I can’t show you the photos since they are so valuable that they remain under copywrite protection due to a series of laws that have extended the copywrite provisions (wouldn’t you know how that works LOL) but you may be able to see great photos HERE or HERE. I have exceeded my limit of free reads.
The struggle by the FBI to come to grips with what happened is documented HERE and HERE. Let’s just say that the FBI had a great deal of difficulty with this case and the direct participants were not brought to justice but the possible leader Al Capone showed above was never charged let alone convicted of this crime. He had created a perfect alibi. But the FBI got him for tax evasion.
Why am I telling you this story today? Certainly, it is appropriate to discuss what happened on Saint Valentine’s Day in the past and this day has a lot of history including in the distant past a celebration of Christian Martyrs and later a celebration of love due to a poem by Chaucer.
But today I am using this occasion to remember the Mob Killing in Chicago and another Massacre or near Massacre in the state where I live which is New Mexico. More importantly, the chances of what happened here in New Mexico happening again seem to me to be substantial. Accidents can happen at LANL, the WIPP facility southeast of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico or somewhere along the route from Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) to WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant – which appears to be planned now as the sole storage facility in the U.S) or somewhere on the route from LANL to Savannah and Savannah back to WIPP which is a long trip with many opportunities for the radioactive materials being conveyed to have an accident or be stolen by saboteurs.
It is a complicated topic but today we will mostly talk about the accident on February 14, 2014 at the WIPP facility southeast of Carlsbad Caverns National Park. You can learn more about WIPP HERE.
Let us now talk about this other Saint Valentine’s Day massacre or an accident that was almost a massacre (we do not really know the full impact on those involved) and one that likely will be repeated. Most of these images were provided to me by Cynthia Weehler. They are based on U.S. Government Documents so they should be considered accurate.
On February 14, 2014, radioactive materials leaked from a damaged storage drum. Analysis of accidents at the WIPP, by DOE, have shown lack of a “safety culture” at the facility.[19]
On February 5, 2014 at around 11:00 a.m., a salt haul truck caught fire, prompting an evacuation of the underground facility.[20] Six workers were taken to a local hospital with smoke inhalation and were released by the next day. Lab tests after the fire confirmed that there was zero release of radiological material during, or as a result of, the fire.[21] Underground air-monitoring equipment was out of commission after the truck fire.[22]
On February 15, 2014, authorities ordered workers to shelter in place at the facility after air monitors had detected unusually high radiation levels at 11:30 p.m. the previous day. None of the facility’s 139 workers were underground at the time of the incident.[23][24] Later, trace amounts of airborne radiation consisting of americium and plutonium particles were discovered above ground, 0.5 mi (0.80 km) from the facility.[23] In total, 22 workers were exposed to radioactive contaminants equaling that of a standard chest x-ray.[25] The Carlsbad Current-Argus wrote: “the radiation leak occurred on the evening of February 14, according to new information made public at a news conference [on February 20]. Joe Franco, manager of the DOE Carlsbad Field Office, said an underground air monitor detected high levels of alpha and beta radiation activity consistent [sic] the waste buried at WIPP.”[26] Regarding the elevated levels of plutonium and americium detected outside the nuclear waste repository, Ryan Flynn, New Mexico Environment Secretary stated during a news conference: “Events like this simply should never occur. From the state’s perspective, one event is far too many.”[27]
On February 26, 2014, the DOE announced that 13 WIPP above-ground workers had tested positive for exposure to radioactive material. Other employees were in the process of being tested. On Thursday, February 27, DOE announced that it sent out “a letter to tell people in two counties what they do know so far. Officials said it is too early to know what that means for the workers’ health.”[28] Additional testing would be done on employees who were working at the site the day after the leak. Above ground, 182 employees continued to work. A February 27 update included comments on plans to discover what occurred below ground first by using unmanned probes and then people.[29][30]
