[DOE LETTERHEAD]
National
Nuclear Security Administration
February 8, 2006
The Honorable A. J. Eggenberger
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, N.W.
Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004
Dear Mr. Chairman:
In the August 7, 2003, letter
closing Recommendation 97-2, Criticality
Safety, the
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board established an annual reporting
requirement. Enclosed is the report for
Calendar Year 2005.
Overall, actions taken in
response to Recommendation 97-2 have substantially improved the Department’s
criticality safety infrastructure and operational programs. Stable funding was provided in 2005 and the
Nuclear Criticality Safety Program (NCSP) organization continues to function
effectively to maintain important capabilities while addressing the most
pressing operational criticality safety needs. Progress was made in each of the seven
technical program element areas and the foundation has been laid for a
Departmental Criticality Safety Monitoring Program that will systematically
review and monitor operational criticality safety programs. Expertise resident within the Criticality
Safety Support Group is increasingly being applied to resolve Departmental
criticality safety issues. Although the
Criticality Experiments Facility project is progressing
on schedule and within budget, the most significant challenge is to maintain
critical experiments and hands-on training capability during the transition of
these activities from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Device Assembly
Facility (DAF) in Nevada. The NCSP
Manager initiated tasks to: 1) ensure
participation of Los Alamos researchers in critical experiments in Russia and,
2) establish an interim hands-on training capability at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. These two tasks
will help to minimize the impacts of the transition to the DAF.
If you have any questions,
please contact me directly or have your staff contact Jerry McKamy at 301-903-3081.
Sincerely,
David H. Crandall
Assistant Deputy Administrator
for Research, Development, and Simulation
Defense Programs
cc (w/encl):
M. Whitaker, DR-1
James McConnell, NA-2
Inés Triay, EM-3
Richard Lagdon, US/ESE
Tom D’Agostino, NA-10
L. Brooks, NA-1
Richard Black, EH-22