ML20237K290

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Transcript of 850926 Investigative Interview of ML Batch in Newport,Mi Re 850702 Reactor Operator Error at Plant
ML20237K290
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Site: Fermi DTE Energy icon.png
Issue date: 09/26/1985
From: Batch M
DETROIT EDISON CO.
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FOIA-86-245 NUDOCS 8708270130
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j UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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NUCLEAR REGUIATORY CODMISSION j 2

r 3 _____________

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4 In the Mattar of: )

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5 INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW )

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7 BANF4NW888 ) -

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g The Deposition offMELVIN L. BATCH taken io pursuant to Notice before me, Elizabeth Diann Ferguson-Evans, si Notary Public in.and for the County of Wayne, (acting in Monroe 12 County), at Fermi II Nuclear Power Plant, 6400 North Dixie Highway.

l 13 Newport, Michigan, 48166, on Thursday, September 26, 1985, 14 r - aring at about 1:30 p.m.

15 APPEARANCES:

16 UNITED. STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 17 Office of Investigations Field Office: R5gion III 18 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137 gg (By: James N. Ealkaan Esq.)

20 Appearing on behalf of United States Nuclear  :

Regulatory ensumission 21 22 23 24 (continued) 25  % dwr 8708270130 870819 EXHlBlT W 'I PDR FOIA diJYJ u 7 te -]Q<)l3D PUNTENNBb-245 PDR o

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,3- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2

NUCLEAR REGULATORY' COMMISSION 3 _____________

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4 In the Matter of: )

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5 INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEF )

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e -of- )

, )

! 7 N I l

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _I e ,

j 9 TheDepositionofMELVINL.BATC]H taken i

10 Pursuant to Notice before me, Elizabeth Diann Ferguson-Evans, l l i3 Notary Public in and for the County of Wayne, (acting in Monroe l

l 12 County), at Fermi II Nuclear Power Plant, 6400 North Dixit Uighway, l

l i3 Newport, Michigan, 48166, on Thursday, Geptember 26, 1985,

, 34 commencing at about 1:30 p.m.

15 APPEARANCES:

16 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ,

17 Office of Investigations l Field Office: R591on III ig 799 Roosevelt Road Glen Ellyn, Illinois (M37 19 (By: James N. Kalkman, Esq.)

20 Appearing on behalf of United States Nuclear R5gul_atory Cosatission 21 22 23 ,

24 (continued) 25 C- __ ____._________m_. _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . - _ _ _ _ _ _

1

. .. l 1- APPEARANCES: (continued) l 2 l JOHN H. FLYNN, ESQ. '

Senior Staff Attorney 3

Legal Department 2000 Second Avenue

1 5 Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison l 1

6 PETER MARQUARDT, ESQ.

General Attorney 7

Nuclear Environmental 2000 Second Avenue 8

Detroit, Michigan 48226 9

Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison 10 THOMAS RANDAZZO, ESQ.

6400 North Dixie Highway l

' Newport, Michigan 48166 12 Appearing on behalf of Detroit Edison

'3

{ - - -

l 14 15 Elizabeth Diann Ferguson-Evans, CSR-1347 Certified Shorthand Reporter 16 B 17 I

18 y 19 2,

22 23 24 25

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_I N_ .D_ E_ _X 2 WITNESS PAGE 3 MELVIN L. BATCH 4 Examination by~Mr. Kalkman 4 5

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1 Newport, Michigan -

t 2 Thursday, SeptWr 26, 1985 3 at or about 1:30 p.m.

l 4 . . -

q 5 MR. KALKMAN: For the record, this is 6 the interview of Melvin Batch, who is employed'by the 7 Detroit Edison Company; the location of this interview is 8 the Fermi II Nuclear Power Station, Newport, Michigan.

9 Present at thii interview art Detroit 10 Edison Counsels, Mr. Marguardt, Mr. Flynn, and Mr. Randazzo; l 11 and NRC Investigator, Mr, Fal kman.

12 The subject matter of this interview, 13 concerns a reactor operator error which occurred at the 14 Fermi II Nuclear Power Station on July 2,1985.

i 15 Mr. Batch, would you stand and raise 16 your right hand? i i

17 - . . i l

18 KELVIN BATCH, L. i l

19 after having first been dulf sworn to tell the truth, l 1

i 20 the whole truth and nothing but the truth, testified l l

21 upon his oath as follows:  !

i 22 _ _ _ j 23 I

EXAMINATION l l

24 BY MR. KALKMAN: i 25 Q Mr. Batch, what is your job title?

l 4

1 A My job titio io cupervisor, Nuclear Fudi Engineerlag.

2 Q How long have you been employed in that position?

3 A About a year and a half. I 4 Q Are you an engineer?

5 *A Yes.

