ML030280708

Reactor Vessel Head Degradation Lessons Learned Task Force: Transcript of Public Meeting Held on Nov 20, 2002 in Oak Harbor, Oh

ML030280708
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Site:	Davis Besse
Issue date:	11/20/2002
From:	Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4

DAVIS-BESSE REACTOR VESSEL HEAD DEGRADATION 5 LESSONS LEARNED TASK FORCE 6

PUBLIC MEETING 7

8 Meeting held on Wednesday, November 20, 2002, at 7:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, 9 Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, Stenotype Reporter, and Notary Public, in and for the State of 10 Ohio.

11 12 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:

13 US. NRC LESSONS-LEARNED TASK FORCE 14 Arthur Howell, Team Leader, Region IV 15 Robert Haag, Region II 16 Russell Bywater, Region IV 17 Joelle Starefos, Region II 18 Edwin Hackett, Assistant Team Leader, 19 Office of Research 20 Joseph Donoghue, Nuclear Reactor Regulation 21 Thomas Koshy, Nuclear Reactor Regulation 22 Ronald Lloyd, Research 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

2 1 MR. HOWELL: Well, good evening.

2 My name is Arthur Howell. I'm with the United States 3 Nuclear Regulatory Commission or NRC. For those 4 folks in the audience who may not know what the NRC 5 is, it's the Federal agency that regulates the 6 various commercial institution on uses of nuclear 7 energy, including nuclear power plants such as 8 Davis-Besse. I'm from the NRC's Region IV office in 9 Arlington, Texas.

10 For the past several months a number of NRC 11 staff members and I have served on the NRC's 12 Davis-Besse reactor vessel head degradation Lessons 13 Learned Task Force. This task force was formed to 14 review the full scope of regulatory activities 15 related to the Davis-Besse reactor pressure vessel 16 head damage that was identified this past February 17 and March. The task force's activities are separate 18 and distinct from the NRC's Oversight Panel of 19 Davis-Besse, which some of you may be familiar with.

20 This panel meets regularly here, typically about once 21 a month. I believe their last meeting was last 22 week, so this effort that we're here to talk about 23 tonight is separate and distinct from the Oversight 24 Panel.

25 One of -- there's two purposes that I wanted MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

3 1 to relate to you all concerning this meeting. The 2 first one is that we would like to provide an 3 overview of the objectives and scope and review 4 results of recommendations of the NRC's Lessons 5 Learned Task Force report. This report was made 6 publicly available last month, and if you had an 7 opportunity, out there we have a graphic that 8 provides some information which you can find the 9 report on our web site.

10 The second purpose is to provide an 11 opportunity to members of the public to make comments 12 or ask questions regarding the task force's review 13 activities, so what we'd like to do is for the first 14 hour or so of the meeting is to present an overview 15 of the report, and then we'll take a short break and 16 then the task force members and I will come down in 17 front of the orchestra pit, and then we'll have a Q 18 and A session.

19 Before going any further, the team and I 20 would like to thank all the folks in the audience who 21 can be here to participate in the meeting tonight.

22 Also, we wish to acknowledge the outstanding 23 support of Mr. Bob Stucker of the Oak Harbor High, 24 School on making this meeting possible at this 25 facility.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

4 1 I'd also like to recognize Ms. Sonia Eischen.

2 Where are you, Sonia?

3 MS. EISCHEN: (Indicating).

4 MR. HOWELL: Back there. Sonia is 5 from the State of Ohio. She's works for the State of 6 Ohio Emergency Management Agency, and she 7 participated on the task force as an observer.

8 I'd also like to recognize Mr. Jere Witt, the 9 Ottawa County Administrator, who is also in 10 attendance.

11 There are a number of informative handouts at 12 the front of the auditorium including copies of the 13 NRC public meeting feedback form. I encourage 14 everyone to complete the feedback form and mail it to 15 the NRC. It's self-addressed and no postage is 16 necessary.

17 At this time, I'll ask the other members of 18 the task force to introduce themselves starting on 19 the left.

20 MS. STAREFOS: Joelle Starefos, 21 Region II.

22 MR. BYWATER: Russell Bywater, 23 Region IV.

24 MR. HAAG: Rob Haag, Region II.

25 MR. HACKETT: Ed Hackett, Office of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

1 Research.

2 MR. DONOGHUE: Joe Donoghue, Nuclear 3 Reactor Regulation.

4 MR. KOSHY: Thomas Koshy, Nuclear 5 Reactor Regulation.

6 MR. LLOYD: Ron Lloyd, Research.

7 MR. HOWELL: Thanks. These are 8 all the task force members with the exception of 9 Patrick Castleman of the NRC's Office of Nuclear 10 Material Safety and Safeguards and Elaine Raphael, 11 our Administrative Assistant, who could not be with 12 us tonight.

13 I'd also like to acknowledge that there are a 14 number of other NRC managers and staff members who 15 are present in the audience, including 16 representatives from the Executive -- Office of the 17 Executive Director for Operations and the Office of 18 Nuclear Reactor Regulation.

19 In just a moment Dr. Hackett will provide an 20 overview of the Lessons Learned report. This 21 discussion will include a number of areas including 22 some background information on past Lessons Learned 23 review activities, the task force objectives and 24 scope, task force team composition and attributes, 25 and task force review methods. I mentioned the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

6 1 report availability. We also had some coordination 2 activities with other ongoing NRC reviews. The 3 overall conclusions of the task force, including a 4 summary of the detailed results, and then finally a 5 summary of the task force recommendations.

6 Following Dr. Hackett's presentation, I will 7 provide an overview of the NRC's approach to 8 addressing the task force's recommendations.

9 After that, we would like to, again, as I 10 mentioned, open up the meeting to comments and 11 questions from members of the audience. Since there 12 is quite a bit of material, I would request that 13 folks hold their comments and questions until the end 14 of the presentation. I mentioned that we'll take a 15 short break, about five minutes, just long enough for 16 us to reposition in front of the orchestra pit.

17 For the next part of the presentation, I 18 wanted to mention that the NRC has changed its public 19 meeting policy several months ago in order to enhance 20 public participation in NRC meetings. I know many 21 of you are aware of this change as a result of 22 attending meetings held by the NRC's Davis-Besse 23 Oversight Panel, the so-called 0350 Panel, as well as 24 attending a meeting conducted by this task force in 25 Oak Harbor this past June. This policy brings MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

7 1 consistency by introducing a system wl 2 public can participate or can anticipz 3 participation that will be provided fc 4 upcoming meeting. The NRC has ident:

5 categories of public meetings it convw 6 meeting has been designated as a Catec 7 which is defined as a meeting that is 8 representatives, non-Government organ:

9 private citizens, interested parties (

10 businesses or industries not covered I 11 categories. The purpose of a Catego:

12 to maximize discussions with the publ:

13 that issues and concerns are understo(

14 considered by the NRC.

15 I also wanted to mentioned thi 16 established a strong track record of ý 17 critical assessments of its activitieý 18 as they relate to significant plant e, 19 problems. Dr. Hackett will discuss t]

20 detail during his remarks.

21 I wanted to thank the members 22 who provided input to the task force 23 We conducted two public meetings in Ji 24 receive input from the public, and al' 25 I believe, was factored into our deta MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

8 1 plans.

2 Before turning the presentation over to Dr.

3 Hackett, I just wanted to say that the results of our 4 review revealed multiple missed opportunities on the 5 part of the NRC to have identified the problem much 6 sooner than it was ultimately identified by 7 FirstEnergy.

8 I wanted to indicate that we have made more 9 than 50 recommendations to address the findings and 10 conclusions of our review, that the NRC has already 11 taken action to move forward to address these 12 recommendations.

13 Finally, in accordance with our normal 14 practice, the information used from this meeting will 15 be made publicly available.

16 At this time, if there are no further 17 questions or any questions, I'll turn the 18 presentation over to Dr. Hackett.

19 MR. HACKETT: Thanks, Art.

20 Hopefully, everyone can hear me okay. Art did such a 21 good job there, I don't think I need to dwell over 22 much on the overview, so go to slide three.

23 Slide three, basically wanted to say the NRC 24 has previously taken the initiative to conduct these 25 types of reviews for significant issues. These have MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

9 1 been self-critical. Improvements have been made at 2 the agency in response to them, so this is not 3 something that's going to go away. It's something 4 the NRC will continue to do as part of an overall 5 self-improvement. Recent examples include the Indian 6 Point steam generator tube failure, year 2000, and 7 NRC inspections at the South Texas Project in 1995.

8 Art already differentiated between our role 9 and the 0350 Panel. Our role is really 10 retrospective. It's to look -- take the event and 11 look backwards and see why it wasn't prevented.

12 Now, we'll go to slide four. It's important 13 to emphasize that this was an independent evaluation.

14 None of the members of the team that you see up here 15 had any significant prior involvement in Davis-Besse 16 and oversight of the Davis-Besse plant, particularly 17 with regard to inspection activities, so the 18 evaluation was an independent evaluation even though 19 it was the NRC conducting the evaluation. The 20 review had these five elements that you see on the 21 slide. This was basically the elements of our 22 charter. The reactor oversight process is primarily 23 the process by which NRC oversees the regulated power 24 plants and the inspection activity basically 25 inspection assessment and enforcement of activities.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

10 I We're also chartered to look at regulatory processes, 2 including things like our generic communications 3 bulletins and processes associated with those. Most 4 of the focus of the task force was on the top two 5 elements, but we are also chartered to look at 6 research activities both NRC and industry, 7 International practices particularly those of you who 8 followed this activity, the French program. There 9 what were a lot of lessons learned associated with 10 the French activity. The NRC Generic Issues program 11 which is a process by which some, you know, longer 12 term actions and verifications can be followed on by 13 the NRC, and the idea, of course, is that we would 14 identify and recommend improvements, and we have done 15 that in our report.

16 I'll go to slide five. Art talked about the 17 composition of the team. It is multi-disciplined, 18 experienced team. I already mentioned no previous 19 involvement in the oversight of Davis-Besse. Art 20 introduced Sonia Eischen, and Sonia was an observer 21 of the proceedings of the task force for the majority 22 of the duration. We did have stakeholder input to 23 the task force review activities. We had a meeting 24 on June 12th here in Oak Harbor where we presented 25 this to the public, and we had a follow up meeting at MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

1i 1 NRC headquarters on June 19th in Rockville.

2 Go to Slide 6. In terms of our review 3 methods, we have two groups. One was based at 4 headquarters. It's largely enacted by Joe Donoghue, 5 to my right, which focused on licensing review 6 requirements and guidance -- industry guidance, the 7 International activities and generic issues.

8 We had a second group that was primarily 9 focused on the site, activities in Region III that 10 was acted by Bob Haag that really looked at 11 inspection, enforcement, operating experience, 12 generic communications and safety performance.

13 MR. HOWELL: Excuse me. I just 14 wanted to point out that we actually conducted review 15 activities involving all four NRC regions. There are 16 four NRC regions. One of them is near Dallas, 17 Texas, the one I'm from Arlington Texas. Another is 18 Atlanta. A third is near Philadelphia, and then the 19 fourth is NRC Region III, which is in the Chicago 20 suburbs.

21 MR. HACKETT: Thanks, Art. The 22 information collection is largely through document 23 reviews and interviews. There were upwards of 35 24 plus interviews, I think, conducted with the 25 licensee, over 80 with NRC personnel, as Art said, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

12 1 you know, spread out over the headquarters operation 2 and regions, a significant amount of fact-finding at 3 the Davis-Besse site. There were also some elements 4 that involved contacts with some of the foreign 5 regulatory authorities and also with the U.S.

6 industry.

7 Move to slide seven. Some of you may have 8 seen the poster out in the lobby. The report is 9 available on an NRC electronic document management 10 system called ADAMS. The accession number is listed 11 there on the slide and is available out in the lobby.

12 That can be obtained from NRC that way. There is 13 also a public web site with the world wide web 14 address listed there. This report issuance was 15 coordinated with other NRC offices because of ongoing 16 reviews in other areas. As the Lessons Learned Task 17 Force progressed, and probably most importantly for 18 us, the findings of the Lessons Learned Task Force 19 were in issues that were plant-specific were provided 20 on a regular basis to the 0350 Oversight Panel for 21 any appropriate follow up.

22 Go to slide eight. The overall conclusion 23 that if you have seen -- you have copies of the 24 executive summary available to you and also the 25 report is that the NRC and industry recognized the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

13 1 potential for this type of event at least 10 years 2 ago, going back to the initial cracking problem of 3 this type of issue and control rod drive penetrations 4 at the Bugey plant in France. There were boric acid 5 corrosion and degradation events that predated that 6 back almost 30 years. There were industry 7 submittals made to the NRC by the U.S. industry that 8 not only recognized the potential for this, but 9 analyzed the boric acid type of attack that was 10 ultimately seen here at Davis-Besse in approximately 11 the 1993 time frame. The NRC and the U.S.

12 industry's initial conclusion was that the vessel 13 head penetration cracking was not an immediate safety 14 concern. This is due to the flaw tolerance of the 15 Inconel 600 material from these penetrations. At 16 the time it was axial cracking that was in concern, 17 and what you get in a situation like that even if 18 those cracks go through a wall, you get a situation 19 called leak before break which means that you would 20 have leakage that would be observed before there 21 would be any catastrophic safety issues at the plant.

22 The follow on to that was that the analysis from 23 there became protracted and lead us to -- to not look 24 at some of the -- some of the other connected items 25 like boric acid corrosion.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

14 1 The third element there is that the NRC and 2 the licensee failed to learn key lessons from past 3 boric acid events. As I mentioned there was one in 4 particular that dated back 30 years. I think the 5 date was 1969, 1970 at a foreign plant. The 6 corrosion rates for boric acid attack were known to 7 be potentially very rapid, although there was a mind 8 set that developed that dry boric acid crystals on a 9 reactor vessel head were not corrosive. The reactor 10 vessel heads are hot during operation and that there 11 would not be extensive corrosive attack due to that.

12 Corrosion rates for this type of attack are often 13 underestimated. There was also a -- I mentioned 14 these industry submittals to the NRC. Their 15 conclusion was that if there were corrosion that 16 leakage -- there would be leakage that would be 17 observable in NRC and licensee inspections and it 18 would be found before it ever got to a situation like 19 what happened at Davis-Besse. Obviously, that didn't 20 happen.

