ML20133D466
| ML20133D466 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 08/03/1985 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#385-153 OL, NUDOCS 8508070344 | |
| Download: ML20133D466 (126) | |
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UN11ED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: STN 50-398-OL STN 50-499-OL HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER COMPANY, et al.
(SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, Units 1 and 2)
EVIDENTIARY HEARING O .
LOCATION: HOUSTON, TEXAS PAGES: 14090 - 14189 DATE: ;ATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1985
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O ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
Official Reporters 444 North Capitol Street 8508070344 050803 8 Washington, D.C. 20001 PDR ADOCK 0500 (202)347-3700 NATICNWIDE COVERAGE
14090
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1 2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 5 ----------------------------------X 6 In the Matter of: : DOCKET NO.
7 HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER : STN-50-498-OL 8 COMPANY, ET AL., : STN-50-499-OL 9 (South Texas Project Units 1 & 2 :
10 ----------------------------------X 11 University of Houston 12 Teaching Unit II, #215
(')> 13 Houston, Texas-14 15 16 Saturday, 3 August 1985 17 i 18 The hearing in the above-entitled matter was 19 convened, pursuant to adjournment, at 9:05 a.m.,
20 BEFORE:
21 JUDGE CHARLES BECHHOEFER, Chairman, 22 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
1 23 JUDGE JAMES C. LAMB, Member, 24 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
() 25 a
14091 j
.-( ) !
1 JUDGE FREDERICK J. Sh'ON, Member, 2 - Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
3 l 4 APPEARANCES:
5 On behalf of the Applicants:
6 MAURICE AXELRAD, Esq.,
7 ALVIN GUTTERMAN, Esq.,
8 DONALD J. SILVERMAN, Esq.,
9 STEVEN P. FRANTZ, Esq.,
10 Newman & Holtzinger, 11 Washington, D.C.
12
~
13 On behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff:
14 EDWIN J. REIS, Esq.,
15 ORESTE RUSS PIRFO, Esq.,
16 Office of the Executive Legal Director 17
. 18 On behalf of the Intervenor:
19 LANNY ALAN SINKIN, 20 3022 Porter St. N.W., #304 21 Washington, D.C. 20008 22 Representative for Citizens Concerned About 23 Nuclear Power.
24
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14092
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1 CONTENTS 2 ;
3 WITNESSES: DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS BOARD 4 GEORGE W. OPREA 14093 14096 - - -
5 i
6 7
8 EXHIBITS: FOR ID. IN EVD 9 CCANP Exhibit 108 14104 14107 10 CCANP-Exhibit 109 14110 14113 11 CCANP Exhibit 110 14115 14117 12 CCANP Exhibit 111 14122 14125
(~ 13 CCANP Exhibit 112 14125 14133 14 CCANP Exhibit 113 14142 15 16 17 l' 8 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 C:)
.cg-1 14093 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Good morning, ladies and 3 gentlemen.
4 Any preliminary matters this morning?
5 MR. SINKIN: No.
6 MR. AXELRAD: No, Mr. Chairman.
7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Axelrad or Gutterman, 8 as the case may be?
9 MR. AXELRAD: Yes.
10 Applicants call as their next witness Mr.
11 George W. Oprea, Jr., who has previously been sworn, Mr.
12 Chairman.
13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Yes.
14 15 GEORGE W. OPREA, JR.,
16 having been previously duly sworn, testified upon his 17 oath as follows:
18 19 DIRECT EXAMINATION 20 BY MR. AXELRAD:
21 Q Mr. Oprea, will you please state your full 22 name for the record?
() 23 A George W. Oprea, Jr.
24 Q Mr. Oprea, do you have before you a document 25 entitled Testimony on Behalf of Houston Lighting & Power
cg-1 14094 O 1 Company, et al, of George W. Oprea, Jr. --
2 A Yes, I do.
3 0 -- consisting of 25 pages?
4 A Yes, I do.
5 0 Mr. Oprea, is that testimony true and correct 6 to the best of your knowledge and belief?
7 A Yes, it is.
8 Q Do you adopt that testimony as your testimony 9 in this proceeding?
10 A I do.
11 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, Applicants move
() 12 t' hat the document entitled Testimony on Behalf of 13 Houaton Lighting & Power Company, et al, of George W.
14 Oprea, Jr., be admitted into evidence in this proceeding 15 and bound into the record as if read.
16 MR. SINKIN: No objection.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I have one question about a 18 possib12 correction.
19 On page 8, line 22, should there be a word 20 after Three Mile Island or alternatively should "the" be 21 deleted? Something like accident or incident or 22 whatever?
() 23 MR. AXELRAD: More like an event.
\~ 24 The witness has indicated that after the words 25 "Three Mile Island," the word " incident" should be
cg-1 14095 O 1 added.
2 Any other question, Mr. Chairman?
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Absent objection, Mr.
I 4 Oprea's testimony will be admi':ted into evidence and 5 bound into the record as if read.
6 7
8 9
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD 3
4 In the Matter of )
)
5 HOUSTON LIGHTING & POWER ) Docket Nos. STN 50-498 OL COMPANY, ~ET~AL. ) STN 50-499 OL 6 )
(South Texas Project, Units 1 )
7 and 2) )
8 9 TESTIMONY ON BEHALF OF HOUSTON LIGHTING & POWER COMPANY, ET AL.,
10 OF GEORGE W. OPREA, JR.
11 12 Q.1 'Please state your name.
13 A.1 I am George W. Oprea, Jr.
b 14
- 15 Q.2 Please state your present occupation.
16 A.2 I retired from my position as Executive Vice 17 President-Nuclear of Houston Lighting & Power Company 18 (HL&P) on February 1, 1985. I presently serve as a 19 consultant to HL&P.
20 21 Q.3 Have you previously testified in this proceeding?
22 A.3 Yes, I testified in May and June of 1981.
23 24 04 What is the purpose of your testimony?
25 A.4 My testimony will explain why HL&P did not furnish to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (Licensing Board
(]) 26 (j 27 or Board) the report prepared by Quadrex Corporation 28
(Quadrex) entitled " Design Review of Brown & Root
(]) 1 2 Engineering Work for the South Texas Project" (the ,
3 Quadrex Report) and why HL&P did not advise the Board 4 of the potential replacement of Brown & Root, Inc.
5 (B&R) before the decision was announced publicly.
6 7 In addition, in response to the Board's request at 8 page 19 of its Memorandum and Order of February 26, 9 1985, my testimony will describe my knowledge of the 10 Quadrex Report when I testified, as well as my views 11 on the adequacy of B&R's services at that time. It 12 will also show that I was truthful and candid in my 13 testimony before the Board and that there was no l 14 occasion for me to mention either the Quadrex Report 15 or the review of B&R's design engineering services.
16 17 05 What was your involvement in the decision to initiate ,
18 the Quadrex review of B&R engineering on STP?
19 A.5 After Mr. Jerome H. Goldberg joined HL&P as Vice 20 President-Nuclear Engineering and Construction in the 21 fall of 1980, he recommended that there be an 22 independent third party assessment of the engineering 23 services of B&R. I agreed that such a review be 24 undertaken, because I thought it important to assure 25 that engineering was coordinated and properly
) 26 sequenced to support the construction schedule in an
(_/ 27 - orderly fashion. I had considered such a review in 28
3-1 mid-1980, but initiation of the activity was delayed because of the pressure of other, more immediate 2
3 activities associated with responding to I&E 4 Inspection Report No. 79-19 and the Show Cause Order.
5 6 06 were you briefed on the progress of the Quadrex 7 review?
8 A.6 Several times during March and April I obtained 9
informationastotheprogressodthereview, either 10 in conversations with Mr. Goldberg or at meetings of _
11 the STP Management Committee. It was apparent that 12 Quadrex was finding weaknesses in the B&R engineering f
13 program which, in some cases, tended to confirm an
~
14 underlying concern we had regarding its ability to l 15 perform the work necessary to support the construction 16 schedule. Mr. Goldberg also indicated the 17 possibilities of some deficiencies that would be 18 ' reportable to the NRC under 10 CFR S 50.55(e). I did 19 not attend any meetings with Quadrex or briefings by 20 Quadrex.
21 22 07 Were you brieted on the Quadrex findings after 23 completion of the review?
24 A.7 Yes. I was aware that the Quadrex Report would be 25 received on May 7. At about that time Mr. Goldberg O 26 iator a th e 8'a woute ao a i== at e revi ~ to 27 determine the reportability of any Quadrex findings to
(/
28
the NRC, and that an HL&P review team (Mr. Goldberg,
{) 1 2 Mr. Cloin G. Robertson, and Dr. James E. Sumpter) .
i 3 would do an additional review and would decide if any i
4 items were reportable.
l j 5 6 In the late afternoon of May 8, Mr. Goldberg told me 7 that B&R had recommended reporting one Quadrex item to 8 the NRC and that the HL&P review team had decided to 9 report two additional items. He also informed me 10 generally as to the results of the Quadrex review. A 11 couple of days later, on May 11, Mr. Goldberg briefed 12 both Mr. Jordan and myself.
13 b
s.- 14 08 When you testified what was your understanding of the 15 substance and import of the Quadrex Report? ,
16 A.8 on the basis of the briefings I had received, it was 17 my understanding that the Quadrex Report contained a 18 large number of specific findings and general 19 obse vations. Mr. Goldberg explained that some of the 20 findings and observations were unsupported or based on 21 incomplete information, at least in part because the 22 Quadrex review had been performed in a short time 23 period. I recognized the potentially serious 24 implications of some of the deficiencies which had 25 been reported to the NRC, particularly the one dealing
() 26 with computer code verification. Apart from the items
( , ,, 27 that had been reported to the NRC, I understood that 28
1 Quadrex had reported a number of areas in which 2 engineering was even further behind than we expected, ,
3 and that the schedular impact on Project completion 4 could be significant. These types of concerns 5 underscored the importance of actions which we were 6 then taking to improve the B&R engineering 7 organization with additional experienced personnel, as 8 well as other related measures such as subcontracting 9 specific portions of the engineering work.
10 _
11 I was also aware that Mr. Goldberg had tasked B&R with 12 developing an action plan to disposition the Quadrex 13 findings. Thus I was confident that any substantive
() 14 engineering questions raised by the Quadrex Report ,
t 15 would be properly taken into account in completing the 16 design of STP.
17 ,
18 Q.9 Do you know how the NRC Staff was informed of the 19 Quadrex Report?
20 A.9 I was aware that Mr. Goldberg had informed Mr. Donald 21 Sells, the NRC Project Manager for STP, of the conduct 22 of the review by Qusdrex and that he briefed him on 23 the Quadrex Report in Bay City during the week of May 24 . 11, 1981. It was logical to contact Mr. Sells because 25 the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) is involved in the design and technical areas for NRC.
( ) 26
, 27 L>
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1 Both Mr. Goldberg and I believed that Mr. Sells was p
b 2 the appropriate contact with the NRC concerning the 3 Quadrex review, and there was no apparent reason to 4 discuss the subject with Region IV in addition to NRR, 5 except to the extent that our review of the Report 6 disclosed the existence of reportable deficiencies.
7 8
0 10 Were you involved in August 1981 when personnel from 9 Region IV asked to see the Quadrex Report?
, 10 A.10 Yes. I received a call from Mr. Richard Frazar. I 11 made clear that the Report should be made available to 12 the Region IV personnel for review. It was our view, 13 however, that the Report would not be filed with the lO V 14 15 NRC since it could be misunderstood and misinterpreted if it were made publicly available.
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i 16 i
17 Did you subsequently discuss the Report with officials 0 11 18 of Region'IV?
19 When I realized that Region IV might not be A.ll Yes.
20 aware of our contacts with Mr. Sells regarding the 21 Report, or, if they were aware, might be concerned as :
22 to why we had not provided them with a similar 23 briefing, I called Mr. Karl Seyfrit, the Director of 24 Region IV, in late August, 1981, and offered to 25 discuss the Report with him and his staff. Such a
heta oa seveember 8, 1981, eae O 27 meetiao "r-L 28 l
1 Goldberg and I briefed Region IV on the contents of 2 the Report and the actions being taken by HL&P and ,
3 B&R.
4 5 At that time, I believe that Mr. Seyfrit asked whether 6 HL&P planned to file any additional reports under 7 5 50.55(e) or whether HL&P considered the entire 8 Quadrex Report to be reportable under S 50.55(e). l 9 Although I do not recall whether we responded at the 10 meeting or in subsequent telephone conversations, our 11 position was that only three distinct matters were i 12 reportable under S 50.55(e) and we did not see any 13 basis for reportability of the entire Report. Since !
14 HL&P and B&R were implementing a corrective action
( ([ ) 1 5 plan for the Quadrex findings we would, of course, 16 file additional S 50.55(e) reports if any additional 17 reportable matters were found.
18 19 In the course of the meeting, Mr. Goldberg had 20 mentioned 10 priority matters being addressed by B&R 21 under the corrective action plan. Region IV stressed 22 that all of the Quadrex findings would have to be l 23 dispositioned, and we agreed to do so.
24 25 Q.12 At the time of your testimony, what was your opinion
(~326 concerning B&R's services as constructor at STP?
U 27
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1 A.12 As my testimony in 1981 indicated, I believed that O 2 both HL&P and B&R had taken effective actions to .
3 correct the problems concerning the performance of 4
construction of the STP, including the QA problems 5
that had been identified in I&E Inspection Report No.
6 79-19 and the related Notice of Violation and Show 7
Cause Order. Accordingly, I had no doubts regarding 0
B&R's ability to perform construction services at STP.
9 10 0.13 At that time, what was your opinion concerning B&R's 11 engineering and construction management services?
A.13 The situation was not as clear with respect to B&R's 13 performance of those services at STP.
14
-O .
15 A baseline estimate for cost and schedule had been 16 prepared in 1979, and a reforecast was being developed 17 by B&R to be issued by August or September 1981. (See 18 my testimony at Tr. 3469-70.) The Project was 19 significantly behind the previous schedule. Only part 20 of B&R's difficulties in construction management could 21 be attributed either to changes in NRC regulatory 22 requirements after the Three Mile Island or to the 23 effects of 79-19 and the Show Cause Order. As I have 24 previously indicated, I had considered conducting an 25 assessment of the status of engineering in mid-1980.
O' 27 It was apparent that the B&R engineering organization
{; .
needed to be strengthene'd to be able to support the 28
1 construction schedule. B&R had brought in Mr.
O. 2 Saltarelli from NUS to strengthen the engineering ,
3 organization but improvements in this area were not 4 given the same priority as resolving the construction 5 problems.
6 7 As Mr. Jordan mentions in his testimony, we thought it 8 would be useful in 1980 to ascertain whether an 9 experienced alternative to B&R would be available.
10 However, his contacts with Bechtel and Ebasco 11 indicated a lack of interest and strong suggestions 12 that the better course for the Project would be to 13 improve B&R's performance.
.( ) 14 s.-
15 After Mr. Goldberg joined HL&P in the fall of 1980, 16 the efforts to improve B&R engineering continued with 17 additional vigor. At a meeting of the STP owners with 18 B&R in Corpus Christi on April 10, 1981 we discussed .
19 the types of actions that could be taken to enhance 20 B&R's ability to attract experienced nuclear 21 personnel, the possibility of subcontracting various 22 specific engineering tasks and restructuring of the 1 23 B&R engineering organization.
24 25 These potential improvements were actively pursued in 26 the succeeding couple of months. Mr. Goldberg was in
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27 continuous contact with B&R and received weekly, 28
10 -
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^T 1 progress reports. Mr. Goldberg and I' prepared a (V
2 proposed new B&R organizational chart for Mr. Jordan 3 to discuss with Mr. Feehan, President and Chairman of 4 the Board of B&R. These organizational changes -- as 5 well as enhanced recruiting and subcontracting -- were 6 still being actively pursued with some degree of 7 success when I testified in 1981. We were attempting 8 to attract about thirty engineers and discussions were 9 . moving along looking toward subcontracting parts of 10 the work to such organizations as Westinghouse, _ Gibbs 11 & Hill, and others.
12 13 In sum, at that time I had serious concerns with
(~) .
(/ 14 respect to B&R's ability to successfully complete the 15 engineering effort, but I had not yet reached a 16 . judgment on the likely effectiveness of steps being 17 taken by B&R a't our urging, to turn things around.
18 19 0 14 When and how was the decision to replace B&R made and 20 implemented?
21 A.14 In essence when the owners of STP met with B&R on June 22 26, 1981, it became apparent that all the steps taken 23 and contemplated by B&R still would not likely enable 24' B&R to perform engineering services in a fashion that l
l 25 would support the construction schedule. It would
() 26 take an extensive period before engineering could l
(j 27 achieve the desired productivity, if at all.
28 ,
(3 1 At a subsequent meeting held on June 29 by Mr. Jordan LJ' 2 with Messrs. Goldberg and Barker and myself, we all 3 expressed doubts as to the Ebility of B&R to complete 4 the engineering in an orderly, timely and cost 5 effective manner. Thus, it became essential to 6 ascertain whether any alternative was available.
