Transcript of 790508 TMI-2 Investigation Interview W/A Tsaggaris

. * . ' * UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [ NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

I i d In the Matter of: ; 2; IE TMI INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW

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4 Alexis Tsaggaris * Supervisor, Station fiaintenance Sj Metropolitan Edison Company

6|! ! 7| 1 - 8 Trailer #203 9 NRC Investigation Site TMI Nuclear Power Plant 10| Middletown, Pennsylvania 11| fiay 8, 1979 12 (Date of Interview) 13 July 4, 1979 (Date Transcript Typed) 167 and 168 15 (Tape Numoer(s))

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' 19 - / Y 20 /(1, 21 NRC PERSONNEL: Thomas Essig fiark Resner 23 ' Dale Donaldson 24'

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, ! | gj The following is an interview of Mr. Alexis Tsaggaris, Mr. Tsaggaris 2| is employed with the Metropolitian Edison Company, he is a supervisor,

3 Station Maintenance at the Titus Station in Reading Pennsylvania, the

4 present time is 11:10 a.m., Eastern Daylight time and the date is May 8, 1979. This is interview is being conducted in Traile'r 203 which is 5| 1 cated just outside of the South gate near the Three Mile Island 6 facility. Individuals present interview are Mr. Thomas Essig, Mr. 7 Essig is a Chief, Environmental Inspection Project .iection, Region III 8

g of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Moderator for this interview y is Mark E. Resner and I am an investigator in the Office of Inspector and Auditor, U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in HQ. Joining us

I sometime after the interview beg %s will be Mr. Dale E. Donaldson, Mr. 12! Donaldson is a Radiation Specialist, Region I of the U. S. Nuclear

| Regulatory Commission. Prior to taking this interview Mr. Tsaggaris 14! | was given a two page document which advised him of the purpose, scope 15i

, and authority for which Congress has given the Nuclear Regulatory 161 i

Commission to conduct this investigation it also apprised Mr. Tsaggaris | 17 to the fact that he is entitled to a representative of his choice if : 18l

, you desire one and also that he is not compelled to talk with us, he 19! is not desired to. On the second page of the document Mr. Tsaggaris 20 has answered three questions which I will state for the record.

21| . Question No. 1, you answered, excuse me, do you understand the above, 22 | Mr. Tsaggaris has checked yes indicating that he does, is that correct 23 Mr. Tsaggaris? 24| , 25h

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| | g TSAGGARIS: That's correct.

i 2; RESNER: Question no. 2, we have your permission to tape the interview, Mr. Tsaggaris has checked yes, is that correct Mr. Tsaggaris?

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,, TSAGGARIS: That's correct. Ql

7 RESNER: Question no. 3, do you want a copy of the tape, Mr. Tsaggaris

, * has indicated that he does desire a copy of the tape, is that correct? 9| |

10| , I TSAGGARIS: That is also correct. ; 11! ' i 12| RESNER: Ok, we will provide you with a copy of the tape. At this 13'

. time I'd like Mr. Tsaggaris, if you would, give us a brief synopsis of 14) : the experience with the Nuclear Industry as far as education and job 15i - experience goes, Mr. Tsaggaris? 16! i 17| | TSAGGARIS: I graduated in 1970 from Princeton University with a 18{ degree in basic engineering and was commissioned an ensign in the Navy 191 | shortly thereafter, I went through the Navys Nuclear Power Program 20 which included 6 months of academic training, 6 months of onsite 21, prototype training at the S3G power plant in West Milton, New York, 22'! after that I was assigned to the USS Thomas Jefferson and served two 23 , and a half years abroad that ship, my primary duties during those two 24 and a half years were as Reactor Control Division Officer and for 25! f : ,

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y approximately 18 to 20 months Main Propulsior assistant. As Main 2| Propulsior Assistant my primary duties were all mechanical equipment 1 including reactor, fluid systems, chemistry and radiological controls, 3f 4j after the Thomas Jefferson, I served two years as Staff Instructor at the 01U prototype also in West Milton, New York. The first year of 5 that tour I was the leading engineer officer of the watch on shift in 6 charge of the watch section operating plant and training personnel. The last year of my duty there I was the Student Training Officer' 8 , responsible for production training, preparing students to go out to Si i the fleet and operate the ships. In 1976 I came to work for Metropolitian 101 l Edison Company in January of 1976 as a Supervisor of training at Three 11! ! Mile Island Nuclear Station. Primary responsibilities were operations 12| training, regulatory training as far as general employee training,

( emergency planning drills and general station staff trainings. In 14l January 1977 I was transferred to the Reading Corporate Office as Director of Training for generation for Metropolitian Edison Company. 16i t My duties in that capacity were not only overseeing the training 17| ! activities at the Three Mile Island Station but overseeing the fossil 18{ training requirements and corporate support staff technical training. 19| ; I served in that function until September of 1978 and at that time was 201 - transferred as maintenance supervisor at the Titus Station in Reading. 21 I The Titus Station is 240 M Watt cool fired plant. 22

23 RESNER: Ok, thankyou Mr. Tsaggaris, at this time I'd like to turn the 24 interview over to Mr. Essig. , 25| ! | | M 1 I m , .' ,

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i ESSIG: Mr. Tsaggaris ah what we'd like to do this morning is to discuss *with you, sort of go through a chronology of your involvement with the event of 0400 on March 28 and just have you go through as best you recall at this time recognizing that it's been over a month ago now, the details may be a little fuzzy but we would appreciate the ! best you can recall the specific events that ycur were or duties that 6{ you were asked to do starting with when you received the initial call to come onsite. So if you quickly sort of run through the chronology

i of your involvement, however we're interested primarily in the first 9| | three days following the event. That would be Wednesday, Thursday and 101 | Friday, 28, 29 and 30 of March. 11! ! 12. TSAGGARIS: On Thursday, March 29 I returned home from class I was 13 | attending that evening in Reading in the Graduate program and my wife 14! : informed me that I had received a call from Jim Seelinger requested 15i