6 Q As Nuclear Engineer or what field were you :in?

7 A Nuclear is the best description, yes.

8 Q Mr. Batch, were you asked to have to perform some type of 9 an evaluation of an operator error that occurred on July 2nd?- J 10 A Yes.

l 11 0 19857 12 A Yes.

13 Q And could you recall for me what type of analysis you 14 performed, how, basically -- basically, how you were I 15 directed to perform this evaluation and so on?

16 A Well, there was the question of criticality, if we, indeed, 1

17 had achieved Criticality or not.

18 I was asked by Bill Colbert to give --

19 to review it and give my opinion.

20 Q What did you do?

l 21 A Well, we have a computer model of the Corp and we ran .the 22 rod configuration through that model; that calculation f 23 predicted that we probably did exceed criticality.

l 1

! 24 Also, I had a chance to review the 25 strip chart recordings and the analysis done by John Thorpe, 5

l<

j i

. cad I both verified bio work and cico looked at tha ctrip 2

charts at a slightly different angle from a different point ,

I!

3 and came up with the'same conclusion that he did:

4 That we did achieve criticality.

s Q Okay.

g What time frame are we talking about? 3 7 A Well, this was all done by about noon on July 5.

! g Q And you got back to Mr. Colbert with your findings?

t '

9 A Yes, and. that is a little confusing.

On July 3rd, I got back to Bill after j l jo a meeting that we had before I had all of these studies l ij 12 done. The results from that meeting, I told Bill verbally 13 that I don't think that we went critical.

34 Subs g ently to that, after I had all i +

15 of the analysis in. front of me, I changed my opinion and to I just wrote Bill a note at that time on July 5, that in 5 17 my opinion, we did go Critical.

is Q Well, what changed your mind between the third and the fif th?

l

19 A Well, the study of the strip chart recordings.

,f 20 Q And that information was not available on July 3rd?

21 A That is correct.

f i

f 22 In the kind of detail that I -- yes, 1 i 23 right.

24 Q Did you actually perform this analysis or did you have 25 someone in your Department perform the analysis?

- 6

1 A Well, most of the dog work was done by John Thorpe and then ,

( 2 other people in my Department; then I took the results. I 3 did eone original work there, but it was -- they did the j 1

4 bulk of the work. j 5 Did you ask Mr. Thorpe to perform the analysis?

Q i

6 i A yo, 7

Q Was it just, assigned down through Mr. Thorpe's supervisor, 8 or how did he come about being the person -- 4 9 (Discussion held off the record.) 1 10- . . .

11 BY MR. KALEMAN:

12 Now, I was asking you how Mr. Thorpe became the person O  ;

I 13 with the task of performing this analysis. J

l. 14 A Well, this is my recollection only:  ;

15 There was a staff meeting on July 3rd, 16 on which the question of criticality was debktad quite a t

5 17 bit; and I believe out of that meeting, he picked up the i

18 action, probably from Greg Overbeck to examine this more 18 thoroughly.

5 20 okay.

l Q 21 j Why was Mr. Thorpe at the meeting on i 22 July 3rd?

23 A Well, he is a Reactor Engineer, and he had done a fair

.24 amount of preliminary analysis beform that poeting.

25 l( 0 would you describe the July 3rd staff meeting where this L

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L___________________._._________________...

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', criticality issue was discussed?

( 2 A well, through a hiatus, I came in very late to that meeting.

i 3

I was there for probably only the last 20 minutes of it. l 4

When I walked in, thi strip. charts were y

6 laid out long-wise on the table; and that is the first time 6

that I had actually seen the real strip charts.

The question of criticality was being 8

tossed back and forth, and Greg Overbeck did a very careful 8

look at the strip charts, and he noted that channel A, the

'8 highest channel, by the strip chart showing a tandency to level off, and, in fact, did level off; and based on' that 12 leveling off, the only conclusion that you can make at that point is that the reactor was not critical because if it was critical, it is log chart, it should have stayed on i

15 a straight line with a steady increase.

16 So based on that observation, he said,

" Gentlemen, we were not critical. Where is your physics?"

'8 ~

l or words to that effect; and I was 100 percent in agreement

'8

): with him at that time.

j 20 If you look at that chart, there is no.

21 f

way that you could say that we were critical.

22 Now, you said earlier that John Thorpe 23 had already done some preliminary evaluation,nand it was 24 .

my understanding from talking tp other people that Mr. Thorpe 25

( argued that the reactor had been critical at that ueeting.

