Re: Pursuit of Excellence [was GAO Opens DB investigation]

["Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen@PRODIGY.NET>]

Nothing is so safe that it could not be made yet safer by greater

expenditure of time, effort, and resources. It all boils down to the often

repeated question:



"HOW SAFE IS SAFE ENOUGH?"



Does anyone care to take a crack at that?





----- Original Message -----

From: <OFFTOWY@AOL.COM>

To: <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 8:15 AM

Subject: Pursuit of Excellence [was GAO Opens DB investigation]





> William V. Lipton wrote:

>

> >>It's not just me, it's the commercial nuclear power industry that

disagrees with your philosophy.   For example, the INPO radiation protection

guidelines (INPO 91-0914 revision 1) states, "Pursuit of excellence in

radiological protection involves striving for a level of performance that is

well beyond minimum regulatory requirements..." <<

>

> The INPO document is discussing "pursuit of excellence."  Is pursuit of

excellence some sort of religion?  There may be a variety of business

reasons to enter into such a pursuit, but there are also equally valid

reasons for saying "enough is enough."  I think Ruth's point was, "Why can't

the regs be good enough?"  Not excellent, but good enough.  And the DB

situation does not demonstrate anything about the adequacy of the regs as it

appears that they (DB) were not in compliance.  Perhaps compliance would

have been good enough.  And let's not forget, the ever-excellent INPO

assessors have been in and out of DB multiple times, too.

>

> Lew LaGarde

>

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