ML061780516

OI Interview Transcript of Witness

ML061780516
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	01/22/2004
From:	NRC/OI
To:
References
1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194
Download: ML061780516 (131)

Text

.1.2 3 4 56'7 8 9 10 12.12 13¶14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 in accordance V Act, exemptioni At UNITED,,-STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

+ .+ + + +OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS INTERVIEW-- x IN THE MATTER OF: INTERVIEW OF: Docket No.1-2003-051F (CLOSED)---x Thursday, January-22, 2004 Sale-m Hope Creek N I ivtý*The above-entitled interview was conducted at 1:26 p.m.BEFORE: Special Agent EILEEN NEFF Sr. Project Engineer SCOTT BARBER'. -.-uj was deMeted:h/_ Freedom of information NEAL R. GROSS CO',,;T REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) ý234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 A1K www.nealrgross com 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 1:26 p.m.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 January the 22nd, 2004. The time is approximately 5 1:26 p.m.6 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, 7 USMRC Region 1, Office of Investigations.

And also 8 present from Region 1 is Senior Project Engineer Scott 9 Barber.10 The location of this interview is the 11 esidence Office at Salem and Hope Crel " The 12 tnterview is being conducted with 13 spelled who is currently.

employed on 14 site as a3* .*phonetic), as a 15 16 Your work history on ;site 'included, it 17 actually started in are you came 18 and for the purpose o ..,J 19 You were the 20 frame, and then worked as an nd, 21 from in the 22 you hadý gone off 23 shifto-,ork managementat which point you were 24 handling the 25 And the' , you were a NEAL R. GROSS I /COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

! , 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com if 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 back on shift'.went from, you went intc 00 0 yo then at sometime around you were You remained in the position approximately until, MW.... ,,where youCmained%

Lt'-, ev (.where you took Is that accurate?-I\That is correct.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, what I would like to do, before we get into your previous work history, is I'll place you under oath at this point in time. I.f you would raise your right hand, please.~Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you swear that the testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: For the record, if we could have your date of birth and social security number, please.NEAL R. GROSS , COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com (202) 2344433 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you% And your, 3 home address, please?"'. :4 " k 4 5 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And one other 7 thing I'd like to cover, before we keep going. We 8 discussed it before going on the record, but the 9 subject of this interview is the safety conscious work 10 environment on site.11 Primarily, your experience, primarily is 12 at the aJem Site. You may have mor&\7 verall sitej,/13 experience more recently, it would appear as in your 15 I'm still, tirc water, the 16 project I'm working on is circ water for sale>17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it's -18 So I'm it still involved, 19 right now, strictly witb.hsale.

20. SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay, so your 21 perspective 22 Ii.\ Correct. That would be 23 correct.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and we're going 25 to stick with that. And I explained to you, as such, 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 that you're not the subject of any investigation and that there is no potential violation associated with the safety conscious work environment.

I understand.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We've approached you for your perspective and your assessment of the environment on-site, particularly in view of the* "Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What I would like you to do, is could you, for a summary of your education, please?I have a a`= ISand about at .

was in the 0Il (t 11, I wlýAnd I haVe been -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What were youplw,ýyears?SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.And I left the then, beyond that, then I was 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 2 It was the equivalent to 3 M -... ..." ' and 4 also an -it was called, 5 because the w11---- .. was under the 6 auspices of{ so we had )license under 1 7 .th e NRCt" 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Oh, okay.9 Then I wa 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What unit was that?12 That would have been in'13 where I was C 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.15 as an 16 , and was actively, here until 17 104Mwhen I came here.18 I started at I guess, do 19 you want me to start backwards from when I first came 20 here? I was at -rnor to my employment 21 with or from " ack to, I think 22 it was '. f ,"ime frame at t 23 And there I was i..- I-was a 24 ¶and was a and a 25 ..And other jobs as, related t NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

! -1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 Always in 'operation 2 And then from the ime frame, back 3 to I worked at 4 And ]ý started there as a 5 and then was : then 6 I was "nd also a 7 1f or a period of time. After thehutt' -8 <the plant downr 1 hey split the Operations groups in 9 half and took the senior people tojo 10 that they could license them on Unit 1.11 They kept the junior people. behind and 12 went to one supervisor in the Control Room. And -they 13 made that one supervisor a Shift Manager instead of a 14 Control Room Supervisor.

15 And that's where I spent the, from like 16 ,)whenever we went over to Unit 1, I was 17 a for the > inal 18 grefueling and the preparation for decommissioning 19 And then from I was in the 20 And then I just, I worked like 21 And then prior to that I was in 22 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.24 So like from 25 I was in d then%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 SPECIAL AGENT NEFFm &A ... ...2. d the work history after that?3 .-Right, right.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah. It's lengthy 5 experience in th clear 6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The, I guess what we' d 8 like to do is look at the safety conscious work 9 environment broadly, we'll look at it broadly. And 10 part of the focus is, you know, people's comfort 11 levels with raising concerns.12 And do they raise concerns individually?

13 Do they hesitate to raise concerns or is there no 14 hesitation for that? And, I guess, for the time 15 period that we could look at here, in that!16 when you're and then going into youtz'17 experience.

18 I guess what I'd like to do is, let me get 19 your management structure at that point. !.w 20 who was your "then?21 :\ Let's see, I think,°29 22 aahonetic) was the and I 23 think the at that time would have been 24 phonetic).

25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and then who NEAL R. GROSS V COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ii 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

(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 comes in after that?--Andphonetic) was also in there.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:.L 2 Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: (inaudible)

'iii." .... & believe is how you spell it.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay...-. was, yeah, was just before me.SPECIAL. AGENT NEFF: And then when, so 1_0-00-119"Mkiwleft, and you replaced him? Were you on shift with g **01" and I were on shift for a period of time. But in the,'99,>"in thaffQ99-200U-t

• ....! .'. -- ".:.;time frame,'ý%M was off shift and he was, he was an t the same time asj9 actually.J ;--SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.And they kind of, there was no real distinct duties, I don't believe at the time, that I can'remember, anyway.But I think! leaned more toward, he was more involved with outages, and :&.ras kind of involved with the shifts.NEAL R. GROSS C 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 NEFF: Okay.2 : Until toward the end. It 3 must have been in 2000, and I think they defined, like 4 okay,'ý, got the shift, he's the 5 Because whenever they, whenever I got the 6 position, I relieved 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In 00?}-8 Yes In 9 framr So I think he had it for about a year or 10 so, in that time frame.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 Up until the 2001, , a~~" e ar two _13 March/April time frame, we were in a two outage 14 I think it was. And when we came out of that outage, 15 then I relieved -him as tne!, 16 for shift.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then your 18 then 19 Umm hmm.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After him was who?21 Umm let's see.22 left, actually what .ended up happening was, see. l 23 left in 2001.' We had a 24 SR. PROJECT FNGINEER BARBER: Was that 23 phonetic)?

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 Yeah, was the.f ,-n, that's kind of like when they went to the: .and there was no\ fficer Manage3 6hen.They went to the structure where there was, they had the, there was an EP of Operations and then were was, what the heck would that have been?SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what are you thinking of, the Ops Manager?It's embarrassing, the Ops Manager, yeah.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I know some of the people that have been there ..phonetic) but he didn't immediately, there had to be an interim in there.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there --I thought, became the --i~in 2002. He was -- oh..phonetic), I'm sorry. He was only there for about a year.They brought him in to replace Nand then ileft shortly after.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So what was that time frame again. -,left in when, roughly?He left in, I think it 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 1z-1 like April/May time frame of 2001.2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you got in and he 4 moved.5 rBut he'went to -6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you got on he 7 moved out? When you were promoted.8 He was, well, we didn't hold 9 the same position.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No, but in that time 11 frame he moved.12 \Right, right. Around that 13 same time, yes. Around that same time. And 14 was th That's who was the 15 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and then it went'17 to 2002?18 -- -.And the as..." 18 ._.ye s.19 In 2002, May/June time frame of 2002.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The -i 21. then, you've been dealing, that would put you with, 22 for that time frame, §j k (phonetic)

?23 24 yes.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And then also 2002, 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 25.1-were you not in position with, umm, if you left in would you have worked under as," .- .-N o , n o .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.J That was after I left, I believe he became SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And then you: R~iht.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay.* was only here for about W'-,a year. He left like in the Ap2il time frame of 2002,.is when he left. He started in, early in, like February of 2001, I think was when he came in, or thereabouts.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And left in about a (.year or so?Yes, he was only here for about-a year. And he was brought in to replace.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And he stayed a year. Why didn't that work out, do you know?I think that the hours were killing him. He came here as And I think he wanted to be the.-Training

"-r-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 14raining Manager for one thing.2 At least he took a big ownership in the, 3 and spent a lot of time out there. But also, the 4 hours4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> that we work were, it was very demanding.

He 5 worke 60, 70 hours8.101852e-4 days <br />0.0194 hours <br />1.157407e-4 weeks <br />2.6635e-5 months <br /> a wee n those positions.

6 And I just don't think he was expecting to 7 work those kind of hours and I think he might have 8 been having some problems with his family.9 So, he found another position.

He went up 10 to (inaudible).

And he went up there originally as i1 the or no, he went up -there, I 12 think, as the He handled all 13 t.Atraining,'I believe.14 And now I think he' s the i .M 15 for (inaudible).

So, as far as I know, he's 16 still there.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.18. .But, that seemed to be what 19 20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It didn't suit him?21 No. The hours were, I can 22 remember him saying, you know, that he needed, he 23 wasn't used to spending as many as hours and late in 24 the days, 7:00 at night and Saturdays and Sundays.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, the, we'll get 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 back to, where I had started before in looking at the 2 environment, one of the aspects that we're looking at 3 would be in terms of raising concerns.4 From what you've seen, do, did, I should 5 say, the individuals on shift raise concerns if they 6 had concerns, and did they do so comfortably?

And I 7 know that you're looking at it from shift management 8 level.9 What kinds, another thing would be what 10 kinds of concerns would be raised to your level?11 ..I guess the first part of the 12 question, I believe, that when I was 13 , you know, on the shift and that, that people didn't 14 have a problem with raising concerns.15 Whether that would be a Control Room 16 Supervisor, or a Control Operator or Non-licensed 17 Operator.

And usually the concerns would be about, 18 well, I don't know if they fall, you know, equipment 19 not working, perennial problems with equipment, trying 20 to get' it fixed, you know, get- it, take it to the 21 meeting, talk to people about getting, you know, 22 getting these, get a pump fixed, those kind of things.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.24 Questions about is a piece of 25 equipment operable, not operable?

You know, is it 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.b 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 (.really operable or not operable?The people would, you know, healthy discussion about a decision on whether a piece of equipment really should be called operable or should it be called inoperable, based on the status of the equipment.

Those kind of things.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And those operability discussions, you're saying healthy discussion.

Is that *at the: Operator level, CRS, Shift Manager, is that across the board?That would be across the board. It would be as a crew.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.I mean I tried to encourage that to get everybody involved in the discussion to use everybody's knowledge of the systems to be able to, you know, get as many facts about a piece of equipment.

Whether, we, you know to make sure we had enough information, enough facts to say whether the equipment was operable or not operable.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.0 Because, I mean, I was only there frOr " My was, it was a,, k So there was a lot of experience in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

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.4 1 the Operators, a lct of experience in the CRSs to pull 2 from. So I always tried to take advantage of that and 3 keep the whole crew involved.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're saying that 5 from what you had seen when you were there on shift,'6 and I guess primarily we'll be speaking to this%7 when you're back on shift.8 You're off thez--keam generator projectt-and 9 you're back on shift 1 until you left iNO 10 This is the way it worked in terms of what 11 you were observing.

That people were comfortable.

If 12 they had an issue they'd raise an issue?13 i nI believe that, yes. When i 14 was on shift, as I don't believe that 15 anybody felt like they couldn't come talk to me or 16 come, you know, go talk to the CRS or whatever.17 And I didn't hesitate to go up, you know, 18 and talk to the AOM and talk to the Office Manager,;19 about concerns.20 21 22 23 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so for you personally, too. You would, your comfort level in taking something to the next level of management.

'5If I had to go to talk towould go talk to I And if I had to go talk to I would go talk t NEAL R. GROSS (:)COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.2 ..MI didn't have a problem with 3 that.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you aware of any, 5 anything that would indicate that people would 6 hesitate, from having received a poor reaction, to 7 raising a concern? Does anything come to mind in that 8 area?9 That, an individual would hesitate or feed 10 their concern to somebody else to push it forward 11 because they weren't sure about the response they 12 would get?13 .With me personally, you mean?14 Are just -15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you aware of 16 anything, you personally, and then anything that you 17 became aware of?18 Well, I'm not aware of 19 anything personally.

