ML20247F354
| ML20247F354 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Rancho Seco |
| Issue date: | 03/25/1987 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20247F042 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-89-2, FOIA-89-A-7 NUDOCS 8905300060 | |
| Download: ML20247F354 (54) | |
Text
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . - - - - - -
- e. .
J 1 BEFORE THE 2 UNITED STATES 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 REGION V ,
5 6 In the Matter of: )
)
7 INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW ) DOCKET NO: NONE
)
8 (CLOSED NEETING) )
l 9
Sunrise Sheraton Botel 10 11211 Point East Drive Rancho Cordova, California
- 11 Nednesday, March 25, 1937 12 13 An investigative interview was conducted with 14 ROGER L'. POWERS, commencing at 9:00 a.m.
15 16 PRESENT:
17 RONALD A. MEEKS Investigator 18 Office of Investigations, Region V Nuclear Regulatory Commission 19 20 21 1
22 23 24 25
\
I N ,
[W g53 0 890516
2 )
l J
1 CONTENTS 2 WITNESS PAGE 3 Roger L. Powers 4 Examination by Mr. Meeks ,
4 5
6 7
8 9 EXEIBITS 10 (None)
- . 11 12 ,
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 .
22 23 24 .
25 t
h u_.- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ . . . _ _ . . _ . . . _ _ _
m 3
1 EEEEEIRIEE1 2 9:15 a.m.
3 MR. MEEKS: For the record, this is an 4 interview of Roger -- what is your middle initial?
5 TEE WITNESS: L.
6 MR. MEEKS: Roger L. Miller.
7 TEE MITNESS: Powere.
8 MR. MEEKS: Miller was yesterday; correction, 9 Fowers, F-o-w-e-r-s, Roger L. Powers. Mr. Powers is 10 employed by the sacramento Municipal Utility District.
. 11 The location of this interview is Rancho 12 Cordova,. California. Present at this interview are myself, 13 Ronald A. Meeks, an Investigator with the NRC Off1ce of ,
14 Investigations, as well as Mr. Jim Riggins, a court 15 reporter.
16 As agreed, this interview is being transcribed 17 by Mr. Eiggins.
18 The subject matter of this interview concerns 19 the management of the Liquid Effluence Frogram at the 20 Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Rancho Seco Nuclear i
21 Generating Station.
22 Mr. Miller, if you will stand and raise your 23 right hand, I will swear you in.
24 THE MITNESS: Powers.
MR. MEEKS: Mr. Powers -- we're going to have 25 I e
. # 1 4
1 a problem here; aren't we?
2 Mhereupon, 3 ROGER L. POWERS 4 having been called as a witness herein and, ,having been 5 first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
6 MR. MEEES: I apologize.
7 THE WITNESS: Eaving the same first name, that 8 causes a problem.
's MR. MEEKS: It's throwing me off.
10 Mr. Powers, before we went on the record and
. 11 initiated this interview, took some time to familiarize 12 himself with a Report from Mr. Ronald J. Rodriguez, the 13 Executive Director, Nuclear, for the Sacramento Mun1cipal b 14 Utility District to Mr. J. B. Martin, Regional Administrator 15 of NRC's Region V office.
16 That Report is entitled Special Report No. 84-17 07 and is dated September 27th, 1984.
18 EXAMINATION 19 BY MR. MEEKS:
20 Q Mr. Powers, what was your involvement in the 21 development of information for Special Report 84-077 22 A Nach of. the information on calculated doses i 23 was performed by Ed Bradley, Supervising Realth Physicist i
who, at that time, was working for me. So, as Supervisor, I i 24 25 reviewed the work that he performed.
i
5 l
1 Q Specifically, did he, through you, input any i l
2 information into this Report?
3 A The calculated doses, developed by computer l l
4 code, were calculated by him, reviewed by me, and, 5 consequently, found their way into this Report.
6 Q SPecifically, what section are you talking 7 about?
8 A Okay. There's reference, in the letter, to 9 calculating certain doses, maximum child, 302 millires 10 liver; maximum adult, 185 millires.
11 Q Maximum adult --
12 A Right.
13 Q -- 325 millires? ,
., 14 A No, 185. ,
15 Q 1857 16 A Right. Those numbers would have been 17 calculated by Mr. Bradley.
18 Q Did you have any other involvement with this 19 report, other than these sections that give the calculated 20 doses?
21 A I also reviewed some of the work prepared for 22 us by the Bechtel corporation in se= ing the design of 23 evaporation ponds and looking.at alternatives.
24 They put together an alternative document of 25 CPtions that we had. Evaporation ponds was one of those
% mm____-.___._.___
)
6 !
l 1 options; it was in the report.
2 And I reviewed and commented on that report, j 3 as did several other individuals.
4 Q Were there any other parts of ,
the instant 5 Report 84-07 that --
6 A I believe that those are the two that stood 7 out, as ones that I remember having been involved in.
E Q Specifically, who did you interface with on 9 this report, other. than Mr. Sradley and the Bechtel j 10 officials when you reviewed your comments?
11 A Okay.
12 Q Those comments went to whom? 1 13 A They would have gone on up to the rest of the b 14 management chain. Specifically, they would have gone to Lee 15 Keilman and Ron Rodriguez. They probably were also 16 circulated within the Operations Organization; and the exact 17 people that would have been in that review cycle, I am not ;
i I
18 positive.
~
19 George Coward would have been one; but I'm not 20 sure who else in the Nuclear ops would have been a part of 21 the review cycle.
22 Q Why don't we just take some time here and i explain what your present position is with Sacramento 23 24 Nunicipal Utility District and what it was back at this time i
25 of the -
--__saa--_- _ _ - - -_ . - - - -a.,--
l .
7 1 A Okay.
2 Q -- Report on September of 1984, and then, 3 also, if it were different during 1985, then what it was in 4 '85. .
5 A Okay. My present position and title is 6 Supervisor of Nuclear Engineering; but my responsibilities 7 are in the area of Nuclear Puel Managsment, in other words, 8 engineering calculations and also certain contractual work 9 from the standpoint of supply contracts for the nuc, lear fuel 10 cycle.
11 Up to -- well, okay. As of May of '86, from 12 May of '86 to the present', that's kind of been my position.
13 Prior to that, I had two other areas of responsibility 14 reporting to me. One was the Corporate Health Physics 15 Activity, with Ed Bradley and a number of people working 16 with him and for him; and the Nuclear Design Activity, the 17 design of modifications that would be implemented at Rancho 18 seco.
19 That aspect is true back until -- and I'm 20 going to have to guess on this one because I don't resember 21 anactly when; but Ed Bradley worked for me approximately a 22 year. Prior to that, he worked for Bob Dieterich.
23 And so, somewhere back in '85 or late '84, Bob 24 Dieterich was swamped in the work that he was handling on 25 Licensing; and Lee Eeilman asked me to have Ed Bradley and a
t . .
8
, 1 his Group report to me.
2 Q And your supervisor, during this time period, 3 was Lee Keilman?
4 A That's correct. .
5 Q And what was his title?
6 A No was the Manager of Nuclear Engintaring.
7 Q Was there ever a time that you assumed the 8 responsibilities of Mr. Keilman, the present Manager of 9 Nuclear Engineering?
10 A Yes. There was about a three-month period 11 early in '86 when I was Acting Manager of Nuclear 12 Engineering. I think Mr. Keilman had the title until about 13 the and of January.
