ML061800024

OI Interview Transcript of Witness

ML061800024
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	04/20/2004
From:	NRC/OI
To:
References
1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1459
Download: ML061800024 (116)

Text

Official'Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Interview o icy

-. V Docket Number: ..... 1-2003-051F N CD Location: Station, New Jersey Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2004

• 7,t*

Work Order No.: NRC-1459 .-Pages 1-114

,~ ~;

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005, (202) 234-4433 inflormation in this record was deleted in accordance witIhAFreedom of Information Act, exemptions F01A.

.L 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 . . . . .

4 OFFICE OF THE INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ------------------------------ x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:

8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No.

9 -- (7 Case No. 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED).

11' ------------------------------ x 12 Tuesday, April 20, 2004 13 Office oo""

14 Salem-Hope Creek Nuclear 15 Station, NJ 16 17 18 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted 21 at (time not given).

22 23 BEFORE:

24 JEFF TEATOR, Senior Special Agent 25 SCOTT BARBER, Senior Project Engineer NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 APPEARANCES: 12 2 2 On Behalf of the Witness, 3 Jeff Keenan, Esq.

4 PSEG Counsel 5

6 7

8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 PROCEEDINGS 2 (Time not given) 3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Today's date is 4 April 20, 2004. My name is Jeffrey Teator. I'm the 5 Senior Special Agent with the United States Nuclear 6 Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations and 7 this morning I'm interviewing 8 aThat's close enough.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

10 Interviewing in his office at the Salem-Hope Creek Station at Artificial Island in Salem, New 12 Jersey. Also participating in the interview is Mr.

13 Scott-Barber with the Division of Reactor Projects in 14 Region 1.

15 -you're being interviewed 16 today strictly as a witness in the conduct of an

.17 investigation or an assist to staff that 01 is doing 18 *for Region -1, into the safety conscious work 19 environment here at Salem-Hope Creek. Again, you're 20 being interviewed as a witness, but it's still your 21 obligation to answer all of my questions truthfully 22 and completely'. This is a voluntary interview.

23 Knowing it's voluntary, do you with to go forward?

24 25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. Do NEAL R. GROSS J COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 you have any objection today to providing sworn 2 testimony?

3 No, I do not.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Raise your 5 right hand for me, please?

6 - do you swear that the 7 information that you are about to provide to me is the 8 truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

9 I do.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You're 11 represented by. counsel today, if counsel could 12 identify himself and explain his representation, 13 please?

14 MR. KEENAN: Yes, my name is Jeff Keenan, 15 I'm Assistant General Solicitor for PSEG Services.

16 Today, I'm. representing *Jand PSEG in a 17 dual capacity. I'm not aware of any conflict of 18 interest. Should a conflict arise, we'll take a break 19 from the record and figure out how to best handle 20 that. We would appreciate the ability to review the 21 transcript when it's available to the NRC and we would 22 review it in your presence at that time.

23 SR.' SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, I just 24 ask that when you want to review the transcript, 25 contact me and we'll talk about scheduling it at that NEAL R. GROSS fAJ "7 -

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_J 1 point.

2 Mm,-Very good.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.

4 a few follow-up questions regarding 5 representation.

6 Does your employer require you to have 7 counsel represent you when you're interviewed by 01?

8 No, they do not.

9

• SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you in any 10 way threatened with any type of adverse action by your 11 management if you did not request counsel to represent 12 you during this interview?

13 No.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you 15 understand you have the right to a private interview 16 by 01 if you wanted to do that?

17 JYes, I do.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Understanding 19 all of this, do you wish to go forward with counsel 20 present?

21 Yes, I do.

22 SR., SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.

23 Maybe we could just get a little .background

24. information about you.

25 Your date and place of birth please?

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U 1 was bori 2

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And your Social 4 Security Number?

5Ol 6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.

7 Your home address, please?

8 9

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And your home 11 phone number, please?

12 13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. Did 14 you ever serve in the United States military?

15 LNo, I did not.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, have 17 you served in the Armed Services?

18 No, I did not.

19. SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Have you 20 attended college?

21 _Yes, I did.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Which college 23 did you go to?

24 I'm a graduate of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Which year?

2 SJ E 3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What's the 4 degree in?

5 6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

7. Q I 'm also a , .I

.....

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. What 11 year did you obtain that?

12 That was. It's called 13 te 14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any further 15 degrees?

16 17 18 I 19 SR.ý SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At some point 20 did you become employed by PSEG Nuclear?

21 . Yes, I did.

22 -- -SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When was that?

23 I.came here in th 24 MSalem and Hope 25 Creek and that was a -- I came here from the #

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1 where I served in the same 2 capacity.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: From the desert 4 to the East Coast.

5 How long did you remain in that position?

6 proximately nine months 7 and then I became.the 8 fter we .found the Unit 1 steam generator 9 issues during the recovery of Salem.

10 I did that for about five months and then 11 I became a* lwand served in that 12 capacity through the recovery of both Salem stations.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Now you said 14 you were the would that be-for 15 both units?

16 Yes, that is correct-.'

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And can you 18 give me the dates you were the 19 approximate?

20 Yes, it was approximately in 21 the summer of 11 111ý n 22 then I went over.toL 23 as a growth developmental 24 assignment for six months. And then when 25 (Phonetic) who left to go DC Cook, I went back to NEAL R. GROSS /7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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1 ii being the for approximately seven 2

ii months, six or seven months. And then in the summer 3 of -- it would be-- let's see, I have to think here.

4 I'll work backwards.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You held a lot 6 of positions here at the plant.

7 1 Yes, my dad says I couldn't 8 keep a job. They all seem to be better than the last 9 one I had.

10 I becamýin the summer-of' and then in the fall ofI became 12 the until the fall of 13 That was a rotational assignment and.then I 14 became the 15 when the company embarked on a several hundred million 16 dollar capital program. I set a project, put in all 17 the project controls and signed.. contracts for steam 18 generators, reactor vessel heads, turbine, power 19 uprates, those kinds of things. And I did that until 20 the fall of where I then assumed the 21 which also included the 22 projects organization. The entire design that we did 23 of setting up the projects was just for me to go set, 24 up the infrastructure before we combined back because 25 there was just such a large volume of work to get NEAL R. GROSS-.

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1 initiated. It needed that kind of focus.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned 3 in the fall of 41 That's correct.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And I thought 6 you said that as a rotational assignment. Can you 7 explain?

8 Yes, in my development, at 9 this level, part of my development in preparation for 10 potential future. jobs was to be able to have senior 11 management experience different areas..

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

13 So part of that was for me 14 to go over and gain operations experience at the 15 senior level. Since I'd been a 'I and 16 previously had mentioned this, but actually I have an 17 and I worked in . --

18 - *earlier in my career.

19 SR.' SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How many years 20 were you an 21 Approximately three.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you a 23 shift* i.

24 Yes. I had a regular active 25 license which I maintain current. I was an...

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1 the way the program worked out there. You know, you 2 had to serve your watches that were required by Part 3 55 on a quarterly basis to be able to maintain your 4 license.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you ever 6 licensed here at --

7 9No, I was not.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Now when you 9 were theiaw who would you have reported to?

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The entire 12 time?

13 The entire time.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Direct 15 reporting link to 16 Correct. And as you 17 probably -established in your investigation, the 18 Ias we were set up to run Salem and Hope Creek was 19 a little bit atypical to what you might have and 20 atypical to what the H U is 21 today here in that I only had operations, maintenance, 22 radiation protection, security and fire protection.

23 Maintenance and work control and outages were being run bl**.*

24 25 which is a little bit different than NEAL R. GROSS -

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1 you might have seen in your travels of how 2 organizations are set up.

3 So even though I was th it was 4 mostly strictly operations with no maintenance work 5 control or outages.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when you 7 became the again in the fall of 8 do you remember what month that would have been?

9 It was -- we did a 10 realignment and I think we made the realignment effect 11 the end of October, middle of October. It was 12- following the refueling outage in the fall of 13 but really, we planned this reorganization and 14 realignment unde Nfrom June to October, 1i5 so I knew what my positi6n was going to be in the mid-16 summer and then we worked through a whole 17 reorganization staffing process that became effective, 18 I believe the end of October.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Jeff, if we can 20 get those details, that's important for the record.

21 MR. KEENAN: Yes.

22 jjj That's the general --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And when 24 you were the W -- the fall of A would 25 you have reported to Rthen?

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a jJThat is correct. In fact, 2 when I was the I reported to I .

3 ntic hanged and 4 then I reported as th to 5 V.#A ntil the reorganization in the fall of 7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

8 Good, thank you.

9 Let's, I guess maybe we'd like to begin 10 going back to whe *,*-0_4,left the side here. My 11 understanding is it was 1998 time period,. 1997-1998 12 time period. Is that your recollection? That's about 13 the time --

14 That's about the time is came and I believe that's when etired.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when 17 came on board here, what was your job'then? I 18 know we didn't go back that far, but do you remember 19 what your position was then?

20 Let's I believe that I 21 was the nd the 22 was here when left and because we needed a Salem 23 ,asked me to return back to the 24 station until we could complete what he was planning 25 to do as -- L*

• was planning to do as a 7

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1 reorganization which subsequently occurred in the 2 summer of that year whe was hired and I

..

3 was promoted to .came in.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:

5* Correct. And at that time, 6 we haven't mentioned it, but thee was anothe here 7 who was (Phonetic) 8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:

9 (Phonetic)?

10 Correct.

11 MR. BARBER: Was he just Hope Creek? He 12 wa 13 When we did the realignment 14 in the summer afted got here, the alignment was 15 we hired nd the alignment was we ha 16 (Phonetic), ,, nd myself with 17 ' .. 1' *ype work control. We can 18 get you those org. charts.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Whenr.

.20 came on board, did you see a change in the way the 21 plant was going to managed down here? Did he come in 22 with a program or an agenda that was something 23 different tha was using or putting in 24 place here?

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1 your question would tend to suggest that an 2 were peers and that is not true.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

4 ow actually worked for

• The tthat was here at *peer that time, 6 theWhen he 7 retiredjcame in. -reported to until 8 he retired.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So when 10 left, who took his place?

11 When ~left, that's when 12 we did the realignment that I discussed with*W 13 .,J,... - and myself.. And there was a few

14. weeks, months transition. But in the end, we sort of' 15 changed to that alignment.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Sor 17.

18 ,That is correct.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: My question 20 going to that change. Did you see a change in 21 direction or here at the plant between 22 23 was here and drove 24 mostly the restart of Salem. Obviously, Hope Creek is 25 running and having reviewing outages, but the focus at NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A ( 1C-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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16 1 the time clearly was the recovery of the Salem 2 stations. We had at that point without confusing you, 3 *(Phonetic) was -a very capable 4 aof Hope Creek and we were able to keep the 5 majority of the organization focused on Salem and had 6 a management team at Hope Creek sort of running that 7 station while we really were into, as you know, a very 8 large effort.

9 Whe 7 came, s as mostly into 10 the recovery, that focus. When ame, hebrought 11 a focus to the organization on safety as a core value 12 that was much more: visibly pronounced tha was.

13 was obviously very much towards reactor Safety.

14 Bu. ý approach was right when he got here that 15 we were absolutely going to get to top quartile and we 16 were going to do it by focusing on safety. And if we 17 focused on safety, this was what I used to call 18 speech number one, if we focus on safety, 19 industrial, radiological or nuclear, we will then 20 create the behaviors necessary that will give us the 21 reliability and then if we get the reliability, we 22 will be cost competitive. And his focus, I mean, 23 every venue or business plan was built around that so 24 in a very focused waot was all about driving 25 safety and safety behaviors in the organization.

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I/

1 And I don't mean to say that ' wasn't, 2 but when the new leader came, I tmade that the 3 mission of PSEG Nuclear and made that the framework 4 for our Management Program that everything was built 5 upon.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: came 7 in and put his focus, his core value on safety?

8 . Correct. Literally, I mean 9 just for the record, if you care, there's all hands 10 meeting presentations I'm. sure that are still 11 available. You could just see how every, all hands 12 meeting, every management meeting, our metrics were 13 set up with safety, reliability and cost. So I mean 14 his whole program was geared around that.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Of those three, 16 what was the top? Safety, reliability or cost?

17 Q. Qused to always say 18 that the way that we're going-to get reliable is by 19 focusing on safety and if you get the safe-behaviors, 20 that people have their safety behaviors and processes 21 that are keeping us safe industrially and nuclearly, 22 those behaviors then. translate into behaviors that 23 will produce reliability of the unit.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT 'TEATOR: Was the 25 corporate management out of Newark supportive ofW.

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1 direction? And if so, could you give some 2 examples showing their support?

