Mine closure hits Questa hard
Shutdown of molybdenum deposit leaves future uncertain for 300 workers and Taos County. LOCAL NEWS, C-1
Hail, rain batters Santa Fe
Storm system pounds New Mexico, spurs tornado watch for Santa Fe County. LOCAL NEWS, C-3
Experts urge ta x overhaul
Consultants call for state Legislature to study replacing gross receipts tax. LOCAL NEWS, C-1
Tracing breached container’s path from Los Alamos to Southern N.M. dump reveals complexities of overseeing, handling transfer of waste from nation’s nuclear programs
8. Loading The drums in each payload are loaded into TRUPACT containers at the TRU loading facility. The load is inspected, the TRUPACT is sealed and the shipment is transported to WIPP LANS, CAST
7. Certification
WIPP personnel compile all available data and certify that the containers meet the criteria for disposal at WIPP NWP-CCP, ES, LANS
6. Staging
Because there are strict requirements for transporting drums to WIPP drums are staged in preparation for shipment. LANS, ES
On the night of Feb. 14, a mix of chemicals inside a container of radioactive waste in an underground salt cavern in Southern New Mexico created so much heat the drum’s lid cracked. Radiation leaked out. Heavy bags of magnesium oxide stacked on top of the containers to prevent leaks shifted and disintegrated from the force of the reaction.
A small amount of radiation made its way through filters and an air vent to the ground above the excavated salt bed. An alarm sounded at 11:14 p.m. that night, and the handful of employees at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad were quickly evacuated and tested for radiation exposure. Officials said 21 tested positive, but none at dangerous levels. Within hours, the nation’s only permanent repository for nuclear waste the one officials said would never have a radiation leak when the site opened 15 years ago was shut down for what could be several years. The container in question, a 55-gallon drum
Pasapick
www.pasatiempomagazine.com
labeled LA00000068660, began its life in the birthplace of the atomic bomb From a facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Area G, where the waste was repacked, to a room in the salt cavern near Carlsbad, where the drum was stacked and waiting to burst, a whole slew of people were responsible for how it was handled.
Tracing the container’s path from Los Alamos to WIPP reveals the complexities of overseeing and safely handling the transfer of radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear programs.
LANL and other facilities have relied on the cavernous salt beds at WIPP as a permanent solution for dealing with the waste from decades of nuclear arms research and production. The process of packaging and shipping the waste involves more than a dozen state and federal agencies and private contractors creating layer upon layer of regulatory and supervisory checkpoints.
The Feb. 14 leak has raised questions about these safeguards, both at the state and federal levels. Among the discoveries since the leak, for example,
Obituaries
Nancy Calhoun Cain, 73, May 29
Sonia Seabrook Gans June 4
Laura Elizabeth Emanuel, May 26
Janet E. Morgan, June 5
The contractors
LANS: Los Alamos National Security is a group of companies contracted by the Department of Energy to manage and operate Los Alamos National Laboratory LANS consists of Bechtel National, Babcock & Wilcox, the University of California, and URS Energy and Construction Corporation. ES: EnergySolutions is on contract with DOE and LANS to manage the preparation of waste at the lab for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. NWP-CCP: Nuclear Waste Partnership-Central Characterization Project is contracted by DOE to ensure LANL waste meets the requirements to be stored at WIPP Nuclear Waste Partnership also is contracted to manage WIPP CAST is one of two companies contracted to load transuranic mixed radioactive waste from
Stabbing has link s to Web my th Wisconsin attack that left 12-year-old with 19 stab wounds called a “wake-up call to parents” on influence of Internet on children. PAGE A-6
By Martha Mendoza
The pair of education advocates had a big idea, a new approach to transform every public-school classroom in America. By early 2008, many of the nation’s top politicians and education leaders had lined up in support.
But that wasn’t enough. The duo needed money tens of millions of dollars, at least and they needed a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards. So they turned to the richest man in the world. On a summer day in 2008, Gene Wilhoit, director of a national group of state school chiefs, and David Coleman, an emerging evangelist for the standards movement, spent hours in Bill Gates’ sleek headquarters near Seattle, trying to persuade him and his wife, Melinda, to turn their idea into reality. Coleman and Wilhoit told the Gateses that academic standards varied so wildly between states that high school diplomas had lost all meaning, that as many as 40 percent of college freshmen needed remedial classes and that U.S. students were falling behind their foreign competitors.
The pair also argued that a fragmented education system stifled innovation because textbook publishers and software developers were catering to a large number of small markets instead of exploring breakthrough products. That seemed to resonate with the man who led the creation of the world’s dominant computer operating system.
By Staci Matlock The New Mexican
By Lyndsey Layton The Washington Post
Actor David ‘Blazing’career SundaySpotl
from lanltoleak
Missteps andsecrets
DocumentsshowLANLofficials
Aclose-upphoto of anunsealed waste containerfromLANL wastakenMay22at the WasteIsolation PilotPlantin Carlsbad. Thecontainer wouldnothavemet federaltransportation standards to geton the roadfrom LosAlamos to Carlsbad,nor wouldithave been accepted at WIPP,if thelabhad reported itstrueingredients. CourTesy u.s. DepArTmeNT ofeNergy
downplayed dangersand withheld critical informationafter oneofthe lab’sdrums caused leak at WIPP
By
Inthesummerof2012, Gov. SusanaMartinez visited thehilltopfacilities of Los Alamos National Laboratory tocommemorateamilestone. The lab,underanagreementwiththe state, hadjustshippedits1,000th truckloadofColdWar-eranuclear wastefromthe grounds of LosAlamos to asaltcaverndeepunder the Southern NewMexicodesert.
