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OI Interview Transcript of Witness
	ML061790646
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	02/05/2004
From:	; NRC/OI
To:	;
References
	1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1315
	Download: ML061790646 (148)
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'fOfficial Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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Location: Hancocks ,Bridge, New Jersey IA' Date: Thursday, February 5, 2004 Work Order No.: NRC-1315 Pages 1-146 NEAL R. GROSS'AND CO., INC.

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

Washington, D.C. 20005 Information in this record was deleted (202) 234-4433 in accordance .with the. Freedom of Information

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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + ++ +

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

8 INTERVIEW OF Case No.

9 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED) 11 12 13 Thursday, February 5, 2004 14 15 Hancocks Bridge, New Jersey 16 17 The above-entitled interview was conducted 18 at 12:06 p.m.

19 20 BEFORE:

21 Special Agent EILEEN NEFF 22 ALSO PRESENT:

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

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2 1 APPEARANCES:

2 -On Behalf of the Witness 3 JEFF KEENEN 4 Consumer Advocate 5 Office of Consumer Advocate 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 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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i3 i* ~P-R-O-C-E- E-D-I-N-G- S 2 (12:06 p.m.)

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 February 5, 2004. The time is approximately 5 12:06 p.m.

6 Speaking is'Special Agent Eileen Neff with 7 NRC Office of Investigations, Region I. Also present 8 from Region I, Division of Reactor Projects, the 9 Senior Project Engineer, Scott Barber, 10 What follows, will be an interview with 13 is accompanied by counsel; Jeff Keenen is also 14 present. And Mr.. Keenen will describe the purpose of 15 his appearance shortly.

16 As agreed, this interview is being tape 17 recorded, and it will be conducted under oath. The 18 subject matter of the interview concerns the safety 19 conscious work environment at' Salem and Hope .Creek.

20 ,is being interviewed as .d'witness. It was 21 explained to you that you'*re being approached as a 22 witness.

23 You voluntarily appeared today to give us, 24 your assessment of the work environment, and your 25 . experience to date with PSEG Nuclear includes Hope NEAL R. GROSS.

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4 1 Creek only. So we'll be addressing Hope Creek.

2 And also, I explained to you that there is 3 no specific potential violation associated with safety 4 conscious work environment. So you understand that 5 you're being approached as a witness?

6 I do.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. As I explained 8 to you prior to going on the record, we'll conduct the 9 interview under oath. Would you raise your right 10 hand, please? Do you swear that the testimony you are 11 about to provide is the truth, the whole truth, and 12 nothing but the truth, so help you God?

13- Yes.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Jeff, could 15 you please describe the purpose of your appearance 16 here today?

17 MR. KEENEN: Yes. My name is Jeff Keenen.

18 I'm Assistant General Solicitor for PSEG Services.

19 Today I'm representin and PSEG Nuclear in a dual 20 capacity. I'm not aware of any conflict of interest.

21 'i is a fact witness today. Should a conflict arise, 22 we'll take a break from the record and best handle 23 .*,.that.

24 Also, we would like the opportunity to 25 review the transcript at a time and place that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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5 1 convenient for the NRC.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you 3 understand, the urpose of the 4 representation as described?

5 L..w Yes, I do.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Does your 7 employer require you to have an attorney present when 8 you are interviewed by NRC 0I?

9 ANo, they do not.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The Office of 11 Investigations, I should explain. No?

~No.

12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Were you in 14 any way threatened with any adverse action if you did 15 not request corporate counsel?

No, I was not.

16 17 SPECIAL AGENT- NEFF: Okay. Will the 18 presence of Mr. Keenen hinder your testimony in any 19 way?

20 No, it won't.

21 SPECIAL AGENT. NEFF:. Okay. Do you 22 understand that you have the right to a private 23 interview with me at your convenience?

24 Ti Yes, I do. "7 -

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. With that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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6 understanding, do you wish to continue with the 2

interview at,.this time?

-3

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.' For the

-5 'record, can we establish -- state your name and spell

'6 your last' name, please.

7 8

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Date of birth?

10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And Social Security

12 Number,.please?

. 13 14 SPECIAL AGENT- NEFF: And a home address, 15 please.

16 17 18 Al 19 some background information, -a summary of your 20 education,- please?

21 22 23 7

24 25

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7

. 16 7

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In whlat capacity?

8 9

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. How long in 11 12 that position, then?

Oh, gosh. About --

13 You can roucrhlv 14 SPECiAL AGENT NEFF:

estimate.

I'll say approximatelY*

16 17 Okay. And then, 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:

.19 another position?

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. (Inaudible) 21 22 Yes, approximately 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you remember what 24 25 year you were licensed?

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8

~Not -- no.

1 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So 3 approximately or so? How long were you in that.

4 position?

5 About'-- about 6

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then you 8 changed?

9 10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. You 12 don't-have to be precise. Just --

13 _ , ]Yes. I'm just -- I can't 14 remember what year.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So abou*

16 and then you went to an 17 18 - That's correct.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So, then, how S20 many years were you an 21 Until present.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, I'm sorry. Until 23 you became a 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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9 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Was that in 2 *or so that you were promoted?

3 Maybe (mg 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So 5 SYes.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So that would mean you were aI 9 0 Vplus or minus?

10 That's about right.

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. It 12 doesn't have to be exact. We just -- relative 13 timeframes are good enough.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. Don't let that 15 bog you down 16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- in being too 1"8 precise. 'I'm just looking for --

19 I know 1 should probably have 20 the month and year memorized, but I just --

(_____

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, sir.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I can tell you most 23 people don't. So --

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- just don't let it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 1 bog you down on being too--

.*** Okay.

2 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- precise. I'm just 4 looking for a general idea. How about in terms of 5 your management that you've worked with, from '99 and 6 2000, in that timeframe, who was your -- what was your 7 ops management structure? By name, who were they?

8 Well, starting in '99, I 9 believe that would have been 10 4 MW Because basically he got 11 promoted to Aim' 12 And at that 13 point, our 14 15 I -- I don't recall really, you know,- who 16 was the -S*inwhat year, but -- and 17 then, let's see, 18 That was approximately, I'll say, almost two 19 years ago. Between a year and two years a 20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So somewhere around 22 2001 probably?

23 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What position does NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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11 im hol, then? Where did he go from tha

2. slot?

3 went over to 4 He's 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

6 He's basically in charge of 7 .site outages at both Hope Creek and Salem.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Brand new, right?

12 . pW- Yes. Yes, he just recently 13 replaced 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And so, what 15 about in terms of site senior, management at the VP 16 level or just above Ops Management? Who have you had 17 experience working-with there?

18 . It gets a little bit 19 confusing, because the structurelhas changed quite a 20 bit from -- I'll say from '99 to now.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of positions 22 held?

23 Not only that, but the actual 24 positions themselves. Not only the people, but the 25 positions themselves.

-- 7.

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12 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: (Inaudible) 2 of organizations evolved or changed over that period 3 of time?

4 Yes.

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

6 Pretty significantly. So 7 going back to, say, around '99, we had a6 8 I is And-over top of 9 would have been, gosh, I'm not sure.

10 SR. PROJECT-ENGINEER BARBER: That would 11 have probably been, what, And who else 12 was here then?

13 Yes. was here 14 back then'and 15 SR, PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:

16 17 See, I get 18 mixed up; becaus they 19 -and als all at one time held the --

20 like' the"IM W.position, because *what ultimately 21 ended up happening then after -- say after '99,.'

22 * -- ~hey changed the management structure, did 23 away with the 24 25 And he was -- I believe it was him, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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13 2 And then those guys 3 rotated around over the next couple of years. And 4 ultimately 5d

-,,,,,Ta in that-position up 7 until, you know, last -- last year.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -

9 . Right. And, say, about three 10 years ago or so, they created a new position which was 11 -- 1

' ""-had ." that position,.and he was -- he 12 was in charge of the -- *both Hope Creek and Salem 13 units.1, And the actual title of that position was 14 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:

16 17 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that's about 2000 20 or so?

21 I'll say probably closer to

.22 2001.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that, then, would 24 have replaced the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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14 2" ' Yes, I believe -- I believe 3 all that happened at about the same time. We did away 4 with the Plant Manager position. We created the 5 Director position. The Ops Manager's office moved 6 down to the old Plant Manager's office.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay. In 8 terms of the safety conscious work environment -- it's 9 rather broad, but what I can show you is -- or direct 10 you with-is we're focusing on a couple of key areas.

11 One area would be the ability of employees to raise 12 concerns, the response that they get to their 13 concerns, and do they do so comfortably -- you know, 14 freely, without fear of reprisal or retaliation.

15 That'.s one area that we're looking at.

16 And then other'aspects to it -- to the 17 work environment get into operational decision-making.

18 I can't cover them all in -- you know, as a nutshell.

19 So what I'd like to ask you, and if you can think 20 about, in terms of how long you've been on as a 21 shave you-- have you seen any changes in the 22 work environment that would affect people's ability to 23 raise concerns, either positively or negatively?

24 You know, the kinds of concerns that you 25 are addressing yourself, and the kinds of things that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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15 1 are being brought to you radiological concerns, 2 industrial concerns, or nuclear safety concerns, 3 things along those lines.

4 I can do that. That is a JAM 5 very broad question.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It is. It is. And 7 I'm .trying to break it down, but if -- if there's 8 something you want --

9 I understand.

iNo, 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- to focus on, go 11 ahead and --

12 W, So I can give you like my 13 impressions and opinions, right?

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're looking for 15 your assessment of how it Works onsite, so yes --

** Okay.

16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you can do that.

18 And what I -the other thing 19 that I would say is that, you know, 0it runs the gamut 20 of somebody being afraid to -- to raise a concern out 21 of fear of retaliation. And that -- I know of no 22 instance of'thati:.-

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So you have --

24 Nothing that I have ever 25 experienced, like where somebody was afraid to -- to a,

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16 1 raise a concern because either they had been 2 retaliated against, or they knew somebody had been 3 retaliated, or -- I'm not aware 'of that, and I've 4 never felt that way.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So from --

6 from the perspective of reprisal or retaliation, 7 you're not aware.of that as a reason someone would not 8 raise a concern.

9 That is correct.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have any other ii reason. -- do you have any other awareness of any 12 reason someone would hesitate to raise a concern?

13 . Some-- what I have heard 14 people say at one time or another is they -- they feel 15 like nobody cares, nobody cares. So it's almost like 16 you - in my position, I had to make sure that -- that

17. the fellows that report to me, the folks that report 18 to me, knew that that was their responsibility.

19 That's a part of their job is to -- is to identify 20 problems, conditions adverse to quality.

21 And if they didn't identify them, then 22 there's no other shot at getting them fixed.. That's 23 the first step. And sometimes, you know, I would hear 24 that, right, as like, well, we've -- you know, we've 25 raised -- we've identified this in the past, and it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 1 hasn't gotten fixed.

2 S6 that -- that kind of conversation I've 3 heard in the past, but that's --

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now, from --

5 1 _ - - different than -- than, 6 you know, being afraid to identify something or 7 worried about retaliation.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I see your 9 distinction; It's a reason to hesitate, you're 10 saying, but it's not a fear of retaliation or reprisal 11 for having had a concern.

12 Mm Yes. The way that I heard it 13 anyway was it's more like a -- why should we bother?

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now --

15 IN SOr that type of thing.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So from what level?

17 Where are you hearing that kind of -- that kind of 18 questioning coming from? And what examples can you 19 think of that go to them?

20 Well, as far as from what 21 level, I would -- I'm primarily referring to equipment 22 operators and control room operators. And your second 23 -- second part of your question was a specific 24 example. I'm having trouble thinking of a specific 25 example. I guess I -- I could give you a for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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18 1 instance. Maybe that would help to understand.

2 So we have our -- we have our shift briefs 3 in the morning and the afternoon, whatever. And 4 sometimes what'll happen is I'll say, okay, got some 5 feedback that, you know, we've been having trouble in 6 this area, and we need to do better writing 7 notifications. And at times the response would be, 8 "Well, you know, nobody -- nobody cares. Why do we 9 have to take the trouble to fix it?"

10 Oh, here's a good example. Diesel fuel 11 oil leaks. My goodness. When I -- I tell my guys 12 that they need to write up the diesel fuel oil leaks, 13 the first -- first response I would get a lot of times 14 is, "Well, why can't Maintenance just fix them?" And 15 then I would have to explain, "Well, the first part of 16 the process is we have to identify them, and then that 17 gets it into the system, and then we schedule the 18 work, and then Maintenance goes and fixes it."

19 So I -- I have -- I mean, I have heard 20 that and had that type of conversation with the people 21 that report to me.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So like with the fuel 23 oil leaks, then, if -- if they're asking, "Well, why 24 can't Maintenance just fix them?" that indicates

25. they're aware of these -- the problems? Is it the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19.

1 same problems or different problems?

2 I don't understand your 3 question.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are the notifications 5 already in on those issues?

6 Sometimes. Sometimes they 7 would be. Sometimes there's duplicate notifications 8 for the same problem. That does happen.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So there's a 10 little frustration there with, why don't they just fix 11 the leak type of thing --

12 Yes.-

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- is what you're 14 saying.

15 Exactly.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Any other --

17 I'm sorry. Go ahead, Scott.

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, is 19 that a valid emotion in your view, to be frustrated 20 over the fact that Maintenance is not successful in 21 fixing the leaks?

22 Well, 1 it is what -- it is 23 what it is. I mean, it's -- that's the way that 24 person was feeling at that point in time. And, you 25 know, as their boss, right, I have to deal with that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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20 1 and try and, you know, do whatever I can to -- to 2 address the concern and to -- you know, to make sure 3 that ultimately -- my intent with the example that I 4 gave here, ultimately is to make sure that my folks 5 are identifying, you know, the stuff that's -- that's 6 leaking, so that they can get put into the system and 7 fixed.

8 As far as were there times when things 9 were leaking when they -- they should have been fixed, 10 or we took equipment out, like to be fixed, oil leaks 11 to be fixed, and then they came back --

12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.

13 - and it still leaked, yes, 14 that happened.

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So that --

16 .And that's something that is 17 very frustrating for the equipment operators. And 18 that -- you know, I think that, drove some of that 19 conversation as well.

20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So doesn't 21 that kind of add validity to their argument? I mean, 22 it -- 'it sounds --

23 I-7 24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- like, you 25 know, they're describing a situation where they feel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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21 1 personally frustrated --

2 Absolutely.

3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- because 4 they say, "Hey, we identified these leaks.

5 Maintenance'took the diesel out of service," assuming 6 for a work week or something, you know, they're on the 7 list to be fixed, they go work them, they come back, 8 put the diesel back in service. You know, they still 9 leak, or -- you know, maybe-- maybe they leak less, 10 but they're still leaking, or whatever.

11 But for whatever reason, they feel like 12 they're -- whatever they're asking for in terms of 13 maintenance it's not being successful. And then 14 they're telling you when you're -- when you're kind of 15 just talking about in general terms -- you may be 16 talking in general terms that you need to write 17 notifications when somebody raises the question. I 18 mean, they're, in fact, pointing out that, hey, we 19 raise these issues, we identify them, we give them to 20 Maintenance, they're not fixed. You know, why 21 should -..

"*:°* " Sure.

22 23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- we go out 24 and do it again?

25 Yes. If anything -- if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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22 1 anything that I said, or the way that I said it, made 2 you - made you think that I thought that their 3 concerns were not valid, that's -- that's not the 4 case. That was not what I was trying to communicate 5 to you.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, it's just --

7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, I 8 understood that. I -- what I was trying to get at is 9 just to to understand their frustration and the way 10 they're describing why they don't want to write -- let 1_1 me ask it a different way. Do you feel any obligation 12 once you know that to take. that forward and do 13 anything with that, as a supervisor or manager?

14 Sure. Absolutely.

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. And 16 what would you'do under those circumstances?

17 Under the circumstances, if 18 I had a -- say a diesel generator that was removed 19 from service to do maintenance, corrective maintenance 20 and repair a leak, and it came back and it was still 21 leaking, the first thing I would do is make sure that 22 it was properly identified again, which is either a --

23 you know, a failed retest or write a new notification.

