ML20237K238
| ML20237K238 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Fermi  |
| Issue date: | 08/20/1985 |
| From: | Lessor L NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237J518 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-86-245 NUDOCS 8708270112 | |
| Download: ML20237K238 (30) | |
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UN11EU STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ;
I l l
l IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO:
P' INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF
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LEO LESSOR i
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LOCATION: NEWPORT, MICHIGAN PAGES: 1 - 28 DATE: WESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1985 Information in this record was deleted in accordance wit Act, exemptions LU _w) 76the Frejdom of information F0IA D ' M __..
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, AG-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. e xs c -
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j '393 00 01 1 4 WRBeb 1 UN.ITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 Office of Investigations 4 ------------------------------------:
5 In the matter of: :
6 DETROIT EDISON COMPANY :
7 (Fermi Nuclear Power Station No. 2) : i 8 :-----------------------------------:
9 Room 164, 10 Nuclear Operations Center, 1 . 11 , Fermi-2 Nuclear Power Station, l ll l 12 ] Newport, Michigan.
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n 13g Tuesday, 20 - August 1985 i
14 : Investigative interview of LEO LESSOR was l-15 ll conducted in closed conf erence beginning at 3:25 p.m. , when i
16 ! were present:
l 17l JAMES N. KALKMAN, NRC Investigator i 18 CARL LANG, NRC Reactor Inspector I 1
19! PETER MARQUARDT, Esq., Detroit Edison Company 20 SUSAN BEALE, Esq., Detroit Edison Company l
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22 23 24 25 ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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PROCEEDINGS l
2 MR. KALKMAN: For the record this is an interview q a
3 with Mr. Leo Lessor, L-e-s-s-o-r, who is a consultant )
l 4 contracted by Detroit Edison Corporation. The location of )
l 5 this interview is the Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station, l i
6 Newport, Michigan. Present at this interview are j l
7 Mr. Lessor, Detroit Edison Counsel Mr. Marquardt and 8 Ms. Beale, NRC Investigator Mr. Kalkman and NRC Reactor l l
9 Inspector Mr. Lang. The subject matter of this interview ]
l 10 concerns a reactor operator error which occurred at the
]
11 ! Fermi 2 Nuclear Power Station on July 2, 1985.
12 4' Mr. Lessor, would you please stand and raise your
,( i 13 > right hand?
14 Whereupon, J l
15 LEO LESSOR
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16 - having been duly sworn, was examined and testified as !
17~ follows. )
k l 18 ! EXAMINATION 19 BY MR. KALKMAN:
20 ; O Mr. Lessor, did you have occasion to discuss the 21f operator error incident with anyone prior to the Corrective 22l Action Review Board meeting on July 27 23 A Would you ask that question again?
24 0 Yes. You were present at the CARB meeting where l1 i 25 the DER was reviewed relating to this incident and I was
- l I
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5 WRBagb 1 wondering if you had any conversations prior to the CARB )
2 meeting? j l
3 A I'was aware of an event that would be discussed 4 at the CARB meeting, l
i 5 0 You were aware? 1
! H '
i 6 A Yes.
7 O And how did you become aware of it?
8 A I.do not recall. One of the staff brought it to 9 my attention that this happened and that it would be 10 discussed at the CARB meeting.
11 0 How specific was the information given to you?
i 12 A Not specific at all, just a rod pull error is 13' what I recall.
14 0 Did you know before' the CARB meeting- that there
-1 15 g was controversy in the reactor engineering group -- j i
16 ! A No.
17 0 -- as to the criticality of the reactor? ;
18 A No.
19 0 Did that issue surface in the CARB meeting?
20 A No. ,
l 21 0 Then why was Reactor Engineering assigned to 22 perform an analysis as to the criticality of the reactor?
23 A I'm not sure they were assigned-- They were 24 assigned to evaluate the DER but I'm not sure that -- and j 25 the reason they were was that they produced and-approved the I
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'393 01 03 4 3 WRBagb 1 sequence sheets, I.believe that was the reason that they i 2 were assigned the task. I really don' t think it had l
3 anything to do with -- I was not aware that it had anything 4 to do with the criticality. It may have, but I do not
? . ;
- 5 recall that it was mentioned.
