[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 5/14/14
There was a saying I wrote in my Poor Richard’s Almanack that went, “Fish and visitors smell after three days.” After seeing the latest report about the radioactivity leak (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kitty-litter-eyed-as-possible-culprit-in-radiation-leak/) at New Mexico’s “Waste Isolation Pilot Plant” (WIPP), I believe we should add a third item to that list: “Fish, visitors, and bungling bureaucrats smell after three days.”
The coverup continues
As I said in my previous blog about this “WIPP” radioactive burial site, I think there is quite a significant coverup going on, which may even date back to 1999, when the WIPP facility first opened. [Editor's note: Actually, WIPP construction first began in 1971 in the Nixon years...and Energy Secretary James Watkins gave the go-ahead for transporting nuclear waste to WIPP in 1991, during the Bush administration.]
Despite all the scientific studies and preparatory work that went into this ill-fated project, including the invention of specially designed radioactive waste shipping containers, it seems that there wasn’t nearly enough thought that went into it to assure the safety of all concerned. In fact, one factor that wasn’t considered is that good old-fashioned variable, “human fallibility.”
Yes, it’s the human factor that did them in. Some clever person, trying to get around WIPP’s rule against accepting fluid waste, probably figured out that pouring the radioactive water into kitty litter would get around that restriction — the kitty litter absorbs the liquid, and thus, there is now a “solid” substance to ship to New Mexico.
How many other rules have been similarly broken, and will be continue to be skirted, before this project is finally exposed for the foolishness that it is? Or is the national media going to keep sweeping this under the rug, thinking it isn’t of much interest to the rest of the country, since many people don’t even realize that New Mexico is part of the United States? (I am certain that if WIPP happened to be located in the suburbs outside Philadelphia, we would be hearing about it in the news every single day!)
Government bungling
Believe me, I am no stranger to the misdeeds and mischief of government bodies. Much of the time I spent in England, prior to the Revolutionary War, was spent battling the incompetent and insane maneuvers of the 17th century British Parliament, which insisted on treating the colonists as second-rate citizens (deciding it could tax them and control them to their hearts’ content).
So I can easily imagine how some United States bureaucrats of fifteen years ago assumed they’d figured everything out, which meant solving the radioactive waste problem by simply shipping it all to barren, isolated New Mexico…where the only people who would be affected would be Native Americans and poor New Mexicans.
As I said before, I still think this WIPP story has the potential of going “viral” on the internet, once more reporters and concerned citizens realize what is really going on there.
Another Three Mile Island in the making?
I truly hope, however, that whatever exposé is being prepared, it will be brought to the public before something even more serious happens at the WIPP site in New Mexico. As a time traveler, I confess I am not totally steeped in the news events of past years here in this future world of the 21st century. But, from my studies of your recent history, I have learned about the Three Mile Island disaster, and fear that WIPP could be leading us all down the same road. Let us hope that we realize the error of our ways before that happens.
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin
There was a saying I wrote in my Poor Richard’s Almanack that went, “Fish and visitors smell after three days.” After seeing the latest report about the radioactivity leak (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kitty-litter-eyed-as-possible-culprit-in-radiation-leak/) at New Mexico’s “Waste Isolation Pilot Plant” (WIPP), I believe we should add a third item to that list: “Fish, visitors, and bungling bureaucrats smell after three days.”
The coverup continues
As I said in my previous blog about this “WIPP” radioactive burial site, I think there is quite a significant coverup going on, which may even date back to 1999, when the WIPP facility first opened. [Editor's note: Actually, WIPP construction first began in 1971 in the Nixon years...and Energy Secretary James Watkins gave the go-ahead for transporting nuclear waste to WIPP in 1991, during the Bush administration.]
Despite all the scientific studies and preparatory work that went into this ill-fated project, including the invention of specially designed radioactive waste shipping containers, it seems that there wasn’t nearly enough thought that went into it to assure the safety of all concerned. In fact, one factor that wasn’t considered is that good old-fashioned variable, “human fallibility.”
Yes, it’s the human factor that did them in. Some clever person, trying to get around WIPP’s rule against accepting fluid waste, probably figured out that pouring the radioactive water into kitty litter would get around that restriction — the kitty litter absorbs the liquid, and thus, there is now a “solid” substance to ship to New Mexico.
How many other rules have been similarly broken, and will be continue to be skirted, before this project is finally exposed for the foolishness that it is? Or is the national media going to keep sweeping this under the rug, thinking it isn’t of much interest to the rest of the country, since many people don’t even realize that New Mexico is part of the United States? (I am certain that if WIPP happened to be located in the suburbs outside Philadelphia, we would be hearing about it in the news every single day!)
Government bungling
Believe me, I am no stranger to the misdeeds and mischief of government bodies. Much of the time I spent in England, prior to the Revolutionary War, was spent battling the incompetent and insane maneuvers of the 17th century British Parliament, which insisted on treating the colonists as second-rate citizens (deciding it could tax them and control them to their hearts’ content).
So I can easily imagine how some United States bureaucrats of fifteen years ago assumed they’d figured everything out, which meant solving the radioactive waste problem by simply shipping it all to barren, isolated New Mexico…where the only people who would be affected would be Native Americans and poor New Mexicans.
As I said before, I still think this WIPP story has the potential of going “viral” on the internet, once more reporters and concerned citizens realize what is really going on there.
Another Three Mile Island in the making?
I truly hope, however, that whatever exposé is being prepared, it will be brought to the public before something even more serious happens at the WIPP site in New Mexico. As a time traveler, I confess I am not totally steeped in the news events of past years here in this future world of the 21st century. But, from my studies of your recent history, I have learned about the Three Mile Island disaster, and fear that WIPP could be leading us all down the same road. Let us hope that we realize the error of our ways before that happens.
Your humble servant,
B.Franklin