7 8 In early July, 1981, Mr. Goldberg and I contacted four 9 prospective contractors and ascertained that each 10 would be interested in undertaking to complete the 11 Project. Invitations to submit proposals were sent to 12 them in late July, and the proposals were evaluated 13 du' ring August and early September. Bechtel's proposal
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<\ 14 was accepted as a basis for negotiation and an
( _/
15 agreement in principle was reached by September 24, 16 1981.
'17 18 0.15 At pages 20-21 of its Memorandum and Order of February 19 26, 1985, the Board discusses the obligation of 20 parties "to keep licensing or appeal boards informed 21 of newly developing information bearing on issues 22 Pending before such boards," i.e., the so-called 23 "McGuire doctrine." Were you aware of such obligation 24 in 19817 25 A 26
(,/
(,/ 27 28
1 A.15 I was not aware of the McGuire doctrine by name. I f3 V fully understood, however, that HL&P had to report to 2 .
3 the Board any new information that might affect issues 4 under consideration in this proceeding.
5 6 Q.16 In its Memorandum and Order of February 26, 1985, the 7 Board has determined that under the McGuire doctrine, 8 the Quadrex Report should have been turned over to the 9 Board shortly after its receipt by HL&P (pages 21-23).
10 Please explain why you did not furnish the Report to 11 the Board at that time.
12 'A.16 I, quite candidly, did not associate the Report with 13 the issues under consideration in this proceeding. I
, ( ) 14 knew that the matters being considered by the* Board
~
15 were issues arising from 79-19 and the Show Cause 16 order and certain contentions raised by the 17 intervenors. In my mind all of these matters related 18 either to construction or construction QA, neither of 19 which were addressed directly or indirectly by the 20 Quadrex Report.
21 22 The Quadrex Report seemed so remote from the matters 23 at issue in this proceeding that I can recall no 24 discussions about providing the Report to the Board 25 prior to late September 1981, when counsel for the NRC Staff suggested that we do so.
(]) 26 27 V
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l As I understand it, the Board's determination is that
.[ }
2 the Report should have been provided to the Board .
3 because its subject is design OA and "[c]onstruction 4 and design OA are not so disparate as to be considered 5 unrelated subjects." (Memorandum and Order of February 6 26, 1985, at page 22).
7 8 I do not intend to take issue with the Board's 9 determination, but I can only explain that my
_ 10 perception of the Quadrex Report was significantly 11 different from the Board's. In my view the Quadrex 12 Report dealt with the effectiveness of B&R's 13 engineering effort z. r ' did not (with limited
<' 14 exceptions) deal with compliance with OA requirements.
15 The main import of the Quadrex Report was what it told 16 us concerning the limited progress of the design of 17 the Project -- a productivity concern, not a OA 18 concern.
19 20 In sum, I believe that our action in not furnishing 21 the Report to the Board was reasonable under the 22 circumstances. I can assure the Board that the 23 failure to furnish the Report -- or to even consider 24 doing so - did not occur because of any willful or 25 careless disregard of obligations under the McGuire O 2e doctriae-k- 27 28
) fs 1 0.17 In view of the reporting obligation under the McGuire
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2 doctrine, please explain why HL&P did not inform the 3 Board, after June 29, 1981, that it was considering 4 replacing B&R as architect-engineer and construction l 5 manager.
6 A.17 We did not inform the Board before September 24, 1981, 7 because we did not believe that we had any meaningful 8 information to provide to the Board until we had 9 reached an agreement in principle with an experienced l 10 architect-engineer who was willing to replace B&R on j 11 acceptable terms and conditions. Until that time the 12 replacement of B&R was only a possibility - one which 13 might never occur. Informing the Board that the
((O/
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-14 process of seeking a replacement was taking place 15 would not have conveyed useful information to the 16 Board and, for obvious reasons, could have had an i 17 unnecessary and devastating effect on B&R personnel 18 carrying out Project activities.
19 20 The Board's question may be whether the concerns that i 21 led HL&P to seek a replacement for B&R should have 22 been disclosed to the Board after the June 29, 1981 23 meeting. However, as I have explained, those concerns 24 related to B&R's inability to perform engineering 25 services in a manner which would support the 4
] () 26 k/ 27 28
i 1 construction schedule. Such productivity considera-
{}
2 tions did not seem to me to be germane to the matters , )
3 under consideration by the Board. l 4
5 I should emphasize that there was no new information 6 that related to B&R's ability to perform the 7 construction services, including construction related 8 OA, that was the focus of this proceeding. In fact, 9 as the Board will recall from the initial notification 10 _ to the Board on September 24, 1981, HL&P expected to 11 retain B&R as constructor and had confidence in B&R's 12 ability to perform such services under Bechtel's 13 direction. All of the previous information provided 1 14 to the Board concerning actions to remedy the problems
- s.
- 15 identified in 79-19 and the Show Cause Order remained 16 fully accurate.
17 18 Since the decision to ascertain the availability of an 19 acceptable alternative to B&R was not based on any 20 deficiencies in the B&R QA program -- either relating 21 to construction or design -- or on any nuclear safety 22 concerns, we simply did not perceive any obligation to 23 inform the Board earlier. No discussion concerning 24 notifying the Board took place until a decision 25 regarding replacement of B&R was imminent in September
() 26 1981. At that time counsel urged an early decision
(. ' 27 and prompt notification of the Board.
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16 -
1 Again, the fact that HL&P did not inform the Board
'O 2 earlier was not based upon any willful or careless .
- 3 disregard of our reporting obligations under the 4 McGuire doctrine.
5 6 0.18 Have you reviewed your testimony in this proceeding in l 7 preparation for this hearing?
8 A.18 Yes. To prepare myself to testify today, I have 9 reviewed portions of my testimony that mentioned B&R 10 engineering services.
11 12 0 19 Do you now believe that you should have mentioned 13 either the Quadrex Report or your concerns regarding lr( ) '
14 B&R's engineering services in response to the 15 questions at the portions of your testimony cited in 16 the Board's Memorandum and Order of February 26, 1985?
17 A.19 No. I have reviewed those responses in the context of 18 the overall cross-examination then taking place, as 19 vell as my prefiled testimony, since I wanted to 1
20 recollect to the best of my ability how I understood 21 the particular questions that were being asked. Even 22 in retrospect, I do not believe that those questions 23 reasonably called for me to mention either the Quadrex 24 Report or my concerns as to the adequacy of B&R's 25 engineering services, 26 i
()
(,s 27 28 ,
i
My review of my prefiled testimony confirmed that
<{} l 2 (aside from a few brief references to engineering) it 3 was clearly aimed at the identification and correction 4 of matters of the type addressed in 79-19 and the Show 5 Cause Order, and in particular deficiencies in the 6 construction OA program and their resolution.
7 Therefore, in responding to questions, I had in mind 8 construction or construction OA overtones. Unless the 9 questions were very direct, they would not have 10 brought to my mind the Quadrex Report or concerns 11 rtgarding engineering, which, as I have previously 12 explained, did not seem to me to be within the focus 13 of this proceeding.
14
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15 0 20 specifically, please explain why you did not mention 16 those subjects at Tr. 3486.
17 A.20 At Tr. 3486, I was responding to the last of a series 18 of questions beginning at Tr. 3482 pertaining to 19 whether B&R's lack of experience as an architect-20 engineer for a nuclear project contributed to 21 construction delays at STP. As is evident from my 22 answer at Tr. 3483, I, understood the first question to 23 elicit information germane to the hearing on l l
24 construction matters, and I referred to the concern 25 previously identified by HL&P that B&R's inexperience )
. () 26 as an architect-engineer may have led it to prepare 27 excessively complex construction procedures (one of 28
the " root causes" of the OA/0C problems i'dentified by j{]) 1 2 HL&P). A question was then asked as to my personal .
3 responsibility for assuring that such lack of 4 experience "did not show up in construction" (Tr.
5 3483-84), which reinforced in my mind the relationship 6 of the line of questioning to the focus of the hearing 7 on construction matters. My answer referred to 8
difficulties in recruiting qualified personnel in all 9
areas, but that steps were being taken to upgrade 10 B&R's capabilities. (Tr. 3484-85). Finally, I was _
11 asked whether I should have set up a system "which 12 reviewed Brown & Root's architect engineering with any 13 greater scrutiny." (Tr. 3485). My answer (at Tr.
/~
3486) acknowledged that HL&P might have conducted more
( ~}' 14 15 engineering reviews. I was reflecting the thought 16 that reviews of that type might possibly have 17 Prevented the types of root causes of some of the 18 construction problems I had been discussing all along.
19 In view of my understanding of the focus of the 20 hearing and in the context of the cross-examination, 21 the question did not suggest to me that I refer to the 22 Quadrex Report or the pending review of B&R engineer-23 ing services. I did not consciously decide not to 24 refer to those subjects; they just were not brought to 25 mind by the question.
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D) 26 27 28
,- (3 1 0.21 Please explain why you did not mention those subjects
(_/
2 at Tr. 3527. .
3 A.21 I am not sure that I understand the Board's reference 4 to Tr. 3527. At that point I was answering a question 5 Pertaining to whether the problem with OA/0C was in 6 implementation of the program. Obviously both the 7 question and the answer were in the context of the 8 Problems that had been identified in 79-19 and the 9 Show Cause Order. I do not see how either the Quadrex 10 Report or the review of B&R engineering services would 11 have been pertinent.
12 13 0.22 Please explain why you did not mention those subjects
^
14 at Tr. 5458-74. -
15 A.22 Similarly, the excerpt at Tr. 5458-74 seems fairly 16 well limited to the concerns raised by 79-19 and the 17 Show Cause Order. Tr. 5458-62 is a philosophical 18 discussioh of OA/0C relationships between a utility 19 and its contractors in the context of a question from 20 Dr. Lamb, seeking from me a retrospective insight
- 21 about whether too much responsibility had been left i
22 with B&R before the Show Cause Order (the " abdication" aspect of the issues in this proceeding). Tr. 5462-68 23 24 deals with the justification for the Show Cause Order 25 and its beneficial impact. Finally, Tr. 5468-74 deals j () 26 with an allegation concerning construction at STP 27 which was the subject of an I&E investigation, and 28
HL&P's efforts to achieve open communication with site r( } 1 2 personnel. I do not see how any of those questions .
3 could have brought to mind either the Quadrex Report 4 or the pending review of B&R engineering.
5 6 0 23 Please explain why you did not mention those subjects 7 at Tr. 3469-73.
8 A.23 From Tr. 3469 to the top of Tr. 3473, I was answering 9 questions pertaining to studies performed by MAC in s
10 1978 and 1979 and some internal discussions of the_
11 removal of B&R from the Project prior to the Show 12 Cause Order. Obviously, such questions would not have 13 suggested that I refer to the Quadrex Report or to my
- / (}
14 views in 1981 concerning B&R engineering services.
15 16 The only question in that excerpt that could relate to 17 then current circumstances appears at Tr. 3473, where 18 I answer negatively a question concerning whether I i
19 had any discussions concerning the " removal of Brown &
20 Root" after the Show Cause Order. Even though such i 21 discussions did not take place, the Board may be 22 suggesting that it would have been appropriate for me 23 to mention that the Quadrex Report confirmed that B&R 24 engineering was not sufficiently supporting 25 construction and that steps were being taken to I
.() 26 enhance B&R's engineering capability.
27 -
28
However, having reviewed not only Tr. 3469-73 but many
, {]) 1 2 Pages of transcript before that (Tr. 3447-69), I note 3 that the entire line of questioning for those pages 4 arose from lines 16 to 20 of page 6 of my prefiled 5 testimony, which dealt with HL&P staffing at the 6 beginning of the Project. Immediately after the 7 single question at Tr. 3473 concerning post-Show Cause 8 Order consideration of removal of B&R, the questioning 9 continued as to lines 20-27 of page 6 of my testimony 10 (dealing with staffing at early stages of the 11 Project). Accordingly, I can only say that when -- in 12 the midst of much historical questioning -- I was 13 asked a single question concerning post-Show Cause
/ 14 Order circumstances, it did not bring to mind other 15 aspects of our then current relationship with B&R. I 16 answered the question put to me, and I answered it 17 truthfully and candidly. I might add that the 18 decision to replace B&R was not a direct outgrowth of 19 the Quadrex Report. Quadrex confirmed, in part, the 20 conclusion we reached about the ability of B&R's 21- engineering to support the construction schedule but 22 it was not, in itself, an influential factor in the 23 decision.
24 25 Q.24 In the CCANP Motion to Reopen Phase I Record of April
() 26 15, 1985 (at page 4), CCANP accuses you of giving 27 "what appears to be misleading testimony to the ASLB ;
28
22 -
r 1 in June of 1981 . . . In support of that accusation, 2 CCANP cites an excerpt from Mr. Goldberg's testimony ,
3 before the Public Utility Commission of Texas. (CCANP 4 Exhibit "A" to foregoing Motion to Reopen, at Tr.
5 1378-80). In that excerpt, Mr. Goldberg is questioned 6 concerning your response to the question at Tr. 3473 7 which you discuss in A.23 above. Do you now believe 8 that your response to that question at Tr. 3473 was 9- " misleading"?
10 _A.24 No. As I explained abovs, I believe that my response 11 was truthful and candid.
12 13 It appears that CCANP views my testimony as
(~ 14 inconsistent with that given by Mr. Goldberg before 15 the Texas PUC, but I do not see any inconsistency. As 16 Mr. Goldberg testified before the Texas PUC, as he 17 testified before this Licensing Board in June 1982, 18 and as both he and I are testifying in our present 19 testimony concerning events in early 1981, almost from 20 the time Mr. Goldberg joined HL&P he advocated that
- 21 HL&P ascertain whether there was an available alterna-22 tive to B&R. When B&R resisted the suggestion that it 23 appoint an experienced nuclear executive reporting 24 directly to the president, he advocated that course 25 even more strongly. I did not then -- and still do 26 not -- view that as a discussion "regarding removal of 27 Brown & Root." Mr. Goldberg testified similarly in 28
(Tr. 10519) In my mind, discussions
'{ ) 1 June 1982.
2 regarding the removal of B&R did not begin until Ju'ne ,
3 29, 1981. I can appreciate that others might read the 4 words " discussion . . . regarding removal" more 5 broadly than I understood them, but I believe that my 6 understanding cf the question was reasonable.
'7 Certainly it was a fair understanding on my part in 8 the course of a lengthy cross-examination on matters 9 unrelated to this subject.
10 11 Similarly, Mr. Goldberg's testimony before the Texas 12 PUC mentions that other personnel at the Project might 13 , have made remarks such as, "Well, we ought to get rid
, 14 of those fellows." Remarks of this type were 15 undoubtedly made, both before and after the Show Cause 16 Order. However, in my opinion, these do not rise to 17 the level of a " discussion . . . regarding removal,"
j 18 and they did not come to mind when I responded to the 19 question at Tr. 3473.
20 21 Finally, in reviewing that particular answer, I asked 22 myself whether I should have mentioned my discussions 23 with Mr. Jordan in June 1980 when he explored with 24 Bechtel and Ebasco the basic feasibility of an 25 alternative to B&R. Those discussions did not come to i, ) 26 mind when I answered the question on June 2, 1981.
l u 27 Even if they had, I do not believe that the question 28 1,
. 1 4
1 called for any mention of such discussions. At that 2 time, our focus was on trying to ascertain whether an .
3 alternative was available if we had to pursue it. In 4 my view, those discussions could not be fairly 5 characterized as "regarding removal of Brown & Root."
6 7 In sum, I believe that my response to the question at 8 Tr. 3473 was accurate and, notwithstanding CCANP's 9 allegation, did not mislead the Board in any way.
10 _
11 0.25 In your review of other portions of your testimony, 12 did you find any answers that you now believe were 13 incorrect or misleading or that would have called for 14 you to mention the Quadrex Report or your virvs at
(
15 that time concerning B&R's engineering services?
16 A.25 No. I believe that my testimony was truthful and 17 candid, that I responded properly to the questions 18 that I was asked, and that I could not reasonably have 19 been expected to. mention the Quadrex Report or my 20 views concerning B&R's engineering services in the 21 context of that testimony and the questions addressed 22 to me at the hearing.
23 9
24 0.26 Do you believe that the failure to provide the Quadrex 25 Report to the Board when received, to inform the Board
() 26 of the seeking of alternatives to B&R prior to
'# September 24, 1981 or to mention the Quadrex Report or 27 28
J 1
3 1 the pending review of B&R's engineering services in
((G 2 HL&P's testimony in May and June of 1981 reflects .
3 adversely on HL&P's character or competence or its 4 ability to manage the construction and operation of 5 the STP?
