Y-12 NATIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX
Recent History
Production activities at Y-12 were placed in a stand down mode on September 22, 1994, due to procedural and criticality safety concerns identified by the Defense Nuclear Safety Board. Since then, Y-12 has made progress improving its operations throughout the plant. Selected crucial operations were performed in these areas under control of a special operations package. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Recommendation 94-4, "Deficiencies in Criticality Safety at Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant," provides a detailed background of these conduct of operations problems.
Briefly, a DNFSB staff member identified a nuclear criticality safety infraction at Y-12 in September 1994. Because of improper management response to the infraction, Y-12 operations were placed in stand-down. In the days following the stand-down, hundreds of similar nuclear criticality safety deficiencies were identified at the Plant and at the other DOE sites in Oak Ridge. As a result, the stand-down was continued for most of the plant nuclear operations. Operations in Y-12 facilities have been resumed in phases. Some have already begun, such as the warehousing and shipping, and the assembly and disassembly operations.
Since the stand down, Y-12 personnel have worked to restart operations in the following mission areas: Receipt and Shipment, Disassembly and Storage Operations, Depleted Uranium Operations, and Stockpile Surveillance, while continuing to meet defense mission requirements. On June 8, 1998 Y-12 resumed the last of its production missions, Enriched Uranium Operations, when it cast its first enriched uranium part since September, 1994. Y-12 was involved in the life extension program for the Peacekeeper Missile warhead, called the W87. Initial delivery of key components of this weapon were due at the end of 1998, and manufacturing was expected to continue for several years.
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