ML20040D442

Transcript of Rl Cloud Associates Testimony by s Motiwalla on 820106 in Schenectady,Ny.Pp 604-615

ML20040D442
Person / Time
Site:	Diablo Canyon
Issue date:	01/06/1982
From:	Motiwalla S ROBERT L. CLOUD ASSOCIATES, INC.
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( 1 necessary freedom and independence to perform the seismic 2 reverification study?

3 MR. CHEN: Yes, I do. I was never told or even 4 hinted to do sonething which would 'be in . favor of PG&E.

5 MR. SHACKLETON: Is there any comment to the 6 questions that we have asked that you would like to add 7 any additional information at this time?

8 MR. CHEN: No. I do not have.

9 MR. SHACKLETON: Is there any additional informa-to tion that you would like to provide to the Commission 11 concerning this seismic reverification study?

12 MR. CHEN: In what aspect?

13 MR. SHACKLETON: Anything you may have on your L,

14 mind that you think may be of assistance to the Commission is in evaluating this investigation.

16 MR. CHEN: Well, I do have one thing, though.

17 I think perhaps it would be very beneficial to all the j 18 parties if the Commission can decide one way or another g 19 whether Cloud is independent enough or not because I think j 20 the longer we wait I guess perhaps all the parties will a

j 21 suffer.

f 22 MR. SHACKLETON: We appreciate your comments, a

Mr. Chen. We thank you very much for your cooperation. It l 23 24 is now 3:59 p.m. and we are going off record.

25 (End of interview)

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION INVESTIGATION OF DIABLO CANYON UNITS 1 & 2 INTERVIEW 0F SHAFI MOTIWALLA Ramada Inn Schenectady, New York Sunday January 6, 1982 The above-entitled matter came on for hearing pursuant to notice, at 5:55 p.m.

APPEARANCES:

On behalf of the NRC Staff:

RICHARD A. MATAKAS, Investigat'.un, Region I 4

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ERRATA' SHEET Interview of.Shafi Motiwalla, January 6,1982 L

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This transcript was reviewed by Owen C. Shackleton, Jr. No changes or corrections were found necessary.

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,end MATAKAS: The date is January 6, 1982, the time is 5:55 p.m. Present here at the Ramada Inn in Schenectady, New York is myself Richard Matakas, NRC Investigator from Region I and Mr. Shafi Motiwalla. Mr. Motiwalla, for the record, would you give your full name and would you please spell it?

MOTIWALLA: My name is Shafi Motiwalla, S-H-A-F-I M-0-T-I-W-A-L-L-A. I am currently residing at 31 North College, Apartment 3 in Schenectady.

MATAKAS: Mr. Motiwalla, do you have objection to be interviewed under oath?

MOTIWALLA: None.

MATAKAS: Would you raise your right hand please. Do you swear the information which you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

MOTIWALLA: I do.

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MATAKAS: Mr. Motiwalla, during what time period were you employed by Robert L. Cloud and Associates?

MOTIWALLA: I believe I started in January, 1981 and I left for Schenectady in December of 81, so it was approximately a year.

MATAKAS: During what part of this time was spent working on the PG&E Contract regarding the seismic reverification study for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant?

MOTIWALLA: I started working on it in October, I'm not so sure on the exact date, but it was October of 81 and I worked on through December after which I had left for Schenectady.

MATAKAS: What was your official capacity during the execution of the contract?

MOTIWALLA: Initially the first few weeks I was just a Staff Engineer and then as things settled down I was made a Project Administrator.

MATAKAS: Specifically, that was generally speaking but specifically, what part of the contract did you work on?

MOTIWALLA: Specifically, I was looking into the qualification and reverifi-cation of the containment structure and the turbine building.

This was in regards to the communication between URS/Blume and PG&E.

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MATAKAS: URS/Blume?

MOTIWALLA: Right, that was the PG&E's major contractor.

MATAKAS: They did the initial study, is that correct?

MOTIWALLA: Correct.

MATAKAS: Were you involved in the preparation of the October 21, October 24, November 6 and or the November 12, 1981 draft reports?

MOTIWALLA: Ah, yeah, I was directly involved with all four of them.

MATAKAS: Exactly what was your input and was your input in writing?

MOTIWALLA: I was part of the group who made the contribution on the different sections. Like I mentioned earlier, I was working on the containment structure and the turbine building and so I was the one who wrote up the sections on that. The containment structure specifically, and the turbine building with helpful comments from the other people involved to clean it up to make it a proper report format.

MATAKAS: Were you able to arrive at your findings without any outside pressure or undue influence?

