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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."
Quick! Move all the old junk in "The Black Hole" to a safe location:
http://www.blackholesurplus.com/
Sheldon
It's not the first time, it won't be the last.
more scary atoms news?
would this seriously have made the front page on /. prior to the Japanese Tsunami?
You don't know where Los Alamos is?
So you don't know where the world's first atomic bomb was developed and built. You need to work on that. Or learn to Google.
There is a fire very close to Los Alamos National Laboratory. They have begun to evacuate the whole town. Here is some info from someone on the ground: 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.
From The Fine Article: "The lab is about 35 miles from Santa Fe." Santa Fe is also the capital of New Mexico. If you can't click a link or Google then I won't waste my time to suggest that you to step away from the keyboard pick read a book. It wouldn't have taken much more time than to click the AC box. Pussy.
The fire danger has never been higher. Some places make it against the law to even smoke outside. Over the past month there have been days when we've been inundated with smoke from the wildfires in Arizona. It is hot, dry, and windy.
You would think that selling and setting off fireworks would also be illegal this year (it is usually allowed for a week before and after July 4th, but this hasn't stopped people from lauching fireworks whenever they want to) yet there are huge tents in the parking lots of all the grocery stores selling fireworks. The reason is that in New Mexico there is a state law that makes it illegal for communities to ban the sale and use of fireworks. Instead of working to fix this crazy law, the governor asked New Mexicans to "exercise caution and restraint when it comes to using fireworks."
Is this a great state or what?
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I was up in the mountains about 7 miles away when it started... It's ridiculously dry right now, high winds, and high temps. All that's going to be possible is evacuating people. The bad thing is it's going in the opposite direction of the 2000 fire, so there's plenty of fuel. The Bandalier National park has had about half of it's area burned so far as of earlier today. Thoughts and prayers to all who are in its path.
Back before the damn hippies forced us to can Project Plowshare we would have just dusted off a couple of bits and pieces from the back room and showed that fire what a real man's 'controlled burn' looks like. Kids these days. A few trees catch fire and they run around panicking. In my day, 'threat' meant 50 MIRVed megatons return-addressed 'Ivan', not an overgrown burn pit.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NMFires2011#p/u
The lab was closed today and will be again tomorrow, and the townsite started voluntary evacuations last night. It turned into a mandatory evacuation this afternoon.
Luckily, I have some friends to stay with in Santa Fe.
Posted from the wireless couch.
They set fires every once in a while to smoke out Chinese spies.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's as if Mother Gaia is giving us arrogant humans a lesson about overreaching our abilities. :) Maybe we need to dismantle all nuclear power, and just learn to live with less electricity in general. Think about the first word: reduce, reuse, recycle. Make no mistake: continue abusing the planet and the planet will strike back. Hard.
Someone's been getting stoned and watching Captain Planet again...
GIFY.
There, FTYF (sic)...
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
ANOTHER potential disaster threatening a facility with major nuclear equipment ? oh my.
Read radical news here
I live at San Ildefonso Pueblo. Los Alamos National Lab is within our aboriginal land rights/claims. We have "Sacred Areas" that abut Los Alamos. While our geographic aims may diverge, I can think of no other people I would like up at the "Hill" (we are at 5500 feet and Los Alamos is over 7000 feet) than the security forces at Los Alamos as well as the firefighters that have come from all over (including many Native Americans). May the Lord protect them and the fire abate. Excuse me, I must pack in case we need to evacuate....
Right, because clearly -everything- was better in the pre-industrial, pre-scientific age. 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.
Go ahead and live your life worshiping the earth, no one is stopping you. For the rest of us, it makes a lot more sense to continue to increase our standard of living.
I can guarantee you that all the natural disasters that happened this year put together has a much smaller death toll than what the death toll would be from life in the pre-industrial, pre-scientific age.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yeah, we should go back to basics. We don't need all the power-using machinery to provide our modern conveniences. Why look at the ancient Greeks! They lived a lot like we do today (*), without even inventing a practical steam engine, and not for lack of knowledge, either. They just didn't need to, what with all the slaves and all..
