Officials broke ground Wednesday, May 4 on a Substation Replacement Project at TA-3 at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Officials included Bonita Rogozinsky, Federal Project Manager for NNSA Acquisition & Project Management; NNSA Los Alamos Field Office Manager Kim Lebak; Los Alamos County Utilities Manager Tim Glasco; LANL Operations Director for Utilities and Infrastructure Andy Erickson and others.

County Councilor Kristin Henderson explained the importance of the new substation.

“I was honored to represent the Los Alamos community at the groundbreaking for the new Substation at LANL,” County Councilor Kristin Henderson said. “The new substation on the Lab side will allow Los Alamos County to have a second substation, to bring power into our town.

“Right now, we only have one location where electricity comes into town. If something were to happen to our one existing substation, Los Alamos would be ‘dark’ for up to two weeks  – no phone or computer recharging; no refrigerators or freezers; for some people, no heat. And, of course, no lights, until a temporary, portable substation could be located and brought in, and up to six months or a year until a permanent one could be rebuilt.

“I am happy for our community that we will have better power reliability for Los Alamos, once this new substation is built at the Lab and our own, second, substation is completed as well. Of course, it is great news for the work at the Lab that the over-70 year old infrastructure is getting replaced, as well; this project also shows our on-going literal connectivity with the Lab.”