SANTA FE MAYOR URGES ALTERNATIVES FOR LOS ALAMOS CLEANUP

Santa Fe, N.M., Mayor David Cross Thursday urged Los Alamos National Laboratory to fully excavate and characterize buried waste at the Lab’s Technical Area-54, submitting a draft resolution that the city council will vote on next month. While LANL is considering leaving a portion of the waste buried in place, the resolution asks LANL to “execute full characterization and excavation of the wastes as well as offsite disposal of any high-level or transuranic radioactive waste and the reburial of remaining low level radioactive wastes in a modern landfill,” according to a release from the mayor. Cross said in a statement: “Full cleanup of Area G would be a win-win for New Mexicans, permanently protecting our precious groundwater and the Rio Grande while creating hundreds of high paying jobs for twenty years or more.”