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| ML21035A255 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 02/02/2021 |
| From: | NRC/OCIO |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML21035A252 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-2021-000029 | |
| Download: ML21035A255 (148) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Predecisional Enforcement Conference RE Tennessee Valley Authority Docket Number: EA-19-092 Location: teleconference Date: Wednesday, July 2:2, 2020 Work Order No.: NRC-0998 Pages 1-147 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island A venue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PRE-DECISIONAL ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE 5 RE 6 TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (TVA) 7 (DOCKET NO . EA-19-092) 8 + + + + +
9 WEDNESDAY 10 JULY 22, 2020 11 + + + + +
12 The conference was convened at 8 : 00 a . m.
13 EDT via Video Teleconference, Kenneth O ' Brien, Region 14 III , Deputy Regional Administrator , presiding.
15 16 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
17 KENNETH O ' BRIEN , Region III, 18 Deputy Regional Administrator 19 ALEX ECHAVARRIA , Region II, 20 Office of I nvestigations 21 IAN GIFFORD , Office of Enforcement 22 JOE GILLESPIE, Attorney, 23 Office of the General Counsel 24 NICK HILTON , Senior Enforcement Advisor ,
25 Office of Enforcement, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 CRAIG KONTZ , Region II ,
2 Office of Investigations 3 MAORI LEMONCELLI , Acting Assistant General 4 Counsel 5 MARK MILLER , Region I I , Director ,
6 Division of Reactor Projects 7 MARCIA SIMON, Senior Attorney ,
8 Office of the General Counsel 9 ANDY SHUTTLEWORTH , Director, 10 Office of I nvestigations 11 SCOTT SPARKS , Region II ,
12 Senior Enforcemen t Specialist 13 14 ALSO PRESENT :
15 J IM BARSTOW, TVA, Vice President, 16 Nuclear Regulatory Affairs 17 TIM RAUSCH, TVA , Chief Nuclear Officer 18 TRICIA ROELOFS , TVA, Director, 19 Dat a Governance & Analytics 20 CHRI S RI CE, TVA, Director , Plant Operations ,
21 Watts Bar Nuclear Plant 22 RANDY STAGGS, TVA , Director , Pl ant Support ,
23 Watts Bar Nuclear Plant 24 TONY WILLIAMS, TVA , Sit e Vice President ,
25 Watts Bar Nuclear Plant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 BRENDAN HENNESSEY , Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw 2 Pit tman 3 MONI CA HERNANDEZ , Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw 4 Pittman 5 TOM HI LL, Pil lsbu ry Winthrop Shaw Pittman 6 MICHAEL LEPRE , Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 7 DAVID LEWIS , Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 8 DREW NAVI KAS , Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 9 HOWARD FELDMAN, Blank Rome 10 BARRY LEVI NE , Blank Rome 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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4 1 CONTENTS 2 Opening Remarks 3 - Director , Office of Enforcement . 5 4 Enforcement Policy Overview 5 - Office of Enforcement Staff . . 13 6 Apparent Violation 7 - Office of Enforcement Staff . 16 8 External Presentation 17 9 Complainant Comments 21 10 External Response to Comp l ain ant Comments 58 11 Questions . 99 12 Closing Remarks 145 13 - Director, Office of Enforcement 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 P- R- O- C- E- E- D- I - N- G- S 2 8:01 a.Ill.
3 MR. O' BRIEN: Good morning, everybody I 4 have us at the top of the hour , 7 o'clock my time, 8 5 o'clock your time , so I thought we might begin .
6 I think we might still have some people 7 join us in a few minutes, but we'll start with some of 8 the preliminaries and then go from there.
9 I'm Ken O'Brien , I'm the Deputy Regional 10 Administrator for Region III, and I'm Also the 11 Director for the Office of Enforcement's Special 12 Project Team .
13 Before we get started I ' d like to ask Ian 14 Gifford of the Office of Enforcement to review a few 15 details of today ' s video teleconference and answer any 16 questions you might have. Ian.
17 MR . GIFFORD : Everybody should be able to 18 see the participants of today's meeting on the right 19 side of their screen . If you can't see the 20 participant list, please select the participant button 21 at the top right.
22 In order to control your own audio you can 23 mute and unmute yourself by looking for your name in 24 the attendee list. Hovering over that name with your 25 mouse, and you will see the video on and off in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 audio mute and unmute button appear.
2 If you're having technical difficulties 3 during the meeting, please contact the host through 4 the chat box below. If the chat box does not 5 automatically appear, it's a button at the top right 6 next to the participant button. And you can select 7 that . Then you select host as the send to and notify 8 them that you're having issues.
9 To see a list of the video for all the 10 pan elists that have their video activated, you can see 11 three horizontal lines in the bottom right corner. If 12 you select that drop-down menu you can toggle between 13 lists and thumbnails.
14 The thumbnail view will give you the 15 videos for everybody, in addition to the active 16 speaker, that takes up the top right corner. This is 17 what your screen would like as the thumbnails are 18 activated.
19 During the presentations today when there 20 are a PowerPoint you may want to go to full screen 21 mode . You can select full screen in the bottom left 22 corner. That will make the PowerPoint slides take up 23 a larger point of the screen and you ' ll see that your 24 menu to control your own a udio and see the 25 participants moves.
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7 1 You have to hover your mouse to the top 2 center portion of the screen. The menu will drop-down 3 and you can select mute me.
4 You can also select the participants tab 5 and you will get a video in the top right corner where 6 you have the active speaker. You can actually resize 7 that by dragging the bottom left corner . You can also 8 select the participants tab to get the thumbnail views 9 for everybody .
10 That popup window is a lso re-sizable. And 11 if you're running a dual monitor setup, you can drag 12 that popup window onto a separate screen so that it 13 doesn't cover any of the PowerPoint slides. You can 14 also move that throughout a single screen if you are 15 covering up some of the PowerPoint material with the 16 video that you ' d like to see.
17 I f you do not want to see the PowerPoint 18 slides or we're at a portion of the meeting where it's 19 Q&A and there aren't PowerPoint slide, you can 20 prioritize video by selecting the top right corner of 21 the active speaker box. You see two arrows, one that 22 points to the top right and one that points to the 23 bottom left.
24 That will expand the video feed to take 25 over the entire screen. And you'll see the active NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 speaker box in the center of the screen as well as all 2 the video thumbnails along the bottom.
3 They' 11 show five video thumbnails 4 simul taneou sly . If there are more active videos then 5 the five you ' ll see arrows appear under the thumbnails 6 and you can scroll left to right.
7 In order to exit the full screen mode and 8 go back to see the PowerPoint slides, in the top right 9 portion of your screen you'll see exit full screen 10 view. Thanks, Ken.
11 MR. 0 1 BRIEN: Thank you , Ian. Today we' re 12 abou t to conduct a predecisional enforc-e ment 13 conference between the NRC and TVA, but before we 14 begin, I'd like the NRC Panel Members and then the 15 other observers for the NRC to introduce themselves.
16 And then, Mr. Rausch, if I may ask you to 17 introduce yourself and your representatives for TVA I 18 would appreciate it . As I said, we ' 11 introduce 19 ourselves from the Panel first .
20 Again, I ' m Kenneth O'Brien, I'm the Deputy 21 Regional Administrator for Region III, and also the 22 Director for the Off ice of Enforcement ' s Special 23 Project Team.
24 MR . HILTON : Nick Hilton , Senior 25 Enforcement Advisor, Off i ce of Enforcement.
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9 1 MR . SPARKS: Scott Sparks, Senior 2 Enforcemen t Specialist for Reg i on II and an OE Special 3 Project Team member.
4 MR . O'BRIEN : I'm missing Marcia here .
5 Marcia, are you having difficult , there you go .
6 Marcia?
7 MS . SIMON : Yes , sorry. This is Marcia 8 Simon , I' m a Senior Attorney in the NRC Office of 9 General Cou nsel .
10 MR . O' BRI EN: Thank you. An d then if we 11 can begin , I know George Wilson is unable to join us 12 this mornin g . Andy, would you like to begin?
13 MR. SHUTTLEWORTH: Andy Shuttleworth, 14 Director , Office of Investigations .
15 MR . MILLER : Ma~k Miller, Director of the 16 Division of Reactor Projects in Region II.
17 MR . ECHAVARRIA : Alex Echavarria , Special 18 Agent - in - Charge , Office of Investigations , Region II 19 field office .
20 MR. KONTZ: Craig Kontz , Senior Project 21 Engineer , Office of Investigations.
22 MR . GI LLESP I E : Joe Gil l espie , Attorney ,
23 Office of the General Counsel.
24 MS . LEMONCELLI : Mau ri Lemoncelli , Acting 25 Assistant Gen eral Coun sel.
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10 1 MR. 0 ' BRIEN: Mr. Rausch, may I ask you to 2 introduce your representatives please?
3 MR. RAUSCH: Yes. Good morning. My name 4 is Tim Rausch and I am the Chief Nuclear Officer for 5 TVA.
6 I'm here today with TVA's outside counsel 7 Mike Lepre, Tom Hill, Dave Lewis, Monica Hernandez, 8 Drew Navikas, Brendan Hennessey, from the law firm of 9 Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Barry Levine ,
10 Howard Feldman, from the l aw firm Blank Rome.
11 I also have Jim Barstow, from TVA's 12 Corporate Office, Tony Williams, Randy Staggs and 13 Chris Rice, from TVA ' s Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.
14 They're here to provide some comments and also assist 15 in answering any questions that t h e NRC may have after 16 it hears TVA ' s presentation .
17 Also joining us this morning is Tricia 18 Roelofs, from TVA, with her serving as the team lead 19 for TVA's response to the apparent violation . Thank 20 you.
21 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Rausch.
22 Today we will conduct a predecisional enforcement 23 conference between the NRC and TVA. In accordance 24 with the NRC ' s enforcement policy manual , this 25 conference is closed to public observation because it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 involves the findings of an NRC Office of 2 I nvest i gation repor t that have been p u bli c l y 3 disclosed.
4 This meeting is also being transcr i bed 5 therefor e it ' s important that all individuals speak 6 clearly , identify themselves to assist the 7 tran scriber .
8 A written transcript will provide the NRC 9 with a record of the information that is presented 10 today and will be used in reaching a f i nal Agency 11 decision on matters that we are about to discuss.
12 The transcript is not normally released to 13 the public, however, if a request under the Freedom of 14 Information Act is received , the release will be 15 con s i dered subject to the redactions allowed by the 16 Freedom of Information Act. With the exception of the 17 tran script , no portion of this PEC shal l be recorded .
18 Following my brief opening remarks, Mr.
19 Scott Sparks, a team member of the Offic-e of 20 Enforcement Special Project Team , wi ll briefly discuss 21 the Agency's enforcement policy .
22 I'll then d i scu ss the apparent violat i ons 23 that we plan to discuss today based upon a schedule we 24 had agreed upon . And then , Mr . Rau sch , you ' ll be 25 given an opportuni ty to respond to the apparent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 violations.
2 I wi s h to re i te r ate to all tho s e in 3 attendance today of the decision to hold this 4 conference , does not mean that NRC has determined t hat 5 a violation has occurred or that an enforcement action 6 will be taken. This conference is an important step 7 in arrivin g at that final decision .
8 Following the presentation today we' 11 9 take a break for lunch and then caucus according to 10 the schedule we ' ve identif i ed and then we ' 11 follow-up 11 with questions and answers this afternoon.
12 Las t ly , we 'l l have some closing remarks 13 for today in preparation for completing today's 14 activities and opening for tomorrow's activities .
15 This conference will take place over today , tomorrow 16 and Friday , as we previously discussed .
17 As I indicated , t h is is a predecisional 18 enforcement conference to discuss the apparent 19 violation that were identified d u ring an investigation 20 completed on May 1 7th, 2019 by the NRC ' s Office of 21 Investigation regarding activities the Tennessee 22 Va l ley Author i ty Watts Bar Nu c l ear Pl ant .
23 The purpose of the investigation was to 24 determine whether TVA empl oyees deliberated submitted 25 i ncompl ete or inaccurate information to the NRC and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 whether TVA employees deliberately violated plant 2 procedures.
3 At the request of the Director of Office 4 of Enforcement , the NRC convened a multi-office team, 5 which I led , to review the enforcement aspects of the 6 OI investigation report .
7 As a result of this review, an apparent 8 violation were identified and they ' re documented in a 9 letter I sent to Mr. Barstow on March 9th.
10 At this conference we are affording TVA 11 the opportunity to provide information relative to the 12 apparent violations , inclu ding whether TVA believes 13 the violations occurred, the circumstances of the 14 issues and whether TVA employees engaged in deliberate 15 misconduct, the severity or safety significance of the 16 apparent violations from TVA' s perspective , any errors 17 that are noted in the NRC's letter of March 9th , and 18 any escalation or mitigation considerations TVA would 19 like u s to consider .
20 At this point I' d like to ask Mr. Sparks 21 to discuss the Agency's enforcement policy. Scott.
22 MR. SPARKS: Thanks, Ken . After an 23 apparent violation is identified, it's assessed in 24 accordance with the NRC's enforcement policy.
25 The assessment process involves NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 characterizing the apparent violations to one of four 2 severity levels, based on safety and regu latory 3 significance.
4 For cases where there is a potential for 5 escalated enforcement action, that is where the 6 severity level of the apparent violation could be 7 characterized at Severity Level 1, 2 or 3, a 8 predecisional enforcement conference is held.
9 There are three primary enforcement 10 san ctions available to the NRC. They are notices of 11 violations , civil penalties and orders.
12 Orders may be issu ed for violations , or, 13 in the absence of a violation because of a significant 14 public health or safety issue , the NRC will not 15 normally impose a civil penalty against an individual.
16 A predecisional enforcement conference is 17 essentially the last step in the inspection 18 investigation process before there NRC makes its final 19 enforcement decision.
20 The purpose of the conference today is not 21 to negotiate an enforcement sanction, our purpose 22 today rather is to obtain information direct l y from 23 TVA that will assist us in determining the appropriate 24 enforcement action , such as a common u nderstanding of 25 the facts, root causes and missed opportunities NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 associated with the apparent violations , a common 2 understandi n g of the c orr ect i ve ac tions taken or 3 planned, and a common understanding of the 4 signi ficance of the issu es and a need for a lasting 5 comprehensive corrective action .
6 We would also appreciate your views as to 7 whether t here is any information t hat may be rel,e vant 8 to the application of enforcement discretion for any 9 resul ting and enforcement sanction .
10 The apparent vio l ations d i scussed at this 11 conference are subject to further review and may 12 change prior to any resulting enforcement action .
13 I t ' s important to note that the decision 14 to conduct this conference does not mean that the NRC 15 has determined that viol ation s have occurred or that 16 enforcement action will be taken .
17 Following this predecisional enforcement 18 conference, the NRC will reach a final enforcement 19 decision . This process could take approximately two 20 months or more.
21 Finally , if the enforcement action 22 invol ves a proposed civil penalty or an order, the NRC 23 may issue a press release after the enforcement action 24 is issu ed . Mr . O'Brien will now briefl y discu ss the 25 apparent viol ations . Ken .
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16 1 MR. O' BRIEN: Thank you, Scott . Mr.
2 Rausch, in the lette r we sent to Mr. Bars tow dated 3 March 9th of this year we documented 12 apparent 4 violat i ons . We had also included a factual summary of 5 the OI investigation as an e n closure to that letter .
6 Today I understand that you and the Staff 7 that you have with you are plannin g to d iscuss your 8 perspective on five of the 12 apparent violations.
9 Numbers 1 , 2 , 3 , 5 and 6 .
10 In summary, these apparen t violat i ons 11 involved a failure to follow procedures during a plant 12 startup associated with using t h e standby main feed 13 pump to maintain steam generator levels, a deliberate 14 fail u re t o follow procedures associated with a change 15 to a procedure, which a llowed the p l a n t to draw a 16 bubble in the reactor coolant system at a lower 17 temperature than previously authorized, a deliberate 18 failure to follow procedures during a plant startup 19 associated with not assu ring that required actions 20 were compl eted prior to entering Mode 4 , a deliberate 21 failure to follow procedures associated with the 22 maintenance of control room logs during a plant 23 startup and a deliberate failure to follow procedures 24 associated with the return to service of the residual 25 heat removal system during a plant startup associated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 with an uncontrolled rise in the pressurizer water 2 l evel.
3 We ' 11 now turn this portion of the meeting 4 over to you, Mr . Rau sch , so that you and your staff 5 can give your opinion and perspective on the issues 6 and any information that you believe is relevant to 7 the NRC ' s enforcement determination . At this point 8 I 'll ask you to proceed. Thank you , sir .
9 MR . RAUSCH : Okay , good morning . I 10 appr ec i ate the opportunity to be here today and 11 provide the NRC with more information about the March 12 9th apparen t violation s .
13 I 've worked in commercial nuclear industry 14 for over 30 years . I 've held leadership roles in 15 operat i ons, maintenance , engineering , o u tages ,
16 training, quality , process re-engineering and project 17 manager .
18 I have senior reactor operator 19 certifications from a BWR- 2 and BWR- 6 . As well as a 20 licensed operation training instru ctor certification .
21 I joined TVA in October of 2018 after 22 serving n i ne years at the Susquehanna Nu c l ear Power 23 Plant as a chief nuclear officer for PPL and Talen 24 Energy .
25 My personal experience at Su squ ehanna NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 informs my view of the events that we are here today 2 to talk about . When I began working there in 2009, 3 the site had recently received the chilling effects 4 letter and led the nation in the number of anonymous 5 allegations to the NRC.
6 By 2017 the site had produced industry 7 excellence in safety, reliability and generation 8 results. And those results remain sustainable today.
9 I mentioned this to show that I personally 10 know what it takes to recover, continuously improve 11 and sustain excellent performance. And based on my 12 experience, I am confident that TVA is on the path to 13 achieving similar results as a fleet.
14 Events that led to the apparent violations 15 we ' re here to talk about today happened more than four 16 years ago. And while unacceptable , do not indicate 17 our current performance or culture.
18 Watts Bar is a different site a nd a 19 different leadership team . During the past several 20 years we've taken actions to improve our nuclear 21 safety culture.
22 If you were to step on the site at Watts 23 Bar today, you would observe and you would feel the 24 energy of the team that has the attitude and behaviors 25 to deliver safe, reliable and continuously improving NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 results .
2 TVA' s improvements have been recognized by 3 industry groups, by the NRC at public meetings, in 4 assessment letters and during follow- up inspections .
5 At the end of this predecisional 6 enforcement conference I want you to know three 7 things. One, we want to move forward . TVA takes f ul l 8 ownership for past performance deficiencies and is 9 committed to building upon the improvements we've 10 already made.
11 Two, TVA wants to have a heal th regulatory 12 relationship with the NRC. We want to be tr-e ated 13 fairly, and we trust that any regulatory action will 14 be based on objective fact and a reasonable 15 interpretat ion of the NRC's own regulation.
16 And three , TVA stands behind its 17 employees. Our employees were doing the best that 18 they could while with working within a deficient 19 environment.
20 And to respond to the NRC questions about 21 an emergent situation with one limited exception , I 22 firmly believe that none of our employees engaged in 23 a deliberate misconduct that the NRC accused them of.
24 At Watts Bar we have a l eadership team in 25 place based on their knowledge, skills and abilities NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 to grow and sustain a health safety culture and 2 environment.
3 At CNO, I am passionate about and 4 committed to ensure our entire fleet leadership team 5 now and in the future leads with trust and respect, 6 with conservative operation that puts safety above all 7 and that we demonstrate the value of a safety 8 conscious work environment through our communication, 9 our actions and results.
10 Before I turn the presentation over I 'd 11 like to comment on a few of t he challenges that we've 12 had in responding to these apparent violations. These 13 events are nearly five years old. In many cases we 14 were not provided all the information needed to 15 efficiently and effect ively evaluate and prepare it.
16 And while we haven ' t forgotten lessons we 17 learned, the passage of time has made it difficult to 18 respond to many of these allegations. This is 19 especially true because TVA' s understanding of the 20 event was not the same as the NRC has outlined in the 21 apparent violation.
