^EDSX * A \ 1®| VPR0^° U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General At a Glance 14-P-0321 July 22, 2014 Why We Did This Review We performed this follow-up review to assess actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the recommendations in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) Report No. 12-P-0417, Weaknesses in EPA's Management of the Radiation Network System Demand Attention, issued April 19, 2012. Our work focused on actions that the EPA said were completed as of January 10, 2014. Specifically, the EPA reported that it had completed seven of the eight OIG recommendations from our 2012 report. The EPA's nationwide radiation monitoring system (RadNet) is designed to measure ambient levels of radiation in the environment and large-scale atmospheric releases of radiation. The RadNet includes, among other things, a network of stationary air monitors that send near-real-time measurements of radiation to an EPA national laboratory. This report addresses the following EPA goal or cross-agency strategy: • Addressing climate change and improving air quality. Follow-Up Report: EPA Improves Management of Its Radiation Monitoring System What We Found Responsible EPA offices completed corrective actions on all seven recommendations we reviewed. As a result of the completed corrective actions to date, the stationary air-monitoring network increased in both coverage and effectiveness. RadNet improvements have increased the EPA's ability to assess radioactive threats to the public and the environment. Through its actions, the EPA increased the number of air monitors installed from 124 to 132, and the agency has eight additional monitors available for installation. Based on recent weekly status reports, an average of 92.9 percent of installed monitors are operating. This is an improvement from the 80 percent of installed monitors operating in March 2011. As of the date we started our review, not all of the corrective actions completed by the EPA were recorded in its official system for tracking corrective actions. However, as of April 22, 2014, the EPA completed all required actions and properly entered the data into its official tracking system. We were told that the completion of corrective actions for the remaining recommendation (recommendation 8), involving the tracking of the installation of RadNet monitors, is scheduled for September 2014. EPA officials reviewed a draft of this report and informed the OIG that they had no issues with the findings and thus no comments. For further information, contact our public affairs office at (202) 566-2391. The full report is at: www.epa.qov/oiq/reports/2014/ 20140722-14-P-0321.pdf ------- |