21 Two other events that I'll mention that 22 happened at Davis-Besse itself in 1993 and 1998 were 23 precursors. They had boric acid attack that was 24 reasonably extensive on their steam generator shell 25 in 1993 and again on some bolting and fastener MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

15 1 materials on a pressurizer spray valve in 1998. The 2 lessons learned from those activities were very 3 similar to what we've seen here for the reactor 4 vessel head degradation.

5 Go ahead to slide nine. The bottom line for 6 us was this was a preventable event. It was 7 obviously not prevented. That goes to our three, 8 what we call, contributing conclusions, which are the 9 three sub-bullets you see there on the slide. It 10 goes to Sections 3-1, 3-2 and 3-3 of our report.

11 No. 1 really goes to how we did and how the industry 12 and licensee did with regard to looking at operating 13 experience. Obviously there is operating experience 14 being accumulated all the time at the plants. We 15 had some incumbent upon us and the industry and the 16 licensees to access that operating experience and 17 follow up on anything that's relevant. That 18 obviously -- there were some inadequacies in that 19 category here. It's a major contributing cause.

20 The licensee, for their case, and I think FENOC has 21 put out their own conclusions on this and a 22 presentation I first saw in August, but that they 23 failed to assure that their plant safety issues were 24 receiving the appropriate attention. I think Mr.

25 Myers looked at that as a production versus a safety MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

16 1 focus, I think is what's been said before. There was 2 also issues uncovered previously by the Augmented 3 Inspection Team sent out by the NRC and the follow up 4 to that Augmented Inspection Team.

5 The third element goes to the NRC's 6 performance and it's really in, I think, the team's 7 estimation, it's the NRC's failure to integrate what 8 was a lot of available information in these areas, in 9 particular, boric acid corrosion attack and stress 10 corrosion cracking and some of the inspection 11 assessments that were available to us at the time.

12 Go to slide 10. We had some other 13 contributing factors, looking at our other guidance 14 and requirements at the NRC and the inspection and 15 reactor oversight process area, some contradictions 16 and differences in our enforcement policy for reactor 17 coolant pressure boundary leakage. We had some 18 difficulties with the ASME code. The American 19 Society for Mechanical Engineers has a code that 20 specifies inspection requirements for these plants.

21 Those inspection requirements were entirely 22 inadequate for this particular situation of the 23 vessel head penetration cracking.

24 Staffing and resources were problems for the 25 NRC. The Davis-Besse plant was viewed as a good MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

17 1 performer. Over the 1990's, which was early in the 2 1990's, the Region III resources in a lot of cases 3 were diverted to other plants that had been perceived 4 at the time to have more problems. We had some 5 regional inspector in region -- region based 6 inspector vacancies and some problems with coverage 7 during that time frame over which this degradation 8 occurred.

9 MR. HOWELL: Resident inspector.

10 MR. HACKETT: I'm sorry, resident 11 inspectors not the region based inspectors.

12 In terms of communications with the licensee, 13 there were several items that the team found relative 14 to if you follow this issue to bulletin 2001-01 which 15 related to the circumferential cracking at Oconee and 16 some inaccuracies in bulletin response, also related 17 to the nature and extent of the boric acid deposits 18 on top of the Davis-Besse head, particularly 19 following their refuel outage No. 12 which was the 20 year 2000 and questions about effectiveness of some 21 previous inspections.

22 In the licensing process and implementation 23 area, we, the team, noted a lack of documentation for 24 a decision justifying operation of the plant for an 25 additional six weeks in the year 2002. There were MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

18 1 also some issues with -- just to give you some 2 examples with our project managers who were based at 3 the headquarters operation and their oversight at the 4 plant activities and visits to the plant and actions 5 that they would take in the licensing arena.

6 Go to slide 11. This goes to the operating 7 experience. I think I already mentioned the 8 operating experience involving boric acid leakage and 9 corrosion. The report conducted or the team 10 conducted an independent review which is documented 11 in Appendix E. Ron Lloyd, to my far right, did most 12 of that work. It documents a long history of 13 operating experience involving boric acid leakage and 14 corrosion. That was available there for everyone to 15 assess, quite a number of events, and, in addition, 16 technical assessments of that information that were 17 available that were not -- that were not properly 18 followed up on for this particular issue.

19 Some issues with our generic communication 20 program; in this case we had many generic 21 communications both on the topic of stress corrosion 22 cracking, in particular on those penetrations.

23 MR. HOWELL: Excuse me, Ed. Could 24 you just take a moment and briefly describe what 25 generic communications are to the folks?

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

19 1 MR. HACKETT: Good point. The NRC 2 communicates with the licensees through a variety of 3 mechanisms one of which is the Generic Communication 4 program. The Generic Communication program, the 5 mechanisms that you'll see in there are things like 6 information notices, generic letters and bulletins.

7 Most of you are probably familiar with the bulletins 8 that have been issued in reaction to this particular 9 issue, but typically these generic communications are 10 in reaction to events, although they don't have to 11 be, and they most typically request information from 12 the licensees to enable the NRC to get a better 13 picture of what needs to be done in a regulatory 14 sense. They typically do not impose requirements, 15 so it's good to lay that out. Thanks, Art.

16 I guess I was also at this point going to lay 17 out -- what I'm going to try to do in these next few 18 slide with you is just to give you some samples.

19 The report itself can be more than a little bit 20 intimidating, I think is probably fair, although I 21 have been told we're not good objective judges of 22 that, of course, we think it's excellent, but it is 23 98 pages in length. There are over 50 24 recommendations that are documented there, so what 25 I'm going through here is just a series of highlights MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

20 1 and some examples for you in some of these areas.

2 With regard to our Generic Communications 3 program, as I mentioned, there were many generic 4 communications on this issue and the boric acid 5 degradation. What we found in terms of some 6 systematic weaknesses, we think in some the NRC's 7 processes is one thing is that we have seen a lack of 8 verification for licensee responses to these 9 communications. It's not required by the process 10 and in a lot of cases the NRC focus was not on these 11 generic communications for the longer term, now, 12 let's say many years after they had been issued.

13 There was also -

14 MR. HOWELL: Just to clarify, in 15 some cases, there is verification of the generic 16 communications, but I think Ed is focusing primarily 17 on the one's that deal with boric acid corrosion.

18 There was some inspection guidance that was 19 developed, for example, that was in effect optional, 20 so in the case of Davis-Besse this procedure was 21 never implemented over the years, for example.

22 MR. HACKETT: Yeah, Art's -- one of 23 the examples Art's referring to there is our generic 24 letter 8805, which was issued in 1988. There was 25 some follow up on the part of the Office of Nuclear MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

21 1 Reactor Regulation and some follow up inspections to 2 verify responses to that generic letter, but what 3 didn't happen is many years since I think there was a 4 lack of focus on that particular area so that one was 5 of the weaknesses the team identified.

6 I'll jump to the last bullet, looking at our 7 operating experience review with the NRC, we had a 8 significant amount of changes in the agency in the 9 1990's that related to trying to, you know, achieve 10 increased efficiencies within the budget constraints 11 that we had and some reductions in the size of the 12 NRC staff. Some of that lead to a dissolution of an 13 office at the NRC in 1999. We had an office prior 14 to 1999 that was an office for analysis and 15 evaluation of operational data. This office was 16 originally established in reaction to the Three-Mile 17 Island event and then served as a -- I guess I'll use 18 the phrase, clearinghouse, for looking at operating 19 experience, review and assessment of the NRC, so I 20 think one of the weaknesses the team identified there 21 was a diminished capacity at the NRC for dealing with 22 this type of assessment.

23 In fairness to the Davis-Besse situation, the 24 degradation that we're talking about here tonight was 25 most likely in progress well before that time frame.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

22 1 This wasn't something that was operating in a 2 positive direction.

3 In terms of slide 12, I won't dwell on that, 4 I think the licensee has covered this in previous 5 presentations of their own, but we have the items 6 that you see listed there, and I think some of these 7 tend to get repeated. There were numerous symptoms 8 and indications of reactor coolant system leakage 9 that were not properly addressed. I think the 10 bottom line there was that the licensee was 11 addressing the symptoms and not the causes for the 12 leakage. Some examples that the report goes into 13 are fouling of the containment air coolers with 14 corrosion products and boric acid deposits and also 15 fouling of the radiation filter element monitors.

16 There was a history of leakage from CRDM flanges and 17 valves and other components and repairs were often 18 deferred.

19 With regard to the boric acid corrosion 20 control program at Davis-Besse, the team found that 21 it was never properly established or effectively 22 implemented in reaction to our generic letter 8805.

23 Boric acid removal from the head was looked at, I 24 think, as more of a -- or what the team thinks is 25 more of a decontamination issue rather than safety MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

23 1 issue. The cleaning of the head, we found, was 2 limited in a number of instances by pressure brought 3 there from the outages themselves. In terms of 4 owners group and industry guidance, the B&W owners 5 group, as an example, had served a structure 6 modifications that would have enabled better access 7 for inspection cleaning of the head at Davis-Besse 8 that were not implemented at Davis-Besse in the early 9 to mid 1990's. In terms of industry guidance there 10 was an electric power research institute corrosion 11 control handbook for boric acid corrosion that had 12 some -- there are some things in there the team would 13 have differences in or with, but there are some 14 elements that provided some very good guidance on 15 what to do about this issue and what some of the 16 symptoms would be that didn't appear to be 17 internalized by the licensee.

18 I have mentioned before that there was a lack 19 of awareness both internal and external operating 20 experience, particularly in the area of boric acid 21 corrosion and boric acid corrosion control. In 22 terms of safety related activities just to give a few 23 examples, I think the licensee had during this time 24 frame strained engineering resources, again, they 25 were operating and addressing the symptoms of this MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

24 1 RCS leakage and not the causes. I th 2 lack of questioning attitude on the p 3 inspectors and their inspections and 4 engineering rigor in a lot of the ana 5 performed over that time frame just a 6 Go to slide 13. This slide 7 summarize the NRC's performance. I t 8 covered some of these. With regard t 9 coolant leakage assessment, the NRC w 10 these symptoms as the licensee was.

11 lack of questioning attitude, a quest 12 assumptions that the licensee was mak 13 a lack of questioning attitude on the 14 inspection activity. Probably most 15 inspections over that time frame and 16 being probably 1996 and on, inspectio 17 reactor coolant system leakage were n 18 integrated into the NRC overall safet 19 The inspection program implementation 20 with regard to refueling outage 12, t 21 awareness of boric acid deposits on t 22 resident inspection team. There was 23 follow up in terms of the NRC on enfo 24 that related to the boric acid attack 25 pressurized spray valve in 1998, and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

25 1 deficiencies with regard to implementation of 2 corrective actions.

3 In terms of integration and assessment of 4 performance data, I think again, it points back to 5 the numerous opportunities and missed opportunities 6 on the part of the resident inspector staff in some 7 of the region based inspection assessments, 8 particularly in the area of reactor coolant system 9 leakage to not be integrated over a range of 10 activities and also a certain time period.

11 With regard to guidance and requirements, it 12 goes both to the NRC inspection guidance not being as 13 clear as it could be in certain cases, some conflicts 14 or differences in our enforcement policy over exactly 15 what to do about reactor coolant pressure boundary 16 leakage, also goes to the ASME code that I mentioned 17 previously and some inadequacies in their inspection, 18 inspection requirements. Staffing and resources -

19 MR. HOWELL: Excuse me, Ed. Before 20 we go to staffing and resources, I just -- in terms 21 of the first three bullets what we're trying to 22 convey is that the NRC knew a whole lot about the 23 symptoms and indications of the leakage that in this 24 case that resulted ultimately in the degradation of 25 the vessel head.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (459) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

26 1 Now, at the time, of course, they didn't know 2 that the source was the nozzle, but we conducted a 3 number of inspections over the years, primarily in 4 the 1999, 2000 time frame, 2001, in which the NRC was 5 cognizant of some of the operational problems that 6 were being evidenced by the symptoms of this problem, 7 but we never pieced all that information together to 8 ultimately identify the source, and so that's 9 essentially what we're trying to convey is that we 10 did know a lot, we followed up on some of these 11 indications, but, ultimately, we never pieced all the 12 information together.

13 MR. HACKETT: In terms of the 14 recommendations now on slide 14, the report has an 15 Appendix A, which documents the detailed 16 recommendations that the team came up with. I 17 believe there are about 51 of them. What we tried 18 to do here is just stay at a fairly high level and 19 give you these eight categories in which the majority 20 of those recommendations fall. First on the list is 21 inspection guidance. One of the things that we're 22 looking at hard there or one of the recommendations 23 went to revising inspection guidance with regard to 24 RCS leakage and differentiation of RCS leakage and 25 RCPV, RCPV leakage and RCPV degradation. I think MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

27 1 it's fair to say the team found that some of the 2 guidance in that regard is not as clear as it could 3 be and there are some improvements that we could make 4 in that area. In terms of the operating 5 experience -

6 MR. HOWELL: Excuse me, Ed. Also 7 obviously we made some recommendations to address 8 future inspections of boric acid corrosion control 9 programs. I mentioned earlier, the NRC had an 10 inspection procedure to conduct essentially 11 programmatic reviews of licensee boric acid corrosion 12 control programs. This procedure was optional. It 13 was rarely implemented not only at Davis-Besse -- it 14 was never implemented, but nationwide it was rarely 15 implemented over the 10 plus years that it was in 16 force, and so one of the recommendations is to go 17 back and revisit the decision to cancel that 18 procedure, and, in addition to that, we made a number 19 of other recommendations. I believe fully a third of 20 our recommendations are in the inspection guidance 21 area. We made some recommendations pertaining to 22 how we go about conducting assessments of corrective 23 action programs, employee concerns programs, safety 24 conscious work environment, as well as a number of 25 other areas including nozzle inspections, too.

