ML20237K193

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Transcript of Ofc of Investigations Investigative Interview of Rs Lenart on 850723 in Glen Ellyn,Il Re 850702 Reactor Operator Error at Plant.Pp 1-23
ML20237K193
Person / Time
Site: Fermi DTE Energy icon.png
Issue date: 07/23/1985
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NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI)
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ML20237J518 List:
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FOIA-86-245 NUDOCS 8708270089
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UN11ED STATES l NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION I

1 IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: l l

! 0FFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW 1

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1 l

CLOSED 1 1

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LOCADON: GLEN ELLYN, IL PAGES: 1 - 23 DATE: TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1985 I

r ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

444 Mann CapitolStreet Nhington, D.C. 20001

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[g 8708270009 870819 hTEN 6-245 PDR NAMONWIDE COVDACE ,

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1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

- 2 3

IN THE MATTER OF: Investigative Interview, 4 Closed Meeting.

5 INTERVIEW OF: Robert S. Lenart.

6 7

- 8 Report of proceedings taken at the interview in:

9 the above-entitled cause on Tuesday, July 23, 1985, 10 at 799 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

11 12 <

PRESENT:

( 13 MR. JAMES N. K A LKM A.W , Investigator 14 MR. TERRANCE LANG, Reactor Engineer U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 15 office of Investigations l Field Offices Region III i 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

4 e e . ,

I i

i' 1 MR. KALKMAN: For the record, this is an

-- 2 interview with Robert Lenart, L-e-n-a-r-t, who is 3 employed by Detroit Edison Company. The location of 4 this interview is NRC Region III, Glen Ellyn 5 Illinois. Present at this interview are Mr. Lenart; 6 Detroit Edison general attorney Mr. Marquardt; NRC l

7 reactor engineer Terrance Lang; and NRC investigator  ;

-1 8 James Kalkman. The subject matter of this interview 9 concerns a reactor operator error at the Fermi II 10 operator Station.on July 2, 1985.

11 Mr. Lenart, would you please stand and 12 raise your right hand.

13 (Witness sworn.)

l 14 ROBERT S. LENART, 15 called as a witness herein, having been first duly 16 sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

17 EXAMINATION

18 BY 19 MR. KALKMAN 20 O. Mr. Lenart, you're the plant manager or --

21 which title do you hold?

22 A. Assistant manager, nuclear production.

23 O. And how long have you been employed in that 24 capacity?

25 A. Well, let,'s see, we made a transition; but 2

. _ _ . . . ~ . _ _ . _ _ . _ - _ . _ _ _ . . . _. _ -.._.._-.___.-_-__.______-.___.-.____._._____m_-_-_-__ J

1 the capacity -- the equivalent capacity,-

- - 2 approximately two years.

3 Q. Have you been with Detroit Edison for --

4 A. Almost 25 years. ,

5 Q. Is --

so Fermi II is your only nuclear I l

1 6 experience?

7 A. Yes. 1 8 Q.. What do you recall of the --

of your being-9 made aware of the operator error that occurred on 10 July 1st or 2nd --

11 A. 2nd.

1 12 Q. -- 19857

~

l 13 A. The first time I can recall being aware H 14 that there was an operator error would have been on ]

l 15 the -- sometime in the early morning of July the 2nd, 16 early morning someplace between 6:00 and 8:00 17 o' clock. I normally get in around 6:00, and it was i

18 before the staff meeting at 8:00; so_that's the best-19 I can do in terms of time frames.

l 20 And that was, I believe, via ,

t 21 information received from Gene Preston, the j 22 operation engineer; but I am not absolutely sure.

23 There was someone at the plant that made me aware of

/,- 24 the incident. And the -- at'that point I had not 25 much detail with regard to the incident other than-3 I

1 it was corrected on shift. Whatever the error was, 2 it was evaluated, that it was not reportabler and 3 therefore the shift supervisor made a decision to l

4 continue with the startup.

5 O. How much did you know of the incident? j 6 A. Just about what I told you, that was the i

7 extent of it. ] 1 8 Q. You knew it was a rod pull --

9 A. Yes. j i

i 10 Q. -- error?

j . 1 l

11 A. Yes.

l -

12 Q. And did the matter of whether the plant ,

i 13 went critical come up in that first discussion?

