ML023640212
| ML023640212 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 12/10/2002 |
| From: | Bill Dean, Grobe J, Hopkins J, Christine Lipa, Thomas C NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co |
| References | |
| Download: ML023640212 (116) | |
Text
1 1
2 3 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 4 PUBLIC MEETING 5
Meeting held on Tuesday, December 10, 2002, at 6 7:00 p.m. at the Camp Perry, Clubhouse #600, Port Clinton, Ohio, taken by me, Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis, 7 Stenotype Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
8 9
10 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
11 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 12 John (Jack) Grove Grobe, Chairman, 0350 Panel 13 William Dean, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 14 Christine Lipa, Branch Chief, Region III 15 Christopher (Scott) Thomas, Senior Resident Inspector - Davis-Besse 16 Jon Hopkins, Project Manager 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
2 1 MS. LIPA: Were just about ready 2 to begin. Well, good evening and welcome. This is 3 the U.S. NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions 4 public meeting today with members of the public. We 5 held a meeting earlier today, and well give you a 6 summary of what we discussed earlier, but the main 7 purpose of this meeting is just to inform anybody --
8 interested stakeholders of the NRCs Oversight Panel 9 activities, and up here, the five of us are members 10 of the NRC, and also there is other NRC in the 11 audience, so Ill just go through briefly.
12 Scott Thomas is the Senior Resident for the 13 NRC at the Davis-Besse facility.
14 Im Christine Lipa, and Im the Branch Chief, 15 and Im stationed out of Region III, which is near 16 Chicago, Illinois.
17 Bill Dean is the Vice Chairman of the 18 Oversight Panel, and hes stationed in Rockville, 19 Maryland.
20 Jack Grobe is the Chairman of the Oversight 21 Panel, and hes stationed in Region III.
22 And then Jon Hopkins is the Project Manager, 23 and hes stationed in Maryland also.
24 Next slide shows that one of the goals of 25 this meeting is to receive comments and questions MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
3 1 from members of the public, and to ensure that we can 2 hear everybodys comments today, we ask that you 3 limit your comments or questions to five minutes.
4 Now, we have a lot of people tonight, so that will be 5 important as we go through, and then well follow the 6 format weve used in previous meetings where well 7 start with local members of the public first before 8 we go onto other members of the public that are 9 interested and want to provide comments or questions 10 to us.
11 I want to mention a few handouts that were in 12 the foyer on the way in. One of those is the NRCs 13 newsletter for the month of December, and it provides 14 a summary of the vessel head degradation issue, as 15 well as some recent NRC Oversight Panel activities.
16 There is also a feedback form that you can use to 17 provide feedback to us on the format of this meeting, 18 how the sound system works, if you can see the slide, 19 which Im thinking already were partially blocking 20 it, but any kind of feedback, we would really 21 appreciate it. This is the first time we have used 22 this facility, its a very nice facility, but we need 23 to work out the bugs and make sure it works for us 24 going forward.
25 Also in the foyer there was a copy of the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
4 1 utility slides from the earlier meeting today. There 2 were some of those left if you wanted to grab one of 3 those, and, you know, get a sense for what we 4 discussed earlier. Also theres a summary of the 5 Lessons Learned Task Force report out there that you 6 can review.
7 The next thing I would like to go through on 8 the agenda is a summary of the vessel head 9 degradation issue, and we have some pictures that we 10 can show you. Scott Thomas will walk through parts 11 of that.
12 MR. GROBE: Everybody thats got 13 an empty chair next to them, raise your hand.
14 Theres a lot of folks in the back here, why dont we 15 just take a minute, and you folks can come up and 16 find a seat. I dont want to -- and theres some 17 seats up here in the front if you want to get that 18 close to us. There is no splash zone here so you 19 dont have to worry about that. Lets try again, 20 there is about 10 more people in the back. Raise 21 your hand if you got a chair next to you. Come on 22 up, guys. Theres seats up here. You just want to 23 leave early, huh? Okay. Okay, good enough.
24 MS. LIPA: Okay. Thank you, 25 Jack.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
5 1 MR. THOMAS: How many are here for 2 the first time, this is your first public meeting?
3 THEREUPON, several audience members raised 4 their hands.
5 MR. THOMAS: What Im going to do 6 for the people that arent familiar with the issue 7 and with nuclear power process in general, we have 8 five or six slides that were going to talk -- go 9 through very briefly and just give you a general idea 10 of the issue that happened at Davis-Besse.
11 What we have here is a very simple depiction 12 of what the power plant -- what makes up the power 13 plant. This area here is the containment building, 14 which is comprised of an inner containment, which is 15 an inch and a half steel liner, kind of like if you 16 picture a Thermos, the glass portion of the Thermos 17 would be the containment, and then the outer building 18 is what you see -- is the shield building, thats 19 what you see from the road as you drive by. Its 20 approximately two and a half feet thick, rebar 21 reinforced structure. Inside containment you have 22 the primary systems which consists of the reactor 23 where fission occurs and generates heat. Its 24 transferred to the steam generators where water is 25 boiled which makes steam which drives the turbine MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
6 1 which drives the generator which makes electricity.
2 One thing to note is that this cycle is a closed 3 cycle, and this cycle is a -- is a cycle, and these 4 two dont mix. This is hot, high pressure 5 radioactive water, and this is non-radioactive water 6 and steam cycle, so I think thats it for this one.
7 Next slide, please. This is a picture of 8 the top of the head. Its comprised of -- this is 9 the reactor vessel head. These are the control rod 10 drives, and these are the nozzles that penetrate the 11 reactor head. Where you have this circled area is 12 where the degradation occurred. We have a better 13 picture of that, I think.
14 MS. LIPA: Yeah.
15 MR. THOMAS: One area -- prior to 16 one of the things that lead to the inability to 17 observe and clean the reactor head is this is a very 18 tight clearance. This is an insulation piece.
19 This is a steel assembly, and the only way into this 20 area is through rectangular -- they are called weep 21 holes, mouse holes -- they have a number of names 22 which are positioned right about here. Since then 23 there has been inspection ports cut here around the 24 periphery, but one thing that lead up to the issue 25 was difficulty to be able to inspect this area here.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
7 1 Next picture. This is a depiction of a 2 nozzle. My pointer gave out. This is a nozzle 3 itself. This is the head area. The way this is 4 put into the reactor head is, its a compression fit, 5 the nozzle is a compression fit in the head with the 6 J-weld here, and thats how its held in place, and 7 thats about all we get out of this picture.
8 Next slide. This is a picture of the reactor 9 vessel head post 2000 outage. What youre seeing 10 here is these are the studs and the bolts that hold 11 the reactor head on. This is the transition between 12 the head to the service structure, and remember when 13 I just -- the last slide I talked about the weep 14 holes, these are the weep holes. Theyre about five 15 by seven, about this size, (indicating). What you 16 see here is a -- boric acid combined with iron oxide 17 that has come from the cavity area that was on top of 18 the head, flowed down the top of the reactor head, 19 down the side of the head and collected on the 20 reactor flange area.
21 Next slide, please.
22 MR. COLLINS: Oh, sorry.
23 MR. THOMAS: This is a -- excuse 24 me, a drawing of the cavity itself. This is the 25 reactor head. This is the nozzle penetration. This MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
8 1 is another -- this is nozzle 11. This is nozzle No.
2 3. As you can see, it doesnt have -- the nozzles 3 been removed here, but this area is a -- a depiction 4 of the cavity itself, so that was the shape of the 5 cavity. All that was left was the cladding on top 6 of the reactor vessel right here.
7 Next slide. And, excuse me, this is an 8 actual picture of the cavity itself. Go back to 9 that one real quick. This where nozzle 3 would have 10 gone in, and the cavity itself goes back this way 11 toward nozzle 11, and theres been a number of 12 descriptions of the cavity, anything from football 13 size to milk bottle size to -- a number of 14 descriptions. A football size would be an accurate 15 description.
16 Next. This is just another picture of the 17 cavity. I dont have anything to add for this one.
18 Any specific questions on this what I have 19 shown here? This is just a brief overview of the 20 issue itself.
21 MS. RYDER: I had a question about 22 one of the photos.
23 MR. THOMAS: Yeah.
24 MS. RYDER: The one with the red 25 rust down the side.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
9 1 MR. THOMAS: Yes.
2 MS. RYDER: How is it that your 3 inspectors didnt know that that photo existed?
4 MR. GROBE: Thats a good 5 question, Amy. The -- why dont you introduce 6 yourself?
7 MS. RYDER: My name is Amy Ryder, 8 Im with Ohio Citizen Action group.
9 MR. GROBE: Theres really, I 10 think, two answers to that question. As Im sure 11 you can imagine there is roughly a thousand people 12 that work at an industrial facility this size, and 13 theres a lot of activities that go on, and we sample 14 different activities, and we didnt choose during the 15 course of our day-to-day work to look at this 16 specific inspection photograph that was taken in 17 April of 2000, I guess.
18 Second answer is, back last fall in the, I 19 think it was September through late November into 20 December time frame, we had quite a long dialogue 21 with FirstEnergy employees regarding the condition of 22 the reactor head. It was following up the issuance 23 of a bulletin. A bulletin is a document that we use 24 to communicate with a number of reactor licensees.
25 In this case it was all pressurized water reactors, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
10 1 Davis-Besse is a pressurized water reactor. We 2 asked for information that would assist the NRC in 3 understanding the condition of the head, and that 4 photograph was not provided. Quite a bit of 5 information was provided, but that specific 6 photograph was not provided by the company.
7 MS. RYDER: Do you find that 8 acceptable? Doesnt it seem like they were 9 intentionally hiding the problem?
10 MR. GROBE: Thats kind of a 11 loaded question. The folks that do inspections are 12 engineers. Theyre not investigators. Whenever we 13 come across a situation that doesnt seem quite right 14 to us, we have an office called the Office of 15 Investigations, and these are all former criminal 16 investigators, and in this situation it didnt seem 17 quite right to us that some of the information didnt 18 come to our attention, and we initiated an 19 investigation. That investigation is ongoing, and 20 when its completed well know the results.
21 MS. RYDER: Im not an engineer or 22 investigator and looking at that photo, youd think 23 the photographer would have said, look, guys, I think 24 weve got a problem here.
25 MR. GROBE: Its, like I said, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
11 1 when things dont appear quite right, we ask our 2 investigators to take a look at it, and theyre in 3 the process of doing that. When they complete their 4 investigation, that will be public knowledge.
5 MS. RYDER: What do you think of 6 it?
7 MR. GROBE: Ill have to wait for 8 the investigation results, Amy. Thanks.
9 MR. THOMAS: Anything else about 10 the basic description? Well have a question and 11 answer session later on, but I can answer any basic 12 questions about what I have talked about here. Sir?
13 MR. DUSSEL: Yes, I was 14 wondering --
15 MR. GROBE: Could you approach the 16 microphone, please?
17 MR. THOMAS: And please state your 18 name, too, for the stenographer.
19 MR. DUSSEL: My name is Tim Dussel, 20 and I was wondering -- Ive read articles where I 21 believe some 20 years ago Davis-Besse was told to 22 open up those inspection holes so inspections could 23 be done and a lot of things Ive read about 24 inspections, they keep saying that the lid was clean 25 as far as people could see. I think thats kind of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
12 1 a loaded question there.
2 Is there any reason why they went 20 --
3 almost 20 years when they knew that those inspection 4 holes should have been opened up so you could get in 5 to see or inspect the rod ends?
6 MR. THOMAS: Well, it wasnt a 7 requirement for them to install this modification, 8 so -- plants have operated successfully without it, 9 so --
10 MR. GROBE: Because of the 11 difficulty in inspecting the head, as I think some of 12 you -- Jay, could you put up that drawing of the 13 head? Yeah, that one.
14 MR. COLLINS: Yes.
15 MR. GROBE: As you can appreciate, 16 because of the curvature of the reactor head, it 17 would be difficult to inspect, and the way that was 18 done was with a camera that was remotely controlled 19 on a pole, and the -- Davis-Besse internally 20 initiated a modification to install inspection ports.
21 Theyre about one foot diameter ports that are much 22 higher than service structure. As Scott indicated 23 earlier, they are up here. There is seven reactors 24 that are very similar to Davis-Besse, and theyre 25 manufactured by Babcock & Wilcox Corporation. Five MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
13 1 off those seven had installed the inspection ports, 2 two had not, and Davis-Besse was one of them. The 3 decision was based on their belief that they had the 4 ability to inspect reactor heads sufficiently from 5 the weep holes, so its not like they were directed 6 to do this. It was an enhancement, and they chose 7 not to do it at that time.
8 MR. DUSSEL: I just dont 9 understand how an inspection can be done if you cant 10 see. You know, that strikes me very peculiar. I 11 just dont understand how all these inspections have 12 been done and I keep reading and reading where the 13 lid was clean, and how could anyone say it was clean 14 if you cant see if it was clean and 900 pounds of 15 boric acid taken off? 900 pounds of boric acid, how 16 many burlap sackfuls would that be?
17 MR. GROBE: Its -- maybe we 18 should give a little bit more background because its 19 clear that some of you dont have the depth of 20 knowledge that others may have.
21 Theres requirements both through the 22 American Society of Mechanical Engineers as well as 23 through internal procedures at the site that require 24 certain types of inspections. Boric acid is a 25 constituent of the reactor coolant and pressurized MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
14 1 water reactors -- there are roughly 70 pressurized 2 water reactors in the United States. Every one of 3 them has boric acid in the reactor coolant. Its an 4 additive that is used to help control nuclear 5 reaction. Because boric acid -- the solution of 6 boric acid that is actually in the coolant is very, 7 very mild. Its not corrosive. The concern is 8 the -- if there is a leak in the reactor coolant 9 system, wherever the leak exists, the water which has 10 boric acid in it -- a very mild solution can exit 11 through the leak and the water immediately vaporizes, 12 and leaves a higher concentration of boric acid on 13 the surface, so the -- back in the late 80s, the NRC 14 required licensees not only to have the American 15 Society of Mechanical Engineering standards that deal 16 with potential corrosiveness of boric acid, we 17 required licensees to explain to us how they were 18 going to control boric acid corrosion because its 19 a -- an artifact of this type of reactor, but you 20 need to be able to do that, so each licensee put into 21 position a procedure that whenever there was a 22 discovery of boric acid, it appears to be a white 23 powder when it is left, a white residue. Whenever 24 you see that you have to clean it off, and its a 25 requirement through a number of different MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
15 1 regulations, you have to clean it, you have to clean 2 it down to bare metal. You have to clearly inspect 3 the metal to make sure there isnt any corrosion. If 4 there is corrosion, you have to repair it or in some 5 cases you can justify why -- if its a very mild 6 pitting or something like that, you can justify that 7 thats an acceptable leave as is. Davis-Besse did 8 not follow those requirements, and through the course 9 of the 90s -- from the mid 90s to the late 90s 10 they left boric acid residue on the reactor head, and 11 I think your number is one that Ive heard before, 12 and I dont know that anybody knows the quantity of 13 boric acid that was on the head with precision, but 14 it was in the hundreds of pounds of boric acid.
