How Societies Retreated From Trust and Responsibility for Each Other - The Path Through the Atomic Bomb

Seems like Oliver is telling the story  "The Untold History of the United States", beginning with how the atomic bomb transformed American Society , that I have been preparing to tell. 

Sven Lindqvist  (born 1932) has written a trilogy on this, taking the broader world view over a longer period beginning in 762 with the Chinese invention of gunpowder. The story in the third book, "The History of Bombing"  is told in an interesting way:

This book is a labyrinth with twenty-two entrances and no exit. While printed in a chronological order, it is recommended to be read according to themes, and thus skips around chronological with  " >>"  suggesting the order the numbered sections are recommended to be read.

Section 1.                                                                            BANG, YOU’RE DEAD

"Bang, you're dead!" we said. "I got you!” we said. When we played, it was always war. A bunch of us together, one-on-one, or in solitary fantasies -- always war, always death.

      "Don't play like that," our parents said, "you could grow up that way." Some threat --there was no way we would rather be. We didn't need war toys. Any old stick became a weapon in our hands, and pine cones were bombs. I cannot recall taking a single piss during my childhood, whether outside or at home in the outhouse, when I didn't choose a target and bomb it. At five years old of age I was already a seasoned bombardier.
      “If everyone plays war,” said my mother, “there will be war.” And she was quite right – there was.  

                                                                                                >> Section. 166

166.    [1939]  When the Second World War broke out on the first of September in 1939, I was seven years old and had just started school. Suddenly I realized my father was already an old man.  He didn't even know how to put out a firebomb. He wouldn't be able to get out of the cellar of a house that had collapsed, he had no idea how to hide in the forest and dig down into the snow. He was stuck back in the first World War, and if I wanted to survive the second, the responsibility would be all mine.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

It's always puzzled me how societies moved from mutual cooperation, that Charles Darwin alleged was the most important inheritable characteristic for survival, to an Ayn Rand, dog eat dog, every man for himself mentality. Yes, I realize that Thomas Hobbes, in his Leviathan, 1651 wrote:

               ".....there be no Propriety, no Dominion, no Mine and Thine distinct; but only that to be                 every mans that he can get; and for so long, as he can keep it.

A Thread of my own making, to give a sense of how Sven Lindqvist tells a story.

1803. [#35-p13] 

Malthus:  Principles of Population (1803). It is quite possible to solve Europe’s food shortages temporarily by exterminating the native populations of other continents.

“If the United States of America continue increasing, which they will certainly do, though not with the same rapidity as formerly, the Indians will be drive further and further back into the country, till the whole race is ultimately exterminated, and the territory is incapable of further expansion.”

But not Africa or Asia.

“To exterminate the inhabitants of the greatest part of Asia and Africa is a thought that could not be permitted for a moment.”

1869.  [ #45 p. 17 ]   

Charles Dilke:  Greater Britain (1869).   Bestseller

              “The gradual extinction of the inferior races is not only a law of nature, but a blessing to    
              mankind.”

1961. [ #315 p. 149 ]

Several hundred professors: Open letter to US President Kennedy:

                “By buying a shelter program that does not shelter, and thereby believing that we can  

                   survive a  nuclear war, we are increasing the problem of war.”

Margaret Mead.  The U.S. was no longer trying to build a safe world, or even a safe country or a safe city. No, the family sought instead an illusory security by creeping into itself and pulling back from the world. The last station on that line was the little hole in the ground where the family ducked and covered under attack from nuclear weapons. 

Margot A. Henriksen:  Dr. Strangelove’s America:  Society and Culture in the American Age.

                “The armed, individual  shelter is the logical end of this retreat from trust and
      responsibility for others.”

