ML20238A196

From kanterella
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Transcript of AL Maughan 860626 Investigative Interview in Grandbury,Tx Re Region IV Regulation of Plant.Pp 1-15. Related Info Encl
ML20238A196
Person / Time
Site: Comanche Peak  Luminant icon.png
Issue date: 06/26/1986
From: Maughan A
NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV)
To:
Shared Package
ML20237F760 List: ... further results
References
NUDOCS 8708200398
Download: ML20238A196 (18)
v • d • e


Text

{{#Wiki_filter:. . 

                                              .ORLG   XA_
 .(-

UN11EU STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1 i l 1 

                                                                                                             .:3.

IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: l INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW ( LOCATION: GRANDBURY, TEXAS PAGES: 1- 15 ,. I DATE: THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1986 l 

                                            \
                                          )

l 

                                        /

l 

    -                                          Aa-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

444 Cr vsc,u. - , 

                                                         < (202)$          Attachment AA 8708200398 870019 DR    ADOCK 0500      5                    mm m

 ~

I ' 

 .                                                                         BEFORE THE 2

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR AND AUDITOR 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 3 5 Interview of:  : s 6 ALLEN LOUIS MAUGHAN  : 7 . _____________x . 8 Room 101 The Plantation Inn 9 Granbury, Texas 10 Thursday, i June 26, 1986 11 1 12 APPEARANCES: 13 For the Commission: 14 GEORGE A. MULLEY, JR. Special Assistant to the Director 15 Office of Inspector and Auditor Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

    .                      16 2

3 g 17 is l I 19 1 I r 20 l j l 21 , l 8 2 22 e 23 24 , 25 -- d I'- ** .

  • wres i+sw=.* a .=+--a m . ~ . +  :., -%

i 2 1 Whereupon, - J 2 ALLEN LOUIS MA*JGHAN, 3 having been duly sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth 4 and nothing but the truth, was interviewed and answered as 5 follows: i G MR. MULLEY: The time is 2:08 p.m. The date l 7 is the 26th of June 1986. We are in Room 101 of The Planta-8 tion Inn in Granbury, Texas. 9 Present is: Mr. Maughan, who is an NRC 10 consultant at Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Reactor; myself, 11 George Mulley, who is a special assistant to the director, 12 Office of Inspector and. Auditor, NRC; and the court reporter, 13 Miss Sandra Harden. 14 I have asked Mr. Maughan here today to discuss 15 information he may have concerning Region IV's regulation of 

   .                                       16  the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.

2 3 

   !                                       17  BY MR. MULLEY:

18 l l l Q Mr. Maughan, could you first give us a brief i j l 19 resume of your background and experience? j i l j 20 A Well, I'm basically an electrical engineer. 21 By trade, I have a Bachelor's of Science degree in Electrical 8 { 22 Engineering, and I've been working in the field now for about 23 nine years. And I've spent the last six years-- well, seven I 24 counting the year here, working for EG&G Idaho on nuclear 25 related plants. Six years of that mostly as a design engineer -- l I 

                                                                                                                            ., j

4 3 

                                                                                                                 .)

1 on experimental plans for DOE. And the last year here, you 2 know, I've been.an inspector on.this NRC job. 3 0 When did you arrive at Comanche Peak? 4 A July 30th, '85. 5 O Since you've been there, what areas have you , 6 been involved with on the site? t 7 A You mean, like specific equipment or-- B Q Kind of the general areas. 9 A well, okay. So far, when I first got here, 10 it was mainly to do with electrical equipment and re-inspectior t 11 by this CPRT group they've got out there that TUGCO has hired 12 to, you know, overview-- re-inspect the plant and come up" 13 with some qualitative, quantitative assessment of where the 14 plant's at, Unit 1 specifically. l 15 And so, I've worked on those activities up l 16 until about a month ago. g And the last-- oh, I can say, most s g 17 of this month I have now started to do Unit 2 type work and  ; f e 4 i l 18 working on NRC inspection modules for the Region while we're e i i 19 waiting for the CPRT people to c6me up with new program in a j 20 couple of the electrical areas, specifically the bud splicing . 21 and electrical separation barriers-- or, the two ISAP  ! { 22 barriers. 23 And then I've done just general, what we call, 24 7(c) inspections, which is anything electrical under 7 (c) 25 like electrical equipment, cable, conduit, cable tray, -i l 4 

