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Just how did LANL manage to get WIPP closed?

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By scooby
Just how did LANL manage to get WIPP closed?

By Jeri Clausing / Associated Press
PUBLISHED: Thursday, June 26, 2014 at 1:40 pm
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A state regulator says officials investigating a radiation leak from the government’s underground nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico have turned their focus to Los Alamos National Laboratory.

New Mexico Environment Department General Counsel Jeff Kendall said Thursday that the Department of Energy’s accident investigation team has been at the lab in northeastern New Mexico for about three weeks.

Kendall said that probe is one of just nine underway into what caused a barrel of toxic waste from Los Alamos to burst at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico, contaminating 22 workers and shuttering the nation’s only permanent repository for waste from nuclear bomb building.

Kendall made the comments during a New Mexico Court of Appeals hearing on a dispute with a watchdog group over the permitting process for WIPP.

http://www.abqjournal.com/421129/north/north-news/nuke-leak-probe-focuses-on-los-alamos-national-lab.html

Comments

Anonymous said…
This news is coming in just in time to be considered as part of the contract year extension discussions. Depending on where things sit on the issue, this might be bad timing.
6/27/2014 6:09 PM
Anonymous said…
It just shows you the root of all these problems is not about management of LANS but deep rooted in the culture. Went from UC to Bechtel and we still have these problems.
6/28/2014 8:36 PM
Anonymous said…
LANL culture prior to Becthel is not even close to the same, you must be a newbe.
6/28/2014 10:53 PM
Anonymous said…
Prior to Bechtel, LANL culture was about achievement.
6/29/2014 9:44 AM
Anonymous said…
It just shows you the root of all these problems is not about management of LANS but deep rooted in the culture.

Nice try, you must be from Bechtel. Such a stupid statement can only come from a manager.
6/29/2014 2:03 PM
Anonymous said…
LANL managed to avoid being in the press for major problems for the first few years after the contract change. Except for the Quintana scandal, it was pretty quiet until the last few years. The problems that have happened on Charlie's term are just piling up month after month.

What is interesting is that UC lost the contract in no small part due to the perception of major problems, whereas the current problems have national ramifications.
6/29/2014 3:26 PM
Anonymous said…
"Just how did LANL manage to get WIPP closed?'

LANL does elegant research on hydrogen, mix, hydodynamics, string theory, etc. and can't even determine how one their WIPP drums "burped or farted or whatever" it did. The trouble is that LANL cannot focus or garner the knowledge it has within the Lab to real problems.
6/30/2014 8:35 AM
Anonymous said…
Hmmm, sounds a lot like a Management problem.
6/30/2014 11:02 AM
Anonymous said…
Prior to Bechtel, LANL culture was about achievement.

June 29, 2014 at 9:44 AM

Someone is suffering from selective memory disorder.
6/30/2014 11:59 AM
Anonymous said…
Isn't it strange... prior to lab privatization an inexcusable event like this at WIPP would have brought out endless Congressional witch hunt hearings about "cowboy culture at the labs" et al.

Now that Bechtel rules the roost and can whine & dine Congressmen, it's all so very civil. "Just take the money out of the NNSA 'rainy day' pension fund for these facilities" sezs the happy Congress people. "And do be nice and see to to it that we all receive another campaign contribution, Riley."

So very different from the pre-2006 era, isn't it?


6/30/2014 11:22 PM
Anonymous said…
Someone is suffering from selective memory disorder.

You sound more like a bitter person. Maybe you should try to compare the scientific achievements of the labs before and after the private take over.

Once the last of the people who were part in testing and developing the nukes have left, we will not be able to build a new bomb again. No matter how many ADs and PADs they will throw at us.

Most of the scientific areas at the Lab have been systematically hollowed out and cannot compete with Universities, simply because we are too expensive. This has led
to further brain drain of especially middle career scientists, who should be the current drivers.

On top of this NNSA is micromanaging all the labs and slowly strangles them to death.

