ML20199C747
| ML20199C747 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 09/18/1996 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS (OI) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20199C716 | List:
|
| References | |
| FOIA-97-313 2-96-033, 2-96-33, NUDOCS 9711200118 | |
| Download: ML20199C747 (30) | |
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f 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 +++++
4 OFFICE OF INVESTIGATIONS 5 INTERVIEW 6 -------- ~~-~~--~~-----~~~-----~~-X 7 IN THF MATTER OF :
8 INTERVIEW OF ,
a Docket No.
9 DAVID PAUL JONES : 2-96-033 10 :
11 ------------------~~----~~--------x 12 13 Wednesday, September 18, 1996 14 15 Conference Room - Second Floor 16 Crystal River Plant 17 15760 West Powerline Street 18 Crystal River, Florida 19 20 The above-entit3ed interview was conducted at 21 10:08 a.m.
22 23 BEFORE: ,
24- JIM VORSE Senior Investigator 25 CASENO. 2-96-035 -
Ou it 1 i t. I rw:w. A +Aa f...t EXHIBIT 1 I hd g44;$(ed M Gu14 PAGE l .OMPAGE(S
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9711200118 971117
- rom LIAW97-313 PDR h- 7e /4~
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Coundssion 3 JAMES VORSE, Senior Investigator 4 Region II NRC Office of Investigations 5 401 Marietta Street 6 Atlanta, Georgia 30323 7 On Behalf of the Interviewee, David Paul Jones 8 , ROBERT ALEXANDER GLENN, ESQUIRE %
9 MAC-ASA 10 Post Office Box 14042 11 St. Petersburg, Florida 33733 12 ,
13 14 15-16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 e
f 3
1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S -
2 MRS. VORSE For the record, today's date is 18 3 September 1996. The time is 10:08 a.m. I am Special Agent 4 James Vorse with the NRC Office of Investigations and I'll 5 be conducting this interview. This interview is taking 6 place in the Administration Building at Florida Power 7 Corporation's Crystal River Nuclear Plant.
t 8 During this proceeding, which is being recorded 9 for transcription, the NRC Office of Investigations will 10' conduct an interview of David Paul Jones. This interview 11 pertains to investigation number 2-96-033, 12 Others in attendance in this interview are -- and 5
13 would you please state your name and spell it out for the 14 record, please, and your position.
15 MR. GLENN: Alex Glenn, G-L-E-N-N. Corporate 16 Counsel, Florida Power Corporation.
17 MR. JONES: David Paul Jones, J-O-N-E-S.
18 Nuclear Shif t Supervisor, Crystal River Unit III.
19 MR. VORSE: And my name is James Y. Vorse, 20- V - as in Victor R-S-E. I'm a special agent with the 21 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
22 Mrs. May, would you administer the oath, please.
23 Whereupon, 24 DAVID PAUL JONES 25 being first duly sworn by the Notary Public, was examined
t 4 i
and testified as follows:
1 2 EXAMINATION 3 km. VORSE: Would you give us your date of birth 4 and your Social Security number, please, Mr. Jones.
5 THE WITNESS: Date of birth is[ M 6 M Social Security number 1 7 MR. VORSE: Would you give me your educational 8 background, please?
9 THE WITNESS: I'm a high school graduate. I 10 have approximately two years of college credits. My 11 nuclear background includes six years of naval nuclear
- 1. power experience. And civilien nuclear power experience 13 includes all the education necessary to obtain a Reactor 14 Operator's license and a Senior Reactor Operator's license.
15 MR. VORSE: Okay. How long have you had a 16 senior reactor operator's license?
17 THE WITNESS: Approximately ten years.
18 MR. VORSE: Would you describe briefly what your 19 duties are as a senior reactor operator?
20 THE WITNESS: For the majority of that time 1 2,
"*- 21 they've been functioning as a nuclear shift supervisor who 3
22 -- I functioned to maintain oversight and supervision of an 23 operating crew in the control room and in the buildings in 24 CR-3, 25 MR. VORSE: Did you read Title 18, U.S. Code,
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i that I showed you earlier, and understand it?'.
2 THE WITNESS: Yes.
3 MR. VORSE: Okay. Would you -- And you 4 understand that Mr. Glenn is representing Florida Power 5 Corporation and you, both?
