ML20237J979
| ML20237J979 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fermi  |
| Issue date: | 07/30/1985 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237J518 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-86-245 LB-85-214, NUDOCS 8708260389 | |
| Download: ML20237J979 (49) | |
Text
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l' i :
l l
4 In the Matter of: )
.) Case No. LB-85-214 5 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION )
/
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW )
6 )
l !
7 The Deposition of EUGENE PRESTON, taken {
8 pursuant to Notice before me, Elizabeth Diann Ferguson, Notary l 9
Public in and for the County of Wayne, (acting in Monroe County),
10 at 6400 Dixie Highway, Newport, Michigan, on Tuesday, July 30, 11 1985, commencing at about 3:40 p.m.
12
\
13 APPEARANCES:
14 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION f Field Office Region III i I
15 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137 16 (By: Jtmes N. Kalkman, Esq.)
2.
- 3
, 17 l Appearing on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
't :
'. 18 I JOHN H. FLYNN, ESO.
! 2000 Second Avenue
- 19 g
Detroit, Michigan 48226 i d
- j 20 Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison
) 21
.I 22 q 23 !
24 (continued)
- N ,
25 g '/de@ 2 G O 3 d ')
1 APPEARANCES: (continued) 2 PETER A.MARQUARDT, ESQ. )
.I 2000 Second Avenue 3 Detroit, Michigan 48226 4 Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison j l s 6 ALSO PRESENT:
7 Terrence Lang and j
Thomas Randazzo 8
9 Elizabeth Diann Ferguson, CSR-1347 to Court Reporter 11 T2 13 l 1
14 15 16 2 -
1 a 17 ll .
18 g
5
- 19 1 i I
20 21 t
. 22 23 24 25 l 2
i
.I. N .0 .E X I _ _
2 Page l Witness 3
Eugene Preston 4
Examination by Mr. Kalkman 5 5
6 7
E
(
1 9 i
)
1 i 10 1
1 11 12 l
13 l 11 ,
si 15 16 ll
. 1l 3 17 l 1
. 18 8 -
- 19 s -
a 9
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N 23 24 25
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l
. i 1 Newport, Michigan 2 Tusaday, July 30, 1985 3 at about 3:40 p.m.
4 - - -
5 MR. KALKMAN: For the record, this 6 is an interview with Mr. Eugene Preston, P-r-e-a-t-o-n. l 7 Mr. Preston is employed by the Detroit Edison Company.
8 The location of this interview is at the Fermi II Nuclear I
l 9 Power Station. i 1
10 Present at this interview are l 11 Mr. Preston, Detroit Edison Counsel, John Flynn, Detroit j 12 Edison Director of Regulatory Affirs, Thomas Randazzo,
'3 NRC Reactor Inspector, Terrence Lang, and the NRC l
Investigator, James Kalkman. i
! l ll
- 5 p As agreed, this interview is being l
!! l
'6 j' transcribed by Court Reporter Elizabeth Ferguson.
- i i 17 The subject matter of this interview I l l
18 concerns a reactor operator arror which occurred on July
- 19 l 1,1985, at the Fermi II Naclear Power Station.
20 l Mr. Preston, would you please stand l
'{i 21 l>] and raise your right hand?
22 h' . - .
23 EUGENE PRESTON, 24 after having first been duly sworn to tell the truth, 25 the whole truth and nothing but the truth, testified 4
- upon his oath as follows:
I 3 EXAMINATION.,
2 BY MR. KALKMAN:
I 5 Q Mr. Preston, in what capacity are you emp?.oyed by E Detroit Edison?
7 A I am the Plant Operation Engineer for Fermi II.
- E O Is that a management posicion?
9 A Yes, l
to Q Who do you supervise?
l 11 A The entire Operations Department.
12 Q And that includes the Control Room personnel, Control Room I i 13 supervisor?
te A Yes, it does.
is ., O That is all of the shifts? j Il is tj A All shifts. }
i 17 l Q All Control Room shifts?
11 18 0A Yes, sir.
tg Q Do you have an engineering background or an engineering l t
! 2o y degree?
a 41 A No, I don't.
7 22 O What is your experience in the Nuclear Plant?
22 A Well, I was a shift supervisor at Fermi II for about a 24 nine-year period, eight-year period; and I was Assistant 25 Operations Engineer for two years following that; and for i
1 5
4
1 the last year, I have been the operations Engineer.
- 0 You were a shif t supervisor during the construction 3 project of Fermi II?
i 4 A That is correct.
5 Q In what capacity? What shif t or what type of personnel l
l did you supervise? !
6
? A I was responsible for one of the operations shif t, and i I
when they created the shif ts earlier, I was responsible j E
9 for preparation of the plant procedures and things that 1
to were ready in the plant for operation.
11 Q Were you a reactor operator?
?2 A I have a senior reactor operator's license, yes, sir, i l l 3 O When did you receive that?
1 I
u ' A I believe July of '82 or '83.
! *E iQ Do you have hands-on experience in operating a plant, or
?6 were you certified through a test?
li ?. 7 A I was certified, and I have had experience Operating
'l 18 Fossile Plants.
i
- 19 O Did you ever operate Fermi Plant, Fermi II?
li
'l 20 A No, I haven't.
ll: 21 Q Do you have hands-on control of any nuclear reactor? Have 22 you had?
23 A Other than a training capacity, no.
24 Q Have you worked on the Fermi simulctst?
25 A Yes.
l 6
N _ _ -__-____-_____ ________ _ _ _ . _ _ .
J 1
1 O In your capacity as a plant operations engineer, is that j i I 2 more of an administrative duty than a technical function? .
3 A It would be more of a technical function than an 1 4 administrative function.
5 0 In what respect?
.I 6 A Well, -- l l
7 Q I don't have a grasp of your position. l l
I don't. know what type of work .that j 8
g you perform.
10 A Okay. j I
33 Well, what are you interested in just -- )
l 12 are you interested in just knowing what my job is all l l'
33
, about, period?
l o 34 ji O Really, yes.
l l
15 lA okay.
l 16
! I am responsible for the routine i 17 day-to-day operation of the plant. I do the scheduling
'I*
,, is of the plant, start-up, shut-down, would specify the 19 check, the minimum equipment that has to be made operable i
,l 20 I for the start-up; consult with shift supervisors for
} 21 technical specification matters and also for any typ'e of i
E 22 operating problems that might occur during the operation 23 of the plant.
24 ,
Essentially, just set the operating i
25 i standard and the policies for the operations control.
I i
7 i
1 Q Do your subordinates usually come to you with tech'nical ,
2 problems?
3 A Yes.
- Or would they go to.a nuclear engineer, some designated --
Q 6
A Well, we have a large group of people that are assigned 6 to support shift operations. Many of those people are ]
i 7 I degreed.
