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OI Interview Transcript of Witness, Dated 03/09/2004
	ML061460299
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	03/09/2004
From:	; NRC/OI
To:	;
References
	1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194
	Download: ML061460299 (180)
	v • d • e

I 1 'oUNITED STATES OF AMERIC 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SION 3 +

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

8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No. 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED) 12 Tuesday, March 9, 2004 13 Training Center 14 PSEG Nuclear 15 Salem, NJ

-16 17 The above-entitled intervi ew was conducted 18 at 12:46 p.m.

19 BEFORE:

20 SPECIAL AGENT Eileen Neff 21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT Jeff Te*ator 22 ALSO PRESENT:

23 Project Engineer Ted Wingi field 2t .

25 Informatioa in this record Wj deleted NEAL R. GROSS inaccordance With thefreedom of nf~fmattoy, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS fAt, exemp*tsons_ -* 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

'n-" 02) 23444;p WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433

If 1 APPEARANCES:

2 3 On Behalf of PSEG Nuclear and the Witness IC,,

4 5 JEFFRIE J. KEENAN, ESQ.

6 PSEG Assistant General Solicitor 7 Nuclear Business Unit--N21 8 P.O. Box 236 9 Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038 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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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 12:46 p.m.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is March 4 the 9th, 2004. The time is approximately 12:46 p.m.

5 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, with Region 1, 6 NRC Office of Investigations.

7 Also present from the same office is 8 Senior Special Agent Jeff Teator, and from the 9 Division of Reactor Projects, Project Engineer Ted 10 Wingfield.

11 What follows is an interview of 12 13 Correct.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- who is currently 15 employed by PSEG Nuclear as the 16 ,at the Salem station.

17 PSEG Nuclear Assistant General Solicitor 18 Jeffrie Keenan is also present, and will describe the 19 purpose of his appearance today, shortly.

20 As agreed, this interview is being 21 tape-recorded.

22 The location of the interview is the PSEG 23 Nuclear Training Center at Salem,-New Jersey.

24 The subject matter of this interview 25 concerns the safety-conscious work environment at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1i Salem and Hope Creek, but the focus will be on the 2 Salem station, based on Cwork experience.

3 is being interviewed as a 4 witness in this matter, and there --

5 It has been explained to you that there is 6 no potential violation associated with the 7 safety-conscious work environment. That you 8 understand?

9 Correct.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Also, you are 11 appearing here today voluntarily?

12 jJ That's correct.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And understanding 14 that, do you wish to go forward?

15 Yes, I do.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I explained to 17 you before we went on the record that we would be 18 placing you under oath. Could you please raise your 19 right hand to be sworn in.

20 Whereupon, 21 .

22 having been first duly sworn, was examined and 23 testified as follows:

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. Okay.

25 Jeff, could you please describe the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 purpose of your appearance here today?

2 MR. KEENAN: Yes. My name is Jeff Keenan.

3 I work for PSEG Services; I'm Assistant General 4 Solicitor. Today I'm representing and PSEG 5 Nuclear in a joint capacity -- obviously, not aware of 6 any conflict of interest. We would like to 7 participate and be able to discuss the culture at PSEG 8 Nuclear, both good/bad, and so we view this as an 9 opportunity.

10 We would like the ability to review the 11 transcript when it's complete.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. Okay.

13 q do you understand the purpose of the 14 representative, as described?

15 Ys ~o 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Does your 17 employer require you to have an attorney present when 18 you are interviewed by NRC, Office of Investigations?

19 INo, they do not.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were you in any way 21 threatened with any adverse action if you did not 22 request corporate counsel?

23 No.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Will the presence of 25 Mr. Keenan hinder your testimony in any way? P A-1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 :*I No,* it won't.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you 3 understand that you have the right to a private 4 interview with me at your convenience?

5 1Yes, I do.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. With that 7 understanding, do you wish to continue with the 8 interview at this time?

9 Yes, I do.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What I 'd like 11 to do is have you state your full name for the record, 12 please.

13 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your date of 15 birth.

16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your address, 18 please.

19 20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And home telephone 22 number.

23 It's area codet 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What I'll do 25 is covei some background information. If we could get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 a brief summary of your education --

2 3

4 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And your 6 employment history.

7 4Been with PSEG since August 8 of It's approximatela.i, - Ll in 9 the SaIex.M" 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was 11 your first position?

12 Its an 13 entry-level position.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then can 15 you just give the year for when your positions changed 16 as you--

17 JRoughly.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As that occurred.

19 Well, roughly.

20 21 I 22 23 24 25 A'1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 2 Now, for clarification, I am no longer the 3 so--

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You know, as I said 5 that, I started wondering, because of all the changes 6 lately. Can we get your title exactly as it is right 7 now, please?

8 9 emmurnsj It may be m iiq 10 but it's not clear at this 11 time. The changes, I'd say, are still ongoing as far 12 as reorg.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So, now, when did 14 this -- when is -- is this a change for you in 15 position completely, or is it a new title covering 16 your old duties?

17 It's a change in position.

the .

18 There is somebody that is now 19 -j shift, which is my old title. That' s 20 And that was effective approximately March 21 1st.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are you the 24 for both Salem units?

25 ......

..... Ye s .

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:

2 SPECIAL AGENT.NEFF: Wasect.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that a position 3

4 you had before?

5 6 before. We had --

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No; I mean, was it a 8 position in existence before?

9 r

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:

Yes.

11 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who held that 13 position before?

14 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay, so 16 effective March the 1st?

17 Yes.

SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 4 aintaining 18 19 your license --

20 Correct.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- at this 22 point?

23 Correct.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Going back to 25 -- I think a good break might be that January 2000 NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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1 time frame when YOU were 2 Yeah.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Around that time 4 frame promoted t Who was in your 5 reporting chain of command there? Who were you 6 working for?

7 I'll have to think about 8 this, you know.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your '" and your 10 11 I think at that time *the 1j 12 Thec ~

13 but I'm not 14 positive. May have also bee We've 15 always had three assistant just the 16 shift, staff, and work management. And the people 17 have changed positions just --

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

19 -- like I have recently, so 20 it's kind confusing as far as back then who was in 21 what position. But I think at that time both W 22 and--

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These are the 24 possibilities?

25 IYeah.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. 0 2

3 Yeah. Now,'had 4 before I was a shad the He 5 went off to be an. n then. I took/that 6 position, so I'm not sure which he was.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then that 8 stays -- that's consistent, then, right?5 9 There's no other in there?

10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And 12 Yeah. 'had been 13 the

work management, for quite a period of time.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then, how 15 about yourf then?

16 17 that time wass m m 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And then -- okay.

19 So, then that changes, right?

20 Yeah. So following'ý-

21 - ..... who had the position? Is that what your 22 question is?

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.

24 I'm trying to think, 'cause 25 there was a short period of time where we had several.

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1 I'd say the next one of record was probably-2 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

4 A Then there was 5 and presently 3 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Any other**

7 in there that you recall?

8 Those are -- those are all 9 11here.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No; I know. I'm 11 sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you. I jumped back to 12 theý"

13 Okay.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were there other*

15 in--

16 Yeah. was an 17 n that chain. And I don't believe there were any 18 others.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He would have been a 20 shift*

21 He was -- I think he was 22 both staff and shift at various points.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. That's where 24 it gets vague --

25 Yeah.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- what positions 2 everybody held in --

3 Yeah; when.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- within the l!

5 title. Okay.

6 Now, in terms of senior management, then, 7 if we're looking at January 2000 -- right? on 8 site would be 9 *'Correct.

9f 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your . Who did 11 you report to for A in that chain, in that time 12 frame --

13 I think at that time --

1J 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- from January 15 forward?

16 I think at that time them 18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How do you 19 spell his-name?

20 Ie 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For how long? Do you 22 recall?

23 I want to say until maybe 24 August or September of 2000.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Then, who's NEAL R.GROSSAl COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 then? .

2 Following was 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And for how long?

4 I would say twelve to 5 eighteen months.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So August --

7 jj. I'm trying to remember.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Till late 2001, early 9 2002, somewhere in there?

10 I believe so.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess it switched 12 to3 Fjat that point, right?

13 Correct, yeah.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So we're thinking 15 late 2001, early 2002. Could it have been later in 16 2002?

17 I think it could --

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I know that it's hard 19 to be precise.

20

~Yeah, I think it could be.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point in time 22 it seems like -- 'it strikes me that it would have been 23 a littlebit later than that.

24 J I'm lucky to even remember 25 the proper people in proper order. I'm just trying to (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 attach it to --

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: People don't know 3 there's going to be this kind of a test.

4 People change.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what I'm looking 6 for is, in terms of your experience under these 7 individuals, who you had the most experience working 8 with. seems like a pretty short time.

9 2 Yeah.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: About an eight-month 11 period. Then for a while and then 12 'from some point in 2002 until roughly 13 September 2003?

14 Yeah, roughly.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Somewhere, somewhere 16 in there.

17 7 Those transitions aren't 18 real clear.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, I can see why, 20 because there's a number of them, so--

21 Yeah.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. Well, 23 thanks for going through that with me. Okay.

24 Here's a pretty broad question for you.

25 We'll try to tackle it this way first, but in looking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 at the safety-conscious work environment and all that 2 that entails, what we focus on, or we'll look at up 3 front, is people's raising concerns, in particular 4 nuclear safety concerns, and the handling of those 5 concerns.

6 Basically, what we're looking at is, how 7 does it work? If there is a concern, how is that 8 addressed, and how are the concerns responded to, all 9 the way up to and including, you know, feedback and 10 corrective actions, that type of thing. And if we 11 break it down in this way, if you can look at the way 12 it works on-site in your experience, have you -- have 13 you noted any particular strengths? Have you noted 14 any particular weaknesses in the handling of concerns 15 and issues that are brought to you as 16 2 We'll go from roughly in that time period 17 forward.

~a1 18 j What part of the question do 19 you want addressed first, the --

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, yeah, that's the 21 hard part.

22 Right.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's go with 24 strengths or weaknesses noted, and people's ability 25 and comfort level with raising concerns.

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1 *I don't see -- I don't see, 2 really, any strengths or weaknesses from an individual 3 perspective. From a site-wide perspective, though, I 4 mean, it's clearly documented that we're weak in 5 identifying all concerns, nuclear safety or any other 6 concern, whether it's, you know, as minor as a 7 housekeeping issue, to the extent of a potential 8 nuclear safety issue. I'm just trying to think of 9 specifics.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Before you go 11 to specifics, let me --

12 Yeah.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- touch on 14 that a little bit. When did you first recognize that 15 there's a site-wide weakness in identifying concerns 16 generally? Was that a recent --

1.7 Well, no. I mean, it's been 18 a--

19 SR. SPECIALAGENT TEATOR: -- definition 20 on your part, or was it back when you were 21 22 When I was 23 I would see it at that level, from the people that 24 reported directly to me, the control room operators or 25 the NEOs. And that wasn't from identifying a safety NEAL R.GROSSgt COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 issue perspective, but identifying issues associated 2 with their areas of responsibility for housekeeping, 3 or deficiencies in plant conditions. And it could be 4 as minor as insulation missing from piping, that type 5 of thing -- that, you know, the blinders were on, and 6 I didn't see the deficiency as I was walking around to 7 my area of responsibility. From the shift 8 perspective, I saw that, and I continued to see that 9 in*

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were thinking of 11 -- do you have any other examples where you would --

12 say, in terms of recognizing issues that needed to be 13 addressed, something more significant, either that 14 wasn't -- wasn't something like a housekeeping issue?

15 . Yeah. I would say one of 16 the weaknesses that I've seen is not necessarily in 17 the identification of safety issues, whether it's 18 personal, nuclear, radiological safety -- isn't the 19 identification of it, it's the method of 20 identification. So unless it was -- and even in some 21 cases where it came from an engineer, you know, doing 22 his job function, he identified a deficient condition 23 associated with plant operations, he would -- the 24 documentation -- or there would be no documentation, 25 or it would be verbal, you know, come to the shift and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 reporting it, and he discovered this while researching 2 another issue. Right? So then you have to address 3 the fact that "Did you document it?" That's how we 4 worked the process, right, make notification, and 5 then, obviously, in parallel with that, we take 6 whatever actions are required.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it's not so much 8 that the -- you're saying concerns would be raised; 9 it's just how they're doing it, in a way that it's not 10 able to be followed through on?

11i jJRight. The biggest -- and 12 that's why I said the biggest weakness that I've seen, 13 right through both as a l --- r JMJJ 14 is not the failure to identify an issue. It's to 15 properly document the issue, where you're actually 16 having parallel paths going, right, the issues being 17 addressed through whatever means it is, and then half 18 way through that you'd identify that the person never 19 note -- never wrote a notification in the SAP, which 20 is our method for documentation of deficient 21 conditions.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, is that 23 something that you see across the board, or is that a 24 problem with certain positions, or where do you note 25 that that comes in from?

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1 -73;c I would say it's probably 2 across the boakd that people -- I think where it stems 3 from is, people want to identify the issue right to 4 the proper personnel, so -- and they may have already 5 had in their plans to go write the notification, but 6 you don't know that, because you ask the question, 7 they say, "No, I haven't read one." Then you say, 8 "Well, can you write a notification also?" It's not 9 that "Hey, we're in a situation," and take and write 10 a notification. It's just part of the process to 11 document what we're doing to address a situation, and 12 we -- even today we still see that. Like at a manager 13 -- the daily manager's meeting at 10:00 o'clock, an 14 issue will be brought there by another manager, and 15 one of the first questions that the plant manager will 16 ask is "Is there a notification identifying that?"

17 And I'll say it's a lot less frequent than it had been 18 in the past, but it's still, you know, every so often 19 no notification has been generated.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, would you 21 -- okay, can I ask a couple of questions on that? /

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, go ahead.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: About the 24 notifications. When you were aM 25 01and you -- an issue like that came to your NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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. o

1 attention, would you ask the question then, "Did you 2 write a notification?" Would you --

3 *Right.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: , Okay. And 5 sometimes you'd get a "No." Is that --

6 Yes.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, what 8 would the people generally say as to why they hadn't 9 generated a notification?

10 I think for the most of the 11 time when you would ask that, right, is that they 12 wanted to get the issue -- they wanted to get the --

13 bring the issue to light, right. So I think most 14 people didn't view the notification process as 15 something -that you put it in the computer and 16 immediately somebody was taking actions, right. It 17 doesn't happen that way, right. It goes through a 18 screen process, et cetera, so -- it would also be bad 19 behavior if you just wrote the notification in SAP and 20 just left it there and didn't go speak to anybody, 21 didn't tell anybody. Right? So I think most people 22 feel like the appropriate thing to do is go talk to 23 management, right, whether that be the shift manager, 24 assistant ops manager, ops manager, with the issue, 25 right, and not take the five or ten minutes to write NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 the notification or --

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you -- were 3 people telling you they were reluctant to generate a 4 notification?

5 I3Yeah.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They didn't 7 want their name -- let me finish the question.

8 9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Didn't want 10 their name attached to a notification?

11 I have never heard that.

12 Never heard that.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But you still 14 see it even today, rarely, more rare, though, that 15 notifications aren't being generated, but there are 16 occasions where you see that even happening fairly 17 recently?

18 - :7 Yeah, and -- wish I could 19 think of a specific case. But managers meeting, 20 managers will be sitting around, right, and somebody 21 will bring up an issue, right, and then ask about the 22 notification. And the guy will say, "Hey, I got that 23 information on the way to the meeting," so he hadn't 24 had time to go back to his computer and put it in.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

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1 And that's typically what 2 I've seen, is that the people didn't want to take the 3 ten minutes, you know, betweeft when they became aware 4 of the situation and when they were going to notify 5 somebody, to put a notification into the computer.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. But 7 isn't the individual's responsibility who identifies 8 it -- isn't it their job to initiate the notification, 9 not the manager's, necessarily?

10 Correct. And I may have 11 been misunderstood. They weren't coming to me to 12 write the notification. Right? They were coming to 13 me to identify the situation. They may have had in 14 their mind they were going to write the notification, 15 they just had not as of that time.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when you 17 had interactions like that with an individual on your 18 shift, was there ever an occasion where you asked them 19 to write a notification and they refused to do that?

20 Lj.. A couple of times union 21 personnel would say it was not in their job 22 specifications. Or I even had the case where a 23 gentleman told me he didn't know how to do it.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

25 So then I sat down at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 computer with him and went through the process of how 2 to do it.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any answers 4 back from those people as to "Hey, I don't want my 5 name attached to that, to that concern, that issue; I 6 don't want my -- me being identified as the one 7 bringing that up"? Did anybody ever say that to you?

8 No, I have never heard that.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of issues 20 were they when -- when they weren't going to do that, 11 when you were getting a No on that, and the union said 12 it wasn't their job?

13 Li A good example is, we have 14 a tendency, as management, to go around and identify 15 deficient housekeeping items in a -- in an area of 16 responsibility for an equipment operator, right? Me, 17 as aF "

I'd walk around and notate a bunch 18 of, you know, stuff lying around, and go back to the 19 equipment operator and, you know, sit down with him 20 and coach him on "Hey, my expectations are, you clean 21 all this up, identify it," and then direct them to 22 write notifications to identify it.

23 And I think in one case that I can recall, 24 you know, the guy pushed back and said, "Well, it's 25 not in my job specs, " and that type of thing. And it NEAL R.GROSSAl COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 wasn't -- had nothing to do with his name being 2 attached to the notification, it was more he didn't 3 feel it was his responsibility.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How was that 6 resolved?

7 111He wrote the notification.

8 I think in that case there was a reluctance on his 9 part to admit that he didn't fully understand how to 10 put the notification in. So there was another case 11 where I sat down and I actually wound up putting them 12 in, and explained to him the steps in the process to 13 do that.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is the process that 15 cumbersome, that you have -- you run into it that many 16 times, that people don't know how to get a 17 notification input?

18 No, we've -- I mean, through 19 the years we've streamlined it such that there's a 20 template. Now, you know, you go in and make a couple 21 of clicks on the template, for the questions you 22 answer are in there. When we first put SAP into 23 place, that was not the case, so you had to remember 24 what the questions you had to answer in the 25 notification were, so it's a little more difficult.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 2 of the responses that go back to the individuals who 3 put the notifications in process? It might have been 4 that you were portraying that they see the way to go, 5 but the concern is to go verbally with it, it seemed 6 like the more efficient way to raise the issue. Was 7 there some problem with entering into the process?

8 r-1111 00, No. I think what it was, is 9 that people have a tendency to want to make sure 10 everyone is aware of it as soon as possible, so to 11 delay ten minutes and put it in the notification or 12 walk up to the shift manager, tell him the issue, 13 knowing that you're going to put the notification in 14 later, to the person identifying the issue it seemed 15 more reasonable to take that approach.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. All right, we 17 pretty much were talking about at the operator level.

18 What about at management, the manager level, CRS, 19 shift managers, in terms of them being able to raise 20 concerns? Have you seen any changes over this period 21 of time -- we'll look at January 2000 forward -- the 22 kinds of issues that they raise to you, or how they 23 raise it?

24 I would say I saw no change 25 in the way they -- typically, most CRSs will -- and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 that's where, from being the shift manager, the CRS 2 will* bring the issue to you. Right? You work 3 directly with them, and that's a key case where 4 there's no notification written. Right? And a good 5 example would be, he's got a better way to make this 6 procedure work, or a clarification in the procedure, 7 comes talks to you about it.

