Brian Bradley
WC Monitor
11/20/2015
The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is remaining mum on its latest cost estimate for cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, after New Mexico’s top environment official this week knocked DOE’s 2008 $1.2 billion estimate as “too low." The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) “and DOE need to develop a new schedule to secure the increased funding necessary for remediation,” states an NMED briefing slide presented last week during the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board meeting in Pojoaque.
The Associated Press reported that state Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn “called on everyone involved to ‘have an honest conversation about the extent of the problem’ as the State of New Mexico and DOE work on revising a 2005 agreement that said the cleanup should be finished by” 2015.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 21 million cubic feet of toxic waste has been buried at LANL since 1943, and more than 2,000 cleanup sites have been identified for remediation, including 26 material disposal sites containing unlined pits, shafts, and trenches. Furthermore, approximately 10,600 cubic meters of transuranic waste were stored and buried at LANL, including protective gear, tools, residue, and debris.
In response to Flynn’s comments, an EM spokesperson noted that the current baseline for LANL cleanup was developed seven years ago. “An updated lifecycle baseline estimate has been prepared and is currently being reviewed,” the spokesperson said by email, subsequently declining to discuss details of the draft cost projection.
EM in September awarded Los Alamos National Laboratory management and operations contractor Los Alamos National Security a one-year cost-plus-award-fee “bridge” contract with a maximum value of $309.8 million and two additional six-month options. When the bridge ends, DOE will have separate contracts for management and operation and legacy nuclear cleanup at Los Alamos. The department has not officially announced the expected length of the next LANL remediation contract. Flynn’s slides noted that LANL is the only DOE cleanup site without an expected completion date.
Flynn called on NMED and DOE to draw up a new schedule, different than the one in the 2005 consent order that states the department must finish cleanup at the site by Sept. 30, 2016, a date the department will miss by a significant amount of time. Flynn has said NMED would be open to revising the existing consent order to reflect a new end date, but only after DOE and the state of New Mexico finalize settlements regarding violations of state environmental rules associated with LANL waste management problems and the truck fire and radiation release that forced the closure of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in February 2014.
DOE in April announced a deal under which it would provide $73 million in support for infrastructure and emergency response improvements for the regions surrounding WIPP and Los Alamos, including $34 million to improve roadways and transportation routes near the transuranic waste storage facility in southeastern New Mexico and $10 million for water infrastructure upgrades in the Los Alamos area in the state’s north.
Flynn last month said the sides have yet to reach agreement on the schedule for the projects to be carried out.
Any revised consent order should include a “campaign approach” instead of an approach based around milestones and deliverables, NMED’s presentation said. Under the proposed approach, areas of priority (such as groundwater) could be divided and carry timelines tailored to the specific project. But those separate work scopes could carry their own milestones, and the campaigns could span several years, briefing slides state. A “campaign approach” could also bring flexibility to work plans and to “unrealistic milestones” that must cope with funding realities, the slides note.