*as long as you weren't a slave. And owned land. And slaves....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
That the "radioactive and hazardous material" had to be accounted for and protected? Shouldn't the statement have read that such materials, as always, were secure?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
You would not want to live in a world where "Mother Gaia" is given priority over human needs. Most of your ancestors did not have a choice between scarcity or abundance- I imagine many of them did not live to your age. They were welcomed back to the bosom of "Mother Gaia".
Nature does not care about you or me. Your benefactors are our fellow wo/man. They are the ones that saw that you survived your birth, they are the ones who fill your belly every day. They are the ones who build that excellent shelters we live in, complete with hot or cold air, depending on your preference, clean water and 52' flat screen porn on demand.
"Mother Gaia" pffft! We all we got.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Was I the only one rooting for the polluters on that show? I think it was the whiny little "heart" punk that did it for me, every week I just hoped one of the bad guys would bury that little twerp in toxic waste or plutonium or something.
as for TFA, what's the odds this waste can blow up? I'm not talking nuclear China syndrome kinda blow up, but I'm betting plenty of those chemicals are also flammable. Radioactive smoke and chemical fires don't sound too good. So anybody know if what they stored there is at risk of going boom?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
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.
You try it first and we'll watch how you go.
"You need to work on that. Or learn to Google."
Thanks, I just did.
http://www.google.lu/search?q=%22Los+Alamos%22+stolen
Security must be awesome there.
Was I the only one rooting for the polluters on that show? I think it was the whiny little "heart" punk that did it for me, every week I just hoped one of the bad guys would bury that little twerp in toxic waste or plutonium or something.
I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
as for TFA, what's the odds this waste can blow up? I'm not talking nuclear China syndrome kinda blow up, but I'm betting plenty of those chemicals are also flammable. Radioactive smoke and chemical fires don't sound too good. So anybody know if what they stored there is at risk of going boom?
It doesn't have to go boom to be really, really bad. Just poof!
Inhaled plutonium has a habit of causing lung cancers, plutonium laced ash settling on food crops or preparation surfaces can cause gut cancers, and then there's plutonium's nasty habit of accumulating in bone marrow, so if there is anything containing plutonium that can burn or boil it could cause some pretty toxic fallout.
We can take comfort in the fact that the waste in question is being stored outside, above ground, in tents; which suggests that it's probably not very likely that any highly radioactive waste is at risk -tents not being renowned for their security or radiological enclosure qualities.
So what you're saying is... These fires were set by some pyro to check for spies?
Has it ever occurred to you that that's how Gaia keeps her human population at sustainable levels? Remove the limits to growth, and population explodes. The planet is for every living being, not just humans. Technology just makes a bad problem worse. We need fewer humans and less electricity. It's a tough problem. Maybe we could put sterilization pills in children's vaccinations, or something. That way, they have to get the vaccine in order to go to school, and by the time they get to reproductive age it's already too late. Don't get the vaccinations, and you catch a children's communicable disease and die without reproducing. Gaia can be a harsh mistress if you abuse her.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I was pretty annoyed by the way that faceless evil corporations are polluting the world while everyone else is trying to clean it up, when the reality is that the pollution exists because of the rampant consumerism that people love so much (myself included).
"It's not me, it's the other end of the supply chain"
Don't forget also that they weren't just polluting while everyone else was trying to clean it up, they were polluting almost purely because they were evil. They weren't producing pollution as a byproduct. It was their product and they were just looking for the most evil way to dump it. I'm half surprised they didn't have the evil corporations fill puppies with the pollution and then stuff them down dolphin throats while kicking kittens.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
It's as if Mother Gaia is giving us arrogant humans a lesson about overreaching our abilities.
Oh yeah? Well, your mother's so fat, her belt size is Equator!
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The point being that you can only push the ecosystem so far before its degradation starts having an adverse effect on you.
Yeah, but that's just plain old "we're using up all of our resources", not some act of a vindictive earth-deity. You can make it seem more profound by using symbolism and any other literary device, but it's pretty straightforward.
