ML20134N694

Partially Withheld Transcript of Interview of RP Weiss on 950831.Pp 1-73.W/Certificate

ML20134N694
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Issue date:	08/31/1995
From:	NRC
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ML20134N676	List: IA-96-408, Partially Withheld Transcript of Interview of RP Weiss on 950831.Pp 1-73.W/Certificate ML20134N673 ML20134N689 ML20134N694
References
FOIA-96-408 NUDOCS 9611270082
Download: ML20134N694 (73)

Text

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$XHlBIT 7 6 VEeedo* O Informstlon t

f0!A k .Qhe Case No, g.94-036S EXHIBIT 7

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2 961119 M12 0 CALANDR96-40s PDR

)

) @fBefal Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION i

Title:

In the matter of

! Interview of l Robert P. Weiss I

f l Docket Number: (not assigned) l Location: Atlanta, Georgia 1

i Date: August 31,1995 i

i-l l

i j Work Order No.: NRC-319 Pages 1-73 i

i i 2 NEAL R. GROSS AND Co., INC. MET 7 Couri Reporters and Transcribers l 2094 =036 1323 Rhode Tsland Avenue, N.W. PAGE / OF 7( PAGE(S)

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 i

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]

Page 1 i BEFORE THE _,

l U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the Matter of: )

)

INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF: )

) 1 l

ROBERT P. WEISS )

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(CONFIDENTIAL) ) l U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission i 101 Marietta Tower l Suite 2900

. Atlanta, Georgia Thursday, August 31, 1995 T1ua above entitled matter convened for INVESTIGAiIVE, INTERVIEW pursuant to notice at 10:30 A.M. ,

l APPEARANCES:

On behalf of the U.S. NRC:

JAMES D. DOCKERY, Senior Investigator JAMES Y. VORSE, Senior Investigator CURT RAPP, Reactor Engineer Inspector WILLIAM McNULTY, Field Office Director U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region II 101 Marietta Tower, Suite 2900 Atlanta, Georgia On behalf of the Witness:

RICHARD W. HENDRIX, Attorney Finch, McCranie, Brown & Thrash ,

225 Peachtree Street, NE l 1700 South Tower Atlanta, Georgia j NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 2 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 MR. DOCKERY: For the record, the date is August 3 31st, 1995. The time is approximately 10:30 A.M. My name 4 is James D. Dockery, Senior Investigator, Nuclear Regulatory 5 Commission, Office of Investigations.

6 During this proceeding, which will be recorded for 7 transcription, the NRC Office of Investigations will conduct 8 an interview of Mr. Rob Weiss. The interview pertains to OI 9 Investigation #2-94-036. Location of this interview is the 10 NRC Regional Office, Region II, Atlanta, Georgia.

11 2everal others are in attendance at this 12 interview,' an,d I'd like to ask them to identify chemselves 13 for the record, starting with Mr. Vorse.

14 MR. VORSE: My name is James Y. Vorse, and that's 15 V-as in Victor-o-r-s-e. I'm a Senior Investigator, U.S.

16 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations, 17 Region II, Atlanta, Georgia.

18 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Rapp?

19 MR. RAPP: My name is Curtis Rapp, R-a-p-p. I'm a 20 Reactor Inspector for Region II,ENRC, in Atlanta, Georgia.

21 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Hendrix?

22 MR. HENDRIX: My name is Richard Hendrix. I'm an 23 attorney here in Atlanta, representing my client, Rob Weiss.

l 24 MR. DOCKERY: And if the witness would stand and l

25 raise his right hand, please.

, NEAL R. GROSS & CC., INC.

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Page 3 1 Whereupon, 2 ROBERT P. WEISS 3 appeared as a witness, and having been duly sworn, was 4 examined and testified as follows:

5 EXAMINATION 6 BY MR. DOCKERY:

7 Q Would you please state your full name; date of 8 birth; and Social Secur.ity number for the record, please.

9 A 74y name is Robert P. Weiss. I was bor 10 61 My Social Security number is I 11 Q Mr. Weiss, before we went on the recora today we l l

12 provided ou,and your counsel with a copy of the verbiage I 13 from Section 1001, Title 18 of the United States Criminal 14 Code; is that correct?

15 A That is correct.

16 Q And have you read that section?

17 A Yes, I have.

18 Q Do you understand how it applies here today?

19 A Yes.

20 Q You seem re'ci%ctant. If you have any questions, 21 please ask your caunssi, or if you have questions of us 22 we'll answer them.

23 This is considered an official proceeding, and 24 consequently it is subject to the provisions of 18 USC 1001 25 and/or the federal laws pertaining to perjury. The point NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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i Page 4 4-1 being, we just want you to tell the truth.

2 A No problem.  !

j 3 Q Good.

4 Mr. Vorse? ,

5 BY MR. VORSE:

6 Q Okay, Mr. Weiss. what type of license do you have?

7 A I don't have a license at this time.

8 0 Okay. When you were employed by FPC what license 4 9 did you have?

10 A A senior reactor operator's license.

11 Q And how long had you had that senior reactor ,

i 12 operator fice,nse?

13 A I believe it was since 1989.

14 Q Okay. And how long were you employed by FPC in an 5 15 operator capacity?

16 A Approximately 15 years.

1 17 Q And before that what did you do?  ;

18 A Before I worked for Florida Power Corporation I l 19 managed a drug store.

20 0 We last talked about the September 5th, 1994 and 21 we got some detail. We're probably going to go into it a 02 little bit more today. But we also understand there was a 23 q aomewhat similar evolution conducted on the 4th of September 24 1994, the night before the 5th-obviously-evolution. Can 25 you describe in detail what led up to that and how it was conducted?

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J Page 5 1 A Well, basically we did the same thing on the 4th l

2 that we did on the 5th with one exception. We didn't -- we )

i 3 didn't wait a half hour for_the temperatures to stabilize j 4 after we added the gas. We had not seen the calculation at 5 that' point and we were having some trouble calculating what )

i 6 the limit was accurately enough to plot on a computer graph.  !

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? And when we looked at the data it appeared inconsistent, and  :

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-8 we decided'we needed.to find out more. So we came in the 9 next night and we pulled the calc and we did some research ,

l 10 on it and decided to try again.  ;

)

11 Q dhen you conducted the September 4th evolution can ]

12 you tell me hpw you plotted the data?

13 A Well, you can plot the data off of the recorder, 14 which isn't very accurate; or you can use the read-off 15 system to pull the computer point history out of the plant 16 computer. You can do it ei*her way. We tried to do it with 17 the plant computer,_and when you do that you get an accurate 18_ representation on the computer-points, but.you have to try-19 and read a graph to get the limit curve and put that in, and 20 it wasn't working very well.

21 Q Did you do an analysis of this before the 22 September 5th evolution? Did you look at this data and then 23 come back and discussed that you needed to do more?

24 A Yes.

25 Q When you -- when you reviewed all the procedures NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 6 1 on the 4th did you do it again on the 5th just to be sure 2 you were okay; or were the procedures done on the 4th, they 3 just went right into the evolution on the 5th? Do-you

, 4 remember which way it was done?

5 A I don't recall specifically. I know that we were 6 checking the procedures. We had procedures for what we did.

7 Q On the 5th of September you posted one reactor l

8 operator in the Auxiliary Building and I guess a nuclear 9 operator-is that what they call him? auxiliary operator in -

( 10 an anti-C gear to -- to vent the hydrogen, just in the event 11 of a LOCA. Did you do that same thing on the -- or the 4th

12 of Septemb'er?,

13 A I don't recall if we actually had a guy dressed

, 14 out in the valve alley. We had discussed I think with the 4 15 Aux Building operator venting the makeup tank if we had to, 16 but I can't remember now whether we actually had the guy 17 dressed out in there or noc. It's been quite a while.

18 MR. DOCKERY: For the record, I think we should 19 just reflect that the Field Office Director of the Region 20 II, NRC Office of Investigations, Mr. William McNulty, has 21 just joined this interview.

32 BY MR. VORSE:

23 O Mr. Weiss, did you all make a logbook entry on the 24 evolution of the 4th of September? I 25 A I don't think that there was a log entry made on NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 7 1 it.

2 Q Would that normally -- would you normally make a 3 log entry for something like that?

4 A Well, in -- in my position I don't have a logbock; 5 okay? The shif t supervisor has a logbook, and the nuclear 6 operators have logbooks. Normally the nuclear operator 7 would log additions and removals from makeup tank.

8 Q All right. When you -- when you did the evolution 9 on the 4th September, did you ever go across -- did you ever 10 get into the unacceptable region of the curve?

11 A I believe we did cecause the alarm came in.

12 Q 'Wh4t'd you all do when the alarm come .n?

13 A Well, once we'd gotten down to our 55 inches we  !

14 added water. I believe that the alarm cleared when we added 15 the water, but I'm not sure. And I -- remember, I'm trying t 16 to remember something that happened, what, 11 months ago, 17 that I didn't think was very important at the time. I think 18 that we did vent the makeup tank after that, as I recall.

19 Q Why didn't you tell us about the 4th of September )

20 1994 when we interviewed you last time?

21 A Well, first of all, I didn't think it was 22 important; okay? I didn't think I'd done anything wrong 23 that night or the 5th. When we were talked to by the i

24 corporate counsel, Gerald Williams, in preparation for the {

1 25 interview, the -- when I talked to you earlier, he -- he had NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 8 1 a lot to say about you guys. Basically, he said that you 2 were cop want-to-be's, and that you personally had just 3 screwed up and gotten demoted and probably were going to 4 have a real attitude. He said, "These guys are just out to 5 make their case, you know. They don't care about you."

6 Said, " Don't volunteer anything." He said, " Answer the 7 questions truthfully that you're asked, but don't volunteer 8 anything." And I -- you know, I hadn't read all these laws 9 or the enforcement policy at that time, I was going on the 10 advice of the counsel. And you didn't ask me about the 4th.

11 O Okay. When -- when Mr. Halnon approached you and 12 asked yc" about the 4th evolution on -- the September 4th 13 evolution, you said you didn't want to muddy the water.

1 14 Who's "we"? l l

15 A Didn't want to muddy the water? What was that? i I

16 Q Didn't want to muddy the water. That was your 17 response, according to Mr. Halnon, when he asked you about l

18 the 4th of September evolution.

19 A He called me on the telephone and asked me if we 20 had run the evolution on the 4th and I said yes, we had.

21 And then he asked me, "Well, why didn't you say anything 22 about it?" And I told him, well, at first I hardly even 23 thought about it 'cause I didn't think it was important.

