The honored Los Alamos projects are the Transuranic Waste Inspectable Storage Project (TWISP), Waste management in the High Explosives Science and Technology Group (DX-2), and Laboratory-wide waste management, pollution prevention and waste minimization by the Environmental Management Division (EM-DIV)
The Green Zia Awards are given at three levels, "Excellence," "Achievement," and "Commitment," based on the degree of development and implementation of a pollution prevention-focused environmental management system. The TWISP award is given at the "Achievement" level and the DX-2 and EM-DIV awards are at the "Commitment" level. Of the 22 awards given this year, none were at the "Excellence" level.
TWISP, located at Area G of the Laboratory's solid waste disposal site at Technical Area 54, leads the effort at Los Alamos to retrieve waste-containing drums and fiberglass reinforced boxes, some of them from beneath earthen cover, and place them into inspectable storage. The emphasis at TWISP is to perform this task with the utmost safety, protecting both the workers and the environment.
DX-2 is concerned with all aspects of high explosives (HE) from cradle to grave. These aspects include chemistry, engineering, materials properties, and physics related to the synthesis, formulation, performance, and safety of explosives; monitoring and surveillance of explosives in the enduring nuclear stockpile; unique applications of explosives and environmentally conscious destruction/disposal of explosives and explosive devices.
EM-DIV is concerned with a variety of Laboratory-wide environmental initiatives. EM has as its strategic focus the cleaning up and managing waste and contamination created during the Manhattan Project and Cold War, promoting and implementing pollution prevention and developing and deploying innovative technological solutions that meet local, national, and international environmental challenges.
Although the Lab is extremely pleased and proud to have been awarded these Green Zias, the application process alone has tremendous value as a learning tool, according to Brian Thompson, Green Zia program coordinator at the Laboratory. "One key aspect is that all applications get feedback reports that point out a program's significant strengths and opportunities for improvement. This is really the meat of the program-it lets us see what we are doing well and what we can work on. Just putting together the application is kind of a self-assessment in the first place," he said.
These three Green Zia Awards are just a start for the Environmental Stewardship Office according to Thompson. "Our long term goal is to eventually win a Green Zia at the "Excellence" level for the Laboratory as a whole. There's this image we have, people don't think we focus on environmental excellence, but we do, and we want to demonstrate that by achieving our long-term goal," he said.
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Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.