Report from Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety

Journal North, June 30, 2011: Las Conchas fire at 90 acres and still burning!

Newsmakers from Taos County say the fireworks seller at Wal-Mart has shut down voluntarily. County officials shut down the seller in El Prado. We congratulate the public for bringing pressure and the county for acting. Below Friction posts the fine reporting from Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety on the Las Conchas fire. About all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and pray that nuclear waste does not get dispersed by the flames and wind. Stay healthy my friends.

(Date: June 29, 2011 11:11:41 PM MDT)

Good evening,

* One of the most poignant statements made today was “you can’t protect yourself after it happens.” It brings to mind others, such as “Hindsight is 20/20” and “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The Las Conchas fire is on LANL property. We repost our message from Monday night –

3. People in surrounding communities should prepare to evacuate; gas up your vehicles now. Pregnant women and families with small children should take a precautionary step and evacuate now.

Apparently this afternoon (Wed. June 28) LANL started a backburn at Technical Area 16 (TA-16) in the southwest corner of the LANL property. It is an area that has been used for testing (blowing up) high explosives, uranium and depleted uranium since the early days of LANL operations in 1943. In 1979 LANL reported that “An estimated 100,000 kilograms (220,000 pounds) of natural and depleted uranium have been used in dynamic experiments during the history of LANL. Most of this is distributed over the soil around the experimental areas on Laboratory property.” p. 4-43. It cites a 1974 report by W. C. Hanson entitled “Ecological Considerations of Depleted Uranium Munitions,” Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Report LA-5559. We don’t know the number of pounds of natural and depleted uranium that have been blown up since 1979. Dioxins and furans have been found at elevated levels in soils at TA-16.

On Monday night we wrote:

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.

In response to the claims that the 55-gallon drums stored in the fabric tents contain low-level waste, we offer the following:

The waste is transuranic waste, meaning it contains contaminants heavier than uranium on the periodic table, including plutonium. It is not low-level radioactive waste. If it were low-level radioactive waste, in the U.S. it could be buried in shallow trenches. Los Alamos National Laboratory has buried low-level radioactive waste in unlined pits, trenches and shafts in the volcanic tuff for decades. Transuranic waste requires disposal in a deep geologic repository, such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located 26 miles of Carlsbad, New Mexico. WIPP disposes of waste from defense-related activities only. The costs of burying transuranic waste in this manner is costing billions of taxpayer dollars.

** You can see maps of the fire on the Cultural Energy website at < http://www.culturalenergy.org/images/conchas29jun11.jpg >

A message from Robin Collier, of Cultural Energy: “They finally have posted Progression & Fire Line maps on InciWeb. We have posted cropped version on our LANL page. Here also is the larger google perimeter map with all the parts now. < http://www.culturalenergy.org/images/conchas29jun11.jpg > and < http://www.culturalenergy.org/lanl.htm >

Thank you Robin.

**** Also, the KSFR-FM 101.1 Radio Antenna located on the Pajarito Mountain has been impacted by the fire. They live stream on the internet at http://www.ksfr.org/

***** Please see the attached fact sheet by The Reverend Holly Beaumont, one of the Las Mujeres Hablan, about Bechtel Enterprises, the manager of LANL. She testified at three of the four hearings about the proposed new, shiny nuclear bomb factory at LANL, called the Chemistry & Metallurgy Research Replacement Project – Nuclear Facility, during the week of May 23, 2011. The fact sheet is entitled “Who Is Running LANL?” Thank you Holly for putting this excellent piece together for us this evening.

****** This just in from Sheri Kotowski, Embudo Valley Environmental Monitoring Group. Thank you Sheri.
All,

Here is the update on regional air monitoring for the Las Conchas Fire. I’m
happy to say that DOE and NMED Oversight, with EVEMG’s assistance, have
coordinated emergency regional air monitoring at the following locations:

Embudo Clinic, Rinconada
Embudo Valley Community Library, Dixon
El Valle at the office of La Jicarita News
2 locations in Taos, 1 at Holy Cross Hospital
Chimayo, across the road from El Santuario
Las Vegas, office of the New Mexico Environment Department

The monitoring is being done with high volume sampling equipment supplied
very quickly by EPA, that is designed to collect a large amount of
particulate in a short period of time. Each station will collect a 24 hour
samples on a polypropylene filter. There will be a series of samples taken
through out the duration of the fire. The exposed filter will be removed
from the equipment and taken to a lab where it will be scanned immediately
and the alpha and beta radioactivity will be counted. The filter will then
be divided and one part will be sent to Paragon Analytical Laboratory in
Colorado. There it will be chemically analyzed for the following
constituents:

Isotopic plutonium
Isotopic uranium
Strontium
Americium
Beryllium
Heavy metals

In addition to this analyses EVEMG has requested analyses for PCB’s and high
explosives. This request is based contamination generated by legacy and
on-going activities at LANL.

NMED Oversight continues to change out perimeter air samples on a daily
basis. These samples will go through the same analytical process.

Results from all regional (including perimeter) samples will be available in
approximately seven days from collection date. NMED is preparing a webpage
for data collected from the Las Conchas Fire. I will let everyone know when
I know exactly where they can find it on the internet.

The ASPECT air craft went up this afternoon. I will let you all know when
and where you will be able to access the data. I’m also still checking on
how to get data from LANL air monitors.

AND it rained up in Taos early this evening and a little bit in Dixon!

Many thanks for all the help and willingness to get the samplers located and
set up. And for the support.

Take care,

Sheri Kotowski
EVEMG
serit@cybermesa.com
505 579 4076

******* We would be grateful for any contributions you can make to support our work at this time. You can use PayPal on our website – magically it’s working (nothing like a viral message to get things working again! We need doing some updating in the next day or two) – at < http://www.nuclearactive.org > or mail your check to CCNS, 107 Cienega Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501.

Be safe. Take care of yourselves.
CCNS

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety

107 Cienega Street
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Tel (505) 986-1973
Fax (505) 986-0997
www.nuclearactive.org
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