ML033290297
| ML033290297 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 10/07/2003 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML033290297 (91) | |
Text
1 1
2 3 PUBLIC MEETING 4
Between U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 0350 Panel 5 and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company 6
7 Meeting held on Tuesday, October 7, 2003, at 7:00 p.m. at Camp Perry, Clubhouse #600, Oak Harbor, 8 Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Lewis, Stenotype Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of 9 Ohio.
10 11 -----
12 13 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 15 John (Jack) Grobe, Chairman for 0350 Panel 16 Davis-Besse facility 17 Christine Lipa, Branch Chief, NRC, Region III 18 William Ruland, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 19 Monica Salter-Williams, Resident Inspector at Davis-Besse facility 20 Scott Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector at 21 Davis-Besse facility 22 Jack Rutkowski, Resident Inspector at Davis-Besse facility 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
2 1 MS. LIPA: Okay, greetings!
2 Welcome to this meeting that were having for the 3 public, and Im Christine Lipa. I work for the 4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Im the Branch Chief 5 in the Region III office near Chicago, and we had a 6 business meeting with FirstEnergy at 2:00 today, from 7 two to almost six, and the purpose of tonights 8 meeting is to give you a summary of what we discussed 9 and then allow you all to come up and ask us 10 questions or to provide comments to us.
11 Before I get started, I want to mention that 12 there are copies of the October NRC newsletter in the 13 foyer and also copies of FirstEnergys slides, copies 14 of the NRC slides that we used today, and then also a 15 public meeting feedback form that you can fill out to 16 give us feedback on how the meeting is going, and 17 were also having this meeting transcribed today by 18 Marlene, so well all be sure to use the microphone, 19 and when people come up, we want to make sure people 20 speak clearly, state your name for the record and 21 give us your questions.
22 What Id like to do is start off with some 23 introductions for the NRC folks that are up here at 24 the table. At the far left is Monica 25 Salter-Williams.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
3 1 MS. SALTER-WILLIAMS: (Indicating).
2 MS. LIPA: Monica is a Resident 3 Inspector at the Davis-Besse facility.
4 Next to Monica is Bill Ruland.
5 MR. RULAND: (Indicating).
6 MS. LIPA: Bill is a Senior 7 Manager with the Agency, and hes also with the 8 Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and hes the Vice 9 Chairman of the Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
10 To my right is Jack Grobe. Hes the Senior 11 Manager in the Region III office, and hes the 12 Chairman of the Davis-Besse Oversight Panel.
13 Next to Jack is Scott Thomas. Scott is the 14 Senior Resident Inspector at the Davis-Besse 15 facility.
16 Next to Scott is Jack Rutkowski. Hes the 17 third Resident Inspector that we have here at 18 Davis-Besse.
19 MR. RUTKOWSKI: (Indicating).
20 MS. LIPA: Also in the audience 21 are some other NRC folks, we have Nancy Keller. She 22 was greeting in the foyer, and shes the office 23 secretary for the resident office.
24 We also have Viktoria Mitlyng --
25 MS. MITLYNG: (Indicating).
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
4 1 MS. LIPA: -- and she is in 2 Public Affairs in Region III.
3 We also have Sam Collins. Hes the Deputy 4 Executive Director for our region in headquarters.
5 MR. COLLINS: (Indicating).
6 MS. LIPA: We have Jeff Wright.
7 MR. WRIGHT: Jeff is the team 8 leader for the Management and Human Performance 9 Organizational Effectiveness Inspection.
10 And Randy Baker is a Reactor Engineer in the 11 Region III office.
12 MR. BAKER: (Indicating).
13 MS. LIPA: I think thats it for 14 NRC.
15 The first thing Id like to do is have Jack 16 Rutkowski provide a summary of what we talked about 17 during the business meeting, and then, after that, 18 well go right into comments and questions from the 19 public. Thank you.
20 MR. RUTKOWSKI: Thank you, Christine.
21 As Christine mentioned, we had a business meeting 22 with FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company.
23 We mentioned that -- the NRC mentioned, 24 Christine mentioned that the purpose of the meeting 25 was to discuss the licensees progress on MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
5 1 implementing their Return to Service Plan, and also 2 in doing that to inform the public of the NRCs 3 Oversight Panel activities.
4 We had -- we did mention a -- provided a 5 quick summary of the September 10th public meeting.
6 During that meeting the topics discussed -- and a lot 7 of it is already in -- is in the handout if you have 8 it, plant response to the loss of transmission grid, 9 plant status on the closure of technical issues, 10 where they were on their Operational Readiness 11 Assessment Plan, where they were on the Quality 12 Assurance Oversight and actions that they needed to 13 take to anchor long-term improvement.
14 Christine did mention that transcripts of 15 that meeting will soon be ready on the NRC internal 16 web site.
17 Significant activities since that September 18 10th public meeting was -- included the issuance of 19 Integrated Inspection Report 03-017. There was a 20 public meeting with FirstEnergy on Safety Culture on 21 October 1st, 2003 and that the NRC had updated their 22 Confirmatory Action Letter.
23 Continuing NRC Activities were Safely Culture 24 and Safety Conscious Work Environment Inspection, a 25 Normal Operating Pressure (NOP) Inspection, which is MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
6 1 still ongoing, and continuing work on Restart 2 Checklist items.
3 Upcoming NRC activities include a public 4 meeting to discuss the results of the Corrective 5 Action Team Inspection and then Safety Health 6 Inspection. The System Health Inspection will be 7 tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. at the Davis-Besse 8 Administration Building. There is also an upcoming 9 meeting on -- not yet scheduled at NRC headquarters 10 to discuss the High Pressure Injection Pump Design 11 Modifications, and we do have coming up inspections 12 to look over the licensees actions on their review 13 of inaccurate and incomplete records that they had 14 submitted. They will also have a restart readiness 15 assessment team inspection that will be just prior to 16 start-up and an inspection on the backlog of work 17 activities.
18 With that, the licensee made presentations 19 that were used to talk about where they were, some of 20 the issues that had come up during this inspection 21 period and since the last and to talk about their 22 plans for future activities. Specifically, there 23 was mention that there were personnel changes at the 24 senior level, mentioned was that Joe Hagan was the 25 new FENOC Senior Vice President overseeing MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
7 1 Engineering and Support Services, and that a plant 2 manager, Barry Allen, had been named for Davis-Besse 3 and will report to Mark Bezilla, Vice President --
4 Site Vice President.
5 The licensee also mentioned that in the 6 recent normal operating pressure test that they had 7 from their perspective fully met restart test plant 8 objectives. Specifically mentioned was a very low 9 leak rate, and that they also mentioned that they are 10 presently assembling an assessment document which 11 will be ready sometime next week and will be used as 12 a basis to request restart from the NRC. It was 13 mentioned that with the plant they have two Mode 4 14 approaches, that this -- the first Mode 4 which they 15 recently accomplished would allow them to concentrate 16 on paperwork in this outage and minimize the need for 17 doing a lot of additional paperwork next outage.
18 They also mentioned that during this last nuclear 19 normal operating pressure test they looked at 20 something like 1,300 components.
21 The licensee also mentioned that they had as 22 part of their overall restart activities and 23 preparations, they had brought in a strong management 24 team both at the senior level and at the manager 25 level.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
8 1 They did mention Greg Dunn, who is their 2 Manager of Outage Management and Work Control, gave a 3 presentation on equipment challenges that they 4 experienced during the recent full operating pressure 5 test. It was characterized that the numerous 6 challenges that exercised their problem solving 7 ability. Specifically was mentioned a problem with 8 containment spray pumps where they had some 9 unexpected trips, and, eventually, they came to the 10 conclusion that it was caused by a Solid State Trip 11 Device, which is in their breakers. They said that 12 they are -- they sent one of the devices out and it 13 confirmed that it was the ground fault portion of 14 that trip device. They have developed an 15 engineering change, but have not yet reached a 16 decision on whether to implement that change which 17 would remove this trip from other similar devices, 18 and they are still looking at the extent of 19 condition; basically it occurred here, are there 20 other places in the plant which needs to be looked at 21 and evaluated. There were other examples that --
22 there were equipment challenges. There was a 23 question on pressurizer heaters. Its still on 24 their list to work, but basically has the same type 25 of breaker that they have in their containment spray MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
9 1 pump.
2 Another issue that was mentioned was the 3 Thermal Overload. They installed Thermal Overloads, 4 but in that installation design change and 5 subsequently there have been problems with some 6 unexpected trips and unexpected cases where equipment 7 did not trip where it should have based on the status 8 of the Thermal Overload. It was characterized as an 9 unintended consequence of the design change. There 10 was a question on -- it was stated that apparently 11 this was an issue with -- in the design, the design 12 was not as good as it could have been, but its still 13 being evaluated.
14 There was also an issue with the Auxiliary 15 Feedwater Pump that was mentioned in this one 16 particular case they were doing a surveillance test.
17 They call the equipment operable upon further 18 investigation and trying to look at some words in 19 their procedures. They wound up having to declare 20 the pump inoperable in a short period of time later.
21 Another thing in the presentation by 22 FirstEnergy was discussions about their walkdowns in 23 containment and what they found at the normal 24 operating pressure. They did mention that they did 25 find about 163 items that ranged from not significant MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
10 1 to somewhat significant and looked at something like 2 1,342 components.
3 There was a question on a valve that has a 4 small steam leak that apparently was missed in the 5 first walkdown. A question of licensee replied that 6 based on the NRC who had identified that leak, they 7 did additional walkdowns and did find some additional 8 components on the additional walkdowns. They 9 werent sure if they were missed or if they were 10 caused by time and actually a small thermal cycle 11 that had been imposed by a heat up and cool down.
12 Those were the equipment challenges.
13 The licensee also had a presentation on some 14 of the other challenges that they faced that fell 15 more into the personnel procedure arena. The first 16 one mentioned was a Core Flood Tank Valve. In this 17 instance the Core Flood Valve had come open and had 18 unintentionally or inadvertently pressurized the 19 decay heat removal system. The licensee had looked 20 at this and the causes that they came up with were 21 procedure guidance, operator performance and 22 training.
23 The next thing they mentioned was another 24 challenge that occurred later and just recently, 25 while coming down, cool down after the NOP -- after MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
11 1 the pressure test, they experienced a reactor trip.
2 They had root group one rods, which are four rods pulled, 3 and unexpectedly they hit a trip set point in those 4 four rods moved into the core. The causes again 5 were procedure guidance, operator performance and 6 training, and also had mentioned that there were some 7 incomplete job briefs. The questions that the NRC 8 had on that were what was really the performance 9 issue. There were questions on, yes, these were two 10 separate events, but the causes appear to be the same 11 and what is the collective significance, or is there 12 a collective significance. The licensee did a 13 report that they have a Collective Significance 14 Evaluation which should be completed in the near 15 future.
16 Also during the pressure test, the licensee 17 reported that they had -- they had teams of managers 18 and outside people, peers, industry peers, looking at 19 their performance mostly in the control room. It 20 was reported that peers from outside the Davis-Besse 21 organization, people that are not FENOC employees, 22 tend to be more critical of performance than 23 Davis-Besse employees.
24 All right, also they mentioned that newer 25 management appears to be more critical, and newer MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
12 1 management is basically -- a short time ago outside 2 the FENOC operation or at least outside the 3 Davis-Besse organization.
4 Also mentioned that at particular times the 5 shift manager, who is the person on shift, who is 6 responsible for keeping the big picture, sometimes 7 had a tendency to get more involved in the action and 8 might have lost some of the big picture, that was 9 reported in their assessments.
10 It was also mentioned in these assessments 11 there appear to exist differences in operational 12 pre-job briefs and standards that are used outside 13 with industry leaders in other plants.
14 Basically there were questions on how do all 15 of these events tie together, how do all the 16 assessments tie together. The licensee basically 17 said that the performance that was experienced during 18 these two events must be improved.
19 The NRC did have questions of when the plant plan 20 would be in place and when we would see assessments 21 on it.
22 The licensee also presented results from 23 Quality Assurance Inspections which were also being 24 done in parallel with the peer assessments and the 25 managerial assessments in the control room, and MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
13 1 basically Quality Assurance confirmed comments that I 2 just made before. The Quality Assurance results 3 also had a statement that Emphasis on Control Room 4 Activities and organizational response to emergence emergent 5 issues. The comment they had was that collective 6 significance could have benefit from other areas from 7 looking at other areas such as training and some of 8 the root causes, and then they took a look at some of 9 the events that have occurred.
10 The licensee then concluded with talking 11 about the remaining actions for restart, and they 12 listed in there the hardware issues that are 13 remaining which include Electrical Transient Analysis 14 Program -- ETAP modification, high pressure injection 15 pump modifications, repair to containment air 16 coolers, electrical breaker coordination 17 modification, and they needed to finish some air 18 operated valve work, and then some of those were at 19 the end of this month and extended into next month.
20 The NRC questioned that there were dates for 21 hardwares, but that there were questions on the soft 22 issues, the performance issues, and what the licensee 23 was going to do about it, and that concluded the 24 basic public meeting. There was -- that concluded 25 the public meeting.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
14 1 MS. LIPA: Okay, well, thanks, 2 Jack. I guess I would just like to highlight a 3 couple things from my perspective that we discussed 4 this afternoon. We talked about the normal 5 operating pressure test, which was that the licensee 6 went from a cold shutdown to normal operating 7 pressure, held there for about eight or 10 days and 8 then cooled back down to cold shutdown. During that 9 time there were a couple of equipment issues and a 10 couple of performance issues. We talked about those 11 issues, and we talked about that in upcoming public 12 meetings, wed like to hear more about what the 13 licensee plans to do, especially on performance 14 issues. They have some evaluations planned to 15 determine what the causes were. Once they determine 16 those causes we want to hear what the reactions their actions are 17 before restart.
18 A couple things Id also like to point out in 19 the newsletter, first of all, if I could get a show 20 of hands, do we have enough newsletters? Did 21 everybody get a copy out there? Anybody can let me 22 know if they did not get a newsletter.
23 THEREUPON, the audience responded.
24 MS. LIPA: Okay, that sounds 25 pretty good so far then.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
15 1 In this newsletter, on the third page is the 2 Davis-Besse Restart Checklist is where it starts in 3 the middle of the page, and thats a listing of all 4 of the items that need to be resolved before restart 5 is even really discussed, and right now 18 of those 6 31 items are closed and the NRC has plans to evaluate 7 each of these before the restart decision.
8 The other thing thats important on this 9 newsletter is the back page has contact information 10 and how you can reach our Public Affairs folks. It 11 has phone numbers, E-mail addresses. It also has the 12 Davis-Besse web site address on there, and there is a 13 lot of other important documents on Davis-Besse.
14 Upcoming we have a public meeting on site 15 tomorrow morning at 9:30. Its at the Davis-Besse 16 Administration Building, and thats to talk about the 17 recent health inspection that weve completed.
18 Also November 4th is our next monthly public 19 meeting, and that will be held at the Oak Harbor High 20 School, and there are some other public meetings we 21 have coming up to discuss results of some other 22 activities.
23 Also, as mentioned in the monthly newsletter, 24 we have received thousands of letters from 25 individuals expressing concerns to us, and we do plan MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
16 1 to read and respond to those letters.
2 Thats about it that I had for highlights 3 unless anybody else wants to add any comments.
4 (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).
5 MS. LIPA: What Id like to do 6 now is go into public questions and comments, and, 7 like I mentioned before, come on up, state your name, 8 well start with local members of the public first, 9 state your name for the transcriber. There is also 10 a sign-in sheet, and if you want us to get back to 11 you annotate it on there with your phone number, and 12 well try to hold everybody to five minutes so that 13 we can get everybody in. Theres a lot of people, 14 but, go ahead, so if anybody has comments or 15 questions for us, come on up.
16 MS. CABRAL: Hi, my name is Barb 17 Cabral from Port Clinton, and my question has to do 18 with procedures. In one discussion I had heard 19 somebody mention that when it refers to that there 20 was -- during the pressure testing one of the 21 procedures that was being followed was the incorrect 22 procedure. I dont know if you have any information 23 on what that was about, and how it could be that they 24 were following the wrong procedure, and also who is 25 responsible for writing the procedures and making the MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
17 1 changes now that some of the equipment has been 2 changed, and are all of these procedure rewrites 3 finished and up-to-date at this point?
4 MS. LIPA: Those are good 5 questions. I think Scott can probably answer the 6 first one better than I can, and then Ill cover 7 whatever else that Scott cant.
8 MR. THOMAS: Yeah, I dont think it 9 was a question of not following the correct 10 procedure. There were some procedure deficiencies 11 that were recognized during the NOP test, so it 12 wasnt a question of not having or following or using 13 the correct procedure. It was there were some 14 improvements that needed to be made to the existing 15 procedures.
16 The second question, I think, had to do with 17 who writes the procedures, was that --
18 MS. CABRAL: Uh huh.
19 MR. THOMAS: It depends on the type 20 of procedures -- there is procedures for maintenance, 21 engineering, operations. The -- I guess to make a 22 short answer to your question, the licensee writes 23 the procedures. Normally, if there are deficiencies 24 determined or recognized during the performance of 25 the procedures, then the Operations Department has a MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
18 1 process where they initiate a change for them and the 2 procedures are upgraded or updated using that 3 process, so -- was there a third question?
4 MS. LIPA: The third question was 5 the equipment changes and updated procedures, and I 6 think that has to do with the modification processes 7 that the licensee changes or changes part of a system 8 like a pump.
9 MR. THOMAS: Right, that would be 10 kind of an inter-department question with input from 11 engineering and operations, and then it gets back to 12 whats the purpose of the procedure, is it to control 13 an engineering process, a maintenance activity, to 14 conduct operation of the plant. That would determine 15 who writes it and who updates it and approves it.
16 MS. CABRAL: Does the NRC oversee any 17 of that or no?
18 MR. THOMAS: As part of our 19 inspection process, we look at the performance of the 20 procedures as well as whether those procedures 21 accurately perform or the acceptance criteria thats 22 contained within the procedure is correct and 23 adequate to ensure the operability of safety related 24 systems, so in that aspect we do look at the 25 procedures and how they implement them.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
19 1 MS. CABRAL: Are these full-time 2 employees that are writing these procedures or are 3 these more of the -- because I know there is a lot of 4 contract people that are working there. Are they 5 hired out?
6 MR. GROBE: Let me just provide a 7 little broader context, and make sure you understand.
8 Is this working all right? Can you hear me?
9 MS. CABRAL: (Indicating).
10 MR. GROBE: Oftentimes people these 11 days are using the words safety culture, and that 12 embodies a whole bunch of attributes and how you 13 operate or work in a group, but one of the most 14 important attributes is that activities that are 15 controlled in a careful, disciplined, methodical way 16 that everything, before you do anything you think it 17 through, plan how you are going to do it and you 18 accomplish it in accordance with that plan. But 19 consequently the NRC has requirements, that anything 20 in the context of safety has to be specified in a 21 procedure, and there are thousands and thousands of 22 procedures on site, everything from starting a pump 23 to the specific procedures we were talking about this 24 afternoon are for fairly complicated procedures.
25 One is called the start-up procedure. One is called MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
20 1 heat up, cool down and shutdown, and those are what 2 are referred to as integrated operating procedures.
3 They are fairly lengthy, maybe a couple hundred 4 pages, and theyre very involved. Theres a lot of 5 things that happen when youre taking a plant through 6 those kinds of evolutions. These procedures exist 7 today. They existed last year. They existed since 8 the plant has started up, and they have been revised 9 and modified and upgraded over the years. All of 10 that is the responsibility of the utility to 11 accomplish, but they are required to do it by NRC 12 safety regulations, so even the smallest activity, 13 testing a needle, which might be a three, four, five 14 page procedure, is very detailed on the purpose, the 15 requirements and precautions and every step that 16 needs to be taken, and then the utility is required 17 to follow that procedure, and if they cant follow 18 the procedure for some reason, if the procedure is 19 inadequate, they are required to stop and revise the 20 procedure in a very methodical way to make sure its 21 right and then start the work again, so these 22 activities are things that the Resident Inspectors 23 look at every day, whether its a testing activity or 24 maintenance activity or operating activity, all of 25 those are prescribed by procedures, and thats a big MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
21 1 part of their lives, watching the people at the plant 2 do their work, making sure that the procedures are 3 appropriate and adequate and that theyre following 4 the procedures and that theyre accomplishing the 5 work safely, so all of these activities are 6 accomplished as far as the writing of the procedures 7 and doing the work by FirstEnergy people and 8 inspectors who are on site every day observing those 9 activities.
10 MS. CABRAL: Thank you.
11 MR. RULAND: You also asked a 12 question about who writes these procedures, some 13 licensees choose to have their own employees. It 14 could be the FENOC employees write them and some 15 licensees also choose to have contractors do it and, 16 frankly, while its a licensees responsibility 17 overall to do it, basically it is their choice who 18 actually does the revisions.
19 MS. LIPA: Thank you. Does 20 anybody else have any questions or comments for us?
21 MS. LUEKE: Hi, Im Donna Lueke, 22 and I have one question and a statement.
23 The question was that when the reactor head 24 was first discovered to have a problem, one of the 25 things that FENOC told us was that they were going to MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
22 1 have a new improved system of portholes and cameras 2 installed, and I believe that wasnt originally, they 3 figured the timing frame would be about two years, it 4 wasnt necessarily going to be installed before 5 start-up.
6 Is that system installed now since we are 7 coming on to almost two years?
8 MS. LIPA: I know for one of the 9 things that I think youre referring to is the 10 service structure on top of the vessel head, they put 11 in access ports so that they can get in to take a 12 better look at the nozzles through the top, those 13 access ports are in.
14 The second thing you asked about was the 15 cameras?
16 MS. LUEKE: Uh huh.
17 MS. LIPA: I dont believe 18 theres any permanent cameras. I believe its the 19 portholes to allow the camera crawlers to go in and 20 look around. Is that what youre talking about --
21 MS. LUEKE: Yeah. Are you 22 satisfied at this point that that will give you much 23 better access to seeing any problems that may develop 24 like happened before that were not seen? In other 25 words, are you confident that what the changes are MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
23 1 that theyve made will allow you to see any problems 2 that were not able to be seen before?
3 MR. GROBE: Yeah, Donna, there is 4 no reason that the access ports shouldnt be 5 adequate, but those inspections are going on right 6 now as we speak. I believe the bottom head 7 inspections should be complete. They were going on 8 all day yesterday and today, and I believe the upper 9 head inspections began sometime early today and that 10 will be continuing, so our inspection and evaluation 11 of the adequacy of those inspections is ongoing, but 12 this same modification has been installed at every 13 Babcocks and Wils -- excuse me, Babcock and Wilcox 14 reactor in the United States, and Davis-Besse was the 15 last one to install these portholes, and they have 16 been effective at the other plants, so there is no 17 reason to believe that they wouldnt work here also.
