ML20199C827

Transcript of 960918 Interview of M Culver in Crystal River, Florida Re OI Rept 2-96-033.Pp 1-34.W/Certificate of Svc. Birth Date & Social Security Number Deleted

ML20199C827
Person / Time
Site:	Crystal River
Issue date:	09/18/1996
From:	NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI)
To:
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ML20199C716	List: IA-97-313, Transcript of 951130 Interview of P Hinman in Crystal River, Florida Re OI Rept 2-94-036.Pp 1-146.W/Certificate of Svc. Title Page Encl.Birth Date & Social Security Number Deleted ML20199C710 ML20199C735 ML20199C747 ML20199C779 ML20199C803 ML20199C818 ML20199C827 ML20199C852 ML20199C889 ML20199C912 ML20199C929 ML20199C942 ML20199C961 ML20199C966 ML20199C981 ML20199C989 ML20248J609
References
FOIA-97-313 NUDOCS 9711200158
Download: ML20199C827 (34)

Text

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-UNITED STATES OF-AMERICA 2'

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3

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4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5

INTERVIEW 6

---

x 7

IN THE MATTER OF:

8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No.

9 MICHAEL WILLIAM CULVSR 2-96-033_

10 11-

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~~-----------------------x 12

-13 Wednesday, September 18, 1996 14 15 Conference Room - Second Floor 16 Crystal River Plant 17 15?60 West Powerline Street 18 Crystal River, Florida 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted at

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24 JIM VORSE Senior Investigator jl 25 CASENO.

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APPEARANCESt 2L On-Behalf of-the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3

JAMES VORSE,-Senior Investigator.

4 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 5'

401 Marietta-Street 6

Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7

On Behalf of the Interviewee, Michael William Culver 8

ROBERT ALEXANDER GLENN, ESQUIRE 9

MAC-ASA-9%,

10 Post Office Box 14042 11 St. Petersburg, Florida 33733 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

-22 23 24 25 y

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3 1l P-R-0-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S i

A-2 MR. VORSE:

For the record, today's dated is 3

18 September 1996.

The time is ten -- correction, 11:27

-I am Special_ Agent James Vorse of the NRC's Office of 4

a.m.

5 Investigations and I will be conducting this interview 6

during this proceeding.

And, Mr. Culver, let me formally 7

show you my identification, which I forgot to do earlier.

8 MR.- CULVER:

Okay.

9 MR. VORSE:

Okay.

During this proceeding, which 10 is being recorded for transcription, the NRC Office of 11 Investigations will conduct an interview of Michael William 12 Culver.

This interview pertains tc OI investigation number 13 2-96-033.

The location of this interview is the 14 Administration Building, Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant 15 in Crystal River, Florida.

16 And others in attendance at this interview are --

17 would you please identify yourself by name, full name, and 18 your title.

19 MR. GLENN:

Alex Glenn, G-L-E-N-N.

Corporate 20 Counsel, Florida Power Corporation.

21 MR. CULVER

• Oh.

Michael William Culver, 22 Principle Reactor Engineer.

23 MR. VORSE:

And I'm Jim Vorse of the WRC Office 24 of Investigations.

I identified myself earlier.

25 Peggy, would you odminister the oath, please.

4

(

l Whereupon, 2

MICHAEL WILLIAH CULVER, 3

being first duly sworn by the Hotary Public, was examined 4

and testified as follows:

5 EXAMINATION 6

MR. VORSE:

Okay.

Once again, for the record, 7

Mr. Culver, would you state your full name.

8 THE WITNESS:

Michael William Culver.

9 MR. VORSI.:

Date of birth?

fM.

10 THE WITNESS:

11 HR. VORSE:

Social Security number?

'l (6

12 THE WITNESS:

s 13 MR. VORSE:

I earlier had you read Section 1001 14 of Title 18 of the U.S.

Code.

Do you understand it?

15 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

16 MR. VORSE:

Mr. Culver, I would like to have you 17 ell me what your f.irst experience was regarding the fuel 18 assembly -- regarding the fuel assembly that was lowered on 19 top of another fuel assembly on March 26th, 1906.

Are you 20 familiar with that incid'snt?

21 THE WITNESS:

Yes, I'm, well, somewhat familiar 22 with that.

You wish to know when's the first time I heard 23 abaut it?

24 MR. VORSE:

Yet, I would.

25 THE WITNESS:

Okay.

The first I -trear about it I

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was sitting in my office.

I believe the-date was the 28th i

2 of March 1996.

The SRO who had been the refueling 1

3 supervisor, Dave Joner, came into my office and asked if I 4

would be concerned if during the process of moving fuel they had set one fuel assembly on top of another.

And that 6

was the earliest that I heard of it.

7 MR. VORSE Would you describo to me as best you 8

can the details of his conversation with you and your 9

conversation back?

10 THE WITNESS Okay.

There are parts of it that 11 ar'e very clear, there are parts that are not.

I will do 12 the best I can.

