Since We're On the Subject

LANL The Real Story to Shutter

By Emily Esterson, 12-28-05

Last week, the Department of Energy awarded the Los Alamos National Laboratories management contract to a group called Los Alamos National Security Inc. -- a conglomerate including three companies, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, and Washington Group International and the University of California.

At the same time, Doug Roberts, who launched the blog "LANL: The Real Story" announced that he'll shut it down, now that the contract has been awarded. He'll continue to run the blog until the new managers take over on June 1. Roberts himself retired last year, along with many other LANL employees looking to cash in their retirement, pensions and other bennies before the new bosses came along.

Roberts, and his many colleague blog-posters and commenters, have expressed disbelief that UC was among the winning team--after all, the security breaches, lost discs, and faulty management were all under the auspices of the University of California. Officials justified the decision by saying they'd actually awarded the contract to the three private entities--Bechtel, WGI and BWX, with University of California only a small part of the whole.

For LANL watchers (and the blog obsessed), LANL the Real Story was a fascinating look inside of one of the world's most mysterious facilities (although as Alan Kleinfeld noted yesterday, there's nothing stopping you from just waltzing into the place). Among the sometimes vitriolic posts about retirement plans and mismanagement were internal memos, letters the staff received, the occasional poem, and a great deal of insider information. Despite the fact that those of us who don't work for a place with surprisingly generous benefits (Los Alamos County has the highest median income in the U.S.--$93,000--in the 48th poorest state) at times found the whining about benefits and loss of retirement (as if any of us out here in the private sector will retire at 50), a bit, well, whiney, it was always a delicious read. LANL the Real Story was a peak inside the workings of an institution full of really smart people doing really strange (and useful, sort of,) work.

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