Text

OI Interview Transcript of Witness
	ML061800209
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	10/23/2003
From:	; NRC/OI
To:	;
References
	1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194
	Download: ML061800209 (87)
	v • d • e

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 12 13 14 i-s 16 17 18 19 20 2 22 23 24 25 in accordance withh Act,, exemptions FOWA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS INTERVIEW-----------------------------

X IN THE MATTER OF: INTERVIEW OF: (CLOSED): Docket No.: (Case No. 1-2003-051F)

X Thursday, October 23, 2003 NRC Resident's Office Salem Hope Creek The above-entitled interview was conducted at 7:30 p.m.BEFORE: EILEEN NEFF Special Agent ALSO PRESENT: SCOTT BARBER, Division of Reactor Projects NRC Region I.nd was *reedom of Information

' 1)02) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 (7:30 p.m.)3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today is October 23, 4 2003. The time is approximately 7:30 p.m. Speaking 5 is Special Agent Eileen Neff, U.S. NRC Region I, 6 Office of Investigations.

Also present from Region 7 I is Scott Barber from the Division of Reactor 8 Projects.9 What follows will be an interview withan fl currently employed at Salem 11 Generating Station, in regard to the NCR assessment 12 of the safety culture here at Salem in Hope Creek.13 I'll call ywould 14 you please provide your name, spell your last name 15 for the record, your date of birth and social 16 security number.17.18 social 19 security number 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. As I 2 explained to you prior to going on the record, we'll 22 conduct the interview under oath and also that you 23 were told that it's interesting that I didn't 24 contact you originally for this interview; you had 25 contacted me. We spoke for the first time NEAL R.GROSS I 'COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISNT ND AVE., N.W. 0 1 g1 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 2 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2 21 22 23 24 25 yesterday.

You understood that this assessment was on-going and that you had volunteered that you had some information that you thought might be relevant.We'll get into that in a minute.I also pointed out to you that at this time there's no potential specific violation that we're looking at. It's an assessment of the safety culture on-site. You understand that..Correct.

>-SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now, yesterday you called when you learned, at some point in this week, you learned that we were doing this-assessment and talking to people on-site. You called me and indicated that you'd like to be interviewed as part of it.That is correct.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Before we get into any questions on that, can you raise your right hand, please. Do you swear that the information that you're about to provide is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?.. ..0 do .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. Why don't we go into that directly.

What prompted you to call NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com in and say that you had some information for us?2 " Last week, on the 15th, Iwas standing watch as Salem reactor one 4 ;About 3 o'clock in the morning, we got an overhead 5 enunciator code 15, which is a digital feed problem.:6 Myself and another mmIN3ýtook response 7 come to find out we had a 14-BF-19, which is the 8 feed reg valve was stuck and was non-responsive.

.9 We took manual control of it. It would 10 hot close. We took manual control of its bypass 11 ' v alve, which by design, opened when there's a 12 deviation between demand and actual valve position.13 -We closed that and with the max load on the 14 (inaudible), it's been over-filling it, and thus 1 also preventing a reactor trip.1 6 By the time we got the water level under 17 control and turned, we were about 59 inches. I was 18 going to manually trip the reactor at 65, because an 19 automatic would have happened at 67. By the time we 20 got the whole plant stabiliz6&--and everybody felt 2 comfortable again, it was a little bit after 4 22 o'clock in the morning.23 At that point they called in, I think they 24 called the Rapid Response Team -- it's a board of 25 engineers, maintenance supervisors, technical people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4 5 6 7 8 9 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that were all supporting the Unit Two outage -- into a conference room with all the data and details of the event. At about 5:30 they had all the information they needed. They said they're going to go formulate their plan of attack.Initially all the ROs involved believed that 14-BF-19 was stuck. The main reason is I've had controllers fail on me in the past. I was on duty the night we had the PS-3 spray valve fail and we took a safety injection about a year ago.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't want to get too far off track, but I omitted something.

What I should do is have you explain your experience here on site. -V SG NOkay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry.I went around that. 74 Not a problem. I've been at Salem Generating Station about I started in as aN I was an I'mmr for about M11 ,,-I applied and got selected to go to I completed that in.I've been ....NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 To get back, I'd had controllers fail open 2 where we had no control of the controller and we 3 took an automatic safety injection that night. I've 4 also seen controllers fail where the valve fails 5 close and we can't get them open. I've had automatic controls fail where they get erratic, but 7 one we take manual control we can regain control.8 All attempts to control the BF-19 failed.9 It was stuck at about 74 percent open. That was 10 with a full close demand, zero percent open for 11 about two minutes. Normally the feed water 12 isolation valve is supposed to fail close in 10 13 seconds.14 So I firmly believe the valve was stuck at 15 that point. So did the oth 16 involved.

Immediately on e,. -got the plant 17 stabilized we got equipment operators in the field, 18 they got some INC technicians went out and looked at 19 it, as well as one of the supervisors went out and 20 looked at it. The initial response was that they 21 didn't see anything wrong with the valve.22 What we did at that point was we ran the 23 demand of the valve back up to 69 percent, which is 24 about five percent where it should have been, in 25 case whatever was holding the valve -- a mechanical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 binding or whatever -- decided to let go, we didn't 2 want it to slam shut, which if it slammed shut we 3 weren't going to be sure if we could open it again.4 So we put it in a more reliable position should 5 whatever the condition release the mechanical 6 binding.7 At that time, like I said, the INC B technicians and mechanic -- I didn't get the 9 mechanic's name -- had looked at the valve. They 1 said they didn't see anything externally.

They did 11 a quick external inspection of the controller.

They 12 said they didn't see anything they could think that 13 would prevent the valve from physically closing.14 However, the design of this gate or this controller 15 doesn't have inlet and outlet pressure demand 16 signals where they could say it's being told to do 17 this and it's not responding.

It's pretty much a 18 magic box as far as controllers go unless you start 19 hooking up more gear to it.20 What we got in the control room was that 21 the technicians believed it might be a controller 22 problem. They were going to investigate that 23 further. In the control room, we had asked why do 24 you think it's a control issue. The response we got 25 back was it was zero percent demand on the valve.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealigross.com 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 Nothing apparently prevented the valve from shutting.

It should have been shut. Therefore, it must be a controller holding it up.The ROs in the control room, none of us, really bought the story because the obvious explanation pointed at the valve itself.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were the in the control room at that point?Pjwas the other in there with me, (phonetic) was an, Ji) After we got the event stabilized, they brought in (phonetic), anothe.cun ..... rrir We were all in agreement that it was a stuck valve.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Could I ask you something at this point., SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Now that was based on your experience, but isn't this system a little bit unusual because it's digital?It is. It's an advanced digital feed system. That's where the INC technician, after I talked to him, after this event happened, he goes, well I pretty much believed it was the valve. He goes, but I wasn't going to say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 www.nealrgross.com 1 that it wasn't possible that there had been a 2 failure in the advance digital feed that may have 3 given a solid, like 75 percent, to it that no matter 4 what we did it was overriding us. That's why he 5 said, well I'm not going to say 100 percent that it 6 can't be the control.7 So when we got that, we were like, well I 8 think it's the valve, but if there's a chance it 9 could be the controller and we're in a safe 10 condition, there's no reason for us to cycle the 1 plant on an abnormal shut down right now until they 12 get more data. At this point they talked about 13 bringing the on-coming crew into the simulator, 14 training them. Because normally all the other feed 15 valves are designed to operate at a given 16 differential pressure across as well.17 The shut down that they ended up doing was 18 manually controlled steam (inaudible) feed pump, 19 which didn't have the normal DT for the power levels 20 across the valve. So the other BF-19s were actually 21 -- under normal conditions we would have called them 22 a rag, but they were all three acting the same way, 23 but it wasn't the normal steady program reduction in 24 water level on (inaudible).

25 So I didn't feel too uncomfortable at that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 point. I didn't like the turnover we were at but --2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At what point in time 3 are you? What time is it now?4 This was about 7 o'clock in 5 the morning by the time we turned over.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who is the, 7 involved?.8 (phS~(p onetic)9 was an that night.I1 (phonetic) was another"M I didn't get the 11 mechanic's name that went out there that night. The 12 -,-that went out in the field that night was 13 (phonetic).

The of the unit was,7c 14 (phonetic).

The was 15 (phonetic).

16 Once we got this data the decision was 17 made between the and I believe he talked with 18 .(phonetic), one of the 19 They determined they were going 20 to call it a potentially controlled issue and do 21 further evaluation.

So we turned over, and like I 22 said, I was kind of uncomfortable at that point, but 23 it did seem valid like they're going to train the 24 people for the shut down and maybe there was some 25 other data.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 I was scheduled to come back into work 2 that night. I came back in; it was about a quarter 3 after six when I came in. They started direct power 4 reduction.

They were at about 55 percent power when 5 I got back into work. They were reducing power at 6 about one percent a minute.7 I could tell it was a pretty dynamic 8 shutdown.

They trained the crew, so I was working 9 outage after they got unit one tripped, brought it 10 down offline and tripped it. Once they got 1i everything stable and all the reports and everything 12 made to bring the unit offline, I went and I talked 13 to the- that night which was 14 and kind of expressed my 15 concern.16 I said, \ when I left this morning I 17 didn't have a real good feeling, but what was the 18 delay? It seemed like an awful long delay to bring 19 the unit down offline, because I said at some point 20 they had to call it a stuck valve. Calling that 21 valve a stuck valve would have put us in tech-spec 22 303 shut down, which from the time you call it you 23 have to be free within seven hours, an hour to fix 24 her -- you know, come up with a plan, six hours to 25 shut down.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 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 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Why 303?Well, it was --SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Let me back up a minute. Is there a specific tech-spec for this valve?There is a tech-spec under-- yes.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Just stay with this.SYes.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is there something on the valve itself?"J No, it's a feed water isolation valve.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay, so is there a tech-spec for the feed water isolation signal?SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay, what does that say? Do you know?It goes under our ESF actuation, which is 3321 -- I have to look at the action line, but it required that we have to test the signals. In most of our instrumentation tech-specs there are actions that if you have a faulty channel, you have to verify it stable within six NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 hours1.157407e-5 days 2.777778e-4 hours 1.653439e-6 weeks 3.805e-7 months or bring the unit down.2 In this case since it was a feed water 3 isolation signal that didn't have bi-stabile 4 (inaudible), we really had no action other than we 5 had to test it as a feed water EFS signal. So we 6 talked about it that night and said, well if we 7 can't, if we're going to say it's the valve itself 8 that's physically damaged, we don't really have an 9 action covering it, but it is a feed water isolation 10 valve. So they (inaudible) no action required then 11 by the motherhood.

