For nearly 20 years, cleanup crews at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site have benefited from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Contractor Assurance System (CAS).
Office of Environmental Management
September 3, 2024
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IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — For nearly 20 years, cleanup crews at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site have benefited from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Contractor Assurance System (CAS).
Today, the Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC), the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) cleanup contractor at the INL Site, is applying this program to meet the challenges of cleanup work in Idaho and to create a safe, productive work environment.
In 2005, DOE ordered its contractors to establish CAS programs as a systematic approach to increase oversight and evaluate work performance. Through CAS, DOE and its contractors better align to support the cleanup mission to protect the public, workforce and environment.
Matthew Steffa, an IEC contractor and performance assurance specialist, identifies CAS as a program that supports other DOE safety requirements by providing regular opportunities for improvement.
“The existing safety infrastructure allowed the project to identify the unique challenges that cleanup employees would face at the INL Site and the safeguards that would protect them,” said Steffa. “Through CAS, however, our team had to think about the framework for continually improving those safeguards.”
Idaho Environmental Coalition President Ty Blackford speaks to safety team leaders during the Idaho National Laboratory Site’s annual Safety Team Leadership Learning Day. The event provides workers a full day of learning, equipping them with resources and tools to support their success as safety team leaders.
For crews in Idaho, establishing an effective CAS program meant reinforcing avenues for employee feedback, like the Voluntary Protection Program, Integrated Safety Management System, and Observe Watch Learn, and by building the tools to collect and report that feedback.
Frank Ireland, an IEC program support manager, highlights the formation of the Executive Safety Review Board (ESRB) as an important part of this process.
“Constructive lessons-learned conversations are essential,” Ireland said. “Providing employee feedback directly to senior management via the ESRB provides a method for our project to focus on the right areas and issues.”
Over time, data is used to identify trends valuable to ESRB members and other project leaders. Angela Morse, IEC quality assurance senior manager, recognizes how these trends are used for future planning.
“The use of CAS metrics provides all levels of management with the ability to assess how their project is doing and to identify trends that may require action,” she said. “And with this data, we can easily find what works and where there is room for improvement.”
Idaho Environmental Coalition’s systematic approach to safety includes the involvement of Corrective Action Review Boards across the various projects at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. The boards meet regularly to review and provide support to corrective actions identified through a variety of processes, including assessments, surveillances and other mechanisms that help the contractor ensure workers’ safety and compliance requirements continue to be top priorities.
By her assessment, Morse estimates that nearly 300 people, from individual project leaders to the ESRB, evaluate these trends and employee feedback every month.
Workforce training, safety requirements or job procedures can be properly updated as a result, consistent with the CAS mission of continual improvement.
More importantly, Ken Whitham, IEC safety, health, quality, and security senior director, believes an increased use of reporting through employee feedback avenues proves the CAS program’s success in Idaho.
“CAS touches every aspect of our work and all comes back to supporting the people in the field,” Whitham said. “These processes have proven to the workforce that their feedback and safety are important.”
DOE relies on CAS and similar programs to enable robust oversight and to ensure its mission is delivered safely, effectively and efficiently. EM and IEC are committed to upholding these principles to protect both human health and the environment.
-Contributor: Carter Harrison
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