6938 Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 25 / Wednesday, February 6, 2008 / Notices 

Contracting Officer’s Representative, 

and date requested war souvenir 

registration. 

RECORD SOURCE CATEGORIES: 

From the individual. 

EXEMPTIONS CLAIMED FOR THE SYSTEM: 

None. 

[FR Doc. E8–2145 Filed 2–5–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 5001–06–P 

DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES 

SAFETY BOARD 

[Recommendation 2008–1] 

Safety Classification of Fire Protection 

Systems 

AGENCY: Defense Nuclear Facilities 

Safety Board. 

ACTION: Notice, recommendation. 

SUMMARY: The Defense Nuclear 

Facilities Safety Board has made a 

recommendation to the Secretary of 

Energy pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 2286a(a)(5) 

which addresses the safety classification 

of fire protection systems at defense 

nuclear facilities in the Department of 

Energy complex. 

DATES: Comments, data, views, or 

arguments concerning the 

recommendation are due on or before 

March 7, 2008. 

ADDRESS: Send comments, data, views, 

or arguments concerning this 

recommendation to: Defense Nuclear 

Facilities Safety Board, 625 Indiana 

Avenue, NW., Suite 700, Washington, 

DC 20004–2001. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Brian Grosner or Andrew L. Thibadeau 

at the address above or telephone (202) 

694–7000. 

Dated: January 31, 2008. 

A.J. Eggenberger, 

Chairman. 

Recommendation 2008–1 to the 

Secretary of Energy Safety 

Classification of Fire Protection 

Systems Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 

2286a(a)(5) Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 

As Amended 

Date: January 29, 2008. 

Fire protection systems in defense 

nuclear facilities have generally not 

been designated as ‘‘safety-class’’ as that 

term pertains to protection of the public 

from accidents. Such designation would 

bring into play a variety of Department 

of Energy (DOE) rules and directives, 

among them DOE Order 420.1B, Facility 

Safety, and DOE Guide 420.1–1, 

Nonreactor Nuclear Safety Design 

Criteria and Explosives Safety Criteria. 

While these documents describe general 

requirements for safety-class systems, 

e.g., redundancy and quality assurance, 

they do not provide specific guidance 

on how a fire protection system such as 

an automatic sprinkler system should be 

designed, operated, and maintained. 

Accordingly, when DOE’s Savannah 

River Site contractor proposed in the 

late 1990s that certain fire protection 

systems employed in the site’s tritium 

facilities be designated as safety-class 

(and thus credited with protecting the 

public from accidents involving an 

offsite release of tritium), both DOE and 

the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety 

Board (Board) were forced to conduct 

reviews of the proposal on an ad hoc 

basis without reference to specific 

guidance. The Board’s review led to a 

March 18, 1999, letter to the Secretary 

of Energy agreeing with the 

reclassification of certain fire protection 

systems at the site’s tritium facilities. 

The technical basis for the Board’s 

agreement is found in the report 

appended to the letter: 

Controlling incipient fires through 

operability of a more reliable fire suppression 

system would make large fires less likely to 

occur. To substantially reduce the predicted 

likelihood of such fires to the ‘‘extremely 

unlikely’’ frequency range, WSRC reclassified 

the fire suppression (and some detection) 

systems as safety class. TSRs will be applied 

to fire protection systems falling in this 

category * * * WSRC acknowledges that 

installed fire suppression systems will not 

meet criteria such as redundancy or nucleargrade quality assurance, nor are these 

systems seismically qualified. Imposition of 

safety-class requirements means that, in 

addition to meeting National Fire Protection 

Association (NFPA) code requirements, 

higher levels of maintenance and 

surveillance and of operability for these 

systems will be addressed in the TSRs. The 

intent is to increase the reliability of the 

suppression systems to maintain the SAR 

assumption that full-facility fires will be 

extremely unlikely. The TSRs will require 

that immediate actions be taken, such as 

cessation of operations and posting of a fire 

watch, should a safety-class fire suppression 

system be taken out of service or found to be 

inoperative. 

