ML20247F045
| ML20247F045 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Rancho Seco |
| Issue date: | 04/07/1987 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION V) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20247F042 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-89-2, FOIA-89-A-7 NUDOCS 8905260405 | |
| Download: ML20247F045 (78) | |
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- v 1 BEFORE THE 2 UNITED STATES 3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 REGION V 5 .
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6 In the Matter of: )
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7 INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW ) DOCKET NO.: None
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8 (CLOSED MEETING) }
9 Management Analysis Company Office cf Ronald J. Rodriguez 10 12671 High Bluff Drive San Diego, California 92130 11 Tuesday, 12 April 7, 1987.
13 An investigative interview was conducted with 14 Ronald J. Rodriguez at 6:10 p.m. ,
15 16 PRESENT:
17 ROBERT G. MARSH, Director office of Investigations 18 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region V 19 RONALD A. MEEKS, Senior Investigator 20 office of Investigations Nuclear Regulatory Commission 21 Region V 22 23
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1 CONTENTS 1 i
2 WITNESS: pAGE NO .
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.3 Ronald J. Rodriguez 4 Examination by Mr. Mw ks 3 5 Examination by Mr. Marsh 5 6 !
l 7 EXHIBITS:
8 None 9
10 11 12' 13 s
14 15 16 17 13 19 30 21 22 24 .
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4 3
1 PROCEEDINGS 6:10 p.m.
2 MR. MEEKS: For the record, this is an interview 3
4 of Ronald J. Rodriguez, spelled R-O-D-R-I -G-U-E-Z , who is
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5 employed by t% Management Analysis Company.
6 THE WITNESS: That's correct.
7 MR. MEEKS: The location of this interview is 3 Del Mar, California.
9 Present at this interview are myself, Ronald A.
10 Muwks, an Investigator with the NRC Office of Investigations, 11 and Robert Marsh, thw Field Offico Director of the Region V 12 Office of Investigations.
13 As agreed, this interview is being reported by 14 Marty Turk. The subject matter of this interview concerns 15 the management of the liquid effluence program at the Rancho 16 Seco Nuclear Genwrating Station.
17 Mr. Rodriguez, if you will stand and raise your !
18 right hand, .' will swear you in.
19 Whereupon, 20 RONALD J. RODRIGUEZ 21 was called as a witness and, after being first duly sworn, 22 was examined and testified as follows:
23 DIRECT EXAMINATION 24 BY MR. MEEKS :
25 0 Could you just briefly describe your current
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'l position with the Management Analysis Company?
2 A I'm currently a consultant in the field 3 servicus division of the company in the executive consulting 4 group. j 5 Q Specifically, what is your area of wxpertise 6 with Management Analysis Company, or arwa c: concentration?
7 A Well, it's primarily in the area of management 8 assistance to the nuclear industry, primarily operating 9 utilitius and bringing to them my experience and assisting 10 them in overcoming problems that they may have in their 11 operating plants.
12 Q How long have you been employed with the 13 Management Analysis Company? .
14 A Since September of '86.
15 Q All right. Could you discurs your employment 16 with Sacramento Municipal Utility District, when you started, 17 the functions you -- the positions and responsibilities you 18 had, as it related to the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating 19 Station?
10 A I came to work for SMUD in November of 1968 as 21 the assistant superintendent for operations. And I was in 22 that position until about February of 1970 and I became then 23 the plant superintendent.
24 Q All right, of Rancho Seco?
A Of Rancho Seco. And I held that position --
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S 3 well, a year later the title was changed to manager, nuclear ~
L' 2 operations, which essentially was the plant manager. And I 3 remained in that position until February of 1983 and I was .
4 promoted to the assistant general manager of nuclear with 5 r=sponsibility for the nuclear organization at ,SMUD.
6 And I remained in that position until April of 7 -- er the first part of May of 1986, when I then became chief 8 of staff to the general manager.
9 Q And as the -- what did you say, the assistant 10 general manager nuclear?
11 A That's correct.
12 Q What were your management. functions in that ,
13 position? . ,
J 14 A Well, I was essentially the senior corporate officer for the nuclear area. The nuclear plant manager 15
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16 reported directly to me. The quality assurance manager reported to me. The manager of engineering 17 BY MR. MARSH:
18 Q While you are describing these people that 19 report to you, would you apply a name to those positions, i
,20 please?
23 A You mean the individual that had the position?
22 O Right.
23 A The -- for most of that time as assistant plant i 24 manager, the plant manager who reported to me was Pierre Oubre 25 until August of 1985, and then the plant manager was George
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'1' Coward.
2 The manager of engineering was initial Del Raases 3 until about May 'or June of ' 83, and then the manager of -
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' engineering was Lee Kielmann. And he had that position until 4
5 a bout February of 1986. And then there was an acting 6 engineering department manager -- and I don't ' recall his name.
7 0 Well, we can fill in the blanks where we can't 8 recall.
9 A And he was -- he served as the acting engineer- l l
i 10 ing department manager until May of ' 86. And then there was j 11 a loaned exwcutive, Don Gillespie, from INPO who became the i 1
12 acting engineering department manager.
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13 The manager of quality assurance was Andy The manager of licensing was originally reporting 14 Schweigur.
15 to the manager of engineering until about February or March 16 of '85 and then the licensing function became a separate 17 department and reported directly to me. And the manager of l 18 that was Bob Dietarick.
19 The training department came out from under the 30 plant manager sometime the middle part of '85, July, August, somewhere in there. And I hired a permanent training 21 22 department manager, Paul Turner, who reported in Decumber of 23 '86.
24 BY MR. MEEKS:
25 0 All right, December of '86?
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7 1
. A Excuse me, December of ';5.
o You wrote a letter to J. B. Martin, the regional 2
3 administrator of the NRC, Region V office. It was dated 4 September 27, 19 84, and it was untitled "Special Report No.
5 84-07."
6 Prior to starting the interview, you refreshed' 7 -- reviewed that report and went over it. On the first page,_
8 you indicate that based on the information in special report 9 84-07 that the near and long-term corrective actions are 10 detailed in the attachments. And based on those facts 11 concerning the near- and long-term corrective actions, the 12 district believes that a request for variance is not required 13' as of the date of that letter, September 27, 1984 14 Could you give us the SMUD perspective on the 15 background of that variance, what it consisted of and what 16 its regulatory requirement was and why was it necessary to 17 consider that? l 18 A As best I can recall, there was some discussion 19 at a meeting about this situation and the fact that there was 20 the potential for having exceeded 'the 40 CFR 190 criteria, 21 I guwss, 25 millirem per person.
l 22 O Yes.
23 A And I think the NRC folks that were there -- and l i 24 I pick on Greg Yuhas because I think Greg was one of the 25 people that were there when we discussed this about our m __ _ _ _ - - _ - _ - . _-___u___ _________-_____________________m___ - _ - _ _
8 I request for a variance -- and that that variance would detail 2 out all of the corrective action that we were going to take 3 to prevent this from reoccurring.
4 And as I recall, his suggestion was that we've ;
5 already taken that action. So you don't really,need the 6 variance. And that was the gist from that guidance, that --
sorry, that's the best I recall is that we generated the 7
8 letter.
9 Q All right. And whct was this letter's intended 10 purpose with respect to the variance, the special report 11 84-07?
12 A I think it was -- you know, we had the situation 13 where we had this potuntial of being a high level. And that 14 was to clarify the question of, was a variance required or 15 not.
16 Q I see. When you say a high level, do you mean 17 high level ---
18 A The calculated level ---
19 Q --- or radioactive --- l
,20 A The calculated level suggested that an l
I 21 individual -- if you take all the conservative assumptions --
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i Now, we went out-l 22 could have achieved more than 25 millirem.
23 in the field, you know, and did actual measurements and that I
24 whole body counting to show that wasn't -- in fact wasn't the 1 25 case. But the calculations that we did gave some bigger I
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1 numbers.
2 And the fact that we had those, we had to 3 resolve what do you do about that situation. And this was --
1 4 this letter you asked for -- I guess -- I think, as I recall 5 the guidance that we had in talking to the region about it 6 was that the regulations called for a variance if you exceeded j 7 that 24 millirem.
8 And that variance had to identify what you were 9 going to do so that in the future it wouldn't reoccur. But 10 at this point we'd already done a lot of things, essentially 11 what we would have put in the variance.
12 So instead of requesting the variance, we 13 generated this letter stating -- I guess it said that,.we 14 aren't requesting a variance, but these are the actions that 15 we've taken.
16 Q And as a result of those actions?
17 A As a result of those actions, we felt confident 18 that we were not going to exceed the technical specification 19 limit in the future, nor more importantly in this case the
,20 40 CFR 190 requirement.
21 Q The technical specifications implemented --
22 it is my understanding -- the 10 CFR 50, Appendix I, ALARA Is 23 provisions for radioactivity in liquid effluent releases.
24 that also your understanding, just to make sure we are on 25 the same frequency?
10 9
1 A 4.ah, I think it was in like -- I think the 2 letter talks ah44t' we had implemented the RETS in like June 3 or July of '84, I guess, as I recall.
4 Q When you refer to RETS, what are you referring 5 to, just for the record? .'
6 A Well, that's the new -- that was the change to 7 the technical specifications that brought Rancho Seco under 3 compliance with Appendix I. Up until that point, we were not 9 required to comply.
I 10 Q And for the record, the acronym RETS meaning 11 the Radiological Environmental Technical Specifications?
12 A Yes.
13 Q All right. So your special report 84-07.that 14 you issued to NRC in September 1984, once again you are 15 stating you are not needing a variance?
A Well, isn't that what the letter says? You knor 16 17 -- I'm trying to remember back three -- two and a half years 18 ago, but I ---
You have given it to us. And I am just ---
19 Q 20 A But the letter stated that we did not need a variance because we had taken these actions, okay? And the 21 reason for putting the letter in that context was, like I saic 22 23 as best I recall, we'd had a meeting with some members of 24 the NRC, and I remember Yuhas in particular talking about the 25 best approach to this.
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And the guidance that we' d had was, well, you've 2 alrwady taken these actions so just tell us what you're doing 3 and you don't need a variance.
4 Q All right. What was your involvement with thw 5 input of information in the special report 84-07?
6 A Well, for the most part the technical aspects 7 of this I left to the, you know, plant health-physics people and the corporate health-physics folks. Certainly, I was 8
9 involved in tha discussions we had with the NRC about the f act 10 that wu'd had discharges that in retrospect from a calcu-11 lational standpoint indicated we were exceeding the limits.
12 And that was, I think, pretty much the extent 13 of my involvement,
- reviewing what they were -- what the plant 14 folks had proposed to do to prevent that from occurring, and 15 recognizing what they were proposing to do should prevent the 16 discharge of an excess amount of radioactivity that would 17 take us outside of tech-spec limits.
