Three gauges at canyons upstream from a regional water supply project will provide real-time reports about storm events to the control room at the Buckman Direct Diversion Project.

The flow gauges in Los Alamos and Pueblo canyons will trigger an automatic sampling process that will be used to check for contamination in water through laboratory tests.

But more immediately, the system will likely employ remote measuring technology to alert diversion operators to the presence of runoff that could carry radioactive pollution downstream into the Rio Grande from Los Alamos National Laboratory property, giving them time to shut down the system to avoid water-quality problems.

Although the early warning system that's now envisioned for the project is not exactly what Rick Carpenter, the diversion project manager, asked the federal government to provide, he called recent negotiations a "significant step" toward a satisfactory system.

Construction on some parts of the detection system has already begun, while other details are still being worked out. For example, project planners still want video cameras at the gauges and have asked for real-time rain reports from an existing network of lab sensors, he said.

But, "We are more or less in agreement," Carpenter said. "We had a Cadillac in mind and they had something less than a Cadillac in mind."

The lab has also applied for a grant that would pay for an independent peer review about potential contamination of the public regional drinking water system and has undertaken more monitoring from samples collected at Otowi bridge and the diversion site.

The Department of Energy and lab officials have not committed to other requests from water project planners that were made as early as 2007, however. Regional officials, for example, say the lab should bear the cost of monitoring for contaminants in sediment removed from the river as well as water that is drawn from it for at least the early years of the project's operation.

Project planners are also demanding that lab stop the migration of contaminants to the Rio Grande and groundwater.

LANL's contamination mostly comes from work in the 1940s and 50s and waste disposed of under that era's standards. The so-called "legacy waste" was in many cases buried or leaked onto soil. Cleanup and monitoring efforts continue at the 37-acre lab and on nearby land.

Several citizen groups that advocate for nuclear safety and water quality have been following the negotiations between the lab and the project managers. They requested a study of exposure and risk associated with contaminated drinking water and have raised additional concerns about the proposed scope of work for the review.

The lab expects the funding for the peer review to become available in about two months, according to a staff memo.

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.