Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 94 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
April 18, 2014
Crews find suspected area of radiation leak
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Two months after radiation leaked from the federal government’s half-mile deep nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico, officials said Thursday that crews have found contamination underground in the area where waste was most recently being stored.
Tammy Reynolds, the U.S. Department of Energy’s deputy recovery manager, told a community
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meeting in Carlsbad that more trips need to be made into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to further investigate the accident, but officials hope to have more information next week.
Crews on their fourth trip into the mine on Wednesday made it into the only active waste storage area and found contamination, Reynolds said. The deeper they went into the area, the more widespread the con-
tamination, she said.
But the crews had to retreat before identifying possible source the because they had been underground for five hours in protective gear that retains heat and the batteries on their respiratory equipment were running low.
Waste at the plant is stored in panels, which are a series of rooms cut out of underground salt beds.
Five of those panels are full and have already been sealed. Panel 6 is full but has not yet been sealed. Panel 7 is the current active storage area. Crews made it to both Panels 6 and 7, and they found the contamination in Panel 7, Reynolds said. “It doesn’t seem to us that the contamination came from Panel 6, that the source came from Panel 7,” she said.
Egg-cellent fun
The next step is for crews, and possibly robots, to go back down to see if they can identify what caused the leak. Among the potential scenarios: a roof collapse that damaged waste-storage containers or a puncture of a container by a forklift. The plant has been closed since mid-February, when the leak sent low levels of radiation into the air and contaminated 21 work-
Washington Avenue Elementary kindergartners race through Cahoon Park in search of prizes during an Easter egg hunt, Thursday morning.
That happened nine days after a truck hauling salt underground caught fire on Feb. 5. A series of safety shortcomings were cited by a team that investigated the truck fire. It’s unclear if the incidents are related. The dump is the federal government’s only permanent repository for waste from decades of nuclear bomb building.
City moves forward with vet cemetery JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Mark Wilson Photo
ers.
Though the Gen. Douglas L. McBride-Roswell Veterans’ Cemetery was not selected in the first round of the state’s new plan to designate rural national veterans’ cemeteries, Roswell’s plans are still moving forward. Work continues at the site, located adjacent to South Park Cemetery. City workers began installing an irrigation system last week and a grand opening is planned for July 4. And, the state will still consider Roswell’s cemetery in future rounds for the federal designation status and funding, according to New Mexico Department of Veterans’ Services Secretary Tim Hale. “Nobody is out of the running,” Hale said. “The bottom line is, we’re trying to serve the maximum number of veterans in this initial round and want to continue moving forward.” The Roswell cemetery
board met Wednesday. A generous local donor has offered to pay funeral expenses for any veteran’s family that cannot afford the cost of a burial, according to board member Jane Batson. The graves of veterans buried in the cemetery will be marked with a standard Veterans’ Administration headstone. Full military honors will be provided by the Roswell Veterans’ Honor Guard upon request by the family. There is no cost for the burial site in the cemetery, Batson said. Space will also be given for burial of the spouse in the veteran’s plot or cremains location. Burial benefits available for veterans buried in a private cemetery include a gover nment headstone, marker or medallion, a burial flag and a presidential memorial certificate, at no cost to the family. For non-service connect-
Copter pilot reported Good Friday kicks off weekend of Easter events problem with controls
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The pilot of a medical helicopter that crashed at the University of New Mexico Hospital reported that the control pedals jammed or locked while the aircraft was taking off from the hospital’s rooftop helipad. The pilot’s statement is in the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report on the April 9 crash. The report says the pilot told investigators he began making a left turn but the helicopter kept turning and spun several crimes before crashing. “The pilot added that the pedals were jammed or locked, in the neutral position,” according to the preliminary report. The helicopter came to rest on its right side, and
investigators noticed damage to the roof “consistent with impact from the main rotor blades or skids,” the report says.
The pilot and the two paramedics aboard the helicopter suffered only minor injuries, but the helicopter was heavily damaged. The helipad’s fire suppression system put out a small fire.
When the crash occurred, the Airbus helicopter owned by PHI Air Medical was leaving the hospital after dropping off a patient.
The hospital remained open after the crash, but patients were temporarily removed from rooms on the top two floors immediately below the helipad until engineers determined that the structure was safe.
AP Photo
This April 18, 2008, file photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a gray wolf.
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TODAY’S FORECAST
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Today is Good Friday, and several community groups will be busy this weekend offering activities, including egg hunts and enchiladas. Cheese enchiladas will be served from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today at the Roswell Boys & Girls Club in honor of Good Friday. The cheese enchiladas will be served on site or as carry-out. The meal includes enchiladas, beans, rice, salad, dessert and drink. Cost for the meal is a donation. The public is welcome to come out and support the Boys & Girls Club of Roswell, eat a great meal, and the kids will wash
your car as well. Johnny Gonzales and his Prison Door Ministry will be giving balloons and toys to dialysis patients today as well, wishing them a happy holiday weekend. Gonzales, himself a kidney transplant patient, likes to minister to the dialysis patients on holidays. Saturday kicks off with the annual Yucca Recreation Center Egg Hunt, a longstanding tradition in Roswell, and followed by the annual Easter Parade downtown. The Yucca Recreation Center Easter Egg Hunt is for children aged 0-10 and the gates open at 9:30 a.m. with the hunt beginSee EASTER, Page A3
See CEMETERY, Page A3
Randal Seyler Photo
Volunteers from Roswell Job Corps help the Easter Bunny and Prison Door Ministry prepare on Wednesday by packing baskets for the Festival of Hope egg hunt and breakfast, which will be held Sunday at the Roswell Boys & Girls Club.
California mulls wolf listing amid hunts elsewhere FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — While much of the country has relaxed rules on killing gray wolves, California will consider protecting the species after a lone wolf from Oregon raised hopes the animals would repopulate their historic habitat in the Golden State. The California Fish and Game Commission on Wednesday postponed for three months a decision on whether to list the gray wolf as endangered. Commissioners heard impassioned arguments from environmentalists who want the
wolves to again roam the state and from cattle ranchers who fear for their herds. “I think we made them blink,” said Amaroq Weiss of the Center for Biological Diversity, which leads the push for protection. “I think they heard our arguments.” State wildlife officials say they don’t support the listing because wolf packs haven’t roamed in California for nearly a century and there’s no scientific basis to consider them endangered.
Nationwide, bounty hunting and poisoning drove wolves to widespread extermination in the early 1900s. They have rebounded in recent decades, and federal protections have been lifted in the last several years in the Northern Rockies and western Great Lakes. A pending proposal from federal wildlife of ficials would remove protections for gray wolves across most of the remaining Lower 48 states, including California. A peer review panel recently faulted the government
• RAYMOND T. CRABB
• CRESENCIO MENDEZ
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B7 COMICS .................B6 ENTERTAINMENT .....B7 FINANCIAL ..............B5
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A8
plan for relying on unproven research about wolf genetics. The desert Southwest has a small group of Mexican gray wolves that would keep federal protections under the proposal. Those wolves in parts of Arizona and New Mexico have struggled to survive despite an intensive reintroduction program. In California, the Fish and Game Commission members decided to delay a decision on wolf protections so they can hear more public comment.
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2 HOROSCOPES .........B7 LOTTERIES .............A2 OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ............A10
WORLD ..................A9