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28 1 MR. HACKETT: That's one of our 2 longer recommendations went to the operating 3 experience category and operating experience 4 assessment, particularly with regard to looking at 5 the longer term -- the longer term performance, and 6 I'll just read to you from some of that actually, but 7 we're looking at some directed recommendations in the 8 area of looking at the agency's capability to retain 9 operating experience indignation and perform longer 10 term operating experience reviews, also to evaluate 11 thresholds and criterion guidance for -- we talked 12 about these generic communications earlier for 13 issuing and following up on these generic 14 communications. We're looking at evaluating the 15 effectiveness of our generic issues program. We 16 didn't talk a whole lot about that tonight, but 17 that's an element of the longer term aspect of this, 18 and also evaluating our effectiveness internally with 19 the dissemination of operating experience to the 20 ultimate end users within the NRC. We didn't talk a 21 whole lot about the foreign experience, but there was 22 a wealth of experience that was available to the NRC, 23 particularly from the French program that was not -

24 I use the word again, internalized, as well as it 25 could have been or not may be disseminated as well as MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

29 1 it could have been. With regard to the -

2 MR. HOWELL: If I could just add 3 one other example of -

4 MR. HACKETT: Sure.

5 MR. HOWELL: Sorry. We also made a 6 recommendation -- as you could imagine over the 7 years, the NRC has issued many, many generic letters 8 and bulletins on a variety of safety issues, 9 different technical areas, and so one of our 10 recommendations is to go back and revisit on a 11 sampling basis some of those generic letters and 12 bulletins that were issued in the past to verify 13 whether or not the actions that were indicated to be 14 done actually addressed the problem, so we think 15 that's one of our more important recommendations in 16 this area.

17 MR. HACKETT: I mentioned the ASME 18 code earlier. The American Society of Mechanical 19 Engineers has a code of requirements for inspections 20 for nuclear power plants. It's called Section 11 of 21 the ASME code. The NRC endorses Section 11 of the 22 ASME code through our regulations. 10CFR50-55A.

23 One of the things we found early on with these types 24 of inspections is all that was relied upon for 25 evaluation and leakage from nozzles or potential MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

30 1 crýcks in vessel head penetration nozzles were visual 2 examinations. These visual examinations could be 3 done from quite a distance, these were examinations 4 they refer to as VT-2 examinations. In certain 5 cases, the nozzles themselves could be obscured by 6 the insulation. In other cases they could be 7 obscured by boric acid deposits which again when you 8 go back to the mind set that caused part of this 9 problem, that.was something that wasn't really viewed 10 as a problem, so it goes to the inadequacy of the 11 ASME code inspection requirements, and the ASME code 12 is currently working on revising those requirements.

13 Some of the NRC staff are working closely with them 14 on that with the hope that somewhere within probably 15 the next year we'll have some revisions there that 16 hopefully will act in a positive direction, improving 17 the overall inspection requirements.

18 We had a fairly long recommendation that went 19 to NRC's programs and general capabilities, including 20 training and experience, but also went to questioning 21 attitude or lack of questioning attitude on the part 22 of our inspection activities, an inspection follow 23 up, and also, in particular, the issue of reactor 24 coolant system leakage and reactor coolant pressure 25 boundary leakage. Also going towards communicating MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

31 1 to the staff, expectations regarding inspection 2 follow up and maintaining the appropriate awareness 3 and surroundings when conducting inspections.

4 Leakage monitoring and requirements, 5 monitoring requirements and methods was an area that 6 the team had an awful lot of discussion on. The way 7 this -- the way this particular degradation is 8 inspected for, as I mentioned, is visual. One of the 9 problems that is incumbent in that situation is the 10 fact that you cannot make a connection between how 11 seriously cracked or degraded these nozzles are and 12 how much leakage is evident there. There is not a 13 one-to-one correlation, so inspecting visually just 14 for leakage can become very problematic. That's not 15 to say it's not helpful, but in terms of going from 16 there to the situation with how serious a potential 17 degradation I have is very problematic, so we have 18 several recommendations that go towards re-examining 19 the NRC requirements in this area. Our technical 20 specifications basically prohibit reactor coolant 21 pressure boundary leakage, but differentiating 22 between reactor coolant pressure boundary leakage and 23 unidentified leakage from the reactor coolant system 24 say that might be from flanges or other bolted and 25 flanges connections is very problematic. Basically MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

32 1 our recommendations in this area are going towards 2 trying to provide better assurance of no reactor 3 coolant pressure boundary leakage.

4 In terms of technical information and 5 guidance, I think Art mentioned that several times.

6 There is a wealth of information available on stress 7 corrosion cracking in this particular case and boric 8 acid degradation. One of the issues there is 9 appropriate training of the NRC staff to be focused 10 on these issues and looking. In this case the 11 recommendation goes not just to the situation, but 12 well beyond. There are many penetrations of the 13 reactor coolant pressure boundary in a nuclear power 14 plant. A lot of them are Inconel 600 or stainless 15 steel. These materials are susceptible to these 16 degradation phenomena. One of the recommendations 17 goes towards making sure the NRC staff, and 18 particularly the inspection activity has the 19 appropriate awareness in that category.

20 NRC license processes I discussed before, but 21 there were some areas I maybe didn't mention in the 22 case of some contributing factors that, you know, we 23 need to do better on in terms of our project 24 management effort at the NRC headquarters. We have 25 project managers that oversee the activities at the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

33 1 plants, at all the plants, at headquarters, and a 2 couple of cases here at least -

3 MR. HOWELL: Ed, I just want to 4 add, from a licensing prospective -

5 MR. HACKETT: From a licensing 6 prospective, not an inspection prospective. In that 7 case, in the case of Davis-Besse there was a 8 significant amount of turnover in this project 9 management staff during the 1990's, more than we 10 would have liked to have seen. There were less 11 frequent site visits by the project manager and staff 12 during that time frame also which goes contrary to 13 some of what we like to see in terms of the NRC 14 guidance. There is also an issues with review of 15 topical reports. These topical reports I mentioned 16 earlier were actually, you know, quite descriptive in 17 terms of analyzing the potential for the type of 18 degradation that was seen at Davis-Besse ultimately, 19 and they were reviewed by the NRC staff, but I don't 20 think connections -- appropriate connections were 21 made particularly between the boric acid degradation 22 and the stress corrosion cracking issue.

23 The last piece here and then I'll turn the 24 presentation back over to Art regarded previous 25 lessons learned reviews. We have an Appendix F in MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

34 1 the report that did a -- I think what we call a 2 cursory look at previous lessons learned, of the 3 lessons learned reviews that the NRC has conducted to 4 look for some common themes. As you'd expect in any 5 kind of structural or human failure situation, there 6 are some common themes, so one of the recommendations 7 that the team made was for the NRC to conduct an 8 effectiveness review of these lessons learned 9 activities to make sure we're learning the lessons 10 from the lessons learned and that these things aren't 11 just going to sit on the shelf, and with that, I 12 think we'll turn it back to Art and talk about some 13 future plant activities with the -- for the 14 following.

15 MR. HOWELL: Thanks, Ed. The next 16 slide, as I mentioned, the report was issued last 17 month and so many of you may be wondering, well, what 18 will became of these recommendations, and the NRC's 19 approach to understanding the issues from a 20 regulatory perspective at Davis-Besse is really a two 21 step approach, and the first step is what we're 22 talking about here tonight, and that is to conduct a 23 lessons learned review by senior staff members who 24 are familiar with the subject matter who are 25 independent in the sense that they've had no MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

35 1 significant oversight at Davis-Besse activities and 2 to identify issues and make recommendations, and 3 we've done that. The next step is already underway 4 and that is the agency has formed a -- a team of 5 senior executives, very high level team to not only 6 assess our recommendations and review them, but also 7 really to go through the whole entire report to see 8 if there are other issues that may need to be 9 addressed that we didn't make recommendations to 10 address, and so that effort is underway, has been 11 underway for a number of weeks, and it's expected 12 that -- that the senior management review team will 13 complete its activities in the near future, in the 14 next few weeks or certainly before the end of the 15 year.

16 I just wanted to point out that even though 17 we have made 51 recommendations, many of them -- not 18 many, but some -- some of the more important ones are 19 already being addressed. For example, the NRC has 20 already issued another bulletin which would suggest 21 that more stringent nozzle -- vessel head nozzle 22 inspections may be needed, and, in fact, a number of 23 plants throughout the country are in refueling 24 outages right now and many are conducting more 25 stringent inspections as recommended in the bulletin MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

36 1 and additional cracking has been found.

2 Now, the degradation to the extent that 3 occurred at Davis-Besse has not been found at other 4 plants, but the nozzles that leaked at Davis-Besse, 5 similar nozzles have been found if not to be leaking 6 to at least have been found cracked and at some point 7 may have resulted in leakage had they not been 8 detected through these more stringent inspections.

9 Also the NRC is well underway in plans to 10 obtain additional information from other reactor 11 plants, nuclear plants throughout the country in 12 terms of their boric acid corrosion control programs 13 and once that information is obtained, then 14 additional future actions will be identified as 15 appropriate, and then, finally, we mentioned that 16 we've made a number of recommendations pertaining to 17 inspection guidance and some of that guidance is 18 already in the process of being revised. The 19 inspection procedure may not be issued yet, but the 20 individual procedures are being reviewed and revised 21 in a number of instances already, so, in other words, 22 action is being taken even though the senior 23 management review team is reviewing all of the 24 recommendations in the report and will make its 25 findings available to the public before the end of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

37 1 the year.

2 So, with that, we are at the end of our 3 prepared remarks and what we'd like to do now is move 4 onto the question and answer phase, and the team -

5 we're going to come down to the front of orchestra 6 pit, we have a microphone down there to give 7 everybody an opportunity to ask questions, make 8 comments, and then we'll adjourn the meeting after 9 folks have had an opportunity to do that. I think 10 the schedule has us going until about 9 p.m. We'd 11 like to try to keep to the schedule.

12 There's really two methods in which one can 13 ask a question or make a comment. One is to come to 14 the podium here, identify yourself, and then ask your 15 question, make your comment. Another is, we have 16 some cards, is that right, some folks, if you would 17 prefer, you can write your question on a card, you 18 can pass it up, and then we'll read the question.

19 We're going to give priority to questions 20 that are within the scope of the task force. If 21 there are other questions that are outside of the 22 scope of the task force, if we're not in a position 23 to answer them, then we'll try to obtain the contact 24 information so we can get back to you at a later 25 date, and, finally, since we are scheduled to go MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

38 1 about another hour and 10 minutes, there's a number 2 of folks in the audience, you want to just be mindful 3 of giving everybody an opportunity to ask questions, 4 and, in particular, I'd like to extend an invitation 5 to the folks that live near the community to ask 6 their questions first, so we can take a very short 7 break, five minutes, gives us an opportunity 8 basically just to walk down in front of the orchestra 9 pit, and then we'll resume the meeting. Thank you.

10 THEREUPON, a brief recess was taken.

11 MR. HOWELL: Okay, we'll go ahead 12 and resume the meeting. At this point we do want to 13 go into a question/answer phase, so I invite members 14 of the audience to come up to the podium or pass 15 their cards forward.

16 MR. WHITCOMB: Good evening to the 17 members of the panel. My name is Howard Whitcomb.

18 MR. HOWELL: Good evening, Howard.

19 MR. WHITCOMB: And I am a resident of 20 Oak Harbor. I have had an opportunity to read your 21 report and make some comments. It is a -- I mean, 22 it's a monumental effort in terms of number of pages, 23 and I don't intend to get into the nitty-gritty 24 details. I'm going to give you a couple of prepared 25 comments that I've made in terms of some things that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

39 1 I think, perhaps are missing from your report.

2 The contents of the NRC's Lessons Learned 3 Task Force report clearly indicates the NRC is given 4 greater weight to the technical issues surrounding 5 the degraded reactor vessel head than it has to the 6 problematic NRC oversight issues regarding the 7 Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant. The findings of the task 8 force even attempt to provide a rationale that the 9 NRC's actions over the last decade rise to the level 10 of "excusable neglect." It appears that the Lessons 11 Learned Task Force has chosen to ignore the realities 12 of the relationship which has existed between the NRC 13 and FirstEnergy managements over the last 17 years.

14 The problems at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant 15 resulted from a lack of technical and management 16 integrity. While the findings in the report attempt 17 to address the technical issues with some vigor, it 18 fails to forthrightly address the apparent loss of 19 management integrity regarding both the FirstEnergy 20 and NRC staffs.

21 On June 12th, Mr. Howell, as team leader of 22 the NRC's Lessons Learned Task Force, you stated that 23 as part of your review, the team would review the 24 allegation history pertaining to the Davis-Besse 25 facility and determine if the NRC had appropriately MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

40 1 dispositioned those allegations. Nowhere in the 2 report is there any discussion about a review of the 3 allegation history of the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power 4 Plant. Had an appropriate review of the allegation 5 history been performed, the team would have found at 6 least nine separate allegations regarding the 7 occurrence of specific reported improprieties at the 8 Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant during the period of time 9 from January 1993 to present. The team would also 10 have discovered that the regional NRC office 11 improperly dispositioned a certain alleged material 12 false statement made by Toledo Edison management 13 personnel to the NRC in September of 1988. It is 14 inconceivable that a thorough review of the 15 allegation history at Davis-Besse could possibly 16 overlook the significant dispositional error on the 17 part of NRC management.

18 The Lessons Learned Task Force did not 19 include the allegation history at Davis-Besse in its 20 final report because either:

21 1. The Lessons Learned Task Force did not 22 conduct a review of the allegation history at 23 Davis-Besse as was promised on June 12th or 24 2. The Lessons Learned Task Force members 25 were not qualified or adequately competent to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

41 1 determine whether the disposition of the past 2 allegations at the Davis-Besse facility had been 3 performed in accordance with Federal law, or 4 3. The Lessons Learned Task Force 5 deliberately ignored the allegation history and the 6 NRC's prior dispositions at the Davis-Besse Nuclear 7 Plant.

8 Any one of the three choices is problematic.

9 First, the failure to perform a review of all -- a 10 review at all is contrary to the expectations of the 11 public, particularly since the public's expectation 12 is based on specific assertions made by you, Mr.

13 Howell, on June 12th.

14 Secondly, the use of unqualified or 15 incompetent inspectors is unlikely in light of the 16 number of personnel employed by the NRC.

17 Finally, the most likely possibility is that 18 the NRC has reviewed the allegation history at 19 Davis-Besse and has chosen to sidestep making a 20 critical assessment of the NRC's mis-handling of past 21 allegations at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant. Such a 22 decision violates the public's trust and confidence 23 in the NRC's ability to fulfill its responsibility 24 regarding the protection of the health, safety and 25 welfare of the public.