8 Prior to our reorg late fall last year, 9 our procedure group worked directly with operations, 10 and they were in the same building downstairs, so a 11 lot of the times that communication would go through 12 that mechanism, right, without a notification being 13 generated for the procedure change. Right? And the 14 procedure would get pushed back to us as operations, 15 and say, "Hey, we need a -- we need a notification to 16 initiate this procedure change."

17 From a CRS perspective, to the shift 18 manager, though, that relationship usually is such 19 that the CRS will bring his concern right to the shift 20 manager, and from -- my experience is, you would have 21 to push back, say, "Okay, we'll put it in a 22 notification so we can generate the help we need." I 23 think, for the most part, CRSs -- and that's control 24 room supervisors -- would think that the shift manager 25 could take his ball, you know, whatever it was, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 run and get a quick solution to it.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Are you aware 3 of any hesitancy on the part of anybody at the CRS or 4 shift management level to raise an issue, whether it 5 be -- any type of concern, nuclear safety, 6 radiological safety, industrial safety?

7 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No reason for -- that 9 you're aware of, for them to hesitate to raise an 10 issue?

11 That's correct.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Are you aware 13 of any information that would indicate that someone 14 who raised a concern was retaliated against for having 15 raised the concern? And again, that would cover 16 anything in nuclear safety, radiological safety, 17 personnel safety, industrial.

18 No, I can't -- I can't think 19 of any cases where an individual was retaliated 20 against for identifying a concern.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did-any of your 22 -- when you were the ,* did any of your shift 23 managers or CRSs come to you, and they had raised a 24 particular issue, and maybe they -- things were 25 happening to them that they felt were happening to I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 them because of the fact that they were raising an 2 issue? Did anybody ever express that belief to you, 3 that certain things had happened to them because they 4 raised or pushed an issue? Maybe not making a 5 retaliation claim, per se, a formal one, but --

6 Q* Not that I can remember. I 7 mean, I would think I would remember that.

8 MR. KEENAN: I would think you would, too.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sometimes they'll 11 call it "push-back," any kind of a negative response.

12 "Retaliation" may put it into a different category.

13 But push-back, anything negative?

14 I would say from identifying 15 a safety issue, no. But I mean, there are cases that 16 I've initiated notifications, and there's push-back 17 because you're asking for maybe a design change or a 18 minor mod, right, to the plant, and there's push-back 19 in that respect, is that it's not cost-effective or, 20 you know, the resources aren't available to do the 21 work. But from a -- identifying a safety concern, no.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What we'll do 23 is, I'd like to get into that a little bit with you.

24 We'll just pursue this first line of questioning, too.

25 Good.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about from the 2 comfort level of the shift managers in terms of 3 raising the issues? And we'll go to the point where 4 they were your peers, when you were not the 4)--

5 M All right.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- the shift manager 7 level. In that 2000-2001 time frame were you aware of 8 any concerns on the part of shift management to raise 9 an issue to ops management or to senior management in 10 terms of any concerns they had? And that would be in 11 terms of operational decision-making, operability 12 calls, things along those lines.

13. . I would say there was a--

14 not a reluctance to go to our direct management, but 15 there was a lot of discussion about the sanity of 16 s-I'oay, - .I'll say 17 there was maybe some reluctance to go to him because 18 of the path the conversation might take.

19 For example, one time I was the(

20 and this wasn't -- this was just 21 a generic discussion 4 'and I were having about the 22 unit, no specific concerns that I had, and the 23 conversation quickly turned to the control room paint 24 color. So that's -- that wasn't unusual, right, that 25 iA-- and the reason that happened was 'cause he NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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U('LLZ LIiUUO LL+/-e conriro- room, ana cnac was on his mina, 2 right, about changing the color of the control room.

3 So it wasn't unusual that what anted to talk 4 about isn't what you want to talk about, from that 5 perspective.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You said 7 something, the sanity offll Can you --

8 Well, people -- right. So 9 if somebody comes to you and you're talking about, 10 say, you know, Unit 2, "Hey, we've been, you know, Ii pretty fortunate with the way the plant's running, 12 haven' t had any issues, 0 and a guy looks around and he 13 says, "What do you think of this paint color?" And 14 that wasn't necessarily the only time. That happened 15 to other individuals, either. So there was kind of 16 discussion amongst the shift managers just about how 17 to talk to and have clear communications.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that might lead to 19 a hesitancy to engage in a conversation, because you 20 don't know where you're going to end up with, or 21 toward-- they would see it as it could be strange?

Yeah.

22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So, okay, but --

24 But that's not -- also keep 25 in mind tha

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1 chain, in that, you know, on a daily basis I wouldn't 2 go tol for a discussion on plant operations or 3 something like that.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right. And you 5 indicated -- I think you said that it was -- you 6 didn't see any hesitancy at the shift manager level 7 with their direct chain in operations, but then you go 8 up t" What about in the senior 9 management chain in that time frame, with the VPs that 10 you had in place? And I know you had a director of 11 operations at some point in time in there, too.

12 Yeah. I can't think of any, 13 any issues that would have caused reluctance. I can 14 remember wher was director, for example, right, he 15 was, I'll say, some- -- he gave push-back, but I never 16 -- there was a period of time when we were doing --

17 I'm trying to remember my position at the time, if I 18 was a shift manager; I believe I was theW at that 19 time -- where we were doing testing associated with 20 setting the reactor back up. And one of it is strobe 21 time-testing of the reactor head vents, and they have 22 to strobe within a certain time period. Well, their 23 design is that there are read-switches for the 24 limit-switches. And they're solenoid valves, so you 25 can try to imagine, you don't have an actual moving I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. A

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1 arm that -- actually, in a limit-switch, just the 2 solenoid pops up and down. Arid the read-switches are 3 very finicky. So we were having issues with getting 4 the position indication. The valves are positioning; 5 we have other methods to determine that. But the 6 limit-switches, they would light and go out because 7 the read-switch wasn't set properly.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you weren't 9 getting a solid indication in the control room, then?

10 10- MQW* Correct.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

12 As required by the 13 surveillance. The surveillance requires you to time 14 it off the indication, and then the other part of the 15 surveillance requirement is to see a pressure change 16 or a level change in the PRT. So we were having -- we 17 were battling this for hours, andyihad come in, and 18 ww')had started pushing back on the requirements of 19 the surveillance, whether or not we really needed the 20 lights, which was a -- which came out of the Appendix 21 A or TMI. And I'll say he wasn't pushing back toward 22 me. We had a long discussion, myself and and the 23 shift manager, and was of the opinion that we 24 could on-the-spot change the procedure to get that 25 requirement out of there to do the -- to use the NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 indication as the timing source and use alternate 2 methods.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What was his 4 goal in pushing for the on-the-spot change? What was 5 he trying to accomplish?

6 *Continue the plant startup.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You were coming 8 out of a refuel?

9 I believe so. This is two 10 years ago, so I think we were coming out of the 2-R12, 11 I believe.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And this issue 13 with the -- that you're talking about -- was it 14 calling into question whether the plant could continue 15 toward --

16 No.

17 SR. SPECIALAGENT TEATOR: -- operating or 18 going on power?

19 Well, it would hold us right 20 where we were until we resolved the issue, right, 21 using the surveillance as written.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

23 MR. WINGFIELD: So he was saying you could 24 make an on-the-spot change to the ST to use a 25 different set of indications instead of the NEAL RGROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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I' -- 7 1 read-switches that were --

2 Right. Like I said, we had 3 all the indication that the valves were operating 4 correctly. The limits weren't working. So from his 5 perspective, he was saying, "Well, you can on-the-spot 6 change to, you know, use alternate indications." And 7 we, myself and the shift manager at the time, said, 8 "No, that's accepted procedure; you can't on-the-spot 9 change that."

10 MR. WINGFIELD: Right.

11 L It took a period of time for 12 him to accept that, and then he left. And I think he 13 went, you know, elsewhere to try to pursue the same 14 path of procedure change. And I mean, he came back 15 later and talked and, you know, *tried to clarify his 16 position that, hey, he knew we were meeting the 17 surveillance requirements. The method we were using 18 to verify that could have been better, could have had 19 a better method, so -- but at the time, you know, it 20 came across as he was pushing for the plant startup 21 and trying to change the procedures to make that more 22 effective.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What made him 24 -- if you know, what made him insert himself into this 25 discussion of this issue? How did he get involved?

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1 *I think just because of --

2 I'm not sure of the mechanism behind what was driving 3 him. It may have -- he may have been up to the OCC 4 and, you know, the OCC, which is the Outage Control 5 Center, individuals just, you know, making statements 6 about how long we had been at this specific step 7 trying to get the -- you know, may have been -- I'm 8 not sure of the mechanism. It may have been another 9 department that, you know, was fed up with trying to 10 get the read-switch set properly.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. How long 12 were you at that stop-step in the startup?

13 I would guess a couple of 1

14 hours.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. And 16 where were you at? What step? Do you remember?

17No 18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you at 19 power yet?. Were you --

20 O No. You do that -- you do 21 that, I believe, as part of the pressurization steps, 22 so you're not.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is it your --

24 go ahead.

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1 cycle test, like the one you do --

2 Yes, it's required. You're 3 required to cycle, to verify that you have two 4 redundant paths through your head vents as part of 5 your circuit, IOP.

6 MR. WINGFIELD: And you wouldn't have to 7 verify that in the middle, like it's not a quarterly 8 or--

10 MR. WINGFIELD: It's just once every two 11 years or --

12 Eighteen months.

13 MR. WINGFIELD: Eighteen months. Go 14 ahead.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned 16 that you were battling this for hours. Is that the 17 technical staff of the plant trying to find out what 18 was wrong, or were you referring to discussions --

19 \ No, that was the mechanical 20 staff.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let me finish.

22 With

23 No, that was the mechanical 24 staff trying to --

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

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1 -- effect repairs. Right?

2 They would go in and make -- the way it works, they'd 3 go in and make adjustments, then we'd stroke them 4 again to see if we had the opened/closed limit. If we 5 didn't have them, then we'd start the repair process 6 again, or the adjustment process.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, so that 8 went back and forth --

9 For a period of time, a 10 couple of hours, right. I'm guessing at this, but it 11 was -- it was a couple of hours.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And if that 13 issue wasn't fixed per procedure at that time, what 14 would've had to have been done?

15 - Well, you're stopped right 16 there --

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You stay.

18 -- until you meet the 19 surveillance requirements.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. And 21 where did this wind up? How did it resolve itself?

22 The result? We followed the 23 surveillance as written. We didn't change the 24 procedures.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

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1 (c~ 7 I just don't know if we 2 wound up changing out the limit-switches, or if we 3 finally adjusted them within spec.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Let's 5 get back to talking about his interactions 6 on this issue, if we could.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -- in this 8 situation, is he explaining to you? Are you having an 9 explanation? Does he understand why you're stopped 10 where you're stopped? Do you think he has a full 11 understanding of that?

12 Yeah, he understands that 13 it's, you know, technical parts, surveillance 14 required. And the procedure requirements, he 15 understands that fully. He's coming from -- and he 16 later came back and explained his point of view, was 17 that he knew we were meeting the intent of the tech 18 specs and that the valves were operating. We were 19 verifying we had distinct flow paths. But the 20 mechanism that we use for acceptance criteria is what 21 he had an issue with. Unfortunately, I can't change 22 that. That's what we --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you agree 24 with him at that point that --

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No --

2 Sorry.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That he knew it 4 was okay, or it was just the way you were reading it?

5 Did you think the plant was okay where it was at, it's 6 just that the indicator was not functioning properly?

7 Did I think that?

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah.

9 Yes, I knew that the 10 equipment was working as designed and --

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right.

12 *-- as required.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So you agreed 14 with him from that standpoint, but the fact of the 15 matter was, the procedure required certain things and 16 it wasn't happening at that point, right?

17 That's correct. Matter of 18 fact, during our discussion I said, "Hey, you can 19 change the procedure, right? You can. There's a 20 mechanism to change acceptance criteria, but it's not 21 through the on-the-spot change process." And I think 22 our discussion may have gone on for fifteen or twenty 23 minutes, right? Because, I mean, I knew right away 24 that that's not something I could change, right?

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1 is one' that you cannot change on the spot with an 2 on-the-spot change for a procedure.

3 So I think from his perspective -- I made 4 that clear to him right away. So I think from his 5 perspective, he was trying to gain agreement, not 6 necessarily to force me to make the on-the-spot 7 change, because I made that clear right away that it 8 wasn't going to happen. But I agreed that there was 9 another mechanism to be utilized to reach the -- a new 10 acceptance criteria.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you told 12 him that the procedure didn't allow for an on-the-spot 13 change, how did he respond to that?

14 I10- think he questioned it, 15 and then when I -- I can't remember, but I know I 16 explained to him the requirements for an on-the-spot 17 change, and that specific acceptance criteria is 18 black-and-white, that if you change an acceptance 19 criteria, you can't -- you can't do the on-the-spot 20 change.

21 I don't recall, I may have even pulled out 22 the NAP 1 procedure to show where that guidance was 23 located at that time for on-the-spot changes. And 24 then once -- once I'd showed him the -- or told him 25 why I couldn't, he wasn't pursuing the on-the-spot NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 change path any longer. I think he -- then he was 2 looking for agreement that there was another mechanism 3 we could use for acceptance criteria, and what could 4 -- what could that potentially be.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there 6 another mechanism?

7 j We didn't change the 8 procedure.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, you 10 said that -then left.

11 0 Yeah. I think he may have 12 gone to talk to the procedure group. I'm -- don't --

13 I'm not sure where he went.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What makes you 15 think he went to talk to the procedure group?

16 Because at the end of our 17 conversation, that's basically what I told him: "Hey, 18 if you think the pro- -- if you think there's other 19 ways we can do this' and have other acceptance 20 criteria, then that has to go through the 5059 21 process, and that's handled through the procedure 22 group." So he may have gone and talked to them. But 23 I don't think we -- other than him coming back later 24 that day to try to explain where he was coming, right, 25 that he wasn't pushing us to just blatantly change the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 procedure. That wasn't an issue. I think it was 2 shortly thereafter that the read-switches were either 3 corrected or replaced, so the issue was resolved 4 through normal maintenance means.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When he first 6 came to you and you were having this discussion with 7 him, did you think he was trying to make you do that, 8 blatantly change the procedure?

9 <] think when he first came 10 to me, he thought we could do that legally. I don't 11 think he was trying to get me to do something that I 12 wasn't allowed to do. I think that he just wasn't 13 aware of what the on-the-spot change requirements 14 were.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know if 16 he was ever licensed on Salem?

17 wNo, I don't believe he was 18 ever licensed at Salem. I mean, he hadn't been there 19 but a couple of years.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that --

21 Go ahead, Jeff; I'm sorry.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you on the same 24 line? Because I'm going to a little bit different --

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1 just finish up a little bit then.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Go ahead.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Then he came 4 back later in the day and had a discussion with you.

5 Is that correct?

6 M Yeah, I think after -- I 7 think we notified him once we'd fixed them. Because 8 like I said, it was a short period of time after that 9 discussion, within maybe the next hour or so, that 10 they had effected repairs.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Just go ahead.

12 Right.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So the plant 14 can move towards where it wants to be.

15 Mig Yeah.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Where you guys 17 want it to be.

18 . So I think we called him as 19 part of that, and after we called him and said, "Hey, 20 everything's fixed," then he came back in and from, 21 you know, his viewpoint said, "Hey, I wasn't, you 22 know, trying to get you to do something illegal, 23 right? I was trying to change this procedure so it 24 would work better." So that's why I go back to the --

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1 "Hey, I want you to change this procedure, and I know 2 better." I think it was that he just didn't know.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, when he said 4 that, who do you -- who was he telling that to? You, 5 or you and somebody else?

6 i I'll say me. I know it was 7 me. I don't recall if there were other people there.

8 It was in the control room area, though.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And were his 10 discussions when he was pushing for that, before he 11 understood what could happen there, were they with 12 you, limited to you, or were they with others present?

13 There were others present.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who? Who would have 15 been that? The shift people or somebody else?

16 It's kind of funny, because 17 I can see us. We were standing in the shift manager's 18 office, and I see people, but I can't think of who 19 specifically, other people, because there may have 20 been more than just the shift manager. There may have 21 been another individual there, but I know there was --

22 on the initial approach for "Hey, let's change this on 23 the spot," it was more than just myself and( I I 24 can't recall the specifics, who were there, but there 25 were other people. And like I said, when I came back, NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS AllU 7 ,

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1 I don't -- when came back later, I don't recall if 2 that was the discussion. I know he discussed it with 3 me, but I don't recall if there were other people 4 there at that time.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you discuss it 6 with anybody else, what he gave you at the end of that 7 incident? Did you take that to anybody else on the 8 shift who might have been present?

9 I'll say no, because I can't 10 remember if I did or not.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More specifically who 12 was present. Do you recall who the shift manager was?

13 No.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Was this the 15 first time you experienced something like that with 169 You described it as push-back.

17

7Tryingah to think of the time time 18 frames here. That was -- I believe that was -- I'm 19 trying to remember when that was.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's 2-R12, right?

21 Well, you know what, though?

22 It was not, so I was incorrect there, because it was 23 Unit 1. I'm thinking of where I was physically. I'm 24 trying to think of the time frames. It was Unit 1 25 head vent valves. Now it blurs together.

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

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The question 4 is, really, did you have other --

5 Yeah. There was a --

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- push-back 7frosimilar kinds of things.

8 *_*** - There was another issue, and 9 I'll say this, and I can't place it before the head 10 vent or after it from a time-line standpoint, but we 11 had -- this is Unit 2, 2-SJ150. We used to do a 12 performance test on it, I believe it was quarterly, 13 where we'd look for leakage back from the RCS into the 14 boron injection tank. Or actually it comes back into 15 the SI system through the SJ150. So there's 16 acceptance criteria, how much leakage you can have 17 back through this check-valve.

18 So during the test -- and the test 19 methodology that we utilize is, they open up a drain 20 line on the upstream side of the check-valve, right, 21 looking for flow to come back from the RCS. And the 22 drain line runs, you know, from 84 down to 64, to the 23 drain tanks. And it's a smaller line, it's about a 24 half-inch drain line, so the capability of the line 25 isn't significant, but you're looking for less than NEALR.GROSSA COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 one gallon per minute leakage is yourk -- was your 2 leakage limit.

3 So we started doing the test on the SJI50, 4 and we couldn't measure the leakage 'cause the line 5 was flashing. We did not know if the line was 6 flashing because we had more than one gallon per 7 minute, or we had less than one gallon per minute 8 leakage. We weren't -- couldn't quantify the amount 9 of leakage, but we knew we had some leakage through 10 the SJI50. So we were saying it wasn't a valid test.

11 1 was on the night shift as th 12

anwas relieving me on days.

13 I believe at that tim as th shift, 14 and* I think*

15 And it wasn't-- it 16 wasn't unusual to hay there an -t 17 be there. as at the plant quite often. He was 18 involved heavily with the operating of the facility, 19 '1 was involved, or was less frequently 20 involved.

