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#losalamos — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #losalamos, aggregated by home.social.

  1. @n_dimension “Lauren Conlin shares new information about Anthony Chavez, 78, a former #LosAlamos National Laboratory employee who went #missing in May 2025. A friend told police the retired Chavez was working with a Los Alamos scientist on the idea of “being in two places at once, simultaneously,”

    #NewsNation / #physics / #ufo <youtube.com/watch?v=0S0TnxoOJ98>

  2. Meanwhile, in #NewMexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory, infamous for their many screwups and fuckups over the decades, are releasing highly radioactive tritium into the public air starting today and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.

    🤷‍♂️🤬🤮👀😱

    #santafe #losalamos #tritium

    yahoo.com/news/articles/ventin

  3. #Tewa Women United: #Pueblo Infants Endangered by #LANL 's #Radiation Plan

    #NativeLedNonprofit #TewaWomenUnited Commissioned Two Reports to Study Impacts. Finding: #LosAlamos National Laboratory Omitted Dose Calculations to Infants and Children in Their Compliance Application

    By Tewa Women United, #CensoredNews, November 19, 2024

    #EspanolaNewMexico — "The Native-led nonprofit organization Tewa Women United, based in Española, New Mexico, has released two independent scientific technical reports assessing the implications and adherence to regulations concerning Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposal to release tritium into the open atmosphere from four Flanged #Tritium Waste Containers located in Area G, near #WhiteRockNewMexico.

    "These reports found that the concentration of tritium in the most loaded radioactive container, if vented during unfavorable weather conditions, could lead to radiation doses significantly exceeding the annual regulatory limit of 10 millirem established by the Environmental Protection Agency regulatory radiation standards.

    "The author of one report, Bernd Franke, stated, 'In the case of tritium, infants and small children get a radiation dose about three times greater than adults, with the same concentrations of tritium in air, water, and food.'

    "However, LANL’s application for venting did not include potential impacts of the #TritiumVenting on infants or children; in effect, LANL did not consider them as 'members of the public.' So far during the permitting process, the #EPA has allowed LANL to ignore these #VulnerablePopulations in their proposal.

    "Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, member of #SanIldefonsoPueblo and one of Tewa Women United’s co- founders, said, 'Tritium makes water, our sacred source of life, radioactive. We were shocked to learn that LANL’s compliance calculations did not take infants and other children into account.'"

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/11

    #WaterIsLife #RadioactiveContamination #Genocide #NativeAmericans #ProtectTheSacred
    #ReaderSupportedNews #PuebloTribes #NoNukes #TritiumContamination

  4. The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

    Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

    "The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

    "Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

    "#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

    "Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

    "Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

    "More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

    "In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

    "'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

    "The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

    "'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

    "The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

    "'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

    "Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

    "Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
    Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

    "Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

    "#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
    #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10

    #NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

  5. The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

    Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

    "The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

    "Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

    "#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

    "Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

    "Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

    "More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

    "In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

    "'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

    "The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

    "'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

    "The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

    "'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

    "Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

    "Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
    Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

    "Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

    "#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
    #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10

    #NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

  6. The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

    Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

    "The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

    "Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

    "#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

    "Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

    "Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

    "More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

    "In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

    "'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

    "The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

    "'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

    "The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

    "'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

    "Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

    "Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
    Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

    "Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

    "#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
    #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10

    #NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

  7. The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

    Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

    "The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

    "Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

    "#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

    "Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

    "Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

    "More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

    "In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

    "'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

    "The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

    "'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

    "The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

    "'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

    "Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

    "Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
    Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

    "Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

    "#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
    #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10

    #NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

  8. The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

    Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

    "The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

    "Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

    "#CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

    "Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

    "Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called '#GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

    "More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

    "In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

    "'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration (#NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [#DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

    "The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

    "'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

    "The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

    "'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in '#Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

    "Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

    "Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
    Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

    "Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

    "#EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
    #Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10

    #NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

  9. Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

    SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

    "'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

    "Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

    "All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

    "The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

    "Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

    "Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

    "There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
    Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

    "#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

    "There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
    The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

    "During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

    "One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08

    #KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

  10. Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

    SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

    "'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

    "Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

    "All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

    "The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

    "Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

    "Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

    "There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
    Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

    "#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

    "There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
    The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

    "During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

    "One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08

    #KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

  11. Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

    SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

    "'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

    "Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

    "All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

    "The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

    "Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

    "Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

    "There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
    Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

    "#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

    "There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
    The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

    "During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

    "One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08

    #KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

  12. Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

    SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

    "'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

    "Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

    "All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

    "The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

    "Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

    "Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

    "There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
    Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

    "#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

    "There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
    The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

    "During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

    "One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08

    #KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

  13. Going to the #ShiprockFair, #KleeBenally Remembered the #UraniumDump on the Banks of the #SanJuanRiver

    By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, August 29, 2024

    SHIPROCK, #NavajoNation -- "In his book published shortly before his passing, Klee Benally writes of going to the #NorthernNavajoFair and the #UraniumDump in #Shiprock that no one talks about. It is along the San Juan River, the same river that flooded this week, now eight months after Klee's passing.

    "'The Northern Navajo Fair at Tsé Bit A'í (#ShiprockNewMexico) has been held for more than one hundred years,' Klee writes in 'No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy in Defense of the Sacred.'

    "Klee describes how the fair each fall marks the changing of the seasons and the #harvest. He describes the neon glow of the carnival in the cold, dusty nights, and the #uniper fires that burn.

    "All of this revelry is held right on #UraniumBoulevard just a couple miles from a massive 105-acre #Radioactive dump containing 2.5 million tons of #RadioactiveWaste on a site that was a former #UraniumMill (which is just 600 feet from the San Juan River.)'

    "The Shiprock Uranium Disposal Cell studies showed that more than 1.8 million liters of #groundwater were contaminated with uranium, #selenium, #radium, #cadmium, #sulfate, and #nitrate.

    "Now the #NavajoNation again is targeted by the #Nuclear Industry and #DebHaaland's radioactive agenda is being ignored.

    "Speaking in Farmington, Interior Sec. Haaland said the transition to green energy in the #FourCorners region will be led by the #AtomicBomb industry, #LosAlamos National Laboratory, which has already poisoned #Pueblo lands in northern #NewMexico.

    "There is no mention of the fact that there is no safe way to store #NuclearWaste.
    Now, adding to the layers of deception, the U.S. #EPA is deceiving the public. The EPA doesn't actually clean up the uranium dumps and strewn #RadioactiveTailings from #ColdWar #UraniumMining on the Navajo Nation -- it only announces plans and promises to do it.

    "#EricJantz, legal director of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, told the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights in March that the #EPA has not completed any of the cleanups.

    "There are 524 uranium mine sites waiting to be cleaned up on the Navajo Nation. Zero -- none of these -- have been fully cleaned up, Jantz told the international commission.
    The truth is people seldom talk about the uranium dump at Shiprock because there is so much strewn radioactive waste, and so many unreclaimed uranium mines, with radioactive waste strewn from Cameron to #MonumentValley, and across the Four Corners region.

    "During the 1990s, on assignment for USA Today, I talked with #Dine' in #RedValley and Cove, south of Shiprock, down the mountain from where I lived. In every family, there was cancer. In every family, someone was dying of #cancer, or had already died, from cancer because of the uranium mining.

    "One Dine' grandmother in her 80s was living in a stone home built of radioactive rock. We had a Geiger counter with us."

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08

    #KleeBenallyRIP #KleeBenallyRestInPower #UraniumMining #NoSpiritualSurrender #IndigenousAnarchy #DefendingTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #HaulNo #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #NoLithiumMining #CorporateColonialism #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CopperMining #Greenwashng #NuclearWeapons #NoNukes #NoWar #NoNuclearWeapons

  14. ICYMI from 2014. Meee-oooow! Misleading headline, however, the wrong type of cat litter caused an explosion at a #NuclearWaste repository in #NewMexico.