I understand that you believe that your currently impressive quality of life depends, in many ways, on continued assaults upon the Earth's ecosystem
Again, words like "assault"... you can say you are being literary again, but that word has meaning and immediately polarizes the discussion. We are part of the ecosystem. We can change it but we can't "assault" it. Even if we somehow wiped all multi-celled life off of the surface of the planet, the earth would continue to spin around the sun for a few billion years before the sun finishes off whatever's left.
Your points are perfectly valid - there aren't enough resources for us all to live a Western lifestyle forever given the current level of resources and technology. Reducing resource consumption is certainly likely to be a big part of our lives going forward. We also need to be more careful with our environment - but this has been known and acted upon for at least 40 years in Western countries. If you are trying to convince people that we need to do more, you might find more neutral language more effective. You start in with "assault" and "mother earth" talk and you'll get a positive response from people who are already converted, but a defensive reaction from the rest. Nuclear energy may well need to be scaled back, but not because it hurts the Earth God's feelings.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
You're just a person that hates humans. Start with yourself, please.
By the way, if you still think he's being rhetorical, read his other comment in this thread.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
My friend's house burned down a few days ago because of this fire.
You first. Reduce your usage of evil electricity by turning your computer off, and not turning it back on again.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I remember watching one episode and gave up. They were way too stupidly over the top. The "lesson" on the show I saw was not to use offroad vehicles in the oh so fragile desert. They had a kid on a dirt bike initially, but then there was some villain types driving these big smoke spewing vehicle all over the place for... some reason, I guess. WTF? Did they have coal fired boilers or something?
Yeah, but where's New Mexico?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The planet has living things -on- it. It is not a living thing -itself-.
You're right, the planet is not a living thing like an animal, rather it is a complex system. And in the same way that you can easily fuck up an entire eco-system by artificially introducing (for instance) a predator with no competition, so it is possible that the Earth will cease to function as a system capable of supporting human life ue to human interventions. And I really don't care if the cockroaches survive.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As it was a children's series, you don't think that they might possibly have over-simplified things inorder to get across the message? You don't get a lot of emoational or philosophical subtlety on most kids' cartoons.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Whoa, slow down there maestro. There's a NEW Mexico?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Has it ever occured to you that Gaia is a made up fantasy creature that stemmed primarily from the psychological projections of primitive cultures that hadn't even discovered basic mathmatics yet? Don't get me wrong, if you like making your life choices based on the whims of a fairy tale creature, go right ahead. The rest of us are going to laugh at you though.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Forget all the nuke sensationalism. LANL had a big wakeup call about a decade ago, concrete doesn't so easily burn, and it's unlikely anything really terrible that the "reporters" want to talk about, is going to happen. It would take a transgovernment level of incompetence; something humanity hasn't seen yet.
OTOH, adios Pajarito. I was there three and a half weeks ago, and when I checked the fire maps last night .. Camp May is totally inside the fire perimeter now. It's been an annual tradition for us to drive up there for Summerfest every year, hike on the ski slopes and watch the bikers, drink nearly all of New Mexico's microbrews, hang out with the Atom Mashers (Los Alamos' version of our Dukes of Ale) and have a good time. Reminisce about a previous year (finally amusing with hindsight) when some ravers scheduled their thing at the same time as Summerfest, so that the forest echoed with techno all night while we tried to sleep off our drunkenness. But now, I think all that is over.
Driving up there, you see the 2000 fire is still a massive scar, a forest of dead trees. That tells me that a decade from now, all of the stuff we're losing right now, will still be gone. Sure, if you take the long view, these fires are inevitable and the forest will always grow back. A lot of good that does me, a mere human without centuries to spare. I'll never see it again.
Bandolier is trashed too. Valles Caldera is at least seriously threatened. Dixon Apples (no 2011 crop anyway) had a damn close call; with pretty much everything surrounding the orchard destroyed. Urban Northern New Mexicans (i.e. the majority of the voting population) are really feeling this one, because this time it's one of our very favorite playgrounds getting burned.
You can see a shift in public attitudes about fireworks. I don't know that fireworks even caused this fire, but reason always said that it was a serious risk, and now the common New Mexican is having the lesson pounded into their hearts regardless of whatever their brains were telling them. They're (mostly) all changing their attitudes, right before my eyes. I think we'll almost certainly see some policy changes as a result.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I think that it's not so bad.