Archive

Fire Poses ‘Very Little Threat’ to Nuke Waste

Disasters

As Los Alamos laboratory evacuates.

cheats/2011/06/28/fire-poses-very-little-threat-to-nuke-waste/fire-new-mexico-nuclear-waste-cheat_qsscon
Adolphe Pierre-Louis, The Albuquerque Journal / AP Photo

The New Mexico wildfires that have forced the evacuation of Los Alamos National Laboratory shouldn’t pose much of a threat to the nuclear waste stored there. The fire is just three-and-a-half miles from a site where 30,000 55-gallon drums of nuclear waste are believed to be stored. A lab spokesman was unable to say what would happen if the nuclear waste were to burn, but noted that it is locked in concrete steel vaults that should be impervious to fire. “The fire poses very little threat to them,” said a lab spokesman.

Read it at Los Angeles Times

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.