Sorry, readers, but reading the Boston Globe sucks.
"Los Alamos nuclear lab under siege from wildfire" by P. Solomon Banda and Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press / June 28, 2011
LOS ALAMOS, N.M.—A wildfire burning near the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb advanced on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste Tuesday as authorities stepped up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for radiation.
After Fukushima has faded the corporate press can't seriously believe we will believe what the government mouthpiece$ say, do they?
Officials at the nation's premier nuclear weapons lab gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and capable of withstanding flames from the 93-square-mile fire, which as of midday was as close as 50 feet from the grounds.
I was just wondering how that could be when it allegedly melts steel and causing skyscrapers to disintegrate and fall into their own footprint.
And after all the lies from this government, you expect me to believe the assurances?
A small patch of land at the laboratory caught fire Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on high alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab's perimeter....
The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos, population 11,000, cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste.
"The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they'll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It's a concern for everybody," said Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an anti-nuclear group.
Arends' organization also worried that the fire could stir up nuclear-contaminated soil on lab property where experiments were conducted years ago. Burrowing animals have brought that contamination to the surface, she said.
Yes, I SUSPECT THAT HAS HAPPENED ALREADY and we are simply NOT BEING TOLD AGAIN!!
Btw, NOT A WORD about Fukushima in over a week, huh?
Lab officials said there was very little risk of the fire reaching the drums of low-level nuclear waste, since the flames would have to jump through canyons first. Officials also stood ready to coat the drums with fire-resistant foam if the blaze got too close.
Lab spokeswoman Lisa Rosendorf said the drums contain Cold War-era waste that the lab sends away in weekly shipments for storage. She said the drums were on a paved area with few trees nearby. As of midday Tuesday, the flames were about two miles from the material.
"These drums are designed to a safety standard that would withstand a wildland fire worse than this one," Rosendorf said....
But they couldn't design steel girders.... oh, never mind.
The lab was created during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It produced the weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Then I consider them war criminal labs.
Also see: I Hear You, Hiroshima
Is it too late to apologize? If not I offer my deepest and sincere apologies for what America unnecessarily did to Japan. They got to keep the emperor anyway, so WTF? Just wanted to TEST your NEW WEAPONS, 'eh?
In the decades since, the lab has evolved into a major scientific and nuclear research facility....
The lab also conducts research on such things as climate change and the development of a scanner for airports to detect explosive liquids. The lab's supercomputer was used in designing an HIV vaccine.
Oh, ALL HOOKED INTO the AGENDA, are we?
So how much cancer are the scanners giving us?
Lab officials gave assurances that buildings housing key research and scientific facilities were safe because they have been fireproofed over the years, especially since a 2000 blaze that raged through the area but trees and brush were thinned over the past several years, and key buildings were surrounded with gravel to keep flames at bay....
Yeah, okay.
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"Plane monitors fire near Los Alamos lab" Associated Press / June 30, 2011
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — The government sent a plane equipped with radiation monitors over the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory yesterday as a 110-square-mile wildfire burned at its doorstep.
Lab authorities described the monitoring as a precaution, and they, along with outside specialists on nuclear engineering, expressed confidence that the blaze would not scatter radioactive material, as some residents feared.
And this lying government should give you confidence in it statements, right?
“Our facilities, our nuclear materials are all safe, they’re accounted for, and they’re protected,’’ said lab director Charles McMillan....
The pillars of smoke that can be seen as far as Albuquerque, 60 miles away, have people on edge. The fire has also cast a haze as far away as Kansas.
But EVERYTHING is UNDER CONTROL, blah, blah, blah.
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Related: Kansas Planned Parenthood to get abortion license
Kansas abortion provider gets OK
Yeah, that's more important in Kansas than bad air. "An erratic northern New Mexico wildfire grew yesterday - pushing north while also creeping into a canyon that descends into Los Alamos - as fire officials remained hopeful that they could halt the spread of the blaze before it reached town....
I've about had it with the bullshit peddled by mouthpiece media.
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"Wildfire threat to Los Alamos nuclear lab lets up, but dry weekend looms" July 02, 2011|Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - The threat of wildfire reaching the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the town that surrounds it eased after crews made progress under cloud cover and rain, but concerns turned yesterday to lands held sacred by Native American tribes as firefighters braced for a hot, dry weekend.
Those Native American lands will be left to burn.
Oh, right, I'd forgotten how much this government cared about the concerns of Indians thee 200+ years.
The fire has blackened more than 162 square miles in the past six days, making it the largest fire in New Mexico history. Erratic winds and dry fuels helped it surpass the 2003 Dry Lakes fire, which took five months to burn through vast parts of the Gila National Forest....
The Los Alamos National Laboratory remained closed, and fire officials said there was no chance the thousands of evacuated residents and lab employees would be able to resume their normal lives soon.
Still, the fire chiefs in charge of battling the massive blaze were confident because their crews were keeping flames from spreading down a canyon that leads to the lab and the town.
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Then this flare up:
"Los Alamos may lift evacuation order" by P. Solomon Banda, Associated Press / July 3, 2011
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - With firefighters holding their ground against the largest wildfire ever in New Mexico, officials at the nation’s premier nuclear weapons laboratory and in the surrounding city planned for the return of thousands of evacuated employees and residents.
Boy, they turned around on that quicker than a wind-blown fire.
The blaze was several miles upslope from Los Alamos National Laboratory yesterday, boosting confidence that it no longer posed an immediate threat to the facility.
Thousands of experiments, including those on two supercomputers and studies on extending the life of 1960s-era nuclear bombs, were put on hold because of the fire. Hundreds of employees began returning to the lab yesterday to begin getting things ready for scientists, technicians, and other employees.
Employees were checking filters in air systems to ensure they were not affected by smoke and utilities were operational, and to restart computer systems.
“Once we start operation phases for the laboratory, it will take about two days to bring everyone back and have the laboratory fully operations,’’ lab director Charles McMillan said. “I’d like to continue to ask the employees of the laboratory to continue to be patient.’’
Authorities did not give a timetable for when they would lift the evacuation order that began Monday for the town of Los Alamos, home to 12,000 people.
But some county workers were already back to prepare for the eventual rush of utility service calls, as well as possible flooding from surrounding mountainsides denuded by the wildfire....
Flooding? In Arizona? Because of the snow pack? So much for global warming.
Meanwhile, the back half of the article is about Indian lands going up in flames.
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Flood coverage in the Boston Globe during the same period:
Dried up, 'eh?
Next Day Updates:
"Fire evacuation order lifted in N.M." by Associated Press / July 4, 2011
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Summer rain helped firefighters battling a huge forest fire near Los Alamos this weekend, giving authorities enough confidence to allow about 12,000 people to return home for the first time in nearly a week.
So it wasn't a hot dry weekend as forecast, sigh?
Although the threat to Los Alamos and the nation’s premier nuclear research lab had passed, the mammoth wildfire raging in northern New Mexico was still threatening sacred sites of American Indian tribes....
Still threatening? They are BURNING!
The blaze, the largest ever in New Mexico, reached the Santa Clara Pueblo’s watershed in the Los Alamos Canyon this week, damaging the area that the tribe considers its birthplace and scorching 20 square miles of tribal forest.
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