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Articles: Los Alamos suspends 19 during security probe

Posted by admin on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 12:39 AM

Nineteen staff members at the University of California-run Los Alamos National Laboratory have been placed on paid leave and expelled from the lab pending an investigation of their possible roles in recent security and safety lapses.
Top lab administrators said Thursday the growing scandal, which includes the loss of computer disks containing classified information, threatens both the lab's future and UC's role as lab manager. "It's an issue of survival," lab Director George "Pete" Nanos said during a telephone news conference at the lab. The individuals who were suspended include management staff and fairly low-level employees. They will not be identified pending further investigation, Nanos said. The employees' security badges have been confiscated, and they have been ordered to stay off lab property except when they are needed for interrogations. Nanos said some of the nuclear weapons lab's functions might be transferred to other, unidentified scientific institutions. The scandals "erode the stature of the university" and will "absolutely not" win it friends in a pending competition for the next lab contract, should UC choose to compete, S. Robert Foley, UC's vice president for laboratory management, said during the press conference. For six decades, UC has run the lab under an exclusive contract with the U.S. Energy Department. Last year, frustrated by accumulating scandals, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham ordered open competitive bidding on future Los Alamos contracts. UC's contract expires in September 2005. UC regents haven't decided whether to compete for the next one. Intimidation Also on Thursday, Nanos reported cases of "intimidation" in which some employees tried to discourage others from obeying rules. He gave no specifics. To prevent any more such incidents, management of staff members who control access to classified materials is being transferred to the Los Alamos security department, Nanos said. Four of the 19 suspended employees are suspected of committing safety violations, while the rest are being investigated in connection with security lapses, Nanos said. Some of the 19 employees knew the combination to one of the lab safes containing classified material, he indicated. Nanos said the Los Alamos lab's problems derive from a workplace culture that took root many years ago. The causes include some employees' lackadaisical attitude toward security and their unwarranted confidence that the lab is too important to be shut down, he said. His voice rising, Nanos blasted the "almost dogged belief that Los Alamos employees have in their own virtue" and an "almost suicidal denial of both the facts that exist at Los Alamos and the (angry) reaction of the country to them." "That (attitude) has led them down a perditious path for a decade, and it's got to stop, and it's got to stop now. The tolerance of the country is at an end," he said. Unless the lab can be made "safe and compliant" with security regulations, Nanos said, "Los Alamos will be shut down and work transferred elsewhere ... Clearly there are a number of other scientific laboratories" that could take on certain of Los Alamos' present tasks, he said. Lab losing business "You wouldn't find another (single) institution able to take it all," Nanos added. "But that doesn't mean that pieces (of the Los Alamos operation) couldn't be redirected" to other sites. Los Alamos staffers have long assumed no one else can do what they do, Nanos complained, "and what I'm telling them is: 'I don't buy it' ... We are not going to put the country in a high-risk situation if we can't resolve the (security) situation satisfactorily." The lab is already losing business: "About 25 percent of our revenue is (contract) work for others," such as private firms, Nanos noted. "We've already seen one corporate customer take its work out of here because he had a deadline to meet, and we weren't going to be able to meet it. I can't believe in my heart of hearts that this isn't going to cost us a substantial amount of revenue for the laboratory." Injured intern It's been a hellish month at the desert lab where the atomic bomb was born. Last week, Nanos bawled out staffers at an "all-hands" meeting. He also shut down all regular lab functions, including classified research, while investigators struggled to find two missing computer discs containing classified information. As of Thursday, they were still looking, two weeks after the information was reported lost. Nanos also is furious about an incident in which a 20-year-old student intern suffered an eye injury while she was using a lab laser. It was the latest in a series of safety lapses, including one near-electrocution, lab officials have said. The intern's vision initially was damaged, but she has recovered enough to return to work. "The safety conditions that led to the (laser) injury are appalling," Nanos noted Thursday. He said a lab representative had had "to apologize to (the young woman's) parents." 'State of denial' On Thursday morning, in his second "all-hands" address in a week, Nanos again criticized assembled Los Alamos staffers. This was necessary because "there are a lot of people at Los Alamos who are still in a state of denial. We have a number who still really haven't internalized the message," he said at the press conference. "So I spent this morning delivering the message from the American taxpayers to the workers at Los Alamos. ... We can either expect to make it work this time or start to see migration of work and other activities away from Los Alamos and to other institutions. ... This is no longer an issue of competition. ... It's an issue of survival," he said. UC's Foley, who, like Nanos, is a former admiral, seconded Nanos' stance. "There has been a lack of accountability, virtually a sense of entitlement that developed over the years in the culture at the laboratory. ... When they did something wrong, it was 'musical chairs': They could move from one job to another (at the lab). People didn't get fired ... and that's intolerable," Foley said.

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