ML20150C301
| ML20150C301 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Wolf Creek  |
| Issue date: | 05/13/1987 |
| From: | Koester G WOLF CREEK NUCLEAR OPERATING CORP. |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20150C176 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-87-800 NUDOCS 8803180113 | |
| Download: ML20150C301 (52) | |
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4 4
1 1 1 The Investigative Interview of HR.
2 GLEUN L. KOESTER, taken on behalf of the Nuclear 3 Regulatory Commission on May 13, 1987, beginning 4 at 2:53 o' clock p.m.
5 Present at the interview were Mr.
6 Brooks Griffin and Mr. Jay E. Silberg.
7 8 MR. GRIFFIN: For the record, this 9 is an interview of Glenn Koester, K-O-E-S-T-E-R, 10 who is employed by.
11 THE WITNESS: Kansas Gas and 12 Electric Company. And there is an initial L.
13 Between the Glenn and the Koester, and there's two
( 14 N's in the Glenn.
15 MR. GRIFFIN: The location of this 16 interview is the law library at the KG&E offices 17 in Wichita, Kansas. The date is May the 13th, 18 1987 and the time is 2:53 p.m. Present at this 19 interview are Glenn Koester and his 20 representative, Jay Silberg, S-I-L-B-E-R-G, and l
21 myself on behalf of the NRC, Brooks Griffin.
22 Mr. Koester, I need you to stand, raise 23 your right hand and swear to the contents of your 24 testimony.
25 Information in this reecQocasyMthds we a r that the information you ia accordante with the Freedom cf Int:rna!!cn 4 '
m ieir 23 m ju
[ 4 E8 6 V.0 4%e$piens -rg le W ~7D ,
KELLEY, YORK & ASSM M L OF M PAGE(0) 8803100113 800314 (316) 267-8200 PDR FOIA HAYS 87-BOO PDR
1 l \
2 l ;
1 are about to give is the truth the whole truth and 2 nothing but the truth, so help you God?
3 THE WITNESS: I do.
4 QUESTIONS BY MR. GRIFFIN:
5 Q. What is your current title?
6 A. Vice-president of nuclear.
7 Q. How long have you held that position?
8 A. Since August, 1980.
i 9 Q. And what position were you in with the 10 company before that?
11 A. Vice-president of operations.
12 Q. What were your duties as vice-president 13 nuclear?
(.
14 A. My only responsibility was to be in 15 charge of the design, construction, start-up and 16 operation of Wolf Creek Generator Station.
17 Q. In what capacity do you serve now in 18 relation to the nuclear station?
l 19 A. I'm still vice-president of nuclear for l 20 Kansas Gas and Electric Company. I no longer have i
21 the day-to-day responsibilities of Wolf Creek 22 generating station Lince it has become a separate 23 operating corporation. I'm in charge of the very 24 small nuclear overview group that interphases with
~I 25 the Wolf Cxeek generating station, watching over l
KELLEY, YORa & ASSOCIATES (11A1 ?67-R200 L
t 3-1 the Kansas Gas and Electric Company's interests in 2 the station.
3 MR. SILBERG: You're also --
4 A. I'm also the chairman of the board of 5 the corporation. We have a 13 member board and 6 that's a rotating chairmanship and I'm chairman of 7 the board until December of 1987.
8 MR. SILBERG: The corporation 9 being the Wolf Creek?
10 A. Wolf Creek Corporation. I'm also a 11 member of the Kansas Gas and Electric board of 12 directors. That's a recent appointment.
13 Q. During the construction phase at Wolf
-(. 14 Creek, you were the senior man in charge on site, 15 is that correct, for the utility?
16 A. I was the senior officer in charge of 17 the Wolf Creek facility. That doesn't mean I was 18 on site every day. I was on site a lot but not 19 every day.
20 Q. Then what did you have to do with the 21 creation or the initiation of the Q1 program at 22 Wolf Creek?
23 A. The initiation or creation? I didn't 24 create the program. I didn't even initiate the
(; 25 program. .Some of my folks that work for m'e KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES rises oc7_oonn t
s I
4 1 initiated the program, presented it to me and to
- f. 2 other management personnel and it sounded like a 3 very fine program to allow people to express 4 concerns to us on site while they were there or 5 before they left, was leaving the job site because 6 at the time we initiated 01, we were starting to 7 ROF a lot of people off the site rather than 8 having people leave the site, finding another 9 organization, expressing those concerns to and 10 then that organization bringing them back in a 11 different manner, and we found out later even in a 12 different manner than they were expressed to those 13 outside organizations. We just made another 14 vehicle for people to leave concerns at the site 15 and made it mandatory that they go through Quality 16 First. Didn't mean they had to tell us whether 17 they had any concerns or not but it made it 18 mandatory to go to Quality First before they got 19 their final paycheck. They could go to NRC if 20 they wanted to. We didn't care. But we did give 21 them this vehicle to express concerns to us.
22 Q. When 01 was originally set up it was 23 under the QA program, is that right?
24 A. No, it was not under the QA program.
( 25 It reported to the Quality Assurance manager. It KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (114) es7_nonn
s t
5 1 was not a part of the Quality Assurance program.
2 Two separate programs. They had --
if you see the 3 organization chart it was very clear that you had 4 your QA program and over here you had your Quality 5 First program.
6 Q. The deficiency reports that the Quality 7 First program used initially were quality QPV and 8 QBV. Those are separate documents from Quality 9 Assurance documents?
10 A. Probably started out the same documents 11 but they were used by different people. We l 12 started this program. We were learning, too.
13 There was some other programs in the United i
~
14 States, Palo Verde had one, Toledo Edison or
- 15 somebody had one. We took parts of those and made 16 ours. It was a lot more extensive than any 17 utility sponsored program to my knowledge at that 18 time in the United States. We grew with the l 19 program and it probably at first used a lot of the l
20 vehicles that were available and since we started l 21 this thing, most of the people involved were
- 22 Quality Assurance people whereas when we went on I
l 23 into the program, we didn't necessarily use 24 Quality Acsurance type individuals. We used
-l 25 engineers and people that had different KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES t,1cs oc . conn t
c - _
d t
6 1 backgrounds.
Q. Which of your subordinates cet up the
( 2 3 Q1 program?
4 A. Bill Rudolph was probably the prime 5 instigator along with a couple of contract 6 employees. Owen Thero was one. I believe Rick 7 Young assisted but as far as I'm concerned Bill 8 Rudolph was the daddy of our original program.
9 There's been changes made to it since Bill 10 instigated it.
11 Q. The Q1 program also had procedures that 12 were written to show how it was to be conducted, 13 is that right?
14 A. Yes, sir.
15 Q. Were they QA procedures?
16 A. They were separate procedures.
17 Q. Okay. Did you endorse or accept the f
18 procedures that were written for the creation of
( 19 the program?
20 A. Yes. There was certain one's that 21 probably had my signature on it that I had a final 22 approval. That was again the way our procedures l 23 were set up for the whole project. It was certain 24 procedures that had to have my final approval on.
