Aug 25, 2011

By Dr. Robert M. Bernstein

  

Water from the Rio Grande is again pumping into faucets of Albuquerque homes (soon to be followed by Santa Fe). Unfortunately, questions remain about whether pollutants from Los Alamos National Laboratory are being flushed into the river by runoff from recent storms, following the Las Conchas Fire. Because these contaminants are so toxic, it’s essential that the water be carefully tested by an independent contractor.

While there was much publicity about the danger to some 20,000 containers of transuranic waste stored under fabric tents in Area G, little was said about the 21 million cubic feet of radioactive and chemical waste on-site (21 million cubic feet is three times the amount that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is designed to hold at capacity). This waste began during World War II, and much was buried on the mesas and canyon bottoms in unlined pits, trenches and shafts. Radioactive liquid wastes were discharged directly to the canyons, especially Acid Canyon, an offshoot of Los Alamos Canyon, which flows to the Rio Grande.

Although the fire burned only one acre at LANL, preventive burn-outs were also conducted, burning 132 acres in Los Alamos Canyon and possibly releasing some of those toxic contaminants into our air and water.

The lab’s director confirmed the existence of toxic materials outside the lab’s perimeters, as reported in Energy News on July 7, 2011: “Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Charles McMillan said they really don’t know what’s in the ground around the nuclear facility, admitting that old contamination could be a big question mark when it comes to the long-term effects of the fire.”

Residues of radioactive isotopes have been found in the canyons and also in the sediments of the Rio Grande River. The isotopes do not necessarily remain where they have been deposited; they can migrate. They travel in water, through fractures in the porous volcanic tuff that characterizes most of the soil throughout the area; they travel in the air, borne by the winds; and they are picked up by animals and insects migrating through the lab’s property to surrounding regions, where trees and other plants may have absorbed strontium-90 or cesium-137, which have been found in vegetation on the lab property.

Ash from the incineration of those plants in the high temperatures of the wildfire is now clogging the pipes of our drinking water supply and polluting the waters of the acequias used by farmers and ranchers for irrigation of fields and livestock. Whatever toxins are in the water can also show up in New Mexico’s food.

Ionizing radiation causes cancer. New Mexicans are already exposed, on a daily basis, to releases from the Sandia and Los Alamos labs. The mixed-waste landfill in Albuquerque, with its many uncategorized wastes, sits over the aquifer that remains the metro area’s chief water supply. Radioactive releases from the Fukushima nuclear plants continue, and they travel around the world. These exposures are cumulative, and they may be synergistic with other toxins to which we are exposed.

Chronic exposure to low-level radioactive materials may be more dangerous to health than a single exposure to high-level materials. The National Academy of Sciences, in their Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report, concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to ionizing radiation, especially for pregnant women, young children, the elderly and people whose immune systems are already compromised by other conditions.

On behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and on behalf of the people of New Mexico, I urge the water diversion projects to hire independent contractors to collect daily samples at the diversion sites on the Rio Grande, and at the point of distribution into the water systems. These samples should then be tested at an independent laboratory, and the results made public as soon as possible. This process should begin immediately.