Senate committee endorses $50 million to begin cleaning abandoned uranium and other contaminated sites

Senator Jeff Steinborn presented Senate Bill 260, a funding measure aligned with the enacted budget that directs $50 million toward cleaning up abandoned uranium mine sites and performing assessments of thousands of other neglected contaminated sites across New Mexico. The committee recorded a due‑pass recommendation.

Senator Steinborn and witnesses told the committee the state has hundreds of abandoned uranium mine sites and many more non‑uranium contaminated sites — from old dry cleaners to fuel storage tanks — with no identified responsible party. The appropriation is intended to fund immediate cleanup work at selected abandoned uranium mines, to characterize up to a thousand non‑uranium neglected contaminated sites and to build a remediation pipeline that can be used to pursue responsible parties and federal funds.

John Roderick, Deputy Cabinet Secretary at the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), and Environment Secretary James Kenney supported the appropriation as a needed first step. NMED said the money will pay contractors to do remediation work and characterization, and the department will oversee the projects rather than perform physical cleanup in‑house. NMED also said it will coordinate with tribal governments where sites sit on sovereign land and pursue memorandum‑of‑agreements to let tribal partners lead cleanups when appropriate.

Witnesses noted there is an existing federal settlement (Tronox) that allocates funds to some Navajo Nation sites but that those federal funds have not addressed the full scale of contamination. Committee discussion focused on the scale of the need, the potential for the state to use its appropriation to leverage federal resources or to bring legal actions against responsible parties, and whether the appropriation should be nonreverting; the sponsor said he would follow up on the reversion language.

NMED estimated the appropriation would split roughly with a portion directed at uranium sites (wet mines can cost $8–$12 million each to remediate; dry mine cleanup is often $4–$6 million) and funds for characterizing and beginning work on up to ten neglected contaminated sites in the near term. Witnesses said roughly 3% of the appropriation would go to staffing and oversight at NMED, with the balance funding contractors for site work.

The committee voted to recommend the bill (recorded as a unanimous due pass). Supporters urged quick implementation to reduce ongoing public‑health risks in affected communities.