ML061460330

OI Interview Transcript of Witness, Dated 09/25/2003, Pages 1-97

ML061460330
Person / Time
Site:	Salem, Hope Creek
Issue date:	09/25/2003
From:	NRC/OI
To:
References
FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1117
Download: ML061460330 (98)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings CREGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Interview of ,ft-~1~.Docket Number: Location: (not provided)Kind of Prussia, Pennsylvania Date: Thursday, September 25, 2003 Work Order No.: NRC-1117 Pages 1-97 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20005 (702) 234-4433 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25'UNITED STATES OFJAIERICA

.:,.NUCLEAR REGULATORY

'COMMISSION OFFICE- oF THE INVESTIGATOR GENERAL INTERVIEW 1----------------------------

x IN THE MATTER OF: INTERVIEW OF (CLOSED) f Docket No.(not provided)----------------

X.Thursday, September 25, 2003 Region 1 475 Allendale Road King of Prussia, PA 19406 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 8:10 a.m.BEFORE: Special .Agent Eileen Neff NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOF ISI AJn AV;: N W 2 3 4 5 6 7-1, 210*.-' .:L. : .7 '122 13.-'~... ..>...15 18 19 20 21 22 23 24.- 25.2 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S (8:10 a.m.) .: " .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is1 September the 25th, 2003. The time is approximately 8:10 a.m. Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, NRC..Region I, office of Investigations.

Also present is.at Hope'... ,"..Creek for PSEG Nuclear.The subject of thiý interview will be the" safety conscious

work environment and some recent.incidents at Hope' Creek tha as indicated.,that he's willing to provide some insight on. Is that w" .a.~~ I correct,lb what I'd like to do is ask you for some background, your education background.

I....--SPECIAL` AGENT 4-EFFL.' In wha.' .posiý-NEAL. R.GRSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER.

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. N.W. '/ * :.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9.10 12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When 14 Outage Organizations?

16 17 18 19 20 wist 21 my resume, that would have helped.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This C 23 help. May 2000, it's sh6wing Hope Cr 24 25 1 fim-_ Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBEAS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.you were in the I had brought Drg chart might*eek A" -

4 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: By mit 2 shows that it's you.3 Yes. Oh, yes, I was 4 definitely thef l 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So would that be 6t 7 I think it would be -- this 8 is May. I think Yes, it must have 9 beenW" 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you made the 11 change there?12 J When I made the change, yes.13 Because I relieved 14 at Hope Creek.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So that was 16 likely in 17 Yes, it must have been 18 because this coming would be my 19 the job.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So since 21 you've been the 22 Yes.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay!. Let's talk 24 about the work environment that you've been in since 25 1989. I don't want to go back that far but let me NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 5 1 just ask you overall: Do you have any concerns for 2 the safety conscious work environment at Hope Creek?3 I mean I don't know that you can speak to Salem but if 4 you can, you can include that.5 :110 Ii- I don't know if I really can 6 speak to Salem. I mean I know most people at Salem 7 and I've spent some time there, but I haven't spent 8 working time there.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.10 mean I've attended some 11 meetings and what not, but --12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So your comments are 13 going to go exclusively toward Hope Creek?14 I think that would be best, 15 because I mean I can --16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I understand.

17 My comments about Salem 18 would bg suppositions, I think, not really based on 19 any substance.

For Hope Creek, I'm not really sure 20 how to answer such a broad question.

I don't sense 21 that there's a shortfall on the safety culture at Hope 22 Creek as far as nuclear and personnel safety goes. I 23 think that from the top down there's focus on nuclear 24 safety and personnel safety, and it's present in the 25 decisions that we make. We make risk-informed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

6 1 decisions, and I don't sense that there's a shortfall 2 there.3 The two examples that you highlighted I 4 think those are I think occurrences or events or 5 decisions that were second guessed by a number of 6 people and caused some to wonder where the safety 7 focus was, and I think we can talk more about those.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Just for the 9 record so that it's clear, what I told you I would be 10 interested in talking about were incidents that 11 occurred in March of 2003 at Hope Creek and in late 12 June of this year. So in considering the work 13 environment at Hope Creek, you're saying you don't 14 note that there's any shortcomings there. Has it 15 always been the case that way or has it been steady 16 since you've been there, let's say since you've been 17 the That would be since late 18 2000.19 From my perspective, I think 20 the focus on safety has been steady.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.22 2 With the advent and the 23 transition into a competitive environment, it doesn't 24 take the focus away from safety but it causes 25 additional questions to be asked to make sure that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS iq'va ownnr- m a Aimf m uui 7 1 we're making the most informed decisions, both from a 2 safety perspective and from an economical and 3 commercial aspect. And, frequently, those decisions 4 when they're made are the source of questions that may 5 come up regarding safety. The question always comes 6 up around whether or not the decision was based on 7 economics or whether we made the safest decision.

And 8 the two examples that you highlight here are classic 9 examples of decisions that were made from safety. But 10 from those that weren't involved with the decision 11 making process it could appear that they were not made 12 from that perspective.

13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Typically, when 14 you're saying'the question will come up, where do the 15 questions come from when you're saying it's questioned 16 whether or not something was done?17 I t usually comes from the 18 workers, because if the decision was not well 19 communicated or understood by those that were not 20 necessarily around the table making the decision, 21 that's where the discussions begin to take place.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So somewhere 23 between your level and your level?24 I would say it's --25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In between, going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

8 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 down to the union?M usually between the shift manager level and the equipment operators, the union folks.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where the questions arise.~Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So where would the breakdown in the communications occur then, typically, if it's not well explained as you're saying?It would occur between the shift managers and the equipment operators, SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And the shift managers would be a part of the decision making, but it doesn't get adequately explained to the operators.

Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's what you're saying.that's wh work envi come to y licensed From my point of view, lere most of the questions come from. 71 -SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Right. The ronment, had you been aware -- has it ever our attention that the workers or any of the operators have felt that they were asked to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 9 1 do something unsafe?2 I haven't felt them to be 3 asked to do something unsafe. I've never had that.4 I've had some challenges.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, are you saying 6 that you haven't thought that it was unsafe. What I 7 was wondering was had anybody expressed to you that 8 they thought something was unsafe?9 I have one case that comes 10 to mind where a course of action that had been 11 proposed by senior management to address identifying 12 a source of steam leakage inside our drywall. I don't 13 know if you're familiar with reactors, boiling water 14 reactors or not, but we had a steam leak inside of our 15 --16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You can be as 17 technical as possible because I don't have a --18 -containment, and the 19 source of our steam leakage was not known. It was 20 hypothesized that it could be from a motor operated 21 valve, containment isolation valve associated with the 22 reactor core isolation cooling system, which is a 23 steam driven injection system, low capacity system.24 And we were concerned about the leakage. It exceeded 25 the so-called the line in sand, if you will, that I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

10 1 established for acceptable leakage, and we began to 2 bring the unit down. We had to shut the unit down.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was this?4 X I'm sorry?5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did this occur?6 When? I don't know, the 7 times all run together.

It was either in -- I think 8 it was in early 2002.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.10 And our course of action was 11 to bring the unit down in power and make a containment 12 entry with the reactor still critical.

And one of the 13 course of actions that was proposed by my boss and his 14 boss as well, my boss at the time was 15 log 16 .... --,phonetic) who 17 was out of town --18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So 19 title would be what?20 was the 21 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -Okay.23 M :_24 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. NMW 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 11.And he was acting on behalf of i'ho was at that time out of town but who was the I An 4 ad wanted to in an attempt to determine where the leakage was, they wanted to close the isolation valve on this steam driven system to see if that would stop the leakage. I mean there's a number of different sources of potential leakage in the drywall.This was thought to be a likely one since we had just stroked the valve for surveillance testing several days before and that's when the leakage started. So we thought that valve was a source of the leakage.And they proposed stroking the valve shut, and I initially agreed with that course of action and began to discuss with my team, with the licensed operators, and they expressed concern about, "Hey, if we have leakage and the leakage is getting worse, why would we stroke this valve shut and isolate one of our injection systems that may be needed to put water to the vessel if the leakage should get really worse?" And they strongly recommended that we not stroke that valve closed, and I agreed, and we didn't stroke the valve shut.So we ended up filling in the drywall and we identified another source of leakage was not the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

12 1 valve in question, and we had to shut the unit down, 2 a cool shutdown, to fix it. So I think that would be 3 an example of where somebody raised a safety concern, 4 a safety question.

That's really the only time I can 5 think of a licensed operator raising to me safety 6 concerns that they were concerned were not being 7 addressed.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you think 9 the actions were appropriate in that instance.10 ir I do, yes.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As they proved out to 12 be according to what you're telling me.13 .It proved to be. a good 14 decision, the best decision to make at the time.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The situation 16 where you describe that in certain instances when 17 decisions are made there may be a communication 18 breakdown between the decision makers and the workers 19 along the way, is that's' something that's historically 20 been done that way? Has that always been the case in 21 Operations

--22 I'm not sure I understand 23 the question.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- or is it something 25 that has developed recently where there's a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISkAND AVE., N.W.

13 1 communication breakdown and then there might a concern 2 that, well, what was this done for? Was it based on 3 safety or was it based on economics?

4 weý Well, the communication 5 challenge is always there in a large organization.

In 6 fact, that's always been there. The new variable 7 that's in play is really the economics aspect of 8 operating the facility.

I mean previously we were 9 considerate of that but it wasn't as predominant of a 10 factor in how the business is running. It's truly a II business, and although the business aspect doesn't 12 drive how we operate the units, the business aspect is 13 integral with how we make decisions.