We go in a 303.12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is that a very 13 unique approach, or is that just something that's 14 standard practice?15 That'spretty much a 16 standard practice.

We have, there's not a whole lot 17 of items we have that aren't governed by specific 1i limiting conditions of operation, but this is one of 19 them. Since there were no actions to take when it 20 was faulty, you really didn't have a field to comply 21 with, so we had to declare it an off and shutdown.22 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you know what 23 the time frame was for feed water isolation signal?24 Let me ask it differently, if there have been a 25 longer time frame, could you have taken, could the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com shift have taken more time to get the plant offline?2 they determined that it 3 was a controller problem, they could have probably 4 taken a longer time. There wouldn't have been a 5 required shutdown at that point if it was a controls 6 issue. If they thought a feed water isolation 7 signal, which the interface in that it's feed water 8 isolation actually fills the solenoid through the 9 air to the valve, and the valve fails closed within IC 10 seconds.11 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.12 Where it's outside the 13 tech-spec realm is where digital feed comes into 14 play. Initially we said, well if it's a controller 15 issue and we fail the air to the valve, it's going 1E to fail closed within its required 10 seconds, so it 17 would still perform its safety function.

That's 18 what -- for the call or not to call it 303 --19 initially was a control signal holding the valve 20 where it was at. If we cut the air line essentially 21 to the feed water isolation signal, it would have 22 gone shut and would have provided its safety related 23 function.

Then it would have just been a normal 24 shutdown.25 Throughout the course of the day, they NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com developed trouble-shooting.

There was some question 2 as far as how the jack was still -- it's a unique 3 physical valve as far as the jacking mechanism goes 4 on it. Throughout the course of the day it seemed 5 like every time they got a question, somebody 6 disagreed with it, and they had to send it back for 7 more resolution.

It was 3 o'clock before they got 8 the trouble-shooter written, approved, taken through 9 SORC, which is a committee they have for -- I can't 10 remember what the acronym stands for, but it's like 1 technical engineering

--12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Safety Operations 13 Review Committee?

14 '7 Yes, that's it.15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.16 -0 1 didn't know if that was a 17 standard acronym or not, but SORC approved it and I they went into the trouble-shooting.

The first step 19 of the trouble-shooting was they operated a jacking 2C mechanism and they failed air to the valve. When 21 they did, the valve did not move even a fraction of 22 an inch. There was a zero air signal applied to it, 23 and it should have failed closed within 10 seconds.24 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Was that done with 25 the plant at full or a higher power, or was it full NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 power or where was it?2 ... That was, I believe they 3 were still at full power at that point.4 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: So they were 5 actually doing that trouble-shooting

--6 At power, which is why they 7 said they wanted a more detailed trouble-shooting, 8 because it had the potential of tripping the unit.9 At that point when it failed the valve, 1 they realized the valve was not going to move at 1 all, they declared 303 and implemented the shutdown 12 at one percent a minute. By the time I came in at a 13 quarter after six, they were down to about 55 14 percent power.15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.16 JOn the way down they did 17 several other mechanical agitations of it. Because 18 we have had in the past, the BF-19s have gotten an 19 excessive packing drag on the valve where it would 20 lock in one position.

We would mechanically agitate 21 the valve with a little hammer or something, just 22 enough to shake it, and it responds fine after that.23 The technician that afternoon was doing 24 that. He was giving it the (inaudible) blow hammer 25 many attempts.

He's not a small guy either, and he NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 said, I've probably hit this valve harder than I've ever hit any valve.(inaudible) did not respond. I think it came down with the shutdown.

It got down to about 25 percent. Tried to stabilize it. Xenon coming in through the rapid down (inaudible) took the unit down, tripped it, and went into EOP, took it down to mode three.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is there a problem with (inaudible)?

Not that I'm aware of. I haven't heard about --SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: When you trip the plant under those conditions, do you (inaudible)?

-- Normally we would get a feed water interlock.

The difference between what a feed water interlock is and a feed water isolation:

a feed water interlock is (inaudible) 553. It shuts the BF-19s and 40s. The reactor trip signals, you trip the reactor --SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What are the 40s?~~~It's the BF-19 bypasses.SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.So. it shuts the feed and the feed water b s v e water and the feed water bypass valve --NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 www.nealrgross.com 1 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.2 -- trip signal only gets 3 553 degrees. Then the difference between that and 4 the feed water isolation is the feed water isolation 5 signal comes in either one of two input, either 6 safety injection or steam generator water level is 7 greater than 67 percent. Safety injection is just 8 like the bottle up containment in generators.

9 Greater than 67 percent it's a preemptive strike so 10 that if you get too much water in the containment 11 and you have further degradation of systems, you 12 don't have excess mass and energy in a container.

13 When they trip the plant, it immediately 14 goes to 553. The RO was looking at it, they said, 15 you watch the BF-19. If it doesn't close and we 16 trip the plant, initiate a close on the BF-13 so 17 when it shrinks, it doesn't come right back in the i1 one steam generator.

The feed pump now is feeding 19 one steam generator solely, because the level is 20 going to go screaming, and we would have gotten it, 21 a feed water isolation signal. So we did that; we 22 tripped the plant.23 The RO noticed that the other the BF-19 24 and 40s went closed and that one did not. We 25 initiated a close signal on the BF-13 which NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 (inaudible) that we had isolated it. They had 2 already initiated off feed before the trip and 3 everything went fine afterwards.

4 But when I started asking questions as far 5 as what took so long --6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is this when you 7 (inaudible)

-- A 8 Right.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- when you came on 10 the next time?1i J Right. I was on that 12 night, and I thought (inaudible) and I can 13 understand getting questions about the valve and all 14 that, because I'd come to find out it operated it a 15 little bit different even than what I thought it 16 did. He goes, well you know, we had to get the 17 people in. We had to get the trouble shooter 18 involved.

It just seemed like 12 hours1.388889e-4 days 0.00333 hours 1.984127e-5 weeks 4.566e-6 months after that 19 seems like an awful long time. Especially when we 20 had the proper people here at 4:30 in the morning.21 It's not like they had to wake somebody up and bring 22 them in from home. He goes, well trouble shooters 23 take a long time.24 At that point I started hearing some 25 rumors going around that people had attempted to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

1 mechanically agitate the valve early in the day.2 They were beating on the valve early in the day 3 before they did the trouble shooting, to me that's 4 admitting that it's a stuck valve early in the day.5 There'd been no reason to delay it until 3 o'clock.6 As I researched, I found out that wasn't true.7 No one actually attempted to mechanically 8 agitate the valve until about 3 o'clock when they 9 initiated the trouble shooting.

But then as I 0 started talking, I started hearing even the mechanics, the INT technicians that went out 2 believed in their gut it was the valve, that they 3 weren't going to say for sure it couldn't have been 4 the controller.

1 1 1 1 15 16 17 i'19 20 21 22 23 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This individual that on 75 percent --Right. That (inaudible), and I talked to him about it.I was going to say 100 percent no way is the wasi4jpW He goes, it's the controller, because the digital feed is a different entity that comes into play. It's a very complicated computer signal, computer system that controls it. It works great. But he says, I can't guarantee unless I search prints and go into the computer and pull out data points that it couldn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com have locked in signal. He goes, I don't think it 2 could, but I'm not going to say that it can't.3 That's what they had on as far as not calling it a 4 303.5 Then, like I said, the more I talked to 6 more people, everybody seemed like they all kind of 7 had the idea that it was a stuck valve, but they 8 weren't ready to call it that yet. In fact, on 9 Monday morning, after I went back into work on .ay IC 10 shift now, I went to !(phonetic), who's 11 the ~ now, and I said, 'I've got 12 questions about this BF-19 thing. I said, do you 13 have any information that I don't have right now.14 You know, if he had information that would satisfied 15 my questions up front, I really wouldn't even had a 16 concern.17 Engineering came up with these -- this 18 could have possibly happened and blocked the valve 19 in that position.

He said, no. In talking to him, 20 he goes, actually as the day progressed, he was 21 getting the sinking feeling that more and more it 22 was actually going to be a valve issue and not a 23 controller issue just because data wasn't 24 materializing.

It seemed like it was taking longer.25 He goes, if it took longer, he wanted to get the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 trouble shooter.2 He said it was actually getting to the 3 point to where before they even got the trouble 4 shooter proof, he was going to say shut the unit 5 down. He goes, it's been too long now.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he say why he 7 didn't?8 .He didn't say that he 9 didn't want to shut the unit down, but he was kind IC of led at the same time to believe that he thought 11 it might be a control issue. He also didn't want to 12 shut the unit down in an abnormal condition I'm 13 going to call it, without the feed direct dial 14 operating correctly.

As far as a complicated shut 15 down, bringing the unit offline, cycling the people 16 and everything, if there was a way to avoid it.17 Then as the day progressed, he said he's 18 getting more to where he wanted to take action to 19 shut the unit down. I was satisfied with that 20 response.