In June of 2000, the Board addressed 

more broadly the safety classification of 

fire protection systems. In Section 3.3 of 

Technical Report DNFSB/TECH-27, Fire 

Protection at Defense Nuclear Facilities, 

the Board stated: 

Designation of safety-class or safetysignificant structures, systems, and 

components (SSCs), administrative controls, 

and engineered design features is determined 

through a prescribed methodology (DOE–

STD–3009–94, [U.S. Department of Energy, 

1994] and DOE G 420.1–2, [U.S. Department 

of Energy, 2000]) that relies to a large extent 

on the engineering judgment of the safety 

analysts and designers. Overall, the objective 

is to prevent a fire, or to control and confine 

a fire should one occur. Methods of 

accomplishing this objective are set forth in 

NFPA codes that have been a requirement of 

the DOE program for decades. It is essential 

that decisions concerning the application of 

these codes and the selection of features and 

controls be made by qualified and 

experienced fire protection engineers. 

This section of the report provided 

additional guidance on application of 

these principles to the control of 

ignition sources, use of passive fire 

barriers, suppression of incipient fires, 

minimization of transient combustibles, 

and enhancement and protection of 

confinement systems such as ventilation 

through HEPA (high efficiency 

particulate air) filters. The report 

acknowledged the Board’s letter 

regarding Savannah River’s tritium 

facilities and encouraged the safety 

designation of suppression systems 

when they are relied on for critical 

safety functions: ‘‘Fire sprinkler systems 

relied upon for worker safety and public 

protection should be classified as safetyclass or safety-significant SSCs because 

they provide the most effective, 

automated, and quick response to a 

fire.’’ (Report, p. 3–3) The report noted 

that the Los Alamos National Laboratory 

(LANL) had identified the fire sprinkler 

system in the Chemistry and Metallurgy 

Research Facility as a vital system and 

had begun an effort to inspect and test 

the system for functional performance. 

Subsequent to the Board’s 1999 letter 

and 2000 technical report, DOE 

expanded its reliance on fire protection 

systems as primary lines of defense 

against accidents. For example, the 

following projects initially planned or 

reclassified fire protection systems as 

safety-class or safety-significant: 

• Chemistry and Metallurgy Research 

Replacement Project, LANL. 

• Device Assembly Facility, Nevada 

Test Site. 

• Building 9212, Y–12 National 

Security Complex. 

• Explosive Bays and Cells, Pantex 

Plant. 

• Building 332, Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory. 

• Highly Enriched Uranium Materials 

Facility, Y–12 National Security 

Complex. 

• Uranium Processing Facility, Y–12 

National Security Complex. 

• K-Area Container Surveillance and 

Storage Capability, Savannah River Site. 

Although it should be clear from the 

Board’s earlier statements that it can 

support reliance on fire protection 

systems as primary safety measures, the 

Board is no longer comfortable with 


pwalker on PROD1PC71 with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 73, No. 25 / Wednesday, February 6, 2008 / Notices 6939 

such widespread reliance in the 

continued absence of specific criteria for 

the design and operation of such 

systems. At this time, DOE’s fire 

protection guidance documents do not 

provide design and operational criteria 

for fire protection systems designated as 

safety-class or safety-significant. This 

lack of guidance makes design of new 

facilities more difficult and timeconsuming and renders problematic the 

assessment of proposed enhancements 

to fire protection systems in existing 

facilities. In the latter case, possible 

upgrades to existing systems can be 

evaluated using a procedure developed 

by the Energy Facility Contractors 

Group (EFCOG), Safety System Design 

Adequacy (August 2004). Proper 

application of this procedure demands 

that an existing system be compared 

with ‘‘a set of appropriate design, 

quality, or maintenance requirements, 

specifically including applicable current 

codes and standards.’’ At present, DOE 

does not have a set of requirements that 

would permit use of the EFCOG 

procedure. 

Lack of suitable requirements and 

guidance does not pose an immediate 

safety issue, because each separate 

project listed above can be evaluated on 

an ad hoc basis both by DOE and by the 

Board. However, this unstructured 

approach is wasteful of DOE and Board 

resources and prevents the sharing of 

technical knowledge and engineering 

solutions throughout the complex. More 

importantly, the Board’s enabling 

legislation, 42 U.S.C. 2286a(a)(1) 

requires that it 

* * * recommend to the Secretary of 

Energy those specific measures that should 

be adopted to ensure that public health and 

safety are adequately protected. The Board 

shall include in its recommendations 

necessary changes in the content and 

implementation of such standards, as well as 

matters on which additional data or 

additional research is needed. 

Because the Department has chosen to 

increase its reliance on fire protection 

systems as primary safety systems, the 

Board concludes that the Department 

should without delay develop standards 

in this area. These standards should be 

sufficiently specific to guide both the 

design of new fire protection systems 

and the reclassification of existing 

systems. All of the necessary attributes 

of a safety-class or safety-significant fire 

protection system should be identified, 

leaving room for engineering judgment 

and innovative approaches in achieving 

high reliability and quality. 