(,
, .25 Q. *Ql's mission besides taking the l
l l
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES l
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7
. 1 allegations from exiting employees, hotline calls 2 and walk-ins was also to investigate and see if
~
3 there was any validity to the concerns, is that 4 correct?
5 A. Yes, that was one of the things they 6 did.
7 0 Were they also responsible initially 8 for recommending corrective action for those 9 allegations that they thought had validity?
10 A. Quality First, they didn't go out and 11 correct anything. Quality First received the 12 allegations, went out and investigated -- well, 13 number one they looked at it even internally to 14 see if there was any -- if it was a true 15 allegation, could it be a 50-55E 3ecause if you 16 knew about 50-55E only had so many hours to report 17 it in and this is one of the things they did up 18 front. They investigated the allegation to find 19 out was it substantiated. If it was substantiated 20 then they wrote an action to someone to get the 21 thing fixed. The Quality First people themselves 22 didn't go tell my construction manager how to fix 25 something.
24 0 They didn't recommend corrective action
. .{ based on your knowledge of the program?
25 KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (11cs os7_ noon 1
4 t 8 1 A. Based on my knowledge of the program, 2 they did not recommend corrective action.
3 Q. Did they verify the corrective action 4 of the affected organization?
5 A. Yes, sir.
6 Q. When 01 was originally created, was it 7 intended by you or the people that set the program 8 up that drug allegations would be taken by Q1 from 9 the exiting employees or from the hotline or 10 walk-ins?
11 A. No, sir. When we first set up the 12 Quality First program that was the last thing we 13 ever thought of. We did not set it up for that
~ 14 purpose. That was not the reason we set it up.
15 Q. I know but was that aspect to be 16 included in the program?
17 A. It was never written into the program 18 early on that we would take --
the 01 would take 19 those kind of allegations and do anything with 20 them. When we got an allegation like that it was 21 turned to someone else. Quality First would do a 22 cursory review to see could that drug allegation 23 or could that harassment, intimidation affect the 24 safety or a safety component in the plant and if l
,I 25 it didn't t. hen they shipped it out. If you had KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200
9 1 some guy that was pouring concrete out in the 2 driveway that got harassed, Q1 certainly didn't
(
3 look at that two minutes.
4 Q. They would take the allegation?
5 A. They would take the allegation.
6 MR. SILBERG: Is the question 7 whether there was anything specific in the program 8 that mentioned drug allegations at all?
9 Q. Well, what I was trying to find out was 10 initially was it intended by you that 01 11 investigate drug allegations?
12 A. No, sir. I don't even think that even 13 entered our minds because the purpose of the
-' 14 program was to see if people had any safety l 15 allegations from out in the plant because what we 16 were trying to do, we wanted to fix all of those l 17 before we went for a license rather than fixing l
18 them after we got a license and got to running l
19 because we wanted to get on and run and run good 20 which we did. So we think the program worked l
21 well. Because I've seen other plants that gets 22 their license, they get started and they don't run l 23 very damn well because they keep finding things, t
l 24 We wanted to find all of those ahead of time and
.( 25 we was loohing at that. I don't know, maybe some l
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES I rests sen. coon l
s 1
10 1 of the other guys working on the progran thought 2 of drugs, harassment and those types of things. I 3 did not. I did not think that that's what we were 4 trying to do at all. And I still don't think 5 today Quality First ought to be doing that.
6 Q. Doing what is generally termed 7 wrongdoing?
8 A. Yes, sir. That takes a special type 9 individual.
10 MR. SILBERG: When you say not 11 doing, do you mean --
12 Q. Investigating?
13 A. Sure, take the concerns. We would take
--* 14 any concerns.
15 Q. What was done with the wrongdoing 16 allegations received by Ol?
17 A. They were sent to the responsible 18 individual where they came in, maybe the 19 construction manager of KG&E who in turn passed 20 them on down through whoever he was responsible 21 for. Maybe it was in the Daniel Organization.
22 Maybe if it was in the Bechtel.
23 Q. So you relied on KG&E construction 24 managers or Daniel construction managers to
( resolve harassment, intimidation, falsification, 25 KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES r,1cs 947_nonn
i s
11 1 drug use?
2 A. Absolutely because our prog ram didn ' t 3 have anything in it to do that.
4 Q. I'll tell you, Mr. Koester, in my 5 interviews with th'e former 01 investigators and 6 with Q1 management, the existing managenent, they 7 have claimed credit for investigations in these 8 areas, although my review of their files I would 9 tend to believe your testimony is maybe more 10 accurate.
11 A. Let me tell you something. I've never 12 looked in a Quality First file. I believe in 13 confidentiality to strict to the law. I read the
] 14 very cursory reports that came out of Quality 15 First, never went to a file. I do not know one 16 single individual that's went through Quality 17 First, what his name was, don't have the slightest 18 idea.
19 Q. Okay.
20 A. So you've had an advantage over me.
21 Q. But based on what I've seen, Quality 22 First has done a very good job in preserving 23 confidentiality?
24 A. That was one of the things we said 25 early on we were definitely going to do.
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES r,5ci oc,.osnn
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la 1 HR. SILBERG: Glenn, when you said i 2 that 01 wouldn't be investigating wrongdoing, do 3 you consider Mr.I .as being part of Q1?
4 A. He was part of Q1 to a certain extent.
5 He would investigate a wrongdoing item if it had 6 to do with the safety related item in the plant.
7 If it did not have anything to do with making that 8 plant run, it should not have been investigated.
- 9 If it did, he should have been doing it for the 10 legal department.
11 MR. SILBERG: So the extent he was 12 doing those kinds of wrongdoing irvestigations, 13 those would have been for Quality First?
14 A. He was the only individual I had that I 15 felt that had that kind of capabilities. I I
16 certainly don't believe any of the rest of them 17 did. They may have thought they did.
18 Q. Glenn, could you tell me about the l
19 management change from Thero to Snyder and what l 20 the basis for that change was?
21 A. Yes. When we first started the 22 program, we looked at our people, who could be in 23 charge of Quality First. Bill Rudolph recommended i
l 24 Owen Thero. He worked for Bill in Quality k 25 organization, seemed to have the ability to do l
I y y l
s t
13 1 that and we put Owen in charge of it. As we went 2 on, we wanted to -- we, KG&E, nade a determination 3 we were going to have a Quality First program 4 forever and it certainly wasn't going to have 5 contract employees running it forever. If I could 6 have built Wolf Creek without one contract 7 employee I would have but I can't do that and 8 nobody could do that.
! 9 Q. Do I glean from this that the reason 10 Mr. Snyder. replaced Mr. Thero, you wanted to put a 11 KG&E employee to head that?