15 That obstructed the view of the individuals that were 16 trying to inspect the head. Those individuals 17 didnt follow station procedures and the American 18 Society of Mechanical Engineering requirements that 19 required them to clean that boric acid, and internal 20 documents documented that it had been cleaned and 21 that the head was inspected, and there was no damage, 22 and, in fact, that had not occurred. All of these 23 issues are being looked into, but the fact of the 24 matter is, this was a completely preventable 25 situation, and that photograph -- Jay, put up the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
16 1 picture that shows the red rust. This is a clear 2 indication that there is corrosion going on. Its 3 rust. Its iron oxide, and that was not adequately 4 responded to by the staff at Davis-Besse. These are 5 things that happened in the past, and they were not 6 corrected, and these are cited as violations in our 7 inspections. Theres an investigation ongoing into 8 why it happened, and once we find out why it 9 happened, we will take appropriate actions.
10 MR. DUSSEL: What do you think 11 appropriate actions would be for falsifying records?
12 Evidently, there was --
13 MR. GROBE: We need to have the 14 results of the investigation before we can make that 15 determination.
16 MR. DUSSEL: Is Davis-Besse going 17 to be allowed to operate and start running before the 18 investigation is done?
19 MR. GROBE: We need to get our 20 arms around what those issues are and make sure that 21 NRC adequately dealt with before we restart.
22 MR. DUSSEL: Thank you.
23 MR. GROBE: Uh huh.
24 MS. LIPA: Okay, thanks, and 25 those are good questions, but what I want to do MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
17 1 before we get into the question and answer period, 2 were actually going to provide for everyones 3 benefit who was not here earlier today a summary of 4 the afternoon meeting with FirstEnergy, and then the 5 next item on the agenda following that summary is 6 questions and answers, so everybody will get a chance 7 to ask their questions, its just let us give a 8 summary of the afternoon meeting and Bill will do 9 that and following that, well get into more 10 questions and answers. Thank you.
11 MR. DEAN: Thanks, Christine.
12 Hopefully Ill make this short, so we can get to the 13 answers and questions. We do have a fairly large 14 audience tonight, but it is important, one of the 15 purposes of this meeting that we have it in the 16 evening with the public is to give you the 17 opportunity to be informed as to the types of things 18 that are transpiring, the types of things that the 19 NRC and this Oversight Panel is doing relative to 20 monitoring the activities at Davis-Besse, and so its 21 important to do a recap of todays meeting.
22 We discussed, first off, some of the 23 activities that have been ongoing in the last month 24 or so from the NRCs perspective. There are two 25 inspections that have been completed and inspection MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
18 1 reports issued which are available -- publicly 2 available. One of those is the containment extent 3 of condition. That report generally found that the 4 licensee has done a good job of evaluating their 5 containment in terms of the spread of boric acid and 6 its impact on containment components. There are 7 some unresolved issues that were still looking at.
8 There is some work that is still ongoing that we will 9 continue to follow, but that inspection report 10 basically documents what the licensee has done to 11 date.
12 The other one is the reactor pressure vessel 13 head replacement activities. Basically the effort 14 to cut the hole in the shield building and 15 containment and to move in and out the replacement 16 reactor vessel head and move out the old one and get 17 that in place, ready for installation, and basically 18 that inspection report determined that the licensee 19 did a pretty good job on all of those activities, 20 maintained good positive control of what was going 21 on. Some of the things that are ongoing, there are 22 inspections ongoing that are not yet completed, will 23 not be completed because completion of them is 24 contingent upon activities that the licensee still 25 has ongoing relative to things like program reviews.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
19 1 There is a number of programs that the licensee has 2 endeavored to evaluate and assess those programs, for 3 example, boric acid corrosion control program, the 4 corrective action program, and so on, that were 5 instrumental in this event occurring, and so theyve 6 gone back and done an in-depth review of those 7 programs. We are inspecting their efforts in that 8 area and they still have some additional work to do 9 so we will not complete our inspection until they are 10 done. Another area is system health. Obviously, 11 we felt it was important, as did the licensee, that 12 they had to assess the health of other safety systems 13 in the other plant not just the reactor vessel head 14 to assure themselves, assure us and assure the public 15 that they dont have other issues of safety 16 significance, and so those activities are ongoing.
17 We have not completed our inspection efforts in that 18 regard because the licensee still has a certain 19 amount of work to do in terms of their system health 20 assurance efforts. The other issue and one of the 21 things really that Scott didnt address in terms of 22 the event, but really is kind of at the core of the 23 issue that occurred here and this is failure in terms 24 of managerial organizational behavior at Davis-Besse.
25 Some of you may hear this referred to as safety MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
20 1 culture issues. We have a substantial part of our 2 assessment process to look at what is the licensee 3 doing relative to organizational effectiveness and 4 human performance and then, of course, we have the 5 Resident Inspector and the Senior Resident Inspector 6 on site that do daily observations of ongoing 7 activities of the licensee, and so those are all 8 ongoing, continuing NRC activities that have yet to 9 be completed.
10 One meeting of note to discuss or that 11 occurred over the past month; on November 26th, we 12 had a meeting in the headquarters office in 13 Rockville, Maryland to discuss with the licensee 14 their activities regarding the bottom of the reactor 15 vessel, the picture that you saw, the oxide and the 16 boron that collect at the top of the reactor vessel.
17 Over the course of time some of those materials found 18 their way down the side of the reactor vessel and you 19 could actually see, some of you that might have gone 20 to our web site -- unfortunately, we dont have any 21 pictures to show you --
22 MS. LIPA: Yeah, we do.
23 MR. DEAN: Do we?
24 MR. COLLINS: Give me a minute.
25 MR. DEAN: Okay, Jay is going to MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
21 1 pull up a picture what the bottom of the reactor 2 vessel looks like. Basically, they had some distinct 3 trails of both iron oxide, rust, as well as boric 4 acid trailing down and collecting to the bottom of 5 the reactor vessel, and when the licensee pulled off 6 the insulation to see where those trails led, the 7 bottom of the reactor vessel head had notable trails 8 of boric acid deposit and rust, and so that raises 9 the question is -- are those items at the bottom of 10 the vessel a result of just wash down, things that 11 have collected from the top of the reactor vessel, or 12 are they indeed -- and there you see an example of 13 the bottom of the reactor vessel. This is after it 14 was cleaned. Go back to that previous one, Jay.
15 This is an example of what the collection looked like 16 at the bottom around one of the penetrations, and 17 there is another example, you see how it was 18 collected, so that raises questions. Is that 19 leakages perhaps from these penetrations, or is it, 20 indeed, just wash down and trails from all of the 21 materials, the 900 pounds of boric acid, and so on, 22 that were at the top of the reactor vessel, and so 23 the licensee has yet been unable to definitively 24 determine that, and so they came to the headquarters 25 office to meet with a number of our engineering MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
22 1 specialists there to describe their plans to try and 2 assure that these penetrations at the bottom of the 3 reactor vessel -- which are not the same at the top, 4 they operate at a lower temperature, theyre much 5 smaller. There is not a history of leakage or 6 cracking from those penetrations both internationally 7 and domestically, but it still a question that has to 8 be answered, and so they described their plans to do 9 testing. Basically, what they intend to do is at 10 some point next year bring the plant up to normal 11 operating pressure, normal operating temperature and 12 have it sit there for seven days, and then go in and 13 do a close visual inspection of all those 14 penetrations. That is why its important if you go 15 back to the one that was clean, shows a clean head, 16 they would be able to go in there and do a visual 17 inspection, and see if there was any of these little 18 boric acid crystals that Jack was talking about, 19 these white crystals. That would an indication that 20 perhaps there might be a small leak, and so we had 21 that meeting on November 26th, and I dont think that 22 meeting summary is yet available, but I think -- are 23 the meeting slides?
24 MR. HOPKINS: The slides are up on 25 the web site.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
23 1 MR. DEAN: Okay. The meeting 2 slides are up on the web site, so if you were to 3 access our web site, you could see the licensees 4 presentation. That was a pretty important meeting.
5 The other thing that came out of that meeting 6 is that the licensee described their plans to install 7 a sensitive leak detection system. Its called a 8 flus, F-L-U-S, which is a system of German design, 9 and thats been used at some European facilities. It 10 hasnt been used here in the United States which is 11 basically a very sensitive moisture detection system 12 which they would install at the bottom of the reactor 13 vessel. They hope to be able to do that before this 14 extended outage period is completed, so they 15 described their plans to do that.
16 Okay, to talk about what the licensee 17 described in terms of their restart readiness plan, 18 the other major purpose of our meetings -- we come 19 here every month and meet with the licensee is to get 20 an update from them on where they are in terms of all 21 of their activities related to their Return to 22 Service Plan. In the area of Management and Human 23 Performance, which I said was a very important area, 24 they talked about some of the things that theyre 25 doing in terms of enhancing communications and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
24 1 training. In particular, they have accomplished some 2 things over the past month relative to specific 3 training for supervisors and managers relative to 4 assuring a safety conscience work environment. They 5 also described -- they have a fairly active -- what 6 they call their management observation program and 7 the purpose of that is to get managers out into the 8 field to look at ongoing activities and work and to 9 assure themselves that the types of things that they 10 have developed in terms of expectations for 11 performance and how they expect work and activities 12 to be accomplished, are there safety standards being 13 met by the work force, and, generally, they describe 14 a fairly satisfactory results from their management 15 observation program thus far. They do have issues 16 relative to things like job planning, housekeeping, 17 some documentation issues, but, in general, they felt 18 that the results have been fairly satisfactory in 19 terms of how well they believe their safety standards 20 and expectations are being translated to the staff.
21 The other major area they talked about is --
22 one of the issues that has emanated from looking at 23 the licensees root cause is the role that their 24 operations department has played relative to 25 establishing safety standards at the plant, and I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
25 1 think the licensee has determined, and we would degree 2 agree that their operations department did not take 3 a leadership role in the past in establishing safety 4 standards, and its something they want to embody 5 into their organizational philosophy, so they 6 described some of the ongoing activities that they 7 have in terms of developing this approach, bringing 8 the operations department to the floor in terms of 9 leading safety standards, and they describe some of 10 the activities that their operations department is 11 getting involved in and taking a greater role, things 12 like plant safety reviews and maintenance work 13 activities.
14 The second area they discussed talked about 15 some of their near goals relative to activities to 16 support potential plant restart, and we talked to 17 some degree about some near term activities mainly to 18 support this testing that I talked about of the 19 bottom of the reactor vessel head to assure 20 themselves and assure us that those penetrations are 21 not leaking, and what they described is that 22 basically beginning in about the middle of January or 23 so they hope to be able to begin the evolution of 24 reloading the fuel in the core, putting the reactor 25 vessel head, the new reactor vessel head on top of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
26 1 the core, performing an integrated leak rate test of 2 the containment. Of course, they got this big hole 3 to move the reactor vessel heads in and out. They 4 have to assure themselves that containment is leak 5 tight, so they have to do whats called an integrated 6 leak rate test, where they pressurize containment and 7 observe it for leaks, and then eventually bring the 8 actual reactor plant up to normal operating pressure 9 and temperature using basically their large reactor 10 coolant pumps and the pump heat that that generates 11 to bring the plant up to temperature and basically do 12 a seven day stay at that and then go and look around 13 evaluate the plant for leaks. Also to give them an 14 opportunity to test a number of these systems that 15 they have been working on, so they described their 16 plans to do that. There is a lot of work that 17 remains physically before the plant can even be at 18 the position to be able to do that. They have a 19 number of valves that are being worked on to assure 20 leak tightness. Theyre doing some major work on 21 some of their reactor coolant pumps to assure that 22 those are going to be leak-free, and there is a 23 number of issues that have emerged from all of the 24 work they have done to try and identify all the 25 issues that -- basically what they call mode MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
27 1 restraint. In other words, they cant change their 2 mode of operation until they complete a lot of these 3 activities, and so theres hundreds of those issues 4 that still need to be resolved, so the licensee still 5 has a lot of work on their plate to even get to that 6 point.
7 Third area we talked about with the licensee 8 was their containment health. Basically they have 9 completed for the most part their discovery 10 activities in terms of identifying all of the issues 11 in containment that would have been a result of the 12 boric acid and leakage, and so they basically have 13 about 900 plus issues. They have not yet identified 14 or reviewed all of those issues to determine what the 15 corrective actions are; however, they do have some 16 major work in progress, in particular, rebuilding the 17 containment air coolers, expanding a screening area 18 for the emergency sump, and, basically, recoating and 19 painting the entire containment and some of the core 20 flood tanks.
21 Lets see, system health reviews, I talked 22 about this earlier as an area that the NRC has 23 ongoing inspection activities. They still have a 24 lot of work to do in that area, though, they have 25 completed many of the reviews and are awaiting MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
28 1 management to sign off basically, and approval of the 2 results of those review, but theres a number of key 3 design issues that have emerged from those reviews 4 that await resolution. We, matter of fact, will have 5 a meeting with the licensee probably on December 23rd 6 in the Region III office to discuss some of their 7 plans and activities as result of the lessons learned 8 and the findings that they have had from their system 9 health assurance, so that will be a pretty key 10 meeting for us to get a better feel for where theyre 11 going in terms of system health.
12 Plant programs is an area where much of the 13 review work is done. I talked about that as an area 14 the NRC still has ongoing inspections; however, the 15 licensee is further ahead in assessing their programs 16 and revamping them, and so we will probably be able 17 to complete some of our inspection activities 18 hopefully in January regarding that, and then, 19 finally, some of you may have the opportunity -- I 20 noticed earlier some of you were looking at -- over 21 on the side there, the licensee put up some of their 22 performance metrics that they were using to basically 23 monitor progress at the plant, and one of the points 24 that they try to make is that if you looked at those, 25 basically those show that they believe theyre at a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
29 1 point where theyve completed the majority of their 2 discovery, and by that, I mean, basically theyre 3 identification of issues that need to be resolved 4 whether theyre physical issues or program issues and 5 that their work off rate is now starting to exceed 6 their discovery, so, basically, thats kind of a 7 critical point in terms of plant recovery and a plant 8 thats in an extended shut down, when you complete a 9 lot of the work in terms of discovery and now your 10 work off rate exceeds that, so you start to see a 11 decline now on all of the work thats on their plant plate, 12 so they have kind of reached that turning point, but 13 that doesnt mean theyre anywhere near being ready 14 for restart. Thats a lot of work that remains on 15 their plate just from a physical point of view, not 16 to mention where are they in terms of safety culture 17 assessment which is a big issue we raised with them 18 and something we want to make sure that they discuss 19 with us at our meeting next month. We want to hear 20 some fairly detailed discussion about their 21 activities related to safety culture, how are they 22 monitoring and measuring that, and so thats an issue 23 that we will have some detailed discussion with the 24 licensee next month, so thats probably a little bit 25 longer than I wanted to take, but it was a fairly MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
30 1 lengthy meeting and a lot of good discussion. Jack, 2 do you have anything to add?