18 O All right, what manager did you assign to 19 overswa that report and put it in the format that it ---
20 A Yeah, I don't ---
21 0 Put it in its final format which was ---
22 A I don't recall making a specific assignment.
23 Typically, this kind of report would have been generated in 24 collaboration with both the licensing folks or the corporate 25 health-physics people and the plant people.
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You know, somewhere there's a -- there ehould 2
be an inside copy of this on who signed off on it. And that'd 3 tell me specifically -- you know, the initials on there --
4 who the individual that generated it was.
5 0 All right --- .
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6 A Most probably it got generated either by Fred 7 Kellie or by my supervising health physicist in the downtown 8 office.
9 Q Ed Bradley?
A Ed Bradley.
10 11 O What oversight meetings were you involved in where the topics or the subject matter of special report 84-07 12 13 were discussed?
14 A I don't recall any specific meetings. I recall 15 the meeting or phone conversation that we had with some 16 people at the region about this. And it seems to me it was a 17 meeting at the region where it came up.
18 But as far as internally, I don't remember, 19 you know, any specific meetings that I can -- you know, come 20 right back to that that was the specific topic we were 21 talking about.
22 O All right ---
I just don't 23 A That didn't mean it didn't occur.
24 remember it.
25 0 Approximately what time span are we talking
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about with that interface that you had with NRC where you 2 talked about the issuance of this report?
3 .A obviously, it was some time before this report 4 was written. But whether it was, you know, a month or two 5 months, I don't know. .-
6 0 You stated that the RETS was ef fective in July 7 of '84. Was it in conjunction with that?
A Well, that's what the letter said. I don't --
8.
9 you know, that's why I -- having read this, and this indicated 10 in there that our RETS went into effact in July '84, that's 11 why I picked that out.
12 I think if you had asked me cold, I wouldn't 13 have remembered that it was in July. I probably would have 14 remembered that it was in '84 sometime.
o All right. In the first part of 1985, January 15 16 of 1985, Ed Bradley returned from a health-physics symposium.
17 In that health-physics symposium he had discussed with 18 various peer individuals, individuals with whom he -- what 19 is the word I am looking for? -- other individuals that he
,20 interfaced with at that symposium, the fact that because of 21 Rancho Seco's plant configuration and the fact that it was a 22 dry site and didn't empty its effluence into a river or an ;
l 23 ocean or lake that the technical specification for lower 24 limits of detection for Rancho Seco might not be sufficient j
25 to assur= compliance with Appendix I.
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14 1 This was in , like' I . say, the first '-- the 2 symposium was in January. What were your discussions with Ed 3 Bradley about this fact, that Rancho Seco's technical specifi-1 L 4 cation for lower limits of detection r..ight not be sufficient
$ to insure compliance with Appendix I? '
t 6 A I didn't attend that symposium. I don't -- you" 7 know, I don't remember anything specific about what he said j 3 there.
9 Q How about upon his return, what were your 10 conversations with him about that topic?
11- A I don't remember specifically about that. I i 12 remember him asking about doing some sampling. That he had 13 come.to me, he said he had asked the plant, I guess, tb 14 request or son'd some composite samples to CEP to determine 15 whether or not they detected radioactivity that was -- that 16 the plant hadn't detected.
17 And I remember telling George Coward, you know, 18 comply with that and gut Kellie to do whatever he had to do 19 to get that information for Ed - Bradley. But I don't -- I 20 just don't remember -- I can't respond directly to your 21 question because I just don't remember that.
Is there anything more you know about it? Did 22 13
- Bradley talk to you about, you know, the situation? Or was 24 it in a meeting or ---
Well, do you recall any conversations? Whuc do 25 o t
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15 1 you recall about conversations with Lew Kielmann and/or Rogwr 2 Powers concerning this very same thing? The fact tha't Ed 3 Bradley's awareness that Rancho Seco's technical specifica-4 tion for LLD, lower limited of detection, might not be S
sufficient to assure compliance with Appendix I,'and the l 6 f act that Brad 1=y was going to do a study on that very same 7 thing?
8 A Well, I know the issue -- let me think, it seems 9 to be I recall Bradley in a meeting that we'd had wherein he 10 made the communt that if -- I guess that if every sample that 11 we took was just below the level of detection, and you 12 accumulate -- and it was all like that, everything we 13 discharged -- that then you might exceed the tech-spec limits.
14 And that gets back to why I think he went back 15 and asked -- as I recall, he asked for those samples to be 16 recounted or done something with CEP to see if their levels 17 were -- if in fact those levels were just below what our u 18 level of detection was.
19 You know, I kind of -- I remember that topic je coming up. It sawmud to me that t! st 2000 second count, or l
l 21 whatever it was, was the fix -to that, to get the LLD down 22 low enough so that we'd know -- you know, we'd know that we 13 were at a level that we weren't discharging anything that 24 would take us out of the tech-specs.
f 25 Q This meeting where Ed Bradley discussed this
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,16 I fact, can you put a time period on that?
2 A No,.uh-uh, I can't.
3 0 Who was present at that meeting?
14 A I'd have to guess because , you know, normally 5 at those meetings, if I was involved in them, you know, some 6 of the department managers, the quality manager, the plant 7 manager, the engineering manager, the'11 censing manager, you 8 know, it could even have been at an MSRC meeting that that 9 'came up.
10 0 Well, when this ---
11 A You know, I don't remember specifically.
12 Q How did you correlate your commitments in 13 special report 84-07 not to exceed Appendix I limits with 14 what Ed Bradley was telling you of the fact that there is a 15 possibility we will exceed Appendix I limits ---
t 16 A WW11, I don't ---
l 17 Q --- if we are right at or right under the 18 tech-spec lower limits of detection?
i 19 A Well, you know, 'the main thing is that we didn't 20 want to exceed those tech-spec limits and we'd take the And in trying to tie the 21 actions to insure that we weren' t.
22 things together, it seems to me that was when he needed those 23 additional sam'ples checked to see if in fact they were just 24 below our level of detection.
25 And that data , which I don't remember -- you
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' know, whatever came of that data -- but that was the data that 1
2 would i>e utilized to tell us if in f act what 'were doing --
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what levuls of <1stection we had were inadequate.
_4 And I -- you know, in trying to think back about 5 that, the impression I had from Bradley was, you know, that !
6 he raised the issue but he didn't have a lot of concern about <
7 it because he felt that -- you know, that we were well below 8 that, but there was that possibility and the only way to 9 verify it is to get these samples counted I guess for a longer 10 a>unting time or a lab that had more sensitive equipment.
11 Q All right. The time frame you are talking about 12 there -- had I don't think I am mistaken on this -- is around 13 December of 1985. I am concerned with when this issue was 14 first surfaced in January, February, March of 1985.
15 With that information, the fact that those are 16 composite samples, you are ts1 king about the December 1985 17 time frams there. I want to back up to when this issue was 18 first raised by Ed Bradley. That is what I want to talk 19 about.
20 A Well, I don't know what the time difference You 21 was, you know, in the meeting that we had with Bradley.-
22 are saying that meeting with Bradley occurred in January?
23 Q I don't know the meeting that you are talking 24 about. I don't know what meeting it is or when that happened .
25 .But the fact that your involvement, from what I understand
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1 from the documents I have been able to read and I don't'think f 2 I have them right here, about doing the composite analysis 3 by CEP was in December of 1985.
4 A Well, I know he -- I think the December 1985 I 5 time frame was the time frame that he came to me' stating that 6 he couldn't get these samples counted. That's when I told.
7 you, you know, that he said h9 couldn't get them so I got a 3
hold of coward and told him, do that.
9 Now -- and I presume that there was some time 10 that had gone by, you know, when he was trying to get -- and 11 how he did it, I don't know. I don't know if he sent a memo 12 or verbally asked Kellie to send those back. And there could ;
13 have been, you know, two or thr== weeks, I don't know.. I 14 don' t remember him telling me how long it had been.
15 Q Why did he say he was having a difficult time 16 getting those samples counted?
17 A I remember him saying he'd asked Fred Kellie to 13 get them counted and he wasn't getting -- he wasn't being 19 responded to. So I got on the phone and called George Coward 20 and told him that Bradley was in my office, he'd asked Fred 21 Kellie to get some samples counted and for whatever reason, 22 health-physics, chemistry department wasn't responding to him.
23 And that was about -- you know, that's what I 24 recall of it. We didn't go into any specifics about how he'd 25 asked Fred Kellie or whether Fred Kellie didn't like him or
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I just what it was.
2 Q What Kellie's justification was for not 3 following up on that request?
4 A Yeah.
l 5 Q Who wise was present in that meeting when you 6 called Coward, other than you and Ed Bradley?
7 A I would expect nobody. And maybe Bradley was 2 already gonw by that time I called coward.
9 MR. MARSH: Aru we talking about December 19857 10 MR. MEEKS: Yes.
11 MR. MARSH: We leaped from early '85 to December 12 of '85 on this issuu. And I want to make sure we get back 13 and discuss thu meetings and the activities related td early 14 1985 time frame when Bradley brought this matter first to 15 your attention.
16 THE WITNESS: Well, I don't -- see, he said he.
17 did this at a seminar somewherw. And I didn't attend the 28 seminar.
19 MR. MARSH: No, he didn't say that he brought it to your attention at a seminar. . He said that Bradley 20 21 attended a suminar and then based on what he leared at that 22 seminar, he then concluded that possibly the calculations at 13 Rancho Seco were in error.
And he brought those to your attention. And we 24 ,
15 believe that that was brought to your attention at a
20 1 management safety. review committee meeting at which there was 2 a lot of people present and there was a lot of discussion And I have a hard time understanding how you would
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3 bout it.
4 not be at all familiar with it.
5 .
THE WITNESS: Well, yN know, as W6 talked about 6 it and I said I remembered, af ter a while, ' of 'him discussing 7 it at a meeting. I don't remember specifically that it was e 8 management safety review committee meeting. Maybe somebody 9 else does.
10 Just like when he asked at. who was there, I 11 said, "I don't remember specifically but normally when I'm in 12 some kind of a meeting like that, the department managers 13 . ware there ." And it could even have been an MSRC meeting.
14 ButIdon'trememberthat,youknow,specifically,beckuse 15 there were othwr meetings we had about technical issues that 16 werwn't MSRC.
17 BY MR. MARSH:
I 18 Q All right, but we are concerned with thr subs l
19 stance of what Bradley was saying and possibly Power.
30 Possibly Bradley and Powers both made a presentation about f 21 this subject?
22 A I remember the subject. I don't remember the 23 time frame. What I recall is what I said, that it seemed to 24 me that the cist of that, to determine whether or not we were 25 in any trouble, was to go back and get these samples that we l
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had made recounted by- CEP to see if in f act their ~1 eve.ls were just below what our level of detection was. And that's what 2
3 I remember ---
4 O Did you give any specific instructions for 5
someone to be in charge or to be the daddy to thst project to 6 make sure? Because you are looking at two dif'ferent branches 7 of your organization there and somebody has got to be 3 responsible for carrying out your wishes.
