ML20237G414
| ML20237G414 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Diablo Canyon  |
| Issue date: | 01/05/1984 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237G338 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-84-744 NUDOCS 8708140059 | |
| Download: ML20237G414 (69) | |
Text
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MM. 8 V,W I ,13 t_
i IH 0 59,00
. XcW in NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
1/5 /84 l I
KIRSG : Okay, what I would like to do right now before we get all, I'd like to get everybody's name, address, and telephone number of everyone here and who they are or were employed by.
SPEAKER B Would it be possible to just give you my phone number? I' d really r ather not. . .
KIRS G : I'd really much prefer having your name, especially, you see, if you nave something to contribute to the problems that Mr. Walker has, if you do have.
SPEAKER B I won' t tell you my address. I'll give you my '
name and phone number.
KIRSG : Okay, but we normally make a habit of, the requirement is that we'll talk to Steve, we'll talk to yourself X and once we have finished doing our thina on whatever your
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concerns are we, our regional procedure now reouires that we get back to each individual regarding his concerns and forwardina basically a copy of our report and so that we can...
gg SPEAKER B : As long as it is confidential.
h KIRS G: Oh of course, I mean if all of you request e confidentiality, I will do everything that I can to maintain c<n 854 v u.co confidentiality. However, there is one condition under which I 5$
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can' t maintain confidentiality. And that is, if this, all of SSE this goes into a legal proceeding, into the courts, and we are subpoenaed and asked of course to divulge the source of the information in this record was deleted m accordance with the Fr om of Information
. ene pt
/o 4 q { NRC-1 / l-5 ,84 - 1 f '
Foin-1 4 9 %
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1 informat!on, of course, I cannot maintain that confidentiality.
Okay. Okayc first of all, let me get your names.
Steve, I think I've got your name on this form. We talked with Marvin, or Mark Adelman on the 23rd. Mark had written down your addre'ss, your name being Steve Lockert.
LOCKEM: That's correct.
KIRSG And phone number is area code Your address being' l
.J &
LOCKER : That's correct.
KIRSG : And you were a Pullman OC Inspector. And you worked at Diablo Canyon. And for the other individuals here, I would like to take down their names and whatever information.
Okay, my name is I . My address '
is( ' .
. , that ' s .
Phone number is
/ % /
/
KIRSG : }okay.
3 I'm a former QC inspector.
KIRSG : You' re employed by Pullman now.
Presently employed by Pullman as visual OC inspector at the Diablo Canyon site.
KIRSG: Okay, sir. .
CLEWBTT: My name is John Clewett and I work at the Government Accountability Project. The address of GAP is 19010 '
Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. Eipcode is 20009. The phone number is (202) 667-7904.
KIRSG : Okay, this interview. . .
NRC-1 / 1-5 2
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I CLEWETT: I'm sorry, could I, just for the record, cet you gentlemen to state your names. I know you' ve introduced yourselves already but. . . !
KIRS CH : This interview is being conducted under tape recorded conditions provided by Mr. Clewett of GAP. I have, my name is Dennis Kirsch. I have renuested that GAP provide me with !
a copy of the tape and can we perhaps agree on a time or a date when we can be provided with a copy of this tape?
CLEWETT: Sure, how soon would you like a copy?
KIRS CH : It would be helpf ul if I were able to obtain a copy of this prior to mid-week next week, maybe prior to Wednesday.
Would that be possible?
CLEWETT: I think so. Is there a number I could call you at if that looks lilte it is going to be a problem?
KI RSrH : I'll be down here at the motel. I'll be here all week next week.
CLEWETT: Is there a phone number here where I could reach you?
KIRSCH : Sure, except I don' t have the doggoned matches.
Let me get one.
CLEWETT: Prerequisite f or getting . . .
??: Yeah I just got through with the Langley Union Contract
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negotiations and it's starting to look a lot like that.
KIRSCH: Oh, here it is, 544-5300, my extension is 124. And af ter Friday, I believe we'll be going back to the of fice Friday, but af ter that time I will be in my regional office.
CLENETT: Okay, I'm sorry, what's the phone number there?
NRC-1 / l-5-84 -3
i KIRS CH : My telephone number in the regional of fice is (415) 943-3723. Okay, for the record, my name is Dennis Kirsch. I am chief of the Reactor Safety Branch of Rhqion V, Division of Reactor Safety and Projects, telechone number has
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just been given to Mr. Clewett. Gonzalo...
HE RNANDEZ: My name is Gonzalo Hernandez. Soelled G-o-n-z-a-1-o. Last name is Hernandez. And I am a reactor inspector and I'm also from Region V, Walnut Creek. Telephone number is (415) 943-3727.
KIRS CH : Okay, the address of Region V is 1450 Maria Lane, I
Walnut Creek, 94596. Is is Suite 210? !
l HE RNANDEZ : 10.
KIRS CH : Yoah, that's what I thought. Okay, S teve, we talked with Mark Edelman on the 23rd. Oh, by the way, the time is 7:27. The date is January 5th, 1983. 7 :27 p.m.
??: '84.
KIRS CH : 84, by golly, you' re right. Running behind, my checkbook is going to be f.n terrible shape. You talked with Mark Pattivan on the 23rd of December and relayed to him a number of concerns. What I would like to do is go over those concerns first of all and try to establish basically read them into the record, probably be the best thing to do and establish if you have any additional information other than these kinds of <
concerns, additional information that is relevant to each of j l
these as we go through them, and then we'll get to additional j t
ones af ter we go through all of these. Now, these are Marvin's 1
words and uh, based on his phone conversation, his write-up of l l
l l
NRC-1 / l-5-84 -4
. . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ______--_-----------------------J
what he understood f rom the phone conversation with you. You indicated that in mid-September of 1983 you were reading PG&E and Pullman conttacts Nos. 8711 for pipe hangars and 8833 XR for rupture restraints which defined the work Pullman was to do for PG&E. The contracts indicated that gas pumps and arc welding equipment was to have a rheostat control and be of high frecuency so that no base metal and electrocontact was necessary to initiate welding. And your concern here was that the contract of course would cause tungsten inclusion into base metal.
LOCKERT: .Well, my concern is number one, they are not I llowing the procurement document.
KIRS CH: Well, we'll cet to that, but your safety, the safety significance of this thing is that it would cause a '
tungsten inclusion into the in the base metal from some melt of the tungsten electrode on the tape machine.
LOCKE FT: Can I answer that?
KIRS CH : Go ahead.
LOCKERT : The reason that tungsten inclusion is a problem in l base metal is because it's generally a sharp indication it's not, it's treated as a slag inclusion by the x-ray inspection out i there. But a tungsten inclusion generally is r4ot melted into the base metal. Tungsten is a very hard dense material and when it breaks off in a weld what it creates is a sharp stress razor, a point where stresses will concentrate in that weld. And that is the problem with tungsten inclusion.
KIRSCH : We'll get to some more on this. I just wanted to read the test of it. This type of equipment has not been in use l
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at Diablo Canyon for the last five years. The rheostat control permits the current to be turned off and on and adjusted.
Without the theostat control drawing in or to begin w'lding e and
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separating the electrode from the work to stop welding causes defects. PGsE indicated to you that they would chance the contracts.
LOCKERT : Yeah, this was at a later date but in mid-September I brought Pullman's attention.
KI RS CH : Okay, who at Pullman did you tell?
LOCKEFT: The QA Manager, Harold Connor.
KIRS CH : Harold Connor, okay.
LOCKE RT: An3 I notified him per memo.
KIRSCH : Okay, you notified him by memo. Do you have a copy of that memo?
LOCKERT : No, I don' t.
KI RS CH: Well, we'll try and get one, Mention why you don' t.
LOCKEFT: When I got fired, I was not allowed to bring anv paperwork with me when I lef t. That included memos, personal scratch paper, anything like that.
KIRSCH : That's unders tandable. That's normal. Okay, I guess what I need to know here, what kind of tig welding equipment do they use out there?
LOCFE RT: Well, they use a resistance type power supp1v.
They plug into what is it called.
- s '
s t Some standard grids or something, main power supply, and then each welder plugs a resistance box into the NRC-1 / l-5 6 rm____..---
power supply to get his welding current. The way they oo about tig welding is they usually take your electrode lead, your stinger, for stick welding, they take and they'll havk the fitter clip the tungsten lead into the electrode lead when tiiey want to start their R. Sometimes you'll have the fitter dial you up to what you want to be welding on. But they're, each control box has varied steps that increase the current, which i s not the bes t way to be doing tig welding because you don't have the control that you normally get with theostat control. That's why you want a rheostat control. (unclear)
KIRSG : Okay, the shielding gas is all coming off of a bottle right there.
LOCKERT : The bottle's richt here and the flw meter may be 'i right there at the station or it may three stories up on the next >
floor.
KIRSG : So you use a resistance type box of f of the orld.
LOCKERT: Right. It's DC straight polarity (?)
KIRSG : Okay, and this has a switched, well, maybe like a rheostat.
LOCKERT : It's a definite steo control.
KIRSG: It's a step control yeah.
LOCKERr: And only if the fitter is on the box adjustino it for the welder, that's the only control he has. If the fitter is l not there, his machine turns on to whatever value it's set at, it stays at.
1 The way I've seen most of it done out there is the L. ,
welder will strike an arc, initiate an arc by touching the N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 7
tungsten to the base metal and it will break that loose. H e' ll start welding and when he gets done, depending on how much he knows about what he's doing, usually I seehimjustthkea tungsten and he'll just pick it right up off the base metal which is really poor on the stainless steel because you lose all your gas shielding and the weld .
KIRS CH : Another question. Go ahead.
LOCKE RT : They have documented problems with the starts and stops as f ar as radiographs on stainless steel goes. I can read you here out of my document the type of defect t' eat occurred at i the end of the weld cycle. The defects occur at the end of the weld cycle when the welder tries to extinguish the arc by pullinq l the tungsten electrode directly out of the area over th'e weld pool. The weld pool is kept molten as the are elongate's but then starts to freeze as the are and magnetic field collapse oscillating the weld pool and as the weld freezes, this oscillation creates a hole in the center of the weld pool and by picking that tungsten electrode straight out of the weld pool, you do not see that def ect all the time but many times you'll see that time.
KIRSCH : What are you st;ying that it creates parosity.
LOCKERT: You get the parosity. It's called a crater. I t' s due to the magnetic effects. It's also due to the f act that the puddle is shrinking there. I t's hot. It's starting to solidify. It's not as bad a problem on stainless as it is on aluminum but you do get the parosity because they lif t the tungsten of f of there at a real long arc that creates an area NRC-1 / l-5 8
where it's still being heated but there's no shieldina gas flyina over it. And when you suck nitrogen and oxygen out of the air into stainless steel you create some definite metallurgical
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problems with it when you weld it.
KIRSCH : Okay, um, were you involved in observina tungsten, tig welding, or inspecting tig welding?
LOCKE RT: Yes.
KIRS CH : You were a visual inspector?
LOCIGlRT : That's right.
KI RS CH : What level. You were level two?
LOCKE RT : Right.
