Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
11/20/2015
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Pantex Plant is successfully implementing its explosives safety program but must correct some practices that could be hazardous to personnel, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) determined in a program review released this week. The plant, responsible for nuclear explosives assembly, disassembly, and evaluation, is operated by Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS).
The review found that for the most part, “CNS has established and effectively implemented controls for reducing the risk associated with explosives operations.” It highlighted the system that determines the weights of explosives as a best practice and found that “Explosives systems engineers, scientists, facility management, and operating personnel are well trained.” The review lauded the plant’s “excellent” storage of explosives and said the explosives safety program is “comprehensive, well implemented, and provides a safe work environment for personnel and explosive materials.”
The most significant weakness identified in the report was “the stationing of personnel in the Zone 12 ramps as a compensatory measure during inoperability of a blast door interlock.” The review said allowing an individual “to control entry to an explosives operating bay” places that person at risk of being exposed to hazardous fragments in the event of an accidental explosion in or near the bay.
The review also pointed out that many lightning protection systems (LPS) noncompliances identified in a 2010 assessment are still unresolved and not yet being addressed. These systems, meant to protect personnel and explosives from lightning strikes, were found to have both minor and significant “operability and maintenance issues” such as a frayed conductor and nonfunctioning LPS units that needed to be replaced. It found that personnel training for the repair of the LPS was inadequate.
The report called on CNS to address the stationing of personnel outside of nuclear explosives operating bays to control entry to those areas. It also recommended re-evaluating the findings of a 2010 explosives safety assessment to confirm that corrective actions will be taken, along with appointing an Explosives Storage Review Committee to monitor compliance with explosives storage requirements. It further suggested the NNSA Production Office establish “annual assessments with smaller scopes addressing only a portion of the explosive safety program elements each year such that all program elements are assessed within the required five-year period.”
Pantex spokesman Steve Myers said by email, “Safety remains one of our daily absolutes to ensure we protect our workforce, neighbors and the environment.”
A separate Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) review of the Pantex Plant’s nuclear maintenance program found deficiencies in certain procedures and noted that some of the same problems identified in a 2012 maintenance program review had not been addressed. The DNFSB’s Nov. 12 letter from chairman Joyce Connery to the NNSA highlighted “documentation deficiencies associated with workability, level-of-detail, flowdown of hazards and controls, or human factors during all activities” at the plant, including “missing, inconsistent, conflicting, and confusing directions and information, making some of the procedures unable to be implemented as written.” The letter said these weaknesses, while concerning, presented “no imminent safety issues.”
As an example, in one case the DNFSB found that workers neglected a step in cleaning a fire suppression system valve, saying it “looks clean enough,” while in another incident workers were unable to identify all the components in a fire suppression system procedure. The review also found that workers “did not consistently document and implement placekeeping of procedural steps as they were completed.” To formalize maintenance operations, the review called for clearer preventive and corrective procedures.