I mean --14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When did that change?15 You said previously it hadn't been.16 Well, it all changed with 17 deregulation, I think.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 That's when the -- I mean, 20 for example, when I was -- before deregulation, when 21 I was on shift, I mean if you were to ask me what the 22 cost of generation was --23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You couldn't tell me.24 -- I couldn't tell you. -I 25 wouldn't know where to look. -Y NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 11323 RHoF- IHRI ANn AvM/ M W 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And now it's an integral part of what you know?Now it's a piece that we're aware of, and it's important to be aware of that in that there are some things you can do inadvertently to make decisions that might be less informed that would significantly increase the cost to the company, and so recognizing that there is a cost of generation that needs to be considered that causes good discussion and challenges around key decisions that are made that could have a substantial impact to the company to make sure it's the best decision to make.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what you've observed to date, these cost considerations, are they applied appropriately at Hope Creek?...I think they are. I think they are.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.qU They're not always -- I would say that not everybody agrees with the decisions that are made, but the decisions that are made are made almost exclusively by a team of knowledgeable individuals who -- I mean I've participated in countless discussions and decisions that laid out the strategies, that laid out the future planning, that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. NW.

15 1 laid out the financial profile for the next several 2 years, the long-range projects.

And those discussions 3 take place with a team of individuals, and the outcome 4 of that discussion is presented to the vice presidents 5 for ultimate review and approval.

That was our 6 process that we used. And not everybody agrees with 7 those decisions.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where did the 9 objections come from for that, and what are they based 10 on?11 Well, they're usually based 12 on personal feelings and insights.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you think of any 14 examples?15 I'll think of an example 16 here. Yes. One example would be the decision to move 17 the replacement of one of our main transformers out 18 one refueling cycle. And we have three main 19 transformers.

One is a very good one that we replaced 20 just a couple of years ago, and the other two are very 21 old, and they're susceptible to electromagnetic 22 disturbances and they're not very good transformers.

23 It's not really a safety issue. We had originally 24 planned on replacing one of the remaining two 25 transformers last outage and we reviewed that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

16 1 decisions and the original game plan was to replace 2 one that outage and replace the third one the 3 following outage. And we determined that if we 4 replaced them both in the upcoming refueling outage, 5 that would save the Company about $2.5 million because 6 we wouldn't have to pay the contractor twice to come 7 in to set up, to change transformers and all that.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Makes sense.9 And so we did that. We 10 deferred the transformer replacement from the outage 11 that we just had back in the spring and moved that out 12 to the next outage so we're going to be replacing two 13 transformers in the next outage instead of one. A lot 14 of people have a problem with that, because they're 15 concerned about the operational risk that we assume by 16 continuing to run with a transformer that could have 17 been changed out and wasn't.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 people question that.20 And that's fine. We explained the decision to them 21 but that doesn't mean they always agree with the 22 decision.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. In this case, 24 with this particular transformer, had it been causing 25 problems from a nuclear safety perspective?

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 137 AmnA/r M Utl 17 1 No. It doesn't -- they 2 don't cause problems from a nuclear safety aspect but 3 what they can do is since they're sensitive to solar 4 magnetic disturbances, there are conditions that occur 5 a couple of times a year that will require us to 6 reduce power on the unit in order to maintain the 7 temperatures on those transformers within an 8 acceptable band to prevent damage.9 SPECIALAGENT NEFF: So it's not that they 10 will affect the unit, the unit will affect them so you 11 have to monitor the unit so as not to negatively 12 affect the transformers?

13 11imimNW No, not quite. You monitor 14 the transformers, and we have instrumentation that 15 will detect the onset of the ground-induced currents, 16 that's what they're called. When ground-induced 17 currents occur, they cause overheating of the 18 transformer, so when that -- and that condition is not 19 controlled, we can't control that. It's actually 20 caused by solar flares from the sun.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.22 .' So we actually watch the 23 solar forecasts.

But there are conditions that occur, 24 if a large solar flare occurs, those ground-induced 25 currents come up and they will exceed the threshold NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

18 1 values in our operating procedures that will require 2 us to reduce power in the unit to prevent damage to 3 the transformers.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.5 And so that -- it's an 6 operational risk that we assume by having those 7 transformers in place. We know there may be times 8 where the solar conditions are such that we'll have to 9 back the units down, and if it gets real bad, we'll 10 have to shut the units down all together.

And so 11 there are some people that feel that that operational 12 risk is too much and therefore we should have replaced 13 the transformer last outage when we had the 14 opportunity and not have made the decision to replace 15 it the following outage when we do both.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, when you say 17 operational risk, just so I'm following you on that, 18 is it operational risk due to the flare ups in the 19 heat generated or is it operational risk in that you 20 have to back the unit down so you're not generating 21 full power?22 Yes. It's operational

--23 whenever you have to move the unit you incur 24 operational risk.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So that's from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.---... .-lSt f rl f, "MAR:K 137Ml wmnaa noanimmfu...... nql I III I 19 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 having to manipulate the unit --s ," -Sure.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- more than you would if the transformer could accept that heat.Absolutely.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.IThere's a potential there --SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.--and anytime you have to move the unit you incur some risk. I mean there's always risk in operating the unit, but when you move it around it is more risk.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now I understand.

it's not dangerous, but there is more risk in it.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So you give that as an example of the cost considerations that some people disagree with when you're planning outages and work at the site. Anything else, can you think of anything else or is that --Well, that's one that comes to mind. Another example might be, and this might be more closely tied to the reactor, we made some decisions on how to perform maintenance on our control NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.- N.W.

20 1 rod drive mechanisms, and these are pieces of 2 equipment that --each mechanism services one control 3 rod, and that's how we move the control rods. We have 4 185 control rods, so I have 185 mechanisms to 5 maintain.

Some of the control rod drive mechanisms

--6 I mean they all work. Some have performance problems 7 and require some additional maintenance and require 8 some additional work by the operators to work 9 correctly.

And we had previously historically every 10 outage done maybe ten to 15 mech changeouts where we 11 actually removed them from the reactor vessel and 12 replaced them with a new or rebuilt mechanism.

And 13 that maintenance schedule was not adequate to address 14 the maintenance requirements for 185.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Ten to 15 every 18 16 months wasn't going to get it done?17 Won't get it done.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 And we recognized that 20 through that performance monitoring of the system and 21 clearly identified the need that we had to change our 22 maintenance strategy.

So this last outage we had 23 originally scoped in about 37, I can't remember 24 exactly the number. And 37 was the number that was 25 recommended by the system engineer for the system.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W 21 1 And, ultimately, we reviewed that. We took a look at 2 what impact doing 37 would have both on outage 3 duration because those control rod drive mechanism 4 changeouts normally don't occur on the critical path 5 of the outage, i.e. they don't extend the length of 6 the outage. But if we were to do 37, they would, so 7 we had to understand the impact that that would have 8 and we had to understand the impact that the 9 additional contracted labor costs would have on 10 replacing all 37. And we also didn't have 37 spare 11 drives to go in, so that put us in a position where we 12 would have to remove mechs during the outage, rebuild 13 them at the site during the outage in order to have 14 additional rebuilt spares to go in. And as we looked 15 at the costs, the cost of that was really quite 16 staggering.

It was several million dollars to do 17 that.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 And it was -- I don't 20 remember the exact hit on critical path. It was about 21 a day and a half to two days additional length of the 22 outage. So we began to look at the needs of the 23 system and spoke with the system engineer and we had 24 probably a half dozen meetings to understand the 25 nature of the corrective maintenance that was needed, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS inva rW(n= Im IAm AI= KI WI 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 22 the performance of the system. And it turned out that there were 27 drives that really needed to have work done on them. Thirty-seven was the best of all solutions, 27 was what we needed to have done really based on system performance.

So we decided to do the 27. We paid additional money to the contractor to do that work, and we laid out a long-term plan which is having us buy additional spare drives this year for about three-quarters of a million dollars in order to be able to do more drives the next outage. And we laid out a long-term plan that has us doing between 30 and 35 drives, I think, for the next several refueling outages to get ourselves caught back up.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that when you pull them you can replace them immediately and not wait --not add to time to the outage --Ri right SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- to repair these and put them back, Exactly right. Exactly right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So were there some concerns associated with the whole plan?Well, yes. There are certainly some people that feel that we shouldn't have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 412121 DWnn AKIn A%/= Kl %tA 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 23 reduced the scope from 37 to 27, we should have done 37 irregardless of the cost or impact to the outage.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And length of the outage. And where does that come from, primarily?

It comes from some individuals in Engineering, although the system engineered was -- he agreed to the 27 and felt that that was a prudent decision.

There were others in Engineering that did not necessarily agree with that.And I think there are some licensed operators, certainly some NCOs, nuclear control operators, reactor operators, who feel that the decision was shortsighted and that we should have done the 37 instead of 27.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you agree with them on that?No.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were happy with the decision making process?I was asked specifically whether I had a significant issue with not doing 37.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who asked you that?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS n9". RifnfF IMI ANn AVF N W 24 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.2 They were all part of the 3 discussions.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The systems engineer 5 who was in agreement with doing the 27, was there any 6 pressure on that individual to agree to do just the 7 27?8 I don't think so. I don't 9 think so.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he able to come 11 to that decision on his own, do you think, or was 12 there outside influence on him?13 &Well, he came to the table 14 wanting 37, and as we looked -- because he doesn't 15 understand the impact to the outage, he doesn't 16 understand the mechanics of replacing 37 versus 27.17 So when we put all that on the table we looked at the 18 impacts and looked at, okay, so what's the basis of 19 the 37, where are the 37 coming from? Well, 27 have 20 these performance problems, and of these 27, these ten 21 are the worst. And then you've got 17 and these -- if 22 we don't address these, these will be really bad next 23 cycle. And these other ones, well, these other ten, 24 the remaining ten are -- they're trending in that 25 direction but they'll be okay for the next cycle but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W 25 1 we'll have to get these next outage.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what you're 3 describing is you more or less came to a compromise on 4 what would be repaired and he had to get educated on 5 the costs and the effects that this would have on your 6 overall outage.7 Sure. Yes. We got together 8 and made the best informed decision.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: With everybody

--10 With everybody involved, 11 yes.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Okay. That 13 was another key example that you were giving me 14 regarding this decision-making process --15 FEW; Yes. Right.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- where sometimes 17 some people see it as -- not in the same way as -- or 18 not in agreement with the way you go. Do you wan to 19 add anything else to that?20 No. I think that's about--21 I think that's good, unless you want me to give you 22 more examples.