13 He asked if I would be concerned if I sat one i

14 fuel assembly upon another.

said not really as far as 15 damage; and which was my focus, fuel damage, because the 16 limit switches are set up on the bridges such that it will 17 not let an undue force be pla'ced upon a fuel assembly.

I 18 said that my -- the only thing I might be concerned about 19 is if a rod was in the fuel assembly.

And he said that 20 there was.

And at that point I said I still wasn't 21 terribly concerned about damage, again, the way the limit 22 switches are set, but that I thought we needed to verify 23 that there was no damage.

24 My concern at that point was at that point in the P

25_ outage the core had been loaded, it had been verified, and t

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I had been in the previous day doing the plenum inspection, g

andthattheplantwasprogressingtowardspuItingthe 2

3 plenum back on top of the core.

And once that's done 4

access to those fuel assemblies was no longer available 5

without removing the plenum.

It's a high rad lift.

There 6

is the potential if the fuel assemblies are not lined up of 7

damaging the fuel when you place the plenum on it.

So it's 8

not something you want to repeat.

9 So we briefly discussed the move sheets and that 10 the zeros should have a line through them to distinguish 11 them from an 0, and we did briefly discuss problem reports 12 and precursors.

The details of that conversation I do not 13 clearly remember.

But my focus at the time is okay, yes, 14 we need to find out what happened here so it doesn't happen 15 again, but we're not moving fuel right now, that can wait 16 until tomorrow or the next day.

There may be some kind of 17 paperwork we need to write up but right now, you know, that 18 we can do later this afternoon, that we can do tomorrow.

neededM 19 To me the pressing item was I awer$ to find out if 20 damage occurred, I need to find out if I had data available 21 to determine if damage occLrred so that I would know if I 22 have to call the shift manager and stop the outage before 33 they put the plenum back on.

24 So I said okay, we did the core verification and 25 I did make a comment that I really wish I'd heard about t

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this earlier, because I had eeen in the building in the 2

vessel with underwater cameras the previous day doing core 3

verification and plenum inspection.

I could have done all 4

sorts of inspections.

At this point in time the cameras 5

were removed from the building, au best I remember it.

6 Though I wasn't cognizant at the time of the plant's status 7

I was fairly certain that they had either drained down the e

canal or were about to drain down the canal and we would 9

probably have to re-flood it.

10 So with the outage, you know, progressing my 11 focus was is there something we need to deal with in that 12 vessel right now.

And that was my focus.

And so I said 13 I'm going to look at the vidca tapes we already have, the 14 core verification, which just happened to film that area, 15 see if they are sufficient and look at what other things I 16 have available to me to determine was there any real damage 17 done to this rod, because I had no concern on the fuel at 18 all.

And then based on what I found, if I found that more 19 inspections were needed I would have to call the nuclear 20 shift manager and stop the outage, or, you know, they 21 could go ahead and progress and we could write up whatever 22 we needed to write up that day or the next day.

Because 23 when he came in it was pretty close to lunch time.

So 24 that's basically my thought process that I went through.

25 I think we did, like I said, briefly discuss

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1 problem reports and precursors.

I have tried not to find lefn 2

out what other people are saying, but in the last +We zge>

3 notice it said plainly -- not 4NE. notice, th'e last 4

inspection, it plainly said that I was quoted as saying a l

5 problem report was not necessary.

I do not recall making 6

that statement, but I may very well have, because again my 7

focus was not on process, my focus was on is there some 8

damage out there.

And at this point I expected none but I 9

wanted to be sure of it.

10 So that was basically what I went through.

And 11 then later that, you know, af ter he lef t Jun had just come 12 down in a break from a meeting he was in down the hallway, 13 and I went back to review the verification tapes, which I 14 had just reviewed that morning, as a matter of fact.

And I 15 found two good shots of that rod, one horizontal, one 16 vertical.

Very good, very detailed.

I went over them and 17 looked over them; there was no indication of damage, which 18 again I did not expect.

19 I considered the weight that would have been put 20 upon that control rod and how it would have been loaded.

21 The control rod when it is inserted into the fuel assembly 22 over in the spent fuel pool with that bridge a certain 23 amount of the weight of the mass is translated onto that 24 BPR.

25 So what I did is --

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1 MR. VORSE:

Excuse me, Mr. Culver, what does BPR l

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stand for?

3 THE WITNESS:

Burnable poison rod.

In this case 4

it was control rod.

I'm sorry.

But in either case it's 5

the same amqunt of weight.

A burnable poison rod is just 4

6 like that one, (indicating), only it has-little feet on it.

7 MR. GLENN:

Just for the record, there's a 8

miniature fuel assembly in the room and that's what Mr.

9 Culver was pointing to.

10 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

I'm sorry.

11 So I went back, and to the best of my memory, 12 calculating the dif are;rs between where the underloads 13 would have cut out the ort 6ge so that it no longer lowered 14 the fuel assembly and the difference between that and the 15 weight of a hanging fuel assembly, and comparing that 16 weight to the weight that the mast places on the rod when 17 it does a normal insertion, to the best of my memory that 18 was within a hundred pounds of each other.

