ML20237K212
| ML20237K212 | |
| 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 8708270097 | |
| Download: ML20237K212 (43) | |
Text
--
ORIGINkL
(
UNn ED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
IN THE MXITER OF:
DOCKET NO:
UFFICE OF INVESTIGATION INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW l
CLOSED
)
i t.oCARON:
GLEN ELLYN, IL PAGES:
1 - 41 DATE:
TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1985 i
ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
, b OWwialt w
~7 i 444 North CapitolSemt Washington, D.C. 20001 l@
(262) 347-7/00 eg82;g;p 87o819 g_q)
PUNTENN86-245 PDR 2
Jh 5
I.
1 l
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2
3 IN THE MATTER OF:
Investigative Interview, 4
Closed Meeting.
5 INTERVIEW OF:
Gregg Overbeck.
6 7
8 9
Report of proceedings taken at the interview in 10 the above-entitled cause on Tuesday, July 23,
- 1985, 11 at 799 Roosevelt Road, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
12 13 14 PRESENT:
15 MR.
JAMES N.
KALKMAN, Investigator 16 MR.
TERRANCE LANG, Reactor Engineer U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission 17 Office of Investigations Field Office: Region III 18 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137; 19 MR.
PETER A.
MARQUARDT, General Attorney 20 Detroit / Edison 200 Second Avenue 21 Detroit, Michigan 48226.
22 23 Glen Ellyn, Illinois 24 July 23, 1985 25 1
~ ~.
m
1 MR. KALKMAN:
For the record, this is an 1
2 interview of Gregg overbeck, 0-v-e-r-b-e-e-k, who is 3
employed by Detroit Edison company.
The location of 4
this interview is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 5
Region III Office, Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
6 Present at this interview are 7
Mr. Overbeck; Peter Marquardt, M-a-r-q-u-a-r-d-t, 8
general counsel, Detroit Edison.
9 MR. MARQUARDT:
General attorney.
10 MR. KALKMAN:
General attorney, Detroit Edison; 11 Terrance Lang, L-a-n-g, NRC Reactor Engineer; and I
12 Jim Kalkman, K-a-1-k-m-a-n, Investigator, NRC.
1 Ii 13 As agreed, this interview is being 14 transcribed by court reporter, Lisa Selepa.
The 15 subject matter of this interview concerns a reactor 16 operator error at the Fermi II Nuclear Power Station 17 on July 2,
1985.
18 Mr. Overbeck, would you please stand 19 and raise your right hand.
20 (Witness sworn.)
21 GREGG OVERBECK, 22 called as a witness herein, having been first duly 23 sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
24 EXAMINATION 25 BY 2
t
-1 HR. KALKMAN:
-(
2 0
Mr. Overbeck,'could you. relate your 3
position at the Fermi Plant.
1 1
4 MR. MARQUARDT:
Jim, I don't mean"to interfere 5
with the investigation or the interview; but as a 6
starting point, I wonder whether you could explain 7
to Mr. Overbeck why he is here in general terms, I'
8 guess, so that he's got an idea.of:what the nature 9
of the questions are and what they're going to j
I i
l 10 relate to.
l
]
l j
11 MR. KALKMAN:
Okay.
12 We're here to ask Mr. Overbeck about
(
13 his involvement or the events surrounding the 14 reactor operator error on the July 1st-2nd, 1985, 15 dates.
)
16 A.
Specifically how it's relating the' events 17 technically or notification?
18 O.
Probably both.
19 A.
Okay.
l 20 0
We will get into areas of interest, both 21 the Office of Investigations and the NRC on the 22 technical issues.
23 A.
Okay.
24 O.
It would be more related to the 25 deportability of the incident.
3 1
+-
1-A.
Okay.
2 O.
So could you tell us.your position?
3 A.
Yeah.
At-the time of the the evente I was 4
my title was assistant plant; superintendent, nuclear 5
production.
6 O.
And that's a -- what level'of management is 7
that?
l i
.2 8
A.
Okay.
In our company that was probably a 9
second or third level supervision, and'specifically 10 I reported to the plant superintendent,. nuclear 11 production.
12 0
Which was whom?
13 A.
Robert S.
Lenart.
14 0
So you reported directly to Mr. Lenart?
15 A.
That's correct.
16 0
The incident we're referring to is'the 17 operator error in the -- withdrawing the fluid rods 18 which we discussed this morning.
19 A.
The control rods, right.
20' O.
The control rods.
21
. Were you at the site, at.the Fermi 22 site, when the incident occurred?
I
)
23 A.
No, I was not.
I was at home.
.l 24 O.
You normally work a day shift?
25 A.
Normally work a day shift, right, normally.
4
l l
1 It's plus or minus hours on either end.
2 O.
And the event, the incident occurred around l
3 midnight between the 1st and 2nd of July?
4 A.
Right.
5 O.
And could you relate for us when you were 6
notified of the incident?
J i
7 A.
Okay.
The event occurred on very close l
O to midnight on the 1st.
Reactor was taken critical j
l 9
in the early morning of the 2nd.
I normally hold a 10 staff meeting every morning, 8:00 o' clock in the 1
i 11 morning.
On this particular morning, which was on I
12 the 2nd, I believe'that was a that was either a l
13 Tuesday it was a Tuesday.
l 14 Tuesday have you got a calendar?
15 O.
Yes, it was.
16 A.
It was a Tuesday.
It was the morning.
We 17 had the SALP presentation by the NRC, and I was 18 scheduled to go to that meeting at about 8:30, 9:00 19 o' clock.
I think it was supposed to start about 20 9:00 o' clock.
My staff meeting usually runs about 21 an hour.
And it was in that staff meeting, we went 22 through what plant operations were and progress and 23 what problems we were having, what we were supposed 24 to accomplish during the day.
