The EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) finished fiscal year 2022 (FY22) by exceeding EM’s goals for shipping radioactive waste offsite to permanent disposal facilities.
Office of Environmental Management
October 4, 2022
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LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – The EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) finished fiscal year 2022 (FY22) by exceeding EM’s goals for shipping radioactive waste offsite to permanent disposal facilities.
It’s a key accomplishment in EM’s mission to protect human and ecological health by addressing environmental impacts from Manhattan Project and Cold War operations.
EM-LA and N3B finished FY22 strong by completing 52 shipments of transuranic (TRU) radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), exceeding EM-LA’s FY22 goal by over 70%. The shipments included more than 130 cubic meters of waste, or the equivalent of approximately 625 55-gallon drums. FY22 ended Sept. 30.
“Stakeholder engagement is an important part of the EM-LA cleanup mission, and the feedback I receive is shipping more TRU waste to WIPP should be a key priority,” said Michael Mikolanis, EM-LA manager. “Additionally, our partnership with N3B, Triad National Security — the organization managing and operating Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) — and WIPP has enabled us to implement efficiencies. We surpassed our FY22 TRU waste shipment goal by over 70%, which is a testament to our focus to get legacy waste off the hill and to our commitment to the citizens of New Mexico.”
Based on EM’s 2022 priorities, the Los Alamos site’s goal was to complete 30 TRU waste shipments to WIPP. Remediating and shipping legacy waste from Los Alamos is a key cleanup project for EM, and Los Alamos is the only site included as a priority goal for transuranic waste shipments.
The new EM yearly goal for Los Alamos moving forward will be 40 TRU waste shipments to WIPP. This 33% increase in the future shipping goal is thanks in large part to an increase in efficiencies in packaging and shipping the waste as well as enhanced coordination between EM-LA and WIPP.
“Exceeding our FY22 goal means we’re successful at accelerating our movement of waste out of Technical Area 54, where we manage radioactive waste before it’s shipped offsite to a permanent disposal facility,” said Ellen Gammon, N3B’s director of Waste Management. “The ability to use Triad’s indoor loading facility has allowed us to package waste for shipment in inclement weather.”
TRU waste managed by EM-LA and N3B was produced during nuclear weapons research and production at LANL during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. It entails materials such as protective clothing, tools and equipment contaminated with radioactive elements like plutonium and americium. One shipment of TRU waste entails drums or other containers encased in three oversized casks known as TRUPACTS, which are approved for transport on public roadways.
EM-LA and N3B also ended FY22 exceeding an additional shipping goal by having shipped offsite for disposal 350 containers of mixed low-level and low-level radioactive waste, which amounts to about 560 cubic meters, or approximately 2,690 55-gallon drums. With the EM goal for Los Alamos of 250 containers and 500 cubic meters of waste, this achievement outpaced the FY22 goal by 100 containers.
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