14 And then about from February to May, I had the 15 title. And then Don Gillespie from INPO came and was our 16 Acting Manager of Nuclear Engineering.
17 Q What does INFO stand for, do you know?
18 A Instituto Nuclear Power operations.
19 Q So your comments and the input that you are 20 responsible for, from Ed Nradley, then eventually went to 21 Mr. Emilman for review, along with the rest of the report?
22 A Right.
Q What other individuals did you participate 23 24 with in formulating the input of information to 84-07 before 25 it was finally published?
i
9
. 1 A I think the COG Engineer that had the lead of i 2 the Bechtel study that had been performed, that developed 3 the options and that, was Arshad Alvi.
4 Q Will you spell that, please.
5 A A-r-s-h-a-d, A-1-v-1. He's a chemical 6 Engineer for SMUD.
7 Q You say COG, meaning Cognizant?
8 A Cognizant Engineer, yes.
9 Q For the Bechtel's work on the evaporator I
\
10 policy? l l
11 A Right; at the -- during the time frame prior 12 to the submission of this report. I think it's had other people assigned to it as it walked along its way. Prior to (
13 14 submitting the report, I believe he is the co'r rect 15 individual.
16 Q Were there any other persons?
4 17 A Probably Dan Gox, also, would have reviewed 18 the report of evaporation ponds. Jim Nilson would have been 19 involved with that. Jim Wilson's an Environmental 20 Specialist in the Engineering Department at SMUD. Those are 21 the ones that come to mind.
22 I . am sure there are -- again, there are several people that reviewed it. I as thinking of the ones 23 24 within the Engineering Organization that I've teen familiar 25 with.
l
-- __.-__.___mm-____-m._u-_-__.m._____ _ _ - _ _ _
o 10
)
, 1 Q What was Dan Cox' position?
2 A Dan Cox was a Senior Nuclear Engineer; and he 3 was reporting to me at that time.
4 Q What discussions or meetings were you involved 5 in, where the formulation of information to make up what 6 came out to be 84-077 7 A. Well, let's separate it into parts. On the 8 dose counts, I don't recall any specific meetings, although 9 I'm sure there probably were discussions with Mr. Rodriguez; 10 but I can't, you know, identify a specific meeting on a 11 specific date.
12 I just think that, you know, that because of 13 the concern that it would have been reviewed, and I suspect b 14 that it was , on the evaporations ponds, I know there were 15 design review meetings with Bechtel both at techtel, in 16 their Norwalk offices, and at Rancho Seco, in Design City.
17 Q Okay.
la A But, you know, we could certainly find the 19 dates and so on and so forth, going back through 20 correspondence on this. But there definitely were meetings, 21 reviewing the various options.
22 Q Eow about after the issue of the Report 84-07, what discussions were you involved in, or meetings, to 23 24 follow up to that, the issuance of the Report?
25 A Okay. During -- and I am going to forget the i
-a- - _ - - - _ - _ - - - _ _ - _ _ - - - , - - - - - - - - - - . - - - - ,
11 1 exact ethrting date -- but, in efforts to resolve the 2 concern with respect to calculated doses, I know that one of 3 the first things that we did is we sought out a nationally-4 recognized expert to help us in finding out what the real 5 impact was of the releases that had occurred.
6 And I remember talking to Mr. Willis, back at 7 NRC, and asking for suggestions. I also talked ' with Marv 8 Goldman, who is a well-known professor over at Davis. And 9 the name that came up was Dr. Noshkin of Lawrence Livermore.
10 I remember calling him in and we had an
. 11 interview. Now, myself and Don Martin were there; and we 12 decided, at that time, to start working with Lawrence 13 Livermore and asked them to take the necessary samples to 14 really define what the conditions were in the Creek and in 15 the area to which liquid had been discharged.
16 And, after that contract started, it's been in 17 effect; and we've continued to monitor and find out what the 18 situation is in that area.
19 Q Who is Don Martin?
20 A Don Martin is now the Manager of Emergency 21 Planing. At the time --
22 Q For the District?
A For the District, yes.
23 At the time, he was in an Executive Assistant 24 25 role, that he was called into -- primarily because he used l
l
^ 1 L.-------_---____ _ _ - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ -
12 1 to be a Realth Physicist at Rancho Seco and had worked in 2 the Engineering Department before as an Environmental 3 Specialist.
4 Q So what was the purpose of, once again, 5 bringing in Dr. Noshkin and the Livermore Lab to --
6 Why don't you review that one more time, make 7 sure I underscand.
8 A Okay. What we wanted to do is to get the best 9 available evidence as to what had actually happened as a 10 result of the discharges to the Creek; okay?
11 Ne had a calculational model that was 12 calculating some very high numbers; but we were -- we wanted 13 to either confirm or disprove them and find out what was 14 actually there. We wanted to know the real magnitude of 15 what the concern should be.
16 As I recall, his efforts, the sampling of-17 actual fish, which provided the best available data, because 18 that was the primary pathway for dose to the public, 19 indicated that the real numbers were in the low twenties, 20 20 milligram as opposed to that calculated 185. ;
21 Q And what were Dr. Noshkin's principal 22 conclusions from his study?
I mean, you say it's ongoing but, in relation i 23 24 to Report 84-07 and the numbers, the amount of calculated doses that were released in 1984, up to September, as 25 I
. er
1
. .- j 13 1 reported in 84-07..
2 What were his principal conclusions?
3 A His principal conclusions were that, at that 4 point, he knew that the -- or his best estimate was that the 5 calculated dose should be in the low-20 range, missuming an 6 individual actually had the kind of consumption pattern for 7 food, that's assumed in the standard calculations.
8 Q Eow about as to --
any other principal ,
9 conclusions or was that his primary function?
10 A Well, the continuing monitoring was also to
. 11 see what -- how things were changing and, you know, and, in 12 subsequent time, he has seen the decrease that one would 13 expect as things both decay and, perhaps, sediments maybe ,
b 14 move further downstream and become more dispersed than they 15 were initially.
16 So he's seen that. That's all I can think of 17 at this time.
18 Q What other officials were responsible for 19 input into Report 84-077 20 A I don't know for sure. I assume others froa ;
21 Nuclear Operations were involved; but, you know, I don't 22 know what their involvement was.
23 Did you talk to Roger Miller yesterday? I as
\
i 24 sure that he was probably involved. His recollection is j
25 certainly superior to mine.
O i
m - - - - - - _ - - - _ - - - - _ - _ _ _ _ - - . - - - - - -
14 l
1 MR. MEEKS: Excuse the interruption; let's go 2 off the record for a minute.
3 (Off the record.)
4 MR. MEEKS: Back on the record.
- 5 BY MR. MIEKS:
6 Q On page 2 of Special Report 84-07, the last 7 sentence in paragraph 3 states that the steam generator tube 8 leaks were considered the major source of contamination for 9 the secondary system.
10 Mhat were the other sources for contamination 11 for the secondary system, if there were any?
12 A I wouldn't know what they would be.
13 Q Do you know if there were other sources?
b 14 A No. I realize --
15 Q Not specifically what they would be, but if 16 there were other contaminating sources that did exist, even 17 though you might act be able to --
18 A No, I can't think of any. I wouldn't have 19 been involved with the writing in that paragraph. I can't 20 really think of any that would have existed.
