Latest news with #LANL
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
As drought threat looms, Los Alamos National Lab works to reduce its wildfire risk
Burned trunks from previous fires remain in the scrub oak brush and stands of aspens in the Jemez mountainside just overlooking portion of Los Alamos National Laboratory property. LANL leadership told media during a May 28 tour that they were taking steps to prepare and mitigate the risk of wildfires. (Courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory) As New Mexico water and fire managers prepare for increased drought and wildfire danger this summer, Los Alamos National Laboratory officials say the lab has taken steps to mitigate those threats on its campus. LANL provided a media tour mid-week to highlight those steps, but did not allow outside photography or recording. 'We're very proud of our preparedness efforts for wildfire,' said Deputy Laboratory Director of Operations Mark Davis from the floor of the Emergency Operations Center, as videos of the 2022 Cerro Pelado fire played across six screens on the wall. 'We want to show our efforts to communicate how our mitigation efforts will protect the lab, workforce, community and environment.' The state has identified the towns of Los Alamos and White Rock as high risk areas for wildfire threats, including LANL, which spans 36 square miles of mesas and canyons. The lab and surrounding town have been evacuated twice in the past 30 years due to fires. That included evacuations for two weeks during the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000, which burned 43,000 acres total, including 45 lab buildings and 7,500 acres of LANL property. Los Alamos evacuated for another 10 days during the 2011 Las Conchas fire, which burned more than 156,000 acres, though only one acre on the lab's property. In 2022, during the same time the Hermit's Peak-Calf Canyon fires raged, the Cerro Pelado fire, also caused by a controlled burn, sparked up and ultimately burned 45,000 acres, requiring the lab to move to remote work in preparation for an evacuation. In 2022, at the request of the Biden Administration, LANL released its Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Plan, which showed that increased wildfire presented the highest risks to equipment, electricity systems, onsite radioactive waste processing, buildings, water systems and communications systems. Critics say climate threats to the laboratory are compounding. LANL's proposed thinning is 'a slow job, but certainly necessary,' said Greg Mello, the executive director of nuclear nonproliferation nonprofit Los Alamos Study Group. But he said the hazards with climate change are stacking up. 'We just wish that the laboratory wasn't straining against every single environmental constraint that there is on that plateau,' Mello said. 'The laboratory is too big and trying to do too much in a place that was never appropriate for a laboratory of the present scale, let alone the additional laboratory facilities and staff that they envision.' The approximately 18,000 people employed at LANL work mostly in science and engineering, from modeling infectious diseases to increasing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. 'Our missions are vital and critical to national security and they cannot fail,' Davis said. The Jemez wilderness bears scars from the Cerro Grande and Las Conchas fires. Large bald patches with skinny charred remains of the ponderosa pines stand among scrub oak brush replacing the once-forested area. Recent scattered rainstorms offered a small reprieve, but the area remains in Stage 1 fire restrictions — an elevated threat level that restricts all campfires or outdoor burning. Laboratory facilities are interspersed on the top of mesas to higher elevation ponderosa pine forests, separated by canyons and arroyos filled with brush. The lab is bordered by federally managed forests; San Ildefonso and Jemez Pueblos; and Santa Fe and Los Alamos County land. The patchwork of agencies has complicated firefighting and mitigation efforts in the past, said Jeff Dare, who leads the Emergency Operations Center, but Cerro Pelado offered a framework for more cooperation with members of county government and liaisons for surrounding federal agencies and tribal governments. The lab is part of the Master Cooperative Wildland Fire Response Agreement, which allocates additional resources such as helicopters and personnel to fight any wildfire that does appear, Dare said, adding: 'It protects the laboratory before it can get here.' The more recent focus has been trimming back the areas around lab buildings, roads and utility lines, said Richard Nieto, LANL's wildland fire program manager. Trimming has occurred on an estimated 12% to 15% of lab property. 'Hope is not a strategy,' Nieto said, adding that the area needs to better adapt to fires when they happen. 