Lab responds to Project on Government Oversight's Feb. 11 news release

POGO requests White House intervention on Lab safety

Feb. 11, 2010—In response to a Feb. 11 news release from the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) citing an internal NNSA memo and requesting White House intervention to correct "systemic safety issues" at LANL, the Laboratory issued the following response:

Both Los Alamos National Laboratory and NNSA take safety very seriously, and we are working together to ensure that proper safety procedures are in place.

The memo from the NNSA Los Alamos Site Office raised some concerns and requested a plan of action from the Lab. The Lab has responded and outlined the improvements it has made and intends to make. We are working together to ensure Lab operations are as safe as they can be.

The safety record at Los Alamos was very good for the first three years under the current contract, but we have seen an increase in safety issues recently, and we are working hard to understand and resolve these issues.

We are very concerned about hazard identification across the board. We are working the issues daily and have made positive changes to the way we plan and execute hazardous work activities, including increased management involvement in planning and new-worker training programs.