21 So at I'm saying maybe 2:00 o'clock, 3:00 22 o'clock in the morning we discover that, you know, we 23 can't measure the leakage on the SJ150 because of the 24 flashing of the line, so it -- all it is, it's a --

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1 pickup on a floating collar ring. And it would flash 2 when the rim would fall, so you couldn't measure the 3 leakage. So we terminated the test. And I remember 4 calling, calling jJ I think we had a conference 5 call to discuss that we couldn't complete the test.

6 Put the test on hold. &]came in, and this is --

7 (Audiotape switched.)

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You can continue.

9 Yeah. So had come in, 10 ]had come in. And I can't remember, we have a --

11 we used to initiate TARPs, which is a transient 12 accident response team. I can't remember if we'd 13 initiated a TARP yet at this time. Came in, and we 14 had some discussion about doing the test. During that

_71 15 period of time my relief, who was 16 come in, and we started our turn-over process.

17 Then there was some discussion about 18 re-performance of the -- of the test, and how we were 19 going to do the test. And there was some reluctance 20 o0 part in our discussions then to even perform 21 the test, that we weren't required to do the test, 22 that it was a performance test.

23 And engineering at that time had been 24 already working on removing that requirement from our 25 testing procedures, so that was already in process.

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1 And it wasn't because we had failures that we were 2 trying to not test, it was because the test was 3 difficult to do, time-consuming, and you had to set 4 the plant up to allow performance of the test.

5 So I think was coming from that 6 perspective, as having the question that "Hey, we know 7 we already have engineers working on not performing 8 this test again, removing the requirement," that he 9 didn't want to do the test anymore.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Still a 11 requirement at that point?

12

Correct.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tech spec 14 surveillance requirement?

15

That was not a tech spec 16 surveillance, that was a commitment somewhere. I'm 17 not sure where the commitment come from, but it was a 18 commitment.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, go 20 ahead. I'm sorry.

21 Actually, the leakage limit 22 would have been tech spec, that if the valve would 23 have failed, you'd have been in the tech spec. But 24 it's not a surveillance test. I think your other --

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1 use other test methodologies other than the quarterly 2 or six-month PM that we were doing at the time. I 3 can't remember the details as far as why we were not 4 going to perform that function anymore, that testing 5 methodology -- which we don't do today, either. It 6 has since been changed to another mechanism to measure 7 the leakage.

8 So was coming in from the aspect of 9 "We don't have to even do this test." But 10 unfortunately, we still had to at that time because it 11 was still in the program.

12 And then I turned over, and I had left for 13 the day. And when I came back, you know, once again, 14 I came back and I relieved I had 15 discussion with j that there was more 16 push-back.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Like that 18 evening when you came back to relieve -- you guys work 19 twelves, right?

20 Yeah. I can't -- I don't 21 think I came back that night. I think that might have 22 been my last morning.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

24 So it would have been 25 several days later when I came back and talked t NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 and, you know, gave me the impression that that 2 line kept being pushed, as far as "Hey, we don't have 3 to do this test." So it was almost -- felt that 4 we were trying to get out of the test because possibly 5 we knew we weren't going to pass it.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So it, the 7 leakage, was a tech spec requirement, but the question 8 was the methodology to measure it.

9 Correct.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that right?

11 Correct, it was not a 12 surveillance test.

13 MR. WINGFIELD: Right.

14 But the leakage, if you 15 exceeded one gallon per minute, you were in the spec 16 for the check-valve, yeah.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But the way to 18 measure that leakage at that time was the test we're 19 talking about.

20 Correct.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that right?

22 Yeah.

23 MR. WINGFIELD: So it's like a circle, and 24 you can't -- it has to be --

25 Well, the point is, I think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 your actual surveillance requirements are met probably 2 during an outage time frame when you do maybe a Type 3 C leak testing on it, or something to that effect, 4 because this was a performance test, it was not a 5 surveillance test.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you're 7 working at night and it's flashing, what does that 8 mean? You close to steam?

9 S 1Yeah.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Was ii that -- had you experienced that happening before with 12 this test?

13 No, we had not. I mean, I 14 had not personally experienced it before. What we 15 didn't know, the reason we terminated the test is, how 16 much leakage would it take to see flashing. All the 17 leakage we had seen before was down in the, you know, 18 .1, .2 gallons per minute, and it didn't flash. But 19 I didn't have the knowledge to know that at .5 it was 20 going to flash, and you were still acceptable from a 21 leakage limit standpoint.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, let's 23 talk conservative decision-making at that point. What 24 would the conservative thing have been to do that 25 night when you were on shift, if you don't know how NEAL R.GROSS..(1 7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 much it's leaking?

2 Well --

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I mean, it has 4 to come into play here if it's an unknown. Are you 5 using -- isn't that -- can that be an issue?

6 ' Well, at that time we 7 weren't questioning whether it was a -- it was an 8 unknown, it was. Is our testing methodology going to 9 allow us to determine how much leakage we have? And 10 that's the perspective we were coming at it from, was, 11 will the testing methodology even allow us to see a 12 half a gallon per minute leakage?

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was your 14 position that evening when you were the 15 It was just that, is that --

16 is this a testing methodology issue? Because we 17 weren't measuring -- we weren't getting any leakage 18 that we could measure. Because we even -- I think at 19 that time we even tried a bucket method, which is 20 where you just open up the drain and put it to a 21 bucket, and we still weren't getting significant 22 leakage.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So where were 24 you coming down in the equation there? Were you more 25 on -- in agreement with what was proposing, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A1 '

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1 or --

2 I think I was questioning --

3 I personally was questioning how much was leaking.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

5 But how could we Iwas 6 looking at it from how can we test to see how much 7 leakage we actually have?

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

9 But that was cooling the 10 line down, you know, at the point of where it was 11 flashing to get, you know, everything back to 12 condensate, to measure it, to determine what we 13 actually had.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. And 15 I mean, you're running the.is not 16 running the correct?

17 Correct.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you 19 allowed to do the things you thought needed to be done 20 to ensure that the plant was in a -- was in a safe 21 area?

- - . Yeah.

22 23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's a pretty 24 general question, but I mean, can you answer it?

25 ca Yes. I thought -- I mean, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 that night I felt the plant was in a safe area, right.

2 I mean, the spec, I believe, if that -- if that 3 check-valve had leaked more than the one gallon per 4 minute, I believe that was a four-hour tech spec.

5 MR. WINGFIELD: Right.

6 So I believed I took the 7 prudent actions, which was to terminate the test so as 8 to identify -- I was trying to identify the leakage we 9 have, and then take the corrective actions. I don't 10 think that it would have necessarily been the correct 11 thing just to say, "Yep, it's -- you know, it's 12 leaking more than a gallon per minute," and taken 13 those actions, either.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why not?

15 Because you -- there's a 16 combination of check-valves there that also have a 17 potential leak. There's -- each loop -- basically, 18 the check-valve arrangement is, it's -- where it comes 19 through the 150 is a single line, then it spreads out 20 to all four loops, so each of those loops have another 21 check-valve. So the potential could have been, it was 22 leaking through another check-valve through the 150.

23 And then, thinking back the way that the whole test 24 header is aligned, we weren't sure if it was even 25 leakage coming through the 150 or if it was coming NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AYE., N.W.

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1 some -- from somewhere else into the test line.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did N 3 -- was he in agreement with your decision to terminate 4 the test? Do you know if he was in agreement with 5 that?

6 I don't. I don't remember 7 having that discussion, whether he agreed or not.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Had that 9 already been done when 11became involved in 10 this?

11 Yes.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You guys got 13 anything more on that, Ted or Eileen?

14 Now, to clarify, we had 15 terminated the test in the -- in that we didn't want 16 to leave the valve open in there with the line 17 flashing, right? So we terminated the test with the 18 intent of going back and re-performing the test once 19 we identified whether our leakage was somewhere else 20 or was it the testing methodology. It wasn't that we 21 just terminated the test with no plans on ever doing 22 it again.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

24 1ma'm It was terminating to get 25 out of that situation.

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

2 MR. WINGFIELD: So I'm trying to visualize 3 the SJl50.

4

Yeah.

4 M

5 MR. WINGFIELD: So you say that that comes 6 off the reactor and there's nothing in between the 7 reactor and then this check-valve, or there's a valve 8 that you open --

9 There's isolation valves 10 that are normally open, right? This is your normal 11 BIT injection flow path, so it comes through, charging 12 through the BIT, through the SJl50, then it splits, 13 spreads to all four loops 14 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay.

15-- and injects into your 16 cold legs.

17 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay, and then -- so those 18 four lines that then come in to the SJ150 and then 19 upstream of that, I have a line that cuts off of that, 20 that I'm measuring leakage down, and this is where --

21 Correct.

22 MR. WINGFIELD: -- it's flashing the 23 steam. And is there other inputs, you're saying that 24 could --

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1 MR. WINGFIELD: -- could --

2 Go into that test line.

3 MR. WINGFIELD: Go into that test line?

4 S -11 Yes.

5 MR. WINGFIELD: And that's what you're 6 saying, there's no way to determine whether or not it 7 is the 150 or it's one of these other lines that might 8 be feeding into it.

9 Right. And those other 10 lines tap off of other, right, test lines, so you can 11 check other check-valves. So, you know, we weren't 12 sure whether or not we had leakage back, and weren't 13 -- didn't have a good isolation on one of the other 14 isolations from the test line, or something to that 15 effect.

16 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay. All right, I'm 17 good.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you said that the 19 -- you stopped the test with the intention to 20 re-perform another test. Is that how it went?

21 j Well, once we identified 22 what the potential cause was, right, the performance 23 test had to be completed, right? It's a schedule 24 activity that's got a surveillance frequency. So our 25 intent was to, sooner or later, once we identified the NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS Ih 2-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 issue, complete the test.

2 MR. WINGFIELD: And how was it -- how was 3 it resolved, again? I don't know if you said that and 4 I missed it.

5 I don't think I did. And I 6 can't recall. I know we didn't replace the 7 check-valve or anything, so I'm not sure if it was 8 that we found another valve leaking back. I just 9 can't recall.

10 MR. WINGFIELD: Could it have been done on Ii another shift?

12 CjJ Oh, yeah, it was. It was 13 resolved on another shift and subsequently tested SAP.

14 But I just don't recall the actions that allowed us to 15 pass the test, because I don't -- I don't believe I 16 came back in that night either, so I think it was days 17 later when I came back on shift, and it was --

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You had your 19 result.

20 *; Yeah..

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. That was just 23 the second incident that you were talking about in 24 terms of some push-back that you were getting fro 25 in particular. Were there any other ones NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f\ &

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61 1 that involved that you would -- you 2 would question, that were in terms of appropriate 3 direction or guidance?

4 - No. And even in the case of 5 the SJ150, I don't -- I mean, I didn't feel -- at that 6 time I didn't feel challenged by[* I think he was 7 pushing back the organization from an engineering 8 standpoint that, "Hey, you guys are already working on 9 not doing this test, so why are we doing this test?"

10 And to be honest, that may have been the outcome, is 11 that he pushed engineering to the point where they 12 finished their paperwork to support not performing the 13 test. I just don't recall what the final resolution 14 for that issue was.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's why you 16 said it tested later and was SAP?

17 It may have. I don't 18 recall.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

20 I'm just trying to remember.

21 Like I said, I was off. I believe I was off the next 22 couple of days, and when I came back, the issue was 23 resolved. So it may have been --

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So it may have.

25 Right. It may have been NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1,

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1 that he pushed the path of not performing the PT 2 anymore, because I know we don't do it today.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

4 9 Other -- other instances?

5 Not that I can remember specific to. actions.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about anybody 7 else in senior management?

8 There was one, one time.

9 Now, this was Unit 1, again coming out of a refueling 10 outage. Trying to think of the refueling outage. May 11 have been 1-R14. I'm trying to recall. May have been 12 fall -- well, may have been I-R14.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which puts it where?

14 I'm not sure of the time frame.

15 October 2002 time frame, 16 where we were once again doing the mode changes coming 17 up from when we shut down Mode 5 to Mode 4 to Mode 3.

18 And in that progression we identified 14 containment 19 fan coolant unit had a service floor leak in the 20 containment, or reported -- reportedly had a leak in 21 the containment. I had not verified it. We had not 22 sent operators in yet to verify it, but we held up 23 moving the plant forward to investigate the report.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is this calling 25 for an up-power or down-power? , /r_

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1 j Yeah, this is raising --

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Up-power?

3 Yes.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

5 ;And I want to believe we 6 were trying to make the transition from Mode 5 to Mode 7 4, and we stopped before we made the transition 8 because of this reported leak on the 14 fan coolant 9 unit, because it would have been a containment --

10 containment integrity issue, or a potential 11 containment integrity issue, from my standpoint and 12 the shift manager's standpoint.

13 And I don't remember the time frame, but 14 we had delayed the activity's progress for a period of 15 time, maybe an hour or so, and we were trying to align 16 personnel to go in and investigate, and we were trying 17 also to get some feedback from the people that 18 reported it. And within maybe an hour to an hour and 19 a half of us stopping the evolution, notifying the 20 Outage Control Center that we were investigating this, 21 *came into the control room and made a 22 statement to me, to the words -- to the effect of 23 "Who's holding up the -- who's holding up the power 24 ascension?" -- to that effect. And then when I said, 25 well, you know, it's my call, that we're investigating NEAL R.GROSS I C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 this, there was some conversation about investigating 2 after the mode change, that it wasn't -- that he had 3 more of the story, and it wasn't an issue with a leak.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he have 5 more of the story?

6 d'M & He may have had. He may 7 have thought he had more of the story, but I think we 8 had the same story, that it may have been on a flange, 9 it may have not been on a flange, and that's what we 10 wanted to investigate, we wanted to identify. So I 11 think he was believing whatever the story he heard.

12 We wanted to investigate to determine what exactly we 13 had.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's what 15 you're supposed to do.

16 EL3 Right.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

18 1 So that was pretty 19 short-lived, and -- but that one kind of struck me 20 odd, in just the language that was used about, you 21 know, "Who's holding up my power ascension?" and 22 something to that effect.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Other words that were 24 reported about that incident were "Who's holding --

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1 sound familiar to you?

2 L That was the word; that's 3 right. Now, I was trying to remember what the exact 4 words were, because I know it struck a chord with me, 5 and that' s exactly -- the words were "Who's holding my 6 plant hostage?"

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

8 - And I can't remember that 9 discussion going very far along, other than the 10 discussion "Hey, we're going to investigate it." And 11 it was a brief discussion, a few minutes, and then 12 had left, either left the control room or went 13 and talked to another individual. But I was in the --

14 I can remember I was in the control room proper and he 15 was in the vestibule area outside, and after he made 16 that comment, I kind of made my reply and walked away, 17 so I didn't really get an opportunity to continue with 18 the discussion.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that the 20 first thing he said when he came into the control 21 room?

22 M I think that was the first 23 thing he'd said to me. I don't know if he had talked 24 to other people.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was it a NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS iiH 7 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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00 1 one-on-one like we're talking now, or was it --

2 Yeah, it was. And if you're 3 -- I don't know if you're familiar with the Salem 4 control room, but you have the reactor panels in the 5 back that separate, like, the vestibule where we have 6 our drawing area, and the control room proper. And 7 it's about as wide as this table, maybe about 8 four-foot tall. It was across that, and it was just 9 him to I. And there may have been other people that 10 heard it. I'm sure there were, because the control 11 room supervisor sits, you know, from Ted to you, the 12 distance away from where was standing.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did that surprise you 14 coming from him at this point in time?

15 Yeah, it did.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that the first 17 time you heard something like that from him?

18 Yeah. And from that -- kind 19 of from that perspective, that was the first time I'd 20 heard that kind of tone and approach used, and 21 honestly I can't remember another time where he had 22 that following, and that -- so it was kind of out of 23 character. And I think that, and the choice of words 24 that he used about holding the plant hostage, struck 25 a chord with me, and just -- that's why I didn't NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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0/

1 converse very long, or just gave him my point of view 2 and walked away.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned 4 tone. What tone did he say it in?

5 Kind of, you know, a 6 challenging tone, I'll say, like "Who" -- you know, 7 "Who thinks they have the authority to stop this plant 8 startup?" -- type of tone.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You couldn't 10 have liked that very much, I wouldn't think.

11 11 It didn't -- I mean, it 12 didn't upset me, it surprised me.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Uh-huh.

14 Coming fro especially 15 it surprised me, because like I say, I'd never had 16 that type of interaction wit prior to that.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was his 18 title at that time? Was heQ Would he have 19 been?

20 Yeah, I believe so. I'm 21 pretty sure he wa at that time.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you know he 23 was coming down to the control room?

24 No. And that was unusual in 25 itself, too, that at that period of time, that he NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 47~ C 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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%.JI 1 would come in.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, why is that?

3 Is it that you would typically se.

4 instead of him, or --

5 j Typically, when you're in 6 the IOPs doing the mode changes, unless you're doing 7 the reactor startup, typically don't seeor 8 CNO or anybody else come in the control room, you 9 know, on a -- on a regular basis.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why is that?

11 I mean, I'm not --

12 .. Just I don't think there's 13 any reason, it's just something you don't see, 14 especially when you know that you're -- I'll say, had 15 he come in -- let's say there was no issue, and*

16 came in and had a conversation; it wouldn't have 17 probably stuck out at all.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

19 But I think the whole thing 20 sticks out in my mind more so because of the whole 21 situation surrounding, right, that we'd stopped the 22 startup because of the concern we had. And that was 23 the first time that I had seen him in quite a period 24 of time come into the control room. So I had no 25 doubts that he came specifically because we were NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 start- -- we stopped the startup.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And when -- how 3 did you respond to him, again, when he said this?

4 We had some interaction 5 about "Hey, I want to investigate; we're sending a 6 team in to look at it."

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is what 8 you're telling him?

9 0 Yeah 10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

ii And it was a pretty short 12 discussion, and I turned and either got called away or 13 walked away intentionally. I can't recall.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was it a heated 15 discussion?

16 No, not at all. I mean, I 17 think it could have been, right. Depends on how I 18 would have approached the situation, because I think 19 he came in with some attitude about, you know, "Who 20 thinks they have the authority to make the decision to 21 stop the startup?" But I don't recall that that got 22 heated.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: A little 24 unusual for a to turn his back on his 25 though? Is that in your mind?

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1 Like I said, I can't --

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: To me, it 3 sounds unusual. I just want to get into --

4 Yeah.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- the 6 interaction a little bit.

7 1.1 know when -- like when 8 that day was done, I didn't feel that either had

.9 to make amends with me or I had to make amends with 10 I don't think the whole interaction was that 11 way. I think that I made it clear to him that it was 12 the right thing to do. And I just can't remember the 13 full discussion, but I know I didn't walk away from 14 it, you know, ticked off or anything else, that he 15 came in and challenged us. And I would think that he 16 probably didn't walk away, you know, upset or angry or 17 anything else, either.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you told 19 him about your planned actions, did he respond?

20 3 Yeah, he did.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Verbally?

22. Yeah. I just can't remember 23 what the response was.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he get back 25 with you later in the day about -- about the NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1!

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1 discussion? Did you guys talk about it later in the 2 day?

3 No.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At any point 5 after then did he talk to you about how you responded 6 to him when he came in the control room?

