Erhart: Moniz On Board With UPF Path Forward
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
The revamped plan for designing and constructing the Uranium Processing Facility apparently has met with the approval of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. In a Jan. 21 message to employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration Production Office and contractors, NPO Manager Steve Erhart indicated that Moniz was pleased with the progress being made on the new approach to UPF—involving multiple buildings that separate operations and could accelerate the efforts to get out of 70-year-old production facilities.
According to Erhart’s memo, he met earlier this month in Washington, D.C., with Moniz, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz, NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon, as well as Uranium Programs Manager Tim Driscoll and UPF Federal Project Director John Eschenberg. The meeting was to brief Moniz on the NNSA’s enriched uranium strategy and UPF redesign efforts. “The Secretary definitely liked the construct and the progress that is being made. He particularly liked the risk-reduction activities here at Y-12 (which were our idea and endorsed by the ‘Red Team’) that several of you are intimately involved with,” Erhart said. “It is great for Y-12 and the NNSA that this is now heading in a positive direction.”
The new approach has generally drawn the support of lawmakers, although Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, has indicated he plans to closely follow the project’s spending to make sure it doesn’t get out of control. The NPO and Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel-led contractor that now manages and operates Y-12 and oversees the work on the UPF, have vowed to keep the price tag at or below the $6.5 billion originally projected as the top of the spending range on the big project.
Y-12 West End Protected Area Reduction Project Cancelled
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
More than two years since the security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex, the National Nuclear Security Administration has officially cancelled its earlier plan to reduce the size of the high-security protected area. The West End Protected Area Reduction (WEPAR) project was originally part of preparations for the Uranium Processing Facility. It also dove-tailed with environmental cleanup plans because the project would have relocated the PIDAS fence-line and opened up parts of the plant now inside the high-security zone. That would have made it easier to do mercury cleanup and other activities without having to get security clearances for hundreds of cleanup workers.
The NNSA had earlier acknowledged that it had put the WEPAR project on hold, but now—according to the FY2015 addendum to the Oak Ridge plant’s 10-Year Site Plan—it has been cancelled. Besides the 2012 break-in by Plowshares protesters, which made any security reductions a potentially unpopular move, the WEPAR project also had to be redirected after the Uranium Processing Facility began to falter and had to be revamped with a new footprint. “The West End Protected Area Reduction subproject of the Uranium Processing Facility has been canceled,” the report stated. “The project, along with other proposed Defense Nuclear Security (DNS) projects, was part of the Y-12 initiative to replace the Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Assessment System (PIDAS) and ultimately reduce the Protected Area at Y-12 to 20 acres consistent with the construction of UPF. Y-12 is currently providing input and alternatives to DNS [Defense Nuclear Security] to address the needed upgrades to the aging PIDAS system, to complete full implementation of ARGUS, and to reduce the PA (Protected Area) consistent with the ultimate UPF implementation strategy.”
At Least One Company Expresses Interest in Y-12 Depleted Uranium Posting
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
At least one company has indicated it may file an Expression of Interest to the Y-12 National Security Complex’s posting seeking more than 6,800 tons of high-purity depleted uranium for production missions at the weapons plant. Tim Waddell, the manager of business and facility operations at Manufacturing Sciences Corp., said the company is considering submitting a response to the posting by Y-12 contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security. MSC is a specialty metals company that is located only about a half-mile from Y-12 in Oak Ridge.
The responses are due by Feb. 5. “We are looking at how our capabilities match up with their requirements,” Waddell said. He noted that MSC has a history of working with metals of different types, especially depleted uranium. According to the company’s website, MSC “converted over 6 million pounds of depleted uranium into more than 70,000 safe, useful products” over the past 30 years. The Oak Ridge company is licensed to handle radioactive materials under a permit from the state of Tennessee, using NRC guidelines, the company said. “MSC performs its depleted uranium operations in a special controlled area that is continuously monitored and where the air is drawn through high energy filters to remove any airborne dust and particles,” the website states. What’s not clear is whether MSC’s operations are capable of providing the “high purity” stated in the posting by CNS.
‘Night Notes’ Reporting System Draws Attention, Criticism
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
A problem-and-incident reporting system that was put in place following the July 2012 break-in at Y-12 to make sure officials at NNSA headquarters were kept aware in a timely way of what was happening at the field sites is apparently drawing some new attention, and criticism. Steve Erhart, the manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration Production, discussed the “Night Notes” system at some length in a recent memo to employees after at least one employee raised issues about the reporting system and questioned whether the overnight reporting tended to result in inaccurate information and a reactionary environment.
The employee who submitted the concern suggested that it might be better if Night Notes were “rolled-up” in a weekly report after all the facts were understood. In his message to employees, Erhart indicated that the overnight reporting system inside the NNSA is here to stay, at least for the time-being, but he acknowledged there are issues and provided some background on how it came to be and why it’s being used. “Night Notes did start as a reactionary response following the Y-12 security event,” Erhart wrote. “Mr. (Michael) Lemke put the requirement in place in order to get more timely, written information relative to operational events from the sites up to HQ. The intent was that if something happened during that day that warranted notification and some amount of explanation, then it would be in HQ that night.”
Erhart said NNSA currently is working on a set of reporting requirements for the field sites “that hopefully will take some of the subjectivity out of determining what should and what should not go to HQ.” The complaint about the system also noted there were multiple reporting systems for incidents, and Erhart noted in his message that the occurrence reports within the DOE system “do not hit the mark for what the (NNSA) Administrator and sometimes the Secretary want to know about in the timeframe they want to know it so I think Night Notes will be part of what we do for a while.” At the same time, he said he thinks it’s a “reasonable request” to suggest that DOE and NNSA pick a single reporting system and he promised to send the suggestion through the proper channels.
