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Aaoury ram freau, Wea. July ib, itB Ati Oyster Creek Problems Followed Assurances reading to monitor the atomic forces hidden EDITOR'S NOTE: Thii it the first of periodic series of articles exploring further some of the Issue raised in the special tec-Hon, Oyster Creek: It Safe Enough? published May 26. By STEPHEN KENT Press Staff Writer LACEY TOWNSHIP One week before a safety mishap in the reactor proved otherwise, the owner of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant here assured federal authorities that safeguards would prevent certain malfunctions that could cause an accident. Jersey Central Power Light Co. told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on April 25 that water-level gauges.

valve settings and technician training at Oyster Creek would head off failures like those which had crippled the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania. I However, on May 2, shortly after those written assurances were in the mail. Oyster Creek was shut down by a sharp drop in exwllng-water levels. The incident stemmed from a series of malfunctions and errors similar to those that had been reported a month earlier at Three Mile Island. Although much less severe than the Pennsylvania accident, it was the most expensive safety breach in Oyster Creek's 10-year history.

It cost ratepayers an estimated $10 million by closing the generating station for 30 days before the Press Special NRC ruled It was once again safe to operate. Government safety reports have put the blame on errors by plant technicians and managers. Those mistakes, in turn, caused an important set of valves to be closed at the wrong time, blocking flows of cooling water to the steaming uranium fuel. The problem was aggravated by simultaneous electrical failures in three feedwater pumps, robbing the fuel of another coolant source. Since then, the utility has contended the incident was unavoidable, the product of unlikely and unforeseeable circumstances.

But documents released recently show the NRC warned beforehand of some of the very problems that were to contribute to the cooling-water loss here on May 2. And, In retrospect, several of the utility's assurances In reply were not borne out when put to the test. These assurances had been compiled by the company in response to a safety bulletin sent by the NRC to all nuclear utilities. The episode offers a glimpse of how the atomic energy industry deals with safety warnings. It also raises questions about the effectiveness of a regulatory system that relies largely on Industry know-how to identify shortcomings and correct them.

The regulatory directive, issued two weeks after the events at Three Mile Island, recited lessons of the accident and ordered utilities to verify that similar failures would not occur in their reactors. The central warning of the NRC bulletin was that control-room operators must not rely exclusively on any single instrument But again, this was contradicted by subsequent events. Measuring water accurately Inside the reactor is Important because if liquid drops below the fuel core, overheating can damage the uranium. This damage can occur even after the nuclear chain reaction is halted, as it was at Oyster Creek during the May 2 mishap. Fuel damage can lead to the escape of radiation.

Although calculations in the days following the incident show that Oyster Creek's core remained covered by the water bath, the company admitted "the possibility that the reactor core may have been uncovered" had the mishap turned out worse than It did. Addressing a third concern, the NRC bulletin also asked to describe how Oyster Creek's core would be cooled If water supplies were Interrupted, as they were at Three Mile Island. In what one NRC safety expert now calls "an error in judgment," assumed Its main backup cooling system would start automatically if water fell below a point seven feet above the fuel. But on May 2 this and other automatic safety features "were rendered inoperable" even though water levels plunged much closer to the core than seven feet, the utility conceded afterwards. Instead, an operator had to start the cooling system by hand.

In yet a fourth provision of the NRC bulletin, was required to study "all safety-related valve positions" to ensure that valves controlling water flow would not be opened or closed at the wrong times. The utility replied that it had performed the review. from view inside a reactor. Rather, to avoid being misled by a faulty reading, they should cross-check by referring to a variety of instruments on the control panel. The safety bulletin singled out gauges that indicate how high the column of cooling water stands In the reactor.

Confusing instrument readings reaching the control room were partly to blame for uranium-fuel damage at Three Mile Island and resulting radiation leaks. In Its April 25 response to that bulletin, said all Oyster Creek employees responsible for running the plant had attended meetings that "emphasized the lessons learned from the Three Mile Island incident." But on the afternoon of May 2, the top of the water column inside the Oyster Creek reactor dropped as low as one or two feet above the core of uranium fuel rods, one-tenth the normal level. Furthermore, because technicians failed to heed a low-water alarm for half an hour, they did not restore levels to a satisfactory height for at least that long. Instead, the operators chose to believe other instruments showing water was much higher. Only later did they understand that these readings were wrong.

