ML061770118
| ML061770118 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 01/22/2004 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 1-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194, NRC-1295 | |
| Download: ML061770118 (118) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
fiji Interview o -7C r I..-
Docket Number: 1-2003-051 F
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Location: Salem, New Jersey C)
Date: Thursday, January 22, 2004 Work Order No.: NRC-1295 Pages 1-117 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 9/
~1 (202) 234-4433 hIiurmiation, in tliss record was de*t,.ed in accordance with the Freedom oi I.ntormation Act, exemptions ?
I 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 ------------------ x 7 IN THE MATTER OF:
8 INTERVIEW OF Docket No.
9 1-2003-051F 10 (CLOSED) 11 ----------- x 12 Thursday, January 22, 2004 13 14 Salem Hope Creek Resident's 15 office 16 17 18 The above-entitled interview was conducted 19 at 10:09 a.m.
20 21 BEFORE:
22 Special Agent EILEEN NEFF 23 Senior Project Engineer SCOTT BARBER 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 10:09 a.m.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the record.
4 Today' s date is January 22. The time is approximately 5 10:09 a.m. Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff, 6 U.S. NRC Region I, Office of Investigations. Also 7 present from Region I is Senior Project Engineer Scott 8 Barber. This interview is going to be taking place at 9 the Salem Hope Creek Resident's Office in the NOSF 10 Building.
11 The interview is with who 12 is currently employed as an t Hope Creek by PSEG 13 Nuclear. We discussed prior to going on the record 14 that the subject of this interview is our inquiry into 15 the safety conscious work environment at Hope Creek.
16 You have explained that your experience is at the Hope 17 Creek site.
18 That is correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that will be the 20 subject of our discussion today. Also you indicated 21 that you had no problem providing testimony under 22 oath. At this point, what I would like to do is ask 23 you to raise your right hand.
24 //
25 I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 WHEREUPON, 2
3 was called as a witness and, having been first duly 4 sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. Also part 6 of that explanation I gave to you regarding the 7 inquiry was that you are not the subject of any 8 investigation. There is no potential violation 9 associated with the safety conscious work environment.
10 We're looking at you for your assessment and your 11 experience on-site in terms of the work environment.
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Understanding that a 14 lot goes into that, we'll break it down a couple of 15 ways. We'll talk about first the kinds of concerns.
16 But before we do that, you have a lot of experience 17 here. You explain that you started in 18 Correct.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So before we get into 20 that, let me get some identifying information from 21 you. Your name is spelled traditionally, 22 Your date of birth please.
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your social security 25 number.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Li 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Home address please.
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5 -- SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You have a commute.
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6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Also now, can we get 8 a brief education history for you?
9 10 11 12 13 14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
15 how long were you in that position?
16 MM) Four to four' and a half 17 years roughly.
18 SPECIAL AGENT. NEFF: What was your next 19 position?
20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you have been 22 there since *) oughly.
23 24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You have 25 uninterrupted held that position since gat NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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5 1 Hope Creek.
2* ý4 Yes.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's a good bit of 4 experience there. All of your experience is on-site 5 being in operations. What I would like to do is ask 6 you, based on that, because you have such a good 7 length.of time in Hope Creek operations, in terms of 8 the work environment and the issues that I was talking 9 about, what goes into that, and at least what we're 10 focusing on, the safety conscious work environment and 11 people's ability to raise concerns and their comfort 12 level with doing that? That can be both industrial 13 safety but in particular nuclear safety issues.
14 *Right.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see the 16 environment as having changed at all? I know I am 17 asking you to go back a good way. But maybe a way to 18 look at that is have you seen over time any particular 19 strengths or any particular weaknesses in that?
20 .Well, back when I was an 21 *and originally a 22 I don't think there was a lot of safety 23 concerns. It was a relatively new plant with new 24 equipment. So there wasn't a lot of concerns. So 25 it's hard to judge that.
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6 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So your first five 2 years or so.
3 Right. As the equipment 4 started aging and concerns were being brought up, I 5 think there's always the ability to raise the concern.
6 As far as from where I am, I have never had a problem 7 raising a concern. But as far as actually seeing 8 anything done with some of these concerns, it's not 9 always done.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Now, are you talking 11 about equipment concerns?
12 - Equipment concerns, also 13 procedure compliance concerns, basic program concerns.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's take a look at 15 that. You are indicating that you are comfortable 16 with that. What about your peers? Do you see that 17 happen? Do you see people hesitate?
18 . I think most of my peers 19 that are in the union are comfortable with bringing up 20 concerns. But I do know a lot of them are frustrated.
21 A lot of them have the same conception as I do that 22 they have raised a lot of concerns. They have watched 23 it go through the process, and they have seen a lot of 24 things being explained away, almost penciled away to 25 where they are not being addressed.
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7 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's talk about in 2 your experience equipment concerns, are you talking 3 about things that aren't functioning the. way that they 4 are supposed to? Why can't we get it fixed?
5 Correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Procedural 7 compliance, can you think of issues in that area that 8 you have raised?
9 One of the ones that I tend 10 to bring up every outage is configuration cohtrol and 11 when we get into surveillances. We'll take out a 12 major system like RHR. As we're trying to bring it 13 back, instead of bringing the entire system back at 14 once, they will try to bring it back in stages and do 15 part of surveillances. So you will go out there and 16 you will manipulate manual valves.
17 You might take relays and jumper them out 18 all by surveillance. You'll get so far into the 19 surveillance you'll find out there's something else 20 that's keeping you from finishing the surveillance.
21 So they will just stop. They will take the 22 surveillance. They will take all the equipment that 23 you manipulated and just push it off to the side of 24 the desk and say let's start going this way and work 25 on something entirely different. It never gets picked NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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8 1 up until sometimes weeks later.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What would be the 3 point of doing it that way?
4 AN
...... They think it's more 5 efficient to try to bring it back in pieces, and it 6 never seems to be that way.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So how does 8 the surveillance get status then? It's like in 9 process but it's not like you would normally think.
10 Normally you think of surveillance as taking some 11 fixed amount of time and then you are done.
12 Right.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You either 14 know if the equipment is operable or inoperable. Most 15 people tend to think of it as online activity.
16 There's always some fixed window of time it has to get 17 done in.
18Right.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, in 20 Opcon 5 or the lower ones, basically refueling Opcons, 21 you are sitting there and you have a lot more time.
22 Right.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Either you 24 don't have to have the system in service at all or if 25 you talk safety systems, maybe you need one out of two NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
9 1 or something like that. You have some reduction or 2 redundancy requirements. So is there some tracking 3 LCO that's open for that? How does that get managed?
4 As far* as an operability 5 issue, it's never made operable. It's never 6 determined to be operable the whole time that it's 7 either partially tagged out or the surveillance is in 8 process. So as far as an operability issue, it's not 9 an issue. But what you do have is when you manipulate 10 pieces of equipment that are either in the boundary or 11 slightly out of the boundary or a support for that 12 boundary and you never finish it, you start affecting 13 other things. That's where it's not getting picked 14 up.
15 We'll take out the key fill jockey pump 16 for RHR. You'll take it out and while that's out if 17 you want to maintain a portion of the system filled, 18 you'll line up con -- transfer. Now, what will happen 19 is the isolation valves for that tend to leak by. So 20 the whole time you have con -- transfer in there, you 21 fill up the suppression pool. So we start having 22 level concerns with that.
23 Guys in the control room, myself included, 24 will start to tell them we have picked up a half inch 25 this shift and we're picking up a half inch every NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
10 1 shift. We keep telling them and telling them. We 2 need to either back out of the surveillance, restore 3 this, take care of the high level. It just goes on 4 deaf ears because there's other outage important 5 things that they work on until we get to the point 6 where we'll take a high level swap on other ACCS 7 equipment.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What's the 9 logic of that? What's the explanation? Is it just to 10 save time on the schedule?
11 Yes, they try to pack the 12 schedule in to make it as short as possible. They 13 have everything real detailed for a short amount of 14 time. Once you get to a point where you can't go any 15 further with one thing, you can't just sit there.
16 They want to jump onto the next thing.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They'll start 18 something else.
19 They'll back burner the one 20 and start into the next one to keep the schedule 21 flowing.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is it 23 because there's a problem with the pump, let's say?
24 Let's use your example. You talk about ACCS key fill 25 pump or jocky pump. I don't know what the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i.. RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
11 1 surveillance is but say it's running or testing 2 pressures of flows or something. Is it that you go to 3 do the surveillance and there's a problem identified 4 and you need parts and so what you do is provide an 5 alternate supply until the parts come in? Is that the 6 kind of problem that we're talking about, or is it 7 something else?
8 f7 Most of the time it's 9 actually a schedule problem. You get part way into a 10 surveillance and you will realize that you have an 11 entirely different tag out or clearance that is 12 actually interfering with what you need to do. So a 13 lot of it is a scheduling conflict. You might need a 14 certain indicator to use for the surveillance. Once 15 you get into it, you realize that INC just removed it 16 because they have a calibration to do on it so it's 17 not there. It's usually issues like that.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That you wouldn't be 20 aware of until you are actually on top of the work and 21 you are getting into it.
22 Right.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Well, but it 24 should be managed. It should be planned so that it's 25 identified. You should know if you are taking --
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12 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And tagged.
2 Right.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, if you 4 need this meter or this indicator for a surveillance, 5 you either schedule the INC work outside of that or 6 before it. You don't do it at the same time, right?
7 Right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So where is the --
9 down there? Is that in any one group or is that a 10 shared maintenance with management?
11 :1 That's shared between 12 operations and maintenance.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But if that 14 was for a refueling outage, wouldn't there be a 15 refueling outage group that would do all of that 16 planning?
17 Ys 18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you have 19 planners that would be responsible for that. It's 20 like one planner may be planning the INC work and he' s 21 doing his thing in his own. little world. And then 22 somebody else is doing the jockey pump which is 23 mechanical. So you have different people with
- 24. different focuses planning activities, but they don't 25 ever see if there is an overlap, is that right?
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13 1 !That's kind of how it works.
2 Basically the planners, all they do is they plan up 3 the work orders. They do all the paperwork associated 4 with it. As far as actually planning out the job of 5 what goes where and what you can do --
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: The 7 sequencing.
8 ,: The sequencing and what you 9 can do together, you can do this simultaneously with 10 this, or you can't do this one until you do this one 11 first, all of that stuff is done by what they call 12 coordinators. In the work week, it's work week 13 coordinators. You have an operations coordinator 14 which is the lead. Then you have mechanical 15 maintenance, INC maintenance, services. They work 16 together with him. They have meetings all the time to 17 make sure that they look at the schedule -of what 18 everybody has scheduled to do department-wise and they 19 make sure there are no conflicts.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
21 .:That's the way it' s supposed 22 to go anyway.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
24 1P0M w ." It hardly ever works that 25 way.
-- '7 i-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1'7. RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
14 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: In those 2 instances you are describing, which is schedule 3 conflicts-type situations, has there ever been a 4 situation that you are aware of where there's been 5 some consequence? Maybe it's not a tech spec 6 consequence but some other consequence, water on the 7 floor, someone getting hurt, whatever is out there.
8 Was there some adverse consequence because of this 9 inadequate planning or poor planning or what have you?
10 As far as anybody getting 11 hurt, I can't think of any. Like I said, one of the 12 examples I brought up with taurus (PH) levels, a high 13 level on the taurus (PH) is 78 and a half inches. You 14 have an automatic swap of the hipsey (PH) suction 15 valve. It's normally lined up to the CST. On a high 16 level, it will automatically swap to the taurus (PH).
17 It's an automatic function. It's an ESF function 18 which you don't want to happen on its own. You want 19 to control that. We have stood there and watched the 20 taurus (PH) level go up until we have hit the high 21 level and take the swap.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, what 23 kinds of problems does that create? Does that put you 24 in a bad way from the tech spec standpoint?
25 Prom tech spec, no, because F.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
15 1 when you are in shut down Opcon 4 and 5, you are not 2 required to have hipsey (PH) inoperable anyway. So 3 tech spec-wise, it's not that big of an issue.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But what kind of an 5 impact does it have on what you are doing?
6 It goes back into 7 configuration control. This thing automatically 8 swaps. We didn't want it to. There's no reason to 9 have the taurus (PH) level up that high. It shouldn't 10 have happened. Now, how do we get back out of it?
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes.
12 J ....... . How do we track how we get 13 back out of it?
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 15 any dirty water/clean water problems because of the 16 switch?