25 And we generated the plant activities 5
1 that we wanted to try to accomplish in the next 24 2
hours.
With that we had a I was wrapping up the 3
meeting.
Gene Preston, my operations engineer, was 4
sitting.next to me, showed me a DER of the out of
]
1 5
sequence rod pull.
J 6
Q.
Excuse me.
j
[
7 What does DER stand for?
l l
l 8
A.
Deviation event report.
I'll probably I
]
l 9
refer to it a number of times as DER.
And that 10 documented initially the event and the nuclear shift 11 supervisors, the initial determination deportability.
12 That's the very first time that I knew s
(
13 something had occurred, that was documented.
14 O.
Let me just see if I have it correct then.
15 You came to the site the morning of the 2nd?
16 A.
Right.
1 l
17 Q.
Your normal course of business is to have a 1
18 staff meeting?
19 A.
Yeah.
I got there about 0700.-
The staff 20 meeting is 0800.
I saw the DER probably I am 21 guessing the time now, about 0845.
22 O.
Did you discuss the DER with Mr. Preston or 23 anybody else?
24 A.
I think my words were something o,n the line, 25
" Shit, what happened?"
And he said, "We pulled out 6
WW
}
\\
{
1 of sequence rods."
I said, "Was the reactor l
2 critical?"
He says, "On the DER, no, the reactor j
3 wasn't critical."
i, i
j 4
I said, "Okay.
We'll cover it in a l
5 CsRB meeting later today."
l i
l 6
O.
A CARB?
7 A.
CARB, corrective action review board.
i 8
That's where we bring the DER's for another i
l 9
subsequent review, sorry.
10 C.
So that your analysis then was, "We'll 11 handle this at the CARB meeting"?
12 A.
Right.
I know that I guess what I am 13 trying to relate I knew that something occurred.
14 I knew there was a DER.
I knew we had an out of 15 sequence rod pull.
And the evaluation on the DER 16 says " reactor was not critical."
17 0
Okay.
l 18 Did you discuss the DER or the l
19 incident with Mr. Preston or anyone else at that l
)
20 time?
21 A.
No.
l l
22 O.
You knew the DER would be reviewed 23 A.
Right, I knew that.
24 O.
Procedurally it would be reviewed by the 25 CARB board?
7 w
w m.
m
._---------..J
1 1
A.
Later in the day, of which I was the I
-f 2
chairman.
I expected to be the chairmen, so I knew I
i 3
I was going to be faced with a DER again.
4 That was normally scheduled at 12:30, 5
and that's when I expected at 12:30 that was what 6
I would be doing.
]
7 Q.
You asked Mr. Preston if the reactor had 8
gone critical?
9 A.
That's what I remember.
If-I didn't ask l
10 him, it was written there that the reactor did not 11 go critical.
12 Q.
You had no other contact with any of the
(
13 people that were in the control room the evening 14 when the incident occurred?
15 A.
No, I did not.
16 Q.
Would you continue with the course of 17 events of that day.
18 A.
Well, then the next time that the l
19 particular event that we're talking about would 20 occur was in the corrective action review board 21 meeting.
And I believe that occurred approximately 22 on time, 12:30, the tenacity of the time of the day 23 is pretty continuous.
24 I am having a hard time I know it 25 was in early afternoon that we sat down and talked 8
m__-_________
______________.m_
I l
1 about'it.
And there was a number of other DER's
^!
2 that had been executed that day.
3 That particular one I remember saying, 1
l 4
"Okay, yeah.
I remember seeing this one."
I 5
remembered looking at the deportability, the fact' l
6 that the reactor didn't go critical.
And at'that 7
time it had that the rods were reinserted and 8
resumed criticality.
That's what we ultimately went 9
to.
The DER actually didn't say that, but I knew 10 that was the case when we came in.
11 What I remember is evaluating it as I
it was not j
12 not being reportable and not being 13 marked 10CFR73 deportability; so I marked it after i
I 14 my review as not being reportable.
15 And I still believe to this date that 16 is not reportable.
17 0
Okay.
18 Did part of the review process of the 19 DER include a discussion with anyone?
20 A.
Yeah.
In the in the CARB there were 21 some other members, and I guess I'd have to go back 22 to the sheet to tell you who was there.
But there 23 was a licensed -- what we call a compliance engineer 24 there who was familiar with the codes.
25 There was a quality assurance 9
w.
l l'
1 individual there, I don't remember who it was.
.I
(
~
2 believe-Mr. Lessor was there.
I say I believe,.I j
3 can't say for sure.
And there was somebody from our
];
4 maintenance organization there.
5 Although not CARB members, I also i
6 believe there were some other people there, but I 7
don't remember who they were.
We did discuss it, the fact that the 8
what happened, and the 9
operators felt that there was that the reactor 10 didn't go critical; and a feeling on my reactor l
11 engineering side that possibly we had been critical.
12 That was discussed.
It was my i
l 13 determination that the next thing we do in the 14 evaluation of an event and I said I wanted I
J l
15 specifically remember saying, "I want this event 16 evaluated independently by our reactor engineering 17 department, separate from the operators.
I know 18 what the operators said.
I want somebody separate 19 to go back and do an evaluation, the reactor 20 engineering people."
i 21 So I assigned the evaluation to 22 nuclear production, reactor engineering excuse me, 23 nuclear engineering, because at the time they 24 weren't in nuclear production nuclear engineering, i
25 reactor. engineering to do the evaluation, and 10 s.e=
n.
l 1
assigned a due date of the 9th -- yeah, assigned a i
1 2
due date of July 9th.
3 O.
For an evaluation to determine if in fact 4
the reactor had gone critical?
l 5
A.
Not only that, but determine the root cause 6
of the whole event.
I assigned it initially to 7
reactor engineering to get the -- whether it was 8
critical or not.
Also I thought that since they l
9 were an engineering organization independent of the 10 plant operation, that they could also do an 11 evaluation.
