May 14, 2015 

Jim Craig, Director 

 Office of Health Protection 

 Mississippi State Department of Health 

P.O. Box 1700 

Jackson, MS 39215-1700 

Dear Mr. Craig: 

On April 22, 2015, staff from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a periodic 

meeting with Mr. B.J. Smith, and members of his staff, at the Division of Radiological Health 

offices. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the status of the Mississippi Agreement 

State Program. The NRC was represented by Lisa Dimmick from the NRC Office of Nuclear 

Material Safety and Safeguards, and me. I have enclosed the meeting summary, including any 

specific actions resulting from the discussions, for your review. 

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

you have additional remarks about the meeting, please contact me at 817-200-1116, or by email 

at Binesh.Tharakan@nrc.gov. 

 Sincerely, 

 /RA/ 

 Binesh K. Tharakan, 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 

1600 E LAMAR BLVD 

ARLINGTON, TX 76011-4511 
On April 22, 2015, staff from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a periodic 

meeting with Mr. B.J. Smith, and members of his staff, at the Division of Radiological Health 

offices. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the status of the Mississippi Agreement 

State Program. The NRC was represented by Lisa Dimmick from the NRC Office of Nuclear 

Material Safety and Safeguards, and me. I have enclosed the meeting summary, including any 

specific actions resulting from the discussions, for your review. 

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

you have additional remarks about the meeting, please contact me at 817-200-1116, or by email 

at Binesh.Tharakan@nrc.gov. 

 Sincerely, 

 /RA/ 

 Binesh K. Tharakan, 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 

DISTRIBUTION w/encl: 

Mark Shaffer, RIV 

Linda Howell, RIV 

Laura Dudes, NMSS 

Josephine Piccone, NMSS 

Pamela Henderson, NMSS 

Chris Einberg, NMSS 

Duncan White, NMSS 

Lisa Dimmick, NMSS 

Karen Meyer, NMSS 

Binesh Tharakan, RIV 

Randy Erickson, RIV 

DOCUMENT NAME: S:\DNMS\!SAO\Periodic Meetings\2015\Mississippi\2015 Mississippi 

Periodic Meeting Summary.docx 

ADAMS ACCESSION NUMBER: 

X SUNSI Review 

By: BKTharakan 

ADAMS 

X Yes 

 No 

X Publicly 

Available 

 Non-Publicly 

Available 

X Non-Sensitive 

 Sensitive 

Keyword: 

SUNSI 

Review 

Complete 

OFFICE RIV:SAO 

NAME BKTharakan 

SIGNATURE /RA/ 

DATE 05/14/2015 

OFFICIAL RECORD COPY 
Enclosure 

MISSISSIPPI PERIODIC MEETING SUMMARY 

DATE OF MEETING: APRIL 22.2015 

NRC Attendees Mississippi Attendees 

Binesh Tharakan, RSAO, Region IV B.J. Smith, Director, Radiological Health 

Division 

Lisa Dimmick, IMPEP Coordinator, NMSS Jayson Moak, Director, Radioactive 

Materials Branch 

 Brielle Grantham, Health Physicist 

 Jeff Algee, Health Physicist 

 Robert Sims, Health Physicist 

DISCUSSION: 

The Mississippi Agreement State Program (the Program) is administered by the Mississippi 

Division of Radiological Health (the Division). Within the Division, the Radioactive Materials 

Branch (the Branch) is responsible for regulating the activities of 310 specific licensees 

authorized to use radioactive materials. 

The previous Integrated Material Performance Evaluation Program (IMPEP) review was 

conducted the week of April 15-19, 2013. At the conclusion of the 2013 IMPEP review, the 

team found Mississippi’s performance to be satisfactory for all performance indicators reviewed 

and did not make any recommendations. The Program was found adequate to protect public 

health and safety and compatible with the NRC’s program. 

The review team recommended that the next IMPEP review take place in four years and that a 

Periodic Meeting take place in two years. Therefore, a Periodic Meeting was held on April 22, 

2015. 

