Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear criticality safety program is improving but remains “inadequate,” according to a Department of Energy report submitted to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board late last week. Operations at the lab’s Plutonium Facility have been paused since June of last year because of criticality safety concerns—the lab had 38 nuclear criticality safety infractions during Fiscal Year 2013, according to the report—and only recently have begun to be slowly restarted. The report noted that the lab was about a year into a multi-year “rebuilding” effort. “LANL has known weaknesses in providing personnel skilled in criticality safety and operations to serve as advisors to supervisors,” the report said. “Weaknesses have also been identified in clarity and completeness of developed controls, thoroughness of identification of abnormal conditions, and validation of criticality safety codes. The plutonium facility is also addressing posting and labeling issues.”
Los Alamos was the only site whose criticality safety program was cited as inadequate. The Y-12 National Security Complex, Nevada National Security Site, Sandia National Laboratories and the Pantex Plant all had programs that were rated “adequate,” though Y-12 had 71 criticality safety infractions during FY 2013, the report said. Y-12’s rating “was ‘not meeting expectations’ for most of FY-2013, but due to aggressive and responsive corrective actions and improvements, the rating was elevated to ‘meeting expectations’ at the end of FY-2013,” the report said. Lawrence Livermore’s nuclear criticality safety program was rated “excellent.”