October 21, 2011 

Jim Craig, Director 

 Office of Health Protection 

 Mississippi State Department of Health 

P.O. Box 1700 

Jackson, MS 39215-1700 

SUBJECT: SUMMARY OF PERIODIC MEETING WITH MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF 

RADIOLOGICAL HEALTH HELD ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2011 

Dear Mr. Craig, 

A periodic meeting was held with Mr. B. J. Smith and members of his staff on September 20, 

2011, at the radiological health office on Lawson Street. The purpose of this meeting was to 

review and discuss the status of the Mississippi Agreement State Program. The NRC was 

represented by Dr. Janine Katanic, FSME, and me from Region IV. I have completed and 

enclosed a general meeting summary, including any specific actions resulting from the 

discussions. 

If you determine that our conclusions do not accurately summarize the meeting discussion, or if 

you have any additional remarks or questions about the meeting in general, please contact me 

at 817-860-8116 or by e-mail at Rachel.Browder@nrc.gov to discuss your concerns. 

 Sincerely, 

 /RA/ 

 Rachel S. Browder, CHP

 Regional State Agreements Officer 

Enclosure: 

Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary 

cc: 

Mr. B. J. Smith, Director 

Mississippi State Department of Health 

Division of Radiological Health 

3150 Lawson Street 

PO Box 1700 

Jackson, MS 39215-1700 

UNITED STATES

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

REGION IV

612 EAST LAMAR BLVD, SUITE 400

ARLINGTON, TEXAS 76011-4125
Mississippi Division of Radiological 

 Health 

 

- 2 -

Internal distribution via e-mail: 

Roy Caniano, D:DNMS 

Vivian Campbell, DD:DNMS 

Brian McDermott, D:FSME/MSSA 

James Luehman, DD:FSME/MSSA 

Duncan White, ADD:FSME/MSSA 

Rachel Browder, RSAO 

Randy Erickson, RSAO 

Lisa Dimmick, FSME 

Janine Katanic, FSME 

Karen Meyer, FSME 

Michelle Beardsley, RI 

ML11294A453 

 

S:\DNMS\!SAO\PeriodicMeetings\2011\MS\MS Periodic Mtg Summary 9-20-11.docx 

ADAMS: 
 No ⌧ Yes ⌧ SUNSI Review Complete Reviewer Initials: rsb 

⌧ Publicly Available ⌧ Nonsensitive 


 Nonpublicly Available 
 Sensitive 

RIV:RSAO:DNMS 

RSBrowder;dlf 

 /RA/ 

 10/21/11 

OFFICIAL RECORD COPY 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 1 

MISSISSIPPI PERIODIC MEETING SUMMARY 

Date of Meeting: September 20, 2011 

Attendees 

NRC MISSISSIPPI 

Rachel Browder, RSAO B. J. Smith, Division Director 

Janine Katanic, FSME Jayson Moak, Branch Director 

 Julia Ralston, Health Physicist 

 Leslie Faulkenbery, Health Physicist 

 Loren Ross, Health Physicist 

DISCUSSION: 

Mississippi Division of Radiological Health authorizes approximately 330 licenses. For this size 

of program, the Division has experienced a continuous number of staff turnovers. During the 

last IMPEP Review in April 20-24, 2009, Mississippi’s performance was found satisfactory, but 

needs improvement, for the performance indicator Technical Staffing and Training, and 

satisfactory for all other performance indicators reviewed. While Mississippi has been 

challenged to maintain consistent staffing levels, they have implemented a program that is 

considered adequate to protect public health and safety and compatible with the NRC’s 

program. 

During the last IMPEP review period, four technical staff members had left the program. In 

addition, during the review period, the former Division Director had retired. For a period of the 

review cycle, there were only two individuals maintaining the program. As a result, there were 

four new recommendations opened to address program performance and one recommendation 

that was kept open from the 2005 IMPEP, which specifically addressed the staffing issue. The 

MRB recommended at the time to hold a Periodic Meeting at one year. The Periodic Meeting 

was held on March 30, 2010. At the time of that Periodic Meeting, there had not been any 

significant progress made to address the staffing issue. Since that time, the Division of 

Radiological Health program experienced another complete turnover in staff health physics 

positions, with the exception of management, which has remained constant. 

