My first wolf story.

After Elaine left found a press release about Wild Earth Guardians and another group whose name escapes me at the moment suing the U-S Fish and Wildlife Service and the U-S Forest Service under the Endangered Species Act regarding what they allege is a dereliction of duty under the act in implementing Standard Operating Procedure 13, a rule whereby any endangered Mexican Grey Wolf believed to be involved in three cattle depradations in a year on Forest Service land (which is leased to ranchers for grazing) must be removed from the wild and *may* be killed, despite the fact that the wolves were reintroduced to the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area spanning two national forests in New Mexico and Arizona and have yet to meet initial goals in terms of population with the objective of eventual downlisting and delisting as an endangered species.

Nothing complicated, mind you.

I knew the AP would have a wire copy piece about it soon enough but figured I had better work it up into a cut-and-copy, at least talking to the plaintiffs and defendants in the lawsuit. Printed out and read the entire lawsuit. Talked with one of the plaintiffs. Called up a spokesperson for one of the defendants, and she hadn't seen the lawsuit, so I emailed her a copy. She calls back and tells me what Fish and Wildlife's objectives are.

A little dialogue ensues. It's valuable. It's not the greatest wolf story ever, but it's a dialogue, and not a shouting match. There's something about wolves -- like abortion. Everyone has good intentions but there's some deeper passion that gets tapped whenever you *mention* the subject to *anyone* involved in it. All I can do is try to understand at least a few of the different pieces of the story from as many different perspectives as possible and put it "out there" for the listener. All this goes into the story, but of course, the story just keeps getting longer.

*Then* the day starts to get complicated.

Another group sues Fish and Wildlife the same day over panthers and the impact of the border fence on *their* habitat. On that one, I print out and read the wire copy, because even though I'd written up a short piece on it to follow the wolf piece, the wire copy is *better* because I've spent most of the day on the wolves. I don't even have time to edit the copy. But now I have a nice little bottom-of-the-hour package of headlines all relating to endangered species in the state. Nice and neat.

Then literally between taking the helm in CONTROL and doing my first newscast, out of nowhere, the wire, which has been thin all day starts feeding me important breaking stories that I wind up bumping my carefully prepared package for -- again, and again, and again. I read 'em all pretty much cold. Barely time to run through 'em once to see where I might trip up -- but I *have to*. If I start talking about 16,278 people drawing 142,846 dollars in February of 2008 in benefits as opposed to 16,164 people drawing 137,554 dollars in benefits in May of 2006 without reading through first I will *sink* my broadcast, and by now, I *know* it. So I *have to* read through it, first. I do. Find the trip-up points, then round off, and take my time as I read, reading ahead, making sure I *understand* what I'm actually *reading* before trying to convey the *meaning* of it to the listener. No one wants to have numbers *thrown* in their faces. If they want the exact numbers, they can call, or they can read the newspaper -- newspapers do things like that better -- with stuff like numbers stories, I can *only* give listeners a *taste* or a sense of the shape of a story. I'm a filter between the numbers and the listener who needs to understand what the numbers *signify*, and *why* it *matters*.

Between my first newscast and my first weather there are still *more* stories flooding in over the wires. Including this one -- the Trigo fire, which I visited last week, and which *was* 95% contained, got blown past containment lines to the North and is, yet again, burning in steep and rugged terrain, driven by high winds.

So, I push off the story I spent all day working on to tell people about the forest fire. At least I manage to sound fairly calm doing it.

Then shortly before the *next* broadcast there's a story about political ads geared toward fucking *November* airing in the state.

Push off the wolves again.

Finally get my little wolf story read at the bottom of hour two, which is, of course, hour one.

Ohhhh *man* you have got to be ready to adapt in this business. You've got to plan everything out and still turn on a dime. You've got to be ready for *anything*. And then you have to be the listener's *freind*. You know, the calm, unruffled one, who knows a lot, *and* all the latest, but who's not *seriously* shaken up by *anything*. "Oh -- the state is on fire, again. This morning it wasn't, now it is. But the winds should die down on Friday. It's 78 degrees. Have yourself a great evening."

It's fucking NUTS!

I LOVE IT!!!!

Finally I go off air.

Then lured by free pizza I head down to the conference room where the monthly general meeting's underway. Maybe a dozen volunteers and two staff people are talking about minutiæ at great length, and with tremendous passion. (Radio people seem, as a rule, to do that. OH MY GAWD I love radio people.) At first I poke my head in, kinda figuring "I better at least pretend to be interested if I'm going to be taking their food".

Somehow I start to soften up, just listening. Oh, wow, *that* may not matter *at all* to *me*, but yeah -- I can see how it *is* important. At the same time, things that are *tremendously* important to me matter not a whit to this or that person. I don't talk. I just listen. As Gore Vidal would say -- "Be like the eye of God. Don't judge. Don't miss a thing." It takes getting past some bluster, and just not being afraid to be in its presence, but heck -- the bluster winds up being *very* entertaining! And it's *not* about *nothing*. It dawns on me, slowly, as I listen -- that person's not "the enemy", and we're not on "opposite sides" of some great divide here. We're all just chipping away at this big old huge thing from so many different angles all at once we can't see what the other is doing.

Eventually I'm *hooked*. The politics of public radio are *intense*. Heartfelt. We're *all* fighting for something *vitally* important here. Sometimes the only thing we can do is show up and just listen to eachother. But it *matters*. Yes, even for the "music people". I'm not a "music person", but that doesn't mean their struggles don't affect my own. It's tempting to get into a mindset where the only thing that matters is "what I'm working on right now". But I can't let that happen. It might prove fatal.

And the stakes are *far* too high.

Birthday broadcast.

Sort of a "bread and butter" day in the newsroom, mostly working up the Bingaman teleconference audio and writing out a couple of headlines.

Elaine's helping me *focus* my stories. We talked for almost an hour today about an event I intend to attend Friday. I can't just waltz into it unprepared -- it's a weird thing -- but this is a mistake we all make sooner or later, and the sooner we break ourselves of the habits involved, the better.

Some organization -- say, a national lab, or a group of activists, or a Ranger Station, or whatever -- will announce they're having what amounts to a media "open house". Obviously, they want to use the event to shape our coverage of their organizations. That's not saying they're evil or anything. It's simply the reality. Everyone wants our attention, and everyone wants to shape our coverage. And these events can be quite helpful in getting at least one side's worth of understanding on a given issue. Sooner or later every reporter goes out and covers this sort of event and winds up getting swept away or overwhelmed with sheer sensory overload to the point they don't know what the story actually *is*.

Thankfully, usually cooler heads prevail in the newsroom and with the back-and-forth we kind of figure out that no, that's really *not* a story in itself. (Anyone for post hole convolutes? I'm *still* hopelessly enamoured of those things.) That sort of detail *may* indeed be a crucial *part* of a story; but just the sheer existence of such things is really *not* a news story.

This is why we depend on eachother. We each have our strengths and our passions and bouncing the ideas off someone else is *priceless*. Heck, it saves our credibility.

NPR did a story tonight that made me laugh right before going on air. Thanks loads, guys.

And then they did *another* where I felt I had to call 'em up and issue a correction. It was a good story, but someone apparently got confused between "El Paso, Texas" and "New Mexico". Yeah, El Paso's really *not* part of New Mexico. Heck, at least it was an interviewee -- not a network reporter. Interesting piece though, regardless.

Factual correction.

On 27 April, 2008, we incorrectly reported that the station's newsroom had won sixteen A-P awards.

In fact, the total number of awards received equals seventeen, including "Station of the Year".

We regret any inconvenience.

:) :)

Another monday.

Good solid start to the week.

Placed a few calls but didn't get calls back by airtime -- oh well.

So it was mostly just headlines tonight -- not ideal, but kind of nice, too, to be able to sort of relax a bit from time to time. Did have a fascinating conversation with a guy who just got back with Governor Richardson from Venezuela. Richardson was trying to get Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez re-engaged on hostage negotiations with the FARC in Colombia. I've said some rather unkind things of Richardson in the past, but there's no denying he's a skilled negotiator and diplomat, either. If you're not following things closely over a period of years you just see the headline in isolation and it's like "he's grandstanding". Well, almost certainly, there is that aspect to it -- I don't think *anyone* would be surprised if he's offered either a VP slot or Secretary of State slot on a Democratic ticket (*if* they ever do decide on a candidate) but at the same time, he's also working with and taking advantage of relationships that go back years.

I'm very lucky to be where I am -- I get to peer behind the curtain, just a bit, sometimes, behind the headlines, and see how utterly fascinating politics and diplomacy really are.

The Raices collective brought in a quartet called "Los Otros" and set 'em up in Studio A for right after I was set to go on air. It's always neat when there are musicians in Studio A. Almost invariably something magical about it. Roman's *incredible* to watch, live engineering on the Wheatstone -- there are *so* many more variables engineering music than talk. And the music is neat, too.

Validation.

Not that it's not all about the listener. Breaking records during pledge drive kind of honestly means more to me than winning an award.

But validation's nice. Quite nice.

I guess I'm now officially an award-winning journalist. Nothing big, just a "show" for some random stories about Los Alamos. But heck -- I was volunteering when I did 'em, and honestly never thought I'd live long enough to submit 'em for, much less *get* an award.

Granted, all I got was a certificate -- but given what the first place trophies remind me of -- it's probably just as well that I *didn't* win a trophy! It would only be a matter of time 'til I used the damn thing as it was clearly meant to be used, thereby rendering it permanently unfit for public display.

I won't describe 'em 'cause I don't want anyone to think I'm being petty, or bitter.

But seriously -- can we *please* go back to the New Mexico-shaped wooden plaques, already, *please*? Those things look super-neat all lined up on the wall.

The trophies seem to get weirder, and harder to display, each year.

This year's trophies would have done Dan Savage proud in 1995.

Long story short -- collectively, the newsroom won 16 AP awards this year.

The cleaners.

Got my tuxedo and one of my suits back from the cleaners today. Have put off getting them cleaned for *ages* 'cause I hardly ever wear 'em, and didn't want to spend the money. But heck. If I *really* want to look my best, I REALLY want to look my best!

Intense week at the station, but *entirely* positive. The Trigo fire trip was incredible. But also an initiation (by fire -- literally) into forest management policy. I go 'cause I'm interested in the wolves way up north and wind up getting interested in a whole *different* thing. And dealing with the Forest Service -- it's nowhere *near* as cut and dry as it appears on the surface.

There's a HUGE book in the newsroom called "Wildfire". It has an essay that sadly I only got around to reading *after* reporting from the scene. About how wildfires (and disasters in general) get covered. Very interesting -- there's one way of looking at "news coverage" as a concept whereby "news coverage" constitutes competing parties trying to get *their* message out, while reporters working under tight deadlines struggle to just get teh facts right in a timely manner and wind up inadvertently casting the story in terms defined by the party that's most successful in conveying its particular message to the reporter at hand. Hard to swallow, but true.

