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{{#Wiki_filter:1 | {{#Wiki_filter:1 1 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 2 PUBLIC MEETING 3 Meeting held on Tuesday, July 16, 2002, at 2:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, 4 taken by me Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio. | ||
5 --- | |||
6 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT: | |||
7 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 8 Mr. John Grobe, Chairman, MC 0350 Panel William Dean, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 9 John Jacobson, Branch Chief, Mechanical Engineering Branch, DRS 10 Anthony Mendiola, Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR 11 Douglas Pickett, Project Manager, NRR Christopher (Scott) Thomas, 12 Senior Resident Inspector - Davis Besse Christine Lipa, Projects Branch Chief 13 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 14 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer 15 Robert W. Schrauder, Director - Support Services 16 J. Randel Fast, Plant Manager James J. Powers, III 17 Director - Nuclear Engineering Howard Bergendahl, Vice President-Nuclear 18 Michael J. Ross, Manager - Operations Effectiveness 19 Michael J. Stevens, Director - Maintenance Steve Loehlein 20 | |||
--- | |||
21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
5 | 2 1 MR. GROBE: Good afternoon. I 2 was trying to set the tone by taking my coat off. Please 3 feel free to. Its a bit warm today. | ||
7 | 4 My name is Jack Grobe. Im the Director of Reactor 5 Safety for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office for 6 Region 3 in Chicago. We have responsibility to the office 7 for the safety of the nuclear power plants in the midwest. | ||
8 Were here today for our third meeting, public 9 meeting with the Licensee, First Energy, responsible for 10 operation of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. The focus 11 of this meeting is what we refer to as the Manual Chapter 12 0350 Restart Oversight Panel. In a minute, Ill introduce 13 the panel members and other NRC staff that are here today. | |||
14 Our meeting today is being transcribed by Marie 15 Fresch. And Marie was here last time and had some trouble 16 hearing. I think Mr. Stocker has the microphones turned 17 way up, so that should help, but please make sure when 18 youre making comments today, so the public can hear in the 19 audience, as well as Marie transcribing the meeting, that 20 you use the microphone. | |||
21 Let me start by introducing the NRC staff here 22 today. On my far right, is John Jacobson. John is a 23 Senior Mechanical Engineer in Region 3 Office and a member 24 of the Restart Panel. | |||
25 Right next to me on my immediate right is Christine MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
Christine | 3 1 Lipa. Christine is a Projects Branch Chief. Shes the 2 Manager of Region 3 responsible for oversight at the 3 Davis-Besse Plant on a day-to-day basis. | ||
4 On my immediate left is Bill Dean. Bill is the Vice 5 Chair of the Restart Panel and Senior Manager in our 6 office, Nuclear Reactor Regulation, our office 7 headquarters, and its in the Washington, D. C. area. | |||
8 Two of the, two other additional staff from the 9 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Tony Mendiola. Tony 10 is the manager responsible for overseeing the licensing 11 activities. And on his left is Doug Pickett. Doug is the 12 Licensing Project Manager specifically for Davis-Besse. | |||
13 Then at the end of the table is a very important 14 person. Thats Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector 15 that works at the Davis-Besse Plant every day. He works 16 for the Region 3 Office of the NRC. | |||
17 We have a couple of additional NRC staff I want to 18 recognize. Helping out at Davis-Besse is the Resident 19 Inspector from the Perry Plant, east of Cleveland, its 20 John Elgood; and John is operating the slide machine right 21 now, but hes been inspecting the plant to help us out. | |||
22 Nancy Keller was out front. Nancy is our 23 Administrative Assistant. Shes done an outstanding job. | |||
24 I appreciate her support. Nancy had out front a stack of 25 handouts both from the NRC as well as the Licensee MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
13 | 4 1 available for you. If you didnt receive one, please feel 2 free to obtain one of those handouts. | ||
3 In addition out front, Nancy had what we refer to as 4 feedback forms. Theyre preaddressed, no postage necessary 5 forms that you can fill out and give us feedback on the 6 quality of our meeting, and other aspects of the conduct of 7 the meeting or content of the meeting; either one. | |||
8 We would certainly appreciate and encourage you to 9 fill out one of those forms and give us feedback, so we can 10 continually improve the quality of our interface with the 11 public. | |||
12 At this time, Lew, I would like you to introduce 13 your staff here today. | |||
14 MR. MYERS: Okay. Thank you 15 very much. We have some people out front of our audience 16 that are our technical, some of our technical experts. We 17 also have our Root Cause Team, that well introduce later 18 on. | |||
19 First with our technical experts, I would like to 20 introduce Tim Chambers. Tim is in charge of the 21 Containment. | |||
22 Mark McLaughlin, also the Containment. | |||
23 Dave Baker, Head Resolution. | |||
24 Dave Eshelman -- is Dave here? Dave is in charge 25 of helping us with Human Performance. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
14 | 5 1 Clark Price is our Restart Action Plan Lead. | ||
2 Tony Staller, Restart and Post Restart. | |||
3 Neil Morrison. Neil comes to us from our Beaver 4 Valley Plant, and hes helping us with program reviews. | |||
5 Bill Rogers. Hes doing our System Health Reviews. | |||
6 So, for each one of these, we have a man at the 7 table that has responsibility, and technical leads with us 8 today. | |||
9 Would you want me to go on to our desired outcomes 10 now? | |||
11 MR. GROBE: If you dont mind, 12 introduce your staff at the table. | |||
13 MR. MYERS: Okay. To my right 14 is Howard Bergendahl. | |||
15 Steve Loehlein is next. Steve is doing the 16 Management in Human Performance and Root Cause. | |||
17 Jim Powers is next to him. Jim is the Director of 18 Engineering. | |||
19 Bob Schrauder next to him. Bob is taking, a new 20 employee taking the job as Service Director, is new with 21 our company, new with that position. | |||
22 Randy Fast is after him. Randy is our Plant 23 Manager. | |||
24 And, Mike Stevens is Director of Maintenance. | |||
25 And, at the very end I think is Mike Ross. I cant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
20 | 6 1 see. So, Mike Ross comes to us from, hes a new addition, 2 comes to us from, from the Three Mile Island Plant. So, 3 the Plant Manager there is really experienced, and is part 4 of our discussions later on. | ||
5 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you. | |||
6 At this time, if there is public officials or 7 representatives of public officials here in the audience, I 8 would like to give you an opportunity to introduce 9 yourself. Please stand and up introduce yourself. Do we 10 have any public officials with us today? | |||
11 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 12 Ottawa County Commissioner. | |||
13 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, Ottawa 14 County Administrator. | |||
15 MR. GROBE: Any others? | |||
16 Okay, very good. Thanks, Carl and Jere. | |||
17 John has a slide up on the overhead projector right 18 now that describes the agenda, and each of you should have 19 a copy of that. | |||
20 In a moment, Im going to allow Lew to make opening 21 remarks, and then Im going to briefly summarize the last 22 meeting we had on June 12th. Well then turn the meeting 23 over to First Energy for presentation of the information 24 that they have prepared for today. | |||
25 Then the NRC is going to discuss the framework that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 1 were using for, what we refer to as our research 2 checklist. Ill talk about that a little later, and a 3 number of the staff will help describe the framework for 4 our research; that is the NRC research. Well conclude the 5 business portion of the meeting at that time. | |||
6 Following the business portion of the meeting 7 between the NRC and First Energy, well open the meeting up 8 for public questions and public feedback or inquires to the 9 NRC staff. I certainly hope that we have a good 10 participation by members of the public here today. At that 11 time, well adjourn the meeting. | |||
12 In addition to this afternoon meeting, there is 13 going to be a meeting this evening at 7:00. Bill Dean will 14 chair that meeting. And that meeting is specifically 15 focused on receiving input from the public, as well as 16 answering any questions members of the public have. | |||
17 So, if youre here this afternoon, and you think of 18 something, any additional questions or comments later this 19 evening, please come back at 7. Were also making it 20 available to other individuals who were unable to be here 21 this afternoon. | |||
22 I think that concludes the logistics for the 23 meeting. | |||
24 Oh, I do want to recognize Mr. Stucker. Hes been 25 here for each of our meetings. Oak Harbor High School MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
21 22 | 8 1 continues to make this fine facility available for our 2 meetings, and we certainly appreciate that. And, 3 Mr. Stucker works very hard to make sure that the sound 4 system and lighting and everything is just right. And, I 5 certainly appreciate his efforts and I want to thank Oak 6 Harbor High School and Mr. Stucker for that. | ||
7 Did you have some comments before we begin, Lew? | |||
8 MR. MYERS: Were ready to get 9 started. Is that okay? | |||
10 MR. GROBE: Okay. Do you want 11 me to just summarize the June 12th meeting first? | |||
12 MR. MYERS: Yes. | |||
13 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good. | |||
14 Next slide, John. | |||
15 I wanted to make you aware, particularly members of 16 the public aware, of several documents First Energy has 17 submitted over the past several months, and make you aware 18 of our Web site where those can be obtained. | |||
19 An Early Risk Assessment was provided by First 20 Energy. That was received by the NRC on April 8th, 2002. | |||
21 We continue in our assessments of the risk plan and were 22 using the input that we receive from First Energy, 23 evaluating the input and continuing to ask questions and do 24 analyses to support the risk assessment that the NRC is 25 conducting. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
23 | 9 1 A Preliminary Root Cause Analysis Report was 2 submitted on April 18th. That addressed in preliminary 3 fashion both the technical side of root cause, what caused 4 the cracking of the head penetrations, as well as the 5 corrosion; and also to a certain extent addressed the 6 contributing factors to that situation. | ||
7 The Return to Service Plan; the first revision of 8 that was submitted to us on May 21st, and it was recently 9 revised last week July -- Im sorry, yes, July 12, 2002. | |||
10 All of these documents are available on the NRC Web 11 site at www.nrc.gov. And you can get to the Davis-Besse 12 link on that Web site, which contains just a tremendous 13 compendium of information; that would be head degradation 14 issue that occurred at Davis-Besse, NRC activities, 15 Licensee activities in response to that. So, please feel 16 free to gain access to that Web site to obtain that 17 information. | |||
18 Our last meeting of the Restart Oversight Panel was 19 June 12th. | |||
20 John, next slide. | |||
21 The focus of that meeting was the Return to Service 22 Plan that First Energy submitted to the NRC. Return to 23 Service Plan had associated with it a number of what First 24 Energy called Building Blocks. Theyre listed there on the 25 slide. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
24 | 10 1 We discussed in some detail their plans at that 2 time, with the first five of the Building Blocks, and had a 3 number of questions regarding those various Building 4 Blocks. | ||
5 First Energys evaluation of what they were trying 6 to accomplish as well as receiving input from the NRC 7 resulted in a revision to their Restart Plan and Building 8 Blocks, and I anticipate during todays meeting that were 9 going to get into several Building Blocks in more detail 10 than we talked about last June, as well as get into a 11 substantial amount of detail in the Management and Human 12 Performance area. | |||
13 So, were going to continue with these meetings. At 14 this point, to a large extent, weve been addressing and 15 discussing the plans that First Energy is proceeding. And 16 well continue to discuss those plans. | |||
17 During this meeting, get into, I think, more 18 progress that theyre making; and, as these meetings 19 continue over the summer months, we will be getting into 20 greater and greater detail in the implementation of those 21 plans, the results that the company is seeing, and 22 corrective actions that theyre taking. | |||
23 We are transcribing this meeting this afternoon. | |||
24 Well also be transcribing the meeting this evening. Those 25 transcripts will be available on the Web site when theyre MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
11 1 completed. As Im sure you can appreciate, it takes a 2 couple weeks to get a transcript typed up, reviewed and 3 ready for posting on the Web site. | |||
4 | 4 The transcript of the June 12th meeting is available 5 on the Web site. And as I said, these transcripts will 6 also be available within several weeks for those 7 individuals who are unable to attend the meeting. | ||
8 | 8 At this point, Lew, I would like to turn it over to 9 you and your staff for the presentation that you prepared 10 for us today. | ||
11 MR. MYERS: Okay. Thank you 12 very much. | |||
21 | 13 Its our pleasure to be here today to discuss Return 14 to Service Plan that we discussed last time. Our desired 15 outcome today is to show that were no longer in the 16 planning phase. Typically, you go through a planning 17 phase, a discovery phase, and implementation phase. Today 18 we want to demonstrate that were fully in the 19 implementation phase towards safe, reliable and sustained 20 operation for the Davis-Besse Plant. | ||
21 We want to provide you with a status of several of 22 our Building Blocks. We want to demonstrate the closure of 23 several of the actions that were discussed at our last 24 meeting, and also in our Restart Oversight Plan Meeting the 25 day before. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
12 1 We also want to introduce you to some of the 2 Management and Human Performance elements in our Management 3 and Human Performance Excellence Plan that weve laid out; 4 some of the things that we know now, and well be prepared 5 to discuss that in detail today. | |||
6 Starting out, you remember the last time, I thought 7 we had really seven Building Blocks, six of which are 8 Building Blocks that feed into the Restart Action Plan. | |||
24 | 9 The Reactor Head Resolution Plan was sponsored by 10 Bob Schrauder, who is at the table. Our Program Compliance 11 Plan was by Jim Powers, the Director of Engineering. The 12 Containment Health Assurance Plan sponsored by Randy Fast, 13 the Maintenance Director. And the System Health Assurance 14 Plan is Jim Powers responsibility. Restart and Post 15 Restart Test Plan is Randy Fast. And finally, the 16 Management and Human Performance Excellence Plan, Im 17 responsible for that. | ||
18 As you see, our plans all feed into the Restart 19 Action Plan, and that feed goes to what we call a Restart 20 Overview Panel. Thats a very important ingredient, and 21 people are talking about it independent of oversight. | |||
22 Let me share with you the Restart Overview Panel, if 23 you will. This panel provides an independent oversight and 24 review of all of our plant activities. You can see this of 25 the FENOC Senior Executive Team. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 | 13 1 That team consists of Bob Saunders, President; 2 myself, Gary Leidich, and Bill Pearce. Gary is in charge 3 of the, Executive in charge of Engineering. Bill Pearce is 4 in charge of Oversight. | ||
5 All of us may or may not be at any one meeting, 6 because of other obligations. The majority of us are at 7 each meeting. Lets talk about the panel members that we 8 asked to give us input. | |||
9 First, we looked for someone who had extended outage 10 experience, and we picked Chris Bakken from the D.C. Cook 11 Plant. D.C. Cook went through some very tough times a few 12 years ago. And Chris Bakken was the Executive of the 13 Restart Plan, and has good experience. | |||
14 We wanted somebody from the industry. Somebody that 15 communicates to us and to the industry. That person is 16 Buzz Galbraith. Buzz works the Nuclear Operations, which 17 is an industry oversight review group that has basic 18 building blocks, one of which is, one of the cornerstones 19 is operating experience. So, he shares that with us. | |||
20 Finally, we wanted somebody on our Nuclear Review 21 Board. We normally have a Nuclear Oversight Review Board, 22 and we wanted somebody to feed into that Nuclear Review 23 Board. That person is Jack Martin. Jack Martin is on our 24 board and hes very involved with this panel and our routine 25 activities going on at the plant. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
14 1 Finally, we wanted somebody that had real raw based 2 experience from a nuclear regulatory standpoint and a 3 troubled plant standpoint that could help us through this. | |||
4 So, we went and got Joe Callan. Joe was the Executive 5 Officer of the NRC at one time, and hes retired now; 6 provides us raw base experience, many years of experience 7 with other plants, extended shutdowns like this. | |||
8 We wanted somebody from the community. Jere Witt 9 supplies that for us, a community leader here in Ottawa 10 County. | |||
11 We wanted somebody that had a good history of the 12 plant, so we brought back one of the previous executives at 13 the Davis-Besse Plant that was here for the previous 14 problems through good performance. We brought in Lou Storz 15 to help us throughout whatever developments, whats changed 16 at the time of good performance. | |||
17 So, we believe, we believe today that we have an 18 Oversight Review Panel. As that panel is made up today, it 19 provides very good independent input to First Energys 20 Senior Team to help us ensure that we can not only restart 21 Davis-Besse in a safe and reliable manner, but insure that 22 we have safe performance. | |||
23 Weve also made several changes in our management 24 structure since our last meeting that well talk about. | |||
25 Howard, do you want to continue? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
15 1 MR. GROBE: Lew, before you go 2 on, who chairs the Restart Oversight Panel, or Restart 3 Overview Panel, who is the chairman of that? | |||
4 MR. MYERS: Right now, Ive 5 been chairing the panel. Weve been talking to Joe Callan 6 about the possibility of chairing that panel; and the 7 reason for that is to give us a true balance, has more 8 independence. | |||
9 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank you. | |||
10 MR. MYERS: Okay, Howard. | |||
11 MR. BERGENDAHL: Okay, I wanted 12 to -- can you hear me? | |||
13 I wanted to introduce some of the new members of our 14 team. There is an organization chart there, which 15 highlights basically the yellow blocks, are individuals 16 that are new in positions since about the first of the 17 year. So, there has been a lot of change at the site, and 18 many of the oversight individuals, Lew has already 19 mentioned across the top of the organizational chart, but 20 we have some of the key senior managers from Davis-Besse 21 sitting here at the table and I wanted to take an 22 opportunity to introduce them. | |||
23 Weve put together a team of very experienced and 24 qualified nuclear professionals that puts together the 25 senior management team that I know can do a good job at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
16 1 Davis-Besse. | |||
2 Im going to start with Jim Powers, two seats over 3 to my right. Jim is the Director of Engineering. I think 4 we introduced him last time. He joined us from the Perry 5 Plant. He has an excellent reputation and a major asset to 6 our organization. | |||
7 Next to Jim is a new addition to the Davis-Besse 8 organization. Hes been with First Energy, but hes now 9 joined Davis-Besse full time, Bob Schrauder will be our 10 Director of Support Services. Bob has had experience as 11 the Director of Engineering and also as a nuclear plant, 12 Plant Manager. And so, he brings a wealth of experience to 13 the team. | |||
14 Next to Bob is Randy Fast. Weve introduced Randy 15 in the past. Hes new to Davis-Besse in January. His 16 background includes Beaver Valley and a long stretch at the 17 South Texas Plant. | |||
18 Next to Randy is Mike Stevens. Mike is brand new in 19 the position of Director of Maintenance. And Mike has been 20 with First Energy for about two years. He spent most of 21 his career with the Cinergy Plants down in Southeastern 22 United States and most recently he joined First Energy from 23 the Excelon Corporation. | |||
24 Weve also hired in some experience from outside the 25 company, from other power plants in the industry. Mike MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
9 | |||
11 | |||
15 | |||
17 1 Ross at the end of the table comes to us from another 2 Babcocks and Wilcox designed plant at Three Mile Island 3 Station. Mike led the Operations Department at Three Mile 4 Island through their brief start through many years as an 5 Operations Manager and Plant Manager. Mike has joined 6 Davis-Besse to provide oversight to our operations 7 activities to ensure we have high standards that we know 8 Mike accomplished through Three Mile Island. | |||
9 Also not at the table here today, joining our 10 company July 30th, is Pete Roberts. We hired Pete from the 11 sale of Oak Creek Station, New Jersey, to be our new 12 Manager of Maintenance. | |||
13 So, we put together quite a team here and I know 14 weve got good things to come. | |||
15 MR. MYERS: Bob Schrauder 16 would like to take a few moments and discuss the Reactor 17 Head Resolution Oversight Plan, if you will. Were going 18 to the phase now where were going to present the status of 19 several of our plans. | |||
25 | 20 Go ahead, Bob. | ||
21 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thank you, Lew. | |||
22 Thanks, Howard. | |||
23 First, let me start out by saying, Im very pleased 24 to join the Davis-Besse team, after what seems like a 25 short nine and a half year hiatus from the plant. I do MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
4 | 18 1 believe, as Howard does, that we have a good solid team in 2 place, and that we will lead Davis-Besse back to a safe, 3 reliable plant that shows sustained performance. | ||
4 Since our last meeting, I have been really pleased 5 on the progress that we have made on obtaining a new head 6 for Davis-Besse. We have accomplished a great deal in a 7 very short 30 days. | |||
8 One of the things Im really happy to report is that 9 weve executed in excess of 30,000 person hours at the 10 Midland site retrieving that head, under some significant 11 challenging circumstances there. | |||
12 As this slide indicates, we are on target with the 13 head replacement to support safe, reliable plant 14 return-to-service sometime during fourth quarter of this 15 year. | |||
16 Ill talk a little bit about our activities at 17 Midland. We were able to successfully open the 18 containment. We had to chip away about three and a half 19 feet of concrete. We had to remove three layers of rebar, 20 and we had to detension the pre-cement tensioning elements 21 in this containment. | |||
22 These two pictures up here show us the progress of 23 opening that containment and then in the lower right-hand 24 corner with the team that helped us open that containment. | |||
25 Again, the team worked very safely and very effectively for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
19 1 us. | |||
11 | 2 The service structure at Midland, service structure 3 on these reactor vessel heads is in three parts. The lower 4 two parts will remain on the Midland head and we will 5 transfer the upper portion from the Davis-Besse head onto 6 this service structure. | ||
13 | 7 We have implemented the modification on the service 8 structure, the lower portion of the service structure at 9 Midland with ten large diameter openings that will allow us 10 clear access to the bare head inspections that we will do 11 on this head going forward in the future. That 12 modification, as I said, is completed. | ||
15 | 13 The last time we got together, we had indicated our 14 inspection plan for this head. We had divided those 15 inspections, and identified they have three purposes. The 16 first was to supplement the original co-data package that 17 went with this head. The second was to baseline this head 18 for ongoing in-service inspection program. And the third 19 was to provide supplementary exams to assure ourselves that 20 no damage had occurred to the head during its storage 21 period at the Midland Plant. | ||
22 Im pleased to tell you that all of those 23 inspections have been completed satisfactorily on the 24 Midland, on the replacement head for Davis-Besse, and we 25 know now that we do have a very good compliment for use at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
17 | |||
20 | |||
20 1 Davis-Besse. | |||
6 | 2 One of the records that we also talked about last 3 time associated with the co-data package was the 4 radiographs; both for the dome, the flange weld on the 5 head, and the radiographs on the flange to nozzle. The 6 records that we were able to retrieve did not have either 7 of those films, nor did they have the records of the 8 inspections of those films, other than a signed-off log 9 entry that indicated that the exams had been completed 10 satisfactorily. | ||
11 So, in order to resolve that, we reradiographed 12 those major welds on this head, and they did confirm that 13 we had good welds in all those locations. We were able to 14 achieve a hundred percent coverage of the flange-to-nozzle 15 weld and we achieved a 95 percent coverage of the 16 dome-to-flange weld. And, the remaining part of that weld 17 we were unable to get to, due to the lifting devices that 18 were put on the head after the original manufacturing. | |||
19 Again, though, we confirmed with those that we did 20 have very good welds in all those locations. And that 21 information, coupled with the previous records that we had 22 that identified that the previous owner had accepted this 23 head and had identified that it had all the appropriate 24 records, and the signed off co-data form from the American 25 Nuclear Insurer, we assured ourselves that we did have a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
21 1 good head and good going forward records. | |||
2 As a result of the 95 percent coverage, we will be 3 submitting our results to the NRC for their concurrence 4 approval that we do in fact have a high level of assurance 5 and certainty that this weld is good. | |||
6 MR. JACOBSON: Bob, let me just 7 mention briefly some of the inspection activities weve 8 done in this regard. Weve dispatched one of our 9 nondestructive examination experts out to the Midland site 10 and he spent a few days out there observing some of the 11 inspections that, that FENOC was doing on the head; also 12 reviewed all the radiographs that were done on the head. | |||
13 And I did also, I reviewed a good portion of the 14 radiographs. So, thats some of the work that weve done 15 to date. | |||
16 And the next phase is going to be to review all the 17 documentation of the head that supports the code, code and 18 stamp that needs to be on that head in order to use it. | |||
19 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thanks, John. | |||
20 Thats a good point. I wanted to say our nuclear 21 inspector was present during all of these examinations 22 also, as well as our code experts and our departmental 23 experts. | |||
24 The picture you see up there with the lifting glove. | |||
25 Thats Lew inspecting that lifting glove and those are the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
22 1 attachments that are used to lift this head off and on the 2 reactor during service. | |||
3 MR. GROBE: John, before we go 4 on, could you characterize the results of your inspections 5 to-date? | |||
6 MR. JACOBSON: Pardon? | |||
7 MR. GROBE: Could you 8 characterize the results of your inspections to-date? | |||
9 MR. JACOBSON: The results of the 10 radiographs that weve looked at to-date were, met all code 11 requirements; and, in fact, the weld on the flange to the 12 dome was extremely clean, extremely good. Its one of the 13 best welds that Ive personally seen in a long time. And, 14 Ive looked at a lot of them. So, we did get that done. | |||
15 Weve also looked at some of the welds up on the 16 control rod drive penetrations, and those also meet all 17 code requirements. So, to-date, all of the nondestructive 18 examination that weve reviewed is acceptable. | |||
19 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thank you. At 20 Midland right now our activities are centering around final 21 cleaning and preparation for shipment of the head. This 22 picture that you see here, is the, now there is a cover on 23 it. This is a cover on the reactor vessel head, but 24 this is actually the reactor vessel head being lifted off 25 the stand that it was sitting on at Midland. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
21 | 23 1 Next picture, please. | ||
2 This is our opening, and that is the head stand that 3 we had to pull out in order to be able to retrieve the 4 head. | |||
5 And in the next picture, again, the head being 6 readied to be lowered onto a temporary transportation 7 system to get it out to its main transport. | |||
8 This is a picture of the type of transporter that 9 well be using to bring the head to Davis-Besse. That head 10 weighs about 80 tons. And this small truck that you see is 11 about 180 feet long. We will be transporting that head for 12 arrival at Davis-Besse prior to the date we set earlier, 13 which is August the 1st, which would be the latest date 14 that we would expect to have that on the site. | |||
15 Now lets talk about some of the activities under 16 way at Davis-Besse. Our reactor pressure -- our head at 17 Davis-Besse is being repaired for removal from the 18 containment. | |||
19 This is a picture of the service structure that I 20 spoke of earlier. The upper portion of the service 21 structure, which we will use on the new head when it 22 arrives. We will lift that off, thats a 40,000 pound 23 piece of equipment thats floating through the air to its 24 temporary resting place where it would be repaired for 25 installation on the Davis-Besse head. And, the head now at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
22 | 24 1 Davis-Besse is being properly cleaned and prepared for 2 removal from the containment building. | ||
3 We have gotten our construction packages from our 4 vendor and we are in the process of reviewing those now. | |||
5 We have got the engineering packages available, and these 6 engineering packages are the packages that we put together 7 to open the containment and subsequently restore the 8 containment to its full design requirements. | |||
9 We are making preparations for the containment 10 building opening itself. Again, this is a shot of the back 11 side of our containment where we will be making 12 approximately a 20 foot by 20 foot opening into that 13 containment, which happens to coincide with the original 14 construction opening in this building. | |||
15 The process again for opening this containment will 16 not be the chipping or cutting techniques that we used at 17 Midland. This is a very high pressure water wash system, 18 which essentially separates the cement from the aggregate 19 in the concrete, washes it off the rebar. Then the rebar 20 is tagged, cut and removed and replaced in its original 21 condition when were ready to restore the container. | |||
22 We did have to do some leveling of the ground in 23 this area in order to get our transport mechanism that will 24 go through the containment to move the old head out and new 25 head in. We did some ground leveling in there. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
25 1 And we are in the process of right outside this, 2 just off to the righthand side out of your view on this 3 picture is our start-up transformer at the plant. We will 4 tag that transformer out, disconnect it, and put protection 5 around it so there is no way to injure that transformer 6 during the period of time that were under construction. | |||
7 Another item that came up in our last meeting is the 8 restoration of the pressure vessel. Again, the containment 9 at Davis-Besse is a shield building made out of about three 10 feet of concrete and a freestanding pressure vessel with 11 annular space between them. Both of those obviously have 12 to be cut to get access into the containment, moved ahead 13 in and out. Then we have to restore that pressure vessel 14 per code requirements. | |||
7 | 15 We had indicated the last time we were here that we 16 were contemplating doing a localized test around that 17 restoration process, in that we had just completed an 18 integrated test on this pressure vessel at previous 19 outings. | ||
8 | 20 Since that time, we have identified several other 21 things that well be doing in containment, and we have 22 reached the conclusion that the best thing to do is to 23 perform an integrated leak grade test on this containment 24 vessel when it is restored. | ||
10 | 25 Those are our current plans that are incorporated MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | ||
13 | |||
14 | |||
15 | |||
21 | |||
26 1 into our plan and process. Unless there are questions, 2 thats all I have on the activities for replacing the 3 head. | |||
4 MS. LIPA: I do have one 5 question. I walked down the area where this transformer is 6 yesterday. What plans do you have for protection, what 7 kinds of barrier? | |||
8 MR. SCHRAUDER: The major plans 9 are to disconnect it, and then there are coverings that 10 will go over the bushings and the like on the transformer 11 itself, and I believe there is going to be a 12 scaffolding-type arrangement around it. Basically, were 13 protecting the major components on getting any kind of 14 water spray or dust or aggregate into it. Make sure that 15 -- we have to put up a large scaffolding and large platform 16 in order to get into that. That opening is about 20 feet 17 off the ground, 18 feet off the ground. We want to make 18 sure that scaffolding we have up there also doesnt have, 19 if it should happen to fall for any reason, it wont impact 20 or harm the transformer. | |||
21 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: Bob, you said that 23 you have construction procedures that have been submitted 24 and engineering packages that are nearing completion. | |||
25 Could you describe in a little more detail the scope of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
6 | 27 1 those construction procedures and engineering packages and 2 what they address? | ||
7 | 3 MR. SCHRAUDER: Well, the 4 construction procedures are the procedures for opening up 5 the containment, the detailed process on how do you go 6 about opening up the containment. | ||
7 Were looking at things in those packages, and I 8 want to separate the construction package and the 9 engineering package; these are each, have some element of 10 the other. | |||
11 We look at things, like the travel path for the 12 vehicle that would bring the head in on. As you know, at a 13 lot of nuclear plants or all the nuclear plants, there are 14 underground piping, underground utilities there. We have 15 to go through and assess all of those to make sure that 16 this vehicle wont impact those. | |||
17 Engineering packages includes things like the 18 NCFR 5059 Evaluation to see if this could be done without 19 formal approval of the NRC or whether it fits within the 20 regulation, allows us basically to do those, if they dont 21 change our updated safety analysis report. | |||
22 Those are included in those; and the detailed 23 engineering on, for instance, the pressure vessel itself, 24 has equipment hanging on it as part of its design. We have 25 to make sure that taking a 20 foot by 20 foot section out MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
17 | 28 1 of that pressure vessel doesnt impact its structural 2 capabilities, and where we would need to put in reinforcing 3 supports or the like for that. Also we analyze things like 4 missle protection, while its open. | ||
18 | 5 MR. GROBE: Any other 6 questions? Okay, very good. Thank you, Bob. | ||
7 MR. MYERS: Thank you. | |||
8 As you can see, were making good progress on the 9 placement head project, and were well into the 10 implementation phase. New head is being prepared for 11 shipment. Weve opened up our containment and the whole 12 head has been dismounted, making good progress there. | |||
13 The next area is Containment Health Plan. Jim 14 Powers and Randy Fast would discuss that. | |||
15 MR. FAST: Good afternoon. I 16 too am excited about our new team. Today I will discuss 17 the status of our Containment Health Plan Building Block. | |||
18 As you can see, the last time we met, we called this 19 containment condition. It was focused principally on boric 20 acid corrosion on mechanisms which encountered with our 21 reactor vessel head; however, it became apparent that we 22 wanted to expand the scope for all of containment to really 23 talk about the health of everything thats within that 24 building. | |||
25 Part of that plan scope was increased to include MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
29 1 containment vessel, the liner evaluation. And, we have had 2 ongoing work there. We have done an analysis. We have a 3 team undergoing a review, a comprehensive review of the 4 design requirements, but as well we did ultrasonic testing 5 to ensure metal thickness and we have an interim 6 disposition on that. However, we can do more exhaustive 7 testing to ensure with every confidence that it meets 8 design requirements. | |||
9 Weve also included environmental qualification of 10 our equipment. | |||
11 MR. GROBE: Randy, before you 12 go on, I believe at our last meeting, one of our inspectors 13 Mel Holmberg identified a question regarding a potential 14 for corrosion below the concrete base mat on the inside of 15 the, of the pressure vessel and also around the outside of 16 the annular region. Have you done anything to evaluate 17 that issue? | |||
18 MR. FAST: That evaluation is 19 ongoing. A team is assembled and well be doing 20 comprehensive reviews, which will include all of the 21 containment liner areas. | |||
22 MR. MYERS: We have taken some 23 action to-date. | |||
24 MR. FAST: Yes. We did about 25 1700 ultrasonic examinations for metal thickness in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
30 1 areas that were adjacent to those areas that Mel had 2 identified. That was our immediate corrective action; 3 however, were looking at all of the containment vessel for 4 integrity. | |||
5 | 5 MR. GROBE: Okay. I read in 6 the paper this morning something that I think was already a 7 focus of both the NRC and First Energy, thats the issue of 8 whats referred to as MIC, or microbial induced corrosion. | ||
9 Could you comment on that a little bit? | |||
10 MR. FAST: Well, thats 11 something that has to be evaluated. Micrologically induced 12 corrosion, MIC, as its called, is a naturally occurring; 13 and if weve had ground water in-seepage around the vessel 14 area, that would potentially be susceptible. So, well 15 have to do some evaluation and analysis to ensure that we 16 do not have any MIC present. | |||
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: We have, in fact 18 have an individual working on that right now. | |||
19 MR. POWERS: Im taking water 20 samples to physically look for that as well as corrosion 21 problems. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
23 MR. FAST: Were aware as 24 well it is an item that is under investigation and 25 evaluation. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
12 | 31 1 MR. GROBE: I dont believe 2 that Mel has had a chance to come back and look at the 3 results of your ultrasonic tests. Could you briefly 4 summarize the results of what you found? | ||
13 | 5 MR. FAST: What we did was an 6 analysis that looked at minimum wall thickness. That 7 vessel liner is about an inch and a half thick. We didnt 8 see any significant degradation. There is some local 9 surface pitting, which is just expected of a carbon steel 10 component, but no deduction in the overall ability of the 11 areas that we did evaluate; nothing that would require any 12 additional remediation. | ||
13 MR. GROBE: You indicated, you 14 indicated that you were planning additional inspections. | |||
15 Could you characterize those? | |||
16 MR. FAST: Well, I try to 17 describe what this vessel liner looks like for our folks 18 out in the public. If youve ever changed out a thermos 19 bottle, the glass liner inside that bottle is effectively 20 what our pressure vessel in the containment is like. | |||
21 So, you see the concrete structure outside that 22 extends about 240 feet above the grade elevation; 2.4 23 million cubic feet of volume, but within that is a steel 24 structure much like this thermos bottle. And thats the 25 structural integrity that ensures that under a design basis MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
32 1 accident, that peak pressures that would be held during 2 that event are being contained within the containment; that 3 is the barrier that protects the environment from a design 4 basis accident. | |||
5 So, that thermos bottle with its steel structure, 6 the integrity of that has to be evaluated to make sure it 7 meets design requirements. | |||
8 So, part of those inspections is in the annular 9 space. Thats about a four foot wide space outside the 10 steel liner, but inside of the concrete, the external 11 concrete structure. Well be building scaffolding and 12 doing hand-over-hand reviews of the structural integrity, 13 as well as put together some additional ultrasonic tests to 14 make sure we meet the minimum wall requirements for 15 pressure retention. That will extend all the way to the 16 top of the vessel. | |||
17 MR. GROBE: Okay. And, are 18 you doing similar inspections on the inside of the 19 containment? | |||
20 MR. FAST: Yes, we are. | |||
21 MR. GROBE: What sort of 22 inspections are you planning, for lack of a better phrase, 23 for the subterranean section of the vessel? | |||
24 MR. POWERS: Ill handle that 25 one. We did inspections on the inside where there was a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
33 1 gap identified between the concrete at the base of this 2 containment thermos bottle Randy described. Concrete was 3 originally poured at the base on the inside and interfaced 4 right up against the steel vessel structure. | |||
5 With time that concrete has shrunk a bit and there 6 is a narrow gap formed there, and there was concern about 7 whether water could have gotten down into that gap. So, we 8 went in and we did stick feeler gauges down to as much as 9 42 inches into that gap and found no moisture. | |||
10 So, that was positive result from those initial 11 tests, and were going to continue further to characterize 12 all the way down to the bottom areas what the situation is, 13 whether there is any moisture down there, and characterize 14 what the wall thickness is and integrity at the lower 15 elevations. | |||
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
17 MR. FAST: Just to try to 18 clarify the ultrasonic tests that weve done so far. In 19 the area adjacent, in the lower elevation of containment 20 where Mel identified the small annular space where the 21 concrete had shrunk and there is some gap between the 22 concrete and steel liner, where Jim just identified we dip 23 sticked. On the exterior side, there is a section about a 24 couple, three feet on the outside where there is no 25 concrete; and we were able from the annular space to do MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
21 | |||
34 1 ultrasonic testing to be sure we had full integrity. | |||
2 That would tell us if there were degradation in 3 areas that could not be seen by the naked eye, that you 4 would be able to tell we had full depth and integrity on 5 the steel liner. | |||
6 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
7 MR. FAST: The other areas 8 that weve incorporated as part of our Containment Health 9 Environmental Qualification is were concerned about such 10 things as electrical equipment, such as air operated or 11 motor operated valves. Well be going through a 12 comprehensive review of that equipment and other 13 environmental qualified, to ensure that the conditions in 14 containment, that all of that equipment is operated in or 15 as fine a condition within its design requirements. | |||
9 | 16 One of the areas that were focusing on, this is 17 really an industry lesson learned is the containment sump; 18 and were looking from a design perspective at ensuring 19 that the emergency sump is intact and that it meets 20 requirements. As a matter of fact, our vision of success 21 is to improve margin. | ||
14 | 22 We think there is opportunities to actually extend 23 and improve the isolation from around the containment 24 emergency sump. So, we have a team in place that will be 25 looking at that as well. Looking at, where were moving MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | ||
35 1 fibrous insulation, we could impact clogging that sump. | |||
2 So, that will be removed from containment. We will have 3 all metal insulation. | |||
8 | 4 The other things that were looking at is, the Decay 5 Heat Valve Pit, which is, Im going to call it a legacy 6 issue. There are two motor operated valves, which are 7 located in a pit adjacent to the emergency sump. And we 8 have traditionally sealed those plates and done a pressure 9 test, what we call a drop test, to ensure in a design basis 10 condition those valves are not environmentally qualified, 11 so we have to keep them from the flooded conditions when it 12 exists. And weve traditionally gone in and sealed those 13 and verified their integrity from this drop test. | ||
14 But thats not a standard that we continue to 15 operate to. So, we have a design team looking at that and 16 we have several options under evaluation, which would 17 include extending the operators outside of the flooded 18 region, putting valves outside of containment, or 19 qualifying operators that could operate under the harsh 20 environments that would exist on design basis access. | |||
21 So, all of those are being evaluated and again, our 22 intent is to improve our margin of safety in this area. | |||
23 Containment air coolers. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Tony is clearing 25 his throat. I wanted to make sure. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
36 1 MR. MENDIOLA: I did have a 2 question. | |||
3 MR. GROBE: Okay. Go ahead. | |||
4 MR. MENDIOLA: I want to retreat 5 a second. Going back to the liner for a second. Two 6 questions I have. | |||
7 MR. FAST: Yes. | |||
8 MR. MENDIOLA: When you mentioned 9 that you evaluated the inside gap between, I guess, the 10 concrete and the inside of the liner, going down with a 11 feeler gauge and you found no moisture, but is there any 12 plans on sealing that gap or, or leaving the gap as found? | |||
13 MR. POWERS: Were still in 14 evaluation on that one, Tony. Were working on an overall 15 plan about surveiling the lower elevations even below that 16 gap area and restoring that as necessary. So, its a 17 detail we havent finalized yet, but its part of our 18 evaluation. | |||
19 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay. Then 20 similarly, is there a similar gap on the outside of the 21 liner, something like thats on the inside. | |||
