Nuke issues keep getting hotter.
"The bottom line is that it was a tumultuous year." So says Kevin Roark, a spokesman for Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Indeed. While 2003 headlines screamed that the lab's management contract was up for grabs, the news in 2004 trumped that development when LANL Director Pete Nanos actually shut down the lab in July for approximately a month after the disappearance of discs and a laser accident. Even now, there are some high-security level projects not yet online.
Roark expects all operations back up by the end of January. "Not to say questions of safety and security won't come up again, but now we are in a much better position to respond."
The shutdown cast a dark shadow over the University of California's possible bid to continue managing the lab. Its contract ends in September 2005 and there have been mixed feelings
expressed about who the next manager should be.
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Says Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, "We are looking forward to University of California being out of there. UC was far too laissez-faire."
Gov. Bill Richardson, however, has stated he still supports UC if its proposal were to incorporate a New Mexican university and a private entity.
For its part, UC has still not committed to bidding, nor has the University of Texas, another possible contender, along with the University of Colorado. A final draft of the bid proposal is expected by early February.
US Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) hopes the 2004 shutdown will take the lab forward. "I'm impressed with Pete Nanos and his efforts to implement the very best procedures to protect security," Udall says.
Security issues aside, perhaps the most important nuclear development were victories concerning waste buried around the lab.
After two years of negotiations, New Mexico's Environment Department, the Department of Energy and University of California came to an agreement in September-yet to be finalized-for cleaning up LANL waste disposal sites. Currently, there are 1,900
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different sites within the lab that are of concern to NMED. Previously, the DOE had jurisdiction over the cleanup, but NMED rejected that idea because there would be no legal way for the State to force DOE to complete the clean-up.
Ron Curry, the Environment Department secretary, hopes the agreement will be completed in December or January. "It's groundbreaking for New Mexico, and it will have an effect on the rest of the DOE network," Curry says. "The thing that is most important is that it's something we can enforce via the courts. In the past we've been without an enforcement tool for cleanup. When you had a project management plan it was only enforceable by DOE."
Coghlan and Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, both are impressed with the State for sticking up to DOE, but say this is just the beginning. "We'll be watching in 2005 to make sure LANL is complying with the order," Arends says.
Activists also will keep an eye in 2005 on developments in Lea County. That's where Louisiana Energy Services has plans to
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build a uranium enrichment plant estimated to produce 132,000 metric tons of nuclear waste.
Tennessee and Louisiana have already rejected LES' $1.2 billion dollar plant [Cover story, June 2: "Nuclear Shuffle"] but, in January, the Lea County Commission approved $1.8 billion in tax breaks for the company.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission-the federal entity responsible for permitting nuclear facilities-will hold a public hearing in Hobbs in February.
Activists like Don Hancock, director of the nuclear waste safety program for Southwest Research and Information Center, believe the NRC will rubber-stamp LES' permit. "We've learned again that the NRC doesn't care about the health and safety of New Mexicans," Hancock says.
Gov. Richardson has placed his support of the facility on hold because of the unresolved waste disposal issue, according to Gilbert Gallegos, spokesman for the governor, "until he sees ironclad language either in federal legislation or in the permit guaranteeing the waste is taken out of New Mexico."
