ML20237J848
| ML20237J848 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fermi  |
| Issue date: | 07/23/1985 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237J518 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-86-245 NUDOCS 8708260339 | |
| Download: ML20237J848 (37) | |
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- 1 v , . .
OR GINAL UN11ED STATES l NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i
- l l l I I I I I I I II I ll l IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
UFFICE OF INVESTIGATION
. INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW l
CLOSED .
. l
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LOCATION: GLEN ELLYN, IL PAGES: 1 - 35 l
DATE: TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1985
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Information in this record was deleted information in accordance wit th epm Act, exem tions -
F0IA _ b'N -
1 As-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
%*=I w 444 North Capitol Street Washington, D.C. 20001 , -. . , . . , ' %
(202) 347-3700 .
l 8708260339 870819 i TE 8 -245 PDR 1
.. b f
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR ~ REGULATORY ~ COMMISSION. lj
_ 2 IN THE MATTER OF: Investigative Interview, q 4 Closed Meeting. j 1
5 INTERVIEW OF: David Aniol.
6 7
8 Report of proceedings taken at the interview in 9 the above-entitled cause on Tuesday, July 23, 1985,. )
l 10 at 799 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. ]
I 11 4 12 PRESENT:
13 MR. JAMES N. KALKMAN, Investigator 14 MR. TERRANCE LANG, ~ Reactor Engineer l
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission i 15 Office of Investigations Field Offices Region III 16 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137; 17 MR. PETER A. MARQUARDT, General Attorney 18 Detroit / Edison 200 Second Avenue 19 Detroit, Michigan 48226. -
20 21 Glen Ellyn, Illinois 22 July 23, 1985 23 24 25 1
.. - A .
s For the record, this'is'an l 1 MR. KALKMAN: '
1
. . .2 interview with Dave Aniol, A-n-i-o-1, who.'is,
-3 employed by Detroit Edison 1 Company. :The location of 4 this interview is NRC Region III, Glen Ellyn, 5 Illinois. Present at this' interview are Mr..Aniol; 6 Detroit Edison general a'ttorney' Peter Marquardt; NRC 7 reactor engineer Terrance Lang;.and NRC investigator.
8 Jim Kalkman. As agree.d, this interview-is being 9 transcribed by court reporter Lisa Selepa.
10 The subject matter of this interview j 11 concerns a reactor operator error at the Fermi II 1
12 Nuclear Power Station on July 2nd, 1985.
13 Mr. Aniol, would you please stand and 9
- 14 raise your right hand.
15 (Witness sworn.)
16 DAVID ANIOL, 17 called as a witness herein, having been first duly 18 sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
19 EXAMINATION 20 BY 21 MR. KALKMAN:
22 Q. Mr. Aniol, could you tell us your position 23 at Fermi?
- - 24 A. I'm a nuclear shift supervisor.
25 O. And what does a nuclear shift supervisor do?
2 I
L
.)
i
.; 6- ;)
1 1
.i 1 A. Okay. He's in-charge of the1 shift, j
. . 2- ' maintain, you know, keeps control-over'the men on- j 3
shift, assigns them th'eir positions, where they're jl 1
j 4 going to be' working'for the night, maintains an .
5 adequate amount of people on-shift,- you know~, make 6 sure the overtime covers any shortages, make sure 7 the p1' ant's operating in accordance~with tech specs, 8 and generally oversees the op.eration of the plant. 1 1
9 O. Is your -- are you located -- is your job 1
10 in the. control room --
\
11 A. Yes, it is. R i
l 12 0 -- at the Fermi site? i l
13 A. Yes.
14 O. Do you ever deviate from the control room, q 15 or is it primarily there in the control room?
i 16 A. I go into the plant. I 17 O. So you don't -- you're not. required to be 18 in the control room at all time,?.?
19 A. No. Well, shift supervisor's office is in 20 the control center complex which is in the control 21 room.
22 O. But you can leave the control room area?
23 A. Right.
- - 24 O. Are you a licensed operator?
25 A. Yes, I am. I have a senior reactor i 3-l l
.' . 1 l
1 operator's.' licence..
. - 2 O. And when did you obtain that?
3 A. December ~'83.
4 O. And have you worked at any other nuclear lq 5 facilities?
- I 6 A. No, I haven't. ]
I 7 O. You supervise the reactor operators, the j i
l 8 people that are actually controlling the plant? 1 l
1 9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. Are you a supervisor of any other personnel j
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l 11 in the control room other than the reactor operators? {
12 A. Well, there's an assistant shift supervisor q l
l 13 on duty also, and the SOA's and STA's report to you.
i 14 O. Could you sell us what SOA's an STA's are? j i
The SOA is the person that's had j 15 A. Okay.
I 16 experience at an operating facility that we've hired to assist us in operating the plant. l 17 18 O. What do the initials SOA stand for?
