ML062000209
ML062000209 | |
Person / Time | |
---|---|
Site: | Salem, Hope Creek ![]() |
Issue date: | 09/09/2003 |
From: | NRC/OI |
To: | |
References | |
FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
Download: ML062000209 (197) | |
Text
1ýJ%1 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Informatio In as rdai Act, exeri f-lk 9-1 IN THE MAT': INTERVIEW KYMN HARVII (CLOSE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULA!.ORY COMMIS. ION OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS INTERVIEW TER OF:)F Docket No.(not provided)-D)Tuesday, September 9, 2003 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region I Office 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, Pennsylvania The above-entitled interview was conducted at 10:00 a.m. -BEFORE: i Special Agent Eileen Neff in this record was deleted:e with the Freedom of Information ions ", , / 045 COU NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.1AIA K n t% rJ%'nC -37^%4 4 I Inn'%% nllý AAnl%
2 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Interviewej; Kymn Hai .in: 3 ROBERT B. WOODRUFF, ESQ.4 Of: Algeier Woodruff, P.C.5 Attorneys at Law 6 60 Washington Street 7 Morristown, New Jersey 07960 8 (973) 539-2600 9 10 On Behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
11 EILEEN NEFF 12 Special Agent 13 (610) 337-5175 14 15 RAYMOND LORSON 16 Performance Engineering Branch Chief, DRS 17 (610) 337-5282 18 19 J. DANIEL ORR 20 Senior Resident Inspector 21 Salem Generating Station 22 (856) 935-5151 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.'). , k ')'2A- A) 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 APPEARANCES: (cont.)On Behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulator Commission: (cont.)JEFFREY A. TEATOR Senior Special Agent Office of Investigations (610) 337-5184 DAVID J. VITO Senior Allegations Coordinator Office of the Regional Administrator (610) 337-5222 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region 1 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 19406 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W....,qnnn.'37n1 (202) 234-4433 4 I P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 10:23 a.m.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 September 9, 2003. The time is approximately 10:20 5 a.m. Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff with the 6 NRC Cffice of Investigations, Region 1. Also present 7 from the same office is Senior Special Agent Jeffrey 8 Teator. Additional NRC representatives here are 9 Senior Allegations Coordinator David Vito, Branch 10 Chief Ray Lorson, and Senior Resident Inspector Daniel 11 Orr.12 What follows is an interview of Dr. Nancy 13 Kymn Harvin Rutigliano who was formerly employed by 14 Public Service Electric and Gas, PSEG, Nuclear and 15 worked at the Salem and Hope Creek facilities in 16 Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey. Attorney Robert 17 Woodruff of the Algeier Woodruff law firm in 18 Morristown, New Jersey is also present. This 19 interview is being transcribed by a court reporter.20 The location of this interview is the Region 1 Offices 21 at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
22 The subject matter of this interview 23 concerns allegations raised by Dr. Harvin involving 24 problems with the safety conscious work environment at 25 Salem and Hope Creek and the termination of her NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W....---l -1151. A4-2-3 5 employment in that she was discriminated against after 2 raising concerns regarding the x ,rk enviror ent to the 4 AN Additional information reported by Dr.5 Harvin indicates potential technical violations 6 regarding the operation of both Salem units and the 7 Hope Creek unit.8 At this point, the allegations involve 9 potential violations of 10 CFR 50.5, deliberate 10 misconduct, and 50.7, employee protection, the 11 allegations as known at present. What I would like to 12 do at this moment is identify all of the individuals 13 around the table for the court reporter and the ease 14 of identification as it is transcribed.
We'll start 15 with you, Jeff.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Jeff Teator, Office 17 of Investigations.
18 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dan Orr, Senior 19 Resident Inspector, Salem site.20 COORDINATOR VITO: Dave Vito, Senior 21 Allegation Coordinator.
22 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Ray Lorson, 23 Performance Engineering Branch Chief, Division of --24 for Safety.25 MR. WOODRUFF:
Robert Woodruff, Algeier NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.I-. -I I A" 6 1 Woodruff from Morristown, New Jersey, representing the 2 witness.3 DR. HARVIN: Dr. Kymn Harvin.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Also as we 5 explained before we went on the record the interview 6 would bB conducted under oath. Would you please raise 7 your right hand?8 WHEREUPON, 9 KYMN KARVIN 10 was called as a witness and, having been first duly 11 sworn, was examined and testified as follows: 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What I'd like to 13 cover right now is some background for the record.14 We'll start with identifying information.
Your date 15 of birth and social security number please.16 THE WITNESS: Date of birth is 177 18. SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Home address.19 THE WITNESS: IitiL4.i1 I 20 A 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Telephone number.22 THE WITNESS: J ...23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Current business 24 address and telephone number please.25 THE WITNESS: I'm actually in transition.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
11 7 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Would you cover some 2 L.ckground information regardin£ your e,. ication 3 please?4 THE WITNESS: I have a Ph.D. in 5 organization development and spirituality from the 6 Union InE:titute in Cincinnati granted in 1996. I did 7 extensive Master's work and an undergraduate degree in 8 journalism and political science.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Work experience 10 please.11 THE WITNESS: I had positions in 12 Pennsylvania State government including being a 13 legislative analyst in the House of Representative.
14 I worked in the executive branch as the Governor's 15 Commission for Women Information and Education 16 Director.
I was a speech writer for the Governor on 17 education issues and the State Secretary of 18 Education Following that, I was at AT&T 19 for ten years from 1980 to 1990. I had my own 20 consulting firm for a number of years. From 1996 21 until earlier this year, I was employed by some form 22 of PSE&G. It's changed names a few times in that five 23 year period.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Starting when?25 THE WITNESS: I started there in February NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
8 1 1996.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: TL.at was you.. first 3 employment in the nuclear industry.4 THE WITNESS: Correct.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's discuss when 6 you started with PSE&G. In what capacity were you 7 hired?8 THE WITNESS: I was originally hired at 9 the corporate offices to be on loan to the business 10 integration team for a year working on the change 11 management dimension of the SAP computer system 12 implementation.
After just a few days on the job, I 13 went down to PSEG nuclear where I had been told I 14 would be going a couple of days a month.15 I ascertained to make the kind of 16 difference that I was committed to making and that we 17 needed to have made that it. would take more time 18 there. I volunteered to change out the external 19 consultant who was there who was pretty negative and 20 didn't think much was possible.
He went back to the 21 corporate office, and I went to nuclear even though it 22 was almost three hours from my home.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On-site in Hancock's 24 Bridge.25 THE WITNESS: Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 i1 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At what point in time thei. did you get to Salem and Hope Cieek?THE WITNESS: March I believe of 1996.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Were you working on one site exclusively or on both sites?THE WITNESS: I wasn't working behind the fence. I was working on the SAP implementation so it affected the whole site. This computer system was going to affect the whole site.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On-site who did you report to?THE WITNESS: I actually don't recall having a boss on-site. I was on loan from the business integration team based in Newark. (m..... ..was my boss. I reported to him even though he was in Newark and I was in Hancock's Bridge.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could you explain the work that you did on-site? What were their expectations of you while you were on-site?THE WITNESS: Who's "they?" Is it the people who sent me from corporate?
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.THE WITNESS: I was the key member of the.1; -1~~~NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i1T PHfl'lF ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
10 1 usiness integration team working with representatives
- 6 of the nuclear team together on how we were going to 3 prepare people for this major change in their work 4 with this new software system implementation.
I 5 guided the leaders of that initiative in what it was 6 going to take tc be successful.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is starting in 8 1996.9 THE WITNESS: Correct.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: By division, who were 11 you working with? Were you working with operations?
12 Were you working with human resources?
13 THE WITNESS: No, I was working with the 14 business integration team. We called it DPR back 15 then, business process redesign team, that was headed 16 by .(PH) and Those 17 were the two people I worked directly with.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: With the business 19 integration team.20 THE WITNESS: Yes.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have a 22 requirement to report to anybody on-site, or did you 23 report your accomplishments and issues to somebody at 24 corporate?
25 THE WITNESS: To NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 42'3')' DUI~nC M~ AKIf A%/= NJ W 11 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: back at 2 corpor.te.
3 THE WITNESS: Correct.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that would be back 5 at Newark.6 THE WITNESS: Yes.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's get into the 8 nature of your concerns involving the work environment 9 at the time. You were talking about a safety 10 conscious work environment issues and problems that 11 you noted with that. When you first got on-site, can 12 you characterize what it was you observed about the 13 work environment?
Did you have any concerns at that 14 time?15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I did. In fact, that 16 was why I volunteered to transfer to nuclear. I saw 17 a work place that was characterized by fear and 18 intimidation, by people not being respected, by 19 workers feeling alienated.
I saw the site as ripe for 20 transformation.
I saw the possibility of using the 21 SAP implementation to work on work place issues.22 This was my first experience at a nuclear 23 plant. I didn't even know the phrase "safety 24 conscious work environment." But I knew how people 25 were treated and how they were being led at the time NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
12 1 inconsistent with getting to excellence in any 2 company anuch less a nuclear power plant.3 )had just come in. Let me 4 make this clear. I was not brought in byQ I 5 had no relationship with(M T 9prior to this.6 In fact, there was *some speculation that I was a spy 7 from corporate initially because nobody understood 8 where I came from or how I got there until I started 9 doing a lot of explaining.
rcame in. His 10 mission was to focus more on the people side of the 11 business.
That's what his main role as a leader was.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The position that you 13 were in as the change manager, were you unique on-14 site? Was there anybody else who functioned as you 15, did and did not report on-site but instead reported 16 back to corporate?
17 THE WITNESS: The HR organization also 18 reported into who was the 19 _t the time. There was at least that 20 organization and maybe others that had what they 21 called a data line to and a straight line to 22 corporate or visa versa depending on what the 23 reporting relationship was.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: "Data line," meaning?25 THE WITNESS: An indirect reporting J\LQ NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A -l -AtA 13 1 rele ionship to I SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So there were some 3 others on-site who were staffed in a similar way.4 THE WITNESS: Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's go back a 6 minute. You sail you had the impression that there 7 was a negative environment and that fear and 8 intimidation was involved.
During the course of your 9 work there, were you able to attribute that 10 environment to any reason? This is 1996. Am I right?11 THE WITNESS: Correct. In 1996, the Salem 12 unit was just coming out of restart. In fact, I was 13 there at some point in 1996, but I don't remember the 14 date when the plant was restarted.
p)was 15 the leadership team at the time and had a very 16 intimidating style of leadership.
He was in some ways 17 viewed as responsible for the climate that got 18 generated, but certainly he wasn't alone.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: His title is?20 THE WITNESS: believe.21 Maybe even I'm not sure.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Does this change 23 then? Was he staying on-site, or did anything change 24 after your initial observations?
25 THE WITNESS: For the first couple of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4171 P-nUnf ISI AND AVE.. N.W.
14 1 years we made significant strides in the work place.4 The fear Q.1d intimidation level decreased U.utLnever 3 totally subsided.
N ended up retiring, and 4 other people were brought in with varying degrees of 5 leadership styles so to say. There were strides made 6 in the work place both in terms of results but more 7 importantly to me in terms of how people were treated 8 and supporting what we called winning behaviors, the 9 kinds of behaviors people needed to exhibit to have 10 people in the work place be respected and valued.11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dr. Harvin, I have 12 a couple of questions.
13 THE WITNESS: Please.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At some point, did 15 your job responsibility change then from being part of 16 the business integration team to where you are now 17 getting more involved in full-time work place safety 18 conscious work environment type issues?19 THE WITNESS: Yes.20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you tell us 21 when that happened, and was there something documented 22 in your contract that showed that? First, when did 23 that start to happen?24 THE WITNESS: It was frankly an ongoing 25 evolution.
As I mentioned, I had a commitment to have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 15 1 the SAP implementation foster a more empowering work 1_ace. It vas an evolution.
I do not r call a 3 specific moment in time or even a letter that said 4 okay you now have these responsibilities and now we're 5 shifting to these. It was very much a work in 6 progress and evolutiLon.
7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: From March '96 8 going forward.9 THE WITNESS: Yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: From that point 11 forward, the evolution began taking place slowly.12 THE WITNESS: Yes.13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Could you give us 14 an approximate timeframe for when it changed to that's 15 what you were mostly working on, work environment, 16 SCWE type issues? When do you think that happened?17 I'm asking for an estimate just so we have an 18 understanding.
19 THE WITNESS: Well, it's easy to track 20 because in the fall of 1996 I was requested by 21 o work with who was th 22 at Salem at the time I believe. I believe his title 23 was It was either We were to 24 work on a human performance initiative.
Several of 25 us, myself and a couple of other people who viewed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41112 Dunn= IQ1 AMn A%/; " W 16 1 ourselve as frankly change agents, volunteered to w,_'k with M ... on this initiati-.e.
3 I actually wrote the human performance 4 strategy that was going to build a case for how we 5 were going to change the work place. That work began 6 in the fall of 1996 and shifted gears after *7 IiU resignation and was without sponsorship for 8 some period of time. Then decided to 9 sponsor the initiative himself.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You arrived down 11 there in the March '96 timeframe.
You said you saw 12 that work place characterized by fear and 13 intimidation.
Are the people working at the 14 Salem/Hope Creek site coming to you with those types 15 of concerns and that's how you are developing your 16 belief?17 THE WITNESS: That's a large part of it..18 I also witnessed just being in meetings where the 19 level of fear and intimidation was pretty strong by 20 how the meetings were conducted and by what was said.21 I also had been told frankly by people at Newark that 22 nuclear is a hell-hole, why would you ever want to go 23 there, when I volunteered.
So it's reputation in some 24 ways had preceded itself.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you were down NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4'3'*3 ue" M- 1Q ANIn V N.W.
17 1 there at t e site and you started to see these things 2 happening, thib intimidation, this fear, did you .tart 3 bringing that to the attention of site management down 4 there or your management up in Newark? If so, how did 5 they respond to that?6 THE WITNESS: I certainly shared those 7 concerns with ) Remember I'm really 8 viewed as an outsider.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.10 THE WITNESS: I didn't have anybody's ear 11 to talk with nor did I have the awarenesses at the 12 time. I was very new, so I was just trying to get 13 acclimated myself. All the issues that were present 14 in the work place were already documented by the 15 previous consultant who had been there. There were a 16 number of reports geiterat~ed which would be available.
17 His name was 18 19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Does he still work 20 for PSE&G?21 THE WITNESS: No, he was an external 22 consultant.
I suspect those reports could be 23 accessed.
They paint a very negative picture of the 24 work environment.
25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. Is it fair NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1- ni feM 01 AAA5 M/ 1 I~ I 18 1 to say then :hat you did bring some of these issues to 2 w-w 1._ Nqh _r tnn you first started receiving theii. or 3 seeing them? Is that correct?4 THE WITNESS: That's correct. Also(5 knew of them, and we talked about them. So*6 part of my mission there was to help move the ball 7 forward.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know what he 9 did to move that ball forward at that point? This is 10 still in the '96 time period.11 THE WITNESS: No, other than send me and 12 other people there. But our focus wasn't specifically 13 work environment issues. That was my personal focus.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm just trying to 15 get an idea of the interaction between you and your 16 manager, Did he commit to you to doing 17 anything to try and help those work place environment 18 type issues at that time?19 THE WITNESS: Not specifically, but he 20 accepted my request that I be there full-time instead 21 of a couple days a month because I thought that was 22 the only way from where I sat that any results could 23 get made from the corporate vantage point. I wasn't 24 aware of what else was going on to deal with those 25 issues.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
-1C9 A&.Wh A1 Al W~
19 1 F IECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.2 THE W.:.TNESS:
Sure.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There were two things 4 that you mentioned.
At the one point, there were some 5 observations you made in meetings that showed you the 6 fear and intimidation that was being experienced on-7 site. Could you give some examples of what you saw?8 THE WITNESS: I saw people, they called 9 it, getting their butts chewed, ass chewing, ass 10 kicking where high level executives would yell, curse 11 at various people.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was involved in 13 this specifically?
14 THE WITNESS: IMwas the biggest 15 person at the time. I also witnessed some exchanges 16 (PH) who was also there and is no 17 longer there.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: (PH)19 position was what?20 THE WITNESS: He was a director, but I 21 don't recall specifically what his position was. He 22 was also somebody that people were very much afraid of 23 and was viewed as quite intimidating and had a lot of 24 influence at the site.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about the issues NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 20 1 that were inv: .ved when the intimidation was ongoing?2 oo you iecall what -he issues were that people raised.-3 THE WITNESS: Not specifically, no.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When he was upset?5 THE WITNESS: Well, plant performance 6 wasn't as expected or ho% people were dealing with 7 technical issues or letting the union guys run the 8 show basically.
There was a lot of tension between 9 management and the union at that point, very much a 10 cold war of sorts between these guys and the union 11 leadership.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The timeframe for 13 this is?14 THE WITNESS: It's '96.15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dr. Harvin, can I 16 ask a question for me? In these discussions you 17 witnessed.
with and maybe the other 7 U.18 managers, did you see them yell, curse, intimidate 19 individuals at the plant over issues similar to those 20 which you talk about which occurred at Hope Creek and 21 Salem in 2003 and 2002? Plant type operation issues, 22 do you recall anything specific like the examples you 23 have given recently where management reacted towards 24 individuals in that way over those types of issues?25 THE WITNESS: Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 21 1 SPF 'IAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you recall one"wo e. ,mples?3 THE WITNESS: I was in a number of 4 meetings with A'and withthe 5 management team where technical issues were talked 6 about. If the answers given were not what either of 7 them wanted them to be or thought they should be, 8 people were dressed down. People dreaded going to.9 those meetings because of the public humiliation 10 involved.11 I frankly wasn't well versed enough in 12 nuclear back that early to be able to capture any of 13 the technical issues. Many of the conversations back 14 then were around technical issues and plant 15 performance.
I believe in some cases there should be 16 minutes available for some of those meetings.
They 17 were monthly leadership meetings held in the 18 processing center.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall if 20 the plant employees are trying to bring what they 21 would think would be conservative decisions regarding 22 maybe we need to shut the plant down, this is a 23 problem with this particular piece of equipment and 24 they are getting shut down by senior management for 25 bringing up those types of issues? Do you recall that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4 'O) Dunn= 1Q AVF.. N.W.
22 1 occurring?
I'm -.st probing a little.2 THE WITNEjS: Yes, I can't say that for 3 back that far. I just don't know.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.5 THE WITNESS: But certainly that's what 6 I've seen more recently.7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. Thank 8 you.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were talking 10 about I believe it was.-ii THE WITNESS: .Tl _t .12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He had an initiative.
13 He subsequently left, and U9 picked up his 14 initiative on the human performance.
How did that go 15 then under his direction?
16 THE WITNESS: We actually took 17 considerable ground. I would say it was fairly 18 successful.
There were other executives who were in 19 and out of the sponsorship of it, but we trained a 20 group of about 40 people to be what we called 21 breakthrough thinking coaches to support people in 22 letting go of the past and moving forward.23 For some period of time, my assessment was 24 -and I think the employee surveys support -that the 25 work place was getting more healthy. If you look at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
... ..... .~ II * ,ImAm IRA 23 1 the continuum of w rk place cultures, the environment 2 in .3: I wid characterize as toxic. It moved from 3 toxic to a step up which is destructive.
4 By the time WANO came last fall, I 5 actually gave a talk to them with three coffee cups.6 One was all black coffee. The other looked like tea.7 The other was clear water. I said this is the 8 evolution.
We're headed to clear water. We've gone 9 from toxic to this middle stage, and we still have a 10 ways to go to get the equivalent of clear water. So 11 we did make progress, certainly not the kind of 12 progress that I wanted or expected that we would make, 13 but we definitely did make progress.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The people that you 15 are addressing as part of that initiative, were they 16 from any particular division or across the board on-17 site?18 THE WITNESS: Across the board.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Excuse me. When 20 did INPO come in again?21 THE WITNESS: The timeframe I just cited 22 was last summer. It was actually the WANO version.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Excuse me.24 THE WITNESS: It was WANO which is the 25 World Association of Nuclear as opposed to INPO.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 24 1 SPECIAl AGENT TEATOR: Okay. I should 2 have opa.-taors unii-i.3 THE WITNESS: It's an operators union?4 COORDINATOR VITO: World Association of 5 Nuclear Operators.
Isn't that what it stands for?6 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: That is what WANO 7 stands for. Operators union in the sense that 8 operating companies are companies that operate nuclear 9 power plants.10 THE WITNESS: Okay. As opposed to union.11 Okay. I misunderstood.
12 COORDINATOR VITO: This is Dave Vito. Can 13 I ask a quick question?
You talked about things 14 getting a bit better as that human performance 15 initiative moved forward. Can you describe a bit how 16 you measured that, how the improvement manifested 17 itself, what things changed, what got better, what 18 stopped happening in order to show that the work 19 environment was getting a little bit better at least 20 at the time?21 THE WITNESS: We did do employee surveys, 22 so they showed improvement.
There was a corporate 23 survey done. Also commissioned the Gallup Q-12 24 survey to be done every year I believe. That showed 25 how bad the culture was frankly, and it also showed NEAL R. GROSS t'f1I Ir DC Akin 25 1 improvements we had tade the following year when we 2 repeat-d .he sarvey.3 My sense was also from my work that the 4 people issues were getting much more attention than 5 they had gotten previously.
We were addressing union-6 management relationships also in a way that I don't 7 believe had been done previously, at least certainly 8 not when I was there. So that's what has me saying 9 that it had moved from very dark toxic.10 COORDINATOR VITO: When was that point 11 where you got to the light brown colored water?12 THE WITNESS: I would say it peaked in 13 2002.14 COORDINATOR VITO: Early? Late?15 THE WITNESS: Mid-2002 was my assessment 16 of when it got as good as it got and was on a very 17 sharp decline once the WANO team came in, and there 18 was a fairly strong sense that we were going to get 19 another three. 1 20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Meaning what?21 THE WITNESS: They rate all the nuclear 22 plants in the country. One is top. If you are four, 23 I believe you are on a watch list or pretty close to 24 it. David, correct me if I'm wrong. We had been a 25 three whe. came in, and as it turned out, NEAL R. GROSS rOI )RT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 26 1 we were going to be a hree when he left.2 SPE.:-AL AGENT 'EATOR: Did that in fact 3 happen?4 THE WITNESS: That did in fact happen.5 That's when I saw a very dramatic negative shift in 6 the culture, in the leadership, in., That's when 7 things in my view started seriously declining.
