LLNL - The True Story -

Does anyone know what the "special event" was at LLNL this week that shut down the central cafeteria for the week and had a stream of local police, highway patrol, and sheriff cars coming in and out of the Lab the last two days?

Meanwhile, "Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to the Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years -- raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.  Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015."

Looks like they need to send this guy to clean up LANL! Well at least he should be put into NNSA.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ For more than two years, the Navy’s intelligence chief has been stuck with a major handicap: He’s not allowed to know any secrets. Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch has been barred from reading, seeing or hearing classified information since November 2013, when the Navy learned from the Justice Department that his name had surfaced in a giant corruption investigation involving a foreign defense contractor and scores of Navy personnel. Worried that Branch was on the verge of being indicted, Navy leaders suspended his access to classified materials. They did the same to one of his deputies, Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations. More than 800 days later, neither Branch nor Loveless has been charged. But neither has been cleared, either. Their access to classified information remains blocked.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/267249-congress-should-probe-energys-national-laboratory

AMARILLO GLOBE-NEWS January 25, 2016  AMARILLO — A nuclear safety agency has reported the federal Department of Energy recently approved plans to ramp up production of plutonium “pits,” the core that that triggers nuclear weapons, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which could lead to more warhead refurbishment work at the Pantex Plant northeast of Amarillo. The plans include a big increase in plutonium capacity at an existing facility at Los Alamos and new laboratory space for pit production, part of plans to get pit production up and rolling. lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2016-01-25/rise-plutonium-production-points-more-work-pantex

UChicago Argonne, LLC - the M&O contractor for ANL - is being investigated by DOE over an accident that nearly amputated machinist's arm/hand.  http://energy.gov/ea/downloads/enforcement-notice-intent-investigate-uchicago-argonne-llc

So someone went through most of the existing threads today and posted "So what?," Who cares," "It is unimportant." ""Everybody does it," and similar nihilistic c**p. This blog seems to periodically attract such losers, who either are trying to elicit flame-throwing responses, or are seriously disturbed individuals who need help and are accessing the only mechanism they see for getting it. Either way, pathetic. I never thought I'd say it, but maybe it is time for this blog to abandon anonymous posting and require real-name registration. Then we'll see who the true believers are. And exactly who supports the goals here and who is just indulging in digital flatulence.  Comments:   Anonymous  said... Prediction: Abandon anonymous postings, and the blog will soon become devoid of content related to misdeeds and management failings at the labs. Fear of retaliation is a powerful silencer.

 WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS $5 MILLION AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAB Anthony T. Rivera, an award-winning senior engineer who blew the whistle on safety violations at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, sued the lab today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. His suit seeks $5 million in damages – and a court order reforming U.S. Department of Energy practices. Rivera, a 29-year employee with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, charges Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC is liable for wrongful termination in violation of public policy because managers fired him after he disclosed safety violations in the lab’s high explosives test facility and alleged mismanagement. His suit also seeks damages against two U.S. Department of Energy officials – Kimberly Davis Lebak, the DOE/NNSA site manager at Livermore in 2013, and Shiwali Patel, a DOE Office of Hearings and Appeals investigator who refused to investigate Rivera’s claims. The suit says Lebak and Patel punished Rivera for exe...

Take a look  here . Peruse those bios. You will see a collection of retired admirals, lawyers and ... quite a few folks of very modest educational backgrounds and accomplishments. Yes, they are incapable of understanding what's going on in the NW complex, which involves extremely complex, multidisciplinary science and sophisticated engineering. Yet, they managed to get themselves put in charge of this $12B enterprise. How did this happen? These folks must be really clever to get up there lacking even the most basic qualifications.

The folks at DOE - or more accurately NNSA - do share the blame for the LANS fiasco. After all, they are the ones who awarded the contract. But others, including the media and politicians, are no less guilty. And, in a certain perverse way, none of the players were "stupid". All had their own logic, protecting and advancing themselves, while destroying the Lab.  Remember, the contract change in 2006 came about after a sustained and brutal smear campaign against LANL. It was always obvious that the media hysteria was built on shaky and often simply false foundations. The Ford Mustang story was a fabrication and the two "missing" zip discs had never existed. This didn't matter to the media, which fed on the sensationalism of the moment. "Scathing exposés" sold many copies of newspapers. Thoughtful corrections and follow-ups not so much. Scathing exposés it was then.  Feeding on this media frenzy were the politicians in Congress, who found it convenient t...

I have heard in several places that DOE realizes that privatizing LLNL and LANL was mistake but they are not sure how to undue it. This seems odd to me since they could just say in the next round it is non-profit. Perhaps they have to get permission from congress to do this, or they know they will catch hell from the state of NM, they will look bad politically if they try to change it or they just so utterly incompetent that they just will not be able to make any kind of change.

