Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Sixty Years After a Nuclear Core Meltdown, Half a Million Residents Are Still At Risk - 2018

 


Sixty Years After a Nuclear Core Meltdown, Half a Million Residents Are Still At Risk

In California, the hills are alive, but not with the sound of music. On Thursday, November 8, 2018, a small fire started near the top of Woolsey Canyon Road, in the Simi Hills. The location was on the grounds of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL). Both famous and infamous, the facility once owned by the Rocketdyne Corporation, was used for development and testing of liquid fueled rocket motors from 1949 to 2006.

This pyrocumulus cloud arose from the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley, California on November 9, 2018 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)The Atomics International division of North American Aviation once used a separate and dedicated portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to build and operate the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. The Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) was an experimental nuclear reactor that operated at the site from 1957 to 1964. It was the first commercial power plant in the world to experience a core meltdown. The reactors located on the grounds of SSFL had no containment structures. During a series of events, thousands of pounds of radioactive nucleotides dispersed into the ground and air.

In 1996, The Boeing Company became the primary owner and operator of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, which it later closed. Today, more than 150,000 people live within 5 miles (8 km) of the facility, and at least half a million people live within 10 miles (16 km). As of 2018, the Boeing remains as Smoke rises over the closed Highway 118 in Simi Valley as fire nears the Santa Susana Field Laboratory during the Peak Fire, November 11, 2018 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)the site owner, with NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) liable for several parcels within the larger facility. On August 2, 2005, Pratt & Whitney purchased Boeing's Rocketdyne division, but declined to acquire SSFL as part of the sale.

In 2005, wildfires swept through northern Los Angeles County and parts of Ventura County. The fires consumed most of the dry brush throughout the Simi Hills where the SSFL is located. Since that fire, allegations have emerged that vast quantities of on-site nuclear and chemical contamination vaporized into the air. More recently, Los Angeles County firefighters assigned to SSFL during that fire received medical testing to see if they ingested or inhaled any harmful doses while protecting the facility.

As seen from the corner of Cochran Street and 1st Street in Simi Valley the Simi Hills were ablaze on November 9, 2018 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)The small fire that broke out at the SSFL in the afternoon of November 8, 2018 was sadly reminiscent of the 1959 meltdown and the 2005 wildfire. Ground crews from Los Angeles City and County raced up the long and winding Woolsey Canyon. Upon arrival, they found a scorched and inoperable Southern California Edison (SCE) electrical transformer near the point of origin. The resulting brushfire had raced off the property to the south and west.
The Alpha, Bravo and possibly the Coca rocket test stands received substantial damage during the recent Woolsey Fire.

On the first afternoon of the fire, the ridges of the Simi Hills, including areas near the former nuclear reactor sites were fully involved in flames. The Los Angeles County Fire Department dispatched its two “Super Scooper” firefighting airplanes. After dropping their 1,600 gallons of water, the pair of “flying boat amphibious aircraft” headed for Castaic Lake, near Santa Clarita. There, at airspeeds approaching 100 mph, each plane took only twelve seconds to scoop up a new load of water and The Canadian "Super Scooper" firefighting aircraft can drop 1,650 gallons of water on a wildfire - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)return to the fire scene. At least six times, before darkness curtailed their activities, the two airplanes attempted to douse the spreading wildfire. With Santa Ana Winds gusting to 70 mph, it was a valiant, yet futile endeavor.

By Friday, November 10, 2018, the flames had swept through portions of Thousand Oaks, Westlake, Agoura Hills, Calabasas and Bell Canyon. most of that territory was downwind of the SSFL. By nightfall on that second night, the flames had reached Malibou Lake and the City of Malibu. Only the Pacific Ocean stopped the further spread of flames.

Over the next few days, the unexplained small fire at SSFL had grown to almost 100,000 acres and burned almost 500 homes. At 98,000 acres and still climbing, the Woolsey Fire had consumed well over eighty percent of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area. On two separate parcels of private property near Agoura Hills, three lives were lost during the fire. From our vantage Vast areas within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley, California burned for up to three days in November 2018 (http://jamesmcgillis.com)point, on the north side of Simi Valley, we observed two nights of active flames. On the third day, we could still see wispy smoke emanating from near the fire’s point of origin. With Santa Ana winds still gusting to 60 mph, the smoke plume traveled south and east, away from our home.