8 All of them are experts in the j i
9 particular field, depending upon the nature of the 10 They vould take advantage of any of those problem.
11 resources which would prove to be helpful in solving 12 l! a problem.
p 13 0 In all cases, I would be notified, a
'd Who do you report to?
yll 0 )
'S A craig overbeck, superintendent of operations.
'6 Q He is your direct supervisor?
,! " A That is correct. l l! 18
,y Q Mr. Preston, how did you find out about the reactor l8 operator error that occurred on July 1, the late evening 20 l ; of July l?
. I 21 l A I was called at home at around 12:30 in the morning on E
22 July 2nd, early July 2nd, by the on-duty ah4fs supervisor, 23 David Aniol.
24 Q About what time?
25 A Shortly after midnight, 12:30 a.m.
8
l 1
i Q Okay.
Around there.
)
2 A 3 Q Do you recall the telephone conversation between yourself 4 and Mr. Aniol? <l 5 A I do.
6 Q Would you relate that discussion to us?
7 A Well, I was informed that there had been an operator error, j
- 8 the nature of the error was such that a number of control 9 rods had been withdrawn past their withdrawal limit that to was vpecified on the rod pull sheet. {
\
11 I was informed that the control rod l l l 12 had been re-positioned to their correct designated 1
13 position prior to the shift supervisor having called me.
14 l At that time, I asked had the reactor 4
15 d went critical, and was told that it had not. He was I
16 calling to request permission to resume the plant's
= i i 17 start-up.
8 18 I asked if the reactor engineer had a
s 19 concurred, and he indicated that he had; and I grante6 l
!! l lj 20 i permission to continue the plant start-up and reminded him l l!
21
[
that a DER which is our plant deviation event report, should l 4 l
22 i be prepared, although the violation appeared to be j 1
23 strictly administrative. I wanted to have a DER on record.
i 24 I indicated that we would review it l 25 in the morning; and if it was not needed, it would not I 1
l l
I l )
1 I
I
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1
i 9 have to be processed, ')
2 O so you advised Mr. Aniol to prepare a DER?
3 A Yes, sir.
4 O Of the event?
l 5 A That is correct.
6 O And that you review this DER with him when you came on 7 in the morning? l 8 A I indicated that it would be reviewed.
1 9 I did not specify it would be with him. )
l 10 We have a Corrective Action Review Board; and I was j i
11 really -- I meant that the Correction Action Review 12 Board would review it.
13 p
I did not say that, but that is what t 14 I had in mind.
15 Q Okay.
16 Did you indicate that you wanted to 17 have a meeting with Mr. Aniol when you came on shift in I
18 the morning?
19 A No, I did not.
t
)
70 One of the things that I do everyday '
l
[ 21 is I attend a meeting with the shift supervisors at 0700' ,
I 4
, 22 hours, or 7:00 a.m.; and that is their normal turnover 23 from the midnight shift to the day shift. I participated 24 in that meeting everyday, j 25 no I did not have to indicate to him that l 10 w____._-________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
I 1
I would probably be there. He would have expected me !
2 there anyhow.
3 Q Do you recall asking the question of whether the plant l 4 went critical?
E A Absolutely, because that would have been of interest to me. ;
e Q And the response was that it had not?
7 A That is correct.
e lQ Was there any question in Mr. Aniol's rhetoric that --
9 A No, I believe that it was very, very positive; there was l
10 no hesitation. He did not indicate that he had, in his it own mind, any doubt that he had not taken the plant )
i -
I 12 '
critical.
l 13 0 Did he mention to you that there may be dissenting opinion? !
i 14 hA No, he did not.
i I
is i; You are still referring to the h '
16 ll telephone conversation?
- l 3 17 Q Yes.
I
. is A Okay. ,
! i 19 Q Did Mr. Aniol indicate that he had already prepared a i i
j 20 I
i DER? i
} 21 A No, he did not.
i 22 Q Was it your impression that had you not asked him or 23 I
directed him to prepare the DER, he would not have thought 24 of doing that?
25 A No, it was not my impression.
11
' The' reason for suggesting it was that 2 there are a number of occasions where things have occurred 3 in the Power Plant, and upon management revisv, we have decided that a DER was appropriate. .
5 It was just barely trying to have one 6 prepared in the event that it was necessary for this 7
particular, that it was strictly a reminder-type of thing 8 that this be an indication where a DER was appropriate. !
9 "Please see that one is prepared." If it was not l 10 appropriate, we would not have to process it any further
" than having it reviewed initially by the Corrective 12 Action Review Board.
'3 So there was not a procedural requirement to prepare a l dQ i
I DER for this event?
'6 There was no procedural requirement that specified for A
16 and out-of-sequence withdraw error to prepara a DER, that
" is correct.
18 Is there any requirement to document the procedural error g Q
'9 other than on the pull sheet?
{
I:
'j 20 None that I am aware of.
A
- 21 Q And the shift supervisor's log or the operator's log, that
)
! 22 does not have to obtain any mention of the operator's 23 error?
24 -
) 3 I believe that it is strigtly a subjective call by the i
? 25 judgment of the shift supervisor, as to whether or not that 12 l
w_-____-__-_____-____-___________._________________.
1 warranted an entry in his log.
2 We do specify some general guidelines l l
3 through the operations people advising them of the j 4 difficult types of things that we would expect to have 5 recorded; and certainly a significant operator error is i
6 something that I would have expected to see in a shift i
7 supervi sor 's log.
8 But if you are asking if that is a 9 specific requirement, I cannot say that there is. {
l 10 MR. LANG: Would you expect that to 11 be logged?
i 12 A Absolutely, yes.
I E
is q _ _ _
l i
14 Y BY MR. KALKMAN:
J y,
15 !i 0 When you came in on the morning of July 2, did you look i
' 1 S
16 -
at the operator's log and the shift supervisor's log?
8
- 6 17 A I don't think I did. I don't really recall.
R.
- 18 If I did look at it, I can tell you i l
!; 19 j that I did not -- it did not strike me that there was li !
j 20 an entry missing. You have to remember, when this was j
it 21 discussed later on that day, I thought, "Oh, you know, l 1
!r 22 there is not anything in there." But, no, I did not. i 1
23 I don't recall whether I did or not.
24 Generally, I do review the shift supervisor's logs on f 25 the spot in the morning there, and I cannot say positively 13 L-_--_---------------------- - -- i
., l l
that I did that morning or not. !
3 Q Well, subsequently when you~did look at the log and there 2
was no entry of the operator's error, did you ask the f 3
shif t supervisor or the reactor operator why they did not i log the error?
5 MR. FLYNN: Do you know for a fact that it is not in the shift logs? Are you personally l 7
3 aware of that? l U' * ""
9 l Shift Supervisor.s zog.
l ,,
y I have been informed that it is not in the Nuclear Supervisdag operator's log.
