A new federal lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protecting Agency (EPA) claims runoff from the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory is hurting water quality in Los Alamos County, N.M.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Mexico against the EPA, agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, and EPA Region 6 Administrator Ken McQueen. The action was brought by Amigos Bravos, a Taos-based nonprofit water advocacy organization.
The suit focuses “both on lab and non-lab properties,” Rachel Conn, projects director of Amigos Bravos, said by telephone Wednesday.
Amigos Bravos says the EPA never took action on the organization’s June 2014 petition seeking a finding that stormwater discharges in Los Alamos County contribute to violations of federal water quality standards and should require a Clean Water Act permit. The EPA’s inaction hurts water quality because the runoff contains pollutants such as gross alpha (a measure of radioactivity in water), PCBs, aluminum, copper, radium, cyanide, mercury, and selenium, according to the suit. New Mexico has “identified numerous water bodies in Los Alamos County as degraded by these types of pollutions,” according to the group’s filing.
While the Department of Energy is not named in the litigation, the 19-page document appears to point to the national lab as a key source of local water pollution.
Much of the 36-square mile Los Alamos National Laboratory property sits on the Pajarito Plateau, which consists of several “finger-like mesas” separated by canyons cut by streams, which can spread runoff, the complaint says. The DOE laboratory property contains parts of seven primary watersheds that drain directly into the Rio Grande River. State data also shows substantial water quality impairment in Los Alamos Canyon stemming from urbanized areas at LANL, according to the suit.
The suit claims EPA has not complied with the Clean Water Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, by failing to respond to earlier petitions to tackle water quality problems in the area. The Environmental Protection Agency is one of the regulators for the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The group wants the EPA to require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for storm sewer systems in the county.
The Energy Department declined to comment, noting it is not a party to the suit. An EPA Region 6 spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Stormwater runoff is generated from rain and snowmelt. As it moves over smooth services such as roads and parking lots, the runoff picks up chemicals, oils, and other pollutants, the suit says. “Many of the watersheds in Los Alamos County are highly polluted and are water quality limited,” according to Amigos Bravos.
The litigation was filed on Amigos Bravos’ behalf by the Oregon-based Western Environmental Law Center.
