Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
7/18/2014
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason, who headed the Red Team that reviewed the uranium operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex and recommended an alternative strategy to the Uranium Processing Facility, had a positive response to the NNSA’s creation of a uranium program manager. NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz recently named Tim Driscoll—who was a member of Mason’s Red Team—to the new post overseeing all uranium manufacturing for national security missions.
Mason said the appointment dovetails with the team’s recommendations. “Putting someone into the role of uranium program manager with overall responsibility for the different elements of the strategy was an important recommendation of the Review Team given the interdependencies between new builds, process relocations, and operational activities in the revised strategy,” Mason said. “Tim was a member of the review team and an active participant in the deliberations. As a result I think he is certainly not only familiar with the conclusions but vested in them to some extent.”
Follow-up Reviews by Red Team Still Uncertain
One of the reasons for having a program official from NNSA headquarters on the Red Team was to develop some “buy in” for the results. “I guess we achieved that,” Mason noted. Asked about a report that the NNSA may authorize a series of follow-up Red Team reviews to make sure the recommendations stay on track, Mason said he had not been approached about that. “There hasn’t yet been any discussion about follow-up reviews but that doesn’t surprise me since they are still working through the implementation planning, etc., around the report, not to mention Y-12 contract transition,” he said. “I would anticipate that a follow-up review would involve some combination of prior members [of the Red Team] along with some fresh blood.”
The purpose of the Red Team was to come up with an affordable alternative to UPF that would enable Y-12 to get out of some aged production facilities—especially the 9212 uranium processing complex—before they become too unsafe to operate. The current goal is to be out of 9212 by 2025.