Lindqvist, Sven:  TheHistory of Bombing.    1999  Translated 2001 by Linda Rugg. New Press

Tea Party Crashes: The Most Unpatriotic Act by Susan Lindauer

Posting here as facebook blocks link:
http://bit.ly/h7tq9t
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/lindauer1.1.1.html

 
Tea Party Crashes: The Most Unpatriotic Act

by Susan Lindauer
The People's Voice

I confess that since November I've been holding my breath, watching the clock for how long Tea Party newcomers could hold out against the entrenched Republican elite on Capitol Hill. Collapse was inevitable, however I admit to feeling bitterly surprised at how rapidly they have thrown in the towel. For the record, most of the Tea Party quit their principles of liberty on February 14, 2011 – 20 days into the new Congress – when Tea Party leaders abruptly abandoned their opposition to the Patriot Act and voted to extend intrusive domestic surveillance, wire tapping and warrantless searches of American citizens. In so doing, they exposed the fraud of their soaring campaign promises to defend the liberty of ordinary Americans, and fight government intrusions on freedom. All those wide-eyed speeches that flowed with such thrilling devotions, all of it proved to be self-aggrandizing lies.
The Tea Party didn't even put up a fight. Briefly they rejected a sneak attack to renew three surveillance clauses of the Patriot Act on a suspension vote. That filled my heart with hope. One push from the Republican elite, however and they went down with a loud thud.
My disappointment is particularly acute. Rather notoriously, I am distinguished as the second non-Arab American to face indictment on the Patriot Act, after Jose Padilla.
My status was pretty close to an enemy non-combatant. One would presume that I must have joined some terrorist conspiracy? Or engaged in some brutal act of sedition, such as stock piling weapons and munitions to overthrow those crooks in Congress?
You would be wrong. I got indicted for protesting the War in Iraq. My crime was delivering a warm-hearted letter to my second cousin White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card, which correctly outlined the consequences of War. Suspiciously, I had been one of the very few Assets covering the Iraqi Embassy at the United Nations for seven years. Thus, I was personally acquainted with the truth about Pre-War Intelligence, which differs remarkably from the story invented by GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.
More dangerously still, my team gave advance warnings about the 9/11 attack and solicited Iraq's cooperation after 9/11. In August 2001, at the urging of my CIA handler, I phoned Attorney General John Ashcroft's private staff and the Office of Counter-Terrorism to ask for an "emergency broadcast alert" across all federal agencies, seeking any fragment of intelligence on airplane hijackings. My warning cited the World Trade Center as the identified target. Highly credible independent sources have confirmed that in August, 2001 I described the strike on the World Trade Center as "imminent," with the potential for "mass casualties, possibly using a miniature thermonuclear device."
Thanks to the Patriot Act, Americans have zero knowledge of those truths, though the 9/11 Community has zoomed close for years. Republican leaders invoked the Patriot Act to take me down 30 days after I approached the offices of Senator John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify about Iraq's cooperation with the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework that would have achieved every U.S. and British objective without firing a shot. Ironically, because of the Patriot Act, my conversations with Senator Trent Lott's staff got captured on wire taps, proving my story.
You see, contrary to rhetoric on Capitol Hill, the Patriot Act is first and foremost a weapon to bludgeon whistleblowers and political dissidents. Indeed, it has been singularly crafted for that purpose.
The American people are not nearly as frightened as they should be. Many Americans expect the Patriot Act to limit its surveillance to overseas communications. Yet while I was under indictment, Maryland State Police invoked the Patriot Act to wire tap activists tied to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, an environmental group dedicated to wind power, solar energy and recycling. The DC Anti-War Network was targeted as a "white supremacist group." Amnesty International and anti-death penalty activists got targeted for alleged "civil rights violations."
All of these are American activists engaged in lawful disputes of government policy. All of them got victimized by the surveillance techniques approved by Tea Party leaders, because they pursued a policy agenda that contradicted current government policies. The Tea Party swore to defend the freedom of independent thinking in Congressional campaigns. One presumes those promises are now forgotten until the next election.
I cannot forget. I cannot forget how I was subjected to secret charges, secret evidence and secret grand jury testimony that denied my right to face my accusers or their accusations in open court, throughout five years of indictment. I cannot forget my imprisonment on a Texas military base for a year without a trial or evidentiary hearing.
I cannot forget how the FBI, the US Attorneys Office, the Bureau of Prisons and the main Justice office in Washington – independently and collectively verified my story – then falsified testimony to Chief Justice Michael Mukasey, denying our 9/11 warnings and my long-time status as a U.S. intelligence Asset, though my witnesses had aggressively confronted them. Apparently the Patriot Act allows the Justice Department to withhold corroborating evidence and testimony from the Court, if it is deemed "classified."
I cannot forget threats of forcible drugging and indefinite detention up to 10 years, until I could be "cured" of believing what everybody wanted to deny – because it was damn inconvenient to politicians in Washington anxious to hold onto power.
Some things are unforgivable in a democracy. The Patriot Act would be right at the top of that list. Nobody who has supported that wretched law should ever be allowed to brag of defending liberty again. That goes for the Tea Party. By voting to extend surveillance of American citizens, they have abandoned the principles of freedom that brought about their rise to power. They have shown their true face.
It is a face that we, the people, will remember. I, for one, have no intention of allowing them to forget.
Reprinted with permission from The People's Voice.