12 A. I wanted to put a full-time KG&E 13 employee that I could feel confident would stay 14 with KG&E and a person that I felt had the 15 background to do that work. Mr. Snyder had been 16 at INPO on loan by KG&E. He would have been in 17 their construction evaluation programs. I had i
18 excellent reports back from INPO on Mr. Synder's 19 work with INPO on these programs and I felt he met 20 the qualifications that I felt we needed in 21 Quality First and that's why I did that. On top 22 of that, Chuck had made application to me several 23 months before for a full-time job and I did not 24 have anything for him. I kept telling him I'll 25 keep look ing . This came up, and he seemed to fit KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
,3$ es ec, onnn 1
t 14 1 the bill and I made him a job offer and he
( 2 accepted. I brought him home from IllPO two or I
3 three months early, as I remember, from his 4 original loan time.
5 Q. As I pursued this investigation, one of 6 the primary vehicles I've used is to interview 7 former Q1 investigators. Many of the former 8 investigators that I've interviewed believed that 9 the reason that you decided to change the people 10 that were supervising 01 was more that Mr. Thero 11 was not getting cases closed in a sufficiently 12 quick manner and that Mr. Snyder was brought in to 13 speed up the process so it wouldn't impede fuel.
14 A. No, that was not the case at all. I 15 was never pressured to speed up anything. The way 16 I looked at Mr. Thero, Mr. Thero had formed 17 another company while he was working with me, 18 quality Technologies, Inc., or Technology 19 Company. He had already had another contract at 20 another power plant, had people working there. I 21 think it was Waterford. And it appeared to me 22 that Owen Thero was going to go down the road very 23 soon and I knew his contract was up in that year 24 in about October. He had made no inquiries to me
_. 25 whether he+was going to -- whether I was going to KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES t11cs oc7.nonn
t 15 1 extend his contract or to me, that he uac wanting j 2 to extend his contract. On top of that, I was 3 still looking for what I considered a person 4 better qualified for that job than Owen Thero.
5 Owen Thero, as far as I was concerned, was a good 6 QA man. I did not think Quality First needed a QA 7 man has its manager and I still don't today.
8 Q. Did you have any complaints or find any 9 shortcomings in Mr. Thero as management of Q17 l
10 A. Couple of things, yes, sir.
11 Q. Could you tell me what they are?
12 A. One of them was using tape recorders in 13 interviewing people without their knowledge.
' 14 Q. Could you expand on that without their 15 knowledge part?
16 A. I have no idea. What do you mean 17 without their knowledge part? I was told by 18 people in Quality First they used tape recorders 19 in interviews and the people being interviewed 20 didn't know they were being recorded.
21 Q. I hadn't heard that one before.
22 A. That's the reason'I went to my legal 23 counsel. He suggested I get rid of the tape 24 recorders and that's what I did in a meeting in
(
25 Dick Grant's office sometime after I hired Chuck KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
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16 1 Snyder.
2 0 So the exiting employees were being 3 taped a rid they didn't know it?
4 A. I can't say which ones were or which 5 ones weren't.
6 0 You believe at least one instance where 7 somebody was taped?
6 A. I was told it was done on a regular 9 basis and I can't remember who told me that. I do 10 know that there was taping done where people did 11 know they were being taped. I knew that, too.
12 0 There's been the removal of the tapes 13 has been mentioned by a number of the people that
-( 14 I've interviewed and some other reasons have been 15 offered for the removal of the tapes. One was the 16 specificity of language and the detailed acts and 17 the sex discrimination case 18 ,.a s being a motivating force for I
19 removal of the tapes.
20 A. Not at all. I know the exact ones you l 21 are talking about.
22 0 The other most often mentioned reason 23 for removal of the tapes by the people in the 01 24 program was that there was a great deal of time 25 and effort- went into the pteparation of the
. -c l
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES G j 'ggq/S
- 17 1 transcripts from the tapes and this was cumbersone 2 to the system.
3 A. I don't know how cumbersome that was to 4 the system. I never did go and check on that. I 5 myself feel and if my legal counsel would say no, 6 tapes are fine, I probably would have continued to 7 allow them to use tapes, maybe with some different 8 instructions but I don't really believe in a tape 9 being used in any type of a meeting. I even don't 10 like it being used in this meeting right now. I 11 despise people using tapes in any kind of a 12 meeting.
13 0 The reason that I use a tape and the 14 NRC does frequently is because it allows me to 15 move along much more quickly. If we had to sit 16 here and talk about this and you had to wait 17 patiently while I wrote up the resu'lts of this
[
18 interview it would be not productive.
19 A. I understand where you are coming 20 from. We all have our opinions, though.
i 21 0 I want you to understand.
22 A. I had one yesterday, too.
23 0 Another aspect of the use that people i
24 believed that the tapes were removed was to limit the specificity of the allegations thereby making 25 l
i KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200 i
18 1 it easier to close the investigations.
2 A. Had nothing t do with it. That was 3 the least thing -- I can't even imagine him ever 4 thinking of that. I do actually believe and I 5 truly believe this, if some employee comes down 6 and sits across the table from me and him and I 7 will talk, he will talk to me more freely and 8 openly when he knows he's not being taped, 9 particularly when I have told him how he's going 10 to be treated, this whole thing is going to be l It can't be very damn confidential 11 confidential.
12 if I have a tape in my hip pocket of mine and his 13 conversations.
(
14 Q. Let me make an observation.
15 A. If I take something, put it on paper 16 and show it to him, and say is this what you said, 17 he can either sign it or not sign it.
18 Q. Let me make an observation about what 19 you just said. I didn't find any instances in the 20 file reviews there were any statements written for 21 anybody. The testimony after the taping ended was 22 usually one or two sentence summations of the 23 person's testimony. I don't know whether the 24 interviews lasted for two minutes or two houra.
25 But thero ds no comprehensive ot I'll say none, KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES t,1ss oc7_nonn l
c 19 1 there were instances but nost cases did not 2 contain any kind of comprehensive summary of 3 whatever the person's testimony was. It was 4 distilled down to one or two centences and that's 5 all is left after that employee's gone or after 6 that investigator's gone unless you draw on 7 institutional memory to recover that information.
8 So the reason I mentioned this is because some of
- 9 the former 01 investigators thought that the 10 results of noe necessarily removing the tapes but 11 this direction of taping the 01 program had caused 12 the interviews to be less thoroughly detailed for 13 the case file and they thought that was a
\
14 liability to the program. But that was not your 15 intent in removing the tapes?
l 16 A. Nc t my intent. It would have been the 17 last thing I ever wanted it to do. I was trying i 18 to find out from these people what concerns they 19 had out at the plant. I never did even interview 20 anybody. I've had people come to me and tell me 21 things and they were pretty short. I could have 22 written them down in the palm of my hand. Most of 23 those craftsmen don't come in, when they are 24 getting laid off, are not going to be sitting 25 there talking to you very damn long. Excuse KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES is3es ec,.osan
20 1 the --
they are wanting to get on to the next 2 job. If they have any concerns they are going to i
3 be very blunt about what they have. We maybe ask 4 what floor it's on or something like that, I 5 imagine, but I don't think that's where our 6 Quality First people were probably using most of 7 the unknown tapes. I think they were using 8 unknown tapes when they were around people that 9 probably didn't even know they were being 10 interviewed. That's what came to me and I didn't 11 know what to do with it so I went to my legal 12 counsel?