As one 8 person at a high level, that's dangerous.
9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dave, do you have 10 something else?11 COORDINATOR VITO: No, thanks.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: To summarize a 13 little bit this timeframe, from '96 through mid-2002, 14 it was slowly getting better.15 THE WITNESS: Yes.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's a general 17 statement.
18 THE WITNESS: Right. I just have to 19 correct something.
I didn't join the company until 20 '98. If I misspoke, I apologize.
I got my doctorate 21 in '96. So I joined the company in '98. I apologize.
22 Let me correct all of that.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're talking 24 spring '98.25 THE WITNESS: Right.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
27 1 SPECIAL AGF T TEATOR: So we're talking 2 aLDut Mal .. '98 i-,rward instead of March '96.3 THE WITNESS: Correct. Let me just state 4 this clearly. In the four years that( was 5 the we did a lot of work on the culture 6 especially once-' "left, and we started making 7 what I would call significant steps forward. At 8 several points, it occurred as if! lost faith in 9 the management team. We had to deal with that issue.10 When the head of the organization loses faith in his 11 management team, we had a bigger problem.12 Then as I was saying, we made what I'll 13 call incremental progress up until late summer. It 14 started turning when we suspected INPO was going to 15 come in and give us another three. First of all, 16 was incredibly bitter. In my view, he became 17 quite disenfranchised with the leadership team and 18 with the workers. This was when his attitude about 19 the workers in my view dramatically shifted from 20 positive to negative, and they became the problem. As 21 I spoke up more for the workers and brought to him 22 their safety concerns, I then became the problem as 23 well.24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I'm going to stop 25 you for a second because we're going to get all of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND 7RANSCRIBERS 28 1 that. I want to go back -d just close out an area if 2 I cjuld.3 THE WITNESS: Okay.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: In talking about 5 the work environments getting better slowly, would you 6 say that was one of -the people 7 responsible for that occurring?
8 THE WITNESS: Yes.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who else would you 10 say from the plant was responsible for the improvement 11 of the work environment up until the very sharp 12 decline? Let's get some of the names of the people 13 who helped that to happen.14 THE WITNESS: who was is brought in I believe in the summer 2000. He had a 16 very strong committment to union-management 17 partnership.
Even though at times the union guy has 18 detested the man, it became very obvious in how he 19 supported the union-management initiatives that I and 20 others brought to him ideas for that he definitely 21 contributed to people being heard more.22 A change point for the organization were 23 outages. We used those outages to make a culture step 24 change. So outages were very much focused on engaging 25 the workers, teamwork, what we called spirited NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
29 1 leadership.
In those aren s, Hope Creek led the way.2 t W, 3 1 who is no longer there/ -7 4 but was there at the time, and others. But those were 5 the key leaders.6 helped bring 7 about cultural step changes through how they led 8 outages. We had never before, at least that I knew 9 of, focused on spirited leadership as a way to bring 10 out the best in people. People rose to the occasion, 11 and they loved it. So it gave us a sense of how life 12 at the plant, life at Salem/Hope Creek could be if we 13 could just replicate how we worked together and how 14 people were treated during outages.15 My role was to be the coach to the 16 leadership team. That's how I paved the way so to 17 speak into the technical side of the organization and 18 got access to way more of the issues than I had when 19 I was as I called it outside the fence as opposed to 20 behind the fence.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So you got more 22 involved through the outages then.23 THE WITNESS: Yes, then that led to being 24 asked to work with the operations leadership teams.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you see any NEAL R. GROSS rnI IRT RFPnfRTFRR AJn TRANHRMIRFRA 30 1 similar type leaders over F the Salem site like you 2 menationed at Crtk?3 THE WITNESS: The first outage we did was 4 1R-13 whichý m was one of the leaders of even 5 though he was from Hope Creek. He actually brought 6 that to Salem. We had our first best outage ever team 7 which was a team sponsored by( to use this 8 breakthrough thinking approach to outage performance.
9 I was the leadership approach for part of that. That 10 was a Salem outage and started to build this momentum 11 towards a work place in which people could actually 12 thrive.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the 14 timeframe for that?15 THE WITNESS: It was fall of '97 or '98.16 I'm not sure which but one of those. No, sorry. I'm 17 back on my mistake again. That would have been fall 18 '99 I believe.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had mentioned by 20 the summer of 2002 that the WANO ultimately resulted 21 in a lower grade.22 THE WITNESS: The same grade.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A three but not a 24 decent grade. That was their fear, and that's what 25 they received.
Right?-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 31 1 THE WITNESS: Ye 2 sr, 2.AL AC N£ NEFF: "That was that based 3 on?4 THE WITNESS: They bring in a team of 5 industry peers and experts from the INPO organization 6 to assess the work place and the functional areas. So 7 they would come on-site for two weeks. We would send 8 them tons and tons of documentation in advance of 9 that. They had a sequester week where they looked 10 through all of the material and developed their game 11 plan for what they were going to review when they come 12 on-site. They spent two weeks on-site and then go 13 back and mull everything over. Then the senior 14 leaders give the grade.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The findings in that, 16 in that it was a lesser grade, do you know what caused 17 that?18 THE WITNESS: You keep saying "lesser 19 grade." 20 COORDINATOR VITO: It was the lowest.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was less than a 22 one.23 THE WITNESS: Right. It was the same 24 grade that had been given previously.
In that sense, 25 it was consistent.
You can get a four, so there is a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 32 1 lower grade to get. As I reca" 1, there are only nine nucl1r kower p!.n+/- in -he country that got a three.3 So it's not good to get a three especially when you 4 committed to the chairman of the board that you are 5 not going to get a three.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But what Eileen is 7 getting to, it seems like in the summer of 2002 you 8 indicated that the crew had reached its peak.9 THE WITNESS: Yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So it was sort of 11 okay at that point.12 THE WITNESS: Correct.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And had been there 14 some time. It looked like the improvements had 15 arrived by late '99 at least in the operations side of 16 things by the way the outages were going.17 THE WITNESS: What you just said is not 18 accurate.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:, Okay. You saw some 20 improvement on the Salem side in the way they ran the 21 outages by late '99.22 THE WITNESS: The first outage that we 23 applied this best outage ever team approach to had us 24 have I believe a 36 day outage instead of much higher, 25 and it made a positive change in working relationships NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A~' W~ U~ 101 A Kin £AI/r K1 1A 33 1 and work environment.
They di I carry that over to ,,ope .rea'z in s" *s.juenL outages. When I said the 3 culture peaked out in 2002, it could have kept going, 4 but obviously didn't in my view when we got the three 5 and how the three was dealt with.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right. My question 7 is if in your opinion the culture was at its peak 8 where it had gotten better, how did they get a three 9 then.10 THE WITNESS: That's easy to explain in 11 some ways.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.13 THE WITNESS: INPO had a significant 14 concern about was our increased performance 15 sustainable.
It was so new. The progress was so new 16 that they weren't convinced that we had the track 17 record to show that the ball wasn't in essence going 18 to roll back down the hill.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.20 THE WITNESS: And plant performance, the 21 actual numbers themselves, tracked closer to a three 22 compared to how the others in the industry were doing 23 such that if they had given us a two, it would have 24 been a two with the benefit of the doubt so to say.25 They didn't do that, and was banking on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
34 1 them doing that. He wanted to c out of office and 2 re~ire .avi ig made :'.-s cc..iderable
..tride at Salem 3 ana Hope Creek as evidenced by INPO's score, and that 4 didn't happen.5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is what we 6 need to talk about.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, we'll get into 8 the effect that had on the site. You have indicated 9 that disappointment with this rating 10 affected a change in attitude both toward workers and 11 towards management from what you observed.12 THE WITNESS: Correct.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How did that manifest 14 itself? What were you seeing?15 THE WITNESS: First of all, became 16 very distant, largely invisible.
It was like he had 17 given up. He sent others to put the pressure on 18 people. were the two 19 J3 behind the fence that were under 20 considerable pressure to make change happen as they 21 called it.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What does that mean 23 "make change happen?" What goes into that?24 THE WITNESS: Improve results, improve 25 plant performance, almost by any means.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 35 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEAr IR: Operating 2 perrormal.ce, efficitcy performance.
3 THE WITNESS: Yes, both.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Or work environment 5 performance.
6 THE WITNESS: Well, there was not much 7 interest in improving work environment performance 8 because it was now the gloves were off and we were 9 going to do whatever it took to get results.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Because they had 11 gotten a three.12 THE WITNESS: Yes.13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Was that like a 14 demarcation line?15 THE WITNESS: It was a line of 16 demarcation, definitely in my view a line of 17 demarcation.
18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: After that there 19 was a very sharp decline, using your words, in the 20 work environment.
Is that accurate?21 THE WITNESS: That's accurate.
In fact, 22 we had been having a number of union-management what 23 we call mutual gains sessions where we would sit and 24 throw the issues up on the board. The union guys 25 would say we'll tackle this, and management would say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 36 1 we'll tackle that and we'll tackle these together.2 Actually ill that %. .:.. whi-h I was _.i some ways 3 accountable for had gotten us a strength which is how 4 INPO acknowledges ground taken and something 5 innovative in the industry.
It had gotten us kudos 6 from INPO. Then all of that dissipated once wB got 7 the three. The union guys got even more bitter 8 because their view was you just used us to impress 9 INPO, and now that they are not here anymore, you 10 won't even listen to us anymore.12 Frankly for me, it was totally 12 disheartening because I had promised them that this 13 wasn't the case. This was a real genuine effort. We 14 really cared about management-union partnership.
9 15 decided the thing to do was as he said put the 16 screws to the union.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When did that 18 statement come out?19 THE WITNESS: Last fall, and he again said 20 it to me when he was explaining why my position was 21 being eliminated.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The mutual gain 23 meetings where the union was involved and had a voice, 24 how long had that been going on before it was 25 discontinued?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERSRPR(om ISI ANM AVF.. N.W.
37 1 THE WITNESS: Between , `ne and twelve 2 nonths I wold -ay.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And they stopped in 4 the summer of 2002.5 THE WITNESS: Yes.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You mentioned that -.7 has now become distant and he's sending 8 other people to enforce his make change happen 9 message. You named the 10 :Was anybody else involved in that?11 THE WITNESS: Those were the two that it 12 was obvious that pressure was on them. First of all, 13 their offices were near mine so we talked quite often.14 was oftentimes in another building, so I 15 didn't see him very much. He was in some ways 16 invisible himself. He didn't presence himself as I 17 would have expected a to do, and I made 18 that clear toMi The pressure was definitely on 19 7.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We've seen a little 21 bit about your exchanges with\ Fn less so 22 wit V # What were your impressions of what 23 he thought of this change? Did he note a change first 24 of all, and how did he handle that?25 THE WITNESS: Frankly whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 38 1 intentionally or not, he handle it pretty 2 -.singeiuousy
- i. the se...), that once we got. the three 3 we had these management meetings and we told the work 4 place we're going to stay the course. We're not going 5 to make major changes. INPO told us just to stay the 6 course and we would be fine.7 And yet to my view, negative changes were 8 made despite what management said publicly.
What was 9 going on behind the scenes was some pretty significant 10 first of all infighting that trickled down between 11 ...... -- -- I..... Ultimately it resulted in a 12 reorganization.
13 moved out of the building 14 and outside the fence. So' got the whole thing to 15 deal with.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What caused problems 17 between the two of them? Do you know what they fought 18 about?19 THE WITNESS: They fought about leadership 20 style. They fought about technical issues. They 21 fought about how the plants were being led. *22 thought he was a premier operator, and 23 didn't think he had an operations mentality 24 whatsoever.
So they would fight over technical 25 issues. It was just a lot of infighting.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4121"1 DUAM 1Q I AI A %/I = KI %A/
39 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: In -our opinion, 2 be. ween .he tv, olf them, .was L..o3e the ch...npion of 3 plant safety?4 THE WITNESS: by far.5 SPECIAL AGENT'TEATOR:
Examples where he 6 disagreed wit on specific issues. Can you 7 provide some of those?a THE WITNESS: -9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Betwee 10 i1 (..11 THE WITNESS: There was an outage where it 12 was reported to me and it was talked about at a number 13 of management meetings wh and/14 ho was the were in 15 the control room at Salem. There was some issue over 16 starting up the plant following the outage.17 Frankly I'm not sure if it was a forced 18 outage or a refuel outage. But the SRO on duty was 19 told to n/a a line in a procedure in order to go 20 forward with start up. went ballistic over 21 that. The union guys went ballistic over it too.22 There was a public contentiousness over that issue.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did that result in 24 a grievance being filed? Is that the issue you 25 mentioned?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 40 1 THE WITNESS: No, it was different 2 3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The timeframe for 5 this issue was?6 THE WITNESS: Last year, 2002.7 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: This is Dan Orr.8 Dr. Harvin, is that directing an SRO to n/a 9 a step?.10 THE WITNESS: Yes.11 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: And was 12 furious about I f0ýroviding that direction.
13 THE WITNESS: Yes, he thought i l 14 was inept and should be removed from his position.
He 15 could not get that to happen. Inaade some in 16 routes. Then 9 nixed it., was removed 17 recently from that position, or the position was 18 eliminated is a more accurate way to say it. ButW 19 Eelt very strongly that( should 20 be removed from his position.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Because of that 22 particular issue.23 THE WITNESS: Because of that and other 24 issues.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: And you believe -<NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41 1 this was a 2002 outage at one of the Saler units.2 THE 'ITN1'SS:
Y .'.3 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Dr. Harvin, this is 4 Ray Lorson. Could you be more specific possibly?
Do 5 you remember when in 2002 this particular incident 6 occurred?7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Spring or fall I 8 think is when the outages are.9 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes, spring or fall.10 THE WITNESS: I don't remember.11 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay. Do you know 12 maybe a little bit more about what the dispute was 13 over in this particular procedure?
Do you know if 14 there was an equipment type issue that was being 15 n/a'd, or was it some operational procedure step? Do 16 you have any more of the specifics about what 17 procedure they were using that was n/a'd?18 THE WITNESS: No, but it wouldn't be hard 19 to find. This was very public because the message it 20 left with many of the operators was production over 21 safety once again.22 COORDINATOR VITO: Was it left that way?23 Was it ever corrected?
Was the step that was n/a'd 24 ever corrected?
In other words, did in the 25 argument and have that step done, or did the n/a hold?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 42 1 Do you know?2 iHE WI-NESI: Wel_, 'ae u+/-...t did stai.. up 3 at that time. I don't know what happened 4 retroactively.
5 COORDINATOR VITO: You don't know if they 6 went back and did the step.7 THE WITNESS: I don't know about that.8 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Do you happen to 9 know who the was in the control room that 10 actually n/a'd the step?11 THE WITNESS: I don't for sure, but 12 somebody was talking with 1=13 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was his 15 position?16 THE WITNESS: He's an! )17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dr. Harvin, do you 18 know if the licensee conducted their own investigation 19 of that particular issue? If so, do you know who 20 conducted it?21 THE WITNESS: I do not.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know if they 23 did an investigation or a condition report or anything 24 was initiated as a result of just that issue?25 THE WITNESS: I understand
-and I didn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 43 1 see it first hand -that a notification was vritten 2 about t, is. but wh, the.- it wa.. Lvest-gated or nrt, 3 I don't know.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How did you become 5 aware of this particular issue? Who brought this to 6 your attention?
7 THE WITNESS: It was talked about at 8 management meetings.
Various Salem operators had 9 mentioned it as why they didn't trust senior 10 leadership which leads me to another point. In 2002 -II 12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can we finish this 13 issue up please?14 THE WITNESS: Yes, sorry. It's related, 15 but go ahead.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: -why do 17 you think we need to talk to him?18 THE WITNESS: I think he might have been 19 the person directly involved, or he certainly know of 20 this.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he come to you 22 with a concern?23 THE WITNESS: No, not him.24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know if 25 during any of these management meetings management NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 44 1 decided that what had been done was actually trong?2 Did they reach a coi :lu. ion at aL" of -he meetin_.,s 3 that you participated in that what had been done was 4 wrong?5 THE WITNESS: The discussion as I recall 6 it was more around the lines of vice presidents and 7 directors have to be careful when they go in the 8 control room not to be perceived as giving orders when 9 that wasn't what was intended becausf'10 and said oh no we would never do that.11 The Salem operators who were in the control room made 12 it known that they thought they were given a direct 13 order. The message was more be responsible for your 14 position to the director and vice president as opposed 15 to what we did was wrong. I never heard anybody say 16 that was wrong that I did that.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Anything more to 18 that particular issue?19 COORDINATOR VITO: No.20 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: No, I don't think 21 so.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's take a break.23 Off the record.24 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 25 the record at 11:19 a.m. and went back on.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 45 1 the record at 11:23 a.m.)2 SPECLiiL AGNT .TEFF: -at: on -ne record.3 Before we broke, we were finished talking about the 4 incident in 2002 involving\( w _w.-Nconcerns and 5 what had happened in the control room. At this point, 6 is this the first awareness and first incident that 7 you have of this production over safety mindset on the 8 site?9 THE WITNESS: My short answer is no, but 10 it's the first one that I'm aware of that makes me 11 aware of a bigger issue or a related issue which is 12 there is a very big risk between Salem operators up to 13 and including the shift managers who as you know are 14 NRC licensed and senior management.
So this incident 15 brings the issue to a head of a growing distrust 16 between senior management and operations leadership at 17 Salem and a distrust by the guys with the licenses of 18 senior management.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Two splits.20 THE WITNESS: Two splits. That's very 21 important because the guys with the licenses were 22 feeling like they were pressured to make non 23 conservative decisions that don't understand why this 24 is now becoming the norm, this pressure, especially 25 since we had intensive conservative decision making NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 46 1 training. (t had with the management team ind 2 others a nu. *er oi sess. onZ where -alw&z s have to 3 think from John Q. Public and what would John Q.4 Public want us to do.5 And yet, there's this inconsistent and 6 almost diametrically opposed pressure that's coming 7 that has the guys with the licenses saying this isn't 8 right. Frankly, I don't know who to believe because 9 the guys with the licenses are viewed byC 10 specifically as the problem, and the guys with the 11 licenses are telling me that and the vice 12 presidents and director in this case, 13 are the problem. So my answer is let's all get in the 14 same room and talk about this because all I knew was 15 the rift that was present was potentially dangerous.
16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Are you talking 17 about the reactor operators?
18 THE WITNESS: No, I'm talking about .SROs.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you give us the 20 names?21 THE WITNESS: I have a long list of names.22 Do you want them now?23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you give us 24 some of them?25 THE WITNESS: Sure.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1191 Pg nr 1Ql Akin AM/: MI W 47 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you have them n 2 a document?3 THE WITNESS: No. Let me see.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why don't we take 5 a short break? Off the record.6 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 7 the record at 11:26 a.m. and went back on 8 the record at 11:28 a.m.)9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 10 record. It's 11:28 a.m.11 THE WITNESS: It's very important for you 12 to talk with what we used to call the operations 13 superintendents from Salem. I believe their title is 14 shift managers.
Each one of them will be able to 15 clearly tell you what it's been like to work under 16 this senior leadership team. I will go through and.17 give you all of those names. Would you like me to do 18 that now?19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes, if you could 20 do the f.. irs.21 THE WITNESS: Shift managers.
Let me give 22 you th >)first. His name is 23 Since I left, told me that he does not ?L 24 trust decision making 25 when it comes to nuclear safety.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 48 N was on du~y ----.-. .._ --had the union gentleman being very up in arms that led me to work closely with the Salem NEOs.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The September 2002 incident.THE WITNESS: Yes. --- .also an ---rr He voiced specific concerns about the rift between senior leadership and operations leadership.
-..SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: These are all THE WITNESS: Correct'.'
SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did they have a particular concern, or is it generally they don't trust the senior management decision making process?THE WITNESS: Yes, when it comes to operating the plants.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You had a specific instance involving, JU.'L .P "5 Go ahead. I'm sorry. fl NEAL R. GROSS rrl IRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 49 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And with all of these 2 individuals you .ave k.,owleC e .f that "c.:?3 THE WITNESS: From talking with them and 4 ----being in meetings with them. I was in a meeting with 5 them withip b.... q.mw-0& others. The meeting that 6 I'm talking about happened when was j ¢.7 .... So this was early 2002 I 8 believe. is somebody you should also talk with -9 because he ended up I believe many of his 10 issues related to the senior leadership team.11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What is his last 12 name again?13 THE WITNESS: 14 Another person that would be important for you to 15 speak with is 1 who 16 resigned but I understand is back at the site as a 17 contractor in engineering I believe or projects.
He 18 definitely was in agreement with how the nuclear 19 safety direction was coming from the top of the 20 organization.
21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Production over 22 safety.23 THE WITNESS: Yes, definitely.
24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is a list of 25 shift managers you gave us. That's quite a number of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 139. RHonF ISI ANf AVE.. N.MW 5o 1 shift managers who had this concern.2 THE W.rNESS: Yes, it was the. niJle Slem 3 operations team.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Other Do you 5 have other names?6 THE WITNESS: Yes, is 7 the last name.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You mentioned the 9 one particular incident about 10 Did this production over safety manifest 11 itself in any other particular incident at Salem that 12 these individuals had a particular concern with? Was 13 there another particular incident that is an example 14 of production over safety?15 THE WITNESS: There are other incidents.