6 0 0,n the morning of July 3rd you and Mr. Preston I
7 interviewed the reactor operator?. l l '
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8 A Yes.
9 0 Do you recall any discussion between yourself and f
10 -
lli \' A I asked him questions about the event, so I could 1 1
3 ,
12l understand what happened.
133 0 Did you ask him whether the plant had gone 14 ' critical -- or, rather, whether the reactor had gone 15j critical?
16d A I think I did.
3 Q And what was his reaction, what was his answer?
17[
18 A What I recall is that he seemed to feel -- I 19 don' t know whether it was his f eeling or the STA 20 in training's feelings -- that the reactor had'gone 21 critical.
22 But I would like to qualify that by saying at that time 23 I did not know that he had been interviewed or talked to by 24 the reactor engineer, and that may have influenced -- I 25 talked to him at the end of his shif t, which was somewhere ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC. =
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5-(. 393 01 04 3 W RB a'g b . 1 between 7:00 and 8:00 and he did'not mention and I did not 2 ask him whether he had talked to anybody else, .but 'then I-
'3 found out later that he had talked to the reactor engineer 4 earlier on his shift, I think at about 11: 00 p.m., somewhere 5 around midnight.
6 O Do you recall which raactor engineer?
7 A No, I do not.
l 8 So what I'm saying is they might have influenced 9 him one way or another.
10 0 Did you ask the question did the plant go~
l 11 critical or did the reactor go critical, just out of 12 curiosity or did you know there was a controversy at that 13, time?
14 A No, I did not. If I asked him the question it d '
15[ was, you know, pulling 11 rods.or some number of rods out'of 16 sequence and then driving the rods back in, you know, what 17 caused him to do that. In other words, if you don't.do 18 anything wrong, you know, how do you automatically start 19 doing something else, that's what I was searching for.
20 0 So you had no idea there was a controversy or 1
21 that the reactor engineer on that particular shif t when the 22 rod pull. error occurred had logged that the reactor had gone 23 critical?
24 A I don't recall ~that until later when I -- I know 25 I didn't know of the controversy about the log book until I ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, lh ll 302 347-3700 Nationwide Coverage 800 336 6646 I
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. I 2393 01 05 6 2 WRBagb 1; started my investigation, when I. started looking at log J. , books. Now I knew on the meeting of the 4th, I knew there 3 was, if nothing else, a controversy between me and some 1
4 -
, other people. {
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5 0 That was probably the 3rd, July 3rd?
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y 6 A Excuse me, what did I say? !
a 1
t u\ 7 0 The 4th. 1
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8 A-No, I mean the 3rd.
n l g' a 9 0 Okay.
10 The meeting of July 3rd that we are discussing-11 kas set up specifically because of the criticality issue, j la isn't that correct, the controversy?
13 A That's a good question, I'm not really sure. But 14)l the' evaluation was assigned to Reactor Engineering to j b' l 15 N I evaluate, I believe that is correct, yo discuss it anyway to ]
16 ! show the data.
L 17 0 ' And you were present at that meeting?
18 A Yes.,
s T
19 0 So was this a' revelation to you at this meeting, 20 that there was this controversy, or had you known pricr to L
21 3 ' hat meeting?
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T 22 , A No, the controversy did not develop until the-
, , 23 operator -- that I was aware of until the reactor engineer
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s j 24 rolled out the charts'and showed us that, you know, h e'r e ' s 25 the trace. And you know, it wasn' t like that it's a big i.,
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l 2 WRBagb 1 controversy. I mean I said the traces look like to me the 1
2 reactor was critical and others said that it wasn't 3 critical. And I said well I think you will find that I'm 4 right but to be sure you have to know the rod pulls, and 5 nobody could produce them at the meeting, and you have to 6 have some other computer printouts to produce that because 7 we're talking about rod pulls, you know, in minutes and 8 seconds, not just about a certain time, because the chart is 9 running at the speed of an inch per minute. So you have to 10 precisely know when the rods were pulled. j 11 O And Reactor Engineering had not performed that 12 analysis?