KIRS CH : What, in your opinion, what would be the effect of this. Now understand, on pipe you wouldn't want this type of a stress razor, but what would be the ef f ect? l Did you see . them do this on both pipe and on supports, support attachments to stainless pipe? Because they don' t 'use tic weldina on carbon steel. -
LOCEE RT (?) : They do depending on the ... The problem I see out there is they don't know where to use it on diff erent things. They'll use tig welding out on the wind on carbon steel, on carbon steel on pipe raf t. I' ve seen them do that with regularity and I, as an inspector, brought it to the engineer's attention that it's not a really good thing to be doing. They' ve decided this is how they' re going to do it and this is the way they' re going to do it.
KI RS CH : Out on the rack they'll use tig.
NRC-1 / l-5 9 L. ._ .
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i LOCKERT: I've seen them use tig welding out on the pipe i
rack on windy days, on joints where it would make a lot more sense to use shielded metal arc welding' under the conhitions and the joint design.
KIRS CH : You see any problem with using tig welding out on the rack?
LOCKERT : As long as they shield the wind, but they don' t shield the wind and there's no route pass inspection requirement. And as a matter of f act the job I was on.
KIRSCH: Were they welding pipe or were they welding structural? -
s' This they were welding hangar members, carbon steel. But I've also seer; them use it quite a bit on stainless
- pipe. In f act, one day I walked by and a welder had his f an blowing right across his tig are to where I could visually see that he was contaminating that well. I asked him to stop. He became very abusive. I just asked him would you please move your fan here. And the guy just basically got in my f ace and said I I had no qualifications to be telling him how to weld when I myself have been a tig welder for six years now. I've cualified to military standards which are some of the tightest around for tig welding and I'm about ten units short for a Bachelor of Science in welding engineering. S teve's got one, so.
KIPSCH : Can you tell me where that was at?
- s
(?): Unintelligible.
KIRSCH : No, no, where you saw that f an blowing across?
NRC-1 / l-5 10
- The f an was blowing across, the guy was weldino on 3/4 inch schedule 160 stainless line that was a 650 psi nitrocen line for one of the accumulators in Unit 2 containment.
- 91. It would be the pressurizer richt next to the LOCME RT :
bottom of the stairs.
I might add that I informed the guy's foremar about what he was doing and he just asked me, well, did the weld look bad? And the weld visibly didn' t look bad but if you were to use some MBE on it, it's my opinion that it would not have turned out good on those passes. But because they were covered u p, it might have not when the final MBE was performed on it, it might have turned out good.
KIRS CH : That kind of a line is not required to be '
radiographer, I think. ' It's just a liauld thinner?
I Liquid thinner turn, yeah.
Dennis, in ref erence to vour cuestion to me of where I saw that process being used it was on pipe weldina, stud welding.
KIRSCH : In Unit 27 LOCKERT: In Unit 2.
KIRSCH: How long ago? When was that?
LOCKERT: Well, I'd say from September, October to December.
KI RSCH : Of '83.
LOCKE RT : Right.
EE RNANDEZ (?) : You saw that repeatedly?
LOCEEFT: I didn' t see gas tungsten arc welding being used every day, but on a week basis, I might get some gas tungsten are NRC-1 / l-5 11
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i welding where they use it to attach studs to the containment wire and they occasionally use it for route passes on structural welding.
i They use it when they have to make an open route weld Your 88, 89 procedure for carbon steel hangar members when they can' t get. . .
KIRSG 88, 89?
LOCERP : NPS.
( Holman's welding procedure specification.
KIRSCH: Do you remember what portion of that line accumulated the nitrogen line for the accumux stor?
LOCERT : I remember something about it. It was a modification of that line that occurred in what, early October?
, Yeah, it was being done on the floor. It wasn' t in its position. And I ouestioned, the way I calmed the guy down was I asked him for his isodiagram so I could tell what field weld number he was making. And at first, he told me that he
- didn't have it, which is a requirement that it be there at the work station. And finally, he produced it. So then I realized that it really (unclear) . . . It's somewhere going right into the 1
accumulator there. I don' t know what number the accumulator is.
KIRSCH (?): Yeah it's at the bottom of the stairs, there's only one near the bottom of the stairs. .
That's true.
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CLEWETT: This is Unit 2, right.
??: Right. I NRC-1 / l-5 12
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LOCKERT : I was also involved in that. If you could find my dailies you probably get some field weld numbers for that.
KIRSG : Okay.
CLEWETT(?): So what was the date on that?
LOCKERT: Early October.
??:
1 So you can check the dailies for early October?
- Steve can' t. They didn't allow him to take his own personal inspection records out.
CLEWETT: Yeah, but they should have ~ them. '
' AND LOCKERT : Yeah, back at the site.
??: Another instance I saw of gas tungsten arc welding that I didn' t realize was not going in the way it should, I addressed , j this to the QC Manager we had today. Due to a lack of trainino, !
I was not aware of the proper procedure I should have followed i
when I came across this. It's on class E piping which requires l
no QC participation as f ar as the end process work. It reouires '
heat and PO and weld tiller traceability and that's about it. I, as just an area surveillance, was looking at what was goina on i
l here, watching them purge, and I noticed that they weren't purging their lines. They were doing this down on a bench and also on the floor. I reached in under an elbew where I could get my hand in to feel the back side of. the weld and the stainless .
steel when it's not purged properly gets sugary coating and it
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was pretty apparent that they didn' t, they f ell through on it, i they had a lot of garbage on it, it was sugared ouite a bit.
KIRSG : Okay, what kind of a line was that on?
f NRC-1 / l-5 13 I
??: That was on a 4 inch schedule 10 stainless line and the 85 foot elevation f ar north end of the turban one building.
KIRSG : Those are Class E lines?
??: Class E and it has something to do with the reverse osmosis area.
KIRS G : You are aware though that the , reverse of that is not a safety related system? And therefore, is outside of our regulatory bounds?
??: That's true. I'd just like to point that up as part of the way tig welding is conducted around there from what I've seen.
??: If I could just make one comment, I mean I don' t know enough about welding to know what's what on the tide. I believe -
with both of you that this is not a particular saf etv here. I think one thing that is of potential interest to the NRC is that these are examples of a sort of philosophy toward weldina and if, you know, and that it may be because of the fact that there are lots of examples, it means that there is a more widespread phenomenon going on.
KIRS G : I agree, but my interest is I wanted to know if it was saf ety-related, I wanted to know what line and where. But yes, the comment is well taken and it was understood a priori.
Okay, let's go on. You indicated that Pullman welding procedure 7/8 for rupture restraints was qualified on a flat plate in accordance with the ASME code?
LOCKERT : That was cualified on pipe, f
NRC-1 / l-5 14
KIRS G : That's what I remembe r ed. Okay, so it's cualified on pipe. Okay. Using the same qualification information obtained by ASME methods, Pullman cualified the procei$ure to AWS standards. Some of the words they took the ASME qualification in and transf erred it over structural.
LOCKERT : To AE.
??: They' re applying it on AWS work. They have not qualified it per ANS Dll standards. For using it on restraints.
KIRSG : (Unclear exchange) For the rupture restraints.
??: Dll 79, that's the addition that's ref erenced.
KIRSG : You say it's not correct to cualif y the procedure to AWS standards using ASME methods because joint desian is essential for the AWS qualification. Whereas joint design is not essential to qualification in accordance with ASME.
LOCKERT : I might add it's not considered an essential variable meaning if you change it you don't have to recualify the pr oce dur e. But ASME Section 9,1977 edition, says your qualifying welding procedure specification will list all qualified joint designs. And up until, when did that GWS come out, up until about Octobter, they did not follow that requirement of ASME . They would, as a case in point, proceJure 7A is qualified and it says in the procedure that this procedure shall utilize a backing strip on all welding. Meaning it's not suited for open route welding. They use it with regularity on open route welding where the hangar members, now, this is what we're discussing. Where they'll backgrind the backside and weld from two sides. Now, ASME doesn' t prohibit that but they say it has NRC-1 / l-5 15
to be noted on your WPS. I addressed that verbally to the OAOC Manager and was told that well, we've been doing it like this for ten years and we' re not going to stop now.
[
KIRS G : Something conf uses me now. If you're backgrinding, if you' re using it for AWS welding, why would you comply with the
, ASME requirement 2 noted on the WPS for back gouging?
The 7/8 qualification of WPS is cualified ASME Section 9 for use on hangars only. They cannot transfer that qualification to AWS just by saying well, we have this cualified procedure, now we're going to do it like this.
LOCKE RT : I might add, Tim, that the tinsel and tin test will qualify for either code. But now, when you take vour ASME oualified procedure and move it over to AWS area, the only joint '
design that is now qualified in AWS is the original joint desion shown on the PQR l procedure qualification records). So all of a sudden joint design becomes an essential variable over here. WPS 7/8 will only weld one joint design in rupture restraints as f ar i l
as I know.
- i' KIRSG : Is that all you remember, 7/87
??: Well, I can provide you f ellows with some documentation
. l here, to ref resh your memory.
KIRSCH : That would be some help. What are we readina from here?
LOCKERP : This is my prepared document. I gave you some specifics over the phone there and this is my written response to i' you fellows.
KIRSCH : Is one of those copies ours?
l NRC-1 / l-5 16 l
LOCKERP : I f you' d 1ike i t.
HE RNANDEZ ( ?): Oh, good.
' KI RS CH : That will help us, preclude ma f rom having to wri te so much.
??: When you want to use an AWS procedure, are you f amiliar with how the. AWS structural code is set up and worked with?
A: S omewhat.
??: that 3mu have preaualified procedures saying thatLif you use this base metal and this process and this metal, you can use one of these jaw designs that we've already established et qualified without going to the expense of i
qualif ying the procedure. The 7/8 procedure is a procedure ;
qualification but it only applies to the materials that they us,ei to qualify that. AWS says that what you have to do in the even.t that you want to qualify r.aterial that is not listed in their code is you have to go through essentially what they've done to use 7/8 as an AWS procedure. But then it's' only cualified for that material they did the procedure for.
KIRS CH: And they're using different materials.
LOCKERT : Yeah, they' re using it as a preaualified AWS procedure. But the main thing is AWS says you have to write a WPS welding procedure spec for all your' oualified joint designs and that's one thing. !
??: For preaualified?
LOCKERT: For preaualified joints you shall write a WPS welding procedure spec for each aualified joint desian that you plan to use in production.
NRC-1 / l-5 17 1
F
??: You don' t have to write a PQR?
LOCKE RT : If you have to have a POR, let me think, there is a form in there (someone talking at same time) . . . I
??: Your utilizing the prequalified joint desig ?
LOCKE RT : Right, so they would not reauire . That's why I use the precualified. You can use something else as lona as you qualify it. Provided you have a loading procedure specification that can tell you what .
KIRS CH : This is an item I _ like to address later, you know, dealing with the use of prequalified base metals out there.