6 A.26 No. I believe that the commissioning of the Quadrex 1 7 review reflects favorably on HL&P's character and 8 competence. For all of the reasons set forth in my 9 testimony, I believe that HL&P acted reasonably with 10 respect to disseminating the Quadrex Report and not 11 disclosing publicly that it was seeking an alternative 12 to B&R. The fact that HL&P did not inform the Board 13 of these subjects was the result of a different view
( 14 as'to the' scope of the issues in this proceeding and 15 of the substance and import of the Quadrex Report, and 16 did not involve any willful or careless disregard of 17 HL&P's obligation under the McGuire doctrine.
l 18 Accordingly, none of HL&P's actions regarding such 19 matters reflects adversely on its character or 20 competence or its ability to manage the construction 21 and operation of the STP.
22 23 .
I 24 25 l () 26
't.
28 i
,n.------ - , - - _ - - - - - - _ . - - . , . . . _ . - , . - _ . , . - - _ _ - , - - - . -,
sg-1 14096 O
1 MR. AXELRAD: We have no further questions of 2 the witness, Mr. Chairman. He is now available for 3 cross-examination.
4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Sinkin.
5 6 CROSS EXAMINATION 7 BY MR. SINKIN:
8 Q Mr. Oprea -- good morning.
9 A Good morning.
10 0 It says on page 1 of your testimony at line 18 11 that you presently serve as a consultant to HL&P. Can
,I) 12 you tell me what sort of consulting services you 13 currently perform for HL&P?
14 A In support of activities related to the 15 licensing hearings on STP. I've supported some of the 16 activities that related to the prior litigation between 17 the STP owners and Brown & Root and other matters that 18 the company might feel it's desirous to have me involved 19 in.
20 Q In January 1981 when Quadrex was being hired, 21 had Brown & Root begun to develop a reforecast of their 22 cost and schedule?
) 23 A I don' t know if it was exactly in January.
24 Their normal procedure had been somewhere in the first 25 quarter of the calendar year Brown & Root would
eg-1 14097 1 undertake the initiation of the work necessary to 2 perform a reforecast both in cost and schedule of the 3 project with subsequent submittal to the STP management 4 committee sometime in the August-September time frame.
5 Q Did you view the Quadrex review as part of 6 HL&P's effort to determine how realistic Brown & Root's 7 cost and schedule reforecast was?
8 A No, it wasn't even identified or related to 9 the cost and schedule activities. It, in essence, was a 10 management assessment or review of the effectiveness of 11 Brown & Root's engineering effort to support the ongoing
,I )
, 12 activities and the future activities of the project.
13 Q But part of the purpose of the Quadrex study 14 was related to construction schedule in the sense of 15 whether Brown & Root could keep up with the schedule 16 they had?
17 A Well, as I recall, the study in itself or the 18 review in itself was really an assessment that we wanted 19 to make primarily through Jerry Goldberg's effort so he 20 would get a, call it a benchmarking effect of where
! 21 Brown & Root was in regard to pursuing their engineering 22 design activities from a quantitative standpoint to find
() 23 out just how well their support will be able to support s- 24 our construction activities on site.
25 The bottom line, it was one to look at how t
ag-1 14098
(~T kl 1 well they're doing their job, how they identified their 2 engineering activities and design activities to those 3 unique issues, concerns and problems that were quite 4 obvious in the industry as of that time.
5 Q Well, looking at your answer number 5 on page 6 2, starting at line 23, did you agree to that review in 7 part to deal with construction schedule questions?
8 A Well, I guess indirectly you could say that's 9 a review of what's related to it because whatever 10 engineering does or does not do affects the construction 11 ultimately.
-( ) 12 Q But you did not view the primary purpose of 13 *Quadrex as dealing with the construction schedule?
14 A No, that was the fallout of it. Whatever 15 happens in the engineering activity, how well they're 16 doing it or how well they're not doing it certainly does 17 affect it. So, there is some interrelationship between 18 the two. You cannot isolate them. ,
19 0 As of January 1981, did you not already know l 20 that the Brown & Root design and engineering effort was 21 not coordinated and not properly sequenced to support 22 the construction schedule in an orderly fashion? I'm 23 merely using your words here.
(])
24 A I think basically what those words really 25 connotate is management. It's the management of those
cg-1 14099 G
YI 1 engineering efforts. And we sort of had a suspicious 2 feeling that perhaps they were not really on top of all 3 those things that related to the proper planning and the 4 management of those engineering design activities.
5 Q Was it simply a suspicious feeling or did you 6 have some pretty hard evidence that they weren't on top 7 of those activities?
8 A Well, I guess the hard evidence, Mr. Sinkin, 9 would be evident in the fact that I think we were still 10 working on, in part, the baseline estimate that the 11 owners received in 1979. And I believe that Brown &
.( ) 12 Root had established a work plan for 1981 that was some 13 deviation from that 1979 baseline. l 14 So, we even saw up to that point in time from 15 '79 through '80, and, of course, related back to the 16 work plan of '81, that what engineering progress that 17 Brown & Root estimated that they would be able to do and 18 support in the area of supporting construction did not 19 materialize. There was a period of perhaps a year, year 20 and a half where we saw the engineering was steadily 21 falling behind and not keeping pace with the 22 construction requirements.
23 0 Was it those same indicators that had led you
({}
- 24 to consider such a review of Brown & Root's work in 25 19807 nrviru:ma: carum -
eg-1 14100 s
1 A You're talking about when I felt that in 1980 2 I wanted to make an engineering assessment and because 3 of the effect of show cause and the 79-19 investigation 4 were unable to do it. What happened at least to solicit 5 in my mind's eye the need to make that assessment that 6 the baseline 1979 estimate was a very good estimate we 7 thought that the Brown & Root consultant and Houston 8 Lighting & Power Company over a period of months 9 developed. And it indicated certain milestones that had 10 to be achieved over a period of time.
11 Shortly, I would say within a matter of three
-( ) 12 to six months it was obvious that even those milestones ,
13 were not being attained, both in engineering as well as 14 in construction. And the fallout of this is that the 15 engineering appeared to be the pacing item that affected 16 the engineering construction activity.
17 So, it was about the time of, I don't know, 18 spring or early summer of 1980 that I felt it would have 19 been desirous to proceed to make an engineering 20 assessment of Brown & Root's engineering effort. Of 21 course, show cause and 79-19 preempted me from being 22 able to follow-up on that.
(]) 23 Q Did Mr. Goldberg tell you at the point of
'\ 24 initiation of the Quadrex review that this study would 25 look at the technical adequacy of the STNP design?
cg-1 14101 m
1 A The best I recall, it was related to the 2 technical adequacy and the effectiveness of Brown &
3 Root's efforts to perform that particular activity.
4 Q Did he tell you that by technical adequacy he 5 meant both the quality of the Brown & Root work and the 6 efficiency with which that work was being performed?
7 A No, it was not related to any qualitative 8 aspects. He was interested in how well they were doing, 9 those dedicated to responsible engineering activities 10 that were necessary to support the construction 11 activities of the project.
] 7( ) 12 Q By qualitative I'm saying that the design 13 would do what it was meant to do. A particular design 14 would indeed perform its purpose as opposed to the 15 design is efficiently done and doesn't have extraneous 16 items in it. Did he tell you that would be part of the 17 study?
i 18 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure I 19 understand the question. Could we get Mr. Sinkin to 20 rephrase that, please?
21 MR. SINKIN: I'll try again.
22 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) They're separating technical
(]) 23 adequacy into two components. One component is
- \- 24 efficiency. That is, they're performing in a reasonably
- 25 expeditious manner, they are not adding design details
ag-1 14102 1 that are not necessary, not making work difficult to 2 perform. That's efficiency.
3 The other term that was qualitative, and I 4 just want to be sure you understand how I'm using the 5 term, would be looking at designs that have been 6 performed and assess whether they can indeed perform the 7 function they were designed to perform.
8 A I don't believe he discussed that with me.
9 0 In 1981, were you the primary representative 10 for Houston Lighting & Power at the management committee 11 meetings?
7() 12 .A Yes, I was.
13 Q Did you receive the minutes of those meetings?
14 A Yes, we received draft copies within a matter 15 of one or two weeks after we had our meetings.
16 Q And how did it get to final copies? Did you 17 review the draf t copies?
18 A Yes. Normally what happened, the recording 19 secretary would, based on his recollection and notes 20 that he made during the course of the management 21 committee meetings, would submit within that week or two 22 weeks of the meeting the draft copy of his minutes.
Each of the -members of the management committee,
(]) 23 24 ,
including the alternates, had the opportunity to review 25 them. And then at a subsequent meeting, not necessarily
sg-1 14103 O '
'k/
1 the very next one, but at a meeting whereby we had time 2 to review them, we then review the minutes for content 3 and correctness and then, of course, make whatever 4 corrections, omissions and additions that were 5 necessary. And after that, of course, the final minutes 6 were drafted and submitted as paginated minutes that 7 then constitute the formal minutes of the management 8 committee.
9 Q And you would receive the formal minutes when 10 they were finally paginated?
11 A At some time subsequent thereto, yes.
,.- ( ) 12 Q Did you keep a file of those minutes?
13 A Oh, yes.
14 0 When was the management committee first 15 informed of the decision to hire the Quadrex 16 Corporation?
17 A I don't recall the exact period of time, Mr.
18 Sinkin. I de know that in one of our March meetings 19 that there was some mention made of the Quadrex 20 assessment and subsequent thereto I believe in April and 21 then perhaps later on, either in May or June.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Pardon me. Does the
() 23 management committee meet once a month or is there some 24 variation to that?
25 THE WITNESS: They would meet at least once a mrv:n s=remcansw asutsuuAan rvvun
sg-1 14104, s
1 month. There were times when they had met two, three, 2 four times a month, depending upon the activities, the 3 amount of work that we felt we had to review, and 4 perhaps things that were occurring on the project would
-5 influence that as well.
6 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Do you remember the 7 management committee having a meeting in February of 8 19817 9 A They may have. I don't recall specifically if 10 we did in February or what the particular date it was.
11 Q Mr. Oprea, I show you what I ask be marked as
,( ) 12 CCANP Exhibit 108.'
13 (CCANP Exhibit No. 108 marked for 14 identification.)
15 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Do you recognize this 16 document, Mr. Oprea?
17 A Yes, it appears to be formal approved minutes 18 of the management committee for February 19th, 1981.
19 0 Turning to page 2 of this document, Mr. Oprea, 20 the fourth full paragraph. Does this paragraph 21 accurately reflect what Mr. Goldberg told the management 22 committee?
() 23 A Well, I don't recall specifically what Mr.
24 Goldberg said, but apparently this is a -- indicates 25 that he had a discussion with the management committee
sg-1 14105 7- '
1 relative to engineering review of Brown & Root's 2 engineering activities. And he made reference to 3 Nuclear Services Corporation.
4 Q Is the Nuclear Services Corporation the 5 Quadrex Corporation?
6 A I believe that was the predecessor 7 organization to Quadrex, yes.
8 Q Looking at the fif th page of this document, 9 it's entitled South Texas Project, Minutes of the 10 Management Committee, February 20th, 1981. Do you f 11 recognize these as the minutes of the management
(~'s
-(_) 12 committee meeting held the second day in February?
13 JUDGE LAMB: Excuse me, did you say fifth 14 page, Mr. Sinkin?
15 MR. SINKIN: Gee, I hope so. Let me see. It 16 should be the fifth page. It has c bottom number 4475.
17 JUDGE LAMB: Okay.
18 A This document represents, Mr. Sinkin, the 19 minutes of another meeting that was held the following 20 day by the management committee.
21 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Looking at item 6 on this 22 page, does this accurately reflect what Mr. Barker told
() 23 that meeting?
24 A Yes.
25 Q And once again, the Nuclear Services
sg-1 14106 1 Corporation mentioned there would be the Quadrex 2 Corporation?
3 A I believe that's right.
4 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I would move CCANP 5 108 into evidence.
6 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I would object to 7 that. The witness was beginning to respond to questions 8 with respect to February 19th. He said he doesn't 9 remember, but the minutes appear to reflect possibly 10 what was said.
11 To the effect that Mr. Sinkin has any
.() 12 questions with respect to whether the report or the work 13 that was being done by Quadrex was mentioned at that 14 meeting, I think at best the witness' testimony says it 15 might have been, but he didn't recall explicitly. And, 16 in any event, I see no reason why even those kinds of 17 statements would justify burdening this record with 18 minutes of two meetings of the management committee that 19 deal with a lot of matters unrelated to what's being 20 considered in this proceeding and the accuracy of which 21 have not been attested to by anyone.
22 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman -- I'm sorry.
() 23 MR. REIS: The Staff has no objection to the k- 24 minutes coming in. We feel it fleshes out the record.
25 For the two paragraphs mentioned, of course, the matters m m - _ _ _ _ _ _
.sg-1 14107 1 stated in the paragraphs mentioned. We feel it fleshes 2 out the record and there has been previous testimony 3 about these meetings and there was notes from Mr. Thrash 4 that came in and we think it's appropriate that these 5 minutes come in.
6 MR. SINKIN: We also think it's appropriate, 7 Mr. Chairman, as the formal documentation of what took 8 place at HL&P management committee meetings. Mr. Oprea 9 was not certain when this report was first brought to 10 the attention of the management committee. We feel the -
11 minutes establish that it was brought to their attention
.( ) 12 in February and that it does flesh out the record in 13 that respect.
14 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, if, in accordance 15 with what Mr. Re(E has said, the minutes are being let 16 in only with respect to those two paragraphs, then we l 17 would have no objection.
18 MR. SINKIN: Well, that's fine.
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will admit this 20 exhibit.
21 (CCANP Exhibit No. 108 admitted in evidence.)
22 MR. PIRFO: This is a little extraordinary, 23
(]) but I'm just wondering about the numbering at the
(/
24 bottom. Do you know, Mr. Sinkin, where those numbers 25 are derived from?
- mStsa_namcwtst- - - - _ _ _ _ - - _ - _ - - - - _ _
sg-1 14108
[^)
' k/ 1 MR. SINKIN: I haven't the vaguest idea.
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Do you know, Mr. Oprea, where 3 those numbers come from on the bottom?
4 A Yes, that's part of the pagination process.
5 These minutes are numbered in sequence as we passed 6 through time. Once they' re formalized, that is.
7 Q Those are the numbers that are put on by the 8 secretary when he finishes doing the final minutes?
9 A That's correct.
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Just to clarify, these 11 represent the company's official records of those
. ()* 12 meetings?
13 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. Once they' re approved 14 and distributed by the recording secretary to the 15 owners, these are the official documents that we use for 16 reference purposes thereafter about all the meetings 17 that we have had with the management committee.
18 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, if I may just 19 clarify two things. It's the recording secretary of the 20 management committee, it's not the recording secretary 21 of the company.
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, that's right.
/~ 23 MR. AXELRAD: And, secondly, the exhibit was (s) 24 admitted with respect to those two paragraphs; is that 25 correct? l
l sg-1 l
14109 O 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, we've admitted the 2 exhibits. We will not -- I mean, the exhibits, to the 3 extent they tell who was at the meeting, that's 4 appropriate.
5 I won't limit it to the two paragraphs. We 6 won't go into the substance of items not at issue here, 7- but I think the documents can speak for themselves as to 8 who was in the meeting and that kind of thing, and the 9 dates.
10 MR. AXELRAD: Fine. But with respect to 11 substance, it's with respect to those two paragraphs?
-( ) 12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That's correct.
13 Q (By Mr. Sinki'h) Was the next management 14 committee meeting in March of 1981?
15 A ,
It very possibly could have been in March, 16 yes, sir.
17 Q And I believe you said the Quadrex study was 18 discussed at that meeting?
19 A As I recall, Mr. Goldberg had a habit after 20 the Quadrex study was initiated to give a general 21 summary -- if there was any status report on that 22 activity, to give them a general summary of that 23 activity. And it would occur in any given month.
(])
- 24 Q And from your prefiled testimony I gather that 25 it was in these meetings and from some other meetings ravin_svownwm asutsut__/uwwvvtsn
eg-1 14110 1 with Mr. Goldberg that you kept informed about Quadrex?
2 A It was from those meetings as well as 3 telephone conversations I've had with Mr. Goldberg. He 4 and I did not have specific meetings except, I believe, 5 the briefing that he gave Mr. Jordan and myself on May 6 lith. But he and I conversed by telephone quite of ten.
7 . Q Mr. Oprea, I show you what I will ask be 8 marked as CCANP 109.
9 (CCANP Exhibit No. 109 marked for 10 identification.)
11 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Do you recognize this
() 12 document, Mr. Oprea?
13 A Yes, it appears to be the official minutes of 14 the management committee for March 19th, 1981. .,
15 Q On the first page, the last paragraph, does 16 this paragraph accurately reflect what Mr. Goldberg told 17 the management committee in March of 1981?
18 A What is your question again, please?
19 0 Whether the paragraph at the bottom of page 1 20 continuing on to page 2 accurately reflects what Mr.
21 Goldberg told the management committee on March 19th, 22 1981.
() 23 A I don't have absolute :ecollection of this 24 activity, but I presume since they're part of the 25 official management committee minutes that that in
cg-1 14111 I l
(m ~
'\ l 1 essence represents what was said.
