[SOE LETTERHEAD]
April 21, 2003
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20004-2901
Dear Mr. Chairman:
This letter is in response to your February
14, 2003, letter regarding the Department of Energy’s programs related to
suspect/counterfeit items (S/CI) in safety-related or mission-sensitive
applications. I understand and agree
with your concerns regarding this issue.
We are taking the necessary actions to ensure that items and components
installed in safety-related or mission-sensitive applications, affecting
defense nuclear facilities, meet the intended function and operability
requirements.
I have directed the Assistant Secretary for
Environment, Safety and Health, Ms. Beverly Cook, to take the lead for the
Department in this area. Ms. Cook is
working closely with the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, the
Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, and the Offices of the General
Counsel and Inspector General to complete the investigation of the use of
improperly heat-treated aluminum parts and materials from Temperform USA. She will also ensure that the Department has
an effective process in place to deal with these issues in the future.
Enclosures one and two discuss the current
status of the investigation by Environmental Management and the National
Nuclear Security Administration into parts and materials from Temperform
USA. Attachment three describes the
improvements to our S/CI process.
While our investigation to-date indicates
that some of our sites did have procurements involving Temperform, we do not
believe that potentially nonconforming aluminum parts heat-treated by that
company were installed in safety-related or mission-critical applications affecting
defense nuclear facilities, except possibly at Los Alamos National Laboratory
(LANL). At LANL the suspect materials
are being removed, as appropriate from service and an analysis of safety impact
is currently underway. Ms. Cook will
continue to update you on our progress until we have completed our planned
actions.