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The nuclear bomb that almost blew up

Sometimes old news deserves attention: Ari Berman, of the lively Notion blog at The Nation, posts that we recently nearly saw an accidental nuclear detonation at the one plant for decommission and retirement of nuclear weapons in this country, run by Pantex in Amarillo, Tex.

He writes:

In March 2005, a nuclear warhead almost exploded in Texas. The near miss accident occurred in Amarillo, when workers at the Pantex nuclear weapons plant bungled the dismantling of a W-56 warhead, a weapon 100 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

This emerged after a less-provocative-but-still-troubling story from Ralph Vartabedian at the L.A. Times, who revealed that the U.S. Department of Energy fined Pantex $110,000 for violations revealed after the incident, and has launched an investigation.

Sounds reasonable. But at the same time, the DOE declared that it had "confidence that Pantex will continue its outstanding work, while keeping stringent safety and security policies in place."

So why investigate?

Umbra on burning trash

Dear Umbra, We recycle and compost as best we can, but we are still left every week with some trash. Up to this point we’ve dutifully hauled it to the local dump, which then trucks it away to some landfill. My husband has recently discovered that, since we live outside of city limits, we are […]

The first installment in the wonkiest interview ever

A few months ago, I interviewed Terry Tamminen, author of Lives Per Gallon and, until recently, Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s top environmental adviser. We talked for well over an hour about a wide range of topics. An abridged version of the interview ran in Grist, but I thought some of the ultra-geeks here on Gristmill […]

John Amos, eco-geographer and head of nonprofit SkyTruth, answers questions

John Amos. With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I’m president of SkyTruth, a nonprofit I founded in 2001. What does your organization do? SkyTruth puts into practice that old cliché, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” We use photos of the earth taken from orbiting satellites and airplanes to help people see — […]

Step It Up

Monday, 8 Jan 2007 MIDDLEBURY, Vt. The most important question about global warming right now is: what do I do once I’ve changed the damned lightbulbs? And one small answer is Step It Up 2007. This is the first of 12 dispatches I’ll write, one a week through mid-April, that will chronicle the first nationwide […]

Saving gas the non-hybrid way

A nice story from Mother Jones this month on "hypermilers," people who use all kinds of wacky techniques to maximize fuel economy:

Happy Feat

GM unveils plug-in hybrid at Detroit car show, sticks out tongue at greens The media got a peek at Detroit’s North American International Auto Show yesterday, and manufacturers had a surprise in store: cars so green they could play hide-and-seek in a cornfield. The biggest buzz surrounded the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid from General […]

Better Not, Pout

North Sea fish population declines as water warms, says new study For the first time, those meddling scientists have found a direct link between warming seas and dying fish. A heated habitat leads to rapid population decline for the eelpout, a shallow bottom-dweller in the North Sea, according to a decade-long German study recently published […]

Their Day in Cote

Groundwork begins for Ivory Coast toxic-dumping lawsuit It’s been almost five months since a cargo ship dumped over 400 tons of toxic “slops” in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, leaving at least 10 people dead and more than 40,000 ill. At the time, residents of the African nation responded by blockading streets, burning stuff, and collapsing their […]

UN Declares ’07 Year of the Dolphin

Happy New Year! As you may have heard, the Chinese have confirmed 2007 as the Year of the Pig and Newsweek has coined it the Year of the Widget. But my personal favorite designation comes from the United Nations, which has declared 2007 the Year of the Dolphin.

We've got our work cut out for us over at Oceana to do justice to this special year. In 2006, we stopped Congress from weakening the Marine Mammal Protection Act, thanks to a little help from our friends on the right. Some members of Congress tried to eliminate the "Dolphin Deadline," a key provision of the Act that sets the timeline to reduce the death and injury of marine mammals by commercial fishing operations to insignificant levels. Hopefully, this year we'll be able to do even more to protect the dolphins.