This Periodic Meeting was held at 18 months from the last Periodic Meeting, which is also the 

midpoint of the remaining review period. The purpose of the periodic meeting was to discuss 

the staff turnover issue and review the progress that the program has made to address this 

issue. In addition, the effectiveness of the State’s response to the review team’s 

recommendations from the 2009 IMPEP was evaluated, as well as the overall implementation of 

the Agreement State program. 

 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 2 

The status of the State=s actions to address the open recommendations from the 2009 IMPEP 

Review follows: 

1. The review team recommended that the State take additional actions, such as 

increasing salary and benefits, to stabilize staffing and ensure continued successful 

program implementation. 

Status: The Division worked with the Mississippi State Personnel Board (MSPB) to 

address this recommendation. The state reviewed salaries and benefits of other 

southern state Radiological Health Programs. A new salary structure was approved, 

which will increase salaries by approximately 17-31 percent. In addition, the structure 

developed a six-tier job classification that ranged from the HP Trainee level to 

HP Advanced level. The new job classification will create a new career ladder for the 

Radiological Health Organization. The legislature attached years of state service to 

each increasing job classification level. However, the new structure which has an 

advanced level of approximately $50k, appears to be very viable within the state and is 

consistent with neighboring state programs, which should bring a competitive edge to 

the Mississippi program and help to retain staff. 

This recommendation remains open and should be evaluated at the next IMPEP review. 

2. The review team recommended that the State update its existing procedures and 

develop new procedures, if necessary, to memorialize the policies and practices of the 

Agreement State program and to serve as a knowledge management tool. 

Status: The Division developed and implemented new procedures, which they have 

been operating under for approximately 2 years. Based on discussions with the staff, it 

appears they are integrally involved with the program by making suggestions, 

improvements, and modifications to some of the processes. In addition, the 

management and staff indicated they were modifying the procedures as appropriate; 

however, the procedures were not reviewed during this meeting. 

This recommendation should be verified and closed at the next IMPEP review. 

3. The review team recommended that the State implement a reliable and comprehensive 

licensing and inspection database that serves as an effective planning, tracking, and 

data management tool. 

 

Status: The Division developed an Access database to track licensing and inspection 

status. The database also includes tracking candidates for reciprocity. The Division has 

assigned individuals certain responsibilities such as updating reciprocity actions and 

tracking events and violations to closure in the database. The Division emphasized 

there was more consistency in the database by assigning responsibilities to respective 

individuals. 

This recommendation should be verified and closed at the next IMPEP review. 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 3 

4. The review team recommended that the State implement a process to ensure that 

violations are adequately documented, licensee corrective actions are reviewed for 

adequacy and documented, and sufficient follow up of violations is performed and 

documented consistent with the safety or security significance. 

Status: All inspection reports and letters are reviewed by the Branch Director and 

Division Director before issuance. In addition, all incoming inspection correspondence is 

also reviewed by both managers. The Branch regularly meets to discuss potential 

violations found during inspections to improve staff consistency. 

This recommendation should be verified and closed at the next IMPEP review. 

5. The review team recommended that the State develop and implement a procedure for 

the control of sensitive or security-related information that provides guidance to identify, 

mark, handle, and protect such information. 

Status: The Division has approximately 30 licensees that implement increased control 

security requirements. The files associated with these licensees are maintained in a 

separate locked file cabinet. Following the IMPEP, the Division implemented a 

procedure for the control of sensitive and security-related information. Since that time, 

the Secretary of State’s office issued new security policy that immediately affected the 

Division’s office, access to equipment, handling of information, and control of files. The 

Division is reviewing their procedure to reflect the latest State policy. The Division 

explained that their intent is to withhold all licensing information from being publicly 

available. 

This recommendation should be verified and closed at the next IMPEP review. 

Other topics covered at the meeting included: 

Program Strengths: It was observed during the Periodic Meeting that the Division 

management and staff worked as a team. They encouraged one another and learned 

and assisted each other as they developed their inspection and licensing qualification 

folders. This was reflected by the open door and open communication management 

style. The Division expressed that their strengths included an attitude of teamwork, 

candid discussions on process change improvements, and the implementation of peer 

review for all licensing actions. 

Program Weaknesses: The turnover in staffing has been a weakness in the program. 

However, with the new salary structure and additional job classification levels, this may 

improve the future retention of staff. The Division also indicated that they consider their 

inability to issue civil penalties to be a weakness in their enforcement program. The 

Division can only pursue criminal issues which are considered willful. 