LOCKE RT : This is one thing in 7/8 that I was researching, i
pages 3, 4, 5, 6 out of POR and this paperwork was never allowed. This paperwork, the POR, I was never allowed to see '
this as an inspector out there. Pullman denied me a,ccess to this record here. I don' t know why. What I was tryino to discover was that what was the original joint design in the ASME qualification. And it says here." joint dimensions in accordance with Sheet 2 of 10 on this procedure qualification record." And then they also have another one over here, as sheet 2 of 10, and l we have 6 sheets in this WPS. So it's very confusing to try and k
figure out what the original joint design was. Here aoain it's I sheet 2 of 6. So they' re now ref erring us back to here. Now,
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which one was the original joint design? I don' t know. I was I
never able to determine that. So, consequently I was never able I to determine which joint design was actually qualified in the AWS Code area, k
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l N RC-1 / l-5 18 1
HE RNANDE2 ? :
N ow , again, we' re talking about the ructure restraints, righ t?
And you're talking also about some problem with ti* unqualified base materials? I KI RS CH: Yeah, I' d like. . .
Let's hold on before we get into that one. Let's wai t a bi t. Because I'm still conf used a little Li t.
You're saying that Pullman uses the 7/8 as a cualified AWS procedure for all kinds of joint designs.
??: Yes, in the rupture restraint.
See, I don' t inspect rupture restraints. I know this from reading the rupture restraint specification and talkina to S teve when he was involved with rupture restraints. I was out looking at some today.
KIRS CH : And this is just based on the POR from the ASME? '
Some joint design, what I don't know right .new but using some joint design? ,
Yeah, you can' t determine what joint desian they did use. Codes are set up in different ways to address different i
types of f abrication, you realize'. AWS you' re dealing wi th structural shapes basically hot rolled steel where ASNE you'd be dealing with all kinds of them, you'd be dealing with b ,
cas ting.
KIRSH: It's still logel though to use an AWS aualified procedure and take it back into, or an ASME qualified crocedure -
and rtake it back into AWS.
You can do that provided you do it in accordance with the materials and things specified in your original Aks.
i N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 19
LOCKE RT : Okay, that is the point I was oriainally tryino to make. They' ve used the ASME qualified the welders, the procedure, or the welders.
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??: Well, right now we're talking about just the procedure.
HE RNANDEZ( ?) : Okay, the procedure to the ASME, and thev've done AWS welding, right. But doesn' t the rupture strenoth only deal then with a certain type of material?
For instance, carbon steel.
LOCKERT : It has to do with the variety of carbon steel, the 4 41, t he 5 88 . . .
516, 515, mos tly A3 6.
??: They list them right' here.
KI RSCH : That's one of the., cualified materials. '
LOCKERT: You're talking key one(?) which is an ASME qualified material. Okay, that does not really go richt over to AWS .
CLEWETT: What page is that you were referrino to?
LOCKERT: This will be attachment, it looks like 10. I t' ll be page one of three of Pullman's AWSil.
See ASME will let you do that. If you qualify and they group them into these P numbers and you cualify in this P number you can use anything in that P group. But they also limit that, they say you have to look at the metallurgical and the I
chemical and the weldability aspects. ASME presupposes that you have a cognizant engineering staf f that really looks at this stuff and reviews it before you put it into the field. That's one thing that I don' t see happening out there by the way they NRC-1 / l-5 2 0
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use their materials and the way they use unqualified materials which I'll address later when we get to the materials.
KIRSH: Are they using 7-8 to weld materials for which it wasn' t qualified?
Yes, they are. On a safety related item, containment spray rings.
KIRSH: Contain the spray rings, supports.
Supports, on the containment liner studs, they attach to hold up the spray ring hangars, they are usino in both l cases the materials that they use, supposedly these are (end of si de 1 of tape ) .
CLEWETT I'm sorry to interrupt you, I just wanted to turn i
the tEpe. ,
s That's okay. On the containment spray rino, the studs to the containment liner, they use A108 which is not an ANS preaualified material.
It's not been cualified with an ASNE
_ procedure, it's not a P-1 material. It's usino '77 edition of i ASFE Section 9. And they also use ASTM A307 which is a material I
I that comes in as a bolt. They cut the head off the bolt and thev put a chisel point on that bolt, and they now weld that to the containment liner.
LOCKERr: I thought A307 was essentialy A306, mild steel.
A307, if you look at the specs, A307 comes in with ;
no carbon limitation on the specification. Right there, that t takes away any unqualified weldability you may think that you can i
get out of that material. No carbon limitation, and upper limit of .050 on phosphorus and sulphur, those are the only chemical l NRC-1 / l-5 21 l
l limitations on that specification. Now that in itself, coupled with the f act that it comes in on a certificate of compliance, you have no chemistry traceability on site of what thhtmaterial j is.
Now the vendor may have a OA program and may have 5 l
traceability to that material, but on site you do not know what the carbon content in that material is.
KI RSH: They are welding these to the containment liner als o?
Containment liner studs. The metallurgical aspects of that are if the carbon and phosphorus are on the high side what you get is you get a brittleness af ter you' ve welded i t.
You get a banding effect of phosphorus and carbon and your weld heat affected zone that reduces the overall impact strength' of that weld. And Section 9, I'm not sure where they get it but I know they've been charting impact tests on all these weld !
procedures and they don' t have a cualified weld procedure to weld A307. That's the bottom line, to AWS , to ASME, to any of them.
i It's a completely unqualified material. I haven't addressed that to the company yet. I'm in the process of doino it, comolling the documentation. I'm getting ready to address it sometime this week in the form of a memo to see.
KIRSH: Why don't you write and ask the publisher for it? ,
t Yeah, see I've never been educated as to how that '
whole system works out there. That's what I'd also like to get across to you people is we have a definite lack of trainina out there.
N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 22
LOCKERT : The inspectors in the field don' t write the nonconf ormance reports. Usually, the inspectors only write a deficient condition notice which is usually...
KIRSG: DR7 LOCKERT : No, DCN , they call it.
s DG is Pullman's in-house method of reporting pr oblem s. Now, you submit that to the OAQC Manager, he decides if it's reportable to PG&E. If it is, he generates a DR.
LOCKERT : In f act, they don' t even want the inspectors to disposition their own DCN's. The OAOC Manager is the one who holds responsibility ultimately for dispositioning all problems that come into his hands.
KIRSH: Containment liners.
i What's containment liner, '
l Unit 1, Unit 2, both of them?
- Unit 1 and Unit 2. In fact, just to show you, I got . . .
LOCKERT :
Gonzalo, I think you were correct in saying that when you order SA307 as a non-headed ,
the ourchaser must specify (someone talking over him) the liner as ASTM designation 836. [The guy has to put the hangar number on there] . [Ever yone talking at once, something about ordering bolts, something about p.o.1 w .
You can see that that P.O. is for bolts. Here's another one where they have A307 weld studs that are purchased as studs for that reason. Here's a copy of what they' re supposed to i
be using for all your welded stude are supposed to be done AWDll. I talked to a Foley (?) engineer today that told me that 4
NRC-1 / l-5 2 3
k they were written up on an NCR for welding A108 studs on to s omet hing . Now, I don' t know what that was, but that's a case from... As a welding encineer, I would not ouestion the ,
~
prequalified welding of A108 because the studs come in on 'that specification with a limiting carbon on it. The carbon on that specification is limited to .20 with a tolerance on that. Which is within the realm of good weldability. You can oenerally weld carbon contents up to about .25 and within other limits with these. N ow , it doesn' t get them away f rom the f act that it's not a prequalified material. But the A307 scares me. Because you know, that's just a, that's not a good material to be weldino to begin with.
KI RSH s What's this from? '
t That's f rom this hangar drawing right here that another inspector happened to be involved with. I just got the copy of this to show what. . . .
KI RSH: You say they have no procedure for welding studs?
- It's not listed. If you look in your Dll richt there, it's not listed as an AWS preaualified material. Nor is A108. From a metallurgical standpoint, you got a lot less problems welding A108 due to the f act that you do have a limitation on carbon in that. Because A307 is made to be a fastener. They give the steel maker and manuf acture the leewav '
there to say here, use whatever carbon you need to meet the specif ications. They' re not anticipating it's being welded.
HE RNANDEZ?: Going back a little bit, talking about the DCN's and that stands for?
NRC-1 / l-5 24
. l
_ __ a
[\ Deficient Condition M (memor andum?)
HERNAN DEZ : Deficient condi tion.
The way those work is you initiate one{of those, you have your lead man approve it, and then you have to take it over to the field engineers and you have to get their approval and you have to get one of them to sign it and disposition it.
I f it' s an in-pr oce ss type pr oblem. Like say, somebody passed a hold point _somewhere. I came on one where they passed a hold point for backing of f the bolts on the base plate prior to welding. Where you have to get the engineer to disposition that, in some cases, they refuse to sign them. I' ve had three instances now where they ref use to sian my DCNs. All I can do is note that and send it on through. Sometimes my supervisors will' try and talk me out of it when I know it's deficient and I can show them right in our specifications where it is deficient, they'll tell me oh, no, that's not really a deficient condition
~
because of this or that or that pr whatever. And I' ve also had the OAOC Manager just flat out void it out and say this is not a deficient condition and if you want to check my DCN logbook, I've l kept logs of all of them, voided and not voided.
LOCKERT : The big point is that they' re not given the chance to evaluate, you know, whether it is a nonconformance or not. In
- many cases, they are not being evaluated, not given the chance to be evaluated.
! HE RNANDEZ ?: What process does this DCN go through if it is approved?
N RC-1 / l-5 25
If it's approved, it's taken, well, okay, it goes f rom me to field engineer if he signs it, and then it goes to mv lead, well, I give my lead signature to field engineer, then it goes to the Chief Engineer, he reviews their disposition, then it goes to a Level 3 who reviews the NDE requirements and any rework or work that's going to be reinspected., any type NDE requirements and then it goes to the OAOC Manager for a signature on that part of it. Down at the bottom, you have what's called ' STEPS TO P REVElfT RE CURRENG ' so that that doesn' t happen again. And, generally, they won't accept a DG unless you can give them a name that they'll point a finger at. I've written some on generic problems like, see, that's my only opportunity to inform s somebody, or my only means of telling them what's wrong. '
HERNANDEZ: Do you maintain a DCN log out there?
< s
- Yes, I do.
KIRSH: If we were to go down to Pullman and reauest your DCN log, would you have any, would that give you any heartburn?
No, it' s up- to-dat e.
KIRSH : And these are DCN's written by you?
Yes.
HERNANDEZ : Wouldn' t that point a finger to you though?
Not at all. Well, yeah, if you guys come in and ask for my DCN log, they' re going to know something's going on, '
that's for sure. Because I'm kind of regarded as being a shit disturber out there, anyway.
HERNANDEZ : This DCN log, is it a log that's kept either informally or formally.
N RC-1 / 1-5 -8 4 - 26
- No, it's required by you people,'I believe.
HERNAN DEZ : So we can j ust go over there and look at it.
You can look at anybody's DCN log out hhere.
KE RNANDEZ : Is the log then kept, a separate loc for each l j
inspector, or just a log kept.
