The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments, or EA, conducted from fiscal year 2019 through 2023 an evaluation of the way nine DOE contractors managed safety issues at their respective facilities and has observed three “significant and extensive weaknesses” across the organizations.
The contractors demonstrated inadequacy when it comes to fully identifying safety issues, determining their causes and resolving them in a timely manner, EA said in the report titled “Independent Assessment of U.S. Department of Energy Contractors’ Management of Safety Issues,” which was released Wednesday.
EA noted that the weaknesses resulted in worker and nuclear safety hazard controls as well as the “defense-in-depth” approach to nuclear safety being compromised. The office also expressed concern that the same weaknesses may be affecting Energy Department contractors that were not evaluated.
To address the weaknesses and their likely causes, several recommendations were proposed, including the articulation by the DOE of clear goals and requirements concerning issue identification and correction; the sharing of best practices between contractors; and the establishment of performance objectives to promote yearly improvement in issue identification and correction.
