898th Munitions Squadron decertified?Update, June 2010
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 10-02-2010
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From the Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 10, 2010 by Charles D. Brunt: The 898th Munitions Squadron, which maintains Kirtland’s Underground Munitions Maintenance and Storage Complex, was decertified by the Air Force Material Command at the request of Brig. Gen. Everett Thomas, commander of the Nuclear Weapons Center, Air Force officials said. Without proper certifications, members of the squadron cannot perform their normal duties associated with nuclear weapons……Me talking now, he further states there are more than 2000 nuclear warheads at Kirtland Air Force Base….Further, “There is no risk to security, safety or health” as a result of the decertification, command spokesman Ron Fry told the Air Force Times on Monday…I suppose one would be enough to do in Albuquerque, but 2000 of those suckers would alter the course of the earth’s orbit and rotation, would it not???? I am pretty sure those boys can still take care of business and will be Re-certified soon, but I would have just as soon have not known about all this…Matter of fact, I’m thinking you are wondering why I felt the need to share this information with you…Well, one reason is, how far away from Albuquerque would one have to live to not be concerned about the 2000 nuclear warheads stored here?… Yeah, that”s what I thought also…..Hey, now we can sleep nights again…The 898th has been recertified…..Passed all the test and all is well….Note to the 898th…Boys, we need you in good working order…Stay alert…Keep your head in the game and the Colonel off your butt..ok?
Pete, you don’t have to worry. The nuclear weapons at Kirtland are stored unfused. There is no way that they can explode. The 898th was likely de-certified because, over time, it has lost its skill in assembling and fusing the weapons. This is what worries me about our country. At a time when Iran, North Korea, and probably Russia have Manhattan-type projects to develop nuclear weapons, we are rapidly losing our expertise as skilled people grow old, retire, and die. NASA is even having to buy plutonium from Russia for its deep space projects because we have run out and have no way to make any more. This is plutonium that Russia is becoming increasingly unwilling to part with.
The 898th must re-tool its skills, and the nuclear industry must again be re-tooled both for the production of peaceful power as well as the production of more efficient, if not cleaner, more environmentally friendly weapons. It is probably time that the WWII era weapons were dismantled and recycled to make way for a new series of more efficient, environmentally friendly ones.
Well, thanks, I reckon…Good to know we are safe from the storage here but there certainly should be concern for the future….Appreciate you timely comment…Pete
An illustration of how safe I think you are living in Albuquerque is the fact that I am trying my best to talk Marina in buying a retirement home in the Mesa del Sol development, which is just west of the Nuclear Underground Depository. We may never buy a home there, but it won’t be because of the storage of nuclear weapons within a few miles of the develpment. .
An illustration of how safe I think you are living in Albuquerque is the fact that I am trying my best to talk Marina in buying a retirement home in the Mesa del Sol development, which is just west of the Nuclear Underground Depository. We may never buy a home there, but it won’t be because of the storage of nuclear weapons within a few miles of the development. .
I have heard of that area but I know nothing about it. I think the ground water may be contaminated up near the base. They are pumping out the water, burning the hydrocarbons, and reinjecting the good water, I think. It is pretty wide spread but I am not the one to address that issue…Thanks Pete
I doubt if the ground water around Kirtland is any more contaminated, except in scale, than it is around any local service station, especially any older service station where the tanks have been in the ground for some time as this contamination at Kirtland is from aviation fuel. The Air force has many more resources to clean it up than your local service station operator. Of course, let’s not mention all the irradiated sheep carcasses that were dumped in a landfill on Sandia (Kirtland East). We won’t mention that. The Goat Farm is now ancient history, only mentioned in a few research papers gathering dust (I mean enchantment) in some moldy old library. Let’s not mention the fact that the horses now stabled at the Kirtland Riding Stable on the former site of the Goat Farm may be the chief polluters. I remember that Dad only had two to four logging mules at any one time, and they could generate a lot of pollution. I can imagine from that what hundreds of them can do.
Pete, do you remember how pure and pristine the water used to be that came out of our well in Coal Fire and Aunt Lanoit’s spring below the hill? Well, that pure, pristine water is no more. It ha been contaminated from leakage from the fuel tank at Little Ott’s old store and subsequent spillage and run off of hydrocarbons from the shop operation at the ole store site. As long as we have cars and trucks that run off gasoline, we are going to have that kind of pollution. The present owners of the store property don’t have the vast resources of the Air Force to clean it up. Now we must go down to where a pristine spring of water use to be, and paddle away an oil film to get to the water. This is the sadder reality side of high tech.
True, but sad…But they tell me they had a major leak at the base for many years..They are presently undertaking a major clean up of the underground water at that particular site. The company I used to work for had a simialar contamination problem over in Lubbock..Major dollars involved in clean up..
Like all surgeries on oneself, all cleanups are major especially to the one who has to pay for it. There have always been major leaks at Kirtland even since the first B29’s started coming into the base for training purposes, but no one cared until the “chickens came home to roost” and complaints started flowing from the general public. This is the way it happens everywhere except where “little, poor people” are involved, as in Coal Fire, who have no money to pay for the cleanup. At least, Coal Fire now has the county water system which makes drinking the polluted water unnecessary, but I can see Aunt Lanoit, who was a member of the “greatest generation” trying to drink the chlorinated water in the county system. I can imagine she would rather have the oil-laced spring water.
Hey, found your site by accident doing a search on Google but I’ll definitely be coming back. – Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand. – Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
Whoopee! The 898th has been re-certified. All is well! Albuquerque can rest easy again now that the 898th sleeps until their next certification. Hope they are not as bad to sleep through their certification process as the workers at BP was to sleep through their safety meetings.
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