ML20247F082
| ML20247F082 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Rancho Seco |
| Issue date: | 04/03/1987 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20247F042 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-89-2, FOIA-89-A-7 NUDOCS 8905300001 | |
| Download: ML20247F082 (147) | |
Text
.____ ____________ _ ____ -
1 BEFORE THE 2
UNITED STATES I
3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4
REGION V 5
6 In the Matter of:
)
)
)
7 INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW
)
DOCKET NO:
NONE
)
8 (CLOSED MEETING)
)
9 Sunrise Sheraton Hotel 11211 Point East Drive 10 Rancho Cordova, California 11 Friday April 3, 1987 12 An investigative interview was conducted with 13 RONALD WAYNE COLOMBO commencing.at 10:00 a.m.
PRESF C:
.15 ROBERT G.
- MARSH, 16 Di re r, tor, Field Office, and RGk%D A.
MEEKS, Investigator 17 Office of Investigations, Region V Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 ss
/W 8905300001 890516 PDR FDIA PDR FR.I EDM AB9-A-7 I 5' 86 - 010 EXFIBIT 'e J
a b nsa n
aw w
2 1
CONTENTS 2
WITNESS PAGE 3
Ronald Wayne Cclombo l.
4 Examination by NRC Representatives 3
S 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 EXHIBITS 13 (None)-
O
,4 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 2S 1
C
_--_m.________._
3 I
PERSONAL INTERVIEW l
l 2
10:25 a.m.
3 MR.'MEEKS: For the record, this is an interview 4
of Ronald W. Colombo, spelled C-o-1-o-m-b-o, who is employed 5
by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, at.the Rancho Seco!
6 Nuclear. Generating Station.
7 The location of this interview is Rancho Cordova, 8
9 Present at: this interview are myself, Ronald A.
10 Meeks, an IrF estigator with the Office of Investigations Field 11 Office, Region Five, and Robert Marsh, the Director of the Offic 12 of Investigations Field Office, Region Five.
13 As agreed, this interview is being transcribed by 14 Court Reporter Mike Lysaught.
15 The subject matter of this interview concerns the 16 Effluence, Liquid Effluence Program, at the Rancho Seco Nuclear 17 Generating Station.
18 Mr. Colombo, if you'll stand and raise your right 19 hand, I'll swear you in.
20 MR. COLOMBO:
I really don't have to swear to tell 21 the truth.
22 Whereupon, 23 RONALD WAYNE COLOMBO 24 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as t
25 follows:
_______._____..__.-________.-..m
4 n
1 EXAMINATION 2
BY MR. MEEKS:
i 3
o In September of 1984, there was a commitment made 4
by SMUD, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, wherein they 5
reported that for the first eight months of 1984.' they had 6
exceeded the Appendix I, Technical Specifications at Rancho Seco 7
which implemented Appendix I, 10 CFR 1050 Appendix I, which were<
S as you know, are provisions for radioactivity and liquid effluent 9
releases. And they reported that they exceeded that, you know, 10 the Regs had been implemented in July of '84, and the cause of 11 it was the steam generator tube leaks, but they had made a com-12 mitment not to make any more radioactive releases. They correcto 13 the steam generator tube leaks and that they had listed near tag 14 corrective actions which had been implemented and which was goia 15 to assure that they wouldn't have any more releases of radio-16 activity in their liquid effluents.
And then there was a long term corrective action G 17 la the instructional evaporative ponds.
19 What was your involvement in the development of 20 the information for that report?
It was called Special Report 21 84-07. It was dated September 29, 1984.
22 A
That was a report to the NRC7 23 Q
Yes.
24 A
The Rodriguez Report to Jack Martin?
P 25 0
It was sent to J. B. Martin and it was from --
5 1'
Martin being the Regional Administrator of the Region Five Offict 2
of NRC.
It was sent under the signature of Ronald J. Rodriguez, 3
Executive Director for Nuclear for SMUD at that time.
4 A
Under most circumstances, I would coordinate i
5 those responses.
I would get responses from the.4ngineers most 6
directly influenced by the questions, get their' answers and
-7 compile the information into a report that you have in front of 8
you. So I would be the coordinator of the report.
g Q
okay.
Does the source of the information, it 10 would come from maybe two or three different sources?
11 A
In that case, I do believe I had input from Roger Powers. I had input from Ed Bradley.
I had input from Arshad 12 Alvi, and I may have had some input from some other engineers.
g3 And I would compile their responses into a uniform report and 14 prepare that document for Mr. Rodriguez.
15 Q
Okay. What -- Why don't we talk about what your 16 function was in September of 1984, what your position was with, 17 18 at Ranco Seco?
19 A
In '84 I was the Regulator Compliance Superinten-20 dent responsible for coordinating the activities between Region 21 Five and the Operations Group at Rancho Seco.
22 o
okay.
23 A
And that includes answering LER's or Notices of 24 Violation, any questions the NRC had, I would coordinate those 25 efforts.
- e
__m__.______
6 1
Q Just briefly explain what you mean by Operations 2
Group, the Operations Group at Rancho Seco?
3 A
Yes.
I acted as the licensing individual for the 4
Operations Group, which is the term " Regulatory Compliance". The 5
Engineering Group had their own licensing group.*With Engineering 6
if there was a little problem with Engineering, Licensing would 7
coordinate their activities.
But it was two separate groups 3
at that time.
And I would coordinate the NRC activities g
with Operations.
10 Q
By Operations you mean the personwl and managers 11 at the plant who ran the plant?
12 A
Yes.
13 Q
And all its various functions, line and support 14 functions?
15 A
Yes.
16 Now, in this particular case, I do think I did 17 cross lines, because when I had to get information of that type c gg I had to see Mr. Alvi and I had to see Mr. Ed Bradley and Roger gg Powers. Butthey were in the Operations group -- They were in thC
~
20 Engineering group. And I had to cross lines to see them.
I do 21 remember several meetings I had in Sacramento trying to coordi-22 nate that response.
23 O
Okay.
What -- is that your current position now?
24 The same position you had in September of '847 25 A
Yes.
l l
L - _ -- _ - _
4
.7 g
Q You are the Regulatory Compliance Superintendent?
2 A
Correct.- For the Rancho Seco Plant.
I 3
Okay.
Now it has all formed togethsr in one groupd l
4 We all work at Rancho Seco now.
5 o
All of the Engineering and Operation's?
1 6
A Engineering and Operations. So I now do the com-7 pliance for Engineering, also, when they-have coordination. necesc 8
sary.
Since we're all in Rancho Seco now.. I couldn't'coordi-9 nate the activities.
Licensing had those activities before.
10 Now I am in Licer. sing.
So I'm a sub-group of Licensing now.
11 Q
In September of '84, who was your supervisor?
12 A
Pierre cubre.
13 Q
And what was his position?
A He was plant superintendent, or Operations manager.
34 15 Q
He was the number one Operations executive or 16 manager at that time.
17 A
Yes.
18 Q
And he reported to Ron Rodriguez?
19 A
Yes.
Who was downtown.
20 Q
Who was the author of this Special Report 84-07?
21 A
Well, Rodriguez has his name on it. He signs for 22 the head of the company.
All that input was submitted to me 23 to put the document together and I submitted.it to Rodriguez.-
24 Pierre Oubre would have reviewed it and brought it to Rodriguez 25 for his final signature.
8 1
Rodriguez being the final signature authority for 2
NRC. All documentation, NRC information, goes through Rodriguez 3
as an RJR number.
It's a clearing house.
4 Q
I understand what you're saying.
Okay.-
j i
5 Who were the principal individuals that you inter l 6
faced with concerning the input of information for special 7
Report 84-077 s
A I believe the majority of that input came from g
either Pierre Oubre or Arshed Alvi.
10 Q
Okay.
A I could almost break it up into three or four partC gg 12 and tell you essentially which group wrote what.
13 Q
Okay.
Well, can we do that?
I 14
.Well, I'll tell you what.
Let me just ask you 15 something.
16 A
I do believe I used Roger Powers and Ed Bradley gy as a review consultant.
And they made comments and we modified it.
It was put together by at least four of us.
gg gg Q
What was it that initiated this -- Let me ask you this:
How was the input, the information of Special Report 84-01 20 21 implemented?
22 A
Implemented?
23 o
or iniated. That's a better word.
24 A
Thet response?
25 Q
Yes.
What was its genesis of starting to gather P
u
9 1
the information?
2 A
The start was Pierre Oubre gave me a responsibility 3
to put together that information.
)
4 Q
It was "This is what I want you to do"?
l 1
5 A
Normally he would give me an NRC doctiment that l
6 asked questions, or some form, and say," Generate a reply for me.;
7 And I would get the individuals together and generate a reply 8
f r him.
g Q
Was there such a document in _this case that gene-rated Oubre's instructions to you?
10 A
Yes, I do believe there was a set of questions,four g3 12 or five questions if I can remember right, that was given to me 13 as the --
14 Q
Initiator?
15 A
-- initiator of that, and I hunted down the people 16 to reply to those questions.
17 Q
Did those questions come from NRC or were they 18 generated within the operations group?
19 A
I thought they did come from the NRC.
20 Q
would you still have that in your files?
Do you l
21 have a file for 84-07, you know, work file, so to speak?
l 22 A
No, I wouldn't keep anything like that.
I would l
23 keep the final copy.
I should have a copy of that number in my 24 files.
No, I didn't keep any.
i 25 Q
That document with its four or five questions and
---a.-
10 L
l 1
the individual inputs from the various individuals that made up i
2 84-077 l
3 A
No, I wouldn't keep any of the rough drafts.
I l
4 When that final document is finished, I just pick-5 up and go to the next proje.ct that was given to me.
6 o
You mentioned --
7 A
But if I went through that, thatdocument was ini-g tiated for, based on some previous questions from the NRC or g
some thing.
There was a forerunner of that reply.
10 Q
Why don't we just stop the recording here and why 11 don't you review this to familiarize yourself with it and then 12 we'll continue on.
13 A
okay.
14 Q
But before we do that, let me ask you just who was o 15 you said there were two main principais for input that you interc 16 faced with, they were Arshad Alvi and Pierre Oubre?
17 A
Yes.
18 Q
oubre was the Plant Superintendent, the manager of 19 operations?
20 A
Yes.
21 Q
And who was Arshad Alvi?
22 A
He was the Radiation Chemistry' Engineer or Chemica3 23 Engineer in Engineering.
He was responsible 2 the time, I thinka 24 for putting together demineralizers of ponds,' that type, tank 25 inventories, who would go to what place, who in Engineering.
e
11 g'
Q Did he -- Was there a department or a division or 1
2 a group that he supervised or was he the Chemical' Engineer?
3 A
I think he was the Chemical Engineer.
I don't j
4 remember him supervising anyone.
5 Q
Or having other engineers that suppbrted him? One-6 or two or more?
7 A
That's right.
Timewise, at that point, I don't 3
think anyone realized we had health physics or radiological 9
problems.
I think at that time we handled all that as a liquid 10 inventory problem. What do we do with all this liquid that's 11 building up ur so? In fact, I think some of the response is an 12 error, go in that direction.
13 Q
Well, this concern with the fact that you'had
~
14 ex:eeded Appendix I and the reason for it.
15 Well, let's jut stop the recording and let you 16 okay that.
17 (off the record.)
18 MR. MEEKS:
Okay.
19 Mr. Ron Colombo has reviewed Special Report 84-07.
20 BY MR. MEEKS:
21 Q
Once again, why don't you describe to us the make-22 up of the various sections of that Report. And you can refer to 23 it when appropriate by pages or the paragraphs on pages.
24 A
I did coordinate the Special Report 84-07 response 25 with input from three or four individuals. The input on page one e
12 1
' opacifying the doso rato, doses to tho.onvironmant, paroonnal 3
and environment, was submitted to me from either Roger Powers
)
l I
{.
3 or Ed Bradley and they did give me the information written up 4
for page one.
j i
5 And the second page that starts with " Root cause 6
of this unusual condition," the paragraph describing the prcblem!
7 of the small leak, was written by me.
I did author that central; 8
paragraph.
9 The last part of page two, starting "The path that 10 the radac material. takes," was given to me by Arshed Arvi.
1 11 And the last page three of the long-term, short-12 term discussion, was input from Pierre oubre.
13 The last sentence is the standard form for my
's 14 responses.
15 o
okay. Why don't you review the correcrive actions
.p.
16 and discuss who had responsibility for the input of those items?
17 A
Nar term corrective actions, to the best of my la memory, was formulated at a meeting some weeks before this lettel 19 on taking corrective action to resolve the problem.
20 Near term corrective actions as specified in the 21 attachment to 84-07 was called to a meeting by Pierre Onbre and 22 the near term corrective action responses was given the respon-23 sibility through Engineering, Mr. Lee Keilman and Roger Powers 24 and Arshed Arvi to take those near term corrective actions.
25 And they also coordinated the work necessary to
13 t
1 take those actions at the plant.
2 Mr.' Fred Kellie was at the meeting, also.
3 o
Who, besides the individuals you've mentioned, 4
who were the other participants in these meetings?
5 A
I was in one of the meetings, the first one.
6 Bechtel was also represented beca'use they were 7
9oing to do long term corrective action and they had discussions 8
on the evaporative ponds that were part of the issue.
Pierre cubre chaired the meeting.
g Fred Kellie was there.
I was there. Keilman was 10 there. Arshed Alvi, Roger Powers was there.
I'd say altogether gg there were about 20 people at that meeting.
Ihere were two or 12 three Bechtel people there.
13 I cannot recan if Ed Bradley was there.
14 That's the best of my memory.
I'd say there were 15 16 at least 20 people in the meeting.
17 Q
Was George Coward present?
I think he was the 18 plant superintendent.
19 A
He was the plant superintendent at that time. I 20 cannot truthfully remember whether he was there or not.
If he 21 was, he didn't, he was not a contributor to the information.
I 22 don't remember him speaking up as a contributor, p3 0
Would Bob Dietrich have been there?
Your counter <
24 part in Engineering.
25 A
I don't remember Bob Dietrich being there.
14 1
There were also a couple of Techs that worked for 2
Operations, I think, was there.
j I
3 Q
Roger Miller?
4 A
Roger Miller was there, yes. Roger Miller defi-5 nitely was also there.
6 Dan combstock may have been there, the operations 7
supervisor.
3 And there were a few Techs who worked for Fred g
Kellie that may have been there. Manofski -- I'm starting to 10 guess.
11 O
combstock, he was the superintendent of Operationsi 12 A
Yes.
13 o
And he directly supervised the shirt supervisors?
14 A
.Yes.
15 BY MR. MARSH:
16 o
could you describe what Fred Kellie's input was 17 at that meeting?
18 A
Yes.
Fred would on the near term correcdve action (
19 if Engineering said that they were sufficient to take corrective 20 action, then he would hcve the responsibility for keeping track 21 of transports or any monitoring of outside pipes, et cetera, 22 et cetera.
Review the design change.
If they made a design Y.
23 change fbr piping from one tank to another, he would review that 24 design change and monitor the liquids from one tank to another, 25 monitor the df's and demineralizers, take chemistry samples.
15 1
Q so you remember distinctly that Fred Kellie was l
2 in fact involved with hands-on knowledge of the near term cor-I 3
rective actions in their planning stage?
4 A
Roger Miller and Fred Kellie, I don't think any I
5 of this could take place withoe their knowledge..-
6 BY MR. MEEKS:
7 o
well, what were considered, that is, we're talking 8
about that meeting and your recollection of some individuals it 9
seems pretty certain, you know.
From what you recall of that 10 meeting, you picture them there.
11 A
Yes.
Roger Miller I know was there, sure, at the 12 meeting.
13 The second meeting was more specific.
I didn't J
14 go to the second meeting myself but it was a continuation of thit 15 meeting to get exact numbers and volumes and costs from Bechtel, V
1"***
16 I remember beine on the original kick-off committe:
g7 I remember the second meeting was forming, I think 18 19 it was right after I had a PRC meeting. 'Ihat also had about 20 20 People in it.
I think even more Bechtel people were involved in 21 the second meeting.
Because theyinputted the designers up and l-22 that, for the ponds.
1 1
23 In the second meeting, I kind of remember Roger, 24 he was on my Plant Review Committee, he stayed, so he was part 8 25 the second, too.
Fred Kellie -- as the second meeting goes, I l
16 1
don't know i,f Fred Kellie was at the second meeting.
2 Q
But you, for whatever reason, you didn't attend 3
that meeting, that recond one?
4 A
That was more of an Engineering, you know, this 5
is'the long_ term thing.
The short term items,at.the first meet-i 6
ing the short term items were more or less agreed upon, "Let's 7
go out and do.'em.
Let's get these things implemented."
3 The second ueeting was more the information that 9
we needed from the first meeting that we didn't have the answers 10 to, which was more or less the long term.
11 some of these. questions still popped up on the 12 see nd meeting, but the major of these were resolved in the first meeting. Like tighten secondary system; eliminate leaks.
g3 Dan combstock walked his operators around the 34 15 building and saw any steam leak or so, noted it down, make a 16 request for Maintenance to come in and tighten up the valves.
17 That was a result that was taken action on the first meeting so 18 it probably wasn't even discussed in the second meeting.
That 19 type of thing.
20 o
okay.
21 A
Throw-away resin policy. That had to come back.
22 Arshed Alvi had to give us a cost of all resins, how we'd throw 23 them away, what kind of resins to use, whether to use powder 24 resins or the epoxy-type resins. And he came back with his recome 25 mandation in the second meeting.
I remember the output of the
--_--________-______________._.m_
17
.s.
1 second-meeting was that we were going to use some different 2
type of resin. We weren't going to use -- He_had found some 3
inexpensive resin to clean up the system. We weren't going to-4 use a regenerate type.
l 5
Q A throw-way?
6 A
A throw-away resin.
7 Q
You were ' going to use a throw-away?
g A
Yes.-
g But that was some. thing that started at the first 10 meeting and we didn't have ananswer, and it must have got reso-gg lution at the second meeting.
12 I don't know if there was a third meeting.
13 Q
Now, you seem to know the results of the 'second 14 meeting.
15 A
Yes.
16 Q
Although you didn't attend it.
17 A
Yes.
18 Q
Is that through the notes, the meeting notes, or 19 somebody~ reported to you?
20 A
I think I did see a report that Bechtel put to-21 gather for the po6ds, which was, I think, given out at the secon:
22 meeting.. The second meeting was right after the PRC meeting, I 23 do believe.
The PRC meeting met at 9:00 o' clock and went until 24 about 10:00 and the second meeting was from 10:00 to 12:00, somec 25 thing like that.
9
18 1
Q-Why didn't you attend that sicond. meeting?
2 A
Probably because I wasn't on the invited list.
3 You know, it was a long term corrective actions.
I didn't have 4
anything really to do with long term corrective actions.
L 5
o on this list, there is a list indic~ating to all thd
~
6 people -- For example, in the first meeting, you'found out about 7
the meeting, you could have found out by word of mouth.
It 8
sounds that the results were on a memo that went around notify-i 9
ing everybody of the meeting.
10 A
I think Pierre told me to attend the meeting, yes.
11 Q
Do you recall a memo being sent around, you know, 12 "The below listed individuals"?
13 A
This one, I don't remember there was, yod know,-
14 there wasn't any firm agenda that I can remember.
Pierre put 15 the stuff down, "This is what I went covered. This is what we've 16 got to get solved. And this is who I'm going to assign to each 17 one of these problems."
gg So when he assigned somebody, there was a name gg next to a problem, like Item 3, I just happened to, you know, 20
" Locate 'and plug small leak in the B team generator." That was 21 probably given to our Tech support people.
22 C
That was Jim Field?
23 A
I don't remember who was Tech support.
That wou1@
24 hr.ve went to Techs, but a name there.
Or maybe a Jack Eull, t
25 There would have been a name there. " Tighten the leaks."
Dan
_-_--__---.______---__---__--x
19 1
Combstock would have had his name on the thing.
And
=
2 BY MR. MARSH:
I 3
o Something that may help me understand a little 1
4 better is: What brought about this exercise that you're --
5 A
The meeting?
6 Q
The meeting and the need to do all of this.
7 I guess I'm a little bit unclear as to exactly howl 8
that came about.
9 A
Somewheres along, prior to this, we were getting 10 information from Ed Bradley that'said that something was wrong 11 with the numbers that he was getting on the eff-site releases.
12 I'm trying to think when -- I think it was about g3 mid '84 that Ed Bradley -
'You've got to help me.
I think it g4 was mid '84 that Ed Bradley said there was something wrong with 15 his numbers.
BY MR. ME M :
16 17 o
well, he did service in '84 or the first part of 13
'84.
The fact that there was errors in the off-site dose calcu-19 lations, possible errors.
