ML023290391
| ML023290391 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Davis Besse  |
| Issue date: | 10/25/2002 |
| From: | NRC/RGN-III |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML023290391 (150) | |
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2 PUBLIC MEETING BETWEEN U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O350 PANEL 3 AND FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY OAK HARBOR, OHIO 4 ---
5 Meeting held on Wednesday, October 16, 2002, at 2:00 p.m. at the Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor, Ohio, 6 taken by me Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter, and Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio.
7 ---
8 PANEL MEMBERS PRESENT:
9 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 Mr. John Grobe, Chairman, MC 0350 Panel William Dean, Vice Chairman, MC 0350 Panel 11 Anthony Mendiola, Section Chief PDIII-2, NRR 12 Christine Lipa, Projects Branch Chief Christopher Scott Thomas, 13 Senior Resident Inspector U.S. NRC Office - Davis-Besse 14 Jon Hopkins, Project Manager for Davis-Besse 15 FIRST ENERGY NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY 16 Lew Myers, FENOC Chief Operating Officer 17 Robert W. Schrauder, Director - Support Services 18 J. Randel Fast, Plant Manager James J. Powers, III 19 Director - Nuclear Engineering L. William Pearce, 20 Vice President FENOC Oversight Michael Stevens 21 Director - Work Management 22 ---
23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
2 1 MS. LIPA: Okay. Good 2 afternoon, my name is Christine Lipa. Im with the Nuclear 3 Regulatory Commission. I would like to welcome everybody 4 to our public meeting with FirstEnergy.
5 I am a member of the NRCs Davis-Besse Oversight 6 Panel; and this panel was chartered to provide oversight of 7 the Davis-Besse facility during this extended shutdown.
8 And this meeting today is a continuation of regular public 9 meetings that weve been holding here at the high school.
10 The meetings are open to public observation. And 11 the purpose of the meeting is to discuss with FirstEnergy 12 the status of their ongoing plans at Davis-Besse, and also 13 to provide feedback that we have on their plans.
14 We have an agenda up on the screen today. And I 15 would also like to introduce the NRC staff up here at the 16 table.
17 On the far left is Tony Mendiola. He is the Section 18 Chief in the NRC Section Headquarters Office. Hes 19 Supervisor of licensing activities for the Davis-Besse 20 project.
21 Next to Tony is Bill Dean. And Bill Dean is the 22 Deputy Director of the Division of Engineering in our 23 Headquarters Office, and hes also Vice Chairman of this 24 panel.
25 Next to Bill is Jack Grobe. Jack is the Senior MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
3 1 Manager in the Region 3 Office near Chicago, and Jack is 2 Chairman of the Oversight Panel.
3 Next to Jack, is Scott Thomas, and he is the Senior 4 Resident Inspector here at the Davis-Besse site. He 5 reports to the NRC, but he is stationed here at the site 6 and reports to the plant each day and does his inspections 7 there.
8 And then on my right is Jon Hopkins and hes the 9 Project Manager for Davis-Besse. Hes located in 10 headquarters.
11 We also have Jay Collins on the slides over here 12 today, and hes an Engineer out of the Headquarters 13 Office. And, hes at Davis-Besse on a rotational 14 assignment.
15 Another NRC person in the audience today is Viktoria 16 Mitlyng, and shes our Public Affairs Officer. There she 17 is in the back.
18 We also have Nancy Keller. She is, was greeting 19 everybody out front, making sure they have handouts. And 20 shes the Site Secretary at the Davis-Besse facility and 21 she works for the NRC.
22 There are a number of handouts out in the foyer when 23 you came in. I wanted to walk through those briefly. One 24 of them is the October issue of a monthly newsletter that 25 the NRC is putting together to keep everybody informed of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
4 1 the background of the event, and then updates on current 2 activities and ongoing activities.
3 We also have a press release and the executive 4 summary that describes the Lessons Learned Task Force 5 Report that was just issued last week. And thats an NRC 6 Lessons Learned Task Force that was put together. That 7 report is available on our website, the full report. There 8 is a summary in the foyer.
9 Also, we have the, todays agenda, and the other 10 slides well be talking about later today.
11 We also have feedback forms, and we encourage you to 12 fill out the feedback forms, if you have feedback for us.
13 Were always trying to improve these meetings and we have 14 incorporated some of the feedback we have received at 15 earlier meetings to improve.
16 Thats it for introductions on our side.
17 Lew, would you like to introduce your staff.
18 MR. MYERS: Yes, I would.
19 Thank you. At the end of the table to my right, we have 20 Mike Stevens. Mike is our Director of Maintenance 21 normally, but hes also our Outage Director.
22 Next to him is Bob Schrauder. Bob is in charge of 23 our targeted support groups and has been the main Project 24 Manager for the Reactor Vessel Head Recovery.
25 Randy Fast, our Plant Manager. Hes the Program MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
5 1 Owner for the Containment Health.
2 At the end of the table is Jim Powers. Jim is our 3 Director of Engineering.
4 And then Bill Pearce, next to him, next to me here.
5 Hes the Vice President of Quality Oversight.
6 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
7 Next, I would like to --
8 MR. MYERS: Christine, two 9 other people. We have Bob Saunders in the audience, and 10 Gary Leidich, Executive VP of FENOC; and Bob is the 11 President of FENOC. Theyre both in the audience today.
12 MS. LIPA: Okay, thank you.
13 Next, I would like to see if there are any local 14 representatives or public officials in the audience; if 15 they would like to stand up and introduce themselves.
16 MR. KOEBEL: Carl Koebel, 17 County Commissioner.
18 MS. LIPA: Hi, Carl.
19 MR. ARNDT: Steve Arndt, 20 County Commissioner.
21 MS. LIPA: Welcome, Steve.
22 MR. WITT: Jere Witt, County 23 Administrator.
24 MS. LIPA: Jere.
25 Okay, anybody else? Great.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
6 1 Back to the agenda for today. This is the same 2 approach weve been taking at each meeting. Ill provide a 3 brief summary of some of our recent meetings, and our 4 Restart Checklist, and then Ill turn it over to the 5 Licensee for their presentation.
6 And then the way that we run this meeting is, after 7 we finish the business portion of the meeting, we just 8 adjourn briefly and get our chairs reoriented and then we 9 have a question and answer session with members of the 10 public.
11 So, the next slide I would like to cover is the 12 summary of the, we held a public meeting on September 13 17th. That was our last monthly public meeting that was 14 held here. And we discussed the Licensees work that they 15 have accomplished in their Return to Service Plan.
16 And you see there the seven Building Blocks of their 17 Return to Service Plan; and the Licensee walked us through 18 the progress of each one of those. And the transcript of 19 that meeting is on our website.
20 At 7 p.m. that night we held a Q and A session with 21 the public, and that transcript will be on the website 22 today or tomorrow.
23 And then the next day, on September 18th, while we 24 were here, we held a public meeting at the Davis-Besse 25 Administration Building; and that meeting was to discuss MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
7 1 the Utilitys improvement plans on their Management Human 2 Performance Root Cause. And they briefed us on their 3 improvements in the Corrective Action Program and their 4 Safety Conscious Work Environment Surveys.
5 Another meeting that was held recently was held this 6 morning. That was at 9:00 at the Davis-Besse 7 Administration Building. And that was a public exit of two 8 special inspections. And we held that meeting with the 9 Utility. And that inspection report will be prepared and 10 issued in approximately 45 days, since the team has 11 exited.
12 And we decided to open that exit to public 13 observation since there has been high interest in the 14 worker radiation exposure issue. And the exit today 15 discussed three preliminary findings. Those will be 16 considered unresolved items, and we have a process for 17 determining their significance; and that will be ongoing.
18 The next slide that I have for today is different 19 than the one you have in our handout. I wanted to talk 20 about that a little bit. This is the Davis-Besse Restart 21 Checklist that was issued in August. And this is also 22 available on our website.
23 And as we, as the Panel has been doing their reviews 24 and the Licensee has been doing their reviews, we have 25 decided, the Panel has decided that were going to add two MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
8 1 new items to the Restart Checklist. And right now thats 2 in the approval process, but the Panel has come up with 3 this recommendation. And the slides that we have show the 4 changes.
5 One of them is item 2-C-1, which is like I said 6 different than your handout. This one is based on 7 Licensees efforts to review their systems. They had 8 identified some issues with the containment emergency sump, 9 and we discussed this at our previous public meetings. And 10 modifications to that sump are currently being planned.
11 The sump is an important safety feature of a nuclear 12 power plant design. And for these reasons, the NRC has 13 determined that careful review of the past operation of 14 that sump and a modification itself is warranted. And so, 15 this will likely be added to the Restart Checklist as item 16 2-C-1 pending final approval of that checklist.
17 The second item is on the next page of the slide.
18 And this one is based on the results of the special 19 inspections that we did on the worker radiation doses. The 20 panel has determined that a review of the Radiation 21 Protection Program, certain aspects of that program is 22 warranted before restart. And so, our plans are to include 23 that additional item 3-H, the Radiation Protection Program 24 on the Restart Checklist.
25 Did you have any questions on that, Lew?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
9 1 MR. MYERS: No.
2 MS. LIPA: I know we 3 discussed this earlier.
4 MR. MYERS: Right.
5 MS. LIPA: So, thats all I 6 had for discussion right now. I would like to turn it over 7 to you, to provide your presentation.
8 MR. MYERS: Thank you. We 9 have several desired outcomes for the audience today, the 10 public, if you will. We would like to talk, to demonstrate 11 that the Davis-Besse Plant continues to make good progress 12 toward restart.
13 In fact, as you go around our plant now, you find a 14 tremendous amount of work being done. The painting of the 15 overhead of containment being removed, containment coolers, 16 containment sump being replaced. Were going to talk about 17 that all today. The head is in the containment now. And 18 there is just a lot of activities moving forward.
19 We hope to spend some time today, and Mike Stevens 20 will do that, to talk about the scheduling. How were 21 doing on the schedule. Do you remember the last meeting 22 when we were here, we talked about being two weeks off. We 23 spent a lot of time talking about the crane. Now that took 24 us a couple more weeks. So, well status you on our 25 schedule today and how we think were doing with that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
10 1 Finally, there is some outstanding issues that we 2 want to discuss with each building block. Some of its 3 been in the newspaper. The bottom head issue; we intend to 4 talk somewhat about that, and some of the issues that we 5 have, that you will see are in the discovery phase and 6 were trying to bring forward and continue a resolution, if 7 you will, a plan of action.
8 And then, well talk somewhat about the Management 9 Human Performance Excellence Plan and the actions weve 10 taken to-date. The last time we talked, we had the plant 11 in place, we were taking some actions, but in general since 12 that time, weve been working on a lot of it.
13 In fact, last week, we actually had a standdown for 14 a case study for the entire day. Thought that was very 15 successful.
16 And then provide, provide the public and NRC some of 17 our thoughts on the Safety Conscious Work Environment. We 18 showed you the survey. We think that the culture of the 19 plant, the issues we have, are extremely important. And 20 Bill Pearce will talk somewhat about that.
21 And with that, I would like to move forward, and 22 turn it over to Mike Stevens. He will discuss the 23 schedule.
24 MR. STEVENS: Thank you, Lew.
25 Today, I would like to discuss our progress in three MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
11 1 ways. First the major milestones. We have been 2 established, and as Lew said, were approximately 35 days 3 behind our original milestone. The integrated schedule, 4 which includes all the building block activities, and 5 potential schedule impact with containment sump 6 modification, and the bulk work in the containment.
7 Also, I would like to discuss performance 8 indicators. I would like to pick some selective ones to 9 help us understand our schedule versus our forecast dates.
10 The bulk work and the amount of that, and the, as well as 11 our emergent work that were keeping track of and its 12 effect on our schedule.
13 Some of our milestones. Forecast dates have been 14 included here. And as you can see, were forecasting 15 Initial System Reviews to be completed on the 21st of 16 November. Program Reviews, were forecasting to be 17 completed on the 27th. Reactor Head Installation on the 18 8th. Having the systems ready for heatup on the 22nd, 19 which will allow normal operating pressure and temperature 20 inspection and testing on the 24th of December.
21 Next slide.
22 In our Integrated Schedule, the progress weve made 23 so far is weve completely restored the area containment 24 for the number 1 containment air cooler. Why thats 25 important to us now is we can start building the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
12 1 containment air cooler back.
2 The High Pressure Feedwater Heater 1-6 is completely 3 removed from the plant. Were doing some additional 4 cleanup work and were going to start reassembling our new 5 High Pressure Feedwater Heater to replace it.
6 Since we met last we had containment vessel 7 restored, as well as the containment shield building.
8 The Containment Dome Project is restoring the 9 paint. Its really an engineering coating on the inside of 10 our containment vessel. Thats a pretty good size job.
11 There is 40, approximately 40,000 square feet surface area 12 that has to be cleaned, prepped, and recovered, so that we 13 could put a new coating in its place going forward. We 14 have about 50 percent of that completed.
15 We installed the coating on the inside of the 16 circulating water site of our main condenser while weve 17 been down to help us going forward with the erosion in that 18 area.
19 And we finished refurbishment of our polar crane.
20 Now we have some more upgrades we would like to make in our 21 polar crane, and were integrating those into our schedule 22 later, but all of the upgrade that we planned on performing 23 and some of what we discussed last time we met, has been 24 completed.
25 There is some additional testing were going to do MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
13 1 with our polar crane, and thats coming later in our 2 schedule.
3 We got a lot of major projects. One of our major 4 projects is the drain down for Reactor Coolant System, 5 which will allow us to do the preventative maintenance on 6 two of our reactor coolant pumps. And those, and Ive 7 included today, so that we know what were readying for.
8 The reactor coolant pump work is ready. And when we 9 drain down the Reactor Coolant System, were going to take 10 advantage of that time and work on some of the valves 11 coming off of the Reactor Coolant System. That valve work 12 starts about four days after the reactor coolant pump drain 13 down.
14 MR. GROBE: Mike, just a 15 quick question on your prior slide. I want to make sure 16 its clear. These forecast dates are your current 17 forecasts?
18 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
19 MR. GROBE: So, whatever 20 delays have occurred, youve rebooted the schedule and 21 these are your current dates.
22 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
23 Weve readjusted the dates and theres two things; one is 24 performance of the schedule, which is since weve got the 25 polar crane back in service, were making pretty good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
14 1 progress and staying pretty close to that schedule; the 2 other is as we learn and discover more about the system 3 reviews and equipment in the plant, were taking those 4 activities and integrating them to the schedule.
5 So, an example would be the reactor cavity seal 6 plate that were going to install permanently. Were 7 developing that design. The materials are coming this 8 month. Were working with our contract vendor supplier to 9 mock that up. And as we go through that, we learn more 10 about the installation of that, and that ended up being two 11 to three days more time to get into the schedule and were 12 putting that time in.
13 MR. THOMAS: Mike, one other 14 question. Do these forecast dates include the evaluation 15 and potentially remedial -- potential for remedial action 16 for other containment coating issues, has that been 17 factored into this schedule?
18 MR. STEVENS: It is, but there 19 is risks to the schedule and we captured that under the 20 bulk work. Thats why I say bulk work is a potential 21 schedule impact.
22 I have a slide that shows where those condition 23 reports are and the progress weve made, that may explain 24 that and help us see that a little clearer.
25 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
15 1 MR. STEVENS: Could we go to the 2 next slide.
3 I apologize if this looks busy. There is not very 4 many performance indicators we have. This one, that is 5 this important.
6 This performance indicator, the top line shows the 7 total number of activities that we have so far in the work 8 schedule. And thats 24,470. Of that, weve completed to 9 date 14,125. Just have roughly 10,000 more activities to 10 go. And, to give you a feel for how much work were doing 11 at the plant; a typical refueling outage is 6,000 12 activities.
13 And we have the forecasts. So, the middle line --
14 the top line is the total. The line in the middle, the 15 green line, is the progress were making. And the bottom 16 line is the completions with the forecasts to go; the 17 remaining activities with forecasts to go.
18 Yes?
19 MS. LIPA: Mike, is an 20 activity like a work order or does that include condition 21 reports?
22 MR. STEVENS: It includes PMs, 23 condition reports, work orders, its activities in the 24 schedule. So, if you pick up our P 3. P 3 is the program 25 we use to build our schedule when you look at activities, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
16 1 thats what we were showing here. Some are blocks. So, 2 you have to -- did I answer your question correctly?
3 MS. LIPA: So, it includes 4 condition reports?
5 MR. STEVENS: It includes 6 corrective action on condition reports and work orders tied 7 with those.
8 MS. LIPA: Okay.
9 MR. STEVENS: A condition report 10 evaluation wont necessarily be in the schedule as a 11 specific activity.
12 MS. LIPA: Thank you.
13 MR. MYERS: It does include 14 administrative, like a Management Human Performance 15 activity. Were trying to do a little of that.
16 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
17 MS. LIPA: Okay.
18 MR. STEVENS: This is to give us 19 an idea of the bulk work we have in our outage. These are 20 the Condition Reports for Containment Health. And you may 21 not be able to see, the total number is around 560. And 22 this yellow shaded area is the total to-date.
23 And, the bars at the bottom, the black bar is the 24 ones that have been added. And the white bar is the ones 25 that are closed. There is not very many have been closed MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
17 1 so far. And thats why thats, the risks are scheduled.
2 As we go through the evaluation process, well 3 formulate corrective actions from those corrective actions.
4 Well bundle the work and put it in the work schedule and 5 then well work it off.
6 Now, the approach were taking while were 7 evaluating these condition reports, weve got pictures of 8 just about every one of those. Weve got teams in the 9 field set up ready to implement. Theyve taken those 10 pictures, worked with the folks on the identification team, 11 have built packages by area, so we have them bundled up.
12 If you recall last time, we had a discussion about 13 the bulk work. Thats our strategy. Were going to put it 14 by area, for this area with work teams to get that 15 completed.
16 We also have some of the work activities being 17 validated by our Fix It Now Team, which is a maintenance 18 team, cross-disciplined, that takes a look at incoming work 19 and makes a decision based on their experience where that 20 best fits and where the best maintenance strategy would 21 be. Then it goes into our planning organization. We plan 22 out the work order and then we get it scheduled and 23 implemented.
24 The emergent work that our FIN Team -- this is one 25 of the performance indicators we use to gauge that. And MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
18 1 emergent work is whats going into our schedule. I took 2 just the last five weeks, I believe, and gave an average.
3 Its 150. So, in the last four, five weeks, we have about 4 150 a week coming in. Our Fix It Now Team is getting about 5 115 of them a week completed. And that means weve got to 6 scope increase our schedule to about 35 a week. Okay?
7 So, in summary, I think youll agree were making 8 progress; however, our focus is on quality, not schedule.
9 And were taking the time we need to make sure we fix each 10 and every piece of equipment correctly in accordance with 11 proper standards.
12 The risks to the schedule are identified. Our plans 13 are being formulated, and owners are being assigned. And 14 were working in teams to come up with the best approach to 15 tackle some of these work activities.
16 Are there any questions?
17 MR. MENDIOLA: I have a few 18 questions, just to expand on some of the things youre 19 talking about. One of them, it was more modifications and 20 more testing of the polar crane. Can you characterize what 21 type of modifications are going to be made with that crane?
22 MR. STEVENS: Sure. We want to 23 have our polar crane have switches on it to limit where it 24 goes inside of containment for certain times.
25 For example, when we have fuel in the reactor, we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
19 1 dont want to have the polar crane be able to take a heavy 2 load over the reactor. We want to have a switch to cut it 3 off. We want to make modifications to the polar crane to 4 install those switches in the program lodging to back up 5 the administrative controls we have in place.