24 SR. PROJECT .ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

25 . And then, you know, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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23 1 process includes and entails a review of operability 2 of the machine, and, you know, making a decision as to 3 whether we should go back into a maintenance window 4 and fix it or plan it out at a later date.

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. But 6 how do those decisions get made? I mean, are you a 7 decision-maker in that process? Are you just an 8 inputter to the decision-making process, or -

I would say I am -- I am not 10 the decision-maker, but I get a lot of input into that 11 process, especially, you know, in terms of 12 operability. Right? I mean, that's my -- that's one 13 of my roles and responsibilities.

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

15T KEENEN/ I mean, just to clarify, in 16 an operations role, you place things into a 17 notification process or a corrective action process, 18 is that correct?

19 , Yes, that's -- generally, 20 that's the first step to getting something fixed or 21 '.. taken care of, because it's from there, then, that you 22 assess operability, you determine the priority of the 23 -- you know,* the maintenance that needs to be done, 24 and then the priority determines how it gets planned 25 and scheduled.

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24 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. I 2 understand. I was really talking about the -- the 3 rework side of things, where you're actually -- you 4 have something that's (inaudible) on the front end, 5 and you -- you know, the presumption is it will be 6 successful, the process will be successful, and it's 7 not.

8 And so it kind of puts you in an awkward 9 position, because then you have to make a decision 10 about whether you, you know, as you said, put a new 11 notification in, identify it as some -- you know, as 12 rework, as, you know, a PMT failure, however -- and 13 then you have, to assess operability and all those 14 things.

15 But there is also other things that aren't 16 maybe in a process per se.. I mean, they're more like 17 motivational type -- type things. What motivates you 18 as the supervisor or manager, how you deal with -- how 19 you, interact with your -- you know, people on your 20 shift, whether it's, you know, nuclear equipment 21 operators or nuclear control operators, you know, and 22 how you follow through.

23 And I was just trying to get a sense of 24 how you would follow through, how you would -- how you 25 would, you know, follow through in that situation.

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25 1 *Well, depending on the 2 circumstances, I may go down and look at it myself.

3 I've done that in the past, especially for -- for 4 things that are significant. For example, you know, 5 like a diesel maintenance window, and the diesel comes 6 back and it's got a leak that potentially impacts 7 operability. That's something that I might go down 8 and look at myself, and I have in the past.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

10 Or I might send my work 11 control SRO or the-- we have field supervisors now --

12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

13 - -- send, you know, one of my 14 -- you know, one of my-team to go look at it as well'.

15 Generally, you know, something significant like that 16 would be immediate notification to the Assistant Ops 17 Manager, and then he would make his calls up through 18 the Ops Manager.

19 For me, if it's on day shift, I would make 20 a call to whoever the Maintenance lead was. You know, 21 dependent on what timeframe we're -- we're talking 22 about, that could be the 12-hour shift maintenance 23 supervisor or it could be, you know, like today, for 24 example, in the middle of the week, in the middle of 25 the day, maintenance superintendent -- we'll call them NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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26 1 and get them involved.

2 Engineering for - - especially for diesels.

3 We usually have very good engineering support, so 4 there's diesel system engineers.

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

6 I'd get them involved.

7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you're 8 involving a lot of groups to try and get the problem 9 resolved.

10 Right, 11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: In the 12 instance that .you offered -- I mean, this was your

13. example with the diesel leaks -- have you ever gone 14 through that, where you have in fact done that, and 15 then there's -- there's some outcome or some decision 16 made to -- to do something, whether it's do something 17 right away or at some time in the future, and you just 18 felt uncomfortable with -- 'with that?

19 You just felt like, you know, my guys have 20 a point, you know, they're a little frustrated by the 21 fact that they have to constantly write notifications.

22 You know, I've made -- I've contacted all the right 23 people, I've put them together, they.should be able to 24 resolve the problem, and they're not. Have you ever 25 -- have you ever had that sense, that things weren't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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27 1 getting done the way they should have?

2 I. would -- I'll talk 3 generally first, and then I -- I could give you a 4 specific example. But generally, over the last couple 5 of years, there have been -- there have been times 6 when we as an organization just haven't been able to 7 -- to get stuff fixed. Either it's because we try and 8 fix it and for some reason it doesn't get fixed. You 9 know, it -- like it either still leaks or it still 10 doesn't work.

11 Or the other -- the other thing that I've 12 seen over the last couple of years is sometimes it 13 just seems like it takes a long time to get stuff 14 fixed. And it's all about, you know, the 15 prioritization that we -- hat we assign to it. Now, 16 that's'-e went to this work week process where it's 17 a generalized work week, and there is a matrix of 18 stuff that gets loaded into the schedule. You've got 29 PMs and eillance activities -- that's like a base 20 load :--/and then you load up your corrective 21 maintenance activities.

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

23 M And based on the priority of 24 whatever it is that's -- you know, that's broke or 25 leaking, or whatever, that determines where it gets NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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28 1 put into the schedule. And sometimes it can be 2 months, sometimes it can be years, before the next --

3 the next scheduled opportunity to fix it.

4 So, I don't know if I'm getting off track 5 or not, but the -- yes, there is times when that --

6 that was frustrating. And what I will say is if I had 7 something that was, say, prioritized for, you know, 12 8 months away, and something changed -- say, it was a 9 leak and it -- but it got worse, and it was steadily 10 getting worse, then, you know, one of -- one of my li roles and responsibilities, and something that we've i2 done, is we can-- we can pull it up. We can change 13 the priority and pull it up into the schedule.

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

15 And we have done that on 16 occasion. As far as a specific example, I'll give you 17 a specific example with a diesel generator. We had a 18 diesel generator that was out of service for a 19 scheduled maintenance window. It was a planned 20 maintenance window and --

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 22 a relative timeframe. for that?

23 Yes. This would have been --

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It doesn't

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29 1 quarter if it was like this summer or Tt- ;uat.

2 I can't even -- I can't even 3 get you that close.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: 0 y.

5 -gI wa a ear to two years 6 ago.

7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.

8 (Inaudible.) I'm just trying to get a relative 9 timeframe.

10 Actually, it was -- it was 11 emergent -- it was emergent maintenance, and I believe 12 it was the alpha emergency diesel generator, and it 13 had a --.a, #zctwater leak on it that was pretty 14 bad, and actually impacted the' operability of the 15 engine. We declared. it inop, and went into an 16 emergent maintenance-window.

17 SR. PROJECT.ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

18 There was also -- that same 19 engine had a main shaft oil leak, and that had been 20 previously evaluated, was previously identified, was 21 determined to not affect operability of th;e engine.

22 But it just so happens we had the order planned up, 23 and we had the seal. So we decided to go after it 24 within the emergent window for the jacket water leak.

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30 1 window and went into the retest activities, both of 2 those components leaked as bad, if not worse. And 3 that was one that I went and looked at personally.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

5 (VIE And we were -- we were 6 getting close to the -- to the end of the window, so 7 that -- that was a, you know, pretty significant 8 decision. So I looked at it. I was very unhappy with 9 the way the engine was performing, and it was late at 10 night, it was on back shift; And I initiated a call ii to the - to the management team, got, you know, the 12 engineering manager, the ops manager, got everybody 13 together on a conference call, and told them what was 14 going on.

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

16 1 The -- if I remember right, 17 the action statement was going to run out at the end 18 of and at that point we would be in a -- you 19 know, would be in hot shutdown within the following 12 20 hours2.314815e-4 days 0.00556 hours 3.306878e-5 weeks 7.61e-6 months . So the clock was -- was ticking.

21 And, you know, there was a lot of dialogue 22 and discussion'on a conference call about operability 23 of the engine and, you know, potential strategies, 24 solutions, to either assess operability and determine 25 if it was operable, or operable but degraded, or

-7<

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31 1 inoperable. And, you know, talking about the time and 2 how much time we had left and whether we could get the 3 machine tagged out and ready for maintenance, and then 4 they could get in and repair it before we would have 5 to shut down.

6 And so that -- all those things were 7 occurring in this conversation. And it basically 8 ended up with I -- I told them, "I need help," and we 9 did go ahead and enter the hot shutdown action 10 statement, and actually started implementing the 11 shutdown schedule and started preparing for plant 12 shutdown.

13 And in the meantime, what -- out of the 14 conference call got a lot of response, you know, 15 everybody coming in to help out -- engineers, 16 maintenance folks.

17 And during the course of the day, they did 18 actually start shutting down the plant, but they were 19 able to -- to get enough technical and engineering 20 expertise that we assessed the operability of the 21 machine and determined -- we came up with an operable 22 but degraded -- wrote an operability determination 23 laying out the justification for why, and ultimately 24 did not have to go to hot shutdown. But I think we 25 got down as low as 40 percent power, so --

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32 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you feel 2 that was a good outcome? Or an appropriate outcome is 3 a better -- better term -- appropriate outcome.

4 I was -- I was not happy with 5 oil leak and jacket water leak. So, you know, I was 6 disappointed in -- in the outcome of the maintenance 7 effort, obviously. And so were my,-- so were my 8 people.

9 But as far as the -- the technical 10 adequacy of the operability determination, yes, I was 11 okay with that.

12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you were 13 on, what, the'*night shiA for that evolution?

" :* Yes.

14 15 SR. PROJECT EN G-INEIR-ARBER: And that was 16 -- was that ,in June of 2003? The was an event 17 and it sounds very similar -- it was in June 2003. It 18 had to do with the jacket water leak, small -- small 19 leak, got -- there was repair activity, got worse, and 20 some testing was done. The LCO expired at like 0435 21 in the morning.

22 That was it, yes. Yes., that 23 was it.

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And then you 25 were in 12 hours1.388889e-4 days 0.00333 hours 1.984127e-5 weeks 4.566e-6 months to hot shutdown, and so you -- you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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33 1 were off shift at 7:00 in the morning?

3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So when you 4 turned over the shift that day, what -- so you turned 5 it over. Was the plant actually moving down in power?

6 Had you down-powered yet, or were you just still like 7 getting procedures together and doing those kinds of 8 things?

9 0 We -- we had not actually 10 started moving power.

11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

12 But my turnover to the 13 oncoming shift was, "Here's the shutdown schedule.

14 The diesel is inoperable. We're in the 12-hour hot 15 shutdown window." And, you know, gave them the 16 timeline, and told them.what support was -- was coming 17 in.

18 By that point, I'd say, you know, people 19 had started arriving -- you know, like the Engineering 20 folks and extra maintenance folks and all our experts 21 that knew a lot about diesels, and so on.

22 But to answer your question directly, no, 23 we-- we had not actually started shutting down at 24 that point.

25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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34 1 the control room through the night with you? Did 2 anybody come in to talk to you? I mean, the people 3 I'm thinking about --

4 .@ I mean, just my crew -- you 5 know, my crews.

6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, I don't 7 mean those people. I mean managers. Was like*

8 9 were any of those folks around before you 10 left in the morning? Did you see them before you 11 left? Or did any of them come in early to talk to you 12 about what happened, and the maintenance 13 maintenance folks? Do you recall?

14 I'm thinking. I don' t 15 remember. I don't remember seeing or, you know, 16 anybody above him. And I -- I probably would remember 17 that. I mean, it wouldn't be unusual for or the 18SI -- guess it was -- I 19 believe it was then.

20 It wouldn't be unusual for -- for those 21 guys to come in, you know, in the morning, especially 22 with something like that going on. But to be honest 23 with you, I -- I don't remember whether they made it 24 there before I left or not.

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35 1 on -- who you were on the phone with when you had the 2 dialogue regarding the operability call? Somebody 3 from ops management, but you didn't name anybody.

4 A Nwas on there, and 5 Would have had the. but for some 6 reason I -- I can't remember for sure if it was

or 7 if was away. And sometimes I could -- you know, 8 if f on vacation or whatever, there's -- you know, 9 he'll have somebody in his place. I just can't recall 10 who was acting as the AOM at that point.

11 CMR. KEENEN:F Are the operability

.12 determinations documented? Would there be a document 13 that we could find and provide?

14 *,*,**=*,Yes.Yes.

15 R. KEENEN. Who maintains those?

16 Active ones are maintained in 17 the control room. We have a hard copy binder. Every 18 operability determination has an SAP order associated 19 with it. So even if it's not active, there should be 20 a -- you know, a computer trail that we could -- we 21 could trace and find it.

22 R. KEENEN- Oh, okay.

R. It wouldn't be too hard.

23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do --

25 So -- I'm sorry. As far as

'~~

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36 1 people on the phone call -- so I definitely remember 2 1 m sure I h ad an k ,l_ - -- -. ,

. . . *but I -

J 4 I do not remember the names of the people that were on 5 that.

6 And I'm trying to think if there was 7 anybody abovem= I don't think that there was. I 8 thinko was -the --

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:

10 I don't remember ei ii that conference call. And I initiated it, so I'm --

12 I generally wouldn't -- wouldn't include, you know, 13 that high a level of management. Our protocol was 14 pretty much, you know, and the 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:- I guess I.just have 16 a question on the two points that you made. You had 17 indicated. that you weren't happy with the oil leak and 18 the jacket water leak. But the technical adequacy -of 19 the operability determination you were okay with. How 20 do you. reconcile that? I don't -- I'm not --

21 . Yes, that's a good-- that's 22 a great question. Here's -- here's the way I would 23 answer it. I would say that any leak on my emergency 24 diesel generator I'm not going to be happy with. I 25 mean, if I had my choice, those things would be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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37 1 spotless. They would have no leaks. They would have 2 nice, fresh paint on them. They would be all shiny, 3 just like it was my brand-new car.

4 Unfortunately, that's just not the way 5 that it is. There's always some minor leakage. In my 6 experience over the last 19 years, our diesels have 7 always leaked somewhere, some amount, and that's just 8 -- that's just the way that it is.

9 But I can also -- I can reconcile -- your 10 question is how you reconcile what you're not happy 11 with with -- that the engine is operable and capable 12 of performing' its safety function, or in this case 13 operable but degraded.

14 A small drip of oil isn't going to keep 15 that' engine from, in an emergency, starting up and 16 doing what it needs to do -- the loss of power.

17 That's not going to -- that's not going to prevent it 18 from doing that.

19 And there is -- so that's pretty easy --

20 drip, drip, drip. But then,. as you get more and more 21 leakage, you get closer at your margin for -- you 22 know, the-engine being able to do its function gets 23 less and less. There is some -- there is some 24 technical stuff with -- in a loss of power event, the 25 diesel has to be able to continuously provide NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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38 1 emergency power for a set amount of time.

2 The design basis is seven days, and it has 3 enough makeup fuel oil and lube oil and jacket water 4 -- that's how they size those tanks is to make sure 5 that they had enough margin, you know, to - - to be 6 able to run for seven days without somebody having to 7 come from .offsite to deliver you fuel, because, you 8 know, maybe they wouldn't be able to get here.

9 And there's margin in those calculations, 10 so -- and that's how -- when you end up getting into 11 operable but degraded, the way that process works is 12 you take a close look at, you know, what is the basis 13 for -- what is the design basis for the machine, and 14 what -- what does it take for it to be able to do its 15 safety function? And how much margin is there?

16 And initially the operators, you know, 17 make that -- we call that an operability 18 determination, and then we get Engineering involved.

19 And they do a followup assessment to the operability 20 determination, and the engineers are generally a 21 little -- you know, a little better at looking into 22 the calculations and stuff and figuring out tank 23 capacities and, you know, how much oil does the diesel 24 engine use when it's running. Did that answer your 25 question?

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39 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:, Yes, I think so. The 2 margin that you had, or that you were seeing at the 3 time that you were experiencing this, were you 4 comfortable with -- with the call that you were making 5 at that point in time? Which essentially was that you 6 didn't initiate a shutdown, right, by the time you 7 left shift?