On Sunday, November 11, 2018, we watched on local television as a DC-10 air tanker and numerous helicopters dropped water and fire retardant on the slopes above Malibu Canyon. Since spot fires can occur up to half a mile from active flames, we had stationed our travel trailer at our home in Simi Valley. Although there had been no active fire near our storage yard in Simi Valley, if one coach were to catch fire at that yard, hundreds of recreational vehicles could have burned.

A Los Angeles County Firehawk helicopter descends for a water pickup in Simi Valley, California - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)As of that afternoon, hundreds of thousands of residents downwind of the SSFL remained evacuated or had returned to scenes of destruction and despair. Other than some mental stress watching fires spread live on TV, we remained safe at home. Our hearts go out to those who lost friends, pets, homes and property. Although not every home that burned was a mansion or a faux Tuscan villa and vineyard, a mobile home in a canyon setting can be just as dear. Many of the lower priced dwellings had no fire insurance.

To an eyewitness, it is disconcerting to see how quickly everything you own could go up in flames. As humans, we are at the mercy of wind, weather and nature. Some politicians and some who lost homes blamed land managers or first responders for the scope of destruction. Others recognized that there is risk associated with living adjacent to wildlands. With high winds and embers aloft, there was no way to protect every home. First responders had to change priorities, electing to save as many lives as possible.

This DC-10 tanker aircraft can deliver 12,000 gallons of fire retardant on each pass over the flames - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)In Butte County, near Chico, California, almost the entire town of Paradise recently disappeared from the map. Prior to outbreak of the “Camp Fire”, around 27,000 people lived in that area. Almost nothing of the built environment in Paradise or nearby Concow withstood the flames. Over 10,000 structures burned, including homes, schools and the entire downtown district. Scores of people died in their homes, or while trying to escape on foot or in vehicles. As of this writing, nearly one thousand people remain missing.

The scope of these tragedies is hard to comprehend. Where will 27,000 homeless people go? Over twenty-five percent of those displaced were senior citizens, living on fixed or minimal incomes. With cold and rainy weather expected soon, a tent encampment in a Chico, California Walmart parking lot will not provide sufficient shelter. Here in Ventura County, less than one year ago, we lost almost 1000 homes to the Thomas Fire. In late 2017, an The only portion of Leo Carrillo State Beach that was left untouched by fire was the beach itself - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)additional 2,900 homes burned in Santa Rosa, California. As a result, tens of thousands of California residents are now actively seeking shelter.

Over the past ten years, Carrie McCoy and I have visited Malibu many times. One of our favorite restaurants overlooks Zuma Beach and Point Dume. During the Woolsey Fire, many homes near that seaside restaurant burned to the ground. While returning from our various trips to Malibu, we would often traverse Decker Canyon, Encinal Canyon, Mulholland Highway and Kanan Road. Those interconnected roadways snake through myriad canyons and rise over windswept ridgetops. Amidst the huge swaths of chaparral, are homes both lowly and grand. Many of those dwellings now consist of little more than a roadside gate or a mailbox. Our next visit to Malibu will likely include views of destruction not seen for decades, if ever before.

During the Peak Fire in Simi Valley on November 12, 2018, it looked like "business as usual" as firefighters rushed to the wildfire - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)In 1980, I lived in Agoura Hills, near the intersection of Kanan Road and U.S. Highway 101. One afternoon, from my hilltop home, I saw a fire ignite on the south side of the freeway. Within minutes, it swept westward along Kanan Road. By nightfall, it reached the same stretches of Malibu that burned again in the Woolsey Fire. That day, almost forty years ago, I learned firsthand that it is not safe to live anywhere in the windswept canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains.