20 A
It was around June or July, I think that he said, 21
" Hey, there is something radically wrong with the numbers. They 22 are high and were exeeding the lim'its."
ch,. yeah.
okay.
23 This is September, and I'm putting together a 24 special report, something triggers me some time before that to 25 get this Special Report 84-07, like 30 days or 60 days. So some-um_-__-_______________m_
20
,1 thing had to trigger the Spacial Raport. And that's around a l
2 1 June-July time frame.
It was an August-September time frame 3
that I started working on this report.
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 o
You use (something) " tube leaks.".-
6 A
I had tube leaks -- I don't remember the exact 7
dates, July, September. There were three thers in that mid '84.
8 I don't recall the exact dates.
g Abot that time frame when Ed Bradley was doing 10 these calculations, he was getting numbers that exceeded the gg Appendix I guidelines.
12 And that is where I think the first thing that cama g3 up at the meeting was these. were exceeding his guidelines, "Let'o 14 take same corrective action to see if we can get down below theso 15 guidelines.
16 o
That's when you met in July of '847 17 A
That's right.
18 Q
So those were your marching papers?
1 19 A
July, regs came in, we were implementing rags 20 before July, although they became effective July.
They were 21 approved, I remember, 120 days before that, four months. So four 22 months before that, the NRC approved them, giving us 120 days og 23 150 days.
They gave us several months to implement them.
So 24 we could get out programs in line, our environmental sampling, 25 we had all that time to get ready. Then July they became part of 1
L____-__-___
21 1
the license.
And at that time I thought Ed Bradley was updating.
2 his codes for all the input for the regs, to meet these numbers, 3
because we didn't have those numbers prior to this Amendment.
4 Then we got this Amendment, he ran his calculations, and those 5
were the numbers he got.
6 Q
They took yoc above the Appendix I ceiling?
7 A
Yes.
I think that, I do believe that Ed Bradley 8
was informing management prior to that that something was wrong.
9 I think management originally suspected his calculations or his 10 program or something. Then when he continually got these numbers 11 which his program -- if I can remember, the program that was put 12 together, I don't know.
I remember talking to Roger Powers a 13 few times and he had s'tudents working on this program, Who were 14 inputting the program, you know.
So I can understand why if 15 Ed Bradley said there was 'something wrong with my numbers,' maybe 16 there was something wrong with the program, as the inputs when.
17 I remember Ed being very concerned about this iss8 18 around the July, June or July time frame, saying, "I'm getting 19 numbers that exceed Appendix I and I do believe my program is 20 right."
21 I think I talked to him.
He came to meane time aa 22 told me that and I had a-copy of a letter that he put out, sayia 23 what I just told you.
24 o
okay.
I.think --
25 A
I think that's the time frame that started it.
.a__m___.m__._._______m,
l l
22 1
Q What he is looking for is your recall on the fa.ct !
i 2
that Bradley did come to, or Powers did come to Oubre or to you I 3
and say, "Here's a problem.
This is what it is."And then, based' 4
on that, oubre called everybody together.
He's looking for that f
5 specific initiating act or communication.
6 Do you recall specifically something like that?
7 A
Yes, I do.
Yes.
3 Ed Bradley sat down with me and a letter that he 9
wrote Powers, stating that there was something wrong with the 10 effluent releases, that they were exceeding Appendix I, and we 11 should take corrective action on that.
12 My response to Ed, I said, " Hey" -- I thought therc 13 was something wrong with the program.
"You've got to ' resolve g4 this with Roger Powers, the supervisor, and Roger Powers and 15 Kellie have got to come to Rodriguez and say, ' Hey, we've got to 16 modify this system to stop this release. '"
gy I tried to give Ed the best advice I could to go 18 through the chain of command other than by coming to Hughes in 19 Engineering and coming over to me in Regulatory Compliance. I 20 was several levels down.
21 I said, " Hey, get Powers," Powers was the manager.
22 "The maneger sets policy. And this is policy we're talking about.
23 I told Ed, "Get Roger Powers as a manager to set the policy and 24 take corrective action on it."
25 And Ed left my office and I didn't hear a thing
_.,,,_,.__.___m.-
23 1
from Ed for a while, maybe the next. two months, until we got I
started getting these meetings.
3 From my point, _the system was working.
+
4 BY MR. MARSH:
5 Q
But from the information that was shbmitted to youJ 6
there was no question in anyone's mind that the maximum indivi-7 dual exposure that was allowable had been exceeded, as stated _in:
8 the third paragraph'on this report?
g A
That's correct. That was the information that was 10
'provided to me in that first paragraph from Ed Bradley.and Roger gg Powers.
12 Q
okay. And those folks, did someone have to staff g3 that or confim it or do checking of their calculations,*and so 14 forth?
It was the concensus of the management that that was a 15 true condition, that was represented by Bradley and Powers?
16 A
As far as I know. Yeah.
If thtt wasn't a true 17 condition, we wouldn't write a special report on it.
18 Q
okay. So you are pretty certain that all of the 19
' checking to confirm those calculations that you had been exceed-20 ing the dose limits were in f act. true or you wouldn't have been 21 putting this together?
22 A
Yes.
Ed Bradley tells me we exceeded the Appendix 23 I so I put the report together.
24 Q
okay. Well, then, the last sentence in that third 25 paragraph states:
"The District believes that a request for
_m._ - _ -. _ - _ _ _ _
_-_-__-__.T-
24 1
variance is not required at this time."
2 Can you comment somewhat on exactly what brought 3
that kind of a statement out in this report?
4 A
Yes.
Do you have access to a 7%ch Spec?
5 MR. MEEKS:
I have some here.
I dpn't know if it'ti 6
a Tech Spec.
7 THE WITNESS: There is wo)es in the request on the g
variance on that.
If I can remember the exact words, it says g
that if you take corrective action to getwithin be limits, 10 variance is no't required. But if you don't, and you exceed the I
11 Appendix I guidelines again, you need the variance.
12 BY MR. MARSH:
13 o
okay. So essentially what was being state'd here is 14 that all of the corrective actions Ebat were going to be taken 15 or had been taken are going to in fact bring the operation of 16 the plant within the Tech Specs?
17 A
That's right.
In that case, you don't need a 18 variance.
19 Q
And that you are intending to cperate within the 20 Tech Specs?
21 A
That's correct.
22 In that case you don't need a variance because 23 you're back in the Spec again.
{
24 o
okay. So you are representing 't'o the KRC that you 25 have your problems corrected?
_---__--__._.__-__-____--.__m-___-_m
25 t
1
.A That's correct.
l 2
Q And that you hve no reason to believe that you 3
will operate outside of the Tech Spec parameters?
)
l 4
A That's correct.
5 Q
Under that assumption, you don't need a variance?
6 A
Yes.
7 BY MR. MEEKS:
3 Q
Now, you were talking about the variance and you 9
wouldn't need a variance because you, even though you had exceedc 10 Appendix I?
11 A
My acollection is that's an EPA standard.
12 I think it's also in our Tech Specs.
13 Q
In your Tech Specs?
14 A
Yes.
That if we do exceed Appendix I and we're 15 going to continue, that we can request a variance under that section of the Environmental Proctection Act.
16 (Simultaneous talk.)
g7 BY MR. MARSH:
gg gg Q
Your Tech Specs are implemented by your operating 20 license; is that correct?
21-A That's correct.
22 Q
And your operating license is an NRC operating 23 license?
24 A
It's not our license.
NRC issues the license.
25 Q
So in that license, your Tech Specs are incorpora9
~
i
\\
2q, 1
1 into that license?
l l
2 A
That's correct. It's an appendix to the license ~.
l 3
Q And/or intended in this particular instance to 4
fulfill an EPA criterion?
5 A
That's correct.
It all happened ih 1978, this 6
whole program started in 1978.
7 BY MR. MEEKS:
8 Q
So, Ron, based on your discussion with Ed Bradley 9
and his reporting to you that you were exceeding Appen'six I 10 limits, then you assume, through the chain of command, that 11 went'up through Engineering, through Powers and/or Keilman, 12 Rodriguez, the whole thing, and -- The question I'm asking you 13 is:
Your next involvement in this was the fact cf atten'd'ing a
. (!
14 meeting that was called by cubre to discuss this very same thing, 15 the fact that they had exceeded Appendix I limits?
16 A
There may have been some interaction in between, 17 but thme s the major events that I remember.
18 I remember Ed mentioning to me a few times in pass <
19 ing that comments like the letter that he showed me was thrown 20 out, or Roger Powers doesn't believe his numbers, or -- East's 21 off-cuff comments that Ed Bradley made.
22 I was getting kind of a feeling that people didn'G 23 believe him, or something.
He was giving me" feedback'there was 24 something wrong.
The chain of command wasn'i as smooth as I 25 thought it was going to be when I first talked to him on the A
w a
uu_u_x.--.--_----n.-
9 27 g
1 first encounter with his letter.
I did get a copy of his letter f
and I did read it, and I talked to Ed about it. That is the
,j 3
first letter that I ever remember saying that there's something 4
wrong with, that we were exceeding the numbers in Appendix I 5
guidelines.
6 Q
Which came about in July of '84 when the Regs 7
were' implemented?
g A
Yes.
-g Q
You' remember specifically that his letter, which 10 he showed to you and discussed with you --
11 A
It was a copy.
I was on a ec, I was a cc on a 12 carbon copy to it.
(
13 Q
And it related to exceeding the recently imple-14 mented regs technical specifications or the technical specifica-15 tions as implemented by Appendix I provisions?
16 A
Yes.
And that was the kind of thing that started II Special Report 84-07.
We got a Tech Spec and we didn't meet 18 the Tech Spec and which required a Special Report.
Our license 19 said that if you don't meet an environmental condition, you do 20 a Special Report. This is not a LER. A Special Report is the 21 means of getting the information to the NRC,
. something that we're n t in conformance with our Tech Specs, but not in the 22 vi lation of a limit.
~
23 That letter that Ed showed me was the catalyst th9 24 started this type of report and this meeting that we talked abos 25
____._u___
28 3
1 the appendix part of the letter.
2 Q
Meaning the attachments.
In your term, "corree-3 tive Actions."
4 A
.Yes.
Long term corrective actions.
5 Q
What were the notes or minutes of those meetings 6
that were kept?
What form did they take?
And'what type of 7
review did the individuals in the meeting have of those notes?-
8 A
To the best of my memory, Pierre put out the 9
ssignment sheets, very similar to this attachment, and I do a
10 emember seeing names next to them, who wasgoing to do what.
r 11 There was an outcome of that, there were minutes 12 taken at that meeting, written o'ut, and sho.it-term, long-term
(,
13 projects given to people, with names attached.
o2 14 Q
okay.
15 BY MR. MARSH:
16 Q
Before you move on to the next question, I want to 17 expand on -- You mentioned that you specifically authored the 18 second paragraph of page two of the Report, beginning:
" The 19 root cause of this unusual condition..'."
20 A
Yes.
21 Q
And that basically describes the principal probles 22 of the steam generation tube leaks.
g-t 23 How were you aware of this as being the root causG 24 conditics?
25 A
Maybe the term isn't correct, but the activity the
29 I
we were experiencing, prior to 1983, the secondary system was 2
totally a clean system, no radioactivity was detected in the 3
secondary system.
'80 and '83, we started getting a activity 4
in the secondary system.
Our Radiation Chemistry Department started taking sampi,es and based on primary to sac'ondary system 5
I think it was based on tritium ratios or iodine ratios, that 6
they were telling us we had a hundredths of a gpm leak, and that 7
I used a term " root cause" of how the primary activity is getting g
g in the secondary system.
I did not do a Morton analysis to get a root causo 10 11 I just used the term " root cause" because I thought that was, I 12 based that on being a small generator tube leak based on measure 13 ments and what I was told.
j 14 o
okay.
Were you aware at that time whenever you 15 authored this section that there were other pathways or other 16 causes of having radioactivity appear in the secondary system 17 or in the regeneratal tanks'which is the point of the leaks?
18 A
According to our design, there's no way you can d@
19 that.
The only way you can get, we're designed so you can't'ge9 secondary system activity offsite release without doing specifiG 20 21 modifications of the system.
22 Q
so what you're saying is that at that point in tis you were not aware of any modification that would move water frG 23 24 the primary system into, through the regeneratal tanks?
25 A
The time frame of 1983
'84, I know we were moving m
4
30 1
radioactive water around but no radioactive water to offsite, 2
other than the leak.
ll BY MR. MEEKS:
1 4
Q How was that done?
How were you moving the radio '
5 active water around at that time?
Explain that..'
6 A
You know, we have two 30-gallon'a minute --
7 oh, just tank to tank evaporator --
8 Q
Are you talking about the normal processing of the 9
water?
10 A
Yes.
The normal process. There's no way to get 11 that normal processing out of the plant with the basic design 12' that we had.
Because later on, you know, '85 and '86, now we 13 have some modifica'tions of temporary piping going back and forth s
14 to clean up the water.
I don't know of any pre -- in this time 15 frame -- that would allow us to do that.
16 BY MR. MARSH:
17 o
Okay.
Now describe the temporary piping that you 13 were just speaking of. What are you referring to there?
19 A
Let's see.
The, our normal hold-up tanks have 20 small amounts of radioactive water in them and the levels of 21 radioactivity in those tanks were below the discharge limits, se 22 they made temporary plastic pipe modifications to go from the 23 standard hold-up tank out to the regeneratal' hold-up tank that 24 would allow us to get rid of that inventory through normal effis 25 ent pathways.
_____,------,------wu_a----------------.-.s_-.-
A
31 1
Q Was that an actual modification to the design of i
2 the plant?
3 A
Yes.
That would be a modification.
It's tempo-4 rary, but it would still be a modification to the plant.
5 o
when did you first become aware of that?
6 A
I was aware of it quite early in'the stages of 7
that, because I had a disagreement with my management that that 8
should be reviewed by the PlantReview Committee, and my manage-9 ment said that temporary modifications didn't have to be reviewo 10 by the Review Committee.
11 Q
And when did that take place?
A I do believe it was after this.
I don't believe 12 it was before this time frame.
I could be mistaken.
13 BY MR. MEEKS:
14 15 Q
But you say it was when the modification was firs %
16 made?
Is that what you're saying?
17 A
Before it was made.
Before the modification was 18 implemented, yes.
19 My charter, my Plant Review Committee said that 20 the Plant Review Committee reviews modifications to the plant.
21 Management said this was a temporary modification and they were 22 going to put the pipe in, transfer water back and forth between 23 the tanks, and my charter said that I did not have to review 24 temporary modifications.
25 Q
Who is management?
32 A
Wo report to Pierre Oubro.
And Pierre said g
temporary r. modifications did not have to be reviewed by the Plant.
2 1
Review Committee. At that time we didn't review that spec.
3 Q
Could you just explain that situation, how that 4
came about?
In other words, if I understand you,right, it was 5
in c njunction with the implementation, the planning stages of 6
the implementation of this modification.
7 A'
Yeah, I think that that was an outcome of some-g body's recommendations because of the water inventory and they 9
put the plastic pipe in to discharge the water, put the pipe in to transfer it from tank to tank and then remove the pipe.
BY MR. MARSH:
Q Well, let me ask you:
What would have had to have g3 s
been done with that water inventory in the primary system in 14 15 those tanks that you wanted to move around, that had to be 16 moved around? What would have been' done with that had you not 17 sent it through this modification.
Well,just let it sit,just as inventory, just settR 18 A
19 Q
But you were starting to exceed your tankage capac 20 bilities, weren't you?
21 A
Yes.
It would just sit there; that's right.
22 Q
So what would you have had to do?
I mean, within
~
23 the design of the plant, what would --
24 A
Build more tan ks, because you can't get rid of it 25 So the only thing you could do was build more enks.
33
--w-3,,
1 o
So basically -- Let me make sure I understand.What 2
you're saying is the water inventory was building up beyond the I
3 capability of the system and the design of the plant.
You 4
couldn't accommodate any more water with the tank storage that 5
you had for that particular system.
6 A
Yes.
7 o
And so within the design operations of.the plant, 8
you would have to build more storage tanks to hold it, or what 9
else would be available to you?
What other method would be 10 available?
11 A
Ponds.
12 o
You could send it to ponds.
13 A
That was a long term solution.
{,.
14 o
so you had the long term solution that was another 15 possibility.
What about something that wasn't a long term 16 17 possibility?
Was there some way to ship it off?
Was there 18 something --
19 A
As far as I knew, there was no way to ship the 20 goods offsite.
so basically you were stuck with a problem that 21 o
22 would be, I guess, when you think about it, is purely an econo-mics thing of whether building more tanks to ) store this and tha2 23 24 would be a pretty expensive proposition.
Expensive and -- Yes, expensive as the tank goes.
25 A
34
-\\
~
1 Time consuming.
You know, it's quite expansiva. Ponds, it's 2
the same as a tank.
That was the long term fix and that was one 3
of the directions that was chosen to go, the ponds.- so that's 4
essentially a tank that has dirt walls instead of steel walls.
5 Q
okay. so you didn't hav e time, thottgh, to wait for; 6
your ponds, because what was long term and you had more inven-7 tory than you could accommodate?
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
So this temporary method or modification which was 10 installed to move this water out of that primary loop storage 11 into the secondary loop storage in effect moved radioactive 12 water into the regeneratal hold-up tanks?
13 A
Yes.
~
BY MR. MEEKS:
Q Now, you felt that modification should have gone 15 Through the Plant Review Committee?
16 A
That was my opinion.
17 Q
Because it was a modification?
A No.
m is is only one of many, many modifications 18 that were between permanent and temporary that I have had a coa gg frontation on.
hey make a modification of the steamline in tho 20 secondary plant. I tried to get the PRC involved in it and the li 21 22 was, you know, it was a temporary modification,so the PRC would 23 have said no. We're going to put in this thing.;There's no use 24 calling the PRC to review this thing, make a safety analysis an6 25 everything on the ehing and then the next day we're going to
.__--_.u__m..___.__.__.__
_m.______i________..__-_..
35
\\
r.
1 take.it out.
2 over a period of the last ten years I've had four )
3 or five items that I tried to get the Committee on a temporary 4
basis. By the time the PRC sits and we want to review this thingo 5
the thing has been taken out.
6 o
That seems reasonable to me. Why did you object to y
that?
A I object --
g o
Due to the fact that the PRC didn't have to review 9
that temporary modification.
gg A
That's right.
13 12 o
since it's here today and gone tomorrow and the 13 PRC, you know, still hasn't even got it on the agenda ydt. That't r
sJ 14 sounds pretty reasonable.
15 A
I interpreter my charter as saying that all modi-16 fications, temporary or not, should be reviewed by the PRC.
17 o
Why is that? What's the basis for that?
18 A
To review the modification?
19 Q
Yes.
20 A
To make sure we're not doing anything outside the 21 licensed requirements.
If this inventory of water beingl transferred aroua 22 g.
23 exceeded (something) limits, then it would have a really signs ficant safety problem where the PRC would say'"What happens if s 24 25 breaks?"
m m
m._m
36
_g 1
So that's'my feeling on that.
2 I didn't care whether it was temporary or not.
To i 3
me a modification is a modification even if they do it five 4
minutes.
I thought the PRC'should review this.
5 BY MR. MARSH:
6 Q
It seems to me that that makes sense, though, be-7 cause if you were going to have a modification to the actual 3
designed operation of the plant, you would want to know the 9
cause and effect of any relationship to the other systems in the 10 design.
11 A
'Ihat was my argument, yes. Temporary or not, I wanted the PRC to look at the whole system and see what effects 12 it had. Whether five minutes, ten minutes, or a day or two days.
g3 Q
Because in effect you are altering the operationg 14 f the designed plant?
15 A
Yes.
'here were several modifications that were 16 temporary and were not to be reviewed, did not have to be reviewc g7 18 by the PRC.
BY MR. MEEKS:
Q What's the process for reporting these modifica-20 tions to the NRC, these temporary modifications?
A They don't get reported to the NRC.
21 C
What about non-temporary modifications?
22 A
Then you do a srifety analysis on the process.
ios 23 put the safety analysis together.
You answer all the 50-59 24 questions.
You have licensing.
You have the engineer.
You 25 have management sign it off.
You have the full Plant Review Coa
.-------_m.__-_.__m__a_
37 1
tee sign off. The manager has to sign off.
Tha plant managsmant 2
safety review committee signs off.
Put.all the documentation 1
3 together for QA and then report it in the Annual Report or 4
monthly report, in our case.
That's quite a process.
Q Um-hm.
5 A
well, if y a did want to go through that pro-6 cens on a modification, you're talking five weeks.
7 If you had a temporary modification completed toda2 g
do your work and get it finished and get it out tomorrow, why 9
wait five weeks to go through the process.
go Q
That sounds reasonable to me.
gg A
Well, I wanted to get the PRC involved in it, in 12 this, but temporary modification -- It was temporary modifica-13 14 tion versus permanent modification.