And I said, 19 well, that's another good-indication that we don't expect 20 any damage, because the weight would be translated the same

. 21 way.

The rod is handled by-the spent fuel bridge by 22 grappling the mast portion of it.

23 I'm not used to talking without visual aids, 24 And the -- the weight of this fuel assembly the 25 way it came down would have translated that force into the i

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1 same location.

So we're looking at very similar events.

2 And I was fairly convinced that was within a hundred l

3 pounds.

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To verify that I called Dennis Baumgar/ner at l

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RAYTHEON, who was our fuel handling equipment expert, to 6

find out for certain what the weight was that was

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7 translated onto this rod in normal insertion.

8 He was not there.

I left a message, which he 9

returned the next day.

And we discussed the event; and he 10 still remembers it, I've been in touch with him since.

But 11 he definitely returned the call the next day because he 12 remembers me talking about the precursor card, which I did 13 not learn of until the 29th.

i 14 In addition to that, what went through my mind 15 and consideration is the control rod -- and again I've got 16 to refer to this -- the control rod that you see over there 17 is structurally identical to the burnable poison rod except 18 that a burnable poison rod has little feet attached to the 19 spider structure that comes out and it's captured by the 20 plenum.

And the plenum is a device that weighs tons and 21 it's spread -- its weight is spread across the core.

And 22 actually its weight sits on a ledge.

But it comes down and 23 it sits on that to hold the burnable poison rods in.

24 Well, structurally a control rod and the 3PR are 25 the same except for those feet.

So if the burnable poison t

11

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1 rod can take that kind of force, so can a control rod.

2 The other thing that went through my mind is this 3

is not going to be a sudden impact.

As you can see looking 4

at our device over there, there is a large leaf sp 'ng 5

underneath if, and that leaf spring is meant to take the 6

downward force of the plenum in addition to the upward 7

force provided by the four reactor coolant umps at ms&5 8

approximately 145 million pounds of -meet per hour.

So you 9

have a good cushion to absorb some of that impact.

10 Taking all that into account by the time I'd run 11 all this to ground it was about four or five o' clock in the 12 afternoon.

I was pretty tired because I had been working 13 flip flopping day and nie.;ht shifts trying to get all the 14 inspections and everything done the previous two days.

And 15 I was convinced that there was no dam, age.

At the end of end korre/ Wag, 4

16 the 28th I called scheduling the plenum would not go in for 17 another 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />.

18 At that point I felt content that there was no 19 damage.

I was tired.

And my intent was to sit down 20 tomorrow when my head was clearer, talk to my supervisor 21 and see if any paperwork needed to be assigned.

22 At that point in time problem reports and 23 precursor cards, at least to my mind, were to address 24 problems.. If there was no damage, which again was my Y

25 focus, was there a problem.

And yeah, we have to look at 9

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1 why did they do this, but my focus was primarily on damage.

2 And I didn't feel, because I expected no damage, a problem 3

report was necessary at that time.

l' 4

I was not looking at process.

Process was 5

something I deliberately in my mind said we'll look at that 6

in a couple of days because we're not going to be moving 7

anything.

You know, all the fuel was moved in the vessel.

8 We will be moving fuel in the spent fuel pool, it's down 9

the line, we're not going to do it for awhile.

I need to 10 see about this thing because I've got to know if I'll have II to shut down the outage.

And that was my thought process.

12 Precursor cards had been around for awhile and I 13 think I may have used them once or twice by that point.

14 But again in my mind precursors were to document a problem 15 and I wasn't really sure I had one, you know.

So, I hate 16 to beat a dead horse but that was my thought: is there A

17 damage, do I have the data necessary to make determination 18 or do I need to stop the outage.

19 I looked, felt I had the data necessary to make a 20 determination.

My determination is there was zero damage 21 and zero damage potential, and therefore I was tired, I'll 22 go home, I'll write it up tomorrow if it needs to be.

And 23 I walked in the next day and by early in the morning 24 somebody walked in and said hey, somebody wrote an 25 anonymous precursor card that said somebody sat a fuel

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13 1

assembly on a fuel assembly.

And at that point it kind of s

2 seemed senseless for me to write anything up.

It was 3

already written up.

And as best I remember it that was the 4

process I went through.

5 I also -- one thing I did forget, in addition to 6

talking to our RAYTHEON people I did happen to talk to my 7

fuel contract manager at FRAMATOME, who is the fuel p Av 8

construct +ea, and I talk with them every couple of days 9

during an outage because there's so much going on.

And I 10 did tell him about the event, and he remembers that.

Both 11 of us are not absolutely certain if I talked to him on the 12 28th or on the 29th, and I know that for the purposes of 13 this that world be real nice to know, but we're just not 14 sure.

We know it was of those two days but we're not 15 certain which one.

16 MR. VORSEt How many times does an event like 17 this happen?

18 THE WITNESS:

I cannot definitely recall any 19 event where our fuel assembly was set straight down on top 20 of another.

Now, in the back of my mind something tells me 21 it may have happened in the past.

