Thus endeth the first lesson. In early summer 2024 I began an experiment to determine whether it was possible to fight misinformation by actively posting reliable information via a social media platform serving a well-defined geographical area. (I had posted sporadically in this group as early as 2016.) Topic: The relation between trace soil radionuclides…
Nextdoor readers will know that most (all?) of my postings going back (I think) to 2017 have vanished after they were flagged for “Non-local topic outside of a group” or “Spam“, thanks (I believe) to a specific vindictive downwinder. I have appealed these claims, but without success. I have contacted a number of supporters of…
Thanks to everyone who filled out the Google Forms survey! It will stay open for a while but (like making a measurement in quantum mechanics), posting results shifts downstream responses. As always, people living around the Refuge are enthusiastic about it AND the Greenway. Older people living in developments farther away are more suspicious. Use…
December 2024: A technical summary can be found here. [I downloaded a somewhat fuzzy .jpg from RockyFlatsPuPlayground here. A cleaned-up PDF is on our website here.] Michael Ketterer and Jon Lipksy collected air samples at the former plant east gate on Indiana St, at the Refuge southeast Refuge gate, and at Colorado 128 at the…
(Damn–thought I’d published this on March 12th!) On Monday, March 11 the Westminster City Council appears to have capitulated to the usual earnest misinformation onslaught from the usual suspects: Peace&Justice, Jon Lipsky, Randy Stafford, Chris Allred, a Physicians for Social Responsibility spokesperson and an orchestrated phone-message campaign. This is a reminder (like Superior’s and Broomfield’s…
Case 1:24-CV-00061, Physicians for Social Responsibility et al v. Buttigieg et al was filed on January 8. The case will appear before Judge Timothy Kelly of the DC District Court. “In the absence of intervention by this Court, the health and safety of many individuals will be at risk due to exposure to nuclear contaminants…
Version 2 has been 5 years in coming. It has been a daunting task. In keeping with current beliefs about fighting misinformation, I have tried to warn people when they’re about to encounter junk information, and to make points graphically whenever I can. Among the most infuriating statements I have heard and read is that…
A recent applicant for at-large member of the Stewardship Council made this accusation at the September 19th Zoom meeting. The idea was quickly refuted by board members. This person appears to confuse metallic Pu (which in particle form can spontaneously burn and can react strongly with water) with PuO2, the form present in soil (indifferent…
As most will have noticed, on July 19th the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the most recent legal attempt to block further development of the Refuge. A useful overview may be found in this news article. As noted there, “It seems like you’re trying to relitigate something that happened 15 years ago,”…
Rolling Stone has an important recent article by Justin Nobel [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/ ] tracking recent attention focussed on radiation risks to workers who haul brine. He notes, “Radium, typically the most abundant radionuclide in brine, is often measured in picocuries per liter of substance and is so dangerous it’s subject to tight restrictions even at hazardous-waste sites….