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Wildfire Threatens Los Alamos Labs
1sockchuck writes "A fast-moving wildfire has closed the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), a Department of Energy facility responsible for weapons design and a vast array of research, as well as two of the world's top supercomputers. Lab officials said all radioactive and hazardous material had been accounted for and protected."
Adds an anonymous reader: "I live near LANL and apparently they have begun to evacuate the whole town. Here is some information I've received through an email chain: 'Our main concern is that the Las Conchas fire is about 3 1/2 miles from Area G, the dumpsite that has been in operation since the late 1950s/early 1960s. There are 20,000 to 30,000 55-gallons drums of plutonium contaminated waste (containing solvents, chemicals and toxic materials) sitting in fabric tents above ground. These drums are destined for WIPP. ... We understand that LANL has been working since late last night to build a fire line in Water Canyon, between the fire and Area G. ... Over the last 26 hours the fire has grown from 0 acres to about 45,000 acres – about the size of the Cerro Grande fire in 2000."
more scary atoms news?
would this seriously have made the front page on /. prior to the Japanese Tsunami?
What the frack are you fracking about? What is this "Mother Gaia" hippy bovine excrement? Anyone who thinks "Mother Gaia" is a loveey-dovey God only needs to spend a week or two alone and without supplies in a tropical rainforest or in the middle of the desert. Nature favors only the strong. The weak get eaten, starved or pushed out, never to pass their genes. Humanity is here today because we harness and exploit nature. What is this about the planet "striking back"? The planet had tried to kill us and all life many times over, even before the industrial revolution. Stop antrophomorphing the planet and stop reading hippy bullshit.
I mean, who -doesn't- want to die from easily treatable infections, live their lives in darkness and generally live like we did in the 1700s.
Wow! Way to use a false dichotomy! Nice bit of black and white thinking! I am impressed with your stunning rhetorical skills and wish to subscribe to your newsletter! How about putting 2% of our resources towards cleaning things up? I'm pretty sure that this would not cause us to "live like we did in the 1700s". After that, we're just arguing about the percentage - which is probably why you don't want to have the discussion.
That is all.