ML061460290
| ML061460290 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem, Hope Creek  |
| Issue date: | 10/06/2003 |
| From: | NRC/OI |
| To: | |
| References | |
| 2-2003-051F, FOIA/PA-2005-0194 | |
| Download: ML061460290 (77) | |
Text
1 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 -. ~-~.--~'-,--~ ~----.-~~.--~.-.---'--. SI 2-2003-051F (CLOSED) 10 11 -------------------------- x 12 Monday, October 6, 2003 13
/ 7 0C r
14 /
I 15 16 17 18 19 20 The above-entitled interview was conducted 21 at 5:27 p.m.
22 23 BEFORE:
24 Special Agent Eileen Neff 25 Special Agent Scott Barber
- ithil cord was deleted e Freedom of Informatiol NEAL R. GROSS Ci 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 5:27 p.m.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Today's date is 4 October 6, 2003. The time is approximately 5:27 p.m.
5 Speaking is Special Agent Eileen Neff of the NRC 6 Office of Investigations, Region 1. Also present from 7 NRC Region 1 is Scott Barber from DRP.
8 The purpose of this interview is a 9 discussion wit 10 employed by PSE & G 11 Nuclear.,
-12 explained that he is in a 13 and we'll get a further
-14 explanation from you on that in a moment.
-15 The interview is being tape recorded and
.16 it's being conducte'd a".C4 17 18 The' subject matter of this interview 19 concerns information regarding the safety conscious 20 work environment at Salem and Hope Creek, concerns 21 regarding the environment under the safety conscious 22 work environment.
23 you're being approached as 24 a witness. You're not the subject of any 25 investigation. We're asking for your information in NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS pf1-1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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AD 1 terms of your assessment of the work environment at 2 Salem and Hope Creek.
3 .: okay.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: As I explained to you 5 prior to going on the record, we conduct this 6 interview under oath. If you would raise your right 7 hand, please?
8 Do you swear that the information that you 9 provide at this interview is the truth, the whole 10 truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
11
- -12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. Would you 13 provide some identifying information for the record?
14 Your date.of birth, spell your last name, your date of 15 birth and your Social Security Number, please.
16 Full name 17 18 19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you. Now you 20 indicated your position with PSG & E Nuclear was as 21 When did you come to 22 work for them?
23 -@ N I started with Public 24 Service* Initially, my position wa 25 Mland over the last four NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.,.N.W.
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4 1 years, essentially I picked up more and more 2 responsibilities.
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 type of function 10 as compared to other facilities.
11 And I've held that from 12 to current, to date.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Aiid you indicated 14 your position wasO richt now.
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of work 23 environment issues on site, had you -- let me ask it 24 this way. Were you surprised at all at this point in 25 time I'm coming to you for some information?
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5 1 Very much so.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Are you surprised?
3 CYes. You know, if you 4 would have approached me a couple of years ago, I 8 would not have been too surprised. The environment, 6 to me, I'm going to say from when I first got here in 7 *was a very negative type of atmosphere, People 8 didn't value one another very well and quite frankly, not all that friendly. Opposed to change and just. any 10 kind of discussion seemed.to -- people would take it.
11 very personally and it could go in any number of 12 directions, usually not in a positive type of.,
13 direction.
14 That's how I would characterize how things 15 appeared to me and even my own personal experience 16 with people in the late 1990d or late 1999. And 17 that's been a primary objective of mine --
18 -these are all the executives that 19 I report to -- was to try to improve the culture and 20 the atmosphere. We hired quite a few different, I'd 21 say experts as such to try to help us personally, as 22 UINFlIRMto try to nurture a change in 23 the organization.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Starting when?
25 0 Well, it had
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6 1 It was with Gap 2 International and I would say that was probably maybe 3 early summer of 1999.
4 So to answer your question, yes, I'm 5 surprised because there's a whole lot of indicators or 6 performance measures that myself and others were using 7 to try to give us a better sense what our own Employee 8 Concerns Program was telling us, what independent 9 surveys we would use to kind of gauge the culture, all 10 were telling us more or less on a macro level that it 11 was becoming a more generous atmosphere with one 12 another. People interacted more professionally and 13 seemed to be more in a caring mode for one another and 14 that came out loud and clear in the last Gallup Poll 15 survey we did in the fourth quarter of 2002.
16 So yes, I'm actually somewhat surprised 17 that you're doing this investigation at this point in 18 time and that the belief is or the allegations are is 19 that it is a problem culture.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess for in terms 21 of a work environment you can't really put a specific 22 allegation on it like a violation, you know, that goes 23 along with it. What we're looking at are concerns 24 that have been expressed about the environment itself 25 and de-emphasis on safety and perhaps de-emphasis is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
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7 1 that there's production over safety on site. Have you 2 seen any evidence of something like that?
3j Well, I think that's an on-4 going quest. I would say that all of us in the 5 nuclear industry have is reinforcing that safety is 6 the predominant priority and production of the other 7 elements are second. That's been the vision and the 8 mission, all that I've been there. It's posted in our 9 signs and we use our industrial safety kind of as the 10 foothold to try to reinforce the premise that safety 11 is an attitude and that is the way that we're trying 12 to foster a place of thinking in the way we do 13 business inside of the power plant.
14 So you know, are there people that would 15 tell you there's production over safety? I think on 16 a case by case basis, you could make any number of 17 possible suppositions. Did we shut the plant down 18 during this time? Why didn't we shut down the plant 19 at that time? It's production over safety. It's 20 safety over production. It's an on-going dialogue 21 that I think just continues and probably will so as 22 long as we're in this business.
23 So is it any more or less today? I 24 thought I would tell you that my -- again, my personal 25 feelings is that the last 12 months the focus on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W
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8 1 industrial safety and nuclear safety has become more 2 on the lips of regular dialogue with people who I 3 would conclude from that we're making progress, that 4 the way to think and the way to do business comes from 5 that approach first.
6 I can also tell you that the discussions 7 we have about summer readiness or seasonal readiness 8 are all things to try to minimize initiating events 9 and other kinds of things that might happen to the 10 plant as a result of the environment and we don't want 11 to have those impacts because our mission, obviously, 12 is to generate for our stakeholders.
13 That being said, I can understand how 14 people might say our focus is production when we're 15 saying we want a 95 percent capacity from May 15th to 16 September 15th because that's our peak period. But 17 those aren't unusual expectations for our plant or any 18 other plant that I'm aware of for the business that 19 we're in.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When you say there's 21 some debate, whether somebody says it's safety over 22 production or production over safety, can you think of 23 any incidents where it became an issue that people 24 were saying it's production over safety?
25YOu mean specific examples?
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9 I Oh boy, you know, all I can give you is generalities.
2 I don't know of a specific instance that triggered 3 some sort of dialogue. I know of nothing specific on 4 the tip of my head here that would say well here was 5 an instance where that dialogue occurred.
6 The dialogue has occurred while I've been 7 there.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you're saying 9 this is more or less it's on-going since you've been 10 there?
11 Oh yes.
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: It's kind of always 13 been that way?
14 Well, the discussion is 15 yes, it's been an on-going discussion with us and our 16 employees with the Safety Review Board, the Off-site 17 Safety Review Board and us as management. And I think 18 it isn't that there's a belief that we're on the wrong 19 side. It's a matter of assuring that we're 20 reinforcing the predominant principles that we're 21 trying to live by which is that we come from a focus 22 on doing what's right the first time around, stop if 23 there's a question. If you're unsure of something, 24 you know, get attention, get help in some way, shape 25 or fashion and you know, follow the procedures and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 way you do business is the only way that we expect 2 things to be done.
3 Now when events occur, we always look at 4 whether or not did we practice the right human 5 performance expectations and typically what we find is 6 that well, there was a time pressure. That's 7 generally what people will say. I'd say that that's 8 not uncommon when someone is being put into the 9 position of accountability, being asked why did you do 10 what you did? The general outcome I found from many 11 people when we'd have events would be is they thought 12 they were under some sort of pressure in order to get 13 something done. We asked well, where did it come 14 from? Well, it's what I thought. Did someone tell 15 you that? Well, not exactly. Well, did they or 16 didn't they? No.
17 So you put the pressure on yourself and 18 you thought this was the right thing and you made the 19 following decisions? Yes. Okay, now that we 20 understand that, now let's look at the thought process 21 that you went along and how did the outcome go the way 22 it did? That kind of discussion, I'll tell you, I had 23 hundreds of them with people over the lats couple of 24 years, whether they were big jobs, little jobs, scrams 25 at the plant or just routine type of power changes.
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11 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Where they put 2 pressure on themselves. What were the considerations 3 that they were -- where were they coming from?
4 i- " Most people thought that 5 that's what they thought we wanted. We would ask them 6 well, why do you think that? That's the standards.
7 Pull out the standards document that we had for 8 maintenance or ops and said it doesn't say that.
9 Well, why did you think that? Well, that's what I 10 thought we were told over the last few years. Is that 11 something we're we're preaching today? Well, no. So 12 you mean what I would tell you is that I think many 13 people carry their past with them.
