Compounding the Errors...

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

...more ignorance and enemies!  (I used to put a smiley-face on these jokes,
which are really more travesties!  :-(

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

June 26, 2000

          Tainted Los Alamos Soil Dug Up

          Filed at 6:41 p.m. EDT

          By The Associated Press

          LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- A legacy of the Atomic Age lies in the
          soil along a canyon about two miles from a reactor once important
          in nuclear weapons research and manufacturing. 

          Now there's a race against time and weather to ensure the
          radioactive-contaminated soil from Los Alamos National
          Laboratory doesn't flush onto neighboring Indian lands and into
          the state's largest river, the Rio Grande. 

          Seasonal rains are expected soon and lab officials fear that could
          bring heavy flooding because of a fire last month that consumed
          more than 48,000 acres in and around Los Alamos. 

          Workers are digging up truckloads of the dirt along Los Alamos
          Canyon and shipping it to a waste storage site on the federal
          laboratory's property. 

          Large swaths of the once-green mountainsides are barren, except
          for the blackened remnants of pine trees. There's little or no
          vegetation to slow water or stop sediment from pouring into some
          of the canyons that lead to the river about 10 miles from the city
of
          Los Alamos. 

          On Monday, lab officials led a tour of the contamination site and
          explained the excavation operation that should be finished late in
          the week. 

          Lee McAtee, the lab's deputy director of environmental safety and
          health, said there's no serious health risk from the soil because it
          has very low levels of radiation. A frequent hiker to the area, for
          example, would receive a radiation dose equal to riding in an
          airliner for one hour. 

          But McAtee said the lab wanted to ease potential concerns of the
          public by preventing any contamination from moving off of the
          government's property. 

          ``We're doing it because we believe it's the right thing from the
          standpoint of being a good neighbor,'' said McAtee. 

          So far, about 360 cubic yards of soil -- 33 dump truck loads -- have
          been dug from a sandy area alongside a rocky road that leads up
          the canyon. Up to twice that much may be removed by the end of
          the week. The digging started Friday. 

          Environmentalists welcomed the lab's effort to stop the spread of
          contamination. 

          ``It's a good idea to do cleanup where cleanup is possible,'' said
          Greg Mello, director of the anti-nuclear Los Alamos Study Group in
          Santa Fe. 

          Except for the excavation operations -- roped-off areas with
          radioactivity warning signs -- there's nothing to visibly suggest
the
          place had become a dumping ground for early makers of the
          atomic bomb. It looks no different from the high desert canyons all
          around Los Alamos. A road leading into the area has a gate that
          warns of possible contamination, but there are no markers of
          specific contamination sites. The area and road has been open to
          hikers. 

          The soil is believed to be contaminated from dumping in the 1940s
          and 1950s of liquid wastes near a weapons research reactor shut
          down seven years ago. Rains have carried contaminated sediment
          down the canyon. 

          Lab officials selected the area for excavation because it contained
          among the highest levels of contamination in flood-prone canyons.
          Once the soil is removed, clean dirt will be brought to the site and
          then rocks will be placed along the meandering channel -- now dry
          -- where water flows when it rains.
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