Reply #1: The Point? [View All]

[ThomWV]

The big M&O contractors change from time to time but it doesn't change anything. The labs are run the same was as the test site, but of course the sites do more than ever happens at the test site.

What I can't understand is why people are so up in arms about some conventional explosion. Its just fertilizer and fuel oil they are going to shoot, one hell of a lot of it, but nothing out of the ordinary. There are hundreds of tons of that shit shot off in West Virginia every day. Its the explosive of choice for strip jobs of course, but its always been a good standby for farmers as well.

Back to the test site. Here's how it works. All of those DOE sites, and the National Laboratories too, are operated by some contractor or another. It all began with the University of Chicago and the formation of Argone National Lab, but it spread. At the production facilities and the Labs there will be some Government presense, usually what is called a Field Office, and then there will be the Lab itself. The Government employess don't run anything, they just have oversight responsibility for the places. The way it works out is that the Contractors, who employ thousands of people in some cases, run the show and the Government employees sit back like sheep while they do so.

So the contractors who manage and operate the facilities (M&O Contractors) really run the show but the contracts come up for renewal every 5 years - generally. Its all fees of course but in the end when one contractor looses and another wins there is very little change in personnel - usually less than a dozen people out of sometimes thousands of employees - when the new team comes in. Usually the only noticable result is the employees get fucked over a little bit more with every new management team. It never gets better.