The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is calling in officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration to explain the perceived brushing off of two safety recommendations issued this year.
The first meeting is scheduled for later today in Washington and will cover a recommendation about improving emergency response capabilities and safety practices at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) tritium facilities at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The recommendation, issued in June, is the first in the board’s roughly 30-year history that the Department of Energy rejected outright.
Scheduled to attend today’s meeting, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) are: James McConnell, associate administrator for safety, infrastructure, and operations at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) headquarters in Washington; Nicole Nelson-Jean, manager of the NNSA’s Savannah River Field Office in Aiken, S.C.; and Thomas Johnson, the deputy manager for the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s Savannah River Field Office. The Environmental Management office owns the site management contract.
The next DNFSB meeting about tepidly received safety recommendations is on the slate for Dec. 12. This one will focus on a February recommendation that the NNSA improve some worst-case safety scenarios at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, including the possibility of an accidental nuclear explosion due to lightning, damaged tools, or a worker who tripping and falling.
The NNSA nominally accepted the Pantex recommendation, but DNFSB has said the agency effectively rejected the recommendation by claiming that past and planned changes to Pantex safety practices would address the board’s concerns about the north-Texas site.
DNFSB has not yet confirmed any NNSA attendees for the scheduled December meeting, but it has suggested that the agency send “representative(s) that can speak for the Department.”
DNFSB does not regulate DOE or NNSA, but the board may make safety recommendations with which the Secretary of Energy must publicly agree or disagree. Relations between DNFSB and DOE are stressed by the agency’s 2018 Order 140.1, which prohibits agency employees and contractors from interacting with DNFSB employees without explicit approval from DOE senior management.
Editor’s note, Oct. 28, 2019, 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The story was changed to include the correct title for Thomas Johnson.