Not true. No, I-- I --the No true 9 diesel was inoperable --

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

11 -- because it was in a 12 maintenance window.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

14 Came out of the maintenance 15 window. We were running it for retest.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

17 And the same two problems 18 were st~ill there. So my decision was actually pretty 19 easy. I needed enough information to be able to -- to 20 comfortably say, "The diesel. is-operable." Let me --

21 let me rephrase that. The diesel was already 22 inoperable, so I'm -- I'm running it for a retest to 23 make sure that the maintenance was effective at 24 correcting the problems.....C 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

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40 1 So that I can declare it 2 operable.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

4 2 And when I went down and 5 looked at it, I -- I didn't see that. I mean, it --

6 to me, it was leaking bad enough that I was very 7 concerned with operability of the engine, and I -- I 8 did not feel comfortable, at least initially, from 9 what I saw, with calling that diesel operable. And I 10 didn't.

11 SPECIALIAGENT NEFF: So what did you call 12 it?

13 It was inoperable.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Inoperable, not 15 operable --

16 (End of Tape 1, Side-A. Beginning of Tape 1, Side B.)

27 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 18 12:54.

19 And just clarifying a point, I think I 20 might have gotten confused in the -- at the point 21 where the operability called change to operable but 22 degraded. At your point when you were on shift from 23 the retest for the maintenance, it remained 24 inoperable. That was your call.

25 - That is correct.

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41 1 6PECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you were 2 just explaining one thing further.

3 2 Yes. The -- one of the 4 purposes of the conference call that I initiated was 5 to -- to get the experts in to look at it closer and 6 assess -- help me -- you know, help assess the 7 operability of the diesel.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

9 I was -- I specifically asked 10 for Engineering assistance to -- you know, to help 11 with that determination.

12 SPECIAL AGENT. NEFF: Okay. When you were 13 on the call with your ops management, it was I think 14 U** t,.as far as you could 15 recall, and when you were looking for that assessment 16 to get additional assessment, did you explain to them 17 that it was -- it was your call that the diesel would 18 remain inoperable at that point?

19 Yes.

20 SPECIAL AGENT'NEFF: Were they supporting 21 you in that decision?

22 *. Yes. Yes, I would say so.

23 I mean, we had a lot of discussion about, you know, 24 what -- what are the options, what are the 25 possibilities, what are the pros and cons of each.

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42 1 Yes, I -- I think that they were supportive.

2 They were certainly -- they were certainly 3 anxious to get me the assistance that I needed to help 4 with, you know, understanding the condition and 5 looking a little bit closer at, you know, how much --

6 how much leakage was acceptable.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For the engineering 8 evaluation.

9 Yes.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay.

11 ] One of the things that I 70 12 I was really trying to impress upon him is when I went 13 down there and looked at it, I mean, it just -- it 14 looked-- it didn't look good, because if you can 15 picture -- I mean, as the oil was leaking out of the 16 -- the crank shaft seal, and the shaft is rotating, 17 it's -- you know, it's kind of spraying around.

18 And then, the -- in addition to the oil 19 leak there is this jacket water leak. And it just --

20 just didn't -- it didn't 'look very good. But, yes, 21 they were supportive. And, you know, at the end of 22 the conversation,.they were real clear on who -- who 23 was coming in, who had what actions to -- you know, to 24 look at it and start helping us out with the 25 operability.

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43 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you come 2 -- were you back on shift, then, that night --

3 Yes.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- that same 5 night? What did you think when you got your turnover 6 and the diesel was considered operable but degraded?

7 I mean, did you get much of a turnover on that? What 8 was your impressions?

9 -Yes. That was -- the events 10 of that day was a significant part of our turnover.

11 And, you know, I was -- obviously, I was interested 12 in, you know, who -- you know, who Came in to help and 13 how we -- how we arrived at the decision, and what --

14 you know, like the -- a little bit more of the 15 technical stuff about, you know, where is --. where is 16 the operability determination documented, and who did 17 it, and --

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You know, 19 the way you describe it is when you went out and 20 physically observed it, it sounded like you were a 21 little disappointed at what you, saw, and you said, 22 well, you know, you obviously had enough concerns that 23 you.didn't- feel like you could declare the diesel 24 operable.

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44 1 standpoint, if you just kind of frame that -- that 2 reference, that point of reference, and then you jump 3 ahead 12 hours1.388889e-4 days 0.00333 hours 1.984127e-5 weeks 4.566e-6 months or however many hours it was until you 4 came back, the physical -- the diesel itself hasn't 5 changed. The only thing that has changed is more 6 people have been involved --

7 True.

8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- with the 9 decision-making process. Were you disappointed?

10 Because it sounded like you were disappointed in the 11 morning. Why wouldn't you be disappointed at night 12 .. when you came back? The diesel is still not fixed, 13 and it's been declared operable but degraded.

14 Well, sure, I was still 15 disappointed that the leaks were there, and that they 16 didn't get fixed.

17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

18 I mean,. that -- that didn't 19 change.

20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

21 '1 To be honest with you, I was 22 a little surprised that we -- we had found enough 23 engineering justification to -- to make the diesel 24 operable but degraded. But as I remember it, you 25 know, as part of my turnover we discussed the basis NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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45 1 for that. And I remember reviewing -- you know, 2 reviewing that document.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The engineering 4 justification?

5 4 Yes. If I remember 6 correctly, it -- you know, it was printed out and part 7 of the papers that we were turning over. And I 8 thought that they had done their homework and that 9 there was adequate justification there, so -- I mean, 10 I certainly -- let me -- you know, I didn't disagree 11 with it to the point where I was like, oh, my 12 goodness, you guys declared this diesel operable but 13 degraded, and there is no way that that's true. You 14 know, it wasn't like that.

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. The 16 paperwork you reviewed, though, was that -- was that 17 -- did that address both the jacket'water leak and the 18 oil leak, or just the jacket water? Do you recall?

19 Well, I don't -- I don't 20 recall directly. But what I will say is that the oil 21 leak itself had been-- had been previously identified 22 and documented with an operability -- and I can't 23 remember now if that had an operability determination 24 before we got into the shutdown action or -- or not.

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46 1 see any holes there where it's like, well, geez, they 2 didn't assess the operability of this leak that had me 3 concerned., I don't recall that.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

5 I mean, when I looked at it, 6 I was comfortable enough with the engineering 7 justification for operable but degraded that I did 8 not, you know, feel a need to strenuously object or to 9 try and override the decisions that were made on day 10 shift.

11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. How 12 about your -- the rest of your crew. I mean, when you 13 got into doing your shift turnover or after that, was 14 there any discussion about the condition of the diesel 15 between you and the CRS, and between you and the NCOs, 16 and'between you and the NEOs, or -- I mean, were you 17 -- was there any mentioning of, you know, what others 18 thought about the circumstances?

19 I'm sure there was. I'm sure 20 there was. I don't recall, you know, the -- any 21 specifics of the conversation.

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 23 remember any -- like having a sense of whether it was 24 a positive, negative?

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47 1 remember of the sense is that it was negative.

2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

3 1ý. - I mean, it's -- it kind of 4 goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's 5 like, gee whiz, you know, we took the thing out of 6 service to fix this leak, and we brought it back and 7 it's not -- it still leaks.

8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.' All 9 right. Very good, thanks.

10 MR. KEENEN': Just one question, if it's 11 okay, Eileen.

12 Is there any post-maintenance run that's 13 done on the diesel when it's restored?

14 Yes. And as a matter of 15 fact, that's What we were doing at the time. You 16 know, when I say that the diesel was inoperable, it's 17 tagged and drained, and then Maintenance goes and they 18 do their work, then they sign off the tags, we release 19 the tags, fill the systems up, warm them up, and then 20 the next step is you put the engine in service and you 21 run it to see and make sure that the maintenance that 22 you did fixed the problem.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that what occurred 24 on your shift when you came back on that evening?

25 W Yes.

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48 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how did that --

2 Oh, no. I'm sorry. When I 3 came back on that evening? That was all -- that was 4 all done.

5 MR. KEENEN: It was actually that morning, 6 right, before you left?

7 Yes, it was that 8 started it after the maintenance window, and we had 9 the leak on the jacket water and the leak on the oil 10 system.

.11 MR. KEENEN: It's kind of odd, because the 12 way --. because you're working midnight shift, you're 13 working from 6:00 or 7:00 at night until 6:00 or 7:00 14 in the morning, and you come back -- literally come 15 back the same day. So --

16 Yes.

17 MR. KEENENT -- it gets a little 18 confusing.

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, I 20 understand.

21 MR. KEENEN: So what you're referring to 22 is if there was testing done, it would have been done 23 the morning that led into the LCO expiration, right?

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49 1 been done, right?

2 In the wee hours of the 3 morning was when --

4 MR. KEENEN: Right.

5 -- we were doing that, yes.

6 MR. KEENEN: Okay.

7 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So the -- when you 9 got back on shift and you reviewed the engineering 10 evaluation, and you were told it's -- it was going to 11 be deemed operable, did you go down and look at it 12 again? Did you take another look?

13 Well, it wasn't running at 14 that time. So it --

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You would have seen 16 the same things you had seen before, then. You 17 weren't testing it.

18 'Yes. Well, to answer your 19 question directly, I don't remember if I did go down 20 there that night after I came back or not. But what 21 I will say is it wasn't running, so, really, the --

22 the two problems with the oil .leak and the jacket 23 water leak, to the best of my recollection, that --

24 that was some -- a phenomenon that occurred while it 25 was running.

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5o 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So it's not 2 something that you would have seen or been able to 3 have observed when you were back on shift?

4 Li I don't believe so, certainly 5 not to the magnitude that I had seen the evening 6 before when it was in service.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I just want 8 to --

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Let me just 10 do a followup, though. I mean, "Jeff had asked a 11 question about the doing the post-maintenance 12 testing. Wasn't there, in fact, testing that was done 13 a day or two prior? Wasn't there actually a repair 14 *that was done this -- I mean, the diesel was declared 15 inoperable on a Monday, and there was work done on 16 like a Tuesday, and the diesel was run like Tuesday?

17 The timeframe we're actually talking about is like a 18 Thursday.

19 So it's not like there was a bunch of 20 repair activity, and then at the very end this 21 happened. There was actually -- there was a fix, 22 there was a run, it was unsuccessful, and then there 23 was --

24 .1 (Inaudible.)

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51 1 decision made to -- right, to go back in and go after 2 the problem again a second time. And there might have 3 been a second or even a third time. So it's not like 4 -- it's not like it was a -- you know, one shot and 5 you're -- one strike and you're out kind of thing. It 6 was -- there was at least two different repair 7 attempts.

8 Yes.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And there 10 was an intervening post-maintenance test.

11 .j Yes. And that -- and that is 12 how we used up the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days 0.02 hours 1.190476e-4 weeks 2.7396e-5 months . I believe that you are 13 -- you are correct.

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: We --

15- because we -- I know the residents followed this issue 16 very closely at the time it happened, and we had a lot 17 of dialogue between them and the region at the time.

18 So that's why I know there was a lot of concern about 19 what .was going on at the station at that timeframe.

20 Yes.

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just wanted to go 23 back -- when we started getting into some of these 24 issues, you had indicated that -- that from some of 25 the -- primarily from the EOs and the NCOs you had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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52 1 seen the attitude of, why should we bother with 2 initiating some of their concerns or writing 3 notifications?

4 Not all of them, you know.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

6 It's not like everybody does 7 that, but there were some.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Some that you had 9 heard that from.

.10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you said 12 "primarily," I wondered if you had heard that sort of 13 an attitude at other levels SROs.

14

No. No, I don't -- I don't 15 recall any SROs, you know, saying anything that -- I 16 do -- I do know, you know, that some -- you know, my 17 peers and my control room supervisors, I mean, 18 certainly they are disappointed just like everybody 19 else if something comes back from a maintenance window 20 that was -- you know, to fix certain things and 21 they're still broke. But never heard him say anything 22 like that..

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And -- okay.

24 So you're including your peers in that as well.

25

-if-.

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53 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you -- are you 2 aware of any hesitancy on the part of your peers to 3 raise concerns to management -- industrial safety, 4 nuclear safety, radiological, anything along those 5 lines?

6 *! No.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're not aware of 8 any hesitancy there?

~No.

9 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What about for 11 yourself? What's your comfort level in doing 12 something like that?

13 I'm certainly for nuclear 14 safety, radiological safety, industrial safety. I 15 have -- I have no concerns about raising an issue or 16 identifying an issue. I'm not worried about that.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has it --

18 But I didn't mean from a --

19 you're talking like from a retaliation or retribution, 20 like 50.7 type stuff? "

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From that 22 perspective, or would ýrou have any reason to hesitate?

23

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54 1 get? Are you satisfied generally with the response to 2 the issues that you've raised?

3 R Yes, generally. The only --

4 the only thing that I would -- I would add is that I 5 can be pretty impatient sometimes, and sometimes, you 6 know, things didn't get resolved fast enough for me.

7 There were times when I'd say, "Geez, why does it take 8 so long to -- to do this stuff?" -

9 And it's really -- it's not a function of 10 somebody, you know, deliberately delaying not being 11 responsive to my -- whatever it is that I might raise.

12 It's more like a product of the work management 13 process, and, you -know, what it' takes to go from a

14. notification to an order to getting it scheduled, 15 getting it planned,.getting it scheduled.

16 So, but that -- that would not cause me 17 to, you know, to not -- that would -- I'm using a 18 double negative. I would still identify an issue or 19 raise an issue if I felt that there was an issue that 20 needed to be raised.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And then 23 talk about -- stay on that just a moment.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure, go ahead.

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55 1 describing -- you sort of described you framed the 2 work control process as being kind of the process, the 3 overriding process that dictates how fast something 4 gets done or doesn't get done. And you made or you 5 implied -- that's what I want to ask -- but you 6 implied that the delays that you may have seen on 7 certain issues are just inherent and just the way the 8 process works.

9 Couldn't that be perceived as a -- a flaw 10 or a source of some frustration? I mean, you know, 11 you're describing kind of in general how the process 12 works.

13 Yes.

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And you know 15 how it works at PSE&G.

16 Yes.

17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But you may 18 not it works at Calvert Cliffs or Susquehanna 19 o Genay somewhere else. And it may be -- work 20 'krX, 4 ery differently there.

21 I.Yes.

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So what you 23 have is you have -- you know what you know within the 24 organization. But what you may not know is how -- how 25 those processes function outside the organization.

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56 1 Yes, that's accurate. I have 2 very limited experience outside here, yes.

3 *SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So is it 4 possible that -- that maybe some of the frustration or 5 some of the angst or some of the, you know, impatience 6 in getting equipment issues addressed is -- is valid?

7 Yes. Again, I wouldn't 8 dispute the validity of anybody's concern over how 9 fast something did or, you know, did not get 10 addressed. I mean, if somebody has a concern that 11 they have -- you know, they have a concern, and if 12 it's based on their past experience with other plants, 13 sure. Sure, that would -- you know?

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Thank

-15 you.

16 Did that -- I don't know if 17 that answered --

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, that 19 answered 20 ** -- your question.

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That 22 answered my question. It did. I was -- I was trying 23 to understand that.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You've been an 25 for I guess pretty close to now.1 Is this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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57 1 something thatis been consistent for you? Or is this 2 something that you're seeing lately? Or is -- how do 3 you describe that?

4 There's been a really big 5 change -- a lot of changes over the last 10 years in 6 how we -- you know, the processes and how we go about 7 identifying things that need to be fixed and then 8 planning them, scheduling them, and repairing them.

9 And, you know, some of the changes have 10 been in the actual computer -- like the computer 11 systems, a pretty big change in the last -- or in the 12 two or three years we went from MIS to SAP. That was 13 a really big change, and there was -- you knowi there 14 was a significant amount of what's the word I want 15 to use?

16 There were -- you know, there was issues 17 associated with going from MIS to SAP. The transition 18 wasn't perfectly smooth. There was -- you know, we --

19 everybody had to relearn a lot of different stuff, and 20 that -- so that was a pretty significant change.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that '99/2000 22 timeframe?

23 Yes 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you're saying 25 organizational changes, just in the way you do things, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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58 1 just has an effect on how things get done.

2 Sure. I mean --

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's what --

4 - -- that was -- yes, that was 5 actually a -- you know, a hardware/software change.

6 In addition to that, there's been a lot of 7 organizational changes. We actually changed --

8 completely changed work management, let's see, at 9 least two times in the last five years. -

10 And along with, you know, the changes we 11 did in work management -- that's procedures --

12 procedures got changed and the actual process, and 13 also the people. We created new positions, got rid of 14 old positions, created different organizational 15 structures. So in the past 10 years there's been a 16 lot of change a lot of change.

17 And along with that change has come, you 18 know, problems in -- in managing the change, in 19 dealing with, you know, issues that come up as a 20 result of the change.

21 Another -- another thing that was pretty 22 significant is going from a one-site philosophy where 23 Hope Creek was Hope Creek, we had our own maintenance 24 folks, our own planners, schedulers, our own 25 management team, you know, up through plant manager.

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. o

59 1 And about the same time we were talking 2 about earlier when we changed that plant manager 3 structure around we -- you know, that was part of this 4 going to a one-site philosophy. And there was a lot 5 of growing pains with that.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that around 2000, 7 too? 2000, also. I shouldn't say 2000, too.

8 Yes. I would say 9 approximately around 2000.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So in that 11 timeframe. So you had two pretty big changes at one 12 time-- going to SAP and the one-site philosophy.

13 That had some effect on how things got done.

14 Yes. Yes. So between the 15 computer stuff and the procedures changing, the 16 organizational structure, people moving around, a lot 17 of new people coming in, because' what happened was, 18 you know, we brought in some -- some -- in the 19 management team, pretty high up, we brought in some 20 new folks, and then it seemed like after they got here 21 a lot of new superintendents and managers. So the 22 people trying to learn the ropes of their job and 23 learn the plant.

24 And to be honest with you, when you bundle 25 all of that stuff up -- I mean, this is my opinion, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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60 1 right? That all of those things combined together 2 really affected our ability to be able to get stuff 3 fixed. That's my opinion. And I can't put my finger 4 on any one person or, you know,. any one of those 5 changes. It was kind of like a combination of stuff 6 that -- that happened at once.

7 And then, it seemed like, you know, at the 8 -- at the senior management level, so they knew that 9 it wasn't working real good, so we were trying to 10 change something else, you know, try and make another 11 significant organizational change or structure change 12 or bring new people in.

13 And we just didn't seem to be able to --

14 to, you know, really get our arms around this work 15 management process and be able to --. to make it work 16 real efficiently, like -- Scott, like what you said, 17 you know, at other facilities. And I had heard that 18 from, you know, some of the folks that came in from 19 other facilities. They're like, "This process works; 20 we use the SAP," you know, whatever plant they were 21 from. And --

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How about 23 today? Do you still -- what's your sense, if you 24 compare things, you know, in 2000, 2001, moving 25 forward in time kind of timeframe where all of these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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1 changes were taking-place, and you were saying that 2 there was some challenge to getting things fixed, how 3 is it today? Is it better or worse than it was then?

4 Is it improving? What's the trend?

5 #It's -- it's definitely 6 better. And I'm glad you asked that question, because 7 in the last -- I'll say in the last six months I've 8 seen a big difference in -- in -- primarily in the 9 management structure. We changed the management 10 structure, went back to a plant manager, and basically 11 backed away from this one-site philosophy and went 12 back to -a Hope Creek engineering staff and a Hope 13 Creek: maintenance staff and a Hope Creek plant 14 i"nanager.

15 And that seems to be making a difference.

16 That seems to be making a difference. In the last six 17 months we're doing a lot better at getting stuff 18 fixed, and we've made some -- you know, some tough 19 decisions about extending outages to get stuff fixed,

.20 and coming down in power to get stuff fixed that 21 needed to be fixed.

22 And at least when-- when My shift -- I 23 mean, my -- my folks can clearly see that. They're 24 very encouraged by it.

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62 1 with them, talking about them, listening to their 2 concerns, and then acting on them and getting stuff 3 fixed. And I do think that that's making a real big 4 difference.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who -- prior to the 6 six months, who would have been in that decision-7 making position before for 8!WWell, it--after--

9 was the last before, you know, 10 just recently. And what they did -- it kind of got 11 muddied up a little bit. But what they did was when 12 they decided to get rid of that position, they created 13 th i 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He was the single 15 occupant of that, right?. You only had one 16 *or am I wrong?

17 JL Yes. I believe that was a 18 true statement..

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That was for 20 Salem and Hope Creek both.

21 It was for Salem and Hope 22 Creek.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Under the one-site 24 philosophy.

25 Yes.

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63 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

2 And I don't believe anybody 3 else ever -- ever was in that position, other than 4 A from the time that they created it. And then, 5 who was the i~ he moved from thea 6 ;,IJ*."'down into the 7 And they kind of rearranged the reporting relationship 8 for the other managers.

9 And basically, the way that i would -- the 10 way that I would paint it is, you know, they made the 11 -- like the manager, engineering manager, maintenance manager, made them report to'as the*

12 13 But they. didn't -- they didn't chang" 14 They changed -- they changed his 15 responsibilities, changed the office, and in the.--

16 you know, in the communications about the changes, the 17 way that it was presented was, okay, so is 18 basically stepping up and taking over the 19 responsibilities that were previously done by the 20 plant manager. And then the is 21 stepping up and taking over a lot of the 22 responsibilities previously done by the plant manager 23 -- by the _

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64 1 that the assisiant ops manager was doing anrd, you 2 know, become more of leaders of the station vice 3 leaders of our shift. So that's kind of like the 4 philosophy that we were implementing at that point in 5 time.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So for the 7 decisions that you would attribute to ight 8 now, would that be, role in the -- in 9 the over six months ago timeframe?

10 Or someone else?

11 It was -- was a lot 12 different at that point in time. And what I'll say is 13 .the as the had a lot of say in 14 those'types of decisions. I mean, he had a lot of i5 influence in those decisions. But, then again, so did 16 17 So -- and I don't -- I'm not sure like, 18 you rknow, at one point I believe 1.9 .and then -- then- later So 20 exactly how _M M-... ... . handled those kinds 211 of decisions I'm not real*sure about, because I don't 22 -- I didn't see a lot of that at my level.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

24 I can--I can give you my 25 impressions, and I would say that a lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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65 1 communication up the chain and then down the chain, 2 and then some consensus-type decision-making between 3 those three . those three folks.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At the OM, Director 5 of Ops, and VP levei, right there.

6 -Yes.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The question that I 8 would have is you said that you were seeing in the 9 past six months that outages are extended, and you 10 have more frequent down powers. So in comparing that 11 to the six months or the period of time before that, 12 what do you attribute that to? Was there some sort of 13 hesitancy to -- to extend your outages or to move for 14 a down power?

15 FO I don't. think that's what I 16 said. If that's what -- if that's --

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I have --

18 -- the way you took it--

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, let's straighten 20 it out.

21, Sure.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Because I have -- I 23 have in 'the past six months you more or less 24 attributed it to -- that there were more --

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66 1 fix things. S6 my --

2 Correct.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- question would be:

4 was there some sort of a hesitancy to do that prior to 5 the past six months?

6 Okay. So to clarify what I 7 previously stated --

.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure, let's go there 9 first.

10 -- do -- do that first.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.

12 What I was trying to convey 13 to you was that we were doing a lot better getting 14 stuff fixed and had made some -- some pretty tough 15 operational decisions, such as extending outages and 16 coming down in power to do certain repairs.

17 And that the folks that work for me could 18 see that and they were, you know, there' encouraged 19 that we are fixing a lot of stuff. And in the last 20 six months we've done a lot better at fixing stuff.

21 Now, I don't believe that I said that 22 we're doing it -- doing more down powers and longer 23 outages now than in the past six months. If I said 24 that, that's not what I meant. What I meant was --

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We'll let that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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67 1 stand clarified, then.

2 -- we're fixing -- we're 3 fixing more stuff now than we were in the past.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're fixing it more 5 now than you were in the past.

[ Yes.

6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. I had -- I had 8 taken away in those six months you're extending 9 outages and coming down in power to fix things. Okay.

10 So you're just more recently fixing things better than 11 you were -

~Right..

12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- before.

14 That's what I was trying to 15 communicate..

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, if we 18 back up to that timeframe before up, even though you 19 may have been doing the same number of outages or 20 roughly the same number 'on some basis, does it mean 21 you weren't -- when you.had the outages, you weren't 22 fixing as much of the equipment during these outages?

23 You kind of imply that that is -- that's the 24 difference, when you --

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68 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- the way 2 you described it.

3 I understand. I mean, 4 there's -- there's probably a combination of things 5 that work. So it's like, are we fixing things better 6 than we were fixing them before, like so less repeat 7 maintenance? It seems to me that there is less repeat 8 maintenance, so that's -- that's one thing.

9 As far as the amount of stuff that we i0 scope into an outage, what I saw -- what I saw in the 11 last outage that we did was that we were -- there was 12 a lot more emphasis on fixing the plant as opposed to 13 can we start up now and fix it in the next refuel 14 outage and avoid, you know, having -- avoid extending 15 our forced outage time.

16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 27 that sounds like that's a difference or a change from 18 the previous past practice.

19 I would say yes.

20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

21 To me it was -- it was 22 evident.

23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you're --

24 and you're describing it as a positive change.

25 h, yes. Yes.

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69 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Because you 2 may -- you see now some small additional amount of 3 time to repair things that you could put off until 4 later, but you're actually doing them now. So you 5 would start back up and operate in better shape for 6 the remainder of the operating cycle.

7 ' That's right. Even -- even 8 though we didn't have to. Even though there was, you 9 know, adequate technical justification, you know, that 10 it doesn't have to be fixed. You could start up, 11 but let's -- let's go ahead and get it fixed while-12 we're down. Yes.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's in the recent 15 months timeframe --

16 Yes.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you're saying.

18Yes.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What do you attribute 20 that to before? I mean, who or what do you attribute 21 that to before if you -- if the focus was more on 22 let's reduce the forced outage time, and can't we 23 start up now, do you know where that was coming from?

24 MU I -- I can't point to like 25 one person and say that, you know, that's the person NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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70 1 that -- that influenced that or that made those 2 decisions. It was -- for me, what I would attribute 3 it to is we've clearly changed out the management --

4 I mean, like almost wholesale change-out of people.

5 So there's a completely new cast of players.

6 So that's the dynamics of that and the 7 decisions, and the people .involved in it are 8 completely different. So --

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't see it as 10 any one individual influence now missing that was 11 there before. You're seeing it as part of the total 12 changes that were made.

13 Yes. Yes. What I would say 14 is previously, too, I think there was more of a -- I 15 think it was more of a group decision. My -- my 16 impression now is it was more of a group decision, a 17 consensus decision, like I said between, you know,- say 18 19 I'm not sure -- I don't know that anybody got 20 significantly involved above them, but I just didn't 21 have a lot of exposure to -- to those decisions.

22 Generally, for me, you know, the most 23 contact I had was with( and whoever the 24was. That would have been 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. From his <

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71 1 perspective, and from your conversations withw 2 Mwhere would he fall in on the philosophy?

3 Was he on shortening the outages and fixing it later, 4 or was he on the philosophy of extend the outage and 5 fix it now?

6 I -- I always thought that 7had a pretty good balance between -- between 8 those two things, with -- you know, I mean, he -- he 9 was always in his conversations with me and with my 10 crew and stuff -- he was always very focused on safety 11 -- you know, nuclear safety, personal safety, 12 radiological safety.

13 And, you know, my dealings with Wnever 14 saw where he was -- he was willing to, you know, 15 sacrifice, make a significant sacrifice on those 16 things for production. i didn't see that. I'm not 17 sure -- you know, I just don't know exactly how, you 18 know, him and interfaced. Sometimes it 19 seemed like there was confusion.

20 Like one of the things that I think caused 21 us some confusion is not being real clear in that 22 decision-making process and who -- who is the 23 decisionmaker for, you know, those types of 24 situations. And so, you know, everybody would have to 25 get together, and we'd have a conference call like I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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72 1 had described.

2 And it just -- it just didn't seem like it 3 was real -- real well structured and laid out. I 4 think that probably did cause some confusion -- this 5 consensus decision-making thing.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how many people 7 are involved now when you're making an operability 8 call or a decision to down power or raise power? How 9 many people are involved in those at this point?

10 Well, if it were to happen 11 today, you know, something were to happen today while 12 I was on watch, I would call who is the 13 *who is the 14 15 Now,-I'm not sure -- you know, I'm.not 16 sure if would -- would call any higher than that.

17 I'm sure certainly he would communicate it, you know, 18 like for information. "Okay. This is what is going 19 on. This is what I'm doing."

20 But it's real clear to me that he is the 21 decision--- you know, he is the decisionmaker for Hope 22 Creek, and that -- that's'a little different I think 23 than it used to be.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just want to take 25 a look quickly at something. I have to check the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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73 1 tape, too. It's approximately 1:33 p.m.

2 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 3 foregoing matter went off the record at 4 1:33 p.m. and went back on the record at 5 1:43 p.m.)

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on 7 the record. It is approximately 1:43 p.m.

8 And what we left off talking about were 9 the differences kind of -- and you were explaining how 10 it was, at one point in time, consensus decision-11 making, and that it's a little different now. You

12. think that that might have led to some confusion in 13 certain events. Can you think of any -- of anywhere 14 that did cause some confusion?

15 There was a couple instances 16 where Mould call ROM had called (inaudible).

17 I can think of -- of two different times. I'm not 18 sure I can think of the specific events, but two 19 different times where like would call into the 20 control room and give me, as* some 21 specific operational guidance.

22 That wasn't -- I mean, it wasn't anything 23 that would be -- you know, that would be against tech 24 specs or a violation of tech specs or illegal or non-25 conservative. I'm not saying that at all. But just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W, (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433

74 1 from a -- from a communications protocol and chain of 2 command, that's something for me that's -- you know, 3 having been in the military, that's really important.

4 And sometimes we -- we didn't follow that 5 strict protocol and chain of command. So the way I 6 like -- the way that I like it to be is that, you 7 know, I get my orders from the assistant ops manager, 8 which generally come from the.ops manager. And there 9 is -- that's the way that we always do business, and 10 that's the protocol for, you know, doing things with 11 the plant.

12 And there was a couple instances where 13 it seemed, had actually gone around 14 and called me and gave -- gave me what 15' sounded like some, you know, fairly specific guidance 16 for taking action with the plant when it -- it seemed 17 that he hadn't included in that.

18 And I actually had talked .withl 19and maybe even as well, about, you know, 20 hey, I would like you guys to talk to and Make 21 sure that he is straight on the communication 22 protocols and how -- you know, how we transmit those 23 types of decisions through the chain of command.

24 And I've actually given him that feedback 25 myself, too. It's not like I -- I mean, I told him, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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75 1 I said, "I'd like you to givet a call, and then 2 have call me, or have and call me."

3 So that's an example -- that's an example. The 4 specifics --

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 6 happen to remember, was -- did it have to do with 7 moving the plant, like either raising power or 8 lowering power? Or was it just --

9 There was -- there was one 10 that was associated with -- with, yes, moving power 11 deep -- it was specifically about dropping power. I' m 12 trying to remember if it was that same conference call 13 we had with the diesel or not.

14 But there was a conference call where --

15 where were -- and myself and a couple of 16 other people were talking about a situation with the 17 plant which had not corrected, would require us to 18 start shutting down.

19 AndM aid something to the effect of --

20 and it was directed to me -- what are the words he 21 used? It was kind of strange. It was, "Don't start 22 shutting down until' you call me," or "don't start to 23 shut down until you call me first." He didn't say, 24 "Don't shut down without my permission. " You know, he 25 didn't say that. He said something like, "Don't start NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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76 1 to shut down until you call me first," or something 2 like that.

3 Anjumped right in and said -- you 4 know, kind of like corrected him on the spot and said 5 something to the effect of, "I will talk to you about 6 that, and, you know, jand I will -- will discuss 7 the timing of the shutdown," or, you know, something 8 to that effect.

9 But it was almost like, you know, he --

10 even on a conference call, he had gone right around 11 ZM who was also on the same conference call, and 12 talked to me.specifically about, you know, maneuvering 13 the plant. And I don't think that's what he -- you 14 know, I donit think that's what he meant. I think it

-15 -- there wasn't -- in my mind, there wasn't anything 16 -- he wasn't doing it on purpose.

17 It was almost as though he were doing it 18 just because he didn't -- he didn't understand or 19 didn't know any better. It was like an honest 20 mistake. He was like, oh, and then said -- you 21 know, jumped into that conversation and then he 22 was like, "Oh, okay. Yes, all right." And he was 23 okay with that.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: S* took 25 it the way you took it, that he was setting himself up NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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"1'I 1 for concurrence before you moved the plant? It was 2 like you were going to have to check with him first, 3 is that it? And that's what corrected?

4 Yes. basically 5 interjected himself and made it real clear that it 6 doesn't go It goe 7 L That's -- that was what* did. He

.8 said that straight --

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

10 -- as soon as -- as soon as 11 . said it. And I'm trying to think of another 12 specific example. There was two -- two or three times 13 where something similar like that happened, and it's 14 like, geez --

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you.

16 ever --

17 - - I should be getting that 18 from my boss, not my boss' boss' boss.

19 SR*.PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right. Do 20 you ever recollect that there was any kind of 21 conversation where either the AOM or ops manager was 22 not present in the -- in the -- as a part of the 23 communication? Because what you're describing is they 24 are present to kind of correct the circumstances.

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78 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But when you 2 led into this, you also kind of described sort of 3 maybe the uneasy feeling about not following the chain 4 of command. Was there ever a situation that you 5 recall wher if talked to you, either directly in

-6 the control room face to face --

7 (End of Tape 1, Side B. Beginning of Tape 2, Side A.)

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's 3:50 p.m.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I was just 10 asking if there was ever a circumstance basically 11 where it was just you and l whether it be face to 12 face or on the phone, without the others involved, 13 whether it be any r of 14 those folks.

15 I don't remember any specific 16 face to face. I remember one other time where' 17 called and gave me permission to come up in power.

18 And what I told him was, you need to call.

19 and then have, you know, alls 20 me, and then -- and then I will start coming up in 21 power," you know, gave him that feedback on the spot.

22 And, again, it -- I -- I really don't-77 23 believe that he was doing it deliberately. I think he 24 just didn't -- didn't understand what the protocol, 25 you know, should be or how important that protocol is, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 because, I meani like I've told you, to me that's very 2 important, and it helps eliminate confusion.

3 And I think that there was confusion at 4 times, because we weren't real straight on -- on those 5 communications and the decision-making -- and the 6 decision-making chain, and, you know, who is it that 7 makes that decision, certainly not as clear as we are 8 now.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who has the 10 license -- who had the license for the facility at 11 that time? Who was the "license holder" for theamw.

12 position at that time?

13 Well, was a previously-14 licensed SRO. I mean, he was a at one 15 time at Hope Creek.

16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

17 So when you look at the 18 requirements to be the ops manager -- I forget exactly 19 how it's worded. But basically, if you were a 20 previously-licensed SRO at Hope Creek, you can do it.

21 And obviously, the -- you know, the ops manager we 22 have now, he was -- he was never licensed at Hope 23 Creek. So, but he was a previously-licensed SRO at 24 another facility. He's got the technical background 25 to be able to fill that position.

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80 1 So, but was not -- you know, he 2 wasn't going to requal, so he wasn't active. His 3 license wasn't active. i 4 *for the shifts, and he was-- he 5 was the senior active license guy at that point. s 6 ultimately -- he* and went inactive 7 probably three or four months ago, say three months 8 ago.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So it sounds 10 like you felt comfortable taking direction from either 11 but uncomfortable taking direction 12 from$ .Did ever have a license, to your 13 knowledge? Does he have a license?

14 Not -- not here. And I'm not 15 sure about his past -- you know, his past background, 16 like if he was -- if he was an SRO at another 17 facility. I believe he was-, but I'm not positive.

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

19 I don't know. But, yes, what 20 used to happen with I know it sounds 21 like I'm making an exception for those guys, but --

22 but just so that they could have time off and not be 23 on call constantly, they would - they would switch 24 back and forth. -*,7 25 So on -- you know, on back shifts and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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81 1 weekends, there were times when instead of it being 2 -he's the default, 3 right? But he needed time off. You know, he was --

4 he was going away to see his folks or something, and 5 then we would report directly to 6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.

7 Were you ever aware of a situation that occurred in 8 August where there was a meeting between senior 9 management and operations regarding this exact topic 10 -- whose authority is needed to move the plant,

11. whether it be to move it up or move it down. Do you 12 recollect any meeting?

13 In August -- this past 14 August?

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:. No. August 16 -- it would .have been like August 2000, something like 17 that.

18 Oh. There was -- there was 19 one in this building with -- it was like all of -- all 20 of the shift managers from Hope Creek and from Salem, 21 and the ... ... . r *was 22 .,there. I'm'not sure if'-- I think that ""1 -0" 23

were probably there, although I can't remember 24 for sure.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it include Salem, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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82 1 too?

2 Yes. Yes. And that was --

3 there was a -- there was a lightning strike that hit 4 Hope Creek and caused -- caused a power reduction from 5 a variety of things. The lightning strike did a lot 6 of stuff all at once, affected a lot of different 7 equipment, most -of which was recognized by the 8 operating .crew and they were able to -- to stabilize 9 the plant.

10 But they missed the fact that there had 11 been effectively a silent trip of our number six 12 feedwater heaters, and extraction steam had isolated 13 to all three of the-number six feedwater heaters. And 14 they didn't -- they didn't see that. They thought 15 that they had everything identified, stabilized, 16 corrected, and they were ready to come up in power.

17 There was a little bit of urgency because 18 there.was another issue with turbine vibrations, where 19 turbine vibrations would -- would start coming up 20 after a power reduction. But it -- it was a short --

21 short ramp down and a short ramp back up. The turbine 22 vibration shaft would basically straighten itself out, 23 would stop rubbing, and the vibrations would -- would 24 go away.

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83 power after talking with, who was the 2 .at S) the time. And then, 3 subsequently realized that they had this loss of 4 feedwater heating. And obviously, that was -- that 5 was a pretty big -- pretty big event for us as a site, 6 Hope Creek as a station.

7 And that meeting I think that you're 8 referring to came shortly after that. And in -- in 9 that meeting, what we were told -- and this was by 10 was that we did not have the authority to 11 raise reactor power; that that was not our decision to 12 make, that we do not own the reactor.

13 And he was actually very specific. What 14 he said was, "I own the reactors, and that's my 15 decision." And he was -- he was'pretty upset. He was 16 pretty upset .about that particular incident, and went 17 on for, you know, a little bit of time about how that 18 -- that wasn't our decision, and, you knoW, what in 19 the world were we thinking,*.you know, when we did 20 that.

21 So, yes, that -- that meeting I remember 22 really well. That was a pretty -- pretty intensive 23 meeting.

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was 25 your reaction to that?

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84 1 3 Well, I was -- I was a little 2 surprised with -- with the intensity of his reaction.

3 And the other thing was that the way that he was 4 presented to us was like that was something that we 5 should have known, that that was, you know, like, 6 "What were you thinking? You don't have the authority 7 to raise power."

8 And everybody got real quiet, and then I 9 actually -- I spoke up and I -- and I told him, I 10 said,'

I said, "I understand what you're 11 saying, and I'm really clear on, as of now, I don't 12 have the authority to. raise power. But no one ever 13 told us that in the past. No one has ever said that 14 that's not part of our responsibility and part of our 15 authority, until now."

16 And everybody was -- was really quiet.

17 That was -- that was, you know, pretty much what the 18 meeting was about.

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there --

20 was there any discussion about whether that extension 21 -- or a logical extension of that was that you didn't 22 have the authority to lower power?

23 No. No.

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, did he 25 specifically mention that you were -- you could lower NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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85 1 power? I mean, it sounds like there was a very -- as 2 you describe it a very intense reaction and --

3 No. I don't -- I don't think 4 that he made -- he made any -- I don't think that 5 anybody got that from -- from what he vias saying.

6 Even though it was very intense, I don't think anybody 7 was unclear about the raise versus lower, because it 8 has always been really clear to me anyway that -- I 9 think to most - most everybody, I've never heard 10 anybody say otherwise, that we always have permission 11 and authority and responsibility to lower power, I 12 mean, you know, in response to something bad 13 happening, right?

14 Like an abnormal event or an equipment 15 malfunction. That's something that -- that we're 16 expected to do. And I -- I didn't hear anything in 17 his conversation that would have made me think that --

18 you know, that he was sending that message about 19 lowering power. I didn't get that.

20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he -- when he was 22 saying that you didn't have the authority, and he 23 owned the reactor, was he reserving that right 24 strictly for himself? Or was it going to be delegated 25 to some other level?

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86 1 Ididn't -- I'm not sure. I 2 mean, I guess when he first said it, I thought that it 3 was like -- like more of a theatrical effect. YOu 4 know, like to try and -- try and send us a message or 5 make a point.

6 But what ultimately ended up happening is 7 I believe that he did give -- he was the person that 8 gave permission. I think that that's the way that it 9 was.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That became the 11 practice.

12 Yes. Yes. So, I mean, that 13 went like when -- basically, the way it worked at my 14 level was, okay, we were all real clear after that 15 meeting that we didn't come up in power until we were 16 given permission to come up in power.

17 But that permission for me would -- would 18 normally come from either the AOM or the OM, with a 19 couple --- with the -- like the Dne exception whereiW 20 granted permission, and the" genesis of that 21 communication with granting permission to raise power 22 is from that meeting. That's where that ultimately 23 came from.

24 So, you know, I assume that, you know, 25 would call or -- or and then one of those NEAL R.ý GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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87

.1 guys would either call or would have previously 2 been delegated that authority if

was away. I'm 3 not -- I'm hypothesizing. I don't know for sure, but 4 I believe that's the way that it worked.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you had 6 said that, at least from your perspective, it didn't 7 become an issue that affected down powering decisions.

8 It was strictly for -- for raising power, that 9 particular meeting or -- or fallout from that meeting.

10 . Yes. I've always been clear 11 that in -- in response to some type of abnormal event 12 or equipment malfunction, that we had the right and 13 responsibility to -- you know, to lower power, to.

14 stabilize the plant, up *to and including, you know, 15 scramming the reactor. 7 16 I was -- I don't think there was ever any 17 -- any cloudiness around that, not that I can 18 remember.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Have you ever 20 been -- have you ever found yourself in a position 21 where you would make an operational decision in one 22 direction? You've-made your operational decision, and 23 your management or senior management, anybody above 24 you, pushes you in a direction that you're not 25 comfortable with. Have you ever found yourself in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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88 1 that position?

2 j No, not that I can recall.

3 Not that I can recall. I mean, a lot of times that's 4 -- you know, being put into that situation is avoided 5 by, you know, some of this consensus, decision-making, 6 and calling, you know, up the chain of command to let 7 them know when stuff was going on.

8 I mean, I'm trying to think. I can't 9 recall any like immediate decisions that I had to make 10 because they needed to be made right away that were --

31 you know, that were overruled or were changed or, you 12 know, that I was influenced or coerced into changing 13 something to -- you know, to somewhere where I wasn't 14 comfortable. I don't remember being put in a 15 situation like that.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And 17 understanding that some of the calls that you're going 18 to make are -- in terms of operational decisions might 19 be described as in a gray area, okay? And you're 20 talking margins and gray areas. And in -- have you 21 ever been in a situation where you would, say, be in 22 that gray area more to the -- the more aggressive, 23 less conservative side, and have been pushed to be 24 more conservative by your management chain -- senior 25 management, ops management?

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89 1 .. I'm not -- I'm not sure about 2 that. But there's been -- there has been times when, 3 you know, I thought I had something figured out, and 4 I had, you know, a course of action in mind, and then 5 I would calli P' and -- and those guys would 6 -- would ask me a question, or, you know, ask me, 7 "Hey, did you think about this? Or did you think 8 about that?" And help me to see -- to see, you know, 9 risk or something that I hadn't considered.

10 Again, that is one of the advantages, you 11 know, that -- that I saw, when time permits, to be 12 able to -- you know, to call. And the expectation was 13 that we would call for, you know, significant 14 malfunctions, significant plant events, and, you know, 15 talk -- talk to because all 16 three of those guys technically were all very sharp, 17 very good operators.

18 And there was -- there was a lot of times 19 when, -you know, they would help me to think of 20 something that I hadn't thought of, just because they 21 had more experience than me, and, you know, they have 22 been doing it longer.

23 But that -- I don't -- so your question 24 was kind of a positive one, right? Was there a time 25 when I--

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90 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, it would be --

2 it would be the flip of -- of --

3 - when I was going to make 4 a poor decision, and I got help in getting --

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, I don't even 6 know that you could say poor, good, you know, in that 7 light. Understanding that you're in a -- in a gray 8 area with margins of safety --

Yes.

9 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you know, some 11 people would say that -- they've called it think 12 outside the box -- individuals, you know, more 13 aggressive individuals, or those who would be 14 comfortable with this margin of safety as opposed to 15 who want that margin of safety.

16 Just looking at your experience, what I'm 17 trying to understand is if you've ever found yourself 18 in a position where you're saying, "I want that 19 margin," and somebody wants to reduce it for you, or 20 you're here and they go, "No, no, no. We want you 21 here." I'm looking at, you know, both ends of it.

~Yes.

22 -

I.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And it doesn't sound 24 like you have anything in the first category where you 25 were pushed or overruled or otherwise made NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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91 1 uncomfortable in your operational decision from your 2 management chain. And you're dealing primarily, from 3 what I'm getting, is your AOM and OM level.

4 Yes.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't have that 6 kind of direct contact with 7 You don't have that firsthand 8 experience with them?

9 No.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

- No.

11 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what you're saying 13 is, then,.. if -- if you're proposing something, what 14 your your LII " I io.I°-had been doing in 1

15 the past would be they, could propose considerations of 16 different risks. They would throw out -- are you 17 looking at this, or are you looking at that? That was 18 your experience.

19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Unless you 21 have anything else'on that, Scott, I -- or you have 22 anything to add to it, that covered it for me.

23 gas

Talking about margins, back 24 to that diesel -- that alpha diesel and the jacket 25 water leak, one of the things that -- you know, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W. ,

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92 1 as a group we - we had gotten together the shift 2 managers and and I guess it was and talked 3 about, you know, the decision-making around that and 4 what -- you know, what could we learn from it, so that 5 we could do better if we were to, you know, get into 6 a situation like that in the future.

7 And one of the things that didn't sit real 8 well with me when we were talking about margins was we 9 -- we did get some criticism which came from.

10 Was passing it on to us.

11 And it was -- I said criticism, but it was feedback, 12 that we -- we didn't push Engineering to give us as 13 much margin as they could give us.

14 In other words, when for that -- that 15 forced outage on that diesel, when it was first 16 identified that there was a jacket water leak, they 17 quantified it, and they went to Engineering and they 18 said, "This is how much is leaking." And they did 19 some calculations based on head tank capacity, and 20 Engineering said that or there may have -- it may 21 have been an old engineering evaluation. It had a 22 limit, and they were beyond that limit.

23 And that's why that shift initially made 24 that diesel inoperable is based on a previous number 25 that Engineering had given them.

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-93 i Well, as it turns.out, there was actually 2 a little bit more margin there that Engineering hadn't 3 given us, and --

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:* can I just ask 5 you, who was the shift on before you that made that 6 inoperable call -- the I think that that was 7

8 I'm pretty sure it was.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I'm sorry to 10 interrupt you there.

ii That's okay.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's something I 13 thought of before, and I don't think we covered it, 14 and.I just wanted to make sure we had it. Okay.

15 So..the -- one of the lessons 16 that -- that we learned from that, based on the 17 feedback that was given at this meeting, was that when 18 we go to Engineering and ask them for margin, they 19 need to tell-us what the limi is, like this is the 20 line in the sand. Go past that, no good. Stay this 21 side of it, you're okay.

7('P-22 As opposed to them giving us little --

23 little chunks, and the more, you know, like -- the' 24 more important it is, the more margin they come up 25 with. Does that make sense?

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94 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It does.

2 But do you know -- do you know how they did the 3 calculation? You probably don't, because you said you 4 don't remember- the details of the _operability 5 determination.

