Seemorerocks: Radioactive plume from WIPP

Radioactive Plutonium Plume Coming Out of New Mexico's WIPP – Geological Nuclear Radioactive Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

the Green Road,

21 February, 2014

Have you heard about the uncontrolled airborne release of radioactive plutonium from a geological nuclear waste storage facility in New Mexico in 2014? According to SRIC; the radiation leak came from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The leak was identified at 11:30 pm on Friday, February 14, 2014. After the leak was found via an alarm system, it triggered a filtration system, so that air coming out of WIPP would be filtered before being released. Despite the 'filters', radiation was detected 3,000 feet NW of the ventilation shaft.

http://www.sric.org/nuclear/docs/WIPP_Leak_02212014.pdf

According to climateviewer.com, article below, the radioactive plutonium and americium release was hidden from the public by authorities for five days. A local news report confirms that there was a 'delay' of several days.

http://up.anv.bz/latest/anvload.html?key=eyJtIjoiTElOIiwicCI6ImRlZmF1bHQiLCJ2IjoiMjI3NjQyIn0%3D

How much plutonium and americium is coming out? How long will radioactive plume continue? How will this 96,000x above background radiation level affect 'downwinders'?

Source; http://climateviewer.com/2014/02/20/above-ground-plutonium-detected-new-mexico/

There was also a fire at this same facility about a week earlier that released thick black clouds of smoke out of the ventilation shaft. The cause of this fire was claimed to be nothing more than 'a vehicle'.

Does anyone else feel that it is a bit suspicious that just a few days after a 'truck fire' we have a disclosure of radiation coming out of this same salt mine? Was the disclosure of a radiation release hidden for five days? If yes, could it be that these two things (truck fire and radiation release) are actually one and the same thing? Where is the carcass of the burned out vehicle? Maybe the vehicle was a truck carrying a container of radioactive high level waste, which broke open or melted due to the heat of the truck fire.. Who knows, because the DOE is not in the habit of transparently disclosing negative things, just like the nuclear industry. Minimizing, delaying bad news, and saying nothing dangerous is happening are all part of the 'spin' that happens after every nuclear accident.

Art And Science Of Deception; Global Corporations And The 1%

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/p/corporations-art-and-science-of.html

The authorities did not disclose this radiation for five days, according to the article above, but finally did admit the release of plutonium and americium from the facility in unknown amounts. Other news reports indicate that a monitor 1/2 mile away detected the radioactive plume. Of course, the PR person for WIPP claims that plutonium is too 'heavy' to go very far, but that is exactly what they said after Fukushima released between 600 to 6000 pounds of plutonium and that plutonium was confirmed to have gone all around the world.

How Dangerous Is 400-6000 Pounds Of Plutonium Nano Particle Dust Liberated By Fukushima? Via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-dangerous-is-400-6000-pounds-of.html

Fukushima Released Massive Amounts of Plutonium; It Was Found In Japan, The Pacific Ocean And Inside Many US Cities; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/01/fukushima-released-massive-amounts-of.html

Plutonium-238 From Fukushima Traveled Around The World - ‘Misleading’ Experts Said It Would Stay Close By, Or Did Not Happen; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/12/plutonium-238-from-fukushima-traveled.html

The pro nuclear PR person also claimed that plutonium is 'natural' because plutonium has been released via the atomic age from atomic bomb tests and a plutonium satellite crash, just like any pro nuclear PR person will say after any other nuclear accident. Using the 'natural' with plutonium makes it sound like plutonium is just ordinary household dust and it is harmless. Bottom line, there is no 'natural' plutonium, and this "plutonium is natural claim" is a bald faced lie, designed to deceive people, and to minimize this event.

Is There 'Natural' Plutonium And Are There 'Natural' Fission Reactions? via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/01/is-there-natural-plutonium-and-are.html

Live in San Francisco? You, Your Dog And Your Kids Inhaled Billions Of Radioactive Plutonium Atoms; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/01/live-in-san-francisco-you-your-dog-and.html

Plutonium Is The Most Toxic, Radioactive, Man Made Element, With No Natural Biological Role In The Human Body; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/01/plutonium-is-toxic-radioactive-man-made.html

Below are the links to the actual story, and a 1 hour documentary is also included below for those who want to really dive into the history of the only working geological storage facility of high level nuclear liquid waste products and high level mixed products, despite it being permitted only for low level waste, such as rags, clothing and wipes.

