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Los Alamos National Laboratory Auditor Claims Retaliation for Criticism of Security, Safety
Los Alamos National Laboratory quality assurance auditor Don Brown has filed a complaint with the U.S. Labor Department claiming he was demoted after preparing audits that were critical of the facility’s safety and security procedure, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 31). Brown said he worked on two audits beginning in June 2003 and was demoted in fall 2004. Auditors first found that more than half the welds in one Los Alamos building were defective. Lab managers told them to stop their work before the audit was complete, Brown said in the complaint. A second audit uncovered the complete absence of a quality assurance program for two missile components used in nuclear warheads, according to the complaint. “I don’t want to lose one life, much less a lot of life,” Brown told AP. “The quality assurance program that’s used to assure nuclear safety is broken.” Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark said that safety matters are not ignored at the facility, and that the welding issue was not a threat to safety (Heather Clark, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Feb. 10). A scientist who resigned from Los Alamos last year blasted Director Peter Nanos and other managers for creating “an environment of fear and intimidation” at the facility in the wake of highly publicized safety and security troubles, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday. Nanos shut down most laboratory work last summer after a laser accident and the apparent disappearance of two disks containing classified information. The disks later turned out not to have existed. In a letter released to local media, former strategic research associate director Thomas Meyer said many of the problems that led to the shutdown had been identified but never addressed. He said that the full shutdown was an excessive response to the situation, and criticized Nanos for referring to some Los Alamos scientists as “cowboys.” “They (scientists) have been inappropriately pilloried and impugned publicly by their own director,” Meyer wrote in his letter. Meyer resigned last year rather than face being fired. He oversaw the scientist who was responsible for a laser accident that damaged a student intern’s eye, according to the Journal. Spokesman James Fallin said that Nanos’ “cowboy” comment referred only to a few scientists who failed to follow rules at Los Alamos. “What (Nanos) is attacking is complacency and the attitude that things are well enough if left alone and the idea that accountability isn’t something used at this institution,” Fallin said (Adam Rankin, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 9).
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