12 l
I cann t tell you that I personally 13 3,
reviewed those logs for the purpose of looking for that information. l 15 1 l 37 BY MR. KALKMAN l 1-3g Q I am curious as to whether you asked the Nuclear Shift ig Supervisor-why he did not log the event.
l A No, I was informed the day after the event that there was 20 3
- n t an entry in the log by the people that had been assigned 21
! 22 to review or evaluate the DER that was written in trying to gather information about the event.
23 Naturally, they went through the 24 shift supervisor's log, and at that point, discovered that 25 l 14 l
1 f
1 point, discovered that there was not anything there,- and 9 2 they asked me if I had some other information regarding I
l 3 the incident, and I told them I did not, 4 I have not discussed this with the 5 shift supervisor. t J
6 Q Okay.
7 Do you know if the shif t supervisor 8 documented his telephone conversation with you that 9 evening, and the fact that you gave permission to go 10 ahead and continue pulling the rods?
11 A No, I do not.
12 0 Was that something that you think should have been logged?
l 13 A Well, typically, you would expect to see -- you are ,
3 I l 14 " asking me -- you know, really, it is hard for me to )
l 15 ! separate the incident back on July 1 or 2 from today; and 16 it is very clear to all of us that there should have been 3 17 a documentation of both to myself and to the entry of the 18 nature of the incident.
g s
- 19 I am trying to go back to July 1 or 2, a
l 20 you know. Was it common for them to make phone calls to
[. 21 me without entering them in their log, absolutely. They I
22 call me five or six tLmes a day, or during the day and :
23 during the night and I am there as an advisor.
24 So it is not always logged?
Q 25 A It is not always logged, that is correct. <
15
S-Q okay.
Do you have an opinion as to why this 3 event is not documented other than by the DER 7
- Yes, I do.
A 5
Q Would you relate that? l 6' A Well, I believe that we fai'ed to recognize that this was 7 a significant event in tJun eyes of the regulators; so we 8 looked at it as an administrative screw-up that would be 9- handled through the DER process. That was essentially 10 why it did not receive anymore attention than it did.
11 O Okay. !
12 During your telephone conversation l
13 ,
with Mr. Aniol, did you direct Mr. Aniol not to record n
'd j the incident, other than the DER 7 15 A No.
l 16 h
My conversation with David was exactly l9 17 three minutes; l5 '
as I just related earlier, all over in about i I.
g 18 and it was -- that was the extent of it.
t j 19 'Q okay.
l l
i !
l 20 Nothing more or nothing else?
21 A Nothing more or nothing else,
}
r 22 O You did not ask him to withold the information from the 23 logs from entering it in the logs?
24 A No, not at all.
25 It is the most widely-published piece l
16
l 1 of paper that we make, the DER. It is reviewed by l 1
2 every' level of management from the Vice-president, on 3 down to every section head. j 4 Probably the only people that read 5 the shift suprevisor's log is myself, and maybe the 6 resident inspectors.
7 Q Now, you stated earlier that you asked for or directed 8 Mr. Aniol to prepare a DER?
9 A That is correct.
1D Q To make the determination later, whether it was, in f act, l
11 required? j i
12 A Yes.
13 Q So obviously, you did not perceive the event that 14 Mr. Aniol described to you as something that was extremely 1 15 significant, because you were not sure whether a DER was 16 required?
i 17 A That is correct.
g 18 Q Do you think that was because of the way it was a
- 19 characterized by Mr. Aniol?
20 A Well, it,certainly would have been an influence.
21 I mean, he was very calm and l
22 deliberate, very sure of the event and the situation, and 23 again, the description of the events as they were described 24 to me, that led me to believe that that was an appropriate 25 reaction.
11
. . l 1
O okay.
2 A If he would have been very excited, nervous, then, it )
3 would have made a difference in my reaction, I am sure, l
4 at least, as to how I viewed the situation.
I
! 5 0 okay. ]
I 6 So your only discussion of the 7 evening of July'1, and the early morning of July 2nd, s
i 8 was with Mr. Aniel on the telephone?
t 9 A That is correct,
- \
10 0 Wculd you summarize for us what happened the morning of- j 11 July 2, when you came in?
12 A Well, I attended the normal shift supervisor turnover i
13 meeting at 0700 hours0.0081 days <br />0.194 hours <br />0.00116 weeks <br />2.6635e-4 months <br />; at that time, the plant had been j i
14 l
i successfully brought up, and we were in the process of ji I
15 getting up to the rate of pressure as the temperature --
I i
16 we had some code points that were applied for the start-up j
= r 3 17 test phase testing.
I l
g 18 We conducted a review of the s
- 19 previous 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of the plant operation; and there was i
j 20 the DER, it was provided to me; the plant superintendent j 21 was present at a later part of that turnover meeting, and i
t 22 that was Bob Leonard.
23 At that time, I informed Bob that we 24 had again an administrative violation of procedure, and 25 that 10 control rods had been withdrawn, beyond their l
l 18;
1 withdrawal limit, but essentially, I read the DER to him, 2 and that the reactor was sub-critical, or had been sub- t i
3 critical. ;
)
- Q Did the DER indicate that there were 10 rods?
5 A That is correct.
6 O Did you know from your telephone call of the prior evening 7 that the 10 rods had been -- !
I B A No, I did not.
l 9 Q Was there any mention of how many rods? l 10 A Yes, I was told there were a number of control rods l
l 11 withdrawn, and when I asked how many, the reply was, "I l J
12 am not certain, but I believe there were five or six." I c
13 Q Okay. l 5
34 A That is when I asked did the reactor go critical, and they i l
15 told me no. !
3 1
16 Q Do you know that it was five or six rods in Group III? l 1
- i i 17 A Yes. j l !
, is Q Are you f amiliar enough with the operation of a reactor i
e I 19 to know how many rods, if that was close to the point
. I i!'a 20 where the reactor would go critical? l l* 21 A Well, I am familiar enough with the reactor operations to j
!!r I 22 know what the rod pull sequence is, and what our withdrawal ;
23 limits normally are; and also, from the training that we j 24 have had in our plant, specific simulator, where we would 1
25 normally expect to go critical, using the Group III sequence j 19 l
l
\,
i 1
that. withdrew the rods from 0-0 to 48, and this was five 2
or six control rods, it would have been even premature 1 3 for a Group III simulator pull.
4 Q So it is on the verge of criticality at that point or --
5 A I would not expect'it to be on the verge of criticality 6
if five or six control units in Group III were -- no, sir.
7 Q Well, is it far enough along for you to ask the question? !
8 A Well, if it had of been.one control rod, one notch, 9 Group I, I would have asked the question.
10 That would have been the very first l 11 rod he withdrew, in the first sequence, and I would have 12 asked the question. 3 13 .Q Okay.
l .