I've been here for 17 22 years worth of refuelings but I cannot remember a specific 23 case or person or event.

-24 But a related thing that does happen during 25 -refueling and happens somewhat commonly is as you loao the n

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1 core very often -- well, the ideal time to load a core is 2

you have four assemblies that provide a box with an open 3

hole in the middle, each assembly providing a side or a 4

wall.

And that way it guides the fuel assembly down to the 5

lower guide plate and it locks in.

Well, because of the s'yre die % t warpage that the fuel assemblies get with their-r:diation N 6

7 the tops of the fuel assemblies will sometimes lean in a 8

quarter of an inch because they're bowed.

Even if they 9

don't, very often the fuel assembly you're lowering, the 10 bottom foot plate is kicked out a quarter inch or a half-11 inch.

12 So even though it looks like they're going to 13 line up, and you see a hole down there, very often -- I say 14 very often; I don't know, depending on how bad the batch 15 is, it varies from cycle to cycle, it could be 20 times, it 16 could be 50 times during refueling, as you lower down into 17 this hole it's not -- it ends up not being lined up exactly 18 with the hole or the hole is simply not big enough because 19 of the other fuel assemblies leaning in.

And it impacts on 20 the side such that, you know, they hit like this.

21 (Demonstrating.)

22 The limit switches on the bridges are set to 23 protect fuel assemblies for that kind of event.

And so to 24 the operators and to me this kind of thing where you are 25 impacting the bottom of one with the top of another, at l

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1 lenet to some partial extent, is not an uncommon event.

2 Like I said, a fuel assembly on a fuel assembly, 3

we don't -- I don't remember that happening before with 4

clarity, but coming across so that you catch it like this 5

(indicating), that happens.

Not frequently, but it's not 6

uncommon.

And so --

7 MR. VORSE:

Is that considered an underload?

8 THE WITNESS:

That's what's called an underload, 9

right.

A low load is when you've got it all the way down 10 in the core and it knows that by the 22 tape reading it's 11 got and it clicks over and gives you a lower weight you can 12 go to so you can settle it down into the grid.

13 The underload kicks out such that you will not 14 provide much force to either fuel assembly.

And, in fact, 15 the underload is not so much there to protect the upper end 16 fitting and the lower end fitting as it is the zircalloy 17 grids.

As you can see on that one over there, the 18 zircalloy grids, they're very thin and they can be torn 19 with a few hundred pounds pressure.

I don't remember the 20 exact force.

It's probably six, seven hundred pounds, but 21 it -- in refuelings especially in the old days before they 22 -made some improvements to the design the grids would snag 23 on each other and the underload had to stop before they

- 24 could rip each other.

So the underloads are actually 25 designed to protect the zircalloy grids, which are much vn-g v

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1 more fragile %g the upper and lower end fittings.

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So if you're not going to damage the grid the 3

probability of doing any damage to an upper and lower end 4

fitting is zero.

5 MR. GLENN:

Am I incorrect, is an underload a 6

light that comen on, it's a --

7 THE WITNESS:

Well it actually stops.

8 MR. GLENN:

It stops, but it would stop at any 9

time there's a touching between those fuel assemblies at a 10 certain --

11 THE WITNESS:

At a certain weight.

12 MR. GLENN:

-- weight.

13 THE WITNESS:

Right.

And it's based on how much 14 weight drops off.

15 MR. GLENN:

So you would get an underload, then, 16 if you touched the side of the fuel assembly, if you touch 17 the top of the fuel assembly --

18 THE WITNESS:

If it caught like this with the 19 grids hung upside -- anything that provides resistance and 20 allows a certain amount of weight to drop off.

21 MR. VORSE:

So when the instruments where we 22 lowered the one assembly on top of another, it was 23 basically the same type of thing as an underload?

24 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

It was an underload that-25 stopped it.

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1 MR. VORSE:

It was an underload that stopped it.

2 THE WITNESS:

To the --

Well, let me rephrase 3

that.

4 I expect it was an underload that stopped it.

I 5

have deliberately not talked to the individuals involved as 6

much as possible about this to not be too biased in --

7 MR. VORSE:

So I need to ask the bridge operator 8

all --

9 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

10 MR. VORSE

-- of the things that were supposed 11 to work worked?

12 THE WITNESS:

Right.

And my expectation is that 13 it was underload.

Trying to remember six months is 14 difficult.

15 As best I can remember, and I cannot remember it 16 clearly, I think Dave even told me it went out under an 17 underload but I cannot remember that with absolute 18 certainty.

You know, you would have to talk with the 19 people that were actually there, but I believe it did.

20 That was the assumption I went off on.

21 And the underload goes out.

I checked it today 22 because people were asking me to remember numbers and it 23 turned out I was remembering some of them wrong, so it's a 24. good. thing I checked.

25-The underload goes out at 1800 pounds in the

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heavy setting, and -- let me make sure I remember this the 2

right way.

I've got notes I can refer to.

But I believe 3

it's 1700 in the light setting and 1800 in the heavy 4

setting.

