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Thursday, February 04, 2010
Sandia Labs Didn't Reveal Warhead 'Issue'
By John Fleck
Copyright © 2010 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
Sandia Labs failed to tell crews at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant about an "issue" with the W76 warhead, leaving the Pantex workers unaware of possible hazards while they worked on it, according to federal safety auditors.
Pantex, near Amarillo, is the main U.S. site for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons.
Details of the incident, made public last week by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, are classified. The safety board, in a letter to the National Nuclear Security Administration, would only describe the problem as "an emergent issue" regarding components being used in a major upgrade of the W76.
"The lack of timely review and communication of new information from SNL personnel to those qualified to assess its safety impacts resulted in operations being performed by the Pantex contractor without a complete understanding of the hazards involved," board Vice Chairman John Mansfield wrote in a letter to the NNSA.
Pantex workers are in the midst of rebuilding the warheads, which are carried aboard U.S. nuclear missile submarines. The warheads are being gutted, with many of the internal components being replaced in a project intended to extend their lifetimes by 30 years.
The NNSA issued a statement saying the delay in communicating information from Sandia National Laboratories to Pantex "did not introduce a nuclear safety risk" at the Pantex plant.
"We intentionally design controls so that we do not depend on the safety performance of individual components to assure the safety of operations at Pantex. This is the situation in that case," the statement said.
A Sandia spokesman declined comment.
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