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Tuesday, July 1, 1997
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Bandelier
fire being allowed to continue as 'prescribed burn'
Safety
discussed at all-managers meeting
July
'Reflections' is out
Lab highlighted
in the news
Memorial
Wednesday for Samuel Reading
DOE to establish
Shock Physics Institute at Washington State
Bandelier fire being allowed to continue as 'prescribed burn'
A fire south of Technical Area 49 in the Bandelier National Monument has burned more than 200 acres and is being allowed to burn as a prescribed burn. The fire is spreading at approximately 600 feet per hour to the north with parts turning toward the southwest, according to Emergency Management and Response (FSS-20). The fire is believed to have started Friday as a result of a lightning strike and is burning mostly grass and downed timber from the La Mesa Fire of 1977. A prescribed burn also is taking place around Santa Clara Pueblo and is moving north toward Abiquiu.
Safety discussed at all-managers meeting
Safety was the dominant issue in Monday's all-managers meeting in the Administration Building Auditorium.
Bill Zwick, leader of the Facility Safety Quality and Issues Management (NMT- FSQIM) Office, briefly went over initial findings of the June 11 incident at TA-55, where two employees were contaminated with plutonium. Additional information on the incident is available at http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/Releases/97-074.html on the Web.
Among the findings was that the valve stem on a glove box system was worn and apparently had been that way for several months, he said. This problem should have been addressed at the outset; also, the formal mechanism for work control and authorization for replacing the valve stem should have been implemented.
While one employee received only the equivalent of .6 millirems of radiation per year for 50 years, the other received the equivalent of about 80 millirems per year for 50 years, Zwick said. By comparison, the typical background nonoccupational radiological dose for someone living in an altitude like Los Alamos' is 325 millirems per year.
He also noted that a more accurate assessment of how much radiation the two received will be known in about eight months. The accident directly cost the Lab about $100,000 in productivity and equipment, some of which could not be decontaminated and must be removed.
Normal operation at the incident site will not resume until about four-to-five weeks from the time of the incident, Zwick said. Among the lessons learned was that management needs to make sure that all employees clearly understand and implement safety controls, and that the Lab must continue to foster a safety culture where all employees are confident that their co-workers are performing work safely.
Lab Deputy Director Jim Jackson briefly informed the audience that accidents like the TA-55 incident have the potential to impact current contract management negotiations between the Department of Energy and the University of California. One of the big issues in the contract negotiation process is environment, safety and health. "The implications go far beyond what anybody might realize," Jackson said.
Nuclear Materials and Stockpile Management (NMSM) Program Director Paul Cunningham said incidents such as the one at TA-55 directly affect nuclear programs at the Lab.
"Many people may not think we have competition when it comes to nuclear programs, but we do," he said. "Competition in nuclear weapons programs is very real." The Lab must address safety issues to remain competitive, he added, citing the great strides in safety that Allied Signal and other DOE facility managers have made.
Echoing that sentiment, Integrated Safety Management Program Manager Phil Thullen said 71 separate personnel actions have been taken for the five most recent serious Lab incidents; of that number, 57 have been taken by the Lab. Protection Technology Los Alamos and Johnson Controls World Services Inc. have implemented 10 and four actions, respectively. "Safety is both a moral and business imperative," he said.
He also said the same UC committee that investigated the jackhammer incident last year recently revisited the Lab to see how much progress had been made in safety practices. In its report to UC Vice President Wayne Kennedy, the committee stated that ISM was sound and generally on track. Other findings included that the Lab's safety culture is changing and that Lab contractors had made significant progress in terms of safety.
Many Lab employees still view ISM with a great deal of cynicism and think of ISM as "management-speak," said Occurrence Investigation (ESH-7) Group Leader Rick Brake. "Our challenge this year is to convince them otherwise."
He outlined the basic agenda for "Safety Days," scheduled for July 16 through 18. Safety Days is not a three-day event. Rather, Lab managers are expected to pick a time during one of these days in which to speak with their employees about safety, show them what ISM means in terms of the workplace and solicit feedback. Director Sig Hecker said Lab leaders should nominally spend at least half-a-day talking to employees on this issue using a graded approach, meaning Lab leaders may handle Safety Days in whatever ways they feel are the most effective. One size does not fit all, he said.
The suggested agenda includes showing a videotape of the June 4 Director's Workshop on last November's explosion and fire in the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building, and analyzing the incident and employees' work environments in relation to ISM.
Lab leaders should receive Safety Day materials about a week before the time period begins, although Brake emphasized that it is not mandatory for Lab leaders to use the materials, especially if they feel they can provide more effective communication tools themselves.
