05: The Lab (Part 02)

What would happen if a wildfire consumed Los Alamos National Laboratory? Over the last 25 years, LANL has narrowly escaped two major wildfire events. On a warming planet, it may be only a matter of time until the lab's luck runs out, and its almost 30,000 acres of plutonium pit facilities, nuclear waste storage, contaminated canyons, and explosives caches are turned into an atomic incinerator. You've seen how far wildfire smoke can go, right?  On this episode of Time Zero, you'll also learn about the radioactive lanthanum (RaLa) experiments, where, prior to the 1945 Trinity event, lab employees detonated dozens of nuclear weapons in the canyons of the Pajarito Plateau—canyons that drain into the Rio Grande.  You'll meet sculptor Rose B Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo); contemporary saint maker Nicholas Herrera, AKA El Rito Santero; Taos-based ceramicist Serit Inez Kotowski de Lopaz; and artist and educator Nina Elder. Returning voices you'll recognize include scholar Dr. Myrriah Gómez (Nuclear Nuevo México, 2022); longtime activist Joni Arends (Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety); choreographer Yvonne Montoya (Safos Dance); anthropologist Joseph Masco (The Nuclear Borderlands, 2006); and landscape researcher Matthew Coolidge (The Center for Land Use Interpretation).  Learn more, make a donation, or find a text-based version of today's program at: timezeropod.com.