6 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
7 MR. VORSE: Would you describe your role in the 8 refueling incident that occurred I believe it was March ,
9 26th of this year. Would you describe where you were, what 10 your duties were, and who was with you, ~
11 THE WITNESS: Okay. Overall I was functioning 12 as the refueling supervisor; and as a refueling supervisor 13 I'm located within the reactor building, along the fuel -
14 transfer canal south catwalk area. And I essentially 15 perform all my duties from that south catwalk, f
16 In there with me -- it varies from time to time, 17 depending on whether a turnover of personnel is taking 18 place, but typically there's two other operators: a bridge 19 operator, who operates the main fuel handling bridges and 20 additionally a second operator who operates what we call 21 our upenders.
22 MR. VORSE: Who was at which position?
23 THE WITNESS: The upender operator was Fred 24 Strack. And the main bridge operator was Christine Smith.
25 And then in the course of doing that duty I 4
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1- interface with other people: Health physics," people that 2 may come up and need assistance or have questions. But 3 that's typically who -- that's who I was working with that 4 particular afternoon.
5 MR. VORSE: Was there a health physics 6 representative in the area at the time?
7 THE WITNESS: I would see him periodically, and 8 he assisted me in some -- movement of some underwater s
9 lights. So he -- his presence was known periodically to 10 me.
11 MR. VORSE: Was he present when the fuel rods 12 were bumped up_against one another?
13 THE WITNESS: I don't know.
14 MR. VORSE: Would you describe for me, please, 15 who had communication with headphones?
16 THE WITNESS: I was c., a headset; the bridge 17 operator, Christine, was on a headset; the upender operator 18 in the reactor building, Fred Strack, was on headsets. He 19 communicates with the reciprocal upender operator on the 20 spent fuel side. I cannot remember who that was.
21 Additionally there would be a spent fuel bridge 22 operator on the spent fuel floor. And I'm not familiar 23 with who that was; I simply can't remember. There would 24 have been a spent fuel area supervisor. I believe, but I'm 25 not certain, that that was Jeff Beck.
We communicate to a e
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1 controi center reactor. operator. That would have_been Jim ;
2 Atkinson. And intermittently a reactor engineer is on the !
3 headsets, and I believe that was' John Weaver. ,
4 MR. VORSE: What did you call him, again, a 5 control room what? '
6 THE WI NESS: John? ;
7 MR. VORSE: Yeah, John Weaver. ;
i 8- THE WITNESS: He's a reactor consultant. i 9 MR. VORSE: Okay. Would you -- Now, this i
10 communication with these headphones, is this to everybcdy 11 or is this -- can you localize it?
12 THE WITNESS: No, everyone can hear everyone 13 else's communications. -
14 MR. VORSE: Okay. Can you explain to me how the !
15 fuel bundle -- fuel assembly would be a better term --
16 THE WIWESS: Puel assembly, correct.
i 17 MR. VORSE: -- was lowered on top of another ;
18 fuel assembly?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. We -- I was supervising ,
3 20 ' fuel handling that afternoon and it's my habit to prior to 21 ' each fuel move f rom the upender -- and the upender is what i
- 22. brings an element from the spent fuel floor over to-the 23, reactor building -- prior to taking-that element from the 24' upender and inserting it into the core I typically refer.co-25' my move sheets. And I have a copy of move sheets as well ,
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1 as my bridge operator. And what my move sheet will tell me 2 is where the element is to be placed.
3 MR. VORSE: Okay. Thia -- Can you kind of 4 describe the move sheet to me?
5 THE WITNESS: Move sheet, typically it's a --
it's laid out where each move is in a horizontal format 6
7 where it will describe the assembly by an identifying ,
8 number. And it will basically give a location where it's 9 to be moved from and a location where it's to be moved to.
10 And then there is an area for the bridge operator or the 11 control center operator to sign off when he completes the 12 move and lets go of the fuel assembly in the final resting 13 location. -
14 MR. VORSE: Is this a duplication of what, the 15 tag board in the control room?
16 THE WITNESS: Yes, they're duplicates, they're 17 xeroxes of each other.
18 MR. VORSE: And how do you -- What is written 19 down on this move sheet? Just little pieces of paper with 20 stickum or, you know, you're moving one --
21 THE WITNESS: Typically the move -- how -- the 22 information, how is the information written down?
23 MR. VORSE: Yeah, how is it written down, how is
.4 it transferred?