18 MS. LUEKE: And so they are here?
19 MR. GROBE: We will provide the 20 results of our inspection when the inspection is 21 done.
22 MS. LUEKE: Okay.
23 MR. GROBE: But -- and those are, 24 like I said, those inspections are ongoing.
25 MS. LUEKE: They are ongoing right MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
24 1 now, so you dont know the answer?
2 Okay, and I have been asked to read a letter 3 from the Kelleys Island Citizens Group because no one 4 could be here tonight. They have written a letter 5 to Mr. Berg and Mr. Caldwell.
6 On behalf of the Kelleys Island residents who 7 have strong interests in surviving a nuclear accident 8 at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant but are unable 9 to attend evening meetings on the mainland due to the 10 logistics and expense of ferryboat travel, we wish 11 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FirstEnergy to 12 know that we strongly oppose the reactivation of 13 nuclear power generation at Davis-Besse.
14 Over 150 Kelleys Island residents have 15 already signed a petition opposing the reopening of 16 Davis-Besse.
17 Kelleys Island is directly northeast of 18 Davis-Besse by 16 miles. The prevailing southwest 19 winds would blow radioactivity on us within minutes.
20 No plan exists for evacuation of Kelleys Island 21 inhabitants and visitors, nor is there any practical 22 evacuation possible.
23 Because Lake Erie is the main tourist 24 attraction in Ohio and visited by millions every 25 year, the economic loss resulting from a nuclear MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
25 1 accident at Davis-Besse would be devastating to all 2 of Northern Ohio. The injuries and resulting 3 illnesses to all those contaminated in this 4 population center would also be catastrophic.
5 We invite the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 6 representatives to visit Kelleys Island to hear our 7 concerns. And we also implore you to keep 8 Davis-Besse closed from nuclear power generation.
9 And its respectfully submitted with the names, so I 10 give a copy here.
11 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much.
12 Just one comment in response to that letter. Where 13 did you say Kelleys Island is? Ive never been 14 there. Is it 16 or 60 miles?
15 MS. LUEKE: 16.
16 MR. GROBE: 16. Theres an 17 emergency planning zone that does extend -- by the 18 way, I have never heard of Ohio referred to as the 19 mainland before.
20 MS. LUEKE: Yeah.
21 MR. GROBE: -- that extends 22 roughly 10 miles in all directions, both over land 23 and water, and that emergency planning zone is 24 established based on the areas that may need to be 25 evacuated in the event of a release of radioactivity MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
26 1 from the nuclear power plant. Its entirely 2 possible that the utility has not engaged in an 3 evacuation planning of Kelleys Island, but Im 4 certain that the County and State have emergency 5 response plans for all areas of the County and the 6 State, but, as far as the Nuclear Regulatory 7 Commission is concerned, the limited boundaries is 10 8 miles from the plant, and thats based on the need to 9 protect the people in those areas in the aftermath of 10 a nuclear accident if it should occur at the nuclear 11 power plant. Thank you, Donna. Yes, sir.
12 MR. KING: My name is John King, 13 and I work at Davis-Besse as a contractor, and, you 14 know, were talking about the control room, the other 15 fellows working in there, and all these people in 16 there to help these guys, well, I know of no set 17 number of people being able to help these guys. You 18 get so many people in there that because of 19 distraction -- I was in there the other day doing a 20 test myself, and I was a little pressured with all 21 these people standing there. Theres a lot of people 22 in there just trying to help, but sometimes we go a 23 little too far with all these people in there, and 24 theyre not helping. Youre distracting, put a lot 25 of pressure on these guys. These guys are doing a MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
27 1 really good job, but with a lot of pressure, lot of 2 people, sometimes you get distracted, and I dont 3 know if that was the cause of the problem or what it 4 was, but I believe that really has to put extra 5 pressure on them, and sometimes we fail in getting 6 things right, and I think there should be some kind 7 of a rule, a number of how many people can be in that 8 room because it was packed. Thank you.
9 MS. LIPA: Did you say you were 10 an operator or --
11 MR. KING: No, Im a contractor.
12 We were doing a test, and I was in there reading 13 instrumentations.
14 MS. LIPA: Okay. Thank you.
15 MR. GROBE: Youre talking about 16 the control room?
17 MR. KING: In the control room 18 itself, right.
19 MR. THOMAS: I guess the only 20 comment I have with that is the operating crews that 21 are in the control room are granted licenses by the 22 NRC to operate the facility. Its incumbent upon 23 them if they feel that the personnel in the control 24 room are, in fact, a distraction. Its their 25 responsibility to remove those individuals that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
28 1 arent part of the operating crew, remove them from 2 the control room or ask them to leave, so I would say 3 that thats the responsibility of the senior 4 management on shift, operations management on shift, 5 so --
6 MR. GROBE: Just one thing to add, 7 weve had these folks, our Resident Inspectors, 8 working very hard, and they have observed every major 9 planned evolution that has occurred over the last 10 several weeks, spent a great deal of time at the 11 plant, and if our inspectors -- thats one of the 12 issues that they are keenly focused on, if our 13 inspectors feel that there were reasonable 14 distractions at the plant, that would be a procedural 15 violation. Theres a conduct of operations procedure 16 that talks to that specific issue, and they would 17 certainly bring that to the attention of the plant 18 management. Its good to have a lot of people 19 observing activities and learning from things, but 20 its certainly not good to have distractions in the 21 control room, and thats something we pay attention 22 to and the utility also pays attention to, so I 23 appreciate your comments, John.
24 MR. TSCHERNE: Thank you, my name is 25 Larry Tscherne. Im the business manager of IBEW MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
29 1 Local 245. We represent approximately 200 employees 2 at Davis-Besse on the physical side. You know, over 3 the duration of this whole time period here, I have 4 had an opportunity to talk to a number of our members 5 who are there day and night, and I guess I just 6 wanted to come here tonight to let you know that the 7 ownership, and I think thats a key word, the 8 ownership that the employees have in that plant is 9 second to none. You know, I understand there was a 10 problem here last week. Every year we have the 11 opportunity to attend a Nuclear Reactor Operators 12 conference within the IBEW. We take representatives 13 from Davis-Besse to that meeting, and Im here to 14 tell you representatives that we take are second to 15 none. Im not ashamed to walk into a room with any 16 of these guys. Theyre extremely professional.
17 Theyre well trained, and theyre ready to get going, 18 and I mean that for all sides of the craft. Thank 19 you.
20 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
21 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
22 MS. LIPA: Anybody else have any 23 comments or questions?
24 MR. DUNN: Brian Dunn. Im with 25 a citizens campaign, Ohio Citizen Action, and Im MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
30 1 really here to state that citizens across Northern 2 Ohio are really well informed of the problems at 3 Davis-Besse, and while the plants identified more 4 problems over the 20 months that its been off line, 5 citizens across Northern Ohio sent 30,000 letters to 6 FirstEnergy, both to Board members and to CEO Peter 7 Berg, and these are handwritten letters. They are 8 personal letters. They are from neighbors. They are 9 from customers. They are even from shareholders, and 10 FirstEnergy has not responded to one of these 11 letters.
12 Because we have burdened FirstEnergys 13 leadership of failed respond, we request that as part 14 of the public record the NRC note that these 30,000 15 letters have been sent, and we really wonder how many 16 letters it takes to get a response. Is there any 17 number thats recommended or, you know, a million 18 or --
19 MR. GROBE: Brian, youre asking 20 the wrong group of people here.
21 MR. DUNN: Sure, sure. Well, we 22 noted that the NRC noted in their newsletters that 23 there are going to be responses, so the real question 24 is, I mean, is this the activity of a company thats 25 concerned with public comment and response?
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
31 1 MR. GROBE: Again, I dont 2 regulate their public relations department. We 3 regulate the nuclear safety aspect of the plant.
4 Im gratified that the citizens, from your 5 perception, are well informed. Thats something we 6 have been working very hard at. Weve had some 65 7 public meetings in the last 19 or 20 months, and we 8 will continue to meet regularly with the public and 9 continue to have forms forums like this one to ensure as 10 best we can that the citizens are well informed. We 11 will be responding to the letters that we received.
12 As Im sure you can appreciate, thats a nontrivial 13 task. Were reading every letter, and were 14 responding to those letters that we receive, so we 15 appreciate the input that weve had from your 16 organization.
17 MR. DUNN: Sure, great. Thank 18 you. We have some more letters to deliver --
19 MR. GROBE: Okay.
20 MR. DUNN: -- as an example.
21 MS. LIPA: Are those for us or 22 for FirstEnergy?
23 MS. BUCHANAN: These are for 24 FirstEnergy. Weve brought them here tonight to 25 deliver to them.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
32 1 MS. LIPA: Is there anyone else 2 who has a comment or question for us?
3 MR. GREVE: Yes, I do.
4 MS. LIPA: Okay.
5 MR. GREVE: Hi. My name is Eric 6 Greve. Ive lived at various locations across 7 Northern Ohio -- Bowling Green, Toledo, Akron and 8 Cleveland, and along with Brian Dunn --
9 MR. GROBE: Could you raise the 10 microphone just a little bit?
11 MR. GREVE: Sure. Im a little 12 bit taller than Brian. Im -- along with Brian, here 13 with Ohio Citizen Action, and Im here to add to your 14 not so trivial task. In the last month, 612 more 15 citizens of Northern Ohio have written handwritten 16 letters which I have here with me. In addition, 910 17 folks have added their name to a sign-on letter over 18 the phone, both of those expressing their concern 19 over the mismanagement here at Davis-Besse and urging 20 the NRC to keep the plant off line, and then also 21 again this is one of those things that is outside of 22 your purview, but I just wanted to bring it to the 23 NRCs attention that we are also going to be 24 presenting some petitions to the County Commissioners 25 of Cuyahoga, Lorain, Lake and Erie Counties, some MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
33 1 petitions. I can just read one to you, which states 2 as residents of -- whichever county they live in --
3 we urge you to support a permanent shutdown of the 4 Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant to protect public 5 health and safety at Lake Erie. Again, just wanted 6 to bring that to your attention of the interest in 7 the citizens of Northern Ohio to keep the plant off 8 line. Thank you.
9 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
10 MR. GROBE: Just an observation, we 11 conduct these meetings in Ottawa County because its 12 the residents of Ottawa County that have a direct 13 relationship with the operation of the plant, both 14 positive and potentially negative, so I think Erie 15 County is in the far northeastern corner of the 16 State, isnt it?
17 MS. BUCHANAN: Its right next door.
18 UNIDENTIFIED: Right downwind.
19 MR. GROBE: Well, I appreciate the 20 inquiry. Did you say you had some letters for us?
21 MR. GREVE: Yeah, Ill give to --
22 to you?
23 THE REPORTER: (Indicating).
24 MR. GROBE: Thank you very much.
25 MS. LIPA: Does anybody else have MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
34 1 any comments or questions for us?
