New Mexican Story on Plutonium Contaminated Pipe at DP Road Cleanup Site

Roger Snodgrass wrote an excellent article, on 9/16/2010 in the Santa Fe New Mexican, titled Contaminated pipe halts LANL cleanup project: Cylinder exceeds allowed radiation.  Work has been shut down on the cleanup of the old landfill on DP Road dating from 1945 after a worker discovered a plutonium contaminated pipe  and surrounding soil that had radiation levels that exceeded by six times those permitted above ground during the cleanup.  The pipe and the soil it was buried in were measured to contain the equivalent of 40 grams of plutonium-239.  Before cleanup began, the whole 5-acre site was estimated from soil sampling to contain only 200 grams of plutonium.

I live near this cleanup site and I'm not happy that the LANL spokesman, Fred deSousa, said the public was not notified about this discovery because, to quote Roger Snodgrass's article, "there had been no radioactive release to the public and no exposure".  Regardless, the public SHOULD have been informed.  LANL is not being very transparent about what's going on at the landfill cleanup.

The talk is that the landfill will be cleaned up  to residential housing standards.  I don't plan to ever live there.  It's bad enough that we live so close to the cleanup site.

Eating Out Resolution

Resolved: Never order appetizers AND a meal - too much food.  Went to Jinja House for husband's 60th birthday.  He wanted to order the Tokyo Crispy Tofu as an appetizer and we shared it.  I ordered the Jungle Green Curry with marinated tofu and brown rice off the lunch menu - the portion was enormous and I, of course, ate it all even though the appetizer had quelled my appetite.  What's the point of appetizers except to make people too full to eat their real meal?  I didn't want leftovers sitting in the hot car while we shopped at Whole Foods.  I should start carrying a small cooler and ice to take leftovers home when I eat out!

Overheard at Jinja House (probably the WHOLE restaurant overheard) a motor-mouth woman talking loudly on her cell phone.  Or maybe she was pretending to converse with someone because she left no space at all for the other person to say a word.  She said she's going to move to Santa Fe, journal about the experience and write a book.  Maybe it will be a talking book... 

Daughter and son-in-law had husband and me over for dinner.  Made pork BBQ, potato salad, roasted vegetables from their garden, green salad and chocolate-iced marble bundt birthday cake.  Daughter gave husband home made plum jam for his birthday - very delicious.  I had some tonight on bread and peanut butter.

Husband at movie theater seeing The Town because he gets in free on his birthday.

Exercised on Canyon Rim Trail and Mesa Trail this morning before Santa Fe trip.  Saw coyote chasing something that ran off fast in a swirl of dust.  Saw adorable boy bicyclist, with his Dad, who was maybe all of 5 years old.  Little boy told me he liked my hat!

Last night we watched the DVD Temple Grandin, a made for HBO movie.  It utterly enthralled me.  It won loads of Emmys and I can see why - it was so well acted.  I found the story of Temple's life and career moving, inspiring and so very interesting.  Temple is one smart person!