By John Arnold
Albuquerque Journal
Copyright 2006 Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Federal safety officials say Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear facilities may lack adequate fire protection, especially when county firefighters are busy handling emergency calls elsewhere in the community.
The U.S. Department of Energy relies on the Los Alamos County Fire Department to protect the lab, and the federal government funds most of the fire department’s nearly $18 million budget.
As a result, the department is better funded and includes a larger staff than municipalities more than three times the size of Los Alamos.
However, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board investigators wrote in a Nov. 24 memo that, while the most serious nuclear accidents at LANL would involve fire, the department might not be adequately prepared to respond to them, “particularly if firefighters are responding to a fire elsewhere at the laboratory or the townsite.”
The investigators note expanding pit production work and other missions at the lab and write that LANL should “expeditiously” update its fire protection plan.
Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration, the DOE agency responsible for lab operations, say the county needs to focus more on meeting the fire protection needs of the nuclear weapons lab, a sprawling site that covers 40 square miles and includes more than 2,100 individual facilities.
Federal and county officials are trying to hammer out a new contract that would ensure an adequate level of coverage for LANL, said Ed Wilmot, manager of NNSA’s Los Alamos office.
“There are a lot of requirements that we’re trying to work into the contract now that really focus on the needs of the laboratory, because in reality, that’s why the fire department’s here,” Wilmot said by phone last week.
NNSA is also asking the county to pitch in more funding for fire protection, which would allow more firefighters to be hired and would help the lab meet its fire protection standards, Wilmot said.
Los Alamos County administrator Max Baker expects the county to oblige.
“The county will pick up more of the (firefighting) costs,” he said. “We recognize that we as a community also receive benefits over and above what normal New Mexico communities of 18,000 would have. Typically, they would have a volunteer department.”
DOE at one time directly provided fire protection to both the lab and the town of Los Alamos. But in 1989, at the urging of members of the state’s congressional delegation, fire protection responsibilities were transferred to the county, Baker said.
The fire department, which serves a community of about 18,000 people, employs about 125 firefighters and responds to about 1,800 emergency calls a year. By comparison, the city of Santa Fe’s fire department, which serves a city of about 66,000, employs 100 firefighters and responds to about 11,000 calls a year, Santa Fe fire chief Chris Rivera said.
The Los Alamos County fire department’s budget is $17.7 million. Santa Fe funds its department at about $11 million, Rivera said, noting that the city council had recently authorized his department to hire 20 new firefighters.