If we could just try to get off a Ettle bit from 15 Q
16 the liquid effluents and talk about these temporary and permanea 17 modifications, when did you assume the responsibility, you said 18 you were head of the Plant Review Committee?
19 A
Yes.
I was chairman.
Chairman of the Plant Review Committee.
20 Q
21 A
Yes.
22 Q
How long have you had that job?
23 A
I became chairman in 1972.
24 Q
Okay.
25 A
When we first set up the Committee.
38
^1 o
And when did temporary modifications stop being 2
reviewed by the Plant Review Committee?
I 3
A Temporary modifications were never reviewed. The I
4 first temporary modification I remember was done by a mechanical 5
engineer called Bob Wichert in 1975 and I went tc' Pierre and said 6
the PRC should review this.
It was a temporary modification 7
and Pierre said we didn't have to review it and that's the first 8
confrontation I had on this matter.
9 o
out of interest, what was the modification?
10 A
It had something to do with the radway system.
11 He put a by-pass line down in the cellar to pump 12 from one tank temporarily to another tank. The pump failed or 13 something and he used another pump to pump toanother tank, all is
{ (,
14 a closed system.
Put the pump, the water to the tank, took the 15 valve out and it was done the next day. That was the first.
16 That was the philosophy that management set up and gy there were some modifications later on that were in the steam gg plant that I didn't have any confrontation on, and it was a gg temporary change, and then until this radioactive fluids came 20 along, and then I got back into the temporary change again and 21 was told no, a temporary change does not have to be reviewed by 22 the Committee.
23 BY MR. MARSH:
24 who told you that specifica11yf o
25 A
Pierre Oubre. The Plant Review Committee reports tt 4
39 1
1 Pierre oubre.
2 Q
Did he ever say, "My @od, if we go through all this 3
we're going to be held up here for five, ten weeks and we're i
4 going to have to have safety analyses, and we don't have time 5
for that.
We've got to get this water out of here' and.
6 A
No, he didn't say that.
He sat there with the 7
Charter and he went over the Charter and he says modifications 3
are reviewed by the Plant Review Committee.
Temporary change is g
not a modification of the plant.
The'NRC or the review practice 10 is done on a permanent-type basis.
j 11 To make a modification go through this whole pro-l 12 cess of documentation, you actually change the final safety
{,
13 hazards announced report.
That was the intent of this change 14 process.
Well, if you're putting something in and taking it 15 out, why are you telling the NRC about it. That was his state-16 ment.
Because you're telling the NRC something we dodt have.
17 BY MR. MEEKS:
18 Q
And this was in conjunction with this modification l 19 we're talking about?
20 A
No. That was in conjunction with the first one, 21 the first modification we had.
22 Q
In 19757 23 A
In 1975.
24 Q
What was Oubre's title then?
t 25 A
He was the Operations Supervisor.
40 1
Q And this modification was'done for operations?
2 A
Because they had water some place and they wanted 3
to get it some place else down in the basement.
so the mechanicq l
4 engineers went and drew this little sketch up, put the modifica !
5 tion in, did the transfer, and took it out. And I happened to be 6
in the mechanical engineer's office, talking about some other 7
event, when I saw the sketch that he was working on as a modifi 8
cation and asked him how come this was all coming about, and he 9
told me that he was going to do it that night, get it trans--
10 ferred, and the next day he was going to pull it out. And that's 11 when I -- I want to Pierre because he was, I was at the present 12 time, I was working for Ron Rodriguez at that time.
13 Q
He was Plant Superintendent at that time?'
14 A
Rodriguez was.
15 Q
Have you always been the manager of Regulatory 16 Compliance?
17 A
Well, I was the -- In 1975 I was the one-man 33 Regulatory Compliance.
I was writing LER's.
I was them up for report together. I was training people for operator's License.
gg 20 I was dispositioning all the little problems in the plant.
I 21 had four or five other duties. Answering the NRC letters. Ushero 22 ing inspectors around.
g,,
C 23 Q
And you reported to Ron Rodriguaz'in '75?
.' ' e 24 A
Yes.
25 Q
He was the plant manager of the plant?
em O
41 1
A He was plant superintendent 1
2 At this day, Rodriguez was not there and Pierre wa(
3 in charge.
4 4
Q He was the Operations Superintendent?
5 A
He was acting in his place this day.
6 o
okay.
7 A
And I asked Pierre about temporary changes and tha(
8 was his philosophy and that's what the PRC would respond to.
9 Temporary changes then at that time never were reviewed by the 10 PRC.
11 BY MR. MARSH:
12 o
well, you mentioned that the modification of moving the water from the demineralized reactor coolant storage tank to 13 sj 14 the regeneratal hold-up tanks came about after September '84, 15 whenever you offered this paragraph concerning the root cause?
16 A
I do believe that's the time.
17 Q
If that had been identified to you prior to that 18 time that it was in place and functioning, would you have felt 19 like that was another pathway and a possible cause of radio-20 activity appearing in the regeneratal tanks?
21 A
Let alone the temporary modification problem, I would be concerned what level of water we're talking about. If 22
~
23 it's water that would exceed a,ny of the limit's'and could be
- t.. -
24 handled as normal water, I wouldn't have any' consideration, no.
~
25 0
Well, I understand that the demineralized reactor m
\\ ;-.
1 coolant storoga tank is about o 500,000-go11on storage tank 2
that is intended to store chemically clean radioactive water for 3
re-supplying back into the primary loop.
4 A
Under idea conditions, that is correct.
5 Q
Under ideal conditions, meaning the'way the plant j 6
was designed?
7 A
well, yes, but you would never have clean water 3
because anything that goes through the reactor cooling system o
g it's literally impossible to clean up a hundred percent.
10 Q
cleaning up from a radioactive standpoint?
31 A
Yes.
12 O
So there would be some radioactive contaminants in 13 that water?
14 A
Yes.
15 o
one of them being principally tritium, I guess, 16 is one of the ones that we've been informed of. But the other
-c 17 A
well, you.shouldn't have high level radioactivity 18 in that.
19 Q
-- other typ'es of radioactivity would be there, 20 also?
21 A
That's correct. But you could never get any of the 22 iodine.
You can't get all of the radioactivity out.
23 0
so basically, then, that would be another cause 24 if that modification was being utilized, that would be another 25 cause of radioactivity?
__---____.__m_
\\
,g:..
1 A
No doubt.
No doubt.
It sure would bs.
2 Q
And you're saying that then if you would have known!
3 that that was, or that that modification was in place or being I
4 used prior to you authoring this paragraph, you would have felt i
5 that that was-a possible cause, also?
.i 6
A That 's right. That would be potentially a cause.
7 That's again -- Well, I don't know.
I don't know 8
the numbers.
You could actually have (something) storage tank 9
water almost pure water in the regen hold-up tank from this a 10 thousand times more radioactive.
11 So the water from the reactor core storage tank 12 could dilute this water.
I don't know the levels we're talking 13
'about.
s 14 Q
So you wouldn't know that, though, unless you took 15 a test of before you moved the wa ter through the modification, 16 you wouldn't know rhat?
17 A
That's correct. You'd have to take a sample to fin 6 out what the activity is and relate that to whatever is allowed gg gg off-site.
20 Q
If you were moving contaminants, though, detectabic 21 radioactive contaminants into the regenerator teld-up tanks --
22 A
Which is an abnormal sitution because there's sup-
~
23 posed to be no flow-path of that type.
24 Q
Right.
25 A
No normal flow-path, because we're talking about m-__.-_m____..___mm___
44' 3
L
' l some temporary modification.
I 2
Q So that wou}d clearly be a pathway cf radioacti-3 vity into the environment?
4 A
Yes.
5 Q
okay.
I just wanted to explore that a little bit 6
further before you moved on to the next question.
7 A
Yes. Any of the tanks if you put a modification to S
take it to the regen Hold-up tank, is a path off-site.
9 BY MR. MEEKS:
10 Q
Getting back to your thinking about your stance 11 that temporary modifications should also go to the Plant Review 12 Committee -- -
A And by the way, I did win that argument. The NRC 13 last year gave us a violation for temporary modification we had 34 on the shed in the drum storage area that didn't get reviewed by 15 the PRC. And that violation resulted in management changing theit 16 gy philosophy that any modification plan now comes to the PRC.
18 Q
Your first clarification of this came from 1975 i
19 with Perre Oubre, that modification that you explained to us 20 earlier?
21 A
I accepted that, that was supervision.
I accepte@
22 that as the interpretation of what our Charter was.
okay.
23 Q
Now, ync also mentioned that you discussed with 24 him, and I guess he re-emphasized or reiterated his stance, in 25 conjunction with, in the time frame we're talking about this 1
-m
-__-mm
_m__
__-.____________-_-_____.____-___--_.___.---_-___.________._____.-_______m___.___.___._
__________.2.____m____-__________.
__________.___-_m_-__
1_
45 1
report, this Special Report 84-07, and the modification that 2
allowed watext to be transferred to the RGen, the RHUT, from the 3
reactor coulant storage tanks?
I don't want to be, you know, wrongly quoted) 4
'A Yes.
5 I was aware of that modification.
.I don't mean to 6
imply that I wasn't aware of that modification.
7 My best time frame, that would be af ter this.
I could be corrected on that, but I am aware of 3
the transfer of liquids from tank to tank with plastic pipe.
I g
thought that was an outcome of this, some of the short term ac-10 tions here.
gg Q
What I want to get at is the fact that you thoughB 12 that should, as always,that should have gone through the Plant g
.~
Review cbmmittee, and you had occasion to talk to oubre about 14 15 that one more time?
16 A
Yes.
If I remember right, that was maybe the 17 third or fourth time that the issue came up.
18 out of a period, you know, five or six years, or 19 ten years, we're maybe talking about 20 modifications. And out 20 of those 20 modi ~fications, two or three of them, three, I would 21 guess thre.e of them were of concern enough to me to talk to 22 Pierre about PRC review of temporary modifications.
This one in particular that we're concerned about 23 Q
today, what was the substance of your conversation with oubre?
24 25 At the time it was held.
~
46 1
A I was, my concern that PRC chould review that i
2 temporary modification was based on if we had a seismic event, l
l 3
a plastic pipe would break, and radioactivity would go off-site,!
4 and, I'm trying to think if I had any other items of concern on 5
that.
I know the broken pipe issue was the most, concern.
6 BY MR. WALSH:
7 0
okay. With a broken pipe, that would then mean you g
could be releasing radioactivity?
A Yes.
Uncontrolled.
g 10 Q
Uncontrolled off-site.
Which would mean that, you!
11 concern was that you were putting radioactive water into that 12 pipe, removing it from that tank?
13 A
Yes, I was looking at an accident standpoint. The v
14 worst thing that could actually happen.
15 And he assured me that any time there was a transo 16 fer going on, that an operator would be near the valve and if 17 something broke, they would close it right away and againthis 18 was a temporary modification and the PRC didn't have to get in-19 volved.
20 And also, that if it did release of fsite, it was 21 below the limits of (something) and we wouldn't exceed any 22 Tech spec limit, anyway.
23 And then -- I guess that's about the summation.
24 I think the discussion went on for maybe about tem i
25 minutes.
\\ ; 2-+.
g Q
If you had a PRC, as tha Picnt Ravisw Committoa, 2
if that did in fact review a modification and so forth, would I
3 that informationthen be made available to NRC or is there some 4
reporting mechanism to where that then becomes visible to the 5
NRC?
6 A
We would document that review in our minutes and 7
I do send a copy of the minutes to the Resident Inspector.
8 But there is no formal review.
9 A safety analysis done on it, the full blown safetg 10 analysis, looking at all the worst case accidents, looking at 11 the design, the design requirements, looking at the liquid acti-12 vities, the volume, putting together a safety analysis, that doec
{
13 get reported to the NRC in the monthly reports.
14 Q
That's a permanent design.
15 Then we update the USAR as a permanent change.
16 I guess I'm having trouble.
17 what constitutes the difference between permanent 18 and temporary if something is going to be a permanent program of 19 implement this temporary modification to where you're going to 20 put it up and take it down many times and you know that you've 21 got a water inventory problem. So you know you're going to have 22 to be utilizing this thing regularly.
23 How do you come to a definition of what's permaneng 24 versus temporary?
25 A
In the Engineering Change Notice when it's put 6
l
,48 3
1 together, you put the dasign and a drawing or a diagram or what-2 ever the engineers actually eart their process.
It says that 1
3 it's temporary and will be removed when a certain, you know, 4
like, when the tank is empty, it will be removed.
l..
5 so it's the modification, the work. ' force goes out, 1
6 the modification is put in, the work is done, then it's removed.
7 It could be days, weeks.
8 There's an end point involved in a temporary.
- 9 o
okay.
But say it goes beyond the in point, then 10 they would have to generate a --
11 A
Well, then, something else has got to be called 12 for.
If they said you're going to,you know, pump a tank down, r
13 and'they can't pump the tank out or it takes, it may take years
\\_;
g4 to pump the tank down, then it stays in as a temporary change for 15 years.
16 Q
Well, wouldn't that seem to by-pass the intent of 17 the whole system of controlling the operation?
13 A
That was my point.
Yes.
19 o
so you personally feel like that is a by-passing 4
20 the intent of the system?
21 A
I felt any time a change was made to the plant that 22 it should go to the Plant Review Committee.
Now, I may be biased 23 because I thought the PRC should review all this. I wanted to 24 get the PRC involved in all these changes.
25 o
Because it would be more safe to do that?
________________.__-..__________.__.__._______.m
i 1
A Yea.
i l
2 But you know there's hundreds of changes in the f
l 3
secondary plant, in the steam lines and it was made to me that l 1
4 if the PRC had to review all these changes, we'd start reviewing 5
at 8:00 o' clock in the morning and we'd have to go until 7:00 6
o' clock at night reviewing all these modifications that are going 7
on.
So I, you know, I changed my philosophy.
I said the ones 3
involving safety, legal safety, radioactive liquids. Because I g
lost this one, the first one I went to battle on, I lost. And that was a modification that a mechanical engineer made in the go gg basement. Even if that, you know, pump exploded, the basement would have filled up full of radioactive water.
It's designed, 12 the basement we're talking about is designed for a tank to fail
{;
13 14 to fill up the tank.
15 In the worst case, it would have, you know, nothing 16 would have happened.
17 o
That was still designed to handle that' circumstanec 18 A
Yes.
19 Q
In the case of this modification, you're pumping 20 radioactive water across the general populace area of the plant.
21 A
But then the point was made to me that even if tha!
22 system failed, that we weuld not exceed the 10 CFR 20 limits.
23 0
How would they know that?
24 A
They had samples of the tank.
And if the tank 25 just failed, if the tank should fail right now, it's going to m
--.__________.-_________m__
\\
1 dicchargo 500,000 gallons -- tharo's not 500,000 in it now, but 2
if it was full, it would discharge 500,000 gallons all over the 3
ground, you know.
And we had some, we have a retention basin 4
which has the capability of 500,000 gallons, and if they're 5
empty, they can hold the tank. But the design limits say don't 4
6 exceed so many curies in that tank, which I think is 10 curies, 7
the maximum limit, that if you fill that whole tank, you do not 8
exceed 10 CRF 20 limits offsite.
As long as you don't exceed 9
the 10 curies.
10 BY MR.
MEEKS:
11 Q
It sounds like some type of safety evaluation was 12 done, then.
13 A
That's our license. Our license is based on pre-u 14 venting 10 CFR 20 -- Our plant was built on 10 CFR 20 limits.
15 BY MR.. MARSH:
16 Q
You are assuming, then, that that tank didn't havo 17 anything in it other than what it was designed to have in it?
13 A
Yes.
l 19 Q
But you weren't considering that you were having the steam generator tube leaks and that those contaminated 20 I
21 waters could have been put back into that tank?
22 A
But again my discussions ended that even if that 23 did f ail we would not have exceeded any of the 20 CFR 20 limitc 24 from the discharge.
25 And if the piping did ' fail, there was supposed to m-
___..-__._-___.-.___m_-____-__.m.__.__-________-____-_______-_____.m.
__m.__.__.._.________..-__
5]
i 1
be an operator there at all times that valve was opan that if 2
something happened, to close it.
3 BY MR.
MEEKS:
)
4 Q
What's the rationale as to the implementation of 5
the regs which brings in Appendix I limits?
6 A
During the initial discussions with Jack Martin, 7
not the Jack Martin that's in Region Five right now, but there 8
was another Jack Martin from Washington, he came down to 9
San Leandro, we had a ' meeting there. That was in 1978.
And of 10 course, Rancho Seco was designed to 10 CFR 20 limits and we had 11 nothing on 10CFR in Appendix I.
That was one of his first 12 implementations. And it was made clear to us that Appendix I was 13 guidelines and all the NRC wanted to do was if we exceed these
{,
34 guidelines, they want a report. So they asked us to put all tha@
in our Tech Specs. That's why we wrote it up that way and sub-15 mitted it to the NRC in 1979 and of course 'tMI happened and thaB 16 17 whole process was frozen until 1984.
They they s tarted a revice I guess it's the one that EG&G was otu reviewer. And I worked gg 19 Roger Miller and I worked a good part of our time, about 30 pero 20 cent of our time with EG&G. They had two reviewers. To get all l
21 of tie words resolved according to what EG&G had as their check-22 list of what they wanted the utility to put :in regs. And all i-23 during that process, the NRC continued saying: :"We don't expec%
24 you to remove to eet Appendix I. These are *gruidelines."
And 25 all they wanted to do was report. Some of those guidelines they
____m-___-_____m_._____m.-
52 i
-u I
had were obsolutely ridiculous.
You just couldn't do it.
2 And they threw them.
They had looking for lead in a secondary
^
3 plant.
My goodness.
4 Then that became, I guess, child doses that they 5
wanted entered into the regs. That was dna pped.
6 So they refined it by 1984. And we ended up with 7
what we have now.
8 BY MR. MARSH:
9 Q
So that became the predication for writing the 10 special report No. 84-07, is that you had exceeded those Appends 11 I guidelines, and therefore were required to report?
12 A
That's correct. That's what I was doing.
/~
13 Q
Okay.
That's enough.
s.-
14 15
//
16
//
17
//
18
//
19
//
20
//
21
//
22
//
23
//
24
//
25
//
_om
_______m___
\\
53 1
BY'MR. MEEKS:
2 O
Getting back to the time that you talked 3
to Oubre about the-modification, allowing water to be 4
transferred to the RHUT from the Reactor Coolant storage l
5 Tank
-- the second time.
l 6
In the outcome of that meeting, you explained 7
to him why you thought it should go through the Plant 8
Review Committee.
He explained to you that, even with 9
an accident 10 A
He explained to me all the precautions ti.at this may have come out in the second 11 they had decided 12 meetin's that we originally talked about; I don't know.
13 He was well prepared to resolve my concerns 14 because he knew that an operator was going to -- any time water was being transferred 15 the valve transferred 16 he was going to have an operator there all the time.
17 He
- had, also, encased all the plastic in 18 some kind of sheathing so that if the plastic broke or 19 was
- crushed, the polysheeting would capture the water 20 and it wouldn't go flying offsite.
21 He knew what the activities were in that 22 tank so that if there was an uncontrolled leak, we would f
23 not exceed the tenths of our twenty limits.
He did do 24 his homework on that.
He did reviOw it.
He was prepared.
15 He did look at that.
_--.___-__m____________________.m_
\\
54 1
I feel I
lost the PRC because it was all r
3 Q.
And he had already considered that, is your 4
impression, to the point that he can explain it to you 5
why he did not need to go through the PR system?
6 A
Yes, and to prevent getting terminated at 7
the point, I didn't pursue it any further.
8 Q
Ron, are there any other sources of contami-9
- nation, other than the steam generator tube leaks, in 10 the secondary system?
11 A
I don't know of any other modifications 12 that are in the plant.
13 Based on the design of the plant, nor not 14 without taking positive action to intentionally pump water 15 out.of the rad waste system.
16 BY MR. MARSH:
17 Q
- Which, isn't that what this modification 18 did?
19 A
Yes.
You have to intentionally do it.
20 If I went through, if you gave me some time, 11 I could probably look through a lot of the design because 22 there is component cooling water that goes to the waste 23 processors and if you get a leak in the waste processor, 24 it might contaminate the component cooling water system:
]
15 but not by a valving error.
j l
\\
a.
55 1
The component cooling system is a
closed 2
system.
Component cooling water can get contaminated 3
several ways, but that is a closed system so, without 4
intentionally dumping it off by intentionally processing 5
that water, you wouldn't normally get it offsit'e.
