ML20237J839

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Partially Deleted Transcript of Ofc of Investigation Investigative Interview (Closed Meeting) W/B Myers on 850731 in Newport,Mi
ML20237J839
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Site: Fermi DTE Energy icon.png
Issue date: 07/31/1985
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NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI)
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ML20237J518 List:
References
FOIA-86-245 LB-85-214, NUDOCS 8708260336
Download: ML20237J839 (33)
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,

ORIGINAL USITED STATES l NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1

. 1 IN THE MATTER OF: DOOGT NO:

LB-85-214 ,

OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW (CLOSED MEETING) .

e l

. . i l

1 LOCATION: NEWPORT, MICHIGAN PAGES: 126 1

l DATE: WEDNESDAY - JULY 31, 1985 l l 'information in this record was deleted in accordance wi t eo of Informafa Act, exemptiens FOIA Me- -

Acs-FEDERAL REPORTERS,INC.

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W W'M . 'C;;. , 0 NATIONWIDE COVIIAQ 8708260336 870019 , ,

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l 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3

)

In the Matter of: )

) Case No.. LB-85-214 5

OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION )

INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW )  !

' ) j I

7 j The Deposition of BARRY MYERS, taken )

. 8 pursuant to Notice before me, Elizabeth Diann Ferguson, Notary l Public in and for the County of Wayne (acting in Monroe County),

10 at 6400 Dixie Highway, Newport, Michigan, on Wednesday, July 31, 11 1985, commencing at about 9:15 a.m. ,

'3 ll APPEARANCES:

{

'd

!! UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION f Field Office Region III is 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137

=

'6 l0! (By: James N, Kalkman, Esq.)

  • " l' Appearing on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 JOHN H. FLYNN, ESQ. I g

8 2000 Second Avenue

19  ! Detroit, Michigan 48226 4 i d l j 20 'I., Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison i

2,

(: l

\

22 '

23 24 (continued) 25 :

L .m ._

i

. l APPEARANCES: (continued) l J

2 PETER A. MARQUARDT, RJQ.

2000 Second Avenue 3 Detroit, Michigan 48226 Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison 5 . _

6 ALSO PRESENT: l 7 Terrence Lang and Thomas Randazzo 8

9 -

10

Elizabeth Diann Ferguson, CSR-1347 Court Reporter i

. 12 b

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_I N_ _D E

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2 Witness pag, 3

Barry Myers 4

Examination by Mr. Kalkman 5 I 5

6 7

8 i

9 10 11 1

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1 Newport, Michigan j

2 Wednesday, July 31, 1985 3

at about 9:15 a.m.

d . . .

5 MR. KALKMAN: For the record, this q 6

is the interview with Barry Myers,'M-y-e-r-s, who is I

employed by Detroit Edison Company.

e The location of this interview is )

1 8 i the Fermi II Nuclear Power Station. {

10 Present at this interview are Mr. Myers,

" Detroit Edison Counsels, Paul Marquardt, and John Flynn; 12 Detroit Edison Director of Regulatory Affairs,

'3 j Thomas Randazzo; and NRC Reactor Inspector, Terrence Lang; a

h and NRC Investigator, James Kalkman.

1

'6 As agreed, this interview is being 16 transcribed by Court Reporter Elizabeth Ferguson.

! The subject matter of this interview 8

'8 j concerns a reactor operator error on which occurred on

July 1, 1985 at the Fermi II Nuclear Power Station.

i j 20 ljl Mr. Myers, would you please stand and 21 raise your right hand? )

22 , . _

23 BARRY MYERS, 24 after having first been duly sworn to tall the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, testified ,

4 l

i

. 1 i

upon his oath as follows:

\

2 - - _

i .

3 EXAMINATION I,I KALKMAN:  !

4 llBYMR.

I {

Mr. Myers, how long have you worked for Detroit Edison?

5 'Q 6 A Five years.

7 Q In what capacity?

8 A Most of my five years have been in the start-up group as 9 a start-up test engineers and presently, I am' serving a 10 duel role as a s,hift start-up test phase engineer and a 11 l shift nuclear engineer.

12 !i 0 Is the shfit nuclear dingineer the same as a reactor engineer?

