New Mexico Fines DOE Los Alamos Nuclear Complex $16M for Delayed Waste Cleanup
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Giant federal nuclear research complex in New Mexico with a legacy of WW2 and Cold War bomb component production faces new state enforcement for delayed action to radioactive and chemical waste cleanup.
New Mexico officials announced a $16-million fine and other actions against the U.S. Energy Dept. for failing to “prioritize” cleanup and disposal of legacy nuclear and chemical waste from research and former weapon component production at the giant Los Alamos National Laboratory near Santa Fe, dating to World War II.
State environment department Secretary James Kenney also ordered on Feb.11 a revision of the estimated 25,000-acre site's disposal permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the underground federal repository for defense-related transuranic waste near Carlsbad, N.M.—to increase the volume of future Los Alamos waste disposals there.
The action, considered a rare state move, stems from what New Mexico terms a “longstanding lack of urgency” in legacy waste remediation, said a department statement.
According to the state agency, between 2021 and 2025, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management ordered disposal of five times more waste at WIPP from the federal Idaho National Laboratory than from Los Alamos.
The Energy Dept. "has failed to meet [state] requirements to clean up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory and prioritize the disposal of such waste in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant,” Kenney said. “New Mexicans have stepped up to help solve the nation’s cleanup problem in a way that residents of no other state have."
The Los Alamos complex, first built in 1943 for the Manhattan Project atomic bomb mission and now made up of nearly 900 individual facilities, still is the only U.S. site for plutonium pit production and testing for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. Other key missions include advanced research related to national security, materials science, supercomputing, renewable energy and nuclear physics. The Energy Dept. estimates that about 500,000 cu meters of legacy waste remains on its site, although more recently, Los Alamos is researching use of its nuclear waste as a source of tritium, a rare and expensive element now in demand for next-generation fusion energy development.
The state's civil penalty includes $6 million related to hazardous waste violations and a 2024 consent order directing the Los Alamos site's management of an estimated 1.5-mile groundwater plume of hexavalent chromium that was discovered in 2005 to have migrated off-site and onto the San Ildefonso Pueblo reservation, the agency said, also requiring the Energy Dept. to submit for approval a revised plan for interim measures. A Los Alamos official countered the assessment, saying more testing was needed, said a local report last year
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In addition, the state levied a $9.78-miillion civil penalty related to violations of groundwater protection mandates, requiring site officials to develop within 60 days a cleanup and mitigation plan and a revised groundwater discharge permit application.
The state is also contesting DOE cleanup deferral at "Material Disposal Area C," an 11.8-acre unlined site landfill containing radioactive waste, heavy metals and hazardous chemicals dating to the 1940s, located above a regional drinking water aquifer.
The department argued in state hearings last year that because the area now is in “active facility operations,” it sought to defer action on cleanup. In the Feb. 11 order, the state is ordering Los Alamos to provide evidence within 30 days to allow it to determine the next steps.
In responses to media requests for comment, a DOE spokesperson said the department “is advancing legacy environmental cleanup at [Los Alamos] and remains committed to public safety, efficiency and transparency.”
