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99% Invisible

The Spot 5.29.14 Ten Thousand Years

By Matt Martin
Published May 29, 2014 at 4:09 PM PDT

99% Invisible: 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,the nation’s only permanent underground repository for nuclear waste.

Storing something safely forever is a huge design problem.  The challenge this panel faced was different:  To communicate the danger of what was stored at WIPP to people 10,000 years in the future.

99% Invisible
Matt Martin
Matt Martin was KALW’s general manager from 2006 through 2018. Under his leadership, KALW grew into one of the most productive and innovative stations in public radio. Programs launched at KALW during Matt’s tenure as GM include the award-winning local newsmagazine Crosscurrents, the design podcast 99% Invisible, and the Spanish-language narrative journalism program Radio Ambulante. He helped create the station’s Audio Academy, a year-long program aimed at developing new talents in public radio, and led the first broad-based strategic planning process in the station’s history.
See stories by Matt Martin