LACFD: Fraudulent e-mail with Logo / “Acid Rain Precautions”

County of Los Angeles Fire Department NEWS RELEASE
CAPTAIN SAM PADILLA PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE (323) 881-2411 Date:  March 17, 2011	FIRE CHIEF DARYL L. OSBY 1320 N. Eastern Avenue Los Angeles, CA   90063

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                             Contact:  LACoFD Public Affairs

                                                                                                     (323) 881-2411

FRAUDULENT E-MAIL UTLIZING THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT LOGO

Los Angeles – March 17, 2011 – A fraudulent e-mail containing the heading “Acid Rain Precautions” and the County of Los Angeles Fire Department logo has surfaced, warning residents that radioactive particles released from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan could mix with rain and “cause burns, alopecia or even cancer.”

“The County of Los Angeles Fire Department has not issued this statement nor do we believe the statements within the e-mail to be factual”, says Public Affairs Battalion Chief Jon O’Brien. Residents within Los Angeles County seeking information on the potential impact from the release at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant are advised to obtain their information from a reputable agency. Additionally, individuals are reminded to use caution when viewing e-mails and to always verify the source of their information.

For information relating to the potential impact on the U.S. from the release at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant visit:

County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health

California Department of Public Health

Environmental Protection Agency

United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

#  #  #

County of Los Angeles Fire Department

Public Information Unit

(323) 881-2411

info@fire.lacounty.gov

CalEMA: Regarding Risk Of Radiation Exposure

*The following news release was issued by Cal EMA on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.*

Statement from California’s Department of Public Health and Emergency Management Agency on Risk of Radiation Exposure

SACRAMENTO – Today the interim director of the California Department of Public Health, Dr. Howard Backer, and acting secretary of the California Emergency Management Agency, Mike Dayton, issued the following statement emphasizing Californians’ safety from radiation exposure and the risks of taking potassium iodide as a precautionary measure.

“The safety of all Californians is our highest priority, and we are in constant contact with the federal agencies responsible for monitoring radiation levels across the West Coast.
We want to emphasize that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have all stated that there is no risk expected to California or its residents as a result of the situation in Japan.
We are actively monitoring the situation in Japan and are ready to take all steps necessary to protect Californians should risks develop.
We urge Californians to not take potassium iodide as a precautionary measure. It is not necessary given the current circumstances in Japan, it can present a danger to people with allergies to iodine, shellfish or who have thyroid problems, and taken inappropriately it can have serious side effects including abnormal heart rhythms, nausea, vomiting, electrolyte abnormalities and bleeding.
Our thoughts are with the people of Japan at this tragic time.”


Californians with questions about radiation exposure can contact the California Department of Public Health’s Emergency Operations information line at 916 341-3947.

For updated information on monitoring, response and relief efforts in California and Japan, please visit the California Emergency Management Agency website at www.calema.ca.gov.

Japan: Fukushima Nuclear Plants Reaching Critical Levels Could Explode

Cutaway drawing of a typical Boiling water reactor (BWR) Mark I Concrete Containment with Steel Torus (suppression pool), as used in the BWR/1, BWR/2, BWR/3 and some BWR/4 model reactors. Photo: Sandia National Laboratories

March 14, 2011 - The threat of a fission explosion at the Fukushima power facility emerged today when the roof of the number three reactor exploded and fears that a spent fuel pool, located over the reactor, has been compromised. The pool, designed to allow reactor fuel to cool off for several years, was constructed on top of the Fukushima reactors instead of underground. As of 2010, there were 3450 fuel assemblies in the pool at the number three reactor. The destruction of the number three reactor building has experts concerned about whether the spent fuel storage pool, which sits just below the roof, could have survived intact the hydrogen explosion. The explosion was much more severe than Saturday's blast at the number one reactor.

As massive amounts of seawater are pumped by fire trucks into Fukushima's failing nuclear reactors and cooling ponds, the radioactive waste water, now laden with a variety of radioisotopes, is being flushed into the sea.

