ML20237L679

Partially Deleted Transcript of Unnamed Region IV Official 860528 Investigative Interview Re Region IV Mgt of Regulatory Process at Plant.Pp 1-37

ML20237L679
Person / Time
Site:	Comanche Peak
Issue date:	05/28/1986
From:	NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV)
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Text

-

U K l u ti m t UN11ED STATES

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l

1 IN THE MATTER OF:

DOCKET NO:

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INVESTIGATIVE INTERV::EW a-l l

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1 LOCATION:

ARLINGTON, TEXAS FAGES:

1-37 DATE:

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1986 l

ACE-FEDERAL REPORTERS, INC.

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$DR ADOCK0500g5 Attachment T NADQlWGDR

1 BEFORE THE 2

OFFICE OF INSPECTOR AND AUDITOR

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NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4

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Interview of:

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Room 668 Rodeway, Inn 9

833 North Watson Road Arlington, Texas

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Wednesday, 11 May 28, 1986 12 APPEARANCES:

13 For the Commission:

s 14 GEORGE A. MULLEY, JR.

Special Assistant to the Director

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l 15 Office of Inspector and Auditor Nuclear Regulatory Contandion 17 18 1

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1hereupon, 2

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3 having been duly sworn to tell the truth, t'he whole truth 4

and nothing but the truth, was interviewed and answered as 1

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5 follo s:

6 MR. MULLEY:

The time is 12:00 noon.

The s.

7 date is the 28thof May 1986, and we'are in Room 668 of the 8

Arlington, Texas, Rode'ay Inn.

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6 Present are Reactor In-l

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le spector with NRC Region I Imyself,' George Mulley, Special 11 Assistant to the Director, office of Inspector and Auditor, U

NRC; and the court reporter, Sandra Harden.

1 13

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is here today at my request to dis-i 14 cuss information he may have concerning Region IV management 15 of the regulatory process at Comanche Peak Nuclear Power 16 Station.

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~ l before we start, would yo's please 8

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provide a summary of your background.for the record 7 0

A Okay.

I've worked for NRC since October of 21 1976.

Prior to that I was in graduate school at Stanford 22 University, and before that I was an undergraduate student.

23 g

Since working with the NRC, since 1976, what 24 type of work have you done?

Has there been any specialty l

25 work or area that you've concentrated in with construction, 1

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operations?

2 A

No. 'Actually, I've covered all areas in 3

inspection.

That includes construction and' operations.

I'm i

4 certi.fied to do all.

5 g

Any one particular plant that you've worked 6

on more than others?

l 7

A.

I've worked -- I would say that I've worked 8

mainly on Waterford, South Texas and Comanche Peak.

9 G

Talking about Comanche Peak, then, what has 10 your involvement been at Comanche Peak?

11 A.

I've been inspecting it since 1976, and here 12 recently I was a member of the TRT under Voledo and then 13 under Noonan.

14 And I aisc assisted in the group that is 15 there preseritly.

I don't remember the titles.

16 0

Comanche Peak Review Team?

17 A.

No, that's the Utilities' group.

The group 18 that was headed'by Westerman.

I: don't know iftthey.have an 19 I went there for two weeks and was working acronym.

20 under them.

21 The majority of my invo'lvement was as a member 22 of the TRT, and I forgot to mention, the most important 13 thing I. worked on at Comanche was the Walsh and Doyle M

allegations on pipe supports.

I did about two years of 25 work on that.

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0 Briefly, with respect to the TRT, how do 2

you feel about that effort by the NRC?

Do you feel it's 3

been appropriate?

4 A.

I feel that t,he NEC has responsibility to 5

help the safety of the.public, and they also have a responsi-q 6

bility for their regulations; and I think that Region IV 7

is concentrating on Comanche Peak in an unfair manner.

8 The problems, the technical problems that 9

I testified at the ASLB hearing are not surprising.

They 10 are not that great, as compared to other sites.

They are 11 typical.

12 Due to the political atmosphere and the ASLB 13 Judae Block, who I think is the major problem in this whole 14 scenario, is Peter Block.

I have sat on the witness stand 15 and -- well, my opinion is that he doesn't listen to the 16 staff at all.

He doesn't trust the staff, and I don't think -

17 This is the only system we have, but I don't think it's l

18 fair for a lawyer to pass technical judgment on some issues I

l 19 that he can't even, understand.

20 I know he's got two Judges, technical Judges, 21 with him, but the ones that were there at the time I don't 22 think understood what we were saying, either.

One of them 23 was half asleep the whole time.

M Well, maybe not some of the time, but he U

was like in a daze. He's senile, we'll put it that way.

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1 So I think that what's going on at Comanche 2

Peak is highly unfair to the utility.

I know the same problems 3

exist at other plants, and it's merely a political response.

4 0

Do you feel like the Interveners are driving 5

. the train in this?

l 6

A I think the Interveners and Peter Block are I

l 7

doing a disservice to the people in this area, and I think l

8 that the NRC goes along with the plan.

It's like, "Doh't

?

9 make waves.

This is a big game and we've got to play it.

l 10 I was dismissed from the witness stand by 11 Peter Block after my testimony, because -- no, it wasn't 12 Peter.

It was one before him.

-- because I refused to 13 argue.

14 I just state my facts and my opinions.

I'm 15 an engineer, licensed.

He's a lawyer." He doesn't like 16 '

what I have to say, you-know, so he continues the issue.

i 17 I have a philosophical problem with the whole process.