9 A I don't remember, you know, specifically I 10 Pointing out to somebody what typically -- I think it would 11 have been Bradley's responsibility to identify whether or not 12 we had a problem. And I assume it was since he was the guy 13 that came back to me later and said he couldn't get the site 14 to send me samples back or communicate with CEP or whatever 15 it was to get them countvd.
16 So from that, I -- you know, surmise that he 17 was the guy that was going to determine whether or not there 18 was c problem. But I don't remember specifically pointing to 19 him.
20 0 All right, let's see if we can zero in on a 21 time frame here based on other events that might have happened .
22 Do you recall contracting with Lawrence Livermore Lab to do 23 some downstream testing for you to find out what type of 24 nucleids were present downstream?
25 A Yes, I do. _
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1 Q Can _you expand on - that then?
2 .A well, it was -- Bradley was doing a OA check on f 3 our computer program and found that in there there was a 25 i
4 to 1 dillution factor that had been utilized in making these 5 offsite dose calculations based on the discharges that we had 6 made.
7 Okay, and I think when he went back in and put i
8 in the right dillution, which was like 1 to 1 or whatever it 1 1
9 was, the large numbers came up. So in order to determine in i 10 fact was that the case or not, we hired Lawrence Livermore to 11 come in and start doing some detailed sampling in the stream 12 to see what if anything was present.
13 Q All right, and they came in -- what -- in 14 springtime or summertime?
15 A I think spring, March -- yeah, because the 16 re% ort was -- you know, you're generating that report and 17 puut_ng it together for the previous year. And so that would 18 have been the early spring, I guess, March, April, May time 19 frame somewhere.
.20 Q All,right, so basically what Bradley was 21 reporting to you then early in the year -- earlier than March 22 time frame -- because if you contracted with Lawrence 23 Livermore in the springtime or somewhere in that range, 24 Bradley had to bring this to your attention prior that.
25 And, basically, you are aware of some 1
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' calculational figures specifically in the range of 25 to 1 2 that -- on the dillution factor that caused you to have 3 sufficient enough concern about the offsite calculations to i 4 contract with someone else to test it, is that correct?
5 A Well, I don't recall we contracted'with 6 Lawrence to test that calculational ---
7 Q No, to find out what the results were of any 8 releases downstream?
9 A That's right, what in fact was in situ in the 10 creek.
11 Q All right. So Bradley's calculations had 12 somewhat been confirmed whenever you contracted with Lawrence 13 Livermore?
14 A Yeah, I think -- I'm trying to think of what --
15 because we didn't jump right from his discovery to Lawrence Livermore. There was something in between. We had some fish 16 17 samples or something like that that we'd sent off to get 18 counted. And I think the fish had something in them.
19 And whether or not Lawrence did that, or CEP,
,20 I don't remember.
21 0 All right. But in any case, all of that is kind 22 of the progress of leading from Bradley's concerns into the 23 cause and results type situation of you have got a problem
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> 24 identified, and then you moved in to taking certain actions 25 based on that?
24 l
1 A Yeah.
2 O And that time frame was in the early to spring 3 time of 19857 A No, I think that was '84. Yeah, I think that 4
5 was ' 84 that we - that that Lawrence Livermore - - maybe not, 6 maybe it was '85.
7 Q hybe you had Lawrence Livermore doing some 8 work for 5 .c in ' 84 and then again in ' 857 9 A Well, it was the time. frame when he -- you know, 10 it was shortly after he discovered this flaw in the computer 11 program.
4 MR. MEEKS: That was in the spring of 1984, the 12 13 offsite dose calculation there.
14 THE WITNESS: Okay.
15 MR. MEEKS: So Livermore Lab's involvement would 16 have been subsequent to that 1984 initiation ---
17 THE WITNESS: Yeah, Decause they were -- you 18 know, they were there for -- I recall them being there for a 19 long time. And I -- you know, I just think they started --
40 I'm sure they started back in '84. They started before '85, 21 I know that.
22 BY MR. MARSH: .
23 o All right. So Bradley's problem then was 24 actually known back as early as '84, is that what you are 25 saying? ,
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.25 1 A Which specific problem are you addressing? We 2 started ---
3 Q The dose calculations.
4 A Yeah, the computer program problem with the dose f l
5 calculations was recognized in early part of ' 84
- i 6 BY MR. MEEKS:
7 Q That factor of 25 to 1, how did that get in 8 there, and what was the result of that study, how that was put 9 in there?
10 A My understanding of that was that they had a 11 computer program that I think they got from the NRC for doing 12 these dose calculations. And that program was put together 13 before Bradley came on the scene, I think when Don Martin was 14 the supervising health physicist in the headquarters office 15 back -- I don't know when that was, but that was in the early 16 '80s sometime, I guess.
17 And it seemed to me that the 25 to 1 was a 18 dillution factor that was used in some example in the calcu-19 lation, and that that was the source of it.
20 Q All right ---
21 A Because we never had it -- you know, we never 22 discharged with those kind of dillutions, as far as I recall.
23 Q Do you recall when the high point vent break
- issue occurred at Rancho Seco?
25 A I sure do.
0
- 26 1_ Q When was that?
2 A That was in June of '85. ,
June of ' 85? In conjunction with'that issue,
~
3 O 4 what is your recollection of either Roger Powers and/or Ed 5 Bradley talking to youabout the f act that Ed Bradley was doing a study on the LLD issue, its sufficiency? Because Rancho 6 .
7 seco was a dry site, he was doing that study, and Bradley's 8 suggestion that the issuance of that study be held up until 9 the resolution of the high point vent break issue?
10 A I don't remember anything about that. Maybe
'11 you'va got some more to talk about that will bring it back.
12 But I sure don't remember ---
13 Q What is your recollection of any conversations 14 you might have had with either Ed Bradley or Roger Powers 15 concerning the fact that the draft study would be held up --
16 Ed Bradley's draft LLD study on the sufficiency of the I
17 tech-spec LLD would be held up until after startup?
18 A As I said, I don't recall this business of 19 holding up the report. Do you have any specific reason maybe
,20 that -- you know, tl.at why he wanted ,to hold it up? Or why
[
21 it should be held up? Because I just don't renumber.
22 Q Do you recall any conversations along the lines ,
23 that maybe with the high point vent break issue and the 24 resources needed to be concentrated on that, that maybe it was l 25 best that the issuance of that draft LLD study, the study
j .- .,
27' I
concerning the sufficiency of the tech-spec LLD, that maybe 2 it would get better exposure after the resolution of the high 3 point vent break and/or after startup?
j 4 A No, I sure don't remember anything about that.
5 Q All right. In special report 84-07, one of the 6 reasons you stated of variance was it needed -- it is being 7 represented _by SMUD -- were the near-term corrective action 3 items.
9 No. 7 of the attachments to special report 84-07 ,.
10 one of the attachments, was "Near-Term Corrective Actions."
11 Near-term corrective action 7 states:
"The district has initiated a policy that all 12 13 releases will be controlled such that Technicci specification 14 3.17.2 limits will not be exceeded. All sampling of the 15 RHUTs and releases of liquid will be based on this objective.
16 The chemistry and radiation protection personnel responsible 17 for evaluating releases have been instructed concerning these 18 objectives."
19 That first sentence refers to a policy, the
.20 district has initiated a policy that all releases will be 21 controlled in order to not exceed the tech-spec limit of What did that policy consist of? Could you' expound 22 3.17.2.
23 on that a little more?
24 A Did you find something written about this 25 policy? Because I -- you know, I don't remember specifically
_a__-----____-----_.------___---___---_----____--_-------,.-.----------__.__.-__u_-- - -
. 28 what it said or even if it got written down. The policy as I
2 I best recall is that after all this thing that we'd been 3 through was that -- you know, I think what got us there was 4 to a large extent we thought that by complying with those 5 release levels in the technical specifications would keep us 6 within that dose manual -- or not the dose manual, but the
(
7 criteria in that it had to be -- you know, that the operating 8 folks, the shif t supervisor, the plant superintendent, who 9 signed off for at least permits as well as the chemist that 10 did that recognized the need for strict adherence to that.
11 I don't remember, you know, specifically what 12 we said in that policy or what I said in that policy, or if 13 I was the one who signed it off or the plant superintendent may have been the one who signed it off. I don't remember.
14 15 Q That is why we are so concerned with what 16 management actions were taken with respect to Ed Bradley's 17 issue. Because your commitments are based, as you stated in 18 there, your commitments and the reason for the variance is f 19 your commitment not to exceed tech-spec 3.17.2.
.30 .
That tech-spec implements the Appendix I --- l 21 A Yeah.
--- provisions limits. And that is exactly 22 0 13 the issue that Ed Bradley was raising, that those tech-spec 24 limits are the LLD that determines if you are meeting the 15 tech-spec 3.17.2 might not cut it. Therefore, because Rancho
29
.1 Swco is a dry site, that is why the NRC is concerned what 2 management actions were taken when Ed Bradley raised that 3 issue.
4 And since you are the author of that letter, ]
5 that is why we want to know precisely when that issue surfaced (
l 6 to you what actions you did take.
7 A Well, what I recall about that was when that 8 issue came up, was to go back and get some of those other 9 samples and see whether or not we were just below the LLD.
10 All I get from you guys, your information that you have, is 11 there was a long time between those two and I don't remember.
12 that time there.
13 Q What were the results of those samples that were 14 .run that you directed to have run?
15 A I don't remember.
16 Q Did it indicate ---
17 A I know in that report that I read here, you 18 know, in familiarizing myself with the report that you used 19 as a reference for this discussion, it had in there -- it 20 listed them, you know, and there were a number of them that 21 there weren't enough sample therw.
22 And there were some that I think indicated we 23 were just below the LLD and there were some that were way 24 above that they said Fred Kellie, or whoever -- in that the 25 plant dismissed that as being contamination in the glassware. .
V
3o 1
But that's just'cauce I read that thing, you' 2 know, last week or so.
3 Q So when was it that you left as assistant 4 general manager nuclear, what was the time frame-on that?
5 A The first of May, the end of April'.
6 O of 19867 7 A Yes.
3 Q All right. So those samples would have come 9 back. But you don't recall what the resolution of that was 10 as it related to Ed Bradley's issue, whether those samples 11 were coming in right below the LLD level or not?
12 A No. No, I sure don't.
13 Q Returning to No. 7 here of the r. ear-term 14 corrective action items, it states that:
15 "The chemistry and radiation protection 16 personnel responsible for evaluating releases have been 17 instructed concerning these objectives."