14 I do believe that somewhere in the 15 probably five to eight years, there must have been 16 enormous pressure to bring the plant back and to run 17 it and people have that very vivid in their souls that 18 are still at that site. They talk about that as 19 though it was today. And so I a- I can only conclude 20 that it's coming from the start up environment and you 21 all know, restarts on these plants is not -- it isn't 22 the most pleasant of circumstances and situations.
23 So I don't know if I answered your 24 question.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I guess I'm looking NEAL R. GROSS
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12 1 for, you can't think of any, you're saying, any 2 particular instance where somebody would have 3 explained well I thought that's what you wanted, so 4 this is the decision that I made, that the pressure 5 was applied by themselves.
6 At what level are you talking about there 7 where somebody was putting pressure on themselves?
8 f First line supervisors, 9 superintendent levels mostly.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: SRO and shift 11 managers?
12 .5 , No. I would say it was 13 mostly coming from maintenance.
'14 i Maintenahce.
15 I'd have very little from 16 the SROs or the ROs. In fact, on the contrary, I'd 17 say the SROs and ROs were very conservative in the way 18 they made decisions. They didn't seem like they gave 19 two hoots whether I gave -- was interested in this or 20 that. They thought this was the right thing to do and 21 by God they were going to do it and they did.
22 And so I mean I -- one side of me, I'd say 23 that's exactly what I'm looking for and another side, 24 I wish they would have consulted with me a few times 25 on things. But no. I think the SROs and ROs at Salem NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
13 1 and Hope Creek seem to be pretty disciplined on the 2 expectations of running the plant correctly, by 3 procedures. If something doesn't look right, get help 4 and if they didn't think they were ready to do it, 5 don't do it and they wouldn't.
6 They set a pretty good example for the 7 most part, I would say in that arena.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Had anyone brought to 9 you any concerns that the SROs or ROs at either Salem 10 or Hope Creek, collectively, had concerns regarding 11 safety and the decision making at the site?
12 You mean industrial, 13 nuclear or radiological?
14, SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Nuclear safety 15 aspects.
16 Nuclear, no. Industrial, 17 yes.
18 SPECIAL AGENT N`EFF: And which one would 19 be industrial?
20 Salem. Salem, Hope Creek 21 field operators. We'd call them the equipment 22 operators, they were very concerned about some of the 23 plant material condition and chemistry and in some of 24 the systems that they had to take rounds on that there 25 were too many things that kept them from being able to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 do the job effectively and quite frankly, they thought 2 they could get hurt physically.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: When was this?
4 2 Probably -- I would say 5 this is all within the last 16 months, give or take a 6 month or two.
7 So -- but like I said, I know of no 8 nuclear safety-related type of item, but industrial 9 safety, absolutely. Absolutely.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything else?
11 - Not radiological that I'm 12 aware of. I can't recall anything that anyone has 13 brought to me or has hinted in any way. No.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything?
15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: No.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me take a quick 17 break. I want to check a note I have.
18 Sure.
19 (Off the record.)
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We 're back on the 21 record. It's approximately 5:46 p.m.
22 I'd like to know what your opinion is in 23 terms of the effects that deregulation has had on the 24 industry and if any on the work environment?
25 It certainly has changed NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4~~ 1 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
15 1 things. Changed. it from the standpoint of a 2 determination of value add to the plant. It's a 3 determination of value add to the plant. The 4 equations and general formulas that we used over the 5 last few years are no longer applicable and so one, 6 there's a tremendous education that is occurring very 7 quickly, expected to be, with now going from one day 8 being regulated and the next day deregulated and 9 you're trying to put capital investment into the 10 plant.
11 My own experience is we've been able to 12 acquire the funding, but it takes a lot more work and 13 there is more scrutiny put on whether or not is it 14 truly necessary, is it discretionary and inefficient, 15 can it be done over a one, two, three year period of 16 time versus a one. year.
17 So what I would say, I'm experiencing is 18 the ability to say you can spend the monies, but 19 you've got to have a pretty strong case on how it 20 long-term actually benefits the plant, both the long-21 term and even most of the equations right now are you 22 have to be generally acretive (Phonetic) within 12 to 23 24 months. That's tough to do on many things. And 24 can it be spread over a longer period of time to do 25 something, so there's a sense of it takes a little bit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1'93 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
16 1 longer to get the funding and maybe to go after some 2 of the fixes you may want to do to improve the plant 3 to some new level. That's my experience of it.
4 I see it just being tougher and requires 5 more staff work on our part to be able to acquire, 6 like I said, the funding to demonstrate the cases for 7 what we want to go after. But that's on a capital 8 site, what I mean by capital is money that is not 9 expensed in a year to year basis. On an expense 10 basis, I haven't seen any change.
11 I mean we do an awful lot of benchmarking 12 with ourselves to other facilities just to see where 13 we stand. To me, the funding and the way we're going 14 at things on that side of it looks really transparent.
15 The thing that probably is where the outlier has been 16 has been in our labor numbers by comparison to others.
17 And consequently, that's the gap that was initiated at 18 the beginning of the year with the Navigan (Phonetic) 19 studies that we did to look at our numbers and then 20 the ultimate in the last two months, the selection 21 process that took place and ultimately the combining 22 of many functions that took us down about 100 people 23 from where we had been.
24 And we're not done. That's -- we're not 25 done. But that's been the biggest changes that I've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS
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17 1 seen thus far.
2 My own personal feeling is, I think 3 there's more people in the decision making today that 4 don't understand nuclear as a result of being 5 deregulated and that concerns me.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way and how 7 are they involved?
8 *My view is that there's 9 more finance people involved, more classic bankers and 10 so they have a very rigid approach of doing things and 11 you know as well as I do some of the things that we're 12 talking about I can't prove today that this will gain 13 me something. But I do know this might prevent an 14 event.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
16 A And inmy mind, that is 17 something that unless you've been in the nuclear 18 business for a while, one doesn't understand what 19 one's talking about and so when you're explaining to 20 a banker I'm trying to prevent an event, the guy says 21 has it ever happened to you? No, it's never happened 22 to me. Well, then why do you want to do that? Well, 23 I want to make sure it doesn't happen to me because if 24 it does happen to me, I can tell you what the picture 25 will look like. We'll have an AIT Team out here.
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18 1 This will take place and we'll be wondering whether we 2 get the keys back.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This is what you were 4 talking about went into the additional justifications 5 and the time frame from where you spend your money?
. *Yes, absolutely.
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And your concerns on 8 that and how it's working at Salem and Hope Creek?
9 It's It a concern I have in 10 general, because I have many friends that are in this 11 industry that tel-l me they are experiencing very 12 similar types of things in their plants.
13 Now at the Salem Hope Creek, as I said 14 before, so far I've been able to when I've requested 15 it and I've requested an awful lot of money in the 16 last couple of years. The most recent was to improve 17 the service water and circ. water systems at Salem 18 which I've got to believe you know exactly the 19 conditions of those systems and the transience that 20 occurs with the plants.
21 We were successful in acquiring the 22 approvals to modify those systems to make the changes.
23 That was $65 million. That's not an easy pill to 24 swallow.
25 So you know, it took me eight months to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
19 1 get the approval for it. I had it go through a heck 2 of lot of gyrations, but ultimately was successful in 3 getting there. So I would tell you at this stage, I 4 don't see it as an immediate threat, but I can sense 5 just by the way people are and the marketplace the way 6 it is, the pressure that people are putting for short 7 term returns on revenue, you know, I think it just --
8 people I think can be persuaded perhaps in their 9 decision making a little bit more today than they 10 might have been a few years ago, more towards 11 stretching things out, making it go a little longer 12 and willing to take a little more risk.
13 Is it a bad thing? I don't know if it's 14 a bad thing, if you understand therisk.
15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Could I ask 16 something here?
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, go ahead.
18 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What you've 19 described is mainly on the cost side of the house.
20 What about on the revenue side, the power production, 21 decision making? There's probably going to be a.
22 number of issues that come up in running a power plant 23 from very minor tomore significant and there's going 24 to be decisions that will have to be made regarding 25 what do we do about this? Do we keep the plant shut NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W
20 1 down or if we're starting up do we hold? Do we stop 2 and fix things? How does that deregulation play a 3 role in the d*cision making on that end?
4It hasn't changed a thing 5 that I can see on that part of the equation. We shut 6 the plants down when we think we need to shut them 7 down. We hold them down until we think we've fixed 8 them. In fact, I would say that we've been using 9 those opportunities to try to reinforce that even 10 though the environment may be changing around us a 11 little bit, it's not going to change the core of the 12 way we think and the way we make our decisions about 13 the nuclear side of the business. If we've got 14 something to fix, fit it. If we've got to stay down 15 on the date, we'll stay down on the date.
16 We've documented many examples in the last 17 couple of years, really was to make a point of that 18 for the people so that they could understand on a red 19 letter hot day, if we have to shut the plant down, by 20 God, we will. We've told the load dispatcher. And 21 the LDs, they're a little more influential these days 22 than they might have been a few years ago. They put 23 pressure on the control room.