2 Q You have some recollection of the meeting 3 discussed --
4 A Of the meeting, yes, sir, I do.
5 0 -- that Quadrex was discussed at the meeting?
6 A Yes.
7 Q The fourth page of this document is entitled 8 South Texas Project, Minutes of the Management 9 Committee, March 20th, 1981. Are these the minutes of 10 the meeting held the second day of the management 11 committee in March?
() 12 A They appear to be, yes.
13 0 Turning to the second page of that document, 14 the fourth paragraph, does this paragraph accurately 15 represent what Mr. Barker and Mr. Goldberg told the 16 management committee on the second day?
17 MR. AXELRAD: I'm sorry. Which paragraph are 18 we talking about? The page numbered --
19 MR. SINKIN: It's page number at the bottom 20 4517. That's probably easier to reference. And then 21 counting f rom the top, if you count the top paragraph, 22 it would be the fourth paragraph starting "Mr. Barker
/
] 23 reported."
- 24 A I'll have to attest that in all probability it 25 indeed is what Mr. Goldberg said and what Mr. Barker
- me RS5uith JLGV%Fvv\5n
cg-1 14112 D,
kY 1 reported.
2 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) And it appears from the next 3 paragraph that by the time of this meeting, the 4 management committee was aware that the operating 5 license hearings had been actually scheduled for May?
6 Do you remember that discussion?
7 A We always kept them informed of when the 8 hearings were about to take place. They were aware of 9 it, yes.
10 MR. SINKIN: Mr.. Chairman, I would move CCANP 11 109 into evidence. And I probably should do a little
() 12 better job of describing these documents.
13 This is a seven-page document which on the 14 first page reads the South Texas Project, Minutes of the 15 Management Committee, March 19th, 1981, and on the 16 fourth page reads South Texas Project, Minutes of the l
17 Management Committee, March 20th, 1981.
18 And to clarify something that I think goes to 19 a question asked by Mr. Pirfo, the reason the numbers in 20 the bottom right-hand corner do not run sequentially 21 through the document is that the various exhibits 22 referenced in the documents which would be in those 23 pages were not reproduced, the minutes only were
(])
'l 24 reproduced.
25 I would move 109 into evidence.
rarcra_r:remastwo asutsutAnn,rvvun
cg-1 .
14113
' (~)
'~'
1 MR. PIRFO: The Staff has no objection.
2 MR. AXELRAD: We have no objection, Mr.
3 Chairman, again with the understanding that they're 4 being admitted only for the substance of the paragraphs 5 as to which questions were asked of the witness.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: CCANP 109 will be admitted 7 on that basis.
8 (CCANP Exhibit No. 109 admitted in evidence.)
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Oprea, could you just 10 tell me who, I know his affiliation, but who is Mr.
11 Basile, B A S I L E?
.t() 12 THE WITNESS: Apparently he is with Central 13 Power & Light.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you remember what -- I i
15 see he's not a member of the committee itself.
16 THE WITNESS: No. What has occurred over time 17 is that the -- although there is a primary member and an 18 alternate, many of the other owners would bring I
19 additional people from their technical areas. For 20 instance, on this March 19th, 1981 document, I guess 21 you'd say the second full paragraph where they say "also 22 present were," the second line for Central Power &
() 23 Light, CP&L, Messrs. Moore, Basile and Muench.
- 24 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I had seen his name there, 25 I just didn't have any idea what his position or --
t . _ _ _ _ . .
cg-1 14114 r'T
'(/ 1 THE WITNESS: I don't recall Mr. Basile, but I 2 do recall the other gentlemen. He may have just been 3 there for several different meetings and then didn't 4 show up anymore.
5 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I was asking because he 6 apparently asked questions about the Quadrex report at 7 that meeting.
8 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) At the time of the March 19th 9 meeting, do you remember what Mr. Barker's position was?
10 A Mr. Barker was the manager of the South Texas 11 Project.
() 12 Q And Mr. Briskin?
13 A I believe Mr. Briskin answered to Mr. Barker 14 in a role that we call the manager of Houston support 15 activities. I think that had to do with planning, 16 schedullag, things such as that, procurement.
17 Q Was the next management committee meeting in 18 April of 1981?
19 -
A I believe it was. They're normally held 20 monthly unless there is a special activity that 21 preempted having that meeting.
22 Q Was the Quadrex study discussed at the April 23 1981 meeting?
(]}
24 A I believe it was.
25 Q Mr. Oprea, I show you what I ask be marked as
-mus= castsu_Arn ruvte
Eg 14115 1 CCANP 110.
2 (CCANP Exhibit No. 110 marked for 3 identification.)
4 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Are these the minutes of the 5 April 27th meeting, Mr. Oprea?
6 A They appear to be, yes.
7 Q I just want to be sure -- you've used that 8 answer before. I just want to be sure you're not 9 indicating by that answer that there's something about 10 them that leads you to think it's not the minutes.
11 A No, I haven't any reason to believe that
,( ) 12 they're not.
13 Q Turning to page 3 of the April minutes, does 14 this accurately reflect -- paragraph one, does this 15 accurately reflect what Mr. Goldberg told the management 16 committee in April of 1981?
17 A I'll have to assume that it is an accurate 18 reflection of what he said.
19 Q At the end of that paragraph it's reported 20 that Mr. Goldberg said one of the principal problem 21 areas developed by Quadrex was certain equipment 22 specifications. Do you know what that refers to?
() 23 A No, I don't.
\- 24 Q Do you know of any problem that emerged f ror,.
25 the Quadrex report that would be captured by a
._ m i
sg-1 14116 1 description of equipment specifications?
2 A I don't recall if I did.
3 Q You said I don't recall if I did. I was 4 asking you as of today whether you --
5 A Oh, as of today? No.
6 (No hiatus.)
7 8
9 10 11 0 12 13 14 .
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 t-0 23 24 25 cmmrunw:wastwo asutsut_Xn,Fvute
l l
I 14117 I:) -
1 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I would move CCANP 2 110 into evidence. It's a three-page document, first 3 page of which is titled South Texas Project, Minutes Of 4 The Management Ccamittee, April 27, 1981.
5 MR. PIRFO: The staff has no objection.
6 MR. HLandP: No objection, Mr. Chairman, under 7 the same understanding as CCANP 108 and 109 were 8 admitted.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: CCANP 110 will be admitted.
10 (CCANP Exhibit 110 received 11 in evidence.
12 O (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Oprea, I would ask you to
) 13 look at Applicants' Exhibit 59. Do you have that?
14 A Yes, sir, I have it in front of me.
15 Q Turning to the second page of that document, at 16 the bottom there's a section headed Gold re Quadrex. And 17 in the middle it says "only nontion a few today, not 18 likely to change." Do you see that line?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Did Mr. Goldberg tell the management committee 21 on April 27th, 1981, that the Quadrex findings as of that 22 time were not likely to change?
23 A I really don't recall whether or not he said 24 that. These appear to be the cryptic notes of, I like to 25 refer to them, of the recording secretary. Incidentally,
)
s-
.. 6 498-8442
14118
<~
b 1 the recording secretary answered to the chairman of the 2 management committee, not to Houston Lighting & Power 3 Company.
4 So those are those notes that Mr. Thrash made 5 to refresh his memory and his recollection as to what 6 transpired during the course of that meeting. And I 7 don'.t have a recollection of this.
8 Q During this period, the 1981, 1, first quarter, 9 first half, was Mr. Poston the chairman of the management 10 committee?
11 A I believe he was, yes.
12 Q And when you say Mr. Thrash answered to him,
() 13 Mr. Thrash was responsible for producing minutes and 14 consulting with Mr. Poston about getting those minutes to 15 produce; is tha what you meant by " answer to them"?
16 A He was administered through Mr. Poston's 17 office.
18 Q I see. But Mr. Thrash was not an employee of 19 the management committee, itself; is that correct?
20 A No. I'm trying to remember. At some point in 21 time, he was employed by Baker - Botts and he was 22 appointed to the recording secretary's role back in the 23 very beginnings of the management committee, I believe, 24 when it was formalized as a study team and then made the 25 transition into a full management committee, perhaps in M 3
14119
() -
1 the '72, '73 time frame, and that was the pleasure of the 2 other owners to have Mr. Thrash be the recording 3 secretary.
4 Since his retirement, he is paid by the owners 5 on a pro rata share basis to perform those recording 6 secretary activities and is still administered through 7 the chairman's office, the chairman of the management 8 committee's office.
9 0 I see, Mr. Thrash retired from Baker & Botts 10 but still keeps the minutes for the management committee?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Turning to the third page of this document, the O 13 top that says " factor of safety March engines," when Mr.
< (J 14 Goldberg discussed on April 27th what Quadrex was 15 finding, did he say that they had not yet found much 16 under-design but had found a great deal of over-design?
17 A I don't know if that was the particular point '
18 in time that that I was aware of it or not; it could very 19 easily have been. I was aware that there had been no ,
20 under-design activities found as of yet and there was 21 some over-design, conservative design activities that 22 were found.
23 0 Do you remember Mr. Goldberg telling the 24 management committee we may have lucked out?
25 A No, I don't remember that. Maybe Charlie I
14120
<s c (_)
1 Thrash was thinking that.
2 Q Have you ever seen these rough kind of minutes 3 before?
4 A No, sir, I had not.
5 0 So you don't know whether it was Mr. Thrash's 6 practice to put his own observations into these or not?
7 A I don't know if he would do that. Perhaps, if 8 you recall, if you've ever been a recording, secretary, 9 even take just notes during a meeting, it's awfully hard 10 at a time when two or three people are discussing an item 11 to really maintain the mainstream o.'* thinking at times.
12 And was obvious from time to time, some of the minutes
() 13 required some structuring because the words were 14 incorrectly used or even the connotations were hot proper 15 relative to what was discussed. But for the most part, 16 they're fairly accurate.
17 Q Further down on the same page, it has the four 18 categories from the Quadrex report, and a notacion off to 19 the side. Do you remember Mr. Goldberg on April 27th 20 telling the management committee that HL&P would have to 21 report the most serious Quadrex findings to the NRC?
22 A He could very easily have done that based on 23 this categorization. It was my understanding, Mr.
24 Sinkin, that subsequent to what was said here, that 25 Quadrex went ahead and broadened the categorization of
(-}
v MWUMM4F@JUBLK4Ti&/R@L 698-8442
14121
(:) -
1 most serious, to go beyond just that which might fall 2 into reportable category.
p.*
3 0 Were the management committee meetings 4 scheduled for May of 1981 cancelled?
5 A Yes, I believe they were cancelled because of 6 the hearings that were taking place in support of this 7 forum. ,
8 Q Was the next management committee meeting in 9 June of 1981?
10 A I believe so, yes.
11 Q Was the Quadrex report discussed at that 12 meeting?
fs
- (,) 13 A I believe it was.
14 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Sinkin, before you leave 15 the April meeting.
16 MR. SINKIN: Yes.
17 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I have one question which 18 may be of no significance at all. On that same page 19 vhere the four categories are listed, do you know why 20 they are numbered one, two, four, five?
21 THE WITNESS: No, sir, I don't. Maybe the 22 recording secretary just lost the third one during the 23 course of conversation. I don't know.
24 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) It's that same weigh in the 25 handwriting minutes attached to the --
+.-
14122 G
V 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I recognize that.
2 Okay. You can proceed.
3 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Oprea, I hand you what I 4 ask been marked for identification as CCANP Exhibit 111.
5 (CCANP Exhibit lll marked 6 for identification.)
7 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Are these the minutes of the 8 June meeting, Mr. Oprea?
9 A Yes, they appear to be such.
10 Q Turning to Page 4, the fourth page of this 11 document, numbered item six in the lower part of the 12 page, does this accurately you reflect what Mr. Goldberg
~() 13 told the management committee on June 26, 1981?
- 14 A I'd have to assume that it does accurately 15 reflect what he said.
16 Q At the top of that numbered list, it says Mr.
17 Barker next displayed a slide naming the major problems.
18 What was the purpose of this list?
19 A Just keep the management committee or the 20 owners informed of those areas that were major problems 21 and/or challenges that the project team was focusing in 22 on and hopefully correcting in a systematic way.
23 This is not the first time that the review of a 24 these major problems had been brought to the attention of 25 the owners. It's been done over a period of time in
(..
14123 1 order to keep them apprized of ongoing activities that 2 may have some significance to the progress of the 3 project.
4 Q Looking back at CCANP 108, the minutes of the 5 February '81 meeting, if we use the number at the bottom 6 right-hand corner, it might be easier, it's 4476.
7 A All right.
8 Q At the top of that page, it talks about Mr.
9 Barker proceeded with the major problems slides. Is that 10 the same list that we're talking with, the same kind of 11 list?
12 A Same kind. It various depending upon the f( )
13 status of the problem, whether or not it's resolved and 14 fully dispositioned, and the content would change from
, 15 one meeting to the next.
16 Q And turning to CCANP 109, in the March 19th 17 meeting, the bottom right corner, 4517, continues on to 18 4518, is that the same kind of list?
19 A Yes.
20 0 IN reviewing those documents, it appeared to me 21 that it's June of 1981 when Quadrex first appears on the 22 list, that would make some sense to me since the report 23 was delivered in may and there were no meetings in May.
24 Is that your recollection?
25 A Yes, that's correct.
T&AWA FMFfdfEW@ MFMICL 498-8442
o 14124 O'3 1 Q In the June 26, 1981 minutes, if you would turn 2 to the last page, is that the list the slide that was 3 exhibited by Mr. Barker?
4 A I don't recall it, but it may have been the 5 slide that he used.
6 Q If you will notice on that list, the word 7 " audit" after Quadrex has been struck with the word 8 " review" put in. Do you know why that change was made?
9 A Yes, because Quadrex was not an audit. It was 10 a review an or an assessment.
11 Q Do you know when that change was made?
12 A It was never a -- you mean the change to
() 13 connotate what the Quadrex activities were? At the very ,
14 out set.
15 Q No, no, no, I mean the change in this word.
16 A Oh, it probably took place at a review meeting 17 that went over the notes of the management committee, the 18 draft notes of the management committee, or it could have 19 been taken place at the time that the presentation was 20 made in this particular meeting. I don't recall.
21 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I would move CCANP 22 111 eleven into evidence.
23 MR. PIRFO: The staff has no objection.
24 MR. HLandP: Applicants have no objection, 25 under the same conditions of CCANP 109, 109 and 110 were t
14125 l
- O -
1 admitted.
l 2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: CCANP 111 will be admitted.
3 (CCANP No. 111 admitted into evidence.)
4 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) I would ask you to look at 5 Applicants' Exhibit 70; would I be correct, Mr. Opreu, l
6 that that's a one-page exhibit?
7 A It appears to be such, yes.
I 8 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, what I would like to 9 do, I'm not quite sure what the best way to do this is 10 for the record, I would like to have the one page and the 11 handwritten minutes in the record and I have prepared an 12 exhibit that has that one page and the handwritten O 13 minutes. we can either mark it as a new CCANP number er 14 substitute it for Applicants 70.
15 MR. AXELRAD: If if I may suggest, Mr.
16 Chairme.n, if the Applicants' Exhibit 70 is already in, if 17 there are any additional pages that CCANP wishes to mark 18 for identification as a CCANP exhibit and possibly 19 introduce as CCAMP exhibit, why doesn't CCANP just do 20 that?
21 MR. SINKIN: Then I will ask that this be 22 marked as CCANP 112, 23 (CCANP 112 marked for identification.)
24 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) On page 1 of this document --
25 Well, on the typewritten page of this document, Mr.
t
14126 h
1 Oprea, about a third of the way down are brackets with 2 the numbers 1110 in them. Do you see that point?
-3 A Yes.
4 Q Referring to that section, did Mr. Goldberg 5 explain to the management committee at this time that 6 there were three potentially reportable deficiencies 7 notified to the NRC?
8 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, perhaps counsel --
9 representative of CCANP would want to identify for the 10 witness' benefit which meeting this particular page 11 refers to?
12 MR. SINKIN: According to my identification,
() 13 -
these are Mr. Thrash's notes of the June 26th, 1981 STP 14 management committee meeting which we just went through 15 the formal minutes of.
16 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) So I'm asking the question in 17 terms of the June 26 meeting, did Mr. Goldberg inform the 18 management committee that there were three potentially 19 reportable deficiencies notified to the NRC that came 20 from the Quadrex report?
21 A I believe what these notes indicate that he did 22 identify the three reportables and that one of them was 23 decided after all not to be safety related.
24 Q Two weeks after the report had --
25 A Two weeks later.
)
i I
l 14127 1 Q Right. And do you remember Mr. Goldberg saying 2 as is reported at the bottom of that particular section 3 that it was fair to say the review was useful?
4 A Yes. I recall him looking at it as a useful 5 review.
6 0 In the next section, starting with the letters 7 RLQ, did Mr. Goldberg respond to a question from Mr.
8 Hancock by saying that after the environmental analysis ,
9 of pipe break outside containment, the equipment will 10 have to be requalified?
11 A He may have, but I don't recall that.
12 Q Did Mr. Hancock ask if the Quadrex report would o
13 be sent to the Public Utility Commission?