22 MR. POWERS: On the outside, 23 there is ground water that has seeped through the 24 concrete. Its not unusual for this to happen with any 25 type of concrete, has small cracks in it. And what Randy MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
8 | 37 1 described earlier with surveiling the outside, yes, there 2 is, there is an area or space where water can migrate 3 alongside of the liner. | ||
9 | 4 In fact, in the past, originally we did 5 modifications in that area injecting the ground to work on 6 sealing that, sealing that gap. And then were going to be 7 evaluating that as part of the overall integrity assessment 8 of the vessel; thats going to be included. | ||
10 | 9 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay, thank you. | ||
10 MR. GROBE: Just feel free to 11 clear your throat at any time. | |||
12 I had just a couple of questions. Some of these 13 activities appear to be directly related to the boric acid 14 issue. Some of these activities appear to be unrelated. | |||
15 You mentioned that the containment emergency sump, 16 there have been questions in operating experience from 17 other plants as well as you yourself have identified the 18 decay heat valve pit as something that you want to look 19 at. | |||
20 Why werent these issues identified and corrected 21 earlier? Why are they being identified and corrected now? | |||
22 MR. BERGENDAHL: Let me take a 23 shot at that. As were going to discuss later, the 24 management issues, according to one of the things were 25 looking at is the standards of the oversight and ownership MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
38 1 of the power plant and programs. And as part of our new 2 initiatives to raise the standards and clarify that were 3 meeting requirements is not our standard. Our standard is 4 to exceed and do things the best. | |||
5 The fresh outlook has exposed some areas where we 6 have performed to meet requirements, and thats it. So, 7 although that pit may have met the requirements, it doesnt 8 meet our new standards of robust safety way. | |||
9 MR. MYERS: Ive been on the 10 Davis-Besse Oversight Review Board Meetings several times 11 over the years. Weve been looking at those two issues and 12 theyre not new issues to us. So, while were in this 13 extended outage, why not go and take them up. Perfect 14 opportunity to do that. Thats what were going to do. | |||
15 And it will give us an opportunity to gain knowledge. | |||
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
17 MR. FAST: Next item, our 18 containment air coolers, and were going through complete 19 remediation. This is another example where our intention 20 is to improve margin. | |||
21 Weve investigated the opportunity to get some 22 coolers of higher efficiency, better thermoconductivity and 23 well be doing a complete remediation of those containment 24 air coolers. So, they will be brought up to better than as 25 new condition; all three of those containment air coolers. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
39 1 Thats the comprehensive plan. Well actually start the 2 disassembling of those coolers next week. | |||
3 MR. MYERS: Where are those? | |||
4 MR. FAST: Those are the 5 original coolers that were installed at the plant. Its 6 like a radiator in your car, the way I would describe it 7 for the public, obviously. And it has deteriorated over 8 time. | |||
9 Its a normal phenomenon for equipment and its time 10 now to go in and replace it and renew it and bring it up to 11 standards. And in this case, we can gain, because of 12 improvements in technology over the years, should have an 13 opportunity to actually improve their thermo performance. | |||
14 MR. DEAN: Randy, are you 15 talking about replacing them or just refurbishing them by 16 replacing the tubes or innards? | |||
17 MR. FAST: Primarily, the 18 design of the containment air cooler is a series of heat 19 exchangers. And those heat exchangers were replaceable 20 individually as a maintenance function. However, over the 21 years they degrade, so were going to be replacing probably 22 90 plus percent of those coolers. Im trying to think how 23 many coolers there actually are, but there are a few that 24 have been replaced recently as part of the normal 25 maintenance process, the old coolers were galvanized MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
20 | |||
21 | |||
22 | |||
23 | |||
40 1 steel. The newer ones are stainless steel. They have 2 improved in design and improved thermoconductivity. | |||
12 | 3 So, effectively when you look at it now, there are 4 other elements of the containment air coolers. We did 5 receive notification of motor problems and we have two 6 brand new motors, two of the three will receive brand new 7 motors and as well the register, the duct work have been 8 completely reworked and will be remediated to, to as-new 9 condition, so principally, that heat exchange will be 10 replaced. | ||
11 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, this 12 wasnt necessarily an artifact of the boric acid situation, 13 this was just an aging, normal aging, equipment aging? | |||
14 MR. FAST: Well, there are 15 really two factors, Jack. First is the aging, the normal 16 aging process of equipment, but the other is, that through 17 the trailing of boric acid, those would collect on the 18 fins and those have been cleaned numerous times by our 19 staff, that did take their toll, the boric acid that 20 collected on the, on those cooling fins could be cleaned. | |||
21 But, that repetitive action did degrade the equipment. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: It sounds like 23 modification, not replacement for the component limit. | |||
24 Will there be a substantive test program, heat transfer 25 testing program, following the replacement? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
41 1 MR. FAST: One of the things 2 were not going into a lot of detail today is restart, post 3 restart test plan, but all modifications for the plant will 4 undergo an extensive testing prior to restart of the plant. | |||
16 | 5 So, that is, when you look at the chart or for the Restart 6 and Post-Restart Test Plan, that comprehensive test or plan 7 extends beyond the reactor coolant system and all the 8 support systems, and in this case that would be tested 9 extensively. | ||
10 MR. MYERS: Jack, you asked 11 the question, one of the things we can tell you, we could 12 probably go out and clean these coolers up, work on them 13 and meet the minimum requirements. We have, we have an 14 opportunity to replacement and gain on the margin, so 15 thats what were going to do. | |||
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
17 MR. FAST: Okay, there were 18 questions as we met last time about our inspections for 19 systems that contained borated water outside of the 20 containment. We talked about that, and said, where do we 21 want to do those reviews to ensure that we have a good 22 comprehensive review of systems outside of containment. | |||
23 I mentioned here that we did roll that into our 24 System Health Assurance Plan to insure that any systems 25 that contain borated water are thoroughly evaluated for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
42 1 their functional requirements and design capability. So, 2 its not part of the Containment Health Plan, however that 3 element has been rolled into the System Health Assurance 4 Plan. | |||
5 Since we met last, we have gone through a review of 6 our Inspector Training Program, and we actually saw 7 opportunities to improve. As we had talked previously 8 about inspection criteria, inspection requirements, we went 9 back and used our systematic approach to training to 10 review, to insure that our engineers were qualified to the 11 right standards for the inspections that had been done. | |||
12 We saw opportunities to improve it by using the 13 systematic approach to training. Did incorporate it then, 14 lessons learned and being able to then apply inspection 15 techniques to civil, structural, electrical, mechanical and 16 our Alloy 600 reviews. | |||
17 So, subsequently, we revamped our training program 18 for our engineers, and we have trained them. We have job 19 familiarization guides that are implemented and we are in 20 the process of reestablishing our baseline inspections and 21 verifying inspections that were done previously were, would 22 meet our standards of excellence. | |||
23 Well be detailing any differences between the 24 initial inspections and the subsequent inspections. And 25 using condition reports to identify those differences, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
43 1 theyll go into the engineering evaluation process. | |||
13 | 2 MR. GROBE: I think I have two 3 things there I want to make sure I understand it. I think 4 I hear that youre going to reperform inspections and if 5 you identify any deficiencies, those deficiencies will go 6 into corrective action guidelines, condition reports, but 7 in addition, I think I heard you say that when you identify 8 deficiencies between your first inspection and the 9 reinspection for the improved training that youre going to 10 identify that difference as something to learn from, from 11 the standpoint of the systematic approach to training. Is 12 that, help me understand? | ||
13 MR. FAST: We want to make 14 sure that we understand that the inspections that were 15 done, we want to see what differences there are. We see 16 improvements in the training. In fact, the previous 17 training program, we brought some industry experts in and 18 tested them, and we identified shortfalls with even 19 industry experts in their understanding and knowledge of 20 inspection techniques. So, weve incorporated that. | |||
21 We think we have an excellent training program. And 22 we expect to see that through this reinspection, there will 23 be some differences. And what we want to do is document 24 those differences. Now, if we saw something that were 25 generic in nature, we want to certainly apply that across MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
44 1 the board, but we will be documenting many of those 2 differences and doing evaluation and inspection. | |||
3 MR. DEAN: Randy, you 4 characterized what it was that drove you to revise the 5 field inspection training program? | |||
6 MR. FAST: Yeah, Ill try to 7 digress a little bit. As we originally identified our 8 extended condition, we were focused on extended condition 9 principally in the area of boric acid degradation through a 10 threat of Alloy 600 components. | |||
11 We adopted a standard, which was set by the American 12 Society of Mechanical Engineers called a VT-2 Inspection. | |||
13 We applied that VT-2 Inspection. We had some problems, 14 problematic problems in our inspection program. We went 15 back, rebaseline, redeveloped that program. And as we 16 raised standards, we self-identified that there were 17 shortfalls, that although this would be good for credible 18 Alloy 600 Inspections, it did not meet our inspection in 19 other areas, such as electrical components or other 20 structural components within the containment. So, we took 21 on a more, I would say, full body inspection program with 22 better criteria. | |||
23 Okay, the other thing that we originally, in our 24 original plan had inspection plans that were developed by 25 engineering. We have subsequently rolled all of our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
45 1 inspection plans into plant procedures. | |||
11 | 2 Plant procedures are in hand. Have specific 3 criteria requirements for the entry and exit from those 4 procedures. And so part of our training program as well is 5 on these new procedures and the use of these procedures. | ||
6 As identified the validation of inspections is in 7 progress. As well, we have now a group of independent 8 inspectors that are as well going through, using the same 9 criteria inspection programs that well be doing validation 10 of our inspected areas. | |||
11 MR. GROBE: Help me understand 12 the word independent. Independent of what? | |||
13 MR. FAST: Its not the same 14 folks were using principally; our engineers from design 15 engineering and from our performance engineering, plant 16 engineering. These are individuals that we brought into 17 the organization with experience outside of Davis-Besse; 18 and they were trained to our same program and they will be 19 looking independently at the inspections and checking and 20 verifying and validating that weve done a good job on 21 those inspections. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: I just want to 23 make sure I understand this. When I think of the different 24 kinds of assessments of work thats done on nuclear plants, 25 which is what I refer to as line assessments; those were MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
23 | 46 1 assessments by the organization responsible for conducting 2 the work. And then there is independent assessments that 3 weve recently established, Vice President of Oversight, 4 and thats a second level of independence. What kind of 5 independence are we talking about? | ||
6 MR. FAST: We actually have 7 two pieces of independence. One is our First Energys 8 quality assessment and that is ongoing. So, our quality 9 organization under Bill Pearce, the Vice President of 10 Quality, has also been training or doing assessments, but 11 we also brought in an external assessment organization. | |||
12 So, we have both internal oversight and external 13 oversight. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: Okay. The 15 external oversight reports to the containment health team 16 as part of that teams activities? | |||
17 MR. POWERS: Thats correct, 18 yes. | |||
19 MR. GROBE: Yes. | |||
20 MR. POWERS: Containment health 21 organization has a new kind of review and oversight 22 organization, and thats part of our engineering assessment 23 board that weve assembled consisting of outside industry 24 experts, you know, providing oversight of all of our 25 activities. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
47 1 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
6 | 2 MR. FAST: Since we met 3 previously, we made significant progress in containment. | ||
4 As an example, we have off-loaded all of our nuclear fuels, 5 177 bundles have been transferred to spent fuel pool. This 6 has allowed us now to make the record cool system more 7 available for other inspections. | |||
8 We have installed nozzle dams. We are in the 9 process this week. We will refill the cavity. We will 10 reinsert the import thimbles, then drain down, remove the 11 sealing plate, remove the insulation adjacent to the 12 reactor vessel flange, and well be doing thorough 13 inspections of the tops of the nozzles adjacent to the 14 reactor vessel itself. | |||
15 After that is completed, we will also then be able 16 to do cleaning, and as well, we are going to be installing 17 a permanent cavity seal, which is something many plants 18 across the country have been able to install a permanent, 19 its a stainless steel plate that joins the liner from the 20 cavity to the vessel to insure that there is no leakage 21 path, which is one of the items. | |||
22 If you have a temporary seal, then you have some 23 temporary, some minimal amount of leakage, leak path that 24 comes down the vessel. With the permanent cavity seal, 25 there is no leakage. Subsequently, we have no opportunity MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
48 1 then for any additional degradation under the vessel. So, 2 that is part of our going forward plans. | |||
3 The other things were doing is we have mobilized a 4 significant number of painters, went through a 5 qualification program. Weve got some pictures, some 6 slides here that show. We currently have 20 fully 7 qualified painters, effective in containment right now. | |||
8 If you go in, youll see these four foot by four 9 foot squares where each painter actually went through a 10 qualification process. That was the in-field exercise to 11 insure that they met standards of excellence for coating. | |||
12 And you can see their names and Social Security numbers on 13 the wall where we did this. And we go back subsequently 14 and test and verify the paint is applied properly. | |||
15 We have an additional 20 painters that are in the 16 pipeline in training, and theyll be reporting to the 17 station to help as well, and with coatings in the 18 containment. And another 14 will come this week. | |||
19 So, we have a significant number of painters, and 20 theyll be painting the entire containment dome, and as 21 well all of the surface areas from 603 elevation, thats 22 the operating deck, up to the polar crane. | |||
23 So, its a nice bright white and we are in the 24 process of prepping it right now. As a matter of fact, I 25 was in yesterday and you can see where, you can see over MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
49 1 the years, many years of operation and training, just dirt 2 and normal dust, oils and thing that have collected on the 3 walls. Just like in your home, that can be cleaned and 4 those areas are brighter significantly. | |||
5 Thats part of the preparation for the surface 6 prep. And thats going to brighten the containment 7 significantly, but that will demonstrate our standards and 8 our expectations for the quality of condition of the 9 containment. So, Im particularly excited about that. | |||
10 Additionally, weve decontaminated a significant 11 amount of areas in containment. All of the containment air 12 cooler duct work, which weve had people inside doing that 13 work. We do have the containment air recirc fan running, 14 which is redistributing air throughout the containment. | |||
15 We also have a temporary cooling package, which is 16 connected to our containment purge supply, and that is 17 providing cooler air, so that we get better environmental 18 conditions for the folks working inside containment. | |||
19 Thats made environmental conditions more favorable 20 and really putting a lot better situation for the work that 21 were doing. So, we have a significant measurable progress 22 in cleaning and housekeeping remediation in our 23 containment. | |||
24 That concludes my presentation. Any questions? | |||
25 MR. THOMAS: I have one, Randy. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
50 1 When they scope the evaluation for the containment air 2 coolers -- | |||
3 (Requested speaker to repeat.) | |||
4 MR. THOMAS: I asked if the 5 evaluation of the grade containment, potentially degraded 6 air coolers would include a past operability evaluation and 7 scope of their inspection? | |||
24 | 8 MR. FAST: The simple answer, 9 Scott, is we are doing a past operability determination. | ||
10 MR. THOMAS: Thank you. | |||
11 MR. DEAN: Randy, I have a 12 question about where, can you give us a sense of where you 13 gauge the percentage of which you have completed, at least, 14 the evaluation phase in terms of impact for the boric acid 15 disposition containment. | |||
16 MR. FAST: I try to use 17 numbers. I believe these are accurate. Mark, if Im 18 wrong, you can correct me. But we have about 280 condition 19 reports, which is actually about over 2000 individual line 20 items that have to be dispositioned. About 30 of those 21 have been dispositioned and turned into work orders for 22 work thats going to occur. The rest are in some phase of 23 evaluation and will be forthcoming. | |||
24 I see a nod there, so it looks like I was pretty 25 close. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
51 1 MR. GROBE: Let me make sure I 2 understand what you said, Randy. When you said that a 3 certain number of your 2000 or so items of observations 4 have been dispositioned by creating work orders, I want to 5 make sure I understand that. | |||
6 MR. FAST: Okay. There is 7 280 condition reports. All of the inspections that were 8 done generated a condition report for any deviations, 9 didnt meet our standards. Each one of those condition 10 reports would have one or many individual items that 11 required disposition. | |||
12 Of the 280 condition reports that have been written, 13 about 30 of those condition reports, which would be 14 somewheres in the 15, 20 percent range, have been 15 dispositioned. The physical work that needs to be done 16 generates a work order. The work order is the actual 17 maintenance process to complete the work. And those 30 are 18 in progress. | |||
19 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, you 20 have condition records -- the focus of my question wasnt 21 clear. I apologize. | |||
22 Have the condition reports been closed out to work 23 order, or condition reports wont be closed out until the 24 work thats specified in the work order is completed? | |||
19 | 25 MR. FAST: The condition MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | ||
52 1 reports will not be closed until the work is completed and 2 verified. | |||
5 | 3 MR. DEAN: Then you would say 4 that those 280 condition reports essentially encompass the 5 results of the inspections. Although, the way I understand 6 it, you still have some validation effort ongoing, but 7 youve completed your initial inspection? | ||
8 | 8 MR. FAST: That is correct, 9 Bill. The 280 are the original inspections. I would 10 expect it will be generating some differences, based on 11 those reinspections. | ||
12 MR. GROBE: Any other 13 questions on Containment Health? I have a couple more. | |||
14 I just want to make a couple comments. I think the 15 Containment Health Plan is a substantial improvement from 16 what you showed us last month. For one thing, you have 17 detailed procedures in place for the inspections. The 18 scope of the inspections is much more comprehensive with 19 respect to evaluating the condition of the equipment inside 20 containment. | |||
21 Based on, again, this is just based on what youve 22 told us, you havent done extensive inspection in these 23 areas, but based on what you told us, it appears that 24 youre going beyond what, the event, the head corrosion 25 would have caused you to do. And I think thats helpful. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
53 1 Nuclear plant workers work to procedures. They 2 understand that. Quality assurance program assures that 3 procedures are adequate; theyre adequately implemented. | |||
4 So, this context of detail procedures and systematic 5 approach to training, thats a nuclear standard. Those are 6 very good attributes of the program and assure the results 7 of high quality activities. | |||
8 Im very encouraged to hear that youre having as 9 part of your inspection program a separate independent 10 look. And thats important from two standpoints. One is 11 its always better to have two sets of eyes than one, but 12 secondly, quite frankly, there was a question regarding 13 the, the standards of the workers that were making 14 decisions in the plant. And I dont want to infer by that 15 that all the workers at Davis-Besse dont have the right 16 standards. Thats not what Im trying to say. But there 17 was a question. And this will give you insight as to 18 whether or not that is a broad question, a narrow question 19 and what it means as far as the accuracy of your 20 inspections. So, thats good. | |||
21 I also heard you say, as I was pursuing the question 22 of what independent inspections meant, that completely 23 independent at Davis-Besse organization, the folks in Bill 24 Pearces organization are going to be doing independent 25 assessments. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
8 | 54 1 And Lew, I think it would be very healthy for us to 2 hear Bills staffs evaluation next time we meet on the 3 activities that youre presenting. And, I would fully 4 expect, let me say, I would be surprised if his evaluation 5 is completely rosy. Hopefully, hes finding some things 6 that continue to have done. | ||
7 So, I would hope that next time we meet, not only 8 can we hear from the staff thats doing the work, but I 9 would like to hear from Bills staff to get on the FENOC 10 corporate independent assessment, the quality of the work 11 thats going on in the field. | |||
12 MR. MYERS: That would be 13 good. We would do that. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: Anything else 15 before we move off of Containment Health? | |||
16 Okay. Good. Thank you, Randy. | |||
17 Marie, weve been at it for about an hour and 15 18 minutes; is it time for a five minute break? | |||
19 MS. FRESCH: Sure. | |||
20 MR. GROBE: Okay. Lets do 21 that. The last time, we wore out her fingers. | |||
22 MR. MYERS: Could I just 23 summarize on the Containment Health Plan? | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Sure. | |||
25 MR. MYERS: I think once again MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
55 1 we demonstrated at the last meeting we were in the plan 2 phase, doing some discovery, doing implementation or 3 physically doing work. And, you know, weve taken on some 4 value and expanded the program. | |||
5 Were upgrading our coolers. Were extremely 6 pleased with that. The thermo cavity seal is a major, 7 major effort that would add a lot of value and margin to 8 our plant; and it will produce, or does make our plant a 9 better plant. So, were moving to good implementation on 10 that. | |||
11 MR. GROBE: Okay. My watch 12 says 16 after. Lets be prompt at 21 after, five minutes, 13 and that way we can keep things moving. | |||
14 (Off the record.) | |||
15 MR. MYERS: The next area we 16 would like to discuss is System Health Assurance Plan and 17 Howard Bergendahl will do that. | |||
18 MR. BERGENDAHL: Good afternoon. | |||
19 As Lew indicated, we are committed to the safe operation of 20 Davis-Besse, more importantly, sustained safe operation. | |||
21 So, were examining much more than the reactor vessel head 22 and containment building. Im going to briefly describe 23 where we are on System Health Issues. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Just a minute. | |||
25 Could you please close the doors back there? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
56 1 Thank you. | |||
2 MR. BERGENDAHL: There is two 3 Building Blocks were trying to cover, The System Health 4 Assurance Program Compliance -- and these two Building 5 Blocks, as I indicated, are expansions over what we just 6 described. | |||
22 | 7 The first one is System Health Assurance Plan. | ||
8 Basically, a review of the key systems from three different 9 perspectives. Taking an operational look, basically 10 focusing on the needs of the operator. A second 11 perspective would be the system reliability, and thats the 12 system engineers view of the system as a whole. And third 13 is the design perspective of a system. | |||
14 Now, the first one, called the Operational Readiness 15 Review; that was the operating perspective, as I 16 indicated. The plant manager led those reviews and they 17 are complete. That was a team review of some key systems 18 and review of the indicators on how that system is 19 performing and when its ready for safe operation. | |||
20 That first cut review by Randy and some of his staff 21 identified some of those issues I mentioned earlier that 22 may have met compliance, but did not meet the standards for 23 future operations. So, that produced some work activities 24 that we had maybe identified for future implementation, 25 pull those up to current, to current outage. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
4 | 57 1 That review is complete. And, then moved on to 2 System Readiness Review, which is a more structured review 3 of the risk significant maintenance rule systems, focusing 4 on material condition of the plant and including some 5 detailed system walkdowns. And walkdowns would be done of 6 course, with procedure. | ||
7 And the results of these reviews would then be 8 presented to an independent board, which is our Program 9 Review Board, which is a subcommittee of the Engineering 10 Assurance Board, which we mentioned earlier. | |||
11 MS. LIPA: Howard, I have a 12 question for you. | |||
13 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes. | |||
14 MS. LIPA: On the operational 15 readiness reviews that are complete, is that complete and 16 identifying what needs to be worked or is all the work 17 done? | |||
18 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its complete in 19 identifying the issues of what needs to be performed; that 20 work has been identified, and it is not all completed. | |||
21 MS. LIPA: And then are you 22 also looking at operating workarounds as part of that 23 review? | |||
24 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes. That was 25 part of the perspective of what systems have operating MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 | 58 1 workarounds, outstanding modifications, things of that 2 nature. | ||
3 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you. | |||
4 MR. GROBE: Thats, thats a 5 new one for me. I wasnt aware that you were specifically 6 looking at operator workarounds. Let me make sure I 7 understand that. | |||
8 When I think of an operator workaround, I think of 9 things that are embedded into procedures, things are 10 embedded into the culture of operating the system, 11 operational characteristics of a control room of a system, 12 as well as operational characteristics in the field; 13 things our operators are having to work around potentially 14 a design, not deficiency, but lack of optimal design. | |||
15 Are you looking at those kinds of things, scouring 16 through procedures, the workarounds? | |||
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yeah. The first 18 Operational Readiness Review that Randy chaired, he can 19 describe it in a little more detail, but it was designed to 20 flush out issues like you describe. | |||
21 MR. FAST: Jack, what we put 22 together in this process, 36 systems, as I recall, and five 23 other systems, like gear operated valves, motor operated 24 valves, breakers, things of that nature. We established 25 criteria. Had the system engineer come to review panel, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
59 1 which consists of myself, operations and engineering and 2 maintenance folks. And we were focused on the system 3 health. | |||
4 Brought into view then the performance of the system 5 in the past and its present health. We use criteria like 6 operator; we have a level one, level two, and level three 7 workaround, we track in our operations group. So, as an 8 individual would bring in a system, they would identify any 9 outstanding work orders on the system, modifications that 10 were pending for it, any operator workarounds that have 11 been established, procedures that needed to be revised or 12 written to support system health. | |||
13 And that board was really, Im going to say, an 14 advocacy to the system engineer in creating a form where 15 they could bring the issues to the table and get the 16 appropriate level of support to ensure that those items 17 would be complete. | |||
18 As we did those reviews, some of the legacy issues, 19 Ill call them legacy issues, system engineering; we said 20 if there were longstanding issues with problems of the 21 performance of the system, bring those forward with your 22 recommendations as well. | |||
23 And, Ill give an example. Im trying to be 24 specific. Something like the high pressure injection 25 motors. Been there since the life of the plant. Never MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
60 1 been taken out, sent out for complete overhaul and health 2 check. | |||
3 One of the engineers came forward and said, I would 4 like to talk about the health of the motors and where we 5 are and make proposals to send those out and have complete 6 inspections done. And, we subsequently agreed and are in 7 the process of taking those actions. | |||
8 So, right now as we speak, their HPI motor is being 9 rigged out of the building to be sent out for complete 10 remediation. | |||
11 There were other items, like items, diesel start 12 systems. System engineer said, heres one thats pending 13 modification. We need to put some emphasis on it. We 14 agreed. We applied the engineering resources, and that is 15 undergoing design, and that will be implemented as well. | |||
16 Those are the kinds of things that the Operational 17 Readiness Review did. | |||
18 MR. GROBE: Let me just ask a 19 little bit more, get into little more depth here. | |||
20 Something like a motor that hasnt had a 21 comprehensive amount of maintenance in 25 years, would that 22 be consistent with the vendor recommendations for that 23 motor? | |||
24 MR. FAST: The original 25 design of those motors for life of the plant was 40 years; MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
61 1 however, theyre not outside of their design basis, but 2 its just prudent maintenance activity to take those out 3 and do a health check on them. | |||
4 So, we were doing the vendor recommended 5 preventative maintenance. Those items that are required; 6 bearings, lubrications and such, were within their period, 7 but its the unknown, its the unknowns about that which 8 really require a teardown and review. | |||
9 So, they dont go through much of a duty cycle, but 10 it is just a prudent maintenance practice. This is above 11 and beyond what the vendor would recommend. | |||
12 MR. GROBE: Okay. Let me ask 13 a question, you just mentioned a couple specifics. This 14 diesel air start modification; was that something that was 15 a pending modification or was that something that had not 16 been requested? | |||
17 MR. FAST: That was a pending 18 modification, did not have implementation plan or target 19 date for at least in the near term. And that was an 20 example, we said were going to pull that forward and 21 complete that work. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, back to 23 the original question, which was operator workarounds. You 24 included in your Operational Readiness Reviews, operator 25 workarounds that had already been identified. Did you go MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
62 1 through a systematic review with, or was the intent of the 2 scope of this to find out review of the workarounds that 3 were latent? | |||
25 | 4 MR. FAST: That was not 5 really, the focus was on system health. If there were any 6 outstanding operating workarounds, those are tracked by the 7 system engineer. He knows hes got a level one or level 8 two workaround. | ||
9 Our Return to Service Plan included completion of 10 all the operator workaround activities. So, those came up 11 and when we said, so what are we doing about this level two 12 operator workaround, it might be that we needed to 13 implement a minor change to the design of the system. Then 14 we said, lets progress that, get the work order and get 15 that out. | |||
16 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you. | |||
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: Now, the next 18 level reviewed is System Readiness Review, were more 19 structured comprehensive. That would flush out more of the 20 items, Jack, I think you refer to, which are not tracked as 21 an operator workaround, but procedure aspect. | |||
22 In that review, we will review the close condition 23 reports for the last few years to see how we dealt with 24 problems. Closed maintenance work on a plant, on a system, 25 open and close modifications, operating experience. Its a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
63 1 more structured review and it goes through a panel to 2 independently assess the thoroughness of that review. | |||
4 | 3 In addition, on the next slide, weve added a new 4 program called the Latent Issues Review. This is a more 5 detailed look which gets beyond even the areas I just 6 discussed and goes into the System Health Plan design 7 perspective as well. | ||
8 This program has been used at our Beaver Valley 9 Station. Weve adopted this program and identified some 10 systems to go after first. And ones that you see here are 11 systems that we selected to put this thorough team review. | |||
12 Now, this type of review, very broad detailed 13 review, takes a team of people a couple weeks to perform. | |||
14 This review goes back and looks at the original design 15 basis, the emergency procedures, all kinds of industry 16 operating experience, any operability reviews that were 17 performed, problematic risk assessment; and a very detailed 18 look. | |||
19 We selected the Reactor Coolant System, Auxiliary 20 Feedwater System, Component Cooling Water System, Emergency 21 Diesel Generators and the Service Water Systems in these 22 reviews. | |||
23 And we have currently assembled teams. Weve put 24 together the guidance and structure for doing these 25 reviews, and the teams are starting reviews now. I believe MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
64 1 as of this week we have all the teams assembled. | |||
2 MR. GROBE: Before you go on, 3 Howard -- Im sorry. Go ahead, Dean. | |||
4 MR. DEAN: I was going to ask 5 you, do you intend to do these design reviews or latent 6 issue reviews in parallel or do maybe one or two and gain 7 any lessons learned and apply that to the other ones? | |||
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: We started on the 9 Aux. Feedwater System as kind of a pilot to see if there 10 was any process improvements that could be gained. Make 11 sure we got the right scope and expertise. | |||
12 So, we initiated that one. Did learn some things 13 from that, and modifying our process and using that. We 14 expected this new program would be continued to be used at 15 Davis-Besse. Its proven itself at Beaver Valley, and it 16 really does a good thorough job of examining the systems, 17 going back to the original design. | |||
18 So, we plan to continue this program. | |||
19 MR. MYERS: Let me comment on 20 that too. Neil Morrison is with us today. Neil was the 21 person that spear-headed our reviews at our Beaver Valley 22 Station for the past two or three years. How many years 23 now? | |||
24 MR. MORRISON: Two and a half 25 years. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
65 1 MR. MYERS: Two and a half 2 years. And so there is, hes got a lot of lessons learned 3 there, so this is not a new program for us. Were just 4 moving it to this plant. | |||
5 But if you look at where weve been spending our 6 money at other plants, a lot of our money has been spent on 7 a lot of things, finding these latent issue reviews. We 8 found significant ways to improve the quality of our 9 systems at our other plants. So, were really excited 10 about bringing this program to our plant. We think its 11 the additional margin for the plant. | |||
12 MR. GROBE: Howard. | |||
13 MR. BERGENDAHL: The output of 14 these reviews again goes through the engineering assurance 15 board to get an independent check on thoroughness and rigor 16 on the reviews of the systems. | |||
17 MR. GROBE: Ive got a couple 18 questions. Its an interesting list of systems that youre 19 doing the Latent Issues Review on. Reactor Coolant System 20 is clearly a focus of the shutdown of the plant; 21 recognizing that the head is part of the Reactor Coolant 22 System. | |||
23 Auxiliary Feedwater System, Component Cooling Water 24 Systems, Emergency Diesel Generators and Service Water 25 Systems are normally four of the five primary systems that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
66 1 Im familiar with that comprise almost the entire risk of 2 problems at the plant, but the fifth one is DC Power. Is 3 that a significant risk contributor at your plant? Im not 4 familiar with PRA. | |||
25 | 5 MR. POWERS: Its a good one. | ||
6 The fifth one is, Jack, the Diesel Center -- | |||
7 (Requested speaker to repeat.) | |||
8 MR. POWERS: Im sorry. DC is 9 part of the Reactor Coolant System, for instance, diesel 10 generators. The Aux. Feedwater System, Service Water and 11 Component Cooling Water Systems. | |||
12 MR. GROBE: Jim, my question 13 was, normally when you look at say 95 percent of the risk 14 contribution, it would come from those four systems plus DC 15 Power. And Im not that familiar with your risk analysis 16 for Davis-Besse Plant. Does DC Power play a significant 17 role in the risk contributions at Davis-Besse? | |||
18 MR. MYERS: I dont know if we 19 know the answer to that. | |||
20 MR. GROBE: I dont expect you 21 to know every answer to every question. | |||
22 MR. POWERS: No, I have an 23 answer for you. What weve done, is on the preceding 24 level, what we have learned to do on our System Health 25 Reviews, weve included the 1.50 DC Systems as part of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
67 1 that. Those are the main systems; there were 35 of them 2 that we are going to be going through, Jack. So, were 3 going to be looking at those in some level detail. | |||
4 We didnt select those for the deep cut, but we 5 think the deep cut in the five systems that weve listed 6 here is going to tell us generally how, what the health of 7 our systems are. | |||
8 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
9 MR. BERGENDAHL: The System Health 10 Review will identify further evaluations that are 11 required. We need to do a more thorough evaluation. | |||
12 These systems were selected, as you indicated, 13 important systems. A couple of them had system health 14 indicators, indicated that we had some issues with the 15 system in the past couple of years. And then we added a 16 couple that our indicators show very reliable performing as 17 well, but since they were high impact systems we added 18 those; and allows us to validate our monitoring programs. | |||
19 MR. MYERS: We still havent 20 answered that question; how does it affect PSA that you 21 want us to look at. Well give you an answer to that 22 shortly. | |||
23 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
24 MR. BERGENDAHL: Any other 25 questions on the system reviews? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
68 1 MR. GROBE: Any other 2 questions? | |||
3 MS. LIPA: Yeah, I have one 4 question. On the, in your plan dated July 12th, you talk 5 about that, through these reviews youre going to identify 6 conditions that need further evaluation that could impact 7 the function of a system. And it sounds like a subset 8 would be restart items. What criteria are you using to 9 decide what items become restart items? | |||
10 MR. BERGENDAHL: In our Return to 11 Service Plan, we laid out a process. Every condition, any 12 appliance we have will be documented on condition reports. | |||
13 These condition reports go through a station review board 14 that we would send to specifically evaluate all the 15 conditions against restart criteria. Technically, on the 16 restart action plans. Multi-field criteria. Safety. | |||
17 Importance of safety -- I dont have the criteria 18 memorized. I could get that for you, Christine. | |||
19 MS. LIPA: Okay. | |||
20 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its, actually we 21 met today and we drafted a procedure for our Return to 22 Service Plan in process -- Let me correct. Our Restart 23 Action Plan process. And that criteria is in the procedure 24 which we reviewed today. It will be used in that. | |||
25 MS. LIPA: Okay. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
69 1 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its also in the 2 chart for that station review board, clearly documented. | |||
3 MR. GROBE: Howard, have you, 4 follow-up on Christines question; have you done the 5 screenings through your restart criteria and if so, how 6 many have you determined, whats the population restart 7 items to date? | |||
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: The answer is yes, 9 weve started. Every day, any reviews that are going on 10 generating condition reports immediately upon 11 identification. Im not sure of the exact number. There 12 is probably four hundred some odd actions that have been 13 identified that we will get resolved prior to restart. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: I think in the 15 future meetings, Lew, one of the things we would want to 16 do, I know that youre developing some performance 17 indicators, I havent peeked ahead, so I dont know if 18 youre going to talk about that, but one of the things we 19 want to understand in some detail is flow rates of work; 20 whats coming in and whats going on out, and whats in the 21 business to be worked as far as restart items, and other 22 issues that might go into performance indicators that you 23 developed as far as your approach toward restart. | |||
24 And, I appreciate were still very early in this 25 process, but were going to need to start getting into MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
13 | 70 1 somewhat detail in that regard. So, at future meetings, we 2 would possibly get that sort of data and start looking at 3 detailed future work, backlog work, accomplishment of work, 4 things of that nature. | ||
5 MR. MYERS: What we can do, is 6 Clark is in the audience, hes a building block on our 7 restart action list and we can start putting him up there 8 to tackle that. | |||
9 MR. GROBE: Whatever you think 10 is necessary. | |||
11 MR. MYERS: Lets do that next 12 time. | |||
13 MR. GROBE: Okay. Did you 14 have a question? | |||
15 MR. MYERS: Clark, get 16 ready. | |||
17 MR. GROBE: I had one other 18 question regarding the Latent Issue Reviews. I understand 19 you used these at one of your other sites in the FENOC 20 system; really two questions. | |||
21 This type of activity has been done on a number of 22 plants, several on the east coast and midwest that Im 23 familiar with, but Im sure there is others also. Have you 24 tapped into the expertise of whats been occurring at other 25 plants to ensure the comprehensiveness of your Latent MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
15 | 71 1 Issues Review? | ||
2 MR. BERGENDAHL: Absolutely. The 3 D.C. Cook Plant, gone through some pretty good reviews and 4 weve visited that site, and we look for best practices 5 throughout the industry, and we have adopted lessons 6 learned from those. | |||
7 MR. GROBE: Okay. Can you 8 give me an idea of something that you might have learned 9 from your D.C. Cook evaluation that improved your Latent 10 Issues Review? | |||
11 MR. POWERS: As a matter of 12 fact, we are previewing not only the procedures D.C. Cook 13 used, also the people that have come over here and are 14 helping us now lay out the strategy. People experiencing 15 what was done at Cook, Millstone, Salem and are using the 16 composite of all that knowledge. | |||
17 What we learned most specifically, Jack, is the 18 level of detail to go into, we believe, that drive the 19 FENOC Latent Issues Program another step, higher standards 20 as part of this. Its gone quite well for us. And we have 21 used others, past several years, but we think this process 22 is going to go to a higher level of detail. So, we think 23 were on the right line. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: I think Cook is a 25 good place to go. A number of the people came from Salem, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
72 1 Christie River, Oak Creek; most of them that put that 2 program together. So, its kind of one-stop-shopping, so 3 to speak. | |||
4 MR. MYERS: It is dependent, 5 you know, on our steam generator -- on our head 6 replacement. We brought people in that just replaced steam 7 generators at the Cook Plant. We have some welders from 8 the, that were over in the -- | |||
9 (Requested speaker repeat.) | |||
10 MR. MYERS: We brought some 11 craft members. We brought some experienced people, people 12 welding rebar back on containment. So, were looking for 13 that kind of experience. | |||
14 Were using, its Cook is really good. There is 15 some other places you can gain valid experience too. Its 16 a little different for our case, like the steam generator 17 replacement. You have to cut a hole in the containment and 18 put that on, like were doing to install the reactor head. | |||
19 Its not something that they did at Cook. See what Im 20 saying? | |||
21 So, were trying to get the best everywhere, and are 22 applying some of that information thats necessary for our 23 operation. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Okay. I had one 25 other question on Latent Issues Reviews. I think I know MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
73 1 the answer to this question, but I want to make sure. | |||
