Category Archives: all-hazards

Fires Near Los Alamos

NBC Nightly News, June 28, 2011. Lisa Myers reports,

Pete Stockton, former Department of Energy official, says “the public should be concerned but not alarmed as a wildfire inches closer to a  nuclear weapons facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico.”

New Mexico fire managers scrambled Tuesday to reinforce crews battling a third day against an out-of-control blaze at the edge of one of the top U.S. nuclear weapons production centers.

The fire’s leading edge burned to within a few miles of a dump site where some 20,000 barrels of plutonium-contaminated waste, including clothing and equipment, is stored at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, fire officials said.

The town of Los Alamos, home to about 12,000 people, was evacuated Monday afternoon as a precaution.

The wildfire — which has burned 60,000 acres, or 93 square miles, in just two days — was as close as 50 feet from the Los Alamos National Laboratory grounds on Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday, a spot fire at the lab was quickly contained, and lab officials said no contamination was released.

Lab officials and fire managers said they’re confident the flames won’t reach key buildings or areas where radioactive waste is stored in barrels above ground.

Negligence at KBR Killed Americans

KBR, through negligence, kills Americans in Iraq. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pittsburgh, serving in Iraq was killed while taking a shower in his barracks in Baghdad . (Military.com.

An Army investigation called the electrocution death of a U.S. Soldier in Iraq a “negligent homicide” caused by military contractor KBR Inc. and two of its supervisors

Sgt. Maseth was one of several soldiers killed by electrocution in the shower. 

KBR, the firm once owned by Haliburton, the oil services firm once run by Dick Cheney, built the barracks, installed the shower, and apparently connected the electrical wiring to the plumbing, in violation of building codes and common sense and without oversight.

Q: Why is an oil services firm supporting a military operation? 

A: Because, according to Alan Greenspan, it’s a war for oil (click here).

Q: Will KBR be held accountable?

A: I certainly hope so.