Heavy and light mean determined on whether or not 5

you're carrying a rod you flip the switch to the proper 6

position.

And the weight of a fuel assembly that would 7

have a rod in it would be like 2,000 to 2100 pounds.

8 So you're looking at -- providing they had it in 9

the heavy switch setting -- 300 pounds that would have been 10 applied to that rod.

Well, I confirmed, again today tc 11' make sure I was right, withDennisBaumgar,2n$randhesaid 12 that a control rod mast when you're inserting a rod ig,the 13 part of the weight of the most is set on the rod is in the 14 range of 200 and 250.

So we're looking at 50 pounds 15 difference.

Not a significant amount.

16 So, again, you know, and not to beat a dead 17 horse, but on that day, the 28th, it's half-way through the 18 day, they're looking at, you know, the outage, at least as 19 far as I knew the outage progressing and the plenum going 20 in, that ended up being delayed for whatever the reasons 21 were, I don't recall.

But there was a possibility of the 22 plenum going in.

And my focus war I need to determine if 23 we have damage or damage potential so I can contact the 24 manager and tell him he needs to stop the outage.

25 That was my primary thing that I felt I needed to

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1 accomplish that day.

Once that was done, then I could i

2 decide what paperwork needed to be filed, if any.

You 3

know, I didn't want to spend the day writing problem 4

reports and talking to people and getting them filed and 5

all that kind of stuff and have them go put the plenum in 6

during that time.

And I likewise did not want to call the 7

shift manager and say something happened, there might be 8

damage, I want you to stop the entire outage until I can 9

ascertain it.

You know, granted I could have done that but 10 it looked to me that I had plenty of time to ascertain that 11 before I contact them.

-You know, why make everybody else 12 go through a knee-jerk reaction when I have time to look at 13 it myself, determine if that needs to be done, and then, if 14 necessary, contact him.

15 And that was just the path I chose.

It may not 16 be proper but that is the way I thought about things.

17 MR. VORSE:

Can you think of anything that you 18 want, Mr. Culver, to talk about?

19 MR. GLENN:

Just give me a second, I want to 20 just go over my notes.

21 MR. VORSE:

Okay.

22 (Pause.)

23 MR. VORSE:

Mr. Culver, let me -- while he's 24-going over his notes let me ask you something.

25 THE WITNESS:

Uh-huh.

t 4

i 20 1

MR. VORSE:

Any time there's a contact by fuel 2

assemblies, for whatever reason, is that normally logged in i

3 on the control room, do you know?

4 NR. GLENN:

When --

5 THE WITNESS:

It's a --

6 MR. GLENN:

I'm sorry.

When you say logged in 7

on the control room, I think -- I think there are a number 8

of different logs in the control room.

Is tbst accurate?

9 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

I assume you're referris.g to 10 the refueling consultant l'og that is on the tag board.

11 It --

There's a certain amount of flexibility in 12 that.

It's a judgment call by the person who is on the tag 13 board.

The purpose of the refueling log book is not even 14 to be quality documentation per se.

The purpose of the log 15 book is to record events that might help me plan future 16 refuelings, change the way we put the fuel in.

17 For instance, I went back and studied what we had 10 written down in refuel nine, found the places that the fuel 19 assemblies hung up on each other a lot and used that to 20 change the strategy that we used in refuel ten, and 21 actually refuel ten went quite well.

We had very few hang-22 ups.

And, in fact, the thing 1 talked about where one fuel 23 assembly hits the edge of another, I don't recall that 24. happening at all.in refuel ten.

It may have once or twice, 25 whereas normally it happene a lot after refueling.

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1 So that's the kind of thing that the log book.is t

2 intended for. Andit'salsotheintentist$tryand 3

record persens names, because when I go back and look at 4

move sheetc and you look at the way people sign, it's 5

really hard to figure out who some of them are.

I can 6

compare it with that, compare it with the operation 7

signature book and go, oh yes; because that kind of 8

information goes into our special nuclear material history 4nekly M 9

tr;;t-and flies.

F 10 I like to record information on NI count rates.

i 11 For instance, if they're thinking about changing HI 12 detectors out or any kind of things'like -- so those --

13 it's that kind of information, to help me plan the next 14 outage.

That is the intent of the log book.

15 MR. VORSE:

So my understanding is that that is 16 not a quality document, that it's not required, it is just 17 simply done for your own information?

18 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

I don't have a copy of 19 FP-203 in front of me by I believe that is what it says.

20 That is certainly my intent and I believe I wrote that in 21 FP-203.

Without a copy in front of me I can't say with 22 absolute certainly.

But I believe it does say thet.

23 MR. VORSE:

The incident with R 10, O 10 --

24 THE WITNESS:

Right.

25 MR. VORSEt

-- that we've been talking about, do I

4

,,,.~ -. -.- -.-.,-

22

[

1 you considar that significant?

2 THE WITNESS:

If I had been on the board I think 3

that I would have written it down.

Thers is at least one 4

other individual who functions as a refueling consultant 5

and I'm fairly certain he would have written it down.

