Lab Says It Lost Radioactive Material

Los Alamos National Laboratory said Wednesday that it had lost track of two tiny glass containers of plutonium oxide and believed the radioactive material had been thrown out.

The lab, which has come under criticism for financial and inventory control problems, said the material could not be used to make weapons, and apparently had been discarded with other radioactive waste without being properly logged.

“This material has scientific and analytical research value, but is in a low hazard and threat category,” said the lab director, Pete Nanos.

The Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C. watchdog group, had reported that the material was weapons-grade and could threaten public health and safety.

The vials contained plutonium oxide that had been mixed with inert elements as part of an experiment related to long-term storage methods for radioactive material.

A lab spokesman, Kevin Roark, said he couldn’t say exactly how much plutonium oxide was missing, but added that each vial was smaller than a pinkie finger.

The lab said it learned the containers were missing June 12, after finding a discrepancy in its inventory.

The lab did not find the material during a two-day search, and a full materials inventory is underway.

The material was most likely discarded as residue, with the glass vials placed in a drum, Nanos said, and a coding error was made in the laboratory’s inventory system.

“At this time, we have no reason to believe that any other scenario is credible,” he said.

The Project on Government Oversight accused the lab of having known about the missing vials since 2001 and not reporting them as missing to the U.S. Energy Department until last week. But Roark said records indicated that the samples had last been used in February 2002 and that they were assumed to have been in storage since then.

Roark said the lab plans to establish a system to keep better track of such material.

The lab has been under heavy criticism since last fall for poor management and business controls, and several top managers have resigned or been reassigned.

The University of California has managed the lab for the 60 years it has existed, but the Energy Department has announced plans to put the management contract, which expires in 2005, up for bid.