I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Want to know what a top-secret truck moving “special nuclear materials” around the country looks like?
Check out this photo, which comes from a blog at the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The photo was released after a Freedom of Information Act request from an environmental group.
“It’s big and blue – and rumbling down an interstate near you. But if you were parked next to a nuclear warhead at the gas station, would you know it?” writes Chronicle reporter Robert Pavey.
The Chronicle covers the Savannah River Site (SRS), a big-bomb producing facility back in the day, by which I mean the Cold War era. The Chronicle just published a series of stories on SRS’s critical role in disposing of plutonium from about 10,000 dismantled bombs.
So what does this top-secret transporting of nuclear materials have to do with New Mexico?
Patience, patience.
The answer to your question comes after Pavey asks the obvious question: is transporting nuclear materials by 18-wheeler safe?
Here’s the answer by way of the National Nuclear Security Administration:
“According to the agency, the specially designed and heavily armored ‘secure transporters’ have logged more than 100 million miles without any accidents resulting in loss of life or a radioactive release. They are carefully tracked from a sophisticated command center in Albuquerque, N.M., where a fleet of military aircraft are on standby to respond to any threat or emergency.”
“Other than the absence of any lettering on the outside, the trucks are designed to blend in with regular traffic. Inside, however, are a host of electronic security devices that “incorporate various deterrents” to prevent anyone from removing its cargo. The vehicles are hardened against attack and made with fireproof materials “that would allow the trailer to be totally engulfed in a fire without damage to the cargo.”
“Those truck drivers, by the way, are actually federal agents accompanied by heavily armed commandos who travel in armored (but disguised) escort vehicles.”
So New Mexico, which already has a starring role in the country’s nuclear history, thanks to Los Alamos National Laboratory, also plays a role in the transportation of nuclear materials.