14 A. Not to my knowledge.

15 O. Did you think --

16 A. No, I didn't.

17 0 --

of that issue occurring?

18 A. No.

l 19 0 Are you a degreed engineer?

20 A. Yes.

21 Q. In what --

22 A. Mechanical engineer.

l 23 Q. You're a mechanical engineer.

24 Following the --

that initial .

25 notification on July 2nd, what was your next 4

1 in<nL>ement with this incident?

-- 2 A. Let's see, that was the 2nd -- I should 3 know. I just went over it. It was the evaluation, 4 the first evaluation meeting which was held, I 5 believe, on the 3rd of July. It was at I believe 6 10:00 o' clock in the morning.

7 That was the next time the subject 8 came up. There was other dialogue during --

during 9 the course of the afternoon of the 2nd and first 10 part of the 3rd, but that was all focused around 11 that we should set up a meeting with the reac ir 12 engineering group, operations, myself, Gregg 13 overbeck', Leo Lessor, and Preston, get the people in 14 a room and start evaluating this thing.

15 So there was dialogue, but it was all 16 not in detailed to the event other than getting 17 ready to discuss the event with the appropriate ,

18 people.

19 Q. When was the first time that you were aware 20 of the fact that the plant had in fact gone critical?

21 A. That would have been late in the afternoon 22 of the 5th, after the second meeting, at which time l

23 I was passing through the lobby area of where my 24 office is and where Gregg Overbeck's office is; and 25 the conference room is just around the corner.

5 t

L

I l

l 1 And lue was either just coming out of l l

1

- - 2 that meeting -- but it was fresh on his mind because 3 he stopped by and said, " Bob, we just had the second 4 meeting, and we have finally come to a resolution:

5 and all parties agree that the reactor did go 6 critical." I acknowledged the fact that I had heard 1

7 him, and that was the extent of it.

8 Q. Did you --

did you give Mr. Overbeck any 1

9 instructions on how to -- how to respond to the NRC 10 or to notify the NRC of this' incident?

l 11 A. After the fir.st --

12 0 After that. l 13 A. After the first meeting or second meeting?

14 O. In either case.

15 A. In the first meeting, because there was --

16 out of the first meeting, what was got out of that I 17 meeting was that there was indeed a violation of the 18 procedures; that event that occurred would require 19 additional investigation; that we weren't certain 20 with regard to whether or not we went critical; and 21 there were really two decisions that came -- at 22 least to my knowledge --

two decision or directivec 23 that came out of that meeting.

24 One was that we were to put in place 25 the two-man operator verification for groups three i 6

l 1

1 1 and four. That came out of that meeting, that any

- 2 subsequent startups would have the two-man rule.

3 MR. LANG: What was the -- why was that decision --

4 what was that decision based on, to do this 5 verification?

6 THE WITNESS: It was mainly based on the fact 7 that until we straightened out what at that . time

. 8 appeared to be a conflict o r -- not a conflict, but 9 a potential for misinterpreting the pull sheet, we 10 put that into effect.

11 MR. LANG: Okay.

12 MR. KALKMAN: Q. So did --

~~

13 A. And then the other thing that came out of 14 that meeting --

I said there were two things. If I 15 recall correctly, I asked Gregg and Gene Preston --

16 I don't know if I asked both. Well, it was probably 17 Gregg, and he said Gene and him would take care of 18 it, to inform the NRC resident inspector.

19 Those were the two -- well, then the 20 third action, I don't mean there were three -- then

, 21 nuclear engineering, reactor engineering, was to l

, 22 take and do a more thorough analysis of the event to 23 determine whether or not criticality had been 24 attained or not. So those were really the'three --

25 the three action items, if I recall, that came out.

7 L _________ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

4 1 of that meeting. That was first time that any .

3

- 2 acknowledgment was made, to my knowledge, that we 3 should take some steps to informing NRC.

4 To my knowledge that was carried out.

5 I did not witness it, I did not see it, and I wasn't i l

6 present at it.

