ECA Update: July 9, 2014
Published: Wed, 07/09/14
Seattle Times
Don't dump this on us
Augusta Chronicle
TV show to highlight lives of scientists behind Manhattan Project
KOAT Albuquerque
|
Secretary Moniz and Deputy Secretary Poneman Announce EM and NNSA Leadership Transitions
DOE
July 9, 2014
Dear Colleagues,
After three years of dedicated service leading the Office of Environmental Management (EM), Dave Huizenga will be returning to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and his role of Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, effective July 10, 2014.
As head of EM, Dave successfully led the program through complex technical, regulatory, and fiscal challenges. From day one, Dave made working with stakeholders a priority, which was a key to EM's continued success over the past three years. EM's accomplishments during Dave's tenure include:
-Leading efforts to begin turning radioactive waste into glass as soon as practicable at Hanford while resolving the remaining technical issues at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, the Department of Energy's (DOE) largest capital project;
-Closing four high-level waste tanks at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, the first tanks closed across the complex since 1997;
-Charting a path forward to use the H-Canyon at SRS to achieve significant life-cycle savings while blending down HEU in support of the nation's nuclear non-proliferation goals and objectives; and
-Completing demolition of the K-25 gaseous diffusion building at Oak Ridge in Tennessee over one year ahead of schedule. K-25 was the world's largest building under one roof at the time of its construction
We would like to express our deep gratitude to Dave for his leadership of EM and know he will continue to be an effective leader for NNSA, furthering the nation's nuclear non-proliferation goals. To provide continuity, I have asked that Dave, in his new role, lead discussions with the State of Washington on the path forward for the tank waste mission at Hanford and serve on the Secretary's Working Group with the State of Nevada.
Additionally, we are pleased to announce that Mark Whitney will serve as EM's Acting Assistant Secretary, effective July 10, 2014. Mark has been EM's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary since May 18. He is a proven leader with an exceptional ability to develop high-performing organizations and teams. Mark has experience leading field operations and a deep understanding of headquarters operations, and we look forward to working closely with him in this capacity.
A member of the Senior Executive Service since 2005, Mark has served the Department in a number of key roles. He was Manager of EM's Oak Ridge Office and Acting Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at NNSA. Other positions Mark held within
NNSA include Assistant Deputy Administrator (ADA) for Nonproliferation and International Security and Acting ADA for Fissile Material Disposition. Mark also served as Executive Director of DOE's Moscow Office.
NNSA include Assistant Deputy Administrator (ADA) for Nonproliferation and International Security and Acting ADA for Fissile Material Disposition. Mark also served as Executive Director of DOE's Moscow Office.
Please join us in thanking Dave for his leadership over the last three years and in congratulating Mark on his new role as Acting Assistant Secretary.
Sincerely,
Secretary Moniz and Deputy Secretary Poneman
Secretary Moniz and Deputy Secretary Poneman
Obama nominates defense adviser to No. 2 spot at DOE
President Obama on Tuesday nominated top White House defense adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall to be deputy secretary of the Energy Department.
Sherwood-Randall's nomination to the No. 2 spot at the Department of Energy (DOE) comes after Daniel Poneman announced he would step down in June after five years at the post.
Sherwood-Randall has served as adviser to the president on nuclear weapons and arms control since 2013. Prior to that she advised Obama on European affairs.
If confirmed by the Senate, Sherwood-Randall's expertise on European and Russian policy would help the DOE at a time when Europe is struggling with limited oil and natural gas supplies from Russia.
Starting in 1994, Sherwood-Randall served as deputy assistant secretary for the Defense Department on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia for two years.
Sherwood-Randall's nomination to the No. 2 spot at the Department of Energy (DOE) comes after Daniel Poneman announced he would step down in June after five years at the post.
Sherwood-Randall has served as adviser to the president on nuclear weapons and arms control since 2013. Prior to that she advised Obama on European affairs.
If confirmed by the Senate, Sherwood-Randall's expertise on European and Russian policy would help the DOE at a time when Europe is struggling with limited oil and natural gas supplies from Russia.
Starting in 1994, Sherwood-Randall served as deputy assistant secretary for the Defense Department on Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia for two years.