24 I'll tell you, our control rooms have done 25 a pretty good job keeping me and others informed when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 that's occurring.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Your LDs?
3 Load Dispatchers.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
5 PJM, those~folks. They say 6 it would be better to take the plant down tonight 7 versus tomorrow, can you keep the plant up? My 8 operators are pretty good, they'll acknowledge what 9 they heard from the person. They'll call me and 10 they'll say we're shutting the plant down. I said 11 very good.
12 So we -- yes, the pressure is around us, 13 but I think the operators and those that are in the 14 positions of managers seem pretty solid, at least 15 today, that I'd have no reason to believe that if the 16 situation required something to be done they would do 17 it for the right reasons. I don't see us holding on 18 for another day to make a dollar, you know? I don't 19 see that.
20 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: How about in any 21 incidents have you been personally involved with 22 having to make decisions, operational decisions, on an 23 operational basis to either shut the plant down and 24 gotten resistance for that, for having to bring the 25 plant down where you were involved?
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22 1 *NO.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Don't recall any?
3 No. In other words, where 4 someone asked me or --
5 SPECIAL AGENT.NEFF: If there was, some 6 pressure on you to not bring the plant down?
7 No. No, I continue to get 8 reinforce fro and fro nd fro If 9 you've got to bring the plant down, bring the plant 10 down. It's usually a one-second conversation. It's 11 done. No, I've never had any issue with that 12 whatsoever.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Let's go off 14 the record briefly.
15 (Off the record.)
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 17 record. It's 5:59 p.m., approximately.
18 I don't know if I refresh your 19 recollection about an incident -- I'd like to get your 20 perspective on what happened with this March 21 (Inaudible). In March of 2003, and apparently there 22 was a problem with a valve. The valve corrected 23 itself and there was some discussion as to whether or 24 not the plant would be shut down in order to fix the 25 valve that had just corrected itself, if I categorized NEAL R. GROSS1C COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
23 1 that correctly.
2 There was some discussion about whether or 3 not the plant would be shut down in order to repair a 4 valve.
5 Were you involved in that at all in any 6 discussion about that?
7 I ON".il ;I You're not ringing a bell Tro*`ý:_J 8 with me.
9 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: The (Inaudible) 10 bypass valve?
11 Oh yeah, the (Inaudible) 12 bypass valve. Okay. I know that one.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You can be more 14 specific for me.
15 Number two. I'm familiar 16 with it.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In that incident, can 18 you just give me a little background on what it was 19 that happened and --
20 Cf i Yes, sure. It's very clear 21 to me.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay, great.
23 L J There were two parts to 24 this. So prior to March 17 and just hang on to March 25 17th as the key date. That was an event night.
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24 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
2 C,/- Prior to that we had been 3 running Hope Creek with a couple of issues. We had a 4 diesel generator. I think it was the -- either the 5 Bravo diesel had an exhaust leak which had some 6 interesting contentious issues around that with the 7 operators and with the safety people, industrial 8 safety people on what was okay or not okay with 9 exhaust gases. We had that problem.
10 And we had some interesting, I'd say union 11 management issues over that particular diesel. I'm 12 only setting the groundwork. That was one of the jobs 13 that we said we're just going to goldarn (Phonetic) 14 fix.
15 We also had a problem with the mic SRV 16 (Phonetic) had a tailpipe leakage, had been leaking 17 for about 6 to 8 months and was starting to trend 18 upward to the point where it looked like we were 19 approach in some industry experience from Limerick and 20 some other plants and we wanted to stay far enough way 21 from that.
22 And the third item was the Bravo reactor 23 recirc. pump number 2 and number 1 seal, both were 24 showing degradation to the point where we had 25 established criteria that we wanted to -- if we got to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 this point that's good enough, we're going to call it 2 quits.
3 So about two weeks before the refueling 4 outage, I'm going to say it was March maybe 13th, 5 12th, somewhere in there, I don't remember which day, 6 we elected to take the plant down and go after the mic 7 SRV, the diesel and the recirc. pump. The jobs went 8 great. Not a problem whatsoever.
9 We started the plant back up and just 10 after we made turbine roll and sunk to the grid, we 11 were about maybe a 100 or so megawatts. We were doing 12 the turbine bypass valve testing as part of the power 13 ascension. I don't know if there was a surveillance.
14 I'm going to assume there was some surveillance as 15 part of the operating equipment. And number 2 didn't 16 show the behavior that we typically would expect. In 17 essence, it looked like it didn't go shut. It opened 18 and it stuck or appeared to be bound at about a 45, 19 maybe So percent open position. Can you run that way?
20 Yes, you can run that way, however, we found ourselves 21 in a -- without. the valve being closed, are we 22 operable or not operable? The operators through their 23 chain said we don't think the valve is operable.
24 Therefore, we're going to have to take the plant.
25 Okay.
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26 1 I was a conference call. This was a 2 Friday night. Said fine, if that's what we got to do, 3 that's what we got to do. There was some testing we 4 were doing with General Electric to determine before 5 we came down is it hydraulic, electric, so we could 6 gain some sense of its direction.
7 On Saturday, another conference call was 8 taking place. That's the 16th, myself and a whole 9 bunch of people --
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who's involved in the 11 conference calls?
12 IC Boy, I'm going to say the 13 MIN that would have been 14 (Phonetic) who was the 15 16 manager,*
probably who was the' 137 There's 17 probably at least 10 people. Those were probably the 18 key players and myself.
19 The discussion wad shutting down the plant 20 and how to go about doing that without causing a fast 21 cool down or any other kind of concern that we would 22 have bringing it down with the bypass stuck open.
23 ays here's what I'd like to do.
24 He says I'd like to change the procedure. I'd like to 25 run this in the simulator and right now the plant is NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS p :
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27 1 sitting steady state. I think that we should put 2 ourselves into a prepared type of manner and then go 3 execute the plan. I said okay, how much time do you 4 want? He said I'll need 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. All right, fine.
5 So the procedure and all that kind of 6 stuff was handled through the operations department 7 and Sunday night, the 17th, it was elected that we 8 were prepared and ready to shut down the plant. We 9 commenced the shut down. We got to about somewhere 10 around 6 to 7 percent power. There were some issues 11 that the operators had with -- it could have been 12 either something in EHC. It could have been something 13 with feedwater. I don't know if we exactly know what 14 it was. Did one do the other or did the other -- in 15 other words, there was a feedwater level issue and 16 there was an EHC potentiometer (Phonetic) issue with 17 one of the devices.
18 And so the operator saw some anomaly 19 early. This was before we had any problem and they 20 thought they understood it and then moved on. They 21 saw the same thing replicate itself, only this time we 22 had about a 6 percent power excursion in the upward 23 direction, increase in direction. So we peaked at 24 around 13, 13.1 percent power and that caused the 25 operators to range the IRMs up and then they had NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
1 called their operations chain of command/
2 who was surprised that they were using the bypass jack 3 as a methodology to shut down the plant. He was 4 unaware of that' and that the operators and the crew 5 had made that decision. So he said I want you off 6 that decision, put EHC back into automatic control and 7 shut the plant down, which ultimately ended up taking 8 place and the plant was shut down by the next day, the 9 18th in the morning by 6 a.m.
10 I was notified somewhere around 7 or 8 11 o'clock what had transpired that evening, but not the 12 details that I had just given you, only that there was 13 some difficulties. We had to change the procedure a 14 little bit and then shut the plant down. Okay?
is Sounded relatively not too surprising given we had an 16 unusual condition to begin with.
17 It was the following day, Tuesday, 18 Wednesday, I got some information. I don't remember 19 who it came from, but I got some information that 20 nuclear instinct says hm, let me do a little more 21 probing into this and learn that we had a power 22 increase that we ranged the IRMs and so I started 23 asking the questions, what the hell are we doing here?
24 This doesn't sound right at all.
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29 1 cause and investigation and reprimanding quite a few 2 people for some inappropriate operator actions that 3 took place on the night of the 17th and actually took 4 place on the 16th as well by some of the operations 5 personnel.
6 So that's the circumstances around that.
7 So ask your questions.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You said on the 9 evening of the 17th going into the 18th whe 10 made the call that the unit would be shut down, the 11 word you used was "ultimately that's what happened."
12 Was there some debate in that time frame 13 over whether the unit would be shut own?
14 No.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Whose decision was it 16 to make --
17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And in your opinion 19 that's the way the call was made?
20 Ei Q% as both the 21 He was also acting as th and said 22 this is what I want to do. He made it very clear this 23 is what we wanted to do and myself andL 24 acknowledged that that's what we thought was the right 25 thing to do and he commenced going and doing it.
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30 1 Really, it wasn't a debate. It was this is what I 2 think we should do. You typically ask a few questions 3 for understanding and you say go ahead.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there, in your 5 opinion, was that decision made in the right time 6 frame? Did he get where he had to go in the right 7 amount of time?
