5/10/2013 St. Louis Is Burning

Source: Rolling Stone
Date: 5/10/2013
by: Steven Hsieh

A bulldozer pushes trash in a landfill.

There's a fire burning in Bridgeton, Missouri. It's invisible to area residents, buried deep beneath the ground in a North St. Louis County landfill. But the smoldering waste is an unavoidable presence in town, giving off a putrid odor that clouds the air miles away – an overwhelming stench described by one area woman as "rotten eggs mixed with skunk and fertilizer." Residents report smelling it at K-12 school buses, a TGI Fridays and even the operating room of a local hospital. "It smells like dead bodies," observes another local.
...
Read the rest here

8/21/2012 Washington state: Possible radioactive leak at Hanford tank farm

Source: Los Angeles Times
Date: August 21, 2012, 5:44 p.m
by: Kim Murphy

Radioactive material has been found between two layers of a double-shelled storage tank at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Wash. (Shannon Dininny/Associated Press / August 21, 2012

SEATTLE -- As part of the biggest, costliest environmental cleanup project in the nation’s history—disposing of 53 million gallons of radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state—one thing was supposed to be sure: Waste stored in the sturdy, double-wall steel tanks that hold part of the toxic ooze wasn’t going anywhere.

8/15/2011 Bury Our Nuclear Waste — Before It Buries Us

Source: Time Health
Date: 8/15/2011
by: Eben Harrell

These containers were used to transport low-level radioactive waste in Clive, Utah

George Frey / Bloomberg News / Getty Images

Some 2 billion years ago, a natural-uranium deposit deep underground in what is now the west-central African country of Gabon spontaneously went critical. In the only known case of a nuclear-fission reactor forming naturally on earth, the Gabon deposit fissioned just like a modern-day power plant. As well as generating a substantial amount of heat, the uranium also produced a huge quantity of radioactive waste products, including around four tons of plutonium. Because this naturally occurring nuclear waste was buried deep underground, it remained remarkably well confined as it decayed over the course of millennia.
...
Read full article here

8/1/2011 Blue Ribbon Commission drafts waste recommendations

Source: World Nuclear News
Date: 8/1/2011

The so-called Blue Ribbon Commission set up to develop a new strategy for the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the USA has released its draft report outlining seven key elements to make an integrated approach to nuclear waste management.
...
Read full article here

7/2/2011 Radioactive Waste Dumped in Open Pits Outside Los Alamos National Lab

Source: Washington's Blog
Date: 7/1/2011

To understand why a raging wildfire near the Los Alamos National Laboratory is a big deal, you must understand how wastes were disposed.
AP writes today:

Los Alamos Canyon runs past runs past the old Manhattan Project site in town and a 1940s era dump site where workers are near the end of a clean-up project of low-level radioactive waste. The World War II Manhattan Project developed the first atomic bomb, and workers from the era dumped hazardous and radioactive waste in trenches along six acres atop the mesa where the town sits.
“The threat is pretty limited,” said Kevin Smith, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration site manager for Los Alamos, which over sees the lab. “Most of the materials have been dug up.”

But a report produced by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability found:

Approximately 18 million cubic feet of radioactive and chemical solid wastes onsite were disposed of since 1943. “All of the radioactive waste and most of the chemical waste have been buried on the mesas of Pajarito Plateau where LANL is located. Radioactive liquid wastes were discharged to the canyons, initially with little treatment.”

For many years, one method of disposal was “kick-and-roll”. The back of a truck was brought to the edge of a hole and barrels of waste were kicked. Wherever the barrels rolled tow as their final resting place.

No protection was put in place to ensure contaminants did not spread from the barrel. It is not clear that today’s practices are more protective.

An estimated 899,000 curies of low-level transuranic [i.e. radioactive elements heavier than uranium, such as plutonium] wastes were buried at Los Alamos. It is difficult to estimate exactly the quantity of radionuclides buried onsite due to the inaccurate record keeping and alterations in the definitions of low-elevel waste in the intervening years. Disposal continues today in unlined pits and shafts, a practice declared illegal by the New Mexico Attorney General’s office in 2011...

Tons of plutonium were processed at LANL in the early years of development and again in the 1980s. After the Savannah River Site, LANL contains the second largest volume of plutonium-238 in the US nuclear weapons complex: this type of plutonium has a 90-year half-life, a very high activity and is extremely hazardous...

No wonder people have warned that the trees and soil in the areas surrounding the Los Alamos Laboratory may themselves now be radioactive. See this and this.

6/30/2011 Where those 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium contaminated waste were headed

Date: 6/30/2011

The following video from KOATV New Mexico (channel 7) reports on the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) 26 miles Southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico: [1]


Los Alamos National Lab sends some it's nuclear waste here. The 30000 55-gallon drums of radioactive plutonium contaminated waste sitting above ground under cloth tents, as mentioned in various news stories, was/is slated to be delivered to this Carlsbad WIPP site. Quoting the 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. [2]
...