6 MR. MENDIOLA: Im sorry. Dont 7 you already have them, a set of switches to prevent that?
8 MR. STEVENS: No. When we 9 installed preliminarily those zone controls, we ended up 10 excluding a big circle. And, that didnt give us what we 11 want. And I think that we had a communications breakdown 12 or misunderstanding between us and the supplier of those 13 switches and that program logic. Its not what we want.
14 So, were going to go make that modification to the 15 polar crane. Were going to do that correctly, and then 16 well turn it on, and well have that to back up our 17 administrative controls to exclude that area.
18 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay. You were 19 talking about administrative controls, I assume youre 20 talking about designating a load pass, designate the loads, 21 and rigging, right, condition loads?
22 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
23 MR. MENDIOLA: Those are already 24 preset and those are going to stay in place?
25 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
20 1 MR. MENDIOLA: You dont have 2 plans to change that?
3 MR. STEVENS: Im not sure if I 4 understand you. We have the administrative controls that 5 do not allow.
6 MR. MENDIOLA: I guess what Im 7 trying to do is characterize the changes you had in mind 8 with your crane are to back up and maybe reinforce your 9 administrative controls that you already have.
10 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
11 Thats correct.
12 MR. MENDIOLA: Okay. Moving on 13 then to the next milestone that you talked about. Your 14 next major project milestone where you are planning to 15 drain down the reactor coolant pump, drain down the reactor 16 coolant maintenance. You mentioned youre going to work on 17 some valves. Can you characterize what valves and what 18 work youre going to do? These are Reactor Coolant System 19 valves.
20 MR. STEVENS: Thats right. And 21 as part of our containment health inspections, we have some 22 Reactor Coolant System valves that have some gilt, I would 23 say degradation to some extent, that goes anywhere from 24 cleaning boric acid off to repacking the valve. And were 25 going to drain the system down.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
21 1 There is currently, the slide shows 734 valves 2 identified in that drain down. Were working on, settled 3 on 81 valves. Now, were going through each valve, each 4 work activity with the corrective action to making sure we 5 understand what the best strategy is to perform that 6 maintenance and then regulating that work, so when we do 7 drain down, were making effective corrective repairs.
8 MR. MENDIOLA: Is this a new 9 project milestone. I dont recall talking about this 10 before.
11 MR. STEVENS: Its not a new 12 project milestone. Its not a milestone that Ive included 13 in our discussion. And I felt like, when I was coming here 14 today, the next major activity happening at the plant is 15 going to be the Reactor Coolant System drain down, and I 16 was sharing that information.
17 MR. MYERS: Tony, Bill and I 18 were just talking; on a complete drain down you have to 19 unload your core. Our reactor core is unloaded now. And 20 we have to be able to drain to what we call deep drain 21 window. And there is only a few times in the plants life 22 where you ever get to that point. Pretty major evolution.
23 So, what were trying to do is make sure while were 24 drained down to that mode, that we take advantage of that 25 condition. So, we want to, if there is something, valves MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
22 1 we want to work on or coolant pump motors, and seals, the 2 pump itself; its an opportunity for us to get to that 3 point, because its called a deep drain window. So, were 4 trying to maximize the effects of that drain down.
5 MR. MENDIOLA: I understand.
6 What I was trying to ascertain was whether this was a new 7 undertaking or it was planned from previous?
8 MR. MYERS: No, it was in the 9 plan all the time.
10 MR. MENDIOLA: Im sorry. I may 11 have wrote down; which valves are you talking about the 12 work, what particular systems or subsystems are you going 13 to work on?
14 MR. STEVENS: Theyre mostly the 15 first-off valves off of the Reactor Coolant System or the 16 KEIs.
17 MR. MYERS: I think were 18 going to check; right, Mike?
19 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
20 I could provide a whole list of valves that are in that 21 scope, so you know the list, you can take a look at what 22 were doing.
23 MR. DEAN: Mike, relative to 24 the total activities and the emergent work, I appreciate 25 your discussion of the fact that you still have a delta MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
23 1 between identification rate and completion rates. Would 2 you say that in terms of either discovery phase or work 3 characterization phase, youre about at your peak and 4 getting ready to turn, or now you expect over the next 5 couple of weeks to see work-off rate exceed identification 6 rate?
7 MR. STEVENS: I believe we 8 will. And I think its going to be key, as we go through 9 the different portions of the plant in getting the plant 10 figurations to do that. Thats why its important that we 11 understand what corrective actions are and get those 12 bundled correctly, so we dont have to do it more than 13 once.
14 Again, I believe that we are through almost all of 15 this. Were now in the evaluation phase. Weve got a good 16 handle on what were going to do with those pieces of 17 components. And were still working through parts 18 identification, what we can get from our suppliers.
19 So, thats why, if you hear any hesitation in my 20 voice, yeah, Im optimistic, but there is some doubt yet 21 that I know we may not be able to do exactly like were 22 planning and have to come up with a different strategy.
23 (ringing noise) 24 That must be my limit, huh? (laughter) 25 MR. MYERS: Yeah, times up.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
24 1 MR. GROBE: Could you go back 2 to slide 8 just for a moment. Im not entirely clear on 3 the definition of total activities. If you have a 4 condition report, but you havent yet identified the 5 corrective actions that youre going to take, whether its 6 procedure revision or hardware change, whatever the 7 specific activities might be necessary to resolve that 8 condition report, is that captured in this as total 9 activities?
10 MR. STEVENS: Some are, some arent.
11 If we know the corrective action is going to permit work in 12 the plant, weve identified that, weve written those work 13 orders and weve got those blocked into the schedule, and 14 were carrying those corrective actions.
15 What exactly thats going to be, if there is more 16 with them, we dont know; for all of the work thats 17 identified at this time.
18 MR. GROBE: Okay. So, this 19 may continue to grow as far as total activities as you 20 continue to evaluate condition reports.
21 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
22 And were projecting, thats what that little gray box is, 23 projecting 28,000 total, is where we think well be, but 24 thats a crystal ball.
25 MR. GROBE: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
25 1 MR. MYERS: Thats a pretty 2 good projection, based on the number of activities that 3 came out of CR. Tim Chambers is I think with us today.
4 Hes our Containment Health Manager. One of the things we 5 want to do is try to turn that curve that we showed you 6 earlier there.
7 Tim, do you have anything you want to add? I dont 8 know if youre ready to knock out a lot of work in 9 containment?
10 MR. CHAMBERS: Yes, Id like to.
11 MR. MYERS: Nothing like 12 surprise.
13 MR. CHAMBERS: As you can see, 14 the curve doesnt look very optimistic, but I can say that 15 about 200 of them were in supervisory review. And that 16 means that the corrective actions have been identified and 17 the evaluations are complete and theyre waiting for 18 supervisory review. We had a change of personnel over the 19 last few weeks, and the new supervisor is getting up to 20 speed, so we expect this curve to look a lot better within 21 a week or so.
22 MR. MYERS: Do you think that 23 were leveled off, it will actually turn, as we turn the 24 team loose on the areas?
25 MR. CHAMBERS: And the curve as MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
26 1 it shows, you know, adding condition reports has leveled 2 off, but what we expect is the closed, or the white bars, 3 to come up and fill up that area and show that the 4 evaluations are complete and the corrective actions are 5 identified and turned into work orders.
6 MR. MYERS: Okay.
7 MR. GROBE: I had one other 8 question on slide 10. I was, could you define for me what 9 emergent work is?
10 MR. STEVENS: Emergent work is 11 new work activities identified that isnt currently being 12 captured in, like new WRs, new work requests.
13 MR. GROBE: Okay, so emergent 14 work could be new work requests that are coming out of the 15 corrective action you do?
16 MR. STEVENS: Thats correct.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay, I 18 understand.
19 MR. MYERS: Okay, Bob.
20 MR. SCHRAUDER: Im Bob Schrauder, 21 as Lew said before, Director of Support Services, and I 22 have overall responsibility for restoration of the reactor 23 vessel head. Continue to be pleased with that project.
24 Were very near approaching the final testing phase, I 25 would say, on the reactor vessel head; and that will occur MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
27 1 later as we approach startup.
2 But since our last meeting, as Mike indicated, we 3 have restored both the containment vessel, the 20 foot by 4 20 foot opening that we put in the containment and the 5 shield building for bringing the old head out and putting 6 the new head in; has been restored to its original design 7 capability. We have done the radiological or the R T of 8 the weld on that. We know that we have a good weld.
9 Containment; weve done the initial concrete 10 hardness test on that. There is another one yet that will 11 come after it cures, about 30 days. Well go in and do 12 that. That restoration went well for us. We did have some 13 on the concrete, when you take the forms off, there was 14 some voids in the concrete, which you would expect from 15 that type of pour. And those have all been areas chipped 16 out, and additional concrete put in there. So, the 17 restoration of the shield building and containment vessel 18 is complete.
19 So, we moved on towards restoring the head. With 20 the head on the stand in the containment, we painted the 21 service structure. We had that done. We have now 22 installed the service structure onto the new head. We had 23 to place it on the head and very carefully align it to make 24 sure the control rod drives would function properly in the 25 head when we restore those. Weve got good alignment on it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
28 1 and we have welded the service structure onto the lower 2 service support for that vessel.
3 And we have completed then the touchup painting 4 around that weld in the service structure. That curing of 5 that painting is complete now. And tonight, in fact, we 6 should start reattaching the control rod drive mechanisms 7 onto reactor vessel head and the reattachment of the cable 8 for those.
9 That will complete the reactor vessel head work 10 until we actually place the reactor vessel head on the 11 reactor vessel and then well do some testing from there; 12 make sure that none of the flanges on the control rod 13 drives have any leakage on them; and that the flanges of 14 the heads of the vessel, the sealing mechanisms in that 15 work properly.
16 So, that job was a major milestone for us in 17 completing, and would say that went very well for us.
18 We can skip ahead one past this. Ill show you the 19 pictures first.
20 A couple of pictures up there, is the weld that we 21 did on the inside of the containment vessel, the steel 22 pressure vessel. We got a good weld on there.
23 The next picture shows the restoration of the 24 containment. You can see some dimples, if you will, in 25 that concrete and thats from the forms that were attached MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
29 1 to make the pour. And actually have been filled in, but 2 theyre slightly a different color.
3 Inside the containment, youll see the service 4 structure being placed on the reactor vessel head. The 5 white portion on top is the service structure itself. And 6 then the next picture will show some of the alignment tools 7 that are made to precisely align these two structures 8 within mils of tolerance on that to make sure the control 9 rod drives can move freely in and out of the vessel when 10 its attached.
11 We got that aligned. And then --
12 MR. MYERS: Hold on a 13 second. In my mind, that was a major, major 14 accomplishment. We have this new reactor head, and were 15 attaching an old service structure to it. And all along, 16 you know, we were doing all these measurements and cutting, 17 and we had talked much about that, but if it didnt fit, we 18 had a real problem. You know, and if it didnt fit -- if 19 the glove didnt fit, we had a problem.
20 When we put it on, it fit like a champ. In fact, it 21 was so close, rather than welding it, we thought we might 22 have, we considered bolting it in place, because the bolt 23 holes matched up so well. So, the tolerance is very, that 24 was an extremely good milestone for us. Is that fairly 25 accurate?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
30 1 MR. SCHRAUDER: Its very 2 accurate.
3 MR. MYERS: From the last 4 meeting, we were worried about that, that specific 5 measurement. And it came out very well.
6 MR. SCHRAUDER: Then if you would 7 go back to slide 15. I do want to talk about what Im 8 calling an emergent issue that developed over the last 9 couple of weeks. As you know, or as I think we talked 10 about in the past, we took all the insulation off the 11 bottom of the reactor vessel head also, and were cleaning 12 the entire reactor vessel.
13 There were two trails of what appeared to be Boron 14 and some rust coming down the sides of the reactor vessel, 15 which would not be unexpected given the leakage that 16 occurred on the head. We took the insulation off the 17 bottom. It appeared as though that trail had come down and 18 there were some deposits and some corrosion -- not 19 corrosion, but rust deposits on the bottom nozzles of the 20 reactor vessel head.
21 So, we wanted to, we werent going to assume those 22 were from the traildown, but we had to do some testing. We 23 wanted to do some testing to verify thats where the source 24 came from.
25 MR. THOMAS: Bob, could you MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
31 1 briefly describe the difference between the bottom head 2 nozzles and the top head nozzles just for clarification.
3 MR. SCHRAUDER: Okay. The top 4 nozzles and penetrations are for the control rods to come 5 in. And, those are about a four inch diameter nozzle that 6 comes into the vessel head. Then there is a flange that 7 attaches the control rod drive mechanism.
8 On the bottom of the reactor vessel, you have a 9 series of penetrations that go in also where our in core 10 instrumentation goes up into the core. Those are the 11 neutron detectors and the like, that monitor how your core 12 is behaving during the cycle.
13 And, its a slightly different arrangement. There 14 is an annular region where the knob goes up into the head; 15 and the actual weld of the bottom nozzle into the reactor 16 vessel are welded into the inside of the reactor vessel, as 17 opposed to the top nozzles are also welded on the bottom 18 side of the head, but theyre a much tighter fit into the 19 penetrations that go up in there.
20 MR. THOMAS: Thank you.
21 MR. SCHRAUDER: Theyre not as 22 small on the bottom, but theyre made of the same material, 23 same basic material as the control rod drives on the top of 24 the vessel.
25 So, our game plan there was to take some chemical MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
32 1 samples, both of the trail coming down the side of the 2 reactor vessel and accumulations on the nozzles themselves, 3 with the expectation if they were from the same source, you 4 would expect to have the same chemical content on those.
5 Framatone was doing that analysis for us, the 6 chemical analysis. And the results did not come back 7 conclusively that you would say that they were definitely 8 from the same source; that is, that the source on the 9 nozzles is the same as the source on the side of the 10 vessel.
11 It didnt conclude one way or the other what the 12 problem was; that there is analysis that was presented 13 providing conflicting indications. Some indications would 14 tell you they were from the same source, other indications 15 would tell you they were not from the same source.
16 And, of course, should be no surprise that the 17 concern there, if its not from coming down the side of the 18 vessel, there would be some potential that the bottom 19 nozzles themselves had developed some type of leak. So, 20 thats what were trying to confirm for ourselves.
21 Framatone is completing their, they had in their 22 system similar to our condition reporting system, their 23 individuals identify whats called preliminary safety 24 concern over this issue, which they have initiated 25 in-house, we talked to you about last week. They are MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
33 1 continuing their internal technical evaluation on that; 2 and we expect to get that out either late this week, but 3 probably next week, their identification and internal 4 safety concern on that.
5 That concern impacts not just Davis-Besse, but it 6 involves all of the, most of the B and W plants, in 7 particular what are called the 177 plants, which are the 8 Davis-Besse style plants.
9 We did write a CR, conditional report in our process 10 also, just to identify the fact that we did know that 11 someone had raised this concern internal to Framatone.
12 And Framatone is also developing for us, given what 13 we know and what we see, whats our going-forward plan; how 14 do we further test the nozzles to assure ourselves that 15 theyre not leaking; whether thats, when we repressurize 16 the vessel with or without fuel in there, pressurize the 17 system; look, detect any leakage that might occur, whether 18 there is any additional chemical analysis that we can do, 19 whether there is any leak detection activity -- devices 20 that we can put up into the annular region going up to the 21 nozzles.
22 So, were pretty much still in discovery on this 23 issue, and well resolve it going forward and identify 24 where we go from here on that.
25 Then also theyre looking at what would be a MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
34 1 potential fix, if there were in fact a leak on one of those 2 nozzles, one of the nozzles down there.
3 Thats all I have, unless there are questions.
4 MR. MENDIOLA: I have a couple 5 questions. Number one, you mentioned the flow was down the 6 side of the reactor vessel towards the bottom of the head.
7 Have you determined exactly where the sources of that water 8 are from?
9 MR. SCHRAUDER: We, yeah, it 10 came down from the top of the reactor, off the head and 11 down the side. We cleaned it, verified that its not 12 coming from any other source for that, from when we cleaned 13 around the hot legs and cold legs.
14 MR. MYERS: You could 15 determine the seal --
16 MR. SCHRAUDER: It most definitely 17 could have come from cavity seal. We didnt have a good 18 seal on that cavity ring.
19 MR. MENDIOLA: So, those are more 20 maintenance activities is what you determined theyre from?
21 MR. SCHRAUDER: Yes.
22 MR. MENDIOLA: And second of all, 23 I do know that other B and W designs of other plants, or 24 other B and W designed plants have a ring, skirts that 25 would prevent drippage from coming all the way to the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
35 1 bottom of the vessel.
2 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thats a good 3 point. Ours does not. Ours is not a skirt supportive 4 vessel; its a nozzle supportive vessel.
5 MR. MENDIOLA: Is there an 6 idea possibly to prevent, if you want to call it, from any 7 leakage in the future coming down the side of the vessel 8 and ending up on the bottom; putting a seal?
9 MR. FAST: Were putting on a 10 permanent cavity seal. It will be welded in place around 11 the vessel, which would ensure that there is no source of 12 leakage down the vessel.
13 MR. MENDIOLA: But if any does 14 come down the vessel. What Im saying is, something like 15 that ring on the other vessels has a tendency of stopping 16 the water at that point and allowing it to fall straight 17 down, rather than coming all the way under. In other 18 words, it comes down the side, and it hits this ring, then 19 falls off, rather than coming all the way underneath.
20 MR. SCHRAUDER: We have not at 21 this point looked at a design to add a skirt support.
22 MR. MENDIOLA: Im not talking 23 full support; Im just talking about a small dam to prevent 24 that water from getting under.
25 MR. SCHRAUDER: Like I said, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
36 1 Framatone is continuing to develop those recommendations 2 and whether that is a recommendation there.
3 MR. MENDIOLA: My general view is 4 that, the future maintenance would not, your best efforts 5 still cant prevent, if you will, liquid going down the 6 side of the vessel.
7 MR. MYERS: I guess I dont 8 understand it. If you put a cavity seal on it, how would 9 it get down there?
10 MR. MENDIOLA: Something to 11 capture the moisture before it got to the bottom of the 12 vessel or remove it from the side of the vessel, so it 13 drains off or whatever you want to call it, off the bottom 14 of the vessel.
15 MR. MYERS: But if you put a 16 permanent cavity seal on the top, it cant get down there, 17 because the seal is always installed, welded in place.
18 MR. STEVENS: The flange joints 19 are all --
20 MR. MENDIOLA: I understand, 21 during maintenance activities, when you have your dams and 22 so forth, and potential of liquid coming down the side of 23 the vessel during maintenance activities, whats going to 24 capture that liquid before it gets to the bottom of your 25 vessel?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
37 1 MR. STEVENS: We dont, well 2 take a look at that, Tony, but this annular space isnt 3 very big, dont hardly ever get in there to do anything, 4 but well take a look at that, to make sure.
5 MR. MYERS: Lets talk about 6 that, I dont quite understand what you mean.
7 MR. GROBE: Let me ask a 8 different question. Do you anticipate any maintenance 9 activities that could introduce liquid into that area, 10 which you have to be concerned about in the future?
11 MR. MYERS: No.
12 MR. GROBE: I cant think of 13 any. The only potential would be a through wall leak of 14 your primary pipes, which is not something you anticipate.
15 MR. MYERS: Thats right.
16 MR. GROBE: So, the cavity 17 seal will cut the liquid off at the source?
18 MR. MYERS: Right.
19 MR. SCHRAUDER: Any other 20 questions?
21 MR. GROBE: I guess, just an 22 observation; the issue with the bottom head and the 23 staining, the materials thats on the bottom head. I 24 thought your approach on this was very conservative, and an 25 easy answer, clearly you can see visually along the reactor MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
38 1 vessel that some material has come down the head. So, the 2 easy answer would have been all of the staining material on 3 the bottom came from that, came down the sides.