16 I have no doubt about that. There were people in the 17 organization who were keeping track of these issues, 18 management and union people, because they were 19 concerned that the management, team from its actions 20 was going to put Salem out of business cause another 21 shut down.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who was tracking 23 those issues?24 THE WITNESS: I'll give you some more 25 names.NEAL R. GROSS 0 C ,% D *1= 0 A A M T P A N M MR I S E R S 51 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was his 2 po. ition?3 THE WITNESS: He's a 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you want to take 5 a moment?6 THE WITNESS: Yes, that would be good.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Off the record.8 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 9 the record at 11:35 a.m. and went back on 10 the record at 11:38 a.m.)11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Back on the record.12 It's 11:38 a.m. You are giving us a document.13 THE WITNESS: It's a copy of a document to 14 the line of questioning related to people who I knew 15 were keeping track of those safety issues. I received 16 an email from a gentleman by the name is t1. 17 He goes bge bh nin kname 18 He sent me two emails. One is dated Tuesday, 19 September 24 at 11:30 p.m.20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: '02?21 THE WITNESS: '02. The second is dated 22 Wednesday, September 25, 2002 at 4:59 a.m. In the 23 latter memo, he has 12 files that are attached that 24 are site safety concerns that in his view have not 25 been addressed.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 52 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know what 2 his title is?3 THE WITNESS: He's actually a wk 4 There are a number of union 5 people and I believe management people inside Salem 6 who were significantly concerned enough that they were 7 keeping a log. There's by the name of..8 ,how has extensive files ý'told 9 me on all of the issues at the site. I do not know if 10 .ý urvived the most recent reorganization or not.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: o position?12 THE WITNESS: was a part of the 13 corrective action process. had a number of_14 different position.
4% was appalled at how the site 15 was being run and said( could speak up only under 16 subpoena because *was afraid for ** job.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Again production 18 over safety, is that( general concern?19 THE WITNESS: Yes, andy concerns may 20 even pre-date mine. been there quite a while.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're being specific 22 to Salem with these issues. During this time period, 23 do you interact with the people at the Hope Creek site 24 in the same position?25 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was originally NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
53 1 assigned to Hope Creek. So I didn't get involved 2 reall: with Salem unt. l 200: to a..y Seat de_.-.:r.
I 3 have much more knowledge about Hope Creek. My sense 4 at Hope Creek *was the work environment was more 5 positive.6 .There was a starter partnership between 7 management and union. There was more stability in the 8 management ranks. hS been the.9 0for_. years, and he just resigned recently.10 He's also someone else you should talk to because he 11 was party to much of senior leadership's pressure.12 only recently did I hear from the shift managers at 13 Hope Creek of their distrust of senior leadership 14 decision making. Several incidents happened this year 15 that give grounds to that.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Those are the 17 technical issues that you brought in your original 18 information to the Commission.
19 THE WITNESS::
Yes.20 COORDINATOR VITO: Dr. Harvin, the issues 21 that you mentioned of folks keeping personal records 22 of things that they thought were problems -and you 23 mentioned that the one equipment operator had a list 24 of 12 items -are the items a mix of plant safety, 25 industrial safety?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 54 1 THE WITNESS: Yes.2 COORDINATOS VITO. S, t:ere a. .ome 3 industrial safety issues and some related to how the 4 plant was being operated or how equipment was being 5 operated.6 THE WITNESS: Yes, and some were related 7 to the maintenance of safety systems.8 COORDINATOR VITO: Okay.9 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dr. Harvin, with 10 these 12 files, is that what we're going to get a copy 11 of, the specifics of those 12 issues?12 THE WITNESS: I'll give you a copy of the 13 email I have. I do not have copies of the 12 14 attachments.
When I was asked to leave the company 15 early, they cut off my email access. So I wasn't able 16 to retrieve these documents.
17 COORDINATOR VITO: Were the attachments 18 similar emails, or were they notification numbers? Do 19 you know if the issues had been documented in the 20 corrective action system or not?21 THE WITNESS: No, I don't know, but I'm 22 sure has his files.23 RESIDENT INSJECTOR ORR: I guess the other 24 question is when you received this email what did you 25 do with this particular email, or how did you address NEAL GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I
55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 it?THE WITNESS; I gave a uopy of it -lie head'of quality assurance WI and wanted to know what of these issues he was aware of. In this email,WA says "I just asked an NCO if we had a quality assurance department on the island. He could not say that he actually had and had not seen any for a while, an observation seconded by me." He goes on to talk about the quality assurance organization.
RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: To your knowledge, what was the nature of response to these issues?THE WITNESS: Yes, I've heard this, nothing new here. That was his response as I recall.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: To you?THE WITNESS: To me.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right, to you.THE WITNESS: We've known for a while the Salem NEOs were a problem.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Shoot the messenger.
Is that how you characterize how he took that concern?THE WITNESS: I took it as those guys are the problem.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that the extent IC qc.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 56 1 of his response, or did he take some kind of action on 2 it?3 THE WITNESS: To my Knowledge, he didn't 4 take any action.5 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Are you aware of 6 any of the details of any of the 12 particular files 7 that were attached?
In other words, do you know any 8 of the specifics of any of the concerns or issues or 9 just that there were general concerns and issues?10 THE WITNESS: Each file has a name.11 Changes to Manning (PH), SAP safety issues, plant 12 safety issues, safety concerns, duty of operators, 13 unsafe operations, state of, training feedback, 14 calculus, standards, dear sirs, safety.15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We can go to 16 40 then is what you are saying for the specifics.
17 THE WITNESS: Yes. Did you read this 18 email? Would you like me to read it? It's very 19 telling. What would you like me to do at this point?20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's pretty brief.21 Let's go ahead and hear it if you think it's relevant.22 THE WITNESS: This is after I had met with 23 a group of NEOs who were very concerned about 24 that they thought was unsafe 25 to close. "I commend you on your attempt at improving NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 117 PHW(rW IRI ANf AVE.. N.W.
57 1 the safe and continued operation of the station. I 2 anderstand that it was Iue o t ! -perati --3 department weekly meeting that you deemed it necessary 4 as ear to look further into the situation.
5 After our meeting tonight, I hope you have 6 a better flavor as to our concerns.
We did not have 7 the intent of causing any of our immediate supervisors 8 to feel the grief you described." Just as an aside, MW )who was their immediate supervisor was on the 10 verge of quitting over this issue. He was at the end 11 of his rope he said.12 "Unfortunately as usual even to myself it 13 sounded like a lot of NEO whining. Keep in mind that 14 this meeting was not planned or offered with any time 15 to prepare. Also keep in mind that even though you 16 heard a lot of valuable information, information that 17 you said was good, you only have had a small sampling 18 of the information available.
There are a lot of good 19 people working here that were not available to attend 20 but also have issues that need to be addressed.
21 Your intent to get a forum together to 22 address these issues with' or his designee is a 23 direction I feel is needed. I have been involved in 24 many such activities and per your request would agree 25 to take part in this one if I see it is a possible NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.-.~tIAO 'LJIL~'fLIýý L ^~f ^ A^^ qi'.A-^A'.
')'
58 1 path to better the operations here.2 Like I said, 1 aould take paL.: in a.., 3 actions that are in the best interest of the station 4 including being involved with this course of action.5 Before this meeting takes place, I feel you should at 6 least pull the remaining individuals in the department 7 for the concerns.
We are a department that has many 8 concerns, many issues, too many than can be addressed 9 in one meeting.10 The information asked for should be: 11 actions that we, the operations department, have taken 12 when their opinion is adverse to the safe operation of 13 a nuclear generating station, actions that have had 14 detrimental effects on the safe being of those that 15 work here and/or the equipment needed for safe 16 operations, actions that anyone feels might have a 17 negative impact on the station should outside 18 influence get word of it. After all, we should all be 19 here for the long run, and any issues that meet the 20 above criteria would most certainly lead to the early 21 shut down of our livelihood.
22 When pulled, the individuals should be 23 asked not to immediately deluge you *with lesser 24 concerns that could mask those that need to be 25 addressed first. If this does indeed develop into an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
59 1 ongoing activity to improve operations, all concerns 2 w..l eventua ly be heard. It ig thc.e greater 3 concerns and upper management's actions to those 4 concerns that will determine the success or failure of 5 these activities and my involvement.
6 These activities and any information 7 gathered should be put out to all associates.
It 8 should be clearly communicated before any meeting that 9 all attending the meeting are as informed as the next 10 guy on the content of the meeting. No one likes being 11 blindsided.
It was also very disconcerting to hear 12 that 'I was not aware of' from those we trust to be 13 running the station. Thanks, 14 He then several hours later writes a 15 message that says "On second thought, I do not believe 16 I can be successful as a major part of what you are 17 proposing, but I do believe that we have a need to 18 have a more focused look at what we're doing here in 19 operations.
But I do not believe that it can be done 20 from within this department.
21 It is the knowledge base and operating 22 practices that have been engraved into every one of 23 us, even myself, that has led to these events. It is 24 the newer supervisors that seem to be trying to do the 25 right things. Well, less and less every day but are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.......n r )nnn=-1711 If9M -4.A14 60 1 being affected by and changed by us. Plus I do not 2 believe the rec. issues causing these event.3 les on 3 shift." Should I continue?4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it similar?5 THE WITNESS: Let me just look. To the 6 end, "whatever these activities provide will not have 7 a leg to stand on if senior island management does not 8 get on board and support it, not just support it, 9 demand it. Like I said to you, I cannot believe that 10 management up to and including is not aware of 11 the activities discussed at the meeting. But I will 12 give them the courtesy of assuming that they do not.13 On the other hand, if they do and allow 14 it, that is their choice as well. PSE&G has been 15 around a great deal of time regardless of any and all 16 decisions that they have made. I believe that they 17 are smart people and they know what they are doing.18 My only issue then would be to have them stop 19 contradicting themselves and wildly confusing the rest 20 of us. A little honesty is all I ask.21 Like I have stated to you, I am at the 22 point of feeling uncomfortable in some of the actions 23 I have taken in regards to all of this. As mentioned 24 earlier, that is what is engraved in my by many of the 25 company programs I was exposed to. They have always NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W 61 1 stated that they need personnel to speak out with 2 thesc kinds of "ssues. I am al ays peved 3t 'hose 3 who sat back and did nothing and said nothing.4 I will be available for any information 5 that I have solicited.
I'm also attaching some 6 letters that I have sent in the past regarding some of 7 the issues that I have felt were below standards.
I 8 will not say that some did not stretch into a 9 sarcastic nature. As much as that might be 10 unprofessional, I do believe that gained them some 11 notoriety and results.12 I have no plans on leaving the company 13 even if management only gives a little in the area of_14 safety to gain monetarily.
I also understand that 15 openly I will not and cannot be asked to disregard 16 safety no matter what the company's real desire is.17 But I can for my own feeling of safe employment tone 18 down my concerns for the time being and give you and 19 qj time to show your desires. I will however still 20 try to act in all other areas in the manner I always 21 have. I am still the master of my own actions. I'm 22 the final decision maker for my own safety.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who is the author 24 of that?25 THE WITNESS: NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
62 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 2 SPECI. L AGENT NEFF: .-,Iis i&3 THE WITNESS: 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the date again on 5 that?6 THE WITNESS: Wednesday, September 25, 7 2002. It was addressed to me with a copy to 8 the and 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In that email, it 11 looks like he has an expectation that there is some 12 sort of a forum to handle his concerns and that you 13 were going to be fronting that idea. What resulted 14 from that? Did it happen?15 THE WITNESS: I went to oft Mr.16 17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 18 THE WITNESS: m m m-.-19 who at the time was -- He 20 said that he would take care of it. He did not want 21 to involve t this point. He needed to get out 22 and meet with the union guys himself. He would bring 23 in employee concerns to investigate which he did just 24 like the employee concerns manager came in and 25 interviewed the people I believe o shift, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.-. ten" .a.*.. 1~ l~a. -f .,na --n -..nf 1^^^% jj 63 1 the nuclear equipment operators, and wrote a 2 confidential repo. which I read b, : was requi.'ed -o 3 turn back to o I do not have a copy.4 But my reading of it was that all of the 5 safety concerns that the union gentlemen had expressed 6 to me got expressed to Other than**7 gagreeing to go and meet with 8 all the shifts, I don't know of any'further action 9 that was taken. I'm not even positive that they 10 actually went and met with the shifts which was my 11 very strong recommendation to all of them.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you recall what 13 the conclusion was of this confidential report as to 14 whether these concerns were valid or not?15 THE WITNESS: The report validated their 16 concerns.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.18 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dr. Harvin, you 19 mentioned the incident where .,reportedly 20 21 22 23/24 THE WITNESS: As they reported to me, it 25 had a very big plume. They not only thought it was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
64 1 unsafe to shut, .thought it was unsafe to 2 shut.3 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: When you say 4 "unsafe," do you mean from an industrial safety 5 perspective where by shutting the valve you could get 6 a steam burn by being in close proximity to the steam?7 THE WITNESS: Yes.8 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: So they were 9 referring to an industrial safety concern rather than 10 a nuclear safety concern.11 THE WITNESS: That's my impression from 12 that meeting.13 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: The other thing 14 that's a little puzzling tb me is in terms of 15 production over safety, what's the production 16 attribute that's being maintained as a result of 17 18 19 THE WITNESS: Shut the plant down to 21 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Shut the plant 22 down.23 THE WITNESS: There was no way to do it 24 otherwise I was told.25 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Okay. Thank you.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.,r~fS *J j41 AIA nLJS&It-ý%1f~
Me'J n^mfn -)7n4 VIA11% ry4AAj 65 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I wanted to go 2 backwards.
We branchI off after star, Lng to discss 3 the negative effects after the WANO review. One of 4 the negative effects had been that the union was now 5 discounted at the mutual gain meetings.
I think you 6 indicated that there was more to it, there were more 7 negative effects that you observed.
Is there anything 8 you want to add to that?9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Talking about the 10 start of the decline before your firing.11 THE WITNESS: In conversations withw 12 )especially after the incident that we just 13 talked about, it was pretty clear to me that he had 14 shifted from believing that management at the site was 15 the problem to the union guys now are the problem. As 16 I mentioned, under the regime, the union 17 guys were definitely treated like they were the 18 problem and were viewed by the management at that time 19 as the problem.20 So once again, it's almost as if the 21 pendulum swang somewhat violently to the other side of 22 we have to put the screws to the union. There were 23 more disciplinary actions taken. There was the 24 incident of the PR-2 valve that some of you may be 25 familiar with that cost the company millions and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.,oo.- ..........
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 66 millions of dollars because a technician performed his work improperly.
Those technicians involved and their supervisor were fired as I understand it. The technicians were brought back only whe "W the ¶F went to and threatened media publicity and picketing at the site.That caused to give the order to bring those guys back which was against what VMM" F "-and the I!* !thought was the appropriate action. 7had threatened to me to quit if corporate didn't back his and l'decision to have these people not return to the site.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Based on your knowledge of that incident, what the workers did, was it wrong? Did they do something they shouldn't have done? I THE WITNESS: Yes, that's my knowledge of the incident.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So the issue is too severe discipline.
Is that what the issue was?THE WITNESS: Yes, that's the issue as well as their supervisor wasn't on that shift. As I 1c, understand it, he was home in bed. He got fired for -NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
67 1 2 S.?ECIAL AGE:T TEATOR: For being 'heiz 3 supervisor.
4 THE WITNESS: Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is part of that in 6 this survey? Did some of the comments about that come 7 out in this survey? Do you recall?8 THE WITNESS: I don't.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There is an 10 individual who talks about being home in bed.11 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's exactly it.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this is going 13 toward that incident.14 THE WITNESS: Yes.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We don't have a date 16 for that incident.
Can you tell me when that 17 happened?18 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I have an idea.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You look like you've 20 heard about it.21 SPECIAL AGENT. TEATOR: What time frame are 22 we talking about?23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you need anything 24 further on it?25 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: It would be fall NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
68 1 2002. Right? November 2002 was the PR-2.2 THL WITNESS: That sounds riý ,t. 'hiere 3 was another incident that happened that was a further 4 example of management shifting its relationship with 5 the union. This relates to the, 6 " This was related 7 to him not going immediately for a-6 , 1 8 9 Frankly at my request, he was attending a.10 meeting at the training center on his day off. That 11 went all the way to arbitration.
The arbitrator ruled, 12 that the company was in error, and got 13 reinstated with back pay. I cite this as an example 14 as the shift from union-management partnership and 15 working things out together to, asj .called it, 16 putting the screws to the union.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did this involve is ' .....hat was random, or was it 19 something scheduled?
20 THE WITNESS: Yes, it was random.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He had been selected 22 randomly and did not show up.23 THE WITNESS: He showed up later in the 24 day.25 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Dr. Harvin, do you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS vrn RHnnfl IRI ANfl AVE.. N.W.
69 1 know when thias 2 there a policy a: the site hat stated when alled 2or 3 [....[ §you had to respond withini a 4 certain period of time otherwise you were considered 5 to be not in compliance with the 7 THE WITNESS: I believe there was a policy 8 along those lines, but he was in a meeting with his 9 management chain. They gave permission for him to go 10 after the meeting was over. Instead because it was 11 his day off, he returned home and then subsequently 12 responded to a late afternoon call from w)13 telling him he better get to the site or he was going 14 tobe in big trouble.15 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I see. So Dr.16 Harvin, what it sounds like is the problem that he had 17 with the 'wasn't that he 18 didn't leave the meeting to go to the test. It was 19 that he went home at the completion of the meeting as 20 opposed to going fo at that time.21 THE WITNESS: Yes, he cited it as a 22 miscommunication.
He thought he had permission to go 23 the next day when he returned to the site. The 24 managers present thought they had made it very clear 25 that he was supposed to go when the meeting was over.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
70 1 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Thank you.2 SPECI.L AGENT NE. F: Are you addi. g other 3 incidents at this point? You were talking about the 4 breakdown in the management.
5 THE WITNESS: That's what comes to mind 6 right now.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Should we take a 8 break, or do you have something further on that?9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We want to try to 10 finish up with the overall general SCWE type issues.11 Then we can move forward after that. Is there 12 anything more you wanted to ask about that, Ray?13 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: No.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dave?15 COORDINATOR VITO: No.16 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: No.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I have a couple 18 questions of course. These survey comments that you 19 provided to the Commission, what are they of? Whose 20 survey is that?21 THE WITNESS: My understanding is this is 22 a survey that's sent out quarterly
-in this case two 23 quarters were combined -by the employee concerns 24 manager. I do not know how the survey is conducted, 25 who it goes to, et cetera. I was sent these comments.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
71 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: By who? Do you 2 remember.3 THE WITNESS: Yes.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you tell me 5 who?6 THE WITNESS: Do I have to?7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to need 8 that information.
9 THE WITNESS: Okay.(10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who is he?12 THE WITNESS: He's a member of the 12 ,management team who has been concerned about safety 13 work environment issues. He knew that I had written 14 my letter to Iand that an investigation was is underway.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What position is he 17 in?18 THE WITNESS: Right now he was just named 19 the 20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you believe that 21 the ECP survey is done every quarter on a quarterly 22 basis, or is this special?23 THE WITNESS: I don't believe it's 24 special. There's been one since then. They were done 25 when I was there. The response rate was generally NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
72 1 pretty low as I recall.3 He's one of the people who has 22 years of 4 service and no longer has a job with the company. He 5 had concerns.
He would be an excellent person to talk 6 with about concerns brought to him from employees at 7 all levels about the site issues of mismanagement, 8 nuclear safety, et cetera.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did he switch 10 his position?11 THE WITNESS: In 2002. He was quite upset 12 about having to switch positions and how it was 13 handled.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Excuse me. Do you 15 know if there are other surveys that the company had 16 conducted at the site independent of ECP regarding 17 work environment type issues?18 THE WITNESS: The Gallup Q-12.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When was that?20 THE WITNESS: Well, the results were due 21 out April 1. To my knowledge, they have not been 22 published.
23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: April 1?24 THE WITNESS: Of this year, yes. It was 25 the final survey under leadership.
The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
73 1 Gallup organization was due to provide those to the 2 site on or about Aprii 1. I made repeated inquir-as, 3 and those results have not been published to the 4 management team to my knowledge.
5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Other surveys that 6 pre-date that, not going back to the '90s but in the 7 2001-2002 time period?8 THE WITNESS: Yes, we had a pilot of a 9 program called Imagine 21 that with it had a work 10 place culture survey called the Circumplex, C-I-R-C-U-11 M-P-L-E-X, which is produced by a company called Human 12 Synergistics, S-Y-N-E-R-G-I-S-T-I-C-S.
The 13 participants in that pilot, roughly 52 people, 14 completed a culture survey that showed what the 15 current culture is and what the ideal culture would 16 be.17 A gentleman by the name of 7 18 came in and reported to the senior leadership team 19 those survey results. I just saw my notes recently.20 He put it as it basically is a kiss-up, kick-down 21 culture.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What does that mean 23 "kiss-up, kick-down?" 24 THE WITNESS: Yes, it means you kiss up to 25 the boss and you kick down to the people who work for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
74 1 you which in my area of expertise is a destructive 2 culture. In fact, it'. called a 'estructive cult' :e 3 in this model.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you left the 5 site in late March 2003, were there areas at the site, 6 Salem/Hope Creek, corporate, nuclear, that had a 7 better safety work environment culture than other 8 groups? Which ones maybe functioned a little bit 9 better if there were any?10 THE WITNESS: Yes, sure. I would say Hope 11 Creek operations was one of the healthiest in part 12 because the people there worked very hard on 13 leadership, cultural work environment issues. They 14 were very much on the radar screen. Shift managers 15 and the leadership team at Hope Creek were very 16 consciously measured by their success in those arenas.17 Another organization that I believe had fairly strong 18 culture-was which is headed by a gentleman by the 19 name of who was really 20 renowned in the industry for being a top notch-iW 21 22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Which unit? For 23 both?24 THE WITNESS: Yes, for both.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Site wise?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 75 THE WITNESS: Yes, and he also recently had his job eliminated, s. he doesn' have a position jas someone who held to the highest standards and was also concerned about how the site was being run and production over safety issues. He was to some degree a thorn in people's sides because he held to the highest standards.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You indicated that the people on the Hope Creek site in operations, the shift managers and the leadership team, were measured in terms of how they worked on their leadership issues. Who was doing the measuring?
Are these people that are different than those doing the measuring on the Salem side?THE WITNESS: The commitment by this leadership at Hope Creek being led by and was stronger.
Together with them, I did the measuring of people's leadership progress.
There was certainly way less interest in that on the Salem side for a couple of reasons. One is they had a revolving door in the position.
In the time that I was there, I don't believe they had an mUI7[~~..1 in the position much over a year.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I have a couple of questions.
Other departments or groups which you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.IC, 76 1 viewed as healthy or fairly strong as far as work 2 environment or had a gtod safety conscious work 3 environment?
