EM-LA Manager Michael Mikolanis speaks to Kiwanis Tuesday at Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church. Photo by Kirsten Laskey/ladailypost.com

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

Environmental Management-Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) might be considered the “red-headed stepchild” of the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office but its work is no less important, the Kiwanis Club of Los Alamos learned Tuesday during its meeting at Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church.

EM-LA Manager Michael Mikolanis described his office as the “red headed stepchild” because while the NNSA Field Office has a $4.2 billion enterprise to manage, a national defense mission to accomplish, EM-LA has a $300 million legacy cleanup mission.

He explained EM-LA split from the NNSA Los Alamos Field Office in 2015 to give it a dedicated manager and the attention to complete its mission.

EM-LA’s mission is to “safely, efficiently and with full transparency complete the cleanup of legacy contamination and waste resulting from nuclear weapons development and government-sponsored nuclear research at LANL,” Mikolanis said.

Legacy waste cleanup falls into three areas:

• Protect water quality;
• Cleanup the land; and
• Ship waste off site.

In 2022 Congress gave a new mission, which is to do deactivation, decommission and decontamination by tearing down some of the older buildings that NNSA does not have use for, he said.

“So, imagine me, with my $4.2 billion partner across the bridge … I am his Maytag repair man that does environmental cleanup and building demolition and any other clean up on legacy waste on the hill,” Mikolanis said.

The number one restoration project is the Hexavalent Chromium Plume, he said.

An unexpected project was the middle DP Road cleanup. Being the designated garbage man and environmental cleanup person, Mikolanis said it fell to his office to address the unexpected radioactive items discovered in the land that was turned over to Los Alamos County. The cleanup work is wrapping up, he said. A report is being sent to the state, which will hopefully issue a clean certificate of compliance, allowing the land to be returned to the County.

Mikolanis said a lot of lessons were learned regarding land transfers between the federal and local government.

Another facet of EM-LA is public outreach. Mikolanis touched on his office’s strategic vision development.

He said he wanted to do something different than the normal bureaucratic way of just going to an “ivory tower”, creating a vision and presenting it to the public, hoping for praise.

Instead, Mikolanis said his office is doing a four-phase engagement, which involves listening to a wide variety of stakeholders and collecting their input. This input will be included in the strategic vision.

Finally, Mikolanis shared some personal anecdotes to Kiwanis about what influenced his decision to come to Los Alamos.

There were two reasons, Mikolanis said.

“First, was the majestic landscape, the land that you live in has the beautiful mesas, the Caldera on one side, the mountains on the east and the just environment, the wildlife, etc.,” he said. “I was so impressed … what I didn’t realize is that the wildlife roam the streets at night.”

He recalled running into deer at the bank parking lot and seeing a mama bear and its cub while they snacked on his backyard hummingbird feeder.

Another major factor was getting introduced to the Pueblos, Mikolanis said.

“I had the privilege to visit the San Ildefonso cultural site … I heard stories about their history and read what that site meant to them what that area means to them and I realize that there was so much in this area I didn’t understand … I had to learn about that,” Mikolanis said.

Whether from the Pueblo or elsewhere, Mikolanis encourages the public to email EM-LA, especially for the strategic vision at EMLA_STRATEGICVISION@EM.DOE.GOV.