3 The way we were set up, our 4 focus is the officer team was on the units and J 5 managed the Newark interface. Specific examples, I 6 would suggest you're probably going to have to get 7 f rom i because we would go up to 8 quarterly leadership conference, the CEO's conference 9 and we would have a bi-weekly videoconference where we 10 just generally discussed unit status and upcoming 11 highlights, but my personal corporate interface when 12 1 wazrwas pretty much 13 limited to those kinds of venues. We'd submit a 14 budget. We got all the capital projects approved for 15 power up grade and turbine replacements. So vJ 16 pretty much went to all to this strategic planning 17 meetings and staff meetings and stuff up in Newark and 18 we didn't go to very many of those at all.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But the 20 meetings or discussions you were then part of, I want 21 to ask you a couple of questions about those. During 22 any of those was there a pushback fromý .**or 23 his people up there regarding -- let me finish the 24 question -- regarding plant operations status, having 25 to shut down, extending outages, anything along those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19 1 lines at all?

2 I cannot recall any and 3 there were -- we presented many times at 4 videoconferences, outage schedules and forced outage 5 schedules that were having an impact on the company 6 and I never was aware-of any or heard any personally 7 or was 'aware of any where in those forums and 8 videoconferences or other forums where -- if your 9 question is was there pressure to start up?

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That is my 11 question.

12 1*- Actually, I did not hear 13 anything in those meetings that gave me concern about 14 pressure to start up.

15 In many cases as very supportive of 16 -- and I can think of several cases where he said 17 well, we have to do what we need to do to run safely 18 and it's not about one day of generation today, it's 19 about the long term reliability of the asset.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

21 So I never heard any -- now 22 we're in business to make electricity, so obviously 23 everybody that's involved knows that our terminal 24 objective is to when we're shut down in a very smart 25 methodical way return to service as prudently as we NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20 1 can and that's what he expected, but I never heard any 2 pressure to start up or take any actions that would be 3 short cuts or do something that was not in accordance 4 with our programs or policies.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall 6 if would have been a participant in some 7 of the discussions or meetings that you were at?

8 Over what time frame?

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The time. frame 10 you discussed, when you're having the-11 videoconferences, you go up for the quarterly 12 meetings. It's a general question..

13 Theanswer is yes. I'll say 14 after .... the reporting relationship i reported 15 directly to And when* came, we did a 16 little realignment and W 2reports tonow 17 So the videoconferences after' -- and 18 involvement, he had direct line authority for the 19 nuclear plant, has increased tremendously since the 20 realignment.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That was in 22 about April of 2003?

23 That's correct.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So 'left 25 in March.

• came in April.

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21 1 April, May.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Somewhere in 3 that time frame and then alignment took place at that 4 time?

5 oCorrect. Now since then I 6 think ihas been at most every videoconference.

7 has been down here a lot. We go to or now 8 ýgo t staff meeting. I mean the whole 9 set up has changed since came.

10. SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I want to go 11 back and talk a little bit about deregulation. When 12 did that occur here in New Jersey?

13 MR. KEENAN: I can add to that. PSEG was 14 created in August of 1999. I believe it was August 22 15 'or thereabouts.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

17 MR. KEENAN: That's when we officially 18 became a deregulated entity.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Allright.

20 Which makes sense because 21 that was the time frame that we named the officers.

22 That's when I became-"-

23

• Jof this new entity called PSEG Nuclear LLC.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When management 25 knew that that was going to occur in preparation for NEAL R. GROSS Af1-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 the change in the environment, really, the business 2 environment I'll say, did you notice a change in the 3 support received from corporate regarding plant 4 operational decisions down here that K and his 5 people were making?

6 MR. BARBER: Or the focus of" the 7 decisions.

8 I don't recall anything 9 changing. You're saying did a videoconference or any 10 'involvement b or r the tone of them change 11 the day we deregulated or soon after?

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, before in 13 preparation of the deregulated environment?

14 MR. BARBER: You had a significant change 15 that was scheduled to take place. You know it was 16 coming. The timing you may have had a little bit of 17 control over from a company standpoint, maybe not 18 totally, but approximate timing. It was a major 19 transition for the company.

20 The only change that I can 21 think of that occurred in that time frame is we had to 22 create an interface with our trading company that we 23 didn't necessarily have before in the deregulated 24 market.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why?

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23 1 I Jj Because in the deregulated 2 market there's no dispatching of -- there was a whole 3 different displace scheme for the power. plants and 4 we're an independent generator of electricity, so we 5 through our trading company,.bid our assets into the 6 power market on a daily and going ahead basis. And 7 because of that, we had to make sure that for planned 8 outages, that we would have a communication with our 9 trading company, to let them know when planned outages 10 were so they could go make appropriate business 11 decisions on replacement power. That was not in the 12 conversation much before then that I'm aware of. It 13 may have been through Hope Creek, but if you remember, 14 you really don't have to dispatch in a shutdown unit, 1"5 so most of my career there was (Inaudible) being shut 16 down, but -- so we had to create a protocol to notify 17 the trading company when we were going to move the 18 units around.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Talk a little

-20 bit about that, about the interface, when there were 21 unplanned outages, if you could?

22 -".We just would call the 23 trading company and tell them that we' re shut down and 24 here's what our best estimate is and we' re coming back 25 and then we would just keep them apprised.

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24 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who would make 2 that call?

~When I wa*

3 4 1, we set up a protocol that that would 5 either be through the' -7'nicn at 6

7 8 had -- now, I think we have that going through the 9 Plant Managers, but I'm not certain of that. You'd 10 have to validate that, but at that time, we had 11 established a protocol through those individuals.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you ever 13 make that call yourself when you were the*

.14 'To the trading floor? I'm 15 not aware that I,made that call.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -Talking about 17 unplanned outages, did..

18 ever give you the impression that they received 19 pushback or pressure from those people when they had 20 to make the call to them regarding unplanned outages?

21 I'm not aware of them 22 receiving any feedback to that. Most of the time we 23 -- we had some issues where we weren't as prompt 24 calling the trading floor as we could have been and we 25 worked through those issues, but as far as pressure to NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A1~~~

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25 1 return the unit from the trading floor, they were 2 always interested in when we thought our best 3 percentage chance of that because they would make 4 decisions based on probabilities. And we actually 5 refined that more an I J could probably 6 elaborate more on that. But we'd actually provide 7 like a 60 percent confidence schedule or an 80 percent 8 schedule, 100 percent confidence schedule. Well, 9 obviously, the 100 percent confidence schedule, we 10 gave ourselves a lot of float to account for emerging 11 issues during the start up so that the trading company 12 could make an appropriate decision.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're talking 14 about work envizronment and you're really'talking about 15 people's perceptions of things.

• *J Uh'huh-16 17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How they're 18 viewing things, seeing things and how they're 19 perceiving that.

20 Did any of your direct reports share with 21 you any concerns that they were having or feeling 22 regarding operating the plant in the new environment 23 and having to deal with the other people on the 24 trading floor?

25 m No. Not tthat I recall.

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26 1 There was an occasion, I do recall, which I corrected, 2 and I don't recall the time frame. I apologize for 3 that some time in my two years a where it 4 was reported to me there was an inappropriate 5 conversation between the trading floor and the Control 6 Room that occurred and I went to the president of the 7 trading company and we -- he put some direction out 8 and that never occurred again.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you tell us 10 what that was about?

11 I don't recall the exact 12 .issue, but the -- it was generally along the lines 13 that you were talking about where the person on the 14 other end of the calls were to get the feeling that 15 the trading guy was pushing a little and that got to 16 my attention. We stopped actually at that point, the 17 trading company and calling the Control Room.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

19 That was the only example of 20 that that occurred that I can recall and we prompted 21 took care of it.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you give us 23 a time frame for when that occurred?

"That was some time in m 24 25 I apologize for not --

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you remember 2 who you heard that from?

3 It was from the Hope Creek 4 side.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: .. Okay.

6 I don't recall any more than 7 that.; It would have -- I mean it was either going to 8 be - I mean it would have likely beenC 9 g but that's a guess on my part, only because 10 that's who the as at that time.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'd like to try 12 and get a little more from you, your memory about the 13 substance of the call made to the Control Room, if you 14 could.

15 Can you share with Us more about that?

16 1 don't recall the specifics 17 of it other than -- I think it was in-the perception 18 that you were talking about. The real issue was that 19 it was inappropriate that the trading, that the trader 20 called the Control Room and that was not a routine --

21 that was not a routine interaction that I was aware of 22 and so that's why we stopped it immediately.

23 Nothing, no action was taken differently 24 as a result of the trader calling that interaction 25 with the Control Room staff. I mean we didn't do NEAL R. GROSS -J C,-,

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28 1 anything differently because of that.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 3 take a short break and I'm going to flip the tape 4 over.

5 (off the record.)

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we 7 flipped over to Side B andL I just wanted 8 to talk a little more about this call to the Control 9 Room. When you became aware of this specific instance 10 which you discussed, did you find that that had been 11 -- that those type of calls had been occurring before 12 that?

13 No, quite the contrary. As 14 I recall when I was discussing it with -- and I'd be 15 guessing, most likely, probably j that that was 16 not that common and when-- if it had occurred, it 17 wasn't common in what he references as the tone, I 18 guess, of that particular 'call was different. I 19 reported that to

• and he was 100 percent in 20 agreement that that was unacceptable, supported my 21 discussions with the trading floor and we resolved 22 that issue by setting up a more formal protocol and to 23 the best of what was brought to my attention. It was 24 an isolated occurrence that we promptly addressed.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, but did NEAL R. GROSS AlI '

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1 you consider at that point that that call to the 2 Control Room sent a message to the operators about a 3 change in something?

4 I don't believe that it was 5 relayed to me nor do I believe that -- I know for a 6 fact it wasn't relayed to me and I don't believe that 7 it was a big issue within the Hope Creek Staff. We're 8 making a bigger deal out of it now, in this 9 conversation, than the actual tone that this issue was 10 brought.

11 I recognize the potential that could occur 12 with that which is why I jumped right on it and I'm 13 confident that* communicated back the new protocol 14 and then the issue was resolved.

15 I was not aware of any other issue around 16 that topic after that 17 MR. BARBER: I'd like to move on to a 18 slightly different time frame and a slightly different 19 line of questioning. Somewhere in the summer of 2000, 20 there was a problem at Hope Creek and that related to 21 an over power event, slight over power. If I remember 22 right, what happened was it was something on the 23 order, there was some transience at the station and 24 there was a loss of feedwater, some sort of partial 25 loss of feedwater. And the operators recovered from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 it, but not totally and they brought the plant back up 2 to power and the feedwater going into the reactor was 3 a little bit colder than it should have been because 4 of the feedwater heating problem.

5 *I am very familiar with the 6 event.

7 MR. BARBER: So our understanding was.the 8 TARP Process came out of that because of the way that 9 - the recovery of that event was managed. It was 10 kind of managed on a local level more. The shift made 11 decisions on what to do.

12 That's correct.

13 MR. BARBER: And this led to our 14 understanding was some concern on the part of the 15 senior management team as to what was going on, why it 16 was happening, what kind of controls should be in 17 place and what kind of message should be sent to make 18 sure that the operators understood what the limits of 19 the responsibilities were and what the appropriate 20 controls were. And this led to a meeting, I think 21 around August 2000 where called a number 22 of. operators into a group discussion. Were you at 23 that meeting?

24 1 was not.

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31 1 -- did you know of the content of the meeting or were 2 you briefed on it at all?

3 Yes, I was aware of what we 4 were trying to accomplished because we had discussed 5 that as a senior management team.

6 MR. BARBER: Okay.

7 4 And you're right, the TARP 8 Process came out of that.

9 MR. BARBER: Okay.

10 So I'll let you ask a 11 question.

12 MR. BARBER: What was discussed and what 13 was the message that was conveyed to the operators, as 14 you understood it?

15 I wasn't there. AS I 16 understand -- when we talked about it, anted to 17 -- he was th so I mean he was 18 the person accountable' for the operation of the 19 station. He wanted to let the operators know that 20 decisions, some decisions -- there is a protocol that 21 has to be followed that is linked to safety of getting 22 management notifications, getting extra help and 23 getting thinking involved in decision making, 24 especially when they're not time dependent decision 25 making on the unit returning to power, that that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 different. And he was very clear because I heard him 2 talk about this when he talked about it afterwards.

3 He was very clear in his conversation that that didn't 4 mean that they couldn't trip the plant any time that 5 they thought that they needed to trip it, make 6 immediate decisions to trip or derate the unit. They 7 had the accountability to do that based on their 8 judgment and their evaluation of what's 'going on in 9 the plant at the time.

10 Once we did the down power, their decision 11 making and the protocol for when we had done enough 12 management reviews to say it's okay to return to 13 power, put a control in that said he wanted to 14 make sure because we didn't have plant managers on 15 that alignment -- it's a little confusing -- there 16 were different work structures, that he wanted the 17 Vice President of Operations to have an opportunity to 18 review the situation and ask questions and authorize 19 the return to power.