MOTIWALLA: The only pressure there was on us was a time constraint but other than that there was no pressure to arrive at a certain conclusion, no.

MATAKAS: Exactly what was this time constraint and who, you know, can you explain that a little better?

MOTIWALLA: Sure, ok. We were asked to get this report and get the verifica-tion done by a certain date and so we tried to collect as much information possible and do a total analysis possible within that time frame we were allotted. So you ask who was the one who set the time frame, I'm not so exactly sure, but for Cloud to submit the report, we were supposed to have that report within a week or 10 days. I'm not so sure exact time, but there was a time constraint that I know of.

MATAKAS: But as far as your findings or exactly what you submitted, there was no influence or pressure put on you for your technical expertise in what you're submitting?

MOTIWALLA: No, there was no pressure in terms of making me say something or another in that sense. No, for the initial first draft there was none of that said at all.

MATAKAS: You said the initial first draft, what about?

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MOTIWALLA: For the other drafts that came back, the revisions, there were PG&E coments that said, you should look into this further or, in specific cases, they said, why don't you reword the thing, to make it sound better for PG&E. All of those comments were evaluated in the light that, were they true, at least for my case, that's what I felt I was doing.

MATAKAS: In other words, who made these comments, you mention that the draft would come back, what specific draft was this?

MOTIWALLA: Ok, alright, let me give you a little brief history on that.

MATAKAS: Ok.

MOTIWALLA: The first report, I'm not sure of the exact date, the October 21 I believe, was sent to PG&E and within a few days we got back three to four reports, copies of our reports, with PG&E coments. There were comments by the various engineers and managers at PG&E. We used that report and those comments as a basis to make another report which was more correct and more relevant, and this went on for I believe three to four reiterations.

So the four reports you mentioned are actually revisions on the same report.

MATAKAS: But you mention that there was a comment that came back, to l

try not to make it sound so bad for PG&E. Who made this comment and was it, did that comment come back on a revision?

MOTIWALLA: That comment was the general impression that I got. I'm not so sure, since I don't have a document in front of me, I'm not so sure whether that was exactly the wording, but that was the gist in some of the comments was, it sounds bad for PG&E if you come out and bluntly say this. There is some information that we have, that, well, you know, make you not write it so negative for us, i MATAKAS: Okay, and did they provide you with that information?

MOTIWALLA: And then we would go back and ask for the information, and in some cases they did have the information and other cases we had to dig for it. In other cases there was none. So we can't really make a sweeping generalization either that yes or no.

In some cases yes, in some cases maybe there was, in other cases, no.

MATAKAS: In the end and on your final analysis, were your, was your findings influenced in any way by the comments that PG&E made to you?

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MOTIWALLA: It was influenced only in the sense that I would go back and look at what I had written initially and reevaluate, for example, they had mentioned one place that they had documentation for the dome service crane, which I had looked at and I couldn't find the documentation on, and I said basically, there was no documentation. The only documentation I did have was a letter that was an internal PG&E letter saying, the dome crane was going to be qualified on the basis of a load drop test. So that was my conclusion in first draft. Subsequently, more documentation was made available, after this report was written to us from PG&E saying, here is the documentation that you didn't have and the reason we didn't have that was because we were looking in the central files and asking people questions but we never did get that documentation initially, so we had to go back and get that documentation. So in that case, for example, for the dome crane then, that was changed to show that it was qualified for shutoff mode, but for the operating conditions, the dome crane had to be tied down.

MATAKAS: So what you're saying that some of the com...., some of the comments influenced what you wrote down but it was not, would you consider that undue influence or would you consider it pressure or are you saying that the comments were valid, therefore, they influenced what you wrote, put down?

MOTIWALLA: Okay, in one, in some cases like mentioned, there was a case that there was not relevant inforination available initially which was subsequently made available. In a couple of cases, there were just comments saying, strike out this word it sounds too negative. That was the general gist of the impression, of the comments, okay, and when that was not substantiated by later trips to PG&E to find the documentation to substantiate that particular comment, I did not make that specific change of cancelling that word, but say, but the only thing I did was rephrase it so it wasn't very negative. Instead of saying, no documentation available for something, say that documentation has not been made available from PG&E.

MATAKAS: Is that a pretty much typical example?

MOTIWALLA: I'm not so sure whether you call that a typical example but in some cases that was, yes.

MATAKAS: In the end, was your final conclusion, or your comments, were they in fact changed? In other words, the meat of what you were saying, in other words, is this good or is this not good, your final comments in the end, did you change them at all?

