Important Public Meeting On the Future of Cleanup At Los Alamos – Join Us on November 12
The future of hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of radioactive and hazardous wastes is being evaluated now. Will Northern New Mexico be turned into a permanent nuclear waste dump?
The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have been revising the 2005 Consent Order (CO), which is the agreement between the State and the Feds for fence-to-fence cleanup of legacy Cold War wastes. The work in the CO, was supposed to be completed by December 2015. It was designed as a plan-to-make-a-plan with investigations of contaminated sites followed by cleanup decisions and remediation. Milestones and penalties were included to keep funding and cleanup on track.
What have LANL and NMED come up with to replace the 2005 Consent Order? Looks like we’ll have to wait until Thursday November 12th to find out. NMED and LANL have announced a public meeting to explain their ideas for the revised CO. There is an opportunity for public comments at the special meeting and we need you there. But it is unclear what NMED will do with any comments made. The public has been left out so far. Nuclear Watch New Mexico is pressing for meaningful responses to all comments and for actual inclusion of the public’s wishes into the revised CO.
In particular NukeWatch will be pushing for concrete milestones that are set from the beginning for all actions, for penalties when deadlines are not met, and for a new final end date. The revised Consent Order cannot be open-ended.
Northern New Mexico has been waiting long enough for cleanup at Los Alamos. Much of the waste buried in unlined dumps perched above our aquifer has been slowly releasing into the ground and heading towards our aquifer since the 1950s and 1960s. The Cold War ended in the early 1990s. Enough is enough.
We hope to see you at the meeting on November 12.
Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board Meeting
Revised NMED/ LANL Consent Order Special Meeting
Thursday, November 12, 2015
1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Cities of Gold Conference Center
10-A Cities of Gold Road
Pojoaque, New Mexico 87506
DRAFT AGENDA
1:00 p.m. Call to Order – Lee Bishop, DDFO
Welcome and Introductions – Doug Sayre, Chair
Approval of Agenda
Opening Remarks
1:15 p.m. New Mexico Environment Department Perspective on Revised Consent Order – Secretary Flynn
1:30 p.m. Department of Energy Perspective on Revised Consent Order – Doug Hintze
1:45 p.m. History of Work Already Completed – Doug Hintze
2:00 p.m. Campaign Approach – Doug Hintze
2:30 p.m. Break
2:45 p.m. Campaign Approach (continued) – Doug Hintze
3:30 p.m. Schedule of Actions – NMED
3:45 p.m. Public Comment Period
4:30 p.m. Adjourn – Lee Bishop