*That* would explain why we're peppered constantly with press releases and media advisories from all sides of every single issue under the sun. People devote their *lives* to different sides of deeply controversial issues, while reporters (we're not people, remember) devote *their* lives to conveying facts. People are *trying* to make us miss the forest for the trees.

Uhm. Yeah! Guilty on that count. I'm a hundred miles away from the control room and just really only getting *one* side of the story, which is *huge*, because only one side is willingly feeding me information. What I wound up airing was OK -- advanced the story a bit, but damn, dude! I didn't get the story I was after, 'cause I eventually found myself on an interested party's home turf and simply *had* to get back to the station fast enough that I couldn't stick around for the lady I'd talked to before to return from her lunch break.

On the other hand, at least I didn't waste any time producing the fluff piece I *could* have about what I actually gathered. Heh. News judgment, anyone? I hate to admit it, but it does kinda suck to gather hours of good, usable sound only to wind up leaving it all on the cutting room floor. But sometimes -- you know -- that's just what you have to do!

I could *easily* have done a very interesting piece about how firefighters are good people and how fighting fires is like fighting a war. And they *are* good people, and the way they fight fires is, indeed, a big part of the story. But it's only *one* part. It wouldn't have done any great service to the listener, just delivering one "angle" in depth on a story that also involves decades of policy decisions spanning both Republican and Democratic administrations and having profound consequences for forest ecology. So -- I aired my "cut-and-copy" and moved on. Everything I learned at base camp? Filed away. For future use. I'm sure the oppportunity will come up, soon enough, again, to revisit the underlying issues.

Being a newsroom, other things just kept happening. I was *really* happy with two of my broadcasts this week. So of course, I pull 'em off the skimmer. And no sooner am I listening to myself than I'm thinking "that worked, but that didn't". Heh. Maybe I'm halfway competent at what I do precisely *because* I take myself *waaaay* too seriously. But seriously, there's got to be some sort of balance.

I'm finding it. Slowly. Balance. It's possible. I may be riding across several crossing tightropes on a unicycle while juggling bowling pins, but I'm *not* falling into the gaping abyss! I have to recognize the fact that at some level I *do* know *exactly* what I'm doing. I like the feeling when it all goes *right*. No. Actually, I LOVE it! And I *can* make sure it does, in fact, go right. *That's* power.

On the level involving other people -- the newsroom's working *way* more smoothly than I've known it to in the past. It's like -- here's this institution (the newsroom) within a larger institution (the station) within a huge old lumbering bureaucratic institution (the university), within a still larger and more complex and far more deeply dysfunctional institution (the state) with a bunch of deeply layered institutional type challenges on almost every level, and everyone's working separately, underground, to chip away at getting to where things actually need to be.

It's like miners coming at eachother through different tunnels. First there's a chink in the wall through which you *think* you can see some light but don't dare allow yourself to think it. Then the chink in the wall grows to a hole just big enough where you can see the other miner's face. Then before you know it you're all in the same tunnel and working together. That's what this week was like.

We're not having meetings any more where we gather and obligatorily say "I'm working on this, what are *you* working on, like it really matters?". We're meeting together and discussing things in depth and bouncing ideas and critiques off eachother without stepping on eachothers toes and handing off stories right and left. Corporate types call it "breaking down silos". Loath as I am to borrow their terminology, we're *definitely* doing that.

I *really* want to do a wolf story! A month ago, that would have been unthinkable. *Two* months ago, "Wolves" would have been "Elaine's story", "Oil and Gas Drilling" would have been "Jim's story", and anything about "the Labs" would have been "my story", while whoever got stuck hosting whatever aired would have just sounded half baked not knowing the difference between "produced water", "endangered species", or "graphene molecules" reading the lede.

And then there's the whole issue of how reporting's *traditionally* done -- in newspapers and stuff, people have "beats". It works, to a degree. I know people in the labs and people who put pressure on the labs and seem to be trusted pretty well by all concerned. Elaine knowns wolf reintroduction advocates and critics and the people who oversee the program, and seems to be pretty well trusted by all. Those connections are invaluable, and you don't generally want to jeapordize those relationships by having some random person who doesn't understand even the basics of a given issue call up person "x" only to have 'em wonder "who the hell are you, and where's the person I spoke to last time?". But let's face it -- most functioning newsrooms with well-defined "beat" reporters *do* have more than three people on full time staff, two of whom are *also* drivetime news hosts.

If we want to do more than gather sound we never use, *eventually* we *have to* communicate effectively, internally. We're *definitely* moving in that direction. Faster and faster, too. Turf wars are just a waste of time and resources, and do injustice to the listener. We all know that. We are *all* erasing our own precious lines in the sand.

Jim hands me a couple of hours of sound about a hunger story that he can't get around to editing and I work it up, literally in my spare time. I'm far enough away from the story that I can just step back and realise -- I *don't* have to listen to the 20 minute speech about the "gap analysis", important as it is. I *can* cut to the meat of the story that makes *sense* to the listener who just knows, from lived experience, that food is costing more. Food prices are up, fuel prices are up, the two are feeding eachother, more people are going hungry, that's putting stress on nonprofits, but these organizations are working together to fill up the gap. Bingo. It winds up being a pretty decent story, if I do say so myself.

I hand him my notes from the busdriver's union story that I got stuck on a couple of weeks ago when the lawyer for one interested party told me he'd never heard of someone else on the other side of the issue and *he* finishes *that*.

I haven't said a lot about Elaine, because, basically, I'm kind of a sexist pig, and I know it. But she's a *huge* part of this transformation -- she *has to* go out of her way to be assertive, and make it known, repeatedly, that she's there to help as much as anyone else. She *shouldn't* have to keep saying "ask me anything if you think I can help", I should just *ask* her for help when I *know* I need it! But that's the reality -- not to excuse it -- it's the old thing about "asking for directions". Men (as far as I can tell) just will *not* do it! We'd rather be lost! Damn it! We're not lost! We're explorers! We *can't* ask for help! Surely not from a *female*!

But this wolf thing -- my god. That blew me out of the water, completely. Elaine was on top of the wolf stories *months* ago! I'd be lying if I said I didn't think of it as just some sort of "pet project" of hers at the time. But the culture within the newsroom is changing. Slowly, yes, but it's changing. And for the better. Having met a wolf, and *the* "wolf lady" in person, that barrier breaks down a bit. Oh -- yeah -- those wolf stories -- they *really* matter! Why didn't I *see* that? Because I was busy playing "Mr. Plutonium" and assuming she was playing "Ms. Wolf". That attitude is *my* problem. I have *got* to get beyond it. And I will. But it took getting licked in the face by a timber wolf to get there. Goodbye, Mr. Plutonium. Go figure.

Anyhow.

Charles left a voicemail message for me last night which I wish I could save for the ages. He lives in his world, and I live in mine. We're both fags so we both trade barbs more than anything else. (Heck, it's how we survive.) Over the years I've known him, he *has* come to thank me for helping him out. But the closest he ever came to paying me an outright *compliment*? "Nice shirt. I like houndstooth weave." To which my reaction was probably something like "Yes, of course you like houndstooth. It reminds you of Germany in the '30s."

Last night he leaves a message saying he was in the car with Claudette and heard me for the first time during broadcast. I don't recall all the salient details, but he *did* he found me "enthralling", noted how I hit all the intonation and pacing, said I'd clearly "found my niche" and furthermore said something to the effect that while he'd never listened before, "I will, now".

Heh.

I don't learn *anything* the *easy* way.

The Associated Press awards banquet is tomorrow. And I plan to dress nice, since I'll be in front of people, for a change, doing something other than pestering them.

Life is good.

Fabulously fabulous.

Flawless -- no -- *seamless* broadcast tonight!

All day people coming and going in and out of the newsroom. All day, working on *our own* damn stories. All day, communicating *clearly* between shifts. And finally, to top it off, a bunch of the state's best reporters are now working for the brand spankin' new New Mexico Independent online-only newspaper, and Trip Jennings (who's no longer with the Journal) and Dave Alire Garcia are in the newsroom for an interview with Jim. He does that and pulls off handing me a 12-and-a-half minute *feature* length three-way interview *well* before I'm set to go on air. I work up a timely (maybe urgent) cut-and-copy to lede at the top of the hour newscast out of 42 minutes raw sound. We're doing waaay better than "doing better". We've got MOMENTUM. We've got DRIVE. It's *very* powerful.

The broadcast goes without a hitch. Taking time with headlines, but reading currents to get all transmitter locations' current temps in. Hitting posts. Every time. Matching pacing, tone, and intonation to network.

At 5:44:30, introduce and run Jim's piece. Listen. It is *amazing*. Have *the* perfect music all lined up -- an arrangement of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse". (Get it?) Even assert myself -- Jim calls up with a request for music bed at the end. Yeah, I tell my own boss, basically, "we don't take requests during news", and he lets me. ;) (Actually, he *encourages* me. I *love* public radio.) Better still, I cue "Powerhouse" up to the "timeclock" opening of "theme B", leaving *precisely* 1:41 in the song. Hear Jim's outcue, fade up flawlessly. Let first few bars play. Fade down to 30 or 40 ish. Do my weather with fresh currents that I got while playing Jim's piece -- no stale current temperatures here! Finish it *dead on* at 58:20 and fade up the network for national funders with "Powerhouse" still broadcasting underneath. The funder credits end. So does the song. I play my carts, and stack 'em, and hit the 6:00. WOW.

Insane but beautiful.

Discovered today one of the more magical parts of New Mexico. Little towns that are 400 years old. Ruins of churches that look more like Morocco than New Spain torn down in 1680 with stones used to build surrounding houses people still live in. Tiny little towns where people's families go back centuries. Church graveyards with hand-made markers, names scratched into rough-hewn stone. Each town has a church, or more than one, but one town has a store, the other down the road has a post office, while neither one has both. Where the lady who runs the post office is the mother of the person I'd been trying to get on the phone. And then that charming, quirky little railroad-era town at the end of the road where the Forest Service has set up their base camp, 'cause that part of the world is on fire.

It was important for me to go. All I got out of it was 30 seconds, but that was enough. I won't bore you with why. But now I *know* where -- and what -- places like Escoboso, Chilili, Tajique, Torreon, Manzano, and Mountainair *are*. Each one, one of a kind. Our signal and my voice reach these places, each night. We *can't* ignore them. And they're too special to simply let burn down.

Trigo fire.

Somehow after meeting the wolf lady the Trigo fire seemed to *matter*. We've been covering it but mostly just reading headlines. Today was on the phone all day and the story kept changing. Finally got through to one of the fire managers at 4:20 and she told me something new that let us break a story in the fire's development. Domenici talked to the Forest Service chief and the Governor's going down to Torreon *early* tomorrow morning, which I only find out about after going on air. He announces after I get off the air that FEMA's freeing up funds for the fire which has so far cost 2 million dollars, burned close to 3800 acres, destroyed 9 houses, 9 outbuildings, and 2 mobile homes. First newscase was great, second was a mess. The information just kept changing and I was trying to cover both the latest with the fire and all the other stories happening. I need to keep it simple. In time. Tommorrow I drive to Torreon, bright and early.

The Wolf Lady.

I have met the Wolf Lady.

In person.

I did not *plan* to do so. It simply *happened*.

I'd heard about her. How doesn't matter. But suffice to say, she's legendary.

Went to the grocery story and there's a little crowd around a table out front. I figure it's an animal adoption thing or something.

Nope.

Right in front of the store is a 6'3", 128-pound Timber Wolf wearing a pony harness. His name is "Hokshila". You can see a picture of him here. It takes a guy as big as he is to keep the wolf from running off whenever Stephanie Kaylan -- the wolf lady -- is away. She's the alpha. Next in line (in the group there today) is the female Wolf/Cinnamon Husky mix, Seneca. She's lovely, but *only* as big as a big dog.

It's one thing to *read* about "packs" and "dominance" and "wolf society". It's another thing entirely to experience it. She has to greet Hokshila *every* time she returns from even getting something from the car, ten steps away. He wants to follow her, *everywhere*. She *relates* to her animals in language that *they* understand.

Hokshila *loves* kids. He's totally socialized. But still wild. He's on a heavy, short leash the *whole* time. He's freindly but the setting is chaotic for him. It's noisy, there's constant traffic, and he's like a ball of pure energy responding to to all the stimuli, all the time, but absolutely *determined* to stay close to Stephanie in the unfamiliar setting. Try and keep *that* on a leash!

People's reactions are almost universally positive. All *kinds* of people walk up. Almost all want to know if they can pet the wolf. Yes, you can, but you *have to* ask, first. There were so many magic moments between kids and this animal I found myself just stuck, enthralled, watching. For two hours. Incredible.

The Wanagi Wolf Fund -- Stephanie Kaylan's organization, rescues wolves that were bred and sold -- illegally -- for thousands of dollars as pets before being abused, neglected, or abandoned. She lives in the mountains with six canines, currently -- both wolves and wolf-dogs.

She's looking, right now, for a horse trailer. Bigger's better, but it doesn't have to be anything fancy or shiny. Just needs good axles and wheels. What with six wolves, they won't all fit in her SUV, and if the wildfires hit her ranch, she will die with the wolves.

I never did get groceries.

Visualizing the listener.

Got the general gist of it before.

But *now* it's *real*. Hard to explain. But somehow, now, it's more natural to me.

I think my broadcast has improved this week.

I'm visualizing listeners familiar to me.

Not abstracts of human beings.

Stressful.

Yes, what I do for a living *is* a little bit stressful.

Today was a relatively "normal" day.

But I'm slowly getting to where I'm OK acknowledging to myself that it's inherently stressful.

The credit for that goes to Elaine. You know. The whole women being "honest" thing, while men repress their feelings (other than anger) constantly. Fuckin' gender constructs. Hate 'em.

Nothing terribly out-of-the ordinary happened. Just people showing up for interviews and interminable updates on forest fires on top of the usual wire copy and whatnot. Waiting for callbacks. The usual.

Still wasn't really "on top of" my broadcast when it happened. My damn tongue kept falling out of my mouth to trip me up.

Fuck it. No apologies. The guys from the labs wonder how I do what I do. I barely know myself. I kinda make it up as I go along. I guess.

The network -- not me!, the network! -- did a dirty "rejoin" today. Faded up at 5:35:30 expecting a split second of silence only to find the *netowrk* running ahead of their own clock they feed to affiliate stations, what with someone announcing something.

I *beg* your pardon. Where's my music bed? And *why* is the newscaster introducing something as I do a *clean* join on my end?

Can it be, can it *possibly* be that the people at NPR are human, too?

Newsroom: THE MUSICAL!

To the tune of Broadway's "I can live without you" from "My Fair Lady" (which never made its way into the film version):

When Domenici sneezes, it is news!
When the governor snoozes, it is news!
When the delegation races,
with NNSA in its paces,
it is news!
it is news!
it is news!

Back to "normal".

"Normal" being a relative term, of course.

No dozens of people wandering the halls -- no free food -- and just me in CR most of the time, alone with the listener. And a "normal" clock for weekday ATC.

Heaven!

Did get screwed up a bit, but Devon was there, and helped save me. Evan sent a story from down south -- a biggish one that he *broke* -- so we *had* to run it, even though it came in late and contained language that might offend people. It seems to depend which email account he uses to send stories whether I can run 'em or not. Maybe it's on my end too -- not sure -- was using my own login instead of "Production". We'll iron it out tomorrow. But his mp3 came through and downloaded itself as an HTML file.

Yikes.

With four minutes to spare. While ON AIR.

Got it to play -- *as* an HTML file -- in Windows Media Player. Getting last-minute stories is a challenge -- I can only accept 'em from certain workstations and then I *have to* play 'em on air from the Control Room computer. Was all set to play an HTML file ON AIR for probably the first time ever, without really knowing how it would work, when Devon did some magical thing or another and saved it as an mp3. I opened it and saved it as a wav file where it needed to be. Refreshed my list and made it in to the mic with a whole 20 seconds to spare.

Ran a 6-minute story from Jim first -- partly because I'd gotten it first, and gotten it ready first, and partly to buy me some time! Watched the clock run down and realized I'd have at least a couple of minutes to cover. So I did something -- not ideal, but better than dead air or pure "padding" with music -- faded up a music track, calmly read about two minutes of wire copy (inbetween features) and then finally played Evan's story.

That gave me 27 seconds at the end of his story to pad with music before cutting to network for funder credits.

And did it all without sounding "hectic" or "panicked".

Life is good.

Weekend in full swing.

So to speak.

Attended a gallery opening which I enjoyed last night.

Today: lazily lounging at home. Will doubtless get some decluttering done before the day is through.

Pledge drive reminds me how much a Wolperting whelp I am. All the day-to-day nonsense that goes with *any* job can get you down.

But then you wind up breaking records, and nothing else matters. All that ultimately matters is the listener, after all. Mabe I'm doing something right.

My weekend...

...will begin after I finish reading this [with my comments in squarebrackets].

Nothing *quite* makes my day like receiving a technical report about monitoring wells landing in my inbox less than 20 minutes before I'm set to go ON AIR, reading headlines.

Here's the letter:

April 1, 2008 [April Fools' Day]
Mr. James Bearzi, Chief
New Mexico Environment Department
Hazardous Waste Bureau
2905 Rodeo Park Drive East, Building 1
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505-6303

Dear Mr. Bearzi,

A New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) Hazardous Waste Bureau letter to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) dated February 26, 2008 [titled] "Status of Remedy Selection at MDA H" brings attention to the fact that the FLUTe sampling membrane does not provide for collection of reliable and representative samples of soil gas for measurement of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The NMED letter makes the statement pasted below:

NMED contacted the manufacturer who acknowledged that there were problems with VOC adsorption in FLUTe systems greater than 50 feet in length. NMED is concerned that the material used for the construction of the membrane may have absorbed some of [sic] VOCs or influenced contaminant detection in other ways.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Facility Investigation at the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) Mixed Waste Landfill (MWL) measured many VOCs to be present in the soil gas below the MWL. DOE/SNL identifies the VOC tetrachloroethene (PCE) as a primary contaminant of concern for the contamination of the groundwater below the MWL. In the Long-Term Monitoring and Maintenance Plan (LTMMP) for the SNL MWL, DOE/SNL propose to monitor the VOCs with FLUTe membranes installed to a depth of 400 feet below ground surface in three boreholes at locations surrounding the MWL. However, the admission by the manufacturer that "there were problems with VOC adsorption in FLUTe systems greater than 50 feet in length" is proof that the FLUTe membranes will prevent collection of reliable and representative soil gas samples for the proposed unsaturated zone monitoring wells at the SNL MWL.

Therefore, based on this new information, Citizen Action requests NMED to order revision for the LTMMP by SNL. The LTMMP must then be informally presented to the public by DOE/SNL with a public comment period and public hearing. The LTMMP public comment period was closed on January 31, 2008 and the new information regarding concerns for the FLUTe membrane was not available until February 26, 2008. The new information needs to be taken into account by the LTMMP because the FLUTe wells do not provide effective vadose zone monitoring. Revision of the LTMMP must also comply with the requirements set forth in the SNL MWL Corrective Measures Study that require compliance with RCRA Subpart G and Subpart F for closure of the MWL.

On November 5, 2007, the NMED released the Fact Sheet/Statement of Basis for the Selection of the LANL MDA ["Mixed Disposal Area"] H Remedy (MDA H Remedy Fact Sheet). The remedy selected by the NMED [for MDA H, I assume] includes

1). complete encapsulation of the nine disposal shafts at MDA H,
2). an engineered evapotranspiration (ET) cover on the land surface above MDA H,
3). active vapor extraction of the soil gas plume at MDA H, and
4). long-term monitoring of soil gas below MDA H to a depth of 254 ft below ground surface (bgs).

The NMED selected this remedy because of a concern that trichloroethene (TCE) contamination in the soil gas below MDA H could result in TCE contamination in the groundwater below MDA H at a level greater than the EPA Drinking Water Standard of 5 ug/L.

The TCE contamination was measured at a concentration of 2,600 ug/cubic meter in soil gas samples that were collected from three boreholes at MDA H with the LANL Packer sampling system on a quarterly schedule from February 2005 to March 2006. From March 2006 to the present time, the soil gas samples were collected with FLUTe membranes that were installed in the same three boreholes at MDA H where gas samples were previously collected with the Packer sampling system.

The VOC contamination measured with the FLUTe membranes during four quarterly sampling events in 2007 are presented in Table 5.0-2 in LANL report LA-UR-07-7803 (November 2007). Table 5.0-2 presents TCE concentrations measured in a total of 48 gas samples collected from sampling ports in the three FLUTe membranes installed in the three boreholes. The measured TCE concentrations range from ND (i.e., "not detected") to a maximum concentration of 9.7 ug/cubic meter. For the 48 soil gas samples, the measured TCE concentrations were greater than 9.0 ug/cubic meter in only four of the samples and greater than 8.0 ug/cubic meter in only ten of the samples.

All of the TCE concentrations measured in the soil gas samples collected with the three FLUTe membranes were three orders of magnitude lower than the TCE concentration of 2,600 ug/cubic meter that was cited in the NMED MDA H Remedy Fact Sheet as the level of TCE contamination uniformly present below MDA H. The TCE concentration cited in the Fact Sheet was for measurements in the three boreholes with the LANL Packer sampling system.

Because of the very low concentrations measured with the FLUTe membranes for TCE and the other VOCs, NMED has ordered the following actions by DOE/LANL in a letter dated February 26, 2008:

"NMED therefore directed the Permittees in a December 21, 2007 letter to evaluate the effects of the FLUTe system on VOC sample measurements. The Permittees must collect data from existing boreholes at MDA H with and without the membranes for at least two quarters for comparison purposes." (p. 2)

There is no merit in the direction of NMED for the intercomparison of data from a small number of new soil gas samples collected from the existing boreholes at MDA H with the FLUTe membranes and with the LANL Packer sampling system. The large amount of historical data collected from the existing boreholes with both the LANL Packer System and with the FLUTe membranes is superior to the new data to be collected "for at least two quarters for comparison purposes." Collecting the new data will require repeated installation and removal of the two sampling systems in the three boreholes. The periods of time the boreholes are open will allow cross-flow and cross-contamination of the in situ soil gas and dilution of the contamination in the soil gas by atmospheric air that will flow into and out of the open boreholes in response to the daily change of barometric pressure. [Emphasis, myself.]

Furthermore, the manufacturer has acknowledged that the FLUTe membranes are inappropriate for sampling soil gas for VOCs at depths greater than 50 feet. [emphasis, myself.] This admission by the manufacturer is a reason to not use the FLUTe membranes for monitoring soil gas at MDA H or at the SNL MWL. At MDA H, the release of VOCs is from disposal shafts constructed to a depth of 60 ft below ground surface (bgs) and the three boreholes for sampling VOCs are drilled to depths of 256 ft bgs, 249 ft bgs, and 97 ft bgs, respectively. An excerpt from the NMED MDA H Fact Sheet is pasted below that describes the results from soil gas monitoring below MDA H for the time period before taking measurements with the FLUTe membranes:

"The Permittees have been conducting quarterly monitoring and submitting Periodic Monitoring Reports to NMED since (LANL 2005c, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). Analytical results confirm the presence of VOCs and tritium in all vapor samples. The results do not indicate an increasing or decreasing trend over time and do not show increasing or decreasing trends with depth. However, the monitoring locations do not include the Cerro Toledo Interval or the underlying Otowi Member of the Bandelier Tuff." (p. 5)

The fact that the results do not indicate an increasing or decreasing trend over time for the quarterly samples collected over a period of one year and the sudden decrease in TCE concentrations from 2,600 ug/cubic meter to less than 10 ug/cubic meter when sampling began with the FLUTe membranes is evidence that the FLUTe membranes do have properties for adsorption of TCE from the soil gas. [emphasis, myself.]

In addition, the fact that the results do not show increasing or decreasing trends with depth is proof that DOE/LANL have not used an appropriate sampling methodology for soil gas samples collected with either the LANL Packer sampling system or with the FLUTe membranes. [emphasis, myself.] NMED also has a concern that the three boreholes are not drilled deep enough to monitor soil gas contamination in the Cerro Toledo Interval or the underlying Otowi Member of the Bandelier Tuff.

There are many deficiencies with all of the soil gas data collected at MDA H. The data do not support any decision on the remedy for MDA H. There is an immediate need to drill the three existing boreholes and two new boreholes to an appropriate depth for monitoring soil gas in the Cerro Toledo Interval and the underlying Otowi Member of the Bandelier Tuff. The two new boreholes should be drilled at appropriate locations within 25 feet of the nine disposal shafts. The required depth for the five boreholes is approximately 400 ft bgs.

It is essential to permanently install a multiple-port sampling system in all of the boreholes and for this system to be constructed with materials that will produce reliable and representative gas samples for measurement of in situ concentrations of VOCs and tritium. [On background: "post-1945 water will have an occurence of tritium due to open-air testing of nuclear weapons as opposed to pre-1945 waters" .] Soil gas samples should be collected from the multiple-port sampling systems installed in the five boreholes for a minimum period of eight quarters.

It is very likely that the results collected from properly monitoring the five boreholes will show even higher concentration of TCE than 2,600 ug/cubic meter for ports at depths from 60 ft to 200 ft. Ports in the lower 200 ft of the boreholes are expected to show a decreasing trend for VOCs and tritium. Reliable soil gas data is important for long-term monitoring for early detection of the release of contamination from MDA H.

However, the soil gas data does not replace the need for the installation of a minimum of two groundwater monitoring wells into the regional aquifer at locations within 50 feet of MDA H and one background water quality well at an appropriate location west of MDA H. The network of groundwater monitoring wells are a requirement of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The RCRA requirements are described below. The results from the properly instrumented soil gas boreholes and from the monitoring wells located close to MDA H may show that the VOC and tritium contamination released from MDA H is not a source for contamination of groundwater. The results may show that complete encapsulation of the nine disposal shafts is not a required remedy. Active vapor extraction of the VOCs also may not be needed as a remedy.

We would like to address issues of appropriate standards for protection of the public health, safety and the environment by comparing the differences between NMED’s enforcement of corrective measures at LANL and SNL. Our conclusion is that LANL MDA H, a legacy era nuclear weapons dump with much less contamination than the SNL MWL, is receiving substantially more enforcement and remediation requirements. [emphasis, myself.]

The SNL MWL is a 2.6 acre dump where greater than 700,000 cubic feet of hazardous and radioactive wastes are buried in seven [unlined] trenches and more than 40 pits. The LANL MDA H is a 0.6 acre site where 14,000 cubic feet of hazardous and radioactive wastes are buried in nine shafts. The volume of wastes at MDA H is only 2% of the volume at the MWL. The top of the regional zone of saturation is approximately 1000 ft below ground surface (bgs) at MDA H compared to approximately 470 ft bgs at the MWL.

The SNL MWL trenches and pits are unlined and there are no leak detection systems to monitor releases. In addition, NMED has not enforced the requirement of RCRA 40 CFR §264.98 (a)(2) for active monitoring of the release of contamination to the unsaturated zone below the buried wastes. Furthermore, the DOE/SNL long-term monitoring and maintenance plan (LTMMP) for the SNL MWL does not include active monitoring for soil gas contamination below the buried wastes in the MWL. Instead, DOE/SNL propose to monitor the VOCs with FLUTe membranes installed to a depth of 400 feet below ground surface in three boreholes at locations outside the perimeter of the dirt cover that will be installed over the MWL.

The three FLUTe wells will not place the MWL in compliance with §264.98 (a)(2) because the proposed wells are located outside the dump (LTMMP, p. B-9, Fig B-3.1-1) and also the FLUTe membranes will not produce reliable and representative soil gas samples because of the adsorption properties. Compliance with §264.98 (a)(2) requires monitoring wells must by law be placed within the dump to detect “[t]he mobility, stability and persistence of waste constituents or their reaction products in the unsaturated zone beneath the waste management area.”

The Vadose Zone Soil-Vapor monitoring proposed under the LTMMP (p.3-12 to 3-17) can not provide “the early warning system for protecting the groundwater” that is required by law as the LTMMP claims. Given the lack of liners at the MWL, early detection of contamination in the unsaturated zone beneath the MWL pits and trenches is a necessity at the MWL. The early detection of contamination requires a large network of multiple port vadose zone monitoring wells that are installed within and immediately at the boundary of the MWL. The number of wells is not known but is a minimum of ten. The number and location of the monitoring wells must be determined by careful sampling of the soil gas below the MWL with a large number of temporary probe holes. On February 14, 2008, NMED approved a DOE/SNL sampling plan to use probe holes for collecting and analyzing soil gas samples below the MWL. The sampling plan does not take measurements at enough locations or to the necessary depth. The deficiencies in the plan are described below.

The soil gas data collected for the RFI Phase 2 are proof that the three FLUTe wells proposed in the LTMMP are too distant from the MWL for the early detection of releases below the buried wastes. Two figures in the RFI Phase 2 report show that the PCE concentrations measured at the proposed distance away from the MWL for the FLUTe wells are 10 times lower than the PCE concentrations measured within the MWL unclassified area. (RFI Phase 2 p. 4-76 PCE in Soil Gas at 10 ft and p. 4-83 PCE in Soil Gas at 30 ft).

The LANL MDA H and the SNL MWL are both RCRA "regulated units" where groundwater monitoring must be in compliance with RCRA 40 CFR §§264.90 through 264.101 (RCRA Subpart F). In a recent LANL report - Technical Area 54 Well Evaluation and Network Recommendations, Revision 1 (LA-UR-07-6436, October 2007), NMED and DOE/LANL acknowledge that the groundwater monitoring at MDAs G, H, and L must be in compliance with RCRA Subpart F, but NMED has not enforced this requirement for the SNL MWL. [emphasis, myself.] The requirements in the LANL report for groundwater monitoring at MDAs G, H, and L are pasted below:

"The following requirements from 40 CFR 264.90-.99, Subpart F apply to permitted units or regulated units that received waste after July 26, 1982. The regulations apply throughout the active life of the units and the closure and post-closure period if the units are not “clean-closed” under RCRA. The groundwater-monitoring network and facility process must be able to detect, evaluate, and respond to releases of hazardous waste or hazardous waste constituents into the uppermost aquifer. Detection monitoring is required to establish that a release has occurred. It is assumed that because of the significant depth to groundwater beneath TA-54, vadose-zone monitoring will be a key component of the overall monitoring program in support of both CMEs and the RCRA Part B permit.

An integrated groundwater-monitoring system must consist of a sufficient number of near-field wells and downgradient monitoring wells installed at appropriate locations and depths to obtain representative groundwater samples from the uppermost aquifer. These samples must represent both the quality of background water not affected by the regulated unit and the quality of groundwater passing beneath the regulated unit to allow for detection of contamination in the uppermost aquifer.” (p. 6)

The above requirements for RCRA regulated waste disposal sites at LANL TA-54 are especially pertinent to the LTMMP for the SNL MWL, the SNL Draft RCRA Permit, and the SNL Solid Waste Management Units (SWMUs) slated for No Further Action.

The SNL MWL is also a RCRA regulated unit because of the period of time that it received wastes. It is notable that the New Mexico Court of Appeals did not take jurisdiction over this issue and the issue is raised both for the record for the LTMMP and the SNL Draft RCRA Permit. As will be discussed below, the MWL does not have adequate soil gas monitoring or groundwater monitoring as is required by NMED at LANL for MDAs G, H, and L within TA 54 [emphasis, myself].

The SNL MWL Corrective Measures Study p.19) states that“Hazardous waste landfill closure requirements are codified under 20.4.1.500 New Mexico Administrative Code (MAC), 40 CFR Part 264, “Standards for Owners and Operators of Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities,” Subpart G (Facility Closure Standards) and Subpart N (Landfills). The NMED, the lead regulatory agency, has adopted the federal regulations as written and incorporated them into the New Mexico Hazardous Waste Management Regulations 20.4.1 NMAC. These standards are performance-based regulations that specify performance criteria without specifying design, construction materials, or operating parameters. The EPA has provided numerous guidance documents to aid in interpreting the level of performance required to design, construct, and operate a compliant closure system. The closure performance standard is defined in 20.4.1.500 NMAC, 40 CFR 264.111 as follows:

“The owner or operator must close the facility in a manner that:
(a) Minimizes the need for further maintenance; and
(b) Controls, minimizes or eliminates, to the extent necessary to protect
human health and the environment, post-closure escape of hazardous
waste, hazardous constituents, leachate, contaminated runoff, or hazardous
waste decomposition products to the ground or surface waters or to the
atmosphere; and
(c) Complies with the closure requirements of this subpart . . .”

The SNL MWL is not in compliance with Subpart G (40 CFR 264.117 (a)(1)(i) ) because monitoring and reporting that must comply with Subpart F are not provided for in the LTMMP as is required for the closure of a landfill. Additionally, the necessity of providing clean closure or obtaining a post-closure permit for the MWL or documents in lieu thereof have not been addressed as required by 40 CFR 270 et seq.

The NMED Response to Public Comments SNL MWL SV SAP (2/15/2008, p. 13) states that “There does not appear to be a significant increase in soil gas concentrations between the depths of 10 and 30 feet.” The Phase 2 RCRA Facility Investigation (RFI) on the contrary shows a great increase in the Total Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) in Soil Gas at 30 ft compared to the values measured at 10 ft and in some instances by a factor of four times greater. (Figs. 4.5-28, 4.5-29). The RFI report shows PCE in Soil Gas at 10 ft to be nearly doubled at the 30 ft depth. (Figs. 4.5-21, 4.5-27).

The PCE concentrations in soil gas below the MWL are identified as a source for contamination of groundwater in the MWL Fate and Transport Model (F&TM) (Ho, et al, 2006). However, the modeling of the PCE was from the maximum value of PCE in the soil gas measurements at the MWL measured to a maximum depth of only 30 ft bgs. The value used in the model is increasing from the level measured at 10 ft (5,200 ppb) to 30 ft (5,900 ppb). The data used by the F&TM was ten years old, too sparse and shows a trend to higher values from where the data was collected and there may be higher values at greater depth than 30 ft and at other locations beneath the dump. There is no indication that the highest value at the MWL is presented for the F&TM.

Because of the deficiencies in the F&TM, we have used Henry's Law to calculate the groundwater contamination below the SNL MWL from the PCE contamination of 5,900 ppb that was used in the F&TM model. For the MWL, Henry's law calculates that the PCE concentration of 5,900 ppb in soil gas will contaminate the groundwater with PCE at a concentration of 52 ug/L, a level 10 times greater than the EPA Drinking Water Standard of 5 ug/L. Our calculation with Henry's Law was the same process used by NMED to select complete encapsulation as the required remedy for MDA H to protect groundwater from the release of TCE as soil gas from the disposal shafts.

LANL was required by NMED to conduct quarterly sampling for the past two years to measure the soil gas concentrations for a complete suite of VOCs at multiple depths to a total depth of 250 ft bgs and with a borehole for monitoring to a depth of 250 ft bgs at a distance of approximately 25 ft from the disposal shafts. By contrast at the SNL MWL, however, on February 14, 2008, NMED approved of a sampling plan that will collect new soil gas samples for VOCs at only six probe hole locations within the MWL. Three locations will collect samples at depths of 10 ft and 30 ft, and three locations will collect samples at 10 ft, 30 ft, and 50 ft. The sampling required by NMED at the MWL is a token effort.

The depth of the aquifer below LANL MDA H is approximately 1000 ft bgs. The depth of the aquifer for the SNL MWL is one half that at approximately 470 ft bgs and the MWL contains more than fifty (50) times the volume of waste that is buried at MDA H. Given the concentrations of TCE at MDA H, NMED stated concern that “More specifically, the Permittees have not sampled soil gas at depths greater than 250 feet below the ground surface.” On the other hand, at the MWL, NMED is only requiring one-time sampling for soil gas at a depth of 50 feet at only three locations. Deeper sampling should be required at many more locations.

Soil gas samples should be collected at a minimum of twenty locations within the SNL MWL and to depths of 200 ft bgs on a sampling interval of 10 ft, 30 ft, 50 ft, 100 ft, 150 ft, and 200 ft. The soil gas samples should be analyzed for a complete suite of VOCs and also for tritium. NMED requires LANL to analyze the soil gas samples collected from the three boreholes at MDA H for tritium on a quarterly schedule. At the MWL, no monitoring for tritium is being required although large quantities of tritium were disposed of in the MWL. LANL, on the other hand, is required to collect soil gas samples from the boreholes at MDA H and sample for tritium along with VOCs. Tritium concentrations are required to be measured in the soil gas. NMED is not requiring tritium gas sampling at the MWL. [emphasis, myself.]

The remedy required by NMED for the SNL MWL is only a soil cover draped over the surface of the dump with a design identical to the ET cover proposed for LANL MDA H. NMED praises the soil cover for the MWL for protection of groundwater but is non accepting of the nearly identical cover proposed for MDA H because it doesn’t protect groundwater. The NMED criticism is pasted below:

“In order to ensure the continued performance of an ET cover, the Permittees proposed to conduct regular maintenance and monitoring throughout the 100-year institutional control period once the vegetative cover has been established. However, this alternative, similar to other containment alternatives listed by the Permittees, does not address the plume of VOCs and tritium that are currently present in the soil pore gas in the vicinity of MDA H. This ET cover also does not prevent future releases of these compounds to the subsurface from the shafts at MDA H.”

There is a contradiction in the practice of NMED to protect human health and the environment between the selection of only a soil cover for the MWL dump and the acknowledgement of NMED for MDA H that the soil cover is not protective for the plumes of VOCs and tritium for releases at this time or for future releases.

Hakonson states that “Controlling aqueous transport of volatile contaminants [with a soil cover] [squarebrackets original, in this case] does not necessarily control vapor phase transport. In fact, maintaining low soil moisture content of cover and backfill soils to reduce aqueous phase transport may be associated with increases in vapor phase transport of volatile contaminants (Jury, 1987).”

Similarly to LANL MDA H, the soil cover at the SNL MWL does not address the VOCs and tritium that are currently present beneath the dump in far greater amounts than at MDA H. The soil cover will also not prevent the future releases of those contaminants to the subsurface beneath the MWL. The shafts at MDA H, are similar to the unlined pits and trenches at the MWL. However, NMED is requiring much more protection for MDA H with far less contaminants in volume and type than for the MWL. No encapsulation of MWL pits and trenches and no soil-vapor extraction system are required at the MWL. [emphasis, myself.] NMED must provide equal protection for similarly situated dumps and communities. At MDA H (p.12),

“NMED therefore has determined that it is appropriate to implement Alternative 3b (complete encapsulation of the shafts), along with a soil-vapor extraction system, at MDA H to prevent biointrusion and eliminate the VOC contaminant source detected in soil pore gas so that the drinking water resource can be conservatively protected.
“Alternative 3b will isolate the shafts from the environmental media to offer the greatest protection against potential intrusion of plants and animals, and accidental human access. This complete encapsulation alternative will prevent water from entering the shafts, and thus minimize the potential for contaminant migration into the surrounding tuff through aqueous phase transport.”

Also at MDA H, NMED is requiring that (p.13)

“To conservatively protect the regional groundwater from contamination by VOCs in soil pore gas, the Permittees will be required to operate the SVE [Soil-Vapor Extraction] until VOCs in soil pore gas are reduced to levels at which any of the detected VOCs, in contact with groundwater, theoretically could result in concentrations above half of the lower of the respective MCLs or Water Quality Control Commission (WQCC) standards. For example, TCE in soil pore gas must be reduced to a concentration below 1100 μg/m3 in vapor phase to meet the established criteria. Installation of a SVE system will require the installation of vapor monitoring extraction wells in the vicinity of MDA H and extending the depth of existing boreholes to the Otowi member of the Bandelier Tuff.” (Emphasis supplied) [author comment, not mine. emphasis shown boldface here is underlined in original].

At the SNL MWL, NMED is leaving poorly understood soil gas contamination with VOCs and tritium unmonitored beneath a soil cover that increases the potential for the volatile contaminants to contaminate the groundwater. The level of PCE contamination measured in the soil gas below the MWL required that an active soil vapor extraction (SVE) should have been installed 15 years ago. The SVE system was never installed and is not in the LTMMP as it should be.

At MDA H,

“NMED questions the long-term reliability of the engineered ET [evapotranspiration] cover in preventing the intrusion of deep-rooting plants and burrowing animals. According to the conceptual design of the engineered ET cover for MDA H, the total depth of the cover is approximately 4.5 feet over the existing surface layer. Based on the Permittees’ findings at MDA H (LANL 2005), the site specific deep-rooting plants can extend roots to depths as deep as 23 feet (7 meters), and local burrowing animals can excavate to depths deep to 10 feet (3 meters).” (Emphasis supplied) [author comment].

The depth of the soil cover proposed for the SNL MWL is 4.25 ft (MWL Design Report, 1999, p.3). At the MWL, Hakonson reports that many species of ants burrow beyond depths of 5 ft and three species can burrow to depths beyond 5 meters (16.4 feet). (p.37). Hakonson states, “The mixture of grasses that SNL/NM intends to use in reseeding the MWL is lumped within the herbaceous plant category. These data show that deep root habits are quite common in woody and herbaceous species across most of the terrestrial biomes, far deeper than the traditional view has held up to now. The implications for the MWL are that no matter what vegetation is planted on the landfill, if moisture penetrates beneath the ET cover, roots can be expected to follow.” (P. 31-32).

The monitoring at the SNL MWL never produced reliable data for the detection of any contamination (including the VOCs PCE and TCE) at the water table or in the deeper permeable groundwater zones below the MWL. [emphasis, author.] There are other RCRA regulated units at SNL where VOC groundwater contamination with VOCs and other RCRA hazardous wastes is a concern but the required groundwater monitoring was never installed. One example is SWMU 101, Building 9926 Explosive Contaminated Sumps and Drains where PCE contamination was measured in soil gas samples. The nearest groundwater monitoring well is approximately 0.5 mile away. RCRA Subpart F requires a network of monitoring wells as close as possible to SWMU [i.e., "Solid Waste Management Unit"] 101 and certainly within a distance not greater than 50 feet away.

A second example is SWMU 154 where High Explosive (HE) and VOC liquid wastes were disposed of in two 23-ft deep seepage pits known as "the west HE drain system. The seepage pits received liquid wastes for 40 years from 1965 to possibly 2005, the year the seepage pits were backfilled with clean, native soil. The only monitoring well for SWMU 154 is located 300 feet away from the seepage pits. SWMU 154 is not in compliance with the groundwater monitoring requirements of RCRA Subpart F.

A third example is SWMU 196 where poorly characterized radioactive and hazardous liquid wastes were discharged to a large cistern, a vertical concrete cylinder 25-ft in diameter installed from 3-ft above ground to a depth of 22 ft bgs. RCRA liquid wastes including total petroleum hydrocarbons, VOCs, SVOCs and metals (and also radionuclides) were discharged into the cistern for 12 years from 1978 to 1989. There are no groundwater monitoring wells to investigate groundwater contamination below the cistern. RCRA Subpart F requires a network of monitoring wells at SWMU 196.

The three SWMUS are among a population of many SWMUS that are being proposed for No Further Action status by DOE and NMED without establishment of RCRA requirements for groundwater monitoring.

There currently is no monitoring at the MWL of the “Groundwater” as defined by the Consent Order. (p.15). The Consent Order (“CO”, April 29, 2004 [worst birthday *evar*]) defines groundwater as follows:

“Groundwater means interstitial water which occurs in saturated earth material and which is capable of entering a well in sufficient amounts to be utilized as a water supply.”

The fact that groundwater is not monitored at the MWL is evidenced from the monitoring reports that cite poor production of the MWL wells and samples being collected days later from the water that trickles into the wells after they are pumped dry.

At the Sandia MWL, wells MWL-MW4, MW5 and MW6 need replacement under the CO because they have all failed for their intended purpose. The pertinent part of the CO is pasted below:

"In the event of a well or piezometer failure, or if a well or piezometer is any way no longer usable for its intended purpose, it must be replaced with an equivalent well or piezometer. In constructing a well or piezometer, Respondents shall ensure that the well or piezometer will not serve as a conduit for Contaminants to migrate between different zones of saturation." (P. 63, CO Sec. VIII.A.).

Monitoring Well MW4. The purpose of well MW4 was to investigate contamination at the water table beneath Trench D. However, the top screen in well MW4 was installed too deep below the water table, and the well has never met its important purpose to investigate contamination at the water table. The bottom screen in well MW4 is installed across the contact of the AF sediments with the ARG strata. The position of NMED is that well screens shall not be installed across formations with contrasting hydraulic properties or markedly different hydraulic head but this is the setting for the bottom screen in well MW4. In addition, the available information indicates that well MW4 is allowing cross-contamination between the top and bottom screen. There is an immediate need to plug and abandon well MW4, and install a new monitoring well to characterize groundwater contamination at the water table beneath Trench D.

Monitoring Well MW5 is located west of the MWL, but the well screen is installed across the contact of the AF sediments with the ARG strata which, as explained above, is in violation of NMED requirements for monitoring wells. In addition, a mistake in well construction contaminated the screened interval with the bentonite clay grout that was used for back-filling and sealing the annular space between the well casing and the borehole wall. The grout accidentally filled the lower part of the screen. There is an immediate need to plug and abandon well MW5. The failure to do so is a violation of the CO.

Monitoring Well MW6. MW6 is in the productive groundwater zone but is more than 500 ft distant to the northwest corner from the dump. No monitoring well is located at the point of compliance to monitor the “groundwater” as defined by the Consent Order. RCRA Subpart F also requires monitoring the productive groundwater zone as close as possible to the western and southern boundaries of the buried wastes in the MWL.

The SNL 2007 Annual Groundwater Monitoring Report (released by DOE/SNL February 21, 2008) again incorrectly takes credit over the years for sampling with one background monitoring well and five downgradient monitoring wells that have never existed at the MWL. The Report still presents flow direction as being to the northwest, contrary to NMED recent declaration that flow at the water table is to the southwest. [emphasis, myself.]

Fate and Transport Model for the MWL

National Academy of Sciences (2000): “Long-Term Institutional Management of
U.S. Department of Energy Legacy Waste Sites” points out that “Stewardship” (covering waste with dirt and instituting institutional controls) of waste sites will be difficult if not impossible to achieve.

The National Academy of Sciences 2007 report - Plans and Practices for Groundwater Protection at the Los Alamos National Laboratory states (p.68):

“Numerical models combine information on geology, geochemistry, infiltration, regional groundwater fluxes and waste discharges in a manner that quantifies understanding of the physical/chemical processes and interactions involved in the transport of contaminants. Information gained during the process of model development provides valuable insight on the validity of the conceptualization implemented in the numerical model. Though many “solutions” are possible, comparison of predicted results to actual measurements [emphasis supplied] [author comment] provides an estimate of the level of understanding of the flow and transport processes moving contaminants away from their initial disposal locations.”

SNL has never put in monitoring wells at the identified hot spots for PCE and TCE at the MWL to verify the accuracy of its fate and transport model. [emphasis, myself.]

Drilling MWL wells with “mist” is not appropriate.

In a June 19, 2007 letter from Mr. Bearzi to SNL it states (page 5, Section 5.2.1): “The permittees shall log the depth of the first encounter with regional groundwater and the depth of any perched groundwater will be logged during drilling.”

In a July 2 2007 letter from James Bearzi to SNL for replacement of MWL-MW 1 and MW3, it states, “The mud rotary drilling method shall not be used to install the wells.” Our position is that the ARCH drilling method using an undefined amount of water as a mist is the same as the mud rotary method because using water to drill through clay-rich sediments will create "drilling muds" that will invade the zones that are important to monitor with the clay-rich muds produced by the fluid-assisted ARCH drilling method.

In the August 10, 2007 Workplan for MWL-MW7 and MW8 sent to James Bearzi by SNL it states: “Minimal water (but no other foams/liquids) in the form of “mist” may be introduced into the borehole to aid in the removal of cuttings.”

Section 3.5.3 of the LTMMP should include the drilling methodology to be used for installing monitoring wells. It should state specifically that no drilling methods with water or water-based fluids (i.e., bentonite clay or organic fluids or -foams) shall be allowed for any of the boreholes for the groundwater monitoring wells. Those fluid-assisted drilling methods should not be used at any location because the boreholes are to be used to investigate the existence of perched zones. The only drilling methods that meet the NMED requirement to investigate perched zones and the first encounter with regional groundwater are the air- rotary reverse circulation under reamer casing advance or sonic. The sonic drilling method was used to install well MWL-MW4 at the MWL. The air rotary casing hammer (ARCH) drilling method should not be used in any of the boreholes because the history is that circulation of water is necessary to recover the cuttings and the circulation of water produces drilling muds that invade the zones that are important to monitor.

Prior data from ARCH drilling with “misting” at monitoring well MWL-MW5 shows that the misting resulted in slugs of mud that invaded the screened interval. The perched zones of saturation and the water table cannot be accurately identified nor can reliable sampling be obtained if water, even as a mist, is used for drilling. [emphasis, myself.] An additional important reason to use no water during drilling is that the in situ groundwater in the perched zones and from the water table of the regional zone of saturation should be sampled from the borehole for the full analytical suite including VOCs, Semi-VOCs, tritium and RCRA trace metal suite. Tritium should also be analyzed at the low detection limits of the University of Miami as is done for LANL. In the past year, the dry air-rotary reverse circulation underreamer casing advance drilling method was used for monitoring wells R-35a, R-35b and R-36 at LANL.

Recommendations

FLUTe wells shall not be used for monitoring soil gas at the SNL MWL. FLUTe membranes are inappropriate for their known properties to absorb the contaminants of concern.

Permanent installation of multiple port wells is required for monitoring the unsaturated zone beneath the MWL. The location and installation of the unsaturated zone wells at the MWL must be at locations within and immediately along the boundary of the MWL.

The monitoring wells MW4, MW5, and MW6 need to be replaced.

The nickel and chromium contamination measured at well MW1 requires a new monitoring well with a PVC screen at a location south of MW1 as close as possible to the northern side of the MWL[.]

The southwest direction of groundwater flow at the water table below the MWL requires installation of a monitoring well along the southern side of the classified area and along the southern side of the unclassified area.

All new groundwater monitoring wells installed outside the MWL dump shall be installed as close as possible to the boundary of the buried wastes.

Well MW4 must be plugged and abandoned and replaced with a new angle well installed at an appropriate location inside the MWL to monitor contamination at the water table below Trench D.

Two monitoring wells shall be installed at locations within the MWL where high levels of PCE and tritium are known to be present. The wells shall monitor contamination at the water table. The two wells are essential for confirmation of the MWL Fate and Transport Mode.

DOE/SNL should be informed by NMED that the claims of the 2007 Annual Groundwater Monitoring Report are not accurate and that an appropriate monitoring network must be installed at the MWL and the SWMUs.

Only the dry air-rotary reverse circulation under reamer casing advance or sonic drilling methods should be used for drilling boreholes through the unsaturated zone and into the regional aquifer at the MWL. The ARCH drilling method with water as a mist to recover cuttings is not appropriate at the MWL.

In addition to considering these concerns for present action, please submit this letter for the Long Term Monitoring and Maintenance Plan, the SNL Draft RCRA Permit, 26 SWMUs for NFA Status and 5 SWMUs for NFA Status.

Sincerely,

David B. McCoy, Executive Director
Citizen Action New Mexico
POB 4276
Albuquerque, NM 87196-4276
505 262-1862
HYPERLINK "mailto:dave@radfreenm.org" dave@radfreenm.org

Robert Gilkeson, Registered Geologist
PO Box 670
Los Alamos, NM 87544
HYPERLINK "mailto:rhgilkeson@aol.com" rhgilkeson@aol.com

Review of Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico Evapotranspiration Cap Closure Plans for the Mixed Waste Landfill, T.E. Hakonson 2/15/02, p. 28.

Whew. Neat stuff. And now I start my weekend. (It's 2 PM Saturday. Better late than never.)

:) :)

Brain wiring.

Final push today. Didn't meet teh "goal" for number of calls, but not by far! After two consecutive record-breaking days, what the heck. We may still have broken some comparable record. No telling 'til the pledges are all ultimately tallied.

Weird feeling. Pledge week is always insanely intense. Then suddenly, it's over. You hit "Stardate" and have to face the fact you're not coming back tomorrow to push people even more into a frenzy to support public radio. Indeed. Tomorrow I plan to spend all day at home! I'm even daring to deliberately miss a perfectly newsworthy event early tomorrow morning just because I know I'll *need* the rest, and *also* know I have earned it.

