New Mexico fines DOE nearly $16 million for Los Alamos cleanup delays

The New Mexico Environment Department announced nearly $16 million in enforcement actions against the U.S. Department of Energy for failing to speed cleanup of legacy hazardous and radioactive waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The package of penalties and orders was issued in actions dated around Feb. 11, 2026 and targets long-running contamination and disposal backlogs at LANL canyons and landfills.

State officials tied the bulk of the penalties to groundwater and hazardous-waste violations. One administrative compliance order and civil penalty is listed at $9,784,503 for violations of groundwater standards tied to chromium contamination at LANL; a second action assessed $6,000,000 related to hazardous-waste violations and the spread of a wastewater plume that state officials said migrated onto San Ildefonso Pueblo. Those line items combine to $15,784,503, the sum most outlets describe as “nearly $16 million.”

NMED attached firm deadlines and regulatory demands to the enforcement package. DOE must develop a corrective action plan for mitigation and cleanup and submit a revised groundwater discharge permit application within 60 days. The agency also reopened hearings and ordered LANL to provide evidence within 30 days about an 11.8-acre landfill that has been slated for cleanup since the 1980s and contains waste dating to the 1940s in unlined pits above a regional drinking-water aquifer.

The state also initiated a formal operating permit modification at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad to require DOE to prioritize disposal of legacy waste at WIPP. NMED said the actions follow a 2024 consent order directing revised interim measures for a chromium plume first discovered in 2005 and require DOE to submit a revised plan for those measures.

The enforcement moves cite long-standing contamination. National Today estimates roughly 500,000 cubic meters of legacy waste on the LANL campus. National Today and state reporting note hexavalent chromium releases into a canyon from 1956–1972 and a groundwater plume discovered in 2005 that the state announced last November had migrated from underneath LANL onto San Ildefonso Pueblo. Source NM reported that cleanup work on the plume halted in 2023 amid disputes over data collection and the efficacy of proposed plans.

Environment Secretary James Kenney framed the state's response as urgent. Kenney said, "You cannot dump hazardous waste onto your property, let alone somebody else’s," and added the state needed to take "bold action" to create urgency and force the clean up. NMED officials described the package as a means to compel DOE to prioritize removal and disposal rather than defer actions by labeling areas as active operations, a position DOE reportedly asserted during July hearings.

The available enforcement materials do not include a DOE or LANL response in the documents reviewed. With 30-day and 60-day compliance windows now in place and a WIPP permit modification underway, the next month will determine whether the state’s orders prompt immediate cleanup work, revised permits, or further legal and regulatory escalation.