Cleaanup costs at the Los Alamos Laboratory, New Mexico, estimated to cost over $2 billion dollars.

Cleaning Area B, 6 acres, took 3 years and cost $212 million. Cleanup crews had no idea of the area content- they found contaminated pickup trucks among the waste.

The lab complex covers 40 square miles.
Area G, 63 acres, is full of barrels of plutonium-bearing waste, and is of grave concern to the state. Underneath the area are canals to drain leakage, a concern to groundwater.
Authorities have no idea of the contents of many areas, since no records were kept.

In addition to the large on-site area needing cleanup, in the early days, radioactive runoff from experiments was allowed to run over the cliffs and into canyons and streams.

$358 million asked for the next part of cleanup was pared to $185 million by Congress, well below the amount needed to fill the next consent decree.

No doubt a large area in northern New Mexico will suffer for centuries.

The area abuts Indian pueblos, and prime tourist, forest and traditional and licensed hunting and trout-fishing grounds, as well as the town of Los Alamos.

"Los Alamos Under Renewed Pressure to Remove Dangerous Toxic Wastes." Associated Press, October 1, 2011, Jeri Clausing.