February 17, 2011

Susan Lindauer is a whistleblower indicted under the Patriot Act. She is the author of Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq.

On the ethics of the military coming to a public university and asking for help building weapons to kill peope

Letter by Herbert J. Hoffman, Phd describing the USAF recruitment effort at the University of New Mexico. Forward to the Stop the War Machine members.

So far the Daily Lobo on campus has refused to run this letter from Herb.


Dear Editor:

I saw your article on the Air Force meetings being held at the UNM Engineering Center and attended the last one (Friday, February 24, 2012).  Given the venue, I was appalled at what I saw and heard.

For two hours Air Force Officials gave power point presentations on their projects related to war in space and talked about: the need to harden space electronics against radiation from nuclear weapons explosions; how to solve power and size problems for future space weapons; on the need for new high tech weapons that would allow the war-fighter to get around treaty restraints on the rules of engagement in countries abroad.

In the final presentation one chart presented how successful the Air Force has been in reaching out to get high school students involved in becoming future partners in war research.

At the conclusion of the program, I asked a question about the ethics of the military coming to a public university and asking for help building weapons to kill people.  Then the most amazing thing happened.

The Air Force official on stage and then several UNM officials jumped up to say that was not what they were doing, that they were just trying to build better things like GPS systems and involve the University in basic research [somehow not related to the explicit mission of the Air Force]. Apparently they thought I did not know what I had witnessed and heard.

This is an example of  the corruption of truth that occurs when military research which is based around classified information, secrecy and deception enters a public campus which is by its mission trying to work in a transparent manner to increase the education of citizens and create knowledge.

I was astounded that military and university officials would just outright misrepresent what I had just witnessed them doing.  I thought they might try to use the greater national defense theory argument or the theory there is financial support for the university in doing this war research, but they all just outright tried to deny what they were doing and presenting -- seeming to think that was ok.

When we realize that the new National Defense Authorization Act, just signed by the president, which authorizes the military to detain without a warrant and to hold American citizens without trial for an indefinite time if they are considered a threat to the country, we need to be alert to the danger each of us faces.

In light of this development we have to take even more seriously what the university is doing in this partnership.

When we consider that already existing space capabilities with satellites and drones in use by these military officials have assassinated American citizens abroad along with countless numbers of other people it is not wise to allow this kind of lying, propaganda presence on campus.  It is a short step from what is being done with our endless wars abroad to targeting people on campuses all in the name of national security.  What these research projects involve are building the kind of technologies that could be used to do just that.

It is time that the university community and the civic community had a serious discussion and dialogue about the role of and risks to UNM -- and other institutions of higher learning -- in developing partnerships with the military.

I just came across a quote that frames much of my concern:

"Our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."
                          General Douglas MacArthur


Peace,

Herbert J. Hoffman, Ph.D.
Member, Veterans for Peace

***********
 

Thank to Herb for attending that session, and for sharing with us what you experienced. Thank you, Robert, for forwarding that letter to SWM. I hope you will consider also forwarding that letter to the University President, and each of the UNM Regents. Common Dreams, Counterpoint, Russ Baker, David Swanson might also be interested in giving the public information it should have that a student organization is not (at least yet) willing to help disseminate.

