175 Years Front Pages

Live without Navajo tacos — and Belmont Stakes: No Triple Crown frybread — and live longer Opinions, B-1 for California Chrome Sports, D-1

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Sunday, June 8, 2014 www.santafenewmexican.com

Mine closure hits Questa hard

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Hail, rain batters Santa Fe Experts urge tax overhaul

Shutdown of molybdenum deposit leaves future uncertain for 300 workers and Taos County. LOCAL NEWS, C-1

rs a t S h Nort

Consultants call for state Legislature to study replacing gross receipts tax. LOCAL NEWS, C-1

’S EXICO NEWM 2 013-2014 S HERN NORT PA THLE TE RE TOPP

1. Venting

The drums in each payload are loaded into TRUPACT containers at the TRU loading facility. The load is inspected, the TRUPACT is sealed and the shipment is transported to WIPP. LANS, CAST

If a drum is not already vented, a small HEPA filter is inserted into each drum to ensure it does not have any buildup of flammable or explosive gas. LANS

6. Staging Because there are strict requirements for transporting drums to WIPP, drums are staged in preparation for shipment.

LANS, ES

B

ecause much of the transuranic waste stored at Los Alamos National Laboratory was generated long ago, each drum of waste undergoes an extensive process to ensure it meets the stringent acceptance requirements at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Contractors involved in each step are listed at the end:

SOURCES: LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY, THE NEW MEXICAN

By Staci Matlock The New Mexican

O

n the night of Feb. 14, a mix of chemicals inside a container of radioactive waste in an underground salt cavern in Southern New Mexico created so much heat the drum’s lid cracked. Radiation leaked out.

Heavy bags of magnesium oxide stacked on top of the containers to prevent leaks shifted and disintegrated from the force of the reaction.

A small amount of radiation made its way through filters and an air vent to the ground above the excavated salt bed. An alarm sounded at 11:14 p.m. that night, and the handful of employees at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad were quickly evacuated and tested for radiation exposure. Officials said 21 tested positive, but none at dangerous levels.

Within hours, the nation’s only permanent repository for nuclear waste — the one officials said would never have a radiation leak when the site opened 15 years ago — was shut down for what could be several years.

The container in question, a 55-gallon drum

Pasapick

www.pasatiempomagazine.com

El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Spring Festival and Children’s Fair Demonstrations by weavers and blacksmiths, children’s activities, music, and dancing, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 334 Los Pinos Road, $8 at the entrance, discounts available, 471-2261.

Index

Calendar A-2

Classifieds E-10

Nancy Calhoun Cain, 73, May 29 Sonia Seabrook Gans, June 4 Francisco Medina, 49, June 3 Laura Elizabeth Emanuel, May 26 Janet E. Morgan, June 5 Nancy Carna Stuart, 51, Santa Fe, May 21 Jerry F. Urban, 68, June 3 PAGE C-2

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Real Estate E-1

Today Partly sunny, evening storm possible.

High 81, low 51.

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Time Out E-16

20 14

How Bill Gates pulled off the Common Core revolution

By Lyndsey Layton The Washington Post

LANS: Los Alamos National Security is a group of companies contracted by the Department of Energy to manage and operate Los Alamos National Laboratory. LANS consists of Bechtel National, Babcock & Wilcox, the University of California, and URS Energy and Construction Corporation.

ES: EnergySolutions is on contract with DOE and LANS to manage the preparation of waste at the lab for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

NWP-CCP: Nuclear Waste Partnership-Central Characterization Project is contracted by DOE to ensure LANL waste meets the requirements to be stored at WIPP. Nuclear Waste Partnership also is contracted to manage WIPP. CAST is one of two companies contracted to load transuranic mixed radioactive waste from the lab and take it to WIPP.

Wisconsin attack that left 12-year-old with 19 stab wounds called a “wake-up call to parents” on influence of Internet on children. PAGE A-6

E 8,

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The contractors

Stabbing has links to Web myth

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Drums are X-rayed to ensure no prohibited items are present as part of the certification for WIPP. NWP-CCP, ES, LANS

Obituaries

MEX MEX ICAN ICAN AN

SUND

remediation, where any liquids are absorbed, the item is removed and the contents repackaged. LANS, ES

Please see JOURNEY, Page A-4

NEW

Ak eeps ak high sc ef or Santa Fe hool gr aduate ’s s

Each drum is X-rayed (real-time radiography) to ensure it does not contain items prohibited by WIPP, such as aerosol cans, corrosive or ignitable matrials or liquids. If a drum contains no prohibited items, it move to step 5. LANS, ES

labeled LA00000068660, began its life in the birthplace of the atomic bomb. From a facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Area G, where the waste was repacked, to a room in the salt cavern near Carlsbad, where the drum was stacked and waiting to burst, a whole slew of people were responsible for how it was handled.

Tracing the container’s path from Los Alamos to WIPP reveals the complexities of overseeing and safely handling the transfer of radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear programs.