The Southwest Research and Information Center released a report on April 15, 2014[31] that one or more of 258 contact-handled radioactive waste containers located in room 7, panel 7 of the underground repository released radioactive and toxic chemicals.[32] The location of the leak was estimated to be approximately 1,500 feet (460 m) from the air monitor that triggered the contaminants in the filtration system. The contaminants were spread through more than 3,000 feet (910 m) of tunnels, leading to the 2,150-foot (660 m) exhaust shaft into the surrounding above-ground environment. Air-monitoring station #107, located 0.5 miles (0.8 km) away, detected the radiotoxins. The filter from station #107 was analyzed by the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center (CEMRC) and found to contain 0.64 becquerels (Bq) per cubic meter of air of americium-241 and 0.014 Bq of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 per cubic meter of air (equivalent to 0.64 and 0.014 radioactive decay events per second per cubic meter of air).[33] The DOE agreed that there was a release of radioactivity from the repository and confirmed that “The event took place starting at 14 February 2014 at 23:14 and continued to 15 February 2014 14:45.”[34] The DOE also confirmed that “A large shift in wind direction can be seen to occur around 8:30 AM on 2/15/14.”[35][36] The EPA reported on the radiological release on their WIPP News page.[37]
After analysis by CEMRC, the station A filter was found on February 15, 2014 to be contaminated with 4,335.71 Bq of Am-241 per every 35 cubic feet (1 m3), and 671.61 Bq of plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 per every 35 cubic feet (1 m3).[38] Bob Alvarez, former DOE official, stated that the long-term ramifications of the WIPP issue are grounded in the fact that the DOE has 66,000 m3 (2,300,000 cu ft) of transuranic waste that has not been disposed of due to the fact that there are no long-term disposition plans for transuranic waste, including 5 tons of plutonium that are in-situ at the Savannah River Site, as well as water from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.[39] In an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Alvarez wrote that “Wastes containing plutonium blew through the WIPP ventilation system, traveling 2,150 feet to the surface, contaminating at least 17 workers, and spreading small amounts of radioactive material into the environment.”[40] The URS Corporation, who oversees WIPP, removed and demoted the contracted manager of the repository. Alvarez ponders the notion of “contract handling” of radioactive waste because it deploys conventional processing practices that do not take into consideration the tens of thousands of containers buried before 1970 at several Department of Energy sites. Alvarez states that the quantity of this pre-1970 plutonium waste is 1,300 times more than the amount permitted to “leak” into the environment at WIPP; however, much of this waste is simply buried a few feet underground at DOE sites.[41]
The source of contamination was later found to be a barrel that exploded on February 14 because contractors at Los Alamos National Laboratory packed it with organiccat litter instead of clay cat litter. Other barrels with the same problem were then sealed in larger containers.[42] Anthropologist Vincent Ialenti has examined the political, social, and financial triggers to this organic kitty litter error in detail, linking it to the accelerated pace of the Department of Energy’s and State of New Mexico’s 3706 nuclear waste cleanup campaign, which ran from 2011 to 2014. Ialenti’s study was published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in July 2018.[43]
The 2014 incidents raised the question of whether or not WIPP would be a safe replacement for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, as a destination for all waste generated at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants.[5] The cost of the 2014 accident was expected to exceed $2 billion and disrupted other programs in various nuclear industry sites.[44] On January 9, 2017, the plant was formally reopened after three years of cleanup costing $500 million, which is significantly less than forecasted.[45] On April 10, the plant received its first shipment of waste since reopening.46]
Readers who found this article on the EconCurrents.com website may have to click “Read More” to read the rest of the article. Please do that as this is very important. If you have received a link to the article it will not be necessary to click “Read More”.
This shows the current route to and from LANL and WIPP. For the shipments from LANL to WIPP you start with the image on the right and then switch to the image on the left. Returning from WIPP to LANL you start with the image on the left and then switch to the image on the right.
The above graphic shows that some of the panels in the underground repository became unusable due to the explosion and others for some reason were not properly filled. There is a lot of background information to this but without voice, it is hard to convey the information.
What does the future hold?
This is what has been revealed so far as a draft plan. The existing and the planned areas have been circled. I believe some of the panel numbers were added by the person who provided me with this graphic. It is not a stretch to see that further expansion is likely to occur as needed. This is the segue to the rest of the story.
What is the reason for the expansion?