I assigned the 9th because, in my view, 12 it was a significant event; and I wanted to get a 13 review within a week's period, and from the 2nd 14 the 2nd to the 9th is one week.
15 O.
Okay.
You stated that you knew that your 16 that the operations people what they had said in 17 that evaluation was that it had not gone critical.
18 A.
Right.
19 Q.
Now, what caused you to take this other 20 action, to have this other review performed?
21 A.
W e l l,. I think it's fairly inherent in my 22 background and trnining that when you have an event 23 like this, you always get an independent review by 24 somebody else.
I didn't want to give it back to the 1
25 operators to determine their own root cause.
11 mm_____. _ _ _
1
,1 l
1 That is the bottom line.
I didn't 2
have to give it to someone else.
Because of the rod 1
3 cequence pull, I knew the reactor. engineering people I
4 should be properly motivated to want to look into it.
l 5
So I thought from that standpoint, I 6
guess, an independent review should be performed, j
7 and they should be properly motivated; and that-8 would be a good choice.
They also, from my view, 1
9 could be credible in my view to come back and say, "We 10 were critical."
l 11 Q.
Did you have any indication at this time, 12 at the time you made the assignment, that the plant j
13 had gone critical?
I I
14 A.
No.
I had not seen any of the charts, nor 15 talked to any individuals directly.
16 MR. LANG:
Did you at that CARB did you, you 17 or through Gene, find out if anybody read the logs?
18 THE WITNESS:
No, I did not ask that question, 19 and to my knowledge it was not discussed.
20 MR. MARQUARDT:
To be clear for the record, the 21 Gene you refer to is Gene Preston?
22 MR. LANG:
That's correct.
23 THE WITNESS:
That's who I assumed you were 24 talking about.
Thank you.
25 MR. KALKMAN:
O.
So we're to the CARB meeting.
12 6
e
l 1
That was the afternoon of July 2nd?
(
2 A.
Uh-huh.
l 3
O.
Did you take any further action to notify 4.anyone else in your management staff or whomever of 5
that incident?
6 A.
Well, this is where it becomes a little 7
difficult.
Bob Lenart and I have had discussions 8
lots of times, and it's usually either in the 9
morning or in the late afternoon when things cettle 10 down or as we see each other during the day.
11 And I do believe I spent some time 12 with him that afternoon, late afternoon, said, " Hey, 13 we had an out of sequence rod pull."
And what I had 14 done in the CARB, and let him know about the 15 evaluation too.
I can't tell you exactly when that 16 was or if that didn't~ occur the next morning or when, 17 but J. just remember, you know I am saying I 18 probably did that; I feel like I did.
I don't know 19 if I did or not 20 Q.
Do anything on the 3rd or following dates?
21 A.
Yeah.
The next day the reactor engineering 22 guys came back and said, "We've reviewed it, and we 23 want to show you what we got.
We think there's some I
24 question of whether we're critical or not."
25 I said, "Okay, good."
And we had 13
__m-________-__.a__.
m_ _ _ _.
9 I
we ha'd another meeting-on the 3rd.
And I believe f
2 that meeting on the 3rd --
3 O.
Was this a staff meeting or was this with-4 the engineering people who 5
A.
No, I had another staff' meeting on the 3rd, 6
okay.
And then we had another meeting, I believe it 7
was at 10:00 o' clock.
8 Usually I reserved the 10:00 o' clock.
9 to 11:00 o' clock period for-problem solving on a 10 particular issue,.and I believe the item that day 11 was reactor criticality or not.
.And in that meeting 12 I specifically remember Bob Lenart being there, 13 because I asked if he wouldn't want to sit through 14 this.
And Gene Preston was there; our reactor 15 engineer, Hari Arora was there; Mel Batch from field 16 and management was there; Jon. Thorpe, who was a 17 reactor engineer, was there; I believe Leo Lessor 18 was there.
I recall that that's when the reactor 19 engineering first said we went critical.
20 I said, "We did?"
They said, "Our 21 computer models show that we were critical."
And 22 there was a discussion back and forth.
And I said, 23
" Don't tell me-about your computer models.
I want 24 to see the trip charts; do we got those?"
p, 25
- Said,
" Yeah, we got those."
And they 14
1 l
l 1
pulled.those out.
And what was on the chart was the 1
(
2 line for the one SRM with the broken line in it and 3
the S next to it with the continuous line.
And the 4
reactor engineering, I think was Jon Thorpe, said, 5
"We were critical for the 45-second period."
I can tell by looking at 6
I caid 7
that chart, it's not a 45-second period.
I said, 8
"How'd you calculate that?"
And he said, "We went L
9 back to computer models."
I said, " Don't tell me 1
l 10 about your computer models.
I want to know, based 11 on actual plant rod pulls and calculations, whether 12 we were or weren't."
"Well, we didn't do that."
l(
13 In that meeting I remember drawing on 14 the board what I expected to see on the charts for 15 everybody present, what it would look like for each 16 rod pull and subsequent rod pull, the fact that 17 counts for each rod that you pull you're going to 18 get the closer you get to criticality, the longer 19 it takes to stabilize out a new count rate; and the 20 time is longer.
So I said, "This is what.I expect 21 to see on here, on these charts."
22 And I said, "Then when it gets 23 critical with no rod movement it's going to give off 24 an increasing count rate."
That's the definition of 25 criticality.
There was a discussion at that time of 15
1 I
what is the definition of criticality.
Reactor 2
engineering said with calculations it's when 3
'K-effective, you know, is equal to 1.
4 And I said, " Yeah, that's your 5
theoretical definition."
And you can calculate that 6
in computer models.
But for the operator, 7
criticality is when he has a constant increasing 8
count rate with no rod movement.
9 And that's the definition of i
10 criticality.
