Accelerated Remediation Company, a local small business with offices in Los Alamos, received a contract from Los Alamos National Laboratory to begin remediation of an historic waste site known as Material Disposal Area B.
Material Disposal Area B (MDA-B), located within Los Alamos's Technical Area 21, was the first common disposal area for radioactive waste generated at the Laboratory and received waste related to Laboratory operations from 1945 until 1948. MDA-B is located in Los Alamos on DP Mesa, on the south side of DP Road across from numerous Los Alamos businesses.
In compliance with the New Mexico Environment Department Consent Order, MDA B is scheduled for complete removal of historical contents. DP Mesa contains land that potentially could be transferred to Los Alamos County for economic development or other purposes. Because of the county's interest, and MDA-B's proximity to a planned commercial development, the Laboratory's goal is to clean the former disposal site to residential standards.
Laboratory officials and Keith Tucker, Accelerated Remediation Company's program manager, signed the contract last week at Los Alamos. The contract for $36.4 million is the largest awarded to a minority-owned small business certified by the Small Business Administration since at least 1999.
"Cleanup of MDA-B represents a significant step forward by the Laboratory in continuing to meet our environmental stewardship commitments," said Sue Stiger, Los Alamos's associate director for environmental programs.
"We are pleased that this clean up not only helps further Los Alamos County's economic development goals, but will benefit the regional economy as well."
Based on characterization and other decommissioning work already done, Laboratory teams working on this project know that Material Disposal Area B consists of buried waste, including chemicals and radioactive materials. Research and interviews with former Laboratory personnel familiar with the site and Laboratory operations at the time also provided information on the types of material disposed at MDA-B.
Accelerated Remediation Company, a joint venture of Portage Environmental Inc. and Shaw Environmental Inc., is scheduled to begin work this month with a scheduled completion date of December 31, 2010.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
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.