The rest of the story is way too complicated to cover tonight but I will be addressing it in subsequent articles. Let’s just say that we have both a large above-ground stockpile of plutonium from disassembled nuclear weapons* and we are continually refurbishing nuclear weapons and creating more waste to dispose of. There was a plan to use this plutonium for nuclear power but the conclusion was that it would be too expensive. I am not sure that was the correct decision.
So now the plan is to partially treat the plutonium (oxidize it) and send it to a facility in Savannah Georgia where it will be additionally processed into what is called Transuranic waste (TRU) [Author’s Note: Cute] which will be shipped back to the WIPP plant in southern New Mexico. That means that many states will have very various dangerous materials shipped through them and then less dangerous but still dangerous materials will be shipped through other states on the way back to New Mexico and WIPP. Many different maps with different routes have been proposed and I assume will continually be proposed as most states will not find these shipments to be something they desire.
I have a background in the mining industry and was a Vice President of the major division in a Fortune 500 Mining Company and I would not have approved such an approach. One way of looking at this is reverse room and pillar underground mining. We are creating a plutonium mine.
But we have this problem of nuclear waste from the defense industry so we have to deal with it one way or another. Below I will also discuss the problem of waste from nuclear power plants. So far both problems are without a desirable solution and a problem that is being hidden from American Citizens for obvious reasons. So it impacts a lot more people than just New Mexico as per the above map.
Why am I writing this article?
I am writing this article for three major reasons.
It is a difficult problem for which so far there is no good solution. I would like to see more creativity in looking at alternatives.
Those making the decisions IMO are not being honest with the general population. They also do not appear to have the full support of Congress which may not be funding the problem at the right level.
One of the entities involved is the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. IMO they make it difficult for journalists to report on the problem which to me is a potential violation of law to the extent they are partially funded by public funds. This is a general problem in research today and I mention this entity only because it is very involved with this issue. In general, it is easy to access most of the information but there seem to be copyright restrictions that impact the ability to communicate the issue.
A problem like this needs more public participation
A description of the issue
There are many issues related to nuclear waste disposal. First of all, there are at least three kinds of nuclear waste.
Spent rods from nuclear power plants
Plutonium which is mostly recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons
Incidental Waste which would be things like gloves used to handle nuclear material. Thus incidental waste is generally per unit of weight less radioactive.
Then there is the question of where to store the waste. This involves gaining permission to store and utilize safe logistics. All of these are very problematic.
There are many laws involved but the overriding consideration is most do not want to store nuclear waste. Some do because it can be profitable to do so. But those who profit are a small percentage of those who are put at risk.
It gets very complicated because:
The risks can not be easily quantified.
The benefits to those not directly profiting from storing nuclear waste are broadly distributed and small. Thus the distribution of risks and benefits is perhaps very uneven.
* In all my writing on this subject I never address the issue of (a) whether we should have nuclear weapons or (b) whether nuclear energy makes sense. I will never address the topic of whether we should have nuclear weapons as that is beyond my expertise. I may address the issue of the viability of nuclear energy but it most likely would not be part of the articles I am writing on the storage of nuclear waste. But of course, the storage of nuclear waste is part of the consideration of the viability of nuclear energy. But the viability of nuclear energy is a larger topic and we have a large number of existing nuclear energy facilities and many stockpiles of above-ground stored waste from nuclear energy. So the issue is with us no matter what we do in the future with respect to nuclear weapons or new nuclear energy plants. Obviously, anything we do that generates more nuclear waste exasperates the problem.
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I hope you found this article interesting and useful.
Mr. Silber is a mathematician and an economist with many years of experience in a variety of technologies. He started his career at Bell Telephone Laboratories and has worked in and provided consulting to many participants in the computer and communications industries. He has also been very involved with Natural Resources having been a V.P. of Planning and Financial Analysis for Kennecott Minerals. Mr. Silber has also taught a graduate course in Information Economics at Polytechnic University which is now part of New York University. Mr. Silber has served as an elected Supervisor and Secretary Treasurer of the Santa Fe - Pojoaque Soil and Water Conservation District. In addition to his consulting practice, Mr. Silber is working on a book that will address the economic issues related to Global Warming.