8 IF I believe so. We were all 9 annoyed that GE -- it takes forever to get any 10 information out of these guys. So we had operated 11 most of Saturday trying to figure out what GE's input 12 was to the circumstances that we had to try to have a 13 better understanding just what did we have on our 14 hands before we move the plant one way or the other 15 and whether or not we thought we could even fix it.
16 It took us all day to get to that point. It was about 17 7 or 8 in the evening when we actually had come to the 18 conclusion GE had with our engineering and maintenance 19 folks that this is something that's internal to the 20 .valve and you can't fix it without shutting the plant 21 down. It became obvious the only thing we can do is 22 shut down the plant.
23 Now, the discussion was how best to go 24 about doing that so that we didn't create another set 25 of problems. That was the discussion on Saturday NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 night, not a discussion about whether to shut the 2 plant down. It was what method to go about doing it.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who was involved in 4 that discussion?
5 Same people.
6 some of the engineering people. I'd speculate who was 7 on the phone from engineering, but I'd say it was probabI*_ ... .
8 9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was 9 m 10 involved in that?
11 j I don't know i as 12 on the call or not. He might have been, but it was my 13 typical way when I conferenced, when they'd get me in 14 a conference call is one that generally likes to 15 surround myself with more than one head, so I like to 16 get the different disciplines that report to me to all 17 participate so that we get complete understanding of 18 our direction and what the consequences are going to 19 be. So it's possible may have been on the 20 phone, but I don't remember if jjjdas on that 21 evening or not and the other guy that typically would 22 have been on would have beenAf , soN 23 24 would have been a typical type of make up. I would 25 have expected it. Now whether they were there that NEAL R. GROSS (\\ I t\/
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32 1 night or not, I don't recall, but I do know was.
2 I do kno was, I was and I know I'm pretty sure someone from engineering, either-C 3
4 was.
5 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Can I ask a 6 question?
7 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Sure, go ahead.
8 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: You've talked about 9 a lot of interactions, the kind at your level and 10 maybe your peer level and then back and forth between 11 the operators and managers, superintendents and 12 yourself. What about calls above your level? When 13 these'instances occur, is there ever a need to discuss 14 this withj jM 15 No.
16 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do these issues 17 ever -- do they get much play or --
18 No Typically -- now I did 19 talk itcthat evening.
20 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay.
21 I might have been acting on 22 ehaif that particular weekend as well, so I 23 don't remember. I do know is I did talk to 24 that evening and -s- usually, you tell him what 25 you're doing and he says nothing, okay. And usually NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 the conversation is I don't want an F-up. That's very 2 clear. He said, you know, just let us know what we 3 can do to help and that's usually the end of the call.
4 And that's generally the wa s all the 5 time.
6 When I was reporting t"was 7 very similar..was usually never judgmental and 8 simply in the position of I expect you to do what's 9 right, go do it and if we have problems with that, 10 we'll have discussions later about it, but shut down 11 the plant if that's what you got to go do.
12 So he -- generally, the management above 13 me always left the decision making with me on what's 14 the right thing to do with the facility and generally, 15 my view would be is I would hold accountable the ops.
16 manager and the AOM, the assistant ops. manager who 17 carried the licenses, you know, to make -- keep us in 18 the clear here as to where we stand with the tech i9 specs. and where we stand with where the operators 20 feel the plant is.
21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Have you ever felt 22 that in -- just in the interactions in both 23 directions, either going up the chain or going down 24 the chain that maybe in your role that there was ever 25 actions taken that were really unnecessary? Were you NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 moving in the plant in the direction where it just 2 really didn't make sense? I mean it's -- maybe it's 3 an issue, a technical issue, but you really in your 4 own opinion it's a minor problem or it's something 5 that you feel like you need to air out more and just 6 say hey, you know, we don't really need to do this.
7 Have you ever felt that way about anything power level 8 changes or shut downs or things of that nature?
9 C/ You know, there' s one that 10 comes to mind. I'm more angry at our decision making 11 and how we got into a tech. spec down power for diesel 12 on Hope Creek. It wasn't involved with this one, it 13 was after that where we took a load drop to 40 percent 14 power over our decision on what was operable and what 15 was not operable on a keep warm pump (Phonetic) and a 16 seal problem that had occurred. There was a small 17 leak and the decision was made by the operators that 18 day, that evening that it was inoperable and we fussed 19 with it.
20 We took it apart, put it back together and 21 then found ourselves no better than we were when we 22 were done, and then realized that there was more that 23 we had to go do. And we were at the hour 68 of a 70-24 72 hour8.333333e-4 days <br />0.02 hours <br />1.190476e-4 weeks <br />2.7396e-5 months <br /> time clock, so we commenced a shut down and 25 dropped to 40 percent before we had redetermined what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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J -I 1 was the decision bases behind this particular piece of 2 equipment and the leak and then re-evaluated where we 3 were. And then it ended up saying, well, it is 4 leaking, it is degraded, but it will perform its 5 safety function, so therefore we exited the time clock 6 and then returned the plant to power. It was the 7 stupidest thing I've ever been part of. Manipulated 8 by a thousand megawatts.
9 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: What aspect of it?
10 C/j We didn't understand the 11 design basis until Day 3. That's unconscionable. And 12 as a result of it, you know, we maneuver the plant 13 which to me, I mean in risk-base maneuvering the plant 14 is just as much initiating an event as it is something 15 that breaks. So here I have a perfectly good power 16 plant, quite frankly, is running steady state. I'm 17 into paperwork on a diesel which we're debating even 18 internal to the engineering organization and the 19 vendor, what's okay, what's not okay which tells us we 20 didn't understand it to begin with and then we draft 21 some Mickey Mouse piece of paper, I would say that the 22 operators were using prior to that which was nothing 23 more than a convenience determination by an engineer 24 which became the basis for operability which was not 25 the basis of the equipment. You're going how in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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36 1 heck did we get to this position?
2 So that angers me when that kind of stuff 3 happens because I sat here looking at it, I got a 4 diesel out for several days. I'm missing with it 5 where I don't need to be and I'm maneuvering a 6 thousand megawatts. Those don't line up to make good 7 sense to me.
8 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: When you get 9 involved with these kinds of discussions, how much of 10 a -- how important do you* feel it is that you 11 understand the details of the issue, like this one 12 you're talking about. You're describing these at a 13 very high level, but there's probably a lot of details 14 underneath that.
15 Oh, there is.
16 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you get involved 17 with those or do you rely on your staff to understand 18 those and just to give you the summary? When you make 19 a decision do you need to delve into that or do you 20 tend to stay at the higher level?
21 *Ibelieve in -- I appoint 22 people. I mean my job is quite frankly, in my 23 position, it's the assuring things are taking place 24 through others. And so by definition I have to rely 25 on the ops. -- r -.1-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 [END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A; BEGIN TAPE 1, SIDE 2 B.]
3 Again, the directors, 4 they're the key decision makers and so in that, that 5 means they have to understand that level of detail.
6 What I really need is what's the big picture, what's 7 the integrated direction that that's occurring and 8 what are we doing about it and where are we going with 9 it? What are we going to do as a result of it, what 10 are the corrective actions and do we have the right 11 people in place and the right support?
12 Now it doesn't mean that I don't 13 periodically probe to the details. One, I view that 14 as my job to assure that the person on the other end 15 of the phone or the other end of the table with me is, 16 in fact, doing his job and so I picture it this way.
17 I take a staff and I try to find the soft spot in the 18 ice. And if I find it, that usually prompts me to do 19 a little bit more questioning to find out are we, in 20 fact, ready or prepared or do we understand it fully 21 before proceeding and going into the direction.
22 That's kind of the methods I use.
23 So I would say for the most part, I 24 generally keep at a higher level, but I will tell you, 25 I do probe regularly with my directs and with others NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 to make sure that those details are understood.
2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay. In this 3 particular instance, if memory serves me right, the 4 problems with the leak from the inner cooler 5 (Phonetic) pump were for a diesel?
6 'aYes, there were two pumps.
7 It's a single shaft with two pumps, one on one end and 8 one on the other. I don't remember which one is 9 which.
10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right. And the 11 leak was from the inner cooler pump side of the 12 arrangement?
13 e.
14 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: And there were some 15 maintenance done and some checking and there were some 16 shims that were either put in or taken our.
17 Both.
18 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right. And then 19 the leak was measured before and after and as you 20 said, there wasn't any significant improvement.
21No 22 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: There might have 23 been a change. It might have gotten a little worse or 24 it might have been about the same. In the end though, 25 I think what was determined was, in fact, the problem NEAL R. GROSS -"..
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39 1 was on the opposite end.
2 'Yes, it was the other pump 3 that had the problem.
4 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Right.
5 And it had the wrong thrust 6 clearances and that's the reason they shimmed the 7 other side was to take up the thrust, not fully 8 appreciating just what was the communication between 9 multiple components.
10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Now in that 11 instance, you ended up hearing the final story on 12 that, got the final understanding as to what the 13 nature of the problem was.
14 15 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Would you have 16 expected your staff or someone at some level in the 17 organization to have briefed you on some of those 18 details in process or was it sufficient for you to 19 find that out after the fact?