Unless we reverse this trend, the labs ultimately will go the Rocky Flats way.
7/01/2014 5:06 AM
Anonymous said…
I find it amusing that there is so much interest by LANL Senior Management in the Waste Disposition Program (WDP) aka Transuranic Program. On an interesting note, the WDP Senior Management found their scapegoat a week ago by firing the WDP Facility Operations Director. Terry Wallace didn't mention a word about it. Ahhh the lengths that LANS Senior Management will go through to protect their jobs, salaries, and bonuses.
7/03/2014 5:19 AM
Anonymous said…
So very different from the pre-2006 era, isn't it?

June 30, 2014 at 11:22 PM

Boy is that true. Hell, McMillan is so worried he went out and bought whole new line of Italian Leather belts to celebrate his recent bonus.
7/03/2014 5:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Charlie "GQ" McMillan is looking faaaaabulous and isn't that all that really counts?
7/07/2014 10:57 PM
Anonymous said…
Charlie "GQ" McMillan is looking faaaaabulous and isn't that all that really counts?

July 7, 2014 at 10:57 PM

And handsome too. I noticed "GQ" McMillan stopped using Grecian Formula and Just for Men Hair dye.
7/08/2014 6:13 PM
Anonymous said…
It's tough finding a hair stylist to do a fantastic looking $200 hair cut in Northern New Mexico but somehow Charlie manages to buck-up and manage the horror of the situation with aplomb.
7/09/2014 10:54 PM
Anonymous said…
...the horror.....the horror.....
7/10/2014 1:12 PM
Anonymous said…
It's tough finding a hair stylist to do a fantastic looking $200 hair cut in Northern New Mexico but somehow Charlie manages to buck-up and manage the horror of the situation with aplomb.

July 9, 2014 at 10:54 PM

I though that's why McMillan flies back to Livermore ala San Francisco? San Francisco has a "boat load" of the finest hair stylists on earth.
7/11/2014 11:43 AM
Anonymous said…
I overheard McMillian tell his Administrator he's going with a Faux-hawk haircut to improve and change his image.
7/12/2014 8:11 AM
Anonymous said…
This obsession with Charlie seems a little......unhealthy. Maybe somebody needs a coming-out party?
7/14/2014 12:49 PM
Anonymous said…
Maybe somebody needs a coming-out party?

July 14, 2014 at 12:49 PM

Yeah, this guy is really stuck on Charlie. It is very creepy how he critiques Charlie's dress and grooming. I can see someone being jealous of the car, but the hair fashion and the belt? I guess it sucks to be a poor fashion fag.
7/14/2014 8:55 PM
Anonymous said…
No pun intended, I'm sure.
7/15/2014 8:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Most Lab employees don't care one way or another how the Director dresses, just as long as he is effective and honest. Sig could be seen in shorts and sandals. Mike was not a dapper dresser by any measure, and sometimes he was even observed to be a bit unkempt. While neither of them were ever going to be nominated for a best dressed award, both are broadly respected for their knowledge and integrity. From his first week, Charlie displayed an affection for the cameras that would be overlooked by most of the staff if he could lead the organization somewhere besides from bad news story to worse news story.
7/15/2014 11:50 AM
Anonymous said…
Yeah, this guy is really stuck on Charlie. It is very creepy how he critiques Charlie's dress and grooming. I can see someone being jealous of the car, but the hair fashion and the belt? I guess it sucks to be a poor fashion fag.

July 14, 2014 at 8:55 PM

Anyone who spends so much time on this Blog defending "GQ" need to "come out" and tell "GQ" how much you love him....fag.
7/16/2014 4:57 PM
Anonymous said…
Seems we hit a bit of nerve there.

FYI - I'm not anywhere near NM, and have never even seen a picture of good ol' Charlie. All I know about him is what I read on this blog (so I know NOTHING about him).

I just observe that somebody seems to spend an inordinate amount of his blog time on Charlie's appearance. And that seems creepy.
7/16/2014 5:52 PM
Anonymous said…
I object to the poor language choice in the July 14 12014 at 4:57 PM. Even my student knows better than to use derisive name-calling. To allow this as a viable comment to a technical article - or any article - is only indicative of a general lack of education and rational judgement.
2/22/2017 1:21 PM
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