24 And then, you know, it had gone on long enough that -- that 25 I felt that to bring it out then would be ridiculous, that NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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_ _ _ _ _ ~ ___ . _ .. ._ _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ __ _

1 Page 9 1 I'd get fired for -- for nothing, you know.

2 Basically they took actions we took trying to -

3 resolve a nuclear-safety concern and-they stuck a' bad label  ;

l 4 on it and notified the NRC that we had done something wrong. l 5 And -- and you guys have just bought right into it, you _;

6 know. Basically I was in a situation where I was being

7 threatened with being fired for bringing up a nuclear safety i

i .8 concern. l 9 BY MR. DOCKERY:

10 Q Can you go into that in great detail, please, the 11 statement you just made.

12 A 'Okay. Basically we performed an evolution . hat we.

13 were authorized to perform, we weren't doing anything that 14 unusual. We had procedures for what we did. Okay?

15 You got to realize that the response of the makeup 16 tank to a LOCA is a rapid drop in level; okay? You put 17 pressure on the curve. Well, whether you drain down the 18 makeup tank by using a let-down system or you drain the i

19 makeup tank with a LOCA, it really doesn't matter; okay?

20 Tank level's going to drop and your pressure response is 21 going to draw the curve. So the fact that that pressure 22 response pulled above the line as we drained the -- drained l 23 the tank level down, that's what it would do in a LOCA.

24 Anytime you put pressure on the curve, you were there. It 25 made no difference whether you were where I was during that i

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1 Page 10 1 30 minutes, or sitting there on a curve like we had been 2 for-what?-18 months. You know, we'd been trying to get

3 this thing resolved for a while, the operators on my shift 4 had, and they'd been pretty much been consistently shut down 5 by engineering. Engineering wasn't listening to what they 6 had to say, they weren't doing any kind of thorough analysis 7 on it.

8 If you look at the calc that was the basis of the i 9 curve, it says clearly, in the design assumptions, that the I

10 calc was only good through Refuel 8. And yet engineering

\

11 didn't find that out; okay? Through this whole tima of 12 operator concyrns and their resolution of it, thcf had never ]

13 even looked at the calc. Either that, or the only other 14- option would be that they realized it and covered it up.

15 I'm not going to accuse them of that. But I think they just 16 never even pulled the calc to look at it.

17 So we wrote this problem up; okay? And, you know, 18 initially the response from the plant manager was, you know, I

19 " Good job, you've challenged engineering on it." But I 20 think that they started to realize that it said some pretty 21 bad things about their Engineering Department, about their 22 management. And I know for a fact that one of the system ,

23 engineers, Phil Saltsman, got together with Bruce Hickle in 24 a racquetball meeting and suggested this thing be portrayed 25 as a test. And the next thing I know, they're threatening NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 11 1 to fire me; they pulled me into something they called a 2 Management Review' Board that they made up for the occasion, 3 which basically was a very intimidating session; and then-4 they reported to the NRC as an illegal test.

5 Well, all this -- this whole thing has been I 6 think a deliberate effort to shift the focus from the 7 failings of FPC's management and Engineering Departments by 8 putting us in a spotlight and making it look like -- like we 9 had done the bad thing, and it seems to have been working 10 pretty good.

11 Q Mr. Weiss, when you use the word " threaten" and 12 " safety cdnce,rn" in the same sentence or context we become 13 very concerned. Who -- who do you feel was threatening you?

14 A Well, I was told that Bruce Hickle had my pink 15 slips in his back pocket.

16 Q Who told you that?

17 A I think that was Greg Halnon. It was prior to the 18 Management Review Board. It was a very tense time.

19 Q Can you amplify that any further? Did you feel 20 threatened in that regard by anybody else?

21 A Well, look, there was a curve that a lot of 22 licensed operators out there felt was bad. No one could get 23 it listened to. I'm the one that listened to my people 24 enough to follow up on it and to get something done about 25 it. And we were right; okay? The curve was bad. Now, I'm NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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.J _m._w.- 4_*A_. _2,Lza>M4J a e as.Z.a___ 4 + _a w. . . 4 s.-3.: .3 A. . J. . __..a Page 12 1 the one with my integrity being questioned, and I'm the one 2 who got fired by Ficrlda Power. I think I'm the only one --

3 me and the guys on my shift are the only one in this entire 4 affair that's shown any. concern, any real concern with 5 nuclear safety.

6 You know, look at motives. I -- I wasn't going to 7 get a raise out of this, I wasn't going to get a promotion.

8 I expected to get some flack because the issue had become 9 pretty political with Pat Beard wanting his 25 cc's per kg 10 and the Engineering Department doing anything tbcy could to 11 give it to him. I thought anymore flack on this iFsue, that 12 I was going t,o take some heat on it. And I was willing to 13 do that, in part from the ethical standards that I've heard 14 from you guys by what you expect from a senior licensed 15 operator. Well, I stood up for nuclear safety and I'm 16 fired. And I've got to worry about feeding my kids now.

17 And I'll tell you something else, I'm -- I'm still 18 in touch with some people out there. I don't think you're 19 going to see anybody coming up with a safety concern at that l 20 plant for a long, long time.

21 Q Where do you think that the reluctance to address 22 the issues that you were concerned about emanated from?

23 A I think it came from the Engineering Department.

1 24 Q Well, that -- that's kind of an amorphous being.

25- A The system engineers Phil Saltsman and Pat Hinman NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 13 1 were the ones primarily involved. But their management 2 chain must be involved, too, because they signed off on the 3 letter saying that they believed the curve was accurate and 4 conservative.

5 Q Who's covering their ass here? If you'll pardon 6 my -- my French.

7 A Well, my perception is that engineering is 8 covering its ass for doing a totally incompetent job, you 9 know. And if you take a look at some of the other things 10 going on in engineering you'll understand this is not an 11 isolated incident. They're already feeling the heat from 12 that. And I ,think that management's covering its butt, 13 because I know that they've been in some kind of trouble 14 with you guys for a while now. I believe you phrase it as a 15 lack of program commitment.

16 Well, you know, look at this: You had numerous 17 operators with a safety concern that got shut down by 18 management, that let engineering do a shoddy job. It didn't 19 look good for them, but they've shifted all the focus to us.

20 MR. DOCKERY: Before I go any further, 21 Mr. Hendrix, when you decide it would be a good time to 22 introduce this material, go ahead and do so.

23 MR. HENDRIX: Well, maybe this might not be a bad 24 time because, for the record, we had brought today-and I 25 think I discussed it with Mr. Vorse; maybe it was with NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 14 I 1 Mr. McNulty way back when-that we would bring source  !

2 documents to help elaborate on and amplify on any questions 3 you had. So we tried to identify the main documents that  !

4 sort of help explain what-happened during this. evolution and 5 how it came to even be performed. And so.we've identified 6 two spiral notebooks.

7 We've also produced to Mr. Vorse a chronology of 8 events, which I'd like to have that made part of the record 9 here today, as well, which sort of sets forth what.the 10 position of both Mr. Weiss and Mr. Fields-who I jointly 11 represent-are relative to the chronology of the evaats and 12 our -- our vi,ew of the -- cf those events. And ts I would 13 like both the spiral notebook and our chronology of events i

14 paper, if you will, to be marked as exhibits to'-- to this i l

15 transcript and to be afforded the protections of the -- this I l

16 proceeding, as well, which I understand is confidential. So 17 we would like to tender those into the record, 18 I would also like to ask whether I can ask l

19 questions of my client from time to time which I think might 20 amplify something he's being questioned about?

21 MR. DOCKERY: I think, on a case-by-case basis, 22 certainly if it amplifies -- if in your belief it amplifies 23 the -- his response, by all means.

24 MR. HENDRIX: I would -- I would like to do that 25 now because I think this is important to understanding some NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 15 1 of the things that Mr. Weiss is saying.

2 But let me just ask you now, Rob, the evolution 3 that you performed you found out later was a design basis 4 issue, did you not?

5 THE WITNESS: Right.

6 MR HENDRIX: Now, based on the evolution and the  ;

7 data that you collected on the 5th, could you tell these I 8 gentlemen your opinion about the design basis for the plant 9 for 18 months and how that pertains to what you did for 30 10 minutes on the 5th.

11 THE WITNESS: Well, the plant had been outside the 12 design bas'is every time we operated on the curve. That's 13 pretty obvious, especially when you look at the new curve.

14 It's well under the old curve.

15 So we had been being pushed by management to 16 operate right on the curve 'cause they wanted to maximize 17 hydrogen pressure; okay? Those shifts that were complying 18 with that directive were operating outside the design basis, 19 and this had been going on ever since we came up from 20 refuel.

21 Now, when you look at the trace that we drew it 22 looks bad because you look at it and you say, "Well, look, 23 that line goes above the other curve, goes above the limit 24 curve." Well, that's the line you're going to draw in a 25 LOCA every time you're sitting there. So what I did really NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 16 1 had no significance; I didn't drive the plant farther (sic) 2 outside design basis than it already was all the time. And 3 _yet, you know, Florida Power, when they write their LERs, it 4 sort of implies that, you know, we were -- you know, we 5 drove it outside design basis. You know, that's not true.

6 They had been continuously outside design basis on this '

7 thing.

8 MR. DOCKERY: If we can step back for just a 9

second, I think we should note for the record -- acknowledge 10 receipt of the -- the two spiral notebooks, each c ntaining 11 about an inch to an inch and a quarter of documentation.

12 And as w_' refer to this documentation, we'll identify it by 13 the record, rather than make this an exhibit. '

14 BY.MR. VORSE:

15 Q You're familiar with AI 500; Administrative 16 Instruction 500?

17 A ies.

18 Q Okay. When -- when you conducted the evolutions 19 on the 4th and the 5th September of 1994 and you went into 20 the alarm mode was there -- do you all have a reason why you 21 didn't violate AI 500?

22 A AI 500 does not set standards on how quick you 23 have to respond to an alarm. That's left up to the 24 operator's judgment. I don't think that it was an excessive 25 amount of time. I think AI 500 says that you should pull NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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l 1 the alarm response procedure for those alarms that aren't a 2 result of activities in progress. Well, you know, 3 technically you didn't even have to pull the AR because it 1

4 was a result of what we were doing. We expected to get the I l

5 alarm because we expected that the curve was bad; okay? l l

6 And we -- we took the actions in the alarm i 1

7 , response procedure. We didn't take them right away. We -- l 8 we waited till we dropped level down to 55 inches. But 9 there's no standard set in AI 500 for that. There's nothing 10 that says, hey, you have to do it within one minute of the 11 alarm coming in or ten seconds. If there's no standard, you 12 know, how'are,you saying I violated anything?

l 13 MR. VORSE: Curt, have you got some questions? l 14 MR. RAPP: Yes, I do. Do you have the transcript 15 from the earlier interviews with you?

16 MR. HENDRIX: We've asked for a copy but we didn't 17 get a copy.

18 MR. RAPP: No? Okay.

19 MR. HENDRIX: We reviewed them yesterday.

20 MR. RAPP: You reviewed them yesterday?

21 MR. HENDRIX: Yes.

22 MR. RAPP: Okay.

23 BY MR. RAPP:

24 Q I have a couple of questions relative to the 25 transcripts from the first interviews. On Page 5, Line 15, NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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i Page 18 1 it states in here that there was a question asked, "Before i

2 you did this was there some discussion about this test? Can 3- you recall'the discussion and who was there?"  !

