Environmental Groups File Lawsuit Against EPA Over Los Alamos Storm Water Pollution
The environmental group Amigos Bravos has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding storm water pollution in Los Alamos County, downstream from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
An article by AP News states “The groups claim the runoff contains heavy metals, byproducts from decaying radioactive elements and manmade chemicals known as PCBs. They say some of the pollutants are more than 10,000 times public safety limits and should be considered a threat to public health.”
In July, the New Mexico Political Report published an article saying Amigos Bravos filed a petition with the EPA in 2014. In June 2019, five years after the initial petition, the water conservation group, along with the Western Environmental Law Center, filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA over its failure to act.
“It’s been 1,833 days since we petitioned,” Rachel Conn, projects director at Amigos Bravos, said to the New Mexico Political Report in July. “Under the regulations, they are supposed to respond within 180 days. So, we are close to two thousand days overdue.”
The lawsuit was filed late Monday, Sept. 16, and AP reported that “the groups say the pollution should have triggered federal action to reduce or eliminate discharges through permit requirements but that the EPA failed to act.”
In a commentary by Amigos Bravos for KRWG Public Media, they said The New Mexico Environment Department’s date shows excesses of the state’s PCB human health water quality limits. For example, PCB levels in Los Alamos Canyon are “more than 11,000 times greater than the New Mexico Human Health Water Quality criteria and 51 times greater than the New Mexico Wildlife Habitat water quality criteria.”
The commentary continued by saying that the EPA published a preliminary designation in 2015 stating that the 2014 petition by Amigos Bravos should be granted but no action was taken.
Read more about storm water pollution and the EPA.
About the Author
Katie Johns
Katie Johns, editor-in-chief of Stormwater Solutions, graduated from the University of Missouri in 2016 with a Bachelor of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. Johns joined the Stormwater Solutions team in September 2019. Johns also helps plan the annual StormCon conference and co-hosts the Talking Under Water podcast. Prior to entering the B2B industry, she worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in Sarasota, Florida, and a magazine assistant editor in the Chicago suburbs. She can be reached at [email protected].