EM News

Amid renewed interest in the atomic history of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), EM leadership had the opportunity to discuss and highlight the significant progress underway in the legacy cleanup mission at LANL during a visit last week.

With the recent uptick in interest in the role Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) played in the World War II-era Manhattan Project, EM Senior Advisor William White was joined by EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) officials in a visit to Los Alamos.

This EM story focuses on the Manhattan Project, the origin of EM’s nuclear cleanup mission.

Eight EM sites have been honored with the 2023 Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Purchaser Award, the most the cleanup program has won in a year since the program honoring purchases of sustainable goods began in 2015.

Recent figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its contractors are conducting cleanup at a rate leading the nation among federal facility sites.

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership Technical Services Summer Intern Catherine Creekmore, center, applies what she is learning in her internship to characterize materials found in process gas equipment in the C-333 Process Building with Paducah Site workers.

EM and a contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) recently finished the cleanup of a discharge canal, a project that successfully completes environmental remediation of the Lower Three Runs stream system.

EM recently moved a significant step toward closure of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Site’s largest building, which could comfortably house a modern U.S. aircraft carrier.

Environmental cleanup at EM sites is a family affair. Each day, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and uncles and nephews show up together to perform the hazardous tasks and myriad support services necessary.