ML20203E399
| ML20203E399 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Millstone  |
| Issue date: | 01/27/1998 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9802270040 | |
| Download: ML20203E399 (247) | |
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VERBATIM PROCEEDINGS NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PUBLIC MEETING IN TH3 MATTER OF NORTHEAST UTILITIES, MILLSTONE UNITS 1, 2 AND 3 e
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2 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
. JANUARY 27, 1998 1 . . . Verbatim Proceedings of the Public 2 Meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory 3 Commission in the matter of Northeast Utilities, 4 Millstone Units 1, 2 and 3, held January 27, 1998, at 5 7:00 P.M., at the Waterford Town Hall, 15 Rope Ferry 6 noad, Waterford, Connecticut. . .
7 8
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-10 R 11 1
-. 12 13 CHAIRPERSON WAYNE LANNING: Good 14 evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a meeting 15 between the NRC and you, the public. The purpose of 16 this meeting is to inform you of NRC activities ongoing 17 at Millstone with regard to the restart of a ullt out l 18 there and also to receive your input and feedback on 19 the restart process.
20 My name is Wayne Lanning. I'm Deputy
[ 21 Director of the Special Projects Office. I oversee the 1 22 inspection activities.
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- g 23 With me tonight at the table, at the far 24 _end tonight is Gene Imbro. Gene is in charge of b%s- POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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3 JAN kR
(]) 98 1 overseeing the Independent Corrective Action 2 Verification Process. Next to him is Helen Pastis.
3 Helen has been -- she's the team leader for a recent 4 assessment of the Employee Cc ' erns Program. And 5 she'll be making a short presentation later tonight.
6 Next to me is Phil McKee. Phil is 7 Deputy Director also for overseeing licensing. He has 8 additional responsibility of overseeing the activities 9 with regard to the Safety-Conscious Work Environment.
10 We have in the audience the Senior e 11 Resident Inspectors for the Millstone units. We also R
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12 have Jacque Durr, the branch chief, back there in the O 13 corner and other NRC folks in the audience tonight.
14 Tonight's meeting is being transcribed.
15 So I would ack that when you ask questions or make 16 commente, that you identify yourself.
17 I'll plan on taking a break at 9:00 P.M.
l 18 -tonight. And as we have established previously in our 6
! 19 format, we will take questions and comments on the 20 subject that we have just discussed. And I'll ask that
$ 21 you limit your questions and comments to that topic.
1 22 And we'll also have at the end of the session a general 5
l 23 question-and-answer session where you may ask any 24 question on any topic.
Q POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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4 Q kR 98 1 Let me just quickly outline the agenda 2 for tonight. I'm going to start it off by talking 3 about some of the forthcoming meetings. And then I a will summarize the meeting that we had with Northeast 5 Utilities on January the 14th.
6 Following my presentation, it will be 7 Phil McKee. And Phil will summarize the Safety 8 Conscious Work Environment activities and introduce 9 Helen. And then Gene will follow with a status of the 10 Independent Corrective Action Verification Program, g 11 And that will be followed by the general question-and-c 12 answer session, beginning with questions on our 13 Inspection Report, the last one that we issued. That's 14 No. 207.
15 Just joining us is Bill Travers. Bill 16 is the Director of the Special Projects Office.
17 Welcome.
$ 18 DR. BILL 7 RAVERS: Thanks.
19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: So let me just 20 quickly list some meetings that may be of interest to f 21 you that's coming P' in the very near future. We'll b 22 start by tomorrow, ; morrow morning at 9:00 there's a k
l 23 Tier 2, Tier 3, Independent Corrective Action -- ICAVP 24 inspection exit. That's at the Training Center. And d POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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5 M R 98 1 that's open for pub'ic observation.
2 On Thursday the 29th in King of Prussia, 3 we're having a meeting to discuss operator training and 4 cmergency preparedness issues. And then on February 5 the 2nd, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory 6 Commission, Chairman Jackson, will visit Millstone.
7 She will hold a press conference on the afternoon of 8 the 2nd and then meet with the public that evening at 9 7:00 P.M. across the street at the high school.
10 Then on February 19, we'll have a 11 Commission meeting. This is an established quarterly
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12 status Commission meeting to discuss the status of O 13 Millstone activities. And that will be held in 14 Rockville, Maryland. And the time of that is starting 15 at 9:00 in the morning.
16 I want to turn now and just give you a 17 Readers Digest version, if you will, of the meeting we l 18 had with Northeast Utilities on January 14. At that 19 meeting was Sam Collins. And Mr. Collins is the 20 Director of Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. So O
21 he had come to the site for a tour and participation in 1
- 22 those meetings.
E 23 want to summarize essentially what
[ I 24 Northeast told us regarding station readiness for POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 26.2-4102
6 MEETIN I TO14E UNITS 1 restart and then talk a little bit about the milestone 2 schedule that they provided to us.
3 Mr. Kenyon provided the station 4 readiness overview where he talked about the key issues 5 and the status of those. And they're the same ones 6 ve'Ne discussed previously. He talked to whether or 7 not their evaluation of each of these key issues were 8 progressing satisfactorily or not. If not, when they 9 wi.L1 be or projected to be satisfactory.
10 So I'll just list a couple of these and g 11 go down the list. High standards was an objective.
9 q 12 This involved leadership and regulatory compliance.
V 13 The regulatory compliance had not met the satisfactory 14 level of performance. and he indicated that he 15 expected that Unit 3 would at least be in ccmpliance by 16 February.
17 He talked about the strong nuclear l 18 safety philosophy. He talked about the oversight 19 committees, the-QA function, emergency planning, rad 20 protection, procedure quality and adherence.
- I 21 Oversight and the Nuclear Safety
'1 22 Advisory Board was viewud as being satisfactory.
,g 23 Emergency planning had not reach Satisfactory at that l
i 24 meeting but expected to be more successful by the end POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
, 7
^i MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS i( ) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 of January. Radiation protection was judged to be 2 satisfactory. And procedure quality and adherence was 3 judged to be satisfactory for Unit 3.
4 He talked a little bit about self-5 assessments and their effectiveness and just primarily 6 addressed the nuclear oversight functioc And that was 7 projected to be satisfactory by the end of January.
4 8 He also talked about corrective actions, 9 corrective action process. Aad that whs judged to be 10 satisfactory by the end of January.
g 11 Another objective was to restore the d
12 licensing and design bases. In other words, 13 configuration management process and program. He 14 exracted to restore the licensing basis and design 15 basis for Unit 3 in February.
16 Employee Concerns, this really talks to l! 17 the Safety-Conscious Work Environment. That had not l 18 at'.p'*ed a level of satisfaction that he expected, but 19 he expected significant progress to be made in that 20 arena by the end of February.
f 21 Excellence in operations. These are "i
- 22 things like work control, training, operator readiness E
l 23 and security. Essentially, that objective, that area 24 was to be ready by January and early February for Unit POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
8 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 3.
2 He talked about their schedule for being 3 ready to restart Unit 3. And I'll just mention just a 4 couple of significant milestones that we discussed 5 during in that meeting.
1 6 The first one is Mode 4. Mode 4 is a 7 condition that's specified by the specifications. It's j 8 essentially as you return to power operation, there's a j 9 series of modes you go through as defined by the 10 license. Mode 4 is the first one that you go to out of 11 a snutdown, refueling outage or Mode 5.
12 And it's this mode where most safety 13 systems must be operable and in -- you know, all the 14 work completed on those systems. Go that Mode 4 status 15 was projected to be in early February, 16 He also indicated that the corrective 17 action inspection -- this is the NRC corrective action l 18 inspection. We call it the 40500 inspection because 5
l 19 that's the inspection number. They projected at that 20 meeting that they'd be ready for that inspection in
$ 21 early February. Now, this is the same inspection that
- i. 22 had been scheduled for January and had been delayed.
I l 23 So, we have since received 24 correspondence indicating that they are, indeed, ready O\#
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
9 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
.(]) JANUARY 27, 1998-1 for the 9orrective action inspection. And that's 2 slated to start on site February the 9th.
3 Following the 40500 inepection is the 4 operation of safety team inspection. This is the team 5 inspection, one of the last inspections that is done to 6 judge the readiness for start-up and continued safe 7 operation. They projected being ready for that l 8 inspection in February. And we really have not set a 9 firm date for that inspection. They have yet to tell 10 us that they are ready for the OSTI inspection.
$ 11 So that was just about the highlights of 9
1 12 our meeting, our last meeting with Northeast regarding 13 the restart of Millstone.
14 Just_for your information, though, che i 15 staff will be issuing another version of. our Restart 16 Assessment Plan. I expect that to be issued next week.
17 And we'll have copies of-that available in the library
-l 18 for you for your review, if you so choose.
19 So I think that covers- most of the i 20 administrative status of our meeting with Northeast
$ 21 Utilities.
1
- - 22 Are there questions on anything that I l 23 said?
24 DR. TRAVERS: Let me just add one thing POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
10 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 to what you said.
2 One of the things, just to add to what 3 Wayne said about the status information that we send 4 now to the Commission on a monthly basis, that status 5 paper will include our best estimate for planning 6 purposes of the schedule we're on for completing the 7 activities that we need to complete prior to any 8 Commission consideration of a restart.
9 That schedule we always add this 10 caveat --
is necessarily driven by the completion by g 11 the licensee of the activities that they need to e
r- 12 complete. You may know, I'm sure, that the schedule
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13 that has been proj ected for restart has at times 14 changed over the past months. And that's changed 15 because of the licensee's need to continue to complete 16 actions that are necessary to support the possible 17 restart vote by the Commission.
{ 18 What we do in our Commission papers as 19 an important element in our planning and our l l
20 utilization effectively of the limited resources that U
21 we have is try to estimate based on what the licensee k 22
- tells us is their schedule for effectively completing 5
l 23 corrective actions, the schedule that we can complete 24 our verification activities in.
POST REPORTING SERVICE EAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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kRY 98
-1 So that paper will provide an estimate 2 of a schedule. But, again, it's tied fundamentally to 3 the completion by the licensee of the corrective 4 actions that they need to complete.
5 MR. DONALD DELCORE: No turning on?
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, 6 Donald Delcore, Uncasville, Connecticut.
7 Mr. Lanning, you indicated that one of the last 8 inspections to be done will be tne OSTI. So I have a 9 couple ot questions related to that.
10 It seems to me that there are a number
$ 11 of issues, both on the Restart Assessment Plan -- some 12 indications I can give you would be the ICAVP 13 deficiencies and the satisfactory completion of all 14 those issues that were identified in the discovery by 15 the licensee and in the performance of the ICAVP itself 16 by Sargent & Lundy and whatever the findings were of 17 the review done on the in-scope and out-of-scope l 18 systems by the NRC.
19 And it seems to me an enormous amount of 20 things would have to accomplished by, ac you indicated, '
$ 21 mid-February to the end of February with regard to the 7 - 22 Restart Assessment Plan prior to this OSTI, I would 5
l 23 think, if the OSTI is one of the last tests that you 24 want to conduct. And I would think that we would have POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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() AN R 8 1 all these license basis issues and the like and, of 2 course, most of the spokes of the Restart Assessment '
3 Plan wheel completed. Yes?
4 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I agree with you 5 that there's a lot of work to be completed prior to the beginning of that inspection, 6
i 7 MR. DELCORE: Well, but what I'm asking 8 you is are those items scheduled to be completed prior 9 to you beginning the OSTI?
10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I would guess that g 11 not all items will be completed prior to beginning the e
12 OSTI inspection.
13 MR. DELCORE: Could you give me some 14 idea of those items that are not going to be completed 15 prior to the OSTI?
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16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I think one of-the 17 most important things probably is completion of all the i 18 corrective actions for various things that need to be 19 done.
I don't expect all of those corrective actions 20 to have been completed prior to the OSTI.
I do expect
$ 21 the major modifications, for example, major corrections
!- 22 to processes, the corrective action process itself, for 5-
[ 23 example, to be working and effective prior to starting 24 the OSTI.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
13 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS l -()- JANUARY 27, 1998 1
e 1 DR. TRAVERS: Maybe I can add -- if I I
> 2 add one thing,' Don, specifically to your question. One 3 of the things in looking at our project planning
! 4 schedule, it looks as-though we'll be completing --
5 about the same time we complete-the OSTI will be-the
- 6 final step or the final team inspection of our 7 Independent Corrective Action Verification Program.
4 8 And that final' inspection, one of a series of team 9 inspections, really, is designed to take a look at the 10 adequacy and effectiveness of the corrective actions 9 11 that have resulted from findings of ICAVP. And we're 4 g
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12 going to sample CMP corrective actions as well.
3
!~ 13 But, in large measure, the OSTI --- the i
14 decision for conduct of OSTI is that most of what needs
, 15 to be done is done, at least for the purposes of
- 16 assessing operational readiness, the transition that.
17 the utility has made into being capable of running the i
.j- 18 plant, support the operations, maintenance support to 19 operations, engineering support to operations,
_f- 20 management programs, those kinds of things all need to
'$ 21 be completed to the point where they can be assessed in
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22 our Operational Safety Team Inspections. Very i 5.
g 23 important, a j 24 MR. DELCORE: Well, you know, the thing l POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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() JA UAR 8 1 that's bothering me about this whole issue is that 2 we're talking about an inspecticn that's verifying the 1 3 license basis and 6esign basis of four systems out of 4 88. And I'm not comfortable that at this point the 5 resolutions to the deficiencies which have been found 6 hmie even been addressed, 7 In other words, the approach or the 8 resolution to the issue that was discovered either by 9 Sargent & Lundy or NU in either of their independent 10 discoveries. I'm concerned that we're almost putting i
lg 11 the cart before the horse, if you will, because we U
12 don't have -- seem to have a complete license basis and 13 we're talsing about reviewing a licensee before that 14 process is complete, 15 And, frankly, I'm very concerned about 16 it and I'm concerned about it because Shirley Jackson 17 stood before us or the press in this very room and l 18 indicated that all of that was going to be resolved 19 prior to any start-ap activities. I view a heat-up 20 into a Mode-4 to be a start-up activity, certainly a
$ 21 prelude to it, certainly are dependent upon various l 22
- aspects of those systems with regard to the safety 5
l 23 environment and risk assessment associated with that 24 plan, O' POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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15 J AR 8 i So I view what's going on here from the 2 indications you' re giving to me that we're very, very, 3 very premature in moving forward when the licensee ,
4 looks like they're still rushing to finish things up.
5 So, you know, I'm suggesting here a-6 little bit of restraint and a little bit of relaxation 7 in the schedule to allow them to get the issues done so l 8 that we can see that there's resolution to CMP /ICAVP 9 issues, that there is resolution to corrective action 10 items and not having the majority of the corrective L
!.g 11 action items done, but to have them all done.
.s 12 Now, I recogni::e that there are certain 13 aspects of a nuclear plant with which you never have 14 -all your corrective action items done. But, certainly, 15 they've had quite a while to correct the problems. And 16 I would expect that they would-be at a level where we 17 would only be dealing with relatively new corrective l 18 action -items and that all of the ones that have gone on 19 for the last two or three years would be all fixed.
20 And I think that Shirley Jackson led I 21 most of uc to believe that. And I don't think we're 1
- 22 really seeing that take place. And I'm very concerned I'
[ 23 about it.
24 Thank you.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
16 A R 8 1 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Any other 2 questions? Okay. If there are no other questions, 3 I'll turn --
4 MS, SUSAN PERRY LUXTON: I have a 5 question. I have a question, 6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: All right.
7 MS. PERRY LUXTON: New microphones, I 8 notice. Let's all celebrate that we've got new 9 microphones this month.
10 Susan Perry Luxton, Great Neck Road, lg 11 Waterford, Connecticut. I'm talking about the re-- I U
12 have a question about the restart assessment wheel, the 13 restart assessment wheel. Did you say that these will 14 be resolved before restart, all of these spokes on tha 15 wheel?
16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I think what I 17 said was that there -- all those spokes on the wheel l 18 provide input into assessing the Corrective Action 19 Program, that completion of various activities around 20 that wheel and how -- you know, how well they fix o
. 21 defit.iencies, how well they respond to enforcement
!= 22 items, how well they respond to employee concerns all 5
[ 23 go inte determining how well the corrective action 24 process is working.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
17 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Then help me 2 out on enforcement. Enforcement, this spoke of this 3 wheel,-I'm thinking of it in terms of you doing 4 enforcement actions on violations that have -- they 5 have accrued in the last year. For instance, they just 6 .got a 2.1 million-dollar fine up -- for violations up 7 until December 1996. The violations from December 1996 8 to now, say, are they going to be -- is enforcement --
9 are they going -- are those violations going to be, you 10 know, enfccced? Are they going to have to pay
^
g- 11 penalties or whatever they have to do before restart?
U 12 Will those violations be resolved? Is that part of it?
O 13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That's part of it.
. 14 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Will they be 15 . resolved?
16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: The plan is to 17 issue as many -- whatever violations that we can before 11 8 restart. -But what that wheel really talks to is .
8
.. - 19 corrective actions for those violations.
20 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right.
f 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: In other words, 22 we're looking at the corrective actions implementcd as
-g l 23 a result that caused that violation. That's what we're 24 looking at in assessing the corrective action process.
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i 18 MEETIN3 RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. So I am 2 assuming that those corrective actions for the 3
violations that have occurred between December 1996 and 4 now will be resolved by restart.
5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: They may not be 6 resolved before restart. There may be some enforcement 7 that has not taken place before restart that would take 8 place after restart.
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Well, why is that if 10 that's one of the spokes on the restart assessment --
g 11 corrective action on the Restart Assessment Plan? Why W
12 wouldn't they be resolved before restart?
13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: What will be 14 resolved before restart -- the enforcement takes on 15 issuing a Notice of Violation, for example --
16 MS, PEPRY LUXTON: Right.
17 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: --
having an
$ 18 enforcement conference and then determining what action 19 that the staff will take based on that enforcement 20 conference and the inspection activity as part of :tt
$ 21 and so on.
b 22 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
l 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Some of that 4 enforcement activity may occur after the restart of POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
19 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 this -- of the first Lndt. What I do expect Northeast 2 to do is at least address the corrective actions for 3 those violations. They know --
4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: What do you mean by 5 address? What do you mean by address than? Explain 6 address. '
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Implement 8 corrective actions for those identified violations.
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Not just a 10 plan of implementation. You're talking about an actual g 11 implementation of the corrective action.
U 12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Particularly if it 13 affects the operability of a system, for example.
14 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. So some of 15 them -- and you're saying particularly as it affects 36; the operability. Some of them may be deferred, you're 17 saying, if they don't --
18 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Some of the l
. 19 enforcement actions may not be completed. In other 20 words, the staff may not nave issueo all violstions f 21 prior to restart, for example.
1
= 22 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Your staff?
l 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Our staff.
24 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Nell, okay.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
20 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
()
JANUARY 27, 1998 1 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I mean it's --
2 because we continue to inspect and there could be 3 violations identified, you know --
4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Oh, within the next 5 two weeks, you're saying.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Sure.
7 MS. PERRY LUXTON: I know. But there>u 8 heen violations that have occurred within the last year 9 that you know they've happened. They've occurred.
10 They should have the corrective action plans already
- g 11 together and the correction action should have been U
12 resolved. And you should have given them violations 13 already. Right? So what about them? Aren't they 14 going to be resolved before restart?
15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, the first 16 part of that I think I agree with. That being that the 17 violations are known to Northeast Utilities and they l 18 should be implementing corrective actions in response 19 to those violations. The violations are part of an 20 enfcrcement program. We have a process, procedures on
" o
, 21 how that takes place and we're following that process.
- 22 And what I'm saying for the third time is that there s
l 23 may be enforcement that takes place after restart.
24 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. But what I'm s POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 Lib
21 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 saying for the first time, Mr. Lanning, is in the 2 Government Accounting Office Report of May 1997 --
3 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Now, wait a 4 minute. Let me interrupt you a second now.
5 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Yes.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: You're getting off-7 in an area that I didn't talk about in my introductory 8 comments. And I --
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Oh, but I --
i 10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: General questions R 11 --
5 12 MS, PERRY LUXTON: No. It's about 13 enforcement, though. It's about making sure that 14 enforcement does take place.
15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I didn't talk 16 about enforcement in my --
17 MS, PERRY LUXTON: But that's part of l 18 the Restart Assessment Plan, though. Isn't it?
19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: But can we -- can 20 I defer that to the general question-and-answer
$ 21 session? Can we get on --
1
- 22 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right. All 5
l 23 right. But I won't forget that one. I'll think about 24 that.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
22 JAl R 98 1 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I won't let you 2 forget. I won't let you forget.
3 MS, PERRY LUXTON: All right.
4 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: We'll cover it.
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right. Okay.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: But I would like 7 to get on with the agenda.
8 MS. PERRY LUXTON: I thought it was part 9 --
I mean I didn't mean to delay. I just thought it 10 was a part of this, the Restart Assessment Plan. But I g 11 can wait, d
12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay.
13 Okay.
14 MR. DELCORE: Yes. You know, I 15 understand you want 'o move along. But I certainly 16 don't want to be restricted in my ability to ask you 17 questions about the particular areas. And we've been l 18 through this before and I think we could probably 19 dismiss some of the rhetoric back and forth here.
20 One of the issues that you just f 21 discussed was the rests t assessment wheel and you I. 22 indicated that there was going to be an upcoming change 5
l 23 to the wheel, some change or amendment to this --
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: No. A provision --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
23 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MR. DELCORE: To the plan.
2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- to the plan.
3 MR. DELCORE: Okay. Well, isn't the 4 plan that wheel that you --
5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: No, it's not.
6 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That wheel was my 8 attempt to help everybody understand how, for example, 9 corrective actions, the corrective action process, the 10 inputs that will be made into assessing how well that g 11 process is working, u
12 MR. DELCORE: Okay With regard to that 3
J 13 wheel, that plan, and the changes to that plan, I sat 14 in East Lyme a long time ago and I listened to a 15 presentation that you gave. And I know -- I sat in the 16 front row. And I asked an enormor.s amount of questions 17 with regard to whether all of those issues on that l 18 restart spoke were going to be corrected prior to the 19 restart of this unit. And you assured many of us in 20 this audience-, Mr. Lanning, that that was going to
$ 21 happen.
k 22- Now, you seem --
l 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, Mr. Delcore 24 --
O>
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
24
() AN R 8 1 MR DELCORE: Wait a minute. Wait. Let 2 me finish, Let me finish.
3 And you seem to be backing away from l
4 that position. And I don't want to let you do that.
5 And so I want to remind the audience that that's what .
l 6 you agreed to. If we need to go get the transcript and 7 re-read that, we'll do that, if that's necessary, at 8 the next meeting.
9 (Applause) 10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That was my point g 11 exactly. If there is a transcript of that meeting --
9 12 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: then I won't 14 debate the issue with you.
15 Any other questions? Okay.
16 MR PHIL McKE' Good evening. What I'm 17 going to focus on tonight and talk about is efforts and l 18 activities involved with -- regarding Safety-Conscious 19 Work Envi.ronment and Employee Concerns Progrim.
20 And since our last meeting, I believe in
$ 21 December, some of our major activities involve the NRC 1
22 conducted a team evaluat'on and that included two weeks l 23 on site of looking at Employee Concerns Program, 24 aspects of the Safety-Conscious Work Environment and POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
25 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 also some of the activities and oversight that's being 2 done by Little Harbor Consultants. I won't get into 3 that. I'll -- after I tinish uith some remarks that 4 I'm going to make, Helen Pastis, the team leader, will 5 speak to that topic, give you a summary of the 6 inspection, the inspection findings.
7 What I'd like to talk about today is we 8 had a meeting earlier today and I think some of you 9 attended that. And the meeting is one of our periodic 10 reviews, periodic meetings between the NRC, Northeast g 11 and Little Harbor Consultants to discuss activities 0
12 going on, findings and status of where we are.
13 The meeting principally included a 14 presentation by Northeast Utilities and some of the 15 activities of Little Harbor Consultants. I'm going to 16 go through that fairly quickly, if I can here.
17 Northeast Utilities' presentation, most l 18 of their presentation focused on their measurements and 19 assessments and status of their assessments with regard 20 to their success criteria, O
, 21 And if I might briefly summarize,
! 22 Northeast has six success criteria. And I'm going to g
5 l 23 go through principally four of those. Two of them 24 include eventually where the employee oversight i
~' POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
26 i
() JANU R 2 98 1 organization makes a recommendation or concurs in the 2 -finding for restart. And, also, one of- their success 3 criteria is Little Harbor Consultants' finding.
4 Their principle four criteria that they 5 are measuring, they discussed each of those. And they 6 have, for lack of a better term, a grading system.
7 It's green, yellow and red. And I might' explain.
8 Their criteria for green is that .the success criteria 9 have been met. Yellow is that, although _it's-in the.
10 alert area, they feel that the success criteria has not E 11 been met. And red, of course, is problems and the 0-12 criteria is not met.
)~' 13 And among the four criteria, the first 14 criterion is the employees' willingness to raise l
15 concerns. Their consideration and assessment in that 16 area is that it is- green. It meets the success-4 17 criteria. In their presentation, they_. discussed a l [ 18 number of sub-elements, although they're more than what 19 they 're presented,'that they believe supports that and
.-f 20 principally includes leadership surveys and results of
^O 21
. leadership surveys that they had done.
- l. 22 Also, they've done cultural gz surveys and jl 23 they-have another criteria where they assess concerns j 24 coming in to the Employee Concerns Program and levels i
)
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0 27-MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
. () JANUARY 27, 1998 1 of confidentiality with some' assessment with respect to 2 confidentiality considerations, whether people feel i 3 comfortable bringing concerns in, i
{ 4 In all those, with the exception of the 4
5 cultural survey, it meets or exceeds their goals. And 6 they're close -- and close with regard to the cultural 7 survey item.
8 Their next criteria that they looked at l
l.
9 was the line management handles issues effectively.
I -10 And they -also assess that area as- successful, green.
-$ 11 And they identified several areas that they used in 2
12 doing that. A lot of that is how the line management 13 accomplishes andLaddresses issues and looking at _
the 14 licensee's corrective. action program. Measures that--
15 they use to help determine the success criteria is the 16 timeliness for completion of corrective actions. .W ere 17 they done within 30 days?- And looking at the-l 18 evaluation, they have an evaluation report of -their 19 condition reports of. how well they are for each one
- 20 that goes through over a period and overdue O-
-, 21 assignments. And looking at those criter4.a , their l-
=
g-22 consideration is that that area is green and
- l 23 puccessful.
2 The third criteria they look at is is
() POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
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28 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
))}. JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Employee Concerns Program effective. And that's the 2 formal Employee Concerns Program. There's a number of 3 measures in that, a number of concerns that come in.
4 Timeliness for- looking at concerns. They assess that 5 area as also green and effective or success -- meeting 6 the success criteria for restart.
7 And the final criteria that they looked 8 at and discussed and had some measurements were 9 recognition and addressing problem areas. And these 10 are where there may- be organizational disputes or p 11 problems in handling -of issues in a particular 9
12 organization aspect. And that area they assess now as 13 yellow, not meeting the success criteria.
14 And some of the factors that they looked 15 at in that area were -- some of the -- let's see. Were 16 looking at whether people would use the program again.
17 And their training aspect, the level of their training.
[ 18 They haven't completed necessarily all- the training i 19 that they have planned, although they have made 20 . progress in that area. Whether there's adverse trends
-O
, 21 and numbers of issues that are coming forward. And, lI = 22 also, how they're dealing in numbers and l 23 accomplishments of completing, addressing the problem 24 areas. And they feel that more progress needs to be POST REPORTING SERVICE j HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l-
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29 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JAMUARY 27, 1998 1
i i taade in that area.
, 2 That was their findings and conclusions.
3 I'll go over quickly some of the items 4 that Little Harbor discussed in their presentation.
1
- 5 And they covered essentially three areas. One area 1
I 6 that they were looking at and providing some 7 obser"ations is the Safety-Conscious Work Environment.
- 8 And a 17t of that, I might explain, Little Harber is i 9 there on site and available. And a lot of the bases
! 10 for their observations in this area and they identified
,g 11 war attel. dance at meetings. There's an Executive 9
, 12 Review Board that reviews disciplinary actions.
l 13 There's also incidents or events of employee, personnel 14 interactions or pending events and issues in that area, i
15 They're available and observed some of the actions and 36 how those issues are dealt with. Observing some of the 17 training into some of the on-site activities.
l 18 And hised on that, their findings in 19 that aren as presented today were that -- the initial l 20 ona v as that substantial improvements have been made in
,$ 21 this area, that they're demonstrated improved k
22 understanding and commitment to reaching the goal of an g
l 23 acceptable safety-conscious work er monment.
4 24 But they also ' m:; some issues -- anu POST REPORTING .RVICE HAMDEN, CT (800 262-4102
30 MEETING I TO!4E UNITS 1 one of the principle issues or items they identified is 2 some of the interactions and support from some other 3 elements of the management, like Human Resources and 4 other departments in dealing and supporting some of 5 these issues that may involve activities in those areas 6 and how all that is integrated into a, you know, 7 combined approach to dealing with some of the issues 8 that come up, 9 And, also, some issues were identified 10 in that the ut.ility and line organization has not yet g 11 fully developed the requisite skills to consistently 12 promote a work atmosphere that provides a safety-13 conscious wc.k environment.
14 The other area that was looked at and 15 discussed was the Employee Concerns Program, where they 16 stand there. And that -- some of the findings that 17 uere discussed and presented in that area were based on l 18 a fairly extensive review of the case files in Employee 19 Concerns Program.
20 These are issues and concerns that are f 21 brought up outside of the line organization to this l
l
. 22 organization, to the Employee Concerns Program. And a 5
l 23 focus and concentration on looking at those cases and 24 cases closed that involve harassment, intimidation, POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
31 MEETIN R I T0! UNITS 1 retaliation and discrimination. And our code word for 2 that is HIRD, 3 Locked at -- a lot of those cases 4 involved, and those particularly that were closed in 5 '97, in certain aspects and parts of some of those that l 6 remained open. Looked at other cases. There was also 7 involvement, review of cases that were not considered 8 or categorized by the licensee as HIRD or harassment, 9 intimidation issues.
10 There were reviews with some of the p 11 individuals that had raised this concern on feedback u
12 and also observed some of the interactions and 13 operations of the Employee Concerns Program.
14 And the findings that were identified in 15 that area, some of the principle findings, that the 16 Employee Concerns Program has demonstrated an ability 17 to effectivel, resolve employee concerns of 18 retaliation, but has also identified that the Employee
$ 19 Concerns Program does not always meet timely -- does 20 not always timely intervene in cases needing immediate
$ 21 intervention or reaching a determination of existence 1
22 of a chilling effect.
l 23 And one of the other findings was the 24 Employee Concerns Program has not always displayed a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 '
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i 1
i 1
32 l
() JATUAR 98 4 l
) 1 1 sensitivity to employees facing HIRD situations or 1 2 maintain sufficient communications with all concernees 3 during the Employee Concerns Program investigation and 4 recolution.
5 Associated with both the safety-6 conscious work environment and Employee Concerns 7 Program, as is our custom, there were some 8 recommendations that were made by Little Harbor to deal 9 with some of the findings that they had.
10 Importantly, in the last area discussed
, p 11 by Little Harbor, they, too, provided an assessment of u
, 12 the status of where they consider the licensee was 13 relative to the success criteria. I might add that 14 Little Harbor has and uses 12 attributes that is 4
15 included in their oversight plan and they're attributes J
16 of an ideal safety-conscious work environment.
17 Their grading system in measuring these 18 attributes is a little different, although it uses the
! 19 same colors. It's green, yellow and red. Their 4
i l 20 success criteria is -- falls into one of the levels of f 21 the yellow, given that green is the ideal or more or l
. 22 less the perfect environment, difficult but noble goal
.g l 23 to achieve. The levels below that, in Little Harbor's 24 estimations, are accept able to restart.
0'l POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 gg,__-.. - . , , w , - . , - . , __ ,.n.. - .-,
1 l
33
(]) A AR 2 98 1 And where they came down -- and they've 2
taken these 12 criteria and kind of identified and came 3 up with assessment in those areas and kind of 4 correlated those with the four Northeast Utilities 5 criteria or close to it.
6 And their assessment in that area was, 7 at least with the first criteria that I mentioned, 8 demonstrate the wi'lingness . to raise safety concerns.
