What's up There and How It Got That Way

h What's up there and how it got that way by Benjamin McLaughlin throughout the laboratory. Various explosives testing and Nuclear Safety (CCNS), a Santa Fe-based environmental storage sites throu·ghout the lab produce much of this activist group, is concerned that a paitial cleanup won't In the pre-dawn days of the nuclear age, Ashley Ponds' chemical waste, which includes different solvents, lead and fully address the problem and Ihat radiation could one day Los A1anloS Ran~I1BchoOl"':'" where, for over 20 years, young mercury. be carried into Ihe Rio Grande and evenlt\a1ly, further bOys had galhered to .learn Ihe skills and values of ranch life Radioactive waste is categorized in different ways. Under downstream. - was. fo~ced. to dn8C.1ts·dOG~< m !~.p!ace ~~·bullt y~'hat cn:l:t:~.1::mmenta! r-eguillHbns,· ror instance, traristirank waste, . ~if this iSn~t dt:aned up;:.' saY; Arends,·;;ii is g6tng~to have· came ·to be known as Los Alamos NatiOnal ·Laboratory or TRI}, is generally generated by working with ph;tonium. a profound effect on what ends up in Cochiti dam .and in (LANL). Here, die world's first nuclear weapons were creat· Such waste can contain anything from. contaminated the fISh In the Rio Grande." . ed. Dubbed "fat man" (a plutonium bomb) and "little boy" machinery to old protective clothing. There is also low level LAN!:s main .dump site is Technical Acea 54, otherwise Ja uranh,lm bomb) '-0 and developed In Los Alamos under waste, or LLW; which can be roughly deflned as anything known as Area G.lt's southeast of Ihe lab toward the town the Manhattan Project - these first two atomic bombs dev· ·lhat can't be classified as TRU. The LLW classification has of White Rock. Since it originally commenced operations ill astated two Japanese citIes and· ended World War II. The nolhing to do wilh the' level of radioactivity.. It includes 1957; Area G has grown to 63 acreS - making It larger than Cold War . followed WW iI, and as it gained momentum, spent reactor fuel rods and waste frOm uranium processing. WIPP. As oflast year, Ihe site had received 10.7 millioq cubic LANL continued to ·serve ·.the nation's strategic nuclear When such waste is mixed wilh other hazardous, but feet - or about 1.4 million 5~aIIon drums - of waste. needs, uliiffiately designing over 60 different types of non-radioactive waste, it is called mixed low level waste, or The lab now plans to add an additional 70 acres to the site. nuclear warheads. MLLW. However, the site is subject to erosion and runoff, says But creating nuclear weaponry mea.ns creating nuclear Greg Mello, Director of Los A1anloS Study Group, . anolher waste. Lots of it. And plenty of Ihis s<>-called "heril.;Jge DUMPiNG GROUNDS lab watchdog. In addition, the site has no. "cap·," or engl. waste" still sits, hot and toxic, in and around LANL. How to The south fork of s<>-called.Acid Canyon was one of the neeredway of stopping <:rosion or i>~venting water from dispose of or .store such potentially I;lb's typical dumping gehing in, whi~h poses a contamination .threat. LANL h", deadly waste is something that's been· sites: Located near proposed ideas such as putting dams iIi surrounding· chewed over for decades. The recent arroyos, but some worry that anything short of . terrorist attackS in New York and a cap for the site Isn't safe. Washington, ·D.C. have renewed con' In ·addition, poiilts out Mello, Area G, along cerns that our nation's nuclear waste with oilier sites containing radioactive waste, needs to be dealt with, quickly,· effi· is not subject to regulation by any outside ciently and securely. agency, such. as the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), the Environmental Pro THE CITY tection Agency (EPA) or the Nuclear Regulato ON THE HILL ry Commission. Because so much of what goes Los A1anios is situated northwest of on at Los A1amos~is top secretthe lab basically Santa Fe in the Jemez Mountains. The answers. to itself. lab sits atop a series of woOded mesas James Bearzi, Chief of NMED's Ha;;;ardous separated by a network of canyons Waste" Bureau, says that people often misun· that run through Ih·e site and the sur· derstand the role NMED plays in regulating rounding area. For years, waste was· the lab. He points .out that NMED's scope of dumped in seveCailocations on LANL concern is.within areas ·such :IS ground water property, sometimes in the canyons These 1946 . pObtos show materials duniRing (above) . quality and hazardous (fiot radioactive) waste themselves. ·Some· of it was just . and Acid Canyon (r.) when they were still pouring raw, and does not apply to the whole of the lab. thrown on Ihe ground, some was put hot liquid·Waste o~to the ground. pOOIoscoortesyclYNNi.taa.rp· Bearzi also adds thai. ·certainly we' could do a· in· drums and some accumulated in lot more; but our funding is paltly for what holding ponds. A lot of It, to this day, has not been com· downtown Los· Alamos the. public expects lis to do." He. Jecls ·lhat pletely identified. between Ihe city swimming NMED·is effective and often cannot infon'n Ihe Determining just how much, and what kind of waste, isn't pool and the local skate . public of Its plans, bec'lUse tliey,J!l~olVe sur.