Nathaniel Solley/File

Two national laboratories in the Bay Area are set to furlough employees and halt research operations by Oct. 21 if the government shutdown remains unresolved.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory — the second-largest employer in Alameda County behind UC Berkeley — is set to close along with Sandia National Laboratories, also located in Livermore. The furlough would affect roughly 6,500 and 1,000 employees at the two labs, respectively. Both labs conduct research and development in nuclear arms control and nonproliferation technologies.

In a statement released Friday, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Dublin, said, “The 7,500 employees at risk of being furloughed … are among the best scientists and researchers in our country, and through no fault of their own they face the possibility of not receiving their paycheck at the end of the month.”

Swalwell, along with 10 other members of Congress from California including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, sent a letter Friday to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz requesting back pay for furloughed laboratory employees after the shutdown is over.

Oct. 1 marked the beginning of the government shutdown due to an impasse over the federal budget.

Sandia spokesperson Michael Janes said the lab is in the process of developing contingency plans around the possibility of “a safe, secure and orderly shutdown of the labs.”

Previously appropriated funds from government contracts will allow Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, located in the Berkeley Hills, to remain open and operational, Berkeley lab spokesperson John Weiner said. The Berkeley lab employs an estimated 4,200 researchers and support staff.

Weiner said in an email that the lab is analyzing how and when programs and operations will have to adapt, adding that if the impasse over the federal budget is prolonged, impacts to research and employees would be “unavoidable.”

Peter Nugent, adjunct professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley and senior scientist at the Berkeley lab, confirmed the lab will stay open as long as funds from existing contracts are available.

“For most divisions, this (goes) into November or December due to carryover,” Nugent said. “Then all bets are off.”

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, another national lab in the Bay Area that employs more than 1,500 researchers, will also remain open past Oct. 21.

At a town hall meeting held Sunday in Livermore, Swalwell addressed more than 200 employees from the two labs in Livermore.

“Not only will the labs’ cutting-edge scientific research be put on hold during a furlough period, our national labs could face an irreparable brain drain as our bright young scientists opt for the private sector,” Swalwell said in a press release.

Contact Jeff Landa at jlanda@dailycal.org.

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Though one in every 10 jobs in the East Bay has been lost since 2007, the profession, scientific and technical service industries of the area are projected to grow by an annual rate of 3 percent over the next eight years, according to the study produced by the East Bay Economic Development Alliance.

The economic turmoil felt in the East Bay and Alameda County — unemployment rates for the county were 10.7 percent in August — is not unique to the region; the unemployment rate in Los Angeles County was at 12.5 percent in August and the state’s rate was at 12.1 percent, according to the California Employment Development Department.

However, while economic hardship is the norm across the state, the high number of research and development institutions in the East Bay is certainly not — the area is more than three and a half times more concentrated in scientific research and development than other regions, according to the study.

The positive effect this has had on the local economy — which the study says is driven by innovation — is unmistakable, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, chair of the East Bay EDA, said in a press release about the study.

“It is clear that professional, scientific, and technical activities — including life science and clean energy firms play a vital role in our regional economy,” Carson said in the press release. “They are the drivers of economic growth in the East Bay and, as the report shows, critically linked to the East Bay’s strength in advanced manufacturing as well.”

The study recommends the building up of the local economy’s assets, listing among them the number of “world class” research and development institutions located in the area: UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national laboratories.

In addition to directly employing over 30,000 workers, these research and development institutions have had a role in supporting many of the region’s professional, scientific, technical and information service and advanced manufacturing businesses, according to the study.

“The (Lawrence) Berkeley Lab absolutely helps the local economy,” said Paul Preuss, science writer and spokesperson for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We employ a lot of people and also have a lot of contractors in the area we use to do specific jobs here — so not only are we a big employer, we also use the services and products that are offered locally.”

The study concludes that with the shoring up of these institutions and further development of the various technical and scientific sectors in the region, the East Bay economy will be able to thrive and grow.

“With these assets identified, now comes the task of taking action to keep them strong and to allow employers and job seekers alike to benefit from them and from all the East Bay has to offer,” said Karen Engel, executive director of the East Bay EDA, in the press release. “Although the recession has taken a heavy toll on East Bay jobs and recovery is currently limited, the report shows why the region is poised to return to prosperity in the long term — across a variety of industry sectors.”

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