A new consortium of two Virginia companies has been awarded a contract worth up to $1.4 billion to monitor contaminated water systems, clean up soiled lands and ship radioactive waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The U.S. Energy Department awarded the contract this week to Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos LLC.
It was formed by BWXT and Stoller Newport News Nuclear.
BWXT is part of Los Alamos National Security LLC, a consortium that has been managing Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2006.
The Department of Energy is in the process of selecting a new manager for the lab.
In a news release, the Department of Energy said the new consortium will focus on cleaning up contaminated waste sites; decontaminating and demolishing contaminated buildings; and packaging and shipping mixed, low-level and transuranic radioactive waste to disposal facilities.
Monitoring and protecting the Los Alamos regional aquifer also will be an objective of the new consortium.
Steven Horak, a spokesman for the Department of Energy’s environmental management field office at Los Alamos, said in an email: “DOE will work closely with both the incumbent cleanup contractor Los Alamos National Security and the new legacy cleanup contractor to ensure a safe, smooth transition of this important work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.” The department said the new consortium was selected from three proposals.
Stoller Newport News Nuclear is a subsidiary of Huntington Ingalls Industries and is known as being the nation’s largest military shipbuilding company.
In part because of that accident, the Department of Energy said it would not renew Los Alamos National Security’s contract to manage the lab.

Perry visits NM, Interior wants your opinions–and EPA reaches out to states on clean waters rule & coal ash.
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry traveled to New Mexico last week, visiting Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
In southern New Mexico, Perry toured the Energy Department’s Carlsbad Field Office and the underground nuclear waste repository.
Last month, the president signed an executive order director Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review national monument designations made under the act since 1996.
Coal ash “flexibility” Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told states it’s working on guidance for state programs that will allow “flexibility” in permits for the disposal of coal combustion residuals, a byproduct from coal-fired power plants, which is also called “coal ash.” According to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt: EPA continues to support the environmentally sound recycling of coal ash.
Pruitt to guv’s: About those waters… According to a story in The Hill, Pruitt is also asking governors for their “input and wisdom” on which bodies of water within their states should (and presumably, shouldn’t…) be regulated under the Clean Water Rule.
Under that 2015 rule, which applies to navigable waterways and their tributaries, a tributary doesn’t need to be a continuously flowing body of water.
Fish and Wildlife Service lands.
Shooting ranges can also be found on public lands, including New Mexico’s.
One last thing on the EPA The agency just awarded more than $215,000 to the New Mexico Environment Department to support the state’s water pollution control program.