Our Web readers speak out:

Repeated safety lapses hobble LANL’s work on U.S. nuclear warhead cores, June 18

The ‘cure’ for the Los Alamos National Laboratory failure is simple and perhaps out of reach. It is ‘openness.’ The first step to reform is fully airing its problems and reporting them. This is exactly what LANL won’t do. In the late 1990s, LANL was much more open, for a time, due to initiatives put in place by then-DOE Secretary Hazel O’Leary. Two programs; ‘Incident Reporting’ and ‘Corrective Action Plans’ were beneficial, and the incident reports were online, as they should be. Under DOE Secretary [Bill] Richardson, this openness was killed, but Sen. [Pete] Domenici gets a large share of the blame, for creating the National Nuclear Security Administration. To repeat: Openness is the only cure. LANL loves to hide problems, and punishes those who reveal them. This must change. If not, the pit manufacture should be removed from LANL.” C.M.

To think that left-wing journalists, the anti-nuke crowd and regulators care more about safety than the people responsible for day-to-day activities at the lab is simply ridiculous. Define safe. One-hundred percent safety is impossible, so we must accept less than that if we want to continue. Who among these ‘experts’ is capable of deciding what is acceptable? No such thing as zero risk, and yes, work in some areas at LANL [is] riskier than pushing regs. Too risky for you? Then go work with those who make their living off grievances. Regulators and journalists don’t do anything but are in positions to stop the doers from getting things done. More murders in Santa Fe and Albuquerque in one year than deaths in the entire history of Los Alamos national lab. Risk? Drive Cerrillos [Road] on a Saturday.” G.M.

I live in Santa Fe and clearly remember senior Department of Energy officials promising 20 years ago that serious lessons were learned from the Rocky Flats Plant and re-established plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory would always be safe. Rocky Flats was shut down by a 1989 FBI raid investigating environmental crimes. A special grand jury indicted both DOE officials and the contractor, but its report was sealed by a federal judge. … It was only by sheer luck that a major plutonium fire on Mother’s Day 1969 didn’t contaminate Denver with highly carcinogenic plutonium (Google the article ‘The Day We Almost Lost Denver’).” J.C.

Body found may be that of Forrest Fenn treasure hunter, June 18

If you die on your way to work, is your employer responsible? No, of course not. Nobody has forced anyone to buy the book or search for the treasure. It is sad that people don’t know how to take personal responsibility anymore. People get lost and die in national parks all the time. Is Teddy Roosevelt responsible for that?” C.L.

Forrest Fenn can’t be blamed for human incompetence. I have been going hiking, camping and climbing in the mountains for nearly 50 years and have seen many people assume that they had no responsibility to learn and prepare for going into the ‘real world’ of steep rocks and unpredictable weather. If a person goes, of their own volition, into a dangerous place, they have a responsibility to be prepared and must take the consequences for accident or failures of forethought.” M.T.

Enough is enough. Time for Fenn to go get that treasure and maybe split it with the two folks who have died looking for it. I do not know how the man can sleep at night.” P.M.W.

Family fight may have set shooter on murderous path in Rio Arriba, Taos counties, June 16

I would like to give my utmost respect to the arresting officers. [They] did your job correctly by arresting the suspect without violence and by not making a horrific situation for all of Northern New Mexico even worse.” H.R.

This isn’t the Damian Herrera I know. He was the sweetest guy! I’ve known him for years! He isn’t this kind of person.” S.B.

It was not him. And by that I mean, it was not the person that we all knew so well. I don’t know what happened, but it was either drugs that caused this or some type of mental illness.” H.R.

This animal is scum.” R.D.

Cajete Fire ‘slowing down a bit,’ still carrying high risk, Jan. 15

There has been a large amount of fuel treatments both on the [national forest] and Valles Caldera National Preserve. It will be interesting to see how they hold up in this fire. In a perfect world, all that investment would reduce the need to pour money into fighting this fire, but that does not appear to be the case.” B.B.

Good comment, I’m interested, too. The last I heard, money for Forest Service fuel treatment comes out of the same budget as firefighting. The more money poured into fighting fire, the less there is for fuel treatment. That seems less than ideal, in my opinion. Update: A bill proposed by the Forest Service to request emergency funds to fight wildfires, separately from the Forest Service annual budget, was introduced in the U.S. House in January 2015. As of September 2016, the ‘Wildfire Disaster Funding Act,’ H.R. 167, had 85 Democratic and 67 Republican cosponsors. That seems genuinely bipartisan. Nothing’s happened on it since then, though. Draw your own conclusions.” K.A.

I hope everyone stays safe.” L.P.W.