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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Discovery of radioactive scrap calls for proper burial |
| 2005-08-02 |
| August 01, 2005 During all the road trips I have taken through El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, it never occurred to me that lurking in the dunes along the highway just 50 kilometers south of the U.S.-Mexico border city area lie heaps of uncontained radioactive waste. The secret in the desert sands recently was revealed by Mexican nuclear physicist Bernardo Salas Mar, a former employee of the federal atomic power plant in Veracruz state who was fired after publicly disclosing its radioactive contamination of the Gulf of Mexico. ...snip... The location is on top of the burial grounds of the waste from what Chihuahua journalist Ignacio Alvarado Ãlvarez calls the worst nuclear disaster of this hemisphere, "Our Chernobyl." That is the fiasco that began 21 years ago in 1984 when guards at Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories near Santa Fe, New Mexico, detected a truckload of rebar from Old Mexico contaminated by radioactive Cobalt-60. In one of the twisted tales typifying the bi-national boundary line's environmental predicament, the contamination originated from a U.S. source sent to Mexico illegally; the resulting product then was shipped for sale in the United States, where it was discovered to be dangerous and returned to Mexico for confinement. The now inactive state-run Aceros de Chihuahua foundry had made the rebar by recycling scrap obtained at the Ciudad Juárez Yonke Fenix. The junkyard is now famous because among the metals it received for resale was a gamma radiation chamber with pellets of Cobalt-60 that the most expensive private hospital in the city had acquired as contraband from a U.S. supplier. U.S. importers of the resulting rebar were located. The rebar in the United States was returned to Mexico for confinement. But many shipments of metal that different foundries made with the contaminated scrap from the Fenix junkyard were delivered in at least half the states in Mexico and never recovered for burial. Perhaps the waste mounds that Salas verified are a miniscule part of what somehow was recovered in Mexico. I'd be concerned about what this could be used for... |
| Posted by:Grenter Flineque9605 |
| #8 On a trip to El Paso/Juarez, we saw the soft glow of the mounds of this radioctive dump. When inquiring what it was, we were told by some nuns that there was a lot of illegal dumping there but no one would listen. They were upset because this is a squalid camp they visited daily, to take formula and food to mostly women and children sheltered in cardboard shantys and without clean water. Geraldo Rivera even did an investigative story on it clear back in the 80's, but we dismissed most of it as liberal hype as it was his pre-Fox days. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2005-08-02 17:25 |
| #7 Expect the number of chupacabra sightings to explode. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-08-02 15:06 |
| #6 Well, that's nitpicking, isn't it? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-08-02 13:49 |
| #5 Just set it and forget it! |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-08-02 13:17 |
| #4 Co 60 has a half-life of 5.27 years, so after 21 years, its radioactivity would only be 1/16 of the original. The burial is actually a pretty good remedy since it is isolated and the radiation (electrons and gamma rays) contained. |
| Posted by: Spot 2005-08-02 13:11 |
| #3 Does it come with the rotisserie option? |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-08-02 01:56 |
| #2 For three easy payments of 19.95 per month you get Cobalt-60 grill. Tell a friend and I will send you the extra essences and my glo in the dark secret recipe for BBQ ribs and BBQ brisket. Bon Appétit! |
| Posted by: Ron Popeil 2005-08-02 01:41 |
| #1 I'd be concerned about a three-headed snake, and a six winged bird at the dump... Aceros de Chihuahua foundry had made the rebar by recycling scrap obtained at the Ciudad Juárez Yonke Fenix. Oh yeah, and a eight legged dog with two... That place needs decontamination before too many kids are born looking like the aliens in, "War of the Worlds" |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 01:38 |