4- You said, "And we discussed what_we planned to do, t 5 to put makeup tank level at the high end normal operating.

! curve -- normal operating event and put makeup tank pressure 3

7. to the curve, then bleed the tank down to 55 inches,.which 8 is the lower limits of the operating curve." Can you recall' 9 when that discussion took place? Was that on the.5th, was 10 'it on the 4th?

'11 A We had~that discussion on both days.

12 Q 'On poth days?  ;

13 A Yeah, t 14 Q Okay. Was that during shift turnover?

15 A No. -

16 Q Was that part of the shift turnover?

17 A No, because the first day Mark came to me during l 18 the shift to discuss what he wanted to do; okay? And we  !

19 talked about it.. We decided that we were covered by OP 402 20 to do the evolution, and we basically just had an informal 21 pre-job briefing, you know, where we got everyone together 22 and we talked about it.

23 Q Okay.

24 A And when we came in on the 5th, you know, we did 25 not originally plan to redo it that night. We pulled the-NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 19 1 calc and we saw some things and figured out how to do it, 2 and decided to go ahead and do it again.

3 Q Okay. When you had this discussion was the shift 4 _ manager present in the control room?

5 A No.

6 Q Or was the shift...?

7 A I don't think he was.

8 Q Was the shift manager available?

9 A Yes, he's available.

10 Q Okay. My question is really, then: Wbv wasn't 11 the shift manager included in that discussion eitne. on the 12 4th or the'5th?

13 A It just didn't seem like a big deal, honestly, you 14 know. We were going to put -- put water in the makeup tank 15 and lower level back down on the makeup tank and then apply 16 pressure. It did not seem like anything that bad.

17 Obviously, in retrospect, maybe we should have called the 18 shift manager. But that's up to the shift supervisor's 19 judgment.

20 Q Did anyone suggest that the shift manager might 21 need to be involved?

22 A No.

23 Q No? Okay. And going back to the transcript, I'll 24 probably -- just be easier for me to give this to you.

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Page 20 l 1 tell me when -- when this discussion occurred.

2 (The witness reviews certain material.)

3 A I'd say it happened both nights.

4 O Okay. Was that the only time that you discussed l 5 using OP 402 for the test or for this evolution?

6 A Could you restate the question.

7 Q Was that the only occasion in which you discussed 8 whether 402 was adequate to cover the evolution? ,

9 A I think both times before we did it, we talked 10 about the fact that we were going to be doing it pe- OP 402.

11 It's -- I guess I don't understand what you're looking for.

12 0 ' Wha,t I'm trying to find out here is, is that: Was 13 -- was there a discussion, prior to either the 4th or the 14 5th, where somebody said, " Hey, we got OP 402 here. This'll 15 tell us how to do it. We can just use OP 402, put hydrogen 16 pressure on the curve, bleed the tank down, take the data, 17 and then refill it." Was there any discussion prior to the 18 4th or the 5th about how to do this evolution?

19 A Well, on the 4th and the 5th we talked about it.

20 Q Okay, but what...?

21 A Prior to?

22 Q Prior to that?

23 A No, not that I know of. This didn't (

24 -- till the 4th, you know, the first time we die 25 Q Okay. Then if you can go to Page 10, i l

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1 BGL. HENDRIX: If I might, on that last one, I .{

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2 believe that the engineering response to their. problem  !

. 1 3 before closing it.out, wasn't that September 2nd that sort ]

i 4 of came back saying that they had...

5 THE WITNESS: That letter?

6 MR. HENDRIX: Yeah, that they were closing it out, 7 it was over. It wasn't too many days before you all had 8 this discussion.

9 THE WITNESS: Right.

10 MR. VORSE: It was -- it was my -- to the best of 11 my recollection, it was September 2nd.

12 'THE, WITNESS: I believe it was September 2nd, 13 so...

14 MR. HENDRIX: He~would have had occasion to -- ,

J 15 after being asked, "Do you all have anything further to say 16 .about it?" on the 4th is when you all first started talking 17 about it, is that right?

18 THE. WITNESS: Right, on the 4th is -- you know,  !

19 Mark came to me and said, "Let's try this," you know.

20 MR. RAPP: Okay. l 21 BY MR. RAPP: ,

I' 22 Q Then on Page 10, Line 13.through Line 20, if you 23 could just read that section.

l 24- (The witness reviews certain material.)

25 A Okay.

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1 Q Okay. Is a shift manager considered to be part of

2 that operating crew or is it just another person that 3 happens to be there at the same time?

d 4 A The shift manager is in charge of all the 5 departments out there on the back shift. So he's not only a 6 member of the operating crew, he's got other functions. And 7 he also functions usually as the STA, you know.

8 Q Okay.

9 A Does that answer your question?

l 10 Q You earlier said the shift manager was not 11 included in the discussions or the pre-job briefing on

} 12 either the 4t,h or the 5th. .!as there any discussion with 1 13 the shift manager about this before that, say like on the

. 14 2nd or the 3rd when you -- when you got this letter?

15 A No.

16 Q When you were made aware of this letter?

17 A Not that I know of.

18 Q No? Okay. Okay, thank you. If I can get that 19 back.

20 (Mr. Rapp was handed certain material.)

21 Q Just some general questions, then. Earlier you 22 said that there -- there was a decision made at management 23 levels to have 25 cc's per kg hydrogen in the retro cool 24 system. And who made that decision?

25 A Well, it was coming down from Pat Beard, is my NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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. Page 23 s 1 understanding. Pat wanted to achieve the -- I guess it's-t 2 recommended ~ by EPRI. and -INPO to have 25 icc's per kg.

3; Q Okay. .Is it kind of typical or common that --

4 that other organizations would come to operations'and say, -

5 "Here's how you're supposed to operate"?

6 A Well, in the case of chemistry, yeah, they -- we 7 generally follow chemistry's recommendations as far as, you 8 know, when to add lithium hydroxide, whatever, you know.

9 This is kind of in'the chemistry area. And, you know, they 10 don't specifically tell us how to operate; they'll request 11 that we keep a higher pressure in the tank. Thez.-thay start i 12 trending it. ,And if they weren't getting their '5'cc's per 13 kg, you know, we get pressure from above to - " Hey, you 14 guys need to keep that pressure up there so we can make 15 .this," you know.

16 Q " Pressure from above" meaning who?

17 A Line management, from the -- the NPO and the 18 manager of Nuclear Plant Operations.

19 Q Those would be who?

1 20 A Greg Halnon, Bruce Hickle, Pat Beard.  ;

I 21 Q Did operations have any input into -- or say that 22- this overpressure or this high-hydrogen pressure was a 23 reasonable operating parameter?

24 A No, we were just told to do it. Like I said, a l I

25 lot of people had concerns about keeping that high a  ;

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Page 24 1 pressure in there. We had concerns that the curve wasn't

'2 right. We were told to go ahead and put pressure up on the 3 curve.

4 There was one licensad operator, he used to be on 5 my shift and I -- and I knew him well. He's a real good, 6 dedicated man. And he'd been having a lot of concerns with 7 the hydrogen pressure and keeping the pressure on the curve.

8 And he was just beating his head out against engineering and 9 he kept getting told to go ahead and put the pressure up, 10 and he didn't want to do it because he had -- he had 11 concerns about it.

12 'Juut they finally just beat him down to where he's 13 gone around saying, "Well, I don't care, I'll put 1000 14 pounds in the tank if you want me to." And -- and I heard 15 that, you know, and I just felt ashamed of our management 16 that we had shut-him down like that. And I think that may 17 have had something to do with my decision to follow up a 18 little more aggressively when Mark came to me.

19 MR. HENDRIX: We have included as exhibits E-mail 20 from management saying, " Stay on the curve. You are to stay 21 on the curve." That's -- is that right? I mean, is that 22 what was happening?

23 THE WITNESS: Right. l 24 BY MR. DOCKERY:

25 Q Who in management was -- was saying that, if you NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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l Page 25 1 recall? We can certainly refer to the exhibit, but if you 2 recall off the top of your head.

3 A Well, we would get the direction from our  ;

4 management, which would be Greg Halnon. Now, he'd be 5 getting told from -- from above him, Bruce Hickle, you know.

6 I don't have personal knowledge of when they originate, but I l

7 you hear stories. And the impression I got from what I'd 8 heard was that Pat Beard himself was very concerned about 9 achieving a 25 cc's per kg.

10 0 Why, in your opinion-and I understand this would 11 be hearsay, but we would like your opinion on it--why would 12 that be im'por, tant to Mr. Beard? j 13 A Because they take INPO requirements very 14 seriously. They -- they want to look good to INPO and they 15 want to look good to the NRC.

16 O Since I'm a layman, can you tell me what the

~

17 significance is, why -- what does it save or how coes it 18 improve the operation of that plant to stay on that curve?

19 A Well, we dissolve hydrogen in the water, and the 20 RCS is an oxygen scavenger. My understanding is that EPRI 21 did a study and figured, well, you can't directly measure 22 how much oxygen you actually have in the -- in the reactor.

23 And I think that their theory was that if you drive up the 24 dissolved hydrogen enough that it'll cut down the amount of 25 free oxygen and that'll help you with your life extension NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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1 and control of corrosion and stuff. You know, we weren't l 2 having problems with oxygen control at our - at our lower 3 pressures. But this is dealing with a concern where you 4 can't measure it. It's all theoretical stuff, I think.

5 0 Is there a financial benefit in any way in any of 6 all this?

7 A To Florida Power?

8 0 Yes.

9 A There's a financial benefit if it affects life 10 extension. I suppose. Anytime you cut down on the 11 corrosion, yeah, there's a financial benefit. But 1 think l 12 it's more'-- when you start dealing with -- with INPO, my j 13 understanding is that if you get a good INPO rating it )

14 directly affects your stock ratings, your bond ratings. So 15 complying with all this INPO directives is business.

16 Q In your opinion, is that what -- what drove this?

17 A My opinion is that Pat Beard directed that we 18 achieve the 25 cc's per kg. I think there was a lot of 19 pressure put on the Engineering Department to achieve that.

20 Now, you know, I think that it started getting political, 21 that there started to be a lot of pressure going on down 22 there; there were all these concerns coming in; and -- and 23 tue engineers are kind of caught in the middle, you know.

24 They were trying to do what their boss is telling them to do 25 and, you know, we kept coming up with concerns about it.

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Page 27 1 And I think they started getting pretty frustrated with the 2 whole thing.

3 Q Mr. Weiss, is it fair to say that you were 4 frustrated?

5 A I -- I don't think " frustrated" would be the right 6 word. I was very concerned about the pattern I saw of 7 licensed operator safety concerns being shut down. I was 8 very concerned about that, and I did what I felt ethically 9 was the right thing to do. I stood up for the guys with the 10 concern. We got the problem fixed, but we've paid the price 11 for it.