2 This is something that was used to some level of 3 success at Beaver Valley and its going to be used at 4 Davis-Besse. Is this something thats going to become part 5 of, say, the culture of First Energy System? | |||
6 MR. BERGENDAHL: Absolutely. | |||
18 | 7 MR. GROBE: That youre going 8 to do this type of review at all the plants? | ||
9 MR. MYERS: The Latent Issues 10 Reviews. One of the operational officers, one of the 11 things I was going to do even if I was running one of the 12 bigger plants in the country would be to take a couple 13 systems a year, and look at them from this latent issues 14 effect, because to make sure that youre maintaining your 15 design, your documentation. Its a good process, and I 16 would use it at all of our plants. So, the answer to that 17 is yes. | |||
18 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you. | |||
19 MR. BERGENDAHL: Okay, the next two 20 slides are just some photographs of the work that Randy 21 indicated we initiated some work on the Decay Heat Pumps, 22 and the next slide is just some, bringing in many 23 additional resources, as Lew indicated, craftsmen from 24 around the midwest to help us with the work we have going 25 on at Davis-Besse; a lot of scaffolding to support the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
74 1 inspection of containment and work activities. | |||
2 So, we have a good work force out there and a lot of 3 good work. The items that we identify are being worked off 4 very well. | |||
5 Next area is Program Compliance Plan. And, this 6 also has two different, we call them phases. They actually 7 parallel. Doing a program readiness review, which is a 8 baseline of our plant programs, we will assess, based on 9 the root cause of reactor head problems. | |||
10 We identified some issues and standards and 11 ownership and oversight, and we set up some criteria to go 12 back and review our key programs on site, and assess them 13 against this criteria; present those results to our 14 independent review board; and really understand the overall 15 compliance and implementation of health of those programs; 16 to look at things like the qualifications of the 17 individuals involved, the interfaces, the individual 18 program owners have with the other groups. And again, then 19 present those to an outside independent oversight board. | |||
20 In addition, much like the Latent Issues Review, we 21 developed a phase two or detailed program review, and Lew 22 mentioned Neil Morrison would be working on the System 23 Latent Issue review. We asked Neil to come over to 24 Davis-Besse and apply that same rigor to programs. We 25 designed a program and wrote a procedure and were using MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
8 | 75 1 that procedure to do these detailed program reviews. | ||
2 Theyre in-depth systematic review of key programs. | |||
3 Now, the first programs were starting review on, 4 the next slide shows the implementation of this program. | |||
5 Starts off with using it on the, the programs that were 6 identified in our root cause and we have some issues. | |||
7 Each of the programs on this list when we did our 8 detailed root cause on the reactor head degradation, there 9 were some issues identified on each one of these systems. | |||
10 So, we selected these systems to initiate our new detailed 11 program and review on. | |||
12 Now, we started a pilot, we call Probabilistic 13 Safety Assessment Program. Since this had not been used at 14 any of our other facilities, it was new initiative. We 15 piloted it and thought Probabilistic Safety Assessment 16 Program to ensure the process was sound and our assumptions 17 and criteria were right. | |||
18 We completed that pilot review, and weve moved on 19 to the Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program, and scheduled 20 the rest of these programs all to be put through this 21 thorough review process prior to restart at Davis-Besse, 22 and then well continue much like the Latent Issues Review 23 to apply this problematic review to additional areas of the 24 site. | |||
25 Again, its a good thorough look at Davis-Besses MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
76 1 systems and programs. Its under way, its identifying 2 improvements, issues and were following off on these 3 issues as well. | |||
4 Any questions on our Program Compliance Plan? | |||
5 MR. DEAN: Howard, can you 6 share with us some of the insights you gained from the 7 pilot review that you referred to just a moment ago? | |||
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes, the pilot on 9 the PSA, I dont have any specifics, but what we did there, 10 is we took a program. The reviews are done by an, 11 independent team members, we bring in from the outside of 12 Davis-Besse. So, what we did with that, is pilot putting 13 together a plan, bringing in the outside members, 14 developing a report and presenting that report to the 15 review board. | |||
16 I dont know if you have any lessons learned, Jim? | |||
17 MR. POWERS: I think some of 18 the insights that we found, our pilot program, thats our 19 Probabilistic Safety Assessment, thats one of the 20 strengths that we have. I think at the Davis-Besse site 21 and I think youve seen that with interface with your PSA 22 Supervisor, Ken Berg. So, its an opportunity to look at 23 what is a fairly healthy program with good ownership. | |||
24 Now, what weve also found is weve been moving 25 forward with the Boric Acid Control Program and Corrective MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
17 | 77 1 Action Program; those are ongoing. Weve made substantial 2 progress in both of those. | ||
18 | 3 That Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program, weve got 4 a draft report, final review stages now. So, we can learn 5 from those areas more significant areas of improvement that 6 are required; ownership, corporate industry results; in the 7 case of Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program. | ||
8 In the Corrective Action Program, were looking very 9 specifically at, you know, detail regulation and how the 10 program matches the regulation and going through lining 11 those up one by one and every process, and there are areas 12 of improvement there. Youll be seeing those results 13 coming out of those. So, were finding areas in issues 14 that need improved. | |||
15 MR. DEAN: Are you 16 incorporating a new benchmarking relative to, for example, 17 best industry practices, for using info to give you? | |||
18 MR. POWERS: Yes. As a matter 19 of fact, thats a good point. Kind of a key element of 20 this. These reports as we do them are being provided to 21 INPO, and in some cases on the detailed reserve, INPO is 22 participating on the team. | |||
23 They are set up down in Atlanta to take our reports, 24 as we review all our programs and send them out to industry 25 experts at other sites that theyve identified where there MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
78 1 is good industry practices from benchmarking theyve 2 conducted, and well be getting feedback from those peer 3 sites to help us improve our standards. | |||
4 MR. MENDIOLA: Are these 5 benchmarking, these lessons learned, these program 6 improvements being reflected back to the other plants at 7 First Energy? | |||
8 MR. MYERS: Yes. | |||
9 MR. GROBE: I have a couple 10 thoughts, I guess, on System Health Assurance Plan. The 11 Operation Readiness Reviews, the scope of that activity 12 clearly was something that needed to be done following the 13 situation that occurred with the head. | |||
14 The System Readiness Reviews, I think some aspects 15 of that also were direct outgrows of the lessons that you 16 learned from the head situation. | |||
17 The Latent Issues Review clearly goes beyond the 18 depth of what would normally be expected, and Im glad to 19 see that youve taken these significant systems to do this 20 Latent Issues Review. I have confidence based on your 21 experience at Beaver Valley and the input that youre 22 getting from outside your organization that those reviews 23 should be of good scope. | |||
24 The programs area, likewise, I think the level 25 review reflects not only what happened during the head MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
79 1 corrosion event, but also some things that youre going 2 beyond the scope of what may have been directly indicated 3 from the initial findings of the head corrosion event. So, 4 I think that likewise is good. | |||
5 Were still in the phase of, in many of these areas 6 of inspecting all good plants. In a couple of areas, John 7 talked earlier about some inspection work that weve done 8 already on a nondestructive examination weve had. | |||
5 | 9 And Mel has done some early inspection work and 10 provided substantive feedback to you on the containment, 11 early containment health work, or extended issue work, I 12 guess it was called at that time. | ||
9 | 13 There will be substantive inspections that will be 14 coming as you get into these in greater detail, and start 15 completing some of this work. Well be taking a good hard 16 look at that, and also giving you feedback. | ||
17 Were going to be working closely with your staff 18 that are implementing these activities to make sure we 19 understand your schedule and what activities will be ready 20 for inspection. | |||
21 We dont plan on inspecting things before theyre 22 done. Were not part of your team. Were not supporting 23 the success of your program. We want to look at what 24 youve accomplished, and well achieve our confidence based 25 on the quality of work you do. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
80 1 Youve mentioned a number of occasions assessment 2 boards and review boards. Ive watched over the last 3 several weeks as things evolved, and youve got quite a 4 different character of outside influence on these review 5 boards, created more review boards, structured them. In a 6 future meeting, I would like to get some feedback from the 7 value added, a little bit more detail on the structure of 8 those boards, what their function is, what theyre 9 accomplishing, and also some feedback value added from 10 those boards. What theyre seeing. | |||
11 Because those boards will give you a direct 12 reflection of the quality of the work, not only that the 13 people are doing in the field, but also the folks that 14 review and approve that work. Because the boards shouldnt 15 see that work until its been through your review process, 16 you know, in your line organization. | |||
23 | 17 So, Im hoping to get some insight from that. | ||
18 Hopefully, that can be on the agenda for the next meeting. | |||
19 MR. MYERS: We can do that. | |||
20 MR. GROBE: Okay. Any other 21 comments on systems or programs? | |||
22 Lets move on. | |||
23 MR. MYERS: Before what you 24 commented, I think the programs review is something that 25 helps us understand that each one of our programs is a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
81 1 pretty significant list of programs out there that we have 2 best industry implementation, doing the industry 3 implementation. Its not the minimum criteria, its where 4 we have the margin. And that we have good ownership, and 5 finally that were implementing that program properly in 6 the field. | |||
7 So, thats really the structured process to go into 8 this whole latent issues process in and out. I note the 9 long term, I see that as an essential building block. | |||
10 The next area that we have to talk about is 11 Management and Human Performance Excellence Plan; and 12 particularly the Management Root Cause. I would like to 13 introduce that. | |||
14 Its hard, as folks say, to call your baby up. But, 15 in the last meeting, I indicated that management, 16 "Management ineffectively implemented processes, and thus 17 failed to detect and address plant problems as 18 opportunities arose"; especially in the forecast approach. | |||
21 | 19 There is four key areas of focus that were looking 20 at; Ownership, Oversight, Standards, and Decision-making. | ||
21 And, our Boron Program does not have good ownership at the 22 engineering level to insure that we were meeting the 23 standards in industry, and that the requirements in our 24 program were proper. | |||
25 The oversight groups in our management team were not MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
82 1 properly involved with that program to insure that we have 2 proper implementation. Were not out in the field looking 3 at what we were doing. | |||
5 | 4 When problems were found, we did not have a good 5 questioning attitude in this boric acid issue that lead to 6 the easy conclusions. It was easy to justify that no leaks 7 in the past were the cause of this boron buildup. It was 8 an easy conclusion. | ||
9 Our initial management reviews have come up with 10 some assessments that we can share, and thats that 11 standards have existed for many years at Black River in 12 problem solving. Our reviews are going back to the 1980s, 13 and have indicated this lack of problem solving at the 14 management level is something we have to work on. | |||
15 Another thing we can say now is when there has been 16 times at Davis-Besse Plant that we had strong management 17 leadership. In the 1980s and 1990s, the trend was to 18 properly identify problems and resolve them. So, that lack 19 of rigor was not evident and you saw improvements in the 20 performance. | |||
21 For example, I had a supervisor tell me today that 22 in the early 90s, Davis-Besse was setting the standards 23 that everybody else was coming to look at. Thats one of 24 those standards we need now. | |||
25 As industry hired many of our leaders at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 | 83 1 Davis-Besse Plant, replacements reduced strong daily 2 involvement that resulted in a lax attitude of fixing the 3 problems. Lets just get the problem fixed. And since you 4 have that lack of rigor in decision-making down below, the 5 problem came evident. | ||
6 Let me say this. The Davis-Besse Plant has operated 7 well for many years and its still in very, very good 8 material condition. As good as most plants in the 9 country. However, as new problems arose, without strong 10 upper level involvement, and the lax rigor, the 11 decision-making process appeared to be narrowly focused in 12 several cases that weve looked at. | |||
13 Our approach has been simple. We initially assessed 14 the root cause of the head degradation. What would cause 15 this problem? As we did that, we also looked at some 16 management issues. We did that because we had noted that 17 there was a time performance at our Davis-Besse Plant. So, 18 by going to the technical root cause, we could first give 19 us some time to make some of the overall structure changes 20 that we wanted to make. | |||
21 For example, we created the job Im in now, the 22 Chief Operating Officer, to provide additional plant 23 oversight of all three of our plants. | |||
24 We created a new position, an elevated position of 25 oversight and promoted Bill Pearce. We brought in Harry MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
84 1 Light, an executive from the Institute of Nuclear Power 2 Operations to be our Executive Officer of Engineering. We 3 need that time to make those strong implement changes. | |||
4 We brought in a new group of executives from the 5 industry to provide us as a management team with some 6 insight on the types of problems we might be encountering. | |||
7 And they gave us a tremendous amount of insight. Several 8 VPs from several top notch utilities came in. | |||
9 I was personally moved to the Davis-Besse Plant, so 10 we could ensure that we had plans and organization to 11 return Davis-Besse back to service in a safe and reliable 12 manner. And I plan to devote a significant amount of my 13 time until I feel confident that our performance would be 14 sustainable. | |||
15 I chartered the Root Cause Team to look at the 16 management issues. Steve Loehlein will now discuss with 17 you the methodology weve gone through. | |||
18 MR. LOEHLEIN: Thank you, Lew. | |||
19 Lew mentioned to you the AITs report and our own 20 technical cause report talked about degradation of the head 21 over the years. What were doing now, is caused now, is 22 looking at the why; why this happened over a period of 23 years, that this was not identified and dealt with. | |||
24 I would like to say first to you, Jack, this team 25 that we have working on this particular issue really MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
85 1 understands how important the answer to this problem 2 statement is, because we know we can assure that the right 3 solutions are pursued so the plant will be able to sustain 4 safe performance. | |||
5 Now, Lew mentioned earlier some of the assessments 6 have already been done by various industry leaders. And 7 they do provide a lot of understanding to many of the 8 performance shortcomings. What were really doing in this 9 process is assuring that were digging down. | |||
10 Our objective is to compliment the effort that has 11 been taken on so far by applying the rigorous root cause 12 analysis technique, and that will ensure that theyre more 13 subtle nonetheless very important causes for this upcoming 14 overall project. | |||
15 Next slide. | |||
16 We have our Root Cause Team in the front row. I 17 would like to ask them to stand. Its a group, Ill tell 18 you who they are. We have from our Perry Plant, we have 19 Mario Destafano and Bill Babiak. In our Quality Assurance 20 Organization there, we have Bill Mugge, Bobby Vallines and 21 Joe Sturdavant, who are all Davis-Besse men. | |||
22 We have a couple of experts from Conger and Elsea, 23 Lesley Wildfong and Dick Smith. Now Conger and Elsea is 24 the company that developed the Root Cause Analysis 25 Technique that were using to develop about 20 years ago. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
86 1 Its been used on a lot of very significant investigations, 2 including the challenge. | |||
3 Final member we have here is Doctor Spyros 4 Traiforos, who was with us for many months also. We use 5 his analysis technique. | |||
6 Now, the team -- oh, Im sorry, I missed my own, my 7 comrade from Beaver Valley is Randy Rossomme. You forget 8 our own. Randy is from Beaver Valley in our Quality 9 Assurance. | |||
10 And myself, Im also with Beaver Valley. I was 11 Technical Lead. My title at Beaver Valley is Principal 12 Nuclear Consultant. | |||
13 MR. GROBE: Steve, if you 14 could get those names to our stenographer, Im sure that 15 would help her. | |||
16 MR. LOEHLEIN: Im sure they can, 17 some of those arent easy to spell. | |||
18 Its a balanced team. What were looking for, a 19 continuity for Technical Root Cause, which is one of the 20 main reasons Im on the team. We have process expertise 21 from outside consultants. We brought in the objectivity of 22 off-site personnel. | |||
23 Then, we wanted to make sure we included the 24 ownership factor of on-site personnel. There are people 25 that need to be a part of this team, carry the message MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
5 | 87 1 forward to the rest of the team, if you want quality by 2 example. People that really know firsthand, understand 3 what we found, what it means to the organization. More or 4 less be disciples to the rest of the organization. | ||
5 Now, not members of the team, but also helping us 6 are some oversight folks for us. We had Tony Maschari, who 7 has worked with nuclear power, excellent in human 8 performance. Hes not been down to the site. I believe he 9 plans to be down sometime in the future. | |||
10 Leonard Rone, an organizational effectiveness expert 11 that met last week with us, and hes providing us with 12 insights as well. | |||
13 Next slide. | |||
14 We have a few photos here. We dont have all the 15 team members in the upper photo, what we have in the room 16 at this time. Here you see us working on a discussion 17 topic. Thats Lesley standing there, Im sure making a 18 point about the process. | |||
19 This is approach. Again, Lew mentioned earlier the 20 Technical Root Cause results. The Technical Root Cause 21 pointed us in a couple of specific directions. One is the 22 errors in the decision-making occurred over a lengthy 23 period. We saw that there were opportunities to do various 24 things over about ten years that were missed. And that has 25 caused us to recognize that the timeline is also therefore MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
10 | 88 1 lengthening that we need to consider. | ||
2 The other thing that was important on a Technical 3 Root Cause was we had other plant indications that have 4 allowed earlier detection on a problem. These were not 5 properly understood or acted upon. | |||
6 So, from those key understandings were 7 investigating four major areas. One is the head itself. | |||
8 Focus there to why wasnt the significance of the boric 9 acid buildup on the head recognized. | |||
10 The next item there is pressurizer spray valve. | |||
11 For any of you that read the Technical Root Cause 12 Investigation, there was an issue with boric acid pressure, 13 on the pressurizer spray valve in 1998 for which the plant 14 took a number of significant actions to try to gain 15 an understanding of the site focus, and guard for boric 16 acid. Yet somehow the effectiveness of the actions taken 17 there were not accurate to ensure that we identified the 18 problem on the head in the 2000 time frame. | |||
19 We wish we had an opportunity at the time we were 20 reviewing that to regard that as significant issue to look 21 into. | |||
22 The third one is the condition of the Containment 23 Air Coolers. The question asked was why wasnt the 24 significance of the increasing frequency and cleaning of 25 these coolers recognized. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
89 1 And the last major one listed there is similar. | |||
2 Its the Radiation Monitor Filters, also the Technical Root 3 Cause of the monitors filters for them, were developing 4 clogging, boric acid, iron oxide; and why wasnt the 5 significance of that, that happening recognized. | |||
6 Next slide, please. | |||
7 Were using an in-depth approach on this, does take 8 some time, developing event and causal factors chart, and 9 well see a piece of that on the overhead here. Were also 10 using a hazard barrier target analysis technique in 11 conjunction with that. | |||
12 The analysis process that were using is referred to 13 as MORT. It stands for Management Oversight and Risk Tree 14 Technique. That has a number of sections; one on the right 15 side of the tree analysis chart thats designated as 16 Management Time Issues. | |||
17 Weve identified five key sections of that MORT 18 style analysis that we think are relevant here. One is 19 Technical Information Systems that are listed there. One, 20 Ill speak to for this. | |||
21 I know the NRC, many of you are probably familiar at 22 NRC, used MORT yourself quite often over the years, many of 23 your trainings referring to it. But for those of you who 24 are unfamiliar with it, if I were to pick one of these out, 25 so management support oversight people understand why this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
90 1 tree concept works. | |||
2 If you look at managements role, this process 3 per se, management has three primary branches in our 4 obligations. One is to set policy or establish standards. | |||
5 The next would be their responsibility to implement those 6 standards. And then the third major branch would be the 7 concept of managing risks. | |||
8 Now, if you took that concept of managing risks and 9 looked at its branches, and set three branches to that, 10 would be information systems. How does management get 11 information it needs to understand what the risks are. | |||
12 Then there is a process that evaluates called hazard 13 analysis. Now, thats the process you have in place to 14 make sure whatever happens out there youre evaluating 15 correctly, so it can be understood. | |||
16 And the third branch to that particular process is 17 program monitoring, that the programs you have in place 18 inform you and analyze the risks are effective in doing 19 that for you. | |||
20 So, its a very detailed analysis technique, which 21 is designed to see exactly where in these processes the 22 errors occur. As we get down through the conclusions of 23 them, well develop recommendations for consideration. | |||
24 Next slide. | |||
25 I cant see it very well, but from the copy I have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
91 1 here, that upper left-hand photo shows really the cause 2 factors chart going down the lefthand side. What it shows 3 there is the information we collected for 1997 up to the 4 present. | |||
5 We do have data points that go all the way back to 6 the early 80s, but thats because thats when the first 7 industry information came out regarding boric acid and how 8 it may affect the fasteners. So, we dont have a lot of 9 data that far back, but were being thorough in going down 10 all the trails in relating to these issues and sections 11 that were investigating. | |||
3 | 12 So far, we have information from 69 interviews, and 13 well over 300 documents that are supplying the information 14 for this. The second photo shows, giving us a little tour 15 of the work chart. | ||
16 Next slide. | |||
17 As Lew mentioned earlier, we have from the 18 information we have, the understanding we have been able to 19 work with, at least, weve talked to Lew about other 20 management team, these management attributes, management 21 oversight-type things, been at the site. I pointed out a 22 lot of things, but weve also seen management attribute 23 factors that represent things that the site can work on in 24 terms of prebaseline proper standards and staff. And these 25 are the insights we have clearly from our data. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
19 | |||
22 | |||
3 | 92 1 As we mentioned earlier, we have had standards and 2 for years have lacked rigor. That strong management and 3 leadership has been able to have the right things happen, 4 and performance of the plant has been good in those 5 periods. There has been lack of management oversight that 6 resulted in lax rigor in process implementation, and the 7 questioning attitude in some cases is not evident as well. | ||
8 So, the actual work analysis is continuing. Its 9 pretty short timeframe, but were working right along. I 10 cant take too long on getting certain things done. It 11 doesnt work that way, but for now these are our insights. | |||
12 Lew, Ill go back to you. | |||
13 MR. MYERS: Thank you. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: Before we go on, 15 we have a few questions. | |||
16 Christine. | |||
17 MS. LIPA: An obvious 18 question, and Im sure there is no answer yet, you know, 19 the timeline for when youre going to start putting some 20 actions into place, because that will be important that we 21 decide how to do our inspections on those various tasks. | |||
22 Whats your estimate at this point? | |||
23 MR. LOEHLEIN: What were doing 24 right now, thats why were working so close with Lew. So 25 much what were doing now is, represents what we call MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
93 1 baseline proper standards, plus information out there on 2 the performance, can be measured as seen by, in forming 3 plans. | |||
15 | 4 We need to do these conclusions and see what sort of 5 adjustments we have to make to those plans for any other 6 results we may conclude. | ||
7 MR. MYERS: I think the report 8 will be this month. | |||
9 MR. LOEHLEIN: Were expecting 10 it. Again, root cause, iron clad prediction on when were 11 to be done, but were expecting to be done with our 12 analysis and conclusions at the end of the month, and 13 thats where we are. | |||
14 MS. LIPA: You plan to submit 15 that to us? | |||
16 MR. MYERS: Yes. | |||
17 MR. DEAN: Lew, this 18 question is not for you, but Steve. Clearly, you can take 19 some preliminary insights, and Im sure they jive pretty 20 well, you know, even with what we do; conclusions you come 21 to just by seeing what transpired and how you get where 22 youve got. | |||
23 Are there actions being taken now in terms of 24 rebaseline proper standards, but the things that we talked 25 about earlier, your revamped management team in terms of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
94 1 driving those sort of standards and expectations down? | |||
2 MR. MYERS: Yes, they are. | |||
3 Im going to talk about some of those in closing remarks. | |||
4 As you said, weve made management changes, restructured 5 some, brought in people already, created some additional 6 oversight and a few positions; myself and Gary, and Bill 7 Pearce. So, we are taking actions as we move forward. | |||
8 Were very conscious about the actions were taking not 9 being negative actions, you know. So, yes. | |||
10 MR. GROBE: I have to say, Im 11 still frustrated in this area. I have a great deal of 12 confidence that once you apply yourselves, the technical 13 problems and the systems area and reactor head and 14 containment setup condition and all those things, that you 15 can do that work well, but safe restart, and more 16 importantly, safe operations after restart on a continuing 17 basis, is key in this area. | |||
18 And, these preliminary insights, while I know that 19 you have more data to support them, these insights today, 20 we could have probably sat down a week after the discovery 21 of the cavity and come up with these issues. | |||
22 And like I said, Steve, I know you have a lot more 23 data to support these issues and will be developing further 24 insights, but this is the key in my mind, to long term 25 improvement of the plant. And its also the key to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
95 1 restart, along with all of the mechanical processes that 2 youre going through the systems. | |||
3 Christine asked a question, and maybe Im just 4 asking the same question again. When are we going to have 5 a clear understanding of specific actions; what your 6 expectations are as a result of those actions, what your, 7 how youre going to measure progress in those areas, what 8 performance indicators youre going to use on how 9 performance in these areas are changing? | |||
10 Before you answer that, let me just add one more, 11 one more thought. Some of these issues deal with 12 management, some of them deal with staff. Clearly, youve 13 made a substantial change in your leadership team, your 14 senior leadership team, but day in and day out every 15 individual in the plant has to be a leader for excellence. | |||
16 And, the first level of oversight doesnt come from 17 management. It comes from first line supervisor, 18 maintenance foreman, the field operator is overseeing 19 implementation work by other operators. I dont see 20 anything in here regarding that level. Could you speak to 21 those issues a little bit? | |||
22 MR. MYERS: Yes. Let me go 23 through my closing remarks a little bit. I think that will 24 answer these questions. | |||
25 I think weve demonstrated today that our Building MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
96 1 Blocks have moved from the planning, discovery and into the 2 implementation phase in many areas. Okay. | |||
17 | 3 We have taken strong actions to incorporate the 4 comments from our Restart Overview Panel, the meetings we 5 have had with the NRC and the comments weve heard since 6 the last meeting. | ||
7 We are taking management actions that are 8 substantial and demonstrative. | |||
9 Let me explain that. As I said, we created a new 10 position of Chief Operating Officer, so that we would have 11 more day-in day-out involvement in making sure standards 12 between our staffs are fine. | |||
13 Let me give you an example. At our other two 14 plants, were running the same process in corrective 15 action. And when we ask for operability determination, 16 inoperability determination; at Davis-Besse it was 17 inoperability justification. | |||
18 That minor difference sent the wrong message. We 19 created the executive, the position of Executive Vice 20 President in Gary Leidich. And then we created VP of 21 Oversight. Those were all pretty substantial changes at 22 the senior level. New senior management team, and a strong 23 management team is now present with, every day at our 24 Davis-Besse Plant with proven leadership. And weve 25 clearly shown that, when we have the strong leadership at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
97 1 the plant thats involved with everyday activities, that 2 the performance of the plant is efficient. | |||
3 Weve brought Mike Ross in, just at the end of the 4 table, to focus on the operations area. Weve already 5 chartered mine. We evaluate attributes of every operator 6 at our station, until we have the right attributes for each 7 position; from nonlicensed operator, to the licensed 8 operator, to the, to the control advisors, hes charting 9 that activity. | |||
10 Were providing a case study with all of our 11 employees that sets expectation that change of ownership 12 and standards need to be made. Were sitting down with 13 your boards and spending a lot of time in that effort. We 14 will be going back and evaluating each of our employees to 15 our standards. Were rebaselining our standards; do we 16 have the right standards. | |||
17 Ive seen some cases where I thought some of the 18 leadership action standards, if you will, that weve had in 19 place, have deteriorated. Were going to rebaseline those 20 standards. And they will clearly learn, monitor and 21 reinforce those standards at supervisor and manager 22 levels to make sure they understand and they can comply. | |||
23 Its that simple. | |||
24 Weve created a new engineering standards of 25 excellence already. That will be a model for each of our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
98 1 groups. We created a new Engineering Assessment Board. We 2 intend to use that board, its in their charter to provide 3 you the input you need to know about the quality of the 4 work. And, well continue to do that in other areas. | |||
5 The Plant Manager, Randy Fast, is now chairing our 6 Corrective Action Review Board. In my mind, this is the 7 most important program at our plant. And I intend to have 8 Randy provide me detailed performance indicators on the, on 9 the thoroughness of corrective action from that board. | |||
10 How many comments do they have to make for our 11 standards and how many outages have they checked. But 12 Randy is going to charter that board. Thats not short 13 term. I consider that permanent. | |||
14 The new operations of leadership to ensure the plant 15 operational focus is absolutely necessary. It was missing 16 in this, this whole issue over the years. It was ours. | |||
17 And if you look, we brought in Mike Ross, and we chartered 18 him to provide us indications that we have the right 19 performance modeling tools in assessing the office of the 20 organization. Thats his charge. | |||
21 We need, have to build teamwork between our 22 managers, supervisors, and line workers. If we cant get 23 that done, then we probably wont be ready to restart; not 24 ever for restart. So, we have to be all on the same page. | |||
25 At our next meetings, we intend to provide you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
99 1 performance indicators on how each one of these actions are 2 taking place. Whats the effects. What are we seeing from 3 the Corrective Action Program, Engineering Assessment 4 Board, and what are we seeing out of the Oversight Review 5 Boards that we put in place, some on a temporary basis. | |||
6 But we consider Engineering Overview Board a 7 permanent fixture. I dont see those ever going away. Who 8 continue to be committed to comprehensive approach to 9 ensure the Davis-Besse Plant is safe and reliable, and once 10 again, we will make sure that we will have sustainable 11 performance. We want to let you know that. | |||
12 Thats what I have to say. | |||
13 MR. GROBE: Okay. Any 14 questions? | |||
15 Okay. Before we go on to the next session of the 16 agenda, which is discussing the framework for restart 17 checklist, I think its appropriate for a couple comments 18 right now. | |||
19 This has been a very comprehensive presentation on 20 the status of a variety of activities. I think over the 21 past month weve seen a substantive change in the focus and 22 scope on a number of the activities. And thats been the 23 result of your assessments of what youre doing and how 24 youre going to accomplish it. Its been the result of 25 some input from our staff, as well as some input from MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
19 | 100 1 outside influences. And, I think thats very healthy. | ||
2 The area as I mentioned a moment ago; many of these 3 activities in the management performance area were clearly 4 future tense activities. Im eager to get into some more 5 detail in this area, to understand specifics of what these 6 activities look like, how you measuring them, what your 7 expected outcomes are on specific activities, and what your 8 personal restart criteria are going to be in these areas. | |||
9 And, I think this is very important. | |||
10 At this time, John? | |||
11 Hes good. Lets move on. | |||
12 I wanted to provide framework, clearly comprehensive 13 framework for the NRC Restart Checklist. Obviously, youve 14 got your, one of your Building Blocks here at your restart 15 plan, specific criteria for whatever items that need to be 16 resolved from restart, whatever items that possibly can be 17 deferred until restart. I suspect before youre done, you 18 already have a, many hundreds of items identified that 19 youre going to screen, and probably several hundreds that 20 youve probably already identified that are a result of 21 restart. | |||
22 Our research in this has to be much simpler. And 23 its going to have a framework that covers a number of 24 areas. Obviously, we have to see root cause, is very 25 important. The adequacy of structured systems and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
101 1 components hardware in the plant. Weve added some 2 programs. | |||
21 | 3 This is, our restart checklist is to a large extent 4 going to mirror your restart plan. Adequacy of 5 organizational effectiveness in performance. | ||
6 As I mentioned a few moments ago. I personally 7 strongly believe that the first line supervisor is the key 8 to the long term exceptional performance. And this is 9 written a little bit different than what yours is, 10 management effective. Weve structured this more I think 11 broadly organizational factors. And, sub items were going 12 to get into in a little detail. | |||
13 Readiness for restart, what were going to be 14 looking at in several areas, both the hardware as well as 15 the people, and licensing issues. And, as this restart 16 checklist involves, and Im going to talk about a couple of 17 these sections in more detail; Christine is going to talk 18 about one or two; Bill is going to be talking about one of 19 the sections. | |||
20 But as the checklist gets formulated, and is issued 21 by the NRC, its important that we have a clear 22 understanding of the specific items. And I think as youve 23 gone through your structuring and restart plan, you can 24 find a very close alignment. We can provide you with a lot 25 of feedback. And I think its going to naturally meld MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
102 1 together, because the issues that are important to us, 2 weve been identifying the issues that youve identified or 3 reports have been good. | |||
4 So, I expect there will be a clear alignment. One 5 of the purposes of publishing the restart checklist. There 6 is actually two purposes. One is a very clear 7 communication between us of what the expectations are. I 8 would say minimum expectations on prior to restart. We 9 would like to go far beyond these specific activities in a 10 number of areas. And secondly, to clearly indicate to the 11 public what the NRC expectations are prior to restart. | |||
12 Let me talk a little about bit root cause. Weve 13 received documents from you regarding what Ill call 14 technical recalls. And Steve, you mentioned that earlier. | |||
10 | 15 It was called something different. I think it was actually 16 called root cause analysis, but didnt go into the level of 17 detail that Steves team is using today, more to his 18 industry recognized processes at this point, which many of 19 our staff do. | ||
20 Its very solid approach to identifying all the 21 organizational factors in the problem, so Im certainly 22 looking forward to that. The technical response is 23 specifically focused in two areas, thats cracking, 24 penetration, corrosion, what caused that, what contributed 25 to it. That was presented, I believe, on May 7th at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
23 | |||
4 | 103 1 headquarters, public meeting to the NRC staff and other 2 folks. I think thats very well understood and we were 3 completing our evaluation of that part of the root cause 4 and that would be published and when we complete our 5 review, we will provide that to you. | ||
5 | 6 The second area of the reconnaissance, what I refer 7 to as the software side, thats the organizational 8 programmatic and people, and obviously, you havent had 9 your review yet, so we havent performed our formal review 10 of the facility; and well be doing that. | ||
11 Christine, I think, has some scope of the advocates 12 of the systems out, to go over there. | |||
13 MS. LIPA: Sure, let me just 14 talk a little bit in general about the checklist we have. | |||
15 I dont know if you guys got a copy of it. It was in our 16 handouts and we cant see the projector. | |||
17 But this is, were calling this a framework for the 18 checklist. This is not the checklist. And the panel is 19 working to develop the checklist based on some of the 20 things Jack referred to in root cause, AIT Inspection 21 results and other items. | |||
22 Then, once the checklist is developed and approved 23 by the panel, it would be reviewed and approved by agents 24 and management. So, this is the framework for today. | |||
25 Well get you a handout. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
104 1 The first item that I have on here, 2 A, is the 2 Reactor Pressure Vessel Head Replacement. John gave you 3 some details earlier on some of the inspections that have 4 already been started. The inspections will continue. | |||
12 | 5 The second item is Containment Vessel Restoration 6 Following The RPV Head Replacement and obviously opening 7 the containment and reclosing and testing as part of that 8 inspection that well be doing. | ||
9 The third one are Structures, Systems and Components 10 Inside Containment; and its really similar to the 11 presentation you gave earlier. The things that were 12 interested in are some of the things youre interested in. | |||
13 What damage might have been done to various components 14 within the containment head as a result of the boric acid. | |||
15 That includes equipment, electrical equipment, 16 mechanical equipment, environmental qualification for some 17 of that equipment, the containment air coolers and the 18 radiation monitors. Well also be taking look at the 19 monitor plan on the sump and fibrous insulation issue. | |||
20 And then the final supplement in this area, our 21 Systems Outside Containment. Specifically systems that 22 contain borated water and also some of your important 23 systems determined by your managerial criteria. | |||
24 Thats how we intend to approach this area. | |||
25 Jack? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
105 1 MR. GROBE: I just wanted to 2 comment. These are broad categories. When we describe as 3 framework; specific inspection, the scope of inspection in 4 each of these areas will be different. They will be 5 dependent upon the root causes of what resulted in the head 6 degradation issue at Davis-Besse. | |||
7 The reason we havent presented this checklist 8 earlier is that I didnt want to be in a position to find 9 what was necessary. Youve been working through a number 10 of these areas. Youve evolved over the last month, month 11 and a half, and I want to be sure there was, you had a 12 clear vision of what you thought was important. | |||
13 Weve provided feedback already in a number of these 14 areas. Also done a variety of inspection activities; Mel 15 Holmberg on the structure systems and components; John and, 16 Don Jones have done a number of inspections regarding 17 vessel head replacement in the area, nondestructive 18 examination; and weve already laid out the inspection plan 19 for the, what were planning on looking at with respect to 20 the, the code records for the necessary vessel head. | |||
21 Shortly after we finalized this checklist, which I 22 expect in the next week or two, well be finalizing our 23 inspection plans, and get that schedule to you as well as 24 some detail on the scope of the inspection. | |||
25 Schedule obviously is dictated by you. We cant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
106 1 inspect anything until youve completed work. And, we may 2 be able to do some, or some inspections have to be done in 3 process. For example, nondestructive examination 4 inspection had to be done in process and thats already 5 been completed. | |||
6 So, as we begin to develop the inspection scopes at 7 least, we will be clearly communicating that to you. The 8 leaders in each of these areas will be working closely with 9 your staff. I understand your schedule and my staffs, 10 watch the progress in those areas and be able to step in 11 and do our inspection at the appropriate times. | |||
12 I think Bill was next going to talk about 13 problematic areas. | |||
14 MR. DEAN: Very briefly. I 15 think it would probably seem a pretty good matchup here in 16 terms of programs that were interested in looking at are 17 relative to the ones that you identified yourself here 18 today. Clearly, the basis of looking at these is that we 19 need to assure ourselves that the Licensee are assessing 20 your programs and they are in a self-critical manner; and 21 putting in place effective corrective actions which would 22 ensure those programs are effective in the future. | |||
23 You will participate in assessment of the accuracy 24 of some of the programs. The one there that is a bit of a 25 delta is items received as audit and self-assessment MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
107 1 programs. And our intent there is that, we believe that we 2 can look at organizationally how do you put in place, say, 3 a process by which you have independent and organization 4 itself critical process, and that the results that emanated 5 from that process are treated appropriately. | |||
6 So, thats one thats a bit of a delta that you have 7 to provide us here today. | |||
8 MR. GROBE: Thanks. I think 9 thats a real good point. We view corrective action 10 program, an operating experience program, a self-assessment 11 program as really part of the corrective action program; 12 and, to be completely effective, it requires a number of 13 components, and weve separated that out in our checklist. | |||
14 Youre taking actions in all of these areas. Its 15 just that you havent specifically defined in your 16 programmatic reviews things quite the same way as we have 17 here. | |||
18 I was going to talk a little bit about 19 organizational effectiveness. This is the area you 20 probably wont get a lot of specificity from our checklist 21 at this point, but there are no NRC requirements in this 22 area. The organizational effectiveness and human 23 performance are actually critical safe operations. The 24 detailed look at this is going to be driven by, to a large 25 extent, by what you choose to do in this area. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
5 | 108 1 The results of this activity, of your effectiveness 2 in this area would be directly reflected in all of the 3 other inspections. And, organizational effectiveness, 4 human performance, will be measured by your performance in 5 all these other areas. | ||
6 | 6 So, I will be closely monitoring activities, as well 7 as the outcomes of those, as the organization performs 8 during its approach to the restart. | ||
9 The next area is Readiness for Restart, and I would 10 expect that the Systems Readiness for Restart is different 11 than your System Reviews. Thats more akin to what you may 12 call a checklist. Its part of the systems in an 13 operational configuration for operations. | |||
