Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
12/4/2015
Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) identified reviews of quality assurance, emergency preparedness and response, and Department of Energy (DOE) directives as fiscal 2016 priorities at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) labs. Speaking at a public business meeting last week regarding DNFSB’s work plan for the fiscal year, board group leads noted that conducting reviews of quality assurance – specifically software quality assurance – at DOE sites such as the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and the Pantex Plant would be a priority for the organization.
Emergency preparedness drills will be held site-wide at NNSA labs, according to the presentations, along with criticality safety evaluations at facilities including the Savannah River Site, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), NNSS, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The DNFSB also plans to review approximately 25 DOE and NNSA directives, including "policies, orders, manuals, guides, technical standards, and NNSA supplemental directives," the presentation said, including orders for "Radioactive Waste Management" and standards for "Specific Administrative Controls."
Timothy Dwyer, DNFSB technical director and group lead for the nuclear weapons program, said the organization’s priorities are impacted by the types and amount of hazardous material-at-risk (MAR) at the laboratories and the risks they present to site workers and the public. "The material-at-risk and proximity to the public would make Los Alamos our site of most concern, followed by Y-12 and Pantex," he said.
DNFSB priorities for the nuclear weapons program also include reviews of emergency preparedness, safety bases, quality assurance, and conduct of operations, he said. Dwyer said potential changes in NNSA programs – such as work delays or pauses – could introduce uncertainties into the DNFSB’s work plan and affect the organization’s activities. He cited delays in the restart of operations at LANL’s Plutonium Facility and the worker strike at Pantex as examples of these uncertainties and added that the degradation of NNSA site infrastructure has had some influence on DNFSB’s priorities, such as at Y-12 and Pantex, where certain facilities "are falling down around their ears."
