The Laboratory's Personnel Assurance (PAP) and Personnel Security Assurance (PSAP) programs will be combined into the new Human Reliability Program (HRP) on Thursday. The new program retains the basic program elements of management evaluation, medical assessment, polygraph tests and Department of Energy review from PAP and PSAP and adds new requirements for breath alcohol content testing and psychological testing.
Laboratory personnel currently enrolled in both PAP and PSAP will be grandfathered into the new Human Reliability Program, but Laboratory managers are encouraged to look carefully at who is enrolled and if that enrollment is appropriate or necessary. The PAP and PSAP programs currently apply to approximately 2,500 Laboratory employees.
Under the new order that establishes the Human Reliability Program (10CFR-712), there are four categories of Laboratory positions that determine who should be enrolled in the HRP. Those listings, as well as more information about HRP, are on the Safeguards and Security (S) Division Web site at http://int.lanl.gov/security/news/01-26-04.shtml online, an in a master management memo.
"We're being asked to make significant decisions about who can work in HRP," said Wade Nelson, HRP team leader in Personnel Security (S-6). "Laboratory managers and supervisors need to evaluate to the best of their ability, who should or shouldn't be in the HRP."
The most dramatic change in this transition to the HRP is the addition of random, unannounced breath alcohol testing. An employee's breath alcohol content may not exceed .02 percent under the new program. Technicians will administer a standard breath alcohol test with equipment that meets Department of Transportation standards utilizing accepted practices.
"Research studies show that ones ability to process visual information and integrate and react to that information is altered after just one alcoholic drink, defined as one 12-ounce serving of beer, one 4-ounce serving of wine, or one 1.5-ounce serving of liquor," said Laboratory psychologist Tom Locke of Occupational Medicine (HSR-2). "More importantly, a person may not even be aware of the impairment."
During training sessions for personnel affected by the new program, Locke said he is careful to explain that the HRP does not constitute a prohibition on alcohol use. "We are not telling people that they cannot drink. We're simply telling people that under HRP they will have to drink responsibly," he said.
Locke said that on average a person's breath alcohol content will be approximately .02 percent after one alcoholic drink, and that one drink is metabolized by the body in about two hours.
"Drinking responsibly means giving your body enough time to metabolize the alcohol so that you are able to come to work knowing your breath alcohol content is well below .02, and it means not drinking so much that you come to work with a bad hangover," said Locke.
Studies of automotive drivers and airline pilots have shown that there is impairment with a hangover, according to Locke. With a bad hangover, both drivers and pilots show a reduced ability to deal with emergency procedures for four to six hours after their breath alcohol content has been measured at zero.
The other major new requirement in HRP calls for standardized psychological testing. Upon entering the program, and every third year thereafter, employees will complete computer administered psychological testing. On years a employee isn't tested, he or she will be interviewed by an HSR-2 clinical psychologist.
Both Locke and Nelson stress that the goal of the program is not to exclude people from doing the jobs that require enrollment in the Human Reliability Program. "We want to keep everyone working responsibly and safely under the HRP requirements," said Nelson. "That means making sure that people who work with, protect or transport special nuclear materials, nuclear devices or high explosives, or may have the potential to significantly damage national security, promptly identify physical and mental/personality disorders, the use of illegal drugs, or the abuse of alcohol, legal drugs or other substances, or any other condition of circumstances that may represent a safety or security reliability. This helps to ensure safe, reliable and secure operations at DOE facilities."
For more information on the new Human Reliability Program, contact the HRP team in S-6 at 7-4264 or HSR-2 at 7-7251.