13 | 14 Operations Readiness for Restart is an operational 15 organization of people. Operations, are they ready to make 16 the transition from shutdown plant to operating plant. And 17 obviously, test program, a number of activities that are 18 going to be accomplished both prior to restart as well as 19 during restart process, accomplish testing. | ||
20 So, those are the three focus areas or the framework 21 for the restart. | |||
22 Im going to ask Doug Pickett to talk a little about 23 the licensing issues, and Ill wrap it up. | |||
24 Doug. | |||
25 MR. PICKETT: Okay, regarding the new MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
109 1 reactor vessel head, there is a number of licensing 2 issues. This is where we require approval prior to 3 restart. And all the issues under item 6 are basically 4 documentation issues of paperwork, if you will. They 5 shouldnt require any modifications or plant repairs. | |||
6 The first four items are basically requests from the 7 NRC code. The next are the spec requirements, and they 8 allow us -- | |||
9 (Requested speaker to repeat) 10 MR. PICKETT: The regulations 11 allow the staff to accept alternatives to the ASME Code, 12 providing the staff is convinced there is an equivalent 13 level of safety. Staff makes at times findings on all 14 plants. | |||
15 The item 6e, is documentation of the reconciliation 16 between ASME Code, the new Midland Reactor Pressure Vessel 17 Head. | |||
18 And the final item is additional documentation 19 provided on Verification of Technical Specification 20 Pressure/Temperature Curves for New Vesssel Head. | |||
21 And, your staff is aware of these issues, and its 22 my understanding that youre preparing letters for the 23 staffs review, and we should see those shortly. | |||
24 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thats 25 correct. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
110 1 MR. GROBE: Okay. | |||
2 Thanks, Doug. | |||
3 I believe that -- well, all of these areas are 4 fluid. Were going to shortly tie down what we believe to 5 be the restart checklist in the NRC perspective. | |||
6 As Christine mentioned a few moments ago, once the 7 panel finalizes what it thinks should be on the restart 8 checklist, that will be by Jim Dyer, Regional Administrator 9 in Region 3 in Chicago, as well as Sam Collins, the 10 Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations. | |||
11 And, not until they approve it will we issue it to you and 12 to the public. | |||
13 I wanted to go into some detail today just to give 14 you a scope and framework for what were looking at from 15 the restart checklist perspective. | |||
16 One area that may have the most validity is the 17 Licensing Issues Resolution. There may be other activities 18 that come up that require either substantial safety 19 regulations, or licensing actions as you go through all 20 your system reviews. And certainly licensing actions are 21 something we would have to take a significant safety 22 evaluation, and complex safety evaluations, wed likely 23 take a look at also. | |||
24 So, that area is going to be somewhat fluid as 25 things evolve over the last couple of months. The other MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
10 | 111 1 areas likewise can also have issues added to them. It 2 depends on the significance of the issue. Were going to 3 be identifying a lot of things. I wouldnt expect many of 4 them to appear on this checklist, but if its something of 5 particularly significance, the checklist would be updated 6 and they would be added to the checklist. | ||
11 | 7 This is the first time Ive shown this to you. I 8 wanted to get it out on the table and make sure you had a 9 clear understanding and respond to any questions you may 10 have regarding this framework. | ||
11 Any questions from your side? | |||
12 MR. BERGENDAHL: Give an example, 13 like something that is systems outside containment. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: Sure. The one 15 specific issue, again restart checklist should be driven 16 from issues that result in the shutdown. So, clearly 17 systems containing boric acid. Water has boric acid in 18 it. I want you to focus for those constant factors. | |||
19 But in addition, many of these areas; the 20 organizational effectiveness on human performance 21 characteristics that were, that resulted in head 22 degradation, may have resulted in other system 23 degradation. And so, were going to have to see in that 24 area also. | |||
25 I cant give you scope of the inspection at this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
112 1 point, but I can tell you that we would be scanning a 2 variety of the work that youre doing in the area of your 3 system reviews, as well as some independent work. Areas 4 that you may not have done to benchmark the quality of work 5 that you have completed. | |||
6 So, does that help out? | |||
7 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yeah, I understand 8 that. | |||
9 MR. GROBE: Other questions? | |||
10 Okay. Very good. | |||
11 Lew, do you have any concluding remarks before we 12 finish the business portion of the meeting? | |||
13 MR. MYERS: Well, I thought 14 this was a productive meeting. I think we accomplished our 15 desired items. What I heard was next time we will have 16 Bill Pearce here to talk about oversight; Clark Ross will 17 give us performance indicators and work off curves and what 18 were doing and what were identifying, have that at the 19 next meeting. And finally, on a management issue, focus on 20 the actions were going to take and how were going to, the 21 amount of the effectiveness of the actions. Okay? | |||
22 MR. GROBE: Sure. | |||
23 MR. MYERS: Okay. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Let me add one or 25 two things to that, just to make sure you have a complete MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
113 1 list. | |||
2 MR. MYERS: Okay. | |||
6 | 3 MR. GROBE: I think we talked 4 about the oversight boards. And, did you mention that, 5 value, theyre adding what their function is? | ||
6 MR. MYERS: Right. | |||
7 MR. GROBE: And also, I would 8 like to hear specifically about some of the more 9 substantive issues that your activities have identified. | |||
10 So, thats more of a specific finding focus discussion. | |||
11 So, not only the performance indicators, or how many things 12 that youre finding and how many things youre working on, 13 that sort of thing, but also some specifics on more 14 specific issues. | |||
15 And, as we go through and inspect those activities, 16 well also be presenting these meetings on special 17 findings. So, well be discussing results of our 18 inspections. | |||
19 So, I think thats kind of a healthy going-forward 20 spectrum for these meetings. Performance indicators, work 21 progress, specific findings that you have, value added 22 oversight boards, value added from Bill Pearces staff and 23 oversight, and then well give you our feedback as we have 24 from the results of our inspections. | |||
25 MR. MYERS: You know, I think MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
15 | |||
114 1 if you look at the event, and we had our first meeting, 2 this is our third; I think we made good progress for the 3 last meeting, and this meeting I think, I believe weve 4 moved into implementation, and now were going to go into 5 really good monitoring of some of these things were 6 talking about. Well be ready to do that the next time. I 7 dont see any problem. | |||
8 MR. GROBE: Just a final 9 thought. Ive, over the last couple of months, Ive seen 10 an evolution in your approach towards this project. | |||
11 Clearly, what youve articulated here today is a more 12 comprehensive and more thorough evaluation than what might 13 be the minimum mandated by the, the issues contributed to 14 the head degradation. And I think also clearly what youve 15 articulated today is commitment to go beyond those issues 16 as far as improving not only the reliability of the plant, 17 but safety of the plant and margins to safety. | |||
18 So I think those are good, good indicators. And, 19 you also presented today some, in the area of the head, 20 specifically head replacement and substantive problems. | |||
21 And weve been inspecting those activities and found good 22 results from your work, as far as the work that youve 23 done. | |||
24 So, I think this meeting has been helpful to us. | |||
25 Its been fairly comprehensive. Its been giving us a good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
115 1 benchmark where youre at, and going. And we look forward 2 to our next meeting, which I expect would be around the 3 middle of the month, next month. And well work out that 4 schedule with your staff. | |||
5 MR. MYERS: Thank you. | |||
19 | 6 MR. GROBE: At this point, why 7 dont we take a eight minute break, which I expect will be 8 ten by the time everybody gets back in their seats; give 9 Marie a break; and then well convene the public portion of 10 this meeting where we can receive questions from the 11 public; NRC staff can receive questions from the public, as 12 well as any feedback that you may have that you want to 13 share with us. | ||
14 So, we will be convened. I have five minutes 15 until. Lets convene at three minutes after. Thank you. | |||
16 (Off the record.) | |||
17 MR. GROBE: This portion of the 18 meeting is particularly focused on the NRC staff receiving 19 input and feedback from the public. And there is a pad of 20 paper on the podium up here, as well as the microphone. | |||
21 And I would like to begin with any local members of 22 the community in the Oak Harbor area, in the areas 23 surrounding the Davis-Besse Plant as well as any local 24 officials that have thoughts or questions that they want to 25 ask, and then move into any other individuals that have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
22 | 116 1 thoughts or questions. | ||
2 So, anybody thats interested in providing us some 3 thoughts or comments or has a question, please come up to 4 the podium, and were available to answer those. | |||
5 I didnt think youd miss a chance at this. | |||
6 HOWARD WHITCOMB: I guess I have to 7 lead it off, Jack. | |||
8 In follow-up to your comment that you made about 9 first-line supervision, I would offer the following 10 observation. This afternoon, Ive heard essentially two 11 prongs, if you will. One is a technical fix to the 12 corroded reactor vessel head and then the other is the 13 software fix or management fix involving the root cause 14 analysis determination, so forth. | |||
15 Whats been provided by First Energy this afternoon 16 is a time frame for the technical fix. What has not been 17 provided is a time frame for the management fix. Clearly, 18 the technical issue is probably the least significant, but 19 I havent this afternoon, Mr. Grobe, heard First Energys 20 first prioritization of the management issues. | |||
21 In other words, what are the root cause 22 determinations? Why did they occur? And how is First 23 Energy going to address them to prevent recurrence? And 24 this afternoon, we havent heard anything with respect to 25 what priority First Energy has attached to that aspect and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
117 1 how thats going to essentially factor into restart of the 2 Davis-Besse Plant. | |||
3 MR. GROBE: Okay. Excellent 4 question. I think I heard two parts. I think both 5 Christine and I had asked very similar questions today. | |||
6 Youre correct that the root cause analysis is not 7 complete. The specific structure of what activities need 8 to be taken by the plant has not yet been decided by the 9 plant. And, were here to get those also and look forward 10 to those more detailed specifics at our next meeting next 11 month. | |||
12 The other question I think is also a fair question, 13 and its not one for me to answer, but I would ask Lew or 14 Howard if they want to comment on what priority you place 15 on the, addressing the causal factors of more on the human 16 performance organization effectiveness as contrasted with 17 the priority placed on the hardware fixes? | |||
18 MR. MYERS: Well, in my mind, 19 the management issues, Im sponsor to the management 20 issues, is pretty high priority. Thats the reason I am 21 the sponsor, because we realize weve had, weve made some 22 pretty significant organizational changes already at the 23 upper levels. Weve improved the senior team at the 24 station, has changed considerably. | |||
25 As we go through finish up with the work processes, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 | 118 1 well probably find some additional insights of training 2 and standards that we need to take. And then finally the 3 programs reviews. | ||
4 As you go through these program reviews, weve got 5 to make sure weve got good industry standards on our 6 programs, that we have good ownership of our programs, and 7 we have to go on to monitor implementation of each and 8 every program. Were going to do that. I dont know that 9 every one of those is required before restart, but were 10 certainly going to look at our programs very hard for 11 restart. | |||
12 And the final thing is our independent review board 13 that I talked about. We wont restart the plant until that 14 board thinks were ready to go. | |||
15 MR. GROBE: Okay. Anything 16 else, Howard? | |||
17 HOWARD WHITCOMB: No, that should do 18 it. | |||
19 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you. | |||
20 I did realize that I had forgotten to introduce one 21 NRC staff member that is here today. And, I thought he had 22 left. So, I was really feeling badly, but I just noticed 23 that he came back in the room. So, let me take this 24 opportunity to introduce Marty Farber. | |||
25 Marty, where did you go? There he is over in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
119 1 back. | |||
2 Marty is a very experienced inspector in the Region 3 3 office. Outstanding performer for us. And he has taken 4 on the responsibility to be a leader on the, what we call, 5 the AIT follow-up inspection. Hes been working in 6 Regional office for several weeks and is on-site this week 7 bringing focus on the AIT findings, as far as the, whether 8 those findings or which of those findings represent 9 regulatory violations and what the significance of those 10 violations are. | |||
11 So, over the next couple of weeks, I expect Marty 12 and possibly some other staff from Region 3 support will be 13 completing the AIT follow-up inspection. | |||
14 I didnt want to miss the opportunities to introduce 15 Marty. So, I apologize Marty for not catching you earlier. | |||
16 You were on my list and I missed you. | |||
17 Are there other members of the Oak Harbor community 18 that have questions or comments? | |||
19 Any elected officials that have questions or public 20 officials that have questions? | |||
21 Okay. Very good. | |||
22 Are there other members in the audience today that 23 have questions for us or comments that they want us to 24 consider? | |||
25 Yes, sir? | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
120 1 JOHN MILLER: My name is John 2 Miller. Im a reporter. | |||
3 Mr. Grobe, if you were king, what would you do about 4 the notion of the safety culture of the emphasis you put 5 today on first line supervisors having the kind of safety 6 attitude so that they catch problems as they arise rather 7 than pinning the safety of the plant only on the senior 8 management in some kind of bureaucratic process of CRs that 9 would, that would find problems? | |||
10 In other words, what do you think ought to be 11 happening, not only at this plant, but around the industry 12 in this matter of training or evaluating safety culture? | |||
13 MR. GROBE: Thats a big 14 question. First off, let me take a step back. Our 15 inspection program is built upon a number of fundamentals. | |||
16 And, Bill, maybe you can, as I go through a couple 17 things, maybe you can think through this and provide some 18 additional thoughts. | |||
19 We have characteristics in our inspection program, 20 which we call cross-cutting issues. And what cross-cutting 21 issue means is, its something that affects safety 22 performance across the plant in any of the various safety 23 cornerstones, is what were calling them. | |||
24 One of the cross-cutting issues is Human 25 Performance, and its the focus of our inspection program. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
121 1 Second cross-cutting issue is the Corrective Action 2 Program, and safety culture of the plant. What we 3 sometimes refer to as the safety conscious work 4 environment. | |||
6 | 5 These issues are underpinning issues for our entire 6 inspection program, and we have a number of activities that 7 we conduct that focus on those. One of them has to do with 8 periodic, what we refer to as problem identification and 9 resolution inspection. And, that is specifically, focuses 10 on the activities it takes to evaluate problems, identify 11 problems, evaluate them, resolve them. Its a risk-focused 12 inspection, meaning take the highest risk significant 13 issues and ensure that those issues are being identified 14 and resolved. | ||
15 We also have periodic activity where we go into 16 depth. Some people refer to it as drilling down into an 17 issue. Where an issue of particular, what appears on the 18 surface to be more significant than other issues that come 19 up on a day-by-day basis, we will drill down into the 20 issue; not at the same extent, but similar to what Steve 21 Loehlein has done with respect to this issue, and make sure 22 that the Licensee is going to do a good job identifying the 23 causal factors and correct it. | |||
24 The last aspect of what we do currently focusing on 25 safety, but I think you used the word safety culture, is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
122 1 each of our inspectors when they go out to a site, whether 2 theyre health physicists, security inspectors, engineering 3 inspectors, whatever different flavor of technical 4 expertise they have, spends a certain period of their 5 inspection time on site looking at the effectiveness of the 6 Licensees programs to identify problems and fix problems. | |||
7 Bill, do you have, any thoughts that you have? | |||
8 JOHN MILLER: Maybe if I could 9 rephrase the question, because I think, I think I did 10 confuse you. You said to Mr. Myers; Mr. Myers, you know, 11 Im frustrated, I dont believe you have done enough in 12 telling me about how anybody at the plant below high level 13 management is going to be operating in a sufficiently 14 safety-minded mode; and you told him you want to see next 15 time what hes going to do about that. | |||
16 So, Im asking you, what do you think he ought to 17 do? | |||
18 MR. GROBE: I appreciate, 19 maybe I misunderstood your question. I apologize. | |||
20 JOHN MILLER: It wasnt clear, 21 Im sorry. | |||
22 MR. GROBE: Its certainly not 23 my place to tell Mr. Myers how to fix his problems, its my 24 place to evaluate how effectively he does it. And there 25 are many ways to choose to address these kinds of issues. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
123 1 And theyve been addressed at a number of plants around the 2 country. And, outside of nuclear power, there are 3 organizational effectiveness experts, and theyre applied 4 in big corporations, small companies across the country. | |||
5 So, its, Mr. Myers and his teams responsibility to 6 bring to the table what they plan, and we make sure that to 7 our satisfaction that it is comprehensive, and then well 8 make sure from a planning prospective and make sure to our 9 satisfaction that, that its been effectively implemented. | |||
10 And, well be presenting to you the results of our 11 inspections at these types of meetings in the future. | |||
12 JOHN MILLER: Okay. If you 13 would humor me just one more time. | |||
14 Back to the first question. If you were king, if 15 you were the NRC Commission, you would be safe to saying 16 something more generic than I would just let all of the 17 utility managers around the country find their own way to a 18 program that ensures that first level supervisors are all 19 safety minded enough. What would those generic 20 requirements be? | |||
21 MR. GROBE: Again, its, in 22 the organization, as well as any other organization, there 23 is all kinds of different ways. Each organization has, has 24 a character to it; and one solution in one organization 25 might not apply. Different parts of the country have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
124 1 different characteristics of people and how they, what 2 motivates them. What brings focus to their work. There is 3 no cookie cutter solution to this kind of a problem. | |||
4 And, whats important is for Mr. Myers to define 5 what it is that he thinks is going to fix the issue here at 6 Davis-Besse, and then well evaluate his implementation. | |||
7 And, as I mentioned earlier, the results are going 8 to be in the performance in the other areas of the restart 9 checklist. Whether his activities are successful or not 10 would be clearly evident, not only in the performance 11 indicators that he develops to evaluate human performance 12 and organizational effectiveness, but also the results of 13 the specific activities that are undertaken to improve the 14 plant, to accomplish the work. | |||
15 Randy Fast talked about replacing the air coolers. | |||
16 Thats a fairly large work activity that involves 17 engineering, involves maintenance workers, involves maybe 18 construction workers, depending on the scope of the work. | |||
19 And, you know, well be inspecting those sorts of 20 activities in the plant. | |||
21 And so, there is a number of ways that were going 22 to be evaluating the effectiveness, not only through the 23 specific limitation actions under that cornerstone -- Im 24 sorry, building block, but also in looking at the 25 performance of the staff and the organization. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
125 1 JOHN MILLER: Could I ask one 2 more question on a different point? | |||
3 MR. GROBE: Certainly. Thats 4 what were here for. | |||
5 JOHN MILLER: One could make a 6 case that this is an example of something, that 7 Davis-Besses situation is an example of something that the 8 NRC hopes never to see. | |||
9 MR. GROBE: Im sorry, what? | |||
21 | 10 JOHN MILLER: NRC hopes never to 11 see. Whats that, given that you dont have enough 12 resources to inspect everything, you have a kind of 13 sampling inspection program; you inspect some things, not 14 others. You have a risk base analysis. Hopefully, its 15 what appears to be the most important things. | ||
16 But we now have a plant that by your annual 17 inspection performed quite adequately, but under new 18 management you say, its clear over perhaps a decade or 19 more, numbers of individuals missed what in hindsight would 20 seem to be very simple indications of problems. | |||
21 And the last time on June 12th at the public 22 meeting, at least, I think you and your assistant both 23 agreed that, that the local inspectors priorities on what 24 to inspect would not have this kind of a situation, boric 25 acid on the reactor head, anywhere near the top of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
126 1 list; it would be way down on that persons radar screen. | |||
7 | 2 Given that, what would you say to the argument that 3 maybe this inspection team doesnt work; and, if NRC wants 4 to be able to prove to its own satisfaction and to the 5 satisfaction of the public that such a thing is never going 6 to happen again, given that it was such a near miss to a 7 LOCA, that the only solution would be a much larger 8 inspection program, inspecting many more things than are 9 required, many more financial on the human resources. | ||
12 | 10 MR. GROBE: I apologize, Ive 11 forgotten your name. | ||
12 JOHN MILLER: John Miller. | |||
13 MR. GROBE: John, there is a 14 number of things that are ongoing. You ask very good 15 questions, and Bill is itching to add to my response. Ill 16 pass the microphone to him in a moment. | |||
17 | 17 Im sure youve heard the old adage, dont throw the 18 baby out with the bath water. Im certainly not willing to 19 condemn the entire inspection approach or other, any of the 20 other broad statements that youve made, but what the NRC 21 has undertaken, is ongoing right now, here last month, if 22 you had an opportunity to hear Art Howell and Ed Hackett 23 present publicly what we refer to as a Lesson Learned Task 24 Force. | ||
19 | 25 And the Executive Director, the head guy of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | ||
20 | |||
22 | |||
24 | |||
25 | |||
127 1 Regulatory Commission has chartered a group of people 2 completely independent of anybody thats involved at 3 Davis-Besse to take a real hard look at inspection 4 programs; how we handled generic safety issues, our 5 interrelationship with the international community, and 6 lessons to learn. And I think there were a couple other 7 items on the charter for Lessons Learned Task Force. | |||
8 I cant remember all of them off the top of my head, 9 but that task force is working. They have spent a good 10 deal of time at the Davis-Besse site talking to Licensee. | |||
11 Theyve talked to an incredible amount of NRC staff. | |||
12 Theyve collected a wealth of documents. | |||
13 The task force is fairly broad, and as far as 14 numbers and scope or perspective individuals that come from 15 a variety of parts of our organization, technically as well 16 as geographically. So, Im looking forward to the results 17 of their assessment, things that we can follow on a 18 inspection program. | |||
19 Bill, did you have additional comments? | |||
20 MR. DEAN: John, I just want 21 to point out two things. One is, that if you looked at 22 nuclear industry as a whole, and where performance was ten, 23 fifteen years ago, and where performance is today as an 24 industry, there has been a lot of benefit gained from the 25 collective experience, and our inspection program has been MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
6 | 128 1 designed relative to that collective experience. | ||
7 | 2 And, what we have here at Davis-Besse is a new 3 experience. And I would offer that our inspection program 4 has the flexibility to be able to be modified, if 5 appropriate, to address new phenomenon and new issues that 6 might emerge. | ||
7 And, relative to your comment about boric acid on 8 the vessel head not being important. I guess I would like 9 to point out that over the past couple of years, as we have 10 learned more as an agency and as an industry about issues 11 associated with CRDM nozzle cracking and learning about the 12 different types of phenomenon and so on and so forth, I 13 think there is a fairly significant track record over the 14 last couple of years that indicates the significance and 15 the seriousness with which the agency has considered and 16 asked and required Licensees to take specific action, 17 quote, for the vessel head degradation which occurred at 18 Davis-Besse as well as on the aftermath of that. | |||
19 So, I think that, that provides an example of the 20 fact that any, any industry is not a static situation. | |||
21 That things change. That we continue to learn. Thats one 22 of the important things that we have to have that comes out 23 of this, that we as an agency, Davis-Besse as the Licensee, 24 and the nuclear industry as a whole, learns from this, so 25 that the factors that led to this dont repeat themselves MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
129 1 in the future. | |||
2 JOHN MILLER: One follow-up, if 3 I could. Accepting that your comment that performance is 4 better now we have experience; and accepting Mr. Grobes 5 comment that in general, throwing the baby out with the 6 bath water is not a good idea. But we have the convenience 7 of not having had the LOCA that we avoided only by what is 8 fair to say, dumb luck, because stainless steel is put in 9 there only for corrosion resistance, not for structure. | |||
10 If we were now having this meeting in front of a 11 congressional committee examining why there was this LOCA; 12 do you really believe they would be convinced by the 13 argument dont throw the baby out with the bath water? | |||
14 MR. GROBE: I apologize. | |||
15 There was so many premises to that question, Im not sure I 16 can answer it effectively. | |||
17 What I would suggest is that you and I have a chance 18 to talk and go privately after this meeting, and we can get 19 into a bit more detail on this, because I think it is 20 important for you to understand in a little more detail the 21 scope of our programs, the activities that occurred prior 22 to Davis-Besse, the activities that have occurred after 23 Davis-Besse. | |||
24 And, I think I dont want to give you the impression 25 that I feel any differently than this. I think a number of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
130 1 managers, the agency, including myself, has stated this 2 should never happen. And its the Licensees 3 responsibility to make sure these types of issues dont 4 happen. | |||
5 Its our responsibility to have an inspection 6 program that provides a high level assurance that what 7 theyre doing is the right thing. And, our inspection 8 program did not disclose this as early as it should have, 9 and certainly the Licensee did not perform in a manner that 10 was appropriate, and it resulted in the head degradation. | |||
11 So, with that said, lets get into this separately 12 after the meeting, because I dont want to tie everybody 13 else up with an extended discussion of this topic. Okay. | |||
14 MR. MYERS: Can I make a 15 comment? | |||
16 MR. GROBE: Sure, Lew. | |||
17 MR. MYERS: Let me make a 18 comment; a couple. Most likely, from an engineering 19 standpoint the situation we had would have caused leakage 20 that would have shut us down before it broke. One gallon 21 would shut it down. So, that was really first in there. | |||
22 It shouldnt have happened. We should have found this. | |||
23 But what I do think is healthy, I never thought I 24 would say this, but Ive been in this industry for over 30 25 years, and the performance improvements that we see are due MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
131 1 to some of our oversight reviews and nuclear power 2 operations and processes that we go through like were 3 going through here when we find something new. | |||
4 I think theyre right. Weve learned something new 5 that we need to share with the industry about this 6 particular program. And I think that this is not, this is 7 not a fun process, but its healthy. And these processes 8 that plants have gone through over the years to improve the 9 material condition of our plants, the air operated valve, 10 the leak rate programs; boric acid program, we should have 11 had in place better, have made this industry perform well 12 over the years. | |||
11 | 13 And thats the reason for these type of things that 14 we go through with the institute of nuclear power, because 15 assessments of those every 18 months. And youre own 16 internal self-assessments; if we do find a problem, there 17 is going to be problems with any industry, that it gets to 18 this level of detail, has really improved the performances 19 of our plants; not only from an operation standpoint, but 20 from a safety standpoint, that the NRC monitors. | ||
13 | 21 You know, I really do believe that. This is not a 22 fun process sitting up here on this stage, talking about 23 this issue, but its probably healthy. | ||
14 | 24 MR. GROBE: Are there any 25 other members of the public that have a question or MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | ||
132 1 comment? | |||
2 Let me ask, before we get started, Mr. Stucker, can 3 you turn on the house lights? | |||
4 BEATRICE MIRINGU: My name 5 is Beatrice, B E A T R I C E, and Miringu, M I R I N G U. | |||
6 I just want to get an indication from First Energy. | |||
7 You said that you have an independent panel that select 8 people different experiences for different knowledge and 9 from different areas, but you also said that you have 10 brought in somebody who will help in facilitating 11 communication between you and First Energy. | |||
12 Its my understanding that you have, NRC has two 13 staff members at every nuclear department. And indeed, the 14 problem that you would be having with Davis-Besse 15 especially with the boric acid problem has nothing do did 16 with communication between you and NRC. | |||
17 So, if you could elaborate on what you mean by some 18 real facilitating or making it easier for you to 19 communicate to First Energy, to NRC, or NRC communicating 20 to you? | |||
21 MR. GROBE: Maam, the portion 22 of this meeting is to help the NRC with questions for us 23 and comments for us. I would suggest if you have a 24 specific question with First Energy, visit with those folks 25 after the meeting and you can get feedback from them MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
133 1 directly, okay? | |||
8 | 2 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Well, I thought 3 since it was mentioned at this meeting that probably they 4 could bring it like that. | ||
5 MR. GROBE: I understand it. | |||
6 Outside of the context of the specific portion of the 7 meeting, this section of the meeting is for us to hear from 8 the public, us meaning the NRC staff. So, please feel free 9 to direct your question to them after we complete this part 10 of the meeting. | |||
11 MR. BERGENDAHL: Well gladly be 12 available. | |||
13 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Okay. | |||
14 MR. GROBE: Thank you. | |||
15 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Then the question 16 I have also for, First Energy. You say at this meeting 17 that you have moved from the planning phase and going into 18 the implementation phase. And I understand that inspection 19 is an ongoing process, but from what you presented today, 20 there seems to be more inspections that need to be done; 21 and therefore, I think that you really are not in a 22 implementation state, and youre in the planning state. | |||
23 Thank you. | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you. | |||
25 Are there any other members of the public that have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
134 1 a question or comment for the NRC staff? | |||
2 By the way, if its reporters that have questions; 3 myself, the staff, and First Energy staff will be available 4 to discuss specific questions. So, we can do that in a 5 more informal way, after the meeting, if you prefer that. | |||
6 Yes, sir? | |||
7 WILLIAM BRUML: Yeah. My name is 8 William Bruml, B R U M L. | |||
9 First, I was going to comment that I am rather 10 relieved to see at this meeting that management is the 11 major cause issue here. Clearly, when you have a ten year 12 train wreck, the question isnt why didnt the brakes work; 13 its a question of why didnt someone set the brakes. Im 14 glad to see that, seeing you here, and I hope it continues 15 to, to be there. | |||
16 Also in response to one remark Lew made about, that 17 he expected that if the situation had continued, they would 18 have had leakage rather than, rather than a LOCA. | |||
19 Does the NRC have any intention to publish the 20 results of the inspections that its been doing on the 21 sections of the reactor head, so other members of the 22 general public might kind of have more of a sense of what 23 you guys are seeing? | |||
24 MR. GROBE: Thats an 25 interesting question. I think youre talking about the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
3 | 135 1 detailed analysis of the materials head; is that correct? | ||
4 | 2 WILLIAM BRUML: Yes. Something as 3 simple as a cross section of what, you know, of how the 4 condition of the hole in the head; and, how the degradation 5 that was going on in the stainless steel. So, that the 6 rest of us can understand what people are talking about. | ||
7 Someone from either side here says, well, gee, this doesnt 8 look like its going to perform a full blown LOCA effect. | |||
18 | 9 And I hear about all this steel thats corroded away. I 10 dont have a whole lot of confidence in that until at least 11 I see something that talks about it. | ||
12 MR. GROBE: Sure. I just want 13 to make sure I understand the question before I answer it. | |||
14 I think there is going to be two areas of documentation may 15 be of interest to you. The first is NRC is going to 16 complete a risk assessment which will get into some of 17 those issues, from a risk perspective. What was the risk, 18 loss of contacts, rupture of the liner that remained, 19 things of that nature. And that will be published as part 20 of our inspection activities. | |||
21 The second area of documentation may be of interest 22 to you is the results of some detailed analysis that is 23 being done by our research organization, the Office of 24 Nuclear Reactor Research -- Regulatory Research, excuse 25 me. And, there is a number of what we refer to as user MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
136 1 needs. Im a user, so I sign a user need research and I 2 respond to that. And theyre in the process of responding 3 to that. And theyll be published from that. | |||
4 I dont have the time frames on either of those, but 5 Im fairly confident that the inspection documentation 6 would precede formal publication report from research, and 7 that should be out in the next month or two. And 8 certainly, call at least with specific questions and we do 9 have a response team. | |||
10 WILLIAM BRUML: I have a second 11 question. | |||
12 MR. GROBE: Sure. | |||
13 WILLIAM BRUML: I heard Christine 14 mention in passing the issues of other in containment 15 equipment, electrical equipment, and I wonder if we could 16 hear a little more detail of what that means? One issue 17 that you folks are close to this more often, often think, 18 oh yeah, this is obvious, but to me it was a hole. Gee, 19 what do you do about this? Is the issue here you have a 20 building, you know, containment building that has a lot of 21 electrical equipment, much of which is safety related; 22 and, some of which has been opened up while inspection or 23 service for some reason, during the course of this long 24 period of boric acid on the containment vessel, containment 25 building. | |||
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
7 | 137 1 Which leads to the question of, gee, is this more 2 severe than what the equipment is qualified for, since most 3 of it is like, do you mean boric acid on the site? So, I 4 guess my question is, is there a process ongoing to 5 identify the equipment that might have that problem, how, 6 you know, what is the general tone of that issue? | ||
7 MS. LIPA: Let me tell you 8 what I know so far. That was the one of the items thats 9 on our foremat framework for the checklist. There is a 10 plan to have an inspector develop a detailed inspection 11 plan, and then go out and look at very specific things. | |||
12 That inspection plan is likely to contain looking at a 13 number of things, such as cables, cable trays, junction 14 boxes, things, you know, all types of things within 15 containment pretty much top to bottom. What could have 16 been affected by the boric acid. Thats the scope of that 17 particular line item. | |||
18 MR. GROBE: I want to make 19 sure, you understand that our inspection will be the 20 sample. We wont be looking at everything. But the 21 Licensees activities, they have the components of their 22 containment health review, which includes environmental 23 health equipment and theyll be looking much more 24 comprehensively. | |||
25 Well be sampling the activities they do as well as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
9 | 138 1 some other activities or some other equipment that we may 2 want to look at in a different way to both evaluate what 3 theyre doing as well as independently assess the depth and 4 adequacy of what theyre doing. Okay? Thank you very 5 much. | ||
6 Looking for other comments or questions. | |||
7 I thought you were going to come forward. You stood 8 up, now youre required to come forward. Just kidding. | |||
9 Other questions and comments? Yes, maam? | |||
10 VICKY HEIDEL: My name is Vicky 11 Heidel and I have a question. Understanding that youre 12 about ready to transport the Midland nuclear head, you said 13 prior to August 1st, does that mean the NRC has given its 14 stamp of approval that this is in excellent condition even 15 though its an old or new old nuclear head? | |||
16 MR. GROBE: John, you want to 17 briefly discuss our scope of the inspection activities for 18 the head, and explain what sort of certification goes along 19 with component base like this. | |||
20 MR. JACOBSON: Right, there is a 21 couple of components to the inspection that were going to 22 do regarding the head replacement, and one of them weve 23 already done; and that is look at some of the 24 nondestructive examination that was done, that the Licensee 25 did to supplement some of the documentation that they did MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
139 1 have for the head. Some of it was missing. Its gone over 2 the years. And they did some supplemental inspections. | |||
3 And weve looked at those inspections as to how good 4 inspections were done, as well as the results of those 5 inspections. And so far, that part of it, we have no 6 problem with. What we saw was done well, and the results 7 were acceptable. | |||
8 The next part of the inspection thats going to be 9 done is looking at a sample, a good sample of the 10 documentation; both the new work that was done, as well as 11 documentation that exists from when the head was originally 12 manufactured. And we need to do that so that we can verify 13 for ourselves that this head in its condition today meets 14 all the requirements of the American Society of Mechanical 15 Engineers Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. | |||
16 And in that code, there is requirements, for 17 example, for the radiographs. There is requirements as to 18 how those radiographs will be taken and there is 19 requirements as to what the acceptance criteria is for any 20 flaws or discontinuities that are found during the 21 nondestructive examination. | |||
22 And thats just an example of the kinds of things 23 that we will be looking at. And then the last part of the 24 head replacement that were going to be looking at is the 25 actual opening and then restoration of the containment to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
140 1 place the head in the Davis-Besse containment. | |||
2 VICKY HEIDEL: So, this 3 inspection will be done prior to its being transported 4 here, the total inspection? | |||
5 MR. JACOBSON: Part of it has 6 been done already, part of it is about to start. Whether 7 the Licensee decides to transport this head now or they 8 decide to transport it six months from now, is really not 9 our concern. | |||
10 VICKY HEIDEL: Okay. | |||
11 MR. JACOBSON: And if they want 12 to move the head, its their head, and they can move it, 13 but ultimately, restart of the facility, that decision will 14 be made by the NRC. | |||
15 VICKY HEIDEL: Is there any 16 danger in transporting it that we should be concerned about 17 that? | |||
18 MR. JACOBSON: Any danger? | |||
19 VICKY HEIDEL: Any danger of 20 transporting the actual head. | |||
21 MR. JACOBSON: With respect to 22 what, radiation, radioactive? | |||
23 VICKY HEIDEL: Yes, exactly. | |||
24 MR. JACOBSON: No, the head has 25 never been used and theres no radioactivity associated MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
141 1 with it at this time. | |||
2 VICKY HEIDEL: Lastly what do you 3 do with the old reactor head? | |||
4 MR. JACOBSON: Thats a question 5 that the Licensee would have to answer at this point. | |||
6 MR. GROBE: Let me respond to 7 that in a little bit of detail. And if you, if you want to 8 respond or ask your question to First Energy after the 9 meeting, thats fine. | |||
10 The Licensee has performed an analysis of the 11 existing head to characterize what sort of waste it is. | |||
12 There is different categories of waste within our 13 regulations and were expecting to perform an inspection of 14 that assessment that theyve done, how they made the 15 measurements and the validity of the assessment. | |||
16 In addition to that, we have a routine aspect of our 17 inspection program that deals with package and 18 transportation of waste and well be performing those 19 routine inspections on this very nonroutine type activity. | |||
20 So, we will have a thorough inspection of what 21 Licensee is planning. Its my understanding that they are 22 currently not planning on transporting the head to a waste 23 facility. Theyve currently characterized it, based on my 24 information, of whats referred to as class A waste, which 25 is low specitivity waste. And we will be performing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
142 1 inspections and reporting the results of those inspections 2 during future meetings like this one. | |||
4 | 3 VICKY HEIDEL: All right, last 4 but not least, I have understand that a brand new head has 5 been ordered, and will that ever be installed at 6 Davis-Besse? | ||
9 | 7 MR. GROBE: Thats really not 8 the scope of our activities. | ||
12 | 9 Lew, do you want to respond to that? | ||
10 MR. MYERS: The answer is 11 yes. | |||
12 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you 13 very much. | |||
14 I didnt realize what time it had gotten to be. Why 15 dont I ask if there is any one additional question, and 16 then we need to move on since we have another meeting at 17 7:00. Any additional questions? | |||
18 Okay. I thank you very much for attending. I 19 appreciate the questions we received. If per chance you 20 think of something or felt that you didnt get a chance to 21 ask a question, feel free to come back at 7:00. | |||
22 Thank you very much. | |||
23 (Off the record.) | |||
24 --- | |||
25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO | |||
143 1 CERTIFICATE 2 I, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and 3 Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio, duly 4 commissioned and qualified therein, do hereby certify that 5 the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the 6 proceedings as taken by me and that I was present during 7 all of said proceedings. | |||
8 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 9 affixed my seal of office at Norwalk, Ohio, on this 10 27th day of July, 2002. | |||
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-9-03. | |||
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Site: | Davis Besse ![]() |
Issue date: | 07/16/2002 |
From: | NRC/RGN-III |
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Download: ML022200663 (97) | |
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1 1 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 2 PUBLIC MEETING 3 Meeting held on Tuesday, July 16, 2002, at 2:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, 4 taken by me Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
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6 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
7 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 8 Mr. John Grobe, Chairman, MC 0350 Panel William Dean, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 9 John Jacobson, Branch Chief, Mechanical Engineering Branch, DRS 10 Anthony Mendiola, Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR 11 Douglas Pickett, Project Manager, NRR Christopher (Scott) Thomas, 12 Senior Resident Inspector - Davis Besse Christine Lipa, Projects Branch Chief 13 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 14 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer 15 Robert W. Schrauder, Director - Support Services 16 J. Randel Fast, Plant Manager James J. Powers, III 17 Director - Nuclear Engineering Howard Bergendahl, Vice President-Nuclear 18 Michael J. Ross, Manager - Operations Effectiveness 19 Michael J. Stevens, Director - Maintenance Steve Loehlein 20
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21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MR. GROBE: Good afternoon. I 2 was trying to set the tone by taking my coat off. Please 3 feel free to. Its a bit warm today.