8

i Do ysu recall that?

J 2 A I think that was his position, correct, yes.

3 Q Were you there?

4 A Well, I missed almost all of his argument, and'I don't 5 really recall what his arguments were, s one of them, I think is that channel B, l 7 which w4s -- did not show the leveling off that Channel A .

8 did; but since channel A was the closest to the rod and l

9 reading factors higher, you should put much more faith in l l

10 what channel A was shwoing.

it Q Do you recall anyone else at that particluar meeting that ,

I 12 was of the opinion that the reactor was critical? l 13 A I do not. i

('

14 Q So is it your impression that the concensus was that there i is was no criticality?

l 16 A Greg's position was strong enough that nobody chose to li 17 challenge him on its and as I said, based on what he said, ll is I certainly agreed with his 100 percent.too.

19 Q And his positics was that there was no criticality?

20 A That the charts showed a leveling off from your leveling 21 off, that is indicative of sub criticality, and it is I

22 not indicative of being critical, 23 Q Why was there further analysis performed?

24 A Well, there are always open ends, and if I recall correctly,

25 Thorpe was trying to exp1'ain the leveling off, in which he 9

_____-__--a----------------s---

i cubrequcntly did.

( 2 O APParently, there was some doubt in someone's mind, 3 whether there was cr'ticality i because there was some 4 further review performed?

l 5 A Yes.

s O And who was the decision maker at that meeting that --

, 7 .A well, I don't recall for sure. As I guessed before, it s could have been Overbeck himself directing Thorpe to 9 proceed, but I don't know that precisely.

10 Q Do you recall Mr. Lessor at that meeting?

11 A At that time, I did not know who Mr. Lessor was; and so I 12 found out that he wa,s just about two guys down from me.

13 Q Well, when you were at this meeting, did Mr... Lessor argue

(

l 14 that there was a criticality?

15 A I don't recall that he did.

16 Q Or that he did not?

17 A I don't recall what his position was.

18 Q Do you remember anyone else expressing an opinion at the 19 meeting?

  • 20 A What I recall, it was mainly discussions between Thorpe and q 21 overbeek.

22 Q Well, how did you get involved in -- did Mr. Overbeck ask 23 your opinion?

24 A No.

I 25 Q So you just stated it because you felt it was obvious to I 10 p.=

i, you that it was not a criticality?

I .

2- A Yes, right, you know, I am a little bit closest to physics 3

than anyone else in that room; and I want;ed to show my 4

report as to what he was observing.

l 5 Q Now, you were surprised at the final results of Mr. Thorpe 's 6 analysis?

7 A I wa's not as much surprised as I was embarrassed for making 8

a pre- -- an early opinion based on not all of the facts.

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9 Q Now, it seems that you were quite convinced, at least in to your own mind, that there was no criticality, and then i 11 two days'later --

12 A Yes, I had to do an about face, yes. That is never pleasant.

13 0 1 -

( What was Mr. Colbert's reaction, I mean, when you initially 14 notified him that there was no criticality and then you came 15 back --

16 A Right.

l li 17 At the time that I formed this new I

- 18 opinion, he was not around. I put all of the stuff down in b

19 the note and gave it to him, and I basically got no feed j 20 back af ter that, or that I recall.
21 Q Well, Mr. Colbert did'not acknowledge the fact that he s

22 received your note?

23 A No.

24 Q But you are confident that he got the information?

! 25 A wo, 11 O

', 0 Well, I mean --

( 2 A I mean, if you put a note in annahady's in box, you assume 3

that they read it.

Q Well, weren't you concerned that you had advised Mr. Colbert 5

of one thing and now it was directly the opposite of what 1

8 you initially notified him of?

7 A I assumed that he read my note.

8 Q Now, is Mr. Thorpe a competent engineer?

8 A OH, yes.

'O Q Do you think that if you had been in the meeting throughout Mr. Thorpe's presentation, that you.may have had a different 12 impression of his argument?

'3 MR. FLYNN: Well, a question as to

[

whether or not he was arguing the same thing at the meeting {

'6 on whether he would know that as he ultimately found out; 1

'6 because I don't know if his arguments were the same.

l5 17

i. I guess if they were the same, it is 1!

j '8 a fair question; but if they were not, I think it could be misleading.

! = _ _

f BY MR. KALKMAN

l:

22 Q Did you know Mr. Thorpe had argued in favor of criticality. '

at the July 3rd meeting?

24 A '!as .

2s Q However, you were not present for his entire presentation?

