UC Forms Partnership for Los Alamos Proposal

The University of California and an industrial team led by Bechtel National Inc. said Wednesday they would work together to prepare for a possible bid for the next contract to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory.

UC has run the nuclear weapons research center on an uncontested basis for the federal government since 1943 but the Energy Department opened the job to competition after a recent series of management and other problems at Los Alamos. UC’s contract to manage the New Mexico lab expires in September.

In making the announcement, UC leaders said the partnership would shore up areas of evident weakness for the university in its recent management of the weapons lab, including lax business practices and security flaws.

Bechtel National is a division of the construction and engineering giant Bechtel Group Inc., based in San Francisco. The division manages the nuclear Nevada Test Site for the federal government.

“This means that if we do choose to compete for the Los Alamos contract, we will be in a good position, with strong support in those areas we’ve been criticized for in lab management and security,” said UC President Robert C. Dynes. He spoke in a conference call with reporters before a state Senate hearing at which he and five UC Nobel laureates argued for greater state funding for the university.

UC officials said the university would not decide on bidding until the Energy Department released final specifications for the job in the next few weeks. Leading defense contractors Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. have said they would compete for the contract.

In addition to Bechtel National, the team announced Wednesday includes BWX Technologies Inc., a company based in Lynchburg, Va., with a long history in nuclear manufacturing and operations, and Washington Group, a Boise, Idaho, engineering and construction company and frequent Energy Department contractor.

In March, UC announced it also would team in any Los Alamos bid with a consortium of New Mexico institutions, including the University of New Mexico.

In another step widely seen as clearing the way for a bid, the university last week announced the resignation of Los Alamos director G. Peter Nanos, a controversial former Navy admiral hired in 2003 to fix safety and security problems at the lab.

Nanos was criticized by many lab employees for a decision last year to suspend most operations at Los Alamos after the mistakenly reported loss of two computer disks containing classified information and a laser accident that injured an intern. Parts of the facility’s weapons programs were closed for seven months.