We, with, we had a problem, we 20 were doing a test with a, I've got to drag it back on 21 my memory. With socm check valve'sV,,and we thought 22 that we might have, oh, I'm trying to remember the 23 test and all we were doing.24 It actually was when I was ' I think 25 it was early on when I was'4' and' was the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

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.L -7 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:#,heck valve testins et3ad Yeah, it was ýIheck value.4 esting elated toafety injection system 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: SJ, umm, that issue?6 Do you know the time frame for that?7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I'd say 8 four, five, 12 and 13?9 A -Yeah, that might be.10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: (inaudible) 11 did it?12 Yes.13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: They had 14 other let valve like one of them was, one set was 15 t pt open and the other one close or something?

16 owl Right, right. And we had to 17 do the test and, yeah, those were not'heck valveE 18 those are MOVs that we werl~testing -Abecause you had 19 to do periodic testing to verify that thosebAralve-20 didn' -leak~by, for anyhermal stress on the nozzles'21 where the (inaudible) afety injection penetrateýthe 22 LRCS, make sure we weren't working that&-enetration4...-

23 We had to demonstrate that there was no 24 l leakagz And that was a pretty, a pretty hard test to 25 do, to get set up for and to accomplish it.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 the issue that I recall was that we 2 started it on a, we started like on a night shift on 3 a Friday, going into the weekend, and we ended up with 4 a problem where we couldn't get good results on the 5 test.6 And we thought we had isolated a problem 7 where we believed that there was a check valve 8 leaking.VAnd there was some discussion back and forth thKcheck valv yuknw 9 of what the function of tl you know, 10 what -11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: The'lcheck ci-12 :valve: s on the~reactor vessel'&ide or on the down 13 (inaudible) side?14 Yes, yes.15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Bac]15leakage" 16 to the.check valve 4s what you're saying. Coming off 17 the-18 There would be back-Leakagec 19 from the CSeack into the, because we were getting 20 -hq'ot water in the test linte.c 21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.22 -And back into the, into the 23 (inaudible),-

when you'r leedin:gt off. And we 24 thought that that was an issue and then there was, we 25 got engineering involved, was involved with it.NEAL R. GROSS -COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

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D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say we 2 thought that was an issue, who was that?3 Operations, myself and the 4 Shift Manager, at the time, that wa soing the tes 5 I think it was, I think it was was the 6 guy, who was the.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.8 And'would have 9 been the* at the time. And so- when we saw, 10 the results we saw, we thought there needed to be some 11 corrective action taken.12 Engineering looked at it, got involved 13 in it and there was a discussion.

And based on all ( 14 the information he was provided by Engineering, that 15 he made a decision that it was not a safety issue, and 16 therefore we didn't really need to do anything about 17 it at the time.18 And so we went forward from there. And I 19 think that, to some people, that was like a signal 20 that they would be, I guess they wouldn't, they would 21 be reluctant to talk t ecause they didn't feel 22 like they got the support that the, that he should 23 have given him.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You went to this 25 incident when I asked if you were aware of anything, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 any reason why somebody would hesitate to raise an 2 issue, this is what comes to mind -3 .That's the one that comes to 4 -mind, yeah.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -on that? Now when 6 you say some people would -7 .Well, like the 8 became -9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So, 10 Yeah.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He had a problem with 12 that?13 O Yeah.( 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he disagree with 15 this engineering evaluation and _I.. .ij 16 position, then? I mean did it, what kind of debate 17 happened?18 Was it, you know, you're going this way 19 and you're wrong? Or, did one side sway the other or 20 how did that go?21 Ah, let's see, to bring it 22 back. Engineering presented what they believe to be 23 the potential problem, and that it wasn't really a, 24 you know, that it wasn't really a safety concern or 25 a safety issue. /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 (..And I think we, Operations,f and myself, were kind of leaning the other way. And.just stepped in and said, well based on this information, this is, there's no reason to call this, call anything here inoperable and we're just going to go forward.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Going forward, meant what? What actions would be taken?W '\That we were done. It would be entered into the, you know, there was notification and then it would be like put into an outage to inspect the valve.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it was going to be considered operable then?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Not inoperable?

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Thdf-alv4ln question, isn't, wasn't so much those alves ou were testing -~No.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -it was this ownstream check valvjhat haddock leakage' Correct.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was it one or 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 morer heck valvesp/do you recall?I think there had to be more than one valvdactually leaking, to get to where we were, if I can remember the drawing correctly.

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Isn't there, wasn't there, isn't there a tech spec for-keakageJ between the 6S and connected pipin41-" hmm.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or a program for that?Umm hmm.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Then was there any kind of checks that the program asked you to do? And is there any kind of like comparison to say, okay, you know, these are the kind of checks we were doing for th alv for this program, and we would come up with this result?We're not in the program but we could use our knowledge of that and make some judgements about whether we think we're okay or not?I think that, I think that what it came down to was the way that, I think the test methodology became suspect and we were setting up some kind of hydraulic where we could allow that thing to float, that under normal circumstances there was no 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 (.reason to believe, you know, under normal configuration, that there was no reason to believe that it would$akeak,>t woulcklead backwards SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So, it was kind of attributed to a test set up problem?Yeah. I think is what it, that was, I think that's what the argument came down to.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And was that a, was that something that you and, I think you said, what did you say, Is that something you and into?Somewhat reluctantly, I guess we did, yes. We must have. We had to buy into, all right, because we, that was, we ended it right there.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, you went away, you know, dissatisfied with the outcome.Right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean, you know, Engineering is espousing one explanation and one approach, and you're espousing something different.

Ana is kind of the tiebreaker and he says; well, let's do what Engineering wants to do.--Right, right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was your 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

1 reaction to that? I mean, at the time, do you recall?2 I mean were you, did you and italk about it?3 WWe did have some discussion 4 about it afterwards, and that's where I got the sense 5 that, you know, he would not be real keen on bringing 6 issues forward to 7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So he viewed 8 9 .But that didn't deter him 10 from -11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -it as a 12 problem with the wayI Fpandled the issue, not so 13 much with, well, I don't know, I'm putting, I don't 14 want to put words in your mouth. Did he have any 15 reactions to the way -16 Well, there was-issue in the 17 way it was handled.18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.19 And then there was the issue 20 of the technical explanation of what we saw. And I 21 guess we, I shouldn't say I guess. We finally 22 accepted it but with some skepticism is what I would 23 say.24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What 25 eventually happened with tha.l"25with tha-Valve?ý NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com z I 1 That's what I'm trying to 2 remember.

If we went into that in an outage and we 3 found the problem? Because I think part of the 4 problem was that it wasn't always repeatable, that 5 effect wasn't always repeatable.

6 So, I think, my memory is failing me on 7 this. I think, I think we might have gone into that 8 N--'alv .nd we didn't find any problem with it, 9 ultimately.

10 But, that's, I mean that's just on my 11 memory, and that's a couple years ago, now.12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So that 13 would, that would add credence to the Engineering's 14 explahation of saying -15 Right, right.16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -it's just 17 not, it's not a simple answer.18 Rgt 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just to go back and 20 cover one other issue there. You were talking about 21 the affect this had on/ You were 22 indicating it would, you saw it as something that 23 would deter him or have him hesitate in terms of 24 approachinJI.L

'25 But would he, you were also kind of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 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 (.saying, did he bring issues to you?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He would still raise issues if he had concerns?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But he had an aversion to dealing with, --on this?SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that, I mean because he's taking Engineering's evaluation over you Licensed Operators?

Or --1 :, I think partly -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -difference of opinion on that?I think it was a difference of opinion and just thew way, the manner in which the whole situation was, well, this is the decision, there will be no more discussion, thLa1ve is operab&. And that's that, that wia&SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Didn't want to hear any further discussion on it?A W-.Right, right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so that's why he was deterred.ýRight.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 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you get 2 the impression tha, made the decision on his own?3 Was there, was this something that he just got 4 involved with at the decision making point in the 5 process where, you know, he know there was maybe an 6 issue out there, maybe he didn't know the details, and 7 just came and heard what Engineering said and what you 8 said now, and made a decision, or was this something 9 that had been ongoing for a period of time.10 There had been, you know, a number of 11 different interactions with him or with others. And 12 then there was interactions between himself, and maybe 13 somebody like .phonetic) or it would have ( 14 been (phonetic) at the time.15 There was, if I recall 16 correctly, this happened on a midnight shift. And I 17 got called (inaudible)

I came in like 3:00, 4:00 in 18 the morning on Saturday morning'19 And I think did w 20 relatively new as the ---,---- Vas involved.21 He was there. It wasn't like he just walked in, 22 listened, called to this side and this side and then 23 said, you know, make a decision.24 He was in the Control Room when we were 25 doing the testing and he was looking at the data. So 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 (.he would have been involved with as the, and I'm certain that he would have been involved with both anda" in an interaction.

Maybe not directly in that room, but outside of there. Because the, the expectation was that Shift Manager. icalled me, I called the Ops Manager.The Ops Manager would then calli4 and was expected to call at least , and there would have been a "aintenance issk so he would have gone up to)J ISo.And, you know, I andl talk all the time, back and forth.SPECIAL AGENT NEFFC Correct, correct.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That s Correct.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay._919.. ,correct.

So, you know, none of this happens at that, you know, just at the direct level below, or the Ops Manager level and below or my level and below. Almost anything that has some, some discussion about operability or where the plant would be of whatever, that always, through that chain, 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

.I.1 all the way up, at least ta l 2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was, 3 okay. What would the consequence of the action have 4 been had the decision gone your way? In other words,.5 to the valve what would have 6 happened as a result of that?7 Well, the only way to repair 8 that would have been to go to -core shutdown to fix 9 that valve.(10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.11 If it would have been decided 12 that that alve indeed a problem or created a 13 safety issue.14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So 15 that would have been the consequence.

And was that, 16 was that, I mean, although probably many of the people 17 involved were familiar with the tech specs, was that 18 overtly mentioned?

19 Was there any discussion related to the, 20 you know, well, it's really not that bad or, you know, 21 maybe it's, maybe it's something, I mean, what kind of 22 discussion was there really to that aspect of, if the 23 decision went your way? Did that even come up?24 You mean as far 9shutting 25 down the statior-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neatrgross.com 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yeah.2 No, there was no, there was (3 no direct discussion about, we're not going to shut 4 the station down or, you know, if wet4 7 call this 5 inoperabl, you know that means we're going to, that 6 kind of-7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.8 IMA- connotation or annotation 9 in the term. It wasn't, I don't remember it being 10 like that. You know, where it was, well, there's no 11 way we're going tohut this station so whatever 12 we do, we're going to figure out how toad-all *this 13 thing operable4 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If not directly 15 discussed, do you think it factored into the decision 16 making?17 .Yeah, it probably did. I'm 18 sure it did.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think that the 20 Engineering evaluation, you didn't agree with it. Do 21 you think they had enough information and what it was 22 based on was an adequate decision?23 I guess in hindsight, you know that it 24 turned out not to be an issue. But with what they 25 were working with and what they were seeing at 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 time, was that an adequate decision?2 1 think -3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was it justifiable?

4 .Umm, at the time, I had a 5 hart time with that decision.

I didn't believe it was 6 justifiable.

But I can't remember enough details, off 7 the top of my head right now, to say, to say 8 specifically why.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why -10 We just had -11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you make 12 any statements to that affect? I mean it sounded 13 like, you know, you may not recollect the details, but 14 you recollect how you felt about the decision.15 Right.16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You were 17 disappointed and you felt like the Management was 18 pushing the station to make the wrong decision.

Did 19 you vocalize that to either to A 'or to -20 I talked to about it.21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And what did 22 he say? What was his reaction?23 :That was his decision to 24 make.25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was it his 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 decision?He wasiA4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was he, who was the License Holder at the time? Who held the license for the facility?'

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So, I mean, was that even part of the discu sion? iT -really wasn't his decision to make, was it?] \Sit. wasn' t.I understand that.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean if US or whatever -Right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -that was really, from a regulatory viewpoint, that to make. I mean obviously you have to take his input -Right, right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -from a company' s standpoint.... -.\Right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But did you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W. " (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

/

1 ever, did you ever think of that at the time, did you 2 think about that at the time?(" 3 Yes.4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:, And say, hey 5 look, you know, it's really not your decision, it'A 6 7 Right. I didn't have that 8 specific conversation at that time with him. The 9 Engineers with the data were, you know, from a 10 technical standpoint, I 'respected them, had a high 11 regard for their knowledge of those valves and that 12 system.13 And so, I mean, I don't know everything.

14 So I was, I reluctantly accepted that decision, I 15 guess, is the best way to put it.16 I've been deemed to be too conservative, 17 so in, you know, that particular situation maybe that 18 was a case where I was leaning too much in the wrong 19 direction, you know, too conservative.

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When were you deemed.21 to be too conservative?

22 .Well, I think that's what, I 23 think that was my, I think that's probably the way I 24 was described.

just a person who is, you know, a 25 very conservative Operator.NEAL R. GROSS X...COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so that was just 2 throughout and consistent, it was ik`14 3 had an opinion at what point in time and then it 4 became, you're too conservative?