13 A. I did not make that decision on my own.
14 Q. At one point during the 01 program, the 15 supervision of Mr. Rudolph over the program was 1 16 changed to Mr. Grant, is that right?
17 A. Yes, sir.
18 Q. It's been clieged to the NRC that Mr.
, 19 Rudolph's directions to search an exiting 20 employee's truck and the subsequent legal ,
21 investigation and fear of litigation may have had 22 something to do with this management change for i c 23 the 01 program. Does that have any basis in fact?
24 A. It has absolutely none. Most
'( 25 ridiculousething I ever heard of. The reason I f
KELLEY, YORK 6 ASSOCIATES (1161 267-8200
a 21 1 changed the reporting relationship of Quality
( 2 First from Bill Rudolph to Dick Grant was the 3 insistence of Region Four and. -
4 Q. For independence?
5 A. For more independence. Mr. Rudolph had 6 nothing to do with the search of a truck. Mr.
7 Rudolph told no one to search a truck. I want 8 that made very plain.
9 Q. I requested a copy of the legal file 10 and was denied the NRC for privileged purposes so 11 you are the only one, I guess, that has access to I
12 that.
i 13 MR. SILBERG: You could have asked '
- ('
14 Johnson.
15 MR. GRIFFIN: I asked Frank.
16 A. Don Johnson.
i 17 MR. SILBERG: The story about the 18 break in, he could have given you a very 19 thorough --
20 MR. GRIFFIN: It was not my 21 attempt to reproduce the investigation. I was --
22 A. It's my intent to say though that Bill 23 Rudolph did not tell somebody to go break into his 24 truck.
I
,; 25 Q. 'That was? i I
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
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22 1 A. Why I changed Bill Rudolph, Bill 2 Rudolph did a very good job of running Quality 3 First as far as I was concerned. The region kept 4 after me telling me that there could be a little 5 conflict of interest with him running the Quality 6 Assurance organization and the Quality First 7 organization. That's the rea'on I changed it to 8 Dick Grant.
9 Q. I've also heard that was the factor, 10 the independence part was the factor. Early on in 11 the 01 program, one of the 01 investigators was 12 removed from the program and placed back in his 13 audit function, a guy by the name o[
~
14 ) Did you ever know him?
roms 15 A. I don't know but I don't remember 16 the incident.
17 Q. vhat has been alleged to the NRC is 18 that Mr. by luck of the draw or whatever, 19 gut involved in one of the early significant l l 20 issues developed or identified by the Q1 program, 21 had to do with the missing structural steel well 22 carts and testimony I've taken indicates that Mr.
/ nn 3 23 Grant was responsible for removing Mr. I 24 from the 01 program and many of the 01 25 investigaters that I've interviewed believed this KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES m* n YT. -
I o
33 l
l 1 was tetallation for having very aggressively )
2 pursued this, particularly in meetings where l t '
3 resolution of this very difficult issue laid in l
4 the program which could have caused problems, that 5 Mr. Grant became highly critical of Mr./
6 approach to this. Did you ever hear or get 7 involved in any decision making as to the removal 8 of from the program?
9 A. No, sir, I did not get down into that 10 level of who they put where and why. I signed all l 11 the payrolls and they went back and forth.
l l 12 0 I noticed in some of the testimony I've 13 taken, certain meetings at certain levels you got
'1 14 involved. Like I saw your name crop up in some of l
15 the calibration problem issues, apparently 16 meetings that were going on, so I didn't know.
1 17 A. You would have to be more specific 18 there. If I was on site I may go to any damn l
19 meeting. That was my purpose.
MR. SILBERG: You were certainly 20 21 involved in the MSSW problem.
t 22 A. Very definitely.
l
! But not I
23 MR. SILBERG:
24 necessarily --
l 25 Q. ,When the problem was first identified KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES '^
i .
f316) 267-8200 />'7 49 - l l l I
o 24 1 apparently there war, e series of reetings and 2 there were a battalion of people trying to get
.i resolution to this and Mr. was, you might 4 say, point man for 01 and had become a primary 5 advocate for the hundred percent documentation 6 that he thought was committed to in the PSAR and 7 once he was removed, and statements were made by 8 Mr. Grant to people in 01, this was the reason for 9 his removal. It was perceived to be retaliatory 10 and had a chilling effect at least on some of the 11 people, so they say. But you weren't involved in 12 that decision?
13 A. Not that I recall. Mr. Grant might be
-( 14 able to answer that.
15 MR. SILBERG: You say statements 16 were made by Grant to Q1 people that he was 17 removed.
18 Q. For that reason.
19 A. I do not recall that.
20 Q. Let me go back and revisit the tape 21 issue for a minute. When the tapes were picked 22 up, you ordered that the tapes were to be 23 removed. Do you know what happened to the tapes 24 themselves?
25 A. s No, sir, I do not. I've even asked KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
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25 ,
I what happened to the tape recorders. I do know 2 they all ended up in Mr. Grant's office and I just 3 found out yesterday that Mark Vining has one of 4 them.
5 Q. One of the recorders?
6 A. One of the recorders. I do not know 7 what happened to the tapes.
8 MR. SILBERG: My understanding on 9 the tapes, having looked in some of the files, 10 I've seen the tapes in the files.
11 A. I do not know what happened to the 12 tapes. In fact, I've never seen a Quality First 13 tape. I've seen the product of a Quality First
-' 14 tape but I've never seen a Quality First tape. I 15 have no idea. I'm sure they did not turn the 16 tapes in to Mr. Grant unless they were new tapes.
17 Q. Mr. Silberg points out that some of the 18 files contain tapes still but I've received 19 sufficient testimony from the former investigators 20 who were working with files that had tapes, that 21 had the tapes removed, to believe that not only 22 were recorders removed but in some instances the 23 tapes were removed, too. I was hoping to find out 24 before I ended my investigation where these tapes 25 may have e.ded up.
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES tits) 747-A9nn
26 i 1 A. I was led to believe chat the tapes 2 were never put in the files. They were only used 3 for what you said just a minute ago, to speed up 4 the interview so they could go back and write up 5 the interview very quickly then they destroyed the 6 tapes.
7 Q. I think what they were doing was making 8 transcription of the tape recordings. Some of the 9 files still contain the transcriptions and the 10 tapes. Others contain transcriptions and as I ,
11 said --
12 A. If you'would have bee- in the came 13 position I was when you received word of use of 14 tapes in the Quality First program you would have 15 done something, too. If you hadn't of, you would 16 not have been a manager because they were not 17 doing things proper and legal. It's pretty hard 18 to give somebody a tape recorder and tell him how 19 to do it unless you are riding around in his hip 20 pocket all the time. It was best to take it away 21 from him and there was no question of how they did 22 it.
23 MR. SILBERG: Was tnere a reason 24 you didn't ask Chuck Sr.yder where the tapes were?
(
25 He would be the logical person to ask. ,
i KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES itici oc7_o3nn
- 27 1 A. I've never been in a file.
2 hR. SILBERG: He had custody. He 3 has custody of all the Quality First files.