The log I keep is just copies. They keep the original on file in the QAOC Manager's office with the attached steps to prevent recurrence. Before they can close that i deficient condition, which is asked to be closed before you can finally accept either a hangar or piping or whatever, they have to document the steps that prevent recurrence and then OA person has to audit that to make sure it's all been done. And then when they're satisfied, they sign it off on the bottom. ,
HEPNANDEZ : But I thought you said that the DCN was an i'n-house procedure that they utilized before you go to an NCR. What you' re telling me essentially is that DCN is an NCR .
- Well, it can' t be but only if the OAOCC, if the
- DCN, like, it used to be that you would get a DCN arch drags on piping, well, that was automatic, anything that had to do with piping or any kind of work that had to be done on piping, that was automatically reported to PG&E. S o, if you saw that, then it became... What happens then is you' re assigned a DR number that's written on your DCN. You log your DCN number in your loc, '
you log the date that it happened, whether you applied a hold tag or not, the hangar number, ISO number, whatever, some kind of reference, and then you have a space for a DR number if it ooes to a DR, and then the date that it's closed.
NRC-1 / l-5 27
HE RNANDEZ :
Okay, that's what I was referring to, the .
process' bef ore. . You write the DCN originally and if somewhere
. along the line, the OA manager decides yes, this is a:
noncomf ormance with condi tions.
You then write what ls called a Discrepancy Report.
i He would write that.
HERNANDEZ : Does it ever come back to you?
- s.
Yes, I would get a copy of that. Well, it would be firs t, when I submit the original copy of the DCN, supportina documentation, it .goes with the engineer's signature, my lead signature goes down to the OAOC Manager's of fice, , they run it through the mills to get the Chief Engineer's sionature. A cooy is made at that time and given to me as a control copy which ooes into my log. And I usually make an information copy of them prior to ever sending them in.
KIRSH: You keep that in your loq?
I do - in' s ome cas es .
But it's stamped For Inf ormation Only. I keep that, there's been cases where I've written DCN's have got lost, conveniently, right before an ASME audit, that it had to do with uncontrolled filler metals and i uncontrolled pipe attachment removal on a Class C.
HE RNANDE2? :
Suppose I wanted to look at DCN's written by a number of inspectors, - and what I was concerned about was that the QAQC Manager had decided that there wasn't a DR, a nonconforming i tem, is it still entered in the DCN log in the QCQAQC area?
Yeah, he would have the orioinal copy of it. If he just voided that thing and kicked it back to you, then he i
NRC-1 / l-5 28
would not have a copy of that. But when that happens to me, I keep that copy in my log with his signature on it, voiding it, so that I know what happens with it.
{
??: Is this a separate log from the official loq?
LOCKE RT : Yeah, there's two logs. The company has one.
??: And the individual has one.
HERNANDEZ ?: Does this voiding DCN, does that have a reason why i t's voided?
Usually he'll write something in there as to why he voided it. Some time they don' t follow much pattern of coherence.
HERNANDEZ ? : Where do you work?
e ~
Right now I work in the south shop. I work for '
QA . bat I' ve been doing recently is when QA, you know how the OA system works on piping, you match the warehouse requisition with everything you have in the package, all the stores recuis tions, all that. When OA is reviewing a package, and they can' t find the original warehouse requisition, they come to me, and give me their approximate date of installation, and I go down in the warehouse and I look through their copies and see if I can find a copy of the original. If I can find it, I print a copy like the one I gave you there, and they use that for the OA package. .
KIRSH: Back to the DCNs. N ow , on the DCN logs, all inspectors are required to keep their own individual log.
Yes, s-- :
NRC-1 / l-5 29
KIRSH:
So, if I were to go in tomorrow or someday and say I want to see the DG logs for ...
You'd have to come to the individual. ',
'5IRSH:
I just go to Connor, and say, Connor, I'd like to have a look at the DG logs for Inspector and for some other QC Inspector out there. -
What are some other ones that I could use that won't point a finger at you. Some other OC tyoes.
HERNANDE2 :
How many other guys are in the f at shop, simila r to your position.
There's only a couple doing the M. See, I didn' t writ most of my DCN's as a @ Inspector in the warehouse. I did them in field work. Right of fhand, I could give you a f ew names.
KIRSH:
Why don't you lay a few on me so I can see I want. to .
go look at the
, s DCN logs for these inspectors in twenty minutes.
one guy, Don Lee, you could ask to see Steve's because they have to maintain that on file af ter his terminated or left.
HERNANDEZ : His private log as well as the one af ter ...
Your log is really a control log that is turned in as you...
that's why I make the information copies also.
Because when I leave, I'm going to take my information copies out of that DCN log and turn in the control copies. I'm trying to think of some inspectors for you. Trying to think of people who .
are reasonably on the ball there.
Should have their books in order. Gary Sawyer.
KIRSH: How do you spell his last name?
l t S -a- w-y- e- r .
.% _..4 .
NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 3 0
LOCKERT : Jerry Dunn.
KI RSH : Jerry Dunn.
LOCKE RT : D-u-n-n.
{
KI RSH: That gives me five so that wouldn' t realiv point a finger at anybody. Okay, so that's one of the things we'll do is we'll go battle uphills and make copies.
KE RNAN DEZ? : Maybe we can touch on something we did this afternoon. Have you ever been instructed you can write an NCR or a discrepancy of any kind that you want to?
t Never.
HEFNANDEZ : There's never been a meetina held by Connor or his group where you've been informed that you have that right?
Not at all. That's one thing that we've really, myself, my partner, who is the union steward, we've both addressed to Connor on several occasions that the lack of training out there is responsible for a lot of problems that he has. In f act, now, people get DRs, they' ve j us t now s tar ted keeping track of who gets DRs written against him, and a ouy that gets a DR written against him now, cets his letter out of Connor. Which is ~very strongly worded and attached to that is a notice that if you do it again you' re coing to be terminated. In some cases, it may be justifiable. But, it's, to the inspector in the field, it looks like Harold's mostly just going to go '
af ter your job and you know, if you screw up, you're the one that's going to get. . . You' re responsible as an inspector for guaranteeing that the engineers do their job rioht, that all the revisions and all the changes that they make of these drawings NRC-1 / l-5 31
are right. I've got sane horrendous packages that I've kept inf ormation copies of. Just to show you the way that these packages are butchered up out in the field while thev ire beino ,
wor ked, a lot of times you come up to these thinos and there's so much red ink scrawled on _this ' approved for construction' drawing that's supposed to denote where everythino has been changed that you can' t make any sense out of what they' re doing.
KI RSH : So you've never been told that you can identify problems to your management and that your management will resolve your problems?
I've been told that I can identify problems to the v
management, not through a training session. I've learned that by reading the ESDs on my own.
KIRSH: Weren' t you given ESDs as recuired readina when you first came on the job?
Not all of them. 2'was recuired to read the ESDs that applied to what I would be doing, pipino, LOCKERT : The quality assurance manual does have instructions in there on how to do a DR.
I don' t know if the NCR is addressed, but the f act is that you' re not encouraged to write your own DRs and you're not encouraged to write your own NCRs.
The pref erred method is through the DCN which then ooes to Harold and then he decides he will be the one to decide whether it is a DR or not.
, s Like I say, he's just now started looking at the l inspebtors that get these written aoainst them, not so much as a l
meanc to identify where the problem areas are but more as an N RC-1 / l-5 3 2
intimidation and harassment type thing. The name plan out there seems to be to keep the inspector overworked. We work 60 to 70 hours8.101852e-4 days <br />0.0194 hours <br />1.157407e-4 weeks <br />2.6635e-5 months <br /> a week. Up until recently, when we renegotiate 5 our contract, and we still aren't being oald this yet, but we were being paid very low compared to the other craf ts out there, and ccznpared to our level of responsibility, you' ve got, you're signing permanent plant-lif e documentation out there, and there's the guy sweeping the floor making more money than you are. Which is, you know, just kind et hard to swallow. In some cases, it's j us tified.
KIRSH: Well, there's not a lot that I can do about that. t Well, we already took care of that, somewhat. You s
know, overworked, you get f atigued, you' re always told, I' ve been told I don' t know how many weekenis now, you're going to work Saturday and Sunday. I told them well, I don' t really want to work Sunday. Well, if you don' t, you could be subject to termination. That's routine out there. The inspector is always, under Connor's program, is generally not encouraoed to find out
, what specs and codes he's supposed to be working to. You' ve oot supervisors that are telling you that if it's not addressed in j the ESDs which are our specs, that you are not to look any further. You are to just buy it because it's not addressed in the ESD. S teve's addressed that, one certain individual is more '
l blatant about that anyone else.
{ LOCKERT : He told me specifIcally that I could not look in the AISC Construction Manual, the ANSE ASTM Standards or the ASME I code. I was not to look at anything beyond the ESD., Let's see if I can find that for you. October 17th incident pretty much. . .
N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 33
- - -- A
t The way the training is conducted out there, too, when is done, it is done throuch what they do is they hand you )
a sheet,. let's say you get burned for a DCN, you brouiht out scznething that had the wrong type gaps on it... you' re given a i
sheet that basically is a copy of the section of the ESD that vou j violated, you' re told .to read this sheet, and then sign the sheet that says you've been retrained on this subject. Which, ir. a lot of. cases people just look over and sign the sheet, and you know, up until now, when this other letter has been comino out, I need the one copy, but I can give you a copy of that letter if you like.
HERNANDEZ : Let me take a look at it.
LOCKERT : That's a union, I llave to keep it for the union.
HERNANDEZ : You don' t have formal trainino classes?
m .
We do but they're very sporadic and it's only in times of like right before the ASME audit we had a real pump on well, if these guys ccrne up to you and ask you any cues tions, don' t really volunteer anything, just answer the auestions.
Don' t try and bullshit them and that kind of ...
KIRSH: What' s thi s now. I'm having a little bit of trouble here. This is September 20th and these are the problems that you noted on September 20th.
LOCKERP Well, yeah. From that incident on September 20th, I believe that those code references there were violated.
You ought to just resubmit that. Read it into the record, and just kind of submit it.
LOCKERT : Into the tape?
NRC-1 / l-5 3 4
I 1
Yeah, you' re going to submit this document.
CLEWETT : I don' t think you have to read the whole 13 oages or whatever it is.
{
No, I mean just (several talkinc at once) . j CLEWETT : Problem X, Y, and 2 or somethino. It might help anyone listening to the tape to have a ref erence here to rhat those were.
I'd like to talk about a design problem that I j ust today addressed while I' ve been in the . . .
KI RSH: Hold on to it. Before we get to that, hold on to that one because I'm still trying to figure out what all this is saying to me. September 20th. You noted the deviation from the requirements of contract specification 8711. What kind of a deviation?
LOCKERT : Well, if you read the incident, you'll find out that...
KI RSH: What incident, where is it at? I'm havino trouble following what you' re talking about.
LOCKERT : All right, September 20th. These are the code violations, 1, 2, 3. Starting here is the [this is the description of the situation that led to these things. (right)
Ah, okay) . That was way back in September.
