QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The Trinity and nuclear bombs have nothing to do with each other
“Oppenheimer called it the Trinity Test [based] on John Donne’s poem, with the Christian reference – but that’s got to be, in my mind, the ultimate oxymoron. The Trinity and nuclear bombs have nothing to do with each other – the Trinity represents life and community, love and tolerance and respect for one another, and atomic weapons are the exact opposite of that.
So we’ve got to do all we can to rid ourselves of this destructive power, and that’s why people of faith are involved in this important matter.”
– Archbishop of Santa Fe, John C. Wester
“There is nothing comparable in our history to the deceit and the lying that took place as a matter of official Government policy in order to protect this industry. Nothing was going to stop them and they were willing to kill our own people.”
— Stewart Udall, United States Secretary of the Interior under President Kennedy and President Johnson.
He was the father of Senator Tom Udall (who ended up being a vigorous supporter of expanded nuclear weapons “modernization” plans).
In 1985, US President Ronald Reagan and and Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
2022 BLOG POSTS
Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production
AIKEN, S.C. — Today the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy, published a formal Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to complete a nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores. Pits are the essential radioactive triggers of modern nuclear weapons. The NNSA is aggressively seeking their expanded production for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) successfully represented the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment in a legal challenge to NNSA’s attempt to improperly jump start dual site pit production. On September 30, 2024, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the NNSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with its plan to produce at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
New Mexico’s Revolving Nuclear Door: Top Environment Officials Sell Out to Nuclear Weapons Labs
As part of a long, ingrained history, senior officials at the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) have repeatedly resigned to go to work for the nuclear weapons labs, the Department of Energy, or DOE contractors. In a number of cases that is where they came from to begin with.
The hierarchy of leadership at NMED starts with the Secretary, Deputy Secretaries and then Division Directors. The position of Resource Protection Division Director is particularly critical because it oversees the two NMED bureaus most directly involved with DOE facilities in New Mexico, the Hazardous Waste Bureau and the DOE Oversight Bureau.
FULL PRESS RELEASE [PDF]
Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review Fuels the New Nuclear Arms Race
Santa Fe, NM– Today, the Biden Administration has released its long awaited unclassified Nuclear Posture Review. It headlines a “Comprehensive, balanced approach to defending vital national security interests and reducing nuclear dangers.” It also declares that “deterrence alone will not reduce nuclear dangers.”
“Deterrence” against others has always been the publicly sold rationale for the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile. First, there is the inconvenient fact that the U.S. was the first and only to use nuclear weapons in war. But secondly, the United States and the USSR (now Russia) never possessed their huge stockpiles for the sole purpose of deterrence anyway. Instead, their nuclear weapons policies have always been a hybrid of deterrence and nuclear war fighting, which threatens global annihilation to this very day.
FULL PRESS RELEASE [PDF]
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71550878/GettyImages_515016314a.0.jpg)
New & Updated
Plutonium Pit PEIS Scoping Hearing Presentation: Slides and Recording
Get Prepared: A coalition of advocacy groups, including Union of Concerned Scientists, Tri-Valley CAREs, and NukeWatch New Mexico recently held a training to help participants prepare effective comments.
Watch the recording here
Password: gP=&0LYZ
Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 9, 2025
Media Contacts:
Ben Cunningham, Esquire, SCELP, 843-527-0078, ben@scelp.org
Queen Quet, Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, 843-838-1171, GullGeeCo@aol.com
Tom Clements, Savannah River Site Watch, 803-834-3084, tomclements329@cs.com
Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, 505-989-7342, jay@nukewatch.org
Scott Yundt, Tri-Valley CAREs, 925-443-7148, scott@trivalleycares.org
AIKEN, S.C. — Today the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy, published a formal Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to complete a nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores. Pits are the essential radioactive triggers of modern nuclear weapons. The NNSA is aggressively seeking their expanded production for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) successfully represented the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment in a legal challenge to NNSA’s attempt to improperly jump start dual site pit production. On September 30, 2024, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the NNSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with its plan to produce at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
NNSA issues plans to assess pits environmental impact
“This programmatic environmental impact statement that we fought long and hard for empowers citizens to tell policy makers what they think about decisions being made in their name,” Jay Coghlan, from environmentalist group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said Thursday in a press release by the plaintiffs of the case. “Let them know what you think about the $2 trillion ‘modernization’ program to keep nuclear weapons forever while domestic programs are gutted to pay for tax cuts for the rich.”
