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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Watchdog Plans Lawsuit Over Lack of Los Alamos Cleanup

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Friday, January 22, 2016   

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Nuclear Watch New Mexico has put the federal government and the Los Alamos National Laboratory on notice that it plans to sue over what it contends is the failure to clean up nuclear and toxic waste at the lab site.

The watchdog group says the lab hasn't executed its part of a 2005 consent order with the New Mexico Environmental Department to remove the waste. The group's biggest concern at Los Alamos is a site known as "Area G," which Nuclear Watch director Jay Coghlan said
contains up to 200,000 cubic yards of poisonous debris, much of it left over from the Cold War.

"It's a waste dump for both radioactive and toxic materials that dates back to 1957," he said. "The lab plans to simply cap and cover it, and leave it forever."

Coghlan said the deadline for the lab to have a cleanup plan in place was last December. The U.S. Department of Energy declined to comment on the suit, but the New Mexico Environmental Department called Nuclear Watch's claims "baseless." The state agency says it plans to work with DOE and Los Alamos to revise the consent order.

Coghlan said his group's concerns were raised recently when DOE announced plans for a trillion-dollar upgrade of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, with much of that money earmarked to improve the facilities at Los Alamos.

"To oversimplify, the nuclear weaponeers are getting ready to create a whole new round of nuclear weapons," he said. "Before cleaning up their first mess, they're getting ready to cause another."

He said Nuclear Watch filed a legally required notice with DOE this week, and if the department takes no action, his group will file suit within 60 days to enforce the consent agreement.

The DOE complaint letter is online at nukewatch.org.


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