Year
1989
Abstract
The new Control and Accountability of Nuclear Material Department of Energy (DOE) Order 5633.3 states that \"each facility shall establish a graded safeguards program for monitoring nuclear materials and detecting unauthorized activities or anomalous conditions.\" Rockwell developed a new position description and hired Nuclear Materials Control (NMC) Specialists as a part of the graded materials surveillance program at Rocky Flats (RF). The NMC Specialists provide material surveillance in Material Access Areas (MAA) during all shifts when operations are in progress. By design, NMC Specialists do not handle special nuclear materials (SNM) in accordance with separation of duties and responsibilities requirements. In support of the effort to assure SNM are accessed only by authorized personnel, the NMC Specialists can serve as the second person for those activities that require two persons such as accessing storage areas containing SNM and SNM transfers between MAAs. NMC Specialists respond immediately to material control alarms, assess and document the nature of the alarm, and assist management with resolution. They perform daily administrative inventory checks to determine the integrity of the inventory and advise management daily of the results. NMC Specialists perform confirmation and coordinate verification measurements on the inventory each month utilizing statistical sampling plans. The purpose of this paper is to describe how utilization of NMC Specialists has enhanced the material surveillance program at RF.