I mean we could talk about decisions 23 that create controversy for most of the day, but 24 that's a good example, because I mean with any 25 decisions that's made, not everybody agrees with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

26 1 decision.

You can help them understand why the 2 decision was made and I'm obligated to do that with my 3 people, so I communicate why the decisions were made, 4 what the basis of it was, and they can choose to agree 5 or not agree. I work to gain alignment but at some 6 point you need to move on and recognize that not 7 everybody's going to agree with your decisions.

8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If it's been reported 9 that there's concerns that the site is managed with a 10 production over safety mentality and this would have 11 been raised more recently, in more recent years, where 12 do you think that comes from?13_. I'm not really sure.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you seen or 15 heard that particular point of view? Have you seen 16 people talk about having a problem with the production 17 over safety mentality?

Do they raise it to you as a 18 problem?19 Well, the one diesel leakage 20 example that we'll talk about I think that was --21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. We'll get into 22 these 23 that was one that created 24 some angst with my guys and me to an extent. We'll 25 cover that. -NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

27 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.2 As far as production over 3 safety, I don't see a whole -- I mean all three units 4 are down today. Both Salem units and Hope Creek units 5 are down, and they're down because we have salt 6 deposits on our 500 KB switch gear that makes it less 7 reliable.

So we're not generating any electricity 8 today because we want to make sure that those lines 9 are clean and we're washing the switchyard down. Hope 10 Creek's crammed as a result of it, and based on some 11 problems that we saw in the Salem switchyard, we shut 12 both those units down.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.14 I think that's a good 15 example of safety over production.

16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Safety over 17 production.

18 And there s a number of 19 other examples I can provide where we either elected 20 to derate the units to fix something or we elected to 21 shut the units down and incur a mini-outage to fix 22 some nagging equipment problems. 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So this is not --24 it's not something that you've witnessed on site in 25 that that's how decisions are made, that it's.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

.O 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 production over safety, is what you're saying.Isom No, I don't see that.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I mean, obviously, you're a key individual on site there. I mean I know you're leaving as of this week, but in your position as M that' s why the NRC is interested in your opinion on how things are operated, how decisions are made and if this is a concern or has ever been a concern for you. In addition, if you had seen any changes recently that would contribute toward the workers' on-site thinking that there might be this type of an environment, an unsafe environment.

Yes. Yes, right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're basically saying, no, that's not the case.I1 I don't believe so. I wouldn't work there if I had concerns about nuclear safety; I would not. And I certainly wouldn't have been the for three years if I felt pressured around nuclear safety. I was a I, So I don't see that.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay."And I can give probably a dozen examples where we put safety over production.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 77-29 1 I don't think it's a theme, a problematic theme.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And your dozen 3 examples, in what time frame would that cover? Would 4 that be recent years or would that be since -- you 5 know, from what time period forward?6 I could give a number of 7 examples in recent years. I mean the decision to shut 8 the reactor down less than a month before a scheduled 9 refueling outage to replace a leaking seal on a 10 reactor recert pump. That was safety over production.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 .That was safety over 13 production.

We had rising drywall leakage, it was 14 well within the tech spec limits.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm not even going to 16 ask you to go into all dozen of the incidents, and I'm 17 not trying to challenge you on what your opinion is.18 I'm interested in what your opinion is, as is the 19 staff at the Region because of your key position.

If 20 somebody wanted more detail on where you would put 21 safety over production, I'm assuming would it be all 22 right for them to ask you directly --23 Sure. Absolutely.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- at a later date?25 Absolutely.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A~' JInIt I~~r 0 A KIM A% 1 ~I AI 30 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think your point is 2 made that this is not a concern of yours that you can 3 see where it comes from because after the deregulation 4 it became an integral part of doing business.

You 5 were made aware that --6 Sure.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- there's cost 8 decisions that go along with what you were doing 9 before, which would have just been running a reactor.10 11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So now it's -- as of 12 later years, the cost decisions are now in place and 13 you're aware of what it costs to produce the 14 electricity.

1:, That's right. And where the 16 cost decisions really come into play is not really on 17 today's problems.

I mean if today's problems pose a 18 safety issue that needs to be resolved, it gets 19 resolved.

If the units need to be shut down because 20 we have salt deposits on the lines, we shut the units 21 down.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.23 I think where most of the 24 questions and concerns that some of the folks may have 25 why is where we lay out the long-term plans, and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 31 1 long-term strategies are blended with addressing 2 equipment performance issues in the best manner 3 possible and also blending that in with the economic 4 facet, so we do it, one, when we plan to do it and we 5 can budget accordingly, and, two, we do it in a way 6 that minimizes the cost to the Company. And that's 7 where some of the people I think may have 8 disagreements.

That's all part of running a business, 9 I suppose.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Is there 11 anything else you'd like to add to this area that we 12 talked about where some of these concerns come from, 13 where they might possibly come from?14 The other angle that may be 15 coming, and this is very recent, is with the 16 reorganization of the site. We've recently 17 reorganized into a very different albeit more 18 traditional plant management structure.

Previously, 19 we were aligned in a very unique structure to manage 20 the site, and we've realigned into a traditional plant 21 management structure, and that resulted in a reduction 22 in the number of people that work there too.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A lot of management 24 people, right?25 Yes. Yes. Some management NEAL R. GROSS r'.CI IRT RFPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 32 1 people. We reduced the number of engineers in some 2 aspects, and we've reduced the administrative support 3 on the island. Nobody in the Union was reduced 4 through this reorganization..

It was staff and 5 management.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But you think that's 7 had an effect on where some of the concerns regarding 8 safety come from.9 I think that's a natural 10 fear to that. I mean most organizations when they 11 undergo a reorganization and there are fewer seats at 12 the table that usually breeds concerns and 13 allegations, and from my perspective it's usually a 14 natural out come of reorganizing.

I don't know 15 whether that has been a variable here, but I just 16 offer that as a potential other reason or source.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.18 2] It's caused a lot of stress 19 in the organization, that's for sure.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of raising 21 concerns that a worker or a manager might have, do you 22 feel that the environment there is conducive, do they 23 think they can raise a safety concern without fear of 24 retaliation?

25 I believe so.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 33 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have instances 2 where people have done so and -- I mean what makes you 3 say that you believe that? Have you seen them be able 4 to do that without experiencing retaliation?

5 Yes. I gave you an example 6 where some of my most senior licensed operators raised 7 a concern to me and that caused our decision making to 8 change with the drywall leakage. I've seen concerns 9 raised most recently over some reliability of some 10 ventilation systems associated with cooling our 11 reactor recirculation motor generator sets, and we had 12 one unit trip, one ventilation trip. The standby fan 13 failed to start. Operators were concerned over rising 14 temperatures on the generators that were in service 15 without cooling and reduced power on the unit until we 16 got the redundant fan started. And concerns were 17 raised over the reliability of that system and whether 18 or not we should return the unit back to full power 19 without ensuring that the ventilation was reliable.20 And we held the unit derated I think for four days, 21 three or four days, until we were assured of unit 22 reliability, and then we allowed it to return to full 23 power. i 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you say 25 concerns were raised, were these from the union NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 34 1 workers or from your SROs?2 I think those concerns were 3 from the reactor operators to the on-shift SROs.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And they came through 5 the on-shift SROs?6 .They came through the on-7 shift SROs to my who 8 recommended that we not return the unit to rated power 9 until we understood why the problems were occurring 10 and how we would be assured of reliability.

11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When concerns are 12 raised are you aware -- is this an across the board 13 people will raise concerns if they have to or do you 14 generally get concerns from maybe one or two or three 15 individuals, the same people?16 I don't know if I can answer 17 that question.

I was trending for a while within 18 Operations

-- I can't speak for Maintenance or the 19 other organizations

-- but I was interested to see who 20 -- which shifts were writing notifications and which 21 ones weren't so I could identify and look for 22 inconsistencies and understand why one crew was not 23 writing notification.

Notification is our process for 24 identifying things that need to be fixed, whether it 25 be a valve that's not working right or whether a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 35 1 procedure that doesn't work and needs to be fixed.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.3 We initiate notifications, 4 and that creates action to fix the problem.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.6 And I found an interesting 7 pattern, and I did this a few times, and then it got 8 to be too laborsome so I stopped doing it, and I was 9 also getting some feedback that some of the guys on 10 shift were concerned that I was expecting them to 11 produce a certain number of notifications as a bean 12 count, which is not what I was doing. But I did find 13 that essentially across all five operating shifts at 14 Hope Creek -- and this is not Salem, this is Hope 15 Creek -- they initiated about the same amount of 16 notifications for a given crew. And I found that when 17 I looked at the classifications, like how many 18 notifications were written by SROs, how many were 19 written by reactor operators, how many were written by 20 any of us, there were some differences on some of the 21 shifts. For example, on one particular crew -- and 22 this was about the way the numbers ran --on one 23 particular crew an equipment operator would initiate 24 I think it was about 0.8 notifications per shift.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 36 1... Because I had it broken 2 down, all right, so I got five guys on a shift, so on 3 any given watch I would expect at that rate that they 4 would initiate for notifications on something they'd 5 find out in the field. On another shift, the NEO 6 ratio was very, very low, but the NCO ratio on that 7 shift was higher than the others. And when I began to 8 talk to the shift managers -- I kept all this 9 information very confidential amongst my 10 1W @,#and I discussed it with the shift 11 managers -- we found that on the crews that the NEOs'12 weren't writing as many notifications as the others 13 that they were relying on the reactor operators to put 14 their notifications in for them and that one shift had 15 the chief union steward, as he was a reactor operator, 16 and he liked to put in all the notifications, and he 17 wrote very good ones, very thorough ones. So he was 18 initiating the majority of the notifications on that 19 shift.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And that just 21 affected the percentage of what the NEOs did on that 22 shift.23 7 Right. Right. But it 24 didn't affect overall for the operating shift.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They were all about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 37 1 equal --2 Yes, within 15 or 20 3 percent. I didn't think that was a significant deal.4 So to answer your question, I think that I would 5 conclude that they all feel free to raise concerns 6 because I'm getting about the same amount per shift, 7 and I think that some individuals like to do it more 8 than others, and therefore they solicit input from 9 their crews to put those notifications in. And 10 there's three or four guys in Hope Creek operations 11 who write really thorough notifications.

