ML20077G002

Prefiled Testimony of MD Barker.* Lists Questions & Answers

ML20077G002
Person / Time
Site:	Vogtle
Issue date:	12/05/1994
From:	Barker M AFFILIATION NOT ASSIGNED
To:
Shared Package
ML20077F984	List: ML20077F981 ML20077F990 ML20077F998 ML20077G002 ML20077G007
References
OLA-3, NUDOCS 9412160145
Download: ML20077G002 (9)

Text

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PREFILED TE' TIMONY OF MICHAEL D. BARKER Q: CAN YOU STATE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS?

A: Michael D. Barker, 5545 Hillgate Crossing, Alpharetta, Georgia, 30202.

Q: ARE YOU CURRENTLY EMPLOYED?

A: Yes, with the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations ("INPO").

Q: WERE YOU EVER EMPLOYED BY GEORGIA POWER COMPANY ("GPC") ?

A: Yes, I began working for GPC on December 27, 1978. I was stationed at plant Vogtle between 1978 and 1987. In July, 1987 up until October 31, 1988, I was located in GPC's corporate of fices. On October 31, 1988 I was transferred from Atlanta, Georgia to Birmingham, Alabama as part of the SONOPCO project reorganization. I was stationed in the SONOPCO project until I left the company in April 6, 1990.

Q: WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE SONOPCO PROJECT?

A: I left the company on good terms to run for the United States Congress, Seventh District of Alabama.

Q: BEFORE JOINING THE SONOPCO PROJECT, DID YOU HAVE OCCASION TO WORK WITH MR. HOBBY? i i

A: Yes. I reported to Mr. Hobby from February, 1988 until I was ,

transferred to the SONOPCO project on October 31, 1988. l l

Q: WHAT WERE YOUR MAJOR AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY WHEN YOU REPORTED TO MR. HOBBY?

A: Collecting, trending and reporting performance data to GPC management and various regulatory agencies of GPC's nuclear plants (Hatch and Vogtle) ; providing performance reports to the co-owners of plants Hatch and Vogtle; and providing research and information for a rate case before the Georgia l Public Service Commission ("PSC"). l I

Q: DID THE TRANSFER CHANGE YOUR AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY?  !

A: No. I continued to report on the performance of both plant Hatch and plant Vogtle. Shortly after formation of the new SONOPCO organization an engineer, Mr. Ed Hicks, was brought 9412160145 941205 PDR ADOCK 05000424 C PDR l 1

into the Hatch project who became responsible for plant Hatch performance data. As before the transfer, however, I continued to report information to the co-owners for both Hatch and Vogtle and I continued to do this until I left the company. I also continued to work on rate case related issues for both Hatch and Vogtle both before and af ter the transfer.

Q: WHO DID YOU REPORT TO AFTER THE TRANSFER TO BIRMINGHAM?

A: Mr. Em Cobb, who reported to curtis Stinespring, who reported to Bill Shipman, who reported to SONOPCO's Vogtle Project vice president, Mr. McCoy.

Q: HOW WAS THE SONOPCO PROJECT ORGANIZED?

A: It was basically staffed with three different sets of employees, some employees remained employed with Alabama Power Company, some with Georgia Power Company, and some employees became Southern Company Services ("SCS") employees or were already SCS employees. The SONOPCO project itself was divided into five areas: 1) the "Vogtle Project," 2) the " Hatch Project," 3) the "Farley Project," 4) " Administrative Services," and 5) " Technical Services." I was stationed in the Vogtle Project portion of SONOPCO.

Q: DID YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO NOTICE IF ANY OF THE GEORGIA POWER MANAGERS WITHIN THE SONOPCO PROJECT DISTINGUISHED THEMSELVES AS A SONOPCO PROJECT AS OPPOSED TO A GEORGIA POWER EMPLOYEE?

A: Yes, I observed that managers considered themselves foremost as SONOPCO employees rather than Georgia Power employees. I can best explain myself by way of example. For example, af ter I transferred to Birmingham I continued to work directly with GPC employees in Atlanta on the rate case. I was assigned to draft a set of Performance Indicators that GPC wanted to include in the rebuttal portion of its rate case before the PSC. Georgia Power did not want the PSC to adopt Performance Indicators for its nuclear power plants, but the PSC had been pursuing this for some time and Georgia Power knew performance indicators were going to be recommended by the PSC staff for adoption by the PSC. I knew that Georgia Power wanted to be in a position to submit in its rebuttal case its version of an acceptable set of performance indicators. Af ter I transferred to the SONOPCO project I still had responsibility for draf ting alternative performance indicators for the rate case. But, I was then told by management that I now worked for the SONOPCO project and the SONOPCO project didn't want me working on 2

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. . l alternative performance indicators regardless of what Georgia Power wanted.

