I understand from a friend who lives 30 miles from Los Alamos that the fires there occurred at the same location where the atom bomb was tested. And that there have been several instances of unusual black clouds emitting from the fires. And that testing is being done now to see if the fires have unlodged any dormant radioactive contaminated soils or had any impact on the water, which flows to the Rio Grande.

If anyone finds information on this, please post it here. I'd like to know more.

-- Jan Nickerson (JaNickrson@aol.com), May 17, 2000

Answers

Air quality report expected Wednesday on Los Alamos wildfire May 17, 2000

Web posted at: 9:33 a.m. EDT (1333 GMT

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (CNN) -- Federal and state environmental officials are expected to release on Wednesday a report on the impact on air quality of a wildfire that has burned thousands of acres in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the home of a nuclear research lab.

The study was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and New Mexico's Environment Department in part to calm public fears that fire damage to buildings at the Los Alamos National Laboratory may have allowed toxic or radioactive materials to be released into the air. The lab, which was the birthplace of the atomic bomb, currently stores nuclear materials. State officials believe the report will show that no nuclear materials were released into the air by the flames.

"All of the data we have so far indicates that there's no non-natural radioactivity in the smoke," said Nathan Wade, a spokesman for the New Mexico Environment Department.

"I will hypothesize that (the) ... data will confirm that what we haven't seen is huge jumps in radiation that would be consistent with plutonium being incinerated," Wade said. Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element used in nuclear weapons and reactors.

The fire was deliberately set on May 4 in Bandelier National Monument by the National Park Service to clear away dry brush and reduce the chance of wildfires. It leaped out of control and roared across Los Alamos County last week, forcing the evacuation of 25,000 people, including the entire town of Los Alamos, and threatening the nuclear research lab.

The fire had burned almost 47,000 acres by early Wednesday and was 45 percent contained. But authorities said it has turned away from town, moving toward uninhabited national forest.

http://cnn.com/2000/US/05/17/nmex.fires.01/index.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 17, 2000.

May 17, 2000

Two scientists dispute no-radiation reports

By Lawrence Spohn Tribune reporter

In the face of continuing official denials, two scientists claim there almost certainly are radioactive elements in the smoke pouring out of the Cerro Grande Fire that swept across Los Alamos National Laboratory in recent days.

Both suggested Tuesday that the lab and other government agencies are measuring gross radiation but not looking for specific radioactive elements and may be misleading the public. But they differ on whether the fire's smoke and ash should be considered a public health emergency.

Officials announced Tuesday that disclosure of the independent monitoring results that the Environmental Protection Agency had promised was being delayed until today for further analysis and for a formal meeting among officials from the EPA, the lab and the Department of Energy. Albuquerque doctor and anti-nuclear activist Dan Kerlinsky said the meeting is "suspicious and sounds like they're trying to fudge on what they've found." DOE spokesman Al Stotts, at the fire's Joint Information Center in Espaqola, said the agencies, which he described as "the joint team," merely are getting together "to compare and contrast (monitoring) results. "And if there are discrepancies," he said, "to try to figure out what they are and what they mean." He insisted there is no collusion and that the media will get a "summary of the results and the actual data as well."

Across the nation in Vermont, consulting radiation health physicist Stewart Farber said, "There's definitely (radioactive) cesium and strontium in that ash and smoke, though I can't say with certainly how much because the studies (necessary) for New Mexico haven't been done.

"There has to be. I can pretty much guarantee it," he said. The radiation is in the air regardless of the lab's claims that no radiation escaped its facilities during the fire, he said. Faber said Friday to an Internet professional chat group -- RADSAFE, made up of radiation health physicists -- that there is radiation in the air from the fire. The group has had a running discussion in recent days about the Los Alamos Lab fire situation, and one subject was whether lab surface radioactive contamination over the years poses an airborne threat when the contaminated sites are burned. "It's there regardless of the lab's historical activities," insists Farber, because of "residual (radioactive) nuclear weapons test fallout in biomass (trees, bushes and grass) that can be mobilized by wildfires."

He said he discovered in lab tests more than a decade ago that firewood burned in his home fireplace contained more radioactivity than the government allows at the public perimeter of a nuclear power plant. Los Alamos Lab officials say no nuclear facility was breached by the Cerro Grande Fire that rolled over 7,700 acres of the national lab's property last week. They have consistently reported that their extensive monitoring network has detected no radiation beyond background levels. "Then they're not looking for it," Farber said. He said that, even if the lab contributed nothing directly to the smoke or ash radioactivity from its own facilities or immediate pollution, it is indirectly responsible for the cesium and strontium in the smoke and ash.

