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Report: Lab Chemicals Threaten Rio Grande
by Kelly Paik, August 26, 2004

Adding to a series of problems facing UC-managed Los Alamos National Laboratory, a report released last week found that low concentrations of high explosives and other chemicals from the lab are present in the springs that lead to the Rio Grande.

Independent hydrologist George Rice's report shows that chemicals such as tritium and perchlorate are seeping into the river, which is used as drinking water by 10 million people.

Concentrations of the chemicals are low, but the rate at which the chemicals are moving toward the river is alarming, said Joni Arends , executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, the organization sponsoring Rice's research.

“We need to take steps to protect the Rio Grande because we use it for farming, drinking and recreation,” Arends said.

The concentrations of chemicals are not high enough to trigger any immediate clean-up but they are “fast-moving,” said Jon Goldstein, spokesperson for the New Mexico Environment Department.

“This is a canary in a coal mine of more dangerous things ahead,” Goldstein said.

Previous reports from the lab estimated that it would take hundreds to thousands of years for the chemicals to reach the Rio Grande .

But Rice's report states that the chemicals can take as little as 26 years to travel there.

The discrepancy in the timeline of the chemical travel stems from the lab using different estimation methods, Rice said.

But laboratory officials said they will be developing an updated model for time transport to estimate how long it takes the chemicals to travel, said Kevin Roark, Los Alamos lab spokesperson.

Roark also said that Los Alamos laboratory may not be the the source of the contaminants.

“Perchlorate is found all over the country in varying amounts,” Roark said. “Finding the exact source is an issue.”

Roark said the only possible source of high amounts of perchlorate is in high explosive research areas, but the lab has filtration systems that clean up the waste in these areas.

In the past, the laboratory denied any possibility that it could contaminate the Rio Grande because the lab's waste sites are located in areas that should not empty into the river, or any of its feeders, Goldstein said. But in the last decade, the lab has found that chemicals have been moving out of its waste sites.

Rice wants Los Alamos to keep a close eye on the springs and to clean up the ground water near the lab.

In reaction to Rice's report, as well as its own findings, the New Mexico Environment Department created a fence-to-fence clean-up order, which will be imposed on the laboratory once it is finalized, said Goldstein.

“There's 18 million cubic feet of waste buried in Los Alamos ,” Arends said. “The University of California has a responsibility to clean that up.”

The UC Office of the President declined to comment.

Originally published in the Daily Californian.

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