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By Anne Marie Borrego
August 22, 2003
The University of California system has paid $930,000 to a former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee to settle his complaint that it retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on problems at the weapons lab.
The institution fired Glenn Walp, then the head of the lab's Office of Security Inquiries, last November, after he and an associate exposed fraud, mismanagement, and security lapses at the lab, which the university manages.
Mr. Walp and Steve Doran were fired after a memorandum by Mr. Walp outlining the problems was leaked to the news media and the Project on Government Oversight, a grass-roots watchdog group. The university later rehired them to consult with it on how to reform the facility. Mr. Walp resigned as part of the settlement. Mr. Doran, who settled with the university this year for an undisclosed sum, remains employed as the director of public safety and systems security.
"We're glad that we finally reached an agreement with Mr. Walp," said A. Scott Sudduth, the university's assistant vice president for federal governmental relations. "We were grateful for the cooperation that he has given the university over the last nine months, as we have looked into allegations of mismanagement of Los Alamos."
"He helped us correct some of the practices that were less than satisfactory at the lab," Mr. Sudduth continued, "and we appreciate his assistance."
Mr. Walp issued a statement on Thursday saying he was pleased with the settlement.
While the university has taken action to remedy its mistakes, the allegations raised by Mr. Walp and Mr. Doran led the U.S. secretary of energy, Spencer Abraham, to declare an open competition for the contract to manage the lab. The federal government hired the university to manage the lab six decades ago, and the institution has retained that contract ever since. Its current contract expires in 2005.
Last spring, Richard C. Atkinson, the university's president, said he was unsure whether the institution would compete for the new contract, setting off widespread speculation over potential successors. The university still has not made a decision, Mr. Sudduth said. "We are operating from the presumption that we would compete, but it depends," he said. "We can't answer a question like that" until the Energy Department officially opens the contract to bidding.