I was actually sitting back to see what 2 all the other actions were taken at that point.22 Then when I talked to, I started questioning other 23 people, and a lot of the ROs were saying no.24 Some of the 25 standing there while -- one of them was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com "2 (phonetic), I'm not sure how long he's 2 been licensed, but it's longer than I've worked 3 there. He's seen problems where they used to have 4 manual feed control not the digital feed came on and 5 you're (inaudible) stuck in valves before, valves 6 failed before. He goes, that's what it looks like 7 to me. He didn't believe it was a controller all 8 along. i-said, well I don't know the digital 9 course as far as the internal, I know how the i0 system's supposed to work, but internally I'm not a 1i computer genius so I couldn't say that it couldn't.12 That's where we stood with that. At the 13 time it's almost like a lot of people, I think, had 1 the belief in the back of their mind that it could 15 have very well been the valve, but they didn't want 1E to call it that if there was a glimmer of hope not 17 to call it that.18 I guess you've heard it called before the 19 mega-watt mentality.

I've seen it in several other 20 applications where what's being done isn't 2 necessarily wrong, but it seems like the stretch to 22 the extreme limit that sometimes tech-spec 23 requirements and stuff until the last minute until 24 they have to take action to take the unit down 25 offline.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 In fact, I talked to Dan Orr) (phonetic) 2 today when I was in the control room. He came 3 through. He's the resident inspector.

I said, Dan, 4 you were here for the whole shutdown throughout the 5 whole day -- because he pretty much came in as we 6 were getting relieved and left -- I said what was 7 your gut feeling as far as what you saw. He goes, 8 well the initial response he was happy with as far 9 as the way our crew had stabilized the plant, put it i0 in a safe stabile condition until the course of 11 action could have been determined.

But he said the 12 same thing, he goes, as the day progressed, he goes, 1 I think the organization took way too long to call 14 it a tech-spec 303.15 He goes from what he gathered he thought 16 it was a stuck valve early in the morning, too. He 17 goes finally they got into the trouble shooter, 18 failed the air to it, and the valve didn't move.19 Come to find out it was a piece of all thread stuck 2 in a seat. It wouldn't matter how big of an 2 operator we put on it, it wasn't going to close the 22 valve.23 He said that was his biggest concern as 24 far as why it took so long to call it that. I've 25 seen trouble shooters in the past, if it was a piece NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 of equipment that was going to prevent us from 2 coming back up online, I've seen trouble shooters 3 walk through SORC and are done in three to four 4 hours4.62963e-5 days 0.00111 hours 6.613757e-6 weeks 1.522e-6 months , where this one took from 5:30 in the morning 5 when all the data was complete until three in the 6 afternoon to get it pushed through.7 Talking to some of the technicians, 8 there's one INT technician who's like the master on 9 this valve. He knows these valves inside and out.i0 He's the one who sets them and tunes them and drags 11 them all out. He was available that morning. He 12 was in the Unit 2 pressurizer doing something.

They 13 didn't utilize him, bring him out and ask his 14 expertise on the valve. There was another 15 supervisor that's supposed to be really in depth 16 with the electronic controls on the valve, but he 17 was off assigned to another job. It's almost like, 18 I'm not saying it was willful, but they had some 19 very key players that were very familiar and 2 knowledgeable on this piece of equipment and weren't 2 contacted and brought into the picture early in the 22 day, which I think if they had them in there, a lot 23 of questions and arguments they had back and forth 24 that strung the whole day out, would have been 25 answered early in the day, and they could have gone NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 into the trouble shooting by 10, ii o'clock maybe.2 They could have started the unit shutdown four to 3 five hours earlier if that's what was required.4 I talked to I said I was kind 5 of uncomfortable that morning, but I knew the plant 6 was safe. But when I came back in and realized it 7 really hadn't moved, in my mind I'm like, we 8 shouldn't even be at this position right now. I 9 wholeheartedly expected to come in and find the unit I1 offline. That was my gut feeling when I left that 1 day, as well as every other "ln 12 duty with me that night and several equipment 13 operators.

14 (inaudible) one of the equipment operators 15 actually going through license class right now. He 16 came in and he goes, we shouldn't be there. I've 17 learned more now. He looksý at it from a different i1 way than he did six months ago. He goes, this unit 19 shouldn't be online right now. That's my concern.20 Since then, that was on Monday I talked to 21 ilkOn Tuesday '](phonetic) 22 who,-. thth2 came down and talked to me.23 He says, I hear you have a concern. I said, I do.24 I had the same discussion with him that I had with 25. I asked him the same thing. I said if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I you have some physical evidence or some reason that 2 -- to me it would have justified the extra time it 3 took to come up with this action plan. I really 4 don't have any concerns at this point, but if you 5 can't give me some more information or a tidbit of 6 knowledge that I'm missing, I says, I don't understand why it took this long to formulate this 8 plan.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he say?10 He goes, well you're right.11 It did take a lot longer than we should have. He 12 goes, they're doing an investigation trying to 13 figure out where the pit falls were. He actually 14 said, it may take a week or two to get all the data.15 He goes, when I'm done, would you look at the report 16 and see if it's actually accurate and if not, tell 17 me why. I said, yes, I'll do that, because I'm kind 18 of interested to find out why it took so long.19 Now I've been in situations where it's 20 been a clean, clear and cut, just as a tech-spec 21 shutdown item, and there's no hesitation whatsoever 22 when it's cut and dry. Like once they failed the 23 air to it, there's no question on the 303. It's a 24 stuck valve; we've got to shut down. The action was 25 taken.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I've seen other instances where they don't 2 actually shutdown, but maybe sometimes a power 3 reduction or stuff where it's not real defined as 4 far as whether it's a failed component or restricted 5 component.

It almost seems like a lot of times it's 6 extended out until it's almost to the limit. Not 7 saying anything's being violated, but it's almost 8 stretched to the extreme. Then they say, okay now 9 it is; we've got to go back and take the actions.10 There've been a couple instances of that I1 where I haven't felt real comfortable but I was like 12 the lone wolf on that one. I advocated and the 13 explanation I'd get (inaudible), okay I can live 14 with it because we're not breaking any rules or 15 violating anything.

But I felt like we were 16 violating the tech-specs and the licensing that day, 17 especially when I came back into work.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For this incident?19 -'For this incident, right.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is the one you 2 described to me, said it was pushing (inaudible)

--22 .I mean I thought this was 23 really not conservative on this one.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you comparing the 25 other incidents, because you might have been a lone NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I wolf on the other ones? ,,-2 Right, you know, one 3 incident they had where early in the day they had a 4 dropped rod -- not a dropped rod, a dropped emission 5 failure. We went into our tech-specs, did the 6 surveillances

--7 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Same day?8 No, this was a year or so 9 ago. I'm just giving an example where I felt --10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.11 and we were doing the 12 surveillance for it and in the middle of the night 13 we had a system they call Beacon that reactor 14 engineering can run at flux map that's actually 15 pulling a flux spindle through the core. They have 16 an electronic version that they do use.17 It was coming up to be due. The same 18 reactor engineer sent it in. Well, CRS took it that 19 night and started reviewing it. They started 20 looking at it, and come to find out, it was the Unit 21 2 beacon that it has been laying on. When they 22 started looking, the one previous in the day, the 23 same reactor engineer ran, was a Unit 2 beacon. It 24 was Unit 1 (inaudible).

25 So now we are outside the allowable time NEALR.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I for not having a flux map for the rod condition 2 indication.

So that one would have been a tech-spec 3 required action, but they were doing preparations 4 for shutdown.

They knew that the beacon was going 5 to come back. The guy was like, I'm running it 6 right now talking to him on the phone. They knew it 7 was getting ready to get faxed right into him.8 Normally we would have an hour to come up with a 9 plan then commit a shutdown.

This time it was about 10 an hour and 20 minutes before they said okay, we're 11 going to start shutting it down. The beacon flux 12 map came over the fax. We said okay, we're back in 13 compliance now. We don't have to shut the plant 14 down.15 I'm like, well that's stretching it, but I 1 didn't think that was really breaking any other 17 rules, because we were still actually talking- about 18 a reactivity plan, what we have to do to come down.19 A little longer than what we would normally take --20 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Why would you say 21 that they would be in compliance if they continued 22 to shutdown (inaudible)?

23 ..That's actually one of the 24 action statements in it. If you have inoperable 25 valve position indications, you have to do this, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 this and this. Or --2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Did you have a 3 reasonably (inaudible)?

, 4 Failed indication is what 5 it was. They had a --6 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: I may not 7 understand exactly the nature of the problem, but a there's --9 We had a misaligned rod, 1 but we didn't have actually rod position indication 11 by the tech-specs we have, we have to surveil them 12 twice a shift.13 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.14 .To verify they're all rods 15 out on the shutdown panel.16 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay, but there's a 17 very specific surveillance requirement, the 18 motherhood component, talks about missed 19 surveillances.

20 Right.21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you know what 22 that says?23 The one where if it's a 24 normal schedule surveillance you have up to 25 25 percent or greater than 24 hours2.777778e-4 days 0.00667 hours 3.968254e-5 weeks 9.132e-6 months , whichever is NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 shorter to fix it or get back out of it.2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right. I don't 3 understand all the details of what you're 4 describing, but I have a general knowledge of what 5 you're describing.

I'm trying to understand why 6 that 24 hour2.777778e-4 days 0.00667 hours 3.968254e-5 weeks 9.132e-6 months allowance wouldn't have applied.7 ' .Well that wouldn't have 8 applied because this wasn't a normal scheduled 9 surveillance.

This was an LCO surveillance that we 10 had to do, because it was done --11 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: It was part of an 12 action statement.

13 It was part of an action 14 statement.

It wasn't a normal --15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: I got it. I 16 understand.

17 -- missed surveillance.

18 The valve position was inoperable.

So as a result 19 of being operable, you will do a flux map every 20 eight hours. You will do this; you will do this.21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: I understand.