By ExchangeMonitor | May 9, 2025 exchangemonitor.com
On the heels of a federal judge’s ruling last fall, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration formally announced plans Friday for a detailed review of environmental impacts of planned plutonium pit production.
DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced in the Federal Register it is kicking off a programmatic environmental impact statement EIS to ensure that large-scale pit production will comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
According to the Federal Register notice, NNSA will hold public meetings and public hearings as part of the process.
Two online public scoping meetings are now scheduled for May 27 and May 28. The May 27 session would commence at 5 p.m. Eastern Time while the May 28 one is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Eastern. Both can be accessed online or by phone. Details can be found in the Federal Register notice.
A federal district judge ruled last September that DOE and NNSA did not adequately analyze the environmental effects of producing the radioactive cores that trigger nuclear weapons in two different states, but declined to put the pit program, including construction of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility at Aiken, S.C.’s Savannah River Site on hold as a result. In January, the federal government and the plaintiffs, consisting of environmentalists, settled the lawsuit and agreed to leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the sole pit factory until NNSA completes a nationwide, NEPA-compliant programmatic EIS.Continue reading
US nuclear firm ‘utterly crucial’ to national security expands East Tennessee operations
“Which company produces uranium fuel for U.S. Navy nuclear reactors and manages the only plant where the government disassembles atomic warheads? What about the company helping NASA to develop a nuclear rocket, all while building small modular reactors and developing a pilot plant to restart uranium enrichment for the military?”
By Daniel Dassow, Knoxville News Sentinel | May 5, 2025 newsbreak.com
It’s all the same answer: BWX Technologies , the $2.7 billion juggernaut better known as BWXT has embedded itself in every kind of nuclear project imaginable with a strong and growing presence in East Tennessee, where 1,100 employees at its Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin “downblend” bomb-grade uranium. The facility also creates fuel for the nuclear reactors aboard U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers.
The region is even more important to BWXT after it bought a specialized facility in Jonesborough and 97 acres in Oak Ridge for a centrifuge enrichment project the company says will create hundreds of jobs through millions of dollars in investments.
“We have availed ourselves as a key player in just about every interesting nuclear opportunity that you can think of,” BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden told Knox News. “We’re all over it.”
BWXT is part of the team led by the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the first small modular nuclear reactors in the U.S. at the federal utility’s Clinch River Nuclear Site in Oak Ridge .
It will manufacture the reactor pressure vessel, the largest component of the 300-megawatt reactor designed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy , for small modular reactors in the U.S. and Canada.
Curb the Skyrocketing Cost of U.S. Nuclear Modernization
“Since Russia and the United States agreed 15 years ago to modest nuclear reductions under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), they also have embarked on extraordinarily expensive campaigns to replace and modernize every component of their respective nuclear arsenals to maintain force levels and provide the option to build up.”
By Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today | May 1, 2025 newsbreak.com
At the same time, their leaders have failed to resolve disputes about existing treaties or launch new negotiations to limit or further cut their deadly arsenals below the New START ceiling of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 strategic missiles and bombers each.
In 2018, shortly after he withdrew the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, U.S. President Donald Trump foolishly bragged about the nuclear stockpile that “until people come to their senses, we will build it up. It’s a threat to whoever you want, and it includes China, and it includes Russia, and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game.”
China has responded to U.S. nuclear and conventional military plans by pursuing a buildup of its historically “minimal” nuclear force to ensure that it retains an assured “second strike” capability. Russia has continued to develop new types of intermediate range missiles, as well as some new and exotic strategic systems designed to bypass U.S. missile defense capabilities.
Successive presidential administrations and congresses have failed to seriously consider alternatives that would have reduced costs and still maintained a devastating nuclear force.
Now, the cost of the U.S. nuclear modernization program is skyrocketing even further, siphoning resources from other more pressing human needs and national security priorities.
