LLNL - The True Story -

Maybe the next group of managers can get ahead of the problems, but until then bad stories seem to just keep making the press. http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/09/f26/LANS%20Enforcement%20Letter%209-18-15.pdf

What to Do About America's Nuclear Weapons Stockpile (aka Sandia's Pat Sena Carries a Shotgun) http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/the-manhattan-project/articles/2015/09/28/what-to-do-about-americas-nuclear-weapons-stockpile?int=a14709 U.S. News & World Report, Alan Neuhauser LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – Pat Sena has a routine: He prays with his wife, he reads, he drives his '97 Chevy pickup through Albuquerque's low-slung outskirts to work. Then, at the office until he heads home, he and his team make sure the U.S. can still – at any moment – blow up the world. “The way I think of it, I think of myself at my home, my family in my home. It's a rough neighborhood, there are gang members driving by and drive-by shooters, and I'm sitting out on the porch with a big shotgun, saying, 'Don't attack my family because you'll have to deal with me,’” he says. Sena is deputy chief engineer of the nuclear Stockpile Systems Center at Sandia National Laboratories...

Monthly (July) Site Summary for LLNL by the DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD contains some newsworthy items. Here it is... TO: Steven A. Stokes, Technical Director FROM: Matthew P. Duncan, Cognizant Engineer SUBJECT: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Report for July 2015 August 7, 2015 DNFSB Staff Activity: E. Gibson, M. Duncan, and outside expert R. Green participated in two teleconferences with LLNL, LFO, and subcontractor personnel to discuss the draft Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis update for LLNL. Safety Basis: Earlier this year, LLNL had discovered that some safety basis calculations used embedded computer code that had not been verified in accordance with LLNL’s software quality assurance requirements or identified on its list of approved safety software. These results triggered a declaration of a potential inadequacy in the safety analysis and a positive unreviewed safety question. As one of the corrective actions, LLNL performed an extent of condition review...

USA Today -- September 10, 2015 by Steve Reilly Cyber attackers successfully compromised the security of U.S. Department of Energy computer systems more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014, according to a review of federal records obtained by USA TODAY. Incident reports submitted by federal officials and contractors since late 2010 to the Energy Department's Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center shows a near-consistent barrage of attempts to breach the security of critical information systems that contain sensitive data about the nation's power grid, nuclear weapons stockpile and energy labs. The records, obtained by USA TODAY through the Freedom of Information Act, show DOE components reported a total of 1,131 cyberattacks over a 48-month period ending in October 2014. Of those attempted cyber intrusions, 159 were successful. "The potential for an adversary to disrupt, shut down (power systems), or worse … is real here," said Scott White, Professor of Homeland Sec...

This is all I have heard. http://www.independentnews.com/news/ed-moses-leaves-giant-magellan-telescope/article_8f116aee-3666-11e5-917d-3f74aae93541.html Ed Moses, former principal associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has stepped down as president of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization “to deal with family matters.” The organization announced Moses’s departure after rumors had been circulating in the Livermore area for several days, including emails and a short article in the blog, “LLNL the true story,” and national media were starting to inquire. From LLNL BLog "Ed did real and lasting damage to GMT in his short time there." Within the first three months of Eds arrival three of the original GMT staff had left. Two other staff members that had been with GMT for four years also left. Some retired but all left due to changes Ed instituted that showed little respect for the GMT staff or any understanding of telescope design or observatory operation...

IG finds problems in nanoscale materials safety Although several issues were found at various DoE sites, LANL stands out for having the most problems. Looks like there is no end for all the bad press these days. http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/08/f25/OAS-M-15-08.pdf

Another Excellent report on LANL's Effectivness that is Essential reading for all staff http://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/Board%20Activities/Reports/Technical%20Reports/TECH-39.pdf See, some employees are capable of following Charlie's wise leadership.

So much for getting rid of EM work at LANL. http://www.energy.gov/em/articles/doe-awards-legacy-cleanup-contract

Same crew in charge, just a new way to pay them.  Close WIPP with a waste drum explosion = new contract for environmental cleanup at LANL. Near fatality at LANCE = new contract science at LANL?

Exhibit A in this counterargument could be the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. With close to $10 billion spent and no tangible results in sight, the Ignition Facility, as Bill Sweet wrote in IEEE Spectrum magazine in 2012, is “the mother of all boondoggles.” Yet it trundles along, consuming hundreds of millions of dollars and countless scientist-hours each year, bringing delight to its congressional supporters but not much to anyone else. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/541636/weighing-the-cost-of-big-science / Perhaps "high-floor break even" was a mistake?

