LLNL - The True Story -

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 ...

Report recommends additional penalties for Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories “because of the overt nature of Sandia and Los Alamos’ actions and their failure to fully comply with federal direction in this case.” http://www.abqjournal.com/209187/politics/federal-report-labs-wrongfully-hired-wilson-as-lobbyist.html June 27, 2014 at 3:02 AM     Anonymous  said... It was pay to play. And when you think of it, Bechtel was brought in for their expertise and this is right up their alley.

Just love those once a year UC Retirement COLA increases! No appraisals and no BS too!

Does LLNL deserve 3.4 stars on Glassdoor.com?

Sandia's Solid State Lighting EFRC (Energy Frontier Research Center) was up for renewal at DOE this year. This funding effort was an $18 million dollar effort with a lifespan of 5 years (2009-2014). As of June 18, 2014, it was officially announced by DOE that the EFRC renewal proposal submitted by Sandia this year was not renewed.

thief said... From Newsline: The Laboratory's Personnel Policy Manual (PPM), Section G - "Benefits" has been updated to ensure compliance with Contract 44, state and federal laws. There are numerous changes including the following: II.7 "Termination Vacation Pay" - all terminating employees will separate employment on their last day worked, regardless of the reason for the termination. Those employees who are retiring from the Laboratory will need to report to work on their final day of employment and will be paid for all hours worked as well as remaining accrued vacation leave on their last day worked, and IV.4 "Effect on Personnel Policies" and VIII.6 "LWOP for Temporary Workers' Compensation" - employees on leave for a worker's compensation injury or illness will accrue leave only if they meet the standard eligibility criteria. The revised policy language can be viewed here. These revisions are effective June 22. For questions re...

Thoughts on O&B?

Anonymous asked... I will not be at Wednesday's Don Cook "all hands" at LLNL that an earlier posted noted. Can someone post the content for the rest of us?

Sandia Livermore to merge with LLNL or shut down? There's been several rumors going around at Sandia Albuquerque that the Livermore site will either merge with LLNL or be shut down. Some of these rumors are coming from the report that Moniz is preparing:  http://www.pogo.org/blog/2014/05/20140522-energy-secretary-announces-commission-to-study-national-labs.html Does anyone at LLNL know if this is true? June 15, 2014 at 10:02 PM     Anonymous  said... Sounds like more paranoid BS to me. There will be a LANL, a LLNL, and a SNL/NM and SNL/CA for decades to come… June 15, 2014 at 10:37 PM     Anonymous  said... Best to shut Sandia CA down. For the work LLNL does, they do not need more staff that do not have PhDs.

Are LLNS employees comfortable raising work related concerns to their management chain, HR, or Staff Relations?

I ran across this article and thought that your blog is a good place to give varied perspectives. As for me, I've experienced delayed maintenance in my current building that resulted in a failure that caused an evacuation. Well, on the bright side, quitting time came very early that day.   LLNL has long been a leader in world class science, beginning with the leading role it played in the modernization of nuclear weapons and continuing through today with internationally recognized work in high energy-density physics. The Lab succeeded because it attracted the best scientists, the best engineers, the best technicians, the best skilled trades employees, and the best administrative support. LLNS management is endangering our shared tradition of world class support for science and engineering. To reduce overhead costs, they have been deferring maintenance, which has reduced our skilled trades member’s ability to support critical systems. Critical systems support nucl...

The article below lends a couple of perspectives that are a bit revealing - why management surprisingly announced retroactive pay - and some sobering information regarding the disparity, aka greed, that the middle class is forced to support to the rich. The article is good information for all to be aware. March 2014 SPSE-UPTE Monthly Memo The 2014 Raises   Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers, Local 11 of the University Professional and Technical Employees-CWA 9119, AFL-CIO (SPSE-UPTE) offers a hearty “thank you” to the hundreds of employees who signed our petition to the Lab Director to make the 2014 raises retroactive to  January 1 . [1]  As we were readying the petition for transmittal to the Director, he sent an email message to all employees announcing his decision to make the raises retroactive to  January 1 . Our petition undoubtedly played some role in his decision, even if only a subconscious one. In his January A...

Air Force Magazine - Marc V. Schanz 6/6/2014 The Future of ICBMs The Air Force is in the “home stretch” of an analysis of alternatives [AOA] on the future of the ICBM force, said the head of plans and programs at Air Force Global Strike Command. The AOA, which is slated for completion by the end of the month, will emphasize affordability and modularity for any future Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), said Brig. Gen. Fred Stoss in an interview at AFGSC’s Barksdale AFB, La., headquarters. Stoss stressed the GBSD is not a follow-on missile, but a systematic approach to recapitalizing the existing ICBM force over the long term. “We are already on the front edge of GBSD,” Stoss said, noting USAF plans to begin procuring Minuteman III guidance replacement sets beginning in Fiscal 2015 that will be modular and transferrable in the event the Minuteman III is replaced. “GBSD is not just a missile,” Stoss said, it is the rocket motors, the guidance sets, the fuses, the command and control...

So Jeff Wisoff continues on as the AD of the NIF Directorate  fending off reputed challenges from Dunning, a guy from LLE, and who knows who else. Sounds like business as-usual, as NIF turns more and more into a facility operations and maintenance organization. https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2014/Jun/NR-14-06-02.html

$120 million diverted from NNSA’s pension fund to WIPP ! Looks like workers across the complex are being hit to pay for this LANL screw-up. "House appropriators today matched President Barack Obama’s $220 million budget request for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant – then approved the addition of up to $120 million more – to help get the nuclear waste repository operating again. The vote by the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee comes on the heels of a request for extra WIPP cleanup money that Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich – both New Mexico Democrats – made of Obama last week. “We urge you to give consideration of the extra amounts needed to restore full operations at WIPP,” the senators wrote to the president. The Department of Energy has been investigating what caused the lid of at least one drum to crack open at WIPP outside Carlsbad in February. Radiation leaked from the deep underground repository into the environment on Feb. 14 in quantities deemed unharm...