9 Little Harbor's assessment was that they were yellow in 10 that area, kind of mid-category finding. And that was g 11 acceptable for restart.
e 12 And the second criteria, demonstrate 13 that issues are being effectively resolved by line 14 management, the same identified yellow but with an 15 improving trend in that area. And, also, that would 16 meet the criteria of -- adequate of -- to support 17 restart.
l 18 And in the third area, demonstrate that I; 19 the ECP Program is effective. This criteria or element f 20 had been identified previously at the last assessment
$ 21 that it was not at a level that would meet restart 8
. 22 expectations. But at this assessment, it was found I
l 23 that this -- it was acceptable in yellow, improving.
24 And some of that was based on some recent statistics on O POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
- %&bVbMA%WEMa%
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% 34 Cid 14EETIllG RE: 14ILLSTOliE UllITS i
Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 the acceptability by people that use the Employee 2 Concerns Program and feedback and how they felt --
3 whether they felt comfortable with using it. And some 4 of the information showed --
would indicate that the 5 numbers were fairly good, running at about a rate of
- 6 about 80 percent in that area.
7 The last criteria they identified is --
8 it's a little longer as Little Harbor characterizes it.
9 Demonstrate that management can recognize and 10 effectively deal with alleged instances of harassment, p 11 intimidation or other circumstances which have created u
12 a chilling effect which collectively are referred to as 13 prcblem areas.
14 In this area, they identify the licensee 15 is not meeting the success criteria. It's a red but 16 with some improving trends. And some of the things 17 I've discussed that they found.
[ 18 I won't get into the 12 criteria that 19 fall somewhat along the same lines and fall into some 20 of those areas. I might mention that one of the major
$ 21 activities that they identified that they -- that I 22
- Little Harbor plans to do in the upcoming future in 5
l 23 February is conduct what is termed structured 24 interviews, going out and interviewing a number of -- a POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
35 MBETIN !4I TOli UNITS 1 select group of employees. And it's a pretty large 2 number. It's -- I think it's over 280 individuals.
3 And they did this last summer. And this is an 4 interview and it measures a bunch of elements related 5 to employees' willingness to bring concerns forward, 6 safety culture and breaks it down. And these 7 interviews will go on for several weeko and the resulta 8 will likely be available in a month or so.
9 might mention I before I give Helen a 10 chance to give you a summary of the inspection g 11 findings, that we do have some representation from u
12 Little Harbor here with us this evening. So O 13 are questions following that if there o category, we may get some 14 support from them in responding to them.
15 And with that, I'd like to pass the mike 16 to Helen. Ms. Helen Pastis, who will give you a little
-17 discussion on some of our findings in this area.
$ 18 MS, HELEN PASTIS: Thank you.
19 Good evening. The team's main objective 20 in this evaluation was to assess the implementation of 3 21 the Employee Concerns Program and the Employee Concerns
! 22 Oversight Panel at Millstone. I'll also be referring
[ 23 to those two as the ECP and ECOP, the initialisms.
24 During its evaluation, the team also had O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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36 MEETIPG RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 the opportunity to conduct some evaluation of the 2 Safety-Conscious Work Environment. One of the i
i 4
3 components in the NRC's assessment of Millstone's ECP l 1
4 and SCHE will be the results of Little Harbor !
- 5 Consultants' findings and recommendations. The
- 6 expertise that Little Harbor brings to issues will be a 7 factor in our oversight program on the status of the 8 licensee's programs.
9 The team also assessed the third-party 10 organization, or APOP, which is Little Harbor 1
f2 11 Consultants, which oversees the implementation of the 12 Employee Concerns Program and Safety-Conscious Work 13 Environment at Millstone.
14 The team conducted its evaluation in two 15 parts. The first -- both parts we were on site. And 16 the first week was December 8 to the 12th. The team 4
17 arrived on site and did our evaluation. And then any l 18 issues or follow-up items that came up, we returned the 19 week of January 5 to the 9th and continued our 20 evaluation.
O
. 21 To get into some of the specifics on the i 22 Employee Concerns Program, the team found that the g
l 23 licensee has made significant improvements in the 24 Employee Concerns Program. The ECP appears to be O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
37 MEETI!1 R !I TOli UNITS 1 functioning adequately and seems to be an established 2 program at Millstone.
3 The team found that the ECP organization 4 had independence, resources and management support to 5 perform thorough, unbiased investigations. The minor 6 discrepancies found by the team did not significantly 7 detract from the program or its accomplishments.
8 One area we will continue to monitor is 9 people's villingness to use the ECP again. And we 10 heard some of the results concerning that area this g 11 morning at the meeting, y
12 The team reviewed some of the ECP case 13 files and generally they appeared adequate, with minor 14 deficiencies.
15 On the ECP self-assessments, the team 16 concluded that the ECP self-assessments were adequately 17 self-critical. The licensee's tracking of Little l 18 Harbor Consultants' recommendations was initially slow, 19 but now is satisfactory, f 20 On ECOP, the Employee Concerns Oversight
$ 21 Panel, ECOP was slow to develop and begin meaningful I
g 22 activities. But now it appears to be functioning
[ 23 adequately, heading in a positive direction.
24 ECOP has been especially effective in O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
A 38 At AR 8 1 conducting leadership surveys in specific parts of the 2 NU organization to help identify problem areas.
3 The ECOP organization is an independent, 4 diverse group of site employees that reports to a high-5 level manager at the site.
6 The ECOP self-assessments -- the ECOP 7 self-assessments had been minimal. But we understand l
8 that there's one currently under way.
9 The other area we looked at is problem -
i 10 areas. As part of its Safety-Conscious Work g 11 Environment, the licensee has set up a program to W
12 identify and resolve problem areas. The licensee 13 defines problem areas as areas of personnel interaction 14 where a safety-conscious work environment is challenged 15 or does not exist.
. 16 It is a novel approach in being more 17 pro-active to identify these areas before they erupt l 18 into an organizational crisis.
19 The team evaluated the effectiveness of 20 identifying and resolving the problem areas. We found
$ 21 that the licensee has made considerable progress to l 22 improve its identification and resolution problem j 23 areas. However, we did find some weaknesses in this 24 area.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
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39 O "9^t%AaEff918 1 Safety-conscious work environment, self-2 assessments and the long-range plan. The team 3 recognizes that it takes a long time for employees to 4 develop trust in a developing and evolving safety-5 conscious work environment and it takes time for 6 management to avoid the occasional errors and eliminate 7 actions which may lead to a chilling effect.
8 The team expects that the licensee will 9 develop a long-range plan which will define its future 10 course of action. Such a plan should discuss 11 management's expectations to continue assessing a 12 safety-conscious work environment program.
13 The team also evaluated the licensee's 14 Employee Concerns Program and Safety-Conscious Work 15 Environment Training Programs. We found that the 16 licensee has made significant improvements in the 17 training provided to its staff regarding the safety-18 conscious work environment and the Employee Concerns l
. 19 Program.
20 Generally, the team found that the
$ 21 licensee's program provides accurate and meaningful I
= 22 training on safety-conscious work environment and ECP, I
l 23 The licensee is also- ensuring the training records are 24 kept to ensure that training is given to those that O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
40 MEETIN R 14 I TO! UNITS 1 require it and soliciting and using feedback to 2 determine that training's etfectiveness.
3 However, the team found that the 4 licensee has deviated from its procedures and training 5 manual. We found three instances and those could be 6 considered as minor deviations.
7 We also looked at Little Harbor 8 Consultants. Overall, Little Harbor Consultants has 9 been effective in overseeing the Employee Concerns 10 Program at Millstone and has been instrumental in g 11 providing findings and recommendations to continue the ti 12 ECP improvements, 13 Perhaps because the programs and Safety-14 Conscious Work -Environment have recently been 15 instituted, Little Harbor Consultants has not been as 16 rigorous in evaluating Safety-Conscious Work 17 Environment Programs, such as the program dealing with l 18 problem areas.
19 Little Harbor Consultants provided very 20 thorough and insightful observations and
$ 21 recommendations in reviewing the licensee's k
22 Comprehensive Plan. Specifically, Little Harbor l 23 Consultants reviewed extensively the Millstone ECP, the 24 implementation of the ECP and the licensee's Corrective O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
! 41 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Action Program.
l 2 There are many other areas which Little 3 Harbor Consultants has provided significant findings.
4 For example, Little Harbor Consultants conducted 5 extensive interviews en an individual basis to assist 6 the ECP. And as Phil said earlier, it plans to conduct 7 a second round of structured interviews next month in 8 February.
9 Little Harbor Consultants has been 10 effectivo also in improving the weaknesses in the g 11 licensee's family of the HIRD cases, harassment, u
12 intimidation, retaliation, discrimination cases.
O 13 In reacting to events which turned very 14 quickly into a crisis for the licensee, Little Harbor 15 Consultants has performed its own independent and very 16 = thorough investigations of such incidents as involving 17 disciplinary actions as in the MOV and training events.
( 18 Little Harbor Consultants does not 19 appear to have evaluated sufficiently such programmatic 20 areas as ECOP and Safety-Conscious Work Environment's
( 21 identification and resolution of problem area.
22 Although Little Harbor Consultants has not yet i
[ 23 evaluated the problem areas, like the elements of a 24 safety-conscious work environment, the NRC's team did 3
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
42 i
Al AR 98 1 evaluate the problem areas. And we also heard this
] 2 morning that Little Harbor Consultants planc as its 3 very near future activities to address these areas.
4 The team .ound that Little Harbor 5 Consultants was slow in tracking and evaluating NU's 6 responses to Little Harbor Consultants' l 7 recommendations. And, also, Little Harbor Consultants 8 belatedly provided formal documentation of information.
9 Overall, the team found that the 10 Millstone Employee Concerns Program has made
)
g 11 significant improvements and is functioning adequately.
U 12 ECOP was slow to develop but now it appears to be 13 heading in the right direction.
14 The programs in the Safety-Conscious 15 Work Environment have just recently been started and 16 progress has been made and considerable offort is 17 expanded to identify problem areas, 18 The team found some weaknesses in the i, 19 resolution of problem arer; And it recognizes that 20 this is a novel approach an effort for the licensee 3 21 to be more pro-active to identify and resolve problem i 22 areas early.
g l 23 Little Harbor Consultants has been 24 effectiva in overseeing the Employee Concerns Program O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
43 JA ARY 98 1 at Millstone and has been ins *rumental in providing 2 findings and recommendations to continue the ECP 3 improvements.
4 Of course, the NRC will continue to 5 monitor the licensee's performance in its Employee 6 Concernn Program and Safety-Conscious Work Environment.
7 The NRC will also continue to monitor Little Harbor 8 Consultants' oversight activities and to hold periodic 9 meetings to discuss its findings and recommendations in 10 overseeing the Millstone Employee Concerns Program and g 11 Safety-Conscious Work Environment.
U 12 Thank you.
13 MR. McKEE: Thank you, Helen.
14 Before I open it ^o questions, I -- you 15 know, we end up using a lot of terms here. And I 16 thought it might be useful just to mention one. We've 17 used it a lot tonight and we assume everybody knows it.
l 18 And I'm going to ra d the definition. It's safety-19 Conscious Work Environn.ent.
20 What a Safety-Conscious Work Environment f
E 21 is is defined as a work environment in which employees g 22 are encouraged to raise safety concerns and where s
l 23 concerns are properly reviewed in the proper priority 24 based on their potential safety significance and O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (8001 262-4102
44 MEETIN R II TOli UNITS 1 appropriately resolved with timely feedback to the 2
originator of the concerns and to other employees.
3 That's why we -- a lot of the focus and 4 some of the emphasis on some of the success criteria 5 are on the corrective Action Program. We think that's 6 a fundamental program in addressing and dealing with 7 concerns and that program, hopefully, is well used and 8 applied in that direction. And, also, that feedback 9 and people are aware of how their concerns are 10 addressed. So that kind of provides some of the foundation of why we look in some of the P 11 areas that we
?
12 do.
13 With that, I think we'll complete this
-14 topic and open it to questions. I'm surprised there's 15 questions in this area. Well, let's -- let me try 16 someone new. The gentleman back there. Oh, Okay.
17 This works. You don't have to turn it l 18 on.
19 MR. ROBERT FROMER: Okay. Good. I just 20 have a very simple --
f 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Name?
b 22 MR. FROMER: Robert Fromer, New London,
[ 23 Connecticut.
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
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i l 45 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1; MR. FROMER: I just have a very simple l
2 question about the Employee Concerns Program. In this 3 current eval -- '
i 4 A VOICE: We can't hear you.
5 MR. FROMER: In this current evaluation, 4
6 what percentage of employees are raising concerns 7 directly with NU versus going directly to NRC?
8 MR. McKEE: As always, a simple question
! 9 that doesn't necessarily have a simple answer. There 10 are thousande and thousands of concerns that are -- not
,g 11 concerns. Concerns may not be the proper term. But U
12 issues that are raised by employees throughout the 13 program.
14 For instance, there's thousands of 15 corrective actions and reports that come up that are 16 dealt through the normal line organization. So I think 17 even in the licensee's statistics, when they show 18 corrective action issues compared to --
you know, I. 19 corrective action issues, you know, the one statistics, 20 the concerns or allegations -- taking corrective action O
,. 21 issues, there are thousands of those that are brought i
. 22 forward to the licensee under the normal line 1
l 23 organization practice. The ratio of that, of concerns 24 that are brought to the licensee's Employee Concerns POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
46 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Program by itself is large. And if you look at other 2 programs, I mean we're talking of thousands to one. I 3 don't know the exact ratio. It depends on what systems 4 you look at.
5 Dut when you look at it from the other 6 aspect of things in the Employee Concerns Progr'am as to 7 deal with issues that go outside the line organization
- 8 where employees or contractors or somebody for that 9 matter feel they don't feel comfortable to go through 10 the line organization. And those numbers relative to g 11 all the issues that are brought up at the site are i u 12 small. But, for instance, the numbers in the chart 13 that we have in one of the graphs is -- they had a 2
14 trend of approximately 20, 15, down to about 10. There 15 was -- was an increase in the Employee Concerns, the 16 exact numbers it went up to about 35 in December, which 17 is a high rate. We've asked and talked to the licensee l 18 about that to explain that number.
19 You compare those numbers to NRC 20 allegations. In NRC allegations, you go from October -
O 21 -
we'll go September we had 10, Oct W;r we had five, I
. 22 November, four, December two. So you can see that 5
[ 23 ratio of concerns brought to the Employee Concerns
, 24 Program wac an off-line organization receiving concerns POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
47 MEETIN R !I STOli UNITS 1 than the NRC.
2 But I think in the larger picture, 3 co.mpared to the concerns that are raised and dealt with 4 in the line organization, the ratios are substantially 5 higher, 6 MR. FROMER: You haven't answered my 4
7 question. It's a very simple question. Pick whatever 8 category you want. The total number of employee concerns, what percentage of that total number has gone 9
10 directly to NU instead of the NRC and what percentage
, p 11 has directly to the NRC? Now, if you don't have the U
12 answer, just say you don't have the answer,
, 13 DR. TRAVERS: Correct me if I'm wrong, 14 Phil, but I think the answer in large measure is we
)_ 15 don't have the answer. And it's by virtue --
16 MR. FROMER: Fine.
17 DR. TRAVERS: But let me see if I can l 18 explain. It's by virtue of what he was trying to 19 explain to you. And that is simply that to the largest f 20 extent -- and your question is a relevant one because
'O 21 the ideal is a situation where workers who have l 22 concerns raise it to their supervisor and they get it l 23 resolved in some fashion.
24 Maybe the next step would be the use of O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
d I
I 48 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^2m^av 27, 1998 1
1 an int 3rnal company Employee Concerns Program. Now, 2 there are numbers associated with the second step. But i
31 1
we don't iave numbers associated with the first step.
I 4 The ideal would be that you don't ever 5 get to uso ECP because your problams and issues are 6 getting resolvsd by the normal line process.
7 And the next step, which would be 8 perhaps an allegation submitted to NRC because you're 9 not comfortable with the Employee Conceras Program or 10 you don't think it's effective, would be another
$ 11 indication -- we have numbers -- and we can provide U
12 those. And I think we've given you some indication of i 13 the numbers of allegations that NRC is receiving.
14 im in our weekly -- I'm sorry -- monthly 15 status reports has been giving us numbers on the 16 numbers of concerns rt.ised through the Employee
. 17 Concerns Program, 18 But what we don't have and what we think l, 19 is probably a significant number -- we certainly hope jf 20 so. In fact, we hope the program they're developing o
. 21 would encourage to the maximum extent practical the 1
5 22 idsntification and resolution of issues within the E
l 23 normal line processes. We don't have those numbers.
24 MR. FROMER: All right. Let me ask you POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
49
~~ *"
O 3^tY^nMi918 1 another question. And let me indicate just a general 2 philosophy. The straightest distance between two 3 points is -- I mean the shortest distance between two 4 points is a straight line. And I hate to go around the 5 Cape of Good Hope to get to those puints. ,#
6 DR. TRAVERS: Why don't you -- well --
7 MR. FROMER: Well, I can provide you 8 this sheet, too. For instance, let me choose December.
9 And I -- I don't have a calculator, so I can't do ':he 10 percentage math. But, for example, one of the cent.ral g 11 licensee's programs for dealing with issues through the u
.12 normal line organization is their condition reparts.
)
13 And in December, the number of condition roports 14 initiated for Millstone Unit 3 was 442. The nunber of 15 employee concerns that were received -- oh. I'm sorry.
16 Let me go -- well, let's stay with December. 442 in 17 December. And there were 35 Employee Concernu Program 18 issues received in December. And the NRC ret.eived two 19 allegations.-
/
20 DR. TRAVERS: Yes. I hav'e to stand O
. 21 corrected on it. Condition reports -- I was thinking l 22 g of other kinds of concerns. The condit.f.on reports in l 23 really the nominal sense are an indicator of issues and 4 their introduction into the system that corrects them.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800)-262-4102
50 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998
(])
1 And to the extent that the issues are tracked as 2 condition repcrts, you can use that as a measure of 3 employees raising concerns.
4 MR. FROMER: All right. Let's cut to 5 the chase. Let me ask you a simple -- another simple 6 quePtion. Are the number of allegations from the time 7 that the issue -- from the time of the shutdown to this 8 point, are the number of allegations leveling off, the 9 same, decreasing? Which way are they going?
10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: To who?
Q 11 DR. TRAVERS: To NRC.
L' 12 MR. FROMER: To the NRC.
13 MR. McKEE: I think, for the most, they 14 have -- they have stayed about the same, about the same 15 level throughout that period. You know.
16 MR. FROMER: So the intent of the 17 Employee Concerns Program, as I understand it, is to 18 reduce the number of allegations going to NRC vis-a-vis I 19 the employees have chosen, because of a trust in the 20 company, to raise those issues internally. So, in O ~
, 21 essence, what we're getting at here and what you're i 22 saying is nothing's really changed in terms of employee g
l 23 concerns. In terms of allegations, in terms of 24 resources, your staff must commit to deal with these O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 k
51 MEETIN R 14 I TOli UNITS 1 allegations which really should be dealt with in-house.
2 Am I correct in that statement?
3 MR. McKEE: Well, I don't know if I 4 would -- I think --
5 MR. FROMER: Can Mr. --
can Dr. Thayer 6 answer that?
I 7 DR. TRAVERS Pardon?
8 you l MR. FROMER: Can answer that
! 9 question?
10 DR. TRAVERS The indication of -- and g 11 Little Harbor has explained this probably better than s
12 I'm able to. Certainly, the level of allegations is an 13 indication of the health of the cafety culture at a 14 nuclear power plant and it's part of the metrics that 15 we're evaluating and Little Harbor is looking at as 16 well.
17 I think what Helen mentioned about the l 18 ability to turn and make a dramatic change in a 19 degraded safety culture, which was our belief at 20 Millstone --
in fact, management at Millstone has
$ 21 indicated that was what they found when they came in --
1 22 is something that you don't do overnight. I think it's
[ 23 a longer-term process. It's a development of trust.
24 It's a development of, you know, trust on the part of D
V POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
k 52 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 employees that isn't earned overnight.
2 And I think we can evaluate the 3 situation as we tuink it exists today in terms of 4 programs and processes and the way they seem to be 5 working today 6 yr 'ie proof of the pudding -- and I 7 think you'd probably agree with this -- is the longer-8 term. And I suspect that in the longer-term if, in 9 fact, they've implemented programs and continue to 10 effectively implement them such that workers feel free 11 to raise safety concerns, that those kinds of numbers 12 would decrease.
13 Millstone numbers are essentially the 14 highest numbers in the United States today for the 15 submission of allegations to NRC. And I think that's 16 indicative of a long-term, long-standing problem at 17 Millstone that isn't one that is easily amenable to 18 rapid change. And, yet, some of the information that 19 we've getting from su veys that both the company and
. 20 Little Harbor are performing is that that is a change
$ 21 by virtue of the responses that are being given to I 22 probing questions about willingness to raise issues to g
l 23 management, willingness to use the ECP Program and so 24 on and so forth.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
-we,,e e, + - - - +
53 MEETI!1G RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 But is it true that there are still 2 relatively high levels of allegations being submitted 3 to NRC? I think it is true. And it has to be a factor 4 in our assessment of the overall issue of how the 5 program is being implemented and whether it can be 6 judged as effective today.
7 MR. FROMER: Well, in my opinion, until 8 in the long-term they could have significant changes 9 and have a negative slope in terms of allegations 10 coming to the NRC and you do not have to expend as much g 11 energy and the energy is done in-house with NU, I think u .
12 that Millstone should stay shut down on that issue O 13 alone until they can demonstrate --
14 (Applause) 15 MR. FROMER: -- that in the long-term 16 they can deal with the employee concerns and safety-17 conscious work environment, which apparently, from l 18 everything that you've said this evening --
it 19 indicates that while they're making an effort, they 20 have a long way to go and their effectiveness is still
$ 21 very poor in terms of being able to turn around that k 22 situation, i
[ 23 Do I give them credit for making a 24 strong effort? What else could they do? Yes, I do.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
54 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 But in terms of the public safety and in terms of the 2 facts that have come out --
and we're dealing with 3 facts. We're not dealing with speculation or rumors 4 here. In terms of the facts that have come out, the 5 public, I don't think -- I'm talking about the general 6 public. I'm not talking about the employees at 7 Millotone who try to drum up public support to open up 8 a plant because they want to P ep their jobs. It's 9 that the public doesn't have et st, at least myself as 10 a member of the public do not have trust that they can g 11 operate this plant effectively in terms of human a
12 resource management. And, therefore, until they can in 13 the long-term, they shoult 3tay shut down.
14 Thank you.
15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 MR. McKEE: I'll get to you, Don.
l 18 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
19 MR McKEE: Mr. Halloway?
20 MR. MARK HALLOWAY: Good evening. Mark
$ 21 Halloway, Niantic, Connecticut. I have a few questions i 22 here in looking over g one of the handouts that Mr.
S l 23 Markowic was so nice to show me. I notice that the 24 HIRD concerns has a basically flat line through '97 POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
55 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 with an upward spike in December and then it sort of 2 flattens off, at least through the 21st of January.
3 And then there was a note there that said " Trend 4 improving." Is -- how can we take these numbers and 5 look at this as an improving trend? This is basically 6 flat with a high spike and then flattening out again.
! 7 MR. '4cKEE: The chart you -- you know, 1
8 you described that. That's one of the -- Northeast's 9 indicators and that's their assessments. I think if 10 you look at the -- we have asked --
I mean we are --
p 11 have sv.no concerns of what is that spike in December V
12 which would -- I agree with you, would make an argument
)
13 of the trend. And that is an issue. And we've asked 14 Northeast to look into that. And they're looking into 15 that to see if there might be some rationale or cause 16 or why that may have happened.
17 MR. HALLOWAY: But even -- but, Phil,
[ 18 even without the spike, it's still basically a flat 19 line, which does not show an improvement, f 20 DR. TRAVERS: That's the same question
$ 21 we asked them.
I 22 g MR. HALLOWAY: Right. So the NRC's l 23 feeling right now -- and I'm interested in your 24 assessment -- is that that isn't an improving trend?
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
56 MEETIN R 14 I TO! UNITS ,
1 MR. McKEE: A flat line -- I would agree 2 with you. You have to look at that.
3 MR. HALLOWAY: Okay. This is --
4 MR. McKEE: We asked that question and 5 made some observations. I don't know how far back the 6 statistics -- you know, they may be referring back to 7 something that's off the graph. But from you see, I 8 agree with you.
9 MR. HALLOWAY: One thing that I noticed 10 in looking over the handouts was that I had seen a g 11 previous sheet indicating some criteria for status 12 indicators and things have changed. They haven't 13 necessarily changed in the data, but they've certainly 14 changed in the definitions given to the data.
15 Now " meets expectations" has become 16 "world-class", " Requires management action" has become 17 " acceptable for restart." Now, this, to me, is 18 troubling because I don't think that you can --
I
. 1 obviously, you can't -- you wou.Tdn't want to change the 20 data. But then when you attach different definitions
$ 21 to those data, that doesn't -- that doesn't give me a 8 22
. lot of confidence.
t l 23 MR. McKEE: I'm not sure. Is that --
24 MR. HALLOWAY: That's the Little Harbor POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 sww a w -
w -
57 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 assessment and their definitions --
2 MR, McKEE: As I mentioned, I might let 3 them explain that. Little Harbor had somewhat of a 4 different scale that they used. And although they use l 5 the same color scheme, red, yellow --
6 MR. HALLOWAY: Right.
7 MR. McKEE: I mean green, yellow, red.
8 Their expectations look at their attributes. They 9 indicated that this was an ideal. And their green 10 represents, you know, an ideal accomplishment or ideal g 11 in that environment. So the scale is higher in their e
rg 12 estimate. That --
U 13 MR. HALLOWAY: But that has changed.
14 Phil. That has changed from the report that I saw of 15 three weeks ago. Those definitions have changed.
16 There was a definition that said -- and John and I 17 talked about that. So -- here we go, John.
$ 18 MR. McKEE: I'll give John an 19 opportunity to --
20 MR. JOHN BECK: As a matter of fact, we
$ 21 did discuss that. We discussed it on Susan Perry 8
22 Luxton's show about three weeks ago. And our change of l 23 labeling on those gradations of our evaluation of 24 various performance criteria was in direct response to G
~l POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
58 MEETIN I T NE UNITS 1 questions that I got from you and from Susan Perry 2 Luxton because of the apparent confusion between 3 calling " expectation met" when that expectation was the 4 ideal. And that's our fault that we didn't do a good 5 job with making it clear thae, meeting an ideal 6 expectation in our view is world-class performance.
7 So we apologize for not doing a good job 8 in the first place of making that fact clear. And we i 9 appreciate the input that you gave us that allowed us 10 to make it clear tonight, g 11 Meeting an ideal expectation is world-U n 12 class. And as we discussed this morning on that point, V
13 we went further to say that there are a lot of 14 operating plants that operate safely that are not 15 considered to be world-class operators but they're 16 certainly responsible and safe operating plants.
17 We would expect the Millstone reactor to l 18 restart, or reactors, when they meet an acceptable 19 level of performance that's comparable to those other 20 plants around this country, meeting the same level of f 21 regulatory scrutiny and not necessarily to have to be b
= 22 world-class.
E l 23 When we set up our gradations, we're 24 also very sensitive to the fact that they ought to go O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
i 59 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
( ). JANUARY-27, 1998 4
1 beyond an acceptable level of restart and operation of 2 the facilities in their long-range strategies. And we 3 wanted to be able to make those judgments on a long-4 term basis. And, therefore, we go beyond just simply 5 being ready to restart and would look to them in our 6 continued oversight, however long that may be. to 7 continue to make progress. So that's why we've got a B wider spectrum of gradations and that's why we've made 9 the judgment that it's acceptable for restart when 10 they're at the neutrtl yellow mark with a hotizontal j 11 arrow, at least there or better. Anything below that Of 12 we don't think is acceptable for restart.
13 Is that helpful?
14 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, it's -- and I don't 15 know whether it's helpful or not, John, because my --
16 my real worry is that these definitions change as we go 17 along. I know what you're trying to tell me is that 18 they've been further amplified by this.
! 19 MR. BECK: Well, I'm trying to tell you 20 that ue changed them to be responsive to your
$ 21 suggestions and your criticism. And-if it's still not
- I-22 clear, I'll stay here as long as necessary --
l 23 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, it's --
24 MR. BECK: -- to make it clear.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
60 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MR. HALLOWAY: It's very clear to me, 2 John.
3 MR. BECK: Okay.
4 MR. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
5 A VOICE: Excuse me. Could that 6 gentleman be identified please who just spoke?
7 MR. McKEE: It's John Beck, who is 8 President of Little Harbor Consultanta.
9 MR. HALLOWAY: My next question has to 10 do with -- and, in fact, maybe we let John go too soon, g 11 But in terms of the selection of the interviewees --
U 12 A VOICE: Could we hear your questions, V( 3 13 too, please?
14 A VOICE: Louder please.
15 MR. McKEE: You've just got to hold it 16 close, Mark.
17 A VOICE: Real loud, Mark.
l 18 MR. HALLOWAY: Real loud. Yes.
19 A VOICE: That's gcod.
20 MR. HALLOWAY: My next question has a
$ 21 lot to do with how the interviewees were selected for b
= 22 these -- for these structured interviews. Were they 5
l 23 done on a random basis or were they done on a volunteer 24 basis?
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
61 MEETIN RE I TOli UNITS 1 MR. BECK: Our process and intent is to 2 get a representative sample of the entire work force at 3 Millstone. So we look at how the organization is set 4 up, how many people are in various organizations, and 5 we make a cut through the entire organization so we get 6 people from every element.
7 This time, we are also going to be 8 looking at the problem areas. And we've skewed some 9 attention in that direction so that we'd be tertain 10 that we've sampled those areas that are known to have l@ 11 some ongoing difficulties and that we've got a good 12 healthy representation in that regard.
13 As we did last summer, we will interview 14 anybody who comes forward and says, "I want to be 15 interviewed in this process." But we also record our 16 data in a fashion that allows us to include those 17 volunteers and to exclude them as we analyze the data l 18 so that we can see whether or not our bottom line has I. 19 been biased one way or the other, f 20 You know, you could say, well, people
$ 21 are going to volunteer. They're going to pack the hall b
22 and pack the ballot box and get a positive vote or vice l 23 versa. People are going to come forward with another 24 point of view. So we analyze it both ways.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
62
(} A kR 8 1 Last summer when we looked at the 2 structured interview results, there was no difference 3 between the volunteer population and the overall 4 population. So we'll be able to see that, if it is, 5 and we'll report it as such so everybody'will know.
6 So we get a representative sample. We 7 get the sample -- the people are chosen by us. There 8 will not be any duplicates other than perhaps in the 9 volunteer population from last summer. We're going to 10 get a completely different set of individuals so we g 11 don't get repetition.
0 12 Any other questions on how that's done?
L 13 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, I understand how 14 you're doing it. My concern is that you're -- in doing 15 the volunteer basis, that you will get both ends of the 16 spectrum, that you don't get -- you don't get the real 17 flavor that you'd get from a total random sampling.
18 You're going to get people that are going to feel
! 19 extremely strongly one way or the other. And that 20 could swing your data towards a very positive
$ 21 assessment or a very negative assessment.
1 22 MR. BECK: You understand that if we can 5
l 23 separate that out from all the non-volunteers, we would 24 be able to see a d.fference one way or the other.
A
\l POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
__ ._ _ _ _ . __ _ ~. . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ . - . -
63 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MR. HALLOWAY: Well, I just -- I'm not 2 sure that --
3 MR. BECK: We'll share those resulta 4 with you so you'll know --
5 MR. HALLOWAY: I'm not sure why you 6 would -- why you just wouldn't go on a straight random 7 sampling. To me, that would give you your best --
8 MR. BECK: Because we want to hear from 8
9 anybody who feels they want to come forward and talk, 10 rather than say no. If we said no, somebody would come g 11 in here and say, "I wanted to give input. But I didn't 9
12 get selected. So I got excluded. So you can't trust 13 the results."
14 (Applause) 15 MS. BILLIE GARDE: John?
16 MR. BECK: Ms. Billie Garde, who is on 17 our team, would like to add something.
{ 18 MS. GARDE: Let me just a couple of 19 things to that. I generally have been a very strong 20 advocate of random, pure random sampling for all the
$ 21 reasons that pure random sampling is generally a good
- a. 22 idea.
5 l 23 We discussed, prior to the first batch 24 of interviews that we did, whether or not to do pure POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
64 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 random sampling; take a list of employee numbers, put 2 them in the hat, spit out the numbers. And we decided 3 that that would not give us the information that we 4 needed to know across the spectrum of the whole plant.
