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Wednesday, April 25, 2018
A few misplaced pits
Plutonium pit misplaced at LANL; corrective actions taken
Hey, what are a few misplaced pits among all the other issues at LANL.
A few associate directors, division leaders, group leaders, first line managers and operators just need to be terminated. Their stupidity and lack of addressing these repeated issues continues to make the rest of us look pathetic.
So why is this news, this kind of stuff happens all the time. Just happened that someone with a conscious happened to find and report the screw up. Time to head south!
UC has always been reactive, only rarely proactive. Case in point, UC management did an internal review of their Criticality Safety program and found nothing wrong. An external review that followed found that LANL's criticality safety program was in complete tatters. UC did nothing to fix these important problems until they were forced to. Now, just a few years later, we find that these problems are STILL occurring.
If NNSA chooses to continue with UC and something really bad happens, NNSA will have their own rear-ends in a sling.
"A few associate directors, division leaders, group leaders, first line managers and operators just need to be terminated. Their stupidity and lack of addressing these repeated issues continues to make the rest of us look pathetic."
Unfortunately, we are dealing with human performance issues, lack of attention to detail--not an egregious act. When Todd Conklin was around, we started to train managers to think critically about HPI. After he left, the HPI initiative has not been emphasized. If we start being punitive with termination, then self-reporting will be driven underground. Is this the sort of safety culture you really want to set up? or do you want people to feel comfortable reporting mistakes during or after they happen just so LANL can avoid public shaming in the media. Your choice. On one hand, workers are urged to report mistakes because its healthy for the criticality safety program then on the other hand, the media eviscerates and people like you talk about firing everyone. It's a total schizophrenic response.
No, it doesn't happen ALL the time. For the number of material moves that happen daily, mistakes are few and far between. You just happen to hear about the mistakes because that's what the DNFSB likes to focus on in their reports. You never hear about all the good work happening and people working safely.
No, it doesn't happen ALL the time. For the number of material moves that happen daily, mistakes are few and far between. You just happen to hear about the mistakes because that's what the DNFSB likes to focus on in their reports. You never hear about all the good work happening and people working safely.
May 1, 2018 at 6:40 AM
May be correct, but it is also the case that more crit safety errors occur at LANL than at the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise combined. That is the underlying concern of many of those that see any university led contractor as a high risk.
“May be correct, but it is also the case that more crit safety errors occur at LANL than at the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise combined.”
Please tell me what other entities in the nuclear weapons enterprise actually handle the amount of SNM that LANL handles on a daily basis. Answer NONE. I can state with absolute certainty that LANL handles more SNM on a daily basis that the enterprise handles in a year! And let’s also point out that most of the “crit safety errors” are so trivial. It’s unfortunate that they all get lumped together when most of them were never tracked or even reported up until a few years ago. You change the metrics and a paper cut gets reported.
"Maybe because LANL handles much more CAT I than anyone, except maybe Pantex, where it is all in crit-safe configurations coming in."
Sounds like an excuse from the usual cowboy culture of arrogance. Someone points out the LANL has more Pu mishaps than the entire DOE,NSF, NIH, FBI and DHS complex combined, COMBINED...COMBINED. What kind of organization can have that level of screwups and still have some poster come to the blog and make an excuse? LANL a university lead organization thats who. I hope Northrup guts the place as it has way too many cowboys. Every time some rational person points out issues with LANL some cowboy has to make an excuse. No more excuses the number of incidents should be zero. If not close it down, as there are dozens and dozens of places that could no doubt do all this work safer, cheaper, and better without the cowboy attitude, after all what is done at LANL that cannot be done elsewhere? Screwup after screwup, near criticality incidents like it is nothing, wow just wow. I am sure someone will respond to this post with an excuse which PROVES that LANL has a problem.
13 comments:
Those in Los Alamos might want to consider relocation.
A few associate directors, division leaders, group leaders, first line managers and operators just need to be terminated. Their stupidity and lack of addressing these repeated issues continues to make the rest of us look pathetic.
