The police leave a burden of questions and concerns I hadn’t imagined I would have when I woke up today. Before I broach the subject, however, Remy breaks the uncomfortable silence, “Did you know they store plutonium waste in kitty litter? Kitty litter.”
“What?” I blink then state the obvious, “Rem. The police think you killed Daryl and left him in a ditch!” I lean against the front door, exasperated. “I had all I could do not to fall apart when they told us. Jesus! I feel like I’m having a fucking heart attack.”
“They’re bozos. They don’t know what they’re doing if they're coming here.” Visibly containing himself, he resumes, “Seriously Steph, they store nuclear waste two thousand feet below the ground in drums of kitty litter!” Manically swiping pages on his phone, like he wasn’t just interrogated, he adds, “A couple of years ago they used the wrong kind of litter and a drum exploded. That’s how toxic nuclear waste is, it reacts volatilely to everything.” Throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, he adds, “It blew plutonium waste through the ventilation system of the facility all the way to the surface, two miles up. That happened here in New Mexico.” Pacing madly, he continues, “Seventeen workers were exposed to radioactive material. That’s how they deal with nuclear waste. Is that crazy, or what?”
I’m frozen in place. “Remy, are you listening to me? A man is dead and you are suspect. Maybe the prime suspect.”
He kisses me on the forehead, fingers scrolling uncontrollably, then adds, “We have bigger fish to fry,” before heading back upstairs.
Dumbfounded, I sit down, and look out the window, the sound of his feet on the back stairs echoing through the house. The doves are gone, the feeder is empty, and so am I. Soter places his paw on my thigh. “Hey, buddy,” he turns his beautiful face sideways in an attempt to communicate, and I understand his reality completely.
Soter and I amble back up to my office led by the sound of Remy’s voice amplifying my already hyper-concerns. “How can anyone think adding radioactive isotopes to a regularly ingestible product so they can track it seed to sale is within conscionable mandate for regulation? It’s time to start asking ourselves, not why, but who? Who is behind these absurd regulations and how do we terminate their interference, or at the very least unify for containment?”
Closing my door, pretending everything’s okay, I ask myself the only question I haven’t dared, “Where was Remy last night?”
The rumble of his voice like a harbor bell infiltrates my sanctum, “Class seven materials, when transported, are tracked by satellite, but have fewer regulations than cannabis in most legal states! How is it, that we can transport enough radioactive material required to annihilate an entire metropolis with less oversight and safety than a couple of pounds of pot?”
Kitty litter? That’s just absurd. Quickly hopping online, I find thousands of articles instantly. The first one I click on is from Science Magazine:
A New Era of Nuclear Waste Begins
The (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) called WIPP located 38 miles outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, received its first shipment of TRU (Transuranic) radioactive waste for permanent storage in 1999. The facility was initially intended to store nuclear waste for 10,000 years in one of the world’s largest salt mines. The low-ceilinged rooms located 2500 feet below the ground were chosen because salt has a natural ability to absorb radiation. The mines will eventually collapse and entomb the waste for all eternity. Problem solved. But presently, the Carlsbad facility holds enough containers to fill a football field fifty-six times, and is scheduled to receive an additional 250,000 drums of waste from all over the country.
To date, close calls ranging in the hundreds of thousands on the more than two million radioactive transported packages per year have never been publicly discussed. Most of them carry plutonium, americium, neptunium, and other transuranic waste that is packed in kitty litter within metal casks that is transported by land, passenger plane, and train. Radioactive rods packed in the transport packs are transported from nuclear reactor sites after they have been removed from deep pools of circulating water where they cool down for ten years before they’re considered “safe” enough to transport. But they remain dangerously radioactive for at least 10,000 years.
Yikes.
Since nuclear power plants run almost all the time, the industry generates 2,300 metric tons of spent fuel per year, and with only this one facility in New Mexico as permanent storage, the math is not difficult; the security risks are glaring issues for the environment and national security.
Prior to the recent Class 7 materials explosion in Phoenix, Arizona, Habistram Industries, the sole federal contractor for nuclear waste transportation and storage in the U.S. was tasked with managing a team of artists, scientists, and theologians to design a long term plan to create repulsive monuments as warnings to caution descendants of mankind, a deca-millennium from now to not dig, disturb or, god forbid, trespass on these irretrievably forsaken lands located in Southern New Mexico. But the tragic explosion in Phoenix sheds a whole new light on a contaminated public. Anyone within a fifteen-mile radius at the time of that explosion that was not immediately evacuated has been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
In this case, the exterior casing of the metal transport container pack was penetrated by an explosion that released toxic vapors, immediately causing explosive mixtures in the air, and continual, uncontrollable flashbacks. These vapors will continue to spread along the ground for an indefinite amount of time collecting in low confined areas like sewers and residential basements, and will cause more explosions. Runoff water and containment foam are also leaking into the sewers and are continuing to create a series of unpredictable radioactive explosions. Large areas of the community will have to be permanently evacuated.
Reaching a heat beyond 4500 degrees Fahrenheit, this explosion melted not only the solid metal casing of the truck but also the bridge infrastructure, ground, and rocks in the immediate vicinity. First responders, unaware of the contents of the package, were affected directly by toxic liquids released that were lighter than water. Once mixed with the fire, these liquids produced corrosive, toxic gases that caused dizziness, suffocation, and death upon contact. Because all of the equipment used when handling Class 7 materials must be grounded, it has taken precious time to cover the affected area with dry earth through aerial dumping.
