Road upgrades are due to begin this week around the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a byproduct of a settlement agreement between DOE and the state of New Mexico over a 2014 accident at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said Monday the first of three phases of road improvements around LANL would begin Thursday. The work will be done by Albuquerque Asphalt, under a $7 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through an interagency agreement with the NNSA.
The road work is covered by a $74 million settlement from 2016 between DOE and the New Mexico Environment Department. The settlement funding is split between road work and other infrastructure improvements around LANL and WIPP for errors at both DOE sites that contributed to the accident.
The upgrades, which should be finished in the fall, will cover sections of road extending from the Omega Bridge to the Totavi gas station in Los Alamos County. Stretches of East Jemez Road, New Mexico State Road 4, and New Mexico State Road 502 will be part of the upgrade project, according to an NNSA press release.
The upgrades will consist of milling and replacing the top layer of asphalt. More extensive reconstruction will be done on a section of New Mexico 502 that “has experienced settlement,” according to the release. The work crews will take steps designed to reduce traffic congestions during the road work.
All the road improvements are along routes used for transportation of transuranic waste to WIPP, said NNSA spokeswoman Toni Chiri.
WIPP experienced an underground fire in February 2014, soon followed by a radiological release tied to breach of a waste drum generated at the laboratory. New Mexico subsequently issued numerous permit violations and civil penalties against DOE over the incident. The violations involved both sites.
In September 2017, the state of New Mexico announced almost $27 million worth of improvements were being made to roads around WIPP as a result of the settlement.