4 My name is Jack Grobe. Im the Director of Reactor 5 Safety for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office for 6 Region 3 in Chicago. We have responsibility to the office 7 for the safety of the nuclear power plants in the midwest.
8 Were here today for our third meeting, public 9 meeting with the Licensee, First Energy, responsible for 10 operation of Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station. The focus 11 of this meeting is what we refer to as the Manual Chapter 12 0350 Restart Oversight Panel. In a minute, Ill introduce 13 the panel members and other NRC staff that are here today.
14 Our meeting today is being transcribed by Marie 15 Fresch. And Marie was here last time and had some trouble 16 hearing. I think Mr. Stocker has the microphones turned 17 way up, so that should help, but please make sure when 18 youre making comments today, so the public can hear in the 19 audience, as well as Marie transcribing the meeting, that 20 you use the microphone.
21 Let me start by introducing the NRC staff here 22 today. On my far right, is John Jacobson. John is a 23 Senior Mechanical Engineer in Region 3 Office and a member 24 of the Restart Panel.
25 Right next to me on my immediate right is Christine MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 Lipa. Christine is a Projects Branch Chief. Shes the 2 Manager of Region 3 responsible for oversight at the 3 Davis-Besse Plant on a day-to-day basis.
4 On my immediate left is Bill Dean. Bill is the Vice 5 Chair of the Restart Panel and Senior Manager in our 6 office, Nuclear Reactor Regulation, our office 7 headquarters, and its in the Washington, D. C. area.
8 Two of the, two other additional staff from the 9 office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Tony Mendiola. Tony 10 is the manager responsible for overseeing the licensing 11 activities. And on his left is Doug Pickett. Doug is the 12 Licensing Project Manager specifically for Davis-Besse.
13 Then at the end of the table is a very important 14 person. Thats Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector 15 that works at the Davis-Besse Plant every day. He works 16 for the Region 3 Office of the NRC.
17 We have a couple of additional NRC staff I want to 18 recognize. Helping out at Davis-Besse is the Resident 19 Inspector from the Perry Plant, east of Cleveland, its 20 John Elgood; and John is operating the slide machine right 21 now, but hes been inspecting the plant to help us out.
22 Nancy Keller was out front. Nancy is our 23 Administrative Assistant. Shes done an outstanding job.
24 I appreciate her support. Nancy had out front a stack of 25 handouts both from the NRC as well as the Licensee MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 available for you. If you didnt receive one, please feel 2 free to obtain one of those handouts.
3 In addition out front, Nancy had what we refer to as 4 feedback forms. Theyre preaddressed, no postage necessary 5 forms that you can fill out and give us feedback on the 6 quality of our meeting, and other aspects of the conduct of 7 the meeting or content of the meeting; either one.
8 We would certainly appreciate and encourage you to 9 fill out one of those forms and give us feedback, so we can 10 continually improve the quality of our interface with the 11 public.
12 At this time, Lew, I would like you to introduce 13 your staff here today.
14 MR. MYERS: Okay. Thank you 15 very much. We have some people out front of our audience 16 that are our technical, some of our technical experts. We 17 also have our Root Cause Team, that well introduce later 18 on.
19 First with our technical experts, I would like to 20 introduce Tim Chambers. Tim is in charge of the 21 Containment.
22 Mark McLaughlin, also the Containment.
23 Dave Baker, Head Resolution.
24 Dave Eshelman -- is Dave here? Dave is in charge 25 of helping us with Human Performance.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 Clark Price is our Restart Action Plan Lead.
2 Tony Staller, Restart and Post Restart.
3 Neil Morrison. Neil comes to us from our Beaver 4 Valley Plant, and hes helping us with program reviews.
5 Bill Rogers. Hes doing our System Health Reviews.
6 So, for each one of these, we have a man at the 7 table that has responsibility, and technical leads with us 8 today.
9 Would you want me to go on to our desired outcomes 10 now?
11 MR. GROBE: If you dont mind, 12 introduce your staff at the table.
13 MR. MYERS: Okay. To my right 14 is Howard Bergendahl.
15 Steve Loehlein is next. Steve is doing the 16 Management in Human Performance and Root Cause.
17 Jim Powers is next to him. Jim is the Director of 18 Engineering.
19 Bob Schrauder next to him. Bob is taking, a new 20 employee taking the job as Service Director, is new with 21 our company, new with that position.
22 Randy Fast is after him. Randy is our Plant 23 Manager.
24 And, Mike Stevens is Director of Maintenance.
25 And, at the very end I think is Mike Ross. I cant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 see. So, Mike Ross comes to us from, hes a new addition, 2 comes to us from, from the Three Mile Island Plant. So, 3 the Plant Manager there is really experienced, and is part 4 of our discussions later on.
5 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
6 At this time, if there is public officials or 7 representatives of public officials here in the audience, I 8 would like to give you an opportunity to introduce 9 yourself. Please stand and up introduce yourself. Do we 10 have any public officials with us today?
11 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 12 Ottawa County Commissioner.
13 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, Ottawa 14 County Administrator.
15 MR. GROBE: Any others?
16 Okay, very good. Thanks, Carl and Jere.
17 John has a slide up on the overhead projector right 18 now that describes the agenda, and each of you should have 19 a copy of that.
20 In a moment, Im going to allow Lew to make opening 21 remarks, and then Im going to briefly summarize the last 22 meeting we had on June 12th. Well then turn the meeting 23 over to First Energy for presentation of the information 24 that they have prepared for today.
25 Then the NRC is going to discuss the framework that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 were using for, what we refer to as our research 2 checklist. Ill talk about that a little later, and a 3 number of the staff will help describe the framework for 4 our research; that is the NRC research. Well conclude the 5 business portion of the meeting at that time.
6 Following the business portion of the meeting 7 between the NRC and First Energy, well open the meeting up 8 for public questions and public feedback or inquires to the 9 NRC staff. I certainly hope that we have a good 10 participation by members of the public here today. At that 11 time, well adjourn the meeting.
12 In addition to this afternoon meeting, there is 13 going to be a meeting this evening at 7:00. Bill Dean will 14 chair that meeting. And that meeting is specifically 15 focused on receiving input from the public, as well as 16 answering any questions members of the public have.
17 So, if youre here this afternoon, and you think of 18 something, any additional questions or comments later this 19 evening, please come back at 7. Were also making it 20 available to other individuals who were unable to be here 21 this afternoon.
22 I think that concludes the logistics for the 23 meeting.
24 Oh, I do want to recognize Mr. Stucker. Hes been 25 here for each of our meetings. Oak Harbor High School MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 continues to make this fine facility available for our 2 meetings, and we certainly appreciate that. And, 3 Mr. Stucker works very hard to make sure that the sound 4 system and lighting and everything is just right. And, I 5 certainly appreciate his efforts and I want to thank Oak 6 Harbor High School and Mr. Stucker for that.
7 Did you have some comments before we begin, Lew?
8 MR. MYERS: Were ready to get 9 started. Is that okay?
10 MR. GROBE: Okay. Do you want 11 me to just summarize the June 12th meeting first?
12 MR. MYERS: Yes.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay, very good.
14 Next slide, John.
15 I wanted to make you aware, particularly members of 16 the public aware, of several documents First Energy has 17 submitted over the past several months, and make you aware 18 of our Web site where those can be obtained.
19 An Early Risk Assessment was provided by First 20 Energy. That was received by the NRC on April 8th, 2002.
21 We continue in our assessments of the risk plan and were 22 using the input that we receive from First Energy, 23 evaluating the input and continuing to ask questions and do 24 analyses to support the risk assessment that the NRC is 25 conducting.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 A Preliminary Root Cause Analysis Report was 2 submitted on April 18th. That addressed in preliminary 3 fashion both the technical side of root cause, what caused 4 the cracking of the head penetrations, as well as the 5 corrosion; and also to a certain extent addressed the 6 contributing factors to that situation.
7 The Return to Service Plan; the first revision of 8 that was submitted to us on May 21st, and it was recently 9 revised last week July -- Im sorry, yes, July 12, 2002.
10 All of these documents are available on the NRC Web 11 site at www.nrc.gov. And you can get to the Davis-Besse 12 link on that Web site, which contains just a tremendous 13 compendium of information; that would be head degradation 14 issue that occurred at Davis-Besse, NRC activities, 15 Licensee activities in response to that. So, please feel 16 free to gain access to that Web site to obtain that 17 information.
18 Our last meeting of the Restart Oversight Panel was 19 June 12th.
20 John, next slide.
21 The focus of that meeting was the Return to Service 22 Plan that First Energy submitted to the NRC. Return to 23 Service Plan had associated with it a number of what First 24 Energy called Building Blocks. Theyre listed there on the 25 slide.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 We discussed in some detail their plans at that 2 time, with the first five of the Building Blocks, and had a 3 number of questions regarding those various Building 4 Blocks.
5 First Energys evaluation of what they were trying 6 to accomplish as well as receiving input from the NRC 7 resulted in a revision to their Restart Plan and Building 8 Blocks, and I anticipate during todays meeting that were 9 going to get into several Building Blocks in more detail 10 than we talked about last June, as well as get into a 11 substantial amount of detail in the Management and Human 12 Performance area.
13 So, were going to continue with these meetings. At 14 this point, to a large extent, weve been addressing and 15 discussing the plans that First Energy is proceeding. And 16 well continue to discuss those plans.
17 During this meeting, get into, I think, more 18 progress that theyre making; and, as these meetings 19 continue over the summer months, we will be getting into 20 greater and greater detail in the implementation of those 21 plans, the results that the company is seeing, and 22 corrective actions that theyre taking.
23 We are transcribing this meeting this afternoon.
24 Well also be transcribing the meeting this evening. Those 25 transcripts will be available on the Web site when theyre MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 completed. As Im sure you can appreciate, it takes a 2 couple weeks to get a transcript typed up, reviewed and 3 ready for posting on the Web site.
4 The transcript of the June 12th meeting is available 5 on the Web site. And as I said, these transcripts will 6 also be available within several weeks for those 7 individuals who are unable to attend the meeting.
8 At this point, Lew, I would like to turn it over to 9 you and your staff for the presentation that you prepared 10 for us today.
11 MR. MYERS: Okay. Thank you 12 very much.
13 Its our pleasure to be here today to discuss Return 14 to Service Plan that we discussed last time. Our desired 15 outcome today is to show that were no longer in the 16 planning phase. Typically, you go through a planning 17 phase, a discovery phase, and implementation phase. Today 18 we want to demonstrate that were fully in the 19 implementation phase towards safe, reliable and sustained 20 operation for the Davis-Besse Plant.
21 We want to provide you with a status of several of 22 our Building Blocks. We want to demonstrate the closure of 23 several of the actions that were discussed at our last 24 meeting, and also in our Restart Oversight Plan Meeting the 25 day before.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 We also want to introduce you to some of the 2 Management and Human Performance elements in our Management 3 and Human Performance Excellence Plan that weve laid out; 4 some of the things that we know now, and well be prepared 5 to discuss that in detail today.
6 Starting out, you remember the last time, I thought 7 we had really seven Building Blocks, six of which are 8 Building Blocks that feed into the Restart Action Plan.
9 The Reactor Head Resolution Plan was sponsored by 10 Bob Schrauder, who is at the table. Our Program Compliance 11 Plan was by Jim Powers, the Director of Engineering. The 12 Containment Health Assurance Plan sponsored by Randy Fast, 13 the Maintenance Director. And the System Health Assurance 14 Plan is Jim Powers responsibility. Restart and Post 15 Restart Test Plan is Randy Fast. And finally, the 16 Management and Human Performance Excellence Plan, Im 17 responsible for that.
18 As you see, our plans all feed into the Restart 19 Action Plan, and that feed goes to what we call a Restart 20 Overview Panel. Thats a very important ingredient, and 21 people are talking about it independent of oversight.
22 Let me share with you the Restart Overview Panel, if 23 you will. This panel provides an independent oversight and 24 review of all of our plant activities. You can see this of 25 the FENOC Senior Executive Team.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 That team consists of Bob Saunders, President; 2 myself, Gary Leidich, and Bill Pearce. Gary is in charge 3 of the, Executive in charge of Engineering. Bill Pearce is 4 in charge of Oversight.
5 All of us may or may not be at any one meeting, 6 because of other obligations. The majority of us are at 7 each meeting. Lets talk about the panel members that we 8 asked to give us input.
9 First, we looked for someone who had extended outage 10 experience, and we picked Chris Bakken from the D.C. Cook 11 Plant. D.C. Cook went through some very tough times a few 12 years ago. And Chris Bakken was the Executive of the 13 Restart Plan, and has good experience.
14 We wanted somebody from the industry. Somebody that 15 communicates to us and to the industry. That person is 16 Buzz Galbraith. Buzz works the Nuclear Operations, which 17 is an industry oversight review group that has basic 18 building blocks, one of which is, one of the cornerstones 19 is operating experience. So, he shares that with us.
20 Finally, we wanted somebody on our Nuclear Review 21 Board. We normally have a Nuclear Oversight Review Board, 22 and we wanted somebody to feed into that Nuclear Review 23 Board. That person is Jack Martin. Jack Martin is on our 24 board and hes very involved with this panel and our routine 25 activities going on at the plant.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 Finally, we wanted somebody that had real raw based 2 experience from a nuclear regulatory standpoint and a 3 troubled plant standpoint that could help us through this.
4 So, we went and got Joe Callan. Joe was the Executive 5 Officer of the NRC at one time, and hes retired now; 6 provides us raw base experience, many years of experience 7 with other plants, extended shutdowns like this.
8 We wanted somebody from the community. Jere Witt 9 supplies that for us, a community leader here in Ottawa 10 County.
11 We wanted somebody that had a good history of the 12 plant, so we brought back one of the previous executives at 13 the Davis-Besse Plant that was here for the previous 14 problems through good performance. We brought in Lou Storz 15 to help us throughout whatever developments, whats changed 16 at the time of good performance.
17 So, we believe, we believe today that we have an 18 Oversight Review Panel. As that panel is made up today, it 19 provides very good independent input to First Energys 20 Senior Team to help us ensure that we can not only restart 21 Davis-Besse in a safe and reliable manner, but insure that 22 we have safe performance.
23 Weve also made several changes in our management 24 structure since our last meeting that well talk about.
25 Howard, do you want to continue?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 MR. GROBE: Lew, before you go 2 on, who chairs the Restart Oversight Panel, or Restart 3 Overview Panel, who is the chairman of that?
4 MR. MYERS: Right now, Ive 5 been chairing the panel. Weve been talking to Joe Callan 6 about the possibility of chairing that panel; and the 7 reason for that is to give us a true balance, has more 8 independence.
9 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank you.
10 MR. MYERS: Okay, Howard.
11 MR. BERGENDAHL: Okay, I wanted 12 to -- can you hear me?
13 I wanted to introduce some of the new members of our 14 team. There is an organization chart there, which 15 highlights basically the yellow blocks, are individuals 16 that are new in positions since about the first of the 17 year. So, there has been a lot of change at the site, and 18 many of the oversight individuals, Lew has already 19 mentioned across the top of the organizational chart, but 20 we have some of the key senior managers from Davis-Besse 21 sitting here at the table and I wanted to take an 22 opportunity to introduce them.
23 Weve put together a team of very experienced and 24 qualified nuclear professionals that puts together the 25 senior management team that I know can do a good job at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 Davis-Besse.
2 Im going to start with Jim Powers, two seats over 3 to my right. Jim is the Director of Engineering. I think 4 we introduced him last time. He joined us from the Perry 5 Plant. He has an excellent reputation and a major asset to 6 our organization.
7 Next to Jim is a new addition to the Davis-Besse 8 organization. Hes been with First Energy, but hes now 9 joined Davis-Besse full time, Bob Schrauder will be our 10 Director of Support Services. Bob has had experience as 11 the Director of Engineering and also as a nuclear plant, 12 Plant Manager. And so, he brings a wealth of experience to 13 the team.
14 Next to Bob is Randy Fast. Weve introduced Randy 15 in the past. Hes new to Davis-Besse in January. His 16 background includes Beaver Valley and a long stretch at the 17 South Texas Plant.
18 Next to Randy is Mike Stevens. Mike is brand new in 19 the position of Director of Maintenance. And Mike has been 20 with First Energy for about two years. He spent most of 21 his career with the Cinergy Plants down in Southeastern 22 United States and most recently he joined First Energy from 23 the Excelon Corporation.
24 Weve also hired in some experience from outside the 25 company, from other power plants in the industry. Mike MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 Ross at the end of the table comes to us from another 2 Babcocks and Wilcox designed plant at Three Mile Island 3 Station. Mike led the Operations Department at Three Mile 4 Island through their brief start through many years as an 5 Operations Manager and Plant Manager. Mike has joined 6 Davis-Besse to provide oversight to our operations 7 activities to ensure we have high standards that we know 8 Mike accomplished through Three Mile Island.
9 Also not at the table here today, joining our 10 company July 30th, is Pete Roberts. We hired Pete from the 11 sale of Oak Creek Station, New Jersey, to be our new 12 Manager of Maintenance.
13 So, we put together quite a team here and I know 14 weve got good things to come.
15 MR. MYERS: Bob Schrauder 16 would like to take a few moments and discuss the Reactor 17 Head Resolution Oversight Plan, if you will. Were going 18 to the phase now where were going to present the status of 19 several of our plans.
20 Go ahead, Bob.
21 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thank you, Lew.
22 Thanks, Howard.
23 First, let me start out by saying, Im very pleased 24 to join the Davis-Besse team, after what seems like a 25 short nine and a half year hiatus from the plant. I do MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 believe, as Howard does, that we have a good solid team in 2 place, and that we will lead Davis-Besse back to a safe, 3 reliable plant that shows sustained performance.
4 Since our last meeting, I have been really pleased 5 on the progress that we have made on obtaining a new head 6 for Davis-Besse. We have accomplished a great deal in a 7 very short 30 days.
8 One of the things Im really happy to report is that 9 weve executed in excess of 30,000 person hours at the 10 Midland site retrieving that head, under some significant 11 challenging circumstances there.
12 As this slide indicates, we are on target with the 13 head replacement to support safe, reliable plant 14 return-to-service sometime during fourth quarter of this 15 year.
16 Ill talk a little bit about our activities at 17 Midland. We were able to successfully open the 18 containment. We had to chip away about three and a half 19 feet of concrete. We had to remove three layers of rebar, 20 and we had to detension the pre-cement tensioning elements 21 in this containment.
22 These two pictures up here show us the progress of 23 opening that containment and then in the lower right-hand 24 corner with the team that helped us open that containment.
25 Again, the team worked very safely and very effectively for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 us.
2 The service structure at Midland, service structure 3 on these reactor vessel heads is in three parts. The lower 4 two parts will remain on the Midland head and we will 5 transfer the upper portion from the Davis-Besse head onto 6 this service structure.
7 We have implemented the modification on the service 8 structure, the lower portion of the service structure at 9 Midland with ten large diameter openings that will allow us 10 clear access to the bare head inspections that we will do 11 on this head going forward in the future. That 12 modification, as I said, is completed.
13 The last time we got together, we had indicated our 14 inspection plan for this head. We had divided those 15 inspections, and identified they have three purposes. The 16 first was to supplement the original co-data package that 17 went with this head. The second was to baseline this head 18 for ongoing in-service inspection program. And the third 19 was to provide supplementary exams to assure ourselves that 20 no damage had occurred to the head during its storage 21 period at the Midland Plant.
22 Im pleased to tell you that all of those 23 inspections have been completed satisfactorily on the 24 Midland, on the replacement head for Davis-Besse, and we 25 know now that we do have a very good compliment for use at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 Davis-Besse.
2 One of the records that we also talked about last 3 time associated with the co-data package was the 4 radiographs; both for the dome, the flange weld on the 5 head, and the radiographs on the flange to nozzle. The 6 records that we were able to retrieve did not have either 7 of those films, nor did they have the records of the 8 inspections of those films, other than a signed-off log 9 entry that indicated that the exams had been completed 10 satisfactorily.
11 So, in order to resolve that, we reradiographed 12 those major welds on this head, and they did confirm that 13 we had good welds in all those locations. We were able to 14 achieve a hundred percent coverage of the flange-to-nozzle 15 weld and we achieved a 95 percent coverage of the 16 dome-to-flange weld. And, the remaining part of that weld 17 we were unable to get to, due to the lifting devices that 18 were put on the head after the original manufacturing.
19 Again, though, we confirmed with those that we did 20 have very good welds in all those locations. And that 21 information, coupled with the previous records that we had 22 that identified that the previous owner had accepted this 23 head and had identified that it had all the appropriate 24 records, and the signed off co-data form from the American 25 Nuclear Insurer, we assured ourselves that we did have a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 good head and good going forward records.
2 As a result of the 95 percent coverage, we will be 3 submitting our results to the NRC for their concurrence 4 approval that we do in fact have a high level of assurance 5 and certainty that this weld is good.
6 MR. JACOBSON: Bob, let me just 7 mention briefly some of the inspection activities weve 8 done in this regard. Weve dispatched one of our 9 nondestructive examination experts out to the Midland site 10 and he spent a few days out there observing some of the 11 inspections that, that FENOC was doing on the head; also 12 reviewed all the radiographs that were done on the head.
13 And I did also, I reviewed a good portion of the 14 radiographs. So, thats some of the work that weve done 15 to date.
16 And the next phase is going to be to review all the 17 documentation of the head that supports the code, code and 18 stamp that needs to be on that head in order to use it.
19 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thanks, John.
20 Thats a good point. I wanted to say our nuclear 21 inspector was present during all of these examinations 22 also, as well as our code experts and our departmental 23 experts.
24 The picture you see up there with the lifting glove.
25 Thats Lew inspecting that lifting glove and those are the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 attachments that are used to lift this head off and on the 2 reactor during service.
3 MR. GROBE: John, before we go 4 on, could you characterize the results of your inspections 5 to-date?
6 MR. JACOBSON: Pardon?
7 MR. GROBE: Could you 8 characterize the results of your inspections to-date?
9 MR. JACOBSON: The results of the 10 radiographs that weve looked at to-date were, met all code 11 requirements; and, in fact, the weld on the flange to the 12 dome was extremely clean, extremely good. Its one of the 13 best welds that Ive personally seen in a long time. And, 14 Ive looked at a lot of them. So, we did get that done.
15 Weve also looked at some of the welds up on the 16 control rod drive penetrations, and those also meet all 17 code requirements. So, to-date, all of the nondestructive 18 examination that weve reviewed is acceptable.
19 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thank you. At 20 Midland right now our activities are centering around final 21 cleaning and preparation for shipment of the head. This 22 picture that you see here, is the, now there is a cover on 23 it. This is a cover on the reactor vessel head, but 24 this is actually the reactor vessel head being lifted off 25 the stand that it was sitting on at Midland.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 Next picture, please.
2 This is our opening, and that is the head stand that 3 we had to pull out in order to be able to retrieve the 4 head.
5 And in the next picture, again, the head being 6 readied to be lowered onto a temporary transportation 7 system to get it out to its main transport.
8 This is a picture of the type of transporter that 9 well be using to bring the head to Davis-Besse. That head 10 weighs about 80 tons. And this small truck that you see is 11 about 180 feet long. We will be transporting that head for 12 arrival at Davis-Besse prior to the date we set earlier, 13 which is August the 1st, which would be the latest date 14 that we would expect to have that on the site.
15 Now lets talk about some of the activities under 16 way at Davis-Besse. Our reactor pressure -- our head at 17 Davis-Besse is being repaired for removal from the 18 containment.
19 This is a picture of the service structure that I 20 spoke of earlier. The upper portion of the service 21 structure, which we will use on the new head when it 22 arrives. We will lift that off, thats a 40,000 pound 23 piece of equipment thats floating through the air to its 24 temporary resting place where it would be repaired for 25 installation on the Davis-Besse head. And, the head now at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 Davis-Besse is being properly cleaned and prepared for 2 removal from the containment building.
3 We have gotten our construction packages from our 4 vendor and we are in the process of reviewing those now.
5 We have got the engineering packages available, and these 6 engineering packages are the packages that we put together 7 to open the containment and subsequently restore the 8 containment to its full design requirements.
9 We are making preparations for the containment 10 building opening itself. Again, this is a shot of the back 11 side of our containment where we will be making 12 approximately a 20 foot by 20 foot opening into that 13 containment, which happens to coincide with the original 14 construction opening in this building.
15 The process again for opening this containment will 16 not be the chipping or cutting techniques that we used at 17 Midland. This is a very high pressure water wash system, 18 which essentially separates the cement from the aggregate 19 in the concrete, washes it off the rebar. Then the rebar 20 is tagged, cut and removed and replaced in its original 21 condition when were ready to restore the container.
22 We did have to do some leveling of the ground in 23 this area in order to get our transport mechanism that will 24 go through the containment to move the old head out and new 25 head in. We did some ground leveling in there.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 And we are in the process of right outside this, 2 just off to the righthand side out of your view on this 3 picture is our start-up transformer at the plant. We will 4 tag that transformer out, disconnect it, and put protection 5 around it so there is no way to injure that transformer 6 during the period of time that were under construction.
7 Another item that came up in our last meeting is the 8 restoration of the pressure vessel. Again, the containment 9 at Davis-Besse is a shield building made out of about three 10 feet of concrete and a freestanding pressure vessel with 11 annular space between them. Both of those obviously have 12 to be cut to get access into the containment, moved ahead 13 in and out. Then we have to restore that pressure vessel 14 per code requirements.
15 We had indicated the last time we were here that we 16 were contemplating doing a localized test around that 17 restoration process, in that we had just completed an 18 integrated test on this pressure vessel at previous 19 outings.
20 Since that time, we have identified several other 21 things that well be doing in containment, and we have 22 reached the conclusion that the best thing to do is to 23 perform an integrated leak grade test on this containment 24 vessel when it is restored.
25 Those are our current plans that are incorporated MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 into our plan and process. Unless there are questions, 2 thats all I have on the activities for replacing the 3 head.
4 MS. LIPA: I do have one 5 question. I walked down the area where this transformer is 6 yesterday. What plans do you have for protection, what 7 kinds of barrier?
8 MR. SCHRAUDER: The major plans 9 are to disconnect it, and then there are coverings that 10 will go over the bushings and the like on the transformer 11 itself, and I believe there is going to be a 12 scaffolding-type arrangement around it. Basically, were 13 protecting the major components on getting any kind of 14 water spray or dust or aggregate into it. Make sure that 15 -- we have to put up a large scaffolding and large platform 16 in order to get into that. That opening is about 20 feet 17 off the ground, 18 feet off the ground. We want to make 18 sure that scaffolding we have up there also doesnt have, 19 if it should happen to fall for any reason, it wont impact 20 or harm the transformer.
21 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. GROBE: Bob, you said that 23 you have construction procedures that have been submitted 24 and engineering packages that are nearing completion.
25 Could you describe in a little more detail the scope of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 those construction procedures and engineering packages and 2 what they address?
3 MR. SCHRAUDER: Well, the 4 construction procedures are the procedures for opening up 5 the containment, the detailed process on how do you go 6 about opening up the containment.
7 Were looking at things in those packages, and I 8 want to separate the construction package and the 9 engineering package; these are each, have some element of 10 the other.
11 We look at things, like the travel path for the 12 vehicle that would bring the head in on. As you know, at a 13 lot of nuclear plants or all the nuclear plants, there are 14 underground piping, underground utilities there. We have 15 to go through and assess all of those to make sure that 16 this vehicle wont impact those.
17 Engineering packages includes things like the 18 NCFR 5059 Evaluation to see if this could be done without 19 formal approval of the NRC or whether it fits within the 20 regulation, allows us basically to do those, if they dont 21 change our updated safety analysis report.
22 Those are included in those; and the detailed 23 engineering on, for instance, the pressure vessel itself, 24 has equipment hanging on it as part of its design. We have 25 to make sure that taking a 20 foot by 20 foot section out MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 of that pressure vessel doesnt impact its structural 2 capabilities, and where we would need to put in reinforcing 3 supports or the like for that. Also we analyze things like 4 missle protection, while its open.
5 MR. GROBE: Any other 6 questions? Okay, very good. Thank you, Bob.
7 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
8 As you can see, were making good progress on the 9 placement head project, and were well into the 10 implementation phase. New head is being prepared for 11 shipment. Weve opened up our containment and the whole 12 head has been dismounted, making good progress there.
13 The next area is Containment Health Plan. Jim 14 Powers and Randy Fast would discuss that.
15 MR. FAST: Good afternoon. I 16 too am excited about our new team. Today I will discuss 17 the status of our Containment Health Plan Building Block.
18 As you can see, the last time we met, we called this 19 containment condition. It was focused principally on boric 20 acid corrosion on mechanisms which encountered with our 21 reactor vessel head; however, it became apparent that we 22 wanted to expand the scope for all of containment to really 23 talk about the health of everything thats within that 24 building.
25 Part of that plan scope was increased to include MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 containment vessel, the liner evaluation. And, we have had 2 ongoing work there. We have done an analysis. We have a 3 team undergoing a review, a comprehensive review of the 4 design requirements, but as well we did ultrasonic testing 5 to ensure metal thickness and we have an interim 6 disposition on that. However, we can do more exhaustive 7 testing to ensure with every confidence that it meets 8 design requirements.
9 Weve also included environmental qualification of 10 our equipment.
11 MR. GROBE: Randy, before you 12 go on, I believe at our last meeting, one of our inspectors 13 Mel Holmberg identified a question regarding a potential 14 for corrosion below the concrete base mat on the inside of 15 the, of the pressure vessel and also around the outside of 16 the annular region. Have you done anything to evaluate 17 that issue?
18 MR. FAST: That evaluation is 19 ongoing. A team is assembled and well be doing 20 comprehensive reviews, which will include all of the 21 containment liner areas.
22 MR. MYERS: We have taken some 23 action to-date.
24 MR. FAST: Yes. We did about 25 1700 ultrasonic examinations for metal thickness in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 areas that were adjacent to those areas that Mel had 2 identified. That was our immediate corrective action; 3 however, were looking at all of the containment vessel for 4 integrity.
5 MR. GROBE: Okay. I read in 6 the paper this morning something that I think was already a 7 focus of both the NRC and First Energy, thats the issue of 8 whats referred to as MIC, or microbial induced corrosion.
9 Could you comment on that a little bit?
10 MR. FAST: Well, thats 11 something that has to be evaluated. Micrologically induced 12 corrosion, MIC, as its called, is a naturally occurring; 13 and if weve had ground water in-seepage around the vessel 14 area, that would potentially be susceptible. So, well 15 have to do some evaluation and analysis to ensure that we 16 do not have any MIC present.
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: We have, in fact 18 have an individual working on that right now.
19 MR. POWERS: Im taking water 20 samples to physically look for that as well as corrosion 21 problems.
22 MR. GROBE: Okay.
23 MR. FAST: Were aware as 24 well it is an item that is under investigation and 25 evaluation.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 MR. GROBE: I dont believe 2 that Mel has had a chance to come back and look at the 3 results of your ultrasonic tests. Could you briefly 4 summarize the results of what you found?
5 MR. FAST: What we did was an 6 analysis that looked at minimum wall thickness. That 7 vessel liner is about an inch and a half thick. We didnt 8 see any significant degradation. There is some local 9 surface pitting, which is just expected of a carbon steel 10 component, but no deduction in the overall ability of the 11 areas that we did evaluate; nothing that would require any 12 additional remediation.
13 MR. GROBE: You indicated, you 14 indicated that you were planning additional inspections.
15 Could you characterize those?
16 MR. FAST: Well, I try to 17 describe what this vessel liner looks like for our folks 18 out in the public. If youve ever changed out a thermos 19 bottle, the glass liner inside that bottle is effectively 20 what our pressure vessel in the containment is like.
21 So, you see the concrete structure outside that 22 extends about 240 feet above the grade elevation; 2.4 23 million cubic feet of volume, but within that is a steel 24 structure much like this thermos bottle. And thats the 25 structural integrity that ensures that under a design basis MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 accident, that peak pressures that would be held during 2 that event are being contained within the containment; that 3 is the barrier that protects the environment from a design 4 basis accident.
5 So, that thermos bottle with its steel structure, 6 the integrity of that has to be evaluated to make sure it 7 meets design requirements.
8 So, part of those inspections is in the annular 9 space. Thats about a four foot wide space outside the 10 steel liner, but inside of the concrete, the external 11 concrete structure. Well be building scaffolding and 12 doing hand-over-hand reviews of the structural integrity, 13 as well as put together some additional ultrasonic tests to 14 make sure we meet the minimum wall requirements for 15 pressure retention. That will extend all the way to the 16 top of the vessel.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay. And, are 18 you doing similar inspections on the inside of the 19 containment?
20 MR. FAST: Yes, we are.
21 MR. GROBE: What sort of 22 inspections are you planning, for lack of a better phrase, 23 for the subterranean section of the vessel?
24 MR. POWERS: Ill handle that 25 one. We did inspections on the inside where there was a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 gap identified between the concrete at the base of this 2 containment thermos bottle Randy described. Concrete was 3 originally poured at the base on the inside and interfaced 4 right up against the steel vessel structure.
