DOE/EA-2220: Documents Available for Download

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has assigned a continuing role for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in carrying out its national security mission. To continue this enduring responsibility requires that NNSA maintain the capability and capacity required to support its national mission assignments at LANL. One of the buildings that houses programmatic, management, and support functions essential to the overall LANL operations and nuclear weapons work performed for the United States Department of Energy and the NNSA is the Administration Building (Building 3-43) at Technical area (TA) 3. This building has many identified structural, systemic, and security problems associated with it. NNSA needs to correct these problems so that the necessary programmatic, management, and support functions housed within can continue to function at LANL with a high level of efficiency. Additionally, NNSA also needs to minimize, wherever possible, the use of energy and fiscal outlays for maintaining operations.

The Department of Energy, through the National renewable Energy Laboratory, proposes to authorize funding to enable Phase 3 of the Advanced Wind Turbine Program, which consists of the installation and testing of a prototype wind turbine at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power property located adjacent to Fairmont Reservoir in Los Angeles County, California.

The DOE-Oak Ridge Operations (ORO) Office plans to implement a Facilities Revitalization Project (FRP) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Rennessee. The FRP would be accomplished thorugh a cooperative effort between DOE, the State of Tennessee, and private entitites. The goal of this collaboration is to modernize some ORNL facilites, maintain ORNL's competitive research and development (R&D) capabilites, to enhance worker health and safety, and to reduce operating costs.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) (DOEIEA-1381) to analyze the proposed action to relocate the Atlas
pulse power machine from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to the Nevada Test Site (NTS). At the NTS, Atlas would be reassembled in a newly constructed building within a designated Industrial, Research, and Support site in Area 6. After reassembly, Atlas would be commissioned to ensure proper operation and then used to conduct approximately 40 pulsed power experiments per year, with a potential to increase to approximately 100 experiments per year, should the Stockpile Stewardship Program require it. The EA also addresses alternatives to the proposed action and analyzes the noaction alternative wherein the Atlas pulse power machine would remain in Los Alamos, New Mexico and continue to be operated at the LANL site.

The Proposed Action (the No Burn Alternative) would consist of implementing a Wildfire Hazard Reduction and Forest Health Improvement Program at LANL that would not use fire as a
treatment measure. This ecosystem-based management program would initially be composed of a series of individual, small-scale projects using mechanical and manual thinning methods that
would be conducted over about 10 years with ongoing, long-term maintenance projects conducted thereafter. These carefully planned initial projects would be conducted to bring the forests at LANL to the desired end-state for wildfire risk followed by an on-going maintenance program to maintain the forests in this desired state with enhancements to improve overall forest health. An estimated 35 percent, approximately 10,000 ac (4,000 ha), of LANL would be treated under this program using forest thinning and the construction of access roads and fuel breaks as treatment measures. Wood materials generated by the treatment measures would be either donated or salvaged; waste wood materials (slash1) would primarily be disposed of through chipping and used as mulch on-site.