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Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2000
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Fire danger: High
Laboratory to assist victims of Española apartment fire The Laboratory is providing assistance to victims of a catastrophic fire that destroyed a low-income housing complex in Española last week. "Our neighbors in Española have suffered a tremendous loss," said Director John Browne. "We are grateful for the support we received from Northern New Mexico during the Cerro Grande Fire, and I hope that Laboratory employees will do everything possible to alleviate the suffering caused by this disaster." The fire left 38 families -- about 100 people -- homeless. Victims are most urgently in need of temporary housing and monetary support to help them afford deposits and rent for new housing or to obtain medications and other necessities, said Christina Armijo, leader of the Laboratory's Community Relations Office (CRO). CRO Personnel are helping with the assistance efforts. Laboratory employees and others can make donations to the "Santa Clara Apartments Fire Victims Fund," which has been established through Valley National Bank in Española. Those wishing to contribute can go to the Community Relations Office, 1619 Central Avenue in Los Alamos. Donors will receive a receipt for their contribution. CRO personnel will deliver donations to the bank daily. In addition, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation -- a nonprofit entity established in 1997 to provide support to regional community and educational programs -- is acting as a conduit for a $30,000 donation from Silicon Graphics, a major Laboratory subcontractor, to help Santa Clara Apartment fire survivors. The donation will be administered by Self Help Inc. The LANL Foundation has been instrumental in soliciting funds for this and other disasters. CRO personnel also are helping facilitate the redistribution of items that had been donated to help Cerro Grande Fire survivors to victims of the apartment-complex fire. Laboratory personnel will help sort items for easy distribution. Those interested in helping this process should contact Linda Anderman, the Laboratory's volunteer coordinator, at 505-665-4400. "A number of Laboratory employees already have shown their support to Santa Clara Apartment Fire victims through donations or volunteer efforts," Armijo said. "We hope others will, too, and quickly. People need our help now." Armijo said she also is encouraging employees to help victims find suitable housing or temporary housing. Anyone wanting to provide short-term housing should contact Española City Hall at 505-747-6015. Those with questions about how to make a donation to the victims' fund should contact Josephine Arellano in the Laboratory's Community Relations Office at 505-667-2194. --James E. Rickman Researchers study microorganisms in soil following Cerro Grande fire The forest areas and lands burned by the Cerro Grande Fire eventually will recover. But how long will that take? That is the 48,000-acre question. Aside from the hundreds of thousands of pounds of grass seed, hydromulch and straw that have been laid down over the past several weeks, the fact remains that little is known about the multitude of vital microorganisms that live in the soil and play an important role in the forest ecosystem. These microorganisms ultimately will affect just how long it will take for the burned areas to return to "normal." "The microorganisms in the soil are absolutely essential for normal plant establishment, growth and development, yet we know very little about their resiliency when subjected to extreme heat and burning," said Cheryl Kuske of the Bioscience (B) Division. "Which ones die, and which ones recover? And for those that do recover, how long does it take for full recovery? We simply don't know the answers to these questions." Kuske and other researchers are trying to find out. After the fire, she and some of her colleagues have collected close to 50 soil samples from extremely burned, heavily burned, lightly burned and nonburned areas in the Los Alamos Ski Hill area and around Pipeline Road. Using a variety of analytical techniques based on DNA analysis, the researchers hope to get a better idea of the diversity and composition of the soil microorganisms in the different burn areas. The researchers plan to collect more samples from the same areas approximately every two months for about a year and perform the same analyses, looking for any changes in the DNA representing the community of soil microbes. The preliminary results will give researchers a better understanding of the recovery process and which microorganisms fared better under the extreme heat. "We hope to use these preliminary findings to compete for grant money to perform a formal, more detailed study of the soil microorganisms and their roles in recovery of burned environments," said Kuske. --Ternel N. Martinez
CIC to host poster session Thursday The Computing, Information and Communication (CIC) Division will present its third annual Student Poster Session from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the J. Robert Oppenheimer Study Center. Students from CIC will present work that they have done during the summer. Officials from CIC say it's a chance for people to get to know the students in that division. The public is invited to attend. For more information, contact Christie Morrison at 7-9900. NHMFL experiences instrument failure At 9:15 a.m. July 28, there was a mechanical failure of the 60 Tesla Long-Pulse Magnet at the Pulsed Field Facility of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, located at the Laboratory. According to Greg Boebinger, NHMFL Center leader, "While this was certainly not a welcome event, this structural failure represents the end-of-lifetime for this large electromagnet, which designed and operated at the limits of materials strengths." Sixty tesla magnetic fields provide a state-of-the-art platform for cutting edge research. Scientific results obtained with the 60 Tesla Long-Pulse Magnet recently appeared in such prestigious journals as Physical Review Letters and Nature magazine. "The Laboratory is now assessing this event and making plans to re-establish this unique capability that has proven to be so useful to the international research community," said Boebinger. Former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory director dead at 78 Roger Batzel, who led Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for more than a third of its history, from 1971 to 1988, died Saturday evening, July 29, after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 78. For more information, see the LLNL news release. We have a winner PHOTO: Frank Valdez of Computer, Science and Technology is the winner this new mountain bike, given way in ARAMARK Corp's monthly drawing. ARAMARK Corp. is giving away a barbecue grill at the end of August. Patrons can register by filling out a ticket containing contact information at either the Otowi, Mesa or TA-55 cafeteria. No purchase is necessary, and individuals can register multiple times. For more information, contact ARAMARK at 7-3591. Photo by Michael Carlson ERT public meeting scheduled for Friday morning David Gurule, area manager of the Department of Energy's Los Alamos Area Office, is hosting the sixth Emergency Rehabilitation Team public meeting Friday at 10 a.m. Members of the media and public will be able to ask questions, provide input and engage in discussions with team members. The meeting will be held in Room 100 at DOE LAAO, located at 528 35th Street, off Trinity Drive. Protect Laboratory facilities and infrastructure Los Alamos and Pueblo Canyons
Pajarito, Two-Mile and Water Canyons
Minimize movement of contamination off Laboratory property Maintenance of sediment traps in Mortandad Canyon
Ongoing projects
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