First casualty of the LANL problems
The head of the local NNSA site office has been reassigned with no notice. Replacement to be named at a later date, probably when they can find anyone desperate enough to take the position. No one lasts long in this slot, it is just a meat grinder for the unlucky federal worker that draws the short straw.
22 comments:
Neeeext!.....
Bring in the DOE "Tiger Teams"? Most of the employees left at the labs have no historical knowledge of this sad era in the labs' history from the early 1990s.
Growing numbers of employees don't even have any knowledge of what it was like before the take-over by the "for-profit" Bechtel LLCs when these labs were run as non-profits directly by UC.
Ah yes, the “Tiger Teams”. How can we forget – the tipping point at which DOE started coming apart at the seams.
This guy was brought in by DOE from Y 12 to help fix the LANL problems. He was touted as the best in the complex when he showed up. One could conclude that even the best was not able to help out much with the present management.
The entire cadre of site office bureaucrats could simply stop showing up for work and morale, productivity, safety, and integrity would go up.
I am becoming increasingly convinced this blog is a Communist plot to destroy morale at the labs and generate disgruntled workers willing to sell secrets.
Sounds like Smith (DOE LAO Chief) was the scapegoat for the recent debacles at LANL. As usual, all the LANS Senior Managers remain "unscathed". What is wrong with this picture?
So is the security force a subcontractor to LLNS, or to the site office?
Indeed, what is wrong with this picture? The oversight was lax, and so far that cost the top federal employee his position. The failings are on the contractor, and so far the top remains the same.
How dare you batch the business sector! Of course we blame the feds. We can't disincentivize the Bechtels of the world who create all the jobs for the rest of us in a trickle down universe. They should probably get a tax-break and and added bonus, because corporations are people too, and they have feelings.
This is not really about lax oversight. LANL employs ten thousand workers and the NNSA guy could not have possibly followed each and every one of them throughout their workday. He could of course have hired 2000 overseers and unleashed them on the Lab. That would be the end of LANL, the place would be paralyzed and no work would ever get done. (As thing stand, we are already not that far from this.)
The real fault of NNSA was in giving the management contract to a completely incompetent team, LANS, and then rewarding them, year after year after year, with high performance scores, contract extensions, and lofty fees. These guys have basically been looting the place for the last six years, without any concern for the state of science and engineering. The lifeblood of this institution is being sucked dry by LANS. Now, the incubation period is over and the symptoms are finally coming out.
Of the three most recent and highest profile events at LANL, this one is probably the easiest to explain away, since it appears to have involved several subcontractor employees. Next easiest is the security fence construction project that can be dealt with by spending some fee money.
The hardest one to get off the front page is the LANSCE radiation exposure accident. The report reads like there was absence of work control for years and no one thought anything about it. When you go back and look at all the accidents that have happened in the past several years, it looks bad. Perhaps the good news story in here is that no one was seriously injured, although several dozen employees apparently spread the contamination off site.
Growing numbers of employees don't even have any knowledge of what it was like before the take-over by the "for-profit" Bechtel LLCs when these labs were run as non-profits directly by UC.
November 25, 2012 12:26 PM
You mean when LANL was the subject of congressional hearings and made POGO on a regular schedule? When safety and security accidents threatened to close down the place?
What was your point? It sure looks a lot like the same place today as in your version of the good old UC days.
Well it's a good thing that CMMR was deferred for atleast 5 years! If it's hard enough to manage the facilities that they have right now, we can't keep piling more facilities onto their plate!
Congress knows that it made a fundamental blunder in killing the lab cultures by forcing new "industry" management on the weapons contracts in place of the relatively successful UC management contracts.
The deed is done, the carcass is dead and is now stinking. D'Agostino was left as NNSA head because a competent person will not take it as it is and congress is in no mood to change it, the contrary septuagenians would rather scuffle with each other in front of cameras than carry out their responsibilities.
Fortunately it doesn't matter too much, if the weapons go off when they are needed and don't when they aren't, NNSAs foremost mission is accomplished, the rest is details that can wait decades.
The Decline of the American Empire.
".. becoming increasingly convinced this blog is a Communist plot to destroy morale at the labs and generate disgruntled workers willing to sell secrets..."
Not too worry, Berea, Philby and Groymyko can only marvel at the weapons program suicide pact that Bodner, Pryzbylek and the SecDoE managed.
Associated Press
November 26, 2012
5 LANL security force employees fired
Five members of the Los Alamos National Laboratory security force have been fired for an improper use of a live fire shooting range.
Los Alamos Monitor reports that the five employees of the lab security force, known as Securing Our Country, were fired last week for "inappropriate behavior" at Technical Area 72.
The lab said in a statement that the firings came after a preliminary inquiry.
However, lab officials declined to discuss the nature of the behavior that resulted in the firings.
The lab also did not release the names of the fired employees.
DOE handed Smith a real "boner" to send him to Hanford to develop plans to clean up the Hanford Tanks. Haven't they been developing a plan for 50-years? The analogy is the Navy sending an Admiral who screwed up to Diego Garcia.
"These guys (LANS) have basically been looting the place for the last six years, without any concern for the state of science and engineering. The lifeblood of this institution is being sucked dry by LANS." (10:33 PM)
I couldn't have stated it any better, myself, 10:33 PM.
The serious decline at Los Alamos is gaining in speed as the carpetbaggers that fill the ranks of the LANS upper management team loot what's left before they're given the boot.
Long term Deputy in Security at LLNL can't wait to overwhelm LLNL with incompetent fiascos and give LANL some competition.
DOE handed Smith a real "boner" to send him to Hanford to develop plans to clean up the Hanford Tanks. Haven't they been developing a plan for 50-years? The analogy is the Navy sending an Admiral who screwed up to Diego Garcia.
November 27, 2012 3:31 AM
Just to set the record straight, NM Business Week is touting this as a promotion. It probably is, following custom of promoting failure in upper Federal ranks. It figures.
Just to set the record straight, NM Business Week is touting this as a promotion. It probably is, following custom of promoting failure in upper Federal ranks. It figures.
November 29, 2012 5:14 PM
Not surprising, everything the U.S. government is by default a "success".
Post a Comment