3 14 A "Is there a problem with the reactor? Did it go critical?
15 ,
Do you have any reason to suspect that we have any corp 16 damage?" Any unsual facts to m-mm+m abnormalities, I
! 17 would have asked the question.
I 1 t I g
18 Q Okay, a
- 19 What was Mr. Leonard's reaction to
- I 20 hearing about the incident?
f .
21 A The same as mine, essentially. We were processed -- we Y
22 processed the DER and.the CARB later on in the day, "Let's ,
23 get over to the shout. meetings."
24 Q At that morning meeting, that staff meeting, was it 25 brought to your attention at that point that there may be 1
20
1 1 some people who feel the reactor did go critical?
2 Yes.
,A 3 At that morning staff meeting, and 4 in an indirect fashion, Dave Aniol indicated that I 5 needed to watch who'was maintaining logs in the Control 6 Room area because sometimes there was bad information 7 put in the log books.
. 8 Q Did he mention any names?
9 He said the reactor engineer had indicated that -- in his !
A 10 log that the reactor had went critical, and he discussed 11 it with him after the entry was made, and they agr'eed l 12 that it was not -- criticality was not an issue; and that 13 the resctor engineer had subsequently corrected his log 14 entry.
15 So Dave was merely mentioning the .
i 16 fact that there were other logs that were being maintained l 17 that really may not be accurate; so it was more of a 18 complaint than a statement that there were people that g
s 1
- 19 were disagreeing. j y >
j 20 So I guess it was not an issue. It 4 i 21 was not a statement that somebody thought it was critical l
22 and someone else did not. It was not -- the complaint l 23 of the quality of the log that other people were taking 24 in the Control Room area, and that they were not always 25 f actual and that we should just review that.
21
1 Q Okay.
f 2
Why do you think that was brought to 1 I
your nttention? )
3 4 A I don't have any way of knowing. I think it was' brought ;
5 to my attention because they felt that they were, again,-
6 logs in the Control Room that he did not agree with.
7 Q :Did Mr. Aniol feel like he had more expertise in this 8 judgment area than the reactor engineer? l 9 A I don't know what he thought.
10 Q Did he discuss that with you? l l
11 A No, he did not.
12 Q Was he concerned that there were -- that there was some J
13 documentation that the plant had gone critical?
14 A I really don't know that that was -- it could be the case.
15 He did not indicate that to me. I just would not be able ;
l 16 to answer that. l
's 17 Q Okay.
I 18 Did you make Mr. Leonard aware of the !
l!
- 19 potential criticality?
No, I was not aware of the potential criticality myself.
e 20 A j 21 Q Well, you just mentioned that Mr. Aniol made you aware of 1
- the fact that the plant may have gone critical.
. 22 23 A No, I did not, t
24 I am afraid if I led you to believe 25 that, I am sorry.
22
i i I What I meant to tell you was that he 1
2 indicated there were logs in the . Control Room other than )
3 in the operating staff, that were being maintained that 4 he believed wars in error; and that it was just a stroke 5
of luck that he had discussed this particular log entry !
6 with the reactor engineer; and that they had corrected J 7 what he believed to be a problem, so that it was no e indication that he believed the reactor could have been 9 Critical or that it was even an issue.
10 He really indicated that he thought 11 the reactor engineer had made an entry based on not j 12 having done a review of the information in the Control i 13 Room, 14 0 When did you become aware of the issue of whether the f
15- plant was, in fact, critical?
16 A Well, we had a meeting the next day.
i 17 0 Who in we?
8 E
. 18 A At that meeting was the Plant Superintendent, Bob Leonard; I e
- 19 Craig Overbuck, Leo Lesser, myself, John Thorpe, 2 20 Hari Arora, Mel Batch, and Dave Weamyer; and we discussed --
l !
. 21 0 Was this the CARB meeting?
I 22 A No, this was a meeting after the CARB meeting.
The CARB meeting was initially upon 23 s
24 the evaluation of the DER so that the reactor engineering
/,
25 folks -- that was on July 2nd; and on July 3, the reactor l
23
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - . _ _ _ _ - . _ _ _. /
1 engineering believed that they had information that they 2 wanted to share with the Plant management regarding their 3 evaluation and tha't was the meeting that I just named you
' the participants.of.
5 Q Well, let me get this straight:
6 'The DER did not mention that the
,j 7 Plant.ih ad gone -- that there was any suspicion that the J i '/ \ ,8 Plant had gone critical?.
l '/ :,9 7
9 "A ' That's correct. <
> 10 In fact, the DER stated that the 11 reactor was sub-critical during the event.
12 Q And you did not mention Mr. Aniol's concern about the 13 l log to Mr. Leonard on the morning of the second?
14 A No, that is correct.
15 Q How did it come up? How did the information surface that <
16 the Plant may have inadvertently gone critical? ,
1 3 '
17 A Well, I really take exception to the Plant ever having --
l
. 18 over possibly inadvertently going critical. >
l; 19 The reactor operator was at the l
'I reactor controls for the purpose of bringing the reactor ;
j 20 f,8 21 critical; inadvertent was --
- 1 22 Q Okay. That is maybe a poor choice of words on my part.
23 A I believe that we had a CARB meeting, and at the CARB 24 meeting, I was not present; but they made an assignment 25 to the reactor engineering folks to evaluate it.'
24
1 They were asked.to evaluate the 2 DER and respond to the Plant management.
3 Q Were they reviewing the DER for any particular reason?
4 A well, you would have to look at the DER and see if there 5 was any specific assignment made, or ask someone.that was 4
6 at the meeting.
7 I was not Present.
J s This meeting was July 3? l Q
9 A Yes.
10 Q Mr. Leonard, Mr. Overbeck and Mr. Lesser and several others?
11 A Yes.
12 Q And what was discussed at that meeting? .
13 A Well, it was at that meeting that the reactor engineering 14 people indicated their review had concluded that the 15 reactor had been critical during the rods withdrawal error.
16 We asked what was their basis for i 17 reaching that conclusion. They indicated that it was
! based on the computer w ial of the re-activity affect on--
- 18
- 19 the corp, dispositive of the Plant to the re-activity I work that was added to the corp at the time.
j 20 B
21 At that point, we asked if they l
! 22 reviewed the nutron monitoring instrumentation recorder 23 traces, and they said they had.
24 We asked if they had tahat information
/,
25 with them. They had the recorder charts; we asked to 25
e
' review them, and we spread them out on the conference room 2 table and looked at the recorder traces and said, "You 3 have got to be kidding. The reactor -- you really are
' not saying that this is what you used to determine that- i 5 the Plant went critical, because it just did not indicate ]
6 that."