18 0

At Comanche Peak, do you feel that Regic+n 19 IV emphasizes inrdwsm over quality assurance, or vice

ersa, 20 unduly?

Do you feel that there's not a balance?

21 A

You mean the utili.ty, the constructor?

Is 22 that what --

13 0

well, no.

Really, our inspection effort.

24 Do you feel that we're more prone to the hardware problems 15 versus quality assurance problems?

6 i

1 A.

No, just the opposite.

I think we concentrate 2

on quality assurance excessively.

I think that therein l

3 lies one of the problems in Region IV, is the people that

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4 are there.

If you really look at their backgrounds, the 5

majority of them are experts'in quality assurance.

l 6

As far as I knoy, there are only two Licensed j

I 7

Professional Engineers in that whole Region.

What we need --

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l I'm not sure about that number, but --

9 0

Right.

10 A.

What we need is more people that don't come 11 from the nuclear Navy and the nuclear shipyards that are 12 used to this paper trail thing.

M What we need is engineers who can go out 1

14 there and say, " Hey, this is a pipe stress analysis, and 15 I know what it' means and I know how to deal with it.'

And 16 if we have a mistake out here where it was referred under 17 50.55(e), say the pipe support has to be moved six inches, 18 we need people that can assess the impact of that in their 19 heads and make an engineering judgment.

N Peter Block doesn't like that word, but I'm 21 trained and I have a license, and in my opinion, it will 22 hold up in court,'maybe not the ASLB.

23 But that's the kind of personnel that we 24 are sorely lacking, so what happens is they end up' concentrate ng 25 on quality assurance; and I don't care how much paper you've

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1 got, you still have to deal with the final product, and 2

I think that we're concentrating on the paper.

3 G

Getting back to your example', if there is 4

a pipe support hanger that's incorrectly placed and you t

5 need to make an engineering decision that it's okay or decide j

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6 to correct the problem, what basis do you have to show that l

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all the other ones are properly placed other than the quality 8

assurance.

You as an engineer, there are five thousand l

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of them and you find one or two, what, assurance do you have 10 that we're lucky enough to find the one or two that were 11 improper, but the rest are okay?

I guess that's the quality l

12 assurance argument.

13 A

Yeah, that is the quality assurance argument, l

14 but I think it's an unfair question, because I could turn 15 around and say, "How do you know that your doubts are valid, 16 also?"

17 I see what you're saying, but it doesn't 18 really work that way, because there are as-built programs 19 that the utility has.

There's the ASME Inspectors Program.

20 There's the engineers that do walk-downs.

1 21 There's a lot of eyes that look at other 22 pipe supports.

It's not --

You cannot conclude right away 23 from a sample of, say, 1600, and you have 5 wrong, you cannot 14 conclude that, hey, everything else'is doubtful.

15 What you do is you approach it in a logical

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manner and expand your sample in a random fashion.

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take a bigger l'ook,.a little bigger snapshot.

okay?

3 If you see the same trend, then you can start --

4 your concerns are beginning to sound valid.

But to immediately l

5 jump off and say, " Hey, that makes everything else doubtful,"

j 6

is not really a valid approach.

7 g

Do you feel with the NRC's inspection and 8

the inspection by the quality control people that the

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9 Licensee has and different other inspections and walk-downs 10 and looks that they do that there's enough of the stuff 11 looked at to provide a pretty good assurance that if there 12 are major problems that they are identified?

13 A

Your question was everybody involved, NRC --

14 g

Right, because everybody has responsibility, i

15 and assuming that the Licensee is living up to their responsi-16 bility and, you know, that the various inspectors are doing 17 their job and the NRC is doing their job, do you. feel-there's 18 enough things looked at to provide....

19 A

Yes, I do, and it's worked fine at other 20 plants.

I really do think --

This is based on my experience 21 at South Texas.

I really do think that the major problem 22 here is that you have got Brown & Root.

23 The Brown & Root Company has a'certain approach 24 and a certain philosophy toward their employees.

It's like, 25 you know, you jump or you get fired.

It's the old school.

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1 They were at South Texas.

The utility there l

2 was wise enough to dismiss them, let them go.

Now they h

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are doing fine.

4 I think what's happening here is that Brown l

5

& Root for a long time was running.the show on the low ~r e

1 6

level where the work is rea'lly being done, and.TUGCO being 7

a naive utility really didn't know what was going on at 8

the bottom level.

9 Sure, middle management and up, they had, 10 I think, a grasp on it.

That's not really where we should 11 concentrate, where they should have been concentrating, 12 and that's down where the work is being done.

We're at i

13 fault on that, too, because of the lack of manpower.

l 14 I think that the problems down at Comanche 15 Peak are old, old problems that a-ise out of the Brown &

16 Root philosophy.

I think they've turned them around, though, 17 in the last two or three years, but you're still seeing l

18 the residual effects of that gung-ho "Let's build this plant" 19 attitude.

l 20 0

During your inspections and documenting the 21 inspections that you have done at Comanche Peak and the 22 other plants that you've been involved with, has any Region 13 IV management or any Region IV supervisor tried to harass J

24 or intimidate you into downgrading or doing away with viola-15 tions that you found?

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No.

I recall one instance where I was asked 1

2 why it wasn't -- I was asked to upgrade a violation to a 3

higher severity, but, you know, it wasn't intimidation.

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4 I was just asked, "This sounds more serious than a violation o

5 Level 4,"

and they wanted to make if a three.

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6 But in answer to!your question, no, that 7

has'never happened.

8 0

If you have found a violation and you've 9

documented it and supported it, you've never had any problems 10 with somebody coming and saying, " Forget it.

