NNSA PROVIDES MORE INSIGHT INTO LANL PF-4 CORRECTIVE ACTIONS

Los Alamos National Laboratory will resume operations at its Plutonium Facility in phases, but the restart will be accompanied by a “rapid” expansion of qualified criticality safety analysts and revamped procedures for operating the lab’s plutonium production hub, acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Bruce Held said in a recently released letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The lab paused work at the facility in late June due to criticality safety concerns and has given no firm answer on when the facility, known as PF-4, will be fully operational again. But Held’s Aug. 15 letter to DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur, a response to Board concerns raised July 15, sheds some light on the painstaking return to operations at the facility. According to the letter, within 30 days, the lab will take action to significantly reduce the potential for programmatic operations to challenge criticality safety controls, and would rapidly expand the pool of qualified criticality safety analysts by Sept. 30—efforts that would continue through Dec. 31. The NNSA said lab criticality safety analysts would spend 85 percent of their time providing “on-floor support” for fissile material operations.

During the operational pause, Held said the lab would review controls and limits significant to nuclear criticality safety in PF-4 procedures, evaluate criticality-safety related procedures for “Use Every Time” status, validate that procedures function as written, guarantee criticality safety documents and procedures are available to PF-4 operators, streamline criticality safety postings, make certain fissile material is properly labeled, and provide criticality safety refresher training for fissile material handlers. The DNFSB said in its July 15 letter that the lab has committed to provide the NNSA a “comprehensive ‘get well’ ” plan by Oct. 1.