20 j=7 Well, you know, it occurred 21 on a Sunday when they called it inoperable. I was 22 called when we called it inoperable.
23 _ called me and said look, we've 24 got a diesel we took out. It was his weekend. Every 25 weekend, we had a director or a v.p. go in on Saturday N*EAL R. GROSS C, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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40 1 and Sunday and just make, put the old temperature in 2 everybody and make sure everything is okay.
3
- had that particular weekend. He 4 called me and said hey, look, we got a seal leak on 5 this diesel. We're going to fix it. Okay. That was 6 the end of Sunday. I mean there wasn't any more to 7 it. Monday, we're working on it. Okay. Monday night 8 is the first night I hear we got some shim issue.
9 Okay, I talked to 9 He's the 10 WHe says yeah, we put some shims in a couple 11 years ago. We're not sure it's right, yadda yadda 12 yadda. We're working with engineering. We're going 13 to resolve it. Okay?
14 Tuesday, we get a minute leak cycle 15 (Phonetic). Now what are we going to do? Well, 16 everybody is scratching their head. The vendor is on 17 the phone and we're going through what is the right 18 circumstances, what's the right information? What 19 does the vendor have? What does he not have? And 20 that led us to a change in the position of operability 21 between Tuesday and Wednesday when we finally called 22 it operable again, but degraded on Wednesday.
23 So I know the details, but not because I 24 was asking. They just came forward as part of the 25 conversations that I was having with people.
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41 1 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay, thank you.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Anything further on 3 that?
4 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: No.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: On the incident back 6 in March that you indicated you were on the phone at 7 one point wtwa involved in 8 that incident too at that time?
9 NO.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In terms of how your 11 involvement with the valve incident in March, were you 12 criticized by them in any way for your handling of it?
13 J I don't know if criticized.
14 No. What was brought to my attention was the impact 15 of the company of Hope Creek being down essentially 10 16 days. We had a planned outage of three or four days, 17 whatever it was.. We were within 30 hours3.472222e-4 days <br />0.00833 hours <br />4.960317e-5 weeks <br />1.1415e-5 months <br /> of it. And 18 then we had to extend it another four or five days to 19 fix the bypass valve. So all of that combined was 20 about 10 days and it was a sizeable impact to the 21 company because 1, it was a cold part of the year.
22 Energy prices were high and I would say that was the 23 extent of the conversation I had from It was 24 more of an awareness, not a criticism about what work 25 we did or didn't do or decision making. It was just
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42 1 a matter of I want to make you fully appreciative of 2 that value that particular plant has to the 3 enterprise. I didn't know until he told me that. Not 4 to that magnitude.
5 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did they put a dollar 6 figure on that, on the value that the plant had for 7 that period of time?
8 Yes, I believe they did.
9 I think the numbers I heard was anywhere from $10 to 10 $20 million. Now that includes replacement power, the 11 power that could have been -- generated power that 12 could have been capitalized in the market. So that's 13 a very wide variety number. $10 to $20 million is 14 guessing. And those were the numbers that were given 15 to me by the finance people.
16 SPECIAL, AGENT NEFF: When they brought 17 this to your attention, the value of the plant at that 18 time and the decision making process for the March 19 incident, did you feel that that was reasonable, that 20 they should have brought that to your attention?
21 p Oh yeah.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did you take it as 23 criticism?
24 No. You know, I didn't 25 take it as criticism. I took it more as education and NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS rl C~"
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1 myself and ske Jperiodically for 2 feedback. I mean are providing to the enterprise 3 positively or negatively? So we always ask him to 4 give us how do things look from his chair. So he took 5 the opportunity with that particular period of time 6 simply to let us know that Hope Creek has a big part 7 to the equation of success to the company. That was 8 it.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let me ask you this, 10 the information that's been reported regarding that 11 March incident indicates that there was pressure from 12 a an " directly on yourself and 13 to not shut down the plant at that time.
14 Did you witness anything like that?
15 No.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Nothing like that?
17 No.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you know where 19 something like that might come from? Do you have any 20 idea what the basis for that might be?
21 jFirst of all, 22 wasn't even involved with anything during that period 23 of time.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
25 4 I know that there were, 4 the
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44 1 finance people were passing along the information at 2 some of our various forums. We had managers meetings 3 once a week and various ways to communicate. The 4 finance people had communicated that there was a lot 5 of lost revenue as a result of the plant being down 6 for that period of time and that there were comments 7 made at various meetings about what significance does 8 that have and to the overall first and second quarter 9 projections for the company and all that kind of happy 10 horse stuff.
11 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Who would that be 12 communicated to?
13 ) Who would that be--
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Yes, the finance 15 committee -- the weekly --
~as one of 16 17 the gentleman. Him and some of the people that work 18 for him. He had about 10 people that would pass along 19 information to various department meetings and 20 situations that we had like that. I do remember that 21 we had an all hands meeting or had some sort of a 22 forum where we had a group of people, more than ten.
23 We had maybe 60, 70, 80 people and I do remember us 24 having a discussion,& and others were just giving 25 us -- I was in the audience with many others and there NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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45 1 was information passed on about what the total 2 landscape for the company was at this particular 3 point, where we stood in our first quarter, where we 4 stood in our budget, yadda, yadda, yadda. You know, 5 kind of a high level summary and then there was some 6 information presented about what the impact of Hope 7 Creek was from the 10-day forced outage.
8 Now, at that particular time, $10 to $15 9 million or $20 million were numbers quoted. When 10 people were looking at the balance sheets, you could 11 see that had a very large influence one way or the 12 other in the direction of the (Inaudible).
13 Now did people take something from that?
14 I don't know. But there was no pressure on me by 5or by or anyone else to -- on the decision 16 making that we had made. In fact, the only thing that 17 jave me on the 9th because I had talked to 18 several times, we have a videoconference with him 19 about every couple of weeks and prior to us taking the 20 plant down, you know, he had told me I want to make 21 sure that do the right things, you know. He always 22 would say if you need a week, take a week. But he 23 says if you don't need a week, don't take a week, 24 right? That's just kind of his general way of 25 discussing things and he was prepared for the NEAL R. GROSS ~jC COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS * -
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46 1 shutdown, so he was aware of it and when I talked to 2 him that evening and I think I talked to him one at a 3 time when we were bringing the plant back, what day, 4 whatever day we had sunk it back on. He was very 5 cordial. It's no different than the conversation I'm 6 having with you two. It was very pleasant and just a 7 matter of okay, it's back and let's move forward.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think we're done 9 with that. Let's take a quick break, all right, and 10 make sure we covered those issues.
11 (Off the record.)
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 13 record. You just commented on what your feedback to 14 the finance guys were about the March incident was 15 yes, it happened, you lost money but get over it 16 because it happens, stuff happens. That's just the 17 way it is.
18 Yes, the finance people 19 were giving us what I would expect them to give which 20 is the impacts from the production of the facility and 21 they had accounted for the planned outage which I told 22 you earlier about the recirc. pump and a few other 23 pieces of equipment, so they had that fully factored 24 in.
25 What we didn't have factored in was the c"
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47 1 subsequent four or five day outage that we had to take 2 to fix the number 2 bypass valve. And I remember some 3 discussions where the finance people were simply 4 telling us what that four or five day impact was and 5 I know the feedback myself and others gave was we 6 appreciate what the cost is, but the bottom line is 7 sometimes things happen, things break and you got to 8 fix it. So I and others said to the finance people, 9 we appreciate your input, but get over it.
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: And you were also 11 saying that that at time, in regard to that incident 12 you were made aware of the costs that were involved 13 and the value of the plant?
14 e1" After the fact.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: After the fact.
16 Would you -- do you think that you ever categorized 17 that, would you have categorized that -- you said not 18 criticism, would you have ever told anyone that you 19 took a beating fromfor the $25 20 million in lost revenue? Is that possible?
21 .j7Yes. I had said to I think 22 .and a few others that this was a period of time 23 after the plant had come back up. had commented 24 to all of us that he was disappointed that we were 25 unable to achieve our business plan targets and that NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1 (,I 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 Hope Creek had a significant contribution and that he 2 gave me some feedback that he thought some of our 3 handling of bringing the plant back after we had made 4 some repairs that we were too long in some of our 5 turnaround. Like after we had diagnosed the problem 6 with the valve, our efforts to fix the valve and then 7 go take care of the other items and bring the plant 8 back, we found a few other items kind of series 9 iteration and we didn't perform very well. And he 10 called me to account and said I expect more out of you 11 than what you delivered. Aye, aye, captain, I got 12 that.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's where that 14 came from?
15 16 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: So the comment 17 wasn't so much on the fact that you extended the 18 planned outage to fix the valve, it was how you 19 extended it and to what degree you extended it?
20 <(Yes. I thinkI is a very 21 smart man. He's been a so he 22 understands the equipment very well and you know, he 23 -- if I tell him a valve is broken, he generally can 24 visualize it in his mind and I think he says hm, 25 that's a couple days worth of time and then close your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 paper and start the plant back up. So you figure, all 2 though three days should be a rough time from the time 3 you're in cold shutdown. Well, it took us closer to 4 six or seven days before we came back, almost twice as 5 long as I think one would generally expect and our 6 extension from that kind of general terms I gave you 7 was from other issues that we had that quite frankly 8 we didn't manage very well. And yes, we did take --
9 we were held to account for that.