12 Q 'Wel,1, when you say " stood up," are you sayiag that 13 euphemistically, or are you referring to some meeting that 14 you -- where you raised the issue? What do you mean when 15 you say you stood up?

16 A I'm saying that we went ahead and took the data 17 that showed the curve was bad, and we -- I wrote the problem 18 report. You know, I was willing to take the heat for, you 19 know, picking the scab off of this thing one more time, and 20 I expected to take some heat for it.

21 Q In retrospect, was there any other course of 22 action you felt you could have taken short of conducting the 23 evolution?

24 A The problem was, is we had data taken under the 25 curve during SP 630. That data was clearly approaching the NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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1 curve; it looked like it was going to cross it. And that --

2 that was documented in the problem report,94-149. And you 3 look at the response to that, and it was basically closed 4 out by engineering with a statement that boils down to, 5 "Well, it looks to us like they're getting closer 'cause 6 they're both approaching zero." Well, that's -- that's just 7 sophomoric. That's shallow engineering.

8 There's no analysis going into it; they obviously 9 didn't pull the calc and look at it, did they? Or they 10 would have Pnown it was only good through Refuel 8. They 11 just looked at it and wrote it off with appearances. You 12 know, the'que,stion wasn't: Are the pressures both 13 approaching zero? You know, the question is: Hey, what's 14 the level going to be in the pipe when they get to zero, you 15 know? I don't think they put any serious analysis into 16 dispositioning that.

17 So I felt that any data taken under the curve was 18 going to be ignored. Now, you know, I could have gone to 19 meetings and stuff, but we weren't having much luck, you 20 know, getting anything done. We were being told -- you 21 know, engineering would tell us in their judgment the curve 22 is good and accurate, you know.

23 Q Okay, if I didn't use the term before let me use 24 it this time and ask the question a different way. Did you 25 -- was running that evolution in your mind a last resort?

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Page 29 1 A Yes.

2 Q Had you considered going to the NRC with your 3 concern?

4 A Well, you know, Mark had talked to the residents a 5 few times and nothing happened, you know. There was no big 6 pressure put on engineering to take a good look at it or 7 anything. You know, and -- and I think they told him, you 8 know, "Well, you know, you need to call in an allegation,"

9 you know, and give him some number for calling in an 10 allegation Well, you know, that's viewed as kind of a 11 serious thing to do. And...

12 0 'Wogld you identify Mark for me, please.

13 A ...we were kind of hoping that we could work it 14 out. Mark Van Sicklen. We were hoping that -- that...

15 You know, I -- I was a loyal company employee. I 16 wanted to work it out withir. the system, you know. I said, 17 "Well, if we just get some -- some data that clearly shows 18 the problem and give that to engineering, then they'll have 19 something to work with. They'll have to realize that there 20 is a problem here, you know."

21 BY MR. VORSE:

22 Q Whenever you do something that's unusual-and I 23 think that we can say that the September 5th was non-routine 24 'cause you did the -- you were in alarm status and you were 25 plotting data-do you -- do you have avenues -- let's --

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.l. could you have held a safety meeting or gone to management 2- and said, " Hey, we want -- we want to do this. Let's have a 3 safety analysis," or whatever? Do you think that you had' I 4 that evenne if you had wanted to pursue it?

5 A -.Well, you know, in retrospect I'd be a lot better 6 off if I had said, "Okay, let's write a test procedure to do I

7 this." I didn't think one was needed because I thought I 8 had approved procedures. I also think that if.I had sat

'9 'down and wrote up a test procedure, that it would have gone

- 10 to engineering for a review and it would have been shot 11 down. I don't think they would have done it.

] 12 Q 'Do you think the reason you didn't do something a

13 like that was because you just felt that -- that that wasn't 14 going to get through the bureaucracy?

15 A No, I didn't think that we needed a test 16 procedure. We had approved operating procedures to do every 17 step of what we did,

i. 18 BY MR. McNULTY:

19 Q Maybe we're missing .3omething here, then. What I 20 procedure says that you can exceed the operating limit, 21 place the plant in alam status, and gather data for half an i

22 hour, just out of curiosity?

23 A The curves are referential in nature; okay? They i

j 24 .are referenced by operating procedures. Curves that are 25 continuously applicable, you'll find them referenced in the NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 31 1 limits and precautions of the procedures. They say stay --

2 stay within the bound.= of this curve or that curve, you 3 know. Well, you look at OP 402, there's no reference to 4 Curve 8 in the limits and precautions. It's only referenced 5 in the section where you do hydrogen addition and I think 6 venting; okay?

7 Obviously because the assumption is made that when 8 you add gas you stay under the curve, then from that point 9 on it's -- it's never going to go over the curve, I guess is 10 the assumption, because assume that the curve is right. You 11 know, I -- I had a procedure to put pressure on tne curve,'I 12 had a proc'edure to drain down the makeup tank. and, you 13 know, the only part of the evolution that -- that telerences 14 Curve 8 is when you actually add the gas. And we did not go 15 over the curve while we added the gas, we complied with it.

16 0 So you -- you didn't have to do any additional 4 17 manipulations that weren't covered in the procedure to get 18 outside the curve?

19 A No , that's the whole point. The system pulled the 20 pressure above the curve. That's -- we drew the actual 21 response of the system. If you had a LOCA, just sitting on 22 the curve, you would draw that same thing. We didn't add 23 gas to drive it over the curve, we put it to the curve and 24 we reduced level, and the pressure response of the system 25 pulled it up.

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I Page 32 1 In other words, pressure didn't drop off quick 1

2 enough, as quickly as the curve predicted it would. Which 3 sort of makes sense, because you look at the cale and they i 4 assume that they've got an ideat gas loss situation going 5 there when they've got a system designed to drive hydrogen 6 gas into solution, you know. And -- and they didn't look at 7 the gas coming out of solution. And once again, I consider 8 that pretty shallow engineering.

9 Q You mentioned the other licensed operator who had 10 a concern about taking the tank to the limit, the onerating 11 curve limit.

i 12 A -Right. ,

13 0 Was there -- was there a shift that just refused j

14 to bring it to that limit, and stayed well on the acceptable 15 range, that you're aware of?

16 A Well, our shift would tend to run well below the 17 curve. And I've heard other shifts would. I think it was 18 about half and half about the shifts that would bring it to 19 the curve, and then others would -- would come in and drop 20 pressure down because they just didn't believe in it.

21 Q And -- and did you receive any questioning by 22 management about that?

23 A Yes, there was a lot of flack about that. And, 24 you know, they were starting to send these E-mails out 25 saying, " Hey, you -- you need to operate on the curve, you NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC. j (202)234-4433 I

Page 33 1 know. Chemistry's going to start trending this hourly, you 2 know." And -- and I've heard, you know, that it was getting 3 to the point where Pat Beard was -- now, I -- I've just 4 heard this, this is just hearsay. But I've heard he was  ;

I 5 saying, " Hey, if they won't operate on the curve then fire i 6 them," you know.

7 BY MR. DOCKERY:

8 Q Do you know who you heard that from?

9 A That was -- I might have heard that from -- from 10 Dave who haard it from Mark, something like that I'm not 11 sure.

12 Q ' Identify Dave and Mark fully, please.

13 A Dave Fields. You'll be talking to him shortly.

14 And Mark Van Sicklen. But there was definitely pressure to 15 operate on the curve. I 16 BY MR. McNULTY:

17 0 So wouldn't you think that there'd be a similar 18 action taken for someone who operated beyond the curve?

19 A I don't think that --

if I had added hydrogen, 20 taken it up past the curve and willingly operated up there, 21 then I -- I'd say that I violated the procedure, because 22 when I added the gas I -- I took it up past the curve. You 23 know, I -- I th. ink that this thing has bee.n pretty unfairly 24 characterized right from the very start. We challenged the 25 curve, we didn't violate the curve. We placed the system in NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 34 1 a legal position and challenged the response to match the 2 assumed response, to match the curve, and it didn't.

3 .Q So I guess based -- I want to make -- I want to 4 make -- get clear on this. You didn't do anything differenc 5 than a normal. evolution, is that what.you're saying? You didn't -- you didn't do any additional manipulations or

~

6 7 anything to insure that --

that it= continued to drop or - -

8 or anything like that, the water level?

9 A- Well, we -- we diverted the -- you know, you 10 divert let-down to a bleed tank to drop makeup tank level.

11 You have a procedure to do that. No , there was ncLhing --

12 we forced'the, water level to drop, but we didn't force the 13 pressure to do anything.

14 BY MR. RAPP:

15 Q Let me -- let me clarify. I think what 16 Mr. McNulty is asking is: Did you do anything that was out 17 of the norm with the: way the system was normally operated in 18 order to accomplish this evolution?

19 A No.

20 Q Is that -- is that it?

21 MR. HENDRIX: And what -- and if I might 22 interject, I mean, what they established was that if you 23' operate on the curve, which they had been compelled or asked 24- to do for -- and had been done for 18 months, you're outside 25 the design basis. They established that. But they, NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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l Page 35 1 themselves, did nothing other than operate on the curve, is 2 that -- that correct? In other words, you did not do 3 anything that was not bounded by existing procedure?

4 THE WITNESS: That is correct. You know, it's...

5 MR. RAPP: But you'v3 -- but you've also j l

6 maintained you didn't know that was a design basis curve. '

7 MR. HENDRIX: No one did.

8 THE WITNESS: No, it took the plant-what?-two 9 months to figure that out, didn't it? You know,... I i

10 MR. HENDRIX: But he's been terminated -l'egedly 11 for operating the plant outside of the design basis for 30 12 minutes, a'nd it'd been operated outside the design basis for 13 18 months because of engineering incompetence.

14 THE WITNESS: Is it the position of the NRC that 15 they would rather the plant was still operating design j 16 basis, that this hadn't happened, that I just shut up?

17 MR. DOCKERY: It's not appropriate for us to 18 comment on what the position of the NRC is. You have to 19 understand, we -- with the exception of Curt here, we' re 20 with the Office of Investigation.

21 THE WITNESS: I understand.

22 MR. DOCKERY: So we really can't make a statement 23 regarding that.

24 MR. VORSE: Any other questions?

25 MR. McNULTY: You'd have -- an appropriate time to i

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Page 36 1 ask that question would probably be at the enforcement 2 conference. This is mainly -- for us it's a fact-gathering.

3 THE WITNESS: Very well.

4 BY MR. RAPP:

i 5 Q You said earlier that there was no special 6 procedures required for this, that you thought the plant 7 procedures you had in hand were adequate.

8 A Correct.

9 Q Are you familiar with NOD 12?

10 A Which one is that?

11 Q Well, NOD 12 is a -- is a nuclear operations 12 directive-I guess is what it's called-that details when 13 procedures are required and how to go about evaluating to 14 determine if a procedure's required, Reg Guide 1.33 15 activities.