25 THE idITNESS: Typically it's computer generated.
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1 This particular move sheet that afternoon was. handwritten.
2 It had the same format but it had been written by hand.
3 MR. VORSE: And what's it written on, by hand?
4 THE WITNESS: It's on just a standard --
5 standard size 8 by 11 sheet of paper.
6 MR. VORSE: Okay.
7 THE WITNESS: So a move was coming up from the 8 upender to P.he core. I looked at the move sheet and I read 9 the location that it was to be inserted in as -- we use A0 phoneb4,M - Romeo zero ten, would be the next location.
11 And I waited -- 1 normally don't vocalize that 12 location, I wait to listen to the bridge operator vocalize 11 it and then I use that as a confirmation, kind of -
1( independent.
15 vne bridge operator reported to the control room 16 that she had indexed over Romeo zero ten and she request 17 permission to insert the assembly. And the control center le reactor operator responded back that he understood she was 19 over Romeo zero ten, and concurred. And she started the 20 insertion of the assembly.
21 For this particular move I had several concerns.
22 One was I had just recently, with the assistance of health 22 physics, mov9d some lights that float on the surface of the 24 wLter and help light up the area so we can see better. And 25 where the lights had been previously located, as we were l
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- 1 AJ bringing the bridge 44.a nest that extends from it, and the 2 mastwasgettinginc1bseproximitytothoselights. So i 3 I'd earlier had concerns that the mast could bump into one 4 of the lights. So I had just recently moved the lights.
5 So I had some concerns to make sure that there was going to 6
be adequate clearance for the mast and the lights.
7 And then additionally the location Romeo ten is '
8 -
- it's all the way to the southernmost position of the 9 core. And it's essentially up to the core perimeter, where 10 the vessel wall sits. And it just so happens that at that 11 location there's about a four or five foot metal stud that 12 sticks up. So I had concerns about the proximity of the 13 assembly and the mast, primarily the mast, to that metal '
14 indexing stud, as well as I had concerns about the assembly 15 when it was lowered down being in close proximity to the 16 reactor vessel lip.
17 So I physically followed the move to the location 18 by walking up the catwalk and I obtained a pair of 19 binoculars that I had in the area, because you're looking 20 through a lot of water.
It's hard with parallax to really 21 measure distance and tolerances without -- without some 22 visual aids. So I obtained a binoculars and I monitored 23 the assembly as it was going down, to make sure that none 24 of those things interfered physically with each other.
25 And the operator # lowered the assembly and
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1 reported an underload. And an underload condition is :
2 something we frequently see and it represents the element j 3 contacting something. And typically it's contacting 4 another fuel element. And that's something routinely that 5 occurs because you're trying to put a square element in a
. 6 hole that's approximately the same size and there's 7 movement there. And if the element's off a little in any i
8 direction it will contact another element and will !
9 underload. ,
1 10 MR. VORSE: Is it kind of aggravated, like just 11 a little bit of movement way up on top cause a lot of 12 movement on the bottom becaub. you've got about a 20-foot 13 length?
14 THE WITNESS: Well, there a couple. There's 15 that pendulum factor you're talking about where you can 16 physically take an element that's extended and.it has a 17 fair amount of free play. And then additionally a lot of 18 elements once they're burned once aren't straight. They're 19 skewed or they're banana shaped, bowed.
20 MR VORSE: It sounds to me like this element-21 that you were lowering had been used before?
22 THE WITNESS: I don't know that.
23 MR. VORSE: You don't know if it was new or 24 used?
25 THE WITNESS: Right. I don't know. P.ut my
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12 1 point is that a lot of elements underload on top of' other 2 assemblies, they're on adjacent assemblies in the process 3 of being lowered. And this particular element r7derloaded.
4 From my location on the catwalk one thing that 5 turned out to be unique about this particular core 1ccation 6 is I can typically see each element as it inserts into the 7 core from my vantage point. But this southernmost row was 8 blocked by the lip of the vessel. When I leaned over I
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9 just simply could not see the very bottom of the assembly.
10 So at that point I directed my upender operator 11 when he completed what he was doing to'go ahead and clip on 12 a lifeline that runs along the north catwalk with his 13 safety belt and walk over and try to get a vantage point of '
14 the fuel assembly, which he did. And he reported to me at 15 that point that the reason it had underlouded was there was 16- already an existing assembly in that location.
