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New Mexico Rebukes Federal Agency Over Nuclear Waste at Los Alamos

State environmental regulators will also fine the Energy Department up to $16 million for exceeding safe groundwater standards near the nuclear lab.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/us/new-mexico-los-alamos-nuclear-waste-fines.html

11.2.2026

#aquifer #Atombombe #Atomkraft #Atommüll #groundwater #Grundwasser #Kernenergie #LANL #landfill #LosAlamos #NewMexico #NuclearWaste #pollution #USA #WIPP

Drinking water protections:

By Ben Szalinski and Brenden Moore, Capital News Illinois

“Illinois Senate Bill 1723 bans #carbon #sequestration — the process of capturing and storing carbon by injecting it underground — within an area that “overlies, underlies, or passes through” a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-designated sole-source aquifer. #EPA

The new law applies to the footprint of the #Mahomet #Aquifer, which is the main source of drinking water for more than 500,000 people across a 15-county area in central Illinois.

It comes as Illinois, especially downstate, is targeted for carbon sequestration projects due to the state’s favorable geology and the availability of federal tax credits.

Studies, including those conducted by researchers at the #universityofillinois have found minimal risk to water sources from sequestration activity.

But the legislation was a priority for central Illinois community #activists #environmental advocates and a bipartisan cadre of local lawmakers with zero risk tolerance due to the lack of a clear alternative water source if the aquifer were tainted.”

💧 Aggressive groundwater and the long memory of contamination

Even after more than a decade of monitoring, the groundwater in this carbonate aquifer remains undersaturated with respect to calcite — consistently showing negative SI values across nearly all observation wells.

This means that the system is still chemically aggressive toward limestone, slowly dissolving the host rock.
The impoundment, operating since 1976, continues to influence the aquifer — with the geometry of possible subsurface voids still uncertain to this day.

📘 All supporting data and modeling results are included in the draft monograph:
🔗 https://zenodo.org/records/16741148

🧪 Data & visualization: PHREEQC + R + QGIS

#Hydrogeochemistry #Geochemistry #MineWater #Groundwater #PHREEQC #EnvironmentalGeoscience #IndependentResearch #OpenScience #QGIS #RStats #Aquifer #Zenodo #SvystunovaGully #GroundwaterContamination #FOSS