And the end result is that the I
11 remember Leo Lessor says, "Well, Gregg,
'I think that.
j 12 you probably were critical by looking at t'h i s. "
And 13 Bob Lenart and I both agreed that what we needed to 14 do was have all the rod pulls put down on that chart 15 and reconstruct each rod pull, and then do analysis 16 based on the chart itself, not the computer model; 17 then use the computer model to back up what we 18 actually saw because we really felt that we were 19 dealing here with a real plant, and the charts are R
20
. going to tell us the information.
21 The computer model should match it; 22 and if we didn't, then we got a whole new problem.
23 But right now we were confident that we still needed' 24 more research by the engineering organization.
At 25 that time we decided we discussed and decided 16 l
n
4 0
1 that it was significant, and we should inform the 2
resident inspector.
3 Both Gene Preston and I took that as 4
the action on us to get ahold of Mr. --
5 O.
Mike Parker?
6 A.
Mike Parker, who was acting for the 7
resident at the time, and contact him.
The other 8
action we decided to do was to any subsequent 9
because the reactor was critical, any subsequent rod 10 pulls to be verified by a second licensed operator i
1 l
4 11 or qualified management staff, same wording that's 1
i i
r'od worth j
12 in the tech specs basically for a 1
i l (
13 minimizer being inoperable.
So that's what we did.
then go ahead.
I 14 O.
Could you 15 A.
Go ahead, ask the question.
16 O.
Did could you go through the meeting 17 with Mr. Parker, what you were 18 A.
Yeah.
I remember it was probably right at 19 12:00 o' clock or 12:30.
i 20 0
We're still on July 3rd?
21 A.
This is on the 3rd, right after that 22 meeting.
I left there.
The very first thing was l
23 try and get ahold of Mr. Parker.
I left word with i
24 his secretary to call me, told Gene Preston to stay l,
25 in the office area till we got a chance to talk with 17 l
A
'l Mr. Parker, and stay in hot standby till we had a i i 2
chance to sit down and talk with him in case there 3
were other questions he wanted to ask.
4 And on around 12:30, 1:00 o'clockish, 5
we made contact with him.
And I said, "You want us 6
to come down to your office, or do you want to come 7
up here?"
He said, "I'll come up there."
8 I said, " Fine."
So we sat in my 9
office and discussed the event.
10 0
Who was there?
11 A.
It was just Mr. Parker, Mr. Preston, and 12 myself.
(
13 O.
What did you tell Mr. Parker?
14 A.
I told him that I
--we had an event with 15 an out of sequence rod pull, and it's our present
)
16 belief right now that the reactor did not go l
17 critical; that there was some discussion within the l
18 organization where there was disagreement between 1
19 essentially operators and the reactor engineering; 20 and that it was presently being evaluated by reactor 21 engineering to determine criticality.
22 Nevertheless, it was my opinion that 23 we had a very significant and I am not sure I 24 used the word significant.
If I didn't useethe word 25 significant, I used serious or some other word like 18 um____
operator error and a procedural 1
that 2
noncompliance.
3 O.
So you left M r '. Parker with the perception 4
that a review was taking place to determine the 5
criticality issue?
6 A.
Uh-huh.
7 0
So he left that meeting not knowing for whether the plant had gone 8
sure whether there was 9
critical 10 A.
He didn't know that.
11 O.
And he was expecting some other based on that review 12
- n. notification that the plant
(.
13 that you 14 A.
I don't know whether he was expecting it or 15 not.
16 O.
But he knew some type of review was taking 17 place?
18 A.
He knew some review was taking place.
I 19 got some feedback about a half hour later in the day 1
20 from a reactor engineer that Parker had called him 1
21 about whether they were doing a review.
22 And reactor engineer Hari Arora 23 confirmed they are doing a review.
24 O.
So-Mike Parker had taken the initiative to 25 call the reactor engineering group to get some 19 l
l
,sen
_...a._-__-___m- _ _ _ _ _
l.
1 A.
Yeah.
I was. told-that by my reactor i
2 engineer: I don't know that for a fact myself..
j l
3 Q.
But that's your knowledge of my feelings were that 4
A.
Yeah, my knowledge 4
5 what I had told him was understood, and I got some 6
' feedback that he had taken some action.
.I 7
MR. LANG:
Let me ask you a question.
Prior to 8
calling Mike Parker, you had mentioned that you had y
9
. decided to put a second. verifier on the rod pulls'as 10 in the tech specs.
1 11 At that time why did you do that?
I 12 THE WITNESS:
Because I think~ Bob Lenart said, in that
(
13 "Why doesn't the rod worth minimizer" i
14 meeting there was a discussion, why-doesn't the rod 15 minimizer stop us from doing that.
16 Reactor engineering said it's not 17 intended to do that.
You know, we got in a 18 discussion about the reduced rod worth pull sheet j
l 19 and back and forth because there was a question 20 of whether or not the rod worth minimizer I felt 21 that there was two reasons for doing it.
There 22 was a question on the rod worth minimizer, but the 23 second reason was I needed, in my opinion, to take
- 2.4 some compensatory measures right now to make sure I 25 didn't duplicate the mistake of the rod pull, 20
________[____________.___U
I 1
J e
1 because the sheets were still up-there, and I wanted
)
(
I 2
to make sure that-it was clear to operators that j
3 there was second verification.
4 I told Mike that that was the action I i
5 took.
l 6
MR. LANG:
Was there any discussion at that time 7
.whether it was operable or inoperable?
l I
8 THE WITNESS:
I don't recall.
In my.own mind.
I 9
there was no doubt that it was operable.
l 10 MR. LANG:
Okay.
11 THE WITNESS:
I felt the rod worth minimizer was 12 functioning properly.
I can't say-we got right in i
~
i
.i
(,
13 the middle of a technical discussion of whether it H
14 was or wasn't.
