The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes Brandon Williams, the newly confirmed administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, will prioritize a list of safety challenges that the board wrote him about last month.
“Congratulations on your confirmation as Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)!” the nation’s nuclear safety watchdog started its letter. “We look forward to a positive and productive working relationship with you and your team as we continue our shared commitment to supporting NNSA in its critical mission to maintain our nation’s nuclear deterrent.”
The Sept. 30 letter went on to say that at Williams’s “earliest opportunity” the board wanted to discuss the safety challenges. DNFSB recommended NNSA continue to monitor safety at Savannah River Site tritium facilities and transportation on all the sites. But DNFSB placed a particularly high priority on safety at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium facilities and advised “additional safety controls” there.
“The safety issues were particularly concerning given the amount of radioactive material at risk, the proximity of the onsite transportation routes to the public and the nature of the credible accident scenarios,” DNFSB said of the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico.
The letter also said the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee had a “significant nuclear criticality safety violation in 2023,” and while the site is implementing corrective actions, “recent violations have stemmed from poor conduct of operations.” Additionally, Nevada National Security Site made “little progress” toward safety concerns DNFSB listed in prior reports about the transport of high explosives.
In a separate letter addressed to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright on Oct. 17, DNFSB discussed its “safety allegations program,” wherein safety allegations can be submitted anonymously. The letter said while the safety investigation into different NNSA sites did not reveal “immediate safety concerns,” DNFSB “identified several weaknesses in the areas of safety culture, measurement assurance, nuclear weapon safety component quality, and [NNSA] oversight.”
Wright must publicly respond to the concerns outlined in the letter within 180 days of receipt describing DOE’s path forward to improve safety at NNSA.