Is there any supporting evidence that the assigned LANL leadership score was 40 and the operations score was 20? This may not be correct, but those are the numbers that keep coming out over and over from government employees. Word is that NNSA pulled another "Neile Miller" and adjusted the LANL scores up after the fact.

Go back and listen to Charlie's spin on the loss of the LANL contract. It sure looks like he is claiming that only 2 points seperated the loss from an extension. Really? An employee nearly dies in an electical accident, after LANL had been specifically warned about electrical safety, and he spins it to make it look like a close decision. DOE could have assigned any score from 0 to 50 for this near fatal accident. It doesn't matter what the score is, the contract is over this year. To spin it otherwise is a pathetic attempt to safe face. Comments:   Anonymous said... The story I heard was that the score was much lower than that but the sight office or DOE moved it up 49 percent for some reason. They where not close at all. January 15, 2016 at 9:07 PM Anonymous said... They moved the score so that Charlie could save face. The score, such as it is, is completely arbitrary anyway. Furthermore, they people who choose the sco...

 Do whatever it takes to be part of the next bidding team, throw anyone and everything under the bus, every man and women for themselves, do not let a good crises go to waste! Do not waste the last few years doing something for LANL spend every spare moment of time, lobbying and positing yourself for the next possible pot of booty! Build your buddy network, enforce you castle, perfect your lies, and profit and glory could be yours, but act quickly before someone makes app on a smartphone about how to get rich on the next contract change at LANL and everyone will be in on it.

And on Tuesday, a DOE spokeswoman provided a statement warning that LANS could lose the contract after 2017 if it doesn’t turn things around. Los Alamos fallout Although investigators still are evaluating exactly what caused the drum to overheat and rupture, they say the Los Alamos drum was improperly packaged with a volatile mix of nitrate salts and organic cat litter used to absorb liquids. The feds, in addition to dramatically reducing the fee for LANS, also took back a previously granted one-year contract extension for the consortium that includes Bechtel Corp. and the University of California. The contract with Los Alamos National Security has a “four-strike provision” that vacates the contract if LANS doesn’t earn four one-year extensions, a DOE spokeswoman said Tuesday. LANS has held the contract since 2006, “Having failed to earn contract term extensions for fiscal years 2013 and 2014,” and with the recent revocation of the previous extension, “LANS must earn (an) award term in...

"Feds slash WIPP contractor performance pay; LANS must improve to avoid loss of lab contract" "...LANS has the opportunity to improve performance and with sustained performance, continue to manage and operate the Los Alamos National Laboratory through fiscal year 2023..."  http://www.abqjournal.com/519367/news/wipp-contractor-performance-pay.html

Where is the FY16 LLNL performance evaluation plan? Why is it not posted for public review? http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ouroperations/apm/perfevals/llnlperfevals

After the NNSA news that LANS is out next year, there have been many suggestions here for how to make the situation better for the future. The two most serious ones would appear to be either to federalize the Laboratory or to move it to DoD. There could be a third option, which is to combine LANL and SNL; however, that doesn't seem to be a logical merger. What are the reasons for or against these two options?

A question for those at LANL. Should the M&O Contract for LANL be split into two different contacts - one for the "national laboratory" work (ie. weapons physics and basic science) and one for direct weapons "production" work (ie, pit and other nuclear component production). This would allow a solely industrial team to bid on the high hazard/risk production work that might benefit from their expertise. Breaking up DOE sites into separate M&O contracts has happened a several huge sites - Oak Ridge for example where Y-12 and ORNL were split apart.  Have a Los Alamos National Laboratory (not for profit contract) and Los Alamos Production Plant (for profit contract). Operations with different needs and therefore different contracts and different management.

UC Regents to have closed-door meeting on 'future of the LANL contract' Really very odd that they cite 'security matters' as the excuse for the closed-door meeting. UC, with the strongest open door policy in the US, may find itself having to defend this decision to hold such a meeting not in public. http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jan16/doe-ro.pdf

What ever happened to the follow up investigation about the LANL payments to Wilson? The SNL part of the case was settled, but no word yet on the LANL part.

Read about her experience with our judicial system. Just like many readers and contributors of this BLOG, she is fighting for justice and accountability! There is a link to a free copy of the book on the sidebar, Please feel free to comment, This is what Nancy said about  her book: This book is my attempt to beat back the corruption I have witnessed in my little corner of the world, by using the ‗power of the pen‘ to hold one judge—and the system he operates within— accountable. I hope my story inspires others to do the same. As Albert Einstein so aptly wrote; ‗The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.‘

One story making the rounds is that NNSA had determined that the SNL contract must be competed before the LANL one, and the total contract failure at LANL has created problems for both Labs. Some SNL managers are starting to drop hints that the SNL rebid schedule will be revised in order to get LANL under a new operator more quickly. Maybe Charlie will discuss the rebid calendar in today's all hands meeting.

http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2016/01/05/ex-ornl-counterintelligence-officer-charged-in-death/ This is no doubt due to the arrogance of scientists at LANL, LLNL and Sandia. Funny how there are no arrogant scientists at ORNL. Can someone explain this to me?

