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News Releases Excavation begins at LANL's first-ever waste disposal area
Trench effort is a prelude to full-scale excavation
Commercial buildings are visible just across the street from the closed Material Disposal Area B.
Feb. 25, 2010—A heavy equipment crew on Tuesday began excavation at a LANL landfill that’s been closed since 1948.
Material Disposal Area B, on DP Road in the Los Alamos town site, is a strip of land about seven football fields long. Soil and waste will be scooped out and disposed out-of-state on an accelerated schedule, thanks to about $88 million from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
On Tuesday, the crew began excavating two test trenches to confirm that certain sections of MDA B never were used for disposal. Soil samples taken last year showed that these two sections were undisturbed and probably did not contain waste.
Waste from the Manhattan Project
Other areas contain contaminated Manhattan Project clothing, equipment and canisters that once held chemicals such as ether. An estimated 100 to 200 grams of plutonium are spread across the six-acre site.
Full-scale excavation of waste, set to begin in late spring, will be done under special metal enclosures.
Excavation must be complete by December under a Consent Order agreement with the state of New Mexico.
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People
11,127 total employees
Los Alamos National Security, LLC 8,683
SOC Los Alamos (Guard Force) 419
Contractors 606
Students 1,101
Place
Located 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on 36 square miles of DOE-owned property.
More than 2,000 individual facilities, including 47 technical areas with 8 million square feet under roof.
Replacement value of $5.9 billion
Budget FY 2012: Approx. $2.2 billion
57% Weapons programs
9% Nonproliferation programs
7% Safeguards and Security
8% Environmental Management
4% DOE Office of Science
4% Energy and other programs
11% Work for Others
Workforce Demographics (LANS and students only)
34% of employees live in Los Alamos, the remainder commute from Santa Fe,
Española, Taos, and Albuquerque.
Average Age: 46
70% male, 30% female
43% minorities
63% university degrees
· 23% hold undergraduate degrees
· 16% hold graduate degrees
· 24% have earned a Ph.D.
Major Awards
121 R&D100 awards since 1978
31 E.O. Lawrence Awards
The Seaborg Medal
The Edward Teller Medal
The Nobel Prize in Physics, Frederick Reines