18 What management programs were put into place 19 or what specific meetings were held to make sure that the
.20 people responsible for doing .the analysis and determining 21 whether a release should be made or not, the chemistry and 22 radiation protection people, were aware of the commitment 23 in special report 84-077 24 A I can't tell you that. I don't knen -- I didn't . !
I
- 25. have that level of detail knowledge of just what the plant i
l
_-___ _ _ ___-_-____ .a
.31 I
did, who they instructed and how they instructed them. You know,.these activities were generated for the most part 3 either,you know, in concert with I:d Bradley and Fred Kellie.
4 And the details of what they worked out in there, I can't:go 5
$nto those because I'm just not that familiar with it. 3 6 Q All right ---
-7 'A And I wasn't at the time. I reviewed the letter -
,f 8 signed it, you.know, and the -- put some trust in.the guys I ~
9 had out in the field, that they were doing what they indicated 10 in here we should commit to do.
11 Q All right.
We have been going about an hour.
12 MR. MARSH:
13 Why don't we take about a three-minute break here.
14 (Brief recess.)
15 MR. MARSH: On the record.
16 BY MR. MEEKS:
17 Q When did you first become aware that the 18 analysis counting time for the regenerate holdup tank sample 19 analysis was being' lowered?
20 A As best I recall, that issue got raised I think as a result of an inspection, an NRC inspection. And I don't r- 21 know what the time frame of that was. That's what I recall 22 23 as the source.
24 .Q All right, do you recall -- or what is your 25 recollection concerbling Ed Bradley and/or Roger Powers coming
32 -
6 1 to you and telling you that Fred Kellie had been lowering the 2 analysis counting time, and that it merits looking into?
3 A I don't -- you know, I don't recall the time 4 frame, like I said. What I recall is that that issue got 5 raised as a result of an inspection -- or maybe'not. Maybe 6- Bradley was looking into it. I don't know, but my recollec-7 tion was that an inspection activity's what raised it.
8 Somebody came to me -- if it was Bradley or 9 Powers, it may well have been. And I recall asking Coward 10 about that and that that issue needed to get resolved and left 11 .it with him to take care of whatever the problem was and' get 12 it fixed.
13 But the time frame of that, I sure don't' ---
Q All right. Whenever the time frame was, you 14 15 had conversations with George Coward about it?
i 16 A Yes.
l 17 Q All right ---
18 A Because I think it was -- George is the guy I 19 remember talking about it. I don't know -- he became the JO plant manager in September and I don't know if that was --
21 you know, or the end of August -- whether it was before or i 22 after that, because he was the plant superintendent prior to 23 that, too. But George is the guy I ---
l 24 Q Recall?
25 A Recall talking to about it.
33
- 1 Q What did he report back on'the issue?
2 A Well, best I recall, it was kind of a nonproblem 3 from his perspective, that they liadn't deliberately violated 4 anything. It seems to me that they had -- I don't remember 5 it specifically, btt it seems to me that they'd'had a change 6 in process or something like that, that changed this counting 7 time and they had gone ahead and used this new counting time 8 before the change got approved or something like that.
9 Q All right. I want to show you a record of a r
10 telephone conversation with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
11 It was initiated by Fred Kellie'and he discussed a telephone 12 conversation he had with Greg Yuhas. And it is dated June 13 6, 1985:
14 "The reason for the call" -- I am quoting here 15 from the document - " resolve nuaning or interpretation of 16 second sentence Table notation (c) , Table 4.21-1, page 4-71.
17 " Resolution reached" -- I am quoting again --
18 "If a nuclide is below minimally-required LLD (5E-7 micro-19 curies per ec) but is e positive value, it must be recorded 30 and reported."
21 Down on who received a copy of this, you are 22 down as receiving a copy of this. Let me show that to you 23 and let you review it (handing witness do' ument) c .
24 What is your recollection of conversations with 25 any of the individuals down for "ce" or anyone else concerninc
.134 I the reason for that ---
I 2 A I don't remember anything specifically because, l I
3 you know, there's hundreds of these things generated. So to 4 remember this specific one or what transpired from that ---
k l 5 Q What was your reason for that tel'ephone call?
l L , 6 A I don't --
7 Q Or what precipitated that telephone call?
8 A I don't know.
~
9 Q were you involved in ---
10 A No.
11 Q --- the front and of it?
12 A No, not that I recall. No, uh-uh.
13 0 And you say you don't recall having any' 14 conversations with anyone in connection with receiving this-15 record of the conve::sation?
16 A Not without specifically, no.
17 Q How about that topic itself, the fact that if 18 any peaks are identified, even though they might be below 19 tech-spec LLD SE-7, you still report them?
20 A Yeah --you know, because my -- I didn't have a 21 strong background in health physics area and the chemistry 22 area, I really very seldom got, you know, into the details 23 of what all that meant.
That wasn't my question. I understand what you 24 O 25 are saying, it helps give me background.
35 1 BY MR. MARSII:
2 O What does that memo say to you then, with your 3 background and as acting in the capacity of the assistant ---
4 A It tells me --- .
t 5 0 -- general manager of nuclear at.the time?
4 6 What does that mean?
7 A It tells me that Fred Kellie had some question 8 of interpretation and he went to Greg Yuhas and got what he 1 l
t 9 thought was a satisfactory resolution. And that's what it 10 me an s. And that he'd use that in whatever area he needed to 11 use it in.
12 o All right, would you then interpret that record 13 as meaning that was then the interpretation and instructions 14 then to be followed by the SMUD employees in relationship to 15 that subject?
16 A Yes , I sure would. Because that's what he said 17 here, it's a positive value and must be recorded and reported.
18 BY MR. MEEKS:
19 0 once again, I am also looking for the answer to 20 my question. What is your recollection of conversations with 21 anyone on this subject?
22 A I don't. recall any -- you know, any specific 23 conversation on that.
MR. MARSH: Let me ask one more here; 24 25 MR. MEEKS: Sure.
13 6
. :- j 1 BY MR. MARSH: ,
~
2 .Q If an employee at SMUD had some reason to 3 dispute the interpretation by NRC, what would there course j
4 of action be?
5 A Well, if -- you know, if it's a guy like one of 1
the people that work for Kellie, then I'd expect that he' d 6
7 come back to Kellie to dispute that and Kellie'd probably 8 initiate-then some more conversation with the interpreter at 9 the NRC or go to Ed Bradley and ask.him for some help in 10 getting that interpretation redefined. ,
i 11 Q All right. So in the absence of any efforts 12~ to counter this interpretation, you would be expecting that 13 Kellis'was agreeing with it and understood this inter'p reta-14 tion and was then going to implement it?
15 A Yeah, by the way that reads, it said they 16 reached the resolution and that was it. That's what I'd 17 expect them to do.
l 18 BY MR. MEEKS:
19 Q What is your knowledge of a modification that 20 was made that was in the form of temporary piping -- excuse 21 me, PVC piping from the demineralized reactor coolant storage ;
i 22 tank to the regenerate holdup tank, and it allowed water to 23 be transferred from the DRCST tank to the RHUT?
I 24 A Well, I knew we had that piping laying in there 1 25 for quite a while.
]
137 1 Q When was that modification first initiated?
2 A Probably about in the early 80s. The first 3 time we discharged some liquid from the reactor coolant 4 storage tank. I think it was in the --
you knei, '80, '81, 5 '82-time frame. .
6 Q What was the reason for that modification?
7 A I think it followed the fla;t steam generator 8 -- I don't know, whether the first steam generator tube leak 9 or the fact that -- we used to ship water off, you know, and 10 then that got stopped.
11 As a matter of fact, there was a tank truck 12 that sat on -- it may still be there -- for years, it had 13 water in it. Because we didn't know what to do with It after 14 we put it in the tank truck.
15 And it seemed to me that it was after.that 16 stopped, our ability to ship it, was when we went to dis-17 charging -- dilluting and discharging it out the domin storage 18 tank to reduce the water inventory, as opposed to solidifying 19 all of it. We continued to solidify some, but the quantities, 20 the thousands of gallons that got involved in this, rather 21 than solidify, we discharged it.
22 Q so when ever you had a need to release excess 23 water, then you used that modification?
24 A I don't remember that we did it whenever we had t
25 a need. We still solidified, you know, waste water. So I m
- a__ __----.-A---_ _ . - _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - . _ - - - - - . - - . . - - - - - - - - _ _ _ - - - - _ _ - . - .
n,
- 4 3 g ..
1 think we did s'ome of both.
2 BY MR. MARSH:
3 Q Was this water in the demineralized reactor 4 cooland storage tank radioactive water?
1: .
5 A Yeah.
6 Q Do you know what kind of radioactivity was 7 present?
8 A Well, it'd be -- you know, it's the -- essen-9 tailly, it was radioactivity that came from the reactor core 10 and activated products within the reactor cooland.
11 BY MR. MEEKS:
12- Q So 'that modification goes back to the early 80s?
13 A I think -- yeah, yeah.
14 Q And how long was it used?
15 A I don't know, I can't tell you, you know, 16 specifically how long. I think -- I don't even remember when 17 we tore all that stuff out. I know we took it out. But I 18 don't remember whan.
19 Q All right ---
- 40. A It was probably though after -- you know, after 21 this problem surfaced that what we were discharging was being 22 taken up by the fish and increasing the Cesium in the fish 23 beyond what -- you know, what we'd originally thought it 24 would do. So that would have been -- what? Maybe *84, '85?
25 Q Why wasn't this modification implemented or
--_sw_-aw--------a- _ , , - - ---,,-- -_--._--.--.------_-----------,.---:..---. --. -- - ~ - . - - .--- -
- i. 1 ,
13 9 I
described in the safety analysis report, or in the updated 2 safwty analysis report?
3 A I don't know. I guess that nobody considered 4 when they were updating that that change, to put it in there.
5 Q Who would you look to as the individuals 6 responsible for initiating that update?
7 A Well, the update FSAR was a licensing 3 responsibility under Bob Dietarick's group.
9 Q All right. And how'would he know that that modification existed? In other words, it was a change in 10 11 the design of the plant, let's establish that. Do you agrew 12 that it was a change in the design of the plant?
13 A Yeah, I -- it's, you know, it was an additional 14 piping system that was put in there -- in there as a temporary 15 basis, but it was. in there for a long time.
Q So Dietarick would be responsible for ---
16 17 A Yeah, and I ---
18 Q Hw is responsible for updating ---
19 A Yeah. Now, he ---
30 Q --- the safety analysis report?
21 A Now, he -- he had the responsibility for updat-22 ing it. Euc he needed inputs from lots of people on updating 23 it.
4 24 Q Absolutely.
