Players dispute script for mock emergency
By ROGER SNODGRASS, Los Alamos Monitor EditorNew Mexico Environment Secretary Ron Curry announced Wednesday his continued support for a specific emergency preparedness exercise set in Los Alamos, despite recent complaints by Los Alamos National Laboratory that the scenario is “unrealistic.”
A planning process going back to late 2006 has been developing a scenario that included a “radiological release to the atmosphere from an accidental detonation of un-surveyed underground explosives by excavating contractors at LANL’s Material Area B,” known as MDA B.
The old dump, located on the edge of a mesa on DP Road across from the Monitor office, has been re-fenced and prepared for a major excavation project, although there has been very little movement in the last several months.
Curry sent a letter to LANL Director Michael Anastasio and Los Alamos Site Office Manager Donald Winchell Wednesday expressing “grave concerns” about current disagreements in the planning process.
A spokesman for the laboratory downplayed Curry’s reaction.
“We’re committed to continuing to work closely to develop an exercise that works for everyone and effectively tests everyone’s systems,” said Kevin Roark of LANL’s Communications Office Thursday, reading an approved statement.
The emergency preparedness exercise is meant to test plans against actual coordinated activity by a wide range of northern New Mexico emergency managers, responders and several levels of government agencies. Participants are supposed to include LANL, four counties, eight northern pueblos and the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Hospitals, school systems, community groups and the media will also be incorporated into the exercise.
“We agree that testing our emergency response systems alongside the emergency response systems in the region, is a very important thing to do,” Roark said. “Equally important, however, is that the scenario for an emergency exercise be technically credible; otherwise, the exercise yields results that are as unrealistic as the scenario.”
James Bearzi, the state’s hazardous waste bureau chief dismissed the laboratory’s objections.
“The scenario is something that is unexpected,” he said. “There is a release and it drifts over Los Alamos, Santa Fe and Rio Arriba County and it comes from a site that is not within the laboratory. They’ve told me an explosion by means of excavating an unknown thing can’t happen. You can’t have a release that would drift that far.”
Bearzi said the point was to have an exercise that went beyond normal expectations.
According to a fact sheet prepared for remediating MDA B, the 60-year-old dump may contain hazardous chemicals. A report about a fire that occurred at the site in 1948 said several cartons of waste caused minor explosions, and on one occasion, a cloud of pink gas arose from the debris.
The laboratory’s remediation project describes the wastes as a big mixture, “primarily radioactively contaminated wastes and debris, and limited liquid chemical waste; however, a formal waste inventory was not maintained,” according to a fact sheet on the lab’s website.
Curry’s letter states that LANL threatened to withdraw from the exercise and that an alternative scenario suggested by the lab – a fire at the LANL Tritium Facility – was presented very late in the process, at a March 4 meeting.
Philmont Taylor, Los Alamos County emergency management coordinator, said he preferred the scenario that has been under development for the last year-and-a-half, even if it needed some further tweaking.
“The reason we wanted it outside the normal fence line is so that the county has a higher stake,” he said. “The county is responsible for its citizens, residents and visitors, and this scenario will more accurately capture that.”
The state’s objection to the alternative scenario, inside the fence at LANL, stems from bad feelings going back to the Cerro Grande Fire in May 2000.
LANL’s response at that time, Curry wrote, “was to ‘lock the gates,’ retreat to its own emergency operations center and conduct very little communication with the outside world, at least for the first few days of the emergency.”
Bearzi said that the last item in the current planning schedule calls for a table-top exercise next month, in which the major players act out their roles in the emergency scenario as it is currently planned.
8 comments:
Let's see how LANL can work with the surrounding communities. They are not comfortable unless everyone plays by theie (LANS) rules.
That's BS, 2:35. You are missing some key points. Learn something about this before you speak.
First, the Cerro Grande fire was not caused by LANL. Communication was very poor in the Cerro Grande fire, but LANL was not a part of the problem. The miscommunication was between the Forrest Service and the fire fighters, air tankers, etc. LANL was defending itself against a problem created by others.