6 7j Yes. Like what in the 7 calculation .made the difference between the first 8 margin number and the second margin number?

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.

10 I don't remember.

11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I remember.

12 Do you?

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, it was 14 time. The first calculation was based on not filling 15 the -- the diesel generator expansion tank, the jacket 16 water expansion tank, for seven days. And the -- the 17 calculation that gave you the answer that resulted in 18 the diesel being operable but degraded was in one-day.

19 So, I mean, the limit went up by a factor 20 of seven. I mean, that's the pure and simple 21 -Yes, I had forgotten --

22, SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That' s a 23 pure and simple change. But the interesting thing is 24 that number could be anywhere. You know, the argument 25 was is that you could station an operator at the --

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95 1 you know, in the -- near the facility you could have 2 water staged, and you could fill the day tank within 3 a 24-hour period. Or you could make that argument for 4 seven hours or eight hours or three hours.

5 So I'm not sure -- I'm not sure where the 6 line really was. I mean, I think at the time the --

7 when the NRC reviewed it, we didn't have an issue with 8 it, because of the circumstances. But there wasn't --

9 there wasn't an absolute right answer or wrong answer.

10 But it's interesting that, in your earlier 11 discussion, you provided that the basis for the. diesel 12 for the tank capacities was seven days. So this, in 13 fact, was in fact a deviation from that. It's a 14 lessening of margin.

15 So, you know, your ideal margin would have 16 been the seven-day'--

17 . Sure. That's the design --

18 that's the design.. -7 19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right. And 20 so you, in fact, were -- were eating away at that 21 seven-day margin. You were -- you were taking it down 22 to a day, so -- and I actually don't think the -- I 23 don't think the oil leak was evaluated at all. I 24 think it was just the jacket water leak. I think you 25 went back and looked at the operability determination NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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96 1 (inaudible.)

2 "LR. KEENEN: 10 just to clarify the 3 record, you never did any detailed evaluation or 4 determination on the operability determination on your 5 own, the engineering aspects.

6 For the jacket water? I 7 mean, I know that I reviewed it. Certainly, I -- I 8 did review it, and I was familiar with it at the time.

9 And there -- and, as you said, there's been a couple 10 of them,. so I have -- I have been involved with at 11 least one.

12 I can't remember off the top of my head if 13 I actually did the review and approval. There's a --

14 there's a very specific process with the operability 15 determinations, and I just don't -- don't recall.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The message that 17 you're getting, then, is you first called it criticism 18 or feedback from, that came to you from AWell, 9 what's the message? What's your 20 -- what are you taking away from that?

21 .The message was when we're in 22 a situation like that, we need to understand how much 23 margin we have. We need to know all the margin that 24 is available, and then we, as operators, make the 25 right decision about whether we are operable, or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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97 1 operable but degraded, or inoperable.

2 And we, as operators, make the decision as 3 far as the urgency and the priority for, you know, the 4 activities to correct the condition. But -- but that 5 -- you know, what is undesirable is for Engineering to 6 take -- see, it might be -- it might take them, you 7 know, a day's worth of work to do the calculations to 8 tell you exactly how much margin.

9 But they can give you a quarter of that or 10 a half of that with, you know, very little effort, 11 easily. And that's what the message was. We need to 12 push Engineering to tell us-what the number is, not 13 give it to us in little chunks that -- that skew our 14 decision-making.

15 Because we can make a better decision, 16 that was the message -- we can make a better decision 17 if we know exactly what we're up against. We can 18 decide whether we need to shut down or, you know, 19 whether we're operable but degraded. We can better 20 understand the risk associated with it.

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But isn't 22 there a risk that that approach could lead to a non-23 conservative decision?

24 I would say yes.

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98 1 they give it to you in small amounts, if the amount 2 that they could end up giving, knowing everything they 3 would know and they might find out along with 4 troubleshooting activity, that -- not having the 5 benefit of experience that if they give it to you in 6 small amounts, as they learn more and more they can 7 inform their judgment more and more and have a better 8 idea of -- of the basis' for extending a previous 9 limit.

10 Yes. I mean, it's it's --

11 we're hypothesizing. You know, it varies circumstance 12 by circumstance. I think that there is -- there is a 13 valid case to be made that the more information you, 14 as the decisiorimaker, and us -- and we're taking for 15 granted that it's accurate, good information, the more 16 that you have up front, then thebetter decision that 17 you can make. And I think, really, that was -- that 18 was the message. So --

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 20 recall any cases like that, where the -_- the one I 21 just described where there was an extension of a limit 22 and then a subsequent extension and a subsequent 23 extension?

24 There was a -- we had some 25 trouble with off-gas flow, and that was -- that was a IC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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99 1 similar situation where we had a procedural limit of 2 -- I think it was like 75 SCFM. And we were having a 3 lot of trouble with in-leakage into the condenser, and 4 we asked Engineering for some -- some help. And, you 5 know, what's the -- what's the basis for the 75 SCFM?

6 And we got that, and we got a new number 7 and then the leakage got worse. And we went over it, 8 and we reevaluated it, got a new number, and I think 9 there was, you know, a couple of iterations of that.

10 But very similar type thing where, you know, you're 11 talking about how much margin and what -- what really 12 is the number? What is -- what is the number? What 13 is the ultimate number that is a go/no-go number?

14 And I think we might have even talked 15 about that. The reason why that popped into my mind 16 so readily is that we might have even talked about it 17 in that same context as another example. I don't 18 remember the timing of those two things, which came 19 first, but that was a similar situation.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this a situation 21 -- you say go/no-go number. Did it -- was there a 22 go/no-go number for this?

23 For the off-gas flow? No, I 24 -- ultimately, we -- if I remember right, we -- we put 25 a number in the procedure, and it was -- when you got NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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100 1 that number, it didn't -- it didn't say, you know, 2 like shut down the plant. But it had you monitoring 3 some additional parameters for, you know, evidence of 4 degradation in the system.

5 And if I remember correctly, it had some 6 notification requirements, like to -- to get more 7 people involved in assessing the condition. That's 8 about as much as I can remember of that.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you pretty 10 certain it didn't call for a shutdown?

11 **I'm not -- I'm not sure. I'm 12 not sure. Perhaps it did.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF' Did that become an 14 issue, do you recall?

15is No. That that we had --

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That you were at a 17 point where -- where procedurally it called for a 18 shutdown.

19 I'm trying to think of the 20 words that were used. There may have been something 21 about a -- not operating the system. I just don't 22 remember. But, yes, that was -- I mean, as far as it 23 -- did the off-gas flow become an issue, that was --

24 that was, you know, a fairly significant issue that it 25 was coming up, and it exceeded the procedure -- the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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101 1 procedural guidance.

.2 And like I said, I don't remember exactly 3 what that procedure said, if you went above the -- the 4 number. But that -- you know, that -- we had to get 5 Engineering involved, and that was -- you know, that 6 was a pretty big -- big 7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: if you were 8 operating the plant at full power, could you take the 9 off-gas system out of service? Could you -- would you 10 be allowed to do that?

11 No.

12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Would the 13 plant continue to function? I mean, even-if there was 14 -- let's say there -- notwithstanding what the 15 procedure requirements are, if you physically isolate 16 the off-gas.system, what would happen?

17 . You can't -- you can't --

18 you'd get a high condenser vacuum and --

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 20 you'd get a turbine trip, and then a reactor scram 21 from that?

22 Yes.

23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: If the 24 procedure said, in the precaution and limitation step, 25 if it said, "Do not operate above 75 SCFM," if that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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102 1 what the step said, and you read that step, as a part 2 of -- part of the procedure for the off-gas system, 3 how would you interpret that?

4 31Do not -- you know, and it's 5 funny, because I think that may have been something 6 along the lines of what that said. And how would I 7 interpret that? So it's not telling me -- it's 8 telling me, "Do not operate the off-gas system."

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Above 10 75 SCFM.

11 But it's not telling me 12 immediately scram the reactor, and it's not telling me 13 do a controlled shutdown. It's not giving me any 14 other guidance. __7r 15 I would be making a lot of phone calls and 16 getting a lot of people involved and looking at, what 17 is the basis behind that number? Why -- why is it 18 telling me, do not operate? Is there a sound 19 technical reason? Should I be starting a controlled 20 shutdown? And I'm not going to -- I'm not going to 21 scram the reactor.

22 If everything else is-- looks okay, and 23 there's a lot of other stuff that I could look at for 24 -- for that parameter, to make sure that things were 25 operating properly. I don't have to make an immediate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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103 1 decision whether, you know, I need to scram the 2 reactor or not. I've got time to -- to assess and 3 understand and look at other, you know, possibilities 4 on, you know, why that number is there and what's the 5 impact.

6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

7 A* And what's the best course of 8 action.

9

KEENEN 2 Yes. Just for the record, 10 we're not looking at any procedures or any tech specs 11 or any operating manuals here for purposes of this 12 discussion. So it's just a-- just an example you 13 threw out.

Right.

14 is ,¶MR. KEENEN:,_ So--

16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This incident, the 18 off-gas incident, is that before or after the meeting 19 involving message to go more into the 20 design basis, get an understanding of the design 21 basis. Is that before -- does that precede it, or 22 does that come after-that?

23 I don't know. That's what--

24 that's what I said. I'm not sure which came first --

25 the diesel or the off-gas flow. I don't know.

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104 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're not sure 2 where. Does -- the meeting where you got this 3 feedback, were you -- I think what we got from you was 4 an understanding of you can see what you were being 5 told was reasonable, to get an understanding of -- of 6 where the margins are. Were you in agreement with how 7 that would affect your making the operability calls?

8 Were you in agreement with that message?

9Yes.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would seem --

ii *i Yes, I was. What --

12. SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would seem 13 so--

14 .. What bothered me about it was 15 it -- it seemed -- it felt like the crew who had made 16 that initial decision, they had a number from a -- if 17 I remember correctly, a previous engineering 18 evaluation from a previous jacket water leak. And 19 they referred to that number, and they made the 20 decision to call the diesel inoperable.;

21 And what -- what I took exception to, at 22 least initially, was that it felt like we were saying 23 that they made a bad decision, and that they made a 24 decision on incomplete information, instead of trying 25 to get complete information.

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105 1 And that -- and that was my initial 2 reaction. But as -- you know, as we talked as a 3 group, I -- you know, I -- I was comfortable with the 4 feedback that we were getting, and I -- I think that 5 there is a case to be made that the more information 6 you have about somethirng the better decision you can 7 make.

8 And that was really -- that was the 9 message that I carried away from that meeting, to push 10 Engineering to tell - you know, to give us as much 11 information as they can, instead of giving it to us in 12 little bits and pieces.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 14 seen any changes since that message was given, either

15. positive or negative, from your vantage point?

16. . I would -- I would say that 17 I have seen - since then, I have seen better support 18 from Engineering on technical issues. And I think 19 that we do -- we do push a little bit harder to make 20 sure that we're getting what we need from the 21 Engineering Department. 7 22 There's been some pretty significant 23 changes there, too, you know, like with the structure 24 and personnel, went back to more of a Hope Creek-25 specific Engineering Department. I do believe that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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106 1 that has helped.

2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, when 3 these situations come up and the guidance is not 4 clear, like -- like the -- you know, we talked in kind 5 of general terms. As Jeff pointed out, we don't have 6 the procedure in front of us about, you know, what 7 procedures might say or what they might not say.

8 But if the procedure is very specific, if 9 it says, okay, if you hit this limit, you take this 10 action, do you think there's any reservations that any 11 of the operating shifts:would have about doing that?

12 No.

13 SR.. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. And 14 does the desire to involve Engineering -- is it only 15 for those things where maybe there's a limit or some 16 discussion, but the actions are not clear? In other 17 words, you know, there's like do not do something, but

18. there's not -- and if you do, do this. Is that -7 is 19 it is that the.circumstance?

20 0 Yes. That -- I would say 21 that, and I would also add that if there's something 22 that doesn't make sense, if there's something that.

23 just doesn't make any -- any sense like, well, it 24 appears that -- .

25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: (Inaudible.)

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107 1 Wait. It appears that 2 there's a technical inadequacy or, you know, something 3 that appears to be incorrect. Then; certainly we 4 would get Engineering involved in that situation as 5 well.

6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 7 your expectation would be if there's -- if there's a 8 limit, if there's something that's exceeded, like 9 maybe there's an enunciator that directs an action in 10 an alarm response procedure, you would take that 1i action without consultation with Engineering?

12 Yes.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you think 14 that would be true of all shifts in general?

15 Yes. I would say that --

16 that that -- that is the standard, and to do otherwise 17 is the exception.

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. All 19 right. How about -- wasn't there an issue back in 20 November/December timeframe with a feed pump, a 21 reactor feed pump turbine, a vibration problem? Do 22 you recall anything of that nature? No?

23 24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. What 25 about a startup from September at Hope Creek, coming NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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108 1 out of one of these short duration outages? I think 2 it was after the hurricane there was -- I don't know 3 if you were involved with either on-shift or maybe 4 just prior to. It would have been the middle of 5 September where there was a startup done with some 6 reductions in the available nuclear instrumentation.

7 Do you recall anything of that nature?

8 For the -- the forced outage 9 after the hurricane, I was there for that -- for that 10 event, for the shutdown. The startup -- I don't 11 remember any specific controversy. What I -- what I 12 will say is that, organizationally and 13 philosophically, what we've said is that we will do 14 our best to have all nuclear instrumentation -operable 15 for the startup.

16 And there have been times when we haven't 17 been able to -- you know, to meet that -- I'll call it 18 a goal. But, you know, from -- just from tech specs, 19 that's okay. You can -- you know, you can do startups 20 with inoperable nuclear instrumentation. It's just 21 not the most desirable thing, and there is some risk 22 that if, you know, something additional fails you 23 might have to turn around and shut the plant back 24 down.

25 So that's why, you know, the goal is to --

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109 1 is to do your best to get all nuclear instrumentation 2 operable. But there have been times when we -- we 3 couldn't get that.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 5 a sense of how you would handle a situation like that?

6 If you had an operator that -- that you wanted to 7 start the reactor up and -- and he had a concern -- he 8 or she had a concern about the available nuclear 9 instrumentation, saying, "I know we meet tech specs, 10 but it's not -- there's too much that's not right 11 here." What would you do if-- if -- under those 12 circumstances?

13 Well, I would look at it 14 myself and -- and make sure that I understood what --

15 what the person was telling me, and that I understood 16 their concern. I would look at the tech specs and 17 see, you Xnow, what's allowed and how -- you know, how 18 much we -- we have as far as -- you know, margin for 19 tech specs would require you to take an action, such 20 as shutting the plant down. Ic 21 The -- if -- if it was, you know, 22 something that we -- we had not been talking about as 23 a team, and it was something new, something that I'd 24 say, "Ooh, yes, you're absolutely right," then I would 25 start making some phone calls, and I would be talking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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110 1 with the AOM and the OM and saying, "Hey, look, you 2 know what? This is the -- this is what we're seeing 3 as far as nuclear instrumentation. And can you -- you 4 know, do you understand that this is where we're at?"

5 Make sure that they understand the facts and that 6 they're real clear on, you know, what's -- what the 7 issue is and how much margin there is.

8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you think 9 you'd ever take a stand where you felt like even if 10 you met the tech specs that you wouldn't feel 11 comfortable with the startup, and just tell them that?

12 Perhaps, if-- again, you 13 know, it depends on the situation. I mean, if I 14 really saw that there was -- there was' risk there, 15 that, you know, we could get ourselves into a 16 situation where-we're in the middle of a startup and 17 we end up below the tech spec minimum and we have to 18ý shut down, I would -- I would advocate -- I mean, I 19 would advocate my position.

20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

21 Now, if -- you know, it gets 22 interesting, right, because if what do you do when 23 there's two different positions being advocated? I 24 mean, that's kind of what you're asking me, right?

72' 25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's true.