25 A So that kind of a change, you know, should have
_a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - -u_-_-.--__.__.__.__m_ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _
,40 1 come'to him from somebody in the plant, you know, the people 2 that layed out the design and were responsible for getting i
3 it installed were the kind of folks that should have told 4 him that this was a change, don't forget to include that in 5 the FSAR update. [
~
6 But, I don't recall, you know, how vigorously l
7 or rigorously the program for updating was put out to the 8 people. It was a licensing responsibility. Whether Dieterick 9 want out and, you know, really sat with the senior folks in 10 the plant and told them I've got to update this thing and I 11 want you guys to go through and thoroughly document whatever 12 changes you've made so I don't miss anything, I don't know.
13 Q Did Dieterick work for you?
14 A Yeah. He came -- yuah, he worked directly for 15 me, as I said, starting in about mid '85 sometime.
16 Q You described earlier how many different people 17 reported to you that you managed the program by. And yet you 18 don't know how vigorous or rigorous Dieterick did his job?
19 A I said, I don't recall this -- you know, he did 20 lots of things. This wasn't the only one, and I don't recall 21 how rigorously hw went out to get the input for the FSAR 22 update.
~
23 Q What typw of review should this modification 24 have receivwd?
25 A Well, our -- you know, at the -- I'm trying to
--_m-_.-__ ----_---s_--.--.__-------__--_--a -- - - - - - - - - - _ - - - - - - - - -
C' 41 I
think back when it went in which was back in the early '80s. ,
2 You know, we modified and modified our design review program.
3 How it was back then, specifically, I don't remember.
4 But I know, you know, the most recent one, it 5
should have been documented on a design change n'otice and a 6 qualified engineer review that design change hotice and make:
7 a determination of whether or not it required a 5059. review 3 and go through that -- if it did, to go through that review 9 process and through the PRC. And if the determination was it 10 didn't, then it wouldn't have gone through the PRC.
11 Q Now, who would be doing this, again?
12 A Well, the guy responsible for the design. But that would -- he would do the DCN. The DCN then, as I recall, 13
}4 goes -- it used to, I don't know what they're doing now, but 15 it used to go to the technical support superintendent that 16 worked for the plant manager. And he'd make a determination 17 of whether or not it needed a 5059 review.
13 That was the most current thing we were doing 19 at the time I left. And we've been doing that for quite a
,20 while. I don't remember if we'd been doing that since --
you know, this thing went in. But I suspect it.
21 22 O The design change notice would be by someone 23 involved in that aspect of the plant in your engineering, 24 corporate engineering, nuclear engineering ---
A For the most part, yeah. Now, sometimes you 25
' ;42 I could have a plant, you know, operations d=partmwnt wnginwer 2 design something. But that still has to go -- or should go o 3 'to the engineering group because thwy have configuration 4 total responsibility.
5 Q What would be the involvement of.the plant 6 reviww committww in that design reviww, that design change?
7 A Well, if it was identifiwd as a 5059 and wwnt 8 through that chain,. than the PRC would review that change for l
9 any safety implications.
10 Q All right. You mentioned earlier that that 11 modification allowed radioactive water to be released through 12 the RHUTs to the environment.
13 Do you know what controls were placed on that 14 water transferred from the DRCST tank, as far as sampling y
l
)
15 analysis?
16 A Wwil, as I recall, thwy had to sample that RHUT beforw they transferred it to the retention basin. And
! 17 18 then they would do anothwr sample at the retention basins to 19 determine the dillution rate before they actually started the f ,20 dischargw.
21 Q All right, special report 84-07 describes that 22 the problwm for the excess -- the releases resulting in an
~
23 wxcess of radioactivity in those releases -- was the steam 24 .g.nwrator tube lwaks. And it gives the pathway of that 25 radioactive watwr to thw environment.
~
h -- -
e
- 43
+
1 That pathway did not describe the linkup between 2 the DRCST and the RHUT tank. Could you comment on why that 3 pathway wasn't included?
4 A No, I really can't. I can only presume that we 5 were -- at the time we were writing this we wer.e" locked into 6 the source of that -- most of that activity was through the 7 steam generator tube leak pathway.
8 And I imagine that's the reason that was the 9 one that got emphasized there and they didn't even think 10 about the other one at the time that was written.-
11 O Well, let me tell you information that we have 12 received on this. And then I want to ask you a question 13 after I tell you this information.
I 14 Wh3n the radioactivity in the RHUT was such 15 that it exceeded the limits and couldn't be released, that 16 water was transferred back through the miscellaneous waste 17 system, back to the DRCST tank. ,
18 And then the water from that tank was released 19 to the environment. Actually, it went through the evaporators 20 and the boric acid evaporator and what other cleanup 21 processes it did.
22 But it did end up, because it had gamma 23 emitters, it did end up in the DRCST tank. Then it was l 24 released through that modification back to the RHUT.
25 Now, this is what has been told to us. With W
n
- 44 1
that understanding, would you expect that pathway to be 1 2- reported as a pathway of radioactivity to the environment?
A W11, even if it hadn't done that, you know, if j 3
4 what you're saying is truw, svun if it hadn't.done that, in i
5 retrospect that was a pathway that should have been 6 acknowledge in there, you know.
7 Why it wasn't, I just -- you know, I don't think 3' it war on purpose. It was just that they were locked into 9 thw steam generator tubo leak pathway and that's the one that 10 got re -- you know, that got explained in there.
11 Q All right ---
12 A Yuah, I think it should have been.
Q --- in October of 1985, Lawrence Livermore 13 14 Laboratory detectwd casium-137 and Cesium-134 in downstream 15 sediment at levels that were unexpectzd to them. It was 16 unexpected because there were no reportud'rulwases, theru 17 were no releases reported for 1985. Still they were getting 18 activity that was much highwr than would be expected because !
19 of no rulmasus of radioactivity.
,20 When this situation was presentud to you, what 21 did this tell you?
A Say that again now? This was in '857 22 23 Q Am I telling you something that sounds 24 unfamiliar? And it might be thw way I am explaining it.
25 A Go ahead.
. '45
, 1 Q In October of 1985, Livermore Lab found that
~2 the activity, specifically casium-137 and-134 in downstream 3 sediment, was much higher than they would expect. And they 4 presented --- i 5 A This was sampling subsequent to the initial 6 stuff they had done in '847 7 Q This was their 1985 work.
3 A Okay.
Q They sampled fish, upstream, downstream. They 9
10 sampled the water upstream and downstream. They sampled 11 the sediment upstream and downstream.
12 When I say upstream, that is closer to the f 13 release point. Downstream being however many meters or 14 kilometers it was. But in other words, not adjacent to the 15 release point.
16 At some point -- and they report what it is, 17 I don't recall exectly what it is. But it's -- whether it's la at the point where Clay Creek is going ira o Haddlesville 19 Creek or further on down, I don't know whether it is further 20 on downstream. Do you understand what I am saying?
21 A Okay, yeah.
22 Q All right. And they were coming up with
~
Casium-137 at levels that surprised them. So they were sayinc 13 24 what is going on here? Why is this? It presented a dilemma l 25 to them. When that dilemma was presented to you, what was j l
- ^-----_--_-_____m _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - . - = -_- _-_ .__ ___-_-_ _ _. - _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ -
.o
~
446
- 1 yourlrwaction? Or how was that issue presented to you, let's
- 2 put it that way?
A I don't remember what my reaction was. I recall l 3
4 some discussion about the levels not-going down as fas: as 1
5 they anticipated, and some discussion about, wel'1, the stuff )
6 was maybe remigrating somehow or other.
But I don't remember the discussion being that 7
3 the levels are going up and nothing - you know, nothing has 9 been reportwd as being discharged.
Q All right. Well, my question is still the sameo
-10 11 A I guess it was -- yeah, it was ---
12 Q If you have got levels here that are higher, 13 what was the management review of that situation?
}4- A I don't remember. I don't remember what that 15 conversation dealt with.
16- Q All right, in December of 1985 or the time that 17 you remumber that you gave instructions to George Coward to 13 do the sampling to see if in fact just what was the 19 sufficiency of Rancho Seco's technical specification LLD, did 3 you initiate any action to havw reviewud the situation of 21 Bradley's issue of the sufficiency of the tech-spec as it 22 related to the increased radioactivity in the' sediments 23 downstream, that possibly those two were correlated?
A I don't remember, Ron, anything specifically 24 ,
25 about initiating some different action. What I recalled was
__a--__.. - -- - - - _ . - _ _ _ _ - - - . . - - . _ _ _ _ - - _ - _ _ - - . _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - - . - _ - _
- 47 I that, as I stated earlier, was that.Bradley had -- Bradley 2 was going to use those samples to determine whether or not 3 we were just right below it consistently.
'4 And to try to determine whether or not we'd had 5 a situation where our levels were continuously r'ight below 6 our level of detection to see if in fact we were'in a <
7 situation where possibly we would exceed the tech-spec limits 8 again.
9 Q All right, did you ---
10 A But I don't recall -- you know, I haven't'--
11 I didn't say I didn't, but I don't remember telling him to do 12 anything different than try to pursue that aspect of his 13 research. -
14 Q Do you comprehend the way I am looking.at this 15 situation?
16 A Yeah, I sure do. Yeah, that the levels are 17 going up, that we're not indicating we've discharged any 18 radioactive material. And the reason is, why the hell is 19 the radioactivity increasing out there.
30 Q And Bradley is saying that you might be exceed-21 ing the tech-spec' limits because Rancho Seco is a dry site l 22 and the tech-spec LLD won't assure adherence to that.
23 Who would you have looked to in the organization 24 that had knowledge of this, that reviewed this matter, to 25 correlate these matters as it related to your commitment'in
.e
48 1 84-07 not to make any release?
2 In other words, the picture is starting to 3 build here.
4 A Yeah, I'd look to ---
5 O That maybe you are exceeding your. tech-spec 6 limits and you are not adhering to the commitments of 84-07.
7 A In answer to that question, I would have looked 8 to the plant manager and his health-physics-chemistry group.
9 BY MR. MARSH:
10 Q And who were they?
11 A Well, that was George Coward and I guess, you 12 know, somewhere along here in '85 Roger Miller. And then he 13 retired about the middle part of ' 85 and Fred Kellie assumed 14 that role. And he had -- he rotated the duty on that but 15 that was also I think Dennis Gardner and Bill Wilson, those 16 guys were the senior chem-rad techs that dealt with offsite releases and staying inside technical specifications. Those 17 ,
18 are the guys I wonid have looked to to keep a handle on this.
19 Q What role did Pierre Oubre have in this?
20 A Well, he was the plant manager for -- you know, up until August of '35. George coward was the plant super-21 22 intendent a'nd reported to him and had the responsibility for 23 the health-physics area as well as maintenance and operation.
24 Q So what you are saying then is that you would 25 have relied on the channel going down from you to Oubre to f
49 1
Coward to K 111e or Miller and on to those health-physicists 2 and chemists to be aware of that correlation?