22 Because of that we hired outside counsel 23 to assist in developing our factual understanding so 24 we could do our best to put t hose details together and 25 help us decide if we needed to look at these events NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 differently in light of the apparent violation.
2 TVA is happy to answer any q u est i ons that 3 you have today. But because our attorneys have 4 assembled the facts , we will often rely on them to 5 assist TVA in a n swerin g our questions .
6 With that , I will turn it over to Tony 7 Williams, our Site Vice President at Watts Bar for an 8 overview of past and current performances at this 9 site . Tony .
10 MR. WILLIAMS: Good morning. I am Tony 11 Williams , I am the Site Vice President at TVA ' s Watts 12 Bar Nuclear .
13 My previous work experience includes 14 positions as site vice president at the Sequoyah 15 Nuclear Power Plant, Palisades Nuclear Power Plant as 16 a plant manager and the operations director at Indian 17 Poin t Nucl ear . I' ve obtained a senior reactor 18 operator license at both Indian Point Nuclear Station 19 and Salem Nu clear Station .
20 As Tim stated, we have learned a lot over 21 the last several years and we are committed to moving 22 forward to be better every day . We are dedicated to 23 maintaining a health nuclear safety culture, including 24 a health safety conscious work environment at all of 25 o ur facilit i es .
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22 1 We have already acknowledged that the 2 chilled work environment developed in the Watts Bar 3 operation department in 2015. The time when the 4 events that are the subject of the apparent violation 5 happened.
6 TVA has implemented its corrective actions 7 to successfully address the environment . B-e fore 8 focusing on the improvements we have made, I will 9 briefly talk about where we were in 2015 and how we 10 got there .
11 MR. O'BRIEN: Mr . Williams?
12 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes .
13 MR. O'BRIEN: My apologies for 14 interrupting you , but your camera doesn't seem to be 15 on, and we like to have the camera on for anybody 16 that's speaking.
17 MS. ROELOFS: Is it on now?
18 MR. O' BRIEN : Yes, it is. Thank you very 19 much. My apologies for interrupting you again .
20 MR. WI LL I AMS: All right, thank you, Mr.
21 O'Brien. Before we focus on the improvements I've 22 made I want to briefly talk about where we were in 23 2015 and how we got there.
24 Watts Bar operations organization did not 25 perform in an expected way . Human performance NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 standards and operator fundamental shortfalls were 2 causing consequential errors .
3 In comparison to other utilities, the 4 operations department ' s performance was the bottom 5 quartile of the industry. Department performance gaps 6 existed in the following areas .
7 Human performance error prevention tools, 8 placekeeping , as seen in the document reviews for 9 placing RHR letdown in service to address the rising 10 pressurizer l evel, a lso proceeding using (audio 11 interference), as seen in operations logs and 12 condition report initiating .
13 A common factors analysis was identified 14 among other commonalities that documentation of issues 15 in log and corrective action program were not timely.
16 And in some cases , did not occur . In the absence of 17 this documentation it could be misconstrued as 18 deceptive and not just admission by an error .
19 Equipment monitoring as seen in October 20 21st, 2015 event, associated with entering Mode 2 with 21 both source range detectors inoperable .
22 Operator fundamentals, plant control and 23 conservative bias and this is associated with RCS heat 24 up on excess letdown with two evolutions, associated 25 with over, and two evolutions associated with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 overfl owing the Unit 2 reactor vessel d u ring a 2 reviewing outage.
3 Leadership behaviors. The OCC ' s rigor in 4 re sponse to the main control room challenge of ini tial 5 assumptions associated with the activity of h eating up 6 on that first letdown . Ineffective commu nications 7 leading to trust and safety culture issues within the 8 operations department .
9 Watts Bar was facing a number of 10 challenges whi ch increased t h eir workload a nd fatigue 11 at the site. TVA was near in the final completion of 12 Unit 2 for licensing f u el load in startup.
13 Several major work activities were ongoing 14 to s upport these efforts . The site faced multiple 15 planned and unplanned events including, a Unit 1 16 refueling outage , forced outages , and multiple 17 operational errors on both units .
18 Numerous site challenges, including the 19 ones listed above , led to site employees spending 20 significantly more time at work. Normal work 21 schedules were revised and provided additional 22 coverage. Which resulted in outage lite staffing 23 levels and hours on a routine basis. As a result ,
24 attrition of time .
25 Safety culture and trust declining. At NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 the same time the site was facing these downs , TVA was 2 seeking t o raise the p e rformance of Unit 1 in line 3 with the fleet objectives and to achieve top quartile 4 performance. TVA sought to do so through an 5 accountability model and a zero-toleran ce initiative.
6 Several disciplinary actions were taken in 7 the operations department . Although these actions 8 were taken with the inten t to raise performance 9 standards , the rationale and basis for these actions 10 were not a lways adequate l y commun i cated with the 11 workforce and negatively affected the environment .
12 Also , as part of this initiative , Watts 13 Bar began tracking rule deviations. This involved 14 expectation for employees who had violations of a 15 rule, be a greeter at the plant the fo l lowing day to 16 discuss lessons learned wi t h others. Although it 17 intended to be a learning opportunity , the initiat i ve 18 was reviewed as negative by the workforce.
19 These are exampl es of what was , in 20 hindsight, an overly aggressive management style .
21 That was not objective at ach ieving the change within 22 the site culture.
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26 1 environment by also improving operator fundamentals 2 and operational performance at Watts Bar .
3 Today the senior leadership team is made 4 up of different individuals , with a different 5 leadership styl e . Operations department , due to 6 performance and fundamentals, has significantly 7 improved .
8 This department has not had a 9 consequential error since October of 2018. Cu rrent 10 performance i s top quartile in the industry.
11 Our safety culture monitoring process are 12 now effective at identifying issues , that can impact 13 safety culture at a department level. And we are 14 committed to continuou sly monitoring and then taking 15 action to i mprove our safety cul ture.
16 The operations department is fully staffed 17 and developing a healthy pipeline supporting othe r 18 departments.
19 For operations safety culture , the 20 corrective actions are numerous. We have taken (audio 21 interference) and these initiatives have been laid out 22 in more detail, in written material that TVA has 23 submitted for the NRC before today's conference.
24 I want to highlight a few of these 25 exampl es here. We conducted a case study studying a l l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 of the issues associated with the November 11th, 2015 2 incident. We presented this to licensed operators, 3 outage control center staff , and the senior leadership 4 team.
5 The case study included the discussion of 6 the performance gap associated decision- making , with 7 management stop when unsure, and the use of the 8 corrective action program to document and resolve 9 these issues. And the procedure use and adherence 10 that we see in our review of this event .
11 Additionally the roles and the dynamics 12 between the main control room and the outage control 13 room were discussed.
14 Senior leadership conducted oral boards in 15 January of 2016 with all shift managers, to evaluate 16 and reinforce conservative decision-making, 17 responsibility and authority for stopping when unsure, 18 and procedure user adhering, including the use of 19 n/a's.
20 Following the completion of all these oral 21 boards, the same senior leadership team met with all 22 the shift managers to discuss the commonalities 23 identified in these oral boards as learnings and 24 expectations going forward to the shift managers. The 25 shift managers then formally sign their understanding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 of these expectations.
2 To includ e repetit i on of the c h illed work 3 environment , TVA implemented the Watts Bar business 4 planning initiative and improved senior leadership 5 behavior s . Specifically related to managing a 6 changing work environment in effective communications 7 within the workplace .
8 Additionally to improve the safety culture 9 and trust at the site , we are strengthening our 10 s upport of o u r empl oyee engagement i nitiat i ves. The 11 shop steward meetings are now constructive and meet 12 regu larly with the senior leadership t eam to get a 13 good feedback on the leaders in the (audio 14 interference) .
15 We have craftsmanshi p council that is 16 functioning to assess their own performance and 17 weaknesses in the fund amentals of stations l earnings .
18 A union-led code of excellent initiative 19 is held to alleviate the challenges of commu nication .
20 With our ambassadors getting engaged with 21 communicating with management and union on issues, to 22 ensure we a ll share the same u nderstandi ng of the 23 challenges. And employee advisory council that takes 24 initiative , works within the department and then 25 fi l ters them up to the l eadershi p team for action .
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29 1 I am proud of the progress we have made ,
2 and I am confident that the issues associated with the 3 apparent violation, have been fixed. I trust that the 4 NRC will take TVA's already extensive corrective 5 actions into account when evaluating the timeliness 6 adequacies in comprehensive of our action that can 7 address these areas of concern identified in the March 8 9th, letter so that we can continue to move forward 9 with our improvement and focus on the future.
10 I will now t urn i t over to Mr. Jim Barstow 11 to briefly address the regulatory aspect of the 12 apparent violation.
13 MR. BARSTOW: All right, thank you, Tony.
14 Good morning. My name is Jim Barstow, I am the Vice 15 President of Nuclear Regulatory Affairs and Support 16 Services.
17 I have worked in the nuclear industry for 18 over 30 years beginning with my service in the U.S.
19 Navy. I have been with TVA since the fall of l ast 20 year and previously served in leadership roles and 21 areas of work management, performance improvement ,
22 licensing, regulatory affairs, organizational 23 effectiveness and radiation protection.
24 Additionally, I hold a senior reactor 25 operator certification for Clinton Power Station.
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30 1 I would like to note a few relevant, 2 specific personal experience in 2005. At that time I 3 was assigned to the Exelon management team as part of 4 the operating agreement at Salem and Hope Creek during 5 the period when NRC had issued crosscutting issues in 6 the areas of corrective action programs and safety 7 conscious work environment.
8 I had the responsibility at that time, as 9 the chief corrective action program manager had made 10 many changes that resulted in satisfying our self and 11 the NRC that the program was effective and sustainable 12 and would support a strong safety conscious work 13 environment.
14 I bring this experience up only to provide 15 context of my own personal exposure and understanding 16 of issues similar to the ones we are going to talk 17 about in the coming days .
18 I want to state emphatically and 19 unequivocally the TVA values , this relationship with 20 the NRC. TVA has been, and continues to be, committed 21 to maintaining an honest and open communication with 22 the NRC .
23 TVA leadership understands that timely and 24 open communication is vital to ensuring that there is 25 a health and trusting relationship between the NRC and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 TVA. Before our counsel gets into the details of the 2 AVs , the apparent violation, I would like to share 3 with you two concerns I have based on my 30 years of 4 industry experience and my discussions with industry 5 colleagues .
6 The proposed apparent violations for 50.9 7 are troubling because they would set a new precedence 8 for what the NRC considers enforceable. The proposed 9 escalated enforcement relies on information from drop -
10 in meetings, backup slides that apparently were not 11 provide to NRC and narrow interpretations of 12 information used in informal and non-regulatory 13 decision - making form.
14 In reality , the basis for the apparent 15 violations represent misunderstands for knowl edge gaps 16 on the part of the individuals regarding evo l ving 17 issues.
18 TVA understands that it is essential to 19 provide NRC complete and accu rate information in all 20 venues. With one exception we believe this occurred.
21 TVA also believes that the apparent 22 violation of the 50 . 9 would set new precedence in all 23 but one case. This is troubling because the new 24 precedence would likely have a detrimental effect on 25 feature industry communications with the NRC during NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 inspections and management discussion .
2 My second concern is regarding the 3 unstated theme that appears to underline the majority 4 of all the apparent violations. TVA believes that the 5 inves tigators developed a theory that Watts Bar 6 orchestrated a cover - up of operational decision in 7 November of 2015, the level of management involved in 8 this decision in an attempt to conceal the issues.
9 This theory is absolut ely incorrect and 10 has been wrongly used by the NRC as support for the 11 proposed apparent violation .
12 The NRC appears to presume that the 13 individuals must have intentionally violated 14 requirements and then tried to cover it up. This is 15 not the case. Rather, there were well documented 16 performance and safety culture issues at Watts Bar in 17 2015 , as Mr . Williams just outlined for you .
18 The issues identified in Apparent 19 Violations 1 through 6 represent consequences of that 20 degraded work environment and safety culture. The 21 information accuracy identified in Apparent Violation 22 7 through 12 are, for the most part, the result of 23 viewing our facts from that time frame through the 24 lens of an inappropriate cover-up theory.
25 The body of evidence shows that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 individuals were independently acting in good faith 2 with un - received consequences in terms of either 3 process or perception. The safety of the nuclear 4 plant was never in question nor was there any 5 signi f ica n t risk to publ i c health and safety .
6 I'd like to now ask our legal counsel to 7 give a few additional opening comments .
8 MR. O ' BRIEN : Mr . Barstow , before you move 9 it on , may I ask everybody that's not speaking to mut e 10 their mies, as there a r e a few t h at are not. And then 11 also in your room may I ask if you ' d make sure that 12 the microphon e for whoever is speaking is very close 13 to them. We're having a little bit of difficulty with 14 feedback .
15 MS . ROELOFS: Mr. O'Brien , this is 16 Patricia Roelofs , the TVA lead , we have one audio in 17 the room so we're not using audio on our computer .
18 Can you hear me okay?
19 MR . O' BRIEN : I can hear you okay , it's 20 the background noises that are causing a little bit of 21 difficult in your room. And then there are a few 22 people that are also on the line that have their 23 microphones open, and they should close them.
24 MS . ROELOFS : Okay , yes , sir . Tell us if 25 you still have probl ems after those folks ' mute NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 because I can get our IT person here. But we're using 2 the room audio, not the computer audio.
3 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. I'll 4 let you go ahead and I'll wait till we're finished 5 with the next speaker before I interrupt again. Thank 6 you.
7 MS. ROELOFS: Okay, thank you, sir .
8 MR. HILL: Thank you , Jim. My name is Tom 9 Hill. I'm with Pillsbury here representing TVA .
10 I' m a litigator who has spent more than 40 11 years, first prosecuting as an Assistant United States 12 Attorney and then representing and defending companies 13 and individuals accused of some form of misconduct.
14 Whether in a criminal , civil or administrative 15 context.
16 Although over the years I've repres,e nted 17 other companies and individuals in NRC related 18 criminal and administrative matters, I'm pretty 19 confident that of all the people in this virtual room, 20 I' m the least familiar with nuclear matters generally 21 and with the NRC.
22 But I do know a lot about due process and 23 fairness in conducting proceedings that are designed 24 to learn the truth. So I want to take just a few 25 minutes to talk about this process.
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35 1 TVA and the ten accused individuals have 2 col lectively s p ent thou san ds of hours trying to 3 uncover all the facts surrounding the events of 4 November of 2015 and their aftermath .
5 I n March of this year these ten people ,
6 and TVA, were issued apparent violations accusing them 7 of deliberate misconduct. This very seriou s and high 8 standard has been defined by the NRC to require proof 9 of essentially criminal condu ct .
10 So as you might imagine, it was very 11 upsetting to these people , and to TVA , to be so 12 accu sed .
13 But what made these allegations all the 14 more troubling was that they were made without 15 disclosu re of most of t h e underlying facts that l ed 16 the NRC to make these serious accusations. That , of 17 course , includes t he unwi llingness of the NRC to 18 disclose and make available to the accused its OI 19 report upon which presumably these allegations are 20 based.
21 It has also become apparent that the NRC 22 i s relying h eavily on TVA OIG memoranda . Reporting to 23 summarize interviews conducted by the TVA OIG and/or 24 the United States Attorney's Office beginning in 25 January of 2016 and cont i nuing for several years .
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36 1 Over my 40 plus years, first as a 2 prosecu tor , now as a defense counsel , I have become 3 all too aware of how inaccurate and misleading these 4 investigative memoranda of interviews can be. Whether 5 by the TVA OIG, the FBI or other investigative 6 authorities .
7 These memoranda tend to be relied upon as 8 transcripts, yet nothing could be further from the 9 tru th . Rather, hou rs long interviews are redu c -e d to 10 two or three page memos.
11 And whether through sloppiness , time 12 pressu res, i nadvertence or otherwise, these memoranda 13 often mischaracterize, misquote, distort and fail to 14 contextualize the interviews they purport to 15 accurately summarize.
16 For the NRC now to be so heavily relying 17 on these memoranda with at least , without at least 18 giving TVA access to full underlying notes, recordings 19 or transcripts , is contrary to an objective of 20 determining what the truth is and what a proper 21 outcome of these PECs should be.
22 Of course, if any of these matters proceed 23 to litigation, we will get access to all these 24 investigative memoranda and the underlying notes and 25 other materials . And we wi l l have the opportunity NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 ourselves to interview directly, not only those 2 interviewed, but the interviewers themselves.
3 But to have to wait to learn what actually 4 occurred during the OIG interviews would come at the 5 cost of reputational , financial and emotional harm, 6 which could have been avoided by a more transparent 7 policy of sharing the information now.
8 Indeed , once we began exploring the actual 9 allegations, it became obvious to us that many of them 10 were predicated upon facts which appeared to simply be 11 incorrect. Thus by way of one example , four 12 individuals from TVA are accused of deliberate 13 misconduct in connection with a January 6th drop-in 14 meeting at which, according to the NRC, a slide was 15 presented characterizing certain conclusions as 16 "causes, " even though the slide referred not to 17 " causes" but to "insights."
18 It turns out of course that this was a 19 backup slide that no one believes was ever shar,e d to 20 the NRC. So why is the NRC relying on it?
21 Presumably the NRC has some undisclosed 22 evidence that contrary to all evidence TVA is aware 23 of , the slide was actually shared and that it was 24 somehow characterized as causes and not insights , as 25 was written .
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38 1 So how were these four individuals and TVA 2 to con fron t evi d ence and fact s that h ave been withhe l d 3 from them?
4 Of cou rse , if we were compelled to go to 5 litigation we would be able to find o u t the answers to 6 these questions from the NRC attendees and from the 7 TVA OIG, who I s u spect may well b e the source of the 8 slide. But without having that information now, we 9 are led to specu late , and that is not as it shou ld be .
10 I men t i on thi s o nly as one example. But 11 the apparent violations are filled with what seem to 12 be factual inaccu racies . Or at least concl u sory 13 allegations with no factual information to support 14 them .
15 Emails are simply referred to genericall y 16 as emails, leaving everyone to guess as to which 17 emai l s the NRC might be referring to . Individuals are 18 unnamed, leaving the accused to speculate as to who 19 they might be .
20 All of which is to say this process of 21 forcing the accused to guess and speculate as to what 22 the NRC may be referrin g to i s not one conducive to 23 learning the truth. And I might add is totally 24 u nnecessary .
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39 1 one might feel the need not to disclose certain 2 i nformat ion for free of it being misu sed , r ather this 3 should be a search for truth. And in that process the 4 accu sed are entitled as a matter of f u ndamental due 5 process and fairness , know all the facts that form the 6 basis for the allegations against them so they can 7 c o n front them directly and head on .
8 Presumably , the purpose of these PECs is 9 t o find that truth . And for the NRC to be certain 10 that it ' s correct when , and if, it makes public any 11 violation or order.
12 This is seriou s b u siness with very serious 13 implications for the livelihoods, the reputations and 14 emotional well-being of these ten people . For the 15 reputation of TVA and for the confidence of the public 16 in TVA.
17 I know I speak for _l(b_)_(7_)(_C_) _ _ _ _ _ _l and 18 Todd Blakenship, Pillsbury ' s other clients in these 19 apparent violat ions . And I am very confident that I 20 also speak for the eight other charged individuals.
21 It is simply not enough that if charged 22 throu gh a l i t i gat i on p r ocess each person i n TVA will 23 have the opportunity to learn all the facts, which had 24 previou sly remained hidden and u ndisc l osed .
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40 1 allows the NRC to make its most considered judgement 2 about these allegations, it would have been fa r 3 preferable and far fairer to lay out all the evidence 4 the NRC was re l ying on and let the accused confront 5 it .
6 As it is , we are unfortunately left with 7 speculating and guessing about much of t h e bases, 8 these allegations. And we can only hope that we have 9 g u essed and speculated correctly as we have now turned 10 to address these a llegat i ons .
11 I think you heard Mr. Rausch state in the 12 b eginn ing that TVA 's goal is to move forward and build 13 upon its work in improving performance at Watts Bar.
14 I sincerely hope this is a goal that the NRC shares .
15 Having a PEC t h at is not fair or 16 meaningful does not help us reach that goal. Instead, 17 it puts TVA in the position where it will potent iall y 18 have to focus its energy on years of further 19 litigation, just to discover facts that if it had now 20 known, would use for the productive p u rpose of 21 addressing any of the NRC's concerns in using them to 22 drive f urther continuous improvement .
