{"id":41126,"date":"2018-12-01T07:29:51","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T12:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41126"},"modified":"2018-12-01T07:29:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T12:29:51","slug":"woolsey-fire-started-at-santa-susana-field-lab-site-of-fourth-largest-release-of-iodine-131-in-the-history-of-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41126","title":{"rendered":"Woolsey Fire Started at Santa Susana Field Lab \u2014 Site of \u201c[fourth] largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woolsey Fire Started at Santa Susana Field Lab \u2014 Site of \u201c[fourth] largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California\u2019s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory\u2014south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 miles outside Los Angeles\u2014site of at least four partial or total nuclear reactor meltdowns.<\/p>\n

The field laboratory operated 10 experimental reactors and conducted rocket engine tests. In his 2014 book Atomic Accidents, researcher James Mahaffey writes, \u201cThe cores in four experimental reactors on site \u2026 melted.\u201d Reactor core melts always result in the release of large amounts of radioactive gases and particles. Clean up of the deeply contaminated site has not been conducted in spite of a 2010 agreement.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles\u2019s KABC-7 TV reported Nov. 13 that the Santa Susana lab site \u201cappears to be the origin of the Woolsey Fire\u201d which has torched over 96,000 acres. Southern Calif. Public Radio said, \u201cAccording to Cal Fire, the Woolsey Fire started on the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 8 \u2026 on the Santa Susana site.\u201d (https:\/\/abc7.com\/sce-substation-outage-occurred-before-woolsey-fire-reported\/4675611\/)<\/p>\n

In my column I noted that Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy & Environmental Research, estimated that the partial meltdown of the lab\u2019s Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) in 1957, caused \u201cthe third largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power,\u201d according to Gar Smith in his 2012 book Nuclear Roulette. But Makhijani was speaking in 2006, so now of course the SRE meltdown counts as the fourth largest radio-iodine release\u2014after the triple meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan in 2011, Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, and Windscale in England in 1957.<\/p>\n

Santa Susana\u2019s operators caused the destruction of the liquid sodium-cooled SRE on July 12, 1959\u2014\u201cshowering the downwind hills and meadows of the 2,850-acre site with a fog of chromium and radioactive isotopes, including iodine-131,\u201d according to Smith in Roulette. It was these hills and meadows that were burned so completely by the Woolsey wildfire.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woolsey Fire Started at Santa Susana Field Lab \u2014 Site of \u201c[fourth] largest release of iodine-131 in the history of nuclear power\u201d In my Nov. 16 column, I reported on potential radiation risks posed by California\u2019s Woolsey wildfire having burned over parts or all of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory\u2014south of Simi Valley, Calif., 30 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[101,5493,12087,579,23279,2142,23278,8607,22980],"class_list":["post-41126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-california","tag-counterpunch","tag-john-laforge","tag-nuclear-power","tag-nuclear-reactor-meltdown","tag-radiation","tag-santa-susana-field-laboratory","tag-wildfire","tag-woolsey-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41127,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41126\/revisions\/41127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}