Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
1/15/2016
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) expressed concern over the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) progress in improving its emergency preparedness and response programs in a Jan. 7 letter from DNFSB Chairman Joyce Connery to the Department of Energy (DOE). Connery said the DNFSB is “concerned with the pace and completeness” of LANL’s drill program development after the board recommended DOE ensure its defense nuclear facilities identify deficiencies and implement corrective actions in emergency preparedness and response programs. The letter notes the DNFSB plans to conduct a comprehensive review of these programs in early 2016 and added that DOE “should consider whether additional requirements or oversight are needed in this area.”
According to the DNFSB’s preliminary observations of weaknesses in LANL’s emergency preparedness and response program, drill scenarios “are incomplete and do not represent the spectrum of documented credible accident types,” drill planning and conduct “do not ensure that scenarios are sufficiently challenging and minimize artificiality and simulation,” and “command and control practices between facility and external responders are inconsistent across the nuclear facilities.” Other weaknesses include a potential “inability to effectively shelter laboratory workers in place during a release of hazardous materials” and little progress in developing emergency drill programs at some defense nuclear facilities, including the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research building and the Waste Characterization, Reduction, and Repackaging Facility, the DNFSB said.
The DNFSB’s recommendation 2014-1, published in the Federal Register in September 2014, highlighted the risk of “design basis accidents resulting from natural phenomena hazards and operational events” and noted that DOE has not adequately enforced compliance with requirements that govern emergency preparedness and response at its defense nuclear facilities. According to the notice, the DNFSB found that hazard assessments and emergency response procedure training at these sites are incomplete, and the assessments often do not consider “severe events that could impact multiple facilities, overwhelm emergency response capabilities, and/or have regional impacts.” The root causes, the notice said, include “ineffective implementation of existing requirements, inadequate revision of requirements to address lessons learned and needed improvements to site programs, and weaknesses in DOE verification and validation of readiness of its sites with defense nuclear facilities.”
The NNSA’s Los Alamos field office spokeswoman Toni Chiri said, “NNSA considers the DNFSB letter as helpful input for continuous improvement of emergency preparedness and response at the Laboratory. As part of our ongoing efforts to improve our processes, we are addressing the issues raised in the letter.”
