With Congress playing a vital role in the U.S. Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup efforts, congressional Senate committee staff members recently visited Los Alamos National Laboratory to see and learn more about the legacy cleanup mission. September 9, 2025
Office of Environmental Management
September 9, 2025
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Staff from the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and New Mexico staffers with Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office toured Mortandad Canyon to view interim measures to prevent migration of a hexavalent chromium plume from the Los Alamos National Laboratory boundary and to treat contaminated groundwater. The group also learned about how well drilling plays a critical part in further defining the plume.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — With Congress playing a vital role in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) environmental cleanup efforts, congressional Senate committee staff members recently visited Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to see and learn more about the legacy cleanup mission.
The visit included staff members from the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, of which Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico serves as ranking member. The committee has DOE oversight responsibilities. The committee staff was joined by New Mexico field office representatives for Heinrich.
The visitors learned about the major aspects of the LANL legacy cleanup mission: protecting water quality, cleaning up contaminated soil and safely disposing of remaining radioactive waste from nuclear weapons development and research during the Manhattan Project and Cold War era.
“We appreciate the strong support of Congress for the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) and our work here at LANL,” said Jessica Kunkle, manager, EM Los Alamos Field Office (EM-LA). “It was important to show the committee staffers and local Senator Heinrich staff what we do to safely, efficiently, effectively and transparently advance our legacy cleanup mission.”
Inside Dome 375 at Technical Area 54, Area G, Brian Clayman, Contact-Handled Transuranic Program manager for Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos LLC, provides an overview of current legacy waste operation activities. The tour stop focused on legacy waste characterization and certification, along with operations to remove items from transuranic waste drums that do not meet the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s waste acceptance criteria.
EM-LA and Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos LLC (N3B), the legacy cleanup contractor at LANL, took the staffers to Mortandad Canyon to view efforts to control and address a hexavalent chromium groundwater plume. EM-LA and N3B are operating an interim extraction, treatment and injection system to prevent migration of the plume beyond the LANL boundary and remove the contaminant.
The staffers also toured Technical Area 54, Area G to see how legacy transuranic waste is prepared for disposition at EM’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. A stop at Technical Area 21 enabled the group to better understand challenging future remediation projects at the location that housed former LANL plutonium processing facilities.
“It’s important for all those with a stake in the legacy cleanup here at LANL to learn more about the challenges we’re tackling, how we’re making progress in cleanup and, most importantly, how we are focused on doing our work safely,” N3B President and General Manager Brad Smith said. “We’re grateful for the staffers’ time and effort to come out to LANL, and we appreciate the opportunity to show our continued success for DOE and the residents of northern New Mexico.”
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