Those radioactive elements are traceable to atmospheric nuclear- weapons tests conducted by Los Alamos scientists decades ago but stopped by international treaty in 1963, he said. Los Alamos conducted the first atom-bomb explosion near Alamogordo in 1945 and built the only two warheads ever used in an act of war, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and ending World War II. Along with the nation's other two nuclear-weapons labs, Los Alamos conducted dozens more bomb tests over the next two decades before the testing was forced underground by the treaty. The majority were detonated at the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas, Nev. Farber said the bomb-radiation products eventually settled back to Earth and became concentrated over the years in plant fiber -- including trees. They are released when the wood is burned and can be concentrated in the ash or dispersed by the smoke, he explained, noting that the heat and wind of a forest fire propels ash and smoke into the air and can carry them for great distances.

Satellites have documented that the concentrated smoke from the Cerro Grande Fire has reached as far as Kansas. Farber said he doesn't know -- and believes no one else does either -- what the health effects of the radioactive wood ash and smoke might be. Albuquerque's Kerlinsky believes the smoke contains more than fallout products and represents a potentially serious carcinogen that could cause an increase in the numbers of lung, stomach, colon, breast and bone cancers. He cited a growing number of studies that suggest cesium and strontium are culprits in these and possibly other cancers. Kerlinsky, Mew Mexico leader of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, said Tuesday he believes the lab is ignoring the fire's potential to lift radioactive pollutants from its own contaminated lab sites.

He said that radioactive contaminates are absorbed by vegetation and then released when the plants are burned by the fire. He said he talked personally Saturday with the lab's top environmental official who he said "admitted they are not looking for cesium or strontium" or other radioactive isotopes but rather using counters to measure gross radiation. Efforts to reach EPA scientists at Los Alamos and at the EPA's mobile radiation lab in Espaqola were unsuccessful Tuesday. Jed Harrison, director of the EPA's Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory, explained the pending meeting by noting that federal protocols require the agencies to confer. He confirmed that the EPA initially is only conducting "gross" radiation counts for alpha-beta and gamma ray emissions to "see if we need to do specific monitoring for isotopes." He acknowledged that "certain plants are biomass accumulators that can concentrate some radioactive isotopes." But he said only preliminary work has been done in forest-fire analysis "to differentiate environmental radiation (like naturally- occurring uranium and radium) from nuclear fallout." Farber said lab officials may not be looking into the biomass fallout issue, although he said he would expect experts at a national laboratory of Los Alamos stature to be fully aware of the issue and to have raised some level of concern for the public.

On the other hand, he said, he "wouldn't be surprised if they are seeing some elemental strontium and cesium and they don't know what to make of it." In any event, he said, the fallout issue "has come full circle, in that sense, back to Los Alamos where it all started."

Kerlinsky was considerably more blunt. Expressing sympathy for those who lost their homes to the fire, he observed that "it's a little bit ironic that people up there whose design product (nuclear bombs) is a firestorm have to experience one of their own and one that certainly contains radioactivity of their own doing."

http://www.abqtrib.com/fire/051700_epa-2.shtml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 17, 2000.

Los Alamos hot zones studied; fire still on move

Wednesday, May 17, 2000

POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Environmental experts have begun overlaying maps of burned sections of Los Alamos National Laboratory property atop maps showing the location of lab sites that are environmentally contaminated -- hoping the two will help them find pollution hot spots that need to be protected from erosion.

"With the monsoon (season) coming, you'll have some tremendous erosion," said Lab Director John Browne.

The 46,000-acre wildfire, 35 percent contained, was moving northeast yesterday, away from Los Alamos and toward unburned forestland yesterday, said David Seesholtz, a fire information spokesman.

A Forest Service spokesman, Jim Paxon, called it the largest fire in the state's history.

In the wake of the fire, which burned about 7,700 acres at the lab site, officials said they are concerned about the potential for denuded hillsides and canyons to be rapidly eroded, which would flush chemical or radioactive contaminates into streams and creeks that feed into the Rio Grande.

"The No. 1 concern, as far as the public goes, is to assure people that we can and are taking steps to ensure that that contamination does not move off-site and remains on lab property," said Browne.

Meantime, thousands of people streamed back into the fire-devastated town of Los Alamos yesterday. They found smoke lingering in the air and most stores closed or without such staples as meat and vegetables.

The fire left 405 families homeless; 20 percent of the town remained off-limits to residents. Large pockets of the town remained without gas or electricity.