LANL and other facilities have relied on the cavernous salt beds at WIPP as a permanent solution for dealing with the waste from decades of nuclear arms research and production. The process of packaging and shipping the waste involves more than a dozen state and federal agencies and private contractors — creating layer upon layer of regulatory and supervisory checkpoints.

The Feb. 14 leak has raised questions about these safeguards, both at the state and federal levels.

Among the discoveries since the leak, for example,

TAV ON/

The Class of 201 4

4. Real-time radiography

Each drum undergoes a two-step process in a highefficiency neutron counter. This process determines the identity of radioactive materials and how much of each constituent it contains. NWP-CCP, ES, LANS

MON

THE

A LANL drum’s trip to 3. Remediation a drum contains a WIPP Ifprohibited item, it goes to

5. Radioassay

INSIDE

E E.

2. Pre-screening

7. Certification

u The best prep athletes of 2013-14.

LUK

Tracing breached container’s path from Los Alamos to Southern N.M. dump reveals complexities of overseeing, handling transfer of waste from nation’s nuclear programs 8. Loading

u A salute to local graduates

COUR TESY

WALD ORF

Waste drum’s journey: From LANL to leak

WIPP personnel compile all available data and certify that the containers meet the criteria for disposal at WIPP. NWP-CCP, ES, LANS

2 SECTIONS OF STARS

Storm system pounds New Mexico, spurs tornado watch for Santa Fe County. LOCAL NEWS, C-3

The pair of education advocates had a big idea, a new approach to transform every public-school classroom in America. By early 2008, many of the nation’s top politicians and education leaders had lined up in support.

But that wasn’t enough. The duo needed money — tens of millions of dollars, at least — and they needed a champion who could overcome the politics that had thwarted every previous attempt to institute national standards.

So they turned to the richest man in the world.

On a summer day in 2008, Gene Wilhoit, director of a national group of state school chiefs, and David Coleman, an emerging evangelist for the standards movement, spent hours in Bill Gates’ sleek headquarters near Seattle, trying to persuade him and his wife, Melinda, to turn their idea into reality.

Coleman and Wilhoit told the Gateses that academic standards varied so wildly between states that high school diplomas had lost all meaning, that as many as 40 percent of college freshmen needed remedial classes and that U.S. students were falling behind their foreign competitors.

The pair also argued that a fragmented education system stifled innovation because textbook publishers and software developers were catering to a large number of small markets instead of exploring breakthrough products. That seemed to resonate with the man who led the creation of the world’s dominant computer operating system.

Please see GATES, Page A-5

Coming home to controversy As POW Bergdahl prepares to return to U.S., questions remain

By Martha Mendoza The Associated Press

Bowe Bergdahl stands, hands at his sides, his loosefitting Pashtun smock and pants bright white against the rocky landscape. The hillsides are dotted with armed Afghans, rifles ready.

A Black Hawk appears in the clouds. After almost five years in captivity, the American soldier, head shaved, eyes blinking, is about to finally see freedom.

“We’ve been looking for you for a long time,” a member of a special forces team shouts over the roar of the copter. Bergdahl breaks down.

It was supposed to be a moment for celebration, America’s only military captive in the 13-year Afghan conflict free at last. And in his hometown in Idaho, where trees are bedecked with yellow ribbons and prayers never stopped, indeed it is.

But for the rest of the country, Bergdahl’s capture and release have thrust him into a furious debate.

Please see POW, Page A-6

Neighbors C-5

BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM

Six sections, 76 pages 165th year, No. 159 Publication No. 596-440

Actor David Huddleston recalls a ‘Blazing’ career Sunday Spotllight, C-1

Man wanted in teens’ deaths nabbed in Colorado Local News, C-1

Localllyy owned and independent

Sunday, November 16, 2014 www.santafenewmexican.com

A close-up photo of an unsealed waste container from LANL was taken May 22 at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad. The container would not have met federal transportation standards to get on the road from Los Alamos to Carlsbad, nor would it have been accepted at WIPP, if the lab had reported its true ingredients.

from lanl t o leak

Missteps and secrets

Co ur Tesy u. s. DepAr TmeNT of eNer gy

Documents show LANL officials downplayed dangers and withheld critical information after one of the lab’s drums caused leak at WIPP

By Patrick Malone th e n ew Mexican

I

n the summer of 2012, Gov. Susana Martinez visited the hilltop facilities of Los Alamos National Laboratory to commemorate a milestone. The lab, under an agreement with the state, had just shipped its 1,000th truckload of Cold War-era nuclear waste from the grounds of Los Alamos to a salt cavern deep under the Southern New Mexico desert.

The achievement meant the lab was well on its way to meeting a June 30, 2014, deadline imposed by Martinez to remove radioactive gloves, machinery and other equipment left over from decades of nuclear weapons research.

For Los Alamos National Security LLC, the private consortium that operates the lab, the stakes were high. Meeting the deadline would help it secure an extension of its $2.2 billion annual contract from the U.S. Department of Energy.

But the following summer, workers packaging the waste came across a batch that was extraordinarily acidic, making it unsafe for shipping. The lab’s guidelines called for work to shut down while the batch underwent a rigid set of reviews to determine how to treat it, a time-consuming process that jeopardized the lab’s goal of meeting the deadline.

