NO ‘MAGIC BULLET’ TO IMPROVING SAFETY CULTURE, DNFSB MEMBER SAYS

Stressing the importance of “leadership,” Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Member Sean Sullivan warned yesterday that there is no “magic bullet” to ensuring a strong safety culture throughout the Department of Energy complex. Sullivan’s remarks came during a Board meeting held with an industry expert, as well as representatives from the NRC and NASA, intended to provide information on various means to assess and address safety culture issues. Sullivan, though, appeared to be highly skeptical at the onset of the meeting. “As I understand the purpose of this hearing, we’re supposed to be gathering information that may be used in a subsequent hearing with the Department of Energy to enlighten them on ways to improve their safety culture. To be honest, I don’t believe anyone can say anything—myself included—in this room in the next few hours that could fulfill that purpose,” he said in his opening remarks.

Choosing to not ask questions during the course of the meeting, Sullivan instead used his closing remarks to emphasize his view of the importance of “leadership” in ensuring workers feel they can raise issues without fear. Noting his background in the U.S. Navy, where he served as a submarine officer, Sullivan said that while the Navy has “a very strong safety culture … we don’t have a definition of safety culture. We don’t have any action matrices or frameworks or tool kits. It comes down, in the Navy, to leadership.”

He went on to say, “There is no magic bullet. When you try to figure out how we maximize safety on a submarine, well the easy answer would be just tie the ships up to the pier. But that doesn’t get the mission done. Similarly we could maximize safety at Pantex if we simply stopped managing the stockpile, but that won’t work either.” Sullivan added, “These are difficult decisions, and the answer is not found in a tool kit. It can’t be taught in a one week course. You can’t come up with the magic bullet.”