Just how much danger the spent fuel pool raises is made clear in a November 2010 powerpoint presentation from the Tokyo Electric Company detailing how fuel storage works at the huge complex.

The fuel inventory in the pool is detailed on page 9. According to TEPCO, each reactor generates 700 "waste" fuel assemblies a year, and there are 3450 assemblies in each pool at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, plus another 6,291 in a common pool in a separate building.

As shown in slide 10, the common pool building sits at ground level, with the pool itself above ground. The building also has windows on at least one side, and experts fear these were broken out by the tsunami which would have flooded the building.

According to Albert Donnay, a former nuclear engineer, "This means the common pool is now full of radioactive and corrosive seawater that will cause the fuel assemblies to fail and burst open, as they are doing inside the reactor cores that have been deliberately flooded with seawater. If the pool drains or boils away, the fuel will melt, burn and even possibly explode if the fuel collapses into a sufficiently critical mass."

This may explain why the Japanese government began adding boric acid to the reactor spent fuel pools at the facility shortly after the earthquake and tidal wave.

The Japanese government has not explained why it is adding boric acid and if the acid is being used to prevent criticality in the reactor or in the spent fuel pool. A spokesman for the Embassy of Japan, in Washington, D.C., said the boric acid was being only added as a "precautionary measure," but said the Embassy did not know why. Because the GE reactor's control rods are made of boron, and they were automatically inserted when the earthquake struck to end fission in the reactor, there should have been no need for additional boric acid. But if fuel rods had been compromised and the damaged fuel bundles were not properly separated, they can become critical and boric acid could be used to help prevent a far more serious meltdown in the spent fuel pools.

When the power was lost at the site, the cooling system for the pools would have run out of water in about a day. The water in these pools would heat up and evaporate to the point where the tops of the fuel bundles would be exposed about 24 hours after the cooling system shut down.

Experts fear the explosion rained debris into the pool that stopped natural cooling of the fuel bundles or knocked the bundles together, damaging them, sending the irradiated fuel chunks to the bottom of the pool where they could reach critical mass. "They got a one-two punch," said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer of the Union of Concerned Scientists and a consultant to both industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Lockbaum told Roger Witherspoon on newjerseynewsroom.com, "If it had just been the earthquake, or just the tsunami, we wouldn't even be talking about this. But the combination of nature was more than they could handle. It doesn't seem that they have lost control yet. But they have definitely run out of options.

"If those solutions – the sea water and the boric acid – don't work, there are no more arrows in the quiver. They have shot everything they have, they have run out of options and there is nothing left."

The problem for the Tokyo Electric Company engineers is water containing boric acid has to circulate in the pools to keep the bundles from going critical.

Both United States and Japanese governments have for decades allowed re-racking of the pools to reduce the originally-designed minimum safe distance between the assemblies so that more rods can be stored in each pool. Utilities complained they were running out of storage space on site at the reactors. The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material.

According to Donnay, "Several cores worth of spent fuel are usually stored in these pools until they are cool enough to transfer into dry cask storage. In comparison, the reactor itself contains only one core, and its total radioactivity is less than that in each spent core."

Nuclear Information Resource Service led a coalition of groups that petitioned the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2005 requesting emergency enforcement action on the vulnerability of the Mark I and II elevated nuclear waste storage pool. The coalition's petition to the NRC was denied.

Another worry for engineers is that in 2009 plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel produced by the huge French nuclear power company AREVA was loaded into reactor number three.

Correspondent Celia Sampol spoke to AREVA and the company spokesman said AREVA will not make a specific statement on the issue or on the possible losses for its activities in Japan because "today the priority is for the Japanese authorities to save people and help victims". AREVA's employees in Japan were contacted on Friday, all are safe and some of them left Japan. Anne Lauvergeon "will talk about that in France soon".

Nathalie Bonnefoy, from the MELOX Division of AREVA La Hague, France, said, "Today, the type of fuel used in the reactor is absolutely not involved in the problems at the Fukushima facility...It's not a matter of the MOX fuel exploding; the problem is if you have a loss of cooling, you have a risk of fusion and the hydrogen released could generate difficulties in contact with air, but it is independent from the type of combustible used."

