LANL fires employee after shipment error
Terminated worker says mistake ‘could have happened to anybody’
Los Alamos National Laboratory has fired at least one employee and taken disciplinary action against other workers as a result of weapons-grade plutonium being shipped by aircraft in violation of federal regulations.
On June 16, the lab shipped 100 grams of plutonium by FedEx air instead of by ground to two other laboratories in the nation’s nuclear weapons network of facilities. Air shipments of plutonium pose a greater threat of radioactive release because of air pressure, the possibility of a crash that would be severe enough to cause a release and other factors. The shipments didn’t result in a radioactive release, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
“All of those involved from the individual contributor level up the management chain have been held accountable through actions that include terminations, suspensions and compensation consequences,” lab spokesman Matt Nerzig said Monday. “Furthermore, we are transferring the responsibility for fissile nuclear material shipments to a different organization within the laboratory.”
The incident follows other safety problems at the lab this spring, including a fire in the plutonium facility as a result of an unlabeled container and shipments of hazardous waste to Colorado with inaccurate labels.
Lab employee Juan Montoya, who reportedly worked in shipping, confirmed he was let go as a result of the plutonium air shipments. He said he had not decided if he would take legal action against the lab, saying, “I am just trying to get my life back together.”
He said it was “a mistake that could have happened to anybody.”
Nerzig didn’t confirm that Montoya had been let go, saying additional information related to personnel matters would not be divulged.
Nerzig said that while the plutonium shipments arrived safely out of state, “This mistake, taken together with other mistakes in recent years, is unacceptable and is in the process of being addressed promptly and thoroughly. Our response to this incident is not business as usual.”
He said measures will be put in place throughout the lab to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident.
The incident was first made public June 23 by the NNSA, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons program. The agency reported that the lab failed to follow federal protocol when it shipped “small quantities of special nuclear material” to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Savannah River National
Laboratory in South Carolina.
NNSA administrator Frank Klotz called the incident “absolutely unacceptable.”
In response to questions about when the carrier was informed of the shipping mistake, Heather Wilson, a spokeswoman for FedEx, said, “As a matter of policy, we do not discuss the details of our customers’ shipping information.”
Reports into the incident are pending from the NNSA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The lab and operator Los Alamos National Security — a consortium that includes the University of California and Bechtel — have faced criticism and monetary penalties from federal investigators for years. Questions have been raised about the management culture and its implication for worker safety in the dangerous field of nuclear weapons research.
The most costly accident occurred in early 2014 when a drum improperly packaged at Los Alamos burst at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, releasing radiation and closing the facility for almost three years. The incident contributed to Los Alamos National Security losing its lab management contract with the Department of Energy. A bidding process for a new contractor is underway.
The ability of the lab to handle nuclear materials has been of increasing concern because the Department of Energy has tasked Los Alamos with producing an increasing number of plutonium pits — the grapefruit-sized cores that cause a nuclear weapon to explode.
A hearing was held in Santa Fe in June by members of a federal advisory board because of concerns at the lab’s plutonium facility. Lab officials were questioned on the facility’s capability to handle the “unprecedented” mission for pit production, given the history of accidents, safety concerns and understaffing.
The Center for Public Integrity recently published a series of stories about serious near misses with nuclear material at the lab and a culture that fails to hold senior management accountable.