'This area was meant to burn; it's what we have to deal with, ecologically.' But overgrowth is a challenge. Much of the higher-elevation ponderosa forests sport 400 to 1,300 trees per acre, rather than the healthier 50 to 150 trees per acre, he said. Habitats for two endangered species and archeological sites also require consideration. Beyond trimming, the lab is working on developing plans for prescribed burns, but will take another three to five years to realize, he said. On the other side of lab property, fences looped with concertina wire and sporting signs warning of radiological hazards contain Area G. Vaguely merengue- shaped white tents — coated in fireproof material — stand amid the juniper and piñon scrub. Inside, under crisscrossed steel frames, stacked white containers on metal pallets contain legacy waste from the lab's work in the nuclear program. The facilities are geared to reducing fire concerns, said Gail Helm, the facility operations director for N3B, which is contracted to manage the 10-year $2 billion dollar cleanup of Cold War Era legacy waste. The tents include fire detection and suppression. Concrete barricades surround them to prevent vehicle accidents and potential fires. Under the Stage 1 fire restrictions, a water truck remains onsite at all times. To the west of Area G lies Technical Area 53, where the lab logs and stores new transuranic nuclear waste — such as gloves contaminated with plutonium — produced at the new plutonium pit production site. The waste is eventually disposed off-site at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project outside of Carlsbad. Thomas Vigil, the deputy group leader at the Chemical and Waste Facilities said LANL is doing 'its due diligence' to follow every protocol to keep the public and workers safe. 'This is my state, this is where we live,' he said. 'I live just down the road, and it's important to me.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Small business owners invited to meet with LANL scientists at Tuesday event
An event designed to connect local business owners with some of the brightest minds at Los Alamos National Laboratory will take place Tuesday in Santa Fe. The event, presented by the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program, will provide participating business owners with the chance to interact with LANL scientists to work out any technical challenges or other issues they may be facing. According to a news release, the event will feature a 'matchmaking' segment during which business owners will meet one on one with scientists to discuss how to take advantage of their expertise. That will be followed by a casual networking session. Sanna Sevanto, a LANL scientist who has taken part in two of the events in the past, said she and her associates at the lab love participating in the gathering each year, partly because it represents a departure from much of the work they normally do. 'The scientists feel like it makes a difference with the companies,' she said. 'With many of their projects, they don't see immediate results. But in this case, they're directly solving challenges so [the companies] can go forward.' Savanto said LANL scientists are eager to tackle all sorts of challenges on behalf of business owners. A typical issue might be a company that does not have the means or equipment to test a new product to verify its viability. She said LANL scientists sometimes can perform that task for the business, helping prepare the product for the market. In other instances, the LANL staff can help solve a more direct problem. The small businesses that are eligible to participate in the event include farms, she said, so if an orchard owner is having issues with frostbitten crops, LANL scientists might be able to help them find an innovative, affordable way to keep their trees warm enough to avoid that fate. 'It is rewarding,' Savanto said. 'Our researchers and technicians love these projects because we are interacting with people directly.' The event is open to New Mexico small business owners who are experiencing a problem that is slowing or stopping their production. The event normally is limited to 15 businesses. That number already has been met this year, LANL spokesperson Avery Arena said, but officials have decided to keep registration open through the weekend to accommodate more businesses. The event takes place from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday on the LANL campus in Santa Fe. Those taking part in the event will receive additional information after registering at A spokesperson declined to provide the address as a security measure, but participating businesses will receive the location after they register.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Report finds maintaining nuclear weapons stockpile to cost 25% more than estimated
A gallon of milk costs a dollar more than it did in March 2020. So does a pound of chicken, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the receipt for the nation's nuclear program is following suit. An April report published by the Congressional Budget Office, which conducts nonpartisan analyses for Congress, found maintaining the nation's nuclear stockpile is likely to cost 25% more over the next 10 years than it estimated in 2023 — an increase of about $129 billion over the estimate for 2023 to 2032. Call that sticker shock. The office estimates over the next decade the country will spend $946 billion on modernizing silos, improving infrastructure at nuclear weapons laboratories and other projects associated with nation's nuclear program. Among the sites working to update the nation's nuclear arsenal is Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of two sites designated for production of plutonium pits — the hollow, bowling-bowl sized core of a nuclear weapon. Developing and preparing the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system is one of the main programs driving up costs, the report states. Missiles that make up the system will replace hundreds of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles located in Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota that have been in service for half a century, a swap that's part of a nationwide nuclear stockpile modernization effort. Proponents