In August 1945, the US army dropped a secret over Japan: fully
functional nuclear bombs, which instantly killed tens of thousands of
people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. More than 6,000 miles away, meanwhile,
in northern New Mexico, one newspaper carried a headline with uniquely local flair.
“Now They Can be Told Aloud These Stoories [sic] of the Hill” blared a rushed edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican.
The article revealed that Los Alamos – a mysterious settlement, built
atop a picturesque mesa – had been instrumental in the creation of these
new weapons of mass destruction.
Today, Los Alamos is a secret no longer: it’s a small community with
about 18,000 people living in the main town and a suburb called White
Rock. But the nuclear lab remains, and the city is still an island in
many ways: an extraordinary pocket of wealth and privilege, surrounded
by some of the poorest counties in New Mexico, one of the poorest states
in America.
The city is also partly toxic. The nuclear research lab still disposes of radioactive waste, and an underground plume of hexavalent chromium – a contaminant linked to increased risks of cancer and made famous by Erin Brockovich
– has been drifting from the lab. A September 2016 report from the
lab’s environmental management office said it could take more than 20
years and nearly $4bn (£3.3bn) to clean up decades-old nuclear waste in
the area.
And yet Los Alamos has more millionaires per capita than almost anywhere else in the country.
Data: 01.11.2016
Fonte: www.theguardian.com
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