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A That'c corrCct. 1 2 Like I said, when I walked in there,

(

3 that is the first time I had seen the strip charts, l

4 Q so you based your opinion --

5 A Strictly -- j e 0 -- on the charts that were on the table?

7 A Right. l l

8 Q And not on Mr. Thorpe's presentation? I 9 A Right. l 10 Q Did you have any problem with -- I mean, Mr. Thorpe is l l 31 a reactor engineer; and he had performed some analysis l

'l 12 and you came into the meeting merely looking at the charts )

-l 13 and you are expressing a differing opinion.

'( 14 Did that cause any problem for you?

15 A No, you know; I am not sure what right now, where he is l l

16 coming from, and as far as making his arguments that they l 1

i 17 were critical; -- but I know -- I was so impressed with

s

[ is that strip chart recording, that it seemed to be refutable, l; 19 regardless of whac Thorpe was saying.

j l:

20 Q What did Mr. Thorpe uitimately do to change your mind?

21 A Well, they were able to correlate rod movement with the li-l f 22 strip chart; and they developed a copy of the strip chart 23 that had rod movements annotated.along. theiside of it.

24 When you do that, I have every confidence

, 25 that it was done very, very carefully, one of my guys, was 13

t

, helping with it;- and when you do that, the leveling off

( 2 that we saw was after a rod movement.

3 Q Okay.

  • A I had assumed that if you look at the chart, it tends to 5

level off and then takes a sharp band d words; and that 6

had -- I had assumed that rod motion again had started at l l

7 that sharp bend that had preceded it. l l

8 Q Now, that type of information was not available at the 9 July 3rd meeting?

]

10 A That's right.

11 I Q Did you attend a subsequent meeting on July 5? q 12 1 A I did not attend that meeting, no.

33 0 Well, how were you notified that the criticality occurred?

i, A Well, where are you, on July 2nd or --

15 0 Well, when Mr. Thorpe came up with this final analysis, 16 did Mr. Thorpe directly contact you?

l 37 A No, like I say, one of the guys in my group we.s working I

le with John.

-l 19 Q h was that? '

20 A The guy by the name of Ken Jones.

$ Ken Jones?

21 Q r A Yes.

22 23 Q And Mr. Jones contacted you?

24 A Yes -- wul, you know, he worked for me and we were all 25 followitJ this very carefully, you know, with auch interest; 14

i

, I t .

l 1 and so he definitely kept me up-to-date, as to what was

{. 2 going in, and be gave me a complete set, or a copy of the 3 complete set of the results. .,,

)

4 Q Did you communicate to Mt. Jones and Mr.'-- the other 5

engineer's results to anyour in the DECO' management?

6 A go, 7

Q Other than Mr. Colbert?

8 A Right.

9 l Q Did you have any discussions with Mr. Lanart or Mr. Overbeck l

t 10 or Mr. Preston?

11 A -I did not, no, sir.

12 0 You discussed it within your own organization?

13 A Yes, right, with my supervisor and I did send a copy of 14

( my note to Hari Arora, who is the Reactor Engineer.

15 0 And this was on the fifth? i 16 A Right.

17 I

Q Would it be possible for me to get a copy of that note f-18 l that you gave to Mr. Arora and Dr. Jens?

18 I A Yes -- well, careful.

20 Q Oh, I'm sorry, to Mr. Colbert.

l

(

21 g yes, i

22 Q And I can also get a copy of the report on the findings as 23  :

resulting from the analysis, was there a written document 24 prepared by Mr. Jones?

25 A No.

15

1 The only thing we could show you from 2

that is the annotated strip chart.

3 Q So that was the only documentation of the --

A Right. There were tables of data that supported that they --

5 Q Well, I have a copy of that, I think.

6 A Okay.

7 0 That strip chart?

8 A Okay, 9

Q But I would like a copy of the note.

'O A Okay.

Q . tow, Mr. Batch, were you contacted by any NRC employee 12 relating to this operator error of criticality?

'3 A No.

1 Q It is my understanding that you had, subsequent to July 15 3, the July 3rd meeting, you had no conversations with

'6 i Mr. Overbeck or Mr. Lanart or anyone at that meeting I

'7 relating to the sub findings of the critic 411ty.

18 A Up to Dr. Jens, he called a meeting in preparation for 19 his presentation to the NRC; and I did attend that meeting, 20 so I don't recall who all was there, if it was Overbeck and 21 Lenart, whether they were there or not.

