On Thursday of this week AlertsUSA subscribers were notified via text messages to their mobile devices that the Department of Energy has announced at least 13 employees at the plant had been internally co… from a unexplained event within the underground nuclear waste storage facility. And there may be more. All of the contaminated employees were working in above ground facilities and exposed to an atmospheric release. The Dept. of Energy also states that no one has yet been able to reenter the storage area located 2150 feet below the surface due to high radiation levels.

Additionally, despite ongoing claims that the atmospheric release was minor, the Dept. of Energy’s own sensors located more than 20 miles away in Carlsbad, New Mexico registered the presence of radioactive materials in the air.

As no one has yet reentered the underground complex, it is impossible for any determination to be made with certainty if the danger has passed.

As reported in last week’s issue of Threat Journal, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, also known as the WIPP, is the nation’s only licensed deep geological nuclear waste repository. The WIPP facility is the nation’s solution for permanent disposal of the Department of Energy’s cold war legacy transuranic waste that has been stored at 23 former nuclear-weapons-complex and generation sites located across 13 states.

At a press conference held Thursday afternoon (for which the live news feed from ABC conveniently died 5 min into the meeting), WIPP Project Manager Farok Sharif indicated there were ongoing problems with the underground facility’s ventilation system requiring significant repairs. It is the ventilation system that filters the contaminated air coming from the underground storage area.

Additionally, according to Don Hancock, director of the Nuclear Waste Safety program at the Southwest Research and Information Center, “The WIPP [air filtering] systems right now are in the guinea pig s…”

Overall, investigators now admit that whatever occurred underground is serio…

THE DANGERS

Despite Department of Energy and EPA ongoing claims that the levels of radiation released are extremely low and not a danger to the public, we would like to point out how such statements are, at a minimum, willfully disingenuous.

While the reported radiation levels may not pose a danger in terms of “external exposure,” a much more significant threat is posed if these airborne contaminants are breathed in or otherwise ingested. This is the precise reason for their concern about the contaminated workers at the plant.

The black star in the middle of this picture shows the tracks made by alpha rays emitted from a particle of plutonium-239 in the lung tissue of an ape. (Robert Del Tredici, At Work in the Fields of the Bomb [1987], plate 39).

The Dept. of Energy has already publicly reported that both Plutonium-239 & Americium-241 were released into the atmosphere. The EPA’s own radiation protection website clearly states that when either Plutonium or Americium are inhaled, the materials can stay in the body for decades, continue to expose the surrounding tissues to radiation, and dramatically increase your risk of developing cancer.

The EPA site also clearly states that both Plutonium and Americium, when ingested, tend to concentrate in the bone, liver and other organs, again exposing the surrounding tissue to radiation.

EPA Radiation Protection Fact Sheet on Americium (Am)		EPA Radiation Protection Fact Sheet on Plutonium (Pu)
Read the rest of this important article by clicking HERE.

AlertsUSA continues to closely monitor the situation at the WIPP facility and will issue additional alert messages to subscriber mobile devices as threats and events warrant.