23 From here I will turn it over to my 24 col leagu e , Mike Lepre , to preliminaril y list some of 25 the al l egations specifically and give you a roadmap NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 for the next remaining days.
2 MR. LEPRE : Good morning. I'm Mike Lepre 3 with Pillsbury.
4 As TVA's Counsel we'd like to thank you 5 for the opportunity to assist TVA in providing you 6 with information regarding these apparent violations.
7 As you know, we ' ve already provided you with some more 8 detailed written responses, as well as an exhibit 9 book.
10 We ' ve done that because although we do 11 have three days to discuss these AVs , there are many 12 details and arguments that we might not specifically 13 cover orally or just simply better explained in 14 writing. So we just wanted to make sure that the NRC 15 has the benefit of all the information that TVA has 16 gathered in response to the AVs.
17 I'd like to spend a few minutes this 18 morning discussing the relevant legal standard, as 19 well as giving you a roadmap to some of the, to the 20 responses that you ' ll hear from TVA in greater detail 21 over the next few days.
22 So beginning with the legal standard, as 23 you know TVA has been accused of 12 apparent 24 violations alleging that its employees engaged in 25 deliberate misconduct. But to define deliberate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 misconduct the Staff must determine , under 10 CFR ,
2 Section 50 . 5 , that individuals working for TVA 3 intentionally sought to violate an NRC requirement.
4 This is an ext remely high standard .
5 Commission' s r egulations , orders and 6 statements interpreting its regulations make clear 7 that a find ing of deliberate misconduct requi res an 8 intent to commit wrongdoing. The rule states that 9 "deliberate misconduct by a person means an 10 intent i onal act o r omission that the person knows 11 would cause the licensee to be in violation of a 12 commission r ule, regulation or order.
13 The facts you've heard over the last few 14 weeks , and what TVA will explain over the next few 15 days, said that even i f some violations may have 16 occurred, they were no deliberate violation so this 17 ext r eme l y h i gh standard can't be met.
18 Before I get to the facts, it's important 19 for the Commission to consider its own words when it 20 promul gated 50 . 5 because the Commission said the 21 deliberate misconduct should apply only in extremely 22 circumstances where an intent to commit wrongdoing is 23 clear.
24 When it p ut 50 . 5 in place the Commission 25 expli c it ly stated that the r u le appl i es only to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 individuals who deliberately set in motion events that 2 would cause a violation . The Commi ssion also said 3 that an individual acting in this manner, in this 4 manner , h as the requ isite intent to act in a wrongful 5 manner.
6 The Commission made clear that the 7 deliberate misconduct rule does not apply in cases of 8 negligence, honest mistake or ignorance. And it 9 doesn't apply where people made mistakes while they 10 were actin g in good fa i th .
11 The Commission also explained that 50 . 5 12 does not include acts done in careless disregard or 13 requirements. Instead it ' s a narrower rule that 14 applies only to deliberate miscondu ct .
15 And f ina l ly, just to emphasize that high 16 standard, the Commission found that "under this rule 17 the range of action that would subject an individual 18 to action by the Commission does not differ 19 significantly from the range of actions that might 20 s ub ject the individual to criminal prosecution .
21 In that point it's significant to note 22 that both t h e United States Attorney's Off ice for the 23 Eastern District of Tennessee, as well as the main 24 J u stice Department in Washington , has evaluated all 25 the facts in thi s matter and concluded that no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 criminal prosecution was warranted.
2 TVA want s the NRC to know , as it will 3 explain , that it doesn ' t dispute that certain 4 violat i ons occurred . But as you 've heard over the 5 last few weeks , and wi l l hear over the next few days ,
6 nobody at TVA, with the exception of Billy Johnson 7 d u ring parts of his December 18th , 2015 NRC interview ,
8 nobody else intentionally violated any requirements.
9 To give you a preview of the next few days 10 at a high l evel, TVA plans to address the AVs i n three 11 groups . Or as we ' ve been calling them , three buckets .
12 The first bucket is AVs 1 , 2 , 3 , 5 and 6 .
13 Second bucket will be AVs 4 , 7 and 9. And the third 14 bucket is AVs , consistent AVs 8 , 10 , 11 and 12 .
15 Tur n ing to the first group we 'll discu ss 16 AVs 1 , 2, 3, 5 and 6 together, since they all involved 17 TVA procedu res . We ' 11 expl ain that TVA doesn ' t 18 dispute that aspects of these violations occurred but 19 will also exp l ain why there was no deliberate 20 miscondu ct.
21 With respect to AV 1 , TVA will acknowledge 22 that an u nintentional violation , Techn i cal 23 Specification 5.7.1, did occur.
24 Regarding AV 2 , TVA will acknowledge that 25 a n on-de l iberate v i o l at i on occu rred , given how the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 procedure change at issue was interpreted and applied.
2 For the reasons Mr. _l(b_)_(7_)(_C_) _ _ _l explained 3 during his PEC, TVA has also concluded that Mr.
4 _l (b_)(_7_)(C _ )_ _ _ I, in good faith , believed at the time that 5 the procedure change was minor or editorial. And 6 that's really what matters here of course, what Mr.
7 _l(b_)_(7_)(_c_) _ _ _I understood at the time.
8 He showed during his PEC how he's a person 9 of high integrity. And he more than credibly 10 explained that it never occurred to him that the 11 change would, or even could, be used to draw the 12 bubble before the RCS temperature reached 135 degrees.
13 And as he said , he actually had no idea that the 14 bubble was even drawn at below 135 degrees until just 15 a few months ago when he did some research in 16 connection with his apparent violation.
17 We understand that in his written 18 submittal Mr. Sprinkle, now a benefit of hindsight ,
19 does not dispute that he was mistaken when he thought 20 the procedure change was minor or editorial. When he 21 also explained that he honestly believed at the time 22 that the change was minor. And that Mr. l(b)(7)(C) 23 correctly processed it.
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46 1 does dispute that those acts were intentional.
2 TVA found that the shift manager, Billy 3 Johnson, wasn't aware there was a Mode 5, Mode 6 4 restraint before he authorized the main control room 5 to enter Mode 4. TVA also found that it was entirely 6 reasonable for Mr. Johnson to rely on information that 7 was provided to him in the main control room, which 8 showed that the unit was ready to enter that mode.
9 TVA also will not dispute the allegation 10 in AV 5. It ' s true that the RHR event was not 11 properly logged.
12 This was a result of a hectic day in the 13 main control room. Frankly, TVA had a history of poor 14 logging. Which is long since corrected.
15 This was really just an unacceptable case 16 of sloppy work during a very busy time. But there is 17 absolutely no evidence showing you ten .
18 In fact, it ' s quite a leap without any 19 factual basis whatsoever for the NRC to speculate and 20 then to allege that there was in effect some sort of 21 coordinated effort by Billy Johnson and all of the 22 control room operators on that day, to hide 23 information from the NRC or anybody else.
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47 1 as required. But that also wasn ' t an intentional 2 violation.
3 Mr. Johnson previously stated that he 4 wasn't within the procedure at issue so he couldn't 5 have intended to violate it . Instead, he said he was 6 taking prudent operator action to address the rise in 7 pressurizer level.
8 He said that he didn't think there was any 9 need to put RHR back in service because they were only 10 establishing letdown. And he believed it wouldn't 11 have been prudent to start the RHR pump unnecessarily.
12 I'll now move on to TVA's second bucket, 13 AVs 4, 7 and 9. As for AV 4, as you 've already heard, 14 TVA acknowledges that there were issues with its 15 workplace environment. TVA will also acknowledge that 16 as its root cause analysis found , non-conservative 17 decision-making did occur while the plant was heating 18 up.
19 But as you've heard from Mr (b)(?)(C) and Mr.
20 l...._ _ ___.'I (b)(7)(C) they obviously didn't intent to create a 21 workplace environment where employees would make non-22 conservat ive decisions or favor production over 23 safety . They were attempting , in good faith, to 24 improve accountab ility in a workplace that had been 25 performing poorly.
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48 1 AV 4 involves a lot of other issues and 2 indivi d u a l s , t o o many to cover here in my s ummary .
3 But for now I ' 11 just add that TVA will deny that 4 those empl oyees engaged in del i berate miscondu ct , as 5 the NRC a l leges , in AV 4 .
6 We ' ll explain the basis for those denials 7 in substantial details d u ring the conference. And 8 we ' ve also done that, at lengths, in our written 9 s ubmittal.
10 Moving on . TVA will also deny the 11 allegations in AV 7. Mr* l(b)(?)(C) Iandl(b)(?)(C) !explained 12 in their PECs , certainly appears they didn ' t even 13 provide the NRC with the writ ten response that they' re 14 a s u bject of AV 7.
15 But based on the evidence available to it, 16 TVA believes that the NRC likely has alleged 17 vio l ations again st TVA for providing inaccurate or 18 incomplete information in an internal TVA document 19 that they didn ' t even give to the NRC.
20 But even if the written response, that 21 appears to be at issue here , had been provided, Mr.
22 l(b)(7)(C) ! and Mr l(b)(?)(C) I, excuse me , Mr. l(b)(?)(C) l and 23 Mr. (b)(?)(C) , excuse me , technical difficulties. But 24 even if the written response that appears to be at 25 issu e had been provided, Mr . 1(b)(?)(C) Iand Mr . l(b)(?)(C)
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49 1 showed the document , showed that the document in 2 question was clearly accurate and complete when looked 3 at in the proper context.
4 The evidence has shown that the written 5 response, if it was provided to the NRC at all, would 6 have been part of an exchange of information during an 7 in-person meeting. Both Mr (b)(?)(C) and Mr .l(b)(?)(C) 8 record discussing, recalled discussing verbally with 9 Mr . Nadel on December 12th and December 14th that RHR 10 letdown was used to control the pressurizer level.
11 And it's simply not plausible that Mr.
12 Nadel, an experienced NRC inspector, didn't notice or 13 was misled by TVA. The only reasons for putting RHR 14 letdown into service in Mode 4 would have been to 15 control pressurizer l evel.
16 But in any event, the document that Mr.
(b)(7)(C) and Mr .l(b)(7)(C) 17 18
!allegedly provided to Mr . Nadel on December 14th included dataware graphs clearly 19 showing that the pressurizer level was rising unt il 20 the RHR valves were opened. They would not have 21 included those graphs if they were trying to hide that 22 very information from the NRC.
23 TVA will also deny, at least in part the 24 last allegation in our second bucket, AV 9. As we'll 25 explain in greater detail, TVA doesn ' t dispute that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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50 1 Mr. Johnson made certain statements on December 18th, 2 2015 to the NRC that were inconsistent with the 3 subsequent emails and statements.
4 And although TVA doesn't contest that his 5 statements were deliberate, nor does TVA condone them 6 whatsoever , TVA acknowledges that his lack of candor 7 apparently was due, at least to some extent, by a fear 8 of losing his job.
9 We ' d also like to point out that as his 10 written submittal to this panel showed, Mr . Johnson 11 corrected his statements to the NRC soon after he made 12 them .
13 Also with respect to AV 9, TVA will 14 describe why it sees no basis, whatsoever, for finding 15 that Mr .1(b)(?)(C) ! provided the NRC with inaccurate or 16 incomplete false testimony on December 18th.
17 The NRC alleges that Mr _,(b)(?)(C) made 18 three statements that were inaccurate or incomplete.
19 But as we'll explain , two of the alleged statements 20 are simply mischaracterizations of his testimony and 21 those should be easily dismissed.
22 The third statement by Mr . l(b)(?)(C) is 23 complete and accurate when understood in the context 24 of his entire interview . His answers on December 18 25 regarding the lack of operator concerns related to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 what had been communicated to him on November 11 ,
2 2015 , when the heat u p on ac c ess letdown wa s be i ng 3 planned and when the actions were taken.
4 TVA's third and final bucket at AVs 5 con sisted of AVs 8 , 10 , 11 a nd 12, each of which TVA 6 will deny. TVA will deny the alleged violation in AV 7 8 relating to the January 6th , 2016 management visit 8 between TVA and NRC Region I I management .
9 For the reasons that variou s witnesses 10 exp l a i n to you i n your PECs, it appears from the 11 evidence available to TVA that the backup slide , which 12 forms the very basis of AV 8 , wasn't even presented or 13 discussed at the meeting.
14 This is the second example where it 15 appears to TVA that based on the evidence availabl e 16 allegations were inaccurate , were incomplete 17 statements to the NRC , are based on documents that TVA 18 believes it never even gave you and never even 19 discu ssed with you.
20 And if it had been, and even if it had 21 been presented to the NRC , which TVA does not believe 22 to be the case , the s l ide explicitly provi ded 23 " insights into the RHR event. " TVA ' s concern about 24 how the NRC has converted the term insights into 25 cau ses , a nd then based an apparent v i o l at i on on that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 by the slides very terms , it was not a discussion of 2 the events caused.
3 In addition, in TVA' s view it ' s simply not 4 logical to claim that TVA personnel would have 5 discussed causes of the event at this meeting when TVA 6 had not yet even started its apparent cause analysis.
7 TVA will also describe, it's found that 8 TVA's participants in the January 6th meeting had no 9 apparent awareness at the time that main control room 10 operators had raised concerns with outage center 11 control managers. It could not on January 6th discuss 12 with the NRC matters that they weren't yet aware of.
13 Licensees of course must always provide 14 complete and accurate information to the NRC, in any 15 con text, as TVA' s employees did here. Nevertheless, 16 TVA is concerned about the NRC setting a prec,e dent 17 here that would p ut up a serious barrier to free 18 exchanges of information during management or drop-in 19 meetings .
20 TVA will also deny the apparent violations 21 described in AVs 10 and 11. First , as you heard 22 during the individual PECs, the apparent cause 23 analysis report, or the ACA as we'll refer to it, was 24 not incomplete or inaccurate.
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53 1 clearly shows to TVA that as the ACA reports found ,
2 memb ers of the OCC , other than Mr . Sprinkle, wer e not 3 aware of operator concerns on November 11th.
4 Regardi ng the NRC's allegation that the 5 ACA report fa i led to say that the OCC was involved in 6 discussions and decision - making on November 11th, TVA 7 has found that the report accurately reflected what 8 was known to the ACA team on the date the report was 9 fi nalized . And the report also did attribu te 10 appr opriate respons i bili ty for the OCC .
11 The NRC can ' t expect an ACA to include 12 information that the preparers didn ' t know abou t at 13 the time . TVA will explain that the ACA should of 14 cou rse be viewed as the result of an investigation 15 that identif i ed what was apparent to the ACA team at 16 the time, not things that were subsequ,e ntly 17 i den t i fied .
18 In any event, the NRC also knew that TVA' s 19 investigations were not comple t e becau se the ACA 20 report told them that when it specifically recommended 21 further inquiry .
22 AV 11 i mpl i cates a presentation that TVA 23 made to t he NRC regarding the ACA. In denying AV 11 ,
24 TVA will present many of the same arguments that I 25 j u st d i scu ssed .
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54 1 February 2 presentation at issue in AV 11 2 was a high- leve l summary of the ACA. Again , it was 3 based on what the ACA team knew at the time. And 4 again , the NRC knew that more was coming.
5 TVA expressly told the NRC that a root 6 cause was in progress. And that a root cause analysis 7 had been initiated " to evaluate other factors 8 associated with decision - making and critical thinking, 9 including extent of cause and condition." And that's 10 exactly what the root cause analysis did just a few 11 weeks later .
12 Absolutely no intent whatsoever to hide 13 information from the NRC. Finally, AV will deny --
15 TVA will explain how the evidence supports 16 a conclusion that M~(b)(?)(C) lused the term 11 compl,e ted 11 17 in his informal talking points to accu rately convey 18 that TVA had completed the employee concerns program 19 investigation and the special review team 20 investigation and that both teams had come to the same 21 critical conclusion as the NRC. That a degraded work 22 environment in operations existed at Watts Bar.
23 While there would be some editorial 24 changes before the document was formally issued about 25 a week later, that ultimate conclusion that a degraded NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 work environment existed in operations did not change.
2 The evidence M~ (b)(7)(C) Ipresented also 3 showed that it was entirely accurate for the talking 4 points to describe the two reports, quote , as 5 independent because of the makeup of the teams 6 preparing the reports. And while it's true that the 7 ECP report was an input to the SRT report, both teams 8 understood this but they did their work separately.
9 And that's what Mr!(b)(7)(C) !meant by independent .
10 TVA ' s concern that the NRC is considering 11 banning Mr . l(b)(7)(C) Ifrom the industry in finding 12 intentional misconduct becau se the talking points used 13 single words, completed and independent, that the NRC 14 apparently interpreted differently from what Mr (b)(?)(C) 15 very reasonably intended.
16 Also clear to TVA that Mr j(b)(?)(C) lwas not 17 withholdin g information when he didn ' t tell the NRC 18 that one purpose of the SRT would have been to 19 influence the NRC.
20 I n TVA's view, Mr J~----P (b)(7)(C) lad every reason 21 to believe the NRC understood that this would have 22 been one aspect of TVA's efforts and that i t did not 23 need to be explicitly stated. That ' s what licensee 24 submittals typically do , seek to influence the NRC.
25 I n summary, over the next few days TVA NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 will not dispute certain violations and will deny all 2 or parts of others. Bu t with the exception of AV 9 ,
3 regarding certain parts of Mr. Johnson's December 18 4 interview, TVA will dispute that any of its employees 5 engaged i n intentional, deliberate misconduct as the 6 NRC has interpreted at extremely high standard .
7 In closing , a common and unspoken theme 8 that seems to run through the 12 apparent violations 9 is that TVA directed some typ e of concerted effort to 10 hide the even ts of November 11th from the NRC on that 11 day , and then to cover up what actually happened and 12 why it happen ed .
13 This began with a preposterous , and 14 frankly offensive suggestion. that somehow TVA planned 15 and choose Veterans Day for this evol ution in order to 16 avoid detection. There was no such concerted effort 17 here. Inconceivabl e to suggest otherwise . There is 18 simply no evidence of any kind to support that 19 conjectu re .
20 Mistakes were made regarding failures to 21 follow certain procedures and TVA will acknowledge 22 those . And the work environment , unfort u nately , was 23 not the greatest, as TVA has also acknowledged.
24 But TVA will show that the challenge , the 25 honesty and the integrity of ten of i ts valued NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 employees , to accuse them all of intentionally 2 coor d i nat i n g an effort to cover up an event , lie t o 3 the NRC and withhold information , that's 4 u nconscionable and inconsistent wi th the actual 5 eviden ce here .
6 Impact their livelihoods with industry 7 bands and to assess penalties from TVA for those 8 actions under the facts and evidence here would be a 9 terrible injustice . Thank you. I'll now turn over 10 the presentation to Jim Barstow and Dave Lewis to 11 discuss Apparent Violations 1 through 3 and 5 through 12 6.
13 MR. BARSTOW: Okay , thank you , Mike.
14 MS . ROELOFS: Mr . O'Brien , this is 15 Patri c i a Roelofs from TVA. I do think that we h ave a 16 break in our agenda for today, but I don't know, from 17 the NRC ' s perspective , how they wanted to continue .
18 MR . O'BRIEN: Tricia , you are taking the 19 words directly out of my mouth. Yes , you ' re correct ,
20 we have a break scheduled after we completed these 21 opening dialogues , so what I'd like to do is I'd liked 22 to take a break from now u n til 25 minutes after the 23 hour2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br />.
24 MS . ROELOFS : Yes , sir , thank you .
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58 1 come back on the record at 25 minutes after the hour .
