LANL cleanup office says waste shipments to WIPP more than doubled this fiscal year
At a public forum, DOE's Los Alamos field office also defended its chromium plume system, which the state ordered to stop injecting.
LOS ALAMOS - The U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos cleanup office says it made 89 shipments of legacy transuranic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in fiscal year 2026, up from 43 the year before.
Stanley Pyram, acting manager of the Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office, gave the figures at a recent public forum with contractor N3B, according to a department article posted Oct. 27. "We dramatically increased waste shipments to WIPP," Pyram said.
On the hexavalent chromium plume, the article says the New Mexico Environment Department directed the office in November 2025 to stop all injections tied to its interim measure, shutting it down. "Is the IM a perfect system? No, but it supports us getting to a remediation solution for the hexavalent chromium plume," Pyram said, adding that the data show it works.
The Environment Department has told legislators the plume has spread onto Pueblo de San Ildefonso land above the state standard.
N3B water program director Stefanie Fountain said the contractor collects about 7,000 environmental samples a year. In Chaquehui Canyon, the article says, logs and rock added to stormwater controls lowered copper and PCB levels below regulatory limits.