7 Q. Did Mr. Overbeck' contact you later and say, 8 "Yes, we did in fact" --

9 A. I believe he did, yes, sir. ,

10 Q. Did you personally have any discussions or 11 any contact with any NRC representatives relating to 12 this inadvertent criticality?

13 A. No, sir.

14 Q. Did you notify any of your management --

15 any people that yoy report to of this incident?

16 A. I reported to them -- now again, I want to 17 clarify the incident, the incident Deing the mistake 18 in the rod pull, and that was on the -- that would 19 have been the afternoon of the 3rd that Wayne Jens 20 was over in the -- in my area.

21 His office is in another building, but-22 he happened to be over there that day for another 23 meeting, and I can't recall the meeting; but when 24 the meeting broke up, there were two things that I.

25 wanted to bring.Dr. Jens to speed on, and one of 8

L____________._____________________________.______ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

1 them was to inform him that many -- I don't know if 1

2 it the first time I informed him of the fact we had 3 the mispull. But I am sure at that time I repeated 4 the fact there was a mispull.

5 .And we had~ earlier in the morning had

')

6 a meeting in which this subject was discussed with 7 regard to whether the reactor did or didn't go l 8 critical. There were difference's of opinion in that 9 meeting, and that I wanted him to be aware of that 10 fact; and I basically told him because,-you know, I 11 thought it would be --

oh, from a PR stand point, a i

12 sensitive issue --

and told him what the game plan i 1 --

l 13 was: reactor engineering was to go back and do  ;

l 14 another analysis, and that there would be further j

)

15 results. That, to my knowledge, is at least the 16 only time, to my knowledge, that sticks in my mind 17 that I had a face to face or over the phone, any 18 kind of direct communication with him on that 19 specific subject, was that one incident.

20 Q. So you left him with the with the l 21 information, at least from what I gather, that the j . 22 plant --

it was still undecided or undetermined '

l l 23 whether the plant had in fact gone critical?

24 A. That's correct.

l t

25 O. So at that point he would not have known?

. 9

1 A. . No, sir.

2 Q. And you don't recall a later discussion 3 where you would have related to him the outcome of 4 the engineering group findings?

5 A. That's correct.

6 Q. What about any other -- Mr. Agosti or any 7 other management, Fermi management?

8 A. Not to my knowledge.

9 Q. So this incident was kept within two people 10 subordinate to yourself?

11 A. The incident -- well, I guess it depends on 12 how you look at it. The incident was known to Mr.

13 Jens. The one place that -- in fact, we talked 14 about it at the time we had the brief discussion, if 15 the real incident was the abnormality with regard to 16 the pull sheet and the error in the pull sheet.

17 And other than -- and we determined --

18 we had a little dialogue saying whether it went 19 critical or didn't go critical. The deportability 20 issue really wasn't a factor. And I guess that was, 21 yes, the extent of the entire incident as such, not 22 necessarily focusing in on the criticality issue.

23 That -- I have to admit, I guess I 24 wasn't as sensitive as to whether it did or didn't 25 go critical. The whole issue boiled down to an 10

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1 operator error. And whether.it did or didn't go

- - 2 critical really didn't change -- at least from a 3 reportable incident -- an issue which I think, if

-4 that would have been the case, it would have been 5 pursued further with management.

6 But it didn't change any of that.

7 The --

I made him aware of what I believed to be the-8 other significant thing, that if the information had' 9 left the plant via any people including whatever the 10 discussion was with the NRC, that possibly the  ;

1 11 reactor could have gone-critical, he would have been l 12 aware of that. From that standpoint he would not I 13 have been -- he would not have been caught offguard.

14 And therefore if a call had come in i

15 the next day, two days later, or three days later, I

16 he would have been aware of the incident that took 17 place. If someone said, "I heard that the plant 18 went critical at such and such a time over an 19 incident," he would have been aware of the incident.-

i 20 And that was my primary purpose-for j 21 informing him, so he~wouldn't --uif he were to get a 22 call from someplace and if he. felt appropriate, he 23 could. inform the public affairs or'whatever it may 24 be of it. That was really the. purpose and my intent i 25 of informing. And when we found out that it did go 11'

1 critical, l' guess it didn't change my rationale at

- - 2 all for why I had initially informed him. So I 3 didn't --

4 O. You didn't think it was --

5 A. --

Purcue it.

6 O. -- important to let him know that the plant 7 had in fact gone critical for the same reasons: in 8 case he was called, he could verify; or in case some 9 intervener or some newspserson got wind of this, he 10 could respond?

l 11 A. Well, I guess in hindsight that may have 12 been the appropriate thing do do. I have to 13 honestly say I didn't do it.

14 c. Were you present at the Commission hearing l 1

1 15 for full power license? l 16 A. Yes, sir.

I 17 0 Were you aware of the agenda item of  !

18 operator error that was to be discussed at the 19 Commission hearing? ,

f 20 A. No, sir.

21 0 That was one of the --

one of the things

}

22 discussed at the Commission hearing, was it not?

23 A. The first time I saw the presentation was f l

-~ 24 at the time it was presented at the Commission ,

25 hearing. l 12 j j

l

1 Q. But that was -- was that an item discussed

- - 2 at the meeting, at the hearing;. do you recall?

3 A. I remember a comment being made in that 4 regard, yes.

5 Q. By whom?

6 A. I believe it was one of the commissioners l

7- during one of his statements with regard to operator --

l l 8 operator error.

L 9 O. Do you recall the assistant regional 10 manager, Burt Davis, responding to the Commission 11 that Fermi or Detroit Edison had a very good-12 performance record relating to operator --

operator 13 actions, very minimal operator error or anything 14 like-that? I wasn't at the meeting, so --

15 A. Well, there were several that I would 16 classify as complimentary comments made, and I l

17 would --

I can't recall all of them. But,I would 18 assume there was ones such as that made.

0 19 O. There was an operator error that occurred, 20 I think it was discussed at the meeting, at the 21 Commission meeting, that occurred just,before the 1

i 22 Commission meeting, a day before'or'the'same day.

a 23 A. That's true, that's right. iThe night l

24 before the hearing, that's correct.

1 .

, 25 O. And I think:that was the only operator *

<13 1

/

l.

.n . -

1 error that was'related to . th'e Commission.

. - 2 A. That's correct, but it's not the only 3 operator error that's been made.

4 Q. No, but did you -- did you perceive that 5 Mr. Davis or the commissioners were not aware of the 6 inadvertent criticality error?

7 A. No, sir. No, sir. As far as I knew, when 8 the resident was informed -- and I assumed he was 9 informed because I wasn't there, but I have no 10 reason not --

to doubt that Mr. Overbeck and Preston 11' carried out the directive that was asked of them; 12 that the NRC was informed.

WOU 13 It was not --

it was not ~ reportable.

14 And we have in the past in many, many instances -- l l

15 not exactly similar to this, but abnormal plant i 16 operations have occurred -- have sat down across the 17 table from either Paul Byron or Mike Parker and have 18 discussed the issue and have.aseumed that whatever 19 the normal channels are for that information to be 20 communicated take place.

21 And they have not hesitated in the 22 past when there have been questions with. regard to l l

l 23 an incident to come back and ask or on their own 24 continue'toslook into it.

l 25 This one really -- really --'really, l

14 l

l

i 1 nothing happened. I had no -- I.had no clues that

.. 2 there was interest in the Commission anyplace with 3 regard to this incident. It was absolutely quiet.

4 Q. Did that surprise you? I mean you just 5 related that Mr. Byron --

6 A. It surprises me now.

7 Q. -- and Mr. Parker, in the normal course of 8 their -- of events, they would come to you and ask 9 about an incident such as that.

10 A. Only if they had questions, you know.

I 11 0 Wouldn't that lead you to believe that 12 maybe they were misinformed or didn't know about 13 the --

didn't understand the significance of the 14 incident?

15 A. It didn't enter my mind, to be honest with 16 you. I guess I had a lot of other -- a lot of 17 things on my mind at the time, and it was an 18 incident that took care -- that took place.

19 We were working on it internally as a 20 problem and dealing with it, along with other things 21 that we had to take care of, in the course of 22 running the facility. And it never entered my mind.

23 I knew Paul was --

right after that, '!

i 24 right after the SALP meeting -- he wasn't at the

, 25 station. He got tied up then on a Monday and 15

1,

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