But 6

to go back and make a judgment call on somebody else when I 7

wasn't there for the circumstances and everything going on 8

is a difficult thing to do.

9 I prefer to have that kind of information written 10 down, but I know that during this, you know, during that 12 time period, even earlier we were bing debris searches en 12 the bottom of fuel assemblies over in the spent fuel pool.

13 If debria was found we had to change the order of move 14 sheets to keep it moving while they got debris off.

15 Depending on what was going on over there.

It's Aike me 16 writing notes to myself in my day timer, which I didn't do 17 on this day and I wish I had.

18 If you have a whole lot of things going on, 19 sometimes you just don't get around to writing everything oA *4.

20 down.

It's hard to speculate Yqr why they didn't.

I know 21 that they didn't; I went back and looked and it's not 22 there.

I dor.*t know why.

23 MR. VORSE:

Is there a procedure anywhere that 24 you know of that says if an incident like this occurs that 25 someone should report it and have it inspected?

4

f 23 (i

1 THE WITNESS:

FP-203 does give guidance on that.

2 If you have a copy here I'll be glad to look at it.

I 3

don't want to try and quote it from memory.

I haven't 4

looked at it in six months, but --

5 MR. VORSE:

Let's go off the record and see if 6

we can get a copy of that.

7 MR. GLENN:

Sure.

i 8

(Whereupon, a brief recess was had at 11:54 a.m.,

9 after which the proceedings resumed as followst) 10 MR. VORSE:

We're back on the record.

The time i

12 is 12:03 p.m.

We just got a copy of FP-203, which stands 12 for --

13 THE WITNESS:

The title of it is Defueling and 14 Refueling Operations.

It's the master controlling 15 document.

16 MR. VORSE:

Okay.

What is the purpose of --

17 MR. GLENN:

Just for the record, this is Rev 36, 18 with an effective date of March 13th, 1996.

19 MR. VORSE:

What does FP-203 mean to you, Mr.

20 Culver?

21 THE WITNESS:

I'm not sure what you mean.

Would 22 you rephrase it?

23 MR. VORSE:

What is the purpose of FP-203, what 24 is it designed to do?

25 THE WITNESS:

FP-203 is more or less the overall I

_,,__,......,,__c_,

24

[

(

1 control.ing document handing defueling and refueling.

It addresseslimitsandprecautions,prerequisithsbeforeyou 2

3 start the operations.

Talks about how you watch the NI 4

detectors to ensure that you remain suberitical.

And it 5

provides the verall guidat.ce for the steps that you take.

t 6

There are addi.lonal subprocedures that work in conjunction 7

with us, primarily FP-601-C, which is the bridge -- which 1

8 is the procedure for the spent fuel handling bridge that 9

basically tells them what buttons to push, what knobs to 10 turn to move fuel.

And FP-601-A, which is the same thing 11 on the reactor building side.

So these three procedures 12 work together to provide the sequencing.

13 This one, though, it addresses the refuel -- the 14 entire thing is primarily for the refueling supervisor, the 15 control board operator, the refueling consultant.

It 16 doesn't exclude the others because it tells you what they 17 should be doing.

But this is mostly used in the control 18 room.

And for the refueling supervisor needs to be 19 cognizant.

And I don't know if he actually keeps a copy in 20 the field but he does need to be cognizant, I think, 21 because it lists his responsibilities in here.

22 MR. VORSE:

We earlier looked at page three of 23 FP-203 and decided that several sections to that as being 24 -important or at least significant.

Would you tell us what 25 those are and repeat them for the record, please?

=.

25 1

THE WITNESS:

Okay.

Well as far as addressing 2

this event, whether or not it should be logged, I think j

3 overall if you look at Section 3.1.3, the refueling log, it 4

gives you an idea of the type of things that should, and it 5

is a should and not a shall, that should be included in 6

step 3.1.3.2, which include date, names of refueling 7

personnel, fuel assemblies moved, final location of fuel 8

assemblies, transfer carriage running times, causes of 9

delays in moving fuel, and changes to refueling procedures.

10-It does not specifically call out the exact 11 - things that should be recorded.

That is more or less left 12 up to the judgment of the refueling consultant.

13 On the next page, on page three, there are two 14 steps that are particularly pertinent.

One is step 15 3.1.3.5, which describes basically the intent of the log 16 book.

It says, *When refueling is complete the refueling 17 log is to be sent to the reactor engineer.

The reactor 18 engineer shall maintain the refueling log as a reference to 19 answer questions about that refueling and as an aid in 20 planning future refuelings."

21 And then also step 3.1.3.6, which states, "The 22 refueling log is maintained to assist the reactor engineer 23 and operations in planning for future outages.

It is not 4

24 considered _ quality documentation, therefore, it is not 25 required to be transmitted to document control fo? input t

-...-,,,v.

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26 1-into quality files."

