[DOE LETTERHEAD]
NATIONAL NUCLEAR
SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
October 31, 2002
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety 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
fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2002.
The Implementation Plan contains 30
milestones, all of which have been completed.
Although all commitments have been met, stability of funding for the
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) has been an ongoing concern. With the Secretary’s decision for Defense
Program to fully fund and manage the 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 as reflected in the body of the enclosed
report. In addition, we have completed the
following Technical Report # 29, Criticality Safety, commitment that was
made in a Secretarial letter to you on May 30, 2001:
The Nuclear Criticality Safety Program Management Team
will work with the Criticality Safety Coordinating Team (Federal criticality
safety professionals at the Field Offices) to monitor reportable and
non-reportable criticality safety deficiencies throughout the next year and
issue a report to the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs documenting its conclusions and recommendations.
Dr. Jerry McKamy reviewed all criticality
safety related occurrence reports for the past year along with graded reporting
criteria procedures that are implemented at the sites. In conjunction with Dr. McKamy’s analysis of
criticality safety reportable occurrences, the Criticality Safety Support Group (CSSG)
participated in a review of existing criticality safety reporting criteria in
Department of Energy Order 232.1, Occurrence Reporting and Processing of
Operations Information, and developed a consensus set of reporting
criteria. The CSSG forwarded a
memorandum to the NCSP Manager, documenting these activities along with the
proposed reporting criteria. I have
since forwarded the proposed criteria to the Office of Environment, Safety and
Health to assure consideration in the Department of Energy Order 232.1 revision
process.
If you have any questions, please contact me
directly or have your staff contact Mike Thompson at 301-903-5648.
Sincerely,
David H. Crandall
Assistant Deputy Administrator
for Research, Development, and Simulation
Defense Programs
cc (w/encl):
M. Whitaker, S-3.1
E. Beckner, NA-10
L. Brooks, NA-1