17 MR. VORSE: Okay. So when you found out that 18 you had another assembly in that location what did you do?
19 .THE WITNESS: Well, I stopped to think just 20 exactly how could that be the case. And my first 21 inclination was that somehow we had mis-indexed, that we 22 were not at Romeo zero ten, that somehow maybe we had 23 inadvertently indexed somewhere else.
24 So I asked the bridge operator to check and then 25 to recheck that the bridge was indeed indexed at Romeo zero
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13 I ten. She did, and she second checked it, and she reported 2 to me that by her indications she's indexed at Romeo zero 3 ten. ;
4 So with that discounted the next thought that 5 occurred to me is somehow a previous move put the element-6 there where it doesn't belong. And about that time the 7 control center reactor operator came over the headset and 8 said some words to the effect that no, the location we 9 should be at should not be Romao zero ten, it should be lo Oscar' ten. The alpha character o should be o ten, or Oscar 11 ten.
12 That didn't make sense to me because I personally 13 had looked at the move sheets and expected it to go to 14 Romeo ten and I heard independent confirmation from my 15 bridge operator and the control center operator. So I went 16 back and checked my move sheets. And when I looked at my 17 move sheets, then I saw how the mistake had occurred.
18 And essentially what had happened was preceding 19 moves -- we had done some preceding moves to locations 20 Romeo zero eight, Romeo zero nine, and the next natural 21 progression was Romeo zero ten, but actually it was not a 22 zero, it was an alpha character 0, and we had udstaken the 23 move sheet to read Romeo zero ten instead of Oscar ten.
24 MR. VORSE: Now, the tag board in the control 25 room, those are little plastic tags?
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2 MR. VORSE: How could they have confirmed it was 3 Romeo ten when you asked them, you know, I'm going to do 4 Romeo ten, how could they mistakenly think that it was P
5 Romeo ten instead of Oscar ten?
6 THE WITNESS: I think by looking at his move 7 sheets in lieu of looking at the status board. In other 8 words --
9 MR. VORSE: His move sheet was the same as your 10 move sheet?
11 THE WITNESS: Right. ,We're all operating from 12 copies of the same move sheet. He tends to have the 13 masters, we tend to have copies. -
14 MR. VORSE: And there's no slash through zeros 15 like the ndlitar does to indicate that it's a zero instead 16 ofanaught?(SI 17 THE WISESS: Well unfortunately these were 18 handwritten. And they were written identically.
19 MR. VORSE: Does the computer slash the O's? '
20 THE WITNESS: I don't think the computer -- and 21 I'm not sure on this -- I don't think a -- it slashes the 22 0's, but I think the character is different-looking in 23 appearance.
24- MR. VORSEs- There was somewhere I read that they 25 thought that the fuel assembly was raised, wouldn't fit the ss,
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15 11 first time and it was raices again about two' inches and '
2 then they tried to lower it again. Is that correct?
3 THE WITNESS: ,
4 I don't h5Ve recollection of that.
but thst's fairly typical with underloads, is frequently 5 ;
you'll have an u.nderload and if you'll just take some of 6
the weight off of it and set it back down it will slide in .
f 7 So that's--- ,
8 MR. VORSE: !
Was there a lot of communication 9 ab'out that, when one assembly was placed on the other, the 10 Romeo ten incident?
I'll. call it the Romeo ten incident if 11 that's-all right.
Did anyone tell the control room that 12 we'd had a -- I guess a bump would be a good --
13 ,
THE WITNESS:
Well, the fact that the element '
14 was sitting on top of another element was communicated over 15 the headsets to everyone, including the control center .'
16 reactor operator whc was in the control room.
17 MR. VORSE:
18 And what was their reaction?
THE WITNESS: I didn't - -
I don't - -
I don't 19 remember a distinct verbal reaction to it. I think it was 20 a case where I had gotten on the headsets and directad 21 that, well, let's get the assembly up, withdraw it and 22 let's.get it to the right location. You know, t
23 communications along that line.
~ 24 MR. VORSE:
Did'you make it very clear that 25
-you'd had a -- that the two assemblies had connected, hit >
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(- i 1 each other? Mit's probably -- touched each other? Did you l 2' make that clear?