4 THE WITNESS: No.5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The obvious 6 question.
In you view,.which were the most unhealthy 7 work environments on the site?8 THE WITNESS: Salem operations, 9 maintenance.
10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Salem or site wide?11 THE WITNESS: At that time, it was one 12 site maintenance, so we would say both. We didn't 13 separate them. Chemistry.
14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Site wide?15 THE WITNESS: Yes. The only incident I 16 know about related to engineering was several years 17 ago when a gentleman by the name o'18 reportedly
-and I do say reportedly 19 because I don't have first hand knowledge of this -20 went to, over nuclear safety issues and 21 was treated very harshly, was demoted, and eventually 22 left the site to go work at Fossil. It was frankly 23 how he was treated that very much in my view chilled 24 the work environment at the management level about 25 what happens if you cross and what can NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
77 1 happen if you rock the boat from a nuclear safety 2 perspective.
I do not kno'. what the ssue was.3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Timeframe?
4 THE WITNESS: I'm guessing 2001.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How do you know that?6 THE WITNESS: How do I know the timeframe?
7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The issue.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How do you know that 9 he raised the issue directly t -Yand that's what 10 reacted to?11 THE WITNESS: I was told that byl 121\12 _w+ ho was the 13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Of engineering?
14 THE WITNESS: No, he was the 15 Well, at that time, I believe he was 16 the Hope Creek This was a pretty 17 public falling out of favor. In fact, A 18 was given time off whether it was suspension or not.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is there something 20 else connected to it, some sort of performance 21 deficiency?
22 'THE WITNESS: I don't know. What often 23 happens, as you will see in this case, is when people 24 leave our work environment they thrive. So he is now 25 in the inner circle at Fossil.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
78 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the two surveys 2 that you talked about, the Gallup ,-12 and the 3 Circumplex done by Human Synergistics, are these 4 normal surveys that come out, or were they specially 5 scheduled?
Why were they done?6 THE WITNESS: The Human Synergistics 7 Circumplex one was done as I mentioned as part of this 8 Imagine 21 pilot session. It was done with the people 9 who were attending this pilot to see if we wanted to 10 offer it to all employees.
That's why that was done.11 The Q-12'was done for several years in a row byi 12 as a way of measuring progress.13 Survey results were in people's 14 performance appraisals.
Your organization had to make 15 strides in the ratings in order to get mirrored 16 increases or the like. There were also some corporate 17 surveys done in the early years when I was at the 18 site. I don't recall those happening in the last 19 couple of years.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about the 21 response to the fact that the results of that survey 22 came up with it's a kiss-up, kick-down environment?
23 Was there any response to that?24 THE WITNESS: Yes, we know that.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
79 1 corrective action?2 THE WITNESS: I would sa, there was 3 attempts at corrective action, but the problem we got 4 to was we would tell the management team act like this 5 -whatever the this was. I have books on winning 6 behaviors, et cetera. But then they would see the 7. vice presidents and not act like this. So we 8 couldn't take ground because the message asi 9 talks about is -inconsistent.
Management says one 10 thing and does another. So it eroded any real chance 11 of progress on an organizational level.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The people that they 13 were indicating that they already knew that this was 14 a kiss-up, kick-down atmosphere, who was that?15 THE WITNESS: 16 17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 19 on this area?20 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I have one 21 additional question.
A few minutes ago you mentioned 22 the shift managers having distrust of senior 23 management when it came to nuclear safety issues. I 24 believe you stated that the rift was potentially 25 dangerous.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
80 THE WITNESS: Yes.2 BRANCH CHIEF LORSOI.: In youi mind, how 3 would this rift manifest itself in a nuclear safety 4 issue? What sorts of things could happen or be a 5 consequence of this rift?6 THE WITNESS: I think we saw a pretty 7 recent example of what could have been possible.
This 8 happened to be at Hope Creek. The divisiveness that 9 I saw had licensed operators questioning do they honor 10 their license responsibilities and in some cases risk II defining senior management or do they follow senior 12 management and risk events happening.
In my view, we 13 don't want people with nuclear safety responsibilities 14 second guessing themselves and feeling like they are 15 going to get their ass chewed for making a decision 16 that honored their license but wasn't what senior 17 management wanted them to do.18 Also in my view, we want the guys on the 19 front lines with the reactor, with the licenses to be 20 fully engaged in the matters of the moment without 21 having to have any of their attention on how much 22 trouble am I going to get into over this, how much 23 heat am I going to have to take. We don't want those 24 folks to have what I'll call divided loyalties.
My 25 concern is I believe we're set up where that is in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
81 1 fact the case.2 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Are you aw, re of any 3 specific examples where any of these individuals 4 performed an action that was contrary to the 5 requirements of their license or contrary to some 6 plant megulation or requirement that was made?7 THE WITNESS: Not specifically at Salem.8 Though I know when you speak with the shift managers 9 can tell you about that.10 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay.11 THE WITNESS: But I can cite a recent 12 example at Hope Creek that actually happened after I 13 left and after gone. This relates to 14 the reactivity management event that has been written 15 up as an industry significant event. The O 16 t told me very recently that he felt he did not 17 have the power or authority to stop the evolution even 18 though he knew it was ill-conceived, ill-planned, and 19 violated how it was being done, violated many of the 20 processes and procedures we have in place for how to 21 conduct those kinds of evolutions.
22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who?23 THE WI.TNESS: 24 25 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: This reactivity NEAL R. GROSS _.COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 119. R1 H)nr IMI A'n At/F MW 11 82 1 management event, can ycu be a little more specific?2 ;.as it a plant power change? What was going on?3 THE WITNESS: I have the write up.4 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: You have the write 5 up for it. Okay.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you need a 7 couple of minutes? If you do, we'll take a break off 8 the record.9 THE WITNESS: Yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Off the record.11 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 12 the record at 12:25 p.m. and went back on 13 the record at 12:45 p.m.)14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the record. When 15 we went off the record, we were discussing the Hope 16 Creek incident involving the -17 vand his concerns about not being able to stop 18 the evolution.
Did you talk to anyone else involved 19 in that incident who would have additional information 20 for us?21 THE WITNESS: Yes, are you talking about 22 the data activity management event?23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.24 THE WITNESS: /J" III -- .."54..25 ._ He was on shift that night as well. Those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVF N W 83 1 two can certainly give you sufficient insight and lead 2 you to any other people to speak wich.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is he an SRO?4 THE WITNESS: He's a He 5 was there in a different capacity.
I believe he was 6 there as a,,, You should also talk tolq .ew.7 -.about how this was handled because he very much 8 believes senior leadership didn't give the right level 9 of support.10 There was another incident at Hope Creek.1 also involving B that warrants a look. There 12 was a 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> LCO that involved the Alpha or Bravo 13 emergency diesel generator that had a jacket water 14 leak. Towards the end of the LCO window,*15 who had the watch with his crew, wanted to commence 16 plant shut down and was told by 17 ,.not to commence plant shut ýdown.18 There was an extensive conversation,.
19 Qreports to me, between himself 20 21 "I- W NI _ ... decide to go against the 22 direction given by their superior, and 23 commence the plant shut down. ( told me it was 24 not a direct order from and maybe 25 purposefully so, but the right thing to do was to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 84 1 commence plant shut down so I guesse- -2 diz*ction.
iexercised his licensed Litries 3 and commenced plant shut down.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How did you become 5 aware of that particular issue? q 7 6 THE WITNESS: !)himself told me 7 about it.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Since we already 9 talked about this issue, I'm going to ask a couple of 10 questions.
There is something in here about that the 11 operator wasn't going to take the appropriate action 12 until he was told to do so by anothergM Is that 13 that what you are talking about there?14 THE WITNESS: Where did you get the piece 15 about the operator wasn't going to take the 16 appropriate action? I didn't say that.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Go ahead and tell 18 me about this. Give me the names of the people 19 involved.
I didn't think we were going to get to this 20 yet, but go ahead. When are we talking aboutl 21 COORDINATOR VITO: This is June 2003.22 THE WITNESS: Correct.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We led to this from AC 24 the other Hope Creek incident.
That's how we got 25 here.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
85 1 THE WITNESS: Yes, the point I want to be sure gets made is we're putting licens-d operatox..
in 3 the position where they have to defy their upper 4 management to do the right thing. That is a safety 5 conscious work place environment issue, no doubt about 6 it.7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It may be more than 8 that. That's why we're asking follow up questions.
9 THE WITNESS: Okay.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: There may be a 11 problem with how they operated the plant at that 12 point. It may be more than a SCWE type issue.13 THE WITNESS: All right. So what's your 14 question?15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is there more 16 detail you can provide to us here at the table about 17 that particular incident?
What was being done 18 incorrectly?
19 COORDINATOR VITO: You said that 20 said that it wasn't a direct order. How did he 21 describe the statement made by -7c 22 THE WITNESS: They were told.23 COORDINATOR VITO: It wasn't a direct 24 order. What was it?25 THE WITNESS: Direction.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
86 1 COORDINATOR VITO: Just direction not to 2 shut t-e plant down.3 THE WITNESS: Right.4 COORDINATOR VITO: Or not to initiate shut 5 down per the LCO action statement.
6 TEE WITNESS: Correct. I actually found 7 out about this incident from another by 8 the name o -~who said he was concerned that 9 we were still putting production over safety.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who are some others 11 who can share first hand knowledge of that particular 12 incident?
Do you have some other ones?13 THE WITNESS: 14 AI don't know who was on his crew that day.15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.16 THE WITNESS: .. .is someone you 17 should definitely talk to because my sense ofM'.is 18 he was very much, especially for over the past year, 19 under considerable pressure from senior management and 20 specificallyJ..
He was 21 viewed by many in the organization simply as their 22 puppet. So if they said you have to keep the plant 23 online, would not necessarily have thought of that 24 himself. He's their agent. I don't know. I haven't 25 talked to' about this to know what was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 87 goi g on, what pressure he may have been under to give that direction.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The timeframe for this incident?THE WITNESS: Dave actually cited that.COORDINATOR VITO: June of this year.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: After you had already left the employment of PSE&G.THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: contacted you at your home, by email. How did he tell you about this?THE WITNESS: I don't know who called who.He's a friend of mine, so we talk. Because I was waiting for the company's response to my letter to)I've been pretty diligent about keeping my'fingers on the pulse of what was happening.
I felt I needed to give the company the opportunity to respond and wanted to be sure that in the interim safety matters weren't getting out of hand. If they were, I would have come to you sooner.BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Are you aware of any disciplinary action that was taken agains as a result of his not following through with the direction that was provided by ..to not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.t 88 1 shut the plant down or to not initiate the plant shut 2 down?3 THE WITNESS: No, I'm not. I don't know.4 It wasn't discussed.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It looks as though 6 you are offering these incidents, the ones at Hope 7 Creek, as part of what we asked you what were you 8 observing in terms of this breakdown and about the 9 safety conscious work environment.
Do you have 10 anything else to add to that in terms of any other 11 incidents as Hope Creek? You had said before that at 12 one point Salem had problems but Hope Creek was all 13 right under# Management, but recently you 14 had learned that there were some other issues there.15 THE WITNESS: Yes, the biggest issues at 16 Hope Creek came out when they were in a forced outage 17 earlier this year. The incident I'm talking about 18 related to the bypass valve. This was the incident 19 that had tell me we were dangerous, and 20 if the NRC knew what we were doing, they would take 21 the keys away which led me toY _- 1 office 22 because asn't going to go himself.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You said a lot 24 there. Let's break that down if we could.25 THE WITNESS: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
89 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: From the beginning, how did yia first become aware of this? Wh..t was the 3 issue, and what happened?
Take your time please.4 THE WITNESS: Okay.5 COORDINATOR VITO: This is mid-March 2003.6 THE WITNESS: Yes, we were in a plant 7 outage at Hope Creek that evolved into a forced 8 outage. It's really hot for some reason if I recall.9 So the revenues at stake for the corporation, I was 10 told, were roughly $3 million a day towards the end of 11 this time period that we're talking about. As I 12 understand it, there was a bypass valve -and I'm not 13 technical so just take that into account -and that 14 there was a problem with it closing.15 There was concern about what to do, 16 whether to extend the outage and fix the valve or not.17 As I recall, as they were bringing the unit down to 18 fix this valve, the valve inexplicably closed which 19 was what it was supposed to do. As I understand it -20 and I wasn't there so I don't have first hand 21 knowledge
-calls came in tok I.......22 23 24 to keep the unit online, do not continue to shut down 25 the unit, and fix the valve because the valve closed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 1 2 2 1 2 90 1 and thz 's -what we needed it to do. So go back up on X_ power and mace electricity.
3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who is telling you 4 about this?5 THE WITNESS: kM is telling me 6 about this, and-7 is telling me about this. A couple of 8 pieces of background information that are highly 9 relevant, by this time, retirement
..had 0 been announced.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7.8.9 0 1 2 3 4 5)told me, the second his retirement was announced everything changed, power changed, a power shift happened.
was now calling the shots. So " " a.-calling the shots, not. .which is why was having these dialogues wit (.1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The power change occurred before this particular incident you are talking about.THE 'WITNESS:
Correct.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This is an example of the power change.THE WITNESS: Correct. As I have been f-Q told by a number of people, whose names I' Ill recite in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
91 1 a second there was a four to six hour debate going on bt-ween the licensed operators at Hope Creek and the 3 person named 0 w 4 )but acting in the capacity of 5 )because 6 There was a debate between the licensed 7 operators and corporate who put in the middle 8 about why we should not start up the unit, continue 9 power. Is that clear so far?10 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes, I was 11 originally a little confused because initially I 12 though the concern was about what to do to extend the 13 outage or fix the valve, but later you talk about 14 keeping the unit online. So the actual situation it 15 sounds like is that the bypass valve went shut during 16 a power ascension point in time where the unit was 17 operating but it was not a full power. The decision 18 was made to continue operating rather than shut the 19 unit down to fix the valve. Is that what you meant?20 THE WITNESS: Yes, I believe so.21 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay.22 THE WITNESS: I'm not well versed on the 23 technical aspects.24 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay.25 THE WITNESS: And there's lots of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 11-> JR ANr) AVE.. N.W.
92 1 documentae .on on this. In fact, I believe I already 2 for,.arded you .ome documentation.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Part of the last 4 file.5 THE WITNESS: Yes.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.7 THE WITNESS: The concern was that if 8 pressure lasts four to six hours you could call it 9 substantial.
Substantial pressure coming fromr!rv w -10 .. )to/saying find a 11 way to get the unit back up and running. It's $3 12 million a day. The debate was so intense and so 13 disheartening to the operators that anybody in their 14 mind would think that the right thing to do would be 15 to continue with power extension or allow the unit to 16 be online was ludicrous to anybody with a license.17 That's whe came to me and said -and 18 I'll look at the exact quote -we are dangerous.
Even 19 that we're debating this means that they should take 20 the keys away.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Wa 22 telling you this contemporaneously to the event 23 happening or shortly after it?24 THE WITNESS: Yes, the next day.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 93 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dr. Harvin, do you know if any senior reactor operators were involved in that debate? Was this the debate between(f THE WITNESS: K was licensed.RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Who were the players in that debate?THE WITNESS: My understanding was definitely o so upset he walked out. I don't know who else was in the room. I somehow got the impression that'also there which would be not surprising given the intensity of this issue.RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: So this is a debate that occurred on-site. It was not a debate with'THE WITNESS: It was over the phone. As I understand it, they weren't there in person.SPECIAL AGENT TEATORR4 weren't there.THE WITNESS: Right.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They were on a phone call with these other people.THE WITNESS: That's right. Back and forth was the picture painted for me.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS C-3 94 1 'PECIAL AGENT TEATOR: By?2 THE ;'*TNESS: 3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You indicated you 4 had a list of names of other people who provided 5 information to you regarding this incident.6 THE WITNESS: I said a list of names.7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is this the list?8 THE WITNESS: I'm not sure.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I wrote do 10 "-probably.
11 THE WITNESS-0 12 wasn't there, but he dealt with the aftermath.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way?14 THE WITNESS: Well, the guys with the 15 licenses just thought senior management was out to 16 lunch and that this wouldn't be worth a minute of 17 debate much less four to six hours. The appropriate 18 action to take was crystal clear to them. The highest 19 levels of this company, the 20 you can't get any higher than( a 21 scared the daylights out of people. That's 22 why; ..aid what Wsad.)23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did any licensed 24 operators come to you and talk about this incident on 25 a one on one basis?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.19N92% twAqwIM(-TrI
- r. )nnnr*aA 7ni lnf % ')'A AA'2 95 I TF WITNESS: No, not that I recall.2 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you know whG 3 some of the licensed operators are besides'4 THE WITNESS: No, I don't know who was on 5 shift. That's easy to find out.6 SPECIAL AGENT rIEATOR: Ray, anything more 7 on this?8 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes, just a point of 9 clarification, Dr. Harvin, you indicated that no 10 specific operators had spoken to you about this 11 particular issue. But then you made a statement that 12 the actions of scared the daylights out of Q.13 people. By "people,I" do you mean people other than 14 operators like 15 THE WITNESS: (was scared to death.16 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Ayn 17 else?18 THE WITNESS: Not that I recall.19 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dr. Harvin, in 20 the end, do you know if the operators were satisfied 21 with the decision that was made?22 THE WITNESS: In the end, yes.23 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: In the end, what 24 happened?25 THE WITNESS: They fixed the valve.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.1)1~f VA AAI'2 %AA%1K^r&
M ----.
96 1 SPF IAL AGENT TEATOR: Did the plant zrmiain oi~line?3 THE WITNESS: Yes, they couldn't fix the 4 valve with the unit running. They made the right 5 decision ultimately.
Mr4made some comments 6 to me about this incident.
Would you like to hear 7 them now?8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you have them 9 available right here?10 THE WITNESS: Yes, let me find them.11 Could you just pause for a second?12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Off the record.13 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 14 the record at 1:05 p.m. and went back on 15 the record at 1:05 p.m.)16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're back on the 17 record. It's 1:05 p.m. Do you have the document you 18 were referring to?19 THE WITNESS: Yes, but before I do that, 20 I want to reference another conversation that I don't 21 have a transcription for or a recording of. Two days 22 after this incident took place, I had an extensive, 23 multi-hour, three to four hour conversation with 24 ) He was beside himself about what to do 25 related to the pressure that he had experienced from ' C NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERSownf I1 Im Amn &%t1 mW 97 2 tie litera ly told me I don' t. know where to 3 turn. I had often functioned as his confidante.
This 4 was that kind of conversation.
He was. really 5 grappling with first of all how alone he felt, how 6 unsupported he felt, and what to do about it.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this a new 8 situation?
9 THE WITNESS: This is this situation.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, is this a new 11 situation?
Had you heard this from him before?12 THE WITNESS: Never had I heard this from 13 him before.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is now coming 15 directly from out 16 of the picture.17 THE WITNESS: Yes, he said many of the 18 same things that day as he said a week later in this 19 conversation that I did record. Here's what he said.20 I say to him "I guess I'm naive because I was really 21 hopeful that we could put the issues on the table and 22 really deal with them." 1 interrupts me and 23 says "The real issues are with those in charge. The 24 real issue is who is in charge. Is Enterprise in 25 charge? Is the site in charge? Is the union in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.a ia.~~~.. ~A1&QWINII-Tr)K nl r. 9AflA.rýAMfIIA )A.A' 98 1 charge?2 it's clear both of those parties don't 3 want nuclear in charge. That much is clear. And 4 WOMhas been in charge. We can debate whether he 5 did good or not, but the facts are I think he's kept 6 non-nuclear people from running the place into the 7 ground. That's the change that's occurring now.8 jis running the place. in the name of 9 410i 10 Something to point out 12 has a nuclear background.
By the wayK;.-F 13 did not like that c had a direct reporting 14 relationship to- That was public. Lots 15 of people knew that. In this new configuration with 16 now reports to 17 So while it looks like just a little line on 18 a chart, it is a dramatically different reporting 19 relationship tha is used to and is speaking 20 of here.21 "Well, I'll say it. That's what it looks 22 like. That's what's occurring at this point. That's 23 the direction it looks like it is going to go. They 24 want that." I say "The ops guys see that. That's 25 what really scares them. It's when you have non-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERSPHnnR ic= a II AI c &%1= -ot 99 1 nuclear people putt ng pressure on nuclear people to make i`,:isic.s and thE non-nuclear people do not 3 understand all the aspects involved and what they are 4 asking for or pressuring for. That was what the whole 5 issue at Hope Creek was about.6 Do we go back up bEfore we find out why 7 the valve -- You know all that. That's what they told 8 me. It's like who is running the show. And thank God 9 you didn't succumb to the pressure.
They were afraid 10 you would. If anybody weaker was in your job, what do 11 you think would have happened?" 12 .ays "I don't know. What I do 13 know is that I took a beating fro r- .. ." 14 for spending $25 million in lost revenue on the profit 15 and less statement for Hope Creek. Like I said, I try 16 to take the information I get and I do like to 17 evaluate it completely.
There is some risk taking I 18 can take and expected to do. I hope that the outcome 19 of Hope Creek is one where they can have some faith in 20 the people here and that they do understand what it 21 takes to run the place.22 That doesn't mean that everything is as 23 clean as one would like because a lot of people have 24 input and want to have input and by their position 25 have input. Sometimes it takes a little longer to get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
100 1 back to the decisic .. Hopefully it's the right 2 decisi-.t.
It ,.ekes a little more bantering back and 3 forth." 4 To which I say, "You knov, 5 "really thought you were 6 going to go the other way, production over safety.7 He's been very upset, and he's been one of your 8 biggest supporters." There was something inaudible.
9 The asks "Is there anything that would prove 10 it wasn't the right thing?" I say "No, you ultimately 11 did the right thing." 12 says "I don't know why there's 13 skepticism in leadership," a little bit tongue in 14 cheek, "Why is that? They knew the pressure you were 15 under." 'a)says "Yes, and it's only going to 16 get harder. Why? Because there's less money the 17 company has these days. Gas prices are out the roof.18 There ain't no business coming from global. You can 19 run a highly expensive gas unit, but all you do is 20 break even.21 But who's making money? Well, this place.22 Now all of a sudden you know they run the bandwagon 23 like 'is. They want a 95 percent capacity 24 factor. A 95 percent capacity factor gives you no 25 margin, zero, absolutely none. That really is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
101 1 flawless execution.
