ML20237L705
| ML20237L705 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak  |
| Issue date: | 07/24/1986 |
| From: | Ellershaw L NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20237F760 | List:
|
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8708200305 | |
| Download: ML20237L705 (17) | |
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l Uhntu STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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IN THE MATTER OF:
DOCKET NO:
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW i
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l LOCATION:
GLEN ROSE, TEXAS PAGES:
1-16 l
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DATE:
THURSDAY, JULY 24, 1986 I
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8708200305 870819 PDR ADOCK 05000445 G
PDR AG-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.
e w h=co 7 u 4g (202)347 Attachment U NATIONW1DE CO
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l SWORN. STATEMENT EE 1
LAWRENCE E.
ELLERSHAW l
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July 24, 1986 j
4 NRC Region IV Trailer Comanche Peak Stea,m Electric Station Glen Rose, Texas 12:55 p.m.,
C.D.T.
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l TAKEN BY:
George Mulley i
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REPORTED BY:
R.
Patrick Tate
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LAWRENCE E.
ELLERSHAW 2
was called as a witness and, having been-duly cautioned and 3
sworn, was examined upon his oath as follows:
4 EXAMINATION 5
By Mr. Mulley:
6 Q
The time is 12:55 p.m.,
on July the 24th, 1986.
7 Present are Mr. Lawrence E. Ellershaw who's the'NRC's team 8
leader for the mechanical, civil structural group at the 9
comanche Peak Steam Electrical Station; myself, George
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10 Mulley, assistant director for investigations, Office of 4
.I 11 Inspector and Auditor, Nuclear Regulato.ry Commission; Steve 12 Goldberg, who's a technical advisor to the Office.of f) k 13 Inspector and Auditor, and the court reporter, Mr. Pat i
14 Tate.
15 We're here today to discuss with Mr. Ellershaw 16 his involvement with sevecal inspections that were done by I
17 Region IV et Comanche Peak.
And also,to obtain some 18 information concerning the Region's regulation of the 19 Comanche Peak Project.
20 Osfore we start, Lee, would you give us a brief 21 resume of your background here at Region IV?
22 A
At Region IV?
23 Q
Yes.
1 24 A
I joined the commission in February of '76 in i
'25 Region IV.
I was ass 3 77ed to the vendor program branch,
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l-and was in that branch until June.of '84 when'the branch
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.was transferred to Washington and I elected to stay here in 3
the Region.
And at that time, I was put into the reactor 4
project branch.
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5 Q
okay.
Since your assignment to the reactor-l
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6 project branch, have you worked a lot here at Comanche l
7 Peak?
1 8
A I became involved here.in I'd say prcbably July 9
of '85, July, August time frame.
'i 10 Q
In what capacity?
11 A
I was assigned as a team leader.
12 Q
Same activity for --
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13 A
Same activity, yes.
1 14 Q
During our inquiry, as I mentioned to you 15 earlier, we've looked at several inspection-reports that q
16 were done by Region'IV here at Comanche Peak, and what I'd
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4 17 like now is_to have Steve Goldberg outline some of these 18 inspection reports, some of the issues that were developed, 19 and find out if you were involved in any way either through 20 actual inspection or through reviewing these reports.
J 21 A
okay.
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22 Q
(By Mr. Goldberg)
Okay, Lea, I'm going to give i
23 you an inspection report number which may not tell you very i
24 much but after that point, I'm also going to enumerate a
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' series of issues that were which were party to that TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713).222-7177 i
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inspection report and I'm going to ascertain whether you -
2 had some knowledge of.this.
3-A Do you have the month that the report number is 4
applicable to?
I can relate better.
5 Q
okay.
In other words, the period in which the 6
inspection occurred.
7 A
Right.
Yes.
8 Q
okay.
Hold on.
9, A
These must be a.11 '85s then, I would imagine.
10 0
Yeah, but the first one is -- yes, I guess 11 they're '85.
I don't knowLif one extends into -- yeah, 12 they're all '85, it appears.
I 13 A
Yeah.
14 Q
okay.
The first one is 85-07/05, which is a 15 period April 1st 1985 through June 21st, 1985.
16 A
No, I wouldn't have had anything to do with that, 17 to the best of my knowledge.
18 Q
Okay.
Let me just run the issue by you. It's 19 conceivable that you might have been talked to about these 20 issues because it took several months before the report was 21 issued.
