{"id":157710,"date":"2010-01-09T06:42:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-09T11:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9864176.post-2243231411293941051"},"modified":"2010-01-09T06:45:44","modified_gmt":"2010-01-09T11:45:44","slug":"this-place-is-best-shunned-and-left-uninhabited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/157710","title":{"rendered":"this place is best shunned and left uninhabited"},"content":{"rendered":"

mammoth has an interesting post on ways of making nuclear waste sites recognisably dangerous over long periods of time – this place is best shunned and left uninhabited<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Triggered by the recent revelation that tests at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reveal that a seemingly innocuous white substance filling a glass bottle dug up in 2004 is actually \u201cthe oldest existing sample of bomb-grade plutonium from a nuclear reactor, with a half-life of 24,110 years,\u201d Juliet Lapidos reviews the Department of Energy\u2019s 1993 recommendations for the construction of a massive nuclear-waste disposal warning landscape. The trouble, of course, is that anything one does to communicate danger is likely to also communicate mystery and excitement to future treasure-hunters or archaeologists:<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s proposed solution is a layered message\u2014one that conveys not only that the site is dangerous but that there\u2019s a legitimate (nonsuperstitious) reason to think so. It should also emphasize that there\u2019s no buried treasure, just toxic trash. Here\u2019s how the authors phrase the essential talking points: \u201c[T]his place is not a place of honor \u2026 no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.\u201d Finally, the marker system should communicate that the danger\u2014an emanation of energy\u2014is unleashed only if you disturb the place physically, so it\u2019s best left uninhabited.<\/p>\n

As for the problem of actually getting these essentials across, the report proposes a system of redundancy\u2014a fancy way of saying throw everything at the wall and hope that something sticks. Giant, jagged earthwork berms should surround the area. Dozens of granite message walls or kiosks, each 25 feet high, might present graphic images of human faces contorted with horror, terror, or pain (the inspiration here is Edvard Munch\u2019s Scream) as well as text in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Navajo explaining what\u2019s buried. This variety of languages, as Charles Piller remarked in a 2006 Los Angeles Times story, turns the monoliths into quasi-Rosetta stones. Three rooms\u2014one off-site but nearby, one centrally located, and one underground\u2014would serve as information centers with more detailed explanations of nuclear waste and its hazards, maps showing the location of similar sites around the world, and star charts to help intruders calculate the year the site was sealed\u2026<\/p>\n

Proposals for the \u201cearthworks\u201d component demonstrate that the whole project of communicating with the future is really a creative assignment, more dependent on the imagination than on expertise\u2026 The report proposes a \u201cLandscape of Thorns\u201d with giant obelisklike stones sticking out of the earth at odd angles. \u201cMenacing Earthworks\u201d has lightning-shaped mounds radiating out of a square. In \u201cForbidding Blocks,\u201d a Lego city gone terribly wrong, black, irregular stones \u201care set in a grid, defining a square, with 5-foot wide \u2019streets\u2019 running both ways. You can even get \u2018in\u2019 it, but the streets lead nowhere, and they are too narrow to live in, farm in, or even meet in.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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