4 And, you didnt take that easy answer. You went the 5 next step and said, well, could this be masking some 6 leakage of those penetrations. And I think thats a very 7 healthy approach. I appreciate that.
8 MR. MYERS: Not only that, 9 working with the vendor, if we need to do a repair, to 10 understand what that repair would be. I talked to them 11 last night. We should know something I would think in the 12 next week, anyway, if were going there.
13 Is that right, Bob?
14 MR. SCHRAUDER: Thats correct.
15 If there are no other questions, Ill turn it over to Randy 16 Fast for Containment Health Assurance.
17 MR. FAST: Good afternoon.
18 Pleased to report that were really making good progress on 19 containment. This afternoon, Ill provide a status of the 20 containment air coolers, containment emergency sump, 21 containment dome painting, decay heat valve pit, our 22 walkdowns and inspections for equipment qualification, and 23 decontamination activities.
24 First on the containment air coolers, weve 25 completed restoration of the containment air cooler number MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
39 1 one. This is important in that one of the things we want 2 to have in service and available for operation is a 3 containment air cooler for fuel load.
4 So, although not a technical requirement, it is a 5 good practice and weve made good progress. Weve got the 6 painting completed. Weve got the coils, the replacement 7 coils in the warehouse. And currently today, were 8 installing the motor and the fans associated with that 9 number one containment air cooler. So, were pretty much 10 on track, making good progress; complete remediation, and 11 I think it will set a very high standard for our staff 12 going forward.
13 Were continuing to do sponge jet blasts. Were 14 using a special process. Rather than using a grit or 15 sandpaper, were using sponge media. And part of the 16 reason were using sponge media, is that its reusable.
17 So, we can put it back through the coalescer, and reuse 18 it. That means less wastage.
19 Where sand is normally not reusable, this is a 20 reusable product and we can actually run it through several 21 times as a blast media. It does a pretty good job as 22 well. Ill show you some pictures as well what that looks 23 like when were done.
24 The last item is, we had identified a problem in the 25 thermal growth as the service water comes in through the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
40 1 weld MIC flanges into the containment air coolers.
2 (ringing noise) 3 Were working with our engineering staff. We have 4 several conceptual designs that will ensure going forward 5 that we have the thermal coupling between the service water 6 inlet piping and those coils. So, that is an area where 7 we, were not meeting design expectations in the as-found 8 condition. This is certainly to be an improvement. Those 9 will be stainless steel, they will have covers to allow for 10 inspection activities in accordance with regulatory 11 requirements.
12 The next picture you can see, you have a side-view.
13 MR. GROBE: Randy, just a 14 quick question; maybe I didnt hear you. Receipt of 15 replacement coils in progress.
16 MR. FAST: Yes.
17 MR. GROBE: Does that mean 18 you received some of the coils?
19 MR. FAST: Yes, we have. In 20 the last I got count was -- we get them in batches of six.
21 That was the agreement that we had with the supplier.
22 Weve been meeting that schedule. The last I heard we have 23 18 max, we have 24. Its a total of 36. There is twelve 24 per containment air coolers. So, we have enough coolers to 25 do the complete refurbishment rebuild on the CAC Number 1.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
41 1 And then, so, were taking regular receipt delivery.
2 Thats proceeding on schedule.
3 MR. GROBE: Okay. You 4 confused me. Receipt in progress. Usually you receive 5 something.
6 MR. FAST: There is a total 7 of 36. Weve gotten three batches, maybe four, I dont 8 know if the fourth batch has come in. Certainly, were 9 meeting our timetable for restoration.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay, thank you.
11 MR. MYERS: That was another 12 example of, when we started out, as an issue. We didnt 13 have a clue if we could get those coolers in. Randy and 14 his team really worked hard with the vendors, laying that 15 out. So far, weve been very successful getting all new 16 coolers in.
17 MR. FAST: Something else I 18 want to identify, when youre in a situation like this, 19 you want to make sure that the quality is there. And, 20 weve had our quality folks overseeing that process, and 21 weve had very good reports on the quality of those 22 coolers. So, we feel like were really in good shape 23 there.
24 This picture that you see, there is a light bar 25 laying on the picture to the left. Is a side-view of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
42 1 structural steel associated with the containment air 2 cooler. On the right is a top view. You can see down 3 below the matter of the grit. Thats actually the sponge 4 blast media. What you see, its the raw steel after its 5 been grit blasted. That has subsequently been painted, so 6 its in pretty good shape.
7 Bob wants me to tell you what color. Tony was at 8 the meeting we had with the whole team the other day. Its 9 Michigan blue. I was in trouble for saying that.
11 MR. MYERS: We may have to 12 repaint it.
13 MR. FAST: So, were just 14 going to call it blue.
15 This next slide is the Containment Emergency Sump.
16 That was a big job for us as well. Weve reported out on 17 this every meeting, but were actually doing physical work 18 now. We have the demolition of the existing sump. As a 19 matter of fact, at this mornings outage meeting, we were 20 talking about the sump. And the project manager said, 21 well, we dont have it anymore. Effectively, all of the 22 structural components associated with that sump have been 23 removed.
24 In fact, this next bullet here, Steve Fox, one of 25 the project managers who is working on the Containment Head MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
43 1 Project was part of the reasons for our success in the 2 containment shield building and the pressure vessel work 3 with Bechtel. And he has completed that work, and now has 4 come over to help us. He has a really good working 5 relationship with the craft, and was out in the field 6 working with folks to work through this, so we could make 7 sure we had a good quality product there.
8 Steve is not with us today. Hes in root cause 9 training, which is good as well. Make sure his skills, 10 technical skills are up to speed. But were making good 11 progress here.
12 The next slide shows a bit more detail in definition 13 of what that containment sump expansion is.
14 The original sump was about 50 square feet, so its 15 minimal in size. And why thats important, is that 16 provides margin for design basis accident, blow down in 17 containment; the accumulation of water in the lower 18 elevations of containment is strained through this filter 19 or this strainer system; goes back into the recirculation 20 pumps for long term cooling.
21 This has been expanded to, the actual sump area, 22 from 50 square feet to 300 square feet up in the upper 23 section, and then going down through the stairwell, which 24 you go under vessel, that expands or extends the square 25 footage up to about 800.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
44 1 Were using a vendor that was recommended based on 2 the good work that they did for Intergy. Thats an 3 Illinois company. We have oversight of that project and 4 were starting on the actual fabrication of those stainless 5 steel components.
6 MR. GROBE: All the design 7 work is done on this?
8 MR. FAST: All the design 9 work is not done. Were taking some of the field 10 measurements to ensure that weve got the assignment 11 restraints, the Hilton bolts and things that will hold it 12 in place. That detail is being measured in the field with 13 Steve Fox and his group, so we can get that information 14 back in to the design and ensure thats all put together 15 prior to assembly.
16 MR. GROBE: Do you have a 17 projected date, as Christine mentioned earlier, youve 18 added containment sump onto the checklist; and one of the 19 issues were going to want to be doing is detailed review 20 of your design work on this.
21 MR. FAST: Thats a good 22 question, Jack. And as Mike identified earlier, the two 23 major concerns we have in looking at the overall projects, 24 bulk work as we talked about, but the other is the 25 containment sump. And as Steve is working in the field MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
45 1 with the crews, weve identified what those challenges are 2 for the actual implementation. And that is challenging the 3 schedule right now. So, were continuing to work through 4 that, so we can get the best possible estimate.
5 So, the reality is, we are not bound right now by 6 time. Were still evaluating that. And so, I dont have 7 an actual projection that I can give you.
8 I understand the point. Well make sure that when 9 we have a good firm schedule, well get that to you.
10 MR. GROBE: Okay.
11 MR. THOMAS: Does this new 12 design provide any additional access to water that you 13 didnt have with the old sump design?
14 MR. FAST: I dont really 15 think so, because based on the blow down and then the 16 reflood in containment and the amount of water thats put 17 in, about a half million gallons of water, it will fill up 18 to a level thats about two feet above that base plate 19 where the emergency sump used to exist, and everything else 20 is there or below.
21 MR. THOMAS: Okay.
22 MR. GROBE: It seems to 23 me, that would give you more. Wouldnt you install that 24 before you install these pipes?
25 MR. POWERS: As a matter of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
46 1 fact, Jack, the way that we have the concept now, the water 2 would begin entering the sump at a lower level as the 3 bottom area fills up below the reactor cavity, so we would 4 get water in the sump a little earlier than we would with 5 the current design. So, there is an improvement, but the 6 operator actions to switch over the pump suction to the 7 sump will occur at draining points out at two feet of water 8 level above the floor.
9 MR. MYERS: And the total 10 water, of water level in containment is the same.
11 MR. FAST: Thats right.
12 MR. MYERS: From a design 13 standpoint, youll be doing this in phases?
14 MR. POWERS: Right, the plan 15 is, were doing it in a phase release, Jack, so in terms of 16 your inspection of our design that we produce with this 17 sump, well layout a schedule on how were going to do 18 that. Were laying out those schedules now for our field 19 implementation and fabrication, and incremental packages.
20 So, well lay that out to you on schedules we can work out.
21 MR. GROBE: If you could get 22 that to Christine, I would appreciate it.
23 MR. POWERS: Okay.
24 MR. FAST: Next slide.
25 Unfortunately, this is pretty dark. It really MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
47 1 doesnt show the progress that weve made up in the 2 containment dome.
3 What you actually have is two 70 foot sections of 4 scaffold that are suspended by a center pin on the very top 5 of containment. And those are rotating, so if youre in 6 containment and look straight up, it kind of looks like a 7 big fan blade. You can see the proportion is gray where 8 the paint has been removed. And as portions of the paint 9 are removed, the scaffold is rotated.
10 So, this just doesnt do it justice to be able to 11 describe it, but its quite an amazing process, and really 12 is quite a feat. I did have an opportunity to qualify on 13 the crane operation, to get up into the dome. And I went 14 up to the dome to do an inspection to see what the quality 15 of the work is and see what those challenges are. And 16 theyre making good progress, and I see good quality. I 17 see that the work force is truly engaged and working well 18 as a team. So, I feel pretty good about the work thats 19 going on in the containment dome.
20 And its important as well, when you get up close 21 and actually see the condition of the paint, gives you a 22 better appreciation for why were doing the work that were 23 doing. So, its important that that corrective action is 24 completed.
25 And that upper portion is really the most challenge MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
48 1 of the work. The painters are actually working with 2 equipment over their head to remove the paint using special 3 tools, vacuum assisted, to remove the debris as the paint 4 is removed.
5 But that top portion is going well. And the sides 6 would be much easier, more easily accessed. And then as 7 well, using tools at chest level as opposed to over your 8 head.
9 So, unfortunately, that picture just doesnt do it 10 justice up here. Ive seen the actual photographs and Ive 11 been there, so, but its good progress there.
12 MR. MYERS: How many painters 13 do you have up there?
14 MR. FAST: We have 125 15 painters. About half on day shift, half on night shift.
16 There is a total, 140 foot of scaffold at the top, were 17 man loaded to 16 people maximum. And the state times are 18 just about an hour we have to run people up and down, 19 because of the state time; based on a couple of things; 20 physical exertion, as well as the conditions there. Its 21 warm. Hot air rises, so its hot in the dome. But those 22 crews are changed out regularly to make sure that they 23 dont get exhausted and theyre replenished and refreshed.
24 And the last item I want to talk about were the 25 Containment Health Assurance Inspections; and we talked MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
49 1 about previously, all the general inspections were 2 completed. But we do have Equipment Qualification 3 Inspections, and I do have the report back and I met with 4 the crew today that are continuing to work on equipment 5 qualification walkdowns.
6 We have a total population of 181 assets. Those are 7 the actual individual piece parts components in the 8 containment that are being evaluated. 76 of those are 9 completed, so were about 42 percent done. Weve got about 10 three more weeks yet to go.
11 Heres the question that I asked the team today, 12 which I think is important. Out of all the inspections we 13 performed to-date, is any of the equipment determined to be 14 inoperable, or would it not be able to perform its intended 15 function. And right now, there is no equipment that has 16 been identified as being inoperable. The conditions we see 17 are some light rust, some traces of boric acid, but the 18 actual functional capability of equipment has not been 19 impacted.
20 So, well have about three more weeks of inspections 21 to do there, but thats going pretty well.
22 MR. GROBE: This is traces of 23 boric acid inside of junction boxes or motor housing?
24 MR. FAST: We have not seen 25 any actual boric acid or degradation inside the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
50 1 components. The sealing mechanisms around the penetration 2 panels, the motor operated valves themselves, the 3 instrumentation has not been penetrated, so thats why the 4 equipment is being able to maintain its qualification.
5 MR. DEAN: Randy, does that 6 comment on operability also apply to historical reviews of 7 the containment air coolers and the sump?
8 MR. FAST: No, it does not, 9 Bill. Those were separate and those have undergone 10 separate operability determination.
11 MR. DEAN: Where do those 12 stand?
13 MR. FAST: The containment 14 air coolers were determined based on the thermal stress to 15 be inoperable. And, that is in review. That will require 16 a Licensee Event Report.
17 Additionally, the sump, because of the coatings in 18 containment that would have clogged the sump; that was 19 determined to be inoperable. And that is a Licensee Event 20 Report as well.
21 The last thing I wanted to point out, our Chief 22 Executive Officer, Pete Berg was here on Monday. And I did 23 take him for a tour of containment. And we went for that 24 tour, all elevations, and got a pretty thorough walkdown.
25 We did that with booties, gloves and lab coats.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
51 1 And, its really a credit to the teams that are 2 working to clean up the buildings, general housekeeping.
3 The radiologic conditions are greatly improved. Through 4 that about one hour review of containment with Pete, we 5 received no dose, no contamination. And I think thats a 6 real tribute to the work weve been able to perform on the 7 housekeeping and the standards in containment.
8 MR. GROBE: You didnt see me 9 in the containment with lab coats and --
10 MR. FAST: Jack, you didnt 11 clear that with me.
12 MR. GROBE: Maybe its 13 because I work a little harder to get down on my knees and 14 things like that.
15 MR. MYERS: Maybe you should 16 talk a little about the legacy issue.
17 MR. FAST: Just a lot of 18 other work, I didnt include them on the slides, but Lew 19 had just mentioned one of the items. Its called a legacy 20 issue. A source in containment was from resistance 21 temperature detector thermal welds. Those are, those 22 joints are actually screwed connection. And they had been 23 a source of leakage in the past.
24 Right now as we speak, Framatone has mobilized the 25 crew. Theyve been trained. And we have machines and MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
52 1 operations in place, for those old thermal welds are being 2 cut out, and we have new thermal welds to be welded design 3 and they will not leak, because they wont have that leak 4 path. So, thats a corrective action I feel good about.
5 Significant level of work to do there, but its 6 important that we stop any potential leak paths in the 7 plant.
8 MR. MYERS: You were asking 9 about drainage when we walk around. This is a major scope 10 of work that is in that drawn down.
11 MR. FAST: With that, Ill 12 turn it over to Jim Powers.
13 MR. POWERS: Okay, thank you, 14 Randy.
15 Today, I would like to talk about two topics. First 16 would be System Health Assurance Inspections and progress 17 weve been making in this area. With me, I brought one of 18 our system health reports. This is a Latent Issues Review 19 Report for our Service Water System.
20 And I brought it, so the public could see the amount 21 of work that the staff is doing over at the plant to go 22 through and evaluate the systems and explore past 23 documentation and current documentation and see what kind 24 of problems, what we refer to them as latent issues, that 25 may exist on a system or do not exist.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
53 1 So, this level of documentation is whats being 2 produced for each of five systems that were going 3 through. This is one example.
4 Were at the point now as you can see, where our 5 reports are drafted and were doing whats called a 6 Collective Significance Review of the results that were 7 finding. And the inputs to our Collective Significance 8 Reviews consist of the bulleted items that we have here on 9 the slide.
10 First, our System Health Readiness Reviews. These 11 are reviews of 31 systems. Our maintenance rule, Risk 12 Significant Systems, as we refer to them, and that means 13 theyre important to the safety of the plant. All 31 of 14 those System Health Reviews are in the final stages of 15 completion.
16 A number of them have gone to our Engineering 17 Assessment Board for evaluation and the balance being 18 completed by the system engineers and their teams; within 19 the next month, they will all be done. But the results are 20 largely available to us, as well as the results of Latent 21 Issues Reviews on the five systems we have listed on the 22 slide.
23 Also we take comments from our Engineering 24 Assessment Board as they go through review of engineering 25 products and the system reports that they review. And MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
54 1 finally Self-Assessments that weve done in the area 2 specific of calculations and technical work.
3 Findings Summary. These reports have provided us 4 valuable insight as weve gone through them. There is a 5 number of issues that we found and discrepancies that have 6 been identified that we need to evaluate prior to restart, 7 and resolve as applicable prior to the restart of the 8 plant.
9 Some of the ones Ive listed here that are of 10 importance to us. Calculation Quality. As you know, may 11 know, the plant when it was built 25 years ago, a number of 12 calculations were prepared by the original designers to 13 support the construction of the plant. And those 14 calculations need to be maintained as the years go by and 15 as things change in the plant. And the maintenance of our 16 calculations and their quality is not where it needs to be 17 and doesnt meet our current expectations.
18 Also in the area of Environmental Qualification or 19 programs to maintain equipment, such that it can withstand 20 the extreme environment that could occur after an accident 21 in containment, for example. There is questions about 22 that, that have been documented as part of the reviews and 23 well be evaluating that program, as well as a High Energy 24 Line Break Program. Thats a program that assesses what 25 environment is created by a break of a pipe containing high MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
55 1 energy steam or water.
2 And finally, some material condition issues. Weve 3 talked about those during past meetings. Particularly, we 4 found a number of things during our walkdown by our 5 combined teams of operations, maintenance and engineering, 6 that things need to get fixed; some of which are valve 7 packing leakage, for example, and I think in the past I 8 described the tornado missle barriers for the diesel 9 generator exhaust piping that need to be repaired at the 10 point that they attach to the structural building.
11 Follow-on Corrective Actions. As we go through the 12 process of finalizing our report, the condition reports 13 that we have issued document any concerns that have been 14 identified going through the process. They will be 15 resolved prior to restart.
16 Each time we issue a condition report, it goes 17 through the fixed process of the plant, where it goes 18 through our Restart Station Review Board, which consists of 19 the key managers of the plant and maintenance operations, 20 work control, engineering and licensing, for example. They 21 review every condition report and categorize it for 22 procedure thats in place, with set categorization 23 criteria, in terms of whether it needs to be evaluated 24 prior to restart or could wait until after restart. So, 25 those CRs will be resolved and evaluated as necessary.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
56 1 Selected systems will receive Focused Area Latent 2 Issue Reviews. As weve gone through the process of Latent 3 Issue Review, the areas we find; and I described some of 4 them previously, for example, calculation quality; those 5 have received a more focused area review on a more 6 horizontal instead of condition basis. And well carry 7 those forward until we are satisfied that the plant is safe 8 and prepared for restart.
9 Then finally, a functional capability assessment is 10 ongoing. With the issues that we found in the various 11 systems, were evaluating whats that mean to the 12 capability of a system to perform its mission in a plant.
13 In many cases, that involves analytical work, and its 14 going to take some time to lay out analysis to go through 15 that process on assessing functional capability.
16 One of the issues that we found, for example in 17 service water, as many of you know, the lake temperature 18 has been rising in recent years. And weve been tracking 19 that at the plant. This plant at Davis-Besse and also 20 Perry Plant and other plants on the lake, generally in the 21 country this is an issue.