I knew in the past we had gotten i
15 into surveillance, past surveillance.
16 MR. LANG:
Okay, continue.
17 MR. KALKMAN:
O.
After the July 3rd, what
)
18 involvement did you have relating to this issue?
l 19 A.
Well, it was the next time it came up 20 was on the July 4th, the 4th of July.
I was at i
21 home.
It was about, I b e l.i e v e, 4:00, 4:30-in the j
l 22 afternoon.
The reactor engineer, Jon Thorpe, called' 23 me at my home, said, "Gregg, I just spent the entire l
24 day -- I just went through all the rod pulls.
I l
25 think we got it all put together. The reactor was 21 I
f a
_J
'l critical."
And I said, "okay.
What was the period?"
(
between 110 he 2
He said, about i
3 said, "114 seconds is what I got calculated."
He 4
said between 110 an 120 seconds.
I 5
I said, "okay, who else has" -- what I 6
recall is, "Who else-has looked at your calculations l
l 7
to make sure you got it?"
l 8
O.
Not a very trusting fellow, are you?
9 A.
I don't think you'd be in this business 10 long if you didn't question -- well, you got to ask-11 a lot of questions.
I said, "Who else has looked at 12 that?"
He said, "Well, I bounced it up to other
(
13 officers here, SOA's and other reactor engineers."
14 I said, "okay."
It was my opinion 1
15 that I'd have a very hard time on the 4th of July to 16 round up everybody for a meeting, so I said, "We I
17 will have the meeting tomorrow when we got everybody
]
l 18-available at the plant to go through it."
)
19 Q.
Okay.
i 1
20 A.
During that period of time there was some 21 discussions on the rod worth minimizer.
And I 22 actually had two meetings scheduled, one on the rod l
23 worth minimizer and one on the determination of 24 critical or criticality.
/,
why don't you just go ahead and i
25 O.
So the 22 O
(:
. 1 tell us about July 5th then.
1 2
A.
All I can r.em emb e r about the 5th is that we 3
had the meeting.
We had the computer people to' 4
discuss the rod worth minimizer along with reactor 5
engineering people..
6 I was present, I believe Gene Preston 7
was present, I am very confident Leo Lessor was 8
present, and I do not think Bob Lenart was present 9
at that time.
10 MR. LANG:
A t. that meeting with the computer 11 people and reactor engineering people, what was the
\\
12 essential purpose of having the meeting?
13 THE WITNESS:
The essential purpose -- well, 14 originally it was reactor engineering people first, 15 then it was going to follow right after that with 16 rod worth minimizer people; and that would include 17 some of the same people.
18 What happened was the meeting was 19 delayed in getting started because of other plant 20 activities, okay, so they actually got combined into 21 one meeting.
22 MR. LANG:
Why did you even call a meeting about 23 the ~ rod worth minimizer?
24 THE WITNESS:
Because I was trying.to answer Bob 25 Lenart's question,,why can't we program the rod 23 4
.w
-w m_ _ _ _ - _ - _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ -.. - _ _ _ _ - -. _ _ - _ _. - _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _. _.. _ _ _ _
_m
.m.
l l
I s
(
1 wor t%( minimi zer ti help with the rod sequence pull.
l,.
d M
.-[,AFC1 Okay.
2 3
THC-WITNESS:
It wasn't,a question of whether 4
the rod. worth minimizer was operable, it was a 1
(
5 question of why can't we modify the rod' worth
(
6 minimizer for the sequence pull.
i:
s f
7 MR. LANJ:
Okay.
l 8
THE WITNESS:
They had initially done some 9
they, I amssaying the computer people had looked at 10> that
- k. n d said, " Yeah, we'can do that for you, but 11 it's this big."
You know, the information didn't l
12 fit.
We had a hard time c' communicating with the l
(
13 computer people, I think that's the bottom line.
l 14 From an operating from an operating i
15 plant standpoint, talking to the computer jocks, for i
16 example, it was hard to communicate; so I wanted to 17 get them in a meeting in one spot so I could sort 18 through who was saying what and whether those two 19 pecplc were talking to each other, and I was getting l
20 the straight story before I went and told the boss 21 we chn program or we can't and here's why we can't 22 and what not.
23 MR. LANG:
Okay.
O,-
24 THE WITNESSg So because the reactor 25 engineering people would be properly motivated and 24 l
L
p'ople 1
interested.in it, and the computer those e
2 were the two groups I was trying to get together.
3 It just so happens reactor engineering 4
people are also doing evaluations on criticality, so 5
I wanted to have one meeting followed by another.
I.
6 got delayed because of some other activity in the I d'on't remember what it was and by the 7
plant 8
time I got there, it was time to have the second 9
meeting; so I just had one big meeting in which I 10 discussed criticality, looked through their charts, 11 and I agreed with them.
12 I said, "Okay, that's no longer an 13 issue.
The reactor was critical."
But I had,-in my 14 own mind, already known that that didn't make any 15 difference to deportability.
I didn't feel any 16 obligation at that time to make any reports.
17 In hindsight, that was probably an 18 error on my part.
I probably should have, you know, 19 informed NRC, but l
l 20 MR. KALKMAN:
O.
Why didn't you call Mike 21 Parker and say, " Listen, we got results from that 22 engineering group"?
23 A.
I don't remember for sure whether I did try 24 or not.
By the time that meeting was over, it was, 25 already either 5:00 o' clock, 5:30.
I don't remember.
25 l
(.
1 I possibly -- and this is what I don't remember 2
called down, 530-5380 and called the resident offer 3
and gotten no response on.that.
4 Then I announced in the staff meeting 5
the next morning to the entire staff, in which I i
i 6
thought Parker was present or somebody from the j
l l
7 resident's office, but I did not take him to the 8
side and say, "Here's the charts; here's everything.
9 we did.