    Radioactive kitty litter may have ruined our best hope to store nuclear waste

    Billions invested in an underground New Mexico repository could be wasted because of one seemingly innocuous decision

    By Matt Stroud
    May 23, 2014

    "Some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the US is currently scattered between 77 locations all over the country, awaiting permanent storage. Until February, many experts suggested that the best place to put it was a facility about 40 miles east of #CarlsbadNewMexico, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). For 15 years, #WIPP has operated as the first and only permanent, deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the country, holding 'low level' radioactive materials — mostly clothing and tools exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons production — in steel barrels more than 2,150 feet below the Earth’s surface.

    "But earlier this year two emergencies brought that suggestion — and WIPP’s future — into question. And now it seems kitty litter may be to blame.

    What happened?

    "WIPP is in a salt desert, and much of the work there involves burrowing through the salt and using huge elevators to deposit the stuff at surface level. The resulting underground caverns are then filled with radioactive waste and eventually closed shut, sealed forever.

    "First, on February 5th, a salt-hauling truck caught fire. That would be an inconvenience on the side of a highway, but in an enclosed #SaltCavern surrounded by nuclear waste, it’s a potential catastrophe. Workers evacuated the site. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the fire was significant enough to shut down underground operations until investigators could figure out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. Surface-level operations continued.

    "But not for long. Nine days later, late at night on Valentine’s Day, an alarm sounded, indicating that #radioactivity was present in the air underground. No one was below ground at the time, but employees on the surface activated massive fans designed to ventilate the underground air. The next day, another monitor went off — this one on the surface — indicating #AirborneRadiation. Employees who worked outside on the surface were told to take shelter inside buildings completely separated from storage operations. Valves allowing air to flow underground were sealed with high-density expanding foam. Everything came to a standstill, indefinitely.

    Fallout

    "There are no indications that anyone has been injured from the radiation leak. (All employees went through examinations for radiation exposure; a DOE press release says most workers were not affected, and those who were 'received less exposure than a person receives from a chest X-ray.' [THIS IS TYPICAL PRO-NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA]) But for months, nothing has changed. The standstill remains. WIPP’s 850 or so employees are mainly sitting around, waiting (or "performing surface facilities maintenance or assisting with procedure reviews and revisions") while investigators from the US Department of Energy (#DOE), the New Mexico Environment Department and elsewhere attempt to figure out what happened.

    "Initially, there were two hypotheses. The first was that something had gone wrong with the supports inside the cavern where waste was being stored. If that were the case, it meant a piece of salt rock or a steel support had fallen into one of the sealed barrels, puncturing it and releasing radiation into the air.

    "'That was an unlikely possibility,' says Norbert T. Rempe, PhD, a retired geologist who spent decades as a principal engineer at WIPP. The cavern where the radiation monitor went off had been dug only recently, so the chances that supports had eroded or collapsed were probably slim.

    Burstlid

    "Organic kitty litter likely caused a steel barrel's seal to puncture at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM. The damage and the resulting radiation leak could close the facility, experts say. (Department of Energy)

    "More likely, he said, was the second hypothesis: that something had gone awry inside one of the radioactive containers — that the radioactive material had become hot for some reason, expanding and puncturing a steel barrel from the inside.

    "Last month, DOE investigators went into the cavern. Pictures showed that the latter hypothesis was true; a waste container’s lid was unsealed, and dust around the lid had turned yellow from the unusual heat emanating from inside. Each barrel is labeled to track where it came from. The punctured barrel originated from #LosAlamos National Labs.

    "Jim Conca, PhD, a geologist who worked for years at WIPP who now blogs at Forbes about energy issues, believes he knows what blew the lid off at least one of WIPP’s radioactive barrels. The culprit, he wrote, was kitty litter."

    Read more:
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

    #NuclearWasteStorage #NuclearWaste #NuclearRepository
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

  15. ICYMI from 2014. Meee-oooow! Misleading headline, however, the wrong type of cat litter caused an explosion at a #NuclearWaste repository in #NewMexico.