17 .No, in fact, they have been 18 working so hard on keeping the taurus (PH) clean that 19 actually it's gotten to the point that when we do 20 vessel let down coming out of a refueling outage or 21 even taking out different RHR loops we like to drain 22 it back to the suppression pool. The suppression pool 23 is so clean that we actually consider the water that 24 we're draining back into it dirty. It's like I don't 25 want to drain that dirty water into it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
16 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is that 2 right?
3"] So the taurus (PH) quality 4 is actually pretty good.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
6 A Another example I can think 7 of was with a slick surveillance.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
9 - -We had the slick system 10 tagged out. We started going in and doing the 11 release. I believe the release got entirely done. So 12 the system was restored to a functional status. But 13 we had to do ehe pump surveillances for operability.
14 We ran into a problem. I can't remember off the top 15 of my head what it was. I think there was another tag 16 out or something that prevented us from totally 17 restoring it.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER; This is in 19 an outage too, right?
20 . This is in an outage.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was this?
22 - 7 11 thinking this was about I'm 23 three refueling outages ago. I can't remember 24 exactly. So we had gotten into the surveillance and 25 actually started it to a certain point and then just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
17 1 stopped. We got to the restoration and there were 2 parts of it we couldn't do. That surveillance sat.I 3 was part of the group that was working on that. I 4 kept pinging on the supervisors that were running the 5 job. We have to track this. We have to do something 6 with this because we have the system all ready to go 7 but we have things out of configuration. Well, that 8 got pushed off to the side because at the time 9 operability wasn't a concern. We had more time on 10 that.
11 So they got into different work. They got 12 into a different INC surveillances. I think time ran 13 a little short on the INC work. So instead of doing 14 one after the other, they tried to do both of them at 15 the same time and ended up getting an automatic 16 initiation slick.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is that 18 right?
19 7 Now, because there was 20 portions of it that were isolated, we ended up firing 21 the squib (PH) valve which had to be replaced and we 22 also broke a section of pipe.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You broke 24 some pipe.
25 Yes.
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18 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This was all in that 2 outage three refuels back.
3 7!Yes, I believe it was about 4 three outages ago.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There's something you 6 said there that I just wanted to follow up on. You 7 said "In this instance, operability wasn't a concern.
8 You had more time."
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How do you mean? In 11 what way?
12 . In all your operability or 13 your LCOs, limited condition operability, you have 14 certain amounts of time. Or the condition you are in 15 determines whether that system needs to be operable or 16 not. With slick, it's pretty much every mode but I 17 believe we did it a full core off load at that time.
18 So with no fuel in the core, slick was not required to 19 be operable.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, so you are not 21 running into a timeframe issue.
22 1_... _ . Right 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So what were 25 the surveillances that were being done by ANC? Do you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
19 1 recall?
2 1 I believe they were RRCS 3 surveillances. Are you familiar with those?
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Redial 5 Reactivity Control System.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, it's 8 Atlas mitigation.
9 Yes, that's exactly what 10 they are.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So you have 12 to restart pump trip stuff. I'm sure you have slick 13 infeeds and all sorts of other things.
14 Right.
15 SPECIAL-AGENT NEFF: Redundant scram (PH) 16 functions and things like that, all right.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That was a second 18 example that you gave about this particular issue in 19 the scheduling and the problems that it causes. Do 20 you have anymore in there, anything that comes to 21 mind?
22 OW; the top of my head, no.
-0ff 23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The first issue that 24 you talked about, was that more recently? It seems 25 like it's ongoing.
-7ý NEAL R. GROSS /
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20 1 *Actually, that happens every 2 single outage.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You mean it 4 hasn't been fixed.
5 No, we do the same thing 6 every single outage. We will get to a point where we 7 take out the jockey pump. The key fill pump isn't 8 taken out for maintenance. It's taken out because of 9 what you do in the surveillance. You don't want to 10 run that pump deadheaded so you will actually isolate 11 the key fill pump.
12 So you take it out of service and you use 13 con -- transfers as an alternate method for key fill.
14 We always run into problems. We always end up leaving 15 the pump out, leaving things out of position, 16 supposedly controlled by a surveillance that we have 17 pushed off to the side of the desk that we'll pick up 18 maybe a week from now, a couple of.days from now. And 19 we have taurus (PH) level issues every outage.
20 There's one other one. I believe it's the 21 same outage as the slick problem. We had scram (PH) 22 discharge volume vents and drains tied down, enclosed, 23 gagged. I forget whether it was for fixing the --
24 system. I forget how we got to the point where they 25 were closed and tagged. But we also had a small input NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
21 1 into the scram (PH) discharge volume the entire time 2 this was being done.
3 So shift after shift of NCOs as we're 4 tracking this scram (PH) discharge volume level we're 5 seeing levels coming up. We still had the vents and 6 drains tagged. There's no drain path. You are going 7 to get to the point where you could get the rod block.
8 After that, you are going to get the reactor scram 9 (PH). It was brought up by every shift of
- for 10 days watching the level come up. We got to the point 11 where we picked up the rod block and all the were 12 expecting it. We just sat there. They felt a little 13 more sense of urgency to look into doing something 14 about it. But nothing was done about.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you got the rod 16 block.
17 When we got the rod block.
18 We actually sat there and kept on watching the level 19 come up until we got the scram (PH) on the high scram 20 (PH) discharge volume level. This didn't occur over 21 two days. This occurred over a good seven day period.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And people were 23 raising that as a concern.
24 Ys 25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are saying this NEAL R. GROSS ---
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22 1 is three outages back. What is a year for this? When 2 was the last refuel?
3 I don't remember. I think 4 we had one last spring.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In the March or April 6 timeframe.
7 Yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So we're going back 9 three years from then, right, around 2000?
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You are on 11 18 month cycles.
12 ,Yes, 18 month cycles, so you 13 are going back at least three, if not six, years from 14 there.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Maybe six years?
16 Y**.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That far back? Do 18 you think it was 2000 or pre-2000?
19 I think it was pre-2000.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Maybe 1998 21 timeframe.
22 0117 Or '99, somewhere in there.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
24 And I could be even three 25 years off on that time.
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23 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that something 2 that you have seen happen again, this issue?
3 The scram (PH) discharge 4 volume?
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, you said that 6 happened with the same outage as the slick issue.
7 Either one of those two, has that been an issue since?
8 Not the scram (PH) discharge 9 volume, in fact, not the slick either, no.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But this other one 11 with the levels that rises is recent and recurring.
12 It happened as late as March '03 then.
13 Right, and I would say that 14 there hasn't been a recurrence of either one of those 15 two because we never got into the same situation.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The tag outs just 17 didn't fall in the same way.
18 61 Right, or the problem that 19 got us into that in the first place wasn't there.
20 With the scram (PH) discharge volume, I think the way 21 we got there was there was *a cracked weld on an 22 instrument air lock that needed to be repaired. I 23 think that's how we got into that one.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it get repaired?
25 . It did get repaired.
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24 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about any other 2 examples along this line? We were talking about 3 procedural compliance. That's where we got into this.
4 Can you think of anything else?
5 No.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You threw out another 7 issue when we were talking about the kinds of concerns 8 that were raised. We're talking about your issues 9 basically.
10 Right.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said I think it 12 was program issues. What do you categorize in there?
13 What kinds of things do you put there?
14 ": Well, the configuration 15 control has been one of the program issues that I have 16 been pushing for years.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So part of what we 18 just discussed was covered in there.
- 19. Was one of the program 20 issues. My whole slant on that is - and every time I 21 identified it, I identified it through the corrective 22 action program numerous times - I have always cited 23 examples where we're not following our procedures.
24 We're either stopping it halfway through or we're not 25 implementing an entire procedure which gets us to the NEAL R. GROSS "
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25 1 restoration.
2 Basically if we just go through and take 3 something start to finish and follow the procedures 4 all the way through, there's not an issue. The way 5 that they finally decided to address that is they came 6 up with a new program which is Shop 103.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say you 8 raise it through the corrective action process, are 9 you issuing notifications?
10 Yes.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How many 12 notifications would you say you have issued over the 13 past three years or so in regard to this type of issue 14 on this configuration?
15 . Just the configuration 16 control issue or any kind of --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything that relates 18 to it.
19 A M. I'd say in the last three 20 years maybe only three or four.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of response 22 do you get to that? You said there was one that was 23 some sort of a response lately. I just lost the word 24 that you used for it.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Shop 103.
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26 1 . Shop 103, it was a whole new 2 program instead of looking to see why we weren't 3 completing the surveillances, why we weren't running 4 through the entire procedure and addressing it that 5 way. I thought we had procedures in place that would 6 handle the problem. But instead of addressing it that 7 way, they went with implementing a whole new program 8 which is a configur*tion control program. It's called 9 Shop 103. It's common to Salem and Hope Creek.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Is that a 11 better program?
12 1i LNo, in fact, I was on a 13 committee initially with the draft on that. I believe 14 that program started from one of my notifications.
15 But it seemed like they drug their feet on it from the 16 beginning. Then there's timelines on when you have to 17 have things closed out and corrective actions in 18 place. If you are going to go over those times, you 19 have to get extensions from department managers, the 20 plant manager, the vice president. They are very 21 difficult to get.
22 So once they got up to running up against 23 a deadline, they crammed in a procedure which I didn't 24 care too much for. There were a lot of people that 25 thought it was lacking a lot of things. At the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANDTRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
27 1 committee meetings, they basically said we're not 2 going to put in any changes right now because we have 3 a deadline of next week that this has to be 4 implemented. We'll implement it and then we'll put in 5 changes later which for something that's brand new 6 makes no sense. If you want to implement a new 7 program, get it right from the start instead of trying 8 to fix it after you have already implemented it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You were on this 10 committee initially. You didn't follow it through.
11 It sounded like you didn't remain on it.
12 Once it got to the point 13 where it got issued, there wasn't a committee. I 14 wasn't even on the committee or informed that there 15 was a committee until the tail end of it. So 16 basically when I got involved in it was when we had a 17 draft. I went through the draft and made 18 recommendations. A couple of weeks later we had 19 another meeting and talked about it. That's when I 20 was told that it's too late and that this has to be 21 implemented next Week and that we're not going to make 22 any changes.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has it had any 24 positive effect? You are thinking that this is in 25 response to one of your notifications.
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28 1 Yes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has there been any?
3 No, because I don't think an 4 entirely different program addresses the initial 5 problem which is not running things all the way 6 through to the end and not following the procedures 7 and doing the restoration in accordance with what we 8 have. All it is is another administrative tool, 9 another paperwork tool.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Tracking.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Let me ask 12 something. I need to understand what you are talking 13 about in big generalities. What I have seen in the 14 procedures - and correct me if I'm wrong on this - if 15 you are talking about a system procedure, you take any 16 big system that has multiple components to it. Then 17 you have some master overall procedure. But then 18 within that, you have substeps.
19 Right.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Like how you 21 start a feed pump. It will say do this and then go to 22 this section. Then that section on a feed pump will 23 be just on that activity. Usually if you understand 24 the limitations and you understand what you need to do 25 through that part of the procedure, you can usually go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
29 1 through that. So you don't have to do everything.
- 2. .7 Right, that's correct.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, what 4 you are describing, I'm getting a vision of something 5 like that but that may not be right. Are you saying 6 that even if they get into a subsection like that they 7 stop in the middle and then exit and then don't come 8 back?
9 . Right, what I'm talking 10 about is you'll get into a subsection and you'll go so 11 far and you'll have a problem.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
13 You'll have a problem with 14 a step to where you can't complete that. So they 15 address the problem of where you are but just push the 16 procedure off to the side. Sometimes it's okay. You 17 can stop right there. Sometimes you might have to 18 look at where you are and back up a little bit to put 19 it in a better condition. Or you have to look ahead 20 to see once we come back to this where am I. Can I 21 just pick up where I left off or am I going to have to 22 repeat some of these sections? I might have done a 23 fill event up front which I'm slowly losing because 24 I'm sitting in the middle of it. That rarely gets 25 done. -- 7 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
30 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Now, besides 2 the Shop 103 which is a newer procedure, was there 3 something that required some sort of evaluation if 4 this happened? I'm sure there's a procedure that you 5 have that tells you how to follow procedures.
6Right.
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER'BARBER: But usually 8 the focus with those procedures is you have to do this 9 one step by step. This one you can do in any order.-
10 If it has bullets, you can mix them.
1Right.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It gives you 13 instructions on how to use a procedure. But does that 14 procedure tell you what to do if you get to a certain 15 point and you can't continue?