The topics discussed at the meeting included: 

Program Strengths: 

The Program management and staff agreed that the small number of staff within the Division 

promotes one on one mentoring sessions, and facilitates positive discussions about licensing, 

inspection, and incident response activities. The staff expressed that the team was a cohesive 

unit and that supervisors were easily approachable and available to discuss regulatory issues 

and staff concerns. A new salary structure was put into place in 2012 which increased salaries 

by as much as 28 percent. The salary structure was developed to help alleviate the Program’s 

inability to retain staff, which was partly due to the low salaries offered by the Program. 

Program management believes that the new salary structure has enhanced the Program’s 

ability to retain staff. Also as a result of previous IMPEP reviews, the Program improved formal 

documentation about its policies and procedures and made them available to all staff members. 

Another program strength discussed was the state-of-the-art radiation monitoring equipment, 

laboratory facilities, and radiological response vehicles the Program has been able to procure 

over the years through various grants from the State and Federal government. In addition, the 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 2 

Enclosure 

State of Mississippi emergency operations facility is a one-of-a-kind facility that is prepared to 

handle several different types of natural and man-made emergencies including radiological 

emergencies. 

Program Weaknesses: 

The radioactive materials program is funded 100 percent by the fees it charges to licensees. 

Operating costs and inflation has increased to the point that the Division has been operating 

with approximately a negative $150,000 balance each year. The Division submitted a proposal 

to the State Legislature to increase fees to approximately 25 percent of the NRC fees; however, 

that bill did not make it out of committee in the State Legislature. The Division is planning to 

submit another proposal for the fiscal year 2017 budget. 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 issues which are considered willful. 

Feedback for NRC: 

The Program indicated that they appreciated the good support provided by NRC Region IV staff 

and the communications between the two agencies. Especially, noteworthy was the improved 

Agreement State Travel and Training website and the more formal and structured nature of 

communications to Agreement States about upcoming training. The Division expressed an 

interest to participate on future IMPEP teams. Ms. Dimmick explained the process of becoming 

an IMPEP team member and upcoming training sessions. 

Staffing and training: 

The Mississippi Program is managed by the Division Director and a Radioactive Materials 

Branch Director. The Division is fully staffed with the Director and four technical staff for a total 

of five full-time equivalents (FTEs). Each technical staff person performs licensing and 

inspections of the State’s 310 licensees with oversight from both the Division Director and the 

Branch Director. The Branch Director is also a fully qualified to license and inspect all license 

types within the State of Mississippi. Two staff members are qualified for all license types 

except for the pool irradiator in the State. A third staff member is qualified for all license types 

except for the irradiator and radiography licensees. The fourth staff member is a new hire that 

has been with the program for three months and is currently going through the training and 

qualification process. Since the 2013 IMPEP, two staff members left the Program and two were 

hired. One of the newly hired staff members was a former employee that was already qualified 

to perform licensing and inspections. The Division Director ensured this individual was 

appropriately recertified to perform licensing actions and inspections in the State. The Division 

Director stated that five FTEs were adequate to implement the program. 

Program reorganizations: 

The Program has not been subject to reorganization since the 2013 IMPEP review. 

Changes in Program budget/funding: 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 3 

Enclosure 

As mentioned above, the Program is funded 100 percent by the fees it charges to licensees. 

Operating costs and inflation has increased to the point that the Program has been operating 

with approximately a negative $100,000 balance each year. The Program continues to 

effectively implement the radioactive materials program and pay salaries and expenses, but 

expressed concern that the current trend could not be sustained long term without an increase 

in fees or alternate funding sources. 

Materials Inspection Program: 

The Division reported that there was one overdue inspection of a radiographer that maintains a 

license in Mississippi but has a main office in another state. They perform radiography at the 

nuclear power plant and come during plant outages. The Division does not have the opportunity 

to inspect this licensee at the required annual frequency because they are not allowed to travel 

out of state to perform an inspection. 

Licensing Program: 

Each member of the staff performs both inspections and licensing actions as assigned. The 

Program noted that licensing actions are tracked on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and that no 

backlogs exist. 

