Purdue bidding to run Los Alamos nuclear labs, Mitch Daniels confirms

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University is among a handful of U.S. universities competing for the next $2 billion contract to run Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation’s pre-eminent nuclear weapons lab, Purdue President Mitch Daniels confirmed Friday to the Journal & Courier.

Purdue’s name and interest in the work at the lab in New Mexico had been floated in industry trade publications recently. But Friday was the first confirmation of the fact from Daniels.

Daniels confirmed that Purdue’s bid is a partnership with Bechtel National, a firm that has been part of a private consortium that includes the University of California that has run the Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2006.

“We’ve submitted a bid. And that’s all I know and really all I can say,” Daniels said Friday, when asked during a break in a Purdue Trustees meeting held at the Purdue Northwest campus in Westville.

“We’re proud to compete for things like this,” Daniels said. “I do believe this is the sort of level Purdue should be playing at, let me put it that way.”

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Bechtel officials declined to confirm or deny the bid previously when asked by the Albuquerque Journal.

“We won’t be commenting on the procurement process right now,” Fred deSousa of Bechtel told the Albuquerque Journal. “We’re concentrating on managing the Lab safely and efficiently as part of the (Los Alamos National Security LLC) team.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency of the Department of Energy that oversees the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has kept bidders on the project under wraps. But proposals to operate the laboratory, starting in October, were due in late 2017.

The Albuquerque Journal reported that at least three other major universities – the University of California, the University of Texas and Texas A&M – have confirmed that they are bidding on the contract. The University of California had run the labs until 2006, dating to the days of the Manhattan Project during World War II. The University of California and Texas A&M are reportedly teaming on a bid, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

The contract is available after the Los Alamos National Security LLC – a consortium picked in 2006 during a competitive process and that includes Bechtel, University of California and companies BWXT and AECOM – received a series of inadequate performance reviews. Those reviews included an evaluation after the discovery that a drum of radioactive waste had been improperly packed with a combustible mix at Los Alamos and had popped open, causing contamination that shut down at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The plant is the nation’s only nuclear waste facility.

Daniels declined to say what Purdue’s role would be in managing the laboratory or which departments at Purdue would be involved. Daniels said he didn’t plan to outline the particulars of Purdue’s bid, as the university waits for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision in the coming months.

But this isn’t the first time Purdue has made a bid on this scale.

In 2016 Purdue joined with Lockheed, New Mexico State and New Mexico Tech on a bid to run Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. Sandia is one of three National Nuclear Security Administration research and development labs. The contract went to Honeywell.

“We competed a year or two ago for Sandia and were not selected,” Daniels said. “We have phenomenal partners – and have had in each case. I think we had a credible bid. But there can only be one winner.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.

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