4 MR. GRIFFIN; Well, my only 5 explanation to you, Jay, is I must have forgotten.
6 MR. SILBERG: That subject didn't 7 come up.
8 MR. GRIFFIN: You can make a list 9 of things I forgot and you can ask them and call 10 me on the phone.
11 MR. SILBERG: If you want to know 12 the answers we can certainly get the answers and
! 13 provide them to you. Do you want us to check?
~( MR. GRIFFIN: I would appreciate a 14 15 call from you if Chuck knows where the tapes are.
16 A. Chuck would have to know because the 17 tape recorders were removed right about the same 18 time Chuck Snyder took charge of the program so he I 19 should know even maybe what happened to the tapes 20 that were in the recorders at the time.
21 Q. I understand from both of you that this 22 is an allegation that tapes may not have actually 23 been removed but it's been alleged they were and 24 if they were I would like to know where they 25 went. ,
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200
. 38 1 Q. One of the points most often nentioned 2 by sone Q1 people who were critical of the changes 3 in the Q1 program, particularly in management 4 changes from Thero to Snyder believed that Thero 5 as project manager or as the VP nuclear, that the 6 Q1 program, that juncture in time had become more 7 of a problem than a solution to getting the plant 8 on line and this was a motivating force in the 9 management change and all the resulting changes 10 that led -- that resulted in the Q1 program at 11 that period in time, just that four or five months 12 before the targeted fuel load date.
13 MR. SILBERG: You are referring to
(
14 the period say starting when, August?
15 A. What targeted tuel load date?
16 Q. The date I've most often heard from the 17 Q1 people was December, '84. Obviously --
18 A. Who gave you that information?
19 Q. The Q1 people.
20 A. Why don't you go look at the 21 schedules? Why would you accept somebody's word 22 for that that's not even associated with the l 23 project or who had been only for a very short 24 period of time? I don't understand that.
( -I'll explain it to you.
25 Q.
KELLEY. YORK & ASSOCIATES (11s) 967.A?nn
4
- 29 1 A. You'll have to.
2 Q. There were initial neetings that !! r .
3 Snyder had with his people that said we want to 4 set these goals and we want to have these cases 5 essentially closed all that could impede fuel load 6 by December of 1984. This is what I've heard from 7 a number of the people I've interviewed.
8 A. When did he say that?
9 Q. In his initial meeting with the staff.
10 A. That would have had to have been about 11 when?
12 Q. August.
13 A. Talking four or five months a what?
(
14 Q. Ti.e r e 's hu nd r ed s of allegations open 15 and essentially the goal or depending on the 16 language others have used, the mandate was to have 17 these cases closed by December so they would not 18 interfere with fuel load and essentially that was 19 accomplished.
20 A. Did anybody ever tell you, including 21 Mr. Snyder, that they were pressured to have 22 anything done by December of 1984 and you tell me 23 that you don't have to in your own organization, 24 NRC, give them schedules when you think you are
',h 25 going to be ready to fuel load, when you think you KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200
l 30 ;
1 are going to be ready to go in front of the 2 C o r.im i s s i o n , when you think you are going to be i
3 ready to go in front of the staff. It's 4 absolutely essential to set schedules. Now, if 5 it's wrong to set a schedule that yes, we may load 6 fuel in December of '84 and all of my managers 7 went back and said, hey, fellows we've got a 8 schedule for December of 1984. I can't even 9 remember if that's what I said. Is it wrong for 10 Chuck Snyder to go to his people and say, hey, we 11 would sure like to have these cases closed by ,
12 December of 1984? Because if they are, then we 13 aren't going to load fuel. It's not an NRC 14 m a n t. a t e , KG&E mandate. What was wrong with that 15 and how could Chuck Snyder or anybody else know 16 how many allegations I was going to get from 17 August to December? It could have been a thousand 18 and fifty.
19 Q. Exactly.
20 A. Or 5,000. So you have to have .
l 21 something to shoot for and if a schedule is wrong 22 then we are all wrong. But your folks in the NRC 23 on the other side made me set a schedule. They 24 told me when do you think you are going to come to a
25 the Commission. When do you think you are going l
KELLEY, YORK 6 ASSOCIATES tilgi 9A7.aonn t
31 1 to fuel load. Dick Denice was in here breaking 2 his neck hin self trying to get things done. Did 3 Dick -- why don't you talk to Dick and find out?
4 He was as close to Quality First as you could get.
5 Q. Mr. Koester, you've departed from the 6 essence of my question here.
7 A. I did not pressure anybody to have 8 allegations closed by December of 1984. I 9 don't --
I was not in a meeting with Chuck Snyder 10 when he said that. If that's what they said I 11 don't know what Chuck said. Did you ask Chuck 12 that yesterday maybe? I don't know whether you 13 can tell me what he said or not.
1 14 Q. No, that's not necessary.
15 A. Okay, I can call him up when we get 16 through here and ask him. Anyway, I do not feel 17 that if Chuck said that, should help or hinder the 18 program in either way.
19 Q. Well, I'm not being critical of setting 20 schedules. Obviously you are trying to build a 21 nuclear plant and you hope to end it some day. I 22 know you're a manager and you set goals for 23 people. One of the goals was to get this plant on 24 line. There's a sequence or series of events or ,
25 tens or 56 events that occurred that people in the KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES twici oc7_nonn ,
32 4
l 1 Q1 program were critical. Mr. Synder's initial 2 ceeting with the staff saying okay, we've got 3 hundreds of allegations open and we are going to-i
! 4 have them closed in four months and we are going 1
5 to increase our staff but not very much. Now it j 6 didn't say that but the people sitting in that 7 room saying we're going to get this many cases 8 closed in this period of time, some of them had 9 strong reservations about the possibility that i 10 these cases could be adequately closed in that 11 short period of time. And obviously, if you are 12 going to hire 100 new investigators and no new 13 allerations had come in, maybe you could set goals i "I
'~' '
that you could meet with nothing else changing.
j 14 l
15 I'm not trying to say by setting a goal somebody's i
! 16 done something wrong. I hope you understand 17 that, i 18 I would like for you to look at a line
).
i 19 chart that I made from the numbers presented to me i
20 by the Q1 management. I've put them on a line 21 graph. Essentially what it shows is in August l
1 l 22 when Mr. Snyder took over, the closure rate which 13 would be right about here (indicating), the j 24 closure rate which is the blue line, you can see a I
25 dramatic increase in closures. That same month l ,,
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (116) 267-8200
33 1 there's a dramatic decrease in the nunber of 2 concerns made by exiting erployees. tio w , some g ,
3 people who wete in the program, some people who 4 were part of the Q1 investigative staff thought 5 that Mr. Synder's management changes and 6 procedures to the program, his style, his 7 directions to his investigators, resulted in theso 8 two changes, both of them calculated to result in 9 the Q1 open allegations being closed by December.
10 And as you look over to December, 1984, 11 essentially the mission is accomplished.
12 A. You just did all my work for me.
13 Q. Uh-huh.
-(
14 A. Every bit of it. One thing it really
! 15 shows -- you've got another question before I 16 answer that?
i 17 Q. Have I asked you a question yet?
