The New Mexico State Auditor’s Office has questioned whether the state Environment Department (NMED) went too easy on the Department of Energy during legal settlements in recent years over cleanup problems and violations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
In a Nov. 21 letter to New Mexico Environment Secretary Butch Tongate, Deputy State Auditor Sanjay Bhakta indicated information had come to light suggesting NMED “unnecessarily forgave tens of millions of dollars” in civil penalties that could have been collected from DOE or its contractors.
In December 2014, the Environment Department had sought $54 million in fines against DOE for problems with drums of transuranic waste from Los Alamos that resulted in an underground fire and radiological release at WIPP in February of that year. The Energy Department did agree to fund various supplemental environmental projects instead, Bhakta noted in the letter. But after much negotiations, it appears the state did not collect any of the penalties, according to the letter.
The New Mexico Environment Department and DOE had touted the agreement as a $73 million settlement that would require the federal government to pay for community and environmental projects near WIPP and Los Alamos.
While it’s common for fines to be reduced, the auditor said it appears “highly unusual” for the state to collect no penalties in this case.
Bhakta said the 2016 settlement between New Mexico and DOE over Los Alamos legacy cleanup also raised questions. The sweeping revision of a 2005 consent order relaxed hard deadlines for site-wide environmental remediation in favor of 17 campaigns of related cleanup activities. In that instance, the state agency also “completely forgave” the collection of what could have been millions of dollars in penalties for missed deadlines, according to the auditor’s letter.
“The Department should evaluate whether its current approach, as exemplified by these recent agreements, is consistent with the state’s fiscal and enforcement,” Bhakta wrote.
NMED could not be reached for comment by press time.