5 With time that concrete has shrunk a bit and there 6 is a narrow gap formed there, and there was concern about 7 whether water could have gotten down into that gap. So, we 8 went in and we did stick feeler gauges down to as much as 9 42 inches into that gap and found no moisture.
10 So, that was positive result from those initial 11 tests, and were going to continue further to characterize 12 all the way down to the bottom areas what the situation is, 13 whether there is any moisture down there, and characterize 14 what the wall thickness is and integrity at the lower 15 elevations.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay.
17 MR. FAST: Just to try to 18 clarify the ultrasonic tests that weve done so far. In 19 the area adjacent, in the lower elevation of containment 20 where Mel identified the small annular space where the 21 concrete had shrunk and there is some gap between the 22 concrete and steel liner, where Jim just identified we dip 23 sticked. On the exterior side, there is a section about a 24 couple, three feet on the outside where there is no 25 concrete; and we were able from the annular space to do MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 ultrasonic testing to be sure we had full integrity.
2 That would tell us if there were degradation in 3 areas that could not be seen by the naked eye, that you 4 would be able to tell we had full depth and integrity on 5 the steel liner.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay.
7 MR. FAST: The other areas 8 that weve incorporated as part of our Containment Health 9 Environmental Qualification is were concerned about such 10 things as electrical equipment, such as air operated or 11 motor operated valves. Well be going through a 12 comprehensive review of that equipment and other 13 environmental qualified, to ensure that the conditions in 14 containment, that all of that equipment is operated in or 15 as fine a condition within its design requirements.
16 One of the areas that were focusing on, this is 17 really an industry lesson learned is the containment sump; 18 and were looking from a design perspective at ensuring 19 that the emergency sump is intact and that it meets 20 requirements. As a matter of fact, our vision of success 21 is to improve margin.
22 We think there is opportunities to actually extend 23 and improve the isolation from around the containment 24 emergency sump. So, we have a team in place that will be 25 looking at that as well. Looking at, where were moving MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 fibrous insulation, we could impact clogging that sump.
2 So, that will be removed from containment. We will have 3 all metal insulation.
4 The other things that were looking at is, the Decay 5 Heat Valve Pit, which is, Im going to call it a legacy 6 issue. There are two motor operated valves, which are 7 located in a pit adjacent to the emergency sump. And we 8 have traditionally sealed those plates and done a pressure 9 test, what we call a drop test, to ensure in a design basis 10 condition those valves are not environmentally qualified, 11 so we have to keep them from the flooded conditions when it 12 exists. And weve traditionally gone in and sealed those 13 and verified their integrity from this drop test.
14 But thats not a standard that we continue to 15 operate to. So, we have a design team looking at that and 16 we have several options under evaluation, which would 17 include extending the operators outside of the flooded 18 region, putting valves outside of containment, or 19 qualifying operators that could operate under the harsh 20 environments that would exist on design basis access.
21 So, all of those are being evaluated and again, our 22 intent is to improve our margin of safety in this area.
23 Containment air coolers.
24 MR. GROBE: Tony is clearing 25 his throat. I wanted to make sure.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 MR. MENDIOLA: I did have a 2 question.
3 MR. GROBE: Okay. Go ahead.
4 MR. MENDIOLA: I want to retreat 5 a second. Going back to the liner for a second. Two 6 questions I have.
7 MR. FAST: Yes.
8 MR. MENDIOLA: When you mentioned 9 that you evaluated the inside gap between, I guess, the 10 concrete and the inside of the liner, going down with a 11 feeler gauge and you found no moisture, but is there any 12 plans on sealing that gap or, or leaving the gap as found?
13 MR. POWERS: Were still in 14 evaluation on that one, Tony. Were working on an overall 15 plan about surveiling the lower elevations even below that 16 gap area and restoring that as necessary. So, its a 17 detail we havent finalized yet, but its part of our 18 evaluation.
19 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay. Then 20 similarly, is there a similar gap on the outside of the 21 liner, something like thats on the inside.
22 MR. POWERS: On the outside, 23 there is ground water that has seeped through the 24 concrete. Its not unusual for this to happen with any 25 type of concrete, has small cracks in it. And what Randy MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 described earlier with surveiling the outside, yes, there 2 is, there is an area or space where water can migrate 3 alongside of the liner.
4 In fact, in the past, originally we did 5 modifications in that area injecting the ground to work on 6 sealing that, sealing that gap. And then were going to be 7 evaluating that as part of the overall integrity assessment 8 of the vessel; thats going to be included.
9 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay, thank you.
10 MR. GROBE: Just feel free to 11 clear your throat at any time.
12 I had just a couple of questions. Some of these 13 activities appear to be directly related to the boric acid 14 issue. Some of these activities appear to be unrelated.
15 You mentioned that the containment emergency sump, 16 there have been questions in operating experience from 17 other plants as well as you yourself have identified the 18 decay heat valve pit as something that you want to look 19 at.
20 Why werent these issues identified and corrected 21 earlier? Why are they being identified and corrected now?
22 MR. BERGENDAHL: Let me take a 23 shot at that. As were going to discuss later, the 24 management issues, according to one of the things were 25 looking at is the standards of the oversight and ownership MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 of the power plant and programs. And as part of our new 2 initiatives to raise the standards and clarify that were 3 meeting requirements is not our standard. Our standard is 4 to exceed and do things the best.
5 The fresh outlook has exposed some areas where we 6 have performed to meet requirements, and thats it. So, 7 although that pit may have met the requirements, it doesnt 8 meet our new standards of robust safety way.
9 MR. MYERS: Ive been on the 10 Davis-Besse Oversight Review Board Meetings several times 11 over the years. Weve been looking at those two issues and 12 theyre not new issues to us. So, while were in this 13 extended outage, why not go and take them up. Perfect 14 opportunity to do that. Thats what were going to do.
15 And it will give us an opportunity to gain knowledge.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay.
17 MR. FAST: Next item, our 18 containment air coolers, and were going through complete 19 remediation. This is another example where our intention 20 is to improve margin.
21 Weve investigated the opportunity to get some 22 coolers of higher efficiency, better thermoconductivity and 23 well be doing a complete remediation of those containment 24 air coolers. So, they will be brought up to better than as 25 new condition; all three of those containment air coolers.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 Thats the comprehensive plan. Well actually start the 2 disassembling of those coolers next week.
3 MR. MYERS: Where are those?
4 MR. FAST: Those are the 5 original coolers that were installed at the plant. Its 6 like a radiator in your car, the way I would describe it 7 for the public, obviously. And it has deteriorated over 8 time.
9 Its a normal phenomenon for equipment and its time 10 now to go in and replace it and renew it and bring it up to 11 standards. And in this case, we can gain, because of 12 improvements in technology over the years, should have an 13 opportunity to actually improve their thermo performance.
14 MR. DEAN: Randy, are you 15 talking about replacing them or just refurbishing them by 16 replacing the tubes or innards?
17 MR. FAST: Primarily, the 18 design of the containment air cooler is a series of heat 19 exchangers. And those heat exchangers were replaceable 20 individually as a maintenance function. However, over the 21 years they degrade, so were going to be replacing probably 22 90 plus percent of those coolers. Im trying to think how 23 many coolers there actually are, but there are a few that 24 have been replaced recently as part of the normal 25 maintenance process, the old coolers were galvanized MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 steel. The newer ones are stainless steel. They have 2 improved in design and improved thermoconductivity.
3 So, effectively when you look at it now, there are 4 other elements of the containment air coolers. We did 5 receive notification of motor problems and we have two 6 brand new motors, two of the three will receive brand new 7 motors and as well the register, the duct work have been 8 completely reworked and will be remediated to, to as-new 9 condition, so principally, that heat exchange will be 10 replaced.
11 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, this 12 wasnt necessarily an artifact of the boric acid situation, 13 this was just an aging, normal aging, equipment aging?
14 MR. FAST: Well, there are 15 really two factors, Jack. First is the aging, the normal 16 aging process of equipment, but the other is, that through 17 the trailing of boric acid, those would collect on the 18 fins and those have been cleaned numerous times by our 19 staff, that did take their toll, the boric acid that 20 collected on the, on those cooling fins could be cleaned.
21 But, that repetitive action did degrade the equipment.
22 MR. GROBE: It sounds like 23 modification, not replacement for the component limit.
24 Will there be a substantive test program, heat transfer 25 testing program, following the replacement?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 MR. FAST: One of the things 2 were not going into a lot of detail today is restart, post 3 restart test plan, but all modifications for the plant will 4 undergo an extensive testing prior to restart of the plant.
5 So, that is, when you look at the chart or for the Restart 6 and Post-Restart Test Plan, that comprehensive test or plan 7 extends beyond the reactor coolant system and all the 8 support systems, and in this case that would be tested 9 extensively.
10 MR. MYERS: Jack, you asked 11 the question, one of the things we can tell you, we could 12 probably go out and clean these coolers up, work on them 13 and meet the minimum requirements. We have, we have an 14 opportunity to replacement and gain on the margin, so 15 thats what were going to do.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay.
17 MR. FAST: Okay, there were 18 questions as we met last time about our inspections for 19 systems that contained borated water outside of the 20 containment. We talked about that, and said, where do we 21 want to do those reviews to ensure that we have a good 22 comprehensive review of systems outside of containment.
23 I mentioned here that we did roll that into our 24 System Health Assurance Plan to insure that any systems 25 that contain borated water are thoroughly evaluated for MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 their functional requirements and design capability. So, 2 its not part of the Containment Health Plan, however that 3 element has been rolled into the System Health Assurance 4 Plan.
5 Since we met last, we have gone through a review of 6 our Inspector Training Program, and we actually saw 7 opportunities to improve. As we had talked previously 8 about inspection criteria, inspection requirements, we went 9 back and used our systematic approach to training to 10 review, to insure that our engineers were qualified to the 11 right standards for the inspections that had been done.
12 We saw opportunities to improve it by using the 13 systematic approach to training. Did incorporate it then, 14 lessons learned and being able to then apply inspection 15 techniques to civil, structural, electrical, mechanical and 16 our Alloy 600 reviews.
17 So, subsequently, we revamped our training program 18 for our engineers, and we have trained them. We have job 19 familiarization guides that are implemented and we are in 20 the process of reestablishing our baseline inspections and 21 verifying inspections that were done previously were, would 22 meet our standards of excellence.
23 Well be detailing any differences between the 24 initial inspections and the subsequent inspections. And 25 using condition reports to identify those differences, and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 theyll go into the engineering evaluation process.
2 MR. GROBE: I think I have two 3 things there I want to make sure I understand it. I think 4 I hear that youre going to reperform inspections and if 5 you identify any deficiencies, those deficiencies will go 6 into corrective action guidelines, condition reports, but 7 in addition, I think I heard you say that when you identify 8 deficiencies between your first inspection and the 9 reinspection for the improved training that youre going to 10 identify that difference as something to learn from, from 11 the standpoint of the systematic approach to training. Is 12 that, help me understand?
13 MR. FAST: We want to make 14 sure that we understand that the inspections that were 15 done, we want to see what differences there are. We see 16 improvements in the training. In fact, the previous 17 training program, we brought some industry experts in and 18 tested them, and we identified shortfalls with even 19 industry experts in their understanding and knowledge of 20 inspection techniques. So, weve incorporated that.
21 We think we have an excellent training program. And 22 we expect to see that through this reinspection, there will 23 be some differences. And what we want to do is document 24 those differences. Now, if we saw something that were 25 generic in nature, we want to certainly apply that across MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 the board, but we will be documenting many of those 2 differences and doing evaluation and inspection.
3 MR. DEAN: Randy, you 4 characterized what it was that drove you to revise the 5 field inspection training program?
6 MR. FAST: Yeah, Ill try to 7 digress a little bit. As we originally identified our 8 extended condition, we were focused on extended condition 9 principally in the area of boric acid degradation through a 10 threat of Alloy 600 components.
11 We adopted a standard, which was set by the American 12 Society of Mechanical Engineers called a VT-2 Inspection.
13 We applied that VT-2 Inspection. We had some problems, 14 problematic problems in our inspection program. We went 15 back, rebaseline, redeveloped that program. And as we 16 raised standards, we self-identified that there were 17 shortfalls, that although this would be good for credible 18 Alloy 600 Inspections, it did not meet our inspection in 19 other areas, such as electrical components or other 20 structural components within the containment. So, we took 21 on a more, I would say, full body inspection program with 22 better criteria.
23 Okay, the other thing that we originally, in our 24 original plan had inspection plans that were developed by 25 engineering. We have subsequently rolled all of our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 inspection plans into plant procedures.
2 Plant procedures are in hand. Have specific 3 criteria requirements for the entry and exit from those 4 procedures. And so part of our training program as well is 5 on these new procedures and the use of these procedures.
6 As identified the validation of inspections is in 7 progress. As well, we have now a group of independent 8 inspectors that are as well going through, using the same 9 criteria inspection programs that well be doing validation 10 of our inspected areas.
11 MR. GROBE: Help me understand 12 the word independent. Independent of what?
13 MR. FAST: Its not the same 14 folks were using principally; our engineers from design 15 engineering and from our performance engineering, plant 16 engineering. These are individuals that we brought into 17 the organization with experience outside of Davis-Besse; 18 and they were trained to our same program and they will be 19 looking independently at the inspections and checking and 20 verifying and validating that weve done a good job on 21 those inspections.
22 MR. GROBE: I just want to 23 make sure I understand this. When I think of the different 24 kinds of assessments of work thats done on nuclear plants, 25 which is what I refer to as line assessments; those were MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 assessments by the organization responsible for conducting 2 the work. And then there is independent assessments that 3 weve recently established, Vice President of Oversight, 4 and thats a second level of independence. What kind of 5 independence are we talking about?
6 MR. FAST: We actually have 7 two pieces of independence. One is our First Energys 8 quality assessment and that is ongoing. So, our quality 9 organization under Bill Pearce, the Vice President of 10 Quality, has also been training or doing assessments, but 11 we also brought in an external assessment organization.
12 So, we have both internal oversight and external 13 oversight.
14 MR. GROBE: Okay. The 15 external oversight reports to the containment health team 16 as part of that teams activities?
17 MR. POWERS: Thats correct, 18 yes.
19 MR. GROBE: Yes.
20 MR. POWERS: Containment health 21 organization has a new kind of review and oversight 22 organization, and thats part of our engineering assessment 23 board that weve assembled consisting of outside industry 24 experts, you know, providing oversight of all of our 25 activities.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 MR. GROBE: Okay.
2 MR. FAST: Since we met 3 previously, we made significant progress in containment.
4 As an example, we have off-loaded all of our nuclear fuels, 5 177 bundles have been transferred to spent fuel pool. This 6 has allowed us now to make the record cool system more 7 available for other inspections.
8 We have installed nozzle dams. We are in the 9 process this week. We will refill the cavity. We will 10 reinsert the import thimbles, then drain down, remove the 11 sealing plate, remove the insulation adjacent to the 12 reactor vessel flange, and well be doing thorough 13 inspections of the tops of the nozzles adjacent to the 14 reactor vessel itself.
15 After that is completed, we will also then be able 16 to do cleaning, and as well, we are going to be installing 17 a permanent cavity seal, which is something many plants 18 across the country have been able to install a permanent, 19 its a stainless steel plate that joins the liner from the 20 cavity to the vessel to insure that there is no leakage 21 path, which is one of the items.
22 If you have a temporary seal, then you have some 23 temporary, some minimal amount of leakage, leak path that 24 comes down the vessel. With the permanent cavity seal, 25 there is no leakage. Subsequently, we have no opportunity MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 then for any additional degradation under the vessel. So, 2 that is part of our going forward plans.
3 The other things were doing is we have mobilized a 4 significant number of painters, went through a 5 qualification program. Weve got some pictures, some 6 slides here that show. We currently have 20 fully 7 qualified painters, effective in containment right now.
8 If you go in, youll see these four foot by four 9 foot squares where each painter actually went through a 10 qualification process. That was the in-field exercise to 11 insure that they met standards of excellence for coating.
12 And you can see their names and Social Security numbers on 13 the wall where we did this. And we go back subsequently 14 and test and verify the paint is applied properly.
15 We have an additional 20 painters that are in the 16 pipeline in training, and theyll be reporting to the 17 station to help as well, and with coatings in the 18 containment. And another 14 will come this week.
19 So, we have a significant number of painters, and 20 theyll be painting the entire containment dome, and as 21 well all of the surface areas from 603 elevation, thats 22 the operating deck, up to the polar crane.
23 So, its a nice bright white and we are in the 24 process of prepping it right now. As a matter of fact, I 25 was in yesterday and you can see where, you can see over MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 the years, many years of operation and training, just dirt 2 and normal dust, oils and thing that have collected on the 3 walls. Just like in your home, that can be cleaned and 4 those areas are brighter significantly.
5 Thats part of the preparation for the surface 6 prep. And thats going to brighten the containment 7 significantly, but that will demonstrate our standards and 8 our expectations for the quality of condition of the 9 containment. So, Im particularly excited about that.
10 Additionally, weve decontaminated a significant 11 amount of areas in containment. All of the containment air 12 cooler duct work, which weve had people inside doing that 13 work. We do have the containment air recirc fan running, 14 which is redistributing air throughout the containment.
15 We also have a temporary cooling package, which is 16 connected to our containment purge supply, and that is 17 providing cooler air, so that we get better environmental 18 conditions for the folks working inside containment.
19 Thats made environmental conditions more favorable 20 and really putting a lot better situation for the work that 21 were doing. So, we have a significant measurable progress 22 in cleaning and housekeeping remediation in our 23 containment.
24 That concludes my presentation. Any questions?
25 MR. THOMAS: I have one, Randy.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 When they scope the evaluation for the containment air 2 coolers --
3 (Requested speaker to repeat.)
4 MR. THOMAS: I asked if the 5 evaluation of the grade containment, potentially degraded 6 air coolers would include a past operability evaluation and 7 scope of their inspection?
8 MR. FAST: The simple answer, 9 Scott, is we are doing a past operability determination.
10 MR. THOMAS: Thank you.
11 MR. DEAN: Randy, I have a 12 question about where, can you give us a sense of where you 13 gauge the percentage of which you have completed, at least, 14 the evaluation phase in terms of impact for the boric acid 15 disposition containment.
16 MR. FAST: I try to use 17 numbers. I believe these are accurate. Mark, if Im 18 wrong, you can correct me. But we have about 280 condition 19 reports, which is actually about over 2000 individual line 20 items that have to be dispositioned. About 30 of those 21 have been dispositioned and turned into work orders for 22 work thats going to occur. The rest are in some phase of 23 evaluation and will be forthcoming.
24 I see a nod there, so it looks like I was pretty 25 close.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 MR. GROBE: Let me make sure I 2 understand what you said, Randy. When you said that a 3 certain number of your 2000 or so items of observations 4 have been dispositioned by creating work orders, I want to 5 make sure I understand that.
6 MR. FAST: Okay. There is 7 280 condition reports. All of the inspections that were 8 done generated a condition report for any deviations, 9 didnt meet our standards. Each one of those condition 10 reports would have one or many individual items that 11 required disposition.
12 Of the 280 condition reports that have been written, 13 about 30 of those condition reports, which would be 14 somewheres in the 15, 20 percent range, have been 15 dispositioned. The physical work that needs to be done 16 generates a work order. The work order is the actual 17 maintenance process to complete the work. And those 30 are 18 in progress.
19 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, you 20 have condition records -- the focus of my question wasnt 21 clear. I apologize.
22 Have the condition reports been closed out to work 23 order, or condition reports wont be closed out until the 24 work thats specified in the work order is completed?
25 MR. FAST: The condition MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 reports will not be closed until the work is completed and 2 verified.
3 MR. DEAN: Then you would say 4 that those 280 condition reports essentially encompass the 5 results of the inspections. Although, the way I understand 6 it, you still have some validation effort ongoing, but 7 youve completed your initial inspection?
8 MR. FAST: That is correct, 9 Bill. The 280 are the original inspections. I would 10 expect it will be generating some differences, based on 11 those reinspections.
12 MR. GROBE: Any other 13 questions on Containment Health? I have a couple more.
14 I just want to make a couple comments. I think the 15 Containment Health Plan is a substantial improvement from 16 what you showed us last month. For one thing, you have 17 detailed procedures in place for the inspections. The 18 scope of the inspections is much more comprehensive with 19 respect to evaluating the condition of the equipment inside 20 containment.
21 Based on, again, this is just based on what youve 22 told us, you havent done extensive inspection in these 23 areas, but based on what you told us, it appears that 24 youre going beyond what, the event, the head corrosion 25 would have caused you to do. And I think thats helpful.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 Nuclear plant workers work to procedures. They 2 understand that. Quality assurance program assures that 3 procedures are adequate; theyre adequately implemented.
4 So, this context of detail procedures and systematic 5 approach to training, thats a nuclear standard. Those are 6 very good attributes of the program and assure the results 7 of high quality activities.
8 Im very encouraged to hear that youre having as 9 part of your inspection program a separate independent 10 look. And thats important from two standpoints. One is 11 its always better to have two sets of eyes than one, but 12 secondly, quite frankly, there was a question regarding 13 the, the standards of the workers that were making 14 decisions in the plant. And I dont want to infer by that 15 that all the workers at Davis-Besse dont have the right 16 standards. Thats not what Im trying to say. But there 17 was a question. And this will give you insight as to 18 whether or not that is a broad question, a narrow question 19 and what it means as far as the accuracy of your 20 inspections. So, thats good.
21 I also heard you say, as I was pursuing the question 22 of what independent inspections meant, that completely 23 independent at Davis-Besse organization, the folks in Bill 24 Pearces organization are going to be doing independent 25 assessments.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 And Lew, I think it would be very healthy for us to 2 hear Bills staffs evaluation next time we meet on the 3 activities that youre presenting. And, I would fully 4 expect, let me say, I would be surprised if his evaluation 5 is completely rosy. Hopefully, hes finding some things 6 that continue to have done.
7 So, I would hope that next time we meet, not only 8 can we hear from the staff thats doing the work, but I 9 would like to hear from Bills staff to get on the FENOC 10 corporate independent assessment, the quality of the work 11 thats going on in the field.
12 MR. MYERS: That would be 13 good. We would do that.
14 MR. GROBE: Anything else 15 before we move off of Containment Health?
16 Okay. Good. Thank you, Randy.
17 Marie, weve been at it for about an hour and 15 18 minutes; is it time for a five minute break?
19 MS. FRESCH: Sure.
20 MR. GROBE: Okay. Lets do 21 that. The last time, we wore out her fingers.
22 MR. MYERS: Could I just 23 summarize on the Containment Health Plan?
24 MR. GROBE: Sure.
25 MR. MYERS: I think once again MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 we demonstrated at the last meeting we were in the plan 2 phase, doing some discovery, doing implementation or 3 physically doing work. And, you know, weve taken on some 4 value and expanded the program.
5 Were upgrading our coolers. Were extremely 6 pleased with that. The thermo cavity seal is a major, 7 major effort that would add a lot of value and margin to 8 our plant; and it will produce, or does make our plant a 9 better plant. So, were moving to good implementation on 10 that.
11 MR. GROBE: Okay. My watch 12 says 16 after. Lets be prompt at 21 after, five minutes, 13 and that way we can keep things moving.
14 (Off the record.)
15 MR. MYERS: The next area we 16 would like to discuss is System Health Assurance Plan and 17 Howard Bergendahl will do that.
18 MR. BERGENDAHL: Good afternoon.
19 As Lew indicated, we are committed to the safe operation of 20 Davis-Besse, more importantly, sustained safe operation.
21 So, were examining much more than the reactor vessel head 22 and containment building. Im going to briefly describe 23 where we are on System Health Issues.
24 MR. GROBE: Just a minute.
25 Could you please close the doors back there?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 Thank you.
2 MR. BERGENDAHL: There is two 3 Building Blocks were trying to cover, The System Health 4 Assurance Program Compliance -- and these two Building 5 Blocks, as I indicated, are expansions over what we just 6 described.
7 The first one is System Health Assurance Plan.
8 Basically, a review of the key systems from three different 9 perspectives. Taking an operational look, basically 10 focusing on the needs of the operator. A second 11 perspective would be the system reliability, and thats the 12 system engineers view of the system as a whole. And third 13 is the design perspective of a system.
14 Now, the first one, called the Operational Readiness 15 Review; that was the operating perspective, as I 16 indicated. The plant manager led those reviews and they 17 are complete. That was a team review of some key systems 18 and review of the indicators on how that system is 19 performing and when its ready for safe operation.
20 That first cut review by Randy and some of his staff 21 identified some of those issues I mentioned earlier that 22 may have met compliance, but did not meet the standards for 23 future operations. So, that produced some work activities 24 that we had maybe identified for future implementation, 25 pull those up to current, to current outage.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 That review is complete. And, then moved on to 2 System Readiness Review, which is a more structured review 3 of the risk significant maintenance rule systems, focusing 4 on material condition of the plant and including some 5 detailed system walkdowns. And walkdowns would be done of 6 course, with procedure.
7 And the results of these reviews would then be 8 presented to an independent board, which is our Program 9 Review Board, which is a subcommittee of the Engineering 10 Assurance Board, which we mentioned earlier.
11 MS. LIPA: Howard, I have a 12 question for you.
13 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes.
14 MS. LIPA: On the operational 15 readiness reviews that are complete, is that complete and 16 identifying what needs to be worked or is all the work 17 done?
18 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its complete in 19 identifying the issues of what needs to be performed; that 20 work has been identified, and it is not all completed.
21 MS. LIPA: And then are you 22 also looking at operating workarounds as part of that 23 review?
24 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes. That was 25 part of the perspective of what systems have operating MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 workarounds, outstanding modifications, things of that 2 nature.
3 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
4 MR. GROBE: Thats, thats a 5 new one for me. I wasnt aware that you were specifically 6 looking at operator workarounds. Let me make sure I 7 understand that.
8 When I think of an operator workaround, I think of 9 things that are embedded into procedures, things are 10 embedded into the culture of operating the system, 11 operational characteristics of a control room of a system, 12 as well as operational characteristics in the field; 13 things our operators are having to work around potentially 14 a design, not deficiency, but lack of optimal design.
15 Are you looking at those kinds of things, scouring 16 through procedures, the workarounds?
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yeah. The first 18 Operational Readiness Review that Randy chaired, he can 19 describe it in a little more detail, but it was designed to 20 flush out issues like you describe.
21 MR. FAST: Jack, what we put 22 together in this process, 36 systems, as I recall, and five 23 other systems, like gear operated valves, motor operated 24 valves, breakers, things of that nature. We established 25 criteria. Had the system engineer come to review panel, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 which consists of myself, operations and engineering and 2 maintenance folks. And we were focused on the system 3 health.
4 Brought into view then the performance of the system 5 in the past and its present health. We use criteria like 6 operator; we have a level one, level two, and level three 7 workaround, we track in our operations group. So, as an 8 individual would bring in a system, they would identify any 9 outstanding work orders on the system, modifications that 10 were pending for it, any operator workarounds that have 11 been established, procedures that needed to be revised or 12 written to support system health.
13 And that board was really, Im going to say, an 14 advocacy to the system engineer in creating a form where 15 they could bring the issues to the table and get the 16 appropriate level of support to ensure that those items 17 would be complete.
18 As we did those reviews, some of the legacy issues, 19 Ill call them legacy issues, system engineering; we said 20 if there were longstanding issues with problems of the 21 performance of the system, bring those forward with your 22 recommendations as well.
23 And, Ill give an example. Im trying to be 24 specific. Something like the high pressure injection 25 motors. Been there since the life of the plant. Never MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 been taken out, sent out for complete overhaul and health 2 check.
3 One of the engineers came forward and said, I would 4 like to talk about the health of the motors and where we 5 are and make proposals to send those out and have complete 6 inspections done. And, we subsequently agreed and are in 7 the process of taking those actions.
8 So, right now as we speak, their HPI motor is being 9 rigged out of the building to be sent out for complete 10 remediation.
11 There were other items, like items, diesel start 12 systems. System engineer said, heres one thats pending 13 modification. We need to put some emphasis on it. We 14 agreed. We applied the engineering resources, and that is 15 undergoing design, and that will be implemented as well.
16 Those are the kinds of things that the Operational 17 Readiness Review did.
18 MR. GROBE: Let me just ask a 19 little bit more, get into little more depth here.
20 Something like a motor that hasnt had a 21 comprehensive amount of maintenance in 25 years, would that 22 be consistent with the vendor recommendations for that 23 motor?
24 MR. FAST: The original 25 design of those motors for life of the plant was 40 years; MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 however, theyre not outside of their design basis, but 2 its just prudent maintenance activity to take those out 3 and do a health check on them.
4 So, we were doing the vendor recommended 5 preventative maintenance. Those items that are required; 6 bearings, lubrications and such, were within their period, 7 but its the unknown, its the unknowns about that which 8 really require a teardown and review.
9 So, they dont go through much of a duty cycle, but 10 it is just a prudent maintenance practice. This is above 11 and beyond what the vendor would recommend.
12 MR. GROBE: Okay. Let me ask 13 a question, you just mentioned a couple specifics. This 14 diesel air start modification; was that something that was 15 a pending modification or was that something that had not 16 been requested?
17 MR. FAST: That was a pending 18 modification, did not have implementation plan or target 19 date for at least in the near term. And that was an 20 example, we said were going to pull that forward and 21 complete that work.
22 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, back to 23 the original question, which was operator workarounds. You 24 included in your Operational Readiness Reviews, operator 25 workarounds that had already been identified. Did you go MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 through a systematic review with, or was the intent of the 2 scope of this to find out review of the workarounds that 3 were latent?
4 MR. FAST: That was not 5 really, the focus was on system health. If there were any 6 outstanding operating workarounds, those are tracked by the 7 system engineer. He knows hes got a level one or level 8 two workaround.
9 Our Return to Service Plan included completion of 10 all the operator workaround activities. So, those came up 11 and when we said, so what are we doing about this level two 12 operator workaround, it might be that we needed to 13 implement a minor change to the design of the system. Then 14 we said, lets progress that, get the work order and get 15 that out.
16 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
17 MR. BERGENDAHL: Now, the next 18 level reviewed is System Readiness Review, were more 19 structured comprehensive. That would flush out more of the 20 items, Jack, I think you refer to, which are not tracked as 21 an operator workaround, but procedure aspect.
22 In that review, we will review the close condition 23 reports for the last few years to see how we dealt with 24 problems. Closed maintenance work on a plant, on a system, 25 open and close modifications, operating experience. Its a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 more structured review and it goes through a panel to 2 independently assess the thoroughness of that review.
3 In addition, on the next slide, weve added a new 4 program called the Latent Issues Review. This is a more 5 detailed look which gets beyond even the areas I just 6 discussed and goes into the System Health Plan design 7 perspective as well.
8 This program has been used at our Beaver Valley 9 Station. Weve adopted this program and identified some 10 systems to go after first. And ones that you see here are 11 systems that we selected to put this thorough team review.
12 Now, this type of review, very broad detailed 13 review, takes a team of people a couple weeks to perform.
14 This review goes back and looks at the original design 15 basis, the emergency procedures, all kinds of industry 16 operating experience, any operability reviews that were 17 performed, problematic risk assessment; and a very detailed 18 look.
19 We selected the Reactor Coolant System, Auxiliary 20 Feedwater System, Component Cooling Water System, Emergency 21 Diesel Generators and the Service Water Systems in these 22 reviews.
23 And we have currently assembled teams. Weve put 24 together the guidance and structure for doing these 25 reviews, and the teams are starting reviews now. I believe MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 as of this week we have all the teams assembled.
2 MR. GROBE: Before you go on, 3 Howard -- Im sorry. Go ahead, Dean.
4 MR. DEAN: I was going to ask 5 you, do you intend to do these design reviews or latent 6 issue reviews in parallel or do maybe one or two and gain 7 any lessons learned and apply that to the other ones?
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: We started on the 9 Aux. Feedwater System as kind of a pilot to see if there 10 was any process improvements that could be gained. Make 11 sure we got the right scope and expertise.
12 So, we initiated that one. Did learn some things 13 from that, and modifying our process and using that. We 14 expected this new program would be continued to be used at 15 Davis-Besse. Its proven itself at Beaver Valley, and it 16 really does a good thorough job of examining the systems, 17 going back to the original design.
18 So, we plan to continue this program.
19 MR. MYERS: Let me comment on 20 that too. Neil Morrison is with us today. Neil was the 21 person that spear-headed our reviews at our Beaver Valley 22 Station for the past two or three years. How many years 23 now?
24 MR. MORRISON: Two and a half 25 years.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 MR. MYERS: Two and a half 2 years. And so there is, hes got a lot of lessons learned 3 there, so this is not a new program for us. Were just 4 moving it to this plant.
5 But if you look at where weve been spending our 6 money at other plants, a lot of our money has been spent on 7 a lot of things, finding these latent issue reviews. We 8 found significant ways to improve the quality of our 9 systems at our other plants. So, were really excited 10 about bringing this program to our plant. We think its 11 the additional margin for the plant.
12 MR. GROBE: Howard.
13 MR. BERGENDAHL: The output of 14 these reviews again goes through the engineering assurance 15 board to get an independent check on thoroughness and rigor 16 on the reviews of the systems.
17 MR. GROBE: Ive got a couple 18 questions. Its an interesting list of systems that youre 19 doing the Latent Issues Review on. Reactor Coolant System 20 is clearly a focus of the shutdown of the plant; 21 recognizing that the head is part of the Reactor Coolant 22 System.
23 Auxiliary Feedwater System, Component Cooling Water 24 Systems, Emergency Diesel Generators and Service Water 25 Systems are normally four of the five primary systems that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 Im familiar with that comprise almost the entire risk of 2 problems at the plant, but the fifth one is DC Power. Is 3 that a significant risk contributor at your plant? Im not 4 familiar with PRA.
5 MR. POWERS: Its a good one.
6 The fifth one is, Jack, the Diesel Center --
7 (Requested speaker to repeat.)
8 MR. POWERS: Im sorry. DC is 9 part of the Reactor Coolant System, for instance, diesel 10 generators. The Aux. Feedwater System, Service Water and 11 Component Cooling Water Systems.
12 MR. GROBE: Jim, my question 13 was, normally when you look at say 95 percent of the risk 14 contribution, it would come from those four systems plus DC 15 Power. And Im not that familiar with your risk analysis 16 for Davis-Besse Plant. Does DC Power play a significant 17 role in the risk contributions at Davis-Besse?
18 MR. MYERS: I dont know if we 19 know the answer to that.
20 MR. GROBE: I dont expect you 21 to know every answer to every question.
22 MR. POWERS: No, I have an 23 answer for you. What weve done, is on the preceding 24 level, what we have learned to do on our System Health 25 Reviews, weve included the 1.50 DC Systems as part of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 that. Those are the main systems; there were 35 of them 2 that we are going to be going through, Jack. So, were 3 going to be looking at those in some level detail.
4 We didnt select those for the deep cut, but we 5 think the deep cut in the five systems that weve listed 6 here is going to tell us generally how, what the health of 7 our systems are.
8 MR. GROBE: Okay.
9 MR. BERGENDAHL: The System Health 10 Review will identify further evaluations that are 11 required. We need to do a more thorough evaluation.
12 These systems were selected, as you indicated, 13 important systems. A couple of them had system health 14 indicators, indicated that we had some issues with the 15 system in the past couple of years. And then we added a 16 couple that our indicators show very reliable performing as 17 well, but since they were high impact systems we added 18 those; and allows us to validate our monitoring programs.
19 MR. MYERS: We still havent 20 answered that question; how does it affect PSA that you 21 want us to look at. Well give you an answer to that 22 shortly.
23 MR. GROBE: Okay.
24 MR. BERGENDAHL: Any other 25 questions on the system reviews?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 MR. GROBE: Any other 2 questions?
3 MS. LIPA: Yeah, I have one 4 question. On the, in your plan dated July 12th, you talk 5 about that, through these reviews youre going to identify 6 conditions that need further evaluation that could impact 7 the function of a system. And it sounds like a subset 8 would be restart items. What criteria are you using to 9 decide what items become restart items?
10 MR. BERGENDAHL: In our Return to 11 Service Plan, we laid out a process. Every condition, any 12 appliance we have will be documented on condition reports.
13 These condition reports go through a station review board 14 that we would send to specifically evaluate all the 15 conditions against restart criteria. Technically, on the 16 restart action plans. Multi-field criteria. Safety.
17 Importance of safety -- I dont have the criteria 18 memorized. I could get that for you, Christine.
19 MS. LIPA: Okay.
20 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its, actually we 21 met today and we drafted a procedure for our Return to 22 Service Plan in process -- Let me correct. Our Restart 23 Action Plan process. And that criteria is in the procedure 24 which we reviewed today. It will be used in that.
25 MS. LIPA: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
69 1 MR. BERGENDAHL: Its also in the 2 chart for that station review board, clearly documented.
3 MR. GROBE: Howard, have you, 4 follow-up on Christines question; have you done the 5 screenings through your restart criteria and if so, how 6 many have you determined, whats the population restart 7 items to date?
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: The answer is yes, 9 weve started. Every day, any reviews that are going on 10 generating condition reports immediately upon 11 identification. Im not sure of the exact number. There 12 is probably four hundred some odd actions that have been 13 identified that we will get resolved prior to restart.
14 MR. GROBE: I think in the 15 future meetings, Lew, one of the things we would want to 16 do, I know that youre developing some performance 17 indicators, I havent peeked ahead, so I dont know if 18 youre going to talk about that, but one of the things we 19 want to understand in some detail is flow rates of work; 20 whats coming in and whats going on out, and whats in the 21 business to be worked as far as restart items, and other 22 issues that might go into performance indicators that you 23 developed as far as your approach toward restart.
24 And, I appreciate were still very early in this 25 process, but were going to need to start getting into MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 somewhat detail in that regard. So, at future meetings, we 2 would possibly get that sort of data and start looking at 3 detailed future work, backlog work, accomplishment of work, 4 things of that nature.
5 MR. MYERS: What we can do, is 6 Clark is in the audience, hes a building block on our 7 restart action list and we can start putting him up there 8 to tackle that.