The reactor was critical."
I didn't do 10 that.
i 11 0.
Tne morning of July 6th, do you normally 12 have staff meetings on Saturdays?
(
13 A.
'Yes.
Saturday mornings we usually.have 14 staff meetings unless it's pre-announced that 15 weekend's going to be a little late.
16 O.
Do the resident inspectors usually attend?
17 A.
Because we were so close'to licensing, the 18 resident inspector's invited to attend, but not 19 required.
We don't require him to attend.
20 When we're going over plant status, 21 during that I would say approximately two' weeks 22 prior to full power license hearings, he was 23 attending.
I believe he was there, or somebody was 24 there.
25 O.
Do you have a sign-in sheet for the staff
.' 2 6 i
m
- e m
l 1
1 meetings?
l it's not -- we don't l
2 A.
No, there is l
'I 3
it's not a formal meeting.
It's an information 4
sharing meeting.
I do make decisions in this 5
meeting based on what the staff input is of what 1
6 we're going to accomplish and try to make sure the i
7 word gets out, but it's an information sharing 8
meeting.
There are no minutes or sign-in sheet or 9-anything like that.
l l
10 0,.
Would you advise your staff on.the morning i
p* ant had in fact gone critical?
11 of the 6th that the t
i 12 A.
I had I did that.
I very clearly 13 remember saying that.
j i
l l
14 Q.
Did you hear from the engineering people i
15 whether Mike Parker had contacted them directly for l
16 information on the criticality issue?
17 A.
I heard from my reactor engineer that 18 Parker had called him shortly after I told him and 19 he was asking for 20 0
That was back on the 3rd?
21 A.
3rd, and that was the only time; there was 22 no other, 23 0
Did you have any discussions of the l
24 c.riticality issue with any other Fermi management 25 personnel?
27
-e=
w
+
w.
1 1
A.
I believe it was on the the only other I
2 person would be Bob Lenart in the ccurse of touching 3
base with each other every day.
4 O.
So you're confident Mr. Lenart knew that 5
the plant had in fact gone critical?
6 A.
I am confident, you know, about that.
7 Exactly what he knew, I don't know that.
8 O.
Well, I can ask him.
9 Would you have told him?
10 A.
If I didn't tell him, I should have; and I 11 am not sure that I had an opportunity on the evening 12 of the 5th after the meeting -- I believe I went' 13 into his office and kind of recouped what happened 14 that day and said,
" Yeah, we had that meeting.
The 15 thing was critical."
t 1
16 I think we then went to the discussion 17 of the rod worth minimizer.
le O.
That was on the 5th?
19 A.
Right, that's my recollection.
I 20 O.
Late afternoon?
i 21 A.
If it didn't happen then, it happened on 22 Saturday morning some time probably.
23 O.
Did you have any discussions with 24 Mr. Lessor relating to the cr.iticality?
25 A.
On the 28
~
1 Q.
He was present during some of these
[.
2 meetings?
]
3 A.
He's present during the meetings, and he H
l 4
was present in the staff meetings.
He always l
5 attends the staff meetings.
And periodically 6
throughout the day.I go in and if I don't see Leo, l
7 he comes and sees me.
That's the relationship.
8 So I go in, and in this particular 1
]
9 case he and I felt that reactor engineering had 10 the Saturday morning staff meeting as.far as I 11 am concerned, reactor engineering did their piece.
12 What I had really needed them do do, independent
(
13 review of whether we went critical; and I knew that 14 on the Saturday or Friday afternoon.
15 So at the Saturday morning staff 16 meeting, I told my staff, " Hey, we went critical; 17 and we really had a -- w e look bad on this one.
18 This is a significant violation of procedure, not 19 following the pull sheet is, and we got do pay, 20 attention to detail."
21 And I was really just trying to make i
22 sure that all the peolsle knew we got to follow 23 procedure and pay attention.
I also wanted to make 24 sure that everybody knew that'I was transferring the 25 evaluation portion of the DER, the event report, 29
i 1
1 from reactor engineering to Mr. Lessor; primarily to i
2 make sure that everybody knew that when Leo came to 3
talk to'him about it, that they were properly 4
motivated to spend some time, whatever it took, to 5
discuss the event.
6 MR. MARQUARDT:
So that the transcript is clear, 7
would you explain who Mr. Lessor is and what his job
]
l 8
is?
9 THE WITNESS:
Yes.
Mr. Lessor is the advisor to 10 the superintendent.
He is a MAC employee.
MAC, 1 11 think, stands for Management Analysis Corporation.
~
I 12 He's a former plant manager at the Cooper Station, I 1
,t 13 believe, for approximately ten years, another 14 boiling water reactor.
15 MR. KALKMAN:
Q.
Did Mike Parker get a copy of 16 the DER 7 17 A.
I did not give him a copy.
I did tell him 18 that we had written a DER.
19 Q.
Did he review it in your office?
20 A.
No.
I did not provide him any paper 21 documentation in the meeting in my office.
22 Q.
Do you recall discussing the criticality' 23 incident with the rod pull the rod pull incident 1
24 with any other NRC gersonnel?
l s
l 25 A.
Yes.
I discussed it with Paul Byron on the l
30 l
l l
w m.
t
1 15th or 16th.
I don't remember which day it-was.
(
l 2
O.
The Commission meeting-was on the.5th, I 3
believe.
4 A.
No, the Commission meeting was on the 5
O.
Or the 1
l 6
MR. MARQUARDT:
The 10th?
a 7
.THE WITNESS:
The 10th.
8 MR. KALKMAN:
O.
I see.
9 A.
The weekend went by, and I believe it was 10 on the 15th.
I don't remember, but it was one it 11 was in the morning after the staff meeting.
Paul's-u p",
12 mod 9 of operation would be to usually to come i
1 1
1 i
13 cycle through the offices.