14 A He could have. I believe there may have been a 15 general dialogue by the owners about whether or no't the 16 report would be made available generally to the public at 17 large and I'm talking about through the media, mainly 18 because the reason for the question being asked is most 19 of you might well know, is the owners all have their 20 respective service areas and contstituencies to serve and 21 if any questions come up, if the document was made 22 public, then they'd have to respond to it. And so they 23 were curious as to whether or not it would be a released 24 document. And Mr. Goldberg said no it would not be; we
~
25 don't release management assessment reports.
L )
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, 498-8442
14128 O
1 Q Do you remember Mr. Goldberg saying that he was 2 refusing to send the report to the NRC?
3 A No, he never said that.
4 Q Do you remember Mr. Poston asking if the report 5 was going to be sent to the intervenors?
6 A I don't recall that.
7 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, I would move CCANP 8' 112 into evidence. And I would like to do that as 9 distributed; go ahead and have this front page on the 10 notes just for easy reference.
11 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, the only question I 12 have is what purpose it does in view of Applicants'
,-( ) 13 Exhibit 70 already being in -- Applicants' Exhibit 70; is 14 there some dicotomy?
15 MR. SINKIN: I wanted handwritten notes 16 attached to the filed notes to demonstrate that the typed 17 notes accurately reflect the handwritten notes so that 18 there will be no question that they were accurately typed 19 up.
20 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, it appears to me 21 that that really is burdening the record with unnecessary 22 material. The witness was not asked any questions about 23 the handwritten notear I'm not even sure that he can read 24 the handwritten notes; I'm not sure that there would be 25 any useful purpose or for the record in having the c
WVCLs
14129 8
l ) -
1 additional exhibit.
2 MR. SINKIN: Well, Mr. Chairman, there have 3 been remarks both by Mr. Goldberg and by Mr. Oprea that 4 cast some doubt on the way Mr. Thrash would keep the 5 minutes, whether he put in everything, left out things, 6 how accurate he was.
7 I just want the record to reflect that the 8 typed up document which is obviously prepared after the 9 meeting does accurately reflect what is in the 10 handwritten notes that Mr. Thrash took while in 11 attendance at the meeting.
12 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, the question --
'( 13 MR. SINKIN: And it's two pages long, which 14 considering this record, I don't think is any burden at 15 all.
16 MR. REIS: The answer to that might be we have 17 to start somewhere. It's like cutting the budget. The 18 staff has no objection.
19 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I would just say 20 that the questions that have been raised have not been 21 with respect to whether there is an accurate 22 transcription from handwritten to typewritten notes, but 23 simply as to whether or not one individual trying to keep 24 track of lenghty discussions of often complicated 25 technical matters may have reflected everything in the
(~}
s-
14130 0
1 notes that he kept.
2 So I don't think that the handwritten plus the 3 typewritten are anymore useful for this record than just 4 the typewritten alone.
l 5 MR. REIS: The staff would concur in that 6 statement.
7 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board will admit this 8 exhibit.
9 MR. SINKIN: For the sake of the record, it's a 10 four-page document, the first page is typed minutes, 11 exerpt of the minutes, and the next three pages are the 12 handwritten notes that support the typed document.
() 13 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, to be perfectly 14 frank, perhaps belatedly, I don't recall precisely the 15 circumstances under which Applicants' Exhibit 70 was 16 admitted. I believe that it may have been oecause some 17 questions were raised by the Board.
18 MR. SINKIN: That's right.
19 MR. AXELRAD: And I believe that Applicants' 20 Exhibit 70 was in for a limited purpose and I would 21 assume that CCANP Exhibit 112 is being admitted for that 22 same limited purpose, it reflects the secretary's notes 23 of what was discussing at the meeting but not the truth 24 or accuracy of the matters that are stated on those 25 pages. That's the best of my recollection, of CCANP No.
14131 l'
) '
1 70, or Applicants' Exhibit 70.
2 MR. PIRFO: There's also one other thing. I'm 3 not sure whether this was one of the things that CCANP 4 moved in was it.
5 MR. SINKIN: No, it was an Applicant exhibit 6 that the Board asked questions about and when they asked 7 questions and said should go in and Applicants number was 8 put on it.
9 MR. PIRFO: Right. Right, that I recall now.
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: The Board's questior' were 11 slightly -- they were only on one line, I believe, since 12 they were mine. It was about the question about
) 13 intervenors. So Mr. Sinkin's questions on this are a 14 little broader than the Board's were.
15 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, but at that time,' the 16 questions were asked about the word " refused," I remember 17 that particularly; and what was the meaning of the word 18 " refused."
19 At any rate, for the limited purpos$s whatever 20 the record reflects, it came in before for, the staff 21 would have no objection to their duplication.
22 MR. SINKIN: I'm not sure exact lay what the 23 form of this objection is. These are the notes taken by l 24 the recording secretary that are the record of what took
{} 25 place at the meeting, the immediate record of what took l
l
___ _____ _______ _ _ __ ___._____gnn_nrfrmaRrra_arre?arL_/Wi10mM
i 14132 0
1 place at the meeting, that are later typed up into 2 minutes which I think a comparison between this document 3 and CCANP 111 will reflect include far less information 4 than that's these notes.
5 And that therefore these notes reflect a better 6 record of what went on at the meeting than the minutes 7 do.
8 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, it's precisely that 9 reason that they cannot come in for without Mr. Thrash or 10 someone else saying that they are a better record. They 11 can come in for whatever purpose they came in for last 12 time, I mean, that's why we're dealing -- that's why the j-() 13 staff didn't have any objection to 112 just as to move 14 things along.
15 But for whatever purpose they came in last time 16 is exactly the same purpose is they came in for now. To 17 show that the truth of the matters that went on at the 18 management meeting without Mr. Thrash or without some 19 other way, they're not the official record of the 20 organization, they are not the matter kept in the regular 21 course of business, hasn't been shown they are; 22 therefore, they don't show that. And they don't have 23 that weight.
24 The staff did not have any objection, because
(~T 25 as they were presented before, the only purpose for them
\/
- i. .
14133 0 was to show the -- what the notes were typed from. But 1
2 as Mr. Oprea testified today, he can't say as to what Mr.
3 Thrash wrote down whether it was his thinking or what was 4 said or verbalized by anyone at the mant.gement meeting, 5 much less whether it was the position of anyone.
6 MR. SINKIN: Well, we may need f*r. Thrash.
7 MR. REIS: I believe that was one of the 8 reasons why we're having Mr. Poston here was to talk 9 about this.
10 MR. SINKIN: But apparently we'll have the same 11 problem with Mr. Poston.
12 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: You'll have to ask him. He 13 may recollect the particular discussion.
(
14 MR. SINKIN: I understand he may. Okay.
15 ' JUDGE BECHHOEFER: That is one of the reasons 16 we're having Mr. Poston, anyway. CCANP Exhibits 112 will 17 be admitted on the same basis as the others.
18 (CCANP Exhibit 112 admitted 19 into evidence.)
- 20 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Was the next management 21 committee meeting, Mr. Oprea, in July of 19817 22 A In all probability, it was.
23 Q Do you remember if the Quadrex report was 24 discussed at that meeting?
, 25 A Well, I don't have a recollection that it had 1
14134
()
1 but the normal recourse would have been that when we had 2 those meetings, that one full day of the management 3 committee by themselves and the following day with the 4 management committee in their respective CEO's we did 5 cover those activities.
6 0 Is that why there's generally two meetings that 7 have a great deal of the same information presented; the 8 first meeting is the management committee by itself and 9 the second meeting is the management committee and the 10 CEO's?
11 A Yes, it was two normal practice -- that the 12 management committee -- well, I say the CEO's met on a 13 monthly basis with the management committee, members of 14 the project team, our team as well as Brown & Root's 15 team, so the management committee had interest on 16 business to conduct on one day, which in many cases took 17 anywhere from five to six, seven hours; then following 18 day we had a joint meeting with the CEO's of each of the 19 owners along with members of the the project team.
20 0 What is the relationship of the management 21 committee to the project and to the CEO's, let's start 22 with the management committee to the project, what are 23 their responsibilities in terms of oversight of the 24 project or daily decisions ranging from daily decisions
{) 25 up to oversight; where are they?
e-mmom-sm ----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
14135
() -
1 A Well, the management committee did not make 2 project related decisions that relate to the engineering, 3 construction activities and all the day-to-day working 4 activities that represent all the facets of the project.
5 They had responsibilities relative to approving the 6 budget, reviewing the reforecast every year as either as 7 it related to budgets and schedule and the use of 8 resources; they had the responsibility for the 9 acquisition of fuel; they had the responsibility for the 10 insurance and a host of other things.
11 They were in more of an oversight, and I think 12 from the formative years of the project, from the time
) 13 the mangement committee had been, say, given a breath of
(
14 life as a body, itself, representing the owners, that 15 Houston Lighting & Power Company got them more involved 16 than just the extent of what the involvement was 17 indicated within the participation agreement, tn order to 18 keep them fully aware of what was going on on the 19 project.
20 0 Well, in terms of a decision like the decision 21 that was ultimately faced, to remove Brown & Root from i
22 the project, was that a decision that was within the 1
23 purview of the management committee?
24 A No, it would not be. I think a decision that I
25 it is so, if I would call it, worse case type of decision
,{)
t-
.. _- __ @rm mmmcnwa wrwrir<m asr%rivaAs
14136 1 that represents an action that we would take against what 2 we were normally doing, but in all probability would in 3 all probability be reviewed by the management committee 4 through whatever avenue they're using to review the 5 action, and then once it is decided that perhaps that 6 action should be taken, then that is reviewed with the 7 CEO's and the CEO's are involved and in essence they make 8 the ultimate decision.
9 I think in the case of the removal of Brown &
10 Root as. architect engineer and construction manager, the 11 process Houston Lighting & Power employed was first the 12 exploratory to see whether or not there were any
() 13 alternates that we could pursue and that was strictly 14 speculative in nature.
15 Once we found out the alternates were there, 16 that there were entities A/E contractor constructor 17 management types out there that are willing to a respond 18 to a request for proposal, we then went through the 19 formality of a RFP, or request for proposal; reviewed 20 those; we kept the management committee through the 21 owners or the owners' representative through the 22 management committee informed once the exploratory was 23 completed and there was the possibility of pursuing 24 alternates.
25 Then once we reviewed the proposals, a summary,
['}
14137
( -
'l 1 comparative summary, was given to them in regard to what 2 the alternates were and the best choice to pursue, 3 followed by that meeting with a meeting with the CEO's 4 several days later.
5 So the management committee would not take it 6 upon themselves to independently pursue such a drastic 7 action and take action thereto.
8 Q Up to the point of the June 26th meeting that 9 we just went through, had the management committee been 10 supplied with copies of the Quadrex report?
11 A I don't recall.
12 A Normally, they would request copies of reports 13 if they felt they would like to have them. And I just 14 don't recall if they requested these or not.
15 0 Who would select the members of the management 16 committee?
17 A Their respective chief executive officers. In 18 other words, each owner selected their primary 19 representative and their alternate and the owner in this 20 case is reflected through the chief executive officer of 21 each of the respective operating companies.
22 Q So Mr. Jordan said that you and Mr. Goldberg 23 would be the primary and the alternate to the management 24 committee meetings at this time, the '81 period?
/~N 25 A Well, I had been the primary management O
n
14138 O
1 committee representative for a number of years, so 2 apparently that assignment was made some years back.
3 Q Mr. Jordan wasn't CEO in '77 or --
4 A That's right. It was when Mr. Perk Robinson 5 was our CEO assigned me to it and my assignment continued 6 until the point I retired.
,7 When Mr. Goldberg came on board, the discussion 8 I had with Mr. Jordan, that it would be wise to put Mr.
9 Goldberg as the alternate and then we then Lade that 10 assignment and so notified all the other owners of that 11 assignment.
12 0 Who was the alternate before Mr. Goldberg came?
13 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I don't believe 14 that's relevant to any matter before this proceeding.
15 We're talking about matters taking place in May of 1981.
16 MR. SINKIN: I'll withdraw the question, Mr.
17 Chairman.
18 This is a good time for a break.
19 JUDGE BECBHOEFER: Why don't we take a 15 20 minute break.
21 (Brief Recess.)
22 (No Hiatus.)
l 23 24 ;
e 25
\~]
x-.
sg-3 ;
14139 Cs
. 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. Back on the record.
2 MR. REIS: Mr. Chairman, now that we're back 3 on the record, I want to make a statement.
4 There was discussion before about the need for 5 Mr. Tapia or a statement from Mr. Tapia to perhaps 6 clarify some stuff or some material in the record, 7 particularly the value of 78.7 percent on page 13775 of 8 the transcript and where that value was taken.
9 Mr. Tapia's statement at that page says that 10 it was the only one that was below a structure. The 11 parties have gotten together and looked at the diagrams J() 12 which form the basis for Mr. Tapia's testimony and it 13 indeed appears that the only place, the only indicated 14 boring on the diagrams that indicated --
15 MR. GUTTERMAN: A sample location, not a 16 boring.
17 MR. REIS: A sample location, I'm sorry, 18 you're right, that showed below an 80 percent density 19 and was within the structure was just that one that 20 shows 78.7 percent. In other words, there is no other 21 sampling location under the structure that shows a 78.7 l 22 percent or anything below 80 percent relative density I
23 other than that particular one which is below the
(])
k 24 structure.
25 There are some others on the diagram which ;
i
-- asutsu__/vart rvvun
eg-3 14140 1 show at such a relative density of the sample outside 2 the structure, but within the lift below that. But that 3 was the only one below the structure and that was the 4 sense of his testimony. He was testifying on what was 5 found below the structure.
6 So, at this point the Staff sees -- and the 7 parties see no need for Mr. Tapia to reappear or submit 8 any kind of clarification at this point. It appears 9 from examining the diagram again that there was no 10 confusion in Mr. Tapia's testimony.
11 JUDGE SHON: In the one that was not anywhere
,() 12 near the center of the structure, far more than ten feet 13 away from the center of the structure, actually was 14 outside the structure?
15 MR. SINKIN: The problem, Judge Shon, was on 16 the drawing you had the tank and around the tank you had 17 a square. I assumed the square was the slab. The 18 square was, in fact, the lift.
19 JUDGE SHON: Ah, okay. -
20 MR. SINKIN: It was under the corner of the 21 lift, but outside the circumference of the tank.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, were there -- was
~
23 there more than one sample location below 80 percent?
(])
24 MR. REIS: Yes, but it was outside the -- it 25 was not below the structure, it was outside -- it was in
ag-3 14141 O' 1 the lift, but not below the structure.
2 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Well, does that --
3 MR. REIS: There were two others, I believe.
4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Right. Does that conflict 5 or is that inconsistent with any other statements that 6 Mr. Tapia may have made?
7 MR. REIS: Not that I know of.
8 MR. PIRFO: His direct testimony did say there 9 was only one.
10 MR. REIS: Under the structure.
11 MR. PIRFO: Under the structure.
() 12 MR. GUTTERMAN: Yes.
13 MR. PIRFO: And he left it at that. Well, no, 14 he said -- in fact, his testimony says there are 15 others.
16 It's not inconsistent.
17 MR. SINKIN: No. And I would agree, Mr.
18 Chairman, the testimony was that there were other points 19 below 80, but they were not under structures and the one 20 I see there is one below 80 that's outside the 21 structure.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Okay. We won't need 23 anything further then in terms of an affidavit or an
(]J
' .. 24 apppearance, whatever.
25 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Mr. Oprea, I will show you t - -
ag-3 14142
- 'd 1 what I ask be marked as CCANP 113.
2 (CCANP Exhibit No. 113 marked for 3 identification.)
4 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Before we get into that 5 document, Mr. Oprea, during the course of my examination 6 this morning I have drawn your attention to certain 7 paragraphs in these minutes and asked you if they 8 accurately represented what was said at the meeting.
9 And on more than one occasion you've said it looks 10 fairly close or whatever.
11 I just wanted to be sure that in your mind you
, .() 12 never saw anything in what was in the minutes that 13 struck you as wrong or inaccurate?
14 A Well, the reason why I made comments like I 15 assume they are correct, first, they did represent what 16 appears to be by the pagination, what have you, formal 17 minutes of the management committee meetings that were 18 approved. I had no recollection of those particular 19 paragraphs and the substance of the paragraphs from the 20 standpoint of how things were said by individuals. So, 21 what I had to do was accept the fact that they are 22 authenticated as formal management committee minutes.
() 23 And I made the assumption that if they are, which indeed 24 they look like they are, then I'd have to accept those 25 as being representative of what was said in that forum.
eg-3
\
14143 O 1 Q Based on the fact that the management 2 committee members or at least the primary representative 3 such as yourself would review the draft and make any 4 changes they thought necessary before it got turned into 5 that form, is that what you're saying?
