certainly 10 that's what I would regard as probably the most deficient 11 area. A lack of appreciation of khe need to inform them c1 12 taw their allegations were resolved. .
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: That's a communications 1
14 issue.
l 15 MR. BOULDEN: Yes.
16 MS. CONNELLY: Yes.
17 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Have you looked at the 18 statements that the Staff made to the Commission during the 19 course of the Diablo Canyon meetings as to how they were 20 handling and conducting the allegations process and the 21 efforts that the Staff had made to follow up, and have you 22 looked at those as compared with the facts as you've been able 1
I 23 to find from the investigation? And what's your conotusion in 24 terms of what the Staff had told ust 25 I've gone back, quite frankly, and looked at some of
.i 39 1 the things they said, but my recollection was that they were 2 fairly specific in terms of the efforts that they had on 3 follow-up, for example. And I'd be interested to know what 4 you found out in comparing those statements with what you've 5 seen as part of your investigation. ,
6 MS. CONNELLY: We're reviewing that right now as j 7 part of our investigative effort. .
8 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: And you don't have any l 9 judgments at this point?
10 MS. CONNELLY: We would like to wait until the 11 investigation is completed. To respond to that I think would 12 be unfair at this point to the individuals i n v o.l.v e d .
13 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Okay.
l 14 MS. CONNELLY: But we are pursuing it.
15 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: I haven't gone back to 16 look but I am going to go back and look, because I do recall 17 some fairly specific statements on the efforts that the Staff 18 said they made to do the followups. And then basically 19 saying, Look, we did everything we could; we called these 1
l 20 people. repeatedly, we made all the efforts and they just l 21 wouldn't meet with us.
l 22 And I'd be very interested in having your remaining 23 effort focus specifically on that question; answer the 24 questions of whether the statements the Staff made to the I 25 Commission accurately reflect what they did.
l I
40 j l
1 MS. CONNELLY. We are specifically looking at !
1 2 those. And it might be useful if we had a conversation with 3 you, too, because what we have are concerns raised by the 4 allegers. You may have other concerns, so we'll come see you 5 about that. ,
6 COMMISSIONER ASSELSTINE: Good. Okay.
I 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Shall we have the Staff come I l
8 in? Mr. Denton, Mr. Knight, anybody else?
9 MS, CONNELLY: Hugh Thompson should be here, if he 10 chooses. And Dick Vollmer. That's fine.
11 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: All right. Could we ask them 12 to come in? .
13 MR. CHILK: Yes. Do you want the Region on the 14 phone?
15 MS. CONNELLY: No. I don *( think these issues 16 involve the Region. ,
1 17 CHAIRMAN PALLADIN0: No, we don't want to go that 18 far with them. So we'll get Denton, Knight, Vollmer and Hugh 19 Thompson. l 20 Thanks, Sharon, for a good job.
21 (The Staff members mentioned above joined the Closed 22 Meeting.3 1
23 24 25
41 1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me remind everybody that i
2 this is still a closed meeting, but we had been informed that 3 there are three issues that had been referred to NRR that had i H
4 technical significance and that NRR would be prepared to brief 5 the Commission on the significance of the issues. And as 1 6 recall, they related to the Quick Fix program, PG&E's pipe 7 support design calculations and programmatic QA issues.
8 Harold, can you give us your impresuion of the 9 significance of these issues?
10 MR. D ENTON : Yes, Mr. Chairman. I haven't seen the 11 final report but last night Sharon did meet with Hugh Thompson 12 and Jim Knight and went over those three, and wd'd be happy to 13 share with you our views on the three, if that's the way you'd 14 like to proceed.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes.
16 MR. DENTON: Who would like to -- ? While we are 17 assembling here, I would like to make a comment that I have read part of the draft
- hat Sharon gave me. I didn't find any 18 .
