ENVIRONMENT at LANL
RECOVERY ACT CLEAN-UP
TRACKING THE LABORATORY'S PROGRESS

Decontamination & Demolition | Material Disposal Area B | Groundwater Monitoring Wells

Decontamination and Demolition at TA-21 - $60 million

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Clean metal, like these rafters removed from Building 209, is recycled.

The Recovery Act funded the decontamination and demolition of 24 buildings at Technical Area 21 (TA-21). The buildings at TA-21 were built as long ago as the 1940s and housed labs, offices and production facilities from the Manhattan Project and Cold War eras.

Decontamination of the buildings—many of which were built with asbestos—began in July 2009. Before demolition, each building was de-energized and stripped of equipment, pipes and other fixtures. Stripping equipment and fixtures from the buildings before they were demolished minimized the amount of waste sent to landfills, saving money and landfill space. When possible, metal from the buildings was recycled and equipment was salvaged.

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The project includes restoring the site after demolition is completed.

Some of the buildings were contaminated with chemicals such as plutonium and tritium. Each building was carefully sampled to determine whether it and the equipment in it was clean—meaning it had no radiological contamination. Items removed from each building and the debris generated by demolition were then packaged and shipped appropriately.

The last of the 24 buildings was demolished in December 2010, six months ahead of schedule. The building space demolished totaled more than 175,000 square feet.

Excavation of Material Disposal Area B - $110 million

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Excavation is monitored via closed circuit cameras.

Material Disposal Area B (MDA-B) was used from 1944-48 and is the Lab’s oldest waste disposal site. MDA-B consists of a number of trenches that were dug to dispose of equipment, clothing and other waste.

Excavating a 67-year-old waste disposal site poses a number of challenges, especially when it contains items contaminated with plutonium. To address those challenges and to ensure safety, the excavation of MDA-B is occurring inside large metal structures that resemble airplane hangars.

These structures were built on the site and contain a number of safeguards, including dust and fire suppression systems and high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtering. In addition, the excavation is monitored by closed circuit television cameras.

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With excavation complete, a trench inside an enclosure will be filled with clean soil.

By early August 2011, more than 95 percent of the excavation was complete. In addition to run-of-the-mill office trash such as paper and cardboard, items excavated from MDA-B include two 1940s-era pickup trucks, 29 inert artillery shells, a radiation protection suit, a 1946 calendar and glass soft drink bottles.

The soil and other trash excavated from MDA-B will be packaged and disposed of in licensed disposal facilities. Clean soil will replace the soil that was excavated and the six acres that comprise MDA-B will be restored to residential standards, meaning homes or businesses could be built on it.

The excavation of Material Disposal Area B was completed on September 14, 2011. The total amount of soil and debris excavated from the six-acre site was nearly 43,000 cubic yards. The excavated areas are being backfilled with clean soil, which will be complete in November 2011. The site will then be placed in a safe shutdown condition until funding is identified to remove the fixed enclosures and complete the stabilization and grading of the site.  

Waste Transportation

Demolishing 24 buildings and excavating an old waste dump generates a lot of waste—about 50,000 cubic yards of it. Consider that a waste bin holds about 20 cubic yards, and that translates to a lot of bins and a lot of truck trips.

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Waste from building demolition is packaged and shipped.

Waste is classified based on its radiological and chemical elements, then packaged and disposed of appropriately. Most of the waste generated by building demolition and the excavation of MDA-B is classified as low-level waste, meaning it includes items contaminated with radioactive material.

The bulk of the waste generated by the environmental cleanup projects at TA-21 and MDA-B will be hauled to out-of-state disposal facilities between February and October 2011.

Installation of Groundwater Monitoring Wells - $40 million

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All 16 groundwater monitoring wells are complete.

Because water is a precious resource in the high desert, the Recovery Act funded the installation of 16 groundwater monitoring wells. The purpose of the wells is to monitor the regional aquifer for contamination.

Drilling wells in northern New Mexico costs about $2 million per well, with the expense due mainly to the depth of the well. The 16 wells installed by the Recovery Act ranged in depth from 850 to 1,450 feet, with an average depth of 1,000 feet.

As part of the project, six old wells that dated as far back as the 1950s were plugged and abandoned. The wells portion of the Recovery Act work at LANL was completed in October 2010.

View a map of where the new wells were installed.