Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Fire in the hole ... and in the sky

In case you can't read the caption to this photo (sent to me by a concerned citizen and one that has run in the Press before), it shows a bomb test at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Site 300 in the 1960s. To my knowledge, it's similar to above-ground tests conducted today.
You can see bright tracers of material firing away from the blast at high speed in all directions in all corners of the photo. These are pyrophoric matierials, including Uranium 238 (the so-called depleted uranium) that has been the center of concern and discussion around Tracy lately, since the Lab is likely to use depleted uranium in upcoming tests.
Notice these materials are being hurled into the atmosphere at a great rate of speed and are likely to travel a good distance from the controlled and carefully chosen blast site. Where are they landing? I'm not sure, but seeing actual photographic evidence of harmful materials streaking toward the sky near Tracy gives me one more reason to think bomb testing on the community's doorstep is a bad idea.
If you think so too, there's a City Council meeting Feb. 6 and a hearing Feb. 7 that will deal with Lawrence Livermore's permit that would allow increased testing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What in the world is our country thinking right now? Instead of testing bombs not only to land during war, but for inviduals that live near th test area site. Has the goverment wen't that low for them to neglect the fact that it's a very good possibility the uranium is going to fly out into the air. O yea i forgot who the president of The Great United States is.... The goverment really doesn't care bout there citizens, it doesn't take a scientest to figure all the poison that will be let out to the air. If the goverment is so concern on testing these bombs why don't they test them in Iraq!? Why not Iran..? O know wait why doesn't the United States give the the blue prints for those bombs just like they did over 30 years ago to make these weapons of mass destruction the president is talking about??? OOPs yae those how hipocritical those the U.S look when MR.Bush is talking big time, to give those weapons up. The U.S planned the seed and now we are going to have to bite the dust for it. Ever since Teddy Roosevelt the United States has been wanted to been seen as the police of the world. Its sad this is the greatest country in the world but at what cost.