NH #555: Idaho National Laboratory: Radioactive Waste Repository for the World? - Snake River Alliance

Idaho National Laboratory in the southeastern portion of the state has, in the past, disposed of radioactive waste in 55 gallon drums by dumping them and covering them with dirt - pictured above.  Are you feeling safe?  

This Week's Featured Interview:

The Idaho National Laboratory - a major Department of Energy site in the nuclear complex - has appeared in stories about waste and submarines and a smattering of other issues, but it’s never been a real focal point on Nuclear Hotseat… until now.  We learn details of the site and the decades of activist pushback for clean-up by talking with three members of the Snake River Alliance, which serves as Idaho’s nuclear watchdog and clean energy champion.  We spoke on Friday, February 4, 2022:

• Beatrice Brailsford grew up on a ranch in southern Idaho, graduated from Cornell University, and taught at the University of Idaho. She started volunteering with the Snake River Alliance in 1987 and retired from her position as its program director in 2019. During those years, the Alliance helped stop construction of nuclear weapons plants at the Idaho National Laboratory and across the DOE complex, helped limit shipments of nuclear waste to Idaho, and was a leading advocate for cleanup of nuclear contamination at INL.
• Leigh Ford is a 4th generation Idahoan and both her grandfathers worked at the Idaho National Laboratory. Now, she serves as Executive Director of the SNAKE RIVER ALLIANCE.
• Amy O’Brien was a professional dancer who performed on Broadway, was a member of Twyla Tharp’s Company, choreographed for and toured with Mikhail Baryshnikov and his White Oak Dance Project.  She serves on the Board of the Snake River Alliance and is a member of the Days of Action working group for the Nuclear Ban Collective, which was formed after the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on January 22, 2021.We spoke on Friday, February 4, 2022

Idaho National Laboratory, site of the first nuclear reactor in the world to make useable amounts of electricity.  It lit these four lightbulbs on Dec. 20, 1951.

LINKS from the Interview:

• Beatrice Brailsford on the history of INL:  OUR RADIOACTIVE BACKYARD
• International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN):  New report on Schools of Mass Destruction. 
• ICAN University Pledge
• Nuclear Blues:
  
• Nuclear Blues lyrics
• Art Exhibit in Santa Fe, New Mexico:  Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology 

Numnutz of the Week:

Nothing like getting your nuclear information from a former Brazilian model with a "non-profit" that does not show up anywhere as a non-profit.

LINKS:

• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is hiring!
• Also Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:  Doomday Clock remains at 100 seconds to midnight.