A New Mexico watchdog organization said late Wednesday it had submitted an official notice of its intent to file a lawsuit over missed milestones in the cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico said the notice to DOE and the lab manager Los Alamos National Security is mandatory before is mandatory before the suit can be filed, which the group said was likely to happen in no more than 60 days.
The department and the New Mexico Environment Department in March 2005 signed a consent order that requires major cleanup from decades of operations at the nuclear weapons site in northern New Mexico to be cleaned up by December 2015. The order was revised in 2012, but the parties have long acknowledged that deadline would not be met.
The consent order does not expire, but the Environment Department has refused to negotiate a revised agreement until it finalizes a $73 million settlement with DOE over the February 2014 fire and radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and waste management issues at LANL, the point of origin for the container linked to the WIPP radiation incident.
In its formal notice, Nuclear Watch New Mexico said it could file legal action in federal court “seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief” for breach of multiple sections of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
“The nuclear weaponeers plan to spend a trillion dollars over the next 30 years completely rebuilding U.S. nuclear forces. Meanwhile, cleanup at the Los Alamos Lab, the birthplace of nuclear weapons, continues to be delayed, delayed, delayed,” Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico executive director, said in a press release. “We are putting the weaponeers on notice that they have to cleanup their radioactive and toxic mess first before making another one for a nuclear weapons stockpile that is already bloated far beyond what we need. Real cleanup would be a win-win for New Mexicans, permanently protecting our water and environment while creating hundreds of high paying jobs.”