20 And he did that as an added control for 21 safety which I agreed with. It had nothing to do with 22 the operational decision making of tripping or 23 derating and the operators knew that and in fact, 24 there's examples after that effect where there were 25 numerous occasions where the operators based on real NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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33 1 time needs and transmission lihes maybe going down, 2 circulators at Salem clogging, whatever caused 3 immediate down powers and the operators knew they had 4 the authority and did. I can show you examples where, 5 numerous examples where they derated the unit and we 6 encourage that. When I was I would 7 thank the crew for taking the prompt action and 8 derating. But once it was down, we put in place a 9 protocol that assured the adequate level of reviews 10 occurred before we authorized increases in power. And 11 in the event they specifically addressed, what had 12 occurred was the Operations Superintendent made 13 inappropriate decision making to go ahead and return 14 Hope Creek to service after a lightning strike in the 15 switchyard with absolutely very little walk downs and 16 engineering reviews and assessment of the plant before 17 we returned to power. And in fact, in that, as you 18 alluded to, missed -- did assess even the impact of 19 the lightning strikes sufficiently to catch the B 20 water string that was isolated.

21 And when we returned to power that created 22 a configuration issue that resulted in that slight 23 operation over.100 percent power that he talked about 24 until the on-coming crew caught the feedwater string 25 was isolated. Well, our management response to that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 1 was no, that's unacceptable, because it was 2 unacceptable.

3 And until we -- to get a management 4 control in place that we could adequately ensure that 5 we had the right kind of reviews and plant evaluations 6 done, before we returned to power or increased back 7 power, we put the TARP Process in place that caused 8 the response and the experts *to come out here and 9 assess the situation and provide the Operations 10 Director and the Operation Managers with the assurance 11 that we understood what happened and it was safe to 12 return to power.

13 And that control of calling me is that the 14 in the middle of this that's when I rotated 15 with He went over to thei 16 That gave me the chance to 17 ask questions and make sure that I was satisfied that 18 we covered all the bases before we turned the unit to 19 service.

20 MR. BARBER: And it was your understanding 21 that the focus of this was clearly on returning it to 22 service --

23 Increasing power.

24 MR. BARBER: Was there any discussions to 25 your knowledge that related to power changes in the NEAL R. GROSS A IC-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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35 1 downward direction?

2 . No. In fact, we made it 3 clear and I personally made it clear that our 4 procedures made it clear and in fact, I can show you, 5 it's not a good story, but there were opportunities in 6 our sky lines (Phonetic) I can show you where those 7 down powers occurred on numerous occasions.

8 I can recall an event in the spring, of --

9 it would have been the spring of 2001 and I want to be 10 precise, if you want me to look at the sky lines.

11 MR. BARBER: Sure.

12 Could you hand me the sky 13 lines for Salem? As I recall this, I recall this 14 vividly.

15 I'm looking, Jeff, for the down powers due 16 to -- maybe it was 2002, due to grassing and then we 17 took the unit to 50 percent.

'18 The you're getting called in 19 the middle of the night and -- I think it was right 20 here. I think it was this one. We had trouble with 21 heavy grassing. This spring of 2002 was the highest 22 level of grass ever observed at the Delaware River, so 23 we had some issues with having to take circulators out 24 to clean water boxes and in the -- do we have the TARP 25 Report for that? You can read the TARP Report for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 that.

2 It talks about, in the middle of the 3 night, I got a call that -- from the shift -- and we 4 were on a conference call withl. and 5 myself and the Shift Manager and he called to tell me 6 he'd taken the unit down to 50 percent power and he 7 called out a TARP and we had a conversation on that 8 about what the plant configuration was and we 9 concluded and I directed that we take the unit off 10 line, and we all agreed and felt more 11 comfortable because he was -- at 50 percent and 12 stable, we were sitting there in a condition that we 13 were really not where I wanted to be.

14 So we, in the middle of the night, made 15 the conclusion let's take the unit off line and in 16 fact, we did and we stayed off line 13 days until we 17 got the required number of circulators back and got 18 the plant back in a configuration when we came up to 19 power we could manage the river, as you can see, in a 20 satisfactory way afterwards.

21 MR. KEENAN: So for the record, is 22 indicating to what we call a sky line which is a

23. generation chart and for this specific issue and we 24 can make this available to you, Jeff and Scott, is a 25 sheet that shows Salem Power one output for March of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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37 1 2002 on a megawatt basis. So it shows times where 2 we've reduced power and come-on line.

3 JThe reason I brought this 4 one up in reference to this conversation, Scott, is 5 i called me and told me he was already at 50 percent 6 power. So there was no requirement that he had to 7 call or I to take that kind of action. Once he 8 did that he was following his Ops chain of command, 9 got a hold of

• and I on a conference call and 10 talked through and we came to the conclusion, let's 11 just go off line. And that was totally, totally what 12 was expected of me fro And when I called 13 I didn't cal.22.to ask permission to tell 14 him I was taking the unit off line, I didn't need --

15 that was not the protocol tha required.

16 I calle -up afterwards, told him 17 what we were doing, told him that we were going to get 18 a fragment (Phonetic), called Lnd said 19 we're going to need some maintenance help and we're 20 going to lay out a fragment (Phonetic) and go get the 21 right number of circulators. Because I think if you 22 look back here in January, as I recall, you can see 23 that we went down to 50 percent power here to do a 24 traveling screen. Came back up two days, went down to 25 50 percent power here, came up a little bit later NEAL R. GROSS ý Ic COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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38 1 there. A day later, down -- you don't see --

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that January 3 or February you just showed in that previous one?

4 February. So you can see we 5 were sort of -- and you see we don't stop at 50 6 because that was like for one hour while this phone 7 call was going on that particular night, in the middle 8 of the night. Told them to take the plant off line.

9 I didn't have to ask permission from nor would 10 I ever.

11 MR. BARBER: Well, you're talking about 12 being the coordinator, took the unit to 50 13 percent, but wouldn't the procedures dictate he was 14 to reduce power?

15 7 Yes, he had to reduce power 16 to 80. He *went down to 50 to give him some more 17 margin and then made the call. The decision to go off 18 line was far in excess of -- this could have looked 19 just like the one I showed you previously. (Inaudible) 20 That was again an hour to operate the unit and when I 21 called 1 he was totally supportive of that and 22 has a -boss called so I'm sure he 23 called and I was not aware of any conversations of 24 anybody above (Inaudible) other than us getting 25 the unit in a configuration that we felt comfortable NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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39 1 with coming up and being able to run reliably.

2 And if you look, the grass is still high 3 in the river. Not all decisions turn out to look like 4 this, but I mean on this particular one, taking the 5 time to restore the unit was absolutely the right 6 thing to do and stop the seesawing of the unit that 7 had been occurring.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's 9:20 in 9 the morning. We're going to take a short break, 10 please. We'll go off the record.

11 (Off the record.)

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, it's 13 approximately 9:30 in the morning. We're back on the 14 record and there's something you wanted to share with

15. us, 16 Yes, the August lightning 17 strike event which, for the record we clarified did 18 occur in August of .1999 as opposed to August 2000 19 which Mr. Barber had indicated in the introduction to 20 this line of questioning.

21 When this occurredQ- had this 22 as a very significant operational decision making 23 error an " was very troubled by this and what 24 that meant as far as how we were actually operating 25 the station and how we were actually monitoring the NEAL R. GROSS /t ( -

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40 1 station as a senior management team. And he called us 2 together, I believe it would have bee 3 'and I, and gave us a pretty direct 4 set of expectations on what was acceptable and how 5 we're going to operate these power plants and what 6 wasn't. And what wasn't acceptable is us returning 7 these units to power or -- and not properly evaluating 8 the plant when transience .occurred and I mean in my 9 entire career I have never been coached or counseled 10 one, that effectively from a reactor safety 11 standpoint; and two, very clear expectations from 12 that he expected us to put in place the kinds-of 13 corrective actions we did, the TARP, the approvals to 14 return to power, to make sure that that did not happen 15 again. That was with his direct reports being 16 laser-precision sharp, that that was unacceptable and 17 that wasn't going to happen again.

18 In my entire career having ran plants here 19 and out ii I had never received that direct 20 or impactful coaching from my boss in my nuclear 21 career. That tended to have an impact on me relative 22 to my recollection of the event than the corrective 23 actions. This was a big event and wanted us to 24 fundamentally use this as a way to change the approach 25 that we were going to have to the operations here NEAL R. GROSS kit COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 1 which is why I believe, back to our previous line of 2 questioning tha took the -- what was probably 3 an unprecedented step of personally going and 4 addressing the Hope Creek SROs so that it was laser-5 clear to them.

6 MR. BARBER: Because of his strong, 7 passionate feelings about the circumstances that there 8 was a potential that in the way he communicated with 9 passion and with conviction that maybe some of the C

10 messages that he was trying. to convey could have 11 gotten misread?

12 I wasn't at the meeting, so 13 I can tell you I heard his direction and his passion 14 and it was laser crystal clear what he was looking for 15 and why he was troubled by this as the person that was 16 ultimately in charge of the facility. I wasn't not at 17 the SRO meeting, so I'd be speculating as to how that 18 might have landed on anybody that was there.

19 Obviously, -I have -- you should go talk to those folks 20 because they could give you that perception. I would 21 be speculating.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We have talked 23 to many of those folks, actually. We've done a number 24 of interviews as a part of this work environment issue 25 and some people have pointed to this meeting that*

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42 1 'had with the operators as how things started.

2 People took, some of what you said, from that point 3 forward, people's perceptions did change.

4 C Okay.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: A fundamental 6 change about the approach to Ops, that was maybe not 7 so positive. So we're going to talk about some of 8 those specific instances right now.

9 Okay, fair enough. I have 10 one more clarification.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Sure.

12 Cl In a relative scale, the 13 impactfulness of the August 2000 lightning strike 14 event and our correction actions and how we saw that 15 as profound as compared to the one singular example I 16 had of the trader that I was made aware of that maybe 17 made an inappropriate call to the Control Room and our 18 corrective actions, those were widely different in 19 magnitude.

20 I mean I was not aware of any, nor am I 21 aware that there was any subsequent issues along those 22 lines with the traders after we took that corrective 23 action and to my best recollection I would say today 24 that was a single point, maybe a'lapse in' judgment by 25 a particular trader that we both corrected on the spot NEAL R. GROSS ý\ C./

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1 and then put a protocol in place so that it wouldn't 2 occur again and in the relative scheme of things, that 3 was a very small issue on the scale of things and 4 especially compared to our reactions in our correction 5 actions, only because I'm not aware that -- it wasn't 6 repetitive and I was not aware of any. other examples 7 by my management team where that had occurred within 8 appropriate actions with the trading company.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're not going 10 to be talking about trading company reactions. We're 11 going to be talking now about operations interactions 12 and the way some things went down that people didn't 13 think went down appropriately or correctly.

14 So I want to talk to you about and get 15 your impressions of some certain events.

16 'Great.

17 MR. BARBER: The first one involves, it 18 was start up. It was probably 2001, 2002 time frame.

19 We believe that you were the C mom 20 ý the time and let me give you a little ateiN 21 bit of background. Hopefully, this will ring a bell 22 as far as what the issue was, but the Salem start up 23 was in progress and then somewhat of a protracted 24 start up. There were some problems with some 25 generator work that caused some delays about a week NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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44 1 and there was a desire to try and bring the plant up 2 in kind of an unusual configuration in that one of the 3 things that was done was in an attempt to get 4 condenser vacuum there was some special seal, sealing 5 type material that was put in place in the main 6 turbine seals and the vacuum was, in fact, drawn 7 (Phonetic). There was -- basically it was to try to 8 move the plant along schedule-wise, that there was a 9 number of activities that had taken place. There were 10 some delays. I think the desire was to try and do as 11 much in parallel as possible to kind of move the plant 12 along with the start up.

13 And there was some concern about making 14 sure there wasn't too much steam in the header because 15 if you got above 100 pounds you could actually roll 16 the turbine. But you wanted to have adequate steam 17 pressure for vacuum purposes and there were a number 18 of other issues in that regard.

19 Also, at the time, on the schedule there 20 was -- it might have been coming out of a refueling 21 outage. There was a desired scheduled physics 22 testing, a performed physics testing. And so to kind 23 of set the stage, the plan is in kind of unusual 24 circumstances, you're trying to move the plant along 25 with start up. You have a vacuum in the condenser, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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45 1 but you have this unusual thing with the steam seals.

2 There's a push from the senior management 3 team and some of it has been attributed to you where 4 you're pushing to do physics testing and you're 5 directing the start up manager to do physics testing.

6 And the feedback we're getting from him and others is 7 that they feel like they're being -- there's an 8 unusual amount of pressure to start the unit up.

9 And the unit is in a very, very odd 10 configuration, doing physics testing, actually taking 11 the reactor critical. You got -- any kind of change 12 in any kind, any type of thing that would affect a 13 reactivity coefficient could work for you or against 14 you. You could have cold water injection. You could 15 get an overpower condition, but yet the feedback we 16 got was there's a push, there's a production push.

17 And we want to get the unit Started up. We want to do 18 as much as we can in parallel.

19 Do you recall that at all?

20 I recall the issue. I also 21 would characterize it a bit different. I don't 22 dispute that in your interviews that somebody might 23 have had that perception because I can't control 24 people's perception.

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46 1 trying to advance the schedule. We really -- that 2 didn't advance the schedule. .jand I had 3 talked, what we wanted to try to do is get as much 4 discovery in as we could early so that we could 5 correct any other problems so that when we did return 6 the condenser back to the normal configuration, if we 7 did have problems with condensate on long path 8 research steam seals we could have found those and 9 fixed those in parallel.

10 So we didn't really advance the schedule 11 any with that line affecting. Am I making sense?

12 Because we couldn't go anywhere with the temporary 13 turbine seals anywhere. What that allowed us to do is 14 bring back pieces of the secondary plant to see if 15 there were issues so that we could fix them in 16 parallel as opposed to in series.

17 So we weren't advancing the end date of 18 the outage a bit because you can't run the plant with 19 temporary steam seals. What it did allow us to do is 20 bring back and do more testing to find other issues 21 that we could correct. So that's a subtlety -- I want 22 to make sure that --

23 MR. BARBER: Did you get any push back on 24 this? Did anybody --

25 We did some evaluations and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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47 1 there were some concerns and we addressed those 2 concerns with engineering specifically on the ability 3 to draw vacuum with the temporary seals and we did 4 find some industry experience that was related to me l"5 that that had been done before, so it wasn't like we 6 were off -- there were turbines and condensers 7 everywhere in coal plants and nuclear plants and that 8 this wasn't a profound new idea to bring a vacuum up 9 that way.

10 MR. BARBER: Was there a 5059 done for the 11 unusual configuration because there was a change --

12 you considered it a change to the normal starting up?

13 1I don't recall that there 14 was or was not.

15 MR. BARBER: Was that something that was 16 considered?

17 ] I don't recall. I do recall 18 we did do an evaluation. I don't recall the specific 19 evaluations we did and then I also don't recall, I do 20 recall the discussion with Operations and the concern 21 around the low power physics testing. And as I 22 recall, we didn'tldo the low power physics testing in 23 that configuration.

24 MR. BARBER: Okay, but the way it was --

25

• Help me out--

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1 MR. BARBER: The way it was described to 2 us is that you were pushing the station to do this, to 3 push the physics testing to advance the schedule.

4 That's the way it was being described to us.

5 C.- II'm not going to dispute how 6 somebody described something to you.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let us ask the 8 question, were you pushing to have that testing done?

9 CX No, I was pushing to have 10 parallel evaluations done so that we could make a 11 management decision with Operations' involvement and 12 what was possible to allow us to keep moving the 13 discovery piece of the outage forward while we were 14 waiting to fix the main generator.

15 So again, the low power physics testing 16 would have allowed us to find other problems. I 17 didn't direct them to do it and I would believe nobody 18 would have told you that because I didn't direct 19 anybody to do that. I kept parallel valuations going 20 on so that we could make an informed choice on what 2i the right operational decision was. That is totally 22 appropriate to what I feel is the role of th 23 is. So I'm asking questions. We're getting some 24 other evaluations and reviews done to see what was 25 possible. I don't think that's inappropriate.

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49 1w n6OWnbdy informed me that I recall that 2 they .felt pressured or not and it certainly wasn't 3 . ."directly ordered to go do that. Part of operations is 4 exploring alternatives all the time and we do that as 5 part of.sound operational decision making.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you need to 7 say something, Jeff? Do you.want to take a break?

8 MR. KEENAN: Can we go off the record?

9 (Off the record.)

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, we're 11 back on the record after took a short 12 break. It's about 9:49 in the morning.

13 We just want to follow up a little bit 14 about this issue we were talking about.

15 MR. BARBER: On this issue, did anybody 16 express concerns to you about the way this -- the 17 start up was being managed and what was being asked?

18 -. Not that I recall 19 specifically. I know it would have been typical for 20 - and I to be talking with the and the 21ý Outage Managers talking about where we're at and what 22 the plan to move forward was, but I don't recall any 23 specific conversations.

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ýw 1 recollection, that we didn't do the low power physics 2 testing that that evaluation was --

3 [End of Tape 1, Side B; begin Tape 2, Side 4 A.]

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, after 6 going back on the record for about 30 seconds, I put 7 in tape number ue3Iyou3. I'm sorry, if 8 could go ahead, please.

9 W* I lost that last thought --

10 MR. BARBER: This issue that we've been 11 talking about for the last few minutes, was it coming 12 out of the refuel outage?

13 I believe it was. It was 14 after we had damaged the main generator during a 15 maintenance evolution that extended the outage, as I 16 recall 9 days.

17 MR. BARBER: And were yo 18 during this -- what we were talking about during this 19 time period?

20 I believe I was. Did you 21 have the date, Scott, of when that was?

22 I know when it was. It was the outage 23 before the last Unit 2 outage because we did the 24 generator repair last fall, so if it's fall of 2003, 25 it's spring of 2001 and I was the*l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 1 MR. BARBER: Do you remember who the 2 01for that outage?

3 1-Ibelieve it was 4

5 MR. BARBER: Did you have a start up 6 manager at the time or is that -- was it one of the --

7 33 We had a position called a 8 Start Up Manager, Recovery Manager and I don't recall 9 who that was.' If you know who it was that would 10 probably jog my memory.

11 MR. BARBER:

12 Yeah, we had to do one of 13 the outages.

14 MR. BARBER: Do you remember if he was 15 involved in this particular issue we're talking about?

16 Re If-you have the fact sheet 17 that he was the Recovery Manager for. that outage, I 18 would agree with you, but I'll say if he was, that 19 would-have been one of the assignments he would have.

20 I didn't recall that it was or somebody else. He 21 worked directly for the Operations Managers. There 22 are three or four levels of management between this 23 going on and me.

24 MR. BARBER: I thought you mentioned when 25 we began talking about this particular issue that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 there was a concern raised and Engineering had 2 addressed something.

3

• j I remember the conversation 4 about using the temporary seals or using some sort of 5 sealing material to allow you to draw back and in our 6 daily -- in some of the updates we get on the outage 7 I was made aware we devaluated this and. it wasn't 8 unique and that it appeared that it would be 9 acceptable. In fact, the decision was made to do it.

10 That's the level of understanding that I have of it.

11 MR. BARBER: Andwhere did that decision 12 come from, that it was okay to do that particular 13 thing?

14 .*.j It would have been through 15 our normal process with the Operations Manager and the 16 Outage Manager and the Operations Director.

17 MR. BARBER: Where was the push coming 18 from to do this because this was unusual. This wasn't 19 per the procedure? You would likely have had to make 20 a procedure change or multiple procedure changes to do 21 this.

22 37 During the outage, we always 23 had look ahead teams and we're always looking for ways 24 of bringing the plant back to get it in testing in a 25 way that we can find issues so that everything isn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 in series because everything doesn't have to be in 2 series and it's no safer or unsafer to do things in 3 series or parallel and we do have an obligation. We 4 are an electric generating plant where it's prudent 5 and appropriate to look ahead, do things in parallel 6 so we can'bring the unit back to service safely as 7 efficiently as we can because our business is to 8 generate electricity.

9 In that, when we ran into the problem with 10 the generator, we had people looking at how could.we 11 bring the secondary plant back so we could get into 12 this discovery that I was talking about and bring 13 pieces of equipment back now that we had this event 14 occur which we weren't anticipating called damaging 15 the generator during our repair. As part of that, 16 this idea came up and got evaluated through the outage 17 organization and ultimately implemented.'

18 I, as the- Iw would not make 19 -- it wouldn't be my practice *in the way I operate 20 making locally based equipment related decisions. I 21 was probably the least -- in. an organization, probably 22 the least effective place. I might say hey, have you 23 thought of this, have you thought of that? Can we do 24 this? Can we get somebody to look at this? Is there 25 any way that we can in parallel bring back pieces of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 the plant so that we can find things and fix them so 2 we're not in serious -- I would have had that 3 conversation.

4 MR. BARBER: People have said that you 5 were directing some of that work be done and it caused 6 some people problems frankly and that's why we're 7 exploring it with you.

8. And if somebody pushed back 9 and said I really don't want to -- I'm saying I have 10 the ability -- I don't recall the specifics of that, 11 directing a particular individual, but doing an 12 evaluation so that you can have theright inputs for 13 management decision making, I do require that to be 14 done. I didn't direct anybody to startup the turbine 15 with the temporary seals. I'm quite confident --

16 that's not my style or the way I do business.

17 Now do I want to make sure that we're 18 making (Inaudible) all available options? That's 19 conservative decision making. AAnd a prudent business 20 decision making.

21 MR. BARBER: Had there not been a delay 22 because of the damage in the turbine (Inaudible) would 23 all of this have been done? Would you have gone and 24 put temporary seals in? Would there have been a push 25 to --

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1 There would have been no 2 need to do that because we would just have started up 3 the plant in the normal frequency that the outage 4 schedule had dictated. Now we have this event and we 5 know that it's nine days. Rather than just sitting 6 there hoping -- getting the nine days done, we're 7 asking questions. Hey, the plant is generally put 8 back together. Is there any way we can modify safely 9 the configuration so that we can bring some of this 10 equipment back so if it's not correct, we can do the 11 retest and correct it under the window of the 12 generator being repaired?

13 MR. BARBER: You just made my point. What 14 you described was that had the outagegone as planned, 15 had there not been some unexpected problem that you 16 would have conducted the outage as planned. But yet, 17 when you lost time on the outage, there was a push, a 18 pressure coming from the senior management team to 19 meet the original schedule or to come as close to the 20 original schedule as possible --

21 That's not correct--

22 MR. BARBER: -- by doing things in 23 parallel. That's what you just described.

24 I disagree with that. If my 25 testimony led you to that conclusion, I'll take NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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56 1 another run at what I said.

2 The generator, once it was broken, was 3 going to be there 9 or 10 days and we can go back and 4 get the facts set (Phonetic) of the outage schedule 5 and what it was, but as I recall, 9 or 10 days, to 6 fix.

7 There was no sync'ing (Phonetic) that 8 generator any sooner until it was fixed. I mean it 9 had to be repaired and it was going to take what it 10 took to repair it.

11 Well, we were in that hammock (Phonetic) 12 which did extend the duration of the outage.. We were 13 looking to see is there any way we can bring back 14 pieces of equipment to test so we -can find them 15 satisfactory tested or not so we can make repairs or 16 not; Well, we're under this umbrella called fix the 17 generator and trust me, the generator was not going to 18 be sync'.d until it was fixed and put back together, 19 independent of any decision that I might make.

20 And so the rest of the plant meanwhile was 21 coming back together, while this 'repair of the 22 generator is going on. So we asked and and I 23 discussed and said hey, let's get some evaluations, 24 see if we can get some creative thinking and 25 appropriately not violating or short cutting, do some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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D I 1 things in parallel, bring some of this equipment back 2 so when the generator is fixed, we have a very good 3 chance of being able to just smartly start up a plant 4 without having to -- the first time we start the 5 condensate pump (Inaudible), if there's a way that we 6 can get the condensate pumps started earlier, that's 7 prudent and allows us an opportunity to fix those 8 kinds of problems while the generator is being fixed.

9 If the generator was not damaged, you 10 would have just done things based on the original 11 schedule. You would have done them as planned, based 12 on the original outage schedule?

13 E. That's correct because I 14 would have had no hammock to -- I would have had no 15 extended period that I knew I was going to be in to 16 fix the generator.

17 MR. BARBER: Do you understand that --

18 .2I actually don't.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's okay, 20 Scott, we're going to talk about it.

21 MR. BARBER: If there was no damage to the 22 generator, the otitage would have progressed as 23 scheduled and I'm sure there would have been some 24 schedule pressure or some production pressure, but it 25 would have been the normal pressure that would have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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1 been exerted during any outage to get the unit back on 2 line which is we all are aware that there's always, at 3 least a relative amount of pressure there.

4 With an emerging condition, an unexpected 5 condition that is eating into critical path time, 6 whatever it is, whether it's 9 or 10, whatever the 7 number is --

8 2 It obviously started driving 9 the outage, there's no dispute with that, 10 MR.'BARBER: Exactly. So what happens is 11 with the Senior Management Team coming in, and pushing 12 the station and saying hey, managers, take a look at 13 this. We need to look for economies. We need to look 14 for things we can do up hill that there is a 15 production pressure that's being put on there. And 16 there are people in the station that are saying 17 management wants us to take shortcuts. And .that 18 management is in the form of and others 19 at his level that are pushing us to take shortcuts.

20. I mean I'll say okay that 21 wasn't what we were trying to do. That wasn't what we 22 communicated. And if you read INPO documents on how 23 you safely execute an outage and respond to emerging 24 issues, they talk about the look ahead manager. They 25 talk about the recovery manager. They talk about NEAL R. GROSS IC, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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-. J -

1 doing evaluations to try to do things in parallel when 2 you run into unexpected things. I mean there's 3 nothing -- you're conveying a tone and I can't get in 4 people's heads, you know, or what they would tell you 5 for their perceptions. I'm not doubting your 6 credibility on facts if that's what people told you.

