Volume 3, Number 1
May 2005

Committee Reports

• N-14 Committee
• N-15 Committee
• Constitution and Bylaws Committee
• Fellows Committee
• INMM Communicator
• Journal of Nuclear Materials Management

Standards Committee N-14

Committee Activities
Management Committee Quarterly Conference Call
In January 2005, the N14 Management Committee conducted its quarterly conference call. The major topics discussed included items to be balloted, status of the current N14 secretary, the status of the update to the N14 Procedure, a review of the scope of N14 relative to keeping “non-nuclear hazardous materials” in the scope, and the status and tracking of N14 standards progress and open action items.

It was identified that within the next several months the N14 Committee would be balloting on several topics. The status of each topic listed below was discussed.

• New Members
• N14 Revised Procedure
• Draft N14.27 – Carrier and Shipper Responsibilities and Emergency Response Procedures for Highway Transportation Accidents Involving Truckload Quantities of Radioactive Materials
• Draft N14.30 - ANSI N14.33: Dry Storage and Transport of Damaged Spent Nuclear Fuel

It was identified that Joree’ O’Neal, who has served as the N14 secretary since 1996, will not be able to continue as the N14 secretary. The N14 chair will assign a new secretary to continue with the required functions.

The subcommittee revising the present N14 Procedure discussed the status of the procedures. (See the Revised N14 Procedure paragraph below on this item.)

The scope of the N14 Committee includes producing standards for radioactive materials and “non-nuclear hazardous materials”. At the annual meeting in October 2004, it was questioned as to whether the “non-nuclear hazardous materials” should stay within the scope since no standards have been produced for that category of material. The Executive Committee was assigned the responsibility of reviewing the matter. Since the annual meeting, it has been determined the scope was changed to include “non-nuclear hazardous materials’ in 1992 but there has never been a need, nor has anyone requested, that a standard be produced. Since there are a number of topics to be balloted in the near future, the Management Committee decided to delay any balloting to withdraw “non-nuclear hazardous materials” from the N14 scope until later this year.

To better track the progress of proposed standards and the status of open action items, the Management Committee decided that one month before the quarterly conference calls, the N14 chair should contact the applicable standards facilitators and chairs along with those individuals who are assigned actions items as to the present status. A status report will be provided to the Management Committee before the conference calls.

Revised N14 Procedure:
The N14 Committee is in the process of revising its operating procedure to comply with the new 2005 ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards (ER). The overall approach the N14 Committee has chosen is to make the new procedure as “stand alone” as possible. In the past, N14 used the ANSI Model Procedures, supplemented with the various ANSI required policies (patent, interpretation, etc.) that were not incorporated within the procedure. The N14 procedure is being modified to meet the needs of the N14 members and standards subcommittees. In doing so, the N14 procedure will incorporate required policies; extract specific text from the ANSI ER that are frequently used; reference other required text, when appropriate; and include the entire ANSI ER in an annex to the procedure for quick reference. The draft N14 Procedure is presently out for balloting by the N14 members and the draft procedure is available from the N14 chair or secretary.

Standards Activities
N14.1-2001 – Packaging of Uranium Hexafluoride for Transport
A PINS is being submitted for an Addendum 3 to the N14.1-2001 Standard. The PINS is for the design of a counter-sunk cylinder plug and is in response to an integrity issue concerning the 48X and 48Y cylinders meeting a required drop test.

N14.7 (draft) – Guide to the Design and Use of Shipping Package for Type A Quantities of Radioactive Materials
A revised draft was issued on February 10, 2005. This draft incorporated comments by the N14.7 Subcommittee. After this review, the subcommittee plans to submit the draft standard to the N14 Committee for balloting.

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N-15 Technical Committee on Methods of Nuclear Material Control

This report highlights the activities of the N-15 Committee since November 2004.

Progress has been made in the last six months to identify participants for the revision of N15.36 and N15.28. We are now in final discussions to identify a leader for each of these two writing committees. N-15 appreciates the support of the Materials, Control and Accountability Technical Division and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for their efforts to assist in these matters.

The revision process for three standards continues. Currently we need to update the preface to these standards to reflect changes to references, committee composition and other administrative matters. Once this is complete, N15.41 can be submitted for reaffirmation as no substantive changes were made to the standard. This preface will also precede the body of N15.19 and N15.51. Over the next several months, all three standards will be submitted for ballot committee vote following the public review and comment period. The referenced standards are N15.41 (Measurement Control Principles), N.15.51 (Measurement Control – Analytical Laboratories), and N15.19 (Measurement Control – Tank Volume Calibration). The N-15 Secretariat is grateful for the hard work of these subcommittee chairs and membership.

The periodic audit of the N-15 Committee is still on schedule for April 2005.