It's not any 11 good"?

12 A.

Huh-uh.

I do' good work.

1 13 0

I guess that's what it's all about.

Report 14 what you find.

15 A.

Exactly.

Or if it's legally binding, which 16 I see -- I see a lot of guys making mistakes sometimes --

17 well, it happens every now and then, I should say, where 18 you want to cite something and you don't have a legal basis.

19 We have to be engineers, but then when it 20 comes to citing, you also have to know how to deal with 21 the legalities of what the commitments are.

I think we've 22 had some of those problems in the past.

23 0

If that involves something like that, you 24 get involved. with your attorneys, I would suspect.

25 A.

No.

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You make that decision?

2 A

No, no.

I mean, if I'm going to cite Comanche 3

Peak against the American Society of Mechanical Reviews Code, I had better be loo,hing at the correct edition, like say the '71; whatever is in'their PSAR, whatever they are 6

committed to.

7 The same goes for Reg. duides, ANSI Standards, 8

all those k'nds of codes and standards that are used to i

9 build a plant.

A lot of times some of those codes and 10 standards are not applicable, even though we would like 11 them to be,'because they haven't committed to them.

They l

are not in the Construction Permit.

1 13' That was what I was alluding to.

14 0

Let me ask this.

If you had a question 15 concerning interpretation of an ASME Code of any other code, 16 is there any problem with going straight to ASME or any 17 i

other and asking them to interpret one of their requirements 18 for you, or give them a scenario and say, "Does this apply?"

i a

19 l

Is there any problem with doing that?

j 20 l

A No.

I know Roger Reedy very well.

He's l

the Chairman of the ASME Code.

Now, some of the other guys --

22 We go back to my initial statement about qualifications 23 of personnel.

I would simply pick up the phone and call 24 Roger.

He's the Chairman of the ASME Committee, Section l

25 at NRR and on Code Committees:

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I've done a lot of work with him./

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1 and, also, he's served as an expert witness for the utility 1

1 2

at this plant.

i 3

That's not really the proper way to do it,

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4 but that's the way I would do it, since I have that knowledge.

5 But I really don't know now how I would go d

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4 6

about doing it in headquarters, but in the old days before 1

1 7

reorganization at NRR we had a Mechanical Engineering Branch.

8 It was my opinion the proper channels to follow; in case 9

you had a problem with ASME, was to call the MEB Branch l

10 and talk to Branch Chief or section Chief there.

That has 11 happened in the past.

l 12 Now I don't know how they would do it because 1

1 13 there is no MEB Branch.

i 14 0

Well, I guess people, different inspectors 15 come across different examples where there's been debates 16 and discussions and arguments over interpretations of codes.

17 One guy will say, The Code doesn't mean that," and this 18 guy will say, " Yeah, the Code applies here.

That's exactly 19 what they're talking about."

20 The first question that comes to my mind 21 is, "Well, why don't we call up the guy who wrote the Code 22 and say, 'What does it mean?'"

..i 23 A.

That's Roger.

24 g

He wrote the Code. I mean, does this apply 25 or.doesn't it?

It seems'to be pretty -- you know, that

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would'stop all debate.

2 A

I-have a better idea and it's not-followed.

l 3

Some of the guys that are arguing, the reason -- I've never 4

been in an argument about a code requirement.

I'm an I

5 engineer.

Okay?

That's my business.

6 You are getting --

Your example probably 7

comes from a real-live case.

I don't know,-but I have a 8

pretty good idea.

But it's because the people that are l

9 arguing really don't know the code and have no business 1

10 trying to interpret the code to begin with.

11 And I'll go one step further.

We have some i

12 of those people that have no business being inspectors in 13 the NRC, okay, without making any names.

All right?

'l i

14 That's where your problem is.

15 So you feel like, then, they are citing the O

16 code without a sufficient background?

i 17 A

I think they don't know what they're doing.

l 18 Right.

And nothing is -- management doesn't.know how to l

19 handle the situation.

Also, management doesn't know how 20 to utilize their resources that they do hhve, because they 21 are the Section Chiefs and they are going to make the 4

22 decisions, even though they are in the same boat as those 13 other guys.

They have no business opening the code.

They 24 should leave it to those people that are engineers, okay, 15 that have legal basis for practicing engineering, the

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1 examination process, and who have the training for that.

l 2

I think that in this case you have some people 3

arguing about it that really shouldn't be d'iscussing those I

4 issues-5 The Code is not that vague.

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6 0

Well, actually, I'm not that familiar with 7

the Code, but it doesn't seem to be vague.

It seems to 8

be a very black-and-white-type thing.

You do this and then l

9 you have this.

10 A

Right.

As most technical documents are, 11 they are very specific.

Every now and then there are situa-l 12 tions that arise where you do have a question.

The Code l

13 Committee does issue code cases and interpretations, but I

i 14 those are usually for very technical matters such as new l

l 15 material gets introduced, this sort of thing.

16 0

Getting back to the original -- not the 17 original, but the last question I asked, you've never been 18 asked to drop violations which you felt were appropriate?

19 A

No, never.

20 0

Do you have any, knowledge of anybody else, 1

21 any other inspector being asked to drop violations or reports 12 have been changed *or.

violations just dropped out wi'thout 23 a valid reason for it?

24 A

I have knowledge of that happening, but what 25 the reason was I don't know.

It's at Comanche Peak and

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15 1

it has to do with, l and the khannon Phillips 2

citatics.c being taken out of the report.

I never read' 3

either version of the report, the draft or'the other report.

