- Long-Term Environmental Stewardship & Sustainability Strategy ›
- Clean the Past ›
- Control the Present ›
- Introduction
- Something in the Air? ›
- Protections: Sediment ›
- Protections: Sediment Control = Contaminant Retention
- Tour: Sediment Retention
- Protection #2: Trap and Remove Sediment
- Stormwater Controls
- Stop Contaminant Movement & the Individual Permit
- View of Stormwater Monitoring Sites
- Stormwater Control Structures
- How are the aftereffects of wildfire managed?
- Las Conchas Wildfire
- Stormwater Controls after Wildfire
- Los Alamos Canyon Weir
- 10,000 Willows
- Pueblo Canyon Grade Control Structure
- Early Notification Gages
- Protections: Sampling ›
- Protection #3: Sample and Survey
- Tour: Environmental Monitoring
- Groundwater Monitoring
- How does LANL determine where to put a monitoring well?
- Protection of the Groundwater Resource
- The Location Investigation Process
- The Location Determination Process
- Monitoring Well Placement
- Contaminant Sources
- Groundwater Monitoring Network
- View of Groundwater Monitoring Sites
- Well Placement Decision Process
- Create a Sustainable Future ›
- Multimedia ›
Keeping Impact As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA)
Public tour of sediment control features and water monitoring in Pueblo Canyon
Radioactive sources are all around us: the sun and the cosmos, medical tests, building materials, the foods we eat, and the air we breathe. Mammals, including humans, have adapted to living with radioactivity throughout our evolution.
Transuranic waste shipment leaves facility bound for Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
A key element in the Long-Term Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Strategy is to keep the impact of past, present, and future operations as low as reasonably achievable. Examples of the implementation of this strategy include:
- Pollution prevention projects that actively eliminate or reduce waste generation
- Executing a Site Sustainability Plan to reduce greehouse gas emissions
LANL strives to keep the potential and actual radiation dose to the public and the effect on the environment as low as possible by:
- Reducing airborne dose from stack emissions
- Reducing radioactive inventory by shipping transuranic waste to Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM
- Reducing the total number of outfalls and the amount of water discharged into canyons
- Installing features to keep sediments on-site
People in the US are exposed regularly to radioactivity.
Fact Check »
«
Radiation sources include the sun and other cosmic sources, food, rock and soil in addition to man-made sources such as global fallout, building materials, smoke detectors, medical tests and nuclear power and defense materials. In New Mexico, because of high altitudes, the average dose to a person from the sun is 300 millirem per year, 30 times higher than the regulatory limit allowed from LANL sources. In the last 5 years estimated doses to the public from LANL sources have ranged from 0.33 to 3.5 millirem.