Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 1

ATOMICS in Action: An Injury-Free Career at

Los Alamos National Laboratory

American Chemical Society

Fall 2010 National Meeting & Exposition August 22 – 26, 2010 Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Mary Rose L. Montalvo, ESH-OFF Jim Kleinsteuber, ESH-OFF

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 2

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

  Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the nation’s leading scientific and defense laboratories, operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA. LANL is one of the original weapons complex labs dating back to the days of the Manhattan Project during World War II.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 3

LANL Mission

The Laboratory's mission is to develop and apply science and technology to

  Ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent;

  reduce global threats; and

  solve other emerging national security challenges.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 4

Collaborative Research

  Center for Bio-Security Science - threats to national security, public health and agriculture from natural, emerging, and engineered infectious agents.

  Center for Information Science and Technology - IS&T integration and support such as MaRIE and the new Bio-Security and Energy Security centers.

  Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies - ultrafast spectroscopy, physical synthesis, nano fluidics and chemical synthesis.

  Center for Nonlinear Studies - computational molecular biology, agent-based systems and modeling.

  Energy Security Center - reliable, secure and sustainable carbon neutral energy solutions

  Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter/LANL - emergent or nonlinear behavior in materials science

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 5

Collaborative Research

  Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics - astrophysics, complex dynamical systems, solid earth geo-science, space physics

  Los Alamos Neutron Science Center - spallation neutron sources for research

  Lujan Neutron Scattering Center - employs pulsed spallation neutron source for neutron scattering studies of condensed-matter

  National High-Magnetic Field Laboratory - exotic, nonmagnetic materials for megagauss sensors

  Superconductivity Technology Center - electric power and electronic device applications of high-temperature superconductors

  Quantum Institute - quantum cryptography, quantum computing

  Seaborg Institute - plutonium and lighter actinide elements research

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 6

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882

LANL received $212 million for environmental cleanup as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The Lab’s Recovery Act projects include:

  Decontamination and demolition of 21 buildings at Technical Area 21.

  Removal and remediation of early laboratory waste from Material Disposal Area B.

  Installation of 16 groundwater monitoring wells.

  The projects are expected to save or create or save more than 300 jobs and are scheduled for completion in September 2011, except for MDA-B, which is scheduled for completion in late 2010.

Slide 7

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 8

Recovery Act Clean-Up

The Delta Prime (DP) Site, known as Technical Area 21 (TA-21).

  TA-21 is located on DP Mesa southeast of the Los Alamos town site in New Mexico. It was the site of chemical research for refining plutonium and plutonium metal production from 1945 to 1978.

  Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, TA-21 Closure Project is on schedule to complete investigations, remediation, and decontamination and demolition activities by 2015.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882 Slide 9

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)

  Many of the 20-plus buildings at the end of DP Road in Los Alamos, called Technical Area 21 or TA-21, were built as long ago as the 1940s and served various uses during the Manhattan Project and Cold War eras.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882

Demolition by Design

  Pre-demolition activities continue in other areas of Technical Area 21 as crews prepare buildings for demolition by removing equipment, fixtures and pipes. To date, more than 300 tons of clean metal from buildings at Technical Area 21 have been recycled.

Slide 10

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LA-UR-10-01882

Demolition by Design

  Tearing down a building is not as simple as swinging a wrecking ball or sledgehammer. To ensure worker and public safety through demolition and the removal of debris, each of the 21 buildings at TA-21 undergoes a thorough preparation process.

Slide 11

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LA-UR-10-01882

TA-21 Update

  By January 2010, six buildings at TA-21 have been demolished, including the 22,000-square-foot Building 210. The footprint of TA-21 has been reduced by about 27,000 square feet and 56 tons of metal have been shipped for recycling.

Slide 12

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Material Disposal Area (MDA) A

  MDA A is a Hazard Category 2 nuclear facility comprised of a 1.25-acre, fenced, and radiologically controlled area situated on the eastern end of DP Mesa.

  Two 50,000-gal. cylindrical steel storage tanks referred to as the General's Tanks constructed for underground storage were emptied in the 1970's. The tanks contain residual sludge from waste solutions contaminated with plutonium-239/240 and americium-241.

  Two eastern pits containing solid waste potentially contaminated with polonium, plutonium, uranium, thorium, and other unidentified chemicals associated with Laboratory operations. The pits received waste from 1945 to 1946.

Slide 13

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Material Disposal Area (MDA) A

  One central pit containing TA-21 decontamination and decommissioning debris potentially contaminated with radionuclides. The central pit received waste from 1969 to 1978.

  A former surface drum storage area that was used to store drums of sodium hydroxide solution and stable iodine and that reportedly was contaminated with plutonium and possibly uranium. The drum storage area was used from the late 1940s until 1960.

Slide 14

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Material Disposal Area (MDA) B

  Material Disposal Area (MDA) B is an inactive subsurface disposal site, designated as Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU 21-015), that may contain both hazardous and radiological chemicals.

  RCR activities regarding the hazardous chemical component of MDA B are regulated by the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) through a Compliance Order on Consent.

Slide 15

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LA-UR-10-01882

Material Disposal Area (MDA) B

  The wastes disposed of at MDA B were highly heterogeneous, primarily radioactively contaminated laboratory wastes and debris, and limited liquid chemical waste; however, a formal waste inventory was not maintained.