2 MS. ROELOFS : Thank you.
3 MR. O' BRI EN: Thank you.
4 (Whereupon , the above-entitled matter went 5 off the r ecord at 9 :0 9 a.m. and resumed at 9 : 26 a .m. )
6 MR. 0 1 BRIEN: Good morning , everybody. It 7 is 25 minutes after the hour , so I'd like to begin.
8 Let me do a few checks to begin with.
9 Cou rt reporter, can you hear us?
10 COURT REPORTER : Yes.
11 MR. O'BRIEN: Marcia, are you with me?
12 MS . SIMON : I am .
13 MR. O'BRIEN: Nick?
14 MR . HILTON: I had to get back.
15 MR. O 'BRI EN: Understood. Thank you ,
16 Nick.
17 Scott ?
18 MR. SPARKS : Yes, Ken , I'm up. I'm on and 19 ready .
20 MR. O'BRI EN : Mr. Barstow?
21 MR. BARSTOW: Yes , Ken , we're here .
22 MR. O'BRIEN: The f loor is yours, sir .
23 Thank you.
24 MS . ROELOFS : This is Tricia Roe l ofs from 25 TVA. Before Mr . Barstow gets started, we had a coupl e NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 of remarks that Mr. Rausch would like to make before 2 Mr. Barstow proceeds .
3 MR. RAUSCH : Mr. 0 ' Brien, can you hear me?
4 This is Tim Rausch.
5 MR. O'BRIEN: Yes, I can, sir . Thank you.
6 MR. RAUSCH: Yes, we have been reflecting 7 since the start this morning, and through previous 8 correspondence with George Wilson, it had been made 9 clear to us many times that he was the ultimate 10 decision-maker r egarding these proceedings. So, due 11 to the fact that he's not present, we're questioning 12 whether or not we should be postponing until he can be 13 present.
14 MR. O'BRIEN: No. I appreciate your 15 position, Mr. Rausch. I am the panel l ead and I will 16 make the recommendations to the Agency as a whole as 17 to the course of action we take along with my panel 18 members. But, in the case of any enforcement 19 decision, the Office of Enforcement Director is the 20 ult imate answerer to the Commission and to the EEO.
21 So , normally, this is how we approach the process .
22 So, the panel here will make the final recommendation 23 to the Agency as we move forward.
24 MR. RAUSCH: Okay. I wasn't done with my 25 question, but thank you for that information .
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60 1 MR. 0 ' BRIEN: My apologies. I thought you 2 were.
3 MR. RAUSCH: I still would like to offer 4 that, with your clarification, he's still an important 5 component of the proceedings, and I still offer the 6 question: does it make more sense to postpone until 7 he is present?
8 MR. 0 ' BRIEN : Thank you for your comments, 9 Mr. Rausch. This is the way the Agency has chosen to 10 move forward with the panel a n d how we 1 11 go about our 11 business.
12 MR. RAUSCH : Okay. I understand . Thank 13 you for listening.
14 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much for the 15 question. I appreciate it.
16 MR. BARSTOW: Panel, I ' d like to continue 17 with our presentation now.
18 MR. O'BRIEN: That would be excellent.
19 Thank you , sir .
20 MR. BARSTOW: All right. Thank you.
21 I' 11 start with TVA' s position on Apparent 22 Violation 1 . As detailed in our written submission, 23 TVA acknowledges that a performance deficiency and 24 violation of Watts Bar Procedure 1-G0-2 occurred in 25 October of 2015. The failure to follow procedures NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 occurred because 1-GO-2 required the use of auxiliary 2 feedwater , or AFW , sys tem to maintain the steam 3 generator level and surveillance 1-TRI-3-903 required 4 a flow to the steam generators from the standby main 5 feed p ump .
6 In October 2015 , the Mode 3 procedure 7 c o n flict was not recognized by operators when they 8 established the conditions required by the 9 s u rveillance procedure . While technically possible to 10 meet the p l anning conditions requ ired for the 11 surveillance and maintain the steam generator levels 12 with AFW , the g u idance in the s u rveillan ce procedu re 13 was insufficient to establish this alignment. The 14 surveillance procedu re included generic language that 15 said to feed the steam generators using the standby 16 main feed pump.
17 This v i olat i on had no effect on safety 18 because AFW was available to maintain steam generator 19 level and was in operation to satisfy Tech Spec 3 . 3 . 2 20 requ irements for the AFW system auto-start function 21 during the time the standby main feed pump was in 22 service to s upport the s u rvei llance .
23 This was a verbatim compliance issue 24 invol ving two conflicting procedures which was not 25 recogni zed in October of 2015 . More recently, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 need for additional guidance to establish the test 2 configuration was ident i fied by Watts Bar operators 3 during the Unit 2 spring 2019 refueling outage.
4 Condi t i on Report CR-1516431 was written and 5 appropriate actions were taken .
6 This example demonstrates that the site's 7 foc us on operator f undamentals since 2016 has made 8 positive impact on procedure use and adherence at the 9 station . Corrective actions were taken in response to 10 the CR which r estor ed compl i ance to support complet i on 11 of this surveillance during the Unit 2 2019 outage .
12 A one-time procedure change was processed to conduct 13 the surveillance while the plant was in Mode 2 using 14 a main feed pump to establish the test conditions .
15 Longer-term actions to modify the 16 surveillance procedure for Unit 1 and Unit 2 for 17 appr opriate use of the standby main feed pump in Mode 18 3 are identified in the Corrective Action Program.
19 These act ions are due prior to the Unit 1 fall o u tage 20 in 2021 and the Unit 2 o u tage i n the spring of 2022.
21 In terms of the reactor oversight process ,
22 TVA does not believe this issue impacted objec tives of 23 either initiating events or mitigating the system's 24 cornerstone because AFW is operabl e and capable of 25 performing i ts intended safety funct i on .
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63 1 NRC Inspection Manual 0612 , Appendix E ,
2 discusses, and I quote , fa ilures to impl-e ment 3 requirements that have significant safety or impact, 4 and said that such failures should normally be 5 categorized as minor.
6 I will now turn over the discussion to Mr.
7 Lewis to discuss Apparent Violation No . 2 .
8 MR. LEWI S : Thank you, Jim.
9 This is Dave Lewis from Pillsbu ry .
10 Apparent Viol ation 2 alleges that a change 11 made to 1-GO-l , Section 5 . 2 . 1 --
12 MR . O'BRIEN : Mr . Lewis , you' re nearly 13 inaudible .
14 MR . LEWIS : Is this better?
15 MR. O ' BRIEN: Yes, that ' s better, and your 16 camera is not on at the moment.
17 MR . LEWIS: Is my camera on now?
18 MR. O' BRIEN: I don ' t see it yet. I'm 19 waiting to see if it shows up , if it's a data de l ay ,
20 an electron delay issue.
21 MR. GIFFORD: It appears as though the 22 camera may h ave one of the safety screens because it' s 23 just coming across black.
24 MR . LEWIS : Oh , it ' s this one .
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64 1 present . Thank you , sir .
2 MR . LEWI S : Excus e me for not l ookin g at 3 the camera .
4 MR . O'BRIEN : That's okay . I u nderstand 5 compl etely . I f you can move the microphone a little 6 closer to your mouth , that will help us, too .
7 MR . LEWIS : I ' ll just and speak loudly .
8 MR. O' BRI EN: Thank you, sir. I 9 appreciate it . Pardon the interruption .
10 MR . LEWI S : And excu se the gl i tch .
11 Apparent Violation 2 alleges that a change 12 made to l-GO-1 , Section 5 . 2 . 1 , Step 8 , on Nov-ember 13 9th , 2015 was improperly classified as a minor 14 procedural change. It should not have been because it 15 a l tered t he technical intent, changed the sequence of 16 steps by allowing the operators to draw a bubble 17 withou t having to wait for RCS temperatu re to be --
18 MR . 0 ' BRIEN: I apologize to interrupt you 19 again , but , Mr . Lewis , we can barely hear you .
20 MR. GIFFORD: This may be a setting on the 21 microphone itself. Do you say a gray audio button 22 u nder the attendee l ist?
23 MR . LEWIS: Yes.
24 MR . GIFFORD : Can you p l ease select that 25 a udio button? And you ' 11 see a popup wi ndow that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 says , Audio Conference.
2 MR. LEWIS : Yes .
3 MR. GIFFORD: There ' s a bar where you can 4 manually increase the audio for your microphone.
5 MR. LEWI S : I t's already maximized.
6 MR. GIFFORD: It ' s already maximized?
7 Okay .
8 MR. LEWIS: Excuse me a second.
9 PARTICIPANT: Can everyone hear this 10 better?
11 MS. ROELOFS: We can from the TVA, Tricia.
12 MR. O'BRIEN : Yes, we can hear it much 13 better, yes.
14 (Pause . )
15 No, I can't hear you at all.
16 MR. LEWIS: Can you hear me now?
17 MR . O ' BRIEN: A little. Microphone closer 18 to your mouth would probably be helpful. I apologize.
19 MR. LEWIS: It's right next to it.
20 MR. O'BRI EN: There you go. You got it.
21 MR. LEWIS: Okay. I'll start over.
22 Apparent Violation 2 alleges that a change 23 made to l - GO - 1, Section 5.2.1, Step 8, on November 24 9th , 2015 was improperly classified as a minor 25 procedural change. It should not have been, as it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 1 altered the technical intent , changed the sequence of 2 s t eps by allowing the operator to d raw a b u b ble 3 without having to wait for the RCS temperature to be 4 be t ween 135 and 160 degrees Fahrenhe i t .
5 TVA acknowl edges that the procedure change 6 as it was apparently interpreted and applied in the 7 c o n trol room to allow b ypassing the temperatu re 8 requirement was not a minor editorial change. TVA, 9 therefore , does not contest a non-deliberate 10 v i o l at i on . NPG-SPP-01.2 . 1, Rev. 2, and, hence ,
11 10 CFR Part 50 , Appendix B, Criterion 5 , occurred .
12 TVA denies the violation occurred as a result of 13 deliberate misconduct .
14 The procedure at issue here should be on 15 you r screen . Revi sion 4 to l-GO-1 , Step 5.2 . 1 , Step 16 8 , related to how operators prepare to draw a bubble 17 d u ring heatup .
18 In Revision 3, on the screen, Step 8 used 19 the action verb raise . The action verb raise means to 20 cau se a parameter to be higher in magnitude. In 21 Revision 4 , on the screen now, that action word was 22 changed to ini tiate . The act i o n verb i n it i ate means 23 to commence or begin, and it is generally used to 24 cau se the start or beginning of an effort which cou ld 25 not be compl eted i n a short peri od of time .
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67 1 The intent of Step 8 is to ensure that 2 operators adequately raise RCS temperature before 3 attempting to draw a bubble , so that a maximum 4 temperature d i fferential , delta-T, between the RCS and 5 the pressurizer is not exceeded . The note in Step 8 6 makes this clear .
7 And furtherance of the note , Step 8 . 3 ,
8 which was not changed , directs operators how to 9 proceed with drawing the bubble based on RCS 10 temperature. If the RCS temperatur e has r eached 11 between 1 35 and 160 degrees Fahrenheit, then operators 12 can proceed Step 9 and use decay heat t o draw the 13 bubble. If RCS temperature cannot be raised to 135 14 degrees Fahrenheit using decay heat , operators mu st 15 proceed to Step 1 0 , draw the b ubble using heat from 16 the reactor coolant pump.
17 Later in t he evening on November 9th ,
18 after the procedure change was made, control operators 19 drew the bubble on decay heat without waiting for the 20 RCS temperatu re to reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit .
21 Thus , it appears the operators interpreted the 22 procedure to allow this. As apparently so interpreted 23 and applied, the procedure change would not have been 24 minor , as it al t ered the sequence of steps .
25 Consequently, TVA accepts the v i olat i on .
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68 1 Apparent Violation 2 further alleges that 2 two TVA employees , Mr .1...(b-)(-?)-(C_l _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __,
(b)(?)(C) 3 , and Mr. Bill Sprinkle, Manager of the Nuclear 4 Plant ad Chief of Operations , deliberately violated 5 NPG-SPP-01 . 2 . 1 in processing this procedure change as 6 minor . TVA denies that Mr ~...(b_)_<7_)(_C_) _ ____,l or Mr. Sprinkle 7 deliberately violated this procedure.
8 Let me, first, discuss the allegations 9 pertaining to l(b_)(_7)_(C_) _ _....I-Mr . .... You've heard Mr.
10 7 (b_)_( _)(_C_) _ _ _
_l __,I explanation why he considered the 11 procedure change to be a minor change, one that did 12 not alter the requirement to heat the RCS to 135 13 degrees Fahrenheit or drawing the bubble using decay 14 heat .
15 While the action verb at the beginning of 16 Step 8 was changed to initiate, that step still 17 required initiation of the heatup between 135 and 160 18 degrees to occur, quote, by performing the following: ,
19 close quote, referring to Steps 8.1 , 8 . 2 , 8 . 3. Thu s ,
20 completion of these steps remained mandatory.
21 Step 8.3 stated that if RCS temperature 22 cannot be raised to greater than 135, the operators 23 were required ton/a Step 5.2.1 . 9, the step allowing 24 the bubble to be drawn using decay heat; proceed to 25 Step 5 .2. 1. 1 0 , requ i ring the use of the reactor NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 coolant pump to up the RCS temperature.
2 As Mr. ~l(b_)(_?_)(C_)_ ___.I explained, he did not 3 understand the procedure change was intended to bypass 4 the temperature limitation. The procedure change that 5 he made did not allow it based on his reading. TVA 6 finds Mr. ~l(b_)(_?)_(C_)_ _ ___, explanation to be credible.
7 Indeed, Mr. ~l(b_)_(?_)_(c_)______.I interpretation of the 8 procedure as changed is, in TVA ' s estimation, the way 9 it should have been interpreted and applied . In TVA's 10 estimation, the gate in Step 8 . 3 of the procedure 11 still requires the RCS temperature to be increased to 12 (audio interference) before drawing the bubble in 13 decay heat for Step 9.
14 l(b)(7)(C)
Further, Mr. ~_____..... explained that he I
15 understood the action verb was changed to allow the 16 heatup to begin. This is consistent with a 17 contemporaneous description of the procedure in the 18 revision log, which states, quote, reworded step to 19 allow for RCS heatup . And it's consistent with the 20 explanation that Mr. ~l(b_)_(7_)(_c_J_ __.....l provided to the TVA 21 OIG after he had the opportunity to review the change.
22 Accordingly, we do not believe that Mr. l_(b_)_(7_)(_c_J_ __.
23 classified the procedure change as minor, knowing that 24 to do so would constitute a violation of the 25 procedure .
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70 1 Now l et me turn to Mr. --
2 MS. SIMON : Excuse me , Mr. Lewis . I'm 3 sorry . This is Marcia Simon. I ' m still having a lot 4 of trouble hearing you. So , I'm going to ask if you 5 guys could try to look one more time at the microphone 6 issue . I ' m sorry .
7 MR . GIFFORD : It appears that the 8 microphone for that headset is very directionally-9 dependent . Is it possible to position the microphone 10 so that i t is r ight up aga inst the speaker's cheek or 11 closer?
12 PARTICIPANT : Okay . Can you hear better 13 now?
14 MR . GIFFORD : That is very loud, yes .
15 PARTICIPANT: Okay. All right. And i t's 16 still working even after I close the window .
17 MR . LEWIS: Let me now turn to Mr .
18 Sprinkle . And let me know if you can hear me.
19 MR . GIFFORD : That audio is much better .
20 MR. LEWIS : Thank you. Marcia, my setting 21 was not causing the problem .
22 I'll t u rn to Mr . Sprinkle now. Mr .
23 Sprinkle acknowledges that, with hindsight, he made a 24 mistake in considering the procedure change to be a 25 minor change . He agrees with the NRC's determination NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 that the change did not meet the criteria for a minor 2 change because it altered the sequence of steps by 3 permitting operators to draw a bubble at less than 4 135. And to the best of his recollection , he viewed 5 the change as one that would not alter the intent of 6 the procedure , which was to prevent the temperature 7 differential between the RCS and pressurizer from 8 exceeding a maximum delta-Ton which the design had 9 been based. To the best of his recollection, he 10 simply failed to recognize t hat maintaining the intent 11 of the procedural step was not a sufficient basis to 12 categorize it as minor if it altered the technical 13 sequence of the steps .
14 In sum , it appears to TVA that Mr .
15 Sprinkle simply made a mistake, and as already 16 discussed , making a mistake does not constitute 17 deliberate misconduct. I should add that Mr. Sprinkle 18 clearly finds it difficult to recall the circumstances 19 of the procedure change that occurred almost five 20 years ago, but his state of memory is not a basis to 21 impute deliberate misconduct. Rather, the amount of 22 time that's elapsed between the change on November 23 9th, 2015 and the NRC's notice of the apparent 24 violation cuts against the finding of deliberate 25 misconduct, as such a finding should be based on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 evidence , not speculation .
2 In conclusion, TVA agrees that the 3 procedure change as it was apparently interpreted and 4 applied in the control room to allow bypassing the 5 temperature requirement was not a minor editorial 6 change , and therefore , accepts the violation on this 7 bas is . TVA disputes only that Mr . _l(b_)_(7_)(_c _) _ _~l and Mr .
8 Sprinkle acted deliberately. The NRC has not offered 9 any evidence that either Mr. _l(b_)_(7_)(_C_)_ __ or Mr .
10 Sprinkl e knowing l y a n d de libe r ate l y misclassified the 11 procedure.
12 Because t h e operators d id draw the bubble 13 using Step 9 , presumably , interpreting the procedure 14 change to alter the sequence of procedural steps , TVA 15 has taken steps to address the violation.
16 Mr. Barstow will now speak to those 17 correction actions and the significance of the 18 violation.
19 MR . BARSTOW : Thank you, Mr . Lewis .
20 TVA acknowledges that a performance 21 deficiency violation occurred on November 9th, 2015 22 when the procedure changed to l -GO- 1, was processed as 23 a minor or editorial change. The procedure change did 24 not meet the NPG-SPP-01.2.2 criteria for a minor or 25 editori al change becau se it unintent i onall y impacted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 the procedure's intent and the sequence of the 2 procedure steps prior to drawing a bubble in the 3 pressuri.z er.
4 As you just heard from Mr. Lewis , TVA's 5 I assessment is that Mr _l(b_)_(?-)(_c_) _ _ _ reasonably concluded 6 the procedure change was minor because he thought the 7 subsequent steps would prevent operators from doing 8 anything that was not already allowed by the 9 procedure.
10 It is also TVA's position that Mr.
11 Sprinkle could reasonably have believed that the 12 procedure change did not alter the intent of 1-GO-1 13 based on maintaining the 320-degree Fahrenheit 14 differential temperature design limit for the reactor 15 coolant system and pressurizer temperatures. As Mr.
16 Sprinkle has acknowledged, he made a mistake by 17 fail ing to consider whether the change would impact 18 the sequence of procedural steps.
19 Absent any substantive information to the 20 contrary, TVA concluded that neither Mr. l~(b_)_(7_)(_c_) _ ___,
21 nor Mr. Sprinkle intentionally violated the procedure 22 change process. This error was of very low safety 23 significance. Proceeding to draw the pressurizer 24 bubble at less than 135 degrees did not resu lt in 25 exceeding the 320-degree delta-T design limit between NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 1 the pressurizer and the reactor coolant system.
2 On November 9th, 2015, when the 3 pressuri.z er heater was energized and temperature was 4 raised to approximately 340 degrees, according to the 5 control room log, the RCS temperature was 6 approximately 105 degrees Fahrenheit , based on 7 dataware. Therefore , the maximum delta-T design limit 8 was met and a margin of about 85 degrees Fahrenheit 9 remained.
10 Remaining within the design limit was not 11 simply by chance. 1-GO-1 directs operators to perform 12 surveillance 1-SI-68-44 , which is the RCS temperatu re 13 pressure limits and pressure temperature limits, which 14 monitors the delta-T to ensure the design limit is 15 met.
16 TVA has taken extensive corrective actions 17 at Watts Bar to address issues concerning the 18 procedure used and adherence that existed in 2015. We 19 also recognize that this example highlights specific 20 issues with the procedure change process. Therefore, 21 any violation issued will be captured in TVA's 22 Corrective Action Program , so that further corrective 23 actions can be considered for the procedure change 24 process .
25 I n terms of the ROP, TVA agrees that there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 was a performance deficiency and a violation of 10 CFR 2 50 , App endix B , Criterion 5. Notwiths tanding the 3 change to 1-GO-1 on November 9th, 2015, the Watts Bar 4 procedu re ensu red that the design limit for a delta-T 5 between the pressurizer and the RCS system was 6 monitored and met. There was no impact on the 7 initiating events or barrier integrity cornerstones 8 because the design limit delta-Twas not challenged.