13 A Well, they are the on-duty reactor engineers that were on f

14 shift, representatives from reactor engineers.

15 iO Okay. -

! I 16 . How long have you been in the reactor

, f

$ 17 ! engineering?

! l l 18 !l A Just a little over one year.

i  !!

19 jQ You are a degreed engineer?

I j 20 A Yes.

21 I0 Are you a nuclear engineer?

I I

  • I have a Bachelor's Degree in nuclear engineering.

22 A 23 Q Now, you were present on the shift on the evening of 24 July 1, correct?

i 25 A That is correct.

l 5

1 Q What time did you come on shift?

2 A Approximately 11:00.

l 3 Did you attend a shift meeting?

Q l

' No, I did not.

l A 5 was there a shift briefing?.

0 I

6 A There is always a shif t briefing that operations people i

1 7

carry on for themselves, the reactor engineers normally 8 are not a part of that shift briefing.

9 Can you go to the meeting?

Q 10 A No, it is usually held within the Control Room for --

" well, it is possible for us to stand there and listen .in, 12 yes, l

!, I

'3 l li 0 Do you know if the shift supervisor had a meeting either prior

'd to or during that shift?

n 15 lI;A I don't know.

16 O Now, I would like to know what you recall of the out-of-ll  ; sequence rod pull incident that occurred on that particular

!! I i; 8 shift. l

a

'; IB could you just think back and recall for l]

'g 20 ;

us whatever you can from that particular shift?

21 Yes.

l A t

8 22 When I came on shift, I came into the l 23 control Room. I observed some control rod pulls in Group II.

l 24 l At the time the operator who was going 25 to be going off shift was at the control panel, and 1

6

1 i

e N

1 who was, going to be coming on the s'hift was 2 there observing. I watched the contrri rod pulls for 3 15, 20 minutes, I believe.

4 At which time, I returned to my desk 5 behind the control panels to read the shift, Nuclear l

6 Engineering log and the start-up test phase log for the i l

l 7 period of the last 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. On that particular evening, j 8 the shif t nuclear enginear for the af ternoon shift, was 9 not present because he was having surgary, oral surgery; ,

1 10 and the start-up test phase engineer had called in sick.  ;

11 So I did not have anyone to turn over to me that night.

12 So reading the log was going to be i j

13 L the only means of turning over. 1 14 I normally come on shift at 11:30.

[

4 15 We would normally be going through turnover between 11:30 1

1 16 and 12:00; so I was wher'e I would normally be at that 3 17 time of night on any particular night.

! l

18 It was during the time whers I was a
19 i reading my log that the operator error occurred. I was i J j 20 il behind the panel at the time and did not observe the
21 event.

! N ,

Afted discovered his error 22

)

23 and had again re-inserting control rods, the STA in training 24 came back to me and told me of the event and asked me why 25 the rod-worth-minimizer system had not given him a rod block.

l l

3 Q Hold on a second.

2 Why don't you go ahead and continue on.

2 I will jot down some questions and ask you later.

4 A okay.

5 When the STA talked to me, when the l

6 STA in training, rather, his initial report to me was that 7 the reactor had gone critical; and that the reactor had a pulled 11 rods out-of-sequence.

9 So my initial entry in the reactor to engineering log book was a direct quote from him that we 11 had gone critical. I came out to the 603 panel at the 12 , time and began to ascertain the condition of the Corp at 13 that time.

14 ] I pulled off an OD-7, option two, from ii

$5 !! the process computer, which gives us a print-out of the I

li" is control rod pattern to see where we were as far as rod j

i i 17 pattern, how many rods were out-of-sequence, or if he had I

'.- te re-stored them back to where they were supposed to be. 1

- 19 q While I was determining the condition

. i; i

8 20 f of the Corp at that time, there were some further discussions g

  • i 21 going on among the people at the 603 panel; and the STA

! l 22 elaborated a little bit more on what he had observed. )

i 23 He said he thought there were 24  ! indications that the reactor may have gone critical on 25 one channel of the SRM.

