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.
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.
Comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Not too worry, Berea, Philby and Groymyko can only marvel at the weapons program suicide pact that Bodner, Pryzbylek and the SecDoE managed.
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.
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.
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.
November 29, 2012 5:14 PM
Not surprising, everything the U.S. government is by default a "success".