1 3 A Which correlation are you talking --- .l l
4 Q The correlation that you are finding radio-5 activity downstre.am much greater than what you vould anticipant 6 when you are not making any releases?
7 A Yeah,.because I'd expect they're going to get 3 that report back frem Lawrence Livermore and they were 9 involved in that whole program.
10 Q Were you aware during that period of time that 11 you were in fact making releases?
12 A Well, we knew we were making releases. But my 13 understanding was they were below our level of detection.
Now, iihat didn't mean that there wasn't some -- you know, some 14 15 atoms of radioactivity in there. But they were below what 16 we could detect.
17 And our commitment was to release that below 18 those levels and as long as we stayed below those levels we 19 weren't going to get in trouble with our tech-specs.
20 Q Were you aware of reducing the counting time 21 in relationship to that issue?
22 A Well, when that issue came up, that's when I 1
became aware of it. I didn't realize that they weren't 23 24 counting it -- you know, at what the procedure prescribed thef 25 to be doing.
_ _ _ _ _ _ . _ . . - _ _ ___.__.__2,m_ __-.._ .- ___ _ _._ . _ _ _
50 l 1 0 Well, what was actually happening is, they were 2 reducing the counting time and therefore minimizing or 1
3 reducing the effectiveness of detecting the radioactive peaks, I l
4 because reducing the counting time that is in effect what 5 happens. .'
6 A Yeah, I recognize that now. But I didn't know 7 that at the time.
8 Q Also, they were diluting the RHUTs before they 9 would do the test, are you aware of that?
10 A Well, I was aware that when they had the RHUT 11 filled, then they would do the test. That was the way they'd 12 operated -- you know, we' d operated that plant ---
13 Q Well, if the RHUT is filled, and then you do 14 the test, what are you going to do if the test shows positive 15 that you can't make the release?
16 A Well, that was my understanding that when that 17 occurred, that's when they put it back through the process 18 to clean that water up and remove more of that radioactivity 19 before it was released.
20 0 All right, and then where would that water go?
21 A Well, I thought that water went back to the 22 RHUT after they processed it.
23 s 0 Through what mechanism?
24 A Well, he just explained the way they were doing 15 it was putting it back through the reactor coolant demin l
_ . _ _ _ _ . _ . _ . . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ . _____-__--.__._m_ _ _ _ _ _ --
.51 I storage tank and then back to the RHUT.
2 Q Through the modification?
3 A Through the modification.
4 Q Did you know that that process was taking place? l
! 5 A W.11, I knew they were putting it,back into the 6 RHUT, you know, I didn't go into specifically the path to get 7 it back in ---
8 Q But the plant is not designed to move any water 9 from the d= mineralized reactor coolant storage tank to the 10 RHUTs?
11 A Well, I ---
12 Q There is no system in your design to move water ,
13 .from your primary system into the sucondary system for 14 release?
15 A Well, I knew that we'd had that plastic pipe 16 that we put in there.
17 Q So that vould be the only way that you would be 18 aware if that could have been happening, is that correct?
19 A Well, I -- you know, they -- when they were 1
20 putting it down into the basement -- I don't think I -- I 21 don't recall ever really questioning about the path coming 22 back, you know.
23 I know that the reactor coolang domin storage 24 tank was a pathway, but they could have -- you know, could 25 have installed something else to get it back up there.
---___m _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _L____
u . 52 1 I nsaver really dug into it in that kind of.
l 2 detail. All I did know that Coward had told me that occa-3 sionally they me putting it back down in the basement to-4 remove the radis etive material to make sure that the 5 discharge was below the lower level of detectiqn. !
f 6 BY MR. MEEKS:
7 Q You reviewed Greg Yuhas's inspection report 3 which I had indicated to you this investigation and our inter-9 view was based on the information in that report. Now you 10 reviewed that report, didn't you?
11 A I read it in the last few days, yeah.
12 Q' Right. If you recall, Mr. Yuhas brought up the 13 issue of not -- the. word "not" being inserted in the bases 14 of the technical specifications of the RETS, do you recall 15 that issue?
16 A I recall that.
17 Q All right. -What is your knowledge of the 13 insertion of the word "not" in the bases of RETS?
19 A only what I read about in that report that I remember,you know. I don't remember anything specific about 20 21 the time when the RETS was approved at the management safety 22 review committee and whether or not that issue even came up, 23 I don't recall that. .
24 Q So you are stating, as I understand it, that 25 nobody came to you and said, listen, the suggested tech-spec
53 1 .w ording is such, howwver we are going to insert the word "not"
)
into that tech-spec because Rancho Seco isn't designed to I 2 i 3 meet Appendix I?
4 A I don't remember tr.c, Ron. That would have 5 been the -- you know, the RETS rats approved at the management !
6 safety review committee. And if the topic came up, that's 7 where it would come up.
8 Q. It would be discussed ---
9 A It would not - .you know, tech-spec revision 10 like that, you know, the guy that normally wrote those tech-11 specs was -- or responsible for getting them written, was k>n 12 Columbo.
13 And he wouldn't come to me with something 14 specific like that outside the context of the MSRC.
15 Q But the MSRC could include you in that ---
16 A Yeah.
17 Q --- if in fact they wanted your input into it?
18 A That's what I said. If it came up -- and I 19 don't remember, but if it came up, that would have been the
.20 form that would have come up in.
21 O If it did come up, they dif"'t include you in 22 the discussion of the review of the ---
A If I was there. I wasn't at all of them. But, 23 24 if I was there, I would have been a part of that, yeah.
25 Q But if you were there, and it was discussed,
wn 54 I what you are saying now, at this point in time, you don't 2 recall any of the --
3 A No, I don't recall any --
4 -- deliberations on that?
Q ,
5 A -- deliberations on it. ,
6 But, wouldn't that be in the meeting _ minuten-Q 7
of that MSRC? ,
8 A In retrospect of the isstse and the time we 8 spent on it, it probably should have now. But there were a 10 number of issues that come up, you know, an Tech spec 11 revisions that we did discuss across the table. And the 12 minutes were not verbatim minutes. I 13 The minutes were -- if you review them, you 14 will see that they were pretty much summarized that, if-the 15 Tech spec was approved unanimously or, if there was a 16 dissenting v o t e ,' there was a dissenting vote. But you 17 wouldn't go into -- the secretary didn't report the details 18 of the deliberations, you know, verbatim.
18 Q You made a commitment not to exceed the 20 Appendix I limits, or the Tech Spec, the Rancho Seco Tech 21 Specs that implement the Appendix I limits.
22 The inspection revealed that analysis of the 23 RHUT, before it was being released, was counted at 2,000 24 seconds. When gamma-emitting peaks were identified, then '
25 'they reduced the count time; and, if no further peaks were O
55 1 identified at that reduced count time, then the water was 2
raleased.
3 Do you understand what I as saying?
4 Yeah.
A .
S Q Okay. If you would have known of that 6 practice, at the time that it was being done, both before 7 and af ter Greg Yuhas told Fred Kellie and NRR and Rancho 8 Seco and SMUD that, if you do have peaks, gamma-emitting 9 peshs, then they are identified and they are to be reported.
10 Now, if that pattern independently came to you 11 -- first of all, let me ask you this question:
12 That type of information, what is the vehicle 13 for that type of information to c.one to you? .ud what would I 14 be the expected course of action?
15 A Well, that could, you know, that could be 16 brought -- it would be brought through an Inspection Report 17 or some internal audit picked it up and wrote it up on an think, 18 Audit Report, that that was going on. Those, I 18 would be the two normal avenues. .
20 Well, just like I did at the time, I would go 21 back to the Pla.nt Manager and tell him that this issue is 22 outstanding and to get it resolved.
23 Q So you would rely on him to resolve it?
24 A Yeah.
25 MR. MEEKS: Okay.
e L
- 5d" 1 Rob, do you havi any questions?
2 MR. MARSH: Let's go off the record for a 3 minute.
I,
- l. L4 (Discussion off the record.) .
5 BY MR. MARSH:
6 Q Mr. Rodriguez, are you aware of any reporting 7 requirements or reports that are made by SMUD to the NRC on 8 an annual or semi-annual basis?
9 A Yes, I an.
10 Q Are you aware of the content of those reports 11 and what they are intended to do?
12 A Well, a general awareness, not, you know, not 13 specific chapter and verse. .
When are the reports submitted?
14 Q Well, there's a, I thin',c , semi-annual report 15 A 16 that's submitted. Oh, I think we need to have one in by 17 March sometime, and the other by September, on gaseous and 18 liquid discharges and its affect on, you know, man-rea 19 exposure to the individuals at the site.
20 Q So, those semi-annual reports that you 1 refer 21 to are specifically to report any radioactive releases?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And their effects?
24 A Well, I think there also has -- they also have I
25 a man-res exposure for maintenance and work activities.
O ammMr
%=
. 53 1 don't think it's just specifically releases.
2 Do you recall making those reports --
Q reports to the NRC in the '84-85 time 3 submitting those 4 frame? .
Well, I know we made those reports in 5 A 6 accordance with our Teche Spec requirements throughout the 7 life of the plant.
semi-annual report that 8 Q Do you recall the 9 would have been filed in the time period of March of 1985 10 which would have been for the reporting period of July 11 through December of 19847 l I don't recall that one specifically. I know 12 A 13 we submitted them routinely. .
k 14 If you are asking me do I remember the date on 15 that specific one, no, I don't.
16 Q Do you remember the substance of that report?
17 (No response.)
18 Q Specifically, did you report that you had or 19 had not made radioactive releases during that six-months 20 reporting period?
21 A I don't recall specifically what we said in 22 there.
23 Q During the report of September, 1985, for the 24 reporting period of January through June of 198,5, did you 25 report that you had or had not made radioactive releases?
amene
g.w
.+'
1 A I don't remember that specifically, either. .q
)
2 Q For the report in March of - 1986 time frame,- f1 1
3 for the reporting period of July to December, 1985, did you j 1
4 report that you had not made any radioactive releases? .-
5 A Again, I don't recall the specifics of what
- 6 the report said.
7 Q Were you, during that period of time, from- j i
8 July, 1984 through December, 1985, aware of any radioactive 9 releases being made to the environment through the release f 10 of offluence at Rancho Seco?
11 A Give me the dates again. -
12 Q From July of 1984 through December, 1985.
13 A Well, I'm aware that we had, you know, three b 14 steam generator tube leaks in the summer of '84 and ~ that that~ contaminated the secondary system. And that, you 15 know, that' activity was present, to sorse extent, .in the 16 17 water.
18 Processing to remove that and dilute it to get 19 it down under our LLD and make our discharges in accordance 20 with our requirements would have been what I expected the r
But the actual presence of radioactive 21 people to do.
22 material was there.
