DOE’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and legacy waste contractor N3B hosted an Environmental Management Cleanup Forum Feb. 9 at Cottonwood on the Greens. Speakers, from left, included DOE EM-LA Manager Michael Mikolanis, N3B President and Program Manager Kim Lebak and EM-LA Senior Geologist Tom McCrory. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com
EM-LA Senior Geologist Tom McCrory explains how EM-LA monitors and treats water contaminated with hexavalent chromium. Photo by Bonnie J. Gordon/ladailypost.com
By BONNIE J. GORDON
Los Alamos Daily Post
bjgordon@ladailypost.com
The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) and legacy waste contractor N3B hosted an Environmental Management Cleanup Forum Feb. 9 at Cottonwood on the Greens.
Speakers included N3B President and Program Manager Kim Lebak, EM-LA Manager Michael Mikolanis and EM-LA Senior Geologist Tom McCrory. N3B Director of Stakeholder Affairs Kristen Henderson was the moderator.
The major portion of the meeting was dedicated to the ongoing efforts to monitor and clean up the hexavalent chromium plume discovered in 2004, which threatens drinking water at San Ildefonso Pueblo.
“The top of the aquifer is 1,000 feet below the surface,” McCrory said.
A wide and thin chromium plume 1 mile long x ½ mile wide x 50-75 ft. exists beneath Sandia and Mortandad canyons at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he said. Thirty-five monitoring, extraction and injection wells are installed in and around the plume.
The interim measure now in place extracts, treats and injects the decontaminated water back into the groundwater, McCrory explained. The treatment system runs 24/7. The plume has been moved back from the San Ildefonso border by 500 feet. A hydraulic barrier keeps the plum from migrating further.
EM-LA sees this as a temporary measure. Extracted water is used to gain information that will lead to a permanent cleanup, he said.
“We’re okay for the moment,” McCrory said. “We need to buy the time we need to fill in the data gaps.”
“The hallmark of a good field office manager is to improve transparency with all of the stakeholders,” Mikolanis said.
EM-LA is understanding of the concerns of state regulators and has a preference for moving quickly, he said. The state regulators have required that EM-LA to cease all injections to prevent migration of the plume on April 1, 2023.
“It will take 1.5 years to finish an action plan, ” Mikolanis said. “We can’t resume until we prove injections are not causing plume migration. New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and DOE both have the priority of assuring the safety of the aquifer. Once released, water is going to move, and the plume will find a way to get around the hydraulic barrier. We don’t see this as a permanent solution. If the injection wells are shut down, the plume will move back toward San Ildefonso.
EM-LA has concerns about the impact of land treatment options and the safety of 4,200 truck trips out of the canyon that would be necessary if a land solution was implemented, he said.
Interim measures of extraction and treatment would be reduced to approximately 10 percent of current capacity, allowing the plume to advance down-gradient.
“We want to help the State to understand the operation,” Mikolanis said.
Mikolanis went a bit off script to talk about the data LANL and DOE have collected. EM-LA wants to share their model with state regulators.
“I need a solution that doesn’t cause me to turn off the injection wells,” he said. “If the state wants no injections, we must look at other options. We have to follow the regulations, but what will happen with the plume? My objective is to show that we are not damaging the aquifer. We’re looking for a solution, not a food fight.”
EM-LA deals with regulators from the Office of the State Engineer as well as with NMED.
“Is the State going to use our model?,” Mikolanis wanted to know. “If they do, we don’t have to explain everything to them.”
He assured Los Alamos County residents that their water is safe to drink.
State Regulators were quick to weigh in during the question and answer period.
The Hazardous Waste Bureau’s Neelam Dhawan who oversees the LANL Group at the Bureau, went so far as to say the State has not seen evidence that hydraulic control measures are effective.
Other State officials said they could not use EM-LA’s models because the models they use are different from the ones used by the State, but in any case, state regulators are not interested in models, they said they want to see real data.
Mike Peterson of the Hazardous Waste Bureau said that contaminated water could be pushed further down by injecting the cleaned water on top of it.
Mikolanis said after the forum that he was not aware that State regulators didn’t think the hydraulic barrier worked before the meeting. He also said he needs to build new bridges at the State level since many of the key players at NMED have moved on recently.
Lebak spoke about some of N3B’s projects for 2023:
Removal of contaminated corrugated pipe
“N3B uses a tool similar to a cigar cutter to cut the pipe into smaller pieces for shipment to WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant),” Lebak said. “…We are halfway to our goal of shipping mixed and low level waste to WIPP.”
Drill and drain waste drums
Liquids must be removed before shipping the contaminants to WIPP, Lebak explained.
Finish DP Road site this fiscal year
Partnering with EM-LA on a safety culture plan that includes a survey and focus groups.
“Safety is a journey, not a destination,” Lebak said.