Sources:
[1] (Video) A Look At The WIPP Facility, KOATV New Mexico (Channel 7) YouTube Channel
[2] Wildfire shuts Los Alamos lab, forces evacuations, Associated Press

6/28/2011 (Video) Obama to increase nuclear weapons production/refit plus wildfire threatens Los Alamos National Lab

Source: Democracy Now (I extracted the relevant video segment for relevance/brevity)
Date: 6/28/2011

The following Democracy Now interview with Greg Mello, leader of Los Alamos Study Group, not only warns that the Los Conchas wildfire in New Mexico threatens nuclear waste stored on the grounds of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but also sheds light on the fact that the Obama administration is actually increasing nuclear weapons production/upgrades. I knew that Obama was an advocate of nuclear power for energy production but did not realize he was actually working towards increasing/upgrading America's current nuclear weapons arsenal. As part of this effort, Los Alamos National Lab will build a new $6 billion facility for the production of plutonium.


Visit Democracy Now for interview transcript and full video

6/28/2011 How close is wildfire to nuclear waste at Los Alamos National Lab?

Source: Godlike Productions via Japan Pub Thinktank (Facebook Group)
by: Anonymous Coward

Disclaimer: This is a message board post and has not been fact checked

6/28/11 -- LOS ALAMOS FIRE MAP -- shows just how close the fire is to some serious waste!

I came across the most recent survey map of the wildfire in Los Alamos at the following site: [link to wildfiretoday.com] I thought it would be informative to overlay this map with a map showing the technical areas (TAs) and material disposition areas (MDAs) on the Los Alamos National Lab reservation. Check this out: [link to www.flickr.com] The fire is located within the hatched orange outline shown in the lower left-hand corner of the picture. I don't know the exact scale of this map but it is about 11 miles from Los Alamos to White Rock so that should give you some sense of distance. It appears that the fire, as of June 28th, is about a mile or so from TA-16 and TA-28. TA-16 is a tritium and high explosives processing facility according to: [link to www.lasg.org] TA-28 is an explosives storage area. As far as the MDAs go, the fire is closest to MDA-R, MDA-S, MDA-Z and MDA-AB. These contain various toxic metals, organics, high explosives and radioactive wastes mostly buried in pits. All of those 30,000 drums of low-level radioactive waste we have been hearing about are in MDA-G, which is further away from the fire at the moment. But, oddly, what we haven't heard much about is the storage site for transuranic waste which is in MDA-C. This one is a little scary. Here is the description from the LASG site: ------------------------------------------------ [link to www.lasg.org] Location: Technical Area (TA) -50 Period of use: Pits (6): June 1948 to December 1964 Shafts (107): 1958 to April 1974 Size: 11.8 acres Number and type of disposal units: Pits 1- 4: 610 by 40 feet Pit 5: 705 by 110 feet by about 18 feet Pit 6: 505 by 100 feet by about 23 feet Chemical pit: 180 by 25 feet by about 12 feet Vary between 1 to 2 feet in diameter, and 10 to 25 feet deep Specific wastes and quantities: Estimated Volume: 3,186,000 ft3 of TRU waste Pits contain, as of January 1973: 25 Curies (Ci) of uranium 26 Ci of plutonium-239 149 Ci of americium-241 Shafts contain: 49,136 Ci of tritium 40 Ci sodium-22 20 Ci of cobalt-60 31 Ci of strontium-90 5 Ci of uranium-233 50 Ci fission products 200 Ci of induced activity Also contains quantities of mercury, copper, cobalt, boron, beryllium, and silver. (2) Potential environmental impacts: Lies near Ten-Site Canyon New Mexico Environment Department's (NMED) Hazardous and Radioactive Material Bureau (HRMB) ranks this MDA as an area with a high probability of contaminant mobilization and a moderate to high potential of release to the groundwater. -------------------------------------------------- That is an insane amount of highly radioactive waste. And notice at the end there that it is ranked as HIGH probability of contaminant mobilization! Just a heads up for you guys. We really need to watch this thing!

6/28/2011 Driggs, Idaho Ustream Geiger counter spikes as high as 140 CPM

Date: 6/28/2011 sampling video captures 2-3 minutes starting approximately 2:10 PM CST

This is somewhat disturbing. I noticed that the Driggs, Idaho Ustream meter, which can be observed in real time by clicking the "USA" link on the navigation bar at the top, has spiked up to as high as 140 CPM (counts per minute).  Per the Geiger counter owner, normal background radiation is 20 CPM. 140 CPM is thus 7x background, although 140 is an extreme and not average sampling value.  On the CerebralProgrammer Ustream site for this Geiger counter notes included:

...
Station Log:
6/27/11 Significant increase detected in gross beta gamma levels. System tests provide normal results. Radon levels are down currently and not correlative to increased beta / gamma.
...

