Todd Jacobson
WC Monitor
1/23/2015
National Nuclear Security Administration officials were highly critical of Los Alamos National Laboratory management in the lab’s recently released Fiscal Year 2014 Performance Evaluation Review, with the document stating that shortcomings during the year “reflect a negative trend in leadership performance.” The agency docked lab manager Los Alamos National Security more than 90 percent of its available fee during the year, paying just $6.25 million, in large part due to the lab’s role in the radiological release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Previously, the NNSA released fee information for its weapons complex contractors, but last week it released the full performance review documents for each of its sites, including Los Alamos’ 29-page review.
The document lauds the lab for meeting much of its nuclear weapons mission work, but highlights many of its shortcomings, including the continuing shutdown of the lab’s Plutonium Facility, “ethical lapses” by senior lab staff—a reference to former Deputy Director Beth Sellers, who is facing a three-year debarment from government contracting for not promptly disclosing her husband’s consulting agreement with the lab—and issues with the lab’s Earned Value Management System. “While there were significant accomplishments during the reporting period, the impact and gravity of documented shortcomings overwhelm those accomplishments and reflect a negative trend in leadership performance; constituting performance that is below expectations,” the NNSA said.
NNSA: WIPP-Related Issues led to ‘Degradation of Public Confidence’
The impacts of the WIPP-related problems “include the diversion of key staff from mission work, huge financial costs to the Department of Energy that are still accumulating, failure to meet environmental commitments made to the state of New Mexico, damage to an important relationship with a key state regulatory body, broad adverse economic impacts associated with the suspension of normal operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and a degradation of public confidence in the conduct of nuclear and high hazard operations at the Laboratory.”
The NNSA called the lab’s transuranic waste processes and a laboratory waste stream “contributing or causal” factors to the radiological release at WIPP, which was believed to be caused when a Los Alamos-processed waste drum was breached by a reaction within the drum. WIPP’s shutdown led the lab to miss a key commitment to ship 3,706 cubic meters of transuranic waste from the lab to permanent storage. “Although self-disclosed, the Laboratory’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act violations with respect to transuranic waste management compounded the severity of the transuranic waste incident,” the NNSA said. “This incident highlighted a significant failure in the Laboratory’s formality and conduct of operations, driving the overall rating of this Performance Objective to Unsatisfactory.”
The NNSA also noted that the lab violated its Site Hazardous Waste Permit by improperly treating nitrate salt waste streams and for not reevaluating the Acceptable Knowledge Determination for the waste stream. “These noncompliances are suspected as either the cause or a significant contributor to the February 2014 radiological release at Waste Isolation Pilot Project, which has resulted in the curtailment of legacy transuranic waste processing at Technical Area 54 (TA-54),” the NNSA said. “As a direct result of the waste incident, the nation’s only transuranic waste repository has suspended inbound shipments, adversely affecting all facilities that generate these wastes nationally, incurring large costs that cannot yet be accurately computed, and degrading an important regulatory relationship. In addition to the direct and indirect costs and the adverse impact on the regional economy, there is a very high likelihood that the government will ultimately be responsible for significant fines and penalties.”