Folks might be interested in what the International Congress for the Education of Engineers, convened at the Technical University of Darmstadt  in the Spring of 1947 had to say on the

"ethics of the military coming to a public university and asking for help building weapons to kill people."

and on recruiting university engineering students for the purpose of developing

"new high tech weapons that would allow the war-fighter to get around treaty restraints on the rules of engagement in countries abroad. "

 

The possibilities of happiness for human beings through the progress of technical sciences are beyond doubt. But equally real is the memory of the horrors of the recent past, is the worldwide fear of the utter destruction of all life by technical means - two deeply problematic aspects of technical science. The Technical University was particularly concerned with the definition of the task of the engineer in this problem, and this inevitably required the definitive statement that those who do creative work in technical science must be assisted to reach a state of mind and character which enables them to be more aware than in the past of the perils to their work, and to fulfill their moral obligations by learning to understand the exclusively humanitarian aspects of their profession and their grave responsibilities.

The first plenary session:  TECHNICS AS AN ETHICAL AND CULTURAL TASK

What does UNM offer to its students to help them realize their ethical and moral responsibilities to work for humanity, in serving mankind, rather than for autocracy and predation

?

BEER IS CHEAPER THAN THERAPY

http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2012/02/beer-is-cheaper-than-therapy.html
or
http://www.firsthandfilms.com/index.php?film=1000352

A Dutch documentary about America and its endless wars and "warriors".

Beer is Cheaper Than Therapy
The Netherlands 2011, 55/78 min., HD A Zeppers Film & TV Production by Simone de Vries
New

‘I'm 22 years old and I must have killed 30 people. The same thing that you were given badges for, over in Irak, you would be considered a serial killer over here. That's a very weird thought to have running around in your head when it's dark, going to sleep or late at night.’
There is no place for doubt, sadness and fear in the American army. Back home, many soldiers struggle with these feelings. Beer is Cheaper than Therapy portrays what goes on behind the facade of heroism and the 'John Wayne mentality'.

http://www.firsthandfilms.com/px/play-button.png

UPdate: LASG v NNSA, DOE, LANL

U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver Denies Administration's Attempt to Quash Appeal of Lower Court Decision which Allowed Los Alamos Plutonium Facility to Proceed

Contact: Thomas Hnasko, of Hinkle, Hensley, Shanor & Martin, L.L.P., (505) 660-3397 mobile (best this afternoon), (505) 982-4554 office; Lindsay Lovejoy, (505) 983-1800; Greg Mello (505) 265-1200

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Judicial District ruled (pdf) in favor of the Los Alamos Study Group on a motion by the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting dismissal of the Study Group's appeal of a May 2011 decision by a New Mexico federal district court which allowed the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue working toward building a $4-6 billion plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

The Study Group had claimed, and still claims in this appeal and in a second lawsuit filed in New Mexico federal court, that NNSA and DOE have never written an applicable environmental impact statement (EIS) for the facility, called the "Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility" (CMRR-NF), that the agencies involved are violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and that the project is proceeding illegally and must be halted while an applicable EIS is written. 

"This is good news -- very positive for us." said Study Group director Greg Mello.  "The Tenth Circuit has decided to hear our appeal and the federal agencies, which we believe are grossly violating NEPA, must now explain themselves before a panel of senior judges in Denver." 

In a separate positive ruling (pdf) yesterday for Study Group in their second NEPA case in New Mexico federal court, the court denied DOJ's attempt to transfer the new case to the Honorable Judith Herrera, who had ruled against the Study Group in the first case, the case now under appeal. 

Mello: "Congress passed NEPA to require federal agencies to take a hard look at alternatives to projects that will endanger the environment.  That "hard look" has never happened in this case.  The project has ballooned to ten or fifteen times the original cost estimates, is going to be delayed at least 14 years, the nuclear stockpile has declined by half, the original raison d'etre for the project has largely evaporated -- and yet there are no possible alternatives to this massive project?  This is NNSA's position, and it is absurd.  There are, in fact, several reasonable alternatives, as many in government know. 

