Special update at 12:35 p.m.
Initial statement on TA-16 incident
The Laboratory is evaluating an incident that occurred this morning at Technical Area 16 involving the unplanned release of tritium.
The release is sufficiently low that it presents no risk to the public or to workers at TA-16.
An employee processing legacy containers was exposed when the cylinder valve apparently failed. A personal monitor sounded and a room monitor sounded before the employee could exit the room.
Initial assessment of the employee is underway to determine if there was any uptake of tritium.
In addition, some contractors on the roof of the building will be checked as a precaution, but initial evaluations of the event suggest they would not have been exposed.
Additional information will be released as it becomes available
today.
Distinguished lecture speaker to talk about growing biological threat today
Al Zelicoff, senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories and member of the United States delegation to the Biological Weapons Convention, will speak today in the Physics Building Auditorium as part of Bioscience (B) Division's Distinguished Speaker Series. Zelicoff was originally scheduled to speak at the Lab on Jan. 17, but his talk was postponed because of inclement weather.
The lecture begins at 3:30 p.m. and is open to the public. Zelicoff will speak on "Prospects for Monitoring the Biological Weapons Convention and the Growing Biological Threat." For more information, see Jan. 26 Daily Newsbulletin.
DOE Pulse highlights DOE laboratories
The latest issue of DOE Pulse is available online. Pulse is an online newsletter about accomplishments at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. The highlights are short, written to be interesting and very understandable.
In addition to the highlights, each issue features two longer articles -- one about a researcher, the other about a multilabcollaborative effort.
Some of the headlines in this issue are "Reactor milestone out west" from Argonne National Laboratory, "Biosensor chip for cancer risk assessment" from Ames Laboratory, "Reducing fuel-oil costs" from Brookhaven National Laboratory and "Silicon boosts DZero detector" from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
There also is a feature from Fermilab's copper colossus at CERN and a profile from "Fussion" in PPPL researchers' merging careers.
Los Alamos County issues 1999 Drinking Water Quality Report
The County of Los Alamos recently issued the 1999 Drinking Water Quality Report to all of its customers. The report provides detailed information on the quality of the drinking water in Los Alamos. One copy of the report has been sent to each group office at the Laboratory.
For more information, contact Bob Beers of Water Quality and
Hydrology (ESH-18) at 7-7969, or write to bbeers@lanl.gov
by electronic mail. Click
here to read the report (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).
Retention disposition of Lab records
This notice is to remind organizations that Laboratory records must be kept until regulatory retention periods have been met. Also, Lab records may not be destroyed without first verifying that
The objective of this notice is to provide a framework that supports required and effective records management throughout the Laboratory.
Additional information is available at http://labreq.lanl.gov/pdfs/ops/alerts/Notice0067.pdf online. (Adobe Acrobat required)
NTS celebrates 50th Anniversary
Braving blustery winter weather last Saturday, nearly 2,500 visitors, mostly current and former Nevada Test Site employees and their families, turned out to help celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Test Site's first atomic test. Visitors had unprecedented access to the town of Mercury for walking tours of the buildings where many Laboratory employees lived and worked as part of America's nuclear testing program. Posters and displays of hardware and tools from nuclear testing, as well as Fat Man and Little Boy replicas, made for an enlightening experience. Bus tours took visitors to the "forward areas" of NTS where the nuclear tests occurred and included a visit to the popular Sedan Crater. The successful celebration was planned and hosted by Bechtel-Nevada, the Department of Energy Nevada office and Laboratory employees from DX, CRO, ESA and ESH divisions. Photo by Todd Hanson, Public Affairs.
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