22 A
Okay.
23 Q
There were issues involving the reactor vessel,
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24 issues such an auditing of that area as well as the changes
'n the installation instructions particularly the traveler 25 i
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associated with the reactor vessel.
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2 Do you have any knowledge, would you have any 3
knowledge in that area?
4 A
I don't recall anything to do with that.
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Q Okay.
Another one is an issue involving the i
6 spool piece, the identification of the correct serial 7
number and what have you, material control number on the 8
spool piece.
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9 A
There'was some questions asked -- trying to think 10 now -- about code requirements, I think, and traceability.
j 11 But I really don't recall anything more than that.
l 12 Q
Were you directly involved in the issue?
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13 A
No.
No.
f 14 Q
Okay.
The next one is a CMTR, certified material 15 cest report, involving a portion of the loop three cold led 16 piping sub-assembly?
j 17 A
No.
l 18 0
And the last issue -- well, two other issues, 19 there's another issue involving the audit to be done 20 related to the mixer, cement -- concrete mixer' blades.
21 A
No.
22 Q
Okay.
The last issue is a trend analysis that 23 was taken out of the report?
f, 24 A
No.
25 Q
- Okay, so we're out of that one.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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Let's go;to the next one.
2 MR. GOLDBERG:
Did you want to question him on 8
3 that report, '85 --
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MR. MULLEY:
No.
5 MR. GOLDBERG:
07/057 6
MR. MULLEY:
The only' thing I would'like to 7
explain is when we're talking about involvement, if either 8
Tom Westerman or someone had you review the draft in its 9
draft form, that would be involvement.
10 THE WITNESS:
Okay.
11 Q
(By Mr. Goldberg)
The next one, this report is 12 85-14/11, and the dates on this, October 1st through 31st, I
13 1985.
1 14 A
I'm sure I did have some involvement.
15 0
Okay, let me go over-the issues.
You may have 16 had some involvement but maybe not on the issues.
Okay.
17 The first set of issues involves control of records.
18 A
No.
I 19 Q
That would involve Stone & Webster records, 20 Chicago Bridge & Iron records and the condition of the 21 storage facility.
22 A
No.
23 Q
Also in-process records, what is determined to be
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24 an in-process record.
25 A
No.
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Q okay.
The'other issues involves weld rod 2
control.-
Did you get involved in that issue?
3 A
No, I don't recall that as being an issue.
4 0
okay.
Let me read you what the issue is and you 5
can tell me if you were involved in it or not.
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" Weld rod was not identified in the main 7
distribution station."
8 A
No, I was not.
9 Q
okay.
Okay.
That takes care of that inspection 10 report.
11 Let's go to the next one, which will be the last 12 one.
No there will be one more, I'm sorry.
There's one 13 more.
It's 85-16/13, this is a period of November 1st 14 through the 30th, 1985.
15 A
I'm sure I wa's involved with that.
j 16 Q
Well, you may be --
17 A
I'm talking about only about time frame, of l
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- course, r
l 19 Q
The first issue involves the resolution of I
l 20 50.55(e) issues.
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J 21 A
No, I don't believe in that time frame there was l
i 22 anything that I was involved with with respect to
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23 5055.(e)s.
24 Q
okay, actions on previous IE bulletins, 79-14, 25
'78-20.
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1 A
No, was not involved.
2 Q
BISCO fire seals?
5 3
A No.
4 Q
Okay.
The last inspection report is 86-06/04, l
5 which is one in which we understand you might have involved 6
with on the subject of a Bill Counsil comment that was made 7
related to a finding that you started with on clips -- I j
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forget exactly the technical issue now.
9 MR. GOLDBERG:
George, do you remember the 10 technical issue on the last inspection, 86-04/04 that we --
11 MR. MULLEY:
There were clips for hangers, 12 whether or not these clips -- let's go off the record a
'i 13 minute.
i 14 (Discussion off the record.)
e 15 Q
(By Mr. Goldberg)
This is an inspection report, 16 86-06/04, period of time April 1st through May 31st, 1986.
17 A
Yes.
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18 Q
The issue -- let's go off the record because I 4
19 have to find it:
20 (Discussion off the record.)
21 THE WITNESS:
Okay, some of these reports were a 22 combination of two months' inspection's.
And in this 23 particular case, it was a combination of April and Nay.
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24 Each month, though, we had a separate exit 25 meeting.
