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Wed, 17 May 2000 14:59:31 -0600
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e-Nuclear Veteran News
“Published periodically to send as an e-mail attachment” In
Albuquerque,
New Mexico
Vol. 00, Issue 10, 2000
Visit our WEB Site at:
http://www.angellire.com/tx/atomicveteran/email2.html
Published random to furnish information on peading legislation
and other
information of relative interest to Nuclear Exposed Vaterans.
LANL Land Burned: Radiation Contaminant Threat - Albuquerque
Journal
05/16/00 By IAN HOFFMAN - Journal Northern Bureau
LOS ALAMOS: More than a quarter of Los Alamos National
Laboratory’s land
has been burned so far by the Cerro Grande Fire, more than 20
times the
amount reported earlier.
Federal lawmakers have drafted an emergency $85 mifilon request
to get
the lab running again and stem potential releases of
contaminants from
erosion of burned waste sites.
Smoke from the burning lab so far contains levels of
radioactivity as
much as three times normal, scientists said. Yet federal, state,
and lab
officials still believe the radioactive smoke is a natural
emission from
burning trees and is not evidence of a lab release.
“So far, the evidence we have is there’s no health risk,” said
Gregg
Dempsey of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation
lab in
Las Vegas, N.M.
To test their natuial-radioactivity theory, lab scientists raced
to
Ruidoso and tested smoke from the Cree Fire there. They phoned
back with
preliminary word that Ruidoso’s smoke is just slightly more
radioactive
than that of the Los Alamos fire.
"Early indications from sampling the Ruidoso fire indicate
radiation
levels very comparable to those seen during the Los Alamos
Fire,” said
LANL environmental health physicist David H. Kraig. “This
indicates that
the radiation levels are consistent with the level of
radionuclides from
the burning of vegetation and the release of naturally occurring
radioactivity,” The real tests for LANL contaminants in the
smoke are due
back from a lab in Colorado late this week. Those tests will
detail the
actual radioactivie elements in the smoke and whether their
source is
natural - indicated by radioactive polonium, lead and bismuth -
or lab
related - indicated by plutonium, americiwn, cesium and others.
But scientists suspect the greater concern is still to come,
when summer
thunderstorms flush down charcoaled mountainsides and through
lab canyons
where Los Alamos has disposed of radioactive wastes for decades.
“The canyons have all burned and there has been extensive damage
to the
ecostructure,” said LANL director John C. Browne. ‘So if we get
some
monsoon rains, you’re going to get a tremendous amount of
erosion through
these canyons.”
A team of two dozen LANL scientists is studying waste sites and
the
erosion risk.
Julie Canepa, head of LANL’s cleanup program, said her team is
struggling
to access data in lab computers and offices.
“We’ve been working feverishly getting files from people’s homes
and
personial computers,” she said.
They are trying to estimate the risk of lab releases and
recommend ways
to shore up waste sites against erosion. Canepa said she aleady
is
mobilizing contractors for the work, although she predicts the
most
pressing job of stabilization lies with the Santa Fe National
Forest.
They will be working against a tight deadline. Climatologists
are
predicting New Mexico’s rainy season could start sooner than
usual this
year, as early as late June or early July.
Senator Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he will seek an $85 million
emergency
cash infusion for the lab’s fire recovery in the 2001 Military
Construction Appropriations Bill.
“Los Alamos is home to a premier laboratory that has weathered
the
terrible Cerro Grande Fire. But even beyond the fire damage,
restarting
lab facilities shut down because of the fire threat is not an
inexpensive
proposition,” Domemci said.
Senate Appropriations Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, toured the
lab’s
burned areas Sunday and promised his help to lab executives,
said LANL’s
Browne.
LANL officials now estimate the burned areas at 7,764 acres, or
a little
over 28 percent of its land area, up from a previouf stimate
this weekend
ofjust over 1.2 percent. The only modem buildings lost were
office
trailers.
The fire devoured five clapboard buildings and sheds at V Site
that date
to the Manhattan Project. Oddly, the flames dodgec he
neighboring
Assembly Building, where project scientists fitted together the
blocks of
high explosive for the Trinity Bomb.
ED: The Topography is such that the monsoon erosions could wash
downhill
and eventually end up in the Rio Grands River, vhich eventually
empties
into the Gulf of Mexico. I have not witnessed an actual
spokesperson
addressing this issue, but will bet that when same occurs - All
will be
well, NO Threat.
Sent Wednesday, May 17, 2000 1255 PM
Subject: OUTCOME OF VOTE ON H.R. 853
DAV MEMORANDUM FROM: Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative
Director
SUBJ OUTCOME OF VOTE ON H.R. 853, DATE. May17, 2000
Late on May 16, 2000, the House voted 250-166 to defeat H.R.
853, a bill
that, among other things, would have changed the current
non-binding
budget resolution to a joint resolution that would become law if
signed
by the President. The bill would have required that all programs
except
Social Security be reauthorized every 10 years and that all new
programs
be authorized for no more than 10 years.
Over the last two days, over 700 e-mails were sent from our web
site.
Thank you for your overwhelming support of our position on this
bill.
JOSEPH A VIOLANTE, DAy, National Legislative Director
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NM 87105, Tp: 505-877-3707 & Dale Howard, Tp: 505-865-8138, to
assist
Nudear Exposed Veterans.
Thank you,
Dick Conant (Richard U. Conant, Tp: 505-877-3707, FAX:
505-877-2119.
