The Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico last year shipped 5,058,687 kilograms of low-level radioactive waste off-site for disposal at federal and commercial properties.
Operations at storied nuclear weapons laboratory generate low-level radioactive waste, transuranic waste, mixed low-level waste, and mixed transuranic waste, according to the 2017 Annual Site Environmental Report for Los Alamos.
The low-level waste in 2017 was sent to DOE’s Nevada Nuclear Security Site and two private disposal operations: an EnergySolutions site in Utah and the Waste Control Specialists facility in Texas. There was not a breakdown of how much waste went to each location.
The environmental report, issued Sept. 27, also notes LANL made one shipment of defense transuranic waste in November 2017 to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., the first LANL shipment since WIPP resumed taking TRU waste in early 2017.
The 310-page document provides a status update for operations at LANL overseen by the department’s Office of Environmental Management, which manages cleanup across the DOE nuclear complex, and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is charged with upkeep of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. The document meets DOE’s requirements for environmental, safety, and health reporting.
The report also notes the changeover in contractors for both day-to-day operations and legacy cleanup at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos National Security (LANS) is ending its 12-year run as the lab’s management and operations contractor effective Nov. 1, after having already passed the baton for legacy environmental work in April to Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B).
The new lab management prime will be Triad National Security, comprised of Battelle, Texas A&M University, and the University of California. The latter institution is the sole holdover from the LANS team.
Material Disposal Area G at LANL’s Technical Area 54 is the only active disposal site at Los Alamos; in 2017 it held 492 kilograms of low-level waste. The laboratory and the New Mexico Environment Department have been working for years to plan its closure.
