CONTACT 13: Video released of explosions at low-level radioactive waste facility

LAS VEGAS, NV (KTNV) - This is the first time we've seen any images from Sunday's fire at a low-level radioactive waste site near Beatty, Nevada
In the first seconds you can see a column of white smoke moving to the right. Then multiple underground explosions in trench 14 send more smoke spewing out. The ground erupts. Dirt and debris shoot into the sky.

It's 40 seconds of what could have been a major disaster in video Contact 13 obtained from the state Thursday.

While the state investigates the cause of the fire, Contact 13 Chief Investigator Darcy Spears has been following the money trail.

She found some explosive information about funding cuts to the state's radiation control program.

Underground Explosion Sparks Fire at Nevada Radioactive Waste Facility

So um yeah we have a nuclear accident here in Nevada, looks bad and whatever this stuff comming out from underground is in my opinion it can kill. I reccommend evacuations, and getting away from the area, this is in my opinion a USA Fukushima type event. Lets not forget St. Louis has another nuclear fire underground burning out of controll. . . . .

Nookler power! What a great idea! Keep your trust in those with a lot of letters after their name and it will prove fatal.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord
I see no confirmation in the article that it was a 'nuclear explosion'.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

If its waste and not pockets of methane going off. Hard to tell from just the video.

The problem with it being methane is there would be just one bang, not multiple poofs. Those individual poofs could be drums of waste cooking off, imo.

Problem with containing radioactive contamination, it decays and corrodes, producing hydrogen gas, which will find a spark, sooner or later.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: FormOfTheLord
I see no confirmation in the article that it was a 'nuclear explosion'.

They would cover that up, ya think? Not a nuclear explosion, a gas explosion like at Fukushima, the reactors didn't explode, the trapped hydrogen gas in the buildings did, scattering radioactivity to the wind.

Silly question maybe, but at 24 seconds there seems to be some sort of 'projectile' coming out of the ground. Could this be one of the canisters that contains the waste?


Jane

a reply to: butcherguy

Thats because there was no nuclear explosion. Nothing but sensationalism from the op. Here is what he failed to mention -

We don't know exactly what is buried in trench 14. We don't know what these explosions kicked up into the air but we do know state leaders were well aware of the risks buried at the U.S. Ecology site, controlled by the State Department of Health and Human Services.

Minutes from legislative hearings detail concerns about "unknown contamination levels." The state expressed concern because it was not sure of the contamination levels or when a fissure might occur.

$80,110.41 was spent in 2015 for cap repairs.

However despite the transfer of $500,000 officials say the waste program is sufficiently funded.

The state tells us that there are two new subsidence locations from recent flooding at the site and a crater where the fire broke out.

They also tell us there was not a fissure at the location of the fire.

We reached out to the Governor's office and are waiting for a response.

Its no more irresponsible than making the comment about the underground "nuclear" fire in St. Louis, which like the title of this thread is also wrong.

Underground fire outside St. Louis has burned since 2010, nears nuclear waste dump

another look…

E News

When will we learn? Man-made disaster after man-made disaster yet we still keep chugging along in our ignorance ignoring the danger these nuclear devices and waste brings to not only us humans but other life and the planet as well.

For being so smart, we sure are a dumb species. We'll be our own undoing.

You don't get "nuclear explosions" from low level waste. It's not reactor core material. This is wipe rags,used protective gear and lightly contaminated wash water type material.

That looks like a steam pipe explosion. If it were nuclear, you'd see a lot more than a few puffs of dirt and steam.

Nowhere can I find anything related to a nuclear explosion.

Radioactive waste cant explode in a nuclear reaction. It just doesn't work that way.

For a nuclear explosion you need extremly high grade uranium or plutonium of the right isotope that is shaped perfectly with high grade conventional explosives positioned perfectly to set it off.

Nuclear explosions cant just randomly happen.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Thats because there was no nuclear explosion. Nothing but sensationalism from the op.

Nuclear waste doesn't explode.

The fire is in trench 14 of a storage site. Any fire there is combusting material that is radioactive. Otherwise, they wouldn't have buried it.

originally posted by: DAVID64
That looks like a steam pipe explosion. If it were nuclear, you'd see a lot more than a few puffs of dirt and steam.

They don't put live steam pipes in trenches where they store nuclear waste, sorry. But you're right, there is no apparent fireball from the puffs, more like decay heat bursting from whatever containment they buried the waste in.

Especially if it rained (heavily) recently and flooding occurred in the trenches. That could mix material that has leaked and begin the build up of decay gasses, resulting in what appears to be steam explosions.

Note the white clouds and vaporous streamers of material in the video.

We don't know exactly what is buried in trench 14. We don't know what these explosions kicked up into the air but we do know state leaders were well aware of the risks buried at the U.S. Ecology site, controlled by the State Department of Health and Human Services.

"We don't know exactly what is buried in trench 14" You bury radioactive waste, but you don't know exactly what you buried? You don't keep records? No maps?

WTF...?

a reply to: olaru12

They know what is 'in the trenches', its radioactive. Exactly whats in each drum or cask isn't as clear. Like another poster said, its handling materials and residue from weapons production.

Read that, the most toxic s*** on the planet. Sealed in containers, buried in concrete lined trenches, and capped with more concrete, back when they insured everyone by the time containment begins to fail, the engineers will have figured out what to do with it… (turns head and coughs).

Read between the 'official story' lines in here…

Covered up

Especially the last sentence in the article…

U.S. Geological Survey studies in 1994 and 1998 found high concentrations of radionuclides underground, the Nuclear Resource and Information Service said.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord

The most disconcerting thing about this is how serious it is here, less than a page worth.

Thanks for bringing it.

Edit: Image of a "trench" elsewhere:

Robert Del Tredici photo

From ABC News

Hours after the fire burned itself out early Monday, moon-suited teams from the Nevada National Guard and the Las Vegas Police Department's ARMOR unit got to within about 6 feet of a kettle-shaped crater in what had been a 10-foot earthen cap and took radiation and hazardous-materials readings.

All of the measurements were negative, Cage said.

It sounds like an abundance of caution was used, but there was no danger.

It's been known there was no radiation released since the 21st it looks like. Lot's of articles out there.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
From ABC News

Hours after the fire burned itself out early Monday, moon-suited teams from the Nevada National Guard and the Las Vegas Police Department's ARMOR unit got to within about 6 feet of a kettle-shaped crater in what had been a 10-foot earthen cap and took radiation and hazardous-materials readings.

All of the measurements were negative, Cage said.

It sounds like an abundance of caution was used, but there was no danger.

It's been known there was no radiation released since the 21st it looks like. Lot's of articles out there.

They didn't call in monitor teams to declare the place safe, they called them in because stuff buried in the trenches was coming out of the trenches.

They can tell me all day it wasn't radioactive, nothing else is buried there. They are nuclear waste storage trenches, not the local landfill.