Establishment ofthe Office ofIndependent Enterprise Assessments
DOE Memo
June 27, 2014
FROM: ERNEST J. MONIZ, SECRETARY OF ENERGY
DANIEL B. PONEMAN, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ENERGY
DANIEL B. PONEMAN, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ENERGY
SUBJECT: Establishment of the Office of Independent Enterprise Assessments
The new Office of Independent Enterprise Assessments (IEA) became operational on May 4,
2014. The establishment of IEA reflects our commitment to the health and safety of DOE and
contractor employees and the public, environmental stewardship, and protection of the
Department's national security assets. That commitment is an integral and urgent part of our
mission.
2014. The establishment of IEA reflects our commitment to the health and safety of DOE and
contractor employees and the public, environmental stewardship, and protection of the
Department's national security assets. That commitment is an integral and urgent part of our
mission.
IEA will provide an internal management assessment function that will examine activities
relating to the environment, health, safety and security of the DOE enterprise, and will provide
recommendations in support of- and pursuant to guidance from - the Secretary and Deputy
Secretary. This will include assessing DOE operations in safety (nuclear and industrial), security
(cyber and physical), and other critical functions. In order to assure its independence, IEA
reports directly to the Office of the Secretary.
relating to the environment, health, safety and security of the DOE enterprise, and will provide
recommendations in support of- and pursuant to guidance from - the Secretary and Deputy
Secretary. This will include assessing DOE operations in safety (nuclear and industrial), security
(cyber and physical), and other critical functions. In order to assure its independence, IEA
reports directly to the Office of the Secretary.
Assessments conducted by IEA are intended to determine whether the Department is meeting its
standards of performance, including requirements established in regulations and DOE Directives.
On behalf of the Secretary, IEA implements the enforcement functions over DOE contractors
that the Congress vested in the Department regarding worker safety and health, nuclear safety,
and information security in order to hold our contractors to the same levels of safety and security
that we expect of our DOE line managers. These IEA activities complement, but do not replace,
the responsibility of DOE line management-reporting through the Under Secretaries-to oversee
contractor performance in complying with environment, health, safety and security requirements.
standards of performance, including requirements established in regulations and DOE Directives.
On behalf of the Secretary, IEA implements the enforcement functions over DOE contractors
that the Congress vested in the Department regarding worker safety and health, nuclear safety,
and information security in order to hold our contractors to the same levels of safety and security
that we expect of our DOE line managers. These IEA activities complement, but do not replace,
the responsibility of DOE line management-reporting through the Under Secretaries-to oversee
contractor performance in complying with environment, health, safety and security requirements.
IEA will undertake the following tasks:
-Analyze DOE operations for risk management and performance, including review of line
oversight and contractor assurance results.
-Perform regulatory enforcement as required by federal statute.
-Conduct assessments and investigations, analyze results, and report findings and
recommendations to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary.
-Prepare reports and share lessons learned pursuant to Secretarial guidance.
managers and staff, and documents or other data.
The establishment of the IEA is not intended to affect the independent statutory oversight
responsibilities of the Office of the Inspector General and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board.
responsibilities of the Office of the Inspector General and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board.
We are excited to launch the new IEA. Working together in a spirit of continuous improvement
we will enhance our management and performance in order to justify the confidence of the
public, external oversight bodies, and our own workers in our ability to successfully execute our
mission responsibilities.
we will enhance our management and performance in order to justify the confidence of the
public, external oversight bodies, and our own workers in our ability to successfully execute our
mission responsibilities.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment to fulfilling our vital mission safely and securely.
Guest: Make Hanford part of a Manhattan Project District national park: Why the U.S. should preserve Hanford in the Manhattan Project District as part of the national park system, according to guest columnist Kathleen Flenniken
Seattle Times
July 4, 2014
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2023988103_kathleenflennikenopedmanhanttanproject05xml.html
July 4, 2014
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2023988103_kathleenflennikenopedmanhanttanproject05xml.html
THE atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed and haunt the world.
Whatever our stances on the necessity, or travesty, of those bombs, radioactive waste storage or environmental damage, all our citizens can acknowledge that the development of atomic weapons in World War II altered human history.
The Manhattan Project brought together physicists, engineers, laborers, secretaries, who worked in complete secrecy (and often ignorance) in three far-flung locations: Los Alamos, N.M., Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford in Washington. Nearly all the participants are gone now. Our nation has a narrow window of opportunity to lock their critical story into our national consciousness by preserving the Manhattan Project District, and its key physical plants, as part of our national park system.