7 But I disagree with the way that you're making it, 8 connect the dots, because I don't' see the dots 9 connecting that way.

10 MR. BARBER: We're not connecting, people 11 have. We're talking to you about that. I'm just 12 describing it the way it was described to us in other 13 interviews we've conducted.

14 So it is appropriate for us is to ask for alternative reviews to be done to try to 16 get testing done so we can find issues efficiently 17 once we were provided with this time as opposed to 18 just having the unit lie fallow and then pick up the 19 sequential thing. That just isn't prudent and --

20 MR. BARBER: I disagree --

21 That's not the way outages 22 are ran.

23 Now if you're asking me did that land on 24 certain individuals in a way that they felt that we 25 were pressuring them to do stuff to take short cuts?

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60 1 If they told you that, I can't dispute that. There's 2 a lot of intensity around outages.

3 My typical style and I don't recall 4 exactly conversations in this particular event, but my

.5 typical style was just let's go get some parallel 6 evaluations done so that we can determine if there's 7 another course of action to be taken. There's nothing 8 unsafe about going and doing an evaluation. There's 9 nothing unsafe about me going and asking somebody to 10 say hey, is it possible to go do low power physics 11 testing in parallel here. You're well below the point 12 of adding heat.' Typically, we do -- we've done low 13 power physics testing in some plants over the years 14 without even vacuum in the condenser and you're aware 15 of that. So you're not -- you're 10", 1018, in that 16 couple (Phonetic). We're not talking about power 17 ascension testing or power range testing. We were 18 talking about the verification testing that the 19 reactor engineers do just above being critical. And 20 it was an evaluation on -- I do not recall, now would 21 it be my practice to direct that being done. I 22 directed it to be looked at.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I got a 24 question for you. Scott asked you before and I don't 25 remember what your answer was and I apologize.

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1 Do you know if there was a 5059 evaluation 2 done surrounding what we're talking about?

3 I do not know that there was 4 or was not.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall 6 it being discussed that one was maybe needed, do you 7 recall?

8 *. jI don't recall. And again, 9 at the 004 level, the Chairman of SORT, the

-j 10 convening of SORT, the people that were on SORT was 11 12 In the outage tracking system, if one needed to be a 13 SORT that would have been assigned and it would have 14 been executed. I typically did not because I was in 15 charge of all three units, did not get down to an 16 individual SORT level.

17 And to directly answer your question, I 18 don't recall the conversation around whether a 5059 19 was needed or not. That would have beenor the 20 Operations Manager's decision whether we needed one or 21 didn't and if we did, one would have been done and 22 then the SORT would have happened and if they 23 concluded that we didn't, one wouldn't have happened.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Fine, we'll go 25 on to another issue.

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1 Yes, okay.

2 MR. BARBER: Thanks, we'll move on to 3 something. This is -- the time for this would have 4 been in early 2002 and it was a service water issue.

5 There was a failed surveillance test and it looked 6 like it was with service water. There was a check 7 valve that was tested and it resulted in the loop 8 being declared inoperable and there was some 9 discussion between you and the operating shift and it 10 looks like what happened was that the shift made a 11 decision to declare inoperable and you raised some 12 questions with them about who they interacted with 13 prior to making the decision.

14 The details are a little sketchy, but it 15 looked like it was-a test that was done. There's a 16 surveillance. It failed the surveillance. The shift 17 declared the loop inoperable. Our understanding is 18 you got involved. You started asking some questions 19 about that and do you-recall that issue at all?

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Early 2002, and 21 specifically, and I'll be pointed, that you criticized 22 the Shift Manager for calling the service .water loop 23 inoperable? C/

24 would not have been my 25 practice to criticize an operability determination.

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63 1 I might have asked the inputs. Once it's inoperable 2 in the log, it's inoperable.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm asking you, 4 I gave you that ,bit of information to try and see if 5 you recall this event we're talking about?

6 I don't recall that specific 7 event. I also -- we must have called out a TARP which 8 was -- so let's look at the TARP log because the only 9 way I would get notified at all on an LCO entry is in 10 the context of a TARP.

11 It wasn't my expectation, nor was it the 12 protocol that I would get called directly by the Shift 13 Manager for anything other than the initiation of a 14 TARP, if they couldn't get a hold of the Operations.

15 chain of command.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You made a 17 comment earlier that when you were the it 18 was not uncommon for you to get calls in the middle of 19 the night.

20 When we crossed the TARP 21 threshold, I would get the calls. The procedure 22 required them to call and if they couldn't get a 23 hold ocall me. And then sometimes iwould 24 call me and we would get into conversations with a few 25 other folks on the phone. That happened a handful of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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64 1 times, one of which was the one I related on the circ 2 water issue.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned 4 "would cross the threshold." What do you mean by 5 that?

6 T: Our TARP procedure had some 7 clear criteria when we had to call a TARP and a 8 communications protocol for what had to occur when we 9 called the TARP.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So just the 11 initiation of a TARP would be the crossing of that 12 threshold you're talking about?

13 Right, and there's clear 14 criteria in the TARP procedure on what requires the 15 TARP.

16 Do we have a (Inaudible) inoperable?

17 MR. KEENAN: I looked in the spring of

18. 2002 time frame. I don't see a TARP that relates to 19 that.

I -mean I'm not disputing the 20 21 facts that I talked to a Shift Manager. On that 22 particular issue, I don't recall that specific issue.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let me just 24 move off that and into sort of a related topic. Do 25 you recall discussion between yourself and a group of NEAL R. GROSS I (,/

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1 Shift Managers in one of the Ops offices about 2 operability decision making in which there was a 3 fairly large group, maybe four, five or six Shift 4 Managers that wanted to have a discussion with you 5 about operability determinations and what their belief 6 was and what your understanding of what was expected.

7 Do you recall that?

8 I believe I recall being 9 asked to come to a Salem OS meeting. I think it was i0 Salem.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It was Salem.

12 ] (Inaudible) getting into 13 what you're talking about. And there was a 14 conversation about they wanted to make sure that my 15 expectation was that they had the authority to make 16 those calls and I recall in that meeting that I did 17 reiterate that that was the expectation.

18 But I also reiterated that when we're not 19 in a time, you know, a five minute, that the 20 expectation is that they get Engineer's input, 21 Licensing -- they have the ability when they're not in 22 immediate, to get other people involved to help and 23 make a better decision.

24 I recall that was sort of the genesis of 25 the conversation, the best I recall.

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66 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That 2 characterization was a little different from the 3 Operators' perspective, Shift Managers.

4 I recall meeting with them.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Their 6 perception was a bit different. What -- the way they 7 described it was somewhere along the way and they 8 didn't necessarily attribute this to you or maybe they 9 did, I don't know, but they basically said something 10 to the effect that our paradigm shift on our we did 11 operability determinations. Instead of prove it's 12 operable, it became prove it's inoperable. And the 13 need and the desire to get Engineering involved, to 14 get Licensing involved, to get -- whether it be System 15 or Design Engineering or whoever else was out there 16 that could shed light, the focus was clearly on 17 proving that the equipment could perform its intended 18 safety function instead of doing an objective 19 evaluation of the deficient condition it was. Do what 20 we need to do to keep the plant on line. Do what we 21 need to do to show the equipment is inoperable.

22 And that all this push to get all these 23 outside groups involved were nothing more than just an 24 attempt to maximize generation.

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67 1 was explained to us.

2 Clearly wasn't what was 3 communicated.

4 And clearly, 9118, Revision 1, the 5 resolution in nonconforming integrated conditions in 6 nuclear power plants, your document, doesn't expect 7 that you call things inoperable on limited information 8 all the time. In fact, that document which we train 9 the operators on and test them, tells you to go get 10 the diverse input. Tells you to make judgment calls 11 on the best available information. It also tells you 12 that where it's unclear and I was reviewing that, 13 trying to get some of this out in this LS meeting that 14 if it's a 72-hour action statement and the action has 15 to be done within 6 hours6.944444e-5 days <br />0.00167 hours <br />9.920635e-6 weeks <br />2.283e-6 months <br />, on the first information 16 that comes to the Control Room, you don't have to call 17 it inoperable. You don't expect that. The regulation 18 doesn't expect it. If they need to confirm, get some 19 additional input. If it's something.that requires an 20 immediate -- the action statements what they want, 21 (Inaudible) do something, well, you really don't have 22 a lot of time.

23 Most action statements are not written 24 that way and the expectation and my expectation, you 25 know, I'll believe you when you said that it didn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 land on some of the operators that way was that as the 2 Shift Manager, they're a member of the Management 3 Team. They have to take information that comes into 4 the Control Room and go get some QVV validating 5 information when they have time to do it because it 6 isn't necessarily operating just safely, to be cycling 7 the unit on erroneous information, calling something 8 inoperable, entering 3 of 3 (Phonetic), that isn't the 9 intention of 9118.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, you don't 11 have to believe us when we're telling you, but I'm 12 going to get to the meeting you had with the Shift 13 Managers. What did they explain to you their concern 14 was or if they had a concern?

15 jAs I recall the meeting, and 16 again, I don't have ways to pinpoint the meeting, as 17 I recall.the meeting, they wanted to make sure that I 18 saw that they still have the ability to make the 19 decisions, to operate the plant and I did confirm that 20 in that meeting, that I was entrusting them and they 21 were there 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day and they had the training 22 and they were the person that was in charge. I also 23 expected that they did a little bit of QVV, as I 24 mentioned.

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69 1 stand for?

2 .. Qualify, validate and 3 verify. It's. a human error technique.

4 And I did expect them to go verify before 5 they necessarily take the action and I thought we had 6 a productive discussion. We talked out some issues.

7 It was clear they had some issues and I thought when 8 we got out of the meeting that I validated that they 9 were in charge and.they would be backed up on those 10 decisions.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you see 12 just the fact that they came to you, scheduled a 13 meeting with you. to discuss their concern, did you see 14 that as a work environment issue at that point?

15 No.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Here's a group 17 of Shift Managers coming to you --

18 That's not how it occurred.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's the way 20 it's been portrayed to us.

21 They asked me if I could 22 attend one oE their regular Shift Manager meetings 23 which I agreed to do and that was not atypical for me 24 to do that.

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1 there was the Ops Managers meeting.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This has been 3 described as an atypical meeting.

4 - It was probably an atypical 5 Shift Manager meeting because I was there, but it 6 wasn't they meet regularly -- I want to say every 7 other Thursday. I don't recall what it was, but they 8 had a forum where they all would meet to discuss 9 operational issues because they're on rotating shifts 10 and they had to figure out a way to get almost all of 11 them together at one time before and after a shift and 12 I was asked to come to that to discuss some of the 13 (Inaudible).

14 Would that have been atypical? Yeah, but 15 they asked me to come. Did I know they had some 16 issues? Yes. I didn't perceive it to -- to directly 17 answer your question, did I connect the dots that it 18 was a skee reissue (Phonetic)? I didn't see it that 19 way.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why not?

21 I just didn't see it that 22 way at that time. I saw it as they had some issues we 23 needed to talk through and I felt we talked through 24 them and I did make the point, as I recall of charge. I" 25 reinforcing that they were in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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71 1 MR. BARBER: Did anybody ever come to you 2 in this time frame and just complain about production

3. pressure? They felt they were being pushed too much 4 to do things they felt uncomfortable with?

5 No.

6 MR. BARBER: Or in the two years that you 7 were th no one ever came to you and 8 said they had concerns or something, some direction 9 the station was being asked to take or pushed to say 10 hey, I don't feel comfortable with this. I think it's 11 nonconservative. I think there are more conservative 12 ways we could do things. I think we should stay where 13 we are or do whatever. You never had discussions like 14 that?

15 Not that I recall with that 16 laser precision and I believe I would have recalled if 17 somebody would have been that direct because that kind 18 of directness would have tripped me into a different 19 course of action.

20 MR. BARBER: Did you ever have anybody 21 ever tell you that they wouldn't do something because 22 they felt it was unsafe and you were asking them to do 23 it?

24 . Directly on a specific 25 event? I'm not going to do this because it's unsafe?

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72 1 MR. BARBER: Or they felt it was unsafe 2 and they tried to portray that to you?

3 Not that I recall, not with 4 that kind of laser precision.

5 MR. BARBER: How about the start up that 6 we talked about earlier with wanting to do physics 7 testing in parallel with the unusual line up with the 8 secondary?

9 In that particular issue, I 10 didn't know whether it was Safe or unsafe until we did 11 an evaluation. The conversations that occurred when 12 we asked for these evaluations were I said were 13 probably premature, let's go at least look at it. We 14 weren't directing it to be done. There was a lot of 15 I don't manage by emotion. I try to manage by 16 fact. And you manage by fact by going out and getting 17 diverse opinions and evaluations and do conservative 18' decision making and diverse inputs.