( d 13 ll A They didn't have the rods marked. If they had 14lg perf o rmed it, they didn't have them marked on the chart.
u 153 0 Do you recall anyone from Reactor Engineering l
16 ! expressing their opinion that the reactor was in fact 17 critical?
18 A Yes.
19 0 And who might that have been?
20 A The person -- John Thorpe who presented it.
21 O Was he . presenting the Reactor En(ineering Group's 22 analysis or was it his opinion?
23 A I cannot answer that.
24 0 What was your impression?
25 A At the time what was my impression?
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-2 WRBagb 1 O Yes. .
2 A I don' t think I thought about it because I also 3 thought that he was.... I don't really know at the, time 4 because I also thought that it showed that they were ;
i 5 critical, so I'm -- 1 6 O No, I'm trying to establish your perception of 7 the tone of that particular meeting, was'it predominantly
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8 people from Reactor Engineering saying that we went critical j 9 and ;ou were supporting that analysis and there was some i
10 opposition to that analysis by other people? Could you 11 describe what was occurring?
12 A The person who presented it, John Thorpe, the
( 13 reactor engineer, was present. He didn' t say -- I don' t 14 remember him saying one way or another that that's not 15 right, John, forget about it. He was quiet.
16 ,
Another person, Mel Batch, didn' t agree with John 17 Thorpe, at the time he didn' t agree with him. At the time I 18 really was not certain where he fit in with respect to, you 19 know, his function other than I knew he was an experienced 20 person and it made me wonder at the time, you know, am I 21 really sure I'm right, because he has been in the business 22 quite a while. ;
23 O Mr. Batch?
24 A Yes.
er 25 0 Was Mr. Batch disagreeing or was he just -- was ;
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2 WRBagb 1 he merely questioning the analysis that had been performed i I
2 and looking for additional data?
3 A I'm not sure. He did not say Lessor, you' re 4 right, you two guys are wrong, you know, we shouldn' t talk 5 about this any more. I mean, he wasn't vocal about it. He 6 later sent a letter after further analysis and said that 'the 7 reactor was critical. I'm really not sure how strong he i
8 felt either way at the time. I l
l 9 0 Was there a decision made at that meeting as to j 10 the company position on whether the plant had gone critical?
l 11 A No' , it was decided that we would do, as I 12 mentioned, that we would do some further evaluation.
l 13; O If you were asked following that July 3rd meeting L'
l 14 5 whether the reactor had gone critical, what would your )
. l 153 answer have been?
i i 16 A I would have said yes.
i O If you were asked what Detroit Edison's position l l
17 l' 18 was following that meeting, what would you have answered?
i 19 A No.
20 0 Why the disparity in the answers?
l l 21 A Well there is nothing to change my mind at the 22 meeting other than Mel Batch's comment that maybe think well 23 am I sure I'm right, but I felt certain I wcs right.
24 And with respect to the position of Detroit 25 Edison, Bob Leonard and Gregg Overbeck, the Nuclear ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 their positions at the time, they didn't feel they were 3 critical so I assume that's Detroit Edison's position.
4 BY MR. LANG:
I 5 0 Do you know what they based their opinion'on, do ;
6 you have an idea what they based their opinion on?
7 A Well Gregg said from his previous experience in i
8 the simulator training, I believe was his words, that he 1 9 felt that it wasn' t critical.
10 BY MR. KALKMAN: !
11 0 So he is basing -- Actually theiresponsible 12 management people at DECO were basing their assumption that
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13 the plant could not go critical on Mr. Overbeck's experience I 1
14 , as opposed to your experience and Mr. Thorpe's experience, I
15 is that a fair assessment? -
16 , A Well I guess on my experience -- I don' t know 17 about Thorpe's experience but his calculations or his 18 observations, I don't really know about his experience.
19 0 But that's a fair assessment?