"In this site, all the MOX fuel has been already loaded in the reactor (it started in October 2010)," no MOX fuel is stored on site here. On others sites, a part of the MOX fuel is stored on site (every 18 months you have to renew one third of the MOX fuel because it has lost efficiency). According to Bonnefoy, four reactors in Japan are burning MOX fuel fabricated by AREVA; the first loading took place in December 2009; AREVA signed contracts with eight (out of eleven) Japanese electric companies to supply MOX fuel, but the French group has no reactors of its own in Japan. The company does have about 100 employees in Japan.

According to NIRS (Nuclear Information Resource Service) at http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/brownsferryfactsheet.pdf"In the GE Mark I design, the irradiated fuel pool, containing billions of curies of high-level atomic waste, sits atop the reactor building, outside primary containment and vulnerable to attack, according to both NRC documents (2001) and the National Academy of Sciences (2005)."

The same diagram appears in the Sunday New York Times, pA11, with the uppermost rectangular chamber just to the left of the reactor top identified as the spent fuel storage pool, but the accompanying article does not discuss it.

Donnay said, "If these pools are breached (as could have happened in the explosions, Fukushima #3 looks worse than #1) and can no longer hold water, the spent fuel racked inside them will start to overheat, and eventually melt and burn. And since there is no longer any roof above these pools in reactors 1 and 3, all the radioactivity they contain is directly open to the atmosphere."

According to a Defense Department source, the cesium detected in the atmosphere around the plant could be coming from the spent fuel pools.

According to Donnay, there is an additional danger from used fuel being stored in casks: "I'm also worried about the dry cask storage pods that were on the site before the tsunami.

Full casks are very heavy and probably would not be carried away by the flood, but some were probably not full. Any that were only partially filled with spent fuel would have air locked into the unfilled chambers, making them able to float in water. Did the tsunami carry any of these casks away? Are they all still onsite? Before and after satellite photos should be able to show this clearly, but Google Earth is not showing after photos of the Fukushima plant.

Website: www.dcbureau.org / By: Joseph Trento, DC Bureau

Japan Nuclear Incident: Explosion @Fukushima Nuclear Power Station #FukNuke

Updates:  

Update: 1330hrs 3-14:
Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported at 3:00 p.m. EDT that work had resumed to pump seawater into Fukushima Daiichi 2 to maintain safe cooling water levels after the utility was able to vent steam from the pressure vessel. The fuel had been exposed for 140 minutes Monday night due to a malfunctioning pressure relief valve. Water levels later went up to cover more than half of the rods.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that the Japanese government has formally asked for assistance from the United States on nuclear power plant cooling issues triggered by the March 11 tsunami.

The agency has already sent two experts on boiling water reactor issues to Japan as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development disaster relief team. The experts now are in Tokyo providing technical assistance. The U.S. NRC is also monitoring the Japanese reactor events around the clock from its headquarters operations center in Rockville, Md.

Prior to the second exposure of the rods around 11 p.m., March 14 local time in Japan, radiation at the plant site was detected at a level twice the maximum seen so far – 313 millirem per hour, according to TEPCO.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said he believes the problem at the plant ''will not develop into a situation similar to Chernobyl,” even in the worst case.

The utility said a hydrogen explosion at the nearby No. 3 reactor that occurred Monday morning may have caused a glitch in the cooling system of the No. 2 reactor.

The hydrogen explosion at reactor 3 on March 14 injured 11 people: seven TEPCO workers at the site and four members of the country’s Self-Defense Forces. The reactor's containment vessel was not damaged and the reactor remains safely contained in its primary containment. 

 

Update: 2300hrs 3-13 Tokyo Electric is dealing w/ cooling system failures / high pressures at 6 of 10 reactors in @ 2 Fukushima complexes #FukNuke

#2 reactor at Fukushima has suffered a hydrogen explosion.