It wasn't a change 5 in his opinion or anything?6 .. No, that's, no.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the way you 8 operated?9 -No, no, right, that's the way 10 I was.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 .At that was in one of the 13 reasons that, one of the reasons that I was put in the (" 14 position of was because of my 15 standards and conservative operation.

16 That was one of the reasons I. was put in 17 that job. Or those were the reasons that I was put in 18 that job.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And who was, and how 20 do you know that?21 It' whenA"6 22 asked me if I would do the job, if I wanted to do the 23 job, he was going to make the change and he said this 24 is why I want you to do the job.. fhis is way I want 25 you there, you know, standards and conservativ_

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com J7 *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-ratio i" SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that wasL.. .nput directly to you,A, .. that he valued that conservative input?>Right, right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I see. in this incident, did you consider or did you go around-at any point?-No, I didn't.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have discussions with .it?nd I did discuss, we discussed this. Because he was, I mean he was there at night, the same as I was. We were looking at the results. We had discussions on what we believed the potential outcome, you know, the question about the operability of the valve.We had discussions before, I'm trying to remember, I don't think he was at that meeting that day. But we had discussed it prior to going to the mAnd I talked about, you know, where we were with it.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he in a position that you were, where you ultimately reluctantly accepting what Engineering had put together?/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 :. Umm, I really don't want to 2 speak for He was so new at the time, to the iime 3 whole, you know, new to the, as an to the 4 plant and everything, that I think he had to pretty 5 much, way more than I did, rely on what Engineering 6 was telling as far as that goes.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you say this was 8 Spring, 2001? Or did we put a time frame on here? I 9 thought it was 2001 some time.10 S'It was 2001, but I think it 11 was in the, it was sometime in the summer, I think.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And he had gotten on 13 around March or so?(.i14 :Right, he was the 15 1 was the and I think it was in the 16 summer time.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Are you okay 18 with that issue?19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Umm hmm.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can we go on?21 onsidering you to be too conservative, .f this is an.2. 2 incident where that was pointed out to yo~l do you 23 have other incidents where that became evident that 24 you would have been too conservative?

25 So the unit, we were in an NEAL R. GROSS /COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.riealrgross.com 1 -utage,/actually, okay, let me see if we were. We 2 were doing a dilution to, in the-RCSlo get down to 3 where we could do it, you know, get to where we could 4 start it up. We had a hot (inaudible) concentration 5 in om aI old shut downT4I can't remember if 6 it was coming out of a, I think it wa 1 pcoming out of, 7 a4fueling outagL., 8 And we had, weIjjdiluted.

d .Ihe sampleE 9 didn't agree with thejmount of water that we put in 10 and your calculationsjprior to do, I mean, we followed 11 the procedure where, here's where you (inaudible) 12 4 oncentrationihere's where you want to go.13 Go back to the tables, do your 14 calculations, this isi ow much water I need to put iL 15 I'm going to\Eut it in in batches and I'm going to get 16 samples as I goj 17 I'm not going to try to say, you know, 18 urn the dial, put 10,000 gallons of water in because 19 that's what I need, and magically I'm going to be 20 there.21 Well, we didldilution of about one-third 22 of the amount of wate/ thereabouts.

The numbers 23 didn't correlat6 This, 'eactor coolant system 24 samples didn't correlate to what we had calculated 25 based on reactor coolant system*inaudible) before and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS p 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4U 1 after an 4 ount of water we pu 4in]1 2 We had had a similar problem to that, I 3 think, on the other unit and we thought we fixed it, 4 but evidently we didn't. So, my reaction wav4we're 5 not going to add anymore water til we understand 6 this problem.7 Because I'1n)ust not going to go forward, 8 it's a reactivity issue' We're no oing to go 9 forward becauseYtil we understand the problem.10 And there was a lot of pressure to just 11 continue ith the dilutiono get the plant started 12 up, even though we didn't totally understand what was 13 going on.14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And -15 And that was me directly 16 standing in front OfL e're not going to put any more 17 water in the reactor coolant syste=-18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What time 19 frame was that?20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yeah, time frame?21 This is, let's see, that 22 would have had to have been in, it could have been 23 j°Late 2001 or k.arly 2002.1 I'm struggling with that 24 one.25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Didn't 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 say you think it was) 'ming out of an outageX 2 M" Yeah, we were e were coming 3 out of Mode 5 It was either' refueling outa or 4 there was, one of the, we got, w ended up doing the 5 shut down{ I think for something else. And then 6 becauseLe went to Mode Kwe had to doafety 7 injection and arch our check valve testingj'8 And the/j-heck valve testing didn't go 9 well and we were, you know, we were struggling 10 getting out of that. And we wer'doing dilution)so, 11 I'm trying, I can't remember precisely if it wasfchat 12 type of an outage or if it was a refueling outage'13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay., 14 I think it s on Unit IN, 15 And that was a big deal.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How so?17 Because -18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You're saying, you're 19 taking the stand that there was a- great deal of 20 pressure.

Where was the pressure coming from? Who 21 were you dealing with individually?

22 And he was 23 dealing with, I presume, 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have any 25 firsthand discussions wit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgoss.com v

(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 NEFF: During this it was', .... ....dealing Not that I recall. I was with 9 all the time.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What about ISO .. .where was he in this? Was he involved?J ' * *was, that's why I have a hard time remembering his name, because he seemed to be kind of, he was there and I kind of --I can't place where was in the whole scheme of things because I pretty much remember dealing with (" SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yourself?Right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So the interaction was primarily between the two of you?Right.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anybody else in there? Was anybody else present?(Pause.)Um-- shift manager, but I can't remember who -- /(/NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com (202) 234-4433 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Late 2001?2 t Might have been&I 3 I'm trying to remember' if it wasL kshift that 4 was on my shift that did this and then.,I came in on 5 day shift because it happened like late at the end of 6 the night shift"! And then I was in on day shift and 7 if I remember who the shift manager would have been 8 because -- I think )was the night shift guy. It 9 was his crew that did the dilution and then they 10 stopped.: 11 en I saw what was going on, I told them 12 we're not going to add any more water'iNWe can figure k4 13 this out. We had e OCC in placQnd- ......14 (Phonetic) wa's We put together a 15 h issues tea!hto. gather all the data and figure out 16 what the problem was so we could say well, okay, this 17 is the problem and here's how we're going to solve it 18 and so we can continue on.19 So I mean it kept usl'fom being able to 20 pull shutdown banks handI4et into the start up 21 sequenc Tetty much that whole day.22 just told them we're not going tvý--23 they were like there's no reason that you can't -- you 24 can watch your indications.

\ou can put the water in/25 and then go ahead and pull shutdown bankS'-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 (Inaudible).

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you're saying (3 "they", let's talk camps here. Who is -- you're 4 taking a stand. Who is with you, your shift manager?5 Shift manager.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your crew?7 w And the crew. Well, I 8 wasn't the shift manager at the time. I was the 9 so the shift manager --10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your shift manager, 11 was with -- was in line with your thinking?12 Right 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were you kind of 14 --who was the argument with other than 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And 17 18 Right, 19 (Phonetic).

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So their push was to 21 go ahead nd add the 2 .1mA.: Y es. Stay with the.23 schedul 1i"d the water, shut down bankK 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Stay th .the 25 schedule pressure?+,-

NEAL R. GROSS .COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

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.z .4 1 Right.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what as to be 3 gained hereýs time on start 4 Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean were you able 6 to lay out your concerns?7 a.. Yes.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To them so that they 9 understood them? Do you think they understood what 10 your logic was?11 I think it was very clear 12 and they really didn't have a technical argument to 13 support the push to continuewith the 14 (Phonetic).

15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did they offer?16 Was it just a schedule?17 .Well, it was -- we had an 18 indication, just'o the dilution and watch your 19 indication and you know whether the plant is going to 20 change from a power standpoint,)<atch your source 21 range instrumentation and see what happens.22 Okay.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're laughing 24 and I'll just point that out for the record because 25 sometimes it doesn't get in.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4j 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 To me, it looks to me like that strikes you as odd and funny, that they would suggest that then.Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do it and see what happens kind of thing.I' Right, and incorrect.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Incorrect, okay. In the situation, were you able to get it accomplished the way you wanted to?Yes.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What did you see as the problem?There was a timing issue with the -- it started back, I believe what happened was it started back at the beginning where used -- the timing of the Lnitial boron concentration (at was used to start the calculation from was one of them.And therLie sample time, to allow the recirculation of the reactor coolant systemhere was a lot of timing issues and we put a lot of changes in the procedure to address specificallNy Lhat boron concentration you should use as your initial sample pointS 4/..And then the communication required and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com (202) 234-4433 1 the time delay that should be allowed for the reactor 2 coolant system to recirculatego you-uld get good 3 mixinoo you\ ould get accurate samples and flushing 4 of the sample lines and those kind of things.5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. So it 6 was a number of things that were improvements to the 7 process to make sure that 4 he sample.was, in fact an 8 accurate reflection of what was inside the OCS.9 ight.10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Once that 11 was done did it correlate fairly well with what your 12 prediction was?13 I believe so, yes.14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How long a 15 delay was that? I mean from -- you said it was like 16 -- I think you said it was like a Monday day shift 17 when you started the--18 I don't remember a specific 19 day of the week, but it was like night shift going 20 into day *shift and they were doing the dilution, an 21 initial dilution to get down to where you could start 22 up, a start up sequence and I got involved well, 23 very early at the beginning of the shift and we 24 probably lost -- I think the event happened like maybe 25 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, somewhere around there 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 we lost probably that whole day shift.2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.3 Didn't get t ,here we could 4 pull shut down banký I think until the end of that 5 day.6 SR. PROJECT-ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.7 NOW Or maybe even on night 8 shift, the beginning of the next shift.9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />, 10 maybe, something like that?11 j I think that was about what 12 it was, yes.13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, so you 14 lost a shift.15 Was there any adverse consequences to you 16 as a result of that? Maybe not right at the time, but 17 how about later? Was there anything,ýerformance 18 appraisalYr

--19 No.20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No. Did you 21 expect there to be something?

22 No, I didn't. To be honest 23 with you, I thought I was doing my job. I believe I 24 was doing the job that they expected me to do, whether 25 they agreed at the time. I mean I tri d to be 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 technically accurate and not --2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How about (3 later? Did anybody come back a week or a month or 4 three months later and say you know, we were thinking 5 about what you did there, good job, you know, 6 you kept us on track and -- did anybody come back, a 7 week or more later and have any other things to say 8 about that incident or the other?9 W I think it .s that outage4 10 There was a notification put in the system about 11 operations, conservative, conservative decision making 12 or conservative approach -- a conservative 13 I think that's -- conservative approach to operations, 14 sometimes gets in the way of productivity.

Some words 15 along those lines.16 There 1ýas notification that was written 17 and delineated-)

I forget, maybe half a dozen line 18 items/e-ated to an outagethat this decision was made 19 that cost us this much -- things like that.20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who wrote 21 that?22 I think it was out of that 23 and -- I think it was written by ...... at 24 the time.25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who 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 2 3 4 5 6 7 8"9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that?.. (Phonetic) believe it was.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The items that he outlined were issues that what, that you -- they were decisions that he took exception to?

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that cost the company money?C. Right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of productivity?Yes .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And he wrote the notification, for that?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you ever seen that before, a notification written for --SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Conservative decision making replacing productivity or eating into productivity?

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was behind that? Why do you think.he wrote 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

.o v SI have no idea. I'll be 2 very honest with you. I don't know what the 3 motivation for that was. I think that the -- the 4 explanation was that it was like a lessons learned, 5 here's where we made mistakes and this is where we 6 could do better kind of thing but the way it was 7 worded was just -- it was -- it came across as 8 production over conservative decision making for the 9 operation of the station.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was the message 11 that was sent?12 AYes. That was the message.13 And it wasn't just me that -- it was several other 14 operators.

I think "6,.(Phonetic) as a 15 7 took exception to that.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Got the same message 17 you got?18 Exactly.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Some of your shift 20 managers did.21 S 22 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF:

Were those words used 23 literally, "conservative decision making is affecting 24 productivity"?

I mean was he using the words 25 "conservative decision making" or was he showing bad NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 52 1 decisions

--2 Conservative

-- it was 3 conservative operation of the station or -- it didn't 4 say bad decisions.

And I may be putting the words 5 that I want them to say and they'd be using the words 6 that I interpret them to say, but it was very clear, 7 the message was, very clear that you guyi"n the 8 control room re screwed up.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Too conservative?

10 , Too conservative, making. the 11 decisions that cost us this amount of time.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's on hiftLf the 13 outage goes longer right? They're going to look at 14 thaloutage control io ha in terms of why didn't 15 yoi-4+/-it the mark here?/16 ,--Rg t 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he responds.with 18 a notification after this outage?19 Yes, it was some time lag 20 '-7after the outage!.so

-- I can't get the time frame on 21 it.22 I remember when I was out at requal. with 23 that crew at that time and saw that in the box 24 and he brought it to my attention.