7 No, not -- the reason I 8 hesitate, we didn't -- we didn't have a -- go back and 9 have a discussion, one on one or anything else, about 10 that.

11 But I know later on there was a period of 12 time where the shift managers had -- I'm trying to 13 think of the mechanism -- had raised issues with that 14 type of approach, right, from both and 15 perspective, and so we had a conference call-16 slash-meeting sometime after this to discuss just that 17 type of -- that type of interaction that had been 18 happening a couple of different places along the way.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to 20 pick up on that in a few minutes --

21 4okay.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- since you 23 brought it up.

24 Tell you what, just 25 remembering that, right, that that little thing.

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1 happened with the conference call and all.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's finish 3 with this --

4 Okay.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- particular 6 issue and then we'll move on.

7 But there was no -- no, 8 there was no later discussion between and I 9 specific to that interaction.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you suffer 11 any type of retribution from 4 . for the way you 12 responded to him, or for how you responded to him over 13 that issue?

14 J None that I was aware of.

15 I mean, I didn't--

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did it show up 17 in your --

18 j1 I didn't feel 19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did it show up 20 in your performance appraisal or anything?

21 =L o 22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. What 23 happened then? This issue came up, he comes in the 24 control room, you tell him how you're going to 25 proceed. What happens with the issue?

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1 I seem to have a lack of 2 memory on what we would do at the outcome, but we sent 3 people in to investigate.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

5 c3 I can't recall if we fixed 6 it or decided it wasn't a -- was not an issue. But 7 whatever, whatever we determined was -- I just can't 8 recall. I don't know if it's --

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did the startup 10 continue at some point --

11 Yeah.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -- shortly 13 after, I mean, that day, next day?

14 I think it was that day, I 15 think within a short period of time. It may have been 16 -- I just can't recall. The resolution may have been 17 tightening bolts on the flange that resulted in that 18 -- that seems to be what I remember. And I know 19 whatever the outcome was, I was comfortable with it.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

21 w Mii& I mean, I didn't have any 22 issues. It may have been just tightening the flange 23 which --

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

25 -- stopped the leakage. I NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 just really didn't want to misspeak and --

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Were 3 you then allowed to do what -- and have yourW do 4 what you thought was needed to be done to investigate 5 this issue before moving forward?

6 Yes.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you 8 allowed to do that?

9 Ys 10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Without undue 11 pressure or push-back from senior management, I guess 12 is the follow-up.

13 Yeah, there was -- after 14 that initial interaction, I don't believe there was 15 any other interaction. But I mean, I didn't feel --

16 that's one thing, I never let that type of pressure 17 make decisions for me, because, you know, I always 18 wanted to -- wanted to do what I felt was right, but 19 also the shift managers or CRS, what they -- what they 20 also felt comfortable with doing. So there was never 21 -- because that approach was taken from/ f 22 perspective, that didn't -- I didn't feel threatened 23 by that, and I also didn't even consider changing what 24 we were going to do as far as the investigation.

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1 with any shift managers when that happened?

2 I believe we talked about 3 it. I can't remember specifics, but I know -- and 4 that's where I was leading to with the conference 5 call-slash-meeting that we had, because I think that 6 and maybe some other things that happened to other 7 *were starting to bubble up, and I think 8 that resulted in the conference call meeting as -- was 9 a result of just that. So I know I had discussed it 10 with other people, and I know there were other people 11 there. that had heard it, but I just can't recall who.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall who the Lan- was at that time?

13 14 It may have been me. I may 15 have been the -- I believe I was. I think during the 16 -- I think during that outage,. .M-11 and I, at 17 a point in the outage, we changed our rules over to 18 where we would be the for the outage, 19 since we had such a big part in preparing for the 20 outage and everything else. So I may have been the 21 22 And I'm trying to think now, now that I'm 23 thinking back, that seems like it may have been longer 24 ago than 1-R14, but that may have been -- you know, I 25 don't think that was attached to 1-R14. That may have NEAL R. GROSS f.-If "7 COURT REPOHTERSt AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 been, I think, October of 2001 we had a -- like a 2 thirty-day shut-down on Unit 1. That may have been 3 attached to that. So they all run together.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I imagine so. I 5 think originally you put this in October 2002.

6

Yeah.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In that time frame.

8 Well, I was trying to attach 9 it to an outage, from a startup perspective. So the 10 time frame may have been earlier than that..

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could it have been a 12 startup for some other reason?

13 Yeah, it could. It may have 14 been, because I'm thinking back to people that were 15 there then. And I remember was still 16 there, and he had resigned, like in May of 2002, so it 17 had to be prior to that. So it may have been the 18 October 2001, where we had like a thirty-day 19 shut-down. I apologize for the time frames.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, that's right.

21 : ) They all seem to run 22 together.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's understandable.

24 The -- this issue with the comment, "why 25 are you holding the plant hostage?" -- you're NEAL RMGOSS AK~rr0 T AKI~I~~UIF.~I~I All I c&

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1 indicating that's the first time you heard it was 2 associated with this particular event, right?

3 Those words? Yeah, it was 4 the 14 containment fan cooling unit.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From information that 6 we've developed going through this inquiry, apparently 7 those words were said at least often enough to cause 8 it to be readily identified with -- other people heard 9 it, and they equate it with "Why is operations making 10 unreasonable demands?" That's what it means to them 11 in ops management. What are the reasons that go into 12 that? What kind of -- what kind of things were you 13 coming up against, that this was being asked on a 14 routine basis? What were the sort of situations that 15 were -- that were causing that interaction and that 16 friction there?

17 EMIRUI/ I can't answer for, 18 obviously, all the other interactions people had. But 19 from my perspective, this being one of the events, I 20 think it was just trying to streamline the process, 21 getting out of the outage and back on line.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -- it's a time or 23 schedule pressure type of issue?

24 jJFor some, yeah. I mean, I 25 don't know -- and I'll us jjas an example. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 don't know what pressure he was feeling at the time 2 for, you know, getting the plant back on line or 3 whatnot.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about withy 5 0r situations like this where --

6 do you recall being in a position where you're 7 comfortable with where you are, and having that 8 challenged from senior management?

9 Having them challenge me?

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Having them challenge 11 what you're doing.

12 AI think -- I mean, I've 13 always realized somewhere along the line that that's 14 part of their job responsibility, right, to not let us 15 have free rein and -- you know, to hold up every 16 question that we have, or you know, proceeding 17 forward, that it's not always the correct mechanism.

18 So I would say that I understood sometimes why we were 19 being questioned.

20 And another event was . .

21 specific, was the startup of Unit 1. And this is --

22 or Unit 2. Don't write too fast, 'cause I got to 23 think. Spring of '03. I think it was the startup of 24 Unit 2, and Unit 1 was about 50 percent power 25 following a grassing event. So we were starting up NEAL R.GROSSf)I7 IDTM- 0OnOATDOC AKIMf OAKICP1MDC 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 Unit 2. And part of our pre-startup discussion was 2 how many circulators would we have back in service 3 before we -- we either went on line -- I think it was 4 before we went on line. I can't remember if it was 5 before we went on line, or critical, but before we 6 proceeded in plant operations. Unit 1 was sitting at 7 approximately 50 or 55 percent power with four 8 circulators in service, and what we had said prior to 9 the startup of Unit 2, that we wanted five circulators 10 in service to start up the unit.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry, you just 12 said something about Unit 1. I was writing.

13 Yeah, Unit 1 was about 50 14 percent, 55 percent power with four circulators in 15 service.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 50, 55 with four 17 circulators. Okay.

18 Correct. Unit 2 was 19 off-line, and we were making preps to return Unit 2 to 20 service.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how many did you 22 have?

23 A I think we had four at the 24 time, the time of this discussion that I'm going to 25 describe.

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1 Procedural requirements -- there are no 2 procedural requirements for the number of circulators 3 to have to progress on a -- in a power ascension.

4 There are requirements that we have at least two 5 circulators in service. If I look at the abnormal 6 operating procedure for circ-water, if I lose four 7 circulators, I have to trip the unit. So that's about 8 the most guidance you have as far as how many 9 circulators you have to have. So from a procedure 10 standpoint, if I had two or three circulators, I could 11 start the facility up, you know, but --

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You say if you lose 13 four, you have to trip the unit?

14 C71 Correct.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Out of a possible how 16 many?

17 Out of six.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it six?

19 Out of six, yeah.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

21 1 # So using that as the basis, 22 I could start the plant up with two circulators, and 23 have no margin, right? Obviously, the more 24 circulators I have, especially considering it's 25 grassing season, I still have a potential that -- of NEAL R.GROSS TRANSCRIBERS AlI~

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1 grass, or the river detritus levels affect my 2 circulator availability. So we determined, based on 3 that, the condition, material condition of the 4 circ-water equipment, which we were having problems 5 with screens, et cetera. We said we would have five 6 circulators prior to starting the plant up.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who's "well?

8 "We" being the management 9 team. I'll sa myself, the 0 10 As far as I know, 11 was involved in that.

12 Typically, we - was very good about 13 chain of command, so I'd -- you know, I'd have the 14 discussion with the shift manager, involve and

- 15 then either if asn't already involved, then 16 would call ,would call and that's 17 typically how our chain of command -- very rarely did 18 we all get on a conference call. And from discussions 19 I had witha he said that was intentional on his 20 part, so that he avoided the group-think mentality, 21 right, he was able to stand back and look at our 22 decisions..

23 And so, in this case the decision was 24 already made to have five circulators.

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1 pressure came into play, that we had four circulators, 2 and the plant was ready, from all the maintenance 3 activities completed, to continue the power ascension.

4 Whether that was reactor-critical to startup, I just 5 can't recall.

6 So there was a call made in to the control 7 room, and I can't -- I think a conference call was 8 arranged. I can't remember specifically who arranged 9 the conference call, but on the call were 10 n the 11 telephone, myself, M_

1.2 and I can't remember i there 13 the whole time -- came in for turn-over, but I think 14 he was there for at least part of the discussion. So 15 we had the conference call to discuss continuing the 16 startup with four circulators, versus five.

17 And I kind of came into the discussion 18 after a couple of minutes, and my perspective was, 19 we'd already made the plans that we'd have five 20 circulators; to accept less was being less 21 conservative. And the discussion got heated, in that 22 perspective was that four versus five 23 circulators was not a nuclear safety issue, right, it 24 was a -- it was more of a "want" than a nuclear safety 25 issue. And to that light, you know, his proof was NEAL R GOSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 that, you know, 1 was now operating at 55 percent 2 power with four circulators, so why did we think we 3 needed five for Unit 2?

4 So from my perspective, you know, my point 5 of view was that five is more conservative. It's one 6 way to get the fifth circulator back, from pushing the 7 organizational standpoint, 'cause, hey, if I -- if I 8 say I need that fifth one back, I'm going to get it 9 back. If I start to plan it, it's less likely that 10 I'm going to get it back.

11 And due to the river conditions, it's more 12 defense-in-depth, as far as a circulator. Right now, 13 circulators aren't figured into defense-in-depth 14 mechanisms for core damage frequency, but they are --

15 they present a challenge to the operators.

16 So from my perspective, it was, I'm less 17 likely to challenge the, operators having five 18 circulators than I am with four. So that discussion 19 went on for a period of time with input from other 20 shift managers, and it got to the point where I just 21 felt the conversation wasn't progressing forward. And was seeing it one way and I was seeing it another, 23 and there was not going to be any change in that, 24 obviously, and I got up and walked out of the 25 conversation.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You explained your 2 perspective. Were you explaining it to him?

3 Yeah.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so what you're 5 telling us --

6 In that same light.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- is the same thing 8 you were presenting toj 9 j Right. Right.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Was he the 11 only one on that side of the fence, or were there 12 others with him on that?

13 I don't recall anybody 14 having a strong opinion to support four. I think 15

was kind of floating back and forth as 16 the shift manager, as far as four or five, but I don't 17 remember any strong opinions saying four was --

18 anybody else joining the argument, saying four was 19 acceptable.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were others 21 joining the argument on your side of the equation, "We 22 think. we need five," based on the reasons you just 23 cited?

24 eah.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who would they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS uI 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 have been?

2 I believe as. As I 3 say, was I think was, to some degree, 4 I think got involved.

5 And I can't remember when came in, because I don't 6 remember him being there at the start of the 7 conversation, but I remember him having input before 8 I walked out, to that effect, about having five.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Where were 10 . coming out during this 11 discussion you were having with#

12 To be honest, I don't 13 remember saying anything on the conference call.

14 And I think was initially on the side of but 15 1 think he became silent somewhere through the 16 discussion also.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So was it a 18 heated discussion between you an j then? Is that 19 what it boiled down to?

20 - Pretty much, yeah.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEA&OR: "Heated";

22 describe for me what's going on. Why is it? Why is 23 he--

24 It's not yelling, but I 25 mean, it's two people trying to get their point NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 21~~

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1 across, right? So maybe slightly elevated tones, by 2 no means yelling. I didn't feel threatened by 3 and, hopefully, didn't feel threatened by what my 4 discussion input was.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Profanity?

6 j I can't say no; I don't 7 recall.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did it get 9 personal?

10 Q I believe there may have 11 been threats to or challenges to my manhood; I can't 12 recall, but I . .

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You'd recall.

14 You'd recall that.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way?

16 I can't recall at this time.

17 I've had other discussions where --

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Just trying to 19 draw it out of you, that's all.

20 You know, I just can't 21 recall. I mean, I've had other discussions where my 22 manhood was challenged, so I'm just -- I mean, I'm 23 sure that there was some profanity. I just can't 24 recall in what light, because it was -- like I said, 25 it was a pretty heated discussion. And it got to the NEAL R.GROSS C-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 point where -- and I -- I know it got to the point 2 where I felt that I wasn't going to make any progress 3 in this discussion, and it may have been because I 4 felt like I was being, not criticized from a decision 5 standpoint, but criticized as a person that -- I said, 6 "Hey, I'm not going to take this, " and just walked 7 out.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall what 9 the comment was that triggered that?

10 C,-/ .j No, I don't. I do -- I do 11 know that what I didn't realize, the way took my 12 walking out was that I was using my position as a 13 t the facility as a trump card.

14 And that was not my intention. It was just like "This 15 conversation is not going anywhere; I don't want to be 16 involved anymore with it." took it as I was using 17 the trump card, which I found out the next day when I 18 had a conversation with him, but --

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Holding the 20 plant hostage, did that come up?

21 No. It may have; I don't 22 recall. Like I said, I was -- you get to a level 23 where, you know, you're upset by the discussion, and 24 having your discussion -- and I can't recall exactly 25 what was said. I just knew it was upsetting me that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 the discussion wasn't only about the plant, it was --

2 it was taking a personal angle too.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He was taking 4 it personally to you?

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He was or --

6 *.Yeah.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this 8 doing that?

9 ,jj Yeah.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall -- I 11 mean, you said it got to a point where you think your 12 manhood was challenged. I mean, do you recall what --

13 how that was stated? It made an impact with you, but 14 do you --

15 Yeah., Yeah, I don't recall 16 the specifics, and I think that's part of the fact 17 that I was in the argument mode also, right, that --

18 so maybe I wasn't listening to everything he was 19 saying, and I'm sure the same from his perspective.

20 So I don't recall everything that he said. I just 21 know I didn't feel comfortable in that discussion.

22 MR. WINGFIELD: Something to the effect of 23 "What, are you scared? It's only four doing 55," or 24 something like that? "Why do you need -- why do you 25 need a fifth one?" -- something like that?

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1MO I mean, that was part of the 2 discussion, right. You know, it bounced back and 3 forth between "Hey, you know, why can you tell me 4 you're okay on Unit 1 now? Between Unit 2" -- and 5 that, you know, type of thing, you know: "Are you 6 afraid to operate the plant?" -- that type of 7 language.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you get 9 personal back with him?

10 I may hale. I don't-- I 11 don't recall. I mean, that's typically not my nature, 12 though. I mean -- so I would want to say no, but I 13 just can't recall.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he make it 15 personal first?

16,3 I also don't recall that.

17 By asking that, you're implying I did, so I don't 18 recall that I got personal either. But he did get 19 personal, - But I don't know that the 20 personaL-was toward me or toward the group of people.

21 And I think it's kind of along the lines had 22 stated about "Are you afraid to operate the plant?" --

23 that type of thing.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But you 25 indicated a couple of minutes ago that it got to a MII -7G--

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1 point where you got up and left because it was 2 personal, not questioning your -- the decision, but it 3 was getting personal or questioning you. You did say 4 that.

5 U. Right. And I mean, 6 everybody else in the -- in the room may have been 7 taking it the same way also, right, because the 8 dialogue was between and I.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

10 But I don't kowthathe --

11 you know, saying that, "Are you afraid to operate the 12 plant," I was taking that personal, well, 13 411 may have taken the it same way, sitting 14 behind the desk, right? It was a discussion about 15 operating the facility, and we as the operators, 16 although the discussion was between and I. So I 17 took it personal. I don't know if that's how he 18 intended it or not; we never had that discussion, but 19 that's how I took it.

20 And I saw -- the reason that I got up and 21 left the room was, I saw that this discussion was not 22 going anywhere, right, and I thought the discussion 23 was getting ugly, in the fact that, you know, it 24 wasn't -- it wasn't just now the four versus five, it 25 was, you know, the type of terminology, "Are you NEAL R.GROSS CuUU- II RiR TI1" AND IMANSCRIIBER I 1 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 afraid to operate the plant, and that type of thing.

And I wish I could remember the specifics that made me It II ~ - ~-

~ _____________ -- ~ ~

3 teel -tiat-wy Ijust~ can' trememaber the "specific 4 wording that was used.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anybody else 6 leave the discussion?

7 *C Yeah, but they didn't leave 8 the discussion for the reason that I left the 9 discussion. I think after that the discussion was 10 almost over. I think that pretty much ended the 11 discussion.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

13 MR. WINGFIELD: So what happened? Start 14 up with four and went to the fifth one, or what?

15 SThat's when -- because once 16 again, I think we had five, but I can only remember 17 the story, I can't remember the ending. Could have 18 been five. I honestly don't recall. I think we 19 waited till we had the fifth one, which was later that 20 shift, but --

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was it your 22 decision on whether to go forward with four or five?

23 You said you were the I 24 Ultimately, yeah, as the 25 rj shift, by tech specs --

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

- hat Rit is the position .

3 of the of t faclifty. So ultimate y-4 it is my call.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

6 - But that -- by walking out 7 of that meeting, by no means was that my intent. That 8 was not what I was trying to do.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You said you 10 had enough.

11 - Right.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It wasn't going 13 anywhere.

14 Right. But it wasn't -- I 15 think

took it from the perspective that I pulled 16 a trump card. Matter of fact, that's what he told me.

17 That was not my intent by leaving the discussion. I 18 was just fed up with the discussion. It wasn't that 19 NHey, you're going to do what I say, and I'm going to 20 walk out of the room."

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You say it was your 22 call, it would ultimately have been your call as 23 f'Did you make the call to do 24 the startup at that point?

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1 startup at that point.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so what happens 3 there? Who is -- who was the at that 4 point in time?

5 "had the 6 shift, and I think at the time, there was that -- I 7 believe 8 So had the -- they were in the processing of 9 turn-over. I don't even know if they'd started 10 turn-over, butj had came in during the discussion.