7 There was a large discussion back and 8 forth, one camp said, "Yes, we are." And another one 8 said, "No, you are not." i 10 Finally, after many minutes or a long 11 time of deliberating .the superintendent said, "We want the 72 Nuclear Engineering folks the reactbr engineering folks."
13 And the reactor engineering is a division of Nuclear
'd Engineering. The Nuclear Engineering Reactors Engineering lll l
'5 Division is to make the final determination as to whether
'6 we were or not; and in the meantime, we wanted the
}
" resident inspector to be informed that we have had this s
y
'8 serious administrative violation, and I wanted 'all future s
- 18 rod movement to be verified by a second independent person.
j 20 MR. IANG: Who made that decision?
21 I did.
A 22 MR. LANG: Based on what?
23 A Based on the fact that we were sitting there deliberating 24 whether or not the reactor had been critical, and there 25 had not been one alarm, one rod withdrawal block; we did 26
not have an emergency classification; we did not have a deportability event; we did not have a test spec violation.
3 We were sitting there with what was, you know, we were considering a major event, and nothing 6 that would have alerted the operator to ever having been 6 in a situation where there was any problem in the Plant.
So I guess I suspected that, you 8
know, the rod-worth-minimizer probably should have blocked, and, you know, we had a discussion prior to that
- meeting; and it was determined that the way it was
" functioning, that it would not block, and we really were not expecting it to block; but until that got resolved --
' When did that get resolved?
MR.*LANG: l A Well, whether it is going to block or not, I don't think it has been resolved.
16 I think 8-15 is our committment date E.
" to try and come up with a resolution of whether it can l
- be re-programmed to afford blocks when you are down in 2
the reduced notch worth blocks --
I I MR. LANG: At the time you decided to 21 l
have a second person up there verifying rod pulls, did 22 you personally consider the rod-worth-minimizer?
23 A No.
l 24 _ _ _
j 2s 1 27 l
1 1 BY MR. KALKMAN:
2 O okay, sir.
3 A ?3ecause before then, I had reviewed -- there was a memo 4 that really discussed the operation of the system; and, 5 you know, it was clear to me that it was not going to 6 block.
7 MR. LANG: If you road the memo and <
l 8 it said it was not going to block you, why did "ou take 9 the action as specified in the test specs?
10 A Wo.11, let me clarify that:
11 What we had was a discussion again 12 whether the rod-worth-minimizer should have -- should 13 h we attempt to program it to block in Group III and IV; I 14 or should we rely on the administrative controls. Okay.
]
I 15 i There was a discussion about the ,
i 16 capabilities of the process computer to accept the re-17 programs; whether we were going to exceed its capacity; l
18 so I knew that there was this problem, okay, because
- 19 it had been uncovered during the performance of an l 3
'l 20 earlier test; and I did not know that there had ever j
21 been any attempt to go out and re-program it, so that r
22 it would not provide these blocks.
23 So when the evant occurred, and I 24 just put the two together, that somebody had went out 25 and re-programmed it; and when I heard that and asked the 28
F . i.
' reactor engineering folks and they said yes, that it 2 was re-programmed, it does not provide the blocks, then 3 I went -- I ordered that tha test spec action statement !
' for the rod-worth-minimizar that was being declared 5 inoperable, be taken as a conservative approach to 6 insure that further rod movement was always in compliance 7
with the rod withdrawal sheet.
E It was not that I doubted that the 9 rod-worth-minimizer was operable for its test spec 10 definition,.because essentially, it is there to protect l'
against the rod drop accident; and I did not have a 12 problem with it not working for that purpose.
'3 It was not going to provide me the protection to prevent the operator from withdrawing 1
15 control rods out of sequence; and I found that out for' 16 sure.
l3 17 MR. LANG: Well, how does the j 18 management protect itself against somebody going out j i
s 'S and re-programming the rod-worth-minimizer? Shouldn't i
j 20 you have been aware of that when they did that or before j 21 they even did that? ,
'! 22 The rod-worth-minimizer is considered computer software, A
23 and the responsibility of the reactor engineer; so any 24 changes to those programs would' be reviewed and approved 25 by the reactor engineer.
l 29 l
m___ _ _ _ _ _ .
\
1 Typically, I do become informed of 2 those things, and as I mentioned, even when they were 3 considering a possible change or there was a memo that
- I had.
l 5 MR. LANG: Well, if he does make a 6 change, does he also somehow guarantee that the operations 7 Department would become aware of the change?
8 A we ll, we have a continuous dialogue between the reactor 9 engineering operations training and all of us try to .
10 keep one another informed of changes'that may impact the 11 other.
I 12 I am not certain that they have a l
13 procedural requirement to tell me whether -- to tell me 14 when they make any changes to any computer software.
15 They do try and let me know when something that they are 16 doing has an impact on my organization.
l: .
- 3 17 MR. LANG: As far as you know, there is I 1 18 no procedural verification that has to be made?
- 19 A The only one that could possibley be required is procedure r
l 20 for the implementation for any type of design changes that J 21 would be implementation ~, 12-000-64.
e s
22 MR. LANG: Do you know if that was done 23 for this change? ,
24 A No, I just don't know. I would not have seen any of those; 25 if they made changes to them, the programs.
30
4 MR. LANGs Okay.
i Thank you.
7 4 BY MR. KALKMAN:
5 Q Is there any requirement to notify the NRC of 'an operator :
j 6 error? l 1
7 A I believe that again, there is a requirement, but it is I
a degree of magnitude, you know, I don't know. I don't l s <
9 mean -- you have to draw some line of demarcation; and, i
io you know, if I called the NRC everytime there was a ji
" Procedural violation" then, I would. be on the phone with 12 them all the time continuously.
l I mean, we have a procedure, the 13 ,
I 14 requirement that I write with black ink; and officially, 15 the guys are writing with blue or red ink. That is a i
16 procedural violation. l l 17 If you cross out -- if you make the
'i
' ', is entry on the official plant document and you want to i change that, if you cross that out, you have to initial
- 19 20 it and date it. If you only initial it, that is a i,
t 21 Procedural violation.
i r So there has to be some regard, some 22 23 judgment to the relative magnitude of an infraction; and 24 I think usat if it had been a situation where we felt 25 the power plant was in an unsafe configuration' or some 31 l . _ - _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _
i systems or the public were in jeopardy, then, I think 2
those are very clear cut examples of where the NRC notification requirement ist and in the area where it 3
, is gray and it is not clear;eut, we tend to err on the 3
side of conservatism and call the resident and meet with them whenever possible. l In fact, it was not too long ago.
7 when the resident inspector asked me to stop calling him 8
all the time because, you know, we ought to use more 10 judgment in our attempt to contact him.
33 Q Did it cross your mind when you received the telephone 12 call from Mr. Aniol, to make a notification to the 33 resident inspector?
