A subcontractor for the legacy environmental remediation vendor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has tested positive for COVID-19.
The subcontractor for Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) is self-isolating at home and will not return to work until cleared by a medical provider, laboratory Director Thom Mason said in a press release Monday.
The New Mexico Department of Health is informing people who had direct contact with the infected person, Mason said. “While this is not an employee of the Laboratory, we wanted to make sure you are aware of this development.”
As lab director, Mason, is employed by Los Alamos management and operations contractor Triad National Security.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos employs upward of 700 people, and probably less than 50 are physically on-site now due to the pandemic. The N3B work is largely confined to tasks critical to health and safety, a company spokesperson said Tuesday.
For example, N3B is still doing radiological surveys at Technical Area-54’s Area G, where transuranic waste is stored; inspections of hazardous waste storage facilities to ensure compliance with the Resource Conservation Recovery Act; and maintaining ability to respond emergencies and abnormal events, the spokesperson said.
Most of the administrative workforce began working remotely over the last two weeks to help limit any potential for exposure.
The N3B joint venture is comprised of Huntington Ingalls Industries and BWX Technologies, with critical subcontractors Longenecker & Associates and Tech2 Solutions. The vendor brings in various other small contractors to handle specific tasks at Los Alamos. It is in charge of cleaning up hundreds of sites, including waste sites, disposal areas, and a groundwater chromium plume. The $1.4 billion, five-year award expires in April 2023.
Elsewhere in the weapons complex, the Savannah River Site has reported one confirmed case of COVID-19, as has the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, and three cases have been reported at Energy Department headquarters in Washington, D.C.