25 I was 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 time. as the 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you' re thinking it 3 w a ss~a' t e 2 ime frame o .rly 2002?(4 Yes., it either had to be the 5 1Z4all of 200 lkecause we would have had an outage and 6 I'm pretty sure weot an outage6ý+/-

one of the units 7 then and then we hadaz spring outag' We had -- it 8 would have been ac.Zit 2 outage in 200,< It. could 9 have easily -- it was it could have been the pring 10 of 2002)'11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Possibly around 12 there.13 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you hadn't seen 15 anything like that 5/itten upAefore?16 1-Never in 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before or since?18 Career.19 (Laughter.)

20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean the purpose of 21 /\a notification-is I mean you're looking forjiome sort 22 of corrective actionj>..right?

23 Right.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the 25 -recommende

'dcorrective action her6 ., 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 What was DicommendedQnd what was'.the end 2 result? t Can you recall that? I'm assuming we can 3 o6ok at this document.

It's in the systek 4 It's system Yes, 5 /4it's a notification&

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But do you recall 7 what 4 ecommended corrective action was.9 8 Well, the4orrective actions 9 then were to like fix the problems or change the 10 procedures that led us to make those decisions.

11 Either fix a piece of equipment or make a 12 procedure change. Maybe the procedures weren't 13 appropriate that led me to make that decision, you 14' know.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Or whatever it was 16 that contributed to holding up the end of the outage.17 Right.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So whatever these six 19 decisions were that -- he outlines six that he took 20 exception to --21 7 That's an approximation from 22 recollection.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right, right. And 24 targeted them because in some way he thought there was 25 some poor decision making going on? ,/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 I believe that's the message that came through, yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the result of that? What kind of discussion did that get?Obviously, j-(Phonetic) came to you. Any other n l d It became a discussion of the shift managers,.that that was-- it kind of led to like an us against them kind of thing. It was --SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was their decisions that were being criticized, right?S A E ERight.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was at their level?........w i. Right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean was i Vho took that message or were you saying that was across the board?It was across the board, pretty much with the shift managers and -- yes, it was pretty much across the board, .shift managers (Inaudible), that was I.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what about anything further? Did you see it have an effect on conservative decision making? /NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neahrgross.com

,

1 3_ Not as long as I was there.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which was half a 3 year?4 .MR\ If it's the outage that I'm 5 thinking -- yeah, it was at most, it would have been 6 like from.N',vember of 2001 until the end of June 2002.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Interesting.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think I might have 10 gone over your question.11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's all 12 right.13 So you said it kind of created an "us ( 14 versus them" kind of mentality?

15 Uh-huh.16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there 17 any attempt to communicate the dissatisfaction that 18 the shift managers felt t )(Phonetic) or 19 !in some formal, setting or semi-formal 20 setting?21 Yes.22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And what was 23 that?24 We had routine shift manager 25 meetings.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neafrgross.com 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.2 :- So at one of the shift 3 manager meetings we pulled together specifically for 4 the purpose of having this discussion.

It was after 5 this notification and after this outage.6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was that the 7 only thing that led to this meeting you're talking 8 about? Was there anything else?9 I mean it highlighted some things. A 10 handful of items.11 Yes.12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Were there 13 other issues to that where people felt pressured to do 14 things a certain way?15 It was the general tone, the 16 way -- it comes back to your discussion about who 17 holds the license, who really should be making the 18 decision and it got to wherLt was coming into the 19 control room and trying to tell people what to do or 20 make decisions where he really wasn't -- they weren't 21 decisions for him to make. I mean there's no polite 22 way to say it, right? It's not his decision to make 23 ultimately from a licensing standpoint without first 24 getting the input, at least getting the input from the 25 licensed 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 it 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 And that was -- I mean he would just come into the control room and -- I'm trying to remember --he might suggest or tell a shift mahager to just ignore an acceptance criteria or something along those lines.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: (Inaudible)

Not ignore it, but --SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: N/A it?Skip over it?jr I'm trying to dredge up the specific issue.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Some of the eactor vent valves?Yes, that's it. That's it.That's the one. And there was something about the strobe time involved and it was like why do we need them is what the issue was.Well, there's a design basis. There's a licensing document.

There's a tech spec. There's all the reasons we need them. We're doing the surveillance tests. This is their acceptance criteria and I don't think I was directly involved in that one.I don't know where I was at the time, but I remember hearing about it, so that was one of the issues that was brought up at this shift manager's meeting./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 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.2 q ith --was there.3 there. And was there.4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And all the 5 other shift managers?6 .OR And all the shift managers.7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 8 remember whothose -- who 9 ---Should have bee-10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 12 (Phonetic)?

13 ý,,(Phonetic).

I'm 14 trying to remember if he was there or not.15 was .I think he was there.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think he might 17 not have been there?18 9 I'm trying to think 19 was there or not. He's always so quiet that we --20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He was 21 -in that time frame, wasn't he?22 Uh --- who had the shifts.23 1It was- ._ .......24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you say" 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1U 2 I think were the five on shift, shift 3 managers, an I believe was promoted to -4. , but wasn't -- he was working on his 5 qual. card. I don't believe he had a shift yet when(6 I left.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So' o 8 and and there's a fifth and it might 9 have been (Phonetic) who was present?10 A I Yes.11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And who did 12 you say was present from management?

It was 13 Mai who else?14 L 15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: .16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: F '18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this leads to a 20 meeting or you're saying it was like a regular shift 21 manager meeting, but this one -- was it normal for all 22 those -23 24 25 The discussion, the purpose of that -- I'm sorry.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS Y 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 0+/-1 to be there and okay -- this is a special kind of a 2 meeting?S3 -typicaltendance 4 the shift managers, people whobheld the title of shift 5 managers tty to get all theguys on shift because that 6 was really trying to get everybody together there and 7 then you had guys likeR(Phonetic), 8 -jPhonetic), (Phonetic) would be 9 there and .10 W(Phonetic). (Phonetic) was at 11 that meeting. l wasaat the 12 time.13 I don't remembe (Phonetic) was 14 there or not. But typically that was the attendance 15 an- the- would be there at the meeting, 16 but we wouldn't have there --17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: ý and 18 n would not be 19 at that meeting unless they had a reason to be there 20 on their own, they wanted to be there or\we inviteý21 Ythem to be there.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: "tere they invited or 23 did they want to be there for this ),.24 ] .invited them for this\K 25 one.NEAL R. GROSS " COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wym.nealrgross.com 62 And what was the (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 (..SýECIAL AGENT NEFF: purpose of it?The purpose of this particular meeting was to point out exactly that we-felt that We needed to get back to a line type working.relationship where the shift managers ran the shift and there was the'wshift and we understood

-- and We understood where , fell into the picture.However, we believe that there was too much intervention on the part of Lon coming into the control room, trying to tell people how to conduct business, how to operate the plant and the fact that he wasn't licensed, trying to make operability type decisions or recommendations, whatever you want to call them, related to operability that really were not-- they were contrary to what we'd been trained to do and what we knew was the right thing to do at the time.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was a part of this the concern. about who was making the operability decision?

Was a part of it also that there was a recommendation to delay or add time to the phase before an operability call was made?< Do you k recall if that was a part of this issue?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neaIrgross.,com (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12.12 13 14 2.5 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 i! No, I don't recall that. I don't recall that being part of the --SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall that ever being an issue in that there was direction that opeability calls ould be made by a consensus as posed to what the shift manager was servin land the facts that he had at hand, you would wait and delay?There was an attempt to try to get to that, I think. Butxdid the best that I could to prevent that from happening by empowering the'shift managers to make the call. ,You have the facti'Yin front of you. Make the call.Well, you have operability, on/off. It's operable.

It's inoperable.

Then you have other areas where it could be inoperable.

It might be inoperable.

It might require an inoperability determination.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Operable, but degraded?But degraded, can't, you know, you can't really say it's indeterminant, so you got to make a call that you can say it's operable, but degraded and then you would need some other support.That's always been there and we didn't really jump to the immediate conclusion this piece of equipment is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

(\,)1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neaIrgross.com I, C 1 inoperable, but I think there might have been some 2 attempt to expand the concept of operable, but 3 degraded beyond where it really should have been, 4 beyond the envelope that it really belonged in. That 5 kind of thing.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that a part of 7 this meeting, do you recall?8 No, I don't think it was.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could that have been 10 a separate meeting?11 J Um, I don't remember having 12 that kind of a meeting to be honest with you.n3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.14 Unless it was lumped into 15 this one here. The primary focus of this one, this 16 meeting that I recall was to get everybody sitting 17 around the table and get -- and try to get back to the 18 -- break down the -- it's us in the control room 19 versus you guys on day shift kind of thing, you know.20 And try to explain what our thoughts were about having 21 like_ ,,,trying to be the license holder when he 22 wasn't the license holder and kind of intervening in 23 decisions and things like that. That was the whole 24 purpose of it.25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 65 1 any discussion ahead of the meeting'on the part of the 2 shift managers, either with you present or that you (3 were aware of where there was some attempt to rehearse 4 or discuss what the points were that you wanted to 5 make? Whether it was something just informal like 6 okay, this is kind of what we want to bring out. This 7 is how we want to say it. This is how we are going to 8 portray things. Did you have discussions with them or 9 to your knowledge, did they have any discussions 10 amongst themselves?

11 1-- believe there was some 12 discussion ahead of time. We didn't want to just go 13 into this cold. There were items that we wanted to be 14 able to discuss like specific things and one of them 15 was ?like the vessel let- I.naudible)"l/

the thing aboutyt!", 16-16 -JChe dilution.

\.I'm trying to remember what else we 17 were going to talk about in there.18 And so there wouldn't be -- so there 19 wouldn't be like just a very vague nebulous finger 20 pointing kind of thing. It was like,you know, this 21 is here's the issue as we see it. Here's some 22 examples why we believe it's going on and what can we 23 do to go forward so we can get beyond this and get 24 back into the correct line, correct alignment, is what 25 the meeting was about. -'NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 66 1 The outcome was that we were all victims 2 and--(3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How was that --4 M "The outcome of the meeting 5 was that we were all behaving as victims.6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's what 7 they said?8 xs 9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's what 10 management said?11 Yes, that's what we were 12 told.13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What did"14 they mean by that?15 1I don't know. I guess it 16 was their way of just like -- turning the tables 17 around on us, it seemed. It was that we weren't -- I 18 guess we weren't -- we didn't understand the chain of 19 command or we didn't understand our behavior or you 20 know, the correct behavior or whatever.21 I'm not sure what they meant by that. I 22 know that it -- it caused me a lot of grief 23 internally.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When they called you, 25 you turned to victim (Phonetic)?

NEAL R. GROSS , COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. QS.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 67 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean a victim is 3 another word for like a complainant.

Was it 4 complaining, they just don't want to hear the 5 complaining?

6 ,I guess that's a good way to 7 put it, yes. It's just like whining.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was the whining 9 that they didn't -- I don't want to put words in your 10 mouth, but is that what the message was, stop being a 11 victim, you're whining?12 Yes.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Uh --14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was the 15 reaction to that? I assume you said that's the 16 outcome of the meeting and I'm sure it didn't take 17 place in just a matter of a few minutes. It probably 18 took some time to go through what the issues were.19 And was there a reaction like as they were discussed 20 or was there managers just sat back and listened?

And 21 the shifts and yourself and you all laid everything 22 out and they reacted to it, or was there a lot of 23 dialogue back and forth?24 There was discussion back 25 and forth. There was discussion about conservative

""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 68 1 decision making. And operation of the station and the 2 need to be -- to bring the two together because the (.3 whole -- the bottom line is we're here to make 4 electricity to make money. The fact that we money 5 with nuclear power brings a whole different aspect 6 into it of decision making and operability and 7 conservatism that you don't necessarily have with 8 other forms of power generation.

9 But still, in all, that has to be factored 10 into the business model and the bottom line is we're 11 here to make money. That's why -- because if we 12 couldn't make money running these generators, they'd 13 be shut down.14 So there was a lot of discussion around 15 the -- not that we're here to make money at all costs.16 And we're going to ignore conservativism and tech 17 specs and license (Inaudible) and that stuff, it was 18 just that we needed to come to some -- I guess some 19 middle ground on some -- the way we ran the plant is 20 what the discussion revolved around.21 The thing about being victims I think came 22 out after it was over and that came back down through 23 the ops manager. That wasn't vocalized in the 24 meeting, that piece of it.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was vocalized in 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 meeting by a 2 I think most of the 3 discussion was handled byj lJand I think he was 4 trying to listen to what we had to say and he was 5 trying to defend his actions. And" ,I I don't 6 remembe saying anything really outstanding other 7 than to be involved in the discussions about -- he 8 supported the idea that we're here to run the station 9 safely. That's what our function is, along with the 10 fact that we need to make -- we're here to generate 11 revenue by making electricity.

