Bill Eckroade, the principal deputy chief for Mission Support Operations at DOE-HSS and the head of the Y-12 investigation, said that federal officials discovered sensitive testing materials in a protective force vehicle during inspection activities of nightshift work around midnight Aug. 29. He said the materials included knowledge tests that were to be given to randomly selected guards the following day, the answer key to those tests, as well as forms detailing interview questions that would be used in on-post inspection activities known as “post-checks.” The knowledge tests and “post-checks” are part of an exhaustive review of security at the site ordered by Energy Secretary Steven Chu that began last week. “We reported our concerns about having these sensitive materials out in the field where they could be accessed by the protective force members we are testing. That would certainly bias the test,” Eckroade told NW&M Monitor. “We are very concerned about why they were there.” Eckroade said the protective force manager, who had been sent encrypted versions of the materials to validate the questions and help tailor the tests to Y-12, said the materials were planned for use as a training guide. “We aren’t sure how they were used but finding them in places they clearly are not supposed to be is an indicator they were used, or could have been used, inappropriately,” Eckroade said. WSI did not respond to a request for comment from NW&M Monitor.
Eckroade said HSS postponed the knowledge tests when the materials were found and will redo the “post-checks” because its inspection activities were compromised. New questions will be generated and different guards will be picked for the knowledge tests, and the criteria and interviews for the “post-checks” will be changed, he said. The information will also be more closely held. “It certainly raised concerns with us for the protocol of sharing sensitive test information and so we’re going to make sure as we do our knowledge tests and post-check interview forms, we’re going to more tightly control how they’re shared,” he said. Eckroade expressed some disbelief that the training documents were distributed to guards. “It’s a tight community. You know if you’re getting inspected by HSS you are going to have knowledge tests. This is sensitive information; you don’t go then train to the test. You can do preparation materials on your own but you don’t train to the test. Clearly that was inappropriate to the extent that they were used, which we’re not sure.” He said the incident will cause some delays in the inspection, but won’t threaten the Sept. 28 targeted completion date of the effort.
B&W Y-12 said it had already issued a “show cause” notice to WSI-Oak Ridge on Aug. 11—one day after the M&O contractor received its own “cure” letter from the NNSA. B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer said that the contractor has already taken “dramatic actions and [is] making major security improvements at the site,” which management and contractual changes as well as enhanced training of protective force officers, increased security patrols, added security barriers, repairs to fencing and security cameras, and a new system for prioritizing maintenance repairs. “Moving forward, B&W Y-12 management continues to carefully examine the circumstances that led to the security incursion and make effective improvements that are identified through ongoing internal review processes,” Spencer said in a statement. “We are committed to applying lessons learned to all of our operations in order to maintain the highest levels of performance in security, safety and quality.”