II Soualctually had the shift. So as 12 far as command and control functionn.M 13 had that.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so what happens 15 with it then? What's the decision?

16 To be honest with you, I 17 can't remember. I want to say that we waited till we 18 had the fifth circulator, but --

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall having 20 any discussions with 21 After the fact?

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After, after the 23 phone call withE 24 Yeah, there was -- I mean, 25 it was with was there. After the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 conference call there were several other people that 2 we had discussions after the conf- -- after the call 3 ended.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How did he feel about 5 it? Did he express any concerns to you about the way 6 the discussion went or the position he was in?

7 I believe he did. I can't 8 -- I think that the language that he used was the 9 position that we were put in. I don't remember that 10 he voiced a concern that he was put in a specific 11 position. I don't -- I just don't remember.

12 SPECIAL AGENT.NEFF: The group?

13 Yeah.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let's talk 15 about again for a minute. When -- he's on 16 the phone, right, in another part of the site here, or 17 down at the plant? Or is he in an office --

18 He was off-site, I believe.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He was 20 off-site. Okay. Is he telling you his basis for 21 wanting to go forward with four? I mean, you talked 22 a little bit about, well, Unit 1 was at 50 percent, 23 they had four. Did he give you other reasons for why 24 he wanted to go forward on Unit 2 with less than five?

25 Did he proffer other reasons as to --

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1 (Audiotape switched.)

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Approximately 2:20 3 p.m.

4 Ok0ay.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: , I was --

6 my question at the end of tape 1 was, did 7 proffer to you other reasons why he thought the 8 startup could continue with less than five? Other 9 than what we've already talked about, can you think of 10 any other reasons he offered for wanting to go 11 forward, or being able to forward?

12. **3J Well, he -- I mean, he did 13 emphasize several times that it wasn't a nuclear 14 safety issue.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

16 Right, that the number of 17 circulators, between four and five, was not a nuclear 18 safety issue, and that -- and then, you know, referred 19 back to the fact that Unit 1 was where it was. And I 20 can't recall any other input to the discussion as far 21 as why.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you agree 23 with his position that it was not a nuclear safety 24 issue, during the call?

25 3 Correct.

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You did?

2 Correct.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

4L That it wasn't a nuclear 5 safety concern, it was a potential challenge to the 6 operators, in the fact that you're still in grassing 7 season, so continuing up with four versus five put you 8 that much closer to having to initiate another 9 shut-down if we were to have an event which initiated 10 the shut-down in the first place.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Do you 12 know where he was sitting at when he was on the 13 conference call? Do you know where he was at?

14 11. I don't recall.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Did 16 he give any indication to you that he was getting 17 pressure to push for the startup?

18 4 1 don't I don't recall.

19 I mean, there may have been some, some discussion 20 about electric system operator expectations of when 21 we'd be coming on line or -- I don't remember 22 specifics though, as far as him saying that he was 23 being pressured from any specific individual or area.

I 24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You didn't 25 answer No right away. I mean, you really thought A (

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1 about the question for a minute.

2 Yeah. And that's only 3 because I kind of remember some discussion about load 4 dispatch or electrical system operator in there.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What does that 6 mean? I don't know what -- I don't know what that 7 means.

8 0 0 That's basically whenever 9 we're coming -- going to come off line to make power 10 changes, we coordinate that with the electrical -- the 11 grid, basically, right, to make sure that they're 12 aware of whether we're going to add energy or subtract 13 energy from the grid, so that they can maintain grid 14 stability.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

16 So we have that discussion 17 so they can plan.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Regularly 19 during -- during an up-power or down-power?

20 `0J Yeah, right.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay, so tell 22 me--

23 They know ahead of time what 24 our plans are, right, so --

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

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1 Sometimes plans have to change though, when you're 2 operating a nuclear plant.

3 R Yeah, right.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tell me what 5 you remember of his conversation in that area with you 6 during this conference call.

7 f And that's why I -- that's 8 why I hesitated, as I was trying to -- I don't recall, 9 other than some mention of it. I don't -- I don't 10 remember the specifics, I just remember some mention 11 of it. And like I said, I think that was earlier on 12 in the conversation. But I just can't remember the 13 specifics as far as why he brought that into the 14 conversation.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Do 16 you recall him bringing that up at more than one point 17 during the conversation?

18 I don't recall.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Did 20 he refer at all to any kind of pressure being applied 21 to him from the corporate management up in Newark?

22 Did he mention that in any way at all?

23 I don't remember. I'm not 24 saying he didn't, I just don't remember.

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1 have?

2 w He may have, but he may also 3 not have. I mean, I just don't -- there's certain 4 parts of the conversation I remember specifically, but 5 the rest kind of falls into a fog. Yeah, I think it's 6 -- because when you're in that mode of trying to get 7 your point across, you may not be listening totally to 8 what the other person is saying, too. I just -- it 9 was a -- it was a lengthy conversation, so I'm sure a 10 lot was said that I don't recall.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How long was 12 the conversation, around --

13 Half an hour.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Just 15 mostly one on one between you and him?

16 Probably half of it.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Correct 18 me if I'm wrong. It sounds like maybe in the 19 beginning there's people participating. As it got 20 further ihto the call, people dropped off and it's you 21 and him. Is that pretty accurate?

22 Yeah. Yeah, as the 23 conversation went further and further, it became more 24 and more one on one.

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1 talk to your management about thin said to 2 you during that conference call? Did you express any 3 concerns to your next level of management about how 4 you were treated during that call b and 5 things that were said?

6 a I can't remember the 7 specifics as far -- but, yes, I did, the next morning.

8 That call, I believe, was in the 6:00 to 7:00 o'clock 9 p.m. time frame. The next morning, early in the 10 morning, 7:00, 7:00 o'clock, sometime in there,*1 11 came to my office upstairs, walked in and shut the 12 door behind him, and told me that I needed to call 13 back and apologize.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Excuse me?

15 He walked in my office, shut 16 the door, and told me that I needed to call back 17 and apologize.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That you needed 19 to?

20 O i Right; and apologize for the 21 conversation the night before.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you do 23 that?

24 . I immediately -- I said, 25 "Well, what's" -- he said, "He's in his car; call him NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 on his car phone." So I immediately picked up my 2 phone, started dialing. He said, "Well, hold on 3 before you call him," so I put the phone back down, 4 and then he said, "We had a slight discussion and" --

5 and I wasn't calling -- I was calling more to -- not 6 just that he said, "Call up and apologize." I was 7 going to call him and say -- you know, kind of explain 8 my point where it's just the two of us.

9 So I put the phone back down, and and 10 I had a discussion about why he was asking me to do 11 that. And I think part of the language that he used 12 was that told him that I needed to apologize. So 13 I kind of explained toC and he said he agreed 14 with me, but the politically correct thing to do was 15 to call and make the apology.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why did --

17 did ftell you why thought you needed to 18 apologize to him?

19 . I don't recall if at that 20 time w said that -- had told me that, you 21 know, thought I had pulled the trump card.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

23 I And referring back to my 24 comment about ultimately it was my decision, going 25 four to five, I guess I didn't realize it until the NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS . j 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 next -- until this phone call, right, where 2 basically said, "You pulled a trump card," and so 3 during that discussion I wasn't thinking that it was 4 my call to determine whether or not we'd go from four 5 to five circulators. I stated that based on the 6 conversation withl -the next day, where, you know, 7 he said, "Hey, you used the trump card." I didn't 8 even think about that until that time frame, about 9 whose call it really was and who would make that 10 determination, four to five circulators. My opinion 11 was that --

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Five to four, 13 actually.

14 /1 Yeah, right, vice versa, 15 starting up with five versus starting up with four.

16 My opinion at that time was, it was the

17 M call. He's he's got the 18 command and control. The next day, did I realize that 19 from perspective, is, he was looking at me as 20 the sole decision-maker or the final decision-maker on 21 that determination. So I can't remember the exact 22 conversation witA betweenj and I, but I did 23 Cal*

24 And it was a -- I mean, it started off 25 with a friendly conversation. You know, said, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 "Hey, how you doing this morning?" -- that type of 2 thing, and went in -- and I apologized for my actions, 3 and I think he apologized for his conversation. And 4 once again he reiterated that, you know, from his 5 perspective, it wasn't a nuclear safety issue. And I 6 said, "Well, not that I'm disagreeing with you. You 7 know, I have my own things that I'm looking at for --

8 to challenge the operators. I don't want to challenge 9 the operators."

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You don't want 11 to challenge them. Is that what you said?

12 Correct, I didn't want to 13 challenge the operators by --

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I didn't know 15 if that came out.

16 1 . Yeah, bringing them back 17 with less than -- you know, with a minimum component 18 of equipment.

19 At that time -- I'm trying to remember.

20 At that time the abnormal circ-water procedure may 21 have been different than what I stated earlier, 22 because there was a period of time where if you were 23 down to three circulators, you removed the unit from 24 service, and now it's if you're down to two. So at 25 that time it may -- that may have been the big push NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 between three and four -- or four and five, is at four 2 you're only one away from having to take the unit off 3 line. So that conversation ended, and we both -- with 4 no ill-feeling, I'll say.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Really?

6 Yeah.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: On your part 8 you didn't have any?

9 No. I mean, I realize that 10 he has a job to do, right, and whether I understand 11 where the pressure's coming from or not, he's got a 12 job to do. And part of that is, you know, making sure 13 that the plants are moving in the right direction at 14 all times toward generation.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right, it's 16 supposed to generate. You guys --

17 I mean, and that's what he 18 explained to me, you know, that "Hey, you know, I've 19 got a job to do too, and it's -- you know, we can't 20 sit here in Mode 5 all the time." Not that we were in 21 Mode 5, but we can't sit here not generating 22 electricity and be employed forever. And I understand 23 that.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: He said that?

25 Something to that effect.

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1 It wasn't those exact words, but something to that 2 effect, that, you know, we 0ouldn't be in business 3 long if we weren't producing electricity.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How did you 5 take that when he said that? I mean, it makes sense.

6 Y Yeah.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I mean, really 8 in our world, though, that could be taken the wrong 9 way.

10 .But I believe I took it just 11 the way he intended, as not that -- that wasn't 12 telling me that generation at no cost -- that's a fact 13 of life, is that we are here -- I mean, the facility 14 is here to generate electricity. And I think that's 15 the point that he was'trying to make.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What did he 17 apologize for?

18 71 I think in that discussion 19 I told him how -" you know, that I felt like he was 20 attacking me personally in the conversation, and I 21 believe that's what he apologized for.

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall 23 what he said?

24 No.

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -- in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 situation when you were in the conference call 2 discussion, was this another one of these situations 3 where the words were used "holding the plant hostage"?

4 I don't 1J -- I don't remember 5 those words being used. They may have, I just -- I 6 don't remember them being used in this conversation.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

8 MR. WINGFIELD: How much -- we had Unit 1 9 at 50 percent, 50, 55, whatever, with --

10 eh 11 MR. WINGFIELD: -- four circulators. If 12 they had lost one, would they have to come down in 13 power, or could they continue ascending?

14 L Ibelieve at that time the 15 procedures were such that there was an attachment in 16 the back that it was laid out that if you were --

17 depends on the combination of circulators you have, at 18 that time. The procedures have changed.

19 MR. WINGFIELD: Is it the vacuum?

20 Right. But it's not -- the 21 vacuum is not what's going to drive you off line.

22 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay.

23 It's -- there was an 24 Attachment 4 in the previous several revisions ago of 25 the AB circ-water procedure that gave you the specific NEALR. GROSS *\\ C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 combination. You couldn't have -- there are six 2 circulators. You couldn't have three out in a row, so 3 it -- I can't remember where, which four circulators 4 Unit 1 had in, whether or not that was ever going to 5 be challenged, because you could have, you know, two 6 out and not challenged, three in a row, by losing 7 another one. Say if you had the two ends out, you 8 know, you could potentially challenge by losing either 9 one of these. But if you had the middle one out and 10 an end one, you may not have been challenged. But 11 they may have been at that time one circulator away 12 from having to take that unit down also.

13 MR. WINGFIELD: Just down in power, or 14 actually --

15 Well, the Attachment 4, that 16 was always a point of contention and why the procedure 17 was eventually changed. Attachment 4 was labeled --

18 what was it labeled? Something to the effect of 19 "Minimum Requirements for Operation." So it was 20 always trained that if you didn't have those, you had 21 to remove the unit from service.

22 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay. And then, so four 23 was really the minimum, more or less, because if you 24 have one --

25 One less.

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1 MR. WINGFIELD: One less than that, based 2 on that attachment, you're shutting down.

4 MR. WINGFIELD: Okay, so that --

5 And I would have to -- I'm 6 pretty sure at that point in time that the Attachment 7 4 was still in the procedure.

8 MR. WINGFIELD: And that was -- and that 9 was your position on why not to continue up with the 10 power, was "Why would I go up, with only being one 11 away, when it's a in high grassing season? The 12 potential is very high, so I wouldn't put my operators 13 in that. I would expect, conservatively, to lose one, 14 and therefore come up with five, to be able to still 15 come up in power."

16 L That was exactly my point of 17 contention, is that it's not that it's going to be an 18 immediate challenge, it's that the potential is there, 19 right, based on where we are, the most recent history 20 with *grassing, and the fact that we're in the 21 situation we are now because of the grassing. So 22 there was no margin, really.

23 MR. WINGFIELD: All right.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How much time was it 25 going to take for you to get five? What kind of a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 delay were you looking at here?

2 I think that's why the issue 3 came to light, is that we were expecting it back that 4 evening, or maybe earlier that day, and it didn't come 5 back, and there was going to be some delay from a 6 maintenance perspective on returning it. I don't 7 recall the exact time frame, but it wasn't coming back 8 when we expected it to come back.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You said 10 earlier that you agreed wit that it was not 11 a nuclear safety concern. But it sounds like, in your 12 discussion with Ted -- I mean, challenging operators 13 is a nuclear safety concern.

14 ~Yeah, that's correct. When 15 I say, "not a nuclear safety concern, " it's not a 16 direct challenge to nuclear safety as, say, a loss of 17 a safety injection pump would be, so it doesn't --

18 it's not going to increase your core damage frequency.

19 It would potentially challenge the operators, right.

20 The difference between five and four wouldn't 21 challenge the operators in itself, without an outside 22 event occurring, another grassing event or loss of 23 another circulator.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

25 So from a strict nuclear NEAL R. GROSS V COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 safety concern, I agreed that that wasn't a strict 2 nuclear safety concern. It wasn't a safety-related 3 piece of equipment that we were discussing.

4 SR. SPECIALAGENT TEATOR: Right.

5 It was margin to having to 6 shut the plants down.

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Thanks.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, do you want to 9 take that break now?

10 MR. KEENAN: Yeah, I think it would be 11 good.

12 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF: Okay. It's 2:35 p.m.

13 We'll go off the record.

14 (Whereupon, at 2:35 p.m. off the record 15 until 2:58 p.m.)

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're back on 17 the record after a brief break. It's approximately 18 2:58 p.m.

19 You'd said a couple of things, that 20 we picked up on and want to go back to in discussing 21 that last incident involving the grassing. But before 22 we get there, what I'm wondering is, this grassing 23 issue, is this the first time that you were involved 24 in a situation like this, with the number of 25 circulators and the concern regarding the number of NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 circulators? Had this come up before?

2 j I don't remember that it had 3 ever come up before. I mean, I'd been involved, you 4 know, through my career with, you know, fighting river 5 detritus levels and grassing events with circ-water.

6 And I don't -- I don't remember ever having this type 7 of discussion or, you know, even concerns about the 8 number of circulators in raising power.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And with the 10 people present that you were identifying for us, 11* on the phone,'

Ilk, 12 13 resent for that I mean, do you recall any 14 of those in a similar situation?

15 As part of that discussion?

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, that this could 17 have been replicated at some other point in time.

18 Not that I remember.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The reason I'm asking 20 for this is, it's a situation that we heard a little 21 bit about. And you couldn't recall exactly how it was 22 resolved at this point. And what I want to do is go 23 back to the point in time where -- when you left the 24 conversation. I think you just described this as 25 something that occurred 6:00, 7:00 o'clock, or late, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 pretty late in the day.

2 93 Correct.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did -- were you --

4 when you left that conversation, did you engage again 5 with these people on that decision-making, or were you 6 gone for the day?

7 L* We engaged further, but I 8 don't -- I know we had more discussions on it, 9 basically with all the people. may have 10 left to go. I think he may have been the shift outage 11 manager in the OCC. But I know we continued the 12 discussion after a period of time, and I can't 13 remember a lot of the details about it. I think 14 that's -- that may have been like where 15 jmay have been, you know, kind of 16 defending having four versus five, and in that 17 discussion that he would have --

18 8PECIAL AGENT NEFF: That he --

19 - - been comfortable with 20 four.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That he would -- he 22 would have been comfortable with that number?

23 Correct.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In this after 25 conversation, after the conference call? /

ýý1 -

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1 @ And I believe -- I believe 2 that's the case, because I believe part of that 3 discussion was, thinking back, that I came into the 4 conference call -- I think I came into it after it had 5 already been started, or I came into the whole 6 decision after it had started. And I remember having 7 a discussion with* about his comfort level with 8 four versus five and, you know, some conversation that 9 he would have been okay with four versus five in that 10 whole discussion. But I think the outcome was that, 11 you know, we determined that, hey, it would be -- from 12 a challenge to the operators, defense-in-depth type 13 thing, it would be better to have five. And I just 14 don't remember how that whole conversation ended, but 15 there was some -- some conversation afterwards with 16 myself, -m I believe and were all 17 there.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think if we had the 19 same situation, and it seems like we do in terms of 20 time frame, people present, the circulator issue --

21 what we were hearing was that there were three 22 circulators, and that ultimately it was

.23 *who made the decision, and he started up 24 with the minimums that were -- that were present. It 25 didn't change, you didn't get any more back before the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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114 1 startup was commenced.

2 . That could be. I mean, now 3 that you say it, it kind of -- it does kind of ring 4 true. But I don't remember having a discussion 5 concerning that.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But your sense was 7 tha twas comfortable with the number 8 that he had?

9 Yeah.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If it was three, if 11 it was four, he was comfortable with that number while 12 he was engaged in these discussions?

13 Yeah. I don't remember it 14 being three, but I mean, it very well could have been.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The -- at any 16 point in time did you get the sense from

ý17 that he felt the pressure to go in the 18 direction that jwas pushing for that 19 decision? In any discussions with him, did he feel 20 that amount of pressure?

21 *I don't recall having that 22 -- that discussion anywhere along the line, either 23 that night or in the following days. It may have --

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1 to say, that he felt. I just can't remember.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If he didn' t express 3 it, do you -- do you recall thinking about -- do you 4 recall having any thoughts about the position he was 5 in, given -- given the circumstances you're describing 6 for us, you're in this conversation, is 7 kind of being, at a -- at a minimum, we'll say 8 heavy-handed with you, to the point where you leave 9 the discussion.

10 Yeah.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That leaves him 12 senior operator, right? Senior licensed operator in 13 this situation. My understanding is, 14 was on shift at that point as the for 15 maybe a handful of weeks at that point in time.

16 He was new, correct.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He was brand-new.

18 .j Correct.

