LANL begins soil sampling in Los Alamos

The Associated Press
Article Launched: 09/25/2008 05:25:21 PM MDT

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.—Los Alamos National Laboratory has started sampling soil in the northern New Mexico community of Los Alamos under a consent order with the state Environment Department.

The lab said the sampling effort is an environmental assessment of areas that have been or could have been affected by lab operations from the days of the Manhattan Project to the early 1970s.

Lab officials say they don't expect to find contaminants at levels that pose any risk to human health or the environment because most parts of the Upper Los Alamos Canyon area have been investigated in the past and soil removed from some areas.

Should any samples indicate a risk, the lab said those areas will be cleaned up in coordination with the state and the U.S. Department of Energy.