OPM Now Admits 5.6m Feds’ Fingerprints Were Stolen By Hackers (Wired, Sept 23, 2015) On Wednesday, the Office of Personnel Management admitted that the number of federal employees’ fingerprints compromised in the massive breach of its servers revealed over the summer has grown from 1.1 million to 5.6 million. OPM, which serves as a sort of human resources department for the federal government, didn’t respond to WIRED’s request for comment on who exactly those fingerprints belong to within the federal government. But OPM had previously confirmed that the data of 21.5 million federal employees was potentially compromised by the hack—which likely originated in China—and that those victims included intelligence and military employees with security clearances. www.wired.com/2015/09/opm-now-admits-5-6m-feds-fingerprints-stolen-hackers/ ******** Why has the federal government done almost NOTHING to help protect those who had their personal data stolen because of the lax cyber-security standar...

If the Los Alamos field office recommends a contract extension, what does that say about the safety culture? In a year when there was a near miss electrical accident, awarding extra years sends a strong message about how NNSA views safety. Will all their good words be erased by a single action? Anonymous said... "...If the Los Alamos field office recommends a contract extension, what does that say about the safety culture? In a year when there was a near miss electrical accident..." "NEAR MISS — near misses describe incidents where, given a slight shift in time or distance, injury, ill-health or damage easily could have occurred, but didn't." The LANS LANSCE incident was NOT a "near miss" since significant human injury and property damage DID occur.

Are the NNSA Field Office staff liable for off the mark Contractor performance evaluations, failures, or unlawful Contractor activities (Sandia, LANS, etc.)? "...NNSA maintains seven field offices that are responsible for day-to-day oversight of the activities at each site..." http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/670777.pdf   Anonymous  said... After the whole illegal lobbying scandal, it shows that Sandia is just full of criminals, or even worse, mediocrity. Maybe they really just didn't know better - someone didn't tell them that kind of bribery is illegal! Lesson learned. It's all just caused by a vast left-wing conspiracy orchestrated by the other labs anyways, to hassle Sandia, right? Sandia is just the leper child getting picked on and being bullied. Waa waaaa!!

U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China -part 2 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html?_r=0

U.S. Drops Charges That Professor Shared Technology With China -part 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html?_r=0

For those who missed it, UC Regents meeting today to discuss the status of the Labs. Norm Pattiz indicated he was happy to get rid of the Environmental work at LANL, "no interesting science here" He doesn't know waste is accumulating at TA-55 and is directly tied to science. He said "UC took a punch in the face" over the exploding drum at WIPP. No remorse or lessons-learned. Norm was wearing his 1000 caret diamond ring, Alexander Price suit, and drove off in his Austin Healy. The dwit nauseates me. http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/sept15/o2.pdf APPROVAL OF A SUBSTANTIVE MODIFICATION TO THE LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL SECURITY, LLC OPERATING AGREEMENT AND A PERFORMANCE GUARANTEE TO ENABLE THE TRANSITION OF CERTAIN LEGACY ENVIRONMENTAL WORK AT THE LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY FROM THE CURRENT PRIME CONTRACT TO A NEW PRIME CONTRACT WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY. Anonymous said... "UC 'running' LANL is ...

More talk that LANS will be gone shortly and that there will be an interim entity runing LANL (UC?) for a year before the next contract bid. It is that bad for LANS. September 16, 2015 at 8:08 AM Anonymous said... UC 'running' LANL is what led to the current mess. September 16, 2015 at 11:44 AM Anonymous said... No, Pete Dominici is what led to the current mess.

Criminal charges still on the table for Sandia lobbying, according to TIME magazine! http://time.com/4007950/nuclear-weapon-sandia-lockheed/

Nuclear Safety Enforcement Preliminary Notice of Violation issued to Los Alamos National Security, LLC for programmatic deficiencies in the nuclear practicality safety program at the Los Alamos National Laboratory http://energy.gov/ea/downloads/preliminary-notice-violation-los-alamos-national-security-llc Never stops......

The National Nuclear Security Administration has issued a preliminary notice of violation (PNOV) to the contractor at the Nevada National Security Site in connection with a June 13, 2014 chemical explosion at the Nonproliferation Test and Evaluation Complex. Two workers were injured in the incident. According to the Aug. 25 letter to Raymond Juzaitis, president of National Security Technologies LLC., NNSA Administrator Frank G. Klotz, said the federal agency “considers the factors that led to the explosion to be of high safety significance.” “The drum explosion and expelled steel shrapnel had the potential to cause a fatality or more serious physical harm to workers,” Klotz wrote. The PNOV cites four Severity Level I violations and one Severity Level II violation. The NNSA, according to Klotz’ letter, reduced the contractor’s fee by $2.05 million for the performance period in which the accident occurred. Therefore, he said, the NNSA is not proposing additional civil penalties. The Neva...

Hey Sandia folks: Did anyone read the e-mail that the SNL director sent to everyone about the illegal lobbying scandal? Was it just me, or did that sound so insincere?

LANL admits to over 200 new additional waste handling violations This new story, on top of the recent near-fatal LANCE electrical accident, should factor heavily in any contract considerations. http://www.abqjournal.com/640145/news/more-waste-violations-at-lanl.html September 6, 2015 at 7:56 AM  Anonymous said... The reason LANS self reports is that they cannot be sued. "Our beliefs our values" September 6, 2015 at 8:25 AM  Anonymous said... This new story, on top of the recent near-fatal LANCE electrical accident, should factor heavily in any contract considerations. September 6, 2015 at 7:56 AM Now McMillan has the DOE manager (Kim Dave Lebak) snookered. Will Congress please come in and shut this place down, it's being run like the Chicago mob ala Corruption and deception. September 6, 2015 at 9:03 AM  Anonymous said... "An extensive review at one of the nation’s premier federal laboratories has turned up violations in how the lab handled hundreds of co...

Charlie's "Be Essential" Pontification From: Charlie McMillan To: LANS Employees SUBJECT: The Words ‘effectiveness’ and ‘excellence’ in Our Beliefs As the Los Alamos Leadership Team and I have been sharing the Los Alamos Purpose Statement across the Laboratory, a question has come up regarding our choice of words in our belief: “Delivering mission success through operational effectiveness and scientific excellence.” Some have asked, why did we specifically choose to use both effectiveness and excellence? The answer is that the leadership team and I deliberately chose both words. “Excellence” means to be the best of a kind, to be top-tier; it has a comparative/competitive connotation. Because our scientific and programmatic work is often competitive in nature, excellence is what we expect when we compare ourselves to what others are doing—whether it be at other labs or in the academic community. Excellence is what is required to win in the competitive environment...

What on earth is going on at LANL? McMillan sent out some bizarre email that no one can understand. The group leaders are puzzled and telling the staff just to ignore this junk. The email was along the lines of, "some people have been asking why we put the words excellence and effectiveness in the purpose statement...the reason those two words were included is because I and the 70 member team wanted to put in these words." McMillan then prattles on about some more utterly obvious points that even the zombies in The Walking Dead already understood years before. What on earth is going on? I would hazard a guess that lab workers, many of whom went through college, graduate school, possible postdocs, and the interview process were already under the impression that LANL was about excellence and effectiveness, and took that to be a basis for even wanting to work at LANL, LLNL, Sandia or any other DOE lab for that matter. It is not a controversial statement to say that the the thing...

Pantex workers (1,100) are going out on strike. There's concern in NNSA that Y-12 may follow them. The big sticking point is the BenVal calculation requirement that NNSA M&O contractors must utilize to determine allowable benefits.  http://www.yournuclearnews.com/amarillo+nuclear+workers+at+doe+amarillo+plant+vote+to+strike_120609.html

Criminal charges still on the table for Sandia lobbying, according to TIME magazine http://time.com/4007950/nuclear-weapon-sandia-lockheed/ The settlement leaves open the door for the Justice Department to file criminal charges associated with the investigation, according to the eight-page formal agreement signed by representatives of Sandia and the Justice Department, which was obtained by the Center. The troubles uncovered by the inspector general’s investigation could affect Sandia Corporation’s chances if it pursues a contract extension, according to Michelle Laver, spokeswoman for the NNSA. “Federal acquisition regulations require that past performance be looked at as part of any and all contract awards,” she said.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestiefer/2015/08/31/lockheed-fined-4-7-million-for-fraudulent-taxpayer-paid-lobbying-with-most-corrupt-ex-rep-wilson/