· easy. Some of the wasie that's been in storage for decades is park, this stretch 'served as a dump for different types of Iiq. priSe inspections of LAN~ andotherQOE facllities. unlabeled. LANL simply doesn't know what is in some of uid waste, some of it radioactive, between 19.45 and 1966 . their old barrels. What to do with it is another problem alto The waste was mostly dumped straight - meaning it was THE CITY IN THE LIME LIGHT· gether. A tiny percentage of LANL's waste h", been shipped not in any type· of protective container. In December of 2900, after two events brought LANL's: to the Waste Isolation Pilot·Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad. But A cleanup was performed before the site was. transferred safety and security syStems inio question"":7 a forest lire Ihat LANL has far more waste than WIPP can hold, and most. of to Los Alamos County in 1967, and again about 20, years blazed onto .the.western edge of the lab's property; and a it is too highly radioactive for WIPP to ~ccept. later. Blit in 1999, alarming levels of plutonium were dis· security scandaiinvoMng Wen 1-1.0 Lee and losi hard drives In almost all .of LANL's operatio\ls, some type of haz. covered in deposits iq. the canyon. Last May, LANL officials - citizensgalhered in Sarita j'e and Albuquerque to vie" ardous waste is generated, much of it intensely radioactive. announced at a·public meeting Ihat it would perform a par· the premier of Ihe CCNS documentiryShadow on the Hill. All -in all, LANL produces about 99 percent of all nuclear tial cleanup oflhe canyon. They argued that a full·c1eanup The movie highlighted LAN!:s 6(}..yearhlstory.and discussed waste in New Mexico. Although the facility is known as. a. of the site· wasn't economically feasible and Ihescope of the the environmental riuhifications of itS continued operation. nuclear weapons and researcl) lab, Ihere. are also degrees of. planriedckanup would suffiCiently protect the public. According to CCNS, the dOcUmentary's premier had a large chemical and n6n-radioactive waste ·1(jCated in many sites . But Jonl Arends, a director. with Concerned Citizens for lurnout and the movie provoked discussion from people "Your feel-Good Store" Ride aPiece 'of Ristory· .•' , ';; Health,Food ..O ..u.·. §.ff.y . -.' J. I.~.o._ .~. .. ..• STORE , ... " .. ;~~, ... ,Serv(~g A,!b~q~er'lW fpr 2(i,~ears., ," ·;wh.~;~·lnj~m(~4 ~ih~ic~~ giv~ .. ylni: ;.: " .,' . the mos(-valu~ jooqurll}OneyC; ', .. ;' ~ .... :. 4pen: M~~.Fri,9am::6~~~~;. Sat ,9im-6pm, ',}l\bY A L;", . Closed'SUl\d~r .",. [NFlE.LU·. TltS 4th St NW'ij/4 mrnoCih of Osuna) ...... : .: }.:": ,'Y))' . CENTAUR CYCLES, INC. 89B~9i63" i.. 888.225,,6225 452A JEMEZ ROAD,SANTA f[,·505·471·5481 Cenlaur cycles@world~~,all,nel ., www.mosesliealthcom· not nonually inclined to talk about the lab. "People have accused us of not being LANL is by-no means unaware of the sus forthcoming' with lilfonuation," says Rick - picion with which much of the public, man. "That's absolutely incorrect." Lab www.ovationseries.com .. views it. Concerns about contaminated environmental information, he says is . run-off in the wake of the Cerro Grande av.Uable to "anyone, from allY organiza fire, and the highly publiciZed Wen Ho Lee tion, at any tinie." LANL shares that Infor ON case, drew a lot attention, much of it neg mation through public meetings and the ative. Accordingly, LANt has sought to Northern New Mexico CitiZe(ls Advisory Series at POPEJOY HALL, strengthen its Image with greater public Board, made up of residents of the region, dialogue. James Rickman, a public' out nominated by their municipalities and reach director at !.ANL points out that appointed by the Department of Energy THE LAST LANL has also contributed a great deal to (DOE). • Northern New Mexico. "It's a chance for the 'public and others !.ANL, he points out, Is the largest io, actually have a <!ialogue with lab offi EMPEROR Performed by employer in the region, employing 30 per cials' and be able to ask questions first cent of the population of Northern New han<;i, ", says Rickman.

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