KI RSH: If you want to save tape, you can take if of f the tape for a minute, then before I ask any ouestions, I'll cet you back on the tape.
CLEWETT: All right, sure. Save tape.
NRC-1 / 1-5 3 5 O
l l
)
LOCKERT : The hardest thing to figure out there, I still, I've been looking for it but I haven't been able to find out what codes PG&E is really bound to hold out there. I HE RNANDEZ: We've been having a similar discussi n on that. And, basically, what we have been able to find is that they're committed for Pullman, piping, pipe supports.
They' re committed to ANSE and 31-1, 31-7, 69, 1971. Which are ref erenced in Spec. A711. Now, you got to remember the date when this plant started up. It started construction . That's why we' re going back to those early codes also. I think only B-31-7 makes a slight reference to pipe supports for instance.
LOCKERT: Yeah. !
HERNANDEZ : I t's not like MF , as in Section MF. At that time, there was nothing they specifically talked about oipe ,
supports. So, what happer.ed to this engineer, in the beginnino essentially gleaned information from others as codes came into existence. But they essentially .have no commitments to any other code. And so, they essentially, generated their own criteria.
That's why you have no reference to the ANS, joint designs, or AS ME . It's all essentially what the engineer specified.
LOCKERT : Does this have to do with their PSAR and their FSAR? Are these codes written in? So that's where 8711, so what I'm wondering is are they held to the strict letter of these codes?
HE RNANDEZ : Like what code are you talking about?
LOCKERT: Like ASME 9.
NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 36
HE RNANDEZ : Well they elected to do the qualification to Section 9, okay. But again, at the time that the plant started up, NF was not in existence. 1971... I LOCKE FT: The reason I'm asking is I notice on a 1 of those welding procedures, there is a rev up date in 1977 to bring them into the '77 edition of Section 9. You know if you look in the corner of all those weld procedures on revisions, they' re all revised, at least all of them in '77.
HERNANDEZ : S o, is that the last date that they revised that proced ure?
LOCKERT : Section 9 of '77, that's the procedure that edition is ref erenced in the 8711 specification, that's where I'm wondering how it all ties into that.
HERNANDEZ : Well, the only thing I can say is I am not sure how that, when they elected to do the procedure qualification to Section 9, at what point they decided. All I'm talking about is the pipe supports themselves, the welding criteria, that would be classified...
??: I think B31-1 and B31-7 ref erence to Section 9 also.
I'm not sure of that, . but I believe that.
HERNANDEZ : That's right.
KIRSH: September 22nd, you document supposedly a violation, a f ailure to implement the quality assurance procram as specified in 10 CFR 50 Appendix B, criterions 2 and 10. A welder, what welder...
LOCKERT: Well, if I had my daily logs and my papers I would be able to tell you what welder.
NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 37
KI RSH: So it's in your daily logs, in other words, if I grab your daily logs, I can go throuch there.
LOCKE RT : The unfortunate thinc is I'm recalling! these dates ,
f rom memory, and in the introduction there, I'm telli g you that the dates _ are not exact.
KIRSH: Oh, okay, these dates are not exact. Where's that?
LOCHEPT: Okay, dates mentioned in this report before December are approximate because I don' t have the necessary paperwork to locate. . . So these dates are on or about December, or whatever the date is. In the event that you could provide that paperwork to me, I could give you exact date, exact welder.
KI RSH: And these would be in what logs would they be in?
LOCRERT : They'd be in my daily inspection logs.
From that he could trace it. Was it a pipe attachment? Or was it a hangar weld?
LOCKE RT : I can' t. remember what incident that is. Oh, that was rupture restraints.
KI RSH: I think we better get something doen here before we go a whole lot f arther. I forgot to put down, ask you specifically a qpestion. Steve, do you reauest confidentiality?
LOC PIPT: Um, I don' t see any reason why I should. Mavbe I better examine that question first. I understand that these charges have serious consequences.
KIRSH: For you, it doesn' t have any serious consequences.
But do you wish to have your name kept f rom PG&E and Pullman's knowledge, that we talked to you? I mean we won' t go divulging the information, but some of the things that we may do, for N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 38
example, when we go ask for steve Lockert's daily insoection loc, or his DOI log, it's going "to point a finger. And somebody will sit back and say, sha, I got it, without us sayina something.
LOCKERT:
Well, the way I feel about it is that the "
confidentiality, to me, I mean, Pullman and PGsE, I've already contacted these people about these problems already, and so they know who it was.
I don' t mind that you tell Pullman or that you tell PGEE but if you were to, if this thing really blows up and you know, it was to go into the paper, or on TV or whatever, I don't know what could happen.
I don't want a bunch of these f edders coming over to my place and sayina. .. t
??: Come and break your legs.
KIRSH:
We won' t mention your name, but there may be some of' <
the l documents that you generated that 'we will be wanting to look at.
And yes, to go back through here and see what dates, and who and the whys and wherefores, okay.
LOCKERT : Yeah, you have my. permission.
. . ~
KIRSH s Y o u ,, ;
do reauest confidentiality? '
1 L ' Definitely, I believe that if it were to ever to come to Harold connor's knowledge that I was here tonight, I would not be working there.
l KIRSB That would be the most foolish thing they could .
possibly do.
1 j LOCKE E : They've already done it once.
s There was another guy. I don't know if you ever heard f rom a guy by the name of Rooer Fisher. This is kind of rare because he quit.
He was terminated under the threat of ...
i NRC-1 / l-5 39 l
i KIRSH: Since this doesn' t have anything to do with the allegations, let's go off the tape. I j
i Well, we' re back to harassment and intimidation of I i nspectors. There was an insoector by the name of Roger Fisher.
KIRSH: Just a moment, please, go a little bit slower.
Rocer Fisher was the guy that knew the codes s-fairly well and he did kind of have an attitude problem where people were concerned. But the reason he was terminated when he 1
was terminated was for much the same reason Steve was terminated, I feel, and this is my own opinion right here. I was involved with Roger and I knew what S teve went thr ouch . Roger was terminated because he made allegations that he was goings to contact the NRC on site about intimidation and harassment,in relation to the DCN that he had written. It was kind of i l
nitpicking on the part of the DCN but we had a certain craf t superintendent who I was very f amiliar with who was a partner of mine, Craig Meager, who every time you tried to brino, vou know, basically, it ended up if you shot anythino down, this guy was right down on your back telling you what an asshole you were. He goes to our craf t supervision, or pardon me, my supervision, with stories about things that I'm not doing at all that they've made up trying to make me look like an idiot out there to get my supervisor to come out there and fire me, basically. A certain incident...
??: What does Craig Meager do?
He's also a QC inspector out there. A certain incident, well, what happened with Roger, was one day he was down NRC-1 / l-5 4 0 l _ _ _ _ _ _
~
in a vault, we have these diesel fuel oil vaults out there, and he was riding at DCH on a certain hangar down there. The '
superintendent by the name of Rich Babineau came down and asked, he yelled down in the hole, pardon me, Rich Babineau was down in the vault with Roger. He was writing a DCN on a hangar. Another inspector, Keith Octenberg, looked down in the hole and asked ;
Babineau if Roger Fisher was down there and Babineau reolied and this is from Keith's supporting statement, he replied, " Yeah, that longhaired cocksucker with the earring in his ear? Yeah, he's down here." Something to that effect. This guy, he was really a hothead. I got in several other altercations with the guy and he basically tried to intimidate me into buyina his stuff that was not there. So Roger wrote the DCN. The next day was a Saturday. It was a Saturday that that happened. He came in, that was a long time ago, it was back in October or so. I' ve act it in my records.
LOCKERT : Because Roger was .gone by the time I got into the program.
He was fired basically for they said excessive abs enteei sm. Well, the company policy you give the guy a verbal warning, then you give him a written warnino with three days of f, and then you terminate him. Well, Roger wrote on his DCN the harassment incident with Mr. Babineau. When the DCN was forwarded to Harold Connor, Connor voided the DCN. He took a l supporting statement from Keith Octenberg, threw it in the garbage and said "I don' t need this." He took the word of j
Mr. Babineau and ex6nerated him before even hearina Mr. Fisher's I
I .
NRC-1 / l-5 41
story on the whole thing. And a welder and fitter that witnessed the whole incident, when Roger went to get their sionature on a supporting statement, were. told by their foreman (endI of tape)
NEW TAPE "
He was told by his foreman, these two welders and fitters, that if they signed that supporting statement, they were down the road.
HERNANDuZ : Why was this written on that? Are you talking about the statement that Rich Babineau made about this ouv...
Yeah, the long hair, etc. , etc.
HERNANDE2 : Why was this written on a DCN?
, It was added as an additional kind of clarification that this kind of stuff was qcing on. I have in mV daily inspection recuzds many references to Mr. Babineau and to incidents of intimidation and harassment made against myself out there when I was a field inspector in his area. It later turned out that Mr. Babineau was relieved of his superintendent responsibility out there and was transferred to Georgia as a field engineer because he just didn't fit into the orogram anywher e. He had a habit of making f riends and influencing people by walking up and telling you 'you're going to start doina thi s. ' People don' t really like to be told what they' re goina to do by somebody that isn' t their immediate super visor.
KI RSH: Let's go on. You said that you, you talk about that design incident you wanted to discuss just a little bit ago before I so rudely interrupted you.
NRC-1 / l-5 4 2
I just addressed, through the years of studying s_-
welding and metallurgy, I' ve come up with in three of four stainless steels, basically an estatinctic(?) stainlehssteel300 series. You have a real problem in this stainless steel when vou weld it if you get the carbon too high in it. The carbon content in astatinetic stainless steel af ter you weld it is directly related to the corrosion resistance of that steel. A very disturbing thing that I came acrose and I addressed this just today with this memo to Harold and Frank Laoti, the assistant and the OAOC Manager. They' ve been purchasing all their stainless materials out there, welding, filler metals and base metals, piping, plate, et cetera. All AISI 304 materials, essentially, to a purchase order specif1 cation and I just cot one here f rom a welding filler that says all filler metals, and it's the same on every p.o. for a base metal out there, a pipe or any stainless s specification. The material purchased under this purchase order shall have a minimum carbon content of .04. N ow , I' ve had this confirmed by a metallurgist at Cal Poly who's a former teacher.
What they have there is they have that ass backwards. It should say a maximum carbon content of .04. And let me explain whv.