6 A Where I sit today, looking back in retrospect 7 of meetings that took place four years ago, I don't have 8 a recollection. I have a general feel of meetings that 9 we've had with the management committee to discuss a 10 number of things that were of import to that body. I 11 don't recall who said what, when and in what tenor did
-( ) 12 they say it. So, I had to accept these minutes as 13 representing what took place in those respective 14 meetings, but I don't recall these particular 15 instances.
16 Q I understand what you're saying about 17 particular instances, I was just clarifying the basis 18 for why you accept them. Is the basis for why you 19 accept them that the members of the management committee 20 had a chance to review a draft, make any corrections 21 they wanted, and then the minutes were finally approved 22 and turned into this document?
(') 23 A We are assuming that all the corrections were k- 24 made, that there weren't any omissions and such by 25 virtue of overlooking some faction that could have taken
cg-3 -
14144 O '
1 place.
." k / .
2 Q Right.
3 A I concur with that.
i 4 Q Turning to the fifth page of this document, in 5 the bottom right corner it has 4603, there is an 6 indented -- double indented and quoted paragraph at the 7 bottom that is apparently a revision of earlier minutes, 8 the February 19th minutes.
9 Can you tell me why there was a revision of 10 Mr. Goldberg's remarks in the February 9th meeting as 11 originally recorded?
5 7,( )
. 12 A If you'll allow me to read these and I'll see 13 whether or not I can reflect at all on it.
14 Well, I ha've to assume, looking at the 15 paragraph that starts "At 4:30 management committee," et 16 cetera, they did look at the draft minutes for January, 17 February, March, April and June. And apparently in 18 looking at the draf t minutes of the February 19th I
19 meeting, there was something that may have been j 20 incorrect. We discussed it and went ahead and made the 21 necessary correction.
22 The purpose of the change, the only way I 23 could reflect on it, whether I recall it or not, is to
(])
-- 24 look at what was said here versus what was in the draft 25 copy of the minutes. l m m 1
I eg-3 14145 )
1
<s
- 1 Q The copy of the February 19th minutes that we 2 have in the record here, CCANP 108, would be the one 3 that had been corrected already?
4 A I would assume that's the case, yes. I think 5 what you see here would be in that particular document 6 you just referenced.
7 Q If you would put before you the March 19th 8 CCANP 109, those minutes. I'm going to do a little 9 cross-referencing.
10 If you'll turn -- first staying with the July 11 minutes, if you'll turn to page 6 of those minutes. The
-()
12 second paragraph calls for making changes in the March.
13 19th minutes and the first change states that it's to 14 eliminate the word " audit" in line two, paragraph four 15 of the March 19th minutes.
16 Looking at the March 19th minutes on page 1, 17 paragraph four, as I count the paragraphs, gets me to 18 the one beginning "Mr. Pokorny."
19 Is this changing the parenthetical remark in 20 the March 19th minutes in that paragraph to refer to 21 Quadrex as an engineering review rather than engineering 22 audit?
23 A That's correct.
(])
A' 24 Q And the second change is on line two of page 2 25 of the March 19th minutes. Again, to eliminate the word J
cg-3 14146 1 " audit" and replace it with the word " review. "
2 A What paragraph was that again, Mr. Sinkin?
3 Q It says line two of page 2, so it would be the 4 top paragraph.
5 A Oh, yes.
6 0 Is this, once again, changing the reference 7 for Quadrex from an audit to a review?
8 A Well, in accordance with what was said in this 9 July 23rd, 1981 document where the drafts were reviewed, 10 wherever the word " review" -- I mean wherever the word 11 " audit" was used in affiliation with the Quadrex
,.d ) 12 activity, that " audit" was replaced with the word i
13 " review." If that is the case, then " audit" was 14 replaced with " review" in the March 19th, 1981 15 management committee minutes.
16 Q Do you know who requested this change to be 17 made in the minutes?
18 A I would imagine it was either Mr. Goldberg or 19 myself. But, as I indicated earlier, at the very outset 20 of the Quadrex review it was not connotated as an 21 audit. It was a management assessment review and we 22 used it accordingly as a management tool to get the
() 23 effectiveness of Brown & Root's engineering effort.
k- 24 Q What in your view is the difference between an 25 audit and a review?
sg-3 14147
/")
1 MR. REIS: Asked and answered.
2 MR. SINKIN: It wasn't. I don't believe I've 3 ever heard him define what he thinks an audit is.
4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Not from this witness.
5 MR. REIS: I thought he in the preceeding 6 question said what he thought the difference between an 7 audit and a review was.
8 MR. SINKIN: I think he said he didn't view 9 Quadrex as an audit, he viewed it as a review. I don't 10 know that he really gave a definition of those terms.
11 MR. REIS: We're spending more time on the
() 12 obj ection than the answer.
13 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: We'll overrule the 14 objection.
15 MR. REIS: I'll withdraw it.
16 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) If you could just --
17 A An audit is a more formalized activity that l 18 represents checklists, criteria that you pursue and it's 19 a mer in-depth review. The Quadrex assessment was not 20 an ir-depth review, it was one that was oriented towards l
4 21 looking at the difficulties or weaknesses or potential 22 weaknesses that Brown & Root had in the area of pursuing
.() 23 the engineering design effort for the project. And,
'- 24 therefore, it did not have a formalized procedure, the 1
25 oert I can recall. If I recall, it was more of a
eg-3 14148 O 1 sampling program in order to delve into those respective j 2 areas that Mr. Goldberg may have identified to Quadrex 3 that should be looked at in order to determine how well 4 Brown & Root is conducting their engineering design 5 efforts in support of the project and how well they are 6 uniquely identifying those things that are nuclear
- 7 engineering design related.
8 Q But aren't the audits that were performed 9 while you were at the project also samplings of what's 10 there? The audit doesn't look at everything that's 11 there, does it?
) 12 A It's a predetermined activity to look at 13 certain aspects of the project. And thaf's done quite 14 in depth tar the people that perform the audit.
15 Q Turning to the eighth page of the July 16 minutes.
17 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Sinkin, could you identify 18 that by the number at the bottom right-hand --
19 MR. SINKIN: The bottom number is 4677.
20 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Are you there?
21 A Yes, sir, I am, but that's not the eighth 22 page. It's the first page of the management committee
() 23 minutes of July 24th, 1981, which includes the 24 management committee and members of the chief executive 25 officers from the owners.
F eg-3 14149 O 1 Q I understand. I'm referring to this document 2 as the July minutes. I'm encompassing --
3 A You mean in toto.
4 Q In toto.
5 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I think that would 6 be a perhaps confusing reference for purposes of the 7 record, so I think it might be better if Mr. Sinkin did 8 distinguish between July 24th minutes and July 23rd 9 minutes in any questions he has.
10 MR. SINKIN: Okay. That's fine.
11 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Turning to page 2 of the July
-( ) 12 24th minutes, at the top Mr. Barker is recorded as 13 displaying a slide titled Major Challenges and it's 14 noted that this is Exhibit No. 9. Looking at the last 15 page of this document, is that the slide referred to by 16 Mr. Barker?
17 A I presume it is, yes.
18 Q Going back to page 2 and the third paragraph 19 down starting "Mr. Barker next discussed," do you have 20 any reason to believe that this paragraph does not 21 accurately reflect what was said by Mr. Barker and Mr.
22 Goldberg to the management committee?
() 23 A If you'll allow me to read it, I'll respond to k- 24 it.
25 Q Certainly.
29-3 14150
( 1 A Although I don't recollect the paragraph, I'll 2 have to accept it as being representative of what took 3 place in that meeting.
4 Q You don't see anything in the paragraph that 5 strikes you as wrong or inaccurate?
6 A No.
7 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman -- I believe he 8 answered it --
9 MR. SINKIN: Well, I just want to be su're that 10 he's answering exactly what I'm asking.
11 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) Looking at the next 7() .
12 paragraph, paragraph four, to the best of your 13 recollection, is that the dialogue that took place 14 between Mr. Poston and Mr. Saltarelli?
15 A I would say yes.
16 Q Thank you.
17 In your testimony you said that the meetings 18 of the management committee and conversations with Mr.
19 Goldberg were the source of your information about the 20 ongoing Quadrex report.
21 My question is did you -- you said you talked 22 on the telephone with Mr. Goldberg during that time 23 about Quadrex, you didn't actually meet with him about u()
\- 24 Quadrex; is that correct?
25 A Well, we didn't particularly set up a meeting
- - }
sg-3 14151
'\
1 to sit down and review Quadrex.
2 Q Did you have a discussion with Mr. Goldberg 3 after each of the Quadrex briefings that took place 4 during the course of the study?
5 A I recall that there were probably two times 6 that Mr. Goldberg had briefings from Quadrex. I believe 7 one was in March and in April in which in our 8 conversation he informed me generally of what was 9 transpiring and the fact that there were some 10 indications of weaknesses in the engineering effort on 11 behalf of Brown & Root. And that there is the
.( ) 12 possibility that there'll be some deficiencies that 13 could be reported, but those will not be identified 14 until the final report was submitted to Mr. Goldberg and 15 his staff.
16 Q Did you take any notes of those conversations 17 with Mr. Goldberg?
18 A No.
19 Q When did Mr. Goldberg first indicate to you 20 that the Quadrex report would produce 50.55(e) reports?
21 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I don't believe 22 that's a --
23 MR. SINKIN: Let me rephrase that,
(]))
k 24 (By Mr. Sinkin) When did Mr. Goldberg Q
25 indicate to you that the Quadrex review might possibly
- susa- nwr sutne
ag-3 14152 O
\~ 1 produce 50.55(e) reports?
2 A I believe discussions we had in April.
3 Q There were, in fact, two Quadrex briefings in 4 April, one April the 13th and one April the 30th. Does 5 that refresh your recollection as to whether you might 6 have had two conversations with Mr. Go:.dberg instead of 7 one?
8 A No, it doesn't.
9 Q Do you recall if the indication of the 10 possibility of 50.55(e) reports came after the April 11 13th meeting in that period before the end of the month?
() 12 A I just don't recall. I just rememb.er that 13 sometime in April when Mr. Goldberg briefed me on a 14 meeting he'd had with Quadrex and others in regard to 15 the Quadrex review, that there was a potential of some 16 deficiencies surfacing and that if they did surface and 17 were identified as a result of the study of the report 18 in its final form, then they would be reportable.
I 19 Q When Mr. Goldberg told you that he was forming 20 a review team composed of himself and Dr. Sumpter and 21 Mr. Robertson, did you inquire as to whether the results 22 of their review would be provided to the Incident Review
() 23 Committee?
-- 24 A No, I didn't.
25 I might mention that I was quite elated with
sg-3 l
14153
- - 1 the fact that Mr. Goldberg decided that he and Mr.
1 2 Robertson and Dr. Sumpter would take on that task 3 because they are the three individuals with the greatest i 4 foundation and degree of experience in the technical 5 engineering and nuclear related activities within our 6 organization.
7 Q Were they the three individuals with the most 8 direct experience with Brown & Root's actual design and 9 engineering efforts?
10 A I can't really say yes to that. I don't know 11 what direct interface that Clint Robertson had with
' ,- ( ) 12 Brown & Root's activities. I knew what Mr. Goldberg's
. 13 activities were. And I'm not too sure -- I'm not 14 familiar with how much Dr. Sumpter was involved with the 15 day to day engineering activities with Brown & Root.
16 Q In May of 1981, were you the top officer of I 17 Houston Lighting & Power responsible for the I
18 implementation of the quality assurance program?
. 19 A I would say without equivocation the buck 20 would stop at my desk, yes.
21 Q In May of 1981 or at any time prior to the i
22 completion of the Quadrex report delivery on May the
() 23 7th, from January 1981 to May the 7th, 1981, did you 24 give Mr. Goldberg any instructions regarding whether the l 25 Quadrex report should be provided to the HL&P quality
~ _ . - .
- - ~ _. _ _ -. . - -. - - . - _ . _..
09-3 ,
I 14154 ,
1 assurance department?
2 A No, I did not. And the reason for that, I had 3 no belief from what I heard through the briefs that I 4 received from Mr. Goldberg, not only during the interim 5 period prior to the final study -- a report, I should 6 say, being submitted to us, and after I received the 7 briefing in regard to the final report, I had no feel l 8 whatsoever that there was a quality problem.
9 There were several deficiencies identified, 3
10 three, the best I recall. They seemed to be isolated in
, 11 nature one from the other. There didn't appear to be a
,. - ( ). 12 pattern of any sort that in essence could develop what
- 13 we might call a root cause field in regard to anything 14 that had a quality overtone in the activities. The i
i 15 assessment, as I said, was predicated towards the l 16 effectiveness of Brown & Root's engineering effort in I
i 17 regard to how well they were doing things. And those 18 things that certainly had a quality connotation to them 19 that in essence indicated potential deficiencies, 20 certainly would have been reported.
21 Q In the time that you were on the South Texas 22 Nuclear Project up until May 8th, 1981, do you recall a 23 single consultant's report producing three 50.55(e) 's to
({)
l - 24 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
25 A I can't recall. I'm trying to draw back on my
- msuns_ ann-muun
sg-3 14155 1 memory and I just can't recall.
2 0 Well, was it unusual for a consultant's report 3 to lead to a 51.55(e) report?
4 A Not necessarily if it's related to a nuclear 5 power plant. I think that's happened on other 6 projects. And the fact that it occurred on our project, 7 certainly it caused me concern at the time. But the 8 best I recall, I did not definitize the deficiencies to 9 anything that characterizes a pattern that would in i
10 essence put a quality assurance overtone on the entire 11 document.
l() 12 Q Well, had any of the studies performed up 13 until May of 1981 by the Management Analysis Company
~
14 ever produced a 50.55(e) report to the Nucl' ear 15 Regulatory Commission?
16 A No, but I don't think they're involved in the 17 type of assessment we' re talking about that the Quadrex 18 people did for us relative to the engineering design 19 activities on the project.
20 Q Had any of the previous work done for HL&P by 21 the Nuclear Services Company produced a 50.55(e) report 22 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
() 23 A Not that I recall. Primarily because I b' 24 believe their efforts were not even related to those 25 things that had anything to do with the physical doing
. . _ _ _ _ _ m m
sg-3 14156
(~N
%-) 1 of those activities that are engineering design and/or 2 construction.
.3 The best I recall, they were involved in 4 helping us make some organizational assessments in 5 regard to the numbers of people we need as we pass 6 through time not only to support various areas within 7 our organization, like our fuels group, the engineering 8 and operations, but as we move from the time of 9 engineering and building it to the point in time that we 10 would ultimately operate the plant.
11 Q Let me distribute this and it will make this
.( ) 12 inquiry a little easier and perhaps more expeditious.
13 What I'm distributing is a list of consultants that's in 14 the record of this proceeding in Phase I as CEU Exhibit 15 10.
16 Mr. Oprea, this list at the top indicates that 17 it's consultants to HL&P or the management committee on 18 project management, QA/QC or inspection of completed ts construction work. I've asked you about the first two 20 companies on the list.
21 Did the reports prepared by the Nuclear 22 Associates International ever produce a 50.55(e) report
() 23 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
24 A I don't know if they had or had not because I 25 was not familiar with the activity that they were
sg-3
~
14157 p
1 involved in and I'm still not.
2 Q Okay. How about the reports prepared by NUS?
3 A I may have been aware of the fact they were 4 working with our health physics group, but I'm not aware 5 of what that activity entailed. So, I can't answer one 6 way or the other with regard to what NUS did.
7 Q Okay. How about the reports prepared by 8 Applied Physics Technology?
9 A I'd have to answer the same way. I'm not 10 knowledgeable of what they were doing.
11 0 The report prepared by Bechtel?
() 12 A I am knowledgeable of that because I initiated 13 that.
14 Q Did that produce any 50.55(e) reports to the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
16 A No, it didn't. No, it didn't because it 17 didn't lean in that direction at all, it was mostly 18 organizationally oriented.
19 Q How about Earthquake Engineering Systems, 20 Incorporated?
21 A I'm not familiar with their activities at 22 all.
() 23 Q How about Gilbert-Commonwealth?
x 24 A I may have been familiar with that, but I just 25 can't recall it.
eg-3 14158 O 1 Q Well, now, Gilbert-Commonwealth says general 2 consultation on development of operations QA program and 3 organization. Isn't that within your realm of 4 responsibility?
5 A That's right.
6 0 But you don't remember their work?
7 A No. I remember that we were interested at 8 that point in time and subsequent thereto to taking a 9 good hard look at the things we had to do for operations 10 QA and the bulk of that was handled through my QA 11 manager and he may have brought them on. He, in this
,. ( ) 12 case, was Dick Frazar and late'r on it was Jim Geiger may 13 have brought on Gilbert-Commonwealth to aid them in the 14 determination as to how we go about developing the 15 operations QA program. But I just don't recall that 16 involvement.
17 Q Would Mr. Frazar have been the QA manager 18 through May of 19817 19 A Well, maybe I perhaps can aid us all to recall 20 what occurred.
