[CPEO-MEF] Los Alamos Nuclear Lab Warns of Radioactive Trees

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

[New Mexico]
Los Alamos Nuclear Lab Warns of Radioactive Trees
2 hours, 21 minutes ago

LOS ALAMOS (Reuters) - Workers trying to thin forests near Los Alamos
National Laboratory have been told not to remove trees cut down in
certain areas because they might be radioactive, lab officials said on
Tuesday.

"The lab has identified a few patches in a zone not heavily forested
that was surveyed before and after experiments in the 1940s and 1950s,"
said Jim Danneskiold, a spokesman for the lab in New Mexico where the
first atomic bomb was built in 1945. "As a precaution, we've told them
(workers) to steer clear of those areas."

The trees are located in Bayo Canyon, a destination about 40 miles
northwest of Santa Fe that is popular with horseback riders and hikers.
The site, formerly known as Technical Area 10, was used in the 1940s and
1950s as a place where scientists at the nuclear lab studied explosions.

Danneskiold said the area where radioactive contamination has been
detected is a one-acre (0.4 hectare) site in Bayo Canyon, where all the
trees were blown away during tests on explosives.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/11/11272002/reu_49048.asp

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