12 And most everything, if I recall 13 correctly, most of the discussion was with -(. 14 because a lot of it was revolving around, " He was 15 kind of .. W.-- He was S....... He wasHethe 16 He was the guy that you always 17 saw in the control room and he was the guy that was 18 always on the phone.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:. He was the one whose 20 intervention you were objecting to?21 M Yes.22 ;SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: His presence and his 23 direction?" 24 Right, right. And you know, 25 his style. So that was -- and the idea was to try 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 70 1 get alignment from Lhe shift managers that were hers 2 24/7. They're senior management representation and 3 the license holders way up to the ultimate, the VP, 4 the guy that we ultimately report to and that whole 5 chain, is to try to get everything on the table and 6 get an understanding of what -- just what it is that 7 was perceived that we were doing wrong. We wanted 8 them to explain to us what it was that we weren't 9 doing that we were or were not doing and we wanted to 10 explain to them what we believe was a barrier in the 11 form of behavior.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you get that?13 T Not really. I don't believe 14 we ever got to that.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any kind of a 16 resolution?

17 No. Because it was like at 18 the end of the meeting it was okay, this is what you 19 presented us. ) teracted during the discussions 20 and that it was okay, we understand this. We'll go 21 away and then we'll need to have another meeting.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did another meeting 23 occur?24 -\ No, not that I remember.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what was the net NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 2000S-3701 www.neafrgross.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 71 effect of this discussion?

Did anything change? Did stop coming in or did the shift managers do anything differently?We pretty much continued to do business as usual.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And this is part of notificatio 2 4 4 Khat was ....)(Phonetic), part of that was discussed at this meeting? Here's .,notification showing we did six things the wrong way?, I'm trying to get it in the time frame. I think that that was part of that discussion, yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think that contributed to what are we doing wrong?Uh-huh.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If you're)writing a notification hat indicates there s a problem, right?Yes. What are we doing or what are we not doing, you know, that's not meeting your expectations?

Why are we here? Why are we where we are? The perception is we don't want to run the station. That was that discussion.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess it leads you think -- I'm trying to look at it from both points of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com f*t (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 (.72 view. Was there -- in your opinion were there decisions that were being made to arbitrarily take the units off line that really were not justified opinions, they were just being the shift manager, whoever had that input was moving in a way that they shouldn't have been moving and costing money? Is there something that was going on there that justifiably they could say you shouldn't be behaving this way. You shouldn't be operating that way?No. I don't see anything.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So the instances that you're aware of, including whatever was listed on this notification at that time frame and these other incidents that we're talking about were operability calls or decision making that was good decision making? It was responsible decision making?Let'Is go to the example of N) the dilution for the RCSt0he dilute (Inaudible) oýthe boron concentration prior to pulling the shutdown_4banks~SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.I guess I could see that you might make an argument that you can/ eter out how muCf water you put in and you could watch all of the rods inserted so you have that shutdown margin~t.'

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 73 1 have some idea what2our boron concentration i.So 2 I guess you could make an argument to' -0 ahead and 3 in small batches, get samples, watch 4 buclear instrumentation and use that approach to g 5 )_o the boron concentration that you want to be at1 2 6 But I just didn't see that as the way to go. That was 7 not the correct thing to do because it-gas aJ 8 .2ireactivity.

--It was a question ol.eactivity with th-K 9 -.ore ,nd we had -- we performed a function.

We had an 10 outcome that we didn't understand.

It didn't make 11 sense to proceed with that. That goes against all the 12 principles, particularly when you' re dealing with.13 e.activit4/

So there's the difference of opinion, 14 right?15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.16 Nj: $(o my position as t 17 .myposition from my experience back t\18 ZMM ....as we shouldn't 19 yýfor i We should understand what we're doing and it 20 really shouldn't take that long for us to understand 21 what we're doing. It can't be that hard to figure 22 out, but the time spent figuring out ahead of time is 23 much more productive than it would be to go forward in 24 the face of not understanding what you're doing, have 25 some outcome that is worse than the first outcome 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 then you're going to spend days explaining why you did 2 that or months. You don't know.3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.4 -You know, so in my mind, the 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> spent, that was a correct decision and the guys 6 with the shift managers", we all pretty much saw eye to 7 eye. I'd say probably 90 percent of the time and it 8 wasn't -- I don't think that I'm that over influential 9 that I commanded that kind of loyalty that if I was 10 wrong, somebody was going to just blindly follow me or 11 whatever.

We always have discussions, pull out the 12 book. IThey call me at home. ! I had a set of tech 13 specs, a set of drawings and everything.

I didn't --14 I wouldn't challenge what the discussion was about and 15 I would try to verify it with the documentation that 16 I had at home versus what they were reading and I 17 wasn't going off the top of my head. Those kind of 18 things. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.19 But -- so I can see if you take that 20 example that I can see where there would be some 21 consternation from senior management that it's no big 22 deal. You have other indications, go forward with 23 what you're doing.24 So I guess I can see where he might have 25 believed that we were being too much on the side of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

,<1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 75 1 conservatism at the expense of meeting-the schedule-:

2 deadline.-

3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The picture that 4 you're showing is that your shift managementO, you're 5 licensed senior management is in line with your 6 thinking.

You've got independent thinkers and they're 7 thinking the way you're thinking, so it was time to 8 push back.9 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On this direction 11 with 12 Yes 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that's what it S"14 evolved into.15 And I guess the other thing 16 that needs to be -- or should be clear is that these 17 guys -- okay, (Phonetic) is a long-time 18 Salem employee, operations., been.for 19 a number of years. But then when you go.to the other 20 guys whoi,141111 I 21 are So they brought a 22 perspective from a plant. They work in operations and 23 they brought akerspective from a planehat I think 24 during the time when they were getting licensed, it 25 was in the process of recovering from some hard. times-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 76 1 for them and they went through a standards improvement 2 and a conservative decision making process.3 has been here all the time, 4 but he got into operations licensing at the time, 5 1995, 1996, 1997 time frame whenever the change in 6 management was here and the shift to the conservative 7 decision making, the shift that's going to run, the\8 shift has the responsibility, .fhe shift manager is the 9 manager of the station-10 .was the same way. le was 11 licensed as an SRO under that philosophy.

So you had 12 somewhat diverse backgrounds.

I was 13 v So the management ,of the crews, it wasn't 14 like we were ut drinking together every nigh from 15 day one. We had diverse backgrounds, different 16 managements, nuclear power plants. And we pretty much 17 all came to the same conclusion most of the time on 18 conditions of equipment, where a piece of equipment 19 should be operable, not operable.

What is 20 conservative, what isn't conservative.

Everyone is 21 not always going to agree. I'm not trying to say that 22 I'm 100 percent right, that maybe not -- maybe I do 23 lean too much to one side, but that's the way -- once 24 you get into that pattern of behavior, that's the way 25 that I was trained 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 I, SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That sounds like one of the reasons you.¶ere selected for th.1 Iwapput back on shif'in>1999 because we were having event Human performance events, not following procedures, not controlling evolutions.

That wa <'remove.'KfromT1he re i was put in there.We brought everything in lie. Followed procedures and stopped having events.And when they needed somebody, I was on different crews4or that very reason. And the results were, was able to convince people that you follow procedures and you communicate and you follow these standards and we won't have those kind of events and you have the safe operation of the station.That's why I was putýL two different.l rews on shif nd then... that's whatl explained to me was that operation or my leadership style, management style, whatever you want to call it, that was why I was selected to be-ao Ii So I had all the groups then. I.h a d .i. * " ...... ...... .... .... ....SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After this meeting where the message came back and you said it'didn't come back at that meeting, that it came back after 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 78 C.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 follow-up to it~vrom ops managemen where were you getting that from? Was it was translating that for you and they wanted you to stop being the victim? Where was it coming from?)No, it was that delivered that message that we were behaving as victims and we needed to stop that behavior.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When he delivered it, delivered the message, was it his belief that that's what was going on or was he delivering the message for I~I or above?.. He portrayed it as if it was his belief.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So the rift here then would be between, at your level, ,and down and then OM and up on this big issue?Yes. It would appear that way although I could still go t- and talk to wayj filEabout issues and concerns and he didn't hesitate to get on the phone I'd sit there right in his office and get on the phone with,*-Ir get on the phone with n the speaker phone and we'd have discussions.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in practice, he was approachable and you could engage him in decision making?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com (202) 234-4433 1 Yes.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's just that they 3 didn'.t want to have meetings about this any more.4 They didn't want to hear the collective whining?5It Right, that's correct.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he was still --7 was he acting reasonable?

8Yes.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Conservatively, 10 reasonable.

It's just that there weren't going to be 11 meetings any more? Because you said there wasn't a 12 follow up --13 Not only those subjects.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There wasn't a follow 15 up. Thee was supposed to be, but there wasn't one?16 Right.17 (Laughter.)

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's a message in 19 itself, I would think.20 (Laughter.)

21 Okay.22h 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, I think we 24 pretty much covered the effect that that had. I think 25 you said it was -- the end result of this meeting 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 ou 1 what? Did people do anything differently?

2 No. No, we continued to (3 operate the way we had prior to that meeting.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This meeting, I'm 5 thinking from what's been reported it was spring 2002?)6 I think that that's where it 7 falls into.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: /April, May, 20021 9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was it a 10 factor in your decision to leave the station?11 I would say that it was a 12 very small factor, Very small. I wanted to go -- I 13 had been in operations since always ,in!14 operations and I wanted to try to do something 15 different and so I had an opportunity to go up there 16 to 17 but that wasn't going to happen here. And I didn't 18 see them taking me out of operations to go like to 19 maintenance or -- because in the past I had asked to 20 go to maintenance and that just never happened.

I was 21 an operator.

That's where it looked like I was going 22 to stay.23 So when I had the opportunity, I thought 24 I'd go there and give that a try, be J ,Jh 25 ifor a while and learn something different.

NEAL R. GROSS (7 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 81 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Rather than maybe saying --(Whereupon, the tape was flipped.)SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 3:07 p.m., after a brief break. At the time when you-did you, do you maintain any contact with the people?In the time that you were gone;..that yeas plus, that you were gone, were you maintaining contact with people here on-site? To the extent that youj would know questions along the line of where we are.Day-to-day decision making. Did the situation change? Did it better? Did it worsen? You know, anything along those lines?F No, I had infrequent contact, occasional conversation with mayb (-inaudible) or MVMN ýphonetic).

Just infrequent phone calls because both of us worked so many hours, there just wasn't an opportunity to be in touch.So, I get, the sense I get is that it's pretty much the same as when I left, from a decision making standpoint or an overall management standpoint.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The sense that you get today?iWell, no, today, no. Back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com i" (202) 234-4433 1 with the new, withn here and then 4" .,W 2 I think that there is some belief that things will 3 change.4 Because when, when-and were 5 here, you know running Operations, it was more of a, 6 more of an Operations, I think it was more of an 7 Operations, that organization, but' decisions of the.8 shift. They were in the process of training the 9 shifts to be decision makers, to lead the stationý10 And I think there's a belief that things 11 will shift back in that direction.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Under nd 13 Aphonetic)

?14 Yes.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The, in that-time 16 frame therb was a changeover with theN Mr.17 went out and-came in. Do you 18 have, did you get a sense of anything that, in that 19 time frame was anything done differently or worse, or 20 do you have any basis to evaluate it?21 I don't really have the basis 22 for evaluation.

23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Infrequent contact and 24 -25 m :f Yeah, right. 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 83 1 didn't talk shop very much really. I shouldn't even 2 say very much. I mean we'd call, we'd just like how 3 are you doing? How are things going here, how are 4 things going there?5 A real broad sense. No specifics.

Nobody 6 was calling me and saying, hey, you won't believe what 7 was, what we did today or that kind of thing. There 8 was none of those conversations.

9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You didn't have that 10 kind of input then?11 ..o, no.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But in terms of you 13 being on-site here since )what your sense 14 is, is that it's going in an impr6yed direction and 15 that shift management~will be the decision maker on 16 site, is that what you're saying?17 That's, that's a sense I get, yeah, that's 18 a feeling I get. From, you know,. just from, again, 19 like you know, general conversations.

Everybody is 20 glad to see that UI~ is back.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.22 ! And that's not just from 23 operations standpoint.

I think the workforce in 24 general, the Union guys, that includes maintenance, 25 felt like they had a better rapport with in a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ( /1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W." (202) 2344433 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 84 Senior Management position than some of the other people that have been here.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. We had some other incidents that we wanted to bring up, right? Do you have anything that you needed to cover on territory that we've been to?SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I don't think SO.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. There's, there were a couple, I'm wondering if you can recall, and if you do, we can get into it from there.I'll go to something that goes pretty far back. Roughly around December of 2001. We're thinking late 2001.0Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: AX$underground leak in a service water nuclear header near the buildingX t9) " Okay.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: /ater reportedly gushing off the headerj\SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall that V situation?