21 Q The last paragraph on page 2 of special Report 22 84-07 describes the pathway of releases for the 23 radioactivity to the environment and it describes the 24 pathway as being the secondary system to the Regenerate 25 Holdup Tanks or the REUTs -- we'll call them RRUTs -- then h ---_m______m-.___ ___________m__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
15 1 on to the environment through the Retention Basins.
2 What was your responsibility for the input of 3 this information, this last paragraph on page 27 4 A I don't think I had any involvement other than 5 to read it to see that it seemed to make sense. I mean, I 6 didn't write it and I was one of several who had the letter.
7 So, it was readable to me; I understood it.
8 Q And what is your recollection on any comments 9 on that?
10 A Recollection?
11 Q Yes, if you made any comments on that --
A No, I don't think I would have made any 12 13 comments on either of the last two paragraphs you've, asked 14 about.
15 Q Now, what was the reason for not reporting the 16 modification that allowed water to be transferred from c'he 17 Demineralized Reactor Coolant Storage Tank, or the DRGST --
18 or it's also referred to as Dr. Sist -- to the Regenerate 19 Boldup Tank in Special Report 84-077 20 A You are talking -- you have mentioned 21 something that I am not familiar with.
okay. What is your knowledge of a 22 Q 23 modification which allowed water to be transferred from the 24 Dominera11 zed Reactor Coolant Storage Tank to the Regenerate
,25 Boldup Tanks, the REUTs, in order to get rid of the water t
6
16 i 9
1 inventory that's building up and needed to be released.
2 This modification, allowing that water to be transferred 3 from these two tanks, was set up.
4 So I guess I should ask you what was your 5 knowledge of that?
6 A I would say none. You know, what you are 7 saying.is unfamiliar to me.
8 Q Mr. M111er (sic), in 1985, there were over 9 seven --
l 10 A Powers.
11 Q Mr. Powers -- should we .just have a standing apology for that? l 12 13 Mr. Powers, there were over 700,000 gall,ons of 14 water that was released to the environment from the 15 Demineralized Reactor Coolant Storage Tank, through the 16 REUTs, on into the environment.
17 What is your knowledge of the plant activities 18 and the plant configuration that caused that amount of water 19 inventory to be released from the DRCST Tanks?
20 A I am not really familiar with how water 21 accumulates and why, sometimes, there's larger amounts and 22 monetimes there's small amounts and so on and so forth. I 23 am not really very familiar with the plant operational 24 aspects. ,
25 Q On Attachment 2, Special Report 84-07, one of 3
17
+
1 the attachments is the Near-Term Corrective Actions; and 2 they are listed, nine of those.
3 Near-Term Corrective Action No. 7 talks about 4 a policy that would be implemented so that the Technical 5 8 specification 3.17.2 limits for releases to the environment 6 would not be exceeded.
7 What was that policy? What is your knowledge 8 of what that policy was?
9 A That's a plant operating procedure. I do not 10 see plant operating procedure; so, generally, I'm not
. 11 familiar with what happened at the plant to make that 12 statement true.
13 Q Do you recall over discussing, in any 14 meetings, particularly, what that policy might be or the~
15 method that was going to be implemented to achieve that 16 Policy?
17 A No.
18 Q I will just show you here, Mr. Powers, a 19 Technical Specification, 3.17.1, Limiting conditions for 20 Operation; and 4.21.1, Survel11ance Standards for Liquid 21 Effluence.
22 (Document profferod.)
23 Now, in the bases of both of these Technical 24 8 Specifications, in the second sentence of the bases, the 25 word "not" is inserted in these bases. And that word "not"
9 c
18 1 indicates that the specifications do .not assure compliance 2 with 10 CFR Appendix I Dose Objectives.
3 Explain why these Technical specifications j l
4 cannot assure compliance with the Dose Objectives of 10 CFR I 5 Appendix I.
6 A I don't think I was involved with the original 7 submittal or approval of those Technical Specifications; 8 and, consequently, I am not familiar with why the word "not" i
9 happened to be inserted there.
10 Q Were you ever involved in any discussions 11 about the insertion of the word "not", either prior -- or 12 subsequent to the Technical -- well, at any time?
13 A Just a moment; I as thinking.
14 Q Okay. Were you ever involved in any of the 15 discussions?
16 A Not that I can remember. I think -- I think 17 Ron columbo has said that the words were inserted 18 deliberately, that that's --
19 I don't recall whether I heard that from his 20 or from someone else discussing the situation or what, that 21 he had a concern that the limits, as defined, would not meet 22 it, so he inserted the word "not".
Q Were you ever involved in any discussions 23 24 ,
where the reason for the insertion of the word "not" was --
25 A NO-s' e
- - _ _ m ..-_______ _m.-.__- _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _
19 1 Q Ed Bradley discussed with you, during the 2 first part of 1985, the possibility that Rancho Seco's 3 Technical specification on Lower Limits of Detection, or 4 LLD, was not sufficient to assure compliance with the Dose {
5 Objectives of 10 CFR SC, Appendix I.
6 Mhat management actions did you take to assure 7 that Bradley's concerns about the sufficiency of Rancho 8 Seco's LLD, or Tech spec LLD, were properly evaluated and 9 factored into the District's commitment not to exceed the 10 Appendix I Dose objective limits in Special Report 84-077 t1 A Well, as I recall the situation, early in 'es, '
12 his first concern was a review of an EPRI report that had to 13 do with difficult to detect isotopes. And be wanted to 14 Perform work on that.
15 I had a problem with that because that seemed 16 counter-productive in the sense that all our calculations 17 were saying that Cesium was the major probles and that was 18 not difficult to detect.
19 And I understand why he wouldn't want to spend 20 a lot of time working on something that wasn't making a 21 significant contribution to the probles.
22 After that, he had an okay to pc shead -- when 23 he then ' decided be would prefer to work on Lower Limits of 24 Detection, he had an okay to go ahead and work on that. He completed a draf t, I think, sometime in the summer. That 25
(
to 1
t 1 was circulated for review and subsequently he published his 2 document in the fall sometime.
3 Q What actions did you take, in conjunction with 4 his study, to alert your managers and supervisors that 5 possibly stancho sec's Tech Spec LLD wouldn't be sufficient 6 to assure compliance with Appendix I?
7 A I don't think I took any actior.. But, as I a recall the document and his work at that timo, what he was !
)
9 saying is that there was the possibility of a problem or an 10 additional contribution for calculated dose if everything
. 11 that was released was just 99.9 percent of what you could !
12 detect, so that it was just below.
13 That's a conservative assumption; but didn't b 14 really-sound that realistic to assume that everything that 15 you don't detect is right at the limit.
16 And, even with that assumption, as I recall 17 it, he was saying that it was not such that he could say {
j 18 yes, we'll have a problem; we might possibly have a problem.
19 I believe, if he was sufficiently concerned, 20 or convinced that we had a problem, that the appropriate 21 thing would have been to use our Administrative procedure 22 No. 22 to file his findings and saying, "Ney, we are likely '
23 to violat's Tech Specs if we continue this way."
As far as I know, he did not do that; which, 24 25 to me, indicates that the proper interpretation is that i
21 1 there was a potential concern, but not a clear indication 2 that we were going to have a problem, something that 3 required further investigation. And that further 4 investigation subsequently occurred, as we had the composite 5 samples that had been saved counted by another laboratory to 6 find out what the residual that wasn't detected was actually 7 worth.