    Radioactive kitty litter may have ruined our best hope to store nuclear waste

    Billions invested in an underground New Mexico repository could be wasted because of one seemingly innocuous decision

    By Matt Stroud
    May 23, 2014

    "Some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the US is currently scattered between 77 locations all over the country, awaiting permanent storage. Until February, many experts suggested that the best place to put it was a facility about 40 miles east of #CarlsbadNewMexico, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). For 15 years, #WIPP has operated as the first and only permanent, deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the country, holding 'low level' radioactive materials — mostly clothing and tools exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons production — in steel barrels more than 2,150 feet below the Earth’s surface.

    "But earlier this year two emergencies brought that suggestion — and WIPP’s future — into question. And now it seems kitty litter may be to blame.

    What happened?

    "WIPP is in a salt desert, and much of the work there involves burrowing through the salt and using huge elevators to deposit the stuff at surface level. The resulting underground caverns are then filled with radioactive waste and eventually closed shut, sealed forever.

    "First, on February 5th, a salt-hauling truck caught fire. That would be an inconvenience on the side of a highway, but in an enclosed #SaltCavern surrounded by nuclear waste, it’s a potential catastrophe. Workers evacuated the site. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the fire was significant enough to shut down underground operations until investigators could figure out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. Surface-level operations continued.

    "But not for long. Nine days later, late at night on Valentine’s Day, an alarm sounded, indicating that #radioactivity was present in the air underground. No one was below ground at the time, but employees on the surface activated massive fans designed to ventilate the underground air. The next day, another monitor went off — this one on the surface — indicating #AirborneRadiation. Employees who worked outside on the surface were told to take shelter inside buildings completely separated from storage operations. Valves allowing air to flow underground were sealed with high-density expanding foam. Everything came to a standstill, indefinitely.

    Fallout

    "There are no indications that anyone has been injured from the radiation leak. (All employees went through examinations for radiation exposure; a DOE press release says most workers were not affected, and those who were 'received less exposure than a person receives from a chest X-ray.' [THIS IS TYPICAL PRO-NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA]) But for months, nothing has changed. The standstill remains. WIPP’s 850 or so employees are mainly sitting around, waiting (or "performing surface facilities maintenance or assisting with procedure reviews and revisions") while investigators from the US Department of Energy (#DOE), the New Mexico Environment Department and elsewhere attempt to figure out what happened.

    "Initially, there were two hypotheses. The first was that something had gone wrong with the supports inside the cavern where waste was being stored. If that were the case, it meant a piece of salt rock or a steel support had fallen into one of the sealed barrels, puncturing it and releasing radiation into the air.

    "'That was an unlikely possibility,' says Norbert T. Rempe, PhD, a retired geologist who spent decades as a principal engineer at WIPP. The cavern where the radiation monitor went off had been dug only recently, so the chances that supports had eroded or collapsed were probably slim.

    Burstlid

    "Organic kitty litter likely caused a steel barrel's seal to puncture at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM. The damage and the resulting radiation leak could close the facility, experts say. (Department of Energy)

    "More likely, he said, was the second hypothesis: that something had gone awry inside one of the radioactive containers — that the radioactive material had become hot for some reason, expanding and puncturing a steel barrel from the inside.

    "Last month, DOE investigators went into the cavern. Pictures showed that the latter hypothesis was true; a waste container’s lid was unsealed, and dust around the lid had turned yellow from the unusual heat emanating from inside. Each barrel is labeled to track where it came from. The punctured barrel originated from #LosAlamos National Labs.

    "Jim Conca, PhD, a geologist who worked for years at WIPP who now blogs at Forbes about energy issues, believes he knows what blew the lid off at least one of WIPP’s radioactive barrels. The culprit, he wrote, was kitty litter."

    Read more:
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

    #NuclearWasteStorage #NuclearWaste #NuclearRepository
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

  16. ICYMI from 2014. Meee-oooow! Misleading headline, however, the wrong type of cat litter caused an explosion at a #NuclearWaste repository in #NewMexico.