When stainless steel, astatinetic stainless steel, is welded with a carbon content, well, let me just explain how it all came about. It' c kind of hard to get this across in a non-technical '
manner, but what we're talking about here is a phenomenon called carbide precipitation that greatly reduces the corrosion resistance and thus the design life of the stainless in question. The way it works is when you make a weld in stainless, NRC-1 / l-5 4 3
you heat the weld metal and an adjacent area next to the weld metal into a temperature range of 800 to 1500 decrees. Okay, j
when 304 came out, the original specification called for a .08 maximum carbon content. A .08 is pretty low in comoarison to mild steel or your normal carbon steel. But to stainless .08 is the maximum allowed under the 304 specification under various all your ASTM specs that reference to 304, reference .08 is the maximum. Now, what they discovered was in these areas where it has been heated between 800 and 1500 degrees, the carbon in that
. 0, usually it will run, and I've seen some mill test reports around here around .56, .60, what happens is that carbon combines with the chromium in the grain boundaries of the metal there, and it sucks, the reason stainless is corrosion resistant is because '
that chromium is lef t in solution and af ter it's all cooled and everything it forms a protective oxide layer over all exposed surfaces. Once that layer forms, it's impervious to f urther corrosion. Chromium oxide is really hard and sticks to the metal and doesn't come off easily. In f act, at the mill, what thev'll do is they use a passivation treatment of nitric acid to build this chromium oxide layer up on the stainless surface because f ace it, when you' re picking stainlesses for corrosion resistance, you're not worried really about strain. What happens is the areas heated in that 800 to 1500 decree rance, the carbon takes that chromium in a ratio of about 6, that's CR 24 C6. So you get about 4 chromium atoms to every carbon atom in there and it creates a chromium carbide that has the effect of pulling all the chromium out of the grain boundaries where it's needed to NRC-1 / l-5 44
l
- J supply the corrosion resistance, which gives you a direct avenue l l
l for your corrosion to take place.
l And the way that hacoens is it l gets in your zone's right, usually in your weld metal; and richt i next to the weld inetal at a specified distance where that heatino l takes place. That will depend a lot on your thickness, the !
i process you'rts using, et cetera. So, to combat this problem, the !
steel manuf acturers, metallurgists got together oot tocether and
~
they came out with an L-grade stainless. You' ve seen 304L.
Well, that L means it's got .035 maximum carbon by s pecif ica tion 1 because they found at that carbon content, you could weld it with j t
high heat input and it will not cause, because there's not enouch '
carbon in there to cause this carbide precipitation loss of corrosion problem. '
l?? : They call it what?
S ensi ti za tion.
~~ /
KI RSH: You brought this to their attention today. Have they given you an answer back?
e No, the last time I brought a memo like that to them, I didn't get an answer back for a month. It was one month. And I have a copy of that memo. The concerns a story.
KI RSH: You feel that they're not going to give you an answer on this?
- I'm waiting to see. I feel that if I do it will be at least a month from now before I get it.
KI RSH: Well, I'm not reluctant to hop on to problems, we have all, the Agency has always encouraged people to notify their responsible management or the licensees and if they don' t cet NRC-1 / l-5 4 5
. 1 l
satisf action f rom them, yeah, then we can do somethina. But, i l
right now, I, all they're going to tell me is, oh yeah, we oot {
i t. We' re looking at it, we' re evaluating it. It lehves me i nothing. l I realize that. I addressed that to Harold today l and he said well, PG&E's approved it. And that's his out on it, j PG&E, that's PG&E's purchase order specification. What that says to me is PG&E doesn't really understand the welding of stainless because if they did they would never specify it like that.
You' ve got your steel manuf acturers probably love them because they can unload all their high carbon stainless that nobody else will buy. i
??: I t' s che aper . '
It's a whole lot cheaper to make high carbon stainless than 304L. From my research, I found out that they discovered the problem, maybe you guys know about this, down in San Onofre, and scrne large diameter heavy wall stainless pipe
- that was f abricated with a sub are process in the shop te put the l spools together.
l It was like two inch wall thickness and thev come along af ter five years in service and here they' re readino two inches, two inches, and they get it within a certain area of the weld, and now they' re reading a half inch on the wall l
thickness. Because what happens is it eats that out from the '
inside, the only way you can catch that is with an ultrasonic 1 1
wall thickness check.
??: Is this stagnant p water that I
j requires 304L?
NRC-1 / l-5 46
\
That reouires 304L?
??: Well, the prealem has been recoonized, like Bechtel, I believe, orders all metal 304L.
Another person on site told me he was borkina at another plant that was about half completed and they came in and tore out all the 304 and replaced it with 304L.
KIRSH: Do you have a, can I have this copy?
That's my only copy. I can make you a carbon copy
.of it7 I can get you copies of all of this. In f act, I have other copies of my inspection records and things that relate these other incidents that I'm just telling you off the top of my head now.
KI RSH: If you bring me a copy, I will appreciate it. '
Sure.
KI RSH: Then I can run it by some of our vendors pipes.
Yeah, that's what I went and checked out.
KIRSH: I don' t even claim to be even remotely f amiliar with that.
You khov, obviously, they can' t tear out all the 304. 5But they do have to address kind of inservice capacity.
That's what I want to see out of them, that they're goina to address that. Speculatively, I imagine they'll just come back with a memo saying this is a PG&E approved procedure and our '
hands are out of it or something to that effect. I also addressed the stainless electrode storage out there. I should have made you copies of all this stuff. But they have a copy machine down here, I can ge.t you copies of this or if you' re going to be here till tomorrow. . . They don' t have a copier.
N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 4 7
HERNANDEZ : We' re going to be here.
If you'll be here, I can oive you copies of this tomorrow. I KIRSH:
Can you drop it by tomorrow?
Their stainless electrode storace out there I questioned right of f the bat.
I used to work up at Westinghouse, up at Sunnyvale.
KIRSH: Hi B ill. [I'm back, I'll see you later) . Why don' t n
you t hit the cool on that thing, why don't you.
I came out of a job where we were building the u /
Trident Missile Tubes for the Trident Submarine, and you know, the military has some pretty tight controls on its processes.
[You didn't change speeds, I put it on high) We kept all of our'
. stainless electrodes in heated ovens and controlled them af ter they went in the ovens and went out to the field because basically, although no mention is made in ASME Section 2 or the AWS AS.4 specification, it doesn'.t explicitly call that a low hydrogen electrode. The coding ingredients are basically identical to the coding ingredients in your E7018s, your 8018s, it's a mineral coding. Mostly calcium carbonate, with a lot of fluoride in there. It is susceptible to moisture pickup from the research I've done. l
{
??: You' re talking about coded stainless steel . 1 electrodes. They have no requirements for keeping them a minimum of sanething like 200 degrees or so?
- None whatsoever.
~
I should have brought a copy of the other memo that I gave Frank Lairti.
NRC-1 / 1-5 4 8 l
LOCKE RT : I got a copy.
S teve's got it here. This was addressed a month later with another letter from a Pullman welding engineer that was even, that was just rather humorous I thought. And technicality, they're right, there is no mention of it beino low hydr ogen. But common sense says it is. .
HERNANDEZ : I thought the code did, I thoucht ASNE or somebody did talk about a minimum temperature for coded stainless steel electrodes.
Like, what number are we talking about?
For ASNE , that would probably be in Section 3, if it's in there at all.
HE RNANDEZ : No, but what's the number? Like E-E-308-15 or dash 16. See your electrode ',
designations are basically the same. You' ve got dash 15, l dash 16,_ and dash 18, are low hydrogen. Dash 15 is a low hydrogen' lime type electrode suitable for DC reverse polarity operation only. Your dash 16 is..a lime titanium. They add titanium dioxide to that coding to give you are stabilization so you can run it on AC or DC reverse polarity and then, to get you to an 18 coding for carbon or low alloy steels, they add iron powder to it to increase the deposition rav and give you a little higher current so you can get a little more metal out of that electrode. But your dash fif teen and dash sixteen are definitely '
low hydrogen type codings. Now they claim through that letter that porosity is not a problem. Now, the guy says that in the code.
HEPNANDEZ: Have they done tests to determine that?
NRC-1 / 1-5 49
- l They, I don' t know if Pullman has documented any I tests like that. They ref erenced some Bechtel reports in this.
KI RSH: Bechtel did some tests on this.
{
_ , But you've cot to look at where they did the test. Did they do it down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the humidity is 100 percent? Did they did do it out here? Did they do it Yuma, Arizona, where there's no humidity? You know, it's rela ti ve. The military has really stringent requirements for water moisture content in electrodes.
HERNANDEZ : They're ref erencing the Bechtel test on low hydrogen?
They don' t really, they just say Bechtel reports. They don' t tell you what reports. The ouv says the code there, well, I don' t even know what code he's talking about in that letter.
HE FNANDEZ : They' re referring to the Bechtel report tests that were done on low hydrogen rods.
St.ainless codings, stainless electrodes.
HERNANDEZ : Low hydrogen carbons. The E7018, I'm sure is what they' re talking about. I don' t know if they did stainless also.
Yeah, well, I wrote that letter because for everything I've been taught that spec contradicts itself in that .
it's saying here's all these storage conditions for low hydrogen electrodes and then it says you need only keep stainless clean and dry. They do store it in a heated cabinet in the rod room, but once it goes out to the field, there's no control over NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 50
heating it. It goes out on a rod oven, it doesn' t even have a plug on it.
HE RNANDEZ : But then how long does it stay on? I J Well, that's where their control breaks down. l Supposedly there's no requirement, you know, it can stay out.
HE RNANDEZ : Well, no, but the guy Qoes, the welder takes the
, rod and he takes it out at 8 o' clock in the mornina, does he bring it back at lunchtime which is four hours later?
. No, they' re not held to the four hour requirement on that. So they can be bringing it back at the end of the shift, eight hours, they go right back into the rod oven. They may have picked up moisture, they may not. I t's, there's definitely a control problem on filler rod out there. They don' t count. The OA rodroan attendant does not count the rod stubs coming back in. In fact, I have a DCN , I believe it's number 006 and a supporting statement 007 where they, and here we're talking about a saf ety related line as a.CCW line, the component coolina water heat exchangars down in 85 'CCW Room Unit I where they have a pipe, they were going to put pipe attachments on this line as doubler blades. And uh, this is another point I' ve seen out there. They weld on the CCW system when they out all these new pipe attachments on for the seismic re-evaluation program. Thev weld on that line with water and if they don' t drain the line. .
So what you're doing, the carbon specification on 853 pipe.
KIRSH: Where is that...
This is the component coolino water system in general. It's a Class C line. The way I see that system, that sys tem is ~vi tal to the . . .
NRC-1 / l-5 51
KI RSH: I understand the vitality of the system. What I want to know is where on the component cooling water system?
If you go down into the 85 foot elevation and a
~
lot of the pipes going into the pumps, pipes going into the heat exchangars, all in the heat exchangar room, the v put , a lot of time they'll take and put a big, large doubler plate on there, and then they'll attach a big spansion that they'll either put a pipe clamp on and put a snubber on it. The component coolina water heat exchangar room would be a good place to look at. I believe, due to the cuench rate, I haven' t seen Milltest reports on the carbon content on those spools because those spools were fouled up down at our Paramount shop, and I haven't been able to find any traceable records of chemistry on that. But the ASTM spec on that will let carbon go up to .03 or pardon me, .30.
And, under normal conditions, . 30 i s not too bad but if you put a water cuench behind that, you' re going to be putting cuch a quench rate on the weld that you're going to cause underbeat cracking in that welding and I believe that we have that out there. I talked to ray roommate who is a PTNT technician out there. He's told me of cases where he's seen tig weld route passes for these stanchion welds which are uh, you know, a tig weld is a real small weld compared to that big 30 inch pipe full of water there. That's a hell of a heat ...