, that I report to the observation center Friday, March 30 at approximately 16i 11:00 to assume the duties of emergency control station coordinator up 17 i in the Unit 1 Control Room. I arrived at the 3bservation center at 18 approximately 10 a.m. on Friday March'30 and proceeded to the senior 19! ; person in charge who I believe at that time was Rick Barley in charge of the observation center watch. I received a clearance and took the 21 I bus onto the Island and reported to the Unit 1 Control Room. Bill 22 Potts was in charge of the ECS at the time and I spent the next hour, 23 hour and a half, failiarizing myself with communication setup, the 24 monitoring teams that were out and the monitoring scheme that was in 25\ ,

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y; progress. I tried to familiarize myself with the Unit 1 and Unit 2 -

I 2 plant status and get a feel for the way the organization was being handled. 3t I received a turnover from Bill at approximately 12 to 12:30 in the afternoon and assumed the watch of emergency ccntrol station Coordinator. I was informed that I'd be standing 12 noon to 12 midnight wst.ch each day and' that I would be rotating with Bill an a, port and O;! f stalboard essentially rotation.

, ESSIG: Used sort of a Navy term... 91

10. ! TSAGGARIS: What that means is that we were on 12 hour shifts and I lit would take the 12 noon to 12 midnight and he would come in and relieve 12. and then I would come back the next day at 12 noon, Ok. 13

14I : ESSIG: At the time that ah you reported in the Mr. Potts do you know 15i how long he had been on duty as ECS coordinator? 16| ! 17' ! TSAGGARIS: I'm not sure. 181 ! 191 | ESSIG: Ok. So then Friday the 30th you served in the capacity of the 20 ECS coordinator from arriving in the Control Room. 21,

22 TSAGGARIS: Somew'eren in the area of 11:00. 23

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i i ! 6 \ - 1 y ESSIG: Somewhere around 11:00 and familiarized yourself and then somewhere between... 2| 3| TSAGGARIS: 12 and 12:30 I relieved. 4 1 5! I ESSIG: At 12:30 you relieved Potts. 6|

7 TSAGGARIS: At that time as far as on and off-site monitoring, I believe we had one monitoring team on the west shore and one monitoring team on the east shore, one monitoring team onsite perhaps two, I can't exactly remember and we had monitoring teams, one monitoring

! team in a helicopter. There were several helicopters but one would go 121 up taking the team out and when he had to refuel, he'd land and then 13 | the team would transfer the other helicopter would go up. 141 ! 15;

, ESSIG: Were these helicopters chartered by Met Ed, do you know how 16i i many had been chartered, you indicated several? 17| ! 18' TSAGGARIS: Well I believe that when I first got there there were two, 19 ~ ! shortly thereafter, I don't know the time span perhaps a day or two or 20i three, we had three helicopters.

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| 7 ; | y| TSAGGARIS: The offsite map, isopleths, calculations were being e nducted by a Nuclear Engineer, dispatching of the teams... 2

3 ESSIG: Do you recall who that Nuclear Engineer was? g| * si TSAGGARIS: I believe it was Mike Benson.

7. ESSIG: Mike Benson. 8

, b i TSAGGARIS: I was directing the on and off-site teams based on the 101 l meterology. Radiation monitoring system, there were several monitors 111 | that were in alarm. Unit 1 was not quite yet in decay heat removal I 12| | remember that they were making, making progress, toward a complete 13) plant shutdown in Unit 1 and the shift supervisor was taking care of 14 | that. We had in communcations with State Bureau of Radiation and 15i

, Protection. We had an open line with them. 16j ! 171 | ESSIG: Were you actually communicating with the State Bureau of...? 181 ! 191 TSAGGARIS: Intermittently, the readings as they were coming in from 20 the on and off-siti teams via radio, as soon as they were written 21 down, and given to the Nuclear Engineer to make notations, then they 22 were immediately passed to the phone talker who was assigned and was 23 on the line continously with the State Bureau of Radiation and Protection. 2 41 | Well, I'll call it BRP from now on. The phone talker just immediately 25( ,

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g just transcribed that to the BRP over the phone. So, the flow of inf rmation was from the teams to the radio phone talker which we had 2 in control room. 3| He would write it down give it to the Nuclear Engineer who would look at it, update each calculations, hand it to the phone 4 '' * **" ' "'''' * * " " **" * * 5 9* ; file. 61

7 ESSIG: Tsaggaris for the record the BRP is...

. 9f i TSAGGARIS: Right, State Bureau of Radiation Protection. There were 101 NRC inspectors in the Shift supervisors office when I got in there.

12 Essig: Ok so the, the system then was that the Radio talker would 13 receive the, receive the survey result from the team performing survey, 14 ! that would be relayed to the Nuclear Engineer who would look a't it, 15i update his information and then that would be given to the phone 16i i talker and go to the State. Now, you indicated that you were sort of 17! { supervisoring or overseeing this operation. Have you been, when you 18( | touched base with, who'you mentioned Barely in the observation center, 19| was that pretty much the, what he had indicated to you, go over and 20i j take charge of the ECS you would be relieving Potts, what. . 21| [

TSAGGARIS: Yes and Jim Seelinger had communicated back to my wife 23 that night before, I did not bother to call Jim back because I figured 24 Jim had enough to keep him busy. What he said, I guess his exact 25! . @q | g6 : ! ! l l i , i i - .' . | |

{ 9 f y message was he wanted me to be the senior management representative in

2 the ECS, which to me says in charge of the ECS. | 31 ESSIG: Ok,... at the time the survey results were coming in, let me 4! ask you a different way. Your. 5 Let me ask you a question or two about the two procedures that I believe were used since you used to be 61. in charge of training on the site, I assume your recently familiar 7 "' ' '' " ' '" * 8 Radiological Dose calculation on Emergency Procedures and the other is

i 1670.6, Revision 2, dated 1/16/78 and that's entitled Offsite Radiological 10' . . Monitoring. Now the one procedure involves, the one involving Radiological 111

! Dose Calculations has several steps to it, one of which is determinating i 12| the wind speed, well you can get the wind speed from direction from

' the recorder then you use, what's called an isopleth to, that's spelled

! for the person who is doing the transcribing, that's spelled I S 0 P L 15i ' E T H, and it's a plot of the atmospheric dispersion, a factor or 16I | parameter commonly know as X/Q which can be denoted the Greek letter 17| ! capital X, it's normally Greek letter chi, but it's X/Q and by using 18{ these X/Q isopleths I, to my understanding from seeing the procedure 19| | that one can thenthan estimate what the X/Q might be at downwind 20 direction. Now it's my understanding from having talked with the two 21: 8 or two of the Nuclear Engineers who were in the ECS Mr. Howard Benson

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. | 10 I y TSAGGARIS: Mr. Mike Benson.

