Jay Coghlan, executive director of nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico, agreed that hard deadlines are crucial in making real headway on cleanup.
“The main thing we would want is to have cleanup drive funding instead of a budget that [the Energy Department] wants driving cleanup,” Coghlan said.
By: Scott Wyland santafenewmexican.com | Feb 25, 2021
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 2005 order by eliminating real deadlines and imposing few penalties for slow or deficient work.
The lawsuit, filed in state District Court, seeks to cancel the consent order, fine the Energy Department about $330,000 for not meeting its cleanup obligations and have the court oversee mediation between the two parties for a new waste agreement.
State Environment Secretary James Kenney said that under the current consent decree, his agency has been at an impasse with the Energy Department while too much nuclear waste remains in place.
“We gave it a fair shot, but by all accounts it’s not working,” Kenney said.
Officials overseeing the lab’s environmental cleanup have stood by that consent order, arguing it gives them more flexibility to work through unforeseen snags without being automatically penalized for delays.
In an email, an Energy Department spokesman wrote that the two agencies have had a constructive working relationship since that order was established.
“While the state has chosen to discontinue the ongoing discussions,” the spokesman wrote, “we remain hopeful of working with the state to resolve any concerns that exist under the compliance order so we can continue this record of success in delivering results for the citizens of New Mexico.”
However, the 20-page lawsuit says the Energy Department’s failure to clean up waste has dire consequences.
“This ongoing failure means that hazardous and radioactive substances continue to exceed standards and pose health risks to adjacent communities,” the lawsuit said.
It goes on to say that contaminants pose a long-term threat to drinking water, tribal communities are unable to engage in longtime cultural uses of their lands, and the area’s recreation and economic activities are at continued risk.
Kenney said he plans to reinstate firm deadlines so the Energy Department feels compelled to budget the money to meet the required targets rather than basing its cleanup on whatever it wants to spend that year.
Jay Coghlan, executive director of nonprofit Nuclear Watch New Mexico, agreed that hard deadlines are crucial in making real headway on cleanup.
“The main thing we would want is to have cleanup drive funding instead of a budget that [the Energy Department] wants driving cleanup,” Coghlan said.
Both Kenney and Coghlan noted the federal agency last year proposed cutting $100 million from the lab’s waste cleanup, which would’ve reduced the funding by almost half. But at New Mexico delegates’ request, Congress left the full funding intact.
The Energy Department removes less waste in New Mexico than in states such as Idaho and South Carolina that have more stringent policies, Kenney said.
Yet those states’ transuranic nuclear waste ends up in New Mexico, which has the lone disposal site for that type of waste, he said. For that reason, New Mexico should be given top priority for its waste cleanup, he said.
Another frustration is the federal agency not adhering to the targets it set and instead continually putting them off, said Stephanie Stringer, director of the Environment Department’s Resource Protection Division.
“There are delays that aren’t specifically related to funding,” Stringer said. “We do feel they can complete some of the tasks that they’ve agreed to — and have the funding for — in a more timely manner.”
The lawsuit gives a list of projects, such as installing monitoring wells, that the two agencies are deadlocked on for when to complete.
It’s another symptom of the 2016 consent order replacing hard deadlines — and fines for missing them — with milestones that get renegotiated every year, said Charles de Saillan, attorney with the New Mexico Environmental Law Center.
“The site is not getting cleaned up. [The Energy Department] is dragging its feet,” said de Saillan, who helped write the 2005 consent order. “There’s absolutely no incentive for it to get the funding to do any more than the minimal amount of work.”
He commended Kenney for taking a firm stance with the Energy Department.
Santa Fe County Commissioner Anna Hansen also applauded the agency’s move to replace the consent order and improve the lab’s waste cleanup, which she said would increase environmental protection in the region.
“Cleanup needs to be accelerated,” Hansen said.
Former Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn was able to draft a new consent order with little resistance, partly because the previous one had expired in 2015.
The current one isn’t so easy to change, Kenney said. It contains provisions that call for the state and federal agencies to go through a lengthy process to resolve disputes and, if that fails, seek legal remedies such as going to court.
Consent orders shouldn’t be too easy to nullify — otherwise, they could be erased by any incoming administration, Kenney said.
Kenney couldn’t say how long it might take the two agencies to settle their dispute and create a new consent order.
“It depends on the willingness of the Department of Energy,” Kenney said.