16 A Okay.

17 Q Have you ever used NOD 12?

18 A I don't recall using it for anything.

19 Q Is there -- is there an understood practice or a 20 -- a common practice that is used to determining (sic) when 21 procedures are required?

22 A Well, procedures are required for almost anything 23 you do in a nuclear plant. But if you already have approved 24 normal operating procedures that'll do the job, you wouldn't 25 normally have to go and write a new procedure.

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Page 37 1 Q Well, let me -- let me ask this question, then.

1 2 Is it a common practice or an understood practice that if I l l

3 want to accomplish a task, that I can go to Procedure Y and 1

4 pull out steps from that, and Procedure Z and pull out steps I 5 from that, and Procedure Q and pull out steps from that to 6 accomplish this task?

7 A If your task can be broken down into a series of 8 normal operations and you have a section of the procedure 9 dealing with each of those operations, then you can use 10 those sections in the procedure. Now, you can't pick and 11 choose steps to do, you do the procedure.

l 12 0 'Okay, so you can pull sections out of -- out of 1

13 particular procedures?

14 A You know, there -- there's a section in OP 402 for 15 adding the gas; you follow that. There's a -- there's a 16 section in OP 402 for reducing makeup tank level, and you 17 follow that; another section for putting water back in.

18 You're using the procedures the way they were designed to be 19 used.

20 Q Do FPC procedures define what a test or experiment 21 is?

22 A No , I haven't been able to find any definition of l 23 that, even in, you know, what I've seen of the CFR.

24 Q Do FPC procedures define what an infrequent 25 evolution is?

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Page 38 1 A Yeah, they do talk about infrequent evolutions, I 2 believe, the AI 500.

3 Q Are you familiar with AI 400B?

4 A Vaguely.

5 Q Vaguely? Okay. This is a copy of AI 400B, and 6 Definition 3-1-4 there for infrequent evolutions. Would the 7 evolution you performed fall into that definition?

8 (The witness reviews certain material.)

9 MR. HENDRIX: Well, if I might interject, the 10 definition is "any test or operational sequence." And I 11 don't know that the term " test" is defined anywhere, Dut...

12 BY MR. RApP: ,

13 Q Well, it -- it lists several categories in that 14 definition. Does your evolution fall into any of those 15 categories?

16 A First of all,...

17 Q Those activities?

18 A ...this is " infrequently performed." Adding gas 19 to the makeup tank is not an infrequently performed 20 evolution.

21 Q Okay.

22 A Reducing makeup tank level is not an infrequently 23 performed evolution.

24 Q Okay.

25 A This is -- this is intended basically for, you NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 39 1 know, big tests that you -- surveillance procedures and 2 stuff that are hardly ever done, you know. It's -- it's not 3 -- this is kind of out of context.

4 Q Okay. So then what you're telling is that this 5 evolution would not fall under that definition? 1 6 A No. l 7 Q Okay. Thank you. j 8 A Basically, the -- the rule of thumb we use for a 9 test, I think, is you ask yourself: Do I have procedures to l

10 do what I want to do? If you have procedures, then it's 11 already been through a 50-59 review. If you don't h:ve 1

12 procedures, t, hen you need one. And at that poin. you'd l 13 write a test procedure. But we had procedures for 14 everything we did.

l 15 BY MR. VORSE:

l 16 Q Did you feel that -- that you were -- that you 17 were adequately covered under 50-59 to -- to do the 18 evolution?

19 A Yes, because we were using approved procedures.

20 BY MR. RAPP:

21 Q Okay. Are you aware of any other evolutions that 22 have been performed solely for the purposes of gathering 23 data to verify plant response?

24 A I have heard that it had been done before. I 25 don't know to my personal knowledge.

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1 Q I'm -- I'm not talking about the makeup tank, I'm 2 talking in general. Is it a common practice that people 3 will manipulate systems to take plant data or to verify 4 plant response? j l

5 A Yeah, I -- I'd say that -- that's an accepted 1 l

6 practice out there. They -- they do things like -- they 7 want to take the spent fuel system out of service, they'll 8 go ahead and shut down all spent fuel cooling and plot a i 9 heat-up rate on it so they can figure out how long -- how

, 10 long they'd have to have it out of service. You know,

, 11 there's -- there's no specific procedure to do that.

l l 12 Q .Okay. j l

BY MR. DOCKERY:

13 14 Q Mr. Weiss, for my clarification on that, if -- had j 15 you ever had occasion to perform any similar evolutions to 16 the one we're discussing here today?

17 A No, none that I can think of.

]

) 18 Q To plot data?

19 A This is kind of an unusual circumstance. Normally i

20 you're not.in the position of doubting the validity of your 21 cu rves .

f

! 22 BY MR. VORSE:

l 23 Q Are you aware of any similar evolutions that were 24 conducted in July of '94? Were you familiar with those?

) 25 A I have heard that that happened, but I don't know NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 41 1

1 any details about it. I know I've -- I've seen some -- some 2 hand-plotted data that was purported to come from that, but 3 I don't know...

4 THE WITNESS: Do we have that in the book?

5 MR. HENDRIX: That may be in the book, some hand-6 plotted data of an' earlier procedure.

7 BY MR. VORSE:

8 Q You answered the question earlier, but I just need l 9 to ask you one more time. There was a lot of 10 correspondance, you had a prob]em evaluation rep-rt on the 11 evolution, you had a lot of correspondence such as went to 12 the evolut' ion, and everything -- and of course when we 13 talked everything pointed toward the 5th. And the 4th was 14 never mentioned. Can you once again tell me why the 4th was 15 never mentioned?

16 A First of all, I fcit it was invalid data; okay? I 17 wanted to make sure in my mind that there was a real problem 18 before I got the Engineering Department all stirred up about 19 this thing. And we got a thing and said, hey, we just put 20 cold gas in here. Maybe that cold gas was just heating up 21 and that drove the pressure higher, you know. I considered 22 it an invalid test because we didn't let the temperature l 23 stabilize. I wasn't trying to hide it. You know, if I was 24 trying to hide it or cover it up, why did I write a problem 25 report on what I did on the 5th? I didn't think there was NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.

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1 anything wrong with what I did. I went ahead and identified 2 it. I. forgot -- your question again?

3 Q' Okay. There was a lot of correspondence after the j 4 5th evolution.

5 A Yeah.

6 Q -You know, you talked about the 5th evolution, but

7 you never talked about the 4th evolution, which you think 8 would be a logical thing to talk about the 4th.and then lead

9 12p to the 5th and -- you know, and then you've got the whole 10 story of how you collected the data. And then on the 4th -

j 11 and then what you did and... And that probably woulu have, t

12 you know,'beqn information that -- that I would unink that 4

l 13 --

that you would want to present, but you didn't. l j 14 A Well, I -- I didn't think, like I said, that the 15 data was valid. We wrote the problem report on the 5th, and

] 16 everything past that all -- everything focused on the 5th I

!. 17 from that point on, you'know.

j. 18 Q Let me ask you this: If you had told them about

19 the 4th-if you'd told "them," I mean management, t

! 20 engineering -about the 4th because the data was i I l 21 . inconclusive, do you think that they would have used that to

22 --

to disprove what you came up with on the 5th?

23 A Well, I don't think they could do that. I don't 24 think that would be a valid argument. But, you know, I 25 think engineering knew about the data from the 4th right NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page.43 1 from the start. They were all over the REDAS data. I don't 2 think that was any surprise to them. When I first brought 3 the problem report to licensing I told Paul Fleming that we-4 had done it both days. I didn't think it was any big deal.

I 5 BY MR. McNULTY:

6 Q Is there anybody else you can think of that you 7 told that you'd done it on both days, Mr. Weiss?

i 8 A No. My impression was that Greg Halnon knew about

! 9 it from things I had heard that he said. I thought it was 10 one of those situations where he -- he knew about it and 11 didn't want to talk about it, I guess, i

I 12 Q 'Do you know who brought it up to him, the person?

13 A Not specifically.

14 BY MR. DOCKERY:

15 Q When did all of this become a problem for you,

16 Mr. Weiss?

j 17 A Well, you know, define " problem." It's been 11 18 months of hell ever since, you know, the Management Review

19 Board; you guys got involved in it. You know, they've -- l 20 they've been playing you guys like a banjo, you know.

21 They're - *they're sitting back there laughing right now. l 22 Q Who's "they"?

23 A Management.

I 24 Q Anybody in particular?

25 A Well, you know, you've got Gerald Williams, who's NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 44 1 the counsel, and -- and he's -- he's advising, you know, Pat 2 Beard and those guys. And, you know, they've come up with a 3 strategy and it's worked just great, you know.

l 4 Q Maybe I need to clarify my question. When I say l

5 " problem for you," I mean a -- when -- at what point did 6 that evolution of September 5th begin to have a negative  :

l 7 impact on your employment circumstances with FNL? I 8 A FPC?

9 Q FPC, I'm sorry.

l 10 A Well, af ter Phil Saltsman had his talk with Bruce 11 Hickle cn1 tne racquetball court and they came -- they came 12 in, at th5t p,oint things started going downhill. They had 13 this Management Review Board.

14 BY MR. McNULTY: I 15 Q Excuse me. Do you know when that was, what time  ;

16 frame that was?

17 A I don't know the exact date. It was sometime 18 between when the problem -- problem report was issued and 19 the Management Review Board, which happened, I don't know, 20 something like the 14th or 12th or something, I'm not sure.

21 BY MR. DOCKERY:

22 Q 14th or 12th of September?

23 A I don't know the exact date. It seemed like it 24 was a couple of weeks after the problem report was issued.

25 Q Are we in the month of September of 1994?

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I Page 45 1 A Yeah.

2 MR. McNULTY: Could be October.

3 A And there may be something in there with the date 4 on, the minutes of the review board, I'm not sure. But 5 right away, you know, we were basically severely counseled, 6 you know. They said that --

said that they weren't happy 7 with us.

8 Q Let me ask you to be specific. When you say 9 "they," we'd like to know who "they" is.

10 A We were counseled -- the Management Review Board j l

11 was supposed to look at all the issues, is what we heard. l 12 But they b'asi,cally sat us dcun in there and accused us of i

13 performing a test, an unauthorized test. And that had a lot 14 of the senior managers -- you know, you had Bruce Hickle and l

15 Ron Davis and... I can't remember everybody that was there, 16 but they were all manager-level people. Greg Halnon was 17 there. And all -- all they really looked into wao our 18 actions, you know. No one's ever looked into engineering's 19 handling of this whole thing, you know. I don't think any 20 engineers have suffered any consequences for their 21 incompetence. It's just all been focused on us from the 22 start.

23 Then they -- just before all this stuff started 24 happening I had been moved into the EOP coordinator job. So 25 I was already off shift. I think some point they wrote a NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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l Page 46 j I

'l letter and said -- they wrote a letter I think to Ebneter 2 and said we had been restricted from licensed duties. Well, 3 that was the first I'd heard of that. I hadn't been told 4 I'd been restricted from licensed duties.