2 ESSIG: 3; Right, I'm sorry, Mike Benson and Howard Crawford, I got their [ first names reversed. That they were initially, I want to go way with this a little bit because this happened before you, before you came i.o 5 ! the ECS and the purpose in going through is then to ask you, while you 61 were in the ECS if the status of the procedure as about of the end of 7 the first day it changed then. The status of the use of the procedure. 8 Tt's my understanding from talking with ah Howard Crawford and Mike Benson that the procedure was initially used pretty much as written to

l predict what the, what the offsite dose rate would be in fact the 111 | initial indicated an offsite dose rate in Goldsboro as I recalled 12j predicted about 7:15 a.m. on the 28th around 10R per hour and this was 13 ' using the dome monitoring at that time HPR- or HP-R-214 the dome 14i i monitor. The procedure contains details of how to use that use dome 15i ' monitors of how to use its response and then come up with or estimate 16i ; of the noble gas release rr.e. Well that was done and using the X/Q 17|; then as the scurce term, that is the reTease rate that indicated by 18i : this proced!re an offsite dose rate as calculated and a later survey 191 ; team was fenyed across the river by helicopter to confirm it. It was 20t ' determined to be about 1 mR/hr. In other words the initial predication 21 was about four orders of magintude to high. And it was indicated that 22 at the time that Mr. Crawford discussed this with Mr. Richard Dubiel 23 . and the two of them concluded that they were, essentially overpredicting, 24 well they were aware of one key element that, the containment pressure , 25| | 'yd i gSb :

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y would not at the 50 to 60 psi which the procedure was behind the handle. 2 It was more of the order of 2 psi. Now, it's my understanding then that the perhaps thought oh three or four estimations of 3 the source term using that procedure and then abandoned it because the 4 g feeling was well it's overestimating, the source term 13 being overestimated d "" ** * # "'*9"*""* ** "* **'** ** * * * *** "" * 6 "9 numbers are fairly'high although the procedure does contain, I should add, it does contain a table where you can take a ratio of the measured 8 ' to predicted dose rate offsite and then use that as a correction 9| I factor for the source term and that was done for a while as I understand 10| ! it during the 28th and then it was I believe it was essentially not

11 , used routinely after that. And, with that preamble, then my question

| to you is are you aware that when you took over on Friday the 30th. 13| ! Were the source term estimation provisions contained in this procedure 14! ! ever reinstituted? That is, it is my understanding, that once the 15j : source term provisions were enforced and this procedure was, essentially 16i

, set aside and not used any more, what the nuclear engineers were doing 17| ' was to take the offsite dose calculation and calculated backwards

, 18 throught an atmospheric dispersion and come up with an apparent release 19 rate which could give that, that offsite dose rate. Do you know if 20 that was the procedure tha'. was in effect on Friday when you took 21 over? 22

23 ; TSAGGARIS: I don't believe that that was in effect on Friday, I'll go 24| ; back to Friday, the next several weeks when the levels got so low that- 25| | ! 05D | , gSb ; i . ! l ! I i .. . - -

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y, we couldn't really do the source term calculation the way the procedure

i . 2j calls for it, the levels just weren't there, we were back calculating basc'. on offsite readings to get a feel for what the release term 3 would be to give us an actual reading out in the environment, you 4 " " ' "* * I'* # * "" ' #*** " *** 5 * * * * * * #Y * * * ' source term to do that. On the 30th we were making source term calculations, part of the problem was that the various meters used to make these

g source term calculations were all off scale.

9 i ESSIG: Could you elaborate on the meters used? 10| ! 11

, TSAGGARIS: Well for instance the HPR-219 which is the Unit 2 stack, 121 I was off scale in particulate iodine and gas. We were recording those 131 ! levels each hour, to see if there was a trend either well trend downward, 14! : you couldn't detect a trend upward. The dome monitor for HPR-214, in 15j

, the reactor building in Unit 2, I don't have a real feel for the exact 16| 4 4 : number, ' know it was way up in the 10 range 10 rems somewhere in 17(1 that area. And source term calculations using that as specified by 18( ! the procedure again would not yield satisfactory results because we 19 just were not having a release out of the building or out of ary of 20 the buildings that would correspond with that type of reading. And as

21 . you mentioned, the conservative calculations that are made initially 22 when all your m'ters go off scale are based on certain fission product 23

i release and 50 to 60 pounds in the building, wnatever, design building 24| | i leakage. About the third day, whenever we would have any sort of a

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y puff and we did have some, you know, through the first several days,

2j when we were doing things like venting makeup tanks and we had some i 3' leaks in some of the piping systems we would attempt to calculate a q release rate, however, it was very difficult based on the radiation

**" *' "9 'Y' **' * **'' '' " '*** "' "#'' * 5 "9 * '' ** g calculate, I believe, the records will hear this out I think, whenever I we would get a release that would come from the Unit 1 auxilliary 7 building and go through the RMA-8 which is the Unit 1 stack, we tried ! to make some source and dose calculations. 9! i 10| | ESSIG: RMA-8 would be the Unit 1 stack monitor? 11| ! 12| | TSAGGARIS: That's correct. After the 30th or 31st when the levels 13| | really went down significantly. You are correct, in that, I know on 141 ! my watch I had the nuclear engineers back calculate a source term to 15j ' see what that would yield becasse we simply didn't have sufficient information to go the forward direction by the procedure. 17, : 18i ESSIG: You had, I think you had, you had sufficient information but - 19| it wasn't reliable, can that be a little more accurate characterization, 20 in other words you had a . . . 21