19 The fact that you mention something and 20 somebody goes absolutely, that's unsafe. Unsafe based 21 on what? We hadn't looked at it. Your opinion?

22 Okay, I got your opinion. Let's go take -- we're 23 engineers. Let's go take a-look at it. And if we 24 come at it that it's not something we want to do, we 25 won't go do it, but I couldn't live in a world where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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73 1 we're just --

2 MR. BARBER: I understand your point about 3 being an engineer and I understand your comment, but 4 operators don't always think that way. They tend to 5 think in terms of black and white, yes and no, and 6 they get uncomfortable when they're asked to do things 7 that are not per their normal procedures.

8 I never directed anybody to 9 do anything outside of the procedures and any 10 evaluations that were done, if we were going to change 11 the course, I had an expectation we would follow or 12 normal process. If we had to do temporary procedure, 13 there was nothing in that was that -- in the middle of 14 the night, we were just going to do something. It was 15 do the evaluation. Is it the right thing? Let's go 16 make it happen safely. If it didn't occur to them 17 that way (Inaudible) management, I believe you.

18 MR. BARBER: Did you consider when the 19 Shift Managers asked you to attend that meeting, did 20 you consider where they were coming from that there 21 was a perception problem that maybe they were having?

22 j Right, and that's what we 23 tried to talk through and I tried to relay that that 24 wasn't what I was about and that wasn't what the 25 senior management team was about.

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1 We could argue the effectiveness of that, 2 hindsight, this line of questioning, but that clearing 3 up that perception in their role, I also recall 4 getting feedback after that meeting that that was a 5 very productive meeting. So some of the folks gave me 6 feedback that that was good that I came and they could 7 hear where we were coming from.

8 MR. BARBER: I was given feedback that it 9 wasn't productive.

10 . . .They never gave methat 11 feedback.

12 MR. BARBER: Okay, you didn't get that.

13 *J_ That I recall and I believe 14 that I would have recalled that.

15 MR. BARBER: Right. YoU might be right.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 17 take a break and switch the tape.

18 (Off the record.)

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're back on 20 the record. It's about 10:23. I switched over to 21 Side B.

22 Let's talk about a new issue, if we could.

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75 1 generator turbine and reactor trip in that sequence.

2 , *QMay of 2001?

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spring 2001 4 outage, coming out of the outage.

5 Just by luck, we're on that 6 page.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Good. I 8 thought we were going to go to that one next.

9 . It's just luck.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Good.

11 May 22nd.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you remember 13 that issue, coming up out of the outage, you had that 14 reactor trip as I described?. Started with a current 15 transformer failure?

16 I'd have to review the TARP 17 report to get the specifics..

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm not going 19 to ask you specifics about the event, but I'm just 20 trying to --

21 Do I recall when the current 22 transformer failed? Yes. And do I recall we had a --

23 appears to be a four-day outage, yes. Now that I look 24 at this.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, good.

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76 1 Then we're on the same page then.

2 During the spring 2001 time period in 3 relation to this outage, coming out of the outage, an 4 issue we just described, was there a sensitivity 5 regarding the NRC's ROP program at that point? What 6 color the plant could change to if certain events 7 happened or didn't happen? Is that a topic of 8 conversation among senior management at your level 9 that you can remember?

10 LI don't recall a specific 11 conversation about that. We reviewed the PIs every 12 month through SORC and we' had management review 13 meetings. I don't recall his specific conversation 14 relative to this trip or anything else.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'll ask you a 16 specific question.

17 w,- Okay.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you say to 19 anyone or suggest to anyone after the reactor tripped, 20 as I've described here that we need to get the plant 21 back up as soon as possible or it's going to make us 22 go from green to white in the NRC's eyes? Did you 23 make a statement to that effect?

24 V 7I would not have. For one 25 thing, factually, that's not correct because there

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77 1 would be nothing that -- that would make no sense in 2 your ROP process.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why wouldn't it 4 make sense?

5 - _Because you tripped, you 6 tripped. So I don't understand.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, to get 8 the plant back up in a certain time period?

9 That is completely obviously 10 to the NRC's performance indicator set. Whether I il tripped and stayed out --

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there 13 something related to the trip that was unique? Was it 14 loss of heat tank or was there some other factor --

15 Not that I'm aware of. The 16 way you phrased that question, and Scott will tell 17 you, once you trip the duration of the outage doesn't 18 have anything at all to do with the NRC.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Unfortunately, 20 a lot of information we have was developed without the 21 ability to follow up, like the dates and all that 22 We're kind of relying on --

23 Sort of piecing the quilt 24 together.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Exactly.

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78 1 But I am quite certain that 2 I would not have had a conversation with the 3 Operations Staff about a decision making that would 4 have been done in a way to avoid in some manner an NRC

.5 performance indicator. We weren't managing, nor do we 6 manage by the NRC PIs (Phonetic).

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm going to 8 tell you that an individual or individuals from the 9 Operations Staff had told us that you had that exact 10 conversation with them. That's why I'm asking you 11 about it. I'm not just pulling this out of the air.

12 I didn't accuse you of doing 13 that.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No, but I mean 15 I'm telling you your statement was that you would 16 never have said that and people said, in fact, that 17 you did.

18 That doesn't even support 19 what you were saying because there's nothing to do 20 with that trip. If this did trip us white and I don't 21 recall if this did or didn't trip us white, it had 22 already occurred. So there's nothing starting up --

23 if there was a fact and I don't know if this was a 24 fact or not. If it turned us white, it's just the 25 fact that it turned us white. It doesn't affect NEAL R. GROSS zC COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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79 1 anything down stream from an operations perspective.

2 Scott can attest to that. I'll give you 3 a chance to go look at your -- but there's nothing in 4 the decision making to start up that has anything to 5 do with the NRC PIs.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, I know 7 what conversation we're talking about. I'm not 8 disputing what you're saying, but what I'm telling you 9 is that conversation was relayed to me and you did, in 10 fact, say that to individuals in the Operations Staff.

1i I'm not going to keep debating this, but --

12 If it's a fact that this 13 turned us white, would that have been generally known 14 to the site? Yes.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I would think, 16 right.

17 I'm just speculating without 18 going and looking whether this trip actually turned us 19 white. I do believe we did have a white finding in 20 unplanned power changes or reactor trips in this time 21 frame.

22 I see Scott nodding his head. Whether 23 this was the one that tripped the threshold, I'd have 24 to go back and look.

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80 1 this was --

2 You need to give me some 3 more information.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I am. I'm 5 going to try anyway. The flavor of this was that we 6 need to get the plant started back as soon as possible 7 or it's going to affect our going from green to white.

8 That's what was --

9 I believe that a review of 10 my background would tell you and Scott will attest 11 that there's probably no industry executive that 12 understands the regulatory process that we put in 13 place better than me since I was involved two days a 14 week in Washington, D.C. with your group developing 15 this whole program as Scott is aware of and there's no 16 -- I mean the operator could have .misinterpreted 17 something that told-you that, but factually, there's 18 no basis for that. There would be no reason for me to 19 say that. I wouldn't have said it even out of some 20 misknowledge of the process. I understand the revised 21 oversight process as well or better than anybody in 22 the industry because of my unique involvement in being 23 very active in developing it.

24 There's nothing --

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81 1 to think if there was a finding -- it was 2 characterized as a performance (Inaudible) related to 3 a finding.

4 *'But even starting up -- when 5 we start up has no relationship on a finding.

6 MR. BARBER: Not timing, unless it had to 7 do with the root cause and what you knew when you 8 started up and --

9 ] Obviously, I don't have 10 enough information to even give you much, other than 11 one, the facts that you've presented is not -- it is 12 just technically makes no sense from your process.

13 Two, it wasn't normal and customary for me to use the 14 NRC performance indicators or findings in any kind of 15 operational decision making process. It's not today 16 and it's not our practice today. It's almost a 17 backwards process. I mean it tells you what happened 18 to PIs.

19 It would not be appropriate, nor is it our 20 practice where we do it where it's the end of a 21 quarter and you determine whether you're going to do 22 something. Those conversations just don't occur.

23 We take the actions we need to take, when 24 we need to take them and we react to the outcome of 25 that in the revised oversightprocess, as we've shown.

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t5A 1 We've been late a couple of times. We react.

2 Let me add, in this time frame, you'll see 3 some voluntary power issues in this time frame in 4 these quarters where we reduce the power. We make 5 decisions to reduce power that were unplanned that 6 would have affected the performance indicator for 7 unplanned power changes in an environment where we 8 knew we were close to the threshold and none of those 9 affected our decision making. There's a condensate 10 pump repair.

11 Some of it was planned, but some of it was 12 unplanned. I'm not doing a scientific evaluation.

13 I'm just trying to read more into your question and 14 say are there other examples where __

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You don't have 16 to read anything into -- I'll you one more follow up 17 question on this.

18 Did you make the statement coming out of 19 that outage that we need to get the reactor started by 20 a particular date or our NRC performance indicator is 21 going to go from green to white?

22 I'm quite certain I did not 23 because --

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

25 -1 It makes no sense.

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83 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You've already 2 explained why it didn't make sense, but I wanted to 3 ask you one more time, yes or no.

4 Scott, go to the next issue.

5 MR. BARBER: This issue is about a start 6 up from transition Mode 5 to 4. The operators at 7 Salem had identified a problem with the 14 CFU, 8 containment fan-cooled unit and it had - - it had some 9 containment (Inaudible) reading implications. They 10 delayed the start for about an hour. They got a team 11 together to look at the problem, the leakage and I 12 guess some time you became aware of this issue, went 13 in the control room and made some comments about well, 14 the way it was described to us was you made a 15 statement "who's holding my plant hostage?"

16 The implication was why aren't they moving 17 along with the start up? Why are things stagnant?

18 The individual involved who was an operator in a 19 decision making role felt pressured to start up, that 20 that statement came across as production pressure, 21 that there was a push from you to move things along, 22 to not worry about this issue, not spend a lot of time 23 on it and move it along.

24 " That would be factually 25 incorrect.

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84 1 MR. BARBER: Okay.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What's 3 factually incorrect about it?

4 One, it's not my practice 5 nor would I make statements like that in the Control 6 Room. I have been an and it just wasn't my 7 practice to do that. I'm quite certain that I did not 8 use those words. in the control room. I certainly 9 don't recall saying it and I know quite certainly it's 10 my practice not and to be careful when I'm in the 11 :Control Room around that.

12 I don't recall the specific issue with-the 13 14 CFUs coming out of an outage. I'll just leave it 14 at that. But.that's not typical of what I would do.

15 I personally, in this time frame, myself, 16 did not feel schedule pressure to start the units up 17 when we were down. I felt pressure to make sure we 18 were doing all of the prudent things as I described 19 before, so working as smart.as we can to make that 20 happen and that drove some of my conversations with 21 the operators, but as far as schedule pressure that I 22 felt, I did not feel any schedule pressure, nor did I 23 believe I translated that to comments like that.

24 Why someone would quote me like that, I 25 don't know.

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85 1 MR. BARBER: That's a direct quote, too.

2 That's how we related it.

3 I'm quite certain I did not 4 say that.

5 MR. BARBER: We've talked about a -- my 6 term -- handful of issues today. And all of them are 7 perceived by the people who discussed them with us as 8 production, over emphasis on production, production 9 over safety type. And you had an explanation for each 10 specific one, but can you see where -- from the 11 questions that we're giving you, based on the 12 information we've got and probably 60 interviews or so 13 we've done.

14 We've done a lot of interviews on this 15 work environment issue, that there -- I'm going to say 16 there was a perception problem by operators and not 17 just reactor operators, we're talking SROs, shift 18 managers, AOMs, they perceive that there was a 19 production -- over emphasis on production, production 20 over safety issue.

21, I'd like you to address that maybe 22 generally, if you could. We talked about specific 23 things. You've denied saying things. People have put 24 quotes to you that you denied and you've explained 25 some of the technical things, but that's really where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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86 1 we're coming from. We're getting this information 2 from these people and we're trying to get an 3 understanding for what, if anything, was going on down 4 here that maybe made them think this.

5 Maybe you could talk about that some.

6 1 want to come at this in a 7 different way. BuE I'll get to your point. We had a 8 very young Shift Manager leadership team, 9 inexperienced, young. And we also had some examples 10 of inappropriate Shift Manager and Operations decision 11 making, some of which we've talked about with the Hope 12 Creek example. There were other lower level ones at 13 Salem. That caused us to put in place some issues 14 where we probably just because of not wanting to be 15 negligent in our role of being accountable for the 16 safe operation of the facility, probably put ourselves 17 in some operational decision making at a senior 18 management level and I'm not just talking me, I'm 19 talking at the Director level and maybe 'even the 20 Operations Manager level that was probably -- we did 21 this for a situational basis, what may be an 22 unanticipated consequence. But the reason we did that 23 is to make sure that-.- not that we could do things so 24 we could, as you would say, as alleged, take 25 shortcuts, feel this production pressure. If we did NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 in a way that we could understand the quality of the 2 operational decision making and make sure it was sound 3 and that it had the right operational inputs and that 4 we were making the best decision.