have argued it's essential to ensure the threat of nuclear weapons remains credible amid a changing geopolitical landscape. In a fact page about plutonium pits, LANL called the replacements a "precaution" to avoid potential changes to the capability of a nuclear weapon as plutonium ages. "The world has changed since nuclear modernization efforts began," said Gen. Anthony J. Cotton at a November discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Our posture must align with today's reality, where nuclear weapons are foundational to adversaries' strategies." But the price tag is ever rising. "The Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program has encountered significant cost growth in recent years," the report states. "The full extent and timing of that growth remains uncertain, as the Department of Defense is currently restructuring the program." In July, the Department of Defense estimated the program would cost 81%, or approximately $63 billion, more than the department expected five years ago. The department concluded, however, that despite the major cost increases the program should continue. The system will include a piece of New Mexico. In October, the Department of Energy "diamond-stamped" the first plutonium pit produced by LANL as part of a recent push to update the nation's nuclear stockpile. That pit is destined for the W87-1 warhead, which will in turn become part of the Sentinel system. Los Alamos Study Group executive director and anti-nuclear activist Greg Mello urged Congress and the White House to ditch the "troubled" program, anticipating further cost increases and challenges. "The buzzards are circling," Mello said in a statement. "The coming year will bring more revelations about Sentinel and they won't be good. The White House and Congress should pull the plug on Sentinel now, however difficult that would be." The Congressional Budget Office is expecting that $193 billion will be spent in the next 10 years at the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories. Along with increased costs for intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Department of Defense is facing higher price tags for ballistic missile submarines and upgrades to communications and early warning systems. The Department of Energy is primarily looking at increased costs to revamp production facilities. Aging infrastructure has been a concern at Los Alamos National Laboratory; in 2019, the lab received $5 billion to upgrade facilities over the next five years. At the time, about 40% of the facilities were built before 1970. As the nuclear program grows in cost, however, Mello believes LANL could be facing a more competition for defense dollars. "As CBO notes, most nuclear weapons costs are incurred by modernizing the arsenal and its production facilities, not by deploying and maintaining existing weapons," Mello said. The Congressional Budget Office report comes as President Donald Trump's administration attempts to slash costs across the federal government, including everything from terminating leases on federal buildings to cutting staffing levels at several agencies. In February, Trump said the country "already [has] so many" nuclear weapons and signaled an interest in cutting the nation's defense budget in half as part of arms control negotiations with China and Russia. Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced $5.1 billion in department contracts had been cut. But Sunday, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees announced legislation developed "in close conjunction with the White House" that included a $150 billion boost to defense spending, including $1.5 billion in risk reduction for Sentinel and $540 million for "deferred maintenance and repair" needs for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
New images found showing those who worked on the Manhattan Project
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (KRQE) – The Los Alamos National Laboratory Historical Society is releasing new photos that John 'Mike' Michnovicz took during the Manhattan Project. Michnovicz captured some of the most iconic images of the top-secret project, from portraits of key figures like J. Robert Oppenheimer to the critical documentation of fatal radiation accidents. While many of his photographs have long been archived, LANL's historical society uncovered additional images. 'We've been kind of underrepresented': The state of New Mexico's pecan industry These photos are now being shared with the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, revealing previously unknown aspects of the secret city's history. Michnovicz arrived in Los Alamos in 1944 and was entrusted with photographing not just the scientists and daily life but also sensitive medical cases. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Santa Fe County commissioners raise concerns about LANL expansion possibilities