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42 1 The executive summary of the report further 2 claims that the managers and staff members of the 3 NRC's regional office responsible for the Davis-Besse 4 Nuclear Plant oversight were more focused on other 5 plants that were the subject of increased regulatory 6 oversight. The report further claims that the 7 distracted management attention contributed to 8 staffing and resource challenges impacting the 9 regulatory oversight of the Davis-Besse Nuclear 10 Plant. The NRC is fully aware of the problematic 11 history at Davis-Besse over the last 17 years. It 12 cannot now feign ignorance of the problems or blame 13 events at other facilities as the basis for why 14 aggressive action was not focused at the Davis-Besse 15 Nuclear Plant. The warning signs of waning problems 16 were either apparent or presented to the NRC staff 17 through the established program for processing and 18 investigation -- investigating allegations submitted 19 to the NRC. What the Lessons Learned Task Force 20 failed to identify in its report is that the 21 established program for processing allegations was 22 inadequate to intervene and prevent the current 23 inability of the typical Davis-Besse worker to raise 24 genuine concerns and safety issues without fear of 25 reprisal. What has again been demonstrated is that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

43 1 when the process fails, reactor safety is 2 compromised.

3 The lack of management integrity at both the 4 Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant and the NRC is the root 5 cause of the current problems at Davis-Besse. The 6 reactor vessel head degradation is only a symptom of 7 that problem. Over the last several months, 8 FirstEnergy's management has continued to violate 9 quality assurance requirements and generally accepted 10 maintenance practices. FirstEnergy's management 11 continues to mislead and deceive the public about 12 matters of significant general interest regarding the 13 Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant. The lack of any 14 recommendations in the final report, Section 3.3.6 15 titled "Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station 16 Communications" clearly shows that the NRC either 17 does not consider the lack of management integrity as 18 being a foundational building block in assuring 19 reactor safety or it refuses to consider it at all.

20 Either way, reactor safety is compromised.

21 It is time for the NRC to discontinue the 22 practice of affording FirstEnergy management 23 disparate and preferential treatment in comparison to 24 the rest of the industry. FirstEnergy's deleterious 25 actions over the last 17 years clearly deserve more, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

44 1 not less, critical treatment, particularly since 2 FirstEnergy's management has conceded that at times 3 they have placed production demands over reactor 4 safety. It is time for an independent review of the 5 NRC and Davis-Besse management issues as requested by 6 the 2-206 petition submitted earlier this year.

7 This review should focus on an independent and 8 critical assessment of the integrity of both the NRC 9 and FirstEnergy managements. Additionally, it is 10 time that the legislative branch of the Federal 11 Government investigate the continued and sustained 12 ability of the NRC to fulfill and execute its 13 responsibility in an independent and unbiased manner, 14 and without alternative motive other than ensuring 15 the health, safety and welfare of the public. Thank 16 you.

17 MR. HOWELL: Thank you, sir. Mr.

18 Whitcomb, you raised a number of issues over the last 19 few minutes, and, forgive me, but we'll try to 20 respond to them. One of the things that I would 21 suggest if you're willing is that perhaps if you have 22 some time that we can get together so we can more 23 fully understand your issues. We can either do that 24 after the meeting or the next day or by phone, but in 25 the short term, what we'd like to do is try to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

45 1 address some of the points you just raised.

2 MR. WHITCOMB: I will make myself 3 available, and I will talk to you after the meetings, 4 so that we can set up some kind of a meeting.

5 MR. HOWELL: Thank you. First, I 6 just wanted to, as a matter of process, we didn't 7 really go too much into our methodology during the 8 presentation, but the fundamental question that we 9 try to answer as part of our review, bearing in mind 10 that our focus was primarily -- introspective, was 11 why the event was not prevented, and once we settled 12 on that as a focus, that drives you to consider 13 certain information and to answer that question and 14 that's what we set out to do. Now, as part of that, 15 we did conduct fact-finding at the site as the folks 16 here know as we discussed during the meeting.

17 Section 3.2 of the report does go into some detail 18 about some of the management issues in terms of not 19 handling safety issues appropriately as we identified 20 them through the course of our review.

21 Now, I'm not sure that -- based on your 22 comments, Mr. Whitcomb, I get the impression that you 23 don't feel that those are fully satisfactory in terms 24 of the discussion there, but clearly Section 3.2.5 25 was intended to articulate our concerns with some of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

46 1 the management lapses that we identified by reviewing 2 material that dated back some 10, 12 years prior to 3 the event.

4 Secondly, I would point out that we did 5 conduct a review of the allegation history, not only 6 for Davis-Besse, but the other FirstEnergy plants, 7 and Mr. Haag is going to address the scope of that 8 review. Bob?

9 MR. HAAG: Our intent was never 10 to look at every allegation at -- through FirstEnergy 11 sites and try to verify that they were handled 12 properly. What we were doing is we were looking for 13 similarities and allegations related to our mission 14 and by submittal to the task force. As far as boric 15 acid corrosion with problems with the way the 16 utilities were handling boric acid corrosion program, 17 allegations dealing with nozzles, and that was our 18 scope of looking at the allegations, not to look at 19 every one in detail and verify that they were handled 20 properly, so I'm not sure where you got that 21 impression that we were looking at all of them, you 22 know, in that level of detail. That was part of our 23 inspection charter. We had a very detailed charter, 24 you know, where we looked at a number of areas. The 25 reason we didn't have anything in the report is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

47 1 because our review did not identify any problems 2 related to previous allegations that would have 3 brought light on the issue at hand.

4 THEREUPON, Mr. Haag conferred with Mr.

5 Howell.

6 MR. HAAG: The one allegation you 7 mentioned, the 1998 allegation, we did some review of 8 that, some of the letters and correspondence that 9 were going back and forth between the alleger 10 providing the basis for that. We reviewed that, 11 and, you know, that did not relate again to what we 12 were doing, but we did look at that because there was 13 a request from our management to review it, and there 14 was nothing we saw in that correspondence and the 15 issues that were brought up that, you know, that 16 would give us reason to look at it in more depth and 17 try to provide some view of whether it was handled 18 properly, but, again, we did look at that in more 19 detail than the other ones. The other ones were 20 basically just a review of the issues. We had the 21 region that the sites were located provide us a 22 historical listing of all the allegations and provide 23 us enough description where we could understand what 24 the issue was, and I think we went back 10 years.

25 MR. HOWELL: At least.

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48 1 MR. HAAG: As far 2 what allegations had been provided at 3 sites.

4 MR. HOWELL: And, a 5 meeting we'll get with you, Mr. Whitc 6 MR. WHITCOMB: (Nod i 7 MR. HOWELL: Any ot 8 MS. SPAULDING: My nam 9 Spaulding, I live in Port Clinton.

10 MR. HOWELL: Good e 11 MS. SPAULDING: And I 12 questions. I know that you have a d 13 oh, if you lean on this it moves. I 14 have a dual function at the NRC to bo 15 encourage the u~se of nuclear power, a 16 of nuclear reactors.

17 MR. HOWELL: Actual 18 statement is not part of our role, we 19 encourage the use of -

20 MS. SPAULDING: Oh, wh 21 that out?

22 MR. HOWELL: When t' 23 split apart from the atomic energy ag 24 their -

25 MS. SPAULDING: The at' MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

49 1 commission was, is the NRC, so I would submit that 2 you still probably are charred with both at least 3 according to the regulations that I have been 4 reading. Perhaps, there have been updates more 5 recent than 2002.

6 MR. HOWELL: Right, it's not part 7 of our charter.

8 MS. SPAULDING: It wasn't in the copy 9 I read; however, shortly after the shut down and 10 permitting Davis-Besse to continue operating despite 11 the findings in March until it was time for their 12 scheduled shut down, you gave Davis-Besse your Golden 13 award after the inspection. Why the hell did you do 14 that?

15 MR. HOWELL: Can you help me out in 16 terms of Golden award? Are you referring to the -

17 MS. SPAULDING: I am referring to the 18 award that you all gave Davis-Besse right after the 19 inspection for their efficiency and operation of the 20 plant. It was referred to as the Golden award. It 21 kind of goes along with their little sign that has 22 been saying six million hours with no lost time 23 accidents. It now says seven million hours with no 24 lost time unless, of course, the media is around then 25 they turn the little sign off. Even here on the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

50 1 first page of the update that we picked up today in 2 the first paragraph, Containment Extent of Condition 3 Inspection, Part 2, found that plant personnel were 4 properly trained and qualified to identify components 5 and systems inside the building that could be 6 affected by boric acid deposits and corrosion. They 7 used adequate tools and followed adequate quality 8 standards and guidance, so how come they had a hole?

9 Paragraph 3, same page, plant personnel 10 performing these inspections weren't properly trained 11 and certified. Excuse me, but that seems to be in 12 contradiction. Would you explained that, please?

13 MR. HOWELL: I can't, because I 14 don't know what document you're referring to, ma'am.

15 MS. SPAULDING: This one, right there.

16 I've underlined the parts. Help yourself.

17 MR. HOWELL: Roland, Jan, I think 18 she's referring to the NRC Update. Perhaps you can 19 provide some clarity.

20 MR. LICKUS: Yeah, what you're 21 referring to is a recent inspection that was just 22 completed that looked at the individuals that were 23 doing work by the Utility to identify components and 24 systems within containment.

25 MS. SPAULDING: Were those the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

51 1 qualified or the unqualified ones?

2 MR. LICKUS: These are the ones 3 that you identified as being qualified.

4 MS. SPAULDING: No, you identified 5 them. I didn't write the report.

6 MR. LICKUS: I'm sorry. You're 7 right. This is the ones that we said were qualified 8 based upon our recent inspection. This is after -

9 MS. SPAULDING: Okay, so how -

10 MR. LICKUS: Ma'am, can I finish, 11 please? This was after -

12 MS. SPAULDING: As soon as you start.

13 MR. LICKUS: Ma'am, this was after 14 the degradation was found, so this is looking at the 15 people who were doing work inside the containment 16 after the degradation was found to determine if other 17 systems or components were affected by the 18 degradation, so we were looking at the qualifications 19 of those individuals.

20 MS. SPAULDING: Oh. So who are the 21 unqualified ones then?

22 MR. LICKUS: That was a result of 23 an earlier inspection that was done, I believe, in 24 the July time frame.

25 MS. SPAULDING: That was -

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52 1 MR. LICKUS: We looked at 2 individuals who were doing work at that time.

3 MS. SPAULDING: Those were the ones 4 that you gave the award to.

5 MR. LICKUS: No.

6 MS. SPAULDING: Pick one.

7 MR. LICKUS: First of all, NRC 8 doesn't give awards, so I don't know where you're 9 getting that information from, but we've never given 10 an award to a licensee that I'm aware of.

11 MS. SPAULDING: Gee, I wish I would 12 have brought the copy of The News Herald that was 13 right afterwards where you all were pictured handing 14 out the award to the management team, but 15 unfortunately I didn't.

16 MR. LICKUS: When you talk about 17 hours of work that have been performed for -- without 18 injury, that may have to do with an area that we're 19 not involved in. That may have to do with 20 industrial safety issues, not nuclear safety issues, 21 so -

22 MS. SPAULDING: Since the little board 23 doesn't specify, it simply says, no lost time. That 24 same message was up the entire time the plant was 25 shut down. That's pretty lost time.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

53 1 Why was there no independent review? Why 2 should there be not duplication?

3 MR. HOWELL: I'm sorry, ma'am?

4 MS. SPAULDING: You said that you 5 denied the petition for independent review because it 6 would duplicate your efforts. I think that a review 7 of the reviewers, given the record over the years 8 that Davis-Besse has been in operation, would 9 certainly be appropriate, so the fact that somebody 10 else might look where you look, was it denied because 11 you were afraid they might find something that you 12 didn't report?

13 MR. HOWELL: Again, we're here to 14 address the efforts of the Lessons Learned Task 15 Force. Now, in this particular case, I believe 16 you're referring to the petition that requested an 17 independent review that was answered.

18 MS. SPAULDING: Yes, 2.206.

19 MR. HOWELL: Yes, and as noted in 20 the response, the agency indicated that the review 21 efforts of the Region III Augmented Inspection Team 22 and the follow up inspection, as well as the 23 intensely focused efforts of the 0350 Panel review 24 activities which brings to bear the entire resources 25 of the agency as well as our efforts have -- in our MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

54 1 estimation have been sufficient to identify the range 2 of issues as they relate to Davis-Besse. Now, 3 having said that, if new issues are brought forward 4 during this process which has already been in place 5 for a number of months, the agency is open to 6 revisiting that decision.

7 MS. SPAULDING: That's nice of them.

8 Could you please -- I would like -

9 MR. BORCHARDT: Excuse me, ma'am. Can 10 I try to answer the issue about oversight of NRC? My 11 name is Bill Borchardt. I'm with the Office of 12 Nuclear Reactor Regulation in headquarters. There 13 is really three activities that are either ongoing or 14 possible that will provide additional oversight of 15 NRC activities and our performance.

16 The first one which is ongoing is the 17 Inspector General of the NRC which is a group 18 separate from the NRC staff, although they do report 19 to the five commissioners that has -- has a review 20 underway.

21 The second is the GAO, which is a Government 22 agency completely separate -

23 MS. SPAULDING: I'm aware of what it 24 is.

25 MR. BORCHARDT: -- from the NRC, and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

55 1 then the third -

2 MS. SPAULDING: The accounting office.

3 MR. BORCHARDT: -- is always the 4 possibility of a congressional hearing, which there 5 has been discussion of, but I'm not aware at this 6 time of whether or not there is any planned.

7 MS. SPAULDING: The election is just 8 over. They're not going to have hearings now. I 9 seriously doubt that.

10 Why, given the admitted inadequacy, even 11 though you've had another management group inside the 12 NRC to review you, what is the process that's going 13 to occur before Davis-Besse is restarted that will 14 assure us that we won't have more or perhaps worse 15 happenings?

16 MR. HOWELL: I'm sorry, I didn't 17 fully appreciate that question.

18 MS. SPAULDING: I'm sure you didn't.

19 What is the process that will happen before this 20 plant is restarted to be sure that there will be no 21 further happenings considering the past record?

22 MR. HOWELL: Again, our efforts 23 were focused at what happened at Davis-Besse relative 24 to that reactor vessel degradation.