22' TSAGGARIS: Well we had . . . 23

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{ 14 f ! 7j ESSIG: You had an estimate of release rate you could use the HPR-214, the dome monitor but it was as you say . . . 2

3j TSAGGARIS: Any calculation we would have,made with that, alright,

# " "' ** *" *" *' "9 '''" ' #' " " '' * "'* * 5 portion of the procedure which compares the predicted to the actual and corrects that. Then you take another actual, correct it again, 7 and correct it again and narrow that source term down. I believe what

| I got there the source terms that I recall were in the area of 0.2 91 | curies per second, somewhere in that area, it was very little, that's 10i ! just a number that sticks in my mind, lli ! 12! ESSIG: Ok but they were, the, let me ask the same question in a 13

, slightly different way, what I'd like to focus on, were the, the 14j : source terms were were back calculated during the, say during after 15i early the first day, as we discussed, they were, they were back calculated,

i do you know what was, what was being done with, the actual source term 17j 1 values that were being generated by this back calculations were they. 18{ i ... 19| 1 20' RESNER: Excuse me. We'll give you a little time to think about that 21f while we change the tape, the time is now 11:37 a.m. Resner speaking, 22 this is a continuation of the interview with Mr. Alexis Tsaggaris and 23 the time is now 11:40 a.m. M . Tsaggaris.

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TSAGGARIS: 7 The source term calculations that were made, I believe the first several days and thereafter were all kept in the in the notebook, 2| which I believe is still up in the Unit I control room. 3 The primary mode after the first several days I would agree with your statement, that it was a back calculation, and I guess my feelings on that are, 5 * * " " * " * * " " "Y * * *** * * *# # " "** ** 6 ' [ any immediate protective action and to get some feel for what kind of emission of radioactivity you're, we're dealing with. Once you actually get your teams out into the environment and get actual results, I mean, that's the most important thing, at least in my mind, as ECS coordinater, is that, I could make predictions based or the monitoring system and whatever, but until the meteorclogy gets hold of the radioactivity and disperses it, and you get an actual ground level reading, that's

| what you're really interested in and, so after the first several days, 14! ! the levels were so low'that the only way we could get a reasonable 15i ! feel for the release rate was to back calculate based on actual 15i | offsite readings. 17} I 13| ESSIG: Do you recall, again I'm referring to this procedure 1670.4, . 19! it describes in Section 4.3.3 the use of, it tell the individual using i 20| 1 the procedure which isopleth overlay to use depending on the on the l 21. ; variability of the wind range, it indicates that if it's less than 45 22' degress you're stable, and between 45 and 75 neutral, greater than 75 23 ; degrees unstable. Do you recall a time which one of the, which one of 241 ! the isopleths you were using or was, might it have been more than one 25! i stable or the unstable. I

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TSAGGARIS: No, I don't recall. I do recall the wind speed was very 1 "' 2 I i ESSIG: Ok. On Friday. . .

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7 - ESSIG: Ok. Do you, do you rechll any any attempts to use the isopleths to the extent that, that since they contain a family of cureves of Q and they op to be somewhat useful in predicting a relative dose rate at 2 points offsite independently of the source term, once, once we ' had say, well particularly in the unstable isopleths which is more 12 shall we say aquat and it's a broader low wind speed, the wind is sort 13;i i of variable and you might have been, I don't know for sure this time, 14i ! I haven't made a determination yet, but you might have been in the 15i

. unstable condition where you have sort of a squat plume, as opposed to 16; the stable condition where you have a very long narrow plume, now the 171 ! plume being fairly broad, and having those isopleths available, you 18I ; might be amenable then to knowing the problems you were having estimating 19| ; the source terms, one of the additional verifications might have been 201 say to to pick some points down wind, actually cross wind, measure 21, , the, measure the dose rate at cne particular point and then move over 221 some distance as indicated by the isopleths and determine the relative 23 dose rate at that point, whether it differ by a factor of 2, 5, 10, or 24 something in that order, were you aware of any attempts to, to do that 25 , on your tour of duty? I | -

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TSAGGARIS: 7, To do it or . . . i 2i ESSIG: There were a lot of measurements made. . . 3

4| ^ " * " * * * 8"# 5 *E' #" * '" did not consiously take a reading and then project based on another Q what I should see there, but what I did when I was on watch was to try 7 and determine the width of the plume, I would have the teams drive 1 |

1 across what I felt to be the plume and take readings as they as they ' 9| | traversed the plume. O k. 101 l 11| ESSIG: O k. 12

13 | TSAGGARIS: To get a feel for the width of the plume, ok, and we had 141 : them do that perhaps one mile in and then two miles, one mile out, 15i excuse me, then two miles out, and got those reading to try and get a 16i ! feel for the width of the plume, we didn't however make any calculations,

' 17| ! at least on my shift, to see if they had correlated with the particular 18j ! isopleth we were using and what we expected to s'ee at those points. 19! We also attempted to do that with a helicopter to get a feel for the 20 width of the plume also. 21

22 ESSIG: Ouring your tour of duty on the 30th, were, were you, could 23 you describe your capacity in which you were serving was essentially 24 directing the, directing the surveys or.would you describe yourself 25

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more in the surveys were being directed o'y one of the nuclear engineers , g , and you were more coordinating things to make sure that everythina 2 was, that there were no problems, that were coming out that weren't getting solved, or were you actually calling the shots as far as, as far as where the survey teams would be going next.

