BY MAIRE O’NEILL
Los Alamos National Laboratory has released its Annual Site Environmental Report for 2017, a 308-page document written in plain language and providing informative background on multiple facets of the Lab.
The report is well indexed and easy to browse for non-Lab folks and although it is for 2017, much of the content is still current. The number of acronyms and abbreviations common to most LANL documents is reduced.
The document fulfills the annual reporting requirements of both the national Security Administration and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management under DOE Orders pertaining to environment, safety and health reporting as well as radiation protection of the public and the environment.
The objectives of the annual report are to
- characterize the site’s environmental performance, including effluent releases, environmental monitoring, and estimated radiological doses to the public from releases of radioactive materials;
- summarize environmental occurrences and responses;
- document compliance with environmental standards and requirements;
- highlight significant programs and efforts; and
- summarize property clearance activities.
The report includes details on such topics as environmental inspections and audits conducted by external regulators, the Environmental Management System certification, completion of treatment for nitrate salt waste drums, the discharge of some 105 million gallons of liquid effluents from permitted outfalls, environmental occurrences that were reported, and ongoing activity with the chromium and RDX program with respect to contamination.
Also noted in the report is that radiological doses to the public from Laboratory operations were less than 1 millirem per year and that health risks are indistinguishable from zero.
The report in its entirety can be found online at https://permalink.lanl.gov/object/tr?what=info:lanl-repo/lareport/LA-UR-18-28565.