[DOE LETTERHEAD]
March 15, 2002
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20004-2901
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Enclosed are two reports referenced in Under Secretary Card’s March 4, 2002, letter to the Board concerning nuclear safety management issues at the Department of Energy Oak Ridge Operations Office. Each report represents elements of the Department’s efforts to assess problem areas and to institute corrective measures.
The first report is an adequacy assessment of the Oak Ridge contract with the Bechtel Jacobs Company (BJC). As you know, BJC performs environmental clean up and waste management within the Oak Ridge complex, including Paducah and Portsmouth. A team of qualified individuals, lead by Mr. Michael Weis of the Department’s Office of Environmental Management, performed this review during February 2002. The report is enclosed. Overall the report concluded, ". . . the contract is an adequate mechanism to ensure work scope is identified and expectations for completing work in compliance with the core functions and principles of Integrated Safety Management are communicated however, improvements in contract execution are warranted."
The second report addresses the Oak Ridge Determination for Continued Operations for Environmental Management Facilities, in which the Oak Ridge Manager concludes the operations for the reviewed facilities, "... can be safely conducted, contingent on implementation of the identified compensatory measures and completion of specified corrective actions." Enclosed are the checklists used to guide the assessments and the individual facility assessment reports.
Our next transmittal to the Board on this matter will be the overall corrective plan, which is due to you on April 19, 2002. We intend to brief the Board when the plan is complete.
If you have any questions regarding this matter, please contact me on 202-586-5440.
Sincerely,
Milton D. Johnson
Deputy Director for Operations
Office of Science
cc:
R. Card, S-3 (w/o attach)
J. Roberson, EM-l (w/o attach)
L. Dever, OR (w/o attach)
M. Whitaker, DNFSB/
DOE Representative (w/o attach)