4 But I did hear some comments, I don't re-5 member exactly where, but some comments to the effect that 1

6 the citations were in error.

Sased on my past experience 7

with a11 the fellows involved,,it doesn't surprise me.

]

3 I'd be more than happy to volunteer my 9

services and end the dispute, but nobody ever came to me.

10 g

so you have no firsthand knowledge of exactly 11 what the citations were and as to what both sides of tha 12 argument were concerning?

13 L

No.

I do recall it!had to do with the Code, j

i 14 and I do recall that it was the opinion of the people in 15 charge of the group that the citations were i'n error and 16 that's all I heard.

17 0

The people that were in charge of the group 18 who decided the citations were in error --

19 L

No, no.

The people that wrote the citations 20 wereinerror;sotherefore,kheyweretakenout.

21 g

yes, 22 i

That's what I heard.

23 0

Yes, but the people that decided to take M

them out, do you feel that they were any more qualified 25 to take them out as the people who had put them in?

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A No.

In fact, I think Shannon has a Mechanical 2

Engineer's Degree, but'Shannon is somewhat eccentric, too.

l 3

He's real QA gung-ho.

Okay?

I'd put them 'all -- I think 4

they are all equally, let's say, they are all of the same 5

capability of arguing.

okay?

We'll put it that way.

6 I don't think.that one group, the two guys 7

that wrote it, or the guy that took it out, I don't see 8

one being stronger technically than the other, really.

9 0

Did you ever hear any good technical' arguments 10 either'way, either side of the issue?

11 A

No.

No knowledge of the issues.

As I said, 12 nobody came to me.

13 g

Have you been asked by Region IV management 14 to go out to Comanche Peak, especially now when the plant 15 is near being licensed, and to close out open items just 16 to get the things closed out so that the licensing could 17 get done?

18 A

(Shakes head.)

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19 0

You were never given instructions like that, N

just get the stuff closed out?

21 A

No, not those words.

22 0

Maybe not those words, but the same thing?

l A

No.

M O

Just to get out and get this thing done?

25 A.

No.

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Were you ever asked or has it ever been implied 2

to you to go out. and just pencil whip' the inspection reports, 3

just go out and get the damn inspection mod'ules....?

4 A.

No, sir.

No.

I think just the opposite 5

is going on at comanche Peak.

They are stretchincJ it out 6

quite a bit, excessively.

7 The way the NRC is doing business down there J

8 also bothers me in that we've got two guys and about eight 9

consultants that are there for over a year.

I think we're 10 i

wasting money there.

~

11 The amount of manpower there, the amount 1

12 of inspection that! I've done, that my fellow Region IV I3 inspectors have done, at this point I'm pretty confident 14 that I can come to an opinion right now as to the 15 licensability of that plant.

Okay?

I don't think we need 16 the effort down there that's going on.

17 I think those TRT and the number of consultants 18 down there for over a year and all that stuff is being done 19 to satisfy Peter Block and Juanita Ellis, and not really 20 to assure the health and safeh.y of the public.

We've gone 21 beyond that, way beyond that.

Okay?

22 It's a waste of money and it's not fair to 23 the people in this area.

24 0

When you close out inspection modules, for

example, a 25-12 inspection module or any of the others,

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1 how do you decide when something is a hundred percent completc 2

and the inspection module can be closed?

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A.

I use my judgment in that. 'In looking at 4

the particular activity that.you're looking at, it depends 5

on how much more is'left to look St.

For instance, if you're l

l i

-6 looking,at a concrete module, I,could go.in.one week and 7

close out the module; but I'm not going'to if they still f

8-have another million yards to pour.

It's a matter of judgment I

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9 Those nimbers that we've_put_in~the 766 are

.4 10 arbitrary, 40' percent and 60 percent.

We try to match-it l

11 to the percent complete of the plant.

12 or let me put it another way.

We try'to 13 match it to the window of, opportunity of that activity.

14 If it's concrete, of course,.you're going'to stop pouring 15 concrete after four years, so you want to keep that module

~

16 open over a certain time.

It's a matter of judgment.

17 0

Is there any sort of correlation between 18 the special reports that you cite --

For example, you've 19

.got a module going and you've cited.itnspectiontreports rts.

20 Should I be able to go back to the inspection 21 report and find something in the inspection report that 22 moves directly with that one rule?

You cited Inspection 1

- 23 Report 76-12 as having something to do with concrete..-

24 should I be able to pull 76-12 out and say, 25 "okay, here it is.

Here's a part dealing with concrete."

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Is it that direct a correlation?

2 A..

It should be,-I.think.

If I understand your 3

question right, I have an NRC report here and it refers 1

4' to another NRC report as containing information?

5 g

Let's say you have the 766's-that apparently s

6 the inspectors prepare at the end of an inspection, and 7

'on that 766 it lists certain modules as having'done work 8

on it.

Let's say Module, once again, 25-12.

On the 766 9

it says, " Inspection Report 78-1."

10' should I be able to go back to 78-1, pull 11 that inspection report out and say, "Okay, here's the work 12 they did on 25-12"?

13 A.

Yeah.

I understand that.. I don't think 14 you have a good working knowledge of.the 766.

That's why 15 I didn't understand your question.

16 The 766 is'a listing'of the modules that 17 were supposed to be worked on.

It's a computer tracking 18 system and it's att' ached to the back of the inspection report.

i I9 I think what you're trying'to ask is if you

'A 20 havemoduleslistedinthebIckofthe786, should there f

21 be words in the front of the report that reflect that activity.

