[DOE LETTERHEAD]

February 29, 2008

The Honorable A. J. Eggenberger

Chairman

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

625 Indiana Avenue, NW Suite 700

Washington, D.C. 20004-2941

Dear Mr. Chairman:

As a result of recent briefings to your staff, I would like to clarify specific commitments related to the Implementation for Board Recommendation 2007-1, Safety-Related In Situ Nondestructive Assay of Radioactive Materials. Commitment 5.2.1 in the Department's Implementation Plan requires the Department to establish criteria for conducting state of the practice reviews of: a) training and qualification; b) design requirements for new facilities and equipment; c) standards for conducting NDA holdup measurements; d) implementation of standards; e) research and development; f) quality assurance; and g) oversight. These criteria will also be used to review approaches for evaluating the use of in situ NDA for compliance with material at risk limits at sites with in situ NDA programs. Selected in situ NDA results (calculations) will then be reviewed per Commitments 5.2.4 and 5.2.5 to validate that the protocols, methodologies, calculations, and assumptions used to obtain the NDA results are sufficiently conservative.

Additionally, the following clarification is provided to the Department's response to Commitments 5.1.1, which required the identification of Office of Environmental Management defense nuclear facilities for which a criticality safety program is required (per DOE 0 420.1B) and relies on in situ NDA. For Savannah River, Building 235-F was not listed. It is a Hazard Category 2 facility with a criticality safety program that relies on in situ to meet material at risk limits. However, the calculations for Building 235-F were included in preparing our recent briefing and will be included in the site review as cited in 5.2.1 as described above.

Questions concerning these commitments may be directed to me at (202) 586-9471 or Larry Berg at (301) 903-0125.

Sincerely,

Richard H . Lagdon, Jr.

Chief of Nuclear Safety

Office of the Under Secretary of Energy

cc:

James M. Owendoff, EM-3

Robert M. Smolen, NA- 1 0

Mark B. Whitaker, HS-1.1