23 Q' All right. In September of 1984, you filed 24 the report, Special Report 84-07, with the KitC that stated 25 that you had corrected those problems and that you were not V ,
v any more radioactive releases; is that <
1 going to make 2 correct?
3 A that's the report you've got here, the one you 4 are -- yeah, that.'s correct. ,
5 Q And that was the intent of that report to 6 assure the NRC that you had corrected your problems and, 7 because you had corrected your problems, there was no need 8 for you to have a variance?
9 A That's right.
10 Q Do you recall the NRC's response to that?
11 A No.
12 Q Well, for the record, NRC did respond to .that 13 on November 15th, 1984. It was from Gus Lainas, Assistant f
k 14 Director for Operating Reactors, Division of Licensing, at 15' NRC headquarters. And, essentially, he states that:
'NRC has reviewed the actions that you have 16 17 taken and, since you have already implemented the actions that are expected to reduce the 18 radiological exposure from 11guld 19 calculated 20 effluence to within that 40 CFR 190 limits, we 21 agree that a vsriance in accordance with 40 CFR l
22 190.11 is not needed at this time."
your report, as it was ,
So, basically, 23 24 represented, achieved your desired end of NRC determining 25 that you, in fact, did not need a variance; is that correct?
esmap m e
_____._-__-_-_-___-m-_.__.__.
g . .
.. 66" 1 A Yes. Apparently chat's what he said there.
1984, 2 Q .At the same time period of September, 3 whenever such Report 84-07 was submitted, was there a public 4 announcement made, in any way , by the' SMUD organization 5 concerning radioactive releases?
See, at a Concord community meeting, a 6 A 7 spokesman -- it was either Martin or oubre, one of the two, 8 as I recall -- made some comment about, we were going to 9 stop releasing radioactive liquid effluent.
10 Q So it was clearly your intent, at that time i
11 frame, not to'be releasing radioactive effluence?
12 A Well, you know, like I said, there's -- there 13 was always some present. The intent of that is that ' we 14 weren't going to release it above our -- if we could detect 15 it, then we weren't going to release it.
16 Q So, if you could detect it, you were not going ;
17 to release it?
18 And your system was set up, at that time, to 19 detect down to a certain lower limits of detection?
20 A That's correct. !
In 1985, time frame exactly not known, you I 21 Q became aware of concerns on the part of Ed Bradley that the 22 l
23 dose calculations may not be accurate and, therefore, based 24 on his concerns and calculations, more studies were made.
determined that, through 25 And it was
o 6i 1 examination of the Lawrence Livermore Lab that you 2 contracted to to examinst the environment, that Cesiu m 134 3 and 137 were showing up beyond the limits that you would 4 expect if there had been no radioactive releases,made.
5 I am curious as to what you felt your 6 responsibilities, as the Assistant General Manager for :
7 Nuclear of that utility, what were your responsibilities to 8 ensure that the commitments that you personally made, that 9 you were the signatory for, were being adhered to?
10 A Well, I think, you know, I felt responsible 11 that our organization recognized that, what we had -- how we 12 had been handling radioactive liquid in the past, J.e. that, 13 by staying just within, the limits of what the Tech Spec ,
14 said, was not sufficient to prevent us from exceeding the 15 Appendix I limit and that we took measures to bring our 16 operation into a configuration that would' keep us within the 17 Appendix I limits.
l 18 And part of that was, you know, the actions 19 that we took to stop discharge -- stop regenerating the i
20 resins which, from everything that went around with regard 21 to the investigation, indica 1:ed that regeneration and the the major source of the 22 discharge of that effluent was 23 activity'that was in the stream. And we did that.
24 And, furthermore, that there was much closer i people in their counting 25 adherence by the Chemistry l
8 6d 1 techniques to make sure that we stayed below the Tech spec
~2 limits for discharge.
3 Q And that was your commitment in Report 84-017 4 A Well, one of a number of them. ,
5 Q Well, I am just concerned that we've got 6 well, let me summarize a little bit on exactly what we've, 7 discovered here. I In 1984, you, as well as the SMUD 8
9 organization, was aware of problems with your dose 10 calculations for offsite releases. You were aware of lower ,
11 limits of detection problems on those calculations. You 12 were aware of exceeding -- ,
13 A Wait a minute. In 1984, the problem came 14 about because of this looking at our -- the offsite dose calculations computer program that did that, that's what 15 16 came about in '84.
17 The LLD problem was the kind of thing that 18 surfaced in, I guess, late '85, at least as I recall, that 19 was when Bradley stated that he needed these samples counted 20 to determine whether or not our sampling, and the LLD we had 21 available to us and the technique that we were using, was 22 just above what was actually there.
23 Q Well, I submit to you that you knew that in the early part of '85 not the late part of . '35 because 24 25 Bradley came to you, with Powers, at a meeting and presented 1
f -_ _ - - - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
" 63 i
1 this problem to you.
2 A I don't recall the time frame, as I said 3 earlier.
4 Q Then you were aware of the fact t, hat you had 5 exceeded your technical specification limits, as you stated
. 6 in Report 84-07 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but 7 that you were going to correct -- that you had corrected 8 those problems.
9 And you were also aware, in 1984, of the 10 modification to the design of the plant, where you were 11 moving water from the primary system, that was radioactive, 12 into the secondary system of the Regenerate Holdup Tanks, 13 which was the release point of water from the plant.
k 14 In September, 1984, you made a commitment to the NRC, and to the public, not to make releases. And, as 15 16 you have stated, it was not to make releases that you could 17 detect.
18 A That's right.
19 Q And that you had a system in place of checking 20 that would detect the nuclides if they were present.
21 A Well, if they were present above a certain 22 level.
23 Q In 1985, in the early part of 1985, you then 24 became aware of the dose calculation problems, as presented 25 by Bradley, and you became aware of the Lawrence Livaraore queus e
g 1 Laboratory findings of Cesium 134 and 137 downstream. And 2 you were still aware of the modification to the design of 3 the plant as a pathway for release.
4 And what you are telling me is that
- you nor i
5 anyone else, and you can't seem to place your finger on 6 someone that was'specifically responsible to be making those !
7 correlations as to what your problem was?
8 It sounds to me like you were just reducing 9 the count time so that you wouldn't detect it and that you 10 were diluting the efflucuce to the point that it was making 11 it less possible to detect.
12 And nobody was concerning themselves with what 13 was being released and what the buildup was downstream; you k 14 were just manipulating your system so that you wouldn't 15 detect it; isn't that true?
16 A Well I -- you know, that sure wasn't being 17 consciously done by me; and I'm a firm believer that it i
18 wasn't being consciously done by the Plant Manager and his 19 staff, you know.
your summary of the facts are that that's 20 ;
what happened; but we weren't doing that 21 probably
. ~
22 consciously.
23 Q Well, who was responsible not to do that?
24 .I mean, there is a responsibility here that 25 you have with your license --
\ .. - -
65 1 A Yeah --
2 Q -- not to do certain things.
3 A Yeah, and I'd have looked toward the Het3th 4 Physics Group and Bradley's area to oversee an.d correlate 5 that.
6 Q Are you aware of the semi-annual reports that 7 I mentioned earlier as to whether you, specifically, signed 8 those reports?
9 A I'd signed the letter that sent those reports 10 off. I recall doing that. .
11 Q So, if you were sending a toport and reporting 12 that no radioactivity was released, when in fact it had 13 been, that report is false. ,
b 14 A Well, you know, if you're implying here that I purposely made some false statement, I deny that. I did not 15 16 do that; okay.
17 In our detection of radioactive material, if 18 we couldn't detect it, then it was reported as not being 19 there. Now, you know, I an aware that radioactive material 20 exists in everything --
21 Q But what if it was detected but not reported.
wrong. It should have been 22 A Then that's 23 reported if it was detected. But I was unaware -- and I'd 24 expect that, you know, the Plant Manager, who also looked 25 through that report, would be unaware that, in fact, it was e
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66 1 being detected and not being reported.
2 I don't think people were doing that; and if 3 you've got, you knowl some proof that shows otherwise, I'd 4 sure like to see it. .
5 But I don't, you know -- I can't believe that 6 anybody was deliberately trying to falsify that report by J:
7 not reporting stuff that they were detecting.
8 Q But, if the nuclides were detected and then 9 the count time was reduced to a level or period of time that 10 did not detect those nuclides, the record wciuld then reflect 11 that no radioactivity was released when, in fact, you had f f
12 record that the nuclides had been detected and you had an 13 interpretation by the NRC, that had been agreed to by your ,
- 14 own supervisory personnel, that, if they were detected, they 15 would be reported.
- i. You know, 16 A Do you want me to respond to that?
17 that's what you're telling me; but I say, I submit -- that 18 I'm aware of anybody deliberately falsifying the record.
19 Now, the -- I know that there was a lower 20 level of detection limit; and how much that was influenced 21 by how many seconds they counted, you know, the technical
' f 22 aspects of that, I don't know.
23 But I would have expected that whatever number 24 of seconds they used to make that count would have been 1 l
25 sufficient to give them at least what that lower level of l
~ ~ ~ - - - - - _ - - _ _ . _ _ . . _ , _ , .
l i ;
67 1 detection limit was supposed to be in accordance with the 2 Technical Specifications.
3 Now I's, to this day, unaware of somebody 4 using a count rate that would give them e lower level of 5 detection that was greater than what the Tech specs --
6 Q But if the nuclide was detected at a count 7 period, and that same volume of water was then tested for a 8 lesser period, and that peak would not then be detected, 9 wouldn't that be manipulative of the record?
10 A Well, it dependo on adnat, I think -- on i w .,
11 the Chemistry folks viewed the definition of that lower -
12 limit, the Tech Spec limit, that they had to be able to 13 count to to see. And, if they counted long enough to see b 14 that quantity, then I could see it might not be, you know, 15 technically correct, but I could see them interpreting as 16 they would have counted long enough to reach that level of 17 detection.
"B And, if it's not there, we don't see it, then 19 we can assume it's not there. And, had we counted longer, 20 you know, you may see -- you may see a peak. And that's in their own mind, 21 what, you know, that's what I think, 22 justified them lowering the count rate.
23 .Q Well, if that's the case, how can you justify 24 that your commitment, in Report 84-07, that you were going 25 to be extra .
,ilant in your Chemistry Department and that
l
- 68' 1 you had given them specific instructions and were going to }
2 do very specific things in their extra vigilance, how can 3 that then correlate to reducing the count times so that you )
4 cannot detect the nuclide? ,
5 A I can't -- you know, I can't explain that 6 away. I know, at the time that we submitted this -- and, 7 obviously from the, you know, the discussion we've had here 8 -- they went to the 2,000-count program. Sometime 9 subsequent to that they changed it. I don't know why.
