Mountain Cloud Zen Center
7241 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87505
Attendance in person is encouraged.
This event will also be web streamed at sit.mountaincloud.org
passcode: mountain22
Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester will lead a discussion on the need for nuclear disarmament at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, NM. He will be introduced with a brief overview of the issues by Sangha member Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. Both in person attendees and online participants will have the opportunity for questions and answers.
John C. Wester was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1976 and installed as auxiliary bishop of San Francisco in 1998. He was appointed Bishop of Salt Lake City in 2007. He was subsequently installed as the twelfth Archbishop of Santa Fe on June 4, 2015. He has taken up the cause of nuclear disarmament because more money is spent on nuclear weapons in his Santa Fe Archdiocese than any other diocese in the country.
Archbishop Wester believes that humanity is entering a new and more dangerous arms race. To help counter that he is promoting interfaith dialogue and effort toward a future world free of nuclear weapons. This includes an event with the working title of A World Without Nuclear Weapons, From Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test on the afternoon of Sunday, July 16, 2023, the 78th anniversary of the Trinity Test. This will be held at the Santa Maria de la Paz Center at 11 College Ave., Santa Fe, NM (just before the Santa Fe Community College). This event has added significance in advance of the scheduled release of the major Hollywood film Oppenheimer on July 21.
In August Archbishop Wester will travel to Japan with the Archbishop of Seattle to commemorate the 78th anniversaries of the atomic bombings with the Bishops of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Together, they will appeal for and work toward a future world free of nuclear weapons. Their efforts follow Pope Francis’ guidance, under whose leadership the Vatican was the first to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
June 5, 2023 – comments due on scope of a new Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Sandia National Laboratories. https://www.federalregister.gov/…/national-nuclear… and https://www.energy.gov/…/doeeis-0556-site-wide… Written comments on the scope of the SNL/NM SWEIS or requests for information related to the SNL/NM SWEIS may be sent via postal mail to: SNL/NM SWEIS Comments National Nuclear Security Administration, Sandia Field Office PO Box 5400 Albuquerque, NM 87185 or by email to: [email protected] or [email protected]
June 6, 2023 – comments due on the scope of an Environmental Assessment for the Chromium Interim Measures and Final Remedy. Submit your comments to: [email protected] (preferred) Please use the subject line: Chromium EA Scoping Comment U.S. mail: Jesse Kahler NEPA Compliance Officer U.S. DOE Environmental Management Los Alamos Field Office 1200 Trinity Drive, Suite 400 Los Alamos, NM 87544
2. National Security Missions and Nuclear Safety Posture – 4:00–9:45 pm MT
Santa Fe Community Convention Center
201 West Marcy Street
Santa Fe, NM87501
On November 16, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will hold a public hearing at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Keep up with the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition to learn how to take action against the Federal Government’s Plan to Expand WIPP and keep it open indefinitely.
Visit the Stop Forever WIPP Coalition’s website and social media:
“Scoping” means determining the issues that should be included in public analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of proposed major actions by the federal government. According to the Department of Energy ‘s own NEPA implementation regulations, DOE must prepare a new or supplemental site-wide environmental impact statement (SWEIS) for its major sites when there are “significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns.” The last site-wide EIS for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was completed in 2008 and is badly outdated. Moreover, since 2018 the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), DOE’s semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency, has been aggressively expanding the production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores for nuclear weapons at the Lab.
On August 19, 2022, NNSA finally announced its intent to prepare a new LANL SWEIS, but apparently the agency will not address expanded plutonium pit production.1 NNSA’s dubious argument is that it performed the legally required NEPA analysis for expanded plutonium pit production in a 2008 Complex Transformation Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, the 2008 LANL SWEIS and a woefully inadequate “Supplement Analysis” in 2020 that concluded a new SWEIS was not needed. 2 3
Issues That Must Be Addressed in a New LANL SWEIS
This is meant to be a guide to (or list of) the issues that must be addressed in a new draft LANL SWEIS. It is not completely exhaustive, nor is it a comprehensive fact sheet on the substance of the issues. Nuclear Watch New Mexico will offer suggested scoping comments for interested citizens and submit its own comprehensive formal comments before the October 3 deadline or extended deadline (see “Timing” below).
The New Mexico Environment Department maintains a Facility Mailing List to which you can add your name and address to get the latest information – just email Ricardo Maestas at the New Mexico Environment Department at [email protected] and ask to be added to the list. Or mail your request with your mailing address to:
Ricardo Maestas
New Mexico Environment Department-Hazardous Waste Bureau
2905 Rodeo Park East, Bldg. 1
Santa Fe, NM 87505
WIPP also uses the facility mailing list to inform you about opportunities to provide public comments. NMED provides their list to WIPP.
The Department of Energy is seeking to modify the nuclear waste permit for southeastern New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Dragging out WIPP’s operations decades past the original 20-year agreement violates the social contract made with New Mexicans. WIPP is being equipped to take the waste that will be generated from production of plutonium pits for nuclear warheads, and it was never supposed to do that. An expansion of WIPP will impact the entire country, not just residents of southeastern New Mexico.
View the videos below for more information, and, if you live in an area that may be endangered by these nuclear waste transportation risks, please consider making your own “This is My Neighborhood” video!