3 MR. GROBE: Thanks, Bill, that was 4 a really good summary. While Bill was talking -- I 5 already heard the meeting, so I wasnt listening very 6 closely, but I was trying to think of what might be 7 good information to share with you. Were involved 8 in this day in and day out in a great amount of 9 detail and sometimes we get lost in the trees and 10 when folks like you come out to find out whats going 11 on, youre not in the level of detail that we are, 12 and we sometimes lose sight of the fact that some 13 foundational information might be helpful. I wanted 14 to just spend three or four minutes and tell you what 15 this is all about because it probably appears kind of 16 strange.
17 Over the last several years weve put in 18 place a reactor oversight program for all of the 19 operating reactors in the United States that has a 20 number of elements that are foundational to its 21 success, and that reactor oversight program is 22 comprised of two principle things; one is performance 23 indicators, each licensee in the United States, each 24 operating utility is required to report on a 25 quarterly basis to the NRC a set of performance MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
31 1 indicators and weve specified what those indicators 2 are and then collect the data, report them to us and 3 we double-check in the field if that data is actually 4 accurate and representative of the true performance 5 of the plant, and going along with that set of 6 performance indicators is our regular inspection 7 program which is comprised of roughly 2000 hours0.0231 days <br />0.556 hours <br />0.00331 weeks <br />7.61e-4 months <br /> of 8 inspection by both resident inspectors, like Scott 9 Thomas, who is the Senior Resident at Davis-Besse, as 10 well as regional specialists that travel around to 11 different reactor sites. Theyre experts in various 12 technical disciplines, so the performance indicators 13 and the inspection program work together. We call 14 that our routine reactor oversight process.
15 Underpinning or foundational to that reactor 16 oversight process is several items, several things.
17 One is the belief that this industry has been around 18 for a while and its a mature industry. If you look 19 at the safety performance of the nuclear industry 20 over the last decade to 20 years, it has steadily 21 improved and the nuclear plants in the United States 22 are safer today than they have ever been in the past, 23 so it was based on that fact that it was a recognized 24 appreciation that this is a mature industry, and then 25 there are three things that we call crosscutting MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
32 1 issues. One of them is the safety culture of the 2 plant and that is absolutely pivotal to the safety 3 performance of the plant. The second one is the 4 corrective action program. Sometimes youve heard 5 people talk about a learning organization -- you can 6 call it a number of different things, but its an 7 organization that is mature enough to listen to 8 whats going on in the plant and react to it, so that 9 if on day in and day out they find issues, they dont 10 hind hide them, they dont ignore them, they deal with 11 them. We call that the corrective action program, 12 and the third one is capable and competent staff.
13 Theres two aspects, two of those three crosscutting 14 issues that the revelations that occurred last March 15 came through loud and clear, those foundational 16 elements didnt exist, and that is the corrective 17 action program. A number of the issues that you saw 18 in the pictures tonight, those issues were known to 19 members of the plant, corrective action documents 20 called condition reports were initiated and then not 21 adequately resolved. The corrective action program 22 was not functioning effectively, and the second thing 23 is it came through clearly and the company reported 24 to us that they had lost focus on safety, that they 25 were putting production pressures ahead of safety MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
33 1 issues. Because of those issues the agency, the 2 NRC, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, determined that 3 this plant could not -- within our context, we 4 couldnt apply the routine oversight program to 5 Davis-Besse. We have a special -- you might call it 6 a circuit breaker in our inspection program. Its a 7 procedure. Sometimes you have heard at this panel 8 referred to as the 0350 Panel. Thats a procedure.
9 Its Manual Chapter 0350. It describes for those 10 situations when you come into a circumstance that is 11 not appropriate for our routine inspection program, 12 it sets out a set of criteria, so this panel has 13 become the routine inspection program for 14 Davis-Besse. In situations like this, the agency 15 brings together a group of experts from very diverse 16 backgrounds. Bill Dean is the Senior Executive in 17 our headquarters offices. Im a Senior Executive 18 from Chicago. Jons an expert in licensing.
19 Christine is an expert in inspection, the Resident 20 Inspector, and there is a number of typical staff and 21 managers that are on this panel, and we replace the 22 routine oversight program because the commission has 23 lost confidence -- had lost confidence in Davis-Besse 24 that they could effectively function and we could 25 provide effective oversight with our normal MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
34 1 inspection program. So what this panel done is 2 observe day-to-day activities at the plant, and we 3 structure an inspection program thats appropriate 4 for Davis-Besse in its situation today. We were 5 chartered in April, I guess, and one of the 6 expectations of the panel is to identify those key 7 issues that are necessary for resolution if the plant 8 is permitted to restart -- would be permitted to 9 restart. We call that a restart checklist, and 10 weve published that. Its been revised once since 11 it was published. It contains approximately 15 or 12 20 specific items on it covering systems, programs, 13 people, management structures -- a whole plethora of 14 different types of issues that this panel has 15 determined need to be adequately addressed prior to 16 this plant being permitted to restart. Our 17 responsibility as a panel is to provide oversight to 18 gain the resources necessary for both headquarters 19 and the regional offices. Weve had inspectors from 20 our other regions as well as headquarters, contract 21 inspectors out here doing inspections at the plant 22 and provide oversight to those inspections and make 23 sure that before this plant would be permitted to 24 restart, that we are comfortable that it could be 25 restarted and operated safely. The process for that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
35 1 decision -- because I know many of you might be 2 interested in that -- is that this panel would do its 3 work. If we come to the conclusion that we think the 4 plant is ready to restart, then we have to present 5 that to our bosses. My boss is Jim Dyer. Hes a 6 regional administrator in Chicago, the Region III 7 office. Bills boss is Sam Collins, Director of the 8 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Sam has 9 responsibility for every reactor in the United 10 States. Jim has responsibility for the Region III 11 reactors, and we would make a recommendation and have 12 to defend that recommendation to those two gentlemen 13 and only then would a decision be made by the NRC 14 that the plant could restart.
15 The focus of this panel is safety. There 16 have been a number of questions that have come up 17 over the past several months about schedule pressures 18 and things of that nature. Schedule is not our 19 business. The licensee is going to make whatever 20 progress they make. Were going to monitor that 21 progress with appropriate inspection resources and 22 oversight, and as they make progress, were measuring 23 that progress through our independent inspection. We 24 will evaluate whether or not sufficient progress has 25 been made and whether the plant can be operated MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
36 1 safely. Were not at that point yet. As Bill 2 pointed out, theres a lot of work yet to be done, so 3 I wanted to give you a little bit of that foundation 4 of what we are and why were here. There are some 5 other groups working on this project and Amy brought 6 one to light a few minutes ago, and that is our 7 Office of Investigations, completely independent, 8 theyre looking at things that happened before March 9 and theyre looking at why they happened, so that 10 investigation is ongoing. Our Inspector General is 11 looking at us. They report to Congress because we 12 did not perform up to standard either. Our 13 inspection program didnt discover this issue that 14 was progressing over a number of years, so weve got 15 a number of different groups looking at us. Our 16 Inspector General is looking at our performance. In 17 addition to that, Bill mentioned we have a Lessons 18 Learned Task Force that was a group of NRC experts 19 that were brought together that have nothing to do 20 with Davis-Besse, and theyre looking at -- they were 21 chartered to look at a number of the programs and 22 behaviors of the Commission, the staff and the 23 Nuclear Regulatory Commission and why we missed this 24 issue, and they are making recommendations for 25 improvement in our programs, so theres a lot of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
37 1 different activities going on, but this panel itself 2 is responsible from April onward to look at whats 3 necessary to have confidence that this plant can 4 operate safely and measuring whether or not the 5 company is approaching those standards, and if at 6 some time in the future they get there, then well be 7 able to have confidence that the plant can move 8 forward because we will have done an extensive amount 9 of inspection above and beyond our routine type of 10 oversight.
11 So, Christine, why dont I give it back to 12 you, and you can moderate questions.
13 MS. LIPA: Sure. Let me just 14 cover a couple administrative items, first of all.
15 It occurs to me that since there are so many people, 16 you might not have all gotten handouts, but I wanted 17 to let you know that our web site, which is www.nrc.com 18 www.nrc.gov, has a lot of documents. Go to that web 19 site and there is a Davis-Besse link. This is our 20 December newsletter, and on the back page it has 21 contact information for our Public Affairs Officer, I 22 wanted to point out Viktoria Mitlyng in the back and 23 her information, her phone number and her E-mail are 24 all on here if you want to contact her with any 25 questions.
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38 1 Also, we have question cards for anybody who 2 does not want to come up to the podium and ask 3 questions tonight, we have question cards, or you can 4 contact us by E-mail after this meeting and well try 5 to get back to you and answer your questions.
6 The other thing I wanted to pointed out is 7 this meeting is being transcribed. We have Marlene 8 here transcribing the meeting, and what we have been 9 doing for our public meetings for at least six months 10 or so now is, we have a transcript that is available 11 about four weeks after the meeting that we put on our 12 web page. And, again, because its being 13 transcribed when you come up to the podium to ask a 14 question, speak your name clearly for the record and 15 then ask your question. Try to keep it to five 16 minutes, please. Thats important tonight with so 17 many people here, and thats all I have for that. I 18 also wanted to point out a few other NRC folks.
19 Weve got Roland Lickus in the back.
20 MR. LICKUS: (Indicating).
21 MS. LIPA: And hes the State 22 and local Government Affairs from the Region III 23 office. We also have Nancy Keller. Shes our 24 resident office assistant.
25 MS. KELLER: (Indicating).
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39 1 MS. LIPA: We have Jay Collins, 2 hes running the slides for us today. Hes an 3 engineer on rotation from headquarters.
4 MR. COLLINS: (Indicating).
5 MS. LIPA: And there are some 6 other NRC inspectors in the room as well, and then 7 theres Doug Simpkins. Doug Simpkins is in the 8 back. Doug is the Resident Inspector, and he and 9 Scott are the two NRC inspectors that are at the 10 plant day-to-day, and the next -- so next well start 11 with public questions and comments, and I wanted to 12 started with the young group of folks here since you 13 had your hand up earlier, if you guys wanted to go 14 first that would be all right.
15 MS. SHAW: Im a little bit 16 shorter. Hi. My name is Lori Shaw, and Im here 17 with a group of students. I wanted to make a 18 comment and ask two questions.
19 My first comment is -- and Im sure this was 20 not intentional, but I saw a lot of students 21 eyebrows go up, and the comment was, maybe you dont 22 have the depth of knowledge, and my comment when we 23 were at another meeting a comment was made by an NRC 24 person, well, maybe you couldnt read that off the 25 web site, and I just wanted to make a comment that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
40 1 that can be intimidating to people in the audience 2 who want to get up and voice their opinions.
3 The two questions that I have is, one, for 4 the NRC, these students who have been doing some 5 research, theyre 10 to 12 year old -- 13 year olds, 6 sorry, Sam, students -- and before this was announced 7 they had dug up that for 10 years there had been 8 warnings to the NRC and the industry that these 9 nozzles would leak and France had done moisture 10 detective devices, and so the question is why didnt 11 the NRC, when they knew it was a problem, take 12 prevention ahead of time, and why would a group of 13 students come up with a recommendation like this 14 before industry leaders?
15 MS. LIPA: Okay. Well, first of 16 all, thanks for your comment at the beginning. The 17 issue of the nozzle cracking has actually been known 18 for several years in the United States as well, and 19 the NRC has issued generic correspondence which is 20 generic letters and bulletins to the utilities to be 21 on the lookout for this. I dont think it was until 22 recently that it was -- became a big problem, like it 23 has become. Previously, it was just a known 24 phenomenon that could occur so the utilities were 25 expected to do inspections and be on the lookout for MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
41 1 leakage.
2 MS. SHAW: The second question 3 was, I was concerned that maybe I had heard that 4 wrong, was that after you did a start-up trial and 5 let the plant run that they would do visual 6 inspections, and it seemed like that was the thing 7 that got Davis-Besse in the problem in the first 8 place because only through ultrasonic technology and 9 the moisture tapes can we really tell if there is a 10 problem, and so how would that provide accurate 11 information if after start-up if they are only going 12 to do visual inspections?
13 MR. DEAN: Good questions, Lori.
14 Let me embellish first the answer that Christine gave 15 you relative to, you know, what did the NRC know 16 about cracking, it happened in France, how come we 17 didnt do anything about it, and, in fact, we did do 18 a number of things about it, but I think if you look 19 at the Lessons Learned Task Force report that the 20 independent group that Jack talked about and the NRC 21 developed, one of the things that they identified was 22 that while the issue was known in the United States, 23 okay, the approach the United States took was one of 24 increased leakage monitoring, and the fact that what 25 was observed in France and what was observed here MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
42 1 early in the United States were cracks that were of 2 an axle axial orientation which were not considered other 3 than being potential for small leaks of reactor 4 coolant which could be cleaned up and repaired if 5 they occurred, were not a safety issue, and it wasnt 6 until an inspection was done at Oconee, as a result 7 of NRC activities for plants to be conscious and look 8 at this, well, they detected cracks that were of a 9 circumferential nature. In other words, they were 10 now the -- around the nozzles, where if those things 11 were to progress to a through wall position, could 12 then if there were some sort of transient cause 13 ejection, so then now you have a significant safety 14 issue, and that was in the late 90s, 2000 where that 15 issue was discovered at Oconee, and so from that 16 point on, the NRCs posture relative to this cracking 17 issue changed to one where we started issuing a -- as 18 Jack said, bulletins, which are very significant 19 correspondence from the NRC that provides specific 20 guidance to the industry on what to do and how to 21 treat the issue, so we did not approach it the way 22 the French did. The French said, well just replace 23 reactor vessel heads. The agency and the industry 24 took an approach that this is not a significant 25 safety issue because of the axial orientation of the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
43 1 cracks. It wasnt until it became circumferential 2 that that elevated the NRCs safety posture.