19 new information in there and it seems to me that all those i
20 issues were ones that we briefed the Commission on as they 21 were proceeding, and we must have briefed the Commission at 22 least six times in 1984 on those kinds of issues. And you 23 recall as well as I, I'm sure, the peer panels headed up by f 1
24 Dick Vollmer, the ACRS reviews back and forth, the order !
25 issued regarding the Quick Fix program, and you know,
42 1 extensive Staff effort went into those related issues. .But if 2 you'd like to. talk about the details now perhaps one of us ,
1 3 'would be able to get into it'.
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, one of the items that 5 struck me was that these had technical content that O,IA didn't !
6 feel they could comment on. They could have technical 7 significance that impacts on whether'or not Diablo Canyon 2 8 should be licensid or could be licensed. And I think you l l
9 should shed whatever light you can on this.
10 MR. DENTON: Maybe we'll do that I didn't see any 11 information in the report that led me to change my opinion on 12 the plan. .
13 MR. THOMPSON: I'd like to have Mr. Knight, who is 14 Director of -- Acting Director of Engineering right now and 15 who was intimately involved in the reviews and discussing the 16 significance of these issues with OIA as well as with our own 17 staff to address these. Clearly, we're aware of these 18 issues. As Mr. Denton said, there's nothing there that was 19 knew. It was really the understanding of our process and the 20 auditability I think, that maybe OIA didn't have all the 21 information that we just gave them this. week, and so we have 22 made that information available to them.
23 And Jim, if you would kind of go through and address 24 those three issues to give the significance of them and our 25 basis for concluding that they are adequate.
p
~r.
43 1
f L 1 .MR. KNIGHT: Okay. First, all 1 can do is just 2 . reinforce both what Harold and Hugh have said as far as our.
l 3 seeing nothing in the OIA report that would change our 4 opinions or in any way colors those opinions.
5 To take the issues in number, the so-called, Quick 6 Fix program, which is perhaps an unfortunate term that was 7 applied to that. The effort more appropriately might be 8 called a field modification program, and without an effort to 9 color the nature of the work that was done.
10 In the process of our review, and in acting on some 11 of the. allegations we received, we caused PG&E to go back and 12 look at this field modification program. Or a s, .'y o u remember, 13 they called it Hall's Clarification Program.
14 Perhaps to just give some context, in the normal 15 design process a design is done, the drawing is made, it's 16 verified that the design is appropriate, it's sent out for
.17 construction; construction is accomplished and then there's i
l 18 verification that the construction in the field was 19 appropriate. And that verification is done on every job of 20 necessity, and particularly for the pipe supports, within 21 certain allowed tolerances.
22 In other words, the drawing may call for a support 23 to be in location X, and there may be an allowed six inches 24 plus or minus. That's to allow people to get around an 25 obstruction that might be there, or if there's a reinforcing I
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1 44 >
l 1 bar in the way to avoid hitting the reinforcing bar. )
l l 2 What was found was that a greater latitude than 3 would be allowed by those tolerances had been utilised -- and 4 this is POSE. This was done at a -- let's call it the field's 5 risk, In other words, if you can't get it within the,six 6 inches, go ahead and put it two feet away but it has to oyote 7 back through Engineering. And if Engineering can't approve l 8 it, then you've got a support you have to tear out, or have 9 to modify further.
10 Sc I think we ought to be careful that the 11 connotation doesn't come across that somehow something totally 12 improper was done in terms of the end product .The loop --
13 and I'll go through in a moment the process by which we became 14 satisfied that this was true -- but the loop was always 15 closed. They may not have been able to locate the support 16 exactly where they wanted it. In fact, in the process of 17 moving it they may have had to modify their support, 18 But the process was such that it went back through 19 Design, it was verified that the analysis that was performed 20 originally was either sufficient or another analysis was done 21 for what was actually in the field, so t in a t the hardware which 22 ended up in place had, in fact, the pedigree, if you will, 23 that it required.
