Competition
Competition draws critics amid safety questions, record
The contract for Los Alamos lab is up for bid.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The competition for a multibillion-dollar contract to manage the U.S. laboratory that created the atomic bomb is beginning even as criticism intensifies over the troubled safety recordof Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The National Nuclear Security Administration last week posted online its intent to conduct a competition for the management and operation contract.
Theagency said the process will provide the best opportunity to improve the terms and conditions of the contract to provide performance incentives at the northern New Mexico nuclear weapons research center.
Lab Director CharlieMcMillan told employees in an internal memo that the work done at Los Alamos will transcend the contract changeover.
“We must continue to execute our national security mission safely and securely while the NNSA works to complete their process,” he wrote.
It was first announced in late 2015 that the current manager, Los Alamos National Security LLC, would be losing its$2.2 billion contract since it failed to earn high enough performance reviews. The contract ends in September 2018.
Now, criticism of the lab’s safety record has intensified as it prepares to resume production of plutonium pits for the nation’s nuclear weapons cache.
Los Alamos officials have said the plutonium facility is operating safely and that improvements have been made in recent years. But watchdog groups and others have questioned whether the lab can take on manufacturing of the plutonium cores given its history of management and oversight issues along withmore recent safety concerns.
Last week, federal officials announced an investigation into the lab’s improper shipment of nuclear material around the country via a commercial cargo plane.
That followed other reports about the mishandling of plutonium and radioactive waste at Los Alamos.
A series published by the Center for Public Integrity cites numerous internal reports and other documents outlining federal regulators’ concerns about safety lapses at the lab, including a plutonium spill lastsummer and workers handling plutonium rods in a way that could have been disastrous. The center also detailed workplace hazards at Los Alamos, Sandia National Laboratories and other labs that make up theU.S. nuclear complex.