8 l

' ~

1 Q This is the STA in training?

2 A That is correct.

3 Q Did anyone else have that opinion?

4 A well, my log book had been opened on the operator's panel- ,

.i 5 at the time and I was looking at my computer output; and 6- the shift supervisor came.over and read my log, book'and 7 read the statement where I said that we had gone critical ]

l l 8 and he said to se personally that we had not gone critical.,

i 9 so based on what.the shift supervisor 10 said, atd the clarification given to me.by the STA in 11 training, I agreed that I.should amend my log entry.

12 d I had already made up my mind that I 4

13 h should clarify my log entry prior to the shift supervisor 14 talking to me. i l i i

15 ! Q Okay.

I I 16 d Did the shif t supervisor direct you l 17 to change your log?

f 18 A That is not true.

- 19 MR. LANG
Prior to changing your log,

! l

.j 20 1 did you look at the charts yourself?

21 A I did not look at the SRM charts until the following night.

l

. 22 At the time, I did not feel it was 4 23 important for me to look at the SRM charts, because simply 24 looking at the charts, I could not tell if we went critical 25 or not.

9

l i . Without knowing the correlation -

2 between the chart readings and control rod movement, I 3 could not tell if I was observing sub-critical multiplication 4 or critical multiplication. All you could tell is that the 5 count rate was going up.  ;

i 6 So there was not enough information 7 for me to tell at that time if we had gone critical or not.

I 8 Now, I assumed for the purpose of my 9 analysis, that we had gone critical; and what could to possibly happen to the reactor if we had gone critical.

11 Since I was aware that starting up 12 pulling rods from full and to full out in Group III was 13 standard practice in boiling watal reactors prior to 1979, 14 I that there should not have been any physical damage done 15 . to the fuel if we had gone critical. ]

16 So at that point, I was not concerned 17 if we had gone critical or not. I was simply ooncerned l

g 18 where our control rods, are they back to the pattern that a

19 they are supposed to be, and if they are, if it was okay 1

j 20 to continue.  !

  • I
2i - - -

t i

22 BY MR. KALKMAN:

23 0 In your analysis, that dealt with the pattern -- like the 24 worse case scenario, if we had gone critical, was there 25 any damamge that was --

10

A As a reactor engineer, my prime responsibility is the i 3

l

integrity of the nuclear fuel; so that was my initial .

3 concern. f I When I convinced myself.that t'here l 4

l s

was no way that we possibly could have damage (_ the fuel ]

J 6

at that point, then, it was simply.an administrative error l l

j 7 as far as I was Concerned.

.J MR. LANG: You say there was a discussion J s

9 concerning the out-of-sequence pull?.

I to A Well,'the STA in training and the operator involved and f I

11 the shift supervisor, I believe were all talking, not 12 together as a groups I believe there were individual l 13 " discussions that went on during that time.

14 We never, as I recall it, we never 4 got together and discussed as a group what had occurred.

15 h ,

I 16 I l:

!i 17 BY MR. KALKMAN:

!I

. is Q Now, instead of lining out what you ha'd in your log, why l!

,; 19 didn't you just clarify or amend, add something to it saying li 20 that the previaus statement that was given to you by the l

21 STA in training and the further review of your part in this l

t 22 case, that the Plant may not have gone critical?  ;

23 A I could have done that. It just did not occur to me' at 24 the time to do it that way.

25 Q But what you did was on your own accord --

11 l

1 A It was totally on my own. I was not instructed to do it 2 by nobody; nor would I have changed it if the shift 3 supervisor had told me to.

d O Do you work for the shift supervisor?

5 A Everybody in the Plant, in a sense, works for the shift 6 supervisor, since he is responsible for everything that 7 goes on in the Plant; but I do not report directly to the 8 shift supervisor.

9 MR. LANG: What did you base the fact 10 that you scratched out your initial entry and said that 11 you were not critical? What did you base that on? l 12 i

A I was simply quoting the STA in training who had observed ,

i i

'3 ), the event for himself.

Il

'd MR. LANG: Well, the initial statement --

'S Both statements were from the STA in training. I fA I

I

'6 I was not making any evaluation on my 3 17 own as to whether we had gone critical or not. i 8

18 I was just trying to more accurately

19

. quote the STA in training who had observed the event.

t I 1

20 li MR. LANG: I mean, let me rephrase i

21 this again:

f I

22 The STA in training came back and 23 originally told you that he thought he had an out-of-24 sequence criticality?

25 A Yes.,

12 l

f i l MR. LANGt Are you saying he came-back i l

2 o escond time and said, "No, that was wrong."?