 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 4 

Feedback on NRC’s Program

The Division indicated that they appreciated the good support provided by NRC 

Region IV and the communications between the two agencies. In particular, the Division 

expressed appreciation to Mr. Nima Ashkeboussi for his efforts in coordinating the 

activities between the two agencies’ computer technology staff to ensure the State’s 

infrastructure is appropriate to support the LTS processing system. The Division has 

adopted the NRC License Tracking System/Web-Based Licensing system (LTS). The 

agreement between the two agencies for the software has been signed and LTS Lite has 

been installed; however, it has not yet been initiated. The Division is considering having 

NRC migrate the existing data from the State’s Access database to the final LTS 

database. 

In addition, the Division expressed their appreciation to NRC by letter dated 

November 5, 2010, and in particular to Mr. Martin J. Virgilio for providing the letter of 

support which helped the Division to achieve the goal for the new salary structure and 

job classifications. 

Staffing and Training

The Division is fully staffed with a total of four staff positions and two management 

positions. One staff member joined the Division from another Agreement State program, 

two staff members joined the Division from other areas of the State’s Health Program, 

and one staff member was a new hire. Two staff members have been with the program 

for over a year and the remaining two staff members have been with the program for 

less than 6 months. 

All four staff members are aggressively taking the NRC training courses to become 

qualified in all types of licensing and inspection activities. The Division has a formal 

qualification program which requires the final qualification for a specific activity or license 

category to be assessed by the Division Director. Therefore, the staff member may 

become qualified for a particular category as progression is made toward complete and 

full qualification for the broad range of categories. 

During the periodic meeting, some of the qualification journals were reviewed. The 

Division agreed that documentation of the particular category of qualification of a staff 

member should be clearly indicated in the journal or captured on a review sheet. In that 

manner, the staff member and management could clearly acknowledge the level of 

progression and the qualifications which have been obtained and authorized for the 

respective staff member. 

The Division anticipates that the new salary structure and job classifications will be 

implemented during the first quarter of 2012. The Division anticipates that this should 

provide further incentive to retain staff because of the 17-31 percent increase in salaries 

and an improved step progression for health physics positions in the state. 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 5 

The Division requested NRC’s assistance for inspection training accompaniments for the 

new staff members. This would provide additional oversight and consistency with the 

NRC program as the staff inspection qualifications are being developed. FSME and the 

RSAO will work with the Division to develop inspection accompaniments that will be 

beneficial to the new staff members. 

Program Reorganizations

There has not been any program reorganization during this review period. 

Changes in Program Budget/Funding

The Division is adequately funded as a self-generating State agency and does not 

receive general funds from the State. The Division has been authorized to submit fee 

increases across the board for all license types to ensure that adequate funds are 

maintained. The Division was able to purchase one new four-wheel drive state vehicle 

for emergency response in support of the nuclear reactor emergency response program. 

The last salary increases that were issued to state employees occurred in 2005. The 

State has not experienced any budget cuts to the program or furloughs during this 

review period. As previously discussed, the State has approved a new salary structure 

and job classifications for the health physicists in the Division. The new salary structure 

will increase salaries by approximately 17-31 percent. The new job classification will 

also allow flexibility not previously provided by having six level positions from HP Trainee 

level to HP Advanced level. The Division anticipates that this new salary structure will 

enable the Division to retain its staff and be more competitive to surrounding state 

programs and businesses in the area. 

Materials Inspection Program 

At the time of this periodic meeting, the Division reported that there were no overdue 

inspections. As a result of one individual entering inspection results into the Access 

database, the Division is able to project the inspections for the current month and ensure 

that the inspection frequencies are being met. The security inspections are being 

performed coincidentally on the same frequency as the health and safety inspections. 

Materials Licensing Program

The Division indicated that all new applications and license amendment requests were 

completed within 30 days of receiving the required supporting documentation for the 

action. The Division performed prelicensing visits and ensured that increased controls 

were in place prior to issuing new licenses for Category 2 facilities. The Division 

implemented the increased controls and fingerprinting orders by license conditions. 

Licenses were authorized for a 6-year renewal period. 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 6 

Regulations and Legislative Changes

The State is up to date on all regulation amendments currently required for compatibility. 