16 I*t does but all it tells you 17 is contact your job supervisor. That's basically all 18 of the instructions that are in that.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: All right, 20 but it doesn't tell you to assess like plant 21 conditions and return or restore the procedure or use 22 the procedure to restore the plant to some known 23 configuration.
24 It's not worded like that.
25 I don't know the exact words off the top of my head.
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31 1 Basically when you get to a certain step in a 2 procedure where you can't proceed or what you expect 3 to happen didn't happen, you are supposed to restore 4 it to a safe condition or stop the job in a safe 5 condition and then contact your job supervisor.
6 That's basically all the words that are in there.
7 It's up to the job supervisor, whether it be an NIC 8 supervisor or the control room supervisor, to 9 determine where to go from there.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And that's 11 where you are saying the process or the station is 12 falling down.
13 M d Ys 14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: They are 15 leaving things hanging in a bad way in some instances.
16 'Yes.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: From what you are 18 describing, it sounds like this goes back over a good 19 period of time.
20 Yes, many years.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see it 22 consistently the same? Do you see any improvements in 23 that at all? Or is it just this is the way it works?
24 . I think it's pretty much the 25 same. I don't see a lot of improvement.
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32 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's obvious that you 2 do write notifications and raise some issues. If you 3 have a concern, you are raising a concern. Am I 4 miscategorizing that?
5 ,No, that's correct.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What is your comfort 7 level with that? Has that changed at any point in 8 time?
9 My comfort level hasn't 10 changed. I never have had a problem with backing down 11 from anything whether I got pressure or not. I never 12 felt pressured. But whether I had gotten any pressure 13 or not, I would continue to raise them.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the second 15 part of my question. In terms of the responses that 16 you get, do you perceive that as an individual who 17 raises concerns that in any way you are getting any 18 type of an adverse effect, a push back on you for 19 doing that?
20 I don't think that I have 21 gotten any push back. I know that some of my 22 notifications they are not happy with because I will 23 be specific. I will point out what part of the 24 process broke down, when, basically who was involved 25 with it. I will identify all of that. A lot of NEAL R. GROSS -K COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
33 1 people aren't happy with that.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You would think that 3 would be a good thing. You are not giving them some 4 generalized or vague here's an issue I think you 5 should look into. You are saying here's what I see 6 and you are being specific is what you-are saying.
7 Right.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Why wouldn't they be 9 happy with that?
10 i Well, a lot of it is when 11 I'm pointing at my control room supervisors or my 12 operations management or the outage control group.
13 When I'm pointing out to them that they are the ones 14 that are causing the problem, that's where the 15 breakdown is.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are identifying 17 a breakdown more or less by name or position.
18 jRight, by using a position 19 or event or something like that. They look at it like 20 I'm pointing out that they did something wrong. Now, 21 that makes them look bad. So instead of looking at 22 the issue and trying to correct it, they are doing 23 damage control on themselves.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What form does that 25 take? Is that something subtle that you are getting?
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34 1 Is that a vibe that you are getting? Is that a wish 2 you hadn't done that and you are causing me some 3 problems here?
4 Some of it is subtle. Some 5 of it's vibes I get. Nobody has ever directly come at 6 me and given me a hard time about a notification. But 7 I have gotten the impression. I can't really give 8 specifics on this. I really don't have any proof to 9 back this up. But I think being in the union helps me 10 to where I can identify issues without a lot of fear 11 of retaliation. I have gotten the feeling that my 12 supervisors have caught flack over things that I have 13 brought up basically because they are not controlling 14 me or they are not reeling me in.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who is your 16
- and your right now?
17
- Right now, that just changed 18 in the last two weeks.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was it 20 that you are referring to then?
21 22 for a couple of years.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
24 25 1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
35 2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do any of 3 the CRSs talk to you about the issues you raise?
4 i They do. A lot of them are 5 happy that I'm bringing them up, my immediate 6 supervisors. But I have gotten the opinion that they 7 have caught flack over some of the ones that I have 8 brought up..
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who do you 10 think is giving them the flack? Is it at the OS level 11 or is it from higher up?
12 I think it's higher up.
13 Sometimes it might have been from an OS. In some 14 cases, it might have been 0"J coming down on the 15 CRSs for something I put in. Other times I think that 16 has caught flack from the ops manager at the 17 time, the plant manager at the time.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Typically do the OS 19 and .the CRS support each other?
20 . Not all the time.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where do you see them 22 deviate? Where does the rub come if they are not 23 always in the same line of thought?
24 A lot of it has to do with 25 the amount of work that's going on at the time. A NEAL R. GROSS /
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36 1 normal work week where there's not a lot of equipment 2 out of service and there's not a real heavy schedule, 3 I think they are in line. What happens is when the 4 schedule starts pushing and you start having different 5 items in the schedule pushing up against each other 6 and you start getting more time pressure and time 7 constraints, the CRSs tend to be a little more 8 thorough, a little more conservative whereas the ops 9 managers, as they call them now, tend to push. They 10 come down on the control room supervisors to get 11 things done.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see an example 13 of that?
14 JEvery start up that we have 15 done with the exception of the last one. I will tell 16 you the last start up that we just did here last week 17 was not too bad. But previous to that, the start ups 18 that we were doing we were coming out. of a refuel 19 outage or a forced outage.. You would get so far in 20 the start up and you would end up with equipment 21 problems that weren't addressed when you were shut 22 down. So now you have to find ways of dealing with 23 the equipment problem.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: During the start up.
25 . During the start up. It NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
37 1 causes delays. You have to jump back and regroup and 2 thing about what effect this is going to have right 3 now and what effect it's going to have later on. It 4 tends to slow down the start up.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are indicating 6 that the most recent one was done better than it had 7 been in the past.
8 I think it was because we 9 had just come out from an outage not too long ago. We 10 had a lot of equipment finally getting fixed so we 11 didn't have as many equipment problems starting up 12 this last outage.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When were the repairs 14 made?
15i, Within the last couple of 16 months. I think coming out of the September outage.
17 We had a forced outage in September from the 18 hurricane.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have any 20 reason for why? You are saying it's finally getting 21 fixed. Do you know what that goes to?
22" 4 I think because of coming 23 out of the forced outage in September from the 24 hurricane we started up and there were a lot of us 25 that were pushing back on the start up and saying we NEAL R. GROSS .
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38 1 are not ready to start up. We have a lot of equipment 2 problems out there. As we're starting up, we would 3 find something new that wasn't working right. We 4 would have problems with different equipment.
5 We would want to put things on hold.
6 Let's not race ahead to try to start up to get to full 7 power. Let's see what this is going to do to us and 8 get things fixed. We ran for less than seven days.
9 I forget what power level we got up to. We never got 10 up to full power. We ended up scramming (PH) again 11 because of equipment problems. I think it made them 12 look foolish enough to where once we came down there 13 they fixed a few more things.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you 15 recall what the scram (PH) was over after the start up 16 with the hurricane?
17 'It was an ESC leak.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was that 19 something that was identified earlier?
20 Yes.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It was. I 22 think we knew about the E8C leak. But I don't think 23 we knew it was previously identified.
24 Yes.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So it was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1.23 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
39 1 previously identified. Was it highlighted as 2 something for cause taking it off-line do you think or 3 was it we can live with it because it's small?
4 jJ It was we can live with it.
5 In fact, the initial scram (PH) from the hurricane, we 6 lost a section of the switch yard because a couple of 7 breakers opened up. All the electric buses have two 8 separate power supplies. It caused everything to swap 9 over to the other side of the switch yard which was 10 okay.
11 One of the buses did not transfer. It did 12 not pick up its alternate power supply. We ended up 13 losing a con -- pump and a recirc pump and we ended up 14 scramming (PH). Now, the alternate power supply that 15 never picked up was identified as being a problem 12 16 months before that. So the initial scram (PH) never 17 had to happen.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think the word was 19 foolish. They were foolish for where you ended up 20 after those seven days.
21 Right.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's a lessons 23 learned-type of thing. Now, they are paying more 24 attention to what needs to get repaired while you are 25 down.
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40 1* ... They were in that situation.
2 I don't know that I believe they have learned their 3 lesson on that. I don't know that we won't do the 4 same thing again.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: If you were 6 in management's position and you were looking at these 7 issues and you could make changes that would be 8 efficient but would hopefully address some of these 9 things,- where would you be looking to make the 10 changes? Is this just a matter of making the outages 11 longer and doing more work? Is it a totally different 12 approach?
13 . There's two problems. One 14 of them is when things are being identified, they are 15 not being scheduled sometimes until two or three years 16 down the road. The in-feed breaker that I'm talking 17 about that failed was identified in either September 18 or October '02. It caused a scram (PH) in September 19 or October '03.
20 It was a situation where it's difficult or 21 sometimes impossible to work on these in-feed breakers 22 unless you are in an outage. Now, during that 12 23 month period, we had a refuel outage and a forced 24 outage. So there's two outage periods where that 25 could have been worked on.
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41 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Two opportunities.
2 4,. ., Now, I can understand when 3 a problem comes up and you are on-line. You may be 4 able to live with it where you are right now. It may 5 be something you can't work until you are into an 6 outage. But once you go into an outage, especially a 7 power supply, I would think that would be something 8 that you would want to address.
9 There are some other minor things that 10 would be nice to fix but you may not be able to. But 11 there are certain things like a power supply that you 12 would think you would definitely want to fix when you 13 are in an outage. So we had two opportunities to fix 14 it. Because it was scheduled for October 2004, it was 15 never even looked at.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Why is that?
17 Is that a mind set problem? Is it inappropriate 18 priority? Where is that coming from?
19 .That I couldn't tell you.
20 I do not understand how their corrective action 21 program works right now, how their work control 22 program works right now. I don't understand how they 23 schedule things.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: As 25 hN Lcould you have gone in and changed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
42 1 that to be a forced outage item? I don't even 2 understand who has what authority. If you were 3 working work controls under your "SRO license," could 4 you have done that? Could you have said I want to 5 make this forced outage?
6 He can code it that way.
7 That doesn't necessarily mean it will go that way. He 8 can change on the notification the coding of it. He
- 9. can change the priority, make it refuel outage, make 10 it forced outage. But it's up to the outage group 11 that determines what gets scoped in, what gets done, 12 what doesn't get done. How that was scoped, I don't 13 know. I do know the initial screening identified that 14 the breaker was closed at the particular time. So it 15 looks like it's an intermittent problem and it can't 16 be worked right now. But it needed to be worked on in 17 outage. I know that was a screen. But as far as --
18 (Tape flip.)
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's approximately 20 10:55 a.m.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So we were 22 just talking about that breaker. The work goes to the 23 outage group. Then they make a decision on how it 24 gets worked or how it gets loaded into the schedule.
25 Right.
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43 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: In looking 2 at that and thinking about that, is there something in 3 the process -- Let's say if you are the outage group 4 and you knew that there was a problem and you knew the 5 nature of the problem. You would code it properly 6 because you would have enough information.
7 Right.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You are 9 going to say this is a trip risk or a trip hazard or 10 something like that. Is there something that they are 11 not getting that they need to make that assessment and 12 that judgement to schedule it properly or is it they 13 are overwhelmed? Maybe there's too much work to do or 14 too many items in the schedule. I don't know. Do you 15 have any thoughts on that?
16 :}That I don't know either.
17 I don't think that they are overwhelmed. I think the 18 information is there. Why it's coming down the way it 19 is, I don't know. I don't have the answer to that.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Could it be 21 a dollar and cents-type of answer, a budgetary 22 problem?
23 7*iW It could be and not 24 necessarily a budget problem but more a time problem.
25 We try to do as little during the refuel outage as we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
44 1 can. We try to do everything on-line. So the big 2 push is to shorten the outage to as short as possible 3 duration and do everything else on-line. So there are 4 a lot of things that gets pitched out of a refuel 5 outage for time constraints.
6 A lot of times it seems like the way they 7 build the schedule they don't start with this is the 8 work that we have to do. They do a rough plan and say 9 this is going to take us 30 days which is way too 10 long. Chop a few things out that you can live with.
11 I realize that there are times you can do that. There 12 are things that don't necessarily have to be done in 13 a particular refuel outage. You can wait 18 months or 14 sometimes three years to fix minor things. But it 15 seems like they build a schedule from a time period 16 out instead of bringing it the other way.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Instead of focusing 18 on what has to get done, they focus on how few days 19 can you get it done.
20 -- I Well, they actually look at 21 it like we want a 16 day outage or we want an 18 day 22 outage.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They'll set the time.
24 It seems like they start it 25 that way and then see what they can fit into it as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
45 1 opposed to doing it the other way. These are the 2 things that we want to get done. These are the things 3 that we need to get done and work with your times that 4 way. It seems like the outage duration is set ahead 5 of time. And then you have to try to make the work 6 fit into it.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are speaking from 8 your experiences working under the 9 Is that where you see that? How do you have 10 knowledge of that?
ii I see that. Also the NCOs 12 see that because there's a lot of times where the 13 outage duration is talked about and in some cases 14 published two years ahead of time.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What that timeframe 16 will be by 16 or 18 days.
17 Right.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There's something 19 that I should explain for the record. You were 20110 21 That's correct.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And later 23 ight?
24 -- .- That is correct.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What year was that?
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46 1 I believe it was 2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You did not go into 3 an SRO or CRS position.
4 That's correct. I never 5 took the control room supervisor job.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your purpose then for 7 going for the license would be what?
8 Actually I wanted the 9 license. I felt the extra training involved in it 10 would help me do my job. I thought that there was a 11 possibility soon down the road that I would take the 12 control room supervisor job. I would be able to get 13 the license out of the way. I would have a license.
14 Whenever I decided to -become a control room 15 supervisor, I wouldn't have to go through a year or 16 year and a half of training and licensing to do that.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: There would be no 18 delay.
19 There wouldn't be a delay.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that opportunity 21 there for you?-
22 Yes, it was.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you did not take 24 it.
25 did not take it because at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS IV21* 0Ur~nr- SQI Akin MIC KId AI
47 1 the time I didn't like a lot of the issues that were 2 happening to the control room supervisors.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what year are you 4 looking at then? when was the 5 opportunity for you?
6 When I initially got asked 7 to go to the class, I have no idea when the 8 opportunity was. Typically the whole time that I have 9 worked here when they would have an SRO license class 10 they would try to bring people in off the streets or 11 from other departments. It's what they call instant 12 SROs without a previous license.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
14 :yThey would bring those into 15 a license class. They always wanted at least two or 16 three NCOs getting an SRO license at the same time.
17 They would spread out the experience, spread out the 18 knowledge to help the instants get their license.
19 What would typically happen is say you had a group of 20 six SRO licenses, two of them being NCOs and four of 21 them being instants, the four instants would get a CRS 22 job right away. The NCOs would end up going back to 23 being NCOs until an opening came up.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there an 25 expectation that when offered the position you would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
48 1 take it? Was that an automatic thing?
2 3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
4 .* There was not an expectation 5 at that time when I initially went into the class.
6 Like I said, there were a lot of the NCOs that got the 7 SRO license because they wanted the control room 8 supervisor job and they got pushed back to being an 9 NCO in some cases for a couple of years. There's a 10 couple of cases where guys have actually left the 11 company because they never got offered a promotion.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They were waiting 13 around with a license.
14 - Right. Now, in my case, 15 that was pretty much the status quo when I started 16 into the license class. By the time I finished the 17 license class, there was a whole upper management 18 change.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So were you finished 20 in or did you finish later?
21 I was finished i\ I 22 had the -wd Because I was previously 23 licensed, I think my actual license class was only
.24 maybe-about nine or ten months.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This change in upper NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS £ \.
vn wflF IMI AND AVE.. N.W.
49 1 management, what affected that?
2 I saw a lot 1 more, for lack 3 of a better word, hassles being put on the control 4 room supervisors. There was a lot more pressure on 5 them. There was a lot more demands on their time 6 without compensation. There was a lot more 7 accountability.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Around 1996?
9 About '96, yes. Like I 10 said, that was because of an upper management change.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At what level?
12 MaNFAt the vice president level.
13 I think there was a new vice president. That was when 14 (PH) came in. I think the plant managers 15 on both sides changed. I don't remember whether we 16 changed ops managers at that point or not. But I 17 think we had new ops managers also.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So there was a 19 significant change was all the way.
20 Yes, all the way around.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So a new was*AV 22 23 Right.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: With him came the 25 negative change on the CRS position.
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50 1 POW Right.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So at that point, you 3 became reluctant. You didn't want it.
4 Right, that' s correct.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who were the 6 plant manager and ops manager? Do you recall?
7 7 I believe that the ops 8 manager came from outside. He was a loner. I'm 9 trying to remember his name. He came from PECO from 10 'each Bottom( Off the top of my head I cannot 11 remember his name.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was he here long?
13 . No, maybe 12 months. It 14 might have been 6 (PH). I'm not sure.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, I 16 don't remember that name. is there 17 about this same time?
18 . He was in there somewhere.
19 I can't remember where he fit in either. I think he 20 was afterwards.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was here 22 for a long time that left fairly recently? He was the 23 plant manager who became the VP. Wasn't he a VP or 24 something?
25 (PH)
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51 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, not 2 10 (PH). He was just a manager.
3*
- Right.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I just can't 5 think of his name.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're going back to
- 7. '96.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So it sounds 9 like when *(PH) came in there was a change 10 in approach and change in conduct if you will in the 11 way the control room was being managed. The CRS 12 position didn't look as attractive because of the 13 increased pressures.
14 Right.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You 16 mentioned compensation. What was that about?
17 . I think that was about the 18 same time that they took away the overtime for the 19 control room supervisors. Up until this point, they 20 had been paid the same as us. You have a basic 40 21 hour salary. Then anything you work beyond that you 22 get compensated for, time.and a half, coming in on 23 your days off.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was that 25 also true for OSs at the time too?
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52 1 Yes.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So it was 3 both of those positions that got that taken away.
4 I think the OSs might have 5 actually lost that a year or two prior to that.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, was 7 there any exchange or was there any increase or 8 something? The only reason I'm asking is I'm not so 9 much interested in all of the mechanics but whether 10 there was something to offset it.
11 I think when it was done a 12 couple of years prior for the OSs they were all 13 compensated. They were all given a raise and then put 14 on salary. It's like you are going to come in on some 15 of your days off. You. are not going to get 16 compensated for it, but your overall salary is 17 basically going to remain the same. The CRSs weren't 18 done that way. They stayed at basically the same 19 hourly pay and were considered salary.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As NCO.
21 No, the CRSs.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The same hourly pay 23 but no overtime.
24 Correct.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So there was no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
53 1 benefit.
2 Nw Yes, there was no benefit.
3 And once you figure in the amount of time that they 4 were putting into because like I said there was a lot 5 of turmoil at the time, they were expected to put in 6 60 to 70 hours8.101852e-4 days <br />0.0194 hours <br />1.157407e-4 weeks <br />2.6635e-5 months <br /> per week. For a couple of years, the 7 NCOs were making more than the control room 8 supervisors.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess under that 10 system if you are not going to be compensated.
11 FAM Right.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So then they lose 13 people putting in for it. There's no incentive to go 14 to the next level.
15 Correct, Co, there's been very 16 few NCOs that have tried to go up to the control room 17 supervisor job.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: They can't have been 19 very pleased with you for going through the training 20 and then saying I'm not going to go there.
21 Right, they weren't.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What kind of push or 23 what kind of response did you get to that?
24 Most of it was with th, 25 1 M around the 2000 timeframe.
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.... .. *-. , S*V *il* P &I
%A
54 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Who was 2 that?
[o 3
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So they let you 5 cruise for four years.
6 *Well actually, no, because 7 once I initially got the license, we had gone into a 8 refuel outage.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
10 - So I had taken a temporary 11 upgrade where I was working with the outage group. I 12 was an ops coordinator with the outage group. So I 13 was using my license then.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right, okay.
15 7.. went back on shift for 16 less than a month. They were working a new work 17 control program with work weeks and coordinators and 18 myself and there was another " that was SRO licensed 19 but not a supervisor, 'that took another 20 temporary upgrade for about 18 months working over in 21 work control getting the whole program getting it 22 started for them.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and did you do 24 some of that yourself too?
25 Yes, like I said, it was NEAL R. GROSS L COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
55 1 both of us that went over and basically started the 2 work control program for operations.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in that timeframe, 4 you were using this license.
5 1 was using the license. We 6 were approving tags and everything but not making tech 7 spec recommendations because the only person who 8 actually makes a tech spec call is the on-duty control 9 room supervisor. But as part of our job, we had to 10 always be aware of the tech spec implications of what 11 we wanted to do, how we scheduled things. So we both 12 used the license that entire time. I would say from 13 when I first got th used it constantly 14 for almost three years, two to three years.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
16 Now, after that time period 17 went back on shift was when became the 18 Iand kept pushing for both of us to take 19 the control room supervisor job.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you ever 21 explain to him why you were never that interested in 22 it?
23 Yes, in great length.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was his 25 response to that? --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
56 1 f He wasn't happy about it.
2 I basically told him if I listed everything out, all 3 the pros and cons, I said I can give you a list of 4 probably 20 cons right off the top of my head. I said 5 you give me some of the pros. He started talking 6 salary. He thought that the money would be the big 7 issue.
8 Right from the beginning, he realized that 9 I was making more as an# than he could offer me as 10 a control room supervisor. So he lost that argument.
11 But he kept pushing. He actually said quite a few 12 times that it's going to get to the point when we get 13 to training and requal. I have guys that are SRO 14 licensed that are being lent out to INC that are over 15 in work control. It's going to be hard for me to be 16 able to find enough room to requalify you as an SRO 17 and training.
18 So we're basically going to have to push 19 you back to an RO which I almost took to be a threat.
20 You take this job or we're going to take your license 21 away. As it turned out, he kept true to his threat 22 and petitioned to have the license taken away.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was that you and the 24 other individual?
25 Yes.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
57 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What is his name?
2 3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: When you say 4 "taken away," you just said that it's because we can't 5 afford to put you through requal or whatever. We 6 don't have the space or what have you. We are just 7 going to tell the NRC that we don't need your SRO 8 license but we'll keep your RO. That was the gist of 9 it.
i* Correct.
10 11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How did you 12 react to that?
13 . P. V I wasn't happy about that.
14 I told him I wanted to keep the license. I felt that 15 I was using it. There was. a lot of inexperience at 16 the control room supervisor level because you get to 17 the point where you have a lot of instant SROs coming 18 in without the experience. I felt that I was helping 19 them out with covering their back on tech spec calls, 20 covering their back on different situations to keep 21 all of us out of trouble with my experience and with 22 my license.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Ultimately they 24 didn't want to pay for that back up because you 25 weren't going to go into the CRS position is what it NEAL R. GROSS .
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
58 1 seemed like.
2 M. Correct, and I don't think 3 it was a money issue. It seemed like they wanted us 4 to take the supervisor job. I think they wanted to 5 beef up the experience level and wanted us to take the 6 supervisor job. By threatening to take away the SRO 7 license was about the only way that they thought they 8 had an upper hand to do that.
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But as far 10 as the consequences to you, was there a negative 11 consequence?
12 For losing the license?
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, from a 14 pay standpoint.
15 It was minor. The 16 difference between a reactor operator license and a 17 senior reactor operator license is 90 cents an hour.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But you get 19 paid overtime and they don't.
20 Correct, so in the grand 21 scheme of things the 90 cents an hour wasn't that big 22 of an issue.
23 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I would 24 think that actually financially you are better off as 25 an RO based on what you described earlier.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
59 1 *Correct.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: And staying 3 at the RO level.
4 Correct.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Quite a bit 6 better.
7 . Now, in the last couple of 8 years, they have compensated the control room 9 supervisors a lot better. They still don't get 10 overtime but they have actually brought their salary 11 up enough to where it may be worthwhile.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see people 13 making that switch because of that?
14 No.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it wasn't enough 16 of a factor.
17 - . In fact, since 1996, there 18 has been I think three NCOs that have taken the 19 promotion. I'm pretty sure there's only been three, 20 maybe four.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In seven or eight 22 years.
23 Yes 24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 25 talked to them at all about it? Do they like it? Do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A. -n11-*a *t Akfl AWI SO %A#
60 1 they have mixed feelings? What kind of feedback are 2 you getting?
3 Ai Are you talking about have 4 I talked to operations management?
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, the 6 three or four people you just mentioned.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who made the switch.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Are you 9 friendly with those folks that you were mentioning?
10s.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 12 ever talked to them about how they like the job? Is 13 it any better or worse? What's their thoughts on it?
