Laboratory garners six awards for pollution prevention

Contact: John Bass, jbass@lanl.gov, (505) 665-9204 (02-107)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept. 26, 2002 -- Five Laboratory organizations and its primary subcontract company have won the New Mexico Green Zia Environmental Excellence Awards for their efforts in pollution prevention and environmental excellence.

Los Alamos’ Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) and Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS) Facility Management (FMU-75) won Commitment Level Recognition. The Risk Reduction and Environmental Stewardship (RRES) (formerly the Environmental Science and Waste Technology Division), Engineering, Science, and Applications (ESA) and Dynamic Experimentation (DX) divisions and Johnson Control Northern New Mexico won Achievement Level Recognition.

The voluntary Green Zia Environmental Excellence Program helps New Mexico businesses achieve environmental excellence by establishing environmental management systems based on pollution prevention. It is sponsored by the New Mexico Environment Department and administered by the New Mexico Environmental Alliance, a partnership of state, local and federal agencies, academia, private industry and environmental advocacy groups.

Commitment Level Recognition is given to organizations that have made strong commitments to pollution prevention and are establishing systematic pollution prevention programs.

Achievement Level Recognition is given to organizations that have turned their pollution prevention programs into prevention-based environmental management systems and can demonstrate measurable results.

The winners were recognized by Gov. Gary Johnson and State Environment Department Secretary John D’Antonio Jr.at a ceremony Wednesday at the Santa Fe Hilton Hotel.

"The Green Zia Program enabled E Division to create a conscious focus on environmental excellence and also provided a good external review of how effectively we accomplished that, "said Brian Thompson of RRES Division.

The Governor's Green Zia Environmental Excellence Award, the highest honor awarded, is reserved for organizations that have fully integrated prevention-based environmental management systems in place. Winning organizations must have demonstrated significant process improvement, substantial regulatory compliance, measurable waste reduction and proven leadership in environmental issues within the company and community. Only two New Mexico businesses have received the Excellent Level Award (Intel Corp., 2001 and McKinley Paper, 2002).

Additional information about the Green Zia program is available at http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/Green_Zia_website/index.html. The Laboratory’s winning applications also are available at the RRES-Prevention Program Web site at http://emeso.lanl.gov/eso_projects/green_zia/Applying/application.html online.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the U.S. Department of Energy and works in partnership with NNSA's Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories to support NNSA in its mission.

Los Alamos enhances global security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health and national security concerns.

Additional news releases related to Awards

Additional news releases from the Risk Reduction and Environmental Stewardship (RRES) Division