Nuclear Health and Safety

Need for Improved Responsiveness to Problems at DOE Sites Gao ID: RCED-90-101 March 28, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information about the Department of Energy's (DOE) and its contractors' responsiveness to DOE technical safety appraisals and environmental surveys of contractor-operated facilities and sites.

GAO found that: (1) DOE has conducted 48 technical safety appraisals of facilities and operations at DOE sites between 1986 and the present; (2) DOE has conducted environmental surveys at 37 sites between 1985 and the present; (3) the appraisals and surveys identified over 1,700 safety and health problems and almost 1,300 environmental problems at the sites; (4) DOE and its contractors resolved 591, or 34 percent, of identified health and safety problems, including 46 of the 113 highest-priority problems; (5) DOE has not completely resolved any of the identified environmental problems, many of which it characterized as very serious and complex; and (6) the DOE computer-assisted tracking system did not include all of the important information necessary to provide a comprehensive picture of identified environmental, safety, and health (ES&H) problems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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