"Regardless of this, NNSA and DOE cannot decide to build this or any project without first producing an applicable EIS.  Federal agencies cannot spend hundreds of millions of dollars implementing the first part of a project and then, and only when challenged, decide to write an alternative-free, post-hoc environmental report.  Such practices, should they be allowed, would effectively eliminate NEPA." 

***ENDS***

--
Greg Mello
Los Alamos Study Group
2901 Summit Place NE
Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-265-1200 office
505-577-8563 cell

NYTimes Oped: A Nuclear Facility We Don’t Need By GREG MELLO

November 14, 2011  New York Times

A Nuclear Facility We Don’t Need

By GREG MELLO

Los Alamos, N.M.
It has been over 20 years since the end of the cold war, and yet the United States continues to spend enormous sums on its nuclear arsenal and related programs. In fact, rather than looking for ways to save money in this budget-conscious time, the National Nuclear Security Administration is asking for even more money to build one of its most unnecessary projects yet: a second big plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The facility, which the administration says it needs to produce more nuclear warhead cores, called pits, would cost between $4 billion and $6 billion to build, and roughly a quarter billion a year to operate. Strikingly, despite the decade (and about $450 million) spent developing the proposal, the administration still doesn’t have a firm cost estimate or a final design. That hasn’t kept it from asking for money, though: this year it is requesting an additional $270 million to continue planning, part of a proposed $621 million increase for warhead management.
A better cost estimate may be available in early 2013, when the final design nears completion, though the administration hopes to begin construction long before that, in January 2012, if Congress allows it. Even after that, experience strongly suggests that further cost increases are likely between now and 2023, when the project is expected to finally come online. By then it will be needed even less than it is now; by the time it is completed the entire nuclear arsenal, except for cruise missile warheads, will have been successfully upgraded without this investment.
The laboratory needs fewer grand ambitions, not more space. Its existing plutonium facility, which has about twice the space inside as the proposed one, already has a high-capacity manufacturing line that takes up just a third of the building. Why does the nuclear administration need to produce more pits, let alone at a faster rate? Scientists agree that the existing stock of pits will last a century or so without replacement. There are also large reserves of extra warheads and pits for each delivery system, more than enough to replace every warhead and bomb deployed.
The nuclear administration says it needs more capacity to facilitate large-scale production of pits for “replacement,” i.e., to produce new types of warheads. It optimistically claims that such new designs can be certified in the absence of nuclear testing. The new building would be built to handle the large steel tanks needed for the explosive “subcritical tests” and “scaled experiments” that are considered helpful in certifying these otherwise untested replacement warheads.
The new building would also house a large new vault containing “the plutonium stores of the nation,” as Don Cook, the administration’s deputy director, has said. Yet the administration already has nuclear storage facilities in South Carolina and Nevada, which are more than sufficient. Meanwhile, it is spending additional billions on other questionable plutonium facilities to dispose of excess plutonium around the country and is even emptying a large modern plutonium facility in Livermore, Calif.
One reason the facility’s estimated costs continue to rise is a new appreciation of how the region’s seismic profile affects the design of the facility. The proposed facility would sit above a thick layer of loose volcanic ash, which amplifies seismic accelerations and provides little resistance to sliding. The entire Los Alamos laboratory complex sits on a fault system capable of shallow magnitude 7.3 earthquakes that give rise to sharp high accelerations.
To top it off, the administration is still not even sure how to design the building: whether to anchor the bunkerlike structure deep in the mesa or let it “float” up near the surface, its upper part protected by earthen berms.
There are alternatives — simpler, faster, cheaper and safer ones — but the nuclear administration refuses to examine them. For example, it could make better use of existing facilities, which were very costly to acquire and are very expensive to maintain and make safe, but which are not being used efficiently. But the nuclear administration and its predecessor agency within the Department of Energy have been continuously on the Government Accountability Office’s watch list of agencies most prone to waste and poor management since the list began 20 years ago.
Even setting these criticisms aside, the case for building more nuclear weapons, at a time when the United States’ arsenal is already by far the most sophisticated and most expensive in the world is growing harder to make. The Congressional supercommittee, which will soon wrap up its plans for cutting federal spending, might or might not want to touch the politics of maintaining our nuclear arsenal — but cutting resources for this dangerous and unnecessary project should be something every member of Congress can get behind.

