{"id":386685,"date":"2018-11-27T00:14:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T23:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/california-wildfire-likely-spread-nuclear-contamination-from-toxic-site\/"},"modified":"2018-11-27T00:14:30","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T23:14:30","slug":"california-wildfire-likely-spread-nuclear-contamination-from-toxic-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/california-wildfire-likely-spread-nuclear-contamination-from-toxic-site\/","title":{"rendered":"California Wildfire Likely Spread Nuclear Contamination From Toxic Site"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<aside class=\"series-card row\">\n<div class=\"series-image small-4 columns\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/series\/planet-or-profit\/\"><br \/>\n<img width=\"200\" height=\"113\" class=\"attachment-hd_thumbnail size-hd_thumbnail to4-lazy-load\" alt=\"Planet or Profit?\" srcset=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-porp-200x113.jpg 200w, https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-porp-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" data-src=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018_0129n-porp-200x113.jpg\"\/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The incredibly destructive Woolsey Fire in southern California has <a href=\"https:\/\/cdfdata.fire.ca.gov\/incidents\/incidents_details_info?incident_id=2282\">burned nearly 100,000 acres<\/a> in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killed three people, destroyed more than 400 structures, and at the time of this writing, was finally nearly completely contained.<\/p>\n<p>The fire may also have released large amounts of radiation and toxins into the air after burning through a former rocket engine testing site where a partial nuclear meltdown took place nearly six decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Woolsey Fire has most likely released and spread both radiological and chemical contamination that was in the Santa Susana Field Laboratory\u2019s soil and vegetation via smoke and ash,\u201d Dr. Bob Dodge, president of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psr-la.org\/\">Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles<\/a><span> (PSR-LA)<\/span>, told Truthout.<\/p>\n<p>The fire has been widely reported to have started \u201cnear\u201d the Santa Susana Field Laboratory site (SSFL), but according to PSR-LA, it appears to have started at the site itself.<\/p>\n<p>The contaminated site \u2014 a 2,849-acre former rocket engine test site and nuclear research facility \u2014 is located just 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psr-la.org\/massive-woolsey-fire-began-on-contaminated-santa-susana-field-laboratory-close-to-site-of-partial-meltdown\/\">press release<\/a> issued by PSR-LA on November 12 stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/u\/0\/viewer?mid=1HacmM5E2ueL-FT2c6QMVzoAmE5M19GAf&amp;hl=en&amp;ll=34.2313833923554%2C-118.70051502380375&amp;z=14\">Cal Fire<\/a> identifies the fire location as E Street and Alfa Road, a location that is in fact on SSFL. It was recently reported that the \u201cChatsworth electric substation\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edison.com\/content\/dam\/eix\/documents\/Woolsey_Electric_Safety_Report.pdf\">experienced a disturbance<\/a> 2 minutes before the fire was reported, but <em>that substation is in fact on SSFL,<\/em> near that location. A <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Stu_Mundel\/status\/1060692904107110400\">photograph posted on Twitter<\/a> from KCAL9\u2019s Stu Mundel shows the fire starting Thursday afternoon near the same location [on November 8], which is only about 1,000 yards away from the site of the 1959 partial nuclear meltdown of the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) reactor.<\/p>\n<div class=\"banner_wrapper\" style=\"\">\n<div id=\"banner-247294\" class=\"banner subscribe-banner  banner-247294 bottom vert custom-banners-theme-default_style\" style=\"\"><a class=\"custom_banners_big_link\" href=\"#\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"banner_caption\" style=\"\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_inner\">\n<div class=\"banner_caption_text\" style=\"\">\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t miss a beat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Get the latest news and thought-provoking analysis from Truthout.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/u\/0\/viewer?mid=1HacmM5E2ueL-FT2c6QMVzoAmE5M19GAf&amp;hl=en&amp;ll=34.23138339235542%2C-118.70051502380375&amp;z=14\">Cal Fire maps<\/a> show that much of the SSFL is within the boundaries of the Woolsey Fire.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psr-la.org\/massive-woolsey-fire-began-on-contaminated-santa-susana-field-laboratory-close-to-site-of-partial-meltdown\/\">aforementioned press release<\/a> on the crisis, Denise Duffield, the organization\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/truthout.org\/articles\/california-wildfire-likely-spread-nuclear-contamination-from-toxic-site\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The incredibly destructive Woolsey Fire in southern California has burned nearly 100,000 acres in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killed three people, destroyed more than 400 structures, and at the time of this writing, was finally nearly completely contained. The fire may also have released large amounts of radiation and toxins into the air after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":370517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-386685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}