Saturday, January 13, 2007

 

LANL FUBARed Big-time By Bechtel

Friday June 1, 2007:
The end of the first year of the LANL Contract
(held by LANS, LLC = Bechtel with UC duct-taped to the passenger seat)

Comments abound on the rocky ride: Read on!

Comments:
LANS may not make it all the way to June 1, 2007. I smell blood in the water.
 
Another UC official in trouble again.

UC Riverside official is accused of bribery
FBI says Theodore Chiu solicited payments from an Irvine contractor constructing a building on campus.
By Sara Lin, Times Staff Writer
January 10, 2007


Federal agents arrested a UC Riverside administrator Tuesday on suspicion of bribing a general contractor in charge of building the school's new psychology building, authorities said.

Theodore Chiu, 53, of Riverside is accused of soliciting a $50,000 bribe from Irvine contractor FTR International Inc. last Halloween.

Chiu allegedly asked for the payment when the company's president, Nizar Katbi, raised concerns about the $35-million project, including Chiu's choice of a subcontractor, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court.

In exchange for the alleged bribe, Chiu agreed to sign a change order that would modify the university's original agreement with the company, the affidavit said.

As an associate director in UC Riverside's Office of Design and Construction, Chiu managed several construction projects.

Katbi agreed to the proposal but told federal agents before giving Chiu his first payment. Katbi cooperated with investigators by recording his meetings and conversations with Chiu, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

During a series of meetings, Chiu allegedly received $18,000 in bribes from Katbi, the affidavit said.

University officials said they weren't aware of the investigation until Chiu's arrest Tuesday morning.

Kris Lovekin, the university's director of media relations, said she didn't know of any problems university officials had with Chiu during his 19 years in the school's design office. His salary is $108,000 a year.

Construction of the school's psychology building began in April and is scheduled for completion in June 2008.

At a November meeting between Katbi and Chiu, which federal investigators recorded, the contractor offered to write Chiu a check. But Chiu demanded cash because a check would be traceable. If Katbi didn't pay, Chiu said, he would make life difficult for the contractor and his company, according to the affidavit.

Chiu also told Katbi that he didn't like to handle more than one deal at a time, which Katbi took to mean Chiu might be soliciting bribes from other general contractors on UC Riverside projects, documents show.

Chiu initially demanded the bribe in two installments — $20,000 before Thanksgiving and $30,000 before Christmas. But when Katbi said he was having trouble getting the money, Chiu agreed to accept smaller increments of $7,000. When Katbi was slow paying in December, Chiu withheld his authorization of funds that Katbi needed to pay subcontractors. After Katbi delivered a bribe, the funds were released, the affidavit said.

Chiu is expected to appear at 11 a.m. today for a bail hearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. If convicted, Chiu faces a possible sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sara.lin@latimes.com
 
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 
It should be clear to all that the rebid was a misguided, nay, stupid thing to do. It is a waste of money and has done nothing to improve security and safety -- quite the contrary, we see, as security and safety contractors are laid off so that LANS can make its profit targets. The staff here at LANL is so totally demoralized that I doubt many of them care any more. I have never seen such a gloomy set of people.

NNSA is evidently trying to promulgate new cybersecurity rules that are said to reveal a stunning level of stupidity and ignorance in the NNSA CIO office. I can't wait to see them.

NNSA is a disaster. It is destroying science at the labs. It has done nothing to improve security. And, as revealed in an article in the albuquerque journal a few months back, it can't even do its primary job of ensuring the integrity of the stockpile. Even St. Pete no longer likes NNSA, and he bears a large portion of the blame for its existence.

The NNSA dog won't hunt. The best thing that the new senate and house could do would be to put NNSA out of its misery and return DOE to status quo ante. I doubt that anyone in DC has that much sense.

Let's hope that the LLNL rebid is put on hold until NNSA is terminated with extreme prejudice.
 
I agree. LANS won't make it till June 1st, '07. They'll have the contract yanked from them before that as a strong warning to others that the DOE/NNSA mean business. And what will become of all those workers who placed their TCP1 pension bets with LANS? Tsk, tsk. Don't say you weren't warned. Perhaps you can get pennies on the dollar from the US Government's Pension Guaranty Corporation. LANL's current operating budget surely can't afford to make any rich pension payouts!
 
Oink! Oink!...

Española wants share of LANL taxes

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/55031.html

By HENRY M. LOPEZ | The New Mexican
January 11, 2007

Española Mayor Joseph Maestas estimates that about $90 million a year in gross-receipts tax will eventually flow into the state from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

And he wants some of that money for his city and other Northern New Mexico governments. Already about $40 million would go to Los Alamos County, whose officials say they want to invest some in regional projects, leaving an annual $50 million pot of state money that Maestas wants to access.