    Radioactive kitty litter may have ruined our best hope to store nuclear waste

    Billions invested in an underground New Mexico repository could be wasted because of one seemingly innocuous decision

    By Matt Stroud
    May 23, 2014

    "Some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the US is currently scattered between 77 locations all over the country, awaiting permanent storage. Until February, many experts suggested that the best place to put it was a facility about 40 miles east of #CarlsbadNewMexico, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). For 15 years, #WIPP has operated as the first and only permanent, deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the country, holding 'low level' radioactive materials — mostly clothing and tools exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons production — in steel barrels more than 2,150 feet below the Earth’s surface.

    "But earlier this year two emergencies brought that suggestion — and WIPP’s future — into question. And now it seems kitty litter may be to blame.

    What happened?

    "WIPP is in a salt desert, and much of the work there involves burrowing through the salt and using huge elevators to deposit the stuff at surface level. The resulting underground caverns are then filled with radioactive waste and eventually closed shut, sealed forever.

    "First, on February 5th, a salt-hauling truck caught fire. That would be an inconvenience on the side of a highway, but in an enclosed #SaltCavern surrounded by nuclear waste, it’s a potential catastrophe. Workers evacuated the site. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the fire was significant enough to shut down underground operations until investigators could figure out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. Surface-level operations continued.

    "But not for long. Nine days later, late at night on Valentine’s Day, an alarm sounded, indicating that #radioactivity was present in the air underground. No one was below ground at the time, but employees on the surface activated massive fans designed to ventilate the underground air. The next day, another monitor went off — this one on the surface — indicating #AirborneRadiation. Employees who worked outside on the surface were told to take shelter inside buildings completely separated from storage operations. Valves allowing air to flow underground were sealed with high-density expanding foam. Everything came to a standstill, indefinitely.

    Fallout

    "There are no indications that anyone has been injured from the radiation leak. (All employees went through examinations for radiation exposure; a DOE press release says most workers were not affected, and those who were 'received less exposure than a person receives from a chest X-ray.' [THIS IS TYPICAL PRO-NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA]) But for months, nothing has changed. The standstill remains. WIPP’s 850 or so employees are mainly sitting around, waiting (or "performing surface facilities maintenance or assisting with procedure reviews and revisions") while investigators from the US Department of Energy (#DOE), the New Mexico Environment Department and elsewhere attempt to figure out what happened.

    "Initially, there were two hypotheses. The first was that something had gone wrong with the supports inside the cavern where waste was being stored. If that were the case, it meant a piece of salt rock or a steel support had fallen into one of the sealed barrels, puncturing it and releasing radiation into the air.

    "'That was an unlikely possibility,' says Norbert T. Rempe, PhD, a retired geologist who spent decades as a principal engineer at WIPP. The cavern where the radiation monitor went off had been dug only recently, so the chances that supports had eroded or collapsed were probably slim.

    Burstlid

    "Organic kitty litter likely caused a steel barrel's seal to puncture at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM. The damage and the resulting radiation leak could close the facility, experts say. (Department of Energy)

    "More likely, he said, was the second hypothesis: that something had gone awry inside one of the radioactive containers — that the radioactive material had become hot for some reason, expanding and puncturing a steel barrel from the inside.

    "Last month, DOE investigators went into the cavern. Pictures showed that the latter hypothesis was true; a waste container’s lid was unsealed, and dust around the lid had turned yellow from the unusual heat emanating from inside. Each barrel is labeled to track where it came from. The punctured barrel originated from #LosAlamos National Labs.

    "Jim Conca, PhD, a geologist who worked for years at WIPP who now blogs at Forbes about energy issues, believes he knows what blew the lid off at least one of WIPP’s radioactive barrels. The culprit, he wrote, was kitty litter."

    Read more:
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

    #NuclearWasteStorage #NuclearWaste #NuclearRepository
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

  17. ICYMI from 2014. Meee-oooow! Misleading headline, however, the wrong type of cat litter caused an explosion at a #NuclearWaste repository in #NewMexico.