5 Q. When did you become aware that you'd been 6 restricted from licensed duties?

7 A When I read the letter Pat Beard wrote to Ebneter.

8 Q How long after.the fact was that?

9 A I'm not sure.

10 Q I mean, that letter would have a date on it.

11 A Yeah, but I don't know the date of the letuer. It 12 was -- I'm not sure.

13 Q Are you testifying that -- that you were never 14 formally advised, or even informally advised by your 15 management that you had been removed from licensed duties?

16 A That's correct. T -- I wasn't told that until 17 they wrote the letter to Ebneter, you know.

18 MR. HENDRIX: Is that the same letter that says 19 that the operators on your shift were counseled? j 20 THE WITNESS: Oh, I'm not sure if it's the same

21. one. But, you know, in one of the letters they -- they 22 wrote that they were going to counsel all the licensed 23 operators on my shift, and I don't believe they ever talked 24 to anyone on my shift.

25 MR. RAPP: Anything else? Okay.

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Page 47 1 BY MR. RAPP:

2 Q Back to the questions I have here. Did 3 engineering explain the basis or limitations of the 4 operating curves or limits they gave you, or did they just 5 say, "Here's this. Use it"?

6 A Just, "Here's the curve. Use it."

7 Q Okay. Were you aware that during an ESF actuation 8 that makeup tank level would go below indicated?

9 A No, we had no idea that, you know, this calc was 10 going to let it go down to two feet in the pipe wPare you 11 couldn't even see it.

12 Q 'As p licensed operator what would have been your 13 actions if makeup tank level had gone below indication?

14 A Probably would have shut down the pumps rather 15 than lose them. It'd -- it'd be a real tough choice to 16 make, 'cause if -- if you've got an ESF you don't want to be i

17 shutting down your HPI pumps. But if you see your makeup 18 tank level go down, I don't know, you'd -- you'd be sitting 19 there watching the amps, ready to trip them off, I guess. I 20 think it would be a case-by-case basis, just how they 21 reacted.

22 O has -- now, you talked about the hydrogen gas 23 binding of ths HPI pumps. Was that the only concern with 24 this curve?

25 A That was the concern that --

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I specifically involved in. The -- the~other licensed. l 2 operator that had a concerns (sic) was looking into like the ),

3 Appendix R aspects of it, things like that.

J l

4 Q Who was that operator 4 l 5- A That was Bruce Willms. l l

6 Q Okay. Did operations management take all these 7 concerns-the gas binding of the HPI pumps and'the 8 Appendix R' concerns-seriously?

9 A Well, I don't know. From my perspective, the 10 operators were getting' shut down on the concerns of hydrogen 11 gas binding or -- you know. They -- they were accepting 12 engineertn'g's, word that, " Hey, we think this is a good 13 curve." I guess I'm not sure what you're looking.for.

14 Q What my -- my question relates _to is: Was 15 operations management just saying, "Go back and watch the 16 boards and -- and this is okay, and let's get our 25 cc's 17 per kg and -- and meet the Pat Beard goals and -- and go

~

18 on"? Or -- or were they saying, "Well, we'll go run this by 19 engineering and get engineering to reevaluate this"?

20 A Well, they were being told to have us operate on 21 the curve; okay? I think that, you know, our -- I think 22 probably Greg Halnon, you know, would have a different 23 perspective on it than Pat Beard would, and he would want us 24 to go ahead and follow up on it. But when you follow up on 25 it and you run into a brick wall and nothing happens, then NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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1 someone's got to do something at that point.

2 Q Well, where was this brick wall coming from?

l 3 A Well, from engineering. When you -- when you show :

i 4 them -- when you give them your concerns and -- and they i 5 blow them off, you know, apparently without even looking at )

6 the calc, I just think that there was a real resistance 7 there to anything that could make this thing more 8 complicated than it already was. They didn't want to get I

9 into it 'cause they were trying to meet their 25 cc's goal.

10 MR. HENDRIX: Can I ask a question here' l

• j 11 MR. VORSE: Sure. l 12 301.,HENDRIX: When the LER is written, is it your l

l 13 understanding that engineering-Mr. Saltsman-had a voice in 14 the drafting of the LER?

15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I think so.

16 MR. HENDRIX: And the LER was not written to say 17 that as a result of engineering calculation --

18 miscalculations, this plant has been outside design basis 19 for 18 months. They didn't write it up that way, did they?

20 THE WITNESS: Originally, you know, Draft 0 of the 21 LER was pretty straight-forward. "We've been outside design 22 basis 'cause we had some faulty calculations." Draft 1 23 comes back, after some engineering input, and it's, you 24 know, " Makeup system evolution causes the plant to be 25 operated outside design basis." And it was very deliberate NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 50 1 spin control going on there. It's, you know -- the thing 2 went.through about six revs. And I think, you know, there's 3 -- there's been a lot of spin control going on in this whole 4 thing. It's -- it's all a deliberate attempt to put all the )

1 5 blame on the operators and shift all the attention away from I 6 the -- the management failures, the engineering problems.

7 BY MR. RAPP:

8 Q Earlier on you said that you had -- you had not l

9 talked to the NRC resident inspectors personally.

10 A That's correct.

l 11 Q Did you ever represent this as a safety concern to 12 plant management? Did you ever come up and say, "This is a 13 safety concern"?

14 A Well, as far as -- no, you know, I don't think I I i

15 ever went to management. See, this had been going on for a 16 long time; okay? It had been going on with -- with Bruce l 17 Willms for quite a while before they got him shut down; and i 18 then Mark kind of picked up the ball and he'd been going and 19 talking to engineering and everything. I think it was 20 pretty well perceived that -- that it was a safety concern.

21 That's pretty obvious if you're questioning, you know, this 22 calc. But I think that the first time I ever specifically 23 said to management, " Hey, this is a nuclear safety concern,"

i 24 was in the Management Review Board.

25 Q Did you ever consider contacting the Employee NEAL R. GROSS & CC., INC.

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4 d

i l Page 51 i.

1 Concerns Program and -- and taking that route to get this --

2 this issue addressed?

3 A' No, that thing's a joke. They. don't take those 4 seriously. Dave Fields had run a couple of concerns through 5 that program, and they. basically just blew his concerns off. ,

6 Q So.the Employee Concerns Program was perceived as 7 being ineffective?

l 8 A Yes.  !

9 Q Okay. Going back to this makeup tank high ,

j 10 pressure enunciator, is -- is that enunciator cov rad in i I

11 technical specifications?

12 A 'No . ,

13 Q Is there a technical specification that'would 14 relate to.the time limit that you have to respond to this l

15 alarm?

16 A No. ,

17 Q Is.that high pressure enunciator set up to be like 18 an "immediate action required" type. alarm?

19 A No.

20 Q Was it-routine or norual to have the high pressure j l

21 alarm in for extended periods?

22 A I think that sometimes,.you know, people would add 23_ gas, and if the alarm came in they -- they might wait a 24: little while to let pressure drift down, and it would clear.

25 It had come'in before when people were adding gas.

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l Page 52 1 Sometimes they go ahead and vent the pressure down. I mean, 2 it -- you know, even if you just got the alarm and say, 1 l

3 "Okay, I'm going to vent the pressure off," by the time 4 that, you know, you get geared up, get people in -- in the l 5 valve alley and everything you've probably been -- you've 6 probably had it in as long as we had it in that night. It's

-7 not a real. quick thing.to go vent the makeup tank.

8 Q Especially when you have to dress out for a 9 contaminated area.

10 A Right.

11 Q . Was the makeup tank high pressure enuncie. tor i 12 regarded a's 4 significant operational problem?

13 A Significant operational problem?

l 14 0 Yeah. Was this -- was this alarm regarded that

! i 15 when it came in the plant's in a significant condition here l

16 that we have to take some action on right away?

17 A No , it was just -- just an alarm saying, "Okay, l

18 you've hit the limit of your curve. You need to get back 1

19 below the curve." Curve wasn't perceived as a design basis 20 curve or, you know, being right at a design basis limit.

21 That's nuts, you know. We don't normally have curves that 22 as soon as the alarm comes in you should run over and make a 23 one hour report to the NRC.

24 BY MR. DOCKERY:

i 25 Q If you had known it was -- that curve was design NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 53 1 basis would your reactions have been any different on the 2 evening of September 5th? '

3 A Well, probably. I probably would have taken it a 4 lot more seriously when that alarm came in, would l 1

5 immediately stopped, I think. But I didn't know it was l

<; 6 design basis. And it -- you know, when you're on the curve 7 you were there; okay? Stopping and getting back to the 1

l 8 curve does not buy you any safety.

9 MR. HENDRIX: Can you elaborate on that, when you 10 say, "When vou're on the curve you're there," so that they  ;

4 11 understand what...

4 12 'THE, WITNESS: If the response to a drop in the 13 tank level is as shown by our evolution, that's the response ,

l 14 you're going to have in a LOCA. So anytime you're on the

. 15 curve you were at the same place we were. To stop and go

16 back to the curve, have you made yourself safe? No. You've

17 just put yourself back to the initial condition for binding 18 your pumps in a LOCA because your curve is no good.

19 BY MR. DOCKERY:

20 Q Okay, when you say your curve is no good, are you 21 saying that curve was no good?

j 22 A Right, the old Curve 8.

23 Q The Curve 8 as it existed on September the 5th?

24 A Correct.

25 Q It's now known that that curve was no good. Would 1

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l Page 54 l 1 it be fair to say you were certain it was no good on  ;

2 September the 5th?

3 A -I'd have to say that we strongly suspected it was 4 no good when we started dropping level and the-alarm came 1

5 in.

6- Q Would you ever intentionally violate a design 7 basis curve?

8 A No 9 MR..DOCKERY: .I'm going to suggest that-we've  !

10 been at this a little over an hour now-that we go off the 11 record for a few minutes so that we can talk; and, f 12 Mr. Hendrix, ,if you need to calk to your client. We'll go f 13 off the record.

i 14 (A short recess was taken.) '

I 15 MR. DOCKERY: Okay, we're back on the record. The 16 time is approximately 11:53 A.M. -- or P -- yes, A.M. The ,

1 17 -- the people present are the same as at the beginning of ,

l 18 this record, with the exception that Mr. McNulty has left. 1 19 And, Mr. Weiss, I'd like to remind you that you continue to 20 be under oath here, if you'd acknowledge that verbally.

21 THE WITNESS: I understand.

22 MR. DOCKERY: Curt, I believe you had...

23' MR..RAPP: Okay, I'll go ahead, continue with me 24 -- finish up with my questions here.

25 BY MR. RAPP:

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4 1 Q We were discussing the makeup tank high pressure 2- alarm. Are there any other normal evolutions, plant 3 evolutions that would cause alarm set points or 4 administrative limits to be exceeded that you can think of i

5 or that you remember?

6 A Well, sure, it's pretty -- pretty routine that you 7 generate alarms when you perform evolutions. That's --

8 that's not that unusual.