Yes, yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you recall, I mean NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

,...-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com (202) 234-4433 85 1 can you describe what went into, in terms of 2 operability and decision making to fix what was going (3 on there?4 Can you recall what went into that?5 We, we had Engineering, 6 Design Engineering involve, some engineering 7 involvement in the assessmentf the 8 And we brought in a~nEoutside Contracto to 9 do*- assessment of the ground3 o try to determine, 10 you know, to get some feel for whether there was, 11 1 Nwhether the leak was to the extent where it was like+.12 -..oiding under the-'groun

.13 loss of fue n the ea of the pipfe._14 because there are/her header hat come out of there 15 and we wanted to make sure that we weren't undermining 16 -h pip--end losing some structural capability because 17 there were no, essentially there wato pipe support ,.18 it was justIce fuelthe aggregataround the pipinjg/19 that provides th6Aupport for the pipAý20 So we brought in an side Contractor..

21 We had design, we had to do that function.

They had 22 some kind of roundsonarhat they used to determine 23 oiding.24 It was able to actually, it was some 25 pretty interesting maps that he came up with that he/NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 86 1 could actually show the, how far out the,4ater was in 2 to the soil from the leak around the pipe.'. K (J 3 And the design guys were, you know, we 4 spent a lot of time getting the drawings, 5 understanding the design, understanding the joint.6 We got pictures from construction prior to 7 9 e fuel to see what e pipe looked like in they 8 And based on all that input, came to the 9 conclusion that the, that we were, well, we had 10 inoperability.

11 We wrote an operability determination 12 based on~the leakage and did calculations on what sizjel 13 jiea,. e could withstand with hat piping servic1nd 14 th pump runnin before we have to say that we were 15 robbinlenough floJjlhat you'd have to shut the unit 16 down.17 And we made the best determination we 18 could of like the.onstructural integrity-f that 19 what we knew about the type that's, it's 20 like a h density concrete wire-wrapped pipe.21 And then ),he fittings that, the joint tha 22 was there. And then we.-onitored the water coming ouU 23 fa 23 .of the ground,\-

you know, to keep.ack of how muc 24 .,!water was coming we could, so that we could 25 make a determination as best we could tha ,.the pi J NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 87 1 was notcaking at any greater ratqhan was, than we 2 thought it was.3 And we put that all together and it's 4 documented in the operability determination, so that 5 we were okay there.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Personally, were you 7 comfortable with the actions that were taken to affect 8 that repair? Time frames and the decision making on 9 that?10 It was, it was testing my 11 comfort level, I would say. With that particular, 12 with that particular one.13 But we had a lot of different inputs to 14 )-assess the pipeand so I was somewhat comfortable with 15 where we were, I'd say.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What part of it, what 17 aspect would have been testing your comfort level?18 1I think that, go back to'19 Past experience we 20 ad a leak on a service water, a piece of servi 21 water pipe that serviced a dieseil'and we ended up 22 shutting the unit down on a muc4,smalieralr leak4.4 23 Different kind ofA pipe. It was a 24 different, you know, so the decision made there was 25 the unit should be taken offline and epair the pipe,{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 C 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 88 and there was (inaudible) corrosion on the pipe and they ended u replacing t with an )eitirely differentj and everything.

So, erience might have driven r7to be more, well let's, we _uld just shut the unit downý4 and ijix this pipe ou know, and quit trying to engineer it away.But we had it, you know, so we had a pretty good team of people that were looking at the, you know, looking at it, and I felt we~ere monitorin94-the leakage on a continuous And it, before we got to the repair, before we shut it down,tthe leakagjeot like right on, right on the edge of where we were, you know, we were forced to shut down because of themount of leakage Y that we had" ut of that pipqý, SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You couldn't have gone much longer without it?No.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Without shutting down?SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If it's, could you see the situation as one where people could come away with the idea that there's a message being sent. That, you know, if it's safety first, how are we operating with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 89 1 water gushing off the header outside?2 Yes (3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just in terms of 4 whether it was true inoperability or not, the message 5 was this is unusual. It's not something that you 6 should be seeing, but we're operating along with it?7 Yes,. I could see that.8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was your 9 initial instinct on this to think that you should be 10 taken offline? -Based on what you, what your 11 comparison to th Oituat ion?12 J Yeah, my initial instinct 13 would have been, well, we have, once we saw it was a 14 6nuke header,Jy initial instinct would have been to 15 just take the unit off.16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. And 17 then affect whatever kind of repairs were necessary?

-1 18 .Right.19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBE%63<Dikhe1ýip[}'

20 up and replace"it?

21 ..Right, right.22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.23 .And reality was that we 24 didn't have, we would not have had a good plan in 25 place to do that--I'm sorry, I didn't mean to NEAL R. GROSS A'COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 90 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 27 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 interrupt.

SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, go ahead, go ahead.So to, the outcome was that we had the opportunity to understand the nature. I think, by the time we got to where we actually took out of service, we had a real good understanding of the nature of what we had to do. We had a real good plan in place to repair it and we worked with the NRC to get a tech spec extension, from the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, I think, I think it was seven days, we got an extension out to seven days to allow us to be off.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.,And, you know, we put together a time line and all the contingencies and everything.

And as it turned out, we were able to N7 .air the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.-.We would have never been able to do that, and I don't thinkwe'd have fixed it in seven days, if at the first indication water comin through the have just said, oh, we're going to shut down and figure out what it is.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay. Well, that's a good perspective.

Do you feel that there was NEAL R. GROSS --COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

'..1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

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• o 91 1 a lesson learned for you coming out of that?2 I mean is this something we thought, well, (3 maybe I would have, that would have been an 4 overreaction if we would have taken the unit offline.5 The fact that we took the time to do the 6 investigation, to do the review, to get the people 7 4r:der the ground penetrating radabnd all these other 8 special capabilities.

And to do, you know, thorough 9 review up front, we actually had a much more 10 methodical, concise, well executed plan that we were 11 able to implement and get, you know, put into place to 12 get the unit, you know -13 Right.14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: -back in 15 line, where, I guess it really never came offline, 16 right?17 1No, we never did have to take 18 it offline.19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But, were you 20 actually able to justified getting a Notice of 21 Enforcement Discretion, it sounds like?22 MM:ý Yes, yes, we were. We worked 23 with, the body of the work we did with the Design 24 Engineering on, you know, understanding/the pi nd 25 the repair that we were going to perform, 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 92 1 explaining the system, you know, the way the system 2 laid out and with the PRA and what we would, what (3 equipment we would control during the time of the 4 outage, we were able to get that NOED.5 And then because we had the plan laid out, 6 and everybody assigned responsibilities and everything 7 here available to affect the repair, we actually did 8 the round trip on the header in, I think, it turned 9 out to be 70 hours8.101852e-4 days <br />0.0194 hours <br />1.157407e-4 weeks <br />2.6635e-5 months <br /> or somewhere right, it was under 10 the 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> original action statement for the service 11 water tech spec.12 And, yes, it was a good, it was a good, it 13 was a learning, it was a good learning experience, you-14 know, to take the opportunity to do what we did. God 15 bless you.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say it was a 17 good learning experience, is it possible it was, for 18 someone at your level, seeing that overall how it was 19 handled, that was a good learning experience for you, 20 but maybe misunderstood at levels below you?21 1 can see where, I could see 22 where it would be, yeah. And I try to keep the shifts 23 up to, you know, communicate the status as best I 24 could where, you know, what we were doing, where we 25 stood with the plan.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 93 1 And what the plan was. And we had, we had 2 parameters.

You know, we were athat leakage (3 on a very frequent basis and we had guidelines for if, 4 you know, if you're going to, if you hit these numbers 5 we're just going to start shutting the unit down.6 There were guidelines in place. I could 7 see where it could be conceived and perceived that, 8 you know, we were probably beyond where we should have 9 been. I can see that.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. But for you, it 11 didn't get there? IT was approaching it and then it 12 got to it-13 .3 -Right, right.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -at the tail end?15 Right, it was, it was 16 different behavior for me and I'll admit that. And 17 the, and it was pushing my comfort level, but I guess, 18 you know, that's what, that's part of being on that 19 job.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What made, going into 21 that incident, if that's different behavior for you, 22 is that a response to the fact that you're termed too 23 conservative?

24 What made you look at it differently in 25 that particular instance?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 94 Because I, it was just, I was trying to be open-minded and take the approach that, that you needed to have, you know, a good case to say what is operable or inoperable.

And, so, you know, when we started off down the evaluation, the evaluation path, and I saw what, you know, the results we were getting, I was, you know, I became more comfortable with where we were. But there was nothing that anybody said to me or it wasn't, on my part, I don't believe it was a reaction to anything else.Because it didn't, it really didn't, I don't think it changed my behavior, after that.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay..Because that was in the winter of 2001. That was 2000, I'm pretty sure that was 2001. That's the time frame you have for it, isn't like the December',time?

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I have late 2001, the holidays.Yeah, December.

Because it was, we repaired that, I'm pretty sure we repaired that in the week between Christmas and New Years.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, that would be around, you think that year, 2001?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 \Yeah, I'm pretty sure when 2 that's when that was. I'm pretty sure that's when (3 that was.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so overall -5 9zYeah, it had to be. Because 6 1 wasliD WON, was11 7 because I can remember walking out there in the 8 mornings with him.9 We'd come in like 6:00 in the morning and 10 walk out, check this out and make sure, you know, see 11 what the status was. Talk tof the shift: see what was 12 going on with the night shift.13 And it was in the winter time.. So it had 14 to be i2001,; because I wasn't here in the winter 15 2002. So that is when it was. And we repaired it the 16 week, because I worked that week.17 As part, to help coordinate this from an 18 operations standpoint.

Because I worked with, I 19 worked with putting the procedures together and 20 locking points and everything and, you know, 21 coordinate so everybody, so that, and do the briefings 22 with the shift so everybody knew what we were going to 23 do and when we were going to do it, and try to help it 24 move along so we could get it done.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have one?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 f.96 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: A general one. You know, you recounted a number of instances where there were issues that came up that they were personally frustrating.

You mentioned thegilution evenand how you felt like you had to kind of stand tall against management and, you know, you had to kind of say, you know, we're going to, we're going to operate conservatively and we're going to take a stand here.And there were other instances where you mentioned, you know, this one, you know it maybe pushed your buttons a little bit, but you kind of worked your way through it.And there may have been others that have come up. And was there ever any instances when you just felt like you were just so fed up or disgusted where you just said, you know what, I need to some time think.And you just, like either get out of your office, or go somewhere on the site or head off site for a while? Do you ever have situations like that where you just felt like I need to kind of get away from this place?-Yeah, I'd have to say that there are times like that. And that (inaudible) not, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. .(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.healrgross.com 1 you know, not just that, but just you figure working, 2 coming in at 4 -.00 in the mornin nd don't leave until 3 x,27/0 or 7:30 at night..anda lot times here on 4 Saturd sometimes on Sunday one calls 3:00 in thej 5 Jýorning.6 It just, you know, just that in itself 7 drives you to the point where you've got to kind of 8 like sit back or go for a walk and think things 9 through.10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you ever 11 feel like the pressures of the job are just so intense 12 it's overwhelming.

You just like took time off just 13 to kind of get away.14 You know, and you know, like it was during 15 the week, like if something was bothering you on a 16 Tuesday or a Wednesday, that you just took a day or 17 two off?18 J JNever do that.19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, no.20 0.21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No. How 22 about , 23 I always ended up, this time 24 of year, with last year's vacation that I had to take.25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Oh, is 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 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 right?Yeah, yeah. I never, never just, * -id that a lot.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did he?ijdid that a couple of times, but he may have had a family issue, too, so I don't, I don't know that it was job related.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It might not have been driven by work?) Yeah, it's not a fair statement to say that it was work that would make him do that.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't think that, you don't recall any situation where your level of frustration got to the point where you just left and came back later?We're getting this from somewhere, that it was over some incident.

We're just wondering if you recall, maybe?:o Well, during one of the outages, I was working nights. That had nothing to do with work. I left and went home.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Personal reasons?" .1ý)Right.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.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 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 99 OW 1 It was not work-driven.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But that's the only incident that you can think of?.......-_)Yeah,*I can't remember.

I can remember thinking tonight when I walk out the gate, I'm not going to come back, but I always came back.You know, how you get to that sometimes.

You just say, well, you know, this just isn't worth it anymore, 7:30, 8:00 at night, long day.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It sounds like a lot of long hours.)And I do remember/,going, on night shift during an outage, I was working in the OCC. I was the, what do you call it, the Operations Outage Manager.But that was not related, that was something that was going on at home. It had nothing to do with, it wasn't really work driven. I don't remember doing that through the day.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess if -Unless they saw me leave to make a phone call whenever I was talking to the guy that w I just went out in the parking lot.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 www.nealrgross.com 1qU 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You never 2 know.3 Vm1. You know, it could be that.4 Because whenever, I mean whenever I was talking with 5 )about that job, I wasn't making those phone 6 calls in my office.7 ' SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure, understood.

