Inés Triay, one-time head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch, will discuss the hexavalent chromium plume at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico this week.
Triay, currently interim dean of the College of Engineering and Computing at Florida International University, is leading an expert review team on the longstanding chromium plume at the laboratory.
Triay will headline a Wednesday public meeting on Los Alamos cleanup, according to a Monday press release by site cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B) Los Alamos. There will be a question-and-answer session following Triay’s presentation. The meeting, which will be webcast, starts at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time.
The 15-member team Triay leads was agreed upon by the New Mexico Environment Department as well as DOE and N3B.
The panel is reviewing the effectiveness of interim measures taken so far to control the plume in Mortandad Canyon. The panel will also work to gain the necessary information to come up with a final remedy.
The plume dates back to chemicals used to clean corrosion from cooling towers at a Los Alamos power plant between 1956 and 1972.
A little more than a year ago, the state ordered the feds to stop injecting treated groundwater into the plume itself. DOE, however, believes the practice has enabled it to bottle up the plume hundreds of feet before it reaches tribal land.
The state and federal agencies are reviewing final remediation strategies for the plume, according to a September 2023 DOE fact sheet.
Triay was DOE’s assistant secretary for environmental management between 2009 and 2011, leading what was then a $6-billion cleanup program for Cold War and Manhattan Project sites.
