October 25, 2006, Department letter regarding DOE Standard 1027, Change Notice 1, Hazard Categorization and Accident Analysis Techniques for Compliance with DOE Order 5480.23, Nuclear Safety Analysis Reports

[DOE LETTERHEAD]

October 25, 2006

The Honorable A. J. Eggenberger

Chairman

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

625 Indiana Avenue, NW, Suite 700

Washington, DC 20004-2901

Dear Mr. Chairman:

On June 26, 2006, you requested that the Department of Energy (DOE) review DOE-STD-1027, Change Notice 1, Hazard Categorization and Accident Analysis Techniques for Compliance with DOE Order 5480.23, Nuclear Safety Analysis Reports, (DOE-STD- 1027) to ensure defense nuclear facilities are applying the standard consistently and correctly. In particular, you requested that we provide a report within 120 days of receipt of the letter addressing the following:

A review of DOE-STD-1027 for areas that might benefit from improvement, including the problems described in the enclosure to the June 26, 2006, letter.
Identification of any defense nuclear facilities affected by problems identified during the review of the standard.
The path forward to address these problems in any affected nuclear facilities and to prevent these problems in the future.

Through the Chief, Defense Nuclear Safety, and the Chief of Nuclear Safety, we have canvassed our site offices to develop a list of potential areas for improvement to be reviewed by a working group for DOE-STD-1027, which we plan to establish next month. The list, which includes the issues identified in your June 26, 2006, letter, is provided as an enclosure to this letter. The working group will review the issues identified in the attachment and determine the necessary actions to be taken, including whether changes to DOE-STD-1027 are warranted. A path forward will then be developed to revise DOE-STD-1027, as appropriate; to identify any defense nuclear facilities affected by problems implementing DOE-STD-1027; and to ensure the standard is correctly implemented to prevent problems in the future. We will provide you the path forward with actions and a schedule to complete them by February 28, 2007.

If you have further questions on our efforts on this issue, please contact me at (301) 903-3777 or have your staff contact James O’Brien at (301) 903-1408.

Sincerely,

Glenn S. Podonsky

Chief Health, Safety and Security Officer

Office of Health, Safety and Security

Enclosure

cc: Michael A. Kilpatrick, HSS

James J. McConnell, NA-1

Richard H. Lagdon, Jr., US

Mark B. Whitaker, Jr., HSS

Andrew C. Lawrence, HSS