About Us
The Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring & Research Center (CEMRC) is a division of the College of Engineering at New Mexico State University. This 26,000 ft2 facility includes environmental and radiochemistry laboratories, an in vivo bioassay facility, computing operations, and offices. The facility can perform a wide range of environmental and radiochemistry work, characterization, monitoring, and feasibility studies in support of performance assessment, radiological and environmental training and education, subsurface flow and transport experiments, nuclear energy issues, and issues involving Homeland Security particularly those involving radiation dispersal devices (RDDs or dirty bombs). CEMRC has partnered with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) M&O to create a unique facility with programs that include: environmental monitoring of almost any radiological and inorganic constituent, actinide chemistry and repository science particularly concerning the environmental behavior of Pu, Am, and U, dirty bomb mitigation research and training particularly for 137 Cs and 60 Co, in vivo and in vitro bioassay, whole body dosimetry, military small arms range clean-up, evaluation and design of innovative treatment technologies, and soil, water, air, and waste characterization.
The U.S. Department of Energy Carlsbad Field Office (DOE CBFO) operates WIPP near Carlsbad, New Mexico, as a repository site for transuranic (TRU) waste generated as part of the nuclear defense research and production activities of the federal government. The CEMRC facility and staff provide support to WIPP, LANL, SNL, and the WIPP M&O primarily through site and environmental monitoring, in vivo bioassay, and scientific and laboratory support.