otherwise

The feds claimed no real harm resulted
from the huge, purposely-set Cerro Grande wildfire,
which burned approximately 8,000 acres
and nearly overran a plutonium stockpile.
this means “the mostly working-class, poor black descendants of
slaves will be making low wages to keep their poor, almost all black
brothers and sisters from the ghettos of D.C. locked up in cages.”
o fficials are worried that rains could set off flooding on the fire-ravaged
mountain overlooking the lab. Flood waters coming out of the mountain
canyons could also sweep contaminants into the Rio Grande system.
Cheapskate Nation
Although Americans like to think of themselves as a caring nation,
nothing could be further from the truth. A study out in 2000 showed
how cheap the US really is.
While protesters have recently focused on the World Bank and the
Interational Monetary Fund for loansharking Third World development
projects, the US gives only a pittance of its largesse in foreign
aid, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. US aid
now stands at $11.1 billion a year, a mere 0.6 percent of federal
expenditures—and it’s slated to drop even further.
When ranked among the top 20 industrialized nations, the US is at
the bottom. (Although Japan’s economy is less than half the size of
the US’s, it has the largest foreign-aid program in the world.)
According to the study, the average US resident “receives 56 times
the annual income of residents of the world’s low-income countries.”
Although the US has only 5 percent of the world’s population, its
economy comprises 27 percent of the world economy.
Los Alamos
The Cold War comes back to kick us in the stomach on a regular
basis. Raging forest fires at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico, and a few weeks later at Hanford nuclear reservation in
Washington, raised the prospect of radioactive pollution across wide
areas of the nation. But the press quickly skipped over the subject.
The feds claimed no real harm resulted from the huge, purposelyset
Cerro Grande wildfire, which burned approximately 8,000 acres
and nearly overran a plutonium stockpile, endangering the public
health in at least four states. Workers at Los Alamos National
Laboratory dug pits to contain runoff from the nuclear lab that might
be contaminated with radioactive or hazardous waste. They worry
that it could wash into the Rio Grande.
During the 50 years that the lab has built and tested bombs and
dumped nuclear waste, large amounts of depleted uranium and similar
radionuclides have been dispersed into the area’s soil and vegetation.
Environmental observers say the lab has 1500 nuclear- and hazardouswaste
sites—many in canyon areas that were swept by the fire. Now
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, whose reporters accompanied
Senator Jeff Bingaman on a tour of the burned site, some of
the most damaged areas in Los Alamos are the most highly secret,
including a nuclear facility. The fire also came within a half-mile of a
site where hazardous waste is stored in drums under tents atop a
mesa—waiting to be moved to underground caverns. Burn trails
show it came within a few feet of the high concertina-wire fence that
surrounds the lab’s plutonium facility, the New Mexican said. Results
of tests for radioactive chemicals, such as mercury, lead, and beryllium,
will take several weeks to process, according to the federal
Environmental Protection Agency.
A key problem in fire-ravaged Los Alamos is the fear that depleted
uranium and toxic nuclear waste may have worked their way into the
atmosphere and become part of the huge plume that has been floating
over eastern Colorado.
No one knows for sure what has happened. But in recent years, a
lot of testing of high explosives has been done at the plant. It’s as a
test site for these explosives that various toxic metals may have
come into play. Explosives are sometimes bonded with depleted
uranium. Los Alamos also manufactures bomb triggers.
The Los Alamos laboratory has disposed of at least 17.5 million
cubic feet of hazardous and radioactive waste in 24 areas on the
site since 1944, according to the Los Alamos Study Group, an antinuclear
outfit. The list of contaminants includes lead, beryllium,
arsenic, thorium, uranium, plutonium, PCBs, and barium.
And then there was Hanford. Reassuring words from Bill
Richardson’s Department of Energy about the fire that ravaged
thousands of acres around the Hanford nuclear complex in eastern
Washington didn’t work this time around. In 1998, tests picked up
more than a dozen radioactive hot spots on the 560-square-mile site
along the Columbia River. Investigators found that the radiation was
being spread by fruit flies, ants, worms, roaches, and gnats. One
report determined that a Hanford worker’s trailer was contaminated
with radioactivity coming from the garbage can, a cutting board near
the sink, and food wrappers. This suggests that even before the fire,
radioactive contamination was working its way off the reservation
into the surrounding environment.
You are Being Lied To
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