Office of Environment, Safety, and Health

The Spills Working Group was one of six working groups established under the Accident Phenomenology and Consequence (APAC) methodology evaluation program. The objectives of APAC were to assess methodologies available in the accident phenomenology and consequence analysis area and to evaluate their adequacy for use in preparing DOE facility safety basis documentation, such as Basis for Interim Operation (BIO), Justification for Continued Operation (JCO), Hazard Analysis Documents, and Safety Analysis Reports (SARs). Additional objectives of APAC were to identify development needs and to define standard practices to be followed in the analyses supporting facility safety basis documentation. The Spills Working Group focused on methodologies for estimating four types of spill source terms: liquid chemical spills and evaporation, pressurized liquid/gas releases, solid spills and resuspension/sublimation, and resuspension of particulate matter from liquid spills.

The US Department of Energy, Office of Environment, Safety and Health, Office of Health is responsible for maintaining the Department of Energy's occupational radiation protection rule, Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 835, Occupational Radiation Protection. The Department of Energy is evaluating amending its rule to include the dose assessment methodology recommended in International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publications 60 and 68. On 21 June 2004 the ICRP posted their draft, Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection 2005, which included revisions to the recommended dose assessment methodology. The Department of Energy compared the draft recommendations to determine their effect on the changes the Department of Energy is currently considering.

Abstract The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how an existing U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) resource can be used to obtain “lessons-learned” information concerning injuries or illnesses resulting from on-the-job hazards. That resource is the Computerized Accident/Incident Reporting System (CAIRS) module of DOE's Safety Performance Measurement System (SPMS). Although this demonstration could have been performed by analyzing those CAIRS reports associated with any number of hazards (e.g., noise, chemicals, explosives, electricity, or power tools), the CAIRS data selected for analysis were the DOE injury/illness reports submitted for the past 10 years that cited a “natural environment hazard” as either the direct or indirect cause of an injury/illness. Specifically, injury/illness reports were selected for analysis if they had a causal factor link to one or more of four natural environment hazard categories: weather, animal life, vegetation, or a specific act of nature (e.g., a flood, earthquake, tornado, or lightning strike). Approximately 3100 CAIRS injury/illness reports were considered to have either a direct or an indirect causal link to at least one of the four natural environment hazard categories. These reports, which represent about 8 percent of the total DOE injury/illness reports, documented nine deaths and more than 30,000 lost workdays (the equivalent of nearly $41,000,000). The lessons learned as a result of reviewing the selected reports are presented, as are suggestions on how to reduce the likelihood of future injuries/illnesses as a result of similar hazards. A significant finding is that most of the 3100 injuries/illnesses were the result of an indirect causal link to a natural environment hazard and, thus, may have been more preventable than previously thought. The primary message, however, is that CAIRS is a valuable resource that can be used by those interested in finding ways of better protecting their workers from various hazards.

Abstract An Emergency Response Planning Guidelines (ERPG) program has been established by the chemical industry and the American Industrial Hygiene Association, with the coordination of the Organization Resources Counselors, Inc. (ORC), to address the need for reliable, consistent, and well-documented emergency planning guidelines. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through the ORC and established task forces and the American Industrial Hygiene Association, is participating by supporting development of ERPGs for chemicals used in DOE facilities. This article describes the DOE's process for prioritizing chemicals used within the DOE complex for development of basic information packages which provide suggested values in support of ERPG determination. This report also describes many of the guidelines developed for use in control of workplace exposure to toxic chemicals and why they are inappropriate for emergency response planning. The ERPG program is described, the reasons for its implementation are given, and the definitions of the three ERPG guidance values are provided.