6 BY MR. MEEKS:
7 O
Going back to 84-07, the last paragraph --
8 A
(Interrupting) Now, you can overflow a tank 9
and get water offsite, things like that..
10 Q
I was talking specifically about the secondary 11 system.'
You put in your report that the major cause of f
12 contamination in the secondary system was the steam genera-13 tor tube leaks.
14 If that is the major cause, what is the 15 minor cause?
In other words, are there any other contami-16 nating factors, other than the steam generator tube leaks?
17 I
guess what I
am talking about is _ your 18 choice of words.
If, in fact, there is other contaminates 19 or other factors that can contaminate the secondary system, 20 what would they be?
21 A
None in the primary path, without making 22 a major mistake or having a closed system failure.
In 23 other words, the radioactivity that was running through 24 the secondary system and ' caused you to exceed the Appendix I 25 limits, the' source of that came from the steam generator 0
y y
56 I
tube leaks.
2 Q
That is your understanding?
8
-A Yes.
Based on Iodine measurements -- Iodine 4
131 and 135 ratios.
~
L 5
Q To your knowledge, there is no 'other little 6
thorny problems that you are a.are of that-causes.the 7
secondary. system to get' dirtied at all with radioactivity?
8 A
Not at that point.
Years before
- this, I
1.
l 9
am well aware of the component cooling water system got 10 contaminated through a
letdown cooler leak.
That was 11 cleaned up and that was tight at that time, so that can't 12 be a contributor.
13 Control rod drive cooling water gets contami-14 nated once in a while, but that is a closed syste'm and 15 that is never put offsite.
16 Q
I understand what you are saying.
17 A
Each one of those items are reviewed by 18 the committee.
We did review those things and find out 19 where the activity was coming from.
In one case, it was 20 the cooler.
We isolated the cooler; we replaced it.
21 There is a reg. guide out that says any time that a noncon-22 taminated system becomes radioactive from a solid boundary 23
- leak, the PRC has to review it.
The FRC reviewed this 24 problem many times: primary to secondary leak.
25 Q
When you are putting water into the Reactor
\\
57 1
Coolant Storage Tank from the Demineralized Reactor 2
when you are putting water into the holdup - tank from
(
3 the Reactor Coolant Storage Tank, that Reactor Coolant 4
Storage Tank is a boundary; correct?
5 A
That is correct.
6 Q
And so, you are putting radioactivity into 7
the secondary system.
8 Why didn't you use that argument with Oubre?
9 That seems valid.
10 A
Because that is the normal system.
That 11 holdup tank is designed to contain small amounts of radio-12 activity.
That is what he is transferring tank to tank.
I 13 That is the same thing that we have rigin
- o..
14 now.
The small amount of radioactivity in Regenerate that is why there is a radiation monitor 15 Holdup Tank 16 on it, because you can have small amounts of radioactivity 17 in that system.
You see, it was designed to operate within 18 tenths of our twenty limits, which means we are going 19 to have discharges offsite.
That is part of our design:
20 small discharges.
Transferring those tanks did not exceed 21 the tenths of our twenty limits.
22 BY MR. MARSH:
23 O
How, then, can you make a statement in Septem-24 ber of 1984 that you are not going to make any releases?
25 A
Because there was a redesign on this one to P
I e
j
\\
\\
58 1
put resins in to clean up the regenerate holdup tank before 2
' releasing it offsite.
I don't know anyone that said we 3
weren't going to release any radioactive molecule to the 4
environment.
A molecule, once in a while, is going to 5
escape.
Right now we are releasing radioactivity to - the 6
environment because we have got 3,000 gallons a minute 9
7 of canal water and that canal water is radioactive.
You 8
have got background radiation.
9 BY MR. MEEKS:
10 Q
- Well, 84-07 said that you do not expect 11 to make any radioactive releases.
12 A
That is correct.
13 Q
- But, whatever, we are' not going to exceed l-14' Appendix I
- limits, that is what 84-07 committed to; is 15 that correct?
16 A
That is correct.
My assumption was that 17 it made'the guideline a limit.
S,o, we say, "We are going 18 to use that as a limit.
We are not going to exceed that 1
i l
19 and these are all the things that we are going to do to 20 prevent exceeding that."
21 Q
Just tell me, once again, what -- with that 22 control rod leak and the boundary, if you have a leak.
23 from a boundary then it has to go through the Review Com-24 mittee -- what is that guideline again?
l 25 A
It is a bulletin --
- w 0
r
1 l-
.\\
59 1
Q No, No.
The specific reference I am. not 2
interested in; just exactly what the contents was.
5 A
lt says if there is a boundary that is de-4 signed to hold radioactive materials, and that boundary f
I 5
fails and contaminates a
nonradioactive 12uid
- system, 6
that you have to make an NRC report.
7 Q
And that fact went through the Plant Review 8
Committee, that condition, when it happened?
9 A
Yes.
We have had that happen a few times.
10 We made reports to the NRC, saying the component cooling where the 11
- water, which is not a radioactive system 12 cooler got a leak, we isolated a leak and replaced the 13 cooler, but we still made a report telling them what we
(..
a.'
did.
15 Q
On page two of 84-07, the last paragraph, 16 that reports the pathway and you stated that Arshad Alvi 17 was the individual responsible for that information; is 18 that correct?
19 A
I assure you 100 percent that is correct.
20 I was in his office when he was writing this.
21 Q
On that
- occasion, did you mention to him l
22 the modification that had existed and that eventually i
l 23 came to exist
- again, allowing water to be transferred 24 from the DRCST to the regenerate holdup es, a pathway to 25 the environment?
0 4
m h-.----. _ - _. - _ _ _.
-._-___._m.__m.
\\
60 1
A That is the problem I think we have' in the 2
table.
I don't remember that prior to this.
I' remember 3
that after; later on when we were cleaning up inventories.
4 That is an issue that I can't tell you about.
I don ' t 5
remember that prior to this.
6 Q
You gave it to us before in the context 7
of --
8 I understood 'it that when that modification 9
came up, after this, you talked to Pierre Oubre, again, 10 in an effort to get that channeled through the PRC.
11 A
I don't remember anyone prior to this; prior 12 to the September date.
I can't say that it wasn't ever i
13 done, but I don't remember that.
l it would have been 14 The condition was 15 one of these issues for a short term.
16 (Referring to document)
- See, nothing has 17 anything to do with inventory.
All corrective actions --
18 each one of those would indicate that we have a primary 19 secondary leak and we are cleaning up the regenerate holdup 10 tank.
There is nothing in there.
It'is, you know, based 21 on inventory.
22 Q
I can show you some documents here that --
23 That modification did exist before 84-07.
It goes back l
24 prior to that time.
25 My question to you is why wasn't (Pat P
e l
j
61 because it existed and was being used 1
modification 2
up to the time this report was issued, and after why 3
wasn't that modification reported in 84-077 4
A It just never came up.
I don't know.
5 MR.
MEEKS:
Let's take a break here and 6
when we come back we will get into the documents that 7
I want to show you.
8 Off the record.'
9 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
10 MR. MEEKS:
On the record.
11 BY MR. MEEKS:
12 Q
The documents that I want to show Mr. Colom-in fact, during the break, I showed them to him 13 bo
(
one is a Plant Review U
14 and he has been reviewing those 15 Committee
- Meeting, Number
- 1091, held December 7,
1982 16 and it is dated December 8, 1982.
It is a
memo to R.P.
17 Oubre and the PRC members and it is from Jay Edwards.
18 Who was Jay Edwards?
19 A
He was my assistant.
He was the secretary.
20 He was a technician that worked for me.
He issued the i
21 minutes of the PRC meetings.
22 Q
In addition, Mr. Colombo has reviewd procedure q
23 number 8.29, Temporary Change Waste Water Disposal System, 24 dated February 1,
1983.
It is concerning pumping the 25 Demineralized Reactor Coolant Storage Tank to the A or B 1
e
62 1
regenerate holdup tanks.
Also, there is a similar procedure 2
number 8.29 Temporary
- Change, dated December 2,
1982.
3 The Plant Review Committee meeting minutes, 4
as well as the temporary changes that we have referenced 5
here:
they document modification allowing water to be 6
transferred from the Demineralized Reactor Coolant Storage 7
Tank to the Regenerate Holdup Tanks and that is what we 8
have talked about to some extent before we had the break.
9 Is there any possibility that you discussed 10 with Pierre Oubre, in conjunction with the December
'82 11 or January '83 time frame, the fact that that modification well, just what ' type of review did that modifi-12 should 13 cation get by the Plant Review Committee at this time?
14 A
I would like to change my previous statement.
15 I thought that this occurred in
'84, but, indeed, it was 16 late
'82 or early
'83.
This is essentially what I was 17 talking about that I was aware of the transfers being 18 made.
I am shifting my time frame to this time frame 19 in
'82 from the time frame we were talking about; well, 20
'82 or early '83 to the time frame we were talking about 21 from '84.
22 Q
From the Fall of '84, then.
I
{
23 A.
Right.
This is the transfers that I
was l
24 concerning about and, if I can remember and recollect, 25 it was done with firehoses not plastic pipe.
]
1 l
63 1
So, it was a modification that was put in, 2
procedures changed, then when the firehoses -- the firehoses 3
essentially picked up and that was it.
4 Q
So, the conversations you had concerning the fact that this modification should 5
your concern with 6
receive full review by the Plant Review Committee 7
Pierre Oubre occurred in conjunction with the issuance 8
of that document?
9 A
This is that transfer that we were talking 3 yt.,
10 about.
Yes.
11 Q
What type of review did that modification 12 receive by the Plant Review Committee?
13 A
As a normal change on this, the PRC would 14 sit down and look at the procedure change itself and look 15 at the changes involved as it relates to nuclear safety.
16 It would generate a discussion on the steps involved and, l
17 in this case, it was an operating procedure, so the operat-18 ing representative at the PRC was Mr. Don Blatchly and 19 he would explain the valving sequence and the operational l
20 sequence required for this 8.29, which is an operating 21 procedure.
If the PRC concurred with his performance j
l 22 of that procedure, we would give concurrence of that tem-23 porary change.
24 In this case, the PRC reviewed it' on December 7,
l 25 and we gave this temporary change a lifetime of 30 days.
'4 After 30 days, this would have to stop.
2 O
What type of review did you want that modi-3 fication to receive?
Is it as you explained before: have 4
a safety analysis conducted on it and have the Plant Review 5
Committee review that safety analysis?
6 A
This was subsequent to the safety analysis 7
issue.
The modification, obviously, was made before this 8
time frame.
That was the one where I wanted the temporary 9
change reviewed as a permanent change, or with the safety 10 analysis.
11 The documents we have is the change to the 12 procedure to make the temporary change happen in an operat-13 ing group to manipulate valves; open valves, close valves, 14 turn pumps on, turn pumps off.
So, this is the prod.adure 15 for operating that temporary change.
The PRC would look 16 at this and say, "Okay.
You can safely operate that tem-17 porary change this way."
18 Q
We received information that that modification 19 was used frequently, in
'82,
'83,
'84
'85 and up until I
20 the first part of '86.
21 The question I have for you is: What was 22 the reason for not reporting the modifu dion which allowed i
l 23 water to.be transferred from the Demineralized Reactor Cool-24 ant Storage Tank to the Regenerate Holdup Tank in Special 25 Report 84-077 e
e
65 1
A I can't answer that.
It is a deficiency.
2 If this had transferred to radioactive water 3
into the system in 1984, it should be reported.
That 4
would have been in part of the activity related to that 5
report.
6 In defense of several of the people involved --
7 you brought this to my attention and I can now recollect I am not too certain whether I remembered this in 8
it 9
1983, based on the
'84 report.
That doesn't excuse not 10 reporting it.
This information should have been part 11 of that report because it does add to the activity of 12 the system.
That is a pathway that should have been dis-13 cussed.
If it was used in. ' 84, obviously, it should have 14 been.
15 In
'83, this might have been done but I
16 don't know how much affect this has on the
'84 results 17 because it is the year before.
The '84 results is an 18
'84 time frame, but I don't know enough about the activities 19 that is involved in this specific one; how it related 20 to the dose limits.
11 O
But what, you are saying is:
if, in fact, l
12 it existed in
'84, then it shotild have been reported as 23 a pathway?
24 A
Yes.
It would have been a pathway, definitely.
l 25 o
other than the one conversation that you had 0
=
_--______m_-_-
'r.
i 66 I
with Pierre Oubre concerning the fact that this modification 2
should have received a safety analysis and that safety 3
analysis should have been reviewed: by the Plan Review 4
Committee, what other conversations do you recall where 5
that type of discussion took place with you as the party 6
to it?
7 A
Based on temporary modifications,or based 8
on this procedure?
9 Q
Either one.
10
'A As temporary went, after this issue -- this 11 is the last time that I brought up the issue on temporary
-12 procedures because it was quite' clear to me ' that the 13 PRC was not going to be authorized the review of temporary 14 procedures.
The whole temporary procedure went.
15 In total this year, the NRC gave us a viola-16 tion on temporary procedures because the NRC looked at 17 a modification that was made in a drum storage area that 18 was a temporary modification and did not accept not doing 19 a safety review on it and gave us a violation.
Now, any 20 modification of this
- type, permanent or temporary, is 21 going to have a full safety analysis and go the whole 22 route and get the documentation and be reported to the 23 NRC.
24 After tnis
- issue, this is the last time 25 I remember ever bringing this issue up as a temporary e
l 67 I
modification review in the PRC.
In
'83, I did not bring 2
the issue up again as temporary issses.
5 BY MR. MARSH:
4 O
This review here of the PRC is of the pro-5 cedure -of utilizing the modification, not approving or 6
reviewing or analyzing the actual modification itself?
7 A
That is true.
That is the procedure.
The 8
license requires any temporary procedure change to be 9
reviewed by the PRCr that is quite clear.
If they make 10 a temporary change to a procedure to operate that equip-11 ment, then that has to be reviewed by the PRC, which we 12' did.
15 BY MR. MEEKS:
14 Q
If you had a temporary change, as this one, 15 which actually changes the plant configuration of the 16 plant system, as described in the safety analysis report, 17 and it is temporary, however it is used time af ter time 18 after time over years transferring hundreds of thousands 19 of gallons each year, then essentially what you have is 20 a change to the plant design; is that correct?
21 A
That would be correct.
- But, if I look at 22 this one, this is a temporary change that expired in one 23 month so this says you can use it for 30 days and then your normal procedure.
24 go back to your normal system 25 The normal procedure doesn't allow them to go that route 1
68 1
that you are describing from the' Storage Tank to the Re-
.2 generate Holdup Tank.
They can only do that - for 30 days 3
and after that that procedure is expired and they have
~
4-to - go back to the normal procedure which doesn't allow 5
them to do that.
6 Q
So if, in fact, that modification continued 7
to be set-up and used quite frequently, then you are not then, you are also talking about the fact that 8
only 9
you are allowing water to be transferred unauthorized.
10 You would be violating the operating procedure.
11 A
Right.
You would need a procedure to open 12 and close the valve that does that transfer and without 13 that,.you can't do it.
You can't open and close that 14 valve.
15 Q
That is part of your operating license?
16 A
That is right.
You can't do an operation 17 like that without a procedure.
You are required to have I
18 a procedure for a manipulation of a valve that would change i
19 the configuration of a plant.
20 Q
If, in fact, that modification does allow
]
J 21 water to be transferred as you have described, and it 22 is on a continual basis, then an update should be made 25 to the update safety analysis report?
24 A
That would be correct.
tGpe 3(B) 25 Q
In 1985, it was reported to us that 787,500 e
69 1
gallons of water was released from the Demineralized Reac-2 tor Coolant Storage Tank to the environment through the 3
Regenerate Holdup Tank.
4 What is your knowledge of the activities 5
that caused that amount of water to be released) 6 A
My best understanding of that is that that 7
water that was released was within the release limits.
8 specified in the license and could be discharged within 9
the tenths'of our twenty limits.
10 You say 19857 11 Q
This is 1985, 10 CFR 20.
We are still talking 12 about Special Report 84-07 and the fact that the commitment, to Appendix I - ' not exceed it's limits.
13 to it here 14 A
I am trying to get my years right.
1985?
i 15 Q
That is.corect.
16 A
I remember, I think it was Fred Kellie and 17 Pierre, and.it might have been at one of the staff meetings, 18 that the definition came out that if the water was below 19 LLD, Pierre said it was nonradioactive it was not radio-20 active water.
I think that was his definition.
That 21 is where the volume of water could be released because 1
22 it didn't have an affect on the environment because it 23 was below LLD.
So, anything below LLD was not radioactive.
24 Q
By Pierre Oubre's definition?
15 A
Yes.
5 m
70 1
Q When did this take place?
2 A
It is really around this time frame.
My 3
bests shot would be a few months after the letter.
4 O
A few months after September of '84 commitment 5
to NRC that no more radioactivity would be released.
6 A
Yes.
It might have been very close to that 7
letter or slightly thereafter.
It is in that time frame 8
that radioactive water was defined as above LLD.
Ard 9
that was the 3x10 -7 micuries (ph) per cc.
Anything above 10 that was radioactive and anything below that was not radio-11 active and could be handled as a nonradioactive release, 12 no matter what tank it was in.
13 Now you are starting to fill in some of 14 my blanks on this thing.
15 That became some of the reasons later on 16 that these releases were made because they were nonradio-17 active releases.
18 Q
How did you know that?
19 A
Me?
20 Q
Yes.
How would you know that they were 21 nonradioactive?
22 A
Fred Kellie would have to tell me from his 23 measurements that they were less than 3x10 -7 micuries(ph) 24 per cc.
That is what I got in my license.
25 Q
What were the events at the plant in 1985 that
71 1
caused 787,000 gallons plus to be released through --
2 A
I am quite certain we had two or three steam 3
generator tube leaks that year.
I don't have the history 4
in front of me, but I think --
5 Q
That was in 1984.
In 1984 you had two or 6
three.
7 A
Okay, in 1985.
8 Q
And in 1985 you were down; during March 9
and October you were down.
10 A
During heatup and cooldowns, you expand 11 and contract a lot of water.
To go to shutdown or startup, 12 you have high concentrates of boron you have got to dilute, 13 so that give you a lot of inventory.
You end up with 14 a lot of inventory.
Heatup and cooldowns and boration 15 and dilution, which in 1985 we had several startups and 16 heatups and cooldowns.
That would generate inventory.
17 All of that inventory ends up in Rad Coolant Storage Tank, 18 the tank that you are talking about.
So that would give 19 you the excess water.
20 Q
Would that be radioactive water?
21 A
According to whose definition?
Pierre's 22 definition?
23 Q
Does it have radioactive nucleides present 24 in that water?
15 A
Yes.
Yes.
72 1
Q And at an amount that could only be determined 2
through testing?
3 A
That is true.
Yes.
4 O
What authority did you have to make sure 5
the water transferred from the Demineralized Re' actor Coolant 6
Storage Tank to the Regenerate Holup Tank ' was properly 7
sampled for radioactivity?
8 A
Fred Kellie would have done that for us 9
during the transfer.
Assure what the activity was and 10 what dilution was necessary.
11 We have a form on the dilution -- a release 12 permit and' that information is samples.
A concentration all that documentation on 13 goes in the release permit 14 what has to be performed, how rauch dilution has to be 15 done before release to meet the offsite specs.
If anything 16 is exceeded, tnco I get a notification that we have exceeded 17 the limit.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing notified i
it me that we released above any limit.
19 Q
What is this document that tells you that 20 you have exceeded the limit?
21 A
1 have a form.
If you exceed a limit or 22 exceed anything that is specified in a procedure, you 23 are supposed to generata en Occurrence Description Report, and I would t hr,.t is an AP 22 requirement 24 e.n ODR 25 have got a rece!.pt of one of those' saying that we had j
1 muamureum 9
+
l 1 73 j
1 exceeded something.
I would look at it and, if it was i
2 really true and we did exceed it over the limits, then 3
I would process another report or an LER* 'if the license 4
limit was exceeded.
5 Q
Did you sign off on the liquid release per-6 mits?
7 A
No.
I am not in that chain.
8 It used to be Pierre would sign off on the 9
release limits.
I remember a change coming through the 10 PRC that changed his sign off to the shift supervisor 11 sign off and the reason was that they were calling him 12 up at 3:00 in the morning for a release and he had to 13 delegate that responsibility all the time, so he gave-14 that rerronsibility to the shift supervisor.
It seemed 15 a logical change so we processed that and approved that.
16 The shift supervisor then became the signator on the release.
17 Q
Near term corrective action seven of Special 18 Report number 84-07 talks about a policy to control releases 19 so that you are within the limits of technical specifica-20 tion 3.17.2.
What was that policy that was initiated 21 which controlled releases so that the tech spec limits 22 would not be exceeded?