22 If you don't, you will shut 23 down.24 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: I got it.25 That's where we were out.NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: So you were acting 2 on the LCO actions?3 We were actually forming A the LCO action statements and the CRS was doing the 5 paper. They said wait a minute, this isn't mine.6 The guy behind me, there's nothing wrong with his 7 rods. Then he started comparing it. The one that 8 they'd given him in the middle of the day was also 9 for Unit 2. So now we've been missing the LCO 10 required actions now for 12 hours1.388889e-4 days 0.00333 hours 1.984127e-5 weeks 4.566e-6 months .11 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: You said it 12 happened about a year ago.13 1-Somewhere around a year 14 ago.15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you remember, 16 can you tie it to anything, either to a plant 17 activity or was it before or after an outage?18 No, it was after an outage.19 Let's see, I'm trying to think. It may not have 2C been quite a year ago. It was when Hope Creek had 21 the diesel issues. They had something about they'd 22 changed their surveillance program. They had issues 23 with how --24 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: That was in 25 December.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1Was it in December?

Okay, 2 it's coming up to it. It was right at that same 3 time. Because I remember they had to pull 4 technicians off Hope Creek trying to prove all their 5 diesels operable to come over and help resolve it.6 So that's about when it was.7 I think what they were doing, they were 8 doing some kind of calibration of the rod position 9 system that day. I think they had a power supply 10 fail on them, not just one but several of the rods.11 So we were in an action recovery off of that.12 But that was one where we were actually 13 still in a process of coming up with our shutdown 14 plan when the compliance sheet came back too and 15 they said we haven't started moving the plant.16 We're back in compliance.

We're not going to shut 17 down now.18 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Was there any kind 19 of acknowledgement of the error in the log somewhere 20 or--21 Yes, there was, because 22 actually they made a notification of the missed 23 surveillance.

24 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: There wasn't a 25 surveillance.

You just told me --NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 Well, I won't call it a 2 surveillance.

It was a missed LCO action.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: LCO, okay.4 ' ) It was the same action as 5 we do on our surveillances, but they wrote up a 6 level two, I think it was a level two, notification.

7 They wrote that they missed LAR action for required B flux mapping. They did the investigation, the 9 reactor engineer I'm not sure what his --10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Was there an LAR 11 written on that do you know?12 '7 don't remember.13 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you know if 14 there is a requirement for the LAR for those kind of 15 conditions?

16 .believe there is, but I'd 17 have to actually read it to make sure.18 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: There's a general 19 requirement that a condition followed by tech-specs.

20 Right.21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is there any time 22 that you have an LCO where the action statement, you 23 can't comply with the action statement?

You've 24 exceeded the LCO requirement.

25 .believe there way, but I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wv.nealrgross.com 1 can't say for sure that we did. I believe we did, 2 but I'm not sure.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: That would have 4 been in December.5 Right. That one, you know, 6 this is the hour, we should be starting to shut 7 down. It's coming right now, and we're still in the 8 process of prepping it. Then we met, we were back 9 in compliance.

10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Can I ask you, why 1 do you think that, why would the shift be reluctant 12 to start the shutdown?

The hour's up, why not just 13 start the shutdown?14 That's why I say it almost 15 goes back to in some cases what we call the mega-16 watt mentality.

They knew they were going to be 17 back in compliance.

I'm not saying the pressure 18 came from the shift itself. I mean it's actually my 19 shift, and the LS was actually in agreement with us.20 I think pressure came down from higher in the 2 organization.

Anyone who was actually in at that 22 point.23 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What do you mean 24 in? You mean in control?25 MW.K He actually came back in to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 the, he came in that -- I don't remember what time 2 of the night.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: But you're saying 4 it was other than the normal day shift.5 .Right, it was after hours.6 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.7 He came back in. He goes, 8 look we're back in compliance.

We're not moving the 9 plant down. We're making the preparation 10 (inaudible) offline. Then we came back in 11 compliance.

So they said we --12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Was this a 13 technical

-- we're getting ready to do our shutdown, 14 we're getting our paperwork ready, officially we're 15 entering our shutdown procedure, but we're not 16 actually going to move --17 .Right. We're making all 18 the preparations.

We're getting our activity 19 planned. We're actually making copies of the 20 procedures in case for whatever reason it came back 21 and it was (inaudible) we were going to shut the 22 plant down. But it was a little leeway given on the 23 normal hour we take to prepare. We're in the 24 process of finishing preparations.

Then the flux 25 map came back. They were in compliance, and we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

_P U 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 didn't need the plan.That's what I kind of get to what I've referred to as the mega-watt mentality.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who's th on?wThat night I believe it was

).SPECIAL AGENT S A E Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF : And the ..~~That ws (phonetic).

I SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You've indicated that you thought that there was pressure.

What makes you say that? !There have been a lot of" instances where people get perceived pressure coming down like a lot of times it comes down fromF He does put a lot of pressure out as far as if it's questionable of whether it's a requirement to bring it down as far as cut and dry, it seems like he almost goes to the non-conservative side in many cases.If it's plain cut and dry, he will do this. I will say that if it's a trip, if it's a set up trip (inaudible) signal, no one there's going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

39 1 hesitate to trip the reactor and bring it off line.2 But as far as normally moving a plant doing a power 3 reduction, it seems like the feeling a lot of us get 4 is it's delayed as long as it can be.5 Now I understand there's business 6 philosophies to it, but I've made the comment 7 before, I don't care if we're making zero mega-watts a or 1,170 mega-watts, if I don't feel comfortable 9 doing it, I don't want to do it. That's kind of I1 like how I was at the other day.11 There's arguments on both sides. I know 12 we can't say shut down or none of us will have a 13 job, but at the same time, if I feel if I can't meet 14 everything I'm supposed to be doing, either one, I 15 don't want to be in there on watch and be part of 16 it, or we should be taking the action to get rid of 17 it.18 Most of the ROs and I'd say the majority, 19 most of the CRSs and OSs feel that way. But 20 sometimes there's pressure.

They can sway some of 21 them to try to think well, we're right on the edge 22 of being in compliance.

It might be inapplicable 23 anymore. It's almost like they'll take an extra few 24 minutes sometimes to make the decision, which 25 sometimes is the right thing to do. If it's going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com to cycle the plant, quick unnecessary manner, 2 sometimes it is the right thing to get the data 3 before we do it.4 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Let me ask you 5 something.

Just kind of stepping back and looking 6 at the situation of the controllers you've 7 described.

If that were today, what's the normal 8 shut down rate under a --9 A non-emergent shutdown?10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Yes.1 One percent a minute.12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: One percent a 13 minute?14 Yes. That's the normal 15 reduction.

Normal shutdown is one percent a minute.16 Controlled, I mean it's not challenging any of the 17 systems. We can even go as far as three percent a 18 minute and it would still be controlled and no 19 problem.20 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What if it had been 21 a half a percent or a quarter percent a minute?22 Let's say that in that 20 minutes extra power would 23 have been lowered from 100 percent to 95 percent.24 Would you have had the same objection to the current 25 philosophy that was used that day? I'm just trying NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 ww'w.nealrgross.com 1 to get a feeling for --2 I really do not believe 3 that at that point we would have been taking action.4 The normal rule of thumb we have when we have to do 5 a shutdown is whatever the action time is, we try to 6 get there in half the time.7 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.8 If it's a six-hour 9 shutdown, we like to get there in three. That way 10 one, if we have breach complications on the way 11 down, we're not running hell-bent through the finish 12 line and now something trips us up and we didn't 13 make the required shutdown time or the required mode 14 three time. That's been pretty much, all the 15 officer managers that I've (inaudible) have had that 16 philosophy:

whatever the action time, as far as 17 when you need to be at a certain place, we cut it in 18 half. That way even if it's a three-hour shutdown, 19 come down at one percent a minute, you're there in 20 an hour and a half.21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right.22 _,that's even pausing to take 23 equipment out. So it's not even a race to get down 24 there. So if we're moving down a half a percent a 25 minute, I wouldn't have felt like we were in any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

I violation.

In fact, if we'd starting moving the 2 plant the other night anything faster than one 3 percent a minute, I'd be saying wait a minute, this 4 is too challenging.

That's generally been my 5 feeling.6 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay. In that 7 case, the plant didn't move at all.8 That case it didn't because 9 officially we didn't have everything we needed to 10 start moving the plant down. We were still 11 promulgating.

There was discussion as to whether 12 they actually had to do a shutdown.

It wasn't like 13 they were saying well, we're going to sit on the 14 clock and wait now. Then once the action was made, 15 okay we need to do it upon the hour of discovery.

16 It took a little bit longer. The process wasn't 17 working to take the action (inaudible) flux map. We 18 were going to bring the unit down and offline.19 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.20 "-The one big concern I had 21 was it seemed like a long time frame for the BF-19 22 the other night. I didn't feel comfortable with the 23 whole 12-hour time span to come up with a trouble 24 shooter to prove what a lot of people actually had 25 the gut feeling.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

1 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Were you the -- you 2 said there were other people who felt the same way.3 Has anyone else come forward in any way to try and 4 express concerns to management about the way that 5 was handled? It sounds like you have.6 I'm not sure if anyone else 7 has.8 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Has anyone talked 9 to you about the fact that they were bothered by 10 what was done?1i Yes. In fact, before I 12 even started bringing up my concern to management, I 13 did the peer check with senior ROs and said, I'm I 14 just being scared on the extreme cautious side now?15 In fact, myself and ho is a 16 .,he was actually in on break on relief when 17 we got the alarm. I was looking because (inaudible) 18 there's several inputs into it. I'm looking at all 19 my valves. I'm looking at my feed pump. I'm trying 20 to find it. Well actually saw the feed BF-40, 21 which is the bypass valve, change position.22 That did it by design. Once you got, I 23 think, it's a 320 percent deviation between demand 24 signal and valve position, the bypass valve says, 25 hey, this one's not working. I'm doing what I need NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 to be doing. I'm telling this valve to go closed;2 it's not. It might pop in a minute so the bypass 3 comes open by design.4 "saw that valve pop open. He goes, 5 it's 14-BF-19.

