Re: Sandia Security Concerns

[William V Lipton <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>]

Many thanx for your comments.  I agree that:  (1) There is a small group of fanatics

who will  not be pleased by any reasonable measures.  (2)  Multiple CAB's don't

necessarily accomplish much that's tangible.



Let me use your comments to clarify what I think needs to be done.  What we need is

external regulation of DOE.  This is not original, but I think the NRC needs to take

over this regulation.  They probably don't want this, since, compared to current

licensees, this will be very difficult.  However, I don't think we have a choice.

Good external regulation will not silence the fanatics, but it will take away their

credibility.



The problem at DOE sites isn't the standards, it's the enforcement mechanism.  If you

look at the DOE Manual, the RP standards are very similar to the NRC regulations.

However, they're difficult to enforce, since (at least when I was there) the DOE

contractor hp does not have much recourse if the line organization doesn't cooperate.



The opinions expressed are strictly mine.

It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Curies forever.



Bill Lipton

liptonw@dteenergy.com





Steven Dapra wrote:



> August 23

>

>         With respect to oversight, and DOE oversight in particular, first, one has

> to understand that in the final analysis professional anti-nukers and

> anti-DOE partisans, are not interested in health and safety - probably not

> even their own health and safety.  They have a political agenda that

> consists primarily of getting all nuclear weapons (especially those in the

> United States) dismantled and scrapped, and of wrecking the nuclear

> industry.  They also want to shut down all power reactors, and we see this

> happening already in Europe.

>

>          A key part of their polemic consists of slandering, vilifying, and

> denigrating the Department of Energy and its employees every chance they

> get.  For the record I take a dim view of the DOE myself, but I don't see

> any need to go around running the Department and its employees into the

> ground.  But - even if the DOE were to come clean on everything tomorrow,

> and stop the stonewalling and become fully cooperative would that help

> matters any?  No.  The anti-nukes are determined to destroy the DOE as

> well, or to remake it in their perverse mold, and short of disbanding

> itself I doubt that anything the DOE could do would satisfy the anti-nukers.

>

>         Bill Lipton wrote, "If citizens living near DOE facilities become

> frustrated and feel stonewalled by DOE, some of them will become

> disruptive."  True enough.  There is no telling what people will do when

> they become sufficiently frustrated.  Is becoming disruptive going to

> accomplish anything constructive?  Marching and demonstrating, waving

> placards, spouting glib cliches, dressing in skeleton costumes and so forth

> will do nothing to make the DOE mend its ways.  I can only speak for

> myself, but rabble-rousers lying on the ground with fake radiation

> injuries, or fake blood poured on themselves is not something I can take

> seriously.

>

>         I sympathize with Bill over the electrical safety problems at the

> accelerator where he worked - with the manager who harassed him for

> pointing out safety violations.  Bill writes, "Instead of dismissing the

> CAB's out of hand, DOE needs to implement an effective means of

> demonstrating accoutability [sic] to the community."  Is this really the

> solution?  If I may be pardoned for using the "m" word, isn't this actually

> a moral problem -- a problem of dishonesty in the manager in question, as

> well as in the higher up "leaders" who undoubtedly know about the

> dishonesty and either wink at it; or who tacitly or even actively encourage

> it by refusing to put a stop to it?

>

>         We can have Citizens' Advisory Boards, review panels, and internal

> auditors piled up to the sky but who is going to keep them honest?  More

> CABs, reviewers, and auditors?  Furthermore, if the agencies they are

> assigned to watch have dishonest employees and managers who refuse to take

> advice and correct violations, and engage in coverups anyway, what is the

> point of having the watchdogs?

>

>         As Bill trenchantly pointed out about the acclerator operators, they "had

> thought of many creative ways to violate the most basic rules of electrical

> safety."  What is to keep people like this from devising creative ways to

> violate other rules?  Until the moral problem is solved you are only

> wasting your time with CABs, etc.

>

> Steven Dapra

> sjd@swcp.com

>

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