{"id":68131,"date":"2015-07-22T15:15:08","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T21:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=68131"},"modified":"2015-07-23T07:53:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T13:53:02","slug":"audit-nuclear-lab-lets-safety-gaps-languish-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2015\/07\/audit-nuclear-lab-lets-safety-gaps-languish-for-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Audit: Nuclear lab lets safety gaps languish for years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_68140\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1500px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/larry1732\/7753373502\/in\/photolist-geZGR2-cP94Pu-9YrggZ-77mo8-BxHcn-BxGUr-BxGZe-BxHgX-BxH6F-5kjXta-6Z68Po-5kim1e-54gHFM-eRshz5-3Pyg5A-aXbjoa-9Xec8-ai7UQt-ai7UQc-9Xe6f-9Xedu-b4UhuX-vcCASK-vcveWj-fhx61Z\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-68140 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL.jpg\" alt=\"Los Alamos National Laboratory.\" width=\"1500\" height=\"862\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL-336x193.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL-768x441.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL-771x443.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LANL-1170x672.jpg 1170w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Larry Lamsa \/ Creative Commons<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Los Alamos National Laboratory. (<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\" target=\"_blank\">photo cc info<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>An obscure facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory for nine years provided vital scientific data about a critical gas used in America\u2019s arsenal of nuclear weapons, until it was shuttered four years ago due to a raft of safety problems that have stubbornly persisted.<\/p>\n<p>The Energy Department, which oversees and finances the lab\u2019s work, has poured tens of millions of dollars into fixing the problems, but so far, the expenditures haven\u2019t borne much fruit. The facility \u2013 known as the Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility \u2013 is \u201cvital\u201d to the lab\u2019s national security mission, but it remains closed, the department\u2019s inspector general said in a report released July 20.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>Editor&#8217;s note<\/h3>\n<p>This story was originally published\u00a0by\u00a0The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. Read more of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/national-security\/arms\" target=\"_blank\">national security investigations<\/a> or follow them on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/publici\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>National Security investigations in your inbox:\u00a0Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/email-subscribe\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Watchdog<\/em>\u00a0email<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In fact, Los Alamos managers have been unable \u2013 after seven years of effort \u2013 even to prepare a sound analysis of the site\u2019s safety hazards and the steps being taken to ensure that the radioactive gas at issue does not leak or explode and harm either workers or those living nearby, according to the DOE report.<\/p>\n<p>DOE Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman said in the report that poor hazard analysis has been a recurrent problem at the lab, and said weaknesses in other projects have remained unfixed from one annual evaluation to the next. The lab, he wrote, \u201clacked sufficient qualified staff to resolve certain safety issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The purpose of the tritium facility is to refine, mix and analyze that high-hazard gas, which is used in small amounts to boost a nuclear bomb\u2019s pulverizing force. Those who worked at the facility struggled to ensure that monitoring equipment accurately tracked oxygen levels, to avert any chance of a sudden combustion during processing, according to the report. The lab\u2019s own assessments, dating back to 2007, warned that the oxygen monitoring system in the building was unreliable. Energy Department staff in April 2013 cited the oxygen monitoring as one of 450 issues that needed to be addressed there.<\/p>\n<p>Although the lab fixed the oxygen monitoring system last year, and so far has spent $17 million to prepare a comprehensive safety plan, it hasn\u2019t completed the task. \u201cThere had been higher safety-related priorities\u201d at the lab, Energy Department staff told auditors.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nonprofit organization that closely monitors the lab, said the report suggests the lab\u2019s managing contractor, Los Alamos National Security LLC \u2013 or LANS \u2013 a Bechtel-led consortium of private contractors and the University of California, has been nonchalant about safety issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s obvious when you read this report that [preparing a] documented safety analysis, which is the sole way that DOE manages the safety of nuclear facilities, is seen by LANS as a kind of overhead or paperwork that can be repeatedly kicked down the road, under-resourced and nixed in some political sense,\u201d Mello said.<\/p>\n<p>The Inspector General\u2019s report noted that similar safety problems have blocked operations at a separate lab facility that produces plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs. Lab leadership halted operations at that facility two years ago. Revisions to the safety analysis at the Plutonium Facility have dragged on for six years and cost nearly $10 million so far.<\/p>\n<p>In all, the report said, Los Alamos lab officials failed to show they had addressed 11 percent of the 98 high-hazard concerns identified by Energy Department inspectors between January 2010 and February 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of acting on a November 2011 DOE directive that said the lab should review whether its training of workers who handle hazardous nuclear materials was effective,\u00a0 managers decided the task would be \u201cmoved out a ways,\u201d according to the report.\u00a0 But they never revisited it, the report added. Similarly, the lab hadn\u2019t completed more than a third of the 36 lower-risk directives from the department over the same four-year span.<\/p>\n<p>The report said lab officials told the inspectors that the lab needs more money to fix its safety deficiencies. But Mello questioned whether giving the lab more money would change its commitment to safety. Under LANS\u2019 contract with Energy Department, it is paid $2.2 billion annually for operating the lab and is eligible for bonuses of more than $60 million a year, according to Department of Energy records.<\/p>\n<p>At Los Alamos, \u201csafety is considered a pain in the ass, not a part of the mission,\u201d Mello said.<\/p>\n<p>A lab spokesman did not respond to messages seeking comments about the report. But the lab has published statements saying that safety is its first priority. In thick, bold letters, the lab\u2019s website says, \u201cWe integrate safety, security, and environmental concerns into every step of our work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Frank Klotz, the Energy Department\u2019s undersecretary for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a written response to the Inspector General that he generally agreed with Friedman\u2019s conclusions that LANS needs to prioritize safety and learn from its past mistakes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActions are already underway to address the issues,\u201d Klotz wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Klotz wrote that he expects the plutonium facility to resume full activities by late 2016, and hopes the Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility will restart its work by the end of this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A multi-billion-dollar Los Alamos contractor tells investigators it needs more money to meet basic safety expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[275,116],"class_list":["post-68131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-national-labs","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}