5 And so what we've done, although they're 6 not random selections, they are selections,-you know, 7 blind selections of numbers within particular groups so 8 that every organization within the company is being t
9 sampled. Security guards, administrative, engineers 10 from this organization, engineers from that shift.
j 11 So in that context, it's not pure random e
12 sampling. But it is a blind sample across every 13 organization. And that gives us a lot of data about 14 what's going on within that particular group.- And as-15 events have occurred cince we did our structured 16 interviews, that's been valuable data to go back and 17 look at. When the MOV event occurred, we went back and j 18 pulled everybody who we looked at in the MOV event to
. l:
. 19 see what kind of information we got and kind of tested h .20 ourselves.
O
, _ . _ 21 In terms of the volunteers, I don't b
- 22 think we had -- I don't remember the exact number. But 5
l- 23 I don't think we had more than a dozen, total, 24 volunteers in the last batch. If all of a sudden we O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
65
({} AI kR 2 98 1 got 80 volunteers, that may very well lead to a kind 2 of, you know, review of that process. But in the last 3 group of interviews we did, I want to say there was 4 like eight. But it was less than a dozen people who 5 volunteered.
6 If someone wants to talk to us, though, 7 we don't want to shut the door in any way that they 8 want to contact us. And then, as he said, when we ran 9 the data, the additions of volunteers didn't change the i 10 things one way or another.
g 11 And when we report the data, we'll be 9
12 able to tell you, "Here's a run of this data with the 13 volunteers and he's a run without the volunteers."
14 On the other hand, let's say somebody 15 volunteers because they've had a very bad experience 1G and they want to make sure they're included. We don't 17 want to shut the door in their face. And as you 18 remember, last time we typed-all the text of what they
! 19 said. We want to capture that text and we want you to 20 know what that text is. So we tried to strike a really 0
, 21 thoughtful balance between purely random and knowing k
22 what's going on across the site, which would be another l 23 valid criticism, to come up with a process that makes 24 sense and provides useful and thoughtful information O POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
66 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 for analysis.
2 And we'll- just keep you posted. If we
-3 get a lot of volunteers, we'll let you know.
4 MR. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
5 NR McKEE: John?
6 You'll be next, Don.
, 7 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
8 MR. JOHN MARKOWICZ: John Markowicz from 9 Waterford. I want to go back to Bob Fromer's question 10 because I'm kind of confused as to where we're at.
g 11 If I look at that graph that was 0
12 presented this morning regarding HIRD and Employee 13 Concerns and I look at --
I'm going to- ignore the 14 December spike because I just want to do percentages a 15 second. If I look back from, say, August to January- ,
16 the number -of concerns that are being monthly 17 submitted, employee concerns, is at 15. I mean that's l 18 a ball park, plus or minus one. The number of 50.7 19 HIRD, which I would assume are the protected activity 20 ones, are around three. So that's like three, fifteen, 21 one-fifth,_20 percent.
B
= 22 Okay. Now, the question that I wasn't 5
-l 23 clear on the answers was how many allegations are you 24 receiving per month? Is it --
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 W
67 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 DR TRAVERS: We ere?
2 MR. MARKOWICZ: Yeah. Three? Is it 10?
3 Is it 20 percent? So that gets to Bob's questions.
4 Forget about the --
I don't want to -- I'm talking 5 about percentages. I want to get a rough feel. How 6 many allegations, excluding tha December spike, are you 7 getting on average since, say, August?
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: NRC now?
9 MR. MARKOWICZ: Correct. Allegations, 10 NRC allegations, g 11 MR. McKEE: I think the average is about c
12 five or six. And I think in December the number was 13 two.
14 MR. MARKOWICZ: Okay. So the number --
15 so Bob's answer is about one-third -- well, no. You'd 16 have to add up -- you've had to get 15 to 20 to add the 17 allegations in. So if you add allegations to concerns.
l 18 it's 20 per month, five go to the NRC as allegations, 19 three are HIRD. And that's the ball park. That kind 20 of answers his question.
O 21 MR. McKEE: It's about a third, yes.
1 22 MR. MARKOWICZ: Okay. Okay. I E
l 23 understand the answer then. Thank you.
24 MR. DELCORE: Donald Delcore, POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
68 l MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Uncasville, Connecticut. Some observations and some 2 questions. I look at the paat, oh, since June and I look at the occurrences which have come forth to Little 3
4 Harbor, to the Employee Concerns Program, to the
- 5 Nuclear Regulatory Commission with regard to the 6 training issue, with regard to the MOV issue, with 7 regard to the oversight issues that came up in November 8 where there was 10 individuals who had some substantial 9 problems and only because of the intervention of Little 10 Harbor was that pretty much found and there's sort of g 11 some state of resolution at this point.
9 12 The very recent issue of the Unit 3 13 Maintenance Department. The issue of -- and I didn't 14 hear any of this issue in any of the presentations of 15 late. The Nuclear Records Department had a couple of 16 individuals who were fired as a result of raising some 17 personnel sat'ety issues.
l 18 While that certainly is not relevant to 4
! 19 50.7, it is an issue which Little Harbor looks into.
20 It is an issue which Northeast looks into. And it is O
, 21 an issue of the environment with which the employees I= 22 must function.
5 l 23 Those individuals were also reviewed by 24 the Executive Review Board, which, as you know, POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
69
(]) JAN R 98 i
1 publicly NU assured both the NRC, members of the public l 2 and Little Harbor that it would take steps to ensure 3 that the cases were reviewed before the individuals 4 were fired. That certainly wasn't the case in the case 1
5 of the Nuclear Records issue.
6 If you're not up to speed on that, let 7 me recommend that you, Helen, and you, Phil, take a 8 look at that issue because it's still yet to be 9 resolved and it's indicative of what's going on at 10 Millstone with management.
$ 11 Now, with respect to that, let's go back g~ 12 and look at the fact that there was training in the s
13 September time frame which was pretty much a result of 14 the MOV and the training issues which NU claimed had to 15 be done. They went to the Ramada and they trained for 16 a whole day to get these guys up to speed.
17 But then we had the oversight issues and l 18 the maintenance issues and the Nuclear Records issues 19 and all the issues that none of us in this room know a 20 thing about and only NU knows about. Okay?
O
, 21 And I would suggest to you that the b
5 22 training wasn't adequate. And so we've had some more 5
l 23 training, another half a day of training. And I would 24 suggest to you that maybe there isn't enough training O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
70 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNT.TS
()
JANUARY 27, 1998 1 and maybe you need to look at a lot of these issues 2 that's going on.
3 But, more importantly, the issue of all 4 these things that are taking place is indicative of not 5 an atmosphere that is a relevant environment that 6 people want to be in to bring any kind of a concern 7 forward.
8 And while your position is to look at 9 50.7 issues, I think it's very, very important to 10 understand that an atmosphere that has other issues in g 11 it is indicative of the way the company does business, e
12 And until that culture is restored and a trust is 13 restored in the employees, the culture is going to 14 continue to be there.
15 Yes, as Mr. Travers pointed out, it's 16 going to be a very, very long-term issue. So I would 17 expect that we wouldn't be rushing to judgment here in 18 issuing an okay to a restart when we don't have a l-
. 19 handle on what's going on.
20 Again we're talking about Shirley 0
21 Jackson saying "A resolution to the problems, not some i
. 22 more plans and programs." So that's an important point I
l 23 that I want to make to you.
24 And there is a perception that I O
\~# POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
71 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 recognized at the meetings that 50.7 issues seem to --
2 seem to have to separate themselves from those other 3 issues. And my point about that is it's the same 4 environment and there's no separation. It might be a 5 discrimination issue with regard to race or color. It 6 may be a discrimination issue with regard to a safety -
7 personnel safety issue, the same But it's still 8 environment.
9 And when employees are screwed with, 10 without trying to use a better word, it still sends the g 11 same message. And it doesn't have to be associated 0
12 with nuclear, even though that nuclear environment 13 certainly is of interest to the NRC.
14 So the culture's got to change. And 15 there's no other way to go about it. And we will see 16 that there won't be the need for HR issues and 17 legalistic approaches and all of the other things that
{ 18 we've seen time in and time out over this whole 19 sequence. It's not necessary. You've got to change 20 the culture and change the environment. And I wouldn't O
, 21 be too quick to be giving a restart okay when we're 1
- 22 having that.
l 23 Along with those issues that I raised, 24 those series of issues which went from training all the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
1
72 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(} JANUARY 27, 1998 1 way to the most recent issue with the Maintenance 2 Department, one of- the thingt that I found -- I was a 3 person, incidentally, that was called by the two 4 individuals who were fired in the Nuclear Records .
5 Department. They didn't choose to go to the Employee 6 Concerns Program. They didn't choose to go to the boss 7 that fired them. They didn't choose to go to the 8 Executive Review Board who supposedly was going to look 9 out for them and take care of the problem. They didn't 10 go to the Employee Concerns Program and they didn't go g 11 to Little Harbor.
9 12 (g
f-They came to somebody that they didn't 13 even know. They didn't --
I never met those 14 individuals before in my life. They looked up my name 15 in the phone book and they called me and said, "We got 16 this problem."
17 Now, I relayed that information to l 18 Little Harbor and Little Harbor relayed that 19 information to NU. Little Harbor directed those 20 individuals to the Employee Concerns Program.
$ 21 You talked today about the effectiveness I. 22 of the Employee Concerns Program. How many 5
l 23 interventions have been taking place by Little Harbor 24 and those of us that have sent them to Little Harbor in O- POST REPORTING SERVICE i HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
\
73 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 lieu of people taking the option to go to the Employee 2 Concerns Program or their boss? That's a better 3 indication of the effectiveness of the Employee 4 Concerns Program.
5 Therefore, you need to get together with 6 Little Harbor and Northeast Utilities and make a 7 determination as to how many of those issues Billie 8 Garde or somebody else in the Little Harbor 9 organization has intervened. And, therefore, I suggest 10 to you that the effectiveness that we're talking about
- g 11 of the Employee Concerns Program is substantially u
fg 12 reduced because of that. Okay? In fact, my personal V
13 opinion is that there's more consulting going on than J
14 needs to be.
15 Now, I'm not an individual, even though 16 Mr. Kenyon us in my group as being "Gotcha" type people 17 -- Little Harbor's job is to observe how NU -- how the i 18 system is working and how NU deals with it. It's not 4
g
! 19 their job to notify NU that the problem exists. It's 20 not their job to help mitigate it. It's not their job
$ 21 to help mediate it.
I 22 And because of all their involvement, it g
s l 23 has effectively looked to everybody that the ECP is 24 effective, notwithstanding the job that Mr. Morgan is POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 4
74 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1
-doing because I think he's doing a good job.
2 But think the I effectiveness of the 3 Employee Concerns Program itself is undermined by -the 4 oversight group that you put in there to look at it.
5 And that needs to be changed. And I'm not trying to-6 publicly chastise Billie Garde, John Beck, John Griffin
'7 or anybody else, because they're doing a good job. But 8 I think that my observations of what goes on is that 9 they're reducing the effectiveness but it looks to 10 everybody like the ECP is getting the people and doing g 11 a better job. Big problem.
-v 12 There isn't any question in my mind that 13 the issue that Mark raised a few minutes ago -about 14 lowering the standards is an absolute, No question
-15 about it. We had a standard that says this company 16 fully meets the expectations. We changed that to a 17 world-class position and essentially took lower levels-
{ 18 that were levels that were lower before and we made 19 those acceptable. You can look at it any way you want 20 to look at it. It's a reduction of -the standards.
$ 21 It's absolutely not acceptable,
.t 22 And I think it's in response to the 5
'l 23 Union of Concerned Scientists response to what they saw 24 at the December 12 Commission meeting and- it's also a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
75 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 response to the criticism by our group towards Little 2 Harbor with regards to assigning those marks.
3 What we saw at the Commission meeting 4 was 15 out of 16 attributes that were in the yellow 5 range and only one was Fully Meets Expectations, which 6 was green. That's not at all what it looks like today.
7 Problem. So you need to address that.
8 There wm a Finding No. 5. I only wrote 9 it down as No. 5. And it deals with mutual respect l 10 that went on today and it was part of Little Harbor's g 11 review. I've got to tell you something. I worked at 9
12 Millstone for 13 years. talked a O 13 contractors. And I will I
tell to lot of you, contractors at i 14 Millstone are treated like dirt. Okay? They're 15 treated like dirt. That's not changed.
16 You can come up and show me lots of 17 examples of people that are contractors that are
{ 18 relying on keeping their job that will come forward and 19 identify to you that they're being treated properly.
20 And I can show you just as many people who will come
$ 21 forward and say they're not treated like the average 1
- 22 employee in there. They're treated like dirt.
5 l 23 That's an atmosphere that has to change.
24 And when that changes, the culture's going to change O POST R2 PORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
76 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^"u^*v 2 1* 3 1 because that's going to show an improvement in the 2 people and the way they're doing business.
3 The Executive Review Board, for my part 4 so far with regard to the issue on the Nuclear Records 5 Department, has not shown me its ability to adequately 6 review an issue of firing or termination, a letter in a 7 folder or whatever kind of discipline, because the 8 facts were before them and they still fired those two 9 individuals. It doesn't make any sense at all to me
! 10 what happened. And you really need to look into that.
$ 11 As I told you, we U
need a commitment.
(g 12 I'd like to hear a commitment tonight by Little Harbor V
13 that they're not going to involve themselves in 14 identifying issues to Northeast Utilities, that they're 15 going to take inputs from us and those of us that are 16 getting concerns and they're going to follow NU's 17 response and identification of that issue and see how l 18 they react to it and correct the problem.
- 19 But I'll tell you something. When you 20 identify it to NU -- and I'm not -- again, I'm not O
. 21 trying to say to NU "We're coing to let you find it."
l
= 22 But if we're going to show the world that they're E
l 23 effective in doing it, we need to let them find it.
24 The issue isn't that there's a "Gotcha".
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
77 JAt R 98 1 We've just got to let them find the problem so that 2 that group can effectively evaluate whether they're 3 able to handle the problem.
4 Once the problem is identified right 5 now, folks, they're going to handle it. They want to 6 start up. They'll dump every resource they have to 7
have to get that problem resolved, especially when they 8 know Little Harbor knows about it and we know about it 9 and it's going to be public.
10 But how about looking at them where they l 11 find the problem, they fix the problem and these guys
\ -
p 12 evaluate it? So I'd like to see a commitment from them O 13 that says they're not going to get involved in it.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Don, can I ask you a 15 question?
16 MR. DELCORE: Yes. !
17 DR. TRAVERS: In fairness to others who l 18 may want to ask us questions -- and we can come back to 19 you --
20 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
$ 21 DR. TRAVERS: It seems like you have k.
22 more in this segment.
E l 23 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
24 DR. TRAVERS: I'm not going to wait POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
78
(} Ali AR 98 1 until the end, but --
2 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
3 DR. TRAVERS: --
in fairness to others 4 who might want to ask questions, do you have many more?
5 MR. DELCORE: I've just got a couple 6 more conaents.
7 DR. TRAVERS: Go ahead.
8 MR. DELCORE: It does take time to solve 9 these problems. And for my part, more time's got to be 10 allotted here. We are shortening the time up and we g 11 don't want to.
2 12 There's two things we need to accomplish 13 here. Let's have more time to get a better appraisal 14 of their effectiveness in dealing with problems and 15 let's have some allotted specific period where we don't 16 see problems or we see the norm like we see in the rest 17 of the industry and again they were effective in l 18 resolving it.
19 And, again, same as I pointed out this 20 morning about the -- earlier, I mean, about the wheel
$ 21 and the Restart Assessment Plan, I think we're going I
. 22 really too fast here and we need to give them a period E
l 23 to evaluate it.
24 In closing, we brought a lot of problems fh V POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
79 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 to you. A number of them are very important aspects 2 about the ECP and workplace environment arena. I would 3 feel very comfortable, I know a lot of other people out 4 there would feel very comfortable if the NRC would 5 convey to the public that you won't allow a restart 6 until these issues are resolved. Okey? Not that they 7 7 have a plan, not that they submit something to you and 8 say, "In the long-term, we're going to have this
- 9 fixed." We would like to see them resolved. I don't 10 want to see any more plans. I don't want to see any g 11 programs. I've observed them since 1968. And I don't 12 want to see any more.
{~ I want to see it fixed. And 13 that's why I'm here.
14 Thank you.
15 DR TRAVERS: Thank you.
16 (Applause) 17 MS. NANCY BURTON: Good evening. My l 18 name is Nancy Burton. I'm an attorney --
19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Please use the 20 mike.
O
, 21 MS. BURTON: Oh, I'm sorry. Pardon me, b
22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
l 23 MS. BURTON: My name is Nancy Burton.
24 I'm an attorney. I don't live around here. I live in POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
80 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(} JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Connecticut, in Redding, Connecticut. And so I haven't 2 had occasion to read very much lately about what has 3 been going on here. But I thought the plants were shut 4 down. And I have just recently been reading that there 5 are plans by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 6 consider allowing one or more of them to restart.
7 And I must tell you to convey to you 8 from where I live, we think you people must be mad, 9 absolutely mad. I have three comments that I'd like to 10 address to remarks that have been made this evening g 11 that have just struck me as very remarkable.
s gg 12 A Mr. John Beck, who is President of the
'V 13 Little Harbor Consultants group, said here that the 14 plants here in Waterford do not have to be world-class 15 in order to be permitted to operate and generate 16 electricity, 17 I think that's what he said. And I'm l 18 sure he'll correct me if he didn't say that. But I'd 19 like him to understand that in Connecticut, we have a 20 first-class state. This isn't the Third World. New
$ 21 London, Waterford, Mystic, these are first-class b
- 22 communities and they hold the future really for 5
l 23 Connecticut with all of the possibilities for tourism 24 and all the natural beauty that is here. We are not POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 o
81 MEETIN RE I T UNITS 1 second or third-class. We are first-class.
2 And why a consultant would be permitted 3 to start at a level which is lower than tops, I don't 4 underr eand that because this is a technology which is 5 perilous and it requires absolute adherence to the 6 highest standards. Maybe he can address that. And I 7 hope he will, 8 I heard from the gentleman here on the 9 right that the level of allegations from workers at a 10 nuclear power plant is a measure of the health of the g 11 nuclear power plant.
9 g 12 Is that what I heard you say, sir?
O 13 DR. TRAVERS: It's a measure of -- it's 14 one measure that we use and are using to assess the 15 health of the safety culture or safety-conscious work 16 environment.
17 MS. BURTON: Right. That's what I
$ 18 thought you said. And you were referring to 19 allegations. The allegations by Millstone workers are 20 the highest in the United States. Is that what you 21 said?
I= 22 DR. TRAVERS: That's what I said.
5 l 23 MS. BURTON: Now, are these allegations 24 allegations which have been found to be founded?
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
82 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 DR. TRAVERS: We're recording the number 2 of allegations, not ones the that have been 3 substantiated by the agency, but just the numbar of 4 incoming allegations, alleged either technical issues 5 or harassment, intimidation, retaliation, the HIRD 6 issues, those kinds of things.
7 MS. BURTON: And have you kept a tally 8 of all the allegations that have come in?
9 DR. TRAVERS: That have come in?
10 MS, BURTON: Yes.
11 DR. TRAVERS: Yes. That's what I was 12 referring to.
O 13 MS. BURTON: Are they all investigated?
14 DR. TRAVERS: They are all evaluated, 15 yes.
16 MS. BURTON: And what proportion have 17 been found to be frivolous and without merit?
l 18 DR. TRAVERS: Don't know the number.
19 MS. BURTON: You don't know the number?
20 Have any?
$ 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, ir, our k-22 evaluation of allegations, a few turn out to be I
l 23 unimportant. But that's not --
24 A VOICE: Frivolous.
Ob POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
83 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 CHAIRPERSON LANNINGt Yes. But what is 2 more important is that we have received thq allegation. .
3 That's very important to the NRC, regardless of whether 4 or not it's proved to have merit.
5 MS. BURTON: That is quite a record to 6 have for a nuclear power plant. I was -- I'm sorry. I
'7 was listening carefully to Helen Pastis -- is it? And 8 I understand that you have been at the plant recently?
9 You were referring to December 8 through the 12th and 10 January -5 through the 9th. Was that December 1997 and g 11 January 1998? Is that correct?
.V 12 MS. PASTIS: Yes.
13 Am I also correct in my understanding 14 that during that -period of time, the plants had been 15 shut down?
16 MS. PASTIS: Mm-hmm.
17 MS BURTON: And would you agree with me i 18 that nuclear power plants do have potential for high J. - 19 danger if they're not run properly?
- f. 20 CHAIRPERSON LALNING: Stis is not -- can o
. 21 I just interrupt please a second?
l-- 22 MS. BURTON: I wish you wouldn't.
l- 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, I know. But 24 I don't really appreciate the way you're asking the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
84 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
({} JANUARY 27, 1998 1 questions.
2 MS. BURTON: Well, please don't try to
-3 restrict my verbiage. Thank you.
4 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: We're trying to 1
5 inform and be responsive to the questions. But you're 6 really not asking questions in the sense of getting 7 information.
! 18 MS, BURTON. I think I am.
9 What I'd like to know, Ms. Pastis -- '
10 excuse me. Yes -- is, if I understood you correctly, 2g 11 that during this recent period of time when~you were f . ,
12 conducting-interviews and evaluation
.O, at the plant, you 13 understood that there are still problem areas in-areas 14 that you discussed in terms of the safety-conscious l 15 work environment. Is that correct? I think that's 16 what I heard you say.
17 MR. McKEE: That's correct.
18 MS. BURTON: Yes. I thought so. And,
. 19 also, that there are continuing problems with something-20 --
a new acronym I've learned tonight, harassment, o-21 intimidation, retaliation -and discrimination. I'm ,
[- !
22 really shocked to understand that that is an acronym !
-l_ 23 that is part of your discourse in the regulation of the 24 nuclear power industry. There is no other industry I POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
85 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 that I'm aware of where there would be such an acronym 2 nor would it be permitted to exist, let alone be a 3 continuing problem, 4 So what I'm trying to say is that I'm 5 having a very hard time understanding how there can be 6 a continuing problem of harassment, intimidation, 7 retaliation, and discrimination problems with the 8 safety-conscious work environment efforts while these 9 plants are not even in operation. And I hope that you 10 will seriously consider that.
Q 11 And I want to leave time for others to 12 speak. Thank you. 4 13 DR TRAVERS: Thank you.
14 (Applause) 15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Susan? Susan 16 hasn't asked questions.
17 MS, PERRY LUXTON:- Susan Perry Luxton 18 from Waterford, Connecticut. I'd like to -- for Little I 19 Hirbor, also. But I want to a' art with the NRC because f 20 I like to.
$ 21 Let's see. Now, we're talking about c 1
22 safety-conscious work environment, Am right in g I
[ 23 understainding that Millstone remains at the top of the 24 list for allegations from the NRC on a yearly basis?
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT. (800) 262-4102 5
k
f a
86
() All AR 98 1 Isn't that what we were just talking about? They have ,
i 2 the most allegations?
3 DR. TRAVERS: That's what I said. And 4 that's correct.
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Now, if 6 Millstone is on the top of the list, what has the NRC
! 7 done in regard to what's happened in the last six 1 8 months or in the last, say, the last year regarding 9 these allegations? I want to know specifien.
10 DR. TRAVERS: Well, we've done a host of g 11 things, I mean by virtue of our programmatic look at s
12 safety-conscious work environment. But most directly, 13 in response to individual allegations, we evaluate the 14 allegations. We try to address the issue and get back 15 to the alleger to tell him how -- or her how it's being 16 df9 positioned.
17 But in the broader sense, we're here. I 18 mean there's an order that's in place at Millstone that
~I 3.
. 19 recognizes the historical problems at Millstone. The 20 plants are shut down for about two years, a little bit
$ 21 more. The NkC has a special organization that's
' I 22 focused directly on that issue, amongst others, in our l 23 Restart Assessment Plan.
24 So, hopefully, we've had some success in POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
__=
l i i
87 I O "9"Y^aNPfsl a"" l l
. 1 communicating over the months that we've been looking i
i 2 at this issue and others just what I think you're j 3 asking. And that is, you know, what are we doing.
- 4 Well, we're doing a lot.
5 We're evaluating. We've approved an 6 independent contractor to help us assess, an
- 7 independent contractor who we feel has the requisite
)
i 8 expertise that some of us don't because these areas do 9 not encompass hard requirements by the Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission. There is no 1.cquirement for a g 11 safety-conscious work environment in their development.
u 12 Nevertheless, we recognize that in the absence of one, 13 plants can develop problems that can bear on the safety 14 and operational safety of the facility.
I 15 So we've done quite a lot. We've 16 emphasized -- and I think you've heard Chairman Jackson 17 emchasize her commitment to evaluating these issues l 18 before restart. And that's, in sort of a capsule --
19 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Okay, In a broad, 20 general sense.
4
$ 2.1 DR. TRAVERS: Well, it's a little bit 22 general. But I could go on for --
l 23 MS DERRY LUXTON: Okay. Because --
24 well, I guess maybe I should have been more specific on POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102-
. , , - , - - - . . , , ,--,,,,n- - , - , - -c -
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l 88 O "9^>5^ AMU 918 1 1 my question because I see, instead -- my perspective on 2 what you've done -- I see NU has done a lot of changing 3 and they have done -- and they have made improvements. I e ,
4 I woulo admit that.
5 But I don't see you as doing much l 6 because I think you're deferring everything to Little 7 Harbor. For instance, the chilling effect. What have 8 you been doing about this chilling effect incident that l
, 9 happened with the training, in the summer of 1997 with 10 training, chilling effect? Have you done -- have you 11 talked to these allegers, these hundred allegers or 12 whatever -- okay. Twelve times six, 60 allegers. Say 4
13 you've had six allegations in a year. Have you talked 1
l 14 to those allegers? Have you investigated? Have you 15 investigated their allegations? That's what I want to 16 know.
17 DR. TRAVERS: That issue is under l 18 evaluation, in fact, by the -- by the agency.
19 MS. PERRY LUXTON: That issue is under 20 evaluation.
- $ 21 DR. TRAVERS
- That's right. That's all 1
. 22 we can say to you.
I l 23 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Let's see.
24 What is -- I don't-understand --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 4
- . - ~ . . - , . _ _
89 MEETIN R !I TO! UNITS 1 DR. TRAVERS: And the reason I can only 2 say that is because in the process that we use for 3 those evaluations, we don't talk in public about them--
4 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Oh. Okay.
5 DR. TRAVERS: -- until they're complete.
6 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right. How about 7 this? What is the NRC doing to coordinate what Little 8 Harbor Consultants has found and what is coming 9 directly to the NRC? Because there are allegations 10 coming to the NRC. Little Harbor is involved with P 11 incidents that have occurred in the last six months.
12 And so in order for the public, you and NU to get a 13 clear picture of the whole of the safety-conscious work 14 environment, if you want to use NU's term, the whole 15 culture of what's going on at Millstone, you need -- we 16 need -- you need to coordinate with them. Have you 17 done that?
18 MR. McKEE: Well, the allegations don't 19 come directly to Little Harbor. It's either -- either 20 the concerns are brought to the Employee Concerns
$ 21 Program. In some cases, issues are brought to us via,
- k. 22 you know, allegations, i
l 23 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Right. That's what I 24 mean. Allegations, Mr. McKee. Your allegations and O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
90 MEETIN R I STOllE UNITS 1 then their findings. Have you been coordinating that?
2 MR. McKEE: Well, some we've assessed 3 the allegations that have gone to the Employee Concerns 4 Program in comparison to those that coes to us. And 5 it's not necessarily a one-for-one correlation. Those
, 6 issues that go to Employee Concerns may or may not --
7 sometimes they also may be brought to the NRC.
8 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Well, I guess I'm 9 asking that, Mr. McKee, because it inspection reports I 10 have not seen lately any allegation violations or any g 11 allegations addressed in inspection reports, u
12 MR. McKEE: Yes. In inspection reports 13 you won't. You'll see that the allegation issues -- it 14 was mentioned before the process calls for our review 15 of every allegation that comes in and the follow-up 16 process. Oftentimes those iusues are covered by 17 inspections. But the inspections don't go for --
18 actually, you know, protection- of the alleger, don't
. 19 necessarily identify the alleger. But they are -- they 20 are issued and identified.
3 21 MS. PERRY LUXTON: But aren't they 1
22 identified in the inspection report as coming from an l 23 allegation or not?
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: No.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
91 Al AR 98 v 1 MR. McKEE: No.
2 MS. PERRY LUXTON: They're not? Okay..
3 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: No. That's very 4 important. There's a reason that we don't do that.
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Confidentiality?
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Exactly.
7 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: And we don't talk 9 about allegations in the public forum. May I ask --
10 MR. DELCORE: But, Phil, Little Harbor g 11 does get allegationc.
s 12 DR. TRAVERS: You're next.
13 MR. DELCORE: I know. I mean I'm 14 .
personally aware that they do get them.
15 DR. TRAVERS: All right. So --
16 MR. DELCORE: Because I've given them to 17 them. So don't say that they only go to NU and you l 18 guys.
19 MR. McKEE: Yes. But the process calls f 20 for them to, you know, transfer those, you know, to the
$ 21 Employee Concerns Program or to the NRC.
I- 22 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right. May I ask l 23 you another question about allegations? The 24 allegations that you have received, how many of them O _
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
7 92 M kRY 98 1 have been harassment, intimidation, retaliation and 2 discrimination issues? Does anyone know? '
3 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: For '97, about a 4 third.
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: A third of the how 6 many approximate, did you say?
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: 60, I think it is.
8 Well, there were a little over 60.
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: 60. Se a third of 60 10 are HIRD.
!R 11 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: They involved 12 allegations of HIRD.
13 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
14 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Of alleged 15 harassment, intimidation or chilling effect.
16 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. Okay. All 17 right. I'd like to ask Little Harbor something. I'd 18 like to speak a minute about structured interviews.
- s. 19 Your process of assessing what the safety culture is f 20 coming up , you know, your next round of structure
$ 21 interviews. I was concerned -- and I'm addressing this l 22 to John Beck. I was concerned with a memo that was l 23 sent to managers in NU, Briefing Sheet for Millstone 24 Leadership, Little Harbor Consultants Interviews, O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
93 MEETIN R fiI TO! UNITS 1 February 1998. It says " Initiating action" and then it 2 talks about the next set of structured interviews will 3 be conducted by Little Harbor on February 2 through the 4 20th and it talks about the issues.
5 What upset me the most about this -- I 6 don't mind that you're informing people, that managers 7 inform their employees that structured interviews will 8 be starting. But what did bother me about it was at 9 the bottom cf the page, there's a paragraph that said 10 ""This interview process compares the Millstone g 11 environment with key attributes of a, quote, ' ideal u
12 safety-conscious work environment.' It is a critical 13 component of Little Harbor Consultants' understanding 14 of our employees' confidence level" -- of course, this 15 is NU talking to their people now. "It's a critical 16 component of Little Harbor's understanding of our 17 employees' confidence level to raise a safety concern 18 without fear of retaliation. NRC Chairman Shirley Ann 19 Jackson said, quote, 'The Commission will not approve f 20 the restart of any of the Millstone nuclear plants
$ 21 until it is satisfied that employees feel free to raise i 22 any safety concern without the fear of retaliation.'"
g l 23 I saw that as a message in a subtle way 24 for managers to say to their workers, "We're at the POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
94 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 home stretch, guys. And Shirley Jackson says we can't 2 make it, we can't get there without employees feeling 3 free to raise safety concerns. So, in not so many 4 words, you know what you have to say."
5 Now, I don't work at Millstone, but I --
6 you know, I'm not naive, either. I mean these 7 managers, they say, " Hey". You know? Huh. And then 8 another thing is their raises are being held up for 60 9 days after the restart. So you -- so what's -- so 10 that's a disincentive to saying what you real feel, p 11 And I feel this is like an incentive to say what they u
12 think that you should say. You know what I'm saying, 13 John? I mean it may be a little thing, but it's --
14 these little things send messages to managers and 15 managers interpret them in ways and then they say that 16 to employees.
17 MR. BECK: I'll try to respond to that.
) 18 Your observation is a good one. Let me tell you what 19 our intention was. Our intention is to have as many 20 people asked to be interviewed because of the time and
$ 21 effort it takes to set up the number of people, to 1
22 select them out of the organization, 1:r send them the l 23 message. And this memo that went to management, who 24 ultimately have to release people for interviews and so O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
95 A AR 98 1 forth, was intended to encourage them to do so, period, 2 and nothing more, nothing less.
3 I'm sensitive, however -- and you did 4 let us know when you saw that that -- what your point 5 of view was. And we were responsive to that in making 6 certain that other announcements that went to che site l 7 as a whole did not mention that fact.
8 Now, it's no secret that Chairman 9 Jackson has said that. It's no secret that that's the 10 kind of accountability she's going to look for in that P 11 work force. But we made certain that, for example, c!
12 things that went out were to the point, that goes to 13 the entire site, at least as far as we were concerned 14 in our further comments, did not include that 15 particular admonition. And, for example, one that was 16 issued January 19 that went to the site as a whole that 17 covered our interviews, one that everybody on the site l 18 read, said nothing about that and --
19 MS PERRY LUXTON: So how many people 20 got this? Would you venture --
21 MR. BECK: The management, the upper-1
= 22 level managers at the site. But the people as a whole 5
l 23 got the to-the-point announcement. It did not say 24 that. I don't think it's a secret that --
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
r 96 MEETING R !I TOli UNITS 1 MS. PERRY LUXTON: I know. But that's 2 not the point.
3 MR. BECY,1 And I understand the subtlety 4 --
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: That's isn't the C point.
7 MR. BECK: --
and that's we were sure 8 that it did not get mentioned in any broad spread 9 announcement of the structured interviews. And I go 10 further, that suggestions like the one you made are il very helpful to us in doing our job in the best 12 possible way we can. We appreciate it. And are also 13 confident that you won't stop making those suggestions.
14 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Well, I -- you know, 15 that's what I'm here for. That's what we're all in the 16 public -- that's what we're here for.
17 MR. BECK: And we appreciate that, 18 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Yes. Okay. Well, I i 19 accept that. It's a little late, a little too late.
20 But -- because it's already sent out. But -. don't go
$ 21 away.
!. 22 Now, another thing I have to ask you 5
l 23 about is in regard to what Mr. Delcore said. Would you 24 commit to not being -- to not letting NU know when a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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97 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^"o^av 27 1998 1 situation arises, letting it know --
watching and 2 overseeing how NU responds to an incident and just l 3 seeing, stepping back and seeing every step of the way l 4 how they resolve or whatever they do, whatever the l 5 incident is? Coua /ou commit to that? Do you see his 6 point? I agree with it.
. 7 MR. BECK: I'm not sure I fully 8 understand it. But let me respond to his question and 9 to your reiteration.
10 As you know, we've got an oversight plan g 11 and that oversight plan was developed in response to u
12 the original NRC order issued back in the fall of 1996, 13 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right.
14 MR, BECK: In fact, we had to submit it 15 and it had to be approved by the NRC prior to our 16 beginning to implement it and do what the order asked 17 us to do.
l 18 That oversight plan defines our >
! 19 parameters for operating in this oversight function 20 And with respect to issues that come up in the course O
, 21 of our oversight activities, it states very clearly I 22 that if something is happening that we think requires g
l 23 intervention on our part, we are obligated to do so and 24 to tell the company and the public that we have done O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
98 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 it. And we have religiously exercised that obligation.
2 And until it's changed, we'll have to continue doing 3 that.
4 How, on the other hand, many, many, many 5
more times our activities are what I would consider to 6 be benign in the sense that we're doing exactly what 7 you just requested. We're watching what happens.
8 We're evaluating what happens. We say nothing to the 9 company about what's happening unless it requires 10 intervention and it does lead to recommendation our
$ 11 part that we share with you and with everyone else, u
12 including company management.
13 Until that plan in changed -- if you 14 want to suggest that it be changed and the NRC can 15 entertain it, then that's their call to make. But 16 we're obligated to address it as it's written today.
17 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Don't leave, i 18 I suggest that you change the plan according to those
. 19 lines that I just said before. And I don't want to 20 repeat it. Do you know what I mean? Are you
! 21 listening?
I 22 g Don't say anything, Mr. McKee? Wait a
[ 23 minute.
24 Do you understand what I mean? Do you O
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
99 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1
1 understand what I mean? Because give -- I'll give you 2 an example. The QA situation that occurred in 3 November, Little Harbor was reading through material 4 from the QA inspectors and they actually saw the 5 profile of exactly what Ms. Garde had written down as 6 far as her curve when the workers get to such a point 7 where they are so frustrated that you know they're 8 going to blow. And she went to you -- you guys told me 9 this yourself. I'm not --
this isn't inside 10 information, p 11 You realized when you read this thing u
12 that the QA inspectors were going to blow. And so that 13 you went to NU and said, "You have got a problem on 14 your hands here. You've got to do this. You've got to 15 do that", which they did. Which they did. Which NU 16 did.
17 Now, why shouldn't that QA have blown?
l 18 Because it's between the management and those workers.
19 If they're not handling the whole thing right, then we f 20 should see what they're not doing right and help them
$ 21 change. But not enable them like you've been doing.
1
- 22 And I know you people are only doing it out of the I
l 23 goodness of your heart for the workers maybe. You 24 know? But I don't see that they're serving their O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
100 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 proper function that the NRC would really like them to 2 do.
3 of course, you people -- they're really ,
4 doing your work l for you, as far as I'm concerned. You '
5 haven't done anything.
6 But be that as it may, I'd like to 7 change that part of the order. And I'm making a 8 request for the record for that, Do you understand 9 that? Okay.
10 Now, Mr. Beck, Mr. Beck, the second g 11 question I have for you is on the structured u
12 interviews, when someone is in the -- say I want to ',
(J~g 13 in a structured interview -- or you're going to do .
14 random sampling. Okay?
15 MR. BECK: Mm-hmm.
16 MS. PERRY LUXTON: And I'm in the 17 department, llow do I know -- do you send the secretary 18 of the manager --
do you give the manager the
. 19 information and then you tend to the secretary and the 20 secretary gives it to me? Because I got an allegation
$ 21 from somebody --
l 22 A VOICE: Speak louder.
l 23 MS. PEPRY LUXTON: -- or someono who 24 upset during -- in the plant, that this person felt O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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l 101 MEETIN R I STOli UNITS 1 that because the manager's secretary was involved with 2 passing out things or whatever, that this person 3 thought that they'd be able to ID who actually talked 4 in the structured interviews. And then when the actual 5 dialogue of the interviews were published, then the ,
6 person even had more reason to believe that that person 7 would able to be targeted as the one who said that.
8 A VOICE: Absolutely.
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: So is there a way 10 that you can make sure that it's anonymous, that don't g 11 get those managers' secretaries involved or anything?
U 12 Go directly from NU to the random people? Get the 13 gist?
i 14 MR. BECK: We're sensitive to that 15 criticism.
16 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
17 MR. BECK: Although, let me tell you l 18 that I don't know of a single incident or incidents in 19 our previous structured interviews -- and we have-made f 20 it clear to people that we --
if there is any
$ 21 indication that you've been coerced before or after the 1 22 interviews, we want to hear back from you because we l 23 explained why we're doing them and why it's important 24 that we get their unfettered views of what's happening O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
102 A AR 98 1 at that site today. And we didn*t get any feedback 2 that said anybody had been intimidated, harassed before 3 or after the interviews.
4 Now, this --
and we did use for 5 coordination purposes, because we were new at the site 6 --
we barely knew where the Men and Ladies Rooms were.
7 And as far as getting around the organization, we 8 needed some help from somebody who understood it. We 9 don't need that help any longer. And this time we're 1
l 10 doing it all from within our office. We've only sought
$g 11 cooperation by management to give us interview rooms 12 scattered around the plant where we can do them. We do 13 all the contacting and we contact the individuals 14 directly. Management does know that the process is 15 going on because when people leave their normal work
- 16 stations, they have to have permission of their 17 supervisor to do so. So it's no secret that people are
, 18 being interviewed.
, 19 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay, 20 MR. BECK: So we also are confident,
$ 21 given our experience before, that nobody is getting
$' 22 undue pressure. And certainly, there's nobody present l 23 during the interview. They're one-on-one, just us and 24 the individual employee.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
103 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. I don't think 2 the person was involved so much with coercion or 3 concern about that but more anonymity. He was -- he or 4 she was concerned about anonymir.y.
l 5 How, a question I have. You mentioned 6 problem areas. You were going to go in and deal with l 7 the problem areas. Have the problem areas increased?
8 Have any problem areas increased since you first 9 identified problems areas months ago or have they 10 diminished as in some problem areas have been -- are R 11 resolved and there's no longer problem areas or have E'
12 there been more problem areas added?
13 MR. BECK: USat we did, we passed along 14 what we consider to be problem areas as a result of 15 that first set of interviews. The company had a number 16 of others, in fact, probably more than we did 17 originally. So a list started with some -- between 30 l -18 and 40 areas that needed attention.
-g
! 19 The company's process in resolving that 20 was to identify an action plan that needed to be
$ 21 implemented to deal with whatever the particular issue 0 22 might be. And they did that. And they've been going l- 23 through the process of exercising those action plans to 24 resolve whatever the issues were.
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MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
] JA! NARY 27, 1998 1 We're watching them do that. We're 2 keeping track of what they're doing to resolve the 3 problem areas. And there are fewer of them today in a 4 so-called open condition than they started with. There 5 have been a few pop up along the way over the last 6 couple of months. Lut the net number is less than it 7 was in the beginning.
8 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. So that's the 9 --
10 MR. BECK: It's down in the teens now, 11 as I best recall.
12 MS, PERRY LUXTON: The teens of problem 13 areas?
14 MR. BECK: A few areas that they think 15 need special attention, yes.
16 MS. PERRY LUXTON: You mean in the 17 teens? There's problem areas in the teens?
18 MR. BECK: Yes. But they started
! 19 between 30 and 40.
20 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
$ 21 MR. BECK: So now it's down to 13, 12.
I 22 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
l 23 MR. BECK: I don't know.
24 MR. McKEE: I think that's one of their O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
105 MEETING R I TO!1 UNITS 1 indicators. And it's 10 is the number, I think.
2 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. So it's going 3 --
okay. All right. Nou, I don't remember being 4 simultaneously revolved -- revolved? Simultaneously 5 informed of this maintenance problem that occurred in l
6 December, January. Or I haven't heard anything more on 7 this QA thing. Now, how come everybody knows, like the 8 NRC and NU and you, but we in the public don't know 9 about this? Why haven't you informed us on this?
10 MR. BECK: We talked about it today, p 11 And perhaps Ms. Garde --
U 12 MS. GARDE: We didn't intervene, as the 13 word that you used, in the maintenance. I mean if you 14 were scripting our involvement in the maintenance issue 15 we talked about, it would be exactly what you have 16 described; as we attended all the meetings, we watched 17 it evolve and we reported on its outcome, l 18 In the context of the other two.
19 incidents that Don mentioned, the manpower incident and 20 the QC inspectors, in those two cases -- well, first --
$ 21 let's take them one by one. First of all, the manpower i 22 issue. And, Don, I want to correct a few things that l 23 you said in terms of your factual presentation.
24 I was at the ERB meeting at which those POST REPORTING SERVICE i HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
106 MBETI!JG RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 terminations were --
2 MS, PERRY LUXTONt Explain what the ERB 3 meeting is?
4 MS. GARDE:
l Executive Review Board.
5 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
6 MS. GARDE: It's the Board that was set 7 up in order to provide a check and balance to 8 disciplinary actions to ensure they're not potentially 9 retaliatory.
10 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
Q 11 MS, GARDE: The information presented at t t' 12 that meeting was that those women were not going to be 13 fired. They were going to be transferred. And the 14 information presented at the Executive Review Board 15 meeting gave no indication whatsoever that they've been 16 involved in protected activity. So, therefore, there 17 were no red flags raised at that meeting at all.
18 MS. PERRi' LUXTON: Right. But so there-
! "i - so, therefore, it didn't work.
20 MR. DELCORE: It didn't work.
$ 21 MS, PERRY LUXTON: And how come Ms.
I g
22 Pastis says it's doing such a wonderful job?
l 23 MS, GARDE: Wait, wait. It did not work 24 in that case. That's a very good example of where it O -
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
107
, MEETIN R MIRSTOli UNITS 1 didn't work. And that -- the fact that it did not work 2 in that case revealed a lot of holes in how information 3 came to the Executive Review Board and problems with 4 that process which are getting and I think have pretty 5 much gotten fixed. All right?
6 When Don called me over the weekend with 7 that information because the women had called him, I 8 didn't think that he was calling me to just tell me 9 about it. I believed, as we had discussed, he was i 10 calling me to make sure something got done about it.
4
$ 11 Our charter requires that they go to 12 ECP, That's another thing that we identified as a 13 result of the manpower incident; that is, that those 14 contractors weren't told about ECP. They had to learn 15 about the ECP from us and/or Don. Don could have sent 16 them directly to t.he company. He didn*t. I don't 17 think it's necessarily fair for you to hand them over 18 to us and then criticize us because we do anything I
. 19 about that. I don't think that's really fair. All f 20 right? I'll take fair criticism. But that one's not I 21 fair.
I 22 And in this case, we're talking about g
[ 23 two single mothers, three weeks before Christmas 24 potentially being out of a job. And when it was clear O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800)-262-4102
108 MEETIN R !IL STOli UNITS 1 to me, because I had been at that Executive Review 2 Board meeting, that the information the Executive 3 Review Board got was wrong, I passed that information 4 on to the company and said, "Little Harbor needs to 5 know why this happened." The company immediately acted 6 on thati that is, they put the people back on payroll.
7 No question that between putting them back on payroll 8 and today, it's taken far too long to try to get a 9 resolution of those issues. No dispute.
10 But you don't see Little Harbor f!! 11 protecting the company from that, those facts. Those n 12 facts are out in the public, shared with you, delivered V
13 in our message and considered in our evaluations.
14 Likewise with the QA/QC issues. How 15 that has been missed and -- how that was missed by the 16 company and how it's now been handled is definitely a 17 part of our whole overview process and overview and 18 analysis that left the company in red on the issue of 5 19 how they're handling or avoiding or dealing with HIRD 20 issues.
$ 21 I don't say -- think that Little Harbor i 22 could stand up here and commit to you we're going to l 23 let events blow, as you described, if we observe them 24 getting ready to blow. I don't think that that's O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, Cy (800) 262-4102
109
() A AR 98 1 responsible oversight.
2 That doesn't mean we're laying out a 3 path by which we're saying, "Here. Go this way. You 4 do this. We won't say anything about it. The public 5 won't know about it. It will all get covered up."
6 That's not happening. What is -- what we're observing, 7 whether or not we feel it's necessary to intervene, is 8 being incorporated and reported to you and it's being a 9 part of the analysis that we're making, And the 10 company is being held accountable.
p 11 If we were saying, "Do this and we'll 0
12 keep our mouth shut about that incident", you're right; 13 we should be fired. We're not doing that.
14 MS. PERRY LUXTON: I'm not saying you 15 should be fired.
16 MS. GARDE: No. I understand that. But 17 I want to --
l 18 MS, PERRY LUXTON: I agree with that.
19 But, number one, I don' t think we' re -- on the TV show, 20 we're getting informed. We're not getting written
$ 21 information. I have had no written information from I-
. 22 Little Harbor --
5 l 23 MS. GARDE: Since the QA/QC letter.
-24 MS. PERRY LUXTON: -- since the QA --
O POST REPORTING SERVICE _
HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 e.,-w-- -.-w,. , , . , , - ,4,,7 . -- __.__._._....m.- --y. -------.-.,.,----w- -
-m- - p--m---------.e-m -
I 110
(]) Ali AR 98 1 one letter. Nothing about the records.
2 MS. GARDE: Well, I don't think that 3 after we do the initial letter saying within the 72 4 hours we have to tell you we had such 3 meeting, we're 5 not -- we -- our protocol doesn't say we continue to 6 send you written updates about what's going on. After, 7 immediately after that, that became a part of our ;
8 public meetings. There maybe haven't been enough 9 public meetings.
10 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes.
$ 11 MS. GARDE: There maybe hasn't been 12 enough dialogue. But I don't want to assume --
13 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Then I might have 14 been under a misconception that we were going to get 15 written documentation --
16 MS. GARDE: No.
17 MS. PERRY LUXTON: --
when things 18 happened.
. 19 MS. GARDE: The written documentation is 20 when we do something that's -- when we tell the company o
. 21 something that we don't tell them in public, we send I
= 22 you a letter within 72 -- five working days?
I
[ 23 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
24 MS. GARDE: Within three working deys of O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 267-4102
111 MEETI!i R f4IL STOli UNITS '
1 when we do that. And we have followed that?
2 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Well, I think 3 --
4 MR DELCORE: And, Billie, in response 5 to your comment about those girls --
6 MS. GARDE: Women.
7 MR. DELCORE: Women. I notified you --
8 I notified you -- thank you. I notified you expecting 9 you to send them to ECP.
10 MS. GARDE: I did, g 11 MR. DELC~tRE: I did not expect you to 12 notify the company to get on it. Because Northeast 13 Utilities has been known to mitigate issues and make 14 them a lot softer than they are. And that's the 15 problem.
16 :4S. GARDE: Okay. But, Don, I notified 17 the head of the ERB --
18 MR DELCORE: I understand --
l
. 19 MS. GARDE: -- because that was a 20 safety-conscious work environment issue and the ERB had
$ 21 been had by that process.
I 22 MR. DELCORE: I understand that.
l 23 MS. GARDE: And I notified the head of 24 that Board.
I POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
2 1
11L
! MEETING RE: MILLSTC HE UNITS
() JANUARY 2/, 1990 1 MR. DELCORE: I understand that. But we ,
4 2 expected you to notify ECP and watch the company, 3 DR. TRAVERS: Don --
4 MR. McKEE: Yes, we need to move on.
5 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Okay. Thank you.
6 MR. BECK: I just have one 7 clarification. I'd like to address one issue that Mr.
8 Delcore raised obout our changing our standards. We 9 did not change the standard on whit. We simply changed 10 for clarification purposes in response to criticisms g 11 that we got from Susan Perry Luxcon's show that they D
12 didn't understand what our standards were. They hav?
13 not changed at all, World-class is still world-class.
14 Our attributes are ideal attributes.
15 And I'd like to also make one brief 16 comment about what world-class means to us. World-17 class is nirvana. It is way above the necessary 18 regulatory standards to-operate a safe nuclear power l
. 19 plant. So it's an ideal state to strive for and to try 20 to get to. Very few plants meet those kinds of o
7
. 21 standards. And, in fact, I don't know any plant that l 22 would meet all of the ideal attributes that we have set g
l 23 out as a basis for judging where the Millstone 24 environment is.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
C-1 113 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 l%$
1l But our standards haven't changed.
2 We're not going to change them. We're going to still 3 ..old them to those standards. And we're going to 4 report to you faithfully on where we think they are as 5 they continue their efforts to deserve a restart vote, f'
6 it and when it occurs.
7 DR. TRAVERS: Thank you.
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Susan, I found the 9 numbers for the alleged harassment, intimidation for
\
10 1997. So I thought I'd give you quick information 67 p 11 for '97, 24 of those were alleged HI.
9 12 OL c'y . Here's our plan. We're going to 13 take one more question and then we're going to take a 14 10 ninute break. We'll come back and resume this 15 session "' =y ?
16 Uow about the gentleman in the back?
17 MR. DURAN KAHN: My name is Duran Kahn.
l 18 I'm a Waterford resident. I'm an operating engineer.
19 I run equipment and cranes at Millstone. And I've 20 heard a ) ,t about intimidation and stuff like that.
f I o
. 21 have to comment on it.
3 g 22 I recently had an experience at Unit 2 5
l 23 whereby in my estimation the load director portion of 24 the lifting and 1.andling was inadequate. Okay? And I O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
114 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 actually refused to work with somebody, refused to do 2 the job.
3 Now, I'm a contractor. And Unit 2, 4 rather than threaten me or try to intimidate me, they 5 got us all-together and we upgraded that program. We 6 actually upgraded the procedures to meet what- we 7 thought were the proper standards because in that 8 particular case we were going to put a man in a basket l
l' 9 with the crane. And somebody-set down a load director 10 that, to me, was not qualified. They appreciated the f[ 11 help in upgrading the program, d
12 We're not easily intimidated by
'3I management, anyway. Scone, Webster or anybody =else.__
14 Okay? That's the --
the crane operators have that i
15 reputation.
16 At Unit 3, I discovered something about- ;
17 a crane that I wanted' to discuss and went to-t l 18 Operations. And Operations said to me, "Well, Duran, l 19 why don't you put it in a CR?" Now, you know, I don't 20 know -much about your technical stuff. But I said, i o 1
, 21 " Gee, a CR? You're sure you want me to write a CR?" !
l
- 22 I'm, you know, thinking it's a bad deal there. He says 5
l 23 -- Operations says, "No. Listen. The CR is -good. It 24 helps us get the job done."
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
I 115
() AN kR 2 b8 1 So, you know, I've been going to 2 Millstone for the last -- back and forth between 3 layoffs about ninr. years. I've never experienced any 4 kind of intimidation or coercion or anything else, to 5 be honest with you. And I'm talking from the point of 6 view of a Waterford 2esident and a rate payer, besides 7 being a contractor. So, you know, that's the truth 8 from my end of it. And I just had to -- after all the 9 criticism, I had to tell people noout my experience 10 there.
i g 11 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay.
gg 12 MR. KAHN: That's all I've got to say.
V 13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay. Thank you.
14 (Applause)
< 15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay. Let's 1
16 reconvene in 10 minutes.
17 (RECESS) l 18 DR. TRAVERS: We're going to reconvene 19 the session on questions, comments to -- for NRC on the 20 topic area of our assessment of the Employee Concerns
$ 21 Program. So that's the topic area that we're still b 22 involved in, responding to questions and hearing any l 23 comments.
24 MR. McKEE: Okay. We'll begin. Do we O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l l
116 AN AR
(]) 2 8 1 have more -- not to discourage people in thic area, but 2 we do have other areas we're going to cover. But we're 3 still addressing Employee Concerns, Safety-Conscious 4 Work Environment area. And it looks like we have a a
5 person with a question that's already up.
6 MR. TOM McCORMACK: The gentleman back 7 here in the black would like to go, too.
8 MR. McKEE: Okay. Could we have him, 9 you know, him first? He seems eager and I don't think 10 we've had him speak before.
$ 11 MR. TIM O'SULLIVAN: My name is Tim 12 O'Sullivan. I was probably, to my knowledge, the first 13 whistleblower at Millstone. This goes back to 1986, 14 '87. I remember it quite distinctly because I sat 15 across from the table from Jacque Durr, who was then 16 listening to our complaints with a group of people from 17 both the Maryland office and from Region 1. Excuse me.
l 18 I remember it quite distinctly because I. 19 one of the people who was a member of the dais fall
,f 20 asleep during the conversation, which gives you some O-
, 21 idea of how interested the party who was investigating 1
- 22 our claims was.
I l 23 A few comments. And I guess an apology 24 is first in order because, very frankly, I think that I O
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
117 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 thought for the longest time that the NRC were the only 2 people who give answers to s,imple questions sound like 4
3 explosions in a shingle factory. However, I think if 4 you will accept a vote of one, I must add Mr. Beck to 5 that list.
6 I'd like first of all to address a 7 comment that Mr. Beck made about Nirvana. Now, let me 8 suggest to him that when a company does not insist upon 9 quality and distinction, the results are the 10 deterioration of standards, the debasement of taste,
@ 11 shoddy workmanship, cheap politics and the turning of s
lowest common denominator.
{) 12 13 the profile of NU, but it appears That is not only the to be the profile of the 14 NRC and somewhat of Mr. Beck.
15 It's incomprehensible to me that we are 16 thinking in the space of a few weeks to start up a 17 system that 11 years ago Don Delcore, myself, Gary l 18 Johnson and John Delcore sat across the table from i 19 Jacque Durr and his genre trying to explain to them f 20 what was the problems at Millstone and they blast o
. 21 Millstone off as we being the allegers, as they once 1 called whistleblowers, by a 22 called us. We prefer to be I
l 23 the way.
24 It's incomprehensible. It is debasing
() POST REPORTING SERVICE l
l RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1 l
l 118 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 the whole system to even suggest that we are thinking 2 of starting up a system that has failed miserably over 3 the last 11 years to just even keep their house tidy, 4 not to mind rectify a severe and a debasing standard of 5 employee treatment from the standpoint of harassment 6 and intimidation.
7 I would also suggest, and hopefully lend 8 some support to the attorney from Redding who suggested 9 that Connecticut is the number one state in the union 10 as far as we're concerned. We will not allow the NRC,
$ 11 we will not allow NU to denigrate that concept. You 9
12 have not the authority. You have long ago debased what 13 I consider to be your ability to run a safe agency and 14 to control and to regulate an out-of-control nuclear 15 system at NU.
16 That's all I have to say. Thank you 17 very much.
I 18 (Applause)
I
. 19 MR. McCORMACK: Are we all set?
f 20 A caution to the Nuclear Regulatory 0
. 21 Commission. Northeast --
1 Name?
= 22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING:
E l 23 MR. McCORMACK: Oh. Tom McCormack, West 24 Hartford. A caution to you. You said you received O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l 119 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 some information from Northeast Utilities regarding 2 safety-conscious work environment and Employee 3 Concerns. My caution is that NU lies.
4 I've known NU to tell bold-faced lies 5 under oath repeatedly since at least 1986. For the 6 purpose of law, a corporation is an individual. This, 7 of course, means that not everyone at NU tells lies, 8 but many do. And the most recent example was testimony 9 by Mr. Morris himself to the Department of Public 10 Utility Control, which the attorney for the prosecutal
@ 11 -- I always get this word wrong -- the prosecutorial U
( 12 division said was patently false or Mr. Morris was 13 lying.
14 Mr. Blanche behind me has told me 15 several examples of direct NU lying to the public.
16 Other engineers have told me the same. So I caution 17 you; when NU tells you something, do so through a
! 18 filter that it may well be a lie.
- l. 19 Were you -- this lady here, your name 20 please?
o
. 21 MR. McKEE: That's Helen Pastis.
I 22 MR. McCORMACK: Pastis. Was your work g
l 23 associated with the 4001 inspection?
24 MS. PASTIS: Our evaluation used 4001 as O POST REPORTING SERVICE EAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
120 MEETIN MI TN UNITS 1 a guidance, yes.
2 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. Is that complete 3 at this point? The evaluation?
4 MS. PASTIS: The evaluation? Our 5 presence on site is complete but we're right now 6 evaluating the information and writing a report.
7 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. When do you l 8 expect that evaluation to be done?
i 9 MS. PASTIS: The report to be out 10 shortly, next month.
$ 11 MR. McCORMACK: When next nionth?
12 Please. Because this is important because Northeast 13 Utilities is giving a bunch of dates to our public 14 utility commission about the restart of Millstone 3.
15 And it's very critical to the ratepayers because we pay 16 NU about 25 million dollars a month in excessive 17 replacement power costs while those plants are out of l 18 service. This is a very crucial issue to Connecticut i
. 19 ratepayers to know about the schedule. When -- do we 20 have a date, rather than just next month?
O
. 21 MR. McKEE: Next month meeting, February I 22 g
our goal is to have it out by mid-February, the l 23 14th.
24 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. Mid-February. So O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
121 At kR
(]) 2 8 1 that's about a month late than what NU has previously 2 told our utility commission just recently. Okay.
3 Thank you.
4 MR. McKEE: I don't understand that, but 5 --
6 MR. McCORMACK: Yes. They told us --
7 they told the utility commission January 20. So we've 8 got -- we're about a month beyond that.
9 MR. McKEE: I don't know what they told 10 --
$ 11 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. All right. Now, c
12 I have a question. Mr. Reardan, who I guess he's 13 Safety-Conscious Work Environment or Safety Engineer 14 over at Millstone -- something like that. Right? Last 15 month he said that people in the Safety-Conscious Work 16 Environment were pulled into a meeting somewhere around 17 the first of December and given a list of something 18 like 16 attributes that described the safety-conscious I. 19 work environment. And I think basically he said that 20 all the people there agreed that maybe two of those O
, 21 attributes had been met. What is your reaction to 1 Safety-Conscious Work
- 22 that? If you were looking at 5
l 23 Environment, how can you say things are nice in Safety-24 Conscious Work Environment if only two of sixteen
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122-MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998-1 standards have been met?
2 MR. McKE2: That was a comment by Mr, 3 Reardan. We're looking at information and- other 4 information that we received. So, you know, I can't 5 confirm or deny what he said. I mean that's his 6 comment. And I -- I really don't know the full basis 7 of that comment.
! 8 MR. McCORMACK: Well, do you know or 9 does Little Harbor know if such a meeting ever took 10 place where Safety-Conscious Work Environment workers g 11 were given a list of 16 attributes by the company to 9-12 judge? Could Little Harbor comment? Or is it just --
- 0- 13 MS, PERRY LUXTON: have I some 14 information on that. That was a particular department 15 called-the Nuclear Safety Oversight Department that was 16 at a training . session by NU at the Ramada Inn in 17 - Norwich and they were discussing the attributes of the ll 118 Safety-Conscious Work Environment. And that's what he
-li
[ 19 said at the last meeting and that people came to the 20 conclusion that only two of them, they felt, would be
'$ 21 met or achieved. I think that's what he's referring l.- 22 to.
I g 23 MR. McCORMACK: Yes. So I mean what 24 -does that-mean to you?
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() JANUAR 98 1 MR. McKEE: We don't have that detail.
2 MS. PERRY LUXTON: It's one department, 3 Tom.
4 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. So you don't --
5 did you look -- consider that information? It wasn't 6 considered?
7 DR. TRAVERS: No. The answer is we're 8 trying to do an independent look for ourselves with 9 reliance quite heavily on the efforts of Little Harbor.
10 One department and one meeting in an afternoon at a g 11 Ramada or wherever it was, you know, we don't know what 9
12 happened, really, except for what was stated. We think 13 we've got a program that is fairly broad. And we can 14 talk about that, if you wish. But it's one that 15 includes inspections or evaluations and other things 16 and heavy reliance on the efforts of Little Harbor.
17 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. So I guess maybe Ll 18 Susan or I could get some of this information to you l '> and maybe Mr. Reardan could talk to you directly or 20 talk to Little Harbor directly about this meeting at 21 the Ramada so that's put on the record and we know --
! 22 we can confirm that it did happen and what Mr. Reardan I
l 23 is saying is either truthful or non-cruthful?
24 I have a sentence here that I want to O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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124 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 l
1 read to you. I'll tell you what it's from. It's from !
2 DPUC Financial and Operations Review of the Connecticut 3 Light & Power. It's a draft decision. It's December ;
4 31, '97. It makes this statement. ;
5 "A significant delay in restart solely 6 attributable to safety-conscious work environment 7 deficiencies would apparently be unprecedented.
8 Therefore, it does not appear likely that this issue 9 will delay restart."
10 Did I hear earlier that if the safety-11 conscious work environment deficiencies were not met, 12 that restart would be delayed or will NRC give approval O 13 to restart without this being cleared up?
14 DR. TRAVERS: The Commission -- and I 15 don't like-to speak for them because they're going to 16 decide the situation. But they've been quite clear, I 17 think, on- the matter of judging the acceptability of 18 -the safety culture, call it safety-conscious work I.. 19 environment, if you will, you know, as one of perhaps 20 the two biggest issues associated with the current f' 21 causes for the shutdown of the Millstone units.
p
.. 22 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. Well, has any.
I J 23 plant in the country ever been delayed restart because 1 24 of workers safety -- safety-conscious work environment?
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125 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
()
JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Is that an accurate statement by the DPUC? !
2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I don't know. I 3 can't comment on that.
4 MR. McCORMACK: Okay.
5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I don't know 6 whether any other plants have been delayed because of 7 that.
8 MR. McCORMACK: So we don't know. But I 9 can -- you think it might be fair to me to go back to 10 our utility commission and say the gentleman at the NRC e 11 on such-and-such a date said that it perhaps is C
~
12 unpcecedented but it certainly could delay restart?
O 13 Would that be a fair statement?
14 DR. TRAVERS: The Commission has said --
15 I'll just say it for them again.
16 MR. McCORMACK: Okay.
17 DR. TRAVERS: ". hat it could -- it will j 18 be a factor in their restart decision.
19 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. So I can 20 straighten out our utility commission then on this O
, 21 point. Thank you.