3 THE WITNESS: I-think -- l 4 MR. GLENN: Clear to whom? I mean --
5 MR. VORSEs. Pardon me? i 6 MR.-GLENN: Clear to whom? 5 7 MR. VORSE: To the conh al room, f
8 MR. GLENN: Oh. ,
9 ,
THE WITNESS: I think it was made clear to the t
10 control room by virtue of the person that I directed to 11 look at the assembly verbalized that to all of us. He 12 essentially said the reason the assembly is underloaded is 13 there's already an assembly there. '.
14 MR. VORSE: Who was that person?
-15 THE WITNESS: Fred Strack, the upender operator.
16 So there's no doubt in my mind that was clear to everyone. t 17 MR. VORSE: You sEld earlier that fuel 18 asseeblies that are being lcwered into the reactor, it's 19 almost routine that they bump each other.
20 TdE WITNESS: Correct.
21 MR. VORSE: How many times has that happened to 22 you?
23 THE WITNESS: Underloads? Hundreds. I'm 24 talking'in1the course of my career.
- 25 :MR. VORSE: Okay, but these-_underloads, are they i
4
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-I where .one bundle or one assembly or element tpuches 2 another? l 3 THE WI'!WESS: Yes. !
4 MR. VORSE: So you would not consider that an 5 unusual event? I 6 THE WI*INESS: No.
7 MR VORSE: Is the control room -- Does the a control room normally log that' type of thing?
9 THE WITNESS: I doubt'it. I doubt that if you ,
-10 .have -- You may have one particular assembly that has just 11 multiple underloads, where trying to insert another i
12 assembly it essentially fights you the entire insertion and ,
13 a problem assembly may be logged, but it's not typical to '.
14 log underloads in the control center. It's not a practice.
15 MR. VORSE: Is it routine to not have somebody .
16 'look at a fuel assembly-after they've bumped into another?
17 THE WITNESS: After they've underloaded?
18 MR. VORSE: (Nods affirmatively.)
19 THE WITNESS: It's routine not to do that.
20 MR. VORSE: Would you describe underload as any ;
21 time that there's a problem inserting an assembly?
22 THE WITNESS: (No response.)
23 MR VORSE: Or is it -- let me make another --
-24 Do you consider an underload-when an assembly 25 touches another assembly?
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l' THE WITNESS: No. Frequently the' assemblies 2 wil] reb other assemblias and never underload. Underload 3 is an actual set point at which the bridge is designed to 4 do this to protect it, the fuel, where the bridge as you 5 start co either sit down a weight on an object and_you're 6 measuring how lieavy that object is as you set it down it 7 starts to weigh less as seen by the instrunent. And if it 8 reaches a certain low weight it automatically stops motion-
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9 to protect the fuel.
10 There are some times where an assembly can have 11 some mechanical interference with another assembly where 12 the weight may come down but never reach the underload set 13 point. And then it's frequent for it to reach the set '
14 point and stop.
15 MR. VORSE: So in this particulcr incidence it 16 stopped --
17 THE WITNESS: Yes.
18 MR. VORSE: -- and was fully protected?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes.
20 MR. VORSE: So we know with certainty that there l 21 was no damage-to that assembly?
22 THE WITNES$: Yes.
23 MR. VORSE: Did Christine say that there was any 24 problem with her end of the deal as f ar _as too umch weight 25 or any problems that she --
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19 1 THE WITNESS: No. l.
2 MR. VORSE: Is it safe to say that because this 3 was routine that you did not think to report it to the --
4 to management?
5 THE WITNESS: No, I did report the incident to 6 management.
- 7. MR; VORSE: When did you report the incident?
8 THE WITNESS: The -- I sat down with my 9 supervisor -- The incident happened at the end of my shift 10 on Tuesday the 26th and I sat down with the operations 11 manager Thursday morning before eight o' clock and sat down 12 with him in his office and fully described what had 13 happened, i 14 MR. VORSE: Was this a result of the precursor 15 card?
16- THE WITNESS: No, I didn't know a precursor card 17 had been generated.
18 MR. VORSE: Why did-you decide to wait until the 19 28th?
20 THE WITNESS: The -- I saw -- I had no short 21- term concerns over the incident. What I felt the problem 22 really was was it was related to the move sheets 23 themselves. On the 27th I was the shift supervisor in the 24 control room and fuel handling had been completed. So 25 there wasn't -- there was no fuel movement in progress and i
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i I was literally swamped with activities. Looking at the-2 schedule I saw that the next day I would not be on shift, 3 that I had some training. So I saw that as the first 4 available opportunity to sit down and be able to-speak to-5- them about it. And did not see -- I felt it was timely.
