Speaking of Pantex.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Safety Alarms Raised at Nuclear Weapons Plant

from which I quote the following:

By about 2000, the leaks in Pantex's roof were so bad that workers had to cover bombs with plastic when it rained. In summer 2004, a power overload tripped transformers, causing a plant-wide blackout. Last July, another electrical failure occurred when rats gnawed through wiring, according to weekly safety reports. And in August, a storm swept over the plant that left standing puddles in nuclear production areas.

and also:

In one case, involving the disassembly of a missile warhead, technicians improperly used red vinyl tape to secure a crack in the high explosives surrounding the plutonium sphere of the hydrogen bomb. The use of the tape itself was not faulted, but technicians misread engineering instructions and caused an even bigger crack.

I dunno, I've always been a big fan of the "duct tape and paperclips" school of mechanical engineering. It pains me terribly to think there might be applications where it's just not the right thing to do.

Thanks to POGO for bringing regulators' attention to this story, and my attention to it through RSS feeds. (But damn it, you guys *really* need to learn how to write headlines.)

LA Times buried the lead, though.

Because certification surveillance testing of existing weapons has been severely hampered and is now backlogged, Bush XLII gets to argue to Congress on behalf of the "need" for a "reliable replacement warhead" (RRW) program:

Ralph Levine, who once ran the Energy Department's nuclear weapons surveillance testing, wrote a letter in 2005 asserting the backlog would allow defects in nuclear weapons to go undetected for years. As a result, he said, Energy officials removed him as manager of the program, and he retired last year.

John Duncan, who until four years ago headed surveillance testing at Pantex for Sandia National Laboratory, agreed that testing problems at Pantex are undermining confidence in the stockpile. Even today, the certifications of nuclear weapons are being made with less certainty than scientists should have, Duncan and Levine said.

And one last quote:

The stress of working with nuclear weapons has been exacerbated by an abusive management, said Henry Bagwell, the former chief of the Metals Trade Council, the principal union at the plant. "They treat people badly," said Bagwell, who left last year after 24 years at the plant.

Bagwell said that when he attempted to raise a health and safety problem involving toxic beryllium dust in 2003, he was demoted from X-ray technician to janitor.

Interesting times. I know I've quoted quite a bit but there's lots more to it. It's an excellent article. Read it.