#2 reactor at Fukushima has lost all coolant per NHK at #TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi #1 power plant.(Apparently Generators were left unmanned and ran out of fuel)

Video's of the multiple explosions at Japan's Fukushima Daichi (No. 1) nuclear power plant since the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the country.

The Fukushima-Daiichi reactors were damaged by the quake and the tsunami that followed. There were six reactors operating at the site, all of them boiling-water reactors (BWRs) built by General Electric between 1970 and 1979. These early BWR designs were not built to the same standards that BWRs and other light-water reactors (LWRs) are built to today, and do not have a full containment system that can hold all of the steam in that would be released from damage in the reactor vessel.

At the time of the quake, only three of the units (1, 2, and 3) were operating. They were immediately shut down. Fission stopped. BWRs don’t use borated water and there was no need to add boron to the coolant. The first unit (FD1) appears to have the most difficulties. These older BWRs need emergency power to cool down safely, and their backup generators were damaged by the tsunami. That seems to be the root of the problem.

TEPCO says the water-drenched equipment and machinery short-circuited after the power plants were submerged in sea water on Friday.

Based on the government's guidelines, the Fukushima No. 1 plant was designed to withstand tsunami waves of up to 5.7 meters and the No. 2 plant, up to 5.2 meters.

TEPCO says the tsunami waves that hit the plants were higher than 10 meters.

Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant Reactor #3 explosion March 14, 2011
  
This apparent hydrogen blast involved the plant's troubled No. 3 reactor. A similar explosion happened at the No.1 reactor at the same plant on Saturday. Both blasts tore the roof off of the affected structure, but are believed not to have damaged the reactor core.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says what it believes was a hydrogen blast occurred at 11:01 AM on Monday at the No.3 reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant.

The agency says it has so far observed no abnormal rise in radiation around the compound of the plant.


The company says the blast injured 11 people.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has advised anyone remaining within 20 kilometers of the power plant to take shelter inside buildings as soon as possible. About 600 people are thought to be still in the area.
Authorities again urged residents in a 20-kilometer radius around the plant to evacuate.

The IAEA confirms that the explosion occurred at 11:01AM local Japan time, roughly two hours prior to the time of this blog post.

The Fukushima Daiichi unit 3 was built by Toshiba. Last year, the unit began using some reprocessed fuel known as “mox,” a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, produced from recycled material from nuclear weapons as part of a program known as “from megatons to megawatts.”

Anti-nuclear activists have called mox more unsafe than enriched uranium. If it escapes the reactor, plutonium even in small quantities can have much graver consequences on human health and the local environment for countless years, much longer than other radioactive materials.  -----------------------------------------------
March 12, 2011 Fukushima Japan Nuclear Power Station Reactor #1 Explosion

---------------------------------

Explosions at Fukushima Nuclear Power Reactors

Here is a related overview/update from the IAEA about the status of Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant.

From Japan's Kyodo news agency:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed that the 11:01 a.m. blast did not damage the container of the No. 3 reactor, allaying concerns that the explosion may have caused a massive release of radioactive substance. TEPCO said three workers, including its employees, were injured by the blast. All of them suffered bruises.

''According to the plant chief's assessment, the container's health has been maintained,'' Edano told a press conference. ''The possibility is low that massive radioactive materials have spattered.''

Please take some time to read this Q&A from Nuclear Technologist Kirk Sorensen to understand exactly what is happening.
http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/03/12/japanese-earthquake-qa1/


More Information Sources: 
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/14_26.html

California Tsunami Incident Information

Tsunami Wave Height Model Shows Pacific-Wide Impact Model runs from the Center for Tsunami Research at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory show the expected wave heights of the tsunami as it travels across the Pacific basin. NOAA