24 Working on the basis of a number of allegations that 25 there had been some improprieties and discerning in a first
i 1
I l 45 1 quick look that perhaps the field tolerances had been 2 exceeded, we created a license condition, License Condition 6, l
3 which caused PG&E to go back and look at this program to 4 determine -- they were basically charged to go back, look at 5 your field modification or tolerance clarification, whatever 6 you want to call it program, and assure that in fact, it did 7 work as it was supposed to.
8 They took a sample of some 2000 of the roughly 9 15,000 actions that had taken place. And in the process of 10 looking at those 2000 they found something in the order 11 perhaps of 10 or 15 percent as 1 remember -- I wouldn't want 12 to be held to that number exactly, but in t h a t. .o r d e r -- where 13 yes, the field tolerances had been exceeded.
14 They took 40 of those and put them back through the 15 engineering process. Was, in fact, the analysis done 16 properly, was in fact the hardware in the field represented adequately by the analysis, j 17 .
1 18 We came in as the Staff and over about a period of 19 about a week, we took soughly 43 at random -- and I want to 20 qualify that at random. They were picked by the Staff, these 21 design packages, biased however by what we had heard from the 22 Interveners and biased by the individuals in that group, each 23 of whom had his own credentials as a piping engineer.
24 And based on that sample, we felt very confident 25 that the work POSE had done, as they had maintained, had been
i l
i 46 i done properly. In each instance. 'o r in a number of instances, ;
2 the field had been allowed to exceed their basic authority but 3 the loop was closed; it came back to Design, Design verified 4 that what they did in the field was adequate, or what they did 5 wasn't adequate and they had to make some change. ' ,w y h a d to l
6 add a brace, they had to do whatever.
7 MR. DENTON: In view of time, Mr. Chairman, I guess 8 we don't know where you're going and how long we should talk 9 about each issue.
10 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, my interest was do there 11 remain in your mind any questions regarding these three issues 12 that impact adversely on the possibility of giving Diablo )
l 13 Canyon a possible license.
14 MR. DENTON: I think the issue that we're discussing 15 is one I recall discussing with the Commission, we went 16 through it, we were satisfied at the time and I think we're 17 still satisfied on that one.
I 18 Maybe if you could go quickly through the other two, 19 Jim, to allow time for questions. l 20 MR. KNIGHT: Yes. And as I understand the other two 21 issues, one was sample size in general. And again, you can go 22 into quite a litany of where various samples were taken, 23 starting with the IDVP. They took samples to discern whether l 24 or not there were some problems in piping. It was agreed that l
25 there were. POSE created the Diablo Canyon Program to do
i i
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1 virtually a 100 percent review back on the piping.
l 2 The Staff then went in and.found some areas -- and I j 3 want to emphasise only some -- where we didn't think the QA l
4 program was-working as it should have. We caused them to go 5 b a c'k and redo all 3000 roughly small bore calculations. We l 6 took a sample of that to assure ourselves that the process, 7 again, was working.
8 And the only other thing I would add is that on a 9 strict numerical basis, how many did you look at compared to 10 how many are there, the samples might appear to be small !
11 think one has to grant, however, that we were looking at a 12 process where there had already been an independ.ent auditor, 13 there had been a re-review based on that auditor's finding, we 14 were now third and rerhaps fourth in a chain taking samples, i
15 looking at a process. In es,sence, we looked at the auditor 16 auditing the utility. We looked at them for their own 17 capabilities as well as exactly what they were doing, and came 18 to the conclusion that this was a very able group of people 19 that were looking in the first place.
20 So again, we're satisfied, as we have stated before 21 and maintain, that the plant as designed and built is a plant 22 that is properly designed, is designed in keeping with all of 23 the commitments that were made, and is a plant that should be 24 licensed.