22 O

Right.

23 A.

My answer is yeah, that should be.

M 0

Is it always the case?

25 A.

No.

sometimes modules are listed simply

))

i l

.')

.g

20 1

to close them out.

As far as whether that's correct or 2

not, I don't know,'and I don't think anybody knows,.because l<

3 I don't think there's a -- you'd have to read the NRC INE.

4.

Manual for that.

5 g

It sounds very special.

Do you see that-6 to be appropriate?-

7 A.

I don't know.

You'd have to get a policy

~

I' interpretation on that.

9

0..

What,would be the rationale behind an inspector 10 listing certain modules credited to an inspection report 11 to close out a module?- Do you have any feel for what the 12 thinking would be behind that?

13 A.

In the good old days we used to go out and 14 inspect and not worry so much about the bean counting, as 15 I call it.

Okay?

We got the job done and we did good 16 inspections.

All right?

I 17 And the computer, you know, didn't really 18 put that much weight on the 766's.

But it is a managemenr j

1 19 tool that managers now are putting more weight on it.

okay?

Thatishowtheymeasurehroductivh.tyis 20 1

21 how complete the program is.

We have a certain-amount of

~

22 inspector hours to do a certain amount of modules.

So they.

l 23 are really concentrating on that now.

M I think they are trying to keep a real clean 25 record.

What they are doing is going and maybe -- as I

~

[

~

1 I'

\\

31 1-was talking earlier, maybe the window of opportunity.for 2.

an activity is gone, but the module is still sitting here.

3 open.

So what do you do?

4 You make the decision to stick that module 5

number in the next report over here and then put a "C" next 1

~

-l 6

to it, closed, for purposes of tracking.

That's the rationale.l 7

To'close modules so your. program, when'it 8

spits out of the computer, those people.that review that 9

kind of stuff will say, " Hey, they completed the program,"

10 even though it's not accurate.

11 I have personally closed out modules when 12 they are 60 percent.

If I have a module that's 60 percent 13 and the window of opportunity is gone, I'll put a "C'

next 14 to 60.

I see nothing wrong with that.

Okay?

15 But if you change that to 100 and put a

",C" 16 next to it, I have a problem with that.

17 0

That was my next question, exactly right.

18 A.

That's right.

19 0

It's appropriate from what.I understand to --

20 A

To close it --

21

.g

-- close out at'60 percent,=if the work, 22 you know, like you said, the window of opportunity is gone.

23

.You've done all the work you can do with 60 percent gone.

24 A.

Right.

25

~

g

.Close at 60 percent.

22 1

A Yes.

2 0

versus changing it, closing off a change 4

4 3

of a hundred percent.

4 A

That's not a true picture that they are paint-9 5

ing.

I think that's an error.

6 O

Right..That's exactly what I was going to --

7 A

Yes.

8 0

It seems to me that --

9 A

Is something going on?

Okay.

You ask the 10 questions.

I'm surprised.

I didn't know that.

11 See, that may just come from this management 12 pressure to get the program closed.

Okay?

13 0

well, then, you feel that this thing.has 14 turned around so management is using the 766's as an evalua-15 tion tool of productivity --

16 A

Yeah.

17 0

-- of inspectors?

18 A

well, not so much of the inspector, but of 19 the Region itself.

Okay?

The Section and the Branch Chiefs 20 are responsible for implementing the program, so that's 21 the yardstick that is being used against them, okay, not 22 the inspectors.

23 The yardstick they are throwing at us is, 24

" Hey, go out there and get 33 percent of your time out in 25 the field."

okay?

It doesn't matter what kind o.f product

23 4

1 you produce.

I've seen some atrocious writing here in the l

l 2

last two or three years.

It's incredible, okay?

)

i 3

0 As long as you make the hour's out in the l

4 field, then you're doing your job.

5 A.

Right.

A lot'of inspectors, the new ones, 6

they are under the impression that they are to go out and

.s 7

find problems.

That's their charter, and I don't believe r

I that.

I don't see that.

1 9

So you get a lot of guys going out and being 10 zea'lous.

They are going out and writing everything.

I J

11 don't believe in that philosophy at all either.

4 12 O

Does the Region ever do any sort of a quality _

)

l 13 control check of the 766's to make sure what's on that form j

14 is an accarate picture of what actually happened?

Do you 15 know of any instances?

16 A.

No, I think -- I don't know of any system 17 where that is done.

It's the section chiefs' responsibility, 18 but it's also the inspector's primary responsibility, the

.I 1

19 guy that's writing the report.

It's his responsibij.ity.

20 0

I understand pretty much your involvement j

21 with Comanche Peak has been more or leas with the TRT, working 22 under Vince Noonan and less working for' the Region.

23 A.

I have been working for NRR out of the Region.

24 I am the person in the Region that all the technical issSes 25 get sent to.

okay?

Analysis, stress anaiysis, that. sort

~

$. /,

24 l

1 of thing, engineering.

2 So when TRT was put together, I was loaned 3

out to them.

Before that for two years I w'as doing pipe

~

4 support analysis in response to the allegations of Walsh/Doyle.

5 So I, in like maybe the last five years, 6

I've done very, very few module inspections.

It's mostly l

7 been technical evaluation and analysis.

8 0

so the findings that you've developed while 9

working with the TRT, have they been accurately recorded, 10 documented?

Have you been under any pressure to downplay 11 your results at all?

12 A

No, not at all.

Au contraire.

Juanita Ellis 13 had Lyle Smith come and talk to me about one of the items 14 I closed.