28 A
I con't have the tech specs in mind.
I 24 3.17.2 sound like maybe. one of the Appendix I j
15 limits.
l 9
mm.m._____
4-_
)
74 1
Q That is the Appendix I tech spec:
i
)
1 2
A That would have to be the five to the fifteen 3
miligram limit.
4 My understanding at that time was that if e
I 5
you were below LLD, that you would not exceed' the limits.
6 I have since found out that that is not true.
7 Q
I am talking about specifically -- it mentions 8
here a policy that releases will not exceed the tech 9
spec limit.
Was that the policy itself or was there 10 some type of written document which described how you 11 would maintain or be within the tech spec. 3.17.27 12 A
That would have to be a letter from Pierre 13 describing how we actually are going to meet those limits.
14 Q
Once
- again, who was responsible for this 15 action item here?
16 A
To not exceed the 3.17.2 limits?
17 Q
Yes.
Who did you say inputed these into 18 Special Report 84-077 19 A
This section would come from Pierre.
20 Q
Pierre?
21 A
From his previous meetings on setting up 22 all of these a,ction items.
That specific limit would 23 ! probably be between Pierre and Roger Mi.11er or Fred Kellie.
24 0
You 'do not recall anything spercific which 25 we,uld help amplify what he is talking about when he refers no.
I
75 1
to policy here?
2 A
I couldn't tell you definitely, but I think 3
that is based on his assumption of radioactive limits 4
based on LLD because the policy is saying that we won't 5
exceed anything above LLD, which would preve'nt exceeding 6
3.17.2.
That sounded like a good policy to me but I know 7
better now.
8 Q
As regulatory compliance manager or super-9
- visor, what were your responsibilities to assure that 10 tech spec 3.17.2 were not exceeded?
11 A
1 don't have that responsibility.
I don't 12 have responsibility for enforcement of tech specs.
I 13 have a responsibility for changes in the tech specs.
14 Responsibility for following tech specs is the operations 15 superintendent's.
16
- Remember, at this time I think I am two 17 people.
18 Q
I understand.
19 What if information came to you which showed 20 that a tech spec is being violated?
Then, what is your 21 responsi'oility to act on that information?
12 A
well, that would also --
l 23 O
Let me complete the question.
Whether it 24 be through a f orraal document, like an ODR, or just infor-15 mation you would get through a latter or verbal information t
\\
L--____-__-
76 1
to you that there is a possibility that a reg or a tech 2
spec is being violated?
3 A
In that case, I would take that information 4
to the supervisor responsible for that area -- the 'make-5 it-happen' -- whoever ir suposed to Tnake this liappen saying, 6
" Hey, you are exceeding this tech spec.
I got to write a 7
report on this.
What is your corrective action; what 8
are you going to do about it?"
9 I would get his response back on his correc-10 tive actions and put it into the report to the NRC to 11 make his corrective actions come true.
12 He has to police his own people for follow-13 ing the tech specs.
14 Q
Let's talk about the bases of technical 15 specification 3.17.1, limiting conditions for operations, 16 and 4.21.1, surveillance standards for liquid effluents.
17 These bases state that the specifications 18 do not assure compliance with 10 CFR Appendix I,
dose 19 objectives.
20 A
I remember that very clearly.
J 21 Q
Explain why these technical specifications 22 cannot assure compliance with the dose objectives of 10 23 CrR 50.
24 A
The original design criteria of Rancho Seco
~
25 was to corr. ply witn 10 CI'R 20 limits.
.All our design and
)
\\
l
i 77 1
our processes were all set up for 10 CFR 20.
When RETS 2
came along --
3 Q
What does that stand for again?
4 A
Radiological Environmental Tech Specs.
5 When that came along, it based the'relea.es s
6 on Appendix I and Rancho Seco could not meet Appendix I 7
limits if our design bases was 10 CFR 20.
We could if 8
we were next to the Mississippi River.
Obviously, we 9
were a dry land site and since we were a dry land site, 10 this was a very lengthy discussion with the representatives and I don't have 11 and the NRC and myself and E.G.&G.
12 the gentleman's name, but I remember being on the telephone that if we are designed to 10 13 for at least an hour 14 CFR 20 limits and we apply Appendix I limits, we 'can ' t if we are meeting Appendix I limits, we cannot 15 meet if we meet the 10 CFR 20 limits, we can't meet 16 meet 17 the Appendix I limits because we have already exceeded 18 them.
19 It is like having a speed limit of 25 miles 20 an hour but you are supposed to go 55.
Well, if you go 21 55, you can't meet the 25 mile an hour speed limit; you 72 exceeded it already.
24 I discussed that with the NRC saying that 24 we have a conflict.
Rancho Seco is not designed for Appen-l 25 dix I, yet we ere putting that in the bases.
So, we h'ad to e
78 1
rearrange
- t. hose bases' words to say that if we meet the 2
10 CFR 20 limits on our discharge, which we are designed 3
to, we won't meet Appendix I.
When I explained that to 4
the designer, because he had us check and he put everything 5
up to the window and this one didn't check' out on his 6
reflector, we explained that one and he accepted my expla-7 nation.
If we are designed for 10 CFR 20, we can't meet 8
Appendix I.
So, those words were rearranged.
They were 9
changed to meet the design of Rancho Seco.
10 Q
You represented Rancho Seco in
- this, who 11 did you discuss this with onsite, this fact?
,How did 12 it originate?
Who first brought this to your attention 13
- that, hey, we've got Appendix I but, in reality, we are 3
14 not designed to meet Appendix I.
In other words, what 15 is the genesis of this issue?
16 A
That is stated in our safety analysis.
17 Originally, it was in our tech specs and our license at 18 the present time that we are discussing this.
the best time frame that I can 19 During 20 remember -- 1981 or 1982, maybe, when E.G.& G. was review-21 ing this, our tech specs said that we are designed to 22 meet 10 CFR 20 limits and under unusual events, we will 23 release. rad:.cc t !vity to the environment but not exceed 24 10 CFR 20 limits.
I read that to the E.
G. & G. reviewer 25 and said," We are right back to where our design bases are.
am
79 1
RETS were not supposed to change our design bases."
That 2
is why our old tech specs, our original tech specs from
{
3 1974 conflicted with the new requirements of Appendix j
4 I.
So, we reworded that paragraph to agree with what e
5 the existing tech spec design of Rancho Seco was.
I did 6
that.
7 Q
Who did you discuss this issue with within 8
the plant?
In other words, these tech specs had to be 9
approved by the people that we have talked about back 10 in that time -- I guess Ron Rodriguez was there, you men-11 tioned that Pierre Oubre, possibly.
12 A
This, specifically, was discussed with Roger 13 Miller because I remember looking at -- when the NRC brought
~
14 this up, originally, I went and got Roger Miller's copy 15 of this thing and he has got lines and question marks 16 all over this paragraph.
That was the one we had discussed.
17 Roger's problem
- was, even rewording it, 18 he couldn't understand exactly what the words were because 19 the words weren't perfect.
20 I wish I could have the name of the person 21 at E.
G.
G.
that also brought this to the attention 12 and --
23 O.
What was the involvement of Oubre and Rodri-24 guez in these discussions?
15 A
I don't knov of ever involving Rodriguez
)
4 4
m
__.__._.----__-__.-___m._
_ - = _
i 80 1 or Oubre in that discussion on that bases because it 'was 2
a design of the. plant.
I 'didn' t change anything.
All 3
I did was transfer the design of the plant into that para-4-
graph.
5 2
But they had to review these bases, right?
6 In other words, there are certain managers that had to 7 sign off as accepting these bases in these technical speci-8 fications?
9 A
After I
put all of this change together, 10 I went to the Plant Review Committee as a license change 11 and got it approved by the PRC and I went to the Management 12 Safety Review Committee for review and approval from the 13 Management Safety Review Committee and Pierre and Rodri-r 14 guez are on.that committee.
15 We went through all of these sections and 16 details because it was going to add a considerable expense 17 and work effort to Rancho Seco to implement these RETS.
18 In the final submittal to the NRC, Rodriguez would have 19 signed off on it.
20 Q
You specifically talked to him about insert-21 ing the word "not" in the bases?
22 A
I don't remember that; no.
We didn't think 25 that was -- I didn't consider that as a big issue because 24 all I was doing was changing the bases dtE the tapecific 15 design of Rancho Seco.
I changed hundreds of chings in i
1 i
81 1
that document.
I had a RETS that was a generic and I 2
had-to change that RETS and redo that spec into the Rancho 3
Seco words using Rancho Seco tank names, Rancho Seco pump 4
names and I had to rewrite that whole section of the guide 5
into Rancho Seco specifics.
That is one of the things 6
I did change because the guids was different from the 7
design of Rancho Seco.
8 Q
Why can't you adhere to Appendix I?
9 A
Because we were designed to 10 CFR 20 limits.
10 Q
I know but that doesn't tell me why.
11 A
Ch,
- well, the Appendix I is assuming you.-
12 have a large body of water diluting all of your environment, 15-all your effluents in your environment -- like the Mississip-14 pi River.
Rancho Seco is a unique power plant that is 15 essentially the first dry land site plant.
So, we were 16 designed and meant to be by ourselves with no large body 17 of water near us and Appendix I limits will really assume large body of water to sweep all of these ef-18 you have a 19 fluents away so these limits are not exceeded.
Well, every-10 thing at Rancho Seco, being a dry land site, goes down 21 the river a few miles and dries up and accumulates 22 like having no sewage system in your houses after awhile 25 things just pile up.
That is what happened at Rancho 24 Seco.
We don't have a large body of water to take the 25 effluents away.
-_-_a_-___-
_.--.__-__.__._c__
i
,q 82 j
1 We still had committed to, in our original 2
license, the 10 CFR 20 limits.
3 BY MR. MARSH:
4 O
Which is more stringent, the 10 CFR 20 or 5
the Appendix I?
6 A
Generally, Appendix I
has -about a
factor 7
of about 100 more stringent than 10 CFR 20.
8
- Now, there are certain isotopes that have 9
varying degrees on it.
But all of a sudden, when RETS 10 came along we had to essentially drop the guidelines of 11 Appendix I, now we have a factor af about a hundred as 12 a guideline to go by instead of the 10 CFR 20 limits.
13 So, that was a big design change at Rancho Seco.
That 14 is one of the reasons that I tried to get this paragraph 15 straightened out:
to explain that we are designed for 16 20, not Appendix I.
17 Q
But as you study the paragraph, as these 18 tech specs were approved, what they are saying is that 19 we cannot assure compliance with Appendix I.
20 A
That was quite clearr yes.
21 Q
So your RETS were implemented with the state-22 ment that it will not adhere to one of the major sections 23 of the radiological environmental tech specs.
l 24 A
That is correct.
It did
- happen, didn't 4
25 it?
We were not designed for meeting Appendix I.
\\
83 1
Q It seems contrary that you will implement 2
a tech spec telling the regulatory agent that we are not 3
going to adhere to your. requirement for a LORA(ph?) by 4
visions of radioactive releases.
5 A
But it was our intent to comply with Appen-6 dix I because if we exceeded that guideline, we would 7
have given you a report.
That is all I was told that 8
NRC wanted.
9 Q
Who told you that?
10 A
Hundreds of times I was told that during 11 the review process.
It started with Jack Martin.
12 Q
Jack Martin is one of the individuals?
13 A
It was the Jack Martin in control of the 14 Radiological Control Section and in our first meeting 15 in San Leandro iin' 1978, which Roger Miller and I went 16 to, it was the bases of getting the backfit into the licenses 17 of all of the utilities.
If you were licensed before 18 that, you comply as well as you can with these guidelines, 19 Appendix I.
But after
- 1978, if you were
- building, it 20 was no longer a guideline you had to make these.
21 I would like to clarify.
On that paragraph 22 I tried to be upfront with the NRC and not hide anything 23 in that. paragraph because I tried to state it according 24 to the design of Rancho Seco.
25
//
f e
es
84 1
BY MR.'MEEKS:
2 O
Ed Bradley issued a Draft Lower Limits of 3
Detection study on October 29, 1985.
That draft study 4'
indicated that Rancho Seco's technical. specification on 1,
5 lower limits of detection were not sufficient to assure 6
compliance with the dose objectives of 10 CFR 50, Appendix I.
7 When did you first become aware of. this S
issue?
9 A
I first became aware of that issue during 10 a discussion with - the NRC in about 1981, where the limit 11 of 3x10
-7 was in our tech specs-and Roger Miller said 12 during the preliminary review we were going to have a'
13 hard time trying to meet that because the equipment we 14 had.
Number one, we are going to have to buy better equip-15 ment or, number two, raise it.
16 So, I. called the NRC about that time and I wanted it 17 this is when we were reviewing RETS 18 increased to around 5x10
-7.
The NRC said, "No way, it 19 is 3x10
-7.
That is our standard and you are not going 20 to change it."
21 So I went 3x10
-7.
They said that is the 22 standards these limits are offsite and you can't ~ change 23 it.
We didn't change it and we went with the NRC number; 24 this is their guide.
It has 3x10 -7 in it.
That is the 15 number that has always been in our RETS.
meer
==
L __ _ _ _ _ _- ___ _ _______
85 I
Q The tech ' spec lower limit of detection is 2
5x10 -7; that is my understanding.
3 A
Okay.
I thought it was three.
I am going-4 by pure memory.
5 Q
That-is the NRC number.
That' is in the 6
NRC standards.
7 A
I stand correcte'd, it is five.
That is 8
an NRC number that is issued for RETS that is not a SMUD 9
number.
10 MR. MEEKS:
I am showing Ron Colombo. table 11 4.21-1 of tech spec 4.21.1, Radioactive Waste Sampling 12 and Analysis Program.
It shows that the. lower limit of 13 detection for the majority.of the nuclides is 5x10 -7.
t' 14 BY MR. MEEKS:
15 Q
So, you went to the NRC and explained to 16 them that 5x10 -7 is insufficient.
17 A
We wanted to go a little higher and the l'
18 NRC said, "No.
That is the NRC standard, that is in the 19 spec and you have to go with 5x10
-7."
l 20 At that
- time, I
got back to Roger Miller 21 and said, "No way, the NRC isn't going to change that l
22 number.
That is their standard.
They are basing the 23 whole dose limits of Appendix I on that limit.
We got 24 to go buy better equipment."
At that tims, Roger Miller.
25 went out an upgraded his whole lab.
If I remember right, e
---_----_--._-__._m
1:
86 1
he spent pretty close to a half a million dollars to get 2
your lithium-drifted diode
- crystals, more system equip-3 ment.
He went out and refurbished his lab to meet the 4
limit as specified.
We went and got the equipment early 5
and got it installed and made it operable.
That was about 6
'83 or
'84 time frame.
We thought RETS were going to j
7 come along.
It just took a little longer than we thought, 8
but we were getting ready for '83 '84 to get that installed.
t 9
and it finally came in July of '85.
10 0
In
- 1985, Bradley mentioned that the tech 11
- spec, as it
- existed, even with your equipment updates 12 understood --
l 13 A
That is a letter that, we talked about, I
th1ought 14 think, earlier.
He showed me the letter ' and I 15 that was the letter to Keilman or Powers that I had a 16 copy of that. saying that the tech spec was wrong.
That 17 floored me because that was the NRC standard.
I didn't 18 think the NRC standard could be wrong.
19 Q
My recollection of what you talked about 20 before was based on the fact that when RETS was implemented, 21 Bradley came to you and he did the dose calculations and 22 he showed you that, hey, on those dose calculations, we 23 have exceeded the Appendix recently implemented, Appendix I 24 tech specs.
25 A
Yes.
And at that time, I couldn't understand
)
4 87 1
how we could exceed it if we didn't exceed the LLD numbers.
2 Then he came back and I thought he had another letter 3
saying that LLD is too large, that LLD doesn't apply to 4
a dry land site.
5 Q
Yes he did.
He did that.
6 A
I remember that.
7 Q
That was in 1985 that he brought that issue 8
up.
That is what I am talking about, 1985.
your testimony 9
You related your 1984 10 here, your information about 1984 was in conjunction with 11 exceeding Appendix I?
12 A
Yes.
13 Q
And you got that information from Bradley?
14 A
Yes.
15 Q
And that did not relate to the tech specs 16 not being sufficient.
17 A
Not in LLD.
18 Q
This came up in 1985.
19 A
Okay.
20 Q
When did you become aware of Bradley's con-21 cerns about the fact that Rancho Seco's tech spec LLD 22 isn't sufficient to assure compliance with Appendix I?
23 A
I think that was surely after the NRC audit.
24 I guess it must have be'en their exit audit.
They said 25 that the counting times in the lab were changed to meet the 1
_m________
88 1
LLD. criteria.
All of a sudden, at that point, something i
i 2
didn't click.
I thought the LLD that the NRC had is a 1
3 standard.
If we are below that, we would not exceed the l
4 Appendix I limits.
5 Q
on october 29, Bradley issued his draft 1
6 study on lower limits of detection.
You received a copy 7
of that draft study?
{
8 A
Yes.
9 Q
I am showing Mr. Colombo that october 29, 10 1985 memo from Bradley to, among others, Ron Colombo.
11 I
guess I
am asking you:
were you aware 12 of the fact that the information reported in this, Bradley's 13
- report, which was that Rancho Seco's tech spec on 'LLD 14 is not sufficient to assure compliance with Appendix I?
15 Did Bradley bring up this issue with you before you received '
16 his report?
Try to pinpoint when you first heard about 17 this.
Was it in conjunction with issuance of this, or 18 did Bradley talk to you earlier about it?
19 A
I couldn't remember.
20 What had probably curbed my understanding 21 of this thing is that the LLD that I had put in the tech I
22 spec was the NRC standard and I couldn't understand the 23 NRC being wrong at that tims.
I couldn't comprehend that 1
24 there was an offset of Rancho Seco being unique that the 25 NRC standard didn't apply.
When I read that, I still l
1 l
A
._. J
q 89 l
1 understood that if we were below the NRC standard, we couldn:
l l
2 have exceeded Appendix I.
3 O
That is exactly what this stated: You couldn't l
j 4
because Rancho Seco was a dry site.
It doesn't assure 5
compliance.
That tech spec is too high for th'e configura-6 tion of the plant.
1 7
A That is what I understood.
It still didn't S
come out and hit me that hard because I was still entrenched 9
in the.NRC standard of 5x10
-7.
j 10 Q
What action did you initiate to study this I
11 whole issue; to confirm the validity of this?
12 A
Sometime later on, I
chaired a
committee 13 to get the complete RETS updated and revised to meet all 14 of these new requirements.
Ed Bradley was on my committee, 15 Fred Kellie was on the committee and I recorded 52 recommen-16 dations that we must implement to get the Rancho Seco 17 effluents on track.
I made a presentation to region five 18 about June 20, 1986 that all of the 52 items that we were 19 going to correct at Rancho Seco to get in within the effluent 20 limits.
I am tracking those 52.
Out of those 52 commit-21
- ments, I think I have got about 40 complete and I had j
l 22 about 12 more that are pretty c)nse to completion.
I i
l 23 have a whole new radiological effluent tech spec to be 24 sent to the NRC and get all of these items in line with 25 what the 10 CFR Appendix I requirements are.
O L_-___--------_-_---_-
I
i l
l.
90 1
Q I
am concerned with what you did before l
l 2
the inspection conducted by Greg Yuhas in April and May 3
of 1986; what you did before that time to assure that 4
Bradley's concerns about the sufficiency of Rancho Seco's 5
LLDs were properly evaluated and a factor into'the district's 6
commitment in Special Report 84-07, not to exceed Appendix I 7
limits.
3 Let me put it another way, just to amplify p
before you answer that and make sure you understand it.
10 You made a commitment in 84-07: we are not 33 going to exceed Appendix I limits.
Bradisy comes out 12 subsequent to that time and he tells you, in a report 33 dated October 29,
- 1985, that Rancho Seco's tech spec LLD 34 is not sufficient to mset Appendix I.
Understood, therefore w
15_ we might not be able to adhere to our commitment not to 16 exceed Appendix I in Special Report 84-07.
17 What did you do to justify those two dis-13 crepancies, or that gaps your commitment and the fact 19 that the insufficiency of the tech spec would not allow 20 you to meet that commitment?
21 A
There was a lot of things going on in October.
22 We went and got a consultant to look at and study what f
23 these LLDs were, to make samples of the environment, to i
24 correlate an LLD with the actiivities in the environment.
25 There was presentations made to the NRCon[fhatwehaveto
~l
91 1
actually do, what the real numbers are.
There was a lot 2
going on.
5 I
couldn't do anything on that because I
4 didn't know what the LLDs were supposed to be.
Nobody 5
would tell me what the LLD was supposed to be.