25 The last item seems to enfold most of all these
48 1 other issues and that's the general question of well, weren't 2 you still finding QA problems. And the answer is yes. In a 3 very massive program there were instances where there were QA 4 deficiencies. But in every instance, those deficiencies were 5 recognized and actions were taken to correct them. ,
6 I think one has to simply realise that in an 7 undertaking of that dimension there will, from time to time, 8 be problems like this that arise, and it will be in every 9 plant --
10 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: I was going to say there 11 isn't a plant out there that that doesn't exist.
12 MR. KNIGHT: It's beyond human a b i l i t.y. t o reach 13 perfection.
14 [ Commissioner Asselstine left the meeting.3 15 MR. DENTON: Remember, some of these issues were 16 enveloped in concerns of a Mr. Isa Yin, and I established the 17 peer review group under Dick Vollmer, and we had 18 representatives from all the major offices within the 19 Commission and consultants, and you went through all this and 20 many of them were these kinds of things. And that led to the 1
21 order that I issued on the applicant and his response was 22 satisfactory.
23 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask one question. Was 24 there anything new that was specific to Diablo Canyon 2 that 25 was implied in any of these three items?
49 1 MR.-DENTON: I'll defer to the people who met with i
l' 2 Sharon yesterday.
l 3 MR. KNIGHT: No, sir. ]
4 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Let me ask if other 5 Commissioners have questions.
6 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I just want to make l 7 sure that the tone here is right. I detect a slight 8 divergence from what I think it should be. Unfortunately, you 9 folks aren't privy to exactly everything, I guess, that comes 10 out of this kind of inquiry, and I just want to assure you 11 that in my judgment at least, and I believe that's what we've 12 been told, there's absolutely nothing that calls into question 13 in the slightest way the integrity and propriety of the way 14 NRR has handled this matter in the general sense.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I think that's a good point to 16 make.
17 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Rather, I think that what 18 one hopes to get out of this kind of thing are some l l
19 guidelines. In fact, one of the most important problems that 20 we've apparently uncovered here is poor communications 21 sometimes with the public and allegers. Things like that. We 22 all want to try and do the best we can at, but I just want to 23 reassure you all on what I understand to be the nature and the ,
24 tone that has been set here so that you all know where you 25 stand.
i 1
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50 ,
1 MR. DENTON: I think on that point, Commissioner, we 2 are doing a better job in that area as we move along. And at 3 Comanche Peak I think we managed to contact every, and get 4 back to every one that brought us an allegation, for example.
5 So I think with regard to the process of finding ever,ybody and 6 sometimes that's hard to do, but we are learning from case by 7 case in that sort of area.
8 MR. THOMPSON: And likewise, I think we're 9 documenting our positions in a much more auditable trail. I 10 mean, this was the very first major effort that we got into, 11 and it is one of the things that we had to take some extra 12 effort to get our documentation together.
13 MR. DENTON: The allegations that came in here were 14 very late in the process, and it was a large-scale, immediate 15 effort.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: In fact, what I would say is 17 that the Director of NRR established is expert credentials in 18 the area of communications some years ago in an enviable 19 fashion, and I trust that that permeates his entire 20 organization out there.
21 I have one comment I did want to make. I guess this 22 gets down to one of the specifics here, but it's a minor 23 policy issue, it seems to me, and that was this question of 24 whether an alleger should be able to review others' 25 calculations to prove allegations. And apparently, that was
j
' i 1
J Si 1 not permitted. It was obviously policy judgment'that NRR ,
l, 2 made. I'm not sure what the right answer is there myself.