1
, 22 I have a question. Previously, I E
g 23 brought up the issue of performance objectives. And 24 it's very hard to say there's improvement if you don't
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126
() ATU R 8 1 have a base line and a starting place and then, when 2 you go to grade, you have objective criteria which 3 either are met or not met, thus a grade.
4 A very direct question. If next month's 5 meeting two individuals walk up to this microphone and 6 state --
and they have a signed sworn affidavit, 7 notarized or whatever degree possible, that they went 8 to Employee Concerns Program with a significant safety 9 issue and were told by individuals in the Employee 10 Concerns file not to raise the issue because Employee l
lg 11 Concerns did not believe -- and I'm trying to quote the
! U 12 best I can --
did not believe that they could be 13 protected from the restart team. Would that change 14 your assessment of the Employee Concerns Program and 15 the Safety-Conscious Work Environment? And would ycu 16 do something about it?
17 MR. McKEE: That's a hypothetical l 18 question. I can't respond to it. I mean that -- a 19 situation like that, we would have to look ct that 20 situation and assess it.
O 21 MR. McCORMACK: Okay. Well, hopefully, 1
. 22 these two individual will come to you. A gentleman has 5
l 23 told me privately that this happened. And I just -- if 24 you want to -- if there's a criminal investigation or O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l l
127 ;
MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS l JANUARY 27, 1998
( }.
1 if you have some mechanism and you want to bring me in l 2 and put me under oath, I will testify to this point and 3 then you can look --
4 MR. McKEE: We encourage that -- have 5 you encouraged that individual to come-forward with 6 that information.
7 MR McCORMACK: I certainly will. I 8 certainly will, because a -lot of people here are 9 concerned about making this plant safe. I'm- not 10 concerned about making this plant safe because it's not g 11 safe and it can't be safe under any conditions as shown 9 -
-12 by Three Mile Island.
It was shown by Brown's Ferry.
13 It was shown_ by Enrico Ferme that there is -no such 14 thing as a safe nuclear power plant. And I don't know 15 'how the gentleman from Little Harbor can make the 16 statement that there is such a thing.
17 Now, I don't know how many people die on-18 an annual basis from nuclear power in the United l -19 States. But I do know there's very good evidence from 20 world uranium hearings that --
^$ 21 MR. McKEE: JWe're getting a little off I. 22 track on this.
I-l 23 MR. McCORMACK: Well, a statement was 24 made about safety. It's my understanding under O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
.-~ .. . - - -- - . - _ . _ _ _ - . _ . . - . - - .
128 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 presently accepted radiation protection standards that 2 100 people die per year per plant solely from the radon 3 emitted during --
4 DR. TRAVERS: We've done this before,
,. 5 MR. McCORMACK: My --
5 DR. TRAVERS: Let's stick to Millstone 7 tonight.
8 MR, McCORMACK: Well, that's Millstone.
. 9 DR. TRAVERS: We have a lot of people 10 who are interested in --
g 11 MR McCORMACK: Don't say it's going to V
12 be safe when it's inherently unsafe.
13 DR. TRAVERS: We really, in fairness to 14 people, want to stick to Millstone.
15 (Applause) 16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Mr. Kennedy.
17 MR. MIKE KENNEDY: My name is Mike l 18 Kennedy. I'm an employee at Northeast Utilities. I-
, 19 work there as an operator and I also have part-time 2
20 collateral duty as a peer representative where I
$ 21 interface with the Employee Concerns Program when 22 someone cares to take a concern that route.
23 I'm happy I have an opportunity tonight l
24 to talk to Mr. McKee and Helen Pastis, the Special POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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129 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Projects Office, Last spring I had some involvement 2 with you with the Employee Concerns Comprehensive Plan.
3 We had problem with the linkage tables and I helped 4 work on those tables to try to make things clear.
5 I want to go back a little further in 6 the past, back when Millstone 3 was up and running.
7 And I think quite a few of us had a degree of --
8 A VOICE: Talk into the mike.
9 MR. KENNEDY: Ouite a few of us had a 10 degree of arrogance. I'll L' q"ite honest about it, g 11 We thought we were doing a good job there. When people s
12 like Paul Blanche came along and said there were 13 problems or Don Delcore, it was a little hard to, you 14 know, accept that there may be some validity to some of 15 the complaints and issues that came up.
16 And as things progressed, we ended up 27 getting on the Watch List. We ended up getting shut l 18 down. And even so, about three months after we were 19 shut down, Hub Miller came in and was talking to 20 various people. And he came up to me and, you know,
$ 21 even at that stage I was going, "I can't believe they 1
.. 22 shut us down. We were doing such a good job running.
E l 23 We went through a 54-day refueling outage. We were, 24 you know, well-trained. We do our jobs well."
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130 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 And it took a while for the reality of 2 being on the Watch List and just finding out what the 3 problems in the organization really were and trying to 4 work to fix them.
5 The arrogance has been beaten out of 6 Millstone. I believe that from the very top to the 7 very bottom that if there was any technological conceit 8 embedded in the company, I think it's been dislodged.
9 The last couple of years have been 10 tough. We've been working 60, 70-hour work weeks at g 11 that plant. And if you ever have another plant that
[ 12 it's in danger of getting on the Watch List, I think O 13 one of the most effective things you could do is get a 14 busload of Millstone people to go to that plant and let 15 them know what's going to happen if they don't get 16 their own house in order.
17 I don't think we're ready for restart 18 quite yet. I think there are still some issues out I. 19 there. I think those issues have been elaborated at 20 various meetings. But I've had the opportunicy as a f 21 worker -- I don't have an agenda. I don't feel I'm 1 22 particular a cheerleader for Northeast Utilities. I i
l 23 just want to come out and say what, you know, some good 24 things are, as well as some of the bad.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
131 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 We've had a lot of people that have 2 worked extremely hard since we've made the Watch List.
3 We've had three separate restart orders, which is 4 unprecedented in the industry. One of those restart 5 orders, as you're aware, is the Employee Concerns 6 restart order.
7 Unless we can demonstrate a healthy work 8 environment where people are free to raise concerns, I 9 don't think the Commission is going to vote on a 10 restart on Millstone 3 because we're not going to meet g 11 that order. We're working hard on that issue now.
O!
12 I think that your 4001 inspection has 13 shown that ECP has come a long way. In -nine months, 14 that went from an organization that was having great 15 difficulty in effectively dealing with concerns to what 16 I call a robust and effective organization.
17 I sent an E-mail out to Ed Morgan and to
-l- 18 the staff of ECP saying that I personally thought-19 they'd done a great job in developing that organization 20 in the last nine months.
? 21 I have a high regard for ECOP. They 1
22 started off slowly, as people have said. _But I know ll_ 23 people on the panel. They've put in a lot of work.
24 There's a lot of dedication and a lot of, you know, O POST REPORTING SE1i'CE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
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132
() kR 98 1 people up there that feel deeply in what they're doing.
2 I have a great deal of respect for the 1 people in Little Harbor as well. I find that Little 4 Harbor is an excellent oversight organization. They --
5 they're professionals. They know what they're doing.
6 And the reports they've come out with are, in my 7 opinion, very good.
8 Right now, our biggest issue is still 9 the chilling effect, rooting out, you know, the hot 10 spots that are still in the organization. Until we do g 11 that, we're not going to be ready for restart. But I gs 12 think that's cchievable in the next couple of months.
(>)
13 We see the number of those hot spots going down. I 14 think that we can get a grasp on that issue and satisfy
-15 the Commission when that time comes.
16 I know for myself that in my normal day-17 to-day job we've had discussions about how many l 18 allegations are done; how many people go to the NRC 19 with problems.
20 As a worker -- and I've seen this in
$ 21 your own interviews and in Little Harbor's interviews 1
- 22 in the work force. The general way we deal with the 5
l 23 issues is we go to the supervisor with an issue.
24 That's over 90 -- I think it was 92 the last time I O
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133 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUAPY 27, 1998 t( )
1 looked. But I think that number may go higher.
2 In the course of, you know, being in the 3 Control Room, I've on a day come up vith half a dozen 4 issues. And these issues are normally dealt with in a 4
5 routine manner. Something comes up, an evolution, a 6 question is given about, "Well, do we want to proceed
, 7 on this?" or, "Look. We're getting overloaded with 8 testing and work. We need to scale down on the work 9 load." And these things are dealt with routinely and 10 effectively.
g 11 Where there's an issue that needs to be i 5 es 12 identified by a CR or there's a question about the
>Q 13 operability of the system, I found that supervisors 14 encourage us to, you know, write the CR's.
15 I think last year I probably had maybe 16 55 CR's written. And that's not, you know, an 17 unusually high number. We've had quite a few CR's 18 written to address problems in the past. It's -- that 19 process is working, f 20 Where we have ECP involvement I think in O
, , 21 the organization right now is in some instances where 1
- 22 there's a poor supervisor / employee relationship, where 5
l 23 there's, you know, poor intent, but more typically I 24 think the ECP ,es are dealing with one department POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
134 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 having a problem arising in another department.
2 Somebody goes up for a promotion. They 3 are reviewed by a different department for suitability.
4 Denied the promotion. Somebody's had a major problem 5 with a work group in another section of the company.
6 And it's difficult to go directly through your 7 supervisor and get resolution.
8 In those cases, ECP seems to be getting 9 quite a few of those cases.
I 10 Finally, when we get to the NRC and the
$ 11 allegations, I think are problem the NRC does have with 9
r~g -12 this is that you are vulnerable to statistical O
13 manipulation. People can raise an unlimited number of 14 allegations to you and you judge the criteria as the 15 number of allegations rather than the number of 16 substantiated allegations.
17 And in that case we've had, you know, i 18 people that have done numerous allegations and only --
- 19 in some cases, people have had no allegations; you 20 know, they haven't been substantiated.
O
. 21 I think your criteria probably could be k-22 adjusted and made a better representation of people 5
l 23 going to the NRC and having an allegation substantiated 24 and using that as a yardstick rather than just the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
135
(]) A1 kR 8 1 sheer number.
2 And I thank you very much for the 3 opportunity to talk.
4 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank ycu, 5 MR. McKEE: Thank you.
6 (Applause) 7 MR. RON McKEOWW: My name is Ron 8 McKeown, I live in Niantic. Just two points. Just 9 like everyone has mentionad to you that they talk to a 10 lot of people, I talk to a lot of people as well in the g 11 community. And I just wanted to pass along to you that d
12 from what I see and from what I hear, there is a great 13 respect that the process that we're in relative to NRC 14 and closure and relative to Little Harbor, the great 15 perception of the people that I speak to suggests that 16 the process is working.
17 Millstone has been punished severely and l 18 continues to be punished. And everyone that I speak to 19 suggests the same as what you hear tonight, that safety 20 .
should not be compromised at all.
21 People have -- the reason this room is i 22
=
5 not filled with 2,000 or 5,000 people is because people l 23 believe the process is going through the process that's 24 supposed to be gone through and the process works. And O
k>
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136
(]) JAN AR 98 4
1 it is an e:cample where the government is doing the job 2 it's supposed to be doing.
3 So, contrary to all the complaining that 4' you may hear and suggestions of inappropriateness or 5 unprofessionalism, I'm here to say that there's a whole 6 lot of the regular population that has support of the 7 process that we're in and the process that you're 8 leading.
, 9 Secondly, I would suggest that the 10 public may be better served if there's more control
$ 11 over meetings like this; that many people left and 9
12 continue to leave these meetings because they do not 13 h6ve the opportunity to verbalize what they would like 14 to say, or unless it's very late at night because the 15 meetings aren't structured tight enough. Limits aren't 16 put on individuals.
17 And since it is a democracy and all 18 elements are allowed to give their opinions, it would I. 19 seem to be the fair, just and right thing to do would 20 be to create an environment so that all citizens are O
, 21 created equal and given the same opporcunity to speak l
- 22 and to hear because there's no one sitting in this room E
l 23 that could remotely suggest that there is no dialogue.
24 There's been plenty of dialogue. I --
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0 137 MEETING RE: IIILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 DR. TRAVERS: Let me just respond --
2 MR. McKEOWN: Yes.
3 DR. TRAVERS: -- quickly to that. And 4 I'd recpond in this fashion. The process that we're 5 using tonight --
6 MR. McKEOWN: Yes.
7 DR. TRAVERS: -- has been one that has 8 evolved and one that has been, for good, bad or 9 different, established based on direct input from the 10 people who attend the meetings.
$ 11 MR. McKEOWN: Right.
U fg 12 DR. TRAVERS: Several different examples V
13 of that I'll give you just off the top of my head. At 14 one point, we were asking peoplo to sign up so that we 15 could in some sort of fair system regulate and give 16 people fairly an opportunity to participate. At a 17 meeting much less attended than this one, the i 18 overwhelming majority of people spoke up and said they
.I 19 didn't want that. So we changed.
f 20 Several other things that we've done, O
, 21 including taking questions after each section, were 1
- 22 directly related to comments that we got from the 1 5 i l 23 people attending the meetings.
24 So I agree that you can construct these
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138
() JA R 2 8 1 kinds of meetings differently than the way we're doing 2 them. But we've attempted to be as responsive to the 3 people who have been coming out and sitting in on these 4 meetings, you know, month after month as we possibly L could.
6 If that's not an acceptable -- if this 7 is not viewed as a fair way to conduct the meetings --
8 and that's what we're here for, by the way, is a fair, 9 broad opportunity for as many people who want to give 10 us comments or ask us questions to do. We are still g 11 interested in those views and we're still interested in e
eg 12 carrying out the kind of meeting that people in this O
13 area who are interested in Millstone and interested in 14 getting information and giving us information war.t.
15 MR. McKEOWN: My only suggestion would 4
16 be that -- tonight some discussions -- and they were 17 good discussions and they were positive discussions at l 18 times. My only suggestion is that it's not in the 19 cumulative best interest of the public should one-on-20 one discussion go for 30, 35 minutes. I'm suggesting
$ 21 that it disccurages the vast majority of people from
. 22 attending meetings and that all people are created I
l 23 equr.1 and no one is better, even if they have more 74 facts, than other people. And tonight you had a pretty POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
139 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 good attendance and I was pleased to see people of all 2 different opinions show up. I'm only suggesting that a 3 little bit -- don't give up on the attempt to satisfy 4 the greater good. That's all. And thanks again.
5 DR. TRAVERS: Thank you.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes. Please.
7 MR. RAYMOND SHADIS: Thank you. Are we 8 back on the allegations process now?
9 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes, sir.
10 MR. SHADIS: Thank you. My name is 11 Raymond Shadis, S-h-a-d-i-s. I am from Edgeton, Maine,
~
12 here visiting friends. And I would like to offer to O 13 you in terms of dealing with allegations, particularly 14 those that are brought to NRC, that for the sake of the 15 dialectic about safety, there should be comparison to 16 the experience at other nuclear power stations.
17 I am a member of an organization called
{ 18 Friends of the Coast, which was involved in the 19 shutdown of Maine Yankee atomic power station, and also 20 a representative of the New England Coalition on f 21 Nuclear Pollution.
22 In addition to that, I serva on Maine g 23 Yankee's Advisory Decommissioning Panel. And our 24 experience has been that allegations brought to NRC ar POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
140 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 not dealt with in an expeditious and timely manner.
2 The gentleman here from the consulting 3 firm, Little Harbor, said that there is a contribution, 4 I believe -- and I'm paraphrasing here. But he said 5 there's a contribution to confidence that comes with 6 timeliness and response. An employee brings forward a 7 safety allegation and days, weeks and months go by, 8 I want to tell you in our experience in 9 Maine that we brought forward safety allegations at a 10 full commission meeting at NRC Headquarters on February
$ 11 4 of last year and on November 11, I believe it was, of 9
12' this year, same year -- excuse me -- November 11, 1997 13 we got a letter from NRC saying that these allegations 14 were still under investigation and consideration.
15 However, some of them might be aside because in the 16 meantime the plant was shut down. This was not 17 addressing safety issues.
l 18 With Millstone, you do have a record
. 19 number of allegations laid on a desk for NRC to 20 consider. One of the questioners here asked if these o
. 21 were being investigated and the response from thiu
- 22 panel was that they were being evaluated.
E l 23 Having gone through the allegations I i
24 process, I want to let everyone here know that there's j
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141 At AR 7 98 1 one heck of a difforence between an evaluation and an 2 investigation.
3 The evaluation in a p.aliminary step. I 4 don't know if -- if there in any -- anything to it 5 beyond the notion of whether or not Allegations cares 6 to handle that particular matter.
7 The worker in the meantime who han filed 8 that does get notice that the allegation han been 9 received, is under consideration, that his anonymit) 10 will be maintained, p 11 Dut then our experience is that there is v
12 a long, long dull void. A '
if NRC wants to set the 13 etandard, which they should he doing ao a regulator for 14 the industry, then I would urge you to develop a 15 process whereby real interviews take place with the 16 people making those allegations ao that they can get 17 their aide acrosa.
l 18 In our experience, our allegations wore 6
19 parsed out, separated and destroyed based on semantics, l
f 20 It was a game that was being played with the material f 21 allegations that we brought forward to dispose of them, l 22 not to deal effectively with the issues we were trying
[ 23 to raise, 11ad there been some dialogue, we could 24 possibly have constructively pacced beyond that step.
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142 MEETING RE: MILLSTODE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 l
1 In addition, I simply want to -- going 2 back to the notion of comparison to other plants, the 3 Maine Yankee atomic power station was in .994 taidely 4 advertised as a world-class plant. In 1996, March of 5 1996, the company contracted a cultural assessment team 6 report to look at the company culture. And what they 7 found with their employees who were then under a siege 8 mentality, very much afraid of the closing of the plant 9 because of its material degradation, they found that 10 their employees were making judgments as to whether or Q 11 not given issues had ,afety significance. And they 9
12 were doing this on their own intuitive sense, not by 13 any stricture er guideline.
14 And t'cr a upshot of it was that safety 15 issues passed by because of the pressure of the concern 16 for their jobs. And I just want to offer to you that 17 that is also a form of intimidation.
18 As an outside observer, I want to just I 19 remark that I was very, very pleased to see the 20 contractor crane operator come up and speak to you and 21 also the operator who did such an articulate job of I 22 expressing hio view, employee of Northeast Utilities.
g l 23 Our experience in Maine was that it was 24 not until the very final days of Maine Yankee when it O POST REPORTING SERVICE
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143 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 looked like the jig was up that employees were alle ed 2 to come out in public and talk about their experiences 3 in the plant without being vetted by the Public 4 Relations Department.
5 And it would behoove in all of these 6 meetings -- and I agree with I
the gentleman here who 7 suggested that some other forum might be necessary, 8 perhaps an extended series of t eetings because it does 9 take time to heer the people.
10 And I want to thank you for your i
$ 11 attention. If you have any questions --
12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
13 DR. TRAVERS: I'll just make one comment 14 -- '
15 (Applause) 16 DR. TRAVERS: -- on an observation you 17 made, if I may. And it has to do with my response, l 18 actually, that indicated evaluations. And when I 19 responded that way, it was a carefully chosen word and f 20 it was carefully chosen because when we discussed our
$ 21 response to allegations that might, for example,
!=
22 include HIRD issues, we don't talk about investigations I
l 23 in public. So when I responded in terms of alleg--
24 evaluations, evaluations might, for example, include POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
144 MEETIN R !I TOli U11ITS 1 any investigations that might be appropriately 2 determined by the Commission.
3 MR. SilADIS: I see. Let me just say in 4 that regard that it is the intention of the 5 organir.ation I represent to be filing a 2.206 with 6 regard to the number of outstanding allegations on the 7 Millstone docket. I think the most recent report from 8 Allegations Office had some 85 outstanding allegations, 9 of which something in excess of 50 were worker -- of 10 worker origin. And I think that the workers need to be
$ 11 heard. And not only do they need to be heard, but u
12 be* ore the plant starts, to me, just plain conservative 13 safety mentality would say you better look at what 14 these guys are talking about.
15 DR. TEAVERS: Yes. I want to respond to 16 that, as well.
17 MR. SHADIS: Certainly 18 DR. TRAVERS: I think it's important.
l
. 19 We agree with you that workers should, in fact, be 20 heard and they should be heard in a timely fashion. So o
. 21 I would just point out the distinccion between the I 22 g completion of an evaluation and us hearing from workers l 23 and the be. ginning of such an evaluation or 24 investigation, whatever it happens to be.
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145 MEETIN R !I TOli UNITS 1 We're in violent agreement, I think, on 2 one point. And that is that workers do need to be 3 heard and, if there are issues that precede restart, we 4 want to hear them before restart. We don't put off in 5 the same time frames the obtaining of the information 6 that is forthcoming.
7 MR, SHADIS: Thank you.
8 MR. HALLOWAY: As part of that, Bill, 9 what does the NRC think about --
10 DR. TRAVERS: You better come up, g 11 MR HALLOWAY: You want me to come up?
U 12 DR. TRAVERS: You better because nobody 13 can hear you.
14 MR. HALLOWAY: It's just kind of a 15 follow-on to what Mr, Shadis was saying.
16 DR, TRAVERS: Yes.
17 MR. HALLOWAY: What is the NRC doing H 18 about the process of -- you talked about expediting 0
!,l 19 these investigations to bring them to closure. Now, f 20 we've had instances of some of these going on three,
$ 21 four years. What are -- what is the NRC doing to make t=
22 sure that quicker resolution comes to these I
l 23 allegations?
24 DR. TRAVERS: Well, I don't -- I don't O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
1 14G MEETIN R !IL STO! UNITS 1 think we've talked about expediting investigations or 2 evaluations. We've said --
3 MR. HALLOWAY: No. He did. He asked --
4 DR. TRAVERS: What we have pointed to is 5 factual information that suggesta that many of them 6 aren't done. ? r,+/ a true. And --
but we have 7 information. And part of the Commission's decision-8 making process, just for your information -- I think 9 we've talked about this a little bit in the past - is 10 going to incluo any pending issues, such as HIRD, any 11 investigations or so forth that may be ongoing. The 12 Commission is getting briefed. These are not public 13 meetings because this is a sensitive information that 14 can,.in fact, be -- in fact, has to be discussed in 15 private.
16 But the Commission has indicated that it 17 fully intends to get -- even if the issue isn't closed, 18 they are going to be considering the issue, its 19 potential outcome and the significance of the issue as f 20 it could af fect the organi::ation and restart.
O
. 21 MR. HALLOWAY: So, in other worda, what l 22 l
g you're saying is there will be a status report given on l 23 each and every allegation at the time?
24 DR. TRAVERS: The Commission is, in POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
$' \
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1 fact, getting status leports in closed session on 2 important issues of this sort.
3 MR. HALLOWAY: Thank you.
- 4 MR. DELCORE
- Can I follow up on that, 5 Bill? I have a question about that.
6 DR. TRAVERS: Stre. Go ahead.
7 MR. DELCORE: If you look at the issue 8 of the MOV situation and you recognize that Northeast 9 Utilities agrees that retaliation took place, Little q
10 Harbor oversaw it and agreed that retaliation took
,Q 11 place --
maybe I'm --
you know, maybe I don't
' u 12 understand this whole thing. But how come enforcement 13 action hasn't been taken? I mean it's --
14 DR. TRAVERS: Let me --
15 MR. DELCORE: There isn't any 16 investigation that needs to be done. It's all done.
17 They've already admitted to the wrongdoing.
l 18 DR. TRAVERS: No, no, no, no. We have a 19 responsibility to independently assess these kinds of f 20 issues before we make important judgments. And that's O
. 21 what we're about.
h
= 22 MR. DELCORE: Are you saying that Little 5
l 23 Harbor and NU made the incorrect judgment on 24 retaliation?
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148 i MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Dil. TRAVERS: We're saying we're taking 2 an independent look at that situation.
3 CHAIRPERSON LAlmING: Rosemary? j 4 MS ROSEMARY BASSILAKIS: These are new 5 microphones. You don't have to turn them on.
6 DR. TRAVERS: Very nice.
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes. Aren't they a nice?
9 MS. BASSILAKIS: Good evening. Rosemary i 10 Bassilakis with the Citizens Awareness Network. A few 11 things on my pad tonight. I guess I just want to start 12 off by saying that I've learned through the grapevine 4
13 that a lot of Millstone i employees learned about the 14 possible closure of Millstone 1 in the newspaper. And 15 I believe that was wrong. I believe that they should 16 have heard that from management. And I know if my 17 company was about to shut their doors, I would want to l 18 hear about it from my company. And I think it just 19 goes to show that there's still room for improvement 20 with situations like that.
$ 21 As far as the Safety-Conscious Work I 22 Environment indicators, as Mr. Beck discussed this
- g 1
l 23 evening, I'm very uncomfortable with changing the 24 nomenclature and the grading and what not. And I just O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
149 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 want to leave it at that. I understand that you're 2 implying that people misunderstood. And I'm very 3 uncomfortable with that.
4 The whole issue about Little Harbor 5 Consultants -- and I know Susan Perry Luxton brought 6 this up, as far as them being advisors and consultants 7 and intervening. I think the point that we can't lose 8 is that the reason this concerns us so much is that 9 what's going to happen when Little Harbor goes away.
! 10 This is the real issue.
g 11 No, we don't want to see situations 12 blown out of proportion. And, in fact, we're glad 13 Little Harbor's there to intervene. However, 14 situations will blow out of proportion when Little 15 Harbor leaves if Northeast Utilities hasn't been able 16 to develop the abilities to have a safety-conscious 17 work environment, to recognize chilling issues and deal l- 18 with them in an effective and quick manner. So this is 19 the issue.
20 So what I'd like to bring to you
$ 21 gentlemen is where is it written that Little Harbor i
g 22 will have to stay on frr a designated period of time?
3 l 23 MR. McKEE: I'll answer the last -- your 24 last portion first and I'd like to respond to a couple POST REPORTING GERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
150 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^"u^av 2 1998 1 of other areas.
2 Actually, the order that -- on Employee 3 Concerns and Safety-Conscious Work Environment 4 specifies that the NRC, until the situation is deemed 5 to be corrected, that the third-party organization 6 would stay in place. And it's not amplified in the 7 cover letter that that time would be a time for many 8 months that would extend certainly beyond the restart 9 of the initial unit.
10 As Helen mentioned in her summary of her
$ 11 findings -- and I don't think you were -- you weren't U
12 here for that.
13 MS. BASSILAKIS: No.
14 MR. McKEF.: One of the things that we 15 identified during our evaluation, something that we 16 found was the development of the long-term plans by 17 Northeast and how they're going to deal and maintain an 18 environment where they're going to continue monitoring 8 19 and looking for any degradations to their program and f 20 addressing that and maintaining indicators. And
$ 21 certainly part of that is their assessment of Little 1
22 Harbor. But it's the NRC that will ultimately make the l 23 decision on the determination or the availability of 24 determination of the licensee to consider --
to O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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l 151 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 maintain Little Harbor beyond when we think it's 2 necessary. And that's going to be -- even in our 3 evaluation plan, we've mentioned a time of at least 4 several months, six months and possibly a process, you 5 know, following that.
6 I'd just like to mention I know the 7 topic was -- brought up earlier is the fact of Little 8 Harbor's influence in several of these events. And 9 then there's -- Billie Garde mentioned that is one of 10 the reasonc at least Little Harbor has -- and even the p 11 licensee has identified that they haven't made it to U
q 12 the level they want to be in that safety-conscious or
%)
13 dealing with problem areas. And their intervention and 14 need for their influence in those situations is a cig 15 factor. And that is a continuing, you know, 16 detenniaation .
17 At our meeting today when we met and l 18 discussed the status, a big factor, and I thought was l
8 19 an interesting factor, is that a lot of those events 20 and incidents that were being monitored by Little l$ 21 Harbor and no influence where there are evidence of l 22 dealing with these issues in a more comprehensive and l l 23 better manner. And there's a number of places like 24 that. And I think that's part of the criteria, really,
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152 i MEETIN R: !I STO!!E UNITS l 1 in the ensuing several weeks and looking at the past, 2 of the fact of whether they do influence or have 3 recommendations to further events of the type of tne ;
l 4 MOV and training issues that we saw, you know, late 5 last summer or last fall. ;
6 MS. BASSILAKIS: One of the things that 7 we have requested, both our organization and some other 8 organizations, is that there be allowed a dry run prior 9 to start-up where NU could demonstrate their ability to 10 maintain a safety-conscious work environment without g 11 Little Harbor's intervention, I just want to put that s
12 out, 13 I looked through the overheads real 14 quickly from Little Harbor's meeting. And I --
15 apparently, 75 percent of the workers who have used the 16 Employee Concerns Program at this point are willing to 17 re-use it again, which is a big difference from just l 18 last month.
19 And so I was wondering if they could 20 comment briefly on why workers previously weren't 3 21 willing to re-use and why the change has come forward 1 22 in such a short period of time?
l 23 MR. McKEE: I'll let Little Harbor 24 answer that. But, you know, I think they're -- well, O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) .1C2-4102
153 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 go ahead. I won't say it.
2 MS. GARDE: Rosemary, I think that 3 probably the main reason is that the first batch of 4 those statistics was based on contact from the 5 employees whose concerns were closed out prior to 6 September. Or was it -- Prior to September. And that 7 group of Employee Concerns files included a lot of 8 files that had been open for a very, very long period 9 of times that is, concerns that were there when the new 10 ECP effort started and had been closed over that period g 11 of time. So you had people who werc dissatisfied with 12 the process if for no other reason than the length of 13 time that it was taking to deal with those issues. And 14 some of those issues had, frankly, just sat on the 15 shelf for a long time. So resolving them in a 16 satisfactory manner was not real easy.
17 The newer concerns, people that were i 18 looked at-in the newer concerns, are more -- are done
. 19 under the newer program. It's basically about an 83-f 20 percent satisfaction rate. And we see that the efforts
$ 21 that ECP has made to be timely and to move these things I 22 along has been producing results. It's not 100 g
[ 23 percent. But my own feeling is as I would call 24 somebody who had a concern that was, you know, a year O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
i 154
({} JA i AR ' 2 98 l
1 and a half old, you know, I wasn't surprised when they 2 said not only "No", but " Hell, no, I'm not going back 3 there."
4 Interestingly enough, though, some of 5 those people who said they wouldn't go back there 6 actually have referred people to there that are now 7 some concernees. So this is an evolving iusue.
8 MS. BASSILAKIS: Well, I'm glad to hear 9 that there's been improvement. It will be interesting 10 to watch over the next couple of months --
lg 11 MS. GARDE: Right. It will be.
12 MS. BASSILAKIS: -- because they should 13 be able to maintain the status then. But I think it's j 14 in everybody's best interest that there's an effective
- 15 Employee Concerns Program.
- 16 Mr. Shadis from Maine brought up the
].
17 issue of comparison from, you know, the different 18 reactors as far as allegations go. I'm just curious
)I, 19 what -- it looks like from the transparencies that were f 20 handed out earlier today that I guess at Millstone
$ 21 there's probably somewhere around 13 a month, 15 a 1
22 month?
'l 23 DR. TRAVERS: Five or six.
24 MS. BASSILAKIS: Five or six? Really?
O POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
i 155 JA! AR 98 1 MR. McKEE: Well, that's -- the 13 or 15 2 a month, you're probably thinking of the Employeo 3 Concerns losues that go to the Employee Concerns 4 Program. That's about that number. The number of 5 allegations is the five or six.
6 MS. BASSILAKIS: That's what I was 7 thinking. I was just wondering how it compares to the, 8 you know, national average.
9 DR. TRAVERS: It's the highest.
10 MS. BASSILAKIS: It's the highest. Well p 11 --
and this may have been mentioned earlier. But as u
12 far as striving for a steady trend indicator and that 13 being a success, you know, exemplifies success as long 14 as they're not going up, they should clearly be going 15 way down, if that's the case. That's what I would call 6
16 a success story.
17 Lastly, I'm just a little bit confused l 18 about the issue of condition reports. It looks like 19 that they're striving to have condition reportu 20 evaluated within about 30 days. And they're getting
$ 21 close to that number. They're at about 75 percent of 8
22 them get evaluated within 30 days. Right?
l 23 DR. TRAVERS: Yes.
24 MS. BASSILAKIS: Okay. They want to O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l 156 MEETIN R !I RSTO!E UNITS 1 achieve 95 percent. They also look at whether or not i
2 they evaluated them correctly, you know, from a scale 3 of zero to four, one to four. And they're at the 4 number three, which means they're doing a pretty good 5 job.
