The Department of Energy’s legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is having its final two-year option picked up by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the Huntington Ingalls Industries-led venture said Thursday.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) said in a press release DOE is picking up its second and final two-year option, keeping N3B on through April 2028.
N3B has been the legacy cleanup contractor since April 2018, and the business is valued at about $2 billion, according to a DOE online chart.
Before April 2018, Los Alamos National Security, led by the University of California, was in charge of running both the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) lab and the cleanup operations.
But DOE decided to carve out a separate legacy cleanup contract after improperly package drums of transuranic waste from Los Alamos caused an underground radiation leak at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in February 2014. Triad National Security succeeded Los Alamos National Security as the lab prime contractor.
As for N3B, the going has been bumpy at times and DOE was said to take a hard look at moving on after the five year base period. There have been some safety concerns and N3B changed its president a couple of times, with the most recent one being Brad Smith replacing Kim Lebak in June 2023.
“We are appreciative of the confidence DOE has shown N3B by exercising this contract option,” Smith said in the Thursday press release.