Okay.

15 No.

I was working under TRT and I was the 16 guy that was responsible for the complete remodeling of 17 the control room ceiling, if you're aware of that problem.

18 I went and said, " Hey, the seismic analysis is wrong."

They 19 had to tear everything out and now they've got a new one.

20 There was no pressure on me to downplay that.

21 g

so I guess from what we're talking about 1

22 that you had the support --

23 A

I've always had support.

24 0

-- to show that what you were saying was 25 in fact accurate?

25 1

A

'Yes.

2 g

And based on.that, you had no problems at 3

all.

4 A

Not at all.

5 0

Do you feel that Region IV management knows 6.

what's going on out in the field with their inspectors?

7 Do they have a good handle on what, you know, the guys that 8

are actually out there in the field --

9 A

No, sir, I don't think so.

I really don't.

10 First of all, they never go out in the field.

Secondly, 11 I' don't think that they understand any of the technical 12 issues that are presented.

13 They can understand-QA.

Anybody can under-14 stand QA.

It's very simplistic, and that's really what 15 they concentrate on.

But as far as the technical ability 16 of the personnel, how they are inspecting, and that sort l

17 of thing, I don't think they have a very good idea at all.

18 A lot of it, a lot of their impressions are 19 from word of mouth, opinions that they hear from some of 20 the senior type inspectors that they've gratin to trust, 21 such as Mr. Bob Taylor, who was resident at Comanche Peak 22 for a long time.

He's held in high regard.

Okay?

His 23 opinions are gold, okay, but he was senior resident inspector 24 there at Comanche Peak for a long* time, and you can draw 25 your own conclusions from that.

^

--____._______________m

26 1

O So that's --

2 A

But management goes to him because they 3

consider him -- his opinion to be good and'all this.

okay?

4 So soon do they forget Comanche Peak and its problems.

They've.

5 got other people that they don't 9,tilize.

6 It's like a clique.

It's like, " Hey, you 7

knew, this guy is okay, so.whatever he says I'm going to 8

believe."

That's the way management is. operating.

9 0

So. that's how they are getting their informa-10 tion then is through selected --

11 A

Yeah, and not only that.

There has also 12 been for a long time this caste system, like in India I 13 think, where he came off a nuclear submarine, you know, 14 and you're okay.

If you haven't, well, you know, you are

~

15 going to get the dirt jobs and, you know, like you're nothing.

16 It's not said, but it's practiced.

I think 17 that's true throughout the NRC, especially now with the 18 Admiral coming in.

19 Who is going to read this?

~ -

s

,a s

20

'n Probably the Admiral.

A Idon'tknowthe' San.

21 I

I m talking about 22 Region IV here, and that's true if you stop and look'at 23 all the promotions in the last five years.

Every single 24 one of them is a submarine man, guys who don't' understand 25 a majority of the technical problems at Comanche, like welding

~~

h

(~

__?_____

- - ' - - - - - - ' ^ - - - - - - ' - -

~

- - - ~ ~ ~ - -

~

27 i

l 1-like stress analysis, like -- you know, I could go on and.

l 2

on.

3 Sure, they understand the OA, and that's l

4 all we've been -- you know, concentrating'on, the issues, 5

the doubts that are thrown:up by tiose who adhere to the i

t 6

gA, 7

There is also a problem in that their approach 8

to QA, I think, is somewhat in error.

They are trying to 9

apply a lot of the industrial engineering QA aspects, such l

10

• as, you know, when you are in a production facility and

)

11 you're making nuts and bolts, okay, the statistical type 12 approach to QA.

13 You can't really apply the QA philosophy, 14 that QA philosophy to construction of a building.

Okay?

15 l

.So there's a problem in that approach, also.

l 16 CL Do you feel that Region IV management when 17 they are going to these selected people to get their input 18 concerning how things are at Comanche Peak, do they go to 19 these people because they get an answer they want to get 20 or because they feel they are getting good information?

i j

21 A.

I really don't know what the motivation is.

22 I think it's a false perception.

some of it has to do with 23 age.

Some of it has to do with hearing -- getting the answers M

that they expect.

Like I, many a times, have said, " Hey, we're

~

l

28 4

1 making a mountain out of a molehill.

That's not important.

2 That's not safee.y-related."

Okay?

Those kinds of things

~

3 they don't want to hear.

4 Noa, in the old days, you know, hey, if it's 5

not safety-related, we really don't have a legal basis for 6

that, making an issue out of it.

If the impact of the proble.i 7

that we're looking at really isn' t that great, then let's 8

not us make a big issue of it.

Okay?

Everything was 9

tempered, all right, with good engineering judgment.

I 10 don't see that being practiced any more.

i l

11 So in response to your question, maybe it J

l 12 is getting the responses they expect.

Mayce that's why

{

13 they don't come to me, because I don't place that much, j

14 that much importance on tia OA aspects of something, but 15 rather.on the hardware aspects of it.

Okay?

And that's 16 not the game that's being played right now.

It's the other 17 way around.

18 0

Do you feel that Region IV, in trying to l

19 get Comanche Peak licensed, is leaning towards the utility, j

20 trying to help them ont or --

I 21 A

No, I thihk it's the other way around.

22 0

More towards the Intervenor?

23 A

More towards Peter Block.

O More.

25 L

Yeah.

I think we're overly inspecting as t

i

29 1

compared to others in our Region, you know, I've known i

2 plants that have been -- that started construction after 3

Comanche Peak and now they are producing electricity.

Comanche 1

4 Peak is bogged down.

5 It's not because the pipe supports are wrong.

q l

6 They are modifying them.

The utility is playing the game, 7

too.

I did an analysis of all those' pipe supports.

They 8

are going'in and putting in these little clip handles, 1

9 just to satisfy the Intervenor.

I still contend that that d

i 10 Intervenor is wrong, but that's the only way for that issue l

11 to go away because it's the only thing that Peter Block 12 will accept.

l

'I3 That's the game that's being played down l

14 there.

The utility is also guilty, you know.

They won't 15 stand up for themselves, and they're going right along with 16 it.

It's a travesty, the whole thing.

17' O.

Go ahead.

18 3,

7.m not sorry.

I'm all through.

19 I was just kidding.

20 (Pause.)

e 21 Q.

This is kind of a recap now.

Do you feel 22 that Region IV managers or supervisors of the inspectors are in any way discouraging people from going dut and coming M

back with good findings?

A.

Not at all.

No, sir.

That goes against A

4

,30 1

their basic makeup. 'That's a confrontation, and that is 2

not the' type of person you're talking about.

3 If I had an. inspector working for me and 4

he was going out and ma' king errors in.one way or the..ther, 5

in either direction, being too aggressive or not be'..a 0

aggressive enough, I would jump on him.

7 That's not the makeup of the' managers that 8

you're discussing.

Draw your own conclusions from that.

9 It's like don't make waves, you know, everything steady.

10 Don't go out there.

11 The only thing that they ever bring up is, 12

,'Get your site time.

That's it.

13 That's why you get these problems that you've 1

14 got here in that you didn't have a strong manager bringing 15 in the two parties that didn't agree and say, " Hey, look 16 here.

I'm in charge here and I want - " you know, and, 17

,,Here's the decision and here's why."

That's managing.

18 That's not going on.

Okay?

II 4

I guess you've already swored this question' 20 so far as Region IV management encouraging inspectors to 21 identify QA problems.

Do you feel'that inspectors are 22 encouraged to identify problems with iuality assurance?

l 23 A.

I don't know what you mean by " encourage."

l l

M I mean, are you talking about having a staff meeting, or l

25

~

are you talking about'one-on-one?

j I,.

l

31 1

1 1

1 0

Well, if a guy comes in with a OA finding, is l

2 the attitude, Ok ay, that's a good thing," or is it, " Listen,

^

3 forget about it, throw it away"?

4 A.

Oh, no.

No-It is a good finding.

I know-5 exactly where your question comes from, and let me add some-6 thing in all fairness to the people that that question --

7 or the allegation is being made.

)

8 I was talking about the philosophy of QA 9

)

and the industrial type QA.

I know there's a certain segment l

i 10 of the people in Region IV, the ones who are responsible l

l 11 for you being here, their approach to QA is everboard.

They I

12 are the opposite extreme.

Okay?

They want to apply QA 13 down to every -- pedigree everything.

You've got to have 14 paper to change, you know -- to do everything.

Okay?

That's 15 excessive.

16 We're building a nuclear powerplant; millions 17 of cubic yards of concrete and tons of steel, okay?

You 18 can't apply the QA philosophy in the fashion that these 19 fellows would apply it.

Itjust-foesn'twork.

You get 20 bogged down.

Okay?

l 21 There's got to be a middl'e ground.

All right?

22 There's got to be some engineering judgment.

Just because 23 things were done a certain way someone else when you were M

with the Department of Defense, and just because that's 25 the way you'd like things to be done now at a nuclear

~

t

i 32 1

powerplant out there, Comanche Peak, doesn't give you the j

i 2

right to.go around' making all of these allegations and

{

3 accusations that we don't respect QA or rhis and that.

Okay?

)

f 1

4 Tnat's not the case.

{

5 4

Do you know of any* specific -- or any signi-r 6

ficant safety issues at Comanche Peak that aren't being 7

addressed?

8 A

No.

We know them.

9 g

Let me ask you something that's a little 10 off the line.

It has to do with the Freedom of Information 11 Act.

12 Have you ever received instructions or have 13 you ever heard anybody else being given instructions to 14 destroy draft reports or documents because of some Freedom 15 of Information Act request coming down and they didn't want 16 to furnish the stuff?

17 A

No, not because.of that.

I have heard comments,

18 "Never keep anything, because it might be FOIA'd later."

19 g

Later.

I 20 A

Later, right.

But I have never heard anyone 21 say, " Hey, throw this away because it's coming."

No, that's 22 never happened.

23 g

Have you ever attended any sort of classes 24 where they have said, " Listen, as long as the report is 25

~

not on your desk, get rid of the stuff."

There's nothing L

33 I

put out like that, that you're aware of?

2 A.

No.

I have heard some comments about --

3 we've been told that inspectors' notes are'not FOIA-able 4

as long as you don't let anybody see them.

Okay?

That's 5

been stated, but what you're sayin,g, no, I've'never heard l

6 that.

1 7

0 To summarize, do you feel that as an inspector i

l 8

in Region IV you have the freedom ~to go out and do an

~

l l

9 inspection, find a violation and you can support it, do 1

10 you feel that that is going to be documented, it's going

)

I 11 to be recorded and the appropriate action is going to be j

12 taken?

13 A.

Absolutely.

What I think you have right 14 here is a little bit of ego clash.

That's what you're dealing 15 with, okay?

You have a couple of parties that are discussing 16 issues that really they don't even understand themsel'ves.

17 I think the biggest bungler of the whole l

18 situation is management.

They didn't know how to handle 19 that problem.

Okay?