I kind i
6 of got a sense that it should be less than 5x10
-7, but no one told me if it should be you 7
I didn't know 8
- know, I couldn't go along and just, say, change it to 9
4x10
-7 because nobody had a number to tell me what to 10 change it to.
Ed Bradley said he had to do a study to 11 come up with what the correct LLD would be and he generated, 12 that study and, to this day, I think that he is now forming 13 what the LLD should be for Rancho Seco.
14 Q
You mentioned before that when an ODR was 15 written or somebody reported to you the possibility that 16 the plant has a deficiency, then you would take it to 17 the individual responsible for that area and have him 18 look at it and review the situation.
19 A
That is correct.
20 Q
Did you do that when you received Bradley's l
21 October 29 Special Report?
22 A
When I
received that
- report, I
couldn't 23 understand it between what the NRC number was ar.d what j
24 Ed Bradley had generated because I didn't' have any other 15 better number than what the NRC had, although I kind of got 8
a
92 I
the impression that the NRC number was too high.
2 I
asked Ed what the number should be 3,between that date and yesterday and still have to form n
up an exact number yet.
5 O
Did you discuss this draft report wit h 6
any other manager or supervisor or any other individual 7
other than Ed Bradley within SMUD?
8 A
No, I
didn't because there was a lot of 9
other things going on directly related to trying to detect 10 what the LLDs would have been.
Pierre knew about it, 11 I knew about it, Roger Powers knew about it.
12 Q
Knew about what?
13 A
The LLD number.
14 O
How do you know that?
~
15 A
They were all at the meetings that you 16 know, this guy was doing all the environmental studies --
everybody 17 the discussions that we had with the NRC 18 was present.
Part of the presentation made to the NRC 19 on trying to get the LLD straightened out --
i 20 Q
Is this the June 20 one you are talking 21 about, or prior to that?
12 A
It was prior to that.
The June 20 was really 23 my presentation on 52 items to get back in the Appet2 dix I 24 limits.
15 Q
Was th.ie meeting that you are talking about
a 93 1
before October 29, 1985 or afterwards?
l s
2 A
I couldn't pinpoint the exact days on that.
3 Q
But it concerned this specific issue?
4 A
No, it didn't concern only that issue.
you know, based 5
It considered many issues on what the what were the real numbers offsite, based-6 on the LLDs 7
on the LLDs we had.
8 There was a Noshkin study; the NRC was doing.
9 there own.
What we had as an LLD and what we were seeing for an example, if it is a factor 10 offsite Let me 11 of two, then we can decrease our LLD by a factor of two 12 to get what the LLD should really be.
13 Q
The fact that this committee studied this,
\\-
14 that is what I want to know.
I want to know who was involved 15 in the committee so I can talk to them about it.
How 16 it came up, when it was and their responsible management 17 actions they took in conjunction with this study.
- Anything, 18 any light you can shed on this; who brought the committee 19 together?
Was it Oubre, was it Keilman, was it Rodriguez?
20 A
On that issue, I do believe Ed Bradley brought 21 the group together because he wanted to try and get a 12 resolution and a project going to do a study on that LLD 23 and find out what the real number should be to not exceed 24 Appendix I.
tape 4 25 0
Who were the individuals who were the partici-1 I
_ _ _ _ _ - - - - - _ = - _ _ _ _
l
\\
94 j
1 pants in this review?
2 A
I know Ed Bradley was there, I was there, 3
Fred Kellie was there.
I don't remember if Pierre was 4
there or not.
5 Q
What were the results of the deetings that
~
6 you had with Kellie and Bradley on this issue?
7 A
Ed Bradley was going to see either Keilman 8
or Powers and get funding to get the LLD study initiated; 9
to find out what the real LLD number should be.
He was you know, saying that we got to do this.
10 going to get 11 This is the project we have got to do.
Get the resources 12 to find out what the LLD should be.
I thought Ed Bradley 13 was going to go to whoever his supervisor was at that it might have still been Powers -- and get the 14 time 15 resources to find out what the LLD number should be.
16 O
What was your involving after that fact?
17 A
I didn't get involved again until after 18 the NRC violation came up and then I took over and, at 19 that time we were still looking for what the LLD number 20 should be.
21 BY MR. MARSH:
22 Q
I don't think that you answered the question, 23 though,.of what time frame this was taking place in.
24 A
I tried and I think it has gct to be pretty
)
25 close to that.
It might even have been before that because i
j 1
1 f
95 you know, Ed gathered 1
that might have came in after 2
his information up before he put the letter out when he 3
was looking for the resource to generate the LLD number.
f l
4 It is not an easy thing to do.
5 0
I was under the impression that this problem 6
that was raised by Bradley concerning this was raised 7
as an issue back in the early part of 1985, long before 8
the October report was published, and that the Management 9
Safety Review Committee actually heard a
presentation 10 that was put on by Powers and Bradley, and which you would 11 have been present at, to discuss this matter back in the 12 early part of 1985.
And
- that, based on these concerns 13 that were raised then, it was decided that Powers would 14 head up a task to verfy Bradley's calculations and to 15 arrange for whatever actions were necessary.
16 Does that sound familiar to you at all?
17 A
The subject is what I am trying to relate 18 to.
My time span is being shifted.
I thought it was 19 in this area that we got that to Powers to get the resources 20 to go and do that study.
Yeah, that was the outcome of i
21 the LLD.
Thct is why me, as an end point to get these, 22 things in the tech specs, we have been waiting for this 22 ELD number.
Y heard so many LLD numbers in the last year, 14 1 don't even know which one is correct any more.
25 0
Aside from whatever the correct number is,
____s.__
I
\\
l 96 4
1 the problem itself as being a condition of releasing greater 2
amounts than what the spec would allow was surfaced in
-3 early 1985.
)
4 A
That must have been the meeting that Bradley I
5 was at and Powers was at and Bradley brought the problem i
6 up and at the end of that meeting Bradley's supervisor --
l 7
which I think was Powers -- was supposed to get the resources 8
and go ahead and do the study to find out what the LLD to prevent the Appendix I limitation the real LLD 9
10 should be.
11 You and I have the same meeting.
You have 12 the benefit of being a little more zeroed in on the time.
13 Q
The way that I
understand what happened 14 was they did, in
- fact, confirm Bradley's calculations 15 through different processes, and so forth.
And then it 16 became necessary to contract for Lawrence Livermore Lab 17 to do the analysis offsite to determine what type of impact 18 had been realized by those releases.
19 A
But I thought they were also doing a study i
20 on what the LLDs were supposed to be, 21 Q
That may be true that they were contintaing
/
22 to study that but --
23 A
Thet is the one that pointed directly to 1
24 that.
25 Ed Bradley didn't get that document.
He e
O
\\
97 e
1 had to get that through the study.
2 O
That all, supposedly, came about some time 3
in the early part of the Summer or late Spring because 4
that materialized at that point.
5 Lawrence Livermore was doing their work 6
during the Summer of 1985.
7 A
Yes.
I can relate to that time span.
That 8
is where the study was generated.
9 Q
During that time frame of all of this activity 10 and hubub about the LLD and Bradley and Powers being the 11
' daddy' of the task and so forth, do you recall Fred Kellie's 12 involvement in that at all?
13 A
In the study or the Lawrence Livermore' work?
d 14 Q
Being aware of the condition of the calcu-15 1ations being eroneous and that he releases may have been 16 exceeding the dose limits.
17 A
I don't know specifically, but I could not 18 imagine Fred Kellie not knowing about it.
19 Q
In the firast Mansgement Enfety Review Com-8 20 mittee that we believe that this subject was first brought 21 to the attention, we believe that probably from the different 22 folks that would have been preseni: would have been Rodri-25
- guez, Schwieger,
- Sullivan, Kailman, McColigan, Deitrich, 24 Cubre, Coward and yourself.
Does tirat sound like an accu-25 rate representation of the raembership of the Management i
l t
f e
_____u___
__-__________.___________m__
\\
98 1
Safety Review Committee?
2 A
To help you out on that, I do believe that 3
meeting occurred at 6201
'S' Street on the fourth floor 4
conference room.
5 O
So, you do now start recalling the specific 6
meeting?
7 A
Yes.
8 Q
Can you place that, timewise, in your memory?
9 A
If I went and looked up the MSRC minutes 10 I
could pinpoint it because seve,ral people were there 11 to make presentations on where we were in this category 12 and I think even Dr. Noshkin himself, or an Oriental assist-13 ant to him, came to th.It meeting.
14 Q
Mr. Raasch?
15 A
No.
He was the engineering representative.
16 Dr.
Noshkin had an assistant and he made 17 a presentation on what was going on in the LLD and the 18 offsite realeases and their measurements and their program 19 and everything.
20 Q
The Managerent Safety Review Committen met i
21 pretty regularly; pencially esery two weeks, a.s I under-22 stand.
Is that correct?
I 15 A
Seems a
litt3e more frequently but 24 - wculd say',naybe once a moisth.
i 25 Q
Were there minutes actually prepared for t
-_22--
_n2-22.
\\
99 1
each of those meetings?
2 A
Definitely.
1 3
0 Who would have been the preparer and the 4
repository for those?
5 A
John Jewett.
6 Q
Who is that again?
7 A
John Jewett is a quality assurance engineer.
8 He was secretary to the MSRC.
9 Q
Do you know if he, to this day, maintains 10 those minutes?
11 A
- Yes, he does.
He might have turned them 12 over to a new secretary but I will guaranty you 100 percent 18 that all of those records are available.
Probably in 14 microfilm, but they are available.
I have looked at them.
15 Q
Were you a member of that committee?
16 A
Yes; since 1974 or '73.
17 BY MR. MEEKS:
18 Q
There was a time when the sampling of the 19
- analysis, or the analysis of the RHUT sample countirre 20 was icwered.
21 Why were instructions givsn to lower the 22 counting times on the analysis of the RRUT samples?
/
19 A'
I believe that the times were lowered to 24 get an LLD within the tech specs but within the definition 25 of nonradioactive releases.
1 s
___-__.__.-______m__-_
\\
100
.1 Q
Could you expound on that a little bit.
'2 A
The LLD is dependant upon how long you count.
3 If you count for a year, you can detect anything.
4 Q
We are talking about the specific analysis 5
We were talking about the 6
specific analysis LLD, let's base 7
A The specific analysis LLD 8
it on 5x10
-7.
If you want to get that LLD and'you count 9
for a year, anything is radioactive.
It is based upon 10 how long you count as long as you get radioactivity.
11-The definition of radioactivity is if you 12 detect radioactivity.
If I don't detect any radioactivity 13 in that glass, it is not radioactive.
But if I want to 14 count that glass for six hours, I will find something 15 that decays in there and, therefore, that glass is radio-s 16 active.
Carbon 14 is in that glass and it is decaying.
17 If I would count that for two or three hours, I will detect IS a carbon 14 atom decaying in that glass, therefore, that 19 glass is radioactive.
20 You say that glass is radioactive and I
21 say it is not, but it is based upon how long it is counted.
22 Q
I'm with you.
13 A'
So, if you take a sample and count it for 24 an hour, you have got a radioactive sample.
But if you 25 count it for 20 minutes, it is not radioactive.
G
i 101 1
If you count it for 20 minutes,. you can 2
get a 5x10 -7 detectability LLD.
- 3 BY MR. MARSH:'
4 Q
You are speaking hypothetically tijere?
4
- 5 A
Yes.
I don't have the exact -- Frr, Kellie.
6 has the exact numbers in his head.
7 But I can also count it for five minutes 8
and get an LLD of 3x10 - 5x10 -5.
So, how long should~
9 I count it for?
An hour?
Because if I count it for an to
- hour, it is radioactive.
That. will make 5x7
-7, but I 11-can count it for five minutes and make an LLD and I can 12 get 5x7 -7 counting it five minutes also.
13 Now we go back to radioactivity.
If you 14 detect something, 'it is radioactive. ' You can count that 15 for five minutes, have an LLD of 5x10
-7, and not have-16 it radioactive.
I believe Fred Kellie, or 17 Fred Kellie strike.
I don't know 18 whoever else changed the times 19 if Fred Kellie changed the times.
I don't know what led 20 up to the change of times, but I am hypothesizing what 11 led up to the change of time is the definition of radio-12 activity.
The times were changed to still meet the LLD, some decay in the 23 but not detect some fission in the 24 system.
25 Q
Why?
8 i_-
_2____ _ _ ~ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _,
\\
102 1
A Because of the definition' of radioactivity.
2 Because if you count for an hour, nothing would ever happen.
3 Everything is radioactive.
You can count for a day; every-4 thing is radioactive.
5 What I think they say is "Well, if we count 6
for all of this time and it is radioactive, let's count 7
to the limit of making the LLD because that is the NRC 8
spec 5x10
-7.
If we meet that in count and don't get 9
any decay, then it is not radioactive and we can make 10 a nonradioactive release."
11 Q
What is wrong with counting for an hour 12 or 30 minutes?
Why do you want to count it for only five?
13 A
Because the NRC limit is 5x10
-7.
14 BY MR. MEEKS:
15 Q
Let's go at it a different way.
For years 16 they counted it at 2,000 seconds and then, in 1985, they 17 started lowering that count.
18 A
Two thousand seconds might give you 3x10
-9.
19 BY MR. MARSH:
20 Q
Do you know that?
21 A
I am hypothesizing.
I thought I said that.
22 I am trying to reason why this has happened.
23 q'
It is possible that 2,000 seconds could 24 be the minimum time, as far as you know.
25 A
I am told that 2,000 counts is way below LLD.
\\
103 l
q 1
Q Who told you that?
{
2 A
Fred Kellie.
He establishes the LLD based 3
on the number of counts he is going.to get how long you 4 have got to count to meet LL6.
You can almost, plot what-5 ever LLD you want.
If you want an LLD of 10
-10, you 6
can count for two weeks.
7 BY MR. MEEKS:
8 Q
I just want to know why it was lowered when,.
9 for a period of time, it was a very constant 2,000 seconds 10 and all of a sudden they started lowering it down lower 11 than that.
12 A
I believe that it was lowered because of 13 the interpretation of radioactive, which I tried to tell 14 you.
15 Q
If it is below the tech spec LLD --
~'
16 BY MR. MARSH:
17 Q
So, if they count for 2,000 seconds and 18 they get radioactivity, they would have to report it.
19 A
Yeah.
If they count for 2,000 seconds and 20 some carbon 14 atom decides to decay, it has got to be 21 reported because it is radioactive.
22 Q
or if cesium is present, it would have to 23 be reported?
l 24 A
Yes.
25 Q
But if you count for 1,000 seconds, or some-e
-_-_-----__--._.-_____a__
\\
l 104 J
1 thing less uhan 2,000, you may not detect those nucleides 2
and, therefore, it would not be reported.
3 A
That is correct; yes, yes.
4 O
So the question then is: ir the commitment i
5 is not to release radioactivity to the environment, why
)
and you are going set up all of these extra G
would you 7
vigilances that are going to be implemented so that you 8
can guaranty that you are not -- why, then, are you going 9
to reduce the count so that you can not detect them?
10 A
Because the license says that your Lower 11 Level of Detectability will be 5x10
-7 and we still meet 12 that requirement.
There is nothing in the license that 13 says you have got to count.for 2,000 seconds.
14 Q
Why were you counting for 2,000 seconds?
15 a
I imagine that is just the number that they 16 picked.
17 Q
That doesn't make any sense.
Nobody just 18 picks things in that community.
19 A
It is a number they picked that would meet 20 the LLD and still give us enough time that we didn't fill 21 up the count lab with a backlog.
22 O
So you are telling me that, just arbitrarily, l
23 2,00 sec'onds was picked.
24 A
Because it met LLD.
25 0
Is 1,000 seconds an arbitrary number, too, or o
\\
105 f
I where does that stand on the LLD?
2 A
During my investigation, I think 750 seconds, 3
or something in that category, would meet 5x10
-7.
Anything 4
above 750 is more than what is necessary to, meet LLD.
5 Q
How did you arrive at that?
6 A
I asked Fred Kellie.
He has got his graph where it comes down and intersects the 5x10
-7 7
that 8 would be around 750 seconds.
So, if he counted less than 9
750 seconds, he wouldn't have the LLD of 5x10 -7; he would 10 be exceeding that.
11 Q
But that is coming from Fred Kellie's calcu-12 lations.
13 A
I don't know enough to do my own calculations.
E 14 Q
We are not challenging you.
But that is 15 who you obtained that information from was Fred Kellie?
16 A
Yes.
Any time I am on the PRC -- an operating 17 procedure, I am relying on Mr. Blatchly to give me the 18 input.
If it is a maintenance procedure, I am relying 19 on my maintenance man.
I am not an expert in radiological 20 affairs.
l 21 Q
When was that investigation that you conducted, 22 when did you do that?
13 A
That was when I had the committee following 24 the violation.
We had a violation.
I 25 O
So this was just prior to your presentation
___--m__.___-._.____________m_
\\;
\\
I 106-1 in June of 1986.
2 A
Yes.
Probably a month before that.
I BY MR. MEEKS:
l 4
O Who in the management chain authorized the a
5 lower count time on analysis of RHUT samples?.
6 A
I don't have an answer to that one.
I was 7
not in that chain.
I could only hypothesize.
8 Q
Who would you think?
9 A
I would believe that Fred Kellie discussed 10 this with Pierre Oubre and they decided that what I had 11 just told you, you know, the same thing: they will meet 12 the_LLDs but not detect an activity; that that was a mutual 15 decision.
That is speculative on my part.
~
14 Q
When the LLD issue of Bradley came to your 15 attention, what did you do to assure that the lowering 16 of the count time on the analysis of RHUT samples, together 17 with the LLD issue, would not impact on Rancho Seco's 18 ability to conform to Appendix I dose objective limits?
19 A
I am trying to get the right answer for l
20 you.
21 At that time -- you are talking about around 22 October?
23 Q
Whenever that was when you became aware j
24 of it.
25 MR.
MEEKS:
You have already acknowledged 0
I m____:__.
-_____-._________--______-_______--___..-_._____-___-____.-____.-__.-____.--__m._-_-_._____.-_m.-_-__-__.______m_.______-____-_.__.._-..____m.___.-________--a
1 i
I 107 l
'l that it came to you'r attention in early 1985.
I 2
THE WITNESS:
At that time, I was not aware 3
that time changes and counting had anything to do with 4
LLDs.
When I started my investigation, I star,ted getting 5
real smart on what LLDs really meant.
6 BY MR. MEEKS:
7 Q
When you matched up, or the knowledge of 8
the LLD issue -- and it's the tech spec --
9 A
Give me one second.
Do you remcmber what 10 I
first said that the NRC wouldn't change our LLD and 11 I had to go get a half-a-million dollars for Roger Miller 12 to improve his lab equipment?
13 Q
Yes.
14 A
I thought LLD had to do with the sensitivity 15 of your lab equipment, not how long you count.
So, when I 16 first got all of this information, I would say,
" Holy 17 crow, our equipment in the lab is not good enough to get 18 the sensitivity.
We got to get more state-of-the-art 19 stuff.
That was my first impression.
20 Following the NRC revelation under this 11 time counting bit, I investigated and got smart on how 22 the relationship was on counts versus LLD.
13 0
When was this?
24 A
Early 1986.
25 0
In conjunction with the inspection?
\\
i s
108 l
1 A
In conjunction with the inspection, right.
2 Up until that part, I had no -- I knew nothing about time 3
counting.
4
-Q What you are
- saying, then, is,you didn't 5
put the sufficiency of Rancho Seco's tech spec LLD, to you didn't match 6
assure compliance with Appendix I
7 that up with the lowering of the count time.
8 A
I didn't know that the count time was changed.
if I had heard that the count 9
It wouldn't have even 10 time was changed, it would not have triggered me to LLDs 11 until early 1986 because I
thought LLD had to do with 12 the quality of counting equipment in the count room.
13 When I
first started this in 1982, when.
14 we had to amet the 5x10 -7 is when Roger Miller went out 15 with a big purchase to increase the quality of his detecta-16 bility in the count lab.
17 Q
You received a copy of a record of a telephone 18 conversation which was dated June 6,
1985.
It was from 19 Fred Kellie who initiated the call to Greg Yuhas with 20 the NRC.
The reason for the call was to resolve the meaning 21 of, or interpretation of, the second sentence in table 22 notation C,
table 4.21-1, page 4-71.
Let's look at that 25 table C.
While we are doing it, we will go ahead and f-24 report that the telecomp stated that the resolution reached 25 was:
if a nuclide is below minimally required LLD, in 1
e
-____-___.___m___
_.___mm_
109 1
other words 5x10
-7, but-is of positive value, it must 2
be recorded and reported.
3 A
- Yeah, I think that is exactly what we were J
4 talking about.