//

The potential windfall comes from the lab's change in management from the tax-exempt University of California to the for-profit management consortium Los Alamos National Security LLC. The change opened the lab to gross-receipts taxes.

Maestas said the $20 million request was just a "bite of the apple," and requests would be larger during subsequent years.

//
 
Laboratories are like nation-states; they are born, grow, prosper, wither and die.

-- "History of America", Pliny the Elder, 2050 --
 
Remember all those LANL PR stories back in early December about the amazing bomb-sniffing bee research being done at LANL. Well, according to DOD, the LANL bee research is a flop.

Wouldn't you know it. Guess LANL's Program Managers will have to start looking for another means to grow the lab's business. Bee research won't cut it. The $2.4 million in DARPA research funding for this LANL work didn't seem to bear much fruit. LANL will now apparently try to shop this idea to other US Agencies who don't read the news.


X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Defense says bees unreliable in detecting bombs

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=42700

By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, January 11, 2007

ARLINGTON, Va. — Plan Bee to detect roadside bombs is a no-go.

The Defense Department has researched whether bees could detect explosives. The goal was to get the bees to react when they sensed vapors from substances such as dynamite and plastic explosives.

But the $2.4 million in research did not bear fruit, said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

“The research demonstrated that bees can detect explosives under certain environmental conditions, but their explosive-detection capabilities have significant reliability issues,” Walker said Tuesday.

“Whatever you’re going to use to detect explosives, you have to know for sure; it has to be extremely reliable,” she said. “You don’t want to say it’s all clear and not have it all clear because that would put someone’s life at risk.”

The agency does not see a way to make the bees a reliable weapon in the fight against roadside bombs, she said.

“At this point, we do not plan any further investment,” Walker said.

But Tim Haarmann, a honey bee researcher at Los Alamos who worked on the project, said he still believes bees have the potential to be used in a role similar to that of bomb-sniffing dogs.While DARPA has decided not to fund the project further, it is not dead, Haarmann said.

X-X-X-X

Researchers are looking for new sources of funding and working with Homeland Security and Justice Department officials to see what roles the bees could play, he said.
 
You can be assured that neither DOE nor NNSA will admit to having made such a huge mistake in picking LANS for the LANL recompete. Accountability is not their strong suit. We can only hope that Congressman Dingell can force the issue. If, in fact John Mitchell was caught putting classified material on his personal computer, then perhaps the compounding evidence of LANS' incompetence can no longer be ignored.
 
SNL still has plenty of WFO work, and less than half of SNL's funding now comes from NNSA. LANL, on the other hand, turned it's back on WFOs and decided to go 'whole-hog' into nuclear weapons work. Cost controls become a non-issue once LANL managers decided to go this route. Huge increases in support and management staff became inevitable after LANL decided that weapons work was a means to easy wealth.

Now, the chickens are coming home to roost on this ill-fated decision. WFO work at LANL has collapsed, as average FTE costs have sky-rocketed to over $400K per year. There are only a few people who are willing to pay these high rates. LANL management is desperately talking about growing the WFO work, but it's unlikely they'll have much success when our overhead rates are so ridiculously high. It's also unlikely they'll take the necessary actions to bring these rates down to more sane levels.

The #1 problem at LANL is that there are now way too many people riding comfortable in the back of the wagon and fewer and fewer folks willing to pull the wagon. With this ominous situation, the 'wagon' is now about to come to an abrupt halt.
 
Oink, oink? Los Alamos County now get's $40 million on top of the $10 million it already gets to subsidize its schools? Oink, oink indeed!
 
"Anonymous said...
I agree. LANS won't make it till June 1st, '07. They'll have the contract yanked from them before that as a strong warning to others that the DOE/NNSA mean business. And what will become of all those workers who placed their TCP1 pension bets with LANS? Tsk, tsk. Don't say you weren't warned. Perhaps you can get pennies on the dollar from the US Government's Pension Guaranty Corporation. LANL's current operating budget surely can't afford to make any rich pension payouts! "

This would be nice but I doubt that they'll fix it until after Oct 1st, 2007 when they have LLNL too. Then they may land the boom on both facilities at the same time. Well I guess that answers what the people of LLNL should do with their UCRP retirement? Maybe we'll see a 90% TCP-2 there instead of being like LANL where we say a 60% TCP-1.
 
Tom the truth teller says: Gentelman: it's time to drop your stocks and pick up your socks...Cause I feel a mighty vibration on the ground kimosabby and it aint" St Nick, no this time it's Congress, and there a riding hard, headed to the last out-post in the west, called LANS, but wait they are not coming to our aid,oh no..but they are a commin, and they got all of the ammunition that they need to shoot up this here ol town, yep, I afraid theres a gonna be a lot of bullet holes in this here town fore they leave. So lock up the kid and hide the wives cause there are a commin, heard they got'em a rope or two ....
 
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