Plutonium release at U.S. nuclear facility: “We don’t know what happened… don’t know whether it could happen again” — “Big problem is…how much is continuing to be released?” — Officials“know very little about extent of problem or how to solve it”

KUNM (NPR affiliate), Feb. 20, 2014: Highest Ever Radiation Levels Detected In Air Above Nuclear Waste Facility [...] Russell Hardy, director of the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center, said Wednesday a monitor near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico has detected trace amounts of the radioactive isotopes americium and plutonium. He says the levels are the highest ever detected at or around the site [...]

Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 20, 2014: [...] “It’s still below what EPA considers actionable levels, but it’s important to know that some material did get out of the facility,” Hardy said. [...] Plutonium and americium are cancer-causing when inhaled or consumed, Hardy said. [...] WIPP said Wednesday that it is developing a plan to safely re-enter the underground facility. Radiological professionals from other Energy Department locations and national laboratories are also assisting in the recovery, WIPP said. [...] Hardy said CEMRC is in the process of testing 10 additional filters from an exhaust shaft at WIPP.

RT, Feb. 20, 2014: Spokeswoman Deb Gill said [...] officials know very little about the extent of the problem or how to solve it.

http://enenews.com/reports-plutonium-did-get-out-of-u-s-nuclear-facility-we-dont-know-what-happened-inside-why-it-happened-whether-it-could-happen-again-the-big-problem-is-how-much-was-released-or

New Mexico's WIPP – Waste Isolation Pilot Plant – The WIPP Trail (Documentary)

http://youtu.be/u_3m9xaSfdQ

Plutonium detected half-mile outside New Mexico nuclear waste facility

February 20, 2014

Four days after a radiation alert shut the nation’s only underground nuclear waste facility, an independent monitoring center said Wednesday it found radioactive isotopes in an air sensor about a half mile from the southeastern New Mexico plant.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/2/20/plutonium-detectedoutsidenewmexiconuclearwastefacility.html

US Gov’t: EPA specifically allows radioactive waste to be dumped in salt caverns — Exempted from hazardous waste requirements

http://enenews.com/us-govt-epa-specifically-allows-radioactive-waste-to-be-dumped-in-salt-caverns-exempted-from-hazardous-waste-requirements

How is it that the EPA is working with the DOE on this illegal high level nuclear waste project? The EPA is supposed to be protecting the environment, but now it seems to be in charge of an illegal high level nuclear waste facility. The EPA and DOE are now responsible for the release of airborne plutonium and americium, one of the most deadly substances on Earth.

Bottom line, taxpayers are footing the bill for the garbage produced by the for profit, private nuclear industry. High level radioactive liquid waste is now being disposed of illegally in places like WIPP, originally only permitted for low level nuclear waste.

As late as 2009, the DOE said WIPP was not a good place to store nuclear waste. What changed since then? Nothing, other than they do not have any solutions for high level nuclear garbage. There are actually ten reasons why WIPP was a bad idea to store nuclear wastes, and just ONE of these reasons should have been enough to keep any radioactive waste out of it. But the 'experts' went ahead anyway, just like the nuclear industry went ahead and used the Ge Mark I reactor design despite knowing it was so defective that nuclear engineers quit rather than continue working on it. http://www.nuclearactive.org/wipp/10reasons.html

As recently as 2011, "the Department of Energy (DOE) said it would abide by those restrictions (low level waste only allowed). “Legislation and legally binding documents specifically prohibit … other waste forms from being disposed of at WIPP,” the statement said."

http://civicpolicy.com/journalwatch/?p=3792

According to the IEER, in High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense: Chapter 3, Overview and Critique of the Current Approach to Radioactive Waste Management, there were severe problems with the WIPP site, such as:

"Water leakage into WIPP. The DOE first encountered water seepage into WIPP excavations in 1983. In 1986, a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel on WIPP warned that in a few hundred years sufficient brine might seep into the repository rooms to saturate them. The water leakage issue became public in the fall of 1987 when a group of New Mexico scientists (called the Scientists Review Panel) concluded that the salt formation at WIPP contains much more water than the DOE had anticipated. They warned that over a period of time the brine could corrode the waste drums, forming a "radioactive waste slurry" consisting of a mixture of brine and nuclear waste which might eventually reach the surface.49