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111 1 So would I -- would I refuse 2 to start the plant up if, clearly, I had the minimum 3 amount of instrumentation required? And the 4 management team had said that we've done all we can to 5 fix this instrumentation, and the -- we're going to 6 fix it in the next outage, because, say, you have to 7 (inaudible) containment and go in -- you know, go 8 under vessel? Would I make a stand that I'm not 9 starting a reactor up? I don't think so. I don't 10 think that I have -- I would have a sound basis to --

11 (End of Tape 2, Side A. Beginning of Tape 2, Side B..)

12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Sorry. Go 13 ahead.

14 So that's different, though, 15 than, you know, advocating a position and taking a 16 strong stand. I mean, but if it -- if it gets down to 17 it's a direct order -- and, again, this is 18 hypothetical. It has never happened to me. But in --

19 my boss tells me, "You meet the tech spec minimum 20 instrumentation. It's identified, it's scheduled in 21 the-next refuel outage. Once you get up past IRM 22 Range 3, you don't -- you know, you don't need it 23 anyway." I don't -- wouldn't really have a leg to

~, ~~?-

24 stand on.

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112 1 depends on your view of nuclear safety and safety 2 margins, right? I mean --

3* Sure.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, you 5 could argue -- like you said, you could advocate a 6 point, and it's -- it's really up to you. It's a very 7 personal decision on how --

8 It is.

9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- how 10 strongly you feel about something. How would you feel 11 if somebody else felt that way? I mean, what if it 12 was the operator telling you, "I'm not starting the 13 plant up"? And he's telling you that, and he's 14 saying, "I don't care what you tell me. I don't care 15 what management says. If you want to start it upi you 16 do it without me. You get me a relief."

17 I don't want to be in that

'18 situation.

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It could 20 happen, though, couldn't it?

21 So, you know, take another 22 extreme, for example. in" the paper there was an 23 article about, you know, the letter from the NRC to 24 Mr. Furland, and Mr. Furland's response, and the paper 25 basically painting three positions.

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o

113 1 They painted the NRC's position, PSE&G's 2 position, and then they also included the -- there was 3 another group led by a fellow named Norm Cohen, and 4 his position was immediately shut down all three 5 reactors, because everything is dangerously unsafe.

6 And that's an extreme position, right?

7 The response from the NRC spokesperson 8 was, "Well, we're concerned with what's going on down 9 there, and we do need to understand the impact. But 10 it's not -- it's not an imminent threat to safety."

11 So, i mean, that's kind of where you're at 12 with -- when you're talking about tech spec 13 instrumentation, and if you're below the minimum tech 14 spec instrumentation that you need to be able to start 15 up, tech specs tells you what you need to do. That's 16 pretty cut and dry. And would I take a stand on that?

17 Absolutely. Absolutely.

18 If someone tried to tell me to start the 19 reactor up with less than what's allowable by tech 20 specs, I would not do that. And I'm real clear that, 21 you know, I've got protection by way of, you know, the 22 Code of Federal Regulations and other -- you know, 23 other avenues that would support me in that -- support 24 me in that decision.

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114 1 when you do have the minimum, and you're -- you know, 2 you're meeting that requirement, you're above that 3 requirement. And there are some people who would say, 4 "Well, geez, you need to have everything operable."

5 Everything in the plant ought to be fixed. There 6 ought'to be no leaks coming out of a refueling outage.

7 Everything should-be perfect, but it's not that way.

8 So that, you know, there's a lot -- a lot 9 of extremes here. If I really felt that there was --

10 that there was an imminent threat to nuclear safety, 11 or radiological safety, even if I did meet tech spec 12 minimum for whatever, and that the plant shouldn't be 13 started up, I would "- I'would make a stand on that.

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

15 And I -- I don't see that as 16 a -- you know, an imminent threat to plant safety, 17 being one above the tech spec minimum.

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What if you 19 were -- if you take like if you look at your 20 instruments, you say you've got four SRMs. Let's say 21 you only had three or four, one of -- and one of them 22 is spiking. So even -- the operability, that was 23 questioned. You need six of eight IRMs. Let's say 24 you have six (inaudible), you have two (inaudible).

25 And say APRMs, you have 12, 16 -- 16 LPR NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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115 1 inputs to APRMs that are not -- that are not operable.

2 And then you have five control rods or what -- that 3 have excessive rod speeds. And then you have a whole 4 series of balance of plant problems that are 5 unaddressed that have the potential to effect the 6 ability of the controls -- control the steam load 7 during the startup. Would you feel comfortable 8 starting up under those circumstances?

9 I think that's a leading 10 question.

11 (Laughter.)

12 SR. PROJECT.ENGINEER BARBER,: Yes, I -- I 13 -- if you don't Understand the question, or, I mean --

14 don' t.

15 MR. KEENEN: Y What!s the-- is there a way 16 to rephrase that to clarify it for** Because I --

17 it seems like you threw a lot-- a number of things 18 out there.

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. All 20 right. The source range -- the source range -- number 21 of channels for source range is at the tech spec 22 minimum. The number of source channels for 23 intermediate range is at the tech spec 'minimum.

24 There's an impact on APRMs with -- that's impacting 25 tech specs, and you have a series of other problems.

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116 1 And it's -- it's just related to what we 2 were just talking about. We were just talking about, 3 well, how the -- your comfort zone for doing a 4 startup.

5 ai m o Yes.

6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, I'm 7 giving you a for instance. I mean, is this something 8 that would cause some concern?

9 Sure. Sure. Yes. At some 10 point what happens is, you know, you start looking at 11 a minimum here, a minimum here, a minimum here, a 12 minimum here, and then I've got these other problems.

13. And when y0u ;look at it in aggregate --

14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: In the 15 aggregate.

16 . Yes. In aggregate, then it 17 it is different than looking -at each one 18 specifically.

19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Would you be 20 surprised if I -- if I said that the plant started up 21 in September with that exact configuration?

22

No. That's -- that's why I 23 said I thought that was a leading question, because I 24 -- I kind of thought that that's what you were -- that

25. you were painting a previous picture that, you know --

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117 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, you 2 weren't involved with the startup, so you're not --

3 you know, you weren't involved, right? So -- so it's 4 not -- what I was trying to get an understanding of is 5 what you do when you're, as Eileen said earlier, 6 you're in the gray area. You know, you're not -- you 7 know, there's always margins, and there's a matter of 8 how much margin you have.

9 10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But what --

11 there are certain times when things are at minimums, 12 and minimums in a number of different ways. And at 13 some point if somebody expresses concern, they've got 14 to feel they have an avenue. They've got to have a 15 recourse. They've got to think they want to -- think 16 they would be listened to.

17 And so that's what I was trying to 18 understand -- first of all, how you would deal with 19 the situation, and then how you would deal with an 20 operator that felt uncomfortable with the situation.

21 Yes. So generally, I would 22 -- ,I would do my own, you know, independent look at.

23 what the -, what the concern is, what the person is 24 telling me. And what really gets me thinking is if --

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118 1 expressing the same thing, right, because then I'm not 2 just dealing with one person's opinion. There's --

3 there's two people.

4 And I would be talking with -- you know, 5 with and with the ops manager, and saying, "Hey, 6 here's -- here's the situation that we're in. Here's 7 the potential risks as I see them. Here's the input 8 that I'm getting from -- from the control room 9 operators." And, you know, we'd make a decision.

10 And I would advocate whatever -- whatever 11 position I chose, I would advocate that-position. And 12 whichever way we decided to go, I would -- I would go 13 back to my NCOs, my control room operators, and -- and 14 talk to themrabout why we're doing it the way that 15 we're doing it.

16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

17 I And, you know, they -- they 18 may be okay with that; they may not be okay with that.

19 There are times when we make decisions that they don't 20 agree with. And that happens. That happens.

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You know, 22 one of the things that we talked about earlier on was 23 we talked about some changes that took place in like 24 the '99 and 2000 timeframe. We're kind of moving 25 forward in time.

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119 1 Was there any -- in your experience and 2 what you've seen over these -- over the years since 3 then, has there been any discussion or -- or talk 4 about the effects of deregulation, economic 5 deregulation of the -- of the utility industry and 6 what the impacts are in the way you operate the 7 station? Has there been any -- anything that you've 8 noticed that you could -- you could attribute a change 9 to that?

10 P Yes. When I made my list of 11 things that have changed, I omitted that, not 12 intentionally. But that's -- that has been a pretty 13 significant change in -- within the industry. As far 14 as the specifics of what -- what that has caused for

15. us, a lot more -- I would say there's a lot more 16 emphasis on our communications with the trading floor.

17 That was something -- that's something 18 really that's new since we went to -- to deregulation.

19 Before we always just dealt with the system operator, 20 and now there's two distinct entities there -- you 21 know, one being the trading floor and the other one 22 being the system operator. And then there's also 23 (inaudible) with, you know, how you -- how you deal 24 with each.

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120 1 about the information that you provide and the timing 2 of the information. I would -- I would say that there 3 -- there has been a little bit more emphasis on 4 production as a result of deregulation.

5 Outage -- we've spent a lot of time and 6 effort into, you know, managing and controlling our 7 outage scope and making our outages as short as 8 possible, and being real picky about what things we 9 work in an outage, like basically' the philosophy is 10 you only do the things that youhave to in an outage.

ii And anything that you can do online you do online.

12 And that -- that I believe is -- you know, is a result 13 of, you know, deregulation.

14 What else?

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has it 16 changed the way that-- that individuals interact with 17 each other, either from the management to staff level 18 or -- or, you know, ops management to maintenance or 19 -- do you see any changes in that: regard?

20 -* There has been some specific 21 changes*with -- with the communications to the trading 22 floor of planned power maneuvers and -- and the 23 schedules and the profiles for that. And that 24 involves the reactor engineers and work management and 25 the ops -- ops work control -- work control SROs.

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121 1 They all get involved in that.

2 I'm not sure that's -- you know, that's 3 what you were asking about as far as --

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No. I was 5 -- really more kind of the way that -- the way you 6 interact, whether it's with -- between yourself and 7 Maintenance, yourself and your operations management, 8 what the -- you know, what the -- you know, what the 9 effect of that has been.

10 Is there something -- you know, if you ii were to move back in time to before deregulation and 12 think about how -- the way the different groups 13 interacted, and compare it to the way they're 14 interacting since deregulation, has there been a 15 significant change in the way decisions are made --

16 you know, what the priorities are, things like that?

17 Here's what I think.

H I think 18 that the deregulation drove the changes in the 19 organizational structure and the processes, because we 20 basically -- I mean, the whole company, all of PSE&G, 21 restructured. And along with that the nuclear --

22 nuclear restructured.

23 You know, we were the Nuclear Business 24 Unit for a while, and it -- in with that we changed 25 our organizational structure and our processes, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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122 1 including work management. And as, you know, the 2 change with the management information system, the SAP 3 figures into that as well.

4 So -- so what I would say, I mean, that's 5 a great question you're asking. But I think what 6 happened is deregulation drove those other changes, 7 and then those other changes did change the way that 8 we interact with each other and the way that --

9 reporting relationships, organizational structure, 10 and, you know, processes, and that type of thing.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Along with in this 12 time period where you're feeling the effects of 13 deregulation, and more emphasis, you had indicated, on 14 -- on production and how you manage your outages to --

15 to fit the most into an outage, with that, what's 16 communicated to you by your management chain, by your 17 operations management and your senior management, in 18 terms of a safety conscious work environment message?.

19 What what -- are you getting anything?

20 Any communications to you from from that end?

21 es. Yes. I would say that 22 the safety. conscious work environment and the 23 importance of placing nuclear safety and industrial 24 safety and radiological safety over production, that 25 has always been -- been clearly communicated, and I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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123 1 would say communicated on a regular basis, too.

2 And -- and throughout the deregulations, 3 I don't -- I don't see that that message has ever 4 changed -- ever changed. I mean, it's been our -- you 5 know, in our -- our mission statement for -- for some 6 time, and that hasn't changed.

7 But in a lot of different communications, 8 you know, whether it be paper, you know, the -- what 9 do you call it? The outlook. I think that message 10 has been *pretty consistently communicated and 11 reinforced over the last couple of years.

12 I really think that the -- you know, some 13 of the problems that we've talked about over the last 14 couple hours is more along the lines of, you know, not 15 really changing philosophy, but just problems --

16 problems with getting through changes and making 17 things work smoothly, and everybody understands what 18 they're supposed to do and what their role is and how 19 the process works. And everything clicks real 20 smoothly, you know, like -- like a nicely integrated 21 machine.

22 The changes there that were driven by the 23 deregulation I believe are at the root of, you know, 24 some of our performance issues. But I -- like I said, 25 I don't think -- in my mind that message hasn't --

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124 1 hasn't changed over the years.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The message and --

3 and, in practice, do you believe that's -- overall 4 that's what you're seeing in practice as well, in 5 spite.of some of the problems that we talked about?

6 I think there's -- there's 7 probably -- there's been some opportunities where we 8 -- we did things, like the one that you just talked 9 about with the startup. So that -- and that's 1.0 something that I've heard from, you know, the 11 operators at times. They find that frustrating. When 12 you say one thing, and this is the message that you 13 put out to us,-but then this is what you do. And they 14 see that as a conflict.

15 So I -- there's -- there's been times when 16 maybe we were not consistent in our actions. You 17 know, our words were not consistent with our-actions, 18 and that's probably.at least one example of that.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you talked about 20 having reviewed in the paper recently the NRC letter 21 to Mr. Furland regarding the work environment, PSEG's 22 response to that letter, and then what you had 23 described as an extreme position by -- taken by 24 (inaudible) Salem, where do you -- do you align 25 yourself with any one of those three positions? Are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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125 1 you -- are you looking at them and seeing one as more 2 valid than the other?

3 I thought that the newspaper 4 article was very well written and presented a balanced 5 -- I thought it was interesting, the approach that 6 they took. -7 C-7 I read the NRC letter a couple times, and 8 my reaction was that it-was -- it was accurate and on 9 the money. And I don't really have an issue with --

10 with that position. I don't -- you know, I think that 11 it's accurate.

12 I also thought that it was a little bit 13 late, and my initial reaction was, you know, geez, 14 probably Could have used this about a year ago. But 15 better -- you know, better late than never to look at 16 it, make sure we understand -- you know, we understand 17 what the consequences were of our past issues that 18 we've had and the impact that that has had on the 19" workers and, you know, what do we need to do to make 20 sure that we're okay going forward? I think that 21 that's -- that's very valid.

22 And then, the -- immediately shut down all 23 three nuclear units -- I'm not aligned with that 24 position. I think that that's an extreme position 25 that's without merit. But it's America, so they're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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126 1 entitled to their piece of the press.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -- in terms of 3 corrective action I guess is probably the best way to 4 put it, but if the letter came late, but there's 5 things that can be addressed, what would -- how do you 6 see what PSEG can do to correct what's there to 7 correct?

8 Lj Gosh. Well--

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And have they done 10 anything? I mean, are you aware of anything being 11 done?

12 Yes. I mean, I do believe 13 that the changes that have been made with backinig away 14 from one-site philosophy, going back more towards a 15 unitized structure -

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So this six 17 months or so ago has -- has started to address.

18 3iYes. I think that we're just 19 beginning to see the dividends of that. And in the 20 short period of time that's been in effect, I -- it 21 seems to me that it has improved things. So that's 22 good.

23" There has -- there has been some 24 significant changes in management team, too, from top 25 to just above my boss' level. And I'm pretty NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TMANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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127 1 encouraged with -- with that, too. The interactions 2 I've had with the new OM and the new plant manager 3 have been very positive.

4 They're spending a lot of time with --

5 with the. people and listening to what they have to say 6 and taking action, and doing a lot with, you know, 7 around fixing the plant. So that's having a positive 8 effect, that -- I can see it, and I can -- I'm hearing 9 it from my -- my people.

10 And then, seems to have a 11 pretty basic philosophy that -- that I think is good.

12 You know,. he's part of the changes in the management 13 team. I haven't really had much interaction with, 14 just a couple brief meetings. I've listened to him 15 talk. But he's very down to earth and, you know, he

-16 seems to be -- seems to be keeping us pointed in the 17 right direction.

18 so those are things that'we've done. I 19 guess the hard part of that question is, you know,.