2 MS. WEIR: Hi. Im Shari Weir, 3 and I have a question. I remember last spring that 4 there was considerable discussion between the NRC and 5 FirstEnergy about how the reactor would be inspected 6 after the pressure test to determine if there were 7 any leaks, and its my recollection that FirstEnergy 8 was saying they would do it visually, and that the 9 NRC was making the point that a swipe test using a 10 special tissue would be better for identifying minute 11 traces of Lithium, and, now, you know, it looks as 12 though the NRC is doing the same sort of thing 13 that -- that it did back in 2001 when the NRC was 14 pushing for FirstEnergy to close Davis-Besse and do 15 the inspection, FirstEnergy was saying, oh, no, no, 16 no, we dont have any problems, and the NRC let 17 FirstEnergy keep the plant running six weeks as a 18 compromise, and, now, again, it looks as though the 19 NRC has yielded to FirstEnergys wishes to just do 20 the visual inspection, and then today FirstEnergy 21 tells us, well, we -- we have this -- these new 22 cameras, new technique not being used by any other 23 nuclear plant in the United States, but given that 24 they are a utility who cant operate the equipment 25 that they have had for the last 20 some years, it MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
35 1 doesnt give us any confidence that they can, in 2 fact, operate this and also makes us wonder if its 3 not happening anywhere else in the U.S., hows the 4 NRC in terms of making sure that it works?
5 MR. RULAND: It was -- you had a 6 number of questions imbedded in your long question, 7 and if I could try to -- try to elicit from you to 8 break this question up into pieces. I think one 9 part of your question was, what is the NRC doing 10 industry-wide for reactor -- for bottom head 11 inspections. Is that one of your questions?
12 MS. WEIR: No, not really 13 industry-wide, just with Davis-Besse.
14 MR. RULAND: If you recall, there 15 was considerable discussion going back as far as at 16 least November where the NRC had several meetings 17 with FirstEnergy, public meetings where they 18 submitted their findings, including their findings of 19 any testing they did on the effectiveness of their 20 NOP test.
21 In addition, the NRC staff continued to study 22 not only what Davis-Besse was -- the findings of 23 Davis-Besse, but the findings industry-wide, so, 24 taking that whole picture, we then asked Davis-Besse 25 to -- the FENOC management to send us a letter MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
36 1 describing the purpose of their normal operating 2 pressure test with respect to bottom head leakage.
3 In that response, they stated that while they were 4 doing the normal operating pressure test, that test 5 was confirmatory in nature, and they already 6 believed, based on the characterization of what they 7 found when they did the inspection of their bottom 8 head, that the NOP test was only confirmatory in 9 nature; meaning, it wasnt a requirement by the NRC 10 to do that test. Our experts in headquarters 11 examined the licensees rationale, and completely 12 understanding what the licensee could have done and 13 what the evidence was that they had, we felt we were 14 comfortable with the licensees conclusion. We saw 15 no basis to object to their conclusions that the test 16 was only confirmatory, that they, in fact, that the 17 indications underneath the reactor vessel head were 18 not indicative of pressure boundary leakage under 19 there, and thats what we concluded, but because 20 were continuing to look for problems in spite of the 21 fact we thought the test was only confirmatory, both 22 the licensee is doing their visual inspection that is 23 consistent with what the industry is doing, we -- and 24 theyre sending a crawler underneath, which is over 25 and above what our bulletins has asked licensees to MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
37 1 do, the NRC is continuing to inspect this area, so, 2 thats kind of a long-winded answer to -- let me 3 summarize, were at this stage were not objecting to 4 the position that FirstEnergy is taking with regard 5 to the -- their normal operating pressure test.
6 MR. GROBE: Let me add a little 7 more to that, if I could. First off, I hope that 8 you never expect us to not ask hard questions, and we 9 ask very hard questions on essentially every topic we 10 address with FirstEnergy. On a daily basis, this 11 resident inspection staff is asking hard questions 12 and you get an opportunity to see us a couple times a 13 month in a public forum asking questions. Questions 14 are not positions or decisions. Theyre just hard 15 questions that need answers, and the specific 16 question youre talking about concerned whether or 17 not a Lithium wipe test was necessary in the bottom 18 head. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 19 commonly referred to as ASMI, specifies what types of 20 testing in pressure vessels need to occur, and we 21 endorse those requirements, and after every outage 22 when a reactor vessel is opened up and then 23 reassembled, theres a requirement to do a pressure 24 test, and that pressure test normally occurs for a 25 period of roughly four to six hours, and the purpose MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
38 1 for the time in that test is to allow, if there is 2 any leakage, to allow that leakage an opportunity to 3 get through insulation and things of that nature and 4 actually show up in a place that an individual could 5 see it. FirstEnergy, because of the question that 6 they had regarding a potential leak on the bottom 7 head, as well as the new reactor head itself that 8 they purchased from the Indo plant, committed to do a 9 seven day pressure test, which is far beyond the 10 ASMI, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 11 codes, for pressure testing for the pressure vessels.
12 The questions that we asked concerned the 13 likelihood of leakage and the best way to detect it, 14 and after evaluating all of the evidence, including 15 the chemical evidence, the visual evidence, it 16 appeared to the experts in Washington that work at 17 the office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, as far as 18 metallurgist to chemist that deal with these kinds of 19 things day in and day out, that there was no reason 20 to believe the bottom head nozzles were leaking, but 21 the evidence was, in fact, that the material that was 22 observed on the sides and bottom of the reactor 23 vessel had come from up above, it was not coming from 24 penetrations, so as Bill articulated, while there was 25 no reason to argue with their conclusion, this is MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
39 1 simply a confirmatory test. Its a confirmatory 2 test that is far beyond the requirements.
3 In addition to that, FirstEnergy did research 4 that demonstrated that they could detect leakage down 5 to one ten-thousandth of a gallon per minute and 6 we -- they presented that to us in a public meeting.
7 We discussed that. We evaluated their test 8 methodology for how they showed what they could 9 detect in seven days, and thats far below any 10 threshold that other folks would be able to detect 11 from the ASMI required test, so this test was an 12 extremely conservative test far beyond our 13 requirements, and our folks in Washington concluded 14 that -- those that are experts in this area concluded 15 that the questions that we were asking were 16 adequately addressed through the test procedure that 17 FirstEnergy adopted.
18 I think I heard you ask another question and 19 that had to do with, I think, the FLUS Monitoring 20 System; is that correct?
21 MS. WEIR: Uh huh.
22 MR. GROBE: The question I believe 23 you asked was, since this is the only one of a kind, 24 where does anybody have the expertise to evaluate it?
25 Was that the question?
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
40 1 MS. WEIR: Yeah, basically the 2 only one in America is what I understood.
3 MR. GROBE: The FLUS Monitoring 4 System, FirstEnergy did take the initiative to be the 5 first plant in the United States to install this type 6 of monitoring system. It detects humidity inside 7 the insulation but outside the reactor vessel in the 8 region of the lower head of the reactor, and no other 9 utility in the United States is currently using this 10 technology. Its not required by us, and its not 11 likely going to be inspected by us because its not 12 part of the required safety systems, but it does 13 provide additional data, and they took the 14 opportunity of this normal operating pressure test to 15 calibrate that system, and they indicated that they 16 will be incorporating it into their normal monitoring 17 processes, but its not part of the NRC required 18 technical specifications for the plant, and its not 19 going to be required as of right now at any other 20 plant, so, again, this is beyond our requirements for 21 reactor coolant system leakage, and its interesting 22 information that FirstEnergy has available to them 23 that other nuclear plants do not have available to 24 them.
25 MR. RULAND: One more thing, if I MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
41 1 could add, the licensee, FENOC, completed 80% of 2 their inspections, I think, effective basically the 3 beginning of this meeting, and identified no leakage.
4 MS. WEIR: Thank you. Tough 5 questions are good. I think what we need at this 6 plant are more than tough questions. Thank you.
7 MS. LIPA: Any other questions or 8 comments for us? Yes.
9 MS. BUCHANAN: My name is Sandy 10 Buchanan. I wanted to ask a couple questions about 11 safety culture, but, first, even though I know you 12 probably think youre spending too much time in Ohio, 13 I guess we ought to invite NRC and your colleagues to 14 spend more time here, as I do vacation in this area 15 every summer and see what it would be like if there 16 were an evacuation attempted in this area with the 17 type of congestions; one lane roads, if something 18 were to happen in the event of an accident, and, by 19 the way, the Islands are not included in your 20 evacuation plan, and we were told by one of the 21 County officials that thats no problem because those 22 people there are so resourceful, theyll figure out 23 what to do. Now, at an October 2nd --
24 MR. GROBE: Is it true?
25 MS. BUCHANAN: Pardon me?
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
42 1 MR. GROBE: Is it true?
2 MS. BUCHANAN: I dont know, what are 3 you going to do in the event of a nuclear accident, 4 and youre on an Island?
5 MR. GROBE: No, I was asking 6 whether the Kelleys Island people are resourceful.
7 The fact of the matter is, that the emergency 8 planning zone is set at a distance that is 9 appropriate for a hazard.
10 MS. BUCHANAN: Well, I think thats 11 ridiculous. I think 16 -- if you could see the area, 12 I think you would agree.
13 On October 2nd The Akron Beacon Journal 14 reported that FirstEnergy says that in the fourth 15 quarter of 2004 it will hire an independent safety 16 culture expert to review the status of safety 17 culture, and I guess one of my questions is, if were 18 going to wait -- if theyre going to wait until the 19 fourth quarter of 2004 to have an independent 20 evaluation, and safety culture has been the crucial 21 issue here, how is the NRC going to be able to decide 22 whether to restart this plant without having seen 23 this independent evaluation?
24 MR. GROBE: Let me take a shot at 25 that.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
43 1 MR. RULAND: All right.
2 MR. GROBE: Let me first comment 3 that there have been times where its not appropriate 4 or convenient -- convenient is not the right word, 5 efficient to conduct public meetings here in the 6 Ottawa County area, and this meeting that youre 7 referring to was conducted in Chicago for that very 8 reason because we had a number of people from the 9 Chicago office that needed to participate, so it was 10 more cost effective for us to move FirstEnergy to 11 Chicago than it was to move Chicago to FirstEnergy.
12 When we do that, we offer the opportunity for the 13 public to participate. I believe for this meeting we 14 had a hundred toll free phone lines, which I hope you 15 took advantage of. At one point I think we had over 16 70 lines occupied, and so that means 70 folks from 17 across the United States took the opportunity to 18 listen into that meeting. Theres a number of 19 activities assessing safety culture that are ongoing 20 and will continue after restart. One of the 21 outcomes of that meeting last Thursday, I guess --
22 MS. LIPA: Wednesday.
23 MR. GROBE: -- Wednesday, was 24 there was additional information that is necessary 25 for FirstEnergy around the particular area that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
44 1 youre focusing on, but prior to restart, as youre 2 well aware, there was an independent safety culture 3 assessment as well as periodic internal safety 4 culture assessments. The NRC, as a matter of fact, 5 the fellow thats sitting right behind you, Jeff 6 Wright, is the team leader of the inspection team, 7 incidentally, with how FirstEnergy is conducting 8 those assessments and evaluating or adding, but after 9 restart, the licensee described their process for 10 continuing to evaluate safety culture of the plant 11 and it was a multi-pronged process.
12 First, theres going to be a monthly 13 assessment that is going to be primarily those 14 aspects of safety culture that are more easily 15 measured -- numerically measured, evaluating things 16 that are less, what Ill say soft, less -- the kind 17 of image that you would need an industrial 18 psychologist, for example, so those will be happening 19 monthly, and theyll be reported to management, and 20 well have access to that information, and then on an 21 annual basis, the Quality Assurance Department which 22 currently reports to the Corporate office of 23 FirstEnergy, will no longer associated with the 24 cellar association of Davis-Besse, will be doing an 25 independent assessment and will be describing to us MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
45 1 as utilizing the same techniques and approaches that 2 performance safety and health associates used, which 3 is Dr. Habers group, in February of this year, and 4 that would be conducted on an annual basis.