Wall cracking and ceiling collapse. Cracks have appeared in the ceilings and floors of several large waste storage rooms, and in three areas, the ceiling has also collapsed. The cracking and collapse are the result of a rate of room closure two to three times faster than was anticipated. When the first storage rooms were excavated in 1983, the DOE expected it would take 25 years for the creeping salt walls to completely close in on each other, locking the barrels of waste into a mass of solid salt rock. However, at the rate the rooms are closing, it may take them only 13 years or less before complete closure. This rapid rate of closure resulted in the initial cracking, which, although known about by the DOE since 1987, was not publicly revealed until the cracks were also discovered by the New Mexico state Environmental Evaluation Group in May 1989 -- a month after the DOE closed the rooms to workers because of fears that sections of the ceiling might fail and collapse.50

On June 19, 1990, a 100-ton section of the ceiling of a test room did collapse, just 18 days after a technician was in the room for an inspection.51 A 1,400-ton rockfall occurred in the same area in February 1991, despite the fact that the DOE had installed bolts in the ceiling to improve its stability. As of June 1991, two additional rockfalls have also been reported."

http://ieer.org/pubs/highlv3f.html

At the Canadian mines, the fractures sometimes breach the top of salt into an aquifer, causing inflows that flood the mine (Tofani, R., 1983, Van Sambeek, 1993). After shaft leakage, such roof breaching is the next most common cause of flooding of salt and potash mines, all of which ultimately flood because they lie below the water table. Already there is leakage occurring from the Dewey Lake Redbeds into one of the WIPP shafts, and thence into the repository. In European potash mining experience, such leakage has been irreparable. The first drop of water signals the eventual flooding of the mine. (link)

http://optimalprediction.com/wp/plutonium-release-from-the-wipp-radioactive-waste-facility/

Besides, what other industry besides the nuclear industry has it's garbage and hazardous waste bill paid for by taxpayers and disposed of for free by the DOE and EPA? See the evidence for the above in the following video....

Legally, technically, and in terms of just plain old design, WIPP could not and still cannot handle high level nuclear liquid waste, but somehow, it all ended up there anyway. Legally it was AGAINST THE LAW. WIPP WAS NOT LEGALLY ALLOWED TO TAKE HIGH LEVEL WASTE, but somehow liquid high level waste ended up there anyway.

AGRP wonders what kind of positive, community health protecting action will the DOE take in response to this invisible, airborne plutonium plume coming from illegal high level nuclear wastes containers that have broken open, burned through or got squashed? If their previous history is any indication, the prospects do not look good. Savannah River and Hanford are just two of the most radiation contaminated areas on the planet, and there is a huge amount of money going into both of these sites, but very little being done to actually clean up the sites and protect the public.

There is little or no financial incentive to clean up radiation contaminated sites quickly, and much more incentive to slow it all down and make little or no progress, because the nuclear industry has the public over a barrel and is holding everyone hostage financially speaking.. After all, if these nuclear industry 'experts' do not agree to get paid through no bid contracts with BILLIONS in taxpayer money to clean up their own garbage, who will do it?

The cost of cleaning up these sites and storing the waste is NOT included in the calculations of what nuclear power costs and risks, along with many other hidden costs and risks on top of these. None of these costly risks or the bill for spills, or the costs of storage are disclosed or made public.

Nuclear Power; EXPENSIVE, Dirty, Dangerous And Toxic; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/10/nuclear-power-expensive-dirty-dangerous.html

Nuclear Plants Are Six Times More Expensive To Operate Than ANY Other Type Of Power Plants; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/09/nuclear-plants-are-six-times-more.html

Super Solar Storm To Hit Earth; 'Carrington Effect'; 400 Nuke Plants Will Melt Down/Explode; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/super-solar-storm-predicted-to-hit-2013.html

Nuclear Energy As A Direct Cause Of Global Warming; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2013/12/nuclear-energy-as-direct-cause-of.html

So what are the DOE and EPA going to do to 'clean' up the WIPP site? Hopefully they will do more than what they did with this 'tiny' radiation leak, found at Hanford.....