S in/erfre.& e purpose of the refueling log b ok as I Th 2

4..i....y,-ig,asinfactinterpretationcontactofthis 3

procedurg. is to record events that are important to be 4

5 aware of for planning future outages, such things as if a 1

6 particular loading scheme has a lot of hang-ups or a

~

7 particular defueling scheme the fuel assemblies are hanging 8

up on each other a lot, then I could take that information 9

and I can look at what worked, what didn't work, and I can 10 design a better loading scheme for the next outage, which 11 we did do between nine and ten, and ten went much, much, 12 much better, much smoother, much lower potential for fuel 13 damage, and went more quickly as far as the actual fuel 14 movement went.

15 That is how I see the intent of the log book.

It 16 also has peoples names in it so that when I go back and 17 look at the special nuclear material miove sheets, if I have la trouble interpreting a signature it helps me determine who 19 that is so I can translate that into our special nuclear 20 material history files for tracking special nuclear 21 material.

22 Problems with bridges and such as that, I'd like 23 to see in there so that we will know what to anticipate in 24 the future and that I can get with the fueling handling 25 engineer and we can go over these things prior to the next

_~,_

27 1

outage to see if there is perhaps some type of preventive 2

maintenance we can do.

And it also helps remind us of 3

things like verifying the straightness of the mast because 4

if it's off just a fraction of an inch above the water, 5

once you translate down that 40 feet it can end up being 6

several inches underwater.

7 So those are the type things we're looking for.

8 Problems that we need to look at so that we can make the 9

next outage better.

And that is my intent.

But it is left,,

l 10 up to the judgment of the refueling consultant to what he 11 thinks is inportant from those aspects.

And guidance is 12 given, but no absolutes.

13 MR. VORSEt Well that was very good.

Thank you 14 very much.

15 Is there anything that you want to ask Mr.

16 Culver?

17 MR. GLENN:

Just one question.

We've been 18 referring to a quality document, and I don't if that's a 19 term of art, but would you state for the record what you 20 mean by quality document?

21 THE WITNESS:

Okay.

Quality document, to give 22 the proper definition I'm not sure I'm the right person, 23 but essentially quality documentation to us are records 24 that need to be transmitted, records that need to be 25 maintained in the record system.

Depending on what they

-. - ~ _ -

- =. - -

l 28 I

1 are, the regulations have some things to be maintained for fiveyears,somethingstobemaintainedtilifiveyears 2

3 after the plant is shut down.

Pretty much -- I don't want 4-to speak for our records system but I think we pretty much 5

just hang on to everything forever.

6 But a quality document is something that must be 7

filled out and must be transmitted to provide a record of 8

documentation that can be later be audited.

As I best 9

understand it.

10 MR. GLENN:

And by must be filled out, you mean 11 required by the NRC to be filled out and. maintained?

12 THE WITNESS:

Yes.

i 13 MR. GLENN:

Do you have any exampleb of those 14 types of quality documents?

15 THE WITNESS:

Well, actually FP-203.

If you go 16 back and you look at where we're doing the -- the procedure 17 as a whole.

FP-203 is a quality document.

So any 18 enclosures or signatures that are in this procedure, unless 19 it's specifically excluded by a statement "this is not 20 quality documentation", must be transmitted.

Such as 21 enclosure one where we're doing a random distribution 22 verification of count rates.

23 Pretty much all procedures, in fact to the best 24 of my knowledge all procedures that are included in what's 25 called POQAM, and I'm not sure I remember what that acronym

t l

29

[(

1 stands for exactly, but all the plant procedures, unless theyhavespecificstatementsinthemexclud5ngthat, 1

t 2

are 3

by default quality documentation.

Any log books that have 4

not been specifically excluded are quality documentation.

5 I believe the shift supervisor's log book and the control 6

board operator's log book, and those type _ things are 7

quality documentation and are transmitted.

8 MR. VORSE:

Okay.

We didn't get on the record 9

at the beginning of this interview, Mr. Culver, your 10 educational background.

11 THE WITNESS Oh, I'm sorry.

I went to h^

12 Florida Junior College for the first two years and got my 13

-- what do they call it -- Associate of Arts degree, I s

14 think; anyway, the two-year degree from a junior college.

15 Went to the University of Florida and graduated 16 with a degree in Engineering, specializing in Nuclear 17 Engineering, I holieve is the way it's titled, but a 18 nuclear engineering degree.

19 I worked for Babcock & Wilcox, which is now --

20 that nuclear portion of it is now FRAMATOME TECHNOLOGIES 21 and FRAMATOME FUEL COMPANY.

I worked'for them from 1977 22 until 1979.

I worked in the field services department and 23 ended up basically going to other B&W plants and doing 24-various jobs there.

25 I've been to OCONEE, I've been to Arkansas, I've W-..,

,w n

30 1

been to Three-Hile Island.

We don't talk about that one 2

too much.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't put that in the record.

3 And I came to Florida Power.

i ppk 4

While I was at Florida Power Jwnf it was indicated 5

to me that I could have a job if I wanted one, so I put in 6

an application.

And in October of 1979 I came to work for 7

Florida Power and have been here ever since.