In a second part of Its reply to the NRC's Three Mile Island bulletin, indicated its water gauges would not mislead technicians in the first place. The Instruments "provide adequate water level monitoring under all conditions of reactor operations," the utility asserted on April 25. But on May 2, cooling water flowing to the core was choked off when an operator closed four valves, at least one of which should have remained open. engineers, however, contended in an interview last week that the four valve settings in question, although important, were not officially defined as "safety-related." Therefore, the settings did not fall under the NRC-requlred review, according to James Knubel, Oyster Creek safety and license supervisor, and Thomas M. Crimmins generation engineering manager.

But NRC analyst Paul Check, head of a government team that studied the May 2 incident, contended the valve positions are, in fact, closely linked to reactor safety. "They (Oyster Creek engineers) aren't going to get very far with that" argument, Check said. "Although they obeyed the letter" of the bulletin's provision, he added, "the spirit was violated." (An NRC spokesman yesterday said the agency has not yet decided whether to penalize for the May 2 mishap.) Knubel and Crimmins insisted reply to the federal warnings on April 25 was as comprehensive as possible under the circumstances. They said several things precluded the utility from anticipating the subsequent reactor mishap and from taking action to prevent it: Because the NRC had demanded the safety bulletin be answered on short notice, had to make a number of simplifying assumptions in compiling those answers. The utility could not predict a control-room operator would err, shutting the valves that caused water levels to fall.

The utility also did not foresee that one of its own standard operating instructions was inappropriate, and that some other instructions were ambiguous, leading to the error. In answering the bulletin, "the best technical minds of Jersey Central did not forecast that (the control-room operator) was going to do something different on May 2," CIA Had Objections To Art Metal Safes a.the NOW OPEN! NAT URAL ALTERNATIVE HEALTH FOODS Crimmins said. At the NRC In Washington, Check agreed that it would have been difficult for to envision the precise circumstances of the problem, partly because General Electric which designed the reactor and sold it to the utility, "didn't contemplate this kind of thing." "As a result, the guidance GE gives the purchaser misses this point," Check said. The engineers nevertheless acknowledged that, in hindsight, an even more thorough safety review might have prevented the cooling-water problem. Asked whether he now believes the review the utility had conducted at the NRC's behest fell short In light of the May 2 mishap, Crimmins said: "If you are suggesting that the people who conducted this (review) were fallible, then you are absolutely correct.

"Even in light of this situation," Crimmins declared, "the public health and safety was not significantly endangered." Since then the company has improved operating rules to prevent a recurrence. It has also agreed to install a more sophisticated level-measure inside the reactor by year's end. Knubel also said objects to assertions by NRC investigators that Oyster Creek operators violated another requirement of the government safety notice. That one ordered the utility to telephone the agency within one hour if the reactor "is not in a controlled or expected condition of operation." On May 2 the NRC was not alerted to the cooling-water mishap until an hour and a half after it began. But Knubel observed that control-room operators were unaware of the nature of the problem for 37 minutes.

If that period of uncertainty is not counted, the operators met the notification deadline with seven minutes to spare. "I don't see how you can notify somebody until you realize you have a problem," Knubel said. All NATURAL VITAMINS COMPLETELY INSTALLED ON AN EXISTING WARM AIR SYSTEM 'i it 1 COMPLETELY SPECIAL DIET FOOD OPEN 7 DAYS: 10-8, Fri. 10-9, Sat. 10-7, Sun.

10-5 Bay Harbor Plaza (Nichols Shopping Center) Brick Blvd. 255-6200 Brick Town 5 I irirnur I WASHINGTON (AP) The Central Intelligence Agency objected to the government's purchase of safes from Art Metal-USA of Newark, N.J., for more than a decade, claiming they provided inadequate security for classified documents, a CIA official testified today. The official told a Senate subcommittee that despite the objections, the General Services Administration insisted that the CIA accept the safes, which the intelligence agency then used only in relatively secure, domestic facilities. The testimony came as the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on government spending practices opened hearings on possible Improprieties in the relationship between Art Metal and the scandal-ridden One Man Hurt In Chain Crash HAZLET TOWNSHIP One man was taken to the hospital after a three-car collision last night. Yutlana Thaisomboon, Westminster, was heading east on Route 36 at about 10:45 p.m.

near the Middle Road intersection when his car collided with a car driven by Ralph C. Rahner, 154 Seabreeze Way, Keansburg, according to Patrolman Stephen Guardino. Rahner's car then struck the back of a car being driven by Madeline Ramey, 94 Maplewood Keansburg, Guardino said. Rahner complained of neck injuries. He was taken to Bayshore Community Hospital, Holmdel Township, where he was admitted in fair condition.