I was born and grew up in Richland, the bedroom community for Hanford in Southeastern Washington state. Mine was a one-company hometown. The company -- the U.S. government, through its contractors -- manufactured plutonium that fueled the Nagasaki bomb and two-thirds of the nation's nuclear arsenal.
I was born and grew up in Richland, the bedroom community for Hanford in Southeastern Washington state. Mine was a one-company hometown. The company -- the U.S. government, through its contractors -- manufactured plutonium that fueled the Nagasaki bomb and two-thirds of the nation's nuclear arsenal.
I look back at that childhood, which was idyllic in many ways, with cookie-cutter houses, good schools and safe streets full of playmates, and try to understand our community's part of atomic history. I try to make peace with our culture of secrecy, our insistence that nothing at Hanford was ever wrong or unsafe, our conviction that outsiders didn't understand and our scientists always knew best; just as I struggle to make sense of those who portray the entire Hanford workforce -- my friends and neighbors -- as evil.
The Manhattan Project National Historic Park Act is not about taking sides. It is not a glorification of the bomb or a claim for our moral or scientific superiority. It is a means to preserve the ground where our world changed so that generations to come can remember and continue these essential conversations. Our national parks can preserve key physical structures for generations to come and render this story -- regardless of whether one approves of it -- more tangible and personal for those who visit.
The Manhattan Project National Historic Park Act is not about taking sides. It is not a glorification of the bomb or a claim for our moral or scientific superiority. It is a means to preserve the ground where our world changed so that generations to come can remember and continue these essential conversations. Our national parks can preserve key physical structures for generations to come and render this story -- regardless of whether one approves of it -- more tangible and personal for those who visit.
I've had the rare opportunity to tour the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor, one of the facilities
that would be part of a national park site. B Reactor was built in 13 months in secret under trying conditions, with no guarantee it would work -- but it did.
that would be part of a national park site. B Reactor was built in 13 months in secret under trying conditions, with no guarantee it would work -- but it did.
Nothing speaks quite as loudly as standing in the presence of that awe-inspiring, frightening, now-silent warhorse, rising up 40 feet high, the very essence of intricate and aged engineering -- then stepping outside where nearby cleanup continues on the most contaminated waste site in our hemisphere. It's an unforgettable experience. Imagine the impact on our children, who might feel before they enter that this history has little to do with them. Think how suddenly they would learn they are wrong.
The U.S. National Park Service is one of the jewels of our national government and one of only a handful of institutions that ignite respect and pride in a broad cross-section of our citizens. They preserve our natural and national history -- the story of ourselves -- and make it available to generations to come, long after those who lived it are gone. They do it without an agenda.
The U.S. National Park Service is one of the jewels of our national government and one of only a handful of institutions that ignite respect and pride in a broad cross-section of our citizens. They preserve our natural and national history -- the story of ourselves -- and make it available to generations to come, long after those who lived it are gone. They do it without an agenda.
Our time to act is limited: So many of our Manhattan Project guides are lost each year. The time is now, 70 years after B Reactor first came online, before it's too late to acknowledge the workers who altered world history. Legislation recently passed the U.S. House and now faces consideration in the Senate. Our country owes this to those citizens who gave so much of their lives, and to the generations beyond us.
Don't dump this on us
Augusta Chronicle
July 6, 2014
http://chronicle.augusta.com/opinion/editorials/2014-07-06/dont-dump-us
Augusta Chronicle
July 6, 2014
http://chronicle.augusta.com/opinion/editorials/2014-07-06/dont-dump-us
Savannah River Site is not now, nor has it ever been, a dump for high-level nuclear waste.
But as long as the nation dithers on the mothballed Yucca Mountain repository, a dump is precisely what SRS moves a step closer to becoming under a proposal to import nearly one ton of highly-enriched uranium from Germany.
The Department of Energy's plan to ship 900 kilograms of used reactor fuel for processing and disposal at SRS, ostensibly for nuclear nonproliferation reasons, is out for public review and comment until July 21.
What the public should realize is that it doesn't matter which of the three "disposal" options the DOE
pursues at SRS. The end result is the same - long-term storage at a facility that never was intended to be a high-level waste repository.
This plan essentially turns SRS, which has 713,000 people living within a 50-mile radius, into a nuclear Roach Motel. Highly radioactive material checks in, but it doesn't check out.