10 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you think that 11 in walking away from that, looking back on the event, 12 was there any negative outfall that was directed at 13 you because that specifically - did that have any 14 kind of stigma that stayed with you relative to not 15 meeting expectations, even though they may not have 16 been written at that time?
17 I would say my take away 18 from that was a better appreciation of how powerful 19 Hope Creek is to the company. I don't think I fully 20 saw it quite as clear prior to that. And so if 21 anything what it did to me is it made me communicate 22 with my directs and others about the importance of 23 being more prepared about what we're doing, having 24 more accountability once the plant is down and to be 25 more timely with decisions and essentially be more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
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1 efficient with bringing the plant back.
2 That had an impression on me, sure, and 3 that was generally my focus. After that was to try to 4 bring that side of it home.
5 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Was there anything 6 that you did on your own as an initiative to try and 7 drive the point home other than have informal 8 discussions?
9 I mean you're kind of -- at least that's 10 my perception. You're describing informal discussions 11 to your direct reports and giving them this feedback, 12 but was there any other kinds of evaluations or you 13 know a point by point breakdown of what happened and' 14 why it happened and discussions about -- where you 15 could have made up town or saved time?
16 We always do a lessons 17 learned at the end of each shut down that we have, 18 whether it be a refuel planned or an unplanned type of 19 situation. And in there we were very critical about 20 what we did right and what we did wrong and what we 21 think we could do differently. We document those.
22 That's done with the outage organization underneath 23 today and we tend to be very critical 24 about ourselves and it's intended for that purpose is 25 to sting a little bit so that we don't repeat the same NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
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51 1 mistakes we made before.
2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Okay, thank you.
3 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Let's break, please.
4 (Off the record.)
5 (Tape begins mid-sentence) -- was to make 6 sure that we had everybody's understanding of what 7 occurred on March 17th was totally unacceptable, 8 totally preventable and in opposition of what good 9 operations is either by procedure or by the way we 10 train. And I said I had called a few friends of mine, 11 the Safety Review Board and some INPO folks and was 12 looking for some what have some of the other plants 13 done to try to get the message home clearly, make an 14 impression, long-lasting, and so I had gotten that 15 feedback.
16 And so I had generated a letter that 17 essentially made the expectations very clear of how we 18 expect to operate the nuclear power plant around 19 reactivity. And reinforced the principles that we 20 teach and reinforce what we even have written in our 21 standards. But I made every operator sign that he 22 understood it and that he was committed to it.
23 What apprehension about people signing 24 their names to things and I got an awful lot of 25 feedback. I would say some good, most an awful lot of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 feedback about why do I have to sign a piece of paper 2 for my commitment. Well, you know, I'm the boss and 3 that's my way of understanding that you get the 4 message and I had told Hub (Phonetic) that that was my 5 intent behind that and he had said well, you have an 6 awful lot of people that are having that in backroom 7 discussions. Okay, thanks for that feedback.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Just to make that --
9 explain for the record what you were indicating when 10 we were off the record was that around April of this 11 year, Hub Miller (Phonetic), the Regional 12 Administrator of Region 1 approached you and indicated 13 that they were getting some feedback on this.
14 15 tSPCIAAGENT NEFF: The letter that you 16 had your ROs and your SROs sign.
- Yes.
17 18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: That's the 19 conversation you went into describing and the basis 20 for you asking for that letter to be signed.
21 jThat is correct.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think as you put 23 it, they understood the relevance of reactivity and to 24 reinforce that with them.
25 'Yes, you're correct. Hub NEAL R.GROSS I C/Y COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 comes out once in a while and this was a scheduled 2 visit. And he usually always makes the rounds with 3 the top people before he leaves and just gives them a 4 briefing and a couple minutes of discussion. And the 5 discussion I had with Hub was short and sweet and it 6 was essentially just around some of the discussion 7 that he seemed to be either part of, heard or was made 8 aware of when he was making his rounds with some of 9 his assistants. And so he just simply provided me 10 that feedback that there was discussion about the 11 operators having to sign a letter and him simply I 12 would say taking my temperature, did I realize how 13 much angst that was having on people.
14 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did it have the 15 effect that you wanted it to have?
16 Sure did. It sure did.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In what way?
18~Well, Ithink thebig thing 19 that came from it was knowing what we're doing before 20 we do it that you don't just think you know what's 21 going to happen, you have to predict what's going to 22 happen and set up some sort of measurements or 23 parameters that this is telling you what you're 24 expecting is, in fact, occurring and that that's the 25 only way one can operate a power plant when we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
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54 1 handling anything that changes reactivity. And I 2 think that that had a pretty powerful impact on people 3 because what came out of it was a whole bunch of 4 procedures suddenly that we had been using for quite 5 some time, all of a sudden we can't use them and had 6 to be revised. That's a good thing.
7 We found flaws in some of our training 8 lesson plans that appeared to now have some conflict 9 with the expectations that we had written. And I 10 would say we got more challenging from the (Inaudible) 11 from the board operators about the procedure adequacy 12 and the design basis and procedure compliance to 13 design basis, all of those things to me are good 14 things and they all surfaced after we had that, I'll 15 say, emotional event.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: (Inaudible) 17 Yes.
18 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you have anything 19 further on that topic?
20 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: No.
21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I want to go back a 22 little bit.. And this would be from the event in 2002 23 24 (END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B; BEGIN TAPE 2, SIDE 25 A.)
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55 1 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: At this point it's 2 7:03 p.m. I just want to comment for the record, we 3 had a brief break in the recording due to some sort of 4 a malfunction, but what the information was that we 5 covered was about the incident in 2002 at Salem 6 involving jaO6000ndwer 7 <Jdidn't agree with his handling of the 8 incident.
9 And what we had asked you about, and 10 refreshed your recollection with was it reportedly 11 involved the N/A of a start-up, of a procedure and a 12 start-up at Salem. You seem to recall that it was at 13 Salem Unit 2 and the time frame.
14 If you could explain what it is your 15 recollection is of the event, I'd appreciate it one 16 more time.
17 The event that comes to my 18 mind with the question. you asked about was there a 19 time on a start-up in mid-2002 and the one that does 20 come to mind was on Salem Unit 2. We had taken a 21 reactor scram, I believe, due to some problems in the 22 500kv switchyard with took the plant down. And as 23 part of our requirements for restart, we had added an 24 administrative item that thee 25 -articipate in a containment walkdown prior NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W 19"1 9AjAAT WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
56 1 to making the mode change in order to validate that, 2 in fact, containment is in the right kind of condition 3 and standards. This was put in as part of a lessons 4 learned, I think, from the Davis-Besse incident about 5 senior management's cognizance of what's going on in 6 the plant and the decision making that's occurring at 7 different levels.
8 And so the occurrence that I'm recalling 9 was when we were ready to make mode change and I 10 believe what occurred is had N/A'd or did not 11 believe that the step needed to be done because it had 12 previously been done by the Operations Department,7 13 specifically by an SRO. And I had told that that 14 was unacceptable and that -- and I told him I was very 15 unhappy with that decision in that we were going to do 16 that procedure step, meaning is that myself and 17 were going to do the walkdown and containment and 18 validate the standards that we believe the containment 19 needed to be in for today's expectations are, in fact, 20 being met.
21 The end result is that we did find some 22 issues in the containment that needed to be resolved 23 and that was a good teaching aid, I think, fo to 24 see that the reason that step was put in was purely 25 for the determination of whether the people that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 1 worked for us are at the right level of, standards when 2 we operate this facility.
3 The step was done appropriately, as I 4 recall, and that really was the synopsis of what had 5 transpired. And as I said to you earlier, I'm pretty 6 opinionated and pretty as a matter of fact on things 7 and in this particular case, I was pretty vocal with 8 h and with others who had participated either 9 actively or directly or indirectly that not seeing the 10 value behind it was just a tragedy in my mind and that 11 I had made it clear t and others that throug 12 that I was very dissatisfied with his decision making 13 and all those who allowed it to get to this point not 14 being done.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Did he explain why he 16 had N/A'd the step? -7 17 Yes, as I recall he had 18 said that he thought what it really meant was that it 19 was that someone of senior management and operations, 20 meaning within the Ops. Department was one, expected 21 to do the inspection, i.e., like a shift manager. And 22 as I believe he had told me a shift manager had done 23 it and that he believed that the VP to do it was not 24 necessary.
25 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: I think you also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
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58 1 indicated that this is one and there were other 2 incidents with 9that caused you to 3 believe that he wasn't fit for his position?
