Takeaways:
– The Environment Department issued three compliance orders against the Department of Energy regarding hazardous and legacy wastes at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
– The department also is seeking to modify the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s permit in an effort to make sure that legacy waste from LANL is prioritized for disposal.
– The three compliance orders address hexavalent chromium contamination and the status of cleanup of Material Disposal Area C.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico Executive Director Jay Coghlan cast Area C as a crossroads.
“It presents a clear choice between more unneeded nuclear weapons or cleanup,” Coghlan said, speaking on Tuesday’s enforcement actions. “The other aspect is that we think that successful cleanup at Area C should be the model for cleanup of the rest of the lab, including the much larger Area G.”
ByAlaina Mencinger amencinger@sfnewmexican.com | February 12, 2026 santafenewmexican.com
The New Mexico Environment Department on Wednesday issued three compliance orders with a combined $16 million in penalties against the U.S. Department of Energy over its delayed cleanup of radioactive and hazardous waste stemming from nuclear weapons production.
The state agency also informed the federal government it intends to take the rare action of overhauling a permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Southern New Mexico to better prioritize the disposal of radioactive waste from the Los Alamos lab.
The actions underscore a growing frustration with a “longstanding lack of urgency” to clean up legacy waste and contamination, according to a statement from the Environment Department.
“We’re escalating because they’re not meeting the moment that immediately preceded it,” Environment Secretary James Kenney said in an interview.
Two of the orders center on a decades-old, toxic underground plume of hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen that was used as an anti-corrosive in pipes at LANL. In the early 2000s, the 1.5-mile plume was discovered stretching from the national laboratory.