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Ten Thousand Years
In 1990, the federal government invited a group of geologists, linguists, astrophysicists, architects, artists, and writers to the New Mexico desert, to visit the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. They would be there on assignment. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is the nation’s only permanent underground repository for nuclear waste. Radioactive byproducts from nuclear weapons manufacturing and nuclear power plants. WIPP was
Courtesy of Jon Lomberg This WIPP site is going to be radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years, though this panel was only responsible for keeping this place sufficiently marked for humans for the next 10,000 years—thinking beyond that timeframe was thought to be impossible. Photo from mnn.com 99% Invisible contributor Matthew Kielty spoke with Artist Jon Lomberg; archaeologist Maureen Kaplan; and Roger Nelson, the chief scientist overseeing WIPP. Thanks also to Steve Lerner, author of Sacrifice Zones; to Robb Moss, who has a film forthcoming about WIPP; Matt Stroud and Jordan Oplinger at The Verge; and Abe Van Luick at the Department of Energy.
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