It’s been a very merry Christmas for the UC Board of
Regents. On Dec. 21, 2005 the limited liability corporation they
formed with Bechtel National, BWX Technologies and Washington Group
International was awarded the contract to manage the Los Alamos
National Laboratory for a seven-year term.
Calling themselves Los Alamos National Security LLC, the
university-industrial consortium will operate one of the largest
nuclear warhead research, design and production facilities on the
planet, earning up to $79 million in annual fees in the
process.
The Department of Energy has posted the new management contract
online spelling out the University of California’s
responsibilities, which will increasingly involve the manufacturing
of plutonium pits (the cores of nuclear warheads) and other
thermonuclear weapon components. Some are predicting that within
several years the Los Alamos laboratory will become the
weapons-complex’s factory for plutonium pits. Below are some
selected clauses from the contract:
Section 3.1.1.2
D. Production and Manufacturing
Maintain manufacturing capability for plutonium-based pits of
various designs for the primary of nuclear weapons. This activity
implements specialized manufacturing and testing techniques for
this warhead component. The Contractor shall manufacture pits for
the stockpile in quantities specified by National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Section 3.1.1.4
Production Support to the Nuclear Weapons Complex
The Contractor shall provide technical production support to the
NNSA at nuclear weapon production plants, and modify and enhance
the non-nuclear component production hardware qualification program
consistent with production assignments and production rates.
Nothing is new about the UC’s operation of a nuclear
weapons lab. What’s new in this holiday contract is the
UC’s partnership with three military-industrial corporations
and Los Alamos’ emerging role as a primary production
facility.
The creation of Los Alamos National Security LLC hitches the
university to three industrial firms experienced in manufacturing,
the handling of nuclear materials and nuclear waste disposal, all
in order to fulfill the new contract’s requirements.
The UC Regents are ecstatic over their Christmas present.
However, it’s unlikely that students, faculty and staff will
be equally pleased once they discover the laboratory’s
emerging role.
Laboratory employees, who have shown much resistance to
large-scale manufacturing operations in the past, are also unlikely
to be thrilled with the new contract.
The American people, who have expressed their desire for nuclear
disarmament time and again, will clearly view the new laboratory
and its mission as a big radioactive lump of coal.
Bondgraham is a graduate student of sociology at UC Santa
Barbara.