I served four tours on three ships in my Navy career: USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) twice, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN-72), and USS SAMUEL GOMPERS (AD-37). I traveled
to many parts of the world, mostly in Asia, though I rode the Enterprise
through the Suez Canal for my first return trip to Europe. Out of all the
“adventures” the Navy gave me, I consider this one the defining moment of my
career. Now, with twenty years of perspective I wonder if I handled it
properly.
Let me start by saying no
radioactive material leaked out of the reactor plant and no one was injured in
this incident. The main goal of maintaining the state of chemistry in the water
in a nuclear power plant is so the parts of it do not rust or wear out. In
addition, tiny bits of rust passing through a reactor core become dangerously
radioactive.
So it is in the best interest of
the operators and the general public to keep the water as pure and as free of
acid as possible. I worked in the division (shop) whose job it was to monitor
and adjust chemistry when needed for the eight reactors powering the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65).
We add several different chemicals to adjust the pH or the water and to scavenge oxygen. When pH is high (well above 7) and no oxygen is present then metal is much slower to rust despite being in close contact with water. That is why the Enterprise has lasted with more or less the same engine rooms and reactor plants for coming up on 52 years!
Background
I joined the Navy’s nuclear power
program before I graduated high school.
I shipped out to boot camp in Orlando, Fla. at the end of the summer.
Nine weeks later I went to my first school in Great Lakes, Illinois. I
completed that school and three more besides in the next two years in Orlando
and New York before finally reporting to the ENTERPRISE in the shipyards in Puget Sound, Washington.
By the time of this incident in
1984, I was on my second tour on the ENTERPRISE
and attained the rank of first class petty officer. I was in charge of the Aft
Chemistry Group; that is the two plants near the back of the ship. We had
responsibility over four of the reactors and 16 of the steam generators. Six
teams of two rotated keeping watch over the operating plants in each group
around the clock every day the ship is on its own power.
The Incident
One day while the ship operated in
coastal waters near California I received a call from my team on watch in the
morning. The Top Watch (the senior member of the team) informed me that he had an
out of spec chemistry problem. He gave me the numbers and told me he had made a
mistake. The plant was supposed to go online earlier that day and he had
prepared chemistry to support it.
Now when you open the steam valves
of a reactor the chemicals in the water seem to disappear. They don’t really
but they are not in the steam the way you want them to be. So after we bring a
plant online we add more chemicals, which my team did.
Unfortunately, the plant shut down
immediately after that which brought all the previous chemicals out of hiding.
It took more than three hours for all of my teams working together to get
things back to normal.
Aftermath
Normally when incidents happen a
report has to be filed. The supervisor gathers the logs and statements and submits
a written report that makes its way to the high offices of the Navy Yard. However
in this case, the Chemistry officer insisted I give an oral report to the
senior navy staff on board the ship. I suspected his intent was to place me in
the awkward position of explaining something that few people truly understand. That
officer was one of those given to letting personal biases affect his leadership
(or lack thereof). He chose the wrong person.
I was fully versed in the vagaries
of nuclear chemistry and had worked on those plants for years. Endless days and
nights of watch in the chemistry shack left me closely attuned to the plants
and how they behaved when conditions changed.
I had a day to prepare my report
which was plenty of time despite my fatigued condition. I did extra research to
find out the latest theories of crystal formation in water under intense
neutron flux. That was the key. I won’t explain that here because it is
esoteric chemistry that few people understand as I later discovered.
The Presentation
The content
of my report is still classified decades later (75 years by government policy).
The audience consisted of my entire division, its officers and several members
of the naval reactors inspection team. Normally, those men do not attend these
reports but again, I suspect my boss was trying to increase the pressure on me.
No problem.
I spent the
next twenty or so minutes giving a lecture on where the chemicals go when
temperatures and pressures change, how radiation affects crystal structure and
the response to changing power levels.
When I was done the room was silent. I asked my Chemistry officer if he was satisfied with the answer. I could tell he was lost. I asked his boss, the Chem-Radcon Assistant (a man with an advanced biology degree), he seemed likewise lost. No one seemed to understand enough to know if what I had just explained was accurate.
Except
Master Chief Bowers, one of the greatest chemists in the history of naval
nuclear power. He had authored much of our Chemistry manual and the fleet’s top
expert on all things chemistry. I asked if he thought I gave an adequate
explanation for the unexplainable. He said, “Yes, but you got it backwards.”
I looked
over my equations and charts for a moment. Master Chief prompted me on the
open-ended crystal formula; I had it! It took several minutes to work it back
but I was able to give the correct chemical process to his satisfaction.
The meeting
ended and all of my notes left with the officers. Master Chief gave me a pat on
the back before leaving. No more challenges to my competence came up again for
that tour at least. Regardless of why the officer placed me in that position I
enjoyed it. Not because it gave me the chance to show off, but because it was a
challenge to figure out what the engines of my ship were doing. In presenting
my report I gained greater knowledge of how chemistry works.
The
lingering thought, the final loose end for me is . . . what if I was right in the first place?
What if Master Chief was testing my confidence in my report? I don’t think I
will ever know. If I had more time to prepare or maybe had more rest before
standing in front of that crowd I would have been more certain. Nonetheless, I
am pleased with the way I handled the challenge from an officer whom I later
learned was racist(never a good thing in a military officer but all too common). He threw down the gauntlet and ended up eating it. That in
itself was good enough for me.
