LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – EM Los Alamos Field Office Manager Douglas E. Hintze recently spoke with EM Update about the launch of EM’s newest site office and its challenges and accomplishments.

1. It's now been just over one year since EM’s Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA) was created. Where are you in standing up the office? What benefits has the creation of EM-LA brought to the legacy cleanup work at Los Alamos?

We’ve made significant progress since EM-LA was formed just over a year ago. Several key positions have been filled and we are in the process of bringing in more experts to better enable us to serve in our oversight role. Over the next year we will essentially double the size of the office from 21 to 41 personnel. Currently, we’ve reached capacity at our existing location and will soon move to a new location, the Pueblo Complex, where we’ll be co-located with our contractor, Los Alamos National Security.

Having an EM field office here at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has enabled the Department to focus on environmental cleanup and waste management, bringing expert resources to bear on issues not always receiving adequate attention. We’ve significantly streamlined communication and collaboration across a variety of agencies and organizations, all of which directly impact the cleanup work being done in the field. Specifically, EM now has a bridge contract dedicated specifically to the cleanup of legacy waste, which helps us to best allocate resources and to better prioritize cleanup projects.

2. What have you learned since being named the first full-time manager of EM's newest field office? What challenges are unique to the legacy cleanup underway at Los Alamos?

There are a lot of talented people doing great work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The workers here are committed to doing their job safely and to the best of their ability. There’s pride for LANL’s accomplishments and at the same time an understanding that there’s room for improvement and a desire to get things right. The Laboratory is in a fairly isolated location and brings substantial funding to northern New Mexico, which results in tremendous impact on the local economy. As a result, I spend a lot of time communicating with the numerous external organizations, from state and local governments, to economic development groups, to Native American Pueblos who interface with our field office.

In terms of the overall lab budget, EM’s budget is a relatively small portion. We need to maximize every dollar we spend to be as effective as we can be in everything we do, from hiring the right people to scheduling the cleanup in the most optimal way we can. Also, the location of cleanup and waste management on mesa tops and in canyons presents unique challenges not seen at other DOE sites.

3. How does your experience at the Savannah River Site (SRS) aid you in your new role?

Savannah River is a complex site with different dynamics than what you have at Los Alamos National Laboratory. For example, at Savannah River, EM is the site landlord, while the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is the tenant — it’s the reverse of what you have here at LANL. I served in nine different positions over the 22 years I spent at SRS, including Assistant Manager for Mission Support (Chief Business Officer), Chief Financial Officer, Chief Information Officer, Director of Waste Disposition Programs and Director of Nuclear Materials Operations, which gave me a broad technical knowledge of many specialties. I guess the most important lesson I learned was most of the difficulties we experienced were not in the highly complex technical areas as one would expect, but rather in the support areas such as infrastructure, which frequently don’t get the same degree of attention but can shut down operations throughout the site.

4. How is the coordination between EM-LA and your NNSA counterparts? How does your interaction with the communities around Los Alamos shape the cleanup work?  

As NNSA is the landlord and EM is the tenant here at LANL, there is some overlap in terms of issues vital to both organizations. The success of our mission depends on our ability to work collaboratively with our colleagues at the NNSA Field Office. The current NNSA Field Office Manager, Kim Davis-Lebak, and I spent eight years together at SRS so we have a strong personal and working relationship which enables us to successfully work through tough issues. One unique responsibility is that the NNSA Field Office currently holds nuclear safety authorization authority for EM-LA, which requires us to work up through two chains of command at headquarters to implement the nuclear safety bases, dictating the two field offices work closely together on nuclear safety issues. Coordinating effectively will remain essential to the success of both organizations going forward.

Having a strong relationship with the communities around Los Alamos is central to EM’s mission at Los Alamos. We absolutely need and depend on feedback of the people who live and work around us — it drives the schedule and cost of cleanup work we’re doing. By sharing what matters most to them, the public helps us determine where to place our priorities. 

We’re fortunate that people in northern New Mexico — and many parts of the state — have a strong vested interest in what we do and how we do it. It makes our job easier, as that knowledge helps shape our cleanup efforts and has a direct impact on the progress of the legacy cleanup work at LANL.

5. Heading into EM-LA's second year, what are your main priorities? What challenges do you see on the horizon?

Certainly the biggest priorities right now are the safe storage and treatment of the remediated nitrate salts and implementing the interim measure for a chromium plume migrating to the site boundary. Currently we’re implementing measures that will increase the margin of safety for storage of remediated nitrate salts. It’s an important step which will eventually allow us to develop the safest and most effective process for treating the waste and eventually shipping it off-site.

Since the environmental assessment for the chromium plume interim measure and characterization was released last December, we’ve been getting the infrastructure in place necessary to reach our goals. We began drilling on an angled injection well last month, for example, and the project’s third extraction well was completed a couple of weeks ago.

There are always challenges, both small and large; what’s important is to never get complacent with our mission. If we continue to prioritize safety and efficiency, I am confident we can meet the challenges before us.

6. What are the main accomplishments you hope to achieve over the course of the next year?

We want to make significant progress implementing the interim measure for arresting the chromium plume, treat the remediated nitrate salt drums, effectively manage the remaining transuranic waste for which we are responsible, clean up contaminated waste units, and continue to build trust with communities around LANL and across New Mexico. An important tool to do so will be the follow-on EM contract we expect to award commencing fiscal year 2018.