Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy nuclear contamination in Los Alamos. Los Alamos is the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons.
     Michael Ketterer is a Northern Arizona University professor emeritus. He analyzed soil, water and vegetation samples taken along a popular hiking and biking trail in Acid Canyon. He said last Thursday that there were more extreme concentrations of plutonium found there than at any other publicly accessible sites he has researched in his decades-long career. That includes contamination of land around the federal gvernment’s former weapons plant at Rocky Flats in Colorado.
     Michael Ketterer specializes in tracking the chemical fingerprints of radioactive materials. Outdoor enthusiasts may not be in immediate danger while traveling through the pine tree-lined canyon. However, Ketterer said state and local officials should be warning people to avoid coming in contact with water in Acid Canyon.
     Ketterer said, “This is an unrestricted area. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in the United States. It’s just an extreme example of very high concentrations of plutonium in soils and sediments. Really, you know, the contamination is hiding in plain sight.”
     Ketterer teamed up with the group Nuclear Watch New Mexico to gather the samples in July. July is a rainy period that often results in isolated downpours and stormwater runoff coursing through canyons and otherwise dry arroyos. Water was flowing through Acid Canyon when the samples were taken from water and soil.
     Ketterer’s work followed mapping done by the group earlier this year that was based on a Los Alamos National Laboratory database including plutonium samples from throughout the area.
     Jay Coghlan is the director of Nuclear Watch. He said the detection of high levels of plutonium in the heart of Los Alamos is a concern. Especially as the lab gears up to begin producing the next generation of plutonium pits for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The Los Alamos laboratory is under the direction of Congress, the U.S. Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration. He stated that Acid Canyon is a place where more comprehensive cleanup should have happened decades ago.

Coghlan said that “Cleanup at Los Alamos is long delayed.” He added that annual spending for the plutonium pit work has neared two billion dollars in recent years while the cleanup budget for legacy waste is expected to decrease in the next fiscal year.
     Acid Canyon is among the tributaries that eventually pass through San Ildefonso Pueblo lands on their way to the Rio Grande. From 1943 to 1964, liquid wastes from nuclear research at the lab was piped into the canyon.
     The federal government began cleaning up Acid Canyon in the late 1960s. The land was eventually transferred to Los Alamos County. Officials decided in the 1980s that conditions within Acid Canyon met DOE standards and were protective of human health and the environment.
     The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management at Los Alamos said Thursday that it was preparing a response to Ketterer’s findings.
     Ketterer and Coghlan said the concerns about contamination now are the continued downstream migration of plutonium, absorption by plants and the creation of contaminated ash following wildfires.
     Ketterer described it as a problem that cannot be fixed. However, he said the residents and visitors would appreciate knowing that it’s there.

     Ketterer said, “It really can’t be undone, I suppose we could go into Acid Canyon and start scooping out a lot more contaminated stuff and keep doing that. It’s kind of like trying to pick up salt that’s been thrown into a shag carpet. It’s crazy to think you’re going to get it all.”