Second, as a result of Cerro Grande problems, the Federal Government has built a state of the art emergency response center outside the LANL fence. It has been there for a few years. Its purpose is to foster emergency communication among all the local agencies and LANL. LANL provides computer simulations of how events can unfold. It is a very impressive facility, well organized and run. The emergency response center is manned by the local agencies. LANL is working very closely with the surrounding communities.
As for the rest of Curry's attacks, Curry is a publicity hound whose main purpose is to catch LANL in a slip-up and punish LANL. LANL is justified in refusing to participate in an exercise that they think is unrealistic. Such an exercise could foment further unrest among LANL's neighbors. They would rightly ask, why would such an event be simulated if it were not a likely event? Then the hypothetical event would would generate fear and loathing among the watchdogs, whether it is realistic or not.
I don't know much about the explosion scenario they are talking about. It was not discussed in detail. As an another extreme example, let's say the anti-nukes wanted LANL to simulate the response to a nuclear explosion in Los Alamos. Such an event could not happen because weapons are not assembled at LANL. Even if they were, they are designed to be safe from inadvertent detonation. Regardless, imagine the ruckus that would occur after such an exercise. Everyone in Santa Fe would be shouting that they don't want to live under a mushroom cloud. So the anti-nukes, in proposing such an exercise, would be furthering their own agenda.
It is possible that Curry is using the same tactic.
LANL is well prepared for plausible events and does cooperate with its neighbors.
Sorry Charlie, but LANL does not cooperate with it's neighbors, it doesn't even communicate with it's employees...before th Cerro Grande fire the lab was ill prepared for any emergency, and it has not yet been tested by any serious emergency. It would be intreasting to see how you EM&R really respond to a given emergency that is not your routine everyday training run, that is what Curry is trying to tell you, if you still don't get it try communicating with Curry, he is the State's rep in this area. It doesn't sound like you guy's are communicating very effective with him or his office????
"As an another extreme example, let's say the anti-nukes wanted LANL to simulate the response to a nuclear explosion in Los Alamos. Such an event could not happen because weapons are not assembled at LANL."
How much HEU is there at LANL?
8:46....
I agree with 8:15. I've seen the capability of EM&R close up and likely more so than you. They know what they're doing. What gets in the way is management when they realize, then ignore that they're over their head in handling emergency situations.
Curry is a drama queeen who is slave to the anti-nuke fear mongering. But that's all they know how to do since their knowledge and expertise pale in comparison to their ineffectual 60's protest style.
"Make the Lab look bad in any and every way, control the situation, and set them up so they are their own worst enemy." That's what they always try to do.
The first thing Curry has to do is prove he knows...and understands...the way the Lab works, and it's not the way HE sees it ought to be.
Like I've written before, we all want this place cleaned up as much as anyone, but it's DOE's lack of commitment towards the Labs that get in the way.
Maybe, for starters, they could try taking less credit for the technical work WE do.
The exercise may be off property, but we're all on the Hill together and we have to work together to solve whatever happens since WE live here. Pleasing the cowards in Santa Fe means nothing to me compared to tackling a problem that affects us first if an emergency happens.
Talk is cheap, why not step up to the plate, instead of hiding behind all of your lame excuses, lets see what you can do in an emergency....
Your talk is also cheap. Let's see you demonstrate that you are prepared for earthquakes, tornadoes, and a 40 day, 40 night flood. Then we can talk.
while you are about it, please brush up on your sentence structure.
"Second, as a result of Cerro Grande problems, the Federal Government has built a state of the art emergency response center outside the LANL fence. It has been there for a few years. Its purpose is to foster emergency communication among all the local agencies and LANL. LANL provides computer simulations of how events can unfold. It is a very impressive facility, well organized and run. The emergency response center is manned by the local agencies. LANL is working very closely with the surrounding communities.'"
But it's built outside the SPP. Whenever the threat level increases to the level that closes the SPP, additional guards will have to be dispatched to guard it rather than using the closure of West Jemez Road to protect it.
As with most other LANL buildings, it is also susceptible to attack from the air because there is no way any fighters from Kirtland can get in position to protect LANL from damage that could be done by small aircraft, contrary to what the LANL Emergency Response people say.
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