9 Q And when that occurs are you required to take 10 immediate action for those alarms, or -- or what's the 11 response?

12 A 'Imm,ediate action is not required. Now, I tuink if 13 you look in 500,it'11 tell you that you should pull the AR 14 if the alarm's not as a result of an evolution that you're 15 performing, some -- or words to that effect. You pull the

-16 AR and you look at the required actions. You know, if it's 17 an expected alarm, if you know why it came in and - .and 18 it's not a problem then -- then it's not a problem.

19 Q Okay. Are you familiar with AI 500, context of 20 operations?

21 A Yeah.

22 Q Is AI 500 a usable procedure?

23 A It's very difficult to read, you know. You follow 24- the requirements in it, but...

25 Q Could it be interpreted in many different ways?

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Page 56 1 A I don't know. You'd have to, you know, 2 specifically look at something and then look at AI 500 to 3 see if there's any doubt about it. I don't know.

4 Q Well, in particolar tnere's directions in AI 500 5 that says when procedures are required for activities.

6 A Okay.

7 Q Is -- is there interpretation on -- on how that --

8 how that can be applied?

9 A Can I look at the actual section and see?

10 Q Sure. Do you have AI 500?

11 A Yeah, I think we've got an AI 500 in here 12 somewhere.' ,

13 MR. HENDRIX: Here it is. It's obsolete now.

14 THE WITNESS: Well,'that's the one that was in i

15 effect at the time that we did it.

16 MR. RAPP: You got it there?

17 BY MR. RAPP:

18 Q All right, it's Section 4-3-2-3-1. I mean, excuse 19 me, 4-3-2.

20 (The witness reviews certain material.)

21 A 4-3-2-3?

22 Q Right.

23 MR. HENDRIX: What page?

24 MR. RAPP: Yeah, the next one down from that.

25 It's Page 45. That may not coincide with your copy.

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1 THE WITNESS: 45?

2 MR. HENDRIX: And the number again? 4-3...

l 3 THE WITNESS: Section 4-3-2-3 is " General l 4 Practices for Procadure Implementation," is that what you're 5 looking at?

6 MR. RAPP: Yes. l 7 THE WITNESS: Okay.

8 BY MR. RAPP:

9 Q And so the Paragraph 2, " Written procedures are j l

10 also needed for evolutions that would affect a c"7nge of 1 11 flow paths or operating parameters."

12 A 'Okay.

13 Q All right. Could that be interpreted that a 14 special test procedure was needed for this evolution, or 15 could that be interpreted that the administrative -- the 16 approved operating procedures you had in hand were adequate?

17 A If you have written procedures you're meeting the 18 requirements of that. If you've got a normal operating 19 procedure to do-what you're doing, then you are meeting 20 that. And if -- you know, look -- look down at "A," you 21 know. The shift supervisor is the guy that decides what 22 requirements are applicable. Well, Dave did that. He 23 looked at it, said, "Okay, OP 402 covers us." You know, we 24 didn't violate AI 500.

25 Q Okay. Is there anything in FPC procedures that NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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1 1 define and describe what constitutes an approved or 2 authorized evolution, that you're aware of?

3 A Well, anything that you have an approved procedure j 4 for, obviously it's been approved and authorized; right?

5 Because it has to go through the 50-59 process.

6 Q Okay, but there's not a -- a statement that says, 7 "This is an authorized evolution," and -- and describes that j 8 activity or those activities?

9 A Not that I know of. I can't think of anything.

10 Q All right.

11 A AI 500 talks about evolutions and tasks probably j 12 pretty mudh where we were just looking, but that ; the only 13 thing I know of.

14 Q All right. During your requal training you go 15 over industry events; correct?

16 A Uh-huh (affirmative).

17 Q Was there any -- any type of industry events 18 discussed with you where people had performed unauthorized 19 evolutions and you were told that this was not within your 20 license or within your -- your authority to do this?

21 A Not that I recall.

22 Q Similar industry events?

23 A Not that I remember.

24 Q Okay. Did you attend any meetings with 25 engineering on this matter, like the HPI pump binding issue NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 59 l 1 or the Appendix R where this makeup tank curve was 2 discussed?

3 A Well, I was there at the design basis  ;

4 determination meeting. That was after the 4th and the 5th. I 5 Q Prior to that?

6 A Prior to that? No, Mark Van Sicklen was pretty  :

7 much interfacing with engineering on that.

8 Q Are you aware or did anyone ever tell you from 9 engineering that the HPI pumps were not important during a 10 LOCA, so that gas binding was not a problem?

11 A Engineering stated-I think this was af*.er the 12 event, though-that no credit is taken for HPI in the '.arge 13 break LOCA analysis, which is a correct statement. The 14 reason it's a design basis issue is the -- specifically the 15 core flood line break.

l 16 0 Were you ever told that there was a special test j 17 planned for the next refueling outage to verify this curve,  !

18 to check the response of the plant against this curve?

19 A No , they -- that letter, I think, that starts out j 20 at the top, it says, "There are no plrA3 to change Curve 8.  ;

21 We believe it's accurate and reasonably conservative," okay?  ;

' 1 22 Q You're referring to September 2nd letter that l

23 engineering sent out?

24 A Is that September 2nd letter? Yeah. I think it 25 had eome reference to doing something in the next refueling A

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1 outage down toward the bottom. You know, I do.1't think it's l 2 acceptable to wait until refuel, operate wi:h a bad curve 3 until refuel.

4 Q I mean, if you operated for 18 months, why not i 5 wait another-what?-six months or eight months?

6 A Do you think that's acceptable, you know, to -- to 7 say, well, you know, we just found out that we're outside 8 design basis, but since we've already been there 18 months l 9 we can go another six months, you know. If the core flood 10 line drops off we'll melt the core, but...

11 0 Tne point is nobody knew that was the design basis 12 at that po' int,.

13 A Right. Correct.

14 Q Did you think that engineering would actually do 15 this test?

16 A I -- I don't know of any real detailed plans to do 17 a test. There was some reference in the letter but...

18 Q Well, just a vague allusion to it.

19 A Yeah, 20 Q There wasn't anything like, "We've planned this or 21 scheduled *his."

22 A Right. They pretty firmly say at the top that 23 Curve 8's accurate and reasonably conservative.

24 Q Okay.

25 A And they had no plans to change it.

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i Page 61 1 Q All right, thats all I have. Thank'you.

2 BY MR. VORSE:

3 Q Going back once again to the September 4th, after .

4 you -- you and Mr. Fields and the other shift members found-5 out that --

that management was getting agitated-I think 6 that's a good word-about the evolution of the 5th, did 7 Janyone discuss not telling anyone about the 4th based on the 8 fact that management was getting stirred up, and it was.just >

9 kind of, " Don't -- unless you're asked, don't -- don't --

l 10 don't tell anybody"?

11 A No. No, there was no effort or intent to cover 12 this thing' up,. I've -- I've answered truthfully when I'm

13. asked about it. I didn't volunteer it; I didn't think.it 14 was that important.

15- Q 'Okay. That's all I have.

16 JBY MR.'DOCKERY:

17 Q One last point I'd like to bring up. I'd like to

18 revisit something, Mr. Weiss, that you mentioned early in 19 your testimony, and that was that you ist some point began to i 20 feel threatened, threatened from a -- an employment 21 standpoint; is that correct?

l 22 A Yes.

23 Q And that you felt that that threat emanated from i- 24 management?

25 A Yes.

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Page 62 1 Q Assuming that you felt that way at that time, do 2 you now feel that you have been in any way retaliated 3 against by your management?

4 A Yes, I do.

5 Q Do you feel that that retaliation results from 6 your having raised health and/or safety issues related to 7 the operation of the plant?

8 A Yes.

9 Q Okay, I don't mean to -- I know you're very ably 10 counseled here by an attorney, but it's necessary for us to 11 mention to you on the record that you have the ability to 12 seek redress,for any retalit. ion against you through the 13 Department of Labor. Let me ask you, are you familiar with 14 that -- that path?

15 A Yeah. Department of Labor's not that easy to get 16 a hold of, but...

17 Q Do you understand that all you have to do is file 18 a complaint with the Department of Labor, and that complaint 19 is really nothing more than a letter stating briefly what )

20 has happened to you and why you feel it has happened? ,

21 A Yes.

22 Q Okay, I just want to make sure that -- that you're 23 aware of that option.

24 A I would like to get the address and who to send it 25 to.

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Page 63 1 Q Okay, I think if you check in Tampa under 2 Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, you'll --  ;

3 you'll find the address that you need. I don't know it off 4 the top of my head, that's all I'm saying.

i 5 A Okay.

6 Q And the action is -- is taken under Section 2-11 7 of the Energy Reorganization Act. If you were to call the 8 Wage and Hour Division they could -- could give you any 9 additional information you might be...

10 MR. VORSE: And you -- you r.eed to understand it 11 has to be done with -- it has to be filed within si:: months 12 of the incide,nt.

13 THE WITNESS: I understand that. Of course, you 14 know, the problem I've got here is the company has 15 characterized what we did as a bad thing to do. They said 16 we did an unauthorized test. Well, you know, I guess that 17 the NRC couldn't support that 'cause they didn't charge us 18 with an unauthorized test, they said we violated procedures.

19 Didn't violate any procedures.

20 But basically, you know, the company has got you 21 guys cocked and going on a wrongdoing charge against us and 22 it sort of chills any chance I think that I have to get 23 redress, you know.

24 MR. DOCKERY: Let me clarify something right there 25 that I should have mentioned earlier. The NRC, I want you NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 64 1 to understand, can offer you no form of redress.

2 THE WITNESS: Yes, I understand that.

3 MR. DOCKERY: And your complaint, if you decide to 4 make one, is purely regulatory. The only redress -- method 5 of obtaining redress that you have is through the Department 6 of Labor; or I assume there may be -- there may be civil 7 statutes, state -- state of Florida statutes that you can 8 pursue. I wouldn't be familiar _with those.

9 THE WITNESS: Well, what I want to know...

10 MR. HENDRIX: Of course, we think -- we think that 11 .the NRC can offer him redress by vindicating his integrity 12 and his fr'ofessionalism by finding that he did not engage in 13 deliberate misconduct. And the company is hoping and 14 praying that you will find that he engaged in deliberate 15 misconduct, because if you do that will obviate any chance 16 he has of redress before the Secretary of Labor, because 17 then his termination would have been for cause.

18 So they're hoping that you'll find he's a liar, 19 that he's not credible, that you can't believe him, and that 20 he's given misinformation to you about whether he believed 21 what he was doing was authorized, and whether he believed 22 that this was a valid safety concern. And also on the red 23 herring issue of whether he, you know, withheld information 24 from the NRC or the company, which is bogus.

25 And so we do believe that you can do something to NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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Page 65 1 help redress him by simply saying you find him credible and 2 believable, and that will go a long way towards affording 3 him the right to get redress. .