9 Therefore , TVA considers this procedu re change process 10 v i olation had very l ow safety signif i can ce.
11 I will now turn the presentation back over 12 to Mr . Lewis for a discussion of Apparent Violation 13 No . 3.
14 MR . LEWIS : Thank you , Jim .
15 I n Apparen t Violation 3 , the NRC alleges 16 that , on November 11th , 2015 , the shift manager 17 appr oved Watts Bar Unit 1 go i ng from Mode 5 to Mode 4 18 without first ensuring that all restraints had been 19 resolved , in violation of TVA' s General Operating 20 I nstruction l-GO-1. TVA ackn owledges that a violation 21 of 1-GO-1 occurred by proceeding with a heatup to Mode 22 4 , despite a c l earan ce being in p l ace that s h ould have 23 restricted the plant to Mode 5 and 6. But TVA denies 24 the violation was the result of deliberate misconduct .
25 TVA examin ed this noncomplia n ce as part of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 its root cause analysis and looked into the events on 2 November 11th, 2015 . The root cause analysis found 3 that there was a mode restriction interference , but 4 because the restriction was not communicated back to 5 the work order that necessitated t h e clearance, the 6 operators were not apprised of the restriction , and it 7 was not included on the OCC' s outage issue action 8 tracking list. This error cannot be attributed to Mr.
9 Johnson , who the NRC alleges engaged in deliberate 10 misconduct in connection with this Apparent Violation.
11 Further , as part of the procedure moving 12 from Mode 5 to Mode 4, managers in various 13 disciplines, including the ~l(b_)r_ l_(c_) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ....,I , were 14 requi red to provide signed confirmation that work 15 activities were either complete or would not prohibit 16 entry or impact continued operation in Mode 4. The 17 NRC does not allege that this confirmation did not 18 occur . Rather, Apparent Violation 4 alleges that Mr.
19 Johnson was told by the ~l (b-)(?- )(_c _) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.I that 20 the previous night shift did not move to Mode 4 21 because normal letdown was out of service due t o the 22 valve repair .
23 The l(b)U)(C) statement does 24 not imply that a mode restraint existed , but, rather, 25 only that the night shift wanted normal letdown feed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 service before proceeding with the heatup. This is a 2 critical point, as Mr. Johnson is a l leged to have 3 deliberately ignored a mode restraint in proceeding, 4 not , that he disregarded the night shift's preference 5 to wait for normal letdown to be returned to service 6 before proceeding with the heatup.
7 As I will explain , the evidence indicates 8 that Mr. Johnson was not aware of mode restraint, and 9 therefore, reasonably understood there were no 10 restrictions precluding entry to Mode 4. Before I 11 discuss the specifics of Mr. Johnson ' s actions on 12 November 11th , 2015 , I ' d like to provide a bit more 13 background on the events that led to the Apparent 14 Violation , according to TVA's root cause analysis .
15 On November 9th , 2015, minor maintenance 16 on a eves letdown isolation valve was being performed 17 when an active l eak was identified on the packing l eak 18 offline, requiring a weld repair. On the morning of 19 November 10th , a chil d work order was created for the 20 weld repair and contained no mode flow restraint. The 21 child work order was added to the oee ' s emergent 22 i ssues list, but the repair was listed as impact ing 23 Mode 2 .
24 On the evening of November 10th , the 25 Operat i ons Department deve l oped the c l earance needed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 to perform the work order. During the development of 2 the clearance, it was identified that the work would 3 be performed with single valve isolation, and the 4 note , therefore, was added to the clearance details 5 indicating the clearance was intended for use in Mode 6 5 and 6 . However, there was no process in place 7 driving the transfer of this information back to the 8 work order.
9 In addition, the OCC's outage issue and 10 action tracking list was not updated to reflect the 11 new Mode 5 and 6 restriction and the impact of this 12 for the valve remained Mode 2. The absence of this 13 information in the work order and out of the OCC's 14 outage issue and action tracking list prevented the 15 control room from identifying the Mode 5 and 6 16 restriction prior to entering Mode 4.
17 Similarly , the STORM report, which stands 18 for Shift Turnover Outage Review Meeting, the STORM 19 report from 0600 on November 11th gave no indication 20 that the valve repair needed to occur before the plant 21 entered Mode 2.
22 I will first address the alleged violation 23 of l-G0-1, Section 5.2, Step 17.1. Step 17.1 required 24 the operators to initial that they had ensured that 25 all clearances that would prohibit entry into Mode 4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 1 had been restored as required. TVA acknowledges that 2 the con trol room operators s houl d h ave been p r ecluded 3 from completing Step 17.1 because the clearance was in 4 place with a Mode 5 and 6 restr i ction . However , the 5 eviden ce indicates the control room operators did not 6 know that they were precluded from concluding Step 7 17 . 1 .
8 As shown here, the STORM report on the 9 evening of November 10th tracked the valve ' s repair on 10 the outage issue a n d action tracking l ist as having a 11 Mode 2 impact. Because of the weakness in the process 12 for controlling emergent work , the note that was later 13 added to the clearance details for this work was not 14 carried over to the work order , and the OCC's outage 15 i ssue and act i on tracking list was not updated to 16 reflect the Mode 5 and 6 restriction that had been 17 added i n the c l earance details .
18 Around the time that the day shift was 19 coming on d uty , the STORM report on the morning of 20 November 11th at 0600 stated Mode 4 would be reached 21 at 0600 and the weld repair would be completed at 22 0700 . Fu rther , TVA ' s root cause anal ysis found there 23 was a breakdown in communications.
24 Based on a l l of this , it appeared the 25 con trol room operators and Mr. Johnson were not aware NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 of the Mode 5 and 6 restriction in the clearance 2 de t a ils . Consequently , the violat i on of l-G0-1 ,
3 Section 5.3 , Step 17.1 , appears unintentional.
4 The NRC also asserts that Mr. Johnson 5 violated 1-G0-1 when he i n i tiated , in Section 5 . 3 ,
6 Step 22, indicating that all restraints to Mode 4 7 entry had b een resolved , when, in fact , they had not 8 been. This Step 22 requires the shift manager to 9 initial t hat Appendix B has been completed . In order 10 to complete Appen dix B, numerous steps need to be 11 performed and signed off by various personnel.
12 As shown on the screen , Step 3 of App,endix 13 B stands to ensure that Checklist 1 is complete for 14 entry into Mode 4 . Apparent Violation 3 seems to be 15 re l y i ng on t h e Checkl ist l ist i ng the eves-charging and 16 letdown system as normally operable as the basis for 17 Mr . John son violating the procedure. However , this 18 Checklist does not create an operability requirement 19 or a mode restraint. As you can see on the screen ,
20 the Checklist onl y says the system is normal ly 21 operable . If the system had to be operable in order 22 to proceed , the term normally woul d not have been 23 used. Rather , the Checklist would have said the 24 system is requ ired to be operable . Note that the 25 eves-charging a nd l etdown system fa lls u nder Section NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 B of Checklist 1, and I ' ll come back for that 2 momentarily .
3 Further , as you can see on your screen, 4 the Checklist allowed the system alignment checklist 5 for the eves-charging and letdown system to be n/a'd, 6 and even further , as shown on your screen , Section C 7 of the Checklist lists those systems that must be 8 available prior to Mode 4. The eves-charging and 9 letdown system is not listed in Section C. As I 10 pointed out earlier, it's in Section B.
11 Therefore, TVA denies that it violated 12 Step 3 of Appendix B. TVA concedes that a violation 13 of Step 21.1 of Appendix B, and hence, l-G0-1, Section 14 5 .3.2 2 , occurred by failing to ensure that the work 15 order would not prohibit entry into Mode 4. And as 16 previously discussed, this violation resulted from the 17 clearance details not being communicated or tracked 18 properly, and not from any deliberate misconduct by 19 Mr . Johnson or the control room operators .
20 I' ll now hand the presentation over back 21 to Mr. Barstow.
22 MR. BARSTOW: Thank you, Mr. Lewis.
23 TVA acknowledges that a performance 24 deficiency and procedure violation occu rred when Watts 25 Bar Unit 1 transitioned to Mode 4 with an open NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 clearance that should have l imited the p l ant to Mode 2 5 or 6. While TVA agrees that certain steps in 1-GO-1 3 outlined by Mr. Lewis were not met, TVA disagrees with 4 the NRe
- s analysis that 1-GO-1 was not properly 5 followed when the shift manager initialed that 6 Appendix e to the procedure had been completed .
7 As discussed, TVA denies that Mr.
8 Johnson ' s decision to change modes was made knowing 9 that a violation of 1-GO-1 would occur. The failure 10 to track the mode restriction occurred due to a work 11 control process inadequacy and was missed by the 12 organization. It was not the result of a deliberate 13 act by Mr. Johnson or anyone else.
14 This failure had no reactor or industrial 15 safety significance. According to ~l 7
(b-)(_ l_(c_) _ _ _ _ _ __ .
16 (b_)(_7)_( c_) _ _ _ _ _
l_ I, the mode restriction in the clearance 17 note was written to address the best time to perform 18 the work.
19 The eves filed maintenance boundary was 20 acceptable given that the manual isolation valve, 21 1-ISB-68-580, and air-operated value, 1-FeZ-62-69, 22 u pstream were isolated for the physical boundaries .
23 These two valves in series satisfy the special 24 requi rements for mechanical batteries for a fluid that 25 is greater than 200 degrees Fahrenheit or 500 PS I G.
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83 1 Additionally, drain valve 1 - CRB 1235 was tagged 2 open for then accumulation of energy if there was any 3 leak by the two valves in series. While not from a 4 required boundary, the clearance notes , for RCS 5 temperature to be less than 200 degrees Fahrenheit was 6 a third boundary in a series to ensure worker 7 protection.
8 As corrective action for this issue, TVA 9 revised the Watts Bar Nuclear Operations Directive 10 Manual relative to clearance development and 11 placement . New requirements were added for clearances 12 that are not directly controlled by a clearance tag, 13 such as clearances relying on pressure level and 14 maintaining pressure. Now the required mod e or 15 condition will be documented in a narrative log, and 16 operations will ensure that the work order is updated 17 appropriately.
18 In terms of the ROP, TVA agrees that there 19 was a performance deficiency and a violation of 20 l-G0-1. This issue is of very low safety significance 21 because it did not impact the initiating ev,e nts ,
22 mitigating systems, or barrier integrity cornerstone .
23 Specifically , this issue did not increase the 24 likelihood of or cause an initiating event and it did 25 not negatively impact any of the key shutdown safety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 functions of decay heat removal , inventory control, or 2 containment needed in Modes 4 or 5 .
3 I will now ask Mr. Lewis to discuss 4 Apparent Violation No . 5.
5 MR. LEWI S : Thank you, Jim.
6 TVA acknowledges that a violation of 7 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, Criterion 17, occurred on 8 November 11th, 2015, due to TVA ' s failure to maintain 9 appropriate operations logs. TVA has previously 10 ackn owledged that the specifics of the RHR evolution 11 on November 11th were not maintained in the operations 12 log. TVA also identified log-keeping as one of the 13 operator fundamental weaknesses associated with RHR 14 evolution and stated that its control room operators 15 needed to improve their log-keeping.
16 Following identification of the 17 deficiencies in operating logs associated with the RHR 18 evolution, TVA initiated Condition Report 1116732, 19 Operator Logs , in December of 2015. A Condition 20 Report identified that several trend CRs had been 21 submitted concerning the accuracy and thoroughness of 22 station logs . And the Condition Report was developed 23 to ensure that logs meet OPDP-1 and that operations 24 expectations are met going forward.
25 Additionally, TVA conducted an apparent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 cause analysis to evaluate and identify issues 2 associated with reactor heatup on November 11th, 2015 .
3 The apparent cause analysis acknowledged that the 4 specifics of the RHR evolution and associated 5 decisionmaking were inadequately documented in the 6 operations logs.
7 One of the contributing causes in the 8 apparent cause analysis is, quote , Governance and 9 oversight of operations performance was not effective 10 in addressing reoccurring deficiencies in, skipping 11 over , log-keeping quality. TVA' s root cause analysis, 12 completed in February 2016, also identified the log-13 keeping deficiencies and identified a failure to 14 document critical thinking as one of the weaknesses in 15 operator fundamentals.
16 A few months after the root cause analysis 17 was issued, the NRC, on April 7th, 2016, issued a 18 Severity Level IV, non-cited violation, for TVA's 19 fail u re to maintain sufficient operations log 20 regarding the RHR evolution. TVA did not contest the 21 NRC's non-cited violation. However , TVA denies that 22 the violation occurred as a result of deliberate 23 misconduct. TVA has been unable to identify any 24 information that would lead the NRC to revisit the 25 non-cited violation and find that operators NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 intentionally failed to log events from November 11th, 2 2015 .
3 The main control room operators who were 4 on duty that day and who have been interviewed 5 regarding log-keeping have explained that they should 6 have logged the events mor e thoroughly, but were 7 occupied with other tasks. In an email message a 8 month following the RHR evolution, Mr . 1(b)(?)(C) ~, the 9 event supervisor, explained that they certainly could 10 have logged more and that the crew just had too many 11 things going on.
12 The ~l (b_,r_l(_ci_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __,
,-l (b-)(7-)(C
_)_ _ __,,
13 _ explained during his December 2015 NRC 14 interview that, quote, I think it's related to the 15 amount of time we had to note the log entry. Skipping 16 down , With a startup like that where everything is 17 fluid , and then , a lot of things just get tru ncated 18 with that, things get missed.
l(b)(?)(C)
Mr. _________ also I
19 explained during his PEC that, looking back , the 20 events of November 11th, 2015 should have been better 21 documented by the crew.
22 Mr . Johnson acknowledged in his December 23 2015 NRC interview that the note logs were not up to 24 standard . He said, The log-keeping for that day, I 25 look back at it . I t was less than adequate and it's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 1 something that needs to be addressed, that the log -
2 keeping that day was not up to standards .
3 However, Mr. Johnson also explained that 4 the failure to properly log the events of the day was 5 the result of being busy . He said during that 6 interview, I was relieved that we hadn't let the plant 7 get into a bad situation . At the end , we were 8 hustling a lot to get the normal letdown system back 9 in service where we could get back to a normal plant 10 configuration, that I didn't, I didn't ensure the CRs 11 were written and the logs were adequate .
12 When asked by the resident inspector, the 13 senior resident inspector, whether the failure to log 14 was intentional or an effort to hide what had 15 happened, Mr. Johnson was emphatic that it was not.
16 Mr. Nadel asked Mr. Johnson, Is anyone directing you 17 to omit information in the log? Mr . Johnson 18 responded , Absolutely not, no. Mr. Johnson followed 19 up with a question, Did you guys ever t hink about the 20 NRC? I t was a federal holiday and no one i s here from 21 the NRC and kind of a skeleton crew as far as a 22 regulator, and that maybe not putting the entire story 23 in the log somehow just kind of pushed it underneath 24 the table? Mr . Johnson responded , Absolutely not .
25 Similarly, Mr. Johnson's J anu ary 9th, 2016 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 TVA OIG interview states that Mr. Johnson believed the 2 even t was not logged , quote, because it was, oh, so 3 hectic that day -- close quote - - and not , quote , to 4 try and hide what happened . Close q uote .
5 More recen tly, i n his written submission 6 to the NRC in response to Apparent Violation 5 , Mr.
7 Johnson specifically asserted that the failure to 8 include the expected level of detail in the operations 9 log was a mistake due t o the level of activity in the 10 main con t r o l room and not an intent i onal omission .
11 While a high level of outage activity is 12 no excuse for failing to meet the log-keeping 13 requirements , a failure to perform adequately in the 14 moment is not equ ivalent to a person intending to not 15 meet the requirements. TVA has not seen any statement 16 by any operator or any other evidence that would lead 17 it to conclude that the operators intended to violate 18 log - keeping requirements. TVA has also seen no 19 indication that any operator thought about logging the 20 pressuri.z ed level exclusion and, then, decided not to 21 do so.
22 In sum, TVA's i nvestigation found no 23 support for the NRC ' s assertion that Mr. Johnson 24 deliberately chose to viol ate NRC regulations , TVA's 25 procedures, or h i s senior reactor operator l icense .
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89 1 Rather , TVA concludes that the failures to maintain 2 sufficient log s on November 11th , 2015 was 3 unintentional and consistent with TVA-identified 4 performance deficiencies in 2015 .
5 I wil l now hand over our presentation to 6 Mr. Barstow .
7 MR . BARSTOW : Thank you, Mr . Lewis .
8 TVA acknowledges that a performance 9 deficiency and procedure violation occu rred when Watts 10 Bar operators failed to maintain a n accurate and 11 appropriate log. This issue was previously documented 12 by the NRC as a n on-cited , Severity Level IV 13 violation . TVA did not contest that violation in 2016 14 and still believes that the issue was appropriately 15 characterized at that t ime.
16 As discussed, Mr . Johnson has acknowl,e dged 17 deficiencies in log-keeping relative to the RHR event .
18 More broadly , insufficient log-keeping was a known 19 performance issue in the 2015 - to - 2016 timeframe , as 20 noted in the Condition Reports, quality assurance 21 escalations , and causal evaluations. However, TVA is 22 not aware of any evidence tha t the failure to properl y 23 log the events were the result of a conscious 24 decision. Those on d u ty that day have said that they 25 were very busy and forgot to update the logs .
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90 1 For these reasons, TVA does not agree with 2 the NRC 's determination of deliberate misconduct 3 relative to log-keeping. This issue should not impact 4 reactor safe t y . This violation was previously 5 assessed by the NRC u s ing traditional enforcement 6 because it impacted the NRC ' s ability to carry out its 7 regulatory f unct ion .
8 NRC found the failure to maintain accurate 9 logs was more than minor and was consistent with an 10 enforcemen t policy example for a Significance Level I V 11 violation . This issue has been entered into the 12 Corrective Action Program and Condi tion Report 11276 91 13 and the NRC treated this issue as a non-cited 14 violation , consistent with Section 2 . 3 . 2 (a) of the 15 enforcemen t poli cy. TVA considered this 16 characterization appropriate in 2016 and no new 17 information has been identified that would cause TVA 18 to change this view.
19 Fu rther, a number of corrective actions 20 have been taken to address log-keeping inadequacies at 21 Watts Bar since December 2015. These include a focus 22 on log reviews in January 2016 with Condition Reports 23 initiated , where applicable, and effectiveness review 24 for the negative trend Condi tion Report , monitoring 25 and metrics with weekly trending on independent l og NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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91 1 reviews , and operations training that was used as a 2 case study of the RHR event that included a discussion 3 of insufficient operating logs.
4 Log-keeping remains a focus for the 5 Operations Department at Watts Bar, and at the crew 6 level , each shift manager monitors their crew's 7 performance. When they identify gaps, the shift 8 manager provides coaching, initiates Condition 9 Reports, or initiates discretionary crew recess, 10 depending on the significance of the issue. When 11 appropriate , actions resulting from this focus on log-12 keeping can be seen in a crew excellence plan or an 13 individual operator excellence plan. Additionally, 14 log - keeping is something that we monitor and part of 15 the Operations Department performance assessments.
16 TVA continues to believe the 17 characterization of this issue as a non-cited 18 violation in 2015 was appropriate, based on our review 19 of all available information and interviews with the 20 individuals who were directly involved.
21 Dave Lewis will now discuss Apparent 22 Violation No . 6.
23 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, Jim.
24 TVA acknowledges that the main control 25 room operators violated Watts Bar procedures and, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 hence, 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix B, Criterion 5, when 2 they reestablished RHR letdown without first starting 3 an RHR pump. In fact, as the NRC is aware, on April 4 7th , 2016 , the NRC issued a green non-cited violation 5 for the failure to follow an approved procedure when 6 we were restoring RHR letdown on November 11th , 2015.
7 And TVA did not contest the violation . But TVA denies 8 the violation was the result of deliberate misconduct.
9 Based on Mr. Johnson's prior statements, 10 it appears he believed he was not within the RHR 11 procedure, but was , rather, taking prudent operator 12 actions to restore control pressu rizer level. Mr.