There'** 1eople in the office that 20 could have,-- could have comipited, let's say, or -- you 21 know, there'scertainmanagement/techniquesthatshould.

22 have been applied and they weren't,"and they got the egos 23 bruised even more.

All right?

24 That's what you are dealing with.

As far 15 as my freedom to go out and inspect and report anything u_____-_

~ ~ ~

~

~~

l

)

1 I want, it's there.

It always has been for the last ten 2

years.

Okay?

3 One last statement.

4 g

I was going to ask you --

5 A.

Yeah.

The type of actions that you're asking 6

about, you know, pressure not to do that sort of thing, our 7

managers, that's not their makeup.

They are just the other

]

l 8

way around, you know.

"Do whatever you want.

Just don ' t --

f 9

do you part, inspect, have a basis, fine."

10 They are not likely to --

1 11 0

Take anybody on?

12 A.

Yeah.

They support you, you know, if what 13 you say is right.

14 Again, I think what you have here is clashing i

15

egos, 16 0

You've observed no tendency on the part of 17 Region IV to lean in favor of the licensee, try to assist 18 them in any way they can to get the license regardless of 19 problems?

A.

No.

You're asking questions about decisions 21 and stuff that are way above my head, you know, and --

G Well, naturally, I'm asking for your own U

perspective as a Region IV employee for the last ten years 24 and what you've seen.

Naturally, this is all your opinion.

A Uh-huh.

No, what I'm saying is that stuff

35 1

did occur.

It occurred at the higher levels, so I really 2

have no knowledge.

3 0

Well, I guess we can take th'at as to you've 4

never received any instructions that would make you believe, 5

" Wait a minute.

They are sending me out there to get this 6

plant licensed regardless of what I find."

.You've never

.?

7 received any instructions that would make you believe that, 8

have you?

9 A

well, no, but like, for instance, there's 10 this NTOL approach, Near-Term Operating ~ License approach 11 that we used at waterford and at River Bend.

Okay?

One 12 could perceive ' hat to be NRC's effort, you know, additional t

13 effort to help try to get the plant licensed.

14 Yeah, that goes on.

You know, it's out in 15 the open.

It's called a Near-Term Operating License Team, l

1 16 okay?

I've been a member of that before.

What we do is 17 when the plant is getting ready to load fuel, right, and 18 they have a fuel load date, and we're sitting there with j

19 all these open issues, allegations, modules,, bulletins,

~

20 you know; we'll get a big 'tsam together, hire all these j

.. s l

21 560 an hour consultants from Ida$o and rush to.the site 22 for eight weeks.

That's happened.- Yeah, the NTOL.

13 One could perceive that to be NRC's, you 24 know, attempt to help to license the plant.

25 g

What do they do?

Do they just --

w-_-_-._-_x___-_-_---_ _ - -. _ _ _ _ -. _ _ - - _ _ - - _ _ _ -.

-.O

36 -

i 1

A well, as I said, they get a team together.

a 2

Half of them are usually consultants.

Okay?

Then we go 3

to the site and we inspect and close out al'1 the items.

4 That happened at River Bend.

It happened at Waterford.

5 okay?

It happened at Wolf creek.

1 6

g okay, but when we're talking about that,

)

7 we're actually talking about closing out the items.

I mean, 8

there's a valid inspection, even though there might be an

)

9 emphasis and we might do it faster than we normally would, I

10 but the items are being validly closed out.

11 A

Ch, yeah.

Sure.

12 O

It's not a matter of closing it out without 13 even looking at it.

14 A

Oh, no.

No.

l 15 g

okay.

16 A

That wasn't your question.

17 0

I understand that.

I'm trying to make sure.

18 A

Yeah, but as far as talking about NRC efforts 19 to help licensing, that could be used'as that --

20 g

Sure.

21 A

-- but it's --

I don't know if other Regions 22 do that, but we sure have used that approach.

23 0

I can't see anything wrong with that, as 14 long as we're not --

25 A

We don't want to be the impediment to their i

l J

37 i

1 license, okay, and that's the philosophy behind that.

2 0

Right.

3 A.

And I don't see anything wrong with that, 4

and I've been involved in three of those teams, but every 5

time I was involved in it, everything was up and up.

Every-6 body did close it out, you know, correctly?

7 I certainly would not sign my name to a piece 8

of paper attesting to the fact that I looked at this and 9

that, if I hadn't.

No way.

'10 0

If during something like this you came across 11 a deficiency or violation, do you feel you would have.had the j

12 freedom to report it, even though it was an'NTOL?

j 13 A

sure.

I did and I have.

No problem.

It's:

i 14 happened.

]

1 15 g

I think that's the real' crux of it there.

I 16 I mean, if you go out there and if you do find something 1

17 wrong, then you have the freedom to report there's a problem i

18 here; we're going to have to get it corrected.

19 A

That's right.

20 g

Do you have anything else?

21 A

No, sir.

l 22 (whereupon, at 12:50 p.m.,

the 13 interview was concluded.)

24 25 m__-.----_-----

1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 2

3 I hereby certify that the proceedings herein 4

are contained fully and accurately in the notes taken by seduringthesworninterviewof{f.

,m 5

sn May 6

28, 1986, comunencing at 12:00 noon, and that this is a true 7

and accurate transcript of the same.

8 9

10 d@

Sandra Harden 11 Reporter 12 My conunission expires:

6-4-89

13 f

14 i

15 l

1 i

l I

l-16 17 18 19 i

8-20 21 j

33 p

N 24 25

-I

'I b

e