California Tsunami

Last Updated:	March 13, 2011 9:00 am
Date/Time Started:	March 11, 2011 1:00 am
Administrative Unit:
County:	Coastal Counties
Location:	California Coast
Acres Burned:
Containment	The Tsunami Warning & Advisory for the California Coast has been canceled.
Evacuations:	All evacuations have been lifted. Residents have been allowed to return home.
Conditions:	Throughout the day on Friday, March 11 and into Saturday, March 12, CAL FIRE crews were actively engaged in tsunami response and assisting with evacuations throughout the California Coast. CAL FIRE provides fire services through cooperative agreements with departments affected including the San Luis Obispo County Fire, Santa Cruz County Fire, Pismo Beach Fire, Coastside Fire Protection District (Half Moon Bay). In many of the Coastal areas CAL FIRE held personnel on duty, increased staffing, as well as put its swift water rescue teams, helicopters and fire crews all on stand by. Public Warning Residents and visitors are advised to remain vigilant and cautious around the water. Even though underwater currents and riptides have diminished, they are still being registered on tidal gauges up and down the coast, though less frequently and less powerful than previously measured. Humboldt/Del Norte County The Humboldt/Del Norte area was hit by multiple surges of water throughout the day with extensive damage reported particularly in Crescent City. CAL FIRE assisted Crescent City and Arcadia Fire Districts with several fire engines, as well as having a helicopter assigned for possible rescue operations. Santa Cruz County CAL FIRE / Santa Cruz County Fire Department assisted with the evacuation of the community of Pajaro Dunes. That evacuation order was lifted Friday afternoon. Fire resources spent most of yesterday patrolling areas along the coast for impacts and pre-planning for emergencies. San Luis Obispo County CAL FIRE assisted law enforcement agencies to evacuated approximately 1,800 residents from low lying coastal communities. Those evacuation orders were lifted Friday afternoon. At the peak CAL FIRE / San Luis Obispo County Fire had 23 fire resources assigned to patrolling and responding to tsunami related incidents, as well as working in the County’s Emergency Operation Center in preplanning for increased emergency impacts. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant status identified an “Unusual Event” due to the precautionary road closure and evacuation of the community of Avila Beach. San Mateo County CAL FIRE / San Mateo County Fire Department resources spent most of yesterday patrolling coastal areas. Sonoma County CAL FIRE / Sea Ranch Fire Department resources spent most of yesterday patrolling coastal areas. NOAA Tsunami Information Page San Luis Obispo County Tsunami Information Santa Cruz County Tsunami Information San Mateo County Tsunami Information Humboldt County Tsunami Information Del Norte County Tsunami Information Sonoma County Tsunami Information

More Information Tsunami Wave Height Model: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=680&MediaTypeID=1

SJFD: Firefighters agree to cut their pay and benefits 10% for 2 years

San Jose officials Thursday announced a tentative deal in which city firefighters would agree to cut their pay and benefits 10 percent for the next two years to reduce the need for layoffs in the thinly staffed department.

The deal requires ratification from the city's 647 firefighters over the weekend and City Council approval Tuesday. But it makes firefighters the first among San Jose's 11 employee unions to reach a deal on the 10 percent cuts Mayor Chuck Reed and the council have sought to help close a $105.4 million deficit in the budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

"Firefighters are making significant sacrifices every day on the streets, and they're making sacrifices again at the bargaining table," said Fire Capt. Jeff Welch, president of the San Jose Firefighters union. "We're really happy. The city and firefighters came to the table and made a deal to save firefighters' jobs and keep the public safe."

The deal is a marked turnaround in relations between San Jose officials and firefighters, who have been at loggerheads for years. The firefighters' last contract was settled in 2007 through a bitter arbitration process that city leaders complained saddled taxpayers with a $30 million pension liability. Firefighters argued that the city rejected their reasonable offers.

A Santa Clara County civil grand jury in 2009 blasted the firefighters' union leaders for filing "excessive or frivolous" grievances against the city. 

But firefighters called the grand jury's report unfair.

Last year, with San Jose facing a record $118.5 million deficit, the city and firefighters were unable to agree on concessions to save 49 firefighters' jobs. And in the fall, city leaders and firefighters waged costly campaigns over pension and arbitration reform measures that Reed championed and voters overwhelmingly approved.