The end of the road for such waste was supposed to be the deep-geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, a cavern carved from igneous rock 1,000 feet below ground in a desolate section of Nevada desert on a federal reservation larger than the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey combined.
That project - funded since 1982, selected in a process established by law in 1987 and under construction since 1994 - was summarily killed in 2009 during one of the first acts of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Today, the $15 billion facility gathers dust, as does the 2012 report by Obama's "Blue Ribbon Commission" on nuclear waste, whose suggested Yucca Mountain "alternatives" include building interim regional storage sites to hold waste for up to 100 years.
Make no mistake - when this administration says "disposal" at SRS, it means just that. Permanent storage is the only option as long as Yucca Mountain remains off the table.
Sorry, Washington, but this community never signed up for that.
Backers of the importation plan, which include the Energy Department and area chambers of commerce, say the deal simply repatriates U.S.-originated uranium sent abroad during the Eisenhower-era "Atoms for Peace" research program to share nuclear technology with the world.
Opponents say Germany - which also lacks a long-term repository - simply is trying to rid itself of
high-level waste by reclassifying commercial units as "research" reactors to make the material legal for export. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board already has voiced opposition to bringing spent commercial fuel to the site.
But politics and semantics aside, transporting any high-level waste to SRS without an exit strategy
simply is a bad deal for the community any way you slice it. Where's the upside?
The area this work would occur, H-Canyon, already is federally funded. Beyond a handful of research
jobs at the Savannah River National Laboratory - which developed the technology to extract uranium from the irradiated graphite fuel balls - who else benefits? The German government? A few shipping companies?
If we're missing something here, please, let us know. To date, there has been no economic-benefit analysis. And how extensive has the environmental study been?
This page has long been a proponent of SRS' defense and environmental missions, including the proposed mixed-oxide fuel facility that the Obama administration dubiously placed in "cold standby" earlier this year. We see clear value in that project, which would remove 34 metric tons of Soviet-era, weapons-grade plutonium from Russia and convert it to a form of fuel for nuclear power plants.
But there is little value in importing what is arguably commercial waste from a wealthy political ally
when the United States has no permanent waste-disposal solution of its own.
The German deal would add as many as 100 canisters of high-level vitrified waste to the 3,800 already
sitting at SRS with nowhere to go, and it could open the door for disposal agreements with other nations as well.
The DOE proposal is salt in the wound President Obama inflicted five years ago when he erased three decades of scientific study, legislative toil and taxpayer expenditures, all for the express purpose of improving the political fortunes of a lone senator from Clark County, Nev.
In addition to all the high-level waste being warehoused at federal facilities nationwide, this
administration's nuclear-waste policy vacuum also slams the door on America's commercial nuclear
power industry, whose plants are sitting on 72,000 tons of used nuclear fuel that has no place to go.
And after all that, this administration has the gall to ask us to accept hazardous waste from a foreign nation?
Until the political winds change and Yucca Mountain is put back on track, the Augusta-Aiken metro
area's response to taking on "disposal" duties outlined in the DOE-Germany deal should be a resounding "no."
The Department of Energy's plan to ship 900 kilograms of used reactor fuel for processing and disposal at SRS, ostensibly for nuclear nonproliferation reasons, is out for public review and comment until July 21.
What the public should realize is that it doesn't matter which of the three "disposal" options the DOE
pursues at SRS. The end result is the same - long-term storage at a facility that never was intended to be a high-level waste repository.
This plan essentially turns SRS, which has 713,000 people living within a 50-mile radius, into a nuclear Roach Motel. Highly radioactive material checks in, but it doesn't check out.
The end of the road for such waste was supposed to be the deep-geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, a cavern carved from igneous rock 1,000 feet below ground in a desolate section of Nevada desert on a federal reservation larger than the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Jersey combined.
That project - funded since 1982, selected in a process established by law in 1987 and under construction since 1994 - was summarily killed in 2009 during one of the first acts of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Today, the $15 billion facility gathers dust, as does the 2012 report by Obama's "Blue Ribbon Commission" on nuclear waste, whose suggested Yucca Mountain "alternatives" include building interim regional storage sites to hold waste for up to 100 years.
Make no mistake - when this administration says "disposal" at SRS, it means just that. Permanent storage is the only option as long as Yucca Mountain remains off the table.
Sorry, Washington, but this community never signed up for that.