6 What -- what concerns me is that in the 7 most recent inspection report it talks about condition a reports having less than adequate corrective action 9 plans. So I'm just wondering where does corrective 10 action plan in terms of the condition report -- where g 11 does that fit into this whole story? Because if you u
12 look at this story, it looks like the condition reports 13 are going well. But if I look in the inspection report 14 from January 9, it's saying that the corrective action 15 plans for the condition reports aren't quite there yet.
16 So if you could just comment on that?
17 DR. TRAVERS: Yes. I think what you're 18 -- well, I know whht you're looking at is an individual ,
f 19 --
I think broadly, most broadly, you reference two 20 things. One is NU's indication of where they think
$ 21 they stand. And you've indicated an individual
= 22 instance of part of our program to look at Corrective t
[ 23 Actions and how well it's functioning. It's a very 24 broad program and it encompasses not only the things O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
157 MEETI!JG RE: MILLSTO!1E UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 you'll see ir, the routine inspection reports but 2 evaluations being made in connection ..ith the ICAVP 3 findings. It's going to include a Special Team 4 Inspection 4500, which is going to be occurring --
5 when?
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Starting February l
7 9.
8
,DR. TRAVERS: The 9th of February, you 9 know, acheduled. This was put off because of the 10 licensea's identification of their not being ready for g 11 it.
u 12 But, you know, in the broadest sense, 13 that's one -- that's an issue we identified. And we're 14 looking at this program because we think it's 15 fundamental. And corrective actions are fundamental 16 not only to the issues but to . employee concerns and 17 safety-conscious work environment in the sense that if l 18 you had a handle on corrective actions, if you're 19 implementing an effective program, in my view many, if 20 not all, of the problems at Millstone that have caused
$ 21 the shutdown to be so extensive wouldn't have existed, k
22 I mean if you implement a Corrective Action Program l 23 effectively, if you handle worker concerns in a prompt 24 way, effectively, you encompass the full scope of --
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158 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 and it's big. It's not an easy thing. That's why 2 Wayne developed his famous wheel, to indicate how many 3 aruas are touched by whether or not you have an 4 effective Corrective Action Program.
5 So this is certainly, you know, one 6 finding that we noted in that routine inspection 7 report. We have not yet completed our assessment of 8 Corrective Action Program. We have indications of l
9 positive findings. For example, in our reviews of 10 Significant Item List packages we've indicated that we p 11 are finding those packages to be high quality and u
12 contain correct, in our estimation, corrective action, 13 not just for the issue but the broader implications are 14 being addressed as well.
15 So it's really a very large area. We 16 have positives and negatives identified through the 17 last year and a half or two years and documented in l 18 inspection reports. We have yet to come to a final 19 programmatic conclusion about corrective actions and we 20 won't until after our team inspection on 4500.
'$ 21 MS. BASSILAKIS: Thanks. That's it.
I 22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Let's discuss our l 23 plan for the rest of the evening. What I'd like to do 24 is for those folks who have not asked a question and O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
159 ,
(]) AT AR 98 i l
1 have a question about the safety-conscious work 2 environment, I'd like to hear those. And then after 3 those folks have asked those questions, let's move on 4 to the Independent Corrective Action Program part of 5 tonight's agenda because I really want to get to 6 Susan's question about corrective actions because it's 7 a very important question and I want an opportunity to 8 answer that. So is that agreeable? Okay.
9 So for those who have not asked a 10 question tonight aboat the safety-conscious work g 11 environment and have a question, raise your hand. Yes, u
12 This gentleman in the very back.
13 MR. McKEE: The other mike. Yes. It's 14 on. You just have to be close.
15 MR. BOB WYSOCKI: Okay. Bob Wysocki 16 from Block Point, Niantic. A question. I would like 17 to know -- I've been asking different places where I 18 could buy a meter to monitor what's coming out of the I
. 19 nuclear power plant? You know, where a guy could have .
J
- f. 20 a meter to monitor, you know, what the increase,
$ 21 hopefully not, of the radiation.
I 22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Can we talk to you l 23 after the meeting? And we'll try to get you an answer 24 to that question.
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160 MEETING RE !I LSTOlE UNITS 1 MR. WYSOCKI Okay.
2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I don't think we 3 know inanuf acturers. Yes. You need to know equipment 4 or something.
5 MR. WYSOCKI: Yes. Right. Right.
< 6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes. So I don't 7 have -- can we get to afterwards --
i 8 MR. WYSOCKI: Yes.
9 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- and get you an 10 answer?
g 11 MR. WYSOCKI: Right. Okay. And there's 12 another question over there. Why can't you monitor 13 like from anywhere from the way it is, red, yellow and 14 green? Why don't you have something like a 15 thermometer? You know, as you're improving it will go l 16 up to green or if you're going lower, you go lower.
17 You know? Put it in the paper every day, publish it.
, 18 Okay. Thank you.
I 19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
20 MR. McKEE: Thank you.
$ 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: How about this
' t 22 lady in the front row here? You haven't had a question
- } 23 at all tonight.
24 MS. MITZI BOWMAN: I'm not sure you're POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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161 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 going to allow me to talk because I don't know really 2 what the agenda prevents me --
3 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: We're on safety-4 conscious --
5 MS. BOWMAN: Prevents me from saying.
- 6 That's what I'm saying.
7 My name is Mit::1 Bowman and I come from 8 New Haven. I have been working and listening for many 9 years to the NRC and to Northeast Utilities and coming 10 to these hearings and these conversations, g 11 I'm really concerned workers safety t!
12 concerns are not aufficient, in my view, to cover the 13 problems of whether or not to open the Millstones.
14 I've been watching the NRC over a number 15 of years and I've been reading the Federal Register.
16 And I've been finding that your standards, the 17 standards of the Commission, have been deteriorating i 18 over the years, that every time I open up one of your 19 Federal Registers I find relapsing standards. Among 20 some of the things that I'm learning about is the
$ 21 recycling of radioactive metals into the community.
k-22 So I have very little confidence that I
l 23 once you decide to open those plants again after their 24 miserable record of releasing radiation into the POST REbORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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162 i MEETING RE:-MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 communities, three million curies in one year, 1975, 2 and then other releases before and after that, that you 3 are going to watch the workers safety concerns in an 4 adequate manner and that you're going to act in an 5 expeditious manner to correct any incipient dangers to 6 the public, as well as to the workers.
7 Now, I have a lot of respect for the 8 workers and I know how important it is to keep a job 9 and how terrible it is to have to risk your employment 10 even if the industry you're working in is hurting g 11 people outside, so there's a lot of denial here. And 59 12 people -- I heard someone say that nobody dies from 13 nuclear power plants. Well --
14 A VOICE: No one has.
15 MS. BOWMAN: Well, actually, the 16 authorities themselves have admitted to deaths from 17 nuclear power. So -- from the releases. So we know l 18 that the cumulative releases of radioactive materJ.als -
19 - and I'm --
please let me finish. That the91 f- 20 cumulative releases do cause cancers. They do cause
$ 21 immune disorders. So we know about that. And that has 1
- 22 been admitted by the authorities. So even though you -
l l 23 - your denial, the workers' denials, psychological fear 24 of accepting that, make them not want to believe it.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
o 163 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 These are the facts.
2 It seems to me that the oversight by the 3 NRC has been dilatory from way back. And as I recall a i
4 couple of years ago, a few year ago coming to these 5 meetings, that the NRC was known to have been aware of 6 Millstone's lack of safety concern for I think the 7 statement was 12 yearL.
8 DR. TRAVERS: I'm going to have to --
l 9 MS. BOWMAN: But that's -- all right.
10 DR. TRAVERS: I'm going to have to ask--
g 11 MS. BOWMAN: Yes.
12 DR. TRAVERS: If you're unfamiliar with 13 the format we use, let me just tell you what it is 14 because we may not have made it as clear as we should.
15 We're in a session now where we're asking people who f 16 are interested in giving un comments or making us 17 questions about Employee Concerns Program, Safety-l 18 Conscious Work Environment.
19 MS, BOWMAN: Mm-hmm.
20 MR. McKEE: As far as I can tell, you're
$ 21 not. Very L.ach on track to either.
I 22 MS. BOWMAN: Well, that's what I'm l 23 talking about is workers' safety concerns and --
24 MR. McKEE: We're -- but let me --
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i l
5 164 {
() JAli ARY 98 1 MS. BOWMAN: -- an NRC tha't is not going 2 to address those workers' safety concerns after the t
3 plants' reopening.
4 MR. McKEE: In fad,rness to people who --
5 (Applause) 4 6 MR. McKEE: In Cairness to people who 1
i 7 want to ask questions on that topic, what we -- well, 8 the way we structure these meetings is we'll stay past 9 midnight, and we often do, to - -
10 MS, BOWMAN: Yes. But I can't. I come i f 11 from New Haven, s
12 MR. McKEE: I'm sorry about that. But
- 13 wt re in a session now where we are really focused and 14 want to take -- because people have planned to come 15 here and ask us questions on this topic.
16 MS, BOWMAN: Well, I think I've said j 17 what I had to say.
l ll 18 MR. McKEE: Thank you.
-h l( 19 MS. BOWMAN: And I just want to remind f 20 you that we don't --
we in the community don't have
-O
. 21 confidence that the NRC will be properly addressing the l 22 workers' safety concerns or the community's 4
g safety
[- 23 concerns in the future. So that's what I have to say, 24 MR. McKEE: Thank you.
J
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() Ai AR 98 1 (Applause) 2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: John?
3 MR. MARKOWICZ: John Markowicz from 4 Wdterford, Connecticut, I'd like to just respond to 5 some of the comments that were made earlier regarding 6 the criteria that Little Harbor is using for their 7 evaluation of attributes.
8 The first time I heard them speak to 9 that was at the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner's 10 meeting, public meeting in Rockville. Don was there.
g 11 Most of you folks were here. And then I heard it again U
12 I think it was the 17th of December here at a public 13 meeting. Again, it was Little Harbor making a 14 presentation.
15 And my recollection of those positions 16 from Little Harbor was they came up with a scale of 17 from green to red and there were five blocks. The top 18 one was green, than there were three yellow and then
- I. 19 there was red. And the three yellow were brokan down 20 further. The middle yellow had nothing in it, the
$ 21 upper-level yellow had a plus and the lower-level l
. 22 yellow had a minus.
1
[ 23 And Chairman Jackson, when she 8 tarted 24 that meeting, said, "I want, in response to my O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
166 Al RY 98 1 questions, reports from the presenters as to whether 2 things are SAT for restart, UNSAT for restart or how 3 are they trending?" And, therefore, in response to 4 that, when Little Harbor came up to present, they 5 indicated as a group that they had as a consensus G identified that the acceptable, the SAT standard for 7 restart was anything that they put in a criteria box of 8 yellow, neither plus or minus; in other words, it was a 9 middle-range yellow.
10 Now, there's been some discussion
$ 11 tonight about w%et green means. But what I'm trying to
'J 12 put on the record as my recollection of that meeting 13 and the meeting on the 17th -- and I'm reinforcing what 14 John -- what Mr. Beck said earlier. That the standard 15 that was established at the Commissioner's meeting and 16 then restated here at a public meeting in December and 17 as stated this afternoon at NU and here this evening 18 has not changed.
I; 19 Thank you.
f 20 MR. McKEE: Thank you.
0-
. 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Mr. Fromer.
= 22 MR. FROMER: Robert Fromer, New London, I
l 23 Connecticut. I want to comment on something that was 24 said earlier by Mr. Markowic: relative to a statement, C2
\2 POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
l 167 MEETIN R MIRSTOli UNITS 1 questions that I had said.
2 First of all, when I asked my question 3 of Dr. Thayer, you gave me a complete answer in what I 4 was looking for. Perhaps Mr. Markowicz felt a need to 5 elaborate, to respond to concerns on his own part. But 6 I definitely don't need a mouthpiece to interpret how 7 answers are given to me and how I accept them or 8 respond to them or how I understand them. That happens 9 to be a pattern. And so I want to state here for the 10 record you answered my question. Okay?
g 11 DR. TRAVERS: I would inject only a u
12 little bit of information. I know you haven't asked me 13 for it. My name is Travers, 14 MR. FROMER: Travers. I'm sorry.
15 Sorry.
16 Okay. Now, the question I have for you 17 is, Dr. Travers, with respect to the number of l 18 outstanding allegations that are under investigation 19 because I think we need to put this into perspective.
20 Is how many investigators does your NRC at King of
$ 21 Prussia have to handle allegations?
l
. 22 DR. TRAVERS: I don't know,
[ 23 MR. FROMER: See, that's -- that's a 24 point because if there's considerable time delay POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
, - . - , . . . - - - .. --, -.. -- ~ , n... - _ -
168 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 required to investigate, write reports, analyze and 2 evaluate and if it's moving at this slow a pace, 3 perhaps serious consideration should be given by the 4 HRC to increase the number of investigators so you can 5 expedite the3e investigations.
6 DR. TRAVERS: I was being flip. And 7 Wayne knows, because he works out of the King of 8 Prussia office, that there's less than 10 in that 9 office. Just to give you a number, 10 MR. FROMER: Okay. So if there's less 11 than 10 and they're going at this very slow pace, has 12 any serious consideration been given to increase the 13 budget or hiring on more investigators?
14 DR. TRAVERS: I can't answer it 15 directly. But I will tell you that the agency hangs at 16 budget time every year, considers a whole host- of 17 issues. And I would expect I can speak very clearly on l 18 this without any real knowledge of it, but to suggest 19 that the Director of the Office of Investigations at 20 budget time each year raises the issue of resources in f 21 discussion. But I don't have a --
- t. 22 MR. FROMER: I think this is --
5 l 23 DR. TRAVERS: I don't have a direct 24 understanding of how he does it or what his basis for O COST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
169 g JA kR 98 1 doing it is.
2 MR. FROMER: See, the thing is that 3 given the concern of the public and, also, the 4 employees in terms of resolution, I think considerable 5 input and pressure could be brought to bear by the 6 public and the employees at budget time with the NRC 7 and also with the U.S. Congress to encourage. increasing 8 the budget to increase the number of investigators so 9 that you can perform your duties and obligations under 10 the law as expeditiously as possible because people 11 have legitimate concerns here, but I think they're in 12 many cases ignorant about your resources and your 13 circumstances and your limitations as to what you can 14 do. So perhaps the public can support your efforts to 15 increase the number of inspectors.
16 Now, one of the things that has come out 17 here with respect to a situation where the CRC and Mr.
18 Don Delcore have people coming "o
. them based on 7
19 ignorance, whether contractors or otherwise, and f 20 they're directing these people to Little Harbor or I 21 they're directipi them to the Employee Concerns k-22 Program.
l 23 It seems like these four different 24 people are performing two roles. In one case, they're e POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
170 g M RY 8 1 acting as ombudspeople and also oversigl> ;arsonnel 2 where Little Harbor's role is not to do that, by their 3 own charter, with NU.
4 It would seem that the way to z.lleviate 5 this duality of duties would be to perhaps charter the 6
CRC or Mr. Delcore by the NRC without any pay or maybe 7 with some pay --
I don't know. That would have to be 8 worked out --
where they would serve in an ombudsman 9 role.
10 Now, the U.S. Navy has a very successful
$ 11 ombudsman program and the sub base has it. And perhaps 9
12 the NRC should contact the Base Commander to explore 13 the ombudsman program to see how it workr: what its 14 functions and purposes are, and how successful it is.
15 Because I think in this area, something needs to be 16 done.
17 Now, for example, Infoline, which is a l 28 private organi::ation tut provides information about
. 19 resources in Connecticut, I seriously doubt that they f 20 are providing information to people who are trying to
. 21 find assistance or help wici respect to nuclear energy I
= 22 pro u*lems or with respect to nuclear problems, like 5
l 23 contractors.
24 So maybe they could be the ombudsperson G POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
171 Q M kR 98 1 and then they could put ads in the newspaper, on TV and 2 circulate flyers around Millstone to say, " Hey, if you 3 don' t know what to do, where to ( ) end who to see, come 4 to us and we'll point you in the direction."
5 LHC should not be doing this. They 6 should strictly be impartial observers who report and l
l 7 evaluate. And like was brought up this evening, when 8 they -- when they go away, what do you have?
9 And so what I'm suggesting is a vehicle 2
10 that you could have in place so that when they do go g 11 away, there isn't a void. There isn't this vacuum u
12 that's created. Now, you may want to give very-serious 13 consideration to that.
14 Now, one final point that I want to make 15 is that the Employee Concerns Program, which is a 16 safety-conscious issue, is really an issue that I've 17 addressed previously at many separate occasions and Mr.
l 18 Durr, under questioning from me in the past, has given
. 19 us a quan-- given us a number relative to this factor.
f 20 The reliability and the availability of O
. 21 Millstone operations is driven and controlled by human
! 22
= either reliability or human unreliability. Mr. Durr E
[ 23 said that 50 percent, at least -- and I would say more, 24 90 percent of the problems are human problems -- human
() POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
172 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS ll) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 error problems. Someone did something they weren't 2 supposed to do, should have done something. And this 3 goes clear across the board.
4 Now, the desire, the purpose of what 5 you're trying to do is increase the availability in a 6 safe way of Millstone and to -- and in order to do 7 that, it is absolutely essential to reduce and minimize 8 the human unreliability.
9 Now, I've said this before and I'll say
!I 10 it again. There is no way that a nuclear power plant
$ 11 .
can be safe because you cannot guarantee human u
12 reliability. But what you can do at best is minimize 13l the unreliability of humans. And that's what you are 14 focusing -- your direction is geared towards. Okay?
15 And so I still maintain you can never 16 have safe nuclear power. But if you're going to have 17 nuclear power, the idea is to reduce that. And a
$ 19 measure of the reduction of human unreliability in the 19' Employee Concerns area is the reduction of the number 20 of allegations coming to you because the employees have
. 21 trust and confidence that their supervisors and their
- 22 managers are seriously listening in a credible way L E
l 23 those concerns and they're going to do everything 24 physically possible to realize those concerns O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
173 ll) HAT RY 98 1 irrespective of cost. And so until that can occur, 1
2 these power plants should not start up.
3 Thank you.
4 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
5 Okay. Mr. Imbro, who has been extremely 6 quiet tonight.
7 MR. GENE IMBRO: My name is Gene Imbro.
8 I'm Deputy Director of ICAVP Oversight. That's the 9 Independent Corrective Action Verification Program. I 10 wanted to try and give you quickly a status of where g 11 the program implementation is. It's kind of late, so 2
12 I'll try and ba brief.
13 As you know, for Unit 3 the ICAVP is 14 looking at 15 of the 88 systems. Unit 3 ICAVP is 15 nearing completion. Sargent & Lundy is winding up, 16 winding up their reviews. I believe they're still 17 looking at some corrective actions and some i 18 modifications for the RSS, recirculation spray system.
19 But I think the projected completion f 20 would be some time towards the end of the month or sort
. 21 of -- or towards mid-February when they' re going to be
! 22 done, g
s l 23 Now, we --
again, we're doing an 24 oversight of Sargent & Lundy and Parsons as well. But G POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
174 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS ll) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 we've -- where we are now is we have completed our out-2 of-scope inspection. We had an enforcement conference 3 several weeks ago. Two issues primarily that came up 4 for --
in the enforcement conference were the air-5 binding issue for the safety injection pumps and also 6 the leakage of -- back-leakage from valves tnat would 7 isolate the radioactive fluid from flowing back to the 8 refueling water storage tank after loss of coolant 9 accident.
10 Wnat we found after some length of time, g 11 the leakage issue had been identified by NU back in S
12 June and they somehow did not remember that they had 13 identified that, so didn't tell us until very shortly 14 before the enforcement conference. So that issue is --
15 again, was already identified by the licensee.
16 The air-binding issue we felt was a--
17 you know, a concern to us certainly because it really l 18 questioned the operability of the safety injection 19 pimps.
20 After a long study, both analytical and
. 21 lacoratory tests, Northeast Utilities concluded that
! 22 g the pumps would have been able to pass the air without 5
l 23 impairing the functionality or the continued 24 operability of the pumps. Again, that's something that G POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
175 kR 98 ,
1 they described at the meeting, for those of you that 2 were here, I think we need to take a look at that 3 again.
4 But, in any case, those two issues are 5 still being discussed among our staff and the 6 enforcement action yet is not finalized.
7 For our in fection, again, we have the -
8 -
the ICAVP oversight is kind of a multi-faceted 9 approach. " include 3 the out-of-scope inspection that 10 7 "ust talket cout. It also included -- includes an
$ 11 inspection of Tier 2, Tier 3, Sargent & Lundy program, d
12 That inspection, Tier 2, Tier 3 inspection, has been 13 completed. We're going to have a public exit tomorrow 14 at 9:00 in the Training Center for anyone who wants to l
15 attend.
16 We're also looking at the Tier 1, 17 Sargent & Lundy evaluation. That inspection is in i 18 process now. We're probably looking -- that inspection i
. 19 will be completed at Sargent & Lundy February 6 with f 20 the teams on site here now. We v411 probably be O
. 21 looking for a public exit meeting on that as well some 22 time towards mid to late February.
l 23 One more inspection after that will be 24 we're going to conduct a corrective action inspection.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
176 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS x JANUARY 27, 1998 1 And that's going to be to evaluate the corrective 2 actions that NU has taken both with regard to the 31 Sargent & Lundy issues and plus, additionally, issues 4 that have come about as part of the Configuration 5 Marrgement Plan that NU has self-identified. So we're 6 going to look at both facets, both facets of that.
7 And we're also going to look at some l 8 other corrective actions that NU has taken in response 9 to this issue of air-binding of the safety injection 10 pumps. NU has stated that the reason that this was not g 11 identified by them -- and that was certainly a concern S
12 to us with regard to the efficacy of the Configuration 13 Management Plan they conducted -- was that the way 14 their program was set up, it didn't necessarily look at 15 system operation from starting after an accident. It 16 turas out that the recirculation spray system is a dry 17 lay-up system. And that really hadn't been evaluated A by them.
I
. 19 What they have done, at least as they f 2C explained to the enforcement conference, is they have -
O
, 21 - they've, quote, " completed this additional effort of k-22 an eight-person team comprised of design engineers and 5
l 23 operators to look at actually the way the system starts 24 up and operates."
O'- POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800; 262-4102
177 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
-([ JANUARY 27, 1998 1 So-that- area, at least as explained to 2 us, appears to have been re-evaluated by NU. And I 3 think they've identified -- they've identified some 4 additional areas that they're going to fix. However, 5
we need to overview that to make sure that then the CMP 6 program is complete. So that's going to be a part of 7 our Corrective Action Program, is going to be to 8 evaluate the NU corrective actions and how they enhance 9 their CMP as a result of-this inspection formulating.
10 Okay. Let me give you some -- still on g- 11 Unit 3 --
some statistics. And I think- these are W-12 probably as of today or yesterday.
0- 13 The total number of preliminary DR's --
14 and I stress preliminary. And what preliminary means 15 is that they've been_ issued by Sargent & Lundy based on 16 the information available to Sargent & Lundy. They-17 have not all been evaluated by NU yet. In fact, 18 McLaughlin had not.
4
, 19 So the total preliminary number of DR's 20 issued is 974. Of those 974 issued, Sargent & Lundy
$ 21 has closed 120, which means that Sargent & Lundy has 1 -
22 looked at the NU response, has agreed that NU has 5
l 23 adequately responded to the issue.
24 So closed would mean that they --
it O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
178
() AN R 98 1 would fall into three categories. These are -- they 2 could be either confirmed DR's, which means that, yes, 3 it's -- all agree that this is a problem that needs to 4 be fixed. They could be pre-identified, which would 5 mean that NU has presented information to Sargent &
6 Lundy indicating that NU had pre-identified the 7 problem. And -- or the third case would be they could l
8 be issues that on further information provided by NU 9 are not really problematic at all.
10 So, to go back, 974 preliminary DR's
$ 11 issued, 120 closed, 54 confirmed. And, again, 9
12 conf! ad meane that this -- both agree that --
or NU 13 agreas that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, i 14 To further elaborate on the 54 15 confirmed, 53 of those were Level 4. And, again, Level 16 4, as some of you know, is below the threshold of 17 regulatory concern on an individual level, which means l 18 that these issues are not really in non-conformance
. 19 with regard to the licensing basis. But there are f 20 minor editorial errors, minor calculational errors that O
. 21 don't affect the results of the calculation, minor b
= 22 document inconsistencies that don't cause a safety 5
l 23 concern. Again, they need to be fixed, not -- but not 24 -- but they're not an issue of non-conformance with the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
179
() MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 licensing basis. So of the 54, only one le a licensing 2 basis issue.
3 Unit 2. Unit 2 is not nearly as far 4 along. Parsons has done (indiscernible) Sargent &
5 Lundy. They started later, as you know. We have 6 performed an implementation inspection at Parsons to 7 evaluate whether or not Parsons is --
or how well 8
Parsons is implemented the order plan that was approved 9 by NRC. The report should be out next week.
10 Essentially, we've concluded that Parsons is doing a g 11 reasonable job in implementing 9
the order pla1. So we 12 have no question with their implementation.
13 I don't have as detailed information and 14 stats on Unit 2. But as of about a week ago, there 15 were about 170 preliminary DR's issued and 20 of those 16 were closed.
17 Mr. Markowic ?
{ 18 MR. MARKOWICZ: Under your Unit 3, do 19 you have the invalid? Do you have the rest of the 20 numbers of the 120? You said 54 were confirmed. Can
$ 21 you finish out to get to 120?
I. 22 MR. IMBRO: Let's see.
5 l 23 MR. MARKOWICZ: Do you have that?
24 MR. IMBRO: Okay. Well, the 974 --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
~_ ---_
180 At kR 8 1 MR. MARKOWICZ: No. Down to 120 -- 54 2 colifirmed . So it's the --
3 MR. IMBRO: Oh. No, I don't have that 4 in front of me. But I can get it for you. That's no 5 problem. I don't have that breakdown.
6 i
MS. PERRY LUXTON: What about 854?
7 A VOICE: 854.
8 MS, PERRY LUXTON: What happened to 854?
9 They're not closed? What are they?
10 MR. IMBRO: They're still in the 11 process.
12 MS, PERRY LUXTON: They're evaluating --
13 MR. IMBRO: Yes. Yes. They're not 14 going to be forgott0a. Believe me.
15 DR. TR.TVERS: Gene, can I just add one 16 thing to what you said on Level 4? Just so we -- we've 17 talked about this before, but let me just reiterate it.
l 18 Even though individual Lt.el 4 findings
. 19 are not significant, they are being evaluated. And the f 20 reason they're included in the scope of this review is O
. 21 we want to in the aggregate see if they present a trend
= 22 that suggests the need to perhaps expand our look or E
l 23 have the licensee do something more in the context of 24 their program.
POST REPOR iNG SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 u
181
() JA1 R 2 8 i So, in addition to individual Level 4 2 findings, we are attempting to assess whether or nat 3 there is any significance to the aggregate. And an 4 example of that might be, you know, if you look at how 5 many opportunities there might have been in a 6 particular area to find a finding, that might suggest 7 in a relative proportion whether or not that's a 8 problem. If you look in a particular area, mechanical 9 discipline, sedimentation and control, for example, you 10 might suggest that if you got an unreasonable or an g 11 alarming rate of identified insignificant, relatively 12 insignificant issues but itevertheless issues in one 13 area, that we might -- that might suggest either us or 14 they looking for -- or, fet example, if these findings 15 showed up in particular documents, FSAR or some other 16 particular type of document that the licensee produces, 17 it might suggest a need to go out and look at those
$ 18 documents.
- l. 19 So, in addition to recognizing the 20 relative low significance of Level 4's, we're O
. 21 attempting to assess the impact or the meaning, if k=
22 there is any, in the aggregate findings.
5 l 23 MR. IMBRO: Yes? Please.
24 MR. JOE NAZAR: What is the oblig --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
182 (g) AllkR 9 8 1 MR. IMBRO: Come on. Come up.
2 MR. NAZAR: What is the obligation to 3 close --
4 MR. IMBRO: Please come up and -- people 5 can't hear you. And they can't record you on tape.
6 They'd like to hear j<ur voice.
7 MR. NAZAR: Hi. Joe Nazar, Pittsburgh, 8 Pennsylvania. My question is to the 974 DR's. What is 9 the agreement in terms of bringing those to final 10 adjudication prior to any vote for restart?
g 11 MR. IMBRO: Well, they're going to be U
12 evaluated through the NU restart evaluation process, 13 So not all -- I mean clearly if it's an issue where it 14 involves a non-conformance with the plant's licensing 15 basis, those will be completed -- corrective actions 16 will be completed before restart.
17 Some of the issues, for example, the l 18 Level 4's, they're, again, they're not really non-19 conformance with the licensing basis. They need to 20 recognize that there are some mistakes out there that I 21 need to be fixed and they're correct those. And we're ig 22 going to them track to make sure that they get s
l 23 completed. But those may not be completed prior to 24 restart and there would be no need to.
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
183 lll AlikR 9 8 1 However, I mean, as Dr. Travers said, if 2 there are so programmatic implications that out of the 3 Level 4 trending, those --
that type of programmatic 4 issue would need to be resolved prior to restart.
5 MR. NAZAR: So then if --
(({ 6 MR. IMBRO: But the individual -- the 7 individual issues for Level 4's may not be completed --
8 all may not be completed before restart.
9 MR. NAZAR: So then if I understand you 10 correctly, the balance of 850 DR's, the preliminary
@ 11 level, will ultimately -- NU and Sargent & Lundy will d
12 come to an agreement as to their level and 13 significance, et cetera, prior to the NRC making --
14 looking at all the data and then making generalizations 15 and conclusions --
16 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
17 MR. NAZAR: -- based on that.
18 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
I. 19 MR. NAZAR: And thea. that will happen 20 prior to the tentative restart vote in April?
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: That's right. They're going i 22 to go -- all DR's g will go through the process betore s
l 23 restart. All I'm saying is that the actual corrective 24 --
physical corrective action making all these POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
184 g M R 98 1 editorial corrections may not necessarily be done 2 before restart.
3 MR. NAZAR: I'm just surprised, given 4 the rate of closure so far, that NU seems to feel it ,
5 has sufficient resources to meet the April vote date, 6 given that there are 700 still open.
7 MR. IMBRO: I mean, clearly, there's a 8 challenge. There's a lot of work here on the table.
9 But that's sotrathing that they need to address.
10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: John? Bill?
R 11 DR. TRAVERS: Can I j ust make a comment, 0
12 John? After your question and answer, I would propose, 13 if people will indulge me a few minutes, to add a 14 little bit something to our previous discussions about 15 ICAVP and the process the staff is using to assess 16 whether or not and what kind of expansion of ICAVP 17 scope might be appropriate.
$ 18 We've done some thinking. We've had 19 some criticisms of that in the 9ast. We've had a lot 20 of discussion at that meeting. 'ad if I may, I'd like
$ 21 to take an opportunity to talk about that just briefly.
1
- 22 MR. MARKOWICZ: This is John Markowicz 5
l 23 again, also known as Mouthpiece. Gene, could you 24 explain exactly -- if you do this trending of the Level POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
185 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 4's and you've closed out Tier 2 and Tier 3, which are 2 programmatic, could you explain logically what the 3 relationship may or may not be and how you would deal 4 with it? Because, you clearly, if end up with a 5 trending from Level 4 that's programmatic and you've 6 closed out Tier 2 and Tier 3 and they're programmatic 7 issues, it kind of makes you wonder about Tier 2 Tier 8 3. I'm asking for a logical explanation --
9 MR. IMBRO: Okay. Yes.
10 MR. MARKOWICZ: --
of how that's going
$ 11 to tie tegether.
U 12 MR. IMBRO: I'm trying to relate this.
13 I mean all of the Level 4 issues could come out of Tier 14 1, Tier 2 or Tier 3, 15 MR. MARKOWICZ: Oh. Okay.
16 MR. IMBRO: So I mean there would be --
17 so what we're doing is we're looking at the DR's no l 18 matter where they come from, from whatever aspect of I. 19 the Sargent & Lundy review. We'll try and put -- we f 20 have a relational data base set up in access. And so 0
, 21 what we're trying to look for are trends.
1
= 22 For example, if there are a large number 5
l 23 of calculational errors in the mechanical engineering 24 area, then that may suggest that NU may need to go back POST RFPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
186
({} A kR 98 1
and do some broader review in that area to see if there 2 are any significant problems that come up. I mean it 3 may go back and find, " Gee. Okay. There are other 4 minor errors. But there don't seem to be any -- you 5 know, no safety issues come for the fore." So it's 6 that kind of thing we're looking at.