14 I don't think any of the 15 three are really sorry that they took the promotion.
16 One of the three never actually went on shift. He got 17 an SRO license and is doing basically what I did over 18 in work control as a coordinator. I don't think he 19 has the same pressures that a control room supervisor 20 does. That was the deal he worked out to get the 21 license and take the promotion.
22 Out of all of them, there's only two guys 23 that have taken the actual control room supervisor 24 job. One of them I think is pretty happy with it.
25 The other one, sometimes I wonder but he's not going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOnF ISLAND AVF. N W
61 1 to come out and say that he's not happy with it. He 2 seems like he's holding his own.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who are the two who 4 made the transition just for our frame of reference?
5 6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before, you made a 7 comment about it seemed that CRS and OS level will be 8 on the same page or tend to support one another when 9 things are normal.
10 Right.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You don't have too 12 much equipment out. You don't have too much time 13 pressure.
14 gV . Right.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But the CRS, you 16 described them as more thorough and more conservative.
17 The OS, when there is that schedule pressure, is the 18 one to push.
19 Correct.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your description of 21 that relationship, has that been the same since this 22 '96 timeframe? Is that something that you have seen 23 all along the line?
24 Since at least '96, yes, and 25 I think '96 is probably about when it started.
NEAL R. GROSS COUNT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
62 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Has it changed in any 2 way since that time?
3 No.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More pronounced on 5 one side or the other.
- !. No.
6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You see it as the 8 same consistent relationship.
9 Right, there are times that 10 you can tell that the control room supervisor may 11 initially tell you that it's okay with us and just do 12 what we're doing right now. The schedule might have 13 us doing something else. He'll say no, I just want to 14 continue on the path that we're one. We're not going 15 to proceed to this next step because I don't think 16 it's smart.
17 The shift manager will come in or the ops 18 manager sometimes comes in. The next thing you know 19 there's a major shift in what you are doing. You can 20 sense the reluctance from the control room supervisor 21 as he is giving you the redirection. You can tell 22 he's not comfortable with it.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which is changed at 24 the OS or the OM level.
25 Yes, and it seems like those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4Vj,)1 ownn= mAtmn AVJ NW
63 1 guys get run over all the time.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: CRSs?
- ! The CRSs.
3 4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's an 5 interesting way to put it. From their point of 6 reference, they should also feel free to raise issues 7 and raise concerns. They may or may not think they 8 are safety concerns. They are just maybe complaint 9 concerns, how to conduct an evolution, how to manage 10 the plant, how to do things in a safe conservative 11 way.
12 In doing that, is there any discussion 13 after the fact? The managers leave or whatever and 14 the guys just sit down and talk and say I'd like to 15 stay where we were but we have to do this because we 16 need to do something based on what the ops manager 17 said or based on what the shift manager said.
18 Yes, and -I'm trying to think 19 of how it would go about. A lot of times we'll wait 20 until the shift manager or the ops manager leaves.
21 We'll say something. A lot of times they will just 22 shrug their shoulders or say I know what you are 23 talking about or I know how you feel. But a lot of 24 them are afraid to go into too much detail. I also 25 think that a lot of the supervisors are intimidated to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
64 1 bring up concerns.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What makes you say 3 that?
4 . Well, this isn't a nuclear 5 safety issue as well as an industrial safety. I had 6 a control room supervisor ask me to write up a 7 notification because he was afraid of the retaliation 8 if he did it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the issue?
10 The issue was working or 11 doing inspections in electrical cabinets without the 12 proper fire clothing on. The last three years, we 13 instituted a program where any time you are doing 14 anything with electrical work you have flame retardant 15 clothing on. All the union personnel are all issued 16 clothing. In fact, we get an allowance for this 17 clothing.
18 Basically all the supervisors aren't 19 issued the clothing. So it's more like a union/non-20 union issue. The craft workers are issued the 21 clothing. The supervisors aren't I guess originally 22 based on the premise that they don't do electrical 23 work. They supervise. But any time that you go into 24 an electrical cabinet, you are working around 25 energized equipment whether the only thing you are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
65 1 doing is going in with a flashlight and looking 2 around. You still need the same equipment. All this 3 stuff is identified in our safety manual and in 4 different programs.
5 I know he had vocally brought up a few 6 times the fact that the supervisor should be getting 7 something. Maybe they don't need the entire allowance 8 that we do, but they should be getting something if 9 they are going to be expected to go in and walk down 10 tags or do inspections in electrical cabinets.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The CRSs should be 12 issued this.
13 . The CRSs, right.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You know he brought 15 it up how?
16 When we would have meetings 17 with our ops manager, he would basically bring up the 18 issue.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What would happen 20 there?
21 They basically said we will 22 look into that. We'll discuss it. Then it just never 23 got any further than that. He actually got to the 24 point where he wanted it written up in a notification 25 because he thought it was a big problem. He was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
66 1 afraid it. He actually asked me to write it up for
.2 him.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How long ago does 4 this go back?
5 I'd say 12 to 18 months ago.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So under 7 (PH).
- 8 : , --
- _L:Yes.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said he was 10 afraid to because he had to hand it off to you.
ight.
R:
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What did he tell you 13 at the time?
14 I forget his exact wording.
15 He was basically talking, about the political 16 ramifications if he wrote it up. He knew that if I 17 brought up the concern there wouldn't be any.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As a union guy.
19 As a union guy, there 20 wouldn't be any effects on me. Whereas if he brought 21 it up and actually put the problem out in writing, 22 there are certain things they could do to him.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He indicated that to 24 you.
25 Ys NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
67 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He actually verbally I.
o 2 said that.
' Yes.
3 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The control room 5 supervisor (PH) ?
I* No.
6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is it one of the 8 three that you were working with consistently?
9 Yes.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:
11 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It was (PH). I---
13 PH).
14 .. ...
. ( . (P.).
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had you seen that 16 happen before with this individual or with any other 17 CRS where they had that reluctance to push an issue?
18 With this individual, I know 19 initially he was pretty vocal with issues. A lot of 20 times he, appearance-wise, seemed like he would side 21 with the equipment operators and the nuclear control 22 room operators because he had been a control room 23 operator and a control room supervisor at a different 24 plant before he came down here. So he has a lot of 25 experience.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
-' M-, -- V. 101 AMf M'IC Fd W
68 1 He would see issues that we would bring up 2 and he would know that they were valid issues. He 3 would side with us. Whereas management would down 4 play the issue. So he was always looked at as being 5 on the wrong side. I think he got hammered from his 6 evaluations. I think he's gone a few years without a 7 pay raise. That got to the point where it's starting 8 to hit home. It's starting to hit his wallet. He's 9 starting to tone it down a little bit.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If he supports your 11 issues, that's the end result.
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are there performance 14 issues tied to that too?
,4No.
15 16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is he seen as a good 17 performer?
. *: *Yes, I think so.
18 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So over time, it's 20 led to instead of supporting you he'll hand off an 21 issue and you front it.
22 23 SPECI AL AGENT NEFF: How about the other 24 ones that you have worked with? Do you see that there 25.
- ".-25 too? I'm asking about your experience with i Wand NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 17*q RHOnF ISI ANf AVF. N W
69 1--
2 *rHe hasn't been on our shift 3 for as long as the other two. I think he's been on 4 our shift for a little over a year. So I can't think 5 of any examples where he seemed reluctant to bring up 6 an issue. But I know that I brought up an issue 7 coming out of one of the outages where I didn't think 8 that we were doing enough to get ourselves ready for 9 start up, specifically with exercising control 10 rods. I thought we hit a point where they said 11 we wanted to start up. We're going to do it right 12 now. I don't care whether we're ready or not. We had 13 a lot of problems with the control rods. So 14 that up. a- lengthy notification and 15 addressed specific issues. ;happened to be 16 standing in as the shift manager for the couple of 17 nights that we were doing start up.
18 When I brought it up, there was a lot of 19 feathers ruffled'with ops management for doing the 20 start up and not addressing these problems before we 21 started up. So they weren't happy with me. And I got 22 the impression fromi hat he took some heat over 23 it.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So at the CRS and OS 25 level, they were getting some criticism.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
70 1 -J They were getting heat for 2 an issue that I brought up. It's very difficult for 3 them to hit me directly.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What's the 5 goal though behind something like that? If you just 6 step back and look at the circumstance, you are 7 raising some issues about the way you are doing the 8 start up and the need to do certain activities, some 9 sort of a control exercise. Basically you are saying 10 we really need to do this. You are raising it up to 11 management. It's almost a safety issue of sorts.Ri*
12 it doesn't cross the threshold. Maybe it's just 13 something that would be a good operating practice-type 14 issue. Then it goes up to the OS and maybe the AOMs 15 and the ops manager. Then they are coming down and 16 saying we really want to move the plant. We really 17 want to get the plant started up. Is it the situation 18 that the CRSs is put a vice and you are pushing on one 19 side and he's pushing on the other and he's getting 20 squished in the middle?
21 . That's exactly what it's 22 like. There's enough of us that have been in the 23 control room and have enough experience that we know 24 certain situations that are good and ones that are 25 uncomfortable. Once we hit our comfort level, we'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
71 1 start pushing back. Then you have the shift manager 2 who starts pushing down on the CRS.
3 There's been start ups where the outage 4 manager, the ops manager, the assistant ops manager 5 would all be standing in the back of the control room 6 in the shift manager's office. We used to call them 7 the Sopranos. It seemed like every time these guys 8 would come in they would start pushing hard on the 9 CRS.
10 Like I said, we would push back at them to 11 keep things at what we thought was a conservative, 12 comfortable level to keep things under control. So 13 you could definitely feel the tension every time that 14 went on. You could definitely feel like the CRSs were 15 getting squeezed.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you see 17 any of these changes take place after deregulation?
18 That's something that's happened over the last couple 19 of years. The plant has moved from a regulated 20 environment where you dealt with the PUC and you can 21 go after money which was pretty easy to get to fix 22 things, repair things, what have you. Then with 23 deregulation, it's very competitive. You have to 24 watch every penny. You have to maximize generation 25 and these kinds of things, the short outages, the 16 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
72 1 to 18 day outages.
2 Right.
3 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Was there 4 any talk at the time when the effects of that first 5 hit the station that this is going to be a radical 6 change for us and we have to change the way we look at 7 operations?
8 :No, it was talked about as 9 being a radical change and how we would do things 10 would be different. But as far as that kind of level, 11 no.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Have you 13 ever been a student or an individual in the audience 14 when there was discussion about this is our generation 15 goals, this is our shareholder value, we're trying to 16 increase it to this, we need this, and we need that?
17 How does that get presented? Who is presenting that?
18 What's the tone?
19 We used to have all hands 20 meetings with th (PH) level. I can't 21 remember. They changed the title so many times.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER:
23 25 *is what the title is called now. In fact, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1t*91 RHnrfF: IAJ ANDl AVE.. N.W.
73 1 I thi nk that would be wha (PH) is now.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3 But a lot of them were at 4 that level.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And then you had 6 what, 7 . We very rarely interfaced 8 with the S'ECIAL AGENT NEFF: That would have been 9
formerly*
10 11 Right, very-little interface 12 with them.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you had little 14 contact, little knowledge of interactions at that 15 level from your personal experience.
16 WIN Right, but when we go out to 17 training, we train pretty much every fifth week.
18 There's so much actual training. There are some weeks
- 19. where we don't have training, but we are scheduled for 20 training every fifth week. I would say about every 21 other time that we're out at the training center 22 there's usually a section in our schedule called the 23 ops manager update where the ops manager will come in 24 and talk about different issues, talk about what's 25 going on. There will be a question and answer session NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
74 1 as .far as what issues do we have.
2 The entire time tha i (PH) was 3 the ops manager he basically came out and did a slide 54 h ohw=1--=t-wa s =e xa ct-1-y- what_-yznuza r-e= ng -about. __-I1 t,
..... W-iiperormancel-ndicat -rs h is =-i s-o _-___ac_...
6 factor. This is our generation. This is our costs.
7 That's pretty much what it was. It ran so long that.
8 it usually cut down the question and answer session or 9 the opportunity to bring up issues there at the end.
I I*t__cut it-dwn to2almost nothinq.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The message that--Eh-12 company reportedly puts out there, safety, 13 reliability, cost, do you see that projected in k.4- -+/-,aa-eeea r-i - -
15 about safety? Are you hearing about reliability?
16 4, Yes, we hear about safety e-
- all-h-.itfei-ne.. We-have-pos tersT-a i-+/---over--the--pac* ......
18 We have safety messages.
They always talk about it.
