A New Mexico citizens group and the Department of Energy filed a proposed settlement agreement Tuesday with a U.S. District Court in a long-running legal fight over a 2016 consent decree governing legacy nuclear cleanup around the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
A 33-page agreement outlining proposed changes to the 2016 “compliance order on consent” was filed in the U.S. District Court for New Mexico by officials with Nuclear Watch New Mexico, or NukeWatch, as well as the Department of Justice, acting on behalf of DOE. NukeWatch’s executive director Jay Coghlan declined comment until the document receives final approval by the court.
Likewise, DOE said it does not comment on ongoing legal matters.
Within three months of taking effect, the settlement calls for DOE to start working with Pueblo de San Ildefonso in Santa Fe County and the Buckman Direct Diversion Board with an eye toward building a new surface flow water monitoring station to replace the old E109.9 gaging station.
If DOE decides it cannot develop a new monitoring station, it must notify NukeWatch of the specific reasons for this conclusion. If the parties agree it is not doable, the local parties can petition the federal agency for a one-time grant of $200,000 to improve water quality, according to the proposed settlement.
DOE will also draft a feasibility study of cleanup procedures for waste in Pit 8 and 9 of Material Disposal Area G at Los Alamos, including preparing transuranic waste for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.The study should be done by Oct. 1, 2025.
The proposed settlement also says DOE will start retrieving 158 corrugated metal pipes holding cemented liquid waste in certain Solid Waste Management Units by Oct. 1 of this year. The DOE should complete the task by March 2024. Also, the federal agency will investigate and if needed remediate 290 Solid Waste Management Units and “areas of concern,” according to the document.
The proposal also says DOE will pay NukeWatch $412,000 in legal fees and other litigation-related expenses. As for NukeWatch it agrees to waive all claims against DOE or the agency’s contractors under the 2005 consent order, the deal stipulates.
In 2016, NukeWatch filed its citizen suit challenge to the consent order reached earlier that year between DOE and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) — under then-Gov. Susana Martinez (R) — to govern Los Alamos cleanup. The group claimed the 2016 consent order was an inadequate successor to an earlier order from 2005.
Any additional or faster cleanup of legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory “is a good thing for New Mexicans and for the environment,” NMED spokesman Matthew Maez said in an email.” The state agency was an intervenor in the case.
“The settlement agreement resolving this litigation accomplishes that through a series of environmental cleanup projects,” Maez went on to say. “In addition, re-establishment of a surface water monitoring station that was destroyed several years ago will provide important surface water quality scientific data for use by NMED.”
The case was originally filed in May 2016 under the citizen suit provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, naming both DOE and its then-management contractor, Los Alamos National Security, as defendants. U.S. District Judge Judith Herrera is presiding in the case, although much of the pre-hearing settlement-related work was referred to the U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Yarbrough.
This is distinct from another case before a different federal district judge, filed a year ago against DOE by the New Mexico Environment Department. The state agency seeks to terminate or modify the 2016 consent agreement. In January, lawyers for the state and federal agencies received a court extension until April 5 to continue settlement talks in that litigation.
