Los Alamos nuclear laboratory threatened by wildfire

Efforts to protect New Mexico site stepped up as lab officials give assurances that dangerous materials can resist blaze Los Alamos residents evacuated over wildfire – in pictures A wildfire has advanced on the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste as authorities step up efforts to protect the site and monitor the air for radiation. Officials at the premier US nuclear-weapons lab – the desert birthplace of the atomic bomb – gave assurances that dangerous materials were safely stored and capable of withstanding flames from the 95 sq mile fire, which at one point was as close as 50 feet (15 metres) to the grounds. A small patch of land at the laboratory caught fire on Monday before firefighters quickly put it out. Teams were on alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent the day removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab’s perimeter. “We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got,” New Mexico Democratic senator Tom Udall said. The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos , which has a population of 11,000, and has cast giant plumes of smoke over the region and raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 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’s organisation 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. 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 on 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. Los Alamos employs about 15,000 people on a 36 sq mile site, and includes about 2,000 buildings. It plays a vital role in the US’s nuclear project. The lab was created during the second world war as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It produced the weapons that were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the decades since, the lab has evolved into a major scientific and nuclear research facility. It works on extending the life of aging nuclear bombs, tests warheads, produces triggers for nuclear weapons and operates supercomputers and particle accelerators. 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. Lab officials gave assurances that buildings housing key research and scientific facilities were safe because they have been fireproofed. Trees and brush were thinned over the past several years, and key buildings were surrounded with gravel to keep flames at bay. The lab has been shut down because of the fire. Wildfires Nuclear weapons New Mexico Nuclear waste Natural disasters and extreme weather United States guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 29, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.