22 The technical staff at the plant in tracking that 23 change performed an analysis to increase the allowable lake 24 temperature to the cooling water systems. And in doing so, 25 there was some calculation quality and extent of condition MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
57 1 items that, you know, in terms of completeness in 2 calculations, we found not all heat exchangers had been 3 fully evaluated for that.
4 And we also found that the margins available on the 5 plant, when you raise the temperature of the cooling water, 6 the margins available to the equipment are reduced 7 somewhat. So, that makes it difficult and requires some 8 detail technical work to go in and assess the ramifications 9 of it. And the calculations that support that change are 10 going to be evaluated and revised.
11 Thats one of the major issues that were tracking 12 on right now, is very important to us, and weve got an 13 action plan being prepared to go through that process.
14 Any questions?
15 MS. LIPA: I did have a 16 couple questions, yeah, before you go on. You mentioned 17 that your staff there has completed Latent Issue Review 18 Report. Is that the final review and improved report?
19 MR. POWERS: No, what Ive got 20 here, Christine, is the draft thats been prepared. And 21 the other four systems, their drafts are in the preparation 22 process as well.
23 This will go through a review process now starting 24 with the team itself that prepared the report, will go to 25 the Section Manager, the Plant Engineering Manager, then it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
58 1 will head on to Restart Station Review Board for 2 presentation with them. So, it will get questioning from 3 all the key managers.
4 After incorporating comments, this also goes through 5 the Engineering Assessment Board and finally through the 6 Restart Senior Management Team. So, all the levels of 7 management will get to see the results of these reports.
8 So, its got a gauntlet to run yet before its final 9 approval.
10 MS. LIPA: Okay, and coming 11 out of that report will be some actions that need to be 12 taken in the field perhaps?
13 MR. POWERS: Thats right. And 14 the report consists of any issues that have been documented 15 already in the condition reports. And so those condition 16 reports are out there, and under evaluation.
17 One of the key activities going on in the plant 18 right now is assembling a team of technical staff to 19 evaluate condition reports and go through the process of 20 seeing what type of changes may be required.
21 MS. LIPA: Okay. Then I 22 think I also heard you mentioned that as a result of your 23 lessons on Latent Issues Reviews, youre doing a selective 24 system for focused areas. Have you selected which systems 25 are going to receive the focused areas?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
59 1 MR. POWERS: Not yet, but some 2 of the thoughts we had on that, we discussed this at 3 earlier meetings; there are additional systems that 4 contribute to the probabilistic risk assessment of the 5 plant; things like the 25 volt DC electrical system or the 6 4160 volt AC distribution system.
7 And so, well be targeting our reviews on some of 8 these important to safety systems, as well as some 9 mitigation systems. And were walking through that process 10 now to see what is the most effective way for us to get on 11 and look at additional systems.
12 MS. LIPA: And is that, that 13 effort expected to be done before restart?
14 MR. POWERS: Yes.
15 MS. LIPA: Has it been folded 16 in your schedule yet?
17 MR. POWERS: Right. There will 18 be a combination of efforts done prior to restart and 19 continuing effort following restart; and what were working 20 on right now is the action plan and strategy for the 21 systems that well do prior to restart to ensure ourselves 22 that the plant is safe and ready to return to service.
23 MS. LIPA: One last 24 question. You mentioned Environmental Qualification and 25 High Energy Line Break as a program. Is that something MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
60 1 youre adding to program scope?
2 MR. POWERS: They are already 3 in the program scope, and what were looking at is, in the 4 case of Environmental Qualification is questions on 5 implementation in the field; as the work order process, 6 actual work in the fields, and were going to be checking 7 out, some questions have arisen. And there is a specific 8 concern in the area of Aux. Feedwater System and Aux.
9 Feedwater Pump Rooms where an industry issue on High Energy 10 Line Break of the turbine building created a steam 11 environment in the Aux. Feedwater Pump Room.
12 So, there is some specific D Q issues isolated to 13 those pump rooms, computer pumps. We want to be able to 14 function through that type of environment. And so we have 15 some, we have some condition reports in that area that 16 were going to be addressing.
17 MS. LIPA: Okay. Anybody 18 else have any questions?
19 MR. DEAN: I just have a 20 couple questions, Jim, on the Latent Issues Review. If I 21 remember, one of the elements of the Latent Issues Review 22 was to try and look to see if some of the things that were 23 present that resulted in the vessel head degradation also 24 showed up in other systems, things like control room 25 modifications, and corrective actions, or previously MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
61 1 identified CRs. Have you seen any sort of patterns or 2 issues like that emerging in any of these other systems?
3 MR. POWERS: I wouldnt say 4 weve seen in terms of control modification, I hadnt seen 5 any significant amount of that type of problem, Bill.
6 In the corrective action area, I would say that the, 7 the areas that weve seen have largely been related to 8 corrective actions in programs such as improvement of 9 calculations. Where in the past we had a corrective action 10 go through and do a count validation process, for example, 11 which we have at the plant, had undertaken, had begun, but 12 had not carried through on it as rigorously as we should 13 have.
14 So, were seeing from an effectiveness of corrective 15 action, some areas we need to accelerate and expedite and 16 get things done. So, we have found some of that, things 17 that need to get done more rigorously, but I havent seen a 18 report of wholesale corrective action.
19 MR. DEAN: Thats not a good 20 second to my next question, which was back in the mid 90s 21 in the aftermath of Millstone, there was a fairly large 22 effort spurred by the agency regarding design basis, with 23 5054 outfooters and all Licensee implemented programs to go 24 through the design basis of their programs.
25 How would you rate, given the types of things that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
62 1 are emerging from your reports, the efficacy of that 2 effort?
3 MR. POWERS: In that 4 assessment, there was done on the site design basis, one of 5 the activities that we had, had committed to do, was this 6 design basis validation; go through the calculations. And 7 the calculations were in the 31 maintenance rule 8 significant systems.
9 Went through that process. Identified that there 10 were areas of improvement that needed to be undertaken; and 11 many of those activities were completed. We have found 12 that there is still remaining activities and, in fact, 13 those are in the process of completion right now, 14 finishing up some enhancements and improvements to 15 calculations in those systems.
16 We believe there is activities that we want to 17 undertake beyond that, dialogue that occurred at that time, 18 but there is, there is activities were still finishing up 19 from that assessment.
20 MR. MYERS: I would comment.
21 I read the response very well. In general, I think we did 22 a pretty good job at that response. Heres all the things 23 you need to go do. Talking about the history of how we 24 developed system documents, if you will; description 25 documents; talk about the functions of the system and all MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
63 1 that. In that document, we recommended that we need to go 2 back and establish ops to do that.
3 We made a commitment to do that. I dont think we 4 followed through with that commitment to the degree we 5 should have. So, thats in line with the, with the same 6 type of approach that you saw on some of the stuff in the 7 reactor vessel head.
8 MR. GROBE: I just have a 9 question, maybe a comment. Christine and Bill both asked 10 really good questions, and I wanted to emphasize the 11 importance of something.
12 Slide 30, I think communicated that youre going to 13 have selected systems that are going to receive these 14 focused area Latent Issue Reviews. Focus areas include 15 calculations and environmental qualification, high energy 16 line break and youre doing a functional capability 17 assessment.
18 One of the purposes of this panel and these types of 19 meetings is to make sure there is a clear understanding of 20 whats necessary for restart. And that too much work isnt 21 expected by us prior to restart, but sufficient work is 22 required to ensure the safety of the plant.
23 Were going to be keenly interested in these 24 functional capability assessments, and what that means with 25 respect to the scope of the necessary additional review in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
64 1 these focused areas prior to restart.
2 So, thats something I think is very important. As 3 soon as you begin to crystallize your thoughts on where 4 this is going, I think we need to meet on that; maybe by 5 telephone, maybe in person, depending on the situation, 6 but I dont want to leave that for next months meeting.
7 As soon as were ready to go on that, I think we need to 8 talk about that.
9 MR. MYERS: We plan to pull 10 that plan together within the next week or so, and start 11 having dialogue on that plan as soon as possible.
12 MR. GROBE: Okay.
13 MS. LIPA: Any other 14 questions? This would be a good time for a break then; 15 and so, why dont we start back in ten minutes.
16 (Off the record.)
17 MS. LIPA: Okay. Jim, 18 whenever youre ready, you can continue.
19 MR. POWERS: Okay, Ill 20 continue on with the discussion of the Program Compliance 21 Reviews. Weve also been very active in the area of review 22 of programs. We had a number of them. And, here you can 23 see the status; 51 of 65 Program Baseline Assessments have 24 been presented to the Program Review Board. Thats a 25 subcommittee of our Engineering Assessment Board that looks MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
65 1 at each one of these programs.
2 These are all of the technical programs, plus some 3 of the key programs within the restart site that we review.
4 The owners need to describe the health of their program, 5 write up topics, such as their qualifications and training 6 and the continuity of their ownership; issues they may have 7 with the program; benchmarking theyve done to other 8 utilities with similar programs.
9 And, give a picture of the health to the Program 10 Review Board. And then, theyre questioned by the board 11 about the aspects of the program; and through that process, 12 any weaknesses are uncovered and documented in condition 13 reports in the corrective action process.
14 As you can see, 18 of those programs have been 15 determined to be ready for restart; and 33 programs that 16 Davis-Besse imposed restart restraints. And CRs, issues 17 that we want to get resolved prior to startup of the 18 plant.
19 So, there is a lot of active work going on in that 20 area. Its a very good process in terms of what the 21 personnel and program ownership thats going through this 22 process to write down the details on the program, get up in 23 front of the board and explain the program, and then be 24 able to defend the programs health; and then come away 25 with comments that they need to go and resolve and improve MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
66 1 the process.
2 So, each one of these opportunities, as you alluded 3 to earlier, Jack, learning moments, as we go through this 4 process, a large number of technical people; and these are 5 typically key technical people, because theyve been given 6 responsibility for programs. So, this is a good process of 7 moving forward and making good progress.
8 In terms of detail program reviews, as we described 9 previously, the key programs that were involved or 10 specifically with the head degradation issue are being 11 given latent issue level program reviews. Two out of six 12 of those have been completed; thats the Boric Acid 13 Corrosion Control and the Corrective Action Program 14 Reviews. And, those have gone through the review boards 15 and all the way through the Restart Management Team in the 16 process.
17 Finally on this slide, the Radiation Protection 18 Program has been added to the Program Review Building 19 Block, and so were currently staffing a review team for 20 that program.
21 MS. LIPA: On that, Jim, 22 well be interested in your schedule for the Radiation 23 Protection Program when you develop it, so we can plan our 24 inspection of that activity.
25 MR. POWERS: Okay.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
67 1 MS. LIPA: And also with 2 those others, you mentioned that two of the six had been 3 completed. And, as you know, one of the challenges were 4 facing with our inspections of those programs is 5 understanding the progress that youve made and when youre 6 complete that we can schedule our inspectors to come back 7 out to the site.
8 So, well be waiting to find out when youre ready 9 for us to inspect the rest of those six programs.
10 MR. POWERS: Very good. We 11 have scheduled for that and well communicate those to you, 12 current schedules for completion.
13 MR. GROBE: Two quick 14 questions, Jim. First one, two of the six are completed; 15 what do you mean when you say completed?
16 MR. POWERS: The Review Report 17 has been completed. Weve taken it through the Program 18 Review Board. Any comments that have been incorporated, 19 weve taken it through the Restart Senior Management Team.
20 Now, when I say complete, it doesnt mean that the 21 corrective actions that need to get done have been 22 completed yet, Jack. So, thats still a remaining item.
23 Similar to what we saw on Containment Health on tracking 24 condition reports and then corrective action that evolves 25 from that.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
68 1 We have a similar tracking function here; and Al 2 McCallister, who is one of the owners of our Program 3 Review, tracks on that. So, we know there is still 4 activities that need to get done, theyre attacking, and 5 restart required. And those corrective action would be 6 completed before the program review is entirely done, 7 before restart.
8 MR. MYERS: When we say 9 completed, it means that report should be ready for 10 restart; is that right?
11 MR. POWERS: Thats right.
12 MR. GROBE: So, completed 13 means the assessment is completely done, there is no other 14 reviews in-house thats being done on the assessment.
15 MR. POWERS: Thats right, the 16 report is available for inspection.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay.
18 MS. LIPA: Now, one more 19 question. Earlier when we talked about the Latent Issues 20 Reviews and we talked about the EQ, Environmental 21 Qualification Program and High Energy Line Break Program; 22 did you say that those are separate programs that are part 23 of the 65?
24 MR. POWERS: Right.
25 MS. LIPA: Okay.
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69 1 MR. GROBE: And the Radiation 2 Protection Program, is that being added to the baseline 3 assessment?
4 MR. POWERS: Detailed.
5 MR. GROBE: The detailed.
6 Let me just make one other comment with the, 7 regarding the Radiation Protection Program. I hope that 8 youre going to look at all aspects of your Radiation 9 Protection Program, but the principle areas that were 10 interested in are the ones that resulted in the findings 11 this morning, and that would primarily be the work control 12 dose assessment and radioactive control aspects.
13 Other aspects were looking at; affluence 14 monitoring, dissymmetry, things like that; may not be doing 15 the detailed review, but I would think you would be looking 16 at those areas too.
17 MR. POWERS: Right.
18 Some of the common issues we found in Program 19 Reviews; qualifications of the owners. We do not typically 20 have whats called a Job Familiarization Guideline, JFG 21 card, sometimes a qual card, that an individual having been 22 assigned to own a program would fill out and document what 23 training is required, what experience needs to be brought 24 to the position and what kind of ongoing continuing 25 training is associated with the positions.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
70 1 So, we need to develop standards for the program.
2 This is also an issue, and part of the process we go 3 through, review with the program owners, is talking about 4 the standards, and how they impress their program on-site 5 and working to raise those standards.
6 One of the ways were going to do that is 7 performance indicators. We dont have performance 8 indicators for many of the programs that really have, 9 applies to the site. How the program is performing; how 10 healthy it is. And so thats, program indicators are 11 typically one of the activities that needs to get developed 12 for them.
13 Interfaces and Handoffs. When you have a program, 14 it often results in an engineer, for example, owning it and 15 perhaps maintenance staff implementing it out in the 16 plant. And those interfaces and handoffs between the 17 different groups are a key element to the strength and 18 health of the program, make sure that those are sound.
19 And, that the ownership through those interfaces and 20 handoffs exist, that the owner of the program doesnt feel 21 like he or she loses responsibility or accountability for 22 the program at that point. So, thats another area were 23 reinforcing.
24 Commitment Management. As we go through the 25 programs, were evaluating over time; have we done a good MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
71 1 job in completing commitments weve made to the NRC over 2 the years into the programs; and have they been maintained 3 in the program as it gets revised; are we keeping the 4 spirit content of commitments that weve made in the 5 program. There are some areas, as we say, were doing 6 further improvements.
7 Another area that the, turn attention to, potential 8 bypasses to the Condition Report process. And these can 9 exist in, lets say, for example, a Blue Boil Sampling 10 Program. You get a certain threshold of blue boil clogging 11 particulates, chemicals, constituents, that you get the 12 sampling process and you get threshold levels for alert and 13 then action and so forth. And, at what point do you issue 14 a CR; and at what point do you just monitor this within the 15 program.
16 So, were working through that process to make sure 17 were not circumventing the Corrective Action Program.
18 And finally, training for the program owners and for 19 the program implementers is an area that needs 20 improvement. The owners need to be involved in development 21 and application of the training until they feel satisfied 22 that everyone who implements the program on site has 23 appropriate training.
24 So, those are some of the common issues that weve 25 come across, were dealing with to improve programs. As we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
72 1 develop these at the Davis-Besse site, well be taking 2 these type of processes to our other FENOC facilities.
3 I think were making big strides here in program 4 ownership and procedures we have in place for these program 5 reviews, will be converted to FENOC-wide procedures and 6 used at our other sites.
7 Any questions on those?
8 MR. DEAN: Jim, I have a 9 question relative to the source of these common issues.
10 Are those common issues that were developed mainly using 11 baseline assessments or do those also relate to the Detail 12 Program Reviews?
13 MR. POWERS: Theyre really 14 coming from both, Bill, because the baseline assessments, 15 each one of those programs come before the review board, 16 and go over a standard format of content that the owners 17 have to report on. And so, if there is weaknesses there, 18 they will show up.
19 And the qualifications is one example you find out 20 right off the bat. Whats your training been for this 21 position? Whats the experience level? How long have you 22 owned this program? Qualifications come right through the 23 baseline assessments as well as a detail, that will show up 24 in the detail assessment.
25 Commitment management will show up in one of the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
73 1 detailed assessments, for example. Getting into the real 2 nuts and bolts of detailed document reviews with 3 commitments in them. So, its a mixture of where these 4 come from.
5 MR. DEAN: And with respect 6 to the two detailed program reviews that have been 7 completed, Boric Acid and Corrective Action Program; what 8 in particular stands out in your mind relative to the 9 specific issues that have been identified?
10 MR. POWERS: The top items? I 11 would say standards and ownership, when it comes to 12 interfaces and handoffs in those programs; particularly in 13 the Boric Acid Program. Thats one of the major ones that 14 comes to mind.
15 In the Corrective Action Program, the implementation 16 is an issue that we had, was the principle issue we had in 17 the program. The elements are there in our Condition 18 Reporting Process, Corrective Action Program, for it to 19 work, for issues to be identified, investigated, evaluated 20 and fixed with corrective actions.
21 And the people that implement it needed to take 22 advantage of the program thats available there and use it 23 effectively to fix things at the plant.
24 So, we found a number of areas we can improve the 25 program, but where the implementation of it is what were MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
74 1 focusing on, to improve that. And thats; as we have been 2 communicating to the staff at the plant, you cant just 3 write a condition report.
4 I think were doing a pretty good job of writing 5 condition reports at the low threshold, but you cant just 6 write it and put it in the process and trust that the 7 process is going to resolve that condition report, evaluate 8 it, and on a timely basis, and effectively get to the 9 resolution that perhaps the person who identified the 10 problem had in mind.
11 There is an element of ownership, not just write a 12 condition report, throw it into the process and let it take 13 care of itself. It needs to be a bit more of an ownership 14 on the condition reports as they go in.
15 So, weve been having a dialogue with the staff on 16 that aspect of it. So, those are a couple of things that 17 come to the front line of these programs.
18 MR. DEAN: Okay.
19 MR. POWERS: Okay. If there 20 are no more questions, Ill turn it back over to Lew 21 Myers.
22 MR. MYERS: Going back to the 23 Boric Acid Program, we didnt have the right standards in 24 the program, didnt even mention the reactor vessel head 25 specifically. There was some questions with MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
75 1 implementation, now ownership in all those areas. I think 2 we have that fixed now.
3 Ive actually reviewed the procedure, processed the 4 program, feel we have good ownership and weve turned that 5 into the Nuclear Operating Procedure now, thats consistent 6 with pressurized water reactors. So, standards was 7 definitely an issue there.
8 The next area that I would like to talk about, 9 pleased to talk about is the Management and Human 10 Performance Actions that weve taken to-date.
11 As you know, the last month, we sat down and talked 12 about the root cause, and also we talked about the action 13 plan to go forward.
14 Lets go to the next slide.
15 We put a team together shortly after we got here in 16 May. It was an independent team to look at the management 17 problems associated with the reactor head event. We 18 focused that on the head event, knowing in our mind that, 19 that by doing that, it might tell us some broad base areas 20 that we need to go look at.
