[DOE
LETTERHEAD]
July 13, 2004
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite
700
Washington, DC 20004-2901
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The purpose of this letter is to
inform you that the Office of Environmental Management (EM) portions of three
commitments on Quality Assurance (QA) and Software QA have been completed. The EM Headquarters (HQ) and EM Field Element
Functions, Responsibilities, and Authorities documents (FRAs) have been
updated, along with the implementation matrices for those Field Elements not
having the matrices as part of the FRAs. The process for maintaining the FRA, which
includes the QA document requirements, is contained in the EM HQ FRA. Copies of the FRAs and matrices were provided
to Mr. Ray Daniels of your staff on July 9, 2004. Please note that EM will forward the final
Idaho FRA as soon as it is concurred on by the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
and issued by the Idaho Operations Office to ensure you have a complete set of
current Field FRAs.
The three commitments are
contained in the October 2002 Quality Assurance Improvement Plan (QAIP) and the
March 2003 Implementation Plan (IP) for Recommendation 2002-1 as follows:
(1)
QAIP
Action 1.4.3: Update the EM HQ and Field
FRA documents to incorporate Federal responsibilities defined in the QA Rule
and Order, including the responsibilities for overseeing the contractor’s QA
program.
(2)
QAIP
Action 3.4: EM will promulgate processes
and procedures for FRA and QA document requirements.
(3)
IP
2002-1 Commitment 4.1.6: Revise the EM
HQ and Field Element FRA documents to incorporate Federal responsibilities and
authorities for Software QA.
If you have any questions,
please call me at (202) 586-0738 or Patrice M. Bubar, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Integrated Safety Management and Operations Oversight, at (202) 586-5151.
Sincerely,
Dr. Inés Triay
Deputy Chief Operating Officer
Environmental Management
cc: M. Whitaker, DR-1/DOE