Comprehensive evaluations examine major environmental, safety, and health issues in a single multidisciplinary assessment that is efficient and produces a comprehensive picture of program strengths, vulnerabilities, and priorities. These evaluations are based on formal protocols and procedures designed to assure balanced and validated conclusions. The assessment found that the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory has instituted an effective safety management program. Its effectiveness is largely due to a competent workforce combined with innovative management in the Idaho Operations Office and Lockheed Martin, the operating contractor. Roles, responsibilities, and authorities are generally well understood, and procedures are in place to hold managers accountable for safety performance.
Workers are knowledgeable of and actively involved in ensuring safe operations.
This culture and teamwork are evident in the successful decommissioning of more than 25 facilities, with an excellent safety record. It is our hope and expectation that focused and validated oversight evaluations of management performance, such as this one, will hold managers accountable for safety in a way that is fair and effective while providing DOE managers with information and analyses that can help make DOE safer. The evaluation selectively sampled various INEL management systems, programs, facility operations and activities, and engineering systems that are considered essential to worker, public, and environmental safety. These principles, and their associated criteria, represent the template for an effective safety management program. INEL's mission is to integrate engineering, applied science, and operations in an environmentally conscious, safe, and cost-effective manner to solve problems relating to the environment, energy production and use, U.S. economic competitiveness, and national security.