[SOE LETTERHEAD]
March 6, 2003
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Thank you for your letter in which you raised
two issues related to the Waste Treatment and
Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington State.
The first is a concern that the
Department of Energy (DOE) and Bechtel National, Incorporated (BNI) have
not instituted a formal strategy for maintaining design margins as a
function of design uncertainties. The
second concern is about Federal oversight of the project. This response and the enclosed report
discuss actions that DOE has taken to address these concerns.
For a project of this size and complexity, it
is important to carefully maintain and manage design margin. Design margin is managed by BNI, and assessed by DOE, as a part of an integrated set of
requirements to address design uncertainty.
Although requirements had not been formally documented in a single
readily available format, they have been articulated in the enclosure to this
letter. These requirements are being
formalized and will be available for review by March 31, 2003.
Federal oversight is an important component
of this project that needs improvement.
The Office of River Protection (ORP) has been increasing its oversight
activities of the detailed design and construction of the WTP. An
integrated Oversight Schedule
has been developed. The enclosure to
this letter describes the combined
elements of ORP’s oversight of the WTP, actions taken and
actions planned to improve existing day-to-day oversight, actions being taken
to provide formal guidance for additional design reviews as the WTP design is evolving, as well as some of the important results of design reviews performed
last year.
The Department’s approach for systematic
oversight of the WTP provides
confidence in the BNI design process and confirmation that the BNI design meets functional, design, and
operability requirements. By adopting
these approaches, I believe that potential problems that may challenge or
affect the functionality of safety
significant systems or structures will be identified before they manifest
themselves as issues. Your comments are
helpful to me in focusing and strengthening our oversight activities for WTP,
and I will keep you apprised of our progress.
If you have any further questions, please
contact me or Ms. Jessie Hill Roberson, Assistant Secretary for Environmental
Management, at (202) 586-7709.
Sincerely,