Evidence The Federal Govt Refused To Take Action On Radiation Leak At Nuclear Waste Storage Facility http://youtu.be/BJ2nLl1iRHA

Bottom line, there is no answer for nuclear waste long term. No one is willing to pay to store th nuclear industry garbage for 800 million years. Plutonium 244 has a half-life of 80 million years, while Pu241 has a half-life of 14 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium

This means that this WIPP nuclear garbage site would have to maintain integrity and keep all contents secure for 800 million years, because that is how long it would take for plutonium 244 to decay fully. Of course, this facility was theoretically designed to only last for 10,000 years, so maybe you can even predict what happens after that... Humans cannot even remember what happened 2,000 years ago. What chance do we have of doing anything that lasts longer than 50 years?

As we have seen with this incident, putting high level nuclear waste underground is not the answer. When something bad happens underground, no matter what caused it, there is no way to get in there to 'fix' it. Whether it happens within weeks, months or years of putting the waste down there, or a radiation disaster happens after 10,000 years, does it really matter?

Having nuclear waste materials stored above ground in spent fuel pools or casks is a terrorist risk, and having it stored below ground in salt caverns or mines like WIPP is even worse, because the nuclear waste material can leak, explode, or be 'squashed'. Did you know that the whole site is designed to be 'squashed' by the salt eventually? It is not if a ceiling collapse happens, it is just a matter of WHEN ceilings and walls collapse on top of the liquid high level waste containers. Obviously they are not designed to handle walls and ceilings collapse on top of them, since one or more of them is leaking already.

Remember that these salt storage facilities are designed to 'close in' on the wastes and completely surround the waste with salt. But it seems that the containers were not made to resist this 'squashing' effect. Assuming that containers will be squashed as walls and ceilings collapse onto them, the result of the salt walls and ceilings squashing containers will escalate and involve the whole complex eventually, resulting in a potentially massive release of ungodly amounts of high level nuclear waste via a criticality explosion or releases that cannot be shut off, much like the corium releases from Fukushima. Liquid wastes can be forced up into groundwater, or even up to the ground.

Having highly toxic, very radioactive things underground creates a situation where no one can check on what is going on, unlike exploding, leaking or melting down nuclear reactors, which are at least above ground. In a collapsing salt mine, no one can even get to the material, because the high radiation levels from squashed and leaking containers prevents humans from even getting close, just like at Fukushima.

MAX ALERT! DOE is Funding FREE Whole Body NUKE Scans For People Living Within 100 Miles of the Airborne Plutonium Disaster

"CEMRC provides a free lung and whole body counting service to adult citizens living within a 100-mile radius of the WIPP facility. Concerned citizens can be measured to see what radiation may exist in their lungs and whole body. This service is available by scheduling an appointment with the CEMRC Internal Dosimetry Lab at 575-234-5530"

http://pissinontheroses.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/max-alert-doe-is-funding-free-whole.html

Actually, this kind of testing whole body internal radiation scan should be available at no cost to everyone on the planet, due to the Fukushima mega nuclear disaster, which is still ongoing and getting worse.

AGRP predicts that facilities starting with WIPP will end up being just like Fukushima in the long term, because of lax oversight, poor planning, no testing for 'squash resistance' of containers, the hazard of high level radioactive liquids leaking from containers and dozens of other risks not addressed by the 'planners' of these facilities. What are the 'experts' going to do if and when dozens of these underground storage facilities start leaking high level radioactive elements like plutonium, and the leaks cannot be shut off, just like at Fukushima? One WIPP radiation release is BAD, but imagine dozens of thse all over the nation...

Casualties are going to happen. One blogger calculated the death count is already in the tens of thousands, just using the figures provided to date, with no further releases.

http://nukeprofessional.blogspot.com/2014/02/wipp-plutonium-leak-to-kill-at-least.html

From www.radcast.org

Any potential plutonium radiation casualties will be downwind of WIPP, not spread all over the nation. Of course, no one will die immediately, as plutonium is inhaled and then incubates for years before manifesting health issues, but in children or a fetus, this damage may show up much more quickly, due to them being much more sensitive.

Just make sure that if you do get tested via a whole body internal radiation scan, that you get a printed out copy of the results, because what commonly results from 'government' free testing is that they tell you verbally everything is ok, and no one ever gets anything in writing. Then down the road, when the written radiation records are searched for due to the negative health consequences of low level radiation exposure, they are conveniently all lost, misplaced, or disappeared somehow.

End

Radioactive Plutonium Plume Coming Out of New Mexico's WIPP – Geological Nuclear Radioactive Waste Isolation Pilot Plant; via @AGreenRoad

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2014/02/radioactive-plutonium-plume-coming-out.html