3 MS. SHAW: Thank you.
4 MR. GROBE: Bill, why dont you 5 explain why a circumferential crack is of greater 6 concern?
7 MR. DEAN: Jay, can you throw up 8 that --
9 MR. COLLINS: Yeah, wait a second.
10 MR. DEAN: Okay. This is a 11 diagram of a typical control rod drive mechanism 12 nozzle, and what I was referring to is that the 13 cracks that have been observed in France and the ones 14 we observed in the United States were basically 15 cracks of an axial orientations, basically 16 length-wise along that nozzle, and all that would 17 really accomplish or create if this crack became 18 through wall is that you could get leakage and you 19 would get some seepage of boric acid and reactor 20 coolant up here, and as Jack noted earlier once that 21 reactor coolant hits the top of the head, the 22 moisture evaporates and you leave the boric acid 23 crystals, and the boric acid crystals is basically a 24 white powdery substance really are relatively benign 25 as long as theyre not wet. Okay? The issue that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
44 1 occurred here at Davis-Besse was that because of the 2 boric acid that was not removed -- I think Tim noted 3 earlier, okay, that was not removed, they had a crack 4 develop, but you had a cap as you will of boric acid 5 that prevented this seepage from the axial crack in 6 the nozzles from getting up here and evaporating, and 7 basically what you have was basically a formation of 8 a boric acid, kind of a liquid pool of boric acid 9 that is very corrosive, and thats what you saw the 10 results of in that cavity, and thats a direct result 11 of the failure of the licensee to effectively clean 12 the head and be able to inspect and evaluate this 13 area. Okay?
14 Now, to answer the question about 15 circumferential, if you were to have a crack -- a 16 through wall crack in this orientation, you could 17 actually have through a pressure transient 18 separation, which would cause ejection, and now you 19 would have a loss of coolant accident. You would 20 have coolant now coming out through this hole in the 21 reactor vessel and so thats when we elevated our 22 safety -- when we started seeing cracks in a 23 circumferential orientation. Now, we have this 24 concern about possible separation and ejection of the 25 nozzle.
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45 1 MS. SHAW: Thank you. Im not 2 sure after some of the comments the students will 3 feel comfortable getting up and asking stuff, but 4 maybe after the meeting they can share some of their 5 questions and concerns with you.
6 MR. GROBE: I hope so, and I also 7 appreciate your first comments. I wasnt trying to 8 be critical of anybody in the audience. I was being 9 critical of ourselves. Sometimes we lose sight 10 because were so meshed in this and engrossed in 11 everything thats going on, we lose sight of making 12 sure we communicate effectively, and I wanted to make 13 sure we provided sufficient background of information 14 so that you could understand what was going on.
15 We just received a comment, and Im glad 16 somebody is using the question forms. Let me read 17 it, and I think I understand the question, and I can 18 answer it.
19 Acknowledging that Davis-Besse information 20 sharing related to the head condition in late 2001 21 was not accurate, please characterize the licensees 22 recent reporting and sharing -- out of batteries?
23 -- please characterize the licensees recent 24 reporting and sharing of information related to the 25 0350 process.
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46 1 Has Davis-Besse provided accurate timely 2 information to support this review process? The 3 answer to that, to the best of my knowledge, is yes.
4 We have extensive interaction with the licensee 5 almost on a daily basis both from headquarters and 6 the regional office, and I have no experience where 7 information complete and accurate information wasnt 8 provided on a timely basis, and there has been a lot 9 of information sharing, so I appreciate that 10 question.
11 MS. LIPA: Okay. Are there any 12 other local members of the public that would like to 13 come up and ask a question?
14 MS. MUSER: Hi, my name is Mary Jo 15 Muser. I have a brief comment and then a couple 16 questions.
17 The fact that FirstEnergy omitted pictures of 18 the deterioration of the reactor head to the NRC and 19 that the NRC admits that the regulatory process 20 relies heavily on trust between the NRC and the 21 nuclear industry, is not sure that the rust recently 22 found on the bottom of the reactor is not going to 23 entail more cover ups on the safety of this plant in 24 regard to the industry. The NRCs failure to order 25 an immediate shut down when leaks were suspected back MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
47 1 in November of 2001, given the fact that air filters 2 had to be routinely changed every other day due to 3 clogging from airborne rust particles means you 4 failed to comply with your own regulations.
5 Why did you reject an independent panel to 6 review the safety of this plant? Let me finish.
7 Also, seeing how nuclear experts agree that if there 8 had been a core breach, people as far as way as a 500 9 mile radius would get sick of cancers. How can we 10 feel safe with Davis-Besses 10 mile radial 11 evacuation plan.
12 Also, have you ever refused a plant from 13 reopening, and who is going to be held accountable 14 for all this?
15 MS. LIPA: Okay, well, Im not 16 sure I can keep track of all the questions, so let me 17 talk a little bit about the 2.206 petition that you 18 referred to, and that was a request by a group of 19 people to have an independent panel, and the NRC 20 considered that request. We also, as Jack described 21 earlier, when the plant was placed under the 0350 22 process which is a completely different process of 23 inspection than the reactor oversight process, that 24 was one of the bases for why we did not believe an 25 independent panel was warranted because there is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
48 1 additional oversight as a result of the Oversight 2 Panel, thats what most of these people are part of 3 the panel, so thats the answer to that question.
4 Im trying to think -- what was one of the other 5 questions?
6 MS. MUSER: Basically by failing, 7 you failed to comply with your own regulations, so I 8 dont understand why. You really didnt answer why 9 an independent panel -- I think the public would have 10 felt more safely about that. Also about the 11 evacuation plan. A 10 mile radius I dont feel is 12 very effective. I think everybody else would agree 13 with that.
14 MS. LIPA: Well, I dont have the 15 details on that, but I know that that was all built 16 into the licensing basis for the plant, and that was 17 all reviewed before the plant was licensed to operate 18 here, the basis for the 10 mile. I cant get into a 19 lot more specifics on that.
20 Anybody else on the panel that has more on 21 that?
22 MR. GROBE: Sure.
23 MS. MUSER: I mean, if you lived 24 11 miles away and there was a breach of the core, 25 would you evacuate?
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49 1 MR. GROBE: Let me make sure were 2 operating from a sound technical basis here. Theres 3 a number of barriers in a nuclear reactor from the 4 release of radioactive materials. The first barrier 5 is the field fuel pellets themselves. The vast majority 6 of the radioactive materials created in a nuclear 7 reactor is contained within the ceramic pellet of 8 that fuel, and it never leaves that pellet. Each 9 pellet is about the size of the tip of your little 10 finger.
11 The second barrier is the fuel pin itself, 12 and there is a lot of these fuel pins in the reactor, 13 and each one of those is designed to be leak tight.
14 The third barrier is the reactor coolant 15 system, and this is the barrier that was degraded at 16 Davis-Besse. It wasnt breached. It was degraded, 17 it was significantly degraded.
18 And then the fourth barrier is the 19 containment structure, and Scott described earlier 20 the containment structure and how its built at 21 Davis-Besse. Each of these barriers is capable of 22 preventing the release of radioactive materials.
23 Three of those four barriers were still completely 24 intact. The fourth barrier was degraded, so in the 25 event of loss of a coolant accident, thats what we MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
50 1 call if the reactor coolant system had been breached 2 we call that a loss of coolant accident, if in the 3 event of a loss of coolant accident there are a 4 number of safety systems that are designed to 5 mitigate that type of accident, so you have these 6 other barriers, but you also have systems to mitigate 7 the consequences of a lot loss of coolant accident.
8 Those systems -- there is two of everything. We call 9 that redundancy, and in many cases the specific 10 pieces of equipment where there is redundancy or 11 different, we call that diversity, so that you might 12 have a turbine driven pump and a motor driven pump.
13 We try to design things that way, so theres an 14 extraordinarily low risk of what we call common cause 15 failure which would have both systems fail 16 simultaneously when you need them.
17 The only reactor accident that Im aware of 18 that has resulted in significant contamination, a 19 great distance from the plant is the Chernobyl 20 accident. The reactor designs and in the Soviet Union at 21 that time did not have a containment structure. The 22 Chernobyl plant was a very, very significantly 23 different design. Its a graphite moderated gas 24 cooled reactor, so its a very, very different 25 reactor than what we have in the United States.
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51 1 There has been an accident in the United States where 2 there was a loss of coolant situation. That was the 3 Three-Mile Island. At Three-Mile Island, there was 4 no release of radioactive materials of any 5 consequence, and thats because these other barriers 6 provided the defense in-depth that is designed into 7 the safety of nuclear plants in the United States.
8 Now, I dont want anyone to get the 9 impression that what Im doing is -- what Im saying 10 is diminishing the importance of what happened at 11 Davis-Besse. The violations that occurred and the 12 degradation of reactor coolant system is very 13 significant, but there are a number of barriers that 14 are there to prevent the release of radioactive 15 materials and to mitigate the consequences of an 16 accident. The basis for the 10 mile emergency 17 planning zone is founded in good health physics, and 18 health physics is a study of radiation effects on 19 people, and it was concluded that that was an 20 appropriate distance to mitigate the consequences of 21 an accident should it occur.
22 MS. MUSER: Have you ever refused 23 a plant that was deemed unsafe from reopening?
24 MR. GROBE: There have been a 25 number of plants that have not reopened once they MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
52 1 have gotten into this condition. Those decisions 2 were made based on finances by the company that 3 operated the plant. An example in our region, in 4 Region III, the midwest would be the Zion plant 5 outside of Chicago. It got into a situation like 6 this, had a restart oversight panel, an 0350 Panel, 7 and the company eventually determined that it was not 8 in their best interest to restart the plant. What I 9 said earlier and Ill reiterate here because its 10 very appropriate, the focus of this panel is safety, 11 and the plant will not restart unless it can be 12 restarted safely. That could take a short period of 13 time, matter of months, it could take a matter of 14 years depending on how the utility approaches the 15 effort and what kind of progress they make. Were 16 here for the duration, and the plant wont restart 17 unless were comfortable that it can restart safely.
18 If prior to that point in time the company decides 19 not to restart, thats their business decision and is 20 of no concern to this body.
21 MS. MUSER: Thank you.
22 MR. THOMAS: We have a question 23 that was passed up that Ill answer real quick.
24 The question is, how could the NRC let 25 Davis-Besse operate with the six inch hole in the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
53 1 reactor? I guess my quick answer is we wouldnt let 2 it operate with a six inch hole even the degradation 3 that was found, we didnt know that this degradation 4 existed at the time the extension was granted to let 5 it operate until mid February, so the short answer to 6 your question is, we would not let it operate in this 7 condition, and it would be required to be shut down.
8 Hopefully that answered your question.
9 MS. LIPA: Come on up.
10 MR. BLATT: Good evening. Im 11 John Blatt, a resident of Port Clinton, Ottawa 12 County. Davis-Besse is just down the beach from my 13 home on Westshore Boulevard in Port Clinton. Im 14 not a Clevelander or a Columbus resident. Im here 15 as a local. Im former Mayor of the Village of 16 Put-in-Bay, about 10 miles downwind from here. I 17 was a nuclear trained operator in the Navy in the 18 60s and remain current in the industry since then.
19 I believe nuclear energy is absolutely essential to 20 our need to have abundant, low cost electricity in 21 the area for economic use and growth. Suggestions 22 from some to convert this plant to fossil fuel or to 23 close it down are ill-conceived. Coal and oil 24 create pollution which we cannot afford in this 25 tourist area. The trucks or trains to bring the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
54 1 fuel would further congest the region. Nuclear 2 power is state of the art and is the least expensive 3 way to provide the services to us.
4 I understand that the operator and the 5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission made some mistakes and 6 the newspapers are correct and feel confident that 7 the present safeguards would make this a very safe 8 electrical generating facility. I worked with the 9 Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the past and have 10 nothing but confidence and respect for their 11 procedures. Do not let us become another California 12 where well intentioned misguided individuals 13 permitted a state not to prepare for its electrical 14 needs. Thank you.
15 (Applause).
16 MS. LIPA: Thank you for your 17 comments, John.
18 MR. SCHRAUDER: Good evening. My name 19 is Bob Schrauder. Im the Director of the Support 20 Services Department at Davis-Besse, and I wanted to 21 answer a question that the woman prior had, and, 22 first of all, I cannot, will not take responsibility 23 for decisions that were made by past management. I 24 want everybody to understand that when we talk about 25 the management at Davis-Besse the management is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
55 1 different, so when you talk about the management at 2 the plant now, youre talking about me, and so I take 3 it personally, as you would, so I wont respond to 4 what previous management did, what information they 5 had, why they made the decisions that they will, but 6 I do have an answer as to how do we know that the --
7 what were looking at at the bottom vessel will be 8 dealt with openly and honestly and that we will relay 9 accurate information to the very best of our ability 10 to the NRC, and the answer to that question is 11 because Ill make sure we do, and I will put my 12 integrity up against anybodys in the room or in the 13 country. I believe very strongly nuclear power and 14 I believe very strongly in Davis-Besse, and the 15 answer to your question is, you have my word, and 16 that is all I can give you, is my word that I will 17 make sure that to the very best of our ability all of 18 the knowledge that we have relative to the bottom of 19 the reactor vessel will be shared with the public and 20 with the NRC and will be dealt with appropriately.
21 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Bob.
22 (Applause).
23 MR. WHITCOMB: Good evening, Ms.
24 Lipa, gentlemen. My name is Howard Whitcomb. Im 25 a resident of Ottawa County, Im a former employee of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
56 1 Davis-Besse, and I was there when Mr. Schrauder was 2 there. Im also a former NRC inspector.
3 My prepared comments tonight support what 4 Lori said earlier. Its clear to me that the people 5 in Northwest Ohio are a lot smarter than the people 6 in Lisle, Illinois want to give them credit for.
7 Over the last eight months, the NRC has made claims 8 regarding this restart checklist and its intent to 9 assure the public that FirstEnergy corrects the 10 glaring mismanagement problems at Davis-Besse.
11 Noticeably absent tonight from your presentation is 12 any update as to where you are with that restart 13 checklist. Over the last eight months, the public 14 has had to endure repeated attempts by both the NRC 15 and FirstEnergy to mislead and confuse the public 16 regarding important issues at Davis-Besse Nuclear 17 Plant. In other words, the comments raised tonight 18 about the information or the lack of apparent 19 information. A lot of the public gets their 20 information from whats provided to them by the NRC, 21 and if theyre not up to speed its because somebody 22 has carefully and craftily put information out that 23 they only want the public to know about. I have 24 personally raised some issues over the last several 25 months, and based on recent articles provided by the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
57 1 local news media, it is clear that the NRC continues 2 to fail in its efforts to regain the publics trust.
3 In a recent article on December 2nd, the 4 Sandusky Register reported that a particular 5 photograph, and I believe the photograph to be the 6 one that Ms. Ryder raised questions about earlier 7 showing the image of a rust reactor head was not 8 provided by FirstEnergy management pursuant to a 9 request by the NRC in October of 2001. A spokesman 10 for FirstEnergy is quoted as saying, quote, it was 11 there for the asking, unquote. Four days later in a 12 briefing to the members of the Advisory Committee on 13 Reactor Safeguards, you, Mr. Grobe, claimed that the 14 commission has seen definite improvement in the 15 safety culture at Davis-Besse since March 2002. Mr.
