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New Mexico receives road money as part of settlement

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico has received almost $27 million from the U.S. Energy Department as part of a settlement reached over a radiation release that forced a nearly three-year shutdown at the federal government's only underground nuclear waste repository. State officials and the agency inked the agreement in early 2016 over dozens of permit violations stemming from the mishap at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad two years earlier. At the time, the total $74 million settlement was the largest ever negotiated between a state and the Energy Department. It followed months of negotiations. Gov. Susana Martinez says the settlement was meant to hold the federal government accountable and she's pleased some of the funds will go toward improving the waste transportation routes that lead to the repository.