Cal team wins Livermore contract

WASHINGTON – A team co-led by the University of California is getting the management contract for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory despite past problems at the lab under the university’s management, the Energy Department announced Tuesday.

The decision comes after a series of financial and security gaffes at the nation’s premier nuclear weapons labs – Lawrence Livermore in Northern California and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico – led the federal government to require competitive bidding for the management contracts for the first time.

The University of California had managed both labs since their inception.

“The University of California knows how to do research and development. It’s the largest research institution at least in the country if not in the world,” Tyler Przybylek, senior adviser at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in announcing the decision.

At the same time Przybylek emphasized that UC will be partnering with Bechtel National Inc. to provide the management know-how that has sometimes been lacking at Lawrence Livermore.

A UC-Bechtel team won the Los Alamos contract in 2005.

Los Alamos has struggled with security lapses, credit card abuses, theft of equipment and other instances of mismanagement that subjected it to withering criticism from Congress, and led to the 2003 decision to bid out the contracts. Problems at Livermore included the disappearance of an electronic key card and the loss of keys to perimeter gates and office doors.

The seven-year contract allows a maximum payment of $45.5 million per year depending on performance, with possible extensions for 13 more years. The annual budget is $1.6 billion.