This section of the web site is provided to help you understand how the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) oversees activities at NFS. The NRC is responsible for oversight of the operations at NFS involving a certain type of radioactive material called Special Nuclear Material (or SNM). We are licensed by this federal agency under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act and Title 10 Part 70 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Our license is SNM-124.

As part of the NRC’s regulatory mandate, they have two full-time resident inspectors at the Erwin facility. The NRC also coordinates numerous inspections by experts in a number of areas including security, nuclear material accounting, industrial/fire safety, radiation protection, emergency preparedness, nuclear safety, and more. The resident inspectors are constantly working at the plant, observing personnel and equipment operation, attending NFS operations meetings, etc. They summarize their findings approximately every 5-6 weeks in an Inspection Report. On the day they "closeout" their inspection period, an exit meeting is held at which time NFS learns of any regulatory or potential violations (which we call "Inspector Findings" in our summary notes - these are posted in the panel on the right side of this page, soon after the closeout). NFS receives the official NRC Inspection Report a few weeks later, and assuming it is not information required by the NRC to be protected, this document will be posted in the NRC ADAMS system, which is the NRC electronic public document access system. For your convenience, we will also post the inspection reports in the panel at the right. A similar protocol is conducted for the many inspections by visiting inspectors, with summaries and official NRC reports posted here.

On an annual basis - and occasionally more frequently - the NRC does a broad review of our performance (in regulatory terms) called a Licensee Performance Review (or LPR). These documents (or portions thereof) are sharable documents and can be found and reviewed using the NRC ADAMS system or posted here to the right. When the NRC is planning a public meeting as part of the LPR, there will generally be an announcement in the local media. You can also see the schedule for all NRC public meetings on the NRC website - Public Meeting Schedule. We hope that when such meetings are held, you will be able to attend and learn more about the current performance of NFS and have an opportunity to meet and talk to NRC management and NFS spokespersons.

Like all federal agencies, the NRC is overseen by Congress. Committees of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate conduct such oversight. In carrying out their responsibilities both to Congressional committees and to their local constituencies, Representative David Davis and Senator Lamar Alexander visited NFS on August 29, 2007 (see picture at right). Press coverage of this visit is available on the Latest News section of this website.

It is NFS’ belief that we, the US NRC, and the Congress all share a common interest to protect NFS workers, the public and the environment. To continue to achieve this goal, NFS believes in and practices complete openness with the NRC and Congress, and seeks to assure that the public has all the information it needs to understand the performance of NFS in matters pertaining to their safety and the protection of the local environment.