20 A Yes. They apparently didn't feel that I was 21 right.
22 Ar.d again it isn' t like that I thought it was l 23 that critical an issue for the day. In other words, if it 1 24 would have been like a nuclear safety concern at the time, I 25 would have been more vocal about it, but there was no harm i ACE. FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 WRBagb 1 done in waiting until the next day or the next day to get 2 data so that we resolve it. I mean, I did not consider it 3 -- at the time I did not consider it that big a deal to wait 4 two more days.
5 0 Did you know that Mr. Overbeck and Mr. Preston 6 we're directed to advise the NRC' resident inspector of the 7 company position that the plant had not gone critical?
8 A That they were directed? l l 9 0 That they were asked to advise the resident 10 inspector of the results or the outcome of the Juiy 3rd 'j 11 meeting? .
12; A I asked them to do that. I'm aware that I asked 13 them to do that. {
a 14 0 Were you aware that that took place?
1 15 A I was told that it took place, yes. )
16 O Did you assume that the NRC resident inspector l]
17 was advised that the reactor had not gone critical?
18 A Yes.
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l 19 0 -- because that was the company position? i' l
20
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A That was the company's position and that's the i
21 way they left it.
22 0 And you agreed with tbst?
23 A I also asked them to make sure that they 24 presented the fact that it wasn't unanimous.
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2 WRBagb 1 also? .
i 2 A I can't say that. I know they talked to him, I 3 confirmed that f rom NRC also.
4 0 What would the harm have been in advising the: NRC J 5 of the controversy of the rod pull error and the fact that 6 . there was an analysis being performed?
I 7 A I cannot see any harm in doing that.
8 0 Let me ask-you this, do you think it was -- that 1
9 Mr. Overbeck and Mr. Preston were misleading in telling the )
10 resident inspector that the reactor had not gone critical?
l 11 A Do I think they were misleading? !
12 0 Yes. l 1
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4, 13 A I don't think they intentional'ly misled him. I 14 0 Put yourself in the position of the resident 15 inspector and if you were told that the reactor had not gone l
16 critical, do you think you would.have been mislead based on 17 what you know from the discussion of the July'3rd meeting?
18 A Do I think I would have been mislead?
19 0 Yes.
20 A I'm a very suspicious person. I would probably 21 have not been mislead, I think I would-have pursued it a 22 little bit more. But if I just dropped it, yes, I would 23 have been mislead. If they just said that it did not go 24 critical and that there was nobody else questioning it,. If I 25 didn't have that information then I could have been mislead, ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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3 WRBagb 1 I agree.
2 0 If they told the resident inspector that there
'i 3 was some controversy, that the company position is that we 4 did not go critical but that Reactor Engineering is 5 performing an analysis on the criticality issue; would that 6 have been a misleading statement? )
7 A No, that's a fact.
8 MS. BEALE: Could we go off the record for a f 9 second?
10 MR. KALKMAN: No.
i 1
11 MS. BEALE: I don't know anything about the 1 l
12 equipment here but this light was just flashing. Is that j 13 supposed to be happening?
14 THE WITNESS: That's a red phone, the NRC is 15! calling the plant.
16 , BY MR. KALKMAN:
17 0 Mr. Lessor, what made you think that the resident 18 inspector was present at the July 6 staf f meeting?
l 19 A When I talked to you last what made me think 20 that?
21 0 Yes.
22 A I've changed my mind. He was present at the l
23 meeting when the event was discussed but I was wrong on the ,
, 24 date. I saw him -- I thought I saw him when I reconstructed 25 the event but I was wrong on the-date.
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2 WRBagb 1 O When was he present?
l I would rather not comment on that but it wasn't 2 A
.3 the 6th because he said he- wasn' t on-site that day; it was 4 the next week he says. But with respect to which date, I'm 5 not sure.
6 0 When Reactor Engineering arrived at the final 7 analysis, when they said that the reactor had in fact gone 8 critical and it was accepted by Detroit Edison management, 9 was it incumbent upon someone from Edison to notify the NRC 10 that the reactor had in fact gone critical based on their-11 prior notification that the reactor did not go critical?.
l' 12 A It would have been'better if they would have.
A. 13 0 At that. point if they had not notified the NRC, 14 wouldn't that have been a false statement, the prior 15 statement?