25 As I indicated there is an 0350 Panel process MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

56 1 that meets regularly that is governed by a high level 2 guidance documents that brings to bear the entire 3 resources of the agency. That membership is 4 comprised of folks from the regional office and 5 headquarters, and the activities that govern that 6 panel are described in detail in publicly available 7 documents, and as part of that process, detailed 8 review lists are developed. Inspections are 9 conducted. They are assessed by the panel, and then 10 decisions are made about the adequacy of the 11 licensee's effort, that's all part of the process, 12 and it's ongoing and has been ongoing.

13 MS. SPAULDING: Hasn't worked real 14 well so far, has it?

15 MR. HOWELL: In what respect, 16 ma'am?

17 MS. SPAULDING: Would you have this 18 hole?

19 MR. HOWELL: Yes, but, again, the 20 purpose of the 0350 Panel is to bring to bear the 21 resources of the agency in an efficient and effective 22 manner to communicate with the public and to make 23 sure that the issues, both technical, programmatic 24 management, other issues that are identified that 25 bear on the resolution of that problem are addressed MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

57 1 before the plant restarts. That effort has been 2 ongoing and will continue to be'implemented through 3 and until such time that the decision is made in the 4 NRC's view that the problems have been addressed.

5 MS. SPAULDING: So that's your PR arm?

6 MR. HOWELL: Again, that is how the 7 process works.

8 MS. SPAULDING: That's what I said, it 9 hasn't worked too well so far. Thank you.

10 MR. HOWELL: Thank you, ma'am.

11 Any other folks that have questions or 12 comments?

13 MS. (PAM) STEELE: My husband works in 14 the petroleum industry. He's a metallurgical 15 engineer, and my question as a resident of Oak Harbor 16 is, they knew about the possibility of corrosion with 17 the nozzle beforehand, and it wasn't followed through 18 or inspected significantly before the problem 19 occurred. My husband, as a metallurgical engineer, 20 is held to specific standards in the petroleum 21 industry and the safety of the community.

22 My question is, being that they did not 23 follow through with this problem beforehand, how as a 24 resident here, do you plan to increase our trust 25 towards the NRC as well as FirstEnergy to believe MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900 a

58 1 that you have the protection of not only your behinds 2 and FirstEnergy's financial revenue, but the aspect 3 that there is young children and others in the area?

4 How are you working if you say one of the problems in 5 the report was the instability of the changeover in 6 the management as -- as often has there has been 7 changeover, there has been new changeovers in 8 management, and how do you ensure with the new 9 personnel that there will be a stability because 10 knowing industry, people in the industry, and how do 11 you keep that stability?

12 The other question I would like to have 13 addressed is being that the metal in the nozzle head 14 corrosion, what differences have you made in new 15 nozzles, or how are you going to address this problem 16 so that it doesn't happen again for the future of our 17 children in the area?

18 And I think the last question I have is if 19 this was known beforehand, how are we supposed to 20 trust that there is not other problems that have not 21 been addressed as individual as stated, I mean, my 22 husband and I just have moved into the area at the 23 time that the thing shut down, how do we know that 24 the things have been addressed correctly if this 25 particular issue hasn't been addressed correctly, and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

59 1 how are you looking at assu2ing that the thing will 2 be addressed in a more -- with more integrity than it 3 has been in the past?

4 MR. HOWELL: Before I answer the 5 questions, could you provide some clarification on 6 the first question? Were you referring to the 7 changeover in the plant's management or the NRC -

8 MS. STEELE: Both. I know that 9 there has been changeovers in different management 10 teams. I know specifically for Davis-Besse there's 11 been changeover and being that they're the first ones 12 in contact with this stuff, I want to know how are 13 you guys planning on giving some stability here being 14 that part of the supposedly findings was that part of 15 the changeover in staff and management teams have 16 been part of the problem, plus, if the training was 17 supposed to be there for them, how are you guys 18 updating the training for the personnel working in 19 the systems so that they deal more specifically with 20 some of these issues?

21 MR. HOWELL: Yeah, just in a 22 general sense, a number of the issues that you raise 23 are all issues that -- are issues that are being 24 addressed by the Oversight Panel for Davis-Besse.

25 With regard to our report, in two respects we touched MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

60 1 on staffing. On one hand, the licensee staffing and 2 on the other hand our own staffing, and primarily 3 that was focused on the effects of turnover amongst 4 the engineers, for example, with the licensee who 5 were doing the work and not so much management 6 because at the time period in question that we looked 7 at, there really wasn't much management turnover.

8 There was a fair amount of turnover amongst some of 9 the engineers involved with the inspection of the 10 reactor vessel, and in our estimation that was a 11 contributing factor in the lack or timing of the 12 identification of the problem. Issues such as that 13 have also been reviewed by the licensee as part of 14 their own in-depth evaluation, and they have made a 15 number of changes in management, and I really can't 16 speak to what changes they have in terms of staffing 17 levels.

18 Now, folks from Region III may need to help 19 me out because I'm not fully aware of the -- every 20 detail of all the -- of all the review activities of 21 the 0350 Panel, but certainly to the extent that 22 there are issues involved with staffing, that would 23 be reviewed as part of -- if not in a short-term the 24 longer term effects.

25 Now, having said that, we also looked at the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

61 1 effect of NRC vacancies relative to the NRC staffing 2 at Davis-Besse, and there were some vacancies, and 3 the reason for those vacancies are the same reasons 4 that occur in any large organization. Folks decide 5 they want to go to another more -- have a better 6 opportunity in another part of the agency or they 7 want to leave. We're always going to be faced with 8 that. In recent years, we -- and it's been a 9 challenge and a struggle, and in recent years, the 10 agency as a whole has taken to heart a recognition 11 that we needed to do a lot more to recruit and retain 12 folks and we've placed a lot of emphasis on that as 13 an agency and I may be a little bit off on the 14 numbers, but we hired a lot of new folks over the 15 last -- just in the last year, I believe, on the 16 order of a hundred, which is three or four percent of 17 the entire agency. In terms of the specific 18 vacancies that were in question at the time that the 19 problem manifested itself, those vacancies have been 20 filled and they have been filled for quite some time.

21 The task force did make a number of recommendations 22 to understand the impact of those vacancies and make 23 them more visible such that in the case of 24 Davis-Besse that critical positions are not gapped 25 for long periods of time, so we did make a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

62 1 recommendation to do that.

2 We also made a recommendation to provide 3 guidance to primarily the folks in -- and not just 4 Region III, all four NRC regions that when a region 5 is faced with the resource impact of a plant that's 6 in an similar situation, not necessarily for the same 7 technical problem, but in an extended shut down in 8 which there is an oversight, increased agency 9 oversight, that the agency provide guidance on how to 10 better manage that so the proper resources are 11 brought to bear.

12 In terms of your second issue about what's 13 being done technically to improve the material that 14 was involved and in this case it's a nickel based 15 alloy, Dr. Hackett, do you want to come and address 16 that part?

17 MR. HACKETT: Thanks, Art. I'm 18 also a metallurgist, so I share the same concerns.

19 The new heads that are being fabricated are being 20 fabricated differently and with different materials 21 that are more resistant-to these degradation 22 mechanisms, or, in particular, I should restrict the 23 comments to the stress corrosion mechanism. There's 24 a new alloy, different alloy, called Inconel 690, 25 which is a lot less susceptible to the stress MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

63 1 corrosion phenomenon that occurred here and that has 2 occurred at other plants with regard to the cracking.

3 With regard to the head, the head is fabricated from 4 the same materials, so it will continue to be 5 susceptible to -- it is carbon steel. It will 6 continue to be susceptible to boric acid attack is 7 conditions such as these found at Davis-Besse were to 8 happen again. The hope in this case is that would 9 not -- the conditions that existed there would not be 10 duplicated again particularly with regard to 11 minimizing the potential of this cracking -- this 12 cracking through the wall. I guess one thing to 13 annotate these comments, the head at Davis-Besse is 14 not the -- the replacement head at Davis-Besse now is 15 not one of these new heads. It is, as most of you 16 know, it came from the Midland plant so it was 17 fabricated in a very similar manner to the head that 18 was there, so its susceptibility will be in the same 19 category. The good news about that is that these 20 phenomena are aging related phenomena and that they 21 have an incubation period. It takes quite a while to 22 develop that kind of degradation and during that time 23 frame, I don't know this for a fact, but I believe 24 the licensee has a long-term plan to replace that 25 head with the new head that will have this new MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

64 1 material in it. I see Mr. Myers shaking his head, 2 so I believe that's the case.

3 MS. STEELE: Well, I guess my other 4 question here then is not -- I think it was 60 5 Minutes had a thing on, I think about Midland or one 6 of the newer power plants that has never been started 7 up because they, as they were building it, it never 8 came to NRC's standards so the power plant never went 9 into production and right now they're trying to 10 figure out what to do with that power plant.

11 If that's the case that there's that problem 12 with the corrosion and they did not link the 13 corrosion from the boric acid to it, you know, what's 14 to protect the citizens in this area? I mean, are 15 you going to be doing more regularly follow through 16 checks and -- follow through here, I mean, because 17 here is another power plant that was a brand new one 18 that was not even up and running because by the time 19 it was built, it wasn't up to standard and, you know, 20 I don't know if that's where this head came from, you 21 know, but I also, like I said, I have children, and, 22 yeah, there may be a long period of time, but I have 23 my children and grandchildren and hopefully one day 24 great grandchildren to consider and being that we're 25 in this area -- but for the inspection of the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

65 1 materials, have you done long-term studies on this 2 material, and what tests have been performed on this 3 material for the nozzles that you are talking about 4 for the head?

5 MR. HACKETT: These is are very good 6 questions. There have been long-term tests 7 performed on a lot of these materials; Inconel 600, 8 also the newer alloy, Inconel 690 is now being used 9 in steam generator tubes. In the NRC and the 10 industries experience, its performance in steam 11 generators has been similar to Inconel 600, so there 12 have been studies that have indicated there are 13 improvements here, but that's not the end of the 14 story either. I'm not going to stand here as a 15 metallurgist and tell you there's a stress corrosion 16 immune material. There probably isn't. Given 17 enough time and the right conditions you can crack 18 these things environmentally, and so hence the 19 importance of the inspection activities, both the 20 licensees primary line of defense and then the NRC's 21 sampling or check functions as Art has been talking 22 about. In that regard we do have recommendations in 23 the report that go towards focusing training and 24 inspection guidance in this area, in particular the 25 stress corrosion cracking area and boric acid attack, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

66 1 and we have previously been through this type of 2 thing with regard to steam generator degradation 3 where the tubes are smaller, but the degradations are 4 very similar.

5 MR. HOWELL: And then a follow up 6 here to your third question, that's also a very good 7 question. It's a question that is at the forefront 8 of our every day, day in and day out duties, and that 9 is if you find a problem in one area, are you going 10 to find problems in other areas, and first and 11 foremost the primary responsibility obviously is with 12 the plant itself. It's their plant. They have an 13 obligation to comply with our regulations and to 14 address safety issues when they're identified. Now, 15 obviously, there were some break downs here. The 16 question is, to what extent did those break downs 17 occur? Are there break downs in other areas, and 18 their reviews are focused on trying to figure that 19 out, and they have taken a number of actions. In 20 parallel with that, although it's outside of the 21 scope of our effort, the NRC oversight panel that I 22 did mention earlier, also has that as one of their 23 primary areas of focus, is to understand the extent 24 and condition so that other issues that may be 25 related or even not terribly technically related are MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

67 1 understood so that at least some of t' 2 factors are addressed, and then, fina.

3 indicated, we did make a number of re, 4 relative to our review about performi:

5 assessments in other technical areas 6 whether or not problems that we thoug' 7 solved by us and the industry a numbe 8 have, in fact, been addressed.

9 MS. STEELE: Thank 10 MR. HOWELL: Other 11 comments?

12 MS. (DONNA) LUEKE: Hi.

13 MR. HOWELL: Good e 14 MS. LUEKE: I just 15 of specific questions which may or ma, 16 area of purview. One is, is your wo 17 mean, are you all finished as a group 18 MR. HOWELL: Yes, a 19 issued our report, and we have a numb 20 meetings that we plan to hold. Many 21 of those other meetings are internal.

22 high priority items actually is to sh 23 of our review with the entire NRC so 24 that work in the NRC understand what 25 found, what it is that we recommended MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

68 1 problems and then ultimately, once the 2 recommendations have been reviewed and assessed, what 3 it is that the agency is going to do to address those 4 issues, so that's the next phase, and then we also 5 have another meeting, Dr. Hackett mentioned, the 6 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards a standing 7 committee of independent nuclear safety experts and 8 we'll be conducting a briefing for them on December 9 5th, so those are the near future activities, and 10 after that, I expect that we'll have other 11 opportunities to share with various forums what we 12 found.

13 MS. LUEKE: How do you follow up 14 whether your recommendations have been taken?

15 MR. HOWELL: Again, it's a two step 16 process. Our effort was to make the 17 recommendations, if you will, and then there's a 18 senior executive review team. These are managers, 19 the highest level of the agency, then they are going 20 to address the recommendations, and then depending on 21 the review effort that they conduct, I would 22 anticipate that action plans would be developed and 23 that these action plans would be translated into what 24 we in the NRC call operating plans. These operating 25 plans have resource impacts. They have metrics to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

69 1 track implementation effectiveness, completion 2 schedules and that will all be part of the process, 3 and that's consistent with what we have done for 4 other past lessons learned review?

5 MS. LUEKE: It would nice if you 6 never had to do it again.

7 MR. HOWELL: Well, actually, I 8 understand your point, if the point is -- obviously, 9 we don't want to have this problem again. This 10 is -- it's unsatisfactory, it's completely 11 unacceptable and we need to do whatever it takes to 12 prevent this from happening, not only us, but the 13 industry as a whole and Davis-Besse obviously, but in 14 terms of conducting self-critical assessments, that's 15 how one gets better, you learn from mistakes and 16 problems, and, obviously, as I stated, we don't want 17 to have this same problem, but that's not to say 18 that, you know, we're all human, and there's going to 19 be other issues, hopefully not as significant, but we 20 want to learn from that, so, you know, we will likely 21 conduct future lessons learned reviews for other 22 issues in the future and hopefully address those -

23 address those problems.

24 MS. LUEKE: That's always a good 25 thing to learn, lessons, but, of course, the margin MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

70 1 for error in your industry isn't as wide as it is in 2 some, and that is what concerns those of us that live 3 around here, of course.