An additional example would be receiving instruction that the SONOPCO position on alternative performance standards conflicted with Mr. Dahlberg's position and that, due to this difference, I could no longer travel to Atlanta to work on alternate performance indicators. Basically, I was told that SONOPCO would not assist Georgia Power unless SONOPCO executive management approved of GPC's actions.

Another example relates to working on PSC data requests. At some point SONOPCO project management decided that SONOPCO would administrate all GPC data requests. At that point I was prohibited from working directly with Mr. Hobby or NOCA and was instructed to report to SONOPCO's administrative services non-Georgia Power managers. This definitely interfered with answering the data requests and slowed down the process.

Another example would be orders I received from SONOPCO project management that I could no longer have direct communication with Georgia Power's Atlanta offices, in particular Mr. Hobby and the Nuclear Operations Contract Administration group, and that all communications between SONOPCO and GPC's corporate of fices had to go through Southern Company Services mnnagement assigned to SONOPCO project's Administrative Services group. In fact, I was told by a manager in the Administrative Services group, Mr. Merv Brown, that his role was to cut off Mr. Hobby and the Nuclear Operations Contract Administration group ("NOCA") from access to SONOPCO. Mr. Brown was initially assigned as the person everyone at the SONOPCO project had to go through when communicating or transmitting information to Georgia Power's Atlanta offices.  ;

Another example concerns my attempt to transfer back to Georgia Power's Atlanta of fices af ter I was transferred to the SONOPCO project. SONOPCO project management blocked my ability to transfer and instituted transfer policies that conflicted with Georgia Power policy.

Q: WERE YOU PROHIBITED FROM WORKING WITH MR. HOBBY AND NOCA ON i THE SAME WORK YOU WERE DOING FOR SCS EMPLOYEES? I 1

A: Yes. I was working on the rate case with NOCA and Mr. Hobby. I I was instructed to stop all direct communication with NOCA and Mr. Hobby and to communicate only with non-GPC employees l within SONOPCO's administrative services branch. I was i instructed that I could only communicate with Messrs. Merv I Brown and Tim Marvin, both of whom were SCS employees.

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Q: WHAT WAS THE REPORTING CHAIN WITHIN ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES?

A: I reported to Tim Marvin who reported to Merv Brown who reported to Ron Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert reported to the administrative services vice president, Mr. Charles McCrary.

Q: DID HAVING TO REPORT TO ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES IN ORDER TO COMMUNICATE WITH GEORGIA POWER'S ATLANTA OFFICE INTERFERE WITH YOU ABILITY TO PERFORM YOUR JOB?

A: Yes. .It slowed down my ability to respond to data requests coming from the PSC, and resulted in delays in answering the requests.

Q: DID THE PSC EVER CONSIDER ESTABLISHING A SET OF NUCLEAR PERFORMANCE INDICATORS TO MONITOR THE PERFORMANCE OF GEORGIA POWER'S NUCLEAR PLANTS?

A: Yes. Georgia Power learned in advance of a 1989 rate case that the PSC wanted to establish nuclear performance indicators and that the PSC staff would be including nuclear performance _ indicators before the PSC. Georgia Power was basically told what the PSC staff's performance indicators would look like. I was aware that the PSC had made it clear to the company that nuclear performance indicators were going to be imposed and the question was what would the standards look like. As the performance engineer responsible for monitoring Georgia Power's nuclear plants since mid 1987, I was given the responsibility to draf t the company's version of an acceptable performance standard.

Q: AT SOME POINT DID YOU LEARN WHETHER OR NOT GPC'S PRESIDENT, MR. DAHLBERG, WANTED TESTIMONY ON A SUITABLE ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE STANDARD INCLUDED IN REBUTTAL TESTIMONY BEFORE THE PSC?

A: Yes.

Q: WHAT IS THE EARLIEST DATE YOU CAN VERIFY KNOWING THAT MR.

DAHLBERG WANTED TO SUBMIT AN ALTERNATIVE SET OF PERFORMANCE INDICATORS TO THE PSC AND MR. MCDONALD OBJECTED?