19 A. Shift operations advisor.
20 MR. MARQUARDT: What do the initials STA stand 21 for?
22 THE WITNESS: Shift technical advisor.
23 MR. KALKMAN: O. Now, are the STA's also people
-- 24 hired to -- are they actual Edison employees or.are 25 they --
4
1 A. They are.
-- 2 Q. -- contraet --
3 A. The STA's are Edison employees.
4 Q. And the SOA's are' contract people?
5 A. That's correct.
6 O. And you supervise all these people?
7 A. Well --Lthat's correct -- well, the SOA's 8 and STA's, we provide .them work direction. Like if 9 I have a problem where say'I experienced a trip, the 10 STA has the ability to go into the : plant and 11 research it to find out why.he-got the trip and to:
12 go back and research it farther and come up with a 13 cause. They don't'directly report to the shift 14 supervisor. They have a reporting plan much of 15 their own. They are assigned to a shift.
16 O. Why don't you relate for us what you recall' 17 from the evening of July 1st and early morning of 18 July 2nd relating to the -- this reactor inadvertent ;
19 criticality.
20 A. Okay. I came on duty that evening at 7:00 21 o' clock.
'I 22 Q. Of ths lat?
23 A. Right. So I was. involved, you know, with 24 going through the mmaster start-up checklist and the- ,
I i
25 drive-weld close-out procedure procedure and to get j' 5
l 1
1 the plant started back up.
- - 2 Q. It was scrammed --
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i 3 A. The plant had scrammed earlier in the day, 1 1
4 and we had just gotten the okay from the plant ]
5 superintendent to restart just prior to my taking 6 over. And I was going through these checklists 7 which basically -- the one is a list of the systems (
8 that are required to be lined up.
l 9 The operations engineer filled out l 10 that portion, N/A. He had the ones that we had just 11 gone through and lined everything up a matter of 12 days before -- there was no requirement to redo the 13 line-up. That was all N/A'd.
14 So then I had to go through and verify i
15 that all other steps of the procedure were done.
16 The majority of stuff is done from the control room.
17 There are things outside in the plant that have to 18 be done, systems lined up.
19 MR. LANG: Did you get permission for startup 20 before the master check-off lists were filled out or 21 afterwards?
22 THE WITNESS: I can't say for sure because there 23 is like one step in that procedure that says this
-- 24 procedure is done. And, you know, they swap back 25 and forth. They have little steps in them like that.
6
- 1 1 MR. LANG: Okay.
l 2 THE WITNESS: You can do them both at the same 3 time though.
4 MR. LANG: But as.far --
5 THE WITNESS: Prior to. pulling any rods, all 6 things will be signed off.
7 MR. LANG: What point in that sequence did you 8 get permission from -- permission to. start up?
! 9 THE WITNESS: Permission was given to start up 10 approximately about 5:00 o' clock, 6:00 o' clock in 11 the afternoon from the plant superintendent.
l 12 MR. LANG: That was before the check-off sheet 13 was filled out?
14 THE WITNESS: So there's just a sign-off line on 15 the procedure. You just sign it off saying you got.
16 the permission to start off.
l 17 MR. LANG: I don't know if you're. missing my 18 point. In other words, after after you got that 19 permission to start up --
20 THE WITNESS: Then we started --
21 MR. LANG: -- how much of the master ~ check-off
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22 did you have to do, or did you have it all done?
i 23 THE WITNESS: No, no, it wasn't all done.
- - 24 MR. LANG: Okay.
I 25 THE WITNESS: We didn't pull our first rod until !
7 i
. l l..
1
I J
l 1 approximately 10:30. One of the big holds was doing j
. . 2 like the drive-weld close-out procedure, having to-1 3 go in there and do the inspection, verify that the i I
4 grading was below the drive, mechanisms were 5 reviewed and everything properly secured.
6 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Why don't you continue.
7 You were performing this checklist?
8 A. So they were completed approximately about I
9 10:30 when we gave the control room operator the I 10 okay to start pulling rods. The surveillance that 1
11 are required in the check-off list were all 12 performed. I did the rod worth minimizer and 1
13 RSCS-l's which we're required to do just prior to 14 startup.
15 MR. LANG: At that time did you have a reactor 16 engineer present?
17 THE WITNESS: The reactor engineer was not on l 18 site at the present time. I -- it's another step in 19 the procedure to notify the reactor engineer. I 20 gave the on-call reactor engineer a call at home.
21 He said that the on-duty one was 22 commissioned to come in at midnight; however he only a s 23 lives from the plant, and he would
, a
-- 24 give him a call and he would be in in about 10, 15 25 minutes. And he gave me the okay, you know, to B
d i 7e - _
-1 proceed with the startup.,
- 2 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Do you know his name?
3 A.- Hari Arora was'the. person Iltalked.to.
4 MR. LANG: Okay.
5 Continue on with'your. story.-
6- TRE WITNESS: Okay. Everything was' progress'ing 7 well until the startup. At 11:00 o' clock is the 8 turnover time for transfer between the afternoon 9 shift an midnight shift.