The 12 notifications are more than, "Valve is broke, fix the 13 valve," it's --14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More detail?15 Ki "Tried to stroke the valve, 16 it stroked in 22.6 seconds. Had a slight squeal, last 17 25 percent of the valve --" I mean very, very 18 detailed.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Would you say the 20 notifications, do they address issues that would be 21 considered of a nuclear safety type issues as well as 22 something's broken or --23 j Sure, yes.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: My understanding is 25 the notification can cover quite a bit of territory.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 38 It does, yes. It covers a 2 wide spectrum.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So within all the 4 notifications, you were seeing some safety concerns as 5 well?6 PRO Sure. Yes.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This might be unfair, 8 but is there any way to estimate what percentage would 9 be a safety-related issue?10 I don't know if I could 11 estimate that for you.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It didn't sound as 13 though that was the focus of your -- you were looking 14 at numbers and percentages by shift.15 j From that aspect, yes. Each 16 day with WA reviewed 17 the notifications for the station for the last 24 18 hours2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br />, so I'm seeing all that come in. The safety 19 concerns raised -- the nuclear safety concerns aren't 20 significant in numbers. I would say maybe one a 21 month.22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.23 Maybe one a month.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But they're in there.25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 39 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They're blended in 2 these notifications.

3 Yes.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: These are reports 5 that are signed and identify the originator.

6 Ys 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And from your 8 experience, is it coming from more than one individual 9 or is it all coming from one union steward on one 10 shift? Is it -has it been demonstrated that --11 Well, they come from 12 multiple individuals, yes.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So you're 14 saying that a number of people are comfortable in 15 raising concerns --16* Sure 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- based on this.18 Yes, I think sQ. I think 19 so.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's just that you're 21 saying there's very few nuclear safety concerns, 22 probably an average of one a month.23 " I think that's about right.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.25 -Not many more than that.NEAL R. GROSS frA 1?u 01010TP h Min TPA& IIrP1=0 40 1 And most question the decisions that are made, which 2 3 (END TAPE 1, SIDE A)4 (BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE B)5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're on Side 6 B. The time is approximately 8:58 a.m. When the tape 7 cut off you were explaining how people question.8 Yes. Most of the safety 9 notifications, if I was to do a rough categorization, 10 if you will, I think most lie in with questioning 11 decisions that have been made, much as we previously 12 spoke about.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Let's talk 14 about the incidents in 2003. This first incident that 15 occurred in March, as I understand it, you were away 16 at the time of the incident --17 was.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and you primarily 19 handled the fallout that went with it. Can we talk 20 about what you know regarding this? It's a valve that 21 needed to be fixed, and apparently there was a 22 decision made to continue operating versus fixing the 23 valve. There was some debate over that.24 Yes.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What do you know NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41 1 about the incident?2 I don't remember the exact 3 dates but it was March.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think I've got in 5 mid-March, around March 17.6 March 17 will live a 7 long time for me for another reason, but we had -- as 8 I mentioned earlier, this was about a month before our 9 refueling outage. We scheduled a small maintenance 10 outage to replace a seal on a reactor recert pump that 11 had exhibited degrading performance.

Good example of 12 safety before production.

We shut the unit down, we 13 fixed the seal, the maintenance outage was very 14 successful.

And upon restart, this was on a Friday, 15 Friday night, I believe, we were -- the reactor was 16 critical, it was at about 14 or 15 percent power.17 We synchronized the main generator and one 18 of the main turbine bypass valves failed to go full 19 shut. The bypass valves are valves that move steam 20 from the reactor to the main condenser when the main 21 turbine's not running. So when the main turbine is 22 running, the bypass valves should close because 23 they're no longer needed to be opened. Well, one of 24 the bypass valves failed to go full shut, and that was 25 a problem.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 411V UfhIC 101 Aktlr AtI k LI AI 42 1 So we held the unit there and this was 2 Friday night into Saturday morning, did some 3 troubleshooting and determined that it looked like the 4 valve may be mechanically bound. It didn't look like 5 it was electronic signal going to the valve, the 6 hydraulics to the valve looked okay. And that day, 7 that Saturday, I to attend a 8 .... IL-ITTE that had passed two days 9 before. Soj 10 M WW and in my absence he became the 11 He was left in charge to 12 facilitate the repair of that valve.13 And decisions were made to shut the unit 14 down and place it in a condition that we could do 15 maintenance on the valve, and with the valve being 16 stuck open I had to -- we had to get the unit in a 17 cold shutdown condition or in a condition that would 18 take steam off the valve and we would also have -to 19 break main condenser vacuum, which is a big maneuver 20 for the Plant. And we spent two days, we spent 21 Saturday and Sunday developing that plan.22 We developed new procedures, we trained on 23 it in a simulator, we did do a lot of good stuff, and 24 we commenced the shutdown Sunday night and got in the 25 position to secure the main turbine early on Monday NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 43 1 morning. Then when we tripped the main turbine to 2 take it offline the valve went shut. The valve that 3 was stuck open --4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Fixed itself.5 -seemed to fix itself. So 6 questions were raised when it was found that the valve 7 was shut, "Well, do we need to continue shutting the 8 unit down to fix the valve given that the valve is now 9 shut?" And those questions were raised to 10 Monday morning, 11 early Monday morning. This is probably around 12 daybreak or so, pretty early in the day.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And who's 14 raising these questions?

15 questions were raised 16 by NO ho was asking whether or not we 17 needed to consider revising the plan, whether having 18 the valve shut would change our strategy, what changes 19 would be needed? Is it still prudent to shut the unit 20 down and go after the valve or do we have confidence 21 that the valve is now mechanically unstuck?22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before you go any 23 further on that, just at this point before we go too 24 far, when you say that over that Saturday and Sunday, 25 the period where you're preparing to take some action NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 44 1 and you're in the simulator, I think you indicated 2 that there were some good things done there?4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Specifically, what?5 What were you doing specifically in the simulator, and 6 what were the good things that you refer to?7..........

L Okay. Well, we developed a 8 new operating procedure to allow us to shut the unit 9 down in a unique way to place it in a configuration to 10 do work on the valve. We brought the operating crew 11 that would be doing the evolution Sunday night we 12 brought them in Saturday night and had them practice 13 in the simulator working through that evolution.

We 14 set up and treated the evolution as an infrequently 15 performed evolution, which brings forth a whole other 16 evolution oversight structure with an evolution 17 manager, an evolution engineer.

There's a whole 18 separate plan that gets developed.

It was reviewed by 19 our Safety Review Committee, SORC, it was briefed and 20 it was executed on Sunday night.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.22 And we --this may be 23 another good example of safety over production

-- we 24 held the unit at 20 percent power and allowed 25 ourselves two days to develop the plan before taking NEAL R. GROSS.tr1 DCDnDTDQr TPAMAMIRFRR 45 1 a course of action. So we took two days to get ready 2 for it.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I didn't mean 4 to interrupt you, I just thought that some of that 5 preparation might be of interest to the staff, the 6 particular points involved.

Now we're at the point 7 it's Monday morning.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said, I think, it 10 was daybreak, and this involves_.--

.._11 iO N 1. .I don't knor Was 13 involved.

as approached.

I think had called 14 into the Outage Control Center. We also staffed the 15 Outage Control Center to manage the evolution, which 16 brings dedicated maintenance managers, engineering 17 managers, a focus team around the clock to focus on 18 the issues and help the organization through them. I 19 believe, and this is just what I have been told, 20 conversations with that called into the OCC 21 and asked whether or not the decisions needed to be 22 revisited and changed since the valve was closed. And 23 that got tog and he was questioned whether or not 24 the shutdown still needed to continue.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 46' That bothered him greatly.Not knowing this, I called from my hotel room in 00n 1 I guess it was about seven-thirty on Monday morning, seven o'clock, seven-thirty, just to see how the shutdown went, because the unit was expected to be shut down. We should have been in a position to do the maintenance, so I called just to check how it went. And told me the shutdown had gone pretty good, and he indicated that the valve had closed on the --(Phone rings.)SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry. Excuse me a minute.i Sure.(Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off the record for a short period of time and went back on the record at 9:12 a.m.)SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're back on the record. It's approximately 9:12 a.m. after a brief break.Yes. So on the morning of the 17th, I called in from .to speak wit to understand how the shutdown went, and indicated that they had no significant issues with the shutdown, and he also indicated that when the turbine NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 47 was tripped as part of the plan that the bypass valve went shut. And we had some dialogue around that, and actually I laughed when he said that because it seemed like one of those -- sometimes very unusual things happen in nuclear power, and we tried for a couple days to get the valve shut, and it seems like we're getting ready to fix it and now the valve shuts, so it was kind of interesting.

And then he indicated that the OCC had been asked by ýand he was now being asked whether or not we needed to continue the shutdown to fix the valve.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The OCC?Outage Control Center. That was the group that was put in place around the clock to manage the repair window.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. They had been asked OMM- been asked by I believe that's the way that it had worked.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay..fldif__j.And f was --he said he was pretty disturbed about being asked about that. I said, "Well, how do we know the valve's not going to stick if we start back up and we don't come down and NEAL R. GROSS Mf-'* ir1 M C!MC% A N61 TI MAK&ICý^nIMC 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 48 fix it? I mean what caused the valve to stick in the first place?" And he goes, "I don't know." I said,"Well, we've got to fix the valve." I said, "How can we not continue down to fix the valve if we don't know why it's stuck open?" SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is what you're saying to him.Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And is he in agreement with you?Oh, absolutely.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.Absolutely.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you're both questioning that they would -t- hat-would want to keep it running."107 It seemed -- to me it seemed like a silly question..