9 MR. GROBE: Whatever you think 10 is necessary.
11 MR. MYERS: Lets do that next 12 time.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay. Did you 14 have a question?
15 MR. MYERS: Clark, get 16 ready.
17 MR. GROBE: I had one other 18 question regarding the Latent Issue Reviews. I understand 19 you used these at one of your other sites in the FENOC 20 system; really two questions.
21 This type of activity has been done on a number of 22 plants, several on the east coast and midwest that Im 23 familiar with, but Im sure there is others also. Have you 24 tapped into the expertise of whats been occurring at other 25 plants to ensure the comprehensiveness of your Latent MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 Issues Review?
2 MR. BERGENDAHL: Absolutely. The 3 D.C. Cook Plant, gone through some pretty good reviews and 4 weve visited that site, and we look for best practices 5 throughout the industry, and we have adopted lessons 6 learned from those.
7 MR. GROBE: Okay. Can you 8 give me an idea of something that you might have learned 9 from your D.C. Cook evaluation that improved your Latent 10 Issues Review?
11 MR. POWERS: As a matter of 12 fact, we are previewing not only the procedures D.C. Cook 13 used, also the people that have come over here and are 14 helping us now lay out the strategy. People experiencing 15 what was done at Cook, Millstone, Salem and are using the 16 composite of all that knowledge.
17 What we learned most specifically, Jack, is the 18 level of detail to go into, we believe, that drive the 19 FENOC Latent Issues Program another step, higher standards 20 as part of this. Its gone quite well for us. And we have 21 used others, past several years, but we think this process 22 is going to go to a higher level of detail. So, we think 23 were on the right line.
24 MR. GROBE: I think Cook is a 25 good place to go. A number of the people came from Salem, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 Christie River, Oak Creek; most of them that put that 2 program together. So, its kind of one-stop-shopping, so 3 to speak.
4 MR. MYERS: It is dependent, 5 you know, on our steam generator -- on our head 6 replacement. We brought people in that just replaced steam 7 generators at the Cook Plant. We have some welders from 8 the, that were over in the --
9 (Requested speaker repeat.)
10 MR. MYERS: We brought some 11 craft members. We brought some experienced people, people 12 welding rebar back on containment. So, were looking for 13 that kind of experience.
14 Were using, its Cook is really good. There is 15 some other places you can gain valid experience too. Its 16 a little different for our case, like the steam generator 17 replacement. You have to cut a hole in the containment and 18 put that on, like were doing to install the reactor head.
19 Its not something that they did at Cook. See what Im 20 saying?
21 So, were trying to get the best everywhere, and are 22 applying some of that information thats necessary for our 23 operation.
24 MR. GROBE: Okay. I had one 25 other question on Latent Issues Reviews. I think I know MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 1 the answer to this question, but I want to make sure.
2 This is something that was used to some level of 3 success at Beaver Valley and its going to be used at 4 Davis-Besse. Is this something thats going to become part 5 of, say, the culture of First Energy System?
6 MR. BERGENDAHL: Absolutely.
7 MR. GROBE: That youre going 8 to do this type of review at all the plants?
9 MR. MYERS: The Latent Issues 10 Reviews. One of the operational officers, one of the 11 things I was going to do even if I was running one of the 12 bigger plants in the country would be to take a couple 13 systems a year, and look at them from this latent issues 14 effect, because to make sure that youre maintaining your 15 design, your documentation. Its a good process, and I 16 would use it at all of our plants. So, the answer to that 17 is yes.
18 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
19 MR. BERGENDAHL: Okay, the next two 20 slides are just some photographs of the work that Randy 21 indicated we initiated some work on the Decay Heat Pumps, 22 and the next slide is just some, bringing in many 23 additional resources, as Lew indicated, craftsmen from 24 around the midwest to help us with the work we have going 25 on at Davis-Besse; a lot of scaffolding to support the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
74 1 inspection of containment and work activities.
2 So, we have a good work force out there and a lot of 3 good work. The items that we identify are being worked off 4 very well.
5 Next area is Program Compliance Plan. And, this 6 also has two different, we call them phases. They actually 7 parallel. Doing a program readiness review, which is a 8 baseline of our plant programs, we will assess, based on 9 the root cause of reactor head problems.
10 We identified some issues and standards and 11 ownership and oversight, and we set up some criteria to go 12 back and review our key programs on site, and assess them 13 against this criteria; present those results to our 14 independent review board; and really understand the overall 15 compliance and implementation of health of those programs; 16 to look at things like the qualifications of the 17 individuals involved, the interfaces, the individual 18 program owners have with the other groups. And again, then 19 present those to an outside independent oversight board.
20 In addition, much like the Latent Issues Review, we 21 developed a phase two or detailed program review, and Lew 22 mentioned Neil Morrison would be working on the System 23 Latent Issue review. We asked Neil to come over to 24 Davis-Besse and apply that same rigor to programs. We 25 designed a program and wrote a procedure and were using MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
75 1 that procedure to do these detailed program reviews.
2 Theyre in-depth systematic review of key programs.
3 Now, the first programs were starting review on, 4 the next slide shows the implementation of this program.
5 Starts off with using it on the, the programs that were 6 identified in our root cause and we have some issues.
7 Each of the programs on this list when we did our 8 detailed root cause on the reactor head degradation, there 9 were some issues identified on each one of these systems.
10 So, we selected these systems to initiate our new detailed 11 program and review on.
12 Now, we started a pilot, we call Probabilistic 13 Safety Assessment Program. Since this had not been used at 14 any of our other facilities, it was new initiative. We 15 piloted it and thought Probabilistic Safety Assessment 16 Program to ensure the process was sound and our assumptions 17 and criteria were right.
18 We completed that pilot review, and weve moved on 19 to the Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program, and scheduled 20 the rest of these programs all to be put through this 21 thorough review process prior to restart at Davis-Besse, 22 and then well continue much like the Latent Issues Review 23 to apply this problematic review to additional areas of the 24 site.
25 Again, its a good thorough look at Davis-Besses MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
76 1 systems and programs. Its under way, its identifying 2 improvements, issues and were following off on these 3 issues as well.
4 Any questions on our Program Compliance Plan?
5 MR. DEAN: Howard, can you 6 share with us some of the insights you gained from the 7 pilot review that you referred to just a moment ago?
8 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yes, the pilot on 9 the PSA, I dont have any specifics, but what we did there, 10 is we took a program. The reviews are done by an, 11 independent team members, we bring in from the outside of 12 Davis-Besse. So, what we did with that, is pilot putting 13 together a plan, bringing in the outside members, 14 developing a report and presenting that report to the 15 review board.
16 I dont know if you have any lessons learned, Jim?
17 MR. POWERS: I think some of 18 the insights that we found, our pilot program, thats our 19 Probabilistic Safety Assessment, thats one of the 20 strengths that we have. I think at the Davis-Besse site 21 and I think youve seen that with interface with your PSA 22 Supervisor, Ken Berg. So, its an opportunity to look at 23 what is a fairly healthy program with good ownership.
24 Now, what weve also found is weve been moving 25 forward with the Boric Acid Control Program and Corrective MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
77 1 Action Program; those are ongoing. Weve made substantial 2 progress in both of those.
3 That Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program, weve got 4 a draft report, final review stages now. So, we can learn 5 from those areas more significant areas of improvement that 6 are required; ownership, corporate industry results; in the 7 case of Boric Acid Corrosion Control Program.
8 In the Corrective Action Program, were looking very 9 specifically at, you know, detail regulation and how the 10 program matches the regulation and going through lining 11 those up one by one and every process, and there are areas 12 of improvement there. Youll be seeing those results 13 coming out of those. So, were finding areas in issues 14 that need improved.
15 MR. DEAN: Are you 16 incorporating a new benchmarking relative to, for example, 17 best industry practices, for using info to give you?
18 MR. POWERS: Yes. As a matter 19 of fact, thats a good point. Kind of a key element of 20 this. These reports as we do them are being provided to 21 INPO, and in some cases on the detailed reserve, INPO is 22 participating on the team.
23 They are set up down in Atlanta to take our reports, 24 as we review all our programs and send them out to industry 25 experts at other sites that theyve identified where there MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
78 1 is good industry practices from benchmarking theyve 2 conducted, and well be getting feedback from those peer 3 sites to help us improve our standards.
4 MR. MENDIOLA: Are these 5 benchmarking, these lessons learned, these program 6 improvements being reflected back to the other plants at 7 First Energy?
8 MR. MYERS: Yes.
9 MR. GROBE: I have a couple 10 thoughts, I guess, on System Health Assurance Plan. The 11 Operation Readiness Reviews, the scope of that activity 12 clearly was something that needed to be done following the 13 situation that occurred with the head.
14 The System Readiness Reviews, I think some aspects 15 of that also were direct outgrows of the lessons that you 16 learned from the head situation.
17 The Latent Issues Review clearly goes beyond the 18 depth of what would normally be expected, and Im glad to 19 see that youve taken these significant systems to do this 20 Latent Issues Review. I have confidence based on your 21 experience at Beaver Valley and the input that youre 22 getting from outside your organization that those reviews 23 should be of good scope.
24 The programs area, likewise, I think the level 25 review reflects not only what happened during the head MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
79 1 corrosion event, but also some things that youre going 2 beyond the scope of what may have been directly indicated 3 from the initial findings of the head corrosion event. So, 4 I think that likewise is good.
5 Were still in the phase of, in many of these areas 6 of inspecting all good plants. In a couple of areas, John 7 talked earlier about some inspection work that weve done 8 already on a nondestructive examination weve had.
9 And Mel has done some early inspection work and 10 provided substantive feedback to you on the containment, 11 early containment health work, or extended issue work, I 12 guess it was called at that time.
13 There will be substantive inspections that will be 14 coming as you get into these in greater detail, and start 15 completing some of this work. Well be taking a good hard 16 look at that, and also giving you feedback.
17 Were going to be working closely with your staff 18 that are implementing these activities to make sure we 19 understand your schedule and what activities will be ready 20 for inspection.
21 We dont plan on inspecting things before theyre 22 done. Were not part of your team. Were not supporting 23 the success of your program. We want to look at what 24 youve accomplished, and well achieve our confidence based 25 on the quality of work you do.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
80 1 Youve mentioned a number of occasions assessment 2 boards and review boards. Ive watched over the last 3 several weeks as things evolved, and youve got quite a 4 different character of outside influence on these review 5 boards, created more review boards, structured them. In a 6 future meeting, I would like to get some feedback from the 7 value added, a little bit more detail on the structure of 8 those boards, what their function is, what theyre 9 accomplishing, and also some feedback value added from 10 those boards. What theyre seeing.
11 Because those boards will give you a direct 12 reflection of the quality of the work, not only that the 13 people are doing in the field, but also the folks that 14 review and approve that work. Because the boards shouldnt 15 see that work until its been through your review process, 16 you know, in your line organization.
17 So, Im hoping to get some insight from that.
18 Hopefully, that can be on the agenda for the next meeting.
19 MR. MYERS: We can do that.
20 MR. GROBE: Okay. Any other 21 comments on systems or programs?
22 Lets move on.
23 MR. MYERS: Before what you 24 commented, I think the programs review is something that 25 helps us understand that each one of our programs is a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
81 1 pretty significant list of programs out there that we have 2 best industry implementation, doing the industry 3 implementation. Its not the minimum criteria, its where 4 we have the margin. And that we have good ownership, and 5 finally that were implementing that program properly in 6 the field.
7 So, thats really the structured process to go into 8 this whole latent issues process in and out. I note the 9 long term, I see that as an essential building block.
10 The next area that we have to talk about is 11 Management and Human Performance Excellence Plan; and 12 particularly the Management Root Cause. I would like to 13 introduce that.
14 Its hard, as folks say, to call your baby up. But, 15 in the last meeting, I indicated that management, 16 "Management ineffectively implemented processes, and thus 17 failed to detect and address plant problems as 18 opportunities arose"; especially in the forecast approach.
19 There is four key areas of focus that were looking 20 at; Ownership, Oversight, Standards, and Decision-making.
21 And, our Boron Program does not have good ownership at the 22 engineering level to insure that we were meeting the 23 standards in industry, and that the requirements in our 24 program were proper.
25 The oversight groups in our management team were not MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
82 1 properly involved with that program to insure that we have 2 proper implementation. Were not out in the field looking 3 at what we were doing.
4 When problems were found, we did not have a good 5 questioning attitude in this boric acid issue that lead to 6 the easy conclusions. It was easy to justify that no leaks 7 in the past were the cause of this boron buildup. It was 8 an easy conclusion.
9 Our initial management reviews have come up with 10 some assessments that we can share, and thats that 11 standards have existed for many years at Black River in 12 problem solving. Our reviews are going back to the 1980s, 13 and have indicated this lack of problem solving at the 14 management level is something we have to work on.
15 Another thing we can say now is when there has been 16 times at Davis-Besse Plant that we had strong management 17 leadership. In the 1980s and 1990s, the trend was to 18 properly identify problems and resolve them. So, that lack 19 of rigor was not evident and you saw improvements in the 20 performance.
21 For example, I had a supervisor tell me today that 22 in the early 90s, Davis-Besse was setting the standards 23 that everybody else was coming to look at. Thats one of 24 those standards we need now.
25 As industry hired many of our leaders at the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
83 1 Davis-Besse Plant, replacements reduced strong daily 2 involvement that resulted in a lax attitude of fixing the 3 problems. Lets just get the problem fixed. And since you 4 have that lack of rigor in decision-making down below, the 5 problem came evident.
6 Let me say this. The Davis-Besse Plant has operated 7 well for many years and its still in very, very good 8 material condition. As good as most plants in the 9 country. However, as new problems arose, without strong 10 upper level involvement, and the lax rigor, the 11 decision-making process appeared to be narrowly focused in 12 several cases that weve looked at.
13 Our approach has been simple. We initially assessed 14 the root cause of the head degradation. What would cause 15 this problem? As we did that, we also looked at some 16 management issues. We did that because we had noted that 17 there was a time performance at our Davis-Besse Plant. So, 18 by going to the technical root cause, we could first give 19 us some time to make some of the overall structure changes 20 that we wanted to make.
21 For example, we created the job Im in now, the 22 Chief Operating Officer, to provide additional plant 23 oversight of all three of our plants.
24 We created a new position, an elevated position of 25 oversight and promoted Bill Pearce. We brought in Harry MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
84 1 Light, an executive from the Institute of Nuclear Power 2 Operations to be our Executive Officer of Engineering. We 3 need that time to make those strong implement changes.
4 We brought in a new group of executives from the 5 industry to provide us as a management team with some 6 insight on the types of problems we might be encountering.
7 And they gave us a tremendous amount of insight. Several 8 VPs from several top notch utilities came in.
9 I was personally moved to the Davis-Besse Plant, so 10 we could ensure that we had plans and organization to 11 return Davis-Besse back to service in a safe and reliable 12 manner. And I plan to devote a significant amount of my 13 time until I feel confident that our performance would be 14 sustainable.
15 I chartered the Root Cause Team to look at the 16 management issues. Steve Loehlein will now discuss with 17 you the methodology weve gone through.
18 MR. LOEHLEIN: Thank you, Lew.
19 Lew mentioned to you the AITs report and our own 20 technical cause report talked about degradation of the head 21 over the years. What were doing now, is caused now, is 22 looking at the why; why this happened over a period of 23 years, that this was not identified and dealt with.
24 I would like to say first to you, Jack, this team 25 that we have working on this particular issue really MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
85 1 understands how important the answer to this problem 2 statement is, because we know we can assure that the right 3 solutions are pursued so the plant will be able to sustain 4 safe performance.
5 Now, Lew mentioned earlier some of the assessments 6 have already been done by various industry leaders. And 7 they do provide a lot of understanding to many of the 8 performance shortcomings. What were really doing in this 9 process is assuring that were digging down.
10 Our objective is to compliment the effort that has 11 been taken on so far by applying the rigorous root cause 12 analysis technique, and that will ensure that theyre more 13 subtle nonetheless very important causes for this upcoming 14 overall project.
15 Next slide.
16 We have our Root Cause Team in the front row. I 17 would like to ask them to stand. Its a group, Ill tell 18 you who they are. We have from our Perry Plant, we have 19 Mario Destafano and Bill Babiak. In our Quality Assurance 20 Organization there, we have Bill Mugge, Bobby Vallines and 21 Joe Sturdavant, who are all Davis-Besse men.
22 We have a couple of experts from Conger and Elsea, 23 Lesley Wildfong and Dick Smith. Now Conger and Elsea is 24 the company that developed the Root Cause Analysis 25 Technique that were using to develop about 20 years ago.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
86 1 Its been used on a lot of very significant investigations, 2 including the challenge.
3 Final member we have here is Doctor Spyros 4 Traiforos, who was with us for many months also. We use 5 his analysis technique.
6 Now, the team -- oh, Im sorry, I missed my own, my 7 comrade from Beaver Valley is Randy Rossomme. You forget 8 our own. Randy is from Beaver Valley in our Quality 9 Assurance.
10 And myself, Im also with Beaver Valley. I was 11 Technical Lead. My title at Beaver Valley is Principal 12 Nuclear Consultant.
13 MR. GROBE: Steve, if you 14 could get those names to our stenographer, Im sure that 15 would help her.
16 MR. LOEHLEIN: Im sure they can, 17 some of those arent easy to spell.
18 Its a balanced team. What were looking for, a 19 continuity for Technical Root Cause, which is one of the 20 main reasons Im on the team. We have process expertise 21 from outside consultants. We brought in the objectivity of 22 off-site personnel.
23 Then, we wanted to make sure we included the 24 ownership factor of on-site personnel. There are people 25 that need to be a part of this team, carry the message MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
87 1 forward to the rest of the team, if you want quality by 2 example. People that really know firsthand, understand 3 what we found, what it means to the organization. More or 4 less be disciples to the rest of the organization.
5 Now, not members of the team, but also helping us 6 are some oversight folks for us. We had Tony Maschari, who 7 has worked with nuclear power, excellent in human 8 performance. Hes not been down to the site. I believe he 9 plans to be down sometime in the future.
10 Leonard Rone, an organizational effectiveness expert 11 that met last week with us, and hes providing us with 12 insights as well.
13 Next slide.
14 We have a few photos here. We dont have all the 15 team members in the upper photo, what we have in the room 16 at this time. Here you see us working on a discussion 17 topic. Thats Lesley standing there, Im sure making a 18 point about the process.
19 This is approach. Again, Lew mentioned earlier the 20 Technical Root Cause results. The Technical Root Cause 21 pointed us in a couple of specific directions. One is the 22 errors in the decision-making occurred over a lengthy 23 period. We saw that there were opportunities to do various 24 things over about ten years that were missed. And that has 25 caused us to recognize that the timeline is also therefore MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
88 1 lengthening that we need to consider.
2 The other thing that was important on a Technical 3 Root Cause was we had other plant indications that have 4 allowed earlier detection on a problem. These were not 5 properly understood or acted upon.
6 So, from those key understandings were 7 investigating four major areas. One is the head itself.
8 Focus there to why wasnt the significance of the boric 9 acid buildup on the head recognized.
10 The next item there is pressurizer spray valve.
11 For any of you that read the Technical Root Cause 12 Investigation, there was an issue with boric acid pressure, 13 on the pressurizer spray valve in 1998 for which the plant 14 took a number of significant actions to try to gain 15 an understanding of the site focus, and guard for boric 16 acid. Yet somehow the effectiveness of the actions taken 17 there were not accurate to ensure that we identified the 18 problem on the head in the 2000 time frame.
19 We wish we had an opportunity at the time we were 20 reviewing that to regard that as significant issue to look 21 into.
22 The third one is the condition of the Containment 23 Air Coolers. The question asked was why wasnt the 24 significance of the increasing frequency and cleaning of 25 these coolers recognized.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
89 1 And the last major one listed there is similar.
2 Its the Radiation Monitor Filters, also the Technical Root 3 Cause of the monitors filters for them, were developing 4 clogging, boric acid, iron oxide; and why wasnt the 5 significance of that, that happening recognized.
6 Next slide, please.
7 Were using an in-depth approach on this, does take 8 some time, developing event and causal factors chart, and 9 well see a piece of that on the overhead here. Were also 10 using a hazard barrier target analysis technique in 11 conjunction with that.
12 The analysis process that were using is referred to 13 as MORT. It stands for Management Oversight and Risk Tree 14 Technique. That has a number of sections; one on the right 15 side of the tree analysis chart thats designated as 16 Management Time Issues.
17 Weve identified five key sections of that MORT 18 style analysis that we think are relevant here. One is 19 Technical Information Systems that are listed there. One, 20 Ill speak to for this.
21 I know the NRC, many of you are probably familiar at 22 NRC, used MORT yourself quite often over the years, many of 23 your trainings referring to it. But for those of you who 24 are unfamiliar with it, if I were to pick one of these out, 25 so management support oversight people understand why this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
90 1 tree concept works.
2 If you look at managements role, this process 3 per se, management has three primary branches in our 4 obligations. One is to set policy or establish standards.
5 The next would be their responsibility to implement those 6 standards. And then the third major branch would be the 7 concept of managing risks.
8 Now, if you took that concept of managing risks and 9 looked at its branches, and set three branches to that, 10 would be information systems. How does management get 11 information it needs to understand what the risks are.
12 Then there is a process that evaluates called hazard 13 analysis. Now, thats the process you have in place to 14 make sure whatever happens out there youre evaluating 15 correctly, so it can be understood.
16 And the third branch to that particular process is 17 program monitoring, that the programs you have in place 18 inform you and analyze the risks are effective in doing 19 that for you.
20 So, its a very detailed analysis technique, which 21 is designed to see exactly where in these processes the 22 errors occur. As we get down through the conclusions of 23 them, well develop recommendations for consideration.
24 Next slide.
25 I cant see it very well, but from the copy I have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
91 1 here, that upper left-hand photo shows really the cause 2 factors chart going down the lefthand side. What it shows 3 there is the information we collected for 1997 up to the 4 present.
5 We do have data points that go all the way back to 6 the early 80s, but thats because thats when the first 7 industry information came out regarding boric acid and how 8 it may affect the fasteners. So, we dont have a lot of 9 data that far back, but were being thorough in going down 10 all the trails in relating to these issues and sections 11 that were investigating.
12 So far, we have information from 69 interviews, and 13 well over 300 documents that are supplying the information 14 for this. The second photo shows, giving us a little tour 15 of the work chart.
16 Next slide.
17 As Lew mentioned earlier, we have from the 18 information we have, the understanding we have been able to 19 work with, at least, weve talked to Lew about other 20 management team, these management attributes, management 21 oversight-type things, been at the site. I pointed out a 22 lot of things, but weve also seen management attribute 23 factors that represent things that the site can work on in 24 terms of prebaseline proper standards and staff. And these 25 are the insights we have clearly from our data.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
92 1 As we mentioned earlier, we have had standards and 2 for years have lacked rigor. That strong management and 3 leadership has been able to have the right things happen, 4 and performance of the plant has been good in those 5 periods. There has been lack of management oversight that 6 resulted in lax rigor in process implementation, and the 7 questioning attitude in some cases is not evident as well.
8 So, the actual work analysis is continuing. Its 9 pretty short timeframe, but were working right along. I 10 cant take too long on getting certain things done. It 11 doesnt work that way, but for now these are our insights.
12 Lew, Ill go back to you.
13 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
14 MR. GROBE: Before we go on, 15 we have a few questions.
16 Christine.
17 MS. LIPA: An obvious 18 question, and Im sure there is no answer yet, you know, 19 the timeline for when youre going to start putting some 20 actions into place, because that will be important that we 21 decide how to do our inspections on those various tasks.
22 Whats your estimate at this point?
23 MR. LOEHLEIN: What were doing 24 right now, thats why were working so close with Lew. So 25 much what were doing now is, represents what we call MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
93 1 baseline proper standards, plus information out there on 2 the performance, can be measured as seen by, in forming 3 plans.
4 We need to do these conclusions and see what sort of 5 adjustments we have to make to those plans for any other 6 results we may conclude.
7 MR. MYERS: I think the report 8 will be this month.
9 MR. LOEHLEIN: Were expecting 10 it. Again, root cause, iron clad prediction on when were 11 to be done, but were expecting to be done with our 12 analysis and conclusions at the end of the month, and 13 thats where we are.
14 MS. LIPA: You plan to submit 15 that to us?
16 MR. MYERS: Yes.
17 MR. DEAN: Lew, this 18 question is not for you, but Steve. Clearly, you can take 19 some preliminary insights, and Im sure they jive pretty 20 well, you know, even with what we do; conclusions you come 21 to just by seeing what transpired and how you get where 22 youve got.
23 Are there actions being taken now in terms of 24 rebaseline proper standards, but the things that we talked 25 about earlier, your revamped management team in terms of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
94 1 driving those sort of standards and expectations down?
2 MR. MYERS: Yes, they are.
3 Im going to talk about some of those in closing remarks.
4 As you said, weve made management changes, restructured 5 some, brought in people already, created some additional 6 oversight and a few positions; myself and Gary, and Bill 7 Pearce. So, we are taking actions as we move forward.
8 Were very conscious about the actions were taking not 9 being negative actions, you know. So, yes.
10 MR. GROBE: I have to say, Im 11 still frustrated in this area. I have a great deal of 12 confidence that once you apply yourselves, the technical 13 problems and the systems area and reactor head and 14 containment setup condition and all those things, that you 15 can do that work well, but safe restart, and more 16 importantly, safe operations after restart on a continuing 17 basis, is key in this area.
18 And, these preliminary insights, while I know that 19 you have more data to support them, these insights today, 20 we could have probably sat down a week after the discovery 21 of the cavity and come up with these issues.
22 And like I said, Steve, I know you have a lot more 23 data to support these issues and will be developing further 24 insights, but this is the key in my mind, to long term 25 improvement of the plant. And its also the key to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
95 1 restart, along with all of the mechanical processes that 2 youre going through the systems.
3 Christine asked a question, and maybe Im just 4 asking the same question again. When are we going to have 5 a clear understanding of specific actions; what your 6 expectations are as a result of those actions, what your, 7 how youre going to measure progress in those areas, what 8 performance indicators youre going to use on how 9 performance in these areas are changing?
10 Before you answer that, let me just add one more, 11 one more thought. Some of these issues deal with 12 management, some of them deal with staff. Clearly, youve 13 made a substantial change in your leadership team, your 14 senior leadership team, but day in and day out every 15 individual in the plant has to be a leader for excellence.
16 And, the first level of oversight doesnt come from 17 management. It comes from first line supervisor, 18 maintenance foreman, the field operator is overseeing 19 implementation work by other operators. I dont see 20 anything in here regarding that level. Could you speak to 21 those issues a little bit?
22 MR. MYERS: Yes. Let me go 23 through my closing remarks a little bit. I think that will 24 answer these questions.
25 I think weve demonstrated today that our Building MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
96 1 Blocks have moved from the planning, discovery and into the 2 implementation phase in many areas. Okay.
3 We have taken strong actions to incorporate the 4 comments from our Restart Overview Panel, the meetings we 5 have had with the NRC and the comments weve heard since 6 the last meeting.
7 We are taking management actions that are 8 substantial and demonstrative.
9 Let me explain that. As I said, we created a new 10 position of Chief Operating Officer, so that we would have 11 more day-in day-out involvement in making sure standards 12 between our staffs are fine.
13 Let me give you an example. At our other two 14 plants, were running the same process in corrective 15 action. And when we ask for operability determination, 16 inoperability determination; at Davis-Besse it was 17 inoperability justification.
18 That minor difference sent the wrong message. We 19 created the executive, the position of Executive Vice 20 President in Gary Leidich. And then we created VP of 21 Oversight. Those were all pretty substantial changes at 22 the senior level. New senior management team, and a strong 23 management team is now present with, every day at our 24 Davis-Besse Plant with proven leadership. And weve 25 clearly shown that, when we have the strong leadership at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
97 1 the plant thats involved with everyday activities, that 2 the performance of the plant is efficient.
3 Weve brought Mike Ross in, just at the end of the 4 table, to focus on the operations area. Weve already 5 chartered mine. We evaluate attributes of every operator 6 at our station, until we have the right attributes for each 7 position; from nonlicensed operator, to the licensed 8 operator, to the, to the control advisors, hes charting 9 that activity.
10 Were providing a case study with all of our 11 employees that sets expectation that change of ownership 12 and standards need to be made. Were sitting down with 13 your boards and spending a lot of time in that effort. We 14 will be going back and evaluating each of our employees to 15 our standards. Were rebaselining our standards; do we 16 have the right standards.
17 Ive seen some cases where I thought some of the 18 leadership action standards, if you will, that weve had in 19 place, have deteriorated. Were going to rebaseline those 20 standards. And they will clearly learn, monitor and 21 reinforce those standards at supervisor and manager 22 levels to make sure they understand and they can comply.
23 Its that simple.
24 Weve created a new engineering standards of 25 excellence already. That will be a model for each of our MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
98 1 groups. We created a new Engineering Assessment Board. We 2 intend to use that board, its in their charter to provide 3 you the input you need to know about the quality of the 4 work. And, well continue to do that in other areas.
5 The Plant Manager, Randy Fast, is now chairing our 6 Corrective Action Review Board. In my mind, this is the 7 most important program at our plant. And I intend to have 8 Randy provide me detailed performance indicators on the, on 9 the thoroughness of corrective action from that board.
10 How many comments do they have to make for our 11 standards and how many outages have they checked. But 12 Randy is going to charter that board. Thats not short 13 term. I consider that permanent.
14 The new operations of leadership to ensure the plant 15 operational focus is absolutely necessary. It was missing 16 in this, this whole issue over the years. It was ours.
17 And if you look, we brought in Mike Ross, and we chartered 18 him to provide us indications that we have the right 19 performance modeling tools in assessing the office of the 20 organization. Thats his charge.
21 We need, have to build teamwork between our 22 managers, supervisors, and line workers. If we cant get 23 that done, then we probably wont be ready to restart; not 24 ever for restart. So, we have to be all on the same page.
25 At our next meetings, we intend to provide you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
99 1 performance indicators on how each one of these actions are 2 taking place. Whats the effects. What are we seeing from 3 the Corrective Action Program, Engineering Assessment 4 Board, and what are we seeing out of the Oversight Review 5 Boards that we put in place, some on a temporary basis.
6 But we consider Engineering Overview Board a 7 permanent fixture. I dont see those ever going away. Who 8 continue to be committed to comprehensive approach to 9 ensure the Davis-Besse Plant is safe and reliable, and once 10 again, we will make sure that we will have sustainable 11 performance. We want to let you know that.
12 Thats what I have to say.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay. Any 14 questions?
15 Okay. Before we go on to the next session of the 16 agenda, which is discussing the framework for restart 17 checklist, I think its appropriate for a couple comments 18 right now.
19 This has been a very comprehensive presentation on 20 the status of a variety of activities. I think over the 21 past month weve seen a substantive change in the focus and 22 scope on a number of the activities. And thats been the 23 result of your assessments of what youre doing and how 24 youre going to accomplish it. Its been the result of 25 some input from our staff, as well as some input from MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
100 1 outside influences. And, I think thats very healthy.
2 The area as I mentioned a moment ago; many of these 3 activities in the management performance area were clearly 4 future tense activities. Im eager to get into some more 5 detail in this area, to understand specifics of what these 6 activities look like, how you measuring them, what your 7 expected outcomes are on specific activities, and what your 8 personal restart criteria are going to be in these areas.
9 And, I think this is very important.
10 At this time, John?
11 Hes good. Lets move on.
12 I wanted to provide framework, clearly comprehensive 13 framework for the NRC Restart Checklist. Obviously, youve 14 got your, one of your Building Blocks here at your restart 15 plan, specific criteria for whatever items that need to be 16 resolved from restart, whatever items that possibly can be 17 deferred until restart. I suspect before youre done, you 18 already have a, many hundreds of items identified that 19 youre going to screen, and probably several hundreds that 20 youve probably already identified that are a result of 21 restart.
22 Our research in this has to be much simpler. And 23 its going to have a framework that covers a number of 24 areas. Obviously, we have to see root cause, is very 25 important. The adequacy of structured systems and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
101 1 components hardware in the plant. Weve added some 2 programs.
3 This is, our restart checklist is to a large extent 4 going to mirror your restart plan. Adequacy of 5 organizational effectiveness in performance.
6 As I mentioned a few moments ago. I personally 7 strongly believe that the first line supervisor is the key 8 to the long term exceptional performance. And this is 9 written a little bit different than what yours is, 10 management effective. Weve structured this more I think 11 broadly organizational factors. And, sub items were going 12 to get into in a little detail.
13 Readiness for restart, what were going to be 14 looking at in several areas, both the hardware as well as 15 the people, and licensing issues. And, as this restart 16 checklist involves, and Im going to talk about a couple of 17 these sections in more detail; Christine is going to talk 18 about one or two; Bill is going to be talking about one of 19 the sections.
20 But as the checklist gets formulated, and is issued 21 by the NRC, its important that we have a clear 22 understanding of the specific items. And I think as youve 23 gone through your structuring and restart plan, you can 24 find a very close alignment. We can provide you with a lot 25 of feedback. And I think its going to naturally meld MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
102 1 together, because the issues that are important to us, 2 weve been identifying the issues that youve identified or 3 reports have been good.
4 So, I expect there will be a clear alignment. One 5 of the purposes of publishing the restart checklist. There 6 is actually two purposes. One is a very clear 7 communication between us of what the expectations are. I 8 would say minimum expectations on prior to restart. We 9 would like to go far beyond these specific activities in a 10 number of areas. And secondly, to clearly indicate to the 11 public what the NRC expectations are prior to restart.
12 Let me talk a little about bit root cause. Weve 13 received documents from you regarding what Ill call 14 technical recalls. And Steve, you mentioned that earlier.
15 It was called something different. I think it was actually 16 called root cause analysis, but didnt go into the level of 17 detail that Steves team is using today, more to his 18 industry recognized processes at this point, which many of 19 our staff do.
20 Its very solid approach to identifying all the 21 organizational factors in the problem, so Im certainly 22 looking forward to that. The technical response is 23 specifically focused in two areas, thats cracking, 24 penetration, corrosion, what caused that, what contributed 25 to it. That was presented, I believe, on May 7th at MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
103 1 headquarters, public meeting to the NRC staff and other 2 folks. I think thats very well understood and we were 3 completing our evaluation of that part of the root cause 4 and that would be published and when we complete our 5 review, we will provide that to you.
6 The second area of the reconnaissance, what I refer 7 to as the software side, thats the organizational 8 programmatic and people, and obviously, you havent had 9 your review yet, so we havent performed our formal review 10 of the facility; and well be doing that.
11 Christine, I think, has some scope of the advocates 12 of the systems out, to go over there.
13 MS. LIPA: Sure, let me just 14 talk a little bit in general about the checklist we have.
15 I dont know if you guys got a copy of it. It was in our 16 handouts and we cant see the projector.
17 But this is, were calling this a framework for the 18 checklist. This is not the checklist. And the panel is 19 working to develop the checklist based on some of the 20 things Jack referred to in root cause, AIT Inspection 21 results and other items.
22 Then, once the checklist is developed and approved 23 by the panel, it would be reviewed and approved by agents 24 and management. So, this is the framework for today.
25 Well get you a handout.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
104 1 The first item that I have on here, 2 A, is the 2 Reactor Pressure Vessel Head Replacement. John gave you 3 some details earlier on some of the inspections that have 4 already been started. The inspections will continue.
5 The second item is Containment Vessel Restoration 6 Following The RPV Head Replacement and obviously opening 7 the containment and reclosing and testing as part of that 8 inspection that well be doing.
9 The third one are Structures, Systems and Components 10 Inside Containment; and its really similar to the 11 presentation you gave earlier. The things that were 12 interested in are some of the things youre interested in.
13 What damage might have been done to various components 14 within the containment head as a result of the boric acid.
15 That includes equipment, electrical equipment, 16 mechanical equipment, environmental qualification for some 17 of that equipment, the containment air coolers and the 18 radiation monitors. Well also be taking look at the 19 monitor plan on the sump and fibrous insulation issue.
20 And then the final supplement in this area, our 21 Systems Outside Containment. Specifically systems that 22 contain borated water and also some of your important 23 systems determined by your managerial criteria.
24 Thats how we intend to approach this area.
25 Jack?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
105 1 MR. GROBE: I just wanted to 2 comment. These are broad categories. When we describe as 3 framework; specific inspection, the scope of inspection in 4 each of these areas will be different. They will be 5 dependent upon the root causes of what resulted in the head 6 degradation issue at Davis-Besse.
7 The reason we havent presented this checklist 8 earlier is that I didnt want to be in a position to find 9 what was necessary. Youve been working through a number 10 of these areas. Youve evolved over the last month, month 11 and a half, and I want to be sure there was, you had a 12 clear vision of what you thought was important.
13 Weve provided feedback already in a number of these 14 areas. Also done a variety of inspection activities; Mel 15 Holmberg on the structure systems and components; John and, 16 Don Jones have done a number of inspections regarding 17 vessel head replacement in the area, nondestructive 18 examination; and weve already laid out the inspection plan 19 for the, what were planning on looking at with respect to 20 the, the code records for the necessary vessel head.
21 Shortly after we finalized this checklist, which I 22 expect in the next week or two, well be finalizing our 23 inspection plans, and get that schedule to you as well as 24 some detail on the scope of the inspection.
25 Schedule obviously is dictated by you. We cant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
106 1 inspect anything until youve completed work. And, we may 2 be able to do some, or some inspections have to be done in 3 process. For example, nondestructive examination 4 inspection had to be done in process and thats already 5 been completed.
6 So, as we begin to develop the inspection scopes at 7 least, we will be clearly communicating that to you. The 8 leaders in each of these areas will be working closely with 9 your staff. I understand your schedule and my staffs, 10 watch the progress in those areas and be able to step in 11 and do our inspection at the appropriate times.
