New funding for an old mess could mean hundreds of jobs for Northern New Mexico in this ailing economy.

About $6 billion in funds for defense-related environmental cleanups made it into the final version of the economic stimulus bill that now awaits final Congressional approval.

Some of that money will likely go to New Mexico's national laboratories for projects to clean up legacy waste — which is nuclear and hazardous waste created during and after the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.

And that could greatly help Northern New Mexico, said U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat.

"This bill contains significant funding for environmental cleanup, some of which will undoubtedly be directed to Los Alamos National Laboratory," Bingaman said.

Those funds won't just help the environment, they could also create hundreds of jobs in the Los Alamos area, said Jude McCartin, a spokeswoman for Bingaman.

"This is good news," McCartin said. "It takes care of some long-standing issues and also creates good jobs."

The lab has several "sizable" shovel-ready proposals it submitted to the National Nuclear Security Administration as details of the stimulus package were being put together, said Kevin Roark, a lab spokesman.

When asked how much is needed for either the projects in the stimulus package or in total for cleanup at the lab, Roark said, "I can't be specific about the money."

He added that details, at least for stimulus project funding, should be available sometime after the bill passes.

If projects submitted by the lab are chosen by NNSA, then decontamination, demolition of old waste sites and other work could lead to "several hundred jobs" in the area, he said.

"These jobs would be boots on the ground," Roark said.

Still, Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a watchdog organization, said he isn't convinced that whatever funds make it for cleanup in New Mexico will be sufficient to make any real progress in cleaning up waste at the lab.

Total costs for cleanup at the lab could be "in the low billions," Mello said. "You could spend all the cleanup money from that package at Los Alamos."

He's also concerned that if cleanup activities are done too quickly, some contamination could be missed and later ignored by the Department of Energy, Mello said.

"There's lots of transuranic and mixed waste there, of unknown character, in shallow unlined pits," Mello said. "If one wanted to make that waste stable and inaccessible to human and biological intrusion, it's going to cost some money."

But, that said, he does find it hopeful that the government is paying more attention to cleanup activities in general.

"There's paralysis at the Department of Energy, and this might be a hopeful sign," Mello said.

Contact Sue Vorenberg at svorenberg@sfnewmexican.com.