8 Q And I want you to explain a little about these 9 composite samples; but what was - what did you call it, 10 Administrative policy No. 227 11 A Yes.
12 Q Could you explain that in a little more 13 detail?
14 A As I understand the policy, any employee who 15 is aware of something that could cause us a probles that 16 would - with respect to our Licenses or Technical 17 specifications - has an obligation to fill out that form 18 and submit it.
19 It is then reviewed by the people in 20 Regulatory Compliance to evaluate, you know, whether a number of people share that. concern or whether it's, 21 22 perhaps, one person's interpretation and other people f 23 interpret it differently.
24 Q Now, at this time in early 1985, when Mr.
25 Bradley surfaced this concern, this efficiency of the LLD i
l
22 1 Tech spec, you were his supervisor?
2 A That's correct.
3 Q And you stated that, to your knowledge, he 4 never filled out a paper pursuant to Administrative Policy ,
5 No. 227 6 A Right.
7 Q Let me see if I understand it right. He was 8 exploring this possibility that it might not be sufficient; 9 that's your --
10 A Right; that's my understanding. And the range i
, 11 of the answer could have been anywhere from, yes, at's a 12 sufficient percentage of the number we are calculating to 13 push 'us over the top to -- well, you know, it's below b 14 detection and really is very low.
15 Q When he did give you his study -- when did you 16 say it was, about the middle of the year, middle of 19857 17 A Ne had a draft about the middle of '85 which 18 was reviewed by a number of people, names like Roger Miller, 19 like Braun, probably Fred Eellie, and so on.
Subsequent to receiving their comments, he 20 21 issued it sometime in the fall; I don't recall the exact 22 date. I would guess probably October, November time frame.
23 Q When you received that study, what actions did 24 you take? First of all, why don't you explain to us what
' 25 he did conclude in his study.
{
l 23
'l 1 A I haven't looked at that study for over a 2 year, but my interpretation is the same as I was saying 3 earlier.
4 There was a possibility that, if most of the 5
releases that occurred without detectable actiNity actually 6 had activity close to, and almost equal to, the limit of 7 detection, there was a possibility that some, over the year, 8 could have been a fair fraction of the number we were 9 shooting for.
10 It seems like he was shooting to have a very ,
l 11 low Percentage on that limit of detectability, something l
. 1 12 like ten percent of the number. And his calculation was 13 indicating that it was something higher than that, perhaps 14 50 percent of the number.
1 15 I am not very clear on that; and I would have l 16 to go back to the report. It was not like that that, in and 17 of itself, would exceed your limit; but, added to other 18 things that we calculated, possibly it could. In other !
19 words, it was not a real small fraction; but I don't recall 20 the fraction.
21 Q Did his report indicate that the Tech spec for 22 Rancho Seco's LLD was insufficient to assure compliance with 23 Appendix.I limits?
24 A No, I don't see it saying that.
25 Q Once again -- I know you just explained it;
( .
24 l l
1 but why don't -- I 2 A Okay.
3 Q -- you explain it again for me.
4 A Okay.
-5 As I understand it, the --
what his study 6 indicated is that, if all of the releases that had 7 quantities of radiation lower than the limits of detection 8 actually had radiation that was almost 99 percent or just '
9 slightly below the limit of detection, that that quantity, 10 summed over the year, could have been a reasonable fraction 11 of the three-millirem limit.
12 And I don't recall the number; but I'm 13 guessing it was something like, perhaps, 50 percent. And b- 14 his goal, as I remember it, was to change the limit so that 15 we would have confidence that it would only represent 16 roughly ten percent of that limit.
17 Q When you received his study, what did you --
18 what management actions did you take based on his report?
19 A As I recall his report, it not only went to 20 me, it went to several others. It was - it went to the 21 People that would have had to take the action.
i 22 In other words, the real action, if this was a 23 concern, . would have been in the Radiation and chemistry Department, to look at their limits of detection and 24 25 consider changing them.
( '
0 e
'hu _ _ - - _ - _ . _ _
25 l 1 Q What was required of you to do with this i 2 report? In other words, what action was required of you, as 3 a supervisor?
4 A I na not aware that there was a direct l 5 requirement for action on my part, that the meno went to the 6 people directly involved and able to do something about it.
7 Q You said you, in the middle of 1985, received a his report, approximately?
l 9 A Uh-huh -- yes.
l 10 Q Did you speak to Mr. Keilman about his report 11 and his concerns?
' 12 A I don't recall whether I did or not.
13 Q Did you have an opportunity to speak to Mr.
14 Rodriguez about'his report and his concerns?
15 A I am not sure whether I did or not.
16 Q And, on your report, yourself, I mean as far as the actions you took, did you have any interface with the 17 18 individuals that had the responsibility to follow up on his 19 report?
20 And who, primarily, would have had the 21 responsibility to follow up on his report?
22 A The actions would have been required from the 23 plant and within the Radiation and Prctaction Department.
24 Q And what is the chain of comaar.d for --
25 A As I --
[ -
26 t 1 Q -- in this particular instance, for having his 2 report channeled to the Operations Department?
3 A I believe they were on distribution. And I 4 know that the people in operations had also reviewed the 5 report and that -- through the draft stage. So they had 6 its okay.
7 I do know that, subsequently, I did call Fred 8 Eallie and asked him, at Mr. Rodriguez' direction, to have 9 those composite samples counted so that we could determine 10 what fraction of dose should actually be attributed to that 11 andetected amount. -
12 Q What caused Mr. Rodriguez to take this action?
13 A As I recall, I think it was in December, O 14 ,rohnery, of .... I was Acting manager at th. time,'and I 15 believe Ed Bradley'made the accusation that some samples had 16 been double-counted and then released.
17 And, with that information, I called Rodriguez 18 immediately. And he had myself and George Coward, on the 19 phone; and I know we talked about -- he asked George to look i
20 into that and find out whether or not they agreed with that i 21 allegation.
22 And also he said, at that time, I think, we'd :
23 better move forward rapidly on finding out where we stand 24 with respect to limited detection and asked me to call Fred 25 Kellie and have him have those samples counted ASAP.
i j .
i
27 1 Q These are the -- that's what you call like 2 composite samples?
1 8 A That's what I'm told they' re called, yes . .l 4 Q Yeah, that's my understanding too. Th at ' s -
5 done, the sampling, the analysis of those samples is done-.
6 by the controls for environmental pollution?
7 A I believe that's correct, yes. ;
l 8 Q Okay. Now the purpose for running those ;
9 samples was to determine what fraction of the radioactivity le in those sanples was of the toch spec lower limit of ;
- . Il detection?
r l 12 A Yes. l r
13 Q okay and what did that analysis tell you? ,
b 14 A As I recall by the time that analysis came 1
l 15 back, Ed Bradley was still reporting to me organizationally, 16 but in fact he was at thr.t time stationed at Rancho Seco 17 and working with the UES contractor in the health physics 18 area, and I don' t remember'what the result was at that time.:
19 I was not actively following it at that point in time. ;
20 Q what does UES stand for?
21 A Oh, boy.
22 Q United Engineering Services? l 23 A I believe that's correct. ;
24 Q Okay.
25 A I -- I, yeah, I' don't know. I'd have to --
6
. e )
2 29 3
1
)
I they're a consultant and that sounds right. But I don't i
2 know. I'd have to go back and see their name on a business L l
3 card to be confident. l 4 Q Now, why did Mr. Rodriguez involve you in 5 those composite samples? In other words, he called you 6 and Mr. Coward and in a telephone conversation you talked 7 about the need to take those composites, an analysis on i 3 those composite ssmples.