6 MR. VORSE: Could we take -- go off the record.
7 (Whereupon, a brief recess was taken at 10:35-8 a.m., after which the proceedings resumed as follows:)
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9 MR. VORSE: We're back on the record. We were 10 off for approximately 45 seconds. We'll continue with the 11 interview of Mr. Jones.
12 So it's my understanding, Mr. Jones, that you 13 were not aware that the precursor, anonymous precursor card '.
14 -- do you know who wrote that precursor card?
15 THE WITNESS: I have no idea.
16 MR. VORSE: Do you think everyone agrees with 1- your assessment that underloads are routine and --
18 THE WITNESS: I think people that routinely do 19 fuel movement agree that underloads are absolutely routine 20 evolutions.
21 MR. VORSE: How many fuel assemblies do you 22 think you have been involved in as the supervisor?
23 THE WITNESS: At least several hundred. It's 24 hard to estimate exactly.
25 MR. VORSE: Can.you just roughly estimate how
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-s-1- many underloads you've had?_ .- '. ,
2 THE' WITNESS:- -Hundreds.
3 MR. VORSE:. So:almost every --: i 4: THE WITNESS: No, ' not almost every one -- is - ,
5- that what you're asking me?-
l 6- MR. VORSE: (Nods affirmatively.)
7 THE WITNESS: No, not almost every assembly; 8 there's.some assemblies that may underload five, six ti-as -
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9 in the course of inserting it, and there are some 10 assemblies that don'.t underload at all.
11 MR VORSE: There's a -- Are you familiar with ,
- 12. compliance procedure CP-111, Initiation and Processing c,f
'13 Precursor Cards and Problem Reports? .
14 For the record _I'm showing Mr. Jones the 15 procedure. (Document shown to witness.)
- 16. THE WITNESS: Yas. I'm familiar -- you know, I 17 reference the. procedure when I use it, but I'm familiar.we 18 have this procedure, yes.
19 MR. VORSE: Okay. I'm going to go ahead and 20 read this for the-record. It says -- at page number eight, 21 Revision 54 of CP-111. And it says--here, Section 3.1.10, 22 Problem.- ~" A condition or event which impacts Crystal River 23 III-and warrants-evaluation root cause analysis or 24 . corrective' actions-beyond what it would receive if 25 documented and processed by one or more of the following d
22 ;
.1- methods." Land it goes on down to sayL-- to ,- and one of 2 the --
3 MR.-GLENN: Why don't you read them all just for 4 the completeness of the record.
5 MR. VORSE: Oh, sure. Okay, the first one is 6 request for engineering assistance (REA). Modification 7 approval records (MAR). The next one is document change 8 processes. And there are four. (DCN.) (CIDP).- That's
~~
^ 9 the second one. DCN's the first, CIDP, (FCN), and (PRR).
10 Mr. Jones,.do you know what each one of those-11 stands for, each one of those acronyms? CIDP?
12 1 DIE WITNESS: That's not something I typically 13 use. I'm familiar with most of those. '.
14 MR VORSE: Okay. What is ---Do you knet what 15 -- what's the FCN stand for?
((c\d 16 THE WITNESS: FCN is a f b change notice that's 17 modification to a MAR. And REA is request for engineering 18 assistance.
19 MR GLENN: Could we go off the record for a 20 minute?
21 MR. VORSE: Sure.
22 (Whereupon, a brief recess was had at 10:39 a.m.,
23 af ter which the proceedings resumed as follows:).
24 =MR. VORSE: We'll go back on the record. We 25 took about three minutes to get Mr. Jones a copy of CP-111.
4
23
(
1 Mr. Jones, we'll continue reading here. -After 2 the PRR the next item is weld repair traveler, and then the 3 next one is work request, WR's, and the last one-is 4 precursor card. Would you explain to me please what a 5 precursor card does?
6 THE WITNESS: A precursor card is physically a 7 small, approximately three by five green card that allows 8 people to identify suggestions, recommendatior.s concerns.
9 It can be used for a myriad of reasons. And the user can 10 jur,c write whatever his suggestion or his concern is on the l '. card and submit it to either his supervisor or he can just 12 mail it to one of the shift managers for them to read and 13 evaluate.
