NNSA Laboratory ORPS

These data present accidents at the three National Nuclear Security Administration national laboratories, namely Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL); as reported through the DOE’s Occurrence Reporting and Processing System (ORPS) (Department of Energy, Occurrence Reporting and Processing System Final Occurrence Reports, 2025), dating from 2005 to 2021. Occupational accidents or “abnormal events” at Department of Energy (DOE) sites and facilities within sites are managed by the Department of Energy Occurrence Reporting Program (ORP). This program was established through two directives: DOE Order 232.2A Chg1 (MinChg) – Occurrence Reporting and Processing of Operations Information and DOE Standard DOE-STD-1197-2011 – Occurrence Reporting Causal Analysis. These reporting requirements were first set out in 1990 and have undergone several minor revisions. A comprehensive revision went into effect on September 1, 2017. This revision reduced the previous six-tier system for categorizing occurrence reporting criteria, comprising Operational Emergency, Significance Categories 1–4, and Significance Category R (recurring), to a three-tier system of High-Level, Low-Level, and Informational Level Reports. These abnormal event reports are analyzed by the authoring facilities to generate lessons learned and corrective actions through root cause analyses (Anderson and Fagerhaug, 2000). A lower number of ORPS indicates fewer safety incidents and a higher level of operational knowledge, as safety and knowledge are directly related.
ORPS reporting was once governed by DOE Order 232. A revision, DOE Order 232.2A, effective March 23, 2017, introduced a major change. DOE Order 232.2A replaced Operational Emergency (OE) and Significance Categories (SC) 1–4 with High-, Low-, and Informational Level Reports. Therefore, we needed a crosswalk to relate ORPS categories between the two orders (Table 1). OEs under DOE O 232 are defined as having the potential to cause serious health and safety or environmental impacts. SC1 is defined as non-OE events that cause actual harm or pose the potential for immediate harm or mission interruption. SC2 is defined as circumstances that reflect degraded safety margins. Similarly, High-Level Reports are defined under DOE O 232.2A as concerning significant personnel injuries, environmental harm, issues regarding regulatory compliance or public/business interests, potential for actual harm, mission interruption, and degraded safety.
Department of Energy, Occurrence Reporting and Processing System Final Occurrence Reports. https://orpspublic.doe.gov/Orps/orps.asp. (accessed May 18, 2025).
Key: LANL H_n refers to the number of H-level ORPS at LANL for that year; H_sum refers to the sum of H-level ORPS at LANL for that year; etc.