Hecker said the message needs to go out that in the end individuals are responsible for safety. "When it comes to safety, we live in a glass house," he said. Hecker also said detailed information about ISM can be found by clicking the "Five Step Process" link (located at http://www.lanl.gov/Internal/projects/ISM/five.html on the Web).
Finally, Geoff West of Elementary Particles and Field Theory (T-8), a member of the UC President Director's Search Committee, said the Pre-selection Committee received about 75 applications. It reduced that number to "about a dozen" and forwarded the candidate list to the search committee, which further reduced the number to about six during its June 12 meeting.
West added UC President Richard Atkinson has begun calling the candidates to make sure they are serious about becoming the next Lab director before continuing the process. He also said the number of candidates actually may increase at any time during the process. "I'm very pleased with the quality of candidates," he said.
The committee is scheduled to meet again July 30.
--Ternel N. Martinez
July 'Reflections' is out
he July "Reflections" is now available. Featured in this month's issue is "The Tree of Life," an article about unlocking the mysteries of universal scaling laws that focuses on the work of Lab physicist Geoffrey West of Elementary Particles and Field Theory (T-8) and University of New Mexico biologists Jim Brown and Brian Enquist. Also included in the issue are articles on the UNM-Los Alamos/Los Alamos National Laboratory Electro-Mechanical Technology Student Training Program and an addition to the Community Involvement and Outreach (CIO) Office, plus people making news, June employee service anniversaries, obituaries and more.
Lab highlighted in the news
Laboratory employees and their research, and Lab programs and projects are highlighted in several recent newspaper, journal and news magazine articles. Among them are the following:
-- Parade Magazine on June 29 published a feature story on the newest class of astronauts in training for possible space flight. Laboratory physicist John Phillips of Space and Atmospheric Sciences (NIS-1) was mentioned in the article. Don Pettit of Energy and Process Engineering (ESA-EPE) also is training in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration program.
-- The June 27 Albuquerque Tribune and Los Alamos Monitor reported on how the Laboratory is ready to assist President Clinton in his United Nations Earth Summit speech, in which the president called for universities and the national labs to work together on the issue of global warming.
-- Lab physicist Mel Prueitt of Geoanalysis (EES-5) was featured in Science/Spectra's June issue. The article reported on Prueitt's patents for convection towers designed to reduce air pollution by cleaning and cooling the air while at the same time generating enough electricity to power their own pumps.
-- Aviation Week and Space Technology reported in its June 23 issue on the Laboratory's work with former Soviet nuclear weapons labs, production facilities and former storage sites on ensuring that nuclear materials are safeguarded. The magazine also published a photograph of Laboratory Director Sig Hecker receiving a piece of a dismantled nuclear warhead from Yevgeny Avrorin, scientific director of Russia's Chelyabinsk 70. The same issue included a sidebar story on the Lab-to-Lab program between Los Alamos and Russian labs.
-- The June 25 Los Alamos Monitor published a story on how Laboratory operations have had a nearly $600 million effect on Northern New Mexico's economy. The information was contained in an Economic Impact Report produced by the Lab's former Industrial Partnership (IPO) Office.
-- The same issue of the Los Alamos Monitor also contained a story on a talk given by Gary Glatzmaier of the Lab's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (EES-IGPP) at Bradbury Science Museum. Glatzmaier's talk was on how the first dynamically-consistent three-dimensional computer simulation of the "geodynamo" is providing answers to longstanding questions about how Earth's magnetic field is generated.
-- DOE This Month in its June issue published several stories with a Los Alamos connection. It reported on Department of Energy Secretary Federico Peña's April visit to the Lab and the secretary's announcement that the Lab has created a foundation for philanthropic purposes. The issue also contained stories on how the Lab is collaborating with U.S. industry and a Russian nuclear research institute to produce a rare radioisotope needed for certain medical diagnostics, and a story on a Lab-developed instrument that quickly and accurately reads the octane rating of gasoline using acoustic resonances. The instrument takes measurements through a container without contacting the liquid itself.
-- The June 24 Los Alamos Monitor published a feature story on a new Lab program in conjunction with University of New Mexico, Los Alamos. The Electro-Mechanical Technology Student Training Program allows students to attend UNM-LA to take classes that qualify them for jobs in electromechanical or electrical engineering jobs at the Lab, or elsewhere.
-- The June 19 Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque Tribune, Santa Fe New Mexican and Los Alamos Monitor all published stories about the first statewide Hazmat Rodeo held the previous day at the Lab. The competition put firefighters and other emergency-response workers through a series of competitions designed to test their effectiveness and ability to respond to hazardous-materials emergencies.