7 So it's not really a Tier 1, Tier 2, 8 Tier 3. But it's really a combination of all. So 9 we're looking at things like errors perhaps in the FSAR 10 or drawing errors or field installation errors or some g 11 things --
things of that sort where you could say s
12 "There seems to be a weakness here. We haven't really 13 found a safety problem based on -- because they're t
I 14 Level 4's. But, still, it would peak our interest to 15 say maybe we should look more in that area because 16 maybe there is something there that's been missed.
17 MR. MARKOWICZ: So I guess what I'm hung l 18 up on is the word " programmatic." My understanding was 19 Tier 3 kind of looked --
20 MR. IMBRO: Oh.
$ 21 MR. MARKOWICZ: Tier 2 and 3 looked at
- b. 22 programmatic. And so when you say --
I
[ 23 MR. IMBRO: I'm sorry.
24 MR. MARKOWICZ: -- programmatic trending O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
187 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS lg) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 of Tier 1 Level 4's, I'm wondering --
g 2 MR. IMBRO: No. You're right. And 3 that's a good question. I probably should clarify.
4 Tier 3 did look at programmatic areas in terms of 5 commercial grade dedication, Master Grippens part list, 6 set point control, those types of things. What we 7 suggested -- and the trending is not so much errors in 8 those particular programs but othe' types of things, 9 like specific types of errors in documents or a large 10 number of arithmetical errors in calculations. I guess g 11 maybe programmatic is a bad word. But it's -- maybe 0
12 generic is a better word for that.
13 DR. TRAVERS: John, before you leave, 14 let me suggest two possible paths in Level 4 for the 15 identification of trends and any follow-up that we 16 might have.
17 Path No. 1 is based on numerous Level 4 18 findings. Corrective actions will be developed the l
. 19 licensee. The expectation in any good Corrective 20 Action Program isn't that -- not just that issue, but
$ 21 the broader implications of that issue be assessed by l 22
- the licensee.
s l 23 So Path 1 goes something like this.
24 Before we ever developed conce about a trend, the O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
188 MEETIN R 14 I TO!E UNITS 1 licensee does the very same thing. It addresses in its 2 planned corrective actions both the correction of that 3 issue and the broader question.
4 In that event, it's my expectation that 5 we would independently verify that they were doing that
] 6 and that we would not, quote, unquote, " expand the 7 ICAVP" as a consequence.
8 Path No. 2 would be in the aggregate I_ 9 again, Level 4 findings indicate some sort of trend R 10 which we identify and which the licensee's Corrective
$ 11 Action Program does not assess and hasn't e.ssess?d.
9 12 In that instance, we might likely do 13 something independent. We might ask Sargent & Lundy to 14 do something. We might turn it on the licensee to do 15 something. You know, it's sort of an expectation that 16 we would confirm that the necessary actions are taken 17 somehow, some way, and that in this case, it could work l 18 different ways.
19 MR. MARKOWICZ: I understand.
20 DR. TRAVERS: And that leads in to what e
. 21 I wanted to discuss for just a few minutes. You can
!- 22 sit down, if you'd like. You may have questions after E
l 23 I say my piece.
24 We have had a lot of opportunities and O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
189 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS lll JANUARY 27, 1998 1 Mr. Delcore and Mr. Markowicz and others in the 2 audience to discuss from the very outset the construct 3 of our ICAVP Program. The order, of course, was issued 4 in August of '96. And since the issuance of that 5 order, the NRC staff here really has been charged with ll[ 6 how we were going to -- you know, how we were going to k) 7 sort of dictate the boundaries of that program. We've s
8 done a lot of work to do that.
9 And back in January of '97 in a paper, M 10 we identified, consintent with the purpose of this
$ 11 order, which was to conform that the licensee met its
'J 12 licensing design basis, that our program and its 13 acceptance criteria for assessing performance of the 14 utility in assuring that same thing was going to use 15 that as the acceptance criteria for our program.
16 We've had a lot of discussion about that 17 and whether tnat's a reasonable thing to do. But that l 18 was the way the order was constructed and that was the 19 fundc. mental acceptance criteria, regulatory standard, f 20 if you will, that the staff has been using.
. 21 Nevertheless, when we attempted to come
!- 22 before the public at meetings such as this and describe 5
l 23 what we were doing, a legitimate concern in my mind 24 arose from people who attend our meetings. And that e POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
190 Al R 98 1 concern had to do with, "Well, can you explain in more 2 detail how you are going to implement that program and 3 under what circumstances you might expand the scope of 4 what you originally are doing?" You know, we picked 15 5 --
people have talked about four systems. That's not 6 right. There are 15 systems being evaluated under 7 ICAVP.
8 But that aside, you can argue whether 15 9 or four is enough. But, nevertheless, we received a l 10 criticism and we attempted in public meetings to reect g 11 to that criticism, to present what was in our mind, at
- 9 12 least, as to how we were going to proceed as we were 13 faced with the inevitable findings that we expected 14 fully to find in the course of our examination.
15 And in doing that, we developed four 16 levels of significance that correlate to those original 17 definitions in our January Commission Paper of defect; l 18 in other words, something that demonstrates a non-I. 19 conformance with the licensing basis, and deficiency, f 20 something that we're going to look for but doesn't --
O
, 21 and those four levels of significance, fully consistent l 22 with those original definitions, at least for Level 3 l 23 indicated that for the first three levels of 24 significance any finding would be categorized either as POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 l
1
191 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
- JANUARY 27, 1998 1 something that conformed or didn't conform with the 2 licensing basis.
3 Three levels of non-conforming 4 categories were developed, Levels 1, Levels 2, ana 5 Levels 3. The fourth level is the one we've just been 6 discussing. And it has to do with any findings that 7 fell below that regulatory standard of conformance with 8 the licensing basis. And we said that even though that 9 was tha case, we were going to look for them anyhow 10 because we -- we recognized that multiple examples of 11 that kind of thing could put into question the l
12 licensing basis in areas that we hadn't looked.
13 What was requested, in ;ny 14 characterization, at some of the meetings was something 15 more. And we attempted to further, in addition to 16 identifying the categories or significance levels of 17 the kinds of findings that might occur, we attempted to-l 18 describe the corresponding NRC actions that would 19 result or could result or would likely result from 20 identified findings of those different levels of C
. 21 significance.
22 So we discussed those at a public g
l 23 meeting as well. And the criticism we got, and I think 24 it certainly still exists in the minds of several, and POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
Mt-192 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 many perhaps, was that we had put corresponding NRC 2 actions that were not automatic, were not prescriptive i 3 enough, were not definite enough, left wiggle room or 4 were vague.
5 And we held and continue to hold to the 6 view that that's an appropriate reaction or that's an
, 7 appropriate way to carry out these complex licensing 8 and design basis level reviews because automatir 9 thresholds -- we're saying if you get "X" number of j 10 those or "Y" number of these, you're going to react in g 11 exactly this way or exactly that way, didn't strike us u
12 as something that we could legitimately predeterminate 13 in advance of having reviewed the significance of the 14 finding and the corrective actions being implemented by 15 the licensee and so on.
16 Nevertheless, for Le* 31 1 we indicated 17 that NRC would likely pick a whole new system, likely l 18 pick a whole other system to expand ICAVP if we got one 19 Level 1 finding. But that was likely. It didn't say 20 definitely. It said likely.
. 21 Level 2. Level 2 -- well, I should tell b
- 22 you what Level 1 is. Level 1 is the failure of an 3
l 23 entire safety system, both trains if they're redundant.
24 Level 2 involves the failure of one O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
193 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS lgg JANUARY 27, 1998 1 train of a multiple-train safety system. And for Level 2 2, we said again the NRC would likely expand the ICAVP 3 scope, not so much to pick a whole other system this 4 time, but to identify in other systems or evaluate in 5 other systems potential similar non-conformances.
6 Again, we said likely. And we were not -- we did not 7 commit any further than that to what we would do.
8 And in Level 3, we indicated that we 9 would assess those issues and the resultant corrective 10 actions on the part of the licensee to make a similar g 11 determination, would -- in fact, in this case, instead V
12 of saying likely, we say could result in the expansion 13 of scope to look for similar non-conformances in other 14 systems.
15 And, again, we just discussed Level 4.
16 In? in Level 4, we said we would look for trends.
17 We have recei' red some additional l 18 criticism of late for that. And it's in an Office of 19 the Inspector General Report that suggested that that 20 approach is, in fact, vague and not very helpful. We
$ 21 have looked at that criticism and your criticism and b
- 22 we've -- we are attempting, and we're going to try to 5
l 23 document some additional discussion of our intentions 24 as we have been carrying out this program.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
194 lgg All R 98 1 And I thought I'd just touch on each one 2 of those for you, if I may, to give you a sense of what 3 we're trying to do. Basically, or sort of 4 fundamentally, without giving you the details -- and 5 those we're going to try to document in letters to
))} 6 NEAC, to the ICAVP contractors and to NU. And 7 certainly they're going to receive b" cad public 8 distribution.
9 But the fundamental objectives and what 10 the additional discussion would indicate has to do with
$ 11 making clear references to our regulatory standards u
12 that we use every day, Appendix B, Criterion 16, 13 Generic Letter 91-18 which discusses non-conformances 14 and how utilities deal with disposition of non-15 conformances.
16 The second thing we tried to do is make 17 more specific the process. Who has the authority? Who l 18 has the responsibility? Who gets briefed on findings?
19 How quickly are decisions made on expansion of scope?
20 How are they documented?
. 21 We are going to further explain the
- 22 process we're using for assessing the effectiveness of E
l 23 corrective actions in reaching decisions on whether or 24 not to expand the ICAVP scope. Corrective actions, we O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
195 MEETING R MI E UNITS 1 think, are fundamental to this process. Perhaps not so 2 much in Levels 1 and 2, but certainly in Levels 3 and 3 4. Again, in Levels 1 and 2, absent -- I'll give you 4 an example, 5 In Level 1, we're going to document 6 that, absent an Executive Director for Operations' 7 determination that we don't expand the ICAVP scope by 8 picking another system, we're going to. So we're go!.ng 9 to document that as a position or a likely, you know, 10 likely position.
g 11 Level 2, we'd do something similar but c
12 it would target the Director of the Office Nuclear 13 Reactor Regulation as the negative, you know, person 14 who would have to intervene in such an expansion of j 15 scope.
16 Again, generally, what we're going to 17 discuss and document emphasizes that when we look at l 18 corrective actions in our ICAVP determinations on 19 whether or not to expand scope, we're looking at them 20 from the context of an independent verification by the O
4
, 21 NRC staff. We're not just going to rely cn what NU g 22 says it's doing relative to the performance of s
l 23 corrective actions.
24 And lastly, it will further discuss in O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
196
(]} JAN R 2 8 1 both Levels 3 and Levels 4 how we're going to be 2 looking at the aggregate of findings. I think I've 3 just discussed for Level 4 how that would be done. And 4 we're going to do exactly the same kind of process --
4 5 it's always been in our -- you knew, we've always 6 talked about this, but we're going to try to further 7 discuss it and document the appr; ch that we've been 8 using for assessing the --
sort of the aggregate of 9 multiple Level 3 or multiple Level 4 findings.
10 So we recognize the value. I've always g 11 recognized it. In clearly communicating what our t
12 intentions are, I don't know that we're always perfect 13 in how we go about it. I'm not sure that we'll be 14 perfect this time. But we wanted to take the 15 opportunity in the face of the opportunities we've had 16 up here to discuss this with you to document what we're 17 doing and how we' re doing it a little bit better. And l 18 so we're looking to do that in the relative near term.
19 And we'll certainly be open to discuss it at future 20 public meetings or answer any questions you might have
$ 21 tonight about that as well.
1 22
. MR. PETER BOWMAN: My name is Peter 5
4 l 23 Bowman. I'm from New Haven. I worked as an engineer 24 for some 30-odd years. And one of the necessities for O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
197 MEETIll RE !I TOli UNITS 1 the job that I was always told was that one was able to 2 produce simple and concise reports, easily understood.
3 And I don't think I would have lasted very long in the 4 job ths" I was in if I needed three pages of acronyms 5 to produce the report.
6 That enid, the thing . hat I'm -- that 7 bothers me about all this is that the 88 systems here -
8 -
I don't know what all the systems are. But I think 9 it was Don Delcore said that four of the systems have 10 been looked at and the NRC is saying, well, they're g 11 loing to look at 15.
'J 12 Well, taking even the 15, what I would 13 like to know and what I would like to get information 14 on are the 73 systems that are not being looked at.
15 And in respect to the safety of the plant, how do they 16 rate with the systems that are being examined? I mean 17 if these are lesser safety level or greater safety 18 level or are they picked by random? And I think we 1 19 need to know what these systems are and what relation 20 they have to t.he systems that are being examined.
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: Let me try and answer that. j i 22 The way the systems were picked were -- we used several
[ 23 criteria. First we used risk. So we try and pick --
24 so the more important systems in tccms of accident O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEU, CT (800) 262-4102
198
- MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 mitigation functions so that systems that were 2 important from a risk standpoint.
3 Secondly, we tried to pick systems tnat 4 were more complex. We'd be more apt to find problems ,
5 there. Also, we tried to pick systems that had been 6 modified since original license or extensively modified 7 since original license. Again, more likely to find 8 errors.
9 So we used a number of -- a number of 10 criteria co try and pick a representative sample of 4
g 11 systems that were significant.
U 12 Further, the fact that Sargent & Lundy 13 has looked at 15 and we've looked at some, you also 14 have to understand that NU has looked at all of the 88 15 systems. And so the 15-system overlay on top of that 16 was to assess the NU review of all 88 systems. So, 1 17 clearly, as Dr. Travers-said, if we fir.d that there are 18 -- if the systems we look at have significant problems, I, 19 then that may indicate that we expand time scope and 20 look at other things that NU did. So this was a sample
$ 21 approach, in a sense, although it's a rather extensive i
. 22 sample because 15 systems were looked at rather 1
l 23 thoroughly and pieces of other systems as well.
24 But, again, you know, NU, thro 6gh their A
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i 1
i 199
, MSETIN R ! II TO!JE UNITS 1 -- usf r.g the word CMP. That's the Configuration 2 Management Plan -- has gone back and they themselves 3 have looked in a fashion at all the 88 systems. And so 4 by looking at 15, we can use that as a means to judge 5 how effective their review was. And, again if we find 6 areas of weakness, then that we. ald .0 .icate perhaps, 7 you know, that wc need to lor,k further. But based --
8 if the results, if the outcone of the Sargent & Lundy 9 review and our oversight is relatively positive, then I 10 think we're going to use that as a way to extrapolate e 11 that reuult to the other systems.
12 MR. BOWMAN: That seems very strange to 13 me; I mean that the NRC, that you people are mandated 14 to look out for public health and safety, but what 15 you're saying to me is that you're relying on NU, a 16 company which has decades of lying and obfuscation and 17 keeping dark from the public all their mismanagement l 18 problems, and you're telling me that you're relying on 19 their criteria to accept these systems.
20 MR. IMBRO: No. I don't think you
$ 21 understood. We're relying on our oversight, both the l
. 22 Sargent & Lundy oversight and our o ersight of NU's I
l 23 review. So we're really relying on their review.
24 We're doing our own independent look. And we're basing O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
_ sam W'7P-9'
200
(]) JAl RY 2 98
, i 2 out conclusions on that result, not what NU's telling 2 us.
3 MR. BOWMAN: Another question. Are 4 these 88 systems through the whole of the three? Are 5 the *bree Millstones included here or just --
6 MR. IMBRO: No , no. That's just for --
7 that's just for Milletone 3.
8 MR. BOWMAN: Just for Millstone 3.
9 MR. IMBRO: Yes. I think something 10 comparable on Unit 2.
P 11 MR. BOWMAN: Well, and we're hoping that W
12 Millstone 1 is never going to open. But what about 13 Millstone 2? How many systems are involved there?
14 MR. IMBRO: As I said -- I don't know '
15 the exact number there. I would say something like 12 16 to 14. I don't really know. I don't have it on the 17 top of my head.
18 MR. BOWMAN: So do we -- it would seem, l- 19 you know, to me I mean --
20 MR. IMBRO: Same type of process, f 21 MR. BOWMAN: As a reasonable person, it 1g 22 would ceem to be an impossibility to meet these
, 5
( 23 schedules that NU keeps putting in the newspaper about 24 their opening dates.
O -
POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
201
(]) JAli AR 2 98 1 MR. IMBRO: Well, I mean we can't really 2 -- I think, you know --
3 MR. BOWMAN: I mean wouldn't we --
4 MR. IMBRO: We're not going to let the 5 plant start up until the job --
6 MR. BOWMAN: Yes. I mean wouldn't the 7 public be more reassured if the NRC came out and said, 8 "Well, you know, this pie in the sky, this stuff, and 9 there's no way in the world that they take this 10 corrective action, have the NRC do a proper inspection
, g 11 and open up at the dates at which they say"? I mean u
12 the public would be more reassured that the NRC is 13 doing their job if they did this.
14 MR. IMBRO: But we're not --
15 MR. DOWMAN: But I don't see that.
16 MR. IMBRO: We're not really focused on 17 their schedule. We're focused on getting the job done 18 and having the plants restarted safely, if they --
! 19 MR. BOMWAN: Well, I understand that.
20 But it would seem --
h 21 DR. TRAVERS: I think that even -- we 1 -
22 think and the licensee would even probably agree that t
[ 23 this is a challenging schedule, that --
24 MR. BOWMAN: Yes. But, see, the problem O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
202 MEETIN R !I TO!1 UNITS 1 is -- you know, down in New Haven we don't get too much 2 news in the newspaper. But it would be nice to read in 3 the newspaper that the NRC thinks the NU echedule is a 4 lot of baloney and a more proper date would be 5 somewhere in, you know, five years down the road or 6 something like that, whatever it is.
l 7 DR. TRAVERS: I think we would say that t 8 if that's what we felt. I mean it's --
9 MR. BOWMAN: Well, we don't see it in 10 the papers.
11 $R. TRAVERS: Well, no. I said if we 12 felt that was true.
13 MR. BOWMAN: But I mean all this aside, 14 all this aside -- and I may be off the subject of the 15 corrective action. But I think it was Carl B. Morgan 16 who was the father of physics said many, many years 17 ago, I forget, about 20 years ago, that the exposures 18 to workers in nuclear plants would be reduced by a 5 19 factor of ten. But he said if they did that, these 20 things would never operate. And that's the criteria
$ 21 you should be looking at now. We should be looking at l 22 the exposure to the public, the exposure to the workers
_l 23 and to reduce the radiation limits to something where 24 these plants would not be able to operate. And they POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
2 c .,
MEETIN R !I TO!J UNITS 1 can't operate now economically with all the radiation 2 that they're pouring out now on a normal basis. So all 3 I would say is that we need the NRC -- and I hope that 4 when Dr. Jackson comes here, that we can address the 5 question of exposures and the whole question of 6 radiation safety with respect to nuclear power plants.
7 Thank you.
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Thank you.
9 MS. BOWMAN: Would you have a list of 10 the systems that are not being looked at? Could we p 11 have such a list?
U 12 MP. , IMBRO: Sure. Yes.
13 MS. BOWMAN: Would you please give it to 14 us?
15 Mk. IMBRO: Yes. I'll talk to you after 16 the meeting. I'll be happy to give it to y a.
17 Don?
l 18 MR. DELCORE: Those are DR's, 19 deficiencies, for those of you who are not aware of 7
f 20 them. A lot of deficiencies.
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: Yes. But I think they're I 22 preliminary. So why don't you just, you know, g
l 23 characterize them properly?
24 MR. DELCORE: Well, let me say that the POST REPORTING SERVICE j HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
. . - . - a
204 MEETING RE: MILLOTONE UNITS
-(]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 last report that I got from Sargent & Lundy, there were 2 855 preliminary and some 700 that were validated.
3 MR. IMBRO: But, again, validated means 4 that they've gone through the Sargent & Lundy review 5 process and that bssed on information available to 6 Sargent & Lundy, Sargent & Lundy management feels like 7 these are -- these are valid issues that need to be 8 addressed. It doesn't mean that they're --
that
') they're confirmed. They need to look at the NU 10 response. Again, these are issues that may have been p 11 previously identified by NU or they may have -- they u
12 may not be issues at all.
13 MR. DELCORE: Okay. And --
14 MR. IMBRO: So they need additional 15 documentation.
16 MR. DELCORE: Right. And assuming that 17 they were previously identified from NU, that doesn't 18 say that they're fixed.
i
_ 19 MR. IMBRO: But the --
20 MR. DELCORE: Obviously, because Sargent
$ 21 & Lundy found them.
I. 22 MR. IMBRO: Well, but -- but they're in I
[ 23 the NU process to be fixed. And soma of the -- and 24 depending on whether or not the pre, post-restart, O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
205 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS h JAINARY 27, 1998 1 depending on how the screens have been, when they'll be 2 fixed.
3 MR. DELCORE: Right. And no we're 4 assuming that a good amount of them aren't going to be '
5 fixed before start-up.
6 MR. IMBRO: I don't really know. I 7 mean, again, I think there's a screening process that's l 8 been established by im. We've looked at it. We've l
9 done inspections of it. We agree with the process. We 10 agree with the criteria for pre, post-restart.
p 11 So if these issues involve a non-u n
V 12 conformance with the licensing basis, they will be 13 fixed before restart.
14 MR. DELCORE: Okay. In the preliminary 15 --
or in the last report that I attended with Sargent &
16 Lundy, again 855 I think were initiated, 700 were 17 validated by Sargent & Lundy.
l 18 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
19 MR. DELCORE: And some 224 of those were 4
20 Level 3's and some 454 of those were Level 4's.
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: But, again, you're talking 1
22 preliminary DR's. That's what --
the numbers are 5
[ 23 probably right. I won't argue with the numbers.
24 MR. DELCORE: Well, no. I'm just going O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l _.
206 Q A AR 7 98 1 by their report.
l 2 MR. IMBRO: That's fine. Okay. But, 3 again, they're preliminary. They haven't been - they 4 haven't go a through the process yet.
5 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
6 MR. IMBRO: Okay.
7 MR. And DELCORE: if you look 8 categorically, there were six particular categorie, 9 that kind of jumped out at me out of the 855.
10 MR. IMBRO: Okay, g 11 MR. DELCORE: Some 275 dealt with 9
12 calculation errors, be it Level 3 or Level 4. But they 13 dealt with calculation errors. Some 100 of them dealt 14 with PNID or schematic errors which were in ^1ved, 15 again Level 3 or Level 4.
16 Isnd I think what's important to point 17 out here, if you go down and look, there were about six 18 categories that kind of jump right out where there were
! 19 60, 70, 80 and again 100 and 275 of particular issues 20 that essentially appeared to be the same, such that
? 21 Sargent & Lundy, the NRC and NU all agreed t' hat they 1 22 were categories in that area.
I J 23 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
24 MR. DELCORE: So that seems to be POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
207 JAl AR 98 l 1 indicative of some programmatic issues.
2 MR. IMBRO: I mean we -- yeo. I 3 wouldn't disagree. I think --
4 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
5 MR. IMBRO: In fact, I think we're 6 probably going to expand beyond those six because, like 7 I say, we we ourselves and have -- NU and Sargent &
8 Lundy ate sorting the data in different ways. And I 9 think what you just indicated are or could be 10 indicative of areas where NU may have to do additional
- g. 11 work. I mean we may decide that, you know, there's a u
12 negative trend in this area of there's a trend where 13 there are a lot of calculational errors that, as you're 14 saying, sort of pop out rt you and say, " Hey, you know, 15 are there other things that -- although the individual 16 problems may themselves not be safety significant or 17 may not really affect the results of the calculation to 18 any significant degree, it still would indicate that V
- 19 there may be additional review we need to give us f 20 additional confidcace that there weren't problems wide
$ 21 in this area that are safety significant, 1
22 DR. TRAVERS: You are talking about j 23 9lements of the corrective action process that is to be 24 conducted for any --
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
208
({} Ali AR 98 1 MR. IMBRO Yes.
2 MR. DELCORE: Well, let me address those 3 two issues. First of all, we're talking about, be it 4 four or fifteen systems, you know, however you want to 5 look at it. It doesn't really make any difference.
6 MR. IMBRO: Well, it's 15, 7 MR. DELCORE: But we're still talking 8 about safety-significant and risk-significant systems.
9 Okay? So any discrepancy associated with the licensing 10 basis, associated with the incorrectness of a print or g 11 a roadmap or a piping diagram is significant because v
12 we're talking about 15 systems out of 88 that are 13 significant in terms of risk and safety. You guys have 14 said that yourself.
15 So how can you legitimize and say that 16 any issue that's discovered by Sargent & Lundy and 17 verified by Northeast Utilities or anybody else, that 18 it's a relatively -- how it --
it's below regulatory
! 19 concern?
20 I mean I've listened to Marty Bowling f 21 telling us about that there Sust wasn't any real major k
22 problems. But, you know, that's not what I read in
} 23 these documents. There's some kind of interesting 24 Level 3 issues in here about fuel and not doing safety O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
209 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 reviews on reconstituted fueli that is to say that 2 they've taken out the fuel that was expended after 3 three cycles and replaced it with fuel and then didn't 4 do a safety review associated with that new core. I 5 mean there's some pretty significant issues in here.
6 So what I'm saying to you is that I --
7 MR. IMBRO: Preliminary.
8 MR. DELCORE: Yes. 't
. still -- it's 9 preliminary, but it's demonstrative of a number --
10 there's a thousand issues that Sargent & Lundy says g 11 there's a problem with. And NU has come back and said, d
12 "We agree with 120 so far. There's still 800 we've got 13 to look at."
14 MR. IMBRO: And they will be looked at.
15 I mean --
16 MR. DELCORE: But, Gene, even you.
17 yourself, publicly have said that there's a lot of l 18 issues here.
19 MR. IMBRO: Well, you know -- you know, 20 a thousand is a large number.
$ 21 MR. DELCORE: I don't think anybody that i 22 I recogni::e in this room ever expected that we'd be l 23 talking about a thousand DR's.
24 MR. IMBRO: Well--
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__ _ _ _ _ - - _ - - - . - - - . ~
210
(]) AI AR 98 1 MR. DELCORE: That was just not the 2 realm of what we expected.
3 MR. IMBRO: But --
4 DR. TRAVERS: Don, I think you're right.
5 And I think that's in some measure attributable to the 6 level of effort that's being applied here and the depth 7 of the review.
8 MR. DELCORE: I am --
9 DR. TRAVERS: (Indiscernible) experience 10 going at these kinds of reviews in this fashion. So P 11 Level 4 -- lots of Level 4's, I agree with you.
0 12 MR. DELCORE: A substantial number of 13 Level 3's.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Well --
15 MR. DELCORE: About a third of them are 16 Level 3's.
17 DR. TRAVERS: But let's -- let's make l 18 sure we're not mischaracterizing the situation _yet.
19 Those may, in fact, all be confirmed. Every one of 20 them may be. But they're not yet.
$ 21 MR. DELCORE: Right.
.l 22 DR. TRAVERS: So let's not -- let's not 5
l 23 lose sight of that.
24 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
211 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 DR. TRAVERS: The process we've put in 2 place, it's going to be applied to all of these issues.
3 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
4 DR. TRAVERS: So that we can at the end 5 of the day come before you and the public and tell you 6 what happened.
7 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
8 DR. TRAVERS: But in advance of that, 9 let's not, you know -- let's not reach a judgment 10 that's not warranted, at least at this point.
P 11 MR. DELCORE: Except that if we look at V
12 the six categories, I think we can reach a judgment,
)
13 that categorically there are six different issues that 14 seem to be prevalent in either the issues which they 15 have already resolved between them and NU or those 16 which they initiated to begin with.
17 In other words, the interpretation that l 18 I got from Sargent & Lundy at the meeting was that it 19 seems to be the same ratio of those six categories.
20 DR. TRAVERS: And you may be right. And O
. 21 I think Gene has sort of alluded to that.
l
= 22 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
5 l 23 DR. TRAVERS: And, again, I think there 24 are two paths for that.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
212 MEETIN R MI TO!E UNITS 1 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
2 DR. TRAVERS: For what could occur as a 3 result of that. One in what I'll call the corrective 4 action path. And that is that we don't reach that 5 conclusion absent NU reaching the same conclusion. And 6 once they do, we expect their corrective actions will 7 apply horizontally as well.
8 MR. DELCORE: Okay.
9 DR. TRAVERS: Now, you know, if you 10 assess that and you find that it's working right, 11 that's a good indication that, you know, their program-12 is going to pick up and apply the, you know, the extent O .3 of condition criteria for --
14 MR. DELCORE: Okay. Now, let's put the 15 corrective action issue in perspective a little bit.
16 DR. TRAVERS: Sure.
17 MR. DELCORE: In May, the licensee said, l 18 "Here's all the 50.54f issues. And I'm ready for an 19 ICAVP." And in June, they documented an issue of 20 backflow to the reactor water storage tank but didn't--
$ 21 June. It was some time in June that they documented 1 22 that in a CR, put a --
l 23 DR. TRAVERS: That was ours.
24 MR. DELCORE: Excuse me?
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() JAl AR 2 98 1 DR. TRAVERS: 1 think that was our 2 finding in our inspection. No?
3 MR. DELCORE: No, no, no, no. This was 4 in June.
5 DR. TRAVERS: A different one. I G MR. DELCORE: Right. No. It's the same 7 issue.
8 DR. TRAVERS: No. This was a CR. !
9 MR DELCORE: CR. Okay. So they wrote 10 a CR in June, but they wrote a Level 2 on it and made 11 it- a restart issue. But nothing was done about it at 12 Lll. Along gave the out-of-scope ICAVP review and it 13 found that issue. And NU wrote another CR because they 14 didn't know the first one Existed. Okay? So now we've 15 got two CR's on that issue and there isn't any --
16 anything that anybody can demonstrate that they took 1
17 any action towards_ addressing that rather significant 18 issue, at least if you would listen to the NRC say that '
! 19 that's a fairly significant _ssue, both with respect to 20 them not being able to find it in the CMP and with
$ 21 respect to being outside possible dosage lim.ts to the 1
1 22 public in terms of health and safety,
-l 23 So fairly significant issue. They 24 assign a Level 2. They don't --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
214 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 DR. TRA'fERS : Sounds like --
2 MR. DELCORE: Hmm?
3 DR. TRAVERS: Sounds like we're being 4 appropriately cr!.tical.
5 MR. DELCORE: Well --
G DR. TRAVERS: You're commenting on our 7 characterization.
8 MR. DELCORE: Yes. But what I'm saying 9 is that here we have something that was assigned a 10 Level 2 that probably should have been a Level 1. And Q 11 I've listened to a number of meetings uhereby we've 0
12 been told in the public that the corrective action 13 program is a very high quality and is a good program.
14 I'm not absolutely convinced by any of what I have just 15 seen --
16 MR. IMBRO: I don't think we've reached 17 that conclusion yet.
l 18 DR. TRAVERS: We never --
'9 MR DELCORE: Oh, Okay.
20 MR. IMBRO: I don't think we've said the
$ 21 corrective action program is --
l 22 MR. DELCORE: But I'm very concerned l 23 about that little fiasco, 24 MR. IMBRO: We still have two O POST REPORTING SERVICE RAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
j 215 MEETIli R I4ILI T0!J UllITS 4
1 inspections here. l 2 MR. DELCORE: And more importantly --
3 yes. But I don't think we're at the point that we 4 ought to be conducting those inspections yet, Gene.
5 When you have the problems that we just identified with 6 regard to the corrective action, I see no reason for 7 you to be conducting a 40,500 inspection because I 8 don't think they're ready and the indications are 9 they're not ready. And so I'm very concerned about 10 that. And I'm very concer W about the fact that much g 11 of what is sitting here that ends up being validated by tf 12 everybody isn't going to be fixed until some other 13 outage down the road and that you're accepting less 4
14 than a first-class final safety analysis report and 15 license basis and information for individuals to go to i 16 publications, to go to license basis, to go to road 17 maps, to go to piping diagrams, to go to wiring l 18 diagrams and, in fact, find that this wire running in 19 this tray is, in fact, 2408B and it's 2408A. And I 20 think that that's a very, very important issue with
$ 21 regard to corrective maintenance, preventive l
. 22 maintenance and troubleshooting.
I l 23 MR. IMBRO: I agree.
24 MR. DELCORE: Well, then we should be O POST REPORTING SERVICE Hl.MDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
216 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 requiring them to fix every issue that is found.
2 (Applause) 3 DR. TRAVERS: No.
4 MR. IMBRO:
We're really looking at 5 that. Don.
