Minutes of SHUG Executive Committee Meeting of December 6, 2000
The Executive Committee
convened by conference call at 9:00 AM EDT on December 6, 2000. Of the
11 committee members 9 were present. The members in attendance were:
Meigan Aronson
Dave Belanger
Paul Butler
Takeshi Egami
Robert McQueeney
Scott Misture
John Tranquada
David Vaknin
Angus Wilkinson
Dave Belanger opened
the meeting by giving a brief summary of his conversation with Mason
and Moncton regarding the results of the recent DOE review of the SNS
project, indicating that Mason and Moncton would like the chance to
speak to the group directly in more detail in the near future. The main
point was that while there are two items causing upward pressure on
the project cost, DOE is adamant that the total project cost will not
increase, suggesting instead the elimination of the Central Lab and
Office building (CLO) and relaxing the agressive construction schedule
for a finish in 2006 instead of 2005. Moncton points out that this last
would add roughly $300 million to the total project not reduce the cost.
The two items of main concern are the cost of the CLO which is being
estimated now at $80 million over the original estimate of $300 million
though Moncton seems to think that is an overestimate and feels it could
be brought into range, and the cost of co-ordinating and running the
Accelerator facility. Apparently, while the Accelerator facility is
being built by another lab, the cost of co-ordinating it with the rest
of the project and the staffing for running the facility once on line
were never included in the original budget and it was assumed it would
come out of other ORNL funds. Obviously inclusion of this item into
the base SNS project would increase the project cost by that amount.
The main point was that Moncton and Mason wanted to assure us that they
understand the concerns these events might pose to the users and are
working diligently to remedy the problems.
Next on the agenda
was an update by Paul Butler on the HFIR tritium leak. Paul explained
that the "leak" was essentially due to a dilution effect. It turns out
that a small amount of tritium, coming mainly from the air conditioning
condensate has always been in that drain. However, that drain also carries
the overflow from the cooling towers which is a considerable amount
of water. Once the cooling towers were torn down for construction of
the new towers, that water was no longer flowing, with the result than
an undetectable concentration of tritium became detectable. Apparently
the total amount of tritium being dumped has always been known and was
reported to DOE, EPA and the state of TN back when the drains were first
installed. Furthermore, even the concentration levels detected were
well below reportable levels. ORNL management chose to report them nonetheless.
Having done so, they must propose a plan of action (and have done so)
which includes replacing the earthenware pipes with stainless steel
to prevent any seepage that might occur in the future and rerouting
the offending condensate waste to processing tanks, thereby eliminating
the source. The plan is subject to DOE approval and a team was on site
last week to make that determination. Paul said that Jim Roberto indicated
he believed they would be given approval. Furthermore, news of this
"leak" has not caused any perceptible concern in the neighboring population.
Unfortunately for the HFIR project however, as a result of trying to
determine the cause of the increased tritium concentration it was discovered
that the tanks which were to hold the HFIR pool water during the work
on the reactor were not at all adequate for the task. Replacing them
would cost over a million dollars and a "very long time." In the end
they have opted for buying huge stainless tanks to sit on the ground
which can house the water and allow work to proceed more quickly. The
hope is that the tanks will be delivered the first week of January.
This delay will cause the whole schedule to slip. Also the HFIR will
have to undergo a readiness review before coming back on line. Furthermore,
the unexpected costs associated with fixing the tritium problem will
require some source of funding. A number of possibilities are being
investigated including delaying the second cold guide hall building
till next fiscal year. No decisions have yet been made.
Dave next indicated
that NSSA had agreed at their last meeting to commit to a joint conference
at SNS rather than NIST and that we needed to form a joint committee
with NSSA to deal with that. No volunteers were forthcoming and the
issue was left for the next meeting
Dave then noted
that the following two items on the agenda:
1)Subcommittee Reports for HFIR and SNS and
2)User Programs at HFIR and SNS and how to proceed
were perhaps not addressable since one of the Subcommittee chairs (Costas
Stassis) was not present. Paul indicated that from conversations with
Costas and with ORNL neutron scattering staff he could report that no
action had been taken by the HFIR committee vis a vis contacting the
HFIR neutron scattering management. Rob McQueeney indicated the same
was true for the SNS sub-committee.
Paul Butler then
told the committee that Bryan Chakoumakos had assembled a couple of
people (outside the neutron scattering staff scientist and including
Kaye Carter, HFIR user co-ordinator) to get started on designing a new
user program and had invited Paul to join the meeting. Also joining
that meeting was Al Ekkebus, the new SNS user co-ordinator. Paul suggested
that his impression of Al was that he was very pro-active and very interested
in serving the user community and would be an excellent person with
whom to work. On the other hand Paul doesn't think Bryan has much support
from his management on his initiative and that Bryan seems to be hoping
for support from SHUG. Paul also said that at the meeting he obtained
a copy of the results of the user survey that is handed out to users
and had received permission to share it with SHUG. He did not think
the responses were anonymous however.
Since Bryan was
hoping SHUG would produce a proposal for the user program and since
SHUG seems to want to wait for HFIR and SNS to come up with a proposal
first, Paul said he'd told Bryan's group that he would take a stab at
creating a straw man user program proposal and present it simultaneously
to SHUG and HFIR with a self imposed deadline of the January SHUG executive
committee meeting. Comments were made that this really needed a lot
of thought and discussion and that, for example the, current HFIR program
has many problems such as short lead times for experiments, the ad hoc
nature of the whole program and an excessive amount of power vested
in the instrument scientist leading to certain amount of the "good ol'
boy network" syndrome and the potential for much more. Paul agreed whole
heartedly, but pointed out again that he is suggesting a "staw man"
i.e. something to give traction to those thoughts and discussions. Meigan
asked about the electronic user satisfaction survey that had been sent
out and whether we could see those results. Paul indicated he would
talk to Kaye Carter about that and email the committee with the answer.
Finally the web
page progress was discussed. Paul indicated nothing had happened since
the last meeting but that he was hoping to work with Charlie Horack
to get them to a minimum presentable level sometime in early January
with the goal of making them public and "advertising" them. Enhancements
could then be added slowly as time permits.
Before adjourning,
Dave indicated that two possible dates for the briefing by Mason and
Moncton were the 13th and the 20th and asked for input on
best times as we want as many of us as possible present. The 13th seemed to be a preference, but Dave decided he would resolve the final
date by email. He also indicated that he would like people to start
thinking about when they could meet during the upcoming spring semester.
There being no
further business, the meeting adjourned around 9:45 EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Butler
SHUG Secretary
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