Hr do you get flawless execution 2 \.ith the (ui daib 1 attitudeb around here? Fucking A.3 That's not going to happen.4 So you should not take any of this 5 personally.
You are simply a chess piece. You are 6 the move that was made. They have made it. I have 7 made it. Who gives a shit? Somebody is saying I want 8 it different.
You're right. I carry an officer 9 title. It doesn't mean shit." I ask "Who has all the 10 power? ) Absolutely.
As soon as the 11 announcement was made that M Jwas leaving, the 12 power changed that day. We are now under a completely 13 different process." 14 I ask "He doesn't have a nuclear 15 background.
Right?" )says "Nope. I don't 16 know. Maybe these are the things one should expect 17 given the new environment we are in, a deregulated 18 company that runs a nuclear plant." I say "The Salem 19 guys told me they thought this would be our demise." 20 says "Well, the NRC position from the word 21 go, you know Chairman Jackson, said that a few years 22 ago about deregulation.
23 Deregulation was going to be the watering 24 down slowly, and we'd see a safety culture change in 25 nuclear power that would ultimately end nuclear power.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
102 1 The very thing deregulat on was intended to do to make 2 it a viab' --ntit: eids up ca- sing people to make poor decisions because of the economics.
It ends up being 4 economically not viable anymore." 5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to get 6 complete copies of what you are ta'.king about. Is 7 there something else you wanted to read from that?8 We're going to get that, and we'll have that 9 information.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All of the 11 conversations.
12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Why don't we move 13 forward and try and finish up this SCWE area if we 14 haven't done so already?15 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I guess maybe one 16 question that I have is this. You mention there was 17 pressure placed on the nuclear division managers, 18 folks like for example, from the non-nuclear 19 side of the house like take actions 20 relative to how the plant was operated.
Other than 21 this one particular example, are you aware of any 22 other examples where this type of pressure was 23 exerted?24 THE WITNESS: No, but remember why. The 25 timeframe. (M resignation had just within NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
103 1 a few days or maybe a wec : been announced.
So 2 )laL. iiu power over nuulear management.
Now 3 suddenly he does and in fact puts all positions on 4 hold. No positions could get filled. *was 5 having to cover a whole list of positions because 6 )wouldn't let him fill any of the positions.
7 So this is all a rapid fire power change.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dave, is there 9 something that you wanted to ask?10 COORDINATOR VITO: I have one work 11 environment question.
Everything you have told us so 12 far obviously doesn't bode well for a safety conscious 13 work environment.
There are a lot of things that go 14 into a safety conscious work environment.
One of them 15 is no matter how horrible may be, you can have a 16 situation where the folks that work there feel an 17 innate need to raise issues. They feel it's their 18 job, their requirement, their whatever.19 In your discussion ofi it 20 sounds like he's said everything but I would be 21 petrified to raise an issue to upper management for 22 fear of what would happen. That sounds like what he's 23 more or less said to you. Can you elaborate on that 24 a bit? Of all of the other examples you have talked 25 about, has anybody either directly or indirectly said NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
104 1 because of the way this pl ce is running right now I 2 % .ul,2 not r*:7 a sa-eLy issue 'o management for fear 3 of negative personal action against me?4 THE WITNESS: My record made that very 5 clear to me that he wasn't going to go td.6 nor was he going to tell about this.7 COORDINATOR VITO: In this particular 8 incident.9 THE WITNESS: In this incident.
Are you 10 asking for the names of the people who told me that 11 they would not speak up out of fear?12 COORDINATOR VITO: To waive the flag. The 13 purpose of this agency is to help in safety of the 14 public.15 THE WITNESS: Correct.16 COORDINATOR VITO: We don't have 17 inspectors and investigators to look over the shoulder 18 of everybody that works at the plant. So we depend on 19 people to do their job, to meet their responsibility 20 by raising issues. One of the worst things that can 21 happen is to have a situation where people are 22 petrified to raise things that they see that are 23 adverse to quality.24 It sounds like you have had a lot of 25 interactions with a lot of people from equipment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.i A$* ^%I SIl r%, f% r A ý ' 3nnne l))%1'2 A1 I SWWOI 105 1 operators up tov- How many instances have 2 yc.i e..countej__ people sL.y I'm not going to 3 raise anything to anybody because I know I'm going to 4 get thrashed?5 THE WITNESS: Hundreds of people in my 6 almost six years there. From the technicians and 7 nuclear equipment operators or maintenance technicians 8 all the way up tl- .9 COORDINATOR VITO-'10 THE WITNESS: If you have aV 12 jwho feels powerless, imagine how all the 12 people in between feel if they know the head guy 13 doesn't have the power either.14 COORDINATOR VITO: You at least tried to 15 impart that feedback to management.
16 THE WITNESS: Time and time again.17 COORDINATOR VITO: Generally what kind of 18 feedback do you get when you have tried to do that?19 I guess we'll get into some of that a little bit later 20 but if you could talk about it for a few minutes.21 THE WITNESS: Yes, in general, it's the 22 person with the concern is the problem whether it was 23 me speaking on behalf o or speaking on 24 behalf of nuclear equipment operators or speaking on 25 behalf of the Salem shift managers, all who had issues NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLND AVE.. N.W.
106 1 with senior leadership ins' Bad of those leaders 2 conLroning thL...E2.ves saying -.nat the hell are we 3 doing here that we have an environment such that 4 people are afraid.5 This was no surprise to them that people 6 are afraid, but the willingness to work to resolve the 7 issue, the will to do that, is what's been lacking.8 So what you are left with, as 'said, was I 9 raised concerns, and if I get stonewalled or no one 10 resolves my concerns, how long do you expect me to 11 keep raising those concerns?
in 12 the last'two weeks said Kymn, there may be some people 13 who are afraid to raise concerns.
Then there's the 14 others who have become apathetic.
They are so tired 15 of it that they won't anymore. That was his biggest 16 fear.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Can you say if 18 that's happening?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes, the union guys have 20 told me that's happening.
I'm here because I believe 21 that nuclear safety events are a problem on that site.22 COORDINATOR VITO: I think you're right in 23 that ECP does this quarterly survey. Can you give me 24 your opinion of what use that serves? Is it providing 25 any useful information whatsoever?
Are they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.ln~n% nni JJ.,.) 1.#Atl" &flft -~ -l 1-1 -1n~
107 1 misinterpreting or misprovidir 3 the results so that I they loo'- better th-n tl...y are? I ould just like to 3 near what your characterization is of what they appear 4 to have done outwardly in terms of trying to survey 5 the staff for work environment and how they reported 6 the results of those surveys.7 THE WITNESS: I never saw anything done 8 with survey results of this kind.9 COORDINATOR VITO: Of this kind. They 10 never summarized it or came to a conclusion.
11 THE WITNESS: No, this came out in an 12 email with an attachment that said these are our 13 latest results. The email that I got that followed 14 this one was the current quarters.
That would be 15 second quarter 2003 which basically says we have made 16 progress but we have a ways to go. There's actually 17 something.
that preceded your specific question about 18 the survey. I thought you were going to actually ask 19 a different question.20 COORDINATOR VITO: I don't know. I don't 21 know what different question I was going to ask. All 22 I wanted to understand is how management has been 23 putting forth the results of these surveys. Are they 24 characterizing them in any way? Are they saying they 25 are good, bad, ugly, better, worse? It sounds like NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 108 what you said is they are j- 3t sending out the indiviuua'i resulLt ond lucting the people that see them draw their own conclusions.
THE WITNESS: I remember.
It could be these results, or frankly it could be my situation that caused very early in his tenure to send out a letter to all the employees that basically said don't be afraid to speak up. If you have a concern, come and talk to me. That's all well and good, and it's a nice idea to send out to an organization.
But where these are the real issues, people time and time again have not felt supported in speaking up about safety issues and have been thwarted.
A nice well written letter from the new CNO is not going to change things. I want to be sure that you can tell from the issues that I have brought to your attention that some of them happened under the*regime but some of them didn't.While I definitely calle a cannibal, there are other people who are still in positions who are dictating how this goes, people higher than .So changing out the( W when you have the and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41"12. cutnnc liI Akin atIM NW-Wi-~\ IZ r~(.
109 1 b asendinc a very different 2 message isil t goin- Z-. sud-enly make -2SEG Nuclear a 3 safe place to work.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: An example of that 5 is the discussion we were talking about wherk 6 was in the middle of this issue at the site.7 THE WITNESS: Yes.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: In your opinion and 9 based on your experience, the employees are feeling 10 that the employees concerns program --11 THE WITNESS: No.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let me finish. To 13 bring their concerns to have them addressed and 14 resolved.15 THE WITNESS: No, I'll give you my first 16 hand experience.
I hesitated to go to employee 17 concerns because employee concerns reports t6dM 18 My issue was with many people including( *19 9 Employee concerns does not have a strong 20 track record of resolving concerns, doing full 21 investigations, and getting back to the employees.
It 22 took them five months, after many phone calls from me, 23 to respond to my issues.24 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Dr. Harvin, can I 25 ask you a question based on your experience in this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4111 OUrnrC JC A~jl PAjF= M W 110 1 area? We conduct an inspection
- alled a problem 2 idencificitizi and iL .!lutiua inspectiun.
The last 3 one completed at Salem was in the spring of 2003. As 4 part of that inspection, we go out and do several 5 things.6 In particular, one of the activities we do 7 is go out and talk to the people on the site. We ask 8 them specifically if they feel free to raise safety 9 concerns.
Based upon the folks that we spoke to, 10 nobody gave us any information that they would 11 hesitate to raise a safety concern or to. write a 12 condition report if they had some issue that they were 13 concerned about. The question I have is what is it 14 that we're missing in these surveys that we're doing 15 in that the information that we're getting from the 16 folks that we've interviewed has been different from 17 the experiences that you've been relating.18 THE WITNESS: When you say "surveys," do 19 you mean talking to people?20 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Right, just strictly 21 informal interviews.
Our inspectors will go up to 22 people on the site and talk to them and find out what 23 their job function is and how long they have been 24 working there. They ask them do you feel free to 25 raise safety concerns here at the plant or not. It's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
ill 1 just one aspect of the inspection wr do.2 TH2 WITNEss. Did chey know you are from 3 the NRC?4 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes.5 COORDINATOR VITO: It's usually a team of 6 people.7 THE WITNESS: Yes, I understand.
8 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Right. We identify 9 ourselves as NRC.10 THE WITNESS: Right. Do you know we have 11 a practice of debriefing people after you have met 12 with them?13 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: No, could you go 14 into that?15 THE WITNESS: After people meet with the 16 NRC, after people meet with INPO, after people meet 17 with the nuclear safety review board members, they are 18 debriefed by their management in many cases. If I was 19 an employee and you were asking me what I thought 20 about X and I knew that my boss was going to come in 21 and say what did you tell Ray.22 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Right. I could 23 understand that in some cases where we have formal 24 interviews set up. In other cases, we just strictly 25 walk around the site and talk to as many different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
- 19. RHOfF IRI ANf AVF.. N.W.
112 1 people as we can. I guess you are .iggesting then 2 hat tiese p top e are 2 .';,.red -o go back and report 3 to their supervisor they had a conversation and what 4 was the nature of the conversation.
5 THE WITNESS: Yes, that very often 6 happens.7 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: So then the 8 information we are gettiing from the people we speak 9 to, are you suggesting that they are not being 10 forthright?
.11 THE WITNESS: They are afraid. They are 12 afraid even to tell you.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know if this 14 survey is conducted anonymously?
15 THE WITNESS: I believe it's optional.16 -You-c-an--s-i-gn--your--name--o-r--not.-
17 MR. WOODRUFF:
Kymn, let me put the same 18 question about the NRC conducted investigation.
Let's 19 assume for purposes of this that it was a union 20 sponsored group that came and asked the questions.
21 THE WITNESS: You would get totally 22 different answers. I have no doubt about that.23 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I guess then the 24 other aspect of this is each year at the site many 25 condition reports are written. The number is probably NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
113 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 1-6-17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 in the hundreds or thousands.
LfE NITNESS: +/-i.tifiations.
BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes, notifications for different issues that folks are concerned about that they would like to see addressed.
Does that give you any insights into how the program is working cr not?THE WITNESS: Yes, talk tcý#".((PH). Shortly after I left, he actually wrote a notification and someone in Hope Creek management went to him and asked him to revise his notification.
His notification I believe focused on nuclear safety issues.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: asked him to revise it?THE-WI-TNESS-:--No.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know who Was this shortly after you left?THE WITNESS: Shortly after I left.0 1 actually told me about this. So he knew of it.It was an IN-leakage notification written by (PH). Actually I have the notes right in front of me.My 'conversation'with was on April 3.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know anything more specific about what was asked to be revised?NEAL R. GROSS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.'IC II 114 1 THE WITNESS: No, I don't.2 SPI CIA', AGENT -T.-P'OR:
3ould he be willing 3 to talk to us about that?4 THE WITNESS: Sure.5 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Dr. Harvin, has 6 anybody complained to you about this practice of 7 debriefing with PSEG supervisors or management 8 regarding the conduct of an interview or interaction 9 with an NRC inspector or INPO or any other outside 10 agency?11 THE WITNESS: No, I don't recall any 12 complaints.
It's viewed as a normal practice to be 13 honest.14 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Okay.15 THE WITNESS: And I want to be clear that 16 this is often done indirectly.
It's not necessarily 17 call everybody in and grill them on what did you say 18 -to X. It's done very casually but definitely with the 19 idea of figuring out what messages have been 20 delivered.
Then management can do damage control.21 I made this statement in my employee 22 concerns when I delivered my letter to, 23 I can't tell you the number of hours that are spent 24 talking about how we're going to prepare for an 25 inspection team's visit or INPO or an assist visit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
115 1 where it's how can we have them focus on w 1 Bt we want 2 them :o focus on tnd lway fr..i .:hat ý_:*don't war, them 3 to focus on. Instead of management being out in the 4 plant working with the people, that's how a good bit 5 of their time gets spent.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of areas 7 that they don't want focused on, can you recall any 8 specifics in that area?9 THE WITNESS: It came up specifically 10 related to this reactivity management event. It was 11 like what can we do so that this doesn't occur as an 12 industry significant event and how can we give the NRC 13 a heads up and talk to Jack Styles (PH) our INPO rep 14 such that we head them off at the pass. It's like if 15 we're forthcoming then we'll divert their attention 16 away from really digging into this.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:. Damage control.18 THE WITNESS: Yes.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point, we can 20 take a break. The time is approximately 1:30 p.m.21 Off the record.22 (Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the above-23 entitled matter recessed to reconvene at 24 2:06 p.m. the same day.)25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. We are on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NM.
116 1 the record. The time is approximately 2:06 '.m. Dave 2 has oi.2 more quesLioni regard-,ij the ,,ork enviro+/-1 ment 3 issues, and we will go from there.4 COORDINATOR VITO: Kymn, before lunch, I 5 asked a question about whether you had directly or 6 indirectly had people tell you that they were fearful 7 of raising concerns or fear of reprisal of some sort.8 During our lunch break, we had some informal 9 discussion, and you made a comment about the union 10 folks. It was something to the effect of they feel 11. protected to some degree as opposed to the management 12 salaried folks.13 I guess my add on question is do you think 14 that the protection that their union contract makes 15 them more likely not to be fearful of raising a 16 concern than a salaried employee.
Or did union people 17 tell you that they were afraid to raise issues in 18 addition to non-union people?19 THE WITNESS: Let me speak about it this 20 way. Especially in operations, I've had the 21 opportunity within the lastyear to meet with all of 22 the crews without upper management present. So I meet 23 with the crew without their operations superintendent 24 or shift manager present.25 COORDINATOR VITO: Who are salaried NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.9 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
117 1 people. Right? They are salaried and everyr -e else 2 is unioL.3 THE WITNESS: Not quite. The SROs would 4 still be in those sessions, but I do it to find out 5 how is that head person doing leading the shift, 6 what's it like working on that shift, what are the 7 issues, et cetera. I met with all the shifts at Salem 8 and all the shifts at Hope Creek.9 At Salem, the intense reaction from the 10 union guys when I talked with them was anger, 11 frustration, to some degree disbelief about 12 management's lack of attention to the issues that they 13 voiced of a plant safety nature and a nuclear safety 14 nature and an industrial safety nature. At Salem, 15 their view across the board in general -there may be 16 specific exceptions to what I'm saying -is that 17 management doesn't care.18 Management doesn't care about us.19 Management doesn't care about safety more than 20 production.
Management doesn't even care if it's not 21 practicing what it tells us to preach. I leave those 22 sessions, especially earlier this year when I was 23 meeting with the Salem group, pleading with them for 24 two things.25 I was pleading with them never do anything NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 118 1 unsafe. It really took pleading.
Can you i iagine 2 that? Ai.I I alco plA ',at the- .Ight ,o) their j t..3 satisfaction.
I was concerned that the letter of 4 bitterness and disenfranchisement would not have them 5 fully have their heads in the game. In nuclear power, 6 you really need your head in the game.7 In all cases, I reported what I found by 8 meeting with the shifts to operations management be it 9 at Salem or Hope Creek. Fear was spoken more by SROs 10 than union guys. With the union guys, it was more of 11 a sense of they are not going to do anything about it 12 anyway, they don't care anyway, they are not even 13 going to listen, so why should I bother. You and I 14 know that why should I bother is work concerns being 15 expressed just as fear is work concerns being 16 addressed.
17 I'll read you a short excerpt from what 18 the guys on shift at Salem told me. The plea that I 19 heard from a group of nuclear technicians after they 20 saw their boss's boss's boss go out into the plant and 21 close a valve with a huge steam leak so as not to shut 22 down the unit was this "Help us occur as something 23 other than white noise. That's all we are anymore." 24 The workers feel that all they are is white noise to 25 the management people running the site. Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
119 safety is clearly a risk.SPEC+/-AL AC.ENT TEATOR; #Ilo is celling yo,, 3 that? Do you have some names of people?4 THE WITNESS: Yes, it was a roomful of 5 people that I met with on the evening of September 24.6 I can give you those names.7 8 _ .. .There's a public list 9 available of who those people are.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. "White 11 noise" is your words?12 THE WITNESS: No, it was a very articulate 13 union guy's words.14 COORDINATOR VITO: Do you remember who it 15 was?16 THE WITNESS: Not by name. I would love 17 to know his name because I would really like to thank 18 him because it says it all.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You said you 20 reported this information to ops management.
How did 21 they respond to you reporting it to them?22 THE WITNESS: That was what was so 23 difficult.
I called. No law 24 was a friend of mine. He has not spoken to me since 25 I left the site over these issues frankly I believe.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
120 1 I called him at home that evening as I recall and t ld 2 him how ups. t these un-on juys we.- , how Lhey were 3 concerned about his safety, and how could this guy who was ' .. 7` put himself at risk like 7 L 5 this for plant production.
6 J reaction was you bought their 7 stories. They played you. I can't believe they 8 snookered you. It was like aren't you smarter than 9 that. You took the bait basically.
I can't remember 10 his exact words. A couple of weeks before that he had 11 been in an off-site event and ended up jumping off a 12 balcony to get a key to his room because he and his 13 family were locked out of it.14 I said this sounds like hero 15 behavior like you jumping off the balcony to get the 16 key." He got really mad. His 17 told me he almost resigned over this issue because I 18 didn't defend him to the union guys. I thought he was 19 indefensible.
I met witht. the next day.20 He wasn't sure that what did was out of line.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What issue are we 22 talking about, fM, 23 THE WITNESS: Yes.24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 1 is the one 25 that did it.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 121 1 THE WITNESS: Yes,, is the one who (f d 2 it. Even didn't see this as sez.ioasly as I did 3 or as .the union guys did.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:, 5 THE WITNESS: Then when I 6 took the issue.t it was clear once again that 7 the union guys were the problem and now I had become 8 the problem because I thought they were right and that 9 management was not practicing what it preached.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was it 11 thought the union guys would gain by having snookered 12 you or having you buy into their complaint and to give 13 it credence?
What were they hoping to gain?14 THE WITNESS: Well, a sympathetic ear and 15 that I would support their position with upper 16 management.
Does that having your question?17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In having criticized 18 *W for having his hands on 19 involvement?
20 THE WITNESS: He said I bet they brought 21 up 1994. Right? I said yes. I didn't know what 22 happened in 1994. I said what happened in 1994.23 There were these heroic efforts to save the plant that 24 ended in a shut down. The union guys in this meeting 25 were irate and vehement and passionate that management NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 122 1 is repeating history and they are going to run us int, 2 the ground.3 saw it totally different.
4 What he told me, which I couldn't understand but I 5 guess I can see how you can rationalize anything, was 6 it's safer not to manipulate the plant. So it's safer 7 to go out there and risk with th han it 8 was to shut down the unit.9 Basically what the union guys said was 10 that's putting people at risk for production even 11 under the guise of nuclear safety because it's safer 12 not to manipulate the plant. I mind, it was 13 clearly right. In the union guys' mind,, it was 14 clearly the wrong thing to do. That's a long answer 15 to your short question.16 COORDINATOR VITO: Thanks.17 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Can I ask you a 18 follow up question?
You had indicated that during the 19 meeting you pleaded with the NEOs not to do anything 20 unsafe. Did anyone give you any indication or say 21 they were going to go out and do anything unsafe with 22 respect to operation of the plant? Do you have any 23 specific examples that led you to believe you needed 24 to plead with them not to do anything unsafe?25 THE WITNESS: Yes. In fact, you might NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 123 1 find this at Hope Creek too. If you ask he question 2 ar6 you ever as.:ed to do a. -iing the: say of 3 course. That's the across the board of course answer.4 When O ) and I visited Oconee earlier this 5 year, we were doing an assessment together.
We asked 6 many NEOs that we were interviewing do you ever get 7 asked to do anything unsafe. They looked at us like 8 we had four heads, like of course not, never. J 9 spoke up and said we'd never get that reaction in our 10 place.11 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Did the NEOs give 12 you any specific examples of things that they actually 13 did that -were unsafe or were asked to do that were 14 unsafe?15 THE WITNESS: Yes, I can give you a few 16 people to talk to. I'm not going to be able to give 17 you the technical parts. My mind just doesn't retain 18 those. I apologize.