9 A I don't know. He asked me to do it so I did 10 it. I mean I passed on, you know, the request. !
. 11 Q Now, cne thing that's -- you stated that when 12 Mr. Bradley issued his draf t report that you took no action 13 to discuss it with your superiors, with Mr. Keilman or Mr.
L 14 Rodriguez?
15 A I don' t remember discussing it with them. As 16 I recall they may well have been on distribution.
17 Q Um-huh.
18 A That's b- I got that. Okay.
19 (Document proffered.)
20 Q I'm showing Mr. Powers here a memo from E. W.
21 Bradley to D. Kaplan, R. Powers, F. Kellie, M. B.aun, and R. i 22 Colombo and the subject is Draft Lower Limits of Detection l 13 Study and it's dated October 29, 1985. ,
24 Is this the draf t study you're referring to?
15 A Yes.
e
29 t
1 Q Okay. Did you receive this draf t study prior 2 to October 1985?
3 A There were earlier versions of the report, ves ,
4 There was a raw work effort that was going on and then I 5 believe the first time it was circulated for comment was 6 sometime in the summer of ' 85.
7 Q Okay and you received a copy of that?
8 A Yes, I did.
9 Q Okay and let's concentrate on that th en .,
10 What actions did you take when you received that study in 11 the summer of 19 85, or that paper in the summer of 19 857 11 A Well, I read it and I also looked primarily 13 to people more expert in the field to have their comments e '
s- 14 on it. Specifically people like Roger Miller and Fred Killi e 15 and Mike Braun, and the general impression I received from 16 those people was that it was not a real significant concern.
17 0 Okay. This was in the summer of 19857 18 A That's correct.
19 Q Okay. You spoke to -- who was it, Mike 20 Braun, did you say?
21 A Mike Braun.
11 Q Who was Mike Braun?
13 A
- Mike Braun is a nuclear engineer that also 24 has a health physics background. He was working for me at 15 the time ,
t
____________m_
. , j 30
]
Okay and you say Fred Kellie reviewed that lj 1 Q 2 also?
3 A Yes.
I 4 O And who else did you mention? {
5 A I think Roger Miller read it.
6 Q Roger Miller?
7 A Right. Because I think Roger was retired at 8 the time but this was a period of activity on the lawsuit 9 that followed the discharges and it seems to me he was 10 called back into help us assemble documents and so on and 11 so forth, for attorney review, and I think he was asked to 12 review the documents.
13 Q Okay and once again, what were their concerns?
k- 14 A What were their concerns?
15 Q I mean what was their impression of the study?
16 A I believe their impression was that it was not 17 a significant concern.
18 Q And they reported that to you?
19 A Yes.
20 Q Both Mr. Baun, and Mr. Miller, and Mr. Kellie?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Okay. Now once again, who -- what conversations 23 did you have 'with your supervisor, Mr. Keilman, about -- in 24 the summer of ' 85 when you received that draf t study?
25 A' I don't recall any specific conversations.
S
.o ,
31 4
1 Q You don't recall any specific conversations. q 2 Do you recall what his -- what was his reaction to that 3 issue? To this issue here.
4 A I don' t think he had a specific, reaction. If 5 we discussed it, 'I would have passed on the comments that
~6 I' d received from the others that they did not. feel it was 7 a significant concern and consequently I would not expect 8 him to go beyond that. But I'm not remembering any specific 9 conversation with respect that item.
10 Q Okay. How about with Mr. Rodriguez?
. 11 A I'm not remembering anything specific, no.
12 Q Do you remember any of his concerns in the 13 summer of ' 85 or any opinions, or anything . that he might b
~
14 have mentioned about-Mr. Bradley's concern on the suf ficiency 15 of the lower limits of detection?
16 A No, I don't.
17 Q Okay. Now, when -- what actions were taken by 18 you when this study was issued on October 29th,19 85?
19 A There were no immediate actions. There was 20 a subsequent action of asking for checking of the composite 21 , samples to determine what of fact actually could be 22 attributed to this concern, as opposed to the speculation
'13 that was a part of this memo.
24 Q I'm sorry. I didn' t follow that completely.
25 Could you repeat that answer?
e e,
t 6
. a 32 1 A Yeah. We subsequently asked for actual testia 2 of the composite samples to determine what the real magnitu@
3 of the concern was , as opposed to the speculation that the 4 memo has. In that it assumes that everything released that' 5 not detected is immediately below the level of detection.
6 The very conservative assumption that it's just a fraction 7 less. Then the limit at which you could detect it.
3 Q Okay. What discussions were you involved in 9 where the concern about the lower limit of the detection 10 was brought up in relation to the commitment made in Report 11 84-07 not to exceed any, you know, the Appendix I tech spec 12 limits? Or excuse me, the Appendix I limits , which were 13 implemented through your tech specs.
14 A I don't recall any discussions.
15 Q Okay. I'm going to make sure I understand 16 this right.
17 A Okay.
18 Q So af ter the composite -- I guess for some 19 reason I'm not tracking. What again was the final results 20 taken on this study here? What was the bottom line?
21 A Okay. Subsequent to this study wt tested the 22 composite samples that were taken at Rancho Seco to try to 23 determi'ne what the actual levels were in those samples, in 24 those discharges that were made that were at levels lower l
25 then the limit of detection. To see whether it was, as this; e
- -_m.__- - _ _ _ . _ _ - . _ _ . - . . . _ _
33 I document conservatively assumes, 99.9 percent of that limit.
2 or whether it was some distribution numbers well below that 3 limit.
4 Q okay and what's your recollection of what 5 that sampling analysis was?
6 A That's where I tried to explain. I know 7 that there was a report early in ' 86 but at that time I was 8 pretty much removed from the picture, in that Ed Bradley 9 and his people were working out at Rancho Seco and not 10 really reporting to me day to day or even seeing him on a
. 11 month-to-month basis.
12 O But technically you were his supervisor? l 13 A Technically I was still on the books as his e
s 14 supervisor. But in fact he was working out there for other 15 people.
16 Q Okay.
17 A So I'm saying I don't think I saw the report 18 that later was filed and what numbers it came up with and 19 what values it came up with. I'm not familiar with that.
20 Q Okay. You had mentioned that it had come to 21 your attention that there was double counting on the 22 analysis before releases were made and that -- what did you ;
23 mention about! that? ,
24 A The -- .
25 Q Why don' t you just explain that whole -- your e
so
34 1 interaction in that whole episode?
l 2 A okay. Sometime in December of '85, as I reca1{
3 Ed Bradley came to me and made the accusation that we had 4 made releases that weren' t in compliance with our pro-1 5 cedures and our tech specs. Okay and specifically he l
- 6. indicated that a sample had been counted with a certain 7 limit of detection and some radioactivity was detected, and 8 that subsequently it was recounted with a lesser counting 9 time and that no radiation was detected, and it was sub- l l
10 sequently released without reporting that radiation.
11 Based on that, I called Ron Rodriguez and -
12 said Ed Bradley came to me and he said this. That's when 13 he immediately called up George Coward, as I recall, althou$
- 14 it may have been Steve Redeker, I'm not sure at this 15 point, and got on the phone and said, " Hey, let's make sure 16 of what our facts are. Did we follow our procedures always 17 or did we not follow our procedures always?" And as I 18 recall, and the answer came back, that nuclear operations 19 felt they had always lived within the intent of their 20 procedures and that was pretty much what I'm recalling.
21 Plus the fact that at that time we decided to 12 move forward to get a much better handle on what this 13 really. implies.
24 Q And what was that?
15 A Requesting Fred Kellie to have CEP count the f
9
- 3) 35 1 samples to find out what the numbers actually were.
2 Q Okay. Why were the instructions given to 3 double count the analysis?
4 A I'm not a part of nuclear operations. I can't 5 answer that.
6 Q Okay. What's your knowledge of why?
7 A I have no knowledge of that.
3 Q Okay. Do you know who in the management team p authorized the double count?
10 A No.
11 Q Why did you agree with Ed Bradley to withhold 12 issuing the final study of -- his LLD study until such time 13 as Rancho Seco was back on line and restarted?
s 14 A You're stating sonething as a fact that -- I 15 guess I need you to repeat the question.
16 Q Okay. In a memo to you, Mr. Kellie stated 17 that --
13 A Mr. who?
19 Q Mr. Elwards.
20 A Mr. Bradley?
21 Q Bradley. 1 22 A Mr. Bradley stated.
23 Q That you had agreed to withhold issuing the 24 final' study of the -- his draft LLD study until af ter 15 Rancho Seco was back on-line. So my question is, why?
]
{
l L_-_ _
36 i
1 A I'm not familiar with the statement that you'rd l
2 making. I'm not aware of an agreement with Ed Bradley to I i
3 do that. I 4 Q Let me see if I can find that memo.
5 A Or I'm not remembering it maybe. It may be 6 more factual, I don't know, if there is such a memo.
7 O Okay. I'm now going to -- we're now going to 8 review a memo from E. W. Bradley to R. L. Powers. It's 9 dated December 16, 1985. The subject is 10 CFR 50, Appendia 10 I, source term definition.
11 okay. Page 4, the first paragraph on page 4, 12 I'll just read that paragraph into the record and then you 13 can review it. ,
(. 14 "As a result of time and resource constraints,j 15 the draf t LLD study was not complete until July 19 85. At 16 which time I provided you a copy for review. After sub-17 sequent discussions with you and R. J. Rodriguez, I indicate (
18 that I would withhold issuing the final study until such 19 time that Rancho Seco was back on line. When startup-20 became so prolonged, I felt that it was no longer in the 21 district's best interests to hold up the study any longer.
l 22 So I distributed the draf t LLD study for review and comment 23 on October 29, 1985."
24 Which we've reviewed that October -- that 25 October report already. Would you like to' review that
' ~
12 37
)
I paragraph? i 2 (Document proffered.)
3 A okay. What is the question.
4 0 okay. To repeat the question, why did you 5 agree not -- for Mr. Bradley not to publish his study 6 until after startup?
7 A I'm aware that he's saying that. I don't 8 remember discussions with him and Rodriguez where there was 9 some sort of agreement to do that. There may have been but 10 I don't remember one.
11 Q What's your recollections on discussing when 12 the LLD study should be issued?
13 A That's what I'm saying is I don' t remember a e
%- 14 specific discussion related to that subject. You know, 15 should we hold it until some period of time? I don't 16 remember.
17 Q What's your impression of that issue, in 18 other words, right now?
19 A What's my impression? In other words, could 20 it have occurred? Possibly but I don' t remember it 11 occurring.
12 Q okay. Do you recall any discussions with 13 anyone other' than Mr. Bradley? Or what are your recollectis
. 24 of discussions with anyone else other than Mr. Bradley, 15 concerning the timing of the issuance of the draf t study?
--_______.m. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
a- - -
, 38 1 A I don't recall that timing of the issuance 2 of the study was a concern or a problem. I'm not 3 recollecting that as a problem.
4 Q But the information in this paragraph, you 5 don't specifically recall it but it could have been, you're 6 stating, a topic of conversation?
7 A It could .have but I don' t remember it.
8 Q Okay. What would be the basis, the reason 9 for that?
10 A I don' t know. There were an awful. lot of
. Il events occurring in that time period. There were a lot of 12 reports to be filed. There was quite a bit of activity in 13 the lawsuit with respect to the discharges. There could 14 have been a legal concern r. bout the timing of the 15 issuance of that. I don't recall.
16 Q In reading the last paragraph on page 3 of 17 Mr. Bradley's December 16, 1985, memo to you, it goes into 18 the background of how he came to be aware that possibly 19 the, you know, Rancho seco's tech spec LLD's might not be =
20 sufficient to assuie compliance with Appendix I. Particular< -
21 ly considering that Rancho Seco is a dry site and the .
21 Appendix I configurations are based on standard plan 23 assumptions and Rancho Seco differentiates in that from the l
24 standard plan assumptions in being a dry site. .
25 A Um-huh. .. ,
)
)
--a__-- - - -- . _- _ , , - - ---x__,--u--__ _ _ _ - _ _ -
$ O.
39 1 Q He states that the liquid effluent LLD values l
2 came to mind as one assumption that warranted further 1 3 investigation. I felt -- this is again quoting from this 4 last paragraph on page 3. ,
i 5 "I felt that it was my professional responsi-6 bility to initiate the LLD study on the district's behalf 7 to demonstrate to the NRC that the district was taking the 3 initiative in investigating -- in investigation of this 9 issue." That last -- those last -- the last half of that to sentence should read, "the initiative in investigation of 11 this issue and to reduce or negate any civil penalty if any 12 enforcement action were later imposed. I recall that you 13 were less than enthusiastic when I told you that I was
[ 14 performing this study. But as long'as it did not interfere 15 with all of my other work, I could continue."
16 Could you comment on --
17 A Yeah, I'd welcome the opportunity to comment 18 on that. This issue, as he points out, involves several 19 factors. He was concentrating mainly on one factor that 20 would make our situation look worse. There were many other 21 factors that would make our situation look better, that we 22 seemed to disagree on the vigor with which they should be 23 pursued.
24 Specifically, I would refer to the situation 25 where we had to turn in a calculation that said the estimato
______m____._________
4 f.
i 3 dose to an individual was 185 millirem. Whereas the best 2 available evidence from Dr. Noshkin's material indicated ,
1 3 that it was really in the low twenties. l 4 0 Well that wasn' t known at this time, was it?
5 A Absolutely.
4 O Oh, he had already come up sitn all of this 7 in his work?
g A Yes. Absolutely, absolutely, and there are i
, provisions in the regulations for taking advantage of site 10 specific characteristics or site specific data. Doing some 33 of dhat would tend to indicate. that the model that is 12 calculating this very high number is extemely conservative, 13 and perhaps credit should be taken for that. That factor
( 14 of nine or ten, you know, is f ar more significant than this 15 representing a fraction of the number, you know.
14 Q Okay. I don't quite understand what you're 17 talking about.
13 A Okay. What I' m saying, this conservative 19 factor of nine or ten --
20 Q Okay.
21 A -- what I'm saying is the measured data 12 indicated the number was in the twenties. Okay, low twentio 13 The calaculated number was 185. Okay. The model apparent 1p 24 in that situation is conservation by roughly a factor of 1$ nine.