16 Grobe, upon what basis do you make such a ridiculous 17 statement?
18 MR. GROBE: Appreciate your 19 question, Howard. Let me respond, first, to a 20 couple of your premises. We are committed to 21 providing full information, full access to the 22 public, to all of the information we know, all of the 23 findings we have. We put ourselves here in front of 24 the public on a monthly basis, and, quite frankly, 25 every time we come to the site, we put ourselves in MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
58 1 front of the public to answer your questions. We 2 have, at which I know you have access to an extensive 3 web site providing all sorts of information. Weve 4 made both video and teleconferencing available for 5 all of our meetings that arent conducted here in 6 Ottawa County. The vast majority, probably well over 7 90% of our meetings are conducted right here, so that 8 the public can come, see what were doing, listen to 9 whats going on, and then in the evenings we provide 10 an opportunity to answer questions. For those that 11 cant make it, we provide transcripts that are 12 available on the web site and also available publicly 13 so that anybody thats interested can get whatever 14 information you want. The basis for my comments to 15 the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards were 16 both my personal experiences over the last eight 17 months or nine months as well as the results of 18 numerous inspections that have been conducted. I 19 think during the month of September and October we 20 had over 20 inspectors at the Davis-Besse plant doing 21 a variety of inspections of programs and systems of 22 activities that the licensee was performing and 23 independent inspections of the design of systems.
24 Its -- its clear to us that there is a demonstrable 25 change in the culture of the organization.
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59 1 Now, the company discussed today during our 2 meeting this afternoon and Bill summarized it earlier 3 that two areas that theyre going to provide more 4 details on in our next monthly meeting, and I invite 5 you to come to the afternoon meeting next month, 6 the -- one of those areas is the leadership of the 7 operation organization at the site, and the 8 initiative that they have undertaken to put the 9 licensed operators back in control of the plant.
10 Theyve concluded that over the past years prior to 11 March, that the organization lost its focus on safety 12 and the operations organization, particularly, lost 13 its focus on safety, and they have undertaken a 14 number of activities to re -- to reinvigorate --
15 thats not the right word, to establish the right 16 foundation that should have existed through the 90s, 17 where the operations organization, the operators that 18 are licensed by the NRC to operate that plant are the 19 ones that are driving the safety culture at 20 Davis-Besse, and thats the way it should be.
21 The second thing that they agreed to provide 22 a broader focus on next month is the activities that 23 they have undertaken to evaluate and measure and 24 monitor the safety culture at the plant. For those 25 of us that are engineers, that seems somewhat odd MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
60 1 because were used to measuring and monitoring 2 equipment that, but, in fact, you can. There are 3 ways to measure things like the culture of 4 organization, there are experts in that, and the 5 company has done surveys in the past of their staff 6 to get a sense of whats going on in the minds of the 7 people that work at plant. They plan on continuing 8 those surveys and augmenting that with a broader 9 overview of the safety culture, and theyre going to 10 report next month on those issues, so those are two 11 things that -- I think I answered your question on 12 what the basis for my statement was. You may not be 13 satisfied with it, but that was the basis for my 14 statement.
15 MR. WHITCOMB: Are there any specific 16 findings that you have?
17 MR. GROBE: Absolutely.
18 MR. WHITCOMB: What are they?
19 MR. GROBE: We issued at least 20 four or five reports in the last three months where 21 we have a number of findings of our inspections.
22 MR. WHITCOMB: Well, what specific 23 changes have you seen at the site that support a 24 change in the safety culture?
25 MR. GROBE: I can give you MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
61 1 examples. I dont pretend that this will be a 2 comprehensive dissertation of -- on safety.
3 UNIDENTIFIED: Can we have five 4 minutes? I can give you the five rule.
5 MR. GROBE: Let me try to answer 6 the question, and then if some of the FirstEnergy 7 people want --
8 MR. WHITCOMB: Is this a meeting for 9 the NRC to answer the questions, or is this a meeting 10 for FirstEnergy --
11 MR. GROBE: Howard, in the past 12 youve complained that FirstEnergy wouldnt come to 13 these meetings.
14 (Applause).
15 MR. WHITCOMB: Youre correct, Jack.
16 MR. GROBE: Im sorry.
17 MR. WHITCOMB: Youre correct, Jack, 18 but Ive also complained in the past that FirstEnergy 19 and the NRC are sharing the same bed.
20 (Applause).
21 MR. GROBE: Please, lets show 22 some respect here. Lets keep these comments 23 professional, and Id appreciate no reactions like 24 that from the people in the audience, please. Im 25 trying to think of where I was a minute ago, Howard.
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62 1 MR. WHITCOMB: Well, I asked for some 2 specifics and what had --
3 MR. GROBE: You asked for 4 specifics, okay. A number of things that the 5 licensee has initiated under what they call their --
6 now, I cant remember the name. Its something like 7 the management organizational effectiveness building 8 block. Theyve structured their restart activities 9 under a series of what they call Building Blocks.
10 Theres one for systems and one for programs, and 11 there is one that deals with the people in the 12 organization, and theres been a variety of 13 activities that they have undertaken, which from my 14 perspective, are bearing fruit. Those activities 15 include first documenting the management culture and 16 expectation with respect to safety, and there have 17 been documents issued by Peter Berg, Chairman of the 18 Board; Bob Saunders, President of FirstEnergy, as 19 well as Lew Myers, the Chief Operating Office and 20 second Vice President on his expectations for 21 peoples behavior in a safety culture in a nuclear 22 power plant.
23 In addition to that, Lew has had meetings 24 with several hundred employees, small group meetings 25 where they talk about issues. Theyve had training MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
63 1 on safety conscience work environment. Theyve 2 brought in experts in the industry that have worked 3 at other nuclear plans including Millstone, 4 reestablishing a safety culture there, and theyve 5 provided training to every supervisor in safety 6 culture and safety conscious work environment, so 7 these are just a couple of the examples of actions 8 the company has taken. We have not inspected all of 9 those activities, but we have begun through our 10 inspections to see the fruits of those activities, 11 and those are comprehensive self-assessments.
12 Weve concluded and reported on at our last 13 monthly meeting, and I believe you were at that one, 14 that the process and the reviews that the company is 15 performing in the area of programs and systems have 16 been robust, that the evaluation of the equipment 17 inside containment was completed. We completed our 18 inspection in that area. The company has undertaken 19 a number of activities and is spending a great deal 20 of money to make improvements to the plant that are 21 not required by the NRC that go far beyond minimum 22 requirements. I think thats another indicator of a 23 different attitude towards safety, so those are a 24 number of indicators, but what I would like to emphasis 25 emphasize is that we havent made a decision. What I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
64 1 said to the ACRS is I have seen demonstrable 2 indicators of improvement in the culture. I havent 3 said the work is done.
4 We have -- we began our inspection in this 5 area, and that inspection is ongoing and will be 6 ongoing for the next couple of months where we 7 evaluate the adequacy of the corrective actions and 8 the effectiveness of their implementation and at the 9 completion of that inspection before this plant is 10 allowed to restart we will have confirmed 11 independently that the safety culture has changed, so 12 I think that answers your question.
13 MR. WHITCOMB: Would you agree or 14 disagree that the statement I quoted earlier, it was 15 there for the asking, comes from a safety conscious 16 environment or not?
17 MR. GROBE: No, thats not an 18 appropriate response. The NRC --
19 MR. WHITCOMB: That was from the 20 FirstEnergy --
21 MR. GROBE: Excuse me, Howard. I 22 was answering your question. The NRC has made it 23 clear, and I think Brian Sheron was the next one 24 quote in that article, as well as Sam Collins, who is 25 the Director from the office of Nuclear Reactor MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
65 1 Regulation, and his deputy for technical assessment 2 which is Brian Sheron. They both stated publicly 3 that had they seen that picture which we put up on 4 the screen earlier that the plant would have been 5 shut down. It was very clear that there was 6 corrosion going on in the head, so, clearly, thats 7 not acceptable. The NRC asked for information and 8 was not provided complete information. Theres 9 about -- Im estimating six or eight examples of that 10 documented and inspection report that I believe was 11 issued in August of examples of inaccurate 12 information both with internal records as well as 13 submittals to the NRC and the root cause of those 14 inaccuracies. Those are things that occurred in the 15 past as being evaluated by our Office of 16 Investigations, so what Im talking about is 17 something going forward, and, no, I would agree that 18 thats not an appropriate response to that question.
19 MR. WHITCOMB: But since that comment 20 was made about a week ago, doesnt that draw any 21 concerns on the part of the NRC that that still is 22 lingering in FirstEnergys ranks?
23 MR. GROBE: Youll have to ask --
24 youll have to ask why the individual that made that 25 comment made it and what the context was. Thats a MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
66 1 FirstEnergy person.
2 MR. WHITCOMB: Well, Im asking you 3 as the NRC.
4 MR. GROBE: The objective evidence 5 that we see from our inspection programs and the 6 assessments that we review -- and we will continue 7 doing those assessments, and well continue to bring 8 you results of those publicly to you and these other 9 folks here in the room on a monthly basis, and well 10 continue to respond to your questions on a monthly 11 basis.
12 MR. WHITCOMB: Well, Im hearing you 13 say that youre not concerned about the statement.
14 MR. GROBE: Thats not what I 15 said, Howard.
16 MR. WHITCOMB: Okay.
17 MR. GROBE: What I said was I Ive seen 18 objective and demonstrable evidence of a change in 19 nature --
20 MR. WHITCOMB: But I'm talking about 21 a specific concept --
22 MR. GROBE: Howard, please let me 23 answer your question.
24 MR. WHITCOMB: You're not answering 25 my question, Jack, that's the problem. You're not MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
67 1 answering it.
2 MR. GROBE: No, you dont like 3 the answer that Im giving you.
4 MR. WHITCOMB: No, youre not 5 answering it. Im talking about a very specific 6 statement.
7 Okay, it is a concern to the NRC or not? Not 8 Jack Grobe personally, the NRC?
9 MR. GROBE: If I believed, the 10 NRC believed, if we believe that that was, in fact, 11 the culture of the organization, I would be 12 concerned. The statement made was very 13 inappropriate. It was concerning something that 14 happened in the past where the NRC asked for 15 information and was not provided complete 16 information. Please step back.
17 UNIDENTIFIED: Oh, Im sorry. I 18 thought he was finished.
19 MR. GROBE: Yes, the statement 20 made was inappropriate, was not reflective of an 21 appropriate safety culture as reported in the 22 newspaper.
23 MR. WHITCOMB: Okay.
24 MR. GROBE: Do you have another 25 question, just one more, if you dont mind, because MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
68 1 weve probably exceeded our five minute limit?
2 MR. WHITCOMB: Well, I think you 3 exceeded the five minute limit. I dont know that I 4 have.
5 What about the restart checklist, why isnt 6 that part of the presentation?
7 MR. GROBE: I dont know -- that 8 was an oversight.
9 MS. LIPA: Yeah, I was thinking 10 about that after you said that, and, actually, thats 11 a good suggestion. What we did during the afternoon 12 meeting was we put up the bullets that are on the 13 restart checklist and in each of the inspection 14 reports that we issue, the cover letter describes 15 which restart checklist its covering and whats 16 still open, so we didnt have any -- there is none 17 that are closed yet, but I think its a good 18 suggestion. I think well do that in future 19 meetings.
20 MR. WHITCOMB: Youve done it in the 21 past.
22 MS. LIPA: Well, to give like an 23 update as far as and here -- you know, this is what 24 we covered during the 2:00 meeting, we covered the 25 items on the restart checklist. We talked about some MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
69 1 of them and their status, but we didnt go into a lot 2 of detail, and I think that we should probably do 3 better on that one.
4 MR. WHITCOMB: Thank you.
5 MR. THOMAS: Can I slip in a 6 question from the audience?
7 Why hasnt the NRC released the tape of 8 reactor inspections, and Im not real clear on what 9 this question is, and if you have -- if I dont 10 answer your question, please approach me after the 11 meeting, and Ill try again, but I believe what 12 youre asking is about the videos of the head 13 inspections. Those have been released in a number 14 of venues. There have been Freedom of Information 15 Act request, that -- they have been released as part 16 of that. They have been released as part of 17 congressional inquiries, so Im not real clear on 18 what your question is, but please feel free to 19 approach me afterwards, and Ill try to clear it up.
20 MS. LIPA: One of the things I 21 would like to cover about that topic is, we received 22 a lot of documents. They dont all necessarily get 23 issued. There certainly can be some of them. Some 24 of them are documents that we get while were on site 25 doing inspections. We dont necessarily publish all MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
70 1 those. Usually by reference in our report of what 2 item we used and what document it was that we used to 3 make our decision, but we dont necessarily issue all 4 of those reports, but when we get a Freedom of 5 Information Act request, we do look at the documents 6 that are being requested if we have them in our 7 possession. If they are not proprietary -- there 8 are certain rules on things we cant release, but Im 9 sure thats what we would do with the tapes if they 10 were requested. Go ahead.
11 MR. GRIMM: My name is John Grimm.
12 I didnt really intend to come up here and speak, Im 13 a bit nervous. First of all, Im here to talk about 14 the safety culture at the plant. I came from the 15 Perry Power Plant three months ago, and I came here 16 because three of my friends who Ive worked for in 17 the past said they needed some help, and they needed 18 some help changing the culture at the Davis-Besse 19 plant, and I can tell you the first step that this 20 place made was to take proven individuals who have 21 safety conscious culture built into their careers and 22 have proven that performance, take the help to 23 Davis-Besse. I have been here for three months and 24 I can tell you right now that I have seen changes, 25 but Ive also been at days where we all have been MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
71 1 overwhelmed at the huge amount of work that lies 2 ahead of us, but we know it has to be done prior to 3 even us considering restart of the plant. Im 4 participating in implementing change on both the 5 safety culture and some of the processes that might 6 be streamlined so we can free up people to 7 concentrate on safety. Im also taking part in 8 changing peoples basic decision-making that becomes 9 the basis for a safety culture. Ive learned this 10 because I have been in the nuclear industry for 11 almost 25 years. I started on a consulting firm, 12 Three-Mile Island was a client of ours. Ive got 13 samples and data from Three-Mile Island by the 14 accident it was happening and it moved me very 15 greatly, and I can also attest that Three-Mile Island 16 was a reactor that saw the most severe accident that 17 this country has ever seen, and I have analyzed the 18 samples that would have proven what radioactive 19 materials went out of there, and they werent 20 significant. Its very unfortunate that this plant 21 is where it is, but I have seen intimately inside of 22 containment the improvements were making. Im 23 familiar with the designs we are making in the plant 24 today. They are robust. Were lining portions of 25 this plant with one inch thick stainless steel so MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
72 1 that we can protect valves that have to be available 2 during accidents. Were volunteering this. Were 3 looking for stuff that I have never ever seen in a 4 new plant before. Weve uncovered things that were 5 fixing, and Ive crawled around new plants all my 6 life, and I havent seen these things. Weve had 7 hundreds of people crawling through containment for 8 months looking for where boric acid has caused any 9 damage to any component, and we have not shied away 10 from one particular component that might have had any 11 damage. I have seen this. We have 900 corrective 12 actions or condition reports that we will have to 13 address before we even think about starting this 14 plant up. I know the people personally. I have 15 children. I have lived near nuclear plants all my 16 life. Were technical people. Were not used to 17 talking like this in from of people, but I can tell 18 you were very thorough. What I do know about some 19 of the people who are -- or some of the things Ive 20 heard is that I sense that the statements come from 21 the fact that conclusions are drawn and data is being 22 gathered to support those conclusions, and what I 23 mean is I hear a lot of people that have concluded 24 that Davis-Besse should shut down. What I can tell 25 you is that we have not concluded that Davis-Besse MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
73 1 should start up. Were worried that it wont, but 2 were working very hard to make it so.