You would never see such a report from NNSA, where accident after accident goes by and no manager is fired. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/05/politics/navy-submarine-accident-captain-relieved/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/05/asia/north-korea-seismic-event/ North Korea says it successfully conducts hydrogen bomb test. Our best course of action should be to close our labs, due a a culture of arrogance.

One more negative report on LANL Just WHY is LANL doing BSL biosafety work anyway? They are supposed to be a nuclear Lab! http://cms.doe.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/12/f27/EA%20Targeted%20Review%20of%20WPC%20and%20Biosafety%20at%20LANL.pdf

How about making this blog as a blog for all DOE labs as I see plenty of LANL and SNL comments?

Does anyone know what happened to all the fancy new brochures that Charlie had made up with the Lab's new mission and vision?

A question for Charlie's all hands meeting this week: So, how do we go forward from here? With the public release that LANS is gone next year, what is the plan for transition?

Is there a culture of arrogance that dooms LANL, no matter who is the contractor? http://www.abqjournal.com/699238/opinion/new-lab-contractor-needs-to-sweat-the-small-stuff.html

"A big question is: Should Los Alamos National Laboratory remain open at all and with what mission?" I am not sure if this is a serious question, considering that the scope of screw ups in the government agencies and facilities LANL is pretty down there. Overall it is a silly question as LANL is no going anywhere...ever. That is a fact of life. But lets try to address the question anyway. Yes or no. Yes LANL should remain open or if you close it down you would just have to build something like elsewhere or break it up in parts and send those elsewhere if you want to have a deterrent. The question is can opening up a new facility really work? Where are you gong to move it to? Texas, Utah, sounds good but how does it change anything. It will be insanely expensive and risky since you will have to move so much stuff. Who are you going to hire the same old people? New people might be leery of ever going into such a new faculty after seeing what happened to the old fa...

Odd that the article did not focus on the large ethics scandals at LANL, since this is the paper that broke the Beth Sellers story and Charlie's long coverup. http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/a-history-of-innovation-and-dysfunction-at-los-alamos-national/article_6bde4aee-077f-56a6-836b-eab1d289271e.html

Dec 2nd 2007:  http://llnlthefinalstory.blogspot.com/ was gone. This was a time of mental unrest and everyone had an opinion about the privatization. We needed a forum to vent more than any other time in the history of LLNL. I started llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com with this first post: http://llnlthetruestory.blogspot.com/2007/12/llnl-true-story.html Soon after, its brother, http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com died. So, we had an influx of LANL readers and the LLNL BLOG became "it". Not sure how LLNL management would react, I committed to keep the BLOG alive under the Scooby nickname. Then, in 2013, to deflect attention from scooby, I created a second nickname of Doobydew. Today is my first day as a retired person. As in 2007, I am still committed to provide a forum for exchanging opinions, passing on new information and exposing injustices, abuse and fraud. Happy New Year Everyone! Julian Bentayeb

The LLNS investment committee must be getting kickbacks from Fidelity. It only offers high fee options, when low fee options exist. Why? Goldstein getting kickbacks? For example: In 401k  The fee on the SP500 index mutual fund is a gigantic 0.25% per annum of assets which is three times what Fidelity charges for the same plan elsewhere. In TCP1 the most basic, most efficient,most widely held, most recommended low fee SP500 index fund isn't even available. Only less effective UC managed imitations which perform more poorly exist. Is the LLNS investment committee paying attention? Offer a low fee (< 0.07%) SP500 index fund option in both places please. It is the most basic invest ment plan building block after cash.

How do the current and projected assets/liabilities compare between UCRP and LLNS TCP1?

Some talk that the plan for the new LANL contract is to get rid of the last of the TCP1 people and close out the pensions. They are also looking for ways to save money by reduced benefits or making the lab more of two-tired systems where large portions of the lab will be external contractors with their own benefits. It is all speculation but some people might be thinking that with the new contract that LANL could be the first NNSA lab to be truly brought into modern large businesses project management.

What will happen to our region if funding for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is cut. New Mexico is dependent on federal largesse for its economic survival, and our immediate area, Northern New Mexico, more than most parts of the state with the employment opportunities that LANL and the town of Los Alamos offer. The state's economy is in dire straits, and a reduction of the country's taxpayers money pouring in would sink it even further. For the second year in a row New Mexico saw a decline in its population according to state population estimates released last Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. New Mexico's net population loss is startling when compared to neighboring states, all of which land in the top 10 for growth in the Census study. Operations and construction at our neighboring nuclear weapons research laboratory account for millions of dollars in tax revenue for New Mexico and for the town of Los Alamos. But now, the National Nuclear Se...