    Radioactive kitty litter may have ruined our best hope to store nuclear waste

    Billions invested in an underground New Mexico repository could be wasted because of one seemingly innocuous decision

    By Matt Stroud
    May 23, 2014

    "Some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the US is currently scattered between 77 locations all over the country, awaiting permanent storage. Until February, many experts suggested that the best place to put it was a facility about 40 miles east of #CarlsbadNewMexico, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). For 15 years, #WIPP has operated as the first and only permanent, deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the country, holding 'low level' radioactive materials — mostly clothing and tools exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons production — in steel barrels more than 2,150 feet below the Earth’s surface.

    "But earlier this year two emergencies brought that suggestion — and WIPP’s future — into question. And now it seems kitty litter may be to blame.

    What happened?

    "WIPP is in a salt desert, and much of the work there involves burrowing through the salt and using huge elevators to deposit the stuff at surface level. The resulting underground caverns are then filled with radioactive waste and eventually closed shut, sealed forever.

    "First, on February 5th, a salt-hauling truck caught fire. That would be an inconvenience on the side of a highway, but in an enclosed #SaltCavern surrounded by nuclear waste, it’s a potential catastrophe. Workers evacuated the site. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the fire was significant enough to shut down underground operations until investigators could figure out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. Surface-level operations continued.

    "But not for long. Nine days later, late at night on Valentine’s Day, an alarm sounded, indicating that #radioactivity was present in the air underground. No one was below ground at the time, but employees on the surface activated massive fans designed to ventilate the underground air. The next day, another monitor went off — this one on the surface — indicating #AirborneRadiation. Employees who worked outside on the surface were told to take shelter inside buildings completely separated from storage operations. Valves allowing air to flow underground were sealed with high-density expanding foam. Everything came to a standstill, indefinitely.

    Fallout

    "There are no indications that anyone has been injured from the radiation leak. (All employees went through examinations for radiation exposure; a DOE press release says most workers were not affected, and those who were 'received less exposure than a person receives from a chest X-ray.' [THIS IS TYPICAL PRO-NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA]) But for months, nothing has changed. The standstill remains. WIPP’s 850 or so employees are mainly sitting around, waiting (or "performing surface facilities maintenance or assisting with procedure reviews and revisions") while investigators from the US Department of Energy (#DOE), the New Mexico Environment Department and elsewhere attempt to figure out what happened.

    "Initially, there were two hypotheses. The first was that something had gone wrong with the supports inside the cavern where waste was being stored. If that were the case, it meant a piece of salt rock or a steel support had fallen into one of the sealed barrels, puncturing it and releasing radiation into the air.

    "'That was an unlikely possibility,' says Norbert T. Rempe, PhD, a retired geologist who spent decades as a principal engineer at WIPP. The cavern where the radiation monitor went off had been dug only recently, so the chances that supports had eroded or collapsed were probably slim.

    Burstlid

    "Organic kitty litter likely caused a steel barrel's seal to puncture at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM. The damage and the resulting radiation leak could close the facility, experts say. (Department of Energy)

    "More likely, he said, was the second hypothesis: that something had gone awry inside one of the radioactive containers — that the radioactive material had become hot for some reason, expanding and puncturing a steel barrel from the inside.

    "Last month, DOE investigators went into the cavern. Pictures showed that the latter hypothesis was true; a waste container’s lid was unsealed, and dust around the lid had turned yellow from the unusual heat emanating from inside. Each barrel is labeled to track where it came from. The punctured barrel originated from #LosAlamos National Labs.

    "Jim Conca, PhD, a geologist who worked for years at WIPP who now blogs at Forbes about energy issues, believes he knows what blew the lid off at least one of WIPP’s radioactive barrels. The culprit, he wrote, was kitty litter."

    Read more:
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

    #NuclearWasteStorage #NuclearWaste #NuclearRepository
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

  18. ICYMI from 2014. Meee-oooow! Misleading headline, however, the wrong type of cat litter caused an explosion at a #NuclearWaste repository in #NewMexico.

