The public can learn about plans for cleaning up Material Disposal Area B (MDA B) in Technical Area 21 at a meeting Thursday.
The meeting is from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall in Building 2 at the University of New Mexico-Los Alamos.
Located at TA-21, MDA B is a fenced-off area on the south side of DP Road in Los Alamos. The site covers about six acres and was operated from 1944 until 1948 as one of the Laboratory’s first waste disposal areas.
Presenters from the Laboratory will provide attendees with a historical and geological overview of the technical area, said Allan Chaloupka, who leads the TA-21 Closure Project of which MDA B clean up is part. That overview will provide context for summaries of ongoing site preparations, waste removal safety plans, planned start-up activities, emergency response preparations, and waste transport plans, which will be discussed at the meeting.
Chaloupka explained that because there was no official waste inventory documentation for MDA B, Lab specialists spent the last two years determining what types of waste might be buried there. “We did a lot of detective work,” said Mitch Goldberg of Environmental Programs (ADEP), MDA B project manager. Based on old operational records, interviews with former Laboratory employees who worked at TA-21, and geological studies using ground-penetrating radar, scientists determined that materials dumped at the site most likely included clothing, wood, containers, and other materials. “It was expensive to bring materials to Los Alamos back then and people tended to recycle as much as they could,” Goldberg noted.
Chaloupka said that less than 200 grams of plutonium 239 are spread over the six-acre site. “To put that in context—about 600 grams of plutonium are contained in a single transuranic [TRU] high activity waste drum,” he said.
Chaloupka added that site preparations for the remediation effort, such as the construction of a haul road to be used by trucks on site, power distribution, air monitoring equipment, and storm water pollution prevention features, have been completed. In addition, personnel supporting the cleanup, such as the Lab’s Emergency Management and Response team and Los Alamos County’s emergency response personnel, have engaged in tabletop emergency exercises to ensure that remediation efforts are conducted safely and with minimal impact on local and area residents and businesses. Future emergency exercises are planned as work continues.
The project will be conducted in four operational stages: pre-excavation, excavation, waste handling, and characterization, Chaloupka said. Startup activities are scheduled to begin during the spring-summer timeframe this year.
Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback on the remediation plan.
For more information about the meeting, contact Lorrie Bonds Lopez of Remedy Solutions (WES-RS) at 7-0216.
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