8 When I came to Florida Power I started to work as 9

a plant engineer; after I had been here, best guess about a,,

10 year, I started working with the reactor engineer and when 11 he was, I believe, moved up to a higher position I began to 12 temporarily fill in for the reactor engineer.

And in 1981 13 or '82, I can't remember which, I progressed and became the i

14 reactor engineer, at the time we only had one.

And I have 15 been reactor engineer sin,e.

My title has changed from 16 reactor engineer to senior to principle.

Essentially the 17 work's the same.

And have been here ever since.

I8 I have participated in the B&W owners' group 19 reactor engineer meetings.

I often attend the core 20 performance committee meetings.

I was a loose parts 21 subcommittee member for writing the ASME quide on loose 22 parts monitoring systems.

23 MR. VORSE:

Is this a B&W reactor?

24 THE WITNESS:

This is a B&W reactor.

25 MR. VORSE:

Do you have anything that you want

.,e..

-..---..,,,--.s

,o 31 I

to tell me that you think is important?

2 THE WITNESS:

AtthistimeIcannStthinkof 3

anything other than that which I've already said.

I've 4

gone through --

5 MR. VORSE Do you think there's something I 6-should have asked and I didn't?

7 HR. GLENN:

Asking him to see in your mind.

8 THE WITNESS:

No.

To me, really, and I'm not 9

primarily sure of the purpose -- I know generally the 10 purpose of your investigation, I'm not primarily exactly 11 sure of what you're trying to determine, but I think as far 12 as my involvement in this event the most important thing 13 is, you know, I have expressed my thought process.

There 14 was no intent to not file paperwork that needed to be filed 15 at the time.

I wanted to determine if there was a problem 16 and then determine what I needed to do as far as paperwork.

17 And by-the next day stuff had already been filed.

18 Really, in a nutshell that's my involvemene.

And 19 I can't really think of anything else to contribute to 20 that.

21 MR. VORSE:

Let me ask you this.

In your 22 professional opinion do ysa think that that should have 23 been inspected, that the assembly-should have been 24-inspected before it was lowered back into o ten?

25 THE WITNESS:

Oh, hindsight is always so

-32 1

difficult.

2 MR._GLENN:

Whatdoyou_meanbyiNspectedwhen 3

you say --

4 MR. VORSEt Look at it.

THE WITNESS:

-I'know what he means.

In a 6

perfect world with perfect hindsight, perhaps.

Had I --

t 7 - Had I been there would I have required them to stop and B

inspect the bottom of that fuel assembly, because the top 9

of it we can see just fine when it's in the core.

I really,,

10 don't think there was a need to do so bscause the way the 11 ftaA assemblies are constructed, the way'considering that 12 on the lower end fitting is primarily a heavy end fitting 13 with a grillage and a few small nuts that are hooked on the l

14 guide tubes, the fuel rods themselves, the actual fuel in 15 the fual rods is several inches above that lower end 16 fitting, knowing where the limit switches are and the 17 forces applied, there is no real damage potential that I 18 can imagine.

19 I --

As a matter of keeping things clean it 20 would have been nice, but as a matter of necessity did it 21 really need to be done, I don't think so.

22' That's my best, you know.

Hindsight is hard.

I 23 wish we had, but I don't -- I don't think that it was 24 really necessary.

And honestly I did not expect any fuel 25 damage to the bottom of that one or the upper of the other.

4 v-w w

n n-

t,

33 i

1 My only concern was with the rods and it was not a strong 2-concern.

It's just that I felt that we should take a look 3

at it just to be sure, and it turned out the video we had 4

was sufficient.

If it had not, then we probably would have 5

gone back in to taka some.

As it was, we didn't need to.

6 Damage potential in-this particular Jar, dent was 7

pretty much nil.

I would have preferred that,pj made 8

some entries in the log book, looking back on it, but even 9

that it's hard to speculate and second guess if you're not 10 there at the time.

11 MR. VORSE:

Okay.

Thar.k you very much, Mr.

12 Culver.

I cannot think of anytting else at this time so 13 "we'll go ahead and-terminate the-interview.

The time-is 14 12:18 p.m.,

still 18th September 1996.

15 (Wrereupon, the proceedings were concluded at 16 12:18 o'cloct p.m.)

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

...v.

s 4 34 1

C E R T I F I C.A T E-

-l L

2

.This is to certify that the attached proceedings l3 beforetheUnitedStatesNuclearRegulatorybommissionin 4

the matter of 5

Name of Proceeding: Interview of Mike W. Culver 6

. Docket Number (s):

2-96-033 7

Place of Proceeding:

Crystal River Nuclear Plant

'8 Crystal River, Florida 9

10 were held as herein appears,'and that-this is the original 11 transcript thereof for the file of the United States 12 Nuclear Regulatory Cottission taken by me and, thereafter 13' reduced to typewriting by me er under the direction of the 14 court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true 15 and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.

16 7

.k}(/

19 May

~

20.

Official Reporter 21 Neal R. Gross and Co.,

Inc.

22 23 24 25 i

I I

I l.

..