So it was always easy q
if he had something on his mind, he would 14 to 15 always jog you to say, " Hey Paul, I wanted to tell i
16 you this," that type of thing.
I 17 So he came up, and we had an informal l
18 discussion in my office.
It was not even related about the pull event.
It was only in the 19 to 20 course of that conversation that we discussed it.
21 O.
Was this new information to him?
l 22 A.
What had happened was that he was i
23 discussing his future career plans and possible 24 other opportunities that might be available, and I 25 was,getting the impression that he was asking me' 31
I what I. thought of them.
It 2
And I think I remember saying 3
something, "Well, you know, you've really done a 4
good job, Paul, and we appreciate.the effort you've 5
done.
I'm glad there are some other opportunities 6
for you."
I think he was relating back, you know, l
7
" Detroit has done a good job too," and that kind of 8
thing back and forth.
9 I said, "Thanks for the comment.
But 10 really there are still some things out there that 11 bother me, and we got some problems out there that l
12 we still got to take care of."
And I told him that l(
13 in my opinion we weren't as good as this is my 14 personal opinion.
I told him it was my personal 1) opinion, my personal opinion that we're not as good ik as we think we are, and we're not as good as NRC 1[
Region III might think we are.
18' I said, "I will give you some examples."
19 And I gave him one of an event that occurred, I 20 believe, after all this in which we had a RCIC or 21 reactor core injection cooling system, R-C-I-C, 22 surveillance that was required to be performed 12 23 hours2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br /> after getting upper-rated temperature and 24 pressurability.
On our test schedule'we had that 25 scheduled 24 to 36 hours4.166667e-4 days <br />0.01 hours <br />5.952381e-5 weeks <br />1.3698e-5 months <br /> after we got up there.
32
1 The operators were following that l-2 schedule exactly, and they did it 24 to 36 hours4.166667e-4 days <br />0.01 hours <br />5.952381e-5 weeks <br />1.3698e-5 months <br />
~
3 afterwards, the review of that.
We had a tech spec 4
violation.
I told Paul, I said, "That's gross.
5 Here my operators are following the schedule, but 6
the schedule didn't get the appropriate technical 7
review and separate from that, they should have 8
caught it.
They should have been looking at the 9
tech specs; so therefore I felt my operators had let 10 me down."
I said, "There's an example of a problem.
11 We've got to get ourselves more in tune with tech 12 specs and operating modes.
Besides that, there's an 1
1 13 out of sequence rod pull."
1. -
14 And I could see the eyes lighting up, 15 moving.
I said, "In which we went critical."
And I 16 could I was surprised that he was suprised.
I 17 was suprised that he was suprised.
And we spent a 18 little more time talking about it.
19 And I remember talking about who I had 20 told; and I said, " Parker" "Didn't Parker tell l
remem'er him telling me, he said, " Yeah, 21 you?"
And I b
22 I think he may have either told me or called me" l
23 I don't remember what Paul said "and I knew that 24 we had an out of sequence rod p u l l.,
but I didn't 25 know you went critical."
And that was it.
33 I
___________________m_
a_._____________j
1 1
The next thing I know we're skittering
(
2 hither and yon.
l 3
O.
So it's your perception'that it was news to l
that the plant had gone 4
him, that the cr'tical 1
5 critical, but that he may have heard l
my impressions were it 6
A.
Initially it was 7
was a surprise to him until we got into a discussion l
8 and I said, " Parker didn't tell you?"
And he said l
9 he gave me the impression that Parker did call him.
l l
10 So I was at that point confused as to i
11 why it was a surprise to the NRC.
I don't think 12 Paul knew it was critical, I guess I could say that, 1
i 13 if that's the issue.
I really still don't think l
14 that's an issue.
Either way, whether it was one rod, l
l l
15 one notch, or whatever, it's still a problem.
l 16 0
Was the was that the date was the 5th 1
17 the Commission voted for a full power license for 18 Fermi?
19 A.
No, it was on the 10th.
j 20 0
It was at the Commission meeting on the l
21 10th?
22 A.
This is well after the fact.
l
\\
l 23 O.
Prior to the Commission meeting on July 1
24 loth, were you involved in any of the preparations j
f l
25 for the Commission meeting agenda items?
l 34 l
t O
=
h------____
1 A.
No, sir.
I~
2 O.
You had nothing 3
A.
My job was primarily plant operat!.on and 4
maintenance.
I can characterize my -- my job 5
function at the time was we got a test program to 6
run, run the test program; run the plant; get the i
7 maintenance done; we got some action items to close, 8
if they're ha rdwa re. rela ted.,
get them done.
j 9
So I was primarily pushing on' the l
10 schedule, the testing, those kind of things.
I did l
11 not go to the public hearing, the public meeting.
I l
12 was left back to continue running the plant.
~
13 O.
You didn't attend the Commission meeting?
l 14 A.
I did not.
15 O.
Okay.
16 So you were not involved in preparing 17 the any agenda items for the Commission hearing 18 to include the agenda item of operator errors?
19 A.
No.
20 O.
Do you know who would have had been
{
l 21 involved in that prep Tation for that Commission l
l 22 hearing?
]
23 A.
I really don't, I could only assume.
Bob I
24 Lenart might know.
I don't know.
I have no 25 knowledge of that; in fact, I am not even sure there 35
I 1
was an agenda that we knew about ahead of time.
(
2 O.
Do you know of any Edison management-above 3
Mr. Lenart who knew of the -- that the rod pull had 4
resulted in the reactor going critical?
j
.1 I did not discuss it with any 5
A.
I had 6
other Edison management.
Only one person called me 7
on the out of sequence rod pull, and that was 8
Mr. Griffing, Ed Griffing who was the assistant to 9
the manager.
10 O.
Assistant to which manager?
