Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
9/4/2015
The Department of Energy issued this week a preliminary notice of violation (PNOV) to Los Alamos National Security, the company that manages the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), for nuclear criticality safety violations at its Plutonium Facility (PF-4) at Technical Area 55 (TA-55). LANS’ violations are of “high safety significance” to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Aug. 25 letter says, “because a fundamentally sound and functioning nuclear criticality safety program is an essential barrier in precluding the possibility of an inadvertent nuclear criticality” – an unintended, self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction.
LANS failed to establish an “effective [nuclear criticality safety] training and qualification program for criticality safety officers (CSOs), managers, and other TA-55 workers,” did not “effectively establish” quality problem detection and prevention processes between 2006 and 2013, and failed to “take timely and effective action to correct deficiencies” in training, staffing, criticality safety evaluation documents, and criticality safety limit approvals, the PNOV says. The notice also identifies deficiencies with “the training of emergency response personnel for a criticality event” and notes LANS’ 2011 Nuclear Criticality Safety Committee assessment of TA-55 “stated that ‘management responses to issues typically involve band-aid solutions, additional paperwork, and/or no-value added training.’” Another 2012 review of PF-4 “found that there is ‘no effective senior management response for fixing any overarching [nuclear criticality safety issues],’” the notice says.
The notice says that due to “numerous safety and operational issues,” NNSA has already “substantially reduced the contract fee that was awarded to LANS,” and therefore “proposes no civil penalty for violations cited in this PNOV.” LANS is required to reply to the notice within 30 days. It can either waive its right to contest the notice, making the order final, or provide arguments against the violation claims.
