State Tightens Oversight As Los Alamos Struggles With Waste Management

摘要

Amid continuing uncertainty at Los Alamos National Laboratory about future liquid radioactive waste treatment capacity, a New Mexico water quality commission has tightened monitoring requirements for plutonium, tritium and other contamination in part of the Rio Grande deemed at greatest risk from potential discharges from the Energy Department nuclear weapons facility.rnThe action by the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission earlier this month mainly responds to concerns about legacy contamination from past operations at Los Alamos, namely low levels of radionuclides that over many years have trickled into surface waters in canyons near the lab and then into the Rio Grande.