4Yes. I had seen a pattern 5 of performance with that led me that in some 6 cases, I think, his decision making was outside of 7 truly what his responsibilities were and. not taking 8 advantage of the independence that the organization 9 and the structure had in place was for defense-in-10 depth. And in my mind I saw ýat times not take 11 advantage of those and to me, that's not good decision 12 making. And there were other occurrences where*
13 personal performance just fell short of the 14 expectations that he had in his partnership. It's the 15 document that we use that exchanges my expectations of 16 him. And it has criteria in there, both objective and 17 subjective, that he was simply falling below meeting 18 satisfactory, which was all coming to the conclusion 19 that, should be replaced and I had told*#that in 20 about the January or February time of 2003 that I was 21 actively looking for a replacement.
22 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF:- And that was your 23 decision to make, to replace 24 Yes, it was.
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59 1 until recently, I believe?
2 Yes, until -- quite a few 3 changes took place in that time period. .
4 etired and 5 was named as his replacement and when I had 6 made the turnove3ý fro* I had told#
7 that I thought we needed to make some changes and9 8 said that's fine, we're probably going to go to plant 9 managers. We should look forea plant manager type and 10 I'll tell you more when I get there about other 11 organizational changes that I'd like to make.
12 We then did make those changes, 13 structurally, tha *referred to and did 14 find a replacement fo i.e., for 15 Hope Creek and a plant manager for the Salem site.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Do you see -- is 17 there any effect on the work environment with 18 leaving? Is there any changes there? And 19 the work environment from a safety perspective?
20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Was there something 22 that he did that people would be doing differently now 23 or would be perceived differently?
24 I don't think so. I mean 25 " is a pretty charismatic individual. He's a very NEAL P, GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 people-orientated person and he made it a personal 2 point to press the flesh, if you will, every single 3 day out in the power plant. So he was very visible 4 with people. And he used that as a way to reinforce 5 safety reliability cost through people as his general 6 theme.
7 And first, I think, people didn't 8 recognize or understand what " was doing, but I 9 think a left, people now saw the value in that 10 and I had gotten comments that they wished*was 11 back at times to reinforce some of those vision and 12 values.
13 Said another way, is I think they just 14 enjoyed-having someone at th level out 15 periodically, you know, communicating one on one with 16 people. But from a safety Conscious work environment 17 or from any kind of change in the atmosphere and the 18 way people did business, no. I haven't seen anything.
19 I haven't heard anything. I don't know of anything 20 that has transpired as a result of the transition from 21 one to another. So I'm simply giving you 22 anecdotal type of hearsay of people, I think, just 23 missing D presence.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. Let's go off 25 the record. It is 7:13 p.m. approximately.
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61 1 (Off the record.)
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Back on the record.
3 It's approximately 7:17 p.m. In talking about the 4 switch, when left, at that point in time 5 there were going. to be some more people on site. It's 6 what's termed the fossil people would be on site.
7 jI'm not following.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The fossil -- from 9 the corporate side.-
10 You're talking about the 11 organizational change?
12 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The organizational 13 change here.
14 Where from an enterprise,
-is Wwas a 'direct report as" 16 Wha etiredand 17 yin, ti made another, change that 18 you're alluding to. I thin.k it is is that no#
19 20 21 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Correct.
22 And then Generation reports 23 to the CEO.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right. And in that 25 change, did you have any concerns in that time frame?
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62 1 This would be going back to an earlier part of this year 2 withU moving out and this 3 organizational change? Do you recall having any 4 concerns about that?
5 I did have some concerns, 6 but not about the change. The change management 7 approach, because we weren't really informed a whole 8 lot in how some of the transitions were going to take 9 place between and A "* so some of the 10 things like who signs for what right this minute, we 11 were a little bit vague on that. And we kind of I'd 12 say learned as we went in some of those things. Who 13 signs for bringing a person in if we're hiring from 14 the street or something like that. Some of the 15 protocol changed and that was. a little bit soft. But 16 that was it.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What about in terms 18 of any concerns about the company now being run, the 19 nuclear part of the company being run, being all about 20 numbers like the other parts of the company may have 21 been or the perception was that that may have been?
22 Did you see that?
23 Did you have a concern about the potential 24 for them running the company in terms of numbers?
25 Well, it's no secret NEALR. GROSS L !
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63 1 is a numbers guy.
2 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay.
3 . And he's a heavy finance 4 person. I don't know if numbers is a good thing or a 5 bad thing. I think you're getting back to your 6 earlier discussion about just the whole line of what 7 is our enterprise now in a deregulated environment and 8 the circumstances for which we operate and navigate in 9 have changed. An you know, is I would say an 10 expert in the competitive marketplace. That is his 11 skill set. So I don't know if the combination of 12 nuclear and that skill set is good or bad. It just is 13 that's the decisions that were made.
14 Did I see any change? The only changes I 15 saw was I'd say more education. We're getting far 16 more education on what's happening in the market.
17 What is the market doing? What's the market expecting 18 from us? What' s Wall Street demanding from us and how 19 do we play into that picture?
20 We got a very fast education on that side 21 of the business. That's really the only change I saw.
22 From a nuclear side s one of the -- he knows 23 what he knows and he knows what he doesn't know. And 24 " is very quick to tell you I am not a Nuclear, I 25 don't -- I have that responsibility to manage Nuclear, NEAL R.GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 but that's why I have a President and Chief Nuclear 2 Officer as his job and your job as is to manage 3 the nuclear part of the business. But I'll tell you 4 what the numbers look like as a result of you doing 5 that.
6 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: In your experience 7 then are you able to run your part of the business the 8 way you and others at your level know how without 9 interference of pressure about numbers? Are you 10 feeling you're successful in doing that at Salem and 11 Hope Creek?
12 --7 )aYes. As I said before, we 13 generate -- I mean the plants run because we're doing 14 the right things. I mean they produce, however, they 15 produce. I don't have any influence from the guys 16 above me on day to day operations in any way, shape or 17 fashion. On the contrary, they leave it up to me 100 18 percent to make the decisions and I believe they're 19 hoping that, you know, I will manage both parts of it.
20 I will manage the nuclear side and be able to in doing 21 so give them the results on a revenue side.
22 And if we're doing the job right, which 23 has been our vision all along, we'll it right, come 24 from safety, we'll be reliable. If you're reliable, 25 you'll be cost effective. I mean that's kind of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 equation of success that we've created.
2 We're sticking to that and so are they.
3 There's no deviation from that. We get a few cheap 4 shots every now and then, but we're all humans. I 5 don't see when r ould say is that the best 6 you can do as anything other than the challenge of 7 we're expecting a little more out of you, than 8 what you gave us here. Okay, I'd say that's just 9 routine calibration.
10 But I can tell you without any hesitation, 11 - and'ount on me 100 percent to make the 12 right decisions on the plant. They don't change my 13 decision. They don't interfere with it. They don't 14 look/ for me to. get their approval. They expect me to 15 deliver, but keep them informed. I don't -- on a day 16 to day basis, I don't talk tofor fat all.
17 Every couple of weeks we have a standard kind of video 18 conference between all of us just to make sure we're 19 all on the same page of things and generally that's 20 how business is done.
21 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Have you ever felt 22 that in any of these issues that have come up in the 23 past, maybe plant events or plant incidents, that you 24 had a untenable obligation to explain your actions in 25 excruciating detail way beyond the bounds of what you NEAL R.GROSSAA COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1"
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66 1 would consider to be appropriate in dealings with 2 senior management?
3 ENo. I worked in another 4 company before here. They were far worse than this 5 one. They were less reasonable. So I'd say the 6 management I report to, 'seems to me from generally 7 what makes good sense or what's professional, I think 8 they give me a lot of rope to run with and at the same 9 time they do their job of making sure I'm not pulling 10 the wool over their faces. So when you said any undo 11 or unreasonable, no. They hold me accountable and if 12 I said we're going to deliver some set of expectations 13 and we don't, well, they challenge me on why didn't I 14 deliver them and what am I going to do about it to 15 shore up the gap that's been created. I don't think 16 that's unreasonable.
17 I think if I was to give you any place 18 wherel is absolutely relentless and that is the 19 fact that we're not an INPO 2 or an INPO 1 power plant 20 and he absolutely is demanding that we raise 21 performance levels to achieve that. industry standing 22 of a better performance compared to our industry 23 peers. Now that he is very, very demanding. Is that 24 unreasonable? I don't think so given the fact that 25 Salem Hope Creek have been the industry scale on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 1 bottom quartile for quite some time.
2 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Do you think 3 there's been any negative repercussions because of 4 that?
5 I think people will tell 6 you there is, but because I get to sit in the CEO's 7 office and I know how the scores go back and forth and 8 what the dialogue is and the answer is no. Now I 9 think some of the -- some of our restructuring that 10 we've recently done is part of improving one of the 11 larger themes that came from the last INPO evaluation
- 12. was insufficient accountability towards performance.
13 And some of the structure that we had up 14 was highly matrixed and it allowed people, I think, 15 somewhat to be dilutive in following things through 16 and so some of the stuff we've recently done is put in 17 more, I'd say command and control and who is the 18 decision maker and to improve the knowledge of who's 19 making the call and quite frankly who's accountable 20 for the outcome, whatever that might be. That's 21 changed.