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And so he's up 20 against -- he's up against what you-were up against in 21 that, in that situation. Did it occur to you at that 22 point in time that that was something, A, that would 23 have affected his decision-making, or B, that it was 24 unfair for him to be in that situation?

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1 fully understand the question. If you're asking did 2 I realize that by me leaving, I was putting him in the 3 same position I was in --

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it strike you 5 that he was in a very difficult position. here? If 6 this is something that you're handling withcoo 7 ,and you leave out of frustration, that puts 8 a new shift manager in front as the decision-maker on 9 this now, right?

10 I didn't -- no, I didn't 11 think about that when I left, and that wasn't the 12 intent either, to put the burden of the decision on 13 somebody else. It was -- my leaving was "Hey, the 14 conversation is over, right? We've made the decision, 15 and we're going to have five circulators."

16 And I don't recall having a discussion 17 with that he felt that way, and that was not my 18 intention to put him in that, in that position either.

19 I mean, wqhen I left, there were other -- other 20 individuals there. And I'll use o 21 '- and I can't remembe osition at that time, 22 but he was in as an -in the 23 operations position, or AOM staff, at that time. I 24 don't think he was AOM staff, but -- I'll say no, that 25 that didn't -- that wasn't part of my thought NEALMR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 processes, by me leaving, putting "Jin that 2 position.

3 Now, and I do -- I mean, that discussion 4 does help me recall. You'd asked me earlier wha 5 apologized for.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

7 And I think in our 8 discussion with I think that's -- from my 9 perspective to him, was the inappropriateness of him 10 having that discussion in the control room proper with 11 the shift manager there. I'm okay with that 12 conversation taking place, but it should not involve 13 the shift manager. If he wants to have that 14 discussion with me or the ops manager, I think that's 15 probably a good, healthy discussion to have, as far as 16 "Okay, hey, we said we were going to'have five; let's 17 think about having four."

18 One of the issues I had was that now you 19 have the senior VP, right -- just specifically 20 addressed having the senior VP basically talking to 21 the shift manager, through two levels of the 22 organization, in one call. So the influence is there.

23 And I think that's what my -- from the discussion the 24 next day withpothat's where I was coming from, is, 25 I thought that was inappropriate, to have that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 conference call in the control room with the shift 2 manager there.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why did you 4 think that was inappropriate?

5 .Because of the pressure that 6 the shift manager may feel, based on the fact that the 7 senior VP is on the phone call, right, discussing the 8 plant direction that's going to be taken. So I didn't 9 have an issue with the conversation, per se, if it was 10 held at a different level, say-- and I an )and 11 W were in a conference call in office, per 12 se, or some -- you know, some other location. But to 13 have the conference call being directed or handled 14 through the shift manager, I thought was 15 inappropriate, specifically because of the pressure 16 that the shift manager may feel through those actions.

17 But that -- as far as the question about 18 me leaving, I didn't think about the pressure falling 19 from my shoulders t shoulders. That wasn't my 20 intent. My intent was just to end the conversation.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, I understand.

22 The -- another comment that you made in 23 talking about that situation was interesting. You 24 said that there were other discussions where your 25 manhood was challenged. Where does that come up? And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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119 1 are they akin to this type of decision-making and 2 where you're going to move the plant and when?

3 V No, the specifics that -- I 4 kind of grin when you say that. The specifics are 5 something about our interaction between and 6 myself, not plant-related, simulator-related, out 7 doing an evaluation on the training crew that's in the 8 simulator. And rom time to time would stop in 9 the simulator and just kind of see what was going on 10 in the simulator and observe things. So on this day 11 in particular there was a CRS reading a procedure.

12

was on one side of the console, called the 13 console. We call -- typically, we call it a horseshoe 14 because of the arrangement of the -- and I'm drawing 15 here, for your tape.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you.

17 jj It's basically a U for the 18 control room area. Here's where your CRS sits; we 19 call that a bunk perch. And then the RP panels, which 2'0I talked about earlier whereanI were speaking 21 across, those are here and here. And the OS office is 22 actually here for Unit 1, or if you're on the opposite 23 unit, it's there. So for the sake of the simulator, 24 Unit 2, because it's just a mirror image. It's the 25 same office, just what side you're on, right. Either NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12U 1 you're over here on Unit 2 or you're over here on Unit 2 1. So this is what we call the horseshoe. We have a 3 desk area in here with the computers. Typically, your 4 reactor operator is standing in this area, and then 5 your plant operator is usually -- during non-defense, 6 normal day-to-day operation, he's here at the computer 7 helping people that are coming in the control room for 8 their assistance.

9 So for this specific day in the simulator 10 -- I typically do as-found. As theIwol 11 do the as-found simulator exams for all the licensed 12 individuals, right? First day back at training, every 13 ten weeks, they come back for two weeks of training, 14 and the first day back you have as-found exams. And 15 1 would typically locate myself here.

16 came in that day and, you know, 17 exchanged greetings, and proceeded and came over here 18 and watched the scenario, and he watched probably an 19 hour to an hour and a half of the scenario. Af ter the 20 scenario, he walked right over to me and-said, "Hey, 21 let's take a walk." We walked out of the simulator, 22 walked down the hall, and he asked me what I thought 23 about the scenario, and I told him I thought it was 24 good, they needed to work on a few things -- and get 25 to the cafeteria and sit down in the cafeteria, and I S

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1 said, "Well, what did you think?" He said, "Well, I 2 think you need to fire the CRS," the control room 3 supervisor. It kind of struck me odd, because I 4 didn't see any, really, performance shortfalls that 5 would warrant an individual being fired, much less --

6 much less even failing the scenario. So the 7 conversation was that he didn't think he looked 8 professional, that the NCO looked more professional 9 than the CRS -- nothing to do with the guy's 10 performance, it was all -- from our discussion, it was 11 all based on the appearance, right? The gentleman in 12 question was -- he's shorter in stature, he wears 13 short hair, but it -- you know, at that point in time 14 it looked like it had been awhile since he'd had a 15 haircut and, you know, had some growth of hair on his 16 neck. You know, brought all those things -- not 17 the height thing, but j brought up the hair, that 18 he needed a haircut, and that his clothes didn't look 19 like they were ironed, as the NCO's. So I said, 20 "Well, 1 don't think that warrants terminating 21 the employment of an employee." His performance --

22 I had no issues with his performance. And he said, 23 "Well, don't be a mouse. You know, if somebody's got 24 to be fired, you need to fire him." "Well, I disagree 25 with you; I don't think he needs to be fired." And NEAL R.GROSS A\\

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122 1 then there were some more words, and I just made it 2 clear to him that I wasn't going to fire the guy based, 3 on, you know, his observation of whether or not he 4 thought the guy looked professional in appearance or 5 not. And the individual wasn't wearing a tie, which 6 -411"]always thought licensed operators should wear 7 ties. But our policy was that control room 8 supervisors wouldn't, so that was part of it also. So 9 along that same discussion lines it was, you know, 10 first "Don't be a mouse" and then "Don't be a wimp,"

11 that type of terminology being used in the discussion.

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who was the 13 14Afw 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is he still 16 here?

17 Yeah. He's not a 18 his choice. During reorg he had the opportunity to do 19 what he really likes to do, which is 20 so he's now an initial 21 Matter of fact, we tried to bring him 22 back to the within the last month, and he bid the 23 position, and at the last minute said he would like --

24 he likes it here better, so -- but that had no impact Jncareer. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.

19A9nýVA.AA 4.q W A .*HINlt4Tr"N fr P qf 1;..fA7fl t9mn "4A.AA1

1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about yours?

2 No. I mean, I'm the type of 3 person that if -- I mean, good or bad, if I don't 4 agree with what's being said, I'm not -- I'm going to 5 say that, right? I.mean, and it doesn't -- to me, it 6 doesn't matter whether it's telling me,k 7 :telling me, if I don't agree with it and it's 8 wrong, and in this case it was, that's my stance, 9 right? Now, that may lead to my termination, but, you 10 know, I'm to the point where I'm not going to fire a 11 guy because we want to make a point of something.

12 You know, along those same lines I had a 13 discussion wit later, after this, where, as 14 part of my involvement with another individual's 15 performance, partnership or performance appraisal 16 process, this individual had asked me to come along to 17 support her in her one-on-one interview wit' 18 And I got there late, and pretty much they were done 19 with their one-on-one.

20 So, since I walked in, thedand I 21 had a conversation, and it was about creating change 22 within Salem operations, specifically from a 23 leadership standpoint. And at that point in time 24 directed me once again to fire somebody. He 25 didn't care who, "Just go fire somebody," to create a HEAL R GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 burning platform. So at that time I told I 2 disagreed with it: "That's not the way that I manage 3 people. And if you want to fire somebody, fire me; 4 that will be your burning platform. But I'm not going 5 to fire somebody just to terminate their employment."

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: A burning 7 platform?

8 D Yeah, that was my words to 9 him. I said, "If that's what you want to have for 10 your burning platform, right, to create angst, 11 whatever, in the department to get people's attention 12 to -- so they'll understand the" -- I'll say 13 sensitivity to change.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of a change 15 was he trying to effect at that point?

16 That we, as Salem 17 operations, weren't site leaders, right from the 18 control room supervisor position -- they weren't doing 19 what thought their job was, or from a shift 20 management perspective, they weren't leading the site, 21 right, making the site effective from a work 22 management perspective or anything else.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When was this, 24 do you think, that conversation, approximate?

25 That was late spring, early NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (4,1 7C-,

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1 summer of 2003.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It'd have to be late 3 spring, right? Wasn't he gone in April 2003?

4 This was -- yeah, it was.

5 It was shortly before -- I mean, it was within the 6 last month or two of his tenure.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And he didn't have 8 anybody in mind, it was just "Go fire somebody," and 9 that would establish leadership?

10 ** Yeah, there was no 11 individual specified.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Didn' t circle anybody 13 on a chart --

14 m No.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and say, "Go after 16 this individual"?

17 No. He said, "You need to 18 fire somebody." I said, "Well, I'm not going to fire 19 anybody." And it was just, I mean, that -- and that's 20 how the conversation was. It wasn't him yelling at me 21 or anything else, it was jus I'm not going to 22 fire anybody; that's not my management style." I 23 said, "You want a burning platform, that's not the way 24 to create one, by firing somebody."

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Those were the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS Or -7C 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 two other references to your manhood being challenged?

2 Yeah, because in that 3 conversation there was also some -- you know, "Don't 4 be -- don't be afraid, don't be a wimp to go fire 5 somebody."

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he at all 7 particular about who? I mean, was he directing you?

8 Was this a union person or somebody on --

9 No.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could it have been 11 management?

12 His -- he didn't specify.

13 The way I took it was that it was a management 14 individual, a control room supervisor or a shift 15 manager, one of the two. But there -- he did not 16 specify. It definitely was not a union person, 17 because we were talking -- it was in context of 18 talking about leadership and increasing leadership 19 within Salem operations.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Did anything 21 else come to mind when we asked about that, situations 22 like that where your manhood is challenged? This is 23 two now with" and one under 24 that you're talking about.

25 1 None that I can -- others NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

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1 that I can remember. I mean, if we'd discuss more, 2 other things may, you know, pop into my memory, but at 3 this point I can't remember any other --

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

5 -- specific challenges to 6 me.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's go back to the 8 issue -- you said that, as a group, shift managers 9 raised issues, and there was some sort of a meeting.

10 Meeting or conference call? I'm not quite sure how 11 you described it.

12 IIt was both, and--

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And I'm looking at 14 time frames and what initiated this. What was it that 15 they were reacting to?

16 I'm hesitating, trying to 17 recall. I mean, I remember -- I can remember the 18 location. And I say, "meeting-slash-conference call" 19 because it was -- there was an email sent out. I 20 think I got mine through a page, to call -- to call 21 somebody and get the message to -- that "Hey, we'll be 22 at the processing center at this time" -- 1300 strikes 23 a chord with me as far as time frame -- "to have a 24 discussion wit t h And I'm trying to 25 remember.

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1 The whole impetus behind this sudden 2 meeting was, I guess, the whole perspective that the 3 shift managers had as far as being challenged on 4 certain decisions. And I wish I could remember the 5 specifics that drove us here. The CSU may have been 6 one of them, the 14 containment fan cooling unit that 7 I talked about earlier, that may have been one. I 8 just can't remember. But there were several incidents 9 there between bot and that, I guess, raised 10 enough of a concern from perspective that he 11 wanted to identify the issues or resolve them. I 12 can't put it in a time frame, either. I'm trying to 13 -- I can't remember. We had was 14 employed here as a I I 15 can't remember. She may have had some involvement 16 with shift managers going to her. I can't remember if 17 that's in this time frame.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about grassing 19 incidents? Did that factor into it?

20 I can't say, honestly. I 21 can't -- just can't remember. I remember specifically 22 where we were sitting for the conference call, because 23 I was there. It was in the processing center.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was 25 there in the room with you or --

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1 was there in the room 2 with me, and there were a couple of other individuals, 3 and then there were several other individuals that 4 were either calling from home or calling from the 5 training center, but I can't remember who else was at 6 the training center, who was calling in. But I think 7 -- pretty sure that we had every shift manager on, 8 either there or on the conference call.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They were somehow 10 involved?

11 Yeah.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All the 13 . At this point in time do you recall who 14 they were? at this point?

15 Correct. I can't remember 16 what I was. I think I was a Oh, you 17 know what? There was a period of time there, that's 18 why I'm -- there was a period of time from When I left 19 shift and I went and. jF,... .....

20 ,jj That was like late December 2001, until I 21 became the which was the middle of the 22 year, June 2002, that I wa So I think 23 that's why a lot of this stuff is -- I'm trying to 24 remember if I'm , because I'm not really 25 assigned to a shift and I'm not the AOM, but I kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f

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130 1 do a lot of other stuff besides the outage stuff. And 2 I think that was in this time frame, because I don't 3 remember being on shift, like having to leave the 4 shift to go to the processing center, but I know I 5 wasn't theJyet. So I think this is looking 6 in that time period between, I'll say January and June 7 of '02.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're doing outage 9 prep, more or less?

10 I'm doing outage prep, and 11 that's the time for this conference call-slash-12 meeting.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That jogs something 14 for me. I think you have the -- there's a lot of 15 information -

16 a Yeah.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that we gathered, 18 but if -- is this the only time the shift managers at 19 Salem were involved in a meeting withint 20 discuss direction, question direction that they were 21 getting from him? Is this the only meeting that you 22 can recall, or did it happen again?

23 This is the only one that I 24 can recall. I mean, we've had a lot of shift 25 managers' manager meetings. This is the only one I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS All -7c 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 can recall with that flavor, and that flavor being 2 "Hey, let's air our dirty laundry here, let's try to 3 work through these issues." That's the only one that 4 I can recall where all the shift managers were 5 involved.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what I under- --

7 w But there may have been 8 more.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what I'm 10 understanding, in this time frame you're -- you put it 11 in spring 2002. I think this is supposed to have been 12 in a time frame after startup, after the outage. And 13 there was an issue that prompted this, that got some 14 people upset, is what we're hearing about, and it had 15 to do with startup and it had to do with packing seals 16 to create a vacuum, and could you do some low-power 17 physics testing while you started up, if you packed 18 the seal to create that vacuum that was otherwise 19 missing. And that caused a great deal of concern, is 20 what we're hearing. If you were with the outage crew 21 on that, you may have heard about it from their 22 perspective in terms of what they were trying to 23 accomplish in that time frame.

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1.5 Z 1 and then toward the end, E40 and I, we were both 2 1 and we went on shift, because 3 there's -- once you get to a certain point, right, the 4 OCC, Outage Control Center, doesn't provide a lot of 5 benefit to the -- to the outage organization, or our 6 experience level would provide more benefit to being 7 on shift and helping the shift succeed.

8 And I remember that whole issue with the 9 packing, making the mode changes, and I believe I was 10 on days off when that -- a lot of the, I'll say, ill 11 feelings were expressed, because I don't remember 12 being involved in them. But I was also on nights, 13 that outage, so that may have been like the day work 14 had the issues.

15 I'm just trying to remember why -- because 16 I know this meeting, I was on days. It wasn't like I 17 came in. And this meeting wasn't during the outage 18 period, so I'm trying to remember what I was doing 19 following 2-R12 until I became the shift, if I was 20 back working. Just to try to place this, if this was 21 -- but, yeah, I do remember that as being part of the 22 concern, personally not having a lot of input or 23 involvement because of the -- most of those issues 24 were happening on days, on the day shift. And being 25 on night shift, you're somewhat secluded from the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS '

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133 1 emotions that are experienced on days when all the 2 senior management is there and those discussions were 3 happening. It probably --

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had no firsthand 5 involvement in those discussions?

6 Not from -- not from a 7 day-to-day basis directly with site management. I 8 mean, I think we had some of those discussions between mayband 9 I as part of our turn-over and that 10 type of thing, but I don't remember for me personally 11 that being a point of angst or --

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There was another 13 factor in there that was discussed in terms of going 14 for this meeting, and it had to do with operability 15 calls, and a length of discovery phase associated with 16 that. Our understanding is, the shift managers were 17 upset with having the discovery phase lengthened, 18 their -- the point being, they wanted to make the 19 calls in their own time frame with the information 20 that they had at hand. Do you recall that being an 21 issue? And our understanding is, it contributed to 22 this meeting taking place, to discuss and defend 23 against the guidance they were getting from 24 fat that time.

25 I vaguely remember that, NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 just remember that whole discussion. I don't remember 2 the details behind it. I do remember, and me having 3 the same feelings about being told when to make the 4 calls on -- as far as reportability, et cetera, and 5 what information we needed prior to making that call.

6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What were you 7 told?

8 I wish I could remember. I 9 don't.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What were the 11 feelings?

Tha t we, as 12 13 right, are licensed to make those calls 14 when we feel we have adequate infornation. And I 15 think we were -- if I remember correctly, we were 16 feeling like we were being pushed from that to have 17 even more information before we made those calls, 18 information that may or may not ever come.

19 MR. WINGFIELD: Having a further -- on --

20 what's the word I'm looking for? For -- to provide 21 way more -- in your opinion, a much higher level of 22 justification for operability calls that you make as 23 §M4 na shift?

" oi Yeah, that's one way to look 24 25 at it.

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1 I'm trying to dig back in my memory there, 2 because I remember that whole -- I just can't remember 3 it clearly as far as the real concerns. But I do 4 remember it was about operability and having -- being 5 pushed back about that it was operable, and our call 6 was that it wasn't, and --

7 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he get to 8 a point where the direction was that you have to prove 9 it's inoperable, as opposed to being able to prove 10 it's operable? You have to actually prove it's 11 inoperable before an action -- before an action could 12 be taken. Was the the feeling among your level of --

13 in your contemporaries, that that's the direction you 14 were being given?