Greg Mello is the executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear disarmament advocacy organization.

Update on Los Conchas- LANL fire from CCNS

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety via swcp.com

show details 10:33 PM (9 hours ago)

Hi All,
One of the lessons of the Cerro Grande Fire, which burned over 47,000 acres during a two-week period in May 2000 in the same areas as the Las Conchas Fire, is that we can't trust the statements by the officials.  Their statements and data eventually end up in reports that say that there was no exposure.  For example, the Risk Assessment Corporation reported following the Cerro Grande Fire:

The cancer incidence risk from breathing any LANL-derived chemical or radionuclide released to the air during the fire was less than 1 chance in 1 million.

“Summary Report:  Analysis of Exposure and Risks to the Public from Radionuclides and Chemicals Released by the Cerro Grande Fire at Los Alamos,” p . 7 < http://www.racteam.com/docs/Cerro_Grande_Fire_Summary_Report.pdf >

But we know the opposite is true because of the stories people have told following the Cerro Grande fire.  For example, communities that had never had a case of childhood leukemia began to experience those cancers; animals in the Embudo Valley aborted; and very rare cancers have grown in residents living in communities downwind and downstream of LANL.  Many have died and we are so sorry.   

In that spirit, please check out the following website for photos and videos of the fire so that you can make your own decisions about whether to evacuate, or when to evacuate.  Remember the six “Ps” -  http://lacoa.org/PDF/ESP10/ESP_Bltn_Wildfires2-LACo_0410.pdf

1. People and pets
2. Papers, phone numbers and important documents
3. Prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses
4. Pictures and irreplaceable memorabilia
5. Personal computers (information on hard drives, memory and discs)
6. “Plastic” (credit cards, ATM cards) and cash

*** More ***

1.  On the KOAT-TV website:  LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Dr. Michio Kaku discussed his concerns Tuesday for the hazardous materials housed at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Kaku said around 20,000 to 30,000 barrels of plutonium contaminated waste is stored at the lab. That waste includes everything from gloves to fuel rods, according to Kaku.
“Plutonium is one of the most toxic particles known to science. A particle you can’t even see lodged in your lungs could cause lung cancer,” Kaku said. “What we’re worried about is what happens when the fires go right into these buildings and perhaps pop open some of these 55-gallon drums.”
Right now, Los Alamos National Lab officials said dangerous materials in the lab are secure and do not pose a threat.
Kaku said no one has ever fully tested the lab under real fire conditions.
“What happens if the fire spreads to the very heart of the laboratory? At that point, we have to cross our fingers hoping that ‘secure sites remain secure,’” Kaku said.
Copyright 2011 by KOAT.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read more: http://www.koat.com/news/28386019/detail.html#ixzz1QdMhPysZ

2.  Bob Martin of KRQE-TV went up in a helicopter this afternoon.  You can see the fabric tents at Area G in the foreground and the fire moving in that direction.  http://www.krqe.com/dpp/weather/wildfires/bob-martin-special-aerial-web-report

3.  To view the fire and Area G from satellite on your computer, go to the Nuclear Watch New Mexico blog to learn how to use Google Earth and the US Forest Service information to keep track of the fire.  http://www.nukewatch.org/watchblog/?p=838

    You want to focus on the red square areas north of State Road 4 and the location of the Area G fabric tents which store the 20,000 to 30,000 drums of plutonium contaminated wastes – about 3 1/2 miles northeast of the red squares.  You can see the four tents west of White Rock.  They are also south of the green east-west line.

    It appears the Google Earth updates the information about the fires across the U.S. by zooming out.  Then you have to zoom back in to see if it has updated the Las Conchas fire.

