For immediate release May 31, 2023

NNSA cites Los Alamos National Laboratory for multiple "serious" plutonium safety violations in 2021

Violations show "significant lack of attention or carelessness" and have "high safety significance"

Contact: Greg Mello, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell

Permalink * Prior press releases

Albuquerque -- On May 18, 2023, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to the contractor currently operating Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Triad National Security, LLC (Triad).

The enforcement action concerns four accidents ("events") that occurred in LANL's main plutonium facility between February 11 and July 19, 2021 only. It was initiated by the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments after that Office's investigation report of August 2022, over a year after the last accident in question. More than nine months later, NNSA has issued this PNOV.

Since July 2021 there have been many additional incidents of the same general types at the LANL plutonium facility, involving flooding, criticality violations, and glovebox leaks and glove tears (read or search at https://www.dnfsb.gov/doe-sites/los-alamos-national-laboratory). Local press coverage of these post-July-2021 events includes these articles:

• Radioactive water spill prompts investigation at Los Alamos lab, Santa Fe New Mexican, Aug 16, 2021
• LANL's improperly stored nuclear safes raise larger concerns, Santa Fe New Mexican, Nov 1, 2021
• Some LANL plutonium stored in vulnerable containers, Santa Fe New Mexican, Dec 22, 2021
• Oversight office says LANL operator safer than predecessor but still lacking, Santa Fe New Mexican, Jun 21, 2022
• Federal report: LANL has deficiencies in fire safety systems,Santa Fe New Mexican, Jul 26, 2022
• LANL's astounding growth also creates added pressure on safety, accountability, Santa Fe New Mexican, Aug 29, 2022
• Watchdog agency grills LANL, nuclear officials on lab safety, Santa Fe New Mexican, Nov 16, 2022

Presentations, videos, and a transcript of the Nov. 16, 2022 Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hearing regarding LANL safety are available here.

NNSA does not propose to fine Triad for these safety violations, having already decreased Triad's annual "management fee" for fiscal year (FY) 2021 by $1.41 million as a result of these events. Triad received $46.7 million in management fees for operating LANL during FY 2021 out of a possible $50.0 million (i.e. 93%). In FY2021, LANL received $1.1 billion for modernizing and operating its plutonium facilities, in preparation for starting up the reliable production of plutonium warhead cores ("pits").

NNSA's (significantly redacted) Performance Evaluation Report for Triad in FY2021 -- the formal basis for fee determination -- briefly mentions these safety problems, as we discussed at the time ("Nuclear Agency releases 2021 contractor evaluations for LANL and other sites," Feb 10, 2022). As we (Greg Mello) warned then,

"What's important to realize is that these problems are occurring as Triad is attempting to ramp up a program of unprecedented scale and complexity, namely industrial pit production. Pit production is the largest and most complex endeavor NNSA has ever attempted, and the most expensive warhead project since the end of the Cold War.....

"[W]e are increasingly confident this mission will fail at LANL. We believe it is already clear to close observers that pit production at LANL will fail to meet the statutory requirement of producing 30 pits per year in 2026 and reliably continue production at that rate or higher. There are just too many unresolved problems, some of which really can't be fixed, for LANL to produce pits reliably and in quantity."

Triad's formal reply to this PNOV is due June 17. After reviewing Triad's reply, "NNSA will determine whether any further activity is necessary to ensure compliance with DOE nuclear safety requirements."

According to NNSA, the accidents in question "revealed deficiencies in the areas of (1) work processes, (2) management processes, (3) quality improvement, and (4) criticality safety requirements."

According to NNSA, Triad tends to blame its workers for these accidents: "causal analyses prepared by Triad [regarding these incidents] routinely focus on human errors rather than on the conditions that make those errors more likely." This is a classic characteristic of institutions that experience what one industrial safety theory calls "normal accidents."

Study Group Director Greg Mello (a former lead hazardous waste inspector at LANL for the State of New Mexico):

"LANL is a very large facility that does a lot of potentially dangerous things with dangerous materials like plutonium. Small reported incidents and violations, which are then corrected fairly quickly, show that the internal management and regulatory system is working as it should.

"What NNSA is highlighting in this curiously belated enforcement action are incidents that a) could have been severe in terms of consequences, and b) resulted from intentional, repeated, egregious, and/or prolonged violations of DOE safety rules -- adherence to which is part of Triad's contract.

"NNSA's causal analyses point to Triad's failures in managing the problems of working in LANL's crowded, old plutonium facility under tight deadlines with inexperienced and in many cases untrained staff, combined in some cases with intentionally shutting down safety systems and ignoring high-level alarms in order to work faster.

"These accidents were preceded by an appalling, cavalier disregard for safety that has apparently been normalized to a degree in LANL's plutonium facility. What shouldn't be tolerated is tolerated. The fact is, if "nuisance alarms" (what is that?) weren't ignored and safety systems bypassed, work would slow down. LANL lost a small portion of its management fee not just for safety violations but also for being late on getting ready for pit production. Triad might ask, "Hey NNSA, what is more important, getting mission done or following safety rules?" The answer had better be, "Both. Safety is integral to the mission. Violating safety regulations means you are likely to sooner or later fail at the mission AND people will get hurt in the process."

"Triad has some shocking and shall we say peculiar ideas about why it is necessary to not get too hung up about safety. These can be seen in an internal briefing, "Building an Effective Nuclear Safety Culture." In it we learn that public relations -- "loss of the public trust," as Triad puts it -- is not just one (of three) reasons to have a "safety culture" but the only one that was emphasized and followed to two pages of examples of bad press, how it could affect LANL funding, etc. Most of the presentation is composed of vague corporate buzzwords.

"Reading this notice of violation, we are more concerned than ever that a scofflaw attitude has developed in some parts of LANL.

"The basic problem was foreseen by NNSA in 2017 and the Institute of Defense Analyses in 2019. LANL should not be running its plutonium facility on a permanent 24/7 basis, which requires doubling staff and combining operations, construction, equipment installation in a crowded old building that has "legacy" problems that go back decades. Overtasking the facility and the people in it were causes in all four incidents."

***ENDS***