21 At the time the show cause and the 79-19 22 investigation was finalized and we got reports and such
() 23 that relate thereto, I moved Mr. Frazar who was our 24 manager of QA, of the QA department, down on site to 25 serve as not only -- well, I should say serve as the
cg-3 14159 1 site QA manager. I then performed what I call a 2 bifurcation of the QA department whereby that activity 3 answered directly to my office and then the Houston 4 operations that was under another individual answered to 5 me.
6 So, I served in a quasi mode as a QA manager.
7 We had that organization continue on until sometime --
8 well, in '81 Geiger came on board and we moved Geiger 9 into the site QA manager's spot and Frazar went back to 10 home office. And we still had that bifurcated approach 11 in the organization until roughly a year later when I t
,. () 12 went back and combined all QA activities again the way 13 they should have been under a QA manager. So, we made l
14 some reorganizational changes or some organizational l 15 changes that affected both Frazar and Geiger and another 16 individual.
17 Q Are you familiar with the work done for HL&P 18 by Nuclear Power Consultants?
19 A No, I'm not.
20 Q How about the work of Gibbs & Hill?
21 A Yes, that was an assignment that the 22 management committee made to Gibbs & Hill to review the
() 23 1979 baseline.
kJ 24 Q Did the Gibbs & Hill report produce any 25 50.55(e) reports to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?
sg-3 14160 0 1 A No, because they weren't looking at those l
2 elements of the project.
3 Q Given your understanding of what the Quadrex 4 Corporation was performing for HL&P, do you think the 5 Quadrex Corporation should appear on this list?
6 A No, I don't believe so.
7 0 You don't view the Quadrex Corporation as a 8 consultant on project management?
9 A No.
10 0 Why is that?
11 A Because they were involved in a . review of the
- O 12 eneineering eceivity on the pre 3ece in regard to Brown e 13 Root's effectiveness on how they handled their 14 engineering design functions.
15 Q But wasn't their primary focus the management 16 of the design and engineering program?
17 A With the concept of project management in the 18 way it's expressed in Attachment 1 is project management
! 19- in its totality sense, not just an element of project 20 management.
21 For instance, the Management Analysis Company, 22 the first item on this list here, they were involved in i
O 23 taking a look at project management from the standpoint 24 of organization and the makeup of that organization from 25 a totality standpoint, not just from one element. So, I - -
sg-3 14161
/T 1 engineering is an element of project management, but 2 it's one of many.
3 Q How would you distinguish the work done by NUS 4 as described on this document?
5 A I really don't know. I don't understand why 6 they were brought on board. I don't remember it if I 7 did understand it at the time. I don-t know what 8 criteria was utilized, so I can't answer that. I did 9 not have anything to do with manufacturing this list and 10 -
how these respective organizations showed up on the 11 list.
() 12 Q I understand. I am just trying to get your 13 opinion as*to whether Quadrex should be on this list?
14 A I don't feel they should.
15, Q In May of 1981, or actually between January 16 1981 and May 8th, 1981, did you and Mr. Goldberg discuss 17 at any time whether the HL&P quality assurance
(
18 department would receive the Quadrex report findings?
l 19 A No.
20 0 When Mr. Goldberg told you that three findings 21 from the Quadrex report would be netified to the NRC, 22 did you discuss with him whether the entire report would
() 23 be given to the NRC?
\~' 24 A I don't believe so because based on the 25 summary I received from Mr. Goldberg over roughly a
eg-3 14162 1 two-day period, on May 7th he indicated to me that they 2 received a report from Quadrex and as a result of 3 receiving that report, he has asked Saltare111, the 4 senior VP in charge of engineering I believa at Brown &
5 Root, for he and his staf f to review the report for any i 1
6 item that would fall under the reportability category,
. 7 that he expected to receive that, I believe, by noon of 8 the following day, which was May 8th. And then he, in 9 turn with Dr. Sumpter and Mr. Robertson, would review 10 those particular responses and then take whatever 11 appropriate action was necessary.
-() 12 He then called me on late the af ternoon of May 13 8th, it seemed like pretty close to the close of 14 business, and informed me that Brown & Root had 15 finalized their review, submitted to them. They had one 16 area that they thought was reportable. That he and Dr.
17 Sumpter and Mr. Robertson reviewed everything much 18 further and decided that there was a total of three 1
1 i 19 deficiencies that needed to be reported to the NRC. In l
20 fact, at the time he was discussing what they did on May 21 8th late that af ternoon, he said at this very moment our 22 people are reporting it to the NRC.
() 23 (No hiatus.)
5 24 25
- 14163 l
1 Q Did you at that time ask him if the Quadrex 2 report was going to be given to the incident review 3 committee?
4 A No, because I didn't think there was any need 5 to, because the previous day he indicated that he and Dr.
6 Sumpter and Mr. Robertson would in essence review the 7 review that Brown & Root has undertaken of the findings i
8 and those areas that would fall within the reportability 9 category; and I felt that what he was doing with his l
10 select team was well in order, fully justified and a 11 preferable route to take and I had no reason to say that 12 this ought to be reviewed by the IRC.
~k- 13 Q You had no concerns -- let me start. Mr.
1 14 Goldberg's responsibilities in May of 1981, as 15 vice-president of nuclear engineering and construction,
! 16 were primarily cost and schedule concerns, were they not?
17 A No, sir.
18 Q Excuse me?
19 A No. When you say cost and schedule, you try to 20 take away some of the important features of his
,21 responsibilities. He had overlord positions, if I can 22 recall it, over all aspects of the engineering, -
23 construction and design activities; he had the licensing 24 activities that reported directly to him; I'm trying to 25 remember some of the specifics of the organization.
{]}
(_.
_ - _ - _ _ - - mm mswwcaema awwwm omm mone
14164 O
1 But there was a heavy note of all those facets 2 that relate to the physical doing of the. project fell 3 directly under his responsible charge. So he was not 4 just cost and schedule oriented. He had an indepth 5 technical foundation and had a great sensitivity to 6 quality assurance requirements. And he still does.
7 Q But he did not actually have major quality 8 assurance responsibilities at that time, did he?
9 A I think anybody on the project has a quality 10 assurance responsibility. When you talk administrative, 11 of managerial responsibilities over the quality assurance i 12 arm, that was my responsibility. But the super-position 13 within those activities on the project that require 14 sensitivity to quality assurance was a sensitivity that 15 all people on that project had; were supposed to have, 16 and I would say for the most part, they all did have.
17 ,
Q But in terms of the quality assurance, capital 18 QA, the department, Mr. Goldberg had no responsibilities 19 in that area, did he?
20 A You are talking about the physical department 21 tade up of people.
22 Q Yes.
23 A He had no responsibility in regard to the 24 administration and the management direction of that 25 department. That was through my office.
{])
o
14165
[h v .
1 That doesn't necessarily say that by virtue of 2 that line of authority, that went to my office, that he 3 did not express opinions from time to time, in my 4 presence and in the presence of others, in the quality 5 assurance department if he felt that he needed to.
6 Q Do you know if the period -- if in the period 7 of May 7th and May 8th, anyone whose responsibilities 8 were directly quality assurance, capital QA, was given 9 the Quadrex report to review for potential notification 10 to the NRC?
11 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure that 12 Mr. Oprea's been here through the questioning where lower
,- 13 case QA and capital QA was mentioned. If Mr. Sinkin 14 means the QA department, I think that would be better to 15 refer it to as such rather than capital QA.
16 MR. SINKIN: That's fine.
17 0 (By Mr. Sinkin) Do you know if on May the 7th 18 and 8, anyone in the quality assurance department of HL&P 19 was given the Quadrex report to review?
20 A I have no idea what the distribution of that 21 report was. I do know that Mr. Goldberg was going to 22 make it available to those people that had to have it in 23 order to function within their respective job assignment 24 in support of that project.
25 0 I'm talking only about May 7th and May 8th, the
(])
l
l l
14166 1 review.
2 A Right, we didn't have any discussion in regard 3 to distribution of that report.
4 Q Do you have knowledge of anyone in HL&P other 5 than Mr. Goldberg, Dr. Sumpter and Mr. Robertson, looking 6 at the Quadrex report on May 7th and May 8th?
7 A I don't have any knowledge of that. I don't 8 know if others were or were not.
9 0 Turning to the briefing that Mr. Goldberg gave 10 you and Mr. Jordan on May the llth, where did that 11 meeting take place?
12 A I believe it was a meeting that took place in 13 Mr. Jordan's office; and I recall it took place over a 14 period of one hour.
15 0 And who initiated that meeting?
16 A Oh, I don't recall whether or not -- in fact, 17 in all probability, it was a direct result after Mr.
18 Goldberg indicated to me on May 8th what we had to do in 19 regard to reportability and basically what the overall 20 context of the report represented, in regard to Brown &
21 Root's weaknesses, I may have initiated a call to Mr.
22 Jordan and felt that as CEO of the company that he ought 23 to be apprized of the report and may have asked him if he 24 would like to have a briefing on it.
25 We normally have an 8:00 o' clock every Monday (V~T k_./
I
14167 k -
1 morning, we had an 8:00 o' clock officers meeting. And I 2 knew Mr. Jordan would be at the officers meeting the 3 following Monday. And I believe he said why don't we 4 just have it at 9:00 o' clock following that meeting. And 5 I believe that is basically how it may have transpired.
6 Q At that meeting, were each of the three of ycu 7 given or did each of the three of you have before you 8 copies of the Quadrex report?
9 A I don't recall. It's very possible that we may 10 have been given copies of the executive summary to follow 11 in a general way as Mr. Goldberg was discussing what the 12 study represented; I just don't recall if we had the U O 13 document or not.
14 Q Did Mr. Goldberg go over each generic finding 15 in the Quadrex report and tell you what he thought about 16 it?
17 A I don't recall if he did or did not. But I 18 just don't believe that would have been the proper l
l 19 utilization or Mr. Jordan's time.
20 I think what Mr. Goldberg did was giving give a l 21 briefing in regard to the general feeling of the study,
- 22 as it reviewed the effectiveness of Brown & Root's
! 23 engineering; it indicated the potential weaknesses, the l 24 fact that there were some observations and findings that 25 he felt that were not supportable, that perhaps they were
(~)h n
E
14168
() - '
1 subjective in nature, that we had reported the three l
2 deficiencies on May 8th; within the reportability 3 responsibilities that we had, and in essence he conveyed
, 4 to Mr. Jordan the fact that the report did identify that 5 the engineering activities of Brown & Root was further 6 behind schedule than we anticipated; and that perhaps it 7 may have had some schedular impact in the final analysis.
8 Q Did Mr. Goldberg call your attention, you and 9 Mr. Jordan, call your attention to the fact that the 10 Quadrex corporation had had five of their top officers 11 review this report and in draft and final forms?
12 A I don't recall if he mentioned that or not.
(
,' 13 Q Did he bring up any specific findings in the 14 report and call them to your attention?
15 A I know he specifically brought up the three 16 deficiencies that were reported. And I know that Mr.
17 Goldberg was very sensitive to the fact that the pipe 18 break outside containment analysis was far behind and he 19 may have highlighted that, maybe a few other things.
20 0 In terms of the three deficiencies, he actually 21 described what they were?
22 A I believe he identified what they were, yes.
23 Q Did he suggest in the course of that briefing 24 that there might be further 50.55(e) notifications 25 relating from Quadrex?
[)))
~
14169 i
O .
1 A I believe the way he left it and we've always I
2 left it is that as we go through the process of 3 dispositioning findings, it's conceivable and possible 4 that additional items might crop up that fall within the i
5 reportability category.
6 0 When were you first given a copy of the Quadrex ,
7 report, to your recollection?
! 8 A I have a vague recollection, Mr. Sinkin, that I 9 received the copy of the executive summary within a short 10 time after the May 8th conversation I had with Mr.
11 Goldberg. I don't know specifically whether it was a 12 matter of days or matter of weeks. But it was very f' 13 shortly thereafter because the executive summary I think 14 would portray and convey to me the thrust of the review.
15 Q Did you ever receive the second two volumes 16 that --
17 A I requested sometime later, yes.
18 Q Do you remember when you made that request?
19 A Probably about the time that we were made aware 20 that Mr. Reis suggested to our licensing attorneys that 21 the report be made available to the licensing board.
22 Q Going back to the time when you received the 23 executive summary, some time after May the 8th, did you 24 sit down with that volume and go through it in any 25 detail?
14170 O
1 A I believe I took the opportunity, whether it 2 was in the office or at home, to review it, the executive 3 summary from front cover to back cover. That was in 4 order to give me a flavor of those things that could have 5 been represented as significant and perhaps those that 6 might be insignificant, subjective observations and/or 7 findings at least in my mind's eye that might not have 8 the substantiation necessary to say they are -- they 9 should fall in any category whatsoever.
10 Q Did you do any research or ask that any 11 research be done regarding any of the. things in the 12 generic -- in the executive summary volume?
) 13 A No, I did not. I felt that the review that was 14 made by the Brown & Root's technical staff under Mr.
15 Saltarelli's able direction and that review that was made 16 by Mr. Goldberg with his staff was far beyond anything 17 that I could do, because my comprehension was not as 18 narrow, my experience was far from close to their 19 experience level.
20 Q Did you at any time receive the Brown & Root 21 May 8th response to Quadrex?
22 A I don't recall that I did. I think Mr.
23 Goldberg told me about receiving it, and in essence 24 summarized what that document represented.
{} 25 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Oprea, do you by any
.s
14171 fs
\- -
1 chance recall whether your review of the executive 2 summary which was some time after May 8th was prior to 3 your meeting own May lith with Mr. Jordan.
4 THE WITNESS: No, I believe it was not, 5 Chairman Bechhoefer; I don't believe it was.
6 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: So you had not reviewed the 7 report at the time you had that meeting -- .
8 THE WITNESS: With Mr. Jordan.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: -- with Mr. Jordon?
10 THE WITNESS: No, no.
11 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) On May the 8th or May the 12 lith, did Mr. Goldberg convey to you that the Quadrex
<\ 13 report had had a very profound emotional effect on him, 14 that he was very upset by what Quadrex had found?
15 A No, he did not. He portrayed his concern about 16 the fact that it did identify a host of problems related 17 to Brown & Root's engineering effort in support of the 18 project. But I never been able to discern an emotional 19 reaction from Mr. Goldberg; I think he does well to 20 contain that.
21 0 When you say that Mr. Goldberg explained that 22 there were some of the findings and observations that 23 were unsupported, did he identify to you particular 24 findings that he believed were unsupported?
25 A Not really; I think in a general sense, he made
(])
14172
'N
,k) 1 comments like, for example, the questions perhaps, the 2 methodology, and the approach that Brown & Root may have 3 taken. Well, you know, that basically is something that 4 rests within the respective A/E, and how they prefer to 5 do things. So whether or not it's conducted in a given-6 manner, how they go about doing it and such, were things 7 that to me are insignificant, as long as you get the 8 results you're looking for.
9 Q Did the executive summary indicate to you that 10 you were getting the results you were looking for from 11 Brown & Root?
12 A I don't understand the question.
.c 13 Q I'm putting it in terms of your immediate past 14 answer; you said that the methodo15gy or approach used by 15 your A/E is an insignificant matter as long as you get 16 the results you're looking for. My question is when you 17 looked at the executive summary, did that indicate to you 18 that you were getting the results you were looking for l 19 from Brown & Root?
20 A I think it indicated that that we were not, 21 because we were interested in -- first, the Brown & Root 22 effort was manage and plan in such a way as to be able to 23 support without question all the construction activities.
24 And I think the results of the assessment or 4
(} 25 review indicated that there were a number of areas that m
14173
() -
1 Brown & Root was way behind schedule relative to the 2 engineering effort pursuing that effort, some that 3 perhaps that were out of sequence and some they had not 4 even done yet.
5 So I would say that the results per se were 6 somewhat negative identifying to some extent that there 7 were weaknesses in what Brown & Root was doing, relative 8 to their responsibilities. But it was a matter of 9 identifying the problems and as I know Mr. Goldberg said 10 at later point, we now know what our problems are, it's 11 just a matter of going about curing them.
12 Q Was there a particular-design effort that had-13 not been done yet that stood out in your mind as 14 critical?
15 A I was not that familiar in regard to the 16 relative timing and the sequencing and the planning of 17 various elements of the engineering activity as it should 18 be pursued in support of construction, so there wasn't 19 any one element that stood out. What stood out in my 20 mind's eye was the concern that Mr. Goldberg had about 21 .the pipe break outside of containment analysis. That was 22 virtually lacking and way behind.
23 0 What about in terms of a design effort that was 24 out of sequence, was there one of those that stood out in
/~% 25 year mind?
U f
4 1
14174 1 A No, because if I'm not familiar with the 2 day-to-day working plans that an A/E utilizes to sequence 3 their work.
4 Q In terms of findings and observations based on 5 incomplete information, do you remember Mr. Goldberg 6 highlighting any particular finding or observation based 7 on incomplete information that stood out to you?
8 A No, I don't recall that. !
9 0 On page five of your testimony, you talk about 10 the fact that you were already taking certain actions to 11 improve Brown & Root's engineering organization. This is .
