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
https://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/document/18826/Los%20Alamos%20Week%20Ending%20August%209%202019.pdf
Comments
Shut LANL down, it is is the only sane thing to do. Triad had one job and the screwed it up.
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.
8/31/2019 11:07 AM
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.
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.
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.
Just tell Trump he could win NM if he closed LANL and it would be shut down in a second.
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.
What is there to talk about, LANL is full of cowboys and is run badly. Yes total LANL closure would be good.
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.
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.
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.