21 We also said, look at the technical issues 22 associated with the head event, the part that operations 23 plays, the operations group played in the head event. And 24 then finally, if all the other barriers fail, why didnt 25 the quality oversight programs that we have prevent this MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
76 1 issue from happening?
2 So, in each one of these areas, weve taken actions 3 to perform a root cause or an assessment of what went 4 wrong. To ensure that were, were taking actions that are 5 consistent, were not taking, everybody is not taking their 6 own actions, we put together a Management/Human Performance 7 Improvement Plan that we presented last month.
8 That plan is an integrated approach of actions that 9 were taking at the site to ensure that we have standards 10 in place to prevent this type of issue from happening 11 again.
12 Go to the next slide.
13 If you go ask, what are those actions that were 14 taking? What did we learn out of all these root causes 15 that we took?
16 Well, first of all, nuclear safety focus was an 17 issue that we talked about; make sure that we have a proper 18 nuclear safety focus, and thats number one. Thats number 19 one in our plant every day. And that the work environment 20 supports that safety culture. So, we have actions in place 21 to address the, the employees and the culture of the 22 plant.
23 Standards and Decision-Making is another area thats 24 sort of popped out. And if you go look at the head, we 25 have talked about leadership standards that we have, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
77 1 departmental standards, the way we conduct business each 2 and every day; in saying, were not only meeting the 3 regulatory requirements, not just meeting the regulatory 4 requirements, but meeting industry accepted standards and 5 approaches.
6 Oversight and Assessments. We need to look at our 7 external groups and make some changes there to assure that 8 our independent oversight areas are truly independent. One 9 of the main issues we found there is, in the past, the 10 Independent Oversight Assessment Group or the Quality 11 Group, if you will, reported to the site vice president.
12 Thats no longer true. Bill Pearce sitting beside me 13 reports directly to Bob Saunders and on up to the board.
14 So, if they report to the site vice president, they become 15 part of the culture sooner or later. So, we tried to fix 16 that.
17 The Oversight Review Boards that we have, why didnt 18 they fix this problem, why didnt they catch the problems?
19 So, were addressing that.
20 And finally, the Programs, if you will, and the 21 Procedure Compliance at issue in this.
22 So, if you look at this Management/Human Performance 23 Improvement Plan, it basically touches those five areas, if 24 you will.
25 Next slide.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
78 1 Today, we have several initiatives that weve 2 completed. The first to do is Baseline of Safety Conscious 3 Work Environment. So, we established a couple months ago 4 the results of our survey, and well be performing some 5 additional type surveys in the future to make sure that we, 6 we have the right safety culture on site; and people will 7 feel free to bring forward information.
8 From a FirstEnergy standpoint, we created a new 9 Chief Operating Officer position. Gary Leidich, Executive 10 Vice President is with us now. Were really pleased to 11 have him here. And, then the Vice President of FENOC 12 Oversight has been created. If you go look at our 13 organization before, the only corporate person that we had 14 was Mr. Saunders, our President.
15 So now, from a corporate standpoint, we have more 16 oversight of our plants. And what were finding is that 17 things will not be, that we thought were being consistently 18 performed at our plants, werent, but we didnt have the 19 oversight processes in place to assure that was happening.
20 So, its strengthened that.
21 Weve added a new Davis-Besse Site Leadership Team, 22 and new directors. In fact, if youll look now, there has 23 been many, many changes; over 50 percent of the people in 24 FENOC are in new jobs from a management standpoint.
25 Weve strengthened the weekend duty coverage. The MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
79 1 Corrective Action Program was a significant issue as we 2 went through this process. Weve taken actions in the 3 Corrective Action Program to create an Oversight Review 4 Board. That is monitoring now the effectiveness of the 5 actions that were taken. And were grading those actions.
6 We intend that to be a permanent part of the way we do 7 business.
8 Next slide.
9 New Management Observation Program is a program we 10 brought in. Thats in place now. I watched Randy use that 11 this past, I think it was yesterday. And thats a really 12 good program that allows us to enter our data on our 13 management observations, and monitor for trends.
14 Additionally, were scheduling our management 15 reviews, Restart Oversight Overview Panel. Employees 16 meetings are in place, where our Restart Oversight Panel is 17 physically meeting with our employees to, rather than being 18 reactive on employee concerns, were trying to be 19 proactive. And theyre providing us some interesting 20 oversight.
21 From an event standpoint, this past week, we took 22 the whole day and just stopped work at our site, 23 basically. And we feel, we call it a case study. We call 24 it a case study with our employees. That case study was 25 designed to talk about this issue with each and every MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
80 1 employee group. So, we did it by groups.
2 It was designed to look at each group and determine 3 and discuss how that group could have prevented this event 4 from happening. How you were personally involved. You can 5 set a review of standards. And one of the directors, Bob, 6 or Gary, visited each one of these groups to assure that 7 people had a clear understanding of the vision, mission and 8 the values of our FENOC organization.
9 We thought that was extremely positive. Bob gave 10 great feedback on that.
11 Then at the end of the day, we gave a test to each 12 and every employee to make sure that they understood the 13 requirements.
14 We completed the Quality Assessment Group Root 15 Cause.
16 MR. THOMAS: Lew, can I ask you 17 a question real quick? What did you learn as a result of 18 holding those case studies with your staff, and I would be 19 interested in a couple of prospectives.
20 MR. MYERS: Do you have 21 anything you want to share? Randy?
22 MR. FAST: The one that I 23 attended in the morning was the Operations one. And Ill 24 tell you, I think something that I learned is, I didnt get 25 as much push back from our folks as I might have expected; MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
81 1 however, I got feedback about other organizations where 2 there was some internal push back.
3 When I say push back, the employees were taking full 4 responsibility, accountability and recognizing the role 5 that they play or did not play in the events. And that was 6 different for different organizations. As an example to be 7 very specific, I felt that Operations stood up and took 8 responsibility. I know that the feedback that I got from 9 folks was very positive. It was a facilitated session, 10 where folks had an opportunity to get involved in teams, 11 and work through issues, and then present the results of 12 that.
13 And I saw full participation and I saw excellent 14 accountability by the folks in Operations. However, I did 15 not attend and Im counter, provide a little counter 16 prospective on that; because at the same time the Health 17 Physics and Chemistry Organization was going through 18 theirs; I think there was a lot more push back. Folks were 19 not as engaged, didnt recognize their role or 20 responsibility as adamantly. So, that tells us that there 21 is certainly room or margin for improvement in that 22 organization.
23 Im trying to be very blunt, very candid of the kind 24 of feedback. In fact, I talked to some of the Health 25 Physics Organization folks, and they, they didnt embrace, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
82 1 I think, the outcomes in a clear understanding as much.
2 Now, that delta there tells us that some 3 organizations have been doing a pretty good job of 4 communicating new standards and getting volumes from the 5 folks, but there is some other organizations that have 6 not.
7 I did attend the Training Organization in the 8 afternoon, and I still, I can provide a grade, if you 9 would, but I didnt see the amount of push back that I saw 10 in Health Physics or Chemistry; however, I didnt see the 11 level of engagement that I saw in Operations. So, I can 12 give you the three that I had some participation activity 13 in.
14 But that would be expected, I would say as well, 15 that not every organization is on the same page.
16 MR. MYERS: How they effected 17 this issue; Bob, do you have anything you want to add 18 there?
19 MS. FRESCH: Your name, 20 please.
21 MR. SAUNDERS: Bob Saunders. I 22 participated in about four of the sessions. The common 23 thread that I saw, is that the employees for the most part 24 are very aligned with this, and very much want to return to 25 a safety operation. That was a common theme I saw. And, I MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
83 1 also saw a very high quality work force too.
2 MR. MYERS: I agree with 3 that. We had an all-hands meeting yesterday. Not only an 4 all-hands meeting, we had a meeting with a bunch of 5 employees before we had the meeting with the public here, 6 so we can tell them what were going to tell you all.
7 And, what I sensed out of that, I asked the 8 question, what they thought about the training that we did, 9 if there was clear understanding of the, of the 10 involvement, where were at from an organization 11 standpoint. I would say 90 percent of the people I asked 12 questions, raised their hand in that area, 150 or so.
13 They thought the training was good quality, to 14 provide additional input on what happened, and they better 15 understood, understood the event and the lack of standards 16 that led into this event, if you will.
17 So, I think it was productive from a benchmarking 18 initially in setting the right standards and getting our 19 management team aligned with the organization. I think it 20 was a very, very productive day that we spent there. So, I 21 felt good about that.
22 Does that answer your question though?
23 MR. THOMAS: Oh, yeah, thank 24 you.
25 MR. MYERS: From a senior MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
84 1 management standpoint, I dont know if youve seen around 2 the plant or not, but we have clearly got together as a 3 senior team and posted our standards and agreements of 4 working together in all the meeting rooms at our site.
5 The Quality Assessment Group Root Causes are 6 complete; and the company review, Independent Review Board 7 Assessment is complete.
8 Operations Leadership and Development Plan is well 9 under way. In fact, I have Mike over here today. I would 10 ask Mike if he would like to comment on that. Mike is our 11 Operations Manager and is responsible for the Operations 12 Leadership Plan.
13 MR. RODER: Mike Roder. We, 14 we just went over the circles there, and the overall plan.
15 The Operations Leadership Plan is really a compilation of 16 actions designed to guide operations through the needed 17 improvements to assure a nuclear site safety focus.
18 It includes benchmarking, training, improving 19 standards, improving ownership, improving behaviors to 20 assure that site safety focus. Its really called the 21 Operations Leadership Plan, because its design positions 22 Operations as the leading organization at Davis-Besse.
23 MR. MYERS: Do you feel that 24 Operations clearly understands how they take a different 25 leadership role to prevent this type of event from MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
85 1 happening again?
2 MR. RODER: Yes, clearly Randy 3 kind of pointed that out through the case study, the 4 receptiveness, the ownership and the accountability that I 5 observed at that training was, is clear to me, that the 6 Operations is taking a leadership role.
7 MR. MYERS: Next slide, 4.
8 Since our last meeting, weve probably had, I dont 9 know how many Town Hall Meetings. Additionally, Ive been 10 having what I call the 4-Cs Meetings with about 20 11 employees weekly. What I do there is, 4-Cs is designed to 12 look for compliments, complaints and criticisms from our 13 employees, you know, and concerns.
14 And, at those meetings, what youre seeing is a real 15 change in the compliments. First there was none. Now 16 there is about a page full. In the number of complaints 17 and concerns, rather than be big broad base complaints and 18 concerns, now theyre very specific, down to the procedure 19 is not working well for us. So, youve seen a real change 20 in the kind of concern and complaints that the employees 21 have.
22 Each one of those meetings are designed for the 23 employee group who come to consensus on that, to go back 24 and communicate the actions were taking for each one of 25 the 4-Cs meeting. So, at the end of the meeting, we agree MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
86 1 on a group of actions well go take.
2 The complaint last week was do you have the 3 procedure level, on the procedure change process. So, its 4 not the big general complaints that I used to get. So, I 5 feel very good about it. Now were getting into the nuts 6 and bolts, we can go out and fix things. So, were taking 7 on the procedure change process.
8 Told you about the Operations Leadership Plan.
9 And then Supervisory Evaluations. We now have RHR 10 here, and theyre involved not only, we would need to 11 change that, not only with the Supervisory Evaluation, but 12 theyre going to evaluate each and every manager, director, 13 myself, and my boss. So, whats good for one is good for 14 all of us.
15 There are several activities that are also in 16 progress. The Leadership Development Program changes, 17 thats Leadership in Action. We had a class of that going 18 on this past week.
19 Engineering Assessment Board is grading all the 20 engineering products now. And we have performance 21 indicators to start looking at the quality of documents.
22 Now, we make an assumption right up front that the 23 Engineering Assessment Board, its designed to assure good 24 quality products are coming out of engineering, you know.
25 So, before it gets out, its part of our approval process.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
87 1 We strengthened our weekend duty coverage.
2 The plant standards improvements on labeling, 3 housekeeping, and equipment upgrades, we think is taking 4 hold.
5 We talked about our Program and System Reviews.
6 They will become a part of the way we do business.
7 The Safety Conscious Work Environment. Now, Bill is 8 going to talk about that, but basically weve taken that 9 program from a reactive program to proactive program.
10 Were out looking for employee issues and at least tell the 11 employee that we will try to understand what the issue is 12 rather than justifying them away.
13 Next slide.
14 Some activities are pending, Engineering 15 Organization Assessment and Restart Readiness Assessment.
16 From a regulatory perspective, we have a review on our, on 17 our plan, a few weeks ago; a question came up. When we 18 looked at the root cause, how did we, we could tell that 19 the quality of documents that we had did not, did not meet, 20 have a rigor in it that communicates what were looking 21 for. So, how can we tell that were ready to restart the 22 plant?
23 What we decided to do was, well do a restart 24 assessment in engineering prior to restart to assure that 25 were ready and have a team in place to restart the plant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
88 1 from an engineering standpoint.
2 Additionally, were doing functional area reviews of 3 each organization, using the IMPO model on our organization 4 ready for restart. Then, a collective review on the 5 integration causal factors. Well do, as a management 6 team, the causes issue.
7 You know, Ive showed a lot, talked a lot about the 8 actions were taking. I would like to move forward and 9 show you some of the pictures. So, well do that after 10 Safety Conscious Work Environment.
11 With that, Ill turn it over to Bill Pearce for 12 Safety Conscious Work Environment.
13 Any questions on what we have done to-date?
14 MR. PEARCE: Good afternoon, 15 Im Bill Pearce, Im the Vice President for Oversight at 16 FENOC.
17 MR. GROBE: Bill, quickly I 18 have a couple questions. I was being patient looking for 19 all the other questions to come forward first.
20 Lew, you mentioned that the Company Nuclear Review 21 Board Assessment has been completed?
22 MR. MYERS: Right.
23 MR. GROBE: Do we have that 24 yet? I dont think weve seen it.
25 MR. PEARCE: We did pass it on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
89 1 to the Program Review guy.
2 MR. GROBE: That is just 3 recently?
4 MR. PEARCE: That is just 5 recently.
6 MR. GROBE: And the 7 Operations role in the situation, I understand that you 8 pulled that, that Root Cause you did? What is the schedule 9 for getting that done?
10 MR. FAST: Right. Its in 11 progress.
12 MR. GROBE: Okay.
13 MR. MYERS: We should have 14 that the end of the month.
15 MR. GROBE: Okay, I think 16 thats it now. Thank you.
17 MR. PEARCE: Okay. My name is 18 Bill Pearce, Im the Vice President of Oversight of FENOC.
19 What Im going to talk about this afternoon is Safety 20 Conscious Work Environment.
21 Really the question that we want to answer this 22 afternoon is what have we done for corrective action for 23 the survey results we presented a few weeks back; in fact, 24 a couple months back. And, Im going to do this, and Im 25 going to give you something thats going to be fairly MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
90 1 complex, so Im going to take some time before I get into 2 it.
3 First of all, let me state the basic premise that 4 because were humans, that changing our behaviors takes 5 repetitive reinforcement. I think thats a basic premise 6 that we can state for all humans. What were working on 7 here is the behaviors of our employees. So, that is the 8 reason I put this together like I did, to show you that 9 were taking multiple actions and repetitive actions in the 10 same areas to change behaviors.
11 And, how Im going to show you this is by 12 relationship diagram. On this diagram, when I show it, the 13 red dots will show areas of high relationship; the yellow 14 dots are medium relationship; and the low relationship are 15 the white dots. And on yours, we made them black, gray and 16 white, if you would like to look at them more closely, so 17 you can see them.
18 All right, Linda.
19 Now, across the top of this relation diagram are the 20 issues that we came upon in the survey that we did. The 21 first issue is Management Trust. The second issue is the 22 Worker Willingness to Raise Concerns. The third issue is 23 the Effectiveness of the Employee Concern Program. The 24 fourth issue is Effectiveness in Resolving Issues Through 25 Normal Process. And the fifth is Effectiveness in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
91 1 Detecting and Preventing Retaliation and Chilling Effect in 2 the Workplace.
3 Then, down the side are the actions were taking.
4 Safe Conscious Work Environment Training for our management 5 folks. That, by the way, is complete for the upper level 6 management; weve done that training now.
7 Weve got plans for the next block, which is the 8 Training for the Contractors; and the third one is 9 Development and Implementation of a Communication Plan.
10 The fourth one is the People Team, which is a team of 11 people out of different groups in the plant that were 12 forming to assess any issues of discipline, or lower level 13 events that have not, that have not risen to the point of 14 an employee concern, but we would still like to go deal 15 with.
16 Issue Management Process, thats in progress.
17 Create an Employee Concern Program. What thats about, we 18 now have a manager on site, is not our employee, but a 19 person that is well experienced in employee concerns 20 programs. And we have several investigators associated 21 with that, so weve converted from doing a management level 22 investigation to an independent investigation.
23 Monitor and Communicate Performance to Employees.
24 Lew talked about a lot of pieces of that when he just spoke 25 on some of the actions were taking.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
92 1 Review and Revise Policies and Charters. Designate 2 and Train the Safe Conscious Work Environment 3 Investigators. New Senior Leadership Team; Lew talked 4 about that. Communicate Management Team Standards; we 5 talked about that issue.
6 4-Cs Meetings.
7 MR. GROBE: Before you go on, 8 let me make sure I understand what relationship means.
9 MR. PEARCE: Okay.
10 MR. GROBE: Maybe you can 11 just pick one of those line items and go across.
12 MR. PEARCE: Lets take the one 13 I just said, 4-Cs Meetings. And, that is as Lew 14 described, it is a meeting of about 20 employees, with 15 Lew. They meet with Lew. They come up with the 4-Cs.
16 Lew meets with them again a week later and goes through the 17 issues that they brought up, and what each of them do with 18 them.
19 And here is what were trying to accomplish by 20 that. We think that will have a high impact on Management 21 Trust area. We think that will have a high impact on 22 Worker Willingness to Raise Concerns. Thats one of the 23 things were emphasizing to them in that meeting.
24 We think it will have a low impact on the 25 Effectiveness of Employee Concern Program, because it MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
93 1 really doesnt do anything in that regard. And then it has 2 a medium impact on Effectiveness in resolving issues 3 through the normal process, because we demonstrate when 4 they raise concerns, Lew goes and deals with them; and we 5 think because of the relationship or the management trust 6 issue, thats effective in detecting and preventing 7 retaliation and chilling effect.
8 Thats some of the things we talk about in there.
9 Encourage them to bring issues that they have forward. So, 10 thats how you look at this, is how effective are the 11 actions that Lew described earlier in the Management and 12 Human Performance area; how effective are those actions 13 going to be at fixing the Safety Conscious Work Environment 14 issue.
15 So, like I said, I know it is complex. And you have 16 to spend some time looking at it, but this is how we came 17 up with a lot of actions that weve taken thus far, is to 18 try to do the things that cause, that will cause a lot of 19 impact with employees, and do different things repetitively 20 to give them the same message to reinforce a behavior 21 change.
22 Probably more than you wanted to know about that.
23 MR. GROBE: No, actually that 24 was very good. So, if I went vertically down Management 25 Trust, and looked at all of the black or red dots, those MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
94 1 would be the activities that you would hope to have the 2 most significant influence on improving management trust.
3 MR. PEARCE: Thats correct.
4 MR. GROBE: The yellow or gray 5 would have the next level of significance.
6 MR. PEARCE: Decreasing levels 7 of effect, right.
8 MR. GROBE: Okay.
9 MR. MYERS: This goes very 10 much in line with our, you know, our Management/Human 11 Performance.
12 MR. PEARCE: Well, it is the 13 Management/Human Performance Plan. It is the things that 14 were doing and how we think they fit in with the Safety 15 Conscious Work Environment.