3 (Applause).
4 MS. LIPA: Thank you, John.
5 MR. POWERS: My name is Jim Powers, 6 Director of Engineering at FENOC. Like John, I came 7 over from the Perry Plant, FENOCs Perry plant 8 shortly after the degradation was found. I came on 9 board to help improve standards here. I came on 10 board to help turn the plant around, and, Jack, you 11 were asked what objective evidence are you seeing of 12 change in culture, and I just wanted to say, the past 13 two days Ive spent reviewing and signing out, 14 approving reports that weve done in this case on our 15 system reviews and 36 reports, enough of them to 16 cover a large conference table with technical work 17 thats been done. Very critical technical work 18 pointing out problems, things that people want to 19 improve lead by our system engineers, getting into 20 very specific areas with a lot of technical detail.
21 Now, in the industry one of the most 22 important things that we hold dear is being 23 self-critical, having a questioning attitude. Its 24 one of the things that may have lead to the head 25 degradation, the lack of questioning attitude and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
74 1 being effective in questioning each other in the past 2 and all I can tell you from what I seen in the past 3 two days going through the reports that weve 4 prepared out at the plant that that is turning around 5 substantially, you know, the quality of the reports, 6 the thoroughness of the reports and we can see it, 7 and you can see it back here on the wall.
8 What weve got posted are indicators. These 9 are the corrective actions that weve written as a 10 result of our reviews. Every time we find an issue 11 we think we need to investigate and follow-up on, we 12 document it. We write it down, and then we 13 investigate it, and we work on it, and all of those 14 documented problems are available for review, either 15 by the NRC, INPOW INPO, any of our oversight 16 organizations, our quality assurance as well, so its 17 all very open at the plant, and you can see the 18 number of issues that have been generated back there.
19 You can see also see the curves and performance 20 indicators turning and the work off of those problems 21 gaining momentum towards the restart of the plant, so 22 the staff out there is focused not only on finding 23 the issues, but on resolving them, and I think weve 24 got the objective evidence of that right up on the 25 wall.
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75 1 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Jim.
2 What Id like to -- oh, did you want to make 3 a comment?
4 MR. DEAN: No, no. I had a 5 question from the audience.
6 MS. LIPA: What I wanted to do 7 is take a break, though, because its been over an 8 hour and a half already, and we need to give our 9 transcriber a break, and then you two can be first 10 right after the break, so lets take five minutes.
11 Okay?
12 THEREUPON, a brief recess took place.
13 MS. LIPA: Hello, lets get ready 14 to get going.
15 MR. DEAN: Okay, I wanted to 16 address one of the questions that was asked earlier 17 about the tapes of the reactor inspections, and Scott 18 had given an answer that had intimated that those 19 tapes were available for public release. In 20 reality, those tapes were things that we became aware 21 of and review as part of our Augmented Inspection 22 Team activities in the aftermath of discovering the 23 degradation in the vessel head, but those tapes are 24 what is called proprietary information. They have 25 been provided based on a request from Congressmen MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
76 1 Tauzin and Gillmor as part of their efforts to 2 investigate and understand the situation from their 3 perspective, and so they have the tapes, but they are 4 what we call proprietary which means they are not 5 releasable for public dissemination.
6 Another question came up with respect to, 7 basically, why didnt the NRC pick up the boric acid 8 build up as part of our inspections. Thats a good 9 question. Certainly its a big question we have been 10 asking ourselves. That was one of the keys of the 11 Lessons Learned Task Force that looked at the NRCs 12 practices and why didnt we pick up on this issue.
13 I will describe a couple things about our inspection 14 program. I think Jack mentioned earlier our 15 inspection program is basically a sampling process.
16 You know, these nuclear power plants are large, very 17 complex sites that have a multitude of equipment, 18 systems, components, structures, that we have 19 basically two resident inspectors on site, plus 20 periodic visits from region based inspectors to look 21 at very specific things. Our inspection program is 22 designed around trying to focus on those things with 23 our limited resources that are most significant, 24 those things that have the capability to have the 25 most significance, and I would say that, perhaps, one MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
77 1 of our failings in this issue relative to the reactor 2 vessel head was our belief that, you know, these 3 reactor vessels are very huge, thick steel, carbon 4 steel structures, that, you know, are basically 5 impregnable and our focus of some of our inspections 6 really are on places where there are connections, 7 things like welded pipes, and, of course, we had had 8 the information relative to the cracks, the first 9 lady, Lori, who had questioned -- asked questions 10 about the French nozzle cracking and why didnt we 11 take the same approach the French did, but we had in 12 place our requirements and expectations that licensee 13 would monitor those penetrations for potential 14 leakage, and that gets to a real basic premise of the 15 NRCs oversight of nuclear power plants is that the 16 ultimate responsibility for operating these plants 17 safely has to lie in the hands of the licensee, okay?
18 We cant be everywhere. We cant look at 19 everything. We have to pick our spots and try to 20 focus on those things, and, unfortunately, in this 21 case, the reactor vessel head was not necessarily an 22 area that we had integrated into our inspection plan.
23 It wasnt an area that we would necessarily include 24 in our samples of things we would look at.
25 Obviously, a lesson learned from there is, you know, MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
78 1 maybe that is an area that ought to be included in 2 our sample plan. It ought to be something that ought 3 to be looked at in a different way than we have in 4 the past, and, you know, that kind of points up to 5 one of, I think, for me one of the key learnings from 6 this is that if you look at the Lessons Learned Task 7 Force report, you know, their bottom line is that 8 this event was preventable. It was preventable both 9 from an industry and licensee perspective, but it 10 also was preventable from an NRC perspective. There 11 were things that were occurring at the plant that 12 maybe if we had connected all the dots properly, we 13 would have tumbled to them, and we would have asked 14 the right questions, and maybe would have spurred the 15 licensee to find the issue. Unfortunately, it took 16 a number of bulletins for us to issue that founding 17 of the licensee show to look at that more closely 18 where they actually found the degradation, and, of 19 course, it was too late at that point, but the big 20 learning is that, do we appropriately integrate 21 operating experience that we gain both from 22 international and domestic experience and do we as an 23 agency -- you know, this boric acid issue was an 24 issue, as Jack said, back in the 80s. We issued a 25 generic letter back in 1988. We went out an MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
79 1 inspected various licensees, including Davis-Besse to 2 look at their boric acid corrosion control programs, 3 and we assured ourselves that licensees had indeed 4 put in place appropriate programs to monitor their 5 boric acid corrosion control, and, basically, we 6 didnt really look too much at it after that, and so 7 thats probably the other failure besides operating 8 experience is that perhaps we have a need 9 periodically to go back and look at these safety 10 issues that we think we have resolved by putting in 11 place guidance and asking licensee to put in place 12 programs, maybe we need to be a little bit more 13 proactive in looking at those more periodically, so 14 those -- you know, those are -- thats kind of a 15 long-winded answer to a very good question, but it 16 does provide some learnings for us as the NRC, and 17 those are two of the major ones that I have taken on 18 in this whole evolution.
19 MS. LIPA: Okay, thanks, Bill, 20 and then I told you guys you could go next, and after 21 that, I want to make sure we get the local members of 22 the public before we go to other members of the 23 public, but come on up.
24 MR. RHODES: So far, so good 25 because I am local.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
80 1 MS. LIPA: Great!
2 MR. RHODES: I live in Oak Harbor, 3 Ohio. My name is Steve Rhodes. Id like to --
4 mines going to be comments basically, but I would 5 like to say that I have every belief that the people, 6 the professionals that will be responsible for 7 restarting this plant will use safety as their 8 driving issue. I cant believe it would be any 9 other way.
10 My statement is basically different on a 11 front, though. As a property owner and taxpayer and 12 a resident of Salem Township in Ottawa County, since 13 the 1970s, our community has taken a calculated risk 14 by allowing the Davis-Besse plant to operate in our 15 backyard.
16 As a degreed mechanical engineer, I assure 17 you that I am completely familiar with those risks.
18 In exchange, we have been the beneficiaries of a 19 significantly better economy. An economy that 20 benefits our local business, schools, Government 21 entities and our families. For over nine months I 22 have watched and waited patiently for people like 23 U.S. representative Marcy Kaptur, U.S. representative 24 Dennis Kucinich and others, some have made comments 25 tonight, to take a break from a tax on our nuclear MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
81 1 power plant and present us with a plan to replace the 2 economically devastating loss of funds that could 3 result in facing the closing of this plant.
4 As an elected member of the Benton Carroll 5 Salem Local Board of Education, I can tell you that 6 we are already struggling with the issues and early 7 effects of deregulation on our school funding. I 8 could not imagine the damage that would result to our 9 community should this plant be closed for good.
10 Its apparent to me that these people have no such 11 funding alternatives since they do not represent the 12 interest of the local people like me. I would 13 respectfully suggest that they -- until they have an 14 alternative plan that would address all of the issues 15 that maybe those statements should cease. Its safe 16 to say that anyone living in the community who is 17 comfortable with this hugely beneficial relationship 18 have the opportunity -- Im sorry, was uncomfortable 19 with relationship that was uncomfortable with nuclear 20 power, have the opportunity to cash in properties at 21 elevated prices because of this plant and move to an 22 area that was more suited to their needs. The rest 23 of us chose to stay here and share that burden and 24 benefit. Im tired of hearing from a small group of 25 individuals who receive the economic benefits but MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
82 1 cant seem to find the backbone to uphold their end 2 of the bargain. I would respectfully request that 3 the influx of people who have chosen our unfortunate 4 incident as a way to further their cause pack up and 5 go home. This is a local issue. It is our issue, 6 and we need to have the input from the local, the 7 local input. Thats important to me. For those 8 people who are left, the concerned people who are 9 left that are taken out of this group -- and I am 10 fairly sure we are the majority, we need to come 11 together to remove the road blocks so that we can 12 solve this very dangerous problem and assure that it 13 never happens again. We need to get this plant up 14 and running. Weve talked about it long enough.
15 We need to make sure the actions stay forward and not 16 lose sight of what the goals are to safely restart 17 this plant.
18 I urge the NRC, FirstEnergy, plant employees, 19 local officials, the media, and our entire, to stop 20 the unproductive finger-pointing and get on with the 21 business of restoring safe operation of this 22 facility. I would argue that we have the most 23 qualified workers in the world from the nuclear power 24 industry working right here in our community. Its 25 time to let these people do their jobs and train them MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
83 1 in whatever it takes to make this a save safe environment, 2 make sure that they have the tools to do the job.
3 Lets utilize this talent, make the necessary 4 corrections in procedure to overcome operational 5 shortcomings and move on. At one point in time this 6 plant was a star in the nuclear industry. I am 7 confident if everyone cooperates we will regain that 8 status once again. Thank you.
9 (Applause).
10 MS. LIPA: Thank you for your 11 comments.
12 MR. SHUTT: Good evening. Im Dan 13 Shutt. Im here as an independent contractor working 14 at Davis-Besse and to help get the plant restarted.
15 I had no intention of coming up here and speaking 16 tonight. I wanted to see what this is like, but 17 being that Im a father with children ranging from 10 18 to 15, when I heard the teacher mention her opening 19 comment about Mr. Grobe, you know, assessment saying 20 that perhaps not everybody has the information they 21 need to be properly educated or whatever, it occurred 22 to me that the reason I got into this business back 23 in 1979 was because of Chernobyl. When I was coming 24 out of high school, I didnt know what I wanted to 25 do. I ended up getting a degree in nuclear MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
84 1 engineering specifically because of that, and since 2 that time I have had the opportunity to work at a 3 variety of different plants. I was fortunate enough 4 to be at the opening of two plants in Pennsylvania.
5 Ive gone on the road as a contractor. I have been 6 to Cook, which was also going through the 0350 7 process, a shut down, rather extended shut down. I 8 got here a little bit before John Grimm from Perry.
9 I was working up there for a whole other issue.
10 Ive seen good sides, and Ive seen bad sides, and 11 the point that I wanted to make here was that the 12 most important people in the room in my mind are the 13 students that have come to see whats going on 14 because thats the kind of country we live. If you 15 want to look around youre going to see kind of three 16 distinct parts to this puzzle. On one side, youve 17 got utility, which has a financial interest, which 18 has a whole bunch of smart guys working towards a 19 goal to provide a safe, reliable source of energy for 20 everybody. Another side of this puzzle is the 21 regulators who have been called under scrutiny 22 themselves because of apparent problems within their 23 own oversight admitted and in the process of being 24 corrected, but the third piece of the puzzle, I think 25 sometimes gets a bad rap, and that is theres a lot MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
85 1 of people that come here to work real hard. Ive 2 come from a distance to work at this plant. My 3 children are 600 miles away. Theres a lot of 4 people that work for the utility working very hard on 5 this plant to try and get it restarted, doing their 6 best intention, very smart people. Same with the 7 regulators, they are putting a lot of hours in, 8 taking time from their families, taking time to do 9 public meetings in the evenings, but I dont want to 10 boo-hoo the people that have come from far out of 11 town to speak their mind on an issue, because thats 12 the nature of this country. Its exactly that that 13 allows this plant to not to be a Chernobyl, and 14 thats important to remember. We talk about the 15 technical aspects of the design of a Chernobyl, 16 thats -- thats -- maybe thats over my head, and I 17 have been in the industry a while, but the fact 18 remains that a Chernobyl could not be licensed in 19 this country because we have regulatory bodies like 20 this, but, more importantly, it could not be licensed 21 in this county because we have well-meaning -- if 22 some people say misinformed, disinformed, 23 misdirected, whatever, but still well-meaning and 24 hard-working advocates who are watching and were 25 raising questions and asking questions. I have MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
86 1 worked in jobs long enough to know that theres times 2 when youre working and you see something so clearly, 3 as you did, about how is it that you can see those 4 rust stains and it wouldnt occur to you that theres 5 a problem, you know, how can a student body here --
6 one of the comments you made was it was so obvious to 7 you why would it escape the regulators, and I can 8 tell you that more than one time I sat at my desk and 9 wondered whats wrong with my boss and his boss and 10 the other boss, that they couldnt see something that 11 I could see so plainly, so my only comment tonight is 12 Im glad youre here, and Im glad you get the 13 opportunity to participate in this and learn 14 something because its exactly that about this 15 society bringing youth into it, bringing public 16 advocates into it, bringing all sides of the 17 discussion together. In the end, reason always 18 falls on the side of the right decision, and I 19 believe, my own personal spot, that reason falls on 20 the side of restarting this plant doing it in a safe, 21 carefully guarded, carefully watch and carefully 22 rewatched method. Whos watching the watchers, 23 thats what I love about this country, there is 24 always somebody on it, somebody watching, so -- I 25 feel safe, I live within a mile of this plant. I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
87 1 could walk there. Thats it.
