Perspective on DOE Emergency Response

Tom Summers

Vice Chair, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
• Protective Actions

• Communications

• Radiation Protection

• Additional Thoughts

Discussion Points

2
Questions?

3
Discussion with EHSS Emergency Management Assessment Working Group

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Meeting Agenda

11:00 – 11:05 Welcome and Guest Speaker Introductions

11:05 – 11:20 Vice Chair Summers – Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board (DNFSB)

11:20 – 11:30 Question & Answer

11:30 – 11:45 Jamie Clark – Cyber Security, Energy Security, and Emergency Response 

(CESER) Overview

11:45 – 11:55 Question & Answer

11:55 – 12:00 Closing

Suggested emergency response discussion topics

• Introduction

o (I am not aware of how much the interviewers know about the DNFSB or our 

purview.)

• Protective Actions

o Issues with implementing protective actions 

▪ Workers failing to evacuate/shelter, e.g., loitering in break room

▪ Worker accountability taking over an hour to complete

o Public address systems at some sites are degraded

o May be correlated with workforce turnover/inexperience

• Communication & Establishing a Common Operating Picture

o Most common issue. Human error is unavoidable but good communication 

practices will mitigate the effects.

o Inconsistent use of three-way communications

o Avoidable misunderstandings of conditions in the field

o Lack of joint briefings between response groups

• Radiation Protection During Emergency Response

o Incorrect selection/use of instruments

o Miscommunicating radiological units 

o Using terms other responders don’t understand

o Radcon personnel need to be able to act as first responders and be integrated with 

EROs – often not the case.

• DOE Oversight may be a topic of interest.

o Recent EA-33 assessment of emergency management program offices
o Nine years after Board Recommendation 2014-1 was issued, DOE/NNSA is still 

wrestling with how to ensure Departmental leadership understands site EP&R 

program issues (e.g., establishing sufficiently-detailed reporting metrics).

• Miscellaneous points to consider:

o Readiness Assurance programs are often designed around compliance with the 

Order rather than assessing implementation or effectiveness.

o Sites would benefit from improved use of performance metrics and trending of 

emergency response performance.

o Some sites rely on volunteer EROs. Some sites compensate ERO members.

• Positives to consider:

o Investments in new EOCs, fire stations

o Involving stakeholders early in upcoming DOE Order 151.1 revision

o Sites are generally receptive to receiving DNFSB staff feedback

DOE Exercises observed by Mr. Summers

(links are to the respective OTD group weeklies)

• SRS (Tritium Extraction Facility) – Explosion, Tritium Release – May 2022

• Y-12 (Building 9212) – Uranium Fire – June 2022

• LANL (Plutonium Facility) – Nuclear Criticality – July 2022

• WIPP (Waste Handling Building) – Airplane Crash – September 2022

• NNSS (Radioactive Waste Management Complex) – Malevolent Event – March 2023

• Hanford (PNNL Radiochemical Processing Laboratory) – Nuclear Criticality – May 2023

• Upcoming: Pantex, LLNL (Superblock), Y-12 (severe event)

2022 EMI-SIG Speech – “Safety and Readiness Assurance” 

(link to transcript) (slides)

Main Topics: 

• Workforce turnover, proficiency, and ERO experience 

• Implementation of protective actions

• Exercise design and realism

• Self-criticism and self-evaluation

• Federal staffing

• Communications and resiliency

• Establishing performance metrics (beyond what’s required by the Order)
Staff’s Summary of FY22 Emergency Exercise Observations

(link to staff report) (slides)

Executive Summary: “In fiscal year 2022 (FY22), members of the Board’s staff (staff 

team) conducted a series of on-site observations of DOE/NNSA emergency exercises. This staff 

report summarizes common issues of concern and trends identified in FY22 based on these 

observations. Areas of concern include reduced responder proficiency due to COVID-19-related 

exercise pauses, poor workforce implementation of protective actions and accountability, lack of 

realism in simulations and response indicators, poor or inappropriate exercise control, weaknesses 

in incident command and fire department response, weaknesses in radiation protection response, 

and general issues with site and responder communications. DOE/NNSA and its contractors have 

been generally successful in capturing the issues noted here in respective after action reports; 

however, these should be areas for continued attention by the staff team in FY23.”

Quotes from EMI-SIG about purpose/scope of the assessment

• Frank Rose, Principal Deputy Administrator of NNSA: “DOE senior leadership requested 

an independent, third party study of emergency management and response from across 

the enterprise. This study has been underway since January and the study team has been 

reading directives and conducting interviews with program offices, labs, plants, and sites, 

and organizational elements to ensure the information garnered reflects the whole 

emergency management enterprise’s experience. If you are asked to participate in this 

process, please be brutally honest about not only what we do well, but what we can do 

better in the future. The assessor will present recommendations later this summer on how 

we can improve efficiency and reduce redundancy in emergency management across the 

enterprise and we look forward to sharing and acting upon the study’s findings.” 

• John Juskie, NNSA Associate Administrator for Emergency Operations (NA-40): “DOE, 

in coordination with NNSA, has commissioned this third party study to look at 

emergency response across the DOE and NNSA complex. The goal of the study is to 

help as an enterprise in understanding how we can improve our emergency response 

capabilities, simplify processes and structures, and increase our effectiveness to our 

customers and stakeholders.”