WRITER: Allison Brady, engr_media@nmsu.edu
The United States Department of Energy has awarded a $22.1 million grant to New Mexico State University’s Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center, funding the center for the next five years and further ensuring that surrounding communities feel safe living close to a radioactive waste repository.
Established in 1991, the CEMRC is part of NMSU’s College of Engineering and conducts environmental monitoring in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and other areas around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
“As New Mexico’s land-grant university, NMSU is committed to serving communities throughout our great state, well beyond our Las Cruces campus,” said David Jauregui, interim dean of the College of Engineering. “The College of Engineering has a strong tradition of environmental research that addresses challenges affecting the health and safety of New Mexicans. CEMRC exemplifies this commitment through its independent environmental monitoring, and continued investment from the Department of Energy will help sustain this important work.”
WIPP is the United States’ only geological underground nuclear waste storage facility specifically designed for the demonstration of safe storage of defense-related nuclear waste. Some of this radioactive material will take thousands of years to decay into stable products.
“All the waste is being trucked from all kinds of sites across the United States that had something to do with the production of nuclear weapons,” said Lambis Papelis, director of the CEMRC. “You have waste coming from Los Alamos National Laboratory, from Hanford, from Savannah River, from Idaho, from Oak Ridge and from Lawrence Livermore, among other sites.”
Once the waste is transferred to the facility, it is taken 2,150 feet, or almost half a mile, down into a salt mine where it is safely stored.
WIPP is extremely careful with how it stores its nuclear waste. The CEMRC is an essential part of ensuring the environment is monitored, and the people of Carlsbad are informed. Papelis said when Carlsbad was being considered as the location for WIPP, the city promised its citizens and the people of the surrounding towns that there would be continuous, fully transparent, independent monitoring so that citizens could be certain that the facility would not adversely impact the people or the environment in any way.
The CEMRC is made up of multiple teams of dedicated environmental researchers who test the area around WIPP year-round. This includes testing the air quality, water resources, soils, vegetation and people within a 100-mile radius.
To run everything on a wide scale, it takes people going out into the field to collect samples, and researchers who analyze those samples for the presence of traces of potentially hazardous radioactive and non-radioactive materials. People work to maintain the facility and work to communicate all CEMRC testing with the general population.
“This operation is expensive; it’s not cheap,” Papelis said. “Nothing that has to do with analytical work is. We have people going out and collecting samples, bringing them in, preparing the samples and analyzing the samples, then everything is written into reports. It takes a lot of people and a lot of very expensive instrumentation, and we’ve been supported since the early 90s, before WIPP had even accepted the first waste package in March of 1999, by grants through the U.S. Department of Energy.”
Over the next five years, the new grant will be used to pay the salaries of the employees of CEMRC, maintain and upgrade equipment, and purchase materials and supplies necessary to conduct their research.
“Our function is crucial for the demonstration of the safe operation of WIPP,” Papelis said. “Although other organizations, including WIPP and the New Mexico Environment Department conduct their own monitoring, they rely on commercial laboratories for data analysis and reporting. CEMRC is the only organization that is not only independent, but is also in charge of the entire monitoring process, including sample collection, preparation, analysis and reporting. In addition, our instruments and procedures allow us to report results at very low levels, not just below regulatory limits, but even below natural background. We are proud to be able to provide this service not just to the people of Carlsbad and New Mexico, but the entire nation, given that the safe operation of WIPP allows for the safe storage of defense-related radioactive waste from the entire nation.”
The College of Engineering produced an informational video about CEMRC that can be viewed here. A version in Spanish is also available.
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CUTLINE: The Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center is the part of New Mexico State University’s College of Engineering and monitors the environment in Carlsbad, New Mexico, near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Since its establishment in 1991, CEMRC monitors the air, soil, and environmental quality of the surrounding area. Khue Nguyen, a research scientist in CEMRC's environmental chemistry group, holds up a tube with a liquid sample. (NMSU photo by Vladimir Avina)
Description: A researcher holds up two tubes with a liquid sample.
CUTLINE: The United States Department of Energy awarded New Mexico State University’s Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center a $22.1 million grant to fund the center’s operations for the next five years. Alberto Valles Montano, a lab coordinator in CEMRC’s field programs group, holds up two packs of Petri dishes containing filters. (NMSU photo by Vladimir Avina)
Description: A researcher holds up two plastic packs full of Petri dishes that contain filters.
CUTLINE: Lambis Papelis is the director of New Mexico State University’s Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center, which is dedicated to monitoring the environment around the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and communicating the results of the environmental monitoring to the surrounding communities. (Courtesy photo)
Description: Head and shoulders of a man.