Instead, the lab and its various contractors took shortcuts in treating the acidic nuclear waste, adding neutralizer and a wheat-based organic kitty litter to absorb excess liquid. The combination turned the waste into a potential bomb that one lab chemist later characterized as akin to plastic explosives, according to a six-month investigation by The New Mexican.

The lab then shipped a 55-gallon drum of the volatile material 330 miles to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only underground repository for nuclear waste, southeast of Carlsbad. Documents accompanying the drum, which were supposed to include a detailed description of its contents, were deeply flawed. They made no mention of the acidity or the neutralizer, and they mischaracterized the kitty litter as a clay-based material — not the more combustible organic variety that most chemists would have recognized as hazardous if mixed with waste laden with nitrate salts, according to interviews and a review of thousands of pages of documents and internal emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

On Feb. 14, with the campaign to clear the waste from Los Alamos more than 90 percent complete, the drum’s lid cracked open. Radiation leaked into the air. Temperatures in the underground chamber soared to 1,600 degrees, threatening dozens of nearby drums. At least 20 workers were contaminated with what federal officials have described as low levels of radiation — though one worker has filed a lawsuit saying his health has drastically deteriorated due to radiation exposure.

The facility, meanwhile, remains shut down as an estimated $500 million recovery effort expected to last several years gets underway, leaving thousands of containers of nuclear waste destined for WIPP stranded at national laboratories across the country.

Documents and internal emails

index

Calendar A-2

Classifieds e-8

ve An explosiv mixture The lab and its contractors took shortcuts in treating acidic nuclear waste, adding neutralizer and a wheat-based kitty litter to absorb excess liquid. The volatile result was later characterized by one lab chemist as akin to plastic explosives, accord-ing to a six-month investigation by The New Mexican.

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Hispanics flock to Pentecostal congregations Longtime Catholics increasingly leave to find a ‘spiritual awakening’

By Uriel J. Garcia th e n ew Mexican

Santa Reyes, 44, left Mexico eight years ago for a better life in Santa Fe. Things didn’t go so well at first. Her husband started coming home late and drunk. Her 24-year-old son became addicted to cocaine. And her 18-year-old daughter got sick.

Reyes couldn’t find economic, emotional or spiritual support anywhere.

Four years ago, as she was desperately searching for her son — who often did not come home for days at a time — she walked into a local Pentecostal church.

Members of the congregation invited her to stay for the service, and they prayed for her. Pentecostal churches are fundamentalist groups that emphasize a direct personal experience with God through the Holy Spirit.

“I felt such a peace that I’ve never felt before,” Reyes said. “I started to cry a lot.”

Like many Latin Americans, Reyes was raised Catholic. And like many thousands, she left the Church in search of spiritual awakening in a conservative Protestant

Please see FloCK, Page A-5 The Rev. Omar Orozco is the leader of the Hispanic Protestant church Casa de Dios on Santa Fe’s south side.

Lu ke e. moN TAVoN Th e New mexiC AN

Oil company has eyes on African park’s resources

By Jeffrey Gettleman th e n ew York ti mes

VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — The trouble started when a British company suddenly appeared in this iconic and spectacularly beautiful national park, prospecting for oil.

Villagers who opposed the project were beaten up by government soldiers. A park warden, who tried to block the oil company, SOCO International, from building a cellphone tower in the park, was kidnapped and tortured. Virunga’s director nearly killed hours after he delivered a secret report on the oil company’s activities.

Much like the fight over drilling on federal lands in the U.S., the struggle over oil exploration in Africa’s national parks is a classic quandary, pitting economic

Please see oil, Page A-5

Pasapick www.pasatiempomagazine.com

serenata of santa Fe: ‘the Art of bach’ show that even after the radiation leak, lab officials downplayed the dangers of the waste — even to the Carlsbad managers whose staff members were endangered by its presence — and withheld critical information from regulators and WIPP officials investigating the leak. Internal emails, harshly worded at times, convey a tone of exasperation with LANL from WIPP personnel, primarily employees of the

Comics inside

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Crossword e-14

Department of Energy and Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that operates the repository.

Taken together, the documents provide a window into a culture of oversight at the lab that, in the race to clean up the waste, had so broken down that small missteps sometimes led to systemic problems.

Family C-7

Please see missteps, Page A-4

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on our website View more documents and emails from LANL at http:// www.santafe newmexican. com/special_ reports/from_ lanl_to_leak/

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today

3 p.m., First Presbyterian Church of sa nta Fe, 208 grant Ave., $15-$30, 988-1234, ticketssantafe.org.

obituaries Sanford Brickner, n ov. 12 Catlain e. Dearden, nov. 6 Danca Dixon, 92, nov. 12

ti me Out e-14

Bre Aking new s At www.SaNtafeNewMexiCaN.CoM

Cold with snow showers.

High 35, low 12. pAge D-6

eloyd L. Gonzales, 94, nov. 8 Rose Dorothy Ringlero, nov. 7 pAge C-2

six sections, 46 pages 165th year, n o. 320 Publication no. 596-440