  The excavation of Material Disposal Area B (MDA-B), the Lab's oldest waste disposal site, will occur inside 13 sturdy metal buildings.

Slide 16

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Material Disposal Area (MDA) B Enclosures

Slide 17

Erecting and testing the mobility of the metal structures over MDA B.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882

Safety, Secure Workplace

Make safety and security integral to every activity we do.

Safety and security are crucial.

  Commitment: We will work to make safety and security the personal responsibility of all of us, develop programs and engineered controls to improve safety and security Labwide, and make Los Alamos a safer place through employee involvement and continually improved leadership.

Slide 18

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Safety Accomplishments

  All Recovery Act work performed without a safety, security, or conduct of operations reportable or lost work case

  Worker Safety and Security Team (WSST) established

  Safety Observation training ongoing for all Recovery Act workers

Slide 19

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Safety Observations

Slide 20

  Tool to raise safety awareness in a non-threatening way

  Allows for directed / guided observation teams

  Tool to build trust with built-in anonymous feedback loop mechanism

  ↑ increase safety awareness

  ↓ decrease anxiety or threat of reporting errors

  Goal is to fix things quickly and effectively

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

LA-UR-10-01882

Safety Observation Objectives

  Provide positive reinforcement / feedback for safe behaviors observed.

  Identify error-likely conditions for corrective actions.

  Gather meaningful data for analysis that identifies institutional weaknesses in work management systems.

Slide 21

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LA-UR-10-01882

Train to change perceptions:

1.  Safety is not about the absence of events, accidents, and mishaps.

2.  Safety, in fact, is the presence of defenses that safeguard against events.

Slide 22

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Defense in Depth

Slide 23

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Observations

  Identify job site hazards

  Identify Controls or Lack of Controls

  Identify Error-Likely Conditions

  Manage exposure to risk

  Reduce exposure and thereby reduce injury

Slide 24

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Human Performance Principles

1.  People are fallible, and even the best make mistakes.

2.  Error-likely situations are predictable, manageable, and preventable.

3.  Individual behavior is influenced by organizational processes and values.

4.  People achieve high levels of performance based largely on the encouragement and reinforcement received from leaders, peers, and subordinates.

5.  Events can be avoided by understanding the reasons mistakes occur and applying the lessons learned from past events.

Slide 25

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Identify Critical Tasks

If we can predict it: we can prevent it!

  When implementing the process, workers provide ongoing input into the sites data sheets which are designed to identify and manage risks associated with their work.

  Data sheets guide workers to ask the right questions necessary for performing informed decisions prior to initiating work activities.

Slide 26

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LA-UR-10-01882

Identify Critical Tasks

  Data sheets guide workers to ask the right questions necessary for performing informed decisions prior to initiating work activities.

Slide 27

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Observation Data Sheet Example

Slide 28

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Observers apply a strategic approach:

Slide 29

  Anticipate and prevent active error at the job site.

  Reduce total number of “at-risk” critical behaviors and/or conditions.

  Identify and eliminate the related barriers/latent organizational weaknesses.

  Change other factors to encourage safe behaviors.

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Organizational Responsibilities:

Slide 30

  Reducing Errors (observations) It is naïve (foolish) to think that positive reinforcement is the single mechanism for safety observations success.

  Managing Defenses (data analysis) The organizational change initiative, identification of system, facility, and equipment issues identified are at least as likely to be primary improvement mechanisms as positive reinforcement.

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Data Recording and Analysis

Slide 31

  Data analysis critical to improve safety performance, and identify organization & process weaknesses

  To enable good data analysis, all observations need to be recorded

  Issues resulted from observation to be entered into LANL Performance Feedback and Improvement Tracking System (PFITS) using the Issue and Corrective Action Management (ICAM) process for resolution

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Management Engagement

Slide 32

  First Line Managers or Team Leaders with support by the WSST •  Review observation data for adequacy •  Analyze data for trends, patterns and systemic issues, and identify

corrective actions

  Group & Division managers •  Support their organizations to correct deficiencies as needed •  Analyze data from their organizations for trends, patterns and

systemic issues, and identify corrective actions

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Stockpile Manufacturing and Support (SMS) Success

Slide 33

5.08 5.35 5.49

5.86 5.50

5.02

4.30 4.35 4.41 4.37 4.28

3.34 3.41

2.28 2.09

1.87 1.64

2.12 2.35 2.43 2.46

2.74 3.00

3.27 3.53

4.10

3.64 3.36

3.14

2.69

3.46 3.50 3.66 3.76 3.38

2.93 2.58

2.39 2.21 2.18 2.03

1.56 1.59

1.14 0.93

0.70 0.70 0.94 0.94 0.97

1.23 1.24 1.50 1.51 1.51

2.05 1.82 1.81

1.57 1.35

0.00

0.67

1.33

2.00

2.67

3.33

4.00

4.67

5.33

6.00

6.67

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LA-UR-10-01882

Management Engagement

Slide 34

  As ATOMICS has evolved at the Plutonium Facility, other organizations in the laboratory have recognized safety successes at the Stockpile Manufacturing and Support Directorate and have requested implementation support.

  Managers and workers alike share ownership of a robust safety & health program and at the same time understand the impact of tools available to them.

  In addition to making the work environment safer, safety observations can also improve worker morale, reduce near misses, and improve lessons learned programs by sharing best practices.

Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA

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