RERNANDEZ : Are you sure the line if f ull of water?
t The line is f ull of water. There is not humpino the line, the line is not under pressure. Sometimes they are though. I'M Dot...
NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 52
KI RSH:
Even full of water, it doesn' t make that much diff erence one way or the other, whether it's f ull of water or whether it's. . .
Positively they weld it full of water because it's a chromated water system as I understand they don't have the f acilities to drain the system or they don' t want to for whatever reason, they weld attachments on to this line as a ceneral rule without draining it, to my way of thinking. (Exchance back and f orth )
HE RNANDEZ :
I wonder if I can ask you the same auestion is it full of water, because there was a problem with a canoonent cooling water, say, a year ago. I don' t recall exactly when, where they had a leak af ter they welded. The determined they had a problem when they put up those doubler plates if you recall that. If I recall correctly, the line was not f ull of water.
They may have drained that one. The ones I' ve seen and been involved with. . .
HE RNANDEZ :
. You have seen lines that were full of water?
KI RSH:
You' ve seen lines going into the heat exchangars and into pumps.
. s t Those big ones. Those huskies, they're 30 inches. Their wall thickness is only 3/8 of an inch.
KI RSH: It's a low pressure sys tem. -
Yeah, it's, I've seen them weld directly on those with v ter and that line. In f act, the fire sprinkler lines are another one. The guy comes up to me one day and here they have a preheat requi rement. And the guy goes to me how are we coing to NRC-1 / l-5 53
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ , . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -~~ -
4 preheat - this line with water in it? And I co, well, I don' t know, go ask the piping engineers what they want. So, and then that night I started thinking about it and I thought well, there must be some code requirement for that preheat or theh wouldn't have put it on there. The process sheet came back- and N/A'd on the preheat and everything so they went ahead and had them welded on it. But I asked the piping engineer the next mornina I saw him, I said, well, what's the deal behind this preheat? And he said it was some interpretation problem between B31-1 reauires or 31-7 I'm not sure which one, recuires that, and I believe he's talking wall thickness here, on a wall thickness greater than one inch, you have to either preheat prior welding or post-weld heat treat when you get done. And what they were trying to get around was the post-weld heat treat requirement. So, but they were interpreting 'it because they were attaching 1 inch thick lugs, 8 x 15 lugs onto the pipe that they didn' t. . .
KIRSH: Get that much heat into it.
s
~
Well, they thought that they had to preheat the lug which may very well be, because another pipino enaineer who was a f riend of Steve's and mine Roger Clapp, who j ust cult out there because of the bullshit he was subjected to, he told me a lot of times they were getting 8 x 15 in there with greater than
.30 carbon. And he'd address it to his people, sayino well, you -
know, this stuff really should be preheated. The carbon content is high enough and the manganese content as well is high enouah that it should be preheated and they'd say well, the code doesn' t require it so we're not bound to do it. Basically, don' t do NRC-1 / l-5 54 i
l
. I anything the code says you don' t have to do.
1 So they came back
{
and they welded those lugs on. They weld lugs on all over the i i
place, pipe attachments, putting water behind them. * '
KI RSH : - You say all over the place, you mention one fire protection line.
Okay, I've seen it happen on a fire protection line in the turbine building.
KIRSH: Whereat in the turbine building?
, on the north, let's see what would that be, that would be the northwest corner of the turbine buildina where the I main comes into the building.
KIRSH: Okay.
n All the lugs on those pipes that I was directly involved with. The CCW system, they weld. I've seen them weld on that with water behind the lines in the heat exchangar room, I've seen them weld on line 100 auxiliary where the f an cooler lines go up into the f an coolers;and up through the auxiliary buildings there. In f act, all three of those vertical pipes going into the f an coolers through auxiliary, they were all pipe attachments that I had been kind of involved with those. CCW system, yeah.
I was also involved in an incident that became a i.
real harassment deal on the diesel fuel oil transf er lines down !
l in the same vaults that we were talking about before where these -
guys wanted to weld on a fuel oil line. There was a weld repair l to clear a DCN that was written by somebody else for porosity and a lug attachment on this line. Well, they supposedly had a line !
clearance to weld on it but I was down in the vault three days i
NRC-1 / 1-5 55
prior to this and they were running the pumps. Okay, so I had been involved with this before so they had the line clearance, this was like they got the line clearance on a Thursday. I was down in the vault Saturday and they were running the pumos !
supposedly when they had a line clearance on that line. Well, Monday they come in and they want to weld on this line. So I asked them to see the line clearance. The cuy says, well, and the way the clearances work you have a red tag that goes on the valve that shuts it of f and the foreman has the stub on it. And I demand to see the red stub to make sure they have a valid line clearance so the guy doesn' t fire up and blow sulphuric acid or whatever back in space. So what hapoened was the foreman, I talked to.the welder and you know, what they have to do is grind '
out the porosity and they almost got to a low wall condition.
And so I said well, let's see the line clearance before vou start welding on this. Well, they didn't have the line clearance or they got a piece of paper that says there was a line clearance issued but it didn' t say it was still valid. So I say I want to see the red tag. And this general foreman and the superintendent became really abusive and started sayina, well, hell, in the oil fields we weld on lines f ull of gasoline, we weld on lines full of diesel oil, we weld on lines full of natural gas.
??: And they do. -
I'm f ully aware of that. Um, I just said to him, well, we're not in the oil fields here, and the welder feels it's unsafe and I feel it's unsaf e because it was in a trench, where if the guy were to blow through that line and if it were to catch NRC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 56
f i re , he ' d neve r ge t ou t of the r e, he ' d be s cor che d. And clus, as f ar as them having a line clearance, it was not clear in my mind that they did, because when I'm down there three{ days af ter l they're supposed to have a valid clearance, they're running the pumps, that tells me somebody's either ignoring the line clearance or they just never had it to begin with.
KIRSH: Or they pulled it, they moved and . . .
9 Yeah, they didn't have anything that indicated that. That was what my major worry was was that they didn' t have a line clearance. And it turned out that they didn' t.
HERNANDEZ : Who were the people that became abusive?
Um, a guy by the name of Jay Wrioht, who's a foreman out there, general foreman pardon me. Guy by the name of Roger Martin, he's a superintendent, and we' ve had several ins tances with Roger Martin. He's finally, basically, they've gone to my supervision and said, hey, this guy's an asshole, every time he comes up he rejects our work, puts a hold taa on it or whatever. I don't do it intentionally, it's just it's so screwed up that I have no choice. Se they've convinced my supervision that I really don't belong out there inspecting craf t work and I believe that to be the bottom line.
KIRSH : So you think that's why you were put over to @, you know, taking out of the field? -
Yeah, I think that's why I'm not doing direct inspections in the field now. Which I don' t mind. Actually, I kind of like it. I don' t go home with a headache every night fran dealing with those people, that's the truth. I realize I' ve covered a lot of ground.
NRC-1 / l-5 57
KI RSH: That's an unders tatement. I still haven' t diges ted all of this.
I t's tough. Especially f rom a non-technical st andpoint, it's hard to really latch on to. . .
??: The immense transfer of information, you can' t really digest it all in a short amount of time.
What we were mostly concerned with were the events leading up to Steve's, you know, mostly I'm substantiate what he's here to tell you.
KIRSH: Why don' t you kill it because I just want to read here for a minute and make sure that I understand what's in the letter.
CLEWETT I got plenty of tape, unless. . .
KIRSH: October 4th, you say, you reauested the spec penetration while attaching the stanchions of a pipe, you found a '
cover plate was on the clean end of the stanchion and you asked them to move it, and they didn' tl remove it. Where was this at, what stanchion, roughly?
LOCKERT : It was in Unit 2, I believe, probably the 91 level.
KT RSH: Is this in your log also?
LOCKERT: Yeah, there's a note in there, sayino, Russ Nolte prevented me for taking the cover plate of f. '
KI RSH: And it tells what stanchion was?
LOCKERT : Yeah, it would be in my daily log.
KIRSH: Daily log, I should be able to pick that up. I
{
< NRC-1 / l-5 58
LOCKER :
Yeah, there will be a little note sayino Russ Molte prevented me from taking the cover plate off. Well/.
before we go, we Probably ought to fill them in on cahh one, or
have you already? I'm not saying we should leave right now, but .
1 before we come to a conclusion.
CLEETT l We're not quite half. done with the available tape i
so if you have as much again, as you've talked about already...,
LOCKER : re is a pretty deep well when it comes to welding. We've shnt many a night talking about our jobs.
- /
The nuts and bolts out there on the things that work, the containment liner studs. I have ' another packsoe here, this is a snubber on a feedwater line and it's a desion class 1, code class E line, it's out on the pipe rack. The way I got
, s involved with this was it was reissued because they had to swao .
the snubbers, they' took a snubber off of one location where they needed a actched set and they took the snubber that was at this location and moved it over there ,and movio that snubber over here. And they had to go back out and read 'as built' on the drawing, the pin to pin dimension of the snubber and the snubber serial number. Well, when the as builder went out there, you know what an as builder is and all that, when he walked out there, he looked at it and conceded the weldina on the plate was obviously deficient. So It got to me through our department through my lead at the time, and he said oo out and write a DCN on this because they didn't as built this BR4678 right here, which only addresses the oversise wells, it doesn' t address the undersise wells on this thing. Okay, this is all dispositioned NRC-1 / 1-5 59
l l
i b
by a field engineer who's supposed to use " good engineering j eo gment" and he just says accept as is, accept as is, accept as is. Well, some of these wells have contours on them that are just completely out of acceptance tolerances that we're workina to as excessive convexi ty, it's pretty obvious the guy that was welding with it could not handle low hydrogen electrode because '
he just piled it all up in the middle and really didn' t fuse it i
into the side walls very well. I've gone around and around with I this particular engineer. His name is Carl DeLuzo. He's pretty good at just saying ' accept as is' and that this is stroncer than the original installation and we' re going to just buy it like this.
??: W{.at kind of an engineer?
%g
- He's a Pullman field engineer. To my, knowledce I
the guy really doesn' t have an engineering background. He's an industrial arts instructor.
HEINANDEZ ? : Is this a nonconforming condition?
Yeah, it is. It's deficient. Is the way we -
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de s cr i bs' i t'.
HE PHANDEZ : Well, then wouldn' t it bring up on an NCR and then dispositioned by PG&E?
It's going to be written up on a DR tomorrow. I havenE E written it up today. I'm coming in with this stuff right -
here which is fresh. This stuff fell in my lao. But the reason I bring this up is I go out to this hangar and here's, on the bottom of it, there's anchor bolts that have nets cut in half that are torqued on and then the nuts are tack welded on to the N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 60
base plate. Well, back again, a put's ASTM A194, and you look in here and you look in the Section 9 and A194 is not a P-1 material and they don' t really have a qualified procedure to be weldino that onto a P-1 base plate. ~
HERNANDEZ : I guess I los t you. You say they cut the nuts...