The Board observes that work on 

revising a key fire protection directive, 

DOE–STD–1066–99, Fire Protection 

Design Criteria, is expected to 

commence early in 2008 and be 

completed by the end of the year. 

Incorporation of suitable guidance for 

safety classification of fire protection 

systems in this standard would be a 

good starting point for carrying out the 

purposes of this Recommendation. 

Other guides that may need 

enhancement or revision include DOE 

Guide 420.1–1, Nonreactor Nuclear 

Safety Design Criteria and Explosives 

Safety Criteria, and DOE Guide 420.1–

3, Implementation Guide for DOE Fire 

Protection and Emergency Services 

Programs. Safety classification of fire 

protection systems may necessitate 

changes to other DOE orders or 

directives. 

Pursuant to its statutory mandate to 

recommend needed changes in DOE’s 

standards for safety at defense nuclear 

facilities, the Board recommends that 

DOE: 

1. Develop design and operational 

criteria for safety-class and safetysignificant fire protection systems. 

2. Use the revision of DOE–STD–

1066–99, Fire Protection Design Criteria, 

as a starting point to provide suitable 

guidance for safety classification of fire 

protection systems. The revision to this 

standard must incorporate: 

a. Design approaches for a variety of 

fire protection systems, e.g., automatic 

sprinklers, gaseous suppression, alarm, 

detection, and passive barriers, that can 

be used to achieve safety-class or safetysignificant designation. 

b. Guidance on technical safety 

requirements and administrative 

controls, in areas such as maintenance, 

tests, and configuration control, so as to 

ensure the operability of safety-class 

and safety-significant fire protection 

systems. 

3. Identify design codes and standards 

for safety-class and safety-significant 

fire protection systems and their 

components, and incorporate them into 

DOE Guide 420.1–1, Nonreactor 

Nuclear Safety Design Criteria and 

Explosives Safety Criteria. 

4. Modify other DOE directives and 

standards as necessary to ensure 

consistency with the new guidance for 

fire protection systems. 

A.J. Eggenberger, 

Chairman. 

[FR Doc. E8–2185 Filed 2–5–08; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3670–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Office of Elementary and Secondary 

Education; Overview Information; 

Indian Education—Demonstration 

Grants for Indian Children; Notice 

Inviting Applications for New Awards 

for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance 

(CFDA) Number: 84.299A. 

DATES: Applications Available: February 

6, 2008. 

Deadline for Transmittal of 

Applications: March 7, 2008. 

Deadline for Intergovernmental 

Review: April 7, 2008. 

Full Text of Announcement 

I. Funding Opportunity Description 

Purpose of Program: The purpose of 

the Demonstration Grants for Indian 

Children program is to provide financial 

assistance to projects that develop, test, 

and demonstrate the effectiveness of 

services and programs to improve the 

educational opportunities and 

achievement of preschool, elementary, 

and secondary Indian students. 

Priorities: This competition contains 

two absolute priorities and two 

competitive preference priorities. In 

accordance with 34 CFR 75.105(b)(2)(ii), 

the absolute priorities are from the 

regulations for this program (34 CFR 

263.21(c)(1) and (3)). In accordance with 

34 CFR 75.105(b)(2)(iv), the competitive 

preference priorities are from sections 

7121 and 7143 of the Elementary and 

Secondary Education Act of 1965, as 

amended (ESEA) (20 U.S.C. 

7441(d)(1)(B) and 7473). 

Absolute Priorities: For FY 2008 these 

priorities are absolute priorities. Under 

34 CFR 75.105(c)(3), we consider only 

applications that meet one or both of the 

following priorities. 

These priorities are: 

Absolute Priority One 

School readiness projects that provide 

age appropriate educational programs 

and language skills to three- and fouryear-old Indian students to prepare 

them for successful entry into school at 

the kindergarten school level. 

Absolute Priority Two 

College preparatory programs for 

secondary school students designed to 

increase competency and skills in 

challenging subject matters, including 

math and science, to enable Indian 

students to transition successfully to 

postsecondary education. 

Competitive Preference Priorities: For 

FY 2008, these priorities are competitive 

preference priorities. Under 34 CFR 

75.105(c)(2)(i) we award up to an 


pwalker on PROD1PC71 with NOTICES