4 MR. HOWELL: Yes.

5 MS. LUEKE: We're grateful for the 6 lessons learned from the NRC and from FirstEnergy, 7 but we just are a little weary of being in the 8 classroom right now for those lessons.

9 MR. HOWELL: Right, and I 10 understand your concern, and the agency takes it very 11 seriously, and that's why there is a considerable 12 amount of agency resources that are being focused on 13 addressing this. This problems has gotten worldwide 14 attention not just nationwide attention, and there is 15 a lot of eyes focused on it, and the agency plans to 16 do what it takes to -- from its contribution to the 17 process, ensure that these types of issues that were 18 identified don't result in future similar problems.

19 MS. LUEKE: All right. Have the 20 five commissioners decided if they are going to -- I 21 forget what the term is -- convene an official 22 fact-finding? That was pending the last I had heard.

23 MR. HOWELL: I'm not entirely 24 certain to what you're referring to, but what I can 25 tell you is the commission -- a meeting by the full MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

71 1 commission, a public meeting is under consideration 2 for -- not just our effort, but other ongoing NRC 3 reviews related to the Davis-Besse plant.

4 MS. LUEKE: Obviously, we feel 5 like the woman stated before, the more eyes the 6 better on this and any of those -- it was good to 7 hear that you had somebody from outside the agency, 8 you know, at your meetings also, but we feel that -

9 I think a lot of people I've talked to, feel that the 10 more of that happens, because we all develop tunnel 11 vision with our own lives and our own jobs, and 12 perhaps some of those lessons and some of that 13 objectivity could be expanded by inviting others.

14 MR. HOWELL: Yes, and depending on 15 the circumstances, in general, I agree with that 16 notion. Independence, fresh eyes are always a good 17 thing.

18 MS. LUEKE: Although the technical 19 aspects are really hard to follow for those of us -

20 MR. HOWELL: Yes, they can be, yes.

21 MS. LUEKE: In fact, one of the 22 technical aspects that you refer to is talking about 23 Davis-Besse already scheduling a second replacement 24 head, a new head to replace this. I guess, my 25 understanding and its -- I don't have the specifics MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

72 1 was that there was an end point to the licensing of 2 any nuclear power plant, and I thought it was not too 3 far from now.

4 When is the current date for Davis-Besse to 5 be decommissioned or shut down? That is written 6 somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it.

7 MR. HACKETT: I have a couple things 8 I could say. The first answer is I don't know that 9 day -- is this microphone on?

10 MR. HOWELL: Yeah, there it goes.

11 MR. HACKETT: It is?

12 MR. HOWELL: Yes, it's working.

13 MR. HACKETT: Okay, there are 14 license periods, the plants are licensed to operate 15 over a specific 40 year life, and you may have seen 16 that the NRC has embarked upon relicensing of-the 17 plants or license renewal for a 20 year additional 18 period, so your comments do go to -- to that issue.

19 I can't speak for FENOC on -- and I don't know the 20 status of what would be the case for Davis-Besse 21 either in terms of the expiration date, I'm sure Mr.

22 Myers knows and with regard to the seeking license 23 renewal. Obviously, if you're going to make this 24 kind of investment in the plant, I'd be thinking that 25 you would be looking at applying for a license MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

73 1 renewal in that case.

2 MS. LUEKE: Is that happening? I 3 mean, you all being involved in that.

4 MR. HOWELL: We don't know that 5 status, it's really outside our -- we can get back to 6 you. Get the right person in touch with you.

7 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, I think we would 8 like to know that because when Davis-Besse was first 9 opened from those I know that were around here and 10 living here at the time, it was scheduled for a shut 11 down and not too far from now, and that was sort of, 12 I don't know, I think it was like the Turnpike 13 analysis, like, the fees were supposed to come off of 14 the Turnpike at a fixed time, and we want to know if 15 this is going to be another Turnpike situation.

16 MR. HOWELL: Right, right.

17 MS. LUEKE: The fees never go.

18 Does Davis-Besse never go away?

19 MR. HOWELL: We're not the right 20 folks, and if we can get the contact information, 21 we'll put you in touch with the right folks.

22 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, okay. Thank 23 you. And the other question may also be outside of 24 your area of expertise.

25 Are there any results yet from the test on MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

74 1 the old reactor that they are doing and are gone, I 2 believe, for corrosion growth and at Oak Ridge for 3 the stainless steel liner? In other words, the parts 4 of this old reactor have gone to these places to be 5 tested, and I haven't known if any of those are back 6 yet?

7 MR. HACKETT: I think the way I 8 would answer that is a lot of that work is ongoing.

9 Some of the work is supported by the NRC research 10 office, particularly with regard to the -- as you 11 mentioned, the testing and analyses on the stainless 12 steel liner, mostly going towards feeding material 13 models to get to the significance determination 14 that's one of the reasons that that risk 15 determination process takes so long in a case like 16 this. I believe there are other activities, and, 17 again, as Art said, we're the wrong group to be 18 asking at this point.

19 MS. LUEKE: Okay.

20 MR. HACKETT: I'm just transitioning 21 back to my normal job, and I'll become more aware of 22 these things hopefully over time here. What I can 23 say is the NRC research office has spent a lot of 24 money analyzing the structural integrity of the as 25 found situation at Davis-Besse and a lot of that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

75 1 relates to the integrity of the stainless steel 2 liner. A lot of that is by some world class experts 3 at the Oak Ridge laboratory that do, what they call 4 fine element analysis, and basically mathematical 5 modeling of the head, so it's not exactly testing of 6 the materials, but I believe some of that is planned 7 and some of it may even be joint with the industry 8 and sponsored also by the Electric Power Research 9 Institute and some others, so there is work underway 10 in that area.

11 MS. LUEKE: I guess just one more 12 comment, and that is with investigations still 13 pending and with tests still pending on the old 14 problem because it doesn't seem like all that work is 15 done yet, and we're hearing start-up dates about 16 February, and the NRC passed on the comments on the 17 time table at the last meeting that we had last week, 18 and they continually say, it will only restart if we 19 say it's all okay, and that's of some comfort, but to 20 not even have any comment on that, I think is an 21 example of the information gap that we feel a lot of 22 times, and we understand caution, certainly that's 23 important in this business that you're in, but in 24 lack of information is where a lot of misinformation 25 comes and, I don't know, so I guess that's one point.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

76 1 Okay?

2 MR. HOWELL: Right, and I 3 appreciate that concern, and, again, if there is some 4 specific questions about the desire to know, you 5 know, about the schedules and that, we can put you in 6 touch with Jack Grobe. I don't know if you have met 7 Jack.

8 MS. LUEKE: And they passed on 9 that, so that's what we learned is that no comment on 10 the time line, and so that's why I'm addressing it to 11 you, because if this is a lesson to be learned, then 12 so what we read is that February we're going to 13 restart Davis-Besse. Meantime, all the 14 investigations aren't in, all the data isn't there.

15 A new information document came out from INPO, are 16 you familiar with that document that just came out?

17 MR. HOWELL: No, I'm not, but -

18 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, it slipped out, 19 I heard.

20 MR. HOWELL: -- I'm aware of The 21 New York Times article today.

22 MS. LUEKE: Yes, that's the one 23 I'm talking about.

24 MR. HOWELL: Right, and, you know, 25 I know it's not fully satisfactory or not MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

77 1 satisfactory at all, but we can't comment on the new 2 line investigation that you're referring to, but I 3 think I misunderstood your question. I thought you 4 had some questions about the schedule, whether the 5 schedule was -- you know, what's going to be made 6 available by the time the plant restarts, and, again, 7 not satisfactory, not satisfying to you, but we're 8 not in a position to address schedule issues, we're 9 just not.

10 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, I understand 11 that. My comment was this is how it comes to us and 12 this is a part of the lessons learned, we feel, that 13 this information needs to have some, I mean, we don't 14 know anything about penalties yet, we don't know 15 anything about any hand-slapping that's going to be 16 happening, you know, more investigations is all 17 that's coming to us, and we're saying, okay, when is 18 somebody going to get their hand slapped for being 19 bad, and that's part of what you did within your own 20 agency, and it seems a little slower coming in 21 FirstEnergy, so -- I don't know, that's what I'm 22 asking.

23 MR. BORCHARDT: I think I can 24 contribute a few things. First of all, I think the 25 reason we're hesitant to comment on the schedule is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

78 1 because we're not driven by the schedule. Our only 2 concern is that if and when this plant starts up, 3 that it's done safely, so we're not driven to make 4 sure that the plant is ready to start up in February.

5 If the plant is ready, we will have done the 6 inspections and provided the oversight through this 7 0350 Panel to verify that we're confident that that 8 plant can operate safely, so that's why we -- we 9 don't have a schedule. I think is the short answer.

10 I would ask FirstEnergy to provide to the public, I 11 think would be in their best interest and in yours to 12 provide a meaningful schedule to let you know what 13 their plans are, but that's why I don't think you'll 14 ever get a schedule from the NRC.

15 MS. LUEKE: Yeah, the pieces are 16 just not coming together. The NRC is investigating 17 this. Somebody else is looking at the head and the 18 liner and doing their studies on that. INPO is doing 19 whatever they do, and we can't even keep the initials 20 straight most of us, so it's just a matter of, okay, 21 is there one place we can go and say -- and I felt it 22 was the NRC, and is it the 0350 Panel that is 23 ultimately the one that is responsible for answering 24 all our questions, I guess is my question?

25 MR. BORCHARDT: Yes, the 0350 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

79 1 Panel is the group that makes the rec 2 the decision to allow start up, okay?

3 you had raised the subject of enforce 4 still in process, but the one thing y 5 in mind is one of the reasons that th 6 oversight process has the assessments 7 and goes through the enforcement proc 8 what additional inspections need to b 9 We're all ready with this plant at th 10 of inspection oversight we can get to 11 Panel is high a level of inspection t 12 so we have supplemented with all the 13 we believe is appropriate and necessa 14 plant. Ultimately, enforcement deci 15 made, and, I mean, those things are i 16 it's not that it's -- the fact that i 17 made yet is not delaying inspection t 18 We've already decided that we're goin 19 all the resources we need to provide 20 oversight, okay.

21 MS. LUEKE: Thank 22 MR. BORCHARDT: Sure.

23 MR. STRASMA: I'm Ja 24 the Public Affairs officer from the r 25 to follow up, the place where all thi MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

80 1 together, where the pieces comes together that we're 2 talking about is the NRC Oversight Panel which meets 3 here monthly. The next meeting will be December 4 10th. It will be -- I think, Roland, is it going to 5 be at Camp Perry next time?

6 MR. LICKUS: Yes, Camp Perry.

7 MR. STRASMA: Yeah, December 10th, 8 the meeting will be at Camp Perry. There's an 9 afternoon at 2:00 between the NRC and the Utility and 10 then a 7:00 meeting with the public much like this 11 and that's the place where you not only follow what 12 the various steps are, but the people who are making 13 those types of decisions will be here, so unlike this 14 panel that's been looking historically at how we got 15 to this position, it's the Oversight Panel that is 16 coordinating the NRC's efforts going forward, so come 17 join us on December 10th, and you'll probably get 18 some answers, not all answers because, you're right, 19 there's a lot of pieces that's going on at the same 20 time, and they won't come together until they come 21 together, and it's at that point where a decision can 22 be made, not earlier.

23 MS. LUEKE: We would just like to 24 say that we hope all these pieces come together 25 before the plant opens for the comfort of the public MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

81 1 here.

2 MR. STRASMA: I understand that.

3 They will.

4 MR. HOWELL: Thank you. Just 5 checking, in terms of the schedule, we have about 6 eight minutes remaining. Are there other questions?

7 Yes, sir?

8 UNIDENTIFIED: Just a local resident, 9 and I have been coming to these meetings since they 10 started and it's amazing with the amount of words and 11 letters that are spoken without saying anything.

12 You know, I guess I'm ignorant, I don't know. The 13 thing I don't understand, I asked at the last 14 meeting, what happened to the management of 15 FirstEnergy that supposedly was fired or moved or put 16 into other jobs. They said they would get back to 17 us on that answer. There's been many, many, many, 18 many questions asked and there's no answers.

19 Everyone points their finger in another direction.

20 Ask this committee, ask that committee, look for so 21 and so, there's no answers, and I really think it's 22 disgusting that people are interested and want to 23 know the answers and you guys sit up there and wish 24 wash around. There's no answers.

25 MR. HOWELL: I understand your MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

82 1 frustration, sir, but, again, we're 1 2 historically at what happened relativ 3 and the actions that FirstEnergy took 4 personnel actions involving individua 5 central to our review, so we're not i 6 provide any detail on that question.

7 UNIDENTIFIED: I unde 8 is? I see -- I guess the thing I do 9 there is a whole lot of questions tha 10 ask FirstEnergy, and I think the peop 11 that you people are a buffer in betwe 12 don't understand why FirstEnergy isn' 13 MR. HOWELL: There 14 representatives in the audience, and 15 good question. Many of the question 16 have -- that are of interest and of c 17 are questions that should be put dire 18 and it's up to FirstEnergy to provide 19 that.

20 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay.

21 you can help me on a couple of these.

22 who is licensed on a nuclear power pl 23 management? The operators?

24 MR. HOWELL: The op 25 manipulate the controls that has a sp MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

83 1 definition in the regulation, so there's a number of 2 plant operators, and some operate equipment outside 3 of control room, and I'm just generalizing here, but 4 it's a very small subset of the total staff that 5 actually has an NRC license to manipulate the 6 reactivity of the reactor.

7 UNIDENTIFIED: What is the reason for 8 the license?

9 MR. HOWELL: The reason for the 10 license is to ensure that the operators are qualified 11 to perform their duties in accordance with the 12 regulations and to perform the duty safely.

13 UNIDENTIFIED: Has a license ever 14 been pulled?

15 MR. HOWELL: I don't know, I don't 16 know that it has. We could get you in touch with 17 the folks that could answer that question.

18 MR. (PAUL) GUNTER: How about a nuclear 19 power plant?

20 MR. HOWELL: Are you talking about 21 an individual license or -

22 UNIDENTIFIED: Or as of all, yeah.

23 As an individual license or as a -- when a plant is 24 shut down, what happens to them? Has a plant ever 25 been shut down?

