COLUMBIA--Former U.S. Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. has been hired by the company that runs the Savannah River Site to help it retain a contract to run the former nuclear weapons plant.

Thurmond's job will be to let the Washington Group know what is going on in his hometown of Aiken, just miles from the site, company spokesman Jack Herrmann said.

"We like to get a fresh perspective on what's going on in the community, and Strom is very well-established in the community," Herrmann said. "We find him to be very candid and honest."

Washington Group's Westinghouse Savannah River Co. has run the nuclear waste storage facility near Aiken for the past 15 years without a lot of competition.

But with a contract that has been worth an estimated $1.5 billion a year expiring in September 2006, some challengers are stepping up, including Fluor Daniel, who has opened an Aiken office to pursue the contract.

"He's new to this area in terms of his career. I don't know how much he knows about it. I would suspect not a whole heck of a lot, but he might surprise me," said Dan Evans, project director of Fluor Daniel's Aiken office.

The only reason the Washington Group hired Thurmond is because of his name, said Bob Guild, an environmental lawyer and chairman of the South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club.

"Why do they want him? It's not for his nuclear engineering acumen, his environmental science skills or ability to advocate for clean and safe energy for South Carolina," Guild said.

Thurmond, 32 and son of South Carolina's longtime U.S. senator, the late Strom Thurmond, did not return a phone call from The Associated Press on Thursday.