I write in response to your cover story on Los Alamos
National Laboratory’s waste-cleanup practices (HCN, 11/24/03:
New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut). I was most
interested in how you would approach the subject, being a
subscriber to HCN and a great fan for roughly a decade, a
conservation activist in northern New Mexico, and a research
scientist at the laboratory. (These comments are my own opinions,
of course, not official positions of the laboratory.)
I am
crushingly disappointed at the results. LANL indeed has some
serious environmental problems and should devote con- siderable
resources to fixing them. There have been major goofs that demand
restorative action. But that is precisely why LANL is the largest
environmental science organization in the Southwestern United
States. Your blanket dismissal of a program that spends $45 million
per year is little more than journalistic smugness.
There
are three fundamental failures in HCN’s analysis. The first
is that you failed to consider whether the levels of contaminants
detected in soil, groundwater, and air are large enough to be
threats to human health or wildlife. Had you asked, you would have
found that there are no imminent threats to New Mexico communities
at all, if one uses as a standard the EPA exposure limits.
The second fundamental flaw in your analysis was an apparent
presumption that everything stated by Concerned Citizens for
Nuclear Safety and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) was
unimpeachably correct, and that any conflict with lab statements
must automatically be resolved in favor of the critics. Every
assertion in this business must be scrutinized, not just those from
the institution you view as the bad guys.
The statement
that contamination is “poised to move from Rio Grande toward
Buckman Wells” is an extremely problematic statement. Only
one canyon (Los Alamos/Pueblo) empties into the Rio Grande above
the Buckman Wells. The contaminants in Los Alamos canyon have been
extensively documented, and the future likelihood of impairing
drinking water is remote indeed. NMED staff may choose to disagree,
of course, but they have yet to provide a scientifically convincing
argument to the contrary.
Finally, you ignored the
historical aspect of contamination problems. An unwary reader of
your article might conclude that LANL continued to pollute its
environment until very recently.
I hope you will consider
follow-up work here to inform your readership the way they deserve
and have come to expect of you.
Bernard Foy
Santa Fe, New Mexico
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A disappointing story on Los Alamos.
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