So why is this news, this kind of stuff happens all the time. Just happened that someone with a conscious happened to find and report the screw up. Time to head south!
It's news BECAUSE it happens all the time.
“Roark said the laboratory’s safety program would continue to correct compliance issues as they come up.” Sounds like they plan to screw up.
“Roark said the laboratory’s safety program would continue to correct compliance issues as they come up.”
We are just making this up as we go.
UC has always been reactive, only rarely proactive. Case in point, UC management did an internal review of their Criticality Safety program and found nothing wrong. An external review that followed found that LANL's criticality safety program was in complete tatters. UC did nothing to fix these important problems until they were forced to. Now, just a few years later, we find that these problems are STILL occurring.
If NNSA chooses to continue with UC and something really bad happens, NNSA will have their own rear-ends in a sling.
"A few associate directors, division leaders, group leaders, first line managers and operators just need to be terminated. Their stupidity and lack of addressing these repeated issues continues to make the rest of us look pathetic."
Unfortunately, we are dealing with human performance issues, lack of attention to detail--not an egregious act. When Todd Conklin was around, we started to train managers to think critically about HPI. After he left, the HPI initiative has not been emphasized. If we start being punitive with termination, then self-reporting will be driven underground. Is this the sort of safety culture you really want to set up? or do you want people to feel comfortable reporting mistakes during or after they happen just so LANL can avoid public shaming in the media. Your choice. On one hand, workers are urged to report mistakes because its healthy for the criticality safety program then on the other hand, the media eviscerates and people like you talk about firing everyone. It's a total schizophrenic response.
"It's news BECAUSE it happens all the time."
No, it doesn't happen ALL the time. For the number of material moves that happen daily, mistakes are few and far between. You just happen to hear about the mistakes because that's what the DNFSB likes to focus on in their reports. You never hear about all the good work happening and people working safely.
"It's news BECAUSE it happens all the time."
No, it doesn't happen ALL the time. For the number of material moves that happen daily, mistakes are few and far between. You just happen to hear about the mistakes because that's what the DNFSB likes to focus on in their reports. You never hear about all the good work happening and people working safely.
May 1, 2018 at 6:40 AM
May be correct, but it is also the case that more crit safety errors occur at LANL than at the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise combined. That is the underlying concern of many of those that see any university led contractor as a high risk.
“May be correct, but it is also the case that more crit safety errors occur at LANL than at the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise combined.”
Please tell me what other entities in the nuclear weapons enterprise actually handle the amount of SNM that LANL handles on a daily basis. Answer NONE. I can state with absolute certainty that LANL handles more SNM on a daily basis that the enterprise handles in a year! And let’s also point out that most of the “crit safety errors” are so trivial. It’s unfortunate that they all get lumped together when most of them were never tracked or even reported up until a few years ago. You change the metrics and a paper cut gets reported.
more crit safety errors occur at LANL than at the rest of the nuclear weapons enterprise combined.
May 2, 2018 at 3:07 AM
Maybe because LANL handles much more CAT I than anyone, except maybe Pantex, where it is all in crit-safe configurations coming in.
"Maybe because LANL handles much more CAT I than anyone, except maybe Pantex, where it is all in crit-safe configurations
coming in."
Sounds like an excuse from the usual cowboy culture of arrogance. Someone points out the LANL has more Pu mishaps than the entire DOE,NSF, NIH, FBI and DHS complex combined, COMBINED...COMBINED. What kind of organization can have that level of screwups and still have some poster come to the blog and make an excuse? LANL a university lead organization thats who. I hope Northrup guts the place as it has way too many cowboys. Every time some rational person points out issues with LANL some cowboy has to make an excuse. No more excuses the number of incidents should be zero. If not close it down, as there are dozens and dozens of places that could no doubt do all this work safer, cheaper, and better without the cowboy attitude, after all what is done at LANL that cannot be done elsewhere? Screwup after screwup, near criticality incidents like it is nothing, wow just wow. I am sure someone will respond to this post with an excuse which PROVES that LANL has a problem.
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