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.I don't think intended his question to be, "Okay, great. The valve is shut so let's start back up." I think his question to the OCC was, "Now that the valve is closed, does that change any of our decisions, dces that change our strategy?

Have we looked at that?" That was the way NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 49 1 I understood

-- after talking to I following the 2 event, that's how I understood it to be.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That it was not a 4 direction to keep it running, it was --5 No, it was not a direction.

6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- can you consider 7 changing the course of action.8 That's right. It was -- and 9 j 'is very skillful at that. He's skillful at asking 10 questions that create different thinking, different ii ways of viewing a problem. But that bothered " 12 quite a bit.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was did 14 he tell you what his response was at that time to' -15 Ag W11 16. He said that he questioned 17 how we could not fix the valve.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And you were 19 in line with that thinking.20 :i Absolutely.

Yes. I told 21 him, "We can't restart the unit unless we fix the 22 valve." 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So what 24 happened from there? Was there more discussion on it?25 Yes. Yes. This was early NEAL R. GROSS CflIIRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 50 1 on Monday morning, probably seven o'clock or seven-2 thirty and the unit shutdown was actually put on hold.3 It was held where it was at until additional reviews 4 and discussions could take place on whether or not the 5 strategy for the shutdown would change based on the 6 valve being closed.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, who participated 8 in those?9 F I'm not exactly sure. I 10 know was participating.

I don't know 11 exactly who else was there.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.13 But the decision to me was 14 very clear, and we ultimately brought the unit to a 15 shutdown condition to fix the valve.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At what time then?17 I don't know the exact time.18 Later on in the afternoon, around one or two o'clock 19 in the afternoon the remaining cooldown sequence and 20 shutdown sequence resumed.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So the delay here 22 then from -- it started at about dawn on that Monday, 23 and you were involved at around seven or seven-thirty 24 25 Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 51 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- where you as 2 Iare in agreement that the unit 3 should be brought down. There's a delay till later 4 that day. Was that due to the question raised by I 6 Yes.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you think the 8 delay caused a problem in terms of the safe operation 9 of the Plant?10 No. No. The Plant was not 11 unsafe being where it was.12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Can you 13 explain why?14 V ] Well, the Plant was in a hot 15 shutdown condition.

It was very stable. The reactor 16 was shut down, all the rods were in. It was really a 17 matter of reestablishing a cooldown to get into a cold 18 shutdown condition to do the repair work. So it 19 didn't place the unit -- the decision to wait until 20 restoring or reestablishing the cooldown until the 21 afternoon, that didn't place the unit at any 22 additional risk. It just -- it really extended the 23 outage.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you think 25 the situation could have been better handled in some NEAL R. GROSS M.I IRT RFPORTFRR AND TRANRCRIBERS 52 1 way?2 Yes. I think so. I mean 3 hindsight is always 20-20. I don't think that the 4 possibility of the valve closing during the shutdown 5 was considered before we commenced the plan. So one 6 of the things that our organization does pretty well 7 is when we take on complex evolutions like that, we 8 develop multilayers of contingency plans and we do a 9 lot of, "Well, what if this happens, what are we going 10 to do? What if that happens, what are we going to 11 do?" I don't think we had a contingency plan in place 12 for, "What happens if the valve closes, what are we 13 going to do?" 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What if it fixes 15 itself?16 Yes.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said that was 18 quite a surprise.19 : It was, yes. I mean I was 20 surprised to, hear it, but when I heard it wasn't 21 surprised, because things like that happen sometimes.

22 And it turns out we did get into the valve and we 23 found broken welds on some fastening bolts and some of 24 the bolts had come loose, and that was what was 25 causing the valve to stick open. So it wasn't a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 415n MlL Ml nr ai A.1^ .-W .&I.,

53 1 condition that fixed itself. The reason the valve 2 closed was because when the turbine tripped, the 3 perturbations caused the bolt to shift out of the 4 valve and allowed the valve to go full shut. It was 5 still in the valve chest rattling around waiting to 6 stick again.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the problem was 8 still there.9 It was still there, yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The length of 11 time that this -- it waited -- now, you're saying the 12 Plant was in a safe condition.

The fact that there 13 was debate over whether or not you would return to 14 power or go into cooldown didn't affect the safety of 15 the Site, in fact it lengthened this particular

--16 _ It lengthened the outage.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- outage.18 18 Yesit did.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It would seem that 20 the debate has caused some concern over this. It adds 21 to the production over safety issue that we were 22 talking about earlier.23 Yes.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see how 25 something like that would contribute to this?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 54 1 Sure. I think the length of 2 time that was taken to make what to me and 3 seemed to be a very black and white decision --4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Pretty early.5 --I think that caused some 6 angst. That caused some angst. And I was surprised 7 -- when I called in later Monday evening after the 8 W, I was surprised that the unit had not yet 9 been placed in a cold shutdown condition, and I 10 learned that they had delayed for five or six hours to 11 reassess whether or not the plan needed to be changed 12 as a result of the valve being closed.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And the delay at this 14 point is coming from mr is it more than 16I'm not sure I know. I 17 don't think it-was from O I think question 18 spawned additional reviews and discussions on whether 19 the plan had to be changed. I don't know if 'was 20 involved in those discussions or not. I'm sure 2iwas[ involved.

I don't know to what level 22 iwas.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Is there 24 anything else you'd like to add to that situation?

25 Well, not for that decision, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 55 1 but that evolution also -- I mean we did a lot of 2 things to plan for it. It didn't go very well on the 3 shutdown.

We had a --4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you actually 5 came into the shutdown?6 .. Yes. We had a level 7 perturbation which caused -- a perturbation on reactor 8 power during the shutdown sequence not associated with 9 this decision making on the bypass valves.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What caused that?11 2 It turned out to be a 12 significant event.13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And what had caused 14 that?15 What caused that was a 16 problem with the bypass valve potentiometer that was 17 being utilized to lower reactor pressure as we were 18 shutting down the reactor. It had a fault on it such 19 that when the operator was manipulating it to bring it 20 down and to lower reactor pressure, it actually opened 21 more by pass valves than it should have, which 22 resulted in a larger reactor pressure drop than was 23 anticipated.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you had a whole 25 separate problem on top of the original problem.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 412 OUArC 101 AKlr% A%= &L IA.

56 1 Yes. And that was a big 2 issue, and it highlighted, although when I say we did 3 a lot of good things to get prepared, we did, but we 4 didn't do them well enough to be as well prepared as 5 we could have been. And we ended up having an event 6 that we should not have had. And that was a 7 significant operating experience event that was 8 reported by INPO. I don't know if you've read that or 9 ont, but that's why I said March 17 kind of lives in 10 my head for a different reason.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You indicated that 12 after you had talked to 2 earlier that Monday 13 then you. checked in with him later that Monday and you 14 were surprised that the system still hadn't been 15 brought into the cooldown.16 .o i, Actually, I talked with the 17 operating shift that night. I didn't speak withL 18 until the next morning.19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you found out 20 that it hadn't been brought down at that point, and 21 this was due to the debate that raised or the question 22 that raised that said, "Can we just keep operating as 23 opposed to shutting down and fixing this valve," had 24 anything like that happened before? Maybe not with 25 these particular circumstances but a situation where NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

57 1 it was clear to you and your 2 what had to be done but you had debate coming from 3 another angle over what you were going to do?4 F: Well, the other instance 5 would be on the diesel leakage issue, that's the other 6 example.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This would be the 8 subsequent issue in June?9 Yes.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So not prior 11 to this then?12 No, not of that nature.13 It's not uncommon to be questioned for understanding 14 and challenged on decisions.

I mean I don't think 15 I've made a decision that hasn't been challenged or 16 questioned.

I mean that's just part of the job. So 17 given a decision that might affect the operation of 18 the unit, it's quite common and expected to be 19 questioned by senior management: "So why is that 20 decision being made? I mean what's the basis of that?21 Why do you have to do that?" And it's normally a very 22 easy answer because I wouldn't have made the decision 23 without good basis. Sometimes decisions are made 24 based on operator experience and gut feeling. I mean 25 sometimes that's the basis that you make a decision NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 58 1 on, and those are a little bit harder to substantiate.

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Gut feeling.3L-: Yes, gut feel. But it's a 4 healthy level of challenging.

It's not an 5 inappropriate level. To some people that aren't 6 accustomed to that level of discussion, that might be 7 a little unnerving, because some of them can be a 8 little intense if you're not accustomed to having 9 people question your decisions.

But that's part of 10 the way that the best decisions are made.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you saying that 12 in view of the fact that this was ho was 13 acting for you, is it that he was inexperienced with 14 having to say, "We're going to go forward and cool 15 this down," --16 Yes. Exactly.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and 7--7 1 18 was coming to him to say, "Look, can you do things 19 another way? Can you consider doing things another 20 way?" 21 Yes. 4 as asking whether 22 or not our decisions had to be revisited and would 23 they change as a result of the valve being closed.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.25 dad been on the job--NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 59 it's a very challenging the job, thel.. ....-b -he had been in that role for about Pretty new, pretty new to the spot. And I think that was probably the second time, maybe the third time I had left him in charge.I think the previous time -- that was the second time.The previous time I was on vacation but I was still in the area so I talked with him a couple times a day.So he was somewhat, I think, new to the level of challenge that can be felt, and maybe he felt a little frustrated about having really a fundamental answer questioned.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think -- had you been on site would the debate have lasted that long?i Absolutely not.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You would have made your point quicker than was able to?Yes. I think so. I think we would have been moving ahead within a half hour, 45 minutes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was it something that he was not communicating properly t Biliithat led to the length of time and the debate over this?Is there something that he failed to do to convince NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 60 1 him, do you think?2 I don't know if it was a 3 matter of failing to convinc l The length of time 4 --5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me ask you this 6 way: What would have been the difference had you 7 handled it as opposed to him being there handling it?8 I think I would have 9 challenged the organization right up-front to explain 10 to me how the valve failed and what reassurance we 11 have that it's not going to fail if I bring the unit 12 back up. Because without knowing the failure mode and 13 without knowing whether it's going to fail again, it 14 needs to be fixed.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Its reliability is in 16 question.17 -Yes. And it's a very 18 important piece of equipment that needs to be operate 19 under fast reaction times under transient conditions, 20 and that needs to be there.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that may be where 22 he--23 So instead of --24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- didn't question it 25 strongly enough?NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 61 1 MIN Yes. I think he probably 2 just left it open for the team to kick it around --3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.4 --and try to come to some 5 answer as opposed to focusing the discussion in a 6 different way.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Where you 8 didn't see the debate, you just saw that you have an 9 unreliable valve.10 1I wouldn't have debated it.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 7-I would have tasked the team 13 with proving to me why the valve is reliable and we 14 haven't found anything with it and it's now shut.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.16 M Hindsight