6 MR. DELCORE: All of these.
7 DR. TRAVERS: No, no. Don, the answer 8 is we are going to require correction of every one of 9 the findings that are confirmed. The only differences 10 that you may have with the way we're approaching it is g 11 that it's going to be done commensurate with the safety r l 12 significance of the issue. And that equals the 13 potential for some relatively minor issues being '
14 carried Jut and implemented, And that's --
I 15 understand the issue. I just want to make --
16 MR. DELCORE: Dr. Travers, your opinion 17 of a significant and safety issue commensurate with '
18 safety issues has been nothing like any of us that
! 19 worked at Millstone and any of this public, you know, 20 understands. You need to work on that.
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: Yes, Ma'am?
I
. 22 MS. KAREN NORTON: My name is Karen I
( 23 Norton. I live i., 7torra, (..7ecticut. And my father 24 is an engineer. And I think that I'm not comfortable O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l l
! 217 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 with the idea that these safety concerns are -- will be 2 deemed okay and fixable after restart. I find that of 3 great concern.
4 I also want to reiterate what I think 5 was brushed aside, the comment that Mr. Bowman made 6 that the Northeast Utilities has great influence over
'/ what is being told by the media to the public. They're 8 basically presenting that everything is going very 9 smoothly and that the public should expect that the 10 plants are going to be coming back on line. I really
$ 11 do think it's crucial that some of the NRC concerns are t'
12 told to the public and that NU is corrected on that 13 issue that restart will be imminent as early as March 14 and April, 15 Or are you saying that restart is going 16 to happen in March and April?
17 DR TRAVERS: Well, fundamentally, let 18 me just agree with your major point. And that is the
. 19 communication of where we stand in our program. And f 20 this meeting tonight is one evample, just one, of the
! 21 program that we've implemented at Millstone. And it's I 22 g rather extraordinary. If you're not familiar with it, l 23 I can just thumbt. ail sketch it for you.
24 It includes not only these meetings but POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
_ ___ _- _ -- - - - -_- - . . _ - _ _ ~ _ _ - - - - - . . - - _ _ - . _ _ _ - -
218
() Ali AR 98 1 the conduct of our working meetings in the daytime --
2 and there are numerous meetings of that sort -- that we 3 typically for other plants across the country hold in 4 either the Regional NRC Office or in Headquarters. But 5 we're holding essentially all of them up here so that 6 people can sit in and attend and observe.
7 So I agree with you. Millstone is an 8 important issue historically. It's important to the 9 people who live around here. And we're doing, yot 10 know, what we can in terms of extraordinary effort p 11 relative to what we normally do to try to bring an U
12 understanding -- sometimes we don't do that good a job.
13 You know. I'm not that great at it occasionally, I 14 know, and sometimes we don't -- we don't communicate as 15 clearly as we could or should. But we're trying. We 16 really are.
17 And some of the concerns you've heard 18 expressed tonight are just the kinds of concerns that,
. 19 you know, we're incorporating into our assessment of f 20 where Millstone stands. We do that in meetings with O
, 21 the Commission as well. We transcribe those. We put
! 22 them right on the Internet so that people can get them g
l 23 very quickly. We put all of these preliminary 24 discrepancy reports on the Internet as soon as they're O. POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
l 219 M UAR 98 1 identified. You can go to Sargent & Lundy or 2 Parsons.com or whatever it is -- we can give you the 3 address -- and get it on the day they're issued.
4 So we --
even if we speak in some 5 acronyms at times -- and you can quis us on that. We'd 6 be glad to try and explain those. And given -- and 7 even in the face of the very complex issues that we're 8 talking about, we are trying to communicate those 9 things.
10 MS NORTON: I applaud you for that ind Q 11 I appreciate that. But on the other hand, in terms of t!
12 communication, as long as this topic got opened up, I 13 just want to say one more thing.
14 DR. TRAVERS: Sure.
15 MS. NORTON: The last time that I 16 attended this meeting I pointed out that somebody was 17 trying to say that the -- I don't know -- the level of l 18 citizen participation -- that the amount of people that 19 were here showed that not that people were interested 20 except a few -- few -- I can't remember the going --
$ 21 DR. TRAVERS: Not from us.
1
. 22 MS NORTON: -- the going term. But my I
l 23 point -- I'll finish. I'll be brief -- is that these 24 meetings are always held, I think, in Waterford and POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
220 MEETIN R I Tol4E UNITS 1 that - and that people all over the state are actually 2 concerned about this issue. And if you had meetings, 3 say, in Hartford, I think that you'd find that you 4
wouldn't be able to leave for a whole weekend.
5 DR. TRAVERS: Well, we have to be 6 practical, too. I mean we're very limited in our --
7 MS. NORTON: Well, I just wanted to make l 8 that pointi that it would be great to have a meating in 9 a more central point in the state, not that I -- I'm
( 10 not complaining about these meetings. I think we g 11 should have them and more.
12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Could I just 13 elaborate just'a litt bit on your statement about 14 referring safety-significant issues? All safety-15 significant issues will be corrected prior to the 16 restart of the unit.
17 MS. NORTON: I want all issues to be l 18 corrected.
19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, all issues 20 will not be corrected prior to restart. And that's O
. 21 Susan's question. And I want to get to that question l
g 22 tonight because it's very important that we all have a l 23 common understanding of the backlog and what's going to 24 be deferred and the basis for that.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
221 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^"u^av 27, 1598 1 DR. TRAVERS: It's important.
2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: It's very 3 important.
4 So we're still on ICAVP, Joe.
5 MR. JOE BESADE: Joe Besade, Waterford, 6 Connecticut. I hope this is a proper question under 7 this ICAVP, on the come-along investigations that were 8 going on at Millstone and CY.
9 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Can't talk about 10 them.
$ 11 MR. BESADE: Won't talk about them.
V 12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Don't know about 13 them.
14 MR BESADE: Okay. I have a notebook 15 here. When was the last time any member of the 16 governing body of the NRC who makes up the rules suited 17 up in PC's and a bubble suit and went into a high 18 radiation area such as the dry well or the Unit l's 19 Hell's Kitchen to see the existing true picture?
f 20 CHAIRPERSON LANNING Ou?; region -- just 0
. 21 a Unit 1 question?
-l 22 g DR. TRAVERS: Are you talking about the
[ 23 Commissioners or --
24 MR. BESADE: Anybody from your O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
i 222
() JA!T AR 98 1 department.
2 DR. TRAVERS: Our Seniors go into 3 radiation areas frequently.
4 MR. BESADE: Your Seniors?
5 CRAIRPERSON LANNING: The Resident 6 Inspectors.
7 DR. TRAVERS: Yes.
8 MR. BESADE: Anyone been in there in a 9 bubble suit under those conditions?
10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes, sir, 11 d
$ MR. BESADE: How far back?
U 12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: You know, time --
13 years, 14 MR. BESADE: Okay. Well, recently. On 15 any of the three units, any one of the -- even the two 16 that you're not even thinking about starting up just 17 yet. Any one of them should be constantly being l 18 monitored by people in your. position to oversee these
-19 people who have been lying to us all these yaars. They f 20 have a track record of not being honorable people.
O
, 21 The other thing is I asked a question of k
g 22 Mr. Travers EP far as having -- when Chairman Jackson l 23 comes to Waterford, for her to -- if it was possible 24 for a member of the CRC to go as an observer to see O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
223 MEETING RE: MILLST0!!E UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 what really takes place and not the propaganda pushed 2 out by these NU --
3 DR. TRAVERS: Yes. I don't have an 4 answer for you, but I ' .L 1 just speculate on the 5 practical difficulties it might -- but I will -- I owe 6 you an answer and I'll --
7 MR. BESADE: I'd uppreciate it veiy 8 much.
9 Also, as far as the transcript of this 10 evening's proceedings, I'd like a copy for myself and g 11 I'd also like a copy issued to the CRC for our s
12 documentation room.
O 13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: We already have 14 CRC on our distribution list for this transcript of 15 these public meetings.
16 MR. BESADE: s see, And if I'm not 17 mistaken, they haven't been getting them as they should
{ 18 be. I received one. And I had another one that I was 19 promised by Mr. Travers. I haven't received that one.
20 So I -- I'd like to have one for my nuclear room. So -
f 21 - I know you tried to tell me that you were trying to 1
22 cut expenses. Well, it seems as though that I've been l 23 told that the --
you people have a budget of 24 approximately a half a billion dollars. Am I correct?
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 s
224 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS Q JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MR. IMBRO: That's the whole agency.
2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That's the whole 3 NRC budget.
4 MR. BESADE- Okay. Now, you had --
5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I'll get you a 6 copy. I'll get you a copy.
7 MR. BESADE: Thank you. Thank you, sir.
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I'll be glad to.
9 MR. BESADE: All right.
10 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: All right.
p 11 A VOICE: We'll pay for it ourselves.
V 12 MR. BESADE: Thank you.
13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: All right. Can we 14 now move into the general question -- no? Okay.
15 A VOICE: A real very quick question.
16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: This lady right 17 over here is next. She hasn't asked a question.
l 18 MS, GERILYN WINSLOW: Gerilyn Winslow, 19 Waterford, Connecticut. I'm concerned about the ICAVP 20 just in the numbers alone. And I guess Don's given me
$ 21 some numbers and you seem to have a little different
, 22 opinion on the numbers. But 699 DR'e validated is a I
(_ 23 lot. And we were told like me aths ago that NU was 24 going to do such a good job fixing the plant up before POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
l l
k
225 MEETING RE: MILLSTGNE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 anybody even inspected 1*., that they probably wouldn't 2 find anything wrong. And now they've found up to 700 3 just in those four systems.
4 I'm concerned about that and I'd like to 5 see the scope expanded because I'm very concerned.
6 I've done some math and we've got like 15.000 possible 7 discrepancies in the other 84 systems. That's a lot.
8 And my children go to school across the street from the 9 plant, right across the street. And I'm not 10 comfortable with those numbers, p 11 MR. IMBRO: I mean I can -- I certainly U
12 can understand where you're coming from. But I think 13 you have to wait, though, until the process gets 14 corpleted. We're going to look at -- right now, you're 15 right. The 699 number I think came from a January 13 36 report --
17 MS, WINSLOW: Yes.
l 18 MR. IMBRO: -- from Sargent & Lundy.
19 MS. WINSLOW: Yes.
20 MR. IMLRO: There are more now. Okay?
$ 21 I mean, as I said -- but you have to think u.a t -- of 1
- 22 all those 975 or however many there are, only 100-and -
E l -
I forget what it said -- 120 have gone through the 24 process. And of the 120, only -- only 54 issues have -
O#
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226
(} Jali R 8 1 - are issues that were not previously identified by NU 2 or , quote, real issues. But, again, looking at -- if 3 you look at those, there's really one non-conformance 4 out of those 54 with the licensing basis.
5 MS. WINSLOW: I have 224 --
6 MR. IMBRO: But, again --
7 MS. WINSLOW: --
outside of the design 8 basis.
9 MR. IMBRO: I guess we haven't explained i
10 it properly. But look at the validated DR'e.
g 11 Validated Dx's, again, are things that have gone U
12 through the S&L precess but have not been yet responded 13 to by NU. The 224 which -- refers to what category?
14 MS. WINSLOW: Level 3. Level 3.
15 MR. IMBRO: Again, like I say --
16 MS. WINSLOW: Does not meet licensing 17 and design basis --
l 18 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
19 MS, WINSLOW: --
but is intended to 20 perform --
$ 21 MR. IMBRO: Yes. Yes. But, again, i i
- 22 those are preliminary. Those have to be responded by t
I l 23 NU.
24 MS. WINSLOW: Well, I want ther,all --
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
227
() A R 98 1 well, what about --
I have a concern then because 2 they're going to go into Mode 4 next week and start the 3 plant up. And now none of these have even been 4 validated make any yet. That doesn't sense. That 5 plant is going to be turned to the On switch next week.
6 MR. IMBRO: Well, Mode 4 --
7 MS. WINSLOW: And these DR's haven't 8 even been validated --
9 MR. IMBRO: Mode 4 is not thE On switch.
10 MS, WINSLOW: -- yet.
'g 11 MR. IMBRO: And if thert are issues U
12 there that --
13 MS. WINSLsW: Once it's on, they're not 14 going to turn it off.
15 MR. IMBRO: Mode 4 is not On. Mode 4 is 16 --
17 MS, WINSLOW: It's heated up to 200 l 18 degrees.
19 MR. IMBRO: Yes, 200. Okay. But it's 20 not -- but,-you know, it's not critical. Again, it's--
O
, 21 MS. WINSLOW: When you live a mile away, 1
. 22 on is on and 200 degrees is on.
5 l 23 A VOICE: CY wasn't critical when they 24 had the nitrogen (indiscernible - not at microphone).
POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 1
228 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS g JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS. WII! SLOW: Yes. Just my point is 2 they should upand the scope. Okay?
3 MR. IMBRO: I understand. I understand.
4 MS, WINSLOW: Rather than go through all 5 this number thing back and forth.
6 MR. IMBRO: I understand it's an area of 7 concern.
8 MS. WINSLOW: The scope should be --
9 tnere's 84 systems that might have 700 things wrong 10 with each one of them. That's my opinion.
Q 11 Thank you.
9 12 MR. IMBRO: I understand what you're 13 saying.
14 A VOICE: It sounds like it's open to 15 me.
16 MR. IMBRO: Rosemary?
17 MS. BASSILAKIS: Rosemary Bassilakis l 18 again. I just want to say that you keep saying that 19 these are preliminary. We need to wait, we need to f 20 wait, we need to wait.
$ 21 You need to understand that we're a l 22
. community that's been asleep for a long time and we 5
l 23 have been rocked awake. And we'r- . going to wait.
24 We're going to speak --
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229
(]) Al RY 9 8 1 MR. IMBRO: I never thought you were 2 anleep. You're right on the ball.
3 MS. BASSILAKIS: We're going to speak as 4 soon as we think there may be an issue because we're 5 not going to wait until the end.
6 MR. IMBRO: Good.
7 MS, BASSILAKIS: Because in the end, you 8 may decide that everything in hunky dory and they can 9 turn the switch on. And at that point, our cries of 10 increasing the scope will fall on deaf ears. So we 0 11 need to be vocal and we need to be hard now, 12 MR. IMBRO: We're not I'm not 13 c'aggesting you not comment. Please.
14 MS, BASSILAKIS: .How many times did I 15 hear the word " preliminary" tonight?
16 MR. IMBRO: But they are preliminary, 17 DR. TRAVERS: They are.
l l 18 MS, BASSILAKIS: I know. But you n ,d -
- 19 -
but you're also saying that we need to wait, f 20 MR. IMBRO: Well, we need to wait until o
, 21 the process --
1
- 22 MS. BASSILAKIS
- And we need to let you l 23 know that we're not comfortable with that.
24 MR. IMBRO: Okay, I understand that.
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230
() Ali R 2 98 1 MS. BASSILAKIS: So are you going to 2 increase the scope?
3 MR. IMBRO: Based on what we know now, 4 no. But with, you know --
there's still more 5 evaluation that needs to be done.
6 MS, BASSILAKIS: Okay 7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Susan?
8 MR. IMBRO: Let To.a come up. He's been 9 waiting a while.
10 MR. McCORMACK: This is quick. Again,
- g 11 we had this DPUC business about Millstone being in the
! 0 12 rate base and us ratepayers are paying at least 25 13 million d 11ars a month in excess of replacement power 14 costs. It's very crucial.
15 In the DPUC document, it says the ICAVP 16 program would be finished by January 15. Is it?
17 MR. IMBRO: No.
18 MR. McCORMACK: Any expectation of when
! 19 this program will be wrapped up between Sargent & Lundy
-f 20 and NU and the verifications, the preliminaries and a G
, 21 Sargent & Lundy report? Any estimated date for Sargent I 22 g & Lundy's report?
l 23 MR. IMBRO: Oh, gosh. I'd say some time 24 in the end of February.
O' POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
\1
231 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MR. McCORMACK: End of February. Okay.
2 Sc at least --
3 MR. IMBRO: That would be my guess.
4 MR. McCORMACK: So at least six weeks 5 past the date here. Okay. Thanks.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay 7 MR. IMBRO: Other questions?
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Susan. This is 9 the good one, though. This is a good one. I'm excited 10 about this one.
$ 11 MS. PERRY LUXTON: God, this is U
12 ridiculous, isn't it?
13 Let's see. A question I have is --
14 okay. Now, I want to talk about reasonable assurance.
-15 My understanding of the regulatory structure is based 16 on the fact that NU follows rules and procedures.
17 Right? This is the process question of ICAVP.
I 18 MR. IMBRO: Okay.
19 MS. PERRY LUXTON: So NU follows rules 20 and procedures. And you have to -- because you can't O
, 21 be everywhere and you can't do 100 percent of the b
= 22 systems, you're only going to do a certain amount of I
l 23 the systems. So you are trusting this process with 24 '
Joent & Lundy and NU agreeing to the -- now there's a O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
232 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS ggg JANUARY 27, 1998 1 word you used. Not validated. But when NU agrees to -
2 - when they negotiate --
3 MR. IMBRO: Confir. DR.
4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes. They confirm 5 the DR. Okay. Well, my question is if you have this 6 many deficiencies in these 50 or but maybe 15 systems, 7 whatever you say, what I need for you to -- if we're 8 assuming that you have a similarly aggressive review of 9 other systems, wouldn't you find at least as many 10 problems as you found in the four systems or, you know, g 11 with the boundary 15?
U 12 But my question is how can you assume 13 they're not --
wait a minute. I wrote it down.
14 Wouldn't you find at least as many problems? And how 15 can the NRC say that those problems would not be 16 safety-significant? Because if you found as many 17 problems wrong in those systems as you are in these,
{ 18 you can't assume --
you can't tell us, you can't 19 reasonably assure that they wouldn't be safety-20 significant, even those may be mostly majority 4, of a 21 4. The others may not.
- k. 22 MR. IMBRO: Well, again, you know, if 5
l 23 there are --
24 MS. PERRY LUXTON: You can't --
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233
() JAlf RY 2 98 1 MR. IMBRO: -- Level 4 problems and they 2 seem to indicate a trend, then we're going to ask NU to 3 expand the scope in some areas.
4 MS, PERRY LUXTON: I know that. But 5 that's not what I'm asking, though, Gene. I'm saying 6 you can't assure me reasonably --
7 MR. IMBRO: I can't assure you of 100 8 percent unless I look at everything. And even then, 9 I'm not sure that I couldn't miss something. So 10 there's no way -- if you want 100-percent assurance --
$ 11 DR. TRAVERS: But if I could jutt chime U
12 in for ' moment? In the absence -- take the sample 13 systems that we've looked at, 15.
14 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right.
15 DR. TRAVERS: In the absence of 16 identified s!gnificant findings in those systems, even 17 if you find a lot of minor calculational errors and so l 18 on and so forth, rather than projected in the fashion
. 19 you've just done --
20 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right.
C
. 21 MR. IMBRO: --
the findings that we're k
= 22 seeing thus far would have you reach just the opposite 5
l 23 conclusion in that we looked very, very thoroughly at 24 those systems that we've looked at and we didn't find O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN. CT (800) 262-4102 l
l
234
() A R 8 1 significant issues. We didn't. And despite the fact 2 that you're finding --
3 MC. PERRY LUXTON: But you can't say to 4 me that you wculdn't in those other systems, though, ,
5 Dr. Travers.
6 DR. TRAVERS: No. But --
7 MS, PERRY LUXTON: In these, you didn't.
8 DR. TRAVERS: No, no. I agree. I'm not 9 saying --
10 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right? I mean just--
g 11 DR. TRAVERS: I'm not saying you U
12 couldn't possibly. What I'm saying is that based on 13 what we always do in our sample reviews -- and this is l
14 an extraordinary sample. It's a very large sample for
, what we would normally do to confirm this kind of 16 issue.
17 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Mm-hmm.
l 18 DR. TRAVERS: Based on a very --
it's 19 not 100 percent, but it's a very -- we view it as a 20 very extensive effort. It's costing millions and 0
, 21 millions. It's involving, what, a hundred or so people 1
= 22 at Sargent & Lundy --
5 l 23 MR. IMBRO: Yes.
24 DR. TRAVERS: --
doing, you know,
(~
\> POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
235 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
() JANUARY 27, 1998 1 detailed, detailed reviews. We're looking to, in the 2 way we developed the program, say that even though 3 we're only looking at samples, we're going to look at 4 them so thoroughly that it's going to give us a sense 5 of whether there's sign .'icant issues elsewhere. If we 6 started to identify even a few Level l's or Level 2's, 7 you know, this is the indication that you might need to 8 and, in fact, should look elsewhere.
9 MS. PERRY LUXTON: But the point --
10 okay. Well, this is -- another thing is the process
$ 11 that you guys have set up from the very beginning is y
{} 12 even if you find l's and 2's, you give NU the ability 13 to pencil away the l's and 2's.
14 DR. TRAVERS: No , no, no.
15 MS. PERRY LUXTON: They just d' that 16 with the CR that they supposedly didn't know about.
17 You guys came out --
remember? -- and said thac they l 18 hadn't found it. You found it. Then, all cf a sudden, 6
f 19 two weeks later we read in the paper they said they did 20 find it but they couldn't remember that they found it.
o
. 21 But they did find it. You know? Now, all of c sudden, b
-22 that was a Level 1. But now suddenly it's not g
l 23 anything. It's a level low, low level, because they 24 did find it but they can't remember that they found it.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
. _J
236 MEETIN RE I TO1E UNITS 1 But now they did find it.
2 That makes it sound like very strange to 3 us in the public. It sounds like NU doing their own 4 business that they used to do. How could they have not 5 known they wrote a CR on the thing? Then they still 6 haven't fixed the CR. They still haven't even done 7 anything to correct it. I mean it really Emells, I 8 think. Doesn't it? Kind of?
9 All right. Let's go on to the next 10 thing. What wao my original question that you wouldn't
$ 11 let me ask? I forgot, for crying out loud.
32 A VOICE: It's time to go home, gang.
13 MS, PERRY LUXTON: What was it? _ What 14 was that question? I mean I was serious about that. I 15 have no idea what it was, 16 CHAIRPERSON LALNING: We were talking --
17 you had the corrective action --
l 18 MS. PERRY LUETON: Right. The wheel.
19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- wheel with all 20 the spokes.
O
, 21 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes?
b 22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: And you were
_l 23 asking about enforcement.
24 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Enforcement. Right.
O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 m __
237 lll JAT R 98 1 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: All of those 2 issues around the spoke of that wheel are things that 3 are -- will be considered for evaluating how well the 4 corrective action process is working.
5 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Right.
6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Now, the whole 7 objective here is to evaluate the process and see that ,
8 it is working effectively to identify and resolve ,
9 deficiencies. Okay. That's the whole --
10 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Don't say
$ 11 deficiencies. You mean like -- deficiencies not in his U
g 12 deficiency category.
13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Not his 14 deficiency. Yes.
15 MS. PERRY LUXTON: You mean, you know, 16 problems.
17 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That's a good l 18 point.
7 19 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes. Don't use that 20 terminology. Like problems.
$ 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Prob' ems.
I g 22 Problems. Okay?
3 l 23 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Problems, yes.
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: For example, I O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
238 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS O 3^"u^av 27 1998 1 want to illustrate the point. We requested NU to 2 provide us in a 50 54f letter, Eemand for Information 3 letter, two lists. One list was the restart list.
4 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Right.
5 CRAIPPERSON LANNING: And the second 6 list is the deferred list --
7 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. Okay.
8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: of their 9 process. And -- and the process for putting a problem 10 on one or the other list. Okay?
P 11 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Mm-hmm, b
12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Now, we have been
.\
13 inspecting the deferred list. We've looked at each of l 14 those items on that deferred list to check to ensure 15 that it is not safety-significant and to ensure that it 16 should not be or the restart list.
17 Now, the first review we did, we found l 18 some of those items and they were moved over.
- 19 MS. PERRY LUXTON
- Moved c /er to where?
f 20 Deferred?
21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: No. To the 3
22 restart list.
l 23 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay? Now, just O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
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t 9
239 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS JANUARY 27, 1998 1 this month, on the 9th I think it is, they submitted to 2 us another list, an updated list of things that's going 3 to be deferred.
4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay.
5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay?
6 MS. PERRY LUXTON: The 9th of January?
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes.
8 MS. PERRY LUXTON: January 9.
9 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: And I think that 10 number as it stood on the 9th is clmost 5,000 items.
R. 11 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Oh.
I%~
! 12 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: So that's why this l
O 13 is important for us to understand --
14 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Oh, my God, i
15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: --
what that 16 means.
17 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes. That's right.
l 18 Because before it was --
I thought it was 3,000 items 19 at the -- 5,000 are going to be deferred?
20 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: That is the O
21 proposal and --
22 MS, PERRY LUXTON: And you have to --
1 l 23 they have to run that by you?
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Right. And we're POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 I
240 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS
{} JANUARY 27, 1998 .s 1 looking at that list. Yes. Yes. And we're also 2 looking at the process they're using to put it on the 3 list, as I've already said. Okay?
4 So if start-up occurred today -- I said 5 if, a big if --
6 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right.
7 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- it's possible 8 that there would be 5,000 items that would need to be -
1 9 - that oill be fixed at some future date.
10 MS, PERRY LUXTON: L 1ht. But who g 11 assures us that you make sure that taey get them fixed?
U 12 Because that has been a problem with you in the past.
13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: You do. You do.
14 Right here.
15 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Oh, my God.
16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: And you read our 17 Inspection Reports. W- tell you what we do, what we 18 found and so forth. But --
i I
. 19 MS. PERRY LUXTON: But how -- do we have 20 a list of those 5,000 items? How do we know --
$ 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes.
1
. 22 MS. PERRY LUXTON: You haven't given us 5
l 23 a list.
24 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: They're in the f
\- POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
241
( AIkRY 8 1 Waterford Library. And, you know, it's a stack of 2 paper that high. 3 MS, PERRY LUXTON: Oh, my gosh. That's 4 going to take an enormous amount of work to keep an eye 5 on you guys. 6 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, it takes an 7 enormouc amount of work for us to review those deferred 8 lists to ensure there'n nothing safety-significant in 9 there that's going to be deferred. Okay? 10 MS, PERRY LUXTON: All right, p 11 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Now, that list -- 0 12 MS. PERRY LUXTON: That's a new -- 13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- will continue 14 to grow maybe before restart ever occurs. Okay? 15 MS, PERRY LUXTON: I don't know if 16 that's acceptable to the public. 17 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, I'll -- l 18 that's the reason it's important that we have this 19 conversation. 20 MS, PERRY LUXTON: I know it. It's too $ 21 bad it's at 12:00 at night and nobody's here. 1 . 22 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: And we understand. E l 23 Well, maybe next time -- 24 MS. PERRY LUXTON: We might want to talk O I-OST REPORTING SERVICS HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
242 MEETIN RE I TOliE UNITS 1 about that again next time. 2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- we should start 3 off with -- 4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: I think so. 5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: -- the corrective 6 action process and start talking about the backlog and 7 -- 8 MS, PERRY LUXTON: And then you can talk 9 about the new spoke wheel that you said it's going to 10 be a new restart -- P 11 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Restart Assessment e U 12 Plan. 13 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Restart Assessment 14 Plan. We should talk about that, too, at the next one. 15 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Yes. Well, we're 16 just -- what that is is an update of the seal items,
- 17. the stuff we've been inspecting all along.
[ 18 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. Right, 19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: So we've been 20 closing some of those. We're doing our inspections. $ 21 MS. PERRY LUXTON: So that would be i, 22 appropriate to talk about that at the next meeting. 5 l 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: It certainly 24 would. O POST REPORTING SER7 ICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
243 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS (]) JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Right. 2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: But we're going te 3 have it available for you beforehand in the library -- 4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Okay. 5 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: if you'd like 6 to get a copy of that. 7 MS. PERRY LUXTON: All right. Okay. ' 8 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Okay? Does that 9 help? 10 MS PERRY LUXTON: Yes, That's -- lg 11 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Good. 'N 12 MS, PERRY LUXTON: That's very helpful. 13 Disconcertioq, but helpful. 14 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I understand. I 15 can appreciate that. 16 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Yes. Okay. 17 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: All right. l 18 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Thank you. 19 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Any other 20 questions?
$ 21 MS. PERRY LUXTON: Not that I can think 1 . 22 of right now, except where's my pillow? You know?
E l 23 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Does anyone else 24 have any questions? POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
244 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS () JANUARY 27, 1998 1 MS. NORTON: Wnen is the next public 2 hearing? 3 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I'm sorry? 4 MS. PERRY LUXTON: When is the next 5 public meeting? 6 MS. NORTON: What is the next public 7 hearing, meeting? 8 DR. TRAVERS: The next there are a 9 host of meetings upcoming. But the next meeting with 10 the Commission, for example, is February the 19th, g 11 10:00, I think. I think it's in the morning. U 12 A VOICE: 9:00. t 13 DR. TRAVERS: 9:00? 14 A VOICE: I think it's 9:00, 15 DR. TRAVERS: February 19 in Rockville, 16 Maryland. And, of course, we will -- we haven't yet 17 scheduled our next evening meeting. But we'll do that 18 shortly. 4 19 A VOICE: I just would add that the 20 Chairman is going to be here on the 2nd of February.
$ 21 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: I'm punchy, b = 22 Right. The 2nd of February.
I l 23 DR. TRAVERS: And there's going to be a 24 public question-and-answer session, I think, at 7:00, O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 j
a M 245 MEETIln RE: MILLSTONE UNITS () JANUARY 27, 1998 1 something like that. l l 2 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: 7:00 at the high 3 school auditorium. 4 Okay. Last question of the evening -- 5 or the morning, First of the morning. 6 MR. NAZAR: The question I have goes 7 directly to what Gene was just talking about, And my 8 question is given that Commissioner, the head of the I 9 Commission is coming, what is going to be, if you know 10 now, the general format of the public meeting? Is she _g 11 expecting just general questions? Is this going to be u 12 more like a Congressional hearing where one_ just 13 presents, you know, typed papers, et cetera? 14 DR. TRAVERS: About an hour, hour and a 15 half, But she's going to -- my understanding is that 16 she's going to start off with a brief statement, And 17 we have -- she has solicited -- I think we've done it { 18 for her -- questions from several groups in advance of
. 19 this. The Citizens Regulatory Commission, for example, f 20 NEAC. The Friends of Millstone and CAN, Citizens o . 21 Awareness Network. Were solicited -- if they wouldn't 1 - 22 mind -- and they have provided us with three questions E
l_ 23 for the Chairman. And she's expected to start off 24 early in the meeting with addressing some of those or O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102 i
246 MEETING RE: MILLSTONE UNITS (])- JANU%RY 27, 1998 1 all of those questions. Following that, the expectation is that she will respond to questions from the audience. 4 MR. NAZAR: Do you know if there's any 5 structure or organization that's going to be put on the 6 meeting to avoid this becoming an argument about the -- 7 either the economic viability of nuclear power- or 8 desirability of nuclear power or whether radiation has 9 any finite limit, lower limit at which you don't see 10 effects any more, et cetera, et cetera? Which are g 11 valid issues, but that's peripheral to the issue of W 12 whether Millstone is ready to restart. 13 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: Well, if you've 14 seen the Chairman in public forums before -- 15 MR. NAZAR: Never met her,
- l. 16 CHAIRPERSON LANNING: --
she's very 17 effective at keeping questions on track to the subject 18 at hand. So I think it's important to her that you're 4 19 from the public and she'll try to respond to the public 20 on Millstone.
$ 21 Okay. That's it? Good night to all.
]
b
= 22 Thank you for coming.
5 l 23 (Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 24 12:12 A.M.) O POST REPORTING SERVICE HAMDEN, CT (800) 262-4102
CERTIFICATE O I, Paul Landman, a Notary Public in and for the State of Connecticut, and President of Post Reporting Service, Inc., do hereby certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the foregoing record is a correct and verbatim transcription of the audio recording made of the proceeding hereinbefore set forth. I further certify that neither the audio operator nor I are attorney or counsel for, nor directly related to or employed by any of the parties to the action and/or proceeding in which this action is taken; and further, that neither g the audio operator nor I are a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel d (' employed by the parties thereto, or financially interested in any way in the outcome of this action or proceeding. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and do so attest to the above. this 11 thday of Feb. ,19 9a l On A -
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2- - b -- a President m ~ -l , 1-I POST REPORTING SERVICE IL 1-800-262-4102}}