34 A Absolutely not.
15 0 Although you did perceive the operator error as a is procedural violation?
l 37 A That is correct.
I l ig Q You did not feel that that meant the threshold of i deportability?
. gg l
a 20 A Not at all. ,
5 21 It was not until the meeting where 1
- we discussed the possibility of criticality or non-22 l i
23 criticality that I just described to you, that it was 1 24 decided that we would need to bring the resident into 25 the picture.
32
1 Q And you don't know how the issue of whether the plant 2 went critical, you don't know how that came up at that )
3 CARB meeting?
4 A No, I was not present. ;
)!
5 Q But it was your understanding that part of the reason 6 the reactor engineering group was reviewing the DER was 7 to determine the criticality?
e A No. ,
l 9 It was my understanding that it was to given to the reactor engineering folks to evaluate it; 11 I can only guess as to the reasons why.
12 I would think it would be because it 13 I was four physics involved; be it, critical be it, t
14 h localized heating or whatever the issue may have been, is a feul warranty.
'. 1 16 Q In any event, you were directed to have a meeting or i
! 17 to notify the NRC resident . inspector?
'. 18 A That is correct.
i
- 19 Q By whom?
r 20 A Well, it was sort of a joint agreement where we just
_l
- ~
- 21 sort of reached that after we realized that we were t
- 22 having a discussion deliberating whether it was or was 23 not; and that we ought to have the NRC informed because 24 this obviously was an event that met the threshold of 25 an operator error with significant impact.
33 i
_______ -____- _ ____ A
l 4
1 It was decided, I don't remember by 2 whom, but it was Bob Leonard that said, "I would like 3 for you and me and Craig Overbeck to contact the resident."
l 4 Q Okay.
5 And you did contact the resident?
6 A Yes, we met with the resident and --
7 Q Who was that?
l I
8 A Mike Barker.
9 Q Okay.
10 Would you just go ahead and summarize ]
11 for us the events of when this meeting occurred and what 12 was said at that meeting?
l l
13 A Well, shortly af ter the meeting that we just discussed, 14 it was at around 1300 hours0.015 days <br />0.361 hours <br />0.00215 weeks <br />4.9465e-4 months <br />, 1330 hours0.0154 days <br />0.369 hours <br />0.0022 weeks <br />5.06065e-4 months <br /> on July 3.
15 It was held in Craig overbeck's office; 16 and present were myself, Craig Overbeck, and Mike Barker.
9 3 17 I pretty much led the the discussion at the meeting; in 18 that I told Mike of the event of the previous night's
- 19 event; and I informed him that we were continuing with our r
20 evaluation of the event; that the investigation had been l
j 21 assigned to the reactor engineering organization.
! , 22 I indicated to him that we believed 23 the reactor to be -- I believed the reactor to be sub-24 critical; but that there were two schools of thought', one 25 which thought the reactor could have went critical; and 34
i 1
1 one that believed that it had not went critical; and 2
that close review of the operating charts could Isad you 3 to either of the two conclusions.
4 That the reactor engineering people 5
were going to go back to the computer model and make the 6 final determination.
7 It was at that point that Craig Overbeck a
interceded -- interjected that, "Well, let's make it g clear. If it was not critical, it was nearly critical, 10 very close to being critical, if it was not."
33 We got to discussing how busy everyone 12 was; and Mike mentioned that he had been assigned to l 33 ; closing the Fave Team items with' Frank Agustae, for the 34 last week; and that he had not been able to monitor the is reactor operations as closely as he would have liked.
16 Mr. Overbeck mentioned that the senior i 17 resident inspector has been looking for a chance to find lI something wrong or problems with the operation for a long 18 i
- 19 time; and, "It looks like we just served them up a big l
1-
! 20 fat juicy one on a platter."
s 21 Q You may continue on.
i:
A Well, we indicated to Mike that we did have a procedural
, 22 23 violation; and that in our minds, in Detroit Edison's 24 mind, it was not an issue in the Plant management's mind, 25 it was not an issue of criticality versus non-criticality 35
\
1 and that we were-going to handle this incident on a-11 -l 2 4 priority basis. 1 3 That- it would be corrective actions 4 taken to prevent reoccurrence.
5 Indicated that the reactor engineering 6 people are the ones that had the recorder Chart and other 7 information or documentation from the event; and if~ Mike 8 was interested in reviewing any of that information, then, !
1 9 he could get it from the reactor engineering folks; but 10 that we would like that he contact myself, Mr. Overbeck, or )
11 the reactor engineer, Eari Arora for any further information; ]
12 essentially that was the conversation and it was probably l 13 h a two-minute meeting.
l 0
14 qQ Did you discuss the . deportability with Mike Barker? i i
1 '
15 !A Yes, we discussed that we had reviewed deportability and 16 the CVR, and that CARB had agreed that the shift
! 17 supervisor and that it was not 10-CFR.72 or 10-CFR50.73 I.
y 18 reportable.
a l 19 Q However, the DER did not address the criticality of the ,
1 I '
l ['
I ,.
20 reactor?
j 21 Well, it addressed it. It said the reactor was sub-t lA 22 l critical.
23 0 okay.
24 Would ghe events had been reportable 25 if you had known the reactor was critical?
36,
I
' No, it would not have been, in my opinion.
A 2
O Did Mr. Barker ask you if you had notified the NRC regional l l
4 3
office?
4
- No, that would not have been a logical question for him.
A 8 We report through the onerations center for any type of 6 reports; and other than that, I report to the resident, 7
and the resident deals with the region.
e o Okay.
9 Did Mr. Barker seesa interested in the l
'U outcome of the reactor engineer group as a review on the 1
" criticality issue?
l 1
12 l A I would only be guessing.
'3 I really think he was _very interested 1
in the event, you know, the fact that we were reporting an 15 event of this nature.
16 He did not indicate, that I can recall,
'7 anymore concern than overly criticality or non-criticality.
'l
'8 it was just an interest in the event.
O okay.
{
lj 20 So your impression was that his 5
21 interest was in the operator error?
f 22 A Absolutely.
23 0 okay.
24 Did he indicate whether he was -- that 25 he would find out the results of this review -- did he 37 l
i ask anyone?
l 2 A Well, I think what he asked me was, "If I wanted more 3 information about this, how could I obtain it?" And I 4 told him that Hari Arora, the reactor engineer, was 5 leading the investigation so that he could-use me or Craig 6
as his interface for obtaining information that Eari was 7 not available.
