About the Board:
The Northern New Mexico
Citizens' Advisory Board (NNMCAB) is a community advisory group that was chartered in 1997
to provide citizen input to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on issues of environmental
monitoring, remediation, waste management, and long-term environmental stewardship
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Regarding LANL:
The
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is located in
Los Alamos, New Mexico on 28,000 acres in Los Alamos and Santa Fe
counties of north-central New Mexico, approximately 60 miles northeast
of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 25 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New
Mexico. LANL is a multi-program national laboratory with research and
development programs in a broad range of scientific and technical
fields. The laboratory was established in 1943 to design, develop, and
test nuclear weapons. Many of the laboratory’s operations required
hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials, such as plutonium and
uranium. Use of these materials resulted in the contamination of
facilities, and in some cases, the surrounding environment.
The U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) Office of EM program at LANL’s primary
functions are to: (1) cleanup contaminated sites on Los Alamos
National Laboratory and surrounding private and government-owned lands
to levels appropriate for the intended land use; (2) protect and
monitor the regional aquifer; (3) decontaminate and decommission
excess facilities affecting environmental restoration actions; (4)
retrieve legacy transuranic wastes and ship it to the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant; and (5) conduct long-term surveillance and monitoring,
until turned over to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a
semiautonomous agency within the DOE. Completion of phases of this
project is scheduled through 2015.
Community Involvement:
Advisory
Board meetings serve as a two-way exchange between members of the
public and DOE. They always include a public comment and
question/answer period through which you can voice your issues or
submit written questions. DOE responds to the comments and considers
them during decision-making.
You don't have to be a formal CAB member to serve on a committee or come to a Board
meeting. To get involved call the CAB office at (505) 989-1662. The staff can direct you
to the next meeting that interests you.
If you have any suggestions on
how we can better serve New Mexico--
Please let us know.