13 Johnson has explained that the goal of reestablishing 14 RHR letdown was to reduce pressurizer level, not to 15 put the RHR system in service for cooling.
16 Specifically , Mr. Johnson did not perceive a need to 17 p ut RHR back i n service, as the main control room 18 operators were only establishing letdown rather than 19 restarting cooling .
20 In this regard, a table provided to the 21 NRC resident inspector , Mr. Nadel , on December 17th, 22 2015 , which was identifying the status of responses to 23 his questions, stated, In a 12/16/15 meeting with the 24 resident inspector , the shift manager stated that he 25 was not in a procedure when he initiated RHR letdown, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 but leveraged his training and integrated plant 2 u nderstandin g t o place the plant in t h e safe con dition 3 via leveraging/placing RHR letdown in service.
4 Additionally , during his December 18th, 5 2015 i n terview with the NRC, Mr . Johnson stated ,
6 Prudent operator actions is what we were doing. When 7 asked d u ring his Decemb er 18th, 2015 interview whether 8 Mr. Johnson, quote , feels that the steps that he took 9 were with in his a u thority, based on the training that 10 he received over the years , Mr. Johnson said ,
11 Absolutely . He further explained that the steps that 12 the main control room took to control t h e pressurizer 13 level were prudent operator action to control the 14 plant in a situation that wasn't entirely expected .
15 Mr . Johnson evidently bel i eved that he was 16 acting in response to an emergent situation and that 17 he could use pru den t operator act i ons to control t hat 18 situation . As a result , Mr . Johnson appears to have 19 had a good- faith belief that he was a u thorized to act 20 o u tside of the RHR procedu re.
21 However , TVA does not believe that Mr.
22 John son was correct in h is belief that he could 23 disregard TVA Procedure 1 - SOI-74.01, which is the RHR 24 procedu re . Instead , at a minimum, Mr . Johnson should 25 have n /a ' d steps i f they were not appl icabl e .
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94 1 Pursuant to OPDP- 1, Section 5.l(h), Mr.
2 Johnson, as the shift manager, was empowered to find 3 that starting the RHR pump was not applicable in the 4 current operating condition, and therefore, 5 1-SOI-74.01, Section 5.8.2, Step 18, directing the 6 start of the RHR pump did not need to be followed.
7 Section S . l(h) (3) of OPDP-1 states, Follow guidance in 8 NPG - SPP- 01.2 if a portion of a procedure is used or 9 other reasons exist for n/a of non - conditional steps.
10 Approval required by the section manager or designee 11 shall be performed by the shift manager.
12 Section 18 -- I beg your pardon Step 18 13 was a non - conditional step because it did not use the 14 language of if or when. Thus, Mr. Johnson had the 15 authority ton/a Step 18 directing the start of the 16 RHR pump. If Mr. Johnson had n/a'd Step 18, then this 17 particular Apparent Violation would not have occurred .
18 Given that Mr. Johnson could have complied 19 with the procedure by n/a'ing Step 18 without too much 20 difficulty, it ' s hard to see that his actions were 21 deliberate misconduct. Rather, the control room 22 operators were faced with an unexpected situation , and 23 TVA cannot conclude that either Mr. Johnson or the 24 control room operators intentionally violated the 25 procedure .
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95 1 TVA respectfully submits that the failure 2 and infor mality re l at i ve to the RHR procedu re used and 3 adherence appears symptomatic of the documented 4 weaknesses in operator fundamentals that existed at 5 Watts Bar in 2015 and 2015 rather than deliberate 6 misconduct .
7 I' 11 n ow t u r n o u r presentation back to Mr .
8 Barstow.
9 MR . BARSTOW : Thank you, Mr . Lewis .
10 TVA ackn owl edges that a performance 11 deficiency and procedure violation occurred when 12 operators reestablished RHR letdown without starting 13 the RHR pump. As you just heard , TVA does not believe 14 that the failure to follow the RHR procedure was a 15 de l iberate viol ation by any individual. The operator 16 took action to restore RHR letdown consistent with the 17 gen eral RHR operatin g procedure and made a decision to 18 not start the RHR pump based on the plant condition 19 and having no constructive reason to start the p ump .
20 The intended reduction in pressurizer level was 21 achieved without the need to start an RHR pump. The 22 ope r ators were not trying to reestablish RHR shutdown 23 cooling . They were reestablishing RHR letdown.
24 The safety significance of this issue was 25 assessed in 20 1 6 when the NRC issued a green , non-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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96 1 cited violation for the failure to follow procedures .
2 At that time , the inspector determined that this 3 finding was of very low safety significance because 4 the way that the system was placed in service did not 5 cause any safety-related components to become 6 inoperable nor did it represent an actual loss of 7 f unction of one or more (audio interference) of 8 equipment designated as high safety significant , in 9 accordance with the TVA's Maintenance Ru le Program.
10 TVA has not identified any new information 11 associated with this finding that it believes should 12 change the original characterization of the safety 13 significance. We (audio interference) because of the 14 alleged deliberate misconduct. However , TVA's review 15 of the historical documents and statements, as well as 16 new interviews with Mr. Johnson, did not identify a 17 basis to conclude that Mr. Johnson's actions relative 18 to procedure use would rise to the level of deliberate 19 misconduct.
20 I t is also important to note that a number 21 of corrective actions have been taken at Watts Bar 22 since 2015 to improve procedure use and adherence .
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97 1 high standards and expectations for performance. You 2 heard Tony Williams talk about some of these during 3 his remarks.
4 Today , the work environment and the level 5 of performance and operations have improved at Watts 6 Bar. TVA is continuing to sustain this improvement in 7 both areas, and we believe this is reflected in the 8 NRC inspection record and INPO evaluation. TVA 9 continues to believe that NRC's 2016 characterization 10 of this issue as a green, non-cited violation for 11 inadequate procedure adherence was appropriate. While 12 TVA identified a number of important organizational 13 and operational weaknesses associated with the RHR 14 event in 2015 , no new information has been identified 15 that would indicate a different characterizat ion of 16 this finding is warranted in 2020.
17 This concludes TVA's presentation of 18 Apparent Violations 1 , 2 , 3 , 5 , and 6.
19 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you , Mr. Barstow. I 20 appreciate that.
21 As we had conversations last week with 22 your counsel, there was a strong potential we would 23 need to be fluid and flexible as things go forward.
24 So, I want to do a little on-the-fly planning, if 25 that's okay with you, Mr. Barstow .
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98 1 MS . ROELOFS: What was your question , Mr.
2 O'Bri e n ? You cut off at t h e end of you r question , Mr .
3 O'Brien.
4 MR . O ' BRIEN: I'm sorry . So , I indicated 5 I wanted to do a little bit on-the-fly planning as we 6 go forward the rest of the day, if that was okay with 7 Mr . Barstow .
8 MR. BARSTOW: Yes , Mr. O' Brien, that ' s 9 fi n e .
10 MR . O' BRIEN : So, we are at 10: 20 your 11 time , according to my clock here. The next thing 12 schedu led is a break for lunch , and then , caucus with 13 the NRC , with us coming back two hours later. So, if 14 it ' s okay with you , I think we might just take those 15 two hours and come back at 12 : 30 your time, if that ' s 16 acceptable to you. So , we ' ll do the caucus and you 17 g u ys can get a little b i t of l u nch probably a little 18 early , if that ' s helpful for you. And we ' ll come back 19 and reconvene at 12:30 at your time . Is that 20 acceptable?
21 MR. BARSTOW: Yes , that's acceptable.
22 Than k you .
23 MR . O'BRIEN: Okay.
24 MS . ROELOFS : Mr. O ' Brien , can I ask if 25 o u r a u dio was a littl e bit better? We were trying to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 be a little bit more quiet in the room. Could you 2 hear u s better?
3 MR. O'BRIEN: I could, but I'm not as 4 important as the court reporter . So , let's ask the 5 court reporter how that went .
6 Mr. Court Reporter, was that much better 7 for you in terms of the audio?
8 COURT REPORTER: Yes, Mr. Chair. Can you 9 hear me?
10 MR. O'BRIEN: Yes, I could . Thank you 11 very much.
12 COURT REPORTER: Yes, the audio was mu ch 13 better.
14 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. Yes, 15 I found it to be very much better . Thank you .
16 So, with that, we'll go off the record and 17 come back at 12:30 your time to begin with q uestions 18 and answers.
19 Thank you , everybody .
20 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 21 off the record at 10: 20 a. m. and resumed at 12: 40 22 p .m. )
23 MR. O ' BRIEN: We have a few questions that 24 we ' d like to ask , and -- where different panel members 25 are going to ask them as we go along.
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100 1 We have no questions relative to AV 1.
2 So, we're going to move on from that list. So, if one 3 comes up as a result of our other questions.
4 And we'll begin with AV 2, and Marc ia?
5 MS. SIMON: Thank you, Ken. I j ust have 6 a couple of questions on AV 2 , and forgive me if I'm 7 not looking into the camera. I have two screens, and 8 it ' s easier for me to just read off of the bigger 9 screen.
10 The first question has to do with, Mr.
11 Sprinkle made a -- the statement in the TVA OIG 12 interview summary states that Mr. Sprinkle recalled 13 that he was looking ahead in the schedule and noticed 14 a sticking point with temperature and the procedure 15 for drawing the bubble.
16 And it states further that Mr. Sprinkle 17 stated that he got system engineering involved, and 18 talked to operations to reach a resolution to make 19 sure it was not a hold up the schedule by redefining 20 or reclassifying a portion of the procedure.
21 So , Mr. Sprinkle's statement to the TVA 22 OIG, and the discussion in his written response on 23 page 2, acknowledges that there is an issue with 24 temperature and the procedure for drawing a bubble, 25 and indicates that the reason for changing the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 procedure was not to have to reach 135 degrees to draw 2 a bubble .
3 I n contrast, Mr. ~l(b_)_(7_)(_c _) _ __, in his PEC ,
4 stated t h at if he had u nderstood t he procedure change 5 to i nvol ve an intent to draw the bubble at a lower 6 temperature , he would not have classified the change 7 as minor/editorial .
8 So, I 'd just like to ask, how do you 9 reconcile those two statements?
10 MS . ROELOFS : Th is is Tricia Roelofs from 11 TVA . We ' re going to refer back to our counsel to 12 ans wer , b ased on t h eir results of their investigat ion 13 that you've heard on the record today.
14 MS . SIMON : Okay .
15 MR . LEWI S : We ' re not sure what Mr.
16 Sprinkle's understanding of the procedure was. It ' s 17 u nclear , becau se he s i mp l y doesn't recall a t t hi s 18 point.
19 It is t rue that his OIG interview suggests 20 that he iden t i fied it. But , it ' s a l so possible it 21 came from the control room, and we've been unable ,
22 b ecau se of l ack of recollection , to rea ll y pin down 23 what was the sticking point -- you know , who raised 24 it .
25 And as a resul t, we do be l ieve , though --
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102 1 basically, though , that there was a difference of 2 u nderstanding between Mr. Spr inkl e and Mr . 1...(b_)_(7_l_(c_)_ _ _I-3 That Mr ~-~b-)-(?-)(_C_l _ ____.l simply understood that an operator 4 wanted an initiate verb , an action verb , to start the 5 heat up process, and that was the change he was 6 making. And with regard to his intent , that ' s how he 7 proceeded .
8 It ' s harder to gauge what Mr. Sprinkle 9 u nderstood just because of the lack of recollection.
10 It is possible that he understood it to allow the 11 bubble to be drawn at a temperature below 135. The 12 delta-T discu ssion seems to s u ggest that .
13 And the best indication we have is that if 14 that was his understanding of intent , he simply made 15 a mistake in classifying it as a minor change. So, it 16 may have been a difference of understanding in what 17 that change was intended to accompl i sh .
18 I think it is pretty clear though that 19 what Mr . ~l(b_)_(7_l(_C_l _ _ _ _l understanding was , because he 20 wrote it the revision log , you know, to change the 21 procedure to allow heat up. Those aren't the exact 22 words , but that ' s the gist of it .
23 MS. SIMON: Okay. Yeah, because I was --
24 in Mr . ._!(b_)(_?)_(c_)_ _ ___, PEC , it seemed like the 25 information he got from Mr . Sprinkle when he met with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 1 him to get this assignment was basically the idea that 2 it was simply -- it was going to be a change from 3 raise to initiate.
4 And it's, you know , we're trying to 5 understand why Mr. Spri nkle would not have 6 communicated to him, you know, this analysis, and you 7 know , the sticking point and so forth .
8 But , I understand that - - I understand 9 what you're saying.
10 MR. LEWIS: Let me just add this. The one 11 thing that's not in that OIG interview is a clear 12 statement that Mr. Sprinkle understood the procedu re 13 change was to allow the bubble to be drawn at 135.
14 It says that there's a sticking point.
15 And it doesn't identify what it was. I think that you 16 could reach the inference that you ' re making, but it 17 isn't clear.
18 MS. SIMON: So, I just want to clarify.
19 So , you're saying it -- are you saying it's possible 20 that the sticking point did not involve drawing the 21 bubble at a temperature less than 135?
22 MR. LEWIS: I think considerably the 23 sticking point could be some operator saying I need an 24 initiate verb . Or, that's a possibility. The other 25 possibil ity is that the operators couldn't get to 135 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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104 1 and wanted to avoid it.
2 But, we"ve looked at the logs that , you 3 know, trying to ascertain, why couldn ' t the operators 4 get to 135? We can't see any acceptable reason why 5 they couldn ' t.
6 Even at a slow heat up rate , you know ,
7 they could have gotten to 135. So , we don't 8 understand that part of the picture.
9 It ' s one of the reasons that we are 10 part i cularly interested in gett ing Mr. Redinger' s 11 statements , because he was the unit supervisor. We 12 have some belief that he may have understood what the 13 issue was.
14 We've talked to other people in the 15 con trol room, and have had no luck understanding what 16 may have been the issue. So , we are very interested 17 in Mr. Redinger's views , and unfortunately , you know, 18 that has not been shared with us.
19 MS. SIMON: Okay.
20 MR. O 'BRIEN: Is it possible, Mr. Lewis --
21 this is Mr. O ' Brien -- is it possible , Mr. Lewis, that 22 since Mr. Sprinkle was the manager over the procedure 23 change process, and Mr. Sprinkle would have been 24 familiar with the difference between the words raise 25 and initiate as those are both defined terms for the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 1 utility , that he clearly understood what he was trying 2 to do?
3 That is , to change it so it was not a step 4 that had to be achieved , but instead a process that 5 had to be begun?
6 MR. LEWIS: It ' s certainly possibl e .
7 MR . O 'BRIEN : Thank you.
8 MS. SIMON : Okay. My next question is ,
9 again , in his written response , Mr. Sprinkle discussed 10 an a n a l ys i s which appears to invol ve several technical 11 considerations .
12 On page 2 of his response he talks abou t ,
13 you know, whether 135 degrees prevented a violation of 14 tech specs. He talked about a surveillance procedure .
15 He tal ked about de l ta- T, its system des i gn parameters ,
16 et cetera.
17 And in his TVA OI G interview summary, i t 18 says that he consulted with system engineering. So ,
19 I g u ess how do you reconcile t hose actions with his 20 determination that this was a minor/editorial change?
21 MS. ROELOFS: We'll -- this is Tricia from 22 TVA , we will turn that question over to our counsel, 23 Mr . Lewis , as well.
24 MR . LEWIS: Mr . Sprinkle has indicated 25 that he if this was the p urpose , to allow the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 1 bubble to be drawn at 135, you know, he's 2 reconstructing it .
3 But, he says he believes it was a non-4 intent change. And it was a non-intent change because 5 it appears to have preserved delta-T, the 32 0 -degree 6 delta - T. And he says he made a mistake. He failed to 7 consider the part of the procedure that said it 8 shouldn ' t be minor if it changes the sequence of 9 steps.
10 So, I think the - - I think that ' s the 11 answer . That he was considering it minor. That ' s the 12 best he can gather. And then kind of reconstructing 13 after the fact, not being completely certain, but his 14 view is that it was probably minor if that was the 15 case, because it preserved delta-T a nd he simply made 16 a mistake in failing to consider the other aspects of 17 the minor one, that it not change the sequence of 18 steps.
19 MS. SIMON: Okay. I'm just going to ask 20 Gerry to -- Gerry could you put up the pages from 21 Exhibit 88 , please?
22 And I think Mr. Lewis, or whoever is going 23 to answer this question, maybe it ' s more appropriate 24 for someone from TVA since i t involves the procedure 25 itse lf. I think you'll -- you'll have to scroll up NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 and down on your screen in order to possibly get to 2 the part I 'm referring to .
3 But , I just wanted to ask a couple of 4 q u estions related to the procedure and the 5 requiremen ts for minor/editorial changes. So , I' 11 6 ask the question and then you can decide who you want 7 to address it.
8 So, at the bottom of the page that ' s on 9 the screen now , it ' s paragraph A. And so , it says 10 i t tal ks about minor changes, such as i nconsequential 11 editorial corrections that do not affect the outcome ,
12 resul ts , functions, processes , responsibilities , and 13 requirements of the performance of procedural 14 instru c t ions .
15 So, I ' d 1 ike to know , is are minor 16 changes limited to inconsequential editorial 17 corrections, based on that s t atement? I'd like to 18 know the interpretation of that , please.
19 MS . ROELOFS : Hello , this is Tricia 20 Roelofs from TVA. Mr. Williams, also from TVA, will 21 answer that question .
22 MR. WILLIAMS: Yeah. Yeah, he l lo , Ms .
23 Simon. Can you ask me the second part of your 24 question?
25 I under -- I'm down at the section about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 the minor changes. But, you ' re trying to ask a 2 question about what would classify as a minor change?
3 And also the editorial portion of it?
4 MS. SIMON: Yeah. But my specific 5 question is I'm reading that first -- t he first 6 part of that first sentence. And it says, such as 7 inconsequential editorial corrections, et cetera, et 8 cetera.
9 And so my quest i on is, are minor changes 10 limited to those kinds of inconsequential editorial 11 corrections?
12 MR. WILLIAMS: Well, when you put in the 13 action verb, such as, these are examples of these that 14 would classify as a minor/editorial change . So, it's 15 not all inclusive when you use action verbs such as, 16 such as.
17 Those are kind of clarifying what are the 18 type of things that would fall under these type of 19 changes. So, I don't know if that answers your 20 question.
21 But , the action verb was such as, is 22 explaining that the rest of that sentence is examples 23 of things that would fall under the minor changes.
24 MS. SIMON: Okay. And so Gerry, could you 25 turn to the next page, please? This is a follow-up to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 that , Mr. Williams.
2 So, there's a list in, I guess, Paragraph 3 B of, is it, 8 .1 7 categor ies of minor editorial 4 changes. And at Mr . l(b ...._)(_7)_(C_)_ _ __. PEC, I asked him 5 which of these corresponded to the change in question 6 on November 9.
7 And he said number, paragraph 7 8 subparagraph for number 17, changes which are purely 9 administrative and non-technical in nature , which do 10 not change the intent or outcome of an act i vity.
11 And I guess so my first question would be ,
12 would you or whoever is appropriate to answer , agree 13 with that assessment? Or is there another -- is there 14 another item in this list that you think it would fall 15 under?
16 MS. ROELOFS: Mr. Williams will answer 17 that q u estion as well, Ms. Simon .
18 MS. SIMON: Thank you.
19 MR . WILLIAMS: Yeah . Ms . Simon , I think 20 we agree that when we looked back, we did the 21 investigation into this violation , this classification 22 of a procedure c hange based upon t h e effect that i t 23 had, with the implementation of this evolution, should 24 not have been processed as a minor editorial change .
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110 1 that step 17 and how~l(b_)_(7_)(_c _) _ __,l believes that he would 2 fa l l under that . However, when you look at the way it 3 was interpreted by the operations group, and which we 4 agree with, would be an action verb that was used, it 5 changed the sequence .
6 So, this editorial, this change would not ,
7 that occurred, would not be classified as a minor or 8 editorial change in accordance with this procedure.
9 MS. SIMON: Okay. I guess what I'm trying 10 to get at , is in trying to look into the, you know, 11 the mindset of either Mr. ~l(b_)_(7_)(_C_) _ ____.lor Mr. Sprinkle ,
12 as they're looking at this -- as they're looking at 13 this change, it seems, you know, hard to look at a lot 14 of these items and say that, you know , clearly the 15 chan ge was not, for example, a correction to 16 addresses , telephone numbers , or computer application 17 names.
18 A lot of these changes really do seem like 19 inconsequential editorial corrections . And so, I 20 guess we're trying to understand why an experienced 21 procedure writer or an experienced manager like Mr.
22 Sprinkle with an SRO l icense, would look at a change 23 like this, and classify it as any of these.
24 So , if you have any thoughts on that , we'd 25 like to hear them .
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111 1 MS . ROELOFS: Mr. Williams is -- and again 2 this is Tricia Roe l ofs . Mr. Williams wi l l answer .
3 And then we ' d also like our counsel to comment on the 4 issu e of intent after Mr . Williams speaks.
5 MR . WILLIAMS : Yes, Ms . Simon, I think 6 that when you looked at the testimonies by Mr.
7 and Mr. Sprinkle, it wasn ' t intentional 8 that they understood these steps in this procedure.
9 Bu t they don ' t know how it ' s laid o u t .
10 Part i c ularly when it ' s embedded in an admin i strative 11 procedure that has 17 steps .
12 Bu t their testimony talks about 13 understanding, their understanding of the change that 14 was requested , and how it applied to this step in the 15 administrat i ve procedure of minor and editorial 16 changes.
17 So , t hey h ad a though t p r ocess . They had 18 a basis for proceeding in the change in this manner.
19 They were wrong . They were incorrect on their 20 appl i cation of this step of the procedure .
21 It was not intentional . At least -- and 22 I'l l hand this over to Mr. Lewi s , wh o did some more 23 investigation on it .
24 Bu t , we understand their basis. We 25 u nderstand how a person could make this correl ation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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112 1 that if the heat - up is stopped, and they needed to 2 initiate it, then you ne eded action verbs that would 3 allow them to do it.
4 And even the way the -- Mr. ~l(b_)(_7_)(_C)_ ____,
5 communicated that his thought process was, this was 6 wordsmithing by the operators , meant that it was 7 un intentional . That it was a major classification of 8 the procedure, a re-sequencing of those steps. That 9 it was a minor and editorial based upon the way he saw 10 this change being made.
11 So I'll hand it over to Mr. Lewis. But ,
12 I understand how a person -- misapplied this step in 13 the procedure. We agree that it was a misapplied step 14 in the procedure .
15 But, I understand the basis and the way it 16 was phrased. And we don't believe that it was an 17 intentional misappropriation of the procedure, a 18 misapplication .
19 MR. O'BRIEN: Mr. Williams, before you 20 move on to Mr. Lewis, I' d like to follow up on 21 something you said. You indicated that there was a 22 belief by somebody. I'm not sure whom, but by 23 somebody that they may have needed to change from 24 raise to initiate in order to allow the heat-up to 25 either begin or continue .
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113 1 As both raise and initiate are action 2 verbs that allow an activity to occur, I'm a little 3 lost at that explanation since the activity could have 4 begun under either verb using your process.
5 And given that the individual, Mr.
6 Sprinkle, that was involved is a supervisor reviewing 7 those types of procedures, ..._)_(7_)(_c_) _ ___.I was Mr . l(b an 8 individual who had done, according to his own 9 testimony, many , many , many thousands of procedures.
10 And the operators were familiar with the 11 bolded, highlighted words in terms of your process .
12 And both of those words would have allowed them to do 13 the action being specified.
14 I'm a little at a loss , and I wonder if 15 you could help me to understand why that ' s something 16 that we should take as a logical argument?
17 MR. WILLIAMS: Mr . O'Brien, raise is 18 raising t he rate. If you have a heat-up rate , we talk 19 about heat-up rate . We t alk about cool - down rate .
20 When you ' re in here, in your procedures, they talk 21 about these rates .
22 And an operator would say raise at 23 increasing the rate of, the heat - up rate. Initiate 24 means start from scratch .
25 So, while I understand the issue, and I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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114 1 understand that it was the noncompliance with the 2 procedures, t his change should not have been done as 3 a minor editorial change. But, I also understand that 4 operators in the control room , when they look at these 5 words, they do request that the changes be modified 6 too , because of the situation that they ' re in.
7 So, when you' re talking a bout heat up , you 8 talk about cool down, a lot of times we imply rate 9 associated with those evolutions . And raising a rate 10 and l owering the rate where it initiated and you're 11 starting from scratch , initi ate means start the heat 12 up .
13 So, that ' s the only time , the only way I 14 can see not being at the time . But , that ' s the only 15 way I can see it, that d i scussion in this hearing.
16 MR. O'BRIEN: So , to make sure I 17 understand , and I apo l og i ze, I j ust want one fur t her 18 clarification.
19 You ' re making you r argument that it 20 applies because it could be a rate that they were 21 assuming , even though a rate has nothing to do with 22 this q u estion i n hand?
23 MR. WILLIAMS: I ' m not making an argument 24 on whether this was a procedure change that was --
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115 1 editorial.
2 And I ' m a l so not making an argument on 3 what motivated Mr. Sprinkle or Mr. _l(b_)_(7_)(_C_) _ __,I. When 4 I look at the way they communicated their basis, I 5 understand what, how they were looking at this change .
6 And I understand how they thought that 7 this wou ld be something that might be considered a 8 minor and editorial change.
9 MR . O'BRIEN : Thank you, sir .
10 MS . ROELOFS: And this is Tricia Roelofs 11 from TVA. I'd like to ask if our counsel has anything 12 to add to those statements that Mr . Williams j u st 13 made.
14 MR . LEWIS: Yes . Going back , the 15 paragraph at the bottom of the previ ous page . The 16 last sentence has a statement of what minor changes 17 aren 't .
18 Just scroll down, excuse me. So, minor 19 changes shall not change the intent of the procedure 20 or the technical sequence of procedural steps.
21 That ' s the most precise definition. Minor 22 chan ges are things that don ' t change the i ntent and 23 don ' t change the sequence.
24 That seems what Mr ._l(b_)_(7_)(_C_)_ _ _l u nderstood 25 he was doing . He wasn ' t changing the intent. It NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 still required, under his interpretation reading, to 2 go through step 8.3 and reach 1 35 degrees Fahrenheit 3 before drawing the bubble. And it didn't alter the 4 sequ ence.
5 On the next page , item 1 7 again fits what 6 Mr - l(b)(7)(C) ! understood. It wouldn't have fit what 7 the operators may have understood or how it may have 8 been interpreted.
9 But Mr. Sprinkle understood he was making 10 a change that was made to accommodate a request from 11 an operator that they wanted an initiate verb. From 12 his perspective, it was non-technical . It didn't 13 change the intent as stated here.
14 It didn't change the outcome of the 15 activity. I t was, like he called, wordpl ay . And I do 16 understand , and maybe TVA could confirm that I'm 17 correct, that it 's not al l that uncommon that 18 operators ask for word changes in procedures .
19 And sometimes then subsequently another 20 operator that wants a different word change. And 21 those are made.
22 MR. O' BRIEN: Mr. Lewis, I appreciate 23 that. I want to make sure there ' s clarity in one of 24 the statements that you made.
25 You indicated Mr. Sprinkle had heard from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 the operators. I think you meant to say Mr.
2 ....
l(b-)(7_)(C
_ )_ ___,I- I just want to make sure that we' re 3 correct on that.
4 MR. LEWIS: Yes. So , I was talking about 5 Mr - l(b)(7)(C) I intent. I misspoke. I apologize .
6 MR. O'BRIEN: No, that's okay. I just 7 wanted to make sure we were clear. Thank you very 8 much for helping me.
9 MR. LEWIS: I appreciate that 10 clarification very much. Thank you.
11 MS. SIMON: So, Mr. Lewis, I guess 12 following up on that briefly . I know Mr. l~(b_)_
(7_)(_C_) _ __,
13 identified number 17 as the one he felt was 14 appropriate .
15 But, I guess again, from Mr. Sprinkle ' s 16 standpoint , given that he went through and looked at 17 technical aspects like delta-T and other things , and 18 consulted with engineering, how does that - - how does 19 that - - how does that make it fall under number 17 20 when it ' s supposed to be non-technical and purely 21 administrative?
22 I mean, how does -- how does that change 23 compare to adding a step requiring a log entry, which 24 to me seems clearly admi nistrative and has no 25 technical bearing on anything .
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118 1 Whereas, it certainly seems that, by Mr .
2 Sprinkle's own analysis, this had some technical 3 nature.
4 MR. LEWIS: Again, if Mr. Sprinkle 5 understood that, he was in fact, you know, having this 6 change made, or somebody was requesting this change be 7 made in order to allow the bubble to be drawn on decay 8 heat at less than 135 degrees, as apparently the 9 control room interpreted that.
10 You know, we have conceded it was not a 11 minor change . As so , if that was his 12 understanding, it would not have been a minor change.
13 And Mr. Sprinkle says, you know, yes, that's what I 14 was doing. I was thinking of it as a non - intent 15 change. And I made a mistake.
16 MR. O' BRIEN: Mr. Lewis, one more 17 clarification to something you just said. You made a 18 reference to the control room interpreting that.
19 Do you have evidence that that is how the 20 control room interpreted it? Or is that just Mr .
21 _l (b_)(_
7_HC
_ )_ _ _ ~I dialogue?
22 MR . LEWIS: My belief that that may have 23 been held how the control room interpreted it , is the 24 fact that they drew the bubble at about 105 degrees.
25 So they didn't go to 135.
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119 1 And so you tried to figure out how, you 2 know , could they have drawn the bubble at 105 if they 3 were following the procedure. And you know, a 4 possibility, and you know , perhaps a bit more then 5 that is that ' s how they were interpreting the 6 procedure.
7 But , it is , again, we don't know . We 8 would very, very much like to see the materials that 9 you have with Mr. Redinger , because he's probably the 10 person who, you k now, may have said something that 11 explains what was going on here.
12 And that part we've not been able to 13 reconstruct. We've not been able to determine in the 14 control room , you know, how they got to drawing the 15 bubble at 105. What was their thought process, and 16 why did they think it was permissible?
17 That part is not known to us.
18 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
19 MS. SIMON : Okay . Gerry, could you put up 20 the other document about the IQR training? Thank you.
21 So, I just had a -- you didn ' t discuss 22 this thi s morning. But, it was in t he written 23 response that you provided.
24 So , I j u st had a couple of questions about 25 the independent quali ty review . And I extracted a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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120 1 couple of pages from the training on that.
2 I actually want to go to, I don't remember 3 which page it is here. I think it ' s like the third or 4 fou rth slide. Next, next, next. Yeah. That one.
5 So, my question is , based on what I can 6 see , Mr. Sprinkle was the person who, he didn't 7 initiate the change in the terms, in the term of art 8 in the, that computer program that TVA uses.
9 But , he essentially proposed it. He 10 communicated it to Mr. ~l(b_)_(7_)(_C_)_ ___,~ He did research on 11 it, apparently, from his response . He did the 12 independent quality review. And he also ult imately 13 approved it as sponsor.
14 And I guess my question is , is that 15 consistent with the definition of independence as 16 shown in this training?
17 MS . ROELOFS: Ms. Simon, this is Tricia 18 Roelofs from TVA. We would like to ask our counsel to 19 answer that question based on their investigation and 20 review of the documents.
21 MR. LEWIS: If Mr. Sprinkle supplied the 22 information to the preparer for the revision, and 23 perhaps TVA can explain more than me on where to draw 24 the line.
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121 1 provided the information to Mr. l(b)(?)(C) Iabout what 2 was being done and why, then our position in our 3 written response is that that would not have been, he 4 would not have been independent. And shouldn't have 5 been the IQR reviewer .
6 Where we've had difficulty in assessing 7 this aspect, is in not having a clear understanding of 8 what Mr. Sprinkle communicated to Mr . l(b ..._)_(7_)(_c_) _ _....I*
9 That's the missing link.
10 I f the request came from the control room 11 and the request was change raise to initiate, and that 12 was simply transmitted to Mr . !(b)(7)(C) ! through Mr.
13 Sprinkle , perhaps he could have been the IQR reviewer.
14 Our written response indicates that we 15 just don ' t have enough information to know whether 16 this aspect in the training was met or not.
17 We do point out in our written response 18 that , as far as the procedure goes, it simply 19 prohibits the preparer from being the IQR reviewer .
20 And, you know, does not have this explicit requirement 21 in the procedure .
22 Bu t, I ' d also like to point out that this 23 aspect is not part of the violation that was provided 24 to TVA. This is not one of the alleged aspects of t he 25 violation of what was sent to TVA .
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122 1 MS. SIMON: Okay. Thank you.
2 MR . O'BRIEN : Mr. Lewi s, this is Mr.
3 O'Brien again. Based upon Mr. Sprinkle ' s testimony ,
4 I believe he indicated that he was looking ahead. And 5 he identified the need for this issue .
6 And Mr. _l(b_)_(?_)(_c _) _ _ ~I indicates that Mr. --
7 Mr . 1(b)(?)(C) I indicated that he was asked to change 8 it. I t would -- I ' m trying to make sure I understand ,
9 because you implied, I think you implied again that 10 this may have come f r om the control room.
11 Do you have any information to indicate at 12 all and contradict Mr . Sprinkle's testimony that it 13 did come from the control room?
14 MR . LEWIS: Well, in talking to people in 15 the control room, am I on mute?
16 MR. O'BRIEN: No. You ' re live.
17 MR . LEWI S : Thank you . Excus e me .
18 MR. O'BRIEN: You're welcome.
19 MR . LEWIS : We asked a number of peopl e in 20 the control room where this originated. They're 21 trying to find out.
22 One of the individuals that we talked to, 23 a gentleman named , ~l 7
(b_l(_ l_(C_l _ _ _ _l, indicated that there 24 was an issue , and he couldn't remember with , you know ,
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123 1 this issue.
2 And that they later learned , I b e l ieve 3 what happened is Mr. Redinger, who is the shift 4 s upervisor , had to leave the control room for a 5 medical appointment . Mr. Heimel stepped in.
6 Then Mr. Redinger came back. And at some 7 point Mr . Redinger understood that t h ere was a 8 procedure change that had been made. And I think the 9 implication that we gathered from that discussion was 10 that , you know, it resolved the issue .
11 So , evidently , there was something ,
12 according to Mr. Heimel , that was being raised in the 13 control room. And I think that, the implication , that 14 he had a very, you know , nobody has a very precise 15 recollection unfortunately, of what was go ing on.
16 But , we did gather from him that there was 17 an i ssu e raised in the control room. And it seems to 18 have been resolved later by a procedure change.
19 What Mr . Heimel could not tell us , was 20 what was the impediment? What was the sticking point?
21 Why couldn't they have heated up? And I said, I 'm 22 sorry, Mr . Heimel .
23 So , we still have some indication that 24 there was an issue that was being raised in t he 25 contro l room . We don 't know exactly what i t was .
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124 1 And we do have some indication that 2 perhaps this proc edure c hange resolved it . We also 3 find Mr. Sprinkle's statement, have the sense that 4 he ' s not really s u re that , you know, what he 5 understood in 2017 was right .
6 He was having trouble recalling back then.
7 And even today, he is not really sure what was the 8 purpose and who raised it. We are suffering from a 9 lack of information .
10 MR. O 'BRIEN: Okay. Thank you , very much.
11 Marcia?
12 MS . SIMON : Okay . Thanks. And --
13 MS. ROELOFS: Excuse me, Mr. O'Brien , Ms.
14 Simon . This is Tricia Roelofs from TVA . I'm sorry if 15 interrupt .
16 MS. SIMON: That ' s okay.
17 MS . ROELOFS: Mr. Williams would like to 18 supplement that answer if that ' s permissible, please.
19 MR . WILLIAMS: Yes , Mr. O'Brien , I j u st 20 want to add, the, you know, associated with the role 21 of Mr . Sprinkle being the OCC, being that interface in 22 constant communication with the control room, and 23 being the look- ahead guy that ' s looking at the 24 different evolutions , it ' s not uncommon that that 25 posit i on sees some, the control room team, seeing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125 1 potential need for procedure changes.
2 And being the communication to get those 3 resources going. So, I do know from watching the OCC 4 evolutions that that curve with the ops representative 5 in the OCC, does -- is in very frequent communications 6 back and forth with the control room.
7 So, if the control room did have concerns 8 associated with the verbiage in this procedure, it ' s 9 not unusual that they would then tell Mr . Sprinkle to 10 initiate that procedure change problem.
11 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you. Marcia?
12 MS . SIMON: Thanks. One final question on 13 apparent violation two. Again, with the IQR.
14 I just want to, I guess , clarify whether 15 the I QR review, part of the IQR review involves making 16 sure a minor editorial designation is appropriate.
17 MS . ROELOFS: Ms. Simon, this is Tricia 18 Roelofs from TVA. Mr. Williams will answer that 19 question.
20 MR. WI LL I AMS: Yes. I believe we do 21 recognize that the IQR review should be evaluating the 22 classification of minor editorial in his review.
23 And looking at the -- and we agree that 24 the -- that review done by Mr. Sprinkle in his role of 25 the I QN review did not meet expectations to flag to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 1 see that that was not a minor or a technical change .
2 MS . S I MON : Okay. Thank you . Ken , were 3 there any other questions on 4 MR . O'BRIEN : There were no other 5 questions i n AV 2. Unless you have another one ,
6 Marcia .
7 MS . SIMON : No . I don't .
8 MR. O' BRI EN: Then we ' ll move onto AV 3.
9 And I had a question on AV 3 I wanted to ask relative 10 to your material that you put up r e l ative to the 11 different checklists .
12 And you indicated that t he checklists , I 13 think it ' s Checklist B, but I don ' t have it directly 14 in front of me, did not q u ote/unquote require the 15 l etdown system to be operable .
16 Could you help me appreciate any other 17 procedu res , any other locati o n s , any other processes 18 by which you would ensure that letdown would be 19 operabl e as part of you r normal startup activities?
20 And I' ll change the word operable if that 21 will help you to go away from the formal definition of 22 ope r a ble as u sed in tech specs , to mean available and 23 useful .
24 MS . ROELOFS : Mr . O'Brien , TVA , Mr .
25 Wi l l i ams will be able to answer your question . But NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 1 before that, could you please repeat your question?
2 Or could the court reporter please repeat 3 the question?
4 MR. O'BRIEN: I ' ll give it a shot since I 5 made it up as I was going.
6 MS. ROELOFS: Okay . Thank you.
7 MR. 0' BRIEN: During your presentation you 8 made the point , I believe, that Appendix B did not 9 requi re the letdown system to be, I'll call it 10 operable. But I, you can also u se available and 11 useful.
12 And so, my question was, with that 13 supposition in front of me, could you help me to 14 understand what other procedure, what other location, 15 what other control that you have, that you rely upon 16 in starting up the plant , to ensure that system is 17 available when needed?
18 Yeah. You just passed it.
19 MR. WILLIAMS: So, if you see , and I 20 believe Ken, this is real clear, this clarification, 21 are you talking about the section that says eves ,
22 charging and letdown?
23 MR. O'BRIEN: That is correct.
24 MR . WILLIAMS: And so we understand t he 25 tech specs, the application with the boric acid NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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128 1 flowback , and that and charging is clear for the 2 ope r ator to see t he tech spec appl ica b il ity in 3 accordance with the modes and clean.
4 And then the letdown isolation valve wou ld 5 obviou s l y have a tech spec application as well in the 6 letdown system. And we do have other procedures that 7 are trackin g the operability of those systems .
8 And we do have systems that have the heat 9 column , t he celsio tracking modules that are tracking 10 the tech spec required i mpl icat i ons associated with 11 those components in the letdown line and those 12 compon ents in the charging system that had tech spec 13 applications.
14 And then additionally , we do have the 15 normal process of letdown. But, with the wh ipping of 16 the PWR, the excess allows you to deviate around the 17 l etdown p r ocess .
18 But that ' s an operational need type of 19 process . But , I ' m going to turn this over to the 20 operations director to any other controls that we have 21 in place that are driving the operabilities, the 22 ope r a ble requirements assoc i ated with those charging 23 and letdown systems .
