Los Alamos: Fire 3.5 mi. from 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste in fabric tents

[flamingdem]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hKW_xl9fJzQ9w5G4a5sXEY1LmFmw?docId=373fdd3e6ed549cd86f3e4299cd3874a

excerpt:

Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said environmental specialists from the lab were mobilized and monitoring air quality on Monday, but that the main concern was smoke.

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.

Sandoval said the fire was "quite a bit away" from that storage area. But he could not say what would happen if drums containing such waste were to burn.

"Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question other than to say that the material is well protected. And the lab — knowing that it works with hazardous and nuclear materials — takes great pains to make sure it is protected and locked in concrete steel vaults. And the fire poses very little threat to them."

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Oh com'on what is a little plutonium in the atmosphere?

Worst cases are not nice but this year we are having a lot of those worst cases...

Hey on the bright side THIS TIME we are not down wind.

:hi:

[flamingdem]

2. I'm a little cornfused

The spokesman says oh no problem because the nuke material is stored in concrete... but what about the stuff stored in tents?


... just a small detail

:crazy:

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Hartmann covered it

but hey, what about the rest of the media?

[TheMadMonk]

4. In concrete, UNDER tents perhaps.

Just a small use of brains suffices to answer that conundrum?

Another problem I have with these onsite waste stores is that there is are adequate (for a few centuries at least) solutions. Instead, absent a solution which "satisfies" all for ALL TIME, the least viable option of onsite storage is used.

One such solution solves another problem of the modern world. Disposal of old CRTs (TV/monitor screens) made with huge amounts of lead glass.

Mix one into the other and pile up in the middle of the Trinity test site if we can't think of anything better to do with it. (What barriers exist to disposal in subduction zones?)

Transmutation technology which might still be marginal today (the boffins think otherwise) can only improve, and do so before our glass bricks could possibly become an issue through weathering.

[alittlelark]

5. My little Jemez Springs farm is 40 miles away

I'll be there in 2 weeks... I hope it will not be glowing or a charred ruin.