In April, the Congressional Budget Office issued its latest 10-year cost projection of the departments of Defense and Energy plans to operate, sustain, and modernize existing U.S. nuclear forces and purchase new forces: a total of $946 billion in the 2025-2034 period, or about $95 billion per year.
This new estimate is 25 percent, or $190 billion, greater than the last CBO estimate of $756 billion, which covered the 2023-2032 period. Incredibly, the $946 billion estimate does not include all of the likely cost growth of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, which the Pentagon acknowledged in July 2024 would cost 81 percent, or $63 billion, more than the program’s baseline estimate of $78 billion, generated in 2020.
Find Out the Facts & Sign the Petition: Why NMED Should Deny LANL’s Request for Tritium Releases
Why NMED Should Deny LANL’s Request for Tritium Releases
The Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to begin large releases of radioactive tritium gas any time after June 2, 2025. The only roadblock to the Lab’s plans is that it needs a “Temporary Authorization” from the New Mexico Environment Department to do so.
Reasons why NMED should deny LANL’s request are:
- The state Environment Department has a duty to protect the New Mexican As it states, “Our mission is to protect and restore the environment and to foster a healthy and prosperous New Mexico for present and future generations.” 1
- Why the rush? LANL explicitly admits there is no urgency. According to the Lab’s publicly-released “Questions and Answers” in response to “What is the urgency for this project?”
“There is no urgency for this project beyond the broader mission goals to reduce onsite waste liabilities.” 2
-
- In addition, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) admits that the end time frame for action is 2028, not 2025.3 Therefore, there is time for deliberate consideration.
- Contrary to NMED’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit for LANL, the Lab has not fulfilled its duty to inform the public via NMED of possible alternatives to its planned tritium releases.4 According to Tewa Women United, “LANL has told EPA there are 53 alternatives; that list of alternatives, initially requested in 2022, has not yet been Tewa Women United has repeatedly asked LANL to provide the public with that list.” 5
University of New Mexico to host exhibit on nuclear history, technology, weapons
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — A provocative international exhibit will open soon at the University of New Mexico. “the bomb” is an immersive, multi-media installation exploring the history, technology, and threat of nuclear weapons.
By Nicole Sanders, KRQE | April 22, 2025 krqe.com
The installation includes an hour-long film projected on 45 screens conveying the hidden chaos and danger of the nuclear age. The experience is coming to UNM from April 30 to May 30. The full schedule at Zimmerman Library is available below:
- Wednesday, April 30
- Friday, May 2, 2025
- Friday, May 9, 2025
- Friday, May 16, 2025
- Friday, May 23, 2025
- Friday, May 30, 2025
Formal Comments on the Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
The National Environmental Policy Act requires the Los Alamos National Laboratory to periodically prepare a new “Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operations.”
Please use NukeWatch NM’s recent extensive comments on the Lab’s new draft SWEIS as a resource and citizens’ guide to Lab issues.
Did you know, for example, that:
• LANL’s nuclear weapons production budget has doubled over the last decade?
• The Lab’s so-called cleanup plan is to “cap and cover” some 200,000 cubic yards of radioactive and toxic waste, leaving them permanently buried as a perpetual threat to groundwater?
• There is a planned intentional release of up to 30,000 curies of radioactive tritium gas, all without a public hearing?
Use our lengthy formal comments as a starting point, toolkit or resource for dissecting ongoing and future issues at LANL!
We encourage you to use our comments to ask for follow-up info, either from us here at NukeWatch or from the Lab, and to demand better accountability and transparency! Use as background or briefing material for local and congressional advocacy.
For example:
- Cite or excerpt our comments in future public processes under the National Environmental Policy Act. For example, we are expecting that a nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement for plutonium “pit” bomb core production will be announced soon, the result of a lawsuit in which NukeWatch led.
- Share with those organizing around stopping expanded plutonium pit production and advocating for genuine radioactive and toxic wastes cleanup.
- Learn about LANL’s proposed electrical transmission line across the environmentally and culturally sensitive Caja del Rio and alternatives that were not considered.
- The National Environmental Policy Act itself is under assault by the Trump Administration. We expect environmental justice and climate change issues to be stripped from LANL’s final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement. This needs to be resisted!
NukeWatch NM argued that the draft SWEIS should be withdrawn and a new one issued because:
• The NNSA has rigged the draft LANL Site-Wide EIS with three self-serving scenarios:
– Expanded nuclear weapons programs (contradictorily called the “No Action Alternative”).
– Yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Modernized Operations Alternative”).
– Yet far more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Expanded Operations Alternative”).
• A Reduced Operations Alternative must be included.
• The SWEIS’ fundamental justification for expanded nuclear weapons programs is “deterrence.” But “deterrence” has always included nuclear warfighting capabilities that could end human civilization overnight.
• The SWEIS purports to align with U.S. obligations under the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty. That is demonstrably false.
• Future plutonium pit production is NOT to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is for new-design nuclear weapons that could lower confidence in stockpile reliability and/or prompt a return to testing.
• The SWEIS’ No-Action Alternative violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
• The legally required programmatic environmental impact statement on pit production should be completed first, followed by the LANL SWEIS.
• Plutonium pit reuse should be analyzed as a credible alternative to pit production.
• A recent proposal for a data center at LANL is not in the SWEIS. It raises huge issues of future water and electrical use, the appropriateness of commercial interests at a federal lab, and the possible fusion of artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons command and control.
• Recent Executive Orders could strip the final SWEIS of environmental justice and climate change analyses. This must have clarification.
• Planned tritium releases should be fully analyzed.
• The Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade should be analyzed will all credible alternatives.
• The proposed BioSafety Level-3 facility must have its own standalone EIS.
• All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board concerns should be addressed and resolved.
• Genuine comprehensive cleanup should be a preferred alternative.
• A new SWEIS should follow a new overdue Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis.
Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: April 2025
Nuclear weapons
Air Force Weighs Keeping 1970s-Era Missiles Until 2050
The US Air Force is considering contingency plans that would extend the life of 1970s-era intercontinental ballistic missiles by 11 more years to 2050 if delays continue to plague the new Sentinel models intended to replace them. The current plan is to remove all 400 Minuteman III ICBMs made by Boeing Co. from silos by 2039… The Sentinel was projected last year to be deployed starting in May 2029. The first test flight was once projected for December 2023, but fiscal 2025 budget documents indicated a slip to February 2026.
The estimated cost of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), originally at ~$110 billion, is now north of $180 billion. And this is before recognition of the immensity of supplying new command and control communications and recent consideration that its hardened silos may have to be replaced. IMHO it’s a propitious time to argue again for eliminating the land-based ICBM leg of the Triad. After all, one of its stated purposes is to act as a “nuclear sponge” for incoming Russian warheads. The odds of that are not zero and may increase if ICBMs are uploaded with multiple warheads after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires in February 2026. More temptation for a preemptive first strike.
Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists
By , Science News | March 27, 2025 sciencenews.org
When the countdown hit zero on September 23, 1992, the desert surface puffed up into the air, as if a giant balloon had inflated it from below.
It wasn’t a balloon. Scientists had exploded a nuclear device hundreds of meters below the Nevada desert, equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT. The ensuing fireball reached pressures and temperatures well beyond those in Earth’s core. Within milliseconds of the detonation, shock waves rammed outward. The rock melted, vaporized and fractured, leaving behind a cavity oozing with liquid radioactive rock that puddled on the cavity’s floor.
As the temperature and pressure abated, rocks collapsed into the cavity. The desert surface slumped, forming a subsidence crater about 3 meters deep and wider than the length of a football field. Unknown to the scientists working on this test, named Divider, it would be the end of the line. Soon after, the United States halted nuclear testing.
Beginning with the first explosive test, known as Trinity, in 1945, more than 2,000 atomic blasts have rattled the globe. Today, that nuclear din has been largely silenced, thanks to the norms set by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, negotiated in the mid-1990s.
Only one nation — North Korea — has conducted a nuclear test this century. But researchers and policy makers are increasingly grappling with the possibility that the fragile quiet will soon be shattered.
