Los Alamos National Laboratory’s primary contractor received an overall good rating on a federal report card but was criticized for some safety lapses, production inefficiencies and snags in meeting goals tied to upcoming plutonium work.

The yearly report card assessed how well Triad National Security LLC met its goals set for 2021, rating the contractor “very good” with 87.3 percent of the highest possible score, nearly identical to last year’s 88 percent.

This grade was enough to earn Triad a $22.76 million bonus, which, combined with its annual fixed fees, adds up to $46.67 million it will be paid. That’s a moderate increase from the $45.7 million it received last year.

Triad is a consortium made up of the Battelle Memorial Institute, the Texas A&M University System and the University of California. It took over the lab’s operations in 2018 after its predecessor, Los Alamos National Security LLC, had a stormy tenure.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a U.S. Energy Department branch, conducts the reports on Los Alamos and other national labs.

Agency and Los Alamos lab officials had no statements available about the report card Thursday.

Critics bashed the scorecard for giving a three-page summary and no longer including a complete account of the grading. Federal officials stopped releasing the full reports in 2020, citing security concerns.

The cursory assessment winds up glossing over what could be serious problems at the lab, said Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

“The full evaluation reports used to be available; there’s nothing classified about them,” Coghlan said. “It’s all paid for by the taxpayer, and the taxpayer has a right to know how the contractor has performed.”

For instance, the report said the lab “experienced several programmatic challenges in executing the plutonium mission,” without giving details of what the issues were.

Identifying the lab’s problems in ramping up production of nuclear bomb cores, known as pits, is vital with its budget for plutonium operations escalating, Coghlan said. More than

$1 billion will be funneled to these operations this year, more than triple the money spent two years ago. Current plans call for the lab to produce 30 pits per year by 2026 and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to make an additional 50 pits, with the aim of modernizing the nuclear stockpile and supplying the plutonium triggers to at least one new warhead.

Greg Mello, executive director of Los Alamos Study Group, said the references to production and programmatic challenges are a sign the lab is struggling to make as much headway as hoped on this difficult endeavor.

The report also says lapses in safety affected efforts to execute the mission, which points to the trouble of boosting activities in the plutonium facility, Mello said.

“There are way too many things happening in a crowded space,” Mello said.

He noted the yearly reports are truncated and require reading between the lines.

“We see a lack of transparency here, which in itself is troubling,” Mello said.

Coghlan said the most glaring example of an opaque summary was one that said a government watchdog identified concerns in a technical report.

In fact, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board had identified incompatibly mixed wastes that were volatile and, if released by an exploding canister, could expose workers to lethal doses of radiation, Coghlan said.

The scenarios are not theoretical, given that a ruptured waste container in 2014 contaminated nearly two dozen workers, closed the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for three years and cost $2 billion to clean up, he said.

Other criticisms of Triad in the report include:

• Experienced difficulties executing small projects related to surplus plutonium, with significant schedule delays and cost increases.

• Struggled with integrating multiple programs and requirements to deliver products on schedule, on budget and within acceptance criteria.

• Inconsistencies in reporting certain data continues to hamper improvement efforts.

• Continued issues with disciplined operations, despite management focus on culture improvements.

Mello said some of the accomplishments the report listed were dubious, such as the lab being good at sustainability.

The lab is installing a power transmission line because it needs to consume more electricity, and it’s also a huge water user, Mello said.

“This report uses rose-colored glasses,” Mello said. “And the biggest question is: How long is that going to continue?”