41 1 Q Okay.
2 A Consequently that to me seemed like something 3 that we ought to really be concerned about and try to make 4 efforts to incorporate into the model, so the model would 5 be more realistic and more fair, and that factor nine in 6 comparison to the quantity we're dealing with on this lower 7 limits of detection, you know, it pales in significance.
3 3 rould have far preferred, not to ignore 9 the lower limit of detection problem, but to also carry on 10 some work to incorporate some of these things. Because I
, 13 think on balance we would have considerable evidence that 12 the calculation with or without the lower limit of 33 , detection is still very, very conservative with respect to e
s-' 14 reality.
15 As I recall, we also had additional confirma-16 tion of daat in the sense that we had people that claimed 17 they eaten, you know, large quantities of fish and should 13 have had detectible quantities of radiation and when body 19 counted, you know, it came back, no findings. Which, you 20 know, based on the assumptions and the analysis, which I 21 think were reasonable at the time, indicated that their 12 recollection, or their memories, or their eating habits were is probably off; again by a fairly significant factor. Five to 24 ten or something like that. We should have been able to 15 detect it. We found nothing. So on and so forth.
m h
a
A s'
. A 1
So I guess what I'm saying, from my viewpoint, 2 there were several other things that were worth of con-3 sideration and so much larger in magnitude than this ef fect, 4 that I'll confess to being more enthusiastic about vigorous &
5 pursuing that and trying to develop a site specific model-6 than to find something that is worth a half a millirem.
7 When we're talking about something that's worth 160 millirea 8 -in terms of reality.
9 Q Now, thos e , the actual dosage received by a 10 maximum exposed individual based on Dr. Noshkin's study --
II A Ri ght.
11 Q -- of the Livermore Lawrence National 13 Laboratory indicated that -- what number did you say,, in k 14 the low twenties?
15 A It's in the low twenties. I know that 25 is 16 the limit on EPA and I know his number was below that.
l 17 Q okay.
18 A I don' t recall exactly where -it 'was.
19 Q All right. But, okay, that's what I was 20 going to say, that that actual exposure based on Dr. Noshkin!
21 study --
1 12' A Right. I
~
18 'O -- was below the Environmental Protection 24 Agency's requirement -- i 15 A Right.
l l
- e 43 1 Q -- of 25 millirems per year.
2 A Right.
3 Q Which NRC is required to oversee and regulate ,
4 on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agen.cy. And dl 5 you exceed that requirement isn' t it correct th a t , on an 6 annual basis, then you have to consider whether -- NRC has 7 to consider whether the plant can continue operation or 3 not?
9 A Right. There has to be justification for 10 continuing operation.
. 11 Q Now, the Appendix I limits which are based on 12 calculating doses, which would be in the case of those 13 doses reported in 87-04, which was for the -- 1984 up to 14 that r*:.e was 185 millirems?
15 A Right.
16 Q That was a calculated dose, like you stated.
17 A It was a calculated dose.
18 Q And it was based on your conservative, 19 Rancho Seco's, excuse me, conservative off-site dose 20 calculation manual?
21 A It was , yese, but the dose manual was pretty 12 much --
23 'O ,The conservatism, input into the --
24 A It's based on NCR standards in the new regs.
25 okay. It has very little site specific information in it.
e
. c 44 1 Q Well, doesn' t the environmental study input 2 into that, the specific site information ma,nual?
A It could. j 3
. 1 4 0 Okay. ,
5 A Excuse me, yes, some. There's certainly some 6 site specific information. I guess what I'm getting at is 7 there was -- we had at this point some evidence that 3 strongly suggests that just using the model with the input 9 assumptions that are available, gives an extremely con-10 sarvative answer.
. 11 Q Okay. Now that's in relation to the Appendix 12 I limits which --
13 A In relation to the Appendix I limits. ,
(,! 14 Q Yeah and those limits are as low as reasonabig 15 achievable.
16 A Right, I understand that.
17 Q The limits or ALARA, A-L-A-R-A limits and 18 they're designed to be a flag to the operators of the plant.
19 A Righ t.
20 Q And to NRC dbat you're operating -- in other 21 words, if you're operating at, near, at or above those 22 limits --
23 A Righ t.
24 Q -- then being an ALARA consideration, you 25 review and find out why, so as to keep you away from the EPA
45 1- standards.- So what I'm saying is, we're concerned that --
.2 well, your --
3 A Let me restate.
4 Q Let me finish'what I'm going to state here.
5 A Okay.
6 Q Your concern that you should concentrate more 7 on the EPA standards, the fact that you were not exceeding 3 those standards, does nothing to show, you know, to respect 9 or to consider the ALARA provisions of Appendix I limits 10 and that's my understanding of what Mr. Bradley was trying 11 to point out here.
12 A Now I vociferously disagree with your 13 characterization. Okay.
w'- 14 Q Okay.
15 A And let me explain it as I understand it.
16 Q That's what I understood from your explanation 17 A In my mind, the fact that in one calculations 18 case we had a situation where we calculated at 185 and the 19 reality as best determined by measurement, said it was the 20 low twenties. It says that the model tends to give an 21 answer that's a factor of nine too high, if you'll buy that 22 simple arthimetic. By the same token, if I then turn aroun6 23 and calculate the number three for ALARA purposes, I would 24 submit the same logic would tell you that that number is 25 probably high by a f actor of nine and that the real number e
a
46' I
i 1
1 is like - .35 or some such number like that.
2 Q Okay. I understand that.
5 A That's the point that I'm trying to make' and 4 I'm saying that that consideration relative to, the magnitude
(
5 of what he's concerning about here I think is overriding. j L 6 In other words, even if in this sense he j L I 7 found another calculator, one and a half, so that the number
[
3 was four and a half, I would argue the best available 9 indicates it should still be divided by nine and be point l 10 five.
. 11 Q For the purposes of this explanation --
12 A Righ t.
13 Q -- whether that's actually what it sho.uld be -- .
. 14 A' Right.
15 Q -- you could determine that through a study 14 of it.
17 A I' m j us t s aying -- I' m j us t -- but I am 18 making the point that there are provisions for trying to 19 feed some of this information into the ODCM that's used to
,1 20 calculate the Appendix I number and feeding in some of this 21 documented information seems to me, would adjust tr e model 12 in such a way that it would overwhelm the concern that's 13 shown here on LLD's.
24 Q Okay. You stated there were factors which q 15 you thought needed to be highlighted, which pointed out --
f l
l 1
- e. 6 47' l
l 1 in highlighting those it would point out the positive aspeck 2 of your effluent program.
3 A Right.
4 0 While Bradley wanted to concentrate on this.
5 LLD issue, which would highlight a negative aspect of the 6 program. ,
7 A Right. ,
8 Q And you mentioned the one was the conservative 9 calculational model. .
10 A Right.
, 11 Q What were the other factors which you felt 12 should be highlighted?
13 A I think that's the main one. I guess the 14 other area that somewhat concerned me about .the calculation 15 is that it's theoretical and it doesn't always give the 16 results that it should. For instance, if we say in ' 87 17 made no releases, the calculated number would be zero. The 18 reality of the situation is there is still residual out 19 there that Dr. Noshkin is measuring and, you know, there.
20 are real numbers and also that I guess I have a little 21 concern with models that give results that we know are 22 significantly different from reality.