16 MR. HOPKINS: Let me ask a 17 question.
18 MR. PEARCE: Please.
19 MR. HOPKINS: Have you had any 20 consultant to management oversight go over this matrix?
21 MR. PEARCE: We do have some 22 consultants in management issues here, and they help us 23 with all those issues. They had some questions, yes, and 24 thats, were doing that, weve done that and were 25 continuing to do that.
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95 1 MR. MYERS: Oh, yeah. When 2 we completed the root cause evaluation, we brought in 3 consultants and we also brought in many industry experts 4 along the away from an organization standpoint. We have 5 RHR at the present time. We have Morgan and Lewis here 6 thats helping some with us. And the Lincoln Consulting, 7 which is a group of people that helped build the 8 organization structure, if you will, and teamwork.
9 So, we have quite a few people with us thats 10 involved with each one of these activities.
11 MR. HOPKINS: Okay.
12 MR. MENDIOLA: Going back to 13 Jacks question for a minute. Going horizontally then, 14 across these lists indicates which, if you will, of your 15 actions have the most significance. For example, 16 obviously, the Monitor and Communicate Performance, its 17 four red dots. Its one of the keys, if not most important 18 action. I think its the only one on the list that I see 19 has four red dots.
20 Is there anything special being done to separate 21 that issue from the others because of its relative 22 importance or, or is there any significance attached to 23 that?
24 MR. PEARCE: Well, I will tell 25 you that that issue, the Monitor and Communicate MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
96 1 Performance, the individuals, the coaching, its well known 2 in all management that thats a very powerful way to change 3 behavior. And thats why I asked for it, yes, from that 4 aspect, in a lot of the things that were doing. The 5 Management Observation Program, for instance, is around 6 that. The Leadership in Action Program, thats a strong 7 component in that.
8 So, thats a special thing, but there is pieces of 9 it in the other ones too. And thats why, I was trying to 10 figure out how to show all the things were doing in this 11 area. This is a relation diagram, is the only way I could 12 come up with, really tried to demonstrate that.
13 I know its hard in this kind of meeting, because 14 its complex. And its interrelated some, even on top, the 15 actions down the left column, do have some 16 interrelationship, because some of the things like the 17 Leadership in Action, it has components of it that are 18 Monitoring and Communicate Performance. Thats some of the 19 things that supervisors are taught in the Leadership in 20 Action Program.
21 But humans are complex beings, and its difficult to 22 change behaviors in people, especially large 23 organizations. I think thats a well known fact.
24 MR. MENDIOLA: My purpose for 25 asking the question, obviously, is now youve created the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
97 1 matrix and seen some results, what significance do you 2 attach, for example, to Monitor and Communicate Performance 3 with four red dot actions versus maybe one of the others 4 where there is hardly any red dots or maybe a white dot.
5 MR. PEARCE: I understand your 6 question, and concern, Tony, but you know, its back to 7 something that may affect me as an individual, might be one 8 of the white dots, but it gives me the thing that makes up 9 my mind that, you know, is important to me. And its when 10 you get down to individual people, its hard, were not 11 going to be able to go back and say what was the thing that 12 we did exactly that made any specific employee change their 13 behavior, because its a hard issue.
14 MR. MYERS: Let me say from a 15 management standpoint, thats where I have to spend a lot 16 of time. I have to make sure the computer is put in place, 17 is visible, people are using it, people are monitoring the 18 data were getting out of it and taking corrective 19 actions. So, thats where youve got to spend a lot of 20 your time to get the most effect. So, thats the reason we 21 try to do this. Okay.
22 MR. PEARCE: Any more 23 questions?
24 MR. GROBE: I apologize. Im 25 a little slow at pulling this together.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
98 1 MR. PEARCE: Go ahead.
2 MR. GROBE: One significant 3 contributor that youve identified to what happened over 4 the last several years was a focus on production over 5 safety. And that seems to be a key component of Safety 6 Conscious Work Environment. Had you considered making that 7 one of the issues and how your actions are going to 8 influence that perception and focus in the organization?
9 MR. PEARCE: I believe, this is 10 just a Safety Conscious Work Environment survey.
11 Is Dave Eshelman here? Hes not here.
12 Were discussing that. This is a piece of it. This 13 is about the survey we did, Jack. In addition to that, we 14 have the Root Cause and the things that Lew talked about 15 earlier then. Were going to put together, I think this is 16 how were going to do it, put together a similar relations 17 diagram that covers all those issues and that would be a 18 column at that time.
19 MR. GROBE: That would be 20 very helpful. I was going to talk about this a little 21 later, but one of our inspections thats ongoing is in this 22 area of Management/Human Performance, which covers Safety 23 Conscious Work Environment as well.
24 One of the observations of the team was a lack of a 25 clear alignment between the various different root cause MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
99 1 reports youve done, integration of those and alignment 2 with corrective actions. So, youre going to create 3 something similar to that?
4 MR. PEARCE: Thats how we 5 intended to demonstrate that also. And the problem is some 6 of the actions we take cover several problems with several 7 programs, you know. This is about the only way I can 8 demonstrate that.
9 MR. MYERS: When we put the 10 plan together, we came up with the basic criterias that we 11 were addressing and then we put our corrective actions on 12 to that. And the team, the problem that were seeing now 13 went from each report to those actions.
14 So, if we lay that out on the same kind of approach, 15 I call it more sticky, if you want to, they should show how 16 that all ties together. So, were doing that at each 17 stage. Okay?
18 MR. GROBE: Okay.
19 MR. DEAN: In terms of 20 talking about this issue and the preceding one, you gave us 21 some goal information regarding, for example, the results 22 of Root Case Study Management; you talked about several 23 different, you talked about your 4-Cs Meetings and 24 different changes youve seen there, which is good 25 anecdotal information, but relative to this in terms of MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
100 1 measuring the effectiveness, going beyond anecdotal 2 information, what are some of the things you have planned?
3 MR. PEARCE: Well, were going 4 to do another survey, the same type of, this same survey 5 that weve done previously; however, we want to get through 6 some of the corrective actions before we do it. We dont 7 want to do it before we think that weve done the things 8 that were going to effect. So, I expect it will be at 9 least another month or so before we do another survey.
10 In addition, I know that its subjective, and the 11 whole subject in my mind is subjective; but the feedback 12 and the relationship between management and employees is, I 13 think, something that we can gauge, and we can get some 14 perspective of, although its hard to get it down to 15 numbers.
16 I believe that I feel that we are getting greater 17 and greater alignment with the, from the top of the 18 organization down to the bottom of the organization. I 19 sense that in the meetings that I went to. And, I went to 20 a lot of the case, different case studies. I mean, I spent 21 a lot of time in the Operations ones in the morning, then I 22 hit a lot of them that afternoon.
23 I concur with Randys explanation of who seems to 24 buy in, who didnt. It was a very different feeling, I 25 guess. My perspective is, that with a couple exceptions, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
101 1 were really starting to gain alignment.
2 And we had people watching those, and we identified 3 the ones we didnt think we got the employee alignment or 4 buy in that we desired out of that. And, then we talked 5 about what are we going to do with those specific areas and 6 try to do something more.
7 So, and I know thats not a measurable criteria, 8 Bill, but.
9 MR. MYERS: Like in our 10 Oversight Boards Randy runs, and Bob Schrauder runs the 11 Corrective Action Review Board -- Randy runs that. Okay.
12 And were grading each and every one of those, those 13 corrective actions; how thorough are they. And, weve got 14 performance indicators.
15 So, one of the things that we have problems with due 16 to the head problems is not following corrective action.
17 So, were grading them not thorough on corrective action.
18 Were grading those, and were making sure were properly 19 classifying the CRs.
20 The other thing on the Engineering Review Board, 21 were grading each and every engineering product, looking 22 for quality and rigor from our engineers. And were seeing 23 some improvement there. In fact, we know were raising the 24 standards, I guess the best way to say it, and were seeing 25 our engineers respond to that. So, we think were making MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
102 1 progress with that.
2 MR. DEAN: I wasnt trying to 3 intimate that you can instill a sense of Safety Conscious 4 Work Environment through a set of performance indicators.
5 I was trying to get a sense of what do you have in terms of 6 plans to try to get going, and define some sort of 7 assessment beyond just a survey result or beyond the 8 standard bulletin.
9 MR. MYERS: What we do there 10 is a couple things. Were having, were having the RRP 11 group meet with our employees. Theyre independent, so 12 they can give us valuable insight and assessment back of 13 the alignment we had within our organization, as well as 14 people bring things forward.
15 You know, I told you some of our performance 16 indicators we have in place. Well be able to do some 17 assessment prior to startup to make sure that we feel 18 comfortable that were ready to operate the plant. Well 19 do that from a management standpoint. I have that in the 20 plan right now.
21 So, well assess our readiness for start. Well 22 bring in some outside expertise to help us there. Then we 23 have various consulting groups like RHR, they will be 24 giving us help.
25 You look puzzled.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
103 1 MR. GROBE: No, not puzzled.
2 It would seem like the best indicator in all of this is 3 subjective; would be that once you have alignment, once you 4 complete your supervisory evaluations, your director 5 evaluations, your manager evaluations, and you begin to 6 give alignment through the supervisory and management 7 organization, it would seem that your -- I cant remember 8 what you call it, your management observation or supervisor 9 observation.
10 MR. MYERS: Management 11 observation role.
12 MR. GROBE: What attributes, 13 maybe this is next monthss meeting, but I would think that 14 you would be looking at those attributes that are critical 15 to many of these areas.
16 MR. MYERS: Ive already got 17 those identified and am working on those things. Ill 18 bring that in next meeting.
19 MR. GROBE: I think that 20 would be, those are, I was writing down topics that I 21 wanted to hear about next month on a note pad here. I 22 think those are two that I would like to hear about. One 23 is, what characteristic and attributes are you focusing on 24 for your evaluations that youre conducting of your 25 supervisors, managers, directors, and whoever else youre MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
104 1 evaluating; and whats your finding as a result of those 2 evaluations.
3 And secondly, your management observations of people 4 in the field, what attributes youre looking at and what 5 youre doing with that.
6 MR. MYERS: Well bring that 7 in and show some slides of the program and what were 8 learning from it next time. We will have that in place.
9 MR. GROBE: Thats good.
10 Okay.
11 MR. MYERS: We talked, Bill 12 and I talked a lot about management actions. We thought we 13 would show some pictures of some of our Town Hall 14 Meetings. Theyre very interesting with our employees; 15 and I think we gained as much from them as they did, but 16 the key to the Town Hall Meetings and reactions we take is 17 all the input. We think thats going well.
18 Next slide.
19 Here is some pictures of the Case Study Training.
20 Once again, we spent the entire day, 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />, night and 21 day, sitting down with each of our employees, and going 22 over the case study. And this was a case, at least we can 23 document that every one understands what caused this event, 24 the standards of the organization and how we contributed to 25 that. Okay?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
105 1 MR. GROBE: Do you have a 2 syllabus for that case study? Some sort of syllabus or 3 presentation material?
4 MR. PEARCE: Yes. Well share 5 that with you.
6 MR. MYERS: We can give that 7 to you.
8 MR. GROBE: Even a 9 videotape.
10 MR. MYERS: We have 11 videotape.
12 MR. GROBE: No, I dont want 13 to see a videotape.
14 MR. MYERS: Then, heres some 15 of our team meetings, if you will, that we had, All Hands 16 Meeting with our employees. Yesterday, prior to this 17 meeting, and I have a lot of feedback on that meeting, even 18 though I thought I was less prepared.
19 And with that, Im pretty much ready to close.
20 I think the desired outcome today, which we brought 21 the community, and the Regulator, some evidence of the 22 progress were making. Were pleased to have the head in 23 containment. And the upper structure on the head and 24 painted. We assembled the control rod drives. Thats a 25 really good feeling.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
106 1 The system reviews are completed. Thats a good 2 feeling also.
3 Were preparing for the drain down now. You know, 4 there is an opportunity here, the drain down. We only do 5 that a few times in the plants life, to go after and 6 repatch valves and go after the decay heat valves, stuff 7 like that.
8 Our key is right now on the schedule. Were going 9 to try to take, were breaking down the CRs by milestones, 10 if you will. So, we can try to take full advantage of 11 those type of opportunities.
12 We feel the containment is getting in extremely good 13 health, very good health. We can do a walkaround of our 14 containment, its looking pretty good. We know we have a 15 lot of work to do yet, but the painting efforts are 16 exciting to watch, or painters. The containment cooler is 17 going back together, is good. Just a lot of work in our 18 containment right now. And, whats really good is having 19 containment, the concrete liner back up, and the steel 20 liner back, welded back in place. So, the containment is 21 going well.
22 You know, we talk a lot about schedules. And 23 schedules are important. The reason schedules are so 24 important, is simply it is the basic Building Block, the 25 communication tools that you have in place to make sure MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
107 1 youre doing the right things at the right time.
2 You know, typically, I dont, Im getting things 3 done in a prompt manner, effectively, and good quality, 4 safe manner is important. But whats more important is, 5 applies to safety, having some kind of logic. You just 6 cant turn two thousand people loose at a nuclear power 7 site and go do what you want. So, you have to have some 8 kind of logic.
9 At the drain down, you only do it one time, you do 10 it one time only, and you get all the work done. So, we 11 believe our schedule provides that logic.
12 Can I tell you right now that were 31 days off or 13 32 days off, and be one hundred percent exact? There is 14 some risk with our schedule. The risk is the bulk work and 15 some of the unknowns that we still dont have, but we think 16 were making good progress there.
17 We have some new issues that we talked about today.
18 The expanded scope of the System Reviews. Weve learned of 19 the Latent Issues Reviews. System Reviews are going to be 20 very trying for our startup.
21 The lower vessel penetrations, something weve got 22 to come to grips with, we will come to grips with, take 23 actions where we need to. And we should know that within 24 the next week or so.
25 And finally, you know, we talked a lot about the, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
108 1 all the actions weve taken from the management, 2 Management/Human Performance Excellence Plan. Those 3 actions are extremely timely. Theyre hard, and those are 4 soft issues that are very difficult to measure, but were 5 committed to have actions in place and implement and assure 6 that we have the right standards at our plant, you know, 7 and thats important that were looking for best industry 8 practices, rather than justifying meeting industry 9 standards.
10 I think were aligned with our employees. Thats 11 also important. And whats more important is we have a 12 safety culture in place that identifies problems and is not 13 afraid to bring those problems forward. Were committed to 14 that prior to start up.
15 Thank you very much.
16 MS. LIPA: Thank you, Lew.
17 Do we have any closing remark from our side?
18 MR. GROBE: Sure. Any 19 questions though? Okay.
20 A member of the media approached me before the 21 meeting and wanted to know how the meeting went. No, they 22 wanted to know if in fact on a certain date, December 24th, 23 whatever, FirstEnergy says that theyre ready to restart, 24 how long after that it would take the NRC to say thats a 25 good conclusion. And I told them, it wont take much time MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
109 1 at all. And thats the whole purpose of having an 2 oversight panel, is to double up convergence, to provide 3 continuous feedback to you on our observations and the 4 results of our inspections and that you would be adjusting, 5 responding to that, and adjusting to it as appropriate, and 6 that there would be convergence.
7 During the course of these meetings, I believe that 8 were no longer just kind of going along like this, but 9 were beginning to see some convergence. There is more 10 clarity in what youre doing, clear understanding on our 11 part what youre doing, and more appreciation for the 12 value, the outcome of what youre doing.
13 There is two inspections that were nearing 14 completion on, where I dont believe there is going to be 15 significant findings. Thats the Containment Health 16 Inspection. Youve done a lot of work in that area. Were 17 evaluating the results of that inspection. There may be 18 some additional work to be done.
19 The Reactor Head. That includes the containment 20 structure itself, as well as the shield. We evaluate the 21 welding and rewelding of the containment. We observed the 22 pouring of the concrete, and there were a lot of questions 23 that came up with that, but I dont see any significant, 24 what I see, show-stoppers come out of that either.
25 There is three other inspections that we had ongoing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
110 1 over the last several weeks; System Health, Program 2 Assessments and Management/Human Performance area. Those 3 inspections were not able to complete at this time. I 4 think there were some early miscommunications between the 5 team leaders and their staff; what done meant, what 6 complete meant, and some work that we thought was complete, 7 wasnt. Where we thought it was for us to evaluate.
8 We were able to get some reviews completed. There 9 are some findings in those areas, were evaluating those 10 and we will be communicating those to you. The team 11 leaders have been communicating on a regular basis what 12 they have been finding. I anticipate well be able to 13 report at our next months public meeting a significant 14 number of inspection outcomes, results of inspection 15 activities.
16 In the Management/Human Performance area, thats an 17 area that gives me a little bit of concern. The team was 18 not as productive as I expected them to be. I was out of 19 communication last week, so I wasnt aware that you 20 completed the Company Nuclear Review Board Review. During 21 the course of that inspection, you pulled back the 22 operations.
23 So, there is several components that, there was 24 during the course of that inspection, several components of 25 the root cause that werent complete, and it was very MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
111 1 difficult to understand the integration of those root 2 causes and how your corrective actions were going to be 3 addressing them.
4 I fully recognize that in a situation like this, 5 much of your work is going to be done at risk. Meaning, 6 you have to begin doing work before youre sure that thats 7 an exact right thing you need to do. You need to adjust as 8 you learn. You cant do everything in series. But those 9 three areas, we still have some in-line inspection to do.
10 And obviously, you still have a substantial amount of work 11 to do in those three areas.
12 There is one other thing that I wanted to see if we 13 could get some input during the next meeting; that was to 14 get a clearer understanding what value Quality Assurance is 15 at. I would like to get presentation, along with progress 16 and matrix and any other Building Block performance that 17 youve been giving us every month, I would like to get an 18 understanding what type of work QA has been doing and what 19 value has been added.
20 Any other comments?
21 MR. MYERS: I would comment 22 on the health of the Management/Human Performance team.
23 Thats the toughest area. I thought that was an extremely 24 healthy review. They asked a good question on relation; 25 how were going to do that relationship-type approach.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
112 1 If you look at all the issues, you come up with how 2 do you attack, make sure they fit in these areas. We did 3 that and put the areas together, but I dont think we laid 4 anything out where its easy to follow. Were doing that 5 as we speak.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay. I did 7 remember while Im speaking, there was one issue on System 8 Health that I wanted to bring up. Were struggling right 9 now with the same issues that youre struggling with.
10 In addition to examining your activities, in each of 11 our inspections, were conducting complete independent 12 evaluations in the same area as a balance. And we 13 completed a fairly detailed independent design review of 14 three systems as part of the System Health Inspection, and 15 came up with a number of issues.
16 Were in the process of distilling those issues and 17 evaluating what they mean, similar to what youre doing 18 right now as to the impact on functioning of the system and 19 relationship between our findings and what youve been 20 finding in our System Health Reviews and Latent Issues 21 Reviews, and trying to determine what those findings mean.
22 And well be dialoging with you on it. So, it goes 23 hand in hand, the same activities that you have.
24 MR. MYERS: As we stand, 25 were still hitting the right targets.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
113 1 MR. GROBE: Any other 2 questions?
3 MR. PEARCE: That was the area 4 we wanted more information on the next time, if we get to 5 it.
6 MR. GROBE: Okay. Very 7 good. Thank you very much.
8 MR. MYERS: Thank you. Thank 9 all very much.
10 MS. LIPA: Okay. Thank 11 you. What well do is take a ten minute break and 12 reconfigure the stage and be ready for the question and 13 answer period.
14 (Off the record.)