5 Q
When you received that record of your tele-6 phone-conversation' between Yuhas and Kellie concerning I
7 the reporting identifiable peaks, with whom did you speak 8
and what was the content of those conversations?
9 A
I didn't talk to anybody.
I just read that 10 and it made sense to me and I put it in our documented rs.
11 files for telecomps.
13 Q
Did you take any actions to make sure that identifiable peaks 13 identifiable peaks, when reported
(
k' 14 of radioactivity were reported?
15 A
I don't do that report.
That report is 16 done by Ed Bradley.
17 My assumption would be that all of that 18 is compiled in Ed Bradley's report and reported to the 19 NRC.
This is the annual, or semi-annual, environmental 20 report that Ed Bradley does.
21 Q
If you are to report identifiable peaks 22 as NRC instructed you to do, but you lower the count time, 23 and by the lowering of that count time, you don't get 24 any peaks, then what does that say about your efforts 25 to candidly report actually what the radioactivity is in a e
m
__-______mm____.m__--_m._.__
\\ -
110 1
particular analysis?
2 A
I would think I am in a gray area now.
3 Based on that telecon you just showed me, 4
- Ron, that if we meet the LLD of 5x10
-7, Greg Yuhas is 5
te'lling me that I don't have to report it.
I would assume, 6
lowering the count rate, that we are within his requirements.
7 Q
That is.not the way that Grag Yuhas explained 8
it to me and I thought I was explaining what he explained 9
to me to you.
What he is saying is if, in fact, you do 10 have a nuclide, even though it is below your tech spec 11 LLD, if it is identified, in other words it is of positive 12 value, then it must be recorded and reported in your analy-13 sis.
L 14 Once again, going back over the question, l
15 if you are lowering the count
- time, in other words if 1
16 you have a count time at 2,000 seconds and let's say you 17 get identifiable peaks of cesium 134 and 137, and then i
18 you lower the count time to 1,000 seconds and no peaks q
19 are identified and then you go ahead and make the release 4
20 and you make no report of nuclides being present, what 21 does that say about your candidness to report identifiable j
22 peaks?
l 23 A
I am in a quandry to give you a positive 24 answer to that statement.
25 Q
Why?
--______._____m____.m
i
'lli let's not limit the issue 1
A Because if I 2
to 2,000 seconds.
Why don't I count for four 10,000 seconds?
3 Q
I want to recreate for you and I want your j
i 4 opinion as the manager of regulatory compliance.
5 A
I think that if we count for 2,000 seconds, 6
that should be reported to the NRC.
7 Q
- Okay, finer you get peaks and you-should 8
report it.
9 A
Sure.
10 Q
- But in instances it wasn't reported
- and, 11 in fact, instructions were given to lower the count time 12 to 1,000
- seconds, no peaks were identified and,
- thus, 13 the water was released and no reports were made.
14 A
My limit, my responsibility is quite clear 15 if we don't meet the LLD of 5x10
-7.
Then I had better 16 get a report and I had better get the investigation going 17 because we violated tech specs.
18 But your tech spec also tells you to report identi-19 fied peaks.
20 A
Yes.
21 Q
So you counted at 2,000 and it is identified 22 and you are supposed to report that.
23 A-Yes.
24 Q
And th,en it is lowered to 1,000, you have 25 no identified peaks, so then that is not reported.
9
~
L
]
1
- 112
]'
I A
Where I
get involved is if they go.; over.
2 the line of 5x10
-7.
That is a clear violation of-tech.
'l specs.
4 Q
Footnote
'C of tech spec 4.21.1 says that 5
you should report identifiable peaks.
6 A
Yes.
7 Q
'So that is a tech spec,
- too, and that is 8
just as valid and just as binding as the tech spec-requiring.
9 an LLD of 5x10 -7.
10 A
I don't want to defend the
- issue, but -I 11 am trying to clarify the issue.
Suppose we had always 12 counted for 1,000 seconds from day zero.
Suppose that 15' we weren't conservative in saying "Let's use a 1,000.second 14 count."
15
.O I am not interested in a hypothetical reply 16 here.
I just want to know --
17 A
I am trying to defend a situation that I 18 don't agree with to start with.
19 When I investigated that process, I didn't 20 like that process but I could not grasp something that f
like the process but I couldn't specifically al I -- I didn't 22 say during my investigation that it was wrong.
25 Q
- Well, you have the tech spec saying what 14 to do, and then you have NRC clarifyinsi that tech spec 15 to the extent -- if it needed clarification,.o~r reiterating O
e
\\ -
113 l
1
.that tech spec to report identifiable peaks.
2 A
As I said, I would not justify -- I couldn't 5
defend that. position.
Whatever'the peaks were, according 4
to what the tech specs say, they should have been reported.
5 No ' matter.
If they counted for two days an'd they got 6
one carbon 14 fission, they should have repor'ted it.
7 Q
Once
- again, when did you first learn of 8
the' fact that counting times were lowered?
9 A
During the violation when the NRC came in 10 and ' gave us a violation.
During the exit interview when 11 they said that the count times were manipulated.
12 BY MR. MARSH:
13 Q
It just seems to me that that is kind of b-14 a deceptive practice.
Does it seem that way to you?
15 A
Yes.
16 Q
Can you offer any kind of explanation 17 because I realize that you were not the one out there can you offer us any 18 counting and shortening the time 19 kind of explanation why something so deceptive to the 20 reasonable person would be practiced?
21 A
I think that goes back to what I talked 22 about 45 minutes ago.
Definition of radioactivity.
I 23 think that management wanted to make a sincere effort of 24 not releasing any radioactivity from Rancho Seco, therefore, 25 if they didn't detect any --
I I
~
\\
'114-1 Q.
This sounds like you are leading into the.
2 old. ostrich with the head in the sand story.
3 A-Yes.
That is essentially what it is.
4 Q
So if you do not check well enough to find 1
i 5
it then you can release it and legitimately 'say that you 6
did not see any and so you did not make a release; is 7
that what you are saying?
8 A
I do believe t hat' athat management was thinking 9
when they did this.
i 10 Q
So that is clearly a deceptive plan it would i
11 seem to'me.
12 A.
I think it would be deceptive if they counted
~
13 to a spec less than' LLD.
In my clearly black and white 14 picture, I would say if they didn't meet LLD, no ' doubt 15 about it, that is wrong.
16 Q
But if they were counting for a particular 17 perioid of time, regardless of how arbitrary it was, and J
18 had a detectable peak and then they would go back and i
19 dilute the water or reduce the count time to the point i
20 where they did not have that detectable peak any more 21 and then they would release it and say they had released 22 no radioactivity --
23 A.
That is wrong.
24 Q
That is wrong as hell.
25 A
Yes.
But if they picked a count time of l
1
\\,
115 1
2,000 seconds when they recally should have_ picked a count 2
time of 750, they were conservative to start with.
All 3
they are doing is cutting back on their conservatism but 4
still meeting the 5x10 -7 spec.
5 My investigation showed I
was' in a
gray 6
area and I could not convince management that things were 7
wrong.
8 Q
How convinced were you that the 750 figure 9
that Kellie was showing you was accurate?
Could he support to that?
11 A
I didn't go into the specifics on that.
12 I was told that and that is what I am relaying.
That 13 is what my belief is.
14 MR. MARSH:
That is fine.
It might be w'rong.
15 BY MR. MEEKS:
16 Q
If you selected a count time, even though 17 it was lower from what your standard of procedure had 13 been, and you stayed with that -- but when you count one 19 time and get a peaks and then you lower it and then no 20 peaks come up and you do that regularly, I think your 21 earlier observations are correct.
If you disagree with 22 that, I would be interested in knowing why.
23 A.
I don't disagree with you.
I do agree with 24 you but I am trying to explain the thinking process of 25 management during,this period of time.
e
l i
116 j
1 Q
Yes, but that thinking process did not include 2
that they would count it at one time regularly and then 3
if peaks came up they would lower it.
after the fact, I was aware 4
A I was aware 5
of that.
6 BY MR. MARSH:
7 Q
Did you have any reason to believe that 8
management knew what an appropriate counting time was 9
whenever they were making this --
10 A
I do believe that they knew that their mini-11 mum counting time was in the vicinity of the 750 seconds 12 and if they counted less than 750, they would have had 13 a tech spec violation.on LLD.
I do believe that.
14 Q
Why do you believe that?
15 A
Because, knowing Fred Kellie, Fred is conser-16 vative on that.
17 Q
No one has told you this.
You didn't find 18 that in your investigation.
You are just hypothesizing, 19 based on your knowledge of Fred Kellie?
20 A
Yes.
Fred Kellie wouldn't go from 2,000 21 to 1,000 without Xnowing that he had a lower limit.
Just 22 like I wouldn't go to 50 seconds.
I know that, somewhere 23 along the line, I am going to cross over LLD.
when you 24 O
Plant management standpoint 25 have, certainly, a responsibility for efficient operation, w
117 1
how can you justify having all of your chemists who 2
maybe you are understaffed in that department or claiming all out-spending three times as longn nearly 3
to be 4
three times as long as what is necessary, to count some-5 thing.
That doesn't seem like you would be d ing that if 6
you didn't have to.
7 A
See, now we are back to this letter where 3
management committed to no radioactive releases from Rancho 9
Seco.
Yet, now they are in a bind as to what is a radio-10 active release.
11 Q
Because they wanted to release known radio-12 activity; that is why they have the quandry.
i 13 A
Yeah, but --
14 Q
Just answer the
- question, they now know 15 that they have radioactivity that they want to release?
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
And they have committed to the NRC that 18 they wouldn't make any releases.
19 A
But I
don't think they realized
- this, I
20 certainly didn't realize this when I put this together 21 in 1984.
I am a lot smarter now, but when this was put 22 together and reviewed by management, it seemed very logical.
23 But then we came to the point where 'this glass is radio-24 active.'
25 Q
Well, no.
You are saying here in this report
)
\\ -
118' 1
84-07 that you have corrected all of your deficiencies 2
and~ problems; that you have fixed the steam generation 3
leaks that are your principle problem, and that you are 4
not' going to make anymore releases.
I can understand 5
h o w,. if you fixed -your problems, you could siy that, but 6
later on down the calendar, you suddenly realize that you 7
have been making radioactive releases and that you are 8
continuing to need to make radioactive releases and you 9
have a manipulation of your testing time so that you do
-10 not have to report it.
That is exactly what you are talk-11 ing about happened here, isn't it?
12 A
Yes.
33 MR. MARSH:
That is what I thought.
~
14
//
~
15
//
16
//
17
//
1E
//
19
//
20
//
21
//
22
//
23
//
24
//
25
//
-u____
m,-
b-110 r
3 Q
It puzzles me, tro, the fact that back in -- I
__2 early 80s, but also you I
think you talked about it in 2
considered it in the 70s -- the fact that.the plant itself, 3
the plant design, wouldn't allow you to meet Appendix I.-
All 4
this stuff that came after seemed superflous siAce you 5
realized you had a plant that wouldn't allow you to meet that, g
In other words, you're commiting to -- every time you 7
exceeded the Appendix I provisions you.would just make.a a
p special report.
That's what I understand from your tech specs 10 33 and what you told us today: " Hey, it's going to be tough because of our plant configuration, but when we do minimum 12 like cur tech specs require we'll.let you know about it, 33 we'll issue a special report."
14 Okay, this is an evolving process. This is-15 A
16 where we were prior to this.
We're going to make all of u
these corrections because we evolved into Appendix I as a 17 Ycu can't 13 guideline.
Appendix I was really a guideline.
There isn't any limit 19 say that Appendix I was ever a limit.
20 on Appendix I, these are guidelines.
But, as you stated today, it became a limit --
21 O
22 A
Yes --
23 0,
-- through 84-07.
Now it's evolving into a specification that is 24 A
becoming a limit and these are the modifications and changes 25
120.
. 1 we've got to do to make it a limit. And it's even being
.i firmed up as a limit, now it is definitely a limit.
We're 2
3
' designing Rancho Seco -- we're changing the design, changing 4.
the basic design'of Rancho Seco to make Appendix I a limit.
g 5
And this is the letter you have here,.Ron, is 1
6 the first evolution into that development.
Because the 7
modifications here are even at the present time being 3
extrapolated to greater modifications.
We've got extra tanks e
in. I haven't gone into the ponds, the ponds developed into 10 more problems than solutions.
But we've got permanent changes it in right now for clean-up systems and resin -- the dominera-12 lizers.
13 Q
And I think that modification is going to be 14 made a permanent --
i 15 A
It is.
16 Q
-- part of the plant also.
17 A
It is being made a permanent part of the plant, 18 yes.
I'm seeing to that, you know.
When I finally got into j
19 this thing it was late.
But making all of these corrective
~20 actions I do have the system going.
l 21 Q
Well, that doesn't speak very high of manage-i 22 ment's ability to manage and make these changes, when they 23 already ' existed make them permanent back at the time of that i
24 commitment.
It seems like they --
i 25 A
I --
i
__.______m._
1 71 -
I 1
-Q
-- they are getting out of the frying pan i5 2
because.of the variance' issue.
3 A
As management.goes, you know -- I'm a super-4 intendent,-I got to make things happen, I don't set policy.
i 1
5 Superintendents are not supposed to set policy,' management 1
l g
sets policy.
A good way to keep your job.
And this is the.
7 policies, what I'm relaying to you, that was set. by manage-3 ment at the time, and the changes in policy as time went on.
-p I think we're to the end where the defined policy is a lot.
10 clearer than some of the areas where we had to evolve from 11 10 CFR 20 limits to Appendix I limits.
12
.Q Well, I'm not --
13 A
I' sat down --
- sI
.14 Q
-- so sure.
15 A
-- and watched the whole thing evolve in front 1
Ig of me, you know, from Appendix I guidelines --
17 Q
I'm not so sure that it's going to continue ~to In other words, based on the track record what is evolve.
19 assurance is there that this -- in other words, the track j
20 record is that no matter what is said it continues to -- as-21 you say, quote / unquote -
" evolve" and develop.
12 A
That's true, we haven't gotten to the end of 23 the line yet.
I said that we've got 52 permanent changes to 24 make in the plant at Rancho Seco.
I have about 20 more to 1
25 do on that thing to totally bnplement Appendix I.
e
122 i l
l 1
1 Q
Okay.
i 2
Let's talk about October of 1985.
The Livermore 3
Lab detected Cesium in their downstream analysis in the f
4 sediment bed and the creek beds at levels that were not i
l anticipated due to the fact that no releases we're being made 5
6 or being reported during 1985.
But still they were getting 7
activity at a much higher level.
What action did you take to assure that the 3
9 LLD issue raised by Bradley was not the cause of that to activity being detected by the Livermore Lab?
j i
11 A
(No response.)
12 Q
Did you understand?
13 A
No.
14 Q
You're aware that in 1985 the'Livermore Lab 15 had been contracted --
16 A
Oh, yes.
17 Q
-- to study the environmental make-up --
18 A
Sure.
19 0
-- there as it related to this issue of --
l 20 A
Yes.
21 Q
-- the tech spec LLD and just what was being
)
22 released and what is out there?
Okay.
I Well, when they went downstream and they did 23 24 their analysis they found Cesium 137 there at levels which 25 shouldn't have been there based on the releases that had l
1
(
- 123, 1
1 taken place in years past and the fact that no releases had I'
2 been reported for 1985.
But it's there so it has to come l
3 from someplace.
4 A
Cesium, I assume, would either come from 5
Rancho Seco or fallout.
6 Q
Right, I'll go with Rancho Seco.
7 A
Yes.
3 Q
All right --
9 A
You know, this whole picture flashed in front 30 of me so fast at the time I didn't know there was anything 11 wrong with the LLD on Cesium.
12 Q
Well, it was in conjunction with this time 13 frame that Livermore's findings came up that you received a
- /
14 copy of Bradley's study, LLD study, showing you that, hey, i
15 you know, "our tech spec LLDs won't assure compliance with l
16 Appendix I."
And the Livermore Lab was verifying that based 17 on their actual studies out there.
18 So the question I have for you is:
What did 19 you do when these two fact patterns married in your knowledge f
20 and who did you talk to and what discussions were had?
21 A
I didn't have any discussions at the time of f
22 that.
When I did get involved I was aware that there was a 23 question on the LLD of Cesium 147.
l 24 Q
And when was that?
I 25 A
The day after the NRC audit.
I had a group to l
l t
i l
h _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. _ _ - _ _ _ _ _.. _. - _ _.. _
12W \\
J I
resolve all these questions.
]
Q Okay, I'm interested in what happened before 2
3 that time.
j-4 A.
I had no comprehension of what was going on with the LLD on Cesium 137, other than knowing 'the study and 5
6 Ed Bradley would want to get me another LLD for 137.
l 7
-Q Did you have any conversations with anybody
]
3 concerning what Livermore was finding, the amounts of Cesium l
p they were finding downstream?
10 A.
I didn't understand what the Cesium. number 11 meant.
I know we have an LLD number in the tech specs, you 12 know.
I would guess.that we could have, you know, almost non-detectable for three or four years and it's just accumu-13
..J 14 lating in the environment and they're going to detect Cesium 137. So I didn't relate that to any LLD at the time 15 14 in the tech spec.
17 Q
So you're saying that you didn't have any 13 conversations with anybody about what Livermore Lab was 19 finding?
20 A
No, no.
Livermore Lab was not -- you know, I was -- the Livermore Lab information was really information-21 22 for Ed Bradley and Roger Powers, which was doing all that, 23 and relaying all this information to the NRC so they knew l
where our status was, so we could get that information which 24 25 I'm getting for the tech specs.
(
h a
m km__-__m_ _ - _
_m_.______
125 i
I i
3 Q
But as Manager of Regulatory Compliance you
't 2
essentially put together a commitment to the NRC that you 3
weren't going to exceed Appendix I limits?
4 A
Yes.
5 Q
And it seems like you were pivotal 1 in drawing s
all that information together, including the 'information 7
from Powers and Bradley and that side of the house as well 3
as your side of the house.
9 A
Yes.
10 Q
Alvey (P ) and Pierre Oubre.
And here Liver-h 31 more Lab is telling you you are exceeding the limits, you're 1
12 not adhering to your commitment to NRC.
And Bradley is 33 telling you why.
I just want to know what the interaction It's not conceivable that they just got these aild, 14 was.
15 "Well, business as usual, so what?"
16 A
Oh, no, there was a later -- I think there is 17 a later follow-up number on their information to get more 18 accurate numbers, there's a later one on this.
There is a i
19 later report on upgrading the best estimate numbers from 20 Lawrence Livermore, another one went out after this for 21 upgrading those numbers, more accurate numbers.
1 22 Q
But let's get back to what I need to determine 25 from you.
What were the interactions and interfaces you had 24 with other individuals at Rancho Seco or at corporate SMUD 25 concerning what Livermore Lab was finding in their downstrear n
126 1
anaylsis?
2 A
On Cesuim?
3 Q
Yes.
4 A
I didn't put a connection together.
5 Q
Are you saying you had no contact with the 6
individuals --
7 A
No.
8 Q
-- or you didn't discuss --
9 A
I understand that there was a problem with 10 Cesium 137 as it related to the tech specs.
They said they Il got Cesium down there.
Oh, great.
That's what is giving me 12 the offsite dose.
you're asking me -- there was something 13 wrong with our system, now, got Cesium down there?
14 Q
Why is it down there?
In other words, was 15 that kind of thing discussed?
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
You know, "Why is Livermore Lab finding this 18 amount of Cesium down there?"
Did you have that type of 19 discussion with anybody or were you a party to that type of 20 discussion?
21 A
I'm sure I was a party to discussion.
But I 22 knew that we were discharging low levels of liquids offsite 13 and I assume, you know, any radioactive substance is going 24 to have Cesium in it, anything that -- any liquid that is discharged from Rancho Seco has to have a small quantity of 25 W-
-_---s- -., - - _ - - -- - - - - - _ - - - - - - - -, - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -. - - - - - - - - - -
s o,\\
g Cesium in it.
And I assume that,.ycu know, when I listened h.
2 to their discussion that it made sense to me that this water 5
is going downstream and evaporating and leaving Cesium there.
4 Q
Okay, who was this discussion with7 5
A ch, I just list'ened to the presentations.
This 6
'was at the MSRC, you know, the Lawrence Livermore presenta-7 tions.
They presented all of this.
e Q
on what they were finding, what they found in 9
October of 19857 10 A
Yes.
31 Q
Okay.
12 A
And that was probably part of it..
I didn't understand that we had a Cesium -- specific cesium problem.
33 34 Q
What were the conversations in these' meetings, 15 in these presentations, concerning the fact that you have 16 that amount and that tends to justify Bradley's stance that 17 the LLD isn't sufficient to assure compliance with Appendix 18-I?