23 Q Then what should be done to marry those two 24 divergent, you know, to marry that gap between those two 25 areas?
t
---____m. _ _ . _ . _ _ ___ _
w .o AR I
1 A I think you should take advantage of the best 2 available information. In other words if you're going to 3 look at an incremental contribution in a year, it's fine to 4 go through a model. But if you have evidence, that the 5 model is conservative by a factor, you ought to' get some 6 credit for that factor.
7 Q Now this model that you referred to, it's 8 based on regulatory guidance from NRC on what the model 9 should be, or the parameters that the model should take?
10 A That's correct.
11 Q On these two factors, the one which wanted to 12 highlight or thought should be pursued, and the other' that-13 Mr. Bradley thought should be pursued more, or had a, 14 priority, we've . already ~ discussed somewhat the management 15 actions you took concerning Mr. Bradley's issue and let me 16 just review that again.
17 You, once again, the actions you took, why ;
18 don't you just go over that one more time.
19 A Well, as I recall he wanted to work on the 10 lower limits of detection and we agreed to disagree on the 11 relative importance of that versus trying to get more i
12 realistic parameters into our ODCM. But I told F?% th at ,
- 18 you know, I felt that he was right in that it was a concern 24 on one side of the ledger and that he could go ahead and 15 work on it but we were in a time frame where were swamped l
)
o-49 1 ' with having to get out reports and doing a lot of othe 2 work and I thought that that had top priority.
3 Q What action did you take with respect to 4 pursuing the conservatism built into the calculational 5 model for determining off-site dose releases?
6 A I didn' t seem to be able to 'get any action 7 in that area.
8 Q. Who specifically did you talk to on that issud 9 A Well, I tried to pursuade Ed to work on that 10 area and he didn' t -- he seemed more~ interested in this
. It issue.
12 REPORIER: I'm sorry. I lost you. He seemed more II interested in -- (Noise interference from outside room.) 1
(
14 A In the lower level of detection issue.
15 Q- What discussion did you have with Mr. Keilman 16 about the conservatism of the calculational model?
17 A I don't recall that we had any particular 18 discussions. In other words , I don't remember a specific 19 event. I think in general we talked from time to time and 10 I probably mentioned both situations that, -the interest in 11 LLD and my concern that the reality was something dif ferent ,
12 than the LLD concern, Stat there was much more conservatism 18 there than one should be upset about with respect to LLD. l 24 Q How about with Mr. Rodriguez, what discussion 0 15 took place concerning these two items?
- I e
o
__a-_ - _ , - - - - - - ------- --
m .>-
50 1 A Again, I don't remember anything specific.
2 I !think Rodriguez, Mr. Rodriguez was aware of most things 3 and probably at one time or another we had discussed this 4 but I can't remember a specific meeting, sitting down and 5 saying, ' hey, Ron this is the circumstance.
6 Q Okay. In October 1985, Lawrence Livermore 7 National Laboratory, I assume it was Mr. Noshkin's work, 3 reported detecting cesium 137 in downstream-sediment at 9 levels not anticipated, due to the fact that there were no 10 reported releases of radioactive products during that year, ,
, it up to that time. What action did you take to assure that 12 the LLD issue raised by Bradley was not the cause of the is activity being detected by the Livermore Lawrence Na,tional 14 Laboratory?
15 A I don' t recall the event or the action.
16 Q Okay.
17 A I'm sure there was. such a document but I don't!
18 recall that specifically being highlighted and raised as a 19 concern that would lead to an investigation. I don't recall 20 that.
11 Q Mr. Bradley, when did he go to the site?
12 A It was probably early in ' 86.
13 Q Okay. So he was still working for you at this 24 time?
15 A Righ t , right.
l
51 y Q okay. What's your recollection of this 2 issue?
3 A I'm not recalling the issue. I'm sure that 4 what you say is true. That there was something. I would 5 speculate that it would probably 'be very difficult to g attribute cesium 137 to quantities that mi'ght be let out 7 under LLD considerations. Because while there was a 3 concern on Ed's part that they weren' t low enough, they werG p quite low and I don't recall the magnitudes. But I suspect 10 that they wouldn't have been of sufficient magnitude to be
, it a factor in this concern.
12 Q What normally would be the action in this 13 case? Say Mr. Noshkin came to you and reported to y,ou that, 14 " Hey, I'm finding cesium 137 here. That, you know,. based 15 on the' fact patterns and everything, it shouldn't be here."
16 What would you have done? I know it's hypothetical, but 17 in reflection what --
13 A okay. Well, really the way that I've always 19 tried to interact with Dr. Noshkin is I fully recognize him 20 as the expert and I ask him for his recommendation.
Is 21 there something we should do to shed some light on this?
22 And I don't recall ever receiving a recommendation from him, 25 to do something that would shed some light on this.
24 Q okay. Did it ever come to your attention 25 that the documentation on the composite sample analysis e
e "s
e; s2 I was missing?
2 A No. I wasn't aware that we routinely had 3 composite samples until Ed Bradley suggested that they be 4 counted, as I recall. ,
5 Q What's your knowledge about back in the 6 seventies, '75, '76, '77 time frame, were'you an employee 7 of Rancho Seco at that time?
8 A I was an employee of SMUD. I've always 9 been a part of the downtown engineering organization. 1 10 Q Okay. What's your knowledge of the radio-11 active water that was shipped off-site, back at that time 12 frame?
13 A I'm aware that some was but that's about the '
14 extent of it.
l 15 Q Okay. What's your awareness of why those ;
16 shipments were stopped?
17 A As I recall it became some sort of a public 18 concern, but I don't recall the circumstance.
19 Q Mr. Powers has any SMUD official, manager, or 20 supervisor given any indication that they want you to 21 furnish a summary of your interview today?
22 A Yes.
23 -Q Okay. Who was that individual? l 24 A Ray Ashley has requested a. memo indicating 25 what was discussed so that he would be aware of what the e
4
r_ .
= >
%3 l 1 Q What was your reaction to that request?
I 3 A It seemed reasonable.
3 Q Okay. What influence has that request had 4 on your responses today during the interview? ,
~
5 A I don't think it has had any effect on it.
6 Q Mr. Powers, have I or any other NRC represento 7 ative here or at any time in connection with this interview,;
8 threatened you in any manner or offered you any rewards in 9 return for this statement?
10 A No, you haven' t.
. Il Q Have you given this statement freely and 12 voluntarily?
13 A Yes, I have. ,
r
'b 14 Q Is there anything further you'd care to add 15 for the record?
16 A Not at this time.
17 MR. MEEKS: Okay. Thank you very much for 18 your time.
19 (Interview concluded at 11:00 a.m.)
20 21 12 23 24 25 o
__m__-_:___.__.__._-.____ ___-__
4 .
Thic is to certify that tho attached pracOcdinga b3foro tho UNITED STATES NUCLEAR EEGUI.ATORY COMMNSSION in the matter of:
.E OF PROCEEDING: INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW (CLOSED)
DOCEET No.: NONE
- PIACE: Rancho Cordova, California. .
'DATE:
2[ March 1987 .
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original
~
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.'
Q NM ll &
N 5 5 H. n {s b Official Rep r l
- Reporter's Affiliation Jim Higgins and Associates 1
( .
EXElBIT M r;,, m # e4 e.. _ .
_---