15 MR. GROBE: Lets get 16 started. Bill and I are going to do this a little bit even 17 more informally; and if we need help from our staff, which 18 we usually do. I dont like sitting up on stage. I really 19 appreciate the school making this facility available to us, 20 but the downside is that were up on a stage. And it kind 21 of gives the sense or appearance that were above, looking 22 down. I dont like that.
23 So, were going to be a little less formal. I would 24 invite members of the local community around the plant, 25 anybody who is interested, including, I think we have some MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
114 1 public officials and representatives of public officials 2 here. Please come down to the microphone, and ask any 3 questions you may have.
4 MR. MYERS: Would it be 5 better if we change locations?
6 MR. GROBE: No, am I too 7 close to you?
8 MR. MYERS: No.
9 MR. GROBE: Bill said I did 10 have onions for lunch.
11 Any questions? Please, members of the local 12 community.
13 Howard.
14 HOWARD WHITCOMB: I was going to 15 defer to any county commissioners or public officials, but 16 since they havent come forward, Ill jump in here.
17 In the spirit of the words I think that Mr. Powers 18 used this afternoon, Im going to take advantage of a 19 learning moment opportunity. And Im going to test the 20 waters with my comments.
21 I prepared some comments. I provided a copy of it 22 to the court reporter, and I have a limited number of 23 copies. If anyone wants a copy at the end, on request, I 24 will try to accommodate any requests; and if I dont have 25 enough copies, Ill see that you get one.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
115 1 FirstEnergys recent actions demonstrate that the 2 company is not yet committed to regard reactor safety as 3 its number one priority. FirstEnergy continues to mislead 4 and deceive the public about matters of significant general 5 interest regarding the Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant. Their 6 historical pattern of "shading the truth" with ambiguous 7 explanations relative to their position on certain matters 8 raises the question whether they are genuinely prepared to 9 resolve the numerous management and cultural problems at 10 the Davis-Besse site.
11 The relevant facts and impressions follow. I invite 12 you to challenge or take issue with them if they do not 13 represent the truth.
14 Fact: September 30th, the New York Times published 15 an article about the issuance of a certain 1987 Preventive 16 Maintenance Program Assessment Report on June 20th, 1988.
17 Fact: 1987 Preventive Maintenance Program 18 Assessment Report was issued by myself to the 19 Vice-President-Nuclear, who at the time was Donald Shelton, 20 and the Plant Manager, who at the time was Lou Storz.
21 Fact: Subsequent to the issuance of the 1987 22 Preventive Maintenance Program Report, Lou Storz without 23 legitimate basis directed me to change the contents of the 24 report.
25 Impression: Lou Storz direction to modify the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
116 1 contents of the report without any stated legitimate basis 2 clearly exemplifies a lack of reactor safety consciousness 3 and an unwillingness to forthrightly address potential 4 safety and regulatory compliance issues.
5 Fact: On September 9th, 1988, Mr. Robert Schrauder, 6 who at the time was the Nuclear Licensing Manager, issued a 7 site-wide memorandum which reported the results of an NRC 8 inspection exit meeting, including the unwarranted and 9 illegal termination, that is employment discrimination, of 10 a site contract worker, because he had raised certain 11 safety concerns with his immediate management. The 12 contractor worked in the Quality Control Department.
13 Fact: On September 23rd, 1988, the President of 14 Toledo Edison, issued a memorandum to "all Davis-Besse 15 personnel" reporting that Toledo Edison was attending an 16 enforcement conference regarding the employment 17 discrimination citation recently identified by the NRC. In 18 that memorandum the President urged each employee "to take 19 those steps necessary to assure Toledo Edison management 20 never attends another one."
21 Impression: The directive issued by Lou Storz to 22 modify the 1987 Preventive Maintenance Program Assessment 23 Report occurred concurrent to the finding by the NRC of 24 employment discrimination and willfully violated the 25 mandates contained in the Toledo Edison presidents MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
117 1 memorandum.
2 Fact: On July 16th, 2002, in a handout distributed 3 by FirstEnergy at a scheduled public meeting, the graphic 4 depicting an organizational chart of the Restart Overview 5 Panel on page 5 of the handout, clearly indicates that Lou 6 Storz is a member of that panel.
7 Fact: On September 18th, 2002, Mr. David Eshelman 8 further touted Mr. Storz significant participation in that 9 he stated; thats the Restart Overview Panel, thats the 10 panel made up of essentially very highly experienced 11 individuals, as well as community leaders. Lou Storz is on 12 it.
13 Fact: In the September 30th, 2002, New York Times 14 article, FirstEnergy was quoted as stating that, "the two 15 executives to whom Mr. Whitcomb had made his report 14 16 years ago were no longer with the company."
17 Impression: FirstEnergys statement is not 18 accurate, and is misleading because it fails to address the 19 fact that Mr. Lou Storz is currently a member of 20 FirstEnergys Davis-Besse Restart Overview Panel.
21 Fact: On December 16th, 1988, the NRC reported in a 22 certain Maintenance Team Inspection Report, that the team, 23 that the then existing Toledo Edison management at 24 Davis-Besse had reported to them that, "The 1987 annual PM 25 trend report had not been issued. Licensee personnel MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
118 1 stated that the report was in draft form and would be 2 issued in the near future." Mr. Storz was the Plant 3 Manager at the time.
4 Fact: In the September 30, 2002, New York Times 5 article, FirstEnergy was further quoted as stating that the 6 report "was not up to our requirements."
7 Impression: FirstEnergys statement as reported in 8 the New York Times is not accurate and is misleading 9 because it represents a significant departure from Toledo 10 Edisons prior position as reported to the NRC in the fall 11 of 1988. The statement additionally fails to identify the 12 specific requirements that the report failed to meet.
13 Fact: On August 17th, 1988, it was reported that on 14 New Years Eve, 1986, Lou Storz left the party after 15 consuming an unspecified number of alcoholic drinks, 16 entered the Davis-Besse control room and directed the 17 immediate restart of the reactor plant over the objections 18 of senior control room operations personnel. Mr. Storz was 19 described as being disruptive to control room operations as 20 he continued to direct the restart of the plant despite 21 being told that it was not yet safe to do so.
22 MR. GROBE: Howard, our 23 practice has been in the past to limit comments to 3 to 5 24 minutes. Do you have a lot more?
25 MR. WHITCOMB: No, I should be MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
119 1 done in a minute.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay.
3 MR. WHITCOMB: Fact: On August 4 17th, 1988, it was also reported that the 5 Vice President-Nuclear performed an investigation into the 6 December 31st, 1986, event and reported the results of its 7 findings to the NRC. The NRC subsequently challenged the 8 Vice Presidents investigation stating that he "failed to 9 conduct an adequate investigation and withheld that fact 10 from the NRC by crafting his conclusions in such a manner 11 as to leave the impression that a thorough investigation 12 had been completed." The Vice President responded by 13 stating, "If the Senior Vice President says that the wall 14 is brown, why should I ask the cleaning lady what color the 15 wall is."
16 Fact: It was reported on December 21st, 1989, that 17 the NRC reprimanded Mr. Storz for engaging in distracting 18 and disruptive behavior in the control room on New Years 19 Eve, 1986.
20 Impression: Mr. Storz behavior in the control room 21 December of 1986 illustrates that he is clearly capable of 22 placing reactor safety issues in a subservient role when 23 production demands dictate.
24 The inclusion of Lou Storz in the Restart Overview 25 Panel violates the public trust. In light of his MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
120 1 tumultuous history regarding safety issues at the 2 Davis-Besse facility, the value of his input regarding 3 restart issues is highly questionable. Mr. Storz has no 4 credibility. Current operations personnel at Davis-Besse 5 will tell you so.
6 FirstEnergy cannot hope to regain the publics 7 confidence that Davis-Besse will be operating in a safe and 8 reliable manner if it relies on recommendations made by 9 individuals such as Lou Storz with proven problematic 10 backgrounds. Its time for the immediate and permanent 11 removal of Lou Storz from the Davis-Besse site.
12 As a citizen residing in the shadows of Davis-Besse 13 facility, I demand it.
14 MR. GROBE: Thank you for 15 your comments.
16 Ill make one observation, and then, hopefully, you 17 can provide your comments to FirstEnergy. A number of the 18 NRC staff have observed the functioning of the Restart 19 Oversight Panel, and we will continue to observe that. I 20 personally have observed two meetings.
21 As far as Mr. Storz background 15 years ago, I 22 think thats information that you should provide to 23 FirstEnergy and they can take it under consideration for 24 whatever action they think is appropriate.
25 We will be evaluating the function of that oversight MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
121 1 panel as it is, in performing its role in evaluating the 2 plants readiness for restart.
3 Okay. Thank you.
4 Any other members of the local community who would 5 like to make a comment or have a question?
6 Any other members of the public here tonight -- this 7 afternoon, I guess its not night yet, that have a question 8 or comment.
9 Paul?
10 Could you state your name?
11 PAUL GUNTER: Paul Gunter, Im 12 with Nuclear Information and Resource Service in 13 Washington, D. C.
14 Jack, I appreciate the opportunity to speak both 15 informally and on a transcript. And, I would like to start 16 by sharing your concern about the Management and Human 17 Performance Improvement Plan for Davis-Besse. And, I would 18 like to start with a simple question. Does the Nuclear 19 Regulatory Commission have the authority to revoke the 20 license if they can not find adequate assurance that a 21 significant culture change has occurred at Davis-Besse with 22 regard to Management and Human Performance?
23 I think that, were aware that not only was the 24 vessel head destroyed, but the credibility of the 25 management at FirstEnergy was destroyed as well. And in, MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
122 1 and to a degree, the credibility of the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission to effectively regulate was also destroyed.
3 And, the puzzle for the public is how the repair 4 will be implemented for the hole thats now in the 5 credibility of the utility and of the regulatory 6 commission. And I know this is a recurring question, and I 7 think thats it is the critical question.
8 The standard, for example, we talk about the issue 9 here that standards play a big role; and FirstEnergy talked 10 today, Mr. Myers spoke to the issue that they didnt have 11 standards with Boric Acid Control Program. That was part 12 of the problem. Yet, weve looked at work orders that were 13 clear, crystal clear in terms of what, that made it clear 14 that Davis-Besse knew its responsibilities and the safety 15 significance of its responsibilities to clean the boric 16 acid accumulation off the vessel head. And the work orders 17 were prepared and signed off, work completed without 18 deviation. Yet they were never cleaned and they were never 19 inspected; and as a result, that damage brought us very 20 close to a nuclear accident; and an unforgiving situation.
21 So, again, my question, and Im asking you to look 22 deep, and speak informally on this, but where do you, where 23 will you find confidence that the, the Human Performance 24 and Management has improved to a degree that the material 25 that was presented to you today has any veracity that can MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
123 1 give you and public confidence that this plant can start, 2 start and run safely?
3 Because frankly, we dont have it. And with the 4 many investigations that are open right now, it is hard to 5 judge where that confidence will come from until those 6 investigations are complete.
7 MR. GROBE: It would be 8 easier if you let me answer them as you asked it. Let me 9 try, and if I dont hit them all, go ahead and reask the 10 question.
11 First question you asked, does the NRC have the 12 authority to revoke a license. We have the authority and 13 responsibility to grant licenses and have the authority and 14 responsibility if those licenses cant be administered 15 appropriately to issue orders to modify, suspend or revoke 16 licenses. Thats within the authority of the NRC.
17 I think the next question you asked was toward the 18 question of how can a member of the public regain 19 confidence. And I think you put it in the context of both 20 the company and the NRC. I believe November 6th, there 21 will be a public meeting here, I believe its November 6th, 22 in the evening, to Art Howell, Lessons Learned Task Force 23 Team to present results of the NRC Self-assessment.
24 And I think that will help you gain confidence that 25 were looking critically at our own performance in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
124 1 initiating actions to improve our performance. You can 2 observe the NRCs performance here in a month, and that 3 might help you gain confidence in the NRCs performance.
4 Likewise, you can observe the companys performance and 5 certainly read a tremendous amount of information regarding 6 our assessment of the companys performance. So, that can 7 assist you in making your own evaluation of the company.
8 I cant remember your other questions.
9 MR. GUNTER: Well, basically, 10 how, whats your measure, what would be your measure for 11 determining the veracity of the material that was presented 12 to you today.
13 MR. GROBE: Thats right, you 14 specifically asked of the Management and Human Performance, 15 thats an excellent question. All of our inspections are 16 structured in such a way that we review the causes in the 17 various areas. We have inspections in all of the 18 Licensees Building Block areas. Weve reviewed the causes 19 of what contributed to the problems in that area, and we 20 review the Licensees activities, including observation of 21 their activities.
22 For example, in the area of Containment Health. The 23 Licensees activities included extensive walkdowns, 24 training of people, extensive walkdown of containment. We 25 reviewed their plans, made sure their plans made sense, met MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
125 1 requirements. We reviewed, observed their people doing 2 those plans, implementing those plans and assessed the 3 adequacy of those activities. And then in all areas, we do 4 independent reviews, where we go out and make our own 5 observations independent of what the licensing is doing.
6 In each of the various areas we do the same type of 7 activities.
8 In the Management and Human Performance area, its 9 one of the most difficult areas to assess. Were taking 10 the same approach, and that is that the first thing is 11 reviewing the root causes. And as I expressed on stage, 12 were having some difficulty doing that, because some of 13 the root cause reports are just now being finalized. One 14 of them is not yet done. So, we cant fully evaluate their 15 root cause assessment to make our assessment of what we 16 think of that.
17 When we review the alignment between those root 18 causes and the corrective action plans to make sure the 19 plans address all the causal factors, and then observe the 20 companys implementation of those plans, and conduct 21 independent assessments.
22 Part of the observation in this area will be 23 evaluating the matrix that the company is using and in how 24 theyre monitoring human performance and improvement of 25 human performance, validating those matrixes and we will be MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
126 1 using those matrixes once were comfortable that there is 2 validity to them, as well as performing independent 3 assessments.
4 And, we have not fully mapped out how were going to 5 do that independent assessment. The first stage of that 6 inspection is looking at the root cause and the alignment 7 of the root cause of corrective actions. And we utilized 8 some folks with extensive experience in that area in the 9 regional office, as well as consultant support, an expert 10 in that area, and two folks from our headquarters offices 11 are specialists in human factors, human performance.
12 So, were reaching out to all areas of expertise to 13 make sure were bringing the right expertise to the 14 question, and then answering the question. We dont have 15 fully mapped out how were going to do our own independent 16 assessment yet, but thats part of our plan.
17 MR. GUNTER: Well, let me just 18 close by saying that right now I dont see how the 19 pressures of production that overrode safety, how those 20 have been ameliorated. In fact, further delay is a 21 barometer for more pressure to create the same kind of 22 culture, the same kind of atmosphere that led to the damage 23 of the vessel head.
24 So, thats a bit of a predicament in terms of how 25 you get to that root cause, but more particularly, the MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
127 1 Human Performance and Management Issues that arose out of 2 that same pressure that, for example, would bring into 3 question materials presented to you by FirstEnergy, I noted 4 you had, you made a light remark with regard to the 5 videotapes, but that raises a very serious question in 6 terms of this whole very real and serious concern about the 7 reliability of material thats being provided to you.
8 MR. GROBE: Let me just 9 respond to the comment there. My comment regarding the 10 videotapes was, I didnt want to sit through and watch a 11 videotape, I just wanted to read the context and content of 12 the information that was presented. We did have people 13 observing several of those case studies.
14 MR. DEAN: And Paul, the 15 only thing I wanted to really offer, and it is really more 16 anecdotal. Your question about, how will we know that 17 were at a point that we feel that the licensee has made a 18 turn in safety culture and we feel confident in them 19 operating the plant safely on a continuous basis.
20 I think one of the points Jack made during the 21 presentation in terms of how the Licensee is looking at the 22 boric acid accumulation on the lower portion of the reactor 23 vessel, doing that in a self-critical and proactive manner, 24 and looking to get to the ultimate root cause as opposed to 25 accepting superficial symptomatic discussions over MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
128 1 otherwise what may happen.
2 Those are the types of behaviors we need to see on 3 an ongoing basis, and you know, be able to get confidence 4 in the management team and the staffs embracing, as you 5 will, safety over production. So, we have to see a lot of 6 evidence of that.
7 MR. GUNTER: I would only hope 8 that if the evidence is not there, with sufficient 9 confidence, that you would exercise your authority, because 10 it would have a broader impact on public health and safety 11 than merely going along with the status quo. Thank you.
12 MR. GROBE: Other members of 13 the public have a further comment?
14 TERRY LODGE: Gentlemen, my 15 name is Terry Lodge. I believe weve met in an indirect 16 way before. I have a few questions I am curious to know.
17 I would preface them with the observation that the 18 discovery of boric acid accumulation on the lower part of 19 the reactor head, as I understand it, the press was noted 20 in June of this year. So, it doesnt exactly build a lot 21 of public confidence when we see the first mention of it 22 publicly in October.
23 MR. GROBE: Say that again, 24 Terry I missed that.
25 MR. LODGE: My understanding MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
129 1 of the press accounts of this new, newly discovered boric 2 acid accumulation on the lower part of the reactor vessel, 3 is that it was noted by the utility in June, and it just 4 emerged in the public domain a couple of weeks ago, well 5 even a week ago.
6 Do you want to respond to that?
7 MR. GROBE: Absolutely. It 8 was identified first in June by the company. And, there 9 has been a significant amount of work thats been done to 10 evaluate what it means, and just recently that the company 11 has begun to bring closure to those evaluations.
12 I cant remember the exact number of condition 13 reports. Its well over several thousand that have been 14 written since February. And, many, many issues have been 15 raised during this outage. Im not sure what significance 16 you would attach to which ones get discussed publicly and 17 which ones dont. Many of them are resolved simply. This 18 is more complicated and thats why it came up.
19 MR. LODGE: Well, seeing as 20 how it is in some sense I would expect causally related to 21 the boric acid leakage, its a little surprising to me that 22 it isnt mentioned in the public context for a long time.
23 MR. GROBE: Okay.
24 MR. LODGE: And I think that 25 that, if nothing else, goes to the publics perception that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
130 1 there is some sort of joint concealment going on of major 2 issues between, as between the NRC and the utility.
3 My questions are, another not very high profile 4 issue, which I think may be a high profile issue is, 5 FirstEnergy is quietly replacing reactor coolant pump 6 motors. I believe that was mentioned in the last four or 7 five weeks. Im curious to know why.
8 MR. GROBE: Theyre not 9 replacing the motors. What theyre doing is taking the 10 opportunity of having the plant shut down for an extended 11 period of time, theyre doing refurbishment work on the 12 seals and the motors, and its not unusual work. And they 13 had the opportunity to do it at this point in time. Its a 14 large job.
15 MR. MYERS: And the 16 impellers.
17 MR. GROBE: And the 18 impellers. So, its the window of opportunity more than it 19 is anything else.
20 MR. LODGE: Is there corrosion 21 damage?
22 MR. GROBE: Oh, no. Its not 23 related to boric acid. This is just maintenance type 24 work.
25 MR. LODGE: Are they replacing MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
131 1 the shafts?
2 MR. GROBE: I dont believe 3 thats part of the plan. Its refurbishing the seals and 4 working on the motors, and replacing the impellers.
5 MR. LODGE: The Lessons 6 Learned Task Force is stating that the, at least the 7 executive summary that Ive read, states that the 8 Davis-Besse problems went undetected by the NRC because of 9 Region 3s attention being diverted towards concerns at 10 other plants. Im curious to know what plants were 11 preoccupying the NRC?
12 MR. GROBE: I havent yet had 13 an opportunity to read that report in total, and probably 14 the better folks to answer that question would be Art 15 Howell and his people who will be here on the 6th, but I 16 can tell you there were a number of reactors through the 17 mid to late 90s, that were having performance problems in 18 Region 3.
