DOE to fine lab that lost weapons material headed to Nevada
WASHINGTON — The operator of the government weapons laboratory at Los Alamos, N.M., faces fines totaling $247,500 after losing track of classified material that was supposed to have been shipped to Nevada in 2007, but never arrived.
What’s more, investigators said, the mistake went undiscovered for five years.
Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel assigned to the Nevada Nuclear Security Site did not determine until 2012 the material never had been sent. The lab said it most likely never left the New Mexico lab and was safely disposed at some point.
But while a Department of Energy investigation concluded it was unlikely the material had been stolen, it said the laboratory’s internal probe of the incident fell short of rigorous.
“A compromise of classified information cannot be ruled out,” according to a May 27 preliminary notice of violation signed by Frank Klotz, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE branch that manages the weapons complex.
The gaffe was the latest in a series of disclosed missteps at the nuclear complex that have drawn the ire of members of Congress.
At a House hearing Friday, Department of Energy officials were called on the carpet over security and safety lapses at some of the laboratories and weapons manufacturing sites.
The episode that has drawn the most attention was the radiation release last year at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico that indefinitely has shut down the nation’s only nuclear waste disposal site.
But among other recently publicized episodes, the company that operates Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico faces a $577,500 DOE fine for mishandling classified information.
In the Sandia case, a supervisor discovered weapons design information had been included in public presentations made by a lab employee at least three times since 2003, and the presentation had been loaded onto a shared server.
“These kinds of problems with DOE and especially NNSA just keep happening,” said Don Hancock, who monitors activities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Sandia National Laboratories as administrator for the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center.
“Los Alamos has a long history of continuing screw-ups, but other sites do too,” Hancock said. “These events keep happening and members of Congress get frustrated with that.”
In the Los Alamos case, first reported by the the Center for Public Integrity, the Department of Energy has not disclosed what was lost, identifying it only as a “secret/restricted weapons data item.” It said the infractions were among the most serious that involve “actual or high potential for adverse impact on national security.”
Hancock said it’s difficult to pinpoint what the missing material could have been.
“It doesn’t have to be weapons components per se, but materials that either have been or could have been in weapons,” Hancock said.
“The reason to ship it to Nevada is presumably Los Alamos was getting rid of it,” Hancock said. But, he added, it might have had characteristics that made it more sensitive than relatively routine low-level nuclear waste that DOE disposes at the Nevada site.
The violation notice detailed the proposed fines to be levied on Los Alamos National Security LLC, the lab’s management contractor. The firm is a consortium of the University of California, Bechtel, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services, and URS Energy and Construction.
The contractor had no immediate comment on Tuesday. It has until June 27 to respond to the National Nuclear Security Administration on the proposed fine. The security agency said the contractor had taken corrective actions to reduce the likelihood of making the same mistake again.
Contact Review-Journal Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@reviewjournal.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.