I Si ! TSAGGARIS: To the best of my recollection the first several days that 7\ ! I was there I was primarily directing the teams, at that point in time 81 ! we were still having periodic releases and that's where I put my 9{ i primary emphasis. After that weekend when level:, went down to background 10( and we started getting into areas such as nuclear release monitoring

! and procedures dealing with a lot of other areas, the whole scope of 12; I the problem broadened and we tried to get a better grip on the overall 13| | problem then I pretty W.t.ch turned over the monitoring teams to the 14) ! nuclear engineers, at least on my watch and checked back periodically

15i , ' with them and gave them some criteria, you know if you see a reading | 16i !

greater than X millirem I want to be informed, those kinds of things, , 171 ' ' make sure there''s a helicopter in the air all the time, if it's gonna , 181 ' come down there'll be no, make sure that the monitoring teams releave i 191 ! ! one at a time when it's time to watch change so we're not caught with : 20! ' all the teams in at the observation center at once. You know, basically | I gave them some guidelines, take the iodine sample downwind every

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. gj ESSIG: You mentioned giving them the guidance to take a sample, the i dine sample downwind approximately ever hour, were you aware of 2 whether or not this was, this was actually being done during your tour of duty on the, say on that Friday?

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6,| TSAGGARIS: I can't recall when we go into the very strict sampling regieme where the written results of the samples would come up into 7 the control room. I believe that was on the 30th or the 31st. The primary means of communications of air samples, I thir . was by radio that first day that I was there, the 30th. And those were logged and

. I was aware of those. 11! ! 12! ESSIG: Ok, when you say the written results coming up to the control 13 i room that would be, which went into effect on the 30th as opposed to. 14! ' , ... 15!

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! RESNER: What went into effect prior to that. ... 17! I 18( i TSARRARIS: Right, I guess prior to then the monitoring teams would 19i j take their air sample and would count it out in the field and would . 20|

21 , 22 ESSIG: Radio the results in. 23

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{ 20 ! ! 7{ TSARRARIS: . . . Radio the results in. I can't recall when but we

2 went to a scheme where the air samples were delivered to either RMC, I 3| Radiation Management Corporation trailer, or the SAI trailer for counting, in a better counting environment to get more accurate results, I can't recall when we did that. 5 When we started to do that though, i 6| the results were called up to us and also we got a hard copy of the sample results. And we have volumes of sample results up there now.

. 8 RESNER: For the record SAI is Science Applications Incorporated.

10I ! ESSIG: Were you asking a question or making a statement? ill

12 RESNER: Evidently, both.

| 14! : RESNER: It is Science Applications Incorporated. 15j : 16i i ESSIG: I wonder, a couple other areas I would like to get into at 171 | this time. One of which is related to the procedure 1670.6 the Offsite 18t : Radiological Monitoring Procedure, one of the provisions of that 19{ j procedure is to, provisions in section 2.1.15 of the procedure where 20 it says the ECS may direct th'e monitoring team to do the following, 21 and it does use the word "may" so it implies that it's an option being considered by the, by the person in charge of the ECS, and after it 23 points out that the continuous air monitor designated location is to 24 be one of the routine air monitoring stations I presume. One of-the i 25i

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1 options to be considered is to change out that routine air sample. One of the other options to be considered is to is to collect the 2 routine TLD's which would are in place as far as the routine radiological 3 envir nmental monitoring program. 4 New it's my understanding that in fact was done on the 29th, the afternoon of the twenty-ninth but there 5

4 is an additional provision of that procedure where it refers to placing 6 sufficient TLD's and either the continuous air monitor or at a convenient 7 representative location in the designated area. . . to permit readings 8 of TLD's every four hours during the emergency and the question is are g you aware of any consideration that may have been given to placing ~ of ,01 additional TLD's that is in addition to the routine radiological ,1. environmental monitoring locations. At, locations I presume here we're talking about fairly close in locations wnich could be retrieved on a fairly frequent basis. Were you aware that, was that considered

, by anyone? 15. | 16' TSAGGARIS: I didn't know that. I personally did not direct that 17

. action and I'm not sure whether that was considered, I i.hink the 18! | question is better directed at perhaps Sid Porter or Mike..Daring. 19i - ! 20i ESSIG: Ok. 21 : 22 TSAGGARIS: Those are tre people that deal with the Environmental 23' Monitoring Program. I know that 8:00, on the 28th, the morning of the , 24| , twenty-eighth that Net Ed requested that the radiological environmental 25| ! ' \

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{ 22 i monitoring program be increased to the maximum regime and I believe on

Thursday the 29th, it was increased to the maximum regime. Now whether 2. c n ident with that what we're discussing here was doae I don't know. 3

4| ' gj ESSIG: ok. was, you mentioned, this is Essig again, you mentioned ,I Mr. Porter, was he in the Unit 1 ECS at the time you were, you were o there? 7| 8 TSAGGARIS: Yes he was. 9

10 . ESSIG: And what, what was your relationship with him. Was he acting 11! i in an advisory capacity with you or. . . 12,

i 131 | TSAGGARIS: Yes he was acting in an advisory capacity, he is our 14! ! certified health physicist that we retain on a consulting basis, and I 15i

. believe he was asked to report to the site very early after the event 16i occurred and he was there primarily as an advisor also provided 1 17| some liasion to the State Bureau of Radiation Protection. 18( i 19| ; ESSIG: Could you elaborate a little bit on some of the, some of the 201 advice that he gave to you early on, shortly you took over the, over 21. the shift? 22

23 TSAGGARIS: Well, I think I recall, reviewing with him what I was 24 doing with the. radiation monitoriry teams and bouncing my philosopb, 25

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+ { 23 ! ! lj n use of the teams off of-him to see if he concurred whether he had

2 any other suggestions, I also remember asking him from time to time, interact with the nuclear engineers to insure that their calculations 31 i were in fact accurate, ok, I was also doing that but I thought. ..