19 But a lot of times I think it's safety is number one 20 as long as it doesn't impact schedule, if it doesn't 21 impact generation. If something has to give, it tends 22 to be on safety. That's the impression that most of 23 us have.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you talk about 25 these schedule pressures and the way the relationship NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
75 1 is with the CRS being thorough and conservative and 2 wanting to go in a certain direction but that can be 3 changed for them at the OM and OS level, can you think 4 of any other examples of that where they are going in 5 a conservative direction and that gets reversed or 6 altered for them?
7 . The start ups that we have 8 done. I think we must have done at least a half a 9 dozen start ups in the past 12 months. It hasn't been 10 one of the greatest records for us. Every start up, 11 I always got the impression that they were 12 uncomfortable with how we were proceeding, the pace 13 that we were proceeding.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Too quickly.
15
- Too quickly. Under normal 16 conditions, it wouldn't be bad. If you had a normal 17 start up where everything went the way it was expected 18 to, the pace was good. But once you start running 19 into things like a lot more in leakage in your 20 condenser than you expect or than you should have, 21 there's a problem out there somewhere.
22 You have a leak. It starts affecting your 23 off gas flows. You are worried about losing your off 24 gas train. So you want to slow things down and see if 25 you can figure out what impact is this going to have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
76 1 on us and is there something that we need to address?
2 Well, upper management seems like no, we're good to 3 150 so don't worry about it and just keep on pushing.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are talking about 5 the incident back in March with the start up during 6 the March timeframe with the off gas level.
7 Yes.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you were getting 9 a high reading for where you were.
10 Right, and that was never 11 really addressed. We had a high off gas level. I 12 think we ran for a period of time with the elevated 13 off gas level. Then we ended up shutting down again.
14 I think there was another forced outage after that.
15 The problem just pretty much went away. Now, there 16 was equipment that was realigned during the'shut down.
17 Whether something there corrected the problem, I don' t 18 know. It was one of those things that seemed to fix 19 itself. Maybe it was swapping air ejectors.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You haven't seen it 21 since.
22 I don't remember the exact 23 configuration. But it's possible that we haven't run 24 with the same air ejector than we did back then.
25 Maybe that problem is still sitting there waiting to NEAL R. GROSS / -"
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 411' PWO I'MIAP AVp NW
77 1 come back. I don't know. I don't keep track of what 2 we had in service at the time, whether it's been out 3 of service this entire time. But it was like let's 4 ignore it. Since it went away, it's not a problem.
5 Let's keep on going.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about other 7 instances? Can you think of anything else?
8 -*Not off the top of my head 9 right now.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: If something comes up 11 12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You were 13 talking a little bit about competition and 14 deregulation. Were there any issues that would stick 15 out that would reflect excessive pressures? You said 16 in a broad way that safety is first as long as it 17 doesn't affect generation or production. There's an 18 implication with that statement that there are 19 production pressures and there are generation 20 pressures.
21 Have you ever personally felt or been a 22 witness to a situation other than the ones we 23 previously talked about where you thought this is just 24 pushing too hard? You mentioned something with start 25 ups maybe going a little fast and some other NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
78 1 instances. But were there any other things where that 2 stands out in your mind? Like, we're just doing 3 something because it's on the schedule to do it and it 4 makes no sense or things like that.
5 .'to There's a lot of things that 6 I look at on the schedule that don't make sense. It 7 seems like there's surveillances that we have to do at 8 a certain time interval. Maybe they are every 92 9 days. We seem to move them up a lot to where we're 10 doing them more frequently which doesn't make sense.
11 But if that's what they want to do, we can do them 12 every month.
13 Whereas once you get into a piece of 14 equipment that's degraded, a bad leak service water is 15 an example of that where it definitely needs some 16 work, it needs an outage. It needs to be taken out 17 and fixed. Well, a service water outage when you are 18 on-line is very difficult to do. You have a really 19 short time period.- So that kind of stuff doesn't get 20 scheduled even in short durations.
21 We seem to be working a lot towards 22 performance indicators as opposed to towards 23 performance. So you look at what your performance 24 indicator is showing you. All right, maybe we're not 25 doing too good at this so we have to tweak it to make NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
79 1 the performance indicator better. The emphasis 2 doesn't seem to be on making the performance better.
3 One of them is the outage time that you 4 track on a piece of equipment. If you have a 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> 5 LCO on a piece of equipment and you only take it out 6 for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, you have well met your LCO. But they 7 keep track of the overall time that it's out. I don't 8 know if it's a 12 month period or a two year period to 9 where maybe you were only out 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> of your 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> 10 LCO but you were like that this month.
11 Then the following month you took it out 12 for the same period of time. Then a month after that 13 you took it out for the same period of time. So 14 there's a performance indicator that they track the 15 total amount of time the piece of equipment was out.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Maintenance 17 rule.
18 That's exactly it. I 19 couldn't remember the name of it.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Yes, 21 maintenance rule.
22 Which in some ways is good.
23 But when you get to the point where you are not doing 24 corrective maintenance on equipment because you are 25 already in the yellow for your maintenance rule, now NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
80 1 you are starting to manage the performance indicator.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are reluctant to 3 fix something so it doesn't show up on the maintenance 4 rule.
5 , Right, I don't want to take 6 -- out of service for a three day outage because I'm 7 already into the yellow.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's going to 9 escalate.
10 i For the maintenance rule, 11 it's going to make me look even worse.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you see that 13 that's what is driving how the work gets done.
14 A lot of it, yes.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Which is 16 interesting because I know the NRC's goal behind that 17 was exactly the opposite.
18 Right.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You try and 20 get the utilities to acknowledge that there's 21 equipment that doesn't work properly and give 22 attention to things that are on the radar screen of 23 things that aren't doing well. Put more attention in 24 there, more resources, more activities and get the
- h. "
25 thing working properly.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
81 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are saying it's 2 having the opposite effect.
3 Right, the way the 4 maintenance rule is all written down and in theory 5 makes a lot of sense. But it is definitely having the 6 opposite effect to where that ends up being a 7 performance indicator. It's like my rixy (PH) system 8 is not looking good for the maintenance rule. So I 9 want to do as little outage time on that as I can to 10 bring my maintenance rule time, my outage time down 11 and get me back into a nice looking figure. So they 12 are managing the indicator instead of managing the 13 performance of it.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEERBARBER: Interesting.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I wanted to ask you 16 a question. In terms of those examples that we are 17 looking at - and I think you are still thinking about 18 it - on that conservative versus a less conservative 19 push on the CRS level, have you seen instances where 20 the control room crew, the CRS and the NCOs and even 21 including the OS, are taking a position that might be 22 seen as more aggressive?
23 Can you flip that and have either the OS 24 or ops management come back with no, I think you need 25 to be a little more conservative or push back and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 13 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
82 1 temper that more conservatively? Can you think of 2 anything along those lines?
- No, I can't.
3 4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you see it is 5 consistently going the other way.
6 Going the other way. I 7 could definitely see where it's possible to go the 8 other way, but I can't think of any situation where 9 that has happened.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where it has.
- Yes.
11 12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I want to just go off 13 the record briefly right now. It's approximately 14 11:41 a.m.
15 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 16 the record at 11:41 a.m. and went back on 17 the record at 4:37 p.m.)
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the record.
19 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff. What follows 20 will be a continued interview that was interrupted at 21 approximately 11:40 a.m. on January 22 with 00 22 2 A . The time is now approximately 4:37 p.m.
23 What happened was we ran into some scheduling issues.
24 0 0returned to shift and agreed to come back
-25 to complete this interview today.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
83 1 So right now, it's approximately 4:37 p.m.
2 We had been asking about incidents regarding push from 3 senior management in a non-conservative direction.
4 You think you pretty much at that point offered what 5 you could recall. You still think that's the case.
6 You really haven't had an opportunity based on your 7 work on shift you said but right now you have nothing 8 further to add to that.
9 ,-That's correct.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We were also talking 11 about incidents where there was a push for 12 conservative. Senior management from the OS level and 13 above would be considered more conservative in their 14 thought than the rest of the control room crew.. You 15 had no incidents. You couldn't think of any examples 16 of that.
17 NO : That is correct.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you still have 19 nothing further to add to that. So what we were going 20 to get into is a couple of issues to ask you about.
21 What is the date of the furthest one out?
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you mean 23 the oldest?
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think most are 2003 25 incidents, right?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REFORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1VT RHOOE ISLAND AVE.. NW.
84 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Actually the 2 first one I was going to ask about is two issues 3 combined. It's from the March 2003 timeframe. It's 4 a problem with the turban (PH) bypass valve where 5 there was a forced outage. There was a number of 6 activities that were performed. I think there was 7 some diesel generator exhaust or RHR or some other 8 types of things like that.
9 Then during the start up, after the 10 generator was put on-line, the turban (PH) bypass 11 valves were tried to move in the shut direction. I 12 think a number of them had moved fine, but one of them 13 was held open. It became mechanically bound. That 14 happened over a Friday/Saturday timeframe. Then there 15 was a related problem in the, same relative timeframe 16 on a Sunday. It was a reactivity management problem 17 with a slight over power condition.
18 Right, I remember the 19 circumstances.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Were you 21 involved with either one of those?
22 I can't remember whether 1No, 23 I was on a long weekend and off or whether I was in 24 training that week and that would have been my weekend 25 off. -
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
85 1 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
2 : So I wasn't on shift that 3 weekend either days or nights.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: All right, 5 do you have anything you want to offer on those? Was 6 there anything that you heard?
7 No, I wasn't directly 8 involved. Most of what I got on the whole 9 circumstance was talking to some of the operators that 10 were on duty and then reading the tarp (PH) report 11 notification and reading the events on that. That's 12 probably most of my knowledge which is probably the 13 same as what you have.
14 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, the 15 second issue would be there was a problem with the 16 diesel inner-cooler pump having a leak. It was in 17 June 2003. The leak occurred on a Sunday. There was 18 some assessment of the leak. It was determined to be 19 excessive. Then on Monday the diesel was declared 20 inoperable and a 72 hour LCO was entered, repair 21 activities was undertaken, and there were some shims 22 that were installed. Is any of this ringing a bell?
23 *That specific one is vaguely 24 familiar. A lot of the diesels have had various 25 jacket water leaks either where the flange connections NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
86 1 are or the pumps.
2 SR.. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3 Various times we have had 4 collection bottles collecting the jacket water leaks 5 off of them.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: For this 7 one, the magnitude was slightly larger and maybe got 8 even worse. It actually resulted in not only 9 exceeding the 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> timeframe but getting into the 10 12 hour1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br /> to hot shut down timeframe.
11 . Okay, yes, I do -remember 12 that.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: There were 1.4 some significant delays in actually starting the shut 15 down. Do you have any insights to share on that?
16 Were you either on shift or work control?
17 f If I remember, they were 18 trying to get enforcement discretion on that to try to 19 delay the shut down.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you have direct 21 involvement in that?
22 .:j No, I didn't have any direct 23 involvement. I just vaguely remember that one.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You have good timing.
- . L-;25 . I1_ have a couple of them that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
87 1 I have missed. I have been lucky.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Those are 3 the main ones. You mentioned an issue with the off 4 gas flow. You threw out some numbers. You threw out 5 150 SCFM. I don't know if you mentioned the spec of 6 75. Did you have any involvement with that issue when 7 that developed?
8a- I caught the tail end of the 9 issue. During the initial vacuum pool when the off 10 gas flow was that high, it was recognized to be that 11 high and the NCOs kept questioning that. They were 12 uncomfortable with it knowing that there was a
.13 problem. Something was malfunctioning. There was an 14 in leakage either at the steam jet or the condenser 15 itself. They wanted the issue resolved before we went 16 any further.
17 The push was to keep going with the plan.
18 I believe the justification was that the off gas 19 system was originally designed for two plants. And at 20 75 CFM each, it could handle 150, two of them. That's 21 what ops management had determined. I don't know 22 whether they got that from engineering or what they 23 have to back that up. That's what the went with.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did you look 25 at any of the paperwork associated with whether there NEAL R. GROSS.
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
~- " DLWUlMIM M &inl AvsF NW
88
- 1. was a notification?
2:2 Yes, there was a 3 notification. In fact, I just had a copy of that that 4 I looked at. I didn't think to bring that with me.
5 I do have a copy of that in my personal stuff.
.6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you have 7 any thoughts on it? You have read it. Did it sound 8 reasonable?