5 In addition to that, once every 24 months 6 FirstEnergy would utilize their comprehensive, on 7 site independent -- excuse me, assessment technique.
8 Its very similar to -- and it was described as being 9 very similar to what theyre using prior to restart 10 to evaluate the safety culture, and, as you 11 indicated, in the fourth quarter of 2004, they would 12 then again bring a completely independent group of 13 experts outside the organization to come back in and 14 benchmark where they are, so there will be a 15 continuous assessment with these monthly evaluations 16 and the annual evaluations and biannual evaluations, 17 which would then again be benchmarked in the fourth 18 quarter of 2004, so its a much more comprehensive 19 now assessment approach than what you first 20 described.
21 The difficulty we have is that the procedures 22 and guidance for doing these various activities are 23 not yet developed or shared with us, and FirstEnergy 24 agreed to share that information with us as soon as 25 its available, as soon as its ready, as soon as MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
46 1 they have completed these plans for these additional 2 assessments.
3 MS. BUCHANAN: When FirstEnergy 4 provided to this group in April a -- results of its 5 internal survey on safety culture, there were some 6 significant areas, double digits percentages where 7 employees said they either had personally been 8 harassed or intimidated for raising safety issues or 9 had known themselves personally of instances where 10 that happened.
11 Im wondering if in your follow-up with 12 FirstEnergy on this what has been done to investigate 13 those incidents?
14 What happened to the management who was 15 harassing, intimidating workers for raising safety 16 culture, and how are you going to track that? That 17 was a very serious finding.
18 MR. GROBE: Yeah, I think what 19 youre referring to is what we call safety conscious 20 work environment. Youll appreciate these terms --
21 MS. BUCHANAN: Yes, those are the 22 terms from their exact survey.
23 MR. GROBE: Right. No, what I 24 mean is the area of safety culture is very broad.
25 One aspect of safety culture is the environment that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
47 1 the utility establishes, which either can foster 2 individuals being willing and able to raise safety 3 issues or can disenfranchise people from the ability 4 to raise safety issues. We call it safety conscious 5 work environment where their work environment is 6 appropriate to safety focus, whether folks are not 7 only able to, but encouraged to raise any concerns or 8 issues that they have. The survey that youre 9 referring to was first conducted again in the early 10 fall of last year. It was conducted in the spring 11 of this year, and FirstEnergy committed it would 12 conduct it again in November prior to restart to 13 ensure that the activities that they have implemented 14 to continue to address and improve in that area and, 15 in fact, are causing improvement, so well be looking 16 forward to the results of that survey, and that will 17 certainly be shared publicly.
18 MS. BUCHANAN: Well, were looking 19 forward to seeing that because thats an area thats 20 absolutely critical, as you said, to determine 21 whether the facility is safe and whether the workers 22 feel its safe with the concerns.
23 MR. THOMAS: I just wanted to 24 comment on the first thing you said when you stood 25 up, that you invited us to spend more time in Ohio, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
48 1 and Id just like to point out that three of us have 2 taken you up on your kind invitation, and three of 3 the individuals up here live here permanently, so --
4 in a local area.
5 MR. GROBE: I grew up in Cleveland 6 and I have many relatives that still live here, Im 7 here on a regular basis.
8 MS. BUCHANAN: I was referring to 9 your questions about where these various counties 10 were.
11 MR. GROBE: Yeah, and it surprises 12 me that I didnt know where Erie County was.
13 MR. RULAND: And if I may add, for 14 the record, the NRC and the O350 panel, specifically, 15 has made no conclusions or rendered any judgment on 16 the safety culture at Davis-Besse.
17 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Bill.
18 MR. RULAND: We havent arrived at 19 any conclusion, positive or negative, and its still 20 a matter of discussions and deliberations.
21 MR. GROBE: And when Jeffs team 22 finishes their work and reports the results to the 23 panel, and when the panel asks those tough questions 24 of Jeffs team and until its satisfactory, well 25 certainly be presenting results of that inspection MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
49 1 publicly.
2 MS. LIPA: Okay. Anybody else 3 have any questions for us, comments?
4 MS. KRAMER: My name is Jessica 5 Kramer, and I was just wondering as you consider 6 whether allowing Davis-Besse to go back on-line, are 7 you using any information you already have about a 8 major nuclear accident that actually did take place 9 in 1979 at Three Mile Island?
10 MR. GROBE: Jessica, Im not sure 11 I understand your question. Let me take a try, and 12 then if I havent hit the mark, you go ahead and ask 13 a follow-up question.
14 Following the accident at Three Mile Island, 15 some of us were around then. There was a whole host 16 of activities that the NRC engaged in to address the 17 issues that were learned from that accident. It was 18 sometimes referred to as the TMI reaction plan, and 19 there were many new requirements that came out of 20 that, and certainly those issues learned from Three 21 Mile Island affected every nuclear power plant in the 22 United States, including Davis-Besse. Have I 23 answered your question?
24 MS. KRAMER: I just -- I have some 25 photographs of plant mutation which neighbors have MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
50 1 been reporting are -- have been occurring really 2 within a 10 mile radius, even beyond, for 25 years 3 since the accident.
4 I would just like to -- could you deliver 5 these to Mr. Caldwell for me?
6 MR. GROBE: Certainly.
7 MS. KRAMER: Thank you.
8 MR. ZYCHOWICZ: My name is Ray 9 Zychowicz. I work at Davis-Besse. I have been at 10 Davis-Besse since day one. I was part of the 11 original start-up crew, and I have come to a number 12 of these meetings and most of them have been 13 positive, this one has taken kind of a negative tone, 14 and I resent some of the comments that were made here 15 today. The comment that we didnt know how to 16 operate the equipment for the last 25 years, I need 17 to remind the citizens in this room that for the last 18 25 years we supplied Northwestern Ohio with 19 pollution-free electricity. We were amongst the top 20 world performers in the 90s, and even in light of 21 the latest thing with our head, we have never 22 jeopardized public safety, and we will never 23 jeopardize public safety.
24 Im also the chief steward in the plant, and, 25 over the years, I have had many discussions with MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
51 1 management and a lot of differences with management, 2 but never did we ever argue over an issue that 3 revolved around public safety.
4 Also I need to remind you that during the 5 blizzard back in the 70s when every other industry 6 in Northwest Ohio shut down, we kept our plant 7 running. We helicoptered people in to keep the 8 plant running and keep the place safe.
9 Also during the tornado in the 90s, we came 10 back, we went on day and night coverage to bring the 11 plant back to safe operation.
12 Also since this shutdown, we have been 13 working day and night to bring this plant back in to 14 operation to continue to supply Northwest Ohio with 15 pollution-free electricity. Thank you.
16 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
17 MR. GROBE: Whats important to 18 us -- this is certainly not a popularity contest, and 19 the popular opinion is not the one that is important 20 to us, its every opinion thats important to us.
21 Were here to receive comments from everybody, and 22 receive and respect those from everybody, and I 23 appreciate your comments, Ray. Yes, sir.
24 MR. PAPCUN: My name is John 25 Papcun. Im one of the Ottawa County Commissioners, MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
52 1 I live in this County, born and raised here, was the 2 County Engineer for 32 years, retired, became 3 Commissioner.
4 Just wanted to tell these people weve had 5 our participation and our drills rated A-1 for the 6 last 25 years. A lot of volunteers do this in our 7 County. I dont know if they do it in their 8 counties or not. I think its time to move on. I 9 believe the great majority of the people in Ottawa 10 County where the plant is located want the plant to 11 restart, we need the jobs, we need the power; 12 however, Im also -- have all the faith in the world 13 that the NRC will not let that happen until it can be 14 done in a safe, reliable manner. We have 103 15 nuclear power plants, I believe, and I would like to 16 ask the people that signed those petitions if they 17 would also sign an affidavit and be the first 18 volunteers if the plants in the United States that 19 produced a safe, reliable power and clean power would 20 sign the affidavit to be the first volunteers to do 21 away with their air conditioning systems, their 22 washing machines, their dishwashers, their TVs, 23 their microwaves and so forth because you cant store 24 electricity, at least my engineering background tells 25 me you cant store it. We dont have batteries big MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
53 1 enough to store the power of the United States, and 2 you think that last brownout was something, shut some 3 more plants down and you havent seen the beginning 4 of it, so Im just here to tell you that on behalf of 5 the County officials and the people in Ottawa County, 6 we need a safe, reliable restart of this plant. We 7 need the jobs. We need the power, and I do have one 8 favor, though. I believe that the next panel 9 meetings are slated for election night, and wondered 10 if its possible that they could be changed because 11 our volunteers that work the polls work from 6:30 12 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., and I think they should have the 13 same chance to attend the hearings as everyone else.
14 MR. GROBE: John, I really 15 appreciate you bringing that to our attention.
16 MR. PAPCUN: Thank you.
17 MR. GROBE: And well look into 18 that.
19 MR. PAPCUN: Thank you very much.
20 MR. GROBE: Just as part of our --
21 so everyone knows, as part of our effort to ensure 22 that we receive input from all perspectives and are 23 keeping everybody informed of whats going on, we 24 meet regularly with the County officials, Jere Witt, 25 the County Administrator, as well as the three County MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
54 1 Board members, and at least monthly, we meet with 2 those folks to get input from them as well as to 3 provide them the status of whats going on from our 4 perspective. We meet on a regular basis with the 5 State of Ohio, Federal elected officials; Senator 6 Voinovich and representatives from Dennis Kucinichs 7 office, so were trying as best we can to keep folks 8 informed, and collect feedback, so we appreciate all 9 the feedback.
10 Is there anybody else that has a question or 11 comment?
12 MR. PURK: Yeah, I have one. My 13 name is Ron Purk, and Im a Reactor Operator at 14 Davis-Besse, and, like some of our visitors here 15 tonight, I live in Ottawa County. I live just 16 outside Oak Harbor. I have a wife and kids that 17 live there, and I wouldnt have them living in a 18 place I didnt believe was safe.
19 You know, weve been working our tails off 20 for the last year and a half trying to get the plant 21 back on-line, and were tired, we want to get this 22 behind us and move forward. Thats all.
23 MS. LIPA: Thanks, Ron.
24 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Ron.
25 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
55 1 MR. GROBE: As Ive said on prior 2 occasions, I have a great deal of respect for anybody 3 who comes here and is willing to stand up in front of 4 all these people and share their opinion, and I think 5 youre all here to talk to us, to provide comments to 6 us, to ask us questions, and Id appreciate if we 7 keep the comments and questions in that context.
8 Yes, sir.
9 MR. KORAS: My name is Joseph 10 Koras. Im a resident of Vermilion, I used to live 11 at Cedar Point Roadway. Im a boater on Lake Erie, 12 probably spend more time in front of Port Clinton and 13 Put-in-Bay and Kelleys than half the population of 14 this state who even live locally.
15 I sat through this afternoons session, and I 16 sat through a session, I think it was in March. In 17 my background, I ran manufacturing plants of some 18 significant size, and it seems to me every time there 19 was a serious problem in any of the plants everybody 20 would jump on everything in sight and try to fix 21 things that were considered to be okay for a long 22 period of time. Im sensing the same thing here and 23 the way that if -- if the football size hole was not 24 discovered and the original reason why the plant was 25 told to shut down was allowed to, lets say it didnt MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
56 1 have whatever it was it was supposed to have when it 2 shut down and it was allowed to get back on-line, 3 then all of these other issues, in my opinion, of the 4 pumps and this -- quality systems and the breakers 5 that are tripping and all of those issues that have 6 come up as a direct result of not being allowed to 7 come up on-line because of this football size hole 8 may or may not have been discovered. Certainly, 9 there wouldnt have been a shutdown event, and they 10 certainly wouldnt have gotten the attention that 11 theyre getting right now.