At which point I tried to take 6 manual control. I couldn't close it. Then I saw 7 the 40 wide open, so I closed it. We were ready to 8 blow down the (inaudible) generator level. He said 9 as far as his experience, and he's gotten the 10 nickname mode three Tbecause he's got the luck 1 of being in there when things break and the unit 12 trips. That's what we call him.13 He felt like the valve was stuck. Another 14 guy that's experienced between land myself, he 15 said the same thing. I think it's the valve. I 16 can't, I'm not a 9C guy, but all the ROs involved 17 pretty much thought it was the valve that was stuck.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You've indicated that 19 the INC guys on their first assessment when they 20 were looking at that --21 Their gut feeling was that 22 it was a valve.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- they were there, 24 but weren't willing to say a hundred percent that it 25 was not controlled.

When there was resistance to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 say it wasn't that, where was that coming from? At 2 what level was that? I mean it starts right with 3 the guys on site and looking at it, right?4 W-1 Right. I think some of 5 this may come back. About a year and a half ago, I 6 think it was, I'm not sure of the time frame. I was 7 licensed, so I know it's been in the last two years, 8 we had coming out of one of the startups, they had a 9 valve position indication problem on one of the feed I0 pumps. They had one of the INC on the wing team 11 that goes out and does minor maintenance and 12 corrective action. We had both an open and closed 13 indication on the stall. He was going out. We're 14 going, to take both engine data to try to determine 15 what the problem was on the limit switch.16 In drawing voltages, he had to draw an 17 arc. Unbeknownst to most people, that limit switch 18 came from the same power supply (inaudible) to the 19 feed pump. I'm not sure if other utilities have had 2C this problem or not, but they've taken measures to 2 try and fix it. But we've had a history of what's 22 called a silent feed pump has failed, a silent feed 23 pump trip. It normally has to do with a power 24 supply observation.

It pretty much just shuts the 25 governor down. You don't get any trip signals. You NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com w

1 don't get dips --2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: It just went to 3 like minimum 4 It goes down to idle speed.5 They call it a silent trip because the first 6 indication you normally get is a steam generator 7 program deviation.

If you're not fast and hit a 8 trip -- you've got to identify which pump it is 9 within 20 seconds -- if you don't do it, if you're 10 at full power, there's no way you can prevent a unit 11 trip at that point.12 Since then they've put an overhead 13 enunciator on it to help prevent the silent trip.14 It's programmed speed from the speed controller 15 first is speed pump action speed. It gets, I think, 16 it's 200 RPM difference.

It says, hey, look at this 17 one. It gives you time to react because, depending 18 on how heavy the feed to the feed pump, how fast it 19 will slip down. Since this was the gentleman that 20 caused the unit trip because he couldn't respond 21 fast enough (inaudible), the unit tripped.22 Initially the response that came out was 23 they were wanting to fire him. They didn't think he 24 was doing proper trouble shooting techniques.

This 25 was one of the better technicians, one of the guys NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4.'1 if I had a problem I'd want them to send this guy 2 out in the field. The initial response was they 3 completely disqualified.

You can't touch anything.It was almost like he made the mistake to trip the.5 unit, we're going to really hammer you hard and to 6 the point where there was talk about him being 7 fired.B Well, he didn't get fired, because once 9 they realized this wasn't the right attitude and 1 they were really going to give the wrong message, 11 they backed off. But that was the gut response that 12 was given to a guy that made an honest mistake. It 13 also went to --14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was 15 (phonetic)?

1 No this wasn't 17 this was --let me think of his name --18 [TAPE FLIP]19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: --at 8:20 p.m. What 20 you were saying was -- let me see if I can get this 2 in terms that you're using it. This mega-watt 22 mentality that you're attributing towards, you think 23 that might be where some of this is coming from, 24 this hesitancy to shut down the BF-19 problem last 25 week. The mega-watt mentality is defined -- if I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 follow you right -- as shut down only if you have 2 to. If you're in an area where you may be able to 3 push it for, not necessarily have to shut down right 4 away, that's where the push is going to go, this 5 non-conservative, we'll shut down only if we have 6 to.7 Compare that to a directive, a production 8 over safety. Have you ever seen or felt or heard 9 production over safety directives?

Do you have any 10 other incidents that go to that -- I would say that 11 your mega-watt mentality may be a step behind that.12 Have you ever seen it cross that line?13 I haven't ever seen it put 14 out we're going to keep the units up no matter what 15 it cost. I haven't ever seen that.16 In fact, they always say safety before 17 production.

We'll take the action we need to remove 18 power, remove the units from line. When it's clear 19 cut and non-questionable, those actions have always 20 been taken.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The way you're 22 indicating, it's rather simple. It's a quick 23 decision.24 ight.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's clear and it's NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 done. But there's a greyer area --2 It's that grey area.3 Sometimes it's where we'll take the extra time to 4 come up with more data or more reflection before we 5 take the unit offline until the point where it 6 becomes clear cut. As soon as it's clear cut, it 7 goes. But it's almost as if, well if we can delay 8 it by six hours, we'll delay it six hours, then 9 we'll take it down.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what you've been 1 telling us, this incident with the BF-19, that valve 12 problem, this is the one that made you uncomfortable 13 and you pushed this from your shift manager to the 14 and now you're saying 1 and talked to you about it to 16 review the report. Is there any other incident like 17 that that gave you that level of discomfort in terms 18 of how far it was pushed?19 , 'No, I'd say this was the 2C hardest push I've had. They've never directly 21 pushed down on the operating floor, don't take 22 action that you know needs to be taken. In this 23 case it seemed like the whole shutdown took longer 24 than ever. Like I said, the ROs on shift, part of 25 us were on the back, on the human side. We said NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 we're glad we're not moving the plant physically 2 -right now. It was late in the shift. We'd already 3 been stressed stabilizing the plant, and we believed 4 the new coming crew needed to be trained on this 5 abnormal shutdown.

If it was a condition that even 6 1 licensed training really didn't cover.7 They've learned some if they have to do 8 it. In fact they've talked about they're going to 9 give training like this in a simulated (inaudible).

10 Because it could easily happen again, and it was not 1 the norm.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You also said, and 13 this was off the record, which is why I started back 14 in on this before you got back in the room, Scott.15 The mega-watt mentality, you indicated to me that it 16 wasn't always there.17 No, t wasn't.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where do you see that 19 shift coming in?20 Hopefully we see it turn 21 around real quick. I got here during the restart 22 effort when the entire utility was being scrutinized 23 heavily because of prior practices and lack of 24 maintenance and everything else. They were in a 25 forced shutdown.

At that point NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 (phonetic) was our, He was very clear 2 cut on his expectations.

He was like the anti-mega-3 watt mentality.

He was like if I can't do it, 4 everything correctly, by the law, without any 5 question or hesitation, he goes, I won't start the units up.There were several instances here in the 8 restart efforts initially bringing the units up 9 where he ordered the plant shut down because he 10 didn't feel comfortable and he had questions.

We 11 got the units up and running. He went from ops 12- manager to plant manager to where he left.13 People that started progressing through 14 it, we went through several(ops managers.

Some of 15 that, I think a lot of it is the way that they've 16 selected some of the management here. The last 17 /three ops managers we've had were not from within 18 the organization.

I know a lot of utilities bring 19 people from other organizations in, but we have a 20 lot of instant SROs in our senior reactor positions.

2 In fact, there's only about six of them that have 22 been at the island longer than I have. I don't know 23 how many SROs we've licensed, but there are six or 24 eight of them that are still active licenses.25 It's human nature if something is going NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com b2 I awry, they'll turn around and they'll lean more 2 heavily on the people who have been there longer.3 One' of those guys being When I got 4 here he was a He became 5 a IWr ." 7 I've noticed more since time's gone on he 8 leans more towards -- I'm not saying production over 9 safety -- but he leans more towards the production 10 side.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Mega-watt mentality.

21 Mega-watt mentality.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's down from --14 7" Right.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In that you don't 16 take the unit offline unless that's what you have to 17 do.18 .Unless we really need to do 19 it, we don't want to take the unit offline. That 20 falls into play. He was He 21 came in that night. He was involved the very next 22 day when they were still in their trouble-shooting 23 development phase trying to get data and how the 24 valve really worked, how the interfaces worked.25 I talked to'J(phonetic).

He was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 Unit 2 that day on the shut 2 down unit. He was approached by to say I want 3 you to reset the feed water interlock so we can 4 stroke this valve. 4] goes, we're not in a 5 condition to do that. He goes, well do this and 6 that. Reset the interlock.

He goes, we can't.7 We've got to reset and keep closed the reactor trip 8 breakers.

I'm not in a condition to do that. I 9 can't do this. He goes, well we did it the other 10 day. He goes, the other day I was a manual SI test 11 in the middle of an involved procedure.

He goes, 12 set me up for the conditions for procedure and give 13 me a procedure that says I can do it and I will do 14 it. But right now I'm just not going to attempt to 15 do it so we can trouble shoot on the fly, cowboy, 16 whatever you want to call it, to learn about this 17 valve so you can go across the hall and apply it to 18 a valve that's going to make the unit shut down if 19 you can't make it respond.20 He goes, unless you give me valid reason, 21 I'm not going to do it. At which point,10 -22 the control variable.

I think, 23 was in the control room when this happened.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:),Mlion" 25 .didn't NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com reset the feed water interlock or anything else so 2 he could stroke the valve.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What would he have 4 had to do again to do that?5 ' To reset it? He would have 6 had to shut the reactor trip breakers, which if they 7 had the all trip signals clear, at this point in a 8 refueling they would have had to install jumpers to 9 the feed permissive, which they do routinely during 10 an outage. Because he didn't have all trip signals 11 clear in order to reset the reactor, close the 12 reactor trip breakers.13 The way the feed water interlock works is 14 the reactor trip breakers open, that's half the 15 signal. Then you have to be greater that 553. We 16 can bypass the temperature aspect, which is how we 17 do control cool down. The way it works is you open 18 the reactor trip breakers, the temperature comes 19 down to 553, the feed water interlock shuts the BF-20 19S and 40s, which prevents you from an overfeed, 21 over cool down condition post trip.22 Now past that point, now we're in control 23 of the plant. Now we're going to cool down. We can 24 defeat the feed water interlock by pressing 25 (inaudible) which bypasses it and allows us to cool NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I down and go below 553, which is normal for a normal 2 shutdown.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.4 But it's initially a 5 protected feature so you don't over feed causing 6 reactivity.