22 Q But in the time period of July 3rd and the -- no, I did 23 not talk with Lenart or Overbeck. .

k 24 MR. MARQUARDT Now, is the meeting 25 you are talking about 4 he July 23rd meeting or -- I am  ;

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1(.Jtrying to put this in context.

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.(- ' 't ., I 2 A well, that sounds like the correct date. l

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Okay, 3 a MR. MARQUARDT:

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j1 t/ 4 A It was a meeting in Glen allyn.

.-f 1 5 < y .

6 BY MR. KAIJXM:

i

  1. 7 Q Mr. Batch, I have gotten the~ perception'or understanding 8- from talking to other people that your opinion at that 1

i 9

' July 3rd meeting carried a lot of weight.

l

'k to Are you known within the DECO organization l l'

11 as sosioone with quite a bit of knowledge in this area? Your a ,

12 background?

13

( ..

1 A Well, I am complimented.

1 l

Id Except for my supervisor, Dave Wehmeyer, <

l I 15 I think we do represent most of the physics that there is i

16 in this Company.

9 l 17 Q When you found out that your original opinion of this J}

j 18 incident was not correct, did you feel any obligation to . l 4 ,

i j 19 notify anyone that was at thik meeting.that your. analysis (hg. 20 was incorrect, the original analysis?

l

J j 21 A Well, I had understood that at the July 5th meeting, that is 22 Overbeck accepted the fact.that we did achieve-criticality. .l 23 Q At which meeting? l 24 A I thought the July 5th meeting, or --

- l 25 Q Okay. 1 i

l 1

. . 17 l

t 1

of course, you were not present at 1

2 that meeting?

3 l A Right.

I 4 Q You had --

5 A The skuttlebut. was that he had accepted -- that he had 6

heard Thorpe's argument either during the meeting or in 7

a private meeting, I don't know what; and he had accepted 8 it, and that was going to be our position; and he was not 9 going to argue with it anymore.

10 So with that, no, I did not feel like 11 I should carry on anymore.

12 Q But you knew there was some notification to the operations '

13 people? I J

14 A Yes, well, that is what I heard, right.  !

h 15 Q Okay.

16 Ware you contacted by Mr. Arora after 17 h he received your note?

18 A Yes, he corrected me on one minor point in my note, so, yes,  !

19 you know, since my results agreed with his; so there was no I
{

20 i

, discussion beyond that. 4 21 i Q Now, Mr. Arora was at the July 3rd meeting, correct?

22 A I am quite certain that he was, although if somebody told 1 l

23 se he was not, I would not arguer but it seems like he was.

24 Q Do you know if Mr. Arora agreed with Mr. Thorpe's position?  !

I 25 A I do not know. I l

18

. 1 Q Do you recall Mr. Lenart expressing an opinion at the .

( 2 July 3rd meeting?

3 A On whether or not we had been critical?

4 0 Yes.

5 A No.

6 Q Okay.

7 Mr. Batch, have I or any other NRC 8

representative here threatened you in any matter or offered 9

you any rewards in return for your statement?

10 A You have not.

11 Q Okay.

12 Have you given this statement freely

! 13 and voluntarily?

14 A Yes.

15 o Is there anything further you care to add for the record?

16 A No.

17 i

Q Thank you, l

18 (Deposition concluded at 2:05 P.m.)

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20 21 22 23 24

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25 19

y 1

STATE OF MICHIGAN) l

) ss.

( 2 COUNTY OF WAYNE ) I 3

I, Elizabeth Diann Ferguson-Evans, do hereby l

4 certify that the witness whose attached deposition was taken befora -

5 me, in the above-entitled matter, was by me first duly cautioned 6

and sworn to testify to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but 7

the truth, in the cause aforesaid; that the testimony contained 8

in said deposition was by me reduced to writir.g in the presence 9

of said witness by means of stenography and af terwards transcribed 10 upon a typewriter. The said deposition is a true and correct 11 transcript of the whole of the testimony given by the said witness 12 aforesaid.

13 I do further certify that I am not connected 14 by blood or marriage with any of the parties or their agents, and 15 that I am not an employee of either of them, nor interested, 16 directly or indirectly, in the matter of controversy, either as s'

17 counsel, attorney, agent or otherwise.

. 18

! IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my

19 hand and affixed my notarial seal at Detroit, Michigan, County of 20 Wayne, State of Michigan, this d h day o %At , 1985.

g --

21 i s 22 x L v

M Vi s wu\D.m -boan

.v g 23 q Elizabeth Diaan Ferguson-Evans, CSR-1347 24 Notary Public,' Wayne County,.

Michigan 25 My Commission expires: May 14, 1986 20

-- .-. a ,

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