4.  And a big shout out and thank you to all of you who forwarded the Action Alerts to social media networks! We are grateful because we while we can talk about transuranic waste at Area G, we don’t know much about social media tools.

5.  There was a press conference today.  You can read about it at:  http://www.lamonitor.com/content/press-conference-offers-hope

6.  Los Alamos County Update - June 28, 2011 4:30 PM
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/2385/12079/
Incident: Las Conchas Wildfire
Released: 4 hrs. ago
Los Alamos, NM - The Los Alamos County Council will host a town hall meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) with White Rock residents and those who have been evacuated from Los Alamos. A representative of the USFS will be on hand to answer questions about the fire. The meeting will be held at 2:00 p.m. at the White Rock Baptist Church (80 State Rt 4). Atomic City Transit will offer bus service from the two shelters to the meeting. Bus pick up times are: 12:45 p.m. at the Santa Claran Resort Center and 1:15 p.m. at the Cities of Gold Hotel Conference Center.
Media Advisory: Fire Chief Doug Tucker will give a Las Conchas fire update to the press at the Media Staging Area at 20th/Trinity at approximately 7 p.m. The County will continue to co-host Noon news conferences with LANL at the Media Staging Area until further notice.

7.  Air Quality Issues from the Incident Information System:  http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/2385/12058/

8.  From Jean Nichols on Tuesday, June 28th in the evening:

Today I was given a medical type mask (AOSafety 1050 Pleats Plus Particulate Respirator Medium Large N95 NiIOSH)

It actually seems to help a lot when outside in the smoke, - at least it helps how my lungs feel. I believe these are the same kinds used in surgical situations.
They are much more comfortable than full respirators or construction dust masks. You can buy them at Walgreens or other pharmacies.  We should be asking the Governor or the Red Cross or FEMA  or someone in Public Health to make them available to everyone who wants one, especially those with respiratory issues. They could be given out at the food banks this week. While they probably won't help with the serious radionuclides, I'm sure they will help with some of the other airborne particulates.

9.  From Sheri Kotowski of the Embudo Valley Environmental Monitoring Group on Tuesday June 28th in the evening:

Hi Everyone,

Here's an up date on Las Conchas Fire air monitoring.

I spoke with NMED LANL Oversight at 2:30 PM. Steve Yanicak gave me the
rundown of air monitoring that is happening in and around the lab. They are
short staffed at the moment and they have a lot to do.

NMED changed out filters this morning on AIRNET (low volume) stations
(measuring gross alpha and beta radiation, isotopic uranium and plutonium,
americium, strontium) on the perimeter of LANL and at the airport. They will
have data back in seven days. They are also setting up high volume samplers
that will be analyzed for the same constituents as AIRNET and also for heavy
metals.

The lab has put out 60 additional air monitoring stations. Turn around time
on the data will should be very quick according to NMED Oversight. We should
start seeing data soon. I will find out how the public can access this
information.

EPA is sending out 16 - 24 air monitoring stations. EVEMG is helping to
locate a half a dozen of them up here north east of the lab and in the
plume. They should be arriving tomorrow- Wednesday, and hopefully deployed
very quickly. There will be one located at the Embudo Valley Library. Other
locations are being worked out.

EPA is readying the ASPECT aircraft to begin flying at regular intervals
through the plume of the fire as early as tomorrow- Wednesday. This aircraft
is specially fitted with monitoring equipment and will be measuring
radioactivity as well as detecting other substances of concern.

The NMED Radiation Bureau is locating radiation detection equipment on the
roof top of the hospital in Española, and at locations in Alcalde, Pojoaque
and Nambe.

I hope you find this information useful.
Please feel free to contact me if you have questions. If I don't have
answers hopefully I will be able to find someone for you to talk to.

Please pass this information on.

Take care,

Sheri
EVEMG
serit@cybermesa.com
            505 579 4076      

10.  Please share this email with others.  And yes, our home page has been hacked; we’re working on it.    

Pray the Water Canyon fire line will hold the progress of the fire.   

Take care All,
CCNS