[DOE LETTERHEAD]
December 2, 2002
The
Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue NW, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The Department continues to make
progress in institutionalizing the periodic safety system assessments and
system engineering programs established in accordance with our 2000-2
implementation plan. As Responsible
Manager for the Department’s 2000-2 implementation plan, I am writing you to
confirm our implementation path forward as we discussed during our October 16,
2002 briefing to the Board. This path
forward has the concurrence of the Department’s 2000-2 Executive Team, which
has the authority to commit Departmental resources to complete the described
actions. Our path toward closure of
this recommendation is as follows:
1) The
Department will provide the Board staff plans for corrective actions to resolve
significant Phase II assessment findings once the plans are complete, usually
within about 3 months of approval of the assessments. The Department continues to provide the Board staff notice of
plans for Phase II assessments and subsequent reports as they are
completed.
2) The
Department has institutionalized requirements for periodic safety system
assessments into DOE directives. Both
principal program offices, EM and NNSA, will provide the Board by March 2003 a
summary letter describing field office plans and schedules to institutionalize
safety system assessments into site procedures and practices. At our October 2002 briefing, the program
offices indicated their target was to complete site-level institutionalization
by October 2003.
3) Requirements
and guidance to institutionalize Departmental oversight of safety system
assessments are being incorporated into the Safety Management Functions,
Responsibilities, and Authorities Manual (FRAM) and flow-down documents for EM
and NNSA. The Department will provide a
summary letter on this topic with copies of these documents once they are
approved. As we discussed during the
briefing, the Department has concluded that use of the FRAM is a more effective
approach than an annual report for institutionalizing the necessary oversight.
4) The
Federal Technical Capability Panel (FTCP) will provide the Board in January
2003 an updated listing of the Department personnel who are filling positions
as subject matter experts at the Department’s field and area offices. This update of the Commitment 17 deliverable
will identify safety systems assigned to them for oversight.
5) The
FTCP has provided the Board staff with proposed wording to be included in
qualification standards and a schedule for revising the standards. The FTCP maintains this schedule current on
its web site located at http://www.hss.energy.gov/deprep/ftcp/. The Department continues to make draft
safety directives and standards available to the Board for review and comment
prior to issuance.
6) The
Department continues to finalize a revision of the Nuclear Air Cleaning
Handbook. Commitment 24 in the
Department’s implementation plan called for completion of this revision in
November 2002. Due to the large number
of technical comments received on the draft handbook and our overall objective
of a high quality technical product, this date is no longer achievable. NNSA currently projects issuance of the
handbook in June 2003. The Department
appreciates the technical comments that the Board staff has provided during development
of this revision.
If you have questions in this
regard, please contact me at (301) 903-0124.
Sincerely,
Edward B. Blackwood
Director, Office of Environment, Safety and
Health Inspections
cc: Mr. Mark Whitaker