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MOTIWALLA: The final comments, I didn't say anything that I didn't initially said before, but so in that sense, no, my comments were not changed. The only thing that was changed was the wordings were changed so that they weren't too negat.ve. But no, my coments were not changed,.in a sense that if I found something negative, they were there, but rather than saying blatantly that this is wrong, we said, okay, this is incorrect. So a difference in terminology, rather than saying completely. wrong, you say incorrect.

MATAKAS: Again, were you told specifically to do this by an individual, or was this mainly, these changes, made due to the gist of the comments that you were getting back on the drafts?

MOTIWALLA: Yeah, this was basically the gist of the comments.

MATAKAS: And who are these coments from?

MOTIWALLA: Initially one could tell who the comments were from specifically, because in the first draft we got four copies back of comments and you had one from Mr. Rocca at PG&E, one from Mr. Bettinger in civil. But towards the end we would just get one copy with everyone's coments on it, so one really couldn't tell whose specific comment it was, but it was one of.the PG&E managers or responsible engineers.

MATAKAS

You mention those two names, do you know the spelling on those two names?

MOTIWALLA: Mr. Rocca, R-0-C-C-A, he was the person Mr. Bob Cloud was in contact with, MATAKAS: Okay, and who is the other individual?

MOTIWALLA: Mr. Bettinger, he was the person, I believe the Chief Civil Engineer, his spelling is B-E-T-T-I-N-G-E-R, Bettinger.

MATAKAS: Then you were also involved in the revisions of the drafts as they came with the comments on them?

MOTIWALLA: Exactly, yes, I was.

MATAKAS: What were the original instructions provided to the Cloud employees performing the development of the reports and the j handling of the coments? In other words, were you told that on the outset how to handle these coments when they came back by Mr. Cloud? I take it Mr. Cloud was your direct supervisor?

MOTIWALLA: Exactly, he was.

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l MATAKAS: Did he tell you how to handle these comments when they came l back? l MOTIWALLA: He didn't say that one should handle them in a particular j fashion, but the fact was to address the coments in the best possible manner. So there wasn't any specific direction as to do this or do that, but yeah, go ahead address this, this is your section. PG&E comments are these, which we were made available to, okay, go and look at these comments and see what is the correct thing.

MATAKAS: But you were not asked to base your final decision on these comments, just to see if there was any validity to the coments and make an independent evaluation?

MOTIWALLA: Yes, I would say that.

MATAKAS: Did you receive any verbal or written comments from PG&E, West-

%ghouse or any other company personnel concerning recommended revisions to the, any of the drafts?

MOTIWALLA: I personally never got any verbal comments directly from any of those. In, later on, maybe in talking, there may have been something said and if it was, it was probably documented since any telephone call or conference that was relevant to the program or to any reports was documented by me and it should be on file.

MATAKAS: Do you have any of these documents now, or did you leave them at Cloud?

MOTIWALLA: I left all my documents at Cloud.

MATAKAS: And who would have those documents?

MOTIWALLA: They should be in the filing system that was set up to handle all these documents.

MATAKAS: Did you follow the original guidance provided as you just-stated? You said you were told to address the comments that PG&E made on the drafts and the revisions?

MOTIWALLA: Yes.

MATAKAS: Did you handle then in that manner, that you just explained?

In other words when you had comments on the revisions what steps did you take?

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I l MOTIWALLA: Okay, for, let's say I got a comment back from PG&E saying l we have more information for this, this is incorrect, okay, that was one case, which it was, in the case of the dome crane.

Then I went about, dug the information out, reassessed what I had done, looked into the qualification and the analysis of the documentation and then reevaluated my section. In another case, there was a statement saying, but we could say it this way to make PG&E look better. In that case, if I didn't feel <

strongly about that, because there was no documentation available, there was no facts to back that up, I would not change the comment just because someone made the coment on the report saying, change it.

MATAKAS: Okay, again, to make PG&E look better, was that comment made directly to you by anyone?

MOTIWALLA: No, there were no coments made directly to me. It was the only communication on the comments and on the revisions was the I

written comments that were made on our reports that we submitted to PG&E, and PG&E commented on it and sent it back to us for revision.

MATAKAS: And those comments on those documents indicated to you that, in other words, they might of wanted to have something changed so that they didn't look so bad, and it was a matter of a cosmetic change, changing a word which didn't change the meaning?

MOTIWALLA: It wouldn't change the meaning, but rather than saying wrong you'd say incorrect.

MATAKAS: Were you encouraged or directed by anyone to change any of your original findings, in other words, told to change them and you changing them without the proper documentation or evaluation on your part?

