Taos Pueblo manager to advise Dept. of Energy

Cherylin Atcitty, environmental manager for Taos Pueblo, has been appointed to serve as a member of the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board.

“I am thankful for this opportunity to serve as a board member. I feel honored to represent my community and to use my education and experience to promote a better future for Northern New Mexico. I look forward to working with the Department of Energy’s [DOE] Office of Environmental Management staff and learning more about the environmental issues,” Atcitty said.

The advisory board “work[s] collaboratively on recommendations to the DOE regarding environmental remediation of legacy waste at Los Alamos National Laboratory [LANL],” according to Menice B. Santistevan, executive director of the advisory board.

Atcitty, who is from the western edge of Navajo Nation in Arizona, told The Taos News that with a science background — both an undergraduate biology degree from Oklahoma Panhandle State University and a master’s degree in environmental science from West Texas A&M — she’s hoping to “be a voice to speak on behalf of the public” while “translating the DOE jargon” for the pueblo communities in Northern New Mexico.

Atcitty was nominated by Taos Pueblo Gov. Benito Sandoval.

The advisory board is one of eight such organizations, with the other seven located at major DOE facilities in places such as Hanford, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Paducah, Kentucky. The board was organized in 1998 and has 21 members and four student representatives, according to Santistevan.

Not to be confused with the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities — which is a policy- and business-oriented board with a wider mission and with members who are elected officials — the DOE advisory board is entirely focused on environmental management issues, such as legacy waste, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (a facility in Carlsbad that experienced a radioactive leak in 2014) and the budget for environmental management, Santistevan said.

Specifically, spent radioactive chemicals have been stored in various facilities at LANL since the days of the Manhattan Project, where research and development on the United States’ atomic arsenal took place during and after World War II. Because the plume from those spent chemicals is moving away from the initial boundaries of the Manhattan Project and toward pueblo communities, Atcitty said, it’s vital that people have continued input on management efforts.

A report released earlier this year by LANL’s environmental management office suggested there are more than 900 sites around the lab that could contain contamination. Cleanup efforts are estimated to cost at least $4 billion and take 20 years.

“As a DOE board, the [department] is extremely responsive to the recommendations and questions from the members,” Santistevan said, responding to the question of how the board’s recommendations are put into action.

The next meeting of the board is scheduled for 1 p.m. Jan. 25 at the Ohkay Hotel & Conference Center near Española.