-- The June 17 Wall Street Journal published a story on Lab-developed technology that is being used to fight Medicare fraud. The technology uses pattern recognitions programs designed to quickly spot new types of fraud and abuse in the federal health-care programs for the elderly. Researchers in Computer Research and Applications (CIC-3) have developed the technology that looks for unusual "data clusters" and refers them to the Health Care Financing Administration for further investigation.
-- The Seattle Post Intelligencer, in a June 12 story about a new device that prints genes and has implications for the research and study of DNA and genetics, mentioned the Lab's smart-lab collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles and a San Francisco company. Tony Beugelsdijk of Energy and Process Engineering (ESA-EPE), is working with UCLA School of Public Health officials and others to design the future lab, that, through automation, will more quickly design and run experiments that save time, especially in the face of an outbreak of a potentially fatal disease.
-- The June 18 Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican, and the previous day's Los Alamos Monitor all reported on the pulsating star conference held at the Laboratory. The conference was a tribute to Lab Fellow Art Cox, who has made major contributions to the study of pulsating stars (see June Reflections).
-- The June 30 Albuquerque Journal published a story naming the seven newly designated Lab fellows. The rank of Fellow is given to scientists who are outstanding in their fields and who make important contributions to the Lab and the scientific community. The appointment as a Fellow is normally for life. The seven Fellows are Michelle Thomsen of Space and Atmospheric Sciences (NIS-1), Robert Benjamin of Hydrodynamic Applications (DX-3), William Priedhorsky of Astrophysics and Radiation Measurements (NIS-2), Michel Tuszewski of Plasma Physics (P-24), Robert Ecke of Condensed Matter and Thermal Physics (MST-10), R. Arthur Forster of Transport Methods (X-TM) and Bernhard Wilde of Thermonuclear Applications (X-TA).
A similar story was published in the June 5 Los Alamos Monitor and June 14 Santa Fe New Mexican.
-- The June issue of the New Mexico Business Journal published a story on the former Industrial Partnership (IPO) Office's Technology Commercialization Office, designed to help entrepreneurs create new startup businesses based on Lab-developed technologies.
-- The journal Engineering News-Record on May 19 published a story on a test for concrete degradation developed by George Guthrie and Bill Carey of Geology/Geochemistry (EES-1). Guthrie and Carey use a stain that is nonradioactive and environmentally friendly to detect fissures and cracks in a roadway.
-- The Seattle Post Intelligencer on June 12 and USA Today, the Santa Fe New Mexican, the Albuquerque Journal and the Los Alamos Monitor on June 10 reported on a Lab-developed technology licensed by a Santa Fe software company that is being used to put Library of Congress maps on the World Wide Web. Multiresolution seamless image database compresses images of any size without degrading the quality of the image. The Library of Congress has 4.5 million maps and 60,000 atlases.
-- The June 10 Los Alamos Monitor published a news brief on the Lab's Karl Braithwaite being named a New Mexico Distinguished Public Service award winner. Braithwaite is director of the Lab's Government Relations (GRO) Office.
-- The June 5 Albuquerque Journal and Santa Fe New Mexican and the previous day's Los Alamos Monitor all published stories on how barrels buried at the Lab's hazardous waste disposal facility at Technical Area 54 aren't leaking. Some of the barrels have been buried for years.
-- The June 9 Albuquerque Journal published a story on Gloria Mirabal of Nuclear Systems Design and Analysis (TSA-10) being named as one of New Mexico's 30 outstanding women for 1997 by Gov. Gary Johnson.
Mirabal, a 23-year Laboratory employee, was recognized during a banquet last month in Albuquerque sponsored by the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women.
-- Federal Technology Report in its May 22 issue reported on the Lab's new Civilian Industrial Technology Office developed to incubate and spin out Lab-developed technologies. Charryl Berger of the former Industrial Partnership (IPO) Office heads the program.
--Compiled by Steve Sandoval
Memorial Wednesday for Samuel Reading
Memorial services will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the United Church in Los Alamos for Samuel Reading, who passed away Friday evening of cancer at the Los Alamos Medical Center.
A laser technician in the Trident project in Plasma Physics (P-24), Reading joined the Lab in 1965 and worked in the Rover program at NTS, the laser isotope separation program, and on the Aurora project before joining Trident in 1990.
He is survived by his wife, Luvella "Lou" of White Rock; his mother, Lois Reading; a brother and sister; four step-children, including Liz Trujillo of Materials Management (BUS-4); and six grandchildren.
The family requests in lieu of flowers any memorial contributions be made to Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Services.
DOE to establish Shock Physics Institute at Washington State
The Department plans to provide $10 million over the next five years to Washington State University to create an Institute for Shock Physics. The action is being taken as part of DOE's investment in selected scientific areas important to science-based stockpile stewardship. More information is available in a DOE news release.
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