12 Now, on a statistical basis and having there 13 be 103 reactors in the United States, some of 14 which -- some of whom are approaching the end of 15 their design life, I would have to say that theres a 16 very high probability and I would have a very high 17 confidence level, I did the statistics on it, to say 18 that these similar problems that everybody is so 19 concerned about right now exist in these other 20 plants, and the only reason they have not been 21 discovered is because there wasnt a catastrophic 22 event to focus attention on it.
23 In your deliberations at the NRC, I would 24 hope that that reality is dawning on somebody, and 25 that a bigger net goes out for the other remaining MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
57 1 102 plants that, again, are within what, 15 years of 2 their design life so that we dont experience this 3 kind of an event.
4 I was a host family for children of 5 Chernobyl, my wife and I, and its not a pretty sight 6 to see these kids come over with boils on their body.
7 They are here for six weeks, and we do the best we 8 can to medicate them, and we send them back home to 9 live off of radiated ground. To me, this isnt a 10 defective tire that you put out and one guy has an 11 accident and everybody gets excited. This is not a 12 reversible event. If you contaminate the 13 environment, the soil, its certainly beyond our 14 lifetimes that will be contaminated and probably -- I 15 dont know what the half life is, I used to know, but 16 I dont anymore, but its going to be a long time 17 before things get remedied, and, so, in your 18 deliberations, remember we got one shot to make this 19 right or to prevent the one shot from making this 20 very wrong.
21 MR. GROBE: Youve made some 22 excellent points, and I think I would like to try to 23 eliminate a couple areas, and if others want to add 24 on again, that would be great, but let me just --
25 youve very correctly identified that nuclear power MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
58 1 is a high hazard business and as are many other 2 industries, particularly chemical industries and 3 things of that nature. When you have a high hazard 4 business, we want to make sure that you have 5 appropriate margins to safety, and that is the 6 watchword of how our regulatory framework is set up.
7 For anything that deals with safety theres two of 8 them, and usually theyre different, so if you need 9 the ability to put some water from this tank into 10 that tank to make sure the plant is safe, there is 11 usually two different kinds of pumps that are 12 available to do that, they have independent power 13 supplies. Oftentimes, the valves in one system could 14 be supplied by AC power to valves and the other 15 section system will be DC power, its that redundancy 16 and diversity in the design of all the safety aspects 17 of the plant that we bank upon to make sure that this 18 plant is always safe and there is a whole series of 19 regulations to make sure that that equipment is 20 always available.
21 One of the things you addressed has to do 22 with what we call the maintenance rule. We approach 23 equipment reliability from the standpoint of making 24 sure its reliable, and if it ever becomes unreliable 25 the action is taken to restore its reliability.
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59 1 This equipment is tested all the time, and 2 occasionally its run, whatever type of safety 3 equipment might be, and any piece of equipment that 4 can have an impact on the safety of the plant, even 5 if its not a safety system, is required to be 6 subjective to our maintenance rule. And that 7 maintenance rule specifies that if there is what we 8 call functional failures, thats equipment 9 performance which would have resulted in equipment 10 not being able to do what its supposed to do, then 11 those require significance response, and thats 12 something that these folks are inspecting all the 13 time.
14 You commented that some of the issues that 15 were identified during the past 20 months may or may 16 not have been identified in the future. My 17 experience has been that whenever an organization 18 gets to the point where they cause the kind of 19 problem that occurred at Davis-Besse, that what you 20 find once you start peeling away the layers of the 21 onion is that there are many other problems that were 22 caused by the same symptoms, the same organizational 23 dysfunction that resulted in the hole in the head, 24 and thats what FirstEnergy has been about for the 25 last 20 months, is finding all those other issues MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
60 1 that were caused by the same problems and fixing 2 them, and, in fact, they were there, in fact, some 3 were low risk significant.
4 As Christine mentioned earlier tonight, we 5 issued a final significance determination on a 6 finding regarding unqualified codings inside one of 7 the buildings of the plant that could have caused 8 safety systems not to operate properly, and that was 9 at our second highest significance level, so there 10 were a number of issues to be identified at 11 Davis-Besse, and thats why the shutdown has taken 12 the time it needed to take.
13 One of the purposes of the 0350 panel is to 14 ensure that there is no -- for lack of a better 15 phrase, piling on. We have a Restart Checklist that 16 clearly identifies those issues that need to be 17 addressed before restart. Those issues were 18 directly tied to what caused the fairly 19 significant -- risk significant reduction and margins 20 to safety at Davis-Besse. There was no event at 21 Davis-Besse, there was no accident, but there was a 22 significant reduction in the margin to safety.
23 You talked about other nuclear plants. All 24 nuclear plants in the United States are subject to 25 the maintenance rules and are inspected to make sure MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
61 1 the equipment is maintained properly, and the 2 routine -- other maintenance is done, other 3 recommended maintenance is accomplished such that the 4 equipment performs at the appropriate reliability 5 level, so thats already incorporated into our 6 regulatory framework. Most of the issues that were 7 identified at Davis-Besse had little to do with 8 reliability of the equipment. It had to do with the 9 -- what I would refer to as the latent issues that 10 you cant observe on a day-to-day basis. They were 11 primarily design issues. They either have been 12 introduced at the time of original construction or 13 more likely introduced over the years because of 14 insufficient attention and errors made in design 15 activities, so I think Ive covered the majority of 16 your comments. Are there other topics or comments?
17 MR. RULAND: I have just a few 18 additional comments. Id just like to reiterate 19 which I think has already been mentioned here this 20 evening, that Davis-Besse found this problem because 21 they were responding to an action that the NRC had 22 requested for the licensees to go ahead and inspect 23 the reactor vessel heads, albeit, we caught it.
24 They found it far too late for our comfort, and that 25 particular action was being performed by other MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
62 1 licensees of similar design.
2 In addition, as we continue to explore and 3 probe this issue, the NRC issued additional 4 bulletin -- an additional bulletin, and, finally, 5 from those actions, because we were uncomfortable 6 with just making it a bulletin, we confirmed those 7 actions by order making these a requirement, and now 8 the NRC is proceeding with rule making to ensure that 9 these requirements finally are codified in Federal 10 regulations.
11 In addition, you alluded to this notion that 12 the plant was within 15 years of its design life.
13 As you might be aware, some plants, not Davis-Besse, 14 as I understand it, are asking for license renewal, 15 and as part of that license renewal process, the NRC 16 makes sure that any age related degradation, which I 17 might add, a particular issue were facing with the 18 head corrosion was not directly related to age 19 related degradation, but that age related degradation 20 is addressed in either licensees current programs, 21 or if its not addressed that they establish new 22 programs to monitor and correct age related 23 degradation, so the message Im trying to send here 24 is that the NRC in thinking about, as the plants age 25 are -- we hope were anticipating that, and we MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
63 1 continue to monitor licensee performance through 2 ongoing inspections, and those inspections will 3 continue through licensee -- through a reactors 4 current license life, and if those plants continue to 5 operate into a license renewal period, well continue 6 to do that.
7 And, finally, Id like to add about what 8 Davis-Besse has discovered as a result of their 9 extensive condition effort where they found a number 10 of different problems, I believe that the 0350 panel 11 was instrumental in making sure that the scope of 12 activities was not directly related to just the 13 corrosion on top of the head. Because the problems 14 that caused the corrosion ultimately was a safety 15 culture issue, we believe that safety culture could 16 result in problems elsewhere, so we pursued that 17 issue, and I think where we stand today, frankly, is, 18 I believe is testament to our aggressive oversight 19 and we will continue to be aggressive, as I think 20 someone heard us poke and probe the licensee tonight 21 about some of the statements that were making.
22 Well continue to be aggressive in making sure that 23 this plant meets our requirements and is going to be 24 safe to operate. Otherwise, theyre not getting my 25 vote, so I think -- hopefully, Ive listed a number MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
64 1 of things that I think are germane to the kinds of 2 issues that youve raised, and were going to keep 3 after them.
4 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Bill. Other 5 questions or comments? Yes, sir.
6 MR. COLLINS: I bet you never 7 expected this.
8 MR. GROBE: No.
9 MR. COLLINS: Sam Collins, from the 10 NRC, I probably ought to turn around, but Ill make 11 my comments generally. There are three topics, and 12 I wont comment on Davis-Besse, but there were three 13 topics of interest which I would like to comment on.
14 One of those is emergency preparedness, because I 15 think John talked, and Sandy and the one lady talked 16 about emergency preparedness, and I think its 17 important that that concept be appreciated.
18 Evacuation is always a hard button with emergency 19 preparedness, and what I would like to explain is 20 that theres two roles of emergency preparedness.
21 There is an on site role, which the NRC has 22 responsibility for the licensees actions including 23 response to the event technically as well as any 24 leads on items as far as assessing the significance 25 of a release and preplanning for should any offsite MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
65 1 actions be necessary.
2 The offsite actions are done in coordination 3 with the State and local communities, and Id like to 4 commend John and the volunteers in the local area for 5 their efforts in emergency preparedness because it 6 cant be done without the State and local officials, 7 many of those volunteers, and that offsite response 8 is a spectrum of actions. Evacuation is probably 9 the one that is least likely to be used. Its 10 important to note that the whole spectrum of 11 activities includes no action at all other than 12 acknowledging that there is an event going on at the 13 site which is the most common perhaps and the alert 14 notification as far as the classification of events 15 as well as any type of pre-emptive action which may 16 be sheltering in a limited sector of the 10 miles EPZ 17 if there is an evacuation -- if there is a plume of 18 radioactive -- in the unlikely event that is an 19 event, thats significant all the way to the 50 mile 20 zone, which includes protection of food and posting 21 of feed and nondairy product consumption and those 22 types of things, so although evacuation is focused on 23 and it may be one of the more difficult ones to plan, 24 it is part of the least likely to be used, but it is 25 used, and its typically used in nonreactor types of MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
66 1 events. Given the spectrum of 103 operating units of 2 104 that are licensed it is not uncommon for these 3 evacuation plans to be used for not only natural 4 disasters, but other significant industrial events 5 such as chemical plants. The Waterford plant down in 6 Louisiana typically uses the evacuation plan for 7 perpetual industry and ammonia industry thats up and 8 down the Mississippi River. Hurricanes on the coast 9 are another example.
10 Three Mile Island was mentioned, significant 11 event, and I commend you as others for coming up and 12 talking about that. There are lessons learned from 13 Three Mile Island, just like there are lessons 14 learned from Davis-Besse. The lessons learned from 15 Three Mile Island were actually implemented as orders 16 to reactor plans to essentially change the design of 17 the plants and these two plants are similar; change 18 the design of the plants, and those were incorporated 19 into the design of the plant, they are imposed by 20 orders, and the tech specs were with us, so to that, 21 and, yes, Three Mile Island is being taken into 22 consideration.
