My suspicion is based on some experience with the spot market for fill dirt and the evidence here that kitty litter made from wheat byproducts was supplied by t

My suspicion is based on some experience with the spot market for fill dirt and the evidence here that kitty litter made from wheat byproducts was supplied by the low cost bidder and the premise that the low cost bidder was a rational economic actor. Your suspicion sounds plausible, but looks to be directly contradicted by the Department of Energy's post-investigation report. To the contrary of this being a decision made by the low cost bidder, the problems with the process started with a mistake in the specification that was produced by Los Alamos National Security LLC, the private company specifies the proper operating procedures at the national lab: "When LANS began using this procedure to process nitrate salt wastes in September 2011, it did not perform a USQD [Undetermined Safety Questions Determination], as required, because the change from inorganic to organic absorbent was incorrectly determined to be an administrative (minor) change." "In one particular instance, a conduct-of-operations SME [subject matter expert], working outside of his/her area of responsibility, added new text to DOP-0233 that included using organic kitty litter as an absorbent, as opposed to the inorganic zeolite material discussed previously in technical team meetings." "In the previous example, the SME's addition of the text to DOP-0233, Section 10.6, which included the word 'organic', was submitted informally as a 'minor' comment, rather than an 'essential' comment that would have required explicit concurrence from the entire SME team." Unless the report is wrong, or unless the SME who made the change was actually working in deep cover for a kitty litter producer with a surplus of wheat, this looks to be an error of knowledge and process, not a cost-cutting measure by a low bidder. https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/02/f29/Posting%20copy%20LANS%20PNOV%202-18-16%20%28NEA-2016-01%29.pdf https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/02/f29/Posting%20co...