--I mean that's 17 all speculation, I don't know. I mean I was out in 18 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I know.20 -- andI was here.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm just trying to 22 find out what you knew, not to cast any shadows over 23 him, but from what you knew and the decisions that get 24 made on the site, I would like your perspective on 25 what happened there. Do you have anything else you'd NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 13iPwnnFlf IQ# Akinl A%/= K1 IAI 62 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 like to add to that?No. No, I don't. Nothing else comes to mind.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If the staff had any further questions technically that I'm not asking --SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- you don't have a problem with them contacting you to ---120M No. No. Absolutely not.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Let's talk about the June incident.That's the diesel jacket water pump leakage.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right, in the LCO time. This is June 28. Now, are you on site for this?Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. You said diesel jacket water leakage. I have EDG leakage.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Same thing.EDG, emergency diesel generator.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: generator.

Okay.Emergency diesel NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 63 1 ...... Yes.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what happens here?3 What happened here was we 4 ended up in an unplanned LCO, limiting condition for 5 operation, for -- I can't remember what diesel it was 6 not -- one of our diesels. I think it was the alpha 7 diesel, but I can't remember.

It was a 72-hour 8 limiting condition for operation, so we had 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> 9 to fix this leakage, which exceeded a preestablished 10 criteria for operability.

It was seal leakage on an 11 engine-driven pump that had gotten worse. So the 12 shift declared -it inoperable, we committed it to 13 maintenance, started a 72-hour clock. And, basically, 14 the LCO says, "You've got 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> to fix the diesel, 15 make it operable, or you'll be in hot shutdown in 12 16 hours1.851852e-4 days <br />0.00444 hours <br />2.645503e-5 weeks <br />6.088e-6 months <br /> and cold shutdown the following 24." So it's a 17 pretty tight window. A big challenge for the 18 organization to fix it.19 So we got into the work, made an attempted 20 repair and restored the machine, made it ready for 21 service, retested it and it leaked bad. It leaked 22 perhaps worse than it did before we did the 23 maintenance on it, so we didn't do something right.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.25 0 So' now we have -- we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 64 1 probably halfway through, maybe two-thirds of the way 2 through the 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br />, so it's getting tight. And we 3 called overseas, we talked to the people that built 4 the seal, the manufacturer, the engine designer, 5 called a whole bunch of people to understand what it 6 is we weren't doing correctly, and got some good 7 insight and understood more about what we were not 8 doing correctly that was causing the leakage.9 Meantime the clock for the LCO is still ticking down.10 We made another repair, and this repair 11 helped the leakage. It reduced it but it didn't stop 12 the leakage, so there was still some residual leakage 13 that was occurring.

And this was on the last day of 14 the LCO, and, actually, the retest was done right at 15 about the 72-hour point, and this was at about three 16 o'clock in the morning. We found some small leakage 17 that still existed, so the following

-and that 18 started the 12-hour close, so now we had to be in hot 19 shutdown, which is reactors secured, not critical, and 20 the plant is still hot, that's hot shutdown.

We had 21 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to be there. And we've had --22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was this from 3 a.m.?23 .f- Yes. The LCO expired, I 24 don't exactly remember the times. I think the 72-hour 25 expired sometime around four o'clock in the morning.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.

65 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.2 -So that gave us until, 3 basically, four or five o'clock in the afternoon, give 4 or take a couple of hours.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: To be in the hot 6 shutdown mode.7 Yes, be in hot shutdown.

I 8 think it was -- I seem to remember seven o'clock at 9 night we had to be in hot shutdown, so it must have 10 expired at seven o'clock in the morning. So the day 11 started off -- this is when I came back to the site.12 I had been on the phone for most of the night. Came 13 back in and it was clear that we would not be able to 14 go back into the seal and fix it right because we 15 didn't have all the parts.16 So we began to assess whether or not the 17 leakage that we had still existing on the machine was 18 acceptable for operability, and that would require --19 in order for that to be acceptable, it would require 20 operators to take compensatory actions to collect the 21 leakage, and we'd have to have additional barrels of 22 water. There was a lot of compensatory actions that 23-, needed to be put into place in order to make the 24 machine operable and still be able to reasonably 25 ensure that it would perform its intended safety NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 66 1 function if needed.2 And the engineers worked on that for most 3 of the morning. And the original deliverable that 4 they gave to me to support operability

-- I got that 5 at about probably 11 o'clock in the morning -- was 6 inadequate.

It did not have enough basis for my 7 needs. It didn't fully identify the actions that were 8 needed, and it was not acceptable, so I sent them away 9 to go back and continue working on it.10 Meanwhile, our administrative guidance had 11 been if you're in a 12-hour LCO, like be in hot 12 shutdown in 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />, if you have reasonable assurance 13 that you will be able to clear the LCO, fix the 14 condition, within the first six hours of that 12 15 hours1.736111e-4 days <br />0.00417 hours <br />2.480159e-5 weeks <br />5.7075e-6 months <br />, you don't have to move the unit.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.17 .. You can keep the unit where 18 it's at, and we're at full power. However, if you 19 should exceed that six hours and the LCO is not 20 cleared, our practice had been to begin backing the u 21 nit down because I can safely get to from full power 22 to hot shutdown in six hours without --23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that something 24 that's been done before?25 Yes.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 67 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.2 .' I've done it before on shift 3 as a licensed operator.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.5 It's a very controlled 6 shutdown.

I mean I can always safely shut the reactor 7 down by scramming it, but this is a controlled 8 shutdown that minimizes the transient on the Plant.9 So the six-hour window, assuming our time 10 is correct, would actually open at about one o'clock 11 in the afternoon.

12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.13 _ .Which is about right. So we 14 began to have discussions, myself and 15 (phonetic), who was the that 16 day, I don't recall if was 17 there or not. was not there. as off-site.18 He was at a professional development seminar, so he 19 was not there. We began to talk about when to back 20 the unit down, whether or not we had talked with the 21 system operator preparing to shut down, and ý --22 I provided "direction that morning as soon as he 23 relieved the shift to prepare for the shutdown, to get 24 his guys briefed, to review the procedures, to get the 25 reactor engineering up there, to get the shutdown NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 123 RH"I"F ISI ANn A/I= NJ M W 68 1 guidance -- make the unit ready for shutdown.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which would start at 3 about 1 p.m.4 Which would start, yes, 5 about one.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's what you're 7 anticipating.

8 Yes. And as we got closer 9 to one, we began to get some feedback that, "Well, we 10 should hold off on downpowering the unit because the 11 engineers are going to have this revised position 12 paper soon,.and I actually tied a an off-shift shift 13 manager in with the engineers to make sure that what 14 they delivered this next time was going to be 15 adequate.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is what they're 17 coming back to you with after the first go-round.18 Yes. So instead of playing, 19 "Bring me a rock. No, 'not that rock. Bring me 20 another rock," after the first rock they brought me it 21 was not even close to being acceptable.

I put an SRO 22 on the team to make sure that they would deliver 23 something that we would need to support operability.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now, when you 25 say it was coming soon, when it was supposed to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 69 1 delivered.

2 I It was hard to get a fine 3 point. Initially, they said they would have it around 4 11:30 or noontime, and then it was, "Well, no, we need 5 a little bit more time. It will be 12:30," and then 6 it was one o'clock. So it was pushing out. And I was 7 being questioned whether or not we could hold off on 8 backing the unit down pending the review of the 9 engineering position paper that was expected to 10 support operability and clear the LCO.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Now, who were 12 you being questioned by?13 Primarily, -- ,...14 was 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: 16 17 Yes. He was wanting to 18 avoid reducing power if we didn't need to. And there 19 was a primary reason for that. We had a recert pump 20 seal, the one that we fixed before the outage, was 21 beginning to show degraded performance, and the 22 performance of that pump seal -- the level of 23 degradation accelerated whenever we moved the unit, so 24 wasn't -- he wasn't overly concerned about 25 maintaining full power, his concern was not moving the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1cw RAH~nF IRI Amn AVF N W 70 1 unit unnecessarily and purtebating the seal. That's 2 the way that he couched his discussions with me. And 3 I explained to him that we've already taken the first 4 six hours of this 12-hour window, and I'm now into the 5 final six hours, and I need to be in hot shutdown and 6 we will be in hot shutdown by the time this LCO 7 expires, and I would prefer to get there through a 8 controlled shutdown versus --9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A scram?10 a scram.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 And he concurred with that, 13 but he still wanted to hold off because he thought 14 that the engineers would be delivering their 15 deliverable soon.16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, let me just ask 17 you this: The problem with the degraded seal you're 18 talking about,.when did that become apparent?19 ,Shortly after the refueling 20 outage.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in the time frame 22 for June 28, when to when? The outage in March?23 The refueling outage --24 well, we replaced the seal in March.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 71 1 .. And, actually, before the 2 outage started a month later, it actually began to 3 show signs of degradation.

And coming out of the 4 outage it continued to show the same level of 5 degradation that it had shown before. It's a slow 6 trend in performance.

7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And not to get 8 too far off track on either one incident and another, 9 but what was the plan for repairing this degraded seal 10 then? At what point was that going to be addressed?

