Statement of Commissioner Jeffrey S. Merrifield atthe February 24, 2005, Briefing of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Nuclear Fuel Performance?
Back in 1993, before Dave, Vermont Yankee was such a black hole
organization. The NRC gave us good grades and all the employees knew we were a
terribly disturbed organization. I was just a reactor operator. My only tool
was to bring attention to the plant. I wrote a letter to the governor of
Vermont and other state officials explaining my plight, which she ignored. So I
got in contact with the local anti nuclear group. Told them about my letter,
asked them to accuse her of sitting on a safety issues. They did, then she was
immediately out on a podium demanding a investigation. We did have a terrible
accident within 9 months...the worst one in the history of Vermont Yankee.
I was in the control room
during a start-up, we had a spike in radiation that scared the pants out of all
of us out of nowhere. It went away and we continued on the start-up after much
delay. Well, we knew we had more leaking pins. I watch this for months. I
decide we had somehow got fuel pellets out to the coolant. I framed it as fuel
pellets were rattling around in the coolant. I tell my anti nuclear folks and
they make a telephone conference with the UCS. Right, these guys got very
little technical education and they are way out of their league. Everyone
thinks these conditions were preposterous. It never happened before in the
industry.
So it is a year later. I am more friends with my anti buddy. I
failed to understand what a horrible position I placed the anti nukes in. He
pops up saying Mike; I got to tell you a story. You remember that fuel pellet
story and your phone call to the UCS. The UCS and us had a private discussion
about you after that phone call. He said, what you talked about was impossible.
That nuclear plant employee is terribly unbalanced, one wonders how he ever got
a license, he is mentally unbalanced. Well, I was unbalanced thinking I could
influence the site and its employees. The antis had a big meeting about this,
they agreed I was unhinged. They wanted nothing more to do with me. My buddy
took a chance, he got the story in the local paper. The company came back
saying in the local paper, we know who this troubled individual is, he is a big
problem…what he is talking about is an impossibility. We don’t have fuel
pellets in the coolant and never did or will.
So my buddy said mike, I
stepped way out of bounds for you, I was crushed by this story in the paper. My
anti nuclear friends I knew for years say they were disappointed (he was the
chairman of the group and very wealthy) in me and you ruined the reputation of
our group. The state was watching closely this story and I had contacted them
about it.
A month later we are in a refueling outage…I get a call to my
bosses office. He’s got the boss of nuclear engineering in there. I have no
idea what is going on. He is my enemy and he has been acting like that for
months. One only wonders what my blood pressure was at time. He says good
call…we have no idea how you called this. It was about a 12” picture if a fuel
rod or pin. Most of the picture had a protruding 12 inch crack, looking like
there was a small explosion or great pressure in it once. He says Mike, why
didn’t all the fuel pellets fall out? I tell him I have no idea. He says the
pins have walled off, with wielded cells in it. Little did I know they had
brought in specialist with the NRC investigating if I had somehow sabotage the
fuel and a nuclear power plant. Now that is impossibility.
So my anti buddy says he believes I am nothing but a kook. He believes the UCS….the UCS has to right. Then he opens up newspaper article with the state nuclear engineering talking about the cracked fuel pin and the seven missing fuel pellet. It explained the industry never seen an event like this. I had talked to him at the beginning of the outage saying my company is only going to sample only a small percentage of the fuel pins. The state engineer explains the company was only going to sample a small sample of the core, we made them sample all the pins. They found four of five leakers they were going to skip....this caused the rattling loose pellets in the coolant. He made a reference an employee who asked the state to step in. My anti nuclear buddy after reading this says he was flabbergasted…he was flabbergasted the UCS called me crazy and unhinged. Who can he believe? But now Mike everything I am reading in the paper says what I heard on the bridge phone was perfectly correct. Mike, at that point you made me believe the UCS was crazy! He talks to me, saying it is so hard to interpret what is going on in the nuclear industry for us.
I not saying the the UCS is
unhinged, I just saying they are a single data point limited by what the
nuclear industry discloses and the NRC. It is terribly unfair position we place
the UCS in. It is a terrible position we place the state and newspapers in.
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