19 A
I think that was the outcome.
They put the 20 tables up and the activities and what they found in the fish 11 and what they found in all the other, soils and water samples 12 And I'm sure that Cesium was probably one of those parameters 23 discussed.
But I don't remember anybody specifically pointin g 1
out Cesium as a culprit on this program that they put out.
24 25 Maybe they did.
e w
4
128 1
t Q
Okay, could you be confusing this meeting with i-possibly maybe some prior Livermore Lab studies and what they 2
were finding in the environment out there?
3 4
A I interfaced with the Lawrence Livermore study twice end I think that's both the MSRC meetings'.
Other than 5
i that, Powers or Bradley was interfacing with them all the g
7 time.
They were working specifically under a subcontract 8
from Powers.
Q Okay, so whenever this was held and what the discussions were, they would be in the minutes of the go Management Safety Review Committee?
yy A
Yes.
12 33 Q
Okay.
A And maybe a copy of their graphs.
They'did 34 a lot of graphing presentations at those meetings.
Maybe 15 16 they were in the minutes.
17 O
Why did -- you used to ship water offsite i
13 that had radioactivity in it?
19 A
Yes.
20 Q
And that stopped.
Why did that stop, again?
21 A
I do believe that the transportation -- we 22 used to ship it to Galveston, Texas.
They had a liquid disposal facility there and I imagine they dumped it into 23 the Gulf. But the transportation -- Department of Transporta-24 tion, maybe -- passed a regulation of controls of transporta-25 e
a
~~
m_
129 i
tion of liquid radioactive substances. And that made it 3
prohibitive, you know, you couldn't transport.
3 Q
Okay.
4 MR. EEEKS:
Do you have something, Bob?
MR. MARSH:
Yes.
6 BY MR. MARSH:
7 Q
Is there such a thing known as a Commitment 3
Tracking System.that you have any knowledge of at the plant?
9 A
What year?
IC Q
Well, describe what exists in that, what type 33 of system you have in that regard.
12 A
Well, I generated the first commitment Tracking 33 System for Rancho Seco approximately 1983.
And I had the
/-
14 responsibility to maintain a tracking system.
15 Q
What type of information was contained in that 16 tracking system?
17 A
Well, I had a tech review all incoming and outgoing documentation to pick up commitments that things 18 19 should be done, who should do them, and when, and put them 20 in the tracking system.
And this included PRC minutes, any commitments in the PRC minutes, or correspondences and 21 22 letters and telecons.
So that one tech maintained this 18 tracking' system and issued the tracking system to the people, 24 the managers, once a month and would notify anyone that got into the system that the commitment is required and to compla te' 25 a
.m m
- 130, 1
it.
s4 2
And then when it was completed they would 3
sign off the document that they completed it, send it back j
4 to the tech, and he would take it out of the tracking r
5 system.
6 0
Who was that tech?
When you say tech is that 7
technician?
g A
Yes.
Well, the technician that was doing that p
specifically was Frank Hauck.
But before that it was an 10 engineer, Steve Crunk.
33 Q
During the time frame of September 1984 whenever the SMUD organization made these commitments to 12 NRC who was the technician and do you know if those commit-33 14 ments entered into the tracking system?
15 A
At this period of time I was relieved of the is tracking system for several reasons.
And it was transferred 17 over to Licensing.
Is O
Under whose responsibility?
19 A
Bob Dieterich.
10 0
Was there a standard operating procedure to 21 describe how the trackirg system was to operate or anything 22 of that nature?
13 A
I had one.
24 0
. Did Dieterich?
l 15 A
No.
i e
I-1 31 1
Q Do you know, then, if those commitments were Y
2 entered into the tracking system?
3 A
No, I don't know.
See, you would only be.
4 notified if it was a commitment on here for you, and there r
5 was no. cormnitments on here for me.
So I didn't get any 6
notification.
7 Q
You said for a period of time you were relieved 3
of your responsibilities.
Why was that?
A I insisted that I have a proper staff to do 9
10 the tracking.
One technician was not sufficient.
I also-11 wanted to put teeth in the system that when someone got 12 committed to something that management indeed backed me up 13 to get it done on time.
I could not get that support and
'L 14 I didn't want to do it with one tech.
So they transferred-15 it to Licensing.
If I couldn't do a good job I couldn't do 16 it.
17 I was being totally frustrated with commitments 18 that were two and three and four years old and I couldn't 19 get management to close them out.
20 Q
so did you ask to be relieved of that or did 21 they take it away from you because youwere making too much 22 of a flak?
23 A
I wanted to keep it with additional staff.
24 They took it away from me.
25 Q
Do you have any confidence that once it was-
L 132-
\\..
I-taken away from you and under the control of Dieterich that
' t could anymore be relied upon to document the commitments?
i 2
3 A
I had a complete procedure, I had a proven 4
computer program, I had an experienced technician to work on
~
5 the project.
When it was transferred over to Licensing he 6
did not have a procedure, he did not have a computer program 7
and he didn't have experienced people to do it.
So essenti-8 ally, as far as I was concerned, the Commitment Tracking 9
System collapsed.
10 Q
Who did you voice your objections to and who 11 was it that --
12 A
It was no longer my responsibility.
13 Q
No, no.
When you made the request for 14 additional manpower who was that to?
15 A
At one time it was at the MSRC, the first time, 16 it was at the MSRC meeting where the problem came up that we 17 weren't closing the items out and I said to close them out 18 I need additional manpower and resources to follow these 19 because one tech trying to follow 2,000 recommendations is 20 impossible.
And within the next few months, early 84 time And 21 frame, mid 84, the tech was totally swamped with work.
management -- I guess it was INPO - 'and took issue with 22 23 management not closing items out.
And management said, "Well, it's not being properly supervised and we'll give it 24 15 over to Iicensing. "
ill
\\
l 1
So management just took the whole thing and 2
gave it to Licensing.
3 O
Well, it sounds to me that rather than 4
correcting the problem that INPO identified to them by 5
closing out the issues what they did was did away with the 6
documentation that there were issues.
In effect, not giving l
7 a trail of what the commitments and progress on those a
commitments were.
3 A
Well, I helped out, I took all the commitments 10 that I had at that time.
But still there was so much work 11 done that the tech couldn't do it. And at that time, I admit, 12 I probably had been dropping key commitments because it was 15 overloaded.
And we took all of those commitments and 14 transferred it over to Licensing so they had all of my 15 commitments that I had at the present time.
16 But during the time in this time span that they 17 tried to gear up and learn due process nothing was done.
It Q
And how long did they operate the tracking 19 system, or are they still responsible for it?
20 A
They are still responsible for it.
- However, l
21 Dieterich has been relieved of his duties al.so because he 22 couldn't handle the new tracking system.
It was the s'ame 25 problem I had, he wasn't supplied the sufficient ?taff, he 24 wasn't supplied the proper procedures, and he. wasn't supplied 25 the resources needed to do a tracking system.
e m_--_-____________m_____
- 134, 1
O Well, then how would the SMUD organization 2
in fact track what they had been committed to do whenever 3
they made commitments or whether they had even made progress 4
on them?
5 A
(No response.)
6 Q
There was no other management information 7
system to accomodate.those commitments?
8 A
Well, at the time I had it every month I would 9
give a printout to Pierre Oubre and, you know, when I first to started he would get three or four pages of all the commit-11 ments. And the last one I gave before I was relieved I had 12 about 35 or 40 pages of computer printout on all the commit-13 ments that were outstanding.,
14 Q
Was it Pierre Oubre that actually relieved you 15 of your responsibility?
16 A
Yes.
17 Q
So he was very knowledgeable of the fact that is you did not have any of that information on these commitments 19 in the system because you weren't even running the system in 20 the September 1984 time frame?
21 A
Yes, this is the time frame where everything 22 was being converted. I had -- you know, I was following it 23 up to about this point and then it was transferred to 24 Licensing.
At this point I was so swamped with commitment l
25 tracking that I couldn't tell you whether that got into the I
e
--____.-____m
135 I
system or not.
A
\\
2 BY MR. MEEKS:
3 O
Did you ever discuss directly with Pierre 4
Oubre this situation and the fact that you ~- in other words, 5
voice the same concerns that you did with.the Management 6
Review Safety Committee in a one on one situation?
7 A
Well, Pierre was at the Management Review 3
Safety Committee.
9 Q
No, I realize that.
But did you ever discuss 10 with him directly --
11 A
Resources?
12 Q
-- in a one on one -- yes.
13 A
Yes.
14 Q'
What was his individual reply to that?
15 A
That my responsibility was to get the input 16 out and get the information to him, which I was doing. I 17 wanted to start closing these items out.
I wanted additional 18 resources to close them out and additional resources to make.
l 19 sure that I got 100 percent of the commitments, not 90 percent 20 of the commitments. Because the NRC had come in one time and 21 they would say, "Well,.where it this?"
And I would find'it i
22 for them.
"Where is this?"
And I would be able to look up 13 the computer program and find it.
Once in a while they would?
"Where is this?" And I couldn't find it on the computer 14
- say, 25 program because my one tech, I think, getting 85 or 90 e
t 136
\\
l percent of the commitments was doing a tremendous job.
2 Q
On the --
3 A
By the way, now they have about six or seven 4
people working on this.
So at the present time it's where r
I think we have a 5
I think it should have been years ago.
6 lot better system now.
7 BY MR. MARSH:
j 3
Q I want to make sure the record reflects 9
accurately your statements concerning where a procedure is 10' approved in which specifically the procedure that allowed 33 the operation of'the temporary modification that moved the 13 water from the Demineralized Reactor Coolant Storage Tank 13 to the Regenerate Holdup Tanks.
Those procedures had a 14 specific ending date for how long that that pro 6edure could i
15 be utilized.
16 If a procedure was going to require a long 17 period of time -- say, six months, a year, two years -- would 18 there be a different process for that to go through?
19 A
Well, if this temporary change.went more than 20 30 days as chairman of the PRC I would give it 30 days but 21 then the PRC would have to sit down and review it again in 22 30 days.
23 Q.
Okay.
24 A
See where we are.
If something else has 15 changed we wouldn't approve it.
You know, to make sure that e
4
_ = -.
137
%WAe i
H 1
after 30-days we're still satisfied that what we do in this V
2 change is not going to present a problem.
And if they want 3
more than 30 days after that then 30 days after that the 4
PRC -- I think that if we look at those changes, this one 5
went from December 7 to January 7, that's 30 days, and it
)
6 expired after 30 days.
This one went 22 days; and if they 7
wanted to continue this they would have to come back and --
8 the maximum I remember giving any temporary change or pro-4 9
cedut 3 30 days and then re-review.
10 Q
Okay, so now that procedure that is approved 11 is required by your licensing -- operating license?
12 A
Yes.
13 Q
So if someone was utilizing the modification 14 of moving water from the Reactor Coolant Storage Tank to the 15 Regenerate Holdup Tanks without having the time period of 16 implementing those procedures approved they would be in i
17 violation of the operating license?
18 A
That is a very true statement.
19 Q
Are you aware of'any times that that circum-20 stance occurred?
21 A
To my best knowledges, no.
22 Q
What would your responsibilities have been had 23 you known that to occur?
24 A
If that had happened my system would require 25 a notification, an AP 22, which is abnormal occurrences, l
- 138, I
something happening outside of a normal operation, which 2
2 doing an operation without a prcedure falls in.
That 3
mechanism would have notified me that something was going on 4
that violated the procedure and I would have pursued making i
5 a Licensing Event Report out of it because it is prohibited 5
by the tech specs.
7 Q
So if they were operating this modification 3
without an approved procedure that would result'-- should 9
result -- in a Licensing Event Report?
IO A
That's correct.
Il Q
And are you aware of any such reporting?
12 A
No.
13 Q
Who would have been responsible for filing the 14 Licensing Event Report?
15 A
Anybody on-site that detected that going on.
15 BY MR. MEEKS:
17 Q
What is AP 22 called, again?
18 A
Occurrence Description Report.
19 Q
Oh, the ODR7
- 20 A
Yes, ODR.
Anyone on the site that sees 11 something not correct is responsible for notifying me of that 22 process through an ODR.
13 O'
And if you would have observed that you would 24 have issued the ODR7 15 A
Oh, I write my own ODRs, yes.
l
--_---a---_-
- 139, 1
BY MR. MARSH:
2 Q
Now, if we find periods of time that the 3
modification was utilized that we do not have corresponding 4
periods of time for an approved procedure those, specific 5
periods of time would be a violation of your operating 6
license?
7 A
That's correct.
8 BY MR. MEEKS:
9 Q
The individuals responsible for that modifica-10 tion, I guess, would be Operations would identify the need 11 and the Plant Manager would have Maintenance set up the 12 modification and it would be administered as far as the 13 transferring of the water by Operations, and the sampling
)
.14 of the water and determining of the radioactivity of it by 15 the Chemistry and Radiation Protection people?
16 A
Yes.
17 A temporary modification can go several ways.
18 You know, it can be -- I don't like the method, but someone 19 in management can authorize, saying, "This is what I want 20 done," write up a work request, and have it done as a 21 temporary modification.
You know, it bypasses the whole 12 system because the intent of a temporary modification, I 23 believe, is for emergency.
You know, if you had a leak in 24 a tank and water is going to leak all over, you know, into 25 the environment you want to get a fire hose out there, you
140$
1 want to pump it down and put it in another tank. That's
,I" 2
what you do a temporary modification on.
You don't need 1
3 PRC review on that.
4 But if you're going to do something not in the 5
emergency nature my personal opinion was that it requires 6
the review process because you have the time and it's not 7
an emergency.
You know, that's my feeling of the way 8
temporary modifications should go.
But Pierre's interpreta-9 tion was different.
10 BY MR. MARSH:
11 Q
I have one other question about the design of 12 the plant. Being a dry site plant I was under the impression 13 that your original design.was not to make any radioactive
- /
14 releases.
15 A
That was the design, yes.
16 Q
And 10 CFR 50.20 was a upper boundary of what 17 could be released and still meet the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission's maximum limits.
19 A
Yes.
20 Q
But Rancho Seco was specifically designed not 21 to make any releases at all.
22 A
Well, that's why I said earlier that our 23 license specified that under under unusual conditions --
14 because when I came to Rancho Seco in 1969 when the plant 25 was in design that was the concept.
You're right, Bob, 100 e
1 41,
I percent. And I said, " Wait a minute, I just came from a o.
r 2
plant that operated.
It's impossible."
You have a steam 3
generator tube rupture and the secondary plant is going to 4
get contaminated and activity is going to get offsite.
It's the basic design.
5 a foolish design.
That was 6
But when we got realistic about it and we'got 7
our license.-- if you look at our original established 3
license it says, "During unusual conditions, such as a 9
steam generator tube rupture, Rancho Seco will release small go
.unounts of radioactivity. "
That was in our original license 31 and that was my basis for changing to the not in the basis 12 when I got rid of that section of the tech specs and went 13 to RETs.
=
Okay, now, was there any requirement to report 14 Q
15 these unusual conditions that would cause you to them 16 operate beyond the actual design of the plant?
17 A
-No, I don't know of any reporting requirement 18 of unusual conditions of that type.
There is a lot of 19 associated stuff that -- you know, if you have a steam 20 generator tube rupture you got to shut down.
Unscheduled 21 shutdown requires notification of the NRC.
There's a lot 22 of corolary stuff that goes with this, but not directly.
23 MR. MARSH:
Let's go off the record for a 24 minute or so.
25 (Off the record.)
---_------__----,-------.-----------------_--,-----_--_----u--
- 142,
~ 1' MR. MARSH:
On the record.
<- ^ k 2
BY MR. MARSH:
3 Q
Mr. Columbo, the way I understand the way'the 4
plant is supposed to operate is that you have a, primary 5
system that-includes the Rad Waste Storage that has radio-6 active' water contained in it.
And that is to.be a separate 7
systemLthat is isolated within itself and it not intended 8
to be released into the environment.
Is that correct?
9 A
That is correct.
That is the design of Rancho IO Seco.
Il Q
Is that one of the principal safety parts of 12 the design, that you would not be releasing. radioactivity is from the radioactive waste and --
14 A
That design prevents radioactive releases.
15 Q
Now, there is another system of water that is 16 called the secondary loop that is not supposed to be radio-17 active that finds its way into the Regenerate Holdup Tanks, 18 which is a point of release from the plant.
Now, the way 19 the plant was designed unless there was some anomalous 20 condition there would be no releases of radioactivity if you 21 released that water?
12 A
That's correct.
23 O'
There were designed chemistry testings to be 24 done at the release point basically to assure that if radio-25 activity was detected -- not that you were expecting to find 2
9 4
m.
__._m.___
143 1
any -- but if it was detected you would know that something
/f 2
had happened inside the plant that was causing the secondary 3_
system to become contaminated, is that correct?
j 4
A That's what that equipment is for, yes.
5 Q
So then they would have the advantage of 6
tracking back quickly and correcting whatever anomalous 7
condition existed that caused that radioactivity to get into 3
the secondary system?
9 A
Yes.
Io Q
And the steam generator tube leaks is certainly 11 one method of how that would happen?
12 A
Yes.
13 Q
Now, it would seem to me that to take water r
LJ 14 directly from the primary system, which is chemically clean 15 but radioactive stored in the Demineralized Reactor Coolant 16 Storage Tank, to take that water and move it to the Regenerat e
17 Holdup Tanks is a direct bypass of one of the principal 18 safety features of the design of the plant, which was 19 intended not to have that primary loop water released?
20 A
Yes, that would be a change in the plant 1
21 design.
l 22 O
It would be a significant change, wouldn't it, f
23 because --
24 A
That would be a significant change in design 25 of the plant, you're right.
Y l
h m
___-_______m_._-_-________________m
- 144,
)
I 1
Q So to construct a temporary modification to the A
1 f;
2 plant and to pump this water from a tank containing known 3
radioactive water and move it into a tank that is designed 4
not to have radioactive water would be intentionally bypassing 5
the design safety of the plant?
6 A
That would bypass the design of the plant.
7 O
It would be very deceptive, it would seem to i
me, to do that without doing all of the proper notifications 9
and alert that the' design of the plant was being altered?
10 A
It is my opinion that that type of change 11 should go through the normal review and approval process.
12 Q
And you're telling us in this interview that 13 it did not?
l 14 A
Yes, it did not.
15 Q
And that you had brought it to Pierre Oubre's 16 attention that you thought it should but he specifically 17 told you that that was not the way that he was going to do 18 it?
19 A
I was concerned about the temporary change 10 and when we discussed it the temporary changes were not an 21 activity that would be reviewed by the PRC.
So the PRC did l
l 12 not review that change.
18 Q-In your opinion was that a wrongful act, to 24 bypass the review process?
15 A
I would have liked to h, ave seen the review e
145 1
process and the documentation on that modification go-t 3
2 through the normal review process.
3 MR. HARSH:
Okay, thank you very much for
-4 answering our questions.
I know we took a long time here, 5
but I appreciate your candor and forthrightness.
6 THE WITNESS:
Thank you,-Bob.
.7 MR. MEEKS:
Mr. Columbo, have I or any other g
NRC representative, either hers or at any time, threatened 9
you in any manner or offered ycu any rewards in return for to
'this statement?
11 THE WITNESS:
No, you have not.
12 MR. MEEKS:
Have you given this statement 13 freely and voluntarily?
sd 14 THE WITNESS:
Yes, I have.
15 MR. MEEKS:
Is there anything further you care 16 to add for the record?
17 THE WITNESS:
Only that it was a long and 18 complex period, as we've discussed, and I wish my mind was 19 a little better on dates.
Had I probably did a little 20 review on dates I could have probably saved a lot of time 11 on rereview of dates.
I'm sorry my mind had not zeroed 22 in on the exact dates.
But please forgive me for not being 23 able to put the dates exactly together exactly at the time 24 you showed me the documentation.
25 MR. MEEKS:
Okay, Mr. Columbo, that will i
1 1
146.
I conclude the interview. Thank you.
- [
2 THE WITNESS:
Thank you.
3 (Whereupon, at 2:55 p.m., the interview was 4
concluded.)
5 6
7 8
9 10
-11 12 13
_s' 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 i
II 23 24 25 l
1'
-Thic'is to cprtify that the ottachcd procacdingo b3foro tho
..JNTTED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION in the matter of:
stAME OF PROCEEDING:
INVESTIGATIVE INTbVIER (Closed)
/
DOCKET NO.:
None
- P M :
Ra:Ebo Cordova, Cal.ifornia
'DATE:
3 April 1987 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original
~
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Connainsion.
.A (Sigth A
nw (TYPED) g g gy g,ggy ~
i Official Reporter Reporter's Affiliation JIM HIGGINS AND ASSOCIATES l
EXFIBIT 35 im-lHLE2_%