8 Q Did you have any discussion subsequent with --
)
9 A Well, within a very short time period'after our meeting, r to I made -- we have what we call a night order entry or a-11 night order book, that I can leave operating directives j I
12 to the operating. shif ts. 4 l
13 I wrote .a night order entry that l 14 directed the operators to monitor all future rods 15 withdrawal activity and the rod-worth-minimizar Groups I l 1s through.'IV with the second licensed operator or other
! 17 technically-qualified member of the unit staff; and.that would continue until further notice.
l{s 18
- 19 I hand-carried that directive to the z
20 shif t supervisor's of fice. While I was there, I received l
21 a call in his office from Mike Barker. He was requesting l
? !
' additional information; and the information was very l
. 22 23 specific to the incident, and you'would have needed to 24 have the recorder traces to be able to answer the 25 information that he was requesting.
38 L
_o
ke 1
I told him that I did not have'it, but 2 that I wpuid have the reactor engineer call him quickly.
3 Q Okay.
4 A I think -- well, I know he was asking me how did we 5 deternine that it was not critical; so back to your 6 earlier question, criticality was an issue in his mind, 7 although not specifically addressed 4t'the first meeting.
. 8 It was what he maked at the -- over the phone.
9 Hari Arora, the reactor engineer, was i 10 out in the control Roca general area when I hung up the 11 phone from talking with Mike, Mike Barker. I went out 12 and told Hari that' Mike wanted him to call him; and Hari 13 called him and went into the office and called him right 14 then, and that was the last discussion that I had with 15 Mike regardir.g this issue.
16 Q Did you lar.er talk to Mr. Arora about his discussion with 5 17 Mr. Barker?
! Yes, I talked with him.
18 A Yes, I did.
g 5 I
- 19 Q What was the discussion?
20 A Well, ha asked me was the reactor critical, and.I~ told him l
! 21 that -- and that he was still evaluating itt.but they i
, 22 had requested that some studies be done on here, at the 23 Nuclear Operations Center, which is where we are at now.
24 Q Did you attend any meetings discussing the operator error.
25 where a conversation centered around the significance or 39
1 1 insignificance of this event and whether this event would l I
2 or could impact the Ferini licensing for full power?
3 A No, I did not. {
i 4 Q Did anyone impress upon you the f act that if the Plant 5 had gone critical, and the NRC may. require some type'of 6' review,-that would delay licensing? j 7 A No one. !
.e Q Did that cross your mind at all?
~1 9 A Well, I would have-to be honest with you: j l
10 I did not realise that there even d 11 criticality, that it was an issue. I mean, we did not ,
1 12 even believe that it was, and again, it was two days l 13 , af ter the event that I even. had any discussion where it-14 could have been critical; so by that time, it was a moot 15 point.
16 Q When did you perceive that the NRC was taking a hard look i 17 at this issue? )
i
' l 18 A On July 15, when I got a phone call that said, "Need you.
j 19 in the superintendent's office right away. We have got 20 to talk." So it was 12 days after the event -- 13 days l
- t 21 after the event. That was a Monday; and that is when we ,
f 22 discussed the NRC's new-found interest.
23 Q So it was not from any contact with the resident inspector --
24 I mean, Mr. Barker did not seem anymore laterested in this' 25 issue than in anything else, any other issue that he addresseu 40 L_____________.____.__ -_ - _ _ . . -
1 l
I 1
with you on a day-to-day basis? ;
2 A That'is correct.
I 3
Q Are you satisfied with the way Mr. Aniol and the people I i
d on that shift handled this event? l l
~
I 5 A well, there was a lot of lessons that I think we have 6 learned from the event; and if faced with the.same l l
7 situation today, I am 100 percent certain that we would I i
8 handle it differently.
9 I will have to admit, though, at the 10 time we have ample opportunity in management to question 11 what had been done; and we also failed to recognize the l l
12 political or whatever, impact of the event. We just did l l
13 not -- we underestimated it. ,
1 14 i Given our recent level of heightened l 15 awareness, where if anything had ever, ever comes up 16 resolving a control rod, we are going to be in there in
- i i 17 gg11. force.
I !
18 But I'really don't see that he was in l 19 error in his handling of the situation. He certainly 20 could have done a better job in trying to get more people l
21 in and taking a longer time to evaluate it and being sure l
. 22 that we knew exactly where we were at. But again, what I 23 think he knew at the time, and given our overall level 24 of sensitivity to these types of issues, he did probably 25 what we had trained and expected him to do, expected of him_.
41
\.
' When I interviewed Mr. Aniol, he indicated that he had O
2 been criticized for reporting events or issues or things that he had been reporting, and not because.he was-reporting them, but because of the way he was reporting them was of 5
his gransnar, spelling, and his reports, that sort of thing.
6 Are you aware of any criticism of --
7 A of Dayid Asiol?
8 Q That he is referring to, yes. i A No, I am not.
' who would be reviewing his reports that would criticize O
his reporting?
12 A I really cannot answer that.
'3 Like I said earlier, the DER and the 1 NRC event notification are transmitted throughout the Edison Organization. In fact, there is a memo that is written to the President of teh Company who at any time ]
! that we have to notify the NRC of events, he wants to be
'8 l informed os what is happening in Fermir so anywhere along f the line, there may have been an opportunity for someone to criticize him.
I 21 j Again, I am not personally aware of r
- 22 anyone having done that. Certainly, I haven't done that.
23 Q Did it surprise you that the operation logs did not contain 24 any documents or any notification of the event occurring?
25 A Yes,' it did surprise me that the shift supervisor's lo9 had
. 42 !
i i
no information regarding this event; but I would like to 2 add one thing if I could:
3 This has been an on-going battle at .
4 this Plant to enforce the fellows who are technically 5
oriented to sit down and write clear, concise and thorough {
6 logs so it was not as if there was any reason for me'to 7 be Concerned that this was an entry that was not'made.
-i a
It was something that, you know, we 9 have been, again, trying to_just raise the people's 10 awareness level; and it is something that the resident 11 and the senior resident inspector have been talking'to_ l l
12 me and my bosses about for a long time.
13 I mean,.we have all recognized the 14 need to improve the quality of the operator's logs; and is although it surprised, it did not surprise as perhaps 16 it surprised others like nervous, some attempt to withold
!=
- i 17 information. It was another incident where the fellow did
. is not take the time to sit down and record one of the ' events l 19 that occurred on his shif t. ,
is Because this one was administrative as ll 20 21 opposed to technical, in his mind, I can see'where, you i
. 22 know, the f act that he did not record calling me, that is 23 administrative. The fact that he did not record that we 24 had a violation of the control rods withdraw sequence, 25 that is an administrative thing.
3
... 1 v
l l
l 1
Had he believed that -- had there 2 been damage to the Plant or damage to the initiation of 3 some ECCS equipment or an actuation or isolation, those d
i kinds of things are recorded.: it is the detail of this
~
l . l 5 thing that just tends to not make - the books. .
6 So I was not alarmed. Disappointed, 7
yes; but Garmed or, you know, no.