The Division has a process in place to address the comments for one proposed 

regulatory package (RATS ID 2007-3) and submit to NRC as final. In addition, the 

Division needs to provide the final regulation package for RATS ID 2009-1 and RATS ID 

2003-1 for review by NRC. These final regulations have previously been submitted by 

the Division to the State Board of Health and approval by the Board of Health was 

pending. 

The Division also reported that their regulations will be recodified pursuant to a change 

made by the Mississippi Secretary of State to make all Health Department regulations 

consistent. When the regulations are recodified, NRC will need to perform another 

review of the regulations to assure that all references have been properly addressed. 

Event Reporting, Including Follow-up and Closure Information in NMED

The Division reported nine events to the Nuclear Material Events Database (NMED) 

since the last periodic meeting on March 30, 2010. Based on the review of events in the 

NMED database and discussion of the events during the periodic meeting, it was 

determined that the events were appropriately reported to the NRC and were properly 

updated in NMED. The Division may want to consider whether to use the “Event 

Closed” field in NMED. This is not a required field as the “Record Complete” field is 

required for NMED and the Division was appropriately completing the event records. 

The Division dispatched inspectors for on-site investigations as appropriate and 

commensurate with the health and safety significance of the incident. The Division had 

assigned the responsibility for maintaining the NMED database to one of the new staff 

members. The individual was familiar with the database and during the periodic meeting 

she discussed her responsibilities for updating and tracking the events in the NMED 

database. 

Response to Incidents and Allegations

The Division continues to be responsive to notifications of incidents and allegations. 

Incidents are quickly reviewed for their affect on public health and safety. 

Status of Allegations and Concerns Referred by the NRC for Action

NRC did not refer any allegations to Mississippi during the review period. 

Emerging Technologies

During the periodic meeting, the Division described that they had communicated 

licensing expectations and requirements to a potential licensee who was interested in 

developing a method to chemically separate Caldasite ore for its zirconium, rare earth 

material. The process was expected to create a liquid and silica waste stream of 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 7 

uranium and thorium, which would be transferred to a mill as alternate feed material. In 

addition, the Division has spoken with FSME experts on this potential production 

process and any regulatory requirements involved. 

Large, Complicated, or Unusual Authorizations for use of Radioactive Materials

The Division did not have any large or unusual authorizations during the review period. 

Current State Initiatives

For many years, the Division has been monitoring the Salmon site where two 

underground detonations took place on October 22, 1964, and December 3, 1966. 

These detonations were a part of DOE’s project to develop seismic methods for 

detecting underground nuclear tests. The Salmon Site is a 1,470-acre tract of land 

located about 21 miles southwest of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The tract is located over a 

geological formation known as the Tatum Salt Dome and is the location of the only 

nuclear weapons test detonations known to have been performed in the Eastern United 

States. 

The Division completed radiological and chemical deposition analyses on trees above 

the Tatum Salt Dome area and determined that the trees did not contain any measurable 

tritium or radioactive materials above normal release levels. The state intends to sell the 

trees for resources in order to develop the land for a state park. 

State’s Mechanisms to Evaluate Performance

The Division uses peer reviews of inspection reports and licensing actions to develop 

performance and consistency and obtain a final quality check for each regulatory 

product. The final report or licensing action is issued by the Division Director. 

Inspectors are accompanied by the Branch Director on an annual basis. In addition, the 

Division meets as needed to assess the program or to recommend any changes or 

improvements to the processes in the program. The Division is relatively small and it 

appears that they work closely together to ensure that the program is successful. 

Current NRC Initiatives

Dr. Janine Katanic discussed ongoing Office of Federal and State Materials and 

Environmental Management Programs (FSME) initiatives with the State of Mississippi 

representatives. This included a brief review of the latest FSME letters and RCPD 

letters that requested a review and response from the Agreement States. In addition, 

Dr. Katanic discussed the national source tracking system, web-based licensing, security 

rulemaking, and safety culture initiative. 

 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 8 

CONCLUSION: 

The Division has spent a significant amount of time and effort on the five 

recommendations from the last IMPEP review. Even with the significant number of staff 

turnovers, the Division has continued to maintain public health and safety and implement 

an effective radiation safety program. 

The efforts made by the Division and the Department of Health to address the staffing 

issues are noteworthy. The new salary structure and job classifications should enable 

the Division to retain its staff and be a competitive organization in the State. 

Schedule for the Next IMPEP Review 

NRC staff recommends that the next IMPEP review be held, as currently scheduled, in 

April 2013.