The head of the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Wednesday evening the agency could soon pick up its first contract option with the legacy cleanup contractor.
“The Department of Energy is getting ready to award our first contract option period under our contract with N3B,” Michael Mikolanis, head of the nuclear cleanup field office, said of Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B).
Mikolanis made his comments about an hour into an online forum webcast from Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos. On April 29, 2023, N3B will conclude the five-year base period of its contract, listed by DOE as $1.5 billion over 10 years.
By that point, the DOE can exercise its first option period for three years.
While much there was much discussion during the Wednesday meeting of N3B’s stop work order, which followed a series of slips, trips and falls and one worker suffering a heat illness, Mikolanis and other speakers said N3B has exceeded DOE expectations for shipping transuranic waste the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
N3B recently started digging up corrugated metal pipes holding radioactive waste. The pipes will be cut into segments, characterized and prepared for haulage to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Some low-level waste might also be produced in the process, N3B speakers said Wednesday. The corrugated metal pipe project should conclude sometime in fiscal year 2024.
The N3B contract was carved out from the former Los Alamos National Laboratory site management and operations agreement held by Los Alamos National Security, a joint venture by the University of California, Bechtel, BWX Technologies, and URS Energy. The latter is now part of Amentum.
Triad National Security now runs the lab and its National Nuclear Security Administration work, while N3B and its 600-person workforce is in charge of cleanup of legacy nuclear cleanup for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