18 A. I think I know what your question is i 19 going to be but you go ahead.
20 Q. Some of the people that I interviewed 21 think that some aspects of the conduct in program 22 which were not in the spirit of the original 23 intenotd program were the results of these things i
l 24 being c!osed in this one, you know, closing these 25 things and to boil it down to one point and that's KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
<3,cs se,_onnn
34 1 the essence of what I wan asked to investigate by 2 the conmission was: Were the investigations 3 conducted in a thorough objective manner, were the 4 employees' concerns aidequately investigated and 5 reported? Now this line graph does not prove one 6 way or the other whether that's true or not. But 7 the numbers influenced some of the people who were 8 actually performing the investigations believed 9 that the program lost credibility. Now, going 10 back five minutes ago to the question that I was 11 getting to was in your mind, at the time, say 12 August of 1984 when the management changes were 13 made, did you perceive that 01 had become more of
~' a problem than a solution to closing out employee
- 14 ,
15 concerns?
16 A. If I would have thought that, I would 17 have never written the NRC Region Four letters and 18 told them I expected to keep Quality First in 19 operation if I thought it was a problem. What I 20 think has been a problem in the last three or four 21 months, when we keep getting this damn program 22 investigated.
23 Q. Actually it's been going on for two 24 years.
J $
25 A. *Whatever, you've been pretty quiet KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
.. 35 1 about it for a long t i ra e . It's pretty obvious it 2 has becomo a probler..
3 0 I tave been working on this particular 4 case now for seven months.
5 A. It has become a problem. It certainly 6 wasn't a problem at that time because we wrote 7 that letter voluntarily to the NRC. Nobody called 8 me from the region and said give me a letter 9 saying you are going to keep this program in I
10 operation.
11 0 It's my understanding it's a voluntary 12 program on your part?
13 A. It's a voluntary program.
'(
14 Q. You are not given direction by the NRC 15 as to how to conduct it?
16 A. They have come in and looked at it and
, 17 written up inspection reports several times which 1
18 I'm not sure I agree with but I don't object to.
19 Now, I'll let Mr. Withers do that because I'm no 20 longer in charge. I would like to have a copy of 21 this.
22 Q. Actually, that's my work product. When 23 the case comes out, you'll be getting a copy of 24 the case under a cover letter from Mr. Hays.
[ 25 A. .kou've got a photographic memory?
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200
36 1 !! R . SILBERG: Can we Xerox this?
2 Q. tio . I'm not trying to be (n. polite to
?-
3 you guys but this is a predecisional document that 4 will appear in my case file.
5 A. I've only got one thing to say about 6 this. You have computers, you can reproduce the 7 numbers.
8 Q. I got them from Mr. Snyder.
9 A. We're great on numbers in this crazy l
1
! 10 industry. One number here may mean work this long 11 and the next one may mean this long.
l l 12 Q. As I say, I'm not prepared to draw 13 conclusions from this line graph and I don't think I
14 you or anybody else should either.
15 A. Region Four, we've had a lot of 16 discussion with them about numbers. Number of 17 open items, some takes five minutes to close and 18 some takes an hour. What the hell does a number 19 sean? And that's what I had a little bit to say 20 there, too. I don't know what numbers mean until 21 you know what's in the number.
22 Q. I've spent seven months trying to find l
l 23 out.
1 i l 24 A. Did you find out? l J
25 Q. ,Well, I'm still, even as we speak, in KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES run 30. ,nn I
' 37 1 the process.
2 A. I think Quality First p r o g r a r. , t o r,i e , I 3 still feel that we did the right thing. I sti]1 4 feel the program accomplished what we wanted it to 5 accomplish. We were a lot more competent the day 6 we considered to have a fuel load license that our 7 plant was done, done right, to protect the health 8 and safety of the public rather than finding it 9 out afterwards.
10 Q. I understand. Glenn, one other aspect 11 of the operation of the Q1 program I wanted to ask 12 you about since this is one aspect of it you might 13 know something about. As I was doing the file
'I
- 14 reviews and the interviews with the Q1 15 investigators, I found out that a number of the 16 allegations that were originally taken by Q1 and 17 to some degree others investigated by Q1, some of 18 these were eventually transferred to legal and 19 closed out on the Q1 files. These were things 20 that primarily had to do with harassment, 21 intimidation, discrimination. I'm making a 22 presumption here but a presumption I'm making is 23 maybe Wichita legal here anticipated Department of 24 Labor filings or Kansas Human Resource filings for 25 discrimination or whatever, for reinstatement or KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
, Sics oc7.nsnn
38 1 w a g e .= lost or whe.tever. However, the one concern 2 I had was I r. a w an inconsistency in the 3 treatment. Some of the cases were fully 4 investigated and conclusions were made by 01, Mr.
5 acting --
I guess he handled at least 6 early on the majority of them. Others were simply 7 transferred to legal and there was no real 8 resolution or conclusion made by 01. In other 9 words, it's as though it went to legal, we're not 10 going to investigate that issue anymore. My 11 question to you is: Was there a conscious 12 decision to switch from an investigative posture 13 where you're going to try to find out whether your 14 own people did something wrong to a defensive 15 posture in preparing for litigation and going to 16 this defensive posture, was it intentional that 17 these cases not be fully investigated and fully 18 reported in the 01 files?
19 MR. SILBERG: Are you saying that 20 cases that were transferred to legal were not 21 fully investigated but the cases that remained in 22 Quality First were.
23 0 The cases referred to legal may have 24 been fully investigated but not for the purposes 25 of 01. -
~
i l
I
' KELLEY, YORK E ASSOCIATES 6,7f y70
39 1 HR. SILBERG: I don't know how 2 Glenn can specu ste as to what legal --
3 Q. What I'm anticipating here, and I may 4 be completely wrong, you may not have had any 5 contact with legal about these cases, these people 6 that were filing with the Department of Labor.
7 You may not have had any contact or any knowledge 8 or any feedback or any day-to-day knowledge of it 9 but the one aspect of this that I'm curious about 10 is whether there was a conscious decision on the 11 part of 01 to not fully investigate these cases 12 and show resolution or draw a conclusion as they 13 did on other wrongdoing issues once it went to
' 14 legal?
15 A. I'm sure I can't answer your question.
16 I think earlier I stated that if that Quality 17 First allegation had nothing to do with quality, I 18 don't think Quality First should have had any 19 business investigating it because I did not have 20 only that one investigator that was loaned to us, 21 Mr. that could look at anything in my l 22 estimation. I felt that I could go out and do a 1
23 harassment intimidation interview better than 24 anybody in Quality First. I'm not trained,
.c
,) 25 neither we:e they, but I think I've got more 1
K EMEY , ,g g 3, ASSOCIATES 6,7g 9 7,4, gn /g%
i . 40 1 rianagenent ebility and been associated with people 2 longer to be able to go do that. That's persona 3 3 opinion. But I don't know why if they weren't 4 investigated fully in legal because I didn't 5 follow those either. I didn't follow those any 6 closer than I did the ones in Quality First and I 7 didn't get involved. I tried to stay out of that 8 portion of it because to me that kept it more
. 9 confidential. ,
l 10 Q. I had no information that you had i
11 involvement. I was just wanting to ask you if l 12 maybe that you had been.
