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Is
the Office of River Protection understaffed? From: "RobDavis" Just so everyone knows, Lynn asked me to back up thoughts on the understaffing of the ORP. This does not reflect a belief that ORP is not functional, only functioning less that optimum. Lynn, our information for the staff size is based on the combination of statements made by [previous ORP manager] Harry Boston and the present organization chart on the ORP web site. Argument 1 (upper level management shortage) The doubling up of assignments of the department heads is an indication of the need for staffing. For example, John Swailes is both the Assistant Manager for System Requirements and Assistant Manager for Operations, also Rob Barr is both the Head of the Office of Safety Regulation and the acting Assistant Manager of Environment, Safety, Health and Quality. In addition June Ollero is the Acting Assistant Manager of Integration and Control. Argument 2 (individual performer shortage) For example: the Office of Safety Regulation had numerous findings (inspection report 15), the big one was the lack of documentation that spell out and justify the assumptions made by Bechtel for the engineering decisions and calculations. DOE inspectors only had resources to review 17% of all calculations. With what we know now about Bechtel's calculation control weakness, all the work should be reviewed by someone other than Bechtel. The basic problem is insufficient manpower. There are also questions of the Independentness of the QA organizations and having sufficient technical experts to know if they are being conservative. Licensed civil, mechanical, materials, construction, corrosion, electrical, computer, environmental and IT engineers, should be used to review the process from beginning to end. We have called time and time again for a risk based decision process. A risk based evaluation process and reporting system is needed for us to truly evaluate the reams of paper being generated by DOE and Bechtel. We also call for a review of the commercial power plant construction history. NRC data on plant construction, startup and operations is found in numerous Notices, Bulletins, Generic letters from 1978 to present. This review should be by the State of Washington, for independence. For each finding there should be a one-for-one review for potential to happen in the Vit plant construction and an order for corrective action if the risk is high. For example: a valve company that counterfeited material reports is fined and banned from selling to the the commercial nuclear industry by a Part 21 violation of the Code of Federal Regulations. Unless there is a review, we do not have any assurance that parts for the vit plant will not be ordered from that company. There are a number of part 21 violations over the 25 years of records. I encourage everyone to read the vit plant inspection reports. They are on the web (ORP Office of Safety Regulation). -----Original Message----- From: Lynn Porter Rob, At the state of the site meeting in Portland last Weds. you said that the Office of River Protection is 25-30 people understaffed. Could you write something for our email list and website about why you believe this to be true? It seems to me that this is an important point, since we heard from the previous ORP manager, Harry Boston, that they were understaffed but the current ORP manager, Roy Schepens, says they have enough people. And ORP's staffing level could impact their ability to supervise tank waste cleanup contractors. You can send your reply to me or directly to the email list and I'll pick it up from there for the website. Thanks. Lynn Porter |