By the early 1990s, the Kanan/Malibu fire had faded into distant memory. The allure of living large, with nature all around was too great. What followed was a population boom in the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountain. When the Woolsey Fire struck, most of those residents had never seen active fire in their area. Living in the Santa Monica Mountains is a speculative investment. If one can afford to take the risk to both property and personal safety, then building
The Erickson Skycrane dumped thousands of gallons of water on the Peak Fire, near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Simi Valley, California in November 2018 (http://jamesmcgillis.com)or buying there should be a personal choice. Since no property in that area is immune to destructive wildfires, self-insurance and private fire protection should be the rule, not the exception.

Returning to the origins of this most recent and destructive wildfire, the SSFL is now an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) superfund site. To this day, Boeing Company, NASA and the DOE administrate various parts of the property. Although there has been some minor cleanup, there has never been a complete remediation of the nuclear and chemical contamination caused during the second half of the twentieth century. With "scorching" of the remaining rocket test stands in the Woolsey Fire, it remains to be seen if any of that infrastructure is salvageable.

The public never heard a definitive answer regarding the firefighters' exposed to possible contamination during the 2005 wildfire at SSFL. After the Woolsey Fire, the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) claimed, “There was no discernible radiation in the tested area.” As one of the 500,000
Pretty as a picture, eighty-five percent of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area was burned in November 2018 - Click for large image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)people who reside within ten miles of the radiological and chemical nightmare known as the SSFL, I believe that everyone in the area has the right to know exactly what our environmental exposure was and continues to be.

After the Woolsey Fire, Los Angeles County banned the removal of any fire rubble until completion of toxicity surveys of each affected property. Neither Ventura County nor Los Angeles County has plans to test beyond the SSFL for possible radioactive contamination. It is time for the public and our elected officials to demand nothing less than full testing, cleanup and remediation of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.


By James McGillis at 03:07 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link

Monday, October 25, 2021

Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars - 2012

 

The original Face on Mars image, from the Viking 1 orbiter in 1976 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)

Imagine There's No Heaven, but There is Life on Mars

In December 2007, I wrote about a transit of Mars that brought the red planet close to Earth. Also in that article, I discussed the “Face on Mars” (FOM), first photographed by NASA’s Viking 1 orbiter in 1976.

Since its discovery on low-resolution images from the Viking 1 orbiter, scientists have argued that the FOM is a natural phenomenon. The FOM, they said, was an eroded mesa viewed in oblique sunlight. In 2001 and again in 2003 new orbiters focused high-resolution cameras on that supposed eroded mesa. Again, scientists concluded that the FOM was a figment of hopeful human imagination. Imagine that.

On August 6, 2012, I watched the Olympic women’s gymnastics apparatus finals on NBC. At 10:30 PM PDT, I switched over to watch NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover stick its landing on the surface of Mars. Flipping channels back to gymnastics, I watched as an American woman missed her landing. Although I cannot say which act was more difficult, the Mars landing is more portentous, as it may lead to discovery of life on Mars.

John Lennon live, singing his song, "Imagine" - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)On one hand, NASA and other scientists had steadfastly denied any life-connection to the FOM. On the other hand, the same scientists were optimistic that instruments on the Curiosity rover would discover precursors to life on Mars. It reminded me of the 2012 supposed discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in Switzerland. At that announcement, three hundred mostly agnostic or atheist scientists wept over the supposed discovery of “the God particle”. Suffice to say that scientists are an unreliable source of information on where life came from or even what it is.

Hoping to see a review of the best current and historical English pop music, I tuned in to the London Olympics Closing Ceremony. Although the presentation was a bit erratic, it was full of energy and everyone was having fun. Only later did I discover that a preview of some idiotic NBC sitcom had preempted a live performance by the Who and others. I wonder which brilliant NBC executive made that decision.

John Lennon, the new Face on Mars revealed at the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)For me, the highlight of the London Olympics Closing Ceremony was a live performance by John Lennon. Dead since December 8, 1980, I was shocked to see him singing again, live and in person. As his song played, actors on the Olympic stage began pushing large white blocks all about. Shaped like puzzle pieces, I could not imagine what the blocks might symbolize.