8 Q Nell, . I am somewhat surprised that it was not recorded 9 in either the shift operator's log or the reactor
'O operator's log; and that the shif t' supervisor was critical l of the reactor engineer recording it. i 12 Well, it was content as opposed to the fact that there was A
13 It was the content, not the fact that he made h J an entry. i y l l'
I the entry -- that he was, again, crticizing him, to me, is it was the content of his entry, not the fact that he
'6 made one.
17 It was, you know, these guys are 1
18 making inaccurate logs book entries: the f act that one
'8
{ guy in his log said the reactor had went critical, and 20 it was not even close; and you guys ought to be watching 21 what kind of log books' are being maintained Op here.
- 22 Okay.
O 23 See, the point is, those log books are 24 there for review, for audits.and the DER's are not l
25 necessarily, as you stated it, if it was decided that it 44
i was not a DER reportable event, it could have been 2 discarded, j 3 A Not reportable. ;
4 Now, the DER, that falls into two i
s classifications j 6 There is deportability determination 7 that is made Very early in the game; but they also help-8 us in our objectives to try to operate the Plant with l
9 excellency; so 90 percent of all of~the DER's result in i 1
10 them not being reportable to the commission, so the 1 11 deportability is only a small aspect of the DER process. l l
l 12 I meant it -- what I meant was that 13 j
it may not have fell in to the_ guidelines for DER period.
14 Q Correct. That is my point also.
15 A You know, a guy spills a gallon of water on the floor, l 16 we may write a DER about that; and after review of it in 9
3 17 the entirety, we might say that is not -- it does not lI
- 18 meet the criteria.
l!
- 19 Another case, a piece of gear could r
j 20 f ail to function- properly, and you could look at that and o'
j 21 say that that is a normal-expected maintenance activity r
22 on that piece of equipment.
23 Just to initiate a corcective work-24 request, and not DER it. So that is all I meant.
25 Q Well, that is my point, though.
45 i
i _ _ _ _____ _
I l
3 If that event were decided to not 2
meet the threshold of requiring a DER and is not recorded 3
into the log book that is open for inppection, then the 1 1
4 event is not documented?
5 A Okay.
I And I am wondering if Mr. Aniol had that in his mind. !
6 0 7 A Well --
e Q When he had his discussion with the reactor operator and when he talked to you about the -- directed you to be i g
10 aware of the logged entry by the reactor operator.
13 Would you get that perception?
12 A Absolutely not.
13 I see where there is nothing to be 1
14 gained by David Aniol or certainly not anyone on the 15 Plant staff. I am having a hard time understanding the 16 entire line of thought in that respect. It has always I i 17 been, as I said earlier, it has always been our policy i
'. 18 to report on the side of conservatism, and if you go
- 19 back into the NRC records and see how many times we have 20 called the commission and subsequently called them up l
21 and said, "Now, upon a closer review by management, we j i* i I
22 have determined that this event was not truly, reportable 23 under the existing Plant condition, and we would like to 24 downgrade that event that we notified you
- bout yesterday i
25 from 10-CFR reportable to just a courtesy call," the are 46
1 a number of them in the file.
2 so the shift supervisors were not in 3 a quandry or there is no mistake on their part that we 4 make the phone call. We worry about whether it was right 5 or not the next day.
6 It is always better to have made it 7 when it was not needed, than to not have made it when it-8 was; so there is no problem _ in that area, and there is l
9 no pressure on their part -- on our part to ask them not 10 to make those calls.
11 That is, again, what makes it 12 difficult to understand the line of thinking, because 13 there was no percentage in it for Mr. Aniol or any of 14 the shift members to try and withold information. It was i
15 just -- there was nothing there for them.
16 Q Mr. Preston, have I or any other NRC representative i 17 threatened you in any manner or offered you any reward in g
18 return for your statement?
- 19 A No one.
t 20 0 Have you given your statement freely and voluntarily?
l 21 A I have.
i 22 O Is there anything further you care to add for the record?
23 A Well, I would just like to add one thing:
24 I had a conversation with the seni3r 25 resident inspector regarding this issue after the visit to 47
a i Glen Ellyn for the presentation; and he indicated to me 2 that he was aware 1of this event on July 3, when Mr. Barker 3 was made aware'of it; and he also indicated that he had 1
4 made Nick Cradamus aware of this event at that time; and 5 he indicated that he did not see it as an issue because-6 the Plant had not went critical.
7 At least, his information at that time a
was that it had not went critical; and I asked.him what 9 made it an issue now when,-in fact, at the' hearing',
1 . .
10 Mr. Koper said criticality is not an issue.
l 11 So it was a little bit of a 12 misunderstanding on our part as to what has changed from 13 July 3 when it was first. brought to his attention, and 14 he in turn brought it to his management's attention; and-is on July 15, when he was informed that it was critical, 16 and then on July 20, we went down to the region and they-l! 17 said criticality is not an issue.
I
, . 18 I am not really sure.that everybody 1
19 in the NRC is being as upfront about this as they-20 Possibly could either, with regard to whether they were l
! 21 involved or not.
i
- 22 Q Well, the criticality may not be the issue, certainly 23 the operator error is more of an issue.
24 A Well, what made its error more significant on July 15, 4
25 than it was on July 37 That is my question.
48
.i 1
1 Q Well, the fact that prior to or at the commission hearing l 2 for the licensing of the Fermi -- of Fermi's full-power 3 licensing, one of the agenda items was if it was an l
4 operator error at the Fermi Power Stations and the NRC 5 was very complimentary of the Detroit Edison, and they 6 felt -- the NRC felt that we were not fully aware of the i
7 significance of this event that maybe some notification 8 should have been made prior to the licensing.
9 A Well, beyond the discussions with Mr. Barker, who in turn l
10 discussed it with Mr. Byron and.Mr. Cradamus?
11 Possibly.
Q 1 i
12 A Okay. .
13 MR. KALKMAN: Thank you.
14 (Deposition concluded at 4:55 p.m.)
15 - - .
16
?
$ 17 1 ;
! 19 20 21
- 22 23 24
- s 25 49
1 Q Well, the fact that prior to or at the comunission hearing l
2 for the licensing of the Fermi -- of Fermi's full-power l
3 licensing, one of the agenda items was if it was an 4 operator error at the Fermi Power Stations and the NRC l I
5 was very complimentary of the Detroit Edison, and they l l r ,
l 6 felt -- the NRC felt that we were not fully aware of the I 1
7 significance of this event that maybe some notification l r I 8 should have been made prior to the licensing. i l
9 A Well, beyond the discussions with Mr. Barker, who in turn 10 discussed it with Mr. Byron and Mr. Cradamus?
11 0 Possibly. l l
12 A Okay. .
i 13 MR. KALKMAN: Thank you.
14 (Deposition concluded at 4:55 p.m.) !
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