While a Department of Energy annual report for 2014 rated the Y-12 National Security Complex as “meets expectations” for nuclear criticality safety last year, with a decline in the number of infractions from 2013, it appears there are continuing issues with the site’s nuclear safety program. According to recently released reports by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staff, the government’s managing contractor at Y-12 – Consolidated Nuclear Security – held a “management level critique” in mid-July to try to identify additional corrective actions for issues that have not been fully resolved for years. The issues reportedly involve the spacing of “chip dolly cylinders” – carts that are used to collect enriched uranium chips from machining operations and keep them in a safe configuration.
A concern was raised more than a decade ago that some chip dollies could tilt in such a way that would violate the space requirements for the fissile materials. An “addendum” was established for procedures in 2001 that put in place administrative controls, such as the requirement to handle only one chip dolly at a time and a requirement to ensure cylinders in the dollies are returned to an upright position after handling. However, there reportedly has not been an engineered solution to the problems, and – according to a newly released staff report from the safety board – one of the issues at the management meeting “was the fact that a criticality safety officer had documented a concern regarding the site’s lack of progress in implementing an engineered solution to the space problem for several consecutive years without the concern being elevated to the proper level of management for consideration.”
The July 17 report said implementing an engineered solution for all chip dollies “would have allowed NCS (nuclear criticality safety) personnel to close an addendum to the NCS analysis that ultimately remained open for 14 years.” Last month’s critique reportedly set the stage for closing out addendums on material controls and for greater management involvement.
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