When Bruce Schappell and Everett Trollinger look out an office window at Los Alamos National Laboratory, they see metal partitions going up around an old landfill that's about to be excavated.

The walls will protect nearby businesses from dust that will be kicked up as workers remove junk from the lab's first hazardous waste dump, a 6-acre site used from 1944 to 1948.

In Technical Area 21, where scientists developed the plutonium heat source used on the Cassini and Galileo space probes, 21 buildings will be leveled and hazardous material will be excavated.

More than 60 years after the development of the atomic bomb, lab officials are using $212 million in federal stimulus funding for environmental cleanup that will provide hundreds of jobs for demolition and excavation workers.

The lab is also receiving $65.7 million in stimulus money for renewable energy research as well as studies of tree mortality, transuranic waste and superconducting radio frequency cavities.

While the TA-21 buildings may not be remarkable, the science inside certainly was: Employees who worked in the area also isolated the first gram of americium-241, which is used in smoke detectors.

And, although the buildings weren't architectural standouts, they are what many people first see as they approach the city of Los Alamos on N.M. 502.

"From a sentimental standpoint, it is going to be somewhat surprising to see the skyline change after coming up here every day and looking at the old facilities," said Trollinger, the federal project manager for the stimulus cleanup work at the lab.

The site will eventually be cleaned to residential standards and made available to the county. Along the way, the federal cash will pay for 18 new groundwater monitoring wells.

"It's a great opportunity where we can actually take action, and excavate waste and tear down the buildings and release the land," said Schappell, executive director of the lab's cleanup work. "You've gone from an old dilapidated facility to land that can be used."

LANL is under a consent order that requires the cleanup of all hazardous waste on lab property by 2015. For years the lab has planned and executed other remediation efforts, but officials say the stimulus spending was sorely needed.

While a majority of the stimulus funds involve demolition and cleanup, the feds are also paying for new science.

Inside a small trailer in an area on the lab's campus known as Technical Area 51, Nate McDowell studies climate change and its effect on trees. Specifically, his research looks at why some trees succumb to invaders like the bark beetle during a drought and others don't. Part of his work focuses on whether the trees die of carbon starvation when they close holes on their surface known as stomata.

McDowell, who had been studying the topic at the lab before the stimulus award, had asked for $4 million. He got $2.5 million, the same amount as 69 other scientists in the country. Five of the awards, known as early career awards, went to people at LANL.

His work represents "the next generation of experiments on why trees die," said McDowell, who has a doctorate in tree physiology.

The work is important, he said, because people in many countries depend on trees for fuel.

With the money, which lasts five years, McDowell, 38, was able to add two new people to his research team.

The $65.7 million for renewable energy research at LANL includes McDowell's award, and goes to 45 separate projects. On many of the projects, the lab is partnering with other universities, cities and pueblos. The total award for the 45 projects is $232 million.

Carolyn Zerkle, the head of the lab's stimulus office, said LANL is working with a large consortium of groups on a variety of stimulus projects.

"We've been able to create partnerships that we would have not been able to do had we not had the stimulus," she said.

Back at TA-21, C.J. Carman, a nuclear operator/operations control operator, spends his time controlling access to the site and making sure work is timed correctly so one job doesn't interfere with another. He also works on emergency contingency plans.

Carman, 37, worked as a roofer at the lab before the stimulus money was awarded. Without this project, he'd "probably be collecting unemployment with half my roofing buddies," he said.

With the skills he's learning on this job — and with the information he's learning as he studies for a degree in environmental science — he predicts he'll have "steady employment for as long as it is going to take me to finish raising my family."

Carman, who has four kids and lives in Los Alamos, is one of about 700 people who lab officials say got jobs because of the cleanup projects. The number includes part-time workers and contractors.

So far, some 338,756 man hours have been put in on the cleanup work, which is expected to be complete by the fall of 2011.

With so many new workers in town, locals say, it's harder to get a seat at the Blue Window restaurant and the line at Chile Works is usually long.

While Los Alamos doesn't have traffic congestion like Santa Fe's, it is busier than it used to be in the eateries, hotels and equipment rental businesses. Among other things, the stimulus work and other upcoming anticipated projects have created a need for more housing.

One place that hopes to help meet the housing demand is nearby San Ildefonso Pueblo. The tribal council and community are getting ready to consider a proposal by the San Ildefonso Development Corp. to build a mobile home park across from the Phillips 66 gas station at the pueblo.

If approved, the park would accommodate 51 homes and have the ability to be expanded to 90. The proposal is in the very early stages and the development corporation would need to secure a $1.5 million loan, said Laurence Peña, the corporation's chief operating officer.

"The tribe has always worked closely with the community of Los Alamos and hopefully this project will afford us the means to do that into the future," he said.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog at www.greenchilechatter.com.

COMMUNITY MEETING

Learn more about other upcoming construction projects at and around LANL at a community meeting June 16. The meeting is from 10 a.m. to noon at the Santa Claran Hotel, 464 N. Riverside Drive in Española. Seating at the meeting is limited. Reserve a spot by June 4 by e-mailing rsvp-lanlcommunityforum@lanl.gov or by calling 505-665-4400.



TOP 10 MOST EXPENSIVE LANL PROJECTS

LANL will receive $277 million in federal stimulus spending for 48 projects over the next several years. Here's a look at how some of that money is being spent:

1. $94 million to excavate the lab's first hazardous waste landfill, known as Material Disposal Area B.

2. $73 million to demolish 21 unused Cold War-era buildings and structures at Technical Area 21.

3. $45 million to drill 18 new groundwater monitoring wells and plug six old ones.

4. $12.6 million for a project with the Carlsbad Department of Energy office involving research on the disposition of transuranic waste.

5. $10.6 million on a project that looks at the technology needed to develop a viable algal biofuel industry.

6. $2.5 million for a project titled: An Integrated Theory on the Mechanisms of Vegetation Survival and Mortality During Drought.

7. $2.5 million for a project titled: Molecular Transuranic Discovery Science: Underpinning National Energy Security and Waste Remediation Needs.

8. $2.5 million for a project titled: Development and Optimization of Water and Ice Targets for Fine-Grained Tracing Detectors for Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiments.

9. $2.5 million for a project titled: Advancing our Understanding of Photonic Band Gap Structures for Accelerators.

10. $2.5 million for a project titled: Technology Development Toward Very High-Gradient and High Quality-Factor Superconducting Radio-Frequency Cavities.


Note: Some projects are part of larger stimulus spending awards to groups. Only the LANL share is listed. Items 6-10 are grants to scientists who will work on the projects for five years.

Editor's note: This article was originally published online during the weekend of May 22, 2010 and is being re-published for those who might have missed it.