3 A No, he said that he thought we had gone critical as 4 indicated on one of the SRM's.

5 MR. LANG: Okay.  !

j 6 A My statement that I had originally put in the log book was 7 rather definitive and said we had, in fact, gone cTitical; l

8 so at that point, there was some doubt in my mind as to 9 whether we had or had not.

10 Apparently, there was doubt on the 11 part of the people that had observed the event; so I 12 tried to more. accurately quote the STA in training in l 13 bj saying he thought there were indications that we,may f i

f 14  ! have gone critical on one of the SRM's, and I believe l 15 Fl that is the way my log reads, n

16 MR. LANG: Well, I guess what I am h

l E 17 saying is you Crossed it Out?

I '

. 18 A Yes.

3 5

MR. LANG: And'that is the part that

19 .

i I 20 you were critical?

l

21

]:lA Yes, '

i 22 MR. LANG: What basis did you have at 23 that point that you were not critical? At that point, did 24 STA in training tell you there was a possibility?

25 A Well, the shif t supervisor said that we had not gone critical!.

13;

I

' MR. LANG: He did come back and talk 2

to you?

A He said we had not gone critical, yees after we read my 4

4 log and I did not have any evidence to argue with him at J l

that point.

i 8

MR. LANG: Did you look at the chart 1

7 yourself at that time? j 8

A I did not look at the SRM charts until the following night.

MR. LANG: Okay. l Thank you.

l l

12 1

BY MR. KALKMAN: ~

o 13 Q Did the reactor operator, did he think that the l

~ I 14 I Plant had gone critical?

15 A I don't know for sure what was going on in his mind at j 16 )

that time. 1

17 He has stated since, that the reactor r

'8 i did not go critical.

19 i Well, I am talking about when you first came up to the

O I 20
603 panel and he was re-inserting the rods.

Did you ask him what he did?

' 22 No, because he was busy. He was busy re-inserting the A

23 rods to the position where they should; so I did not talk 24 to him at that time.

25 I simply started making my entry in the

/

1 log book and did an independent verification myself on i

2 the position of the control rods.

3 O Now, going back to when you were notified of the out-of-d sequence pull, you were behind the panel when this happened?

5 A That is correct.

6 0 You were in the Control Room area when you were notified of 7 the out-of-sequence Pulls?

8 A Yes, I was.

9 MR. LANG: At the time that John Dewes I

to came around to discuss with you -- he asked you the  !

i i

11 question on the rod-worth-sinimizer, what did he ask?

12 Do you remember?

'3- A He told me that we had pulled the first 11 rods in Group III l

i-d from 0 to 48, rather than 0 to 4, as specified on the pull h

l 's i sheet; and he asked me why the rod-worth-minimizer did not l  !

56 give them a rod block.

l l:

l5 57 MR. IANG: Wh&t was your answer?

'l 98 A I told him that Groups III and IV of the rod-worth-minimiser

'9 were programmed with a withdraw insert and a withdraw limit 20 of 0 to 48; so the rod-worth-minimizar did not enforce the l f 21 reduced notch-worth procedure which we had administrative 1y i

r r

22 put into the pull sheets.

23 So the rod-worth-minimizar should not )

)

24 have given him a rod block and, in fact, it did not.

25 MR. LANG: Do you remember that the.

. 15 l

I

..s 1!

rod-worth-minimizar was put back in and turned off?

2 A I do not recall ever putting the rod-worth-minimizer in the 2- bypass --

  • Prior to the rod pull error, we received They 5 one or two rod blocks from the rod-worth-minimizer.

E appeared to be spurious rod blocks because the operator I had not made an error in his rod pull; and so we re-E initialized rod-worth-minimizar and the -- I printed out s

i'e 9 the sequence which was loaded f.n the computer to verify for 10 myself that, indeed, we did have the correct sequence loaded.

1, - - -

12 BY MR. KALKMAN:

13 0 okay.

A And everything looked okay.

15 0 From where you are positioned, do you have a station 1

16 behind the panels, a desk or something?

1 17 A That is correct.

j l!

'E Q From that area, can you haar an alarm sounding if there ll l; 'S is a rod-worth-minimizer block alarm, you could hear that?

11 lj 20 l\<A That is cerr'ect.

- I If there were some alrrs that the operator had that j 2' l 0 E

22 sounded when the operator was pulling rods, you could hear 23 that?

l 2' A That is correct.

25 RR. LANGs Normally, if you had an 16

1 1 out-of-sequence rod pull, what would be your actions that  !

l 2 you should take?

3 A well, if we had an out-of-sequence rod pull? I l

l 4 MR. LANG: In any position of the rod. I 5 A Well, it would be to return the control rod to its 6 correct position.

7 MR. LANG: Would you expect the RO to l 8 do that before you get there or wait until you get there?

9 A I believe that the reactor engineering personnel should to be involved in any rod pull mistake.

11 MR. LANG: Normally when you pull j 12 rods that go critical during the start-up, out of a 13 normal start-up, how much of the evening would be behind b

1.

14 : the back panels, and how much would be out in the front, ll 15 percentage-wise?

l!

e 16 l A Well, we haven't done enough criticals yet at Fermi, for me l:

3 17 to answer that question.

!*: I 1B I can answer that question based on the lg i.

19 training that we received during our one month stay at

{

'tlg Susquehanna.

20 l

. l ll. 21 1 The reactor engineering personnel

t 22 at Susquehanna do not get involved in control rod pulls 23 until af ter the low power set point has been cleared, i 24 which is approximately 25 percent powe2 low. They are not 26 even in the Control Room at the time the criticality is l

17

i declared. ,

t 2 MR. LANG: Has Fermi set a policy yet?

3 A Fermi has asked for the reactor engineering personnel to l I

4 be on shift at all times; however, we have never been-5 given a directive to personally observe every notch of 6 every control rod pull.

7 MR. LANG Now, during the shift, s were you ever ordered -- well, not ordered, but sent out 9 of the Control Room?

10 A No.

33 12 BY MR. KALKMAN:

13 0 Now, when you were notified of the rod pull sequence 14 error, could you have been out of the Control Room area?

15 A Well, it is possible, but not likely. i 16 Q Okay. j

= l 3 17 Your recollection is that you were

'. 18 behind the panels?

19 A Oh, I thought you were asking a hypothetical question.

l 20 0 No.

21 A Well, I know for a fact that I was in the Control Room f

_ 22 area. I was sitting at my desk.

23 o You were not at the drinking fountain down the hull when 24 you were notified?

25 A The drinking fountain, it is approximately 10 feet away from 18 .

, our d0sk.  !

7 0 Is it in the Control Room area?

i A Yes, and it is possible that I may have been within the 3

l

, confines of the Control Room. 1

(

I may have been at the drinking fountain, 5

but that, I don't recall.

6 7

0 Okay.

MR., LANG: Were you aware when g

was pulling the control rods, that he was

, l setting short periods?

10 A No.

MR. LANG: Okay.

12

~ ~ ~

13 i

,, lBY MR. KALKMAN:

i i O How much confidence do you have in Dave Aniol's judgment j 33 n whether the Plant on that evening, whether the Plant 16 was critical or not?

37 A Well, there is still some doubt in my mind as to whether 3,

39 we went critical or not.

The operations crew, they are 3

responsible for declaring the reactor critical. If in Mr. Ani l's opinion, the reactor was not critical, and 22 if the operator did not declare the reactor critical, then, officially, I suppose, it was not critical yet.

24 0 Is there some problem with a documented disagreement such 25 j j

as your log and your log stating that the Plant had gone 2

critical, and the operations saying, "No, in fact, it 3

was not."?

, A well, there is a difference between the reactor engineering's definition of criticality and the definitionrthat the 5

6 optiators ap' ply.

7 The operations crew, when they announce criticality, they also have to announce what 3

g period the reactor is on.

I believe the procedures directed 3o 33 them to bring the reactor to a period of between 100 and ip 300 seconds; and so I think --

They try to achieve at least a 300-

'3 o

second period before declaring the reactor critical; and y h ti up until this time, the reactor engineer has been applying 33 y h

a more strict definition, shall we say, of criticality.

16

!l l M. W G: M t me repMase some d ing l 37 i you said, and correct me if I am wrong:

, 3g I

That your basis for saying the reactor 19 j

! l was not critical was strictly based on Dave Aniol's opinion, 3

3

I r say so, that it was not critical?

21 i I did not say in my log that the reactor was not critical.

A

. 22 I stated in my log book that there were 23 indications that the reactor may have gone critical on_one 24 l

25 channel of the SRM. 1

- 20 9

9 MR. LANG: But your basis for crossing it out and changing the log, saying that it was not 2

critical, that was based solely on the fact that Dave Aniol 3

, told you that the reactor was not critical?

5 A That is true.

  1. ' " O "Y' 6

Thank you.

7 8

g MR. KALKMAN:

0 Did you ask the STA if he logged the event?

to A No, I did not.

33 MR. LANG: Well, as far as -- I assume 12 you were on an eight hour shif t at that time?

'3 3, A Correct.

l! During that whole shif t 15 l MR. LANG:

il 16 Period, at the end of it, who did you know was aware of j the out-of-sequence rod pull?

37

'I A Well, I personally turned it over to the reactor engineer

,g i

39 that come on shift at that time.

MR. LANG: I mean, as far as the crew-20 that were on.

l 21 I

t A Well, I have no idea who was told at that time of the event.

22 MR. LANG: Okay.

23 Thank you.

24 25 21 l

i 1

MR. KALKMAN:

2 So you know the operator knew, correct?

O 3 Yes, I knew the operator knew.

A d

Q Aad you knew that the shift supervisor knew because he 1

5 asked you to change your log, or not that, but he told you I 6

that --

7 A Yes, sir.

8 And I knew that the STA in training 9

l knew. j l

10 MR. LANG: Anyone else? l 11 well, I had told the lead set-up test phase engineer who A i 12 was on shif t at that time.

13 _ _ _

14 BY MR. KALKMAN:

15 Who was that?

Q l

16 A Greg Debner.

17 Q Did you have a discussion that evening with the STA?

18 A Yes.

19 Concerning the sequence pull?

0 20 '

A I do not recall exactly what we talked about.

21 MR. LANG: At the time this shift 22 ,

supervisor came back and told you that the reactor was l l

23 not critical, did you inquire as to why he came to that I 24 decision or how he came to that decision?

25 A No, I did not, because at that time, I had determined in l

l 22

- l

.i ny own mind that whether we had gone critical or not, it was not important to the events because I had assumed in 2

3 sy analysis that we had gone critical and nothing could 4 have happened to the fuel. .

1 i

5 6 BY MR. KALKMAN: )

7 Q Was there a problem during that eveing of' July 1 that 8 shift, with a water level fluctuation?

! 9 A I do not recall.

10- o would you have been involved in an analysis of an event 11 such as that?

Well, as a reactor engineer, not but as a start-up test I 12 A phase engineer, I may have been; because as a start-up jl 13 j l

14

' test phase engineer now, my rank of responsibilities go 15 out over more of the Plant.

16 Q So that evening, you were acting as a reactor engineer?

i 17 A That evening, I was acting as both.

t

18 On my shift, I cover as both people. ,

1 19 Although my primary interest at that time was reactor j 20 engineering because we were pulling control runs.

21 O Well, I believe the STA told us that he was reviewing or i

- 22 analyzing a problem with the water level problem that 23 evening.

24 I was was wondering if you were asked 25 any advice.

23

1 A No, I was not, not that I recall.

2 a O Okay.

3 MR. LANG: I am going to summarize 4 again:

5 John Dewes, if he came to you and told 6 you that you had an out-of-sequence rod pull with the 7 possibility of criticality, would you log it at that time?

8 A At the time that I logged it, I believe I called John Dewes, 9 the STA, I did not know until the next day that he was, j 10 in fact, the STA in training; and that Tom Dong was the 11 STA on shift.

12 I knew that Tom and John were both j 13 0 STA's, but I did not realize that John did not have shif t L. .

14 h responsibilities at that time.

I 15 MR. LANG: What did John tell you 16 I exactly, do you retaember?

! 17 A I do not remember his exact words.

l!

l 18 MR. LANG: So whatever he told you, 1i

19 you logged it?

l7 l il 20 A Well, I would think it is fair to say that I paraphrased 21 I what he said as my initial log entry; and then my amended l

2 22 log entry was a more accurate quote.

23 - - -

24 BY MR. KALKMAN:

25 o So your initial log entry was made at your desk behind the 24 1

i 1- panels?

2 A The initial log entry was made out at the 603 panel, l

3 almost immediately after John Dewes told me of the event.

4 I grabbed my log book and came out 5 and started making that log entry out at the panel. ,

I 6 MR. LANG: Who gave you the information 7

to lo9 down?  ;

8 A The information that I wrote down was solely, based on what 8 John Dewes told me at that time.

10 MR. LANG: Did he tell you the rod 11 position and the rod fuel --

12 A I believe he did.

13 i . - -

i 14 BY MR. KALKMAN:

i AI 15 'l Q Then it was sometime later that you had a further discussion

! i 16 with Mr. Dewes and he said -- well, based on the one SRM l:

,i 17 monitor --

l! 18

A To the best of my recollection, that is what occurred.

s

19

, MR. LANG: This is your log, a copy of l1 l lj 20 your log; is that correct?

21 A That is correct. This is a copy of my log, t  :

'r I

22 MR. LANG: And as far as the specific i

23 information as to what group and what step in the rod pull 24 sheets, where did you get that information? Did that come 25 from John Dewes or from your own investigation?

251

- - _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ 7

'l 4

I believe that information came from John Dewes.

~

i A At that time, I could not determine 2

3 that that is when it occurred, because the rods were 4 already going back in the correct position.

5 He had already begun a partial recovery 6 from the event.

7 MR.. KALKMAN: for the record, would s you read what your log states? Would you read what you

.]

9 initially wrote in the log and then read what the change q 1

to was?

A Okay, d 11 J 12 My initial log entry was at 0007 hour8.101852e-5 days <br />0.00194 hours <br />1.157407e-5 weeks <br />2.6635e-6 months <br />s:

i 13 "The operator at the panel pulled the Group ]

F l 14

III rods to the 48 rather than to 0-4 and )

l s 15 went critical at step 56, with control i l l 16 rod 1851 at position 0-2. I was away from

i I

i 17 the control panel reading the STPE log i

is book at the time that this occurred. I I* .
19 had not observed any of the Group III rod

\

20 pulls.

l 21 The STA informed me of the l l

  • incident after the operator had already 22 23 started re-inserting the Group III rods l 1

g4 to position 0-4."

25 I then amended the Jog entry later to l

I 26 i

- ~. ..

l l

i say, i I

2 "The operator at the panel pulled the 3

Group III rods to 48, rather than to 4

0-4; and the count rate began to increase 5

on one of the SRM's as if we may have been l l

critical. The mistake was found at step 6

7 56 with rod 1851 at position 0-2."

MR. LANG: Well, let me ask you egain: l a

9 Where did y'ou get the information that j 10 it occurred at rod 18517 11 A I believe that inform & tion came from John Dewes.

~ ~ ~

12 ,

1 13 BY MR. KALKKAN- I h

I 14 'o so basically, what you have is a situation where two 15 nuclear engineers, yourself and Mr. Dewes, had at least 16 initially determined that the Plant had gone critical; i

and you had two reactor operators, and Mr. Aniol, 17

-- p 18 saying that the Plant had not gone critical; is that 19 correct?

20 A That is not correct because I did not determine if the 21 Plant went critical or not.

f' 22 I simply quoted Mr. Dewes in the log 23 book. I would say it is more correct to say that 24 John Dewes told me that the reactor had gone critical and  ;

A 25 that the operator and shif t supervisor had determined that II

)

I the reactor had not gone critical.

I did not make any determination on 2

criticality that night.

3

, Q Do you normally work with tihe same group of people on the 3

same shift?

6

^ '

  • The reactor engineering shift rotation 7

is different from the lead start-up test phase rotation; g

9 s generaHy rotate around and Wd WM Merent Mo%e.

g Q The reactor engineering group, a day or two later, analyzed the information and officially came out stating that the 33 t

reactor had, in fact, gone critical for, what, 144 seconds 12 l

I or something of that time period.

33 L

3, i! Do you agree with that analysis?

ll A Well, there is still a reasonable doubt in my mind as to i 33 i

whether we want critical, although I would-tend to lean 16 lj 37 towards the analysis that was done.

Q Were you involved in the analysis?

[ 3g

'i A No, I was not.

39

.!  ! MR. LANG: Approximately 50 minutes later, a

3

  • after the incident, tha Plant again went critical?

21

.g t A Y

22 MR. LANG: At the Plant.

23 24 A Yes.

25 MR. LANG: Were you involved in the 28

i I

\ 1 1

3 analysis of the period that came up on that one? ,

1 A No, I was not.

2 I

3 MR LANG: Were you present at the i f

4 603 panel?

I 5 A Yes, I was. )

l i

6 .

MR. LANG: Okay.

7 Do you agree that the die was critical 1 t

e then? l l

9 A Yes.

to MR, LANG: Based on what? l 1

t, A Based on his statement that we went critical, based on l

'2 my observation on the increasing count rate without the 3 control rod movement.

24 MR. LANG: Do you remember what period

S that was?

l 16 A No, I don't. '

3 37 MR. LANG: Thank you.

B is A The important thing here is to know the increasing count ig rate with respect to whether the control rods were being

! 20 pulled or not, simply looking at the SRm charts of the 8

21 Pr'evious event, I could not determine whether the control 3

e 22 rods were being pulled while the count rate was going up 23 or not.

24 of the second critical, I was there 25 and could observe the increasing count rate without the 29

' ] >

i control rod movement.

_ _ _ l I

3 BY MR. KALKMAN:

4 Q Did you ask Mr. Aniol if he called -- if he notified 5 Mr. Preston of the rod sequence?

6 A No, I did not. i 7 MR. LANG: So the first out-of-sequence e rod pull, did the SRM charts, when you looked at'that 9 comparison that the SRM portion to the criticality that to had been 47, 50 minutes later, that was the only. basis 11 you really and truly had to determine criticality?

12 A Well, I personally never compared the SRM charts with the 13 i two criticalities. I never looked at the two events at l l 14 the same time. I I

15 l MR. LANG: Well, you say you were able 16 to detarmine criticality on the second one based on the l:

is 17 increasing count rate without rod movement?

lI  ;

-l 18 A Yes.  !

ll l- 19 MR. LANG: And you based that essentially on the rate of rise on the chart?

ll:

l 20 21 A I based that on a constant increase on the count rate.

i

- 22 MR. LANG: Did you look at the chart 23 for the first one?

24 A At that time, no, I did not.

25 I did not look at the chart for the s

30

i 3

first one until the next night.

2 MR. LANG: So you had not seen it at all?

3 A No.

I 4 MR. LANG: Thank you.

5 l i

6 BY MR. KALKMAN:

7 Q Subsequent to that shift that the event occurred on, did i

8 you discuss the rod pull incident with anyone in reactor )

I e engineering? j 10 A What time frame are we talking about?

l 11 Q Did you have any meeting with the reactor engineering people j

)

12 as a result of their analysis of the event? j 13 A Yes.

14 The following night, I was called and 15 asked to come in early, and I believe I came in about an 16 hour early, and we had a discussion in the conference 17 room next to the shift supervisor's office with the I'

is is reactor engineer and the primary shift nuclear engineer 19 who had done the analysis, and the parties that were involved 20 on the shift the previous night. ,

21 Q Mr. Myers, have I or any other NRC representative here i

22 threatened you in any manner or offered you any reward in 23 return for this statement?

24 A No.

25 Q Have you given this statement freely and voluntarily?

31 4

-_-...-m._-. __

.)

l 1

i 3

A Yes.

l Q Is there anything further that you care to add for.the i 2

3-record?  !

,3 A No, sir.

MR, KALKMAN: Thank,you, sir. l 5

6 (Deposition concluded at 9:55 a.m.)

- ~ .

B 9

10 I

11 12 d

, 1 l: .

13 i; I l

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14 l

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16 E 17 l

.. 18 II ia

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25 32 l u____ - ___ -_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - - _ _ - _ _ - _ _ __ .-- __i

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