NNSA Completes Successful Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program | National Nuclear Security Administration

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today announced the successful completion of the Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program (FIRP). FIRP was created to reduce a substantial accumulation of backlogged facility maintenance, repair and demolition projects across NNSA’s eight sites. NNSA has enhanced mission reliability, improved safety and working conditions and reduced operating costs across the national nuclear security enterprise.

“One of the primary goals of FIRP was to demonstrate NNSA’s commitment to being an effective steward of the taxpayers’ money while we move beyond the Cold War,” said NNSA Associate Principal Deputy Administrator Michael Lempke. “The program was created to make our sites leaner, more energy efficient and to ensure the vitality and readiness of NNSA’s nuclear security enterprise. NNSA is proud of the professional staff dedicated to this major achievement. NNSA will continue to maintain the emphasis on core infrastructure that sustains all NNSA programs.”

The Department of Energy and the NNSA established FIRP with support of the Department of Defense, outside stakeholders and congressional subcommittees. The challenge was to reduce a two-billion dollar backlog of maintenance and repairs and to restore facility conditions to an acceptable level through recapitalization, restoration and modernization. The FIRP team achieved its goals of maintenance backlog and excess footprint reduction consistent with budgetary constraints.

Among its achievements, FIRP:

• Executed nearly 800 projects throughout the NNSA enterprise.
• Eliminated $900 million of baselined deferred maintenance, and brought the overall condition of the enterprises’ essential facilities up to industry standards.
• Managed 625 recapitalization projects ($1.2 billion) that refurbished laboratory and production facilities, repaired or replaced electrical and mechanical equipment, utility lines, fire protection, power and lighting systems, roofs, roads and other vital infrastructure.
• Oversaw 145 disposition projects which removed 3.5 million square feet of excess footprint, opened many acres of space for redevelopment, shrank security perimeters and reduced deteriorated condition.
• Completed nine utility line item projects including power grid upgrades at Los Alamos National Laboratory, an electrical substation and a heating system modernization at Sandia National Laboratories, electrical and natural gas distribution systems at the Pantex Plant, compressed air and potable water system upgrades and a steam plant life extension at Y-12 and 31 miles of highway repairs at Nevada National Security Site.
• Replaced 4.2 million square feet of failing roofs and achieved an average 70 percent decrease in heating and cooling costs with concurrent insulation upgrades.
• Adopted the LEED Cool Roof standard and upgraded more than 3 million square feet of roofs to energy efficient, cool roof compliance.

FIRP’s success was also recognized at the national level. In 2008, the FIRP’s Roof Asset Management Program (RAMP), a first time enterprise-wide roof program, received the General Service Administration (GSA) 2008 Award for Real Property Innovation. At the urging of DOE, the National Academy of Sciences evaluated FIRP for method, action and effect. The Academy concluded that “NNSA’s execution of Real Property Management is the most advanced in DOE. In the simplest terms: NNSA gets it.” The FIRP’s facility disposition program met 116 percent of its goal one year ahead of schedule, eliminating more than three million square feet of non-contaminated excess real property in seven years.

NNSA’s efforts to improve its infrastructure are not ending. NNSA will continue to address old deferred maintenance needs where appropriate and establish new, modern capabilities needed to support the advances in stockpile stewardship and other program drivers that will replace outdated and obsolete capabilities.

Follow NNSA News on our Blog and on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Flickr.

Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.