The cost of this tragic event is estimated in the trillions, and an estimated death toll is tragically in the tens of thousands. Regardless of whether this was an accident or a terrorist attack, regulators now have a clear picture, of this new era our proliferating nuclear waste industry has catalyzed.
“Holy shit!” Habistram. Kitty litter. Terrorists. I fully understand Remy’s frustration with cannabis over-regulation. But I also see another unsettling connection; the nuclear industry is a group of fat cats toying with all of our lives, and I know one of them, John Jameson.
Peeling my eyes away from the article, I remember I have till day’s end to finish editing all of our packaging for Nevada. I need this off my plate before we leave for California and Nevada tomorrow. Who knows what will happen out there? The weight of a radioactive apocalypse hanging in the air, I’m startled when my phone rings.
Francoise our CBD partner, defying niceties, rattles off, “Stephanie, we have some problems,” his French laced accent purrs in my ear but my heart sinks.
“Francoise, what’s up?”
“You know we’re all waiting for the FDA to release the regulations for CBD products they’ve been promising for over a year? Well, while that’s happening, the manufacturer of Epidiliot, actually patented isolate. It’s gone through. They own it.”
“Yes, I know. I heard about that.”
“Do you know what that means?” He pauses dramatically, his voice resonating, as he continues, “Although the CBD industry has been using isolate as an infusion powder in products for decades, the FDA will now look at CBD isolate as a pharmaceutical drug since they granted a patent for a product made with it,” he states slowly.
“And?”
“And,” he pauses, “my people sitting in at the highest levels on this are telling me the FDA will now mandate isolate CBD as a pharmaceutical drug.”
Wait. “So, because this company patented a product using a method that the entire industry uses . . . now, no one else can use it?”
“That is correct. Not if they want to sell it to the public without a prescription.” He begins to stammer, “New York, Massachusetts, Washington state, and Florida have already initiated banning any ingestible containing isolate preemptively.” There is a silence before he adds, “You have to change your infusion process.” The finite eloquence of his statement is absolutely irritating.
“Francoise, we just spent the last six months modifying and testing isolate. What about the hundred grand worth of isolate we purchased?”
“Look at it this way, all of the distributors we’ve lined up for big box stores would have returned your products if you had used isolate. At least we didn’t release a product that no one wants. C´est ça.”
Thanks, I feel better already. “Anything else?”
“No. But we need an action plan today.”
“I’m on it.” I hang up.
Remy’s standing in my doorway. “What was that all about?”
“Francoise said we can’t use CBD isolate for infusion.”
“Yeah. I figured that would happen.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know how things are, one step forward two steps back. It was just something in the back of my head. Plus, the patenting process is usually a longer road. I never thought they would manage it this quickly,” he iterates, his coursing his jaw. “It ordinarily takes years.”
“So, what do we do with the hundred grand of isolate we purchased?” I ask. “All our money is tied up in this. We literally can’t buy anything else. We don’t even have a credit card.”
“We sell it to someone that doesn’t know.” He smiles. “At a discount.”
“You did not just say that.”
“Steph, this is business.” Removing himself from the door frame aggressively, he adds over his shoulder, “It can still be used in the cannabis medical field – I’ll find a buyer.” With that, he marches across the landing to his office, clicking his door closed behind him.
Is it just me, or is there some kind of planetary alignment I haven’t been read into? Mantling, my yoga ball, I know Remy would never have suggested something like that six months ago. Confused and now tortured by the nuclear waste article, I search to see how far away Carlsbad, New Mexico, is from us. Jesus, it’s less than three hundred miles. With yet a new feeling of impending doom, I give in, and open the Nevada packaging files. Copying changes to a bullet list for our layout guy, I purposefully ignore that the file name before me is labeled version 32.
An email from Remy slides across my screen;
We’ll use broad-spectrum distillate for the CBD product infusion. Add that to your packaging layout.
Within seconds I receive an email from Danielle, who is suspiciously quiet today.
I have attached the lab results and certificates of analysis for the broad spectrum you will be using for the infusion of CBD products. Please be sure to upload these to the master QR code folder for each product.
Yes, ma’am! Anything you say! Another notification slides across my screen;
Need to talk to you in person. Urgent!!! Galax
Jesus! When will this day end? A second email from Danielle arrives with our train itinerary for tomorrow. I notice we leave at one in the afternoon, and respond to Galax.
I’m a little booked today. Can you come here?
Her reply is rapid and short as I insert my earbuds.
No. It’s best if you come to me.
We agree on a time, and three hours fly by like nine. My legs stiff, Remy walks into my office without a word, carrying a platter and a pot of tea with two cups. Setting everything down on my surfboard cocktail table, he takes a seat on the couch. My stomach draws me to him, but my brows and forehead pucker in solidarity.
The baby-blue platter before me is an array of white-water crackers with slices of cheese and chunks of canned salmon stacked on top; they are a smattering of islands lost at sea. I can relate.
“I thought you might be hungry.”
I say nothing, placing a napkin he had stashed in his back pocket on my lap.
“Danielle ran an errand. Is there anything she can help you with today?”
I place a whole cracker in my mouth out of spite.
“Okay. I’m not going to talk to you until you lower your eyebrows.”
Laughing, I spit out the cracker.
“What’s goin’ on, Steph?”
“Where do you want me to start?”
His beautiful face, in profile to the window behind him, is troubled, as he noticeably grasps for something in the room to hold onto. For a moment, I think he’s going to get up and leave; then his determined gray eyes, gather with resolve, before he urges, “You need to trust me.”