UC hangs on to the Los Alamos contract

The US Department of Energy has awarded a contract to operate Los Alamos National Laboratory to a team consisting of the University of California (UC), Texas A&M University, the nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute, and supporting companies. The contract, announced on 8 June, is valued at $2.5 billion annually over five years, with up to five one-year extensions possible, based on contractor performance. Battelle already comanages five national labs and is a major subcontractor at two others.

The winning team, known as Triad National Security LLC, will take over managing and operating the lab from a consortium of UC and Bechtel National. That contract, set to expire 30 September, will be extended to enable a four-month transition period. Bechtel had teamed with Purdue University on a competing bid for the new contract. Two other teams—one that included the University of Texas and another involving Jacobs and BWX Technologies—were believed to have submitted bids.

Although the expiring contract had included options that could have run through 2026, three years of unsatisfactory contractor performance ratings led DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration to initially let the contract expire in 2017 (see Physics Today, March 2016, page 22 ). Several lapses, including a nuclear waste mishandling incident that led to the extended shutdown of DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, marred the lab’s safety record. The contract was extended for an additional year while the NNSA completed the selection process for a new contract at Sandia National Laboratories.

Los Alamos is the second largest of all DOE laboratories, behind Sandia. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is also operated by a UC–Bechtel consortium, is a distant third. All three have nuclear weapons as their chief mission. With the new contract, UC will maintain its unbroken share in the management of Los Alamos since the lab was founded as part of the Manhattan Project in 1943.

“The lab will continue to be a critical resource to ensure the future safety and security of the United States as we begin work on new endeavors, like the effort to recapitalize our plutonium pit mission ,” NNSA administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said in a statement.

One or more of the losing bidders could still protest the contract award. In that event, the procurement law division of the Government Accountability Office would hear the case.