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Voices from the Earth: Current Issue
Table of "Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth…that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamt would have come his way." — W.H. Murray in |
LOS ALAMOS FIRE RENEWS LOCAL FEARS Contamination Data Incomplete In May, a huge forest fire in New Mexico made national and international news as it burned almost 50,000 acres in and around nuclear weapons production and waste storage facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
During the fire, SRIC and other public interest organizations received hundreds of calls from people asking what the dangers were, should they evacuate, should they drink water, and what were the long-term risks. Because of the lack of reliable data, and the lack of candor of some government officials, accurate and definitive answers to the questions were impossible to provide. We could say that there were and are dangers, though no one knows how severe since no one really knows how much radioactive and hazardous materials have been released from LANL over the past 57 years. We do know that some of the damage done by the fire will take years to remedy. That remains true despite one law passed by Congress in July to provide more than $500 million dollars to rebuild the more than 200 homes and apartment houses destroyed in Los Alamos and for business losses, as well as more than $130 million for LANL. Another bill may provide $200 million more. In contrast, the Santa Clara and San Ildefonso Indian Pueblos were allocated only $9 million, though they can also make claims on the other funds. Other tribes were provided no specific funding. While national attention has waned, New Mexicans will continue to face threats of contamination and the lingering effects of government dissembling and bad decisions. CONTAMINATION As it burned, the fire threatened many people because of the airborne contamination spread by the fire over large areas of New Mexico and into portions of Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma. More than 15,000 people were evacuated from Los Alamos and some nearby communities during the fire, thereby substantially reducing human exposure, except to the more than 1,000 firefighters battling the blaze. Since there is no accurate inventory of what contaminants were in the trees, structures, and soil that burned, long-term damage to health, crops, soil, and water will be virtually impossible to accurately assess. Fortunately, no one was killed in the fire, nor have serious injuries been reported. In the area near LANL, the denuded, mountainous watershed terrain will result in larger scale runoff than normal with the result that more radioactive and hazardous materials in the soil will be transported into the Rio Grande and to Cochiti Dam on Cochiti Pueblo land. Some of the federal funds will be used to build dams and other barriers to limit runoff and to expedite reforestation. OFFICIAL PRONOUNCEMENTS Initially, federal government officials stated that there were no releases of radioactive or hazardous materials, even though that was not true. Later, when air monitoring data showed increases of up to 30 times the amount of radioactivity in the air, officials stated that the releases were "natural" radioactivity. Monitoring data during the height of the fire on May 10-12 were not made available until days after and then had major gaps. Some monitoring stations had no data, there was no data on the smoke plume at higher levels (it rose up to 20,000 feet), and there was no monitoring in several surrounding communities that received large amounts of ash. DATA Available data show that, on May 11, particulates from the fire were as much as eight times greater than federal standards. At more than 20 monitoring locations, levels of radioactivity in the air were from a few times to 30 times higher on May 11 than two weeks previous. Additional data is being collected from some soil and water samples. Some farmers and consumers want to determine whether there is significant contamination, in order to get compensation. Or, conversely, determine that there is not significant contamination so that consumers are reassured. Some limited water sampling will be done in some of the runoff areas. But long-term monitoring will be needed, and no one has yet committed to fund it or to make the data public. THE FUTURE In addition to continuing effects of the fire from rainwater runoff, LANL's on-going work and its new nuclear weapons missions threaten people with the prospects of even greater contamination. And with a major nuclear weapons facility in a forest, there will be another great fire some day. INFORMATION RESOURCES
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