Workers Safely Tear Down Towers at Manhattan Project Site (click here)
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – After decades dominating the Los Alamos National Laboratoryskyline, two water towers were safely demolished by workers in a matter of hours recently, bringing EM’s Environmental Projects Office at Los Alamos a step closer to transferring the land for future commercial or industrial use.
The towers were located in Technical Area 21 (TA-21), an early site of the Manhattan Project work at the laboratory, which is part of DOE's network of national laboratories. It was the location of the world’s first plutonium processing facility and where groundbreaking tritium research took place.
The demolition is a continuation of a large-scale environmental cleanup at TA-21 that began in 2009 when cleanup was funded by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Demolishing the 175-foot and 160-foot towers was one of several projects to remove remaining structures at TA-21.
“By bringing down these towers, we are making a noticeable difference in the skyline at Los Alamos,” Los Alamos Field Office Environmental Programs Assistant Manager Pete Maggiore said. “This is another positive step towards eventual transfer of this property to Los Alamos County.”...
A federal judge’s (click here) own experience with defendant P(edro). Leonardo Mascheroni, a former Los Alamos lab scientist accused of trying to sell nuclear secrets to Venezuela, factored into the sentencing Wednesday of Mascheroni’s wife.
Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni, 71, got a year and a day in federal prison, well under the mandatory 14-year minimum she could have faced had she been convicted at trial. In part that was because of a plea agreement negotiated with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which set her potential sentence at one to two years....
In a completely different case, scientists are pleading for the return of an employee. He worked in the non-proliferation wrote an article abolishing nuclear weapons, had his article cleared, it was published and then he was fired for having written the article.August 22, 2014
AP
SANTA FE - A group of scientists (click here) who work to limit the spread of nuclear weapons is urging the U.S. Energy Secretary to intervene on behalf of a fired worker at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Santa Fe political scientist James Doyle says he was fired after 17 years on the job in July after writing an article for a nonprofit web site in support of abolishing nuclear weapons. Doyle worked on the lab's non-proliferation team.
Federation of American Scientists President Charles Ferguson urged Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to ensure that that Doyle isn't penalized for participating in the national dialogue over nuclear policy.
Doyle tells the Santa Fe New Mexican (http://bit.ly/1rpTbbs) he was fired after lab officials claimed his article raised classification concerns. He says the article had been cleared for publication.