8 would go out to the parking 9 lot and talk on my cell phone.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess the bigger 11 question would be not, not so much did you leave site 12 and take care of personal business, you know, whatever 13 you had to do.14 jW..)'Yeah, yeah.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it get to a point 16 in any direction you were receiving or your level of 17 frustration with that, that you felt like you were 18 going, you know, leave, leave a meeting, leave site, 19 you know, can you recall any incident getting you that 20 frustrated, in terms of dealing with the direction you 21 were receiving from senior management, is the way -22 jj: Well, I can, there was a, 23 there was always a morning meeting that was like 7:30, 24 8:00. A morning, plan of the day, management type of 25 a meeting.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 101 1 And I went to, we, and it was, again, it 2 was over the weekend. We were doing 3 Itsting on the service water for dieselsX 4 And we didn't g6t the flo e were 5 supposed to be getting and we were getting pushed into 6 saying that there was a problem with the procedure, 7 there was nothing wrong with (inaudible) path, all 8 different kinds of things.9 And it was just like, no, there's a 10 problem here. You explain it to me. We're not 11 getting the results. This procedure is a surveillance 12 procedure, we may need tech specs if we don't get the 13 results.14 This is inoperable.

And it was like why 15 are you in this tech spec, why are you doing this?16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was that?17 M jPardon me?18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was that coming 19 from? Why are you in the tech spec?20 From 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 22 J Yeah, So, we 23 finally pushed him into saying, we finally convinced 24 him that there had to be a problem withj the valvebk'25 There was no other, you know, it was like either NEAL R. GROSS K ['COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 102 1 there's a problem with the,.alve or this line is/2 l!ugged full of mud., 3 Either case, you're not going to get the 4 ervice water you need to the diese It's 5 inoperable, that's why we're here.6 And I don't even want to hear that it's 7 p, lugged with mud ou know. That's, that's not the 8 reason,)t's this valve So, we finally made them, we 9 tagged "it out, we made them go in and t valve was 10 Lroken 11 Just flat out, Ye valve was broke$. So, 12 we fixed it an' was at 13 the time. He was the 14 I'm trying to remember who was. It might 15 have been i(phonetic).

16 And this was over the weekend. This 17 started, over the weekend. It might have bednim 18 ,." and n' because I'm 19 trying to remember .-he CRSI was talking to.20 So it got pushed to the point whereI 21 flat out told Maintenance and I told we're goingV 22 /outgthi anld(gig 22 :tO tag this out:4They went in and had a valve, 23 if you pulled ___valve off, the valve internals.as 24 \'.disconnected from the handle..J ( 25 " he valve wasn't turned, it was closeL 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 that's why we didn't the flow, it was blocked.2 Just flat out, that's what it was. There wao rnudnk 3 "n the ere wa ing along those lines.5 4 get flushed. We do a periodi J.lush)5 to make sure that thosetines don't get sewered u 6 1JT-hey open and inspect the drain outage And so the, 7 the solution to that was to change the procedure.

8 I don't remember exactly what it was he 9 wanted to change in the procedure, but there had to be 10 a procedure change.12 And, not only did there have to be a 12 procedure change, but it had to be a0600 in 13 'Ynorning on Sunday Change the procedure.

14 So, when I found that out, I went to a 15 meeting. I went to the meeting that was over here in 16 a room upstairs.

And I sat in there and I listened to 17 them talking, and then I just, I just blew up.18 You know, it's like, hey, you know, you 19 can't go around, you can't continue to change 20 procedures because they don't meet what you want them 21 to meet.22 And if we continue down this path, you 23 know, we'll be lucky to be an (inaudible) four a 24 little longer, than stay at (inaudible) three.( 25 And then I told "that 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 104 1 wanted to talk to him.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who were the people 3 that you got upset with?4 and I think 5 phonetic) was an those 6 guys.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:'\8 Yeah, yeah.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any VPS?10 I don't think there were any 11 VPs at that meeting. I don't think there was a VP.12 to me at length afterwards, but I 13 don't think he was, I don't remember him being in the 14 meeting.15 And I just went and talked to.*16 r(phonetic) and you know, said I didn't like 17 what was going on. I didn't like that particular 18 decision that, you know, I thought that that decision 19 was a bad decision.20 And we did the right thing. Change this 21 ....valvefind out, you know, who is being told there's 22 nothing wrong, there's nothing wrong. /We tagged 23 $(out, and find out the valve is broken.24 And then I come in the next morni g and 25 the procedure was changed. (\Q NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com v

(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that was 4 wanting that procedure changed at 3:00 a.m.?o Yeah, I was here. Yeah, I think it was ike 3:00 a.T;4 Sunday into Monday, I think it was.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What do you gain by that, that immediate change to the procedure there?-)So that next time we do that, we wouldn't have to, we wouldn't have to meet that criteria that was in there.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Can we take a break now?SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure.(Whereupon, the proceedings briefly went off the record.)(- that wasn't that I talked to, because he wasn't-iere at the time, it was the QA Manageri The QA Manager at the time, who's name currently'escapes me, but he's still here.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it wasnmm)No, it wasn't because he wasn't here in that time frame.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Initially, when you said that, I thought that meant you were on the phone NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 106 2 -No, no, no. no.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -the other company, 4 at that point.5 No.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so not 7 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right, the time is 10 3:40 p.m., we're back on the record after a brief 11 break. All right, so we have some follow up to that 12 issue.13 The, so what they were looking for to gain 14 was to not have to go through the criteria of what you 15 were following?

16 I mean you had this particular/valve 17 ..For that branch, right.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So, what I 20 wanted to explore with you a little bit, and it's kind 21 of probably right at the point of your frustration was 22 .hIas decided to change the procedure.

23 It almost appeared that you had a 24 situation where you're challenging the operability of 25 the equipment or challenging its ability to meet.its 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 design.2 Right.3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And, in your 4 eyes, you're saying let's go find out what the basic 5 problem is that's preventing this system to function 6 properly.7 And in his eyes, he's got a totally 8 different approach in let's go change the procedure so 9 we don't, we can ignore this part of the system and 10 make its performance moot.11 So that if we use, you know, look at the 12 rest of the system and it's working fine, we don't 13 have to deal with this.14 [Right.15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is that the 16 gist of it?17 0_1-.....

Yes, that's correct.18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was that his 19 general approach to these kinds of issues when they 20 came up? To figure out a way, an angle that would 21 either maximize production or minimize downtime or 22 reduce the likelihood of a plant shutdown?23 Ye.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was typical for ( 25 him?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 108 2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And would, (3 other than the instances we've already mentioned, were 4 there other examples of that, that you can recall?5 ~.:jThose are the big ones that 6 come to mind.7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.8 are the big ones.9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.10 Eileen.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I have one other 12 incident.

It's a situation where individual comfort 13 levels have been reportedly uncomfortable with the 14 situation.

15 Similar to some of the things that we Were 16 talking about&-in Operations.>

4t goes into a{sprin 17 utage in 2002,kforhalem Unit There was-some 18 issues with the (inaudible)

Aeals being padkea{in 19 rder to create a vacuum 20 Right.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And a question of*22 whether or not you could start up and do someJlowý\

23 /Dower physics testing You were coming t of the 24 ~outage a Nthere was some concern about that.25 In that it wouldn't, it wouldn't have been NEAL R. GROSS -COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS/ 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.wv .(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 nealrgross.om (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 appropriate and that it was being resisted at the kOerations leveyl Do you recall that?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you, where was your position in this? And how did you feel about it?-If I recall, we ultimately didn't do it. And I was not in favor of it. I didn't really support it, as I recall.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where were the discussions for this? Where was the push coming from for the~ower power testing?j From the, from the utage<nq ./g/ to be able, let's see, we had, the out because we had to do some-repairs on I it.And I think we got extended because we were going to lube the rotor and we nicked a piece of the (inaudible) and we had to, we extended, that extended that outage because we had to then repair that.And so the, theOutage grouwanted to, in parallel with that repair,fwrap teflon tap NJor something around th eals for the vacuurnand then, which, to just, to do that forV cuuD to bring your secondary side back and just prove that your secondary NEAL R. GROSS /COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. I 1-(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 110 1 side worked, to see if you had any problems, in and of 2 itself, probably isn't that big of a deal.3 But then the next challenge was to heat up 4 the plant and use, and depend on-e vacuum as a heat<5 -ySnc to go up to normal operating pressure temperaturae 6 and Olow power physics testing-K 7 And that's, you know, that's where, just 8 about everybody drew the line. It was like, no, you 9 can't, you're not going to, you can't count on this 10 ;EtefIon 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Teflon tape to -12 Yeah, this packing material 13 to hold vacuum for you. It's not the correct 14 configuration for the plant to be in.15 You're not designed to be there, why would 16 you think it's okay to do that.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where was that coming 18 from? Who was pushing for that and thinking it was 19 okay to do that?20 " It would be utag~JK 21 Management,>

so that would be like, 22 phonetic) was the -- at the time.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I don't know if this 24 would refresh your recollection or if maybe your 25 recollection is accurate. was NEAL R. GROSS '7..COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com i i" 1 he involved in that?2 was, would have 3 been the, yes, he was involved.

And he would have 4 been, he wasn't the outage, you know, the 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.7 ike 8 a, I don' t if they call him 0 9 whatever.

He owned that Unit's outage. owned 10 all the outages and )directly reported to him.11 SoU was the guy that was there on day 12 shift, day-to-day.

He was, he would have been one of 13 the proponents of that position.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of, in terms 15 of length of debate. I mean is this five minutes, no 16 you can't do that, we're not going there?17 Or is this lengthy? What kind of 18 resistance and what does it take to convince them 19 that, you ultimately didn't do that?20 IIt's very persistent.

It's 21 not like, you know, this is why we shouldn't do it, 22 end of discussion, type of debate.23 You know, okay, yeah, we agree, we see 24 where you're coming from. It's always, these 25 discussions were always, you would talk to this person NEAL R. GROSS \ c COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701' www.nealrgross.com 112 1 and then that person would go away and then they'd 2 come back.3 And then the next person would come up 4 with them, you know, and it was like you always got 5 the sense, you always got the sense that it was 6 either, that it was eithe j -or, ultimately 7 was pushing it, but you never, you never really had 8 that direct* conversation with him. You know, you 9 always dealt with more on your own peer or withj '_10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF n 11 is where you thought it was coming from?12 1 MThat was the sense that you 13 got, yeah.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:'Not through firsthand 15 conversations with them?16 RO M: Correct.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is what you're 18 saying is your sense. In discussing things withl-19 does he say, does he attribute any of it to them, or 20 is it just coming fro"1Iilo 21 : It's coming from 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And how long did it 23 go? You're indicating that it was, you'd have a 24 discussion and they'd go away.25 It probably went on for 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

.L+/-3 1 couple of days. I mean for this particular one, it 2 went on, it was, it probably went on for a day or two.3 You know, to say, no, we're not going, 4 we're not going to do that. To finally convince him 5 that that's not, that's not the space to be in to do 6 power physics testini th your machine configured 7 at way.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the gain here 9 would be, if you did do it, the gain would be shorter 10 outage time? \11 Because you could do, 12 you could do your ow power physics testing/in 13 parallel with generator repair so that, and that's 14 exactly the final outcome, is the events occur in 15 parallel.16 So then you can start'up sooner, rather 17 than fix the generator, do theN4ow. power physicsq 18 'l~testing and then start up.g, 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A head start?20 Right, right. And it's 21 always couched in, well, it gives us the opportunity 22 to identify any problems that may exist.23 So, okay, we'll go back and say, well, I 24 want to start up a secondary (inaudible) and see, you 25 know, make sure I don't havany leaks, my pu4 are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. '(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 114 1 working and I can get everything, get the water and 2 stuff cleaned on the secondary plant.3 Well, I think you can make a case that 4 it's okay to havE uum r those conditions, 5 because you're still on RHR at that time. So the 6 function of the secondary plant is separated from the 7 requirement as a heat sync from the primary plant at 8 that time. So, you can, you can make a pretty good 9 argument that it's okay to go ahead and do that. Pull 10 back on the secondary side.11 But then to say, okay, now my secondary 12 side is intact, it's in good shape, I want to go ahead 13 and, I want to go off of RHR and go all the way up to 14 (Inaudible) pressure and temperature with the 15 condenser as my heat sync with the steam dumps, 16 because I'm not allowed to use the MS-10s.17 We don't want to use the MS-10s to control 18 temperature except if, you know, as a last resort.19 And then go one step beyond that and actually take the 20 reactor critical when you're in that configuration.

21 It's just, it's too much of a stretch for me, you 22 know.23 And it gets back to the reactivity, you 24 know, do I really want my plant to be critical, low in 25 the intermediate range or, you know, low in the power 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 range? And I don't. I don't have, I'm not in the 2 right configuration.

3 My secondary plant isn't in the 4 configuration that it's designed to be in when I'm 5 doing that. I don't think anybody ever intended for 6 us to be there.7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did anyone 8 ever bring up the argument that because of the 9 configuration, it was almost like you were doing an 10 experiment?