                             - -   v-     -
                                               ---      ~     -
                                                                         ~      -

a ____-__r_____. _ 

    .                                                                                        4 1

insulations. I have done done-- both gone out with the 2 CPRT's inspector,s, witnessed their wor'k, and done independent. 3 So, that's what I've done for the last year. l 4 Q During your time here at Comanche Peak, have  ; 1 5 you been given sufficient freedom by Region IV to go out and j 6 develop and document your findings? 7 A Yeah. .I haven't had any problems as far as l l ) 8 what to write up or what.to put down or how to go about my l 9 inspections. The only stipulation we've made was that on the l 10 7(c) inspections, we've tried to do them the same as the CPRT l 11 group, you know, so we can make a fair assessment of their 12 work. 13 So, we've used their checklists and procedures. 14 But if we find something out of scope or that's not covered 15 by the procedure, yeah, we've followed it up. In some cases, 

 . 16    we've come up with, you know, findings and citations.

r 17 O How would you describe Region IV's inspection s l 18 policy out at the site? { ) l 19 A Well, I feel we're-- you ;now, we're doing a 

 }                                                                                              !

l 20 pretty thorough job. We've been here a lot longer than we 21 figured. You know, I came down here for three to six months,- S 22 and it's month eleven. And I'll still be here for a few mort, { 23 SO~~ 24 We've basically, you know, gone out on our 25 inspections, followed up, and now we're trying to make an < __y

f 1 assessment of Unit 2 on the electrical side, anyway. Therefs, 2 myself and one other electrical inspector working on Unit 2 3 right now to try to see how that compare,s with what we found i 4 in Unit 1. 5 So, I don't-- I haven't seen any real problem, 6 You know, we've gone out, and they said look thoroughly and do 7 your job. 8 O Have you ever perceived any attitude by Region 9 IV to not find anything wrong at Comanche Peak and just get 10 the plant licensed? A No, I really haven't. The only thing that 12 there's been any discussion with Region IV is ju~st, you know, , t . 1 l 13 what systems are we supposed to look at. And we have tried 14 to-- you know, at least from my point of view, give the i 15 utility the benefit of the doubt and stay with the safety-

. 16 related equipment. Because there's so many things to look at l 2 g 17 anyway, e i 18 No, I've never been told not to look at 1

{ l 19 anything, you know, or just look at this or look at that. 3 j 20 In fact, there's a lot of times I've been asked to follow up 21 on items that I didn 't think were very significant coming 

    ?

I 

  -{                 22   fram a design background, but we followed up anyway and close:

23 those items out. 24 0 Have you ever noticed an attitude by the l 25 Region to try to handle things more or less informally with , l 

                                                                                                  , ,       1,_

6 

       .       ,'l                     the licensee?       Instead of documenting the violation, maybe 2

try to get the t.hing resolved before we go on paper? 3 A No, huh-uh. I haven't--* The only-- No, 4 there's never been an' instance. The only thing I can say is 5 usually we do try to ask them-- If we find a violation or a 6 deviation, we try to give them the benefit of' the doubt to 7 see if they've previously identified it already and just-- 8 you know, it's documented and covered somewhere else. 9 But-- You know, like, if they've already 10 identified it a month or two months before we ever came there 11 and they're working on it, you know, obviously you don't want 12 to cite them for what they already know. l i 13 So, we usually go and talk to them first and j 14 give them a chance. That also makes them aware. And then, 15 if they can't produce any documentation or any information as 16 to why it should be different than the way it is, yeah, we l g l i 17 cite them. . 5 l ) { 18 Q Have 'you been steered away by the Region, 

         !       19                   away from the QA issues more towards QC hardware items that
         }                                                                                                             1 l      20                    are very easy to fix?                                                      '

21 A No. But I try to stay out of the QA just 2 { 22 because my background is not that. I'm more hardware oriented 23 and I like to stay in the hardware. But, no, I haven't been l v steered away. 25 I have-- On EPAs, for example, we got involved -k l 

                                                                                                                      .1 1
         ~.     ..4      . . . - _ . ,
r. .
                                                                             .w,       -      -, - ,      .,

I 7 1 in receiving inspection'and reviewing qualification reports 2 and so on and so.forth. And that's more QA, to me, oriented 3 than hardware oriented. But I went through all of that and, 4 put together a major citation package which went out separately 5 from all our others. 6 I've never been steered away from them, but 7 personally, I try to avoid it because I'm not that well versed 8 in it. l 9 Q If you were to come across a finding or an 10 issue in the QA arena, do you feel you'd be allowed the free-l 11 dom to go and develop it and document it without-- 12 A Oh, yeah. No problem. In fact, usually what 13 I do because of the amount of work, I'd go to the QA guys 14 and say, "Here's a finding. Take it and fix it or do whatever 15 you're supposed to do with it." or "What about this?" 