14 MR. VORSE: And did a follow-through on every 15 one'of them that you know of? At least read them?
16 MR. GLENN: I don't know about the answer to 17 that.
18 THE WITNESS: I wouldn't -- do they read every 19 one? I don't know -- you know -- I don't know, 20 definitively.
21 MR. VORSE: All right. Do you ever write 22 precursor cards for underloads?
23 THE WITNESS: I never have. I probably will in 24 the future. And I say that only because the rate of -- our 25 threshold for writing precursor cards is such lower today
4 ,,,g,, --+-e,-e-, ~ - - -4 em,-
( 24 1 than it was back then. '.
2 MR. VORSE: But there's no requirement to write 3 precursor cards on every underload condition?
4 THE WITNESS: At the time in March, no, there 5 .w as no requirement to write a precursor card for every 6 underload.
7 MR. VORSE: Let's turn to'page nine. We're 8 still at CP-111. We're going to g) down to 9 Responsibilities, 3.2. And then we'll go to 3.2.1, 10 Originator. "It is acceptable for personnel to utilize 11 management's open door policy, the employee concerns 12 program (when confidentiality or unanimity is desired), or
. 13 to contact the NRC directly for items of concern. FPC will -
14 not tolerate any form of discrimination toward employees 15 who identify concerns. Any individual (FPC or contract 16 employee) who observes or becomes aware of a concern, 17 incident or condition needing correcting or trending must 18 document the identified concern, incident or condition and 19 initiate-a corrective action program process to resolve the 20 concern, incident or condition. The shift manager must be 21 immediately notified if it is believed to involve a safety, 22 reportable, or operability issue."
23 Who was the shift manager of that day on the 26th 24 of March?
l
- , 25 THE WITNESS
- I don't know.
I I l
, .. -. . . . . . - - - -- - - - . - - - . - . - . ... ~ .. . . . . ~ .
t 25-1 MR.- VORSE: Do you -- Do you thin}c that-maybe 2 the shift manager should be notified of an underload?-
3 THE WITNESS: Of a routine underload, no.
4 MR. VORSE: Did you consider this a routine 5 ' underload?
6 THE WITNESS: The underload itself worked as s
7 every other underloads how we got there to that location is 8 what made it unique. The problem with the move sheet.
, a 9 MR VORSE: Are underloads routinely documented 10 in the control log in the control room?
11 THE WITNESS: I'd want to review the log, but I 12- woilld say unless it was an exceptionally challenging 13 assembly most underloads are not documented. '.
14 MR. VORS2: A reactor engineer was consulted on
, 15 this issue.
16 THE WITNESS: Yes.
17 MR VORSE: Can you describe who that person was 18 and what you said to him.
19 THE WITNESS: Okay. Thursday morning when I 20 congleted my discussion with Dave- de Montfort I attended 21 maybe an hour or so of MAR training and maybe -- and I'm
. 22 approximating -- maybe nine a.m., nine-thirty I went --
23 walked-down the hall to Mike Culver, the reactor engineer's 24 office and basically described the event to him and 25 described my concerns-with the move sheet, how I felt that
- . -- . . , . n , - - , -. - ,
26
. I the nove: sheet had led us to the location Romeo zero ten, 2 and asked him, you know, for his input. He indicated that 3 he would review the assemblies just as a backup to make 4 sure-that he had no physical concerns with them. He 5 essentially concurred that that was not a physically 6 challenging event to the assembly. I asked him if in his 7 opinion at this point in time do we need to generate a 8 problem reporti he felt no.
9- That's kind of the essence of the conversation.
10 MR. VORSE: By problem report you're talking 11 about just the incident with the bumping and not the 12 incident with the tags and the miscommunication and the 13 placing that -- '.
14 THE WITNESS: No, the whole incident.
15 MR. VORSE: The whole incident.
16 THE WITNESS: Right. Another topic we did 17 discuss is I wanted to talk to him about corrective action.
18 I asked him where would it be best for me to write my 19 concerns about how the move sheets are written so that they 20 would get resolved. And he suggested that I make another 21 mechanism we have to-make changes that's called NUPOST, 22 N-U-P-O-S-T, to enter a comment.in the NUPOST program i.
l 23 referencing the special materials manual and describing.my 24 concerns with how the move sheets are written if'they're 25 written by hand and the distinction between an alpha O and
?