As always, the Committee relies solely on, and is grateful for, the efforts of all who devote their time to maintaining the quality and integrity of ANSI N-15 standards. We welcome the addition of interested persons to the Committee and encourage questions or comments to be directed to the Secretariat

Carrie Mathews, Chair

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Constitution and Bylaws Committee Report                        

A working draft of the INMM Operations Manual was presented to the Executive Committee for review/comment prior to the fall 2004 Executive Committee meeting. It was approved for use in its current form as a “work in progress.” Comments and changes from Executive Committee and others in leadership roles will continue to be incorporated so that a new working version on CD-ROM can be distributed before the July Annual Meeting.

A list of specific sections needing attention is being prepared and will be distributed to individuals responsible by April 1. If this Manual is going to be a meaningful document to supplement the INMM Constitution and Bylaws, it is critical that these remaining sections be updated. It is recommended that the Executive Committee track these as action items so that we can focus our efforts on ensuring sections reflect current scope, staffing and operational practices.

Debbie Dickman, Chair

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Fellows Committee

The annual solicitation for nominations for advancement to the grade of Fellow was transmitted to the Chapter Presidents Feb. 28, 2005, and a similar solicitation was sent to all of the Fellows the following day.

The Fellows Committee collaborated on a response to an item in the minutes from the last EC meeting. The position paper was then vetted with all of the Fellows before submittal to the EC.

In response to an inquiry from INMM Vice President Nancy Jo Nicholas, the Fellows have agreed to participate in the development of concepts/ideas and raw materials that can be transformed into a brochure or similar communication mechanism promoting opportunities for member involvement and participation with the Institute. The current plan is to provide material to the Communications Committee in the spring so that a proposal can ready for EC review and comment by the July meeting.

The Fellows plan to meet in conjunction with the Annual Meeting in July. Agenda items will be solicited before the meeting and any issues or topics from the EC will be welcome.

Obie P. Amacker, Jr., Chair

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INMM Communicator

The INMM Communicator is INMM’s member only newsletter, published three times a year on the INMM Web site. At the past INMM Executive Committee meeting in Nashville, I expressed my concern regarding readership of the Communicator. According to Sherwood’s data on Web access, the editor's page was accessed in 53 user sessions in the summer 2004 issue. 

The editor's page is the first page that is accessed when the Communicator is opened.  Assuming that the number of user sessions corresponds to unique users, which I am not sure about, 53 users are only a small fraction of the total number of INMM members.  I proposed to the INMM EC to consider converting the newsletter into a print piece, which would be mailed to all the members. Printing is the method chosen by other professional societies, such as the American Nuclear Society and the IEEE to distribute their newsletters.

As a result of the EC meeting in November, the winter issue of the Communicator was advertised in an email with a direct link to the INMM Web site. Previously, the members were asked to enter their username and password to access the area of the website where the Communicator was placed. I would like the INMM EC to carefully consider the statistics relative to this new issue and evaluate if this change in the modality of email distribution was successful in increasing readership.

The author of the articles, Managing Editor Patricia Sullivan and I put in a lot of work to produce a good quality newsletter for INMM. I believe it is my duty to make sure that as many INMM members access the newsletter as possible.

Sara Pozzi, Editor

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Journal of Nuclear Materials Management

Production of the Journal continues to run smoothly. The fall 2004 issue was larger than usual but smaller than we expected. We were prepared for a 96-page issue, but the final output was 84 pages (80 pages of text, plus four pages for the covers). The winter 2005 issue was 52 pages long (48 pages, plus four pages for the covers). It included five articles on a variety of subjects.

The Spring issue includes five articles from the Waste Management Technical Division’s 2005 Spent Fuel Seminar. Our thanks to Pierre Saverot for his assistance with that issue.

We are preparing for the summer meeting where we will once again audiotape the Roundtable Luncheon for transcription. Managing Editor Patricia Sullivan is consulting with the transcription service this spring to determine what we can do in advance to make the transcription process run more smoothly.

As of mid-February, there were eight articles in various stages of peer review. We anticipate that we will have another interesting and diverse issue published for distribution at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix. The minor changes we made to the peer-review process last summer seem to be effective. We have a good handle on where papers are in peer-review. We seem to get a paper submittal approximately one per month.

There was some e-mail discussion about translation services for articles written by non-Native English speakers. These articles can be very difficult to edit. Syntax and vocabulary can be particularly difficult with some articles. No decision was made regarding this issue. We hope that it is settled by the end of this year. As an international organization, we encourage the submission of articles from around the world, to give our readers a broad global perspective and to further the INMM’s mission of increasing and disseminating information on nuclear materials management. This will hopefully be a “new topic” discussed at this EC meeting.

As always, we welcome your comments and feedback on the Journal.

Dennis Mangan
Technical Editor

Stephen Dupree
Assistant Technical Editor

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