19 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay. That's fine.20 THE WITNESS: mom a very 21 vocal, very articulate, very committed who had a 22 number of issues. jjhose name I mentioned.
23 \who isn't specifically at Salem but is 24 one of the lead, and keeps track of almost 25 everything, has a running list of things that have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
124 1 been asked of people that were unsafe.2 RESILENI INSPEC.ýO1 ORR. When yua say 3 "unsafe," is it unsafe from personnel or nuclear 4 safety?5 THE WITNESS: Both. is a 6 .p erson whose full-time job is to work o 7 He also has extensive files. His focus is more 8 industrial, but I know he's been told of nuclear 9 safety issues as well.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 11 THE WITNESS: Union. A few at Salem 12 that you would want to speak with are,"^,'14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you remember 15 what his issue was?16 THE WITNESS: It was in an outage I 17 believe. Here's my sense of things. If whoever is 18 doing the interviews
-and frankly if they are as 19 skilled as Eileen was when she initially interviewed 20 me -make it safe for people to talk, they are just 21 dying for somebody to listen. They will give you 22 chapter and verse and Is dotted and -Ts crossed because 23 these guys first of all think from technical and are 24 in the plant every day. They know what the issues 25 are. So you won't have any trouble filling -in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 125 1 gaps of what I unfortunately have not bee able to 2 proviL .3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Anything more on 4 the SCWE area?5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It seems like we 6 sorted it out. When Dave asked the question, you went 7 into how the Salem SROs and union people would answer.8 You found some problems also at Hope Creek with the 9 union individuals and SROs. Or do you divide that 10 out?11 THE WITNESS: Do you mean divide it out 12 between Salem and Hope Creek?13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It looks like we just 14 sectionalize in about four ways. You have at Salem 15 the SRO and below and then Salem management.
Then you 16 have Hope Creek with the same thing. Where are your 17 concerns focused? Where would you say?18 THE WITNESS: Let me see if I can clarify.19 At Salem, the concern about speaking up about safety 20 includes the shift managers, so it's up a level, 21 Eileen, from what you just said.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.23 THE WITNESS: So it includes shift 24 managers, operations superintendents, control room 25 supervisors, SRO level, reactor operators, and nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
126 1 equipment operators, so every level a, Salem 2 operations.
And astN 'w~uld cell you, even 3 when he was an ._. ._ ) even 4 though he continued to be vocal, it was not without 5 some risk to him to speak up about the safety issues 6 and his disagreements with senior leadership's 7 direction.
That's even one notch higher.8 At Hope Creek, most recently I talked with 9 thhere. He said to 10 me why I've never gone into management is because to 11 be in management you have to do the wrong thing or you 12. have to quit. He's a very strong leader, and that 13 tells you his view. We were specifically talking 14 about nuclear safety and industrial safety when we 15 were having that conversation.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you aware of him 17 having the same kinds of incidents to talk about as we 18 would get if we went t' NOW2 19 regarding nuclear safety issues?20 THE WITNESS: If there were nuclear safety 21 issues at Hope Creek;,* would know from the 22 union perspective.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If they exist, he 24 would have them.25 THE WITNESS: Yes.NEAL R. GROSS P1 I =
127 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What abc tt the 2 levels c- people at Hole CreeC.' You ust gave .s 3 examples of le\rels at Salem where they would be 4 reluctant to speak up about safety without risk. Hope 5 Creek, the level in your opinion that type of attitude 6 goes to?7 THE WITNESS: )the outgoing 8 would not be afraid of speaking 9 up. However the risk with and possibly even..10 teis one of 11 being worn down. The intensity of pressure and the 12 lack of support that I mentioned from senior 13 leadership to those who are in charge of running the 14 units was such that those guys often felt not 15 supported in what was the right thing to do.16 So that causedl"'
to leave. I 17 think it's a major decision iAchoosing to 18 leave. I went to -9 This is in the spring of -L 19 2001 I believe. was the 2) awas the Hope Creek 21 If I'm not mistaken, 22 ......t ý I went into 23 one of /staff meetings.24 I had been wrestling with how do I get 25 these guys, W nd the vice presidents, to see the NEAL R. GROSS r('0 IRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 128 1 negative impact they as leaders are having on hese two guys %-io are in cLhry% of nuL..ucr safety.3 sand V use the phrase this place was 4 sucking the life out of them. But it wasn't the 5 place. It was the leadership.
That was the phrase 6 they used. In fact,. used that phrase 7 over and over again.8 I was concerned that here it is. We have 9 nuclear safety responsibility held by two guys who 10 feel out of sync with, unsupported by, and at odds 11 with their vice president in charge of operations.
My 12 paradigm is leadership determines results. That's 13 what I am trained in. That's what I lead from.14 So I look at leaders, and I see these 15 leaders who met-aphorically are at very low power 16 levels. They are at 20 percent level power compared 17 to how they could be, and they are being called on to 18 make nuclear safety decisions.
I went into 19 staff meeting. I said leadership at this site is a 20 nuclear safety issue. That was obviously the wrong 21 thing to say.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What makes you say 23 that?24 THE WITNESS: Well, the action I got was 25 chilling.
N"W~p(PH) was sitting to my left NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
129 1 who was in charge of quality assurance and c- her 2 things at t.e timrtw. I :hcxght we .goý+/-g to have 3 this great dialogue, and I could express my views.4 What can we do for these guys?5 I just realized I inadvertently stepped on 6 a land mine. Obviously as soon as I characterized 7 leadership as a nuclear safety issue, kicked 8 into his what are the three questions or six questions 9 that I'm supposed to ask somebody who brings me a 10 nuclear safety issue. He said what's the issue. I 11 said a little bit about how the operations guys are.12 What action do you need us to take? I bumbled my way 13 through some answer. " )says if we take that 14 action your issue will be resolved.
Right?15 I was stunned because I had this 16 expectation of this dialogue that we would have. Then 17 I was asked to leave the meeting. I went to 18 who took notes and was the secretary at that 19 meeting. I said =what just happened.
He said you 20 said the wrong phrase. You said nuclear safety. I 21 said was I off base. Did you disagree with what I was 22 saying? He said no I thought you were incredibly 23 courageous and on the money.24 But you saw the reaction that you got. He 25 said I'm going to put you on the agenda for a future NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4021 DUf f W1I1 C / I K AI 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 130 meeting because we want to see if these guys fol) )w up. I check.. Il back with H .i_said not to put me back on the agenda.BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: What timeframe was this meeting?THE WITNESS: It was in the spring of I.4 2001.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: position is what?THE WITNESS: At the time, he was a support person to' He's at the training center now or has been let go. It' was so upset that I talked to( who was a confidante of mine. He wasn't exactly surprised by the reaction.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: It's about 2:35 p.m. I want to try to move forward.THE WITNESS: That's fine. Is that too much detail?SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: No, like they said earlier, I think we're going to have to talk to you again anyway.THE WITNESS: Okay.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Before we leave this SCWE area, are there any specific things people want asked at this point? If so, go ahead. But I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 131 1 would like to move forward if we can. If you hav 2 something you jant to ask, please have ct it.3 COORDINATOR VITO: No, there's those two 4 additional issues that we haven't talked about yet.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We'll talk 6 about the grassing issue. That has come up in the 7 documents.
8 THE WITNESS: Let me just say this 9 succinctly.
You will need to talk tbo ---10 both because he brought up the tritium issue to me, 11 and he brought up the grassing issue in opposite ways.12 When. told me about the tritium issue, he said the 13 numbers are way higher than we thought they were going 14 to be. If I'm not the person who talks to the NRC or 15 the Department of Environmental Protection, this could 16 do us in or something like that. It led me to believe 17 that there was a serious issue that had to be handled 18 with kid gloves to keep us out of trouble. That's 19 about all I know about those issues.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he referring to 21 himself as being the person who has to talk?22 THE WITNESS: Who has to handle it with 23 kid gloves, yes. He had just been named U 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Timeframe?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
132 1 THE WITNESS: This was within a week or so 2 after I left so early April.3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you ave any 4 information about what the issue might be? Do you 5 recall?6 THE WITNESS: Yes, higher levels than had 7 been reported previously.
The second issue related to 8 the grassing event. -was quite frustrated and 9 upset that here it is grassing season again, we have 10 these issues, and we're not following the protocol 11 that we said we would follow that shut the unit down 12 last time I guess in '96 or '94 or whenever that was 13 that took the pressurizer solid.14 We as an organization had committed to not 15 taking Herculean efforts to keep the unit online in 16 grassing season, and if necessary, we would shut down 17 the unit. Yet he was being called to go to a meeting 18 where they were planning how to have three technicians 19 out at the Bantech (PH) structure around the clock, AN 20 seven days a week. So saw this qnce again as 21 Herculean efforts that were countered to standards we 22 had internally set. Did that translate well?23 COORDINATOR VITO: What's the problem, 24 that they wanted the people out there, that the didn't 25 want the people out there?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1134PI-J Q1AklI in A %/;= M WA 133 1 THE WITNESS: No, and there may be more 2 ,.echnical aspectL to it that I dckn't und ,&and. His 3 concern was that we had just said when it gets this 4 bad we're going to shut down the unit. We're not 5 going to as he put it go to these Herculean efforts.6 COORDINATOR VITO: To try to clean the 7 grass away from the intake.8 THE WITNESS: And to stay online when it 9 may not be appropriate to do so.10 COORDINATOR VITO: Okay.11 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Do you know what 12 timeframe the grassing was?13 THE WITNESS: Yes, I had this conversation 14 with .M on April 3. He saw this as a 15 duplicate of April 7, 1994 when we took the 16 pressurizer solid. New moon, low tide, it was a site 17 area emergency because we were so focused on keeping 18 the plant running. Here's what he said to me. "I 19 don't have the confidence that we could avert a 20 nuclear safety issue." We were a big question mark.21 We improve and then we fall back and lose momentum.22 "I don't have the confidence that we could avert a 23 nuclear safety issue." This was from a guy who has 24 been at this unit a long time.25 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: And this was a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1- -1 1^-P 301 Akin A%lr- KI IA1 134 1 conversation in April 2003.2 THE W+/-2NESS: April 3, 2003.3 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: April 3.4 THE WITNESS: I'll just mention this, and 5 then we'll move on. We have something at nuclear 6 called a good trooper mentality where you are a good 7 trooper. You don't rock the boat. You do what people 8 tell you to do. If you want to be in favor, you're a 9 good trooper.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is ingrained down 11 there at the site?12 THE WITNESS: Pardon me.13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that ingrained?
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, definitely.
15 COORDINATOR VITO: Do you know what the 16 outcome of this grassing event was? Did they shut the 17 plant down, or were they able to keep the intake 18 clear? I don't keep up on all of these events at the 19 plant, so I don't know.20 THE WITNESS: I heard that 21 was asked to come and talk to the board 0f directors 22 about this and that the board saw it as a repeat of 23 '94. He told them that they were wrong and that we 24 handled it much better, but I don't know the 25 specifics.
NEAL R. GROSS MI IRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 135 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Dr. Harvin, I have a .( uple of follow p queu.ions on one isc x whicl, I think we have probably already discussed.
Do you have your draft confidential law suit document with you?I think we have covered this, but I just want to be sure.THE WITNESS: Okay. I have it here.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: If you could go to bullet number 5 please and continue on 5 and 6. Is that the that we talked about already?THE WITNESS: When you say "bullet," do you mean point number?SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes.THE WITNESS: Okay. Number 5?SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes.THE WITNESS: Yes, that's correct.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The individual who did that again wasil THE WITNESS: SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That's the issue we're talking about in 5, 6, and 7. Is that correct?THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When it talks on item 6 about "at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
136 1 request," who are you referring to again?THE WITNL3S.S:@
3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You spoke with his 4 employees who were up in arms over an unsafe act 5 performed by a high ranking member of the management 6 team several days prior. That would be 7 that did that.8 THE WITNESS: Correct.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "The 10 -reported that the manager," that 11 Q 11 would be .m 12 THE WITNESS: Correct.13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 14 15 16 17 18 THE WITNESS: Correct.19 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "They report he did 20 so inappropriately without taking customary safety 21 precautions and without the consent of the in charge 22 His name?23 THE WITNESS: 24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "The act was viewed 25 by the employees and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1.7 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 137-who was in charge as a blatant disregard of polic es, procedures, and rnanage.tent safet1 f2rst.That evening and the following day Plaintiff, you, advised members of the operations leadership team." Who would that have been?THE WITNESS: I and I I1 C.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. "Of the concerns voiced by the NEOs." And in you view, ctions were inappropriate.
Correct? Who accused you of siding with the union again?THE WITNESS: SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That' s in the phone call we talked about.THE WITNESS: Correct.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "You voiced concerns to the Was that/amwulgain?
THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "Was so upset over the incident he was thinking of quitting because he felt his manager was saying one thing and doing another. " Bullet 8, "Discussion on this issue ensued in the following weeks without effectively addressing the safety concerns raised.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
138 1 -biil Who would that be at that point?2 THE WITNESS 3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "Was called in to 4 investigate the matter. His confidential report 5 substantiates Plaintiff's allegations." I know we 6 talked about that, but I had a couple of specific 7 questions on that issue. Anything else on that?8 THE WITNESS: Just so you know, on point 9 number 9, the emails that I spoke of were discussed 10 earlier. They were 11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.12 THE WITNESS: There was one other one. I 13 will be sure you get a copy of that.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you. I don't 15 have anything else.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From another 17 individual or two from him?18 THE WITNESS: There were two from him and 19 one from another individual.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was the other 21 one?22 THE WITNESS: This is actually a very 23 telling email. The other email was from a Mr.24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Regarding the same NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 139 1 incident?2 THE WITNESS: Yes, but leL me read sc.,-. If 3 the paragraphs. "Kymn, last night you heard many 4 difficulties and roadblocks at the Salem NEO space.5 I mentioned to you about the notifications that I 6 needed to write this past Sunday and wasn't given the 7 time to do so by my supervisor.
I found these 8 problems on my rounds as the unit II primary 9 operator.
I told you that I mentioned to 10 my supervisor what the nuclear review board member, 11 L- said to me during a meeting with him 12 last week. He said one of the major issues with Salem 13 NEOs is that they do not write up problems or clean up 14 the plant. My supervisor told me that I did not work 15 for A and that I was to perform the surveillance 16 testing and write the notifications the next day that 17 I was in. That would not be for two and a half days.18 Incidentally I only got a chance to write 19 four of the 15 that-I had found that day. The rest 20 are still not written up. My point is we constantly 21 are told how we should be performing our jobs by many 22 people; NRB, WANO, INPO, NRC, management, et cetera.23 But when it actually comes down to performing our job, 24 we are told 'you work for me, do it as I say' by our 25 immediate supervisors.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
140 1 They want to get the scheduled work done, 2 the items that are actuall track.d, i.e. -bean a. -r'3 bean count. If you get around to it, do the nice 4 things as long as it doesn't affect the track and 5 beans." Then he cites an example of that here.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you done with 7 this exhibit? Have we covered all of the procedural 8 ones at this point?9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I believe we have.10 Ray?11 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes, the three 12 technical issues that were in the original allegation.
13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I have what we need 14 at this point.15 THE WITNESS: Yes, let me just turn a 16 couple of things over to you. Technical, Ray?17 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Yes.18 THE WITNESS: Related to the, 19 -hat we talked about related to 20 several people who still work at PSEG Nuclear were 21 doing a search for me to find the notifications that 22 were written about that incident.
They could not find 23 any which leads to a concern I voiced about is 24 information "disappearing" that should be 25 accessible.
However, there is this. We'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
141 1 make a copy.2 3 /4 That's one thing.5 The other thing I'm turning over to you is 6 a list of safety issues. It's several pages long and 7 probably over 100 issues here. I don't know what any 8 of these are to be honest. They were notifications of 9 safety related issues that are still outstanding.
10 That's it for now.11 COORDINATOR VITO: Did the operators say 12 they wrote notifications about that incident and they 13 just didn't get placed in the corrective action 14 system, or nobody wrote anything about it?15 THE WITNESS: No, I was definitely told 16 that they wrote things about it. The people that I 17 had look for them couldn't find anything.18 COORDINATOR VITO: So what you're saying 19 is there's a notification from engineering that says 20 something about it but doesn't get into that aspect of 21 it and that none of that stuff was recorded anywhere.22 THE WITNESS: None of that stuff is 23 accessible.
24 COORDINATOR VITO: That found it's way 25 into the system.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
142 1 THE WITNESS: Well, it was at one point in 2 the system &-.d has been remo. zd. Inat's my :oncern.3 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: 0ho specifically 4 told you that he wrote a notification regarding the 5 operation involved and you could not find the 6 notification?
7 THE WITNESS: The guys I met with that 8 night. There were 12 different people.9 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Okay.10 THE WITNESS: I said have you written a 11 notification about this. Several of them spoke up and 12 said yes.13 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Several?14 THE WITNESS: would definitely 15 know.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: When you talked to 17 people about trying to find that notification and they 18 said they couldn't find it, who were those people?19 THE WITNESS: A as 20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.21 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Was one of 22 the individuals who was at the meeting that night?23 THE WITNESS: No, he had been --24 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: He was on the 25 suspension.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 143 1 THE WITNESS: For yes.2 BRANCH CHIEF LORSO.: You gave me .he one 3 document which is a listing of the notifications of 4 the plant. Was there something else you wanted to 5 provide?6 THE WITNESS: Yes, actually I do. I have 7 a handwritten set of notes from one of the gentlemen 8 that was interviewed by -related to the 9 1 These union guys 10 aren't willing to be interviewed unless someone else 11 is present. So " ....... with 12 A together.
This basically speaks for itself, but 13 it reiterates the concerns that these guys have at not 14 practicing what we preach.15 "In my mind, if I were a regulator, I 16 would not be able to say that we are enforcing safety 17 first, command and control, and enforcement of 18 standards.
That's my'concern.
I think our behaviors 19 are reverting back. I think we have managers at risk 20 who know that they are at risk and acting as if they 21 are fearful of their job. I thinm I is a total 22 imbecile.
People want to do the right thing. They 23 speak out and they are then slashed. We have seen 24 that.25 We see an organization that is in flux.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
144 1 We see people moved out of the way when they don't 2 agree and advocL.te.
We feel sucongly that we made 3 errors relating to restart we were told to change.4 That attitude allowed that. We are whittling away at 5 those processes that we put in place." 6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What's the date of 7 that?8 THE WITNESS: It's dated when it was faxed 9 to me in August. This was in October or last fall.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to make 11 copies of that.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, we'll do that.13 You indicated that you had a concern involving whether 14 the licensee tends to destroy or in other words get 15 rid of documents that don't reflect positively.
Do 16 you want to go into that and give us a basis for that 17 concern?18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that the 1 m 19 M issue you just talked about?20 THE WITNESS: That's the issue.21 It also relates tcy_ eing asked to rewrite 22 his notification.
I do have a concern. Following my 23 letter to the law firm of Winston &24 Strawn were brought in to interview people. I do have 25 some sense of how those interviews were conducted.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 145 1 There were a lot of questions on the interview, at 2 least in one casf that were "bff he re(ord." I >ave 3 a concern that the version of the transcript that for 4 example would be available to you, the NRC, may not 5 include those portions, and some of those portions 6 were highly inflammatory against the company.7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did they interview 8 you?9 THE WITNESS: They asked to, and I 10 declined.11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who are we talking 12 about? Who did they talk to that you think or know 13 that there was a lot of inflammatory discussions off 14 the record?15 THE WITNESS: He 16 spoke at length with them off the record about the 17 reactivity management event. If they had taken any of 18 that into account, for example, there's no way they 19 could have sent me a letter that says "The 20 investigation team concluded that employees do feel 21 free to raise concerns without a fear of reprisal.
No 22 interviewees stated that they were reluctant to come 23 forward with nuclear safety concerns.
Furthermore the 24 investigation team concluded that the management team 25 has not been chilled or discouraged from raising NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i wi wr~s IRI AMf AVF -NW.
146 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 concerns on their own." SPECIj--j AGENT TEATOR.What aLe jou reading from?THE WITNESS: A letter to me from, that is the company's official response.
The July response to my letter to SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: position is THE WITNESS: At Hope Creek.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your point is that he directly contradicted the things in the letter, and he provided that testimony to Winston & Strawn or tt THE WITNESS: Winston & Strawn under/1 don't know whethe was in attendance or not, but he certainly had access to all the transcripts.
They had a court reporter.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about anybody else who provided information that would go against the findings in that report? Are you aware of anybody else who did that?THE WITNESS: No, not directly.
However in hearing how the questions were posed and the lack of follow up on answers, basically my impression was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 147 1 the interviews were conducted to be able to say that 2 there were no safely conscious wor. enviionmer.:
o.-3 retaliation concerns.
It was not a thorough and 4 independent investigation.
5 How I know that is there was not a single 6 union person who was interviewed. 7 the head of the union, didn't even know about this 8 investigation.
As _'whimhimself told me, 9 they can ask the questions Kymn in such a way that you 10 give them the answer that they are looking for.11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You believe this 12 investigation was conducted as a result of your 13 allegations to ECP and senior management.
14 THE WITNESS: I was told it.was.15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right.16 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Thi4
- did 17 he see the results of the Winston & Strawn report?18 THE WITNESS: I read him that paragraph.
19 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: What was his 20 response?21 THE WITNESS: That's interesting.
22 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Is it at that time 23 that he disputed some of the information?
24 THE WITNESS: He talked extensively about 25 the reactivity management event and how he didn't feel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
148 1 he could stop the evolution even though it was set up 2 to fail, ec cetera. -f they interviev.d 3 I think ,jidn't tell the true. Then in 4 his sense, this could be accurate.
Obviously I have 5 a tape recording of what jsaid. Now I don't know 6 what he told them.7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who from Winston &8 Strawn contacted you?9 THE WITNESS: They contacted my attorney 10 who was a different attorney at the time. The 11 gentleman from Winston & Strawn was McGarry.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Mike McGarry.13 THE WITNESS: Yes, as I understand it, my 14 letter to ) got handed over to, iS who gave it 16 to who called in the Winston &17 Strawn people.18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that everything on 20 that investigation that you wanted us to be aware of 21 at this point?22 THE WITNESS: Of this investigation?
