Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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The Department's Nuclear Safety Program starts with the clear
assignment of responsibility for safety, to DOE and contractor line
managers, in both headquarters and in our field offices.
Independent safety oversight organizations at these levels assure
that managers and employees fully adhere to safe practices. DOE
has in effect a rapid, effective communications and emergency response
capability to respond to emergencies at all nuclear facilities,
and this clearly involves the public.
In September 1985, Secretary Herrington ordered a series of further
initiatives to strengthen both the Environment, Safety and
Health Organization within the Department, and assure an excellent
safety record will be continued at the Department. These, of
course, included a new assistant secretary, responsible solely for
environment, safety and health and reporting to the Secretary,
with no programmatic responsibility.
It also included technical safety appraisals that are in depth and
multidisciplined appraisals of all of our high and moderate hazard
nuclear facilities. These have already begun and have in fact been
conducted at several of our facilities, including the N-reactor.
The technical safety appraisals cover organization and administration,
operations, maintenance, training and certification, auxiliary
systems, emergency readiness, technical support, security and
safety interface, experimental activities, facilities safety review, nuclear
criticality safety, radiological protection, personnel protection,
and fire protection.
These actions, I might add, by Secretary Herrington, are in addition
to the existing strong safety program at the Department.
For example, my office conducts about 100 safety appraisals per
year at all levels; that is, management, contractor, and direct-facility
appraisals.
The combination of good safety practices, a sharing of experience,
effective independent review by environment, safety and
health people, provides a basis for strength and confidence in the
Department's system and the results, I believe, can be seen in our
safety record, which has been excellent.
In response to the incident in the Soviet Union at Chernobyl,
Secretary Herrington has taken additional steps. He has, in fact,
accelerated the schedule for the technical safety appraisals of our
major production reactors, including the N-reactor, and that, in
fact, has been performed, and he asked my office to conduct two
additional reviews of its reactor.
The first, a special safety review of the fire protection system
and the graphite moderator, and the safety of the reactor's confinement
system has been accomplished. The design review, which is I
think fourth or fifth in a series of design reviews of the N-reactor,
and is designed, itself, to be very comprehensive, is ongoing at this
time and is expected to be completed in early July.
In addition to the reviews of my office, Secretary Herrington has
asked certain independent experts to conduct an analysis and a
review of the issues raised by the Soviet incident, in particular,
with respect to the N-reactor and to provide him with their views.
This review has begun and is ongoing. He has also asked the National
Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineer-