Woolsey Fire Project: Citizen Science & the Way Forward

3 years ago 23

By Arnie Gundersen

If you did not read the posts that Maggie and I wrote about community-volunteer citizen-scientists, we hope that do so soon! We have rarely heard a better explanation of this concept than in the latest podcast by Libbe HaLevy at Nuclear Hotseat.

Libbe HaLevy interviewed Dr. Marco Kaltofen, Maggie, and me about the publication of our Woolsey Fire Project peer-reviewed scientific paper published by The Journal of Environmental Radioactivity. Did you read our two prior Demystifying Nuclear Power Blog posts (they’re embedded in this post for your convenience), tweets, and the Journal article itself? In that case, you know the Woolsey Fire Project proved that the Santa Susana Field Lab site (SSFL) has lost control of its radioactive waste. It profoundly concerns us that SSFL is located only 35-miles northeast of Los Angeles (LA) and surrounded by almost one million people.

Listen to the Nuclear Hotseat Interview below:

Fairewinds Energy Education · Nuclear Hotseat: Arnie & Maggie Gundersen and Marco Kaltofen Discuss Findings of Woolsey Fire Paper

Read our thorough analysis of the Woolsey Fire project findings below:

The SSFL site, where a 1959 meltdown occurred, was scheduled and contracted to be entirely cleaned and secured by 2017. However, the site’s owners, Boeing and the Department of Energy (DOE), neglected to meet their legal deadlines. Instead, when the climate-induced Woolsey wildfire began at the SSFL site in 2018, it captured radioactive soot, smoke, and ash. It deposited the irradiated materials as the fire moved from SSFL to Malibu Beach.

In our interview on Nuclear Hotseat, we discussed how the data was collected by community-volunteer citizen-scientists. Then it was analyzed using an independent professional laboratory and its Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). We also shared that citizen scientists collected a sample microparticle of radioactivity that matched material from the SSFL site. It was 19-times more radioactive than the background area. It was collected more than 9 miles away from the SSFL site in the community of Thousand Oaks.

Libbe is one of the smartest interviewers I know and have worked with during my career. She chose to focus on the public’s involvement in this research project. The Nuclear Hotseat interview is a nuanced discussion detailing how Fairewinds and Dr. Kaltofen developed protocols used by the community-volunteer citizen-scientists who performed the data collection. Her interview is the first one to explore how Fairewinds Energy Education and Dr. Kaltofen created this project using the knowledge and passion of the local community. We are so lucky to work with Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles (PSR-LA) and its director Denise Duffield to organize and train community volunteers for the project.

I don’t want to spoil this interview by going into more detail. But, I do recommend that you listen to it and get a different perspective of the work Maggie and I do with Dr. Kaltofen. Enjoy!