23 Chernobyl was mentioned, and I think thats 24 an important issue. I think Joseph mentioned 25 Chernobyl. Its important to note that Chernobyl MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
67 1 design did not have any containment, and its a very, 2 very different design than the UN reactors, including 3 the use of graphite, which burns very well, and I 4 commend you for hosting, your involvement with the 5 children. I also had the opportunity to be involved 6 in that, and whats significant to note about 7 emergency preparedness is the affect on the 8 generations there is predominately because the food 9 and the agricultural products were not prevented from 10 being consumed for a significant amount of time by 11 the people who live in the area of that plant that 12 had the disaster and no containment. We have 13 containment. We have an emergency plan, and it goes 14 50 miles out, and in the unlikely event there were 15 radioaction to be released, all the food, 16 particularly milk and dairy products, and feed for 17 the cattle, part of the emergency preparedness plan 18 encompasses that, so Im not diminishing their 19 concerns and my intent is not to downplay anyones 20 vested interest in those issues, but I do want to 21 make sure the information is out there for you, and 22 Ill be glad to talk about any of those after the 23 meeting, so if youre interested.
24 Thank you very much for the comments and for 25 the opportunity to address those, thanks.
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68 1 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Sam. Any 2 other questions or comments? Anybody else who wants 3 to help us out, come on up to the microphone.
4 MR. LEWIS: Art Lewis, Shift 5 Manager at Davis-Besse. I didnt want to be a 6 target coming up here. Mistakes have been made at 7 Davis-Besse. I cant pretend as an operator that I 8 can explain them, because I cant, but I can 9 guarantee everybody in this room being licensed 22 10 years, health and safety of the public has been at 11 the forefront of my operating facility.
12 I asked the shift that I supervise to come 13 here and represent Operations. If you consider 14 their professionalism, theres three of them here 15 that also could have become targets. I appreciate 16 them.
17 Since I stated that the health and safety of 18 public has been No. 1, I can guarantee you, you have 19 my promise that will always be there, and thats all 20 I can say.
21 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Art.
22 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
23 MS. LIPA: Anybody else have any 24 comments or questions?
25 MR. JOHNSON: First of all, this is MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
69 1 completely out of character for me, I usually dont 2 say anything to anybody. My name is Tim Johnson.
3 I have been an Operator for four years. I grew up 4 in this community. I used to climb the tree in my 5 Mom and Dads woods and look at the cooling tower, 6 never dreaming that I would ever work there. I did 7 my time in the service, I come back to this 8 community. I have four beautiful children that in 9 no way would I ever put in harm. I work with a 10 bunch of guys that for the last 19 months have gone 11 to bed -- I know I have. We havent been in the news 12 until there was a mistake, and we have apologized for 13 that, but its like almost every night were being 14 torn apart, feeling like were being slapped in the 15 face before we go to bed. You get up in the 16 morning, you come back to work. We have put our 17 heart and soul into getting this place back up and 18 running and put it back on top. I dont know what 19 else to tell you.
20 Art Lewis is my Shift Manager. I have never 21 once hesitated to take a concern to him, and as far 22 as the other shift managers, I feel the same. If 23 there is a problem, I stop, I go back, and I talk to 24 them about it because it is very important. I 25 understand that there is people here that are MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
70 1 concerned, and they have that right, but all I can 2 tell you is the guys that I work with put their heart 3 and soul into doing this right, and we just want to 4 do what is best. Thank you.
5 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
6 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Tim.
7 MS. BUCHANAN: Can I ask a second 8 question, is that allowed?
9 MR. GROBE: Sure.
10 MS. LIPA: Youll be next after 11 this gentleman.
12 MR. JOHNSON: My name is Mike 13 Johnson. I am an Equipment Operator at Davis-Besse.
14 It is my job to safely operate the support equipment 15 for the reactor. I am the eyes and ears of the 16 Reactor Operators out in the plant. I use the 17 procedures every day. When I find a problem, I take 18 it to my shift manager. My family lives here, my 19 parents live here, my wifes parents live here. If 20 there was an event where I was directed by my shift 21 management to put my safety at jeopardy, I would do 22 so for the publics safety, and thats my job.
23 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Mike.
24 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
25 MS. LIPA: Okay, go ahead, come MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
71 1 on up.
2 MS. BUCHANAN: This, I guess, is a 3 question having more to do with the context of how 4 NRC makes decisions, and I have not been involved in 5 one of these before, so I truly dont know how some 6 of this works, but back in 2001 when FirstEnergy 7 asked to allow the plant to be open longer rather 8 than shutting down and the staff over -- Mr. Collins 9 and others overruled the shutdown order and allowed 10 the plant to stay open until February, theres been a 11 great deal of documentation of FirstEnergy saying 12 that their financial needs meant that they needed to 13 keep the plant open longer. If anything, 14 FirstEnergy is in a much tougher financial position 15 now than it was at that time. They spent half a 16 billion on Davis-Besse. Theyve had to restate their 17 earnings, their -- you know, bond ratings have been 18 lowered, and I would like to know in the decision 19 making how you consider the Companys financial 20 position, whether you determined whether they would 21 have resources to invest more if they were allowed to 22 restart and more problems were found, how does that 23 all play in with the NRC decision making as it has 24 apparently in the past?
25 MR. GROBE: Well, let me address MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
72 1 half of your question. The financial aspects of the 2 Company comes in to play in two ways. One has to do 3 with what we call decommissioning financial 4 assurance. The Company has to be able to 5 continuously demonstrate theres capability to 6 decommission the facility if they want it shut down 7 permanently.
8 The second way it comes in to play is more 9 from a performance perspective. We regulate nuclear 10 power in the United States from what we call a 11 performance based framework, and what that means is 12 that while we dont regulate any financial 13 wherewithal with the Company, we regulate every 14 aspect of the safety performance of the Company, and 15 if there wasnt sufficient financial support for 16 routine maintenance activities and testing activities 17 and appropriate modifications that may be necessary 18 over the years, then that would show up in the 19 performance of the equipment, so our focus is 20 licensing plants with appropriate safety margins and 21 the redundancy of the duality of all safety 22 functions, as I described earlier tonight, and then 23 making sure that those safety margins are maintained 24 throughout the life of the plant through our routine 25 inspection process, and, again, the issue that MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
73 1 happened at Davis-Besse had to do with safety 2 margins, diminishment of safety margins. I think 3 Ive answered the financial aspect of the question.
4 The decision and, I dont know if others may 5 want to comment on this, I wasnt involved in the 6 decision on when Davis-Besse would or wouldnt shut 7 down; however, that decision was clearly documented 8 as having sound technical basis. The technical 9 basis that was the foundation for that decision was 10 borne out when the inspections occurred, and that 11 primarily focused on the nature and the length of 12 cracks that could exist in the penetrations and 13 whether those represented an immediate safety concern 14 such that the plant needed to shut down in six weeks 15 or six weeks later or six weeks later. In fact, the 16 technical analyses that were done, again, were borne 17 out by the physical inspections of the penetrations 18 that occurred. The corrosion of the reactor head 19 that occurred at Davis-Besse was not anticipated and 20 not factored into that decision. It was not known by 21 anyone that that corrosion existed. As a matter of 22 fact, FirstEnergy assured us, the NRC, that the head 23 had been adequately inspected and there was no 24 corrosion, there was no boric acid buildup on the 25 head. The -- so the -- what really kicked off this MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
74 1 issue was the unexpected identification of that 2 corrosion. That was not part of the decision that 3 was made as to when Davis-Besse would shut down, so I 4 think I have tried to answer your questions.
5 Are there any other comments, questions?
6 MR. RULAND: Let me just add one 7 thing about the 0350 panels decision about restart.
8 We have not discussed, nor are we interested in 9 FENOCs financial position at Davis-Besse. It has 10 not been a subject of the panels discussion and 11 wont be, so it is really not a factor in how we 12 decide or whether we decide, whether we recommend to 13 our management whether the plant should restart.
14 Its just not considered.
15 MR. GROBE: Yeah, thanks, Bill.
16 MR. COLLINS: (Indicating).
17 MR. GROBE: Sam?
18 MR. COLLINS: I hate to go through 19 this again, but theres an interesting part about 20 overriding the order, and that is I would have signed 21 the order, so the issue is, I didnt override the 22 order that I would have signed to issue it, and 23 that -- it just didnt happen that way.
24 MS. BUCHANAN: I apologize if I 25 misspoke. The issue is, the plant was not shut down MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
75 1 and the Inspector Generals report went into reasons 2 why that happened.
3 MR. COLLINS: It did, but your 4 statement is inaccurate, so I just wanted to correct 5 that for the record. Thank you.
6 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Sam. Yes, 7 maam.
8 MS. CABRAL: I just wanted to tell 9 everyone here that we have great respect for all the 10 work the NRC is doing and all the hard work that 11 FirstEnergy people are doing, and after the tornado 12 we were all there to cheer when FirstEnergy showed up 13 to put Port Clinton back together and have power 14 again, but all this hard work can be undermined by 15 the negligence of a few. What comes back to haunt me 16 is the slide that you showed here of the piles of 17 boric acid residue. There was a picture there of 18 all that residue. Somebody had that picture, and it 19 didnt -- they didnt like run down the hall and say, 20 weve got to stop what were doing and find out what 21 this is. I dont know how anybody could look at a 22 picture like that and not have a traumatic reaction, 23 so all these people are concerned about their 24 families. Were concerned about our families. We 25 dont have a second chance if something goes MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
76 1 belly-up, so I dont know, you know, I mean, safety 2 culture is a big thing. I would rather the biggest 3 problem be a mechanical one. You can do tests on 4 mechanical things, but you cant necessarily -- I 5 mean, you can try as hard as you can on psychological 6 things and on safety culture, but who do you get to 7 be in that plant -- and I know you rotate people out, 8 but how do you keep that picture in your mind of the 9 disaster that can happen, you know, whether its --
10 it just -- thats our concern, and its not that we 11 slight anybodys efforts or anybodys desire to keep 12 their families fed, but its -- theres such a 13 dramatic problem if something does go wrong, so how 14 are -- you know, how do you keep everybody, you know, 15 focused on that because day after day everything is 16 fine, year after year, everything is fine.
17 MR. GROBE: Yeah, its -- I think 18 youre asking the question of the NRC staff, or are 19 you asking it of the utility staff or both?
20 MS. CABRAL: Really, both, but, I 21 mean, its kind of your dog, you know, to bite the 22 tail there and keep it hopping.
23 MR. GROBE: I was just thinking of 24 some funny canine jokes, and I probably shouldnt do 25 that.
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77 1 Youre right, one of the things that we do to 2 ensure that Resident Inspectors, for example, 3 maintain what we call objectivity is theres several 4 things that we do. First off, theyre visited 5 regularly by their boss, and at least every three 6 months every Senator in the United States -- theyre 7 evaluated on an annual basis, theyre rotated plant 8 to plant, no longer than seven years in Region III, 9 its usually shorter than that because people move 10 around. We have -- each of the residents has 11 another site that they have to go and inspect a 12 couple weeks a year, and that serves two purposes.
13 That gives them a different perspective as well as 14 gives them a different perspective on what the 15 resident staff at other sites has to do.
16 In addition, we have in Region III about 65 17 inspectors in the regional office, and their job is 18 to travel to all the sites they have. They have 19 technical sites and capabilities that are not 20 necessarily characteristic of a resident 21 responsibility, but they might be emergency planning 22 experts or security experts, or metallurgists or 23 engineers that go around and look at those specific 24 issues at every plant, and that provides balance and 25 perspective.
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78 1 In addition, we regularly bring the -- all 2 the senior residents and residents into the regional 3 office. That meeting occurs twice a year for a week 4 to address exactly what youre saying, to learn 5 lessons, to green baseline perspectives, to train and 6 interact with others to learn from each other as well 7 as learn from industry experiences.