11 NU The seal is actually being 12 degraded by a bent shaft on the pump, and that shaft 13 replacement is scheduled for -- I don't know if it's 14 next outage or the following outage.15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So it has the 16 ability to be postponed for that length of time.17 Yes.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So while there is 19 concern regarding the seal and the perturbations on 20 the seal by changes in the reactor, is this legitimate 21 to you? I mean you said -- the way you indicated it 22 was this is what he's telling you is that he doesn't 23 want to move it.24 Yes. I thought it was a 25 legitimate concern, but it wasn't, from my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1VR RHfPlF IRI ANn AvF mW 72 1 perspective, as big of a concern as placing my 2 operating shift into a tight box and having them get 3 from full power to hot shutdown in a very limited 4 amount of time.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was a concern, but 6 he wasn't prioritizing it the way you would have?7 It was a concern but from my 8 perspective it wasn't the driving concern.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.10 So this was about 11:30, 12 11 o'clock. I had toldýý that, you know, "At one 12 o'clock, I intend to start backing the unit down." He 13 goes, "Well, let's hold off because we're going to be 14 getting the engineering paperwork." 15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. What happens 16 then?17 And I said, "Okay." So 18 about 12:30, 12:45 I don't have the engineering 19 paperwork.

So-VWtalking to me, he says, "I just 20 spoke with the engineers, they're going to be wrapped 21 up with it soon," and I said, "Let's look at the 22 timeline here." I said, "Even if I get this paperwork 23 now, I'm not going to review it in five minutes and 24 have them provide" -- because I was going to review it 25 and then have them provide it to the operating shift, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 73 1 and the operating shift ultimately makes the 2 operability call.AM ... ...so I can't make 4 that determination.

5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So how much time are 6 you talking about here for an adequate review?7 ~~Well, that's what I began to 8 lay out for. I said, "It's going to take me a 9 half hour to go through this. I mean I'm very 10 familiar with it, but I'm going to make sure it's ii right before it goes to the control room. And then 12 it's going to take them some time to review it and 13 make their decision.

It's not going to be a five-14 minute flurry of review and signatures to stop the 15 clock." I said, "It's going to take a few hours." 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So you're 17 looking at pushing two o'clock, two-thirty, three 18 o'clock --19 Yes.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- before you have a 21 good review done.22 Right.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And he knows that.24 ,FW Yes, he did then. And so I 25 told him, "Look, we need to start backing the unit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 74 1 down now." 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he say then?3 "We need to start backing 4 the unit down now." He finally agreed that we needed 5 to start the down power, and we commenced shortly 6 thereafter.

I forget the exact time, but it was 7 probably one-thirty or so, 1:45 when we started 8 shutting down. And so the operating shift commenced 9 the shutdown, and they were on track to be in hot 10 shutdown.

We wouldn't have a problem meeting that 11 clock. In the meantime, the engineers produced their 12 deliverable around -- I guess it was about two o'clock 13 or two-thirty.

14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which is now no 15 longer relevant at this point in time, not until 16 you've gone through to your hot shutdown phase anyway, 17 right?18 Well, it was relevant 19 because we can -- if the engineering paperwork 20 supports operability and it's been given the review 21 and we're set to implement the compensatory actions, 22 then we would be able to clear the LCO and stop the 23 shutdown.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And go back to power.25 And, ultimately, restore the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 75 1 unit back to full power.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So now what 3 direction do you go?4 s Well, we got the paperwork 5 and I reviewed it. It looked pretty good. We had not 6 yet put in place all of our compensatory actions. We 7 had to stage some barrels of water, we had to stage 8 some pumps, some hoses. My staff had to revise some 9 operating procedures to account for the compensatory 10 actions that we were going to assume to make the 11 machine operable, and the operating crew had to review 12 the write-up.

So all that was taking place. That 13 took a few hours, and I think we declared the machine 14 operable, I don't remember the exact time, maybe 1800, 15 about an hour before we had to be in hot shutdown.16 And at that point in time, the unit was at about 40 17 percent power, 35 or 40 percent power.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF; Okay.19 And that was pretty much the 20 end of that saga.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So with it declared 22 operable, with the machine operable, you can go back 23 up?24 Yes.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS lq*t' QUl I01AK10 AKIM AIC II %AI 76 1 satisfactory to you that everybody met -- the 2 requirements that needed to be in place were in place 3 at the time you made the --4 Yes.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- power ascension?

6 T: Yes. I think everything was 7 in place. We had the procedures changed. I 8 personally verified that all the equipment was staged, 9 and I read the paperwork.

I had at least two other 10 senior SROs review the paperwork plus the additional 11 review by the operating shift. It looked like it was 12 all in qrder. I was not happy about or willing to 13 operate for a long period of time with the 14 compensatory actions that I had in place and agreed 15 that I would take those compensatory actions given 16 that the organization would stay focused on this 17 particular issue and drive it to be fixed within a 18 month, within the next channelized work window for 19 that diesel. It wasn't a condition I was willing to 20 operate the unit under for an extended period of time 21 but a window that would provide the organization time 22 to really plan to do the maintenance work and to get 23 it fixed right. I thought those were reasonable 24 compensatory actions for a short period of time, and 25 I accepted those.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCPIBERS 77 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. And did that 2 get realized?4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The compensatory 5 actions were removed and it was repaired?6 K Yes. The machine was fixed 7 within a month, and the compensatory actions were 8 removed.9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Do you see any 10 concerns in that situation?

You, personally, do you 11 see anything regarding the safe operation of that 12 plant?13 s, No. I didn't see any 14 concerns with the safe operation of the Plant. I was 15 becoming frustrated by the pushback I was getting on 16 reducing the unit's output to comply with the tech 17 specs. I mean I was going to comply with the license 18 one way or another. I didn't feel like my ability to 19 comply with the license was being challenged, but what 20 I thought was being challenged was the, I don't want 21 to call it operating margin, but I wanted my operating 22 shift to have six hours to bring the unit down and put 23 it in hot shutdown, not try to scurry down in the last 24 hour2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> and scram it.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Seems like you had to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 78 1 fight for that.2 1 No. I didn't have to fight 3 for it. I had to articulate my position several 4 times.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.6 _ There really wasn't a fight.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.8 I mean at first I -- this 9 was several hours before the downpower.

I explained 10 to 2 "We need six hours to bring the unit down in 11 hot shutdown." He says, "Well, how do you know you 12 need six and not four?" I said, "Because I've tried 13 to do it in four. I can do it in four; it's hard." 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that accepted 15 when you gave it to him the first time?16 Yes.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That you needed the 18 six hours?19 Yes.20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.21 He didn't really -- he asked 22 me the basis for the six hours, and we had previously 23 had site-wide administrative guidance that supported 24 that six hours, but that had no longer -- that had 25 been removed from the procedures, but that was still NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4-3129 3Ue% 101 Aklr% A%1ý 1,1%&#

79 1 accepted practice.

And I also told him that given 2 that on March 17 we had the Plant upset and 3 significant reactivity problem and given that 4 ironically it was the same operating shift on then as 5 it was on today to do the shutdown, I really wanted 6 them to have as much window to ensure their success as 7 possible.

And he understood that. He was trying to-8 balance that need with, "Hey, the engineers are going 9 to be coming. They just told me they'll be here in a 10 half hour, 45 minutes, and we'll be done with this." 11 I don't think he fully understood what it was going to 12 take from the engineers walking over with their 13 revised assessment to having licensed operators

--14 (END TAPE 1, SIDE B)15 (BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE A)16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. We're on Side 17 A of Tape 2. It's approximately 9:52 a.m. The 18 pushback that you were experiencing regarding your 19 concerns about complying with the license and getting 20 into the hot shutdown in that six-hour time frame, 21 where was the pushback coming from?22 Well, the pushback was 23 coming from D 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why, do you think?25 Well, was concerned NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 80 1 about unnecessarily moving the unit.2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And do you think 3 that's what the concern was? Did it have anything to 4 do with financial cost considerations and staying 5 where you were as opposed to --6 Yes.7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- this degrading

--8 Wr I'm sure that was an aspect 9 of his concern also.10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But what he 11 articulated to you was that he didn't want to move the 12 unit with this degraded valve.13 Degraded seal on the pump.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'm sorry, degraded 15 seal, yes.16 Yes. He indicated that he 17 was concerned about -- because there would actually be 18 two maneuvers:

One to come down in power, and 19 assuming we got the LCO cleared on diesel, another 20 maneuver to come back up. And our past performance on 21 the seal had been pretty predictable in that when we 22 did routine downpowers to do turbine valve testing, 23 for example, or to do a rod pattern exchange, we would 24 see changes in seal performance.

It was well known.25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So there's a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 81 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 legitimate concern there that he has.Ilil Sure. Yes.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you went through it, did you have problems with the seal? I mean you brought the unit down. I think you had it down to, what, 40 percent?Yes. We came down to about 40 percent. The seal performed as we would have expected it to. It did show some signs of degradation but nothing that was unexpected.

SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. The incident before that we talked about that occurred in March when you had indicated there was some surprise on your part in the length of debate in shutting the unit down to fix the valve, you had indicated that was kind of the first time -- that was the first time, and then you said there's another incident but it came later that you were surprised

-- I was asking you about the decision making process that was involved.Right.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And did that surprise you that there was this length of debate. You didn't have anything to relate to before March of 2003, but you have two incidents in March and June of 2003 that show some concern or some input over maintaining NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 82 1 operability over what you're saying was a concern. I 2 mean in your case it was, "I have six hours, I have to 3 get there." It really wasn't debatable.

At one 4 o'clock you needed to start to get into the hot 5 shutdown mode in June. And in March, you and your 6 didn't believe that it was --7 there was any question on what direction you needed to 8 go. Is there anything that you attribute that to, 9 these two incidents in 2003? Are you seeing new 10 pressure in maintaining the Plant status, being at 11 full power in 2003 that you hadn't seen before? Is 12 there something that that goes to? Are these totally 13 unrelated and not part of any type of change there?14 Yes. I don't know if I 15 would attribute them to any single thing. I mean 16 there's more challenge in the organization now I think 17 than there was previously.

18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More challenge.

