SACRAMENTO (AP) -- A university expert on the proposed Ward Valley nuclear dump says the company poised to take control of the controversial facility is in serious financial straits.

The report by economist F. Gregory Hayden is based largely on Securities and Exchange Commission filings and related market data. It is scheduled to be released this week.

An earlier study by Hayden, a professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, which raised serious doubts about the economic viability of Ward Valley, received widespread attention.

Details of the latest study were reported Wednesday in the California edition of The Wall Street Journal.

The latest analysis focuses on the financial condition of American Ecology Corp., a unit of which holds the license to run Ward Valley. The report questioned the Idaho-based company's ability to meet certain federal performance standards.

Under U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission guidelines, the report says, a company operating a waste site like Ward Valley should maintain a ratio of current assets to current liabilities of "certainly no less than 1.5." This is designed to help ensure that the facility remains open and all contract requirements are met.

But American Ecology, the study points out, had an assets-to-liabilities ratio of just 0.37 last year. That fell to 0.35 during the first quarter of 1998.

Hayden serves as a commissioner of an organization of Midwestern states that has selected American Ecology to run a proposed radioactive-waste disposal facility in Nebraska. In that role, he has been a sharp critic of the company.

The report was dismissed by American Ecology as the self-serving product of an adversary and deemed irrelevant by California regulators, but it is sure to provide fresh ammunition for opponents of Ward Valley. These include Democratic lawmakers, environmental groups and Native American tribes.

Gov. Pete Wilson and his predecessor, George Deukmejian, have sought for the past 15 years to construct the facility near Needles. It is supposed to store low-level nuclear waste from California and three other Western states.

The Wilson administration has been locked in a political and legal battle with the U.S. Interior Department over the transfer of 1,000 acres of federal land needed for the dump. The state and American Ecology have sued the Interior Department, contending that they had previously secured the right to take title to the site. They are seeking $73 million in damages.

Scott Peyron, an American Ecology spokesman, said the company has been through tough financial times. In its latest SEC filing, dated March 6, American Ecology noted that it had defaulted on certain bank covenants in January and February. And the company's accounting firm said that it had "substantial doubt" about its client's "ability to continue as a going concern."

But Peyron says American Ecology has restructured and "positioned itself to be profitable in an environment that is politically challenged."

The company, which reported annual losses for each of the past three years, chalked up its best quarter since 1994 -- a loss of $78,000 -- in the first three months of this year.

"The company has taken the bad medicine and is healthier today as a result," Peyron told the Journal. It had losses of $48.9 million in 1995, $11.4 million in 1996 and $676,000 in 1997.