2 MS. LIPA: Thanks for your 3 comments, Dan.
4 (Applause).
5 MS. LUEKE: Hi.
6 MS. LIPA: Hi.
7 MS. LUEKE: My name is Donna 8 Lueke, and Im a local resident. I live in 9 Marblehead, and I have several questions. Most of 10 them are factual.
11 A while ago, the employees were surveyed, in 12 fact, they have been surveyed twice as far as I know 13 about their confidence in the management and because 14 there was a big concern about the corporate culture 15 not responding to the questions that the employees 16 had about the safety issues, and that they were 17 concerned that they couldnt take those issues to 18 their managers, and since those that work at the 19 plant are the ones that are in the first line of 20 danger, theyre the ones most likely to lose jobs if 21 the plant closes down. I think we really need to 22 hear from them again, and do you know if there is a 23 plan to survey the employees again and find out what 24 their level of confidence is in the management now 25 because it looks like there have been a lot of MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
88 1 changes in management. There are a lot of good 2 things that were hearing tonight, but I want to know 3 what the people that work there day-to-day, my 4 neighbors and friends, what they have to say, do they 5 trust whats happening because they have been burned 6 by whats happened in the past. How do they feel 7 about the new management? Do they feel they go to 8 them? Do they feel they can talk about safety 9 issues?
10 MS. LIPA: Well, thats a good 11 question, and I can tell you we did talk about this 12 at a couple of the previous public meetings during 13 the afternoon. We didnt really get into it really 14 too much today, but the utility does have plans to 15 assess their safety conscience work environment and 16 do more work in that area. The NRC also has plans 17 to do more inspections in the area of what the 18 utility is finding and what we find ourselves talking 19 to the folks in the field, so there is more work 20 planned for that. I cant give you a status 21 tonight, though.
22 MS. LUEKE: Wouldnt it be 23 helpful to use the same kind of survey that was used 24 before? I think it was an independent survey.
25 MS. LIPA: Well, possibly. I MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
89 1 mean, theres a lot to survey science, so I cant 2 tell for sure if you just keep taking the same survey 3 over and over again if thats the best indicator of 4 change in safety conscious work environment, but 5 thats one of the things on our plate to assess.
6 MR. THOMAS: Christine, the 7 licensee has said that they will resurvey their 8 employees, so the answer to your question is, yes, 9 they will resurvey. Whether it will be identical to 10 the type of survey they did previously, we dont know 11 that, but they have said they will resurvey their 12 employees.
13 MS. LUEKE: I guess the benefit 14 would be that you have a baseline to work from and a 15 place for comparison.
16 For the first time, the management at 17 FirstEnergy, in fact, I believe it was Mr. Berg has 18 talked about the possibility of Davis-Besse not 19 restarting, and I believe thats significant and that 20 was mentioned by another person tonight also that 21 that is a very real possibility.
22 If FirstEnergy decides to not restart 23 Davis-Besse, if they make that decision as a business 24 decision, what happens then?
25 Whats the NRCs involvement? How long does MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
90 1 it take to shut down a facility?
2 MS. LIPA: Well, theres a whole 3 process if they do make that decision to 4 decommissioning and the whole bit. Im not sure how 5 long it really takes, but theres a whole process 6 thats already been established. Other plants have 7 been through that process.
8 MS. LUEKE: How long has it taken 9 other plants?
10 MR. DEAN: Christine, let me help 11 you out here. We have an organization at NRC that 12 is focused expressly on the decommissioning of 13 nuclear power plants, and they can take any form. A 14 lot of it depends on what approach the licensee wants 15 to take. Does the licensee want to take an approach 16 were -- because with the plan, what we call a safe stored 17 storage situation where basically they just, you know, 18 kind of button everything up and let it sit for a 19 while, or do they want to take a very proactive 20 approach and actually dismantle the plant, ship off 21 all the components and basically return the plant to 22 what we call a greenfield concept, which basically 23 means its habitable, okay? And, so, a lot depends 24 on what approach they decide to take. I will say 25 taking the plants that have taken the aggressive MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
91 1 approach, for example, theres a small nuclear power 2 plant in Massachusetts called Yankee Rowe which took 3 the approach to dismantle the plant, you know, I 4 dont even think -- Jon, help me out here. I dont 5 know -- that started almost a decade ago at least 6 and --
7 MR. HOPKINS: And its still 8 ongoing.
9 MR. DEAN: -- its still 10 ongoing, yeah, but most of -- a lot of the major 11 components have been dismantled and shipped off.
12 They have not yet reached the point of a greenfield 13 concept.
14 MR. HOPKINS: I think Maine Yankee 15 is the best one. Theres a plant in Maine called 16 Maine Yankee which shut down, is going into 17 decommissioning, and I think they have done the most, 18 have been the most successful for a big plant, and 19 they still have someone watching them, so it takes 20 years.
21 MR. DEAN: Maine Yankee has 22 gotten to the point where they taken a large area 23 where -- which incorporated the nuclear power plant 24 site and have now narrowed that to a much smaller 25 area which basically consists of the fuel storage MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
92 1 area, and so -- so theres a variety there, but if 2 the plant were to get to that point, what we would 3 have is a decommissioning group comes out and has 4 public meetings much like this to explain to the 5 pubic what is the process, what are the different 6 options, and so its a very public -- they have a 7 very proactive public posture in terms of informing 8 people.
9 MS. LUEKE: Because one of the 10 commitments that was made when Davis-Besse was first 11 opened was that after a fixed period of time it would 12 be returned to -- what do you call it, greenfield?
13 MR. DEAN: Uh huh.
14 MS. LUEKE: Greenfield state, and 15 naturally since the plant here is surrounded by 16 national wildlife refuge, by areas that are being 17 expanded into eco-tourism, and so I just wanted to 18 comment on that, that was a commitment that was made.
19 How long is Davis-Besses license now 20 currently?
21 MR. GROBE: The license is for 40 22 years. I dont remember when it started.
23 MR. THOMAS: I believe its 2017.
24 MR. GROBE: 2017.
25 MR. THOMAS: Im getting head MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
93 1 shakes from the licensees personnel, so 2017.
2 MS. LUEKE: Has FirstEnergy 3 applied for renewal at this point?
4 MR. THOMAS: No.
5 MS. LUEKE: I know that several 6 nuclear power plants have applied for renewal 7 licenses. Have all of those been granted?
8 MR. DEAN: All of the plants 9 that have applied for license renewal have thus far, 10 I think theres been four or five that have 11 successfully gone through the license renewal 12 process. There are a number of plants that in 13 process now where reviews are ongoing and assessment 14 is being done whether to grant them their license 15 renewal extension or not, so --
16 MS. LUEKE: You mentioned that the 17 plant that was completely returned to -- or the most 18 pristine that has been returned to at this point, 19 still had the fuel pool there --
20 MR. HOPKINS: Correct, fuel storage.
21 MS. LUEKE: -- fuel storage there.
22 Is that the used fuel?
23 MR. HOPKINS: Yes, thats the used 24 fuel.
25 MS. LUEKE: And where does that MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
94 1 go now?
2 MR. GROBE: Currently, the 3 Department of Energy has a process underway to obtain 4 the licensing -- a license for the Yuca Mountain 5 long-term storage facility in Nevada, and thats in 6 the licensing process. That storage facility hasnt 7 been approved. Until some sort of long-term storage 8 or reprocessing is approved, fuel like at that plant 9 or also at the Big Rock plant, many plants across the 10 country have what is referred to as dry cask storage, 11 and they store used fuel on site.
12 MS. LUEKE: So its on site 13 everywhere at this point?
14 MR. GROBE: Yes.
15 MS. LUEKE: So even if were 16 returned to a greenfield situation there is nowhere 17 to go with this spent fuel at this point?
18 MR. GROBE: Right.
19 MS. LIPA: Thats correct.
20 MS. LUEKE: Okay. I think 21 that -- oh, just two more factual questions.
22 MS. LIPA: Okay, quickly, 23 because we have --
24 MS. LUEKE: Yes. Why have so 25 many independent contractors been released in the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
95 1 last few weeks? Id heard that like 400 independent 2 contractors -
3 MS. LIPA: We talked about that 4 a little bit during the afternoon meeting and that 5 was a business decision on FirstEnergys part. It 6 really had nothing to do with -- we had been given a 7 purview over.
8 MS. LUEKE: Okay, and theres a, 9 I guess for lack of a better term, a post-mortem 10 being conducted on the old head somewhere. I think 11 part of it is in Oak Ridge and part of it is 12 somewhere else. Do you have any reports back on 13 that yet?
14 MS. LIPA: There is continuing 15 work being done on parts that were sent to Lynchburg, 16 Virginia, and the licensee continues -- their 17 contractors doing work on that. Do you have anymore 18 on that, Jon, the status?
19 MR. DEAN: Well, let me -- one of 20 the things that the NRC has asked for, and the 21 licensee has agreed to do this is to cut out certain 22 parts of the old reactor vessel head and ship them to 23 laboratories that are under contract to the NRC to do 24 some further analysis and assessment that we think 25 might help us in understanding things like crack MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
96 1 initiation and propagation. Theres a lot of 2 uncertainties about, you know, how do these cracks 3 begin, how do they grow, how do they go from an axial 4 orientation to a circumferential orientation, so 5 these are questions that we have, our Office of 6 Research -- NRCs Office of Research are pondering, 7 and so they have asked the licensee to cut out 8 various samples of key parts of the reactor vessel 9 head that we think might be able to provide us to 10 some materials that will allow us to do testing and 11 research and analysis that maybe in the span of a 12 year or two, might be able to have some better 13 answers and better understanding of what actually 14 occurs from a metallurgical and materials point of 15 view.
16 MS. LIPA: And those pieces have 17 not been cut out yet, but thats the plan right now.
18 MR. GROBE: The rest of that 19 answer is that the head is currently stored on site, 20 with the exception of a one 17-inch disk that was 21 sent down to Lynchburg for review. The licensee has 22 agreed to take these samples that Bill is talking 23 about and they will do that when they have time and 24 have them shipped and the radioactive waste to a 25 waste repository.
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97 1 MS. LUEKE: Thank you. And just 2 one more comment. Im a local resident with no 3 particular axe to grind or anything, but a deep 4 concern about what has happened and I do think in 5 spite of all the good people that are involved here, 6 good people that work at the plant, the good people 7 coming in as independent contractors and with the 8 NRC, we must learn lessons from the past and what 9 happened in the past was not acceptable to anyone, 10 not to the NRC, not to the local residents and we 11 really want to know why it happened, and we want some 12 sort of more comfortable feeling that its not going 13 to happen again than what we have so far, and I just 14 dont think that all the questions have been answered 15 yet, and to -- to our comfort level, and thats the 16 same with a lot of people I talked to.
17 MS. LIPA: Okay. Well, thank 18 you for your comments, I understand.
19 MR. GROBE: We couldnt agree with 20 you more. The questions arent answered to our 21 comfort, and thats why were still here and until 22 they are answered to our comfort level, the NRC wont 23 permit restart of the plant, so well continue to be 24 here. We have our meetings scheduled for the next 25 three months, and well continue to schedule them as MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
98 1 we need them into the future. This panel will be 2 here if the plant is permitted to restart eventually.
3 This panel will be in existence after restart to 4 continue to monitor the performance of Davis-Besse 5 and to assure that the corrective actions are 6 lasting. Thank you.
7 MS. LIPA: Yeah, as Jack 8 mentioned we have the meetings going forward, have 9 been set up for January 14th, February 11th and March 10 11th, and we tentatively have this place scheduled, 11 and its a fine facility, but well see how it works 12 and decide for sure where the next meeting will be 13 located. Hi.
14 MR. SCHNEIDER: Hi. Im Todd 15 Schneider. Its my job to talk to the media about 16 FirstEnergy issues. I was the one who was quoted in 17 the paper that was brought up here recently, and I 18 agree those comments were inappropriate for todays 19 time frame. Things have changed at the plant. My 20 discussion with the Plain Dealer was involving the 21 situation in 2001, and at Davis-Besse that was a 22 long, long, long time ago. Its a new world there.
23 As we get closer to completing projects, safety 24 becomes more important every day. As this project 25 becomes completed, safety takes even a higher MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
99 1 priority. As another one does, safety is -- is a 2 high priority, no matter what we do. I -- I guess 3 the bottom line was, maybe my better response to the 4 newspaper should have been was, we should never have 5 allowed the plant to get to that condition so there 6 was ever such a photo. We made mistakes along the 7 way. Were trying to rectify those now. I work 8 with Lew Myers and Bob Schrauder and Jim Powers for a 9 long time, started way back at the Perry plant, and 10 Im not a technical person. Im the guy who has to 11 put it into plain English -- try to put it in plain 12 English. Its hard sometimes, but what I can say 13 about Lew and Bob and Jim, the rest of the senior 14 management team thats there, when I go to them with 15 a question, I trust them. They have given me the 16 straight stuff. We dont try to mislead anyone 17 here. I certainly dont. Sometimes my comments in 18 the paper may look like that, but I dont. The 19 management team doesnt, and the most important thing 20 I can say is that I trust that management team.
21 Theyre strong leaders and safety is first and 22 foremost with all of them and they can return the 23 plant to safe and reliable service. Thank you.
24 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Todd.
25 (Applause).
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
100 1 MR. THOMAS: We have a question 2 from the audience. The question reads, does holding 3 a public meeting in a military facility where those 4 who wish attend must produce identification to enter 5 encourage public attendance or discourage it? Let 6 me say this. Its our attempt to hold these meetings 7 in the nicest facility thats available to us. As 8 you know, we have been holding them at Oak Harbor 9 High School for the past eight or nine months.
10 There was some scheduling conflicts occurred there 11 where we could only have them on Wednesdays. It 12 came to our attention that there is other community 13 activities that occur on Wednesday evening, so to 14 foster participate or to encourage increased 15 participation, we decided to keep them on Tuesdays.