Thaisomboon was issued a summons for careless driving. About a half-mile away and a half-hour later, James E. Gallagher. Fort Pierce, was heading west on Route 36 when he drove up over a barrier and hit a traffic signal and a street light, Guardino said. Gallagher was not injured.

At the time of both accidents, Guardino said there was a heavy downpour which impaired visibility. Associated Frets Jim McAffee salvages vacuum cleaner and a stroller from bis home in Cheyenne, destroyed by Monday's tornado. Cheyenne Tornado Cost Estimate Is $12 Million 3 Cheyenne Frontier Days, the city's annual western celebration that includes the world's largest outdoor rodeo. Frontier Days Chairman Duane VonKrosigk, who said his office has been flooded with telephone calls from around the country, said the storm missed the rodeo grounds and Cheyenne tourist facilities. Eight persons remained hospitalized yesterday, two in serious condition.

Erickson said 57 persons were injured in the storm, but officials of three Cheyenne hospitals attributed only 43 injuries to the storm. Others suffered indirect injuries from traffic accidents or probing through rubble, they said. GSA. In his opening statement, Sen. Lawton Chiles, the panel's chairman, said the hearings would try to determine "whether the taxpayer has gotten his dollar's worth" in the $200 million worth of business between GSA and the company over the past 10 years.

Art Metal is the major supplier of office furniture to the GSA, the government's giant purchasing agency. At the invitation of Art Metal's president, subcommittee investigators have examined the New Jersey company's manufacturing facility and its financial records over the past months. Chiles called the findings of that investigation "incredible," but did not elaborate. "I'll leave it to the Congress and the American people to decide if Art Metal has cost us money and perhaps instilled in those involved in the contract actions that the way of doing business with the government is often sleazy and dirty," he said. PSA Fined $385,000 For Plane Violations SAN DIEGO (AP) Pacific Southwest Airlines announced last night it has been fined $385,000 possibly the highest fine in airline history by the Federal Aviation Administration for 10 alleged maintenance violations.

The FAA report listing the specific alleged violations was not immediately available. PSA indicated the FAA had singled out an alleged tachometer malfunction, a reported crack and an alleged leak in part of a landing gear. A PSA official called the fine "exorbitant" and suggested that the FAA has singled out the airline as part of a get-tough crackdown. The proposed fines of $385,000 represent the first application of the new policy announced by Langhorne Bond, FAA chief administrator. tunneled onto one track because of the derailment, he said.

About 16,000 riders use the rapid transit system operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey during the 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. rush hours, he said. Full service was expected to be restored by the morning commuter rush. $10 million in damage to houses and $2 million in damage to public buildings.

The Buffalo Ridge Elementary School was rendered unusable by the tornado and will cost $1 million to repair, he said. "If it had come an hour and 15 minutes later, we would have suffered a severe casualty list," Bob Wilson of the Laramie County Civil Defense agency said. "But it came before people got off work." Federal Disaster Assistance Administration officials toured the devastated area yesterday and began helping Cheyenne officials make formal application for federal relief. Mayor Don Erickson said plans are going ahead for CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) Officials estimated damages from Monday afternoon's tornado at more than $12 million and said the destruction and death toll could have been much higher if the twister had hit later in the day.

The tornado killed a 14-month-old boy and injured dozens of other people, authorities said. Some 500 homes were damaged or destroyed, including one eight-unit apartment complex that was demolished, they said yesterday. Gov. Ed Herschler asked the federal government for more than $1.3 million in grants to help repair the damage. Of that, he said, $1 million would go to repair damages to uninsured National Guard buildings that were in the path of the slow-moving twister, which bludgeoned a two-block path through residential areas on the city's northern fringe.

The governor said the tornado caused more than 16 Injured in Derailment Of PATH Train in Meadows KEARNY (AP) At least 16 persons were treated for injuries yesterday after a Port Authority Trans Hudson commuter train derailed, Port Authority officials said. The most seriously injured passenger, Stefania Baron, 64, of Jersey City, was taken to nearby Jersey City Medical Center with possible broken ribs, cuts and bruises, said Luis Ramos, nursing supervisor. She was the only one reported hospitalized from among about 100 passengers aboard the commuter run. Four cars of a seven-car subway-type train running above ground left the tracks just west of a Hackensack River bridge in the Meadow-lands about 2:15 p.m., said Mark Marchese, a Port Authority spokesman. The cause of the derailment is undetermined, Marchese said.

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