[tape_measure]

I'm submitting this based on the current top item "North Dakota law lists fake critical minerals based on coal lawyers' names" [0].

This accident was traced to a manager transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent". A more serious example of the need to have competent people with domain knowledge in the room and empowered when documents are written.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492161

[cperciva]

Not just when documents are written, but also when the practices they describe are implemented.

You don't need to know a lot of chemistry to realize that mixing organics with nitric acid is a bad idea. Why did none of the technicians doing the work say "hold on, this doesn't seem right"?

[bloomingeek]

My guess, they were afraid to ruffle the feathers of their higher-ups. Yes, that's moronic, but this is the world we can find ourselves in IF the bosses are egotistical kingdom makers.

[daymanstep]

I'm surprised they made critical material purchasing decisions based on what some guy thinks he heard in a meeting, rather than official written documents written by and cross-checked by multiple engineers.

[12_throw_away]

> I'm surprised they made critical material purchasing decisions based on what some guy thinks he heard in a meeting

Right? We don't store nuclear waste where I work ... BUT one time we needed to buy a bunch of ethernet cables, basically the same thing. We wrote down our requirements, came up with some options. The engineers evaluated the options before purchasing and checked what we received before installing it. There wasn't even a formal process, it's just ... how you do your job?

Obviously organizational dysfunction is a real thing, particularly at LANL, so I can definitely imagine how this sort of thing can fall through the cracks for various processes. But I feel like but requirements verification should be a rigorously enforced formal procedure before storing nuclear waste in perpetuity.

[GuB-42]

There is almost never a single cause, here there was 12, it is often called the swiss cheese model. The root cause is a bad transcription, which probably happened many times, but for some reason, this time, all the safeguards failed. It happens sometimes, with catastrophic results. Hopefully, procedures will be adjusted, but in general, you can only minimize risks, not prevent catastrophic events entirely.

It was an expensive mistake, but thankfully, no one died.

[TheGrassyKnoll]

Reminds me of the Starboard/Larboard nautical terminology. That must have created many disasters over the years. It took the British navy hundreds of years to rectify that one.

[rob74]

Thanks for highlighting that, I missed that in the video and was wondering why "anorganic" should be something different than "inorganic" (in my native German it's "anorganisch").

But still, I'm a bit alarmed that a trained nuclear technician would simply follow these instructions and mix organic material with acid without having any second thoughts about it...

[IggleSniggle]

I think it's worth remembering that this was a storage procedure that was also already abnormal/odd because of the specifics of the existing shielding. I think it's somewhat understandable for a technician to trust that the chemists know what they're doing in that kind of circumstance. If they had concerns, they may have even voiced them, but as is often the case, if the authority confirms that even though it's strange it's correct, it's not surprising that a technician would follow the directive. Even the authority figure may have verbally confirmed, "you said an organic absorbent??" "Yes, that's right, inorganic absorbent." Maybe even in a meeting that was meant to clarify written procedures.

[formerly_proven]

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

[DoctorOetker]

inflammation of a tissue is when it is rendered inflammable /s

[dredmorbius]

... transcribing "inorganic absorbent" as "an organic absorbent"...

A literal, or literary, bit-flip.