Ion Beam Facility at LANL set to close later this year

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced APTIM — a professional solutions firm based out of Louisiana — has been selected to deactivate, decommission and remove the Ion Beam Facility, a former nuclear testing site, from the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

This task involves the removal of hazardous materials, a news release stated.

“APTIM is proud to once again be selected by the DOE to restore and sustain the environment and surrounding communities,” said David Lowe, senior vice president of nuclear decommissioning at APTIM, in the release. “We have a legacy of remediation and decommissioning projects at LANL, and we look forward to reestablishing our presence there through this important project for DOE and NNSA.”

The IBF was built in 1951 on Test Area 3, a firing site during World War II's Manhattan Project.

Previously called the Van de Graaff Accelerator Building, the facility produced the first nuclear weapons between 1952 and 1992, the release said.

APTIM will begin the cleanup project in October.

10 historical pictures from Los Alamos and Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project employees work on the Gadget in southern New Mexico.

The Calutron Girls separated uranium at Y-12 in Oak Ridge without knowing what they were working on.

A checkpoint to the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.

The main gate at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the atomic bomb era.

A street scene in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.

Houses along Bathtub Row in Los Alamos were the only ones with bathtubs during the Manhattan Project.

Physicist and Navy commander Norris Bradbury, led assembly of the non-nuclear parts of the Trinity

The White House Millenium Council has earmarked $700,000 to save the last remnant buildings of the Manhattan Project to create the A-bomb. This factory for molding and machining high explosives was built at S Site in the early 1940s to withstand accidental explosions but today is falling apart.

Plutonium pits are cast at Los Alamos National Laboratory LANL in 2011 completed the manufacture of the 29th war-reserve-quality plutonium pit for the W88 warhead, as part of the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program. The W88 is the backbone of the nation's submarine deterrent force.

Officials from the National Parks Service, the Department of Energy and Los Alamos take a tour of the Oppenheimer House in Los Alamos, Tuesday June 2, 2015. This sculpture of the scientist and LANL director during the Manhattan Project is on the hearth.

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