University wins contract to run Los Alamos lab

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- Despite a string of security lapses and allegations of fraud and mismanagement, the University of California has been awarded the contract to continue managing the Los Alamos laboratory that built the atom bomb, the Energy Department said Wednesday.
Because of the scandals at Los Alamos, the government contract to run the nation's pre-eminent nuclear lab had been put out to bid this year for the first time in the lab's 63-year history.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced that a partnership of UC and the engineering giant Bechtel Corp. had prevailed over a rival team made up of the University of Texas and the defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
The contract is for $512 million over seven years, with a provision to extend it to 20 years.
"This is a new contract with a new team, marking a new approach to the management of Los Alamos. It is not a continuation of the previous contract," Bodman said at a news conference in Washington.
Security lapses
The university has run the lab since it was created in the New Mexico desert in 1943 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the A-bomb. But because of bitter complaints in Congress about security lapses and poor management, the contract was put up for competitive bidding.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory, with about 8,000 University of California employees and 3,000 contract workers, is one of the nation's three chief installations responsible for maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal and manufacturing weapons components.