The legacy cleanup vendor for the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has awarded a subcontract for a company to tear down an old processing building for radioactive liquid waste and do certain other work at Technical Area 21.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) said Thursday the contract went to Albuquerque-based Los Alamos Technical Associates to remediate portions of TA-21. The work, which should take about two years to finish, begins this summer, N3B said in a press release. The contractor declined to provide a dollar value for the work, which is one in a series of subcontracts.
Building 257, a retired processing facility for liquid waste, will be torn down as part of the LATA subcontract.
Technical Area 21 consists of buildings used for plutonium processing and tritium research during the Manhattan Project and Cold War. Most TA-21 facilities were demolished in 2011. In addition to decontaminating and demolishing Building 257, LATA will also remove underground waste transfer lines.
All waste will be transported off-site to a licensed disposal facility, which was not identified in the release. Next month, N3B intends to issue a request for proposals for removal of slabs and basements of previously demolished buildings. That contract should be awarded during the summer.
In October, N3B awarded a $1.5 million contract to a team of Montana-based Envirocon and Los Alamos-based TerranearPMC, to remove telephone poles, old fences, and concrete from Technical Area 21.
On Wednesday, N3B issued an RFP seeking a subcontractor to provide site characterization and remediation within the Chaquehui and South Ancho Canyon aggregate areas located at Technical Area 33, along with the Lower Water/Indio Canyon Aggregate Area at Technical Area 15. The Chaquehui and South Ancho Canyon areas are earmarked for remediation under a 2016 consent agreement between New Mexico and the Energy Department which addresses Los Alamos contamination.
The RFP itself did not list a dollar value for the subcontract, and N3B declined to provide one.
A pre-bid meeting and site visit is scheduled for April 10-11. A notice of intent to bid should be sent by 3 p.m. MST on April 12 to Heather Evans of N3B at [email protected]. Proposals should be sent to Evans by 3 p.m. April 24. An award could be issued June 7 and a notice to proceed issued Aug. 2.
The work includes site sampling to gauge contamination; filing regulatory reports; excavation and removal of contaminated soils; and removal of septic and drain lines.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos in April 2018 began work on the 10-year, $1.38 billion legacy cleanup contract for Los Alamos.
