Los Alamos National Laboratory Selects Small Businesses for Nuclear Waste Services
LANL News Release
LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, February 15, 2012—Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced it has selected four small businesses to compete for up to $200 million in services related to safely packaging Cold War-era wastes for final disposal.
The companies—Environmental Dimensions, Inc.; North Wind, Inc.; Navarro Research and Engineering, Inc.; and Portage, Inc.—will now use a streamlined process to bid for a number of individual tasks under this “master task order agreement.” Tasks include such activities as handling waste containers, transporting them to licensed disposal facilities, and providing verification and certification of delivery.
The wastes include soils removed from cleanup sites such as canyons or landfills, debris from the demolition of old buildings, and chemical or other hazardous wastes. Some of these materials may include trace or low levels of radioactive material.
They also include transuranic waste generated from national security missions. By law, this waste must be properly examined, certified, and packaged for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) repository in Southern New Mexico.
“These tasks play a key role in meeting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) commitment to ship the 3,706 cubic meters of above-ground LANL transuranic waste to WIPP by June 30, 2014,” said George Rael, Environmental Projects manager for the NNSA’s Los Alamos Site Office.
All four companies have locations in Northern New Mexico. “This award reflects our commitment to fostering opportunities in Northern New Mexico for small businesses, which play such a vital role in our local economy,” said Dan Cox, deputy associate director for Environmental Programs.
The Laboratory expects to award three more master task order agreements for additional environmental cleanup-related work in the near future.
