State sues feds over LANL cleanup, plans tougher oversight
Feb. 25—State regulators are suing the U.S. Department of Energy for what they say is a failure to adequately clean up legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and they will impose tougher rules for disposing of waste generated at the lab during the Cold War and Manhattan Project.
Critics have bashed the 2016 agreement for waste cleanup — known as a consent order — that was crafted under Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, saying it weakened the original order by eliminating real deadlines and imposing few penalties for slow or deficient work.
Officials overseeing the lab's environmental cleanup have stood by the revised consent order, arguing it gives them more flexibility to work through unforeseen problems without being automatically penalized for delays.
But state Environment Secretary James Kenney has expressed frustration with federal agencies removing waste slower here than in states with more stringent policies, especially with all transuranic nuclear waste going to a New Mexico disposal site.
"The Department entered the 2016 consent order with high expectations, but almost five years later, our expectations are far from met," Kenney said in a statement.