5 * . ESSIG: Their calculations in this case would be the back calculations Si i from offsite dose rate to an apparent source term'that type of calculation? 7\ ! 8| ! TSAGGARIS: Right. And as I stated earlier I can't recall whether we 9! ! were into the back calculating on the 30th or whether that started a 10t I day or so later, I just can't recall. . . 11| t 12| TSAGGARIS: But the calculations that they were doing. And, as far as 13 interpreting radiation monitoring system alarms and charts I used him

! to check some of the things that I felt were occurring and whether he 15j concurred with that. And, I also used him to, periodically, and this 161 i was after the thirtith to discuss matters with the State as far as, 17! ! what kind of reading we were getting to insure thaf. they were in 18{ agreement with what what we felt we were seeing out there that there 19i ; was in fact no, we were not even coming close to any of the criteria - 20| required for evacuation, or those kinds of things. 21

22 ESSIG: Do you recall during your tour of duty, any guidance given to 23 the, to the monitoring teams with regard to any precautions or special 24! ! considerations that they should make after the fact that they were 25| | gb1 - | gb i i I ! - " - - - _ _ _ _

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1 finally measuring an 80 key gamma from xenon 133 was, that was determined

2; that I believe fairly, early in the game and I guess what, what was I 3! the particular interest here with the, there some of the survey instruments t 4| which are being used, may in fact either over or under respond depending | 5 on whether they are used with the window open or window closed mode to

61 measure the dose rate from the 80 key gamma. Do you recall any, any

7 guidance which either given by you or by you from Sid Porter or by the nuclear engineers from Sid Porter to the monitoring teams in the way 8f 9 of precautions that they ought to take, when I say monitoring teams

10 I'm referring to those, that were on the ground as well as those in the

air. 11| 12I 13| TSAGGARIS: Do you mean personal precautions or precautions to insure

14j that they're. . .

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16; ESSIG: Precautions to insure that the results that they were relaying

17 back were, as high quality measurements as possible. ! 18| 7gj TSAGGARIS: I don't recall ever giving any direction on that, with regard to that. I don't recall receiving any advice from Mr. Porter in 20j . that area. 21

22| . ESSIG: Ok. What kind of instructions were the teams given vith 23

respect to the collection of air samples, you indicated that. ..

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> I TSAGGARIS: O k.

! 2| ESSIG: You indicated that you had left the general instruction that

you would like a downwind sample collected every hour. Were they, either as a part of the procedure or in the form a oral instruction I given to them. Were they, given any special c.ansideration that they 61 ought to make with regard to collection of air samples.

8| , TSAGGARIS: Well, it was either the first or the second day, the 30th 9f ! or the 31st that I was there that I wrote down about four or five 10| ! specific items that I wanted the monitoring teams to do. One was ll; ! taking air samples, one was the relief procedure to insure that the 12{ equipment was there, when the team was relieved, In fact, I can pretty 13

, much recall what that was. I wanted to make sure that before any 141 teams were relieved that they inventored all their equipment and made sure that had an inverter, made sure they battery check their instruments, 16i ' made sure the 'adio worked, made sure they had gas in their vehicle

' 17|, and then one at a time the teams would come in relieve. That was 181 ; pretty well specified. As far as precautions, one of the things that 19i j we tried to teach in our training programs and I do recall directing 20' the teams to do this, is that when they go into the plume to take an 21 i air sample to make sure they drive out of the plume when they count 22 the air sample set and not stay in the plume and absorb an additional 23 ! dose while they're counting the air sample, mostly you get better 241 | results when you got the air sample out of the plume to count it. 25| Q j M : ! :N |

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! 1| That's really the only personal precaution that I can recall accurately. ! 2! ESSIG: Ok, and I gather that the principal means of determining that 3 that you're in the plume is purely an instrument confirmation of that 4 i d se rate indication on the, on the meter as opposed to a, the wind is S

, blowing in such and such a direction, go there and collect an air al sample. 7

8 ! TSAGGARIS: That is correct. g

10 ESSIG: I believe that at some point, it may have been during the

g point wnere you were you were on on duty I'm not sure, you were involved, 1c but I'll ask, there were a few of the individuals that we interviewed 13 had indicated that they felt that some, after some point in time that

: they were in effect reporting to a person located over in the observation ~ 15i : center, a contractor person by the name of Mr. William Graber from 161 i Electric Boat and reporting in a sense that, that he was in charge of 17 the organization, he may not have been personally directing the survey 18| | effort but he, the teams were in effect reporting to him through

19i | people like yourself. Are you aware was that in effect at the time, ; 20| ! were you . . . . 21

22 TSAGGARIS: That was not in effect at the time nor do I believe it was 23 in effect at any time when I was on watch, and I understand your

24 ' question to be that the teams were reporting results to the observation 25! ! ' ! center and the results were somehow radioed here?

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i i y; ESSIG: My question is more along the lines of, when I- say reporting I don't mean actually radioing the measurments to them, what I meant was 2 rep rting administratively to, to this Mr. Graber. Now I understand 3 from talking with Mr. Dubeil and Mr. Mulleavy that they were under the

g| impression that after a certain time, and it's this particular time that I'm trying to pin down here, that they had been informed by Mr. 6 Graber that they were now working for him. Had you been given that similiar impression? 8

9| ' TSAGC " 'S: No, I've heard the name Graber before, all I can say is 10f i that ow;ing my watches, the radiation monitoring teams took their 11! direction from me. The assignment of personnel for the monitoring teams, I'm not sure, you know, who did that, all I know is that when it came time at 7 p.m. or whatever, for the watch to change on the 14,! I monitoring teams that if there weren't people available, I would call 15! the observation center and the head man, whoever it was, Rick Farley 16i ! or Vick Orlandes whoever had the observation center watch, and I'd say 17! i where are my monitoring teams are they ready, in fact I would usually 18( : call an hour and a half before to make sure that two people were 19i sitting in two seats ready to releave the monitoring teams. Now who 20! i assigned them, I'm not sure. | 21f ! 22- ESSIG: O k. 23

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! 7j TSAGGARIS: The directio.: of the monitcring teams and the communications all was directed by the emergency coordinator in the Unit 1 control 2 I 3j room during my watch at the site. ! 4l ESSIG: Were the selection of the monitoring team personnel, was that SI

., was that pretty much handled by the observation center as far as 01

. determining whether or not the particular individual was, had any /

g experience in this area and was qualified to perform the radiation surveys, that you had been asked to do? g

10| TSAGGARIS: My answer to that would have to be yes, because I didn't 11{| ! select the individuals. 12l

13 FSSIG: At one point in time, one of the individuals that we talked to , 14! : indicated that there was a, just for short term basis, communicating 15i - of results by the survey teams to the observation center as opposed to )

16i' | coming to the ECS and this individual and I can't think of which one, I 17 :. which one of the peopla we tal.ked to, told this to us at the moment,