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84 1 MR. HOWELL: There have been many 2 plants shut downs for a variety of circumstances 3 including this one. Some plants -

4 UNIDENTIFIED: I mean, has there ever 5 been a plant closed permanently?

6 MR. HOWELL: Yes, yes, but, again, 7 that's outside the scope of our review, but the 8 answer is, yes, there's been several.

9 UNIDENTIFIED: May I ask then, who is 10 being held responsible? You know, I keep hearing of 11 all these inspections and all these inspections and 12 all these inspections. I don't think there is any 13 inspections being done. I think there's a lot of 14 paperwork, and it goes to someone else's office and 15 someone else -- evidently real human beings ain't 16 looking at some of this stuff. I mean, you can go 17 back 30 years and they recommended to put mouse holes 18 and stuff like this in there, so you could see the 19 mechanisms and stuff and none of that has ever been 20 done.

21 You fellows admit repeatedly how inspections 22 failed, but now we're going to have more inspections 23 and more inspections. I don't understand how this 24 going to help anything if none of the rules or 25 enforcements were put in place before this.

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85 1 MR. HOWELL: Well, again, you know, 2 there were problems clearly, many problems, and that 3 was why we looked at it, and we made some 4 recommendations, and the recommendations are intended 5 at least in the view of the task force to address 6 those problems and as a result of further reviews 7 there may be other actions identified, but it's a 8 valid concern. I mean, if an inspector looks at 9 something and doesn't have, for example, the 10 technical background to fully appreciate what he or 11 she is inspecting, then that needs to be addressed 12 through training and through other activities and 13 that's why we made a number of recommendations in 14 those areas to address those deficiencies.

15 UNIDENTIFIED: Don't you think that's 16 rather scary to have people over power plants, 17 nuclear power plants, that are not capable of doing 18 the job?

19 MR. HOWELL: Well, let's be clear, 20 we're talking about a very narrowly defined technical 21 area that some folks may know more about than others, 22 and in this particular case there were a number of 23 inspections in which the symptoms and the indications 24 weren't integrated in such a manner that ultimately 25 lead to the NRC to discover the problem, and so all MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

86 1 of those issues need to be addressed, all of them.

2 UNIDENTIFIED: May I ask then, what 3 is the NRC's basic job?

4 MR. HOWELL: Our basic function is 5 to regulate the users of nuclear energy, and that's 6 not only nuclear power plants, but users of nuclear 7 materials and industrial applications to ensure the 8 public health and safety.

9 UNIDENTIFIED: Don't you find it very 10 peculiar that even as all the inspections and the 11 eyes are looking at Davis-Besse, that they allow 12 workers to go in and be contaminated? How did that 13 happen?

14 MR. HOWELL: Again, we did not 15 review that activity, I can't speak for that 16 activity. I can put you in touch with the folks 17 that did review that, and if, sir, after the meeting 18 if we can get some contact information we can do 19 that.

20 UNIDENTIFIED: Okay. There is just 21 one more issue I'd like to bring up or ask and this 22 was in The Plain Dealer. The agency prepared a shut 23 down order as a bluff -- excuse me, as a bluff, I 24 don't understand why you would have a shut down order 25 for a bluff and also as a back up in case FirstEnergy MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

87 1 played hardball. I'm really lost. I don't 2 understand what that's about.

3 MR. HOWELL: Bill?

4 MR. BORCHARDT: Maybe I can go back to 5 a couple of your comments earlier, and then we'll get 6 to the one about the shut down order. I just want 7 to make sure you understand -- and I apologize if you 8 already know this. I'd like to describe for a 9 second the NRC inspection program whose sole focus is 10 public health and safety. There are two resident 11 inspectors assigned to Davis-Besse full-time. They 12 live in the area. They report to work at the plant 13 every day, and they perform inspections. They are 14 supplemented by inspectors out of Region III in the 15 case of Davis-Besse by inspectors who have expertise 16 in particular technical areas, so there are 17 significant inspection hours going on every week at 18 Davis-Besse, and now under the 0350 process, even 19 supplemented even more, and they looked at all 20 different kinds of engineering, radiological 21 protection activities throughout the plant.

22 Regarding the preparation of an order, back 23 when the original bulletin was issued at the end of 24 last year and there were concerns raised or 25 questioned raised about when Davis-Besse would shut MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

88 1 down and do the inspections that were required by the 2 bulletin, we were operating as we do every single day 3 on the best information you have available at the 4 time. We saw at that time that there were a number 5 of scenarios that could possibly have played out 6 based on the incomplete information we had and based 7 upon that, we worked in several parallel paths. One 8 of those paths was the preparation of an order 9 requiring Davis-Besse to shut down and perform the 10 inspections. Ultimately that order was not utilized 11 because based upon the information we had available 12 at that time, we agreed to allow Davis-Besse to 13 operate until the date that they had proposed and 14 then they would shut down and do the inspections.

15 Had we known then what we know today, clearly we 16 would have issued that order.

17 UNIDENTIFIED: But even though what 18 you do know today, I have read where you made the 19 statement where you didn't feel that it put the 20 public in anymore danger by running that extra few 21 weeks, I find that appalling.

22 MR. BORCHARDT: I can understand your 23 point. If we had known that there was that 24 degradation in that vessel head at that point, 25 without hesitation, we would have issued that order.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

89 1 UNIDENTIFIED: Like again, the other 2 thing I don't understand, like you keep saying how 3 many inspections are done how did all this come about 4 if all these inspections are being done? I don't 5 understand that. Maybe you can help me with this.

6 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, we're very 7 disappointed about it also. That's why we have a lot 8 of significant -

9 UNIDENTIFIED: I'm more than 10 disappointed because for the simple reason, you know 11 if things goes to hell here, we're talking all the 12 Great Lakes, thousands of people's lives. You know, 13 I don't understand why no one is being held 14 accountable for some of the things that's went on 15 here. There's been time after time after time that 16 FirstEnergy has lied to you people or you people have 17 not told us the truth. No one is being held 18 accountable for anything. Therefore, I guess, if no 19 one is held accountable for anything, what would make 20 me think that you guys are going to change anything 21 that's going on now?

22 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, I think you're 23 premature saying no one is being held accountable.

24 UNIDENTIFIED: Well, we're going 25 almost a year and all these questions have been asked MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

90 1 and everyone we have talked to no one can answer one 2 single question.

3 MR. BORCHARDT: Well, there are 4 ongoing investigations separate from the staff that 5 are looking at staff performance. There have 6 been -- there's investigations looking at the 7 performance of Davis-Besse individuals. Those -

8 these activities are formal investigations that don't 9 happen overnight, they're in process, and you will 10 know about the final conclusions when they're issued.

11 UNIDENTIFIED: I realize these things 12 don't happen overnight, but if that place lights up 13 it's going to be quicker than overnight. Thank you.

14 MR. HOWELL: Thank you, sir.

15 MS. RYDER: My name is Amy Ryder.

16 I'm with Ohio Citizens Action.

17 MR. HOWELL: Good evening, Amy.

18 MS. RYDER: I just have a brief 19 comments. I think what stood out to me most this 20 evening was when Dr. Hackett stated that this was a 21 preventable event. FirstEnergy has a massive 22 responsibility of operating this plant and two other 23 safely, and it's clear that they failed with 24 Davis-Besse, and I understand that this group's job 25 was to identify what can be learned from all this, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

91 1 and I think you came up with 51 recomi 2 MR. HOWELL: Yes.

3 MS. RYDER: But I 4 very one important recommendation.

5 recommendation that I think would pre 6 happening at any other facility would 7 Nuclear Regulatory Commission to revo.

8 license to operate Davis-Besse. If 9 thought for a minute that this agency 10 their license, they would have never 11 degradation to happen. If this agen 12 Davis-Besse operating license as a re 13 think we could be confident that othe 14 operators would take much more cautio 15 they operate their facilities. Reco 16 revocation of a license, that is a re 17 with some meaning, and I think you're 18 Nuclear power is unforgiving technolo 19 never had more justification for revo 20 than you've had in the last nine mont 21 FirstEnergy you have failed at your j 22 regulatory agency. I mean, earlier 23 somebody asked what your job is and y 24 make sure that FirstEnergy does their 25 don't understand how you think you ca MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

92 1 if you refuse to exert your most powerful authority 2 of revoking or suspending a license. I have 3 unfortunately zero confidence that the NRC is willing 4 to do its job, and I've think if you continue to do 5 things the way that you have been, either this 6 community or some other, God forbid, is likely to 7 suffer the catastrophic consequences. Thank you.

8 MR. HOWELL: Thank you. And all of 9 us here agree that what happened is unacceptable and 10 that it needs not to happen again and we need to make 11 sure that we take those steps to ensure that it 12 doesn't.

13 MR. GUNTER: Thank you. Paul 14 Gunter.

15 MR. HOWELL: Good evening, sir.

16 MR. GUNTER: I'm with Nuclear 17 Information and Resource Service. Actually, I'm out 18 of Washington, so I would ask if we could provide an 19 extension to this so that other people, local, would 20 like to speak before me, I would certainly relinquish 21 the microphone here.

22 MR. HOWELL: I think we have -- how 23 much time? Maybe another 30 minutes, are there other 24 folks, local folks, that have questions or comments?

25 (No response).

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93 1 MR. HOWELL: Okay, 2 MR. GUNTER: Thank 3 name is Paul Gunter, I'm with Nuclear 4 Resource Service out of Washington, ai 5 provided the agency with our formal ci 6 on the Lessons Learned Task Force fini 7 anybody in the audience who would lik, 8 have enough here to provide folks wit:

9 not going to go verbatim through our 10 would like to touch on a few points g 11 and a few questions. I think it's c 12 to the agency, that more than a hole 13 was recreated by Davis-Besse's malpra 14 you've heard tonight is that a signif 15 public confidence, and that's going t' 16 difficult to repair than just bringin, 17 replacement part, but we need to look 18 not only from Davis-Besse management 19 NRC management point, and I understan 20 responsibility, and I appreciate the 21 it's a rare opportunity that we do ge 22 the carpet, so to speak. Unfortunate 23 have your senior management on the ca 24 I think that tonight is the appropria 25 Collins, Dr. Brian Sheron, and others MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

94 1 critical roles in management decisions on the 2 Davis-Besse degradation, they should be here tonight, 3 and I'm disappointed that they're not, but the fact 4 is that you not only have this significance lack of 5 public confidence, but the NRC is significantly 6 undermined the confidence of its own staff by the -

7 in the current regulatory decision-making process, 8 and that was most evident at a meeting in Washington 9 on October 30th, 2002 where Dr. George Apostolakis, 10 who is with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 11 also Chair of the Advisory Committee on Reactor 12 Safeguards for the U.S. NRC in a conference, and as a 13 panel, panelist, basically said that recent events 14 have shaken our confidence in our assumptions. These 15 being the regulatory assumptions that govern safety 16 issues for U.S. nuclear power plants, and that he 17 basically was left with the question, what is the 18 appropriate consideration of uncertainties in this 19 regulatory process, and, frankly, I don't know, at 20 this time. That is a significant admission and 21 worrisome to those of us who realize that the only 22 mission of the NRC is to uphold public health and 23 safety, but to specifically address the task force 24 report, I'm here tonight to say that the task force 25 final report did not fully address and fulfill it's MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

95 1 charter. For one, the task force failed to interview 2 appropriate external stakeholders for all of the 3 germane issues, and -- that were related to the lack 4 of NRC oversight and enforcement actions at 5 Davis-Besse.

6 Nuclear Information Resource Service and the 7 Union of Concerned Scientists have played critical 8 roles in addressing the issues in researching in 9 providing through the Freedom of Information Act 10 internal documents that pointed to the mechanics or 11 the breakdown of the process that contributed to the 12 degradation, and, yet, while NRC went out to industry 13 trade groups and owners groups, they never contacted 14 the public, and, particularly, the recognized public.

15 Stakeholders that have come to you tonight and that 16 have been before you numerous times, were never 17 brought into the review process, and I understand you 18 had a couple of meetings, but it's my understanding 19 that those were scoping meetings and were not really 20 conducted as interviews to pull out germane issues as 21 you conducted with foreign reactor operators and with 22 the B&W owners group, so I think that that was -

23 that was a significant shortcoming, but, more 24 importantly, I'd like to focus on the fact that the 25 task force did not provide a complete review of all MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

96 1 the significant germane regulatory issues that might 2 have come forward if you had contacted all of the 3 stakeholders.

4 One issue, is The Abandonment of Your 5 Regulatory Guide 1.174, and nowhere in the report is 6 it mentioned, and it seems to us to be a -- a very 7 conspicuous omission. It gets arcane very quickly 8 here, but just to try to explain regulatory guide 9 1.174 is the agency's own analysis technique to 10 improve safety decision-making at U.S. reactors by 11 using Probabilistic Risk Assessments, and it was used 12 as part of the agency's review of FirstEnergy's 13 request to blow off your bulletin and the reporting 14 requirement and the deadline, and that requirement 15 basically provided staff and the licensee with 16 clearly established governing safety policies and 17 principles and procedures to -- to understand if this 18 requested waiver was -- was appropriate, and to make 19 a long story short, the five criteria that the agency 20 used, the NRC staff had concluded that -- that if the 21 inspections were conducted at Davis-Besse in the fall 22 of 2001, that the current regulations would not be 23 met for that facility with request -- or with regard 24 to its own technical specifications. With your 25 requirements under code of Federal regulation, it MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

97 1 would have found that it was likely that barriers in 2 the defense and depth strategy that's much touted by 3 the agency were degraded, and the agency knew that at 4 the time. It also stated that -- and these were 5 revelations that were coming out on September 9th, 6 well -- just after this August bulletin had been 7 issued and Davis-Besse's request for the deferral.

8 Staff realized that it was likely safety margins were 9 reduced at Davis-Besse. Staff recognized that 10 operation in this condition could result in a higher 11 core damage frequency than -- than is normally 12 accepted under the regulatory guides, and that the 13 only way that you could measure this would be to 14 inspect, and that was the reason for the order, to 15 inspect, and when NRC provided Davis-Besse with the 16 waiver to operate until February 16th in spite of the 17 staff's consideration and determination that it was 18 unsafe to operate beyond December 31st, the staff -

19 the staff in reviewing 1. -- Reg Guide 1.174 again 20 determined that five of the criteria were not met, 21 and this was your own guidance talking, so I guess my 22 first question is, why did the task force not review 23 this fundamental tool that led to the abandonment of 24 your own order that would have brought about an 25 inspection at an albeit -- at a late date, at a much MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

98 1 earlier date given the significance of the damage?

