BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Alamos National Laboratory’s legacy waste cleanup contractor N3B has responded to speculation in Friday’s edition of the Weapons Complex Monitor as to whether the company will be granted the anticipated two extensions to its contract by the Department of Energy Environmental Management. The publication referred to unnamed “industry sources” who noted they had not spoken to DOE-EM.
N3B was awarded the 10-year, $1.4 billion contract in 2018. The five-year base contract provides extensions in 2023 and 2026. The contractor received an 82 percent award fee for FY2020 and an 84 percent award fee for FY2019.
N3B President Glenn Morgan, in an email to employees late Friday, said DOE’s procurement processes are not something the company is privy to and that N3B does not allow speculation to affect its work.
Morgan noted that the feedback received from DOE in the awards fee process is that N3B’s performance is “very good: and improvement.
“They also noted where we have areas for improvement and we are addressing those. N3B is absolutely responsible for its own performance,” he said.
N3B spokesman Todd Nelson said Friday that the company is very proud of the work it has accomplished on behalf of DOE.
“Although our original scope of work did not envision any transuranic waste shipments until our third year, we have already made 35 TRU waste shipments off-site for permanent disposal and have about 20 more shipments certified as ready to go,” Nelson said. “We remediated 350 legacy waste containers in FY2020 alone, shipped 211,000 gallons of transition waste off-site, collaborated with Triad on the first co-mingled shipment from the Radioassay and Nondestructive Testing facility, responded quickly and effectively to the discovery of legacy waste on DP Road and continue to reduce risk to Northern New Mexico.”
He noted that N3B is actively planning or in the field on 10 Compliance Order on Consent campaigns and safely drilled two monitoring wells to ensure protection of the regional aquifer.
“Last year we executed 100 percent of the Consent Order milestones and completed the first ever Consent Order campaign. In short, we are delivering significant value while executing the mission for the DOE and for the people of New Mexico,” Nelson said. “We are proud of the work we have accomplished, our relationship with the community, and the workforce development programs we have created at corporate expense. We are fully committed to our partnership with DOE.”
A spokesman for the DOE Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office said Friday that EM-LA has no comment. Local sources told the Los Alamos Reporter that while the New Mexico Environment Department and EM-LA have so far been unable to reach an agreement on milestones and targets under the Consent Order for FY2021 which began October 1, 2020, and are currently in Tier 2 of the dispute process, the issue is not with N3B’s work.
Prior to N3B taking on the legacy waste cleanup contract, the work was executed by the LANL prime contractor under DOE/NNSA and then in 2014, DOE established the EM-LA Field Office. Prior to N3B coming on board, LANS, LLC was engaged as a bridge contractor for cleanup.