Santa Fe County commissioners plan to raise concerns about the impacts a potential Los Alamos National Laboratory expansion could have on regional resources in response to a recent environmental report from a federal agency. Commissioners are preparing to respond to a draft site-wide environmental impact statement from the National Nuclear Security Administration that includes three visions for LANL's future, ranging from no action to modernization to expansion, while cataloging environmental impacts for each scenario. A draft letter from the commissioners states the board would not support LANL increasing its footprint in Northern New Mexico. "We support the no action alternative that continues clean up of the site, but no growth of the site or the mission," the letter says. Commissioners are expected to approve the letter at a future meeting, potentially with changes. It notes the lab plays an outsized role in the county's environment, especially when it comes to drinking water. "Pollution" from LANL activities enters the Rio Grande watershed, from which the county draws much of its drinking water, the proposed letter says. The board opted not to approve the draft letter, brought forward by Commissioner Hank Hughes, at its Tuesday meeting. But commissioners unanimously agreed to reconsider it at a subsequent meeting with some potential additions. Commissioner Justin Greene wanted to add language specific to LANL growth and the Northern New Mexico housing landscape. LANL's budget has more than doubled and hundreds of new employees have been added since 2008, increasing its presence in the region. Pit production Although former Commissioner Anna Hansen, an anti-nuclear advocate, was term-limited off the board at the start of the year, the letter would have commissioners continuing to take a strong stance on the national lab's goals related to plutonium pit production for nuclear bomb cores. Perhaps unexpectedly, the all-Democratic board quoted President Donald Trump in the proposed letter, arguing there is no reason for LANL to pursue expansion of its pit production capacity. 'There's no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons; we already have so many," Trump said several weeks ago when speaking to reporters from the Oval Office, a quote that appears in the proposed letter. "[You] could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over.' As a part of a multibillion-dollar effort, the lab is working toward the production of nuclear bomb cores with a goal of making 30 per year by 2030. The pursuit for years has generated controversy throughout Northern New Mexico, with critics raising concerns about environmental impacts and potential health risks. "Given LANL's obligation under [the National Environmental Policy Act] to consider alternative ways to meet its operational goals, framing the issue as a binary choice between shutting the lab down outright or expanding pit production is unserious," states the draft letter from commissioners. Water, PFAS contamination concerns The draft site-wide environmental impact statement notes PFAS have been detected in several wells in Pueblo Canyon and Los Alamos Canyon in amounts exceeding the New Mexico Environment Department's tap water screening levels. The report from NNSA states, "given the understanding that PFAS health effects are rapidly evolving in tandem with increasing regulatory attention to PFAS, the Laboratory will continue to evaluate and consult with NMED on whether additional sampling for PFAS constituents is required." In the proposed letter, the county raises concerns that deferring any action on PFAS contamination while awaiting further risk evaluation and consultation amounts to 'kicking the can down the road' when the risks to the environment and human health are "clear enough today." Commissioners also fear LANL expansion or modernization possibilities pose the prospect of an increase in the risk of PFAS contamination from fire suppression activities. Under the modernization vision for LANL's future set out in the draft, LANL estimates its demand for water will increase by 3.4% in comparison to the no-action alternative. Under the expansion alternative, water consumption is estimated to increase up to 70.7% annually. The lab needs to "ensure that it has sufficient water rights to accommodate this increased usage," the draft letter from county commissioners states. Concern about spotted owl habitat Under the modernization alternative, 15 projects could potentially occur in undeveloped habitat for the Mexican spotted owl, a species the federal government considerers threatened, according to the draft letter from commissioners. Most of the land disturbance would occur if a solar panel array system was fully built on the nine proposed sites in order to meet energy goals for the lab, disrupting habitat for the spotted owl. "If the expansion is proposed, efforts should be taken to protect spotted owl habitat in other areas, such as leaving dead trees for nesting," the letter states. "Ideally with the no action alternative, there is no need for the [solar panel] array system or the power line across the Caja del Rio." Power line controversy At several public meetings held in the last six months, area residents have continually railed against a proposed power line that would cut through 14 miles of the ecologically significant Caja del Rio plateau to shore up the lab's power supply. The high-voltage line would include transmission towers and a 100-foot-wide swath along its path from the lab through White Rock Canyon, south across the Caja del Rio plateau, then east through the Santa Fe National Forest to a substation. Federal officials say the project is needed because the two lines that now power the lab are becoming strained and will reach their capacity by 2027. In the draft letter, the county expressed hope the lab will go another direction amid calls to protect the Caja del Rio plateau. Commissioners previously approved a letter objecting to a 'finding of no significant impact' from U.S. Forest Service officials for the proposed power line last year. "The County asks LANL to consider alternative approaches to satisfying its power needs that have a lesser impact on the Caja del Rio," the draft letter said.