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, the concerns 24 regarding that.25 THE WITNESS: No, I want to make it clear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS Dwr~II ~ilf~~ MW 149 1 that I consider the investigation to be a whitewash of 2 the real isLues.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Part of that letter 4 indicates that they interviewed persons that would 5 have been pertinent to the situation regarding your 6 discrimination allegation.
Is that not the second 7 part of the response?8 THE WITNESS: They said that they 9 interviewed people who were --10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know who they 11 talked to?12 THE WITNESS: I know some of who they 13 talked to. Do you want me to tell you who I knew they 14 talked to?15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes.16 THE WITNESS: They talked withi 17 They talked wit 1 19 20 (PH). That's all I know of.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These issues we're 22 covering in terms of your concerns on the documents 23 that don't support positives and items that tend to 24 disappear, do you have anything else to add to that?25 We covered three. You said the, 2 issue 400 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
150 1 5concerns, and this one regarding your EC 2 initiating a.. investiga*.
ion.3 THE WITNESS: I believe it was 4 way prior to this, last fall before he was in trouble, 5 told me that things have a way of disappearing around 6 here. We were specifically talking about 7 notifications that addressed nuclear safety concerns.8 I asked him why he was so anti-management.
He had 9 this long list of reasons why, and that was on the 10 list.11 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Did give any 12 specific examples of something that he knew for a fact 13 was in the corrective action system that later 14 disappeared without any particular reason or 15 explanation?
16 THE WITNESS: I believe in our meeting he 17 cited two examples.
I can't recall what they were, 18 but he had extensive details.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was a 20 conversation last fall.21 THE WITNESS: Yes, this was when I first 22 started working with him.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 24 else that contributes to your concern, or is that it?25 THE WITNESS: That's it for right now.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NJ.
151 1 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I want a real short 2 break. Then wt'll go int, talking specifi ally aoout 3 your discrimination complaint.
Is that all right?4 THE WITNESS: Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Off the record.6 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 7 the record at 3:00 p.m. and went back on 8 the record at 3:10 p.m.)9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. We're 10 back on the record. It's 3:10 p.m. We were talking 11 before about the ECP investigation that had been 12 conducted that involved as an interviewee 13 by Winston & Strawn. You had the opportunity to talk 14 to him after he was interviewed.
You had some 15 concerns and a reaction to some of his concerns that 16 he told you his feelings about the interview and how 17 it went. Can you capture that for us while we're on 18 the record please?19 THE WITNESS: What (basically said 20 was that the approach was get in, say a little, and 21 get out as quick as possible.
The questions were very 22 specific, were not open-ended, did not' give any 23 latitude to make comments about other issues. It 24 occurred to him as he described it as a "fake 25 environment." NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
152 1 He said Kymn you worked with us a long 2 time to get us -o open up ind speak what v Ls on jur 3 minds. He said when you walk in and there are two 4 attorneys and a court reporter sitting there it's not 5 exactly an environment conducive to speaking up and 6 speaking out. I didn't ask him specifically if he had 7 told the truth or if he had lied, but given the letter 8 that I got back from it certainly is 9 inconsistent with what,)told me and what 10 -told me about their own freedom to speak 11 up and feeling comfortable doing so.12 As I understand it, the interview starts 13 off with the attorneys making it clear that they are 14 there representing the company which does not equate 15 to what I asked for in my letter to_*or a or-16 thorough and independent investigation.
I waited 17 months and months for what I was hoping was going to 18 be an integrous (PH) (PH) response, a response with 19 integrity.
- That's why I got emotional.
Every time I 20 see that letter, it reminds me of what I consider to 21 be one more opportunity that the company had to do the 22 right thing and be forthcoming, and they weren't.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think that 24 essentially covers it. Go ahead, Dan.25 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Going back to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
153 1 grassing issue and a fax that you provided to us, we 2 have now learned ;hat the ma. ager that was iiieriatcd 3 (PH) (PH) was 'speaking up against the / (-4 Herculean efforts. Right?5 (No response.)
6 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Then there's a 7 response that's quoted here provided to the imperiated 8 (PH) manager, 9 He asks why are we doing 9 this. The response he receives is "It doesn't matter.10 We're doing it." Do you know who provided that 11 response?12 THE WITNESS: I do not.13 RESIDENT INSPECTOR ORR: Thank you.14 THE WITNESS: Thank you.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. We'll 16 move on to the alleged discrimination.
17 COORDINATOR VITO: I just don't want Dr.18 Harvin to feel like she's being cut off. Do you want 19 her to point out the items in the files now so that 20 we're not rushing the last five minutes to try to 21 allow her to figure that out before she has to pack up 22 and leave before we get into the discrimination stuff?23 It's just a suggestion.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that primarily 25 what you want to point out is the issues on the work NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
154 1 environment and procedural that are in this pile, or 2 does it relate to che allegea discrimination?
3 THE WITNESS: Some of both. More of it is 4 work environment.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you want to 6 cover that now? Is it helpful to stop and do it now 7 for you and to have that done?8 THE WITNESS: Sure. That's fine.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We will go off the 10 record.11 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 12 the record at 3:15 p.m. and went back on 13 the record at 3:16 p.m.)14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Back on the record.15 The decision is we'll just go ahead and review these 16 documents after today's interview because given the 17 space that we have which is less than an hour now 18 we'll move ahead and cover the retaliation aspects of 19 your concerns.20 THE WITNESS: I just found a note that I 21 want to put on the record. This is a conversation I 22 had recently with 9 He was talking about 23 how we make nuclear safety decisions. "It's possible 24 to build a strong case around the answer that we want 25 versus writing down the risks and rewards or benefits NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS V49.1 PHnnFl: IRI ANir AW: MI 1A1 155 1 and deciding from there.2 If you look at what ve were talking ')out, 3 if you want an answer in favor of production, it's 4 easy to build a case for that answer. If you want an 5 answer in conservative nuclear decision making space, 6 then you can build a case around that answer." I was 7 asking him how we got here. He thinks that's the 8 current mode.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You had indicated 10 when we were off the record earlier thaty 2_M s 11 the same individual who told you that he was in fear 12 for the safety of the plant. Can you explain why for 13 the record please?14 THE WITNESS: Yes, after he wais sharing 15 with me all of this, I sai dgiven everything you 16 are talking about, the pressure from the highest 17 levels of the corporation of production over safety, 18 et cetera, how can you tolerate this. How is it that 19 you and your family still live there? I said my 20 biggest concern is that we're primed for a nuclear 21 event.22 I can't remember his exact phrase, but he 23 said the plant is so well designed it can protect us 24 from ourselves.
I said I don't think that's the way 25 it's supposed to be. I said look at all the defense NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
156 1 in depth barriers that you are talking about that make 2 the plant itself the last bari..er.
I said th..t's 3 really counter to everything we talk about and how at 4 least I think we've been lead to think. He said the 5 plant itself is the final safeguard.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you get 7 everything that you wanted from that note and that 8 conversation with him?9 THE WITNESS: Yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. In terms 11 of your recognition of the safety concerns on-site and 12 your raising these concerns to management, what I 13 would like to have answered is -and we've been 14 through some of this before -when did you first 15 become aware of these particular concerns and who did 16 you first raise them to. What can you date as the 17 first time you were aware of this?18 THE WITNESS: I mentioned earlier the 19 staff meeting in which I said leadership is a nuclear 20 safety issue. So the take away message that I got, 21 whether intended to be sent or not, was approaching it 22 this way isn't going to work. It's going head on 23 which was what my style tends to be.24 So I became much more circumspect in 25 working where I was. I was still working on behalf of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 157 nuclear safety, but I worked at it through the culture issues that I talked ý_bout and I adership coachi g.I'll give you the whole chronology of last year. What became very apparent was the obvious issues happening that I spoke about including being ineffective as the Ia nd who ends up seeing, 'who is th. at what I call very low power. I correlate that to being able to think clearly and well.I had worked with the current leadership team-long enough that I knew in my heart that this was not a team that was going to get us to excellence.
back in early May. I met witb , I said that the time away had been very good for me. I had a fresh perspective on things.I wanted to be very straight and forthcoming with him. I said I did not believe we had a management team in place that could get us to excellence and that was serving the site well.Without saying it, that was frankly an indictment of his leadership because he selected that team of people. I felt like we were at such a point that I had to be that bold and that blunt with him.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.IC-1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 158 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What point in time was this?THE WITNESS: This was May 2002. His reaction to that conversation was -andm is a man of very few words -much more of a body language, facial expression kind of reaction.
It was much like what I experienced when I said leadership is a nuclear safety issue. It was cold and not responsive even though I built a case for what each vice president was missing and why we were in the shape that we were in.Up until that point, I was having one on one meetings with )roughly every month and for several months did not have those sessions.Supposedly it got written off to his schedule.
But it was unusual because the whole time I had been there I had monthly meetings with him.Then the issue with came up.It was on September 24 that I met with those NEOs. I had at 1request started focusing on the Salem NEOs because they were a hot bed. That's the word that was used. I saw clearly that the issues that the union guys spoke to me about, especially that night with that incident, he needed to know about him and they weren't going to get solved without some support from him.ý.. Lý-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
159 1 So in my early October meeting with him, 2 which I believe was on Occober 1 or 2, I told __&9 3 about my meeting with the NEOs and my subsequent 4 meetings withA and His 5 reaction was somewhat similar toof I 6 can't believe you think those guys are really 7 concerned about and his family and him 8 putting himself at risk. They just didn't want to do 9 the work.10 Remember, this is right around the time 11 either before or after we knew we were going to get a 12 three. I believe we got the score on September 29.13 So this is only a few days after that. The world has 14 changed. We were holding our breath and crossing our 15 fingers for a two. We didn't get a two. I was 16 quite upset. So timing or not, I bring him this issue 17 and get this difficult response.
I felt like in a lot 18 of ways I had become the problem for believing these 19 guys.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before, Jeff was 21 going point to point on your draft complaint.
This 22 brings us to about point 10 it looks like on or about 23 October 2 where you advised 1of the concerns 24 that had been brought to your attention by the Salem 25 operators.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVF N W 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 160 THE WITNESS: Right.SPECIAL AGENT N2FF: Who m,:-es disparaging remarks about th-THE WITNESS: SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's 'SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Maybe we can use that as a guideline when you talk about your discrimination.
THE WITNESS: Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right. And if there is information that isn't included on here, please make us aware of it.THE WITNESS: Okay. We can follow this.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You documented that he makes disparaging remarks about that What were the remarks? Do you recall?THE WITNESS: He's the whiner. Whiner was the word he used for and one of our weaker I don't think he said SRO. We didn't call them shift managers either back then. It was weaker OSs and that he couldn't control his guys. So he saw this as a failure on I&SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. At this point, you just indicated that the world has shifted. Now NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.IC 1~
161 1 you have the rating of a three. Have you had anything 2 like this expressed before t- you b *. I 3 THE WITNESS: Yes, but not with this 4 intensity and not with the anger that went along with 5 it. )was all over the place frankly about 6 whether people were good or whether they were bad and 7 whether they were the problem or management was the 8 problem. This was the first time that it really 9 struck me in the arena of safety.10 A lot of times before when we would have 11 those dialogues, it wasn't about safety issues. It 12 was about work packages, or it was about what was 13 going on in the field. But it wasn't safety focused 14 like this was. This was in some ways quite startling 15 to me that here it is the head guy now thinks these 16 guys are wrong and these guys are the problem. I 17 couldn't fathom how he could condone 18 behavior.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think that he 20 had a complete picture of what the concerns were here 21 in behavior and the union's concerns?
Do 22 you think he have a full understanding of what it was 23 you were bringing to him?24 THE WITNESS: Yes, I don't have any doubt 25 about that.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 162 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You went through the union grievance.
I think thiL is where 2 u indicated that there was some verification of the concerns.THE WITNESS: Someone came in and interviewed all the people who had been at that meeting with me. The notes that I provided from\ this was a transcript of the handwritten key points that )made in his conversation with that.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Then you later meet SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Bullet 12.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How far apart are these meetings do you think?THE WITNESS: Let's see. There was a meeting in January and there was one in early February, so they weren't all that far apart.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Looking at number 12, I'll give you a chance to look at it so you know when this occurred.THE WITNESS: Okay. This meeting on point 12 I believe was January 26 or there about.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: '03.THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this just between NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
163 yourself an -IC1 2 THE WITNESS: Yes.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that the case also 4 for the October 2 meeting where it's just yourself and 6 THE WITNESS: Yes, it always was just the 7 two of us.8 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Halfway through 9 point 12, you tel "conversations by NRC 10 licensed senior reactor operators at Salem and Hope 11 Creek felt management was inconsistent in promoting 12 conservative decision making regarding nuclear 13 safety." Did you tell him who specifically?
14 THE WITNESS: No, I did not, and he didn't 15 ask.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you tell him 17 who from management was viewed as being inconsistent 18 in promoting conservative decision making? Did you 19 provide him names?20 THE WITNESS: Ask your question again 21 please.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Yes, when it talks 23 in here about "Salem and Hope Creek operators felt 24 management was inconsistent in promoting conservative
[LC 25 decision making," did you tell who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
164 I specifically from management was viewed that way?2 THE WITNESS: 3 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: 4 SPECIAL AGENTNEF 5 THE WITNESS: Yes.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you share that 7 with is my question, those specific names.8 THE WITNESS: I don't recall that I did.9 I don't recall that I didn't. But I don't recall is 10 the truth.11 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Reading down 12 further in point 12, you said that you told 13 Chat "Only one of three directors was fully 14 engaged in doing his job." Who was that individual?
15 THE WITNESS: *16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did you tell him 17 that?18 THE WITNESS: Yes, I did, and I drew a 19 picture for him that I have here in my notes that I 20 will leave with you.21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was his reaction 23 to this concern? You were expressing this was 24 inappropriate and it's jeopardizing the site. What do 25 you recall that he said about that?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 165 THE WITNESS: He shook his head affirmatively.
I know. w-crking on it.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that it?THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are there any other conversations, meetings, documents where you raised concerns to your management, to the site management of this nature or along these lines? Between this meeting in January and your next meeting with him in February, did you have any further discussions with him?THE WITNESS: Not witho j no.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anyone else?THE WITNESS: I had daily conversations with IN He and I worked very closely together at this point, but they weren't specifically about these issues.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point in time, what are you working on with primarily?
THE WITNESS: How to get the board of directors to do their job and run the site. I was spending a lot of time with and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
166 1 , , ...there very much. I was 2 dtying to get them and on the same page Lecause 3 they definitely weren't, and that was working havoc 4 with the management team.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On February 24, you 6 were called to a meeting withW The idea 7 was you were told you were going over your bonus.8 THE WITNESS: Yes.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You meet with'i 10 and he asked for an update. You describe once 11 again the concerns about the management issues, 12 concerns about operational decision making, and the 13 nuclear equipment officers at Salem's concerns.
All 14 of this is reiterated at that meeting.15 THE WITNESS: Right. Pretty much what I 16 said the previous month.17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: One on one again 18 wit 19 THE WITNESS: Yes.20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What made you think 21 that the meeting was to discuss your bonus?22 THE WITNESS: The secretary 1 called and 23 told me.24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who is his 25 secretary?
- NEAL R. GROSS 4, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i~rn pw-I~fl= Icu ANmn A%/F= ?J W 167 1 THE WITNESS: N 2 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: I. she still there 3 as far as you know?4 THE WITNESS: Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thanks.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I see here that it's 7 documented he asked you if there was anything else.8 Do you recall any other reaction to your concerns at 9 this point?10 THE WITNESS: No, it was clear the meeting 11 was shifting gears.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was it.13 THE WITNESS: Yes.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What made you think 15 it was clear the meeting was shifting gears? What 16 makes you say that?17 THE WITNESS: As I was giving my report, 18 instead of engaging with me like !would normally 19 do with a dialogue, what do you think about this, and 20 what do you think about that, this was just him 21 listening.
It was almost like he couldn't wait for me 22 to finish. There was no real dialogue.
There was no 23 brainstorming together like we would often do. It was 24 clear something else was on his mind.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: What happened?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 168 THE WITNESS: He said I have some bad newa.. I'm eliminating your position; I just lz-ked at him. He took out this folder and handed me this letter and said something like it's not about you, it's about the numbers.COORDINATOR VITO: So the letter was already put together.
Take your time. Usually secretaries put their initials on stuff. Were there initials on that letter? You couldn't see them.THE WITNESS: I said to him doea 7know?Because we had plans that when left I would report to ) I was going to relocate.
I had already started looking for a home in the area. I was tired of or five years.I said doe.4 know. He said I told him right before you came in.I didn't cry like I am now. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
I was shocked. He said no one else knows excep that HR person which frankly turned out to be a lie. He said I won't be telling anyone. It's up to you. He said go give 'a call. Then I got up and left.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're saying that he made the statement I'm eliminating your position.THE WITNESS: Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.I~
169 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it your 2 understanding this was his decision?3 (No response.)
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anyone else have 5 any input?6 T.HE WITNESS: Because that was a critical 7 question for me, I went back later to find out. It 8 made no sense. Of all the people, it just made no 9 sense. I didn't know if it was a polite firing or if 10 he had been ordered by or someone.11 Later on I went back to" and asked him point 12 blank. I've heard all these rumors. I've heard 13 different stories. Tell me the real reason.14 He said it was 100 percent his decision 15 which obviously has been refuted by others now. It 16 wasn't for performance.
It wasn't because I didn't do 17 a good job. It was strictly because of numbers, and 18 it was now going to be knock down, drag out with the 19 union. I couldn't help with that, and I was even a 20 detriment to that.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Before we get 22 there, when he says "it's because of the numbers," 23 what does he mean by that?24 THE WITNESS: A couple months before they 25 started a force reduction.
By that time, I think 12 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
170 1 pe ple's jobs had been eliminated.
2 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: I'll b( right bac!3 THE WITNESS: First of all, those 4 positions were publicly announced that those positions 5 were going to be eliminated.
The organization was 6 rallied to help those people find jobs within the 7 organization.
I felt then, as I do now, that my 8 position eliminated was handled very differently from 9 any of the ones that have preceded or now have 10 followed my situation.
11 COORDINATOR VITO: Was that part of the 12 program, that announced effort to help people find 13 other positions, the other jobs that were before you?14 THE WITNESS: It was announced at a 15 management meeting, yes. If you have a job opening, 16 be sure to give these people the first shot.17 COORDINATOR VITO: But you got no offer 18 like that.19 THE WITNESS: I got no offer of that and 20 found out subsequently that all the positions were 21 frozen, and I had nowhere to go becausON 22 had frozen all the positions anyway. So anything that 23 I could have applied for, I was frozen out of anyway.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At the point that 25 this happened for you in late February, are you saying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS dngoA Pwonr- ImI Amn AVP N W 171 1 tha' these 12 people that were affected by prior 2 position cuts were a couple of months before?3 THE WITNESS: It started in December.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It started in 5 December.
What about by the time you were getting 6 your information that your position was getting cut?7 Are they ongoing, or are you out alone in a field of 8 one person being cut?9 THE WITNESS: In fact, I was told I was a 10 party of one. That was the phrase that was used to me 11 by-jgof HR because my attorney said ask 12 where the demographics are so we can see how you are 13 being treated compared to others, ask here the 14 criteria is that they have to use, et cetera. i)15 response was we don't owe you any of that because you 16 are a party of one. I said how can you say on the one 17 hand I'm part of the force reduction and then on the 18 other hand say I'm a party of one. I said I should 19 not be penalized for working fo _ .., 20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: is saying 21 this.22 THE WITNESS: 2 was saying all that to 23 me, and I was saying that back to Vj 24 SPECIAL AGENT -TEATOR: When is 25 telling you this, he specifically told you then that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
172 1 your mployment was being terminated as a result of a position elimination effective April 16, 2Q02.3 THE WITNESS: Correct. I had 45 days like 4 everyone else to find a job, continue my job. It was 5 my choice to spend the 45 days however I chose to 6 spend it. My plana even from the time I left K, 7 office was find a way to work this out because my 8 mission wasn't done. I was there not for a job but 9 for a mission, to make this a healthy work place.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point in 11 time, you said there were more cuts after. Are you 12 talking about anything that' s happening more recently?13 THE WITNESS: More recently.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In the past two or 15 three months or so.16 THE WITNESS: Yes, I don't know that 17 anybody else left after my situation on February 26 Q 18 which was the date formed me. I don't know of 19 anybody else who had to leave beforeLcame 20 in. There was a concerted effort in my view to be 21 sure I was out before the new guy came on board such 22 that they even escalated my departure date.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There was another 24 comment that you made that I would like to go back to.25 It had to do with tying your termination to union NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1321 RHnnF IS1 ANf AVF.. N.W 173 1 concer s.2 THE WITNESS: Yes.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was that?/(4 THE WITNESS: .-When(' ,told me I was a 5 detriment, what that clearly brought to my mind was I 6 go out on a limb, I speak up for the Salem NEOs all 7 last fall and early January who had nobody speaking up 8 for them, nobody fighting for their concerns, and 9 suddenly now me whose area just got a strength from 10 INPO for union-management work together a year before, 11 suddenly I'm a liability.
He said you're a detriment.
12 The only thing I specifically spoke up to him about 13 that would have me be a detriment were the safety 14 issues because that's what I was bringing him.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the only thing 16 that you can associate it with.17 THE WITNESS: Yes.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He didn't give you 19 anything more specific other than "you're a 20 detriment." 21 THE WITNESS: No, he didn't give me any 22 reasons in the first conversation.
I want to be sure 23 we get this. The conversation where he handed me the 24 letter and said I'm eliminating your position was a 25 one minute, maybe 90 second conversation.