19 More questions, more 20 questions to understand the basis of decisions and 21 more dialogue.

That was certainly the case for the 22 bypass valve. I mean a question was raised, does the 23 bypass valve being closed change our decisions?

24 Should it change our plans? Why it took the team five 25 hours2.893519e-4 days <br />0.00694 hours <br />4.133598e-5 weeks <br />9.5125e-6 months <br /> to debate that, I don't know. I don't know.NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 83 1 might be able to highlight some details 2 there around the discussions that he had.3 And as far as the downpower for the 4 diesel, the debate there was really weighing the risk 5 that we assumed by moving the unit prematurely, if you 6 will, on degrading the seal and how that compared to 7 the risk that the operating shift assumed by being 8 given a very narrow window to bring the unit down and 9 place it in a hot shutdown condition.

10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said that you had 11 a difference of opinion there with. with 12 what the driving concern should have been.13 Yes. I certainly 14 acknowledged and recognized that maneuvering the unit 15 would likely cause the seal to change performance, 16 because I had seen it happen several times in the 17 past. That was not foreign to me when mentioned 18 that as a concern that he had because it was a concern 19 that I had, and it was one that had 20 already briefed and were prepared to provide 21 heightened awareness on. But I didn't -- I don't 22 think appreciated the amount on review time that 23 would-be required in order for us to bring closure to 24 the LCO and how that review time would ultimately 25 impact the window available to bring the unit down and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 84 1 place it in hot shutdown.

And when I got him to see 2 that the decision was very clear to begin the 3 downpower.

4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay......- It was very clear.6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you experience 7 any adverse effects towards yourself, personally, for 8 having to explain that, having to make that clear and 9 having to go in the direction that you needed to go to 10 meet your license requirements and get into the hot 11 shutdown?12 ! Any adverse? No, no, no, 13 no.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have any 15 problems whatsoever from your management for doing 16 what you had to do?17 v= -~N k' No. No. I had not --18 SPECIAL AGENTNEFF:

Were you criticized 19 in any way?20 1 was criticized not for 21 that. I was criticized for the initial decision 22 making that put us in the LCO in the first place, 23 which was --it was good coaching, because we had 24 initially identified the seal leakage on this pump on 25 the diesel back in the refueling outage, back in April NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS IR RHfrlF IRI ANf AVF N W 85 1 to May. Mid-April to Mid-May was our refueling 2 outage, and we found the leakage during the outage and 3 we had Engineering perform an evaluation while we were 4 in the outage whether or not we needed to fix the seal 5 during the outage or whether we could fix it online 6 during a scheduled maintenance window. And they 7 established some criteria for acceptable leakage.8 And at the time, during the outage, the 9 leak rate was somewhere around ten drops per minute, 10 so it was a very small leak; one drop every six 11 seconds. Then they had established a maximum leak 12 rate of something around 150 drops per minute. And 13 based on that we instituted monitoring, so 14 .when they went into the room they would look 15 at the leakage to make sure it was less than 150. And 16 it was for a long time until Sunday night when the 17 operator went in and found that it was more than 150, 18 and so the criticism came into play and was around our 19 decision to accept the 150 as a black and white line, 20 which I had done and what had done, and 21 when we saw the leakage above 150 it was like, "Okay, 22 Diesel's inoperable," period.23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFFý. Okay.24 qW The shortfall that we had 25 was we accepted that 150 from Engineering without NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4000 L~nn )Of AKn~r All= hi 1IN 86 1 really understanding the basis, so they gave us a 2 very, very tight box to operate in, and we didn't 3 recognize that we had more operating margin available 4 to us through the use of compensatory actions, which 5 I ultimately ended up doing later in the week, that 6 would have allowed us to plan the maintenance window 7 in a way that didn't cause so much turmoil and upset 8 in the organization.

Because when the diesel was 9 declared inoperable on Sunday night at -- or Monday 10 morning at three or four o'clock, whatever time it 11 was, that really changed the whole course of direction 12 for the organization.

13 And in hindsight, I could have had a plan 14 that would have said,. "Okay, if you exceed 150 drops 15 per minute, you need to implement the following 16 contingency plans and have the organization plan and 17 execute a scheduled maintenance window soon," which is 18 what -- I mean after we went through three days of 19 heroic efforts to repair the seal and we brought the 20 unit down to 40 percent, that's ultimately where I 21 ended up anyhow. So the criticism I had was how do 22 you get the clarity of the thinking that you had at 23 one o'clock in the afternoon

-- when you were getting 24 ready to back the unit down, how do you get that 25 clarity of thinking up-front so the decision-making NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 87 1 process flows more smoothly and not so disruptive?

2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It wouldn't have been 3 time-pressured, 72 hours8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> leading into 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> --4 Right. Right.5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- and you must get 6 there, and everybody's scrambling for a review.7 I mean at 12:30 on the 8 afternoon we're shutting down, Engineering had a very 9 clear perspective of what the design basis of that 10 system was, very, very clear.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.12 .So why didn't we have that 13 clarity back in the outage when we made the original 14 assessment and put it into place there, so it would 15 have avoided all of the disruption that occurred?16 That was the criticism that I got.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I see. And you don't 18 disagree with that.19 No, no. It was good 20 coaching.21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.22 I thought it was good 23 coaching.24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 25 else to add to that incident that either I haven't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4 oi2'2 IO1M I E tlfAll= K1 WAI 88 1 asked or we haven't covered?2 I don't think so. I think 3 we covered that pretty good.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you think --W 5 (phonetic) announced he was leaving, I 6 think it was at some point in March of 2003. In your 7 view, did this have any effect on operations at the 8 site in terms of decision making?9 .Any effect on operations.

10 Can you be more specific?11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes. I'll narrow it 12 down for you. Did his leaving have an effect that 13 people who were from a non-nuclear background making 14 decisions over people with the nuclear background, 15 such as in these incidents with the March incident and 16 the June incidenE, do you think that that had any play 17 in the situations there? The change in power 18 affecting these two --19 No, I don't think so. I 20 mean I'm not sure what changes occurred in 21 relationship with the 'or 22 how changed as a result of.eav 223 ho 1'a eaie'23 I mean e's a nuclear professional, he 24 has a lot of nuclear background, so it's not like he's 25 a non-nuclear guy. He's run a lot of power plants.4NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 89 1 But I'm not sure what relationship I established 2 with U ...... L 3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And prior to that, 4 was involved?5 Prior to leaving?6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: No. In between in 7 any way on the decision making there, before 9 ..I'm not sure. I mean I can 10 speculate on what I've heard.11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me ask you this: 12 Is it something that you've even considered before, 13 that this move in .par had any effect on how 14 Hope Creek was being run?15 I haven't, no. From my 16 perspective, it really didn't impact or change the 17 decision making.18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.19 I know there was some 20 speculation who was really running the site, whether 21 it was L .... ý but from m 22 perspective it wa I didn't see anything that 23 caused me to believe otherwise.

24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.25 Als Some people had told me that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 90 1 1 Uwaias not able to make decisions unlessm i said 2 okay, but that's my speculation and what people have 3 told me.4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What people told you.5 Yes. That's just what 6 people have told me. I didn't see any evidence of 7 that.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long did you work 9 with 10 Since he came to the site.12 He came to the site when I was the 12 and he came as the 13 7 which meant that Outage is rolled up under 14 his responsibility, so I worked directly for him for 15 I guess about a year before I became the 16 17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. So are you 18 aware of any changes in -- this is only what you've 19 heard, that he couldn't make any decisions unless 20 MoRwapproved them. Did anything happen for 21 him differently from what you observed, did he behave 22 differently, did he make decisions differently after 23left?24 I didn't see any change. I 25 did not see any change. His engagement

-- he's always NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 41-)% DWnl Im1 AKin AI= K; W 91 1 been one to challenge and ask questions and that 2 didn't change.3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I don't have 4 any further questions along this line, but it's 5 possible somebody else may have them. I've already 6 kind of covered that with you --7 Sure.8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- that you may be 9 contacted again. So at this point, we'll go off the 10 record. It's 10:07 a.m.,. and I thank you for your 11 time on that.12 ur thing.13 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 14 the record at 10:07 a.m. and went back on 15 the record at 11:54 a.m.)16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. It's 11:54 on 17 September

25. Having just discussed another issue, it 18 led us back to this work environment issue that was 19 discussed earlier today, so we're adding some more 20 information'to ithe record. What I wanted to ask you 21 about was during the 22 23 24 25 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 Yes, very well.SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Can you describe what your concerns were centered.

around here? It's briefly about an I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I izin m itin: mi Amn W W^

• 93 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 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: Why do you think that was? Was it determined by your investigation why they weren't willing to say, "Hey, you've got a piece of malfunctioning equipment here that's dangerous." SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They worked around NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4i3'V znuarr. *o. AlttI

• et, /

II 95 1!2 3 4 5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you agreed to 6 conduct the survey --7 mmmki Yes 8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: -- what did you find 9 there when you participated in the survey to find out 10 if there was more action ne'cessary?

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERSAND TRANSCRI 132,3 RHolnF ISI ANrl AVF1 N W 96 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you talk about 3 oil' I, -concerns, did" you get that from 1 4 or did you learn that from --6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15J 17 18 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And when you say that 20 it was mended, was it effective, what you went through 21 to find out what was causing the reluctance?

22 23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did anything improve IC 25 there in terms of from what you knew about reporting NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 2 3 4 SPECIAL AGENT-NEFF:

Okay. Aknd when we 5 talked *earlier about peopleý raising concerns, we -6 talked a lot about the notifications that are written 7 and your analysis of the notifications.

If not going 8 to ECP, do you think that they were raising their 9 concerns when they had to? If there was this distrust 10 with ECP, would people raise their, concerns in other 11 avenues?12 Oh, I think so, yes. Yes.13 I think so.14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 15 further to add to this at this point?16 No.17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: All right. We'll go 18 off the record. It's 12:03 p.m.19 (Whereupon, at 12:03 p.m., the Interview 20 of Fas ...t--a- concluded.)

21 .. C 22 23 24 IP'I M B-iRS V..