The high-profile July 28 security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex has exposed broader issues about “cultural mind set” and has raised concerns about lax procedures at other areas of the plant, the National Nuclear Security Administration said in an Aug. 10 “show cause” letter that threatens severing both B&W Y-12’s management and operating contract as well as WSI-Oak Ridge’s protective force contract that was assigned to BW Y-12 last week. NNSA released the letter late last night. Nuclear operations at the plant have been shut down since days after three elderly peace activists cut through several fences to reach the highest security area of Y-12, where they defaced the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. In the letter, NNSA Contracting Officer Jill Albaugh said the shutdown would continue for the “indefinite” future. “Because our preliminary fact-findings reveal that contributing and direct causes of the Security Event include an inappropriate Y-12 cultural mind set, as well as a severe lapse of discipline and performance in meeting conduct of operations expectations, I am concerned that such issues may exist in other areas of Y-12 operations—and not just in the security program,” Albaugh wrote in the letter to B&W Y-12 General Manager Darrel Kohlhorst, who along with Deputy General Manager Bill Klemm abruptly announced his retirement on the same day the letter was issued. Albaugh said that B&W Y-12 had 30 days to demonstrate why “termination for default proceedings” should not be initiated.
The letter details a host of issues that implicate both B&W Y-12 and WSI, confirming earlier reports that a series of miscues contributed to the security breach. According to the letter, a “high number of primary assessment cameras” did not work, including a camera that was in the area cut by the peace activists. WSI’s guards also “failed to react” to numerous alarms from the sensor system in the fence line as the activists cut their way through the site’s protective layers, and when the guards did respond, “it took excessive time for the patrol to arrive on scene” and they “failed to take appropriate steps to take control of the situation” and remove the activists. Additionally, the NNSA said plans and procedures for responding to multiple alarms from the same area were “inadequate,” repair of broken cameras was delayed and plans and compensatory measures were not put in place to make up for the inoperable cameras, and both contractors “failed to properly coordinate and integrate respective requirements to assure adequate security at the site.” Albaugh said that a comprehensive review and inspection is ongoing, but she said “preliminary findings indicate that both B&W Y-12 and WSI-OR are in substantial violations of certain subject contract clauses, as well as certain DOE orders, and its own internal procedures and processes.”
Albaugh also said the NNSA was not happy with the reaction to the event from B&W Y-12 and WSI and said that “procedural noncompliances and unauthorized reassignment of compensatory measures have demonstrated a serious breakdown in the security operations at Y-12, including a lack of leadership and significant tactical, procedural, training, and communications deficiencies.”