Some in the United States have called for resuming testing, including a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Officials in the previous Trump administration considered testing, according to a 2020 Washington Post article. And there may be temptation in coming years. The United States is in the midst of a sweeping, decades-long overhaul of its aging nuclear arsenal…
Nuclear Nightmare: Meet America’s New B61-12 Gravity Bomb
What makes the B61-12 particularly impressive is the bomb’s ability to adjust its destructive yield depending on the operational conditions and demands.
By Stavros Atlamazoglou, National Interest | March 26, 2025 nationalinterest.org
Over the past months, the U.S. Air Force added another potent weapon to its arsenal: a new nuclear bomb, having recently completed production at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb achieved full system production recently and is now fully operational. The nuclear bomb is one of the most versatile munitions of its type in the world, and a useful addition to the U.S. military’s nuclear deterrent capabilities.
The B61-12’s Unique Variable Yield Design
Sandia, one of the three main research and development laboratories for nuclear munitions, completed the production of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. The nuclear munition is now fully operational.
What makes the B61-12 particularly impressive is the bomb’s ability to adjust its destructive yield depending on the operational conditions and demands. Put simply, the B61-12 is four bombs in one. The nuclear munition can be adjusted to four different yields—0.3, 1.5, 10, or 50 kilotons. The difference in yields means that the B61-12 has tactical, operational, and potentially even strategic utility.
ACTION ALERTS
Local Faith Communities to Host Interfaith Vigil for the 80th Anniversary of the Trinity Atomic Test, Calling for Global Nuclear Weapons Abolition
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the first detonation of an atomic weapon on July 16, 1945 at the Trinity Test Site in southern New Mexico, the complete elimination of nuclear weapons must be prioritized. “80 Years and Still Waiting: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test,” will be held at St. Pius X School, located in Albuquerque at 5301 St. Joseph’s Dr. NW, featuring music, speakers, exhibitions, and moments of reflection and prayer. The free public event will be held July 13, from 2:30–5 p.m. Doors open at 2 p.m. Pre-registration is encouraged. The event will also be live-streamed.
Pre-register at jotform.com/build/251126623369053, where you will also find the livestream link.
the bomb Exhibit and Symposium: April 30 – May 30, 2025 at The University of New Mexico
the bomb is a groundbreaking multimedia installation that immerses audiences in the strange, compelling, and unsettling reality of nuclear weapons. Almost eight decades have passed since a city was destroyed by an atomic bomb, but the danger never went away. We are now confronted by a world in which nine nations possess about 12,000 nuclear weapons. All of those nations are modernizing their arsenals, and the United States, Russia, and China are poised at the brink of an unprecedented three-way nuclear arms race. the bomb places the viewer in the middle of the story of nuclear weapons, from the Trinity Test in 1945 to the extraordinary nuclear threats we face today. The hour-long film explores the intersection of art, politics, technology and existential risk.
In the Fall of 2024, a museum-version of the bomb began a nationwide tour of university campuses. UNM is one of those institutions. For more information on the exhibit, please visit their website.
the bomb Exhibit
April 30 – May 30, 2025
The University of New Mexico
The bomb will be on exhibit at Zimmerman Library at the University of New Mexico from April 30 – May 30, 2025.
Public Hearings: Submit Comments on the Draft LANL SWEIS
- Review and submit comments on the Draft LANL SWEIS through March 11, 2025.
- Comments may be submitted via one of the following means:
- By email to: LANLSWEIS@nnsa.doe.gov; By mail to Mr. Stephen Hoffman, LANL SWEIS Document Manager, DOE/NNSA, 3747 W. Jemez Road, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87544; Verbally at one of the public hearings; In written form at one of the public hearings
-
Public hearings are scheduled for:
- February 11, 2025, at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center, Sweeney Room, 1-4 p.m. and 5-8 p.m. There will be a virtual option for these two meeting. Virtual hearing access instructions (g., website link or phone number) will be announced at least 15 days before the hearing and will be published in local newspapers, noticed to the GovDelivery mailing list, and available on the following websites: https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/nnsa-nepa-reading-roomand https://www.energy.gov/nepa/public-comment-opportunities.
- February 12, 2025, in Española at Mision y Convento, 5-8 p.m. This meeting is in-person only.
- February 13, 2025, in Los Alamos at Fuller Lodge, Pajarito Room, 5-8 p.m. In-person only.