16 This is a trial, using this facility was a trial.
17 We encourage your input, suggestions, if you have 18 suggestions that are -- where we should have these 19 public meetings, please fill out a comment card and 20 well take that into consideration. I guess thats 21 all I can say on that issue, but, please, you know, 22 if you dont like this facility, please give us 23 comments, and so we can move it to somewhere that 24 better would suit your needs.
25 MS. LIPA: Thanks, Scott. Go MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
101 1 ahead.
2 MR. OPFER: My name is Darrell 3 Opfer, and I am a local resident. My driveways is 4 12342 West State Route 105, and Im proud of the fact 5 that I live within seven miles of Davis-Besse.
6 To the questioner about being on a military 7 reservation or whatever, as a former County 8 Commissioner and State representative, I have 9 attended a number of meetings here and, frankly, the 10 security at Davis-Besse is much, much stricter than 11 it is to get into -- enter Camp Perry. One of my 12 employees reported practically being strip-searched 13 to get into a meeting at Davis-Besse, so, you know, 14 everything is relative, and also with my experience 15 in coming through the gate is no one takes your name, 16 phone number, or whatever down. Theyre simply 17 making sure that you have proper identification to 18 get on base.
19 I would like to make a comment as one of the 20 previous speakers reported that he was a former lot 21 of things. Im a former lot of things, too. I was 22 a Government teacher at one time, so I appreciate 23 having students here, and I appreciate the comment 24 about democracy, and the fact that in that kind of 25 system, unlike Russia, where you had Chernobyl and MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
102 1 where a few people make decisions, we have decisions 2 being made by people such as this, with experts able 3 to testify, with questions being able to be given and 4 so on. Enough of being a Government teacher.
5 I was also a former County Commissioner for 6 10 years in Ottawa County and have been through the 7 plant on a number of occasions and was also very 8 involved in the building of the emergency management 9 agency in the basement of the courthouse with the 10 support of Davis-Besse.
11 Im also as a County Commissioner, I was a 12 member of the member Utility Radiological Safety 13 Board, which gave me a new experience in dealing with 14 folks who either didnt understand nuclear power 15 plants or generally because they were from a long 16 distance away had not been exposed to them as folks 17 in Ottawa County have. I became a State 18 representative and one of my -- my roommate in the 19 State Legislature was very anti-nuclear, in fact, he 20 still is unfortunately, but the reason that folks 21 have questions is because of the lack of familiarity.
22 Folks generally around here, people who have lived 23 here a long time, have relatives, have friends, I 24 have students and the students have students who work 25 at Davis-Besse, so that we have knowledge of whats MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
103 1 going on, and were comfortable with it. It is a 2 safety issue as is the chief plant in Toledo and a 3 number of other plants around Northwest Ohio. Im 4 particularly proud of the employees who have 5 testified here this evening and thats exactly the 6 type of employees that I believe that we have 7 throughout the power plant, and its whats going to 8 get the plant back on course. Im looking forward 9 frankly to a renewing of the license and even perhaps 10 to building of an additional plant as originally been 11 planned because we have a number of needs in this 12 area.
13 I have been a State representative for nine 14 years. During that time, I served as my caucuses 15 spokesman on the deregulation issue, so I understand 16 from Government some about of those issues.
17 Frankly, one of the things that I would like to find 18 out more about from the NRC is whether you are 19 concerned or doing anything to look at the effect of 20 deregulation in some of the states on nuclear safety 21 and the nuclear industry.
22 Currently, I am Director at the Ottawa County 23 Improvement Corporation which is the economic agency 24 for the County. This afternoon I provided some of 25 my own testimony with regard to my beliefs about the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
104 1 importance of Davis-Besse in Ottawa County. One of 2 the comments that I would like to reiterate is the 3 environmental contributions that Toledo and 4 Davis-Besse have provided to our County. Comments 5 have been made about our wildlife refuges, our 6 national park -- our national and State parks and 7 wildlife areas, but you need to know that a large 8 chunk of that or a large portion of our marsh areas 9 and so on is owned by Davis-Besse and managed by the 10 staff so that the eagles will nest there and our 11 travel and tourism can benefit from the environmental 12 things that Davis-Besse has provided.
13 One of the things that I received this 14 afternoon on my E-mail is a number of comments from 15 area political leaders and business leaders. I 16 provided a copy of that to the secretary. Id like 17 to read two of them. One is from the Mayor of Port 18 Clinton, Tom Brown. He said -- told me that he was 19 not able to come tonight because of a City Council 20 meeting. He said as Mayor of the City of Port 21 Clinton, I would like to go on record in support of 22 the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant. Since its 23 inception it has been one of the largest employers, 24 biggest taxpayers and has brought service and retail 25 dollars into our communities. I have toured the MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
105 1 facilities as Mayor of the City and learned about 2 nuclear energy and its importance to providing a 3 strong power base for our citizens of Ottawa County.
4 The open houses that I have attended were outstanding 5 in explaining the operations and safeguards of this 6 type of energy.
7 In addition, the Ottawa County Emergency 8 Management Agency is the best in the State. The 9 warning system that was used during a recent tornado 10 was very instrumental in saving lives and the various 11 tests and drills throughout the year shows what a 12 proactive approach to disaster can result in 13 life-saving procedures. This would not have been 14 possible had it not been for the work of the Edison 15 management and staff with their significant 16 contributions towards the safety of people.
17 Toledo Edison has been a tremendous corporate 18 citizen. Civic involvement such as the Mural Park, 19 Christmas tree lighting, Walleye Drop, Downtown 20 Revitalization and many other contributions have made 21 it possible for our community to benefit from their 22 assistance.
23 In closing, I hope that the plant is soon up 24 and running. Our economy needs are depending on 25 Davis-Besse. Nuclear energy, in my opinion, is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
106 1 safe, and I support the scientist who best know the 2 safeguards of this form of energy. We have 3 benefited from it since its inception. Signed Mayor 4 Thomas Brown, City of Port Clinton.
5 We have also received from business leaders 6 such as Larry Durivage, owner of Durivage Pattern and 7 Manufacturing in Williston. Dick Spicer, President 8 of the Port Clinton Chamber of Commence, and another 9 that I would like to read is from Jeff Crosby who was 10 here this afternoon, but had to go to Columbus.
11 He said, I planned on being at the 2 p.m.
12 meeting. I must leave however by 3:15. I will 13 give you the following in case I dont have the 14 opportunity to testify.
15 My name is Jeff Crosby and I manage Erie 16 Industrial Park. I have been employed by USCO 17 Logistics at Erie Industrial Park since 1976. I 18 have spent 27 years working next to and alongside our 19 corporate neighbor to the west Davis-Besse.
20 Davis-Besse is an integral part of the economy of 21 Ottawa County. Not only for the jobs it supplies 22 and the school funding it provides, but for the 23 energy needed by a growing Ottawa County.
24 I have had the opportunity to work with the 25 Emergency Management Agency of Ottawa County. It is MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
107 1 my opinion that it ranks second to none in the state.
2 We recently had the unfortunate chance to see how the 3 agency performed under fire during the recent 4 tornados. Their performance was outstanding. If 5 it had not been for the warning sirens funded in 6 large part by Davis-Besse the loss of life in Port 7 Clinton could have been staggering. Davis-Besse has 8 been a good corporate neighbor. Ottawa County needs 9 Davis-Besse up and running.
10 Other comments from Craig Trick, Business 11 Development Manager of Telamon Construction; from 12 Charles Elum, President of Scrambl-Gram Incorporated 13 in Port Clinton and also one that was just handed to 14 me by Jim McKinney, who is property manager of Erie 15 Industrial Park.
16 I appreciate your coming to the County on a 17 monthly basis, for your patients in answering 18 questions by people who obviously have not been 19 involved in the process before, and so we do 20 appreciate that. Thank you very much. We look 21 forward to the return, the safe operating return of 22 Davis-Besse, and to many more years of electric 23 generation. Thank you.
24 MS. LIPA: Thank you for your 25 comments.
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108 1 (Applause).
2 MS. LIPA: Before we go to your 3 comments, Carl, let me -- I have got a card here.
4 Let me read the question.
5 Since Davis-Besse has been shut down, have 6 there been any brownouts or blackouts in the area or 7 anywhere in the region providing electricity to the 8 communities previously provided with power by 9 Davis-Besse, and the answer to that question, as far 10 as I understand, there have not been any brownouts or 11 blackouts in the area.
12 The second question is a series of questions.
13 Who will pay for the incompetence, neglect and 14 deception that led to the near miss at Davis-Besse, 15 will it be NRC employees, FENOC executives or area 16 utility rate payers? Who will pay for the vessel 17 head replacement? And on this question, its my 18 understanding that the utility is responsible for 19 paying for these items, and thats all I have on 20 that.
21 MR. KOEBEL: Thank you. My name is 22 Carl Koebel. Im President of the Ottawa County 23 Commissioners. Im representing not only myself, but 24 Steve Arndt, a fellow commissioner, and John Papcun, 25 fellow commissioner.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
109 1 Earlier tonight I heard the words, lack of 2 confidence, and I have to say that when these public 3 forums started, that comment was made on a regular 4 basis by the people taking the podium, and I believe 5 I even stated that because of the lack of direction 6 by the NRC and what I saw as a lack of pride and now 7 the new terminology, safety culture at Davis-Besse, 8 that I had lost some of the confidence in 9 Davis-Besse.
10 This afternoons meeting, I said I think I 11 was hungry at that meeting, at this one Im tired, 12 but -- this afternoon we saw a great example of what 13 safety culture is and how its being developed and 14 how its being nurtured in a plant. Tonight were 15 seeing evidence of what safety culture is. Ive 16 attended every meeting both morning and evening -- or 17 afternoon and night since this started, and this is 18 the first night that Ive seen this number of 19 Davis-Besse employees here standing up with pride for 20 what they do. That speaks volumes in raising my 21 confidence level in this plant. I go to church with 22 these people. My kids go to school with their kids 23 or my grandkids do -- my kids are out of school now.
24 These are our community people. They are our 25 community leaders. They know the importance of what MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
110 1 theyre doing and they lost that. They have it 2 back. They have it back even better than they had 3 it before, and Im sure that once this plant reopens 4 it will once again be the star of nuclear power 5 industry and not only in the United States of 6 America, but throughout the world. Thank you.
7 (Applause).
8 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Carl.
9 Are there anymore comments or questions from 10 local members of the public or from others while 11 were here? We only have a few more minutes, but go 12 ahead, come on up.
13 MR. MATHERLY: Good evening. My 14 name is Greg Matherly. I am an employee at 15 Davis-Besse in the Operations Department, but Im not 16 here to speak because Im an employee at Davis-Besse, 17 more importantly Im a local resident of Benton 18 Township.
19 My comments are short, at least to a short 20 question for each of you on the 350 Oversight Panel.
21 Davis-Besse is my employer, but, quite 22 honestly, I feel I work for the people of Ottawa 23 County. I run the plant. Its my job to operate 24 the plant and whenever we get up and operating again, 25 its my job to ensure that its ran safely. I do MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
111 1 that for each of you, but, more importantly, I do it 2 for my family. Im a family man first. Im a 3 husband, and Im a father. Many of these people 4 here are husbands and fathers or mothers and wives.
5 We wouldnt go to a plant and operate it with the 6 knowing fact that we could do something that would --
7 as some people have raised concerns that we would do 8 something that would bring harm to our families, so 9 as a father and a husband, my question to you guys, 10 as the 350 Oversight Panel, that is ensuring that 11 were going to start up safe, I mean, I know that I 12 would never do anything, but the confidence needs to 13 be that, would you, Ms. Lipa, would you, Mr. Grobe, 14 if you lived next-door to the plant have the 15 confidence to say, okay, you can restart because I 16 know my family would be safe, and thats my question 17 to you guys.
18 MS. LIPA: Thank you. As weve 19 stated before our plan is to review all the --
20 through inspections and through assessment all of the 21 activities that lead to restart, and we will not make 22 a recommendation for restart unless the panel is 23 convinced that the plant can operate safely.
24 I would also, just on a personal note, let 25 you know that I used to be the Resident Inspector out MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
112 1 at Perry, and I didnt life within the 10 mile zone, 2 but I was probably about 12 miles away from the 3 plant, and I have small children, and I felt 4 comfortable living there and reporting to the 5 facility every day for my job, so thats on a 6 personal note.
7 I dont know if somebody else has anything to 8 say?
9 MR. THOMAS: Ill just add that --
10 although I live in Toledo so I guess that doesnt 11 make me a local resident, but the resident at this 12 site lives downtown Oak Harbor, and he has five 13 children, so we have a say in whether Davis-Besse 14 starts up again, so we are local, and so -- it wont 15 happen until we feel comfortable as well, so --
16 MR. GROBE: Okay. Very good.
17 Any additional questions?
18 (No response).
19 MR. GROBE: Lots of eager 20 listeners, no more questions?
21 (No response).
22 MR. GROBE: Okay, I would like to 23 make a couple closing remarks. This has been an 24 exceptional meeting. I cant tell you how much we 25 appreciate you folks coming out. We come here for MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
113 1 this reason to stand in front of you and try to 2 answer your questions and listen to your input and 3 whatever it might be, thats why were here, and I 4 think its a real tribute to this community that so 5 many folks are willing to come out and share your 6 views and listen to others views, and we respect you 7 for that and we appreciate you coming out.
8 As Christine indicated, weve got at least 9 three more months worth of meetings scheduled, and 10 well be back. Please come, listen to whats going 11 on, if you can be here in the afternoon. If you 12 cant well continue to summarize whats discussed in 13 the afternoon. Please pay attention to the 14 information thats on the web site. Theres just a 15 wealth of information available. If you cant get 16 access to what you need, you can always call Vika 17 Mitlyng. Her number is plastered everywhere or her 18 counterpart, Jan Strasma, in our Region III office, 19 and there is toll free numbers for that, or you can 20 E-mail her or you can always get ahold of Christine 21 or myself or Scott and Doug at the plant, so our 22 purpose here is to ensure that you have an 23 understanding of what were doing and to ensure that 24 we have an understanding of what your concerns are, 25 and I think tonights meeting has been a success.
MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
114 1 Thank you very much.
2 3
4 THEREUPON, the meeting was adjourned.
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900
115 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 certify 6 that the foregoing, consisting of 114 pages, was taken by me in stenotype and was reduced to writing 7 by me by means of Computer-Aided Transcription; that the foregoing is a true and complete transcript of 8 the proceedings held in that room on the 10th day of December, 2002 before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 9 Commission.
I also further certify that I was present in 10 the room during all of the proceedings.
11 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand 12 and seal of office at Wakeman, Ohio this day of
, 2002.
13 14 15 Marlene S. Rogers-Lewis Notary Public 16 3922 Court Road Wakeman, OH 44889 17 My commission expires 4/29/04 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARLENE S. ROGERS-LEWIS & ASSOC. REPORTERS (419) 929-0505 (888) 799-3900