13 A. I was not.
l 14 Q. One other aspect on this same issue, 15 not so much the transfers to legal but the 16 wrongdoing cases falsification. harassment, 17 intimidation, discrimination and related issues 18 that were investigated by Q1 and reported, l 19 particularly those that were substantiated in the l
20 interviews I've done and the file reviews, I 21 haven't found any evidence to indicate that there 22 were any repercussions to those individuals proven 23 where it was established by Q1 that they had been l
24 harassers, intimidators, falsifiers, 4 discriminators, whatever. Do you have any 25 i
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
,1,cs sc7. conn t
4 41 1 inforraation as to why no apparent e ct iori was taken 2 ao e result of these types of findings whereas in
~
3 the hardware, if hardware was found deficient, 4 they would fix that but there was no what you 5 might call corrective action related to the people 6 problems?
7 A. I have no direct knowledge except in my J
8 own mind again, the Quality First programs were 9 never set up, designed and ~it in force to do the 10 same thing to an individua. said we were 11 going to do to that piece of . ' .. out there.
! 12 Q. Let me make an observa an. Glenn, and
- 13 I would like you to comment on it. NRC does l I
-- investigate these areas of wrongdoing and we do
- 14 i
1 15 believe they can adversely affect satefy. If a QC 4
16 supervisor or harasses his people in not doing the t
17 jobs correctly, we think it affects safety. If a 18 person discriminates against somebody, it 19 ultimately results in not doing the job and 20 equally, if a person is working on site under the i 21 influence of drugs, there is a potential safety
- 22 problem. The NRC, we don't investigate drugs but
! 23 we investigate these other aspects of it and we do l
24 see a direct link and I can understand if you i
l .,
j 25 share a different opinion on it but that's the --
l l
l KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES l ...a. .e. ....
l
. 42 1 A. I didn't say I shared a different 2 opinion. If a affects safety, we shou]d look into 3 it. I agree wholeheartedly. If it does not 4 affect safety, as another example I gave you the 5 guys out in the damn parking blacktopping the 6 parking lot it has not a thing to do with making 7 the plant run.
8 Q. I'll tell you this. There were some Q1 9 investigative finding on wrongdoing that involved 10 people other than laying blacktop.
11 A. I wouldn't be a bit surprised. There i 12 probably was and I cannot answer you why if they 13 found, they were substantiated, why the people 1
-- 14 were not reprimanded in some way and you have 15 indicated to me they were not. ;
16 Q. I can't find any evidence of it.
17 A. Evidence where?
18 Q. Evidence in the files with the people
- 19 who were doing the investigation.
l l
20 MR. SILBERG: When you say the 21 files, what files?
22 A. Q1 files? It might not have come back 23 to 01.
I 24 Q. It originated in Q1. They made the 25 investigation and made the report.
.[])
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES runs ><,_a,nn
- 43 1 A. Early on our s y s t e ra didn't tequjte for 2 it to cone back into 01 if you read our 3 procedures. They were transferred out and there 4 was nothing that said you had to transfer it back 5 in. If it did not relate to safety --
6 MR. SILBERG: Unless you go back 7 through the personnel records, I don't think you 8 can really definitively say there either was or 9 wasn't personnel action taken.
10 0 I will agree with both of you that I 11 have not exhausted every avenue of information 12 available to me. However, I talked to probably 30 11 people who worked in the program who believed that
-- 14 they would know if this occurred, including the 15 maker of the 01 and so far I haven't found anybody 16 that knows. There may be information available 17 somewhere unknown that may exist indicating there 18 was some repercussions for this type of activity.
19 MR. SILBERG: For instance, in the 20 case of the break-in of the vehicle, I know that 21 there were personnel actions taken.
22 A. Do you know that? Is it in the 01 23 file?
24 0 No.
.4 A. Of course not.
,,; 25 KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES roser se~.onnn
44 1 Q. Q1 file, there is no Q1 file. It'c a 2 legal file which I don't have access to.
3 MR. SILBERG: I'm telling you 4 there were personnel actions taken.
5 A. There were personnel actions taken 6 because I was instigator of them. And I can 7 almost bet you that no one on site knows that.
8 Q. I think you are right.
9 A. Because we don't go around broadcasting 10 corrective action to personnel.
11 Q. I had heard, somebody on site told me 12 that they thought a couple of security guards got 13 reprinands but that was the extent and then I've
^(.
-- 14 had other people who were in a better position to 15 know say no, nobody had any reprimands, there was 16 no action taken against anybody 17 HR. SILBERG: There were 18 reprimands.
i 19 Q. Okay. Another quick one. You may not 20 know anything about this, Glenn, but it's possible
, 21 it may have been brought to your attention. There 22 was one of the Q1 investigators, a fellow by the 23 name of fh 24 A. He was what?
25 Q. =Q1 investigator had done a rather
[
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES o, p _Ag-
l 45 l 1 Jengthy investigation on the deficiencies in the 1
2 CAR Prograr.. He worked on this investigation for 1 l
3 like five or six weeks and turned in his l 4 investigative report to he Q1 supervisor, the one 5 under Mr. Snyder, Mr. Scott. Mr. Scott, based on j 6 e testimony I've received, did not accept Mr.
7 investigative report and Mr. Snyder promptly 8 terminated Mr. for not having met the mission 9 or having met the terms of what they expected of 10 him. To s iinpli f y this, were you ever made aware 11 of Mr. determination or his situation or the 12 fact that his report on this safety-related issue 13 was not accepted by Q1 management?
-- 14 A. I don't recall. I remembet 'he name 15 but that's all I remember.
16 Q. No details?
17 A. No details. I remember the name and 18 only because you mentioned it. If you had asked 19 se to remember that name I would not have. If I 20 did, I certainly don't recall.
21 Q. One other area I wanted to ask you 22 about. From the testimony I've taken, it has been 23 conveyed to members of the NRC, myself and then 24 other NRC members who have been on site reviewing
[, 25 the 01 program that the concept of reportability KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES yn , /-
46 f
1 under 50-55E as interpreted by KGEE back d u r itig 2 this tine period, 1984, required a two-part 3 evaluation of an issue before it was deemed 4 reportable. The first part being a construction 5 deficiency which if uncorrected could adversely 6 affect the safety or operations during the life of 7 the plant and two, a significant breakdown in the 8 Quality Assurance program. That these two parts 9 had to be met before it constituted a reportable 10 item. Were you ever involved in any discussions 11 to set or interpret the reportability aspects of a 12 deficiency?
13 A. No, not directly. I accepted the
14 criteria that -- excuse me, I believe the criteria 15 we had was evidently sufficient or I believe we 16 would have been cited more by the Region.
