Wildfire Spreads to Within One Mile of Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab
June 28th, 2011Update: 30,000 55-gallon Drums of Plutonium-Contaminated Waste, Stored in Fabric Tents Above Ground [???]
Via: AP:
The anti-nuclear watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, however, said the fire appeared to be about 3 1/2 miles from a dumpsite where as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were stored in fabric tents above ground. The group said the drums were awaiting transport to a low-level radiation dump site in southern New Mexico.
Lab spokesman Steve Sandoval declined to confirm that there were any such drums currently on the property. He acknowledged that low-level waste is at times put in drums and regularly taken from the lab to the Waste Isolation Pilot Project site in Carlsbad.
Sandoval said the fire was “quite a bit away” from that storage area. But he could not say what would happen if drums containing such waste were to burn.
—End Update—
Via: Reuters:
A raging wildfire has spread to within one mile of the nation’s preeminent nuclear weapons facility, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, authorities said on Monday.
The blaze has grown to 43,597 acres and caused the evacuation of hundreds of people, with thousands encouraged to evacuate voluntarily.
Wish I could say No worries cause I’ve been there.
Saw the burn on the ridge from a former fire. Los Alamos is dear to my heart. People I’ve met there were really, really, really trying to do the right things with what they had on hand.
Can’t believe that I’ve met humans who work at Los Alamos. Goddess bless you each and every one.
May the fires burn low, go out with a sigh, and all of you there be saved from harm.
There is a level of karmic irony with this situation as well as the nuclear facilities on the flooding Missouri river. Downstream, about 200 miles, is Kansas City. Radioactive water could be released down stream.
Kansas City is home to the The Kansas City Plant. It is National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) facility managed and operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies that produces 85 percent of the nonnuclear material used in the United States nuclear bomb arsenal. The facility is the dominant tenant in Bannister Federal Complex in Kansas City, Missouri. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_Plant
The production of plutonium pit primaries or “triggers” is at Los Alamos, NM, and thermonuclear uranium “secondaries” at Oak Ridge, TN. But these nuclear components can only become deliverable weapons of mass destruction when combined with the thousands of nonnuclear components that the Kansas City Plant (KCP) produces or procures (e.g, radars, fuzes, parachutes, guidance systems, etc.). In all, KCP is responsible for 85% of all nuclear weapons components, and makes thousands of shipments each year to other NNSA sites for final assembly of nuclear weapons. http://www.nukewatch.org/KCNukePlant/
I know all this to be true. I interviewed there when the Bush administration ‘found’ the aluminum tubes and fabricated the yellow cake stories of Iraq.
Driving to the interview that morning was picturesque. The suburban homes surrounding the complex where sunny. Moms pushing babies in strollers, birds chirping, flower gardens landscaped with lush green lawns. The parking lots at the Bannister Federal Complex where packed. Hardly a place to
park. I was told later the thousands of down to earth, mid-west employees where frantically working an order for bunker buster bombs. An Israeli order it is rumored.
I did not take the lucrative job offer. Aside from my adversion to nuclear weapons, I was told that for months I would have been escorted by agent/guard even to the bathroom. And one of my favorite things in life is to pee.
At least I got to visit my kin folk in KC with a ‘free’ airplane ride.