16 , A Not unless -- I mean I look at it as not unless 17 they said we'll get back to you as soon as we find something 18 different or some words like that. And I don' t know that 19 those words were said. It's good practice to go back --
20 when you've told somebody something and you find out it's 21 not right, it's good practice to go back and re-inform 22 them.
23 0 Well you don't feel there was an obligation on 24 the part of Mr. Overbeck or Preston to --
25 A He should have gone back and informed NRC.
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2393 01 14 15 d WRBagb 1 0 Do you know whether this notification was in f act 2 made?
3 A I do not know, l
4 O Mr. Lessor, do you'think that if the NRC had at 5 the time shortly after the event, the rod pull error event, 6 had been made aware of the fact that the reactor was . ,
I I l 7 critical as a result of that rod. pull error, the
.l 8 significance of that error would have impacted the licensing l 9 of this plant? l 10 A I don't know. l l
11 0 Did you have any idea of the political atmosphere 12 or environment.when this event occurred in its relation to .
13 the full power license hearing that was to take place seven i i
14 or eight days after the event?
t1 15 A would you ask that question again? .
16 , O okay. I'm trying to establish in your mind i 17 whether you think there was any intentional. lack of 18 notification to the NRC of the substance of the event, the 19 rod pull error, because of its proximity to the full power 20 license hearing. ,
.l l 21 A I don't think there was any intentional failure ,
22 to notify. I'm not aware of it. l 23 0 Do you think the shift supervisor, Mr. Aniol, was 24 ll trying to cover up the criticality issue?
25 A No.
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( l 2 WRBagb 1 O What do,you base that answer on?
2 A From the information he had available in front of 3 him at the time of the event, some of the things that j 4 transpired, the words that were said right af ter the event, 5 the fact that they did not stop and evaluate. j 6 O Doesn't the evidence suggest -- You conducted an 7 investigation of the matter, doesn' t the evidence suggest 8 that there was an intentional coverup of the -- of at least !
9 the potential reactor criticality issue, the f ar t that it I
10 wasn't logged in either of the operator's logs s -d it was 11 changed in the reactor engineer's log?
12 A I thought that at first.
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13 O And now you don' t believe that's what the i
14 situation was?
15h A Well after hearing -- after interviewing many 4
16 ! people, I couldn't_ find anything that would back that up 17 because of some strange feelings they have about when the l 18 reactor is critical and when it's not critical.
1 19 BY MR. LANG: )
i 20 0 Why do you say " strange feeling?" I 21 A Well they have in their mind that the reactor is l 22 not critical until the operator declares it critical. I i
23 didn't understand that at the time, I still don' t believe 24 it. I know that is how you determine that a reactor goes 25 critical and when it goes critical.
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'2 WRBagb 1 In other words, the operator looks at -- he looks i
2 at the trace on the SRH's and if he sees the counts '
3 increasing then he can declare it critical then or he can 1
4 notch some more rod and then declare it critical. It is 5 really not critical until he declares it.
6 And so somehow or other they got in this feeling 7 that since it was never declared critical it was never '
8 critical, even though the reactor doesn't know what the 9 people are discussing it's critical but us humans seem to 1
10 feel that it is not until we declare it critical, se that 11 kind of started off in the wrong direction. And I didn't 12 know that and I didn't know that was an issue until I talked to quite a few people, even though they had brought it up 13 14 before but I wasn't paying any attention to what they were 15 telling me. All of a sudden it hit home.
16 ,
That's right, I remember I used to tell my i 17 operators that if there is a controversy between whether the 18 reactor was critical on this rod or this rod and the reactor 19 engineer and two or three people, you know, it's the 20 operator that declares it critical. ,
21 0 Yes, but you interviewed fanthemorning s
22 of the 3rd and at that time he told you that /he thought that 23 it may have gone critical. '
1 24 A Yes.
25 0 That's another piece of evidence that would lead ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 WRBagb 1 one investigating this incident to believe that there was 2 some type of intentional coverup.
3 A I also mentioned.to you that Reactor Engineering 4 people had talked to him prior to my talking to him.
5 The failure to log was an indication that they 6 have not done a very good job of logging events. So....
7 I will repeat, it looked like to me at first that 8 there may be but, you know, it is clear that the DER was ,
l 9 submitted. If they were really going to cover up they 10 shouldn't have submitted that.
11 O But the significance of the incident is magnified-12 by the issue of criticality, which was not reported.in the k 13 DER, is that correct?
14 A I don't agree that the significance is truly 15 magnified by it but, you know, politically it is, yes. But 16 people understand, the shift supervisors understand our DER 17 evaluation process and none of them are -- I mean, all of ;
18 them know that we are going to go into this with a fine 19 tooth comb, that's our-process. We are going to uncover 20 everything that is there, I mean that's the process that we 21 use for evaluation of these events, to get down to root .
22 causes and to describe what happens and to come up with 23 corrective action.
24 0 You may know that from your experience in the 25 nuclear industry but to a new operator --
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2 WRBagb 1 A The shift supervisor knew that, sir. He has been 1 2 involved in DER's before, he knew that. I mean, I think he I
.3 did.
i 4 0 Why were you able to sit at the meeting on July (
I 5 3rd and look at the charts and determine that the plant was .j l
6 critical, that the' reactor was critical and.no one else in 7 the room was able to do that?
8 I know you are going to tell me because you're a 9 great consultant.
'I 10 A Those are good words. .
11 I have been in the business for a lot of years.
12 I run one of these machines -- or my people run one of . these 13 machines just like this and I have followed just about every 14 startup and I have seen a lot of traces like that. I also 15 looked at the span of the time and that it was increasing 16 and I know how long it takes to pull a CRD and it really 17 didn' t make that much dif ference to me with respect to the 18 exact little segments of pull, I was pretty sure what the l
19 end result was, that it was a darned unusual rod or they 20 were critical. ;
21 But you know to pacify everybody I thought there 22 was no harm in waiting -- or I thought two days because we 23 were going into a holiday and I thought there would be no 24 harm in waiting a couple of days to resolve it. g, 25 BY MR. LANG:
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2 WRBagb 1 0 Do you think had the same feelings 2 when he pulled the rods, that he thought he was critical too 3 but he wasn't sure, but he was going to take corrective 4 action and insert the rods, a gut feeling? I 5 A A gut feeling,.yes. But again back to -- he did-6 not declare it critical, he did not wait for five minutes to 7 determine the period and sc in his mind it all went away.
8 0 Administrative 1y he was not critical?
9 A Yes, that's a good word, I guess. He didn't want 10 to be critical, let's put it that way.
1 11 0 In the meeting of July 3, other than yourself and i 12 the Reactor Engineering group, who was saying that they were l 13 critical?
l l
14 A I don't think anybody was.
i 1
15 0 On the other side, who was saying that they 16 , weren't, besides Gregg Overbeck?
17 A Gregg said they weren't. Mel Batch, I'm not sure 18 of his exact words but I took it that he was on their side.
19 0 "Their side" meaning?
20 A Not. Overbeck's side, not critical. The other 21 two parties, Leonard -- I don't remember him commenting one 22 way or the other. Thore was another person there, 1 believe i
23 the other person was Preston but I'm not positive. It was 24 an Operations person and I don't remember any comment from 25 him.
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2 WRBagb 1 0 I'm tryi.ng to figure out why Gregg would base his 2 assumption that they were not critical when you were saying 3 they were or thought they were and the Reactor Engineering l
4 thought they were?
5 A I can' t -- Reactor Engineering had lost a little
.1 6 bit of credibility by the first chart they pulled out not i 7 being the right chart. Whe ther or not that ~-- I mean that a
8 was kind of an embarrassing thing, maybe that had something 9 to do with it. Maybe there was some question in somebody's 10 mind whether the chart that was presented that_ day was the 11 right chart. I mean I really have never asked,Gregg that 12 question.
13 0 You mean the meeting of the 3rd they did have the 14 correct chart, did they not? I 15 A Well I believe. The same chart that I did my l 16 evaluation on. But I say maybe because of the previous 17 event that they had produced the wrong chart, maybe there 18 was some question and maybe there was some question whether 19 we've still got the right chart. I don't know, I didn' t 20 have any question.
21 I cannot answer your question why Gregg felt so 22 strongly. .
23 O Do you interface much with the SOA's?
24 g A I had not interfaced that much with them prior to 25 this event.
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2393 02 07 22-2 WRBagb 1 0 Do you now?
2 A I talk to them more, yes.
3 Do you know what kind of feeling they had.during i 4 the event? I think it was Mr. Duda, I guess, did you talk.
i 5 to him during the investigation?
6 A Yes.
7 0 What was his feeling, do you remember?
8 A He didn't feel that they went' critical?
l l 9 O Do you know why he took that position?
10 A No, but they didn' t roll the charts back and he "
l l ,11 didn't see the in f o rma tio n, so.... ,
I 12 He had to base it on what somebody told him or' "
l\
13 observation. But at the time, you know, it was quite clear !
14 to me that the charts were not rolled back.
- 15) BY MR. KALKMAN:
1 16 l 0 As a result of your investigation or during-your i 17 investigation, did you talk to the .c,C;. in training, I think 18 it was Mr. Dooz?
19 A Yes.
20 0 I believe he notified Mr. Aniol that the incident 21 was occurring.
22 A He went to get Dave Aniol.
23 Q And he made the statement that out of sequence i 24 critical or something like that?
3 25' A No, sir, he did not make -- I do not believe he !
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2 WRBagb 1 made that statement,to Dave Aniol. He made that statement 2 to the station nuclear engineer.
3 0 Who is Mr. Myers?
4 A Yes.' As near as I could reconstruct, he just 5 told Dave Aniol that he needed help or he needed him in 6 there, q
7 0 Do you know the . evening or the shif t that the 8 incident occurred if any member of the shift was asked to 9 leave the control room?
10 A I don't know if anybody was asked to leave the i
. 11 control room. One of the support personnel, when I asked 12 him why he was not in there at the time, he made the 13 statement to me that during -- that they h'ad had a little 14 problem with rod worth minimizing and during that down 15 time period of about eight to ten minutes he was in there 16 ! and then when they cleared up that event the shift 17 supervisor or this person says the shift supervisor said 18 Bill, if the.se people make you nervous ask them to leave.
19 But that is not an order to leave. So he said I didn't want 20 to bother anybody and I went So he said I didn' t want to l
21 bother anybody and I went back*to my desk.
22 0 Who was that?
23 A Greg Debner.
24 0 And what was his function?
25 A It is something like the lead startup test ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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I 2393 02 09 24 d WRBagb 1 engineer. But that niight not be exactly correct.
2 0 g And the shift supervisor told the reactor 3 operator, if the support people make you A 1 l 4 nervous -- /
5 A Yes, ask them to leave.
.l 6 0 Did he mean leave the control room or just to 7 leave the control panel area?
8 A The area we call the ground area. And he has a 9 reason to do that, because sometimes you get too many people- i 10 around the area where -- if it doesn' t make you nervous, i 11 they can be in your way. So he had a basis for making that i
12 statement. I 13 BY MR. LANG:
14 0 In the investigation when you saw Mr. Myers' log 15 did you find out where he got his information for the log? l l
16 ! A From the STA in training.
17 0 He never went around in front of the front 18 panels?
19 A I do not know that. The part that I was 20 interested in was the word " critical" was in his log and I 21 was trying to find out how that got in there. Because they 22 hadn't rolled back charts in the period that he had written 23 it, early in the shif t, and so I was trying to reconstruct 24 that.
25 And you know, the way I reconstructed it is the ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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2 WRBagb 1 STA 'n i training tol,d him -- we're not sure of the exact l 2 words but the words that the STA in training told me, he 3 said is an out of sequence critical. He wasn't sure what 4 else he said but he said he is'certain that he used those 5 words. So on that basis " critical" could have gotten in 6 there.
7 BY MR. KALKMAN:
8 0 There is specific' information as to --
9 BY MR. LANG:
10 0 Where did you get that information from? Did you ;
11 find that out in your investigation?
12 A That was the later critical, wasn't it?
13 0 No, the same one.
14 BY MR. KALKMAN:
15 0 That's the reactor engineering log for the 16 shift, the third shif t of July 1st and early July 2nd. .
17 (Handing document to the witness.) I 18 A Yes, step 56 is what your question is.
19 BY MR. LANG: .
i 20 0 Well it is step 56 rod position and then it gives 21 the information and everything else there. I mean you look 22 at the original, the original entry....
23 A I don't know how he got that.
24 0 That wouldn't be typical information that the STA '
25 would tell him from around in back of the panel?
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d WRBagb 1 A I guess I failed to really pursue that.
2 BY MR. KALKMAN: l 1
3 0 It would lead one to believe that he dug into the 4 matter a little bit more than having the STA tell him oQt of 5 sequence criticality,because he did some type of inspection 6 into the matter.
7 BY MR. LANG:
8 0 As far as your investigation, he didn't find l 1
9 anything -- did you find out that Mr. Myers did perform an 1 j
1 10 investigation or did not or did you even consider it? ;I l
11 A He did not perform an acceptable investigation l 12 because, one more time, the charts weren't rolled back and I 13 don't know how you could do any investigation on criticality 14 without looking at the charts.
15 0 You don't know if he - you're making an 16 , assumption that he did not do one. My question is do you 17 know from your investigation whether or not Mr. Myers did in 18 f act come around the front panel and discuss the issue?
19 A I cannot recall for sure. I believe he discussed 20 it with somebody but I cannot be sure who. Whether he came 21 out and' discussed it or somebody wandered back there, I'm 22 not really sure.
23 0 In your opinion would you think if somebody 24 wandered back there, back behind the back panels, would you 25 assume that they would come back with the information that ACE FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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'393 02 12 27 l 2 WRBagb 1 is in that log? .
2 A No, not the 56. position.
3 BY MR. KALKMAN:
4 0 Mr. Lessor, did you ask Gregg Overbeck to extend !
1 5 the review time?
6 A Yes, I dide 7 O The disposition date was to have' been July 9th, I 1 l
8 believe, on the original DER. l I
9 A Yes. <
l 10 0 Were you asked to have that extended? j I
11 A Yes. '
12 0 Why?
13 A I couldn' t get the interviews lined up, people 14 were off and not available.
i 15 O How was your investigation tied to the i I
16 , disposition of the DER? l 1
17 A I'm not sure I understand your question. i 18 0 Could the DER have been closed out once the 19 Reactor Engineering people made the decision that the 1
20 reactor had gone critical? '
21 A No, because in the DER process there is a step )
22 that requires remedial corrective action and the remedial i
i 23 corrective action was to put the rods back into their i 24 position and pull the rod that corrected the immediate 25 problem. And then the next part of the DER process is ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
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- 28 l-2 WRBagb 1 corrective action t.o prevent recurrence, and that was the l-2 part that you have to understand the event and understand 'I 3 the why's before you could'come up with how you could 4 prevent it from recurring. And that still isn't' closed 5 because we have some of our corrective action plans that i
6 aren't complete yet. J 7 O Mr. Lessor, have I or any other NRC l 8 representative here threatened you in any manner or offered 1
9 any rewards in return for this statement?
10 A No, sir.
11 O Have you given the statement freely and 12 voluntarily? ]
13 A Yes.
)
14 0 Is there anything further you would care to add )
i
.1 15 for the record? '
16 , A No.
17 0 Thank you.
18 (Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the interview was '
19 concluded.)
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CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTER l-i This is to certify that the ' attached proceedings before the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
i NAME OF PROCEEDING: INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF LEO LESSOR i l
DOCKET NO.:
PLACE: NEWPORT, MICHIGAN i l
DATE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1985 I were held as herein appears, and that this is the original l transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
(sivt) / // L' i
(TTFED)-
WILLIAM R. BLOOM official Reporter ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
R m 1i.er's Affili.ation l
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