Went out to Zinc wine bar with a couple of amazing women from work after it was over. At Jim's urging. I'm such a social doofus it's not even close to funny. Said I'd go, then nearly chickened out when I found out he wouldn't be going. ("OH MY GAWD. They're not men. Whatever WILL we talk about?") He just calmly said "you should go". Without irony, either. I accepted it on the level of "OK, you're my supervisor, and every time you say I should do something I don't really want to, I do, and wind up being glad I did". What can I say? I'm male. That's how my brain is *wired*. I *trust* him.

Listened mostly but contributed a little too to an *amazing* conversation about everything that happened over the previous week. Totally honest and straightforward. Men and women think differently. Yes. But we *must* work together. This, I admit, is *very* hard for me! (Anyone remember "I'll never work for another straight person" phase?) A woman tells me "maybe if you..." and my mind just flashes back to Starbucks' worst madness, where *everything* was deeply personal.

And heaven help the world if anyone does anything I perceive as even *slightly* unethical -- I flip into "THIS MEANS WAR" mode. I could make a *lot* of drama if I wanted to, over stupid shit that *happens*. Except for one thing -- I've got a job now that's worth *not* making drama over.

Ultimately, I have to accept the fact I trust Elaine *almost* as much as I trust Jim. And yeah, the simple fact that she's female makes me feel threatened on a very basic, almost animal level. But she *has* earned my trust. Time and again. She shouldn't *have to* keep *proving* herself to me. That's *my* problem. Not hers. I've got to allow myself trust her. At least a little bit more, every time. It's sexism, baby -- and I've got as much of it in me as anyone.

What we need isn't war, it's constructive alternatives. I don't know how to explain how we think differently, but we do. It's like men think forward seven steps, strategically, and go with all the ways the situation *might* branch out, while women think forward three steps, and then think *back* from those forward positions to simply ask themselves "what if?" by two steps, and then think *those* possibilities forward a step or two before deciding what to do.

It's like men think "if, then" with several different possibilities at the outset, but then set themselves into a chain of thinking based on whatever happens that is *set* from those initial premises, which may or may not reflect reality. While maybe women think "if, then" with several different possibilities at the outset, but then maintain the flexibility to ask "but, what if, then?"

I'm probably showing my ignorance here so I'll shut up.

Makes me wonder though whether the computer modelling at the labs is predominantly male or female driven.

Focus.

Pledge drive is a time to refocus.

The most amazing things happen during it.

Interviewed an international human rights leader today.

You'll hear more on that when it airs.

It's not a story I can possibly produce for tomorrow.

This is why I exist.

Turnaround.

Slow start to pledge week.

Turned it around tonight.

Last night was especially disappointing.

Tonight: beat the goal for number of callers. (Goal: 65, Actual: 82.)

More than doubling last night's numbers. (Goal: 62, Actual: 40.)

Phones rang around the room, into the overflow room, and then around the overflow.

And it's just Wednesday.

Pledge drive food.

I admit -- I'm getting fat. This happens twice a year.

The development office plans and plans and this time they've got things *way* better systematized to work for *everyone* concerned than *ever* in my memory. We "down the hall" in the newsroom/control room end of things only really start to realize what all they've been doing for months a couple of weeks before the pledge drive hits. But then suddenly, there's all this food available to anyone who wants it and not enough people to take home giant bowls of spaghetti to clear out the fridge to take the latest leftovers, even though we've got an "overflow" room of phone volunteers for "around the room" ringing.

Which leaves it up to us down in the newsroom to make the phones ring 'round the room. Not to mention, this being my first pledge drive on staff, I feel more compelled than *ever* the make the phones ring 'round the room. I will spare you the diverse rationalizations and analyses why we've not yet *quite* managed this feat.

All I know is that human beings, being animals, just tend to *go* for the food. But this time around they've come up with a system -- not *perfect*, maybe, but *effective* -- for prioritizing *who* gets the food when it comes in. This is a *very* good thing! I *do* remember "captaining" the phone room and not getting *anything* to eat, a time or two, just making sure everyone one else got fed first. Not fun!

That problem is now *gone*. Now that I'm spending almost none of my time in the phone room, I find the phone room better organized and run than *ever*.

But now we've got all this food left over after the volunteers have been fed. And they've got a sort of "cascade" system to make sure it goes to the volunteers first. As, indeed, it should be! And Chris seems *even* seem to have mastered the multiply chaotic systems of knowing what got put into the fridge when, and not having twelve half-full containers of "mystery sauce" left over two weeks later.

But it's working almost *too* well -- at this point. There's always food left over, despite inflation resuting, at least in theory, in more unit persons entitled to food than food to go around. Whether this pattern holds through the end of the week only time will tell! But heck. They've likely done a better job solving a short-term problem than the Federal reserve did when they leveraged the buyout of Bear Stearns.

(Yes, I *am* a news junkie.)

And much as I love casually wandering down the hall for a snack, I know damn well from having been on the other end of things that the people who give up their free time just *deserve* to take precedence over those who are paid to be there. Period.

Heck, I figure I safely can go without eating at all for the rest of the week just based on how many "green-lighted" sandwiches and salads and noodle concoctions I've consumed these last two days.

I love pledge drives. I half-secretly hope there's no food left to go around these next couple of days. Reporters *should* be hungry.

Now we need to get those phones *ringing*.

Tomorrow is "hump day" pledge-drive wise. We can kinda dick around the first few days on the convenient (but not entirely true) theory that "everyone will pledge at the last possible minute".

No more.

Time to get down to business.

It's time to make those phones ring off the hook.

Momentum.

Tricky thing the first days of a pledge drive. You can't start out slow and build momentum, because by the time you've "got it" the listenership has probably rolled over. Much like running any ON AIR shift. You've got to "hit it" coming out the gate. But on a grander, more complex level. I barely pitched at all today, just ran the board. Will get into pitching but first hour's unfamiliar with the clock. The second isn't. Heck. Tomorrow will be better.

Trinity.

I made it.

Amazing day.

Read the two Donne poems into my mic with my back against the obelisk at Ground Zero. Incredibly powerful. Donne's poetry, alone, but in that setting -- positively mindblowing.

Thousands of tourists. Interesting, people's reactions. Most have never been on a military installation before. I'd been there once before so spent more time watching people than looking at the "things" there were to be looked at.

Coming and going between the obelisk and the parking lot, there are the crowds, and then there are the fence-walkers -- the folks who walk the barbed wire fence in hopes of happening across a stray chip of the dreaded, coveted trinitite. I admit. I am a fence walker. There are also the photographers. And the photographees.

Most get extremely quiet, stay that way. Others do obnoxious tourist chit chat waiting for the bus to the ranch house. Many stand transfixed reading every single word of every single sign and plaque. *Digging* to glean some *meaning* out of this absurd situation. They travel all the way out into the middle of the desert on a journey to be faced with nothing more than an obelisk, an empty room, an empty water tank, a ruined windmill, a collapsed barn. It's *very* stark. And there is nothing to do but wonder at the sheer destructive power of honest men with good intent. It leaves everyone at a loss for words. Including those who irritably chatter about nothing.

The section of unremoved trinitite has been covered with sand and sealed off from public view. I would love to know why. I wonder.

My station broadcasts there.

Then to Bingham, 17 miles east of the Stallion Range Center Gate on NM 380 to the little rock shop that sells trinitite. I've already got a good sized chunk from Karl Wyler. I don't need another. But I admit, I'm curious.

They're charging $30 a gram for dime-sized chunks of the stuff.

Back to San Antonio for the lunch rush at the Owl Bar. Sit at the bar. Usually miss lunch rush. Much nicer when it isn't busy. Everyone there works crazy hard but there's no system to the chaos. There's just chaos. Today, service is slow. But they actually know me now. I don't mind. They're always wonderful when they're not fighting lines out the door and around the block.

Sit next to a man with his son who came out to see Trinity. It's amazing. This is going to get passed down, another generation. Have a nice conversation with him, too, which I surprise myself by striking up.

Back to the station, directly. Run board for Saturday ATC. It goes OK. The complexities are greater than on normal days. An unfamiliar clock, with local "drops" and special carts, and the whole art of "pitching" add several new ingredients into the mix out of nowhere. Do make one frankly funny mistake I'll *never* make again.

Hint: you fade up the mic *AFTER* yelling "STANDBY". Not before. I'll want to get an aircheck on that one just for the comedy value.

Paul Ingles pitched with me. I learned a *lot* working with him today. Like "structuring" breaks. My first two I just kinda ran the board and mostly let him do the actual talking. He's been doing this for 15 years. By the third I was getting into it myself.

Considering a pilgrimage.

Trinity's open to the public tomorrow.

Last time I tried to go, my rear tyre blew out before I hit Socorro and had to drive like fifteen miles on the rim on rumblestrip to somplace I could get the tyre replaced, before having to drive to a Radio Shack someplace else to buy a box of plastic handcuffs in order to tie the bumper back onto my car so it wouldn't parachute out at freeway speeds. Needless to say, I didn't make it out to Trinity, that day. That was 2004 -- my really, *really*, REALLY bad year. I *could* have changed the tyre, you see, except I couldn't find the jack, because it was kinda buried underneath the garbage in my back seat. (I *did* eventually find the jack -- about 18 months later).

The only time I made it out *successfully* to Trinity, a year or so before, I actually went through the South entrance, joining a *huge* caravan that left from Alamogordo, before joining the military escort at the entrance to White Sands Missile Range, which is normally "off limits" to the public, save for these twice-a-year, escorted Trinity Test Site visits. Now *that* was amazing -- got to see something like 47 miles of New Mexico that not a lot of people get to see.

If I were a purist or a zealot I would want to do it that same exact way again. But there's NO WAY IN HELL I'm driving 300-some-odd miles in the middle of the night to join a caravan that leaves at 7 sharp only to drive back *all* the way to Albuquerque when I have to be ON AIR at 5 o'clock for NEWS. (Being on air has an uncanny way of helping a person learn what their limits -- not to mention the hard, objective limits of *reality* -- actually *are*.)

Since now I have a working car, I am quite seriously considering a visit! It seems a good time for me to look back on what all got me into all o' this radio stuff in the first place. Really, just a little piece of ugly bubbled green glass called "Trinitite" given to me by an *old* school broadcaster by the name Karl Wyler.

Why am I here?

And then tomorrow afternoon I'm running board for Saturday All Things Considered. Why? Because it's PLEDGE DRIVE, BABY! Being on staff, now, it's fair for people to *expect* me to be there, including at some times I usually am not. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

But, seriously -- Why am I here?

And what better mindset to go into for my first pledge drive as staff than the *very* special mindset I can likely *only* get into in the first place by visiting the one place in the world where the atomic age *began*, getting me *into* broadcasting years later when I was 12 or so years old, before I could *begin* to imagine how *everything* would loop around all super-neat-and-nifty two whole decades later?