Since then, Welch took the reins of the firefighters' union, replacing longtime leader Randy Sekany. Relations with the city then began to thaw. "Almost as important as the agreement is what this says about the new relationship with the city and firefighters' union and their clear willingness to collaborate," said Alex Gurza, the city's employee relations director and chief labor negotiator. "It's a very, very significant change."

San Jose is facing its 10th straight year of red ink, despite cutting $565 million and 1,600 jobs over the last nine years, as employee costs -- mostly for health care and pensions -- have outpaced revenues.

Reed and the City Council over the past year have asked unionized workers to accept a 10 percent reduction in "total compensation" -- the city's cost for their pay and benefits -- to ease chronic deficits. The city's elected leaders and top management agreed to similar reductions.

Last year, six unions agreed to the 10 percent reduction, while police and another union accepted smaller cuts to prevent layoffs. But much of last year's concessions expire in the upcoming budget cycle despite the ongoing deficits, so city leaders renewed the call for 10 percent cuts from all the unions
.
Under the proposed firefighters' deal, effective through June 30, 2013, the firefighters would accept most of the 10 percent reduction in compensation in the form of pay cuts, with some of the savings coming from increased cost-sharing for their health benefits.

The deal also allows the fire department to reduce the number of firefighters required on each truck, a provision that Chief Willie McDonald said will increase flexibility in providing coverage with limited staffing.
The proposal still leaves significant issues undecided, including reductions in pensions for current and future firefighters and other benefits such as sick-leave cashouts for retiring employees and bonus checks for retirees. But both sides agreed to continue talking about those changes.

Gurza was optimistic, saying that the city and the union simply "needed more time to work on them."
Reed, who has had icy relations with the firefighters, joined Welch outside City Hall after the agreement was reached and thanked the union for showing "great leadership," which he said will go a long way toward securing similar deals from other workers to save jobs and city services.

"This is a difficult decision in a very difficult budget time," Reed said. "That's a big sacrifice, and we know it will be very difficult for their members. It will be helpful."

Source: mercurynews.com article link

By John Woolfolk

jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com

Sequoia National Forest gets acting supervisor

#USFS #SQF: While the U.S. Forest Service searches for a new Sequoia National Forest supervisor to replace Tina Terrell, Deb Whitman is on site to ensure the many projects on the forest keep moving forward.

Acting Sequoia National Forest Supervisor Deb Whitman poses for a photo on Monday. Whitman will be the acting supervisor replacing Tina Terrell.

Terrell left the post she had held for four years in February to become assistant director with the Job Corps, based in Golden, Colo. Whitman became acting supervisor just 12 days ago.

The acting supervisor comes to Porterville from the USFS Regional Office in Vallejo where she has been assigned the past four years. Her current position at the Regional Office is Ecosystem Management which is overlooking a wide variety of projects on the 18 national forests in the West that are under the Regional Office.

She said her duties included everything from wildlife to the forest range program, including timber management.

No. 1 on her plate at the Sequoia National Forest is seeing that the Giant Sequoia National Monument Management Plan continues to move forward. That plan to manage the 342,000 Giant Sequoia National Monument has been years in the making. The public comment period on the latest draft plan just ended and now the Forest Service is addressing and responding to the more than 60 pages of comment.

“We’re working towards releasing the final,” she said, adding that could come this fall, after a new supervisor is named. If the plan is not challenged in court, it could be implemented within a year.

The first management plan was remanded in 2006, after the Northern California District Court found the plan violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

It is expected that a new supervisor will not be named until late June or July. The USFS has yet to list the opening. Between now and July, there is plenty to do, said Whitman.

“I need to work with staff and see that stuff moves forward,” she said. The forest is in the process right now of assembling and preparing its summer fire crews. In the summer, the number of employees out of the Porterville office swells to more than 600.

There are several other projects, such as recreation enhancements, fuels reduction, rangeland plans and more.

