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Saturday, August 31, 2019

Triad non-compliance

Triad and N3B found to have transuranic waste container non-compliance issues and "WIPP will refuse to receive the containers because their contents may be susceptible to exothermic chemical reactions and propagating fires."

https://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/document/18826/Los%20Alamos%20Week%20Ending%20August%209%202019.pdf

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leave it to the DNFSB to find an endless list of non-issues, while collecting their pay, and costing the taxpayer billions.

Anonymous said...



Shut LANL down, it is is the only sane thing to do. Triad had one job and the screwed it up.

Anonymous said...

"Leave it to the DNFSB to find an endless list of non-issues, while collecting their pay, and costing the taxpayer billions"

Have you been out of the Country for the last 5 years? Ever heard of the 2014 WIPP nuclear waste (preventable) accident costing taxpayers ~$500 million, that shutdown WIPP, created site nuclear waste build up across the USA,. and prompted the NNSA to give LANS a 90% haircut on their award fee? Clearly there are still pockets of poor safety culture holdouts. Don't blame the DNFSB.

Anonymous said...

Shut LANL down, it is is the only sane thing to do. Triad had one job and the screwed it up.

8/31/2019 11:07 AM

Insanity speaks against insanity. Curious.

Anonymous said...

Pockets? It never left. You think because 4 Bechtel managers left that all problems are solved. That the skill set, work ethic, and compliance of the LANL worker just magically got better overnight. Triad has a BIG problem to solve that Bechtel couldn’t. How do you get people to not just call things “non-issues” and actually comply with things like the WAC for WIPP or the Safety Basis for PF-4. I assume the response will be the WAC is flawed and we LANL know better. Please go ahead.

Anonymous said...

"Insanity speaks against insanity. Curious.

8/31/2019 6:43 PM""

3:11PM got it right there are pockets of poor safety culture, just as there are pockets of cowboy culture. The problem with LANL is that they worshiped a culture science which fostered these culture and now LANL is stuck with this. It is very hard to sniff out every last bit of culture once it takes root. Closing LANL may be one solution, the other solution is to get rid of that dam science at LANL which caused this whole problem. When you promote scientists or say how great they are you going to have these problems.

Anonymous said...

Well, I guess we’ve now heard from the “C” students from Bechtel and Santa Fe.

Anonymous said...

5:07pm provides the predicted reply. “LANL knows better”. Thank you for that. Nuclear disaster still imminent due to your hubris.

Anonymous said...

LANL has made it evident that it can’t walk and chew gum. Full of C Students from C schools. Time to move science to LLNL. The customers already are choosing LLNL science over LANL. Why put off the inevitable. We will take any remaining A students.

Anonymous said...

LANL has made it evident that it can’t walk and chew gum. Full of C Students from C schools. Time to move science to LLNL. The customers already are choosing LLNL science over LANL. Why put off the inevitable. We will take any remaining A students.

9/02/2019 5:39 AM

Sadly you may be right, the quality of the workforce at LANL has been declining for some time now and despite what some may say, it is all the different branches of the workforce. There is a saying that a high tide lifts all boats so that one part of the lab it has a tendency to influence other parts to lift the overall lab, and the converse is also true. There was a big push since Nanos that people do not matter and anyone can be replaced. Although it may be true that any one individual could be replaced you cannot simply treat the workforce like trash and not expect that the average quality of the workforce will not suffer. The lab is simply not on the same level it was 25, 20, or even 15 years ago. Some may say so what, the mission of the lab is going to change to production anyway so why should we have top talent in science, engineering, environmental clean up and so on, since that is going to be leaving LANL anyway. My point is that if the quality is low right now what makes you think you are going to attract the top talent for the coming ramp up of production work? LANL has been beaten down for some time now and things that are beaten down tend not to function very well. At this point there is simply no way that the problems are going to go away, if anything things are going to get worse as the quality of the workforce can only become further degraded. One you cross that tipping point it is almost impossible to turn back and that tipping point was crossed about 10 years ago. Before 2009 some people had hope that that things would turn around but after that people realized that this was it, so some talent left and those that stayed just gave up and went with the flow, since fighting was pointless. Maybe it is time just to put the place out of it's misery. After that the next institute that comes along will learn the lesson that people are simply not replaceable, particularly people with talent.





Anonymous said...

5:24 it is a curious fact that the secretary of energy received a higher dose from his airline flight to New Mexico than any of the workers involved in the WIPP “disaster” (your word). Perhaps it would be best if you allowed professionals to handle such situations in the future.


Anonymous said...

Maybe it is time just to put the place out of it's misery. After that the next institute that comes along will learn the lesson that people are simply not replaceable, particularly people with talent.

9/02/2019 11:30 AM

And you know someone who can do that with a stroke of the pen? I think not. Billions of dollars of real estate and facilities, and enough scientific talent to design and virtually test any warhead the US needs, unlike LLNL whose warhead design capability died before LANL loaned them the W80 to play with.

Anonymous said...

9/03/2019 5:51 PM

Just tell Trump he could win NM if he closed LANL and it would be shut down in a second.

Anonymous said...

LLNL has the new weapons whether you like it or not. You only have one leg left based on the recent published decisions by the AF. LANL will be a production facility. You might as well start looking at real estate in The Bay Area if you are a scientist and look in ABQ if you are an engineer. Again, we will take any remaining A players.

Anonymous said...

"LLNL has the new weapons whether you like it or not. You only have one leg left based on the recent published decisions by the AF. LANL will be a production facility. You might as well start looking at real estate in The Bay Area if you are a scientist and look in ABQ if you are an engineer. Again, we will take any remaining A players.

9/03/2019 10:33 PM"

Agreed, it is pretty clear that this is they way things are going. It makes no sense to have
LANL be a combined production/science lab, these are so utterly different in management, approach, and purpose. You could split the place in to two parts but than again you could simply move the science/engineering out, which appears to be the case. In many ways it makes a lot of practical sense.

Anonymous said...

If people actually read the staffers report, the drums were generated in 2015. Also, all the people above who don't understand how PF-4 works, the drums are generated with CCP and waste management personnel performing visual inspections/visual examinations prior to and during the waste bagouts. It seems the issue is "ratio of liquid to sorbent" and the identity is not documented. Since then, more information has been collected and submitted to CCP for acceptance. It appears to be an oversight of documentation. Of course, I wasn't at the fact finding so only reading between the staffers reports. I'm sure we don't know the entire story. Just remember, people make mistakes (HPI 101) and there is a difference between willful negligence and people who have good intentions that make mistakes. If you want LANL to accept zero risk then shut it down. Until then, Everyone needs to take a deep breath and take a XAAnax.

Anonymous said...

Land-based ICBMs are done. No state wants them.

Anonymous said...

Upon further research, this issue involved glovebox bubbler oil being absorbed on nochar, which does not violate the BOK; however, the total volume and exact identity of the oil was not initially provided. This is not new, oils are absorbed on nochar, which is an approved method to solidfy liquids. LANL provided the the volume and exact name of the oil to CCP for resolution back in early August. The moral of the story is folks, you need to stop taking every news article or DNFSB report literally, without understanding the background and context. It gets really old when people get out their pitchforks and start calling for total LANL closure when they really have no idea what they are talking about.

Anonymous said...

" It gets really old when people get out their pitchforks and start calling for total LANL closure when they really have no idea what they are talking about."

What is there to talk about, LANL is full of cowboys and is run badly. Yes total LANL closure would be good.

Anonymous said...

7:24. Again, how does this example apply to cowboys. Nothing was done incorrectly.

Anonymous said...

Don't try to talk 9/09/2019 7:24 PM out of his pre-recorded rant. It's all he knows.

Anonymous said...

You can keep changing the letterhead on who is partnering with UC to run LANL but it doesn’t change 90% of the managers, 99% of the workers and thus 100% of the Northern New Mexico culture problem of Operations at LANL.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised Scooby lets such a racist comment be posted.

Anonymous said...

If “northern New Mexico” is a race, I would get your point. Instead, “Northern New Mexico culture” is describing the laissez-faire approach to nuclear operations at Los Alamos. You are inferring LANL ops is a homogeneous race, it is not, but the LANL ops culture is pretty homogeneous and people who step out of line and try to push compliance, process, etc. are quickly moved out.

Anonymous said...

Way to dodge the fact that many if not most OPS people are Hispanic and from Northern NM. The predominant ethic and racial culture in northern NM is Hispanic. How else does calling out "northern New Mexico culture" make any sense?

Anonymous said...

Racism is so inbred in America that trying to eliminate it is futile!

Anonymous said...

Your deflection of racism does not change the culture problem but nice try.

Anonymous said...

So you are claiming culture =\= race in northern NM? BS.

Anonymous said...

5:11pm, I am. Are you saying Northern New Mexico (a geographic location) and its approach to nuclear safety represents the attitude and culture of Hispanics (which isn’t a race BTW)? LANL OPS is more non Hispanic in general than the rest of the state. Furthermore, you don’t hear of LANL culture like problems at Sandia. How many OPS managers, who are the enablers of the poor nuclear safety culture, are Hispanic? Bet it is significantly less than the average in northern New Mexico (in fact I know it is and 90+% live in Los Alamos or Santa Fe). The issue is more likely rooted in nepotism from sons and daughters of capable people being given jobs that they are not capable of doing and have no respect for the dangers.

Anonymous said...



I don't buy the Northern New Mexico culture = Hispanic. Northern New Mexico = Northern New Mexico. If you go to Arizona, Texas or California you can find regions which are mostly Hispanic but you will not find the same sort attitude you will find in Northern New Mexico. I know it is shocking but "Hispanics" do not have a mono-culture, the same is true of any major group. There are clear problems in New Mexico and Northern New Mexico in general that seem to be unique to the region.

Anonymous said...

Northern NM is Spanish, not Mexican Hispanic. Descendants of Cortez's army. Over 20 generations and still don't speak English at home. Live in small villages with 2 or 3 generations living in the same home. Subsistence farmers. Totally dependent on government support. Don't like education because education makes kids move away and therefore not remain to support parents and grandparents who never earned or saved a dime in their lives. Drug gangs, guns, familial shooting wars, Saturday night drive-by's. Lovely place to live.

Anonymous said...

"Northern NM is Spanish, not Mexican Hispanic. Descendants of Cortez's army. "

False, all you have to do is look at census data and you will see that is predominately hispanic. Half the states population was not even born in NM and this trend has been going on for several generations. There has also been lots of mixing with the native population, so the idea that NM is Spanish is nonsense. Also almost no could trace their ancestry to Cortez or any other early Spanish since at some point after this the Spanish got thrown out in 1680. Some of the people before 1680 could trace their ancestry back to the early Spanish, but a different group came back to NM or so which where more Hispanic than Spanish. There is still some old Spanish being spoken but very few people could claim they are completely Spanish blood. Just give them 23 and me test and see the results.

Anonymous said...

You missed the part about "NORTHERN" NM.

Anonymous said...

"You missed the part about "NORTHERN" NM.

9/17/2019 5:46 PM"

The Hispanics in Northern New Mexico/Southern Colorado region again are not "Spanish", it a mixture of Spanish and Native American from the region. It is distinct since it is with particular group of Native but it is not even close to fully Spanish like some people claim. Additionally this situation is not all that unique since all though America's you have distinct regions of local Natives mixed with Spanish.

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