ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Energy says it won’t be able to meet a June 30 deadline for getting the waste from decades of nuclear bomb-building off Los Alamos National Laboratory’s northern New Mexico campus.
In a statement Friday, the department said it has notified the New Mexico Environment Department that it can’t move the last of thousands of barrels of waste until officials are sure it is safe to do so.
A canister shipped from Los Alamos to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project has been linked to a radiation release Feb. 14 at the underground repository in southeastern New Mexico. Officials are investigating whether hundreds of other barrels at the New Mexico nuclear dump, Los Alamos and at a West Texas site are at risk.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.