Whitman, who has never served as a forest supervisor, is glad for the chance.

“Working here at the forest level is really exciting for me,” she said. Last week she spent much of a day in the mountains, a trip she thoroughly enjoyed. She noted how diverse the Sequoia National Forest is with its foothills, mining, rangeland, timber, Giant Sequoias, lakes, streams wilderness areas and more on the 1.2 million acre that make up the forest.

Whitman was raised among the trees. She grew up in Humbolt and is a forester by profession.

She has spent nearly all of her forest service career in California.

Source: Article Link

San Bruno: Gasline pipe probably pieced together from scrap

(03-01) 19:00 PST SAN BRUNO -- The section of 1950s gas-transmission line that exploded in San Bruno was probably pieced together from scraps of pipe left over from other Pacific Gas and Electric Co. projects, the company told federal investigators.

Documents released Tuesday also revealed that it was a misinterpretation of old records - not just a lack of documents - that led PG&E to classify the doomed pipe incorrectly as seamless, meaning that it had been manufactured without a seam weld.

In fact, the explosion Sept. 9 that killed eight people and destroyed 38 homes began at a defective seam weld, according to a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board metallurgy report.

PG&E didn't know the pipe had such welds, and the company never conducted an inspection that could find faulty ones.

Blast mysteries

How such a badly welded pipe was buried in the ground in San Bruno in 1956, at a time when PG&E crews were relocating a 1948 vintage pipeline to accommodate a new neighborhood, is part of the mystery unfolding as the federal safety board holds three days of hearings this week in Washington.

Experts who have reviewed the federal metallurgy report have questioned why the San Bruno pipe was made with an unusual number of short pieces, known as pups, which were joined together. There were six pups on the line.

Pups are sometimes pieces of good pipe salvaged from longer sections of pipe that failed pressure tests at the factory, Edward Salas, PG&E vice president of engineering and operations, testified Tuesday.

One veteran metallurgist in the hearing room audience said the pups Salas described aren't safe.

"As a practice, I think any (pipe section) that fails a (pressure) test should be scrapped altogether," Doug Chisholm, a Virginia consultant with 30 years' experience in the pipeline industry, said in an interview.

Pipe was running low

The company's stock of 30-inch transmission pipe "was getting low" when the San Bruno relocation project occurred in 1956, PG&E told the federal safety board in answers to written questions.

"Surplus pipe and potentially salvaged pipe from several previous pipe purchases were likely used on the 1956 construction," the company said.

The company said the surplus pipe may have been stored in the back of a storage yard in Oakland. PG&E couched its written responses with terms such as "we believe" because the company is still researching records.

Bad records entry

Another mystery being addressed in this week's hearings is why PG&E's computerized records showed that the transmission pipe was seamless.
Seamless 30-inch pipe wasn't manufactured back then, records show. When PG&E inspected the pipe in 2009, it used a technique ill-suited for discovering faulty seam welds.

The mistake was made in 1998, according to transcripts of interviews with PG&E officials and records, and remained in the company's computer system despite a fact-checking process designed to eliminate such errors.

The problem was that someone made an entry into PG&E's all-important computerized database that said the San Bruno pipe was seamless. It appears the error was a misinterpretation of the letters "sml," which had been noted on a paper record known as a journal voucher.

Such vouchers are "created by the accounting department to reflect the transfer of materials from one project to another," the company told federal investigators.
Journal vouchers are not meant to be pipeline specification records, PG&E said.

It was fixable

Had the company checked its original engineering records, it would have linked the coded description of the pipe on the journal voucher to a "material code description table," which would have indicated the pipe was manufactured with a seam weld, Robert Fassett, PG&E director of integrity management and technical services, told investigators in January.

"If someone had actually taken that document, looked up that material code, they would then have said this is a (welded) pipe," Fassett said.

A Chronicle investigation published in February revealed that PG&E didn't properly oversee computerized data entry in the mid-1990s.

Other undamaged pipe near the blast site on the San Bruno pipeline was also mislabeled as seamless in the database, Brian Daubin, a PG&E engineer involved with system, told federal investigators in January.