2 MR. HOWELL: Yes, first of all, as 3 I mentioned earlier, the task force sought to 4 understand why the event was not prevented, and as 5 you indicated, the issue about whether or not the 6 plant operated whether you're talking in the time 7 frame of the fall of 2001 or for some point for six 8 or seven weeks after December 31st, 2001, as you 9 know, at that late stage the damage was already done, 10 and so, in the sense of our question that we're 11 attempting to answer why the event was not prevented, 12 although there are a number of important issues 13 there, they were not central to answering that 14 question. Having said that, however, we did review 15 this matter, although -- and, quite frankly, we 16 identified a number of issues that touch on some of 17 your concerns. Basically the bottom line is that had 18 more review been done to confirm the information that 19 was provided through meetings and letters, in all 20 likelihood, this would have been brought to light in 21 the fall of 2001, simple as that, and I think we do 22 make that point in the report.

23 Now, I agree, we did not review in detail Reg 24 Guide 1.174, as you noted.

25 MR. GUNTER: And this is my concern MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

99 1 that if there's one central lesson we believe that 2 needs to be learned, is that you uphold your own 3 principles of guidance in the safety of the operation 4 of these reactors, and the fact that that guidance 5 was abandoned, does not restore public confidence, 6 particularly in light that it's not being addressed 7 in your final report.

8 MR. HOWELL: Well, again, one of 9 the other issues in the report was that since the 10 basis for the decision was not documented in detail, 11 that was a finding, and so it becomes difficult to 12 understand ultimately what the basis was. Now, in a 13 general sense, we know that risk information was 14 provided by the licensee and was considered by the 15 staff. We also know that information clearly in 16 response to the bulletin was provided by the licensee 17 in terms of the scope of past inspections of the 18 nozzles, as well as a review of operating experience 19 involving other B&W plants, and so beyond that, it 20 becomes a little bit difficult to piece together the 21 story since there's a lack of documentation for the 22 ultimate decision. Bill -- and that is addressed in 23 the report.

24 MR. GUNTER: But there is, there is 25 lots of documentations that was produced through the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

100 1 Freedom of Information Act that indicated that the 2 bulk of the staff determination was that this plant 3 was not fit to operate beyond December 31st and that 4 was determined through your on own guidance 5 principles that were then put to the side, and 6 that's -- that's the concern. I just want that to 7 be clear to you, that if you -- if anything is to be 8 understood here tonight from our organization, it is 9 that when you abandon your principles, what can you 10 expect when -- for the industry, they serve two 11 masters; to keep their profit up and to run the plant 12 safely. You serve one master, supposedly, and that 13 is to keep these plants safe. When you abandon your 14 principles, that leaves the plants open to running 15 wild with production over safety.

16 The other -- the other concern is that -- and 17 I believe that we hear this time and time again, it 18 was only last week, I believe, that Mr. Collins of -

19 the Director of NRR, Nuclear Reactor Regulation, 20 stated that the waiver was conducted on new 21 information, that justified with reasonable assurance 22 that the reactor was safe to operate. The one thing 23 that I also noticed the final report does not address 24 is that there was significant known confidence on the 25 part of staff in the new information that Davis-Besse MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

101 1 was providing to push the -- forward with the 2 extension.

3 MR. HOWELL: The report does 4 address the range of views expressed during the 5 discussions on this matter.

6 MR. GUNTER: The range of views, 7 though, I think would have been -- it would have been 8 worthwhile to note that the staff involved in the 9 decision-making process had determined that the 10 compensatory actions that FirstEnergy was offering 11 such as a dedicated operator was a ruse, that there 12 was no dedicated operator, and the staff realized 13 that, that this person was not going to be dedicated 14 to particular activities that would have made that 15 plant safer, but, in fact, had all other sorts of 16 duties and that to operate the reactor at a lower 17 temperature, staff recognized that technically that 18 was not significant over the time frame, so the -

19 the fact that the reactor operator was able to push 20 beyond the shut down date, beyond what you were 21 suggesting was the enforcement date, again, does not 22 set you up as an example of a -- of a regulator, but 23 an accommodator, and that's what we need to hear from 24 this Lessons Learned Task Force is that you are no 25 longer willing to accommodate the financial interest MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

102 1 of the utility over the public health and safety.

2 MR. HOWELL: Again, the central 3 focus of the task force was to understand why the 4 event was not prevented and these are all important 5 issues and they're being reviewed by other agency 6 review organizations and -- but I have to emphasize 7 that by the time of the fall of 2001, there was 8 already significant degradation to the reactor vessel 9 head.

10 MR. GUNTER: But also you knew at 11 that time that the plant was highly likely to be 12 operating outside of its own technical specification 13 and code of Federal regulations, and yet those 14 considerations were set aside that it was operating 15 outside of its own license that you are mandated to 16 uphold and regulate, and that's what -- that's why 17 you're not going to fix the hole in the public 18 confidence if you don't recognize that your actions 19 or lack of actions continue to a widening hole.

20 MR. HOWELL: And I don't disagree 21 with the notion that operating experience at other 22 similar plants would have indicated the high 23 likelihood of cracking of nozzles at Davis-Besse, 24 and, in fact, the task force independently concluded 25 that by an independent review of the operating MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

103 1 experience that's available and repor 2 available to everybody to review, so 3 that conclusion, that there was a hig' 4 that the nozzles were cracked.

5 MR. GUNTER: And th 6 that was in violation of its license.

7 MR. HOWELL: If, in 8 known with certainty, yes.

9 MR. GUNTER: And th 10 internal documents indicate that Firs 11 President of Operations, Guy Campbell 12 it was also -- he agreed that it was 13 that they were operating outside of t' 14 specs.

15 MR. HOWELL: I'm no 16 MR. GUNTER: I can 17 the document is available, and it was 18 that both the NRC and FirstEnergy cam, 19 agreement that the plant was operatinm 20 own technical specifications and your 21 governance over safety, and that's, si 22 don't fix the hole in the public conf.

23 agency sets about a course of action 24 that it will uphold its own guidance i 25 The other concern, of course, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

104 1 task force fails to address the agency's own 2 avoidance of regulatory management changes and the 3 admission of future agency oversight as necessary 4 lessons to be learned. In your Appendix, you 5 acknowledge the lessons learned from South Texas 6 project in 1995, Millstone in 1997, Indian Point 2 in 7 2000. In all three of these cases and in the current 8 case at Davis-Besse, there were numerous utility 9 management changes made to accelerate the pace of 10 corrective actions. These management changes 11 contrast sharply with the very limited, if any, 12 management changes within the NRC due to these cases.

13 If corporate management changes are an integral, 14 essential part of the overall reform program at 15 troubled nuclear power plants, what basis does the 16 task force have for believing, and the public have 17 for accepting, the notion that no management change 18 at NRC is warranted as part of the regulatory reform?

19 MR. HOWELL: The focus of the task 20 force was to look at our regulatory processes. We 21 did that. Where we found gaps in the processes we 22 made recommendations to address those. Where we 23 found implementation problems with an otherwise 24 suitable process, we sought to understand why was it 25 we didn't provide the tools to management and staff MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

105 1 to help them be successful in their job and we made a 2 number of recommendations to address those areas, and 3 those recommendations are under review, and I would 4 point out there are other ongoing reviews in which we 5 don't know what the findings are yet, so, again, 6 you're right, if your point is that we didn't make 7 any recommendations about specific organizational 8 management changes, we did not. We focused on those 9 process issues that we found deficiencies with and 10 those are being reviewed by senior managers at this 11 time.

12 MR. GUNTER: The task force report 13 does not address NRC's role in placing production of 14 electricity at Davis-Besse over public safety 15 requirements, and I think that, you know, in the 16 FirstEnergy's Management Human Performance Root Cause 17 Analysis, they admitted'that they placed production 18 ahead of public safety.

19 MR. HOWELL: There is a section in 20 our report that clearly articulates an overemphasis 21 on production -

22 MR. GUNTER: By FirstEnergy.

23 MR. HOWELL: Correct, correct.

24 MR. GUNTER: But what does the task 25 force have to say about the acknowledgment that staff MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

106 1 agreed that FirstEnergy Vice President of Operation, 2 Guy Campbell, agreed that the plant was operating 3 outside of its technical specifications identified as 4 early as October 2001?

5 MR. HOWELL: Again, I'm not 6 familiar with the document you're referring to.

7 MR. GUNTER: But you probably are 8 familiar with the fact that NRC manager Dr. Brian 9 Sheron as early as November 15 in correspondence to 10 the commission stated as Larry Chandler and Sam 11 Collins also said, we could have made an argument for 12 immediate shut down, but we're exercising discretion 13 in allowing them to go to December 31st, and what 14 he's referencing there is that your own requirements, 15 that Davis-Besse's own licensing document established 16 that they -- that once you all came to agreement with 17 FirstEnergy that you had leakage on the reactor -- of 18 reactor coolant from the nozzles that that enacted a 19 six hour limited condition of operation, the reactor 20 was, by its own license, required to shut down within 21 six hours and that -- that was ignored as -

22 MR. HOWELL: We uncovered no 23 information to suggest that anybody on the NRC side 24 was aware with certainty that those nozzles were 25 leaking at the location that would have mandated a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

107 1 tech spec required shut down, and that, in effect, is 2 part of the problem because had more independent 3 verification of the circumstances been conducted -

4 MR. GUNTER: Right.

5 MR. HOWELL: -- then in all 6 likelihood or strong likelihood that it would have 7 been identified in the fall, but I must emphasize, by 8 that point the damage had already been done, the 9 damage had already been done by that point and that's 10 not to say that those issues are not important, 11 because they are very important.

12 MR. GUNTER: But the cracking at 13 Oconee was, in fact, a blessing because it identified 14 the issue that uncovered this gross damage at 15 Davis-Besse and had we not -- had you not seen the 16 cracking at Oconee, we may have allowed Davis-Besse 17 to go into another two year operating cycle where the 18 corrosion rates very well could have failed that 19 vessel. I mean, the damage was ongoing. It wasn't 20 that it had occurred. It was ongoing. It was not a 21 stagnant issue. It was aggressive, aggressive 22 corrosion.

23 MR. HOWELL: Correct, and I would 24 agree with that notion, and, clearly, there were 25 other missed opportunities in the past that -- that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

108 1 in the realm of the review involved in the operating 2 experience that were also problematic that need to be 3 addressed.

4 MR. GUNTER: But let me just 5 conclude by saying that also in that the task force 6 failed to recognize and articulate that the NRC 7 wields a two edge sword. One side of -- one blade 8 of the sword is razor sharp, and that is the blade 9 that cuts safety requirements, cuts the obligation of 10 the utility for expediting practices, procedures that 11 benefit the utility, and the other edge is that would 12 protect public health and safety, has a nerf-like 13 quality to it and that it's used rarely, and if 14 Probabilistic Risk Assessments that could have -

15 that were indicating to the staff that six of seven 16 Babcock & Wilcox reactors had cracks and Davis-Besse 17 was the only one of those seven that had not 18 inspected and that three of those Babcock & Wilcox 19 reactors had circumferential cracks and those are 20 what we are to believe and would have hoped that the 21 agency would have articulated to be part of a 22 Probabilistic Risk Assessment that would have cut in 23 favor of public health and safety and shut that 24 reactor down at appropriate time for the appropriate 25 inspections, yet the blade that wielded against the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

109 1 utility had no cutting edge, and that was most 2 clearly demonstrated by the fact that the order, that 3 the staff had ardently worked on was never wielded 4 and, in fact, the utility was provided with the 5 waiver that was production oriented, and this is 6 where we believe that the task force has failed to 7 address a -- perhaps the most dangerous part of this 8 is that if these utilities are left to their own 9 devices to self-assessment, that we can only expect 10 more Davis-Besse's, not less, and so we look to you 11 as a regulator to wielded a double-edge sword that 12 cuts fairly, and we don't see that happening and the 13 task force has failed to recognize that, and, believe 14 me, this is not just coming from your critics that 15 are the watchdogs in the Washington -- in the D.C.

16 area, but that it's -- it's becoming clearer to 17 editorial boards, to the public that's here tonight, 18 that the agency is unwilling to fairly exercise 19 regulation that cuts both ways, and that what we're 20 seeing more and more of is -- is the side that allows 21 more self-assessment and less prescriptive oversight, 22 and I can only say with fear that that course is a 23 collision course, and we expect you to at least 24 acknowledge it and put forward the recommendations 25 that would alter us from that collision course.

MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

110 1 Thank you.

2 MR. HOWELL: Thank you, sir, and 3 just one final point, you raised a number of issues, 4 and we do thank you for putting those in writing so 5 that we can look at them in further detail. Thank 6 you, sir.

7 We're at about 35 minutes over the schedule.

8 I don't know how much longer the auditorium is 9 available. I think we're actually out of time.

10 Are there any other folks that had a question 11 that didn't have an opportunity to ask it that 12 perhaps there may be some opportunity for us to get 13 with you after the meeting is formally adjourned?

14 (No response).

15 MR. HOWELL: No? Okay. Well, 16 again, I want to thank all you folks for taking time 17 out of your busy schedule to participate in this 18 meeting. Again, I encourage you all to fill out the 19 feedback forms and provide those, mail those in, and 20 I just want to say that all of the materials that 21 were provided will be made publicly available in the 22 form of a meeting summary, and with that, the meeting 23 is adjourned. Thank you.

24 THEREUPON, the meeting was adjourned.

25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900

1ii 1 CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF OHIO )

SS.

3 COUNTY OF HURON 4

I, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, Stenotype Reporter 5 and Notary Public, within and for the State aforesaid, duly commissioned and qualified, do hereby 6 certify that the foregoing, consisting of 110 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to 7 writing by me by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and 8 complete transcript of the proceedings held in that room on the 20th day of November, 2002 before the 9 Lessons Learned Task Force.

I also further certify that I was present in 10 the room during all of the proceedings.

11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto t my hand 12 and sal of office at Wakeman, Ohio this

• day of 13 2 14 15 Marlene S. Rogers-'tewis Notary Public 16 3922 Court Road Wakeman, OH 44889 17 My commission expires 4/29/04 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900