5 Now did that land on some people in a 6 different way? I have no reason not to believe you.

7 It did when 60 people that you interview some of them 8 tell you that.

9 MR. BARBER: A fairly high level here in 10 the Operations (Inaudible).

11 C/

• And our performance at this

12. station is not one of the top performing stations in 13 the country and it's not one of the top performing

.14 stations in the country due to several reasons, one of 15 which is the quality that we were working on, . and 16 myself, the senior leadership team. When I was a 17 member of the team and then whe took over, was to 18 try to work on the quality of, the operations 19 leadership and some of that wasn't that sound in this 20 time frame.

21 So where we inserted to a level and did we 22 get involved to a level more than I might have 23 situationally with a further developed staff? The 24 answer is yes.

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88 1 were trying to do in that time frame to the operators?

2 I mean 20-20 hindsight would probably tell you no. We 3 didn't do as good a job of explaining that.

4 There was nothing that I believe, that I 5 can recall where we -- where I personally, I won't 6 talk for anybody else -- directed anybody to do 7 anything unsafe. Did I ask for some things to be 8 looked at so we could have broader operational 9 decision making? Yes, and I believe that's 10 appropriate.

11 Did I pick in this environment with three 12 units and outages every six months that there was 13 maybe some of this perception issue that needed to be 14 attended to? Anddid I have an'understanding that the 15 Operations. Directors and I had an Ops Manager that 16 were -- that's their accountability to work in this 17 area? I had an-understanding that they were working 18 in this area and we were making progress.

19 I did not -- obviously, your interview 20 records show that the effectiveness of that could be 21 questioned and in hindsight, I agree with you.

22 I don't know if that was helpful, but I 23 tried to get that back to -- that's what we were 24 trying to do, but it appeared to have an unanticipated 25 consequence that we didn't pick up on as quick as we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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89 1 ought to have. I'll yield that in hindsight.

2 Did it result in anything unsafe happening 3 at the Salem-Hope Creek Generating Station? I'm quite 4 confident we did not operate unsafely in this, in that 5 environment. Does that make sense?

6 MR. BARBER: Yes, it does, but it's a 7 matter of perspective. I mean we're not talking about 8 things that are tech spec related. Those are -- the 9 thing is there's a clear requirement for tech spec, 10 you know if it says the equipment has to be able to do 11 this and it can't do that. There's no question that

.12 the operators will do what's required and management 13 supports it. That's not where all the issues are 14 coming.

15 The issues come is where the guidance is 16 not clear. It's your choice. You can choose this 17 path, you can choose this path. From an operator 18 perspective, they tend to look for' a conservative 19 path, almost universally per person, they say this is 20 the path we *want to take. We want to get this 21 equipment fixed. We want to take this action. We 22 want to declare it inoperable. We want to do these 23 things.

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90 1 balance that. But in a way that's being done, the 2 take away issue you describe is different. They're 3 not getting a balanced view, if you will. They're 4 getting we're being pushed for production, production 5 at all costs. Tell me where it says we can't do this?

6 Oh, if we can't do this, then let's go ahead and do 7 it. There's nothing that prohibits it. It's more the 8 paradigm and the way that the station operates and 9 that's the way it's being described to us.

10 There's nothing that I 11 described that's different than the other two 12 facilities that I worked at that are -- one of them is 13 probably the best operating nuclear plant in the 14 country and that philosophy and getting diverse input 15 and doing technical reviews, appropriate technical 16 review of alternatives to plot the best course of 17 action, it does balance safety and reliability and 18 cost and still maintain safety. That isn't atypical.

19 What's atypical is the reaction to that 20 here as a (Inaudible). So there's a situational 21 leadership piece here, based on our internal 22 investigation we're doing as a result of the NRC 23 letter and others and we obviously have to try a 24 different approach because this view, at least of some 25 people, of this unanticipated consequence that this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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91 1 has created, you know, we're committed to fix and this 2 isn't atypical. Most everybody here came from 3 somewhere and did not invent this approach here.

4 MR. BARBER: Would you be surprised if I 5 told you that operators that have been elsewhere said 6 that the way the station operates and the way the 7 management pushes is very different than their 8 previous locations and management pushes production 9 over safety here more than at the prior locations?

10 In this environment where 11 we're at now, does this surprise me? People would 12 tell you that? No. Do I believe that to be true?

13 No.

14 There are examples where we could have --

15 we made some mistakes or could have done some things 16 better, I'll yield that. The answer is yes. But in 17 general, focus on safety, our trying to work 18 on safe behaviors, pre-job briefs, getting people to 19 follow procedures, stop in the face of uncertainty, 20 those are common industry messages. We developed as 21 an industry with INPO's help over the years and --

22 MR. BARBER: But (Inaudible) has come with 23 people when they try and act according to those 24 conservative type of things that are put in. They're 25 feeling is the rub comes from senior management, when NEAL R. GROSS ý,\\ I C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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92 1 they go up against that and try and do that, that's 2 what we've heard.

3 _ 2 And we've created an 4 environment where it's not okay for senior management, 5 apparently I'm taking this to an extreme, just in this 6 conversation, where apparently it's not okay for 7 senior management to ask a clarifying question or ask 8 the basis for something and when there is no basis, 9 apparently the expectation is that the senior 10 management team won't coach on the fact that we need 11 a basis that as a Shift Manager I'm not paying you 12 just to make input decisions in your ear and make a 13 five-second decision. Sometimes I am, but the point 14 (Inaudible) equipment issues and you yielded, Scott, 15 we're not debating those at all. But when those 16 decisions occur, the reactors get tripped. I've given 17 crews lunches thanking them for tripping the reactor.

18 I've written letters to shift managers thanking them 19 for very prudent start ups. There's no debate, I 20 don't believe, in those issues.

21 What we were trying to work on and what I 22 still think is an efficiency here in the Operations 23 Staff is getting the right technical input to make 24 quality decisions as opposed to taking the first piece 25 of information and saying this is what we're going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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93 1 do. That is not appropriate in my opinion.

2 Now in our attempt to coach that kind of 3 behavior and I' not talking about the middle of the 4 night when the reactor needs to be tripped. We're not 5 -- I heard. Scott say we're not debating those 6 decisions, those are obvious and they're made 7 appropriately and senior management reinforces by 8 thanking the crews for doing that.

9 Some of these other more elective decision 10 making, all I was trying to do in improving the

.1 Operations leadership is approve the quality of the 12 inputs and making sure that we weren't making rushed 13 decisions and we had time to get better input. And in 14 the end, once we'had all that input, the Operations 15 Department made the decision and we did -- they made 16 the decision.

17 I don't remember the facts of that low 18 power physics example, but I believe, as I recall, we 19 didn't go do that after we did the evaluation.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you want to 21 talk about the last specific incident?

22. MR. BARBER: Okay.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Then we'll 24 finish up.

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94 1 recent event. This goes back to September of last 2 year. It was during the hurricane, Hurricane Isabel 3 and really relates to an interaction that you 4 supposedly had with the Shift Manager about the arcing 5 and sparking of the switchyard.

6 We know what happened. We know what the 7 end result was, so that's not the discussion. The 8 discussion is about the interaction about what the 9 Shift Manager was doing, why he wanted to do it and 10 again, it goes to conservative decision making.

11 Our understanding was at the time there 12 was a severe storm that was underway. There was 13 lightning, severe wind conditions. There was, in 14 fact, there was arcing and sparking in the switchyard.

15 The individual involved had actually gotten some OE 16 from another station about similar circumstances had 17 been happening and he wanted to take the unit off 18 line.

19 And then I believe you were the senior 20 management representative who was either on call or 21 here that night and you had a face to face discussion 22 with him. This is the way we understand it. And 23 basically told him to go out and get more information.

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95 1 ask me for an example of where I thought this worked 2 appropriately, I would give that example, because he 3 recommended that we take the unit off line and I 4 concurred and we did. We went out and we looked at 5 the switchyard from the turbine deck and took .the unit 6 off line and I suppose in this environment I wouldn't 7 do that.

8 I actually thought that that was one of 9 the better interactions we had. Hope Creek had 10 tripped so I came out for the trip which is why I 11 happened to be there. I heard a report that there was 12 a lot of sparking in the Salem switchyard.. I went to 13 the Control Room. He said what he was looking at and 14 thinking of and we didn't need -- shouldn't be running 15 the unit and I asked him well, let's go take a look.

16 So we walked out of the Control Room, went 17 to the handrail there and about 30 nanoseconds -- my 18 recollection, he was struggling with the decision 19 making. He did not communicate to me that he wanted 20 to take the unit off line. He was sort of in a don't 21 know what to do and I told him, hey, it's fine to take 22 the unit off. We just tripped Hope Creek. If we keep 23 going,Iwe're going to end up tripping the other two 24 Salem units. Let's go off line. He goes, are you 25 going to call first? Why would I do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 that? I'll tell him what we're doing. So we walked 2 back into his Control Room. gave the order to 3 take plant -- I calle and told him we were taking 4 the Salem units off line. He said fine.

5 So I'm just astounded at the -- there's a 6 -- I won't go into my feelings. I'm just astounded 7 because that was textbook. He was struggling with the 8 decision making, absolutely was struggling. I said 9 let's go take a look. When I said let's take the 10 units off line I saw him get relieved. Not relieved 11 like relieved, but --

12 MR. BARBER: That's not it was described 13 to us.

14 Ti That absolutely confounds 15 me. As a matter of fact, I wrote to 16 16h _afterwards, commending him on his decision 17 making and his operational leadership for that and 18 there's a letter in his file to that effect.

19 MR. BARBER: That's not the way it was 20 described to us. The way it was described to us was 21 he wanted to take the units off and he wanted to do it 22 immediately and you held him up. You said no, let's 23 go out and look and make sure that we really are 24 seeing something out there.

25 That's not actually correct.

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97 1 My sense is when I was talking to him he was wavering.

2 I had not seen the sparking. We took two minutes --

3 [End of Tape 2, Side B; begin Tape 3, Side 4 A.]

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, it's 6 about 10:53. We're going to Tape 4 and we were 7 talking about this switch order thing.

8 -. So as I recall, when I went 9 to the Control Room, he was not in a definitive mode.

10 He was worried and when I relayed that it's okay to 11 take the units off, we literally within five minutes 12 of me being there we were doing that.

13 MR. BARBER: Well, why do you think he has 14 such a different perspective?

15 C 3 Ihave no idea. Because I 16 actually recall and I don't recall the genesis of him 17 actually thanking me for helping. So this absolutely 18 confounds me. And it also might point to another --

19 I don't know the dynamics that are going on. Maybe 20 there's a lot of frustration and people are using this 21 process as a way of doing other things, but that --

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What are you 23 talking about?

24 I think there may be a I 25 don't know where people's frustrations are, so'i3 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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.98 1 could be totally (Inaudible) and the person we're 2 talking about for jto thanks.us, there was nothing 3 secret about it. He was on shift.

4 And this just absolutely confounds me that 5 he would communicate that any differently because 6 absolutely when I went to the control room he wasn't 7 hey, I'm taking the units off line because I don't 8 like where we're going. He was I'm not sure really 9 what this means and we've got some report. This was 10 all just unfolding. I got here, this was in the real 11 time.'

12 It's not typical of somebody like me is 13 here in the real time, but I went over there and he 14 said he was trying to -- I don't remember his exact 15 words but "this doesn't look good", "there's a lot of 16 sparking out there." "The AOs are reporting." ".I 17 went out and looked." I don't recall him mentioning 18 OE consulting. I don't know that he did or didn't but 19 I do recall the OE because it came up in our 20 conversation after we took the units off line.

21 And it takes less than five minutes to 22 walk out of the control room, walk over, look and walk 23 back in. I called nd told him we're taking the 24 units off.

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1 that. Was there anybody from -- I'm not sure what 2 group it would be, but it would be the group that 3 would be in the probably equipment and switchyard. Is 4 there anybody that was involved either before or after 5 that you made a comment to about "who's paying for 6 this outage? Is your group paying for this outage or 7 are we paying for it?" You never made a comment like 8 that?

9 j Not like that. The second 10 part of this, let me talk to you about what the 11 discussion was, so this is really funny.

12 MR. BARBER: Okay.

13 When we deregulated, so 14 we'll circle all the way back to your first 15 conversation, there is an agreement in the State of 16 New Jersey that does not allow the nonregulated 17 utilities part of the company to benefit from the 18 regulated part of the company without a billing going 19 on and we have a thing called the billing of standards 20 and I personally had to sign under oath that I 21 understood when we created PSEG Nuclear.

22 The question that I asked wasn't in the 23 tone that you mentioned. I said hey, when T&B comes 24 out to do this and we're going to get support, we need 25 to know that that is billed appropriately because the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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100 1 law requires it.