"The company knows it must improve its system of records," PG&E said in a statement Tuesday, adding that the company has 300 employees and contractors "hard at work confirming the quality of its data."

Source Article: Link

SMFD: Serious fall taken by a veteran firefighter from the roof

Sacramento firefighter fall highlights staffing shortage

ROSEMONT, CA. - A serious fall taken by a veteran firefighter from the roof of a burning home has raised some big questions about staffing shortages.
Firefighter
Sacramento City Fire department Captain Gene Dibble along with Engine 60 and several other crews responded to the house fire on Huntsman Drive Saturday night.

Because they were short staffed, Dibble climbed onto a ladder to help cut a hole in the roof according to Sac City Fire Battalion Chief Jay Glass.

Firefighters said Dibble had one foot on the gutter and one foot on the ladder. The ladder slipped and the firefighter fell onto his back on his oxygen tank on the driveway. He fractured his lower lumbar spine.

Glass said no one was spotting Dibble.

"Short staffing could have played a role in this because there was no one there to foot the ladder," said Glass. "It could have been prevented because there probably would have been someone holding the ladder at the base and it wouldn't have slid out."

Also, Dibble and Engine 60 were doing someone else's job--ventilating the burning home-- because a ladder engine had not showed up.

Dibble, a 24 year veteran, is expected to fully recover from his injuries. Firefighters showed up at UC Davis Medical Center Sunday to show their support.

Meanwhile, neighbors Diane and Mark Stayton were surprised to learn about the staffing issues. Their home is right next door to the house that burnt.

"Firemen shouldn't have to take unnecessary risks," Mark said.

"I think it's a major shame that these guys are already at risk now their crews are short staffed and there are not enough guys to go around and do the job right," Diane said.

According to the Fire Administration's National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) more than 81,000 fire-related firefighter injuries happened each year in the U.S. between 2006 and 2008. About 87 percent of those injuries happened during structure fires.

Glass said structure fires can be dangerous and staffing shortages may make things worse.

But, some changes are in store for Sacramento area fire departments.

Last week, $11 million dollars in federal funds was awarded to Sac City Fire and Sac Metro Fire. That will allow both departments to hire a total of more than 50 firefighters.

Source: News10 - Link

California FEMA USAR Team has arrived safely in New Zealand

CA-TF2 - CALIFORNIA TASK FORCE 2 arrives in New Zealand to AID EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

LOS ANGELES – February 22, 2011 – California Task Force 2 (CA-TF2), Los Angeles County Fire’s world-class Heavy Rescue Task Force, has landed in New Zealand and is currently setting up the Base of Operations (B.O.O)

California Task Force 2 (CA-TF2) is a specially-trained and equipped Urban Search and Rescue Task Force consisting of Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighters and paramedics rescue specialists, emergency room physicians, structural engineers, heavy equipment specialists, hazardous materials technicians, communications specialists, and logistics specialists.

This unique technical rescue team responds with 55,000 pounds of prepackaged search and rescue tools and medical equipment to conduct around-the-clock search and rescue operations at domestic and international disasters, both natural and man-made.

Twitter Updates: 

Update: 2-25 10:50hrs CA-TF2 USAR team from LA County Fire Dept plans for today's assignments. #eqnz # #chch #USAID http://ow.ly/43yK9 & http://ow.ly/43yL2

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via YFrog

via YFrog

 Update: 2-24 11:50hrs CA-TF2 #USAR Team has arrived safely in New Zealand Now setting up the Base of Operations (B.O.O) #CAFire #EQNz
Update: 2-23 02:22hrs CA-TF2 USAR has departed LAX enroute to #NewZealand. Estimated flight time of 13 hours on flight UAL9797 http://ow.ly/42ice #eqnz #LACoFD
Update: 2-23 0800hrs CA-TF2 Team of 66+ members caravaned to LAX last night where they are waiting… http://goo.gl/fb/3np3a #CAFire

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