Then I got NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
174 1 up and .ft. There was no dialogue, no nothing.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it was later when 3 you went back to him for clarification where he tells 4 you it was 100 percent his decision to do that.5 THE WITNESS: Yes.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Is that the 7 conversation you have on tape?8 THE WITNESS: Yes, and let me just 9 explain. I needed to know if I had a chance with the 10 new guy or not. 2 retirement was going to be 11 effective April 1, and the new guy was coming in. So 12 I had two weeks where I could win over
- W .13 I had enough people on the management team advocating 14 for me to stay and willing to go to the 15 first week or so that he was there to say we need to 16 keep this person.17 But I needed to know if I had been corprateor
--or 18 blackballed from corporate or 19 somebody and therefore had no chance. If that was the 20 case, I needed to start looking for work. I had 21 planned to go and see f the morning that I went to 22 him which was March 20. I had planned to go just to 23 talk about that issue. Why? Give me the straight 24 talk. Tell me why.25 It was the day before and that morning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.19.1 RHnFlfl VI~ &1~ AVP N W 175 1 that had come to me and said we're 2 dai..ierous.
Sc that's what led to the second picce of 3 the conversation.
Just how reacted to that, it 4 was like all the dominos fell. I knew. I could see 5 the whole picture then that I had in some ways been 6 blind to before then. Does that make sense?7 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: "The whole picture" 8 meaning what?9 THE WITNESS: ThatQ, 'was taking this 10 action against me because I was speaking up on behalf 11 of the union guys and on behalf of the management guys 12 who were afraid to speak up for themselves about 13 industrial and nuclear safety. How do you say 14 bullshit to somebody when they come to you about 15 nuclear safety? How do you say.we have operators who 16 don't know shit from shinola? Then he called the head 17 of HR and said I want her out of here.18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: How do you know 19 that happened?20 THE WITNESS: told me. No, 21 did not use those words. He said he got a 22 call from after I spoke with him. That 23 conversation is also on tape.24 COORDINATOR VITO: After the January 26 25 conversation or after the March 20 conversation?
NEAL R. GROSS C-COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
176 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The second one where 2 you recorded.
You recorded at this point in time.3 Right?4 THE WITNESS: Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: On the advise of 6 counsel.7 THE WITNESS: On the advise of counsel.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After you left that 9 meeting, was this supposed to have taken place on the 10 same day? tells you.11 THE WITNESS: Say that again. I'm sorry.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did his call to 13 happen on the same day that you had that 14 meeting?15 THE WITNESS: Yes.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You have also some 17 recordings involving you have indicated.
18 Right?19 THE WITNESS: Yes,. what those recordings 20 reveal is tha af ter I left him, 21 said accelerate her departure, wanted to be sure that 22 I was gone by the last day that he was there which was 23 March 28. I met withi , on Monday, and I'm supposed 24 to be out by Friday which contradicts what's in the 25 letter that says my departure date was made NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1*91 pwnn=l I.Q1 Ahn~ A%/;: NI V 177 1 by HR.point blank told me it was made by 2 3 It also contradicts that the decision to 4 eliminate my position was made in fall 2002 which also 5 is in t-etter. Now if they made it in the 6 fall of 2002, it may be possible.
That's when I was 7 bringing him the safety concerns from the NEOs to 8 begin with.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But initially back in 10 the fall. But', told you it was his 11 decision, and he communicates that in February 2003.12 THE WITNESS: Correct.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Prior to late 14 February 2003, what was your understanding of what 15 your length of employment was going to be with PSEG?16 Uid you have a contract of any sorte 17 THE WITNESS: I didn't have a contract.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any end date? Did 19 they tell you how long you would be on-site?20 THE WITNESS: No, I was under a year at a 21 time when I was on the corporate payroll. I 22 understood that I was on a year at a time when I was 23 on the corporate payroll and on loan to nuclear. This 24 is really important.
At the end of 2001, in December, 25 N decided to save money because corporate was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
178 1 marking up my rates to $60,000. He wanted me on his 2 payroll and reporting to him.3 I made it clear to him at the time -and 4 it was understood as far as I knew -that now I was 5 part of nuclear, and I was not on a one year at a time 6 deal. I would have never taken it because if I would 7 have stayed at corporate, I would have an organization 8 in essence to go back to if I had been on rotation as 9 they call it.10 So I come to nuclear thinking I'm going to 11 relocate.
He said I'm not going to pay your expenses 12 anymore because you're part of my team now and blah 13 blah. As I said , 14 15 16 date. As I had talked with ýabout, as 17 soon asil" was gone, I was going to report to him.18 and I had both for two months 19 to confirm that's what was going to 20 happen, that I was going to transfer to. nd report 21 tonever gave either of us an answer. So 22 it wasn't locked in, but it was certainly what the 23 expectation was. was as shocked as I was to find 24 out my position was being eliminated.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He reportedly learned NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 119. R1 I"l)F IJRI AMnf AVF. N W.
179 1 this the same .y you did.2 THE WITLiESS:
He did. I saw him come out 3 0 Loffice looking ashen. He looked at me, and 4 then I went in.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of your 6 employment, you are switched from corporate over to 7 nuclear. Is any of that documented?
8 THE WITNESS: Yes.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that type of thing 10 contained in your personnel file?11 THE WITNESS: It should be. I've never 12 seen my personnel file. It definitely should be 13 because my paycheck changed. It's definitely 14 documented.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The effect was it 16 took you off this year to year rotational assignment.
17 Now you are a permanent nuclear on-site at --18 THE WITNESS: Yes, and even on my 19 performance appraisal where I talk about my goals, my 20 goal was to become a staff member in the operations 21 organization.
I was going to be there.22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Who wrote your 23 appraisal?
Was it:W 1.24 THE WITNESS: The last time around it was 25 (N.hich was another issue. I'll bring you a copy.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 180 SPEC AL AGENT TEATOR: We'll get your oi~.Litial personnel f.le.THE WITNESS: Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Prior to him writing the performance appraisals
--THE WITNESS: I'd gotten top rated appraisals from the person I reported to at corporate.
SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me just look at this. You had a conversation with who did not know you were being terminated.
THE WITNESS: Correct.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We got into how the actual date of the termination was shortened.
This happens the week of March --THE WITNESS: Yes, can I just say one thing before then? This is the piece of the puzzle I don't understand.
Maybe we'll find out. Maybe we won't. On February 5 -and I have some emails that document this -I write ,! about an invitation I had received to be on the assessment team at the three Duke INPO plants. I build a case, and it's going to take roughly six to eight weeks of my time.sends back a note saying I think this would be good for you. So that's February 5."-Ic A couple days later we're at the Peller NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOnF ISI Alr AVF N W 181 1 Leadership Confer nce for the top 100 people in the 2 entt*Lp.:ise co go and hear and 3 nd others. I was there 4 also. I was there filling in for a vacancy and wasn't 5 on the original invitee list. But nevertheless I was 6 there and that's a lot of secret corporate 7 information, financials, and all that.8 So it's inconceivable to me how 20 days 9 later roughly I'm being told we don't want you 10 anymore. I don't know what happened.
I've always 11 been left wondering.
I will get into what4 12 told me. He said they are out to get you.13 I've never been able to ascertain who the "they" is.14 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: So those are two 15 indications to you that your employment was secure at 16 that point.17 THE WITNESS: Yes.18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The issue you 19 mentioned about that meeting that you attended, do you 20 have some sort of documentation regarding that?21 THE WITNESS: That I went?22 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: That you went and 23 what was talked about.24 THE WITNESS: Sure, yes.25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: The INPO assessment NEAL. R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4111 MUrWr% 101 A Mr At /C M IAM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 i0 12 13 14 15 16.17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 182 that you were goinS to be a member of, when was that to ta,.e place again?THE WITNESS: The first visit was the week of April 5. The second one was April 16. The third was in May.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You had the go ahead from' at least initially that it sounds like a good idea. Correct?THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Good.THE WITNESS: Now when I meet withimm she said ' said you should still do your trip. That's part of your job. I said but two of them happen after my exit date. She said you'll have to work that out with him. So it's like something weird. Something is weird here.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you have any other indications during that time period that led you to believe that your employment was going to be secured for the foreseeable future?THE WITNESS: Yes, I have one other thing.When you asked what I was working on, in January, Sad put together what we called the hundred day initiative.
I had done a lot of research and dreamed this up that how we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l')'4Wfn IRI ANn AVF N W.j) (I sQ 183 1 could move the or, anization forward where each 2 direct...t
¶oul& lead up a iundred day initiative.
3 j)was in management engagement, 4 getting management really engaged with workers which 5 was critical.
K.....had one related to 6 operations leadership.
1160 i ad one related 7 to union management partnerships.
We were going to 8 take this process and continue it all the way up until 9 INPO came back next summer. So it was going to go all 10 the way through 2003 to 2004.11 We were going to be able to take a lot of 12 ground. Our dream was to get an INPO two because of 13 this initiative.
So we had a plan laid out. I was 14 accountable for that initiative with the directors and 15 ..We were going to have this case to show 16 INPO how we turned around or how we had made these 17 great strides. That was in the works.18 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Think about other 19 instances which showed you down the road that your 20 employment here was secure and you were going to be 21 there for quite a while. Think about that.22 THE WITNESS: Okay.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did your switch from 24 corporate to the site involve any kind of a paid 25 relocation?
A NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 431 DUrUC AKI A %/= KI %AI 184 1 THE WITNE 3: No.2 SPECIAL AGENT NiEFF: We had gotten up to 3 the week of March 28. Now you were given an 4 accelerated date for departure.
5 THE WITNESS: Yes.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The conversations 7 that you documented here, is this essentially 8 everything that we should know? You said some of 9 these are recorded.
I think you transmitted some of 10 those *on email to me.11 THE WITNESS: Right. I wanted to state 12 this for the record and give you my world. On March 13 19 and March 20, tells me about this 14 bypass valve issue, the -- from corporate, that we 15 were dangerous, and if the NRC knew what we were 16 doing, they would take the keys away. Q are you 17 going to talk to somebody about this. No, it won't do 18 any good. The conversation is along this ilk. It's 19 not exact quotes.20 So me, having already planned to go and 21 seeQ I includes this in my conversation with him, 22 the nuclear safety concerns production over safety.23 By now, I have heard from a number of Hope Creek 24 people about this abysmal debate that took place 25 between corporate and Enterprise.
__)basically
, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 185 1 says what he says. I F)n't need to go through that 2 a 3 I leave there and had a long conversation.
4 Remember earlier today I referenced a very long three 5 or four hour conversation withdm This 6 follows my meeting wit 9 I see that he shares 7 many of the concerns.
Friday I get a call fro-8 -cretary sayin wants to meet with you.9 I said what's it about. It's about your lay off. I'm 10 thinking to myself they want to pressure me to sign 11 the voluntary severance agreement documents.
12 So I didn't think anything of it. I 13 called my attorney.
I'm driving to the shore. I'm 14 trying to figure out is this so bad I need to go to 15 the NRC or I need to take additional action. He asked 16 me a lot of very good questions.
I basically come 17 down to I have to alert -I this, but it's not 18 so grave that I have to come directly to the NRC.19 So I called, who is a friend 20 of mine at corporate, a 21 organization.
I said I need your help. I met 22 with I have nuclear safety concerns.
He said 23 that's a bunch of bullshit.
I want to reach 24 What do you think I should do, thinking~
would 25 give me 0home number. It's a Friday night.NEAL R. GROSS A C.COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 )4q9 0W j MI1 A KIM Al IC K1 MA 186 1 says go to emplc, ee concerns.
That's the 2 prccess.3 So I spent the weekend writing N 4 letter because I understand he's going to 5 be on-site Monday. I'm trying to weigh all of this.6 I'm having lots of conversations with a couple of 7 people that I confide in. I wrote this very extensive 8 letter that talks about these issues. I have somebody 9 lined up to help me get to on Monday.10 Well, l iINdoesn't show up where he's supposed 11 to show up, so that nixes that.12 Then I get this meeting with 13 and get told we're escalating your departure.
So if 14 it wasn't clear before, it certainly has become clear 15 now. I read the NRC regulations on the website. I 16 thought this is really over the line. So I changed my 17 letter, and I wrote to The 18 protocol is you go to your boss's boss. Right? He 19 happens to be the -w 20 I faxed that letter to his office about 21 5:00 p.m. I told his secretary please be sure he gets 22 it because it's about nuclear safety issues. She 23 assures me he does. I go t I read him the 24 letter and have a discussion with him. He assures me 25 he will treat this appropriately, won't infor Jim .NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1'2') 1Q1 AkIn AlC MlA1 187 1 will go directly to cor orate about this because 2 Obvigusly
- i. iiLvol'vs his boss.3 The next morning I get a call from my 4 attorney telling me that (a) somebody from Winston &5 Strawn wants to meet with me and (b) that my badge and 6 my access to the company is going to be severed on 7 Friday. So instead of me turning in all my stuff on 8 April 16, I have to turn it in on the 28th.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Your attorney is 10 telling you all this.11 THE WITNESS: Yes.12 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: They guy who is 13 here today.14 THE WITNESS: No, I had a different 15 attorney.16 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did the company 17 know you were represented at that point?18 THE WITNESS: In the letter tow 19 1it says I have counsel.20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. Thanks.21 / THE WITNESS: The piece I skipped was that 22 called me Wednesday morning -and I have 23 this on tape I believe -and said he talked to 24 and nd they want me out by Friday. So I should 25 bring all my stuff and prepare to turn in my badge.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS VAIA RHn- F IRI ANf AVE.. N.W.
188 1 Well, that hurt me even mo: : because I had lined up 2 wozk zt corpoaca.
i was actua+/-ily going to do some 3 leadership coaching i organization my 4 final weeks here. Now they were going to take my 5 badge. They were going to take my voicemail and my 6 email. Even though I'm still an employee until April 7 15, they tell me that's in name only because I've lost 8 all my access to the company.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Were you paid 10 through April 16?11 THE WITNESS: Yes, I was paid, but I 12 wanted to work. I didn't want to get paid. It wasn't 13 about the money. I wanted to do my work. Just to 14 make it clear, it looks now like not only didg 15 *M ~take retaliatory action. But I follow the 16 process and go to employee concerns and I go to my 17 boss's boss and there's more retaliatory action the 18 next day.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You make that 20 connection based on the fact that they want you out by 21 Friday. I don't want to assume here, j 22 didn't give you any other reason. Did he?23 THE WITNESS: No.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What's documented 25 here is complete.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
189 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 THE WITNESS: Wh" point is that?SPzC+/-i.L AGzNT NEFF: tells you ( nd want you out by Friday.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Number 20.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, point 20, the company badge would have to be turned in on Friday, March 28 and not the 16th. Once again, you see this as retaliation for your actions of reporting your concerns.
There's nothing in between there.. He doesn't give you any further information.
THE WITNESS: Not that I recall. It's on tape, but I don't recall any.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about conversations with anybody else? Any further conversations with o0 THE WITNESS: I went to?' the next day.I walked in to his office. I'm upset by now. Now not only is it but now they are saying So this was the first time that I heard that went in on this.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Do you think he was in on this?THE WITNESS: I think he knew more than he told me. He admits that in the conversation with me.And he knows who the "they" is. There's no doubt in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS -1 ~
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 190 my mind there's way more to th' ; story than he's told me. I dc 2 n't hav, may dCL.bt about Ltat. So I was in nis office 45 minutes maybe.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is the one on one meeting.THE WITNESS: Yes, this is taped&. This is when he makes it all very clear to me. He says they are out to get you and they are out to get others. He implies that he's in that pot as well. This is when he talks about not having any power and not being able to do this.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Did he state who the "they" was that was out to get you?THE WITNESS: No.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: All right. You have that whole conversation on tape.THE WITNESS: Yes.SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Good.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You also indicated he thinks he's part of the people that they are after.W 0 is in the same position.THE WITNESS: Yes, he said he thought he would be gone within 90 days, and he was right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: March 28 was your, final day of employment there.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.2. RHnnF IS) AM AVF NW 191 1 THE WITNESS: Yes.2 SPECIP.jj t-GENT i'JEFF: Do yuu have any other 3 documents to add to this, Dr. Harvin? Any other 4 information that we should be aware of?5 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We're going to look 6 through this stuff, Dr. Harvin.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, you also 8 indicated at the time you were making these decisions 9 in terms of who to write to where you had changed and 10 gone from one individual to -hat you had / 11 confided in some people. Are these people who were 12 on-site? Who were you confiding in at this point in 13 time?14 THE WITNESS: I was confiding in my 15 attorney.
I also have a friend who is an attorney in 16 Illinois.
I was talking with her.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. A personal 18 friend not connected with the site.19 THE WITNESS: Right.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did we get the name 21 of your attorney at this point in time?22 THE WITNESS: Stephen Long at Drinker, 23 Biddle, and Reath.24 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Where are they out 25 of?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1q9?1 PrR~nF: miI aI.J Aws: mi w 192 I THE WITNESS: Florha- Park.2 SPECIAi. ACENT L'SATOR: New Jersey.3 THE WITNESS: Yes.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: We got from you 5 tha told you it was 100 percent his 6 decision to terminate your employment April 16. I 7 think we have gotten from you who you believe caused 8 that date to be made earlier, to escalate that date.9 , is that correct? Do you believe he was 10 involved in that decision to move it up? Who do you 11 believe was involved in the decision to move up the 12 date of your departure?
13 THE WITNESS: I have no doubt that 14 Mwas. He made that clear to 15 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Right.16 THE WITNESS: I suspect the other part of 17 the "they" -whoever the "they" was -and I really 18 don't know. To have my access to the company sites --19 1 wroteiýwith it. Who would make that 20 decision?21 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Let me ask you who 22 you think made that decision.
We're going to talk to 23 "1 of course about who the "they" are.24 THE WITNESS: '25 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR:Q .NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 193 1 THE WITNESS: I suspect it was 2 _ LUa3el uecided thaC I was too 3 dangerous to have around.4 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else to add 6 at this point in time, after March 28 when you leave 7 the site?8 THE WITNESS: Yes, I just want to let you 9 guys know that I did not turn in two company laptops 10 because they had considerable evidence on them. I was 11 requested by the company to return them, and I chose 12 not to. I just want to be. up front with you about 13 that. I never entered into any kind of negotiations.
14 My offer was going to be to buy them more, turn them 15 over to you guys or something.
But we did not have a 16 single bit of negotiation.
17 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: You indicated that 18 during the phone conversations of the last couple of 19 days that you had copied onto disks all of that 20 information.
Did you do that? If so, we would like 21 to have a copy of the disk. Did you download all of 22 that onto a floppy disk?23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you explain to me 24 that's what you had been doing, you were taking some 25 information off that was relevant?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 194 1 THE WITNESS: The hard i.ive.2 SP2CIAL AZEi%7T NEoF: RighL, the hard 3 drive.4 THE WITNESS: Yes, I brought you a set of 5 disks.6 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Okay. There are 7 copies for us too. Those disks contain everything.
8 THE WITNESS: Not everything yet.9 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: But at this point, 10 we can take possession of those two disks.ii COORDINATOR VITO: I know you have to 12 leave soon. Just two more.13 THE WITNESS: That's fine.14 COORDINATOR VITO: I'm trying to set all 15 this up. We had a conversation on Friday. Toward the 16 end of the conversation, you made a comment about this 17 reorganization or whatever you want to call it.18 THE WITNESS: Yes, thank you.19 COORDINATOR VITO: At least in your 20 opinion, you think it's sort of a guise to get rid of 21 people that are more vocal than others. If you want 22 to expand on that a little and get it on the record, 23 it might help.24 THE WITNESS: I've heard from several 25 parties that there's a points system that they are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS jq91) pHnn= IQ1 Ahln A%/= Ml Ma 195 1 using to ascertain who stays and w? o goes. What 2 -ompri.es tla point sys&-9' I' i.or defin'tely sure.3 I know it's education, background, work experience, I 4 believe performance appraisals, et cetera.5 They have the company lawyers and HR 6 involved to be sure everything's "kosher." However 7 when I hear the names of some of the people who no 8 longer have jobs, they are people who I would consider 9 to have been vocal about safety and leadership issues.10 They are not people who were necessarily good 11 troopers.
People who come to mind are 12 who has lead one of the premier RP departments in the 13 whole world andJ while I for a long 14 time believed he was not the right guy to bel 15 )Mhe did in many cases try to fight back 16 when the vice presidents were misguiding the site.ak 17 (who 18 ý is another person I heard doesn't have a job 19 and who I would put in that same category as someone 20 who spoke up time and time again saying this isn't 21 right. I don't know if the impressions I have have 22 any bearing, but I do believe it's something that 23 should be looked at.24 COORDINATOR VITO: I believe in our 25 conversation you also pu " in that group.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
196 1 THE WITNESS: Yes, I w uld put Mr.2jn t~Lat 3roup. .ic's de-iniitely, e.pecially 3 very recently, taken a lot of heat for fighting 4 production over safety. I think if it wasn't for him 5 fighting the way he did that day --6 COORDINATOR VITO: So you don't really 7 have any concrete evidence but from some of the people 8 that are being released, you see a pattern.9 THE WITNESS: Yes, I've also been told 10 that there's a class action lawsuit being filed on 11 behalf of those parties for discriminatory firing 12 practices or whatever you want to call it.13 COORDINATOR VITO: Do you know what that 14 suit is based on? Is it on raising issues or on age 15 or several things?16 THE WITNESS: It may be a combination of 17 things.18 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: How doesI fall / _.19 into this group? 9 also without a job.20 THE WITNESS: He had a five year contract.21 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: So it was a planned 22 retirement.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He did plan to leave 24 at that particular time.25 THE WITNESS: He planned to leave. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1qll PWHm I.R1 ANn A\IP H W 197 1 believe his departure was escalated also 2 SPE2IAL AGENT -.EATOR: Dr. Harvii., there 3 is a lot of documents on the table here still. We 4 haven't had a chance to go through them. Is it okay 5 if we maintain those until we get back together with 6 you? Is that how you would like to handle this?7 There's a lot here. Do you feel comfortable with 8 that?9 THE WITNESS: Sure, that's fine.10 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: Thank you.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is everybody else 12 okay if we go ahead and close the interview?
13 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: At this point, 14 we'll close.15 COORDINATOR VITO: Thank you.16 BRANCH CHIEF LORSON: Thank you.17 THE WITNESS: Thank you.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you for your 19 time.20 SPECIAL AGENT TEATOR: This interview is 21 closed. It's 4:15 p.m. Off the record.22 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 23 concluded at 4:15 p.m.)24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.