181 , I but he indicated that, that he got on the either the radio or the 191 - phone right away and indicated that that's not the way things are ) 20 sup. pose to go. 21

22 TSAGGARIS: That was Bill Potts, I'm sure because, I was, I think I 23 was in the process of releaving the watch one day and some directions 24' i started coming out of the observation center and Bill made it very 25| t clear that monitoring teams work for the emergency coordinator. . , |

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: ESSIG: O k. 1 I'd like to come back to one, one, how are we doing on the ; 2j tape? I 3| , RESNER: Let's see you've got about another three minutes. 4|

, Si ! ESSIG: I'd like to come back to one, one point which you touched on 6 earlier with regarding the use of the monitor RM-A-8, Unit 1, you 7

g indicated that this was the monitor that was used, the release estimate that was made using the guidance gathering the guidance of procedure 9|- i 1670.4, for that, for that particular system, that monitor? 10| | 11! TSAGGARIS: Yes, yes I think I did say that. 12j

13 ! RESNER: I think we better stop the tape at this time the time is 14! ! 12:07 p.m., and also note for the record Mr. Donaldson will not be 15j

. joining us for this interview. 16i ! 17| i RESNER: This is a continuation of the interview with Mr. Alexis no I 18i | middle name, Tsaggaris. The time is now 12:12 p.m. 19|

20 ESSIG: Mr. Tsaggaris, one other area I'd 1.Ke to explore with you at 21

, this time and it relates back to a comment that you made earlier in 22' the interview regarding the use of one of the Unit 1 monitors during 23 the period of time that you were on duty to add to the releases that 24i # ' were on release calculations for prediction of offsite doses. I have : 25l

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I lf in front of me the procedures 1670.4 a particular portion of that is

2 entitled " Source release term calculations Unit 1" are you familiar with that? 3

i 4' A AR : es. 5

6 ! ESSIG: Were the this indicates that we have a the RM-A8 monitor which 7

g I think was the one to which you refer to earlier for the auxiliary and fuel handling building that would be the vent monitor for those two buildings would it not be and then we have also RMA-9 that monitor 10| | with Reactor building. When ycu refered to RMA-8 earlier, was that 11! ! the only one of Unit 1 monitors that you found a response sufficient 12! to warrant its use in a source term calculation. 13

! 14! | TSAGGARIS: I believe I made an inaccurate statement before, in thinking 15i ' back, I don't think that we ever at least by my watch did make a 16i ; calculation using the Unit 1 monitor. 17! !

181'

, ESSIG: Okay, thank you. 19| 20i TSAGGARIS: We were monitoring , when I say monitoring, observing, 21 RMA-4, which is the fuel handling building, RMA-6 which is the auxiliary 22 building, and RMA-8 which is t'le vent stack for Unit 1. W were 23 observing those during evolt.tsons being performed in Unit 2, to see if 24 any crcss contamination was occuring between fuel handling buildings 25! | and auxiliary buildings and whatever... c t h h !

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_. ESSIG: There is a ventillation path then from between fuel handling 1{ ' building and... 2

31 1 TSAGGARIS: Fuel handling buildings, yes. 4| And the sample lines for

5 primary samples from Unit 2 and Unit 1 all terminate in the sampling room in Unit 1 Aux, building so when you take a primary sample from Gi

7 either Unit it's going in effect the Unit l's auxiliary building if there is any kind of release. 8 So I don't believe that we made any

i g calcualtions usirg Unit 1 monitors.

101

; ESSIG: Does that statement apply to at any time during your tour of

. ! work. during the first day? 12! i 13j i TSAGGARIS: No, I would say at any time 14! ! 15i ESSIG: Okay. You had no reason to believe, based on the monitoring 16i indications that there were any significant releases occuring in Unit 17 j 1, that is if I understand you, is that what you've indicated'? 18t i 19I | TSA_GGARIS: I would say that's true. We did see some things in the 20' auxilliary buildings in the Unit 1 Aux building when primary samples 21 i were taken for instance but we primarly saw that in RMA-6 and once it 22 got to RMA-8 it was all filtered out by the RNA 6 filter trains. So 23| | you don't really see anything going out RMA-8. 24

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lj ESSIG: Okay Mr. Tsaggaris, I think that pretty much concludes the i 2; questions that I had for you. There is one other one that I wanted to

3 . expl re with you, and see if you were aware of this particular activity floating around in the ECS. The meterlogical contractor used by Med

5 Ed, Picker Lowe & Garrick of Washington, D.C. had been making meteroligical alculations, atmospheric dispersion estimates X/Q estimates which 6| were forwarded to your Reading office to Mr. Dave Carl your meterologist 7 ! and these were starting to be forwarded a I understand, by the'end of 8 5 p.m. on the 28th. The first set of data that were forwarded, and my I understanding is that these were at some point in time also forwarded 10| ! by telecopy to the ECS. Were you' aware of any of these analyses that 11!. ! had been performed by Picker Lowe & Garrick. The analyses consisted 121 X/ 13 Q type of a form as well as trajectories.

15| TSAGGARIS: Are these X/Q for specific t'mes. and locations?

16| ESSIG: Yes. 17

18i ! 79j TSAGGARIS: Such that we can go back and perhaps take the data that we had an do some recalculations? 20l | 21! ESSIG: Yes.

: 23 TSAGGARIS: I don't recall seeing that. l i 25| i ! ,

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l, i lj ESSIG: Okay, I think that concludes my questions. Mr. Tsaggaris, I'd 2| like to give you at this time an opprotunity if you wish to use it to make any comments if you would like in terms of lessons that the that 3 you think the industry has learned from an event such as this or that

g your observations about anything that the NRC did or should or should ! not have done or any observations in terms of either equipment that 61 you had in or that you didn't have or personnel in terms of since you 7 were the training supervisor here at one time are there any observations

: that you would like to make about the quality of the training as... 9| i Because you were depending on training of individuals to be used in 101 ! evaluation of the offsite releases . Do you care to comment at this lli l time? 12!