8 One of the aspects we talked about earlier 9 was the Lessons Learned Task Force, and the Lessons 10 Learned Task Force had a lot of comments for us in 11 this area. It addressed a broad number of topics as 12 well as how we relate to our International 13 counterparts, how we do research, how we do 14 activities. We call them generic activities that 15 address issues that could affect more than one plant, 16 but it also addressed a number of topics. Most of 17 that stuff happens at headquarters, and thats done 18 in the Washington area.
19 It also addressed a number of issues 20 regarding inspection, and so a whole series of 21 initiatives and improvement activities that we 22 undertake to enhance that inspection, so from the NRC 23 perspective theres a number of things we try to do 24 to ensure that we have the right stuff.
25 The utility has a similarly equal challenge.
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79 1 As we maintain a robust safety focus -- and weve had 2 many dialogues here about the types of things that 3 they have undertaken. Its our job to do exactly 4 what you said, and hopefully youll have an 5 opportunity to watch us do it in a very public forum, 6 and you will gain some confidence in our ability and 7 our commitment in doing it right.
8 MS. CABRAL: Thank you.
9 MR. RULAND: If I could -- if I 10 could just add a few thoughts to this. When I first 11 saw those pictures, I think I had the same visual 12 reaction as you did, and as I think many -- I would 13 argue virtually every NRC staff person that seen 14 those pictures had that same visual reaction, how 15 could this happen. I think we all took that very 16 personally. I still take that very personally, and 17 its almost, you know, almost -- what could I have 18 done, and I think that visual reaction, we sometimes 19 call these in the NRC significant emotional events.
20 We dont have an acronym, by the way, for that, and 21 it affects you, though, in kind of a nonscientific 22 way, I think, and my belief is that thats going to 23 help us. That, you know, were -- we, the NRC, is 24 not going to let this happen again. Thats the way 25 I feel about it. I think thats the way my MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
80 1 colleagues feel about it, and my hope is that thats 2 the way FENOC feels about it, and I think thats to 3 me, while we pick apart what their plans are, I take 4 that as a touch stone and a matter of pride, we 5 shouldnt let this happen again, because, in a way, 6 we not only let you down, you know, the people that 7 live here in a way we let down. Its just a very 8 personal thing, so I dont know if that helps.
9 MS. CABRAL: Im really glad to 10 hear that because my feeling is Id almost like --
11 want you to have that in a training film, like the 12 drivers ed training films, so somewhere in the back 13 of your mind is that, you know, these things are 14 real.
15 MR. RULAND: Oh, it has stuck with 16 us.
17 MS. CABRAL: Im glad it has.
18 MR. GROBE: I dont think its 19 quite like drivers ed, but the Lessons Learned Task 20 Force has gone to one of the semiannual gatherings, 21 where all the various regional base inspectors come 22 together in each of the regional offices, and present 23 the results of what happened at Davis-Besse and what 24 they identified and what actions can be taken to 25 improve, so thats been part of our improvement MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
81 1 issues.
2 I fully recognize, and I empathize with your 3 concerns, you pay us to do our job, and it is our 4 responsibility, and Im sure FirstEnergy does their 5 job, and if I were you I would want to have 6 confidence that the NRC is doing their job well, and, 7 as I stated, I hope you have the opportunity to 8 engage in these meetings, and I hope you develop some 9 trust and confidence in us.
10 MR. THOMAS: Yes, I just wanted to 11 make one more comment on behalf of the resident 12 staff. If you have further interests on what we do 13 on a day-to-day basis, we put out a report about 14 every six to seven weeks, 30, 40 page report, 15 publicly available on the web site. Please, look 16 forward to those reports if you have an interest in 17 what we do on a day-to-day basis.
18 MR. GROBE: And if you dont have 19 access to a computer, you can certainly -- in the 20 monthly newsletter, on the back is Vikas home 21 phone -- no, no, her office phone, and shed be glad 22 to get you anything you need.
23 MS. CABRAL: Thank you.
24 THEREUPON, the Reporter asked for a brief 25 pause.
MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
82 1 MR. GROBE: Okay, youre going to 2 need a couple pads of paper for this.
3 (Laughter).
4 MR. MYERS: You made me stand up 5 here and forget what I was going to say.
6 MR. GROBE: (Indicating).
7 MR. MYERS: I thought Id take a 8 moment to answer some of the questions that were 9 really asked of FirstEnergy, so --
10 MR. GROBE: Why dont you 11 introduce yourself?
12 MR. MYERS: My name is Lew. Im 13 Lew Myers. Im the Chief Operating Officer at 14 FirstEnergy.
15 There was a comment made awhile ago about 16 FirstEnergy and the -- and the financial wherewithal 17 and their ability to run these plants. You know, we 18 run two other plants. We run the Beaver Valley 19 plant, and when we bought that plant, I was Vice 20 President over there. The performance wasnt as 21 good. Today were, you know, were a fairly good 22 performing plant. Doing good at it. A lot of 23 people from the Beaver Valley plant are working over 24 here. We run our Perry plant. I was the Vice 25 President there before I went to Beaver Valley. I MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
83 1 have been in nuclear power now since I was 17 years 2 old. I started at $4.16 cents an hour, and I 3 remember it well. If I didnt believe in what I was 4 doing, I wouldnt be here.
5 FirstEnergy, from a Company standpoint, 6 started with Pete Berg. When we -- when we got into 7 this issue, he asked me to come over here to deal 8 with the return to service of the plant, so I took 9 that on, bought a condo here on the Island, moved my 10 wife over here out of our home, and we have been 11 living out of suitcases now for a couple of years, 12 and, in that entire time, I have never asked for 13 anything from FirstEnergy that they havent given me.
14 You know, I wanted to install the FLUS system 15 in our plant, a lot of people questioned if that was 16 crazy or not, and we spent millions of dollars doing 17 that, and Im really excited about it. I dont know 18 how reliable the technology is, but weve got it 19 started, so a lot is installing humidity detectors 20 over the invested, but you could do it for $25.
21 Well, normally, humidity detectors dont like 500 22 degrees, you know? $25 detectors dont take 500 23 degrees, and thats about what the temperature is 24 that were looking at there, so -- so we had to find 25 the products that were reliable, so I went to every MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
84 1 vendor that I could and finally found this technology 2 in France that would install through Framatome, so in 3 the last 20 months, you know, we put the building 4 blocks together to address all of the issues, and we 5 started out with a budget, and things to get the 6 plant on-line when I got here by repairing of the 7 head and we spent like 45 million dollars buying a 8 new head and cutting a hole in our containment, and 9 we put the FLUS monitoring system in, we put the 10 cavity seals in, you know, and I dont want to tell 11 you how much money we spent, we spent a lot.
12 UNIDENTIFIED: 500 million.
13 MR. MYERS: Thats including 14 lost power, and I have not asked for anything that 15 FirstEnergy hasnt supplied me, and our CEO, he comes 16 to the plant, he calls me about once every week or 17 two and asks me how things are going. Hes trying to 18 run our Company, which covers from the Detroit area 19 all the way over to New Jersey. Its a fairly large 20 Company, and, yet, he takes the time to visit this 21 plant two or three times and he calls me once every 22 week or two just to make sure that Ive got 23 everything that I need, you know, I cant ask for any 24 more than that.
25 From a -- the other question, how could this MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
85 1 happen? Well, you know, its not the NRC being 2 blamed. I think we did a pretty good root cause.
3 The root cause was a management issue. Our plants, 4 we really didnt have a corporate organization, 5 FirstEnergy just started running nuclear plants about 6 three years ago. By then Davis-Besse was owned by 7 Toledo Edison. Perry was owned by Cleveland Electric 8 and then we wound up getting Beaver Valley. We 9 didnt have any corporate organization, so each one 10 of the plants were run by itself. Thats been 11 changed now. We have a corporate organization, 12 thats where Ill be working out of. My job is real 13 simple, to make sure we do things the same at all 14 three of our plants. We have another organization 15 that sets our standards now, and we make sure we got 16 the same processes being implemented in our plants, 17 and we took your oversight organization, which is a 18 quality assurance team, to the plant and they all 19 report to corporate so we can make sure this doesnt 20 happen again. Let me tell you whats wrong. I can 21 tell you exactly what was wrong. I was the VP at 22 another nuclear plant, and we did head inspections, 23 too. You know how I know that the head was okay?
24 Because I looked. It was really simple. You know 25 how I knew about the breaker problems the other MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
86 1 night? Because at 2:00 in the morning me and the 2 site VP were in here watching the cycle breakers.
3 You know, thats what it takes. You got to go look, 4 and you got to make sure your employees look and you 5 got to make sure youre involved with all the issues 6 every day. If you dont have the energy to do that, 7 then you better find something else to do. Thats 8 what it takes to have the right safety culture and 9 standards. If you lose the sight of management 10 team, sight of leadership team, are not involved in 11 looking at the videotapes and understanding what you 12 got on the head, then you failed on that, then you 13 failed as the management team, and you let the 14 organization down. You got to -- you got to know 15 because you got to go look. You just got to go look, 16 and theres issues there. Theres people reporting 17 that theres more on the head. You need to get your 18 people in containment and see what you got, and be 19 ready to explain it. You got to put your control 20 issues together and be the best expertise you 21 possibly can, and just like you go to a doctor and 22 say, whats causing this every time. Thats what we 23 did on the breaker issues the other night. We went 24 and got the vendor. 2:00 in the morning were on the 25 phone with the vendors finding out that this has been MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
87 1 an issue before, and you find out because you go 2 look, and you wont be good at everything you do, but 3 youve got to go look, and thats the standards the 4 management has to set. Thank you.
5 THEREUPON, the audience applauded.
6 MR. GROBE: Any other questions or 7 comments?
8 MS. LIPA: Okay, well, while 9 somebody who might have a question is thinking, let 10 me just give a couple of things from the questions 11 weve got tonight, I took a couple of actions and 12 those actions -- am I on?
13 UNIDENTIFIED: No.
14 MS. LIPA: Okay, so from the 15 comments and questions that we got tonight, I took a 16 few actions, one that we already mentioned was to 17 respond to the letters, and theres another box of 18 them.
19 The other one was to look at the November 4th 20 meeting, see if we could reschedule that, and well 21 get right on that right away, and also there was a 22 letter from the Kelleys Island group that we will 23 read.
24 MR. GROBE: One other, some 25 photographs for Jim Caldwell.
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88 1 MS. LIPA: Yes, some photographs 2 for Jim Caldwell.
3 MR. DUNN: Letters to Jim 4 Caldwell as well.
5 MR. GROBE: Yes, she already said 6 letter to Caldwell.
7 MS. LIPA: Right, and I got the 8 letters. Yes. Okay, so -- is there anybody else who 9 has any comments or questions for us?
10 (NO AUDIBLE RESPONSE).
11 MS. LIPA: Okay, so well -- the 12 November 4th meeting, well look to reschedule that 13 and keep everybody posted on our web site. Thank 14 you for coming. Good night.
15 16 17 THEREUPON, the meeting was adjourned.
18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
89 1 CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF OHIO )
) ss.
3 COUNTY OF HURON )
4 I, Marlene S. Lewis, Stenotype Reporter and 5 Notary Public within and for the State aforesaid, duly commissioned and qualified, do hereby certify 6 that the foregoing, consisting of 88 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to writing by me 7 by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and complete transcript of the 8 proceedings held in that room on the 7th day of October, 2003 before the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory 9 Commission.
I also further certify that I was present in 10 the room during all of the proceedings.
11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 12 and seal of office at Wakeman, Ohio this day of
, 2003.
13 14 15 Marlene S. Lewis Notary Public 16 3922 Court Road Wakeman, OH 44889 17 My commission expires 4/29/04 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900