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Saturday, February 27, 2010
Lab Cleanup Goal Debated
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Journal Staff Writer
New Mexico's environment secretary is questioning whether Los Alamos National Laboratories will meet a 2015 deadline for environmental cleanup projects and criticized the lab's management approach as a "two-headed monster."
New Mexico Environment Department Secretary Ron Curry called for the National Nuclear Security Administration to step aside from its role as co-manager of the cleanup effort.
Curry said the cleanup should be managed solely by The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management, according to a Feb. 22 issue of Weapons Complex Monitor.
Clashes between the two agencies contributed to missed deadlines in the cleanup efforts, resulting in LANL paying nearly $2.7 million in fines to the state Environment Department since 2008, Curry contends.
"If you want to convince people that you are efficient and competent, you have to meet the commitments you've agreed to," Curry told the Weapons Complex Monitor, a Washington, D.C., publication that reports on nuclear weapons cleanup and waste management operations.
"I think as long as you've got a two-headed monster ... it's not going to be efficient," he said.
Curry said he plans to raise the issue with top DOE officials in a meeting scheduled next month.
An NNSA official on Friday rejected Curry's suggestion that the dual management approach has hindered progress on the cleanup.
"We feel like the partnership we have right now is working, and we're on board to meet the 2015 deadline," said Toni Chiri, spokeswoman for NNSA's Los Alamos Site Office, a DOE office that manages the federal contract with a consortium of companies that operate LANL.
Disposal of waste, including untreated radioactive liquids, during the 1940s and 1950s at LANL resulted in the contamination of soil sediments and groundwater.
A 2005 agreement with the state Environment Department calls for a cleanup of the 40-square-mile LANL property by 2015.
NNSA has named an assistant manager, George Rael, to oversee the environmental projects, according to a written statement issued by the NNSA.
Rael reports to top management at LANL "and shares the same level of support and priority as the other NNSA mission work," the statement said.
Chiri said she could not discuss Curry's allegation that conflict between the NNSA and DOE's Office of Environmental Management had contributed to delays in the project, resulting in state fines.
Former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. was responsible for the formation of the NNSA in 1999 as a semi-autonomous agency within DOE to oversee the nation's nuclear stockpile. Then-Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson opposed the creation of NNSA.
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