2019
New Mexico Appeals Court Expects Waste Volume Status Report Soon
BY EXCHANGE MONITOR | exchangemonitor.com
The New Mexico Court of Appeals expects a status report by July 31 on mediation between the parties in litigation over changes to the way the Department of Energy calculates the underground volume of transuranic material at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad.
The mediation began last month between representatives of DOE, the New Mexico Environment Department, and the advocacy groups Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC). The state appeals court routinely requires parties to go to mediation in cases involving state agencies before a lawsuit proceeds to trial, says Don Hancock, director of the SRIC nuclear waste safety program. He declined to elaborate on the status of mediation.
IDA Executive Summary – Plutonium Pit Production, May 2019
US arms control office critically understaffed under Trump, experts say
State department office whittled down in staff numbers from 14 at start of administration to four as Trump shifts approach
BY JULIAN BORGER | theguardian.com
A state department office tasked with negotiating and implementing nuclear disarmament treaties has lost more than 70% of its staff over the past two years, as the Trump administration moves towards a world without arms control for the first time in nearly half a century.
The Office of Strategic Stability and Deterrence Affairs, normally a repository of expertise and institutional knowledge that does the heavy lifting of arms control, has been whittled down from 14 staffers at the start of the Trump administration to four, according to the former staffers.
Nuke-Backing NDAA Passes Senate in Landslide
Graham and Heinrich double down on pit production and Safety Board threatened by Senate bill
BY DAN LEONE | exchangemonitor.com
The U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would authorize all the White House’s requested funding for nuclear modernization programs at the Department of Energy and the Pentagon.
The Senate bill would provide a year of bipartisan support for the Donald Trump administration’s nuclear arsenal modernization plans, which are essentially a lightly modified continuation of the 30-year refurbishment the Barack Obama administration started in 2016.
In stark contrast, the House’s version of the NDAA — up for floor debate as soon as the week of July 8 — eyes major changes for the decades-long arsenal refresh by slowing work on nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) programs at DOE and the Defense Department.
“The managers of the weapon program now seem to believe that their mission is to increase the weapon program budget and protect payroll.”
An observation from the late Robert L. Peurifoy (1928-2017)
A tribute to the nuclear weapons and arms control expert was recently posted on Google here
Bob Peurifoy managed design and development of nuclear weapons at the Sandia Corporation for 39 years and devoted all his retired years to independent consulting on nuclear weapons and arms control issues with several scientific organizations. The “Tribute” contains excerpts from his 2011-2016 e-mail archive.
Tribute to Robert L. Peurifoy
A tribute to the nuclear weapons career of the late Robert L. Peurifoy (1928-2017) was recently posted HERE
Bob Peurifoy worked at the Sandia Labs for 39 years, serving as director of nuclear weapon development and retiring as a vice president. He was the driving force behind many safety improvements to U.S. nuclear weapons and a strong believer in conservative maintenance of the stockpile. Bob was also a strong critic of aggressive Life Extension Programs that further diverged the stockpile from its tested pedigree and wasted taxpayers’ money. As Bob’s friend and colleague Gordon Moe puts it, “Bob’s family and I hope that Bob’s wisdom and reason as reflected in the Tribute will continue to benefit humanity for many more years through its use as a reference by researchers in the field of nuclear weaponry.”
VIEW FULL TRIBUTE – PDF
A synopsis of the full tribute was written by Gordon Moe, Puerifoy’s fellow Sandia scientist, colleague and friend –
VIEW TRIBUTE SYNOPSIS
Kick-Off For Public Participation In LANL Legacy Waste Cleanup Draws Large Crowd At Fuller Lodge
BY MAIRE O’NEILL | losalamosreporter.com
The message was clear at Wednesday evening’s Environmental Management Cleanup Forum at Fuller Lodge hosted by the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Los Alamos (EM-LA) Field Office and legacy cleanup contractor N3B. That message, according to EM-LA manager Doug Hintze was that the Department of Energy is changing its way of doing business as far as community participation.
Jay Coghlan, NukeWatch NM Director, said about the meeting: “They had too much of an opportunity to control the questions through written submissions and pick and choose what they want. Future meetings should be quite different with open and free discussion,” he said. “I’m fully-prepared to push for the transparency that they claim that they’re operating with.”
“We’re not asking for input – you’ve been giving us input. We’re asking for participation to make sure you understand the risks that we have, the challenges including funding, the cleanup standards and so forth. We’re asking for your participation,” he told a packed room.
Coghlan told the Los Alamos Reporter that EM-LA “have repeated rhetoric for full and complete transparency.
“They’re making the claim that more than half the cleanup is completed. This of course is representative of hidden decisions already made to leave behind the vast majority of waste. So this meeting was just a complete sham and it was carefully controlled really, to make it all look warm and fuzzy when it’s not,” he said.
Group seeking stormwater regulations in Los Alamos County plans to sue EPA
“An environmental group said it intends to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency for failing to determine whether stormwater from Los Alamos County should be regulated by a federal pollution permit under the Clean Water Act.”
BY REBECCA MOSS | santafenewmexican.com
Pollutants — including mercury, copper, cyanide, gross alpha radiation and PCB chemicals — have been detected well above human health and state water quality standards in stormwater runoff samples, attorneys for Taos-based Amigos Bravos said in a letter Wednesday to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and David Gray, acting regional administrator.
According to the letter, levels of PCBs, linked to liver and thyroid cancer and reproductive damage, have been detected at levels thousands of times greater than state standards. Runoff from rain or melting snowpack carries metals and chemicals through the finger-like canyons that surround Los Alamos National Laboratory and urban areas of the county.
Amigos Bravos, a water conservation group, petitioned the EPA nearly five years ago to determine whether the water quality violations in Los Alamos County required a federal permit. Such permits are used to enforce water quality standards and keep pollution below certain levels.
Los Alamos Lab Cleanup to Stay Far Behind Funding for Nuclear Weapons Research and Production
Over the last decade funding for the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) nuclear weapons programs has increased 20%. However, funding for needed cleanup has remained flat at one-tenth of the almost $2 billion requested for nuclear weapons programs in FY 2020. Nuclear weapons funding is slated to keep climbing under the $1.7 trillion 30-year nuclear weapons “modernization” program begun under Obama. Trump is adding yet more money, and is accelerating the new arms race with Russia by adding two new types of nuclear weapons. Cleanup funding, on the other hand, is doomed to stay flat for the next two decades because the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) under Gov. Martinez gutted a 2005 “Consent Order” that would have forced the Department of Energy (DOE) and LANL to get more money for cleanup.
The Road to Genuine Los Alamos Lab Cleanup Backgrounder
The Road to Genuine Los Alamos Lab Cleanup
Summary
Funding for nuclear weapons is still the priority at the Lab
- $1.7 trillion 30-year “modernization” program total current estimate across the nation
- LANL receives $2 billion annually for nuclear weapons work
Legacy Cleanup Program at LANL is getting started with new contractor
- Current cleanup estimate is $4.1 billion remaining to finish by 2036
- LANL cleanup has been receiving $195 to $220 million per year