And that, I mean, 50/50 (inaudible) would 11 apply.12 And you have to go through the safety 13 evaluation requirements of 50/50. Did you do that?14 Umm, I mean I particularly 15 didn't bring it up, but I mean, that is a good point.16 And that's, that's a good place -17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I mean it's 18 kind of like you're doing an experiment on a power 19 plant.20 ight.21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Because, as 22 you said, it's not, it' was never designed to be 23 operated that way.24 Right, right.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This incident was 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 1 'spring, 2002, Salem One incident.

Th'e,,L ificati 2 that was put out by regarding conservative ( -3 decision making is costing us on the production end 4 was also spring, 2002.5 Was this on his list -6 .1 think that might have been 7 on of the things that was on the list.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: One of the six 9 decisions

-10 Yeah, I'm trying to put this 11 all, all this stuff together and build a time line in 12 my head. And that might have been when I think we had 13 all that stuff going on.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The good thing about 15 that is, I mean it's documented there. But he offered 16 it and it would be under his name?17 -W Yeah.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Or at least in the 19 Outage (inaudible)?

20 L .I'm pretty sure he was the 21 guy that wrote it. I'm pretty sure it was under 22 whatever his user name is.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But it would be, are 24 they grouped by function?

Would it come inrjhdeF$\

25 ý,,outagq&6is it just going to be assigned a number 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

.L-J. I 1 go to a main control?2TheZ-tifwcation ould have 3 iiliber assigned to i ut you can, I'm pretty sure 4 you can do a search, an SAP by -5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A key word thing?6 f-initiator and, you know, 7 the user and do a search of all tification hat 8 were generated by a specific person. And I think you 9 can do key word searches in the text too.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. That might have 11 been a part of it?12 1. I think that that, see 13 there's a-piece I'm trying to put in there. was C 14 still the jat the time.15 And so that's what makes me think that the 16 'otificatio ,ight have been before that, because I'm 17 thinking that he left, he left before, I thought that 18 he left before tha'Itage was ova 19 In .2002,) I thought that he left before 20 that:iutage was over) And he was still here when that 21 notification was written. Because I talked to him 22 about, that-otification being 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.24 So it might not have been 25 captured in there, that's what I'm trying to get it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

.L+/-.O (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 (2 all straightened out.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think we have in here that he was gone mid-outage.

So it was before he left mid-outage., are you sure?Yeah, and it was. 2002,, is when he left. And I'm pretty sure that it was during that outage that he left.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so that may not be an issue. Even though offered that,-regarding conservative decision making, this may not be one of his issues.No., I don't think so. I think it was SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think it came, so t was here when it came out?Yes, because I had a, I had a conversation with him about it and I had a conservation withinnabout it.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:(phonetic)?

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well,, that's interesting.

How did that go?PON tried to explain it as, well, it was, you know, it was a lessons learned type NEAL R. GROSS ,.COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS X 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 of a, it was a lessons learned.2 The intent of it was to capture lessons 3_learned notificatio that was the intended 4 >'tificatior$And that, that's the way he saw, that's 5 the way he saje notification"..

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Lessons learned in 7 terms of -8 tFrom a, you know, you do a 8 9 .t-outage criti You capture lessons learned to 10 try to improve performance going forward, kind of 11 thing.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So a lessons learned, 13 on these six incidents we could have done something 14 smarter or better?15 Yeah.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Or improved, but not 17 an attack on conservative decision making?18 "No, no, not directly.

There 19 was, we, we had some discussion around that, that 20 revolved around that. And we didn't necessarily see 21 eye-to-eye on that particular subject.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was his take on 23 it?24 I'm just trying to remember 25 the --1 -'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 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Well, let's go back 2 to, I mean how did you approach him with it? And is 3 it normal that you would, you know, take something to 4 him? Is it a routine incident for you?5 Lq I' made a point to 6 make himself available to everybody.

And so -7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, we're on Side B, 8 it's approximately 3:56 p.m.9 .So when, he made tours of the 10 plant, he'd just stop in and talk to people. He would 11 go, he would be in the Control Room. It was not 12 uncommon for him to show up and talk to the Shift.13 Manager.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he made himself 15 available?

16 KNOWS He -made himself available.

17 So he, he stopped by my office afte: is notificatio4' 18 as writt And we were just talking, and he asked me 19 if there was anything, you know, just if there's 20 anything that was on my mind, or whatever.21 And so I just brought it up and talked to 22 him and said I. didn't think it was appropriate.

I 23 said I thought it sent the wrong message.24 And he said that, you know, his position 25 was, well, he believed it to be written in the context./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 a lessons learned type, like a post-critique 2 lessons learned type of, type.3 And there was some discussion about 4 concern of decision making, and they, you know, they 5 can have an impact on productivity.

And that's pretty 6 much where our, you know, it was that kind of 7 conversation back and forth.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about, in terms 9 of that, what was his thinking on, first, conservative 10 decision making having an impact on productivity.

11 What was he feeding back to you?12 ... Well, that the, I guess the, 13 what he, you know, was like you can't go too far, I 14 guess, is what, you know. In some cases it is 15 possible to go too far with conservative decision 16 making or to the point where it can impede 17 productivity.

18 He said that the idea behin,-- the 19 otifications' to try to capture opportunities to 20 see where the decision making and help improve 21 decision making, I guess.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you get the sense 23 that he was familiar withJthis notificatioýobr was it 24 something you brought to his attention?

25 I don't know if he read it NEAL R. GROSS J)." 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 before I showed it to him, but I had a copy of it and I gave it to him to read right there on the spot, and then we talked about it.So, I don't know that he was aware of it, prior to our discussion.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was it -Idon't know.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -the discussion to the degree that you picked apart the, let's call it, incidentA

• there where the decisions were made?Did you get into that level?'Or was he talking about the overall this is what I think he was trying to do?SI think was .trying to keep it on the 50,000 foot level, you know, the grand view. And I tried to take it down to this is why we made this decision, this is why we made this decision.And there was, there was somewhat of a difference of opinion there, in some cases.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He 'was calling it a lesson" learned, and -S.. ... .rYeah, right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: o- you were looking on it as a negative message?Right. And I tried to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W..4202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

(

1 explain to him that I thought that I was doing the job 2 that I was hired to do and was doing my bes keep 3 s out of troubyjl you know.4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you feel, 5 as a result of that discussion, and maybe other 6 discussions, that maybe over the last, I don't know, 7 so many number of years, that maybe some of this is 8 attributable to the new environment from the 9 deregulated, you know, the deregulated environment and 10 new competitive pressures that are being put on the 11 station to perform in that environment vice, you know, 12 the early '90s, say, mid '90s, when things were not 13 under that environment and money was more available?( 14 I mean is it a situation where the 15 paradigm has shifted now, where you're saying, you 16 know, why can't we do something?

17 You know, rather than is this safe? The 18 first question is, is this safe? It's why can't we do 19 this? Why can't we do this, take this action that 20 will increase productivity and will, you know, 21 minimize our downtime that will enhance our generation 22 time, things like that?.23 Is there any of that do you think that 24 goes to the, kind of the new way of doing things?( 25 I think that that's, I think NEAL R. GROSS "',' 'COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS ( 'K)1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neafrgross.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 (.°that that is part of it. That it's, there's a, there's a much bigger emphasis on the utilization of the facilities to make money.And to make money you have to be online, and you have to be as high a power as you possibly can to do that. And there's non relief from the customer anymore, right?There's no rate (inaudible) relief. Under the old, prior to deregulation where, you know, we could just go back to your rate base and pass it along with your cost and percentage.

So that, that is part of what makes you look at decisions in a different light. Or look at equipment availability in a different light.There's no, there's no doubt that that's part of the decision that you have to make. But you can't lose track of the fact that it's still nuclear power that you're generating electricity with.And that you have to respect that.SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right. Now, do you think in the instances that were, that we've gone over, if you were to characterize them as having.some sort of competitive pressure behind them, some, you know, some spinoff effect of deregulation where you have to compete in the marketplace to make money NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON.

D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com I/

1 and maximize generation.

2 Do you think you could say that maybe the 3 pressures that were involved were excessive?

4*"1 You mean in the working 5 relationship that existed there?6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, I'm 7 saying that if we were, let's *say that, let's just 8 make it a given that you were going to operate 9 differently in a competitive marketplace, that's just 10 a given.11 right.12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Say that's a 13 given. But you have to, and because of that there may 14 be more pressure than there was before.15 But at some point you have to say, okay, 16 I'm going to acknowledge there's going to be more 17 pressure, but at some point it's going to be 18 excessive.

19 I mean, you know, and that threshold may 20 be different for different people. I mean you may, 21 you may feel comfortable with putting the plant in 22 unusual circumstance, others may not..23 Rgt 24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Or you may 25 not feel comfortable, others may. So you know to wrap NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS (o 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 efion tapje-round a (inaudible-)Xseal and pack it 2 material and roll the turbine,>ou know, with, but 3t wpower phscsts'not too fast. And try tophysics test in 4 Someone may feel comfortable with that.5 I think you said that, no, I don't feel that 6 comfortable with it.7. Right, right.8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Would you 9 say that the production pressure under that instance 10 and other instances you've mentionedthe dilutio11 7 issue 1.ould you say those pressures were excessive?

12 I would categorize them as 13 excessive, but let me put it your, let me frame that 14 in that when I was we were, as a 15 I felt like I had way more, I had a lot 16 of responsibilities as, everybody does.i7 But I felt like Iliad a lot more authority 18 there, at that Unit, to make decisions and we, we had 19 a lot lower threshold, or I felt like we had a lot 20 lower threshold than maybe existed here, even prior 21 to, especially prior to the change over in '95.22 Now, al~l my experience has been based in 23 a rate-based regulated industry prior to being at this 24 level. So I didn't, when I was at 0as 25 if I made a decision, I mean we, don't NEAL R. GROSS (\J ....COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

____1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. f s-.-(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 get me wrong, I couldn't just say I'm going to shut 2 the unit down on a whim.3 I had to be able to prove, you know, I had 4 to be able to back up what my decision was, it wasn't 5 just me, it was tall the41 6j were in the 6 same position.7 When I made a decision, I was backed up by 8 .Management.

So, I felt, part of my pressure that I 9 felt here, I'm sure, was because I'm going from a 10 who owns 11 all the shifts, and here, most of the time, I was 12 backed up on my decisions.

13 (Phone is ringing.)( 14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Stop the tape 15 for a minute.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 17 record after about two seconds.18 -. So, at that level, I mean, 19 I'm backed up on most of my decisions and I have that 20 level of authority.

And then I come here and I'm.a 21 higher position and I'm constantly being pushed back 22 on it.23 I really haven't changed. I haven't 24 changed the way I do business.from this place to this ( 25 place. So, just that alone, is a different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS C .1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701

'W('w.neaIrgross.com 1 environment and a different level of pressure than 2 what I was used to.3 And then the fact that we were 4 deregulated, you know, from here to, from 5 / o being here at Salem, the deregulation I 6 think added to that.7 There's a difference in, under different 8 management.

I mean, so there's a lot of factors that 9 go into that.10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Right.11 ýlfne answer I'm saying, yeah, 12 the pressure felt like it was (inaudible) excessive.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right, and you framed 14 that in terms of what you were dealing with before and 15 what you're dealing with -16 Right.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -a different set of 18 circumstances.

Do you have anything else? No. I'm 19 at the point where I can wrap it up, unless you wanted 20 to add anything to what we've discussed further. You 21 have an opportunity to add anything in here.22 But I had a question for you overall,.in 23 that you kind of, you can see the direction, you know, 24 that we're going with the interview.

You can see the 25 issues and the kind of issues that we're exploring 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 here.hmm.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And in that, is there, if there's something that we're either not asking or we're missing that you would like to bring to our attention in terms of the operations on site, as you experienced it or anything that you have knowledge of now, I'd like to ask you for that? If we haven't covered something that would be of concern to you, if you could bring that to our attention?

No, I think we did a pretty good job of covering that, that time span when I was here and, you know, the significant, the significant events, I guess I don't want to call them issues, the significant occurrences while I was here.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.And that I think that, you know, for the organization to be healthy there has to be some discussion back and forth, right?Between, everybody can't be yes men and you can't lean in one direction.

And so I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to, you know, to talk about, you know, to frame why I felt the way I did, based on past experience and then experience here.So, I think we did pretty good in covering NEALR. GROSS 7 ) /COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 everything.

I don't really have anything else that I 2 can think of right now to add.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just have a couple 4 of closing questions for you. Have I, or any other 5 NRC Representative, offered you any promises of reward 6 or threatened you in any manner in exchange for 7 today's information?

8 No.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Have you 10 appeared here freely and voluntarily?

1Yes.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. And we, I 13 contacted you. I asked you for some time, and you 14 agreed to cooperate and meet with us and I thank you 15 for that.16 You gave us a significant portion of your 17 time today. So, thank you very much and we will go 18 off the record if you have nothing else to add.19 .Yes, that's fine.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, it's 21 approximately 4:10 p.m.22 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 23 was concluded at 4:10 p.m.)24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com N (CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States.Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: Name of Proceeding:

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

Salem, NJ were held as herein appears, and that this is the< j 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.00_Francesca Zook 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