DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD

February 14, 1997

Paul Gubanc was on leave February 13 and 14.

A. Configuration Management: An on-going project within TWRS, Project W-320, provides another recent example of the need for additional attention to configuration management. Project W-320 is a $70 million capital project to install the equipment necessary to retrieve waste from tank C-106 and resolve the high-heat safety issue. In December 1996, one month after the intended operational start date, the completion date was delayed one year. The tank farms contractor conducted a detailed review to "rebaseline" the project. The contractor's Baseline Change Request for Project W-320, TWR-97-025, dated January 10, 1997, makes the following statements in its Engineering Assessment (Attachment 5):

• "...changes caused by any activities which modify these facilities, particularly Project W-320, have to be documented in the facility configuration drawings. The support/funding to comply with this requirement was not part of the initial project baseline."
• "The effort required to resolve the current lack of an adequate set of configuration control drawings for the AY-102 and C-106 tanks is significant and is not being addressed by ongoing projects which are modifying these facilities."
• "...the existing baseline schedule did not reflect the start-up plans or testing activities described in the project testing and ORR plans."
• "The push to expedite testing also forced the release of the test procedures prematurely."

There is no reason to believe that other on-site construction projects are immune to the shortcomings of Project W-320, especially in view of its high visibility and capital cost.

B. Canister Storage Building (CSB) Design and Construction: Last Friday, DOE-RL and the contractor resolved the final design issues related to the spent fuel Hot Conditioning System (HCS). This week, the constructor, Mowat, completed re-work on the basemat for the HCS pits, and DOE-RL approved concrete placement for Friday, February 14th. DOE-RL expects concrete placement for the deck of the third CSB vault to take place February 19th.

On February 11th, Mr. Ogg attended a video-conference between the DNFSB staff and spent nuclear fuel project personnel to discuss remaining CSB design issues. While issues related to the specified design life of the CSB (40 yrs) and confirmatory analyses are now considered closed, issues related to tornado missile criteria, code-required design loads, the passive ventilation system, and the quality assurance program remain open. Staff members Wille and Hadjian are following these items.

C. N-Basin Monolith Recovery: On February 12th, Bechtel Hanford Inc. (BHI) recovered the #10 monolith from the floor of the N-Basin. Mr. Ogg observed the operation from the pre-job brief until the monolith was landed on the deck beside the south cask pit of the basin. The DOE-RL facility representative and the AME Radiological Controls specialist provided close monitoring of the activity as well. BHI conducted the movement in a controlled and deliberate manner and experienced no problems. Following a detailed video inspection of the monolith, BHI plans to conduct a root cause determination for the drop of the monolith from the N basin crane.

cc: Board Members