SANTA FE – New Mexico state government has denied requests from Los Alamos National Laboratory to extend deadlines for cleaning up decades-old toxic waste at the lab.
This waste container with at the underground Waste Isolation Plant near Carlsbad shows its lid unsealed and apparent heat discoloration. Investigators believe misprocessing of transuranic waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory may have led to a radioactive leak that has closed WIPP since February.
The New Mexico Environment Department recently sent numerous letters denying the lab more time to meet deadlines established in a legally binding 2005 consent order.
The department said it has granted time extensions in the past because LANL needed to divert resources to moving thousands of barrels of already processed transuranic waste to the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plan near Carlsbad. The barrels, stored above ground, attracted international attention when threatened by wildfires in recent years.
But the lab’s effort to move out the final containers has been stymied because WIPP is now closed. A radiation leak — which investigators believe may have been caused by mishandling of the waste by LANL — has shut down the storage facility since February.
All the of the barrels were supposed to be gone from Los Alamos by the end of June under a two-year-old agreement with the Environment Department. LANL recently acknowledged it would miss the Monday deadline because of the problems at WIPP.
The lab did not provide comment Friday on the Environment Department’s rejection of the time-extension waivers for projects aimed at much broader lab clean-up issues. NMED spokesman Jim Winchester said the letters rejecting the waivers “speak for themselves.”
http://www.abqjournal.com/421892/abqnewsseeker/421892.html
5 comments:
Definitely! the issue is how penalties will be assessed to LANL. Typically, environmental offenses are assesses on a daily basis past the agreed upon due date.
The problem with these fines is that Lab (LANL) laughs at the peddling amounts. I've been in meetings with McMillan and Anastasio where they just sit these and laugh at the guys from NMED; they think they are incompetent and weak. NMED needs to start hitting these guys hard and believe me compliance will start occurring fast!
July 5, 2014 at 8:20 AM
NMED needs to get some huevos. Why are they afraid of these pricks from the Labs?
Who let the CCNS trolls in?
NMED does not need to roll over for LANL.
NNSA last year, for the first time, stood up and said enough. They did not grant LANL a contract extension.
NMED could follow this and enforce the penalties.
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