LOS ALAMOS, N.M.—This week, Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) celebrates its first anniversary as a new company cleaning up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
“We are very excited for the cleanup progress we’ve made the past year and to be a part of the Northern New Mexico community,” said Glenn Morgan, president of N3B. “We established a new company from scratch, completed several projects, resumed waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and laid the foundation for our goal of cleaning up the environment and protecting our future.”
Last year, the Department of Energy selected N3B as the prime contractor to conduct legacy cleanup operations at LANL for the Office of Environmental Management’s Los Alamos Field Office.
N3B was tasked with cleaning up hundreds of sites, including waste sites, waste disposal areas and a groundwater chromium plume, each with unique issues to tackle. Cleanup of these areas adheres to New Mexico Environment Department requirements and guidelines.
In addition to environmental remediation projects, N3B also is retrieving and packaging radioactive waste for shipment off-site and completed the first shipment of transuranic waste from LANL’s Area G in more than four years.
Since the start of the company a year ago, N3B and its subcontractors have built a team of more than 600 people to work on legacy waste cleanup and management. N3B also has awarded more than $41 million in procurements, with 82 percent going to small businesses.
Work completed in N3B’s first year includes:
• 6 contact-handled transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
• 435 cubic meters of waste shipped off-site
• 15 Consent Order milestones completed
• 10 Consent Order cleanup campaigns underway
• 4,142 air, soil and water samples collected
• 33 certificates of completion received
N3B is a limited liability company owned by HII Nuclear, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), and BWX Technologies. N3B manages the $1.38 billion, 10-year Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup Contract for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management’s Los Alamos Field Office.