A few days ago on June 24, 2011 I captured another 2 minute or so sampling at around midnight showing a CPM from the same meter as high as 100 CPM.

The closest EPA RadNet monitoring site to Driggs, Idaho is in Idaho Falls, Idaho which is 49 miles away in a straight line per the graphic below:

The EPA RadNet monitoring station is 40 miles East of Idaho National Lab, which is one of the nation's first nuclear test sites.  Plutonium contaminated nuclear waste from nuclear weapons manufacture is stored on the grounds. Activist groups have long battled for cleanup of nuclear waste at the facility, siting that much of it sits on top of the Snake River Aquifer. Radioactive waste is shipped in to Idaho National Lab from other facilities for treatment and storage.

The EPA gross gamma and beta counts do not really show any unusual spikes in recent activity if examining the RadNet monitoring station data from Idaho Falls:

Click here for the live EPA Radnet page for Idaho Falls, ID
Note:  I can not personally vouch for this, but activist Alexander Higgins, who writes a popular blog, claims that the EPA re-calibrated their RadNet monitoring stations to understate radioactive fallout coming from Fukushima Daiichi.  The article he wrote is titled Confirmed: EPA Rigged RADNET Japan Nuclear Radiation Monitoring Equipment To Report Lower Levels Of Fukushima Fallout.

If there (hypothetically) is recent unusually high radioactive fallout blowing in to Driggs, Idaho from the Idaho National Lab nuclear waste dump(s) you would expect the EPA air monitoring station to pick up on it since Idaho Falls is only half the distance to INL as Driggs (where CerebralProgrammer's Geiger counter is located) is to INL (see previous geographic map).

Also the wind is not blowing due East, but rather the most recent wind forecast I obtained shows the wind is blowing primarily from South to North, with a slight Northeast angle:

For live wind map click here

If the elevated radiation reading shown at Driggs, Idaho really is coming from Fukushima (as one would naturally expect), for example, this would require a detailed isotope analysis by a nuclear expert to prove it really is from Fukushima. Unfortunately, in May the EPA discontinued much of its testing of radioactive isotopes as per OpEd News:

...
The EPA announced in early May that it would cease testing air, rainwater, tap water and milk, as iodine 131 levels, the isotope with the shortest half-life, had fallen to normal atmospheric levels (EPA test results here). It has been reported at several websites that both NILU and the EPA were pressured to discontinue testing -- or at least to discontinue publication of the test results. The "pressure" has been variously attributed to the U.S. government, the Japanese government and the United Nations, although I have seen no hard evidence to substantiate any of those claims.[1]
...

There is a petition started by Lucas Whitefield Hixson which requests that the President, Congress and EPA reinstate the radioactive isotope testing as mentioned above. If you have not signed it already, the petition is available here.

Any comments or tips (especially from nuclear experts) would be appreciated.

Sources:
[1] Fukushima - The Elephant in the Room, OpEd News

6/27/2011 Activist group warns Los Alamos wildfire 3 1/2 miles from dumpsite with plutonium-contaminated waste

Date: 6/27/2011

A serious New Mexico wildfire 78 square miles in size has forced a mandatory evacuation of the town of Los Alamos, which is where Los Alamos National Laboratory is located.[1]  This laboratory is one of the three sites where the secret Manhattan Project was conducted resulting in the development of the world's first atomic bomb, as well as the hydrogen bomb. At the time, the responsibility of Los Alamos National Laboratory was weapons research and design.

According to the AP an activist group called Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety warned that the wildfire is 3.5 miles away from 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste stored on the grounds of the Los Alamos National Laboratory:

...
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.[1]
...

The media contact for Los Alamos National Lab when asked refused to confirm the statement by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety:

...
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.[1]
...

The wildfire has already encroached upon the grounds of Los Alamos National Lab, having burned part of Tech Area 49, which in the 1960's was used to conduct underground testing of high explosives and radioactive materials.[1]

Nightly News with Brian Williams [2]


Sources:
[1] Wildfire Shuts Los Alamos Lab, Forces Evacuations, AP via ABC News
[2] (VIDEO) Nightly News with Brian Williams, MSNBC

5/26/2011 | Fukushima Considered for Nuclear Graveyard

Source: Bloomberg
Date: 5/26/2011
by: Shigeru Sato

Japan’s atomic energy specialists are discussing a plan to make the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant a storage site for radioactive waste from the crippled station run by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
...
Read full article here