- Comments may be submitted via one of the following means:
Briefing on Plutonium Migration at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Who: Nuclear Watch New Mexico and chemist Dr. Michael Ketterer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Arizona University
What: Nuclear Watch has mapped plutonium migration based on sampling data from Intellus, the Lab’s environmental sampling database. Our map graphically demonstrates widespread contamination down the Rio Grande to Cochiti Lake and vertically to deep groundwater. We believe it shows the need for comprehensive cleanup at LANL instead of proposed “cap and cover” that will leave toxic and radioactive wastes permanently buried in unlined pits and trenches.
When: 11:00 am MT Thursday April 25, 2024
Where: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/95570087953?pwd=R1hNUEIyb1BLaktDQzZQaWNEdlpoQT09
Meeting ID: 922 1214 9822 Passcode: 975887
This virtual briefing is for media and the public. Nuclear Watch and Dr. Ketterer will briefly present followed by Q&A. Media and reporters will be given preference for questions. Please feel free to forward this notice to others.
Our plutonium contamination map and background materials will be available at www.nukewatch.org by 10:00 am MT Thursday April 25.
First Annual Plutonium Trail Caravan
On Saturday, April 6, you will be able to join the First Annual Plutonium Trail Caravan! It will start at Pojoaque and end at Lamy. It will also stop in Eldorado and you are welcome to join the caravan on its way to the final stop in Lamy. There will be several stops along the way, with more details coming soon. Please save the date for 30 minutes on the afternoon of April 6. There will be fun satiric songs, banners, and plenty of people to ask questions about risks to neighborhoods on the route.
WIPP Information Exchange Dec. 13 – In Person and Virtual
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) and Salado Isolation Mining Contractors (SIMCO) (Permittees) will conduct a virtual WIPP Information Exchange pursuant to Permit Part 4, Section 4.2.1.5, Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan. This exchange will discuss information regarding the Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan.
Questions and comments outside the scope of the Legacy TRU Waste Disposal Plan should be directed to the WIPP Community Forum.
Wednesday, December 13, 2023, 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Skeen-Whitlock Building
4021 National Parks Hwy
Carlsbad, NM 88220
REGISTRATION:
In-Person Registration:
WIPP Information Exchange In-Person Registration: https://form.jotform.com/222836798629172
Virtual Registration:
WIPP Information Exchange Virtual Registration:
QUESTIONS:
For questions regarding this information exchange please contact the WIPP Information Center at infocntr@wipp.ws or by calling 1-800-336-9477.
Upholding the CTBT Regime in a Time of Adversity
Thursday, Nov. 16, 10:00-11:30 am, U.S. Eastern Time
RSVP via Zoom by November 14
As with other critical nuclear risk reduction and arms control agreements, the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is under threat due to inattention, diplomatic inaction, and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries.
Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill from the Russian parliament to “un-ratify” the CTBT, ostensibly to “mirror” the United States’ posture toward the treaty and somehow pressure the United States to ratify the pact.
Putin says Russia will not resume nuclear explosive testing unless the United States does, but Russian officials have accused the United States of making preparations to resume nuclear testing. U.S. officials deny any such plans. Russia, China, and the United States, however, all continue to engage in military nuclear activities at their former test sites.
– ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn on the release of the letter January 11, 2022
Interfaith Panel Discussion on Nuclear Disarmament - August 9
HELP US SUPPORT NEW MEXICO’S GOVERNOR IN ACTING TO STOP WIPP EXPANSION!
STOP “FOREVER 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!
Background Information – Problems with Nuclear Waste
Mixed Waste Landfill Facts
New Nuclear Media
“Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War” Explores Impact of US–Soviet Conflict
The nine-part doc examines how two global superpowers have irrevocably altered the course of history.
By Roxanne Fequiere, Netflix |
While the the Cold War ended in 1991, even a casual appraisal of current headlines reveals that relations between the United States and Russia — the one-time center of the Soviet Union — remain tense, to say the least. The global repercussions of the Cold War continue to ripple through the current geopolitical landscape to this day, but it can be difficult to understand just how a mid-20th century struggle for ideological dominance continues to ensnare countless nations in ongoing unrest.