Theachievementmeantthelab was wellonits waytomeeting aJune30, 2014,deadlineimposed by Martinez to remove radioactive gloves,machinery andotherequipmentleftoverfrom decades of nuclearweapons research.
ForLos Alamos NationalSecurity LLC, theprivate consortiumthat operatesthelab,the stakes were high. Meetingthedeadline would helpitsecure an extensionofits
$2.2 billionannual contractfromthe U.S.Department of Energy.
Butthe following summer,workers packagingthewastecameacrossa batchthatwas extraordinarily acidic, makingitunsafefor shipping. The lab’s guidelinescalled forworkto shutdownwhilethebatchunderwent arigidset of reviews to determinehow to treatit, atime-consuming processthatjeopardizedthelab’s goal of meetingthedeadline. Instead,the labandits variouscontractors tookshortcuts in treating the acidicnuclear waste, addingneutralizerandawheat-basedorganickitty littertoabsorb excess liquid. The combinationturnedthe wasteintoa potentialbomb that onelabchemist latercharacterized asakin to plastic explosives,according to asix-month investigationby The NewMexican.
Thelab thenshipped a55-gallon drum of the volatilematerial330 miles to the WasteIsolation PilotPlant, the nation’s onlyunderground repository fornuclear waste, southeast of Carlsbad.Documents accompanying thedrum, whichweresupposed to include adetaileddescription of its contents, were deeplyflawed. They madenomention of theacidity orthe neutralizer,andtheymischaracterizedthekitty litteras aclay-based material —not themorecombustible organic varietythatmostchemists wouldhave recognizedashazardous if mixedwith wasteladenwithnitrate salts,according to interviews anda reviewofthousands of pagesofdocuments andinternalemailsobtained through aFreedom of Information Actrequest.
On Feb.14,withthecampaignto clearthe wastefromLosAlamos morethan90percent complete, the drum’s lidcrackedopen.Radiation leakedinto theair.Temperaturesin theundergroundchamber soared to 1,600degrees,threateningdozens of nearbydrums. At least 20 workers were contaminatedwithwhatfederal officialshave describedaslowlevels of radiation —though oneworker has filed alawsuit sayinghis health has drastically deteriorateddue to radiation exposure.
Thefacility, meanwhile,remains shutdownasanestimated$500million recoveryeffort expected to last severalyearsgetsunderway,leaving thousands of containers of nuclear wastedestinedforWIPPstranded at nationallaboratoriesacrossthe country. Documentsandinternalemails
Anexplosiv mixture
Thelabandits contractorstook shortcutsintreating acidic nuclear waste, adding neutralizeranda wheat-basedkitty littertoabsorb excess liquid. The volatile result was latercharacterized by onelabchemist asakin to plastic explosives,according to asix-month investigation by TheNew Mexican
Hispanicsflock to Pentecostal congregations
Longtime Catholicsincreasingly leavetofinda ‘spiritual awakening’
ByUriel J. Garcia thenew Mexican
SantaReyes,44,leftMexicoeight yearsagofora betterlifeinSantaFe.
Thingsdidn’tgosowellatfirst. Herhusband startedcominghomelateanddrunk. Her24-year-old sonbecame addictedtococaine.Andher 18-year-old daughter gotsick. Reyescouldn’tfindeconomic,emotional or spiritual supportanywhere. Four yearsago,asshe wasdesperatelysearching for herson —who oftendidnot comehome fordaysat atime —she walkedinto alocal Pentecostalchurch. Membersofthe congregationinvitedhertostay fortheservice, andtheyprayedfor her.Pentecostal churchesare fundamentalistgroupsthatemphasizea directpersonal experience withGodthroughthe Holy Spirit. “I feltsuch apeacethatI’venever feltbefore,” Reyessaid.“Istarted to cry alot.”
LikemanyLatinAmericans,Reyes wasraised Catholic.Andlikemanythousands,shelefttheChurchin search of spiritualawakening in aconservativeProtestant
TheRev. Omar Orozco isthe leader of the Hispanic Protestant church Casa de Dioson SantaFe’s southside. Lukee. moNTAVoN TheNew mexiCAN
ByJeffrey Gettleman thenew York times
VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK,Democratic Republic of Congo—Thetroublestarted when aBritishcompany suddenlyappearedinthisiconicandspectacularly beautifulnationalpark, prospecting foroil. Villagerswhoopposedtheproject were beatenup by governmentsoldiers. Aparkwarden, whotried to blocktheoil company, SOCO International,frombuilding acellphone towerinthe park,waskidnappedand tortured. Virunga’sdirectornearly killedhoursafterhe deliveredasecretreportontheoil company’sactivities. Muchlikethe fight overdrillingon federallandsin the U.S.,thestruggle overoilexplorationinAfrica’s national parksisaclassic quandary,pittingeconomic
show thatevenafterthe radiationleak, labofficialsdownplayedthedangers of the waste— even to the Carlsbad managerswhosestaff memberswere endangered by itspresence— and withheld critical informationfrom regulators andWIPP officialsinvestigating theleak.Internalemails,harshly worded at times, convey atoneof exasperationwithLANL from WIPP personnel,primarilyemployees of the
Department of Energy andNuclear WastePartnership,the contractorthat operatesthe repository. Takentogether,thedocumentsprovide awindow intoa culture of oversight at thelab that,inthe raceto clean upthewaste, hadsobrokendownthat smallmisstepssometimesled to systemic problems.
on our website
View more documents and emailsfrom LANL athttp:// www.santafe newmexican. com/special_ reports/from_
PatrickMalone thenew Mexican