A: I keep a day timer and, as reflected in the July 5, 1989 entry, I met with GPC personnel in Atlanta and was informed at the meeting that Mr. Mcdonald and Mr. Dahlberg did not agree philosophically on whether GPC should file an alternative performance indicator to the PSC. The entry in my day timer 4

specifically states: "seems Dahlberg wants to go to the perf [ormance] standard and Mcdonald says no." ,

Q: WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY " MCDONALD'SAYS NO"?

A: I was told that Mr. Dahlberg had decided that we were going to work on an alternative performance standard and that, regardless of that decision, Mr, Mcdonald later laid down the law within the SONOPCO project that we were not to participate in or help draft alternative performance indicators for inclusion in GPC's rebuttal case before the PSC.

Q: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THIS JULY 5, 1989 MEETING?

A: I worked in GPC's Atlanta offices on an alternative performance standard. In Atlanta it was understood that Mr.

Dahlberg wanted to submit an acceptable performance standard to submit to the PSC. Ed Hicks and I were required to report on what was happening in Atlanta with respect to the performance indicator issue and we submitted a memo to Merv Brown on July 21, 1989. On August 2nd Ed Hicks called to say he had to "back off" from working on alternative performance standards because he was told by his vice president, Mr.

Beckham, that Mr. Mcdonald was upset that we were working on alternative performance indicators and that if we continued to work on them Mr. Beckham said we were being set up to "get hurt" by Mcdonald.

Q; WHAT HAPPENED AFTER YOUR AUGUST 2ND DISCUSSION?

A: On August 9, 1989 Mr. Mcdonald called a meeting of everyone in the SONOPCO project associated with working on the PSC case, including the project VPs to reiterate his position to oppose both the PSC and Mr. Dahlberg's position, and any future work on performance standards.

Q: DID YOU LEARN ABOUT A MEETING BETWEEN MR. DAHLBERG AND MR.

MCDONA'D RELATED TO THE PERFORMANCE INDICATOR CONTROVERSY?

A: Yes. On August 11, 1989, I was told by Merv Brown that Mr.

Mcdonald had an intense meeting with Mr. Dahlberg over  !

performance indicators and that Mr. Dahlberg wanted the rebuttal testimony being prepared out of SONOPCO to include a proposed alternative performance standard.

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Q: DID YOU ATTEND A MEETING WITH MR. FARLEY, MR. MCDONALD AND OTHERS AFTER YOU LEARNED FROM MR. BROWN ABOUT THE " INTENSE MEETING" MR. MCDONALD HAD WITH MR. DAHLBERG?

A: Yes. Within a day or so of learning of the meeting between Mr. Dahlberg and Mr. Mcdonald, I attended a meeting to discuss performance standards. In attendance was Mr. Farley, Mr.

Mcdonald, Gerald Johnson, Merv Brown, Art Domby and others. ,

Q: WHAT HAPPENED DURING THIS MEETING?

A: Mr. Mcdonald stated that the SONOPCO project was not going to work on alternative performance standards, period. And that an alternative performance standard was not going to be included in the rebuttal testimony.

Q: WHAT WAS THE REACTION?

A: Mr. Farley was the only person in the room senior to Mr.

Mcdonald. Everyone else said nothing. Mr. Farley and Mr.

Mcdonald talked about what the SONOPCO project's position should be and Mr. Farley said that the project should consider the matter further and that we may want to submit our version of an acceptable performance indicator.

Q: WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT WITH RESPECT TO PERFORMANCE INDICATOR TESTIMONY?

A: I was called into a private meeting with Mr. Mcdonald and told that I should not consider working on an alternative performance standard and I was instructed to work on opposing a performance standard.

Q: IF I UNDERSTAND YOUR TESTIMONY, THERE CAME A POINT WHERE YOU KNEW THAT MR. DAHLBERG'S POSITION WAS TO PREPARE REBUTTAL TESTIMONY ON AN ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE STANDARD AND THAT AFTER YOU KNEW THAT MR. DAHLBERG'S WANTED REBUTTAL TESTIMONY TO INCLUDE AN ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE INDICATOR YOU WERE INSTRUCTED BY MR. MCDONALD NOT TO PERFORM WORK ON ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS, AND THAT AT THE TIME MR. MCDONALD GAVE THIS INSTRUCTION HE WAS AWARE OF MR. DAHLBERG'S POSITION?

A: Yes, that is correct.

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Q: DID YOU KNOW WHETHER MR. FARLEY REMAINED INVOLVED WITH GPC'S RATE CASE?

A: Yes. He was involved in a September 1, 1989 meeting where the testimony to be presented at the PSC hearing was finalized with respect to the information that would be presented in the rebuttal testimony.