15 I remember that discussion, 16 not that that was our philosophy, but I remember that 17 discussion because people --

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Maybe it wasn't 19 your philosophy, but --

20 Right, that people felt that 21 that was what they were pushed toward, right. I 22 remember that discussion. And I know if somebody said 23 the component that we were talking about, it would 24 probably ring -- ring clear. But just trying to 25 remember back, I remember that --

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1 (Audiotape switched) 2 Okay, so just to restate, so 3 that was the point that people were feeling, is that 4 that was almost to a point where we were saying that, 5 yeah, we had to prove it inop. I mean, from our 6 perspective, we didn't -- obviously, I didn't change 7 the way that I did business, right? It was still, 8 hey, the equipment's inoperable unless I can prove it 9 operable.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

11 L: But there were -- there was 12 some discussion about that. And I don't think -- in 13 the discussions that I heard or was involved with, it 14 was said kind of jokingly, is that that's almost the 15 mentality that was being presented toward us, is, you 16 know, that we have to prove that it's inoperable, you 17 know, not that people were believing that. It was 18 kind of say that in jest, because that's how they felt 19 people were approaching it.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was that 21 discussed during this conference call meeting?

22 L1I believe that was one of 23 the -- matter of fact, I think somebody brought that 24 specific quote up about having to prove that it was 25 inoperable. I don't remember who.

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J.1. 1 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How was that 2 responded to?

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This kind of 4 goes to -- I mean, this is a big issue.

5 I honestly -- I don't 6 remember. It's very sketchy as -- it's funny how you 7 can clearly remember where you were sitting in the 8 meeting, but you can't remember the discussion, but --

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is a big 10 issue, though. I mean, really, frankly. I mean, you 11 got people at your level having those type of 12 conversations with senior management. Do you remember 13 what -- would it have been the 14 two senior managers, responding to the shifts -- shift 15 managers' concerns or issues? Is that who would have 16 been responding?

17 I think .. was 18 there also. I don't remember eing in the room I 19 was sitting in. I remember being there, pretty

)-jwas there.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You remember 22 how ,esponded?

23 No, I don't.

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Really. Oh.

25 Q Like I said -- like I said, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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138 1 it's funny I can remember sitting in the office. It 2 wasoffice at the processing center.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Well, let me 4 ask you this: after that meeting was there any type 5 of written guidance or direction provided by senior 6 ops management to answer that particular issue or 7 question? Was there something put out as to what the 8 official guidance really is?

9 .. I don't recall.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you remember 11 if the shift managers' questions on that issue were, 12 in fact, answered at some point by6 0-seeatompin 13

( 14 I honestly don't recall.

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anything change?

16 It wasn't much after that, 17 that I believe resigned.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there any 19 change, though? I think Eileen's question is as to 20 maybe not.personnel, but in the direction or perceived 21 direction by senior management.

22 I would say no, because I 23 don't remember. The whole thing doesn't ring real 24 clear to me as far as that whole discussion in that 25 conference call, or any changes that came as a result.

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1 So I would say that if we did change, it wasn't a big 2 enough impact that I recognized it, looking back.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 4 of moving forward from there? Do you recall the --

5 that level of concern that brought the meeting, 6 though, did that still exist? Did you still hear 7 that, you know, "Hey, we're in a position to have to 8 prove things inoperable before we make our call"? Did 9 that carry on or was that --

10 No; I can remember leaving 11 that conference call. I think a lot of the issues 12 were addressed, but I don't -- I don't think -- I'm 13 trying to remember, but I don't think specific issues 14 were addressed, but the overall feeling was that 15 people understood why maybe some of the comments were 16 made earlier.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: People understood 18 from what's --

19 2 From like perspective 20 about -- from an operability standpoint, not -- not 21 understanding why you're saying, "I have to prove it 22 inoperable," but maybe as far as having all the.

23 correct information you needed to support your calls.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He understood what 25 the shift managers' concerns were? Is that what NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 you're saying?

2 I believe so. I mean, 3 that's what I'm saying, and I believe that was the 4 outcome of that meeting. As I said, it doesn't -- it 5 didn't make that big of an impact that I'm remembering 6 it, either the -- a lot of the discussion in the 7 meeting or the following outcomes.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long of a meeting 9 was this?

10 jJ i have no idea. I mean, it 11 wasn't hours. It was not hours.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More than an hour or 13 less than an hour? Picture where you sat.

14 ...... .. I'm picturing that, and --

15 SPECIAL AOENT NEFF: How long did you sit 16 there?

17 I knew I had to leave.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how long did you 19 sit there?

"20 Maybe I had to leave during 21 the meeting. Maybe that's why I can't remember the --

22 I wouldn't think, if it was an hour, it was much 23 longer than an hour, but honestly, I don't --

24 unfortunately I've used that office for other meetings 25 that --

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who called for 2 the meeting? Was it or was it the shift 3 managers?

4 From my point of view, it 5 was -- when I was informed that there was a meeting, 6 it was *wanted me there, so I took it that 7 called the meeting.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall it --

9 you don't recall any of the outcomes. Do you recall 10 getting contentious, you know, along the lines of the 11 other meeting that you described for us, or the other 12 conference call? Did it get to argument status?

13 You know, now that you say 14 tat, I do remember, withain 15 that, in that meeting, I'll say getting to almost an 16 argument status.

17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall what 18 the point was?

19 'No. Maybe if we had another 20 day. No, I don't, though. No, I don't. I just 21 remembeA-22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He would be the*.W 23 at that point?

24 7---J-1MI Yeah. And I don't -- I 25 can't remember if was in the room with me or if NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS fit ? -Cl 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 he was on the phone, but I rememberl:

2 exchanging words. I can't remember what they were, I 3 just remember that it got heated, and it was between 4 those two basically.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 6 further on that line?

7 Some of the -- some of the information 8 that we've gotten portrays a picture of you in a 9 rather difficult spot, in that when you're making your 10 operational decisions, you're not so much explaining 11 what your position is, as defending what your position 12 was. And this is specifically to senior management.

13 And people have seen you having to do that more than 14 just once or twice. They felt that this was a 15 position that you were in on a regular basis. Do you 16 know, other than what we've talked about so far, what 17 else goes into that? I mean, the basis for people to 18 put you in that position.

19 Part of that could be my 20 personality, too. I mean, I'm sure most people 21 wouldn't challenge their senior VP or their CNO right 22 when they're given a direct order. So some of it is, 23 just like I had stated earlier, that if I have a 24 belief, and I always try to do what's right, and 25 that's what I believe, then I'm going to stick to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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143 1 issue and my guns and come from that perspective.

2 It's unfortunate that those discussions --

3 because I think they happen in every business, right, 4 between middle management and senior management, it's 5 unfortunate that too often they were held in front of 6 people that report to me, so that they were impacted 7 by that. And I try to minimize that to the best of my 8 ability, but it does happen and it did happen.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see that, 10 then, as a valid observation, that rather than!

11 explaining your position you're actually defending 12 your position with senior management?

13 I felt that way at times, 14 that I was defending it.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Which times?

16 I mean, just in a couple of 17 the incidents we talked about with the number of 18 circulators operating.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Any others? We 20 don't have to go back over those.

21 >3.&Got to pull the mushrooms 22 out of my head. And I can't --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you believe 24 there were other occasions where you had to do that?

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144 1 -- I can't think of any specifics.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there a 3 particular individual that you found yourself in that 4 position with more often than another? Is it a time 5 frame? Or did you -- where did you find yourself --

6 where and when did you find yourself up against that, 7 up against that the most?

8 I would say probably-when it 9 was a combination 10 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The most challenges?

13 Yeah. And I always viewed 14 it as they have a job to do, right? Part of their job 15 is to challenge my decision-making process, right? So 16 whether I was explaining my decision-making or 17 justifying it or defending my position, and that's 18 probably the opinion of the observer, sometimes I did 19 feel as a -- that I was defending my position. Other 20 times I was explaining my position.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were there 22 times, though, where either of those two individuals, 23 other than what we've already talked about, put undue 24 pressure, undue questioning, length of time on a 25 particular issue, that you could recall? Some -- an NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS x&

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145 1 issue where you think they crossed the line, being too 2 challenging to you.

3 2 None, none that are jumping 4 right to the surface or that sticking out, that I can 5 even remember. And part of it may be because I always 6 viewed it as that they were doing their job in 7 challenging me, right? The times that I recall when 8 there were issues that -- and we spoke to them 9 already, was when I thought it was inappropriate where 10 the issues were being raised, in the environment with 11 either the shifts there or the shift manager there.

12 So if I felt comfortable with the location of the 13 issue being arisen, that's probably why it's not 14 sticking out in my head that -- to me, that was a part 15 of business, is that -- them challenging me or, you 16 know, asking me for explanation on the decisions that 17 were being made.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You understand 19 my question, though.

20 Yeah.

21 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were there 22 occasions where they crossed the line in doing that?

23 I mean, every boss is supposed to challenge his 24 people, but there's a certain point where it's 25 inappropriate, it's gone too far.

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14b 1 *I would say no, because I 2 can't remember any that I felt that was the case, even 3 to the point where, like with the discussion with 4 * , you know, with -- I thought that was probably 5 inappropriate, you know, where he referenced being a 6 wimp or a mouse or something because I wasn't doing 7 what he had suggested -- suggested. That, to me, was 8 crossing the line. But other than that -- and I can't 9 even recall the specifics on the conference call with 10 either or but I know somewhere in other 11 discussions I probably felt that way. I just can't --

12 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. How 13 about this: were there -- were there times where you 14 had to -- when you were o you were 15 on duty at the plant, where there was a debate over a 16 potential safety issue or equipment operability issue, 17 where the debate went much longer than you thought it 18 needed to? And I emphasize "much longer," where the 19 people on shift thought it was a black-and-white 20 issue, yet the debate continues on and on and on about 21 "Do we have enough information?"

22

I can't -- I can't remember 23 any specific issues. I can kind of remember being in 24 that position, but I can't remember the specifics as 25 far as who was involved or what the issue was.

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Must have had 2 a lot go on down here in the last year, if you can't 3 remember a lot of the specifics.

4 Yeah, there is -- I mean, 5 that's true.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -- I'm just going 7 over my notes; I want to make sure I've covered 8 everything we needed to.

9 Did -- in the matter of challenging the 10 manner of questioning that you were subjected to, did 11 you think your senior management -- and in particular 12 I'm looking a -..

13 *Did you think they had an understanding of, 14 you know, what you were faced with in the control 15 room? Do you think in these instances these are 16 knowledgeable people and they -- they're clear what it 17 was you were dealing with at the time, or is there 18 some sort of lack of knowledge or something that 19 contributed to the push or the challenge?

20 J7 I'm not sure that they 21 always had all the information. I mean -- and I 22 referenced 14 containment fan coolant for an example, 23 right?

had no more information than I had, so I 24 think in that case he just didn't have as much 25 information, and probably the knowledge of the tech NEAL R.GROSS ~G COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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148 1 specs. Or I mean, not having been though the licensed 2 operator program here, he would -- he wasn't as 3 familiar with the tech specs as AOM shift, shift 4 manager, or the control room supervisors.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For his -- this is 6

7 3 Correct.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For his experience.

9 Right. And I would say that 1G would be true for both as well, is that 11 they won't have the knowledge level that a currently 12 licensed SRO would have.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Did it ever 14 get to a point in ýyour dealings with your senior 15 management that you questioned -- you questioned where 16 your level of trust was with their operational 17 decision-making?

18 C- I don't think there was a 19 question of trust, because I always thought that when 20 they had questions, they brought those forward. And 21 so it appeared to me that everything was always in the 22 open, as far as their questioning the actions we were 23 taking. So I don't know that it was an issue of 24 trust. Like I said --

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If not trust, your NEAL R. GROSSj COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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149 1 conf- -- your confidence in their level of ability?

2 Would you have -- was there any point in time where 3 you questioned their competence?

4 Yeah, and maybe probably 5 more so toward j And -- I mean, when you have, you 6 know, repetitive events such as, you know, suggesting 7 an on-the-spot change to an acceptance criteria, "Hey, 8 we don't have to do this test," several of those 9 instances, I start to lose faith in the abilities of 10 an individual. So I would say yes, in that light.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For 12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about fori 14 15 I can't remember that many 16 interactions from a plant operating viewpoint with 17 I mean, the 14CFU issue sticks out because 18 that's one of the few from that perspective that I had 19 with Like I said, when-- I'm not sure when his 20 tenure as .. .. . "ended, but it was either 21 shortly after I had became r right in that time 22 frame, where I didn't have a lot of interaction, from 23 that perspective, with* 'ýAnd the shift managers 24 didn't have -- as a shift manager, especially a shift 25 manager off-shift in the outage organization, didn't (202) 234-4433 NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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150 1 have a lot of interaction with him.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:- So you might have had 3 some issues with him, but you didn't -- you don't --

4 it doesn't seem like you're questioning his 5 decision-making abilities as much as you might 6

7 9 Correct.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Based on your 9 interaction with them.

10 Correct.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, what about' 12

13 For me personally, it wasn' t 14 so much his decision-making capabilities, as just his 15 personality, thafoj as a- and he would use 16 that to his advantage, I'd say, and you know, almost 17 as a presence. He's probably -, .what or 18 so? A rather large fellow. And it wasn't uncommon 19 that, for example, if I was in a meeting and he was 20 coming in, that, you know, he would pump and slap you 21 on the back harder than most people would, you know, 22 and come up and say something, "Hey, how you doing?"

23 I mean, he would do it, and your body would physically 24 move. And you know, I always felt that that was his 25 way of letting people know that he was in the room and NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 he was there, so that was his presence. So I can see 2 how people could take that, interpret that as, you 3 know, someone trying to influence them by his 4 presence.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He would -- he would 6 weigh in physically --

7 3 Yeah.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- is what you're 9 describing.

10 Yeah 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But in terms of his 12 decision-making or the operational calls, did you have 13 any reason to question that, his basis of his 14 competencies?

15 I don't remember questioning 16 them, I mean as far as specifics. I'm sure somewhere 17 along the line I may have, right, with and with 18 him on individual issues. But as an overall picture, 19 I don't remember having that feeling.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I have a couple 21 of things.

22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Go ahead, Jeff.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was there a --

24 again, I'm going to talk about management above your 25 level, even when you were the#W so that would be NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 the director of ops, I guess, and the VP of ops. Did 2 you ever hear any discussion from individuals at that 3 level about -- when you're coming out of an outage, 4 whether it's a refuel or you come down for an 5 equipment problem, unscheduled, that there -- they 6 needed to get back on line or it could become a --

7 could negatively affect an NRC performance indicator?

8 Ever hear that being said by someone at that level "We 9 need to get back up, we need -- or it could negatively 10 impact a performance indicator," one of them?

11 I can't remember if it was 12 specific to an NRC performance indicator, but, you 13 know, I've had -- I've heard discussions from 14 about -- and .. jJand others, about like our 15 performance, our PIPs, which are our annual bonuses.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

17 . A lot of the input, some of 18 the input there was based on like outage days for the 19 year. So obviously, there was a direct tie if you 20 were -- any day you went beyond a scheduled outage, 21 you were adding to the accumulative yearly outage 22 days, and sooner or later you would exceed your limit 23 or your goal, which then would feed back into your 24 peformance, your PIPs, your annual bonus, in effect.

25 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right; for flI "DT NEAL R.GROSS o MCDPOrMYCO AinMflTAK10f'D10 CM0 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. /I I 7l

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153 1 individual employees?

2 Correct.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How about as a 4 -- as a corporate, or a nuclear performance indicator, 5 or related to an NRC performance indicator? I mean, 6 we got collars now.

7 IASA*k Yeah. I just can't remember 8 a specific discussion. Not saying it didn't happen, 9 I just don't remember a specific discussion by any 10 individual.

1i SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Maybe, again --

12 ,jAgain, an outage performance 13 or outage days or duration --

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

15 -- to NRC indicators.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Or a push by 17 people at that level to "We need to get up out of this 18 outage or it's going to affect -- negatively affect 19 our NRC performance indicator"?

20 I don't 1J remember those 21 specific words. I do remember, you know, discussions 22 about affecting our performance and NPO indicators, 23 may have been NRC indicators. I mean, I remember 24 numerous discussions about, right, how we perform day 25 to day, whether we're at 100 percent, 80 percent, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A

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154 1 whether we're in an outage, on-line, and how that, you 2 know, inputs into a -- from most of the discussions I 3 remember were the NPO indicators, NPO index 4 indicators.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

6 2 There may have been 7 references to the NRC indicators. I just don't 8 recall.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: During any of 10 those discussions did you feel that an inappropriate 11 message was sent or conveyed?

12 I'm sure, depending on the 13 forum that it was presented in. I don't remember of 14 any specifics.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you take 16 any of those discussions or conversations as an 17 inappropriate message?

18 .1I don't remember taking any 19 that way.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

21 .I'm not saying that there 22 wasn't an instance where maybe one happened in a forum 23 that -- I'm of the personality that if I feel that 24 way, I'll talk to the individual about it, whether 25 it's in that forum or on the side.

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1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did that ever 2 happen?

3 Not that I can recall, and 4 that's why I say I don't remember doing -- don't 5 remember being in that situation, because I don't 6 remember a specific discussion about NRC indicators 7 and feeling swayed or putting in an odd position 8 because of that.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

10 I've got a couple more.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, go ahead. I'm 12 down to one.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

14 This -- we've talked to a lot of people 15 during the course of -- Eileen has done most of the 16 interviews. But we've learned from more than one 17 person about a -- about a meeting that§2 18 had with the ops people, operations people. I think 19 most of the licensed or senior -licensed people were at 20 that. And I can't recall the exact time frame now.

21 J. This was a long time ago.

22 This was probably --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

24 Well, comment.

25 ~jThis was in December of '99, NEAL R.GRoss COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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156 1 November or December '99.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Probably. A 3 comment that he made something to the effect of "You 4 don't get it."

5 6 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that -- is 7 that the conversation you're thinking about?

8 U j I remember that.

9 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Tell me what 10 you remember about that meeting.

11 : I remember that, and I can 12 remember this meeting. I don't particularly remember 13 a lot of things, but certain things when you can 14 attach them to something --

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is an old 16 one.

17 Yeah. Well, -some of them, tal 18 when you can attach them to something, right, learning 19 is like a tree: if you put it on a branch, then you 20 can remember it. In this one, I had just -- was just 21 going through the process of completing my shift 22 manager qualifications.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

24 And that's why I can place 25 it November/December of '99 time frame.

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157 1 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

2 And so I was not a 3 at that time and didn't have my own hifft.. and 4 I don't think I was done with malsjyet.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You were a w 6 though?

7 Yeah.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

'9 I,was.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

11 But this meeting was not--

12 this meeting was for shift managers and above.

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

14. And the message was just 15 that you guys -- this was.-- matter of fact, it was 16 probably earlier than November, because I think this 17 was a result of a lightning strike we took in the 18 switchyard in August of '99, which -- Salem wasn't 19 that affected that much; Hope Creek was more effected, 20 in that they- had a feedwater heater valve 21 repositioned, and they didn't identify it, and they 22 went back up in power and wound up overpowering or 23 something to that effect. So this meeting was a 24 result of that whole litany, I'll say, of doing the --

25 taking a lightning strike, having a down-power, coming NEALR.GROSS Aý I -,

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158 1 back up in power, and basically not getting any other 2 involvement from senior officials or anything else 3 about the decision to raise power. So this meeting 4 was based on that kind of discussion.

5 And I think somewhere in that meeting 6 made the comment, is that "You know, you don't 7 have the authority to make decisions concerning these 8 plants in raising power" or "You know, you have the 9 license obligations to trip them or take those 10 actions, but you don't have the authority to raise 11 power in my nuclear power plants." Is that the same 12 meeting you're talking about, the --

13 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes.

Yeah.