     .                                                 16                                    So, usually, if there 's other areas, I try to e

f l 17 take them to somebody who's working in the area. And since l 18 we have QA guys out there and mechanical guys, civil guys,  ! l l 19 anything I notice that doesn't look right, I just take it to 1 i 20 the appropriate area if it's not in my area. l 21 0 Have you ever been told to confine your 

    ?

{ 22 inspections to the follow up of the Comanche Peak Response 23 Team action plans and not to go and try to find new findings 24 or not to look at old items? 25 A No. If I-- If that was true, then we wouldn't -- ( l. 

 -41'gm mis ep p.ge .msugwe n impugg*aw M gr *ge s .      1e Esmi-a ng g M %uey beem   +*e e

                                                                                                      \

8 1 have had a civil penalty type violation package which we put 2 out on the EPA's, and that was specifically an offshoot or an 3 out-of-scope observation that I was basically told to go 4 ahead and follow up. And I worked with C.e Region IV people, 5 and we followed it up and put together a package. And they 6 were assessed a civil penalty. 7 Have you ever been in a situation where you've 0 8 identified what you believed to be a violation or finding , 9 and been asked by the Region, you know, don't write it up or to you don't have enough-- you know, any area where you've 11 disagreed with the Region's position? 

                                                 ~

12 A No. , 13 0 Do you know of anybody that has had problems 14 like that? 15 A No, huh-ch. I mean, I really haven 't talked . 16 to anybody. 2 i 17 O And nobody's come to you and said, " Hey, listen T l 18 I've found something I think is really justified, and I can't j l 19 get it past the Region." No incidents like that? j I } 20 A No, none. l 21 O Have TUGCO employees ever come to you with I t i j 22 concerns that you've tried to relay to Region IV and Region 23 IV has not been interested? 24 A No. No, in fact, right now we have inspections 25 that we're in the process of setting up and performing this _ l

i d 9 j I next week that are because of information from TUGCO personnel , 2 Q So, the Region's been receptive-- l . 3 A Yes. j l 4 --to concerns by TUCCO people? Q 5 A No problem there. 6 Q Do you feel like the NRC inspectors, the { 7 Region IV and th'e NRR inspectors that have been at the site, 8 do you feel that they're qualified to inspect the areas 

                                                                                      ]

9 they've been inspecting? l 10 A I don't know everybody's background, but I l t l 11 feel that what they've been doing, they seem to know-- j 

      . 12   especially the team leader I have now is well versed in what 13   we're doing and fully understands,     So, I'd say, yes, they're        j 14   well qualified for what they're doing.

G Q Have you ever had an instance of doing an l i 2 16 inspection af ter an NRC person's already done their inspection 1 17 and found things that they've missed? 

 }e I

18 A Not that I can remember.  ! h 19 0 What about other people on the consultant I 

 ?                                                                              ,

staff? l 20  ! 21 A Nobody's mentioned that. But if it was, it t 22 would have to have been-- Well, I take that back. We have { i l 23 found old reports where things that we have found were somehow l l 24 missed in those reports. Now, you know, this was very old, 25 two, three, four years ago, where we don't have all the . I i l 

                                                                         .             I I

                                                                        .                        ,-                         i 10 i

l 1 information as far as what was looked at or what was presented, 2 So, it's prett'y hard to judge or make any assessment. I 3 But the people'I'm presently working with and 4 the people I've met from the Region, I'd say, are well quali-5 fled, and I don't have any problem with the inspections they've l 6 done. 7 Q Your group, the consultants that are now working l 8 at the site, are they in any way unique? Do they provide 9 special qualifications that are not normally available to the j 10 NFC in such a fashion as they are here? 11 A I'm not sure what,you're-- t 12 0 Well, do you guys have a higher level of 

                         -       13      expertise than you might normally find in a group such as l

14 yours out doing work for the NRC? Or, do you feel that-- l 15 A Well, I'm sure that we do-- You know, we tre 

       .                         16      not very generalist.             I mean, obviously, I do electrical, and 2

a r 17 that's all I've basically done for nine years. And I've spent i 18 l six of those years designing systems for nuclear plants. h 19 So, in that sense, yeah, I think we're more 1 3 l 20 specialized than what I consider the general NRC. You know, ) 21 usually they're into inspections, and most of the group out t 8 { 22 there usually came from design. So, we're used to building 23 them more than inspecting them. 24 Now, there are the QA guys, who are all 25 inspection /QA oriented, but I don 't see that we're that 

                                                                                                                         -~q l

w_c - + .- -.-mm._..u.-.mm. 

