The Nevada National Security Site’s 2016 full-scale exercise, intended to test the facility’s emergency response capabilities, highlighted a deficiency in providing sufficient information to off-site emergency management organizations, hindering their ability to respond to site emergencies with consequences beyond its boundaries, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) found in a new report. This issue has remained unresolved since 2014, it said.
Overall, EA found that site contractor National Security Technologies effectively conducted the DORSET-16 exercise, which involved a severe weather scenario, including downpours that caused material instability at a hazardous waste storage unit and subsequently the displacement of metal drums from the flammable waste section to the corrosive waste section.
However, the report found two issues previously uncovered in a 2014 EA assessment that were closed but remained unresolved. One finding noted that “[the DOE Nevada Field Office] and NSTec did not resolve how to provide information needed by state and county emergency management organizations to effectively respond to NNSS emergencies with offsite consequences.”
EA found that “there were no clearly defined statements associated with [emergency action levels] for conveying recommended protective measures to offsite agencies” in case of emergencies, indicating that off-site response actions could be “delayed or ineffective.”
Some corrective actions that NSTec has not yet completed to address the 2014 findings include identifying evacuation routes for site personnel and off-site public; the way that hazardous materials at NNSS will be addressed in on-site and off-site medical response; and a mechanism to offer “facility-specific orientation training” to off-site organizations on site hazards and emergency response procedures.
Another finding since 2014 for Alutiiq-Pacific, the Nevada Field Office’s support services contractor, said the Nevada Support Facility’s backup power system was not appropriately tested. That facility houses an emergency operations center. The contractor issued new generator inspection procedures in response to the 2014 finding and used those guidelines to test the generator. However, EA found that closing this finding was premature.
EA also noted that the 2016 exercise involved a minimal amount of participation from off-site agencies and the emergency operations center team, and did not include any simulated injured personnel or radiological or hazardous material release that would require protective actions.
“Ultimately, the limited scope of this full-scale exercise was a missed opportunity for NSTec and NFO to implement, analyze, and evaluate response plans and procedures for improving the emergency management program,” the report found.
The DOE office identified some other weaknesses in the exercise, including that the “operations command center staff did not make timely, accurate, and complete offsite emergency notifications,” and that the local emergency director failed to categorize some emergency events in a timely manner.
A spokesman for NSTec declined to comment.
