NMED Requires LANL to Stop All Injection Operations into Regional Drinking Water Aquifer

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 contamination does not migrate further in the regional aquifer or offsite has created the harm to the environment that [the Environment Department] sought to prevent.”

Further, “DOE’s actions, as well as its inactions, in ignoring [the Environment Department’s] years-long insistence that DOE comply with regulations, look at the alarming contaminant trends, and take actions to reduce and reverse the contaminant trends, show that DOE apparently does not value preservation of the sole source regional aquifer, and instead prioritizes costs and effort minimization to the detriment of the environment and human health.”

The Environment Department’s strong language enforces why we must raise our voices in support of thorough cleanup of LANL watersheds and the dumps located near or in them. The contaminant pathways to the regional aquifer have been established.  They cannot be ignored.  They must be addressed now.

The New Mexico Environment Department permit that allows LANL to extract contaminated waters from the aquifer for treatment and to inject the treated waters back into the aquifer is called Discharge Permit 1835, or DP-1835.

CCNS led the Communities for Clean Water (CCW) effort for a more protective DP-1835 permit.  Together we participated in the early negotiations, in public meetings and provided public education materials.  We argued for lower chromium standards.  The permit requires LANL to comply with chromium standards that are less than 90 percent of New Mexico’s numeric standard of 0.05 milligrams per liter (mg/l) – or set at or less than 0.045 milligrams per liter (mg/l).  We celebrate the change as it sets a precedent for more protective chromium standards for other water quality permits.  2016-08-21 – WPD GWQB DP-1835 Final DP

1. Thursday, November 27^th from 10 am to 3 pm – Thanksgiving Potluck at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard Drive SE, Albuquerque at the intersection of Harvard and Silver. https://www.abqpeaceandjustice.org/events/at-the-center

2. Friday, November 28th from noon to 1 pm – Join the nuclear disarmament community at the intersection of East Alameda and Sandoval in Santa Fe for the weekly peaceful protest in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Join with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, New Mexico Peace Fest, Pax Christi and others. Bring your flags, signs and banners.

3. Watch A House of Dynamite on Netflix. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a resource guide to viewing “A House of Dynamite.”  https://thebulletin.org/2025/10/a-bulletin-resource-guide-to-viewing-a-house-of-dynamite/

4. Tuesday, December 2^nd at 7 pm at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos – An Evening With: The Nagasaki Hibakusha Friendship Association.  Chiyoko Motomura and Dr. Masao Tomonaga will speak about their childhood memories of the 1945 bombings, the lessons learned from those events and how to move forward in more constructive ways of peacemaking and diplomacy.  https://ladailypost.com/lanl-and-community-invited-to-attend-historic-talk-by-two-survivors-from-nagasaki-dec-2-at-fuller-lodge/

5. Friday, December 5^th from 3 to 5 pm – Healing Sacred Relations: Counter-Mapping Nuclear Colonialism in New Mexico for launch of the Story Map in the Frank Waters Room in UNM’s Zimmerman Library.  A cross-disciplinary, cross-departmental collaboration between Faculty and Students in UNM Department of Art [Art & Ecology RAVEL Spring 2025, lead by Kaitlin Bryson and Rachel Bordeleau] and UNM Geography & Environmental Studies Department [Critical Cartography Fall 2025, lead by Tybur Casuse].  Students and Faculty from both courses worked closely and collaboratively with our community partners:  Communities for Clean Water, Tewa Women United, Honor Our Pueblo Existence, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety and the Northern New Mexico College and Northern Stewards Program.  Refreshments provided.

6. Monday, December 8^th – Last Day to register for YUCCA’s We Got Us Bootcamp or Youth Summit. In January, YUCCA will host We Got Us –a weekend of training, solidarity and collective action that will culminate in a mass mobilization at the State Capitol on the Opening day of the 2026 Legislative Session.  https://www.yuccanm.org/post/we-got-us-train-up-and-take-action-with-us-in-january

7. Saturday, December 13^th through Monday, December 15^th from 11 am to 3 pm – Site Santa Fe is hosting Exposure: Portraits at the Edge of the Nuclear

As part of the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX), Diné artist Will Wilson invites participants with lived, inherited, or visionary relationships to nuclear culture—uranium mining, atomic testing, environmental cleanup, and speculative futures—for a portrait session using the historic wet plate collodion process.

Created on-site at SITE SANTA FE, these tintype portraits become a living archive of those who have been affected by, have resisted, or continue to dream through the legacy of nuclear colonialism. Wilson’s process foregrounds Indigenous visual sovereignty and ecological witnessing, positioning photography as a relational act and a tool for historical redress.

On the 13th and 14th they will have a discussion at 2pm where activists (including Terry on Sunday and Laura on Saturday) will discuss current nuclear affairs.  https://www.sitesantafe.org/en/events/exposure-portraits-at-the-edge-of-the-nuclear/

Tags: CCNS, CCW, Communities for Clean Water, Department of Energy, Discharge Permit 1835, DOE, DP-1835, hexavalent chromium, LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mortandad Canyon, New Mexico Environment Department, NMED, Pueblo de San Ildefonso, San Ildefonso Regional Monitoring Well 3, SIMR-3