Because you can't stroke the BF-19s and 7 40s with a standard feed water interlock signal 8 line. Plus he'd also had a feed water isolation 9 signal on this point, because he filled several of I1 the steam generators to wet lay up, which is greater 11 than 67 percent.12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.13 .. That circuitry is the same-14 circuitry that the safety injection signal comes in 15 through, so there's more interlocks and it gets real 1 complicated.

It starts logics and permissives to 17 reset it to the point where actually said look, 18 we don't need all these logics. Put me a procedure 19 where we can start bypassing or defeating them and I 20 can do it, but I'm not doing it on the fly.21 That's where I get into what I perceive as 22 a mega-watt mentality.

This unit's down. You can't 23 do anything by doing it. But we have to define data 24 and make this valve do what we want over here. We 25 can go across the hall and do it over there. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 reactor operator on that date said I'm not doing it.2 Tell me a procedure I can do and I'll do, but 3 otherwise I'm not doing it. -4 He goes at that point Dý'acted like he 5 was mad and left the control area. That's where 6 there's restrain comes through. Like I said, 7 there's been a few other instances where maintenance 8 technicians one they were repacking a port valve and 9 one of the last couple of outages we had --10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Could we back up to 11 that a minute.12 Yes.13 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Every time I hear a 14 story about putting the plant in an unusual 15 condition, I always go back and I think about 10C 16 part 5059 (inaudible) changes custody experiments.

17 I can't help but think every time I hear that it 18 just sounds like an experiment.

It's like I want to 19 move the plant and put it in -- I want to try some 20 things out. In this case on a nuclear shutdown, so 21 I can learn information that I can apply to a unit 22 that's operating.

23 Right.24 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Which you can do as 25 long as it doesn't --NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 You're right, with a 2 trouble shooter.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: -- right, as long 4 as it doesn't involve a change of tech-specs and as 5 long as it doesn't involve around a safety question.6 Right.7 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: But then what 8 happens is it has the same controls as modification, 9 so you have to write up all this real thorough 1 modification type review work and you have to take -11 12 Right.13 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: -- and you have to 14 review it. You have to look at all the bad things 15 that can happen.16 Right. That's what pretty 17 much said. He goes, show me a procedure that 18 let's me do, I can do it. He goes, but I'm not 19 doing it on the fly.20 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What I find kind of 21 surprising, I guess, about this is that if the 22 be willing to do this 23 without controls, if you were, without any kind of because really in effect this is a big set of 25 administrative controls that was imposed.NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 a reason.2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Exactly.3 O A It's so that people don't 4 do dangerous things.5 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Don't do things 6 that are potentially unsafe. They may not -- they 7 may turn out to be perfectly, but you may not know 8 it until -- as you pointed out --9 If you don't analyze it, 10 you've got to treat it as unsafe until you prove it 11 safe.12 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right.13 That's pretty much what the 14 told him. I'm not doing it until either you one 15 give me a procedure that allows me to do it right 16 now, or I'm not going to do it. He goes, because 17 I'm just not going to start pushing buttons for you 18 so you can operate this valve and take it next door 19 to try to prove that valve works so we don't have to 20 shut the unit down.2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Were there any 22 repercussions to that individual that you're aware 23 of?24 Not that I'm aware of, no.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So us went NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 away mad?2 He acted like he was made 3 and left, but as far as any rebuttals or anything, I 4 haven't seen any.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has that happened 6 before, had behaved in that way before, 7 given that kind of directive?

8 I haven't personally seen 9 him do it in the control room. I have seen him give 10 -- I won't say a directive to do any violations.

I 11 have seen rebuttals from him toward other equipment 12 operators in the past during outages. Not does it 13 just come from to a giveni 14 are a couple of individuals that are having personal 15 conflicts between them.16 One of them is one of who 17 actually go !an~E It's 18 evolved to where it's like a head-butting match 19 between andwho is one of 20 our to the point where he was 21 coming in for a union meeting one day because there 22 were a lot of grievances that weren't being handled.23 They were being sat on and not resolved.24 coming in on one of his days off to settle these.25 He goes, look you say you're too busy.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com bU 1 This day you're here. I'm coming in on my day off 2 to resolve these issues for the union. Well when he 3 ordered out to our processing center, the people he 4 was supposed to meet out there weren't there. He 5 called , which is the 6 7 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: The processing 8 center right here?9 Right out here.10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is it a processing 11 or training center?12 Processing center 13 initially.

14 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.15 :. He comes out to the 16 processing center, he goes, where are they? They're 17 not here. They're like, well he changed it; they're 18 out at the training center now. They said but you 19 need to go to FFD. He goes, technically I'm not 20 even at work and I'm not on the clock. They said, 21 well you've got to doiFFD.22 Well, he talked to -- I think it was, I 23 might get my time frames mixed up -- I think it was 24 the store 4then. It might have 25! bee but it was right about the turnover NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 time. He went out to the meeting. They said, well 2 you've got to go do FFD. He talked to them -- and 3 this is all third party, he said, N said --4 supposedly, I think it wa aid he was going 5 to take care of that he didn't need to do FFD.6 So they got done with the union meeting.7 He wasn't on the clock or anything.

He went home.8 Then he got called at home by (phonetic) 9 who was one of at the time. He goes, hey, 10 you've been called for FFD. You'd better get back 11 in here.12 So he drove from pall the way back 13 to the island to give a urinalysis sample and went 14 home. Then it got twisted then -- I'm not sure, I 15 think it was , but I don't know for a fact. I 16 wasn't involved in it. I know it was legal issues 17 and it was all kind of hushed.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You think it wa 19 20 , I believe it was. He said, 21 how do we know he didn't go take something at home 22 to mask a urine sample. He refused to give a sample 23 when we told him to. He went home. He came back 24 in. He said, I drove an hour back into work to get 25 it when you said I had to do it. And it went back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 and forth, and eventually the! intill 2 for failure to comply with FFD.4 Since then now it's almost like a cat and 5 dog. I'm not saying it's not instigated on both 6 halves sometimes.

It's almost like, hey, I can get 7 kid brother over there and get him mad if I do this.8 But it seems like some of the shop stewards when 9 they brought up issues and concerns and tried to 10 bring things up, sometimes they get retaliated.

11 I'm sure i(phonetic) talked 12 to you about the last refueling outage when he 13 brought up concerns.

He was essentially called a 14 road block in production.

He goes, I'm following 15 the rules you're telling me. This is what it says.16 Don't yell at me for doing it.17 There's an instance where they filled oil 18 in an RCP. They hadn't had any alarms. Engineering 19 was all in. They reset the fuel mark. They were up 20 at NOPNOT getting ready to start. They sai 21 we want you to go back up to the RCP stand and pull 22 PCs just to check the oil level one more time.23 There were six people up there the night before, but 24 it was kind of well, you've been a road block.25 We've got this other job. We're going to make you NEAL R. GROSS COURT-REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 go do this one.2 He brought it up as a (inaudible) concern 3 and all that. I'm sure he talked to you definitely 4 about that yesterday.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These are the kinds 6 of things that happened to the stewards and the 7 people who have issues?,.8 Right. Yes, sometimes 9 they're given -- of all the work that gets done, 10 they're given sometimes physical labor, sometimes in 11 like undesirable locations, more time in containment 12 as a result of it.13 I know people spend time in containment.

14 The first year I was licensed, I spent the entire 15 outages seemed like, in containment instead of the 1E control room. But when they get rotated around, it 17 seemed like they were on the end getting more of the 18 less desirable end of the job.19 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: There's another way 20 to look at that, and I'm not saying that this is 21 what happened, but if the containment job is an 22 important job and these people are senior, part of 23 the reason that they may be sent in there is because 24 'A 25 To make sure it's done NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 right.2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: -- their knowledge.

3 They may not feel that way.4 A Right.5 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: They may feel like 6 they're being put upon or what have you, but there 7 may be other motives.8 ( Right. I understand that, 9 too. Like I said, some guy goes well you're a 10 licensed guy, you spent more time in the can. But 11 I've done a lot of containment time during outages.12 Being licensed, (inaudible)

With that outage I look 13 at it from a different aspect. I learned a lot, 14 because I saw them doing the 10-year inspection in 15 the vessels. That's stuff you don't normally see.16 I looked at it different.

I found a lot 17 of stuff. I brought up questions and concerns.18 They were all rectified the way they should have 19 been.20 But to get back to maybe why the INC guys 21 were hesitant to say it is the valve and not the 22 controller, after this one guy did what he felt was 23 a good job, and called a unit trip, he was chastised 24 pretty heavily for it. That was 25 (phonetic).

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wvvw.nealrgross.com We had -- I'm not sure of the details on 2 it -- we had a couple of maintenance mechanics that 3 were reassembling a port valve. He missed a sign 4 off step where they didn't install a bushing 5 correctly.

No one caught it. Even the QA monitor 6 didn't catch it until they started bringing the unit 7 back up in pressure and it got to about 350 pounds 8 and the core popped about a quarter inch.9 That instigated a short term (inaudible) 10 until they shut the block valve. They went back in 11 and found out there were pieces of valves missing 12 out of the -- and initially they were going to fire 13 those two mechanics.