4 THE WITNESS: I guess what I'd like to know, you 5 know: You guys are an office of investigation. Well, so 6 far all you've done is investigate us. You haver.' t really 7 taken a good, serious look at the situation that we were 8 struggling against down there.

9 MR. DOCKERY: Would you like to make a very clear 10 allegation regarding that situation at this time?

11 MR. HENDRIX: We do have an allegation to make at 12 the conclu'siop.

13 THE WITNESS: Yes.

14 MR. HENDRIX: We're going to furnish you with that 15 allegation and ask you to pursue it, and we have put it in 16 writing and we're going to give it to you at the end of the 17 day. Mr. Fields has addressed the letter because he feels, 18 as being the -- the senior manager responsible for his 19 shift, that he wants to be the one to bring it, so Mr. Weiss 20 did not sign this letter. And we address this at our second 21 interview where we -- we do make specific allegations and we 22 will present it to you during his testimony. But he wanted 23 to be the one to bring it, not Mr. Weiss. He feels

( 24 responsible for the people working underneath him, and so he i

25 wants to be the one to put it in writing.

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i Page 66 1- MR. DOCKERY: That's fine. And just so you p

2 understand procedurally, we -- we'd be happy to -- to-accept' 3 that allegation from your however, for the time being we're j 1

L 4 just a conduit to our allegation pecple. l 5 MR. HENDRIX: I. understand.

6 MR. DOCKERY: And we'll -- we'll be happy to l

7 handle that for you.  !

I 8 MR. HENDRIX: We will furnish it to you today. l

?

9 THE WITNESS: I guess it just bothers me that the I 10 NRC took the company's word, you know, that --

that we had j 11 done a bud thing, and didn't look into any of the  !

12 circumstances,around it, any of the problems in F*e l 13 Engineering Department that we were hitting. And they i 14 basically took the company's word that we were bad guys, and i

! 15 started taking action against us. And I tell you something,  !

16 you let them get away with thi. and there will be no safety  !

17 culture at CR-3. _ People are watching this. They all know  ;

1 l 18 it could have been them just as easy.

L  !

l 19 MR. DOCKERY: Mr. Weiss, let me interrupt you just

20 a second, because we want to afford you an opportunity at j

, i I

l 21 the end of this to make any final statement you might wish  !

22 to make.

23 THE WITNESS: Very well.

l 24 MR. DOCKERY: And we may have reached that point l I

25 where it's time to do that. Are there any other questions?

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, 1 MR. VORSE: No, ro further questions.

I 2 MR. DOCKERY: Then, Mr. Weiss, if you would, go

$ 3 ahead and make any comments you wish to make. And 4

l l 4 particularly if there is any questions that you felt we 5 should have asked you and didn't, please feel free to go 6 ahead and address that.

4 7 THE WITNESS: Well, I'd like to state, first of

, 8 all, that the actions I took, I took not out of any desire 9 for personal gain. I took the actions I took because I had i 10 a concern for nuclear safety; because I believed in the 11 professional ethics associated with having a senisr reactor

{ 12 operator's' lipense, all the responsibilities that go LAong 13 with that. And I don't think that those responsibilities 14 can be nailed down in a little box and say, "Well, you know, i 15 you only have to be worried if you're here." It's -- you l l 16 look at the big picture of nuclear safety.

i l 17 And I stood up for the guys who had nuclear safety-18 concerns. The concerns were valid, they were correct. I-l f' 19 think that the company deliberately characterized what we

! 20 did as an unauthorized test to mislead the NRC and to keep i

! 21 the focus off the management and engineering failures s

22 associated with the event. And I just think that you really j

23 ought to look at a wider picture than just taking the i

24 company's word for what happened. They're the ones with 1

! 25 something to gain from this. I didn't have anything to gain

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Page 68 1 from it. I acted in good faith, I tried to do what was 2 right, and I've been severely punished for that. My 3 professional reputation's been ruined. I doubt I'll be able 4 to get another job in the nuclear industry with that kind of 5 a reference hanging over my head. So I'm -- I'm probably 6 leaving the industry behind.

7 The NRC is charged with maintaining the industry's 3

8 safe. And if they let people get fired for taking action on 9 a nuclear action concern, then they've just pulled the i

10 cornerstone out of the safety culture. Because nobody's

~

11 going to risk what happened to me for a safety concern. Not 12 if you let'them fire people for it.

13 And if all they get to do is stick a bad label on 1 i 14 it and call up the NRC and say, " Hey, we got a couple of bad I 15 guys," if that's all it takes, you know,... People are

" l 16 watching this, people know that it could have been them  ;

f 17 going down the road.

l 18 You need to realize tha't anytime you were on the 19 curve you were where we were that night. That we had been d

20 outside design basis for 18 months, and that what we did 21 didn't drive the plant outside design basis, it was already 22 there. I can't think of anything else I really need to say.

23 MR. HENDRIX: I would like to ask you a question 24 or two. The -- did you -- were you asked to review or sign 25 for accuracy the very last LER that was submitted to the NRC

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Page 69 1 on this?

2 THE WITNESS: No, that came straight from Pat 3 Beard.

4 MR. HENDRIX: And have you read it where it talks 5 about whether the plant, as a result of the work that you 6 all did, your shift did, and the -- and the determination 7 that the curve was invalid and non-conservative, have you 8 read the LER when he references where the plant was or was 9 not outside the design basis?

10 THE WITNESS: I don't remember exactly how they 11 put that. I think they -- didn't they phrase it that the 12 plant may'hav,e been outside the design basis from time to 13 time?

14 MR. HENDRIX: From time to time? Do you agree 15 with that statement?

16 THE WITNESS: I think we were outside design basis 17 all the time as Aong as we were operating on the cerve.

18 Now, you know, if one of these crews that was dropping l l

19 pressure, maybe they dropped it far enough. I think we were 20 basically outside the design basis all the time. Anyone 21 operating on the curve was, and they were being told to and 22 threatened if they didn't, so... l 23 MR. HENDRIX: And management knew that everyone j 24 was being requested to operate on the curve, and yet they 25 report to the NRC that maybe from time to time the plant was NEAL R. GROSS & Co., INC.

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Page 70 1 outside the design basis. And the focus of the report is 2 that you guys for 30 minutes were outside the design basis, 3 is that right?

4 THE WITNESS: Yes, they rewrote the LER to 5 maintain the focus on the actions of the operators. And the 6 intent all along has been the NRC -- keep the NRC focused on 7 the actions of the operators.

8 MR..HENDRIX: That sums it up. Anything else?

9 THE WITNESS: No.

10 BY MR. DOCKERY:

11 Q Mr. Weiss, one other comment that you mada during 12 your testi' mony here today war in response to a q.;stion 13 about whether or not you considered availing yourself of the 14 Employee Concerns Program. And I believe your response was, 15 quote, "That thing's a joke," unquote.

16 A That's correct.

17 Q Is that correct?

18 A I had never put in a concern through that program 19 myself, but my supervisor, Dave Fields, had put two of them 20 through and was very unhappy with the kind of responses that 21 he got. And he could probably tell you a lot more about 22 that.

23 Q Had the Employee Concerns Program not been a, 24 quote, " joke," unquote, would you have considered using --

25 using that to address your issue?

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[ 1 A .Yes. You know, if they had a -- a real serious 2 program that would force an investigation into things when'-

t 3 there was a safety concern not getting resolved, then yeah, 1

! i j 4 if it'd have been a good tool I'd have used.it. j i

1 5 Q- Did you feel it would have been an appropriate i l 6 means for you to seek action on -- on what you felt was a  ;

7 safety issue? l 1

8 A You mean as it stands now?  ;

r i

! 9 Q No, sir, if -- if it had been -- if in your f -10 opinion it was an effective program?

11' A Right. What was needed is some oversicht *here. l 12 I mean, yo'u kpow, someone tnat would come in and not jast l 13 sit down with'the engineers, go, " Hey, is this curve any 14 good?" the engineer nods, and they go away. That's --

i, 15 that's not what's needed. You nee'd someone that's going to U

16 go in there and' find out all the sides of the story, go back 17 and look at the cales, you know, look at the whole  !

18. situation, you know. Someone that has some authority, I 19 mean. All anyone had to do was -- was walk down the hall 20 and open up a filing cabinet and pull that calc and they 21 wou?.d have seen, "Only valid through Refuel 8."

22 Q Specifically regarding the Employee Concerns 23 Program, in your opinion is that -- is that program 24 something that, from a regulatory standpoint, that the NRC 25 needs to take a look at?

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Page 72 1 A Yes, I think so.

2 MR. DOCKERY: I don't have any further questions.

3 MR. VORSE: All right, then, Mr. Weiss, if you 4 have nothing additional to add... l 5 MR. HENDRIX: Well, we do here. We have talked 6 about it, but we've never really did it. i 7 MR.-VORSE: #25? i 8 MR. HENDRIX: #25 on the record. We got these 9 together and then we realized that we needed to change that.

1 10 Why don't you tell them why -- what that exhibit is. number 11 one, and -- and what changes need to be made to it.

12 $5iEWITNESS: Well, basically this was -- this was 13 a curve that I was trying to put together for my '

14 presentation at the enforcement conference. And part of my 15 presentation I was going to talk -- you know, I wanted to 16 show where the two foot of water line was if you took that 17 two feet away. And the problem is, is that I just made a 18 mistake in how I did that, so that one line on this curve 19 you should disregard. That'd be the line labeled, "New )

20 Curve 8 plus two feet of water."

21 MR. HENDRIX: We can get that corrected, but he 22 just didn't have a chance, when he came up, to get it 23 corrected before we gave it to you today. Not that it's all 24 that material I guess today, because -- I mean, can you 25 explain...?

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1 THE WITNESS: Well, the other data on it is valid, 2 you know. You -- you've got the old Curve 8, and you've got l 3 the test data from the 5th, and you have the new Curve 8.

4 And it's pretty clear if you compare the old Curve 8 and the l 5 new Curve 8, the new Curve 8 is below the old Curve 8, and 6 they never cross. And they're -- that's really called the 7 design basis. So anytime you were -- they were near the 8 curve you were outside the design basis. So anyway, I'll 9 just ask you to just disregard the line labeled, "New Curve 10 8 plus two feet of water." That's incorrect.

11 NR. VORSE: We don't have anything else, 12 Mr. Weiss,'so,we'll go ahead and conclude this interv.ew at 13 12:20, August 31st, 1995. Thank you.

14 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded at 12:20 15 P.M.)

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS & CO., INC.

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I CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:

Name of Proceeding: Interview of Robert P. Weiss Docket Number: )

i Place of Proceeding: Atlanta, GA Date: August 31, 1995 were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear RegulatoIf Commission taken by me and, thereafter r76tced to typewritin'g by me or under the direction of the t.urt reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and 1

accurate record of the foregoing proceedings. l 4

MELANIE I.. SCHALLOCK 1 Official Reporter NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

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