14 15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who did he say 16 did have that authority?

17 4 He did. He said he had that 18 authority.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What did you 20 think about that comment?

21 Like I said, I only remember 22 this so clearly and vividly because I was a new guy.

23 And my honest thoughts at that time were "Do I really 24 want this job?" I mean, because that's not what I 25 envisioned the position that I was looking forward to NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS P( ¶-,

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1 taking being. And I also didn't like the message that 2 I was hearing from, at that time, the senior 3 leadership on the -- on the site.

4 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What didn't you 5 like about it, though?

6 "> It was kind of a -- you 7 know, a "You f-ing guys" message, that "I'm here, and 8 you guys are making all the wrong decisions," you

9. know. "And not only you're making the wrong 10 decisions, but you don't have the right to make those 11 decisions." So that was a -- like I said, the reason 12 I can remember that so vividly is because where I was 13 in my -- in the process of becoming a 14 And I was kind of excited going to this meeting, 15 right? This was probably the first time I really had 16 an opportunity to see or see him in action, and 17 so I was kind of disappointed.

18 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was the --

19 from your perspective, what was the fallout from that 20 message that had, the fallout on guys like you?

21 You became a shortly thereafter?

22 Correct.

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What was the 24 fallout, I mean, as far as you were concerned in 25 operating your shift? )I/ 7 & -

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IOU 1 Oh, there was a lot. There 2 was changes in the way we did business. Specifically, 3 pre that event there was no TARP, which I spoke to 4 earlier. There was no TARP procedure. The shift 5 manager had a lot more authority prior to that, that 6 whole discussion, that meeting and that event, than 7 following that meeting and that event.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So this led to 9 the beginning of the TARP process?

10 Correct.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

12 And the TARP process was --

13 it wasn't to take the responsibility away from the 14 shift manager or the crews to take required actions to 15 stabilize the plant. That was always made clear, as 16 "That is what your number one priority is. If there's 17 an event or a transient, your job is to stabilize the 18 plant, right, and maintain it there. My job, as 19

is to approve you to raise power following that 20 event. So your job is to address this, the transient, 21 and stabilize the plant."

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

23 L And then the changes came 24 in, that once we were to -- the TARP would come in, 25 evaluate the event, evaluate the actions taken by the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 crew, take any corrective action or recommend any 2 corrective actions, and then provide a recommendation 3 to senior management on where we were, where we'd take 4 the plant, whether we'd go back up in power.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

6 9 So that was the biggest 7 change following that whole event. I call it "the 8 event" because it was all based on that August '99 9 lightning-strike event. So it was basically a change 10 in philosophy on how we'd operated.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. The 12 message, though, that ut out at that meeting to 13 all the shift managers and above, right, in ops, 14 right?

15 jj Correct.

16 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you see 17 that that message. eventually -- and I'm asking you 18 your opinion on this, but did you see that message 19 eventually making shift managers think they couldn't 20 -- they didn't have the authority or power to 21 down-power the plant? Did you see any of that?

22 11J don't -- I don't remember 23 seeing that or hearing that discussed. It may have 24 been discussed, like looking for clarification, but I 25 didn't -- following that meeting, I didn't go get a NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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162 1 for several months.

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

3 So that may have happened 4 with the shift managers that had shift 5 responsibilities at the time, between themselves. If 6 it happened, I wasn't involved or I don't remember 7 those conversations.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you -- did 9 you see that as an effect through the years, though, 10 after meeting, that you saw or -- I mean, 11 because you're either relieving somebody or you're 12 getting relieved.

13 Yeah.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you see 15 that message turn to that, where maybe some of them 16 felt they didn't have the authority to down-power the 17 plant?

18 I can only speak for myself.

19 I personally never.felt that way.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You didn't.

21 Okay.

22 - I mean, maybe it's because 23 I was at that meeting, so --

24 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Fine. You 25 didn't.

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163 1 11 Correct..

2 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How about other 3 guys, though? In turn-overs there's issues going on.

4 There's always something going on in the plant.

5 Especially down here, there's a lot of issues. Did 6 any of them give you the feeling that "I don't -- I 7 don't think I could do that. I don't have -- I didn't 8 have the authority, I didn't have the power to take 9 the plant where I think it should have been. I'm 10 going to leave that to, you know, the senior 11 management level."

12 .j Yeah, I can't -- I can't 13 remember any specific discussions where somebody said, 14 "Hey, I don't have that authority," or maybe didn't 15 make a -- reduce power because they -- because they 16 didn't feel they had the authority to.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.

18 I don't remember anybody 19 stating that or having a discussion. I'm just trying 20 to remember.

21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay?

22 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I have another, 24 another incident going into September 2003. It's 25 interesting that it's a switchyard incident involving NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 arcing and sparking in the switchyard, and the shift 2 had wanted to shut down. Do you recall discussions 3 around this particular --

4 I was fortunate enough to be 1j 5 on vacation, so --

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have any 7 discussion when you got back? Did you hear about 8 this?

9 j Everything I heard was 10 hearsay. I mean, I didn't -- you know, about the 11 various discussions that happened. I had no -- matter 12 of fact, I don't even think I had discussions with 13 who was, from what I understand, the 14 MMon duty that night, until a couple of 15 weeks after the -- after the event.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall being 17 made aware that the shifts had any concerns in terms 18 of their dealings with senior management and the 19 direction they were going to move the plant on that?

20 12 Yeah, and like I say, I want 21 to make it clear that it's hearsay. But what I had 22 heard was that as the 23 pretty much, from a defensive standpoint, had to-prove 24 to senior management -- and I believe 25 for one reason or another, was in the acting capacity 1 7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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1 of It may have been due to 2 vacations of other individuals. He had to talk, I'll 3 say, convince that shutting the plant down and 4 de-energizing the switchyard was the correct thing to 5 do. There was no decision being made. And several 6 weeks after, maybe a week after when I'd come back, 7 I'd talked tow and that's what he had voiced to 8 me, is that that's what he felt, is that he had to 9 con- -- not convince him, but he had to make the 10 decision, that nobody was making the decision.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That had to make 12 the decision?

13 Correct, that he didn't feel 14 that he was getting any support in making the decision 15 on which way to proceed for the arcing/sparking, 16 right, that he wasn't getting any help in making the 17 decision, that he basically just made -- finally made 18 the decision ,Hey, we're going to shut down," and then 19 people agreed with that.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Fro who 21 was involved for some reason on that weekend, he was 22 -- whatever, on call or something?

23 l Yeah, that may have been the 24 case. I can't remember specifics. Like I said, I was 25 -- so this was all after the fact. But yeah, whoever NEAL R.GROSS 9/,/ 7c, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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166 1 -- whoever

was communicating -- I think*

2

was involved, that they were not helping him 3 make any decisions in that. He was trying to give 4 them as much information, looking for some, you know, 5 help from them as far as "Okay, do we shut the plant 6 down and de-energize the switchyard?" And he just 7 didn't feel that he was getting it. And that was --

8 that was directly from W to me.

told me that 9 after the fact, maybe a week later.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That he wasn't 11 getting any support on that?

12 Eo"- That's what he felt, he was 13 not getting support, and that he ultimately had to 14 make the decision, and then once he made it, he got 15 agreement.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And prior to 17 making that decision, do you recall him having any --

18 any issue with the considerations, particularly with 19 in hesitating to make the decision to 20 shut down? Did[-give you any information 21 on the reasons that were given to him?

22 3I can't remember if it was 23 or other conversations that I'd heard was -- part 24 of it was, we were looking at a potential for washing 25 down the switchyard with water to clean the salt off NEAL R GOSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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167 1 the transformers. Talking to from his 2 perspective, it wasn't even safe to go into the 3 switchyard, right, to try to wash them down, that 4 there was that much arcing that he was -- he, 5 was afraid to send anybody in the switchyard, period, 6 that they would become, you know, a magnet for the 7 arcing that was going on in the switchyard. But the 8 only other discussion I heard from the other point of 9 view, as far as why not making the decision, was the 10 potential for washing down the switchyard. I didn't 11 know of any other discussion that was going on as far 12 as why we didn't just make the decision.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. All right.

14 Are you aware of any -- if you recall, any hesitancy 15 on the part of based on who was going to 16 have to pay for the problems in the switchyard? Did 17 it fall on nuclear --

18 Yeah, I heard --

19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- or did it fall on 20 corporate?

21 As hearsay, right, because 22 I don't even remember telling me this.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall where 24 you heard it?

25 1 No. I wish I could. I know NEAL R. GROSS ( 7 -

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1 I heard -- it wasn't necessarily in the terms of "pay 2 for, " but who was responsible for the switchyard, that 3 it was T&D's equipment, so they were responsible for 4 it.

5 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: T&D?

6 Transmission and 7 distribution.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

9 ,* J They're another part of the 10 corporation.

11 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's not 12 nuclear, then, right?

13 No.

14 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

15 So it was -- they own the 16 switchyard and the equipment in the switchyard. So I 17 mean, ultimately, though, it probably does come down, 18 and it probably did as part of that decision process, 19 from individuals' perspective of who's going to pay 20 for it, who owns the switchyard. Fortunately, I 21 wasn't -- wasn't here, and that part of it is what 22 I've heard from other parties. I don't remember 23 telling me that part of it.

24 I remember was adamant about the 25 point that he had to make the decision, that, you NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS RI! c--

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169 1 know, nobody would -- he felt that nobody was helping 2 him make the decision.

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If it's not coming to 4 you directly fromj the information 5 indicates that there was an inappropriate 6 consideration before the decision to shut down could 7 be made and supported, that there was a hesitancy 8 because they didn't want to have the cost -- take the 9 hit on the nuclear side. At that point, had that --

10 I mean, if you didn't hear it from when 11 you heard something about this cost, and T&D owned it 12 and it would be on them, how does that strike you in 13 terms of the appropriateness of that even weighing 14 into the decision-making at that point?

15 It's inappropriate. It 16 shouldn't weigh in at all. I mean, you can work that 17 after the fact, take the actions necessary to 18 stabilize the plant or alleviate the safety concern, 19 whether it's personal, nuclear -- in this case it was 20 a personal safety concern first and foremost, from 21 what I understand. You address that situation, and 22 then you worry about the cost afterwards. So I think 23 that was totally inappropriate.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were there any 25 discussions, any further discussions on this? I know NEAL R. GROSS * (-.-*

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1 you say you were out, you were probably on vacation.

2 But at that point in time was it -- does this rate as 3 a -- what kind of an issue here? Any more discussion 4 than what you've talked about so far? Did you address 5 it with. Mor anybody else?

6 1I think that -- I think the 7 conversation, or a big piece of it, was with 8 0when I had come back. AndCo was acting in 9 my role when I was on vacation. But, no, I personally 10 did not have a discussion with ......... I'm 11 trying to remember, that time frame, if was 12 actually the I don't recall. But 13 my discussion was withAnd, no, I did not 14 pursue any further discussion with any other 15 individuals.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 17 of your experience with a situation like this? Was 18 there any other experience where you had the decision-19 making affected by where the costs were going to be 20 attributed to, that you could recall?

21 No that -- I'll say yes, not 22 specific like an event where you've got to react to a 23 condition, but there was some discussions with 24 specifically with -- if you look at 25 Salem Units 1 and 2 and Hope Creek, right, Hope Creek COURT NEALMR.GROSS REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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171 1 is 100 percent PSEG-owned. Salem Units 1 and 2 are 2 not; they're, I think, 50 percent PSEG-owned, 42 3 percent is Excelon. There's discussions in the past 4 about load reductions required to support grid 5 stability issues and where we would take those load 6 reductions, based on which -- where the costs would be 7 incurred, right? So typically, the Salem units would 8 be reduced in load before Hope Creek, because then the 9 cost of the load reduction was shared with Excelon.

10 Now, I will say that wasn't a comment. I remember 11 having that -- not having that discussion, but hearing 12 that logic once or twice frXm j about why we were 13 taking Unit 1 or Unit 2 load reduction, versus Hope 14 Creek. Because from an operator's standpoint, right, 15 I want to move my plant as little as possible, so we'd 16 always push back and say, "Hey, it's their turn," or 17 something to that effect.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.

19 Now, I can also tell you 20 just last week we had to take a load reduction. And 21 every time we have to take a load reduction for a line 22 outage, right, which is one of the 500-kV transmission 23 lines -- those lines -- we have to have all lines in 24 service, pretty much, to run all three plants at 100 25 percent power; otherwise, we start to -- we could NEAL R.GROSS

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1 potentially cause grid instability, because we're 2 right at the top of the operating curve.

3 So last week, a good example is, we had 4 Hope Creek at 100 percent, Salem Unit 2 at 100 5 percent, Salem Unit 1 at 100 percent. We were taking 6 out the 5015 line, which is probably the highest 7 load-capacity line that we have, so that has the 8 biggest effect on the island. So there was some 9 discussion about which units to take down. And I 10 bring this up as a positive, in that we were going to 11 share the load reduction. We sought through our 12 procedures to be able to not take a load reduction at 13 Hope Creek, leave Salem Unit 1 at 100 percent, and 14 take the load reduction on Unit 2 by using equipment 15 that we have installed, which is called a tripper 16 unit, which senses another line loss in order to trip 17 the unit that was selected. So in this case, if we 18 lost another line, Unit 1 would trip. And that's the 19 JPM or the grid's insurance that they can maintain 20 stability, that if there were something that happened 21 out there that would challenge, one of our units would 22 drop off and reduce the risk.

23 And the reason I bring that up is that the 24 only discussion for those decisions, as far as what we 25 were -- what plants would come down, was at my level.

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--- q 173 1 There was no involvement from senior management as far 2 as saying, "Hey, go to Salem, go to Hope Creek," and 3 the whole decision process on reducing the load on 4 Unit 2, versus Hope Creek, was failed fuel at Hope 5 Creek. So I thought that was a change in environment, 6 that prob- -- we didn't probably have in the past, is 7 that as far as where the decisions were being made as 8 far as load reductions, et cetera.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The -- what 10 you're mentioning is a change in environment, and 11 you're calling this a positive example.

12 Correct.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see any other 14 -- I mean, we've spent a lot of time talking about 15 former senior managers here, with the exception of*.

16 And in terms of what you're -- what you're 17 seeing now since management's changed, do you have any 18 other examples where you see some positive change?

19 I think from -- I mean, one 20 of the -- one of the reasons that I have a tough time 21 -- I mean, you, you know, made the comment about a lot 22 goes on here, and it does, and --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yeah, it has.

24 4 For a lot of my tenure, it's 25 not only been operational challenges, it's been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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.LI/

1 union/management relationship challenges, right?

2 Probably more than half of my issues have been that.

3 And I see that with 4 as probably one of the major changes, is that 5 I can see and I can sense that the bond or the 6 relationship between bargaining unit personnel and 7 management personnel is improving, and--

8 (Audiotape switched.)

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 4:16 p.m.

10 So as I was saying, the 11 strained relations, seeing those being dissolved, 12 helps immensely. You know, I briefly mentioned that

.13 that took up a considerable amount of my times as )

14 dealing with those relations and grievances and et 15 cetera, so it's nice to be able to see that the new 16 assistant ops manager not have to spend so much time 17 with those issues because of the -- I'll say just the 18 general working relationships between bargaining unit 19 and management personnel.

20 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are there areas 21 where you see -- see change since the new senior 22 management's come on board here, good or bad?

23 I haven't 1J really -- I 24 haven't seen any bad or heard any bad comments. The 25 biggest is the relationships. And I think with I NEAL R.GROSS

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1 00 ack -- a lot of us have previous experience 2 with M on a more personal level when he was the nuSo I know a lot of 4 the shift managers and assistant ops managers have a\

5 better comfort level there with his expertise, his 6 knowledge level, trust in him, and just how he deals 7 with people day to day.

8 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How about 9 moving the plant, conservative decision-making, 10 operability, movements either down, down-power or 11 up-power? Have you seen any changes in how those 12 things happen?

13 It's tough. I mean, you 14 don't -- you don't really see. It's not something you 15 see. And I'll say that wasn't so much -- from my 16 perspective, that wasn't so much with the new senior 17 management team coming in, as with the old senior 18 management team leaving.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Explain that.

20 Well, I think because of 21 history, right? So you have a history with people, 22 however you want to phrase it, challenging --

23 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You phrase it.

24 13 Yeah. Okay, so phrase it 25 with, you know, being challenged on your decisions.

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1 So you have that history, right, so that always --

2 that does influence your decisions in the future. And 3 I'm not saying that it would be negative or positive; 4 it's going to be in both lights, right? You're going 5 to -- you're going to be slower to react, to do 6 something that you feel is the right thing, without 7 maybe taking the additional time to check to make sure 8 that it's not -- there's not going to be backlash from 9 your decision, even though you have full confidence in 10 that you're doing what's right. And I think with the 11 new management team that doesn't exist, because the 12 history is not there to say, you know, you're going to 13 be questioned on this and that, on half of what you 14 do.

15 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Have you had to 16 defend any of your -- well, you're not operating the 17 shift anymore. But that's fairly recent.

18 Yeah.

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.

20 While you were .still the right, did you 21 have any interactions with senior management like you 22 had be fore with j-over oand 23 operational decisions?

24 Well, as a matter of fact, 25 I think I've seen jnMaybe two or three times since NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS pýf I I>7 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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II/

1 he's been here, and they've all been, you know, just 2 pleasant exchanges of hellos and goodbyes, and no real 3 questions, discussions from -- you know, from the ops 4 manager perspective, with the changes there, that our 5 new ops manager is more focused on improving 6 department relationships, so I've had -- I've been 7 coached from that perspective as far as, you know, 8 where we need to go as a department to improve those

9 relationships.

10 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Have you had 11 interactions with If so, describe them.

12 I've had no one-on-one 13 interactions with And I've seen him at the -- in 14 the group settings in the town hall-type meetings, and 15 that's it.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don' t have anything 17 further on the environment.

18 Do you have anything further ,

19 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I guess I have 20 one more thing. You probably knew I was going to have 21 one more thing. This won't be that long, though, but 22 I touched on it a little bit earlier, about while you 23 were the Jdid. you see or get a sense 24 of direction or influence being provided at the 25 corporate level as to operational decisions down here NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i

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1 at the plant?

2 I did not see it.

3 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you get a 4 sense of that, that it was occurring, or --

5 To be honest, I never --

6 never even got a sense that that was occurring through 7 either discussions or meetings. But I do recall 8 reading a complaint filed against the company by an 9 individual that worked here, that there were claims in 10 there that *was being pressured from 11 senior-level management higher up in the organization.

12 But I personally didn't have that message relayed to 13 me by#or anyone else, and didn't ever get that --

14 I never got the sense thatt .. .

15 r anybody else in that senior leadership 16 position was putting any pressure on people down here.

17 SR. SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No. I'm fine.

19 Okay, I have a couple of closing questions 20 on -- before we go off the record.

21 have I or any other NRC 22 representative offered you any promises or reward, or 23 threatened you in any manner, in exchange for your 24 information today?

25 No, you have not.

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1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you have appeared 2 here freely and voluntarily?

3

That is correct.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If there's nothing 5 further to add to the record, we will conclude. It's 6 4:22 p.m.

7 (Whereupon, at 4:22 p.m. the interview was 8 concluded.)

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

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

Bill Wagner Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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