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Volume 3, Number 2 Committee Reports
Standards Committee N-14 Committee Activities Coordination between the facilitators and the N-14 officers could be more effective, so it was determined that quarterly conference calls would be held to address issues and review the status of developing standards and actions items. Two quarterly conference calls have been held since the October 2004 meeting and standards development is progressing at a better pace. Additionally, the establishment of an N-14 Web site was discussed. Establishing a Web site would be beneficial to post N-14 standards, identify N-14 contacts and share information concerning N-14 activities with members and the public. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) volunteered to provide resources to develop the home page. The N-14 Annual Meeting was conducted on Oct. 21, 2004, and was held once again at the NEI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. NEI graciously hosted the meeting and provided lunch and refreshments, saving the N-14 budget from such expenses. The recommendations from the Management Committee meeting were discussed. Liaisons from ANS/ISO, ASME and ASTM made presentations on their related packaging and transportation standards activities and discussed coordination efforts concerning mutual issues. Presentations concerning activities within several U.S. governmental agencies, the IAEA and private industry were also provided to identify where standards efforts could be needed. The N-14 committee reviewed the status of all the standards, writing group projects and action items from the previous meeting. Recommendations were made on several of the standards and writing group projects and are reflected in the meeting report. Standards Activities N-14.1 - 2001 – Packaging of Uranium Hexafluoride for Transport N-14.6 - 1993 – Special Lifting Devices for Shipping Containers Weighing 10,000 Pounds (4,500 kg) or More for Nuclear Materials N-14.27 - 1986 (R1993) – Carrier and Shipper Responsibilities and Emergency Response Procedures for Highway Transportation Accidents Involving Truckload Quantities of Radioactive Materials N-14.30 - 1992 – Design, Fabrication, and Maintenance of Semi-Trailers Employed in the Transport of Weight – Concentrated Radioactive Loads N-14.33 – Storage and Transport of Damaged Spent Nuclear Fuel The following writing groups have just been established and initial activities have just began: N-14.34 – Human Factors Affecting the Safety of Packaging/Transport of Radioactive Materials N-14.35 – Verification of Burnup Levels for Spent Nuclear Fuel Casks Loading N-14.36 – Measurement and Control of External Surface Contamination on Spent Nuclear Fuel Casks Rick Rawl, Chair N-15 Technical Committee on Methods of Nuclear Material Control This report highlights the activities of the N-15 Committee August 2004 to July 2005. During the last year, N-15 has identified active participants and leaders to address the revision or extension of current standards. The following table shows the current structure of the standard subcommittees and status of each standard.
N-15 would like to recognize the leaders of each subcommittee, shown in the table above, and thank them for their participation, dedication and commitment to voluntary consensus standards. Their hard work, and the work of all members of N-15, helps the user community continue to follow the very best practices when safeguarding and managing nuclear material. In November 2004, N-15.41 and N-15.36 reached their 10 year anniversaries, thus requiring action to reactivate the standards. These two standards are receiving highest priority so that they can be removed from administrative withdrawal. The committee will do its best to ensure reactivation during calendar year 2005. Many steps have already been accomplished toward that goal, including writing the new foreward/preface for N-15 standards (reflecting the current structure of N-15 and the new officers and leaders) and preparing electronic copies that are editable. The first revision of N-15.36 was also completed, and is now being reviewed by the members of that subcommittee. The leader of the N-15.41 subcommittee, Kenneth Lewis of New Brunswick Laboratory, retired recently, and N-15 is now seeking a replacement for that position. During the meeting of N-15 at the INMM Annual Meeting, N-15.36 and N-15.41 will be discussed in detail, and actions defined to ensure completion before December 2005. N-15 Operating Procedures, titled ANSI N-15 Technical Committee on Methods of Nuclear Material Control, Organizational Structure and Operating Procedures for the Development and Coordination of American National Standards, were prepared, reviewed by the N-15 member body and approved by INMM, the N-15 ANSI Secretariat. The N-15 Operating Procedures address ANSI Essential Requirements: Due Process Requirements for American National Standards. They will be incorporated, along with those of ANSI N-14 Technical Committee, into the INMM Operations Manual. Working committee documents including the N-15 Ballot Committee List and N-15 Membership Roster were updated following the 2004 annual meeting. The N-15 Secretariat is grateful for the hard work of all of the subcommittee chairs and membership. The chair of the committee would also like to recognize the hard work of Secretary Lynne Preston, the Vice Chair Melanie May, in achieving a great deal of work in the last year, despite the ever-demanding workloads of security professionals these days. The periodic audit of the N-15 Committee was scheduled for April 2005, and was to be an audit by mail, but has not yet been completed. We are awaiting word from ANSI and suspect that given the small number of active standards, they may choose to postpone until next year when several more are active once again. 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 Constitution and Bylaws Committee Report The revised and updated Constitution and Bylaws, approved by the membership in spring 2004, was included in the new 2005 Membership Directory. In general, changes made to the Constitution and Bylaws focused on modernizing the language and transferring “procedural details” to the INMM Operations Manual.A working draft of the Operations Manual was presented to the Executive Committee for review/comment before the fall 2004 Executive Committee meeting. It was approved for use in its current form as a “work in progress.” The manual continues to undergo content enhancements and to include operational details previously contained in the Constitution and Bylaws. A list of specific sections needing attention is being prepared and was distributed to individuals responsible to facilitate their updates. The committee will continue to revise and update the manual as changes are provided. Debbie Dickman, Chair Government-Industry Liaison Committee The 2004 closing plenary session was one of the best-attended closing plenary sessions, with more than 300 attendees. Summaries for two of the speakers, Brig. Gen. Ronald Haeckel and Mary Alice Hayward, were published in the Journal of Nuclear Materials Management. Unfortunately, a summary was not published for the third speaker, Michael Brooks, as clearance from CNN was not obtained. However, while this was a disappointment, it did not detract from the effect of Brooks’ presentation at the meeting as several attendees took him up on his offer to visit CNN in Atlanta. Brooks also used contacts made at the meeting to gather information for CNN stories. The intent to interject INMM expertise into reporting on nuclear topics was achieved. The Government-Industry Liaison Committee finalized the program for the closing plenary of the 46th Annual Meeting. Speakers included Glenn Podonsky is the director of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance, and Meggen Watt, Senior Policy Advisor on National Security Matters for the Department of Energy. The committee remains hopeful to work with the DOE Office of International Safeguards to conduct a workshop on the Additional Protocol (AP) to the U.S./IAEA Voluntary Offer Agreement. A potential product of the workshop could be an information brochure on the AP with common questions and answers to facilitate its implementation in the United States. Topics to be covered might include information outreach, commercial regulations, experience with onsite inspections, an explanation of the AP’s provisions and their implications for the nuclear industry, how the AP will be implemented, and the effects on imports/exports. Amy Whitworth, Chair 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 included five articles from the Waste Management Technical Division’s 2005 Spent Fuel Seminar. Our thanks to Pierre Saverot for his assistance with that issue. 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 this issue is resolved 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. As always, we welcome your comments and feedback on the Journal. Dennis Mangan Stephen Dupree
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