Los Alamos National Security (LANS) no longer has the Energy Department’s legacy cleanup contract at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but it posted a strong performance during the most recent fee review period.
LANS took home 94 percent of the total fee available for its last review period as lab cleanup contractor, which ran from Oct. 1, 2017, to March 31 of this year: over $3.92 million of a potential $4.17 million, the Energy Department said Tuesday.
The contractor collected nearly $2.98 million in the fixed base fee, plus more than $952,000 of a potential $1.2 million in the subjective award fee, according to the scorecard issued this month by DOE.
The report rated LANS “excellent” for management; “very good” for quality and cost control; “good” at schedule; and only “satisfactory” at regulatory compliance. The contractor was rated “very good” overall.
The report noted the New Mexico Environment Department issued the contractor a notice of violation for allowing a mixed waste container to be stored beyond a one-year time limit without prior state approval. In April, an Energy Department spokesman said LANL would not contest $31,000 in state penalties for leaving certain waste too long in temporary storage.
The report did credit LANS for completing the processing and treatment of dozens of problematic radioactive waste containers. In November 2017, DOE confirmed LANS had finished treating 60 potentially combustible containers of radioactive waste at the lab. The drums held a mixture of organic kitty litter and nitrate salts similar to the combination that in 2014 blew open a LANL-origin container at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The resulting radiation release shut down the underground transuranic storage facility for nearly three years.
Remediated waste had to be removed from each container and mixed with the inert substance zeolite and water to make it nonreactive, DOE said. The waste was subsequently repackaged into new drums. Los Alamos National Security subsequently processed nearly 30 unremediated nitrate salts by March of this year. All the drums, which remain stored at LANL, will eventually be shipped to WIPP. No timeline has been set for the move.
The report also said a LANS strength was its collaboration with DOE, NMED, and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The DOE report credited the departing vendor with its transition to a new contractor.
LANS is a consortium of Bechtel National, AECOM, BWXT Technologies, and the University of California.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) took over legacy nuclear cleanup at the end of April. Its contract is worth roughly $1.39 billion over a decade. The work includes protecting a regional water aquifer, cleaning up contaminated legacy sites in and around LANL, and decontamination and demolition of structures.
Los Alamos National Security’s tenure as LANL’s management and operations contractor ends later this year. A new contract has been awarded to Triad National Security, a partnership of Battelle, the University of California, and Texas A&M University.