                      .                  .      ._____m      . . _

I 1 special. 2  ; 0 Based on the, well, let's say, the specializa-3 tion that you have versus the general area of expertise that 4 some of the NRC people have, maybe especially with NRR,-- I 5 A Uh-huh. 6 Q --has there ever been any problems where you 've 1 1 7 found things that, based on your specialized experience, that 8 NRR people or Region IV people have missed? [ 9 A No, not anything they've looked at, anyway. I to We've found things and brought it to the attention of NRR that 11 were areas that we thought that, " Hey, maybe you ought to look 12 at this. We're not sure you're aware of it." 13 Q You have not been very much involved with QA 14 out at the site, but do you have any impressions of the ' 15 quality of TUGCO's QA program? 

   .                                 16 ,           A          Well, yeah. After being there eleven months, s

3 17 everybody's got impressions. 18 0 What are yours? 

 !                                   19             A         Well, from what I've seen,--    You know, I i

l 20 haven't observed a lot of their inspectors in the field, but l I 21 the procedures that I have read, I personally like their 

                                                                                                            ,  f' S

{ 22 procedures. I like Brown & Root's construction procedures. 23 They seem to cover a good installation. 24 Obviously, you know, you find a few holes here 25 or there. l i c _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ 

                                                                                                                                                       ')

12: I The inspectors that I've' dealt with seem to' 2 know what they're doing. Very knowledgeable. I've noticed 3 that they try to-- they carry little booklets of the procedure 4 in the field. I don't know what more you could do. 5 They seem trained. They seem to know what-6 'they're looking for.' They have good forms to follow inLease' 7 they., you know, forget something. . I mean, it's all there on 3 8 the checklists. 9 So, I.think it'looks good.- 10 O Do you know Shannon Phillips? 11 A Yeah, I do. ) 

                                                                                                                                                          )

12 O How about Tom Westerman? 13 A Yeah, I know Tom. ,1 l 14 O Have you ever witnessed or do you have any I 15 knowledge of any confrontations between Westerman and i R 16 Phillips at the site concerning the way Phillips perceives 4 g 17 his job should be done versus the way Westerman perceives ) v I 

  !'                      18                                                   Phillips' job should be done?

l 19 A No. I1 l -l 20 0 Witnessed no arguments or loud discussions or 21 anything like that? 8 { 22 A No. Anytime Tom has talked to Shannon, it's 23 either been over at Shannon's trailer, which is next door to 24 ours, or in Tom's office with the door closed, obviously 25 going over something.- 

                                                                                                                                                    .c I

13 i 1 , And not being one to eavesdrop and having I 2 enough to do, I avoid that. 

                                                       .                                                                                 1 3              Q       Are you aware of any disagreements between l

Phillips and Westerman?' 4 ' 5 A Only word of mouth. - 

                                                                                                                                        )

6 Q From word of mouth, what do you know? ) 1 7 A Well, just that Shannon doesn't seem to be  ! l l 8 happy with the way things' are going, you know, from just 9 discussions with Shannon, talking to him. And just-- I have l i 10 noted that there is some'conflictibetween the Region'IV people 

                                                                                                                                        \

11 in our trailer and Shannon. That's all I know. 12 0 How would you evaluate Phillips as an inspector? 13 A I don't know. All I know is that he does 14 mechanical inspections. I don't know how often he goes out 15 in the plant, but I do know he does no electrical. So, 

    ;                  16          therefore, I have no interface with him, other than casual
1 i 17 comments. That's part of the reason, I guess, we're in Unit l 5

8 i 18 2 is because he has no background in electrical, j 

   !                   19                    Q      Have you ever had an occasion or do you know                                          ,

a ' 0 l 20 of any-instance where Region IV personnel may have embarrassed .I 21 inspectors or. consultants at the site? For example, when an S { 22 inspector or consultant is trying to discuss a finding with 23 the utility and the Region IV staff is disagreeing. Any 24 examples or instances like that that you're aware of ? 25 A No. y 

