[DOE LETTERHEAD]

NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

August 7, 2002

The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safely Board
625 Indiana Avenue, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004

Dear Mr. Chairman:

The Implementation Plan for Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Recommendation 97-2, Criticality Safety, requires quarterly status reports. Enclosed is the Department of Energy's quarterly status report for the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2002.

The Implementation Plan contains 30 milestones, all of which have now been completed. Although all commitments have now been met, stability of funding for the Nuclear Criticality Safety Program has been an ongoing concern. With the Secretary's decision for Defense Program to fully fund and manage the Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) for Fiscal Year 2003 and beyond, stability of funding should be achieved.

The NCSP continues to sustain progress in all of the program task areas. In addition, significant progress was made in baselining the NCSP and drafting a new Five Year Plan. Your staff has actively participated in this process, and I welcome continued participation as we finalize the Plan.

Finally, I want to inform you about our completion of the following commitment that was made in a Secretarial letter to you of May 6, 2002:

Regarding contractor criticality safety qualification plans, Field Offices are required by Department of Energy Order 420.1, Facility Safety, to review and approve these plans. We have asked our Field elements to provide their assessment of contractor qualification plans, including the bases upon which they made these assessments, and will inform you about the results after we review their submissions. We expect to complete this action by June 2002.

Dr. Jerry McKamy was asked to, review the contractor qualification plans and Field Office assessments, as required in this commitment. Overall, contractor implementation of qualification programs has gone quite well. However, Dr. McKamy's review revealed some areas for improvement that are being actively addressed by the Field Offices. More details on the review are contained in the Training and Qua5fication section of the enclosure to this letter.

Sincerely,

David H. Crandall
Assistant Deputy Administrator
for Research, Development, and Simulation
Defense Programs

Enclosure

cc (w/end):
M. Whitaker, S-3.1
E. Beckner, NA-10
L. Brooks, NA-1