Federal sites with radioactive material more vulnerable as climate change increases risks - Santa Fe New Mexican
Federal sites with radioactive material more vulnerable as climate change increases risks | Ap | santafenewmexican.com
Burned grass is seen after a wildfire near the Fast Flux Test Reactor on the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash., June 30, 2000. Climate climate change increasingly threatens research laboratories, weapons sites and power plants across the nation that handle or are contaminated with radioactive material or perform critical energy and defense research.
Climate change increasingly threatens some of the nation's most sensitive sites, including research laboratories, military facilities and power plants with radioactive material.
Extreme heat and drought, longer fire seasons with larger, more intense blazes and supercharged rainstorms that can lead to catastrophic flooding are forcing a reckoning that environmentalists and experts say is long overdue.
Many sites are contaminated or warehouse decades of radioactive waste, while some perform critical energy and defense research and manufacturing that could be crippled by increasingly unpredictable extreme weather.
A portion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory is seen in the foreground, Tuesday, May 16, 2000, surrounded by smoke from the Cerro Grande Fire.
Associated Press file photo
Burned grass is seen after a wildfire near the Fast Flux Test Reactor on the Hanford nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash., June 30, 2000. Climate climate change increasingly threatens research laboratories, weapons sites and power plants across the nation that handle or are contaminated with radioactive material or perform critical energy and defense research.
Jackie Johnston/For The Associated Press
A truck carrying members of the Blue Ridge Hotshots makes its way to the Cerro Grande Fire north of Santa Clara Pueblo on Saturday, May 13, 2000.
New Mexican file photo
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Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: nuclear
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