17 They were here. They didn't help us 18 interpret but they certainly could do their own 19 interpretation.
20 Q. Apparently, I don't know if there 1
21 continues to be a difference in opinion on this ;
22 subject between the main body of the NRC, the 21 Region Four staff and KG&E, but the interpretation 24 back in '84 that was received at least by one of
]'. 25 the OI peop).e up here evaluating this was that KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES
<3,cs $c,.o%nn
i 47 i f
1 both etJterie, both of these situationt had to be
~
2 in existence before repottability was --
3 A. That was Bill Ward's letter.
4 MR. SILBERG I'm looking at . !
, t 5 50-55E and there is no way on earth you can read l
6 this as a lawyer or even as a non-lavyer and say , ,
7 that you don't have to meet both criteria because 1
8 it says: "The holder of a permit shall notify the [
9 Commission of each deficiency found in design and l 10 construction which were to have remained 11 uncorrected could adversely affect the safety of
. I 12 operations to the nuclear power plant at any time 13 throughoa* the expected lifetime of the plant, and I
,7 i s '
14 which represents -" and you've got three choices, i 15 I'm sorry four choices, the first of which is: "A
- i 16 significant breakdown in any portion of the t 17 Quality Assurance program." So it's clearly two i i
18 separate and independent tests. I 19 Q. So that's still the standard has been i i
20 applied throughout the plant that a significant .
f 21 breakdown in the Quality Assurance program in and f l
22 of itself is not a reportable item? ,
23 MR. SILBERG: As I read this as a j i
24 lawyer and if I'm giving advice to my clients on ,
l
() 25 this, I wot1d say absolutely and if the Commission KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES ;
e 46 1 thinks that's urong and if Dill Ucro thinks that's 2 vront ba bas an obligatJon to t e i .1 the Coi+ission 3 to change its rules.
4 Q. I understand what you are saying, Jay.
5 I noticed that and I used his example in one of 6 the interviews I did yesterday, Glenn, I think 7 with Mr. Snyder, there was a significant issue on 8 site that required a great deal of corrective 9 action rework and was very expensive to you guys sts . fecc 10 and the use of the hydrolasing o n 4 t a n it y s t e e l to 11 remove Dissolvo tape or chloride residues. I NCR 12 noticed t he Hse, t h a t closed out that massive 13 effort, that was done to correct this problem 14 indicated, that they didn't consider that that was 15 a reportable item. I throw that on the table only 16 as an example of what I must conclude is a fairly 17 strict interpretation of what is reportable. If 18 such a significant technical concern could he 19 deemed not reportable to the NRC --
20 MR. SILBERG: I don't know that 21 that has anything to de with Quality First.
22 Q. It didn't. That was just a document 23 that was part of part of the allegations and that 24 was just one I happened to be familiar with so I l 25 could use that as evidence or as an example that
.d KELLEY, YORK E ASSOCIATES (316) 267-8200
t I
- 49
. 1 I ' ri f a ni l f t. : seith of what I would tefer to as a [
, 2 s t r i c t - i n t e t p c e t.t. t j o n of what is repottable 3 because by the s t a t e n,e n t s I've received from KG&E !
4 people was a very serious problem and a very T t
5 expensive problem to correct.
6 MR. SILBERG: Without getting into I 7 a lot of arguments, you can have very expensive I 8 problems which may not be plant safety related or !
9 which may not be reportable. L 10 Q. To be honest with you, Jay, I'm l
['
11 certainly not technically qualified to evaluate 12 the seriousness of chloride on stainless steel. i i
However, I have been told that it can be a serious 13 I :
- 14 condition. Obviously not serious enough to be ,
I 15 reportable? '
16 MR. SILBERG: You have to look at A<d ;
17 the specific 4GI and make that determination. I -
18 can't do it here in a vacuum. ,
AX 19 Q. I have looked at the and I'll say !
20 I'll have the inspection staff look at it.
21 Mr. Koester, have I threatened you in 22 any manner or offered you any rewards in return ;
L 23 for this statement?
l 24 A. No, sir. ;
,})k 25 Q. ,Have you given this statement freely f i
t KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES i (11Ai 767-AS00 ;
f a
L'
' 50 1 and voluntarily?
2 A. Yes, sir.
3 Q. Is there anything else that you would 4 care to add to this record?
5 A. Yes. I just wish you would get this 6 investigation done so we can run Wolf Creek 7 without worrying about what we consider to be a 8 good program. Still yet today do except it gets 9 very little use and I believe it's going to get 10 less and less use as long as the people knows that 11 the NRC is in there looking at every damn little 12 thing. Confidentiality as far as they are 13 concerned is going down the tube. It's no longer 14 confidential. You are looking in there at 15 everybody who makes an allegation by name, they 16 think. I don't know whether you are or not, I 17 don't know.
18 Q. I was going to give you the last word, 19 Glenn, but I want to let you know where I'm coming 20 from.
21 A. I think I know.
22 Q. I interviewed quite a few members of 23 the Q1 program.
24 A. Ex-Q1 program.
25 Q. -Ex.
' ].
r L .. _
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES 1114) 947-monn
o W
" 51 1 IIR . SILBERG: Ex-peubets of the 01 2 progran.
i l 3 Q. There's only about two of them left so 4 almost every one of them were ex. The concerns 5 I've raised to you are their concerns. When the 6 NRC gets a majority of the people in an 7 organization who find great deficiencies within 8 that organization, of course we are going to pay 9 attention to it. I appreciate you coming here yet s today and answering some of these questions that 11 are kind of pointed. Some of them would indicate 12 that maybe you might have known some or could have 13 something and I'm sure they are not pleasant to
.q 14 answer. I do appreciate your candor and your 15 straightforwardness in answering these because it 16 will help me get resolution on this.
17 A. I wish I could remember better 18 sometimes, too.
19 Q. I thank you for your effort.
20 A. Are we off the record yet?
21 Q. Off the record.
22 (Off-the-record discussion at 23 4:30 p.m.)
24
'l 25 -
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES t114) os7 A?nn
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v . .. .
O 1 CERTTFICATE 2 STATE OF KANSAS)
) ss:
3 SEDGWICK COUNTY) 4 I, Rhonda R. Cott, a Certified Shorthand 5 Reporter within and for the State of Kansas, do 6 hereby certify that the within-named witness was 7 by me first duly sworn to testify the truth, and 8 that the deposition by him given in response to 9 the questions propounded, as herein set forth, was 10 first taken in machine shorthand by me and 11 afterwards reduced to writing under my direction 12 and supervision, and is a true and correct record
.7 13 of the testimony given by the witness.
14 I further certify that I am not a relative or l
l 15 employee or attorney or counsel of any of the l
l 16 parties, or a relative or employee of such 17 attorney or counsel, o: financially interested in 18 the action.
19 WITNESS my hand and official seal at Wichita, 20 Sedg ick County, Kansas, this hP day of 21 ( ml , 1987 22 ..
l it." O N D A R. COTT, CSR 23 Certified Shorthand Reporter 333 South Broadway, Suite 102 24 Wichita, Kansas - 67202
^
- 25 COSTS:
KELLEY, YORK & ASSOCIATES