Prior to the last IMPEP, the Division was in the process of adopting the distributed version of 

NRC’s Web-Based licensing (WBL) system known as the Licensing Tracking System (LTS). 

However, since the agreement between the two agencies for the software was signed, the 

Program was unable to maintain the software due to a lack of IT support within the Department 

of Health. There have been several updates and the Program has not been able to keep up 

with the software revisions. Therefore, the Program continues to use a Microsoft Excel 

spreadsheet file to keep track of licensing actions and inspections. 

The NRC staff discussed the possibility of the Program using the NRC hosted version of WBL. 

The Program was interested in this option and will pursue if it’s technically feasible of adopting 

this system. The NRC staff agreed to contact the WBL project manager and provide the 

Program with additional information about how to pursue this option. 

Sealed Source and Device Evaluation Program (SS&D): 

The Program reported that the SS&D Program has been inactive since the time the Program 

became an Agreement State in 1962. The Program intends to return the SS&D Evaluation 

Program portion of the Agreement back to NRC. At the time of this meeting, the letter 

requesting that the NRC resume regulatory authority over the SS&D program was with the 

Governor’s office for the Governor’s signature. 

Regulations and Legislative changes: 

Currently, the Division is up to date on rule promulgation and they do not have any rules that are 

overdue. However, a recent change to the regulation numbering system that was mandated by 

the Secretary of State resulted in the Program having several incorrect references in regulations 
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 4 

Enclosure 

already submitted by the Program. Subsequent to the numbering change, NRC reviewed 

proposed regulations submitted by the Program in 2013 that resulted in over 50 comments due 

to the incorrect references. The Program is working to resolve the comments and resubmit the 

final rules for NRC review. These corrections have slowed down the rulemaking process within 

the Division. Although no rules are currently overdue, several rules need to be submitted for 

NRC review soon, most notably the implementation of 10 CFR 37 physical protection 

requirements due by March 2016. The Division stated it may pursue adding license conditions 

to meet the due date. 

Event reporting, including follow-up and closure information in NMED.

Since the 2013 IMPEP, the Program reported 3 events to NMED. All of the events have been 

followed-up, reviewed and closed by the Program. 

Response to incidents and allegations.

The Program continues to be sensitive to notifications of incidents and allegations. Incidents 

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

safety significance and staff is dispatched to perform onsite investigations as indicated. 

Status of allegations and concerns referred by the NRC for action. 

The Program continues to process allegations as they are received. Since the 2013 Periodic 

Meeting, the NRC has referred two allegations to the Program. Each of the allegations received 

by the Program is being investigated and will be closed when completed. The Program 

continues to be sensitive to issues of identity protection regarding allegers. 

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

The Division issued a license for a pool irradiator used to irradiate oysters to eliminate harmful 

bacteria from the oysters. 

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. 

State’s Mechanisms to Evaluate Performance
Mississippi Periodic Meeting Summary Page 5 

Enclosure 

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

consistency and obtain a final quality check for each regulatory product. The final report or 

licensing action is issued by the Division Director. The Division Director stated that the Program 

plans to initiate self-audits in the future. 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 noted 

that quality assurance is maintained by the staff working closely together to ensure that the 

program is successful. The Program also uses feedback sessions during annual performance 

appraisals to discuss performance of the staff. 

Current NRC initiatives: 

The following NRC initiatives were discussed with the Program: 

• FSME – NMSS Merger including management changes 

• Web-Based Licensing, National Source Tracking System, and the Integrated Source 

Management Portfolio 

• Implementation of NRC’s new materials license reviewer and inspector qualification program 

(IMC 1248) 

• Rulemaking Initiatives and current status of potential changes to 10 CFR 20 and 35 

• Updates on the NUREG 1556 series revisions 

• IMPEP Performance Metrics and upcoming Management Directive changes 

• Merger of the policy statements for Agreement States and the Agreement State Program 

Enhancement Initiatives 

Schedule for the next IMPEP review:

NRC staff recommends that the next IMPEP review be held, as scheduled, in April 2017.