Los Alamos fire affects national lab
employees
In a move officials called unprecedented, Los Alamos National
Laboratory gave an extensive tour of its facilities to reporters
Saturday, trying to allay fears that a wildfire damaged key
research and nuclear waste areas at the high-security lab.
“This is an attempt to show you we are not hiding
anything,” Gen. Gene Habiger, director of security and
emergency response for the Department of Energy, told the
Associated Press.
“If anyone thinks the government, the Department of
Energy, can suppress the truth, they’re wrong,” Habiger
continued.
The Los Alamos laboratory is one of three national labs managed
by the University of California. The UC announced Saturday a
contribution of $150,000 to a relief fund and the availability of
loans up to $5,000 for lab and DOE employees.
“We are saddened by the plight of our employees, retirees
and friends, but we know that the people of Los Alamos and Northern
New Mexico are strong and resilient,” Atkinson said in a
statement.
John Davies, chairman of the UC Board of Regents, and two senior
UC officials were scheduled to be in Los Alamos to view the
damage.
The UC Office of the President has also announced the creation
of a task force assembled by UC experts of current and former City
of Oakland officials who were instrumental in guiding recovery
efforts from a major 1989 earthquake in the San Francisco/Oakland
Bay Area and a fatal 1991 firestorm that devastated neighborhoods
in the Oakland/Berkeley Hills.
About 225 UC employees from campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley
and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories lost their homes in
the 1991 fire.
The blaze began as a government-prescribed burn to clear brush
in the Bandelier National Monument, adjacent to the lab.
But the fire quickly got out of hand, fueled by dry conditions,
hot temperatures and winds of 50 mph.
Lab officials said that while the flames started grass fires on
lab property, burned brush and destroyed several trailers, they did
not get into critical areas where nuclear materials or hazardous
waste are stored.
One of the areas of greatest concern, a waste storage site known
as TA54, also was untouched by flames.
TA54 is used to store certain types of nuclear waste temporarily
until it can be shipped elsewhere for permanent disposal.
Ongoing air quality samples have shown no increases in radiation
at the lab or in surrounding areas, lab officials said.
“I’d go downwind in a heartbeat and live there for
the rest of my life,” Habiger said.
Davis announces plans for veterinary
facilities
UC Davis has drafted a $354 million long-range facilities plan
for the School of Veterinary Medicine, designed to restore the
school’s full accreditation status, as well as to prepare for
enrollment and academic growth anticipated for the next decade.
The need for improved teaching and research facilities for the
veterinary school became acute in 1998 when the American Veterinary
Medical Association’s accreditation committee visited the
school for its routine accreditation review.
While the school passed the review in the areas of faculty,
research, curriculum, clinical resources, library resources,
students, admissions, continuing education and organization, it
failed to make the grade in the area of facilities.
The accreditation committee cited the school for inadequate
facilities for teaching, research and clinical care. It was also
recommended that the campus unite all veterinary faculty and staff
with the rest of the campus’s health-science programs.
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.