Those two decades have, honestly, been kinda rough! No point mincing my words. Not that I regret *anything*. But for the first time in my life, I *know* I am *exactly* where I need to be. Each day. That kind of thing is absolutely *priceless*. I think it would be fitting for me to go pay tribute to my own origins, in my own way.

About which I will *never* write a word. Nor speak a word on air. Nor likely ever tell a single human soul. I'm not sure it's something I *can* put into words.

All I know right now is I've got my 1940 "Oxford Book of English Verse" I got at the Black Hole in Los Alamos, which once belonged to Marian Konopinski. (A quick Google search turns up the name as a Polish priest who died at Dacchau in 1943, listed on Wikipedia as one of the 108 Blessed Polish Martyrs. I have not yet researched it further.)

I've also got my Borzoi edition of John Donne's "Complete English Poems". It, naturally, contains both "Hymne to God, my God, in my sicknesse" and "Holy Sonnet XIV", both of which Robert Oppenheimer cites in a 1962 letter to Leslie R. Groves explaining why he chose the name "Trinity" as the code name for the test.

I've also got my security badge -- #108 -- from S-Site, the HX (High Explosives) facility at Los Alamos -- my only purchased souvenir from the Manhattan Project. (I did not *buy* the Trinitite from Karl Wyler.)

I've also got my Bendix Civil Defense CD V-742 dosimeter, number A 0017375. I've got another I'd take with me if I were seriously concerned about getting irradiated, but I'm not taking it with me. It was made later, and has a bad "hairline drift" problem I can't immediately fix with my Victoreen dosimeter charger, since the D-cell battery I'd stored with it (but *not* IN it!) is dead.

I've got my two IBM mainframe punchcards from 1952, with the holes punched in 'em to read "THINK" on one and "WORK" on the other, with which I intend to mark the poems in John Donne's Complete Poems.

And I fully intend to read both poems at Ground Zero.

Since I'm a reporter, I'll also be carrying my recording kit, and hope to record myself reading the two poems that named the site.

I can only hope the Military Police don't take it as a "demonstration", which I do not intend for it to be. Indeed -- ideally, no one will even see me do it.

Demonstrations are strictly prohibited on the missile range.

I simply hope to come to some better understanding why I'm here.

KRRT is ON AIR.

Knocking off a couple of old translators I won't bore you with the details of. If you want the gory details, google my station's call sign and click the first link in results. (I can't imagine who wrote all that stuff.)

Announcing new trasmitters is now perfectly *routine* to me. Come on! Gimme some more!

Today's live translator ID announcement went out over the airwaves on a music bed of "The In Crowd". A sort of "in joke" almost *no one* listening will "get", but heck! I figure if it worked 40 years ago, and we're still on the air today, it can't hurt to deliberately tempt fate in a *good* way.

Covered a political event this morning -- Jim emailed me late-ish last night asking if I might be able to cover it.

McCain's already airing TV ads in this state for the general election.

It is APRIL.

The general election happens in NOVEMBER.

I remember living in California and falling in love with the sheer complexity of that state's politics. But in some ways, New Mexico is absolutely on an equal footing with California, where political complexity's concerned. (Now if only we had referenda and such.)

This is, without a doubt, *the* single most important, and single most complex election -- besides being the single LONGEST -- that New Mexico has *ever* faced.

EVER.

Granted, we are a young state! What, the third or fourth youngest? Something like that. We only got admitted to the Union in 1912. I'm sure plenty of other states have *deeper* running histories, what with the Civil War and all. But -- WOW.

And we're universally perceived as, because we *are*, a "swing" state! Such has our history made us -- for decades our Senate delegation has been "split" between the parties, while our House delegation has routinely favoured Republicans, two-to-one. Now it looks like the balance in the House *might* happen to swing two-to-one favouring Democrats, in hotly contested elections in both parties in each of our three Congressional Districts. (I doubt NM would swing solid for either party.)

But when the Republican Senior Senator retires (my first day ON AIR for a weekday drivetime newscast, just in case you forgot), the *whole* congressional delegation in the House throws their various hats in the ring for the Senate seat, and then over two dozen hopefuls in turn declare their intentions for the various House seats opening up.

(Every one of whose voices I have gotten on the air, if admittedly, only in roughly 6-second clips.)

We're *going* to lose seniority and key committee positions in *both* houses as a result. There's no question of that. There's also no question that key seniority positions in both houses have helped maintain the military and industrial and science-based economic *backbone* of the economy in this otherwise agricultural state.

How this will all play out in the long run at this point is, pretty much, anyone's guess!

I'll quote the advice of a freind of a freind to a freind (without attribution -- since heck, this is a blog) on a wholly unrelated matter -- "enjoy the ride".

This is the ride of my life!

The same fellow says, in a private email to me, that I have "a lot of drama".

Well, yes. I admit: I kind of do! With no apologies, that's how I make my living, which I'm damn lucky to be allowed to do.

So today the Lieutenant Governor and a bunch of other elected Democrats come out to "show unity" behind "whoever wins the party nomination" while the State Republican Party Chairs from arond the country hold their national convention at Santa Ana Pueblo's resort.

Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton says our current Governor more or less lied before endorsing Obama, and James Carville's at Richardson's throat, and the Governor's going on the defensive on national TV day after day in what amounts to a highly-publicised pissing contest probably amounting to little (if anything) of serious or lasting consequence on commercial news outlets.

So the state-level Dems just want to show some "unity" at the same time the Reps are doing the same at the national level.

Let me reiterate.

It's fucking APRIL.

The general election doesn't happen 'til NOVEMBER.

But already, both major parties are, effectively, campaigning for the general election.

But wait! The fun doesn't stop there. Not by a long shot!

Ralph Nader's supporters submit sufficient numbers of petition signatures to the New Mexico Secretary of State for Nader to qualify for the November ballot as a candidate for a new "Independent Party". Yes, it does, indeed, appear to be a contradiction in terms. But this just complicates the situation one small step further. This is one of a very few states where major elections are routinely decided by the slimmest possible fractions of percentage points.

Look. Please. Do yourself *just* one personal favour. Don't go slashing tyres late at night just because you happpen to dislike a four-year-old bumper sticker on a car at a restaurant that you happen to be eating at. I mean, I can't *stop* you from doing that sort of stupid, criminal activity, if you're really so inclined, but there's no telling whether or not the person whose tyres you slash winds up ON AIR covering the next election, which will make the election during which you slashed some random person's tyres in a parking lot seem utterly irrelevant, in the long view.

Oh -- by the way -- thank you to whoever slashed my tyres the night before Nader visited town, while I was busy making tortillas on the graveyard shift at Frontier Restaurant (shortly before I first volunteered at the station). You didn't stop me from meeting him, and in fact, you made it easier for me to meet him in person once I told his handlers my story from the previous night.

I'm just now just *far* too busy reading headlines to about a hundred thousand listeners (give or take a few thousand) each night to spare the time and effort that making tortillas at Frontier deserves.

I tell you what. If you come forward and apologise, and promise not to slash any more tyres during the 2008 election, I *won't* press either criminal or civil charges against you.

Nothing to do at this point but sit back and enjoy the ride.

Thank GAWD for once in my life that I'm a reporter and therefore *have to* NOT take "sides" in *any* of this.

And I stand by what I said in 2004, and in 2000 before that.

I won't know who I vote for until I have actually cast my ballot.

To lighten up a bit, now.

In "daily broadcast craziness" -- WaveCart (a *totally* suck-ass Windows program if *ever* there *was* one) apparently got stuck in "loop" mode by some unknown prior board op without my knowing it. So I do my first "top of the hour" newscast playing the NPR funder credit, intro the piece from our capitol reporter, then start to read the next headline, only to find the funder credit start playing again underneath me only to fade out. FAST. *That* sounded dumb! But I figured maybe I'd put the credit into cue without meaning to. With no apologies, I just keep moving on.

Then at the bottom of the hour I have a two-part "cut and copy" headline.

I read the intro. Play the first clip. Move on with reading the segway into my next clip, only to find it jumping up, *again*, to the top item in the cue list, which is, once again, the funder credit I'd just played.

The good news is I'm learning how to "read ahead" well enough that by now I can just hear "support for NPR" and fade down and stop the improperly looped funding credit from playing while stopping it and lining up my next "clip" before I fade up yet again. Jim comes in and fixes it for me and the problem doesn't resurface for the rest of my broadcast.

No one calls to complain.

I announce during my "weather" breaks the new transmitters in "non-legal-ID" form. The FCC's *very* specific what I *must* say and in what order during "legal IDs" at the top of the hour. But I *can* take a few seconds during "weather" breaks to say "if you're listening to us here, this is our frequency, but if you're listening to us there, you *might* get a better signal tuning up or down to this or that frequency". Location first, then frequency. No call signs. Totally *not* FCC regulation.

Ears perk up when the voice mentions the *place* you're at *before* the frequency likeliest to give you a good signal. And language tends to be strictly linear, at that particular level. You know -- the sort of thing a listener might actually hope to understand, which a whole slew of legally required call signs and locations might not help them with, at all.

A listener on the road, for instance, between Socorro and San Antonio's Owl Bar can hear "Socorro: 88.7" and know *exactly* what to do when they hear us gradually fade out while listening to 89.9, whereas the same listener might hear us say the legally required "KBOM Socorro" as legally required at the top of the hour and *only* register "Socorro" without *any* clue where to actually turn their dial if they want to keep listening.

Tristan calls to say he likes the announcement I make, which means a lot to me. I spare the listeners all the various transmitter/translator call signs. We *are* KUNM. Going down the garden path of "We are KUNM/KBOM/KRAR/KRRT with translators at K216CU/K216CT/K220EM/K220AW both up and down the dial" is simply *not* worth announcing any time we can *possibly* avoid it without breaking the law.

But -- listeners *should* be familiarized with the fact that they can likely tune the radio dials in their cars a little bit this way, or that, during commute, and get us without interruption, regardless of whatever hill they happen to be going 'round at the time.

The branding's *definitely* a challenge. We *are* KUNM. We have to announce all our transmitters at the top of the hour, per FCC regulations, which exist for good reason. But -- we *should* make clear to listeners in various different areas where they can pick us up the best. They don't care, in general, about call signs. They just want to hear our programming, based on wherever they happen to be at that moment in time.

I'm considering rewriting the translator IDs and submitting the rewrite for approval based on my understanding of what's legally required.

And I *still* want to get the station engineer to come in and plug in his bug to a guest mic XLR to fist the 5 o'clock translator ID in Morse code, live, at least once! Maybe when the last transmitter in the network he is currently building goes live, ON AIR. I'm pretty sure that's legal. ;)

Life is good.