National Laboratories

Cleanup work underway at the Los Alamos National Laboratory appears to be a likely candidate to benefit from the reprogramming request the Department of Energy is working to submit to Congress, WC Monitor has learned. Much of the details of the request remain unclear, such as the amounts of funding to be transferred and the […]

The University of New Mexico is gearing up to join a bid for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories contract and is in talks with several companies about the opportunity, a university official said yesterday. UNM engineering professor Joe Cecchi, the former head of the university’s Engineering Department, told NW&M Monitor that the […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory is planning to remove or repackage more than 500 kilograms of plutonium at its Plutonium Facility during Fiscal Year 2013 in an effort to reduce the potential exposure risks in the event of a building collapse, Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently told the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In his March […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory turned off its history-making Roadrunner supercomputer Sunday, ending a successful run for the pioneering IBM collaboration that marked the first computer to break the “petaflop” barrier—a quadrillion floating point calculations per second. Roadrunner accomplished the feat by adopting a revolutionary hybrid design that leveraged advanced chip designs originally developed for the […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is again putting off a decision to implement a salary reduction/closure day policy to deal with the impact of a large budget shortfall, and the laboratory will wait until June before implementing any budget-cutting measures, lab Director Parney Albright said in a recent message to employees. Albright said the lab is […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory is making moves towards awarding Master Task Order Agreement 4 covering technical support services, notifying several bidders last week that they were unsuccessful. It appears that no awards have been made yet, and a large number of teams are believed to have bid on the contract. Notifications of award are expected […]

As the National Nuclear Security Administration considers how to move forward on its next big procurement, it’s considering more than just one of its biggest nuclear weapons laboratories, acting NNSA Administrator Neile Miller said yesterday at the fifth annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. Even though the agency’s Y-12/Pantex procurement still isn’t over, industry officials have turned […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration did itself a “tremendous disservice” by granting award term extensions to contractors that run Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories even though the contractors did not meet requirements to trigger the extensions, a senior Government Accountability Office official said yesterday at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit. GAO Assistant Director Allison […]

Former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Johnny Foster was honored yesterday for his service to national security by ExchangeMonitor Publications and Forums with an award that will be named in his honor and awarded annually at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit. The Johnny Foster Award will be given annually to national security professionals who have made […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is poised to roll out a "salary reduction and closure day" plan to deal with the impact of across-the-board budget cuts that are set to go into effect Friday, lab Director Parney Albright told employees at an all-hands meeting yesterday. With the lab facing a potential $120 million shortfall, Albright detailed […]

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 The Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory announced Friday the release of a Long Term Strategy for Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability document, an illustrated 20-page plan for the present and future of the site. The plan includes emphasis on cleanup of legacy waste from World War II […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s subcontractor workforce has shed 800 jobs as a result of lab cutbacks for outside workers, according to a report by the Albuquerque Journal. The numbers come from a survey of lab contractors made public by SOC Los Alamos official Liddie Martinez, an executive with the Los Alamos Major Subcontractors Consortium. Procurements […]

John Sarrao has been named Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Associate Director for Theory, Simulation, and Computation, replacing Paul Dotson, who has served in an acting capacity since August 2011. Sarrao, who joined the lab in 1997, has held several management positions, including Materials Physics and Applications division leader, the director of the lab’s DOE Office […]

As Los Alamos National Laboratory grapples with the impacts of sequestration, the lab still believes contractor employee layoffs can be avoided, according to a message sent yesterday to employees. Los Alamos’ budget is set to be reduced by approximately $61 million for the remainder of the fiscal year—a cut the Department of Energy has said […]

Five former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory workers that have alleged they were unfairly dismissed from the lab in 2008 because of age discrimination will finally get their day in court today. The five workers are among a group of 130 that have sued contractor Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, and today’s trial in Alameda County […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is holding off until April on implementing a salary reduction and closure day plan at the lab that was designed to address a sequestration-driven budget shortfall of $120 million. Livermore Director Parney Albright had previously said the lab could implement the plan as early as this week, but in a message […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will take another approach to evaluating the ability of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility (PF-4) to withstand an earthquake, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman said in a recent letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board that pledged to increase cooperation with the Board on the much scrutinized effort […]

A California judge is set to rule Friday on a key age discrimination issue in a lawsuit involving 130 laid off Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory employees. Lawyers for the former workers have alleged that the workers were unfairly targeted because of their ages during a round of layoffs in 2008 that led to the departure […]

A California judge has postponed a decision on a key decision in an age discrimination lawsuit involving 130 laid off Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory employees. Gary Gwilliam, a lawyer for the employees, said a decision is expected Wednesday by Alameda County (Calif.) Superior Court Judge Robert Freedman whether or not the plaintiffs can use the […]

The House Armed Services Committee, which has staunchly backed the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility in the face of the Administration’s push to defer construction of the facility, isn’t signing off on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s request to reprogram $120 million for an alternate plutonium strategy. The committee, led by Chairman Buck McKeon […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s failure to achieve fusion ignition has stirred debate about future funding for the National Ignition Facility, and the New York Times is the latest to question how much should be spent on the massive laser project. The issue has generated renewed interest in the wake of the missed Sept. 30 deadline […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory has restarted work on a security upgrade project that was derailed earlier this year and hopes to have the project completed by the end of September, the lab said yesterday. The second phase of the Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrade Project, which was designed to upgrade physical security systems, protection […]

Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, the Bechtel and University of California-led contractor that runs Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, earned a one-year contract extension as part of its recently released Fiscal Year 2012 Performance Evaluation Review, but only after the intervention of a top National Nuclear Security Administration official. Acting NNSA Administrator Neile Miller, who at […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enforcement has declined to fine Los Alamos National Laboratory contractor for an incident at the lab last August that led to 30 workers being contaminated with radioactive Technetium-99. A Federal Accident Investigation issued after the incident called the contamination completely preventable and described a culture of lax adherence to typical […]

The chair of the Los Alamos County Council wrote to the National Nuclear Security Administration Tuesday expressing concerns about a new safety risk analysis made public by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in January. The Safety Board expressed concern about “the potential for very high offsite dose consequences” under a scenario in which a […]

The union representing approximately 750 construction and maintenance workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory reached agreement with the lab last week on a new five-year labor contract that will run through 2017. The New Mexico Building and Construction Trades Council represents plumbers and pipefitters, sheet metal workers, electricians, laborers, cement masons, ironworkers and other craft […]

Jeff Mousseau, as expected, has been officially named Los Alamos National Laboratory’s new associate director of environmental programs, where he will oversee cleanup activities, the lab announced yesterday. Mousseau, who last served as a senior project manager for Los Alamos’ transuranic waste disposition program, replaces Michael Graham, who left Los Alamos last month to oversee […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has finished removing all but tiny quantities of special nuclear materials from its grounds in a move that will allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to cut back on security and potentially save approximately $40 million a year. The plan to remove all special nuclear material requiring Category I and II […]

New Mexico Democratic Senate candidate Martin Heinrich lashed out at Republic opponent Heather Wilson’s support of Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s budget proposal yesterday, questioning Wilson’s support for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons laboratories. The labs would face steep cuts in Ryan’s budget plan—10 percent for Sandia National Laboratories and 17 percent for Los […]

Retention bonuses paid to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory guards to keep them at the site as it downsized its security posture were reasonable, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General said in a report released yesterday. The IG said it investigated claims that the lab experienced “excessive” security costs while it maintained security to protect Category […]