DOE SETS NEW SCHEDULE FOR 235-F RISK REDUCTION ACTIONS

After delays earlier this year due to funding issues, the Department of Energy has set a schedule for its implementation of recommendations to minimize risk at the Savannah River Site’s former plutonium facility, 235-F. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board released a recommendation in May 2012 finding that a fire or earthquakes at the facility could lead to a release of radiation to workers and the public from residual plutonium. But DOE notified the Board in June that some risk reduction activities in its implementation plan would be delayed due to funding impacts of the Continuing Resolution. “We have completed our review of impacts and determined that six of the 12 deliverables scheduled for completion through the end of Calendar Year 2014 will be delayed,” DOE Savannah River Site Manager Dave Moody wrote in an Aug. 29 letter to the DNFSB released yesterday.

The 235-F deactivation basis for interim operations is now set to be issued by Oct. 30, though it had an original due date of July 30. Implementation of the basis for interim operations as well as a readiness assessment is scheduled for April 30, which was pushed back from Oct. 30. Other activities delayed until April, back from December, include electrical de-energization and installation of a fire detection and suppression system for deactivation. The report to the DNFSB also notes that DOE conducted three evacuation drills this year involving an event that results in an unfiltered radioactive release.