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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

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