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Now, the May exit meeting which was held on June 2
3rd of 1986, I had a deviation, I addressed a devistion 3
with respect to a 50.55(e) report on welded clevises on 1
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'these valves.
5
- At that point in time, I had not planned on' 6
addressing a possible violation; it had been discussed 7
before, Tom, and Ian..
The potential violation was that l
8 there was no documented evidence of acceptability of welds 9
on these clevises, they're actual brackets that are welded 1
10 to the valve actuator barrels.
11 There was -- I'm trying to recall all the l
12 specifics here.
CPRT had a program in effect at that time 13 dealing with the evaiuation of nonconformance reports, 14 NCRs, their dispositions and the justifications for these 15 dispositions.
16 I think we had come across some instances of NCRs l
17 in which we questioned the disposition of them, how they l
l 18 arrived at the disposition.
19 So they initiated a program in which they were 20 going to review, if I recall, I don't know, 300 or 400 21 NCRs, into -- we wanted to see if they would select one of 22 the NCRs that was involved in this. problem and see how they 23 would treat it how they were treated.
24 If I recall, that's why we did not identify the 25
'violatt.on at that time.
We still had it.
It was'in the
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bank, but we wanted to see how their NCR evaluation program 2
was going to come'out.
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3 So we decided at that time not to address it and 4
I think that's when, even though we had to go through the 5
scenario and I think that's when Counsil spoke up and said 1
6
" Hey, sounds like to me you've got a violation."
7 So then we said, "Well, okay, if you want it, you 8
got it."
1 9
So basically that's what we ended up with.
So 10 that's what I have here in my notes, my recollection.
11 MR. GOLDBERG:
I don't have anymore questions in 12 this area.
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(By Mr. Mulley)
Are you aware of some of the 14 discussions that have taken place between Mr. Westerman and 15 Shannon Phillips?
r 16 A
I -- well, I don't firsthand know of any -- the 17 content of any discussions.
I avoided getting~ involved in j
18 it.
I understand in the past there's been hard feelings 19 between them.
I know there's been discussions about 3
20 Shannon perhaps feeling that Tom has restricted his report j
21 writing activities or either extracted things from reports,
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22 prevented him from writing a deviation or a violation, I
23 know that's the discussion.
But I have not been involved
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24 with it and I have no inten' tion of getting involoved with 25 it.
TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713.) 222-717"i
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1 Q
Has Tom Westerman ever asked you to review one of-2 Shannon Phillips' draft' reports for your-comments?
3 A
.I don't recall that at all.
The only ones that 4
I've been responsible for have been the inputs from the 5
people.in that mechanical civil structural group, which is
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6 four inspectors.
1 7
Q Have you been-allowed by the Region to go out,- do' 8
inspections, document your findings and report your 1
9 findongs as you see fit?
10 A
Have I been allowed to do that?
Absolutely.
f 11 Q
Have there been any pressures exerted by the
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12 Region to try to --
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I 13 A
No.
14 Q
-- steer you away from formally writing 15 violations?
16 A
No.
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17 Q
Has the Region, since you've been out here, tried q
18 to steer you away from quality assurance issues and Jocus L
19 your attention on more the hardware side of the house?
20 A
No.-
Of course, this program, the reinspection 21 effortsobviously is directed towards hardware, it's i
22 hardware oriented.
But no, as far as the quality assurance 23 aspects, procedures, the program, itself, it's all
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24 included.
25 So there hasn't been any attempt to restrict us'
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1 or guide us in just or point us in a1 specific direction.
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2 Q
During this effort that you're undergoing right 3
now, have you been focused more towards past issues or have 4
you been allowed the freedom, if you see'a new issue, to 5
develop sny new issues that you night find?
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A Well, when you ask me that question, I'm the'one 7
that directs the four people in the group and I have not 8
been told to direct them in that fashion at all.
9 They do 90 percent of the inspection associated I
10 with my group.
I do very little -- most of it is 11 coordinating and so forth.
But no, I've not been told to 12 direct them in that fashion and I have not.
13 Q
Has there been any indication that the Region 14 prefers to handle problems with TUGCO on an informal manner 15 instead of writing violations, go and disquss the problems 16 with the utility and tr'f and get they will resolved before 17 it gets down on paper?
18 A
I can't think of one instance where we have 19 identified either a deviation or violat:.on where it was not 20 addressed and' written.
This thing that ye were just 21 talking about perhaps was the closest example of what 22 you're suggesting.