10 So at -- thenLwe have a turnover 11 meeting which lasts approximately a half hour.
12 Since there was no shift supervisor to relieve, you
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13 know, I didn't have anything'there but -- everybody 14 else had relief, and we have a'normally scheduled 15 meeting for like 20 after the hour in the conference 16 room next to the chift supe's office where we 17 discuss, you know, what the plans are for the.
18 evening, any surveillance that need to be done, and 19 where we're headed for.
20 It was at that meeting.where I gave 21 the directive that.we're going to bring the reactor 22 critical and try to get up to the 150 pound pressure,-
23 which was our hold point prior to.the reactor scram.
24 MR. LANG: Was the. reactor operator present at 25 that meeting? '
9
a l
I l i 1 -
i I
1 THE WITNESS: The reactor operator was taking
- - 2 over, yes, he was.
3 HR. LANG: What was his name? !
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4 THE WITNESS: What was his name?
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5 MR. LANG: Yes. as
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6 7
THE WITNESS:
MR. KALKHAN:
w O.
)
Now, the rod pull process was l
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l 8 started on the second shift, and the third shift was 9 to continue it; is that correct? ]
k 10 A. Thaf's correct. 1 1
11 O. You came on shift at 7:00, and then you l 12 continued through into the third shift?
13 A. I was working from 7:00 o' clock at night 14 till 7:00 o' clock in the morning that day.
\
15 O. Do all the shift supervisors work 12 on and 16 12 off?
17 A. No, we cover for each other, for people on i 18 vacation. .
I 19 Q. Normally it's -- you work the same shift as 20 the --
21 A. Right. Normally it's an eight-hour shift. j i
22 The person on the afternoon was off; so the day 23 shift worked four hours over, and I came in four i
-- 24 hours early, i 1
25 O. So the third shift took over, and they l 10 (
1
/
,h a .. i i
i continued the -- what -- ho'w far along in the
. - 2 process of the rod pull were -- was the second shift- J 3 when the third shift took over?
4- At what point were they? !
t l 5 A. They were pretty close to' completing the ,
6 second rod group. I went back into, you know, the 7 office to, you know, finish up the paperwork, you 8 know, make up the initial entries on a log, reverify j
! 9 everything was okay as far as paperwork'went, and 10 went out in the control room.
i 11 I was out in the control room at the 12 time they had the rod worth minimizer problem which 13 was, I believe, two rods from the end of the group
- 14 two.
15 O. There was an alarm, rod worth minimizer 16 alarm?
17 A. Right. We do the the rod worth minimizer 18 block, and the end-up reset button in the corner, 19 the program light came on. And the reactor engineer 20 was there at that time.
21 MR. LANG: Which was who?
22 THE WITNESS: Which was Barry Myers.
23 MR. LANG: At any time during that alarm process
- 24 was the rod worth minimizer bypassed?
25 THE WITNES$t No, it wasn't.
11
1 MR. LANG: Okay.
. . 2 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Now this was at the end of the 3 second group?
4 A. We had two rods to go at'the end of second 5 group when we received the rod worth minimizer rod ;
i 6 block due do the computer program error.
7 Q. Why did the block occur at that time r do 8 you know?
9 A. No.
10 0 The process for pulling all the group two 11 rods was the same, correct?
12 A. Uh-huh.
~
Why would it alarm at the end of that l 13 O '.
14 process --
15 A. I couldn't give you, you know, a definite
)
16 answer. I know on the prior startup when we were 17 inserting rods, I would get a spurious alarm, maybe 18 three or four rods that just required a reset.
19 MR. LANG: Did you, at any of those times, 20 consider the rod worth minimizer to be inoperative?
21 THE WITNESS: No, we did not, because the rod 22 worth minimizer is trying to keep you from 23 withdrawing rods. These alarms from all these
-- 24 previous occusions occurred on insert. And we did 25 have the people from the P CC D G r o',2p , which is the 12 i
1 computer people, have a look at it.
- - 2 And they did say, " Yeah, it looks like 3 there was some type of problem with the rod worth 4 minimizer at that time." And they corrected it 5 prior to this startup. This startup occurred maybe 6 about five, six days later. -
7 MR. LANG: Okay.
8 MR. KALKMAN: Q. In any event, continuing with this was so the new shift operator, pAhe 9 --
10 had this - .had the alarm on the rod 11 worth minimizer; that was cleared up by yourself and 12 the engineer?
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13 A. Right. Reactor engineer and STA and SOA 14 were all in the control room at the time, and we 15 didn't see a problem. Reactor engineer said it was 16 okay to re-initialize.
17 Q. This was Barry?
18 A. Barry Myers.
19 0 So you --
20 A. Re-initialized it; rod block went away; and 21 we pulled those two rods, didn't have any problem.
22 At this time, you know, I returned to the shift 23 supe's office to work on more paperwork.
24 Now we're going into the group three 25 where the rod error occurred. Say 10 or 15 minutes 13
/ }
1 later, John Dewes, which was the STA~in training,
. . - 2 came in and said, " Hey, we got'a problem out there 3 in.the control room. The operator' pulled some rods 4 out of sequence. The reactor may have gone critical."