Backers of the importation plan, which include the Energy Department and area chambers of commerce, say the deal simply repatriates U.S.-originated uranium sent abroad during the Eisenhower-era "Atoms for Peace" research program to share nuclear technology with the world.
Opponents say Germany - which also lacks a long-term repository - simply is trying to rid itself of
high-level waste by reclassifying commercial units as "research" reactors to make the material legal for export. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board already has voiced opposition to bringing spent commercial fuel to the site.
But politics and semantics aside, transporting any high-level waste to SRS without an exit strategy
simply is a bad deal for the community any way you slice it. Where's the upside?
The area this work would occur, H-Canyon, already is federally funded. Beyond a handful of research
jobs at the Savannah River National Laboratory - which developed the technology to extract uranium from the irradiated graphite fuel balls - who else benefits? The German government? A few shipping companies?
If we're missing something here, please, let us know. To date, there has been no economic-benefit analysis. And how extensive has the environmental study been?
This page has long been a proponent of SRS' defense and environmental missions, including the proposed mixed-oxide fuel facility that the Obama administration dubiously placed in "cold standby" earlier this year. We see clear value in that project, which would remove 34 metric tons of Soviet-era, weapons-grade plutonium from Russia and convert it to a form of fuel for nuclear power plants.
But there is little value in importing what is arguably commercial waste from a wealthy political ally
when the United States has no permanent waste-disposal solution of its own.
The German deal would add as many as 100 canisters of high-level vitrified waste to the 3,800 already
sitting at SRS with nowhere to go, and it could open the door for disposal agreements with other nations as well.
The DOE proposal is salt in the wound President Obama inflicted five years ago when he erased three decades of scientific study, legislative toil and taxpayer expenditures, all for the express purpose of improving the political fortunes of a lone senator from Clark County, Nev.
In addition to all the high-level waste being warehoused at federal facilities nationwide, this
administration's nuclear-waste policy vacuum also slams the door on America's commercial nuclear
power industry, whose plants are sitting on 72,000 tons of used nuclear fuel that has no place to go.
And after all that, this administration has the gall to ask us to accept hazardous waste from a foreign nation?
Until the political winds change and Yucca Mountain is put back on track, the Augusta-Aiken metro
area's response to taking on "disposal" duties outlined in the DOE-Germany deal should be a resounding "no."
TV show to highlight lives of scientists behind Manhattan Project
KOAT Albuquerque
July 7, 2014
http://www.koat.com/news/tv-show-to-highlight-lives-of-scientists-behind-manhattan-project/26835716#!bbGMhL
KOAT Albuquerque
July 7, 2014
http://www.koat.com/news/tv-show-to-highlight-lives-of-scientists-behind-manhattan-project/26835716#!bbGMhL
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. --Before Area 51, there was the Manhattan Project -- a secret so big, it changed the world.
And it happened in New Mexico.
The project was arguably history's largest, most secret scientific effort. Only the best and brightest
scientists knew the magnitude of the assignment in a remote desert that would later become Los Alamos.
"Los Alamos really was the ideal location," said Alan Carr, a Los Alamos National Lab historian.
It's where the world's first atomic bomb was developed, ending World War II. The lab had to be secretive and secure, because had the information gotten into enemy hands, the course of history would have been significantly altered.
"There was no country before the war better poised to build a nuclear weapon than Hitler's Germany.
That's a very scary thought," said Carr.
Most scientists showed up in New Mexico not knowing where they were being sent, just told to follow
instructions to report at 109 East Palace Ave. in Santa Fe, right off the plaza. Their journey continued
up a windy road where security was everything.
"The stakes were enormous," Carr said.
A massive fence was built around the complex. Mail was censored. Those involved needed a special pass to leave and enter. When they did leave, they could be followed by security.
J. Robert Oppenheimer was the lab's first director.
High-profile foreign scientists were given fake names. Birth certificates had only a P.O. Box number.
Driver's licenses had no names or addresses.
Those involved weren't even allowed to utter the words "Los Alamos."
In code, it was called Project Y.
Most of the time, the scientists were hard at work, but in their free time they'd swim, hike, drink
beer, ride horses and create their own ski lifts. They would go on to win Nobel prizes.
In July, the show "Manhattan" on WGN America will show the project, as well as the lives of the
scientists and their families.
"The story of men and women here, working almost around the clock, almost every day trying to make sure that when history changed, it was going to change for the good of mankind," said Carr.
LANL continues to lead the country's defense and security efforts.
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