22 Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. I 23 would agree with INPO. I think that has been one of 24 our problems. There are an awful lot of people that 25 seem to think that as long as they personally believe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N.W.
68 1 they know better than somebody else, that's okay for 2 them to passively almost in a passive-aggressive style 3 not follow what the expectations are.
4 We do have some of that at the facility.
5 That's not uncommon though in a size of 2,000 plus 6 people in a facility. At least not from my experience 7 at the four or five other plants I've been at.
8 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Thank you.
9 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Before I put a 10 closing on the interview, do you have anything else 11 you'd like to add along this line that we talked about 12 tonight?
13 You know, I mean the answer As 14 is no, I don't have anything else at this point.
15 I said before, if you told me do you remember RHR 16 valve such and such or do you remember this --
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Right.
18 "I can tell you, yes, I 19 remember that and probably can give you any insights 20 on those kind of situations. Some of it just, March 21 of this or June of that, do you recall this guy and 22 this guy? I'm sorry, I'm -- it's just not enough for 23 me to trigger something that I've got stored away, but 24 I've given you everything I know on a general sense 25 and what I believe some of our approaches have been NEAL R.GROSS Mk1IA, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 and some of the instances I'm aware of that may have 2 interest to you or may have part of your 3 investigation, but that's all I've got at this point.
4 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Okay. I appreciate 5 you telling me. I have a couple of questions I have 6 to ask you in closing.
7 Sure.
8 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Lhave I 9 or any other NRC representative threatened you in any 10 manner or offered you any rewards in return for this 11 information?
12 13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Have you provided 14 this information freely and voluntarily?
15 3)Yes, I have.
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: The time is now 17 approximately 7:30 p.m. This interview is concluded.
18 (Off the record.)
19 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: We're back on the 20 record. It's 7:33. had some comments to 21 add regarding his overall assessment of the facility.
22 Thank you.
23 I've been in the business Mand I have really been in a variety of 24 25 different plants and cultures, some very, very tough NEAL R.GROSS4(
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70 1 cultures. The Salem Hope Creek is one that really is 2 unique as compared to all the other ones I've been at 3 in that it's like if you could classify the whole site 4 as a person, as a patient, it's like a patient that 5 has some sort of psychiatric disorder -- that's 6 probably a little bit strong, but a need to feel that 7 they're valuable. It is so powerful that even when 8 it's getting reinforced, they don't believe it. And 9 -
10 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: What level are you 11 talking about?
12 'All levels.
13 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Any level in 14 particular?
15 All levels. Management, 16 all the way down to janitor cleaning the floor. The 17 people seem to have a very low self-esteem of 18 themselves. I don't know where it came from, but it's 19 just an impression that one gets when you interact 20 because they talk negative about themselves. They 21 freely talk negative about somebody else and even when 22 you're saying -- I say "Scott, what a great job." It 23 turns out that anybody that's listening thinks I'm 24 criticizing him. And you're going now how the heck 25 can that happen? N .GROSS J I C-1/
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71 1 But what I've gathered over time is I 2 don't know what it is if it's the water or just -- I 3 don't know, but the people seem to have an ability, a 4 desire, I can't quite put my finger on it, but a 5 twisting of things in a negative way, on everything, 6 anything and everything. No matter who says it, what 7 is said. You could say I'd give you a million dollars 8 and somebody would twist it into I'm being fired. And 9 that's a severance package. Now, is that true? No, 10 it's not true, but there's this exaggeration that gets 11 added always in somehow to take away from whatever 12 really was occurring and when you -- I'm not a 13 psychiatrist, but like I said, if you looked at this 14 as a person, you would say that's a disorder of some 15 sort, a deficiency, a low self-esteem or something 16 like that, if you were talking about just a single 17 person.
18 And it just is very strong there and my 19 belief is many things get taken out of context and 20 taken to a level that is well beyond anything that 21 ever was actually said or occurred. People loved to 22 gossip about that, tremendous amounts. It's almost as 23 though rumors is part of their life. And what makes 24 me nervous about it is people love to talk in rumors 25 when it makes themselves look better at the expense of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 somebody else. And that just is more predominant at 2 this facility than I've seen at other place.
3 .SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: This factor, the 4 negative spin, putting a negative spin on almost 5 everything, had that been addressed? It was 6 apparently recognized, at least at your level. Was it 7 addressed in any way? I- C a *Thatwhstherete easonwhy we 9 hired Gap International is their whole claim to fame.
10 They're a leadership organization that tries to help 11 cultures. That's really what they're about. Is to 12 try to help people put yesterday behind you. You 13 can't do anything about that. Don't hold on to 14 yesterday. Hold on to yesterday from the standpoint i5 of what to learn, but don't make that your future life 16 because if you say life is shitty, then that's what 17 you expect the future to be. Why do you live and 18 breathe that way? Why do you operate that way? And 19 so this company we hired was trying to prove to 20 management because the management would talk that way 21 which then cascades to the lower levels and then they 22 behave that way.
23 I mean it's real simple to see how it 24 works and so we work with them for a -. few years was to 25 try to improve that and then we used the Gallop Poll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W (202) 234'4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005-3701 wwwjleakrgos.corn
73 1 as kind of our barometer to determine have we changed 2 the people from the standpoint of are they now 3 actively engaged, disengaged or actively disengaged?
4 And if you understand Gallop at all, they really focus 5 on is the actively disengaged. That means they're 6 passively-aggressively opposing you. And if that's 7 a high number, you're generally quite frankly in their 8 words, a lousy company, a lousy organization. You've 9 got problems. Your stock isn't high. You're not 10 producing, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's all these 11 trends.
12 A few years ago, we were in the 13th 13 percentile, the lowest that there is. This last year, 14 we reached the 50th percentile.
15 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: So you had 16 improvement. 7(7' 17 ye'e changed it, but I'm 18 still telling you, it's still very prevalent out there 19 and like I said, it's an oddity that quite frankly is 20 something different than any other place I've been at.
21 Now is it good or is it bad? Well, I 22 don't know, but it certainly is different as compared 23 to say the other places I was at.
24 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Would you say this 25 attitude has an effect on the workers there, either NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20005.3701 wwwrmkgross.ccm
74 1 one raising concerns of a safety nature, a nuclear 2 safety, specifically?
3 o, actually what I find is 4 they're very free to tell you exactly what they think 5 or what they heard or if they believe there's 6 something that might have concern with it. So I'd say 7 is that the information flow is very good, but what's 8 interesting is the information flow is only about 10 9 percent factual and then there's additions that are 10 put on by people that are negative in nature. That's 11 what I don't understand. That's what I don't get.
12 That happens, quite frankly, a lot andin 13 many instances, root causes and investigations I was 14 part of things, we actually find out the facts are 15 very different than what the hearsay was. Yet, the 16 hearsay is what everybody thought the facts were.
17 That's what I found fascinating.
18 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Doesn't some of 19 that go to how much probing there is of details, 20 whether it be at a supervisory level, a management 21 level or what have you?
22 (Sure.
23 SPECIAL AGENT BARBER: Because if you 24 accept it, what you're told at face value, you are 25 bound have those kinds of situations.
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7*
1 Now you get into another 2 quirk, I think, with the culture and that is people 3 are offended when one asks them a question beyond the 4 surface. If I ask you, Scott, are you wearing a brown 5 coat? You say, yes, I am. And I ask well, how do you 6 know it's brown and where did you get it from? I'm 7 going to tell you that the majority of people might a view that as I don't trust you and that's why I'm 9 asking those questions, versus I'm just trying to find 10 out what the truth is, what the facts are so we're all 11 on the same page, nothing more. There's no hidden 12 agenda and nothing like that.
13 I just want to say the negative is why 14 does one choose to think that there's a motive behind 15 it versus just getting cold (Phonetic)?
16 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: You indicated you 17 don't know where this comes from, what started it, the 18 on-site culture that you're dealing with.
19 Yes, and q.-think if you 20 chat with other people who have come and gone from the 21 place, they may articulate it a little bit 22 differently, but I think they' ll articulate something 23 along those lines is their experience as well.
24 But I couldn't tell you for the life of me 25 what the origin is. I can tell you is that we are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS A
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76 1 moving from 13th percentile to something much better 2 than that and I think we're on the right path to get 3 it behind us, but it has taken a hell of a lot of 4 effort and a lot of personal time by quite a few 5 people out there to change the language. The Gap 6 guys, I think every company has their own kind of 7 thing, but I am a believer in this. If you want 8 culture to change, it starts from the way the language 9 and communicate with one another. So if I want 10 tomorrow to be better, then I have to talk about 11 tomorrow being better, not talk about tomorrow being 12 bad because yesterday was bad. And that's the simple 13 fundamental that we've been trying to change. Some 14 picked it up, some haven't. So my take away is you're 15 getting some people that are giving you the glass is 16 half empty.
17 SPECIAL AGENT NEFF: Thank you.
18 ~ ~Okay.
19 (Whereupon, the interview was concluded.)
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Interview of Docket Number: 2-2003-051F Location:
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings as recorded on tape(s) provided by the NRC.
Francesca Z o Official Transcriber Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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