10 Q You don't know why?
11 A No, I do not know why they changed it.
12 Q Well, do you understand that, by reducing the 13 count time, that you reduce your ability to detect nuclides? .
14 A Yes.
15 Q Do you also understand that, to dilute the before you test, also makes it more 16 volume of water 17 difficult to detect the nuclide?
18 A Yes.
19 Q You are the one that mads the commitment to 20 the NRC that you were going to be extra vigilant and yet you 21 have not been able to explain to us, in any way, how you 22 implemented your policy of this vigilance, other than that, we are finding out, that, in fact, they reduced the 23 24 vigilance. Rather than being more vigilant, they were less 25 vigilant.
u-- __ __
69 1 A And I didn't personally go down there and 2 check them; okay. And that was not part of my 3 responsibility to do it personally.
4 But certainly this commitment that,we made got 5 distrSh';ted to all of the Managers and the Plant Manager was 6 the goy that I'd hold accountable for ensuring that his 7 people complied with that commitment.
8 you know, rubsequent to this, we upgraded the 9 quality assurance area and brought in a guy with a pretty 10 good chemistry / health physics background to provide better 11 oversight into that area. And I don't think he was there at 12 the time that this count rate change got -- occurred.
13 Q Well, I am kind of putting you on the spot 14 here; I realize that.
15 A Well, I --
16 Q These are pretty penetrating questions; and 17 they are hard for you. I understand the management role.
18 At that level, you weren't out there doing the 19 test yourself and so forth.
20 And I guess I have some empathy for you in 21 that you've made commitments to the Regulatory Agency; and 22 you have a management team that's supposed to be 23 implementing the policy that you've promulgated here.
24 It's just difficult for me, though, in 25 empathizing with those chores, to having the responsibility e
i l
.. g 1 in relying on your management team. 4 l
l 2 Whose is responsible for this? i 3 I mean, af ter all your studying and so forth 4 of all of this, and being aware of it -- .
l 5 A Well, you know --
, 6 Q We've got to come to a resolution here.
7 A -- changing the count rate, you know, I think l 8 definitely is a responsibility of the Superin'.rSent that 9 made the decision to do that.
10 Now, my understanding, you know, of coward's
- 11 looking into that was that, when they changed that count l 12 rate, that they felt that that count rate, a thousand 13 seconds, still gave them a level of detection that was,below 14 what the technical specification level of detection was.
15 And what really, I think, didn't happen -- and 16 I don't know why it didn't happen -- was to correlate the 17 fact that, okay, you're still putting out large quantities 18 of this water and what's the effect of that and is that i 19 going to keep us under the Technical Specification. l 20 And that was Bradley's, I think, oversight of 21 this, was to try to track how much water was getting 22 discharged and keep track of if you are right below that level of detection, were you going to get -- could you i 23 1 24 potentially get in trouble with Appendix 1.
25 And I think that's the reason he wanted these
- i j
. 71' ~
1 camples that CEP counted for a longer time period to 2 determine just what level of radioactive material might have 3 been in those samples.
4 The other thing -- and, you know, it's no 5 excuse -- but, you know, throughout this time, Rancho Seco 6 was in a real turmoil. There were a lot of issues that, you 7 know, occupied my time and occupied the Plant Manager's 8 time. And this was, you know, probably one of those that 9 was in there amongst a lot of them and didn't get- the 10 attention that it probably should have gotten.
11 But, you know, from the line of questioning, ,
12 what bothers se is that there is some implication here that 13 there was a, you know, a conspiracy to try to falsely report b 14 what was happening. I assure you, it was not there.
Well, I guess I feel that there are some 15 Q way. And, certainly, I am 16 reasons to believe that concerned; and that's why we are here asking these 17 18 questions, that we've got the commitment made by the utility 19 to be more vigilant. you have described, generally, the 20 only pathway to release radioactivity when, in fact, that 21 wasn't the only pathway.
22 Clearly, a major pathway is omitted; and it's 23 a pathway that does put radioactivity out of the plant.
24 It's a pathway that's a modification of 'the design that has 25 been constructed in a manner that has not gone through the 4
a I2 1 normal review process.
2 And the results of that are that you were 3 moving radioactivity off of the p3 ant in a method that has 4 never been reported to the NRC. And the systen is set up ,
5 upon the government relying on your completeness and 6 thoroughness of the reporting. And this is .not a 7 complete representation of your pathway.
8 And then, once your commitment is made, that 9 you won't release and that you are going to be more 10 vigilant, you discover that nuclides are being detected.
11 And, right at that same period of time, you 12 have a reduction in the count time which makes it more 13 difficult to detect the nuclide and, therefore, creates a 14 record that can support releasing the radioactivity that 15 wasn't detected.
16 And I guess, like I said earlier, I empathize 17 with your situation sitting up here probably over at the 18 SMUD headquarters, not on the plant side, trying to manage /
19 these operations. But you have to recognize this pattern of 20 events that's causing me a lot of distress. 1 21 I mean, what do you feel about this?
22 A Well, you know, I -- you know, what you've 23 done is correlate all of that, okay, and I didn't do that.
24 And I didn't have anybody in our organization that did that, i 25 apparently. There should have been; but nobody, apparent 3y, I
'-"- ------m-m. _ - - _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ _
73 1 did.
2 But, you know, I thinit, in the shortcoming in 3 the thinking at the plant, I can only presume came about 4 from the standpoint that they felt that if they counted 5 sufficiently long to get a level of detection below.what t'he 6 Tech Spec minimum level of detection was, that they could 7 discharge. And that's what I think led to this change in 8 the count rate.
9 Q But don't you agree that, if they were 10 changing the count time after they had made detections, and 11 they were then changing the count time to a lesser amount 12 and creating a record that would then allow them to release, 13 that they were not complying with the spirit and the intent ,
k 14 --
15 A The spirit --
16 Q -- of the commitment?
17 A The spirit of it, yes, very definitely --
18 Q And they were also not complying with the 19 interpretation that had been -- that a resolution had been 20 come to; it had been brought in reporting detected nuclides.
21 A yeah -- the spirit, but I guess the -- that 22 halcyon that talked about the level -- what was it, five j
)
23 times ten to the minus --
24 Q SE-7.
25 A yeah, that, if it was above that, it was
' 7'4 1 should be reported. And, you know, I don't know the details-2 of it but I would have assumed that, based on that 3 resolution, that, if they had levels that were above five-4 times ten to the minus seven, they would have reported.it. ,
5 Q Well, that letter does not say that; that memo 6 doesn't say that. That meno says that, regardless of what 7 level you were testing to, if you detect nuclides, they must 8 be reported.
9 A okay, I misinterpreted what I am seeing in 10 that.
11 MR. MEEKS: Let the record show that Mr.
12 Rodriguez has reviewed the June 6th, 1985 Telecom record 13 with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that we referred to 14 earlier. Whereas, the resolution reached states:
15 "If a nuclide is below minimally-required LLD, 16 SE-7, but is a positive value, it must be 17 recorded and reported."
18 THE WITNESS: No, I can't argue with that.
19 That's right; that's what it says. And it 20 should have been reported.
21 BY MR. MARSE:
22 Q So what was going on, if what I've described l
23 to you was in fact going on, that's clearly wrong.
1 1 24 A Uh-huh.
25 Q And you are saying that you had no knowledge e
a __
s 75-1 of this?
2 A No. No, I don't have -- I don't remember that 3 specific, you know, halcyon that I said earlier; and I had 4 no knowledge that they were, in fact, not reporting positive 5 activity levels that that report says they should have done.
6 MR. MARSH:. Okay.
7 I have no further questions.
8 Oh, I am sorry; yes, I do. There is one 9 other; I didn't look at my notes. .I should always look at 10 my notes.
11 By MR. MARSH:
12 Q Did you have a commitment tracking system in 13 place at Rancho Seco or SMUD7 ,.
k 14 A Yes.
15 Q Could you describe what kind of commitments 16 would go into that tracking system and why and how it would 17 operate?
18 A Well, the commitments that were made to the 19 NRC and to the insurance agencies and to the -- comm$taents 20 to comply with internal audit requirements were screened.
21 Each Department had a coordinator; and 22 commitments that that particular Department were responsible !
23 for were' documented on a little slip of paper and sent to a 24 central location to be put on a computer list. And then 25 that list --- periodically, that list was printed and sent
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k- m_________
" 76 1 to responsible managers and supervisors.
2 Q Do you know if the commitments that were made 3 in Special Report 84-07 were, in fact, entered into the 4 commitment tracking system? ,
t .
5 A I don't know for a fact, no.
6 Q Do you recall getting any feedback to it or --
7 A No, I don't. I would -- this is the kind of 8 thing that.should have gone it -- on there. And it would ,
9 have been the originator of this' responsibility -- it 10 probably came out of the plant -- to get that on to that 11 commitment tracking system.
12 MR. MARSH: Okay; thank'you.
13 That's all of my questions. .
Y 14 MR. MEEKS: When you are referring to "...this 15 is the kind of thing...", let the record show that Mr.
16 Rodriguez is placing his hand on Special Report 84-07.
17 THE WITNESS: This is a commitment to the NRC 18 and those are, most definitely, the kinds of things that we 19 are supposed to get onto that list.
20 MR. MEEKS: Mr. Rodriguez, have I or any other 21 NRC representative here threatened you in any manner or 22 offered you any rewards in return for this statement?
23 THE WITNESS: No.
24 MR. MEEKS: Have you given this statement 25 freely and voluntarily?
I
I o
" 1*h l
1 THE WITNESS: Yes.
2 MR. MEEKS: Is there anything further you i
3 would care to add for the record?
I 4 THE WITNESS: Well, only, I guess, I would 5 like to emphasize, again, is that, you know, is that the l
6 implication, from this conversation, is t' ant , you know, that 7 there was something deliberate in not reporting what should 8 have been reported. And I sure didn't do anything 9 deliberate; and I don't think -- you know, I don't think the 10 people throughout that organization did anything deliberate.
11 They made some mistakes,- apparently; but I 12 don't think it was from the standpoint of trying to deceive 13 the NRC. .
14 MR. MEEKS: Thank you.
15 MR. MARSH: Let the record show that the 16 interview concluded at 8:21 p.m.
17 (Whereupon, at 8:21 p.m., the interview was 18 concluded.)
19 20 21 23 l
24 25 1
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1
O Th s is to egrtify th2t tho ottachcd prococdinga bafora tha v.
- ~'.TED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY CCiciNSSION in the mattar of:
R OF PROCEEDING: INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW (CLOSED fiEETING)
DOCKET NO.: NONE PLACE: san'Diego, California . .
7 April 1987
'DATE: .
wera held as herein appears, and that this is the original tranceript thersof for the file of the United States Nuclear ,
Regulato..y Cc==ission.
( /
(Siert). /Z/
Y TU official Reporter Reporter's Affiliation Jim Higgins and Associates a
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