23 Q
But you had a motive behind --
2 24 A
Yes.,
25 Q
Okay.
Another question, you go out, you find.a
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1 problem, you discuss it with the utility, you're going to 2
write a violation, you perform the exit briefing, you're l
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preparing your draft report.
At what time do you feel is I
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acceptable to receive additional information from the l
5 utility that might affect whether or not you write a i
6 violation?
7 In other words, is it up to the exit briefing, is i
O it prior to the exit briefing, is it during preparation of l
9 the draf t t report, is it up until when the final report is 10 issued?
When is it acceptable?
11' A
There's too many factors involved, I think.
I 12 don't think that they could provide information up at the I
13 very last minute and expect us to say no, that's --
14 everything's okay.
15 It's too much time required to evaluate what they i
16 present to be able to just arbitrarily say, "Oh,
- okay, 17 thero's no problem."
i 18 So it depends upon the circumstance.
I think if 19 I had a vio'lation or a deviation and they presented s
20 information to me which mitigated that, at the minimum it 21 would be changed perhaps to an unresolved item; it would j
22 '
still be documented.
k 23 Q
Do you find anJ; attitude by the Region to j
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indicate that we're here to'try to get this plant licensed, j
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and get it on line, help the Licensee out?<
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A No, not at all.
2 Q
Do you f' eel you're doing an objective. job?
3 A
Absolutely.
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'MR.
MULLEY:
I tell you, I have really nothing 5
else.
Let's go off the record just for a sinute to make l
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6 sure before we close the record out.
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7 (Discussion off the record.)
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Q (By Mr. Goldberg)
Leh, we understand that there 9
are issues involving coverage of the inspection modules 10 that were in the IE manual, particularly in the 25.12 11 program.- Some of them involve quality assurance, some of l
12 them involve hardware reviews or inspections.
Are you at l
13 all familiar with what was covered as part of the 12 l
14 program what should ce covered, the frequency of coverage, l
15 whether things were not treated in the same fashion as they
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j 16 should have been in the past as they are now; what is your l
17 knowledge in this area?
l 18 A
That question pertains strictly to Comanche Peak 19 activities, right?
20 Q
Yes.
21 A
Okay.
I really don't have any knowledge as to
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l 22 the conditions of percentage inspection of the various-23 modules in the past.
-I do know there was an attempt and f
24 probably was done, where I think Shannon was supposed to
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inspection modules.
But if it has been put together, I t
2 don't recall it. 'So I don't know.
I don't know what the j
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status is.
4 0
When you filled out your 766 data card, or what 5
have you, how do you determine percent completion of a 1
6 module or a thing that you're looking at; what do you use I
7 as your basis for that?
j 8
A I have not filled out any 766s, Ian's usually 9
done that.
10 (Discussion off the record.)
11 Q
(By Mr. Goldberg)
Go ahead.
12 A
Okays With respect to 766s, generally Ian Barnes 1
13 has put that information together.
Each of the individual 14 teams provide their report input to Ian who, in the final 15 analysis, assembles it and fills out the 766s.
i 16 (Discussion off the record.)
17 MR. MCLLEY:
I have nothing else unless you have b
18 something you would like to add.
19 THE WITNESS:
I can't think of anything at the 20 moment that would lend itself to this.
21 MR. MULLEY:
Good enough.
22 (Statement recessed at 1:20 p.m., C.D.T.)
23 24 25 TATE REPORTING SERVICE, (713) 222-7177
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THE STATE OF TEXAS:
2 COUNTY OF HARRIS 3
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4 LI, R.
Patrick Tate, CSR #1730 and Notary Public l
5 in and for the State of Texas, certify that the facts as 6
stated in the caption hereto are true; that the proceedings 7
indicated were had before me,.and the-same were thereafter 8
i reduced to typewriting by me or under my direction.
9 I further certify that the above and foregoing 10 transcript as set forth in typewriting is.a full, true and i
11 correct transcript of the proceedings had at the. time 12 indicated.
I 13 In testimony whereof, witness my hand, this 26th 14 day of July, 1986.
15 16 l
17 My Business address is:
!S 1712 Esperson Buildings A. Patrick Tate, CSR #1730 4
18 Houston, Texas 77002 Notary Public in and for My current certification the State of' Texas 19 expires: 12-31-86 My Commission Expires: 10-27-89 20 21 22 1
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