Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
1/8/2016
The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) work planning and control processes and biosafety programs are largely effective, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) said in a review released late last month. The review found that LANL managing contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS) “has established the fundamental elements of work control processes at LANL to adequately identify activity-level work scopes and analyze and control hazards.” These processes involve identifying and assessing hazards in research and development, maintenance, operations, and other activities, and ensuring guidelines are developed to control hazards.
The review said LANL “has made significant progress in research work planning and control” and noted that personnel were experienced, knowledgeable, and appropriately trained, but identified some issues with maintenance of research equipment, hazard analysis documentation, and hazard control implementation. The review highlighted two incidents that occurred due to “inadequate implementation of established controls,” including a July 2015 event in which two LANS workers “initiated troubleshooting activities on a programmatic wire forming mill.” The workers conducted the equipment maintenance under the assumption that it was a low-hazard activity, although the hazard level was later determined to be moderate. A higher hazard categorization would have required a hazard analysis and an integrated work document that serves to identify a given activity’s dangers and controls, the review said.
EA conducted its first-ever targeted review of biological safety programs, which involved nine lab divisions and 13 lab groups at LANL conducting research in bioenergy, biosecurity, public health, and environmental science, the EA said. The review found that LANL’s biosafety programs “are effective and comply with Federal regulations” and biological research work control processes “adequately defined the work scopes, identified the appropriate hazards, and implemented the correct controls.” It also concluded that the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Los Alamos Field Office has highly qualified technical staff, but noted a “significant shortage of staff in the Facility Representative Program,” with six vacancies out of 12 authorized positions.
EA Finds Y-12 Safety System Management Largely Effective
A separate EA review released late last month concluded that the Y-12 National Security Complex’s safety system management at its Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) is “generally functioning well.” The DOE office reviewed the facility’s safety significant secondary confinement system and safety significant power distribution system to assess controls meant to “reduce the risk resulting from a design basis fire and dispersion of nuclear materials.” EA said it found that Y-12 managing contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) is operating the systems “in accordance with the documented safety analysis and technical safety requirements” and that “the feedback and improvement processes for HEUMF safety system management were generally functioning well.”
However, EA found several deficiencies that need to be addressed, including errors in technical safety requirements that set limitations to nuclear facilities based on safety analyses. These errors involved “a missing mode of applicability, a missing condition statement for the inoperability of one of two selected [secondary confinement system] exhaust fans, and an allowed completion time considerably longer than the supporting basis,” EA said. It also found that CNS “has not been performing the semi-annual bearing lubrication for two Secondary Confinement System support cooling fans” to ensure the fans will remain reliable under certain conditions and “was not demonstrating high efficiency particulate air filter efficiency for all potential maximum air flow configurations” in accordance with DOE regulations. These findings could “adversely affect the DOE mission, the environment, the safety or health of workers and the public, or national security,” the review said, issues for which corrective actions “must be developed.” CNS spokeswoman Ellen Boatner said that “CNS is addressing all issues listed in the assessment.”
