LANL's Remediation Services project was established in 1989 as part of a Department of Energy nation-wide program. The project's purpose is to investigate where hazardous chemicals and/or radioactive wastes are present as a result of past LANL operations and to clean up and restore such sites.

These sites are called potential release sites. Contamination originated from septic tanks and lines, chemical storage areas, wastewater outfalls (the area below a pipe that drains wastewater), material disposal areas (landfills), incinerators, firing ranges and their impact areas, surface spills, and electric transformers. Potential release sites are found on mesa tops, in material disposal areas, in canyons, and in a few areas in the Los Alamos townsite.

Since its inception, the project has reduced the number of potential release sites requiring further action from the original total of 2,100 sites by over 60%. This has been accomplished by remediating sites that were found to be contaminated; by evaluating sites and confirming that their impact on human health, plants and animals, and the environment is acceptable; and by combining similar sites into units.