With New Mexico in the midst of a serious drought -- a key factor in the rapid spread of the fire -- officials at the national laboratory are worried that a heavy downpour could rapidly run off the land and strip lab sites of top soil, dragging surface contaminants along in the torrent.

Browne said some ground areas of the lab are covered with 6 inches of soot, a contaminant itself that can adversely affect stream ecology and water quality.

The lab uses substantial quantities of hazardous chemicals and radioactive elements in its research programs, including radioactive plutonium and uranium -- items used to produce thermonuclear bombs.

The lab remained closed yesterday as managers and safety experts began what is expected to be an arduous assessment of each facility so it can be safely restarted and employees allowed back to work.

The fire started outside of town on National Park Service land on May 4, at Bandelier Monument, when a controlled burn meant to clear away dry brush and prevent future wildfires was pushed out of control by high winds.

In Washington, Republicans called for the reversal of a 10-year-old policy of using controlled fires instead of timber harvesting to control growth in forests.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Energy subcommittee on forests and public lands, said federal policies relying on controlled fires in Western states don't provide sufficient protection to nearby communities, and often cause greater environmental damage than timber harvesting.

Also yesterday, the House passed a non-binding resolution urging the federal government to pay millions in compensation for lost property because the fire was started by the National Park Service.

http://www.seattle-pi.com/national/wfir17.shtml

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 17, 2000.

www.santafenewmexican.com May 18, 2000

Still no air-quality data

By KRISTEN DAVENPORT/The New Mexican - 5/18/2000

The state Environment Department on Wednesday received raw data on results of air monitoring in the area of the Cerro Grande fire, and officials say the data appear consistent with earlier findings by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Department of Energy that the smoke was only slightly more radioactive than what is normally in the air.

However, there was no detailed analysis of the data - nor any actual numbers - available to the public more than a week after fires began burning on lab property.

Federal and state environmental agencies did not release specifics on what three dozen air monitors found this week and said they will wait until a detailed analysis is performed to make any statements about public health.

The Department of Energy, which runs the lab, as well as LANL environmental officials say their own tests of air from last week showed only slightly higher levels of radiation than normal and attributed the levels to natural radiation caused by the fire.

However, anti-nuclear activists and other residents of Northern New Mexico have been waiting for independent after-the-fact verification of those numbers by agencies outside the Department of Energy and LANL.

The Environmental Protection Agency brought its mobile air-monitoring lab to New Mexico over the weekend. In conjunction with the New Mexico Environment Department and LANL, the EPA placed about three dozen air monitors around the area - from Los Alamos to Abiquiz - to measure not only radiation levels but also chemicals in the air.

Those monitors were placed around the northern part of the state early this week - three to four days after the worst of the fire burned lab property.

"This information is qualitative rather than quantitative," said Eugene Brezany, public-affairs officer with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, one of the organizations that is coordinating the air monitoring. "They're saying the radiation is no greater than would be expected with the fire.

"It's like when the doctor tells you you're sick and you have a 105- degree fever. Sometimes the number is useful. But they're telling us we're not sick."

However, environment officials plan to spend the next few days analyzing the numbers and sending data off to laboratories for more detailed reports on what the smoke contained.

"The analysis of the health risks will be made after a more detailed isotopic analysis," Brezany said.

Also, the only information available so far is about the radiation levels. Results from 12 monitors sniffing the air for bad chemicals - PCBs, dioxin or other volatile compounds that could have been released when the fire crossed lab property - will not be available until the end of the week.

"Our people are reviewing the data as we speak," said Nathan Wade, public information officer for the New Mexico Environment Department. Wade said the department does have small amounts of data taken by the state when the worst of the fires were burning on lab property.

Wade said the environment department is not to blame for the delay getting solid information to the public.

"We have a two-inch-thick mountain of data" that the department didn't receive until Wednesday, he said.

Pat Hammack, head of the Environmental Protection Agency team in the area to do air monitoring, said the EPA mobile lab had trouble handling so much data - especially because of a power outage in Espaqola that set the crew behind several hours.

"This information is essentially emergency data," Hammack said. "It's real quick stuff."

More detailed analysis might not be available until next weekend because a five-agency team - the state environment department, EPA, DOE, LANL and the New Mexico Department of Health - has to coordinate and jointly approve the release of information.

The raw data could be put on the New Mexico Environment Department's Web site by this morning at www.nmenv.state.nm.us.

http://www.sfnewmexican.com/localnews/index.las

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), May 18, 2000.