- l i
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27 1 a numeric zero. .
2 MR.'VORSE: Now, when you-went to Mr. de 3 Montfort on the 28th, is that the first FPC manager that 4 you advised us about?
5 THE WITNESS: I had told the person who was the' 6 shift supervisor about the incident.
7 MR. VORSE: Who was that?
8 THE WITNESS: David Porter. But I cannot 9 ' remember the sequence.
10 MR VORSE: Now my understanding is there's a 11 shift supervisor for the refueling and a shift supervisor 12 in the control room.
13 THE WITNESS: There's a refueling supervisor for '.
14 the refueling and a shift supervisor for the control room.
15 MR. VORSE: Now is this the shift supervisor 16 that you told about the bump?
17 THE WITNESS: Dave Porter is the person who 18 would have been the control room shift supervisor that day.
19 MR. VORSE: When did you tell him?
20 THE WITNESS: I can't remember if I told him 21 before I talked to Dave de Montfort or after.
22 MR. VORSE: But it wasn't right after the 23 incident?
24 THE WITNESS: No. The incident happened 25 literally towards the very end of the shift. By the time I l
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28-(-
1 dressed and got out of_the control room the control room 2 crews, my recollection they were mostly gone'already.
3 1GR. VORSE: Did anyone express concern about the 4 underload, that maybe somebody should look at the' fuel 5 assembly or --
6 THE WITNESS: Oh, no, no, there was no concern 7 about the actual underload condition. I think there was
=8 initial some puzzlement on how did we get to that location, 9 but once we looked at the move sheets I think that was --
10- understood.
11- MR. VORSE: Is there anyone in operations that
- . 12 during this type of operation -- you've got the two shift 13 supervisors -- is there anyone like Mr. De Montfort who is, i 14 I guess, your immediate' supervisor, are they in the area or 15 are they somewhere else? You guys are basically in charge.
16 Is that -- is that --
17 MR. GLENN: Basically in charge of what?
18 MR. VORSE: Of all the operations in that 19- department, you know, like in the refueling cycle, in the 20 control room. You guys are --
21 THE WITNESS: Usually when I'm the refueling 22- ' supervisor, I'm in the reactor building, I am the 23 supervisor in charge at that particular area.
24 MR. VORSE:- So to your knowledge there is no 25 procedure that says when you have- an underload and you
.~
29 1 concidered this incident on the 26th an underload --
2 THE WITNESS: Yes, it underloaded.
3 MR. VORSE: -- that you are to notify anyone 4 above you as far as the chain of command is concerned?
5 THE WITNESS: Well, I -- procedurally I don't 6 think there's anything that discreetly says that. I think 7 it was -- I thought it was reasonable that I sit down with 8 the operations manager and let'them know of the event and
~~
9 see what he wanted to do about it.
10 MR. VORSE: And that's Mr. de Montfort?
11 THE WITNESS: Right.
12 MR. VORSE: So you did this voluntarily, no one 13 called you in and said, hey, we got a pracursor card -- '.
14 THE WITNESS: No. I had no knowledge of a 15 precursor card, it was absolutely voluntarily. There was 16 no reason not to say something about it. No one did 17 anything wrong.
18 MR. VORSE: Is there anything that you would 19 like to tell me that I haven't asked?
20 THE WITNESS: I'd just like to state that in my 21 16 years of being with the company the company has always 22 been very supportive of reporting mistakes. I've never 23 felt.any ramifications.
I have no -- had no hesitation l
24 then, I have no hesitation now to go forward and discuss
- 25 any occurrence that simply is not an issue.
1 l
9
{ 1 30 And generally I'd like to say that the crew when 2
we: entered the reactor building, on our minds is to get the
-3 job done, do it right, there's nothing sinister in our 4 thoughts. And I think people that know me, that work with 5
me every day understand that if there's a problem and I'm 6 the supervisor, that I will get it addressed and wa will 7 get it resolved.
8 MR VORSE:
Mr. Glenn, do you have anything?
9 MR. GLENN: No, I don't.
10- MR. VORSE: We'll go ahead and conclude the 11 interview. The time is 10:55 a.m., still on the 18th of 12 September. Thank you very much.
13 (Whereupon, the proceedings were concluded at
14 10:55 o' clock a.m.)
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16 17 18 19 20 -
21 22 23 24 25 s
4