Safety assessment and surveillance of decommissioning operations at DOE`s nuclear facilities

A description is provided of a systematic approach currently being developed and deployed at the Department of Energy to obtain assurance that post-operational activities at nuclear facilities will be conducted in a safe manner. Using this approach, personnel will have available a formalized set of safety principles and associated question sets to assist them in the conducting of safety assessments and surveillance. Information gathered through this means will also be analyzed to determine if there are any generic complex-wide strengths or deficiencies associated with decommissioning activities and to which attention should be drawn