l l
3 One can make recommendations one way or the other. Got any 4 comment on that? !
5 MR. DENTON: Yes, sir, I do. We've worked',--
6 usually we try to work with allegers to the extent.that' I 7 they'll work with us, and there was, for example, an alleger 8 who brought a concern to our attention in Diablo Canyon and we i
9 followed up with him extensively and provided him a copy of 10 our draft resolution of that issue before comments, before we 11 published that draft. And that's where we felt he had 12 established his credentials in the area, we r e s.p e c t e d his 13 opinion and we were determined to do it. ;
14 The same thing happened at Waterford, and there we ,
15 worked with the people who brought allegations very closely to I i
16 resolve the issues. I think to some extent it depends upon ;
17 the framework in which you are cast with allegers as to 18 whether you can have a sort of professional exchange of views t
19 back and forth or act. And I think we would always attempt to l l 20 do that and should attempt to do it, if the other parties will 21 work with us. But sometimes in the head of adversarial 22 relationships it's very difficult to do that 23 MR. THOMPSON: I might add, I wasn't involved 24 directly in that and I had the same question when I was going 25 over it, and I think the way 1 perceive this particular case
I- !
52 1 is one a little different than our general review poltoy.
2 It's almost as our inspection effort. When we go out to do a 3 detailed, on-site, you know, into the detailed, massive 4 documentation they have it's like having allegers go out and 5 help us do our inspection of utilities. ,
6 It's a little different, though, when we're in a 7 normal iconsing thing; it's more a review of documentation 8 of public type meetings. This is almost -- if it leaned 9 anywhere, it leaned to the inspection type activity, and to that's why I felt it tended to find itself in a special 11 category of, you know, you needed to establish that level of ;
12 trust and understanding before you brought thos,e. people in as 13 your auditor / inspector arm. l 14 So it's not our usual practice to exclude them.
15 Typically, in most of the 1 1,o e n s i n g process they are not --
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I guess I'm not sure what 17 you're saying. Let me simplify the question. It seems that 18 PG&E did some calculations and somebody -- how credentialed 1 19 have not the foggiest idea -- said, I want to look at those l
20 calculations and find out whether 2 and 2 have been added up 21 to make S.
1 22 Without asking such an individual to reproduce such 23 calculations from scratch -- and we all know it's much easier 24 to find fault with what somebody else has already done; it 25 just saves a lot of time if you're permitted to do that -- why l - - - _ _ _ - - _ - _ - _
L L l o L
53 !
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L p 1 wouldn't we do that routinely?
2 I can think of some reasons why we might not, 1.
3t -CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: You mean why would we give it 4 to him routinelyt 5 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. I guess ! can,think of 6 reasons, as I say, why we might not do that, and we certainly 7 don't want to waste our time with people that are 8 uncredentialed. But that specifically was the case here, so 9 we're told at least.
10 MR. KNIGHT: If I may, perhaps being even a little 11 bit closer to some of these circumstances. I think one thing 12 to keep in mind is when we talk about some of tkese 13 calculations, it isn't really just a page or two pages; it's a j 14 book or books and computer printouts.
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Sure. I certainly understand 16 that.
17 MR. KNIGHT: And drawings. And in order to do what 18 the Staff has to do in some reasonable time -- and now I'm 19 thinking of several professionals for a week or more -- we 20 felt we really had to move on, have a very orderly and a very 21 busy time in looking at the calculations, 22 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But does it necessarily have 23 to impinge heavily on -- I'm sure I don't understand the whole 24 scenario here, but does it necessarily have to take a lot of 25 Staff time? Isn't the burden of proof -- and as I say, this 1
t' 54 l
1 is.something of a policy issue; otherwise, I wouldn't be 2 spending everyone's time on this, but -- when someone comes in 3 and says, If you'll give me this set of calculations, I'll l 4 find and show you what's wrong with them. Why wouldn't we 5 just do that? ,
I 6 MR. KNIGHT: I think, taken as an isolated incident, I 7 at least speaking for myself from my own, practice, I would 8 certainly be very much inclined. If the person is saying, you 9 know, you bring me the calculation for support XYZ; I know 10 there's a mistake in there and if you guys haven't seen it 11 there's something wrong with you.
12 And we really did a certain amount o f. .t h a t in terms 13 of some of the meetings we had, for instance, with Mr. Stokes l 14 where we had some calculation packages that had been sent to 15 us from the Region and gained from there what we felt was a 16 pretty good understanding of the extent of the problems being 17 identified. But many of*the requests went beyond that. l 18 It was, Get me in there and let me loose. And that's where we 19 wanted to draw the line. .
l 20 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Yes, I think there's a 21 difference between the specific request and a fishing 22 expedition.
1 23 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: But Joe, as long as it f
I 24 doesn't take any of our Staff's time, what's the objection?
I l
25 MR. KNIGHT: But it inevitably does, j I
'd 1
55 1
1 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: A great deal of objection. As l 2 he said, and I wau thinking back to.my own calculation days !
I t
3 where if you asked for a calculation to prove a particular 4 point, I'd have one page where maybe I did the calculation for that particular blade path -- and I'm thinking of tur, bines --
l 5
l 6 but it was based on a whole lot of analysis that went on 7 before. And I think if I wrote to General Motors and said, I l
8 would like to have all your calculations on the frame, they'd 9 give me a problem.
10 Incidentally, I think we're off in a different 11 direction from the one that we said we were going to go on.
12 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, I don'tl understand 13 your point. l 14 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: My point is that it's not a i i
15 simple thing to do.
16 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I don't understand why not.
17 CHAIRMAN PAL 2.ADINO: Well, then, you ought to de 18 some --
I 19 [ Laughter.1 20 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I dare say I've done as'much l
l L 21 or nearly as much as you did.
I 22 CH AI RMAN PALL ADINO : Well, not when it comes to 23 designing complex machinery, 24 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: I did many other things and 25 I understand the complexities, and I understand that the Staff
[
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1 should not waste their time with uncredentialed reviews. But i 2 you guys can tell pretty quickly who's credentialed and who 3 isn't, and it's just not clear to me that you -- to the extent
)
that those criteria are met, you don't throw it in front of 4
5 someone's face and say, You show me what's wrong. That's a 6 kind of peer review --
7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: No, no, there's a difference ! f t
8 think in saying, Give me a class of calculations; I just want 9 to go through them and see if you made a mistake. That's one i 10 thing. I call that a fishing expedition.
11 But if a person comes an'd says, You know, I really 12 question whether or not this area has been prope,rly analysed 13 and it seems I have credentials, I'd say I might be more 4
14 lenient I
15 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: What do we care if they 16 fish, if they find something wrong?
I 17 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, I don't think that's --
f 18 that could be many, many tons of material.
19 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Joe, that wasn't the case 20 here, by the way, and we're getting off into -- I don't care 21 if you release this transcript, Marty.
22 MR. MALSH: No, it's not that. I'm just saying
)
l 23 there could be some legal difficulties with the NRC bringing 1'
24 in a member of the public who is not under contract or under l
l our employment and sort of letting him loose, as it were. I 25
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1 think it would raise a number of difficulties.
2 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: I think that's a valid point. l 3 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Letting him loose on whatt
, 4 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS; On the licensee.
5 MR. MALSCH: On'the licensee and the licens,ee's 6 premises. 1 7 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL. Okay. Then why didn't l
8 somebody say that? You just said it. I understand.that. To 9 the extent there's a legal problem, that's ubvious. Because 10 some of it's proprietary. I suspect a lot of it is not 11 proprietary. Am I wrong? I suspect it's the minor portion.
12 MR. MALSCH: It's not only that, b u t .i.t ' s who's )
13 vouching for whom; whether the licensee himself has some 14 rights. I mean, obviously, the licensee has an obligation to 15 make his inspection -- his p,remises available for NRC 16 inspections, but that doesn't necessarily extend to everyone.
17 who simply walks in off the street, and it just raises all 18 kinds of difficulties when you bring in members of the public i
19 and sort of give them free rein.
2 0 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Well, Marty, there's a 21 threshold of credentials -- I won't talk much longer on this.
