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New Mexico Environment Department Requires  Los Alamos National Laboratory to Stop All Injection Operations into Regional Drinking Water Aquifer.

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, 26 Nov 25

In a protective move, on Friday, November 18th, the New Mexico Environment Department required the Department of Energy (DOE) to cease all injection operations of treated waters back into the sole source regional drinking water aquifer shared by Pueblo de San Ildefonso, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and others.   2025-11-18-WPD-GWQB-NMED-Withdrawal-of-Temporary-Authorization-for-DP-1835-Final and EMID-704003_EMLA-26-BF028-2-1_Resp_DP-1835_Temp_Auth_WD_112125

In October, hexavalent chromium contamination was found beneath Pueblo de San Ildefonso while LANL was drilling a new well on the Pueblo, called San Ildefonso Regional Monitoring Well 3, or SIMR-3, in Mortandad Canyon. The Pueblo and LANL share borders in the area of Mortandad Canyon. 

In Friday’s letter, the Environment Department wrote to LANL that “[S]ince 2021, DOE has neither complied with [the Environment Department’s] regulatory directives nor made substantial progress towards ensuring the protection of the regional aquifer.  The latest sampling results from SIMR-3 prove that DOE’s refusal to take appropriate steps to ensure that contamiantion does not migrate further in the regional aquifer or offsite has created the harm to the environment that [the Environment Department] sought to prevent.”

November 27, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, water