After a highly troubling performance evaluation last year, the manager of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico received significantly higher marks for its work in fiscal 2015, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration reports released on Friday. Nonetheless, Los Alamos National Security’s (LANS) contract will expire in fiscal 2018, several years before the potential final end date set out in the contractor’s 2006 deal to manage the nuclear weapons research and development site.
In fiscal 2014, LANS received ratings no higher than very good in all five performance areas, including an unsatisfactory in operations and infrastructure for improper management of transuranic waste, which was linked to the February 2014 release of radiation from a container that had been shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico. It received only 45 percent of its at-risk award fee — $18.2 million out of a possible $40 million.
For the six areas considered in the fiscal 2015 report — covering Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015 — LANS received marks of excellent for DOE and strategic partnership mission and science, technology, and engineering. Its operations and infrastructure rating was bumped up to satisfactory, though with “significant challenges noted.” It received 74 percent of its at-risk fee — just over $29 million out of $39 million.
In both reports, LANS received ratings of very good in the area given the most weight (35 percent) in determining the award fee: managing the nuclear weapons mission.
In fiscal 2015, “The Laboratory made important progress in support of the stockpile, including work in Advanced Certification readiness efforts for pit reuse, work on dynamic materials properties for the National Boost Initiative, preparatory work on a future neutron-diagnosed subcritical experiment, along with several other areas,” the report says.
Other successes cited in the latest report included helping to secure materials of proliferation concern, “quantum information science applications for cyber security,” and operation of a money-saving supply chain management system. Challenges included several facilities that remained offline during the year, an arc flash that severely injured a worker, and a cyber attack that compromised personnel information.
