About a year after the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) stood up a field office at the 70-year-old nuclear-weapons lab, the agency has launched a dedicated website for legacy nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico.
The Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) website is located here, and brings legacy waste cleanup activities at the lab to the fore. The efforts managed by the EM-LA were previously buried on the main LANL website, which typically downplays the lab’s work for the Pentagon and pushes stories about science and research to the front.
The Office of Environmental Management also teased more regular updates about LANL cleanup on the dedicated waste management site, which enables “sharing our progress with our stakeholders and keeping them informed with regular updates,” EM-LA Field Office Manager Doug Hintze said in the press release.
DOE also said the move will save money.
“Transitioning numerous office and field site websites to a single platform is expected to help DOE avoid $10 million in costs annually while improving and integrating the Department’s communications infrastructure,” the agency said in its release.
LANL prime contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS), a partnership led by Bechtel and the University of California, is managing legacy waste cleanup at the site under a so-called bridge contract with EM potentially worth some $310 million through Sept. 30, 2017.
That work used to be bundled in with LANS’ lab management and operations contract with the National Nuclear Security Administration, but DOE shifted responsibility for the cleanup from the NNSA to EM after a 2014 radiation release at the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., was traced to an improperly sealed waste container that originated at LANL.
In March, a senior DOE procurement official said the draft solicitation for the permanent cleanup contract that will replace LANS’ bridge pact would arrive by April. That draft document has not yet been released.
Sigma Science Inc., of Los Alamos, will write a handbook for dealing with the full scope of safety threats at the highly contaminated Area G waste facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) under a two-year, $3.1 million task order announced Monday by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management.
The task order requires the company to produce what is known as a Documented Safety Analysis for Technical Area-54 Area G. The document’s Technical Safety Requirements will “set the limits, controls, and related actions that establish the specific parameters and actions for the safe operation of a nuclear facility,” DOE said in a press release announcing the deal.
The 63-acre Area G is located within Technical Area-54. DOE has stored low-level nuclear waste at Area G since the 1950s. A barrel of improperly sealed transuranic waste from Area G — material contaminated by plutonium or other elements heavier than uranium — was blamed for the 2014 accidental radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.
The Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office oversees legacy cleanup work at Area G and other parts of LANL, which is done by lab prime contractor Los Alamos National Security under a roughly $310 million contract that could run out to Sept. 30, 2017, if DOE exercises its remaining option on the contract.
DOE has said it plans to release the draft solicitation for a 10-year follow-on cleanup contract some time this year.