Program earns completion certificates for remediation efforts

November 22, 2011—The LANL Corrective Actions Program received 83 certificates of completion from the New Mexico Environment Department for remediating environmental sites on current and former Lab property during fiscal year 2011.

A certificate of completion means that no further remedial action is needed.

"We've worked closely with our partners at the New Mexico Environment Department to clean up these locations," said CAP Program Director David McInroy. "Receiving certificates of completion moves our environmental remediation program forward."

The sites included former landfills, underground holding tanks, a septic system, and a 1940s-era facility that laundered radiologically-contaminated clothing.

The sites are located at Technical Area 21 and the Middle Mortandad Canyon and Bayo Canyon areas. Many of the Lab facilities that used to stand on the properties were built in the 1940s.

To earn the certificates of completion, CAP conducted extensive investigation and remediation activities. The work is part of the Consent Order, a 2005 agreement between the Department of Energy, LANL, and the state of New Mexico.

Of more than 2,100 LANL environmental sites in existence in 2005, about 1,100 remain, ranging in size from a small, suspected fuel spill to multi-acre landfills.