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Los Alamos Director to Leave; Laboratory Might Increase Production of “Pits” for Nuclear Weapons
Peter Nanos will step down from his position as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on May 16, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, March 21). Nanos is set to take a position with the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Robert Kuckuck, a former manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, will serve as interim director until the University of California’s management contract for Los Alamos ends on Sept. 30. The official announcement of Nanos’ departure is to be made today. A university press release was leaked yesterday to the Santa Fe New Mexican, AP reported. Nanos has worked at Los Alamos since August 2002. He became interim director in January 2003 and permanent director in July of that year. His tenure has been marked by high-profile troubles, including misuse of laboratory credit cards by employees and the disappearance of two classified disks that were eventually determined not to have existed, AP reported. Security and safety troubles caused Los Alamos to largely shut down operations last year. Some Los Alamos personnel have questioned Nanos’ management style, and an online blog allowed them to anonymously air their discontent. The laboratory, though, garnered awards for basic and applied research even as it dealt with its problems, AP reported. “While there have been many challenges, I believe there have been many more successes, not so much because of what I may have done, but because of the men and women who care so much about this great institution,” Nanos said in the press release (Associated Press, May 6). Meanwhile, the Energy Department may be looking to have Los Alamos expand its production of nuclear weapons components, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday. The laboratory might expand its production of “pits,” the plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons, while the Energy Department decides whether to move ahead with building the planned Modern Pit Facility, said John Ordaz, department assistant manager for environmental management. Los Alamos officials presently have pledged to produce 10 pits each year. The agency is preparing a new environmental impact analysis of the laboratory’s operations and programs. The analysis is expected to examine the potential for production of 40 pits per year, said Elizabeth Withers, Energy Department environmental compliance manager at Los Alamos (Adam Rankin, Albuquerque Journal, May 5). The Energy Department has also decided against fully reimbursing the University of California for losses incurred during the operations shutdown, the Associated Press reported. The cost has been estimated at $119 million by Los Alamos and up to $367 million by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. While the “vast majority” of the loss should be reimbursed, the agency will not pay $6.3 million in contractor claims or $8 million for Los Alamos employees’ salaries for the first two days of the shutdown, said Jerry Paul, NNSA principal deputy administrator (Erica Werner, Associated Press/San Francisco Chronicle, May 5).
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