Q: WHO ATTENDED THE SEPTEMBER 1, 1989 MEETING?

A: Mr. Farley, Mr. Mcdonald, Mr. McCoy, Mr. Beckham, myself and others.

Q: DID YOU PREPARE ANYTHING FOR THE SEPTEMBER 1, 1989 MEETING?

A: Yes. I was responsible for preparing an extensive briefing notebook and, at the direction of Mr. Mcdonald, had prepared three white papers for use by the project VPs to explain why and how to oppose performance standards. The white papers were incorporated into briefing books that I prepared. The briefing books contained all the information and material Mr.

McCoy and Mr. Beckham would base their testimony on before the PSC and included the information they needed to support the prefiled rebuttal testimony that was to be filed with the PSC.

Q: DID THE BRIEFING BOOKS YOU PREPARED CONTAIN ANY INFORMATION ABOUT AN ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVE TO THE PERFORMANCE INDICATORS PROPOSED BY THE PSC STAFF?

A: Absolutely not . This briefing book was being prepared for Mr.

Mcdonald and the other SONOPCO project executives and it was understood by me that I was not supposed to be working on alternative performance indicators by way of personal instruction from Mr. Mcdonald. I wouldn't dare include any material on alternative performance indicators in a briefing book going to Mr. Mcdonald and the plant vice presidents. I specifically recall that I was told on August 26, 1989 that Mr. Mcdonald had to approve the rebuttal testimony and that he did not want any mention of alternative performance indicators included.

Q: WHAT OCCURRED DURING THE SEPTEMBER 1, 1989 MEETING 7 A: The briefing book was reviewed in its entirety as was the testimony Mr. McCoy and Mr. Beckham were to give before the PSC. The testimony planned and rehearsed during the meeting excluded reference to an alternative performance standard.

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Q: WHAT DO YOU RECALL MR. FARLEY DOING OR SAYING IN THE SEPTEMBER 1, 1989 MEETING?

i A: Mr. Farley attended the entire meeting. He reviewed the i briefing books and changed aspects of the testimony. At the  !

end of the meeting he complemented me on the briefing book.  ;

Q: DID ANYTHING HAPPEN AFTER THAT CONCERNING PERFORMANCE INDICATORS?

A: Yes. I was told that the PSC reacted very badly to our not including an alternative performance indicator in our rebuttal case. After learning this I was told that we had to immediately put together an alternative performance indicator.

I believe I was forced to come in on a Sunday, September 17, 1989 to work on comparative plant information for inclusion in our performance indicator because we were undtr a los of time pressure. I remember that we had to work around the : lock to get it done.

Q: DID YOU EVER LEARN OF ANY OTHER INVOLVEMENT BY MR. FARLEY WITH RESPECT TO GEORGIA POWER'S NUCLEAR PLANTS?

A: Yes. On September 11, 1989 I received a request to update figures on Vogtle's kilowatt per hour and capital costs for Unit 2. I was told that the material was needed for Mr.

Farley's and Mr. Mcdonald's meeting with Wall Street investment personnel . I heard that they travelled to New York on September 13, 1989 because some Wall Street analysts were

" jittery" about the Vogtle Unit 2 cost and Mr. Farley was sent to calm the situation Q: AS A GPC EMPLOYEE WERE YOU EVER LOANED TO NON-GPC MANAGEMENT STATIONED AT THE SONOPCO PROJECT?

A: Yes. During my last three months, I report to Mr. Meier, the Project's Manager of Strategic Analysis. I worked on reviewing the Project's procurement procedures for all three plants, Hatch, Vogtle and Farley. I received all of my management direction from Mr. Meier.

Q: TO WHOM DID MR. MEIER REPORT TO AT THAT TIME?

A: I was under the impression that he was the acting Secretary of the SONOPCO project and was reporting to Mr. Farley.

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Q:

DID YOU HAVE ANY PRIOR INVOI,VEMENT 'dIW MR. MEIER?

As Yes. On May 9, the workings 1999 I was instructed to brief Mr. Meier en of the Joint Owner Subcommittee on nuclear power generation.

At that point I was instructed to provide Mr.

Meier with all information I was providing to the Joint Owners and that Itohad intended approval. provideto henceforth submit to the Joint owners thetoinformation Mr. Meier for we 4AA. 0_. fsm. a d Michael D. Barker C: \f!' .tS\31;\BMUTR.157 l

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9 Tgtst,. p.10 TOTAL P.03

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