24 MR . RICE : Mr . O'Brien , this is Chris 25 Rice . So, for the letdown system, it's important to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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129 1 understand that the purpose of the letdown system is 2 to allow for clean up of the RCS and letdown. And 3 then volume control.
4 Now , with the -- as far as what else would 5 drop that, we do take this system out of service on 6 line from time to time to perform maintenance.
7 And the typical driver would be based on 8 other inputs such as RCS and chemical control, if we 9 were seeing that we were seeing elevated activity in 10 the RCS.
11 And that ' s when we take the -- when we do 12 take it out of service , those are the things that we 13 monitor for to ensure that i t is capable of clean up 14 RCS.
15 MR. O' BRI EN: Mr. Rice, I apologize. I 16 wasn't clear enough in my question. During startup of 17 the plant, you have a procedure that is on the board 18 right now as it relates to ensuring systems are 19 aligned in the way and manner in which you expect 20 them. So they ' re available when you expect them to be 21 used.
22 My question was, during start up, what 23 other procedure besides this procedure , do you have ,
24 that would ensure that the letdown system , more 25 specifically, and the portions that were out of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 1 service, would be put in service before they were 2 n eeded?
3 Not during normal operations. Not in 4 other times and other situations. But specifically 5 d ur ing t h is type of evolution and this type of set of 6 circumstances .
7 I appreciate your perspective relative to 8 Westinghouse. I spent a good portion of my career as 9 a Westinghouse resident. So, I u nderstand that answer 10 too .
11 Mr. Rice , you ' re on mute. I don ' t know if 12 you're aware of that.
13 MS . ROELOFS : No, I ' m sorry. This is 14 Tricia. He's off mute. Go ahead , Mr . Rice .
15 MR. RI CE : I know of no oth er operating 16 procedure that would be in place at this time that 17 would require l e t down situations, sir.
18 MR. O' BRIEN: That's thank you, very 19 mu ch . That's the answer I thought existed , but I 20 wanted to confirm it. Thank you.
21 So , let me, I apologize, Mr. Rice, I want 22 to ask a fo llow up question j us t to be sure we' re 23 clear on understanding and what not.
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131 1 put letdown in service at thi s point in time , and used 2 o t her mea s ure s t o control its status until a point i n 3 time you truly needed it, i.e., when you took RHR out 4 of service . Is that correct?
5 MS . ROELOFS: This is Tricia Roe l ofs . We 6 would like to refer that question to our attorneys ,
7 please .
8 MR. O' BRIEN: Okay. But, I think this is 9 more an operational question as opposed to a -- b u t, 10 you can do as you p l ease.
11 MS . ROELOFS : I ' m sorry , Mr. O ' Brien .
12 Again , I misunderstood wh at you needed . Can you 13 please rephrase the question?
14 MR . O'BRIEN : I can repeat it .
15 MS . ROELOFS : Could you repeat? Yes ,
16 please.
17 MR . O' BRIEN: Mr . Rice , what I ' m asking 18 is , your processes and procedures would allow you to 19 u se other measu res besides this checklist when you 20 were starting up, to allow you to track and control 21 the availability of the letdown valves, other than 22 this j u st through this procedu re .
23 So you could have potentially used other 24 mechanisms to make sure you knew of i t s statu s when 25 you were going to need i t .
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132 1 MR. RICE: Yes, sir. There are other 2 methods that could have tracked this l etdown line and 3 letdown subsystem of the chemical volume control 4 system.
5 We could -- there are other methods that 6 could have tracked , what would have been required.
7 MR . O ' BRIEN : Thank you , sir. I 8 appreciate that. I don ' t have any other questions 9 regarding AV 3. I don't believe the rest of my team 10 does, unless they te l l me that I missed something .
11 So , we'll move onto AV 5. Marcia?
12 MS . SIMON : Thank you , Ken. I hav-e one 13 question, unless I have follow ups about AV 5.
14 So , this apparent violation is not about 15 the crew ' s failure to make entries during the shift.
16 It ' s really about Mr. Johnson ' s failure to review the 17 logs at the end of the shift to ensure t h at they were 18 accurate and complete.
19 And Mr. Johnson stated in his OI interview 20 in December 2015 that as shift manager he was 21 responsible to make sure the logs were done properly.
22 And he failed to do that at the end of the shift .
23 Mr. Johnson indicated in his written 24 response that , by the time turnover with oncoming, 25 with the oncomin g shift manager was complete, he was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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133 1 close to exceeding fatigue rule hours, and did not 2 legally have time to do a final end of shift thorough 3 review of the logs before he had to l eave .
4 So, my question is, if that was the case, 5 what is a shift manager supposed to do in that 6 situation to fulfill the responsibility of ensuring 7 that logs are accurate?
8 MS. ROELOFS: Thank you, Ms. Simon. For 9 that question, again this is Tricia Roelofs from TVA.
10 Mr. Rice will answer your question .
11 MR. RICE: Ms. Simon, this is Chris Rice.
12 So --
13 (Telephonic interruption) 14 MS . ROELOFS : One moment , please. I'm 15 sorry, we were on mute. Can you start your answer 16 again , Mr . Rice?
17 MR . RICE: Yes. Ms. Simon, this is Chris 18 Rice. My expectation would be during that time frame, 19 if Mr . Johnson was unable to complete all of his 20 duties, that we would have pulled additional resources 21 to support , making sure that the logs were complete 22 and accu rate .
23 There is opportunities to have provided 24 another SRO to the main control room to assist with 25 that function . And he could have delegated that to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 1 him. He did not do that.
2 MR. WILLIAMS: And if you look today on 3 how we do business, the loadi ng in the control room is 4 something that we monitor and we evaluate.
5 We have shift managers that are very, that 6 acknowledge when they need help. They request for 7 additional resources to bring pools into the control 8 room to help out with logs, to help out with 9 additional procedures .
10 Last outage, the operations department 11 started having schedules that were loaded up more than 12 the available manpower that they had on shift . We 13 gave them resources to help re-sequencing their work 14 to allow them to complete the activities without 15 overloading the manpower that they had available to 16 them.
17 So, maintaining the logs from the 18 beginning of the shift to the end of the shift is a 19 manpower task that needs to be evaluated by the shift 20 manager, and today we do see those shift managers 21 letting the OCC know whatever help they need to 22 perform those functions .
23 MS. SIMON: Thank you, Mr. Williams. I 'm 24 trying to under stand at the time what Mr. Johnson's 25 options were and, for instance, whether he would have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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135 1 had training on the fatigue rule that would have 2 indicated to him what he should have done if he was 3 truly approaching his legal limit on hours.
4 MR. RICE: Ms. Simon, this is Chris Rice.
5 He did have the same options in place that we have to 6 that we have, that Tony mentioned today.
7 So we have those options available. We --
8 this was a -- there were potential waivers for fatigue 9 rule if it was so required.
10 I wouldn ' t expect that we would exercise 11 those options to ensure that the logs are complete and 12 accu rate . And that is , we see that today .
13 But at the time, we did have an issue with 14 log keeping. And that was clearly identified in the 15 QA audit that was performed.
16 And this was so that many actions that 17 came o u t of that were to provide the coaching and 18 bringing up those standards associated specifically 19 with log keeping .
20 MS. S I MON: Thank you, Mr. Rice. Ken, 21 that's my last question on that apparent violation.
22 MR . O ' BRIEN: I had one other question i n 23 that area as it relates to AV 5. And it was a dialog 24 that occurred before .
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136 1 the sense that Mr - l(b)(?)(C) Iand Mr - l(b)(?)(C) Iwere both 2 se r v ing a s d ay one s hift , and the other shift if you 3 will , of oversight broad, and I use that word broad ,
4 of ongoing activities .
5 And I know at least one of them in their 6 testimonies , either their comments to us, or their 7 presen tations indicated that they routinely looked at 8 the logs before and after.
9 Given what some of the testimony has been 10 here today, and some of the other pieces of 11 information where the TVA was aware that this was an 12 issu e , and was aware of t he need to be attentive to 13 this , do you have any perspective, any comments you 14 want to provide relative to the very substantial 15 absence of info r mation on this part i c ular date?
16 And two of the more senior people in the 17 ope r at i ons department , including the senior l icense 18 holder, not observing or making any comment in that 19 regard?
20 MS. ROELOFS: This is Tricia again, from 21 TVA . I will take the initial part of that answer.
22 And then we ' ll turn it over to our counsel to complete 23 our answer.
24 MR . WILLIAMS : Yeah , Mr . 0' Brien , we would 25 I would have expected those indi vidu a l s to see NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 those gaps in the performance with the l og keeping.
2 I can't speculate on why it didn't occur 3 on that day. But, I will turn it over to legal 4 counsel to see if in their investigation they found 5 something on why they did not pick upon the gap in log 6 keeping.
7 MR. O' BRIEN: Thank you.
8 MR. LEWIS : I don ' t rec a 11 Mr . l(b)(?)(C) 9 saying that he always did it. I - - you'll have to 10 excuse my recollection of this. You caught me by 11 surprise with this question .
12 But, I think he said he -- I think the 13 sense was that he often did it. But, I don't know 14 that he in fact did review the log when he came back 15 on the shift on the evening of November 1 1.
16 Nor do I believe that he would have 17 necessarily recognized this omission from the log . I 18 think his understanding when he came back was, the 19 operators were very calm .
20 I don ' t think he got the sense that there 21 was a significant evolution. But, then I don ' t think 22 we've ever really probed this with Mr. l(b)(?)(C) 1*
23 And so I'm not confident I really know the 24 answer . And similarly, I don't know whether Mr.
25 l(b)(?)(C) Isaid that he routinely reviewed the logs.
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138 1 He ' d only been the .... l(b_)(_7_ _)_ _ _ _ _ _ _____.I
)(C
'2 l(b)(7)(C) l. . .
1 (b_ )(7_)(_
c )_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___,I 3 l(b)(7)(C) 4 And again , like Mr. l(b)(7)(C) I, I don ' t know 5 whether h e did review the logs at the end of the day ,
6 or would have perceived the omission.
7 MR . O ' BRIEN : Than k you, Mr . Lewis . I 8 guess I have a follow up to this. And it goes back to 9 part of the dialog from , I think, Mr ~(b)(?)(C) land Mr .
10 l(b)(7)(C) relative to, and I think some of the 11 discussion here , relative to trying to change the 12 ac c o untability and the expec t ations and performance .
13 Obviously here ' s a situation where the 14 control room doesn't do logging as they're required 15 to. The shift manager doesn ' t do a review as he ' s 16 required to. The (b_)(?_)(C_) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ___,I, j.... the 17 operations director s don ' t identify that and do 18 anything .
19 I'm stru ggling to try and equate those two 20 different answers, accountability and trying to set 21 that up. And then what appears to be some of those 22 i ndivi d u a l s who ' d be responsible fo r actu a l ly doing 23 that, having no recollection or not being involved in 24 that at a l l , and no observation of it .
25 Any feedback , any thought for me there?
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139 1 MS. ROELOFS: Mr. O'Brien , Mr. Williams 2 has a comment on your question .
3 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
4 MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. O 'Brien , I fully agree 5 that the leaders need to -- they need to, they need to 6 be performing the same standards that they expect out 7 of the workforce .
8 And if the workforce is not following the 9 procedures because management is not also following 10 the procedures, then you're never going to improve 11 performance.
12 If there is something that's important to 13 the leaders -- to the stations, and it's something 14 that is an improvement initiative, then you ne,e d to 15 provide the ab ility for those teams to improve their 16 performance and be successful . But you need to 17 monitor them to see if they're correcting those 18 issues.
19 So, I will speak to the improvement plan 20 that occurred at the site as far as the corrective 21 action associated with what we learned from these 22 events . And one of them i s the or one of the 23 biggest one is the leaders have to be out there.
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140 1 teams. And when you look at some of these , this event 2 and some of the leaders' beh aviors a s we ll, i t doe s n ' t 3 appear that they were supporting and reinforcing those 4 standards .
5 Bu t yet , that was a focus area. And that 6 could have been a reason why the performance didn't 7 improve as fast as what it should have .
8 MR. O ' BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Williams. I 9 appreciat e that .
10 MR. LEWIS: This i s David Lewis. Could I 11 just clarify what I said a second ago?
12 MR . O ' BRIEN : Sure .
13 MR. LEWIS: What I was really trying to 14 say is , we don ' t know . I was , I g u ess challenging the 15 assumption that Mr. l(b)(?)(C) and Mr. l(b)(?)(C) 16 necessarily looked at the logs that evening. And 17 woul d have recognized i t .
18 I don ' t know whether they did or didn't.
19 And I was indicating I don't recall them saying that 20 they always did.
21 But again, the answer is , I think we don ' t 22 know . At least from o ur i nquiry whether they l ooked 23 at the logs at the end of the day. Or that they 24 recognized there was any omission .
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141 1 right now. But we ' re also not aware from anybody's 2 statement that anybody intentionally tried to, you 3 know, not log information or tried to conceal any 4 information.
5 That ' s everybody we've talked to has 6 stated that clearly.
7 MR . O'BRIEN : Thank you, Mr . Lewis . I 8 don't believe we have any other questions on AV 5, 9 unless my team has something else they've developed.
10 So we'll move on if it's okay with you, 11 Mr. Barst ow. And we ' ll move onto AV 6. I know we're 12 right at about an hour since we started . I think this 13 will be relatively short if that's okay.
14 MS. ROELOFS: That's okay with us, thank 15 you.
16 MR. WILLIAMS: Yes , Mr. O ' Brien, we'll 17 continue.
18 MR. O ' BRIEN: Thank you. I have a 19 question relative to AV 6. And really what I'm 20 looking for is an understanding of where, if it is, 21 defined anywhere in TVA procedures or Watts Bar 22 procedures, what constit utes prudent operator actions?
23 And then how that relates from your 24 perspective to any of the actions that occurred on 25 November 11?
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142 1 MS. ROELOFS: Hello, this is Tricia Roelofs 2 from TVA . Mr. Rice will answer that question for you .
3 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
4 MR. RICE: Mr. O'Brien , as far as prudent 5 operator actions, they are defined in the technical 6 instruct.ions . Those are associated with abnormal or 7 emergency operating procedures , however.
8 As far as this, the use of prudent 9 operator actions in this scenario , I would say that 10 they were misapplied. Today, we ' ve trained on this 11 following this event with operators over the last few 12 years .
13 And made efforts to reduce prudent 14 operator actions even in abnormal or emergency 15 situations by building our procedures.
16 So, for this particular case though, 17 prudent operator actions would not have been the best 18 method for dealing with the issue.
19 The best method would have been to have 20 preplanned for a contingency such as this, reviewed 21 the procedures, had the procedures out, ensured that 22 they support coming into and out of the line up. And 23 then completing the procedures in their entirety.
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143 1 performed or as a last effort to ensure -- to follow 2 thr o u gh with the appr opr i ate use of n/a in a ccordance 3 with procedures.
4 MR . O ' BRIEN : Mr. Rice, you make my memory 5 cel ls p r oud with your r esponse . I n that as a former 6 resident , senior resident , that is exactly the answer 7 I wou ld have expected . Thank you .
8 MS. ROELOFS: You ' re welcome.
9 MR . O ' BRIEN : I don't believe , and I'm 10 goin g to check with my team to make sure, so they can 11 correct me , I don ' t believe we have any more questions 12 regarding AV 6 . Is that fair?
13 Tricia and Mr. Barstow , we have no further 14 questions at this point in time. We're at about an 15 hou r.
16 If you'd like to take a 15 minute break 17 and then come back and finish for the day , that would 18 be a good idea . But , I 'm open to suggestions.
19 MS . ROELOFS : Yes , sir . We would like to 20 please take a short break. And then we will resume at 21 let's say 1:55.
22 MR . O' BRIEN: I 'm really good with that 23 Tricia . Correct. Five minutes before the hour.
24 MS . ROELOFS : Five minu tes before t he 25 hou r, 1 : 55 Eastern . Thank you .
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144 1 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you very much . So 2 Court Reporter, we're off the record until five 3 minutes to the hour.
4 MS . ROELOFS: Thank you.
5 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
6 (Whereupon, the above - entitled matter went 7 off the record at 1:39 p.m. and resumed at 1 : 57 p.m.)
8 MR. O ' BRIEN: Mr. Barstow , at this point 9 in time we're ready to begin if you are .
10 MS. ROELOFS: This is Ms. Roelofs. We 11 are . And we would -- our counsel would like to make 12 one clarifying comment. And then just a very brief 13 closing comment for TVA.
14 And I 'm sorry for interrupting Mr.
15 Barstow. I' m just seated next to the mute button.
16 So , that's why I'm speaking .
17 PARTICIPANT: Can we make sure the Court 18 Reporter is on line, please.
19 MR. O'BRIEN: Court Reporter , are you 20 online? Court Reporter, are you on line?
21 COURT REPORTER: Yes, Mr. Chair .
22 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you . Go ahead Tricia.
23 You had a clarifying comment you wanted to make before 24 we begin?
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145 1 like to make that comment .
2 MR. LEWIS: Yes. This is David Lewis.
3 Marcia , I believe you indicated in one of your 4 questions that the shift manager was requi red to read 5 the logs at the end of his shift.
6 I just wanted to clarify , I think the 7 procedure is OPDP-1, Section 4.6(1), which says the 8 shift manager reviews the logs to ensure the logs are 9 accurate and appropriate .
10 I just want to point out it doesn't 11 specifically say at the end of the shift. It's just 12 his responsibility to review the logs .
13 MR. O 'BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Mr.
14 Barstow, we're abou t to finish right now. And before 15 we finish I 'd like to offer any -- for the day that 16 is, only for the day, I'd like to offer you the 17 opportunity to comment sir, if you'd like your legal 18 counsel to make a short, brief statement.
19 MR. BARSTOW: Yes, thank you, Mr . O'Brien.
20 I think Mr. Rausch would like to make some closing 21 comments .
22 MR. O'BRIEN: Thank you.
23 MR. RAUSCH: Okay. This is Tim Rausch.
24 And first of all, I 'd just like to thank you for t he 25 opportunity today to present our facts as well as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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146 1 answer your questions.
2 J u st to be very clear and con c i se here at 3 the end, TVA accepts the apparent violations 4 associated with current violations , 1, 2 , 3 , 5 and 6 .
5 We accept those on the fact that there are various 6 cases where performance did not meet our expectations.
7 Bu t we also have been very clear that in 8 each of those cases, we do not believe there was any 9 deliberate misconduct. And with that , we' 11 close the 10 day .
11 MR. O' BRIEN: Thank you, Mr. Rausch. I 12 really appreciate that . I have just a couple of 13 comments I want to provide. And then I ' ll provide them 14 each day and those that may have listened in on some 15 of the individual conferences, I raise somewhere.
16 First , I just want to remind everybody of two things 17 re l at i ve to this pre-decisional enforcement 18 conference.
19 First is that the apparent violations that 20 we ' ve discussed today are subject to further review 21 and subject to change prior to any resulting 22 enfor cemen t action . That ' s t h e whole reason we' re 23 holding this conference.
24 And second , the statement or views or 25 expressions of opi nion made by the NRC empl oyees at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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147 1 this pre - decisional enforcement conference , or lack 2 thereof, are not intended to represent any fina l 3 agency determinations or beliefs.
4 Those are two very important factors . And 5 as I said, I ' ll repeat them each of the next two days 6 to reinforce the fact that this is an information 7 gathering for us.
8 And we greatly appreciate the time and 9 effort that Mr. Rausch, you and your staff have put in 10 and the information that you've exchanged with us 11 today. I even further appreciate the materials that 12 you sent in advance that allowed us to make sure that 13 we were most fully ready to have this conference and 14 to listen. So thank you very much.
15 Unless there are any final comments, and 16 I'll pause for a moment in case somebody does have 17 another one.
18 I' 11 close the meeting at this point.
19 I'll ask the Court Reporter and Ms. Roelofs to talk 20 to, there ' s a couple of factors that they need to 21 address.
22 But we are off the record at this point in 23 time. Thank you very much.
24 (Whereupon , the above-entitled matter went 25 off the record at 2 :00 p .m. )
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