Now the general consensus of a 14 few of us is like wait a minute, if I do something 15 now that causes an adverse reaction, and it was not 16 an intentional mistake or fault that I did, there's 17 a good chance that I'm going to get fired now.18 Being in the control room, I can see the 19 shift of response for several maintenance guys and a 20 couple of our shift technicians where it used to, if 21 we had a fan cool unit (inaudible) and we need to 22 get it blown down, we'd call down to the INC shop, 23 hey could you go blow down this fan cool transmitter 24 for me? Sure, not a problem.25 Nope, not now. I need a notification for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

UU 1 it. It was almost to the other extreme to where 2 we're not going to do anything unless everything's 3 covered under paperwork and my bosses tell me to do 4 it, because if I go out there and I do something 5 wrong and it breaks and it causes a shutdown, now 6 I'm out there hanging.7 I'd hate to be the INC guy that just 8 brought the unit down. From what they've seen from 9 their peers, now it's the valve and when they shut i0 it down and go pull the controller off to find out 11 there was a short. (inaudible) system telling this 12 valve to stay open. There was physically nothing 13 wrong with the valve. He's probably feeling the 14 pressure.15 Essentially I told them they needed to 16 bring it off because it wasn't a control issue. Now 17 it was. There'd be some, he would feel the 18 retaliation.

Hey, this guy just took a voltage 19 reading and tripped the unit. What are they going 2 to do to me when I told him to shut it down and I 21 wasn't justified.

22 So I think that's where some of that came 23 from, that there was enough hesitation i that 24 it justified it could be a controller issue, so we 25 don't have to shut down now to prove it's the valve.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com V 'I 1 That's where the long delay comes in. That's where 2 my concern comes from is if it gets to -- it's not 3 the production over safety yet, but there's going to 4 be a point where I'm sure it's going to come to that 5 point.6 I hope it doesn't come to that, but we've 7 got new guys coming into the control room all the 8 time. Not all of them are as head strong as I am to 9 some degree. I won't have any problem tripping 10 unit, because I make the same amount of money 11 whether it's online or off. It's easier when it's 12 online, but I don't care.13 I mean I care about operating it 14 correctly, but mega-watts going out is back minded 15 doing the job the right way. But there are some 16 more timid guys in there that, and it's human nature 17 if someone has been there longer than them and is in 18 an authority position, says do this, do this, do 19 this, don't do that, do this, they may not 20 necessarily take the right actions right off the bat 21 and one day might jeopardize safety or nuclear 22 safety or something along that line.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It seems what you're 24 saying is it's not that you've seen it -- you 25 haven't seen it get there yet. I'm wondering, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 it seems clear, you raise concerns whenever you feel 2 like you need to raise a concern. I guess the 3 question for you would be is there ever a time when 4 you didn't feel you could raise a concern?5 MUM NMI No t yet.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You haven't been 7 there yet.8 I haven't been there yet, 9 no.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about these 11 individuals

-- you finish your answer.12 .But I'm sure there are more 13 timid people that are probably scared to come up to 14 the person. There's some people, I think, that if 15 they ever saw the same issues that I was and were in 16 the control room with me, they might more go through 17 employee concerns, might try to go the more 18 anonymous route, which isn't necessarily a bad thing 19 either. But that isn't necessarily the most direct 2 route in my case.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You directly went to 22 23 I went to the shift manager 24 when I came back in. I said, hey I think we should 25 have shut down.NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 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 69 L, "Drl= T" h i-," -U rkr I Lvc r C111l'J YLWV %O,;LL -LL4.J.You can't tell me, okay, I'm going to go see< 1 fon Monday. I was waiting, I was actually in the wait mode to see what M "was going to say. Actually I was kind of waiting to see when Dan Orr came back to the control room I was going to ask him what he thought. I actually saw him this afternoon when he came through. I said, hey. He goes, it's a little slower in here today. I said, a lot slower. I said, what was your gut feeling the other night? He pretty much said exactly what I said, which is exactly what (phonetic) said. I said, okay we're all communicating.

We all pretty much said the same thing.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Took too long.It took too long. Then came back. He goes, look we're going to try to figure out what we can do to make it faster. But I don't want it to, the trend I'm seeing where it seems like if it's a data gathering it takes longer and longer. Everyone right after restart when we were still under very, very tight scrutiny on every move that was made, it was almost NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com W

1 to the fact we were like, wow, why are we taking 2 this extreme this quick. It seems like we could 3 wait a half-hour and get more data before we took 4 the action. Right after restart it's do it, and 5 then we'll justify our actions later, or we'll just 6 restart and recover later on if it wasn't needed.7 Now I don't know if it's just because 8 they've got different people in charge, it's a more 9 competitive environment now as far as utilities in 10 general go, but it seems like the initial we're 11 going to chop it and then recover it before we chop 12 it. Now we're going to sit back and look and see 13 which way we want the tree to fall before we do it.14 It's not production over safety yet, but 15 it's a trend I'm seeing that's headed -- I'm not 16 going to say it's going to be there next week or in 17 six months from now, but at the rate we're going, 18 I'm scared it's going to get there. I'm looking at 19 longevity if I stay at this utility, but I don't 20 want it to be 10 years in the control room thinking 21 I've got eight more to go before I can retire now 22 because of the actions going this direction now 23 we've been shut down again and they're not going to 24 pay the money to restart the units. Now I'm .1 25 $1old and trying to find a new job again.NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 That's kind of where I'm going at this.2 Right now, I don't think anything's really been done 3 that's been unsafe, but I don't like the trend that 4 I'm seeing.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 6 of the individuals that you say get this -- from 7 your point of view -- you've seen them get the less 8 desirable jobs, mostly stewards you identified.

9 Yes.i0 SPECIAL NEFF: Do you see a 11 declination in them to not raise concerns?

Do you 12 see a hesitancy where any of that has had an adverse 13 affect on them raising concerns of any nature?14 Of those two I'm going to 15 say no.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're talking about 17 two individuals.

18 The two individuals that 19 I've really seen it performed to.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: F I \and 22 L iLand.23 Because they say what they want to say, too, 24 which is good as far as I'm concerned.

A lot of 25 times they're not politically correct in what they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

1 say and almost -- in some aspects -- it's almost 2 like an egging on. But I can say every time that 3 brought up issues where he's been called a 4 road block, you can go over to the book and he'll 5 show you in the book where it says he has to do it.E It's not that he's just twisting screws. He says 7 you're telling me to follow the rules and 8 guidelines, well here's your rules. Now you're 9 telling me not to do it because last week that was 10 the buzz word or the target of focus but this week 11 you want this job to be done. But this rule says 12 I've got to do this, this and this instead of this 13 and only that.14 When it gets into sometimes time 15 constraints, it's almost as if we want you to follow 16 all the rules, but if it's in a hurry, you can cut 17 this rule and that corner and get it done. But next 18 week again we want you to do it all in order again.19 He's like, no, I'm not doing that. That's where, in 2 case, a lot of times he's called a road 21 block, because he says, you said follow the rules, 22 here's the rules. Either change it, or I'm going to 23 do it this way. If you don't like it, change it.24 He's very meticulous.

He holds the rules 25 up. I have to give him that credit. I like the way NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 some people have looked at him as being childlike.

I can't call him that, because if he's not doing it exactly right, they're also watching him. When he steps out of bounds, you're going to hammer him. So he walks a real tight line.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He's learned to stay right on that line.MHe walks that tight line.As a result of it he's been -- I'm not going to say discriminated against, but he's gotten some harassment.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: (inaudible)

SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: No. I just -- you probably covered this before. Is there any other circumstance, even though you may not be aware of first hand, like first hand experience, but you've heard others talk about that -- you've alluded to the fact that there may be other folks that won't bring their issues forward, that are a little bit more timid. (inaudible) that would say I had an issue with this or that but I'm not sure what to do with it, you know, where they felt uncomfortable raising it to their supervisor?

I haven't really seen it in the control room. Actually I haven't really seen it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 www.nealrgross.com 1 in the field. Normally it's a pretty good work --2 as far as all the operators, they work together.3 It's always been where most of the guys, and it's a 4 good thing, where somebody has a question about 5 something, hey am I looking at this from a different 6 angle or am I completely out of line? We're human;7 we don't want to start a spiral and fighting and 8 arguing if it's not justified.

9 Most of the people say, yes or no. In 10 some cases there are some people who say, don't 11 worry, it's taken care of. They'll bring it up for 12 the person that would be scared to bring it up. Now 13 they do enforce, and they always put out the 14 employees' concerns.

They do openly, if you do have 15 a concern and you're scared to bring it up, take it 1i to employees' concerns and --17 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay. Those are 18 all good things. But I guess what I'm asking is 19 there anything specifically that you're aware of? I 20 mean you kind of talked in generalities

--21 No, nothing specific.22 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where somebody might 24 be, as you said too timid, but you also said that 25 they may not take your direct approach where you go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 -J I and see the office manager. They might use some 2 other process --qit 3 Right.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- for raising a 5 concern.6 Right. They've got them.7 There's all the different concerns.

One may not 8 talk to the guy on his shift, but he may mention it 9 when he goes to another shift. They've always got 10 the employees' concerns.

You've got the 11 notification process. A lot of people write 12 notifications and just sit back and see what happens 13 as a result of it.14 They do, if it's a legitimate concern, a 15 lot of times they will come out of your night orders 16 and mid-shift training and say this has been brought 17 to our attention, this safety concern has been 18 brought up, and either validate it, sustain it, or 19 expand off of it to where it should alleviate the 20 concern.21 I haven't seen anybody like this is really 22 burning me up but I'm scared to tell anybody. I 23 haven't seen it get to that point yet. I'm not 24 saying it's headed that way either, because I think 25 there's a wide enough disparity that most people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com IU 1 will bring up concerns.

I hope it doesn't get to 2 that point.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, it's 8:50.4 [OFF THE RECORD]5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 6 record after about a minute. The point I wanted to 7 make in terms of your raising concerns, it's clear 8 that you don't hesitate to raise concerns.

