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Fed Contractors to Start Cleanup from 'Manhattan Project'

(Information from: Los Alamos Monitor, http://www.lamonitor.com) LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — U.S. Department of Energy contractors are scheduled to start removing toxic contaminated soil in northern New Mexico leftover the Manhattan Project and early atomic Cold War research. The Los Alamos Monitor reports work is expected to begin this week on the south-facing slopes of Los Alamos Canyon. Officials say the contaminated soils eventually will be shipped to a permanent area once tested. The Los Alamos Canyon cleanup is one of many included in a 2016 consent order signed in last month between the New Mexico Environment Department and the U.S. Department of Energy. During the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos scientists worked to develop the atomic bomb later dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The program also involved facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington.