July 09 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine
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Michael Graham: Leading the way in environmental management
Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez
Since its creation in 1943, Los Alamos National Laboratory has made essential contributions to the world of science in physics, chemistry, energy research, and other fields.
Now, we’re leading the way in environmental management, monitoring, and remediation.
We’ve learned a lot about protecting the environment since the days of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. In fact, we’ve reduced our generation of hazardous waste by 95 percent and low-level radioactive waste by 64 percent since 1993.
In 2009, we won eight NNSA national pollution prevention awards, including two best-in-class awards. We practice what we preach.
The Lab has multiple safety nets in place, including monitoring of air, soil, groundwater, stormwater, and wildlife. We’ve drilled 20 groundwater monitoring wells since the summer of 2008.
We’re now one of the best-monitored Department of Energy sites, but the challenge of cleaning up legacy waste continues.
At one time, we were tracking more than 2,100 sites where contamination was
suspected or confirmed. We’ve reduced that number to about 860.
Work continues at our material disposal areas—including the Lab’s first designated
landfill, Material Disposal Area B on DP Road, used from 1944 through
1948. There may be an entire truck from the Trinity Site buried there. We’ll
remove all of that material and make the land available for transfer to Los
Alamos County.
At Material Disposal Area G in Technical Area 54, we’ve safely shipped more
than 1,300 containers to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in fiscal year 2009
alone, including the Lab’s first shipment of remote-handled transuranic waste.
We’ve planted 10,000 willow trees in Pueblo Canyon—helping a thriving wetlands, preventing erosion,
and dramatically slowing the movement of sediments. And at Technical Area 21, plans are in
place to demolish 168,000 square feet of unused Lab buildings and structures.
Our work is formalized in the New Mexico Consent Order. Signed in 2005 by New Mexico, DOE,
and the Lab, the Consent Order is an agreement on environmental investigations and cleanup that
must be completed by the end of 2015.
I hope you enjoy this edition of Currents, which profiles only a few of the hundreds of Lab scientists,
engineers, and professionals dedicated to protecting people and the environment.
--Michael Graham, associate director for Environmental Programs
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