20 years and $4 billion to clean hazardous waste at N.M. site

A new report estimates that it will take more than 20 years and nearly $4 billion to clean up decades-old hazardous waste from nuclear weapons production in Los Alamos.

The New Mexican reports that Los Alamos National Laboratory publicly released the estimate this week. It gives the clearest picture yet of the scope of the work left to remove radioactive waste and environmental contamination from the area.

The report lists 955 potentially contaminated sites and says the lab still has 5,000 cubic meters of legacy waste. That’s half the amount of waste present when cleanup began 25 years ago.

The lab, the New Mexico Environment Department and the U.S. Department of Energy entered a new cleanup agreement in June. A previous agreement expired in December with several missed deadlines.

(Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, http://www.sfnewmexican.com)