12 I think Bill was next going to talk about 13 problematic areas.
14 MR. DEAN: Very briefly. I 15 think it would probably seem a pretty good matchup here in 16 terms of programs that were interested in looking at are 17 relative to the ones that you identified yourself here 18 today. Clearly, the basis of looking at these is that we 19 need to assure ourselves that the Licensee are assessing 20 your programs and they are in a self-critical manner; and 21 putting in place effective corrective actions which would 22 ensure those programs are effective in the future.
23 You will participate in assessment of the accuracy 24 of some of the programs. The one there that is a bit of a 25 delta is items received as audit and self-assessment MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
107 1 programs. And our intent there is that, we believe that we 2 can look at organizationally how do you put in place, say, 3 a process by which you have independent and organization 4 itself critical process, and that the results that emanated 5 from that process are treated appropriately.
6 So, thats one thats a bit of a delta that you have 7 to provide us here today.
8 MR. GROBE: Thanks. I think 9 thats a real good point. We view corrective action 10 program, an operating experience program, a self-assessment 11 program as really part of the corrective action program; 12 and, to be completely effective, it requires a number of 13 components, and weve separated that out in our checklist.
14 Youre taking actions in all of these areas. Its 15 just that you havent specifically defined in your 16 programmatic reviews things quite the same way as we have 17 here.
18 I was going to talk a little bit about 19 organizational effectiveness. This is the area you 20 probably wont get a lot of specificity from our checklist 21 at this point, but there are no NRC requirements in this 22 area. The organizational effectiveness and human 23 performance are actually critical safe operations. The 24 detailed look at this is going to be driven by, to a large 25 extent, by what you choose to do in this area.
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108 1 The results of this activity, of your effectiveness 2 in this area would be directly reflected in all of the 3 other inspections. And, organizational effectiveness, 4 human performance, will be measured by your performance in 5 all these other areas.
6 So, I will be closely monitoring activities, as well 7 as the outcomes of those, as the organization performs 8 during its approach to the restart.
9 The next area is Readiness for Restart, and I would 10 expect that the Systems Readiness for Restart is different 11 than your System Reviews. Thats more akin to what you may 12 call a checklist. Its part of the systems in an 13 operational configuration for operations.
14 Operations Readiness for Restart is an operational 15 organization of people. Operations, are they ready to make 16 the transition from shutdown plant to operating plant. And 17 obviously, test program, a number of activities that are 18 going to be accomplished both prior to restart as well as 19 during restart process, accomplish testing.
20 So, those are the three focus areas or the framework 21 for the restart.
22 Im going to ask Doug Pickett to talk a little about 23 the licensing issues, and Ill wrap it up.
24 Doug.
25 MR. PICKETT: Okay, regarding the new MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
109 1 reactor vessel head, there is a number of licensing 2 issues. This is where we require approval prior to 3 restart. And all the issues under item 6 are basically 4 documentation issues of paperwork, if you will. They 5 shouldnt require any modifications or plant repairs.
6 The first four items are basically requests from the 7 NRC code. The next are the spec requirements, and they 8 allow us --
9 (Requested speaker to repeat) 10 MR. PICKETT: The regulations 11 allow the staff to accept alternatives to the ASME Code, 12 providing the staff is convinced there is an equivalent 13 level of safety. Staff makes at times findings on all 14 plants.
15 The item 6e, is documentation of the reconciliation 16 between ASME Code, the new Midland Reactor Pressure Vessel 17 Head.
18 And the final item is additional documentation 19 provided on Verification of Technical Specification 20 Pressure/Temperature Curves for New Vesssel Head.
21 And, your staff is aware of these issues, and its 22 my understanding that youre preparing letters for the 23 staffs review, and we should see those shortly.
24 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thats 25 correct.
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110 1 MR. GROBE: Okay.
2 Thanks, Doug.
3 I believe that -- well, all of these areas are 4 fluid. Were going to shortly tie down what we believe to 5 be the restart checklist in the NRC perspective.
6 As Christine mentioned a few moments ago, once the 7 panel finalizes what it thinks should be on the restart 8 checklist, that will be by Jim Dyer, Regional Administrator 9 in Region 3 in Chicago, as well as Sam Collins, the 10 Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulations.
11 And, not until they approve it will we issue it to you and 12 to the public.
13 I wanted to go into some detail today just to give 14 you a scope and framework for what were looking at from 15 the restart checklist perspective.
16 One area that may have the most validity is the 17 Licensing Issues Resolution. There may be other activities 18 that come up that require either substantial safety 19 regulations, or licensing actions as you go through all 20 your system reviews. And certainly licensing actions are 21 something we would have to take a significant safety 22 evaluation, and complex safety evaluations, wed likely 23 take a look at also.
24 So, that area is going to be somewhat fluid as 25 things evolve over the last couple of months. The other MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
111 1 areas likewise can also have issues added to them. It 2 depends on the significance of the issue. Were going to 3 be identifying a lot of things. I wouldnt expect many of 4 them to appear on this checklist, but if its something of 5 particularly significance, the checklist would be updated 6 and they would be added to the checklist.
7 This is the first time Ive shown this to you. I 8 wanted to get it out on the table and make sure you had a 9 clear understanding and respond to any questions you may 10 have regarding this framework.
11 Any questions from your side?
12 MR. BERGENDAHL: Give an example, 13 like something that is systems outside containment.
14 MR. GROBE: Sure. The one 15 specific issue, again restart checklist should be driven 16 from issues that result in the shutdown. So, clearly 17 systems containing boric acid. Water has boric acid in 18 it. I want you to focus for those constant factors.
19 But in addition, many of these areas; the 20 organizational effectiveness on human performance 21 characteristics that were, that resulted in head 22 degradation, may have resulted in other system 23 degradation. And so, were going to have to see in that 24 area also.
25 I cant give you scope of the inspection at this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
112 1 point, but I can tell you that we would be scanning a 2 variety of the work that youre doing in the area of your 3 system reviews, as well as some independent work. Areas 4 that you may not have done to benchmark the quality of work 5 that you have completed.
6 So, does that help out?
7 MR. BERGENDAHL: Yeah, I understand 8 that.
9 MR. GROBE: Other questions?
10 Okay. Very good.
11 Lew, do you have any concluding remarks before we 12 finish the business portion of the meeting?
13 MR. MYERS: Well, I thought 14 this was a productive meeting. I think we accomplished our 15 desired items. What I heard was next time we will have 16 Bill Pearce here to talk about oversight; Clark Ross will 17 give us performance indicators and work off curves and what 18 were doing and what were identifying, have that at the 19 next meeting. And finally, on a management issue, focus on 20 the actions were going to take and how were going to, the 21 amount of the effectiveness of the actions. Okay?
22 MR. GROBE: Sure.
23 MR. MYERS: Okay.
24 MR. GROBE: Let me add one or 25 two things to that, just to make sure you have a complete MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
113 1 list.
2 MR. MYERS: Okay.
3 MR. GROBE: I think we talked 4 about the oversight boards. And, did you mention that, 5 value, theyre adding what their function is?
6 MR. MYERS: Right.
7 MR. GROBE: And also, I would 8 like to hear specifically about some of the more 9 substantive issues that your activities have identified.
10 So, thats more of a specific finding focus discussion.
11 So, not only the performance indicators, or how many things 12 that youre finding and how many things youre working on, 13 that sort of thing, but also some specifics on more 14 specific issues.
15 And, as we go through and inspect those activities, 16 well also be presenting these meetings on special 17 findings. So, well be discussing results of our 18 inspections.
19 So, I think thats kind of a healthy going-forward 20 spectrum for these meetings. Performance indicators, work 21 progress, specific findings that you have, value added 22 oversight boards, value added from Bill Pearces staff and 23 oversight, and then well give you our feedback as we have 24 from the results of our inspections.
25 MR. MYERS: You know, I think MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
114 1 if you look at the event, and we had our first meeting, 2 this is our third; I think we made good progress for the 3 last meeting, and this meeting I think, I believe weve 4 moved into implementation, and now were going to go into 5 really good monitoring of some of these things were 6 talking about. Well be ready to do that the next time. I 7 dont see any problem.
8 MR. GROBE: Just a final 9 thought. Ive, over the last couple of months, Ive seen 10 an evolution in your approach towards this project.
11 Clearly, what youve articulated here today is a more 12 comprehensive and more thorough evaluation than what might 13 be the minimum mandated by the, the issues contributed to 14 the head degradation. And I think also clearly what youve 15 articulated today is commitment to go beyond those issues 16 as far as improving not only the reliability of the plant, 17 but safety of the plant and margins to safety.
18 So I think those are good, good indicators. And, 19 you also presented today some, in the area of the head, 20 specifically head replacement and substantive problems.
21 And weve been inspecting those activities and found good 22 results from your work, as far as the work that youve 23 done.
24 So, I think this meeting has been helpful to us.
25 Its been fairly comprehensive. Its been giving us a good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
115 1 benchmark where youre at, and going. And we look forward 2 to our next meeting, which I expect would be around the 3 middle of the month, next month. And well work out that 4 schedule with your staff.
5 MR. MYERS: Thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: At this point, why 7 dont we take a eight minute break, which I expect will be 8 ten by the time everybody gets back in their seats; give 9 Marie a break; and then well convene the public portion of 10 this meeting where we can receive questions from the 11 public; NRC staff can receive questions from the public, as 12 well as any feedback that you may have that you want to 13 share with us.
14 So, we will be convened. I have five minutes 15 until. Lets convene at three minutes after. Thank you.
16 (Off the record.)
17 MR. GROBE: This portion of the 18 meeting is particularly focused on the NRC staff receiving 19 input and feedback from the public. And there is a pad of 20 paper on the podium up here, as well as the microphone.
21 And I would like to begin with any local members of 22 the community in the Oak Harbor area, in the areas 23 surrounding the Davis-Besse Plant as well as any local 24 officials that have thoughts or questions that they want to 25 ask, and then move into any other individuals that have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
116 1 thoughts or questions.
2 So, anybody thats interested in providing us some 3 thoughts or comments or has a question, please come up to 4 the podium, and were available to answer those.
5 I didnt think youd miss a chance at this.
6 HOWARD WHITCOMB: I guess I have to 7 lead it off, Jack.
8 In follow-up to your comment that you made about 9 first-line supervision, I would offer the following 10 observation. This afternoon, Ive heard essentially two 11 prongs, if you will. One is a technical fix to the 12 corroded reactor vessel head and then the other is the 13 software fix or management fix involving the root cause 14 analysis determination, so forth.
15 Whats been provided by First Energy this afternoon 16 is a time frame for the technical fix. What has not been 17 provided is a time frame for the management fix. Clearly, 18 the technical issue is probably the least significant, but 19 I havent this afternoon, Mr. Grobe, heard First Energys 20 first prioritization of the management issues.
21 In other words, what are the root cause 22 determinations? Why did they occur? And how is First 23 Energy going to address them to prevent recurrence? And 24 this afternoon, we havent heard anything with respect to 25 what priority First Energy has attached to that aspect and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
117 1 how thats going to essentially factor into restart of the 2 Davis-Besse Plant.
3 MR. GROBE: Okay. Excellent 4 question. I think I heard two parts. I think both 5 Christine and I had asked very similar questions today.
6 Youre correct that the root cause analysis is not 7 complete. The specific structure of what activities need 8 to be taken by the plant has not yet been decided by the 9 plant. And, were here to get those also and look forward 10 to those more detailed specifics at our next meeting next 11 month.
12 The other question I think is also a fair question, 13 and its not one for me to answer, but I would ask Lew or 14 Howard if they want to comment on what priority you place 15 on the, addressing the causal factors of more on the human 16 performance organization effectiveness as contrasted with 17 the priority placed on the hardware fixes?
18 MR. MYERS: Well, in my mind, 19 the management issues, Im sponsor to the management 20 issues, is pretty high priority. Thats the reason I am 21 the sponsor, because we realize weve had, weve made some 22 pretty significant organizational changes already at the 23 upper levels. Weve improved the senior team at the 24 station, has changed considerably.
25 As we go through finish up with the work processes, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
118 1 well probably find some additional insights of training 2 and standards that we need to take. And then finally the 3 programs reviews.
4 As you go through these program reviews, weve got 5 to make sure weve got good industry standards on our 6 programs, that we have good ownership of our programs, and 7 we have to go on to monitor implementation of each and 8 every program. Were going to do that. I dont know that 9 every one of those is required before restart, but were 10 certainly going to look at our programs very hard for 11 restart.
12 And the final thing is our independent review board 13 that I talked about. We wont restart the plant until that 14 board thinks were ready to go.
15 MR. GROBE: Okay. Anything 16 else, Howard?
17 HOWARD WHITCOMB: No, that should do 18 it.
19 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
20 I did realize that I had forgotten to introduce one 21 NRC staff member that is here today. And, I thought he had 22 left. So, I was really feeling badly, but I just noticed 23 that he came back in the room. So, let me take this 24 opportunity to introduce Marty Farber.
25 Marty, where did you go? There he is over in the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
119 1 back.
2 Marty is a very experienced inspector in the Region 3 3 office. Outstanding performer for us. And he has taken 4 on the responsibility to be a leader on the, what we call, 5 the AIT follow-up inspection. Hes been working in 6 Regional office for several weeks and is on-site this week 7 bringing focus on the AIT findings, as far as the, whether 8 those findings or which of those findings represent 9 regulatory violations and what the significance of those 10 violations are.
11 So, over the next couple of weeks, I expect Marty 12 and possibly some other staff from Region 3 support will be 13 completing the AIT follow-up inspection.
14 I didnt want to miss the opportunities to introduce 15 Marty. So, I apologize Marty for not catching you earlier.
16 You were on my list and I missed you.
17 Are there other members of the Oak Harbor community 18 that have questions or comments?
19 Any elected officials that have questions or public 20 officials that have questions?
21 Okay. Very good.
22 Are there other members in the audience today that 23 have questions for us or comments that they want us to 24 consider?
25 Yes, sir?
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120 1 JOHN MILLER: My name is John 2 Miller. Im a reporter.
3 Mr. Grobe, if you were king, what would you do about 4 the notion of the safety culture of the emphasis you put 5 today on first line supervisors having the kind of safety 6 attitude so that they catch problems as they arise rather 7 than pinning the safety of the plant only on the senior 8 management in some kind of bureaucratic process of CRs that 9 would, that would find problems?
10 In other words, what do you think ought to be 11 happening, not only at this plant, but around the industry 12 in this matter of training or evaluating safety culture?
13 MR. GROBE: Thats a big 14 question. First off, let me take a step back. Our 15 inspection program is built upon a number of fundamentals.
16 And, Bill, maybe you can, as I go through a couple 17 things, maybe you can think through this and provide some 18 additional thoughts.
19 We have characteristics in our inspection program, 20 which we call cross-cutting issues. And what cross-cutting 21 issue means is, its something that affects safety 22 performance across the plant in any of the various safety 23 cornerstones, is what were calling them.
24 One of the cross-cutting issues is Human 25 Performance, and its the focus of our inspection program.
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121 1 Second cross-cutting issue is the Corrective Action 2 Program, and safety culture of the plant. What we 3 sometimes refer to as the safety conscious work 4 environment.
5 These issues are underpinning issues for our entire 6 inspection program, and we have a number of activities that 7 we conduct that focus on those. One of them has to do with 8 periodic, what we refer to as problem identification and 9 resolution inspection. And, that is specifically, focuses 10 on the activities it takes to evaluate problems, identify 11 problems, evaluate them, resolve them. Its a risk-focused 12 inspection, meaning take the highest risk significant 13 issues and ensure that those issues are being identified 14 and resolved.
15 We also have periodic activity where we go into 16 depth. Some people refer to it as drilling down into an 17 issue. Where an issue of particular, what appears on the 18 surface to be more significant than other issues that come 19 up on a day-by-day basis, we will drill down into the 20 issue; not at the same extent, but similar to what Steve 21 Loehlein has done with respect to this issue, and make sure 22 that the Licensee is going to do a good job identifying the 23 causal factors and correct it.
24 The last aspect of what we do currently focusing on 25 safety, but I think you used the word safety culture, is MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
122 1 each of our inspectors when they go out to a site, whether 2 theyre health physicists, security inspectors, engineering 3 inspectors, whatever different flavor of technical 4 expertise they have, spends a certain period of their 5 inspection time on site looking at the effectiveness of the 6 Licensees programs to identify problems and fix problems.
7 Bill, do you have, any thoughts that you have?
8 JOHN MILLER: Maybe if I could 9 rephrase the question, because I think, I think I did 10 confuse you. You said to Mr. Myers; Mr. Myers, you know, 11 Im frustrated, I dont believe you have done enough in 12 telling me about how anybody at the plant below high level 13 management is going to be operating in a sufficiently 14 safety-minded mode; and you told him you want to see next 15 time what hes going to do about that.
16 So, Im asking you, what do you think he ought to 17 do?
18 MR. GROBE: I appreciate, 19 maybe I misunderstood your question. I apologize.
20 JOHN MILLER: It wasnt clear, 21 Im sorry.
22 MR. GROBE: Its certainly not 23 my place to tell Mr. Myers how to fix his problems, its my 24 place to evaluate how effectively he does it. And there 25 are many ways to choose to address these kinds of issues.
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123 1 And theyve been addressed at a number of plants around the 2 country. And, outside of nuclear power, there are 3 organizational effectiveness experts, and theyre applied 4 in big corporations, small companies across the country.
5 So, its, Mr. Myers and his teams responsibility to 6 bring to the table what they plan, and we make sure that to 7 our satisfaction that it is comprehensive, and then well 8 make sure from a planning prospective and make sure to our 9 satisfaction that, that its been effectively implemented.
10 And, well be presenting to you the results of our 11 inspections at these types of meetings in the future.
12 JOHN MILLER: Okay. If you 13 would humor me just one more time.
14 Back to the first question. If you were king, if 15 you were the NRC Commission, you would be safe to saying 16 something more generic than I would just let all of the 17 utility managers around the country find their own way to a 18 program that ensures that first level supervisors are all 19 safety minded enough. What would those generic 20 requirements be?
21 MR. GROBE: Again, its, in 22 the organization, as well as any other organization, there 23 is all kinds of different ways. Each organization has, has 24 a character to it; and one solution in one organization 25 might not apply. Different parts of the country have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
124 1 different characteristics of people and how they, what 2 motivates them. What brings focus to their work. There is 3 no cookie cutter solution to this kind of a problem.
4 And, whats important is for Mr. Myers to define 5 what it is that he thinks is going to fix the issue here at 6 Davis-Besse, and then well evaluate his implementation.
7 And, as I mentioned earlier, the results are going 8 to be in the performance in the other areas of the restart 9 checklist. Whether his activities are successful or not 10 would be clearly evident, not only in the performance 11 indicators that he develops to evaluate human performance 12 and organizational effectiveness, but also the results of 13 the specific activities that are undertaken to improve the 14 plant, to accomplish the work.
15 Randy Fast talked about replacing the air coolers.
16 Thats a fairly large work activity that involves 17 engineering, involves maintenance workers, involves maybe 18 construction workers, depending on the scope of the work.
19 And, you know, well be inspecting those sorts of 20 activities in the plant.
21 And so, there is a number of ways that were going 22 to be evaluating the effectiveness, not only through the 23 specific limitation actions under that cornerstone -- Im 24 sorry, building block, but also in looking at the 25 performance of the staff and the organization.
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125 1 JOHN MILLER: Could I ask one 2 more question on a different point?
3 MR. GROBE: Certainly. Thats 4 what were here for.
5 JOHN MILLER: One could make a 6 case that this is an example of something, that 7 Davis-Besses situation is an example of something that the 8 NRC hopes never to see.
9 MR. GROBE: Im sorry, what?
10 JOHN MILLER: NRC hopes never to 11 see. Whats that, given that you dont have enough 12 resources to inspect everything, you have a kind of 13 sampling inspection program; you inspect some things, not 14 others. You have a risk base analysis. Hopefully, its 15 what appears to be the most important things.
16 But we now have a plant that by your annual 17 inspection performed quite adequately, but under new 18 management you say, its clear over perhaps a decade or 19 more, numbers of individuals missed what in hindsight would 20 seem to be very simple indications of problems.
21 And the last time on June 12th at the public 22 meeting, at least, I think you and your assistant both 23 agreed that, that the local inspectors priorities on what 24 to inspect would not have this kind of a situation, boric 25 acid on the reactor head, anywhere near the top of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
126 1 list; it would be way down on that persons radar screen.
2 Given that, what would you say to the argument that 3 maybe this inspection team doesnt work; and, if NRC wants 4 to be able to prove to its own satisfaction and to the 5 satisfaction of the public that such a thing is never going 6 to happen again, given that it was such a near miss to a 7 LOCA, that the only solution would be a much larger 8 inspection program, inspecting many more things than are 9 required, many more financial on the human resources.
10 MR. GROBE: I apologize, Ive 11 forgotten your name.
12 JOHN MILLER: John Miller.
13 MR. GROBE: John, there is a 14 number of things that are ongoing. You ask very good 15 questions, and Bill is itching to add to my response. Ill 16 pass the microphone to him in a moment.
17 Im sure youve heard the old adage, dont throw the 18 baby out with the bath water. Im certainly not willing to 19 condemn the entire inspection approach or other, any of the 20 other broad statements that youve made, but what the NRC 21 has undertaken, is ongoing right now, here last month, if 22 you had an opportunity to hear Art Howell and Ed Hackett 23 present publicly what we refer to as a Lesson Learned Task 24 Force.
25 And the Executive Director, the head guy of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
127 1 Regulatory Commission has chartered a group of people 2 completely independent of anybody thats involved at 3 Davis-Besse to take a real hard look at inspection 4 programs; how we handled generic safety issues, our 5 interrelationship with the international community, and 6 lessons to learn. And I think there were a couple other 7 items on the charter for Lessons Learned Task Force.
8 I cant remember all of them off the top of my head, 9 but that task force is working. They have spent a good 10 deal of time at the Davis-Besse site talking to Licensee.
11 Theyve talked to an incredible amount of NRC staff.
12 Theyve collected a wealth of documents.
13 The task force is fairly broad, and as far as 14 numbers and scope or perspective individuals that come from 15 a variety of parts of our organization, technically as well 16 as geographically. So, Im looking forward to the results 17 of their assessment, things that we can follow on a 18 inspection program.
19 Bill, did you have additional comments?
20 MR. DEAN: John, I just want 21 to point out two things. One is, that if you looked at 22 nuclear industry as a whole, and where performance was ten, 23 fifteen years ago, and where performance is today as an 24 industry, there has been a lot of benefit gained from the 25 collective experience, and our inspection program has been MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
128 1 designed relative to that collective experience.
2 And, what we have here at Davis-Besse is a new 3 experience. And I would offer that our inspection program 4 has the flexibility to be able to be modified, if 5 appropriate, to address new phenomenon and new issues that 6 might emerge.
7 And, relative to your comment about boric acid on 8 the vessel head not being important. I guess I would like 9 to point out that over the past couple of years, as we have 10 learned more as an agency and as an industry about issues 11 associated with CRDM nozzle cracking and learning about the 12 different types of phenomenon and so on and so forth, I 13 think there is a fairly significant track record over the 14 last couple of years that indicates the significance and 15 the seriousness with which the agency has considered and 16 asked and required Licensees to take specific action, 17 quote, for the vessel head degradation which occurred at 18 Davis-Besse as well as on the aftermath of that.
19 So, I think that, that provides an example of the 20 fact that any, any industry is not a static situation.
21 That things change. That we continue to learn. Thats one 22 of the important things that we have to have that comes out 23 of this, that we as an agency, Davis-Besse as the Licensee, 24 and the nuclear industry as a whole, learns from this, so 25 that the factors that led to this dont repeat themselves MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
129 1 in the future.
2 JOHN MILLER: One follow-up, if 3 I could. Accepting that your comment that performance is 4 better now we have experience; and accepting Mr. Grobes 5 comment that in general, throwing the baby out with the 6 bath water is not a good idea. But we have the convenience 7 of not having had the LOCA that we avoided only by what is 8 fair to say, dumb luck, because stainless steel is put in 9 there only for corrosion resistance, not for structure.
10 If we were now having this meeting in front of a 11 congressional committee examining why there was this LOCA; 12 do you really believe they would be convinced by the 13 argument dont throw the baby out with the bath water?
14 MR. GROBE: I apologize.
15 There was so many premises to that question, Im not sure I 16 can answer it effectively.
17 What I would suggest is that you and I have a chance 18 to talk and go privately after this meeting, and we can get 19 into a bit more detail on this, because I think it is 20 important for you to understand in a little more detail the 21 scope of our programs, the activities that occurred prior 22 to Davis-Besse, the activities that have occurred after 23 Davis-Besse.
24 And, I think I dont want to give you the impression 25 that I feel any differently than this. I think a number of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
130 1 managers, the agency, including myself, has stated this 2 should never happen. And its the Licensees 3 responsibility to make sure these types of issues dont 4 happen.
5 Its our responsibility to have an inspection 6 program that provides a high level assurance that what 7 theyre doing is the right thing. And, our inspection 8 program did not disclose this as early as it should have, 9 and certainly the Licensee did not perform in a manner that 10 was appropriate, and it resulted in the head degradation.
11 So, with that said, lets get into this separately 12 after the meeting, because I dont want to tie everybody 13 else up with an extended discussion of this topic. Okay.
14 MR. MYERS: Can I make a 15 comment?
16 MR. GROBE: Sure, Lew.
17 MR. MYERS: Let me make a 18 comment; a couple. Most likely, from an engineering 19 standpoint the situation we had would have caused leakage 20 that would have shut us down before it broke. One gallon 21 would shut it down. So, that was really first in there.
22 It shouldnt have happened. We should have found this.
23 But what I do think is healthy, I never thought I 24 would say this, but Ive been in this industry for over 30 25 years, and the performance improvements that we see are due MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
131 1 to some of our oversight reviews and nuclear power 2 operations and processes that we go through like were 3 going through here when we find something new.
4 I think theyre right. Weve learned something new 5 that we need to share with the industry about this 6 particular program. And I think that this is not, this is 7 not a fun process, but its healthy. And these processes 8 that plants have gone through over the years to improve the 9 material condition of our plants, the air operated valve, 10 the leak rate programs; boric acid program, we should have 11 had in place better, have made this industry perform well 12 over the years.
13 And thats the reason for these type of things that 14 we go through with the institute of nuclear power, because 15 assessments of those every 18 months. And youre own 16 internal self-assessments; if we do find a problem, there 17 is going to be problems with any industry, that it gets to 18 this level of detail, has really improved the performances 19 of our plants; not only from an operation standpoint, but 20 from a safety standpoint, that the NRC monitors.
21 You know, I really do believe that. This is not a 22 fun process sitting up here on this stage, talking about 23 this issue, but its probably healthy.
24 MR. GROBE: Are there any 25 other members of the public that have a question or MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
132 1 comment?
2 Let me ask, before we get started, Mr. Stucker, can 3 you turn on the house lights?
4 BEATRICE MIRINGU: My name 5 is Beatrice, B E A T R I C E, and Miringu, M I R I N G U.
6 I just want to get an indication from First Energy.
7 You said that you have an independent panel that select 8 people different experiences for different knowledge and 9 from different areas, but you also said that you have 10 brought in somebody who will help in facilitating 11 communication between you and First Energy.
12 Its my understanding that you have, NRC has two 13 staff members at every nuclear department. And indeed, the 14 problem that you would be having with Davis-Besse 15 especially with the boric acid problem has nothing do did 16 with communication between you and NRC.
17 So, if you could elaborate on what you mean by some 18 real facilitating or making it easier for you to 19 communicate to First Energy, to NRC, or NRC communicating 20 to you?
21 MR. GROBE: Maam, the portion 22 of this meeting is to help the NRC with questions for us 23 and comments for us. I would suggest if you have a 24 specific question with First Energy, visit with those folks 25 after the meeting and you can get feedback from them MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
133 1 directly, okay?
2 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Well, I thought 3 since it was mentioned at this meeting that probably they 4 could bring it like that.
5 MR. GROBE: I understand it.
6 Outside of the context of the specific portion of the 7 meeting, this section of the meeting is for us to hear from 8 the public, us meaning the NRC staff. So, please feel free 9 to direct your question to them after we complete this part 10 of the meeting.
11 MR. BERGENDAHL: Well gladly be 12 available.
13 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Okay.
14 MR. GROBE: Thank you.
15 BEATRICE MIRINGU: Then the question 16 I have also for, First Energy. You say at this meeting 17 that you have moved from the planning phase and going into 18 the implementation phase. And I understand that inspection 19 is an ongoing process, but from what you presented today, 20 there seems to be more inspections that need to be done; 21 and therefore, I think that you really are not in a 22 implementation state, and youre in the planning state.
23 Thank you.
24 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
25 Are there any other members of the public that have MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
134 1 a question or comment for the NRC staff?
2 By the way, if its reporters that have questions; 3 myself, the staff, and First Energy staff will be available 4 to discuss specific questions. So, we can do that in a 5 more informal way, after the meeting, if you prefer that.
6 Yes, sir?
7 WILLIAM BRUML: Yeah. My name is 8 William Bruml, B R U M L.
9 First, I was going to comment that I am rather 10 relieved to see at this meeting that management is the 11 major cause issue here. Clearly, when you have a ten year 12 train wreck, the question isnt why didnt the brakes work; 13 its a question of why didnt someone set the brakes. Im 14 glad to see that, seeing you here, and I hope it continues 15 to, to be there.
16 Also in response to one remark Lew made about, that 17 he expected that if the situation had continued, they would 18 have had leakage rather than, rather than a LOCA.
19 Does the NRC have any intention to publish the 20 results of the inspections that its been doing on the 21 sections of the reactor head, so other members of the 22 general public might kind of have more of a sense of what 23 you guys are seeing?
24 MR. GROBE: Thats an 25 interesting question. I think youre talking about the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
135 1 detailed analysis of the materials head; is that correct?
2 WILLIAM BRUML: Yes. Something as 3 simple as a cross section of what, you know, of how the 4 condition of the hole in the head; and, how the degradation 5 that was going on in the stainless steel. So, that the 6 rest of us can understand what people are talking about.
7 Someone from either side here says, well, gee, this doesnt 8 look like its going to perform a full blown LOCA effect.
9 And I hear about all this steel thats corroded away. I 10 dont have a whole lot of confidence in that until at least 11 I see something that talks about it.
12 MR. GROBE: Sure. I just want 13 to make sure I understand the question before I answer it.
14 I think there is going to be two areas of documentation may 15 be of interest to you. The first is NRC is going to 16 complete a risk assessment which will get into some of 17 those issues, from a risk perspective. What was the risk, 18 loss of contacts, rupture of the liner that remained, 19 things of that nature. And that will be published as part 20 of our inspection activities.
21 The second area of documentation may be of interest 22 to you is the results of some detailed analysis that is 23 being done by our research organization, the Office of 24 Nuclear Reactor Research -- Regulatory Research, excuse 25 me. And, there is a number of what we refer to as user MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
136 1 needs. Im a user, so I sign a user need research and I 2 respond to that. And theyre in the process of responding 3 to that. And theyll be published from that.
4 I dont have the time frames on either of those, but 5 Im fairly confident that the inspection documentation 6 would precede formal publication report from research, and 7 that should be out in the next month or two. And 8 certainly, call at least with specific questions and we do 9 have a response team.
10 WILLIAM BRUML: I have a second 11 question.
12 MR. GROBE: Sure.
13 WILLIAM BRUML: I heard Christine 14 mention in passing the issues of other in containment 15 equipment, electrical equipment, and I wonder if we could 16 hear a little more detail of what that means? One issue 17 that you folks are close to this more often, often think, 18 oh yeah, this is obvious, but to me it was a hole. Gee, 19 what do you do about this? Is the issue here you have a 20 building, you know, containment building that has a lot of 21 electrical equipment, much of which is safety related; 22 and, some of which has been opened up while inspection or 23 service for some reason, during the course of this long 24 period of boric acid on the containment vessel, containment 25 building.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
137 1 Which leads to the question of, gee, is this more 2 severe than what the equipment is qualified for, since most 3 of it is like, do you mean boric acid on the site? So, I 4 guess my question is, is there a process ongoing to 5 identify the equipment that might have that problem, how, 6 you know, what is the general tone of that issue?
7 MS. LIPA: Let me tell you 8 what I know so far. That was the one of the items thats 9 on our foremat framework for the checklist. There is a 10 plan to have an inspector develop a detailed inspection 11 plan, and then go out and look at very specific things.
12 That inspection plan is likely to contain looking at a 13 number of things, such as cables, cable trays, junction 14 boxes, things, you know, all types of things within 15 containment pretty much top to bottom. What could have 16 been affected by the boric acid. Thats the scope of that 17 particular line item.
18 MR. GROBE: I want to make 19 sure, you understand that our inspection will be the 20 sample. We wont be looking at everything. But the 21 Licensees activities, they have the components of their 22 containment health review, which includes environmental 23 health equipment and theyll be looking much more 24 comprehensively.
25 Well be sampling the activities they do as well as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
138 1 some other activities or some other equipment that we may 2 want to look at in a different way to both evaluate what 3 theyre doing as well as independently assess the depth and 4 adequacy of what theyre doing. Okay? Thank you very 5 much.
6 Looking for other comments or questions.
7 I thought you were going to come forward. You stood 8 up, now youre required to come forward. Just kidding.
9 Other questions and comments? Yes, maam?
10 VICKY HEIDEL: My name is Vicky 11 Heidel and I have a question. Understanding that youre 12 about ready to transport the Midland nuclear head, you said 13 prior to August 1st, does that mean the NRC has given its 14 stamp of approval that this is in excellent condition even 15 though its an old or new old nuclear head?
16 MR. GROBE: John, you want to 17 briefly discuss our scope of the inspection activities for 18 the head, and explain what sort of certification goes along 19 with component base like this.
20 MR. JACOBSON: Right, there is a 21 couple of components to the inspection that were going to 22 do regarding the head replacement, and one of them weve 23 already done; and that is look at some of the 24 nondestructive examination that was done, that the Licensee 25 did to supplement some of the documentation that they did MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
139 1 have for the head. Some of it was missing. Its gone over 2 the years. And they did some supplemental inspections.
3 And weve looked at those inspections as to how good 4 inspections were done, as well as the results of those 5 inspections. And so far, that part of it, we have no 6 problem with. What we saw was done well, and the results 7 were acceptable.
8 The next part of the inspection thats going to be 9 done is looking at a sample, a good sample of the 10 documentation; both the new work that was done, as well as 11 documentation that exists from when the head was originally 12 manufactured. And we need to do that so that we can verify 13 for ourselves that this head in its condition today meets 14 all the requirements of the American Society of Mechanical 15 Engineers Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code.
16 And in that code, there is requirements, for 17 example, for the radiographs. There is requirements as to 18 how those radiographs will be taken and there is 19 requirements as to what the acceptance criteria is for any 20 flaws or discontinuities that are found during the 21 nondestructive examination.
22 And thats just an example of the kinds of things 23 that we will be looking at. And then the last part of the 24 head replacement that were going to be looking at is the 25 actual opening and then restoration of the containment to MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
140 1 place the head in the Davis-Besse containment.
2 VICKY HEIDEL: So, this 3 inspection will be done prior to its being transported 4 here, the total inspection?
5 MR. JACOBSON: Part of it has 6 been done already, part of it is about to start. Whether 7 the Licensee decides to transport this head now or they 8 decide to transport it six months from now, is really not 9 our concern.
10 VICKY HEIDEL: Okay.
11 MR. JACOBSON: And if they want 12 to move the head, its their head, and they can move it, 13 but ultimately, restart of the facility, that decision will 14 be made by the NRC.
15 VICKY HEIDEL: Is there any 16 danger in transporting it that we should be concerned about 17 that?
18 MR. JACOBSON: Any danger?
19 VICKY HEIDEL: Any danger of 20 transporting the actual head.
21 MR. JACOBSON: With respect to 22 what, radiation, radioactive?
23 VICKY HEIDEL: Yes, exactly.
24 MR. JACOBSON: No, the head has 25 never been used and theres no radioactivity associated MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
141 1 with it at this time.
2 VICKY HEIDEL: Lastly what do you 3 do with the old reactor head?
4 MR. JACOBSON: Thats a question 5 that the Licensee would have to answer at this point.
6 MR. GROBE: Let me respond to 7 that in a little bit of detail. And if you, if you want to 8 respond or ask your question to First Energy after the 9 meeting, thats fine.
10 The Licensee has performed an analysis of the 11 existing head to characterize what sort of waste it is.
12 There is different categories of waste within our 13 regulations and were expecting to perform an inspection of 14 that assessment that theyve done, how they made the 15 measurements and the validity of the assessment.
16 In addition to that, we have a routine aspect of our 17 inspection program that deals with package and 18 transportation of waste and well be performing those 19 routine inspections on this very nonroutine type activity.
20 So, we will have a thorough inspection of what 21 Licensee is planning. Its my understanding that they are 22 currently not planning on transporting the head to a waste 23 facility. Theyve currently characterized it, based on my 24 information, of whats referred to as class A waste, which 25 is low specitivity waste. And we will be performing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
142 1 inspections and reporting the results of those inspections 2 during future meetings like this one.
3 VICKY HEIDEL: All right, last 4 but not least, I have understand that a brand new head has 5 been ordered, and will that ever be installed at 6 Davis-Besse?
7 MR. GROBE: Thats really not 8 the scope of our activities.
9 Lew, do you want to respond to that?
10 MR. MYERS: The answer is 11 yes.
12 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you 13 very much.
14 I didnt realize what time it had gotten to be. Why 15 dont I ask if there is any one additional question, and 16 then we need to move on since we have another meeting at 17 7:00. Any additional questions?
18 Okay. I thank you very much for attending. I 19 appreciate the questions we received. If per chance you 20 think of something or felt that you didnt get a chance to 21 ask a question, feel free to come back at 7:00.
22 Thank you very much.
23 (Off the record.)
24 ---
25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
143 1 CERTIFICATE 2 I, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and 3 Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio, duly 4 commissioned and qualified therein, do hereby certify that 5 the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the 6 proceedings as taken by me and that I was present during 7 all of said proceedings.
8 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 9 affixed my seal of office at Norwalk, Ohio, on this 10 27th day of July, 2002.
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-9-03.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO