ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The price tag for cleaning up waste from the once-top-secret Manhattan Project and subsequent Cold War-era nuclear research at Los Alamos National Laboratory has more than doubled in the last seven years, and independent federal investigators say federal officials will have to do better to track costs and progress.
In a report issued Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office said that while some improvements have been made, the U.S. Energy Department hasn’t taken a comprehensive approach to prioritizing cleanup activities at the New Mexico lab.
The report came as federal officials hosted a forum Thursday in Los Alamos to talk about cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater and handling hazardous waste generated by decades of research that started with development of the atomic bomb during the 1940s.
Ike White, who heads DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, said the release this week of the film “Oppenheimer” makes it a good time to talk about the legacy that came from the dawning of the atomic age. Part of the environmental cleanup mission requires an examination of history, White told those gathered in Los Alamos.
He characterized the nation’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program as the third-largest liability on the books for the federal government — behind only Social Security and Medicaid.
“It is a large, it is a complicated, it a technologically challenging program,” White said. “It is extremely important to a lot of people who live across the country from coast to coast, and all of us who are part of that program feel an extraordinary responsibility to make that program successful.”
Still, the GAO pointed to weaknesses in oversight by the Office of Environmental Management at Los Alamos. They said failure to finalize a performance baseline for the cleanup contractor prevented the office from tracking ongoing costs, the scope of work and progress.
New Mexico environmental regulators said the report validates their longstanding concerns — that cleanup is mired in unnecessary delays that threaten public health and the environment. New Mexico Environment Department spokesman Matthew Maez pointed specifically to the federal government’s responsibility to protect drinking water.
“The frequent delays and lack of transparency in cleanup must be remedied,” he said. “We hope this report galvanizes DOE-EM to enact change in Los Alamos.”
Environmental management officials at Los Alamos said they expect to complete remaining cleanup activities at the lab by 2043 at an estimated cost of about $7 billion.
Michael Mikolanis, who heads DOE’s environmental management office at Los Alamos, said Thursday that his team is developing a long-term strategic vision for the remaining cleanup that will be based on priorities identified through numerous meetings with state regulators, the leaders of neighboring Native American communities and others.
Mikolanis said his office plans to unveil an interactive map this fall that will include estimates of the waste at Los Alamos that is stored above ground and that which has yet to be unearthed.
White said estimates for the cleanup project nationwide are hard to calculate because the ultimate volume of waste can change depending on the scope of a project.