13 TSAGGARIS: One of the projects that I've subsequently been assigned 14, : to is to go back and look at the emergency planning implementation 15i from the essentially zero (0400) four hundred on the 28th and I guass 16i my comment would be that the actual implementation the emergency plan 17! j from all of the information that I've been able to gather went better 181 * than any drill that we've ever run. As far as the notifications were 19| concerned all the notifications were made in a very short amount of 20 time, I believe 0655 or 0650 is the site emergency declaration and all 21 communications had been completed by 0720, before the general emergen:y 22

, was declared at 0724. So from a communications standpoint, that went 23 extremely well. The monitoring teams got out in good fashion and

24 . started reporting results. The meterology perhaps the morning to the ; 25j ! 1 L k i |- @ \

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. 34 ! 28th was the worst case going west and the emergency director at that time Gary Miller got the state police helicopters to transport the s! team over. so very quickly it seemed to me, that the key facet of the ; plan the accountability of site personnel was completed by 8:00 or

! 8:15 in the morning, and the offsite notifications were complete, 51 _I monitoring teams were out, and open lines of communication we're established el so from an implementation standpoint of the specific plan, you know that seemed to me to go well. I think the place where we were lacking

in that we need additional support is in the other half. Okay, now you've had the accident and you're taking care of the immediate implementation ( of the plan and you are out there monitoring now how do you handle all ll! ! tne other logistics and support functions that are required to support 12t ' the plant operating staff that's in there taking care of the plant. 13 6 By that I mean setting up the observation center, setting up groups of 145 | people to take care of all the other people that just came together in 15!

, the space of one or two days. I tnink some attention needs to be 16i ! placed on almost an annex, to the existing plan which deals with 17i emergency preparedness and I guess what I mean by that is all the 18; other support of logistical functions that be required in the event of 19| | an accident of the magnitude that we had. There needs to be some 20j ; detail there. More for long term, I think with what we had to work 21| i with the observation was set up pretty quickly and served adequately 22I for what it needed to do but I think we need some procedures and need 23 some more definition. I think we need some more phone lines in the 241 ! control rooms as far as the black phones, regular telephones, some 2sj

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more outside phone numbers that don't need to go through the switchboard. Phone lines became a premium at least when I got there on the third 2 "Y" 3 ! 4| I ESSIG: Were you satisfied with the radio communications that were S able in terms of number of units available and the, how well it worked or how poorly it worked.

8, ' TSAGGARIS: During the times that I was on watch at the emergency 9| ! control station I can't recall any significant radio problems. One of 10' the directions that we gave to each of the teams was that whether

I they're taking readings or not they must check in every fifteen minutes. 12l Now if they don't get a radio check back then they've got to go to a 13 payphone somewhere, stop and call in and tell us that there is a 14) problem. You get into some dead band offsite where you cannot receive 15 | o'kay. When the teams would get into that area we have to send another 16i i team to a location and then they relay they would relay the information 17 back. As far as radio communications I think that went extremely 181 well. Communications with the State Bureau of Radiation Protection we 19

[ had the open line all the time, that was alright but I think the 20! ' general :omment would be that we need some more regular telephone 21- ! lines out of the control rooms. Another area that I thin!; wasn't 22! handled properly and I can't be really too specific, but either Friday 23 | or Saturday the 31st, Saturday or Sunday, I guess 30th or 31st or 24i i April 1st, we had the open line with Bureau of Radiation Protection 25i f :

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y and we were transmitting our monitoring data as we received it and the : 2 way the plan is set up and the way all the testimony has been at : ! 3 various hearings State BRP that is the radiological expert that takes

; 4 ou data and makes recommendations to the Governor and Civil Defense et Cetera, on evacuations and we Can make recommendations. At no time n my watch did I ever make any recommendations for evacuation or 6 immediate concern because of unusually high dose rates I can't recall 7

g which day it was but it was early Friday or Saturday, time frame that we started picking up on the Civil Defense band that people were being

! evacuated from Middletown and I called the Civil Defense immediately 10| ' and asked them if they had ordered an evacuation and they indicated no 11! I they had not, I called the State Civil Defense Duty Officer, somehow 12! the chain that's set up in the plan for us to relay monitoring results

! to the state and the state to make recommendations, I don't know what 14j ! happens to information after it gets to the state and I-don't know if 15! someone bypassed that line of communication but it almost seemed : ! inconsistent, well it was inconsistent with the results we were getting 171 ! to all of a sudden hear that evacuation was taking place. I don't 18i ; know what happened there so somehow the plans bypassed, or at least 19i - the way the plan is supposed to work. 20|

21. I RESNER: , Do you recall the name of the duty officer with the State? | 22

23 TSAGGARIS: No I don't. I guess that those are the key things that I i 24 have to say. .

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. | 37 \ g ESSIG: When you commented that the radio communication that there were of experience'I guess down spots or a couple of blind spots are ! these due to just natural barriers which are around locally, that 3| | interfere with the communications. 4| . . 5 TSAGGARIS: Yes, when we get up in the Northwest area on the west

! shore there are some dead zones there and I can't recall exactly where 7| the others are but it must be due to some natural barriers because 8 I for the same distance out at other places we had no problem. 9| I 10| | RESNER: Earlier on you spoke of relaying when you hit t!iese dead 1 11 ! spots by that you meant relaying radio to radio? 12; i 13| | TSAGGARIS: Well we sent anotner team out to a location either midway 141

< ! or perpendicular to the team in the dead band and relay the second 15i ; team and the team would relay to the ECS or the team would relay, by 16I

, Radio, to the Observation Center and the Observation Center would 171 t relay to the ECS. 18j ! 19i ESSIG: Were there any noticable time delays because of these relays?

21 1 j TSAGGARIS: I would say that in a- few instances there were some time ! 22' | delays of ten to fifteen minutes, but other than that, I don't recall

23| , anything really severe. ' 24

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ESSIG: 1 Okay if you have no further comments I am through with my questioning. 2

RESNER: 4 Thank you very much Mr. Tsaggaris for your time. The time is

n w 12:29 p.m.. This concludes the interview. . 5

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