22 And in fact, in this particular case I don't know what the 23 individual's credentials were. I.t says, supposedly an alleger 24 wanted to review a sample set of calculations to prove his 25 allegations.
i i ,
58 l I
1 MR. DENTON: Well, to some extent, the allegations j l
2 and our hearing process aren't well connected, in that in j 3 theory, contentions are supposed to be developed by people who 4 disagree with the granting of the licensee and they.would 5 become contentions. And discovery would take place, ,t h e <
l I
6 ' parties would prepare all their calculations and the process l 7 move forward.
8 We've gotten into a practice now whereby we have the i
9 hearing first, then the allegations come out later.
10 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes, exactly, that's right.
11 That's.a good point 12 Well, I'm not being critical I'm try.ing to get to 13 the bottom of what does still appear to me to be something of i
14 a policy issue, albeit a minor one.
15 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: Well, we might want to come 16 back to it at another time. Anymore, Fred?
17 COMMIS!IONER BERNTHAL: No, I've talked too long 18 already.
19 CHAIR 4AN PALL ADINO: Any other Commissioners?
20 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I'd just like to make one l
21 comment. First of all, I think the Staff has been very 22 helpful in what you've given us and I know it's been 23 repetitive for you, but it's helpful for me anyway, and 1 24 appreciate that very much.
25 But also, I would like to say to OIA's credit I j
l 59 1 think, at least I think -- this is the way I perceive it --
2 they recognise that the issues we're talking about were early 3 on and sometime ago, and that we're really talking about 4 allegation management, and that now I think in the Staff, NRR S in particular and the whole Staff, we do have a much better 6 grasp, at least it's my perception, on allegation management.
7 And it's my view that early on we didn't have as good a handle 8 on it, and now OIA wanted you to have the opportunity to 9 explain to us in words that perhaps the documentation wasn't 10 so good; we all recognize that, but it's much better now.
11 So I think that's what OIA had in mind, and I think 12 you've certainly satisfled me and I a p p r e c i a t e .i.t very much.
13 COMMISSIONER BERNTHAL: Yes. I again want to stress 14 --
and I appreciate the comments you have just made, Lando, 15 because I think we're getting into a mode here that we ought 16 to be in where there is sort of a free exchange and kind of a 17 second look after we've gone through this kind of process on 18 how we have done things.
19 OIA, for its part, is obliged to pursue anything, no 20 matter how minor it might seem. I recall a recent instance of 21 ballpoint pens or something, and sure enough, if somebody says 22 ballpoint pens have disappeared and might be somewhere that 23 they shouldn't, and it says Federal Government on them, they 24 have no choice; they have to do the job.
25 And so we all understand that.
60 1 COMMISSIONER ROBERTS: Well, I won't waste 2 everybody's time now but I'll tell you about an experience 3 that occurred prior to your coming here about things about at l
4 the same level as ballpoint pens. But I will do that 5 privately. ,
6 [ Laughter.3 7 CHAIRMAN PALLADINO: I am grateful to Fred for 6 putting this into perspective, because we weren't trying to be 9 critical of NRR's process; we were just trying to close a loop 10 that arose through the OIA investigation.
11 Anything more we should' discuss this afternoon?
12 [No response.)
13 Well, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, 14 we'll stand adjourned.
15 [Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the meeting was 16 adjourned.3 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER
- 2 S-
'4 5 This is to certify that the attached proceedings 6 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the 7 matter of: Commission Meeting l
8 9 Name of proceeding: Discussion of Pending Investigations (Exemptions 5 and 7) (Closed Meeting) 10 11 Docket No.
12 place: Washington, D. C.
1s Date: Friday, July 26, 1985 14
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15 were held as herein appears and that this is the original 16 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.
18 /
(Signature)
(TypedName'ofReprter) /Suzage B. Wedng 20 21 22 23 Ann Riley & Associates. Ltd.
~N 24 25
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