19 MR. LODGE: Is there a way I 20 can get that information before November 6th?
21 MR. GROBE: I dont know if 22 its in the detailed report. The detailed report is a 23 better part of a hundred pages, thats on the website, but 24 I can tell you what plants had oversight panels. It was 25 D.C. Cook, Clinton, LaSalle, and Point Beach. And there MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
132 1 were some performance problems at other facilities.
2 Im not sure how connected you are, but there was 3 what was referred to as C-Pop, ConEdison Performance 4 Oversight Panel for the entire company system. The only 5 specific plant that kind of, it was under a specific panel, 6 was LaSalle, and it was assigned prior to shutting down.
7 So, those are the plants in Region 3 over the course 8 of the 90s that had oversight panels.
9 MR. LODGE: O350?
10 MR. GROBE: Um-hmm.
11 MR. LODGE: Finally, I have 12 seen one line at the Union of Concerned Science Website, 13 the memos from last November, wherein it appears that the 14 NRC Staff Director took into account the economic hardship 15 it would wreak on FirstEnergy for the shutdown that was 16 strongly being advocated by the staff to have occurred 17 along the staffs timetable.
18 Im curious to know whether economic considerations 19 are allowed to play a part in a regulatory decision such as 20 the NRC was contemplating?
21 MR. GROBE: Specifically on 22 that issue, thats not within my knowledge or purview to 23 comment. We do have, one of our performance goals is 24 making sure that we balance regulatory burden with safety.
25 We refer to it specifically as minimizing unnecessary MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
133 1 regulatory. Only necessary regulatory burden is imposed on 2 our licensees. And we carefully make sure that thats one 3 of the things that we keep in our mind.
4 MR. PEARCE: The Rule 50.109 is 5 a good example where weve taken into account cost of a 6 potential regulatory action versus the benefits to safety.
7 So, there you have a specific regulatory guideline that 8 takes that into consideration.
9 MR. LODGE: Was there a 10 specific regulatory guideline that you know of that was 11 pointed to by the NRC in making the decision last November?
12 MR. PEARCE: Are you talking 13 with respect to this decision?
14 MR. LODGE: Yes.
15 MR. PEARCE: No, not that Im 16 aware of.
17 MR. GROBE: Again, were the 18 people that are specifically focusing on Davis-Besse.
19 Were the wrong people to ask. There is a number of 20 investigations and reviews going on, and the first place 21 you should start is on Lessons Learned Task Force, and if 22 they have any insights on that area.
23 Thanks, Bill.
24 Another area, we have a committee, its called the 25 Committee to Review Generic Requirements; and any time we MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
134 1 issue a bulletin or a new regulation or anything of that 2 nature, it goes through that committee. And they look at 3 the need, the safety need for the regulation or bulletin or 4 what it might be as contrasted with the impact. So, thats 5 another area along with tendency of Rule 50.109.
6 So, there is a number of specific agency activities 7 that are mandated in our regulations and our processes.
8 MR. LODGE: None of which were 9 in play --
10 MR. GROBE: Again, Terry, the 11 point, issues that went on last fall, the decision on 12 extending the December 31st deadline is not something we 13 should be discussing because we dont have any review nor 14 have we looked at that; thats not our focus. Our focus is 15 Davis-Besse.
16 MR. LODGE: Well, it seems to 17 me that the focus of that decision was on Davis-Besse also, 18 and it seems to me that it is certainly a very significant 19 error.
20 MR. GROBE: Again, there is, 21 the Office of Inspector General has an inquiry into how the 22 agency performed, the Lessons Learned Task Force looked at 23 it as well, and there has been a number of Congressional 24 inquiries into that arena. Those are the folks you should 25 be addressing the question to.
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
135 1 MR. LODGE: Okay, thanks.
2 MR. GROBE: Any other members 3 of the public? Excellent.
4 AMY RYDER: Good evening. My 5 name is Amy Ryder. Im with Ohio Citizen Action.
6 I have, I have two questions, now I have three.
7 This would be a follow-up to Terry Lodges question.
8 Based on these NRC documents or these, this 9 information that came out about what happened last fall, 10 and I realize you cant comment on that, but knowing that 11 that happened, if this panel came to the conclusion that 12 FENOC was not able to resolve these human performance 13 issues and decided to revoke or suspend FENOCs license to 14 operate Davis-Besse, how confident are you that your 15 supervisors would allow that to happen?
16 MR. GROBE: Maybe I should 17 clarify something, because I didnt mean to infer that this 18 committee would be in the position of recommending 19 revocation of the license. What we will do is perform 20 inspections. Make sure that activities are performed 21 correctly. If theyre not, bring that to the companys 22 attention. And the plant wont restart until were 23 satisfied that its safe.
24 I dont anticipate that any outcome of this panels 25 activities will be a revocation of a license. So, I didnt MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
136 1 want to give that impression. I indicated earlier that it 2 is within the authority of the agency to take that sort of 3 an action, but I anticipate that this will be an 4 integrative process. If the company does work well, our 5 inspection, our inspections will disclose that, and we will 6 provide that feedback. If the company does work poorly, 7 our inspections will disclose that also and we will provide 8 that feedback.
9 MS. RYDER: Youll delay 10 restart?
11 MR. GROBE: Again, Ive 12 stated earlier, schedule is not something that is a focus 13 of us, of our activities. Our focus is making sure that if 14 and when the plant is ready to restart, it can restart 15 safely.
16 MS. RYDER: Okay. I wanted to 17 comment on some of the information that Howard Whitcomb 18 brought up tonight regarding the Restart Oversight Panel.
19 I think thats what its called. It seems that part of 20 your role in this restart plan, the panels role has been 21 to ensure that FirstEnergy personnel are qualified to do 22 walkdowns and inspections and repair and that kind of, 23 those types of activities; is that correct? That those 24 employees have to meet minimum standards in training?
25 MR. GROBE: There are certain MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
137 1 areas where there are requirements for qualifications and 2 competencies. Restart Oversight Panel, its not anything 3 thats required by the NRC. Thats a company created 4 panel. We will observe their performance, but there are no 5 requirements for qualifications or anything of that 6 nature.
7 MS. RYDER: Okay. My 8 observation of the fact that Lou Storz is on this Restart 9 Panel, is that weve just heard of two instances where 10 Mr. Storz had showed incredibly poor judgment that could 11 have put public safety at risk; and it certainly raises a 12 big flag as to why FirstEnergy invited him back to sit on a 13 panel to oversee the restart of this crippled plant. And I 14 think that should reflect in your oversight of this 15 process, is to what they consider to be experienced, 16 qualified personnel to oversee this restart, happens to be, 17 you know, at least one individual that we know of who 18 showed such incredibly poor judgment in the past.
19 MR. GROBE: Again, our focus 20 is performance today. I dont know what might or might not 21 have happened 15 years ago with Mr. Storz, but as I 22 mentioned, weve probably had four or five different staff 23 members observing the Restart Oversight Panel over the last 24 several months, and my personal observations is that that 25 panel is adding value. Its providing a very critical MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
138 1 review and well continue to monitor their activities.
2 MS. RYDER: My other question 3 was also in regards to the, you had earlier this evening or 4 earlier today mentioned some concerns that you had about 5 this Management/Human Performance and you answered already 6 some of my concerns as far as what specifically your panel 7 is going to be looking at as far as Human Performance.
8 But heres one area Im still very confused on.
9 Will the NRC permit FirstEnergy to restart this plant 10 before the Human Performance issues or problems are solved?
11 Does that have to be done before they can flip the switch?
12 MR. GROBE: Yeah, solved is an 13 interesting word. We will have to be convinced this plant 14 can operate safely before it restarts; and part of that is 15 going to be in the areas of what I refer to as soft 16 issues. Its Human Performance, Supervision, Oversight, 17 Management, Decision-making, Safety Focus. Were going to 18 be doing inspections and assessments in those areas.
19 My expectation is that the company will be doing 20 inspections and assessments in those areas or evaluations 21 and assessments in those areas. My expectation is they be 22 able to articulate their assessment in those areas to us 23 publicly. And we will certainly be articulating our 24 assessments to them publicly.
25 So, the panel needs to be convinced that the plant MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
139 1 can operate safely. That will be part of it. That goes 2 into that decision.
3 MS. RYDER: Okay. It appeared by 4 their, by the presentation today, the way theyre 5 addressing the Human Performance issue seems to lack an 6 objective end structure, or objective structure that will 7 ensure that these problems dont happen again.
8 It really seems more like theyre building a 9 relationship between management and the employees, which is 10 based on Im your boss, you can trust me. And we know from 11 history, that that does not work. Weve seen it both at 12 Davis-Besse, 17 years ago after the last accident. Weve 13 seen it in the NRC. And that really seems to be an issue 14 that they need to address before theyre allowed to go back 15 on line.
16 I dont see, or at least I havent seen any evidence 17 where theyre making progress on the Human Performance 18 issue and I think its misleading both to consumers or 19 citizens who could be affected by an accident at that plant 20 and to stockholders who own the company that the problems 21 are being solved or that theyre even solvable.
22 I mean, one of the, huge red flag for me was when I 23 read in the paper that, I cant remember who said it from 24 FirstEnergy said, well, we discovered these problems three 25 years ago. Well, these were problems that were going on 17 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
140 1 years ago. And a 17 year old behavioral problem is much 2 more challenging to deal with than a three year old 3 behavioral problem.
4 MR. GROBE: The issues are 5 significant. They need to be dealt with. And I know that 6 the Licensees Management and Human Performance Improvement 7 Plan, at least I think it is on the Web site; is that 8 correct?
9 MR. JOHNSON: No, not every 10 single item.
11 MR. MENDIOLA: Not the entire 12 plan.
13 MR. GROBE: Well check. But 14 the Management/Human Performance Plan is one of the their 15 Building Blocks, should be available publicly, along with 16 the other components of the Return to Service Plan. It 17 was, I dont keep track of all these things in detail, Amy, 18 I apologize, but it was my understanding a couple of weeks 19 ago, we were supposed to receive those documents and post 20 them on the website. That would give you additional 21 knowledge to be able to understand whats going on. And, 22 Ill follow up on that and make sure those are available 23 publicly.
24 These meetings each month, as you heard tonight, 25 this afternoon, its getting close to night; as you heard MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
141 1 this afternoon, this is going to be a focus of some of the 2 issues that were going to be discussing next month, and 3 its also going to be a focus of our inspection in the 4 Management/Human Performance areas. So, youll be getting 5 a lot of information regarding this as we do our 6 assessments.
7 MS. RYDER: I just have one 8 last question. I know my time is up, but I know that 9 FirstEnergy referred that they were consulting with some 10 outside consultants or on this Human Performance issues.
11 Are these consultants companies that are experts in running 12 nuclear power plants, or are they referring to other plants 13 that have better performance in Human Performance issues?
14 MR. GROBE: They have quite a 15 variety of consultants in this area that are supporting 16 them. Im not going to comment on my view as to whether or 17 not theyre experts, but they have consultant support --
18 MS. RYDER: Consultants.
19 MR. GROBE: -- in the areas of 20 evaluating their supervisors and managers. They have 21 consultant support in doing their 4-Cs Meetings with their 22 staff. Consultant support in formulating these various 23 programs. As Lew indicated today, they have consultant 24 support in the Safety Conscious Work Environment area. So, 25 there is a number of consultants; some of them have worked MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
142 1 in the nuclear industry. I think some of them have not 2 previously, but theyre management consultants.
3 MS. RYDER: Okay. All right, 4 thank you.
5 MR. DEAN: Amy, I just 6 wanted to discuss -- you can sit down -- the first issue 7 that you raised, the bridge from the previous question 8 about financial impacts and the consideration of that. One 9 of the things that the Lessons Learned Task Force 10 determined, and if you come to the meeting on November 6th 11 youll read the report.
12 One of the things they criticize the agency on, we 13 didnt do a very good job of providing our safety bases or 14 safety evaluation or decision-making process for how it is 15 that we came to allow Davis-Besse to go to February 16th.
16 Were in the process of developing that now, so I would 17 hope that within the next several weeks youll have an 18 official document from the NRC that does a better job of 19 explaining the process and explaining the rationale in 20 terms of the decision that was made relative to that.
21 I just wanted to give you a heads-up that there is 22 some information coming out on this.
23 MS. RYDER: In response to 24 that, Ive seen emails that are from, to and from NRC 25 employees. I mean, I have one in my lap right here that MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
143 1 specifically says that, you know, Collins has talked to 2 President Bob Saunders. Licensee has confidence can run to 3 end of March, however Licensee does not want an order 4 because of perception, replacement fuel on financial 5 markets. Thats pretty explanatory, I think to the 6 public.
7 MR. DEAN: And I guess I 8 would offer, not in defense or whatever, you can take one 9 thing out of context, out of what was a very complex 10 decision-making process that spans a number of months and 11 involved a number of people. So, to distill it down to one 12 email I think is really unfair.
13 So, we have to do a better job of explaining to the 14 public what was the process that took place. And I was 15 just trying to give you an idea thats going to be 16 hopefully coming out in the next couple of weeks.
17 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thank 18 you.
19 Any other questions or comments.
20 DAVE LOCHBAUM: Dave Lochbaum, 21 with Concerned Scientists. That NRC report on how the 22 decision was made, you say its going to come out in a few 23 weeks? So, that would be like a determination of what 24 happened in February, or because weve been waiting for 25 that and been hearing several week frames that havent been MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
144 1 met yet. How good are these dates?
2 MR. GROBE: Well, the Lessons 3 Learned Task Force Report is out. Do you have something 4 specific?
5 MR. DEAN: No, I was trying 6 to think of some witty repartee, but I couldnt come up 7 with anything, Dave.
8 MR. LOCHBAUM: Ill be back next 9 month, thats okay.
10 MR. DEAN: Hopefully, it will 11 be out next month.
12 MR. GROBE: Not your witty 13 repartee.
14 MR. DEAN: Give me a month, 15 maybe Ill come up with something.
16 My understanding is -- lets deal with the first 17 issue. The goal is to get that out within the next couple 18 weeks. Thats all I can say. Im not developing it, but I 19 know the individuals that are preparing that, and actually 20 been working on that for several weeks.
21 With respect to the risk assessment, my 22 understanding is that NRR is just about ready to send that 23 to Region 3 for their processing of that through the 24 significance determination process.
25 Weve had a number of discussions internally about MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
145 1 what do we do once we get that. And I think, to be honest 2 with you, in that term of process in how were going to 3 deal with it is pretty well defined. So, once it gets in 4 Region 3 hands, I think it will move pretty quickly. I 5 have a pretty well defined strategy, and in completing the 6 risk assessment to the degree that it has a, enough of a 7 public veracity component to it, I think has challenge for 8 us.
9 MR. LOCHBAUM: Getting back to 10 the report on or the paper on the NRCs decision process.
11 MR. GROBE: Hang on for a 12 second, Dave. That might be, let me put a little broader 13 text on the risk assessment. Obviously, this is a very 14 complex situation to analyze from a risk perspective; and 15 there is two pieces of that Region 3 requested assistance 16 from NRR and Research in supporting us with a specific 17 technical analysis, failure analysis; and thats the piece 18 that Bill is referring to. And once we receive that at 19 Region 3, we need to put that in the context of ROP.
20 And Bill just set a pretty high bar and I appreciate 21 that, Bill, thank you. Well have that done quickly, as 22 soon as NRR gets us a risk or failure analysis.
23 MR. LOCHBAUM: Getting back to 24 the report on the decision-making process; you say that 25 its been worked on for several weeks, and will be done in MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
146 1 two or three more weeks?
2 MR. DEAN: Hopefully.
3 MR. LOCHBAUM: To document a 4 decision made November of last year? Why does it take six 5 weeks to come up with a story of what happened last 6 November 30th?
7 MR. GROBE: Not the 8 decision-making process, but the components that went into 9 the risk. You know, risk informed decision making, the 10 factors that were considered, the pro and cons, how things 11 were weighed in terms of the ultimate decision; thats what 12 Im referring to.
13 MR. LOCHBAUM: And that takes six 14 weeks to come up with?
15 MR. DEAN: Well, looks like 16 its taken about a year for us to come up with that.
17 Right?
18 MR. LOCHBAUM: Didnt take us 19 that long though.
20 MR. DEAN: Anyway, hopefully, 21 that should be out in a few weeks.
22 MR. GROBE: Additional 23 questions?
24 MR. GUNTER: Could I ask one 25 quick question?
MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
147 1 MR. GROBE: Sure.
2 MR. GUNTER: And I apologize 3 for extending this. Paul Gunter, Nuclear Information 4 Research Service.
5 I would like to go back to the emergency sump 6 diagram that was presented today, on slide 24; and it 7 indicates that Davis-Besse has increased the size of its 8 emergency sump system a factor of 6 plus?
9 MR. GROBE: No. Let me just 10 make sure its clear. What theyre increasing is the 11 square footage of surface area of screen thats available 12 to filter water as it goes into the sump, and I believe 13 theyre increasing it from 50 square feet to 1100 14 square feet.
15 MR. GUNTER: So its even 16 more. Now that directly relates back to Generic Issue, 17 Safety Issue Number 191?
18 MR. GROBE: Thats correct.
19 MR. GUNTER: So, I guess my 20 question is, does this hold implications for Davis-Besses 21 other reactors; and perhaps the other 68 other pressurized 22 water reactors that have been in limbo now for ten years 23 with regard to Generic Issue, Generic Safety Issue 191?
24 MR. GROBE: Thats why I 25 hesitated when you said it was related to 191. I didnt MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
148 1 want an inference developed that Davis-Besse was doing this 2 because of some decision has been made regarding 191, 3 Generic Safety Issue 191. This was their initiative to do, 4 to make these modifications to the sump.
5 When the Generic Issue is resolved and the agency 6 takes action is when other utilities will be expected to 7 take action. If they choose to take action earlier, thats 8 up to them. FirstEnergy chose to take this opportunity 9 during this shutdown to modify the sump.
10 MR. GUNTER: Well, actually to 11 the credit of FirstEnergy.
12 MR. GROBE: Right.
13 MR. GUNTER: I think that it 14 demonstrates that there is a resolution to an issue thats 15 been lingering now for nearly a decade.
16 MR. GROBE: Thats an 17 interesting design. Thats why we want to look at it very 18 carefully.
19 MR. GUNTER: Thank you.
20 MR. DEAN: And Paul, in the 21 Lessons Learned Tasks Force, there is quite a bit of 22 discussion about NCRs performance in terms of generic 23 safety issues, I think youll find an interesting read.
24 Its pretty critical about what the agency has done with 25 generic safety issues. So, clearly, well be focusing on MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO
149 1 that aspect of the report process as a result.
2 MR. GROBE: Okay. Thanks, 3 Paul.
4 Any other questions? Okay. Very good.
5 We will be back here at 7:00 for those members of 6 the public that didnt have an opportunity to attend this 7 afternoon or any of you are certainly welcome to come back, 8 and thank you very much.
9 (Off the record.)
10 ---
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150 1 CERTIFICATE 2 I, Marie B. Fresch, Registered Merit Reporter and 3 Notary Public in and for the State of Ohio, duly 4 commissioned and qualified therein, do hereby certify that 5 the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the 6 proceedings as taken by me and that I was present during 7 all of said proceedings.
8 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and 9 affixed my seal of office at Norwalk, Ohio, on this 10 25th day of October, 2002.
11 12 13 14 Marie B. Fresch, RMR 15 NOTARY PUBLIC, STATE OF OHIO 16 My Commission Expires 10-9-03.
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MARIE B. FRESCH & ASSOCIATES 1-800-669-DEPO