    Radioactive kitty litter may have ruined our best hope to store nuclear waste

    Billions invested in an underground New Mexico repository could be wasted because of one seemingly innocuous decision

    By Matt Stroud
    May 23, 2014

    "Some of the most dangerous nuclear waste in the US is currently scattered between 77 locations all over the country, awaiting permanent storage. Until February, many experts suggested that the best place to put it was a facility about 40 miles east of #CarlsbadNewMexico, called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). For 15 years, #WIPP has operated as the first and only permanent, deep geologic nuclear waste storage facility in the country, holding 'low level' radioactive materials — mostly clothing and tools exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons production — in steel barrels more than 2,150 feet below the Earth’s surface.

    "But earlier this year two emergencies brought that suggestion — and WIPP’s future — into question. And now it seems kitty litter may be to blame.

    What happened?

    "WIPP is in a salt desert, and much of the work there involves burrowing through the salt and using huge elevators to deposit the stuff at surface level. The resulting underground caverns are then filled with radioactive waste and eventually closed shut, sealed forever.

    "First, on February 5th, a salt-hauling truck caught fire. That would be an inconvenience on the side of a highway, but in an enclosed #SaltCavern surrounded by nuclear waste, it’s a potential catastrophe. Workers evacuated the site. Fortunately no one was hurt. But the fire was significant enough to shut down underground operations until investigators could figure out what happened and how to stop it from happening again. Surface-level operations continued.

    "But not for long. Nine days later, late at night on Valentine’s Day, an alarm sounded, indicating that #radioactivity was present in the air underground. No one was below ground at the time, but employees on the surface activated massive fans designed to ventilate the underground air. The next day, another monitor went off — this one on the surface — indicating #AirborneRadiation. Employees who worked outside on the surface were told to take shelter inside buildings completely separated from storage operations. Valves allowing air to flow underground were sealed with high-density expanding foam. Everything came to a standstill, indefinitely.

    Fallout

    "There are no indications that anyone has been injured from the radiation leak. (All employees went through examinations for radiation exposure; a DOE press release says most workers were not affected, and those who were 'received less exposure than a person receives from a chest X-ray.' [THIS IS TYPICAL PRO-NUCLEAR PROPAGANDA]) But for months, nothing has changed. The standstill remains. WIPP’s 850 or so employees are mainly sitting around, waiting (or "performing surface facilities maintenance or assisting with procedure reviews and revisions") while investigators from the US Department of Energy (#DOE), the New Mexico Environment Department and elsewhere attempt to figure out what happened.

    "Initially, there were two hypotheses. The first was that something had gone wrong with the supports inside the cavern where waste was being stored. If that were the case, it meant a piece of salt rock or a steel support had fallen into one of the sealed barrels, puncturing it and releasing radiation into the air.

    "'That was an unlikely possibility,' says Norbert T. Rempe, PhD, a retired geologist who spent decades as a principal engineer at WIPP. The cavern where the radiation monitor went off had been dug only recently, so the chances that supports had eroded or collapsed were probably slim.

    Burstlid

    "Organic kitty litter likely caused a steel barrel's seal to puncture at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, NM. The damage and the resulting radiation leak could close the facility, experts say. (Department of Energy)

    "More likely, he said, was the second hypothesis: that something had gone awry inside one of the radioactive containers — that the radioactive material had become hot for some reason, expanding and puncturing a steel barrel from the inside.

    "Last month, DOE investigators went into the cavern. Pictures showed that the latter hypothesis was true; a waste container’s lid was unsealed, and dust around the lid had turned yellow from the unusual heat emanating from inside. Each barrel is labeled to track where it came from. The punctured barrel originated from #LosAlamos National Labs.

    "Jim Conca, PhD, a geologist who worked for years at WIPP who now blogs at Forbes about energy issues, believes he knows what blew the lid off at least one of WIPP’s radioactive barrels. The culprit, he wrote, was kitty litter."

    Read more:
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800

    #NuclearWasteStorage #NuclearWaste #NuclearRepository
    theverge.com/2014/5/23/5742800