Energy Dept. Fines Two Nuclear Weapons Labs for Misplacing Classified Materials and Publically Shari

Source: AllGov

Contractors running two U.S. nuclear weapons labs will be fined for allowing information on the construction of weapons to be available in the public domain and losing track of nuclear materials in the wake of an Energy Department audit of the facilities.

At Los Alamos National Laboratories, officials couldn’t account for a piece of classified “matter” that had been scheduled to be shipped to a nuclear disposal site in Nevada. The material, last logged in at Los Alamos in 2007, is assumed to have been shipped out, but officials can’t confirm that. It wasn’t noticed for five years that the material wasn’t accounted for.

“The fact that (Los Alamos National Security) didn’t realize this material was missing for five years, and the unreliable nature of their review of it when they did learn about it is very disturbing,” Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a nonprofit watchdog organization that tracks nuclear labs in that state, told The Center for Public Integrity (CPI). “It’s particularly troubling because the investigators’ report says it could have had a high level of damage to national security.”

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“Sandia continues to experience a significant number of security incidents, topping out at 190 incidents of security concern in FY2014,” the administration’s last annual performance evaluation of Sandia reported, according to CPI.

Read more: http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/energy-dept-fines-two-nuclear-weapons-labs-for-misplacing-classified-materials-and-publically-sharing-weapons-designs-150607?news=856663