Then, an aerial shot revealed what I had suspected all along. The actors in Olympic Stadium had replicated the famous Face on Mars. That face, of course, was of John Lennon. Presaging his death by almost four years, John Lennon had concocted to place his face on Mars. As John Lennon so aptly sang, “Imagine there’s no heaven, it's easy if you try, no people below us, above us only sky”. Now, almost twenty-two years after his death we see that he has been up there all along.
And remember, all you need is love.

 


By James McGillis at 11:00 AM | Personal Articles | Comments (0) | Link

Thursday, November 14, 2019

From Planet Mars, Comes "The Face on Mars" - 2007


Mars, as viewed from Earth, December 2007 - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)

From Planet Mars, Comes "The Face on Mars"...

Or is it John Lennon?

Have you noticed an intense red star rising in the east on recent evenings?  That is no star.  That is Mars.  The red planet is having a close encounter with Earth this week.  At closest approach on Tuesday evening, Dec. 18th, 2007 the two worlds will lie only 55 million miles apart.  Mars will not be this near the Earth again until the year 2016.  This information comes to us courtesy of Space WeatherAre you ready for the view? Train your best optics on the bright red "star" rising in the east after sunset: sky map.
 
Mars, as viewed from Earth, November 18, 2007 - Credit to JL Dauvergne / Francois Colas, Pic du Midi, France - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)According to Astronomy Picture of the Day, very good telescopic views of Mars can be expected in the coming days as the Red Planet nears opposition on December 24th. Of course, opposition means opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky - an arrangement that occurs every 26 months for Mars.  Taking advantage of the shorter travel distance near opposition, NASA launched the Phoenix lander to Mars in August, 2007.  It is scheduled to arrive in May 2008.
 
It has been over 31 years since Mars last intruded on the mass consciousness of Planet Earth.  For those of us who were present in body at that time, we received a press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on July 31, 1976.Face on Mars image from Viking 1 spacecraft, 1976 -  Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)
 
In part, it said: “This picture is one of many taken in the northern latitudes of Mars by the Viking 1 Orbiter in search of a landing site for Viking 2.  The picture shows eroded mesa-like landforms.  The huge rock formation in the center, which resembles a human head, is formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth.”
 
The Formation, later called the "Face on Mars” (FOM) appeared frequently on the covers of supermarket tabloids for several years thereafter.  More recently, in 2001 and 2003, very high resolution photos of the FOM revealed that it was “a naturally eroded mesa”, or so we were told. 
 
Face on Mars, Looking at you. Is it a sign of intelligent life on the Planet Barsoom? Is it the face of John Carter? - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)Once again, “science” had “disproved” evidence of intelligent life in the cosmos.  “Thank God”, said many who believe that there is higher intelligence in the universe, but are too afraid to believe that they, themselves, may be witness to such intelligence or its construction activities.
 
If I remember correctly, one cannot “prove a negative”, yet astronomers and scientists all over the world take great pride in telling us that the high resolution photos of the FOM “prove” that it is a “natural phenomenon”, caused by uplifting and erosion.  Many of our scientists offer us a negative proof by saying "a supernatural force does not exist, because there is no proof that it does exist".
 
If you see a wider smile on the FOM in the future, it is simply divine High-resolution image of Face on Mars, 2003 - Is it John Carter, still searching for the Princess of Helium? - Click for larger image (http://jamesmcgillis.com)intelligence laughing, as it allows earth’s scientists to feel secure in not having discovered that which they endlessly seek – evidence that intelligent life exists beyond the confines of Planet Earth.  As the Veil thins, perhaps we shall see that extraterrestrial intelligence not only exists, but that it also has a sense of humor. 
 
March 2012, Author's note: Since release of the Disney Movie, "John Carter", A.K.A. "A Princess of Mars", there is a renewed interest in helium. In the movie, there is a city named "Helium" on the planet "Barsoom", A.K.A. Planet Mars. When Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the story a century ago, no one knew if there was intelligent life on Mars, let alone an atmosphere that included helium. Although we now know a lot more about Mars, we have learned little about proper use and conservation of our helium reserves here on Earth.
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By James McGillis at 04:40 PM | Current Events | Comments (0) | Link