By MARK DEVOLDER
Los Alamos

I just finished reading Sara Scott’s article in the Los Alamos Daily Post about the Nuisance Code (link). 

It is clear to me that the County Council will approve the revised nuisance code (perhaps with some additional minor changes). For me, that means getting out of Los Alamos County permanently.

In the last 30 years, I have transitioned from being a consumer, then a recycler/repairer, and finally to a manufacturer. Gradually, using what Los Alamos County refers to as “junk,” I have been able to reduce my maintenance and manufacturing costs to nearly zero dollars per year. This has required inspiration, innovation, and many long hours of hard work.

The United States is entering (or is already in) a recession. It is not expected to be too bad (employment statistics are not the worst and US companies have been stockpiling money). However, companies also had monetary reserves during the Great Depression but were not inclined to spend those reserves.  Climate change has brought on conditions where lakes are declining in depth (for example, Lake Powell) and rivers are drying up worldwide (for example, the Mississippi). There are other adverse climate change indicators further north (for example, ice melting and bark beetle infestations in Canadian forests). This has a haunting similarity to the dust bowl days of the Great Depression. I worry about famine, and no one is talking about it.

Commercial businesses have been dying for a long time in Los Alamos County. Businesses like The Hobby Bench, etc. are gone. For the most part, this is not a County where government is growing business. America is not growing business either (for example, Pennsylvania has 434 abandoned industrial plants).

I have been watching the movie October Sky (based on the book Rocket Boys by Homer Hickum). It is a story about the inspiration (also fear) created due to the launch of Sputnik by the Russians Oct. 4, 1957. With the support of a high school teacher, four high school students in Coalwood, West Virginia (located in the southern part of West Virginia near Welch, West Virginia) learn how to design/construct model rockets, win the National Science Fair in Indianapolis, win college scholarships, and go on to successful careers. Homer Hickum’s father is deeply committed to coal mining efforts in Coalwood and is very concerned about the future of the local coal mine as well as the community. Father tells son that the coal which is mined in Coalwood goes to make steel and if steel dies, the Country dies. We are well on the way because steel in the US has died.

I learned much in my career at LANL. In the beginning during the 1940’s, there was the Manhattan Project (before my time). There were bench-type laboratories with a variety of materials and equipment, seminars, theoretical calculations, and experimentation. A Nobel Laureate told me that the folks in Los Alamos tried everything they could think of to design, build, and test the atomic bomb. However, much has changed over the years. One of the things which LANL management believed was important toward the end of my career was an empty office with only a computer, a chair, a desk, and a worker it – a somewhat sterile environment. The same holds true for Los Alamos County – create a sterile environment. The Nuisance Code is a vehicle to that end.  There is no freedom to be found here.

I seek to escape to an environment where manufacturing (that is, manufacturing space/assembly lines, maintenance facilities, warehouses, research and development facilities, and industrial-oriented workers) is valued and not despised by or look down upon by white collar workers. In Los Alamos County, residents and Los Alamos County personnel can always hire contractors/maintenance repair personnel to perform the dirty work. For the most part, people in Los Alamos County do not repair their vehicles, build their own houses, or tinker with things in their garages. This gradually died out along with the legacy of the Manhattan Project – as dead and lifeless now as the bronze statues of Oppenheimer and Groves south of Fuller Lodge.

Much industrial capacity has been outsourced to China. My understanding is that 20 percent of industry is currently devoted to manufacturing and the other 80 percent is service industry. Perhaps I am expecting to find somewhere in America to tinker with my ideas/contraptions and that industrial place no longer exists. I am older and soon I won’t exist. Then it won’t matter if everything in Los Alamos County remains sterile – mentally and physically.

Therefore, I will discard all my wonderful “junk”. I will move away and begin all over again collecting materials and equipment, which can be repaired/repurposed into something else. I hope I can find some kindred spirits where I go – people inspired by industry. They don’t live in Los Alamos County.