The first atomic bombs were constructed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where lab workers disposed of waste plutonium in nearby canyons leading to the Rio Grande. Today, the environmental consequences are just beginning to be understood as scientists examine the effects created by past mishandling of one of the most toxic chemical wastes known. Written in an engaging, accessible style, Plutonium and the Rio Grande is the first book to offer a complete exploration of this environmental history. It includes an explanation of what plutonium is, how much of it was released by the Los Alamos workers, and how much entered the river system directly from waste disposal and indirectly, as a result of atomic bomb fallout. The book includes extensive appendices, maps, diagrams, and photographs. Environmental managers, ecologists, hydrologists and other river specialists, as well as concerned general readers will find the book readable and informative.

An important investigation of the sociocultural fallout of America's work on the atomic bomb In The Nuclear Borderlands, Joseph Masco offers an in-depth look at the long-term consequences of the Manhattan Project. Masco examines how diverse groups in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico understood and responded to the U.S. nuclear weapons project in the post–Cold War period. He shows that the American focus on potential nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War obscured the broader effects of the nuclear complex on society, and that the atomic bomb produced a new cognitive orientation toward daily life, reconfiguring concepts of time, nature, race, and citizenship. This updated edition includes a brand-new preface by the author discussing current developments in nuclear politics and the scientific impact of the nuclear age on the present epoch of a human-altered climate.