9 No, I didn't think it was 10 reasonable. To us, it's a major problem. We 11 typically run anywhere from 30 to 40 cubic feet per 12 minute. When you have it running up around 70, that's 13 high. You have a problem. When it's running up over 14 100 and pushing 150, that's way out of where you 15 normally operate.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has it ever 17 been up over 100?
18 It has been up over 100 but 19 usually for real short time periods. When we swap off 20 gas or swap steam jets, you're running a parallel 21 flow. You are starting to draw down and warm up the 22 incoming one. So there are short periods where it 23 might go up for a short period of time.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where it might even 25 be anticipated.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
89 1 Right, usually that's 2 anticipated. And typically it goes up to a magnitude 3 of maybe about 70.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But in this 5 situation, there was no explanation for it.
6 . No explanation, that's 7 correct.
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What is it 9 today?
10:* Right now, I believe it's 11 running about 40.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, do you 13 consider that normal range?
14 . It's a little high. There's 15 in leakage somewhere but it's not that much. It's a 16 couple CFM so that's not significant for in leakage.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: We'll stay 18 with the off gas in leakage issue for a minute. If 19 this gets raised to management as this is something 20 that we really don't like the explanation here -- It 21 doesn't seem to be well supported. It doesn't seem to 22 be justified and plus it's negating the fact that we 23 really have a physical problem with the condenser.
24 We're getting in leakage from somewhere whether it's 25 through some installed piping or a valve that's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
90 1 leaking or if there's actually a physical problem in 2 the structure where you are getting a gap somewhere or 3 a small hole or whatever. If that kind of issue is 4 raised in that regard, what kind of feedback do you 5 get? Is it we're checking it?
6
- Yes, that's basically what 7 we get. We're checking into it. We have a phone call 8 to engineering. Licensing is taking a look at it.
9 Those are typically the answers. We never get much in 10 the way of a final*resolution. Now, the notification 11 for that particular one was submitted as a 12 significance level one notification.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
14 I believe 1.' it was on the 15 night shift that it was initiated. The corrective 16 action group has a morning meeting where they go over 17 the notification. By the morning, it got downgraded 18 to a level two. Then shortly after that - and I don't 19 know if it was days .or a week - it got downgraded to 20 a level three notification.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was in the 22 corrective action group?
23 The only name that jumps out 24 at me now is' (PH).
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that a fixed group NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
91 1 or does that change?
2 That's a fixed group. Where 3 something like that would either get upgraded to a two 4 or a one or downgraded from a one or a two, there's a 5 morning managers meeting. So it would actually be the 6 department managers that would have the input into it 7 to downgrade it. So it's not necessarily the people 8 in corrective action. They are the ones that actually 9 do the physical manipulations in the computer that 10 downgrade it and put the explanation in. It would be 11 the managers from the managers meeting that determines 12 that.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Which would be a 14 combination of what, maintenance, engineering, 15 operations?
16j* Operations.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So that was reviewed 18 and decided to downgrade it at that level.
19 Yes.
20 SPECIAL AGE1T NEFF: The notification in 21 this case, who was that written by?
22 It was written by&
23 (PH).
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The # who raised 25 their concerns about it, do you know who they were?
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
92 1*
- It was (PH) who
.. 2 was the .
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: More than him though?
4 .. Yes, and I don't remember 5 who he was on shift with at the time.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, do you have 7 anything further on the off gas?
8 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No.
9 Now, as far as the start ups 10 that I brought up, one of the ones in particular I 11 brought up was the September one where we came down 12 from the hurricane. The turn around time on that I 13 thought was quick considering the magnitude of what 14 happened. We lost half the switch yard. The problems 15 that we encountered on the way up, I had a lot of 16 reservations about starting it up.
17 I addressed them to my control room 18 supervisor, the shift manager, and even the new plant 19 manager. I said nobody is convinced me that this 20 plant is ready to start up. Then I gave him specific 21 examples. I felt really uncomfortable coming in that 22 night getting ready to take the reactor critical with 23 a lot of control rod problems.
24 I grabbed the turnover sheet from today.
25 A lot of these problems still exist. We're going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
93 1 take the reactor critical. At the time, there were 2 five control rods that had excessive withdraw speeds.
3 They engineered those away as not being a problem.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Do you know 5 how fast they were?
6 . The exact speeds, I don't 7 remember. They may not be that bad in a normal 8 situation, but when you are using that control rod to 9 pull a critical and it's withdrawing fast, I'm not 10 comfortable with that. At the same time, some of the i1 nuclear instrumentation was inoperable. One of the 12 four SRMs were inoperable.
13 We actually had two they had a lot of 14 problem with. The Charlie and Delta SRMs have been 15 problems for the last couple of years. They go back 16 and forth on which one is operable and which one is 17 inoperable. In fact, right now I believe the Delta 18 was just declared operable but degraded.
19 But we always seem to find a way to 20 declare enough of the SRMs operable to start up tech 21 spec-wise. But we started up-with one SRM inoperable 22 and another one acting erratically. It was giving us 23 short period alarms. We have eight IRMs. Two of 24 those were out.
25 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Which start NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 RHnnF ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
94 1 up was this, the recent start up?
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: September.
3 J The one in September.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, 5 September.
6 01" We had two of the eight IRMs 7 inoperable. When you get over to the APRMs, the LPRM 8 inputs, we had 16 LPRM inputs to our APRMs inoperable.
9 So tech spec-wise it was all allowable. We had the 10 minimum number of SRMs and the minimum number per 11 channel IRMs. All the APRMs were operable because 12 they had their minimum number of LPRM inputs. But 13 there was a lot of nuclear instrumentation that was 14 inoperable for that start up.
15 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: What was 16 that attributed to?
17 L They were all various 18 problems. A lot of the NI equipment is old. It's 19 difficult to get parts for them anymore. How they are 20 resolving that issue long-term, I don't know. But the 21 nuclear instrumentation, all of it, LPRMs, SRMs, IR~s, 22 are very difficult to keep operable.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you are at minimum 24 numbers in a number of categories plus five control 25 rods that are withdrawing at excessive speed.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
95 I Yes.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What was the response 3 when you raised that concern? What did you get back?
4 You said you went all the way up to, was it 5 Yes.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: YouX.
7 . Now, u I didn't schedule a 8 meeting with him and go in and talk to him. He 9 happened to be on the night shift observing the start 10 up. I told him that I wasn't comfortable with the 11 start up. There's nobody that has convinced me that 12 the plant is ready to start up.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's go a step at a 14 time. Who did you take it to first and express your 15 concerns to?
16 1 It started at the shift 17 turnover meeting. Because of the amount of activities 18 that were going on in the control room, instead of 19 doing individual turnovers first, we all met in the 20 back of the control room and had the off going shift 21 manager give a turnover brief explaining where we were 22 and what we were doing. I brought all of these issues 23 up directly to him.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was that?
25 (PH). But also I NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
96 1 believe - (PH) was on. I know he was, 2 * *_x W_:at the time. I'm not positive whether 3 he was in that night or not. I know I brought it on 4 to 3 also.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
6 .But I brought that issue up o 4"_
7 in the -whole group 8 as well as th 10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How did they respond 11 to that?
12 They responded that they had 13 engineering positions on all of the control rods.
14 They took one of the thermal limits. They decided to 15 take an administrative penalty for the micper (PH) for 16 excessive control rod speeds. So they handled that 17 administratively. As far as the nuclear 18 instrumentation, they just quoted tech specs that we 19 meet our minimum. We had the minimum by tech specs 20 for SRMs and IRMs.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Were those 22 at the minimums, or were those a little higher? Well, 23 the SRMs sound like they were at their minimum.
24 - SRMs were at their minimum.
.. 25 IRMs were at their minimum. The LPRMs weren't at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANC TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
A . ~rn fl
- 1, )mm;%fl.17fl1 unm np.,,Irnrn-;,cn
97 1 minimum.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So they explained why 4 you were able to handle it with each of these 5 degrading categories.
6 7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you been in a 8 position like that before? Have you seen a start up 9 with this much of your instrumentation missing?
10 No, and I don't remember 11 ever doing a start up with control rods with excessive 12 withdrawal speeds. We always do speed time testing.
13 Any ones that were known to be problems or any ACU 14 maintenance or control rod maintenance that we do 15 during a shut down or during a refuel outage we always 16 do speed time testing.
17 The procedure for that actually has us 18 time the insert and withdrawal. It has the 19 specifications for it. We make adjustments based on 20 how they come out. What happened with these was they 21 tried to adjust themand ran out of adjustment. There 22 was no adjustment left on them.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So they were stuck 24 excessive.
25 Right, we're still looking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
98 1 at that. That was five. We're up to seven now.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I think I 3 already asked you this but let me just make sure. On 4 any of these, you don't have any idea what their 5 relative speeds were. I'll tell you the reason I'm 6 asking this. -This is an area that I have particular 7 interest in.
8 I actually was involved in one of the 9 original findings back here in '96. But I know that 10 because of that there was some changing of reference 11 points to actually make them more conservative. What 12 I'm curious is if they are characterizing using the 13 more conservative band. It may have actually been 14 acceptable with the old band.
15 7) With the newer spec, it's 16 out of that tolerance.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: It could be.
18 That's why I was just curious if you knew more about 19 that.
20 *__._*
_*__* :! No, I don't.
21 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, but 22 you make a good point though. You are talking about 23 SRMs. You say you have three operable which is the 24 minimum. Well,'one of them is questionable. You have 25 six of eight IRMs and then a number of inputs that are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
99 1 inoperable, APRMs.
2 Yes.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So what happens next 4 after the briefing where you get an explanation for 5 each of the pieces that you are operating without?
6 What happens next? Is it that you run int or 7 do you go to another level?
8 No, I ran into him. He was 9 oncoming. They had operations management doing 10 oversight on day shift and night shift for the start 11 up. is the ow.
- 12 He was the at the time. He was 13 covering day shift. Mas covering the night 14 shift. That was probably his first or second week 15 that he was actually on the job.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I would think, yes.
- 17. - I expressed to him that I 18 was not comfortable with the start up and that nobody 19 could convince me that the plant Was ready to start 20 up. Those are the specific issues I remember. There 21 were a lot of other equipment problems I believe in 22 feed water heaters and there might have been a few 23 others. I don't remember the specifics of those right 24 now. *But it was more than just that, the nuclear end 25 of it. There was balance and plan issues that I also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
100 1 had a problem with.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, what was 3 response to you?
He actually had absolutely 5 none. I really couldn't even gage a change of 6 expression on his face either.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any action?
8 No.
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: You mean all 10 this stuff is still broken.
11 NOW Yes.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Today? This 13 is from September through today.
14 Like I said, I grabbed this 15 turnover sheet. This is from this morning.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
17 As far -as the nuclear 18 instrumentation, this past start up that we just did, 19 the Charlie and Delta were inoperable again. The 20 Charlie, they figured there's really not a problem 21 with it. We kept getting short period alarms on it, 22 but as far as the SRM count rates, it seemed to be 23 indicating. It seemed to be steady and consistent.
24 They -can't explain the short period alarms that we 25 were getting. So they declared that one operable.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 171 RRHOf IRI AND AVE.. NW.
101 1 The Delta right now is considered operable but 2 degraded. There's a operability determination on that 3 one right now.
4 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: That's the 5 one for electromagnetic interference.
6 . Yes, I believe. But out of 7 the initial five excessive withdrawal control rods, we 8 have added two more so we're up to seven on those.
9 All of them with --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So it's the same five 11 plus two.
12 Plus two more. All with a 13 inoperability determination against them.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you see it have 15 an effect on the start up at that timeframe? In terms 16 of difficulty, I'm sure there's some monitoring or 17 whatever. But what effect does that have as you go 18 through it or did it have?
19 Where we Ended up going 20 critical was not one of these control rods. It worked 21 out to where it wasn't a problem.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: By.chance?
23 I think by chance. Some of 24 them were pulled prior to criticality. That is one of 25 the responses that I got when I brought that up during NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 . RHr)F ISI AND AVE.. N.W.
102 1 the turnover meeting that I think two or three of them 2 were part of the first two groups of control rods to 3 be withdrawn.
4 So they would have been done prior to 5 criticality. They weren't expected to be a problem.
6 There were a couple other ones that were close to 7 criticality that could have been a problem. As it 8 turned out, we did not go critical on any of these 9 rods.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Were those 11 early rods pulled to 48?
12 Yes.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So they got 14 pulled once or did you have to go around?
15 - 'No, they-will get pulled all 16 the way out to 48 so there's not a whole lot of 17 concern with those.
