Project team members were transported by crane in a special personnel platform to and from one of the cleanup sites on a narrow canyon shelf. Courtesy/DOEDOE News:
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS) have completed the removal of contaminated soil along the south-facing slopes of Los Alamos Canyon adjacent to the Los Alamos Townsite.
The contaminated soil was primarily associated with legacy outfalls and surface disposal from the Manhattan Project and early Cold War research and site management activities.
“Removal of the contaminated soil at these two sites is a final step in our remediation activities within and around the Los Alamos Townsite. LANS and their subcontractors did a wonderful job planning and safely addressing these sites. As always in the Townsite, the nearby property owners were instrumental in enabling the cleanups to occur,” EM-LA Program Manager Cheryl Rodriguez said.
The two contaminated sites, the final legacy sites to be cleaned up along Los Alamos Canyon, were on DOE property in what was the laboratory’s original footprint. Their relatively inaccessible location combined with the steep and uneven topography of the canyon required the use of a crane to enable the safe movement of a spider excavator, fieldwork personnel, and waste bags. The total combined area cleaned up was less than one acre or the equivalent of approximately 135 cubic yards.
The project was part of the Historical Properties Completion Campaign, one of the campaigns governed by the 2016 Compliance Order on Consent (Consent Order). Fieldwork began in May and was completed about a month ahead of schedule. Cleanup work was executed in collaboration with TerranearPMC, the contractor who completed successful DOE property cleanups on other nearby sites in the summer of 2016, and near the Smith’s Marketplace in the summer of 2015.
“I’m proud of the work we safely completed over the past couple of years. I feel it demonstrates a real commitment to fulfilling our obligation to complete the legacy site cleanups within and around the Laboratory,” LANS Project Manager, Todd Haagenstad said.
The excavated soil has been fully characterized and is being temporarily staged on DOE property. It will be shipped offsite to a licensed facility for final disposition by the end of September 2017.
A spider excavator crawled from the canyon rim to the side of the canyon, where the second of two cleanups was completed. Courtesy photo