Despite recent mediation efforts, state officials say the U.S. Department of Energy is still delaying an agreement that would update the plans and timelines to clean up the hexavalent chromium plume that has lingered beneath Los Alamos National Laboratory for decades.
No cleanup work has been underway since November 2025.
The plume, a byproduct of LANL activities between 1956 and 1972 that led to chromium-contaminated water seeping beneath Sandia and Mortandad canyons, is a mile long and over 2,000 feet wide — and it has moved…