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News Releases New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment leaders visit LANL
Cleanup, isotope facility improvements, alternative energy, and climate science part of visit agenda
Kevin John explains what's hot about hot cells to representatives of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.
Mar. 30, 2010—Several LANL initiatives funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the federal "Stimulus" Project, received a visit last week from former New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya, director of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, as part of an ongoing effort to provide transparency for all Stimulus-funded projects.
During his visit with Communication Director Andrew Lenderman, Anaya met with Laboratory Stimulus Project Director Carolyn Zerkle, LANL Stimulus Project Liaison Albert Jiron, and Community Programs Director Kurt Steinhaus for an update on Stimulus projects before embarking on an ambitious tour of several selected projects that are benefitting from Stimulus dollars. To date, the Lab has received about $61 million for research and about $211 million for environmental cleanup through ARRA funding.
For the tour's first stop, participants donned protective clothing and booties for a tour of the hot cell area at Technical Area 48. Among other uses, the hot cells can be used to separate specific radioactive isotopes for medical applications, such as cancer detection and treatment. More than $1 million in Stimulus funding has been awarded to assist in production of new isotopes that can become part of the medical arsenal in the war against cancer. Kevin John, leader of the isotope production initiative, explained to the visitors how the facility worked, and Anaya and Lenderman experienced a bit of serendipity when they arrived at the facility in time to watch a crew cleaning out the inside of one of the cells.
The tour moved to Technical Area 21. There, visitors heard about various cleanup efforts from Bruce Schappell and Al Chaloupka of Environmental Programs and George Rael of the National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos Site Office. Schappell explained in depth the project to clean up Material Disposal B, the Lab's first waste disposal site. In addition, remnant buildings dating back to the days of the Manhattan Project will be demolished and removed from the mesa top. Much of the leftover land is envisioned as being transferred to Los Alamos County after cleanup at TA-21 is complete.
At the Bradbury Science Museum, the visitors had a chance to hear about a pair of scientific initiatives. Cristian Pantea, Dipan Sinha, and Blake Sturtevant of Materials Physics and Applications (MPA) Division explained the concept behind a $1.6 million ARRA project that could improve geothermal energy systems. The group hopes to use sound waves as the basis for a sensor package that can provide real-time data about temperature, pressure, flow rate, salinity, and other properties of fluids within geothermal reservoirs. This information can help determine the best locations for potential geothermal reservoirs or how to maximize heat production from them to make them more efficient and cost effective.
Tania Sanchez of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) Division is project leader for ARM Climate Research Facility Initiative Support, an initiative receiving about $2 million in ARRA funding. The funding will help upgrade equipment related to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility, which has several locations in the Western Pacific, including Papua, New Guinea, and Australia. The upgrades will assist in measurement of atmospheric aerosols. These measurements can assist in climate treaty modeling or for basic scientific research related to global climate change.
Personnel from the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment will use the tours to inform the public about how stimulus funding is benefitting the state and the nation. The visits and subsequent information sharing afterward help provide transparency about stimulus funding. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act stipulated such transparency to help bolster the public's trust.
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Kevin John explains what's hot about hot cells to representatives of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.
Former NM Gov. Toney Anaya, director of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, watches a crew clean the inside of a hot cell at Technical Area 48.
Carolyn Zerkle, director of the Lab's Stimulus Project Office, talks to former Gov. Toney Anaya, director of the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment during a recent visit to the Laboratory.
Toney Anaya looks out at the TA-21 area, which will undergo extensive cleanup thanks to funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Bruce Schappell of Environmental Programs explains the cleanup strategy for Material Disposal Area B, the Lab's first waste disposal area.
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11,127 total employees
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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.
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57% Weapons programs
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34% of employees live in Los Alamos, the remainder commute from Santa Fe,
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121 R&D100 awards since 1978
31 E.O. Lawrence Awards
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The Nobel Prize in Physics, Frederick Reines