\[DOE LETTERHEAD\]

NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

August 14, 2007

Dear Mr. Chairman:

This is in response to your letter of July 16, 2007, regarding the safe
startup of weapon program activities at the Pantex Plant. Your letter
discussed circumstances surrounding the startup of W76 Mod 1 operations
in particular, and requested a report detailing answers to three
questions.

National Nuclear Security Administration senior management understands
the concerns you express in your letter, and we agree with the
conceptual basis of the message. NNSA has not and does not endorse an
organizational policy or operational philosophy whereby production goals
or mission needs trump safety requirements, and we do not view granting
exemptions to safety requirements as a matter of convenience. In
reference to the case in point, NNSA made its decisions with careful
consideration of maintaining an appropriate balance between competing
objectives, while ensuring that operational safety would not be
compromised in any way before authorization to begin operations was
granted. The following discussion provides the bases for these
assertions and responds to the specific issues and questions in your
letter:

-   "Prior to the W76 Mod 1 Nuclear Explosive Safety Study (NESS), NNSA
    approved an exemption to allow the NESS to begin without an approved
    safety basis in place."

    -   The requirement for having an approved safety basis before start
        of the NESS is invoked in DOE Order 452.2C, *Nuclear Explosive
        Safety*, issued on June 12, 2006. The Order includes an explicit
        provision for granting exemptions to its requirements.
        Therefore, this NNSA action should not be interpreted as a
        circumvention of DOE requirements. The decision to approve the
        Pantex Site Office (PXSO) request for this exemption was
        coordinated with the Central Technical Authority (CTA), Chief of
        Defense Nuclear Safety (CDNS), NA-10, and NA-12, all of whom
        concurred with the PXSO request.

-   "In addition, the NESS was conducted without the availability of
    important input documents, such as Engineering Analyses and Design
    Requirements Documents."

    -   These documents support the safety basis but are not part of the
        required documentation set, and were available to the NESS Group
        (NESSG) as draft documents. The fact that they were not final
        versions only impacted the efficiency and duration of the NESS.
        It had no effect on the validity of the NESS, its findings, or
        the final control set.

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-   "The contractor readiness assessment (RA) for W76 Mod 1 assembly
    operations was also initiated prior to approval of the safety
    basis."

    -   The contractor RA (CRA) started after the NNSA review of the DSA
        was complete and both conditions of approval (COAs) were known
        and provided to the contractor. Formal approval of the DSA
        occurred 4 days after the CRA started. While we agree with the
        basic premise that this action can be viewed as a break with the
        tenets of best practices, it had no effect on the safety of the
        operations (i.e., adequacy of controls), as the preliminary and
        final COAs did not impact the conduct or conclusions of the CRA.

        -   "Furthermore, despite line management's declaration of
            readiness, the contractor RA encountered procedures that
            contained numerous errors and discovered that some
            procedures could not be performed as written."

            -   NNSA concedes that the number of identified procedural
                errors were atypical, suggesting a lower state of
                readiness than that anticipated by the contractor or
                NNSA. However, in another respect, the very discovery of
                all these errors is reassuring in suggesting a robust
                process carried out by competent and independent
                contractor staff as intended by process design and
                requirements.

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-   "In January 30, 2007, letter to the Deputy Secretary of Energy, the
    Board commended DOE's Chief Operating Officer for Environmental
    Management (EM) for clarifying DOE-EM's expectation that a
    contractor RA will not begin without an approved safety basis in
    place, and expressed concern that NNSA had not benefited from the
    lessons learned provided by DOE-EM."

    -   PXSO instituted the same requirement in a local procedure
        (Pantex Procedure 115.1.0, *Startup and Restart of Pantex Plant
        Activities)* several years ago, and that requirement is still in
        effect. PXSO carefully considered the specifics of the situation
        before granting permission to the contractor to go forward with
        the CRA before its formal approval of the safety basis. In
        addition, the NNSA CTA plans to issue implementing guidance by
        September 30, 2007 alerting NNSA offices and contractors that it
        is an NNSA expectation that the safety basis and controls be
        finalized and approved before a CRA starts.

In the conclusion to your letter, you also asked three specific
questions:

1.  What specific actions will be taken by NNSA to verify that startup
    activities for the W76 Mod 1 project have been adequately performed?

> This action is complete.
>
> The CRA, NNSA RA, and NESS are all complete; all pre-start findings
> have been closed. Corrective action plans have been established for
> post-start findings. No additional start-up or review-related actions
> are required to authorize operations. The NESS was conducted April
> 10 - 13, 17 - 20, 24 - 26, 2007. The NESSG identified one pre-start
> and two post-start findings. The NESSG Chair reviewed the final
> Documented Safety Analysis (DSA)/Safety Evaluation Report (SER) and
> determined there was no impact on NESS results. The pre-start finding
> is closed. NA-12 approved the NESS report on May 22, 2007.
>
> The CRA was conducted May 4 - 21, 2007, and identified 20 pre-start
> findings. All
>
> pre-start findings are closed.
>
> The DSA was approved on May 8, 2007.
>
> The NNSA RA was conducted Jun 6 - 15, 2007, and identified three
> pre-start and two post-start findings. The pre-start findings are
> closed.

2.  What specific actions will be taken by NNSA to ensure compliance
    with, and minimize exemptions to, DOE requirements and expectations
    during startup and restart of nuclear explosive operations at
    Pantex?

> NNSA weapon program start-up activities have been performed in
> accordance with applicable requirements. Exemption requests are rare
> and are granted only after careful consideration of the maturity of
> the related nuclear safety processes and the operation's safety basis,
> as well as the contractor's past performance in regard to the affected
> requirement.
>
> As mentioned earlier, PXSO Procedure 115.1.0 requires that contractors
> not start their CRA unless the associated documented safety analysis
> is approved and any conditions of approval have been resolved. In the
> case of W76-1 assembly operations, a deviation to that local
> prerequisite was approved by PXSO based on BWXT's past improved
> start-up performance, the requirement that all conditions from the
> approval of the safety analysis were closed prior to completion of the
> CRA, the fact that the assembly process is essentially the reverse of
> the disassembly and inspection process (the safety basis for which had
> already been reviewed and approved by NNSA), and because the safety
> analysis had been under change control (through the unreviewed safety
> question process) since it was submitted to PXSO for approval on April
> 6, 2007. Additionally, it is noted that PXSO's review of the W76-1
> assembly safety analysis was complete, comments had been discussed
> with the contractor, and the PXSO approval documentation was in final
> preparation at the start of the CRA.
>
> Again, complex-wide clarifying guidance on NNSA expectations regarding
> the sequencing of the approval of the safety basis and start of the
> CRA will be issued by the CTA in the near future.

3.  When will the above actions be completed?

> The first action is complete. The issuance of the CTA guidance
> describing NNSA expectations regarding the sequencing of safety basis
> approval and CRA is expected by September 30, 2007.

If you have further questions, please contact me or Steve Goodrum at
(202) 586-4879.

Sincerely,

*Martin J. Schoenbauer*

*Acting Deputy Administrator*

*for Defense Programs*

cc:

W. Ostendorff, NA-1

M. Whitaker, HS-1.1

S. Erhart, PXSO

D. Glenn, PXSO

J. McConnell, NA-2.1

T. D'Agostino, NA-10

S. Goodrum, NA-12

R. Lewis, NA-12

E. Schmidt, NA-121