MOTIWALLA: There was no direct reference to that, but the comments reflected that maybe that's what should be done but if there is no documen-tation to back that, I didn't do it.

MATAKAS: Again, were you directed by it?

MOTIWALLA: I was not directed by anyone at all. The only impression I had i was the coments I got back from the report and after the third reiteration it seemed like that was what they were hinting at.

MATAKAS: The third reiteration?

MOTIWALLA: Right.

l MATAKAS: Okay.

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MOTIWALLA: That this is what they were hinting at, saying, come on you can do, word it a little bit better.

MATAKAS: ,

Word it a little bit better?

MOTIWALLA: But, if there was no facts to back it up, I wouldn't do it.

MATAKAS: And again these were comments that on the, these were written comments, and you did not know who they were from?

MOTIWALLA: No, not directly. In some cases you could tell because of writing style, but in other cases you couldn't.

MATAKAS: And could you give me any example, or would you need the reports here in front of you to give me a good example?

MOTIWALLA: Yeah, I really wouldn't want to point fingers at anyone unless I had the reports and I could tell by the writing whose it was, but right now there were quite a few examples of that.

MATAKAS: Did you make any changes without substantiating documentation?

M0flWALLA: No, I did not.

MATAKAS. Can you honestly say ?,%1 you were able to operate independently on your verification and review regarding the seismic reverifi-cation for Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant?

MOTIWALLA: For the section that I worked on, initially and subsequently, yes. What happened in some cases was because of the large

, amount of work in the containment and the turbine building, some of the work was shifted to the other people who had completed their part of the work. So what I started was a bigger chunk and what I ended up working on towards the end was a little bit smaller.

MATAKAS: Did you hear any comments by any of your contemporaries which would indicate that they were not operating independently, that they were submitting their findings based on recomendation or direction from PG&E or anyone else? Did you hear any comments to that effect?

4 MOTIWALLA: Not really any comments en that effect. The only thing, we all had the impression that PG&E wanted us to make them sound a little bit better and that was just, everyone had the same impression, that's what they wanted and so we tried to address it that way without getting out from the facts. So we try to keep with the facts, but in one case, I recall, I believe it was Ned Dennison, he was in the same room as I was and he was looking to the seismic inputs of some of the conduits and cable

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trays, and he found out that the seismic inputs were incorrect and he had a certain number. I am not so sure exactly what the number was but that was put in one of the reports and a coment, and then in that situation, rather than putting numbers, we put like several instances for seismic input. So, rather than giving hardcore numbers and doing it that way, the wording was slightly changed so it was, the contents were still there but rather than giving hard and fact numbers for the small sample we had taken, we gave an example saying, yes, we found something and these were the cases but we didn't give hard and fact numbers in that case.

MATAKAS: Was the information still available to be acted upon where they would know how many and which ones?

MOTIWALLA: Yes, all their documentation was in our files and the NRC group that came visiting to our office had access to those files.

MATAKAS: Is there any other coment that you would like to enlarge upon, or any other comment that you would like to make regarding this?

MOTIWALLA: The only thing I would like to do over here is to basically just reiterate the fact that there was a time pressure and there was that time constraint that we had to work with. So whatever we did we were doing under that pressure. In some cases I remember spending all night on a report trying to get it out and we would go through a number of rounds of reiterations.

For example, I would write my section down and then it would, say Paul would read it, and then my boss would read it and each one would make comments and then rather than getting back to me on all the comments that were made on my section, they would go directly to the typist. So I wouldn't see what was exactly in my section until after the report was typed and delivered. But that was the way we operated because of the time pressure, and all, I could really add is the impression I had got from the comments made from PG&E was we should try to make them look, not as bad.

MATAKAS: Did they ever come out and directly say to change something, I mean, I'm talking about changing something in substance. You're giving examples on, I guess you'd call them cosmetic changes on words. Am I using the correct terminology?

l MOTIWALLA: Right, you are.

MATAKAS

I'm talking about anything of substance that you were asked to change. Is there any instance that you could say that you were told to change something of substance without proper verification or documentation?

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MOTIWALLA: No, not in my case at all. I was not told directly, either by PG&E or by my boss, to do anything of that sort.

MATAKAS: Do you know of anybody else who may have been told?

MOTIWALLA: flo, I don't know of anyone else either.

MATAKAS: Is there anything else that you'd like to make a matter of record?

MOTIWALLA: Not at the moment, not MATAKAS: Okay the time is 6:25. This will conclude the interview at the Ramada Inn in Schenectady, New York on January 6, 1982.

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