Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
7/18/2014

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has closed a 2004 recommendation that called on the Department of Energy to strengthen active confinement ventilation systems at National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Environmental Management sites. When it first drafted the recommendation, the Board was concerned that DOE was relying on passive or non-safety related confinement systems for its nuclear facilities, and the recommendation called on DOE to include active confinement ventilation systems in all Hazard Category 2 and 3 facilities. “The Board is pleased to observe the significant enhancements made by DOE in this important safety area,” DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur said in a July 15 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

The recommendation led to upgrades at facilities across the weapons complex, including Lawrence Livermore’s Plutonium Facility, Sandia National Laboratories’ Annular Core Reactor, the Nevada National Security Site’s Criticality Experiments Facility, the Savannah River Site’s Waste Solidification Building, and Y-12’s Buildings 9212, 9215, and 9204-2E. Facilities at EM sites like Idaho National Laboratory, Hanford, Savannah River, Oak Ridge, and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant also were upgraded. DOE also changed its regulations and directives to reflect the new focus on active confinement ventilation systems.

Only Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility has not completed upgrades, but those are tied to seismic upgrades to the facility that are expected to be completed by the end of the year, DOE said in a late June message to the DNFSB, noting that it had taken all the actions called for in its implementation plan for the recommendation. “DOE has reviewed its confinement ventilation systems and made the improvements warranted, to ensure these systems will be readily available to perform their intended safety function, in case of an accident at one of DOE’s nuclear facilities,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a June 29 letter to the DNFSB. “DOE has also made improvements to its regulatory infrastructure to assure the appropriate design of confinement ventilation systems in any new DOE nuclear facility or nuclear facility undergoing a major modification.”