They cut the nuts in half because what their problem was was that they couldn't get full thread enoacement with a whole nut. So they decide, well we'll cut it in half and they still couldn't get f ull thread engagement. So they came uo with this thing here. It's called a design problem. And I think this is pretty much typical of the way the engineering works out there from what I've seen on PG&E's level. I'd like to just read this to you here. Okay i t's design problem number 1-2335-P and i it's dated Augur 7, 1978. Engineering problem, attention: J.
Gorm19: RE : Bacher. Attached is as built plate detail for
,,, J'<T* l l
hangar 1048-8SL drawing 0491981A. The studs for this hancar were
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e concrete per Civil Drawing 447242. However, the studs 1
. j are not J ong enough in all cases to allow for full thread engagement through the nuts.
Two of the nuts have been cut down to 9/16ths of an inch in height. Bottom of plate has been welded to existing insert with a 3/16 Fillet weld. Field would like disposition as the acceptability of this installation. Answer l
l required 8/23/78. Per R.S. Breed on 9/23/78, as of 9/22/78, no response has been received on site. Please expedite. Per J. Gormly on 10/26 /78, this type of question is very l troubles ome. It appears to me that the GC Field Engineer is as l
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NRC-1 / l-5 61
qualified as we are to estimate the capacity of the as built scheme. Perhaps if we knew how much the capacity has been reduced over design we could answer more quickly. As is, thik will just stop an engineer from doing priority work.
LOCKERT : First priority work. ;
First priority work, pardon me. Per J .R.
S tevenson on 1/12/79, M. R. Tressler agreed to review with field personnel and resubmit if necesrary. Per J.R. Stevenson on 1/3/0/79, M.R. Tressler agreed to submit an as built drawinc.
This problem is resolved. And in an asterisk here, per R.S.
B reed on 2/4/79,
??: 2/14.
2/14/79, per previous discussions between D. J. '
Curtis and b. Brath, and based on J.E. Shigley Mechanical Engineering Design, Second Edition, Section 7-9, "Three f ull threads are all that are required to develop the full bolt '
s t r ength. " The existino nuts tackwelded to the base plate are suf ficient; this problem is resolved. And that's approved by R .D .E . whi ch , I' m no t s ur e , bu t I imagine that's .
KIRSH: You say it's a Class E hangar?
That's correct, but it's seismic Class 1 with the snubbers. We are bound .
KIRSH: Is is located out on the pipe rack? '
It's on the feedwater line as it's just making the bend into containment and there's another, there's a Y comino off. Unit 1. The thing about this, I talked to all the inspectors involved in this and they were pretty much told under 1
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NRC-1 / l-5 62
the threat of their job that this has already been accepted by PG&E as is. This inspector that brought the final workmanship on it, Craig Meager, addressed the problem at that time. Because I asked him, I said, well, what's the story with this, bow can vou buy welding that looks like this? And he said that he was told by our field engineering people that this has already been addressed.
CLEWETT: Hang on. (Erad of Side One)
He said that this has already been addressed. I talked'to the PTGC, the General Construction Inspector that dispositioned the DR 4678. He told me, by the way his name is Billy Young. He told me that this was when he first came on site, he wasn' t auite, sure about i t, and that he told him that he felt it would oome back at them at some time if they didn' t fix it up. But everything was accepted as is by our field engineering and by PGsE and everybody down the line.
KI RSH:
How did you come by;that document?
Well, like I say, they reissued the drawing r.
because they changed the snubber and what they did was they had to go back out and re as built the pin to pin as a snubber chance and when the as builter was out there to check it out, he looked at the base plate, now, he wasn' t supposed to look at the base plate, but you know, he did. And he realized that, number one, this DRz 4678 in here, which is our oreinspect type DR, when we first go out and look at a hangar, if you find existing old work conditions that are deficient, you write them up on this DR 4678, i
which was a generic DR for unit one for old work hangars. But it
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l N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 63
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has since been closed. Normally, you would write it up on that, it would be dispositioned by the field enoineer either brino it up to design specifications or accept as is or as. Ahceptasis and as built or whatever. Well, they didn't as build'in the las t r ev.
the existing conditions on this base plate here, per the DR 4678 they had previously. So I was told to go out, verify it, and if that was the case to write the DOI for that item richt there.
Well, when I went out and looked at it, I saw number one, [
all the welding was undersize, welding was not up to our acceptance criteria for contour, convexity and things like l that. These nuts were welded on the base plate.
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RERNANDEE : ,
J if I may interrupt you about this weldino thing? Talking about 1978 work essentially. .
, Did you look at 1978 and see what was required?
1 Well, from what I can tell the Section 77 and SectiM977 is the referenced document and 8711 for welding so that's what I'm basing this on. .,'
KIRSH: This is the base plate attachment contairunent?
- Yeah.
KIRSN It's attached to the containment wall?
To the contairunent wall. All right, it was attached, t$ere was an insert behind it, and that's where there's also a gap behind this base plate that's not out of tolerance yet. It's about 330 seconds plus. I couldn't cet an eighth inch weld wire, that's how we check gas line. And I couldn't cet an eighth inch back there because of the way it's set in the wall.
And not only that, there's a platform support right here that NRC-1 / 1-5 64 .
4
appears to be pulling away f rom the wall. I brought my supervisor-out there, we looked at it today. He didn' t feel it was a problem but it looks, you know, it's pullina itielf away from the wall out there. I t's not our work. But, yo know, when I
talked to the inspector about the workmanship, he told me that back in, I don't when it was, he said that when he was called to inspect this, he held them up for two days on it because he wanted the welding, so it was back in May of '83, he would not accept the welding on there and it became a political deal and he was told well, you' ve got to accept it as is. So that's basically what happened on that.
KIRSH: Okay, is that. your copy of that document?
I l Yeah, this is a '
copy that I kept for my own records here.
KIRSH: Okay, what's the number of that document?
Hangar is no.104A-ASL. What you'd want to see i are the ...'/ That's the sheet th4t Pullman attaches to the i drawing when it goes to our @ department. See it's not the s tamps on i t. There's a @ or QC accept stamp. So a M accept stamp. That was my big ouestion was how did I get a hold of this i packet when it's already been through the mill and @ accepted it. It took me half a day yesterday to get an answer on it. But l I b finally got with the snubber people and they shed sane light on
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the thing. They were the ones that provided the copy that had l that DP in there, too. That design problem. Now they use a quick fix as a design problem, for tolerance clarification. {
l NRC-1 / l-S 65
KIRSH: This is the whole package that went with that hangar?
That right there is, I believe, the OA{ copy of the package, the one that PG&E should have the original in their vault.
KIRSH: That's all I have to ask. Okay, we'll take a look at that.
N ow, if you want, I coulo Sat you an info copy of the copy of this one.
You have to go out and ask them about all these hangars and all this stuff that I've been workina on, it's not going to be too hard to put together where that info came from.
KIRSH: ;
, I don' t know that there's any other choice, do you?
Well, I could give you. . .
I(IRSH: You've raised the issues, I'm oblicated to do something with them.
CLEWETT( ?) : Well, in terms:of just getting the copy, he's
. coming out here with some other copies of other thinos.
KIRSH: Yeah, he can give me copies of other things.
s
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Yeah, you*' d want to see the original, that's what j
they got to have.
I KIRSH: On the welder qualification thing, where you talked i j
to them here about what mark, that's all in here? So basically, - 4 i
all I need to do here is ao through and pull everything out of '
your statement.
You read the statement here and then I have basically a summation of your concerns. Is that richt, S teve? i j
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i NRC-1 / l-5 66 l
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LOCKERP Yes, and if you have any auestions f rom skimming...
KIRSH: I don' t right now. '
It may come to pass that after we get started running through this thing that I'm going to come up and get his logs, daily inspection locs and his DCN loos, I' m going to .have a lot of questions, well. Then I'm still going to be needings to get a hold of him, and likewise when I get a hold of, doi log, I may come up with a lot of questions. And I may need to get a hold of But right now, I just don' t know what else I can do other than just try and digest all of this at sczne time. And it may well come to pass that I'm not even ooina to be able to get anything, this is so massive that I may not even be able to get anything done due to people limitations this '
time . around. I may have to come back. But we will get to i t, sooner
- or later.
LOCKERP: How do they stand up for their fire out there?
Are they going to be given the go ahead?
KIRSH: I don't know, that's not up to me.
j LOCKERT: I was just wondering.
KIRSH: I don' t have the foggiest idea.
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If they really do have to go back in and do anv work on any of this stuff, they should be putting people in a lot more risk once they got data hazards and things like that .
floating around. Af ter they've fired it up. ..
KIRSH: Oh, that's understood. Other people have done that sort of thing. Other have done this same sort of thing. So it's not an unknown thing. '
N RC-1 / l-5 -8 4 - 6 7
Well, I'm glad that it doesn' t get that bad.
KI RSH: (uncle ar ) Well, I guess we' ve got a lot of work
- we're going to have to go through and digest all of this. You have agreed to, sometime in the middle of next week, provide me ~
with a copy of that tape because what I'm going to do once I get a copy of it, since there's been so many words, and we haven' t been able to get it all down in writing, I'm going to have it all transcribed out.
CLEWETT:
I have to find a second machine and somehow make a copy of that but I think I'll probably be able to do that by then.
KIRSH:
Have you give that to me by Wednesday and then I'll make arrangements to get it transcribed. .
CLEWETT:
Okay, should I arrange to' have that delivered to the NRC. people on site here or should I mail it up to vou in Walnut Creek?
KIRSH: .No, I'm going to be Jhere.
CLEWETT:
- You're going to be here through next week?
KIRSH:
I'm going to be here through next week, we'll be checking out, I think, Friday morning. Okay, so I'll be here and if you could bring it to me and I'll make arrangements to have I transcription made of the tape. I will certainly appreciate that.
CLEWETT:
Okay, sure, if you do get it transcribed, is there '
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any chance that we can get a copy of that transcript?
KIRSH: I wouldn' t have any problem wi th that.
Now, it depends again, you realize that sometimes these transcriptions NRC-1 / l-5 6 8
don' t come out all that clean because sometimes the lady doesn' t know who's talking or she, or whoever's transcribing it may make mistakes as to what was said. And it'll be a very rouch kind of thing.
But what I want to do with the transcription,'it won't be a perf ect, good, beautif ul final copy reflecting all. '
CLEETT:
Sure, we don't have a court reporter here, takino everything down.
I RIRSH: So, it'll be something.
CLEWETT Yeah, I'll make sure I give you a CoDy 4s soon as I have it.
RIRSH: Good enough, I'll appreciate it.
m And thank you, Stevej appreciate it.
We will be probably getting back in touch with you at least at one time or another. For certain, I '
may want...
Somebody frem the agency may be getting in touch with you to clarify some of ' these points or ask auestions before our final, before we get in touch with you finally. Okay, thank you very nuch.
??:
It's 10 of 10, we fini hed before midnight.
. t I'll get those copies of everything to you.
l RIRSH:
We finished before midnight, but I have a hunch that we're not all done with this.
CLEETT: That was the end of the recording.
l NRC-1 / l-5 69
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