18 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: All right.
19 . And as far as the speeds 20 themselves, they might not be that far out of the 21 allowable bands. My concern was double-notching. The 22 way the timer cards work, as I'm withdrawing it, there 23 was a good potential to go out an extra notch from 24 where I intended it to which when you are on the 25 approach to criticality and right after criticality NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
103 1 can be very difficult to handle.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else? Any 3 other effects?
4 , No, not that I can think of.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 6 further on that, Scott?
7 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No, it 8 sounds like you certainly told the shift. You told 9 Did anyone get back to you after the fact 10 to acknowledge your concerns?
ii **.No.
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did they ask 13 you to write up a notification on the issues? Or was 14 it that there were already notifications written?
15 Typically there's 16 notifications against all of these anyway. On several 17 occasions, I have written up a notification addressing 18 problems that are already identified. You have a 19 problem with this which is not a big deal. This one-20 here by itself isn't a big deal. And this one here by 21 itself isn't a big deal. But nobody is looking at the 22 fact that all three of these problems together are 23 causing a bigger impact.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Wouldn't
- . 25 that be sufficient to warrant writing a notification?
NEAL R. GROSS II4)'2*" IDL.r**, ll AkflR AS'C UIA
104 1 Couldn't you have written one to say although these 2 problems individually may not appear to be that 3 significant, in the aggregate, under start up 4 conditions, this is having a significant impact on our 5 confidence in being able to control start up or 6 something? I don't know. Would something like that 7 even get discussed? Is that something you think 8 about?
9 Yes, that is something that 10 I would think about. Chances are, that night and the 11 next couple of nights I never had the chance to write 12 up the notification. Then once you go a couple of 13 days beyond that, you are up in start up to where it 14 seems like you are way beyond a problem.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You are beyond it.
16...:1 Based on some of the other 17 things I have seen, there's probably not going to be 18 a resolution to it. You almost get apathetic to where 19 you feel you are wasting your time.
20 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, that's 21 an insight. If you are getting apathetic, although 22 that's not something we desire, it's an impact of not 23 fixing the problem.
24 Right, and there's a lot of 25 frustrated operators that have scaled down on writing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
105 1 notifications just for that reason. You start 2 identifying problems. The tracking tool that we use 3 right now, SAP, is very difficult. Once you put in a 4 notification to try and go through and track, all the 5 numbers change.
6 You have to go through different suborders 7 and activities to figure out what happened to it.
8 There's times you could spend a half an hour to do the 9 research trail to figure out where it went. Then you 10 find out that basically your notification got closed 11 out with no corrective action, no activity taken. So 12 you get frustrated.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You start not to put 14 the time in to address these things. It would be seen 15 as a waste is what you are saying.
16 16*: Right.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: We're 18 talking about a start up that occurred in September, 19 as you described today, after the plant scram (PH) 20 from the hurricane.
21 Right.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Hasn't there 23 been two start ups since then? Wasn't there one in 24 December? There was a forced outage because of a 25 secondary steam leak and some other things. It might NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
106 1 have been also for the drywall leakage problem. And 2 then a recent one.
3 . Yes, there was just one last 4 week.
5 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: There was a 6 problem with a feed pump too but I don't know if it 7 got tied into that. Were these issues still issues 8 during those start ups?
9 .s Yes.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Different 11 people starting up then.
12 ~Right.
13 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Did they 14 right notifications on the effect of the aggregate 15 impact of all of the equipment?
16 IL I do not know.
17 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Does it come 18 up in discussion? Do you talk amongst the shifts? Do 19 you say I did the start up and all this stuff was 20 broken and this is really unusual? Why isn't it 21 fixed? Does that kind of stuff come up at all?
22 i It comes up. Like I said, 23 we're all pretty much in the same boat that we have 24 been identifying things for a long period of time.
25 We're not seeing a resolution on it. We're not seeing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
107 1 fixes.
2 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
3Now, I don't believe it was 4 the September start up. It was one after that where 5 I wasn't on shift for the initial criticality. But I 6 think I came in maybe the following shift or two 7 shifts later and ended up being the ... jiI .
8 I had a lot of problem with stuck control rods. I had 9 brought that up earlier about not taking the time to 10 exercise control rods. hat up. That did get 11 a lot of attention.
12 I know there's some long-term fixes. I 13 know (PH) is doing corrective actions right 14 now. I know he's working' that issue and a lot of 15 other issues. A lot of it is what I'm talking about 16 now as far as we feel that nothing is getting fixed.
17 So he's working that. Now, where he's at with that, 18 I don't know. But I know he's addressing it.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
20 1 Whether it's going further 21 beyond him, I don't know. But it does seem since that 22 start up we have spent a lot more time exercising 23 control rods. We have made it clear that if we don't 24 exercise them it's going to cause us problems. Let's 25 take the time to exercise the control rods. So the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
108 1 last couple of start ups have been smooth from a stuck 2 control rod position because of that. But it took 3 ranting and raving on my part to get it to that.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said not the 5 start up in September but the one after that.
6 The one after that.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So December?
8 I know the December one was 9 .fairly smooth. The one that we just did last week was 10 fairly smooth as far as stuck rods.
11 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: But all this 12 other stuff was still inoperable.
13 I think the IRMs we got 14 resolved and some of the LPRMs. The SRMs are still a 15 problem.
16 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: The IRMs are 17 resolved.
18 The IRMs are resolved.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: How many 20 LPRMs were there?
21 6 = ;At that start up, there were 22 16. I think we have gotten it down to as low as six.
23 We're back up to about eight or nine right now.
24 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: So there's 25 been some progress made.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4VY4 frln 1Z AI.JnfAVF N W
109 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Could I get a copy of 2 that, M too before you go?
3 You can have that.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thanks. Do you have 5 anything else on that, Scott?
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have we have covered 8 the incidents as far as what you wanted to bring up?
9 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: I think so.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think we have 11 covered where I was going too.
12 I do have one thing I wanted 13 to say. You asked me if I had ever been discouraged 14 from writing notifications from management. I will 15 still stick to the fact that I don't think I have 16 personally been discouraged from writing them. The 17 ight now, (PH), who 18 was the some of the notifications 19 that I have written have caused him a lot of pain.
20 But even with that, he sent a message through my shift 21 manager to tell me to keep writing them. In that 22 situation at least with him, he has encouraged me.
23 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way do you 24 think they cause him pain?
25 . When I talk about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
110 1 management's failure to address problems and to 2 correct problems.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What you had 4 mentioned earlier.
5 'Yes, stuff like that.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where it puts the 7 break down in that position.
8 - Right, it usually runs up 9 the chain. It might get up to the VP level.' Then it 10 comes back down. It's an operations issue. It's an 11 operator that's identifying it so it has to be a 12 problem with operations which means it's the ops 13 manager's fault.
14 SPECIAL AGENT.NEFF: Okay.
15 He has felt pain that way.
16 But even with that, he still encourages me to write 17 the notifications. I don't think that all management 18 discourages notifications.
19 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Has that 20 message been a consistent message?
21 L
- FromF f yes.
22 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Since he's 23 been here, it's been --
24 He's been pretty even keel.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Is that to you or is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
ill 1 that across the board?
2 - I can't say for anybody 3 else. I donIt know. I can't say one way or another.
4-1 ---i_-don1-t=-kn-ow I
--.-- . SPE CI-A-LAGENTýNEPF*Are you somebody--wno.
6 raises more concerns than the average individual?
7 M-i*J I think so.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So he is responding 9 to that to you.
____________fl 11 (PH) probably raise 12 more issues than anybody.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, and you get 14- -pesitvc feed ack,'M--I- -a-15 like the results, but you are getting the feedback to 16 you continue to input.
17 M - . es fro _I-I-never-got 18 that from anybody else. I have gotten that fronIM 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: He's your4Ij 20 7 He's the currents* -The 21 management chain, the change that we have gone through 22 from control room supervisors to superintendents to 23 managers and VPs, I can't even remember half of their 24 names. That's how fast people cycle through here in 25 the last couple of years.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 7C 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
112 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Nbeen fairly 2 constant though, hasn't he?
3
- Yes, he was
~PTN .Tbnrond 41 5 a bit. How about whe ...
6 didn't leave so long ago. Did you get that kind of 7 reinforcement from him?
8 INo.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you get negative 10 responses from him?
11 I wouldn't say negative -b-ut 12 not positive. I never got positive. That's a real 13 difficult question to answer. I'm not sure.
liM-N
-7 7-
pYi~7%mv:~_____
~ aans-uz 15 your mind that says I'm encouraging you to continue to 16 do this.
I 17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: But you can't 19 remember any kind of adverse. actions or negative push 20 back or anything like that.
MO - No.
21 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about at other 23 levels of management? Do you see any concerns there 24 in terms of fostering this particular aspect of a 25 safety conscious work environment, concern raising and NEAL R. GROSS _7 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
113 1 handling?
1, 2 - Right now, it's too soon to 3 tell because we have a brand new ops manager and a 4 brand new plant manager and a brand new senior VP of 5 operations.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: A whole new 7 structure.
8 . So I can't say.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I would like to ask 10 you in you just sitting here and hearing the kinds of 11 issues that we have been exploring and the direction 12 we're going with this, is there anything that you see 13 that impacts the safe operations of the plant that we 14 either are not discussing, we have missed, or we're 15 not asking you about?
16 No, in fact, right now, I 17 don't have any specific safety concerns or nuclear 18 safety issues.
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
20 That's one of the questions 21 that (PH) asked me directly, if I had one.
22 He said if you do just let me know and I will 23 immediately raise that up to the next level.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was that?
25 When the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
114 1 notification up about the control rod problems, the 2 stuck control rods on the start up.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So in the start up 4 between September and December there, that start up.
5 Yes.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: One thing 7 that we talked about a little bit - I don't know if we 8 fully developed it or not - is the deregulated 9 environment causing a lot of this? What kind of 10 impact does that have on the way you run the station 11 and the kinds of questions you ask? In one instance, 12 maybe in the old way of doing things, you would ask is 13 it safe?
14 Now, you may ask something like why. can we 15 do that? Challenging the we would never do this 16 before but now we're like this, like what you 17 indicated here with the start up. You have this out 18 of service and that. One thing that we struggle with 19 is whether the pressures are excessive; the production 20 pressures, the pressures for generation. What is your 21 take on that?
22 I think they are. I don't 23 know that they are not self-imposed. The push to get 24 started up on time or early seems to be there. The 25 push to get the full power even without all of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
115 1 normal equipment that you would need, all the feed 2 pumps in service, seems to be there. I don't know if 3 that's coming from Newark. I don't know if that's 4 coming from the VP. I have no idea where that push is 5 coming from, but it seems to be self-imposed.
6 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay, can 7 you recall a time where you felt like it wasn't that 8 way? Obviously deregulation hasn't been around for 20 9 years. It's something that's been relatively recent.
10 You have been an " -for a fairly long time. Do 11 you recall a feeling of just a total different 12 operating philosophy and then some very distinct 13 change? Could that distinct change be tied to a 14 management change or tied to deregulation or things of 15 that nature? Does anything stand out in your mind in 16 that respect?
17 -...... ,No, and I never saw it 18 happen like an overnight change. It wasn't a drastic, 19 swift change. It was more gradual. It happened the 20 same time deregulation happened. It also happened the 21 first'big upper management change out that we had.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what year?
23 4 It would have been about 24 '96.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This goes back to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
~~~f AA f-i 1AIA eU1$61_`r fnt ')nF-AA..7n1 - -
116 1 where you noted the behavioral differences in the CRS 2 and the OS level.
3 M-V., Right, it would be about the 4 same time. That's where the first big upper 5 management change occurred.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think you explained 7 that you have seen it pretty consistent since that 8 time.
9 09 ý Since then, yes.
10 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: Okay.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything further?
12 SR. PROJECT ENGINEER BARBER: No.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I just have some 14 closing questions for you. Have I or any other NRC 15 representative offered you any promises of reward or 16 threatened you in any manner in exchange for today's 17 information?
18 iMMO " No 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you appeared 20 here freely and voluntarily?
21 Yes, I have.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 23 else you would like to add at this point?
24 No, I don't.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I'll thank you. We NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORIERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
117 1 have taken a very large piece of your time today.
2 It's approximately 5:20 p.m. I thank you for your j
3 time.
4 2 Okay.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you for your 6 assistance with this. Off the record.
7 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter a concluded at 5:20 p.m.)
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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