But S having done that over a long period of time. You 1i said before, I think off the record, that you got 11 into this mind set in high school, but you must have 12 been operating this way since you got here on site.13 Have you ever felt or suffered any adverse actions 14 as a result of you questioning what was going on or 15 raising any concerns?16 .No, I've never been 17 adversely affected by it. I've not always been 18 looked upon fondly for the way I bring things out.19 Sometimes I'm blunt, and there have been times I've 20 brought up concerns that, as I've found out really 21 weren't valid concerns (inaudible) people for the 22 puzzle, which is how I brought this whole concern up 23 is am I missing something?

The questions I had 24 before I even brought the concern up were I'd seen 25 what had been brought up with some other people --NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 not actually repercussions but necessarily more 2 favorable jobs than anything.3 Being in my position, it gets to a very 4 suggestive evaluation period, especially when it 5 comes to simulator performances and stuff like that.6 I was going to make sure that everything I was doing 7 was correctly done and documented, because I didn't 8 want to get to a point to where I made too many 9 people mad on bringing this out in case it comes out 10 that someone was willfully trying to do something 11 that they shouldn't have been, that it couldn't come 12 out like a simulator performance appraisal

--13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're talking about 14 this latest, the BF-19 incident?15 Yes.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You kind of carefully 17 --18 I carefully navigated it --19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- researched your 20 fears and made sure --21 -researched it because as 22 licensing goes simulator performance is very 23 subjective.

They could take the best operator on 24 any given day and make him look like an idiot, or 25 they could *take the worst operator and by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 subjectiveness make him look like he walks on water.2 I was going to make sure that I didn't 3 blatantly cross boundaries and be in the wrong by 4 doing it to where it possibly could come back to 5 over settle the training process or whatever to 6 where they can tell you matters that do great in 7 trend, now we don't need this guy in the control 8 room any more.9 I didn't want that to happen, which is why 10 I went to first. There was actually another 11 operator who mentioned that he knew the process 12 based on past experiences and everything as far as 13 to make sure the different process I had for 14 bringing up concerns, documenting it. In fact, I'd 15 even looked at, he had provided me the direct 16 approach to the NRC for bringing up an employee 17 concern. He goes, this is what they say, but if you 18 read it they've got this format. He goes, I brought 19 one up and his happened to be, by the luck of the 20 draw, I hit all the normal protocol that they had.21 I said all right, I'll give it a shot.22 That's when I directly approached the 23 24 I'd wait and see how it responded out of there, then 25 I would actually approach down the chain fromý&NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 wanted to know what my concerns were.2 I'd say with both of those there was no 3 animosity, no anger, no repercussions.

It seemed 4 like they looked like they were actually open to the 5 input, which I appreciated because the last thing I 6 wanted to do was sit with the plant manager thinking 7 now I'm out to get this guy. I got no feeling with 8 that. When I discussed it, I said this is why I see 9 it. I laid the facts on the table. I said if I'm 10 mistaken, tell me right now and we'll either nullify 11 my concern or we'll work off of it.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's where he 13 offered the report?14 That's where he offered me 15 the report. So I feel right now -- I'll have to see 16 what the reports say -- but right now I think it was 17 handled the way it should have been handled. I i8 haven't had any ill repercussions off of it as of 19 yet..20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Another point, 21 we were talking about where you saw some of the 22 changes, the mega-watt mentality or the push to the 23 non-conservative and let it go as long as you can 24 before we that shut down decision.

You talked 25 about that coming from but you also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 mentioned 1 (inaudible) exhibited 2 with him, too.3 Right. He seems like he's 4 really production oriented.

It's gotten him in 5 trouble in the past. He's always in charge of 6 outages coming up. A lot of times he'll come 7 through and implement on the spot changes to 8 procedures, sometimes changes. Not necessarily is 9 it always a bad thing, but it seems like a lot of 10 times where I've gone into an outage and change the 11 way we do our IOPs as far as coordination and in 12 some cases even the ROs have pushed back and said 13 no, let's not do this right now because you've got 14 too many spoons in the pot at this point. At this 15 point in the shutdown, let's reorganize.

Sometimes 16 it seems like he tries to get too much going too 17 fast.18 I've seen it before on a plant cool down 19 right after I got licensed.

It was my first plant 20 cool down for real. We were limited to a hundred 21 degrees an hour while I was cooling down at 86 22 degrees an hour, which to me was as fast as I wanted 23 to go. He was like, you're limited to a hundred;24 why aren't we doing a hundred?25 Because I don't feel comfortable going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 faster. Another one of the reactor operators said 2 we're fine where we're at. Just take your time.3 You've got it under control. Don't speed it up. It 4 was going to save us maybe 30 minutes by going 5 faster. He goes, don't worry about it; keep it 6 slow.7 That's where I say he gets almost like the 8 mega-watt mentality.

He wants to see it. He looks 9 at the entire picture. In his mind it's almost like 10 he sets up for the most senior, most experienced guy 11 to do it and he wants everybody else to race to keep 12 up with this guy. Sometimes

-- I'm not saying he 13 forces people to do stuff -- but it's like he pushes 14 to try to encourage them to go faster sometimes when 15 1 don't like that a lot times, especially if it's 16 newer people.17 There are a lot of things I haven't done.18 I don't like being rushed if it's my first time 19 doing it.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about the 21 incident that you threw out regarding 22 and his questioning (inaudible) the 23 conversation that they had regarding the 24 instructions in looking to apply one unit test to 25 another unit to see if maybe he could make the valve NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I'I function, get around it in some way.2. Right.L. --j 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything questionable 4 like that when -- do you see the same thing coming 5 Or is it just in what you E described as general pushing? He's pushing you to 7 your limit.8 It's the general push 9 sometimes.

Sometimes he'll ask if -- I haven't seen 10 come and say I want you to do this, this and 11 this, but then he goes, hey while we're doing this, 12 is it possible that you can do this, this, or this?13 He's not trying to say you can do it, but he asks a 14 lot of questions off-handedly to try to say, yes, I 15 think we should do tha .If you're not 16 opposed against it and you don't say no, we don't 17 need to do that, a lot times the next time you'll i1 see the procedure where that's put into it. Where 19 it's almost like an unofficial bye. And I've seen 20 it in the past where he'll go in and he'll ask one 21 or two people and a policy will change or a 22 procedure will change. We'll say where did this 23 come from? He'll say, well I talked to a lot of the 24 operators.

When? Come to find out he might have 25 asked one guy and he may not have felt uncomfortable NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 doing because he's being on the boards for 20 years 2 doing it, while the majority of the other guys 3 wouldn't have felt comfortable doing that.4 Or when he answered the question, he may 5 have been answering it for the specific condition 6 they were in and not the normal shutdown condition 7 or 600 pounds lower in pressure than where we were 8 at.9 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Is there anything 10 that's like that still in procedures where a 11 procedure changes (inaudible) implemented but 12 they're not quite right?13 it's more 14 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: -- of that nature?15 :1 Not that I can personally 16 remember.

We're pretty, that is one thing we're 17 very strong about right now is procedural usage. If 18 you can't -- and I don't know of a single person 19 that's (inaudible) right, we're not doing it, just 20 stop what you're doing. Put it in the same 21 condition either on the spot or send a procedure 22 change out to SORC and get it fixed.23 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: That's if it's --24 In effect.25 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Yes and it's easy NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I to recognize.

2 j~Right.3 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: There may be 4 something like what you described earlier on this 5 subject where it says cool down for a maximum rate 6 of 100 degrees per hour. You could write down the 7 procedure, and it's allowed by the tech-specs, but a the implication is you don't exceed it, but you cool 9 down at that rate.10 Rgt 1 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: But that'12 subjective.

So if you're not cooling down at that 13 rate, you're not, quote, complying with the 14 procedure.

Depending on the wording. The way you 15 describe what he was doing sounded like that where 16 there was latitude in procedure and he was 17 maximizing it for the sake of production.

18 .Well a lot of the 19 procedures are like that then. A lot of the cool 20 down and IOP procedures we have actually have the 21 tech-spec limit in it.22 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Does it say do not 23 exceed this, or does it say maximize --24 u It'll say cool down not to 25 exceed 100 degrees an hour. I'm not saying that a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I lot of people get pushed to hit a hundred degrees an 2 hour2.314815e-5 days 5.555556e-4 hours 3.306878e-6 weeks 7.61e-7 months , but in my case I was cooling down at 86 3 degrees an hour, which for my first cool down, that 4 was as fast as I wanted to go. He was like, you 5 know, you can do a hundred. I'm doing 86.6 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: That's probably 7 best.8 .That's plenty fast. That's 9 the way a lot of them are written, but then there 10 are some people who aren't as outspoken.

Okay, I 11 can tweak it a little bit more and maybe I'm doing 12 95 now. But if you're not careful you'll lose it 13 and you'll lose control. You're going to have to 14 back back down and get it back under control anyway.15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Or you could exceed 16 the tech-spec and have to write a report.17 Or you have to exceed the 18 tech-spec, which is why --19 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: -- initial 20 evaluation.

21 I'm a firm believer in, 22 when it comes to those limits, I put a buffer and I 23 don't like going near them, because one small 24 derivation and you're there. It's happened in the 25 past, so I don't push limits like that normally.NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 But most of the procedures that we have actually 2 have the tech-spec limits in them without a written 3 buffer.4 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else?6 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: No, I don't have 7 anything.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 9 else you'd like to add? , 10 No, I think that's it.1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have I or any other 12 NRC representative offered you any promises or 13 threatened you in any manner in exchange for today's 14 information?

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you appear here 17 freely and voluntarily?*

18 1 Yes, I have.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I thank you for your 20 time. It is approximately 9:05 p.m. Thank and 21 we'll close the interview.

22 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded.)

23 24 25 NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the rUnited States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: Name of Proceeding:

Interview of Docket Number: 1-2003-051F Location:

Hope Creek Nuclear Power Station were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape(s) provided by the NRC.Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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