Los Alamos Historical Document and Retrieval project also concerned with beryllium, chromium
Contractors for the Centers for Disease Control said they were still puzzled by the discrepancy between laboratory accounts and other evidence for historical plutonium releases at the laboratory during the unbridled early days of the Manhattan Project and its successors.
...the project reported finding evidence in soil measurements of 10-100 times more plutonium having been released than the laboratory's own historical accounts had estimated.
(Tom) Widner, (the project director) who works for ChemRisk under a contract with CDC...his current best estimate is about 50 times more plutonium releases than lab estimates.
Widner said the project has been giving special attention to Building D...
Observers at the time were aware of the building's radioactivity...
One wrote, "D Building was the hottest place in town."
Another observer said it was "some Gehenna of radioactivity." (A "Gehenna" is a biblical reference to the dump outside Jerusalem.)
Another important concern about Building D is that it was located in proximity to housing.
story by Roger Snodgrass | LAMonitor
Posted by Stubbornson at July 31, 2006 05:04 PM