11 A.
Manager of nuclear operation, which was l
12 Mr. Frank Agosti, who reported to Dr. Jens.
(
13 O.
What was his name again?
14 A.
Ed Griffing.
l 15 O.
Griffin or Griffing?
l 16 A.
Griffing.
l I
17 O.
I-n-g?
i 18 A.
I-n-g.
1 19 O.
And he was an assistant?
l 20 A.
And they I don't remember the date, but 21 our DER's are reviewed -- we do our internal review, 22 but a copy goes off to the -- wha t we call the NOC, 23 nuclear operation center.
I am not sure what 24 happens to them over there, but I believe management 25 gets a copy of them.
And I believe Ed was reading 36
1 through that.
.He sent me a message on our i --
2 electronic mailing system, CEO, and it was, "Gregg, 3
out of sequence rod pulls are in my view significant,"
4 some wording like that, "Who's doing the evaluation,'
l 5
and I hope that you're pursuing this."
6 I took that over to Mr. Lessor and 1
7 said, " Leo, would you please give Ed a. call and tell i
i 8
him what it is that we know" I'll tell you, I am 9
not sure I told him what we knew.
I said, "Tell him 10 what it is that we're doing about the evaluation to 11 make sure that he knows that we really do-consider 12 it to-be significant."
(
13 Leo then came back later because I 14 remember following up and saying, " Leo, did you do 15 that?"
And he said, "Gregg, yeah, I did.
And I 16 talked to Ed, and he seems satisfied."
Now, the 17 date for that, I do not remember.
18 Q.
Was this before the Commission meeting, 19 prior to?
20 A.
I don't know.
No, I think not.
But I 21 don't know because the Commission meeting was on 22 Tuesday morning, I would have left Monday, and 23 Monday was a hell of a day, a lot of other things 24 going on.
I believe it was probably the end of the 1
25 week, but I don't remember.
37 l
i i
)
1 Somewhere I don't know.
I don't ii 2
know when it was, I, don't remember.
But that war l
\\
3 the only management person that I had talked to.
I j
i L
4 did not talk to anybody else.
i l
l l
5 O.
Other than Mr. Lenart?
6 A.
Other than my immediate boss and the 7
residents.
8 O.
In your own opinion, do you think the NRC l
9 was adequately notified or aware of this. reactor 10 criticality incident?
11 A.
At the time I thought they were, 12 particularly initially.
I can fault myself for not
(
13 providing them up-dated information that I knew.
In 14 retrospect now, clearly there weren't, in my opinion, 15 and still even today, there are not legal 16 requirements for deportability.
17 And in my opinion we did make an 18 effort to inform the resident inspector.
What we 19 fell short in was, in my opinion, following up later l
l 20 to make sure that they shared the same degree of 21 concern that we thought we had for it.
22 O.
Now, which people from the Fermi Plant 23 attended the Commission meeting?
24-A.
I don't know directly.
I can tell you my 25 boss did, Bob Lenart.
I know that Frank Agosti 38
_i_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
3 1
attended.
I can tell you the people I know'who were t
2 scheduled to attend, and there's probably more; but 3
Bob Lenart, Frank Agosti, Wayne Jens, I believe 4
Keener Earl was there.
5 Those are the only people I know that I
6 I deal with a lot that were scheduled to attend.
i 7
I'm sure there was a longer list than that.
l 8
O.
Did Mr. Lenart ever inquire as to whether 9
you contacted the resident, NRC resident, with this il 10 information?
I 11 A.
On the initial notification.
He followed I
1 12 it up later and said, "Gregg, did do you that?"
And f
13 I said, "Yes, I did."
I told him that I had told l
14 Mr. Parker, told him that Gene Preston was present j
15 when we did it.
16 Q.
This was during the July 3rd time period?
17 A.
Yes, in that time frame.
l 18 O.
Does any documentation exist from any of 19 the staff meetings or any meetings that took place l
20 regarding this issue?
21 A.
No.
We do not keep -- w e do not have 22 meeting minutes of staff meetings.
We follow the 23 staff meetings usually by an on-site review 24 organization, a separate review meeting, because 25 there are so many design changes that need approval, 39 e
l l
l l
1 things that need approval; but the staff meeting's 2
an information sharing meeting.
There aren't any 3
minutes made of that.
4 The only thing that's the outcome of a j
5 meeting is a superintendent out-list-that I publish, 6
try to get out every day.
I say, "Here's what we 7
should be working on in the next 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />."
8 O.
So the only thing that documents the rod 9
pull incident is that DER?
10 A.
The DER and evaluation done by Mr. Lessor, 11 that's correct.
12 MR. KALKMAN:
Do you have anything else, Terry?
(
13 MR. LANG:
No.
14 MR. KALKMAN:
Okay.
15 I have got some closing questions then.
16 Mr. Overbeck, have I or any other NRC representative 17 here threatened you in any manner or offered you any 18 reward in return for this statement?
l 19 THE WITNESS:
No.
20 MR. KALKMAN:
Have you given this statement 21 freely an voluntarily?
22 THE WITNESS:
I have.
23 MR. KALKMAN:
Is there anything further you care 24 to add for the record?
25 THE WITNESS:
No, there is not.
40 l
l L___-__-_---__--_
(,
1 MR. KALKMAN:
That concludes this interview.
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 9
10 11 12
(
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 41 C_______..___
NO PAGE NUMBER 1
CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER.
(
u 4
\\
l This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the UNITED STNTES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
l 4
NAME OF PROCEEDING: OFFICE OF INVESTIGATION INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW CLOSED 1
l l
DOCKET NO.:
PLAQE:
GLEN ELLYN, IL
(
DATE:
TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1985 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear l
Regulatory Commission.
(sigt/[+
h
/>,
(TYPED)
Lisa Jo Selepa Official Reporter Sullivan Reporting Company Reporter's Affiliation l
l
= =..
m a