20 what -- what.can we do in the future?. And I don't 21 know, I -- I do believe that if we can -- if we can be 22 consistent in the actions that we're taking and show 23 the workers that we are sensitive to their concerns, 24 and that -- and not just tell them that, but actually 25 show them that we're doing stuff to address them and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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128 1 fix them or make them go away or, you know, do 2 whatever it is that needs to correct the issue, and 3 then make sure that they're aware of it and they 4 understand what we did, and that that did satisfy 5 their concern, I think that's -- you know, that's a 6 lot of the work that we need to do is to -- is to just 7 show, you know, by our actions that we're doing that.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

9 I'm not sure what else. The 10 action plan will be out in 20-some days.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. Yes, I guess.

12 The--

13 So that -- that'll be -- I 14 haven't been asked specifically to input *into that.

15 That -- that could be coming soon. I mean, I wouldn't 16 be surprised. Actually, I have a meeting with '

17 in two hours to talk about some stuff, and that 18 may be one of the things that we talk about.

19 -The VPs are going around talking to all 20 the workers over the -- I know they're doing it today.

21 They may have started yesterday, but they're basically 22 meeting with everybody on site to talk about the 23 issues and, you know, the letter from the NRC, and to 24 reinforce the importance of having a safety conscious

_7*_

25 work environment.

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129 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Are you --

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, then, having 3 spent three hours with us should work to your 4 advantage in --

5 (Laughter.)

6 A Yes.

7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 8 been able to talk to him as a part of a group? Is 9 that what it is?

10 Yes, it's a shift manager 11 meeting. And I think Salem will be there as well as

12. the Hope Creek managers.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I'm pretty 14 close to the end, but what I'd like to ask you is, I 15 mean, you did spend a considerable amount of time with 16 us, and you've seen the kind of issues that we're 17 going over, and the kind of issues that we're 18 exploring. Are we missing anything that we should be 19 aware of, anything that you'd like to make us aware 20 of, or do you have any other outstanding concerns that 21 we haven't addressed?

22 NI I think -- I think you're on 23 the mark, and I -- I don't -- I cannot think of 24 anything that you're missing. And I do not have any 25 concerns that are unaddressed at this point.

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130 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. All right.

2 Well,, then, I just have a few basic closing questions 3 for you. Okay?

4 MR. KEENEN: Can we take a quick break 5 from the record, and maybe we could talk and see if 6 there's anything else we'd like to add before you 7 close?

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think that would be 9 -- that would be a good idea.

10 MR. KEENEN: Okay.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We can do that. It's 12 approximately 3:03 p.m.

.13 (Whereupon, the proceedings in. the

.. 14 foregoing matter went off the record at 15 3:03 p.m. and went back on the record at 16 3:14 p.m.)

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on 18 -- it's approximately 3:14 p.m. -- after a brief 19 break.

20 You were going to go to some technical 21 issues, Scott. So you might as well go ahead with 22 that.

23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Just 24 a couple of quick technical questions. Did you do 25 you have any knowledge or involvement of a couple NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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131 1 incidents around the March 2003 timeframe? One was 2 related to an issue with the turbine bypass valve 3 where it stuck in about a half open position, and then 4 there was subsequent activity to -- to take the unit 5 off line, kind of an unusual alignment, and there was 6 a reactivity management problem. Were you involved 7 with either one of those issues, either on shift or in 8 a support role for either one?

9 I was not actually on -- on 10 shift for that. I am familiar with the event. We ii studied it at ý-you know, at length as a, you know, 12 case study/lessons learned type of thing.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

14 And so I am -- you know, itIs 15 been a while since I looked at it, but I am familiar 16 with the basic details of what happened.

17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 18 any insights or anything that you specifically want to 19 share, since you weren't maybe directly involved? Is 20 there anything that you felt that either was handled 21 really well or poorly, or anything else that you felt 22 you wanted to share on either of those two issues?

23 A Hmm. Well, that was -- that 24 was a significant event for us as a station. And I 25 think we did good in -- you know, after we -- after we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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132 1 -- I think we were a little bit slow at first to 2 really understand the significance. And there was a 3 small delay in communicating it up the management 4 chain.

5 And -- but, you know, once we -- we got 6 past that, we did good at communicating the 7 significance of it, and, you know, learning from it.

8 We did a lot with, you know, in training talking about 9 it, and a lot of -- a lot of effort spent on really 10 looking close at the decision-making, you know, 11 surrounding the procedure to shut the plant down, 12 basically wrote a new procedure, and how we went about 13 validating that procedure. And just really'trying to 14 -- trying to learn as much as we could from what --

15 what we could have done better with that. So I'd say 16 that part-was done good.

17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 18 any firsthand knowledge or any special insights of

.19 either one of those activities or issues that you want 20 to share? Or was most of what you have to share from 21 -- from your perspective, is it more based on what you 22 either heard through training or.-- I mean, is there 23 anything unique that you would -- that you could add?

24 I don't believe so. I mean, 25 it's -- my insights from that are, you know, what I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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133 1 learned from -- from training and from analyzing the 2 types -- the tapes. I looked at the traces for the --

3 you know, the different critical parameters.

4 I did get involved by way ofr 5 saw me at training, and we started 6 talking about that. And he asked me what I thought --

7 what I thought about it. I forget what we had. I 8 think we had a writeup, like a one-page writeup about 9 what had happened. And that was how I learned that we 10 were -- we were slow communicating it up the -- you 11 know, the management chain. That was at the Training 12 Center in the cafeteria.- 7 13 And he asked me -- he asked me to 14 independently look at that and tell him what I 15 thought. And I -- and I .-- which' I did. And my 16 insights -to him were that I was -- I was surprised 17 that there was a delay in communicating it, and, you 18 know, that it looked like something that was, you 19 know, pretty significant and warranted further -- you 20 know, further investigation, like we have what we call 21 a TARP team, which will get people from Maintenance, 22 Engineering, you know, Licensing, whoever we need for 23 whatever specific problem we have. And then they all 24 get together and they'll look real close at the 25 circumstances around the event.

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- 134 1 And then he -- he asked me to call -- it 2 was kind of strange, because he -- he basically asked 3 me to call -- I think he asked me to call 4 and give:Wthe same insights that I had just given 5 him.

6 So the strange thing was that instead of 7 him doing it, he had me call and tell, that I 8 had been talking with and that -ad looked at 9 this and I had looked at this, and had asked me

10. what I thought about it, and this is what I thought 11 about it, and then I told 'that. So that was a 12 little bit unusual.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:. Did you look 14 at the sequence of the way things unfolded? It sounds 15 like you're primarily focused in on the reactivity 16 management event, not so much the turbine bypass 17 valve. That kind of led into it, but it -- what 18 happened with that and the way that was communicated 19 within the organization, and the delay and things of 20 that nature. What about the actual event itself? Did 21 you have anything -- I mean, was there something you

.22 shared out of that? Or was this 23 *KomiallyOh, when the valve actually 24 was stuck part way open?

25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.

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135 1 No. What I was sharing with 2 you was after that. That was like the reactivity 3 event that followed during the plant shutdown.

4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right. That 5 went -- power went from like six or seven to like 14 6 or 13 or --

7 Yes.

8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- 13 or 14?

10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Okay.

11 .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, was your focus 12 on what caused that excursion? Or was -- was your i3 focus on what caused the delay in reporting that, the 14 fact that it had occurred? Or was it both?

15 From what I remember, he was 16 really looking for me to give him an independent read 17 on how significant of an event or issue was it. And 18 I -- what I was looking at -- I know I had a writeup, 19 you know, like words to describe the event. And I 20 can't remember if I had the charts at that time, the 21 graphs that showed like power pressure level. I may 22 have had them. I know I 'looked at them shortly 23 thereafter, if I didn't have them at that point.

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136 1 that was pretty significant and would warrant some 2 additional investigation, so that we're real sure we 3 understand what happened.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And did that 5 occur, then?

6 Oh, yes.

7 .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A TARP team on it?

8 .1--I don't know for sure if 9 that -- if they used the TARP process to do it. But, 10 I mean, there was big -- a pretty decent investigation 11 after that on the details of, you know, what happened 12 and why it happened and what we did.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you have 14 anything further?

15 See, because what happens is 16 when you're in -- when you're in an outage, it's a 17 little different process. We may not have actually 18 used a TARP team to do that.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Anything else 20 to add on that?

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, thank 22 you.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Technical issues?

24 Are you - are you done?

25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: We talked NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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137 1 a little bit about the off-gas issue. Did you have 2 anything else you wanted to share as far as you said 3 that there were times when the limit was increased.

4 You mentioned 75, and then you Said it was increased, 5 and then you kind of portrayed it as maybe a -- on a 6 couple of occasions. Do you have any other insights 7 or anything else you wanted to share on that event or 8 that issue?

9 Yes. I believe it was -- it 10 was increased at least once. I know that for sure.

11 When we went above 75, we increased to -- I'm pretty 12 sure that it was increased again.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did anyone 14 on express any concern with multiple 15 increases in the load, that that --

16 Yes. We talked about that.

17 We talked about that as a crew, and we talked about 18 why -- you know; why is it okay to keep operating and 19 what -- what are we going to do about it? We 20 ultimately ended up revising the procedure. We ended 21 up revising the procedure after looking -- you know, 22 looking at the technical basis for the n'umbe'r, is how 23 I remember that -- that going.

24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

25 ji But I do remember, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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138 1 talking about it with the NCOs.

2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

3 That's it.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's it, then?

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes. Thank 6 you.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm going to go into 8 my closing questions, unless you have something else 9 you'd like to add.

10 One other thing I'll share 11 with you, when we were talking about

And some of 12 the -- one of the philosophies that he had talked to 13 us about ina in a meeting or a presentation was he 14 drew a graph of -- I guess maybe it would be easiest 15 for me to draw it on the board. That's -- can I do 16 that?

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure, if you want, 18 and we'll just give a description of it.

19 It was :something like this 20 where the X-axis was productivity or performance, and 21 then on the.Y-axis this was--

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:. You know what,*

23 Can you do me a favor? Can we put it on paper?

24 Yes. -

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139 1 and then I don't have to awkwardly describe what it is 2 for the record. If you can do it on a piece of paper 3 for us, then we can all take a look at it.

4 And you know what? We'll take a quick 5 break off the record while you do that. It's 3:26.

6 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 7 foregoing matter went off the record at 8 3:26 p.m. and went back on the record at 9 3:29 p.m.)

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 3.:29 p.m. after a quick break.

12 Okay. So you're showing us a chart, and 13 it's an X-: and Y-axis graph.

-. 14

So this -- this is basically 15 a representation of something that* -had drawn like 16 on a white board at the Training Center during --

17 during a meeting.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What timeframe was 19 this?

20 *Ido not -- I do not recall.

21 -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you go to a year 22 or --

23 __ I would say longer than a 24 year, within the last two, though.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

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140 1 N And basically, what it was 2 showing us --

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was h at 4 the time?

~Yes.

5 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

7 .'ýYes. And what he was showing 8 us was -- and I've seen this before, like in a 9 textbook. But what he was showing us was that to --

10 as you raise *a person's stress level, their 11 performance initially goes up. And that, you know, 12 there is some optimum place on the curve where you 13 want people to have a certain level of stress.

14 And he -- he told us that this is his 15 philosophy. And so sometimes I think, though, we

16. ended up over here at times, and, you know, got on the 17 steep side of that curve. But I -- I just -- I 18 remember real clearly him showing us that and talking 19 about that management philosophy and drawing the 20 picture.

21 And I -- .I think that, you know, I told 22 that he -- the way he had me handle that situation' 23 with the -- the bypass valve and the reactivity event, 24 I think that sometimes the reason he did those -- that 25 type of thing was to -- you know, because of this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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141 1 philosophy.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what was he 3 driving toward with that? You're talking about when 4 he had you analyze it and then feed that through to 6

Yes. A different period of 7 time when- he shared this with us and when he, you 8 know, had me do that. But what I was saying was I 9 think sometimes the reason he did something like that, 10 which was a little bit -- I told you that that seemed 11 unusual, a little bit different, was to try and -- you 12 know, that was kind of like the philosophy is that if 13 you keep people a little bit off balance, then maybe, 14 *you know, have them do things that they wouldn't 15 normally do, or handle things differently than they 16 would normally, to raise their stress level, then you 17 can increase performance by doing that.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How do you think that 19 philosophy fits with running a nuclear plant? Keeping 20 people's stress levels high and keeping them off 21 balance and having them do things differently than 22 they normally do? I have to point out for the record 23 you sort of chuckled there. It won't pick that up, 24 but I -- I'm just looking for your assessment of, how 25 does that philosophy fit in with -- as it was applied NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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142 1 to you, how did you feel?

2 g Yes. The reason I chuckled 3 was because I thought it was -- initially when you 4 were saying it, it was a little bit of a leading 5 question. But the -- I will tell you how I feel about 6 it. I think that there is some validity to that, in 7 that if you make things super easy for people, and 8 that there is a zero stress environment, that you're 9 probably down lower on the performance and 10 productivity curve than you should be, and that there 11 needs to be some. .c 12 So it's debatable as to where on this 13 curve is the ideal place to be, specifically to -- to 14 operating a nuclear plant. Some of it is unavoidable.

15 There has to be some. People have to understand that 16 there is consequences for, you know, not following the 17 rule, not following procedures. That there is 18 consequences that if you, you know, don't do the right 19 thing, that you could cause something that would have 20 an adverse effect on nuclear safety, industrial 21 safety, radiological safety.

.22 But sometimes I felt like we operated on 23 the wrong side of the curve, like we were -- were on 24 the back side, and there was too much. Too much.

25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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143 1 you're describing --

2 1 That's my opinion.

3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -- is 4 there's some amount of stress that a person might have 5 to perform at their optimum level. But if you -- if.

6 you impose additional stress, in fact, it has a 7 negative effect. You get -- actually get less 8 production.

9 And it drops quick.

10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And it's 11 just -- you just feel stressed.

12 Yes.

13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You just 14 feel the additional stress, but it's not beneficial.

15ight.

16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER-BARBER: Okay.

17 Right.

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And that's 19 what you described, that we were on -- at times you 20 were on that opposite side of that -- of the curve.

21 Yes.

22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this a philosophy 24 -- this philosophy that you're describing is something 25 that you feel now? I mean, you're showing where you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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144 1 said the steep side of the curve is where you 2 sometimes felt you were. Is this something that you 3 have in place now?

4 O I would say it -- it comes 5 and goes. You know, I mean, for me personally, that's 6 -- I think that is a very -- it's very different for 7 different people, and that, you know, everybody has a 8 different capability for how well they handle stress.

9 For me, I would say that recent -- you 10 know, recently over the last few months we've -- I 11 have not felt that way, although there have been bad 12 days, you know, days when things aren't going right, 13 where, you know, the stress level is high.

1-4 MR. KEENEN: Could I ask a question about

15. this? Shouldn't stress be down here and performance 16 productivity up here? Because if you increase stress, 17 although you get performance productivity increased to 18 a point, and you continue to increase stress, and then 19 it drops.

7 20 JYou're right.

21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's what 22 I was -- I was struggling with. I kept looking at it.

23 You're right.

24 MR. KEENEN: The Engineering in me was 25 going to (inaudible).

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145 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I was 2 looking at it as an X/Y function.

3%Io You're right. You're right.

4 You're right.

5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you just 6 -- we reversed the axes. The philosophy is still the 7 same.

8 MR. KEENEN: Right.

9 Yes 10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, I 11 understood it when you were describing it. Just -- we 12 just have to --

13.. My curve didn't match my 14 words. My words were correct; the curve is --

15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Anything 17 further on that, Scott?

18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else?

20 No.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I have a 22 couple of closing questions for you, then. Have I or 23 any other NRC representative offered you any promises 24 of reward or threatened you in any manner in exchange 25 for today's information?

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o 234-4433

146 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Have you 3 appeared here freely and voluntarily?

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We covered 6 that we have nothing further to add. So at this time, 7 which is 3:36 p.m. approximately, we'll conclude the 8 interview. And I would like to thank you for the 9 substantial portion of your time, for both of you.

10 . You're welcome.

11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Thank you.

12 (Whereupon, at 3:36 p.m., the interview 13 was concluded.)

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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