      -_____-__-_m ._  _ _ _ - _                                                       _    - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ ~ _ _ _____

l l 14 1 1 O You've been allowed, without any strings, to j 2 discuss your findings with the licensee? 3 A Yes. 4

Q You've received no resistance at all from

! 5 Region IV concerning your findings and documenting them and 6 developing them; is that correct? J 7 A That's right. I've never had problems with 8 anything like that. l i 9 g You've never received any instructions or you 10 know of nobody, do you, that have received instructions not'to I 11 talk to Phillips or just stay away from him? 12 A Not from Region IV, no. My company, because ) 1 13 of whatever problems are going on in the Region, I've been 14 asked to basically do my job, which is-- Basically, I have 15 no interface with Shannon, other than general, you know, stuff 

     ;                                        16            that I have to put in his reports. But my company, until i

g 17 this problem is resolved, has asked me to just stay in my e l 18 area and not get involved in any kind of political hassles j l 19 or problems with the Region. 2 0 l 20 Q Have you been contacted by anybody from Region ! 21 IV concerning this interview or anything like tha.t? 22 A No. Other than the general chitchat among 23 the other consultants who are all going to be here this 24 afternoon. 25 Q Right. But nobody from the Region has c

15 1 contacted you to try to brief you or. influence you in any 1 ' 1 2 way. 3 A No. Everybody's on their own. 4~ Q To summarize, then, you feel that Region IV i' l 5 has allowed you to go out, conduct inspections, develop i 6 findings or document violations without the Region trying to i l l 7 show any partiality one way or the other, that they're doing 8 an objective job and allowing you to do an objective job 9 out there; is that correct? l l 10 A That's true. There's been-- Obviously, I go i 11 back to the EPAs. That was totally an out-of-scope item. l 12 In fact, I was encouraged in that case to pursue it. 13 Q What does " EPA" stand for, do you know? 14 A Electrical penetration assemblies. And there's 15 a full-blown report, separate report, and violation package 2 16 that was written involving a finding for exactly those areas,  !

t 3 17 and it started from one little item. So, I was encouraged to e

{* 18 pursue it, all aspects of it. And I did. l l 

  !                            19 0                      So, you know of no example or no instance 1                                                                                                                          l 20   where it appears that the Region has favored the licensee in l                                                                                                                   {       .

21 any way? f S 2 22 A No. l; j l  ! 23 Q And you know of no example of the Region trying' I 24 to informally handle problems without going the route o'f 25 documenting them in inspection reports? 

                                                                                                                         - q
                                                                                                                             \

16 j I A No, I don't. 2 MR. MULLEY: Okay. Do you have anything else 3 you would like to add? ., THE WITNESS: Huh-uh.  ; 5 One question. You know, this is a transcript. 6 Will we get a copy of this? 7 MR. MULLEY: Yes, you're going to get a copy 0 of the transcript. I've already made arrangements to have 9 them sent down here. 10 THE WITNESS: Okay. I don ' t have anything. 11 MR. MULLEY: Okay, that's it, i l 12 (Whereupon, at 2:32 p.m., the interview of 13 ALLEN LOUIS MAUGHAN was concluded.) 14 --- 

                                  '                            15
                   .                                           16 2

4 5 17 E 

                   $                                           10                                                                        I E                                                                                                                     -
                   !                                           19 i

3 20 l 21 S 2 22 . 23 24 25 i h 

         - - - - _   _ _ - - _ - - _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _                                                                 o

I REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 5 2 3 I hereby certify that the proceedings herein 4 are contained fully and accurately in' the notes taken by me l ( 5 during the sworn interview of ALLEN LOUIS MAUGHAN on June 26, 6 1986, commencing at the hour of 2:08 p.m., and that this is 7 a true and accurate transcript of the same. 8 9 10 /A, I Sandra Harden.- 11 Reporter 12 My Commission expires: 6-4-89. 13 14 15 e 16 R g' 17 l 5 i 18 l l 19 1 h 20 21 l, k 22 { , 23 24 , 25 o O raan _-_2.r.2 e._.__ _ . . _ _ . . . < ..ar-,#.,_,r _u_#., & m ,,. , _, . _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __}}

Retrieved from "https://kanterella.com/w/index.php?title=ML20238A196&oldid=3111239"