2 MR. BARBER: Who were you asking that to?

3 C/ - I asked that, I believe, I 4 don't recall the guy's name. There was a fellow here 5 from T&B. It wasn't about who was going to pay for 6 it. The company is a big company. We're going to go 7 fix this switchyard.

8 When I called out -- after we tripped, I 9 got a hold of the VP of Transmissions and I said I 10 need some help in the switchyard here, getting the 11 plan together and cleaning this and when I was talking 12 to his guy here I said hey, let's just be sure we get 13 the accounting right so that we don't screw up the 14 billing of standards because were going to have some 15 of their guys clean our start up yard and there's a 16 demarcation in our switchyard of where the equipment 17 is owned and operated by our T&B which is regulated 18 and where the crossover point occurs to where it's in 19 the deregulated side of the business.

20 Rather than split that up, since they were 21 bringing all their washer trucks and all the people to 22 clean the switchyard to come, as you know, clean the 23 switchyard, I wanted to make sure that they knew that 24 when they were working in our part of the switchyard, 25 they had to bill us for that. And that was the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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101 1 conversation.

2 MR. BARBER: It way it came across was 3 that you were asking some poor technician a question 4 that really should be directed to a VP, that's the way 5 -- that was my take away.

6 1 don't recall talking to a 7 technician.

8 MR. BARBER: Or an engineer or somebody, 9 but basically it wasn't a person in a decision making 10 role.

11 *jIt wasn't. I just wanted to 12 validate that he knew there was some treatment we had 13 to do and he was, I believe, the person I was talking 14 to, at least a. supervisor level. I don't recall the 15 gentleman's name.

16 MR. KEENAN: I would be glad to provide 17 the affiliate standards-18 That was the whole basis of 19 my conversation. And it didn't have anything to do 20 with who was going to pay because we're a $10 billion 21 company and had money to fix the switchyard.

22 MR. BARBER: The focus was on the outage 23 of the units, not so much who was going to pay for the 24 cleaning --

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1 at that time. I was focused on getting the help here 2 to again, prudently and efficiently, clean the 3 switchyard because I knew that we weren't going to go 4 anywhere until we got the switchyard clean.

5 MR. BARBER: I guess we can still go back 6 to Jeff's earlier line of questions. We asked about 7 a number of situations and circumstances and you have 8 answers to most of these that are different than what 9 we've heard and understandably so, but it does point 10 to the fact that the information -- there's a 11 difference in the way you understand the information 12 and the way the others that are involved with the 13 information are taking away from that.

14 *For some reason, and this 15 would just confirm that, this is why you just asked me 16 the follow-up, what do I mean? I'll answer a little 17 more directly.

18 MR. BARBER: Good. Thank you.

19 I don't know why. I'll 20 admit I don'.t know why and we'll get some learnings 21 probably out of our (Inaudible) assessment team and 22 the NRC letter and it's sort of driving at this same, 23 my understanding and my reading of the NRC letter that 24 you sent us, is actually driving the exact area that 25 we're talking about right now. C/

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103 1 There is a tendency and you came up with 2 the examples as well about it as I could have -- there 3 was some I was unaware of until we had this 4 conversation that (Inaudible) issues, to cast a lot of 5 what the senior management says or does in the worse 6 possible light and draw that conclusion that you are 7 promoting, Scott. Why that is? We're going to have 8 to go figure that out through a lot of communication 9 and discussion.

10 But literally, there's a 1 percent 11 (Inaudible) 99 percent not, the 1 percent gets grabbed 12 upon and is made larger than life. So the lens that's' 13 being looked at -- I came to this realization earlier 14 this spring when we started down this path that I

.15 didn't realize -- well, I'll take accountability for 16 not realizing that everything that -- everything is an 17 exaggeration, some of what we're saying and doing is 18 being cast to make the worse possible light and that 19 turns into being the water cooler conversation and the 20 scuttlebutt conversations that make some of these 21 issues larger than life in the operators' eyes and we 22 did not recognize that.

23 MR. BARBER: Some of this is directing an 24 action. C/

25 77J I'm just saying --

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104 1 MR. BARBER: This particular incident we 2 just talked about is talking about the person who you 3 had a direct conversation.

4 ight.

5 MR. BARBER: And the others which we 6 haven't specifically mentioned are involved in direct 7 interactions.

8 Right.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's not 10 second, third, fourth hand information.

11 -A And in many of the other 12 (Inaudible), I don't recall the exact conversations.

13 Some of them made no sense, to start up with the 14 (Inaudible) The one with I can remember 15 clearly I thanked him, afterwards talked to him and it 16 absolutely astounds me that he would cast that 17 differently based on conversations I had with him 18 after the fact.

19 MR. BARBER: I'd like'to pick up on that 20 for a minute because you described the interaction 21 witth you described that and you 22 mentioned that he -- when you said "fine, we'll take 23 the unit off line" you said that he was relieved.

24 Yes.

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105 1 problem. Why would he feel -- I mean I'm asking you 2 why would he feel, but you see, apparently --

3 He told me now, in 4 retrospect, in light of three hours of focused 5 conversation on this area, he -- I have actions I take 6 that demonstrate that I wanted the stations to operate 7 conservatively.

8 Back when.I was and I would 9 frankly put this switchyard in that example, 10 inappropriately, apparently. He may have had in his 11 mind that this vision or this perception as you've 12 been calling it is so anchored, it influences the way 13 they look at every interaction with this. That's my 14 learning out of this conversation.

.15 MR. BARBER: People at his level.

16 (Inaudible) about this.

17 I wouldn't say --

18 MR. BARBER: To me it is.

19 I'll just leave it at that, 20 but that was my learning out of this conversation 21 because even in a good interaction, it's not -- I mean 22 in my opinion that would have been one of my examples 23 if you asked me for some examples where my actions 24 demonstrated conservative decision making and 25 reinforced what I was trying to accomplish with safe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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106 1 operations, I would have used that as an example, 2 quite frankly.

3 MR. BARBER: And the other thing --

4 0 Along with others, I have.

5

• MR. BARBER: And the other thing *.

6 said to you, he asked you a question and you 7 said this, "are you going to callcl 8 Didn't he ask you that?

9 *Uh-huh.

10 MR. BARBER: It's almost like -- I'm 11 getting the sense that he didn't feel -- he didn't 12 want to make that call.

13 was one of ourl 14 U t the time when this occurred. He hadn't been a 15 very long and I sensed that there was a 16 -- that that's what gave me my relieved sense is that 17 he hadn't been in that situation before. He was a 18 little new and he was new in his position at that 19 time.

20 MR. BARBER: You have a different 21 impression than the impression we got, just from 22 interactions in this situation and others in that you 23 feel like you're acting as a helpmate and helping him 24 make a decision that he wanted to make and the 25 impression we get is he wanted to make a decision, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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107 1 maybe he didn't feel like he could because of 2 interactions like August 1999, the message take aways 3 from that.

4 0y I can't judge what is in 5 RJmind.

6 MR. BARBER: It's not just him. It's not 7 just --

8 No, but you're giving that 9 example. You're speculating.

10 MR. BARBER: I'm talking about that, but 11 we also had the other situation when you had a group 12 of Shift Managers that wanted to have a discussion 13 with you, confirming your approval to make decisions.

14 They shouldn't have to have that. You can't grant 15 that. We give that to them. They're (Inaudible) by 16 NRC, not by 79 They can make those 17 decisions.

18 Nobody said they couldn't.

19 Find something that says I said they couldn't.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, we have 21 and you disagree with them.

22 Where I said they couldn't 23 make the decision? That directly?

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "Who is holding 25 my plant hostage?" is pretty direct.

C/

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108 1 §3I did not say that to the 2 best of my recollection and it would not be consistent 3 with my behavior in the control room.

4 MR. BARBER: You may have just answered 5 the question, "I wonder who is holding my plant?" We 6 don't know. And a lot of these instances we don't 7 know. Well, we know what the balance of the evidence 8 is indicating.

9 As Jeff articulated, we have a very large 10 number of interviews and it's not just you.

11 l9 I'm not taking it 12 personally.

13 I'm trying to figure out how to solve the 14 problem going forward because there's a lens that's 15 being looked at and we' re not the best running nuclear 16 plant in the country which is not a surprise to 17 anybody and some of the best managers in the country 18 have been brought in here to come to change the 19 culture here which is long standing and part of that 20 cultural issue is this cultural issue of proper 21 operations, leadership and decision making which at 22 least in the tenure, the time I was recognized 23 that we needed to improve the quality of the inputs in 24 the decision making by the Shift Managers.

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1 economist decisions which, without rehashing the 2 record, there's no -- when a plant needs to be 3 tripped, they trip it. When (Inaudible) go to 303 and 4 shut down. I'm not aware of any examples and you've 5 brought forward no examples where any senior 6 management person intervened in those more urgent 7 decision making opportunities.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That involved 9 you -- /

10 *0kay, on my watch, I'm not 11 aware of any and you've brought forth, so let's just 12 keep it in the record of what I'm aware of. And some 13 of the others, I think you categorized correctly.

14 Some of the ones that are a little bit more 15 discretionary, you know, itappears to me based on 16 what (Inaudible) is, our attempt to get more diverse 17 inputs and the correct inputs and decision making did 18 not land as we wanted it to and caused some 19 perceptions, I'll.use your words, and at least people 20 relating to you may have influenced their decision 21 making.

22 I'm just relating what I'm learning and 23 processing when I'm sitting here for two hours or 24 three hours.

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110 1 important factor and you probably are walking away 2 with that thinking I'm saying one thing and they're 3 taking away something totally different, so there's 4 something there, there's something there. There's 5 also some inherent differences in the way an engineer 6 things and the way an operator thinks and I'm not 7 going to argue one side or the other. I can actually 8 see from both sides.

9 But just thinking like an engineer, 10 talking to an operator, there's the potential to talk 11 past each other and then I think the fact is there's 12 situations, that it seems like the ability to deal 13 with the situations in the manner you're.describing 14 are all dealt with in a wide format. They're not in 15 a training setting where you're talking about case 16 studies. It's all we have this situation and we have 17 to resolve it. Let's go forward and what the take 18 away is from many of the people we've talked to is 19 heavy handedness on the part of senior management, 20 it's all pushed for production, a push for it. Tell 21 me why I can't do this? No, is this conservative, but 22 tell me why? And that's what we're getting. That's 23 the message we're getting. 1--

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1il 1 some of these examples. What did we actually look at 2 to make that decision? Nothing. I can't live with 3 that rule. You looked at nothing? No, I'm just going 4 off my gut feeling. Okay, I pay you for a bit of 5 that, but I also pay you ask questions, get diverse 6 input and make quality decisions. That connection, 7 you just articulated that. That connection was faulty 8 in some cases.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 10 take a short break and then we'll finish up.

11 I'm fine.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, then 13 we'll go right to finish then.

14 Scott, is there anything you want to go 15 over?

16 MR. BARBER: No.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Jeff, is there 18 something you want to review with your client? If 19 there is, go ahead.

20 MR. KEENAN: I think we're good.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: is 22 there something you wanted to add that we didn't get 23 to today?

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112 1 couple. I'm sure there isn't a lot of examples coming 2 out of where we held the plant up to fix equipment, 3 where we took significant amount. I mean I can show 4 a record during this same period of time where we cost 5 the company, if we were (Inaudible) to. be all about 6 making money, we operated at extended periods of time 7 at reduced power to go through and fix heater train 8 pumps, common safe pumps, circulators, took the plant.

9 down on numerous occasion to fix items that were 10 bothering the operators. I mean to the extent I would 11 imagine that given that, I think some of the 12 perception or some of the other drivers, I'm sure 13 those weren't coming out in your interviews. I would 14 hope some of the balance came out.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, we did.

16 To be frank, we did get some of that and we're looking 17 for a balanced answer, if there is one. We have 18 gotten positive --

19 MR. BARBER: We tried to ask balanced 20 questions.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We did.

22 MR. BARBER: I have to tell you the 23 propensity has been on the other side.

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113 1 conscious work environment portion or do you think 2 there's a further follow up?

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I think we're 4 done.

5 MR. BARBER: I think so.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I think we're 7 finished.

8 1 can look through my period 9 of time here in memories (Inaudible).

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I will be 11 talking to you again about another matter. If you 12 want to bring something to my attention during that, 13 please. You need to take the opportunity then to do 14 so.

15 . Do we want to try to at.

16 least give you some dates that you could be starting 17 to work with?

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's go off 19 the record.

20 Go off the record to do 21 that?

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes.

23 Does anyone else have anything further?

24 MR. KEENAN: What about the closing 25 questions? N R O NEAL R. GROSS.

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114 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I don't have C

2 any closing questions.

3 MR. KEENAN: Those NRC standard -- I 4 apologize.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's okay.

6 It's 11:15. Is there anything more you want to add?

7 No.

8 I don't have any further questions. This 9 interview is concluded. Thank you.

10 (Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the interview 11 was concluded.)

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q CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:

Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-051F Location: Station, NJ were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape(s) provided by the NRC.

Francesc Zook Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.

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