5 MR. LANG: Were those, do you remember, his 6 exact words?
7 THE WITNESS: He did say the reactor may have 8 gone critical.
9 MR. KALKMAN: Q. So what was your reaction, 10 what did --
11 A. Well, I immediately got up and went there 12 to see what the problem was, you know. I talked to 13 the operator. He was out there and had explained
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L l 14 what he had done wrong, pulled rods from zero zero ,
15 to 48 rather than zero zero to 04. I 16 So I gave him the direction to reinsert 17 all the rods back to zero zero. And then once all i 18 the rods were back at zero zero, then, you know, we 19 could continue on.with the pull in the proper 20 sequence. j 21 Q. All of group three or --
22 A. 11 rods that he had misalligned, reinsert j l
23 them to their initial position, and then start over.
-- 24 So I stayed out there in the control room at that 25 time, and with the SOA's ~ we discussed it. Reactor ,
14 e
l
. t l 1 engineer was there also. -
]
l . - 2 O. At the time you went out theres how many 3 rods were still out? {
I 4 A. I couldn't give you an exact number. j l
5 MR. LANG: Were you aware of the 11 at~that 6 ' point in time? a 7 THE WITNESS: I didn't ask for a specific number.
I 8 I looked at where he was in the pull sheet. I 4
9 didn't go down and count an exact number.
10 MR. LANG: Did he then reinsert at zero zero, or .]
1 11 did he start at some other point? q 12 THE WITNESS: The direction I gave him was to- j l
13 reinsert at zero zero. l 14 MR. LANG: And were you there when he did that?
l 15 THE WITNESS: No, I wasn't. I didn't watch him j 16 reinsert all the rods. ;
17 MR. LANG: Where were you?
18 THE WITNESS: I was at the -- I was in the i l
19 control room there discussing with the reactor 20 engineer and STA, SOA. j 21 MR. LANG: When you say in the control room, in j 22 the control area?
23 THE WITNESS: In the control area, approximately 24 about from here to the wall is the maximum away from 25 where the reactor operator was entering the rods.
15
e 1 MR. MARQUARDT: Maybe the record ought to 1
- - 2 reflect from here to the wall is approximately ten ]
3 feet. l 4 THE WITNESS: Okay.
5 MR. KALKMAN: Q. When you first came eut of out of your office, was the reactor operator -- i 6 ,t h e 7 was he flustered, excited or'anything?
8 Was he upset?
9 A. He was upset mainly because, you know, he 10 felt bad about making a mistake, you know.
11 O. Did he know what he had done wrong?
12 A. Yes, he did.
13 Q. I mean you didn't have to tell him that --
14 A. No, he realized -- he caught the mistake 15 himself going through the sequence.
16 MR. LANG: Did he at that time or any time --
17 did he ever tell you that he had gone critical?
18 THE WITNESS: No, he didn't.
19 MR. LANG: Did anyone?
20 THE WITNESS: The -- discussed it with the SOA, 21 he said he didn't believe we did. Barry Myers who 22 was the reactor engineer -- I looked in his log book 23 which was sitting on the console, and I read it; and
-- 24 it said that -- indicated'that we had gone critical.
25 And I just mentioned to him that, you 16
l
. - 1 1 know, per like the reactor operators, the STA's and !
\
. 2 the SOA's that were there, we don't believe that we- l I
3 went critical on all four of the SRM's, which he had l
4 indicated in his book. {
5 So he did make a change in his log 6 book to indicate the fact -- so that it may have 7 gone critical on the one SRM.
8 MR. KALKMAN: Q. So the reactor engineer was 9 the only person in the control room who thought that 10 criticality was achieved?
i 11 A. I didn't -- I just mentioned it to him, !
12 what we discussed, and he never made~any objections 1 i
13 or anything to say, "Well, I feel that you're wrong." f 14 He just says, "Okay." And --
1 15 O. Didn't the STA in training say that he 16 thought the plant went critical?
17 A. Both of the STA's thought we may have gone I
18 critical.
19 MR. LANG: What about the SOA?
20 THE WITNESS: The SOA didn't think so.
21 MR. LANG: The SOA was fully aware of the whole .
22 situation?
23 THE WITNESS: All three of the people, the two 24 STA's and the SOA were in the control room with the 25 operator the entire time, you know, that he was ,
17 i i
1 going through the sequence, sitting approximately
. . 2 four or five feet away from the SRM trays.
3 One was right next to the operator, so 4 he could see exactly what was going on. From four 5 feet away, you can see the recorders pretty well.
6 MR. LANG: For the record, who was the SOA7 7 THE WITNESS: The SOA was Ed Duda.
8 MR. KALKMAN: O. So it's my understanding that 9 the operator did not feel that the plant had gone l 10 critical.
11 A. That's correct. As soon as he noticed, you 12 know, the neutron count rate increasing, he really
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13 made a --
took the attempt to increase reactor power.
14 MR. LANG: During the discussion between 15 yourself and the SOA and STA's, did anybody pull out 16 the chart, look back at the past charts?
17 THE WITNESS: Well, we didn't take the entire 18 chart out and look at it, no.
19 MR. LANG: How far back did you go?
20 THE WITNESS: Just to see the point right before 21 he started inserting the rods, the part that was 22 displayed on the draft this morning.
23 MR. KALKMAN: O. So you could see the graphs
- 24 increasing?
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25 A. Uh-huh.
18
_ l 1 MR. LANG: You saw the rise.
- 2 THE WITNESS: Wherever you're pulling rods, you 3 expect to see some increase.
4 MR. LANG: Let me see if I can clarify this.
5 You saw the increase as well as the {
6 decrease, or just the decrease in the curve?'
7 THE WITNESS: No. You could see the increase 8 and also the decrease wh'en he started reinserting 9 the rods.
10 MR. LANG: You saw that the night of the -- or 1
11 the morning of the 2nd, I guess? f 1
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 MR. KALKMAN: Q. What did you -- what was your 14 reaction following the reinsertion of the rods?
15 Do you have any requirement to do any -
16 complete any documentation?
17 A. Okay. What I did is I -- I notified the 18 on-call supervisor who happened to be the operations 1
19 engineer also, you know, Gene Preston, and notified 20 him of the event, what happened.
21 O. Was he on-site?
22 A. No, he was at home. So, you know, it was a 23 call during the middle of the night, woke him up.
24 And I hadn't gone to the -- to the point yet where I 2L officially started writing up the DER which is our 19
i
,i I
i deviation event report. j
.- 2 , So, you know, I just gave him a basic, 3 you know, what happened, you know, pulled rods-out 4 ao f sequence; we didn't1 feel we were in criticair.the 5 reactor engineer felt we may have.
6 So. I wrote the DER up and said that we 7 pulled, _you know, 11 rods or ten. rods from zero zero
)
to 48, and that reactor criticality did not. occur. .I 8
9 Because part of the evaluation that.the people do 10 when they get these DER's is to go through and, you ]
11 know, evaluate what we put down there.
I 12 If, for example, I had put yes, we .j 1
13 went critical, the possibility could even have been-l . .
14 that after a couple days' evaluation, they would 15 have decided no, we didn't go critical.
1 16 MR. LANG: Do you remember what your exact words-17 were to Mr. Preston about the situation?
18 THE WITNESS: No, I couldn't.
19 MR. LANG: Do you remember how many rods you 20 told him were mispulled?
21 THE WITNESS: I told him 6 rods.
^
22 MR. LANG: May I ask why 6 and not 10 or 117 23 THE WITNESS: Okay. That was because --
like I
-- 24 said, I wanted to make sure I got him soon enough, .
25 just in case, you know, I still had to,go review the 20.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _]
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1 i i
L 1 NRC deportability and verify that'I could get that
- - 2 all.done-in an hour. 3 1
3 I wanted to make-sure he was notified. l
. . i 4 first and to let him know that, you know, the 1 5L reactor was, you know -.we were going to proceed j 6 back to getting the reactor to critical.
)
i 7 MR. LANG: Coming back to critical, was that his j l
8 decision or yours? I 9 THE WITNESS: It was'my decision.-
J l 10 MR. LANG: Did he put any stipulations --
11 THE WITNESS: No, he did not. The reason for ]
12 why I said six rods is because, like I said, w' hen I 13 went and looked at the sequence of how many rods he -
14- pulled, I didn't exactly count them all down. 11 l
15 And when I was starting to make the {
1 16 phone call, the STA happened to come by and I said, 17 " Hey, how many rods was that that was pulled?" And 18 he said, "I think six." So I just wanted to give 19 Gene a ballpark number as to whether it was like he ;
1 20 pulled one rod out of sequence. I wanted to.give l 1
21 him a ballpark figure. j 22 MR. KALKMAN:- Q. How long did it take to j 23 reinsert the 11 mispulled rods? . l l
24 A. Just judging on time, it would take less- I 25 than 15 minutes on insertion time. I
- 21. j 1
I
1 MR. LANG: From the beginning of the point that
- - 2 you knew about the mispulled rods until the point 3 where you called Mr. Preston and got permission or <
4 whatever it took to restart up, how long a time 5 fram3 would that be?
6 THE WITNESS: Okay. I don't -- we had already 7 begun to restart, you know, prior to, you know, my l i
8 making the phone call to Gene. f 9 MR. LANG: Okay. !
l 10 Well after you hung up with Gene, what l 11 time would you say that was?
12 THE WITNESS: It was somewhere between 12:30 and 13 1:00 o' clock. {
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I 14 MR. LANG: And as far as you were aware, the )
i 15 mispulled rod took place when, approximately?
t 16 THE WITNESS: It was right around 11:30.
17 MR. LANG: 11:30, okay.
l 18 THE WITNESS: It was more like a quarter to l l
19 12:00.
20 MR. LANG: So roughly an hour and a half?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes.
22 MR. LANG: Now, after you were starting back up, 23 that took until what time; do you remember?
-- 24 THE WITNESS: When we declared the reactor 25 critical?
22
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l l
1 MR. LANG: . Yeah. ;
- - 2 THE WITNESS: I don't have a time for that. 1 l
3 MR. LANG: Do you remember what kind of period l
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4 you were drawing on the second critical?
5 THE WITNESS: Yes, I do, he declared criticality 6 with a long period of about 600 seconds.
I 7 MR. LANG: Do you remember -- well, now, I'm
. B sure looking back -- the first critical was about 9 114, I think, is what they're calling it.
l 10 THE WITNESS: That's correct.- j 11 MR. LANG: Could you explain why he was able to 12 pick out the second one as being 600 and the first ,
13 one of being 1147 Well, the operator, you know, at I 14 THE WITNESS:
15 that point was real overcautious, you know, because 16 " Hey, I just made a mistake. I don't want to do it 17 again." And you have four or five people in the 18 control room standing over your shoulder watching 19 what you're doing, so he was just doing a very slow 20 controlled startup.
21 MR. LANG: Do you personally -- at the time did 22 you consider it a fairly significant event?
23 THE WITNESS: I knew it was a significant event 24 because it was an operator error.
25 MR. LANG: I didn't mean reportable, I just 23
1 meant significant. 9
. - 2 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. I knew it was a l
j 3 significant event.
4 MR. LANG: If it was significant, how'do you i 5 account for the fact that there was nothing in your 6 log or the RO's log for that evening?
i 7 You have'an event that took i 8 approximately an hour and a half plus,a phone. call ;
9 to the operating engineer, and nothing in the log 10 book showed this. 1 11 THE WITNESS: Well, the event was documented by j 12 writing the DER; which, when I talked to Mr. Preston, 13 he said, "Okay, we'll discuss it when I come in in 14 the morning." Gene normally comes in approximately 15 an hour prior to turnover.and sits down with the f i
16 shift supe, discusses what went on during the night, j 17 where we were at. And it just so happened that 18 Mr. Lenart came in also that morning, you know, 'just l )
19 perchance; and we discussed it with him also.
i 20 MR. KALKMAN: Q. When you discussed this issue l 21 in the morning, did Mr. Lenart or Mr. Preston ask 22 whether the plant had gone critical?
23 A. Well, I had previously told Gene, you know, 24 that I believed that it had.
25 O. But the reactor engineer had thought --
24 i i
i 1 A. Gene was aware of, you know, what the
- 2 reactor engineer had in his log book.
3 MR. LANG: Do you remember what your words were 4 to -- this discussion between Mr. Lenart, j i
5 Mr. Preston and yourself, was it at one time, or was l
6 it individual --
7 THE WITNESS: No. They were both in the room 8 together 9 MR. LANG: Okay.
10 THE WITNESS: Gene just mentioned to Mr. Lenart I 11 that last night during the startup we had an l 12 operator error and pulled rods out of sequence. I L
13 gave Gene the DER t'h a t was written up at that time 14 so he could take it down in the morning.
l 15 You know, we discussed about the ]
l l
16 problems, you know, that we thought the rod worth 17 minimizer should have protected us from this.
18 MR. LANG: Normally on something like that or a 19 situation where you would call the operating .
I 2G engineer, the supervisor on-call, would you not put 21 something in the log book to say that you.had at 22 least made the call?
23 THE WITNESS: Sometimes. It depends. If the 24 reactor -- if the person on-call would not have been 25 in our group, you normally document' stuff like that, 25 L_---_______.____.__________._______.__.____.._ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
i I called the reactor or on-call supervisor who
. - 2 happened to be the maintenance engineer.
3 It's not1always, you know, somebody.
4 that's closely relathd to our group that's on on-call.
5 And as far as like the logs, I figured the DER that-6 was being generated was ' going. down to staff that 7 morning, would be. discussed. thoroughly, would be 8 enough documentation. l 9 The only thing I could.have added to ,
1 10 it by putting it in the log book is the fact that an
, 11 operator error occurred and pulled so many rods out i
12 of sequence.
13 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Did you associate the rod 14 worth minimizer trip or alarm with the event that 15 had occurred with the rod. pull?
16 A. No.
17 Q. You didn't think there was any connection?
18 A. No, we didn't. ,
l 19 Q. You had two problems right in a row in a 20 short period of time? i
. l 21 A. Well, no. I didn't relate it to the event 22 at all. And it was that morning when Mr. Preston 23 was up for turnover that we made the discussion 24 which was brought up in there also today about the 25 fact that during the shut-down margin. demonstration, ,
- 26. !
l
. 1 t
1 they attempted to program the rod worth minimizer !
- 2 for this reduced rod worth pull sequence; and the 3 computer couldn't handle it.
4 And the operator wasn't aware, you 5 know -- h e believed that the rod worth minimizer 6 would have saved him in this event.
7 MR. LANG: Did you believe it or -- what was 8 your understanding of the rod wor'th minimizer at the 9 time?
10 THE WITNESS: I had the feeling that the rod 11 worth minimizer would only have programmed for the 12 zero zero to 48 for the first four groups, similar 13 to the RSCS. But the rod worth minimizer is one of 14 those systems that's -- you have the opportunity to 15 work with it, you know, know it's little quirks.
16 MR. LANG: I don't have anything.
17 MR. KALKMAN: Q. So did you discuss the rod 18 pull problem with anyone other than Mr. Lenart and 19 Mr. Preston?
20 A. I talked to the operator. I didn't want to 21 jump in there right away, you know, while.he was e
22 busy and say, " Hey, what did do you this for?" You 23 know, "What was the problem?"
- 24 So I waited later on in the shift, e h L 25 about an hour or so later, and said, " Hey, 27
/ ;
1 what happened? How did you do it?" And it was then
. . 2 that he brought.up the point about -- well, he 3 admitted it was his fault. He misread the sheet, I
I 4 and also put on the fact that, well, this was the 1 5 first time he had ever operated the reactor himself.
6 And on a simulator, the group three and four are 7 pulled from zero zero to 48.
8 O. Did you know at the beginning of the shift I
9 that this was the first time --
4 10 A. Yeah. jr 11 Q. -- that performing this 12 function?
, )was
- 13 A. You have to pretty much assume that whoever 14 you put out there, it's going to be their first time.
1 3 15 Becausel lwas one of the newer licensed people --
- \ /
16 but this was only our third criticality, so it ;
17 doesn't take, you know -- it only took four hours to 18 go from shut-down to critical-free. So he was 19 basically the operator involved for the previous two 20 startups. I 21 O. Was this your first --
)
l i
22 A. This was my first startup.
23 0 -- critical startup?
24 A. Right. I was around for the shut-down 25 margin demonstration. I was there for that. On the 28
/
~
1 1 previous two startups I was there working on the
- - 2 startup checklist, make sure all that's done; but I )
{
3 did not stick around to actually observe the 4 withdrawal. .
l 5 MR. LANG: Were you aware that\ was 6 pulling rods right after the first urnover from j 7 from the first hour? !
I 8 THE WITNESS: Prior to 11:307 l 9 MR. LANG: Right.
10 THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. He came in for the 11 turnover meeting. It wasn't required for him to 12 stay over there for the entire turnover; so after he, 13 seen what was going on for the shift, you know, he 14 just went be ' out an relieved the person out there 15 in the control r- om.
16 MR. LANG: Your turnover meeting was at what 17 time?
18 THE WITNESS: Approximately 20 minutes after.
19 MR. LANG: 12:007 20 THE WITNESS: No, 11:00. It varies from a !
21 quarter after to 11:30. And then they conduct 22 another turnover meeting in the control room for the i 23 operators at 11:30, which the control room operator 24 talks to the PPO, NAPPO, and let's them know the i i
25 staff's equipment out in their areas.
29 6,78, I
1 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Did you ask the reactor
- . 2 engineer to change his log to show that no 3 criticality was --
4 A. I didn't ask him to change it, you know.
5 I just mentioned that from the people that were 6 around and observed it, they don't feel that we went j 7 critical; and he just changed it voluntarily. If he 8 would have been -- no, he didn't have to change'it.
9 Q. Is the reactor engineer a degreed engineer?
10 Is he a nuclear engineer? j 11 A. As far as I know.
12 Q. Barry Myers is a nuclear engineer?
13 A. Yes, he is. [ g 14 MR. LANG: During the rod pulls when 15 first came on and he started pulling, where was, to 16 your knowledge, the reae. tor engineer at that time, if you know? i 17 l 18 THE WITNESS: The time would have put him real 19 close to just, you know, showing up on-site, because 1
20 he was in the control room at 11:30 when we had the j 21 first rod worth minimizer alarm, so --
~
22 MR. LANG: Was he in the control area; do you 23 know?
-- 24 THE WITNESS: I could not tell you for sure, you '
25 know, because they don't come up and say, "I'm here."
30
/
.. i I
1 MR. LANG: Right.
. - 2 THE WITNESS: But I do know he was there when !
3 the rod worth minimizer came in.
1 4 MR. KALKMAN: Q. Do you supervise the reactor 5 engineer? l 1
6 A. No. In addition to those people in the 7 control room, they also have the -- ' excuse me -- GE j 8 startup test engineer and also other startup test (
9 phase people working on, you know, the tests and 10 demos for the equipment that comes in during the I
11 startup. l 12 0 Were any of those people mad.e aware of the 1
13 rod pull error? J 14 A. The GE test engineer came in there. See, j 15 they changed at 12:00 o' clock. And right after .
16 12:00 o' clock he came up to me and'said, "Are you 17 aware of the problem you had up there in the. control 18 room with the rod pull?" And I said, " Yeah,' we're 19 aware of it."
i 20 MR. LANG: Who exactly was that?
21 THE WITNESS: Kip Powel, P-o-w-e-1.
22 MR. KALKMAN: O. And he was getting off-shift 23 at midnight?
- - 24 A. He was coming on-shift.
25 O. Oh, he was coming on?
31
-l .
1 A. He was coming on-shift.
L-- 2 Q. So he wasn't there when that occurred?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Had he heard from his -- from the person he i
5 was relieving? ;
I 6 A. I couldn't tell you that. Normal process 7 for those people would be to do a complete walk-down ;
8 'o f the control room when they do their turnover.
l 9 MR. LANG: Did he think you went. critical at 10 that time? Did he have an opinion?
11 THE WITNESS: He had no idea. He just looked ;
i over the operator's shoulders and noticed a 12 13 discrepancy on the pull sheet from the way it was 14 signed off, I assume, and brought it to my attention.
15 MR. KALKMAN: Q. 'Well, it seems --
I'm kind of 16 surprised that -- I mean this is all fairly knew to 17 yourself and the operator and several other people 18 in the control room to have an event like that; and 19 it doesn't appear that anyone was too concerned 20 about it. Is that --
21_ A. We were definitely concerned, you know, .
22 over the fact that this happened. It was documented 23 by the DER and, you know, my boss -- I notified him.
-- 24 The plant superintendent was made aware of it as
~
25 soun as he showed up on-site.
32
)
1 You could say that, you-know, due to,
- 2 say my inexperience and the other personnel in the 3 control rooms inexperience as far as witnessing 4 startups, that maybe we could have done something i
5 differently. ]
6' O. Did you have any discussions with -- after 7 the nuclear engineers determined that the plant 8 actually had gone critical, didLyou have any i
9 discussions with any of the people that were in the l 1
10 control room that evening, you know, several days i I
11 later? ,
l 12 A. I talked to -- well, several days later?
l j
13 0 It wasn't apparent until the 3rd or 4th of l 14 July that the plant had in fact gone critical. I 15 was wondering if you talked to Mr. Preston or ]
16 Mr. Lenart or anyone for.that matter --
17 A. Well ~~
18 0 -- once it was known.
19 A. I can tell you like for an example, Ed Duda, 20 the SOA, I talked to him last night. He still 21 believes, you know, that the reactor did not go 22 critical. The only way to really determine if it 23 was critical or not would have been to just hold 24 power steady where it was and see if it falls off.
25 Q. I was thinking more An terms of a few days 33
l L
l1 1 or so after'the event whether you were called into 1
- - 2 any meetings to describe what happened that evening 3 or --
1 4 A. The following week I was called into Leo j
Lessor's office, who was handling the -- he was )
5 6 delegated the job of resolving the DER. And it.ses I
7 there, he showed me the charts again and showed v4 8 the computer printouts of the rod pulls and stuff, i
9 showed exact times all the rods were pulled, and ]
10 showed me, you know, basically the chart that was up )
i 11 on the overhead today with the rod notches and the 12 times and had calculated periods drawn in.
13 And he said, " Yeah, you know, we were 14 definitely critical."
15 O. That was the only time that you were 16 involved in any discussion --
I 17 A. That was the only time that -- this 18 occurred on a midnight shift. I believe it was 19 probably like two or three from the end, then we 20 gone the weekend -- and the following. week I was in 21 training, which meant I was not even in the plant 22 for the entire week.
23 MR. KALKMAN: Do you have anything, Terry?
-- 24 MR. LANG: No, that's it.
25 MR. KALKMAN: Okay.
34
}
- 4 1
1 i
1 Mr. Aniol, have I or any other NRC l 1
- 2 representative here threatened you in any :2anner or .l J
i' 3 offered you any reward in return for this statement?
i 4 THE WITNESS: No. l f
5 MR. KALKMAN: Have you given this statement
~
6 freely and voluntarily?
d 7 THE WITNESS: Yes.
8 MR. KALKMAN: Is there anything further you care 9 to add for the record?
10 THE WITNESS: No.
11 MR. KALKMAN: Okay.
12 That concludes this interview.
13
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l 14 I I
15 .
16 17 ,
l 18 19 20 21 22 23
-- 24
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25 35
NO PAGE NUMBER-
' CERTIFICATE OF' OFFICIAL REPORTER 4
This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STiTES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the
! matter of: .
I l NAME OF' PROCEEDING: OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION l
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW 1
CLOSED DOCKET NO.: ,
PLACE: GLEN ELLYN, IL DATE: TUES'?AY, JULY 23, 1985 -
I ,
l
\
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original i
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear -
l Regulatory Commission.
l (sigt h / n (TYP[Df Lisa Jo Selepa
- l Official Reporter Sullivan Reporting Company Reporter's Affiliation l
l
, l l . j l i l
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