12 at the top of the page. And one of those activities was 13 subcontracting specific portions of the engineering work.
14 My question 15 is: In your view at this time, mid to -- early 16 to mid-1981, was Brown & Root having to subcontract for 17 engineering work that you had fully expected them to 18 perform when they were hired?
19 A Well, I think you have to be aware, Mr. Sinkin, 20 I believe that youre aware of an April loth meeting that 21 the owners had with Brown & Root. And the fall out of 22 that meeting, in part, was the fact that there had to be 23 a program of sorts that had to be implemented that 24 allowed Brown & Root to improve their overall performance l
25 in the engineering activity particularly.
}
~
%.2 i
.~
l 14375 l
(~h :
-\J -
l 1 And one of the ac;-ivities that fell out of that 2 was encouraging them to subcontract certain features of 3 the engineering activities to other experienced A/E's, 4 such at Gibbs & Hill or NUS or Westinghouse.
5 And so the idea was to allow them to identify 6 along with those people that might be subcontractor, 7 those items that would be supportive of the engineering 8 activity in order to get the progress necessary to 9 support the construction. And then under the control and 10 construction direction of Brown & Root, to be able to do' 11 that engineering. '
12' So it was not a severance of a responsibility,,
'Q
\ms 13 it was just an extension of their responsibilities to 14 another organization.
15 O And I didn't mean to even couch my question in .
16 those terms. What I'm looking at is: Are you seeing, at 17 this point in time, that you have to ask Brown & Root to 18 subcontract out work that you had fully expected Brown &
19 Root, itself, would have performed when you hired them?
20 A I would say that what we felt is that Brown &
21 Root had the numbers of people but they did not have the 22 proper numbers of experienced people, because they were 23 having some difficulty in acquiring those people as well 24 as some other organizations.
(} 25 So through this avenue, they were able to
/
14176 1 acquire the additional experience, through people like 2 Gibbs & Hill and others, that in essence that could help 3 them do the job that was expected of them to do in 4 support of that project.
5 Q In terms of the action plan to disposition the 6 Quadrex findings, did Mr. Goldberg indicate to you that 7 Brown & Root would have to devote major resources to 8 achieve the disposition of the Quadrex findingu?
9 A I don't recall that, whether that was a point 10 of discussion or not.
11 Q Did you have any concern that in order to 12 address Quadrex, that Brown & Root engineering effort
'('-) 13 would suffer further, even in the productivity area, that 14 they would not be able to produce what they -- what you 15 hoped they would produce?
16 A No, I believe in answering to the issues that 17 were identified in the Quadrex review, that would enhance 18 their ability to perform, because the.Quadrex report in 19 itself identified all the areas of potential and known 20 weakness that provided them insight as to their 21 constraints and basically the how's could come from the 22 project team. But I think it's important to recognize 23 what it did identify is the need to go ahead and beef up 24 Brown & Root's organization with more experienced 25 resources.
(])
- (.
i 14177 s'O, 1 And I think in certain selects areas, there was 2 a need for those experienced resources. They had a 3 number of experienced people there but they were talking 4 about additional xperienced resource. '
5 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chairman, we had talked in 6 terms of adjourning at noon today, and I have a a matter 7 to bring up that's going to take at least ten minutes, 8 I'm sure; and this is a good breaking point. I would be 9 happy to excuse the witness for the day and take up that 10 ma'tter. ,
11 MR. AXELRAD: Mr. Chairman, I don't recall 12 whether noon had been the explicit time specified. If 13 the Board is in fact able to continue beyond noon, I 14 think it would be useful continuing scheduling of this 15 proceeding to complete the testimony of all witnesses to 16 continue as long as the Board is willing and able to -
17 today. I thought it was potentially sometime, I thought 18 afternoon.
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Do you suppose you could 20 continue a little bit longer?
21 MR.' SINKIN: I'll go a little longer, sure.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And then we'll still take up 23 whatever matter you were referring to.
24 I think we will put a limit of about 1:00
{} 25 o' clock; we don't have to necessarily go quite that long
(.
l 14178 O
1 but we could I think go a little bit longer.
2 Q (By Mr. Sinkin) In your testimony, Mr. Oprea, 3 on page 5 line 20, how is it you were aware that Mr.
4 Goldberg had informed Mr. Sells that the Quadrex review 5 was being done?
6 A Oh, I know first during the course of these 7 discussions, he and I had in I guess February through the 8 end of April, early May, that somewhere during that 9 period, I was aware that Mr. Goldberg did identify to Mr.
10 Sells that the assessment was underway.
11 It was down in Bay City during the week of May 12 11, Mr. Goldberg informed me after he had briefed Mr.
r O~ 13 Sells that he had briefed Mr. Sells on the report, and 14 discussed it with him.
15 Q That was when you were in Bay City?
16 A Yes.
17 0 The hearings had begun and Mr. Goldberg told 18 you he had briefed Mr. Sells?
19 A Right.
20 Q Did he tell you anything about how long his 21 meeting witn Mr. Sells lasted?
22 A No.
23 0 Did he tell you anything about whether he had
, 24- shown Mr. Sells the Quadrex report?
() 25 A I got the impression that he had either the
14179
() .
1 l
1 whole report or parts of'the report with him at the time 2 he had the discussion with with Mr. Sells.
3 0 Was that something Mr. Goldberg told you 4 directly, you say you got the impression.
5 A Just based on what he said, I got the feeling 6 that he had the report there and may have even offered it 7 to Mr. Sells to review it there or page through it if he 8 felt like it; that was the impression I had.
9 Q Did he indicate that there was going to be any .
10 follow up with Mr. Sells in terms of Mr. Sells reviewing 11 the report?
12 A Well, I believe if Mr. Sells was going to 13 review it,'he was going review it there in Mr. Goldberg's 14 presence. I don't think Mr. Goldberg indicated to me 15 whether or not there would be any fol' low up or not with 16 Mr. Sells. I don't recall that even being discussed.
17 Q You say in your testimony it was logical to 18 contact Mr. Sells because NRR is involved in design and 19 technical areas for NRC. Did you and Mr. Goldberg 20 discuss that particular point prior to the week of May 21 ll?
22 A I don't recall that at all. I don't believe 23 so.
24 0 In August of 1981, when the NRC personnel were 25 conducting their investigation at the project, what did
(
(]}
I i 14180
(
1 Mr. Frazar say to you when he calleo?
! 2 A My vague recollection, Mr. Sinkin, is that it
! 3 was late on that day, pretty close to close of business, 4 whether Mr. Frazar called and indicated he was trying to 5 find Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Goldberg could not be found, he
- 6 was on site or perhaps elsewhere, on the system; and i
7 indicated that I think it's Shannon Phillips and Dick 8 Herr, I don't know whether they were, whether there was 9 Baybrook or down on site, but they were down their 10 rr wing something, and they asked for all the reports 11 t we had that related to some f'acet of the project.
12 And Dick called and said that should we release 4
13 this and I said yes, the best I recall. Release it for 14' them to review, I think we had a caveat on that review is 15 that they could review it on site, either on site or in 16 one of our our offices because we really felt that if i
j 17 that report was released, through the media or made 18 public gratuitously, that because of a lack of 19 understanding at to the foundation of the findings, 20 people would grossly misinterpret and not fully
! 21 understand it.
22 And as a result, we felt that a mangement 23 report of that assessment, we don't normally release, we f
j 24 have reported all those things that were necessary to
(} 25 report to the NRC under reportability; we indicated to x
14181 1 the NRC it was available for review; and just felt that 2 indiscriminate disclosure to the public without the 3 proper foundation to get them to understand what the 4 contents meant would raise more alarm than it was worth.
5 Q You are not aware of where Mr. Goldberg was, 6 when Mr. Frazar called you?
7 A No.
8 Q Did you make any attempt to locate him at that 9 time?
10 A No. It was after hours, I believe, as I 11 indicated to you, and I know that Mr. Goldberg could have 12 been on site, he could have been over at Brown & Root's
) 13 offices meeting with his people or with people from Brown 14 & Root NRC staff; you know, any number of places he could 15 be in support of his responsibilities.
16 Q Did Mr. Frazar convey to you that the NRC 17 investigators had asked for all reports on access 18 engineering?
19 A I don't recall that. I know there was a series 20 of reports that Mr. Frazar indicated to the NRC from the 21 Region IV wanted to look at that relate to a particular 22 subject. They didn't identify by topic but they did 23 identify by subject matters and based on that we were 24 supposed to give, the reports on the subject matter. ,
25 Q But you don't remember what the subject matter I
~)
(d cwra - J
14182
[)
v 1 was?
2 A No, I don't.
3 0 Was it your feeling at that time that if you 4 were to allow Mr. Phillips and Mr. Herr to take a copy 5 back to Region IV that that would lead to the document 6 becoming public?
7 A I think automatically that would make it a 8 public document.
9 Q If Mr. Phillips and Mr. Herr took it back to in 10 to their offices to review, it would be a public 11 document?
12 A I think the instant a representative from the
() 13 NRC takes possession of'a document that a licensee has, 14 it becomes a public document.
15 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Have you ever treated or are 16 you aware that documents which utilities have could be 17 marked as proprietary and treated as such?
18 THE WITNESS: I may have been aware he of it, 19 Judge Bechhoefer, but it didn't even enter my mind that 20 that was an avenue. I think in at least in my mind's 21 eye, that was more a formal avenue that one would have to 22 pursue and to be quiet Frank, it just didn't even enter 23 my mind at that time. I may have been aware of it but it 24 never dawned on my me.to even think about it.
25 Q Do you know if Mr. Frazar had called anyone
)
u.
i 14183
() -
1 besides yourself to determine whether this report should 2 be released?
3 A He may have ultimately got a hold of Mr.
4 Goldberg after he talked to me; I don't know. But I
, 5 don't know if there were any other individuals that he 6 discussed this with or not.
7 MR. SINKIN: Mr. Chaircan, I would appreciate a 8 short break.
9 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I guess we can do that.
10 MR. SINKIN: Thanks.
11 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Five minutes or so.
12 (Brief recess.)
-( ) 13 (No hiatus.)
14 ,
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 2s C:)
\_-
gg-5 14184
, 1 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Mr. Oprea is excused for 2 the day.
3 Mr. Sinkin?
4 MR. SINKIN: Right. First of all, Mr.
5 Chairman, the Applicants have provided me with the Brown 6 & Root document that would be the document in place as 7 of May 1981, the design control quality assurance 8 document for Brown & Root that was originally admitted 9 as CCANP 72. The problem was that that document had a 10 date that was after May of 1981. The Applicants have 11 provided the document that was in effect as of May 1981 rx 12 and I'd like to substitute this document for the 7 (_)
13 document originally submitted as CCANP 72.
14 MR. GUTTERMAN: Maybe just so we're clear on 15 the record, maybe we ought to state exactly what it is.
16 I believe these are the pages of the Brown & Root 17 quality assurance manual that were related to design 18 control, the Section 3 of the Brown & Root quality 19 assurance manual.
20 MR. REIS: That's number 72?
21 MR. SINKIN: Right.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Did we ever a6mit the
(') 23 original 72?
\ .- 24 MR. AXELRAD: It was admitted, as I recall, 25 subject to the Applicants having the opportunity to
cg-5 14185
{)'
1 either explain or substitute something for it if that 2 was not the correct document.
3 MR. SINKIN: Right. That's how I remember it, 4 too.
5 MR. GUTTERMAN: Just to complete the 6 description of it, it's twelve pages of text plus six 7 one-page exhibits attached to it for a total of eighteen 8 pages.
9 JUDGE LAMB: That's number 72?
- 10 MR. GUTTERMAN: CCANP number 72.
11 JUDGE SHON: I notice it lacks the
() 12 introduction sheet that the old 72 had; is that right?
13 MR. SINKIN: Oh, no. Let's see.
14 MR. GUTTERMAN: Oh, that was the introduction 15 to the QA manual?
16 MR. SINKIN: Right.
17 MR. GUTTERMAN: That was inadvertent.
18 Obviously, that's --
19 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: But it was later dated 20 anyway.
21 MR. SINKIN: Can we just say that the correct 22 dated page of this, if it's available, will be added to
() 23 the exhibit?
24 MR. GUTTERMAN: If there is a similar page, 25 I'll try to get it.
E _ -
cg-5 14186 1 MR. SINKIN: Okay.
2 Thank you, Judge Shon.
3 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: Does anybody have any 4 objection to substituting the latest CCANP 72 for the 5 earlier one?
6 MR. GUTTERMAN: Not from Applicants.
7 MR. PIRFO: The Staff has none.
8 MR. SINKIN: The other item we had, Mr.
9 Chairman, deals with the various documents or at least 10 some of the documents that were introduced this morning 11 through Mr. Oprea.
7 I) 12 I just want to note for the record that when I i
13 was questioning Mr. Goldberg on Thursday, July 18th, I 14 asked Mr. Goldberg whether the notes of Mr. Thrash were 15 indeed the minutes of the management committee meetings 16 and he explained that those were not the actual minutes, 17 the actual minutes were produced later. This appears at 18 transcript page 12659. And I made an observation at 19 12660 that we did not have the minutes themselves and 20 that I wasn't exactly sure why we didn't have the 21 minutes that would have reflected the notes in Mr.
22 Thrash's typed up rough notes.
f) 23 And it was represented by the Applicants that if anything needed to be produced, it had been produced
- 24 25 and that when minutes contained relevant information,
eg-5 I
+ 14187 O"#
< 1 they were produced. That's at 12660, line 2, Mr.
2 Axelrad.
3 Because of my concerns about these minutes, I 4 made a special effort to find them and was able to find 5' them and I think, as is quite clear from the documents a
6 . introduced this morning, the minutes of February, March, 7 April, June and July all contain references to 8 discussions at the management committee meetings about I
9 the Quadrex report, but those minutes were not produced 10 by the Applicants on discovery.
~
11 I note that for the record. I have no idea
) 12 what the explanation is, but I thought perhaps an .
13 explanation was in order.
14 MR. AXELRAD: Yes, I think the explanation is 15 quite clear.
16 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I think in terms of the 17 order that we put out did not refer to the reports in 18 those terms. I think -- we I think asked for 19 discussions of reportability. And I don't recall 20 whether the minutes that were introduced discussed 21 reportability. I don't think they did.
22 MR. AXELRAD: Right. And I resent very
() 23 strongly the way Mr. Sinkin has proposed to do this, 24 stating this matter on the record, implying that
~
25 Applicants did not properly comply with a Board's order,
zg-5 14188
/~}'
I without taking the simple step of either reading the 2 order or taking up the matter with Applicants' counsel.
3 I think this is typical of CCANP's attempt to grandstand 4 matters of this kind and I resent it deeply.
5 MR. SINKIN: So, the explanation is that 6 because these minutes do not reflect discussions of 7 reportability, they were not produced.
8 MR. AXELRAD: The reason the materials were 9 not produced is that there were specific requirements in 10 the Board's order as to the type of documents that the 11 Board wanted, they were not every document that ever
. 12 mentioned a Quadrex report. There are many other 13 documents that do mention the Quadrex report. They do 14 not constitute materials within the two specific items 15 in the Board's order that the Board requested. And the 16 fact that the notes of Charlie Thrash were produced was 17 because those documents could in some fashion be 18 interpreted possibly as referring to those matters and 19 we bent over backwards to make sure that the Board 20 received everything it wanted that might conceivably 21 come within that definition.
22 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: I agree. We have no --
() 23 MR. AXELRAD: And as Mr. Sinkin is well aware, 24 not everything that showed up in Mr. Thrash's notes ever 25 made it into the formal minutes.
sg-5
)
14189 O 1 Does that complete Mr. Sinkin's additional 2 matters so we can go home?
3 MR. SINKIN: Yes, that does.
4 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: All right. I might say 5 that we can see nothing in what was introduced this 6 morning so far that would indicate that the Applicants 7 did not comply with what we had requested.
8 MR. NEWMAN: Thank you, Your Honor.
i 9 MR. AXELRAD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 JUDGE BECHHOEFER: And I think the record 11 would so reflect.
() 12 , We'll adjourn until 9:00 o' clock this time 13 Monday.
14 (Hearing recessed at 12:28 p.m.)
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
() 23
- - 24 25
l 1 CERTIFICATE OF OFFICIAL REPORTERS 2
3 This is to certify that the attached proceedings before 4 the UNITED STATES NUCLEAR COMMISSION in the matter of:
5 6 NAME OF PROCEEDING: EVIDENTIARY HEARING HOUSTON LIGHTING AND POWER COMPANY, 7 ET AL (SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT, UNITS 1 AND 2) 8 9 DOCKET NO.: STN 50-498-OL STN 50-499-OL 10 11 PLACE: HOUSTON, TX
<2 DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1985 L_ '
13 14 were held as herein appears, and that this is the 15 original transcript thereof for the file of the United 16 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
17 18 19 t li;i, M / < 1 r--
R. Patrick Tate, CSR 20 j 21 -
-k Susan R. Goldstein, CSR 22 Official Reporters 23 4
25
_